218: Dono from Radio Free Tote Bag Goes Guesto Mode

[00:00:28] Welcome to Anime Sickos, it's the podcast for geniuses and the only podcast. On Anime Sickos we take a look at the four pillars of modern misery, anime, gaming, posting, and jobs. I am Tom, an Anime Sicko. I am Joe, an Anime Sicko. We got two patrons to thank real quick off the top. Our first is gonna be Slam Dunk Rye. I know Slam Dunk Rye because they are in my record club and they post like 1,000 words of writing that's way better than mine.

[00:00:55] So thank you for doing that and also for giving us money. Shout out to the Dunkster! Yeah, you heard. This is a guesto. We got a very excited guesto to share. We're so pumped. And our other... Get that other patron. I want to help. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our other new patron. Do you know any guys named Dan who like are really problematic? I only know producer Dan. Well, fuck him because our new patron is cancel your Dans! Dan's.

[00:01:23] Damn! Thank you, Dan- Dan- Dancil. Dancil. Thank you, Dancil. It's for fully Danciled, folks. Uh, we got Dono from Radio Free Totebag going guesto. Dono, thank you for joining us. Yo, what the fuck is up? It's Friday! Shit! It is... I see... Here's the thing about us is that we don't got no jobs, so every day is Friday in the sense of being depressed. Oh, shit. Are both of you unemployed? Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[00:01:53] Uh, like... I'll text him and be like, you still don't have a job? And he'll be like, yeah. Uh, and then we'll send that back and forth a little bit. Maybe it'll... Maybe that'll like land into something like a fulfilling employment opportunity, but I don't think it will. I was really excited because I saw a listing for like black site doer slash, uh, government overthrower. And I was like, I got that for sure. And then I saw about the 500 CIA people who were losing their jobs and I'm like, they're gonna hire them instead. Oh!

[00:02:23] Fuck! God damn it. It's a crowded market. Yeah, it is. Uh, no, I fucking empathize, homies. I was... I was unemployed for like... Six or seven months. Maybe eight months over the... Over last summer. It's fun because like you intellectually understand like you are not your job. Your worth is not your job. Like you understand that. For sure. You absolutely understand that. And then like six months go by and you're like, so I had a false consciousness before.

[00:02:53] Yeah. Yeah. The only thing that matters is how much I can contribute. And, uh, it's real. It's not the system because I'm feeling this in here. It's not coming from out there. It's coming from in here. So it must be real. Uh... Okay. Well, I... So... Well, you told me the name of my show and, uh, it doesn't tell you anything about what it is. Yeah. I do a dating advice podcast with my co-host Audrey. We just did seven fucking years of this, of this thing. You have over 300 episodes.

[00:03:23] Seven years makes you an institution. I remember when we started out, like we were friends with Street Fight Radio with fucking Brian and Brett back when they were both doing that. I think they were some of the first like at all high profile guests we had on. And, uh, being like, damn, they've been going for 10 years. That's fucking crap. Can't even imagine. And now I'm like, Jesus. The time just... It just doesn't fucking exist anymore. I... It just...

[00:03:51] I wake up some days and it's several years later. And the days get longer. And the weeks... Wait, the years go fast. And the days go so slow. Modest mouse. Modest mouse. I thought you were going to say the years start coming and they don't stop coming. And also that smash mouth. Yeah. I was talking, uh, so I want to give the context of advice show though. Cause, uh, I have some advice for where y'all are at. Oh, give me. Oh, yeah. I'm going to come on your show and give you some fucking wisdom.

[00:04:20] We have no wisdom. Like, uh... We're famously dumb. We're fucking stupid. Like, that's one of our core selling points. Is it like, come see the fucking apes in the zoo. Well, unfortunately, that's like my show also. Like, I'm kind of the token idiot of the program. I forget how to say a word. I've said apropos three times in the past year. And Audrey makes fun of me every time. And I'm like, wait, I know it's apropos. And then I do it again. So I get that.

[00:04:50] I'm a fucking moron. Uh, check this out though. So I've been through like a couple pretty long unemployment stretches. Probably three of them. Like, pandemic. There was like some health stuff before any of that. And then there was this most recent one, which was just not the best luck. I got some severance for once also though. So like that, I don't know. That helps. That covered me for part of it. Uh, in the past times when I've been unemployed, that shit has crept up on me.

[00:05:19] The, I recognize this is not my worth, but that feeling of, uh, fuck, I got, I got nothing. Am I ever going to have a job? Yeah. Am I ever going to like own a home or have a family? Damn, probably not. Am I, am I just worthless garbage? Like going down that spiral? And, uh, that's fucking miserable. And my advice is reframe it as, cause as soon as you start working, you're like, this shit sucks. Yeah. It sucks equally bad.

[00:05:48] It's just in a different way. And then you're like, I am a fucking wage slave, et cetera. My time. I have no time. Uh, this is going to be my life. This, my, my briefed years are going to be spent on this. Yeah. I feel it. On a laptop all day long, hacking into the mainframe or whatever. So the thing that helped me in this last one and made it kind of rock is like, you just got to take it for granted. Financially. It sucks. This is a pain in the ass and all of these things, but like you apply to jobs, you do what you can do.

[00:06:17] You got to be like, I have all of this free time. That's fucking sick. Don't let it be tainted by the other stuff. Just what could I do with this time? That's sick. I was just like, I got a fucking agent for acting and I was playing a bunch of synth last unemployment stretch and I played my first show and stuff. That like energized me. Cause in the past ones, I just laid around depressed being like, I will never find love or employment. So that's my top tip for unemployment. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I got it.

[00:06:47] I, so I, here, I got to ask you this question. So I've been, and if you've listened to anime sickos, you may have, you may have heard me talk about this before. Since I think 2021, I've been like, I'm going to learn to play piano. And so I've been doing that. And so the idea of synths is so like, it's, it's like looking over the wall to like the cool kids. Cause it's like there, that's the same buttons, but also there's like a second part, which like what? Huh?

[00:07:18] So like speak on this. What's the second part? Okay. I'm fucking stoked. You have expressed this. Cause this is where I was when I started with this two years ago. We need to hang out. And I can show you this stuff at some point. It's like my favorite thing to share with people. Yeah. So like I grew up playing guitar and clarinet. I played in like a jazz band in high school. I wasn't incredible, but like I learned how to read music and, and to play Birdland and

[00:07:44] American patrol and shit, which retrospect Birdland, pretty cool choice from that, uh, from that jazz teacher. Birdland whips ass, dude. Fucking sick. Like I was in 10th grade. I'd squandered the opportunity. Uh, we fucked around most of the time, but so I did that stuff, but I was always, uh, especially with guitar after that, I was always really self-conscious playing with other people. Like I would just get in my head and then I would play poorly and got discouraged.

[00:08:11] And, uh, so I, I quit music from like 2000, pro 2016, maybe 17 until two years ago. So what is that? It's like seven or eight years. Yeah. I had like fully accepted. Well, like too anxious to perform and this just, these instruments don't click with me. So I guess I will never play this.

[00:08:39] And I, I hated that, but I had like accepted it. And, uh, two years ago I kind of realized I needed another artistic outlet. Like the show kind of proved to me I can make something if I stick to it. But I was like, I need an outlet for abstract stuff. Oh, I've always liked electronic music and I tried to learn Ableton fucking forever ago and didn't like clicking around the screen. And that didn't click with me. I have friends who fuck with synthesizers. Like what if I, what if I got one of them?

[00:09:08] So I got a little, uh, this isn't a video show, I guess. I've looked at it. It's like folks, imagine like there's like a, like gamer lights, like from a PC and they're like going like in the background. Uh, and it looks like Dono is like in the control center for like where the Daft Punk guys like send funk missiles to like the forces of squareness. The whole wall is a drum kit. Yeah. It fucking rocks.

[00:09:35] That's half of the fun of this shit is it's blinking fucking lights and knobs and stuff to fiddle with. Um, but so I, I got just like a standalone hardware synthesizer cause the computer stuff just, I'm on a computer all day for work and recording it. Yeah. I just didn't want to, I don't know. That didn't click with me. And, uh, I kind of realized, oh, I don't know what a synthesizer is.

[00:10:00] I've heard this word, but I, it looks like a piano and it sounds like the eighties was kind of my conception of it. Right. Yeah. My knowledge is it's a piano. And then sometimes in the middle of the song, the guy will like reach up and start turning some knobs really nervously. And then he starts playing again and it sounds the same. Well, if you know what you're doing, it doesn't sound the same. The knob that is a hundred percent part of it. The whole deal.

