Transcriber: happierstories#8865
JANINE: Uhm (laughing)
AUSTIN: Okay wait, what do you think of when you hear the word... "speedboat"?
SYLVIA: Oouf.
JANINE: Um, I think (ART and AUSTIN laughing)
AUSTIN: Oh, I'm really happy with my delivery on that one. What do you think of it?
JANINE: I think of like, there was, uhm... Midway? And what was that other-- Razor, Razorback? Razorrr. Razorr something! (laughs)
AUSTIN: What?
JANINE: (laughing) I'm trying to think of Hydro Thunder boats. (cross) Hydro Thunder.
AUSTIN: (cross) Oh, Hydro Thunder.
DRE: Ohhh.
AUSTIN: You're thinking of Hydro Thunder. Did you know that the thing-- So, what I think of as a speedboat, is like, the, you sit in the back of the boat and it has a really long nose, it has a really like, an arrow shaped nose, you know what I'm talking about?
JANINE: Mm-hm.
KEITH: I know what you're talking about. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Those aren't called speedboats. (cross) Those are called "go-fast boats".
JACK: (cross) Bullshit, they're called--
(ART laughs)
JANINE: Fuck you. (overlapping) What? No.
JACK: (overlapping) I'm s-- No, Austin? It's not true.
AU: (overlapping) Those are called go-fast boats. Those are called-- Look! "A go-fast boat is a small fast boat. (laughing) Designed with a long narrow platform (laughter) and planing--"
JANINE: I love that song.
AUSTIN: (continued) "planing--" (laughing)
SYLVIA: It's so bad!
JANINE: (rhythmically) "A go-fast boat is a small fast boat (laughter) designed with a long narrow platform."
DRE: (singing) You got a go-fast boat!
(laughter fades)
AUSTIN: That's what they're called! (cross) Speedboats are different things.
JACK: (cross) Okay. Right.
KEITH: So--
SYLVIA: Oh!
JACK: This is--bullshit. You just changed this Wikipedia page.
AUSTIN: I didn't! I didn't, I didn't. (DRE laughs) (cross) I could never be that clever.
JANINE: (cross) This is secret-- This is secret Bluff City prep that you've hidden in the world for us.
AUSTIN: For months! (DRE cackles)
JANINE: For months.
AUSTIN: God.
KEITH: A go-fast boat.
AUSTIN: A go-fast boat!
SYLVIA: I hate this.
AUSTIN: It's so bad.
JACK: I need-- (cross) Can you send me a
KEITH: (cross) It has to be called something else.
AUSTIN: No!
KEITH: A cigarette boat.
AUSTIN: Yeah, a cigarette boat. Which, is weird, because-- it should be called like-- I guess it is. They used to be called "rum runners," because that's what they were built for. They were built for rum running, for avoiding the Coast Guard and delivering rum during the Prohibition Era. Anyway. Fun.
JANINE: So Gucci gets go-fast boats, Gucci gets (AUSTIN: Yeahh.) go-slow boats, er. (JACK laughs) Gucci gets, erm... go-dog-go boats.
JACK: Mm-hm.
DRE: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: Alright.
KEITH: Damn, look at this. (cross) Look at this boat.
AUSTIN: (cross) You got a good boat?
KEITH: I got a boat, I got a good boat. (cross) Ope, Discord's acting up. Okay, here you go.
AUSTIN: (cross) I'm ready for it, ready for a good boat.
(pause)
SYLVIA: Oh, that's a good boat!
JANINE: Hmm.
AUSTIN: That's a wild boat, what is that?
KEITH: (laughing) That is a motorboat.
AUSTIN: That's a cool boat. (cross) I dunno that boat.
KEITH: (cross) A motorboat AKA a speedboat
AUSTIN: (overlapping) John Hack(unintelligible)
JANINE: (overlapping) That looks like it's gonna explode.
KEITH: (overlapping) It was the fastest boat in the world between 1911 and 1915.
AUSTIN: Fastest boat in the world!
JANINE: Did it then explode? It must've exploded. It looks... like it is waiting for an opportunity to explode.
AUSTIN: It went 50 miles per hour, which was unthinkable at the time.
(someone snorts)
SYLVIA: Then it exploded, right? (JANINE laughs)
AUSTIN: But then it exploded. Yeah. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Starting a backup... And... Doing a post...
(long pause)
JANINE: I wanted to have like-- I wanted to come in here with stuff to chat about, and I-- and the second I joined the call I was like, mind empty... (cross) nothin'.
AUSTIN: (cross) That's fair. That's fair.
JANINE: Nothin'.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
(pause)
JANINE: I'm so upset I haven't pulled a Venti yet. (AUSTIN makes a commiserating noise) I'm so upset.
KEITH: Oh, I-- That was my first pull.
AUSTIN: Oh my god, don't do this Keith.
KEITH: I pulled-- I didn't even know that was an important thing to do, until-- Now, I mean, (JANINE chuckles) it's clearly an important thing to do because he rules.
AUSTIN: (laughs) He rules. Have you-- Have you been just doing that one same, the Venti... the Venti banner?
KEITH: Venti.. Yes. (cross) Almost. Almost totally.
JANINE: (cross) Yeah.
AUSTIN: (cross) And it's still nothing, huh.
JANINE: He's not gonna come outta the other one!
AUSTIN: I mean, he could, but-- very unlikely.
JANINE: Ah-- mm, nyeh.
KEITH: Um. I think--
JANINE: The tokens cost the same, which is also-- it doesn't (cross) make sense to spend those coins,
AUSTIN: (cross) No, you shouldn't get the
JANINE: (cont.) on the other thing-- 'Cause that banner's not going anywhere, either. (cross) That's the permanent banner.
AUSTIN: (cross) That's the permanent banner, correct. And there's nothing special about it. (cross) It's just a, The Banner.
JANINE: (cross) So... No, and sometimes you get those things as rewards, and like every month you can buy an X number with the currency that whatever, like, fine, sure.
AUSTIN: Yeah, if I naturally earn that, or buy it from the bonus glitter points or whatever, awesome. (cross) But otherwise, I'm just doing it.
JANINE: (cross) Mm, I've got a maxed Barbara now. I've got Barbara, she's so maxed o--
AUSTIN: Oh, you got a maxed Barbara? That's great.
JANINE: Barbara's so juiced up that she'll just auto-res people who die even if she's not active.
AUSTIN: That's good.
KEITH: That's-- that's good.
JANINE: She just has to be in the party, and then she'll be like, "Oh, you died? Boom. Barbara Power Go" (SYLVIA laughs) and then the person's at 100 health, too! It's an auto-res and an auto heal to max health once every 15 minutes.
KEITH: I didn't realize that when you level people up the way that their powers work changed, because (AUSTIN: Oh, yeah) I got that maid who actually is sick.
AUSTIN: Noelle. (clears throat) Yeah.
KEITH: Noelle. (cross) And, Noelle
AUSTIN: (cross) Is she, is she doing work for you? She's working for you? What was the thing that--
KEITH: Oh, like-- extremely working for me. Well, for two reasons. The first thing is that she heals on hits when her shield is up.
AUSTIN: Right. Right.
KEITH: And so that's huge, 'cause she-- (cross) for a long time--
AUSTIN: (cross) She's the only healer you might have. Yeah, that's fair. Yes.
KEITH: And then the other thing was that... the fire kid, Bennett.
AUSTIN: Bennett-- Keith, I need you to know, as soon as I saw Bennett, I was like, this is a Keith character (chuckling) He has big Keith Character Energy.
KEITH: He is in my-- He is in my party.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: But-- So he has this very funny thing when he has-- when he uses his sword thing, he's like a Pichu? At full charge (cross) it hurts him and knocks him back--
AUSTIN: (cross) Right. (laughing) Yes.
