Triforce! - Triforce! #196: The School of Hard C ts

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Triforce! Episode 196! We're on the road again! Pyrion takes a break from the Dota Internationals in Bucharest to graduate from the School of Hard CENSORED, Lewis is hungover and could really use a Recovery Cart and Sips was the victim of a flood that almost destroyed his dad garage! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Welcome to the Triforce podcast. Triforce on the road, of course, this week, because Sips has been turfed out of his home due to the mini hurricane. I'm back, though. I'm back. I'm back. Oh, you're back.

Oh, I'm back, yeah. Oh, baby. And it feels great. Oh, baby. But PFLAX is definitely on the road. Yes, I am currently coming to you live from Bucharest. The conditions here are very poor. It is very cold and very wet, and the streets are awash with covid infected people uh the government has been overthrown i repeat the government has been

overthrown jeez there's rioting and looting help wow well some of that is true okay you can make up your own mind and what you think you decide let the people decide. Here at Freedom Radio, we let the people decide what is fact and what is fiction. I'll tell you what is fact. Yeah. Is I, for some idiotic reason, packed for mid-October as if it was mid-summer and I brought no coat. Oh my God. The shirts that I brought to work in are all short-sleeved light summer shirts I think it's because I'm going on holiday after we get back and that was in my mind so I bought things as if it was the middle of summer so I got here and it was fucking freezing and I didn't have a coat I was like what was I

thinking like it's just the stupidest thing and I told Mrs F about this and she was just nodding and saying I did tell you and I was like I don't think you did but she fully did she 100% told me it's gonna be cold man oh man I always thought it was a bit of a sweat box over there on the on the well yeah but I mean I was here one time in the summer this is my third time in Bucharest and the first time I was here it was warm and it was really pleasant and everything but then I came in December and it was like brutally cold and for some reason I just forgot that it gets really cold here towards the winter

and I mean obviously it's only like mid-autumn really but Christ it's cold at night I'm on the stage doing the late game show and you can see my breath and it's just it's really cold. I'm in the Black Sea Oh the Black Sea. Sorry Is it it's not on the coast though where you are

Bucharest is not on the coast I couldn't remember the name of the actual sea, I meant the Black Sea, I've got the map alright sorry good, it's not even on the coast and it's not sweaty, it's not just like hot and melty, that's weird it's really not hot and melty at all I mean it's bang in the middle of the country

so I didn't think it would be cold it's quite close to Istanbul, it's not far it middle of the country, so I didn't think it would be cold. It's quite close to Istanbul. You know, it's not far. It's just a hop. But yeah, it's not. We had a beautiful weekend. Did you? It was 20 degrees here. Oh my God, yeah.

It was so nice over here. It was gorgeous. Maybe you're going to get that later in the week. I don't know. It's been raining every day. So it's kind of like being back in Blighty. Oh man. But I've generally spent, what day is it today?

The 14th. So I flew out on, I think, God, was it the 3rd? Something like that. I've been here a very long time. Yeah, you've been gone. You're there for like a total of like 15 days. Yeah. Yes, I flew out on the 3rd.

I go back in four days. And I have spent, I would say 90 to 95% of that time in my hotel room or very close to it. Well, I guess with COVID and stuff, you can't really gather much, right? Like it's normally in an event like this, you'd be hanging out with different people and there'd be like stuff to do in between working and stuff. But I guess all that is a little bit different this time. Yeah, it is. I mean, obviously we've got we've got the uh the

onus is on us to not fucking spread diseases to all the players and the other talent that work in the event because that would ruin ti uh so we're all tested every day we get a rapid covid test uh we were tested on landing and then had to isolate for like 12 hours so i landed uh they tested me and i had to stay in my hotel room until like well into the next afternoon they would leave food for you outside the door oh my god and then so everybody in here is double vaxxed and we're all we're all clear um and all the players that are that are playing at the event are all clear as well and everything so they have been really careful but normally at a ti like say ti8 for example in in Vancouver, this was 2018, so pre-COVID,