[00:10:27] I don't like want to go down this entire rundown cause I, I will just info dump on you about this shit. If I don't exercise self-control, but like basically it's all, it's all sound design. You can use those knobs and stuff to make the keys of the piano sound like all kinds of shit. Like a bass pluck, like a piano, like a guy screaming. Is this where the reverb pedal also comes into play? Kind of.

[00:10:56] So that's effects, right? Yeah. You got like a sound, a guitar, maybe you go through a reverb pedal and it adds that echoey in a big room or a small room or whatever you, whatever kind you got sound to it. That shit sound design too. And like I use, I'm pointing to stuff and this is a tiny screen. This probably doesn't help at all. I have since running through effects pedals like that too.

[00:11:22] Like that's another element of sound design is like that sending the signal through something like that to make it sound different. But synths are basically just that, but you got a wave. It sounds like, you know, a computer beep kind of noise and you send that through a bunch of processing. That's where all the knobs are for. And depending on how you set up all that processing, it sounds different and it's pretty cool. Hell yeah.

[00:11:50] This sounds like a computer that does not have the sin of being a computer. Yes. Less screen, no awful social media integration into everything. Probably no notifications. Yeah. No notifications. It doesn't go boop unless you do that. Oh shit. You know what you could really do if you were like an evil guy is like set up a bunch of sounds of like the discord notifications and like the slack.

[00:12:20] Like message. Oh, that's brutal. And play a song of that. You could like, you could like induce self harm. You could like make people jump off of bridges with that shit. If you set up and did that as like a street performance, like on the subway, people would kick your ass. No, you put a bucket and you're like 150 and I stop. Stop. Stop for X amount of time and keep kicking the price up. Yeah.

[00:12:49] Ironically, that's a really fun idea to make a drum, like a drum kit of annoying notification sounds. Just every sound in your life that makes you have to disengage and shudder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like, uh, that's like extreme metal. You know, it's gotten stale because everyone's playing the same guitar. What's the whole, what was the core? The core is something really harsh and awful to hear that the new harsh and awful sound

[00:13:18] is a fucking slack boob. It's noise music, but the noise is like the bad noises of technology. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're ironically, there's something there either as a comedy project or a little bit on the nose. Uh, we live in a society type art piece, but that has potential that could be done well and really annoyingly. Yeah. That's the whole point. Isn't it?

[00:13:43] Uh, I'm, I'm sort of in the musical, uh, prison of like, I'm just playing stuff. From sheets. I'm just like, I'm, I'm still working on my hands. Uh, and wait, but you can read sheet music and play, like play keys to it. Yeah. But like coming up with a new music, like I, like that as I have zero seconds of, uh, experience with that. And so that's sort of like, like, I know that that's another path that I should go down,

[00:14:14] but when I have a piece of sheet music in front of me, I can play the keys. Like that is like, I can tell when I did that right or not. And when it's like coming up with your own stuff, it's like, I don't know if that's right or not. And like, everyone's like, there's no such thing as right and wrong. It's like, motherfucker, shut the fuck up. Like shut your ass. That is true though. So I, I can't do that. I can kind of read music. I don't know. I know what all the notation means and stuff, but I don't play anything by sheet music.

[00:14:39] And like, I couldn't go back and play a clarinet part without kind of weeks of figuring that back out. So I, but I, so I can't do that. Writing music is just, you just, you hit stuff and eventually something sounds interesting and then you build on that. And you go crazy doing it. And you go sicko mode doing it. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. So when have we not been going crazy? We've been going crazy since day fucking one. That's like the main thing.

[00:15:06] Speaking of going crazy, you know, what really goes crazy is, uh, time.gov because, so we always use time.gov to sync up our tracks. They fucking, the doge fucking laid off the guy who does the CSS for time.gov because it looks different now and way worse. It didn't really look good before. It looked terrible before. I've got to be very clear, but there is a degradation of quality that has occurred that I can only assume is because like they fired everyone who,

[00:15:35] controls the weather as well. I don't know. It's almost certainly. They fired the clock master. Yeah. It's awful. That's a disaster. We always talked about how the, um, the borderlines between the time zones are so raw. Like they're, they're obscene. Like they look disgusting. They're like worse than porno in terms of obscenity. But this is how we're going to balkanize now. Like we can just follow the colors. Before.

[00:16:04] So I guess what I wasn't aware of is that the line that we were seeing was sort of like stylized and sort of smoothed out. They have really jagged it up. It is so jagged and like unpleasant to look at this line now. Like it used to be that like going up and down Kansas and Nebraska with more or less straight lines. We're talking jiggy jaggies in and out. I hate it. I'm looking at it now. I'm making me so fucking mad. God, I hate this. Give me a, give me a curvaceous time zone, baby.

[00:16:35] None of these time zones got big asses. Give me an hourglass. Give me an hourglass figure time zone. Oh. Mountain time's kind of close. Mountain time's got like a, you know, looking at this through a very coarse, despicable lens, but building on the curvaceous line bit, the mountain, it's got a titty on the left, the mountain time up top sticking out of Idaho. The fuck is that about? Yeah.

[00:17:02] No, but none of these got, if any, if anyone's got an ass, it's central. And if that's the best we can have, then like that's shameful. You're talking about over Tennessee, Tennessee, Kentucky, that little, that little bump. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty. Anyway. Listen, you got to take what you can get. Anyway, I'm glad you invited me on your podcast where you sexualize the time zone. I'm very proud to be a part of that. Yeah. Usually we just complain, but the sexualizing is new. It's fun.

[00:17:32] Did I bring that element? Has no one done this before? You absolutely did. Whoa. I mean, this is why we have guests on. You know, Joe and I, obviously we have incredible rapport and incredible chemistry. And when we talk, it's the funniest thing that's ever happened. Uh, and no one, uh, is more comedically, uh, aligned than the two of us. And we'll never get stale, but sometimes we get a little stale. And so you got to get some new blood. We go new places. We thought, we thought time.com was played because we've talked about time.com like 50 fucking times,

[00:18:01] but we're getting new places. And I think that's all you do. That's what's up. And you know what? I want to celebrate in the most professional, uh, of podcasting manners by just eating a piece of dark chocolate. All right. Beautiful. What percent dark chocolate? Crunch on this. I can't remember. I think it was 70 something. You really want to get up to those nineties where it's just dirt. That's where it's there. You can plant a tree in that shit.

[00:18:30] Crumbles to dust in your mouth. Yeah. Make your mouth inexplicably dry forever. That's the stuff. We got to ask you, uh, since you're here as, as our wonderful guest, the question we ask all guests, which is? Yes, I would fuck the time zone lines. Next question. Okay, good. Next question, Joe. Okay. Got the first one out of the way. Good. Number two was, uh, are you an anime sicko? Uh, and you can respond to this in any way you want. Yeah. I mean, I jerk off to hentai pretty frequently. Okay. That'll do it.

[00:19:00] That'll do it. Generally, it's a little more abstract, but I guess that counts. I, um, newer to anime. Mm-hmm. I'm going to say, cause I, uh, I don't know. I watched like Pokemon growing up. That's technically anime, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. That, the sin is on you. I see the mark. And I played like the Final Fantasy games, like FF7 and X, I think. Those are gateway drugs. I see the mark. It's glowing.

[00:19:30] That shit is anime, right? Like, I mean, all the art and characters. Look at Cloud's hair. Clearly, clearly anime hair. Um. The way that the stories are paced in an insane way where they put a lot of work into the beginning and then they go, oh shit, oh fuck, oh god, we gotta ship the game. And then they make like the next three towns you go to, uh, you're in there for like five minutes and then they do a big backstory about the doggy. Uh, yeah, that's anime.

[00:19:58] That is like pure anime. So I had exposure to it, right? But like, I think at that, you know, as a kid, I, I think I would have said I didn't watch anime because I was like aware of Dragon Ball and I didn't understand that so I didn't watch that. And then in high school, probably, I don't know. I was a shitty internet forum kid when I was in high school. And like, so I was aware of, I was aware of weebs. Yes. Yes.

[00:20:27] Well aware of weebs and their exploits. So did it like negatively polarize you against it a little bit because you see, you're like, oh, these are the people that are associated with this. Maybe I don't need to get into Dragon Ball. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think so, to be honest with you. And I wasn't like a cool teenager. I mean, yeah, I know. You just said you were on posting. You were on the forums. It's like, I heard, we have you on fucking tape with that. I was doing that in parkour. But, um.

