Trash Taste Podcast - The Trash Taste 2024 Year in Review | Trash Taste #236

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

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Welcome back to another episode of Trash Taze. This is the end of the year, baby. I'm once again joined with the boys. Yeah, almost happy New Year. You didn't even let him finish the intro. Sorry, I thought you finished the intro. No, no, I didn't finish the intro, because I got to ask, what the f*** is that you're wearing?

I brought the yards sweater. What the fias? Is it nice? It's so warm and cozy. Furnerizing with the enemy, man. I can't believe it, man. The enemy? What's with friend? We used their sets.

In front of my salad. They used our set. We used our set. They send me a nice little sweater. It's so comfy. It's so comfy because it's freezing in our office right now. Yeah. We have the, so we're sport, we have two floors.

The floor we record on, it's so cold, first world problems. Yeah. Because we have one heater on the floor. Yeah, we have one heater on this entire floor. It's like this tiny. Meanwhile, upstairs there's like eight. We have eight, and for some reason it doesn't travel. I don't know why.

There's like a little hole, there's a massive hole in there. It doesn't travel. Yeah. Either way, yeah, I'm wearing the yard, you're fraternizing with the enemy. I can't believe it. Espionage. To know good merch, you gotta wear it.

You gotta be like, I gotta wear it. I mean, it does look sick. It does look very, very comfy. It's very nice, very nice. Thank you, Yard boys, saying, right? Appreciate you. We see what you're trying to do. What am I trying to do?

Espionage. Counterintelligence. No, they were like, hey, do you want the merch? I was like, yeah, why not? This is leaking our secrets to the enemy. I want secrets to my leaking. What we need to do is invite them back on next time they're in Japan. next time they're in Japan and give them our merch.

That's true, yeah. And then be like, now you have to share your secrets to us. Fair enough, fair enough. How you boys doing? How you been? Good, good. Yeah, good. I mean, it's December, so you know it's grinding month

in YouTube lands. It's that grind time. It is that grind time. But looking forward to my Christmas holidays. Yeah, it's my, you know, just going off and actually having a holiday holiday and not like a YouTube holiday, which is, I'm a- What is a, what is a YouTube?

YouTube a holiday. I'm gonna go to another place, but I'm still gonna like film a vlog. Do the exact same thing. Yeah, I'm gonna still gonna film a vlog maybe and you do an IRL stream and- You do an IRL stream? Oh no, I'm speaking for other you-

He's paraphrased. You call me out, God? What the fuck is this? No, I'm not calling anyone out. I'm just saying hypothetically, if I was a content creator, and I also streamed, sometimes I would think about- And if I was on that grind.

Yeah, and if I was on that grind. Double it, baby. Yeah. I know, I haven't really been up too much either. Just kind of, I've uploaded more videos my main channel than ever. I saw, yeah, you're probably like every like three days. Yeah, because the sponsors, they want videos.

I'm like, all right, let me cook. Yeah, it's December. Yeah, yeah. I realized I was like, oh my God, I have a couple of videos I could make, but I was like speed running videos to get them out. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah, and it's basically, I think most of us

are like this where we will upload when we have a sponsor. Yeah. Because sometimes the videos cost a lot of money as well, and I don't really wanna lose money on stuff because I'm like, I could just play games. So it's like, all right, they want a video. And then you're like, okay, cool, I can make this video. And then another sponsor comes on like,

we want a video as well. And you're like, all right, okay, I think I can make two. And then another one comes, you're like, all right, I think I can get a third video out. Ladies, one at a time. Okay, four, I can get four videos out. I should work hard anyway, I suppose I should. And meanwhile, you have some months where the sponsor,

like, nah. I won't have like video for like two months sometimes. We don't want shit. We don't want shit. Some months you'll like, you've fallen off. No sponsors for you. So yeah, it depends. But it's also nice, sometimes I think

we require those external factors to get shit down. Oh, I think I need it sometimes. That's my exclusive fact. Oh, okay. I've been the opposite. I've been uploading as much as usual, but I've had to be streaming way more than you sure.

Oh, that's good. Why? Because of sponsors as well. Of course. But John's trying to hold all the Gatcha game sponsors. How do I play all of them? I mean, it's the December rush, you know, every, every, every, every, Every sponsor, every company is trying to sell something on December.

You know, it's normally busy in December. I think like four sponsored things this week. Yeah. Until we get to the Christmas holidays where everyone can finally take a break. So we all going away for Christmas? Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

All going to different places, right? We're going to have hot Christmas this year, right? Yeah, I'm going to have a very sweaty Christmas. Apparently Melbourne today is like 40 degrees. Oh, shit. Yeah. That's so nasty. Yeah. That's great.

No, it's awful. Yeah, you'd be out in the sun. Well, it's a dry heat. Yeah. But no. I mean, I know you won't be able to last fucking five minutes in this five minutes. Yeah, I'm gonna be having a slightly less.

There you go, it's not too bad. See, 39 degrees in Melbourne right now. Yeah. Were you in Thailand? Yeah, I'm gonna be in Bangkok. What's, what's in Bangkok right now? 36 degrees is disgusting. Oh my, 27.

Oh, cool, 27 degrees. That's nothing. Oh, amazing. It's Christmas. What's the humidity? I don't want to wear it. Only 50% humidity as well. Not bad at all.

This sounds miserable. I'm gonna be. Now this is cold. This is this is fucking freezing. It's 31 degrees gone. That's so hot. That's so hot. Well, I'm gonna Wales.

Okay, throw North Wales in the mix. Let's see what that is. Okay. North Wales weather. Nine. Nine. Ah, I can't wait for it. Oh, look at that rain.

Look at that rain. Couldn't be mass. Look at it. Look at his loser. I would prefer rain to shoot. humid and sweat. Fucking, Australia's not humid. Okay, okay, but 36 degrees?

Ah, it's just today. Look, tomorrow's 23. Okay, wow, that's what the fuck was... 39 degrees. It's 39, then 23, and then 31, and then 21. What is going on with... That's just Australian, maybe. That's Australian.

We can't talk about weather more, because we're not that old yet. We can't have a whole... Wow, the weather sure is crazy over here. Let's talk about the weather. So, how has your mental been, Connor, after... Connor after being back for two days. Oh, because I played League of Legends for a week.

Yeah. Yeah, it was ruined. It was ruined. It was awful. That's why he committed an espionage. That's why. Like, he ran to that. To be fair, I did love playing Lee for five days. It reminded me of being like 18. Yeah.

When I first got like, when I first got my own place and PC and I was like, wow, no one can tell me not to play league for 19 hours a day. Yeah. Were you eating well? Are you guys eating well? Yeah, honestly, great. I mean, food in LA is phenomenal.

Okay, okay. And you know, like, doing like, proper fucking uni, You were gonna have pizza every fucking day. No, we had like salads some days for dinner. We, you know, some days, pasta. It was great. It's phenomenal. Look at this boy all grown up.

You can game for 12 hours and still take care of yourself. Yeah, yeah? Yeah, I mean, it's called, well, playing league. What do you mean? That's step number one. No, no, no, no. I will say you guys have done

an amazing job of getting people wanting to play league. Because watching your streams, I wanted to play league. It was fun. Because watching Ludwig just fucking fucking troll on whatever games he was doing, trying his best to play and just failing every single time.

I was like, I wanna play just to prove for myself that surely it's not that hard. Everyone wants to play because they wanna prove that they're better than Ludwig. I feel like the bar is pretty low for a lot of people. So they wanna feel better. He's doing amazing stuff. So I heard about your win-loss record.

So you wanted to get to Platts. What was your final record? We went 37 and 37. After 74 games, we went zero. Zero. But we did gain like a hundred odd LP. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It's pretty brutal.

It was pretty tough. I mean, I didn't, at the time, I guess I didn't understand how bad Ludd was. Yeah. Which was a problem. So you thought you could carry him? I thought I could carry him more than, I also was not playing great.

Yeah. Which also was a problem. But I thought I could carry him more than I could, I did in the end. Yeah. The last day I started playing, if you don't know, League of Legends, don't worry, we won't talk about

the nitty-gritty of it too much. There's certain champions that can carry more than others. And I wasn't really picking those characters because I was like, I just wanna like, chill, like help my boy out. And then towards the end, I was like, you know what, I'll just play this one guy who's really good and we started winning a lot of games.

Right. Yeah. And he was like, where was this two days ago? He was kind of pissed off bad. He was like, what the fuck? Five days? Five days you didn't play this guy? I was like, yeah, yeah, you're right. He had five days of learning what not to do for five days. Well, yeah, yeah.

It was pretty brutal. He's not good at the game. But he's a lot better now. Yeah, what I find impressive is that, you know, I would log on, I would see what you guys were up to and I would see like some ex pro players coaching you and then I would see the record. And I think one of the days you had like pole belter.

Yeah, we'd pull on. And you're like, zero and eight. And I was like, how are you performing worse with a pro player telling you what to do? Yeah, we had literal pros telling us what to do. And that's like one point where the pro was like, no, no, do this, do this. And I did that thing and then someone on my team went,

that was the most bronze shit I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, I type, I was like, I literally have a former pro number one ranked on the ladder telling me to do this, shut the fuck up. Just goes to show that like, people truly don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Yeah, yeah.

Legit. They're so diabolical. These people are stupid as fuck. Yeah. It was fun there. I really, really fun because I think as you get older, you lose touch with those long gaming hours, like you generate with your friends

that you get to do. Yeah, for sure. I do miss those every now and again. Yeah. Yeah. So you back into league now? I mean, like, as it's like really. I think I'm kind of, because I want to play,

I'd love to play more league ranked because I actually really enjoyed it. But I don't really enjoy playing ranked on 150 ping. And solo queue is, I don't mind solo cue because I don't really give a fuck when I, when I'm playing alone, I don't really care when I lose

or my team's trolling, whatever, I'm like, whatever. Yeah, but I know like a lot he gets, he has like an emotional breakdown who plays. A lot of people do. And a lot of people like, and I think that's like, that game is brutal on you,

if you care about every game. You can't care about every game. Yeah, because watching that stream, it made me think, how big is league nowadays? Cause like, it's weird because I know a lot of people who are like ex-league players, like myself, for example. And the viewership for, you know, the worlds goes up every single year. They always break their record every single year.

Why? Because a faker. If faker's not in it, I think it's gonna like go down like 30, 40%. Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's like, it's like a, it's like a bubble, like a stock bubble where it's like, league is getting so much more popular. It's so much popular.

And it's like, well, yeah, but we have to see if faker is in it or not. When faker retires, league will never recover. It's insane how like much more popular the T1 games are than any other of the other games. Yeah, it's because every time your team goes out, you're like, who do I cheer for? Well, I guess I'll cheer for faker, you know.

Faker's always there. But what it made me think about was like, I wonder what the ratio of people who still play league versus the people who just solely watch league content. I think the league player base has aged a lot too. I think there's been a couple of numbers about this how most people who play league are,

like there's not a lot of new players in league. It's most people who go in and out of playing it who have been like long time players. Because it's like impossible to get into. It's actually brutal. Yeah, I mean looking at Luds, yeah, it is fucking impossible. You know, like he's trying to jungle

and then he's like, I don't know what this champion does. And I'm like, of course you don't. Because like, how could you know what all 150 champions do and like you don't know like wind condition. Yeah. Like, oh, if you're playing against a, like, Adarius,

like how, you know, what's the cool down on this E? I don't know how long this thing's down. Yeah. You know, unless you've played the character or, like, you've played a lot against it. You don't really know these things. So it's kind of a brutal game to get into. Yeah.

And so that, I think for that reason, it's been really struggling to get new players. TFT's really popular, though. TFT's been crushing. Oh, yeah? TFT's got a lot of people in the league. I think it's evil that it's in the same client. So you could just easily be like,

I guess I'll play a league game. That's like having hard drugs next to like the gateway drug. Yeah, it's the drug deal that has all the drugs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can see that like, yeah, here, it was, it peaked in like 2021, it's been slowly going down, especially in America, it's lost a lot of popularity

in the States. I mean, yeah, American servers, compared to like the other servers, a lot more, I heard they suck a lot more. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to pick my words, that was like, yeah, that's just why. I think they were,

I mean, it's hard to say, because I haven't really played on any of the servers in a long time, but it was fine. Yeah. But I think they've also done a lot of unpopular changes. Like the, they change rank to being three splits. So it used to be, you'd get your rank, and throughout the year, you'd have the whole year

to rank up, rank down, whatever. You change it to being three separate splits. So it would reset three times a year. Yeah. Or twice a year, sorry? And people hated that. Because obviously, like, I don't have time to fucking play this game all the time.

