55: The Geekenders: What is a Cult Anyway?

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Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekiners are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one geek podcast Without a doubt, yo, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid, I know that you all beat.

So take a second, grab a drink, and vibe.

While we catch you up in just a matter of time on gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

If you're nerdy like us, then you know you should tune in.

Thank you for sharing our world with us.

Now follow, subscribe, and turn this up.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow, number one, geek

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Geekenders, a special holiday Geek Enders.

You wouldn't know it by how we're looking today,

but rest assured, the holiday vibes are upon us.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, right?

They sure are, all right.

yep,

they're oh, yes, ho, ho, ho, you were just saying it was snow, weren't you?

Isn't it true?

And I literally just wore a uh greedy Pokemon Christmas sweater, which I was convinced was

I did.

I wore it at the show and I had a Santa hat.

No, you on our show.

Oh, it's dirty.

Oh, man.

Oh, it's dirty.

Okay.

Not really, it's actually.

That thing will never be clean, says Jesse.

It's at home.

It's at home.

It's at home.

I was going to take it.

I didn't know if I should wash it or take it to a dry cleaner because I don't know what.

It's like a knitted thing.

I got it from the Pokemon store.

It's very nice.

I don't know what to do with it.

So it's sitting in a hamper.

It's sitting in a hamper in my old apartment as I slowly have to move out over the next

eight days, no, nine days into my new place.

So how far into the process are you?

I am completely not in.

Not a single piece of Jessup is in there yet?

No, I

got the new apartment has been acquired, and that was the 17th.

I left the 18th, got back yesterday, and now I'm here with you.

So I'm going to go start taking stuff over a little later today.

But I also really want to stream

because I haven't streamed in a while and I'm adding choices.

Sure.

Yeah.

How else is your battery going to get charged, you know?

Yeah, I need to vampire your energy so that I feel good as a person.

Otherwise, downward spiral.

And I'll be like, I have no worth.

My life is pointless unless you donate now.

Oh, God.

Unless you donate now.

Stupid.

Yeah, I'm also got to do a bunch of stuff.

So I'm not even remotely started.

However, I

in the old place I'm boxed.

I have boxes and stuff done.

That's good.

And the show went good?

And Chicago?

Yeah, good time.

Everyone had a great time.

I was passed out on stage, laughing so hard at one point.

So

feeling good.

Had a good, good time.

All that was recorded.

I know.

The Cox and Crendor one will be up at some point today.

And then

the Chiluminati one, I don't know what to tell you.

Now, could we have done a Jesse, like a Jesse Cox extravaganza and had Dodger out?

Sure.

Would Dodger have come?

No.

But here's the thing:

plan early enough.

Could have happened.

Yeah.

Plan early enough.

I'll be like, oh my God, I have to go on a plane by myself and hang out with good friends and then get on another plane all by myself.

Part of me really wishes.

Part of me really wishes Clark was just standing in the doorway when you said that.

Shadow over her.

Mother!

Mommy, what do you mean?

Do not enjoy my company.

Like

nasty poetry.

Mother!

Mother!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so that was lovely.

And now I'm back, baby.

Nice.

We did go to...

I don't know how far you are in Final Fantasy XIV.

So I don't know how this tracks with you.

Sure.

But one night we went to a Mexican restaurant.

And while we were there, Alex, because Alex is Alex, ordered some kind of wacky dish that I'd never seen before.

And when he said the name,

it literally was the dish you make.

In Final Fantasy 14 in order to like, yeah, yeah.

And he's like, give me that bibil.

And I'm like,

and so I had to explain.

Yeah, I had to explain to an entire table why I knew what that was.

I was like,

okay,

so

in a video game, I think I just did that quest like two weeks ago, something like that.

So, yeah, recent, but sounds like I'm on track for goofs.

As long as I can follow the goofs, I'm good, you know.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that was, that was the thing.

I didn't know that's how that, I didn't, I honestly, I didn't expect to ever have that encounter in real life.

I was like, oh,

you ordered it.

That's amazing.

Okay.

Oh my God.

I've gotten to the point as a side note.

I've gotten to the point where anytime there's a video where somebody is eating Mexican food, even if the video sucks, I will watch it just to watch them eat Mexican food.

It's such a mess.

I'm just like, I wish I was there so bad.

I want you to know that I mean this as a friend.

Yeah.

I'm going to just go get Mexican and just message you videos.

Do you record it?

I'll be like,

it looks great, buddy.

Oh, my God.

That'll either A, make you more jealous or absolutely cure you.

One of those.

It depends.

Yeah, I guess it depends on how you eat it, right?

Can you make it look disgusting to me?

So I'm like, actually, I'm good.

Oh, Lord, graw, it's delicious.

Yeah, yeah.

And I do full ASMR with it.

I'd be like,

oh, my God.

You would not, you would not be, I would cure you.

Possibly.

Oh,

or you'd be like, oh, God, I need Mexican more than ever.

Who knows?

Who knows what the punch is mine will do?

We won't know.

mama needs her verde yeah

so true

there's a guy on tick tock who um he's he's part of like a construction team i think and every time they take their lunches he goes to every single person who works with him and is like what'd you bring for lunch today

oh my god the mexican lunches look so good like it's a i am a mess like i it looks so good this dude just had cold chili verde in a in a little container and and I was like, fuck!

Send it to me!

Yeah,

we need more Mexican food out here, but would it be good?

That's the thing.

Would it be good?

It wouldn't be the same.

If you want to go back for it to be the same, I don't know.

Like, can't there be like an exchange program with Mexico?

Like, Mexico!

Do you have some of your finest chefs?

And we should deliver you some of ours.

And Mexico is like, nah.

No, thank you.

Yeah.

Although, the trade would probably be amazing because the UK chefs would come back and be like, oh my God, I really know how to use spices now.

Were you aware that we can stick spices in food?

I've learned how to make quite the flavor bomb.

Turns out there's other options besides boiling.

I was like, sorry to our English viewers, but the goof about you having bland food is real.

It's real.

It's unfortunate.

That's not to say there isn't great food in England.

No, of course.

There's white food in England.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's okay.

You can roast us.

Americans have fatty food.

We get it.

It's fine.

It's chill.

And it's delicious.

We'll give you a turn.

It's your turn.

Boy, do we suck.

We're terrible.

All right.

See?

Look at us.

Tell me, Howard.

Universal Brotherhood.

Let's all shake hands.

Well, while you were doing a beautiful show out in Chicago with friendos,

I was going ice skating for the first time in eight years.

And I was fairly certain that I was going to eat shit, but I actually did okay.

And more surprisingly, My kid didn't fall once, question mark.

And I'm convinced it's because she's been roller skating so much.

There has to be crossover information there because we were so worried that the kids were going to fall and she never fell.

She just got out there and skated.

And I was like, what is this?

Did I make a Prodigy ice skater?

Or is it the roller skating?

I feel like it has to be the roller skating.

Or

Prodigy Ice Skater.

And you should be.

Or she's meant to be a hockey player.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Or

lower center of gravity.

Could be any of those.

I had never seen, have you seen these little things?

Not that I go ice skating very often.

Clearly, as I just established, I haven't been in like eight years.

Well, of course, yes.

I guess at a lot of them, they have little things that kids or adults can hold on to while they're skating to help them like balance and stay upright.

So at this place, it was dolphins.

They were these little plastic dolphins with sleds on the bottom, and you could

ski around holding onto a dolphin.

And so we got a dolphin for each of the kids.

There were three kids.

One of them, also on top, you, there's a spot for the kid to sit on top of the dolphin.

So they can either be pushing the dolphin or they can just sit on it.

If they're like, I'm tired, I don't want to skate anymore.

Right.

Great.

So we got three of them.

One kid immediately was like, I'm not into this.

I'm just going to sit.

One of them wanted to push it, but didn't want to push it alone, needed to be pushing it with an adult.

So they were like bumping into each other and going very slow.

It was sweet though.

And then my kid got out there with the dolphin and immediately was like, I don't need this and just pushed it off

off into the middle of the rink and just skied away.

And I was like, wait.

Wait, that's a rental.

Wait, that's a rental, Clark.

So it was chaos.

It was carnage, but it was very fun.

I fell once.

I fell once and my feet hurt really bad.

So that was my experience.

What was your reason for your fall?

Did you just slip?

I almost ran into a person and it felt like either I was going to run into them or I was going to fall.

And I decided falling was better.

Who was the other person?

I don't know.

He was a very tall, younger gentleman.

Oh, you should have hit him.

Younger than me, I think.

No, but

he had such a sweet, sad face.

Yes.

He'd be like, I'm so sorry.

He was trying so.

I'm so sorry.

