Tag: 2023

Do you play idle games? Well.. first, let me explain what an idle game is if you don’t – it’s arguably one of the dumbest genres of gaming ever, and yet somehow I have a problem with them.

The premise of most of them is that you are trying to do some big task, get to a big number, build the largest mountain, make a cookie factory.. it doesn’t matter. As long as its the biggest one ever.

So click on the cookie, you get 1 bite. Click again. 2 bites. Eventually it offers you, in exchange for 10 bites, one auto-biter that gives you a bite every second.. then a second one, third, and then you get a cookie biter biter that makes cookie biters at a rate of one per one second. This goes on until you have exponentially built things that are building things.

The tagline of idle games are, ‘Numbers go up.’ — sometimes you hit a hard wall where unless you let the game idle for decades, your progres is capped. It’s at that time you PRESTIGE, a system where you start at the beginning again, but all your cookie bite are x2, or there’s now a fighting game that helps eat cookies or.. look, it gets esoteric. You can have a room of magic alchemy that’s brewing golden chocolate chips that when he makes them it makes your 3rd tier cookie biter biter factory give you GOLD bites that accrue separately and you can then transmute them into LEAD bites and every 100 LEAD bites your Cookie Warrior ascends to Cookie Godhood.

DO YOU GET IT. THEY’RE WEIRD.

And I will load one or go to a site with one, play it until I find myself obsessively checking on my numbers and updates and micro-adjustments until – after 10 or so hours.. I go ‘NO. NOT AGAIN’ and uninstall it.

I play them the same way I play Souls games – until I get so angry I have to delete it, lest I descend into a deeper self-pitying rage. You start the game, an hour later, three days has passed and it isn’t like you have much to show for it. In a Souls game, you what? Killed one boss and are now being killed by a different one? In an idle, you are no longer buying Cookie Machines you are buying gears for the machine that makes the Cookie Machine grow.  In both cases, they are probably right next to each other.

So please, do yourself a favor, don’t do it. Don’t Cookie Clicker. Don’t Adventure Capitalist.  Don’t.

Unless its Paperclips. That game rules.

I warned you.

With the last Tuesday, a spooky 5th Tuesday, we interrupt our normal ‘Whatever the hell we do on the extra week’ and replace it with a NEW thing we do on the extra week, but we replace THAT with something that’s much more Halloweeny since this also is that day so really it’s sort of just an In Review week, but under a different name, but … ARE YOU SCARED?!

So let’s go to a small boardwalk town where kids are kids and they are thirsty … for blood….. and Chinese Food!

That’s right, we’re discussing your goth ex-girlfriend’s favorite movie, Lost Boys. Does it stand the test of time or is it just a Frog in Vamp clothing.

Find out on The Fifth Wheel – Not Really – In Review – Sorta – Halloweeny Lost Boys!

Ok, we’re confused!

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Hey All, Podcast Rob here…

Allow me a moment to shake my fist at the sky…

Was coming home from work the other day, and decided to hop in one of my local drive-thrus to grab something to eat for dinner.  Amazingly, there was no line, nor was there anyone behind me.

My order wasn’t anything overly large, nor was it custom or special.  Regular order, right off the menu, not even a combo meal.

I pull up to the window where I wait for a few because the cashier is texting on their phone.  They open the window, take my money, and then say “Pull in to spot #3”

“umm… why?”

“We’re going to bring your food out to you so we can clear the window”

“There’s… literally no one behind me…”

“Oh I know, but it resets our timer”

My brain, understanding….

“Ohhh.. so, it shows your boss and your company that you’re doing a good job”

They nod, “basically”

Me, smiling… “then you should do a good job.  I’m good here thanks”

I then notice them glare, walk over to where there is a bag of food at.. Ill call it their ‘pick up table’ that has been SITTING THERE SINCE I PULLED UP TO THE WINDOW.. they grab it, walk back over, and shove the bag out the window at me.

Look, I get it, I hate being micromanaged too… but holy FUCK is this a peeve of mine, and it happens everywhere, and honestly, it annoys the hell out of me.

