ANMA - We Do Dumb Things So You Don’t Have To

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Good morning, Virtual Gus! Recorded during the Austin freeze, it's a remote ANMA. In this episode, Gus and Geoff talk about Eric’s terrible internet, Gus vs Ice, What we would have done less, What it's like making internet content, Movies and Ghost Tours are back, Imagining New York city was The Warriors, Being clueless to the ways of the world, and Beauty in the Analog. Very weird one this week. Our next two episodes will be supplemental content but we'll be back with regular episodes in 2 weeks. This episode is sponsored by Better Help http://betterhelp.com/anma  Already a FIRST Member and need your Private RSS feed for this show? Go here: http://bit.ly/FIRSTRSS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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this. We're having to do this episode remotely because it is currently frozen over in Austin. Because it is one, it's one degree colder than freezing in Austin. So nobody's doing anything for the next three days. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a annual tradition. Although this year it happened in January instead of February, the last day of January. And so we make, we're ahead. We all made coffee at home and we're sitting around drinking our coffee. And we're just gonna interrupt each other.

I'll fucking episode like this. And the reason Eric was talking slow, it's because his internet is terrible and Gus and I can't understand a fucking word he's saying, should sound fine to you audience because he's recording locally, but we have no idea what Eric is saying at any point. Just FYI.

Good morning Gus. Good afternoon, Jeff. So it's, you know, like Jeff said, it's a thin layer of ice outside. It's like one degree below freezing. My watch says it's 34 degrees outside, but there's still plenty of, plenty of like what, like a centimeter,

a half a centimeter of ice on stuff, so everything's closed down. As I've gotten older, I don't know if it's because I'm more scared of stuff, but I'm definitely a lot more cautious about driving out in bad weather, in storms, or ice, or conditions like this. When it was younger, I didn't give a fuck.

Like it was the pouring rain, ice falling from the sky. I'm gonna go somewhere, I'm gonna go do something. And I get in my car like an idiot and go do something dumb. Absolutely, absolutely feel 100% the same. And for all of you people who live anywhere north of Texas, and you go, yeah, it's winter, you get ice, you get snow. We exist in it. We're in Minnesota, we exist in this nine months out of the year.

It's not a, we get it. It's just that nobody understands how to drive in the ice and in inclement weather in Texas. So it's not that like I would personally be scared to drive to HB right now. I would personally be scared to drive to HB right now with every other asshole on the road who doesn't understand how to be safe.

That's the real worry. Yeah, everyone always says there's no infrastructure for it. People aren't used to it. Nobody has winter tires. There's just nobody has ever really spent an extended period of time driving on ice or any conditions like this. So everyone's gonna slam on their brakes

and turn in the wrong direction and slide around like bumper cars. Yeah, we don't even have all weather tires here in Texas, mostly. I mean, there's no need for them, right? No. But years ago, how long ago was it? It might have been oh seven or so?

Oh, maybe oh six. Oh six or oh seven. We had a similar storm where it like Austin froze over there was ice everywhere for I don't know like four or five days. It was you know It was a little longer. It wasn't terrible But I was at the time I was living in an apartment That was on the second story and I remember all of the stairs And that was on the second story. And I remember all of the stairs leading down and coming up to my apartment were just like encased in ice.

Like you could not, if you tried to walk on the steps, there was no contact with anything that wasn't ice. Right. And we had a real shitty owner of that apartment complex who did nothing to prepare, like no salt, no sand, nothing on the steps. So I couldn't leave my house for a while, and I was going to real stir crazy.

So eventually, like on the fourth or fifth day, I left the apartment and went outside with a hammer. I started hammering on the steps to try to break the ice off, because I was just so sick of being stuck upstairs. And my next door neighbor was so appreciative, I remember she came out, she's like, oh my God, thank you so much here.

And she handed me this giant box of kosher salt she had. And I was like, oh great, yeah, we can do this. We can make this work. It's like I hammered all the steps down to free us. And then you know, used all my neighbors salt to dissolve the steps or dissolve the ice on the steps. And I went to work. It's back when our office was still in Buda. So we had to drive, we had to go, so it was the apartment in Buda.

So it was probably oh six then. Okay. So I got in my truck and I drove from Austin, central Austin all the way down to the Buda apartment. And I remember getting, I was driving down Nfield and I lived on central Austin. There's that part of Nfield where it's like a bridge where Nfield becomes 15th. And I remember getting, I was driving down Infield, hell of a essential Austin, there's that part of Infield where it's like a bridge where Infield becomes 15th, there's like a bridge

where it goes over Lamar. And I remember getting to that point and my truck starting to slide sideways over the bridge because of all the ice on it. And I remember thinking, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. I mean like, nah, fuck it, you know, it's like the little devil on your shoulder, be like, I'll make it down there this. I mean, like, yeah, no, fuck it. You know, it's like the little devil on your shoulder,

be like, yeah, I'll make it down there. And I got onto 35 and 35, which is littered with cars on the shoulder. And on both sides of the shoulder, just everywhere, people had slid off the road. And I drove all the way down to be here, and got to the apartment, sat down, I was like, ah, yes, now I can work.

And I think I was the only one there. Like, there was no reason, no motivation to do it, which is being young and dumb. I was the only one there like there was no reason no motivation to do it Which is being young and dumb. I mean like yeah, I'm gonna go to work I got stuff to do I'll be honest with you in those younger more competitive days There was also probably a hey I came to work today and you didn't I work harder than you suck my day There was a lot of that mentality with us back then. There probably was a fair amount of that going on that caused me to risk my life and drive down there.