[00:20:58] So I was too cool for that shit. I was like, I can't, I can't be associated with that. That would ruin my style. Yeah. Man, so then in college at some point, somebody I dated showed me some Ghibli movies and I was like, damn, this is sick. Maybe anime can be a thing of beauty. Hey, maybe there's something to this anime stuff after all. You always get that lie. They trick you. That's how they get you. But you're like, is there more here? And then you're like, oh no.

[00:21:25] But then, early quarantine time, we started, I don't know, we met the street fight guys and started meeting like other podcast people in the kind of sphere that we exist in. Mm-hmm. And did y'all ever listen to Ballin' Out Super? Yeah, yeah. Back when that was a thing? Yeah, yeah, yes. Fucking back when Alex Patak and Katie Rose Leon were on it.

[00:21:48] Got onto that show somehow, loved it, listened even though I'd never seen Dragon Ball just because they're very funny and it was, I don't know, it's a little like yours show. The anime, it's not necessarily the focus. Yeah. But through that process, I was like, damn, these tropes are pretty funny. I get a better idea of like what the culture behind this is. I gotta check some of this shit out. And I didn't have anything to do because this was one of them unemployment stretches and this is before I was playing music.

[00:22:18] I was doing a lot of sitting around. Oh, that's a classic move. We're experts at that. Oh, I love laying on the floor lately, but yeah, sitting's good. Both good in their own way. Both hit different. Both hit different. So I expressed this to my friend, one of my good friends who lives here. Who, you know, is also, we went to high school together actually. He's also not like a weeb kind of person.

[00:22:48] But, you know, had fallen into the anime. You trust their judgment is what I'm hearing. Yeah. So I was like, give me some animes that I would like. You know me, give me some animes. Anyways. And I watched Mob Psycho 100. That's the one you recommended. Yeah, that's a good friend. That shit rocks. Oh my God. And I was like, damn. Okay, wait. I fuck with anime.

[00:23:18] Because I'd seen... I forgot. Like I went on Ballin' Out Super. So I watched some Dragon Ball. I watched Helsing Ultimate. An episode of that. I fucking love... I love Helsing... I love when there is a guy who gets blown apart and shot. And then he just like gets back together. Yeah. Because his blood goes in reverse. I never get sick of that. And there's like a weird Nazi catboy or something in that show too. It was... The one episode I saw is weird as fuck. And then I watched... Fuck.

[00:23:48] It's like a harem anime. It's a boy and his many space girlfriends. Is this a Tenshi Muyo or... It was Tenshi Muyo. I was about to say like you get that... That you're describing like 1,000 shows. Well, yeah. Learned that's like a whole genre which is insane but fascinating to me. And those are like... There's like not a lot of action until like the end of every Tenshi Muyo series. Because he's like the guy, right? Or something.

[00:24:17] And he has to like fight something with a sword. I just remember as a kid who was not like super interested in the concept of a harem anime. Because like why is Goku not on the fucking screen? Yeah. That's what I remember. It's just like these fights are no good. I think that... I have watched one episode completely out of context. I feel like there was no fighting. I feel like it was anime ladies fawning over this weird hot dog boy. Anyway.

[00:24:45] So I was like wow there's like a range of shit that anime can be. And it can get really weird like this. And I don't get it. So fucking that was the context for this. So I watched Mob Psycho 100. And I'm like I'm seeing some of the anime... Like I get the context of this a little more. Like some of the things that are like anime things. Or whatever. As opposed to watching it in a vacuum.

[00:25:11] But I'm like okay we got a main character who's like a funny con man. That's sick. There's like the classic anime boy. Shy boy. But he has powers. But it ends up being like heartfelt. Like initially I'm like okay. Like I get the trope. But by the end I'm like this is beautiful. This is a heartwarming story. The fact that he's like just stronger than everything is just a foregone conclusion. So it's not like oh is he going to be able to do it?

[00:25:40] It's just like no. Can you get his feelings in check about this? Yeah. It's so fucking... It's so good. It's so good. We need to do a Mob Psycho. You know what we... This is neither here nor there. But like about 100 times in the last two years Joe and I have been like okay next episode is Mob Psycho 100 season 3. Let's both sit down and watch it. And then we'll do that. And then three months go by and we're like we both forgot to watch Rob Psycho season 3.

[00:26:10] But this time we won't. And no. It hasn't happened yet. And then you do it again. I'm familiar. Yeah. The thing that stood out to me with that show though and this is kind of the premise of my show. I like a blend between dumb comedy and like sincerity. Like I'm a fucking moron but I'm like I'm pretty self-actualized. I'm pretty emotionally aware of myself.

[00:26:35] And I appreciate people in like media that portray that in a sincere way that like you know a certain type of person might consider like corny. But I think when that's done well even if it is a bit corny I appreciate that energy. That's the energy I try to bring. I'd rather be corny than cringe. And so that show really clicked with me. I really really fucked with that.

[00:27:01] And then I watched One Punch Man because that's the same guy. Yeah. Same concept. It is kind of the same premise isn't it? That was really good too. Yeah. One Punch Man is just sort of what if Mob Psycho was just a straight comedy and it didn't have the heartfelt part so much. It would be good is the answer. So I watched that and liked it. I watched a couple movies that I can't remember what they were. Just a friend showing me some anime stuff.

[00:27:30] I watched most of Evangelion and I want to finish it. But every time I think about it I'm like damn that show was so fucking heavy. Yeah. Do I want to sit down and like have an existential crisis right now? I got probably halfway through the first season so like I can feel where it's going and I'm afraid. But I liked it a lot also. Yeah. I think that's it. I think that's all of them.

[00:27:56] So I'm a fucking anime sicko, bro. Yeah. The sicko vibes are coming off you intense. This is something a lot of guests sort of misconstruction. We say are you an anime sicko? And what they hear is do you watch anime? And those are very different questions. I think the key to being an anime sicko is you have to be like one of them like incredible freaks.

[00:28:25] And yeah, I think that all of us gathered here today fit that description. So like hell yeah. We're very pleased. I mean from the second you talked about when I was in high school I was always posting on the forums. I'm like okay this is an incredible freak. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. But it is good. That's the thing. That's the inherent contradiction of sicko mindsets. Like all these things are so fucking stupid and bad. Dot dot dot. But dot dot dot.

[00:28:56] And hell yeah. I think there's two ways you can come out of that. Because I think we're around the same age. There is a window if you went to high school like late 2000s early 2010s of the internet being mainstream enough and developed enough that you could find the fucked up forums and stuff without. Like you had a computer and all of this stuff.

[00:29:21] People who grew up in that I feel like it's a pretty hard divide between you're either. You either got tainted or not. Well you guys I think you get tainted either way. You know you're tainted but aware of it and cool or you're a fucking weird Nazi guy. Like that seems. Yeah. It seems like that's it. There's no in between those things. It either makes you cooler or it makes you way fucking worse. We talk about this on and off.

[00:29:50] I believe we talked it with when we had Merit K on as a guest which is like. Oh hell yeah. There's no like not saying shame should be felt about it but there is currently not enough shame being felt about it. So like. Yeah. The amount of shame shouldn't be like a problem or like really hurt you. But it can't be non-zero. Yeah. Or it has to be non-zero rather. It needs to be enough to temper it.

[00:30:17] You need to know not to bring up dumb internet shit. Like at work. On a first date. Especially when your work is country. Is the earth. And you go to work and you're. Oh my god. J.D. Vance talking about hell dude. Did you see that? I wanted to fucking. Oh. The vice president. What? Shouldn't know about like specific posters.

[00:30:47] Like that should not be a thing. And he also shouldn't. Draw breath. Shouldn't draw breath. He should be in the fucking ground in a box. Just hanging out of course. Yeah. He can get out at any time. Yeah. Like what. Just a cool. Hey we built a fort underground. You can lay down in here. Those rocks. Yeah. Line on the floor. It's different. Of the. Of the many SpongeBob memes.

[00:31:14] I think the best is the one where he is gesturing to the open coffin. That is the one that has the sauce unlike the others. All the one where he's saying hey check. Hey look. It's me. It's me your friend SpongeBob. Look at this cool fort I built that allows you to lay underground. Yeah. I love that meme. We love it. New segment.

[00:31:44] We're going to do like a mini version of Donno's show Radio Free Tote Bag. There's fucking questions. We're going to get asked questions and we're going to answer them like geniuses. Because we're both married so we're perfect at relationship. That is true though. People come on our show like married people that are like oh I don't know how much advice I'm going to I've been married for 10 years and my co-host and I are like yeah we're not fucking you you did it like you succeeded. You're going to give better advice than we did. We're still fucking figuring it out.

