Transcript
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It, and it's a special Thanksgiving episode of Pixel It.
Speaker: It's the day before Thanksgiving.
Speaker: We are giving thanks for you, the fans.
Speaker: So today, we're supposed to be starting a new book.
Speaker: Normally, we would be starting a new book, but today, instead, because you're getting ready to stuff your tummies with stuffing and turkey or ham or tofu, if that's your bag, then, you know, um...
Speaker: Let's then that's fine, too.
Speaker: So it's good.
Speaker: Tofurky.
Speaker: Tofurky.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Or turducken.
Speaker: If you want to, you know, if you if you want to basically do the exact.
Speaker: We want to do the exact opposite.
Speaker: God ethically opposite.
Speaker: If you want to.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that is that is to to quote drill.
Speaker: That is flipping off the angel, the archangel Michael and walking backwards into hell.
Speaker: That's what that's what a turducken is.
Speaker: It is a nightmare.
Speaker: It is a nightmare.
Speaker: I don't know how it can exist.
Speaker: I don't know how you cook it.
Speaker: Honestly, I've roasted a single duck breast.
Speaker: And those things are so fatty that the fat is just it's freaking ridiculous.
Speaker: And that's just one bird.
Speaker: So you stuck inside of another bird with another bird.
Speaker: I don't I don't know.
Speaker: There must be something to it.
Speaker: So it's duck inside of a chicken inside of a turkey.
Speaker: Is that the chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I guess the duck is bigger than a chicken.
Speaker: A little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger.
Speaker: Uh, but still absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker: I mean, the whole process to be able to do it, you've got to bone all of these poor animals, uh, and not in the fun way, not in the cool.
Speaker: I was about to say, let's, let's, you know, take a deep breath and experiment sort of way.
Speaker: Uh, no, you've got to, you've got to remove like all of that so that you have just this, uh,
Speaker: meaty cavity that you can shove another animal.
Speaker: It's like a meat glove.
Speaker: That's exactly.
Speaker: It's a, it is.
Speaker: It's a meat condom for hill giants.
Speaker: It's horrifying.
Speaker: It's just terrible.
Speaker: We're off to a good start.
Speaker: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Speaker: And that's all.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's also this also kind of marks kind of like a little bit of format change, because going forward, we plan on having a bit of a transitional episode in between each of our book series just to kind of give us a little breathing room, a little bit of time.
Speaker: So for those of you at home who are always looking forward to the next book, I'm sorry to disappoint, but we will have some fun stuff in between finishing one series and the next.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, a lot of people, we are really lucky in that we've been looking at the numbers and we've been getting, there are so many more of you every month.
Speaker: The number of people downloading this show has grown exponentially and we're so excited about that, but it is an episodic show.
Speaker: So there's a part of us that wants to kind of make sure that
Speaker: there's a bit of a breathing station there for people who are just starting out and want to get to know.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We are in what we're doing a little bit without jumping right into a whole series.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So hopefully that this serves that purpose.
Speaker: Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.
Speaker: Um, so Thanksgiving, what is your favorite side dish?
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Um, you know, it's funny because, um,
Speaker: it's, it's kind of tough to pick just one because for me, I'm one of those people with Thanksgiving that I get a piece of Turkey and I put a little bit of stuffing on that and a little bit of cranberry on that and a little bit of gravy on that.
Speaker: And just like come struck the perfect bite and do that several times over the course of a couple of hours.
Speaker: And it's painstaking and wrong.
Speaker: So it's about the it's about the Maison song of the of the bites.
Speaker: It's not a it's not an individual object or no, no.
Speaker: Some is greater than the parts.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: If I had to choose, I probably say stuffing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: We do a really good cornbread stuffing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: which I love this this year, though, I'm going to be spending it with spending the holiday with my fiance's family.
Speaker: Oh, and I don't know.
Speaker: Is this the first holiday?
Speaker: Is this the first holiday you've been?
Speaker: No, it's kind of hilarious because last year with, you know, me and me and Emily are a COVID relationship.
Speaker: We literally had our fourth date the day before Atlanta announced a quarantine.
Speaker: I told her and I told her, I said, you know, we knew that was going to happen.
Speaker: And we were really feeling strongly about each other, even that early on.
Speaker: And so I said something like I said to her, I said, listen, you know, the rumor is that
Speaker: You know, before she showed up, I said, you know, the rumors that, you know, they're going to issue a city wine quarantine.
Speaker: So if you really want to come over and I don't mean this as a dirt bag, but you might want to bring a spare toothbrush and change clothes.
Speaker: So that sort of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she did.
Speaker: And we have basically been together ever since.
Speaker: Um, so Thanksgiving last year, uh, we rented a cabin in the mountains in a salute, uh, North Carolina, a little town in the Western, in the Western part of the state.
Speaker: And, uh, and we brought our, we had one cat at the time, Jonesy.