Not healthy, not smart. Yeah, so don't do that. Learn from the mistakes of our youth and don't do anything dumb. We do dumb things so you don't have to. And do I tell my kid all the time? I was an idiot for 40 something years so you don't have to be. It's, it's, yeah. I think lots of times you learn by doing it though and not by listening to someone. Let us be your cautionary tale. One time, I don't know

if I, if I told this on this podcast, but I remember one time, I was visiting Frank down in League City when he lived, you know, by Houston. And I was going down down in League City when he lived by Houston. I was going down to visit him and it wasn't cold, but it was rainy. There was like torrential rain, like multiple inches of rain were falling. And it's like, it was that dumb thing, like, yeah, I'll be fine. I'll strive down there. And I remember I turned off the highway and I got into the neighborhood streets by where Frank lived.

And once again, there were cars just stopped all along the side of the road because there was probably about, if I had to guess 18 to 24 inches of water in the road, so it's like if you wanted to drive, you had to partially submerge your car to get through. And this back under a few more days to drive that Chevy Cavalier, I was driving that little Chevy Cavalier at the time. I was like, yeah, that'll be fine. And I just like got what real slow and drove through about almost two feet of water,

like slowly pushing my way through. And I think some other car saw me do it and like jumped in to get in the wake behind me. Getting there, but again, it's a bad thing where nothing bad happened to me and I made it through. And I just like solidified my bad decision making in my mind, like, oh yeah, see, that was fine. Anyone, no, everyone else would be way too cautious.

This is totally, totally okay. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Ain't that stuff. Also, don't build an entire city in a swamp. There's that too. I don't understand Houston. Half of that city is, it's like New Orleans 2.0. Yeah, it's a, yeah, and it rains a lot and everything's soggy.

But yeah, one time when I was living down there, I remember it was January 97. And it was a similar situation to this where, it had rained a bunch and then it froze. So there was a bunch of ice all over Houston. And there was a unique problem they had where it had rained so much and then frozen so quickly that all of the skyscrapers in downtown

were covered in super thick sheets of ice. So eventually when it started to thaw, these giant sheets of ice started breaking off and falling hundreds of feet down into the street below. So they had to close off downtown until people not to walk there because it would kill you. I remember seeing like video of like these giant sheets of ice falling off of these huge buildings and then just like smashing into cars that were parked on the street below. Dude, that's crazy. Yeah, awful. So that's, I think that's

the other thing that you're talking about those states up north, that's the other thing that's different about cold weather here is that it's not cold all winter. So you can get stormy, dump a bunch of rain, and then freeze over, which I feel like that's really when we get in trouble when it's really wet, and then it freezes, and then you're just stuck under a bunch of ice. Can I be a negative Nancy for a second? Please. This is not the preferred way to do this podcast. We're going to get through it, and we've done it a bunch of ice. Can I be a negative Nancy for a second? No, please. This is not the preferred way to do this podcast. We're gonna get through it.

And we've done it this way before, I know. But man, I'm this being in person with you. It's a whole different vibe. It's probably just me. No, I understand. I don't know if you can understand me right now, but yeah, okay. It sounds great.

I absolutely agree. We're recording this remotely because someone decided that they wanted some days off. And that's selfish. And I just think, yeah, go ahead. I spent years being gilted about taking time off in this company. That does not happen anymore.

And I gave a month's notice that this was coming. So I'm not going to take shit about taking time off for myself. It's not even, I'm not even the one saying it. Jeff texted me and told me to tell you that. And he said, keep, keep giving him shit. And, um, hey, remember that day when he was icy and I drove to Buda I was there and you weren't I first of all I didn't send that dude shit But I I did the second the second Eric Paul down I thought oh Gus this is gonna Gus issues with this. We're gonna. Oh yeah, we're gonna hit some we're gonna get some PTSD So okay, so hang on hang on hang on hang on If you can still understand me

You said that you got a lot of shit for taking time off and everything like that later. What was that all about? If that was just all hands on deck all the time because everyone needed this thing to work. Right. Like we talked, like we talked about in the previous episode, you know, how you would work a full time job doing one thing and then you would put that down and do a full time job doing another thing. There were so few of us, the problem was if anyone wasn't there, things started slipping and falling behind. So everyone had to be there all the time.

So if anyone was not there, they were an asshole. So we operated like that for many years. So I'm not doing that anymore. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, Everyone dug mild. If you weren't there, you were the asshole. So everyone else would talk shit about you the entire time you were gone. Dude, I never wanted to be, I always wanted to be the last person out of the room. The first person out of any room, back in those days is like, Matt walks out of the room

and it's like, all right, that motherfucker comes back in, I was up to Bernie walks out, that little dickhead. Yeah. That's exactly, Megah 64 operated the exact same way. If someone wasn't there, they were the person that we were just going to get for the next 15 minutes. It's great. It's just what you do. I think about, uh, now I'm not comparing us to this person by any stretch of the imagination, but I think about what people used to say about Steve Jobs all the time.

How you either the hero or the asshole to him. It's like you were either doing amazing stuff and you were doing everything great or you were the worst person in the world. You couldn't do anything right. It's like it was a pendulum swing from one extreme to another. Yeah. Anyway, here we are. working from home, doing a podcast, reminiscing about the days we were taking years off our lives, doing that stuff. Don't miss it. What are

you doing for your vacation? Non podcast talk about stuff. Not not. You don't want to telegraph where you're going to be in the near future for the audience. No, no, no, I'm telling what I'm not doing. I'm not gonna be talking into a microphone. That's for sure. How long can you go without talking into a microphone before you start to miss it? Oh, that's, that's, huh. I don't know, it's funny because I don't know if I've gone more than like,

a week. So I don't know if I've ever hit that time where I miss it. I think the longest we have gone is maybe a week and a half. So it's hard to say, I have not hit that point. Have you hit a point like that? Yeah, I'm good for about, for right at two weeks. At two weeks I start to get real itchy. Real like if I take a long vacation or like,

when I was on sabbaticals or whatever Had about the two-week mark or like there have you know been occasions like when I wasn't doing face in this Where I would maybe go two weeks without appearing on the podcast or something and yeah, but two weeks I start to I start to like go a little stir crazy and you don't realize Especially in this industry where we do it all the time, I guess, you're so, you're so in a rhythm that you probably won't realize it till you get out of that rhythm for enough time, but it will fuck with you. It is, it is just a weird, you get, I don't, for me at least, I get used to having an outlet for just to express myself, you know. And usually that expression is just nonsense and fart jokes, but it's still

it's an expression. And once you don't have it for a little bit, you start to feel that pressure build up. It's interesting because I do a couple of different podcasts and the prep for them and the, how can I put it, the mental state you're in when you're doing them is different. Like this one and RT podcast are very similar in the vein that they're a lot more extemporaneous. For this one, I might have a specific memory or something old that I want to talk about.