I understand people want to game a system they don’t believe is ‘fair’.  Hell, I used to work retail where we had to call customers who gave us their information regarding a special order product we carried.  We kept them in a lead book.  We had to make 80 calls a week.  Our book never had more than 18 names.  Management’s solution?  Call the customer, let it ring half a ring then immediately hang up and note “no answer”, and do that 3-4 days a week to the same customers just so we could fill out our log book.  No mention to the higher-ups about how 80 was unreasonable.  None of our stores had anywhere CLOSE to 80 leads a week, at any time.  Ever.  So yeah, I can see how, with deaf ears from above, you have to do what you can.

However….

There is one drive-thru place near where I live..   doesn’t matter if there’s no line, or a 10 car line… how small or big your order is…  you pull up to the window, they’re handing you your food.  It would be different if “it’s impossible for places to get orders to the window in 4 minutes!” were true.. but it’s not… so, while you’re gaming the system to your boss, you look like a shitass to everyone else…

Just me?  Hit us in the socials and let us know!

-PCR

We promised October was shake-it-up month for the Somethings, and Hatton couldn’t be happier to reveal our new format type. You see, Hatton loves a good piece of garbage movie.. PCR doesn’t hate them, but he certainly likes them less. So we get the perfect Odd Couple moment as the Somethings dig their teeth into the bitter pill that is the budget movie experience.

So settle in as we start with a found footage alien film, brought to you by Asylum, and filmed on what is probably a bricked iPhone 3. Alien Origins is the tale of some people in the woods doing stuff, and you may think that is where we begin, but no… it goes on for so much longer.

So grab your popcorn and your Dramamine, you are going to need it. 1-Star Movie Review – Alien Origins has arrived.

Ok, here we go!

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I have spent many an hour over the last few months watching Columbo. Peter Falk as the ‘judging book by its cover’, appearing to be, but never actually are bumbling, has been listed so many times as one of televisions greatest charactrs that I thought I would give it a try.

Won’t lie, it’s fun. It’s really fun. There is a set of steps that every episode has that makes it easily digestable and, in some regards, if you’ve watched one, you’ve watched them all. At the beginning we see the murder, understand the motive, and we’re off to the races where Columbo figures out everything we’ve just seen.

If there’s a flaw, it’s that he always is asking the right question (or the wrong question for the right reasons). His catchphrase of finishing only to ‘oh.. wait.. one more thing’ always leads to the suspect being stopped cold that maybe this shabby buffoon knows too much!

But, as a template that was on television for 30 years, it worked. Here’s a quick list of some of my favorite episodes.

ETUDE IN BLACK – I think this one is the general world’s favorite. Maybe it’s because the special guest is John Cassavetes playing an intense and monsterous conductor who kills his other woman. Sometimes the best Columbos are the ones where it just looks like Falk is having a good time in a strange place… this one fits perfectly

A STITCH IN CRIME – The reason this episode is amongst the best is not because of Falk at all, but because of a post-Trek Leonard Nimoy who plays an arrogant doctor who clearly loves being the best at everything. Come for the snide Spockless Nimoy, stay for the amazingly horrible 70s sweaters.

COLUMBO GOES TO COLLEGE – This episode is admittedly a bit silly, as the method of death is more MacGuyver than Columbo, but watching Falk run around a college campus and pretending he’s dumber than these two smug college kids after they killed their professor is worth the price of admission.

THE SKY HIGH IQ MURDER CASE – For my favorite episode, it has to be the one where a bunch of brilliant nerds all gather in their nerdy clubhouse and nerd together. It’s Columbo goes to Mensa, and it is one of the few times where you see Falk drop the facade of ‘bad detective doing good’ and really lets the killer see that he has been matched.

And hey… almost forgot… one more thing, have you ever watch Columbo? What’s your favorite episode – sound off in all the usual places.

We all have movies that we think probably shouldn’t have been remade. We all have movies we think ‘it would be great to see that from a new perspective’ — well this week, the boys unleash a regular show that is becoming a staple as they head into the elevator to pitch the next not-new, new-again movie relaunch.

That’s right Elevator Pitch is now a monthly adventure. This week’s CEO is a long time friend of the show, the ringmaster of ACPN and Adult Swim Central, John Galbo!

What movie would you redo? Do you agree with the Somethings?  Find out on Elevator Pitch: 80s Remake!

Ok here we like yah fer shurr,

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Waalllllllt!

It’s been so long since I’ve done that. You see, we’ve started a new thing.. The Beginning. Since we’ve done it now for a couple episodes we thought, as PCR likes to put it, to rip the bandaid off and just get this one out of the way. Before the messages and tweets and you darling somethings ask for it, we’re just going to get the mystical island that haunts us out of the way.