KEITH: But if you have, if you have Noelle's shield up and switch to another character, (cross) the shield stays up. And so
AUSTIN: (cross) Oooh, that's interesting.
KEITH: (cont.) if you have Bennett shielded with Noelle's shield then he can finish his fire attack. (AUSTIN and JANINE laugh) Without getting knocked back.
AUSTIN: That's very-- That's very Pokemon, that's a very like-- "Ash learns how to actually use the pokemon attacks and realized that if you combine two pokemon right, they don't-- they benefit-- They complement each other's weaknesses" or whatever, you know?
KEITH: Yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: That's very funny.
KEITH: Or the flipside is that I could just use Venti, roll up on someone and use his two attacks at the same time and kill everyone there.
AUSTIN: (chuckling) Venti's very good. I'm sorry Janine. I believe that you'll pull a Venti soon. I feel it. It's in the air, to me.
JANINE: I don't think it's gonna-- I don't know that it's gonna happen.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Oh, why is this...?
SYLVIA: (overlapping) I play too many gacha games to do this, I just can't get into another one.
JANINE: My-- My thing is,
KEITH: This is the only one I've ever played, I'm already sick of-- that part of it.
JANINE: So the thing is, I've played other gacha games but I've never actually played other gacha games 'cause when I play other gacha games I-- like, I mean I guess that's not true, I guess there's that Dragon Age one that is technically a gacha game, (AUSTIN: Oh, true.) although it's a bit of a-- It's like, it's very early on in the gacha life cycles. They've sort of changed how gachas work since then. And Love Nikki has some gacha stuff, and, you know. But when I played gacha-ass gacha games, like Granblue and whatever, I don't like actually playing the game. I just wanna do the gacha stuff. So this is the first, like... modern, core gacha stuff that I've actually enjoyed playing.
AUSTIN: Right, right.
JANINE: And that's a problem because it's like, oh right, this is why people spend a lot of money on these,
AUSTIN: Oh, yeah.
JANINE: (cont) because I don't have fuckin' Venti yet and I need to have Venti before that banner goes away!
KEITH: (overlapping) The thing that I
AUSTIN: (overlapping) It's-- eighteen days or something, right?
JANINE: (overlapping) I don't have any other Anemo people! I have no-- (cross) all I have
KEITH: (cross) You have eleven more days.
JANINE: (cont) is my fucking main character, and it's-- she's supposed to be other stuff sometimes.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. I know. She's good, she's good enough as an Anemo person. (cross) She's not terrible.
JANINE: (cross) (annoyed) Whatevs, she's fine, I don't know. (AUSTIN laughs) I-- I don't like playing as her at all. And she's my highest level character 'cause she's the easiest one to level up.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JANINE: 'Cause you just get-- you just get her thing. (AUSTIN: For what it's worth--) And she only needs three kinds of things, instead of four kinds of things, everyone else needs four kinds of these to level up, and she only needs three, (cross) and you get them from story stuff.
AUSTIN: (cross) Ohh. And you get them from story stuff, that's true.
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That's true. (overlapping) Sylvi, are you also --
KEITH: (overlapping) Wait, is there a way to level up that I'm not-- that I don't know?
JANINE: (overlapping) So you can just--
AUSTIN: Oh, wait, what do you mean, Keith?
KEITH: What are the three and four things? (cross) I don't understand that.
AUSTIN: (cross) So, have you gone up a stage in your characters yet?
JANINE: Ascend?
KEITH: Yes, I have. Yeah
AUSTIN: Have you ascended? So yeah, you need those materials to ascend a character. (KEITH: Oh.) And eventually those get to be tougher. Those get to be things you actually have to like, farm, and like, (KEITH: Oh, okay) you can only get to certain dungeons on certain days, and stuff like that.
KEITH: I'm, yeah, I'm already there,
AUSTIN: Okay. Yes.
KEITH: (cont) I'm bumping up against the second ascension and it's already like, annoying. (cross) But actually, I was--
AUSTIN: (cross) The main character gets those from main story stuff, and also you can buy them from the jewelry places, basically.
KEITH: Actually, because you get your main character's thing from story stuff?
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
KEITH: I was actually ascending other characters first 'cause I couldn't-- (cross) I didn't have access to, the story thing.
AUSTIN: (cross) Right. Yes. Yes, that is also.
JANINE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Big time. I typed in "anemo characters" (laughing) into Google, (KEITH laughs) because I wanted to get a list, and it was like, "Do you mean anime characters?"
(JANINE laughs)
KEITH: It's like, kind of.
AUSTIN: (cross) Like kind of.
JANINE: (cross) Yep. Then, yes.
AUSTIN: I kinda did. Um, yeah.
KEITH: The thing about the game that puts the idea of spending money in my head, is uh... You do a certain amount of story stuff, and then they're like, "Okay, (cross) now spend twelve hours doing nothing."
AUSTIN: (cross) Yeah. Yup. Just explore. The good news is the biggest leap of that for me, was when I was in, uh, Liyue? Or, Li-- I'm going to learn how to pronounce the name of this place at some point, but the in-game characters pronounce it differently. Sometimes they just say "Lee-way",
KEITH: "Lee-way." That's what it is.
AUSTIN: sometimes they say "Lee-way" and sometimes there's a softer-- it sounds like (cross) three syllables.
KEITH: (cross) There's a third-- Yeah.
JANINE: (cross) Sounds like there's a bit of a-- Sometimes there's like a hint of a "yuh" in before the "wuh".
AUSTIN: Yes. Exactly. Right. Anyway.
JANINE: "Lee-wuh"
AUSTIN: "Lee-wuh." Yeah. Um, that area is sick, and there is so many multi-tier puzzles and stuff in there that I think it makes that little, like chunk of grind between story bits much more enjoyable than it otherwise would've been.
JANINE: What's the point of the party boat? Have you been to the party boat? What do you do in the party boat?
KEITH: Oh, no.
AUSTIN: There's a little quest! There's a little quest, just to do--
JANINE: Yeah, but that-- It's like a party-- It's like a quest to stay on the party boat, (AUSTIN: Yeah.) and then it's like, well, I'm-- There's nothing here, (cross) there's a chest, there's two chests
AUSTIN: (cross) That's it. I'm sure there will be a thing later on that party boat. You'll get the chests. (JANINE: There better be.) The same thing happens on the pirate boat. Um. Mm-hm (laughs).
KEITH: I dunno about any of these boats.
AUSTIN: There's some cool boats. Sylvi, are you also playing this? You made a sound earlier that made me think you were.
SYLVIA: No, I'm not.
AUSTIN: Okay.
SYLVIA: (cont.) I'm gonna wait till it comes out on Switch, probably.
AUSTIN: That's a good call. I bet it'll be fun on Switch. (cross) I hope it has cross-save and play.
JANINE: (cross) I would put money on the fact that it'll be cross-play, because right now PC and iPhone are cross-play. PS4 isn't, but I think that's a PS4 thing, I think that's Sony stuff. And I think that the reason there is a special set of PS4 wings is because those players are cut off, and can't (cross) hop around like everyone else. So it's like a consolation prize.
AUSTIN: (cross) That makes sense.
KEITH: (cross) I thought it was cross-play, not cross-save.
AUSTIN: Sorry-- that's correct. It is cross-play, it's just not cross-save with PS4 and the other platforms.
KEITH: Right. yeah.
AUSTIN: So yes. Good call. Um,
JANINE: Wait, what's the-- (cross) I don't--
AUSTIN: (cross) Cross-- cross
KEITH: (cross) Cross-play is when you play with someone on PC and PS4 together,
JANINE: (overlapping) Oh, okay, sorry, yeahyeahyeah.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Right. Yeah.
KEITH: (overlapping) cross-save is when you save it on PS4 and jump to PC.