He was trying so hard, and I really didn't want to bump into him because I could tell that he was really concentrating.

And I was like,

I don't want to ruin what he's got going on here, you know?

So

I just fell.

Yeah, but when you hit him, he'll learn the lesson to speed it up.

But you took the fall, so you hurt yourself.

It's fine.

You're a parent.

You have to be around for that child.

You have to prioritize that you could have fallen, broken your coccyx.

You'd be down.

You'd be done.

Don't break my butt.

Not on Christmas.

You would have broke your butt.

And then Clark would have been like, one of my first Christmas memories is when my mama broke her butt.

And every time I think of Christmas, I think of my mommy's broken butt.

That would be an incredible Christmas memory, though.

You'd bring that up every single Christmas, right?

Like, surely.

Oh, yeah.

I'd send you cards every year that were like, how's that button?

How's your butt?

Absolutely.

Not really the card I meant to send, but that's the one you got.

Well, how's that?

But also, it would, I would have a terrible track record then because two years ago is when I sliced a big chunk off of my finger while trying to like make food for Christmas.

So, like, what is it about Christmas that is so unfortunate for me?

You know,

you're stressed.

It's probably that.

That's it.

You got a new one.

That was crazy.

Oh,

is that a

Crendor mug?

It is.

Look at this little guy.

Look at him.

He's spilling his coffee.

He is.

Well, he's doing his best.

He's doing his best.

What a goober.

What a goober.

Can I ask you about something?

I don't know if you've done this recently, but I'm very curious what chat thinks.

Yeah, what's up?

Have you been to an arcade lately?

No.

Like a game arcade.

No, I haven't.

Yes.

Obviously, in the early 2000s-ish era, they started to fall off.

Even in the 90s, because of home consoles and things like that, they started to fall off.

But for a while, places like Dave and Busters and things like that existed as sort of this last

round one, this last vestige of,

yeah, an arcade.

That's fun.

Let's go.

I was at an arcade this past week.

It is like a kid's casino.

I don't know what has changed.

I don't know what's going on.

It's tripping me out and I did not like it

at all.

What's the situation?

Describe to me.

So microtransactions in the arcade games?

I mean, from the world of microtransactions, like microtransaction adjacent.

So everything

is

like either okay there i we can break it like there's a categorical system to break it down into okay where it's like some games are mobile games ported from a phone to giant screens and then you just play those okay and you win tickets for playing them and we're talking all the mobile game classics Flappy bird.

I was just about to say Flappy Bird and I was like, does that make me sound old?

And then you said Flappy Bird and now I know

Flappy Bird, all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, so there's that.

And

I don't want to play a mobile game on a giant screen ever.

So that's a thing.

Then they have ones that are basically like games of skill, which arcades always used to have, but now they're

things like a line is moving back and forth.

And if you stop it at the right time, you'll win a prize.

And if you don't, you get nothing, hater.

So it's people sitting there like,

right?

And then, all right, game over.

I'm like, oh, cool, cool.

Or it's games that are barely games where it's a, it's a ride.

So you'll sit in a thing or you'll lay in a thing, you put in the money, and then it's like, woo, I'm on a roller coaster.

And then it ends up.

Oh, right.

Yes.

I'm like, well, that's...

fun, but it's not a game.

And there's all, it's like, that's the entire thing is things that i think are fun amusements but they're not it's not like an arcade and the crazy thing is the ones that do have retro games they're like

dude they're free play them but the ones that don't are the ones that that don't have them or have other games they're like

yeah um

it's like a dollar to play this i'm like what do you mean it's a dollar to sit in your crappy ride for 35 seconds right Yeah, they have that fruit ninja game where you slash the fruit ninja.

I don't know, man.

It's not, it's tripping me out.

I was not.

I mean, I guess like

it's just the result of games being at everyone's fingertips, right?

Yeah.

I mean, yes.

It's weird, though, that it's

like

the prizes haven't changed.

So when we were younger, you'd go and you do all these stupid games like ski ball or the basketball one or whatever if you were trying to get prizes.

And then you go and the prizes would be like, for 50 tickets, you get an eraser.

For 12 million tickets, you get a PlayStation 1.

You're like, wow.

One day I'll get 12 million tickets.

I used to have a lot of people.

And the only arcade that I consistently went to, I went to only in the summers.

And I would have my aunt literally keep my tickets from one summer to the next because I was like, one day I'm going to be able to get that console.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

And that's, it's like a,

I don't, I, I, hold on.

I wrote down another game that I saw and it blew my mind.

Okay.

Oh, they Pac-Man.

It's not Pac-Man.

It's like the mobile game equivalent of Pac-Man that earns you tickets.

Okay.

And I was like,

I just.

Do the kids even like Pac-Man?

I just want to play normal Pac-Man.

Yeah.

I don't even want to play normal Pac-Man.

I don't even like playing normal Pac-Man.

I suck at it.

I was just like,

what the hell is

this?

You know,

I saw someone in the chat say racing and rhythm games.

I didn't see one rhythm game at all.

I saw a bunch of racing games.

It was like, but it was weird because

it was like a Mario Kart.

You know what I mean?

Like, it wasn't a need for speed.

It was Mario Kart was one of the racing games.

And one of the ticket games was Luigi's Mansion

and as you played it

you got tickets hmm I don't know the um

there there were no if you're saying Jesse were there like dance games

maybe

I didn't I didn't see der

anywhere um

but yeah when it comes to like hitting the drum game Or there was a game that you and I played Dodger where it was like we were on a boat and we had to sink our attacks up to

not, that wasn't even there.

I don't know, man.

I don't know.

It's hard to say, right?

If like the arcade you went to just sucked.

But I do wonder, I feel like this is kind of on the same tree as

comic book shops having to figure out like,

how do we integrate?

Yeah.

So a lot of comic book shops will now have like

Magic of the Gathering nights or like, you know,

sketching days where people just come and draw together and, you know, stuff like that.

And I wonder

if there's stuff aside from

for an arcade to say, okay, well, how do, how do I appeal to these kids, right?

Yeah.

Like aside from just making everything

more like a mobile game or act more like a mobile game, like what, what are alternatives to garner more interest in going back to arcades?

I mean, I will say that a lot of people in chat are saying, like, what about this place?

This place.

I'm talking specifically arcade, not barcade or retro arcade.

I'm talking like modern day arcades.

Not like the place down the street that's at bar, but then they just have like 50 old cabinets.

That's not what I'm referring to.

Those places slap.

They always will.

No, I'm not going to fight you there.

But also because they're catering towards an older audience who probably like me has zero tolerance for like, I get to play Flappy Birds of the Arcade.

Like, that's stupid.

But, like, an arcade arcade, it was just a weird vibe.

I was like,

I don't like this at all.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know why.

And, like, I think you're right.

It's probably the same reason that bookstores have coffee shops in them now, you know?

Like, it's asked me more than what it is.

And I get it.

It's just.

I'm clearly, I've aged out of what that is, I think.

And it's like, yeah, okay.

I need to go to places where they're serving alcohol because clearly those are the the older games.

And

yeah, like, okay.

Because like, sometimes you want to go back and you want to be like, dude, I want to play that X-Men four-player game or the Simpsons four-player game.

Yeah.

Old school.

Those are great.

They took your money.

Didn't matter.

The Alien versus Predator one, you're like, yeah, if I just keep pumping in quarters, I'm going to win.

And you would.

Yeah.

That's great.

Yeah, that's weird.

I don't, I don't really know.

Like, if I, if I was sitting around being like,

I want to open an arcade in the year of our Lord 2025, right?

I would probably make it more of like a nostalgia bait barcade.

That seems like it would make the most sense

to appeal to what I would want out of an arcade and also like actually make money on it, you know?

Yeah.

I don't know what the modern arcade,

like how you make profit system would be, you know?

Although, to be honest, I'm not sure I knew what the old one was.

It seems like a lot of them went under real quick when consoles started popping up.

So I'm not sure.

They're probably pulling very slim margins.

I have no idea.

Yeah.

I know that.

So like, so my kid watched a video that was about

like how in Japan, there are arcades that are literally just gacha machines.

The whole thing is just gacha machines, right?

Yes.

And she was like, that sounds so cool.

I want to go do that.

And I was like, that sounds terrible.

That sounds awful, right?

That's literally a building filled with loot boxes.

Has Clark expressed why that is awesome?

I mean, I think.

I think the same reason that gachas appeal to anybody, right, is the like she loves

anytime she does something to get a pound coin, she's immediately like, I can't wait to use this next time we go to the grocery store.

And she gets one of those little, one of those weird little baubles and she opens it up and she's so excited to find out what she got.

And I think that that just pings something

in our brains, you know.