we would just go out to bars, we'd go out for meals and restaurants and stuff. And it was like a lot more of a social experience. And you'd get people that you'd only see at a TI. Yeah. Like, you know, big Dota fans or people you play games with or that you know, you know, people on the scene that you know, you'd see them at TI and you'd all go out and party and stuff like that, especially before the game start, everyone's a lot more relaxed. And in the old days, a lot of the players would be out and sort of larking about as

well. Whereas now we had one day where it was like, we'd finished the group stage, which is all sort of, it's not on the main stage. It's all the games that qualify the teams for which bracket they'll be in and that. Yeah. So we all went to the lobby and got smashed but that was the only time we got as far as the lobby yeah no the lobby we literally didn't even go to a pub we just went to the hotel lobby because there's a bar there and yeah we all got i got fucking wrecked um but that was it other than

that i've basically been watching though or playing terraforming mars that's been my new thing nice oh what the digital version the digital card game no no we've been playing both versions so ken who i'm working on the late game with he brought terraforming mars with him i've not played it before oh right that's a choice it's such a good game yeah he also bought a jacket he also bought you know i think the last time i was in bristol we played that lewis remember we were playing yeah we had a big day a lot yeah it's a good one i got the digital version as well it's me too it's really good i think the the solo challenge that you can do where you just have you have 12 turns to try and basically get as high a score as you can is really good for learning

about your turns because it's like it's not like any board game I've really played. There's so much strategy to it. There's so much depth to it. And you know you're not doing badly when... So the way it works is, for anyone that doesn't know, you've got this empty Mars. And you draw a corporation to decide what kind of direction your play style is going to go for. You have these things called preludes that buff you up a bit before you start. You draw some cards that you is going to go for. You have this thing called preludes that like

buff you up a bit before you start. You draw some cards that you have to then pay for, and you have an income every turn of gold, titanium, steel, plants, energy, heat. And each of these can be used to sort of raise the temperature of Mars, raise the oxygen level of Mars, build a city on Mars, put some trees down, that kind of thing. And it's about a balance between, you know, doing as much as you can on each turn, raising your score. Raising your score gives you more money. And then there's like cards that give you victory points at the end of the game, all that kind of stuff.

And I always know I'm doing badly when it's like turn three and it comes to me and I go, I play this card and this card and I'm done. I have nothing else to do for this entire turn. And then the guy to my left does like two things the guy to his left does two things another guy does two things and i'm like yeah i'm still done and they're still going they have loads of actions and things they're doing and i'm just fucking sat there and i'm like i have lost like i'm so far behind i've just played two cards and i'm done yeah each generation they're playing like eight nine ten cards well it's like one of those ones that you the more you play it the the more you get like a

feel for it right it's a it's a tough one to get a hang of like straight away yeah i think actually that strat is legitimate in some cases so for example there's some corporations who get cheaper big cards and you want to play a couple of big cards to start with but you want to play cards that give you stuff for the whole game of course of course some of the cards give you 25 wikis open right now and i can confirm what you're saying is absolutely correct um well i've looked into it i've crunched the numbers i've done the math we've played about i'd say about 10 games on our shrapnels and i think i lost every single okay bottom came bottom in every single one. So I'm not the guy to give you advice on how to play that game either. Oh, I, on the other hand,

have not won any games either of the three that I've played. But I have so many wikis open, so how could I be wrong, you know? Guys, we should play a game of Terraforming Mars later or if you're still sick of being in the hotel room, P-Flex, I'd be happy to join one of your games to to join sure yeah that's a good idea i i honestly um i didn't i mean i heard of this game but i didn't realize uh the community that there is like is fiendish for this game

because i i installed it and a couple of people that are on my steam friends list who i some of one of them i haven't spoken to in a while messaged me straight away as soon as i fired it up they're like you know it's a terrifying mass it's like we played a lot of board games all of us i haven't really played one like this um and it's it's addictive because it's my friend ken said like every time you can see the perfect run like you can see it playing out in front of you and you you get a taste for it. And when everything's going your way...

Oh, I don't think so. I think he is like, he is chasing that dragon. He's playing, he's playing a turn ahead. Oh, he's good. I'm struggling to decide whether or not

to buy the cards, you know, in my hand at the start. Right. You got to need that terraforming. It is like that. There is a bit of that.