AUSTIN: Yeah. It's a different account, but yeah.
JANINE: It's like-- Yeah. it's...
AUSTIN: Which is so silly, just let me-- just let me jump between the two.
JANINE: It's weird to-- I don't even think of it as a save, is the thing, (AU: I know.) because it feels like an-- It feels like a single player MMO more than any game I've ever played. (laughs)
AUSTIN: Yeah. Totally. Um... So yeah. Anyway. (cross) We should play our game.
KEITH: (cross) Star Wars: New Republic felt like a single player MMO to me.
AUSTIN: I mostly played that with people, so I.... (sighs) I had a, (JANINE: Yeah.) Art and Janine and I basically played that whole game together, so. That--
JANINE: I would not have played as much of that game as I did if I had to play alone.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. Fair.
SYLVIA: Could we get a Youtube link in the discord?
AUSTIN: Yes, yes you can......
JANINE: That would be fantastic. I was gonna ask also.
AUSTIN: Sorry. Uh.... Where do I put this, here.... And then we should go to time.is and do a clap. (pause) Uh.... Um.
KEITH: Uh, time.is. I--
AUSTIN: Time dot is.
KEITH: I got my hands over my keyboard and then I totally blanked out.
AUSTIN: (chuckles) What we were doing, that's fair. (clears throat) Um. (pause) Uh.... Do... 7 seconds. Just do 10 seconds, we're gonna do 10 seconds, let's do 10 seconds. (JANINE laughs)
(clap)
JANINE: I'm sorry, can we talk about International Day of the Girl Child?
SYLVIA: (laughs) I saw that too! (KEITH laughs)
AUSTIN: I had not seen that. You go ahead, I have to take some notes, before we start.
JANINE: International Day of the Girl Child sounds like a thing we would make up in this game. (KEITH laughs) That we are about to play.
AUSTIN: What is it, though?
JANINE: I mean, this is a good-- This is like a United Nations supporting... supporting... young girls-- thing.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) It's just a weird name.
JANINE: (overlapping) There's a Thomas the Tank Engine clip at-- Hang on, I clicked this link and it took me to a United Nations page about, about this event, and if you scroll down... There's a bunch of like, subheaders-- "My Voice," "Our Equal Future," "Background," et cetera-- and one of them is "Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls," and then it's a "Thomas and Friends on Gender Equality" Youtube clip.
KEITH: Goal number five.
JANINE: Posted by the United Nations. On their Youtube channel. Goal number five.
AUSTIN: Weird.
JANINE: And it's a minute and a half long.
KEITH: I don't like how this second train, Rebecca, I think is her name? It says, on her? Uh
JANINE: It does say Rebecca directly on that train, yep.
AUSTIN: Wait, train? (cross) Oh, I see I see I see
KEITH: (cross) Yeah, Thomas and Friends? Like the Tank Engine?
JANINE: (cross) oh, I don't like this Thomas voice. This is not-- This is not my Thomas.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Hashtag Not My Thomas.
KEITH: (overlapping) This is Not Our Thomas! I don't like how-- Like, the front of the train is like a flat surface, and they just have a mound of face coming off of the train.
JANINE: Yeah, that's always kinda been...
KEITH: Like, Thomas sort of naturally extrudes from his tank engine body?
JANINE: Yeah. When you get the square ones, where it's just like a square face stuck on there, that's weird.
KEITH: Yeah.
JANINE: This is weird, this is fully like, "Some people think that girl trains aren't as good as boy trains." What. Okay.
KEITH: How did Thomas look when I was a kid, because-- This is scaring me.
SYLVIA: Uh, probably looked the same, you probably just didn't notice how creepy it is. (cross) This was my Teletubbies experience?
JANINE: (cross) The trains don't-- Yeah. yeah. You just take it for granted.
KEITH: Ohhh-- But there's a thing about, there's a thing in the original looking one where-- he looks like plastic, or like, claymation. (cross) And something about-- Instead of bad CG.
JANINE: (cross) That's 'cause they were like, it was like stopmotion, right? Like it was... Oh, we might be talking about different-- I might be dealing with an older Thomas iteration than you.
KEITH: It could be-- My thing could've been stopmotion. I wish I could find, like what-- I wish I could google, "what did Thomas the Tank Engine look like in 1995".
JANINE: That'd be like Shining Time Station era, right? (cross) I think that's...
KEITH: I also watched Shining Time Station, yes.
JANINE: Yeah.
KEITH: yeah.
JANINE: I think that was all like-- 'Cause a lot of the townspoeple looked like little wooden figures, right? I dont think they could've had CG that looked like that at the time.
KEITH: No they absolutely didn't. Yeah-- Yeah these are-- You know what it was? Now I know. It was the-- The faces weren't animated.
JANINE: It's like puppetry, right? They're like puppet-- They're like hard puppets.
KEITH: Yeah, they had (cross) eyes that would move,
JANINE: (cross) 'Cause they would roll their eyes around? Yeah.
KEITH: Mm-hm. (cross) And they had static faces.
JANINE: (cross) and like maybe face plates that like, popped on and off I bet.
KEITH: Yeah. yeah. So I think that's the way that it's not as creepy, because they didn't try to make these faces move?
JANINE: Hey-- Remember the episode of Shining Time Station where they walled one of the trains into a tunnel so he couldn't get out anymore?
SYLVIA: what?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Absolutely not.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Huh?
JANINE: Yeah. That happened. I was-- I just looked up Shining Time station and saw a picture that reminded me of this, I don't remember why... I don't remember if he was stuck, or something but they like, (KEITH: Oh my god.) He's like in the tunnel and they took the tracks away and then they bricked the tunnel up.
KEITH: Look, I'm-- I-- I swear to god, Janine, I'm looking at a video of exactly that right now.
JANINE: yeah! right?
SYLVIA: Can you-- send this?
KEITH: Yes, yes, (cross) I just took a screencap, I'm putting it
JANINE: They fucking Amontillado'd a train.
KEITH: Here we go, I'm putting it in the. (bursts out cackling)
SYLVIA: I've seen that--! (cross) okay, I've actually-- I've seen that screencap before, now that I, I recognize that.
AUSTIN: (cross) I need to take a look at this, uh, let's pull this up on the stream real quick
(JANINE laughs)
SYLVIA: Oh my god.
KEITH: (overlapping) Oh, it's so funny.
JANINE: (overlapping) I don't remember why they did that to him. Is that Gor-- Is that Gordon?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Let's transition up-- There he is. That's bad, IMO. What did he do?
JANINE: I don't remember.
KEITH: I guess I'll just live here.
AUSTIN: Uh... "Gordon train wall". (cross) Is that not who it is?
KEITH: (laughs) (cross) Yeah, we'll get to the bottom of this.
AUSTIN: I just wanna know what's up. Search google for image.
JANINE: The tunnel under repair?
AUSTIN: Uh...
JANINE: What? no, this...
AUSTIN: Imprisoned in the tunnel forever.
SYLVIA: That's fucked up.
AUSTIN: Uh, let's see here... dududut, "this clip is from episode three of Thomas and Friends, which tells the tragic tale of the stubborn train Henry who was sentenced to death for not going to work. (cross) In the episode,"
KEITH: (cross) (shocked) Oh my god!
SYLVIA: (cross) Woah!
JANINE: (cross) (horrifed) What??
AUSTIN: (cont) "Henry refuses to emerge from the tunnel in case it ruins his nice green and red paintwork. (JANINE: Oh, right.) After using ropes and much persuasion, the Controller," the Fat Controller, excuse me, let me just say what they say, "eventually gives up trying to get him to come out and instead insists that Henry be imprisoned inside the tunnel forever. In the clip he can be seen speaking to poor Henry, commanding, 'We shall take away your rails, and leave you for always and always (SYLVIA: That's--) and always.'"