I mean, that's why people watched all those boxing or unboxings of

countless cards for any card game.

They're like, yep, today I'm doing 500 pack openings.

It's like, okay.

People are like, I never understood cards, but I do love watching.

There are companies that make those like really high quality, like limited small figurines

that are like themed, you know.

I love watching videos where people are like, I just got an entire box of those.

Let's open them and see if we get the shiny.

You know, let's see if we get the special like one in a million.

Sure.

And I just like it because

like,

cool figurines appeal to me more than cards, but at the end of the day, it's the same shit, right?

You're still like getting stuff and being like, I have no idea what's in here.

So,

yeah, I'm, I, my problem is, I know what I want, and it, and I feel like, I'm not going to get it, so why bother?

They're just going to give me the one that I don't want, and I'm going to end up with the one I don't want.

And what am I going to do with that?

Throw it away.

What a waste of money.

So, that's, I just don't do it.

But

I like the concept.

I'm not, I'm not a like gotcha hater.

I like the concept of like, oh, I pulled a extra rare glorpus.

Like, yeah.

I think,

you know, we do have to acknowledge there are different sorts of brains in that situation.

There's the sort of brain that is going to be like, ooh, I got the thing.

And immediately their brain's like, do it again.

Do it again.

Do it again.

Right.

whereas i know for me and i think for you as well we're able to go oh i got the thing

i'm good right

i've i've had to be i've done a lot like over the years i've done a lot of like

you know when i go to conventions or whatever i get caught up in that hype of like i want that shirt i need that thing right and then i get it i'm like why the hell did i get this like the minutes afterwards that's commercial fomo that's not your fault that's marketing

Yeah.

You know.

And so I've had to really fight that part of myself.

So often I'll see a thing, really want it, get all the way to the checkout and be like, no,

no,

no.

And then I'll, I'll, I'll not buy it.

I will, I will pull away at the last minute, but then I'll get 15 emails for the next three days being like, Your cart's still available if you want to buy it.

Like, leave me alone, you horse.

No!

If you're ever at a thing,

I've talked about this before.

I don't know if I've talked about it on Geek Enders, but this is something I do for me and my kid.

If we're ever at a place and one of us is like, man, I really want that thing.

And you know in the moment, like, this is an impulsive decision.

If you take a picture of it, there's a weird thing that happens where you feel like you claimed some small ownership of it.

And you say to yourself, I'm going to take a picture of this so I don't forget about it so that later, so that I can come back to it if I really want it.

You never do.

Almost never are you like, man, I got to go back and find that picture of that thing.

Most of the time, you do not give a shit.

You're fine with just the picture, just having taken the picture and giving your brain that ease of like, if I need to find this again, I can, because I know exactly what it looks like.

I have a picture, right?

This works on me.

This works on my six-year-old.

It's great.

It works really well.

You remind me of the fact that there's one time I should have taken a picture because I really wanted it, yeah, like, and maybe it would have convinced me not to get it, but now I think about it all the time, and I really want it, and I don't know how to get it anymore because I didn't take a picture because I don't know where to get it at.

But it was a shirt that had like a bootleg Godzilla on it, and underneath it had just the goofiest text in,

I guess, some sort of broken kanji.

I don't know what it was, but it said like, Mr.

Gyoza Man.

And underneath that, it said, like, killed 26 million wizards.

And underneath that, it said, like, bad boy for life.

And it was just a bunch of like phrases.

And it was so funny.

And I was like, yo, I want that so badly.

It might have been one of the stupidest shirts I've ever seen.

I was like, that's hilarious.

That sounds amazing.

You should just get that shirt made.

Just make that shirt.

Oh, it's already made, and and it's already better than i can imagine

yeah it's like it literally says kill

it says it says it's that's like kill and then a ludicrous number and then wizards and i'm like what what does that mean

i just want to wear that shirt around town and people are gonna be like what does that mean i'll be like i don't know i have no clue that's amazing yeah there's a shirt that i used to have i can't remember exactly what it said it said something like baby boy on it and it was all blue blue.

And then it had, it was, it was one of those sorts of shirts where you're like, this got translated weird, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I have no idea where that shirt went, but I think about that shirt all the time.

And it's, it's the same sort of situation where I'm like, if I needed to go find that shirt, I don't think I could.

I think this is just a weird shirt that existed for a flash of time and now it's gone forever, you know?

I genuinely realized,

I think I mentioned this, but if I didn't, I'll really quickly say it again.

I got a record of one of my favorite bands.

It was a a live album.

I was very excited, except when I went to go play it, I couldn't find it.

And I was like, huh,

I recall buying this.

Went online, went to my email, there's the receipt.

I was like, oh, now, mind you, I bought it exactly one year before and maybe listened to it one time in my mind.

Yeah.

In my mind, I listened to it.

I was like, well, the album I got came with a t-shirt.

Surely, if I can find the t-shirt, I can find the album.

So I went to go look through my stuff.

Now, here's the thing.

I have spent years whittling down all the things I own to the point where I have roughly,

at this point, 12 t-shirts total.

It used to be seven.

I was very pleased, but I was told I need more because I can't just wash my clothes.

Whatever, people of earth judging me.

Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This shirt's so old and defunct.

Look at this.

You can't even tell what this is.

I wear shirts like that, though.

When you've worn it so much that you're like, what even was this shirt?

That's where I'm at.

I'm like, look, I just, I'm getting rid of stuff because I got too much crap.

So in my mind, I'm like, well, surely I'll find this shirt.

I dug through

everything.

No shirt.

Couldn't find it.

Absolutely.

No idea where that shirt went, which to me said, I never got that shirt.

So I somehow bought a thing that never arrived.

So I emailed them like, sorry, that thing sold out.

We We don't even have it anymore.

I'm like,

here's the thing.

I didn't, none of that clicked for a full year.

Right.

Which then sent me down another downward spot of like, I have too much stuff.

I don't even know where I stopped buying that.

I buy it then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so now I'm like, while I'm moving, I'm just, nope, don't need this.

Don't need this.

Don't need this.

Don't, I'm going to have even less stuff.

This is going to be a problem.

There's going to be a moment where someone comes over to my house house and is like,

you live like this?

I'm going to be that photo of the one chair and the TV and the console and nothing else.

And people are going to be like, look at this man life over here.

And I'm like, it's what I need.

You can go

too far the opposite way.

You can go too fast.

I can't.

I can't.

I talk pretty openly about being from a hoarder family, and I try to get rid of stuff consistently because I just refuse to be like that.

But I don't see a point where I could ever be like, and now I've just got furniture and I'm happy with that.

I think I need, I need a bit of just like

tchotchki, you know?

Like, I just need, I need a little bit of stuff around.

I'm fine with stuff.

I think I'm at the point where if I'm not thinking about that thing,

then it doesn't matter to me clearly.

So,

I'm going to get rid of the stuff I don't think about at all.

And the things that are up and hanging and whatever, those are the things I love, and those are the things I'll keep.

But everything else, it's like, nah, which is a totally legitimate way to go through stuff, right?

To be like, when's the last time I gave a shit about this?

Never

done it.

It shouldn't be in my life, right?

Right.

Yeah.

And that's, I mean, and the problem is, is that I,

I just, every time I think, oh my God, yeah, like, I need this and I need this.

I need to keep this because I love this.

And then a year will go by and I won't think about it at all.

And I'll be like, why'd I keep that?

What was the point of that?

But maybe I need, you know, like, but maybe.

And so, yeah.

You know, hilarious, though, you know how like there's the TV stand?

And I don't like the TV stand, you put all your crap.

I've divested, well, you know, like DVDs or whatever, Blu-ray or whatever, you know, like the cable box.

I've divested of so much stuff.

I don't have a cable box anymore.

I own no Blu-rays, no DVDs, no nothing.

My console situation is here at the office.

So, like,

for the last couple months at home, I had a TV stand with nothing.

And I was like, well, do I need the TV stand?

Clearly, I do for the TV, but like, yeah.

Do I need,

do I need it?

So that's where I'm mentally collapsing into myself where I'm like, I'm not even, there's nothing even in it.

Why would I need this?

Yeah.

But the TV has to go somewhere, but maybe you can go on the floor.

I'm like, no, Jesse, don't be that guy.

We're not going back to college.

We're not doing this.

I feel like I oscillate wildly between feeling like I do not have enough storage and feeling like I have too much storage.

Like I'll stumble onto areas where I'm like, why is there nothing in here?

Do I have, like, what's what is happening here?

Am I not making use of this space?

Or, or like, what's what's happening here?

And I think there is a skill involved in being able to identify, like,

like, in order for things to suit my lifestyle, what should be going where?

What, what makes sense where, right?

And like, maybe for you.