[00:32:13] Okay so I got two potential ones y'all got to pick between these and given they're married probably one's better than the other one. These are both from two years ago. So still relevant. So still relevant. I'm sorry if you're listening I'm sorry. Here's your options from 314 2023. I've been thinking of proposing to my GF in the next few months. What are some proposal do's and don'ts?

[00:32:41] Right in y'all's wheelhouse. Or what makes for a good dating app profile? I cannot rely on my looks but I am fun and make good conversation when I get the chance. Let's do the second one first. People need to see that you're fluent in sarcasm. Yes. They need to know that you like to go on adventures. Whiskey is a thing that you will drink sometimes. In your profile you got to connect with other people right?

[00:33:08] And these are strangers so you got to find something you can really connect on. So like maybe a show like The Office. Oh yeah yeah yeah. Loves and enjoys. Just let people know how much you like that and they'll say I also love that show and you're off to the races. And if you can't rely on your looks you got to put a picture. So what are you going to do? Well one thing that you really don't want to come across as on dating sites is some sort of weird loner. Because you're going to be scary to be around. So it's like how do I make it clear that like I have friends. Like I have a life and like I'm in a community already.

[00:33:38] Well all of your pictures should be you in a group. That's a great idea. Because yeah the more that you have the more kind of evidence of look at all these social situations. Yeah you don't need to fix me. I'm doing great. Legitimately this is the most terrifying question and there are many reasons I'm glad I'm married. But high among them is oh lord the apps are scary.

[00:34:08] I don't know. I don't know dude. It's bad and they've gotten worse. How long have both you been married? How long y'all been together? Me and Sho we've been hanging out for like something like 10 years. I've been with my wife. We've been together for going on 12 years. Been married for I believe five of them. Shit okay. So you have not dated in a long fucking time. Yeah Tinder was not yet out. Damn.

[00:34:39] When I got off the market. Damn. Holy shit. That was like I could like feel the wind of the bullet go by my head. Tinder started when I was dating and I found my wife. Not through Tinder. We use coffee meets bagel which I think has since changed. Yeah yes. Yes it has. When I. What is it now? When I used it it was the premise was like at least this is the sense I got that it was

[00:35:07] like maybe people were like a little more professional. It was like maybe people who were like a little more career focused. And the other thing I liked about it is that you only got like five matches a day. So you weren't doing like this endless swiping shit. So I met my wife through there and we dated for. I met her she was starting residency. We've married now for two three. The funny thing is we bought a place together before we got married because we're like you can't live in a wedding.

[00:35:37] You like it's not. No that's a very. That's a very good point. And then the the moment where you asked this other person to marry you like what did that look like for us. For us it was after a very bad day and we're both just sitting on the stairs like fuck. And they're like do you want to get married. And I know that doesn't sound like inspiring but like it was just like the for who we were it was the most on brand and correct way to do it.

[00:36:07] But no that's really adorable to be honest with you. That's like it's a sweet way to propose. Yeah I I have almost exactly the same story not the buying a house first but it was like so clear that it was going to happen like we were living together. It was like we're people say like you know when you get married it's different things change. You won't know until it happens that you'll feel the difference wrong and maybe for someone else me getting married.

[00:36:35] Here's what was different on one day I had a big party and people gave me things for free. And then I went back to exactly the same shit and it has never changed. Non-derogatory. I'm very pleased that that is the case. However the way it was when it's like we were like obviously we're gonna get married like let's wait till we have more money because at that time we had both terrible jobs and no money since then.

[00:37:00] Well now we have one good job and and like medium money and like water treading money. But at that time we had no money and very bad jobs. I believe at that point my wife had no job and so she was feeling this feeling and I came home from work and I had a terrible day. And she was just in a in a pit. And it was fucking dead of winter like dark at four just the worst and she's just like

[00:37:28] I need something good to happen today. You want me to marry it? And I said I I went oh and then I thought about it for a second and I'm like I don't want to tell anyone today though because I'm really fucking tired. She's like no we'll do it on the weekend. It's like okay. Woo woo on the weekend. Two fun facts about that. One that day unbeknownst to us was Valentine's Day. That is completely a coincidence. We don't celebrate it really.

[00:37:58] And the second fun fact is that like so that was a Tuesday. We were going to tell people on the weekend on that like Thursday my buddy like invited me and a bunch of our homies for like dinner at like a nice restaurant. And the thing was like hey I got this coupon and it's for four people so let's all go. And then we get there and I can tell like oh he's gonna say some shit and he's like me

[00:38:23] and my girlfriend just got engaged and I just I had to be like I had to send him a text like I'm not copying you and I'm not making this up. I also did that. But we actually did it a little better. So yeah. What can I say? So that kind of answers the second question. What's the do's and don'ts of a proposal? Get really depressed. Yeah. If you're thinking about like where you're gonna have the ring out, you've lost.

[00:38:53] Think about where you're gonna be sad. You know like during the week where is your lowest? When is the point where you're barely able to move forward? That's where you want to make it happen. Yeah. You gotta buy low is what you're saying. Yes. Yes. Because a wedding is a wonderful thing. So if you start in the red, the party you throw is gonna be amazing. Yeah. That's so good. That's so smart. That's so smart. And oh yeah. That's the other thing. People overthink it. It really just like doesn't fucking...

[00:39:23] Holidays is like deciding to host a party. An expensive one. A very expensive one that has like legal implications. But yeah. But like I have all these fucking friends who have their like 10 year partner who lives with them. They own a fucking condo together. And I'm just like, like what the fuck? Like every day that you stay boyfriend and girlfriend, all that is is you're denying me a dinner.

[00:39:52] Like I could go... I could dress up, have a dinner and dance on the floor. And you go, no. Every day you say Tom does not get a dinner. And man, I hate that. Get married. It's abusive not to get married. It's abusive to deny your partner a tasty dinner. A rendition of Mambo No. 5. The chicken dance. A chicken dance.

[00:40:22] The fucking cha-cha slider. The fuck that's called. That's a good point. A sweet Carol line for your uncles. For the over 40 crowd. Over 40. God. I'm pretty much over 40 at this point. And what am I saying? Put sweet Carol line out there. I'm saying bah, bah, bah with the rest of them. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm punctuating those lines by putting my drink up into here excitedly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:48] So what y'all are saying is what makes a good dating app profile is basically you got to get married when you're depressed. That's kind of the answer that we all are at. Can I share a dating app profile that our friend Josh had that I'm obsessed with? Because it's just very funny. Is this mutual friend Josh or is this a different Josh? This is a different Josh. This is not Josh from the worst of all possible worlds. Oh, no. This is a different Josh.

[00:41:15] But the Tinder profile was simply, hello, this is Josh's dad. Please stop trying to fuck my son. And it's just like, that's it, dude. That's really good. That's really fucking good. I'm jealous. I was, yeah, I had the same feeling where I was like, oh, if only I could have put those

[00:41:44] words in that order ever. Yes. Like there are so many times where like, we've been doing this podcast and we've been doing other stuff, creative stuff. Like I've been trying to put comedy into the world and be a creative person for over like a decade and a half at this point. And I feel like I'm pretty good at it. And then every once in a while, someone who hasn't spent fucking decade and a half doing

[00:42:09] grinding will just drop something 1000 times funnier than all of my bits put together. And that's one of... Stop trying to fuck my son. Yes. He took the phone and put that in there. You know, like it's just wonderful. The execution of it. Unironically, that's, I mean, that's part of my answer for what makes a good dating app profile though.

[00:42:33] Is you got to think, especially if you are a guy and you're out there swiping, women are like getting a million matches with people. Yeah. You got to really wade through, wade through them. And most people's like messages and profiles are kind of boring because like most people are bad at this shit. It's also not a great avenue for everybody for expression. Like, yeah, I don't know. It's not easy to like come up with a good profile and a message to like hook somebody, you know?

[00:43:03] And you kind of got to be like this to do it, but make something dumb that stands out. Basically, that's not going to work if you're like an accountant guy who doesn't, you know, ever go out and like is trying to get married and like raise two kids and like do the kind of trad thing. Because that's not, you're not a fucking weirdo. You can't be the uncool, like you can't do that if you're the uncool accountant guy. I get that. You got to be a weirdo.