Speaker: And we brought him up and we made a Coke of on and and we drank some really good wine along with like a barrel of really, really shitty wine.
Speaker: And it was and we were day drunk in the mountains making pie and French food.
Speaker: And it was amazing.
Speaker: And and we missed our families, but it was really, really good.
Speaker: And then for Christmas, we were going to go see my family.
Speaker: Everyone had been quarantining and all that stuff.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And everyone in the family.
Speaker: And and we were going to go meet my family in Savannah and spend the time with them.
Speaker: And I was going to see my nieces and nephews and all that.
Speaker: And we were really excited about it.
Speaker: And literally.
Speaker: And literally the night before we were going to leave, which is like the 23rd of December.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: My roommates told me that they had been exposed to a friend who had COVID.
Speaker: And I was like, ah,
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so I called my family up and I tell, you know, it's like, I'm not taking a chance with these babies.
Speaker: I've got, you know, cause I had two nephews that had been born literally.
Speaker: I think they were both literally like two or three months old at the time.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And I said, I'm not taking a chance on this crap.
Speaker: I'm not, you know, we're just gonna, we're, we're gonna,
Speaker: hang out here.
Speaker: And, uh, and I was really upset and really bummed out.
Speaker: And, you know, and then my whole family took turns call it.
Speaker: Cause I called my mom and told her she was upset.
Speaker: I was upset when we hung up the phone and then, uh, my sister and my brother and my dad and my mom, like my whole family took turns, like calling me one at a time to tell me how much they appreciated, uh, you know, me staying home and how much they've missed me.
Speaker: And, but, but next year is going to be better.
Speaker: And don't you worry about it.
Speaker: And I was really upset about it.
Speaker: And Emily could see that.
Speaker: And so her family has a trailer in South Carolina that we spent a lot of time in because her parents live in Ohio normally and they come back every now and then to South Carolina.
Speaker: And we so over the summer last year, we spent a lot of time there just getting away from it all and staying quarantined.
Speaker: And so it's a place that means a lot to us.
Speaker: And so we said, let's go there.
Speaker: I got the recipes for all my favorite Christmas snack food from my mom.
Speaker: Got all the ingredients for that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And and we went up to, you know, the middle of nowhere, South Carolina out in the foothills.
Speaker: And where there's like an angles, like half an hour away from the closest grocery store is like a half hour's drive.
Speaker: And we got all of our shit and we took the cat and we, and we bought some Legos and we went up to this cabin and I made our snacks and we watched white Christmas and got hammered built Legos.
Speaker: and built Legos and eight snacks and open presence.
Speaker: And it was honest.
Speaker: And it was, it was like, we, we, we missed our families, but we were talking about it today.
Speaker: It was like, so glad we're getting to see our family this year.
Speaker: But that was seriously one of the best Christmas.
Speaker: It sounds like a blast.
Speaker: It was great.
Speaker: We watched that terrible wonder woman sequel.
Speaker: Yeah, it was, it was so good.
Speaker: So that happened.
Speaker: We're really, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So we're really, cause this year, you know, Thanksgiving we're spending with her family.
Speaker: Christmas we're spending with mine.
Speaker: And so we're really excited about that.
Speaker: But the fact of the matter is, is that we still we still had a really good one with just our little our little family.
Speaker: A couple and a cat, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it could be a lot worse.
Speaker: Could be a lot worse.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I forget what you even asked about.
Speaker: I just, I was just off to the races on that one.
Speaker: Uh, I asked what your favorite side dish was.
Speaker: That basically just summarizes everything about you and me and the show and that just nails everything that just,
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Let me tell you a little bit about what I think about this country.
Speaker: It's like, oh, side dish, side dish.
Speaker: What about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What is your favorite side dish?
Speaker: Mashed potatoes.
Speaker: Mashed potatoes.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: You do mashed potatoes.
Speaker: I do enjoy mashed potatoes.
Speaker: The mashed potatoes, you got your mashed potatoes, you got your stuffing.
Speaker: I love cranberry juice.
Speaker: Never been a big cranberry sauce guy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Except until I found that there's more of a...
Speaker: like a compote, like cranberry sauce that is more saucy.
Speaker: Because when I was a kid, growing up, it was always like, you know, the cranberry sauce that it was like, you opened up the can and then you would... Yeah.
Speaker: It just made that little...
Speaker: Yeah, the suction sound.
Speaker: And it's just like, it was more of like a Jell-O mold.
Speaker: I was never like into that.
Speaker: And then like recently when I've seen this more saucy type cranberry sauce, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I can get down with that.
Speaker: I think that's actually what cranberry sauce is meant to be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Rather than the tin that you, you suction a jello mold out of that's, that's not a cranberry.
Speaker: Use the lid of the can to slice pieces out of it.