RT podcast is a little, like we said this before, this podcast is the past, RT podcast is kind of the current. When we do tell us when the sticky dragon, Micah does all of that writing. So the prep for that is a lot more reading the writing, making sure I understand what's going on. And then typical D&D prep, you know, building out monster stuff and encounters and whatnot.

But black box down is a weird outlier because that's a very factual podcast. So it's like a lot of research has to go into that. So I struggle when we need to do pre-tapes on that show because right before we started recording this one, that's what I was doing, I was working on a black box down script. I can't work, it's difficult for me to work on more

than one of those scripts at a time. And I'm having to do two, which is weird. Because then the facts start getting muddled in my head. It's like, no wait, I thought this happened or I thought that happened. It's like, oh no, that's the other one I'm thinking about. So it's a, I have to try to keep one in my head at a time, get through it and then work, get through it,

record it and then work on the next one until we're done with the recording. It's like, it's just muddled in my head. How long would you say that process is before you can get it out of your head? It was about a week. Just go from week to week or? Yeah, week to week.

Once we're done recording, it's like, okay, purge all that. Now we need to- You purge it, yeah. Focus on the next one and do something, do another one entirely. But if I'm trying to work, like right now, like I said,

I'm working on two simultaneously and it's fucking me up. I can't keep them straight. I'm constantly getting the details mixed up. It's been one of the most interesting things about this career for me is the different sides and approaches to it. One of the things that I always loved about my time,

or I've always loved about my time at Rooster Teeth and I view as a strength, there's also I think a huge weakness, which is multitasking and being a jack of all trades. It's wonderful because you never get bored, right? Like right now you were just working on black box down, now you're doing an AMA weather aside. Tomorrow you'll be acting in some sort of a funny short

or skit for STF and then you'll be prepping for RT podcasts before you know it. But there's like day to day, you're doing something different almost every day so there's never, it never gets rote or repetitious or boring. And if it ever starts to, you just invent a new production to do, right? Or a different, like a theme week or a different thing to do about it. But I always loved that about my time like an achievement hunter or helping achieve my hunter. But I also recognize that, you know,

as a Jack of all trades master of none, you never really get to like devote your full heart and soul into one thing. And since I started f***ing face and that's pretty much all I do, I mean, I'll be honest with you, guys, and I'm sure it's the same for you. I put a 1% of prep into this. Like, if I think of a story throughout,

like throughout the course of being around town, I'll write a note to myself, but that's about it. Usually, Eric leads us with prompts, and you know, you and I aren't having to do any of the heavy lifting in here, other than have a conversation, which you and I have been having a conversation for 30 years, almost now. But being able to just solely focus on face

where I just live and breathe it, and I think about it when I wake up, and I think about it when I go to bed, it's like, it's allowed me to, I don't know, create something that's a lot, I'm a lot happier with. I'm a lot prouder of and I'm a lot, I feel so much better representation of like our abilities on it, you know what I mean? Oh man, this is something I've been thinking a lot about lately because my career has kind

of shifted in the last two or three years where I went from doing 30 things a week to one thing and just do only one thing. Out of all things, like you talk about the Jack of all trades aspect of it and like having to balance and work on like a bunch of different things. Out of everything you've ever had to touch and work on, are there any that stand out in your mind that you wish you could have focused on more and gotten better at? Like something, I don't know, it's not gonna be this obviously, but like planning store inventory or, you know, is there any mundane task that you wish you had, you would spend more time diving into?

I don't wanna give you a bullshit answer, but I think the truth is all of it. Like I liked almost everything we did at the time that I was doing it, and the only complaint I would have had was just not being able to devote more time to it. I guess if I could devote less time to any of it so I could funnel more time,

I would have done less commercial work back when we were traveling and doing all the Richard's group and widening Kennedy stuff. I would have spent less time in LA and Oregon and all those places doing that to focus more on the home ground stuff. But I didn't dislike it at the time and it was exciting and fun and different and new

and we learned a lot. And that's another thing too. It's like, because we were doing so many different fucking things. I mean, think about how much knowledge you have. You're probably not using most of it right now anymore and you may not ever use it again. But think about the accumulation of knowledge over the first eight years of your time at Rooster Teeth.

And just like all the things you had to teach yourself how to do, completely self-led, right? Just out of necessity or because you wanted to make something better or faster or more efficient or run smoother, you know? I would say that's like, that's the overall benefit to I guess those days and how we operated was we just learned, we became very capable in a lot of things.

A lot of things that I never, I never in a million years would have thought I would have been able to edit video, you know? Now, I hope, I hope to God, I never do it again. I don't ever wanna be in a place where I have to edit video again, but I'm so glad I know how to do it, and I'm so glad it's a skill I had, and it's so glad, I know how, I glad I know how to do it. And I'm so glad it's a skill I had. And it's so glad, I know how I used to know how to do it, you know.

And know that I could, if I needed to, probably muddle through it again today. But I don't know. How long time we played, we played before I answered that. Before a long time, if you remember, we played dumb about video editing. Yeah, here we did. We didn't want to do it, but after having watched it for so long, we knew how to do it. But we would just be like, I don't know, I can't do that. That's a batting birdie thing. I don't know, man. That seems hard.

