Tag: Blog

Hey Somethings!  PCR here…

Now that we’ve made it through “The Day of Gorging” and are now into “The Day of Madness”, a few reminders for those out braving the Black Friday deals and such at your local stores…

1. Retail employees and Servers do NOT set the prices.
2. Retail employees and Servers do NOT control inventory levels.
3. Retail employees and Servers can NOT control how quickly others before you do or do not interact with things.
4. Retail employees and Servers would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to treat you how you treat them.. especially if you’re treating them like shit… but they can’t.  YOU have that choice to be kind or not.
5. Most (if not all) Retail employees and Servers absolutely loath today, basically because of the types of people they’re afraid they’ll encounter.  Don’t be one of those people.

Regardless of where you are…  your electronics or hobby store, the drive-thru of Jack-In-The-Box, a home improvement store, a swank sit-down restaurant…  remember, the people taking care of you are just that..   PEOPLE… and they deserve respect and compassion.   Don’t be the asshole they tell stories about in the breakroom.

– PCR

First off, I’d like to thank this past week”s guest Ty for, after my last blog post about Idle Games coming out, he sent me Idle Gears because he is a smartass.. then he and I discussed strategizing it for the next two days.

He’s a monster. Thanks, buddy.

Anyway, there is another kind of game that is close to the idle genre, but is less idle and more.. frustrating? nerdy? Made for people with Engineering degrees?  But, don’t get me wrong, they are still, in some ways, idle games.

I’m talking about a genre that is loosely referred to as factory automation games.

Have you never played them – then the fact is – you probably don’t want to, because the people that do want these games, have likely already found them. They’re sort of like Narnia that way. But just in case you have lived under a rock and really like the idea of building a machine that builds a machine that builds the gear the helps you build the new machine… here, you’re welcome:

FACTORIO – So, I’m putting this one here first because it isn’t the first of the genre, but it most definitely is the one that everyone thinks of.  It’s a simple premise – build a rocket.  Obviously, easy peasy. Especially when you start on an alien planet with a pick-axe and that’s it. So yeah, you mine some coal and some iron to make a furnace and make a gear and use gears to make a lab, and a lab to make some science and some science to build an entire planet covered in giant conveyor belts of machinery that are building buildings to build buildings.

SATISFACTORY – Now, it is easy to say that Satisfactory is just 3D first person Factorio.. but it isn’t.  Well, it is a little, but not entirely – you see, the world you are in Satisfactory is not a randomly generated world. It’s the same world. Start a new game with the basic settings, start in the same place.  That’s because this world is a huge country with different lush biomes and vibrant wildlife and greenery, and you get to slowly but surely pave over it and fill it with billowing smokestacks, giant conveyor systems, and gigantic power supplies.  It’s this brilliant and hysterical eco-message in an amazing world.

AUTONAUTS – Autonauts may be my favorite on this list, and it is because it does something so simply different with its premise. Yes, building things that build things – but – they are all robots and you get to program them in a fairly basic way. After building a robot, you walk around and do something – and then it repeats it.  Want this bot to grab logs and bring them over there.. fine. Want this bot to take logs from there and turn them into gears? Sure. And eventually, as you upgrade your bots (or you have your bots upgrade your bots) you are running this artistically-simple, but chaotic mess that likely looks like the world 5 minutes before the beginning of the war in Terminator.

SHAPEZ – This game gets a quicker honorable mention because it is legitimately the simplest of the batch. You build a shape and conveyor belt it in to a base. Now you need a new shape, build a machine that screws up your old shape and turns it into a new shape.. now it needs to be blue.. ..and split in half.. ..and broken into separate quarters that are each on top of another shape and painted 4 different colors.. this goes on. Definitely worth a check out though and the sequel is on its way.

Lastly….

GREGTECH: NEW HORIZONS – This may be the one that you aren’t aware of – the one that slipped through the cracks.. and there’s a reason. It’s not a game, but a mod on the blocky masterpiece of Minecraft.  Now, in Minecraft there is some automation you can build – and it can get intricate, but it isn’t the purpose of the game. (Unless its your purpose, but that’s a different thing) GT:NH as it is referred, is a mod pack that makes every single step of the game a bit of a hassle, but not an unsatisfying one. Where before you found some coal and mined it and made a torch.. well, your first few days in this highly dangerous world you will spend with one torch as you learn how to build basic tools, and figure out how to build a giant coke oven to collapse wood into charcoal.  It’s brutal, and it goes like that as you grow from steam power to electrical power to planetary hopping and dimensions. I hate it…. I’m lying… I love it..

What factories do you build – sound off in all the places.

Hey Somethings,

Now, as has been said multiple times during our show, Hatton and I are from two different age groups.  When I was a kid (and teen, and young adult), most TV seasons were about 22 episodes long.  They ran Sept. to May, and maybe took a break towards the end of the year.  Summer would come and go, and in Sept. a new season would drop.