You're exactly right. So I bought a game this week called Brass Birmingham, which I know is a big deal because I played it on tabletop sim once with some people. They were fiendish about it and they were like, oh, yeah. It sounds like a male stripper's name. Brass Birmingham. Yeah.

It does. Anyway, they have their own discord dedicated to playing this game digitally um so yeah that's that's a whole thing there's apparently another tables up sim that someone recommended me which is a slightly better less 3d version i'll be honest with you i feel like um the problem i have with tts is, I mean, I realize it's not their fault and it does do some great things, but I just kind of feel like having to move the little pieces around is super annoying and you can actually knock things over. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's as frustrating as real life board games could be.

Because the good thing about the digital version of- But you're far less coordinated in pts than you are in real life yes that's true like you're just like let me just move it just knocking stuff dropping things off the table spilling stuff that's my my big beef with tabletop simulator because like at least in real life when you're using your hands to move stuff and you knock things over you just think ah whatever you know like it happens but when you do it in tabletop simulator it just feels so convoluted and and weird to put it back and and yeah i i hate it i i can't stand it right yeah there's like four people helping you to fix

what you've done wrong and it takes like five minutes to put it all back yeah i love that well i i love that realism attached to it and that is. But I don't think it ruins a lot of these games. No, no, no. Oh, it does for me, for sure. People have put so many games on TTS now. Like every game is represented in there in some way. You know what they put a lot of games into as well? Roblox.

And you know what they put into Roblox? Squid Game. So, you know, that's going to be the next big thing. I'm saying it right now. Squid Game on Roblox. It's going to be the next big thing. I'm saying it right now. Squid Game on Roblox. It's going to be the talk of the town. It's already the next. It was talk of the town a week ago.

I mean, Ben's son got an email from the school saying, you know, all the five and six-year-olds have been playing Squid Game in the playground. Oh, right. And of course they're playing, you know, Red Light, Green Light or something like that. But they're calling it Squid Game. My son is very sort of into Netflix, watches a lot of stuff in the children's category of Netflix. But because it's like an account that's shared through by the whole family, my wife and I have been watching Squid Game.

And I must have forgotten to like like i think i just we finished the episode it went on to the next episode and i paused it so and then i just turned off the tv and everything and we went to bed whatever my son woke up the next day turned on the tv to watch cartoons in the morning before school and of course it was still paused on squid game so when we woke up he's like mom dad what's squid game we're like oh So when we woke up, he's like, Mom, Dad, what's Squid Game? We're like, oh, my God, did you watch that? He's like, no, no, I didn't watch it, but I've heard about it. Like people at school are talking about it, and I didn't realize it was on Netflix.

You cannot watch that. Please, please do not ever press play if you see that. I forgot to move it back to the children's thing. Just stick with the children's shows. A nine-year-old kid can't watch that. No, no, no, no. It's too much. It's too violent. the children's thing just stick with the children's shows a nine-year-old kid can't watch that no no no it's too much violent i mean i think people are people are talking to me like like it was the most shocking thing they've ever seen and i'm i was like oh well come on like you know you've

this is pretty standard stuff but yeah i mean for a nine-year-old uh no we always talk about this though but you know to try which age were we when we watched alien or whatever or watch something that was really too old for us yeah you know i think it's it's happened it'll happen it'll it'll you know yeah there's one day when you'll you can't go through life i mean look talking about pushing yourself i had went out for drinks with tom tuesday that's challenging tom can drink and you can't so that's gonna going to be a tough one. I really can't. I had a drink. I went out quite early because I went out after Ped and

Ravs had finished their stream. They had two drinks with me and then they left. Then Tom turned up and I had two drinks with Tom. At that point, I was really drunk. People kept turning up. I felt like after you've had four San Michels, four bites of San Miguel, for me, I couldnels, four bites of San Michels.

Right. For me, like I couldn't really say no. And there were a couple of, a fan stopped me and was like, oh, let me buy you a drink. And I was like, oh no, it's all right. And then, you know, he ended, I had another drink with him and then someone else bought me a drink and then I actually drank someone else's drink. And then that meant that I had to have that drink as well. You know, it was the whole, it was the whole, anyway. You just went wild.