Like, I might not be able to play for a month. Like, I don't want to be like, oh, okay, I guess I'm back to nothing. Okay, shit. All right, fuck me. So it's interesting. I mean, I've played and kept up with league for a super long time,

but I'd never stream it or really touch it because I just don't like watching it. But it was fun getting it. I have any excuse, people got really into it. Yeah. Because people can tell when there's a winner or a loss. Yeah,

and I think people will like to follow it from that journey. Yeah. I think that's the main challenge of content creation in general in streaming that I think a lot of people don't understand. It's like you might want to play a certain game

or do a certain piece of content, but you need to find an angle to kind of present it to people. And I think like League Week was a great way of doing that where it's like, okay, you might not light league, but you can at least understand

that Ludd is trying to hit a certain rank. Yeah. And then this is going to be a five-day thing where you can just probably just check in every now and then. Yeah. See how it's going. Maybe watch the crash outs.

And you can watch his worst plays. Watch his worst plays. Watch his worst plays. Yeah, like day one, and it was going to be Raffa and Lod single-handly through a game. He was like, let's do Barron. Barron's like a big objective

and the jungler, who's the kind of keeps track of the monsters. He has this ability called Smite, which does damage to the monster. more than anyone else can do generally. So it's kind of up to him to kill this thing so that everyone gets the buff. And so normally you wouldn't do it

if you didn't have this ability on ready to go. And Ludwig goes like, let's do it, let's do it, fuck everything else. And then we lost the game, he's like, oh, it's not on, it's not off cool down, I forgot. We're like, what the fuck? What the fuck? Why does you give him that important role?

He wants this role. And you know the reason why he wants to play this role? Because he doesn't have to interact with other players. Oh yeah. If you have to interact with another player, you can die, lose. Yeah. Yeah. And so a lot of people, when there are new players, they either play support or jungle, because support, you're kind of like just helping someone else and you can kind of,

I mean, you're still very important, but I think there's this like interpretation or thought in lower levels. There's less things to manage. Yeah, there's less things to keep track of. Yeah. And the jungle, people go to it in low real, surprisingly, even though a lot of people don't like it, but some people pick it because they don't have to interact with other players as much. Because you're just killing, it's PV for a lot of it. Whereas like top lane, you're often hitting the other player a lot and it's a lot of kills and deaths and a lot of people get stressed out by that.

It is like just kind of, I have a lot of respect for a lot of it to be like, you know, you played a game for five days straight and you came out pretty much plus minus zero and you didn't think to yourself, you know what, maybe this game isn't for me. I think, I think he- Because I most certainly would.

I think that he thought it, like, because he's quite good at picking up games. I think he has that aptitude for it. I think he thought it would be a lot easier than it was going to be. Right. Turns out it's just pretty, it's not. It's such a, it's just like a knowledge diff.

Yeah. It's not even like a skill or mechanical kind of aspect to it. It's just like, just learning all this shit, it's like getting a degree. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was wasted so much my fucking life learning these stupid characters. And now you're gonna make it worthwhile somehow.

I mean, you're one of the few that have actually made it worthwhile because you get to stream it. Yeah, well, I can't really stream it now. Like there was no goal to it. And it's like, all right, even if I wanted to play it, it's like, like I played one game yesterday because I was like, oh, it's kind of fun.

I'll just play one game. And then my ping was for some reason, 210. I don't know why it was so bad. And I was like, I actually just can't play this. This is actually too bad. 160 I could kind of do, but 210, I was like, this is ridiculous. I actually can't do anything.

So I was like, fuck this game. Yeah, I'm playing this fucking piece of shit. And then Raya unlocked all the skins on my account. Oh, seriously? So I was like, shit, I kind of wanna play. I was like, shit. I got all these fun. and skins.

And I got the $500 R-E skin? No, so they reached out to me and they were like, hey, do you wanna unlock all the champions and skins? I was like, yeah, that'd be great, because I didn't have all the champions and they cost a lot of money. Yeah, they were like, yeah, okay, we'll unlock them for you. And so they unlocked them.

And then I was like, oh, so were all the skins, except for all the giga ultra super expensive rare ones. I'm like, yeah, riot, right? I would have, I would have worn it. I would have showed it off, let me show it off. Yeah, but I mean, hey, I was, I mean, I appreciate that they even did that. So yeah, it was cool, it was fun.

It was a lot of fun. I, uh, honestly, I would do it again. Yeah, I would do it again, it's a lot of fun. Just gaming for five days straight. Just being, I, like, barely interacted with chat once. I was like, I'm just fucking playing games. Let's lock it, let's win. Well, that's the ups and downs of league.

And you went 37 for 37 and I would say that's the most accurate league experience you could possibly ask for. It's true, don't play legal issues. You know, it's, if you actually carried Ladwick, I would be like, yeah, you're giving force advertising, actually. I think so. I think it worked out

because no one's ever gonna accuse a lot of being carried now. Yeah. It would be bad if we went like 50 and 10 or something. And everyone would be like, what the fuck, Lodwig? You got boosted. Yeah. So Joe, you went to Emo night?

I wanna hear about Emo night, Joey. Emo night? Yeah, I went there last night. I mean, it's essentially what the name suggests. It's like this monthly event that they do in Azabu, Azabu, Azabu Juba, where they just rent out like a, underground club space.

Yeah. And they just invite a bunch of bands and DJs and just play like mid 2000s Ema music all night. Fuck yeah. And that's it. It's like, it's fucking sick. It was so good.

Like, yeah, I mean, I had never seen that many like black shirts and like black eyeliner and like raccoon tails and like just the most like. Yeah, yeah. You remember on my space like the raccoon tail highlights?

Oh, yeah. There was like a bunch of people. there with like a ton of those. And yeah, it was just, I mean like, it was mostly, yeah, this is it, it was mostly just like a lot of, what is it, a lot of like, you know, kind of like, you know, my chemical romance,

like that kind of stuff. Did you go drip down on emo drip as well? I realize, you know what, I realize, I don't really have that much emo drip. Oh, really? If I'm being honest. Yeah, that's true. I don't really, like, I used to, but not as much anymore. One of my friends, he's the lead singer of a sad boy,

the band there. So I went to go see him and they were really, really good. And yeah, it's just literally just like, it's gonna be the worst way to describe it. But my friend, my other friend was there, he was looking around, he was like, this is kind of like the hub 2.0. In the sense of like, there's a lot,

there's like 85% foreigners. Oh, okay, okay. And like, you could tell who the single foreigners were because they were all talking to Japanese women who were there. And I'm just like, yeah, this is literally the hub except if they played like good music. No, but it was a lot of fun.

Like every single month they do it in like different locations and it's like really cheap. People get dressed up for it? Like proper. Yeah, yeah. There was like, there was a ton of people there again, like if you just looked at them,

it would have been like, wow, it's like I'm looking at a fucking 2005 MySpace page and it's just like the most insane, like, uh, emo clothes and stuff like that. It was a lot of good fun, yeah. Oh man, do you think they're ever gonna bring emo back? I mean, they've tried. Have they?

I feel like it's always gonna be around as like a subgenre, but I feel like it won't be- Well, I feel like emo as a sub-genre has kind of like evolved now, you know? I would say devolved. Devolved? Yeah, I mean like there's, like, I feel now there's like a second wave of like emo fans now, like who are like of the younger generation, who are like looking back at like the early 2000s

and being like, oh man, like there was so much like cool emo music there. Let's try and like replicate that in like the new space. Yeah. But like it just don't hit the same. It really don't. It don't hit the same. Yeah.

Oh man. Yeah. Like emo, you know, this shit changed my brain chemistry. Oh dude, you would have had an amazing time there. I think when I was like 15, I was like lied to myself that I like like emo and like this kind of music. I think it's because it was just everywhere, right?

Yeah, I just thought it, like, I think it looked cool, but then I listened to it and I'd be like, yeah, I really like this. And in my head, I'm like, I don't think I like this. But I would like force myself into listening to it, thinking I liked it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know why.

I mean, like, I didn't, I didn't, the music, I didn't always like the music, but the aesthetic. Yeah, the aesthetic was cool. Yeah, the aesthetic was cool. The aesthetic, obviously, you know, this was what defined our generation, and now I think the aesthetic is kind of like, involved. Half people went into like, you know,

the more like, he-girly kind of look. Yeah, no, that's the thing. Half of them became Goths and the other half became webes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, it branched off into like ego, webes, and then the other half went to like, go-full-on goth. Like goth-all, like, straight on metal.

Yeah, Emo was like the perfect middle ground between the two of them. Pretty much, pretty much. Yeah, so it was also really funny because like almost all the staff members like knew who I was. Oh wow. So they just like kept buying me drinks.

And I was just like, please stop. So I'm like six gin and tonny's in it. It's like 8 p.m. It's like I need a stop. Yo, free drinks is free drinks. Yeah, no, it was good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you guys wanna go next time?

Yeah. Sounds like a bit much for me. Nah, you're right? I think I would die. No, no, I would like to live. Just don't jump in the more. She'll be all right. Yeah, I would like to relive my teenage years.

Yeah, why not? This was your teenage years? Emo? Yeah, pretty much. What the heck? Well, this is the way your hair was emo. Yeah, I mean, just look at my, it was the Saske hair, dude. That's just the Emo began.

It's just so hard to imagine you's emo now. Yeah, I mean, I didn't, you know, I didn't go full emo back then, but you know, you could definitely see the influence. There was, there was signs. The subconscious influence. Old hair gone. I think you should bring it back.

Yeah, 2025, can you bring that shit back, man, please? I really want to see it. I like, I like a, be flat hair now. Really? I remember one of the biggest things is that, uh, sometimes like my hair would just always, you know, I poke things.

Popping balloons. Popping balloons, that. I completely unrelated. When I was in America, this league week, I found myself just resigning myself more to the things of being American. Now when people, you know when you get a coffee or you get some food or anything?

Yeah. Now when people ask me, they're like, hey, what's your name? I go, Connor. Really? Because if I say Connor, they're like, Colin, Colin. And I'm like, fuck, ah. So I just go like, I took normal.

Yeah. And like, oh, we should name. And then I'll go like, oh, Connor. I'll be like, thanks Connor. Wow. I'll be like, well, that's the stage one. Well, I just, I have to resign myself. I have this fucking dance for 30 seconds.

Well, you probably have to do that too. That's just my life. Would you say like an accent or do you like really nice? Do you say, Gart? It doesn't matter. Really? I, yeah. You should try it.

You think that shit matters? It works for me when I, when I, when I changed to the American accent, they understand me, fallously. It doesn't matter when it's a name they've never heard before. So I'd say Garn or God. I would see, if I was, yeah, if I was,

Gant, I would just design myself to being Grant. I would just say, I would just say Grant to them every time. Yeah. Because I know it would work. I mean, it would work. You're fighting a losing battle, Garn, it would work, but, uh, yeah, I'm not gonna give up my own name.

It's a brief moment in the day when you give up on your name. It is, is the names my parents gave me. And I will- And I will- And I will live by that. It's a beautiful name.

You know, if I really wanted to, to pick an easy way out, I would say gig. Because- No, well, no, because then they'll also be like, the fuck out of name is gig. What the fuck are you. Gig. You just say, just say Grant and then be done with it.

No, I'm not going to be done with it. I'm not, I'm not. Be done with it. I'm going to spread my name out and write up until Google, finally recognizes that it's not an auto-correct. Well, it's more grants or sorry, Gantz support.

I need to become famous enough in the world that people type my name enough in the search engine. Yeah, so you need to become more famous. That's what you take away from this. You have more famous. I need to become more famous. I need to build a legacy for my name to exist. Yeah, exactly.

Damn. So enough people type it into search engines and chat GPDs so people are, so Google's no longer like, Did you mean Grant, actually? All right, all right, trash taste audience, 2025. 25, we're gonna make that happen. Get on it, get on it.