SYLVIA: That's so fucked!
AUSTIN: "Henry can be seen visibly distressed as a brick wall is built to trap him in the tunnel. (KEITH: Wait, so--) And to make matters worse, he received little sympathy from the other trains, (voice escalating in pitch) happily whizzing by, with one shouting out, 'Serves ya right!' The narration tells how poor Henry had no steam to answer, and his fire had gone out. The last line of the commentary (JANINE: Oh, god) is particularly chilling, with the storyteller saying, 'I think he deserved his punishment. Don't you?'"
JANINE: (shocked laughter) Oh my god!
KEITH: This is the most intense piece of propaganda I've ever heard. (cross) This is for three year old children.
AUSTIN: (cross) Uh-huh. Do your fucking work. This is for babies. Yeah, uh-huh.
JANINE: This is-- that's also like-- Tunnels aren't cheap. Diverting your rail line isn't cheap. That's like, a very-- That's a very... concrete commitment to really, really just... terrorizing. Right? Like,
AUSTIN: (horrifed) Oh my-- god.
JANINE: You have to change your entire fucking rail layout, (cross) just to--
AUSTIN: (cross) This is a lot-- I'm just gonna keep reading from this article,
JANINE: (cont.) keep this train... imprisoned, forever.
AUSTIN: There's a piece in the New Yorker about this, that argues, "It's clear from his work that Awdry, who first published the Railway Series in 1945, disliked change, venerated order, and craved the administration of punishment. Henry wasn't the only train that received a death sentence. Another train to receive a less-than-pleasant fate is that of a show-off engine called Smudger, who is told by a manager that he will quote 'make him useful at last.' Smudger is then turned into a generator and never moves again. Meanwhile, in a different scene a spiteful brake van is crushed. In another episode, a double-decker bus named Bulgy [soft g]," or "Bulgy [hard g]" (SYLVIA and JANINE laugh), probably Bulgy [soft g], "comes to the station and talks about revolution, quote, 'Free the roads from railway tyranny!' He is quickly labeled as a 'Scarlet Deceiver', trapped under a bridge, and turned into a henhouse."
KEITH: (astonished) A Scarlet Deceiver!
AUSTIN: Uh-huh.
JANINE: Is that like a, is that like a special class of-- traitor? (cross) In Thomas the Tank Engine universe?
AUSTIN: (cross) I think it's because it's a doubl--
KEITH: (cross) A communist traitor.
AUSTIN: Well, yes, obviously, but also it's (cross) a red double-,
JANINE: (cross) Ah, okay. Right.
AUSTIN: It's also a red double-decker bus, that's like the play that they're making. You know. Um... "There is one diesel engine who struggles to prove that he's as useful as the steam trains... Less useful than the diesel are the female passenger coaches named Annie and Clarabel who are awarded to Thomas as prizes after he helps with a train breakdown."
JANINE: Euhh.
AUSTIN: A terrible show! this show seems terrible! this show seems bad!
JANINE: Remember the episode of Thomas the Tank Engine where Thomas got a harem? (AUSTIN and KEITH laugh) What?
AUSTIN: That's apparently the case!
SYLVIA: Okay, sure. (KEITH keeps laughing)
JANINE: My favorite harem anime is Shining Time Station.
AUSTIN: Uuuuaaaargh.
KEITH: I can't believe it. I cannot believe this. This is just like a fun thing from my past, where--
AUSTIN: I mean-- (laughs)
KEITH: Where it's like, oh isn't it funny that George Carlin was in this?
JANINE: And Ringo Starr? And, and the, the girl from Grease. Didi Conn, is that her name?
AUSTIN: I dunno. The wiki--
JANINE: The beauty school dropout from Grease. (cross) Is the,
AUSTIN: (cross) The Thomas the Tank Engine-- Oh, okay.
JANINE: (cont.) also runs the station, in Shining Time Station.
AUSTIN: The Thomas the Tank Engine wiki, fanwiki says, "Annie and Clarabel are Thomas' faithful coaches whom he loves dearly and would never dream of being separated from them." I just think that there's a lot going on here.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Thomas the Tank Engine's throuple.
JANINE: (overlapping) Thomas the Tank Engine polycule.
AUSTIN: (laughing) uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm gonna close all these windows, and we're gonna play a game.
SYLVIA: I'm trying to think of like a fuckin', monorail monogamy joke, but (cross) I can't right now. I'm really struggling.
AUSTIN: (cross) Aaah, right. Uh-huh. Anyway, we're gonna-- I could think of one, and I'm just-- I'm close to one, I'm just gonna move on instead, we're not gonna do it, we're gonna move on, (SYLVIA: Okay.) we're gonna play a game, it's gonna be--
KEITH: Before we move on I just wanna call back, I--
AUSTIN: (tired) Oh, my god.
KEITH: The Scarlet Deceiver is one of the coolest things I've ever heard.
(AUSTIN and JANINE laugh)
SYLVIA: Yeah. Can we steal that?
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's ours now.
JANINE: It's pretty good.
AUSTIN: It's ours now. God. (sighs) Alright.
KEITH: (loud) You've gotta give it up to the already present (cross) extras.
ART: (cross) Whoa!
AUSTIN: Hi Keith. You're very loud. Lemme see if that's a me thing.
KEITH: Mm.
ART: No, and you're like-- You're all the way around my head, you're like...
AUSTIN: Yeah, you're-- Are you in a microphone... Not a booth, are you in a microphone.
KEITH: Mm. Am not. I'm doing it normal.
AUSTIN: Huh. What presence. Um, I'm gonna...
KEITH: Thanks.
AUSTIN: I'm gonna make this post. And also this tweet.
ART: You sound like the voice of God in a movie.
KEITH: Wow. (cross) I dunno what happened to me
AUSTIN: (cross) But not in real life, God sounds different in real life.
KEITH: You know what it is, I just-- I took a nap and I had 'just woke up' voice.
AUSTIN: That is what it is. You do have just woke up voice. It's a good voice, I like the voice.
KEITH: And, and I dunno, (cross) I haven't invested in the new--
AUSTIN: (cross) I'm going live, by the way, just so we can.
KEITH: I've been dialing the new microphone, I think I finally have got how it's supposed to sound.
AUSTIN: It sounds good. (cross) this is a whole new setup,
ART: (cross) It's like a 1970s DJ.
AUSTIN: This is a whole new... everything, right? That's the thing?
KEITH: Yeah, I replaced liter-- The only thing that is the same is my computer.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
KEITH: (clears throat twice) 'Scuse me. (sighs) I do, I do feel like it's louder.
AUSTIN: You are. You are a little louder.
ART: Yeah, I turned you down. I mean, if your Audacity looks fine, we'll just have to see what your rich, luxurious, booming, stereo voice does to the rest of the...
AUSTIN: It's fineee. 'Cause I can, I can... As long as my OBS is good, we're good.
KEITH: The Mysterio's going to be taken much more seriously now.
AUSTIN: Now with this new voice, with the just woke up voice. We can make it so that you've just woken up in game, also.
KEITH: Yeah. Yup.
AUSTIN: You know what I mean?
KEITH: Can we make it so that I just hurt my back in the game too?
AUSTIN: Did you hurt your back? What happened to your back?
KEITH: I don't know! I-- You ever-- You have that thing where sometimes, your back just hurts?
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's called getting older, Keith. 9alughs) It sucks!.
KEITH: yeah, well-- I have had, I have had like a spot in my back (cross) that has hurt, um
AUSTIN: (cross) Yeah! No Keith, for months?
KEITH: No-- No, since I was like, (cross) twelve. The same
AUSTIN: (cross) Oh, okay. Okay, you have like a specific back-- thing.
