Guys: Episode 142 - Arcade Guys With Felix Biederman

Welcome to Guys, a podcast about guys.

I'm Brian.

My player two here is Chris.

That was creative.

Yeah, that was pretty good.

Yeah.

Even

phoning it in on him a lot.

I feel like trying to make them up in the moment a lot.

So that one is something you can at least tell you thought it out.

I'm player one.

Yeah, I know I got that.

As I'm better in the league.

Does that always mean that, though?

I think often it's just a person who starts the game is player one.

Oftentimes player two is a better player.

I feel like that would be an awesome, you know those shirts that, I mean, coincidentally, guys who go to Davin Buster's love these shirts.

But the shirts that are like, I pause my game to be here and search cheesy bread.

Yeah.

i one i've never seen before that i think we could make all three of us a lot of money i'm always player one oh yes yes i my daughter wore one to school my daughter bought a um

like a gaming shirt like ironically

and then she wore it to school every like a lot in her senior year and then after she graduated she was like i keep looking at pictures of myself in my senior year and i'm wearing this stupid shirt

as a joke, but like kind of just ruined everything.

You know what I mean?

Like, now I'm wearing a stupid shirt as a joke.

That's it.

Yeah, that's the problem is like you, you, even if you're like cognizant of it being a joke, like even like five or six years later, it's still like you won't ever replicate the exact mind state you were in when you first found that shirt.

We're like, oh, this is so funny.

So there's going to be like 20% of your brain is always going to recognize you as being like, did I really have to pause my game to be there that day?

Yeah, and

it's most likely going to make you feel really cringe.

Like it's going to make it's going to hurt you to even see it.

But yeah, you're right.

Best case scenario is you're just going to be kind of confused by it.

And yeah, it's never a good idea to wear a shirt as a joke a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, it's very funny to, that it happened to her, though, because that, that sounds like it would happen to me, but it didn't.

Our guest this week is Felix, who I did,

Felix Biederman, who I did, I did Chapo the other day, and Felix is doing a series on Metal Gear Solid, and I couldn't do gaming because it's too close to esports, which we did.

So I said, let's do arcade guys, to which I found out they are very strange people.

So

these are, no, you mentioned Dave and Busters.

These are people who go to arcades.

Well, they also own arcade cabinets, which you're going to be surprised, but I'm thinking I'm looking into buying one of those.

This is just something, it's like one of the home, it's like a game like from an arcade or whatever.

Or is it just one that stores a bunch of games?

Not the arcade one up,

which you see at every Airbnb that is basically made out of paper.

And it's a stupid wrong-sized machine.

And it just has a bunch of games loaded on it.

That's the idea of that one.

I want Mortal Kombat 3 is what I want.

And I want it in my home, which is an apartment.

And also have no idea where it would go if I had it.

Like, I look around the place all the time, and I'm like,

maybe if we, maybe we got a new couch that was smaller,

I could put it there in a living room.

Felix, you obviously are a gamer, but have you played arcade games?

Are you like, do you do that currently?

Have you, when was the last time you went to an arcade?

Um,

like two or three years ago.

What was it to play?

Do you remember?

Um, I didn't, that's a that's really funny to imagine.

Uh, just being like going to like me going to an arcade alone, because I'm like, I'm in the mood for time crisis, but in the proper setting, that's what I'm picturing is you like just going, like, it's your night out, like, you get, like, an energy drink and you go and do it.

No, I, um,

how much do I want?

I went, I went because I was

horny.

Not for in general for people at the arcade, but like.

Just were horny.

So you're like,

it was, I'm, oh, yeah, I need some pussy.

I'm going to the arcade.

That's where it all is.

That's where the pussy is.

No, no, no, no.

It was like a specific,

specific, like, person was there.

And it would, I probably would have gone anyway because a group of people were hanging out.

And I mean, this dovetails very nicely.

It was like, they were semi-ironically going there.

But I, what was the thing I played?

I played a fucking, you know, yeah, Time Crisis.

The like Marquis

light gun game.

So it's with a gun.

It's with an actual gun.

Like,

yeah.

When I go to it, like last time I went to an arcade, they have some adult arcades in Vancouver.

I forget.

Greta.

I think it's closed down, but it was called Greta.

And I went there and it has like the basketball.

Like I'm doing the basketball shooting and shit like that.

That's what I'm, I'm not doing like the video game you're talking about sports right now but also there's mario kart there where it has like the real wheels and like

sorry okay i'm canadian

that's a regional thing too though vancouver but but yeah i i enjoyed it i had a good time but again yeah i don't think i could go to an arcade unless it has the like the skeet ball and like the basketball and shit like that i went all winter last winter i went to we'll talk about it later dave and Busters.

I went there a lot.

There's a place called Scene 75 that just bought the old Sears

at the mall and just threw a bunch of broken games in it.

And they're like, come on in and spend $150.

It's the most expensive thing you can do, really.

Sears is really big, though.

Is it huge?

It's huge.

Yeah, it's a huge arcade.

But it's like,

I was taking Katie and

my wife, my daughter, and my daughter's boyfriend, Ashton, out like to arcades every couple weeks over the winter and I think there was a time where I was reloading cards and I had already spent like $400 that night and I was like it would fucking be cheaper to to like buy an arcade game almost than to go because you're just like they put the money on a little card and it's impossible to stop swiping that card you just want to swipe the card all day and win tickets.

And so I win a lot over the winter, but like

it doesn't scratch the itch for me of playing like Pac-Man or Galaga or something like that.

That's what you want to be playing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or Mortal Kombat.

They don't have those.

They didn't have those games.

It's like ticket games.

It's just like

the games I like.

It's the stuff I like.

Listen to this, though.

It's funny that you guys said this to open up because I want to read this post for you.

This is from R/Arcades.

Sometimes I just sit and enjoy my arcade while not even playing a game.

And then a guy replies and goes, I've come to realize I'm not a gamer or a player.

I'm an enthusiast who appreciates the machines, but doesn't play them.

Therefore, I collect.

Just sits in the room with them.

So

he's like John DuPont.

I just love the sport.

I just love being in the presence of the games, you know?

Yeah.

This guy goes,

therefore, in collecting, it's about the hunt, not the score.

I, too, turn on my games just to create an old school arcade vibe and just enjoy the vibe they give.

Yes, of course I play them, but not much.

I just enjoy having them and appreciating them.

I read that and I was like, that's a fucking craziest thing I've ever heard.

That is like the setup for him to get like, this is supposed to be in like one of those like this is us type shows.

This is a tertiary character that's supposed to get like terminal cancer, and he's supposed to like give his arcade to like a main character who actually likes playing.

He's like, I just appreciate it, but I'm dying.

And also, I don't play these because I suck and I just like the atmosphere.

So, you should have them.

And I'm going to die, by the way.

I picture a guy in an office chair in a room with like a Ms.

Pac-Man.

You don't even think he's on a couch?

You don't even think he's on a couch or a lovely city?

No, because, dude, they make these rooms look like old 80s arcades.

They buy the carpet of like the

black light carpet.

They they go

out of money.

It's crazy.

They're trying to recreate.

Like, they're going heavy on the nostalgia.

They want to recreate this feeling that they had because it's probably people of the age, right, where they would have been playing in arcades when they were younger.

So they're just trying to recreate that feeling again.

What, Brian, what kind of like to for like this guy's setup?

What is like the ballpark?

I'm assuming assuming like 30 to 50,000.

It's, I mean, this is almost, I feel like there should be a name for this where

the more risable

an internet like subculture is, whether it's these guys or like my favorite guys, the guys who get put into like

latex or PVC cubes and like get put their fart tubes going into their mouths.

I always retweet them when I see them.

the more risable it is the more costly it is and the more successful the uh the participants are like these like these guys are all like private equity managers right well i'll say this the the fully restored games with crt screens and stuff like that because i looked into it for me of course and uh they're about twenty five hundred to three thousand dollars

And then you got to restore them too.

Like usually.

So how many how many would you figure they would have?

So, I'll read you this guy's list that likes to sit in his room.

Okay.

He has skee-ball,

he has digital pinball, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Brothers, Popeye, Super Mario Brothers, and two homemade boxes and a jukebox.

That is probably $15,000.

It might be a little more than $15,000.

Because he got 10, that's 10 things total.

So, that could easily be running him 20, 30,000.

Yeah, 20 grand.

And plus, he's got the carpet.

Because they're not all all going to be the full expense of skee ball and stuff like that.

But it's going to be all that.

That's insanely expensive.

Oh, it is.

Skeeball is one of the more expensive ones.

A lot of moving parts.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That makes sense.

Having skee-ball in your house is psychotic.

That is maybe the craziest thing I could ever think of.

Think about getting that shipped.

Like, you would need like a specialty.

You can't just like send that on UPS.

You need like a specialty courier.

And for the carpet, too.

Like, they probably don't make that like shitty carpet, that very specific type of carpet that you would get, like, like 1985.

So you have to find someone who either like makes this very specific thing or someone who's just been holding on to like an unused one.

And that has to be carpet that covers like probably a pretty sizable basement.

Yeah.

Like a shipload of it.

I could easily see this costing at least 25,000.

These are rich guys.

And or guys who have destroyed their families

with financial decisions.

Like, because, yeah, because it's, this is like high, we talk about this a lot on the podcast is like what the more most expensive, like the ones that are really like car collectors, obviously, people like that, like, where it's just like, holy shit, like, this isn't, this is a problem for anyone who's not super rich.

Like, this is, you can't be, you can't be regularly collecting fucking arcade machines that are $3,000.

Yeah, that is, that is so interesting to me because there are guys like that, like guys who just make like a not insane amount of money like guys who are comfortable but it we're like this what this guy has would represent like maybe half or a third of their yearly income and they do it anyway and they there's always this like thing of like well you know i could always sell it and it's like you're never going to sell that you're not

yeah brian can tell you brian can tell you how hard that is it is once you start collecting a lot of something and then it comes time to sell it it's like yeah, I got it.

It's just either you're keeping it or you're giving it away.

You are not selling it.

It's too fucking hard to sell things.

It's though anybody who's dealt at all on Craigslist or eBay or any of those sites knows that the hardest thing in the world is to sell fucking anything.

I guess unless you're regularly doing it, if you're like one of these people who's kind of doing it as a business and you're fully like, you know, exactly how to do everything, but that's a different thing.