[00:43:32] You're not writing into Radio Free Toadbag unless you are one of the great freaks. That is very true. So like it applies. And I say this very, in a very complimentary way, we got some absolute freaks in the listenership at Rocks. And I say this also as one. Yeah, of course. You'd got to be one of the great freaks to be sort of a worthwhile person in my estimation. But that's my ideal dating profile. It's just some stupid shit that captures the attention.

[00:44:00] I will also say though, like depending on what you're looking for, especially if you're looking for something specific, it depends on the app too. Like I see a lot of people on field. I don't think that was around back in y'all's days. This is a dating app. This is focused pretty much on like kink people and poly people and queer people. I thought that's what Tinder was. Tinder is kind of the McDonald's of dating apps these days.

[00:44:31] Oh, okay. That's just, it's kind of there. It's not very good, but it, it kind of works. It's McDonald's. Wait, so how many are, would you say are like active in the sense that they are worth using? Tinder, Fields, how many are there? Tinder, Fields, how many are there?

[00:45:19] That specification. Yeah. Solo polyamory, my guess would be like you jack off while thinking of many different people. Or you have a bunch of dicks. Yeah. You're jerking off multiple of your own dick at once. That is what this is. No, I don't know what it is. So polyamory generally, you got, you're dating multiple people romantically, right?

[00:45:48] There's a bunch of different arrangements that could go under there. Somebody who like has a quote unquote primary partner or maybe is like married to somebody and they live together, but they're also both dating and having romantic relationships with other people. It could look like that. It could look like I'm in romantic relationships with a bunch of people. We do relationship, boyfriend, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever the fuck, like relationship shit.

[00:46:17] But nobody is kind of like above another person. You know what I mean? There's not like a hierarchy to it. And then there's kind of broken people like me who are trying to do a lot of work on that. But the whole solo poly thing is like, you know, I'm, I'm seeing different people and I'm direct about where I'm at of, I like having an emotional connection, kind of romantic relationship.

[00:46:43] But I, I don't want to do kind of the expectations around like, like a monogamous relationship, like a traditional one, just in terms of we're going to spend a ton of time together. You know, we're going to meet each other's parents and we're going to get like married, you know, that kind of thing. Not to say like there's anything wrong with that, but like this point in my life, but I'm also just not trying to like fuck people and then blow them off or whatever. Like I care about the people I'm seeing quite a bit.

[00:47:12] But the solo part being, um, I am putting that kind of energy into like building my own life. Cause I don't want to completely go into like my history on here. Listen to my show for that. Yeah. There's hundreds of episodes. I'm sure you've gotten into it once or twice. But like, I'm, I've been working through a bunch of shit the past couple of years. I, uh, traditionally like was in monogamous relationships, was in a few that were a couple that were really fucking codependent.

[00:47:40] And I had the cool realization after getting out of one two years ago, uh, that what I had thought of as love, my definition of love was codependency. Oh yeah. Oh, that's got like that. Just you're like, Oh, this feeling of requiring this other person. That's love. This, this intent, cause it's the most intense. So that must be what love is. Realized I was falling into that shit. And so getting out of that, I was like, damn, wow.

[00:48:08] That comes from a trauma and attachment styles and things, you know, I've figured out about myself. I'm going to figure all of that out before I'm like, okay, I'm going to like move in with somebody again, you know? And we're making good progress. And like the synth stuff and the acting stuff I do is like, has been part of that, of just, uh, what the fuck do I want out of life? And who am I? And I need to be able to articulate that clearly and be like working towards that.

[00:48:37] As opposed to for most of my twenties, I felt like I was kind of just going with the, going with the fucking flow. So big fucking roundabout, roundabout tangent with that, um, uh, of saying what, what kind of, you know, what that kind of poly is. But I don't like using the term because there's lots of stigma to this shit. And like, yeah, you can use these, this terminology to be an asshole.

[00:49:02] We just did a whole episode about this, of people kind of using non-monogamy speak in the way people use therapy speak to be a piece of shit. Sure. But that is unfortunately not an uncommon thing. Yeah. We have a sketch where the opening non-sequitur joke is two people on a date. And one of them says like, oh, so it's called ethical non-monogamy. And the other ones goes, oh no, no, sorry. That's a common misconception. It's actually evil non-monogamy. For real though. And I don't know.

[00:49:31] A lot of our listenership and my co-host are poly and I, I, I don't know. Learned, learned things through them and over the course of, of doing my show. And it's good. And it can be done well. It's just, uh, you know, much like a plane crash. It's an explosive event when, cause there's more people involved and it's novel. So people, if something messy happens with a poly person, people are like, well, poly shit is, is messy. It just got more messy potential.

[00:50:00] An interesting response to the question, how many apps do people use these days? It's been a long day. Uh, I go on a fucking big tangents. Uh. I mean, here's the thing. That's all podcasts are. And anyone out there is like, I wonder if I could start my podcast. Like, are you able to mumble a tangent that is kind of related and then kind of taper off? Oh baby, you're ready. Go buy a mug. Like, like, like, can you talk?

[00:50:29] Like when you open your mouth, does talk come out? Like you, that's it. There's no second step. That's showbiz, baby. Field is the app for that shit. That's one of the ones that I use. And that's pretty good. Kind of, I'm on there. Kind of works. It's not great. Bumble, a little bit better than that. Hinge, maybe a little bit better than that. But they're all, they're all pretty shitty, to be honest with you.

[00:50:58] I know that Bumble is the one that Jack Posobiec was on. Because people call him Bumble Jack. To make fun of him. Because he was on the particular dating app. While married, though, he was like, he was like in the Navy. And he was like a right-wing guy who was just doing all this, you know, just constant bullshit posting. And then someone was just like, oh shit, I think I just found him on this app. That's awesome.

[00:51:27] Not quite as relevant, but as long as we're talking about like, oh shit, the right-wing guy in real life. For a while, my wife had a miserable job that made her go insane. Where she did customer service for one of the meal kits that they send you food. So a lot of people calling her on the phone and saying insane things. And one time, she had a phone call from someone. She's like, this is the most annoying voice I ever heard in my life.

[00:51:54] And he kept complaining that the shrimps that they gave were smaller than the shrimps on the picture. And it was misleading. And so I thought that it would be enough for dinner to have this amount. But it wasn't because the shrimps were actually too small. And it was not filling. And she's like, God, this guy has the most annoying voice. And she looked at the name on the account. And it was Ben Shapiro. That's awesome. And I was like, surely it can't be. And I got a clip of him.

[00:52:23] And she's like, oh, that's him. Jesus Christ. I mean, it scans completely like. But incredible. Hypothetically. Would you not say that the picture of the shrimps should accurately depict the amount of shrimps that you get in the meal kit? God. I hate that guy. Anyway. That guy sucks. But let's go on another tangent here real quick. Tiny shrimps also kind of fucked up. You ever get food where the shrimp's really tiny?

[00:52:53] Yeah. It's okay in a taco. It's fine. Yeah, that's true. But it's like bug. It's like bug sized. That's upsetting to me. I like shrimp. Although I had a bad shrimp taco. And it like put. You ever have a food that's just like not good? So it's like this food is now on cool down until your body decides it can do it again. And I had that with shrimp. I think I'm winding down with that, which is interesting because my wife is.

[00:53:23] She really likes shrimp. So she'll be like, you want to get shrimp? And I'm like, if it's breaded, sure. Or I'm still waiting. I just. It was a very slimy piece of shrimp in a taco. And my brain was just like, this is how it always is now. You know? Yes, dude. The cool down is so fucking real. Like there was this. I was visiting my in-laws. And they have these little biscottis. These little mini bite sized biscottis that I was like going nuts for. I was devouring them. And they gave me a bunch to take back home with.

[00:53:53] And on the plane trip back, it caught the stomach flu. And so immediately I got home. And I was fucking puking. And I felt closer to death than I have in my entire life. And during that time, the bag of little biscottis was like in front of me. And so like I would try to eat. Like when I was well, I'm like, maybe I'll have one of these. And I like look at the bag. And I'm like. Oh, no. And I think it's been like many years.

[00:54:20] And I think I'm like just off cool down for those little biscottis. Did you eat one while you were sick? Or was this literally just my visual association? The onset of the symptoms like was so awful that I was like sort of rooted in place. Like I couldn't move. Because I'm like if I move, it might get worse. And so I'm just like sitting perfectly still, very cognizant of how awful I feel.

[00:54:44] Basically all of my mental energy is spent really savoring the hell feel. And my head is sort of like locked in place. And what's it right in the middle of my field of view? But these biscottis. Like I didn't even, I couldn't smell them. I wasn't eating them. I couldn't taste them. However. It's the only thing that was there. Yes. Everything about them is like them's equal. You puke out everything you got. That sucks, man. Those guys are pretty good.