No more red squeakly line for Gant. But it's coming to the end of the year now. How have you guys, how's your 2024 been? It's fucking flew by, didn't it? Yeah, this year has. That really know what I don't know what I've done. I'm trying to remember, see, because I knew we were gonna do this episode

of reflecting on the year and I was like, okay, you know, before we start, let me like, you know, think back on my year. And I sat there, I'm like, shit, what did I do this year? And fucking, my, my bros fucking open their own pop-up shop, raise a million for charity. Oh yeah, that happened.

That happened. I can't even fucking remember that. No, I remember that. I remember that. I remember that. But I'm like, the other things, like, like, okay, like February. Do you remember what you did in February?

Nobody remembers what they did in February. That's why I said, that's not the point. That's why on the tier list of months, I said February was a shit month. Nothing happens. Do you remember what you did in March? No, August, you don't remember shit. Because August is a shit month.

What did you know, August? August, I was in, uh... Yeah, you don't fucking know. It's a shit month. No, I just come back from America. I just come back from America. Okay. Yeah. Okay, what you do in March?

What I do in March? March, I definitely flew somewhere in March. So you got, you could have literally... Yeah. Really, really helpful with that one. So you gone, you failed the assignment because you could have literally said anything would be like, yeah, probably.

Like, I don't fucking remember what you did in March. I don't remember what I didn't march. Do you remember what you didn't march? Uh, no. April, we went to Australia. Did we? I did the Cyclethon and we went to- We did, right?

Yeah, we did. That was April? That was April. Oh shit. We went to Melbourne. Oh, okay. You don't know this? This is the worst year in review.

Like, really? We did that? Wait, I got to get it. get out my Google timeline. Yeah, I'm gonna get out my calendar to figure it out. Yeah. Actually, I, I,

so me and Sydney have been getting into a Pickman Go recently. Oh, hell yeah. And that's been our app to track what we've been doing. That's been a better app to keep us, to keep a reminder than Google Maps. Because you have to like walk around. And every day it saves one of the pictures you took on that day as like a picture of like,

a picture taken on this day of the calendar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you just look back. at your calendar and you're like, oh shit, that was, that was a good day. That was a good day. And I got 25 yellow pigment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Let's go. I'm just like scrolling down to see what I, what video games I played this year to help me. What video games I played this year? I mean, my mind is occupied by like, I played, I finally finished Eldon Ring and that was, that's your life.

That was my, that was my game of year. See, I remember February because that was the month where all the JRPGs came out. Oh, March, I play persona. That's what I did. Yeah. And I played Final Fantasy 7 and Persona 3 and Unicorn Overlord.

That was all in February. That was all in February, I did Jack shit. I stayed at home and played games. That sounds like an amazing month. That was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty good. I mean, January, I was in Thailand. No, February, I think I was in Thailand, actually.

Yeah, that's, that's what I was doing. Again. Again. We trust you. Again, again. I've been in Thailand twice this year, and I'm going a third time this year. I don't think I've traveled as much this year

as I did last year. I feel like you did. Yeah, you say that. No, I haven't because I know, because I like keep track of like my miles. I swear you were in America like at least six or seven times this year. Cause no.

How many times were in America this year? Like four, I think. So I went in February, stream rewards. Mm-hmm. Went during Anime Expo. Yeah, I went again for August for like five days. Yeah. And then one more time.

This, this, uh, I swear it was like a couple of Four, four times. Really? That's four times in like a 12 month period. Yeah, I went one. That's still quite a lot. I also every three months is not that bad. I say that though, but like I'm going to Australia again next week.

How many times you've been to Australia? Yeah, you've been to Australia. Yeah, I've been to Australia four times. Australia's like your other home. Yeah, but to be fair, like two of those times was unplanned for. Yeah. So, you know, there's that.

UK twice? And then have we traveled anywhere else's trash taste? Oh yeah. That's what I was doing in April. I went to... I feel like you've traveled more than me. Yeah, I went to UK and Hungary. Yeah, you've gone everywhere.

Yeah, you've gone everywhere. I've got nowhere. I've been in the UK twice, and that's in Australia once. Yeah, I've been Australia once, America, sorry, Australia three times America once. And that's it. I travel the least this year.

Yeah, I feel like we traveled, we think we traveled a lot last year because we had the... the tour. And I think the tour fucks up my minds. We definitely did travel a lot. No, no, last year wasn't just the tour. It was like a lot.

We thought we did a lot. Yeah, I was flying overseas every month last year. Really? Yeah. Were we? Oh, I was. Dementia the podcast. Yeah. No, this is not dementia of the podcast.

This is just like being above 25. You're like, what the fuck did I do this year? Yeah, it's like things you were like, oh, that happened last year, right? And you're like, oh, it happened three years ago. Fuck. Yeah, even like the tour, wasn't that 2020? No, that was the America tour. That was America tour.

The Europe tour was last year. Last year was Europe tour. Yeah. In September. Yeah. September last year. Yeah. Because I remember we did the, yeah, because it was the, it started at the end of August.

Oh, no, you are right. Until mid-September. And then four days later, I went to South Africa. So that was fucked for me. Yeah. Okay. Well, last year, we, I think we all agreed we wanted to travel less this year. Yeah.

So we hit our New Year's resolution of, traveling slightly less. I mean, I did travel less. Like, I just did. But you still traveled a lot. Yeah, it just wasn't zero. I mean, I would never want it to be zero either, I think.

Like I think I'm pretty happy with how much I traveled this year. Yeah, was it this year you went to Italy? No, I was two years ago or a year. Oh yeah, two years ago, two years ago. I was like, how did you find that up? I was sure I just went to Wales, chilled out around. Right. Belgium a bit. That was fun.

You know, I'm gonna get my phone. I need my, I need my, I need my timeline as well. Yeah, when Google was like, do you want to track where you've been? I was like, yep, take all my information because I actually just need to know where I've been because I forget.

So to the trash taste viewers, I just like Google everything. And just like if I can, just take it all, mate. Ask me do I wanna back it up. I did a lot of like internal traveling in Japan as well, I think, this year. All right, let's see this. Because luckily Google tracks your trips, right?

Yeah, it tracks everything, right? Yeah. Well, it's- You can literally click trips. All right. Kagoshima, I went Hamatsu, I went, Ehima, Horish. Yeah, I mean, you normally travel a lot internally

for, for filming stuff, anyway, right? Yeah, I mean, this year I did a Los Angeles, Kirishima and Kagoshima, Hamatsu, Yomitan, Nagano, Hakone, California. Oh, I had my honeymoon this year. Yeah, you did. Oh my God, that was this year? Oh, oh,

Jesus Christ, dude. I forgot that happened this year. I'm sure your wife will be thrilled hearing this. Me and Joe, we had a ski trip at the start of this year as well, to forget that. Oh, that was this year. I forgot that.

Yeah, I couldn't make that because I was in Thailand. When was that? Oh, that was February. February 7th. Yeah, yeah. And then I went to Australia after that. And then... Look at us all on our phone.

Yeah. Look at us, look at us, new generation. Yeah, I traveled a lot to Thailand this year. I'm going to continue, yeah. I mean, in just over two years, I've done 123 trips. 123 trips. Apparently, in 700 days. Yeah, two years I've done 123 trips.

Yeah, that's kind of crazy. I think you guys actually traveled more than me. No. I think you guys think that just because I'm, looking at this now. I'm counting wrong. Are you counting domestic trips? I'm counting wrong, my bad, sorry.

Before we continue, I've, I have done a total trip length of 737 days in like six years. No way, that can't be, wait, is that right? What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? That means like, out of like five, six years,

I've traveled 700 days of those. So you've traveled two out of six years? I guess so, yeah. That sounds about right. That's a lot. Like, Cyclethon is like two full weeks of it. Yeah. Like RV and then traveling to America for like a month.

It's kind of a lot of the year that I think I'm not. Yeah. Yeah, so you basically paid rent for two years without living in it. I wouldn't think of it like that, Joey. I mean, you should. Look, I don't think of it like that. I was paying two years of rent on a house he doesn't live.

Traveling is life, Joey. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, I kind of remember in like what might be. year has been. And I guess I hit my last year's new year's resolution because a part of the big reason I was out of the country for so long was I mainly just traveled to England and Thailand this year. I didn't really have any trips for like myself. It was just more to spend more time with my family. So I just wanted to be closer to my parents this year. So I was actually out of the

country for quite a while this year. Sometimes like three weeks, you know, to a month, just just so I can be like closer to my family. So. So, W. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of time in Thailand, a lot of time in England. That's probably going to continue as well. So maybe, I don't know if I don't know if I want to do any more traveling next year. I think, you know, I feel like after the two tours, two years in a row, I was just like, damn, this is like, traveling's exhausting, actually.

Oh, it took you that to finally figure it out? No, I mean, I mean, yes. But it was that on top of like flying for anime conventions. and stuff. I mean, we're still gonna be going to AX next year, obviously. Oh yeah, I wanna do at least one. You're itching for it again?

I kind of just wanna do one. Just because I haven't done an anime convention outside of AX in like two years. Yeah. I don't do one. I do miss. This year I felt like I, you know,

doing YouTube, one of the things I look forward to is actually meeting real people, real fans, you know, because sometimes it can be a bit, you know, different, almost like, you look at chat and that's like, you know, that's just a bunch of texts, a bunch of like numbers.

And you can forget sometimes what it's like just to have real interactions with real people who enjoy what you do because there's so much fucking negativity out there. Yeah, this year especially, it's been awful. Yeah, so you can forget that a lot of times. And for me, I think AX was like the only time when I was like, oh yeah, this is why I do what I do.

I remember now. Even at X I'm not really doing any like fan meeting or anything like that. So I was only doing like panels and stuff, so I didn't really get to talk to anyone. So I kind of want to do a smaller convention and just be able to have that interaction again. So I haven't done it in like two, three years now.

Yeah, I'm just using anime, well, last couple of years I've just been using anime conventions as an excuse to just like go to new countries. So hit us up, if you want us. Maybe we'll come, maybe we're right. For the right price. What a sales pitch? It's always a negotiation here, trash taste, who knows.

I mean, yeah, I feel like this year was just a year of, I don't know, the internet being super negative and trying not to let that get into my mental state. Yeah, that's why I was on it less and less and it's weird because I think I spent less time on like Twitter and stuff like that and more time just streaming and when I wasn't, I was like, all right, I'm gonna go watch it. Yeah.

Or like playing other games and not look at my phone as much, hopefully. I love that you. I love you, like I was on the internet less. I wasn't on Twitter as much. No, I wasn't on SWIFT. No, I think that like, when you're streaming, you're just putting out stuff, right? Yeah.

You're not like in this loop of kind of just regurgitating or consuming whatever is like an algorithm is fed to you. Sure. Sometimes like I feel like Twitter or Reddit or Facebook, whatever the fuck, I don't know, I don't wanna use Facebook. It's just like miserable when you're just, you feel like you're just consuming it.

Even like YouTube shorts or TikTok, I get really like stressed out when I watch like five and I'm like, ah, I've fucking just five minutes. I just just, That's why I'm mostly just on like Instagram nowadays. Because it's like- Even Instagram though too, I feel like you can as well.

It's super easy to scroll through. I guess, but like unlike Twitter where it's like, you know, I would start scrolling and I'm like, I've been scrolling for about two minutes and not a single person I follow has like popped up on my feed. Have you, have you tried to go on your Twitter and going on your follow tab?

No. Bro, nobody fucking tweets anymore. Nobody tweets anymore. Yeah, I don't fucking blame them. Like the last tweet, I go on sometimes. I hate doing. And it's all retweets. Yeah.

Because nobody tweets I don't blame them, dude. Like, that's why, and again, that's why, like, I like, I like, I like, I like go on people's stories now just to, like, see what's happening with people. Because it's like, no one tweets anymore. You go on Twitter and it's all just, like, the most horrendous negative shit or just, like, stuff where it's like, I didn't want to look at this at all.

Thank you. And then, yeah, every way you look, it's like, oh, you know, maybe there's like a slight glimmer of hope. This seems like a positive thing. Let me look at the comments. Oh, it's just all racism and bigotry. Fucking love this website. Thanks, Elon.

I fucking ate Twitter. Yeah, everyone hate, I don't. That's, that's, that's old news in this point, right? I don't know, I don't know a single person who still enjoys going on Twitter. Yeah. But we all can't collectively agree to just fucking jump ship, unfortunately. We've sunk too many hours. We, it is, just every damn so.