It was one of those nights where I was very drunk. I limped back home at like two in the morning, completely fell asleep. And I spent the entirety of yesterday feeling sorry for myself. I was like sick multiple times. I couldn't like keep anything down at all. I was like, just, I was just walking around in a daze. I had a terrible headache that I couldn't, couldn't shift. I just didn't want to do anything. I watched like half an episode of this TV show and I was like, I in a daze. I had a terrible headache that I couldn't shift. I just didn't want to do anything.

I watched like half an episode of this TV show and I was like, I can't do this. It's one of these reminders of getting... It's been a couple of years since I got drunk, but every time I get very drunk, the recovery time is exponentially longer. I reckon if I'm 55 and I get wasted, I think it's gonna be like

a week i need to like book a week out after that at this rate it was a full day because we so like i was saying we had that one day before like between the group stages in the main stage there was an off day so everybody got drunk as soon as the group stage was over because they had the whole of the next day off um so there was probably about 100 people, like all combination of the players kept to themselves. But it was all the talent like us, the Russians, the Spanish, all of the different language regions, talent were all drinking. And it was great. But I started at 4.30, which was a mistake. Because as soon as it starts to pick up, people are like, shots, shots. And I was like, yeah. And after a while,

By that time time you're just you're in it once you start doing shots you think i'll just have one but the first round ruins your decision making from that point forward for the rest of the evening there is handing me cocktails like i was they knew i was drinking long island iced tea so at one point i'm holding two full long island iced teas and those the the romanian bartenders are putting like four shots in each one so i reckon i mean i was trying to that was the problem with pints i can always keep track in my head of how many pints i've had but once you start drinking cocktails and shots you lose track of how much booze you've drunk and

that's when it creeps up on you and it seems to hit you much harder oh yeah it's like a turbo you can't feel your legs and then you're like okay yeah what's because i because i was like okay i was like i'm doing all right i've drunk loads and i'm doing great and i sat down to talk to a couple lads who haven't really been drinking much and i started a conversation with them and i realized about two minutes in that they were doing all the talking i was just nodding and i just stood up and i just remember walking going to bed and the next one they saw me and they're like you got fucking smashed last night i was like yeah i really do well the thing is for me it was the case where i sat down i was having a nice chat we were laughing away and someone i think i think it was tom or razzle someone turned to me and just said

you all right yeah they're like are you sure they're like looking in my eyes i'm like yeah i'm fine you're really drunk aren't you and i'm like i i think so but yeah like there's those moments where and also i got the hiccups at one point it was like the drunken sailor hiccups yeah they just like a cartoon like these pop like cartoons and of course once everyone knows that you've got that you know you're suddenly the focus of the attention oh yeah no the hiccups is uh is a sign that some barfing is on its way oh really yeah is that right well everyone i've ever known who's done a lot of hiccuping like uh at the point where they're very drunk it's it's then led into some barfing not always like catastrophic barfing either you know like sometimes sometimes you do a

barf and you're just like yeah i feel great like i just needed to to just have a little barf i've i've done that a couple of times some people do what they call tactical puking so i was in a chunder yeah i was i was at a i'm sure i've mentioned this before in the nearly 200 episodes i was at a football game i was at a bournemouth game one time and the pub near the ground, any football ground that has a pub near it, it's always the roughest pub you've ever been in. So I was in this pub.

It's pretty, pretty rough. And I was there having a pee and this massive tattooed lad walks in, Bournemouth fan. And he sort of just sticks his fingers down his throat and pukes into the urinal. It was like a trough urinal. And it was like, he just went like, and he technically went, better out than in. And it was like, he just went like, and he technically went,

better out than in. And I was like, yes, indeed. He is right. It is better out than in. I guess the food's not very good here. It was the beer.

So he had a pint in his hand. So having puked in the trough, he finishes his wee, downs his pint, leaves it on the shelf and just strolls out, presumably to order more booze. So I'm just thinking, is that so he can say, oh, I've had 20 points? But what he doesn't say is if he pukes up 20 pints, like every time he pops a loo, he's

barfing it up. It's pretty gross. Yuck. I was like, what am I doing here? I was like, Christ, I hope we win today or this wasn't worth it. That is the standard. I mean, I love the people that you end up meeting at these places, though. You always meet new and interesting people at the bar. Man, I don't. You have weird, interesting stories.