It was like another responsibility. We didn't want to have to start doing. So, for a long time, we played dumb. And I think they caught on to us eventually eventually like, wait a minute, you do know how to do this. Yeah. How long was the long time? I mean, I couldn't hide it anymore. By the time I was doing a chief hunter, I was editing 10 videos a week at that point. I would say like maybe by like season five or six of RVB. I don't know. Yeah, a couple, a couple. Yeah, a couple of years.

A couple of years. A decent amount of time. I think the things, there are a couple of things I wish I did more of. One of them was writing shorts for us to make. And I feel like I'm coming around on that. Like I started writing some of us, watching forces like TikToks and things that we do,

which is... Which has its own challenges, right? It's welcoming in the fact that it's so short for, but it's also daunting in the fact that it's so short attention span. So a lot of conventions are thrown out, like as far as setup and introduction, it's like, you have to get to the joke as fast as possible and telegraphing it is sometimes okay. So it's been, I feel like it's been enriching, learning how to do that and doing that more and more. And maybe also more like knowing more about the camera work side of things,

and like how to shoot things and make it look good. I wish I'd spent more time doing that. I don't know if I've ever really shot anything or that wasn't in a video game. I've shot plenty of stuff in a video game. I consider that very different. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. I'm definitely no live action cinematographer for sure.

Right. Yeah. I mean, that was, that is a daunting, I guess, like, trial by fire, high learning curve kind of kind of deal. I feel like and luckily we had people like Nathan Zelner who are around almost from the beginning who were so fucking talented at that. That we know, it would be it would have been foolish for you and I to learn. Yeah, there was there was no time for us to to screw it up when we had some who's really capable of doing it, sitting right in the room. That's true. That's a very good point. Yeah, but I feel like with the writing specific specifically, I've been trying to make a much more concerted effort. Deep. Are you enjoying it? It's fun. I think the most

nerve-wracking part, there's two parts of it that are nerve-wracking. The first part is when we, when I show it to the group and we do like a re-through, I like, oh my god, it's terrible. It sucks. It's awful. I hate it. I want to hide under a rock. And then, you know, get feedback and then, like, do punch ups and, you know, rewrite some

things. And the second nerve-wracking part is when the video finally gets uploaded. And you're like, oh my god, is anybody gonna watch it? Is anybody gonna like it? Everyone's gonna hate it. It's stupid. Take it down. Delete it.

But you usually go, all right. Yeah, I find writing to be like the single hardest thing that I've participated in career was. It is a, there's like, you can't fake anything writing. Like you can fake it till you make it in a lot of different disciplines in this world. But there is nobody to, there's no way to fake it and there's nobody to hide behind

when it's just you and a fucking keyboard. You know what I mean? Yeah. It is definitely, I'm in the middle of writing this the s*** face cookbook. And I say writing, I use the term loosely because it's not really writing what I'm doing. I don't want to give more credence to what I'm making than it deserves. But it's still, it's just like, it's just like, some days you just don't

have it and you're like, I'm just fucking stupid today. I can't work together. And then other days you're like, why is this, why is, why did I think this was hard yesterday? This is some fucking dumb and fast and easy frustrating. Yeah. Which makes me really respect people who do like really long for riding like a novel or like a screen player, something that's like, you know, really long and you have to come up with like, man, I, more power to them. I struggle with a 45 second TikTok.

I know, dude, especially too, like you think about somebody like George R Martin, where it's like, I can't keep track of all the stories and I'm reading them. I don't know how the fuck he's supposed to plan them and plot them and then tie them all together. And it's also what's like, but you did it to yourself, as well, so get to it.

Yeah. Yeah. Nobody made you write these fucking books. It's been a long time. I think the entire run of Game of Thrones one book came out and I think he came out during season two. I've want to say somewhere something like that. Like the TV show Game of Thrones came and went and we're still waiting on another book. I've read the entire series as it is so far twice. Now I read it early on in the run of Game of Thrones and I read it towards the end of the TV show

again thinking that the next book was about to come out and still waiting. Was it worth reading a second time because I read it all through once at the beginning. I forgot the ton. You know, really? There's just like so much you forget. So I'm sure. Well, I might do it again. That's a franchise that I have completely lost interest in. Like just like, I don't know why. I was so into the books and I don't wanna do like, the books versus the TV show kind of thing, cause I enjoyed the hell out of the TV show too. But like, once it was in the rear view mirror

and I guess the last season felt pretty unsatisfying, I just, I never looked back and I don't even care. I mean, ultimately I would prefer to read his final two books and I hope that I get the opportunity to someday. But if I don't, I guess I don't really give a shit. I moved on. Like, I didn't have any interest in watching the new season, House of Dragons, and I don't know that I'll bother.

I don't know. It just, uh... I felt like I was in the position you were in until House of the Dragon came out, and I finally decided to watch it, and I was like, oh, this, it kind of pulled me back in. Really? It was like, you liked House of the Dragon came out and I finally decided to watch it. And I was like, oh, this, it kind of pulled me back in. Really, it was like, you liked House of the Dragon. Yeah, it was, it was really good.

I hate to say it. I did not want to like that show, but it was, it was, it was solid. Did it feel like Game of Thrones and did it feel like it was enriching that world or did it just feel like its own story? It, it, it definitely felt like Amethorones. I don't know if it felt like it was enriching.

The world had definitely felt like a separate story. Like it's so far timeline removed from everything you see in the show that some of the locations are still there, but all the people and all the interactions are totally different. Even like, you know, it's so important like the house. It's like the houses that are in power are also some of them are different.