[00:55:12] That's a terrible thing to have happened. They were so little that like you could eat them without dipping. You know, mostly biscottis you gotta dip. Yeah. But these you could eat with or with. I mean obviously they're great when you dip. In your coffee, in your tea, any sort of hot drink. But a lot of the times with biscottis you're sort of like shackled to a hot drink. It's just like if I don't have a hot drink I can't eat it. What am I eating? But you could. Damn. That's unfortunate. I can't, I don't think I've had, I don't think I have anything on cool down recently.

[00:55:42] But I'm familiar with this. It's particularly the texture thing. Like a slimy shrimp. Yes. I don't drink. Just foxy. I don't drink a ton but I also would have that if you have. Like you just have a night out and you're drinking one thing. And you just, it's just too much. And then your brain is just like I can never have this again. I have that with Southern Comfort. Because in high school we would, we had shitty fakes that wouldn't work at the state liquor store. But it would work at the gas station.

[00:56:11] So we would get the 21% SoCo. Because in Ohio you can only like sell up to 21%. It's like watered down. I think it was even like sweeter. And even the smell of SoCo still just fucks shit. Oh yeah. Yeah. We did early times which is. Oh no. Yeah. Plastic bottle for sure. Yeah. Earl Y times as we called it. That is the plastic bottle one.

[00:56:40] Each state, I've moved around the country a bunch. Each state has its own local shitty liquor. Plastic bottle liquor. Are you all from here? What like what is the one around here? Because I realize I don't actually know. I'm from, we're both under the burbs. I don't, I'm not equipped to answer because like I also don't drink a lot. And the times that I did drink a lot was because this was sort of before streaming was like a known thing.

[00:57:09] So I'm basically a pioneer and I invented it. But there was a, we would have events where I would play Amnesia, the horror game on the big screen. Because I had gained a reputation for being so fucking scared that it was hilarious. Which was not an act. That was all real. However, when that happened, people would just put cups in front of me and I would just boom every time. Oh shit. Because I'm just like, I need to get through this.

[00:57:38] I'm too spooked. I know. I'll simply have no sensation whatsoever. And that'll fill up the problem. So I don't know what was in those cups is the answer to that question. And thus, I got nothing. Joe, what about you? The question was what? What's the local shitty liquor brand? Well, people, like Malort is not like it's an event. It's like a local delicacy. It's supposed to be bad, but it's not like the thing.

[00:58:08] Honestly, I think it's just a big enough metro area where it's just a Kirkland vodka in the big jug. I really do. And then like all the Kirkland liquors are the same vodka, but then for the whiskey, they just put brown food coloring in it. I assume. Yeah. That's what I would do if I worked for Costco. I gotta find this out. It might be like Burnett's or something because I think that's one of the national ones.

[00:58:36] Alcoholic listeners will know what's up with this stuff. We made Josh, not the Josh whose dad doesn't want fine honeys to fuck him, but Josh Borman from Worst of All Possible Worlds. Dono, you and I met in real life prior to this because he was in town. We did. And we met at the Logan Arcade. Through the homie. He was made to have a malort. He made a funny face. You know, it's prescribed. It's always the same, but it's in fun.

[00:59:07] It's an event. It's a little activity. You got a taste of the Tom going to the bar experience, which is I go to the bar. I hang out a little bit. Maybe I see a friend or a homie and chat for a little bit. And then I look at my watch and I say, 945, get out of here and go home. I mean, I'm more on that wavelength these days. I'm not a huge drinker anymore.

[00:59:34] But I was on the rugby team in college and high school, so I was drinking a lot of the plastic bottle liquor. I drank one night with the Loyola rugby team, the women's rugby team, and I have never been drunk under the table like that before. Like, I'm not joking. Like, it was like they were a different species. And I'm not a guy who's like, yeah, I'll drink. I'll keep going. Like, I'm not like that.

[01:00:01] I was just merely keeping pace, but it was like it didn't affect them. Yeah. When you said I was drinking with the Loyola women's rugby team, I thought that was the start of the story that explained how you've been dead all along. And it's not an exaggeration. It was like fucking hazing with that stuff. Yeah.

[01:00:28] But I probably had a problem back then, so I was just kind of rolling with it. A need to be liked and a substance? Hell yeah. We're the anime sequels and we're here to say anime is bad in a war crime way. Folks, remember how we do that fucking tier list of all the game mechanics? We always say we should have a guest do it with us. And you know what we do?

[01:00:56] We do the classic anime sickos move of forgetting about that shit. Not anymore. We're going to fucking rank the game mechanics in a tier list. Dono, and for the listener, if you don't know, here's how it goes. We have a big list of 300 some, 336 game mechanics, close to all of them. There may be one or two we haven't written down yet, but it's pretty much everything you can do in a video game. And we have our tier list. S tier obviously means that it should be in every game.

[01:01:25] A means it is almost always a good thing to have. You have your hand raised. Tell me. Where do these come from? Our brain. We just fucking thought them up. You just pulled, you pulled 300, you brainstormed over 300 game mechanics? Yeah, we're fucked up. We did say we were unemployed. Do you know what I was looking for? Was this a one session or is this like a living document? Many, many sessions.

[01:01:53] And I was like an image of y'all two in a room just like, all right, double jump. That's how it started. For days. Days locked in a room. Feverishly fucking scrawling notes on Post-it notes littered around the room. I'm not going to say what the rest of the fucking tier. It's a tier list. The letter gets better the higher up it goes. You know how it fucking works. Let's do one.

[01:02:20] Joe, throw me a ridiculous thing. Sure. Game lets you get drunk. I love this straight up. I'm going to tip my hand immediately. It's funny when they do this. Big supporter. The Yakuza games are good for this because you obviously stumble, but you get like a bonus, right? Like you like get damage resistance actually. So just like being really drunk in real life, it gives you powers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's. Also, this is a classic thing.

[01:02:51] This type of thing is great in video games where like you never have to drink alcohol in the game. And like you can say you don't have to drink alcohol in real life, but in real life it tastes good and you enjoy it, which doesn't in the game because it's fucking made up. So like the fact that it's even an option is ridiculous, which is what makes it so funny. I love that. I love stupid shit and I love whimsy.

[01:03:15] And this is kind of both of them because I like a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. You've got like a very open-ended medium. You can do stuff like this. I think you should probably get drunk in every single game. Final Fantasy 7. Fucking shithouse cloud. Fuck up blowing up the reactor at the beginning. Everybody dies. There should be. I love the beginning of that game because people are like, what are the politics of this game?

[01:03:42] And it's like, hello, we're going to do eco-terrorism because of capitalism. Are you clear on this? I'm going to take what you said and I'm going to just modify slightly. I think a rule should be that if you have an open world game, you got to let a guy get drunk. Yes. Yes, for sure. A hundred percent. Because like I can see there are games where it has a very strong focus and it wouldn't make sense to let the character get drunk. Like Mario. Tetris.

[01:04:13] If – well – The next piece section is just wrong. Like it's – Also, I think you got to be clear. So this was sort of applied by game lets you get drunk. If the game has like a story beat where your character gets drunk and you can't avoid it, that doesn't count. That doesn't count. That's something else. That doesn't count.

[01:04:37] On level 37 of Tetris where all the blocks get really drunk and they all start trauma dumping at the same time, that doesn't count. That's part of the storyline. But like if you can at any time go – like in Yakuza, go to the bar and like order five like Suntory very specials, which like is – they have a real picture because like Suntory paid to put it in there. And you have a little icon of a wiggly bottle.

[01:05:05] And you kind of walk funny. That's what we're talking about. That is what it's like. Y'all ever play – I'm a little bit of a gamer. I'm a little bit. I've gone through kind of waves in my life. You ever play Deep Rock Galactic? I fucking love that game. I think that is – For my money, I think it's the best co-op game currently. 100% agree.

[01:05:29] It's – if you're not familiar with it, the point of the game is that you are for space dwarves. Like they're just like regular dwarves. I don't really fucking know. But they're in space. Yeah. And you work for a company that is like – just so you know, like we don't value your lives. And then – Yeah. So a company. Every mission is just like you get a drop shipped into – like it's a drill. A drill just goes into a planet and you have to go get resources in an overflowing bug planet.