I don't love meeting those people at all, actually. They're the bar people. They are the bar people. When was the last time you went out to a bar? It's like until late. Oh, my God. Probably the last time I was in Bristol, which is like what two years ago now like it's it's it's been a while yeah no um i was there in uh we yog con was in august and then we had um

jingle jam right right yeah so it would have been that december there's the last time i was over so yeah it's coming up to coming up to two years god we were where were we we were we were at the duke and there was this guy who came up to me and was from america very sort of outgoing very nice looking very sort of friendly and lively and talking to me and he was like i was like what you doing here and he's like oh i'm on a i'm on a date and i was like you've just stood here talking to me for 15 minutes what do you mean you're on a date? And so he turns around and looks to this table, and there's a table with just a girl there on her phone, sat there with a pint in front of her, you know.

And I was like, is it going well? Oh, that's not great. Sort of shrugged at me. And I was like, you better go and just do your date, my dude. I mean, I felt bad for her all of a sudden. Yeah. and I was like you better go and just do your date my dude I didn't I mean I felt bad for her all of a sudden yeah

I would have said carry on talking to me because that way you can spare her having to tell him to his face that it's over she can just sneak away

because that's if I'm on a date and someone fucks off to have a 20 minute conversation with someone else I'm leaving like I if it was a 10th date

or something maybe well I'd wondered why he was sort of because when he was talking to me he was saying oh you know I'm a big fan, if it was a 10th date or something, maybe. Well, I'd wondered why he was sort of, because when he was talking to me, he was saying, oh, you know, I'm a big fan. You know, I had to come and talk to you. And, you know, now you're here. I couldn't resist. I have to ask you these questions.

And I realized it's because he's sort of almost begrudgingly in his mind, like making excuses for why he's abandoned this date. Oh, man. Oh, man. But going back to terraforming Mars, I think one of the reasons why it's kind of nice, right, is because we're constantly surrounded by all this climate change stuff.

Like I watched this video yesterday on YouTube about how there's like a company buying up 30,000 gas wells that are all rusted and leaking methane everywhere. And they're clearly just doing it as a sort of front to go bust. And, you know, they go bust and then the government will have to step in and pay for them all to be filled. Oh, dickheads. Because, you know, building these gas wells is like, it's certainly expensive, but you have to pay £100,000 to cap them. Which, of course, is money they've spent.

Do you know what I mean? They've already given that to themselves in corporate bonuses. So they built this sort of front company, which they've planned to fail sold all of the gas you know things to anyways horrible we're constantly surrounded by this horrible awful stuff but on terraforming mars that's what you want dropping the methane bombs there's actually a couple of cars that do nuclear stuff yeah to just you know blow water into the atmosphere i mean there's one there's one card called import of greenhouse gases and it's like it's a pog card you're like oh yeah we'll fucking raise the temperature in this bitch and yeah it's good for home right yeah yeah i love that it's funny i read um i read a

little article this morning about how prince will William has set up this thing called the Earthshot Prize. And so he's got 15 projects that he is supporting that are good for the environment, right? Which is kind of a cool thing. And I was reading through some of them and I was like, hmm, some of them are a bit weird. There's like a 14-year-old innovator in India who designed a solar-powered ironing cart. Right. Okay. Now, I'm not sure what it does.

I'm not even sure what a solar-powered ironing cart is. I'm just going to Google that because that sounds fantastic. I feel like it's like a hot dog stand on wheels that he can push around town and iron people's shirts when they're on their way to work. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Well, and it sucks in. I mean, is it like it sucks in pollution out the front and it's like powered by smog? I just want to know more about him. I have no idea.

Okay. And I think if we're throwing money at anyone. You said ironing, right? Like ironing? Ironing. Ironing. Like ironing a shirt. Yes.