Like you recognize some of them, and you don't recognize others. And so it's definitely, you feel like you're in that world, but it's not the same story. It's so far removed. This episode of Anima is sponsored by Better Help. When you're at your best, you know, you can do great things, but sometime life gets you bogged down,

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Yeah, and this kind of thing. I have actually have a very quick knee jerk answer to that. I wonder if it's the same, I wonder if it's the same as me. I'm interested. Is it Star Wars? No. No, God no. I wish they had done it with Star Wars

with other characters with like really expand the universe. Like, how's it the dragon? Did the opposite of what Star Wars does? Star Wars tries to tell new stories, but it just keeps involving the same characters and settings over and over. And I think they try to break away a little bit every now and then and when they do, it's great. Like I thought Andor was amazing. I don't know if you watched Andor. I have, I haven't seen it.

Andor was phenomenal. And finally, it's like a story. This is what, this is the kinds of things I want. Stories set in the Star Wars universe that are not about Jedi, they're not about Skywalker's. It's not about, you not about all of that other stuff that you're constantly forced to say. It's like, what it was it like day-to-day, like living in this regime,

just trying to get by, like some sneaky spy stuff, a lot grittier. I think that's the kind of things I'd like to see explored more. Did the Mandalorian not do that as well? I also haven't seen it. So I don't know.

I just know people fucking loved it. Mandalorian's do that as well? I also haven't seen it. So I don't know. I just know people fucking loved it. Mandalorian's great as well. Yeah, I'll say yes with an asterisk. There is some crossover. Eventually, it kind of sidetracks into the book of Boba Fett. So it's like, oh, now we're doing Boba Fett stuff. So you kind of like retreading against some of the same characters and locations.

But, you know, yeah, that was also good as far as when it was trading its own path and doing its own thing. Boy, so you said you thought you might have the same answer as me? I'm just curious, I mean, I have an answer. I don't know if it'd be the same as yours, but mine would be lost. I just, even though ultimately I was disappointed in the last season and I didn't even watch it. I read it. I read the Snopsus on Wikipedia.

But I got to hold it at Lost via Domas game back on the 360 and being able to run around the island and find little Easter eggs and see more of it really opened up that world to me. I always wished I could learn more about Dharma, learn other stories, there were fucking multiple islands there, what was going on. Like they were so, they teased so much interesting shit and they ultimately didn't deliver on any of it. And I just would love to have experienced that world through more than just those dumb passengers.

The problem may have been that there was no plan for that, or there was no greater explanation. So that's why they kind of just don't answer it. No, I understand that. But I also, I mean, I think that they wrote themselves a lot of hooks that they could explore and then ultimately chose not to, but they could have, like, talented people could take that source material and do lots of stuff with it. It could be expanded. And they're, you know, it may not have been the original intention, but, you know, Red

versus blue was supposed to be six fucking episodes long. Donut got his armor. We were done, you know, we managed to stretch that out for a hundred years. So I went on a tour of lost locations a couple of years ago in Oahu. And it's really, I was such a huge fan of the show. It was cool to see so many of locations. You're like, oh, if you stand here, yes, this is exactly like, this is where the plane crashed into the ocean.

This is the beach. You can picture it exactly. Or I went to the house, the square, the others live. It's like, oh shit, yeah, this is the others. And when I went there, actually, they were painting them. So they're no longer that color anymore. Like in the show, they were like a yellowish color or yellow sharage.

They were painting in blue, like the day I went. So it's like, oh, like this is one of the last times you'll be able to see them, the color they were in the show. Was that a, was locations? Was that like a bus tour or something? Yeah. Okay. I took like a Magnum PI helicopter tour and it showed like King Kong and stuff.

I don't think it showed any lost. Yeah, this was like, this was a specific lost tour. It was like a dude in a van that had like a, a Dharma sticker on the side of it. I was like, oh yeah, we're in for it. Dude, is that common Dharma Doug? For the next 90 minutes, I'm gonna blow your minds. Did he do lots of stuff?

Like, did anybody name the numbers? Did anybody name the numbers? I'll tell you how anybody, oh, a free sticker. Dude, he had so many questions. And I felt like a real idiot, cause I couldn't answer so many of them. Were there a lot of people on the tour? No, it was my wife and me and that was it.

And you're like, I don't even fucking fuck about lost. No, this is all for you. It was, it was, it was, there were a lot of very awkward pauses where you would ask a question and then like we would just look at each other and be like, oh, we don't know. Dude, Million, I did a ghost tour in Austin one time where we were the only people to show up and the guy didn't want to do it. And he was like, well, it's just us.

And I was like, yeah, but we are here. And he's like, okay, let's do it. And we just made him go to the store. And it was so awkward. I felt bad, but it's like, fuck, this is what we're doing tonight. So how long was the ghost tour? Oh, like an hour walking tour, maybe,

maybe hour and a half, it wasn't too long. And it went fucking fast because we were the only people asking questions. I spent about nine hours in that van. Dude, I will say, I did a ghost tour in Oahu, years and years and years ago, well, the best ghost tours I've ever had. Similar kind of thing, the passenger van, hopped in,

it was like three hours long, really fascinating. You should do that tour if you get a chance. Interesting. I didn't realize you were such an efficient auto. I mean, I had a ghost hunting show for two years on our, on our, on our, through our company. I've been through, I've been through. I've been through ghost hunting tour everywhere I go. All right, try to. What's the furthest away location you. I got a ghost hunting tour everywhere I go.

All right, try to. What's the furthest away location you've been on a ghost hunting tour? That wasn't part of that show. I've done ghost hunting tours in Australia. It's pretty far. I've done ghost hunting tours. Oh, dude, I did one in Scotland. I guess it's not as far, but it was probably the best one I've ever done. Like, it was like undergrad. They went underground into the like, like, under the streets where all the bad shit happened. It was pretty cool. Okay. Scotland, Australia.