Assuming you keep the TV stand and don't regress to college, maybe,

maybe for you, it could be like, oh, I'll keep like a spare blanket in here if I want to like curl up on the couch, right?

Like, what things do I use in the living room that you wouldn't immediately think should go in that thing, right?

But are things that I would use in the living room area.

I don't know.

I just realized how genuinely crazy I am.

I have, when you said blanket, I was like, for some reason in my life, I get rid of everything

that I have.

16 blankets.

I have so many blankets.

I have a ludicrous number of blankets and I justify every one of them.

I'm like, I can eat those at any time.

I have a place to put them.

Yeah, I'm like, I got so many blankets.

I have,

I love a good blanket, and I can't help it.

I even made blankets.

I can't help.

I'm like, well, I got to have that one.

I love that.

Yeah.

I have a friend who...

Her like version of holiday decorating is swapping out blankets.

So she has like Halloween blankets, Christmas blankets, right?

So depending on the season, she just puts out blankets and is like, that's it.

That's my decor.

Like, I love that.

I have, like, and it's weird too, because I have ones that are also just branded because they were sent to me.

People ask me, I didn't just buy blankets.

Apparently, companies just send you blankets.

I'm like, yo, that blanket's awesome.

So I have a bunch of blank, like, I have a very nice, like, winter YouTube one that I got years ago.

Or the one that Twitch sent to like people years back.

I have one from Horizon Forbidden West.

Like, I'm not getting rid of that.

Yeah.

I'm not getting rid of that.

I got one that is like from 1980 something that's like, you know, my grandmother had.

I had one that's from the college I went to.

I have a

blankets.

I have a college blanket too, and I keep thinking about getting rid of it because I'm like, I almost never use this.

It's literally just a nostalgia like, oh, it's my college.

But like, I don't use it.

I feel like I should just get rid of it.

My college blanket literally says buildings from the campus it's not cool it's it's literally just like that's cute though that's better than mine just says woo w-o-u on it that's it

it's a gray blanket that says woo

yeah no this is i got a bunch like

then i realized that i've spent the last i don't know x number of weeks thinking about how My couch is too big.

I should get rid of my couch and just get like a smaller.

I've had this couch for 10 years, like 15 years.

I should get a smaller couch.

There's no reason to have such a big couch.

What am I going to do with all the blankets?

I'm just like, what is, I have no plan in my madness.

I'm like, well, just get a smaller couch.

Right now, my couch is so big because I have all these blankets all over the couch for easy access.

Now I'm like, well, scrap the couch.

What the hell am I going to do?

Like, what was I thinking?

You put in a TV stand.

God,

problems.

I don't so stupid.

No, you can, you can do that like fancy mom thing where you take each of them and you like tightly roll them up and then you put them in in like a decorative basket next to the couch.

Now, here's the thing.

I could, then I have to buy a decorative basket.

Frankly, I don't know that that's what I want.

And he's not going to.

No, no, I won't.

The Jesse in our house is Clark when it comes to blankets.

Hell yeah.

Anytime somebody's like, happy birthday, Clark.

We weren't sure what to get you.

Here's some money.

She's like, I'm going to get me a blanket.

And I'm like, another one?

Always.

Always.

We now have three Christmas blankets that are just Clark's that she has insisted on using her money on.

They're great blankets, very comfy.

But she has a lot of blankets.

She just likes to nest.

Maybe you're a nester.

You just like to nest.

No.

Not nest mentally as in, like, I want to be home all the time.

I want, you know, like,

just you like, you like the comfort.

You like things that bring you like physical comfort, maybe.

I actually don't ever use the blankets.

Stop this.

They're just there.

And then

when people come over, they'll use the blankets.

And I like having options for people, but I don't

actually

use them.

Line them up.

Line them up.

Okay.

Fold them all.

Line them up.

And then put them in order from love this blanket the most to don't give a shit about this blanket.

Put them in order and then decide for yourself how many blankets should I have as a person who doesn't use blankets?

I don't know what to tell you.

I don't actually use them.

You have more blankets than t-shirts, buddy, and you don't use them.

I know.

I'm aware.

But other people use them and like to stay warm.

And so

it's there.

For people who want them on my big couch that I won't have anymore.

I'm a mess.

It's a very comfy couch.

Where are people going to sleep when they come visit you now?

Oh, with me.

Oh, okay.

That makes that's easy.

No, I don't know.

I'm going to get a new couch that's just significantly smaller.

The old couch is huge.

It's like a like six-person couch.

It's big.

I know.

And I don't.

I never once have had six whole people come to my apartment.

You know, I'd be like, if I'm having a party, I'm having it somewhere else because you people are going to make my apartment a mess.

So it just doesn't happen.

I need to know that when I leave, I'm leaving.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I

am going to just get like, you know, like

a twofer or a threefer so that you can sleep.

But like, you know,

you get one of those funky couches that like comes apart and like like a modular couch that like turns into other types of couches, you know?

No, you wouldn't do that.

It was a really great suggestion.

And I knew that I knew I wasn't want to break your heart.

That I was like, no, like, what if my couch was just.

I saw, there was a, there was a, a beautiful look on your face of like, I'm going to pretend I'm thinking about this.

Completely called out.

I know in my heart I will never do this, but I'm going to pretend because you're my friend.

Maybe, yeah, maybe I could.

Like a medium.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Yeah, that's such a good idea.

You're so full of good ideas.

What about, like, what about one of those couches where it's like small, but everything reclines?

You could get a recliner couch?

A recliner couch?

Yeah.

Where it's like when everything's upright, it just looks like a couch, but then the two like furthermost sides recline.

Bro, what?

Yeah.

You get a recliner couch.

No, they're real.

All right, I'll look into it.

I've never heard of a recliner couch.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That sounds, that sounds great.

I've never,

maybe it'll, maybe it'll, for, for your brain, it'll be like, this is bang for buck, right?

Like, this is a lazy boy and a couch all together.

It's, it's all the, all in one.

Like, there are recliner chairs and there are couches that have recliner.

Are you saying a couch that has recliner segments to it?

I, that's literally the couch I have now.

It says one thing goes back all the way.

The rest of it is a couch couch, but one part is like a recliner bit.

Yeah.

So, like, like a

love seat or like a little bit bigger than that, but the furthermost like cushion sides recline.

Oh, I mean, that's basically what I have.

I thought you meant a couch that went like the whole thing went

exists too.

I bet that exists too.

Maybe it does.

I just thought you meant the whole ass thing goes down.

I was like,

never seen that.

Man, that's it.

Are Googling right now.

Are you looking at it?

I was Googling it, and then I realized it was probably going to take a hot minute for me to find something other than exactly what we were talking about.

I would love it if we just stopped this podcast and went to go Google recliner couches.

Hold on, everybody.

We have shit to do.

Type, type, type, type, type, type, type.

It's just us in silence.

Like,

actually, I think there's one over here.

Just completely derails.

Oh, my goodness.

Do you have any Christmas plans?

Any holiday plans with your family?

Well, I think holiday-wise, we are going to

get together on Christmas for X number of hours.

My mom's making dinner.

We're going to open presents.

My mom still doesn't.

This is the one year she's like, I don't want anything, Jesse.

And I'm like, this is a trap.

No, I don't know what this is, but I don't like it.

She's like, I'm fine.

I don't need anything.

I'm like, I don't believe this for a minute.

So then she's just like, well,

let me read to you what she sent me.

Okay.

It might be one of the sweetest things I've ever received.

And it's just like my mom.

My gift is spending time with you, sort of a thing.

Oh, yeah.

And I was like,

this is a lie.

So, all right.

I said, come on, you got to tell me what you want for Christmas.

And this is what she said.

Okay.

I want to go see Superman at the theater when it comes out.

So if you want to take me to that, that's all I want for Christmas.

It doesn't come out till like April or whatever, but that's fine.

Cute.

How dare you?

How dare you?

How dare you?

So that isn't even like, let's go Christmas Day, see a movie.

And so it feels like I'm giving you something.

It's wait many months.

So then I'm like, I don't believe this for a minute.

This seems like a trap.

Meanwhile.

I like my dad, he was like, I need new glasses.

I was like, great, done, easy.

It's the first year in years I knew exactly what he wanted.

I was like, oh my God, yes, done.

Already handled.

We're good.

Achieved.

My mom, this is the first time she's like, I'm playing a game.

I'm like, how dare you?

Do you feel like what she's saying

more with that is that she'd like for you guys to do something.

She wants quality time with you.

Oh, that's exactly what she's saying.

And I will not have it.

Let me buy you something with money like America was founded on.

Why don't you take her, like, to like a like a stage show or something?

Does she enjoy that?

She loves it.

That would feel more like a big gift.