An ironing? Ironing. Ironing. Like ironing a shirt. An ironing cart. So here from the Hindustan Times, 14-year-old gets nominated for Eco Oscars for her solar-powered ironing cart invention. So she made this cart and the problem, so she says, the big problem I'm trying to solve is to eliminate the practice of burning charcoal to heat an iron box for pressing clothes by street vendors. My innovation, the solar ironing cart. It sounds like a very regionally specific thing. Very much. So my innovation, the solar ironing cart will save trees, reduce air pollution, protect the environment, help stop the climate change.

So what she's doing is obviously, I mean, it's fascinating to me that there are people riding around in carts who will iron clothes for you. Do you just take your shirt off right then and there on the street yeah it's a free-for-all out there it's a busy place i can't go to this meeting with a creased shirt i haven't had time i didn't cut i didn't cut i didn't cut just slagging one down you sir it's like the shoe it's like maybe they do like an all-in-one the shoe shine they like aren't like you're just sitting there in your underpants while they're working on you. Yeah. Pressing your trousers.

It's like a series of cars like stops around you. Each doing a different part of your clothes. Or you're just sat on the curb in your pants again. Just there waiting. Some guy's coming up. Clothes car. No, I don't mean clothes from the clothes car. I'm using the ironing car.

That's why I'm naked. It's like a grooming caravan turns up and they just every there's a little bit of everything they do a manicure for you and they do your eyebrows and stuff your beard's getting twirled by one guy your hair's getting curled by another guy but it's all solar powered and it's like something out of peewee's playhouse you know like it's all it's all automated with there's like something out of Pee Wee's Playhouse, you know, like it's all automated. There's like a spatula that comes out and like slaps your cheeks to like to make them rosy and stuff, you know, like be sweet. Does that mean that you leave the house in the morning and you think, well, all I need is money and the clothes I'm wearing because there's a breakfast cart. Clearly, there's going to be a breakfast cart. I'll get some food. There's the shoeshine cart.

There's the ironing cart. There's almost certainly a hairdressing and beard trimming cart there might be a portable toilet cart which would be probably the least fun one to drive around but uh yeah there's a cart for everything no wonder it's so busy on the streets over there's all the carts yeah well that's a that's where all the action happens it sounds like you you got to get out also no but they can get to where the action's happening right i mean yeah a new a new office has opened all the carts go outside yeah they're ready to go yeah i didn't realize it was a cart based economy entirely i love it though imagine if you have ubers but for other things like ironing right yeah i could call and call an ironing uber or ironing cart to outside the office

you know so i turn up hand my shirt over you know get nice and pressed before i go in for my big interview yeah i mean i'm not being funny but i could actually use that right now because the shirts i have to wear on the show tonight a couple of them are not ironed and i'm very lazy and the ironing board in the hotel is crap so man i would love a car i actually at some point this week in fact tomorrow um i have to wear something other than shorts and a t-shirt because um for the first time in a long time and for the first time in a very long time i'm actually meeting up with a bunch of people i used to work with at an old job that i haven't seen in like 10 years

but oh it's weird we're going out for a curry and uh i haven't been out in a long time i don't even know if my jeans fit me anymore because i've been like exclusively wearing shorts for two years your social skills my social skills are gonna be a mess you're gonna be talking over people like i'm gonna be talking over people i'm gonna be making really inappropriate jokes like i i had a shower thought the other day for example i can't use this one when i'm at the dinner but i'll tell you guys what if you had a really honest school you know like how schools do that advertising like uh for tomorrow or like shaping tomorrow or whatever but like uh you know it was like kind of like a rough school or something and they were just really honest with their advertising and they had like a slogan

that's like shaping the cunts of tomorrow or something like that you know producing tomorrow's cunts you know like it'd be kind of funny right but like i can't say that at uh at the at the our alumni are vomiting in urinals across football grounds in this country. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like. And cum shots. You can't, I can't just come up with this stuff, you know, like I feel safer on you guys, but I'm going to be wearing some jeans probably, like maybe a shirt. I can't say this kind of stuff.

You know, it's crazy. Our student, we teach people how to really tailgate you. And then when you've pulled over, yell at you. Yes. Call you a prick. I love that honest inner city school. School motto. I can see the brochure right now.