We're talking about collectors who just accumulate a bunch of stuff and then realize they don't want all of it anymore yeah yeah and a lot of them will say oh well you know what here in the future i'm planning on opening an arcade those are my favorite guys yeah that's like porno sean with his pornos

yeah it is it's the porno's sean method yeah that it's like what do you

gain it's not up that i have all of these because i'm actually planning to start a store soon with them yeah that's a good thing to say to anyone if they ever get on your on your shit about having too much of something your wife's like you bought you already have 15 games in the basement isn't that enough and they're like i'm gonna need at least 20 more to open my arcade yeah that's kind of trying to take my dreams from me yeah you're you're actually not gonna get any of the fucking financial benefits when my arcade takes off because you are not supportive which by the way also

just regular arcade

There ain't no money.

You're not making a fucking penny, Do you know?

That's for the love of the game.

It's for the love of the game.

I had a...

The only way you could get out of it.

Like to turn this into a cash flow positive thing is if you specifically like,

how do I put, like, I read this hilarious essay once.

It was like one of those right-wing guys who's like, yeah, I'm right-wing, but I'm also, I'm more like Celine or someone like, like, I'm a true artist.

Like, I appreciate the written word.

And he wrote this fucking essay called 7-Eleven Nationalism.

And it was I still go back to it I cached it so I could read it it's so funny it's like I remember when 7-Eleven was run by whites and it was a place I look forward to going to with my father the last time I was there there was some bastard from the subcontinent running.

It's like this whole thing like even like those people were making fun of it because it was so like maudlin and stupid.

If you had an arcade like one of these guys set ups and you're like we all remember how we used to have arcades until black people came along and ruined them well there are a few like 300 to relive the good times when only a hundred million people lived in america this is a guy's basement right here i put it on a screen for you uh okay this is pretty sick Okay, yeah, it's very cool.

Okay.

Listen.

It looks like an arcade.

If this guy's house.

It looks like like an arcade.

Right.

If I went to this guy's house and I was like, oh, this guy's got an enormous arcade in his basement with everything you could ever want to play.

I'd be like, oh, that's really cool.

But I wouldn't want to be the guy that has the basement.

Yeah.

It's like an uncle situation.

Yeah.

It's better to be the uncle in that situation.

You just kind of get to roll and play the games.

But I mean, he can play them anytime.

It just, I wonder, yeah.

I mean, the first post we heard was a guy who's giving up on playing the games.

I wonder how, like, if you have him in there every day, like, we get bored of it pretty quickly.

Yes, 100%.

And, like, it's why I have a bunch of, it's why I have game consoles in my house that haven't been played in like two years.

Because I fucking am like, I need a Switch.

I'm going to need one of these Nintendo Switches that everybody has.

And I get it, and I play it for two weeks.

And then I'm like, I don't have time to play the Switch anymore.

Like, I have like a real job or anything like that like i don't have time for this anymore and then i just don't play it anymore and it's the same thing i had a playstation like anything i get into except for legos i'll always find time for those bad boys but this guy goes wife says it has to go it's now in pittsburgh it's a ms pac-man machine it's an a ridge uh

what was the wife doing during like the presumable decade he was building this.

Yeah.

Is this like Lord of War where she just has no idea and like stumbles into it one day?

That's also a good point, by the way, about like getting bored of it.

I, this may anger a lot of people, but like

retro games like kind of suck.

Oh, yeah.

They don't suck for like the time they were made in, but there's a there's a reason why like most of us who enjoy games aren't like, oh, there's never been a game as good as the first fucking Legend of Zelda.

No, technology improved.

There's only like, yeah, there's only so many fucking ways to play those games like i

even if you play like i um every two years i get back into the phantom pain and i i just went through my most recent cycle of exclusively playing it for like a month because of uh the series with brendan uh

And that is like one of the most open-ended,

sprawling games where you have like endless freedom of approach, like very complex enemy scripting.

There are so many ways to do everything.

And you can still get fucking sick of it.

You can get sick of anything, but especially something where there's like

two ways to win.

Well, but Felix, like you, you hit it.

You hit the thing, the line, your line hit the thing at the top, but have you tried hitting it in like the center middle kind of?

Yeah, you're right.

It's like so, like, those games are just so like simple that I guess some of them become really addicted.

Like, Tetris is one example, I guess, where it feels like maybe you could play that for a long time.

But you're right.

I think the mechanics of the game often are like so simple that you finish it and get bored of it quite quickly.

Right.

Well, this guy goes, wife says it has to go now in Pittsburgh.

He posts $250.

He's got a Ms.

Pac-Man machine with a bottle of Blantins on it.

So he's two kinds of guys.

He left the bottle of Blantons in the photo of it.

No reason at all.

He doesn't actually, people ask him about it.

He doesn't even address it.

He's just like, yeah, I like bourbon.

This guy, the first comment, very first comment.

I say the wife has got to go.

Yeah, I knew that.

You know what?

I could have told you that was going to be the first comment.

What about this?

This guy's funny.

Now, get ready for a big laugh, everybody.

Right?

Weigh your options.

Miss Pac-Man takes up less space, doesn't bitch when you don't want to play with her, uses less electricity, water, and everything.

You'd have more money getting rid of that deadweight wife.

I don't know if it takes, I guess because the wife moves around.

Like, I think that probably

the machine is bigger than the wife.

Yeah.

Those are huge huge machines, right?

But I guess the wife moves around.

Yes, the arcade machine can stay.

The wife can go.

Okay.

A guy goes, came here to say that.

I have five arcade games, and I know my wife doesn't love it.

I'll never get rid of them.

So is there anybody who's like, hey, man, maybe like, maybe even just asking for more information about it?

What about this guy?

Here's one.

Okay.

Good strategy.

I've found women become bored and unhappy if everything is to their liking.

They need a bit of agitation to be truly happy.

Oh no.

That guy's like a pickup.

He's like a pickup artist kind of guy.

What I get.

Good strategy, sir.

Women hate being happy.

Yeah.

It's also like

that is so telling.

Just like, oh, every time I've been in a relationship where like everything is basically right, they just get bored and leave me.

Yeah.

This guy goes, the wife has to go, what's your next motor?

What's next?

Your motorcycle, if you have one, or your classic car?

Rich people.

Yeah, these are rich people, yeah.

Is there anyone who's like,

yeah, I actually, my wife is actually the one who got me into this stupid shit.

Well, there are, but there's this guy.

Here's a guy.

Here's a guy that has a happy story.

I'm 58, single, no kid, own a condo in Pasadena, California.

Own a home in Arizona by Laughlin, a mile from the Colorado River.

I don't need anyone to tell me what to have or to get rid of or what I should be doing.

I'm a happy camper.

Mentioning its proximity to the Colorado River in like a post on a random subreddit is so good.

I mean, listen, it's a point of pride for him in his life.

That's cool.

I love brags.

Like, you don't see Brad bragging like this on the internet anymore.

It was

years ago, you would see hilarious stuff like this not as much now but i i love like oh um you you you probably don't even know anyone who owns property in the pasadena california that's not all i have

it's so weird to like live in pet like have a property in pasadena and arizona because it's two that's kind of like that's like kind of a lateral move like arizona's hotter but it's both they're both like basically the same climate they're like vacation spot they're like yeah they're vacation spots kind of.

Yeah, like a

dry, arid climate.

Like, wouldn't you, wouldn't it make more sense if you're like, I have a condo in a dry place and like a house in a wet place?

Yeah, well, he kind of does, though, because I don't know if you heard, but one of them's kind of close to a river.

I think that one of my favorite sub-genres of these kinds of posts about wives is the guy that's single.

And it's like,

he's like way older than the other guys that are he's like i like i said this guy's 58 and he's just like i'm single i don't have a kid i own two houses yeah it's a bunch of married guys discussing married life and he comes in he's just like i ain't never been married

okay what are you doing here like

i love that that that is such a i

i would see guys on forums where like it would be like When I was like in middle school or like junior high age, and there'd be like people my age posting about like their first girlfriend or stuff like that and there would always be a guy who's like i'm 38 i've had sex exactly three quarters of one time and i'm i'm totally happy

i was like okay maybe maybe you don't really have anything to add here

A guy that just says, I'm so happy being 58 and alone to me strikes me as, listen, some people like being 58 and alone.

You know what I mean?

But it strikes strikes me as like this guy, I don't know.

The way he talks seems like

he's a Trump voter and a half.

This guy voted for Trump three times.

To have two

properties, too, and no wife, like more properties than wives or whatever.

It just does seem like a lonely, you're going from one property to the other by yourself, and you show up and you're alone again.

Like, that just really seems like it's not.

It feels so lonely to me.

Yeah, it does.

And what dictates like why he goes to one from the other?

Like, is he, oh, oh, it's December in Pasadena.

I'd rather be in Arizona.

Yeah, yeah.

How does he even decide?

Because it's usually like maybe that, you know, like,

how does he even decide?

I guess he just wakes up one morning and he's like,

feels like a Pasadena week.

Thank God I don't have a fucking bitch wife telling me not to go to Pasadena

where my video games are.

The video games I have in Pasadena are better than the ones I have.

I never thought of that.

Yeah, he might have a different arcade in each place or whatever.

This is his arcade.

I have a picture up on the screen of an arcade I found earlier today.

This guy is like the perfect Trump voter.

Just like a guy who's patently unhappy.

Just bought, like, I don't, I, nothing about your problem applies to me, and my life is awesome.

This is a picture for everyone.

It's a picture.

It's Trump 2024.

Let's go, Brandon.

And it has a Trump Rambo on the bottom.

And there's some eyes there, too, under the Trump 2024.

I don't know if that's part of it.

I think they just couldn't get the,

you know what I mean?

That's the original, the shell that they were using.

And by the way,

he posted this and got fucking murdered in the comments.

It was

so much fun to see.

This guy goes,

I'm genuinely.

Oh, I love these two.

this is a great one too i'm genuinely sorry your wife doesn't take your hobby seriously

and we again no one's asking for more information right like if it's the flat if there there's what is the reason that your wife is asking like what is reason in a way it's so obvious that it's a huge thing to have in your house you can't just like

listen I don't,

my wife talks about those Legos all the time when they were all over the house, right?

And she hated it, but they're small, she didn't, but she knows I'm psychotic.

Well, yeah, they're small.

The Titanic is small, no, but compared to a fucking arcade.

Yeah, one set, one set of Legos isn't that big, and she was just really cool.

You know, you know, my wife, she's like really cool.

She just lets me do things, like it'll be funny.

And she's given up on trying to stop you from doing really dumb shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, so, like,

I don't, I don't think she would be cool with me bringing an arcade cabinet in the house and putting it in a living room.