You know?

Yeah, but like.

What?

It's L.A.

So there's not a lot of like...

What do you think, LA theater, Dodger?

What do you think?

Because in my mind, I think you and I are going to watch...

a musical recreation of Die Hard

where the cop was the snowman.

That was the first time.

And told the tale that I love that.

Here's the thing.

I don't know if my mom would be into like, let's go down to this small box theater and watch a bunch of like early 20s somethings put on a musical that has never been done before in the history of musicals.

And it's also diehard.

My mom would be like, that was cute.

There's like good shows in LA that you can go to.

Yeah, but because it's also LA, they're sold out within six seconds of tickets going on sale sure and then everything is through ticket master or whatever and it's like eight thousand dollars i'm like

would your mom

i guess also you would you love or hate opera

uh it depends some opera is beautiful and some opera is like two and a half hours of the most boring solo you've ever heard in your life like if you're gonna give me some

like classics

like you know give me a very sad clown or two i'm in.

I'm totally in.

Yeah.

But a lot of it, a lot of opera too is just like, oh,

for six and a half minutes.

I'm just like, bro, I got off the dough.

You got to wrap this up.

I get it.

You can sing.

You're amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

See, it's tough.

What about,

because you're both foodies.

What about doing like a food crawl?

here's the thing she's a better foodie than me every cool restaurant i know in la especially

the one who's like you got to try out this restaurant you're absolutely right i totally that's like playing with fire i would basically be like come on mom let's go and she'd be like been there it's trash like oh damn

man

yeah that's hard that's what i'm saying that's why i was like just tell me what you want Because I was, right?

And her answer was even just like even more diabolical.

Basically like, all I want is to spend time with you.

That, you can't do that.

You can't do that.

That's not fair.

No.

So, that's my Christmas.

What are you doing?

You spending time with the family?

Oh, my God.

Well, you know, Sam's family is huge.

And

so, basically, every day of Christmas week, there's something happening.

We're going to a big nativity something-something tomorrow.

We're going to my sister-in-law's for Christmas Eve to do a gift swap.

The gift situation has evolved over time because everybody just keeps having children, right?

So it started off when I first joined this family.

It was like kind of the typical everybody gets something for everybody, right?

And then it turned into, hey, there's too many goddamn kids.

Let's make it just about the children, right?

We won't, adults won't get gifts for each other.

We'll just, you know, like Sam and I get a gift for each kid in the family, sort of a thing.

That happened in my family, too.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

And I was like, sounds good, makes total sense.

And just keep having children.

So now it's turned into: okay, we do a drawing.

So we all drew names,

and each family gets assigned a family,

And we have a $20 budget to get something that the whole family can do together.

So it could be a board game.

It could be a voucher for something, right?

And that way, it's not like unfair or weird if, like, somebody gets a family with one kid and somebody gets a family with three kids, right?

It's just, you just get one gift that the whole family can use.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Is this one of those things where it's like,

I have one child and we'll only have one child and y'all have like 10 kids and you're breaking the damn bank over here.

I'm buying more presents for your kids than my kids.

Because that's how I feel like I would act.

I'd be like, y'all got too many damn kids.

Stop popping those suckers out.

No, I mean,

I kind of like getting gifts for kids because

I don't know.

They're more fun to buy for than adults, I think.

That's because adults are miserable.

I didn't mind getting gifts for the kids.

It was like, what age are you?

Right.

And you're into dinosaurs.

Fantastic.

I'll find a fun thing that has to do with dinosaurs.

I can do that.

So, no,

I was down to keep doing it the way that it was being done.

I think it just got to the point where it was like, okay, so I have to get

10.

gifts for children this year, right?

It's like, that's a lot of brain power and money, right?

Just a few years.

Yeah,

I would have gotten really, really great gifts.

Like, you know, you know, I have to send a message, right?

Like, I gotta, like, I don't want to be,

I don't want to be aggressive about it,

but I would give all the kids amazing gifts, and then every parent would get a pack of condoms.

That's very funny.

Like, Merry Christmas.

Yeah.

Like, cut it out.

Stop.

Yeah.

Get some help.

Stop it.

But yeah.

So we're doing the exchange of those on Christmas Eve and having some food and stuff and then going home and everybody's doing their own Christmas Eve, whatever the fucks.

And then Christmas Day, we have a big breakfast together.

And then the kids open their gifts.

And then we all get together and have actual Christmas dinner, which is in the middle of the day.

I don't know.

Sure.

I mean, there's a point where it's like, look,

dinner on Christmas is always

around

3 to 4 p.m.

and just deal with it.

It's like two.

Just do lock.

Yeah.

You know, when it's done, it's done.

Yeah.

And then half the family is asleep by seven.

Yeah.

As it should be.

Right.

Christmas.

We've had a big week.

So.

Those are the rules.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's a lot going on.

Um,

my kid asked Santa for a hoverboard this year.

I was like, well, like, what is what?

Hold on.

Like, a real hoverboard?

Like,

the things that people call hoverboards.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Great.

Yeah.

I get it.

Not

like Back to the Future.

I watched Back to the Future and was like, can I have a hoverboard?

And you guys were like, sure, hon.

Yeah.

No.

I mean, I've thought that she was going to eat shit on more dangerous things before, and she didn't.

So

I've,

yeah.

That's my situation.

So, yeah.

Dude.

Did I tell you about?

I feel like I've told everyone about this, but I don't think we've met since I joined a cult.

I saw all your tweets about the cult.

Yes.

Right.

I think I joined a cult.

Okay.

And it was glorious.

Great.

How do you feel now, like post-cultural culture?

Later, for sure.

Okay.

Don't know what that means.

Friday the 13th.

So, how do I even start this?

Yeah.

In Own Wake 2, there is a section of the Lake House DLC where when you play the game, you find a note that has a bunch of website addresses.

And the first one is to a thing that I guess Sam Lake made back in 2012 that is an ARG kind of ish thing that ends up most of the most of the notes you find from that are song lyrics for Alan Wake 2.

Very interesting.

I was like, oh, that's fun.

I guess he had planned this out well in advance.

But then there's another link.

And that link is to something called the Siren Society.

And I was like, I don't know what this is, but you can input your email, and I'm doing it.

So I was like,

and I don't know, a few days later, I received a thing that was like, hey, you're registered.

Do this, this, and this.

And it basically led to an ARG, which was if you find the password to get into the site, you get an invite to a special event.

And everyone who managed to get the password got to, you know, have the opportunity to go to this event.

I guess if you're around the world, it's a little bit harder since it's in L.A.

There was one person who definitely won, who was the first person, and I guess they flew him out.

But whatever the case may be,

imagine getting a message that's like Friday the 13th, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, and like a borderline nondescript location.

I was like, what the hell?

So, of course, and I brought cameras because I'm no fool.

And I was like, I got to know what this is.

So went there.

You walk inside.

And for anyone who's ever seen Twin Peaks, the lodge

looked like that.

It was like weird red curtains, like a weird horse thing.

Very, you know, like, oh, oh, we're getting real weird with it.

And then the main space.

Imagine on the outside an entire band, like keyboardist keyboardist here and like drummer over here, and they're all on the outside of the space.

And then in the back is like

the producer of,

I can't remember all the people I did.

I just know the last, like, he does big bands.

Like, he's known for doing like a lot of the Foo Fighter stuff.

And like, he's like, just like a guy.

He's in the back and he's like producing.

I don't know what's going on.

I have no clue.

There's TVs everywhere recording everything, but like on CR TVs with weird stuff on them.

And every once in a while, Sam Lake will just appear and be like, it's a spiral.

And I'm like, what is going on, dude?

And then

Poe, who is,

who is featured on a lot of the Allen Way 2 soundtrack, comes out

with

a bunch of mimes.

Okay.

And then like this, this beautiful woman in like a yellow outfit with like a beret.

she's sitting on a piano the entire time, like,

it's like an art piece.

I don't know what the hell is going on here.

And she's going around and like giving this amazing performance.

All this stuff is happening.

And meanwhile, there's like the crowd starts building, but it's like clearly contest winners and then

industry people.

Okay.

And the industry people aren't just like, I'm the game dev guy who's just happy to be here.

It's like

home

known names, you know, like the big wigs of the I'm like, what is happening?

And then,

you know what?

I'm gonna take it back.

It's big names.

And then I just noticed that Jules Hardy was there and was like, oh, you're here.

Jules is like, what are you doing?

I'm like, get out of here.

So, but,

yeah, it was crazy.

And I don't even know how I can describe it, which is why I'm glad I filmed it.

And we're going to make a video.

Yes, I did meet Carlak there.

I met Samantha there, but there was also so many people that I just didn't get the time to meet because we were filming stuff.