Speaker: Slice it up into little Canadian bacon sized slices of cranberries.
Speaker: That's kind of that's I love stories like that where it's just like, you know, I never used to like this food.
Speaker: And then I found out that I was eating the worst possible example.
Speaker: Then I found out I was eating it wrong.
Speaker: It's like it's like I never I never liked I never liked ham.
Speaker: And then I realized that it was just because I was eating Oscar Mayer bologna.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I never, I never cared for wine, but that, and then I realized it was because I was drinking mad dog 2020.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love the stories.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So is it going to, it's a, you, you, you being the family man, you know, just your, your family, you got any extended family?
Speaker: We are, we are flying.
Speaker: We are, as of this episode, uh, I will be up in Pennsylvania, uh, in the Poconos.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Um, at my, oh no, oh no, oh no.
Speaker: I pity the dog.
Speaker: I talk shit.
Speaker: Kevin, the hammer, Earhart.
Speaker: You know, that was my, uh, the nickname this, uh, basketball coach gave me when, when I was like 12 years old.
Speaker: The hammer?
Speaker: The hammer.
Speaker: No!
Speaker: Joel, no.
Speaker: His name was actually I'll probably bleep that out because don't want to dox him.
Speaker: He was a he was a terrible alcoholic.
Speaker: Definitely going to bleep it out now.
Speaker: Now you really should.
Speaker: Now I really should.
Speaker: He was my youth basketball coach.
Speaker: And yeah, he was like, yeah, Kev, you're the hammer.
Speaker: And I was like, I don't know where he got that from.
Speaker: I was the tallest kid on the team by about.
Speaker: What are you two doing?
Speaker: For those who can't see because my background is blurry, my dogs are
Speaker: Kind of staring at each other awkwardly.
Speaker: I always think this is why I leave the door open.
Speaker: We have a screened back porch and just let the cats go fucking wild out there while we do this.
Speaker: You just got to let them in and out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He would call me the hammer and I don't know why.
Speaker: And I was I was like a foot taller than all the other kids in the.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was like everybody else like capped out like everybody at it that I knew as a kid, all my childhood friends capped out at like five foot five.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's so funny because in grad school, like you and me and pretty much all of the guys we hung around with, with some exceptions, but I just remember it being a really tall bunch.
Speaker: Yeah, Graeber wasn't that tall, but no, no, he wasn't that tall.
Speaker: But like I was one of the shorter guys and I'm six foot Graeber lessons to the podcast.
Speaker: So Graeber was a little shrimp of a man who was as wide as he is tall.
Speaker: What do you think about that, Graeber?
Speaker: Yeah, dwarven runic sage.
Speaker: And this will be his second mention on the podcast, so I'm sure he's just thrilled.
Speaker: He's a part of us.
Speaker: He's a part of our hearts.
Speaker: We love you, Graver.
Speaker: We love you.
Speaker: You filmmaking dynamo, you.
Speaker: So is are you going to be are you going to be listening to any books over the course of the Thanksgiving break?
Speaker: I probably will.
Speaker: Actually, yeah, I've been.
Speaker: I actually have a massive library on Audible that has just been building up and building up because it helps.
Speaker: You know, you and I have mentioned this before on the show several times that
Speaker: It helps.
Speaker: We read these books, but it helps to have the audio books too, because we'll be, we both work from home.
Speaker: And so it's good to have those playing and that kind of thing.
Speaker: And when, when we have a brief respite between books, I tend to be catching up on podcasts or things like that.
Speaker: So I do have this lovely collection.
Speaker: I I've got, I've got Jason Schreier's press reset that I'm really looking forward to.
Speaker: I have got a few, quite a fistful actually of Warhammer 40 K Horace, heresy novels.
Speaker: So you, you blink and you miss 10.
Speaker: I know exactly.
Speaker: And I've been trying, I told myself, cause our friend Rob has been the proper Rob.
Speaker: He's been, he got through the entire Horace heresy series.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Trying to get through that.
Speaker: I don't know how he does, how he did it.
Speaker: I think I might be halfway through.
Speaker: I have to double check.
Speaker: Is Rob still a bartender?
Speaker: Is he still a bartender?
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: I can imagine him just listening while he's having an... That would make a lot of sense actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, and then the other big thing that I have that I love Audible for is The Great Courses.
Speaker: Are you familiar with that?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's this really kick-ass series.
Speaker: They've been going on forever.
Speaker: where they're they're basically college level courses taught by professors who are like experts in their field.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've got this 12 hour series of lectures by Bart Ehrman, who is a religious writer who wrote misquoting Jesus and or misquoting Christ.
Speaker: I forget which one.
Speaker: But he's like he's a really well known and well respected theological professor and scholar.
Speaker: And he did a 12 and a half hour series of lectures called the historical Jesus, where they take Jesus and
Speaker: for the time period and they put it into perspective.