KEITH: yeah, yeah. But I understand that-- that this happens... to people anyway. And not just me. But it's just like, under my shoulder blade, usually it's from some sort of activity?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: But I just like-- I think I just like, moved it wrong, or slept on it weird, (AUSTIN: Bodies.) And then I tried to-- I tried to rub it out with a lacrosse ball, (cross) you know, like, up against the walls?
AUSTIN: (cross) Yeah. Up against the wall? Yeah. Uh-huh.
KEITH: Yeah. And I think I just fucked it up worse somehow, which is weird, 'cause it usually doesn't happen?
AUSTIN: (sighing) Yeah.
KEITH: And now it's like, if I breathe-- wrong, it hurts.
AUSTIN: Keith.
KEITH: (snorts) yeah.
AUSTIN: You should've told us this before I hit go live, we could've postponed.
KEITH: Well. I was sleeping before you went live (laughs)
AUSTIN: Oh right. Well.
KEITH: No, no, it's fine. It's-- Sitting in my computer chair is one of the more comfortable spots for me.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Am I... Am I... distractingly sounding different right now?
AUSTIN: No, we've adjusted. I've adjusted.
KEITH: Okay. Alright, alright.
AUSTIN: Art? Are you adjusted?
ART: Yeah, I turned you down. At your old volume, you were-- You were presence.
KEITH: Okay. Yeah.
AUSTIN: You owned the, the stage. In a real way.
KEITH: Hm. That's good to know.
AUSTIN: yeah. In case you need to do that again. You know?
KEITH: You know what it was for me on my end was that I had my headphones turned up 'cause I was watching something on these headphones.
AUSTIN: Right. Wait, so that just turned everything else up, basically.
KEITH: Yeah. Yup.
AUSTIN: Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Um... Oh you know what fucked up? Wait, one sec, I have to look at my own mixer really quick, 'cause I was cleaning my desk, and I feel like I may have-- There we go. Okay. God. (distant) Uh, one second. Lemme just. (closer) Should not be doing the thing I'm doing-- You know what, I'm not gonna do this live. Let's do this after. I'm gonna clean my mixer later. It's very dusty. I like, dusted my whole desk, I cleaned my desk, but somehow my mixer was not in the mix of things I was dusting and cleaning, and so it's just-- grody, and that's not good.
KEITH: The mixer is insanely horrible to clean, because (cross) there's a lot of nooks-- It's all nooks and crannies?
AUSTIN: (cross) Yeah, yes. It's all nooks and crannies, and doing it live-- Even thinking about doing it live was truly... a foolish endeavor.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Y'all wanna go to time.is?
ART: Sure, can you, can you put the Youtube in the...?
AUSTIN: Ah, yes, yes I can do that. Uh... Boop. What is, what is, time.is. Happy Palm Sunday. It's the day that it is. Uh. "Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows. Only time." Enya.
(pause)
ART: (laughs) Oh, is that how that song goes?
AUSTIN: (singing vaguely to the tune of Only Time) "Who can say where the road goes? Where the time flows?" I got that backwards. Day flows. On-- is it only time? Is that like the, (pitching down) "Only time", is that how it goes?
ART: No, it must be "only time knows", right?
KEITH: However you're doing it is how it goes.
AUSTIN: (hums the first three notes of Only Time) Yeah?
KEITH: It's sort of, yeah, it's in flux. (cross) It's an in flux song.
ART: (cross) Isn't there another beat?
AUSTIN: No, it's-- (vaguely to the tune of Only Time) one, two, three, four five six seven, eight nine ten (laughs) eleven, twelve thirteen. (speaking) Isn't that right? (laughs)
ART: There's not a fourteen?
AUSTIN: (singing, pitching down) Twelve thirteen fourteen. (speaking) I can hit play on this song, and we'll-- I'm
KEITH: (singing to a song? rapid beat) One two three four five, six seven eight nine ten, eleven twelve.
(MUSIC: Only Time - ENYA)
AUSTIN: Alright, I pulled it up, here. This-- (guffaws) It took me a second to realize that what I was looking at was a Lord of the Rings (KEITH laughs) music video that someone made with this song. I was like, wait a second.
ENYA: (singing) Who can say where the road goes?
AUSTIN: Yeah, where the road goes,
ENYA: (singing) Where the day flows?
AUSTIN: Where the day flows.
ENYA: (singing) Only time.
KEITH: (overlapping) It's an AMV, it's an Aragorn Music Video.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) It's (singing up) "Only time".
ENYA: (singing) And who can--
AUSTIN: Thank you. Good. That's what it is. It's (singing up) "Only time". That's how it goes. Anyway. Hi. You wanna do a clap.
ARTSTIN: Uh, yeah. And shoutout to Aragorn.
AU: Yeah, always. The realest king.
ART: But not the realist king.
AUSTIN: Wait, who's that. (cross) Is that Elvis Presley?
ART: (cross) I dunno, but it's not him. Wait-- I'm
KEITH: (overlapping) Old King Cole?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Oh, you're saying (laughing) realist like realism.
ART: (overlapping) I'm saying realist I-S-T. Yeah. (AUSTIN laughs) So yeah, probably Elvis. Elvis.
AUSTIN: Yeah, Elvis! (KEITH laughs) Oh, god. Alright, uh... 50? 50 sound good?
ART: Sure.
(clap)
AUSTIN: Alright.
ART: Sounded bad over here, but.
AUSTIN: Oh.
KEITH: Eh, it didn't sound so great over here. But it sounded okay.
AUSTIN: It's fine.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: "The module Spoken Magic has been successfully added to this game." I got a code through for Fiasco... Fiasco's card game got a Roll20 module?
AUSTIN: Ooh.
JACK: And I haven't had a chance to fool around with it, but it looks... good.
AUSTIN: Awesome. I'm gonna take us live. Nothing's gone out yet but we will be live. So, you know. Behave yourselves, is what I'm saying.
JACK: Okay.
ART: Alright. I'm gonna try not to slander anyone right now.
JACK: Okay, go for it.
(loud plastic rustling)
AUSTIN: Gimme your best shot.
JACK: (laughing) Gimme your best shot.
ART: Have you been following all this Ellen stuff though?
AUSTIN: (laughs) Wait, is there new Ellen stuff?
JACK: (overlapping) There's all new Ellen stuff.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Or is this-- Is this like a, a callback?
ART: While I do think we did an Ellen thing once,
AUSTIN: Yeah, we did.
ART: But-- I'm referring to like, that this lockdown happened, everyone's like, "You know what? I'm not gonna pretend Ellen's nice anymore." Like everyone (AUSTIN: Wow.) in Hollywood's just like... (laughs) I can't leave my house, and I'm gonna go on Twitter and swing haymakers at Ellen.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Welcome to the party. Right.
JACK: (overlapping) 'Cause she's stuck in her house. Yeah, exactly.
AUSTIN: She can't come get us.
ART: Yeah.
JACK: Awful.
ART: Although, Ellen's definitely got "pay a hitman during a pandemic" money.
AUSTIN: Oh, easy.
JACK: Okay. there we go. That's the slander.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
ART: Uh-hum. Well, I'm just describing an amount of money.
JACK: Sure. Cheaper than you'd think, right? Isn't that-- But I suppose if you'd want it done properly, and if you're... Like Hollywood's fixers are probably, probably more expensive.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm. That tweet is now, so. I'm gonna eat my last Frosted Mini-wheat so I'm not chewing in people's ears. Now we have to stop talking about how Ellen has enough money to get us all killed. (JACK chuckles) I'm not saying she would do that. But you're right, she has the money.
ART: Well, and speaking in non-specific terms, about anyone, just anyone who has a lot of money and wants someone dead, I think that there's a calculus between... how much money you spend on the hitman and how much money you spend on the lawyer.
JACK: Mmmm.
AUSTIN: I see.