In the 2007 Writer’s Strike, it jumbled things up and seasons were delayed, but even then (and using our “favorite” show as an example) LOST Season 5 was down to 14 episodes (4 was too, but.. again…Writer’s Strike).

Now, we have shows streaming on services that a “season” is 6 episodes?

Using “Loki” as an example, Season 1 started June 9th, 2021, and Season 2 JUST dropped in Oct. of 2023.  Stranger Things has done similar with a THREE YEAR gap between Seasons 3 and 4, and another 3 year gap between 4 and 5 (granted… again… there was a Writer’s Strike and, at the time of this writing, still a SAG-AFTRA strike)  and.. my question becomes… when do we stop caring?

As much as I was looking forward to a S2 of Loki, I didn’t jump on it when it came out.  I only recently caught up because I’m curious how they’re handling Kang since Marvel “may” (random reports) end up ‘phasing out’ Kang as the new Big Bad and replace him with Dr. Doom if Majors’ legal trouble increases more.  I just didn’t have the hype to get back into it after waiting so long.  The same went for S4 of Stranger Things.  Will I watch Season 5 when it comes out?  Eventually sure, if only to see how they wrap up the story, but it is unlikely I’ll be sitting in front of my TV with remote in hand just WAITING for it to drop.

Which begs the question Somethings… how long of a wait between seasons would make YOU not care nearly as much anymore?

Hit us in the socials and let us know!

-PCR

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.

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

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.

My Dad took me to my first concert, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.  Being a man who was in to Willie, Waylon, Hank Jr, Glen Campbell… my Dad’s music tastes shaped my early music tastes.

Recently, on a drive home from work, I suddenly had an urge to hear “Pancho and Lefty” by the aforementioned Willie and Waylon.  That got me to thinking about the Country music I used to listen to growing up, so grab your Stetson, pull up your boots and check out these old-school Country tunes…

Whiskey River – A cover of an earlier song, Willie first released this on his album “Shotgun Willie” in 1973.  Bouncing back and forth between Southern Rock and a Texas Two-Step vibe, it’s a catchy song that has become Willie’s signature song.

Dixieland Delight – Released by ‘Alabama’ on their 1983 album “The Closer You Get”.  In 2019, Rolling Stone put it as #7 in the Top 25 “Songs about the South”, and it has been an on-and-off ‘pre 4th Quarter’ song tradition of the Crimson Tide.

Devil Went Down to Georgia – This song by Charlie Daniels Band has more than just a passing history with me.  If you know, you know.  If you don’t, then you weren’t there and wouldn’t understand.

She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft) – The stereotypical “country song” about a guy who’s wife leaves him and takes everything, it’s cleverly done by Jerry Reed and his storytelling style.

Convoy – This song by C.W. McCall is more of a silly guilty pleasure (as is the movie).  It’s made even ‘better’ by the fact that there’s like 3 different versions of it.

What say you Somethings?  Hit us up on our socials and let us know!

-PCR

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)

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

Audio Blog

Last month, I paid into Microsoft Game Pass because Starfield was coming out and I am a fan of Bethesda games. Similar to Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, the Bethesda games are the same game with different coats of paint. It’s an entire genre of paint, but still guns for bows and arrows, space for wastelands.. I dig it.

Sadly, that game was made with top of the line hardware in mind and mine is not. It’s stupid, but it is what it is. Hell, it isn’t even what I want to talk about today.

Since Starfield was out, I stuck around with Game Pass to see what else they had, and saw that Lies of P was on its way. I downloaded it, played it for about 4 – 6 hours, and promptly uninstalled it because I can’t stand Souls Games. First, I need to clarify that this isn’t a situation of ‘getting good’ – I enjoy a lot of tough gaming genres… hell, I will play a Rogue-like until my eyes won’t dialate without seeing Dead Cells or Hades characters. Even ‘2-d Souls-Likes’ and I am a demon possessed. I am the kid who beat Mike Tyson on the Nintendo (I did, I swear).

But, put me in front of a Souls-like and I am a raging he-beast of gaming ineptitude which sucks because they almost all are in worlds I want to play in. Dark and grimy fantasy, please. The rooftops of feudal Japan, gods yes. A Steampunk dystopia filled with gearwork police, stick it in my veins. And yet, the idea of learning the location and timing of a dozen villains through try and die, learning the attack and block strats for a series of enemies, and doing the constant struggle to get to where you were before to figure out how you died to not die again and I have never ever come closer to taking my controller and hurling it through a window.

So, after those 5 hours, I uninstalled Lies of P, disappointed that there is yet another game that I won’t get to learn the secrets of because it is made with a type of gamer in mind that I, in fact, am not. It’s shocking how every part of those games seems to be painted with me in mind and yet, somehow, their unforgiving relentless need for near perfect leaves me going back to installing Opus Magnum and Human Resource Machine… you know, actually hard games. (I kid.. kinda)

Oh, and Lies of P was playing on Ultra, suck it Starfield.