Wild.

It was a wild time.

It was, I, I was like, wait, so this was part of the ARG, and they're like, more to come.

I'm like, what does that mean?

So

I feel like I'm in a cult.

Yeah.

At the end, I got a shirt that has an S on it.

I'm like, guys, am I in?

So I don't know what's happening.

It sounds like you are.

It sounds like you're part of it now, dude.

But it was a solid, it was a solid night of like pure insanity.

And I loved every minute of it.

It was exactly what I like.

I was like, what is happening?

It was crazy.

Hot thoughts.

It was good stuff.

Yeah.

Big fan.

Big fan.

So we're going to, that's going to, God, I have to put that together, all that footage, but

do I have 13 shirts?

It's a sweatshirt.

So it doesn't count as one of my 12 shirts.

The 12 shirts of of Christmas.

Chat.

Yeah, chat.

Get out of here.

That was a weird time.

And I was excited.

It was Friday 13th, too, which is very funny.

Yeah.

Fun we would is such a good venn diagram.

You would have like, there was so

there was one song that I don't understand.

And I'm glad I got it on.

It clearly means something.

I don't know what it is.

But like,

she's singing a song.

She's like, who could it be?

You

or you?

Or she's like like walking around the crowd, pointing at people, like maybe it's you, right?

And it's this song about like looking for someone.

And then she just pulled a person up.

They got in front of the microphone.

And she was just like, on the count of three, I want you to go.

So she starts singing the end of the song.

And then the beat starts to like drop.

And then she goes.

And the guy goes,

and then she looks and she goes,

we just recorded a siren.

And I was like, what just happened?

What is going on right now?

I'm looking around the room like, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

I have no clue what that meant.

And I was like, yo, yo, is that a miss?

Is that a riddle?

Is that part of the ARG?

I was like,

should I be writing this down?

Couldn't tell you.

It was crazy.

I loved it.

I loved every minute of it.

Man.

Maybe, maybe the siren is

the last expectant breath

you know i have no

loved it what is an arg it is either an alternate or alternative depending reality game great args in the past have been uh the one they did for

the dark knight where they had the joker take over a bunch of internet websites and you had to like solve some stuff but when you did you got the trailer got early access to the trailer of that the gravity falls ones have all been amazing there have been the gravity falls

where they put us you know bill and all the different

stuff it's basically like taking a form of media that you're already interacting with a show or a comic or a game or something and putting some sort of like hidden secrets messages codes in there and if you notice them and you chase that sometimes there's a trail that's built in that is a game So, like Jesse was saying, there were websites for him to go to, right?

And these websites eventually led to him going to this crazy event, right?

Yeah, um, there Sombra from Overwatch had one.

I forgot that was a thing.

I remember being really into that.

I was like, yo, this is so cool.

I didn't know about that, I don't think, or I've forgotten about it.

One of the two Sombra hacked.

If you remember, they introduced the concept with a hack of BlizzCon.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, BlizzCon got hacked.

yeah

I was like yo that's cool as shit Portal 2 had one yeah there's there's tons of them I love a good it also could be an augmented reality game it depends on what the uh how you're using it I guess but augmented reality game to me always makes me think of like the ones that AR AR yeah like like taking a picture of something and it puts a Pokemon there you know like that yeah like that game I was talking about oh my god I was about to say Wall Street Wonders but that's not the name of it but the game that is uh the the vr game that's technically ar because you build wall town wonders you build the town in your house so it's your home but they're like flying around that's that's basically ar yeah you're augmenting what the reality is around you kind of like uh what people always wanted with glasses like what google glass was supposed to be in the ar feature lays on real life basically yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i i'm a big fan of that more so than vr i love the idea of just like like I'm in my life, and you've done something to make it a little bit better with augmented reality.

I'm here for that.

I love that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a big, big fan of NAARGs because it's like a fun mystery.

Like, uh, some of the most

well-known ones is

oh man, I want to say Bumblebee, but I know that's not the name of it.

There's a bee, like, it was being

a movie.

No, I wish.

No, it's this famous website where it's like a

bee-based.

I love bees.

Yes, I love bees.

It's a great one.

It was Halo.

Weird.

Yeah.

That's great.

And that's the kind of thing I'm super into where it's like, what is this?

Or

another weird thing was the run-up to,

this is a weird statement to say, Kanye Quest.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole of insanity, look up Kanye Quest kids at home.

Okay.

That is a weird experience and potentially one of the wildest ARGs I've ever seen.

I don't even know.

I'm like, what the hell?

It's a, yeah, and I guess PT had a little bit of an ARG to it.

But, um,

there's, I love,

and I know what you're thinking, like, Jesse, what does that mean?

What do you mean by Kanye Quest?

Just look it up.

It has very little actually to do with Kanye, to be honest.

It's extremely interesting how ARGs are done.

And it's almost always marketing, but it's some of like the great marketing.

The auxen free, the first oxen free game ARG.

I got really into the oxen free one.

I remember that.

Super into it.

And I loved that they had, at the end,

you would go, the winners,

not winners, the people trying to win, went to an island off the coast of Washington and dug up stuff.

And inside, they actually had more stuff in there.

For Oxy 2, they had like a whole, I did a bit where they sent me a thing on a phone and that helped people solve the ARG for Oxy-Free 2.

Like,

I love that stuff.

It is right up my alley.

Big fan.

Yeah, yeah.

They're just hard to do.

And if you screw up one thing and everyone solves it immediately, it kind of ruins the whole point.

Yeah.

You can, there's definitely a scale, right?

It can be small and like kind of simple and just fun.

And it can also be insanely complicated.

Like people in chat were talking about trying to listen to specific radio stations from specific places to hear an ad that has like a specific thing in it, you know, sort of stuff.

Like, geez.

I went to go see what

the internet says the best ARGs are.

Oh.

And apparently, according to this is eight years ago.

Well, you know what?

What did eight years ago think?

The

two best ones, according to everyone here, is

the Niantic Project,

which is an ARG.

And I guess it was leading up to live events by them in 2013.

But like,

I guess it was like a world-spanning event.

And then the Potato Fool's Day, which was a portal, the pretty famous Portal 2 ARG.

Interesting.

Hot dogs.

It's not what.

Wait, hold on.

But the gamer has the six best ranked.

Oh.

And of course, it's Potato Fool's Day, so portal.

But then this house has people in it, which is

a videos that look like security cam footage would air at 4 a.m.

on Adult Swim, and viewers would see horrors unfold.

You could still see the video on the YouTube channel.

Where the game really begins, though, is when you see hidden clues in some frames of the video and open the website's alleged security company to find more information and that just goes down the rabbit hole from there.

Love that stuff.

I love that it was on Adult Swim.

That's very cute.

Local 58

was an analog horror series that was about the local 58 website, which is done as an old news website, like a local news channel.

And it's all like horror world building.

Big fan of that.

Love that kind of stuff.

Then there was the Walker Creek broadcast station, which is, again, very similar.

And the Walker Creek investigation starts out looking at this broadcast station.

And then it sort of spirals from there because it has tourist accounts and social media pages and archives and stuff.

Again, the best ones are the ones where it's like, we've set up years of content for you to find.

Right.

Good luck.

There's the Wyoming incident.

This one is an ARG from 2006.

It's like the, according to this, it's the godfather.

No, grandfather of all online horror RPGs.

You will see such pretty things.

Don't know what that is?

Love that.

I've never heard of that before.

I'm going to look it up.

And then the most famous one, this is the one I was thinking about.

Not the bees, even though I love the bees.

Cicada 3301.

That's your homework assignment.

Go look up Cicada 3301.

That's the wild one.

That's the one that basically is this website that is saying, hey, Epiphany is upon you, the pilgrimage has begun, enlightenment awaits, solve this stuff.

And many people have thought it's like a secret CIA thing, but I don't know, dude.

I don't know.

Could just be goofs.

Love that.

I love a good ARG.

Big fan.

They're my favorite.

I just, I just like when my brain gets tickled a little bit.

Yeah.

And honestly, people say, Jesse, you're really good at figuring out games and stuff.

Do enough of this.

You will see every trope.

You will recognize signs.

You'll be like, I know how this works.

And it will genuinely ruin things for you.

You will seem like you know how everything works.

And then people on the internet will be like, wow, you've ruined this game for me, Jesse.

Thank you.

I'm like, my bad.

Did I,

I don't think I've talked on this show really about

that I used to work on haunted houses,

but I used to be that guy who would go to a haunted house with somebody and be like i know how they made that look like that

first off i love that about you that sounds awesome because i would go to haunted houses and the security guards that were like standing around they'd be like the scariest ghost of all and they'd be like get out of here but i must know yeah what were you at the haunted house what'd you do Oh, I didn't perform at them.