JACK: This is a Saul Goodman "criminal lawyer or Criminal Lawyer" problem, right?
ART: Right, it's like, you can-- You can probably cheap out on the hitman if you have a good defense attorney.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah, because we definitely... I don't know that the state is particularly interested in, you know, solving our deaths.
JACK: No, unless we make it really worth their while, so I would like to say right here on this podcast that I have a vast amount of treasure.
AUSTIN: I see. And that you would be happy to pay treasure tax.
JACK: Oh, no, it's just hidden somewhere.
AUSTIN: I see.
ART: Hidden somewhere in the nationstate. (laughing)
AUSTIN: In the nationstate,
JACK: Yes! (laughing)
AUSTIN: which makes you worth more to protect, (cross) and defend. I see.
JACK: (cross) Yeah absolutely. Or, makes it a compelling enough mystery that Netflix makes a documentary which gets the detectives-- interested again.
AUSTIN: Right, right, right, right.
ART: There you go.
AUSTIN: There you go.
ART: Oh, could we get a, could we get a Youtube link in the...?
AUSTIN: Yeah, I'll get you one of those. No one's chatting yet, so, you haven't missed anything, thankfully. But, there you go.
JACK: Trying to remember how I do this. I think I put Youtube on this monitor.
AUSTIN: That sounds right. (cross) I can't see it, but that sounds right.
JACK: (cross) And then have Roll20 on the other monitor. Aw, this is a fancy Roll20 board Austin.
AUSTIN: We were just-- I didn't make it, don't look at me.
JACK: No, I'm just saying you got good taste.
AUSTIN: I didn't-- Okay. Thank you. (ART laughs) Yeah, it's great, thanks, I, I-- (laughs) I picked it out special.
(JACK laughs)
ART: It's fancy and thematic.
JACK: Yeah, you want that combo.
AUSTIN: That's the right combo.
ART: And today-- I'm really gonna learn how the hand mechanics work on Roll20 (cross) I don't think I know.
AUSTIN: (cross) Oh, I hope so. I'm gonna shuffle everything right now, just so that I know I've done it. Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle. (pause) Shuffle. That's my new dance. (cross) A lotta people think
JACK: (cross) There's one step.
AUSTIN: (cont.) that that fourth-- Yeah, a lot of people think that that fourth step that's just the previous three steps but way later and off rhythm is difficult, it's a step you miss a lot? But if you get it, phoof, you feel great.
ART: It's like a syncopated beat, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Mm-hm. It's three on-beat beats and then a syncopated beat, that's very-- It's so syncopated it's a different song. Tiktok loves it.
ART: (laughing) Wow.
JACK: Tiktok loves it!
AUSTIN: yeah.
ART: We had a "Bored in the house and I'm in the house bored" moment today when Jessica opened a bag of Skittles, counted the number of total Skittles, and then separated the Skittles by color.
JACK: Wow! Was that satisfying?
ART: Um. Yeah, I mean, we learned a lot. About Skittles and ourselves.
AUSTIN: What'd you learn?
JACK: Sure.
AUSTIN: Give me one thing you learned about Skittles or yourself.
ART: Yeah, Skittles? There are about twice as many Skittles in a bag than I guess.
AUSTIN: Hm.
JACK: Huh. How many?
AUSTIN: How many did you guess? (cross) And that'll give us--
ART: (cross) I guessed--
AUSTIN: The math means we'll get both of these answers no matter what, but I wanna hear you say what you guessed.
ART: I guessed that there were 30 Skittles in a bag (cross) of Skittles.
AUSTIN: (cross) There's 60 Skittles in a bag of Skittles?!
JACK: (cross) Way too low.
ART: There's 57 Skittles in a bag of Skittles.
AUSTIN: No way! 57! No wonder you're only supposed to have like a handful. And not a whole bag. No wonder a serving size isn't a whole bag. There's 57 Skittles in there!
JACK: (overlapping) That's quite a lot of Skittles.
ART: (overlapping) But if you count them out, and then separate them by color, and then make them into two relatively equal little cups, a little cup doesn't look like a lot of Skittle-- Like whatever, 28 Skittles doesn't look like a ton.
AUSTIN: Right. It probably looks like about half a bag of Skittles.
ART: Yeah.
JACK: Do you and Jess have different Skittle color preferences?
ART: Yes, but that's one of the only things we haven't figured out this lockdown, so I guess we need to wait for at least tomorrow.
AUSTIN: I would-- If you were going that far, the thing is I would at that point not be settled-- I wouldn't settle for "you get all the reds, I get all the greens". At that point what I would want is to devise-- I want all of them. I would like all (JACK laughs) of the flavors of Skittle, but maybe in less proportion than you have. You know, maybe you like red a 5 out of 5 and I only like red a 3 out of 5 and then for every 10... You see. You see how this goes.
JACK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ART: Yeah. Yeah, like I suspect that purple is my favorite Skittle, (JACK: Good choice.) but if I opened a bag of all purple Skittles, I'd be mad.
AUSTIN: I'd be-- yeah. Well, I would see if there was some sort of Willy Wonka situation happening first. (cross) And if this meant--
ART: (cross) Mm, if you'd won the Skittle factory?
JACK: (cross) Oh, if you won a ticket?
AUSTIN: Right, have I won the Golden Skittle, and now I get to... you know, whatever his name is, whatever the Skittle man's name is. Skilly Skonka. Whatever. (cross) And go to his house
ART: (cross) It's Skilly Skonka.
AUSTIN: It's Skilly Skonka. And then go on a journey. I feel like I'm (JACK: Magical journey.) a little old for it now, I feel like... But actually, maybe I'm not. Maybe the truth is, that the children were too young to inherit a massive conglomeration.
JACK: Sure.
ART: I think that is what the sequel book is about.
AUSTIN: Them being too young, and being like, "Oh no, I don't know how to run a business"?
ART: Yeah, I think uh...
JACK: Oh, Art, I hate to-- Isn't the second book about going to space?
ART: Uh, yes, I believe it is.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: Those don't seem unrelated to me. Children are also too young to go to space.
JACK: Aren't they all still chi-- Isn't Charlie Bucket still a child? Or are you saying that Willy Wonka realizes that he goofed it when they're in space getting attacked by, um, leeches.
ART: I don't recall if Willy Wonka is present in the sequel.
AUSTIN: How-- what? He has to be.
JACK: No he is! Don't they go up to space with him? And they...
ART: With him?
JACK: Yeah! Isn't he in the elevator?
AUSTIN: You can't get rid of Willy Wonka.
JACK: "Great Glass Elevator"-- You absolutely can't, people have tried. Um... (cross) It came out in 1972,
AUSTIN: (cross) You need Ellen money to get rid of Willy Wonka.
JACK: To get rid of Willy Wonka, yeah.
(ART laughs)
AUSTIN: And get away with it.
JACK: No, yeah, it ends with Willy Wonka and everyone going to the White House.
AUSTIN: Americo?
ART: Is he Nixon?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yo, I guess-- yep. Yes.
JACK: (overlapping) I guess to see Nixon. Er, 1972,
AUSTIN: Uh-huh.
JACK: Must've been written in 1980-- er, (laughs) 1980-- 1969?
AUSTIN: Yeah, no, this is... They're so excited about the McGovern blowout that (laughs) they go to see Nixon. (cross) Ah-- It might not be that.
JACK: (cross) President Gillygrass.
AUSTIN: (displeased) Mmmm.
JACK: "A follow-up to the book was planned, called 'Charlie in the White House'." Just, just terrible. (laughing) Imagine going from the chocolate factory to the White House. "Charlie's family and Mr. Wonka are invited by President Gillygrass to have dinner at the White House as thanks for rescuing the spacecraft from its attack by the Vermicious Knids. (cross) Dahl only wrote--"
AUSTIN: (cross) One, one more time?