Speaker: I I'm an armchair theologian and I love that shit.
Speaker: Do you get, do you get, are you going to get some credits for that?
Speaker: That's no, I, I get nothing.
Speaker: That's how much of a geek I am.
Speaker: I get nothing but the satisfaction of being a geek.
Speaker: who enjoys his book learning.
Speaker: I've also got, look, I'm going through it right now.
Speaker: I got one, Ben Franklin's Lessons in Life from Mark Canada.
Speaker: That's a four and a half hour series of courses.
Speaker: The Skeptic's Guide to Alternative Medicine, The History of Rum, American Monsters, some American cryptozoological shit.
Speaker: Five hours of that.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: It's some good shit.
Speaker: And I guess this is probably as good a time as any to mention that we recently acquired a sponsorship through audible, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: Audible, you say?
Speaker: Audible.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Audible.com.
Speaker: Audible.com?
Speaker: It's basically the world's largest repository of amazing books on, what do you call it?
Speaker: CD?
Speaker: Books?
Speaker: MP3?
Speaker: Audiobooks.
Speaker: Yeah, audiobooks.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Audiobooks.
Speaker: So basically all this stuff that we were talking about, like half of the ones I mentioned are just free.
Speaker: They just come with your Audible subscription.
Speaker: So with your account, you get one free audio book per month.
Speaker: Plus you get access to this huge library of free stuff they have, discounted stuff that they have.
Speaker: And on top of that, you can sign up for a daily email where one of their audio books, which is normally twenty, twenty five dollars, they price it down to like three dollars, four dollars, five dollars.
Speaker: And it's a fun little thing to wake up to, to see if it's a book that you want.
Speaker: They also do a ton of sales.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: So if you go to audible trial.com backslash pixel lit and sign up there, you will get one free month and a free book to go with it, to try it out, see if you like it.
Speaker: If you don't like it,
Speaker: cancel it, just knock it out, but give it a shot because there's literally nothing to lose.
Speaker: You can listen to a lot of the books we've been listening to on this show.
Speaker: You can listen to Bioshock Rapture, which is coming up.
Speaker: You can listen to Far Cry Absolution.
Speaker: You can listen to Halo, The Fall of Reach.
Speaker: All of those are books that we have found through Audible.
Speaker: And on top of that, they have a ton
Speaker: video game novelization books that are free on there, like a whole lot of them.
Speaker: And you and I have actually gone through it.
Speaker: Yeah, we have.
Speaker: Well, that makes that an easy choice as to what we're going to listen to at a certain point.
Speaker: That makes things real easy.
Speaker: But yeah, I agree.
Speaker: With everything you said, I love Audible.
Speaker: My problem is sometimes I'll let the credits build up a little bit.
Speaker: So I have all these credits and I'm like, ooh, and then I go on a credit spree and then I'll spend two minutes.
Speaker: I'll end up like buying credits by the end of because I'll just get on this binge of like, oh, I can get these six and then I'll find seven that I want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're like, you know, audible is like steam.
Speaker: They, they kind of sense your weakness at times in the best possible way.
Speaker: On like I said, I've been trying to listen to the Horace heresy series and I'll go through, I'll go through it in the same way you're talking.
Speaker: Like I'll go through it in spurts.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'll listen to like four of them in a row and then I'll stop listening for like four months or something like that.
Speaker: But it's happened on multiple occasions that I have torn through two or three
Speaker: of my horse heresy books and I don't have any left until my next credit comes in and I go, right, well, that's okay.
Speaker: I've got other stuff I should read and that's fine.
Speaker: Just wait until the next month.
Speaker: No big deal.
Speaker: And the next morning I'll get an email from them being like, Hey, we heard that you needed credits.
Speaker: Motherfucker.
Speaker: You want three credits for the price of like one?
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: We know you, you're going to, you're going to finish the book.
Speaker: The emperor can't do it without you.
Speaker: Phil.
Speaker: You ran out of credits, huh?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, yes, I failed you.
Speaker: I'm aware.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I guess I'll get the damnation of Pythos.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: You know, it just, it just, it goes on.
Speaker: It's like, you just like head.
Speaker: It's like going to, uh, going to see a movie that you're embarrassed about.
Speaker: You're like, head down up to the ticket counter.
Speaker: You'd be like, one, one, please.
Speaker: One, please.
Speaker: One, please.
Speaker: Don't look at me.
Speaker: I'm begging you.
Speaker: Don't look at me.
Speaker: I'm begging you not to look at me.
Speaker: But yeah, so that is, that is, that was not,
Speaker: going to be an ad, but we did have exciting news.
Speaker: We have a, we have an audible, we have an audible thing now where we're real, we're real content now because we are sponsored.
Speaker: We're sponsored.
Speaker: There's money involved and that's what makes it real.
Speaker: That's what makes it real.
Speaker: So check out our trial.