Not great for the kids at that school though. I mean, they're not really setting you up for a good life, is it? Well, yeah, but still. Which school do you go to? School for Cunts? It's just a laugh. It's just a bit of fun. I think people would love to go to the School for Cunts. You's just a laugh. It's just a bit of fun.

I think people would love to go to the School for Cunts. You're going to be like a badge of honour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I made it out of the School of Cunts. I graduated from Cunts School with honours. School of Hard Cunts. Hang on a second. I think we are talking about Eaton and Harrow, actually.

Oh, there we go. Little Matt Barton's creeping in there. There we go. no i just thought it would catch and fire i just thought it would be like a funny thing you know like you know you know sometimes you think of these like absurd um scenarios or whatever you know like you have to you have to gauge the room you're right like if you're with a load of your old office friends you're not sure where the levels are it takes some time someone has to make push push the boundary and then you can push the boundary a little bit further and if they react first it'll just be like the ludicrous display chat about

whatever like sports or like the weather or something the weather and sure and then and then you just see where you go from there but like you know i i don't know it's it's hard to it's hard to it's hard to read the the room you know when you're you're not used to being around people and stuff i was thinking about this because i met with one of my old school friends uh about five years ago and i assume it might have even made into the podcast because you know this is this is where we've been going that long and i remember we it was a little bit awkward a little bit stilted but also he brought his very miserable wife who was just like a downer she was just unhappy to be there she was unhappy to meet me

she was unhappy to have had to be dragged out to bristol yeah well i mean lewis said the standards for for people meeting him are so high like the american guy that like uh you know sacrificed his date to uh to ask him questions for 15 minutes or whatever yeah then to then be presented with this woman who just doesn't want to know that's got to be that that's a huge contrast right i get it like i was there to meet my friend and not her but you know i was still willing to include her in she's just i don't know that the whole she was just off and i was like wow did she have her face like a smacked arse she went to the school of cunts she was first class on the school valedictorian she was mag magna cunt louder

oh man oh man so you sometimes meet people like that and uh and that kind of that kind of put me off chatting to my friend again which is a bit weird but i don't know we people change you know it's like that's that's that's the thing i don't it's not so weird meeting up with people at work because like i'm meeting up with these people at work but they all still work there and they have done for all this time sort of thing so while my my life has changed a lot, you know, theirs hasn't really, I mean, it obviously probably has like their personal life, but their working life hasn't really changed much sort of thing. So the conversation is often like, oh, what's so-and-so doing now? And it's like, oh, yeah, just the same thing. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? Like it's pretty easy, but I think

meeting up with somebody from school, because so much has changed since after school, right? Like you finish school, depending what age you are, but like, you know, when you're young normally, and then, you know, if you're meeting up with somebody 20 years later, it's going to be like, oh my God, you know, like you, you know, especially if you completely lost touch with them or whatever, I think that's a little bit potentially more awkward right it is very tough i think when you meet up with with people you haven't seen in a while like you guys say because i mean first of all people change yeah so the memory you have of them and maybe there might be a whole bunch of things you disagree with yeah with them on like they might open the conversation like cool fucking hate women you're

like okay all right you you didn't used to be this guy and now you are. Should we be taking night school? The only thing that you have to really talk about is the old days and sometimes

that can be fun. I love to reminisce about the old days. Jeez, that's the fucking whole podcast really. But sometimes you didn't really

know them particularly well back then. So you sort of chat to them how so and so yeah yeah i like when they assume that you are the same or on board though well yeah because sometimes it's the other way around right because then you have to pretend that you're actually on board with their quite um edgy argument and sometimes when you when you're speaking to people that you've been friends with for a long time where maybe you've lost touch with them for a little while sometimes you you get back with people and you just pick up

where you left off right you're still on the same wavelength you remember everything uh the same and you can laugh yeah and stuff but like i've found that there's a couple of people where um you know i've i've been i've i've talked to them on and off for sure like throughout the years and and have remained like kind of close but every once in a while you get together with them and you're like oh man do you remember when we did that and and you so you realize like they're not as excited about it or their memory of it is different or whatever and you're like i guess they just like interpreted that experience completely differently or something or maybe it's like changed over time totally uh which is always a weird one too right

because like you're at one point in your life you're so in tune with this person you guys are doing the same stuff you're into all the same things or whatever and then you know obviously if you if you don't keep in touch with them as much as you'd like to or whatever um there's definitely a fork in the road somewhere right where they just kind of go down a different path or something. Sometimes people, life takes over, grabs them. And, you know, in 10 years they have, you know, lost five stone. They've got married. They've had two kids.