Okay. I stand corrected. You always stay in the States. I mean, most States, Florida, a couple places, Chicago, New York, LA. I've done them everywhere. It's a, it's a, it's a good way to, uh, to burn an evening in a strange town and feel productive. When was the last time you did that?

When was like the last ghost tour you went on? Uh, I don't think I've been on a ghost tour in probably four years. Should we do an Anma Ghost Tour? Yes, we should. Yes, we absolutely should. Like, I don't want to go on a ghost tour. I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm easily frightened.

So, but I don't want to, but I'm easily frightened. So, but I don't want to, but I want to make your, I want to get, I want you to get that itch again, man. Uh, I, yeah, I mean, I, I will, I will be honest after the end of the ghost draw. I was pretty burned out on the whole deal. So I kind of took some time off, but I'm, I would love to jump back in. Maybe you're back. Maybe it's time. Maybe I'm, maybe 2023's the is, maybe it's going to be 23's.

Boogie. Movies, movies and ghost tours are back. Movies are great. I've really been enjoying movies lately. I know we talked about it just just the last episode but holy shit, you should watch me if you get a chance. Someone's more long but if they're not too long, it's pretty right. Oh, okay, that's great. I'll give the new I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that.

I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that.

I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that.

I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm not like the rest of the world. That any time like a new movie came to town, I would call every week to the theater to find out what the new showings work. I wanted to see if there was anything in theater I could watch. And like I just tried to go there as often as I could

to try to absorb as much pop culture from the world as I could. It was a two bucks if you were under 12. And then once you were 13, it was four bucks. Dude, I wonder you ever think about how much the world has changed in your lifetime. Like the idea that you could feel, I guess at least, I mean, I guess there's probably a lot of places in the world where this is still the case, but the idea that we live in America. So the idea that you and America could feel that remote and isolated. you and America could feel that remote and isolated.

It just seems so ridiculous because of the internet and social media and how in the last 30 years, the world has exploded and shrunk at the exact same time, right? You now have a world of possibilities available to you, but also it's so close you can touch any of it, right? And I was talking about this with my fiance, like the other night, about how annoying it used to be to get it, have to do a term paper, because my mom would have to take me to the library where the

encyclopedias were. So you could spend a Sunday sitting at a bench next to all the other students riding out a term paper, because the internet didn't exist. And it wasn't something that you could Google and you couldn't hire a chatbot to write it for you. We just didn't have AI back then, it was bullshit. We had to do all our own schoolwork or pay another smarter kid to do it, which means you had to go out and cut grass and do some sweat equity to get the money to pay some kid to do your homework. But anyway, and it's just like, that's gone now, right?

That kid, that, that Gus, that version of Gus who grew up in Eagle Pass, who felt so disconnected from the world and felt so alone kind of on an island in the middle of nowhere. And that same Jeff who felt very similar in Mobile, Alabama, which felt like, I would watch movies like Beverly Hills Cop that took place in Los Angeles.

And it was like, it might as well have been an outer space because it seemed like so fucking far away from anything that I had access to or that I would ever be able to touch. The idea of going somewhere like you know, California, New York was so foreign. And it's just like, that's not the cave. That'll never, unless we have a nuclear war

and everything gets destroyed, that'll never be the case for people again, at least where we live. Yeah, what's funny is, especially the time frame where we grew up, it's funny you said that about Beverly Hills Cop, because specifically in my mind, I remember Los Angeles and New York sticking out, because like every movie was like LA or New York, it's like. It was center of the universe.

Right. I'd never been to either place. I couldn't imagine going there, but you try to form this mental image of what it's like in your head. And I didn't, I probably didn't go to New York City for the first time until maybe 2001, 2002, so I was like 23, 24. And in my head, since I'd never been there, New York City was like the warriors. It was like, everything was covered in graffiti and dirty.

Like, you know, there was a period in the late 70s, early 80s where every movie sent in New York, like all the subway cars were covered in graffiti and like they were like dudes in like shirtless leather vests, you know, with brass and upholst. I'm pretty sure that's what New York looked like in the 70s and early 80s. But that was pretty dramatic.

To my imagination, that's what New York was still supposed to be like. So when I finally went in like the early 2000s, I was like, Oh, New York's nothing like that. Like you walk at a Penn station and you're looking for snakepliscan and you're like, wait a minute. This isn't right. But it's just funny to me that my my perception was so influenced by media for so long that it had never caught up and it had never reconciled. Like those were opinions and ideas I had formed as a child, like informative years when I was young and have never revisited and never updated. So when I finally went, I was like, oh, I guess I just never thought about New York again in the past 10 years.

And it's so wild to, I mean, it feels normal and natural because we've experienced all this in real time, right? And we're supposedly on the precipice of the next huge jump in evolution and technology, which is AI. And that's like happening as we speak. And you and I, I guarantee you, Gus, you and I in three years are going to be having a conversation annoyed that we didn't, we weren't smart enough to figure out how to make money off of AI when we knew we should have. Like it'd be like the same Bitcoin conversation, you know?

It's like, we fucking missed it. We were right there. We're right fucking there. We ignored it because it was dumb, right? Like that's stupid. And then it's like, ah, everybody's just, that I was fucking Lamborghini's now. Like, it feels so natural because you're experiencing it in real time because we're going through it.

But I have a film like when you're 80 and you're in a nursing home somewhere, and I come to visit you. I'm still on my own, by the way, I'm going great. I'm still, I don't have two years older than you, but I'm still really spry, and I got that Lamborghini somehow. I take pity on you, so I come to visit you, and also you're only surviving friend. And so I come back to shoot the shit with you, and you're just like, you're just like, how did it all happen? And it was like a blink of an eye and the world changed and I'll be like, yeah buddy.

And then we'll reminisce for a second and I'll pat you on the back and I'll say this is probably the last time I'm gonna see him and then I'll drive off and, you know. I really sound like Brooks from Shawshank Redemption. You're not gonna like this. I don't like this arc. The world got so fast.