Speaker: Oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Art plus commerce.
Speaker: The, the truest for,
Speaker: audibletrial.com slash pixel it that's audibletrial.com slash pixel it p-i-x-e-l-l-i-t two l's as andrew ryan intended yes you go in there and you tell them andrew ryan sent you you tell them andrew ryan sent you which is a that's a nod to the to the next book that's going to be coming up for you fine folk next week um
Speaker: for you you didn't think you didn't think we were gonna so we were gonna just do a personal thanksgiving episode no of course not the actual content of course not we didn't do that um so what do you uh before we before we wish people a happy thanksgiving are you playing anything right now
Speaker: I've been playing a bunch of stuff.
Speaker: I've been getting an itch lately and it's kind of funny.
Speaker: My my my fiance has been dog sitting a lot lately.
Speaker: Her friend has been in and out of town, so she goes off and takes care of the dog for a few days here and there.
Speaker: And and I just can't be trusted anymore.
Speaker: Like she goes and I'm like, well, I better open up a few bottles of wine to keep me company and play a video game until I pass out at 4 a.m.
Speaker: It doesn't matter that it's a Tuesday.
Speaker: Like it's it's yeah, it's it's
Speaker: I don't, you don't realize how quickly you fall into that domestic bliss kind of thing where you're like, okay, well it's nine 30.
Speaker: We better go ahead and snuggle up and read a little bit before we go to sleep.
Speaker: Read a little bit and get a bed.
Speaker: You don't, you don't, it's just like, we're just getting fat and, and we're watching Christmas movies and reading books.
Speaker: And, and, and then she goes away for a few nights in a row.
Speaker: And I'm like,
Speaker: I'd probably better play nine games.
Speaker: Uh, better load up on video games and pizza and wine.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: I mean, that's not wrong.
Speaker: So, yes, I've been playing.
Speaker: I played.
Speaker: I finished up Inscription, which we've talked about.
Speaker: We talked about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Finish that one up.
Speaker: I played a weird little indie game called Lake, which I recently put up a review on.
Speaker: It's long story short.
Speaker: It's kind of a.
Speaker: it's like Gilmore Girls, the video game.
Speaker: If that appeals to anyone who's listening, if you like Gilmore Girls and or video games, give Lake a try.
Speaker: It's yeah, you're basically like Gilmore Girls.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I fucking love Gilmore Girls.
Speaker: It's a, you're basically this woman who is trying to get away from her busy city job for a little while.
Speaker: So she's spending two weeks in this tiny little town in Oregon, uh, the centered around a lake and she takes over her dad's postal work job.
Speaker: And you're basically going around this little town and dropping off packages and envelopes and getting to know the neighbors and stuff while you do that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: and it's really cute and it's got several endings.
Speaker: I went with the lesbian off on an adventure, like road hippies ending because I really, I had no choice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It sounds about right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It sounds fitting for you.
Speaker: I did that.
Speaker: I, oh, I played, I just finished Dagon today.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: You were telling me about that in the, did we talk about that in the Halloween episode?
Speaker: I feel like, yeah, we briefly brought it up.
Speaker: It's when we were digging through games at that, when we like lost the thread and we were just, yeah, we lost the thread and kind of started going through steam.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I played it today.
Speaker: It's it's doesn't take long.
Speaker: It takes like half an hour, 40 minutes to play.
Speaker: It's not what I'd call a game.
Speaker: It's a narrative experience with trivia pieces about Lovecraft.
Speaker: It's like a narrative version of one of his stories.
Speaker: Um, but the visuals are so beautiful.
Speaker: Basically they're showing off how good they are at visuals and at creating a mood and an atmosphere.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, it's so good that all I can think about, uh, is, is how much I want them to get teamed up with somebody who could help design puzzles for them.
Speaker: ah yeah i feel like if they got team if the if the visual artists and the writers and that sort of thing beyond behind dagon could get matched up with like an old school mist style puzzle maker or something like that i feel like we could have like a masterpiece on our hands oh okay
Speaker: And Dagon is totally free.
Speaker: It's getting like overwhelmingly positive reviews and stuff like that on.
Speaker: So somebody like, say, Jonathan Blow, if Jonathan Blow wasn't an asshole.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There are, yeah, there, there are limits, but yes, yes, you're, but yeah, I played a little bit of the collection of a Castlevania advance games.
Speaker: They, it's a trilogy of games that came out for the game boy advance and they're all Castlevania.
Speaker: It all it did.
Speaker: I didn't get very far into it because all it did was totally reinforced the fact that I am not good at Metroidvanias.
Speaker: I don't have the attention span for them.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, and I kind of I've gotten I think I picked up that vibe from you before.
Speaker: Yeah, it's there's a lot of there's a lot of backtracking and.
Speaker: It's tough.
Speaker: Yeah, tough.