It is the legal legends of social media at this point. It's the sunk, it's the sunk cost fallacy. Oh God, yeah. No, but I mean like overall, I, you know, I've had a good year, I think. Think it's been a great year. I got to cycle. That's always a great year. I love cycling, man.

It's so fun. I always look forward to it. So they'll almost certainly be another cycle fun. I can't wait. Have you guys had a happy year? I would say so. Were you guys happy this year? Why are you phrasing it like.

Because guys never talk about their feelings and shit, right? It sounds so ominous. Just like, how is you guys, but how is it really? Well, you know as we get older, do you feel like there's more pressure to make more adult life decisions? Do you feel like you're like, ah, I should probably at some point.

In a sense. What is an adult life decision? Well, you know how like, obviously you've ticked off one, you've gotten married. So these things are always impending. Oh, they're like, they're like kind of- Social norms, if you were. Well, yeah, a social norm of being an adult.

I'm sure any of the viewers watching this who are around our age, I'm sure your parents are already starting to be like, hey, what's going on? Yeah. And then it's when you've married, it's like, when you get married, you get married, what are you having kids? And when are you into place? You know, like, it's like,

all these things. Do you feel like that pressure is creeping up on you at all? I feel like I'm slowly getting there. Like slowly I'm starting to be like, when do I have to sort my shit out? Yeah, kind of, but when do I have to get the shit down? Kind of, but also I feel it's like kind of futile because it's just a never ending checklist.

Yeah, for sure. You know, it's like you tick one off and then 10 more show up and you're like, well fuck man, like, what am I doing? You're like, oh my God, I got a kid now. I'm gonna do like all these other things now. It's like shit. I'm a head of schedule I think.

You are ahead, dude. You are ahead as soon. Okay, when you were a kid, right, I don't know, I don't know if it might be different, like growing up in an Asian household versus, you know, a Western household. But I definitely had a, in my mind, a general age bracket that I thought

I would start doing this stuff, right? So married. So getting married, I was like, all right, I think around mid-30s, I'm gonna be ready. That was like, that was what I mentally thought. And kids, I was like, Like, you know, late 30s, early 40s, that sounds like about the right age for kids.

Unfortunately, life doesn't, life doesn't give a shit about your mental schedule or mental checklist. So didn't think that I would meet the right person for me way earlier and get married way earlier than what I thought, but that's what happens, you know. You make it sound like that's a problem. It's not a problem.

It's not a problem. It's also easier when you're a guy as well, I think these have these bullet points. Yeah, there's no ticking time clock. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, right? You're like, oh, whatever, man, I'll figure it out. Yeah.

So like, so like my question was, did you guys have that like mental bracket as well? Yeah, yeah, you think like, I'll be married this age, I'll like it to there. Yeah. I'll have a house and a dog and a car this age. You're like, oh, and then you're like, actually, look legends for a week.

You're like, I actually should be sterilized, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this generation is like, well, get a house. Oh, that's, uh, Impossible. Oh, that's, oh, that's, uh, let's, uh, it just, it just feel like that has completely deteriorated,

these expectations of like, when will these things happen, you know, these check, well, yeah, because these expectations were created by like, you know, two generations ago almost, like even more in some cases. So it's like, you know. And this is a new generation. A house doesn't cost like three cents anymore.

Yeah, it doesn't cost like $3,000 or whatever for a central apartment or for one bedroom apartment, in a major city. Yeah, exactly. We probably pay more for our rent now than people paid for their mortgages back in the fucking day. Groceries don't cost like $300 a pop. You know how much Uber Eats is nowadays?

You should do because you get it a lot. I don't know, my accountant will tell me. It's very privileged out there. He'll tell me all. He'll handle that. He'll handle that. That's not a me problem. Yeah, for me, it's always humbling when I get Uber

humbling when I get Uber eats, because Uber eats here in Japan, I feel like is still much more affordable than it is. I wanted it in America and I was like, oh my God, this is like four times the price. Going back to England? Going back to England and America, I'm like, holy shit.

Yeah. I'm going to like a high class restaurant to get a fucking Maccas, man. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. What is up with this? It's insane. But I mean, I guess it makes sense, right?

Like you have to pay for all those hours to, you know, someone has to drive it there, someone has to do all this. Yeah. There's a lot of things involved. that shouldn't be that cheap. Yeah. Then when you hear some of the prices,

you're like, okay, that's a, it's a bit much. It's a bit steep. It's a bit steep. Yeah. And then somehow Uber and all these companies are still losing money. Like, how? How?

This doesn't make any sense. This shit is so goddamn expensive. Or probably because it's so cheap in Japan. Yeah. It is like, it is like, I think you're trying to get the tipping shit. Stop. Stop.

It is like shockingly cheap in Japan. And I don't understand how it can maintain itself. Yeah, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. No. They must be bleeding money to get it popular in Japan. I don't take an advantage of that fact for the past years. Because, you know, normally, so to any of our views you don't live in Japan, if you ever have the luxury of ordering food in,

they'll normally add like a 20% or 30% like on top of the base item plus delivery fee, plus service fee, plus tax, and then tip. So it ends up being like maybe you'll get a, let's say you order like two sandwiches and two coffees or something in America, at least in California, they could easily cost like 60 bucks. It was just disgusting. Yeah, insane.

That's insane. That's like nearly what, like 9,000 yen, maybe 10,000? That's like a really nice like full course meal in Japan. Yeah, I can get like a seven course meal. Yeah, if we ordered two coffees and two sandwiches here, it probably come to after all the fees and everything, maybe like 3,500, 4,000 yen.

Yeah, if that. Yeah, you know, and you don't have to tip. Yeah. So that's like what, like 20? 20 bucks? 25, 25, 27 bucks. Like that, yeah, 26 bucks. Which is like way more reasonable.

Like a lunch and a coffee for you and your friend where you can split the comments. I mean, look, granted, still. It's like, it is like waringly cheap for Japan. Granted, this doesn't make sense. Granted, it is still expensive compared to just like going to a cafe yourself or doing something, but like still, it's like shockingly cheap.

Yeah, like if you, you know, if you're, for example, you're streaming or you're working from home in Japan, it's like, okay, I can just like keep working or I have to leave my apartment. And I only have to pay like 13 bucks for the meal. You're like, oh, shit, okay, fuck. Yeah. Whereas if you went out in any other country,

you'd be paying way more. So it's kind of, it is concerning. You're like, this doesn't make sense, especially when you're combined with all the low wages in Japan. You're like, this shouldn't be this cheap. Yeah. Oh, you got to remember that yen is not doing as strong as like the dollar. So bad.

And we also get paid in dollars. Yeah, yeah. And we have the lucky opportunity to get paid in dollars. Yeah, very unfortunate. We're extremely fortunate in many ways. Yeah, if you ever in Japan, try it out. Try it out. That's why every time,

Japan's almost becoming like the, it's weird to see Japan becoming like the budget holiday. Yeah. Yeah, right. Isn't that weird? It's kind of insane. Yeah. And Japan tourism has gone up again this year. Of course, of course.

Or way more. Which is, I learned this and I kind of blew my mind that Paris as a city has more tourist total than all of Japan. Really? Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me, It doesn't surprise me, it is disappointing.

And it's kind of like, you're like, okay, but when you're in Paris, you don't feel, like obviously it feels touristy. Yeah. But you don't feel like, oh my God, there's way too many tourists, I can't stand this. Yeah, yeah.

In like Japan where you're like, this is ridiculous. So I wonder, it's interesting to see if Japan will kind of rethink its strategy with tourism and kind of cater for it more. Has tourism just gone up period worldwide? I don't think for every country. Right.

Well, obviously not every country. but like it feels like, I don't know if this is the effect of like social media and all this kind of stuff, but it feels like more and more people are just like traveling around to different places. Like when I grew up, for example, growing up in England, you'd have a certain few places people would just travel to.

Like you go to like Greece or somewhere in Europe for like a budget trip. And that was like the mentality. And talking to Sydney's parents as well, who are also now in Japan. You know, in America, there'd be certain places, mostly in America itself that you travel to, or if you're really feeling really spicy,

you wanna go somewhere further, you'd maybe go down to Mexico or take a cruise or something like that. But now it seems like the mentality, just all around, the people are like more willing to fly further than they ever would usually think about flying. It's probably like a big mixture of things. I think flying is generally a bit more affordable.

Right. If you want to, there are, are ways you can get very cheap flights. Yeah. I think social media as well. Yeah, I was gonna say like social media posts and just like people being able to just like access information about those countries that they never heard of before.

Yeah, like I would never think of going to certain places, but then maybe I'll see a video where some food looks amazing or they showed an itinerary that looked awesome. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Maybe I should do that. Yeah, and also we're in a lot more of a globalized society where you are actively talking to people from other countries.

So I think there is a kind of thing to be like, oh, like I've spoke to someone from the Philippines, I should go check it out. Yeah, sure. Oh, hey, like, I've seen a bunch of memes from there. Like, that's funny. Maybe I should go check it out. Yeah, yeah.

I think there's also more emphasis on kind of understanding other cultures more now. In a time where I feel like there is a lot against that. There's a lot of very extremist, very nationalistic beliefs online right now. But I think there's equally a lot of people who are like, hey, I do want to learn more about other countries in the world. Yeah. More so than ever before. I think it's two extremes on both sides of the spectrum, for sure.

Yeah. And so I think, yeah, it's, I don't think travel, to be quite daunting and I think people now are like, oh yeah, just book a flight and a hotel or a hostel. You'll figure it out. Yeah, I think most people will understand that travel isn't as like insane as it, or like daunting or the thought of it was crazy now.

Yeah, I don't know if that was just my mentality because, you know, obviously we travel a lot now so we're a lot more casual with traveling and stuff like that. But it felt like back in the day, when whenever I travel anywhere, it was like this big, yeah, it was a big thing, it was a big thing, yeah. And it was almost like stressful because I was like,

Of course. Passport, passport, do I always say? have my passport on me. Yeah. And I mean, I'm still like that. I should be like that. I get too relaxed. Yeah.

Yeah, whatever. It's like, okay. There's an embassy somewhere here. I'll be all right. They'll figure out. Yeah, I'm not traveling to a country that doesn't have an embassy. I should be all right.

Yeah. Although I have, I've never lost my passport yet, so, you know. Oh, I have. Yeah. Yeah. Never lost my passport yet, so. It's all right. It's all right.

Have you ever been like pickpocketed or anything like that. I got close to in Paris. They would never, my aura is too much. Shut up. I got anti-pick-pocketing aura. They would never come back in. Yo, you in Paris as well?

Yeah, yo, same here, bro. I almost got pickpocket it twice in Paris. Well, that's actually like, part of the experience. Yeah, and that's why I was like, fuck this place. This is actually the worst place in us. Yeah. I want to go, you know, you know what? I was like, I want to go, obviously,

I'm like, fuck Paris, but like, I do actually want to go to like other parts of France. Yeah. Just because I've heard it's like, actually a lot nicer and it's like completely different. I mean, you've been to other parts of France, right? Yeah, love than Paris. Is it like completely different?

Oh yeah, it's like a different country. Yeah, yeah. It's like good. Yeah, I actually wanna like go experience like France. I used to go every year for like three weeks camping and like just a random part of France. South North or over, it's fun. Yeah, I wanna do that.

Yeah, good shit. I think it's also better when you older because you can enjoy the wine foods. Whereas a kid, I didn't really care about that, you know? Like obviously because I'm a kid. You can enjoy the wine. I mean, you know, the wine's good in France. Say what you will.

They got, they figured that one out. Yeah, Jesus kid. You just gotta like, there's a lot of weird rules that you're like, I don't, what the fuck. It's just like Italy where you're like, I want a cappuccino and it's like one minute past 12 and then some like Antonio loses his mind. You're like, what the fuck?

And just give me the fucking cappuccino. I don't care if it's 12. I want a cappuccino. But do you guys have a checklist of like, okay, you talked about your big thing, your big like adult thoughts? Do you have a checklist of shit you want to do before you like,

like start achieving those adults, like milestones. But no, man. I don't know, hey. I just want a dog. You want a dog? Yeah, I want a dog so bad as well. I want a dog before I'm 30. Me too.