Like, yeah, if you don't have it, if you don't have a big house with a dedicated room.

Now, I agree.

If you have a dedicated room in the basement that you've put together and you want to make an arcade and your wife's like, stop that shit.

And it's not getting in the way of anything.

You know what I mean?

You're just doing it in your time that you have, then that's bullshit.

Your wife should support your hobbies.

But yeah, if you're bringing home a cabinet and being like, this is going beside the dining room table now,

then you think she could have, you know, she might be able to say something.

I saw a guy earlier today put a big MAME, which is an emulator, like cabinet.

You make your own cabinet and then you put an emulator in it.

It plays all the games.

I saw a guy put that in his bedroom today.

But again, if that's your thing and it's like, that's fucking crazy thing to have in your bedroom.

Does he have a wife though or is this a single guy?

Oh, he had a wife.

Yeah.

See, then it is crazy.

It's not crazy if you're single to have it in your bedroom, I don't think.

No, this guy goes, do you ask your wife if you can go outside and play, too?

Oh, shit.

You have to figure, too, because, like, if this guy,

like, if money is not an object, that's not, like, that's not the problem here.

Then, like,

if he is one of those, like, like, uh, top 1% earners, like, we discussed.

His wife is having, like, doing all the upper, upper-middle-class activities.

Like, she's trying to have, like, book club and shit.

Yeah.

And there's all this dumb shit in their house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All video gamey stuff, too.

It's just like pole position, the pole position manual is in a frame in your living room.

And she's like, come on, man.

I don't, you know,

I, I, I'm really into like flight sims and shit.

Like the, the DCS community, uh, DCS digital combat simulator.

Pro like I think the best like full fidelity combat flight sim.

And the people who play it are like psychotic i have seen like people build their own custom cockpits that like almost perfectly replicate like an f-18 cockpit or an f-16 one like so are they do you feel like these are soldiers ex-soldiers or people who weren't able to get into the military

no i like like who is who is playing and taking it that seriously where they're building out a cockpit for them you just think you just like think planes are cool yeah you just you just like get really really into the planes.

So it's not, it's not like a war, like it's not, you say, it's a combat sim, but it's, you're just flying a plane, basically, most of the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

they like, they surprisingly, like, a lot of time do come by it, honestly.

Where it's like, yeah, I have to, I have to keep this in like a room in my house where my wife never goes.

There's a bar here that opened up recently that does the racing simulators, like they, that people set up in our house with like the pedals on the bottom.

The full turnkey kit.

Yeah.

Those are, those are like, I want to get one of those for a flight sim.

It would be fun to have some, but nobody's ever in this bar, dude.

Ever, ever, ever, ever.

They have two of them in there.

And I walk by it all the time and I'm like, man, I hope someday people find out this place exists for you, man.

That's tough because those cost like $50,000.

Yeah.

I know.

They look it, man.

This guy.

But it's a bad idea, though, because anyone who's into that, like, probably

can afford it, or they're so obstinate that they're like, I'll never play one I don't own.

Yeah.

In the games, they're so hard to learn.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing where you're like, hey, let's go out and do that tonight or whatever.

Or, hey, that looks cool as you're walking by.

Yeah, it seems like it would be really hard to figure out.

Yeah, they seem like you'd probably kind of almost have to know how to drive a race car.

Like that there would be a steep learning curve on how to do something.

They're like those ones that the guy, there's that, they made a movie out of it.

That was, I don't think it was very good.

Yeah, it wasn't Need for Speed.

Yeah.

That's the one, right?

Where they were like, but the guy, it's like based on a true story of this guy who played one of those simulators and then became a real racer, like raced in a real race.

Now, maybe I'm, maybe I'm making that up, but I think that that is a thing that I think it was based.

So, here's a question for us, everybody.

They ask on Quora, why did video game arcades die?

This guy goes,

this is a guy you guys are going to love.

Put me down as being in the camp that arcades died owing to there being increasingly unpleasant places to play games.

I had been a keen arcader for many years in my home city, but the growing number of puffs, for example, dregs of humanity that wore puffy jackets, became the cancer that killed it off for me.

Oh, so you're too scared to play at the arcade.

You can just say you're too scared to play at the arcade i think it's i think though it's because of home video games right that's no i've never heard puffy jackets like obviously this is like a racial but i think it yeah and i think it's probably maybe what when when did he's talking about a different era maybe as well right like when it was yeah yeah the 90s probably

uh

Maybe a little earlier, maybe the 80s, because it says he's been gaming since 1979.

I I mean, this guy sounds like, you know, this guy sounds like just such a nerd.

Humanity, the dregs became the cancer that killed it off for me.

First, I was met with requests for a tap, which escalated into personal threats.

It quickly grew from there.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

How did I?

I think he's tapped like a card or what?

I don't know what a tap.

No, there was no tapping of cards back then.

So what is he?

I don't know what he's talking about, but it.

Maybe a quarter or.

So he's tapping somebody maybe to play a game next or something.

Yeah, that's probably true.

Yeah, for a tap which escalated a personal threat.

It quickly grew from there, and that whole gang of puffs made themselves at home in the arcades, and that became the death of them.

Slowly but steadily, there were puffs patrolling the arcade that tried to shake down customers with ever-increasingly threats of violence, threatening players when they had been on certain games, quote, too long, fights breaking out, and physical threats to staff.

Time for me to call it a night.

This wasn't true of every arcade, as other respondents have said here.

And of course, there's plenty of other reasons for their decline.

But as far as my neck of the woods is concerned, it's a far bigger reason than why the others.

So

a lot of crime.

And listen.

I think it still was home video games in his area.

I think it still was.

I don't know.

You mean there weren't guys in puffy jackets?

I mean, maybe a couple of them.

There might have been a couple of them or whatever.

Who knows?

But I don't feel like that was the main reason that the arcade stopped.

I'll be honest with you.

I hung out at a place called Quarter Flash Game Room.

I remember you talking about that.

The gimmick was everything was a quarter.

And I would say that I did quite a bit of crime out of that place.

Like I would have been a puff at that time for sure.

Yeah, you were, you, I mean, yeah, you were, I mean, you were doing all sorts of horrible things to the establishments around your neighborhood and stuff.

What kind of crime would you do specifically at the arcade?

I mean, just like a lot of drugs or like, like, like getting in fights in the parking lot.

You know what I mean?

You go out in the parking lot.

Yeah.

you had a couple guys get into it over like a game of Mortal Kombat or

something like that.

It was really crazy.

Do you remember

when the Justice Department finally did that big Rico case against the Puffy Jacket gang?

Well, here.

It was like it ended the era.

Like, we thought the Puffy Jacket Gang would never end.

They're making so much money extorting people at arcades.

Yeah.

And they got rid of them.

I heard

they still are active in the penals, in the prisons.

But yeah.

That makes sense.

They're not allowed to have their jackets there, though.

I heard they build their own arcades in the prison system

so these guys can still make money.

Well, it's funny because I was like, well, that guy's kind of psychotic.

And then there was another answer to the same question.

While the improvement in computers and consoles, which probably clinched the death of the arcade, there's no mention of how crappy arcades could be.

Arcades, as I knew them, were typically typically dark, dirty places full of loafers, drug users, and other near-dwells.

Well, yeah, but you got to take a look at yourself then at that point.

You're hanging out.

But

I will say there was an arcade on Granville Street, which is like the entertainment strip in downtown Vancouver.

And when we were growing up, it's gone now, but it was an arcade.

And then in the back, it was like a peep show place.

So it was really as like grimy and dirty as you could fucking imagine.

It was really a dank, disgusting place for sure.

Waterflash was nasty.

I have told the story before.

You were allowed to smoke in there at 14 if your parents gave them a note.

And they had the notes hanging on a wall in the office so that you could go back and be like, no, that's

my parents wrote this note.

for me saying I'm allowed to smoke.

And then I just sat in there and smoked all the time.

I wrote the note, by the way.

My parents did.

Yeah, it seems like a very easy easy-to-counterfeit system.

It almost seems like a system that they didn't really care if people gamed.

They just wanted people hanging out there.

But they,

I mean, but it's like they were disgusting and dank and horrible when they were popular.

So I don't think that's a reason why, like, do you know what I'm saying?

Like, they were that way and they were still really popular.

Is there a place that teenagers hang out with at the, and listen, there's all this talk about there being needing to be like a third place for teenagers to go to, but they really do ruin everything

that they go to.

That's part of the learning process of being a teenager.

He goes, in order to play video games, you had to surround yourself with these types.

Arcades had a reputation of being places where drugs were trafficked.

No, well.

Trafficked?

Like they were selling like thousands of kilos at once.

Yeah, it's not some guy selling dime bags.

Yeah.

Like pinched dime bags.

You had to wait to play favorite games.

Compare playing at home with your nice, comfortable room with only your close friends or later on with friends on the internet.

You can play as much as you like and you don't have to feel guilty about hogging anything.

It wasn't just the games that were better.

It was the experience.

So

I said that I found a really crazy thread on R slash Dave and Busters, which for people that don't have them.

First of all, R slash Dave and Busters is a psycho place

and you will find yourself sucked into reading every post in there because

the people that hang out in there are fucking crazy.

Like, it's just as crazy as possible.

It's like skee-ball, basketball, like the same sort of thing I'm talking about, right?

Like the Greta bar, whatever.

It does it have alcohol as well.

It's like it drinks, and but but it has all the arcade games, and it does it have stuff like Mortal Kombat and stuff, right?

No, no, no, it doesn't, it's mostly crappy redemption.

I'm learning, I learned the language, and I just say it like I, yeah, it's mostly like ticket games, yeah,

the one I went to had like, you know, like Time Crisis and yeah.

They do have like what I think is like the best thing in an arcade.

Like the thing that justifies them still existing.

The shit where you're on a motorcycle or a jet ski and it like moves.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I've never done one of those.

I've never done one of those.

The gun ones are pretty good.

The gun ones are pretty good.

Yeah.

The motorcycle that leans to the side is one of the best games you can ever play.

That is a fun game.

There's one, I go to this play place with Charlie for toddlers and stuff.

And there's a game where you spray actual water at the screen that has fire and you put the fire out.

And I know it's meant for children, but it is a pretty fun game.

I'm not going to lie.

There are some great games for kids now.

I bought these like when my niece turned three, I got these

pre-Lego building blocks.

Now she can play with Legos.

She's old enough, but I was like, I would play with these.

Oh, yeah.

These are great.

I mean, I made fun of Brian, but I played with Legos with my nephew.