Speaker: And they've gotten better at it with modern ones.
Speaker: You know, people like I really loved Ritual of the Night.
Speaker: Oh, Richel that I was so fun.
Speaker: It was a great game and it was designed, uh, so that it did have a little backtracking, but it was way more user friendly.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So I didn't like my brain didn't melt at the possibility of having to go back four or five rooms and right.
Speaker: All that shit.
Speaker: And, and these games, I mean, you can see the craftsmanship.
Speaker: You can, you can see with a lot of these games, it's like, oh, this is probably a really good game.
Speaker: It's a shame.
Speaker: I'm never going to finish it.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I can imagine you'd have you would have some issues with Hollow Knight.
Speaker: I tried everything about Hollow Knight.
Speaker: I know I'm going to give it another try because every bugs it's bugs.
Speaker: It's you're the bug guy.
Speaker: I'm the bug guy.
Speaker: And it's such a great aesthetic.
Speaker: And like everything about it is like, I need to play this.
Speaker: I feel like I'd really enjoy this.
Speaker: So I feel like I'm going to come back to that one eventually.
Speaker: Um, and tomorrow at some speaking of which tomorrow, I think at some point I'm going to start bug tales.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Um, which is this, um, not tomorrow Thanksgiving, but tomorrow, real time tomorrow, as of when we're recording this past.
Speaker: Uh, yeah, it's, it's basically a, um, super Mario RPG.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Clone, uh, all the character, like everyone who has played it,
Speaker: has basically said, this is a giant rip off in almost every way of super Mario RPG or the early super Mario paper games.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I couldn't love it more.
Speaker: Like that's been the consensus.
Speaker: Like everyone's like, this is, it's clear what they're trying to do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, and it's, and it's okay.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: Bug fables, the everlasting sapling.
Speaker: It's very cute.
Speaker: It's very and again, it's it's very clearly meant to evoke those old school Mario RPG vibes.
Speaker: And I'm I'm really looking forward to that one.
Speaker: So I think I'm going to.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just down to the graphics.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One hundred percent.
Speaker: It's got it's oh, it's literally Paper Mario.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's just, it's, it's just that there are bugs instead.
Speaker: And so there's a part, and I liked paper Mario and all that shit.
Speaker: So there's a part of it that's like, I might like this better.
Speaker: It might be a better thing.
Speaker: So I'm going to do that.
Speaker: And then after all that is done,
Speaker: because that will have gotten me cause I've been getting a lot of, uh, review copies lately.
Speaker: Something happened where I've just been more active online.
Speaker: It's been, uh, they've been very generous to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've been getting a lot of free games and, uh, so I want to make sure they get some coverage and, and I, and I talk about them and give them their fair shake because I hate getting a complimentary game and, and just,
Speaker: not covering it.
Speaker: It feels wrong.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Even if even if the best I can do is to, like, come out really quick and go, all right, here are my thoughts, that kind of thing.
Speaker: I have to do something.
Speaker: But after that's done,
Speaker: I can start whittling away ever so gently into the pile of Halloween games that you and I bought that night.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: We did buy a lot of Halloween games that night.
Speaker: And I think I'm going to start with, um, what was the vampire XCOM game you talked me into?
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't even buy that.
Speaker: I didn't buy.
Speaker: Oh, I just managed to talk you into it.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Uh, what is it called?
Speaker: Uh, other side, other side, their other side, which is like vampire X com.
Speaker: So as soon as I have got like my free game shit out, I'm starting in on the vampire X com game because Jesus Christ.
Speaker: All I need is bugs, vampires and bugs.
Speaker: Vampires and bugs, man.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's all I need in my life.
Speaker: I need vampires and bugs and the occasional glass of wine.
Speaker: I'm happy.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Right now, I'm only playing...
Speaker: really only playing returnal right now i went back really i went back to returnal which so i played returnal at the beginning of the year when it first came out because i had this shiny new playstation 5 and there was no uh exclusive games to play for it really i mean i there's the demon soul souls remake got it beat it returnal came out
Speaker: um and i remember i didn't bounce off of it i didn't i definitely didn't bounce off of it because i put dozens of hours into returnal could not get past the second boss so for those of you who don't know returnal is a rogue light i'm going to call it a rogue light because it does it does give you progress it's not like so if it was a true roguelike it would you know there you could have no permanent progress basically um
Speaker: A roguelite gives you some progress and gives you some like levels, level ups and stuff like that.
Speaker: So it's a roguelite procedurally generated maps every time you load up.
Speaker: But it's like this massive triple A quality.
Speaker: And it's also a bullet hell shooter.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It is and it is gorgeous and is action packed.
Speaker: The design is amazing and it is hard as balls.
Speaker: It is it is so difficult.
Speaker: And there's people on the on the Returnal subreddit.
Speaker: I was just browsing there today and somebody somebody posted to be like, oh, I finally did it.