So then I just think it'd be so cute. I just think my life would be improved. I mean, yeah, your life's always improved with a pet. I can't not be improved, you know what I mean? Are you ready for the responsibility though? God, what are you talking about? Are you ready? Are you ready?

Have you owned a dog before? Uh, no. It's easy, bro. I was around so many fucking dogs growing up. Yeah, they were there, they just weren't mine. Have you ever owned a pet before? Uh, no. So, are you ready for that?

Are you ready for that responsibility of having to care for basically what is your kid? Of course, man. Your kid. I need walks, he needs walks. We're both the same. Can't go traveling as much. You know, you need to like,

every time you meet your boyfriend in America, you've got to like look for or someone to take care of the baby, you know. Well, someone could think about having a dog. I think a lot of people jump at the chance to be like, yeah, I'll take your dog. Yeah, I'll take it for a week. What the fuck?

Yeah, hell yeah, dude. Actually, he knows Sydney will take it. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about. I'm not worried about. I got a lot of friends who have dogs here as well. So yeah, and they're like, Joe, well, yeah, I would love to.

Yeah, fair, fair. And then I can babysit other people's dogs too. Yeah. I'll be like, yo, come on, give me a dog. It's like having Asian grandparents where you're like, shit, I don't have a babysitter. Yeah, let's just, let's just, let's just,

you know what's crazy? It's like I feel like even if I did nothing, I would immediately be better than like 50% of dog owners in Japan because they fucking walk them around and strollers. I, yeah, I know. Oh my God, I hate it. So if you don't know in Japan,

people don't have babies. And so to counteract this, a lot of people will have dogs that they will then treat like a baby. Yeah, they will baby the dog, the dog. So this is also, isn't okay, I don't know if this is a normal thing And this blew my mind in Japan. Everyone in Japan, they think it's compulsory

that you have to take your dog to like school. Like you have to take your dog to like learn how to be a good dog at a school. Fucking do it yourself. And this is crazy because I was talking to Japanese person out and they were like, oh you're gonna put it in school, right? I was like, I'm gonna put it my fucking dog in school.

They were like, what? They looked at me like I told them like I was gonna kill that family. They were like, what do you mean? Well, so wait, wait, wait, So let me get this straight. So like school as in like, you know, like teacher how to like sit and wait and lie down.

Fucking doing yourself. Dude, that's what I said. I was like, I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't teach the dog how to behave? Is it, wait, wait, wait, hold on. That's the most counterintuitive thing I've ever heard. Dude, I swear to God, ask a random Japanese person who you made dog owner, just be like,

hey, did you take your dog to school? Every single one of them will say yes. This is like, oh wait, you're homeschooling your dog? Yes, you're homeschooling your dog. Dude. And I don't know what it is, maybe because they like feel like they're above it. Or they think that like, I can't handle that. But like, if you can't handle that in my mind of being like,

this is good dog, don't do this, this is bad dog, don't do this. Are you really, should you be raising a dog? No. No, every time, I'm sorry, every time I see people here who are putting dogs in strolls, I'm like, you do not deserve to have a dog. Let the motherfucker walk. Yeah, you'll see, you'll see like a pram and you'll be like, oh, it's a cute bit.

What the fuck it's a furs? fucking dog. Why is the dog not walking? You are outside. Let the dog walk. Let the dog walk. It is crazy. You'll see it all over Japan. It blows my mind. Yeah. Yeah. They like will not allow their dogs to walk. It's insane. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it goes against the- Why does the dog need a stroller? I don't, the dog doesn't need a stroller. It annoys treat your dog like a dog. Yeah. It is not a baby. There are also like some dog owners. Like I'm okay with like some accessories, but like, like, dude, when they make my clothes, Put the dogs in like fucking winter outfits.

I'm like if only there was some kind of, I don't know, natural coating the dog had that protected it from the corners. Okay, but to be fair, as someone, I used to own a greyhound and those guys are skinniest shit. Okay, depends on the dog. Yeah, if we didn't put one of my sweaters over the dog, he would actually freeze in the winter.

It's like putting sweaters over the dog, I don't mind. It's like when I see the dog looking, when it's like, is this dog going out for a walk? or are you going for a fucking Louis Vuitton catwalk, man? What the, why is this dog so dripped out? Or a dog walk, if you want. Yeah, you're or a dog walk, man.

Yeah, no, I look at that, I look at, yeah, the ones where it's like, it doesn't actually serve a purpose and it's just like, oh, we're just playing fucking dress up on the dog. Every time I look at a dog and I'm just like, you look so miserable. You look so miserable. I know you don't want this shit on you.

I just feel like they don't like, I don't know, they just don't actually like. They don't like it. Do they even like having a dog, or do they just want a baby that they, like don't have to have with someone else? Like I tell like, what?

That's, that's, they just want a baby that doesn't last like an adult life. It just blows my mind. It's like really sad, just seeing all these dogs in Japan that like are treated like kids and you're like, well, they are babies in a sense, in a sense. They are, they are in a lot of senses, but like, you know, not allowing the dogs

to just like walk and then like putting them in all these outfits even somebody. Because, because not letting, Your dogs like go for a water. Must be so unhealthy for the dog. This is like, okay, genuine question, I guess. If we're, if we're going down this route. When you go, like if or when you have kids.

Yeah. Where are you getting close from? No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, if or when you have kids, where you get in their clothes from? Like, are you getting like, Are you getting like, Hand me down clothes or are you going,

Are you getting like, hand me down clothes or are you going to like to, Or are you going to like to, I don't know anyone who could hand me down. Hey me know from who. That's a good question. Cause I was like, I, cause where did you get? We live abroad from our family.

Where did you get, where did you get your clothes when you were kids? Cause all of my clothes were like charity store clothes. I got fucking, from my older brother. From your older brother. I think my parents just bought me clothes. Shit, okay, okay. Yeah.

Like, is that not normal? I don't know. This is shit that we figure out when we need to figure it out, gone, okay? This is like, we'll Google it when we need it. Second question, which I've been arguing with Sydney about, right? Okay.

So, you know, we eventually found to have kids. I've said this a lot of times in the podcast. And we've kind of been house hunting about, not essentially like a house we're gonna buy now, but what kind of house we want to buy when we, that can accommodate for kids, right? Yeah, right. And so we got in this debate,

because one of these houses that we thought, you know, one of these house types that we thought would be suitable. Sydney was like, but like the bedroom doors don't have locks. I was like, wait, what the fuck? I was like, wait. Okay, also you could just install locks.

Yeah, you can install locks, but like, wait, you, you got locks? You were, you were allowed to have locks? It's an American thing. You were allowed to have locks as a kid? I had a lock. What? Yeah. What?

But it was the most flimsy fucking one. Okay. It was like, if you took a butter knife on the other side, you just did that, it would just open up. Okay, but what, did you ever use the power of a lock? Because I could not imagine having a lock on my bedroom door. And if I did, I would definitely not be allowed to use it. No, yeah, I would not be allowed.

I mean, I did sometimes, but not really. Because like, because the thing is, this lock that we had on my room was like, yeah, it was there, but it was also really obvious when I would use it. Because it was the loudest fucker, like, click. You're like, Joey, what are you loading up, Joey? I mean, I think like, it's just different. cultures, but I guess at the same time,

if you, the lock, like Joey said, the lock should rarely ever be needed. Yeah. Like, if the lock is needed, then something has gone wrong, right? Because either like the parent is not respecting the privacy of the child, because kids need privacy.

Yeah, I agree. They need to have their own thoughts and have their own moments. Yeah. But also, you know, I can understand the other way where it's like, okay, maybe the kid feels like it needs it,

but you don't really need it. No one's gonna come in your room, right? Yeah. How often do your parents just barge in your room? I mean, they did, but like, that's how my dad found me joking it to handtie. Because I forgot, but I had a lock on my go and he was like, oh boy!

Yeah, but surely you could hear when your dad was walking near your door. Yeah, but I also had headphones on. So I couldn't hear it. What the fuck you? I feel like this is your lack of planning. Joe, Joe, I was an idiot. So these are skills that I had to learn. That is a skill to learn the skill.

You loaded up handsline with headphones on. with your parents in the fucking room? Yeah, because in the back of my head, I was like, if he gets close, I'll just quickly put the walk on. No. Oh, no. You've already, you've already fucked up.

Yeah. Dude, I just, I just had this image of your dad just like, you know, you know, like the fucking Shrek door open? So, buddy. Just bursting in on you watching. Yeah, just bursting in. But like, yeah, I mean, for me,

for my culture, at least, I mean, my, okay, So I've, as I grew older, I literally did have to talk to my parents to be like, hey, can you just- I'm about to jack off. No, no, don't come in. I was like, hey, I get this is an Asian household, but please can you just like knock if you, you know,

wanna open my door? Just, you know, just out of like a- Respect for like privacy. Because I do think that, you know, I get that, I get the arguments of, you know, kids need their own privacy, which I totally fucking agree with. In Asian households at least, we did not get a lot of privacy in a sense

where my parents could just walk in at any time. And I think just like having just like a knock, just it does a lot. Yeah, but did your parents ever do this thing where, because I said the same thing to my parents as well because, you know, they just kept like walking in. And, you know, I was getting around the time where, you know, I was like, what, 14, 15?

Oh, puberty age. Vibity age and it's like that's when kids, you know, start to want a little bit of privacy from their parents sometimes. Yeah. So I was like, I don't mind you coming in, but can you, you know, just at least knock. Yeah. I don't know why, but at least my dad interpreted as he would come to the front of my door, knock,

and then zero point one seconds later open the door. It's like, knock, knock, no, no, hey son, it's like, what the fuck was the point of the knocking? I think my parents are there too, they would just knock and come in. Actually, that's so true. It's like, you give me, you guys, What do you think my reaction time is like God?

Is it like, oh yeah, I can immediately hear the knock. Do you know, see, I, I, I, to this day, I still have, I still sometimes have like phantom, I still hear like phantom sounds every time I'm back home. What does that mean? Because I have my mom's voice ingrained in my mind about like, you're in your room and your mind, and your mom calls you.

Yeah. And you don't come down for like 0.5 seconds. You don't immediately respond. Yeah. And then it just ramps up and ramps up. God, and to this day, it's just like, I have moments where I'm just sitting in my room

and I'm just like, will I just get my name? Especially if I don't, I don't get that. Especially if I'm back home. Especially if I'm back home, my bedroom, I'm just like, no, it was just the wind actually. Yeah, yeah. It's like whenever you,

Whenever you travel or go, like when you probably go home for like a night and then you wake up and it's really trippy waking up and you're not- In your room? You're like, what the thing? Yeah, yeah. Everything feels off. Yeah.

But my childhood room has been like renovated and like destroyed so it looks nothing. Oh really? So I don't even recognize. It's not even my room anymore. Right, right. Did you ever have to share a room? No, my room is the smallest.

Oh, okay. So my mom trolled me. Apparently when I was like one year old, she was like, oh, go and pick which room you want. And I'm a fucking idiot. I chose the tant. tiniest room in the house. Yeah. I was like, why would you let a one year old pick?

That doesn't seem good. Yeah. You should have picked. Should give me the good room. So I ended up not having the like the second biggest room. Yeah. And how small are we talking? It was like half the size of my other brother's rooms. Oh, damn. It's quite small. Yeah. Okay, second question. You had the Harry Potter tree. I did, I did. It's like just enough for a bed and like a wardrobe and a dresser.

All right. And then it was like just about it. Damn. So second question. All right. This, this type of fethical child, right? They're teenage years, right? And they bring over, they bring over a friend, or they bring over a friend, could bring over like a girlfriend or a guy friend. Do you allow them to shut their room door

if we're not having blocks on it? Yeah. Yeah? Sure. Because I was like, because I was told me Sydney and she had, and she had a rule about like, if I bring a guy, friend home. That's pretty normal though. Yeah, you are not allowed to shut the door.

And I was, is it normal? Cause I was like, that's kind of normal because they don't want them to probably do stuff. Yeah, well, okay, yes, yes, okay, that's, uh, I can understand that, but I was like, I don't know, if I'm there and I, I want, I want my kids to feel the anxiety of like, oh, you wanna make them squirm. You can shut your door, but just no.

that I can walk in at any time. I'm always watching. You can shut the door. You know, that's not against the rules. I don't even know how people managed to, like how guys managed to go to a girl's house back then. I never fucking, it was not even on the array.