JACK: The Vermicious Knids, the Vermicious Knids?
AUSTIN: The Vermicious Knids? Vermicious Knids.
JACK: Yeah, the-- Those were the leeches that I was talking about, (cross) I've forgotten what they were called.
AUSTIN: Ah, I see. The space leeches.
JACK: Yeah.
(ART coughs)
AUSTIN: For what it's worth, I think if I saw President Gillygrass, I would think that that was a Jimmy Carter stand in, but I don't actually know that Roald Dahl was following U.S. politics that he could have, seen... (cross) that, guessed that, yeah.
ART: (cross) Guessed who would've been president four years later? Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah, exactly, exactly. (JACK laughs) Exactly. But if I had to do an adaptation today, I would make it a Carter stand in.
(ART coughing in background)
JACK: Well the good news is that Taika Waititi is working on it at the moment, so.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: We'll get to find out.
AUSTIN: Art, are you okay? Do you need a moment.
ART: Yeah, I'm trying, I'm trying to get away from the mic.
AUSTIN: Mm.
JACK: It's the Skittles.
AUSTIN: It's the Skittles got 'em. Or this is the first Ellen--
JACK: Oh, no!
AUSTIN: Ah, alleged Ellen hits.
JACK: Right, yes. For some reason, I had been picturing a sort of Agent 47 situation, but I imagine it would actually be much closer to those horrible hitmen in Michael Clayton.
AUSTIN: This is an Agent 47 situation. This is just Agent 47 not played by either you or I, but played by someone who knows how to get the poison and administer it. (cross) Without being seen.
JACK: Whereas our version of Agent 47 is holding, clinging by his fingertips, below the window,
AUSTIN: Right, yes.
JACK: Dressed as a cyclist.
AUSTIN: Yes. (laughing) Also, our Agent 47, secretly a very good actual play podcaster. A useful skill for infiltration. (JACK laughs) Art's going to come back, but it's not going to be Art, it's going to be Agent 47, (cross) who is going to
JACK: (cross) (imitating Agent 47) No. Hello.
AUSTIN: (cont.) manage to play this game. Yeah, exactly.
ART: (imitating Agent 47) I'm back now.
AUSTIN: (imitating Agent 47) Any game can be a finale. (ART and JACK laugh) (normal voice) Uh... That was like a Batman.
ART: (imitating Agent 47) Let's all play-- Let's all play so we really feel dangerous. Let's all go to our individual roofs and stand right near the edge.
AUSTIN: (laughs) Ooh.
JACK: There's definitely-- I feel like Agent 47... Agent 47's voice exists on a continuum with Batman and I think, Geralt?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Are all on this continuum, a very affectless... Although Batman is pretty affectful, sometimes.
AUSTIN: Sometimes.
JACK: Although it's really only one affect.
AUSTIN: Right.
JACK: Which is, anger.
AUSTIN: He can be sad.
JACK: Batman? Is Bruce Wa--
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: He CAN be.
AUSTIN: He can be.
JACK: How does Batman sound when he's sad? (imitating Batman) Oh, no.
AUSTIN: (imitating Batman) Mm, my parents.
JACK: My-- (laughs)
ART: Yeah, that whole like-- that whole awful scene in Batman v. Superman with the like... The "Why did you say Martha"?
JACK: (overlapping) Is that a joke? I haven't seen it, I've only seen it referenced
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I haven't seen that, no. That sounds like a real thing.
ART: Oh, that is actually how that-- That's actually how the, (JACK: Jesus fucking Christ.) the third act turn in that movie, is Batman and Superman realize their moms have the same name and then are friends.
AUSTIN: (sighs) (pause) Time.is?
JACK: Let's do it. (sighs) Oh, dear.
ART: It's a horrible movie.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Sounds terrible
AUSTIN: Sounds great. Happy. World Naked Gardening day. I'm gonna move this-- (cross) over here, off the stream, and click the link.
JACK: (cross) Happy World Naked Gardening day to you, Austin.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I'm glad I did that. (ART laughs) Glad we're not banned on Youtube!
JACK: Is it what you thought it was? I'm clicking it.
AUSTIN: What do you think it is? Yeah, of course it is. (JACK: Yeah, uh-huh.) It's a bunch of naturalists hanging out in gardens. It's like, good for them, but I'm not getting banned for it on this. "Dancing in the fields epitomizes the spirit of communion and back-to-basics living." Lemme tell you, weird that they didn't announce that they were going to delay this for Covid-19. (ART laughs) This is the first of these holidays I haven't seen them going, "Okay wait a second. We're gonna get like, (cross) Pitbull, to an online virtual version of our normal,"
JACK: (cross) Wait yeah-- (laughing) World Naked Gardening Day?
AUSTIN: Yeah, (laughs) World Naked Gardening Day, dale, let's go.
ART: It's Mr. Worldwide!
AUSTIN: Yes (laughs) Damn. Well, happy World Naked Gardening Day, I hope that those of you who are partaking in nature's beauty do so safely. Let's do a clap. (JACK laughs) 30?
JACK: Let's do it.
KEITH: --season of a TV show, if I have people that I trust saying, like, season 2 gets good? I don't-- There's literally-- I can't think of one thing that interests me about this game, I'm sorry.
DRE: Yeah, no.
(ALI laughs)
KEITH: (overlapping) I don't like MMOs, I'm not interested in Final Fantasy,
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah! Know yourself, know yourself. yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah, yeah.
KEITH: And, I... Like, a season of a TV show... I could be committing 24 hours! That's a lot of time, 24 hours, how long does it take to get to the good stuff in Final Fantasy 14?
DRE: Mm.
AUSTIN: It depends on what you think of as the good stuff. Like, I'm not being flip, (ALI laughs) I'm not being flip. I'm not.
KEITH: Okay, the--
SYLVIA: For some people the good stuff might be the benchmark, which is just the character creator.
(KEITH laughs)
ALI: Yeah. That's the t-- Like, I like my character a lot, which is why I enjoy playing it? I think she's great. It's uh... It's been an undertaking though (laughs)
AUSTIN: How far are you now, Ali?
ALI: I just finished A Realm Reborn.
AUSTIN: Oh right, you did the, (cross) the big
DRE: (cross) Oh, nice.
ALI: (cross) Just, just finished it, yeah.
AUSTIN: I am real curious to see how you feel about these patches.
ALI: Uh...
DRE: Oh, god, are you doing the patch stuff?
ALI: (overlapping) I dunno.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) You gotta. You have to. You can't not--
ALI: I was like-- I was like in a town, and suddenly there was like, eight quest markers, (laughs)
AUSTIN: Mm-hm!
DRE: Okay.
ALI: I went into a bar and each person gave me three unlockable quests-- I think it's just hard mode for most of the (cross) bullshit and stuff.
AUSTIN: (cross) Yeah, and
DRE: (cross) Yeah, a lot of that stuff is just hard mode.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And then, also get the like, go around and talk to every beast-- beast tribe to get their quests, and like again, (cross) not
DRE: (cross) You don't gotta do that.
ALI: (cross) Oh...
AUSTIN: You don't gotta do that.
ALI: I think I already did that.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI: I did that before... Right now I've been trying to get seals, and I'm like... going crazy. Because... (laughs) (cross) I went to my, yeah, I went to my Grand Company.
DRE: (cross) Like the, the Company Seals? Okay.
ALI: 'Cause I went to my--
AUSTIN: At some point you will realize you just got a billion of them.
DRE: Mm-hm.
ALI: Oh, sure.
AUSTIN: I don't remember what it is that does them?
DRE: Uh, you can turn in green and higher gear.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Oh, right, you can do that.
ALI: (overlapping) Yeah, okay, but you have to-- I have to promote myself three more times before they'll even take my armor. (cross) And I just wanna like,
AUSTIN: (cross) Right.