Speaker: After my fifth run, I beat the game.
Speaker: And I was like, fifth run, fifth run.
Speaker: I didn't even.
Speaker: Get to the first boss on the fifth round.
Speaker: Oh, this game is gorgeous.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: Yeah, it is beautiful.
Speaker: So hard, though.
Speaker: So I dozens of hours sunk into it, put it down.
Speaker: Now, six months later or so, more than six months, I pick it back up.
Speaker: And I've got past the second boss and like in just a few more tries.
Speaker: I was like something I couldn't get through, you know, months ago.
Speaker: I finally beat him.
Speaker: So I'm leaning into it.
Speaker: Sometimes that's what you need to do.
Speaker: Yeah, you need a little you need a little breather.
Speaker: So this little thing that looks like it has some serious body horror shit going on.
Speaker: Yeah, it does have some of that.
Speaker: Nothing happens so far, at least to the main character, sort of.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's also some there's there's some random horror elements in there as well.
Speaker: There's there's some there is some PT ish influence influenced moments that are folded in there kind of nicely.
Speaker: And I'm surprised Returnal didn't get more buzz for Game of the Year.
Speaker: I know the Game Awards voting just came out.
Speaker: Yeah, I did not see that.
Speaker: Returnal is not listed anywhere, possibly because of when it was released.
Speaker: Of all the games that were nominated, I think it was released earlier than any of them.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So, you know, kind of like a victim of its own, uh, sort of like you almost never see a movie that was released in January, uh, nominated for an Academy award.
Speaker: It's a lousy time to release something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah, Returnal, probably, it's probably on my list for a game of the year.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that's another thing we're going to have later.
Speaker: That's another thing that we're going to have for you.
Speaker: For you, fine.
Speaker: We're going to have a game, a little game of the year podcast towards the end of the year where we kind of get down into it, talk about what we liked playing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Other than that, yeah, I'm playing Returnal and I'm reading a book that you recommended to me called Night Bitch.
Speaker: Oh, how do you like it so far?
Speaker: It is an interesting.
Speaker: That's a good way to put it.
Speaker: It's very it leaves me very tense when I read it because it just reminds me of the early days of parenthood.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I it's I'm just like I'm just suddenly back there and like all the muscles in my neck and shoulder are just like sore and tired from being tensed up all the time.
Speaker: You know, lack of sleep and there's an amazing there's this funny little story where.
Speaker: So our daughter woke up in the middle of the night and
Speaker: all I remember is April yelling at me to get up and get Camilla and I wake up and I said why are you yelling at me and she goes this is the third time I've woken you up and I don't remember the first two times oh no
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: You reach a depth of exhaustion that you do know you have.
Speaker: Like, she woke me up two times and my brain wasn't even recording.
Speaker: Like, the record function was not working.
Speaker: And just, it's just, just from just lack of sleep and that kind of thing in general, just from being tired and lack of sleep.
Speaker: This was, this was like in the first three months or so, I think of having the, having her home from the hospital.
Speaker: So, uh, I remember my brother, uh, when his son was born and he and my sister-in-law like were FaceTiming us.
Speaker: And it was my first time seeing, uh, my nephew and, and they were just smiling and,
Speaker: just smiling, these kind of painted on real, real smiles, but like just holding it together.
Speaker: And I said, how you guys doing?
Speaker: And my brother goes, I haven't slept in three days.
Speaker: And I went, ah, you.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: And he goes, no, seriously, dude.
Speaker: Three days.
Speaker: Oh, I was like, oh, my God.
Speaker: And my fiance wants to have one of those.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like she talked me into it.
Speaker: Oh, like I was like, you, you knew me.
Speaker: I knew you back last year.
Speaker: I knew you like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She wants to and it's like she's like, I don't know.
Speaker: It's just one of those things where you're like, finally, you find the right person, you find the one and you're like, you know what?
Speaker: This does seem like a good idea.
Speaker: It isn't just it wasn't that I was so, you know, horrified by the notion of having kids, even though I was kind of good with not having them.
Speaker: It was just like, oh, no.
Speaker: I just maybe had a really bad run of partners for a long time there that God just couldn't even like your brain prevented you from even imagining it as like a safety measure.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And then you meet the right person.
Speaker: We were like, well, we're a really good team.
Speaker: And like we've got we've got.
Speaker: we've got actual, we've got something that can actually work for this.
Speaker: It's like, son of a bitch, like, okay, we'll do this, I guess.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah.
Speaker: And I think about that and we'll, and, and, and I've been reading a lot of books.
Speaker: Coincidentally, I've been reading a lot of horror, a lot of thrillers because I'm doing a lot of horror writing.
Speaker: And so that's just the best thing to do.
Speaker: And night is not horror per se,
Speaker: Yeah, but it's scary, though.
Speaker: It's scary.