It is really crazy though to think about it. You'll 10 year old Gus just couldn't exist today. I mean, there's just like the world is so different. I wonder what that does. I wonder how like clearly social media has had like an overwhelmingly negative reaction to people's mental health, and it's changing people's brains chemically. So I guess that's, but I guess that's evolution, right?

That's just, the people are just going to be different because of these things down the road. But I wonder, I just, I don't know, I wonder, I guess I just wonder where it's all going. You can't know if you know, then I mean, that's, I know. That's how you get your lab seen. I have, I no longer, people always talk about that.

How like, Rooster Teeth was on the bleeding edge of like technology entertainment, and we were kind of like ahead of the game for, and I think we were for a few years, but man whatever like Pressions of youth I felt like I had it is totally gone. I have no clue about like where things are headed anymore. I feel like I've lost that Uh, I don't know that ability or that idea that I had an ability to to you know Prognosticate, but it is, yeah, I just, I said, so fucking clueless was about to,

as to the way the world works. I feel like the older you get, the more you realize you are dumb and you always have been and you were even dumber back then when you thought you had an idea. Yeah, I can definitely agree with that. So you said something that I want to circle back to. It sparked your curiosity in my mind.

You were talking about having to write a term paper and go to the library because you know, you know, you just know internet and all that painful shit you had to do. Do you think that library still have like microfilm? Do you ever have to use a microfilm? Do you remember that shit? It's the worst, dude. The microfilm and, the microphone fish. Yeah, I'm going, ch-ch-ch-ch. And it goes, shh. This is an audio podcast,

so nobody's going to see all my complicated hand movements I just did. But, uh, but yeah, I'm, I assume they still do, right? Because the only way for those to go away would be to digitize all those records. And who's doing that? AI.

There you go. And we got it. There we, there's our, there's our hit. In our lifetime, they'll go away We got it. There we go. There's our hit. In our lifetime, they'll go away. I think they're still. AI automation of microfilm, microfilm conversion. I will say that the seemingly saving grace to me of a microfilm compared to digitization is that it's established and you it's it's simple. If you digitize something, it's like,

what format are you gonna digitize it to? Is it going to continue to be a format that supported? Is, are you, you know, digitize it? And then it'd fire us, be like, shit, there's a new standard, way more definition, smaller file size. Dude, if I have learned one thing over the last 19 and a half years, is that I shouldn't say if I've learned one thing, so I say it every fucking 10 minutes,

but one of the things I've learned over the last 20 years is of this career, is that there is beauty in the analog. It is, I am really learned to appreciate physicality, and having things to be tangibly in front of me. And I do think there is something lost in the transfer to all digital, especially if the power goes up. Well, yeah, I mean, you look at old TV shows, for example, like anything that was shot on film versus video, you're like, oh, some of this stuff still looks great. And some of it looks like garbage.

You know, I was listening to Quentin Tarantino was on the Howard Stern Show the other day. And he was talking about this video library he has, which I guess the video store he worked at where he started writing all his novels or all of his movies and he kind of became famous. It went under at some point and he bought the, like apparently he bought all the tapes from the video store and he has them all.

He has this insane. He has a blockbuster's worth of VHS tapes in his house, though. And you think, like, how useless. And then I was thinking, you know what? I bet if I had that, I'd watch that shit all the time. I wouldn't care. It'd be even if I had, even if I had access to it digitally, I bet I would still watch it that way just for the nostalgia and the fun and the word of the VCR and just not having to worry about downloading or internet speeds or like, look at Eric right now, can't fucking talk, sounds like a robot.

Just, I bet I would appreciate it and it'd be fine. I bet I'd be like, you know what, it's fine. VHS is fine, I enjoy it. It's okay. You know, you talk about VHS and having this collection of tapes, and what you think about this. You know what industry or what group probably bemoans the downfall of VHS more than anyone

else? It's whatever companies made those specialty VHS-rewinding machines. Yeah. There were separate machines you could buy just to rewind your VHS tapes, so you didn't have to do it in your VCR. Dude, speaking of VHS tapes, and I have been meaning to bring this up forever, and I completely forgot about it until this moment.

And this isn't even why I led with the VHS thing. I was genuinely just talking about it. But I got delivered a bunch of VHS tapes that were in the attic at my old house that the millie brought over. And I was looking through it, and I found like a VHS tapes that were in the attic at my old house that the Millie brought over. And I was looking through it and I found like a VHS tape of me and basic training in the army and a VHS tape of me

meaning President Clinton and Kuwait, when I was in the army and a bunch of other things. But in that pile of VHS tapes was also a copy of the schedule, Bernie and Matt's movie, The Schedule. Wow, look at you. And do you know what other VHS tape I have, Gus? What's that? I have a certain, let's say it, let's call it a Star Trek fan film.

You do? That may star one young sixth grade Gustavus Lerola and one Frank Kim. That would have been ninth grade. I've been looking for that for so long. Yeah, I have it. I have your Star Trek tape. There used to be a thing where, I don't know where it was, maybe if you went to Universal Studios, it was like a tourist attraction where you could go in and like they would green

screen you into like a scene from Star Wars and then you could buy the tape when you were done. And I did that with my friends, Frank and Ruben. And that's the tape that Jeff has. We were probably 15 years old when we did done. And I did that with my friends, Frank and Rubin. And that's the tape that Jeff has. We were probably 15 years old when we did that. We have to, we have to digitize it. Yeah, we do. The listeners can't see it, but I have a stack of VHS tapes here that I've been going through trying to find that. Hold on. Hold on. Hold them up one more time. Wow. Okay. Cool. Yeah. It's the best part about it is they didn't have a shirt

that fit Gus because he's so fucking lanky and long. It's it looks like a it looks like a ringer to you on him. It's like a three-quarter sleeve. It's really good. This VHS tape says Selena videos. I don't know if you can see that. That's that's young Gus' beat off material. That tastes sticky. Oh man. All right, we gotta find a way to digitize that. I have a technician coming out to my house sometime in the next couple of days to fix my internet,

but we should get to some name guesses because we are nearing that time. Yeah. So we should do that. So before that, anyone have anything to say about their cups of coffee? Oh, yeah. So I made, I went outside of my typical because obviously I couldn't throw together ice coffee that quickly.