It's fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, we had it pre-we had it better than like people in the 50s.

I always thought about like

when my dad was really old.

My dad was born in like 1950, exactly.

And I was, his childhood sounded like living in like Babylonian captivity.

It's funny because I used to play with like a wooden rocking horse.

Yeah.

It's crazy because even mine sounds insanely boring.

And there was the Nintendo was out.

You know what I mean?

When I was growing up, but it still sounds like.

I don't know.

There weren't.

It's weird.

You don't.

I don't think they sell toys anymore.

I think toys just open up.

I'll tell you, they do.

I mean, they make action figures for

children.

Yes, for for kids who are really still into like Hot Wheels.

Like, my nephew is hugely into Hot Wheels and Lego and stuff like that.

But like, Hot Wheels is more, and they have actual toys and stuff that they play with still.

Like, and young, young kids who aren't on screens and stuff, like, Charlie has a bunch of little, you know, infant toys or whatever.

I'd have my kid on a screen as soon as possible.

Well, he does watch, okay, it's pretty fucking sweet.

He does watch one single thing now because he used to listen to the music from it.

So, we play the first scene, the circle of life from the Lion King, and we just watch it on a phone, like on a small screen.

And he goes so fucking crazy when they like show the giraffes for the first time.

You know, it made me realize that, Jesus, we don't really stand a chance in this world.

The screens dominate.

So, I want to point out first before I read this, that coin pushers, number one, the greatest games in the world.

If you get to keep the coins, I once saw Tom Sexton win like 30 bucks on one of those at

a truck stop, a racist truck stop in South Carolina.

What do you mean?

I don't explain it.

It's called South of the Border and it's Mexican theme, but guess what?

It's not.

No, I mean the game.

Oh, the game.

It's a coin pusher.

There's a bunch of coins that look like they're about to fall.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Okay.

I've seen that at like the fair or whatever, at like a carnival or something.

Yeah.

And

go ahead.

I was going to ask, do the Dave and Busters people have like a term for like

people who don't live the life, like people who just go on occasion, like casuals?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Felix, I'll tell you this.

I don't know if you guys know this, but there is a leaderboard for each one of the games, a national leaderboard.

At Dave and Busters.

A Dave and Busters.

And you can win prizes.

They'll mail you prizes.

They'll mail you like a jacket.

A Dave and busters jacket was one that i saw if you're in first place and there are a lot of people who have figured out they put a crew together like six people and they all play as the same guy oh

and they end up winning and then everybody is and then they get to like each of them gets to wear the jacket one day a week i know

it's so stupid i think this is prestige yeah i think it's prestige in the end it's like bragging rights yeah

people

Bragging rights.

Yeah, I've got the highest score.

Well, I'm part of a team that has the highest score at David Post, which you can't even take full credit.

Yeah, that's like you gained the system.

Yeah.

And they're so mad.

One guy posted a picture of a person, two people playing Mario Kart, and they have the big screens above showing the game.

And they were both logged in as the same guy.

And

it was crazy how mad people.

This is fucking bullshit, man.

You know what?

Well, imagine you work your whole fucking life to get to the top of that leaderboard, and you've been doing it honestly, you know, and then you find out people are basically juicing.

I would be pissed as well.

It's quarterly, though.

What do you mean?

I mean, yeah, but like baseball comes in seasons, and we still like feel like Hank Aaron got disrespected.

Like his home run record.

They do it quarterly.

Yeah, they do it quarterly.

No, I know.

I know.

I understand.

You play with play with the quarter.

I knew you were going to say that.

No.

They do it like they have a leaderboard for each game.

And then the amount of points, it resets quarterly, yeah.

So,

like I said, a guy wanted the ugliest jacket you've ever seen.

It's a Dave and Busters fucking windbreaker.

I mean, it's ugly, but it's the message it sends to people when you walk into a Dave and Busters with it.

Because anybody who's anybody around there knows what it signifies.

Oh, oh, my God.

And think about it.

It's like, it's the battle of the puffy jackets versus the leaderboard jacket.

I mean, I just imagine him coming in paper planes by MIA playing as he comes in the front door with that jacket and his whole crew behind him.

Like, oh, man.

It's so, so they get mad.

Okay, so the coin pushers have this thing.

They have a...

They have cards in them.

And a complete set of cards is worth a lot of tickets.

Okay.

I don't know.

I'm confused.

They have like little plastic cards in them, too, that they lay in there.

And they're all different.

And a complete set of those cards will get you a bunch of tickets, like a crazy amount of tickets or whatever when you turn it in.

We did it once when we were there.

It costs a lot of money to do.

Okay, so you got to keep that in mind here.

And this person goes.

So last night, my friend, 32 male, and I, 40-year-old female, went to half-price night we're regulars now with a summer pass the staff know us and even though even other regulars know us i've been slowly collecting the spongebob card since i got a gary a couple of weeks back i saw another gary on the platform and i decided to go for two full sets before i'd never do this machine again however i've told myself about that with star trek many times a teen boy came up and nicely asked me if i was playing for anything i said oh yeah i'm playing for the gary about to get the whole set and he had a friend with him he was like i told you you about that card.

They left and I thought nothing of it.

I put on about eight swipes and played until Gary was at the edge.

I put on one more swipe when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turn and it's a teen girl and there's a whole click of teens with her, including the ones from earlier.

And she then asked me when I was done with my one swipe, if she could go after me.

And I was surprised, but I was like, well, no, I'm playing still, but there's machines available right next to me that's empty.

And she said, but I want that card.

And I was genuinely stunned and then i said well but i've been playing for that card for a while now this is a 40 year old woman by the way so that i i'm trying to figure out what's going on here it does it feels to me like these teens are messing with her though right they like the card but do they do they want the card or do they know that she wants it so bad so they're just being teen like they're just kind of messing with her I would think

because why do they want the what do they want the card for they love Spongebob stuff teens love that shit I don't know

I think they're if I read the story as them messing with being like, hey, that woman's like fucking trying for this Spongebob card over here.

Like, let's go fuck with her.

But I don't know.

Either way, it's very funny.

Yeah.

And I was.

I would have to know more.

I guess.

Yeah.

Well, there's more.

Her reply, I said, I've been playing for that card for a while.

Her reply, but I want it.

I replied because I literally couldn't think of anything else.

I said, well, sometimes we don't get what we want.

She responded, well, that would, well, that would be fair.

You take a turn and I take a turn.

And I was like, but this isn't a turn-based system.

And she responded, well, it should be.

And I was like, well, I don't know what to tell you.

Life's not fair and I'm not leaving it.

She said, but I want it.

And I didn't want to cave,

especially with her just repeating this to me several times more than I'm even standing there.

We were ironically across from the Willy Wonka machine.

Ironic.

And I also got a full set from there last night.

And I said, well, I want a million dollars.

I don't know what to tell you.

I attempted to pacify her with the truth that I wasn't going to win in this one swipe.

I didn't.

And she was welcome to watch, but I wasn't leaving.

And at this point, I would reload my card and die at that machine before I let her have it.

Yep.

This is, okay, so

this is, I hate to play armchair psychologist.

Yep.

Do you?

I would estimate that this is like, unfortunately, someone who's probably like

gets walked all over in her day-to-day life.

A doormat, adormat,

yeah.

And then just like

there's the like she's always telling herself, like, you have to stand up for yourself.

You've been doing this your whole life.

And then it finally manifests in like a purely ridiculous way.

Like in the most humiliating way possible.

This is like...

She's like, well, here's your moment, Cynthia.

This is what you've been talking about with yourself.

Like, I guess guess it's time to buck up.

You know how people say, like, you can never, you can never really write things that are funnier than real life.

I would actually say you can never really write things that are, like, as tragic as real life.

Yes.

This is, like, tragic in a way that, like, it really just, it, like, knocks the wind out of you.

You feel like you, you, you know so much about this person.

based on her reaction.

Like, she's, she was probably like surprised that she was, like, standing up for herself and was like, okay, I guess we're doing this.

Well, life isn't fair yeah then she starts to like she's like you can't you ever heard the old rolling stones you can't always get what you want

i'm like kind of on her side because i think i do i agree i'm on her side too because She's saying everything's true that she's saying it's not turn-based, right?

It's not, right?

That's not how the game works.

I don't know how about that.

Oh, okay.

It could be.

It's not, there's no rule about how the coin pushers work.

Yeah, I still stick by the fact that it seems like this group of teenagers, for whatever reason, has targeted this woman.

And they're like, let's fuck with this woman who loves Spongebob so much.

And it is, this is a completely ridiculous.

Imagine, just imagine being beside this.

Yeah.

And like just sitting at the table.

It would be completely ridiculous to hear.

But yeah, it's tough to really pick a...

a side.

It's really weird because I was recently in a really weird situation at a restaurant.

Me and my wife were eating at this restaurant, and there's a woman kind of getting drunk in the corner and like really getting drunk.

You know what I mean?

And

a guy comes up to the window and starts knocking on it.

She's not looking at him.

And he's knocking and she's not looking.

And then a waiter comes over and goes,

There's a guy knocking on the window for you.

She's like, I know I'm intentionally not looking for him.

So there was like a whole bunch of stuff going on that I didn't fully understand, but I was enraptured by.

Like, I wasn't paying attention to my wife at all.

Like, I was paying attention to whatever was going on at that table over there.

Yeah, it's hard not to when there's like that's why, like, you know, soap operas and all that.

That's why everybody's celebrity gossip and shit.

It is interesting to hear some people got some wild shit going on, you know?

Like, they're just kind of acting out of control.

I used to say that, like,

my sister worked at this, like, um,

one of these weird, weird, like, uh, publications where, like, the only people that subscribe to it are like law firms, so it's, like, in the black, but like, no one reads it.

Like, it was a tax policy thing.

This is when she was, like, uh, in grad school, and she would always tell me, like, the most depressing, sordid stories about her co-workers.

And I was,

I would look forward to it every week, finding out some new shitty detail about these people's terrible lives.

And I always used to say, if there was a magazine where you could read about like bad, like just

skin-crawling events that happen in other people's lives that you don't know, you have no, you have to have no connection with them because otherwise, you start, there is a little part of you that's like, I, I maybe have some power to do something here, but when you have no connection, it is pure, like, thrilling.

I remember my brother telling me about like, um, this guy on the Amtrak, it's like our R L I,

whatever the Long Island, like regional Amtrak thing is in Chicago.

He was

in a relation, like an open relationship with like the secretary at this place my brother was working at, and like her half-sister, and they were living together.