Speaker: And it's literally for those of you guys who haven't read it or heard of this book, it's literally a book about a woman who's had a child.
Speaker: She lives with her husband who works away from home all the time.
Speaker: And she starts to she starts to lose and she starts to think that she's turning into a dog.
Speaker: And it's basically about, you know, the idea of having a kid and how your body doesn't feel like it belongs to you anymore.
Speaker: and you're becoming something different.
Speaker: You're not who you were anymore.
Speaker: You're mommy now.
Speaker: And mommy might just happen to be a dog.
Speaker: Uh, it's, uh, it's, it's fascinating.
Speaker: So I, I, I, I read it and, uh, and I told my fiance, I said, you're gonna have to read this at some point.
Speaker: And then after we have a kid, I think I'll read it again and see how my perspective on it's changed.
Speaker: I think the good perspective, a good perspective on it is it's a cautionary tale.
Speaker: I haven't finished it yet, but from the first, I don't know, quarter of it or so,
Speaker: It's basically a cautionary tale of what happens when parenting, when somebody is left alone to have to raise a child.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Single parents, y'all are awesome.
Speaker: I mean, I definitely could not do what you do with the strength and grace at which you do it.
Speaker: But at the same time.
Speaker: Single parenting is definitely not for everybody, all walks of life.
Speaker: And more and more, we've found out through anthropological studies and evolutionary studies, we were never meant to single parent.
Speaker: It takes a village to raise a child.
Speaker: That's, yeah, 100%.
Speaker: Your kid is supposed to have a lot of adults in their life.
Speaker: And have a lot of people that are kind of guiding them through.
Speaker: It's not it's not just supposed to be all in one person.
Speaker: And I think Night Bitch is a really good cautionary tale of when one person has basically the weight of the world, which is a human life thrust upon their shoulders and a partner who doesn't care.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As as as and here's the worst part about it.
Speaker: He's not a bad guy.
Speaker: And she keeps saying that.
Speaker: And it's like and you see it, too.
Speaker: And you're like, here, he's not a bad guy, but you still want to strangle him.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So it's like this thing where you think, well, I'm not a bad guy.
Speaker: I could still become strangleable.
Speaker: But yeah, I totally agree because it's about finding that community because as little as three or four generations ago, not even that much, like two, three generations ago, your grandparents and your great grandparents, when your parents and your grandparents were born,
Speaker: they weren't, they weren't raising you by themselves.
Speaker: They lived in the same town with their aunts and their mothers and their sisters and brothers and cousins.
Speaker: And yeah, everyone was together.
Speaker: And so you had like, I have to go do this one thing.
Speaker: Well, that's fine.
Speaker: The kids are all playing over here with my kids.
Speaker: So go do the thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then when I have to go do something, you're going to be, it's, it's, it's about the loss of that community.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, which we absolutely have lost, uh, in favor of making money.
Speaker: The villain as always folks is capitalism.
Speaker: Capitalism baby now, but what is black Friday?
Speaker: We'd like to announce our black Friday deal or black Friday sale on all pixel at merch.
Speaker: Black Friday.
Speaker: Uh, it's buy one, get one free Kevin cyber Monday, buy one, get one free Phil.
Speaker: So, you know, you want to get to Phil's, you know, you will, we'll help you raise your kids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what you want, right?
Speaker: That's what, that's what you're looking for.
Speaker: A couple of men who are pushing, pushing 40 heavily towards middle age.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, one of whom already has a kid of his own.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what you want, isn't it?
Speaker: You want a man who's almost 40 and has no children to help you take care of your children.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think that's what everybody wants.
Speaker: That's the dream.
Speaker: That's just that's just that goes without saying.
Speaker: It goes without saying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think that's that about covers it.
Speaker: That covers it.
Speaker: We've hit 50 minute of our 30 minute Thanksgiving special.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that sounds like us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So honestly, though, from Phil and I, we really hope you have a good day on Thanksgiving.
Speaker: If you celebrate, if you don't, happy Thursday.
Speaker: You know, I hope it's a wonderful Thursday.
Speaker: I hope it's the best Thursday you've ever had, if I'm being honest.
Speaker: And, you know, if Thanksgiving brings up painful memories for you, if you have family issues, I hope you find something tomorrow that gives you solace and know that we and our community are here for you.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So I hope it's a great day, regardless of how you're feeling.
Speaker: And no matter what, no matter what, whether you celebrate, whether you don't, you will always have MST3K Turkey Day Marathon.
Speaker: You will.
Speaker: You will.
Speaker: So turn on, you know, the Internet machine and allow some Midwestern chuckle fucks to make you laugh.
Speaker: That's the best way to do it.
Speaker: That's a good way to go about it.
Speaker: That's a good way to go about it.
Speaker: Happy holidays, everybody.
Speaker: Happy holidays, everyone.
Speaker: Bye.