And it's also a pain in the ass to make it home. But so I just had a cup of black coffee from, it's called Conqueror from King's Coast. That is the brewer that used to make the achievement hunter and the Ruby coffee. And then when we had that licensing deal, and I really liked their coffee, so I still buy from them. Nice.

I made a huge mistake. I have not made coffee at home in a while. I realize now, and I need to clean my coffee machine. I realized after drinking this, this cup of coffee, because it was not great. And I think, I think my machine needs to be cleaned out. I've got a, like, a little espresso machine. So I had some Lavazza coffee, which normally I really like, but not good today. Yeah, you got to get that D scalar in there. Yeah, yeah.

Yuck. That was my fault. I have the Tanzania from Kato's coffee. Kato is a sponsor for FaceGam. I think they still sponsor FaceGam, but they sent me some beans. I got their Tanzania and it's fan. Fantastic. Can't recommend it enough.

What do you give it? What you're going to do? I mean, I made this myself, so like 10 out of 10. I love making a cup of coffee. I ground the beans, I wet the paper, I did the pour over, all of it, all of it. 10 out of 10, can't get enough. I am also a 10 out of 10.

Yeah, baby. Mine is not, mine's like a three. This might be the worst cup of coffee I've had on that. I'm not. I drank it, but I hope that three. This might be the worst couple of coffee I've had on that. It's like, I drank it, but I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass later. All right. So I guess we should get to the name guesses. And audience, if you stuck around this long, I really appreciate it.

I hope this wasn't a weird episode for you. Yeah. And you know what? If it was, don't worry next week, I think, are we off for two weeks after this one? This is 33. Producer, you're telling me 33. Should we be off after 32? Yeah, we should have. All right. So next, the next two are going to be special content. I thought my number was one off. So the next one, next two will be cool content pieces that you guys are really going to enjoy. But in the meantime, we will be making this mug with the name on it.

Gus has already been in talks with Tony and the merch team to make this mug. We don't know what it looks like. We don't know what it's going to say. I'm very excited to see it. But let me know if the name is another Monday Americano. No. Oh, all right. He doesn't even know what you said.

What? What the fuck? Another Monday Americano was at it. That's what I said. I hate this. I wish the audience had any idea what you sound like to us. It would miss. This is really sucks.

I hate it. This fuck what I said. I hate this. I wish the audience had any idea what you sound like to us. It would miss the sucks. I hate it. This fuck is so funny. I got that fun. This sucks. I hate it. Comes through crystal clear.

Fuck. Angry men arguing. Angry men arguing. Any memories, anybody. No. So I'm gonna reach you. I'm gonna reach you. You know, I had a conversation

with Tony when I've been working on this mug and I sent him the name of the podcast in Slack. So he could work on making the mug and I wish I could read what his reply was immediately after I said, please, please, please now. Tony, he sent two replies. The first one said, at least you can't see my face like when you told Esther. And the second sentence is, I think it's fun. Nothing will live up to the hype, but it's just dumb enough to be charming. Oh, no. Everyone's going to hate it.

Just well, here's the deal. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. I will say this. It's Tony said it's just dumb enough to be charming. I, I got, I trust Tony. Tony's got a good sense of these things. So if he thinks it's charming, maybe there's some cute redemption in it for you. There's no way. I can't feel like I feel like there can't be right. Yeah. No, there's not. Well, that'll do it for episode 33 of Anne Ma. If you want to guess the name, I don't know if Gus can and Jeff can

understand me at all. If you want to guess the name at Anne Ma podcast on Twitter and on Instagram, you can look at the pictures of Gus VHS tapes that he held up from this episode. Wow. Really incredible stuff. Oh, if there's your, oh, we'll do that at the end. We'll get a cool picture of you guys' cheers, and next week, you know what, Jeff, I actually have, I'm going to find a day next week. We're going to record two pieces of extra content, me and you. One I think where we're going to go through some stuff, I got an idea, and then another one where I'm going to recruit some people to help us.

So, okay. We, I'm very excited for our extra content that Gus is not allowed to participate in and he can listen to if he wants to like a fan. If you wanna send guesses at Animal Podcasts on Instagram, on Twitter, our slash Animal Podcasts on Reddit, Gus Jeff, any parting words for these folks?

Show me your VHS tapes. Here. Dad, please don't do that. Show me your VHS tapes. Here. Dad, please don't do that. Don't show them to him. He doesn't need to see him. Keep it to yourself. Bye. Okay.

And then also have some older things. Bustle. Was an autopsy. Gus and guess what's the still the CEO's car. Yeah, those, those were all old topics as well, but we don't have to get into those. I just wanted to throw them at you in case you needed something. Did you understand those three Gus because of the first two are garbled? God damn it. I got the last one. I think I saw it still a CEO's car. The other two

were unintelligible. Describe the show to a newcomer and I'm still a CEO, Scar. The other two were unintelligible. Describe the show to a newcomer in a more familiar way. Do you like apples? All right, example. Together in Trempit hosts, Characombs, Characombs are free to deal as I've nothing to do with this podcast. Analyze various unsolved,

and Ruestrites cryptic podcasts, f*** face. Call to action. Feel free to add something show premise specific, but short. Listen to show name on Apple Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. It's F**k face, a podcast. Subscribe or no. You do yes?