And they were like, they were like scamming Section 8.

Like they shouldn't have been in Section 8, but they were.

And it was like, I would read

weekly updates about that.

I would, I love, I, that stuff.

Well, now, okay, you guys took her side.

Well, you're not alone.

Yeah.

Because here we go.

The Insaneser OX says, you were in the right.

You can play however long you want.

But the problem with the story to me is you kept the conversation going on with a random girl.

Why didn't you just say, go fuck yourself and stop replying to her?

I don't know.

Maybe because she's been fucking walked over her entire, this is her first time ever standing up for herself.

I like, I mean, I, it's hard to like really,

I'll say this.

When you're a teenager, like, you're, you're empathy, you have no empathy.

You're a sociopath.

And it's terrifying because you have all the like selfishness of a child, but you have some of like the linguistic cunning

of an adult.

And it's horrible.

Like, like, I, I, I, it's one of the reasons why I, uh, you know, I, I think, uh,

there shouldn't be, like, life sentences for teenagers in general, uh, except for you know when someone's born evil which I only I can determine yeah, well, we can all tell that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can all yeah, but um

I Like to think and maybe I'm wrong.

I like to think that at least when I was a teenager We could identify like a loser adult and I know I'm not saying this pejoratively maybe a little bit

but like an adult where it's like

okay there

this person has been fucked with their like entire life.

This is not

do it to them.

Yeah, this guy's not a cool guy in his life.

And you feel like you guys had the, you didn't want to fuck with those people.

Yeah, or like, yeah, there was, there was a thing of like, well, like, no one that we fuck with like deserves got nothing to do with it.

But like,

what if it's someone who's like less used to be?

Yeah, no, I agree.

I'm, as an adult, I totally agree.

But I think when I was a teenager that I maybe was able to recognize that somebody had been fucked with.

But again, I didn't care.

I was a psycho, and I didn't care, and it didn't really bother me.

But we didn't really fuck with people that much, though.

I remember one guy who, I just always remember this in the mall.

He just kept saying, are you smart or are you stupid?

To my friends and I.

I don't remember the context of it, but we must have been fucking with him.

And he just kept saying, listen, are you guys smart or are you stupid?

Well,

this post, I thought, this reply was really something.

You're about to go for a ride.

People who have never been told no don't think rules or even common courtesy applies to them.

They live in a bizarre parallel universe where they're the main character and the rest of us are just NPCs whose purpose for existing is to cater to their whims.

If you want to see a live example of this, look into Blake Lively's ongoing legal dispute with Justin Baltimore.

That's the person.

What's that joke?

The person who's only seen that one movie, you know, and it's like, hey, this is a lot like this person just bringing this into every single conversation that they ever have.

And

he's saying it to a woman who, like, for 99.9% of her life, she is a side character in her own life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, basically, she was cast as the female lead in a movie based on a novel.

And rather than do the job she was hired for, she bullied her way into directing, taking over wardrobe, where she went over $185,000 budget by $500,000 by dressing her character in high-end luxury clothes and forcing Sony, the distributor, to release her cut of the film.

When promoting the film, she opted to shill her product lines instead of addressing the heavy theme of the movie, domestic violence.

When she naturally faced backlash, she accused the director of fat-shaming her and then later sued him for allegedly sexually harassing her.

She also claims the backlash she received is not organic and that the studio orchestrated an untraceable smear campaign.

Hang on, hang on.

What's the original thing we're meant to be talking about here?

Yeah,

is this guy like a producer on that shitty movie?

Like, how does he?

This might be the Dustin guy.

This might be that guy.

Justin Paul 30s in the David Buster subreddit.

Well, this is about David Buster.

It's about

the card.

card, the lady on the Spongebob card, the Spongebob card.

I'm just saying, I, you can bring up your Blake Lively thing or whatever.

I don't know that you want to get this much in the weeds about it.

She also claims the backlash sheet.

Oh, yeah, she's been subpoenaing content creators who have covered the lawsuit on social media, asking for their follower and bank information, among other things.

She just cannot fathom the world.

I don't think that's Blake Lively.

Hey, this is Blake Lively.

What's your routing information?

That's not something you ask for when you sue someone.

Yeah, Blake Lively's hit me up and it's like, oh, I'm supposed to pay you after I just paid Elon fucking $3,500.

Blake Lively told me she needs...

I'm suing you unless you buy me $500 in iTunes gift cards.

Oh, you bitch.

When you have enough.

She just cannot fathom a world where the general public doesn't adore her and where her actions have consequences.

That's the whole post from the craziest person.

Yeah, that person is like, we're talking about,

we're talking about a child who's doing this.

A teenager.

A teenager.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't think you can fathom a world not through the prism of Blake Lively.

Yeah, yeah, Blake Lively and Justin Baldone.

Like every time something happens, this person is just like, this reminds me of Blake Lively and Justin Baldone, and then goes into the whole story again.

Because she had the whole story like in two paragraphs.

She was able to, like, yeah, and not

copy-paste it from somewhere.

You could tell it was like her.

She had passion about it.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's the craziest thing that you could do in a thread about video games.

I think that should become like a copy paste.

Like, whenever someone, like,

if you have like a friend you don't like very much, he's always like bitching about the same same things.

Just go copy-paste this entirely.

You know, this reminds me of.

I paragraphs about Blake Liable.

This guy goes, I have a spoiled cousin when they say, but I want it.

I just go deadpan and say, well, I don't care what you want.

Pretty much ends it.

I recently had to do this at Dave and Buster's a couple weeks ago.

It works faster than engaging.

So next time, feel free to flag down a tech or win person.

Managers will inform them that harassing other guests is not okay.

I've seen kids asked to leave for this behavior.

Oh, just get the yeah, call the manager over to get the children thrown out.

Here's another weird one.

Little Punks knew it was rare and was just on the edge.

Literally tried to bully you off that machine just for the card.

It wasn't about playing the game since the open machine was next to you, but it was more about bringing the squad to try and make sure you feel like an ass so they can take over.

Don't feel bad.

They never would have moved for you, let alone have a conscience about feeling bad about the encounter.

Good for you for sticking your ground.

In my opinion, and I know I'm not right, but in my opinion, they wrote Dus Squad DA.

As I read this, I slowly preparing myself to be insanely furious if you gave in to her in any way.

Like, so I gave her a turn or so I gave up the machine or holy hell if you said so I won the card and then gave it to her.

Oh, hell no.

The fact that you would even consider that you were being unfair is ridiculous.

The justification is you put in the work and the money to move that card to the edge.

It's yours.

These are the kind of people who like comment on a video of one of those Karens stealing a baseball from a child at a baseball game who comment like important and good life lesson, you know?

Like, that's the same sort of attitude here.

It is so,

it is, it is a card, a SpongeBob SquarePants card.

It's a, what is it?

What's the name of it?

What, a Gary?

Yeah,

was it a Patrick or a Gary?

I don't remember.

I think it's a Gary.

Yeah,

it was a Gary.

It was a Gary card.

It was a Gary SpongeBob card.

And it's just like, I'm glad that you stuck to your guns and fucking stuck up for yourself.

And it's like, yeah, you're talking about a Davin Buster Spongebob Gary card.

I'm glad you fucking stuck to your guns like Justin Baldoni did.

Like, that is, I am firmly on this woman's side.

Like, I, I mean, watch me be totally wrong about all my assumptions about her.

It's like, it's like, it's like, it's actually like the actress Catherine Bell

living off like millions she's made off of like jag residuals.

And she's like, yeah, I just get my kids in college.

Yeah, I just go to David Buster's.

This person goes.

This bitch tried to take my Gary.

But

I'm firmly

based on my assumptions, though, that I think are true.

I am so firmly on this woman's side.

But everyone who's agreeing with me is humiliating me.

Yeah.

But I won't budge, but like, holy shit.

I read some reviews of Dave and Buster's, the one I go to often.

Mason goes, one star.

Do not pay for the virtual reality.

I went with my friend to try a new virtual experience at Dave and Buster's.

Not only was the VR headset not adjusted properly such that it made it quite hard to breathe.

The colors

suffocating in the David Busters VR.

So I guess this must be part of it, you know.

It's underwater, I guess.

Yeah.

You know,

maybe it's adrenaline.

I don't know.

The colors.

This reminds you of how people have to hold their breath around like live leaves.

Not only was the VR headset not adjusted properly such that it made it quite hard to breathe, the colors in the virtual reality were blended as if my eyes were clouded.

We weren't able to actually see the gameplay and were told by the worker that we had the lowest, most pathetic score he had ever seen.

Whoa.

Did he use that?

Like, that seems, that does seem like a...

Lowest and most pathetic are in quotes.

See, that feels like you can complain about that.

I don't feel like a staff member should be talking to somebody like that.

I don't think you should complain about it because it's a humiliating thing.

Oh, no, I agree.

But I'm saying you have a right to be, you have, right there, you're like, that isn't how someone should talk to someone who's trying their best playing a game or whatever.

But yeah, I would never, if somebody at Dave and Buster's told me I was the most pathetic gamer ever, I would never mention it to anyone.

That is like the lie, the how you think the world operates when you're like five, that like the employees at David Busters get mad at you if you're bad at the games.

Like you get in trouble.

He actually thought we were sleeping on the machine.

moreover the games at this particular dave and busters location took more credits than advertised my friend and i personally played the mario kart game assuming it took four credits per play as advertised we were shocked to find out that we swiped our cart it took 5.5 credits per play all in all this location was malfunctioning and not worth the money spent plenty of other locations oh this is in times square I'm sorry.

This is

yeah, there you go.

So this is this is this one Felix could potentially go to if he wants Plenty of other things.

He might have gone to this one, actually.

All right.

No, I think it was this one.

One of my favorite things that they say in these two, he's like,

used to be a regular customer at Dave and Busters, but now I'm questioning if I want to make this my last trip.

Like somebody's going to reply to him.

Yeah, be like, what can we do to keep you coming back regularly?

Here is one and the one that I go to, Three Stars.

Dropped in here with the kids for an evening of dinner and games.

The punchline here is that the restaurant area is so loud and deafening, it's like being at a rock concert.

Speaking to the serving staff, they were kind and turned the music down, but it was still so loud from all the games.

The music was simply masking the noise.

Can you guys turn the games off?

This guy, I mean, going to a fucking barcade and thinking it's going to be anything other than the noisiest place on the blog is crazy.

and it's like the i would assume that the like dinner part of of the david busters experience is like the most replaceable part yes like that you can literally go anywhere else chilies you could go to chil i'll bet you the food is basically i've never had it But I'll bet you the food is basically just chilies.