I made props for them.

Yeah.

whoa, what'd you make?

So I would make like the chainsaws that didn't run and I built a lot of skeletons.

I got really good at skeletons.

So I would do all of the dead bodies that were like,

you know, sitting on stuff and things like that.

This is why

I was trying to figure out if it was feasible for me to make my own like tiny haunted walkthrough.

for the kids and our family because again there's a million of them and i decided that it was too big of a project but like the knowledge is there somewhere

i

would

have flown out

to be in a dodger themed haunted house next year baby i'm gonna plan ahead i'm gonna start working on it in summer

oh my god you could have dressed me up like one of them pig butcher men with the like the pig head and the chainsaw and I'd chase those kids around that property all night long.

I'd be like, ying, ying, ying, ying, ying, ying, ying, ying, and I'd run after those kids and they'd be screaming, and I'd be like,

I'm going to get you.

And they'd be like, ah, all night.

I would chase them.

They would not sleep that night.

So originally the idea was that it would be like kind of a spooky zoo.

So it would be a lot of just like animal props, right?

Sure.

So the kids would walk through and there would be like bats all over the ceiling and like, you know, just like stuff like that.

and then because

because it can't just be that i was like and then i i would probably like plant like it when you go back and look there would be like little rats that were hidden all over the place and at a certain point in the walkthrough you realize that this place is run by giant rats

and there would be i would get one of the uncles to dress up as a giant rat and scare the kids at the very, very end and they would run away from the giant rat.

And then there would be another performer that was like, you got to press this button to get us away from the rats, right?

And they would press the button.

You know,

at first, I was like, Well, I don't want to scare them.

And then I was like, But what if at the very end there was a giant rat that chased them?

What if, all right, all right, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good, yeah, yeah.

But what if instead

it's a farm theme, okay,

and it's not scary at all,

and it's just a farm, but at the end, I appear dressed like a pig man right chase those kids right and i'm like i'll cool you kids and because all the uncles and aunts are there already they don't know who this is this to them never met you genuine killer they do not recognize me at all they will not know me i will have a different accent i will not even be they'll be like who is this and then then you sell it because you run too you're like kids we got to run kids bro we got to run

And I'll be like,

and I'll chase them down.

And then I'll be like, kids, you got to hit the button.

And then they hit the button and then you vanish.

Right.

Right.

And then those kids will grow up being like, whatever happened to that pig man because they never saw you again.

Right.

I wouldn't stick around.

I'd just go.

You'd literally vanish.

But to this day.

You'd hop the story.

Whenever they hear a chainsaw.

Whenever they hear a chainsaw, they think of the pigman who appeared that one night.

Whatever happened to that weird pigman.

They're going to be telling that story on like a podcast in 25 years.

Like, look, I never want to say I believe in the paranormal, but when I was young, I was attacked by a pig man.

Pigman attacked me.

Yeah, and my mom claims she built the thing, and she claims that she has no idea who that was.

Yeah, yeah, plus, he had a strange American accent whenever he said, I'm gonna get you.

Oh, no,

yeah,

we need the BBC will pick up the story.

Pigman attacks family.

I see a bright future here.

For the pigman, so do I.

For the pigman, of course.

Whether I build this thing or not, the pigman is going to lead a great life.

Yeah, like if you don't build it, can I just come out,

come to the farm, and on Halloween night next year, stand outside Clark's window and just be like, yang, yang, yang, yang, yang!

and be like I'm gonna get you Clark

the last thing I need is for my kid to be scared of falling asleep

don't do that to me

all right all right hold on hold on we'll do something better

okay

I dress up like Santa Claus okay

and I come on Halloween night and knock on the window like, Clark, it's me, Santa.

Let me in.

I've got a gift for you.

Right?

That's pretty good.

It's kind.

It's nice.

It's sweet.

I'm bringing a gift.

That can't be crazy.

And then when Clark opens the window, I pull up the chainsaw and go, yang, yang, yang, yang, yang, wait.

I was waving my chainsaw.

You fool.

Yeah.

How do you think?

Do you think that'd work?

Well, if her training has sunk in, she won't open the window for you.

I'll just keep tapping.

I'll just improvise.

Yeah, but then I'll look like I'll be like Santa, and kids can't resist Santa.

And then Clark will be like, You got a gift.

Oh, yeah, I'll like hold up like a toy and be like, I have a gift for you if you only let me in.

Clark will open the window.

Right?

And then guess what?

Lesson learned, Clark.

Never gonna do that again.

If anything, I'm helping.

All you needed was a little bit of trauma and to now also be scared of Santa Claus.

I feel like none of these ideas are good.

I enjoy them in theory, though.

I want them to happen just not to my child.

Is that fucked up?

Other people's children, Jesse, go traumatize them.

No, an adult.

Could you do that to an adult?

Preferably another like full-grown man would, I think, be the safest bet here.

I mean, I could,

but

what if he pulls out a chainsaw?

He might.

That's...

Look, do you want to be Santa Fe?

Yeah, I do.

Pick your person carefully.

I was going to say pick your victim, which sounds fucked up.

Pick your person carefully, okay?

Who do you know that has a chainsaw?

Don't go there.

What if I ditch the chainsaw?

If it's an adult, right?

It's an adult.

I ditched the chainsaw and

the present is smooches.

Ooh.

Wait.

Like a Santa baby situation.

Yeah.

Right.

I start licking the window, all sexy-like, rubbing my beard on it.

Yep.

You start rubbing on the window,

being like, let me in, baby.

And then they call the cops.

I feel like there's a mid-range here.

We have to figure out like where on the scale

I realize that I don't like there's something wrong with me where I don't have a mid-range it's all the blankets when we when we were when we were at dinner this past week Alex was talking about how if he ever won a billion dollars he'd make a compound which by the way sounds like a cult he'd make a compound where where everyone his friends could come and stay or visit or whatever, but it was perpetually the year 2013.

Okay.

No technology after 2013.

No nothing.

It's just 2013.

Okay.

And I asked him what the rules were.

He's like, anything goes.

And I was like, hold on, there has to be a line.

So I just started asking him where the line was, but all my examples of where the line was were crazy.

I was like, okay, so imagine I'm married and I bring a prostitute to your compound.

Is that fine?

And he's like, well, first off, I'd have a long talk with you.

And he's like, secondly.

Secondly,

you're probably not fine with that.

And he's like, am I a, do I know your wife?

I'm like, oh, yeah, no, you're very good friends.

He's like, well, obviously, yeah, I have a problem with that.

And I'm like, okay, okay.

What if I'm not married, but I bring a prostitute and then I kill her?

Now, I could have stopped.

I could have been like, but what if I murder that prostitute?

Like that?

And he's like, what are you?

Murder?

No.

I'm like, yeah, but I don't have a wife.

So, you know, he's like, no.

I'm like, all right, so prostitute, fine.

But additional things to the prostitute, not fine.

And he's like, you just

murder?

I know.

I know.

I'm aware.

You truly don't know what's here, do you?

You don't know what's in here.

But you touch the movement.

Yo, I was like, okay,

so

I was just talking about, well, obviously I have weed there.

I'm like, okay, so drugs are fine.

What if I sold Coke out of my room?

And he's like, what?

And I'm like, yeah, yeah.

What if I sold Coke?

He's like, again, I'd have a talk with you about it, and I don't think I'd appreciate it, but I I guess I could let you.

I'm like, okay, I start lacing that Coke with stuff because I'm trying to make as much money as possible.

Is that fine?

And he's like, what's the matter with you?

He's like, you know what?

Actually, you're not invited.

I've decided

you're not allowed.

I just, all I want to know was where the line was.

I was like, where is the line?

What can I do?

What can I do in your potential cult?

This dream of his does not surprise me, though, because last time that you guys were going to be out here, I was chatting with him and I was like,

y'all should come visit the farm.

And he was like, bro, I want to be on a farm so bad.

I was like, I know you do.

I believe that instantly.

Yep.

I

just, look, you can't say I want to make a compound

in the year's 2013.

And it's just

though.

I'm like, what are the rules?

I need, I need.

I was actually having a hard time gauging for myself what technology would be off the table.

Let me just tell you, let me, this is

exactly what he said.

No, this is exactly what he said.

He goes, okay,

no PS4.

No, he's like, no crazy new iPhones.

Like, we like, we're, you know, that kid is like, we're not doing AirPods.

We're living life like it's 2013.

And I was like, okay, but why 2013?

He's just like, dude, it was the best.

It was the best year.

I'm like,

why?

He's like, it just was.

It was the best year.

It just was, Jesse.

Yeah.

Listen to me.