[01:05:58] But what makes it wonderful is that it's four-player squad-based co-op. The classes all do different things. And all of the terrain is destroyable. By which I mean like if you want to get nutty and like do some engineering, you can actually fucking do it. Can you get drunk? And you can get drunk. And before every mission, there's a bar. And you – it's like – is it three – you have to? I think is it three drinks? It's like you're now drunk. You have the buff now.

[01:06:29] Like – yeah. There's different like strengths between them. There's some that give you like a power up and that's cool. But there is just ones that you just – the screen gets all fucking wiggly. And then it carries into the mission, which there's no – there's no benefit to that. There's no reason to do that other than for the love of the game, I guess, and to piss everyone else off. And I just – I love that kind of option in a game because it is a very good game.

[01:06:56] And then you just have this stupid mechanic that you don't have to do thrown into there. And you can like pass out from being drunk and stuff. Yeah, there's like also like ones that have like purposely just bad effects. I think one of them is that it just makes it so you teleport uncontrollably. Teleport into space and stuff. So you just eventually die. Yeah, it's good stuff. But yeah, that's – that's it. That's a good – yes. Tom, you ever play – you got to play this game if you haven't.

[01:07:25] It's really good. I do. See, my thing is that I like single-player games because I don't want a game to involve scheduling. But what you're describing sounds so good that I might have to do it. It is literally made for drop in and drop out. And by that, I mean like if you were playing a game and I was like, oh, I'll jump in. My little drill pod will fucking plop next to you and my dwarf will get out immediately. Like it's set up for that very well and it's just great. It rocks.

[01:07:55] Okay. And you can get drunk in it. I'm – folks, I'm hearing at least an A. Oh, yeah. Game was he getting drunk. I'm giving an A to this mechanic. A. Yeah. Folks, it's an A. We're in – it's a full consensus. We're talking A. The only thing stopping it from S in my book is that typically – like it's part of the appeal to me that it doesn't – it might even detract from the gameplay experience, that it is just a dumb thing to do.

[01:08:23] But that kind of gives it the upper limit for me. It's not like a load-bearing mechanic. Right. It's got to really be making the game. This is a fun lark though and it's about as fun as a fun lark can get. A final answer. I have another good one. Just – Gimme. This is line 80. This is just based on what was said earlier in our intro. Materia. Materia.

[01:08:53] So is this – I haven't played a whole lot of RPGs. Is that just a – it's just a Final Fantasy thing, right? Correct. Yeah, yeah. Just a Final Fantasy VII. They don't even – they don't ever do it again. They don't ever do it again? No. Never. They should. It's good. At least I feel it. I mean, it's – it's fucking good. I – if you don't know – folks, if you never played Final Fantasy VII, one, you should. Two, your weapons and – you have one piece of armor. It's a bangle.

[01:09:23] Yeah, you have bangles and they have little holes in them and you can put funny rocks in the holes and those funny rocks are called materia and they are what gives you shit to do. Because if you have no materia, what can you do? Nothing. You just kind of stand there like an asshole. You can hit attack. They also level up independently. So that's really a key element here is like all your orbs are your babies that you raise so you can cast better spells.

[01:09:53] And it's beautiful. It's very familial and they live on a big family tree. I don't think I've ever beaten a Final Fantasy game. I'm going to admit it. I played VII. Aways after it came out. I think I was – yeah, I was too young when that came out. I played it like on PS2. Like you had to backwards compatible wherever the fuck. I didn't play it when it was coming out. But then I played X and X2 but I don't think I beat those either.

[01:10:19] And I think a lot of it is my brain just – that kind of RPG mechanic skill trees and stuff when it gets really elaborate like that, my brain is just like – You do not respect a sphere grid is what I'm hearing. No, I get sick of the spheres. I get sphered out. I get sphered out and I think I quit all of those before. They're just too fucking long. They really are. X2 is fun because the premise is like what if the girls wanted to have some fun?

[01:10:48] Yeah, what if the girls had like a slut summer? 100% though. That one came out when I was 11 and I had – or maybe 12. I had played FFX and then we were in like GamePro magazine. That's showing up and I was like, oh, shit, dude. Oh, shit, dude. Ain't fucking anime chicks, dude. It's so funny.

[01:11:18] That is the first time that they've ever been so happy with the Final Fantasy world that they're going to make a direct sequel. Every other Final Fantasy world after that game, all these characters and all this world building, that is in the trash. You're never going to see it again. The first time they ever are like these characters in this world are so strong that we have to go back to this well. However, one of the three main characters would be a goth GF you've never met before.

[01:11:45] And everyone's – you're going to go in and you're going to be thinking, how did I forget pain? She's so important. How did I forget about her from 10? No. No. You didn't. She just showed up. She's the new girl at school. Huh. Think about materia. So materia is fun because you can sort of play with your marbles. That is cool. I got to like that. It's a fidget. However, here's the downside.

[01:12:11] One, you got to fucking like stress over whether your bangle has connected slots or not. Yeah. Because sometimes – because there's the all materia that makes a spell connected to it hit all targets. I do feel that is a betrayal of Final Fantasy because you're supposed to just be able to hit L and R to automatically hit anyone with the spell, everyone with the spell at a much weaker intensity. They took that from you.

[01:12:41] That was the thing? Yeah. Yeah. And fucking Final Fantasies 1 through 6, that was how you did it. You either just shot one person or you shot everyone but it wasn't as good. There wasn't some asshole making you pay a toll for all. Here's the other problem. I guess this isn't really a problem. It's just sort of like something to consider. Is that like because the materia is like its own thing?

[01:13:08] So if you put like all the healing stuff on Aerith and she becomes number one healing person and like really is great at that and then you're like, oh, I didn't know the big twist that she died. Oh, she just goes on vacations. Yeah, I didn't know the big twist that she goes on semester abroad. That's so sabbatical. And you're just like, oh, no. And now who's my healer? It's like, well, you just take her fucking marbles and you put them on someone else.

[01:13:34] And now that person is exactly the same as Aerith in every way. And like because of that, you got the great Final Fantasy VII cast of characters who are also distinct and lovable except for the awful cat who is on a second cat. His name is numbers. No, you're talking about bread through. I'm talking about Kate Sith, dude. That's another cat. There's nothing but cats in it. There's three bold cats. There are two duds on this cast, dude. Like it's not great. But I mean, so we have some characters that are really distinctive and memorable.

[01:14:03] However, like you don't get that in the gameplay because they just are whatever marbles you put on them. And you can switch their whole deal at a moment's notice. So it's not like, oh, you see Tifa and you're like, she's a martial artist who fights. Great. And it's like, well, you could just put all this magic on her and it would be exactly the fucking same as if you put it on someone who looks like they know what magic is. I'm fucking getting in the weeds. I'm just bitching. I like the marbles. I'll put it as B.

[01:14:33] I would say it's a B. That's a C for me. Dog. Oh, I'm the tiebreaker. Okay, here's why I'm thinking C as well. Because I think it's not as good as B. Sorry. No, here's the real reason. It's because it's like I'm thinking about like what like dropping it into other games. That's my thing. Like if I just dropped this into another game, would it generally make the game better?

[01:15:03] And I'm thinking no. Like most of the time, it would make it a little fiddly and weird. But if you design the game around it, like Final Fantasy 7, like Final Fantasy, you can't say Final Fantasy 7 is not fun. Obviously, it's insane to beat the entire game because it the pacing gets so like, but the beginning. Everything is great. And you've got to have your marbles. Let's see. It's C. Folks, it's C. It's C. I just don't think it's that fun of a mechanic, but it's not awful.

[01:15:33] And also just they're all or like if you're going to have power ups and shit that you collect. Like I want it to be like a cool flaming hair guy or something. Not orbs. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like I want like a cool shield with some shit on it or like a gun. That's actually a very good point because like they're because it sort of feels like they're an abstraction. Yeah. You know, like it's like these aren't real. But then.

[01:16:02] But then, yeah, there are times when like your guys like find a marble on the ground and like pick it up and reel in. Like this is a materium. It's like, wait, really? And then you put that in your shirt. The marbles is real? Make them more decorative. Like at least give them like a flaming effect or like one of them is like the sexy materia. Yeah. It's got like a big ass. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, here's a. Okay. So I think maybe we have one or two more mechanics to rank.

[01:16:31] This one, I think you should be very honored that I'm pulling this out because this is like a really iconic video game mechanic. And I think one that's going to. There's a lot to discuss. Gun. Gun is great. Gun is great. It's a good thing it had to get because gun in real life. Right. Pretty cool.