Is it?

Is it, but it's a, it's like a bar.

You can drink while you're playing the games and stuff like that.

Okay, okay.

That's cool.

And it doesn't matter that the kids are all around there and stuff.

They don't mind.

Okay.

Maybe Maybe the rules are different.

I don't think you can do that in Canada where I am.

Well, it's not a good idea.

Like, you can't have children in a place where people are drinking, I don't think, at an establishment.

That's what the trucker does were about.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I guess that's not true because at a restaurant, people drink.

And there's, right?

There is that.

It's just like I know a bar premises or whatever, it's like a different license.

But yeah, I don't think that it just feels weird to have kids at a bar.

If you've been to any of of the newer casinos and seen the slot machines that are super loud, that's pretty much what it's like.

The food looked good, tasted good, serving staff was great, but at the end of the day, we won't be going back.

It's just too loud and annoying.

I had a headache with him 15 minutes of being in his place.

It's just that loud.

The guy that goes to Dave and Buster's and complains about the noise.

Yeah, I think like all these people are like dying.

Yeah.

They're like, it was like as loud as like, slightly louder than a normal restaurant.

They're like, yeah, my ears started bleeding.

I don't look

VR machine.

All the colors blurred together.

Yeah.

Here's another.

Here's one thing.

I haven't been able to move the left side of my body since I went to Dave and Buster's.

That's going to be a two stars from me.

This guy, this guy, he reviewed a place called Round One, which is another place that's kind of like Dave and Buster's more claw machined.

Where is that?

Is that in this one's in Ohio, but I think there's one in Vancouver.

Oh, really?

In your area.

I went to one in San Diego.

I went to a crazy arcade there when we went to TwitchCon last, and I just remember this right now that I played.

It was super packed.

It was super packed.

But I played against our former guest, past guest, Tom Walker, and at Street Fighter.

And he fucking killed me so bad that it was like, we all kind of laughed about it, but it was genuinely humiliating did one of the workers tell you it's the most pathetic lowest score he's ever seen nobody had to tell me that everyone was like around watching like everyone who was there with us was around watching it i just i didn't get a single hit in it was fucking brutal man

there is nothing

more humiliating than playing a fighting game against like a fighting game person yeah i had no idea i should have known he was so excited felix to play he's just like i should have known you know

yeah it's like if you're playing any other if you're playing like Call of Duty you could there's a chance you can like shoot a guy in the back of the head but like camp out camp for a bit maybe yeah yeah

fighting game they'll just make you look like a fucking asshole yeah they just destroy you and beat the shit out of your character like it's oh I can still picture it right now because I remember looking over and like sort of looking at his face and he like he kind of looked like he felt bad for me even like he was like I'm sorry I did this to you Yeah.

This guy went to round one in Beaver Creek, Ohio.

He gave it two stars.

He goes, I play call machine semi-professionally.

Very humble.

I don't know what

I do.

That can't be a real thing.

I don't know what it would be.

Like, I guess maybe there's like some competitions right, right, or something like that.

I don't think there is.

No, like, people put together, right?

Somebody's like, oh, we're going to do a claw machine competition, like, just some fucking internet person or whatever.

He's probably maybe done a couple of them.

That's what he's talking about.

Semi-professionally, like.

Does it make economic sense for anybody to be fully pro?

Like,

yeah, do you get, do you, yeah, because how much could you possibly sell the little fucking things for?

I, I, I, could you do it in like maybe the developing world that would be like a business level income

to travel to to like the palau the place where the chive coins are from and sell them there they're not from there just to be clear they are legal tender in palau but they're just made in america there is not a single person or competition

uh claw machine thing i don't know where that but he goes i've and he might not even be good i'm gonna tell you that right now he goes i play claw machine semi-professionally have traveled the country claiming this is my favorite round one.

But after driving five hours out of my way and spending $120,

I left with two prizes.

And only one was from a claw machine.

They have deliberately rigged all of their machines to barely pay.

This guy is like a shadow band kind of guy.

This is great too because he's kind of like, yeah, I'm like a semi-professional, very well-known claw machine player who's very well respected.

I've been traveling the country to different claw machine fucking, establishments and singing your praises.

And yeah, guess what?

You're not going to get that free advertising anymore.

The round one in Beaver Creek, Ohio is the top claw machine place of all the places.

Oh my God, buddy, the grip on like what, like, I don't understand what would make it...

Are they different?

Aren't they going to be all like the claw machines are going to be made by like there'll be a couple of them, right?

Made by the same people.

They can rig them, but I would assume that if you're a professional or semi-professional claw machine player, you'd be able to figure out that it's rigged before you spent $120.

Would be my...

But listen,

I don't think they're rigged obviously.

They are.

Fully 100% rigged.

No, no, no, no.

Sorry,

I mean, like, these ones aren't more rigged than they were before.

No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, nothing changed, did it?

Like, like, did they, is he saying that he used to come here, he would fucking clean up, he would make, he would always grab shit, and now he doesn't anymore?

Like, they've recently done that?

These guys get very mad that they think that they, because you can switch it to pay.

So basically, what you could do is you could make it so nobody wins until it's paid out a certain, until it's taken a certain amount of money.

How would they do that, though?

What if you're really good and you grab it?

The claw doesn't grip right.

There's like a way that they can, or it like.

That seems got to be illegal.

That has to be illegal.

But people have sued for stuff that they're doing.

No, seriously, why doesn't the federal government protect people playing claw machines today?

I bet you, I would bet any amount of money that like

it probably was illegal during Trump won.

And like

a

very significant part of his coalition were like people who own claw machines.

And they're like, you have to let us rig this.

You know, somebody in Florida who owns owns a bunch of claw machines does seem like a media Trump voter for sure.

Yeah, 100%.

It feels really funny to

all the things that are going on in the world right now.

And you're just like, also, claw machines are rigged.

Maybe all the bats.

Oh, they're sending troops to Portland.

And the claw machines are rigged.

Yeah.

And I haven't went to Baldoni.

It's been

three to six months since I last had a big win at a claw machine, and nobody's talking about it.

Because he won.

He also said he did win something.

I left with two prizes, and only one was from a claw machine.

They've been deliberately rigged all of their machines to barely pay out.

The claws don't grab.

They don't close.

And this place has become a complete and total ripoff.

I've never left round one with so few wins or so much disappointment.

I realize in inflation economy, you need to make more money, but this is ridiculous.

If your goal was to lose customers, you met it.

So he's willing to allow them to cheat him a little bit due to the economy.

He's like, he could cheat me a little bit, but this is going too far.

This seems like in the parking lot review, by the way.

This seems like he's very mad.

He's sitting there with his two stuffed toys.

Yeah, he's looking at them like he's like a disappointed father.

You know, he's like staring them down.

Like, you pathetic.

You guys are pathetic.

Yeah.

So there's another, there's one more thing that

we haven't gotten to yet.

And this is going to be the last thing, and it is the arcade one-up machines.

I don't know if you guys have ever, I'm sure you've seen them.

If you've ever stayed in an Airbnb, there's an arcade one-up machine.

You talked about it before.

It's just like a really, I've seen it.

Like, I don't stay in Airbnbs, but I've seen like a photo, the really flimsy, small arcade box.

And cheap.

They're like $300, $400, $500.

So, I mean, for an arcade cabinet, like I said earlier, you know,

you're going to pay $2,500.

Maybe you can get one for $1,500 $1,500 or $1,000, but you're not going to get one for $500.

I went to Amazon and I looked at Arcade 1 Up Mortal Kombat 2 Deluxe Arcade Machine,

which is, I want Mortal Kombat 3.

So I was looking at, this guy gives it one star.

This is great.

This is Amazon, by the way.

So it's shipped to you through Amazon.

Okay.

This guy goes, one star, overpriced.

I thought the product came and showed him photos, but it came in pieces in a box, not like the other pic, not like the pictures

he thought they were gonna break the whole thing

like a big refrigerator box size thing

yeah

being mad because it's it's it is it's not like in the pictures where it's put together like like the picture should have been it in pieces there you go that's only fair that's only fair

uh two stars.

First of all, the machine works pretty well, except for that the joystick and button response seems to be a bit slow.

That makes a big difference on the Mortal Kombat games.

The graphics and sound are great.

My problem is that I bought this remembering all the fun I had playing Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2 on my Sega Genesis and wanted to recreate that.

But this is an arcade machine, not the Sega.

Okay.

Not this.

It's not really their fault.

It's insane thing to say.

It's not their fault.

I do remember Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2 being very difficult in the arcade after the first one or two fights, but ignored that.

I also read about input lag on this machine and watched YouTube videos on how Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter cheated you in the arcade.

I should have taken all this as a warning.

MK, MK2, and MK3 on this machine are just as tough as the arcade.

The CPU, AI, is faster than you and will nullify your moves after you start them.

Oh my god, we've reached the singularity.

This guy is just basically so his big complaint is he's losing the fight.

He's not very

not able to figure out how to how to win.

Listen, it can be challenging, but I don't think it's like they haven't created this game where it's like every single thing you do, the fucking computer just counters it and kills you right away.

No one would play it ever.

People have triumphed over Mortal Kombat.

Yeah, I've seen it.

It has has happened.

Yeah, I've seen it.

I've seen it.

I was great at the game.

Sonia Blade.

That was my character.

He played in Cabal.

Okay.

Sonia.

Wait, there's a character called Cabal.

Yeah, K-A-B-A-L, though.

And he runs real fast.

He spins people around.

Is there a character named like Elder of Zion?

I mean, that's a whole other thing.

Like gamer words, just

gamers love, not this type of gamer but like esports types love like

um either words that no one uses or like made-up words that sound like real words

uh i the one i always think of that i found in uh cs2 was gulosity

it's nothing it's not a word

i just thought of s-precision and that's not a word

because uh uh they'll they'll walk up to you and throw your kick before you can jump backwards or kick them project

so great describing that like in your review describing how you were defeated in the fight so you go and try to hit them they just block it and then they fucking counter with a fucking one of their hits and then it is you like in in what universe would someone read that and be like well i thought you were just shitty but now the way you put it Yeah, where you tried to hit them and they jumped away.

That actually sounds like.

We might actually, yeah, we have a case here.

That might be a netcoat issue if you were actually trying to punch them and then they actually dodged it.

He goes,

before you, or Kano will hit you with his roll just before you hit the block button, et cetera, et cetera.

Doing a fatality.

He's too slow.

It is a must.

You have to do it fast.

He's too

slow.