But then, but that's why I said, I was like, so what?

You're going to have weed on this compound.

But in 2013, weed wasn't, wasn't legal in California.

So you're breaking the law already.

And he's like, he's like, no, it's not breaking the law.

I'm like, yeah, because it's 2013, dude.

And that's why I have questions.

That's why I had questions.

And that's why I can just make a line.

I can't just murder somebody.

I needed to know where the line was.

Tell me, tell me,

where's my logic wrong?

That's why I was asking.

Yeah.

All right.

I got to get going.

Do we have news?

We said that.

Not to leave us on the topic of Jesse might murder a person, but if we have.

I'm not going to murder anyone because the law and the rules of the compound don't allow it.

However, this is a post-apocalyptic situation.

Y'all dead if you come across me.

Oh, you're saying if it was.

Yeah, I would run some sort of new Vegas-like hellhole town.

You and Sam love to be like, I would go hardcore the second the world.

I would team up with Sam in an instant.

I don't believe it.

I wasn't.

I don't believe.

You two are so.

You two are so settled into your squish life, dude.

I don't believe it.

That's because we

nature,

the world of mankind has become too soft.

And And so we've adapted to the softness.

But once the apocalypse happens, once the softness

and the ADHD can run free.

Yes.

When there's nothing to do and I don't have a phone to look at and all I have to do is stare at dirt, I'll go crazy.

Sam will become the guard captain of my town and I'll put him in charge.

I'll just let him run everything.

Right.

And he'll be happy with that.

And me,

I'm going to sit on a throne made of bones, bones and gold and old poker chips.

and i'm gonna have a cane that's made of the skull of the man who thought he could kill me and then i'm gonna have an eye patch for some reason and i'll have a southern accent and i'll wear a top hat with a hole in it right and i'll be like wail

you thought you could come into my town

and cause drama amongst my people

Yeah, send him to the sex pits.

I don't know what that is, but I feel like it's a thing.

It's just a normal jail, but you made a sign that says sex pits, and now you feel like you have to commit to it.

Right, right.

It's a bit.

It's a bit.

We keep ourselves from using the apocalypse.

It's crazy.

It's just for a little laugh.

All right.

Sorry.

News.

News.

Do the news.

Do the news.

If you haven't seen it, I don't know why I want to talk about this, but I do because I still think it's hilarious.

There's videos all over the place now, but Mariah Carey appeared in Fortnite, and it literally is her breaking out of ice going like, it's time.

and then she explodes and it's like,

I can't believe that exists.

You can play Lego Mariah Carey in Lego Fortnite.

I genuinely love that and I do not care what anyone thinks.

I think that's so cute.

Good on them.

We also have a Superman trailer this week and it actually looks really, really good.

I'm very excited.

I hope, I hope it's not like Superman Trailer 3 from Man of Steel, where I thought Man of Steel was going to be the single best Superman movie in the history of movies, and it was nothing like that trailer.

Go back, watch Man of Steel Trailer 3, and tell me that's not the best trailer ever conceived in the history of trailers.

Yep, I was like,

This movie's gonna get me.

We'll see, but we got a new Superman, so I'm feeling good about that.

Hey,

if you like Spotify rapped or whatever the hell the YouTube thing was,

Steam has Steam replays.

You can go right now and check out the replays and see what you played, see what you liked.

Discover that actually, you've been playing a lot of dirty games this year, you bad boy.

So go check it out.

Right now, hey, we have got

in

the world of video games right now, it's kind of like a downtime, but

a lot of fun

little special titles coming out right now.

One I wanted, uh-oh, well, that's not helpful.

I wanted to send to you because I think it's super interesting.

And I don't know much about it, and I wondered if you did.

It's called The Midnight Crimes.

Are you aware of this?

It's a point-and-click game where you're a retired private detective and you're investigating the case of a missing child and you're in a Victorian city and it's a semi-kind of open world point and click side quest pets character relationship kind of thing.

Looks very interesting.

Super curious about this.

Is this on your radar at all?

Have you seen this?

No.

But I'm gonna.

Yeah, I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting.

And

obviously, we have one of my favorite stories of the year.

I think this is super interesting.

So, obviously, you've heard of Moneyball.

I think everyone has.

The idea that the A's, just go watch the movie, but the A's used math to math out a season and changed baseball forever.

Well, I don't know if this is going to change football forever, but the New York Jets reportedly their hiring decisions have been informed by Madden NFL player ratings.

Amazing.

So that's so weird.

Yeah.

I guess the numbers are there in the game and they're just like, use the numbers from the game.

I don't know.

I have no idea why that is, but I think it's very silly and very fun.

And

that's the news there.

Oh, amazing.

Yeah.

Shamelessly, but I'll plug it at the end.

I have a plug.

Okay.

I was going to say really quickly, the funniest part of my Steam, like

a year with Steam wrap-up was a graph showing the genres of games that I play.

And let me read these off to you.

My number one was Farming Sim, followed closely by roguelike deck builders and Metroidvanias.

And then we had Narration and Souls-like, and finally,

Dwarf.

What do you mean?

Dwarf.

Dwarf.

What is it?

I don't know.

Dwarf.

Wait, so how did you.

Where is that at on here?

I want to find mine.

Where is that at?

If you scroll down.

All the way down?

Just scroll until you see like a little...

It says, you are what you play.

And there's a little spider graph.

You are what you play.

Yeah.

I'm scrolling.

I'm looking at every game I played every month now.

Scrolling down.

Thanks for being part of the community.

Maybe I've just gone too far.

Hold on.

You've gone too far.

It's right before the month gradient thing.

How you compare

under how you compare?

Uh-huh.

Is there anything between how you compare?

You are what you play.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Okay, this spider graph shows you the kinds of games you play.

Interesting.

Okay,

in order, because there's six things it's showing me here.

In order of most played, apparently, it is

Souls Like, Tower defense god game robots

LGBTQ survivor horror.

I don't even know what that means, but like

what can I say?

I got dwarfed because of Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.

Oh,

I do have that, but it shouldn't be in my top six genres.

I don't think.

Who cares?

Anyways, hey guys, thanks so much.

Thanks so much for hanging out with us.

I'm really curious

why

it says that my top is survival horror when my number one played

Civilization 6.

Yeah, sometimes games have a genre attached to them that feels kind of like that's stretching a little bit, you know?

I think probably farming sim is so high on mine because I use lurk bait for stream.

And I think that's marked as a farming sim, even though it's just like a Twitch-attached game.

So you just, you never really know like what's going to affect it, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Jesse, what's going on with you this week?

Are you, are you streaming, making videos at all?

I am, in fact, but more importantly, Monday,

tomorrow, the year is over.

It's time for the Coxies, your favorite award show that you may have just heard of right now.

We're back again, a second year of giving awards to people that deserve them and so get ready for the good the good the best award show there ever was uh if you don't know what it is go watch last year's it is totally ridiculous and then yeah i'm gonna try and stream as much as humanly possible in between moving i don't think i'll have enough time to make videos

because

i'll be moving stuff around setting stuff up but When I'm tired of moving things, I will come and stream and be a silly, silly goose.

Fantastic.

What about you?

I'm not really doing much this week, I don't think.

I'm going to try to do a little bit of streaming at the end of the week.

But while Christmas shit is going on, I'm not going to try to add to the stress of all that.

But yeah,

you know, we're on break.

We got all the holiday stuff.

So,

yeah.

I'm already tired and it hasn't started, you know?

Oh, my god, yeah, you got this.

Are we good to do geek enders on Friday, though?

Yeah.

It's funny.

Great.

So yes, there will be a geek enders this this coming week.

Our last one of the year and an anniversary of sorts from the very first.

Oh my goodness.

Adorable.

Well, hey, thanks so much for watching, everybody.

If you want to watch previous Geek Enders, you can find them on youtube.com slash Jesse Cox or on any of the podcasty sort of things.

We wound up doing this one a couple of days after our normal day.

So, normally, I would say, have a fantastic weekend, but the weekend's basically done.

So, have a great week.

We will see you in our next episode.

Take care of yourselves.

And if you're celebrating something this week, be safe, have fun.

And we'll see you on the other side.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

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Number one geek podcast without a doubt.

Yo, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid, I know that you all beat.

So take a second, grab a drink and vibe while we catch you up in just a matter of time.

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Number one geek podcast, without a doubt.

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What if Juliet got a second chance at life after Romeo and Juliet, created by the Emmy-winning writer from Schitt's Creek and Pop Music's number one hitmaker, playing October 7th through 12th at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts?

What if Juliet got a second chance at life after Romeo and Juliet, created by the Emu winning writer from Schitt's Creek and Pop Music's number one hitmaker, playing October 7th through 12th at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.