And what did we think? I mean, the answer may surprise you… but it probably shouldn’t.

So settle in with your box of Dharma Initiative Fish Biscuits and get ready to go back yet again to The Beginning – Lost.

Ok, here we go again..!

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Last week we featured a list of our Bottom 5 Actors – and I promptly got a message from my sister, long time listener first time complainer, who said, ‘What about…’ and mentioned an actress that, for years, I had kvetched about. I had entire rants built around this one performer and she was surprised she didn’t make the top of my list.

Who? We’ll get there in a moment.

This, to me, is a perfect showing of precisely why I am certain my brain has an over-active repression gene. I would be concerned if it hadn’t been that way my whole life. I’d talk to someone about a video game I loved and they would say, ‘Oh, remember when Hero B plants their sword and screams because they finally had the revenge over their murdered mother.. wasn’t that awesome’ and I would stare dumbfounded, ‘Wait.. is that before or after you beat Bowser?’ — like, I just have a brain that things, even things I once held tightly to my bosom, fall out of.

Anyways, the actress is Helena Bonham Carter.

I guarantee, if you go back and listen to old episodes, I’ve done at least one rant about HBC’s inability to play anything but Marla from Fight Club wearing different outfits. (With the exception of Big Fish, which is the exception of HBC’s acting and Tim Burton’s everything else).  I’m sure she’s a delightful person, gives to charities, kisses puppies – the fact is that there was a hot minute in the early 00’s where I kept wanting to see movies and instead saw Madame AloofGoth draping herself across scenery and had complained about it enough that my sister was shocked she was unmentioned.

What this does mean, though, is if we decided to rerecord some of our topics from years gone by, not only would I possibly not remember that we did it.. I also might have entirely different answers.

(Also, my wife is still angry at me about Justin Long)

We made it to October, avoiding the heat death of the universe yet again.

But what we have not avoided, if I can get serious here for a moment, is disappointment. PCR and I have, at times in our lives, found we were looking forward to something or were interested in a film that was on the horizon. Sadly, not all of the things we look forward to are … well.. good. Sometimes they can’t meet our expectations where others they are just plain dog crap – so please enjoy this list of films that we have decided are The Most Disappointing Movies.

Ok, here we boo!

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Hey all, PCR here.

For a while now, people have been talking about, or discussing Superhero Movie Burnout.  This likely more pertains to the MCU as they have the bulk of Superhero Movies out and.. I think there’s something to it and there’s blame to lay.. but.. just like the Y in Madisynn.. it’s not where you think.

When the MCU first started, there was nothing else like it.  It was new… fresh…  one couldn’t really compare it to anything because.. well, there was nothing like it to compare to.  10 years later, with the culmination of the Infinity Saga in Endgame.. MCU 1.0 came to an end in my opinion.  The issue now is a lack of evolution.  Folks loved RDJ as Iron Man, Hemsworth as Thor, Boseman as Black Panther, Johansson as Black Widow, Evans as Cap.. etc, etc.  Now however, the next ‘phase’ of the MCU will need to lean on new people.  Doctor Strange is solid and in good hands with Bibblebop Thundergun, but Marvel seems intent on forging forward in a similar fashion as the first 10 years and.. the question is… will audiences be into Ironheart replacing Iron Man?  Shuri as Black Panther?  Sam as Cap?  It’s a huge ask and, while it’s done in comics on a semi regular basis… comics don’t pull in *nearly* the money for a brand that movies do.  Might it be time to change the MCU formula?

I don’t know what the right answer is, but what I DO know, as someone who saw 95% of the run up to Endgame in theaters…  I just have no urge to see a Cap movie with Sam (you can listen to our “Bottom 5 : Actors” episode if you haven’t to hear why), nor do I care to watch a movie with Kate as Hawkeye, or Ironheart and on and on.  It was the original actors who created the interest, and the casting was impeccable.  These actors?  While I might power through a 4-6 episode series on a streaming service from the comfort of my own home.. they sure don’t have the pull to put my ass in a movie theater seat.

So I think Marvel in general has some considering to do, and I honestly think they’ll come to realize that when the next Captain America movie comes out.

What are your thoughts?  Hit us on the socials and let us know!

-PCR