He goes, doing fatality on Mortal Kombat 2 is almost impossible.

I've read that's common with the stock controllers.

You can change out the joystick springs and joystick gates with different parts.

However, this deluxe cabinet is slightly different than the videos you see of the legacy edition on YouTube.

So changing out those parts is very hard on this machine.

I decided not to change out the parts after looking at it.

YouTube has a lot of channels that show strategies on how to beat the computer on these games.

This guy is sitting and watching videos about how, I fucking know I can figure this out.

But it's like, man, oh man, like, you know, Michael Jordan can fucking try to show you how to do a jump shot but he can't do it for you you know so that's what i feel like it's like yeah he's gonna watch all those videos then he's gonna be like okay so then when he does it i have to press block and then he's gonna do it too slow and he's gonna get hit again

it's so funny to imagine an adult typing this to like this man is probably 40.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And you can't figure out that he's not good at a video.

I love that one of his things was like Kano always hits his role before you block, before you press block.

And it's like, yeah,

it's almost like the way to avoid that is to hit block early.

Like, he wants like a turn-based Mortal Kombat.

Yeah.

And he keeps saying it's that the AI is just unfair.

Yeah, well, it's like, well, he knows you'll get a little.

He's like, and right, we all hate that AI stuff, right?

He goes,

I decided not to check.

Oh, he goes, They help watching how to beat the computer, they help somewhat and work sometimes, but I'm also convinced that the deluxe version of the arcade one-up is updated compared to the older one-up machine.

Oh, so he's means that the strategies don't work as well.

So now

he's convincing himself that, like, that's why the strategy isn't working.

It's because they haven't updated it for the new.

Oh, my God.

This guy refuses.

This is like a prize fighter who's like like 7 and 94 and everyone's asking him to hang it up, but he just, he's like, I'm going to make a run, you know, I'm going to figure this out.

They updated it.

Like the people that make the arcade version of Mortal Kombat are like, sir, we've scoured YouTube.

All the latest strategies have been programmed into the API.

Yeah.

Like it's the authorities and the scammers going back, you know, like, yeah.

Which means this is the strategy YouTube videos claim it's easy once you figure out the pattern.

They say, I disagree.

You know what?

It is so lucky that this guy has this and he's not like politically activated.

Because like most of the problems going on today aren't because people like this were like, you know what?

I should be involved in politics.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's a January 6th guy if he gets involved in politics.

He's so mad because he lost that he has to go take a crap on Nancy Pelosi's desk.

Same thing.

Same thing.

He's in jail right now.

Like most people, I bought this machine for the Mortal Kombat.

Oh,

because they have a few other games on here.

He goes.

I've played Paperboy and Root Beer Tapper on here a little bit.

They're fun, and I'll start playing them more.

Maybe like most people, I bought this machine for the MK games, and those games only offer 10 to 20 minutes of entertainment before it's no longer fun.

And I realize that I have other things I should be doing.

I got this,

like anything,

I shouldn't be down here losing it, Mortal Kong.

Just the idea of him sitting there and being like, you know, just being like losing a bunch of times, getting super sad, and then just being like, I had some emails I had to get to, you know?

Oh, God.

Oh, fuck.

Hey, why are you clocked in at 8 o'clock at night?

He's just like, well, I spent four hours when I was supposed to be working losing at Mortal Kombat.

So I got to catch up with my work.

He goes,

I got this on a great deal and paid 200 bucks for it.

At that price, the machine is worth it just barely, but I'll need to play it many more times to get my money's worth.

I wouldn't pay $400 for it, and I'm glad I didn't.

I could have bought a used Xbox or PlayStation 2 and probably would have been better off.

So what if this was what if this guy, what if this was George Soros?

I was supposed to be running my hedge fund, but I spent so much time on this rigged fucking Mortal Kombat machine.

It's crazy to think that they, listen, they arcade one up makes the machines.

They don't make the games.

They're not rigging the games.

The games are the games from the the one you play.

I guess like he's like, oh.

Is it an emulator or is it legitimately the game?

It's the game.

It's like the actual game on an arcade.

Okay, Brian.

So businesses never collude with each other.

I just, they don't have a reason.

It's like this guy, it's like, if somebody, he probably talks to his wife about this all the fucking time.

You know what I mean?

He probably spends all of his time, oh, I bought it and I thought I was going to be able to beat the fucking game she fucks nothing like she sticks up the she fucking steps up and fucking beats it first try

oh man how'd you hit block so fast he's like ask her how she hit block so fast

it's so great like what would be the point of them like making it impossibly hard

yeah yeah yeah it doesn't how would they benefit it's not good for business if everybody hates it after 15 minutes you want them to be playing

That is like, that is like, again, childhood.

The same child logic of like, oh, they ordered so many hamburgers, McDonald's closed down forever.

1500, I'll be able to be exactly.

Like people who make games are like, I hope no one ever solves this one.

And fine.

So mad, we'll go out of business.

And finally, a really strange guy asks a really strange question on Reddit.

Are there any arcades in California or Nevada nevada that still allow you to smoke inside

curious

probably not that's i mean i would point that man to casinos yes but no he wants to play mortal kombat maybe i don't know he wants to play video games that's a

oh my god another billionaire dollar idea right after the our our high score teacher idea

A

David, like a Dave and Busters type place in Vegas that we open,

but it's like real money is at stake.

Yes.

Instead of tickets, it's pennies.

Yeah.

Or pennies.

Like, you're talking about like, it's for real high rollers.

Like, they're like thousands of dollars.

Like, you're playing skee-ball, but

you're betting thousands on it.

I would love to.

Yeah.

Think about like, you know, that Palmer Lucky piece of shit.

He would probably look, he would be like Ishikawa for the movie Casino.

So, yeah, this guy ended up.

It was funny that he asked and then he gets yelled at by, um, he gets yelled at by everybody saying it's evil to smoke cigarettes by an arcade cabinet because it makes it smell and it hurts the resale value.

I never thought about that.

He goes, uh, this guy goes, this is 2023.

So, no, of course there are no arcades in California that let you smoke inside.

Also, that would be really inconsiderate to foul up vintage games like that.

Yeah.

Pinball.

I love that no one's like,

what if there are kids there?

They're like, do you know what that does to the enamel, you piece of shit?

Well, that was arcade, guys.

Felix,

tell them about your series.

In a

bold stroke of originality, I have done the world's first ever podcast, probably the only piece of internet content about the the Metal Gear Solid series of games.

Wow.

It is part of a new ongoing series for

on our Patreon.

I'm doing my own version of Movie Mindset called Players Club.

And our first season, which the last episode of which is going to come out next week, is me and Brendan James talking about the Metal Gear Solid mainline entries.

So every game from Metal Gear Solid 1 to The Phantom Pain,

minus

games of dubious canonicity, such as the Acid or Portable Ops entries.

I played one that wasn't part of the thing.

I can't remember what it was.

Was it?

Did it have cards or was it normal?

No, it's like button smashing, basically.

It's like shooting.

What makes it non-canonical?

I mean,

the short answer is like, well, did Hideo Kojima direct it?

Okay.

The long answer is, I mean,

Portable Ops is like mostly canon, but they like fucked a few things up.

They made a very important character like 10 or 20 years older than he should be just because they wanted to have him in the game.

But to make it easy, you just say any game with Metal Gear Solid except for Portable Ops is part of the canon.

But it is mostly just whether Kajima directed it or not.

Though,

it sounds like Brian played Metal Gear Rising, which

that's a great game.

And

I think there's a very good, very good series of arguments for it being canon.

Metal Gear Solid Revenge,

which is a really good word.

That is an amazing game.

And even though it's non-canon,

we're probably going to do a special bonus post script episode about that one because

that is

one of my favorite games ever made.

I love that one.

I remember having a good time playing it.

And if you ever, please,

just text me if you need Mortal Kombat 3 inform.

I was a Mortal Kombat 3 guy.

If you ever need any information, I know everything about that.

I know the canon of Mortal Kombat up to 3, which is, I played Mortal Kombat 3 semi-professional.

You could do that.

That's something you could do.

I did that.

I did at, but this is like 1998, 99, and it was like at a putt-putt.

It was just playing for like $125

prize at the end of the day.

Did you win?

No, absolutely not.

Aaron did.

Oh, that's too bad.

Rest in peace to Aaron.

Aaron, the leader.

Not a leader.

Leader of the pack, Aaron, race car, school, attending, bang.

He was good at Mortal Kombat 3.

He was very good.

He was one of the better at, he played with Jax.

I I remember you told me that he was a great player.

You've mentioned that before.

Doesn't mean he was the leader of the gang.

Mortal Kombat,

the whole Metal Gear saga has been going on slightly longer, but Metal Gear Solid, the mainline saga, has been going on for six years shorter than the Mortal Kombat Cannon.

It's crazy.

Mortal Kombat has been around for, yeah, like when I was a kid, Mortal Kombat was around.

It's crazy.

I was obsessed with that and Killer Instinct 2.

Those are like the two games I played all the time.

So, I've, I never have, I've never played Metal Gear Solid ever before, but the thing that I can say about the series is I think it's cool if there's someone that you like and listen to, it's cool to hear them talking about the things they like the best.

I do enjoy that the same as like, you know, Will doing the movie mindset.

So, it's just cool to hear that.

Like, you obviously love the game and love gaming.

So, yeah.

And

I've actually, I've been pleasantly surprised.

A lot of people, I thought that, like, um,

this would people who play the games like the games would love this, and everyone else, they have like tons of other side series to listen to.

But tons of people who had never touched them before,

they started listening and started playing the games along with the series, which I thought was

really fun.

Uh,

and uh, no, no, we're really we had an amazing time doing it.

Um, every episode we did was like 12 hours of raw audio, but

there's so much to cover in like every game.

I don't think any of this.

So much lore in those games, eh?

Yeah,

that's the thing I always think about it.

Let me show you a picture real quick, Felix, just to let you check in on a guy that we saw last.

We were watching a cameo of him last night, Grease Man.

Oh, yeah.

We're doing Shoktober recording in a couple of days, the first episode of shocktober grease man i found grease man's uh first ever on air audition from 1975 and it's god he's so fucking old

i know

yeah legitimately 50 fucking years over 50 years ago here he is here he is this is what he looks now this is what he looks like now felix prepare yourself for it there he is

holy fuck

we fucking did grease man like a year ago Yeah, man, he's really

insane.

He's aged.

And also,

he was really giving it heart.

Because just to be clear, if you go to his cameo, every single cameo is people from our podcast who are getting him to say stuff for their family members or whatever.