Yeah, that was like, that was like a myth to me. Yeah, I was like, what are you talking about? I've never been invited to a girls house. Yeah, what the fuck? That's true, actually. But I guess in since small town, you know, I think it was a lot more common just to have people, neighbors and kids round over and stuff like that.

So, you know, for me at least in a city boy, I can't even remember the first time I went to, do you remember the first time he went into a girl's room? I'm trying to remember now. Well, I mean, I have a sister, so. Okay, that's, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

For me, it was like going into another universe. I mean, no, no, I mean, look, I was used to like, you know, my sister's room or like, you know, my friend's sister's room or something, but like, if it was just like a girl, I had no, like, you know, friendship with or anything. Like, I just happened to be in that house for whatever reason. I walk in, I'm just be like, I shouldn't be here.

What is this? Yeah, the first thing I noticed, man, I remember just, it was just like, damn. So this is, why does it smell so different? You know, you know what I mean? I don't know why. Just like, the girls' rooms always, like, smelled super different. What are your fucking harem protagonist? No, no, no.

Literally it's the first thing you notice, man. It's literally the first thing you notice, man. notice. And mind you, everything's so soft and bubbly. This is like me when I was like 30 and 40 and whatever. Yeah, so anti-protagonist. Oh, sorry, harrim protagonist. Excuse me. Wait, wait, sorry. A-you-what, Joey? That was a 40th. A-you-what. Harem protagonist. Yeah. No, I feel like that. But like, yeah, because, you know, like, I was used to, like, going into my sister's room or whatever, you know, just to like mess with her. But, like, I didn't, I didn't see that as like a girl's room. That's true. You know, I was just like,

no, I'm just going in here, just like walk in and then knock over a stuff and then walk out. You know, the usual probably shit that you do. Oh, shit. I do the same to me. I wish I could do that. Yeah. I wish I had that.

It was good fun. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, no, so, yeah, that's, uh, you know, that's something we eventually have to think about. There's so many like little things where I guess we'll have to learn when we'd go into the next stage of life. We'll figure it out.

Yeah. Figure it out. Yeah. And if it doesn't happen, then it doesn't happen, you know? Yeah. That's how it is. You guys got any plans for next year? Um.

Fucking, play ball. Fucked a wee ball. Fucker we ball. Fucker we ball. We both. No, not really. I mean, same old, same old, really. I kind of wanna chill this year.

You said that every year. No, I don't. This year, I definitely said that. I wanna just like play more games. What's your definition of chill? What's your definition of chill? Uh, I don't think I'll do like, like the charity auction next year or something like that.

So it's a bit much. So like less event? you mean? Probably like less focus on like big milestones. Cycathlon I don't really count because I just want to exercise for two weeks. Yeah. So I'll probably do that. But like in terms of like massive giant things like that, I'm like I kind of.

Stepping back on the grind a little bit? Well, just for like this year, I just, I need a break, I think. I just did too much this year. I think in that sense. And I felt like I was juggling too many, too many, spending too many plates. Yeah. So I think I just want to chill out, play some more games, do some more shit. And hang out more.

Yeah, fair enough. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So you are planning another cyclone? Yeah, I'll probably definitely do another one, I think. I mean, it's just like doing it too much. Probably definitely. Probably definitely.

It'll most likely happen. I just, I like cycling too much. It's just so fun. Like, and you also like get to see Japan in what I think is like the best way. Yeah, I agree.

To like to see every part of a, any area you've gone through or these towns you'd never ever go through. Yeah. Because you'd be blasting through in the Shinkansen or flying over them. So I feel like it's just a really cool way of getting to see

the country that I'm, I think it's really fucking sick. Hell yeah, hell yeah. So we'll do it again, we'll do it again. Or about you? I mean, I feel like I chilled out quite a lot this year actually. Yeah, you did chill out. Yeah, and I'm happy with that.

I think this year, it was after the past two years of like grinding so much, this year was like a nice chill year and I like the pace of that. Very much was like super, super grateful to be able to spend so much time with my parents this year, especially seeing like my,

one of my highlights for this year, aside from, aside from obviously getting to spend time with Sydney on a honeymoon, which was delayed for, because I was so busy, for example, being able to see my mom and dad in America for the first time. Well, not the first time, but the first time I felt like I got them,

they got to see like more chilled back, the more true America and actually seeing them experience something new. That was that was such a, that was such an amazing experience and I'm so glad I found the time to be able to do that. Did I tell the story about my dad in Chicago

on Trash Tastes? I can't remember if I did. I think so. Yeah. Just just seeing my dad being so fucking excited being in this huge fucking city. My dad is like, like me. He's like the most.

reserved guy ever and just seeing a different side of him being all giddy, seeing so many buildings that he's read about as a kid and things that he's... Seeing the bean? Yeah, seeing the bean or seeing like the architecture going on the, going on the architecture tour, which I would normally find boring as fuck, you know, but seeing my dad so giddy about it. Everyone loves architecture. They just don't realize it yet.

Oh yeah. I mean, I did get, I did, like I said, I just don't realize they love it. I did get into architecture YouTube this year. So I do get it now. But definitely didn't back, you know, definitely didn't back then. Next year I'm also very excited about. Finally, some big projects that I've been working on

for like way too long. Finally all coming together. And that is something that I'm very nervous, but also very, very excited about. And aside from that, yeah, I would like to, I think I would like to work on, on the YouTube side of things. Kind of like work on more big projects

on my main channel and maybe, maybe do more streams here and there. I'm actually enjoying streaming a lot more than what I thought I would. It's coming over. Yeah. It's just a more fun way to record videos. It's just chill. Yeah, because you can just chill out and like,

you never even, like when you're recording and you're like, oh, there's some downtime. Yeah. Like, oh, so annoying. And I have to like, when you're, when you're, you know, live and recording something. I feel like there's always moments where you can have fun with it.

And it never feels like a lost moment in your live. Oh yeah, exactly. You're like, okay, I'm gonna record nine hours for one hour of it to make the cut. And it's like, yeah, I don't know, I just, the interactivity of streaming is just so much fun and quite rewarding, I think. Yeah, I think the big difference for me

this year when it came to streaming was I felt like I'd gotten an audience that was just comfortable, just me going live, because before I would be like, okay, I need to make content, which I still do. I still, most of the time, go live with the purpose of, like, filming a video or filming something. And then there was this, like, uncomfortable zone that I could never get through

where I'd done the content and I was like, I don't have anything planned. I don't know what to do now. I'm just chilling on stream and I don't know what to do. And I kind of, like, realize this year, oh, some, you know, I have some people, that just wanna just hang out. Just be okay with me being,

just hang out and just are okay watching me just being me. And I'm like, oh okay, that's a, that's a very comforting feeling actually. I mean, what do you think the podcast is? People wanna go, you know? I mean, of course, there's a demand for God. Yeah, but the podcast is different because the podcast is like, it's recorded, you know,

it's edited. Still think there's a demand. Yeah, wanna hear you talk. But also in the podcast, there's like three of us, On the stream, it's just me. It's you in the chat. It's just me and I'm like, oh, oh, there's no Joey O'Connor to help me out.

But it's kind of nice because you can kind of go in any direction you want. You can kind of stop the conversation when you're like, Dumbos talking about something or keep going, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's also kind of interesting when you have like 9,000 people who are smart sometimes

who can give you, you're like, we'll just, they'll be like, oh, I'm an expert in this, by the way, here's this, and you're like, oh, okay, shit, all right. Yeah. I also found it's a good way to get me to play games that I never would play by myself. Me too.

Not even, not even because I wouldn't enjoy the game, but sometimes it makes the less enjoyable parts of the game more. Yeah, yeah. But you're grind? Yeah, when you're grinding, you'd be like just chatting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I talk about random shit while you grind away. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's fun.

I enjoy that a lot. Me too. What about you, Joe? 25 plans? Honestly, I don't know. It's kind of the same as just this year, really. It's like, I think like, it's, so weird because like I feel like almost the complete opposite way when it comes to like content

uh whereas like I definitely I think this year I definitely like stepped back a lot more and like I did like more bigger projects but also at the same time I wasn't doing it as frequently. Yeah obviously because of you know all the stuff all the other stuff I had going on but um yeah I think this year or rather next year is going to be the same thing where it's just kind of like I'll continue to do like the big projects every now and then but also like I don't know I I just wanna like go out more. Yeah? I just wanna like see.

See the world. See the world more. You know, just like, yeah, just like hang out with like friends and just like, yeah, just go out and just see the world, I think. I don't know, I feel like I'm kind of in a weird way still in like the COVID hangover stage

where like I was inside for so long and then that really fucked me up. And then now I'm just kind of like, oh yeah, I can just like fucking go out and just like do whatever. Yeah. Yeah, like I don't know. I definitely would just want to like,

I definitely would just want to like like keeping like maintaining my privacy because I do like that. Um, and yeah, I don't know. Just maybe do a couple of passion projects on the side. I mean, nonsense has been killing it this year, man. Yeah, yeah. Working on that, like we got some, we've already basically planned until the middle of 26 now for that. Wow. So it's just a matter of like just fucking getting a role on and just doing that. Um, so hopefully that plans out. But yeah, other than that. You got some exciting things for nonsense coming up next year. Pretty big stuff next year.

Yeah, I'm hoping we can actually pull through with that. Because I'm always this part's gonna age like shit. Now, I think it'll be okay, we'll be okay. I'm gonna you just say on camera so that you are committed to making it a reality. No, of course, I mean, it's my company. I'm gonna be like, nah, fuck that. Yeah, fuck, we bore.

No, yeah, no, I think it's just gonna be exciting. Like, I definitely, yeah, as I said, like, I just want to do stuff now, not necessarily for the sake of just like making money or like making content out of it. Like I kind of just wanna do it because it's fun. Yeah. And because I've been doing that a lot more this year

and it's just been like quite gratifying, I think, mentally. So yeah, just keep doing that, I guess. Sounds good. Not gonna try streaming. Nah. Unless I get paid. Which I will continue to maintain.

But yeah. Yeah, other than that, nah, I think I'm good. We'll see. I don't know, something might change where I might be like, yeah, I'll do a couple of streams every now and there, but yeah, we'll see how it goes. Do you guys have a highlight from, like, if you could pick one, your highlight from 2024? I think it'd be the pop-up for me.

The pop-up? Yeah, it's a basic answer. Even like, even like personally, like in terms of like... Yeah, just because, like, that was just like such a new experience for me that like I had absolutely no experience in beforehand. Like, I didn't even know if I was gonna fucking pan out. Yeah, but it did.

and it was amazing and I want to do it again. And yeah, I think that's probably the highlight for me. What about you? Outside of like content stuff, I'm pretty happy with how my Japanese is coming along. I'm pretty okay with it now. Yeah. I feel like I can have every conversation I want to have.

Nice. Yeah. Not great, but I can have them. You can. And I'm pretty happy where how long, how it's come, given the fact that I don't go to school and I'm just trying to vibe and speak Japanese as much as possible. Yeah.

Which has always been a struggle. I've mentioned on the podcast because we don't have time to go to classes and do that kind of stuff. Yeah. I'm kind of happy with how it's coming along. Yeah, well, you've been going out with Pete quite a lot this year.

Yeah. And I can only imagine that just means you have to use your... Dude, I mean, look. Use your Japanese. I like a lot more in bars now. Yeah. Yeah, that type of content's really fun to make where it's just like, let's me and Pete,

just go to the town, do the magic happen. Yeah. And it just always turns out, It's just always a great time. Yeah. And like, I don't know how, how, I mean, Pete's also like generational talent

when it comes to making friends. Oh no, he really is. Generational talent with socializing. He speaks in vibes and vibes are universal language. Well, it's crazy, like, one thing that you'll notice if you ever like watch Pete is that Pete, often when we're talking to Japanese people, he wouldn't even speak Japanese.

Yeah, no, that's like, it's just like the goat at making people comfortable and like getting involved and diffusing tensions. Yeah. And yeah, we did one recently, we went to Shimbashi. and that was a phenomenal night out. It was great. Every single bar, we had the entire bar in on the vibes.

They were all cool with streaming. Oh, yeah. It's great. But yeah, there was one bar we went to, the guy that we were like, I was streaming and he looked like he was like, please don't fucking stream. Yeah.