DRE: (cross) Ah. Yeah.
ALI: (cont.) give them armor? My problem right now is that, (cross) I was like
DRE: (cross) But it's not-- It's not very good armor that they give you.
ALI: Well, I want-- I want the like, end one. I'm, I'm the pirates, so I want the end jacket, and then I-- I really like the um... The normal dress that you get?
DRE: Mm-hm
ALI: They have like a, they have a red one that's really cool and good (laughing)
AUSTIN: The... the thing that I did that ended up letting me zip through a lot of that stuff was leveled a different class and just did daily... like, um, dungeon runs? (ALI: (forlornly) Yeah.) And you will get-- You will just stack points by doing that. Just pick one other class and start doing dailies. That'll, that'll do it.
ALI: Yeah, I-- I had a specific, just time-sink, last night, where I went to the promotion guy and I was like, "Hey can I get a promotion." And he was like, "You have to finish your Hunting Log." And I was like "Okay." (AUSTIN: Right.) So I went to my Hunting Log and did like the first four ranks of it? And then... He was like, you have to do your Hunting Log, and I was like "What the fuck are you talking about?" and I was doing the wrong one the entire time.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) You were doing the class one.
DRE: (overlapping) Mm-hm!
ALI: 'Cause there's two! Um. So... (laughs) I was a little mad, and I think maybe I don't want that coat anymore? But, um, I dunno, we'll see.
DRE: If it's the very final coat-- You also have to do a bunch of other bullshit.
ALI: I know...
SYLVIA: I still have like, ten days left of game time, and I think I'm just gonna let them run out.
AUSTIN: Just let it go.
DRE: Yeah, that's fair.
ALI: You should log in and take pictures with me by some of the snowmen that are (laughing) still there (DRE laughs)
SYLVIA: That's-- okay.
ALI: And that will be beating Final Fantasy.
AUSTIN: Wow, congrats.
SYLVIA: Gotta good point.
ALI: Yeah. The best experience I've had so far is, the other day I was just like, in... I was by the like, pirate town... crystal, and some dude was like "Hey, I'm having a wedding in 40 minutes and I'm giving out invitations, do you wanna come through," and I was like, "Yes I do!" (laughing) And so I got this dude's invitation, and I was like, running around, trying to like, dress appropriately, (AUSTIN: Love it) 'cause I'm not like-- (laughing) endgame enough to have something really nice, and then Lucas was like, "Oh, and Alda, you can get like, a bridesmaid dress." So I did that, and then I went to the store, and then I was like, "But I'm not a bridesmaid, this is weird," so I had to run all the way back to where the wedding was.
AUSTIN: Woooow.
ALI: (laughing) I got there with like two minutes to spare.
AUSTIN: Wow.
ALI: Um, and it was a really nice ceremony!
AUSTIN: My highlight right now has been-- I ran a dun-- I told two stories on the most recent Waypoint Radio, and for some reason, the only one people are sharing is the one about-- running into a family of roleplayers. (ALI sighs) That's not true. A rolepl-- mm. A group of people roleplaying a family, uh... Different than a family of roleplayers. Which like, I guess theoretically that could've been the case, but I doubt it.
KEITH: Oh, so a family roleplaying themselves?
AUSTIN: No, this-- I'm not gonna tell this story for like the sixth time, (cross) people should just go to listen to the--
KEITH: (cross) No no no, but I mean, that's the-- That would-- That wouldn't even be roleplaying, that would just be.
AUSTIN: Well, you could roleplay a different family.
KEITH: Okay. That's-- true.
AUSTIN: But, before I had that terrible, or maybe it was after I had that terrible dungeon experience, I also just had the end of Heavensward, like the-- Heavensward ends with a dungeon and then a trial, a trial is like a big boss fight, a dungeon is like a dungeon with a number of boss fights, but smaller ones? And... I just had this clique, of like-- It was just me and three other players, and we all fuckin' looked sick, we all looked like-- here, I'm gonna put a screenshot on screen of them, and us, so people can see. We're live, I said we were live, but (ALI laughs) I was reiterating that we're live. That is just like-- All of these characters look like characters who are in an archetypical anime? Where there is like-- badass knight rabbit lady; cute rabbit lady who has on, like, a cute outfit and jean shorts. I'm in like a dope-- it's called a philosopher's coat, and there's like a snarky looking demon guy with cool horns. And we ran the shit out of this dungeon! We were like-- We just did good the whole time through, and-- There was a point-- I was like, It was, it was lit. Like I was grinning from ear to ear, because we were just like, clicking like that? I described us as being like the Golden State Warriors from when the Golden State Warriors were good, on Waypoint. (ALI snickers) And, the... Halfway through the dungeon, when we were on some elevators, someone was like, "This is a good group." And I was like, (ALI laughs) (excited) "I was just thinking that this was a good group! Like, we should hang out after!" It was like that-- We had it like that. And that was fantastic. And the music in that dungeon fucking kicks ass, it was so good. And that was the highlight for me. But that highlight came like, at 160 hours. So I'm not gonna recommend a game that takes that long to make me feel good. You know? Um. Also yeah, one of those character's names was Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secrets. Or it might've been-- Was it Victoria's Secret? I don't remember. Anyway. I ran into someone on that game the other night-- who was named... I'm gonna find it, because it was bad. His name was... Really Lewd.
SYLVIA: Okay.
DRE: Mm.
ALI: Mm.
SYLVIA: I mean-- I have John Taffer sitting on an account somewhere.
ALI: Oh my god.
AUSTIN: And I'm just gonna say, his look was not it. His look was, (ALI laughs)
KEITH: Sorry, what was the name, it was Really what?
AUSTIN: Really Lewd.
KEITH: Oh, okay.
SYLVIA: Was he wearing an [unintelligible but I don't want to google this w/o knowing what it is] sweater? (DRE laughs)
AUSTIN: Ah, no, he was going the other way. Yeah I posted, (cross) I posted in the stream.
DRE: (cross) Ah.
ALI: (cross) (disappointed) Oh.
AUSTIN: And it's like... Yeah.
ALI: Mmm.
SYLVIA: Okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah..
DRE: (overlapping) I ran into, someone named...
ALI: (overlapping) That's not that-- You could do lewder.
AUSTIN: You could do lewder! You could do lewder.
DRE: You could do a lot lewder.
AUSTIN: This is reply guy lewd, this is not...
(everyone agreeing)
AUSTIN: respective-- This is
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Yeah this guy-- this guy's
DRE: (overlapping) Not even, not even a coliseum subligar on, c'mon.
AUSTIN: That's what I'm saying! (chuckles)
ALI: He is not an eboy.
AUSTIN: Right, exactly.
DRE: The worst person I ran into was a person named Kakorat Atrates.
AUSTIN: Oh, I love it. (cross) Incredible.
DRE: (cross) That person fucking sucked. As a human being. (laughing)
AUSTIN: Incredible. I also, last thing I'll share is this other picture of my character looking mean as shit. I was very happy about how mean my character can look. (ALI laughs)
SYLVIA: That's important.
AUSTIN: It's so--
SYLVIA: That was my design philosophy for Partizan, so.
AUSTIN: Yeah, 100%.
KEITH: Oh yeah.
DRE: Mm-hm!
ALI: Oh. Yeah that's great. Look at you!
AUSTIN: Yeah I'm mad.
ALI: I love the earrings in this game.
AUSTIN: The earrings in this game are good.
DRE: Yeah, the earrings are good.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Um. Alright. We should clap.
ALI: Oh, sure.
AUSTIN: Um, 40?
SYLVIA: Sure.
DRE: Sure.
(hands rubbing)
(clap)
AUSTIN: A little off, but. We'll live.
ALI: It's all good.
AUSTIN: Thank you.