[01:16:57] I mean, a lot of bad, a lot of bad stuff happens because of this is our stance on it's like it sucks that guns are real because they are cool. If it was like just from movies and video games, like guns would be like I would be like the guy who like knows all the different like calibers. But because they're real, it's like if I know that, then I've been like people are going to be like, that's a militia guy. Yeah. In a vacuum. Shooting. It's a great.

[01:17:25] I grew up like on and off in the South. I have, I have shot some guns. It's a really fun time. The mechanics. Interesting. Just making a piece of metal going super fast and shoot and blow up a can of fucking seltzer water or something. That's sick. But all the other stuff, it's not good. Like when it's a guy's head, it's kind of a bummer, you know? Yeah.

[01:17:49] Many, many, this might be a controversial statement, but many bad things happen as a result. But in the, in the pure fantastical world, the gamers world in which we sometimes reside, it's all positive, no negative. And you ain't got to wear hearing protection. You ain't have to oil barrel.

[01:18:16] You ain't got to go to range, talk to a weird racist guy. You know? It's all the good with none of the bad. So I think like video game, perfect place for gun. I give this shit a ass. I'm inclined to put it up there as well. The other thing we have to consider, which is just a wonderful video game thing. It's like if you have a gun that has a magazine of eight bullets and you shoot one and you reload it instantly.

[01:18:43] And you just put, I guess, one bullet in the, you know what I mean? Like what is happening here? It's wonderful. You just throw those rounds on the ground because they don't cost anything. It's the gamers world, a better world. The gamers world. Oh my God. The gamers world. Ammo is just rotating. It's floating a couple inches off the ground and rotating and you touch it and you got it. That's awesome. Uh, okay. Here's the thing about gun, especially in games.

[01:19:12] Speak on it. You just, you just shoot, you just, you just shoot it. And like, and like that's, and the guys like they get hit and like, that's the game. And I think this is why, okay. I could possibly see a world where this is a, but it couldn't, it could never be lower than that. Because like, there could be a game where the only thing is gun. Actually, hold up. Many such cases. Duck hunt. Yeah. Duck hunt.

[01:19:42] That's just gun. That's right. And the gun, you know, the, the abstraction of it made tangible in our realm, communing with the gamers realm. Well, it was the key between worlds. This actually, this list of game mechanics is not complete because, uh, actually what you're describing light gun. Light gun. Like the actual physical, that's a different thing. I'm just talking about gun abstract. But they're connected though. Are they not?

[01:20:12] They are connected. Semiotically. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. There is a, there is definitely. Like the miniteria slots. They are intrinsically linked and their benefits feed each other. This is true. This is true. And I think that here's the thing. Gun benefits from light gun and is always made better by light gun. But light gun is not always relevant in the same way that gun is always relevant. Yeah. Because like if you were playing like, I don't know, Mario.

[01:20:40] No, actually I was going to say, if you're playing Mario, light gun wouldn't help. But do you ever play that game gumshoe for the NES where it's, it is a light gun Mario. It's the impossible game. It's a guy walking to the right and then you basically have to just shoot all his obstacles so he doesn't have problems. But also in order to make him jump, you have to shoot him. And that's awesome.

[01:21:06] It is an impossible, like you're supposed to play it at a distance as like a shooting gallery. That cannot be done. Even if you have your light gun on the screen, this game cannot be done. It is impossible. Damn, that's no good. What about a hypothetical dark and gritty reboot of Mario where he's got a freaking Glock, boys? What do you think about that? That's, you're talking about Shadow the Hedgehog. You just described Shadow the Hedgehog. He's rolling up on Bowser.

[01:21:31] I don't have to jump on an axe, shoot some Mario with a gun. Are you kidding me? That's gangster SpongeBob levels. I mean, there was Yoshi Safari, which was a Super Scope game where Mario had a gun. And you wrote on the back of Yoshi and you, I guess for lack of a better word, we're just like, do a huge drive-by on the entire Mushroom Kingdom. He's on some Mongolian horse archery type shit.

[01:22:01] Yes, he is. That's awesome. Damn. Damn. Mario turns around in the Yoshi saddle, fires backwards. A tactic. Groundbreaking. That game also allows you, and I don't know why, you can shoot Yoshi in the back of the head and he looks back at you like, you asshole. This is, you know what this does is it makes guns seem like the funnest thing on earth. Here's another thing. I haven't played this game, but I have seen this.

[01:22:28] There is a Dark Souls-like about you're a hermit crab. That's tight. And you're under the sea and you fight other sea creatures and your weapons are like fucking trash from the seafloor. However, there is, unlike other Dark Souls games, there is an easy mode. And the easy mode is your guy gets a gun and your little hermit crab is holding a gun and it kills all enemies in one shot.

[01:22:56] And it's the funniest fucking thing on earth. It's like the big boss shows up. The boss does its intro cutscene. And you see the boss's like funny gimmick and their cool design. And then it cuts back to like, all right, now is your chance to fight. And you just hit him with the gun. Dead. Fight over. Is this another crab's treasure? Yes, it is. Because you're always using trash. That's why it's called that. Another crab's treasure. I gotta play this. This sounds tight. Love hermit crabs. Love sea life. Love gun. Gun.

[01:23:25] Let's fucking go. Together and last. I'm putting gun in S. Gun is S. Gun in S. Gun's S. Can't spell gun without S, folks. Put it on the board. It's on the board, folks. We got gun in S. You know what else is a great mechanic? The end of podcast mechanic. Yeah, because that's what we're doing right now. We have ranked gun in S, game letting you get drunk in A, and materia in C. This is incredible. At this rate, we'll be done in a little over a decade. We just need to do one more M.

[01:23:56] Anyway, that's all the time we got for Animus. Because, Dono, that was so fucking fun. I'm so glad you were able to join us. Behind the scenes, folks, it took like a million years to get this set up for no reason. Just circumstances. God didn't want it to happen. I was not jealous of Tom's new friend. Okay, I just had stuff going on. I'm having a very good time. I was only a little jealous, okay? Where can people find you and your work if they want it? Which they should. Why wouldn't they? They should.

[01:24:25] In fact, if you're listening to this, you do. You do want my work. You want to hear my shit. Thank you both for having me on. This was very fun. Hell yeah, our pleasure. If you want to hear more relationship stuff, my podcast is Radio Free Tote Bag. A dating, relationship, mental health advice. I don't know. Write in whatever the fuck you want, to be honest. I talk about paleontology on there sometimes. But we generally keep it pretty focused. We got guests on. We interview them.

[01:24:53] We've had some mutual people on any of the worst of all possible worlds, guys. Those episodes are all excellent. They're great. Rftb.me is the website. Just look up Radio Free Tote Bag. Nothing else is called that because it's a really stupid name. It doesn't tell you anything. I thought I was going to do 10 episodes. I mean, we know from podcast titles that don't tell you anything about the content of the show. That's not foreign to us, and we understand the appeal.

[01:25:21] We appreciate you as a fellow soldier, in fact. Thank you. So check that out. And then I make synth music. I'm starting to finally put stuff on the fucking internet. I'm on SoundCloud or Bandcamp, and there's different stuff on fucking both of them. I'm trying to figure this shit out, man. I'm trying to figure this out, man. Donovan Eyre. D-O-N-O-V-A-N-E-Y-R-E. Nobody else has called that also, so you will find me in, like, shit I did in high school. Hell yeah.

[01:25:50] If you're in Chicago, I like playing shows this year. But I'm not really on social media right now, so I don't know how you can find out about that. Listen to my show, and I'll tell you about it. Hell yeah. That'll do. Yeah, that's an acceptable answer. Well, this kicked ass. I feel like this was an all-timer. Yes, thank you. Sorry for how long it took to get it happening. On my end, too, man. Just fucking holidays and getting sick and all kinds of shit.

[01:26:21] Yeah, and it was God's fault. God did it to us. God did it. No one is to blame other than him, who is to blame for all things. Anyway. Hey, man. Until next time, I've been Tom, an anime sicko. I've been Joe, an anime sicko. I have been Donovan. I'm an anime sicko. Hell yeah. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to Anime Sickos. I've been Tom, a sicko. You can follow me on Blue Sky at Tom Harrison. Joe was also a sicko. You can follow him on Blue Sky at Sharia Uncle.

[01:26:50] You can follow Anime Sickos on Blue Sky at Anime Sickos, or email us at AnimeSickos at gmail.com. You can give us money at patreon.com slash AnimeSickos if you want. Uh, please leave us a review or something. I don't know. Tell a friend. Bye-bye.