Like 30 minutes later, he's like, yo, what's up? You know what I mean? Like it's just so much fun. And so that's also a great environmental to practice Japanese because you have to use it for like four hours straight. Oh, yeah.

And then kind of like translate between chat, not very well. Like, I think they said this. You're like, that's fine. Yeah. I had the opposite experience going to a bar the other day where, you know, because tourism has gone up so much, a lot of like, I feel like a lot of people are,

a lot of Japanese bartenders, I've noticed there are a lot more English menus than they used to be in terms of like purely Japanese menus. So I was at this bar and it was like this whiskey bar and they had an English menu there. So, you know, we were talking to the bartender who seemed like the normal kind of like prim proper guy. Just casually talking in Japanese.

He mentioned, I asked him, oh, do you like any, you know, anime or games? And he was like, oh, I really, really like from software games. Oh, nice. And I was like, oh, no fucking way. I just finished Eldon Ring and he was like, how many hours? How many hours you put in? He put in over 1,000 hours into Eldon.

Fucking out. 1,000 hours. What a gigat chat. Yeah, absolute giga chat. And so, you know, we go off topic and we start talking about, oh, don't you see you have English menus, can you speak any English as well? And he was like, you know, I cannot speak any English,

but I've been trying to like, you know, because there's been so many foreigners here. Yeah, I've been trying to be more accommodating for tourists. And I was like, oh, do you, how do you normally speak to, you know, tourists they come in and he's like, so the only English I really know is, um, and he goes, foul, tarnished, in search of the Eldon Ring, emboldened by the flame of ambition. What the fuck?

And he basically just starts reciting every boss, every boss monologue from Eldon Ring. What the fuck? And I was like, yo, that's fucking epic and shit. That's the equivalent to like, you know, you're talking to an English speaker and then be like, oh, I know a little bit of Japanese and then they start doing the one piece, Tommy, Mesa, Scott, up.

What the thing? He's like, let's go! That's so funny. I was like, so high, but I was like, no fucking way. Well, if he comes in the bar, you know, if a tarnished walks in, they get older. Yeah. Yeah, because I didn't realize this,

because like, I didn't realize Eldon Ring, I realize Eldon Ring, even though it's a Japanese game, doesn't have a Japanese dub, it's- Yeah, it's all English. It's all English. For the vibes. For the vibes, yeah. It wouldn't fit if it was middle-aged, you know,

like a little language. Yeah. So yeah, absolute, absolute giga-chat. Gigacad of that's so funny. Oh, I went to the Nintendo Museum the other day. Oh, how's that? Yeah, it was fucking awesome. In Kyoto?

In Kyoto, yeah. I did a day trip to Kyoto with Arkie just to go to the Nintendo Museum. Oh, fuck yeah. It was so good. So good, but my God, there is not enough time. Really? Yeah.

I mean, like, for one, it opened up in like, what, October, I think, whenever it was. And we immediately, because, you know, obviously it's like limited tickets. I was going to say, like, is it hard to get tickets for it? Well, I mean, we applied for the tickets in the beginning of October, and the next available day was, like, the middle of December. Apparently right now, tickets are booked up until, like, March. Jesus Christ. It's insane, yeah, but it's like, yes.

Oh my God. So, but it's fucking awesome. Like, it- So G-G-G-you-can't go, basically. G-G-G-G-G-G-you- can't go basically. Unless you do it like way, way, way, way in advance. Yeah. But yeah. It's crazy.

It's so cool though. What's the experience like? So it's like two floors, the top floor, like the second floor. Is it a lottery as well? I believe so, yes. Yeah, it's a lottery and it's not unveiled on so much. And for God's sake, stop this law. Lottery nonsense.

Which is why, no, but like, I thought that too. And then when I actually went, it's actually not that big in terms of like space. So if they didn't do a lottery, then it would just be like, you wouldn't be able to get anywhere essentially. Because all it is, it's two floors. It's the top floor is like what you're seeing right now, which is like basically like a history of like all the game consoles,

Nintendo's made, like and it goes and it predates like all the game stuff that they did because they used to be like a Hanafuda company, like made games and, like, you know, board games and stuff like that. Yeah. So it shows like the entire history of all of that. And then the first floor is this like kind of interactive space

where the coolest one was, it was just this room where you could play all of the Nintendo consoles in like these kind of mini game formats, but all the controllers are giant. Oh, that's cool. So we played like Mario 64, but the N64 controller was like the size of this table. Oh shit.

And so like Archie was like on this like giant joystick. just like doing this and I had to fucking mash A and B. Yeah, yeah. So you can see there the Nintendo console. That's cool. Yeah, so the bottom floor is like, you know, you get to play essentially from like NES all the way up to the Wii. But the problem is is that like, again,

you have to like line up for these, obviously. And we went on a weekday and it was still like really busy. So I can't imagine what it's like on a weekend. Yeah. But yeah, really, really cool interactive exhibit. I bought a, I bought a t-show with the N-64 logo on it because it just looks sick as fun. And yeah, and then afterwards we went to,

I was like, it's been a long time since I've been to Kyoto, just in general, and I've heard about, you know, all the tourism problems that they were going. So I'm like, let's go to Gion. Let's just see. Why would you do that? Let's just see what it's like. Let's just have a look.

Let's just have a Gondon. It's like we don't have to get the bullet train for like another three or four hours. Like, we got time to kill. Let's just go to Gion and just see what it's like. It was bad. It was really fucking bad. And we were there at,

night as well. Cause like yeah, usually Gion is like very packed during the day because that's obviously when you know the gaishers are around about. But even at night it was insane. I could not walk anywhere. And I'm just like how do people have a good time here anymore? Like it's actually, I'm a, I'm not a Kyoto and joy.

Yeah, see it's it's sad because like I actually quite like Kyoto but like it's just like because the last time I went to Kyoto was during COVID. Mm hmm. So now. Same here. Yeah. Yeah.

So now I go. and it's just like, oh my God, this is ridiculous. And it's like a Tuesday. Yeah. I think the outskirts of Kyoto are a lot better than the touristy parts now, which is still good. I think Kyoto does have its strong points, but I think like as a tourist destination,

I'm like, eh, I don't think Kyoto's got that great. No. You just can't already do anything. No, you really can't. And I feel like you can look at temples and stuff, obviously not as amazing, but you can actually just go and see other cool parts of Japan that have literally no one there.

You can't have it all yourself and a lot more peaceful. Exactly. And you can support a less, less traveled area, which God knows Japan needs help in those areas. So I feel like there's almost no downside other than maybe a little less connected to go into slightly other areas. Yeah.

And I feel like that, you know, that inconvenience is worth it? For sure, for what I think is a better experience. Yeah. You know, I basically think I think the one place that gets too many tourists that I think actually shouldn't, like, Nara. Yeah.

Nara is kind of weird, because obviously the reason why is because one has the deer, but mainly because it's well connected and it's right next to Kyoto, so he's very easy people to go there. But this, Nara's kind of like, it's kind of not a whole lot. It's beautiful.

Yeah. But like, in terms of like... But also, you could spend the exact same amount of time it takes to travel from Kyoto to Nara to like go to, I don't know, Shiga and go see like, Diwako, which is also beautiful around there and way less busy.

you can also take the same amount of time to just go to Orsaka. I think Kobe's even like way more worth. Yeah, Corbe is nice. I know Kobe's quite popular, but often I'll always hear Orsaka Nara. Yeah. And I'm like, no, I think Kobe's worth.

Kobe's got some really good stuff. It doesn't, I least say when I went, I've been a couple of times. I could, I don't know, maybe someone who lives there could tell us if tourism is really bad there, but it didn't feel too bad when I was there. But Kobe's really fun. And Chris didn't like you, but I like the cable cart in Kobe.

I think he's cool. I like it, I think it's cool. Maybe he did like it. Maybe he just didn't want to admit it. Maybe he's just being British, who knows. I think Kobe's a really underrated tourist destination. Yeah, I like Colbert a lot. I mean, people normally go to Kobe

if they really want to try the beef there. You know, that's the big draw of Kobe. Which honestly is kind of like, whatever. Yeah, yeah, same. Because it's not even the best beef in Japan. If you're a real beef lover, you'll know that Miyazaki has the best beef in Japan, all those areas.

But it's not a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I can only see tourism going up in Japan in like the next few years as well. I think they need to find a way to make like Kishu and Hokkaido, like I feel a little more easier to traverse. Yeah. I think it's too daunting for people. I think getting there is also a problem. But I don't want to go to the airport generally. But I think like getting a flight from Hanato is so easy.

Yeah. So I think they need to invest a lot into kind of like selling people that like, hey, flying to Kishu away. whatever, it's so easy, you should do it. Yeah. Like, do you know, do you know, I found weird? Ship people to Totori, please. Do you know, I found weird so I was like, I was looking for, you know,

since Sydney's parents are going to Thailand for a bit, I was trying to look for places that, you know, where Thai people go for like holidays and destinations because there used to be like some certain islands or some certain cities that didn't have, what, didn't have as many, foreign tourists there, didn't have that like foreign tourist like infrastructure there. And definitely going to, got some wee this time, I did notice going there as an adult

versus going there as when I was a kid, it has changed so fucking much because I look, you know, this has been, this has been gentrified and this is definitely a lot more touristy than it. Yeah. And I remember it. So I was like, oh, what are the places that Thai people go on holidays? usually now. And it was weird because like talking to some of my Thai family, some of my Thai friends over there,

I was like, where do people go now? Where do the locals go for a holiday if they just want a quick break? And everyone's like, oh, we're just going to Japan. The Japan tourist infrastructure for like, you know, how easy it is to get from Thailand has like gone up so much. I was like, that's weird because I'm going to Japan to Thailand. And I want a Thai place where Thai people go

on holiday and I'm like, wait, I'm already here. Yeah. It's interesting. I feel like a lot of like companies at the airlines are doing a great job of getting people into Japan, but then Japan is struggling to know how to like convince certain aspects of the country to be like, hey, yeah, we're ready tourists. Yeah. It's interesting.

Yeah. There's like a hotel demand, which is crazy. Like how is there not enough hotels space? Well, because they fucked over the Airbnb business. That's why. Yeah. That is why. Yeah, when we used to come to Japan,

we used to get Airbnb's, but then for the Olympics, around like 2018, they gutted Airbnb's. They changed the regulation. I think they got, I think like 80% of Airbnb's disappeared or something. They made it so you had to meet like the same standards as like a hotel, so you had to have like,

clearly marked fire escape or a fire thing. And they did a bunch of regulation that was obviously unreasonable to expect apartment owners to be able to keep up with. Yeah. So it kind of just, destroyed Airbnb overnight. And like there are still some good Airbnb's in Japan.

Oh, there are. But I would say more so it's kind of like, hey, you're going to the countryside and you want a full house kind of vibe. Not like a, get an interesting thing in Tokyo. Yeah, yeah. If you're kind of out of the way, like Okinawa, it was really good.

And there's so many like luxury villas or those kind of things that you can get. Have you seen these weird ass Airbnb's lately that have been suggested? Like, you go on Airbnb and it's like, oh, the experiences. Yeah, you can live in the Barbie house. Yeah.

or the X-Men house. So these are all like marketing stunts. They're not like, like, there was one where they had like Edna and the Moll's house from there. I kind of wanna go there. But it was like, it was like, they only like,

10 people go and you couldn't sleep there. It was an experience. What? So it's mainly just for marketing. Oh. It's all for marketing purposes. So let me search on Airbnb now and see, uh, just, just explore.

Because normally it's like a lot of, like, uh, one thing to also know in Japan, uh, If you ever look for hotels, often booking.com and all these websites don't have a lot of the hotels. Yeah. Google, if you Google and like use the Google travel,

it will actually tell you where the hotels are and we'll link you to their websites. So if you're in an area where it says like, there's no hotels, get off booking.com, all these websites. Just go on Google, have a look at the hotels in the area physically. And then go to the website where they want to go.

Because booking.com had kind of a big scandal earlier this year where they weren't pay. paying out hotels. Oh, seriously? Yeah, it took like a month or too late. And so a lot of hotels ended upting out of not being on these websites. Jeez.

So you do wanna have to look on Google itself because Google Maps will tell you where a hotel is. Yeah, and then it'll send you to some website that you're like, this is disgusting. Where like booking is very difficult. I'm not gonna lie, these websites, some of these Japanese websites are they trying to make you book?