And he's always given it his real Greaseman thing.

But this one that we watched on the stream.

He's real, you could tell a couple of looks in the camera like, I have done with this.

I don't want to act this way anymore.

there's another one there's another picture of him with the beard like what the fuck did he like live outside for a year yeah he's very red he's very red and his he's too close to the camera obviously but he can't help that but my theory is that and listen he's got a beautiful wife who I think probably maybe is making him do

yeah I don't know we don't know that for sure he's got a he's got a younger he's got a younger wife who sometimes you'll hear off camera, and it's just like it makes me uncomfortable to hear.

I'm not going to lie, because I start thinking about Grease Men having sex or whatever.

Do you think his wife's parents were even born when he was doing that audition?

Like, God,

I know we talked about it during October, but I just like, think about like the first Thanksgiving.

Yeah,

like you're the dad, you bring home.

This is my uh, this is my boyfriend, the Grease Man.

Your daughter's like, I've met a great guy.

What's his name?

He's a little bit older.

You'll love him.

He comes in doing his bits, too.

Like, he does.

Because it seems like he's always doing his bits.

Yeah, and unfortunately, Felix, we have to let you know that unfortunately, Man Cow

claims to have had a disfiguring.

A face disfigurement.

A face disfigurement.

And so he's unable to do his show anymore due to a facial disfigurement.

What the fuck?

What the fuck happened to him?

He won't explain it.

He won't explain it.

He posts pictures of himself all the time.

And he also was recently on a podcast with 77 subscribers and looked completely normal.

He was totally normal, but we don't know if he got, anyways, the last we heard there.

Yeah, the reason he stopped the show is because of a serious facial disfigurement and had nothing to do with any kind of like viewership.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Him and

he did the he didn't do the math and go, oh, I'm making 31 cents an episode.

Yeah,

that's the same thing with OP has now bought

followers.

He's finally bought followers, but it makes it look worse

because he's nobody's watching the video.

He's still, everyone was making fun of him.

And I felt bad for him, I'll be honest.

Everybody in our chat was making fun of him because he did a live stream and it had four views on it.

Fuck me.

Oh my god.

Do you think, Do you think like I've always had this idea that I've wanted to do like a version, a content version of Kitchen Nightmares?

Oh, yeah.

Where you find like a formerly

successful guy in this situation.

And you, I don't think Opie would participate, though, even though he's like the one I would want to do the most.

He'd be the best.

He'd be the best subject for sure for it because he wants it the most.

He wants it the most.

He's the least.

He has the least ability to get it and he wants it the most.

I'll say that the solution, though, is his solution in the end is 100% just take

a $50,000 a year job.

Like, that's if he wants to be on the radio, that's probably what Anthony's making on WABC.

And that's what you, that's it.

Yeah, so he has 150,000 subscribers now.

And his last four videos are 91 views, 119 views, 21 views, and then 86 views.

So So I think he bought followers.

Do you think it would even...

That's the other question.

I think there is a path for a lot.

Man, how I think there is kind of a path to make him successful, weirdly enough.

With Opie, is there even...

No.

Could we do it?

No, he has the least, he's the least marketable of any of the people we talk to.

Even like the Grease Man would have a better chance of getting back into the spotlight and back onto the top.

He's not funny at all.

He literally brings nothing.

Like the other guys were like, Grease Man, horrible, despicable human being, obviously, but he's very charismatic.

And, you know, he was like, he, he ran his show.

He had he had those people then.

Opie never had that on his own, ever.

And Opie is also like,

he has the opposite of an eye for talent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean,

he encounters random people, and he's like, this guy, oh, this guy's going to be a big hit.

And it's like

the most, like, the worst, most like alienating, shitty, charisma void, insane person.

Oh,

we know.

We used to watch his live streams that he would do where he would, what was the guy that he brought on to talk about like ticks or something?

Oh, my God.

Felix, people left.

People left in droves.

Like, we, like, even our viewers,

our viewers could not handle it.

180 people left.

Like, it was just so fucking.

I loved it because it was the most boring conversation I've ever heard two people have.

I love it too.

You've never heard anything more boring than this.

But that speaks so much to what Felix is saying that, like, he just, like, he sees this guy.

He's like, holy shit, this shit is fucking incredible.

Like, we gotta, like, people gotta hear this.

And it's like the actual most boring guy you've ever heard in your life it's amazing like he did radio for like 40 years and he has the opposite of an instinct for like what people want to hear he's not a funny guy it just and it sucks because like listen i'm sure he was

great

at playing music on the radio You know what I mean?

Like, like just being the guy who, who, oh, he plays, he plays like Pearl Jam and he says, up next, we have more Pearl Jam or whatever.

Yeah, he's a board op.

They always used to say that he's a board op.

Like, he was a good board op who could do all the technical stuff.

He could hit the post or whatever.

He could do all of that stuff.

He just, yeah, he doesn't have that.

But he got lucky and he found, he found a guy.

He found a guy.

He found, he said, a racist pedophile, strolled into his life.

He was a racist pedophile and saved him.

Absolutely saved him.

It's so awesome that he's the one guy where you're like,

yeah, I mean, like, career-wise, you should have reunited with that racist pedophile.

Yeah, honestly, it would be like if you really cared about your family, you would have reunited with the racist pedophile.

Is there anyone else on earth you can say that about?

That's right.

He is the lead.

He'll never make it again, ever.

There's no chance.

Nothing could ever happen.

Like, yeah, Bubba, he could, like, any of these people, they probably had a run.

But I could get Bubba.

I could see these guys.

Yeah, I could see any of these guys, guys, you know, for whatever reason.

But oh, yeah, your opioid could never in a million years see a world where that happens.

I mean, if he was

here, if he did, not now, because he looks old as anything.

Oh, yeah, he looks really old.

He looks like an older lady now, Felix.

But if there's nothing worse, like the worst

aging you could get is as like a blonde, Aryan radio guy.

Him and Greaseman.

Like, holy shit.

Yeah.

If he, it, it, if he was younger and he really worked at it, I think that there is a chance he could have had Ryan Seacrest's job.

Like, that is his, his skill.

Ryan Seacrest had something, man.

That's disrespectful to Seacrest.

We don't like Seacrest, but he had something, you know.

But his skill, that is his skill.

You know what I mean?

Seacrest.

Yeah, I understand, but I think he's not likable.

Seacrest is likable.

Like, people like Seacrest, and I don't think Opie is a likable likable guy at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I hate him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I, I mean, this would be like the monkey spot thing.

I think the only way he could, like, make some,

like, even the semblance of what he used to make and have a semblance of his old profile

is, like, as a sort of, like,

a

self-aware lol cow, for lack of a better term.

Like, he, like, like, world of t-shirt hanging out with the world of t-shirts and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because people could like the thing that makes him compelling to us, I think you could make apparent to other people.

I don't know that like most people

or even like anyone would find him as compelling as we do.

No, I don't know that there are no, there's not three people on earth that enjoy discussing OP more than us.

I think every single episode you've ever been on, it ends with us discussing Opie at length.

It's because of the money.

It's because, not the money, it's because of just

it's there's no other thing.

There's no other guy that was in the

rarefied air, the number two of a genre

of radio and

all over the country, too.

I mean, nobody, the only person higher up than them in that genre is Howard Stern, which nobody's going to ever touch him.

And now,

I mean, he gets 91 views and he bought a hundred and fifty thousand

like followers on like it's like even fucking Bubba the Love Sponge has the

the documentary that he's running around talking about the three hour and ten minute documentary and like he has the Hulk Hogan thing and stuff like that there should be an OP documentary though like that's what you're I'm talking about like that idea that I guess he can't really do it because the documentary needs to have some sort of redemption or something for it to be like you know and he has it it just sort of peters out but it is compelling that idea we talk about it a lot that idea of somebody who yeah was at the essentially close to the top of the mountain and now refuses to give up and is so so low like is lower than like people who are doing like a review of food in their car or whatever like you know like a child doing that is like now below them on the rankings of entertainers yeah oh my god that is an ob documentary is such a fucking great idea yeah But it's again, like you would have to

you would almost have to like do something elite.

You would have to do like what they do in

fuck

one of my favorite movies, Bofanger.

And like make a make a documentary he's not aware is being filmed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because you want to hear him saying, you want to hear, I want to hear what he really fucking thinks is going on.

I don't know if you'll ever hear it.

And I think he's also probably relatively delusional.

I just don't think a guy that was on the level he was on can fathom how low he's falling.

Yeah, I don't think he can fully accept it.

I don't think he can even comprehend it.

Yeah, I, I, he's, I believe, yeah, he's one of the luckiest guys ever to do it in the sense of like

having no talent whatsoever and becoming so big.

Yeah.

Yes.

I, I, I think, like, if he had any concept of how far he's fallen that he could at least consciously acknowledge, he would have given this up a long time ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He would have said he had a disfiguring accident, just like Mankow.

Yeah, he would have done the honorable thing and he would have said that he had a facial disfigurement.

Mankow is so awesome.

He'll always lie for you.

He's always got to lie for you, you know?

I think like...

Out of all of our guys,

the one, if I had to, none of them are ever going to

like be back on top but like if i had to put money on one

i would primarily say bubba because bubba is like a cop yeah like

yeah he's

i could easily see a

timeline maybe our own timeline where bubba is a senator

number two is probably man cow because he's like He's such a piece of shit.

Like, he's not as like tenacious as Bubba, but he's, he's, he's like,

he's more on the sliding scale, he's more of a piece of shit than delusional.

Um, though he is delusional, Opie, too delusional, too insane, has too little to offer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Bubba had his little moment with Hulk Hogan dying.

So, oh, yeah,

you should have, you should have, you should have been there for that, Felix.

He was all over it.

He was saying some insane shit, doing whole shows.

He talked to

Hulk Hogan's daughter.

Yeah.

He

milked it so much.

And now he's doing a political show, I think, too.

Like he has a political podcast, which I'm going to look into.

Well, yeah, I think that I personally, I think he's doing really well.

The blind

attorney with swords hanging up behind him that I used to prank call Jim Lockwood.

I spoke to him recently and he told me that he is starting a show on Bubba's network.

So yeah, everyone who said Bubba's done, I think not.

Bubba will never be dog till dies.

No, until he dies.

You cannot get rid of a guy like that.

He can't die.

All right.

Well, we'll see you all next week.

Have a good evening.

Bye.

What?

An evening.

I don't know why I said have a good evening.

You know what?

Fine.

Bye.