Horrific, genuinely horrific. It's honestly, I was Japanese websites. Yeah, some people design these websites and they're like, that's good enough. It's like, no, it's not, to who? To Satan? This is not good enough.

It's, uh, I'd say it's, uh, the Japanese form of like gatekeeping. Cause they, I don't even think so. I just think they just think, like, some, like, so when we do the, Japanese person will be like, oh, this is fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Because they thought, oh, they'll call up

or like they're used to this. Yeah, but like, when we're doing the cyclathon, some areas don't have a lot of hotels and maybe they'll be zero on booking.com, but then when we look on Google, they'll have like one or two. And we'll use their website and it's like, this is impossible.

So we'll end up just calling them up and you're like, hey, can we just have four rooms? They'll be like, okay. Yeah. And then it's done. Where you're like, oh my God, I lost 900 years of mental sanity using this website. Yeah.

Just calling up was like, I mean, I usually am at the point now where if I'm trying to like book a Japanese hotel of some kind that doesn't show up on booking.com and I just, I take one look at the website. I'm like, I'm fucking called me. Yeah, it's so much easier. It's genuinely learning Japanese

is easier than using these UI. Like it's quicker to learn Japanese get fluent, call them up, rather than using the website UI. Yeah. It's so fucking bad. And then when you, if you ever use the auto-translate

that Google does, you'll notice a lot of the times if you hear long enough, it just breaks certain websites. It actually breaks them. And so what you have to do is you have to put the translate on, read what you need to click,

put it back to Japanese, and then click like continue. Because if you try and do it with the translation stuff on, it breaks the websites. Yeah. I've told you it broke my bank. What?

Yeah. So, What do you mean? So I still haven't fixed this by the way. So because I don't wanna deal with Japanese banks. Yeah. But so I didn't know this, but before, when we moved it, four years ago,

Google Translate did not work on our banking websites. Yeah, right? You're probably- Yeah, I know, I know. So we needed to figure that shit out by ourselves, right? I would hold my phone up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Translate every page and then I put it down and keep doing this.

Yeah. So what happened is, is about two years passes. They update the, the banking system. And so suddenly the Google Translate does work with the banking system. So I was like, great, I have like, I had six months of just being like,

oh, I don't have to hold my phone up on important banking documents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is fucking great. Another three months passes, and they update their system again. Update, the genius designers. The genius designers updated their system again. And I'm on, you know, I log into my bank,

online banking one day and then I get kicked out. And they say you have been kicked out for suspicious activity. And I'm like, what the fuck? What the fuck? Okay. And I'm like, why has this happened? Cause then I asked Sydney to check.

Then she also had the same issue as well. She just got kicked out. And we couldn't log in again. We had to like, we tried phoning them up And they're like, no, you need to go to a branch. Of course, yeah. And so we go to a branch and they're like, so it kicked you out.

They detected some suspicious activity on your browser and we have a feeling it might be the auto translate. The auto translate function. Crazy. So I'm like- So suspicious activity is you're a foreigner. Yeah, that is the suspicious activity. So I'm like, I'm like,

Great, okay, so can I, can you unlock my account please? And I'm like, sure, well, we'll unlock the account. We just need you to sign these 40 signatures over and over and over again. And then we'll let you know in five weeks. And it's like, oh. And so, and so I do all that. And next time I log in, I, I try logging account again. And this time I specifically click, do not translate.

Yeah. Do not translate at all, you know, because there's a Google, there's a function that auto translate, and I'm like, do not translate. Yeah. And I log in again, kicks me out again.

And this time, I'm like, why? It wasn't translating everything. And I go back to the bank for, waste another hour of my time. Yeah. And they're like, okay, we think it's just because you have the Google Translate, like,

application. What, how do they design this? I have no idea. I literally have no idea. So I was like, do I need to go on a browser that doesn't have the auto translate on? They didn't, to be honest, they didn't even know. They didn't even know.

But it still hasn't been sorted because they're like, since you've been kicked out twice for suspicious activity, we need to reset your account and we need to sign you up again on the system. What? We see, yeah. Why don't you just get a new bank?

Yeah, just get a new bank. I left that bank. like you're in half code because they were the fucking worst piece of shit bank. Oh. I'm not gonna name them because it's defamation lawsuit, but they're the worst bank. Least cooperative bank in my life.

I should do. And then I swapped zero issues. They have an English app, English web page, English support that's like actually good. You know, it's probably just because I'm just. You're lazy. You've gone in twice. I've gone in twice and I just make a new bank.

I did the bank that I opened, the new one. Lazy man works twice as hard, God. You gotta fix it. That shit, dude. I have opened the bank I use now online. I never went to a brand. How did you transfer, did you transfer all of like your pay

to that bank as well? Yeah, everything. It was super easy. God, I should do that. It's your next year, New Year's legislation making you work so much harder. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with the OG bank

that we got signed up to. They are fucking awful. They're the worst bank ever. If you're in Japan and you ever get signed up to this bank, you'll know which one it is if you've ever been signed up. We see your default search engine is not Yahoo. Suspicious.

Suspicious activity. Maybe they've patched out now. Who knows? This was six months ago. I still haven't resigned. No, knowing them, they're probably just like, how do we fix this? They suck. This bank sucks.

Yeah. Banks in Japan suck and this is the suck-used of the sucks. Yeah. I can't believe you've signed up to it. But they are, Japan is finally, you know, we're finally getting contactless pay in a lot of places now. Yeah. Finally getting there.

Only took him away. what, 10 years? Yeah, I asked my bank, I was like, hey, can you like remove the 5,000 yen limit on the contact list? Cause like, that's- 5,000? They put my limit as 5,000 yen,

which is about $30. I was like, dude, come home, man. Like, I mean, I was about to say, what can you buy it, but in Japan, you can buy a lot. There's a lot of things, but like most, like, I feel like when I'm buying stuff, it might be like, I don't know, I'm buying clothes or a gift.

Like, if I'm out physically buying stuff, it's often like gifts or something else for people, right? Like a meal for everyone. So I'm like, this is useless. I'm not trying to flex, so I'm not sure to be like, I would never spend such a pitiful amount of money,

but like- It's basically a suika. That's the thing. If it's below 5,000, I'm using my suika to pay for it. Yeah. Because it's just on my phone. I just go like, boop, boop, like that. If it's more than that and I need my card, it's like, that's when I need the contact list.

Come on, help me out, man. That's so funny. I think 5,000 is a reasonable amount. I love it. Yeah. For contactless? For contactless, for us launch. UK was like 30 pounds.

It was 20 pounds. That was it. Yeah, it was 20 pounds. It was because it was new there, people were getting used to it. Yeah, but I don't wanna. Part of me is just like, if I get scammed and someone just starts

scanning my contact list, what's the maximum amount? My, my, my, bags in like, my card's in like my bag, in my wallet, in my bag. Like, it's like, there's nowhere you're accidentally gonna tap it, you know what I mean? Well, for me, it's like the comfort of knowing, you know, maybe, maybe it's like just my, but then like you could set the price

that you're comfortable, like, one time, being scammed at, right? Of course, of course. Which I guess, which I guess is 5,000 information. Well, I guess so. Like I was like, you know, I just, I was like. Which like, yeah. 20 pounds?

20 pounds, yeah. That's 30. I'm pretty sure it was 20. I guess which in today's economy is about 5,000. Yeah, yeah, exactly right? Exactly. Contactless back.

Cause I ever in the UK, it's contactless. Yeah, but now, now the limit in the UK is like insane. Oh, you can set it to like 100 pounds. It's like 100 pounds now. But I don't know what was it was on launch. It definitely wasn't 100 pounds. I swear to God it was 20 pounds. Might have been 30 pounds.

I feel like it was 30. I don't know if I'm crazy though. 10 pounds. What? Okay, it was. And it's gone up like 10 pounds every year. So it depends on when in the UK are you living. The first three years it was 10 pounds apparently.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. I mean, I guess for like a nice little experiment. Yeah. Sure. See, we were, we've been programmed to think that. I mean, it's all. gonna be on our phone soon

within like the next like five years. Oh, of course. It's just a number, bro. It's just a number. This is monopoly money. Well, actually in the UK, as you know that cash usage has risen. What?

Yeah, cash usage rose this year. How come? Because I think, I believe it was because people could budget better with cash. Oh, because they could actually physically see it. People, obviously we all know this, we tend to spend more when we use a card.

Yeah. tap up, when you have to physically count out the money, you're a lot less willing to spend. Yeah, I get that. I mean, that's. Yeah, there was a 66 increase in the number of people who prefer to use cash for everyday spending. I mean, I get it because it gets to a point

where money management has become like, much more important in the modern day. And I still use cash whenever I can, a lot of times in Japan, you know. I hate using cash. I mean, I don't like the first of using cash, but that's why I think it's important. They just give me like, when they give me the one yen,

I'm like, oh, get rid of the one yen. I mean, I just have like, get rid of the one yen. I just have like a giant like coin thing now. But why do we need the one yen? It shouldn't exist. I don't know, man. But like there's every thought,

so, you know what's funny actually. I read somewhere that it actually costs more than one yen to make the one in points. Yes, it's a waste. It's a waste. Yeah. Sorry, gone. Yeah, we should get rid of the one yen.

I mean, get rid of pennies in general, you know. But, you know, I like using cash for that one satisfying time when I go to the con be need, I'm like, I got the perfect amount of change for this. And you get a round number and your wallet's empty, you got zero coins. That's nice. Yeah.

That's normally a, you normally have too much cash in your wallet if you have that, because you can put, you have so much cash in your wallet that you can perfectly pay. I just kind of keep cash around in my wallet just in case there's like that one mom and pop place that doesn't have any like, you know, card pay or whatever. It's just a one, usually a couple of 1,000 yen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, I usually, I usually just like take out, you know, maybe like, you know, 10, 20,000 yen at a time so that I don't have to keep going back to the fucking 18. And there's a fucking charge you to take money out in Japan, which is a fucking crime. Well, unless you take it out of your bank. Yeah.

Yeah, it's certain hours. Yeah. Which is what I try and do. Which is crazy. Yeah. It's so ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Like, this is shit.

What's a shit country for banks? Banking is so shit here. Yeah, it is impressive how shit it is. Yeah. Well, we can complain. about banks, Japanese banks till the year end. We can do a whole fucking episode is that Japanese banks won't become good.

That's one thing I can promise. But capping off this year end podcast, I know it's a bait question, but New Year's Resolutions, goals for 2025. Stay happy. Stay happy. Stay hydrated. Stay hydrated.

Stay hydrated. Stay hydrated. I can't ask you much more. That's like, that's it, that's it. Stay fit, I think, for me. Stay fit. Yeah, stay working out 20-25 for me. Yeah, you've, you've had a massive, like, change- Fitness arc.

Fitness arc. It's a good, it's been a fucking amazing. Yeah, I know. Amazing thing. Yeah, I definitely wanna keep that up. I don't want to be like huge. Yeah. You know, just well-endowed. Like, well-end-ed. That's what it's like you have a large penis. Yeah. Doesn't well-endowed mean you have a large penis?

I mean, I would also like that. I ain't saying no to that. Wait, why are you grinding again, Jai? For that large penis. You know, doing those penis lifts. Respectable, respectable, respectable. Yeah, it literally means having a large penis or large breasts.

Or could mean large breasts, you know. Hey, large pecks, I'll take those. You know, larger pecs would be nice. Oh, you go. What about me? Apart from stay happy, stay fit. Stay gamer. Oh my God, shut up.

All right, well, let us know at home. Keep rising and grinding. Let us know at home where your New Year's resolutions are, and if you've had a good year or a bad year, let us know down below. Hey, look at all these patrons, though. Hopefully we will see you all and a whole lot more of you all on this list next year.

Because we have a whole new year's worth of content coming up. Trash Tastes is going to keep delivering every single week. We've never missed a week. We're going to keep that street going. And hey, if you want to check out the extra stuff that we post over on our Patreon. We have a brand new one to end the year off for you guys right now. But hey, if you want to check that out, support the show in 2025 and beyond,

then make sure to head on over to patreon.com slash trash taste. Also follow us on Twitter. Send us some memes on the subreddit. And if you had our face, listen to us on Spotify. And we will see you all in 2025. Bye!