You know, they've moved to America. They've worked, they've gone from this bank to that bank to being the head of a, running their own financial firm or whatever and suddenly you know your other friend who's still playing world of warcraft but he's in his parents basement hasn't changed fuck all no yeah i don't know um i don't know anybody who's had like like specific or particular troubles in their life you know like i i know of people you know people like we used to hang out with at school that like everybody had lost touch with and then you find out that like you know, people like we used to hang out with at school that like everybody had lost touch with. And then you find out that like, you know, they'd gotten addicted to drugs or they've had like real major issues in their life or whatever. But most of my close friends from school that I'm still regularly in touch with and stuff, I don't know anybody who's had any of that. You know,

everybody's just gone on to have sort of a pretty normal ish life you know like um not everybody's gotten like well married and had kids and stuff like that but nobody's had like any major dramas you know like nobody's had any big health concerns nobody's had like any like you know um debilitating like addictions or or you know social problems or anything like that not that's not that they share with you on facebook no but i mean like like like it's it's more than just facebook too like you like i'm like you talk to them every day and stuff so you you still have some idea of like what they're doing in their life and stuff so it's not it's like i don't know but like like definitely i've heard of people but i'm just i don't know it's weird like i don't know anybody

that i'm close to that's had like any major issues i guess is i don't know what i what i'm trying to say i don't know that it matters at all but it's it's just interesting i guess i don't know we're just we're we're just agreeing with you i do have a question lads just to change the subject slightly we are closing in on 200 episodes holy crap i think we might hit 200 around jingle jam or something like that what are we gonna do oh my god i think we might have to have like some a and b like remember well we might already have 200 episodes i mean but we we tried to like oh yeah oh we snuck them in we already messed up the number 199.1 we're gonna have we're gonna have no ads for that episode that'll be the big the big that's the big shocker that's the big celebration yeah just not a single ad on that

episode that'll be good right that's a good idea milestones aren't for looking back they remind us to keep moving forward to turn what we've done into what we can do. Turning everyday necessities into electrifying possibilities. Turning a new vehicle into the new standard. Introducing the first ever Mazda CX-70, our largest two-row SUV, available as a mild hybrid and line six turbo or as a plug-in hybrid crafted to move every part of you I'll think of some other stuff as well we don't have to we don't have to commit to just that one I mean no well it'll be good to have you guys come down to Jingle Jam and we can do some special stuff and we can do you can do something something fun for everyone it's a good idea it's a good time

Christmas time it's fun for the family and Christmas time mistletoes and and wine and uh definitely bristol is um a lot more better than romania i guess in sense you know we can go out the pub and do stuff and feels fairly normal although although on yesterday when i was recovering from this hangover i was thinking fuck i really hope i don't okay well you know this the hangover feeling that you had i had for about five days straight and it's because my garage was damaged and i had to move out of it and it was really tough for me i couldn't work the way that i've been used to working for the past like six years flax really disorienting you could appreciate this right your work you're used to just like you're you're you're used to your routine right like you wake up you get the kids ready you take them to school you come home you stream for a bit whatever you know like it's

easy right like it's yeah okay so imagine like for some reason your bedroom was flooded and all of your equipment had to be moved and then you suddenly had to like commute to be able to just stream that was right that would suck right like yeah like your whole day would just be in tatters so how long has this been going on for? Well, it only lasted for like a week, luckily. Okay.

Because I had carpet in the garage. It wasn't like a flood. It was just a lot of water got into the, into the garage and, and just soaked the carpet. Like there was a, there was a, like a hurricane wind.

Yeah. It was just a really unlucky combination of um of of the the wind direction of shoddily built garage and then the rain yeah so some so some managed to leak in luckily none of my equipment's on the ground i like i've always just put everything on top of desks um and luckily i did that because otherwise i always lift everything up yeah or else i get full of carpet fluff and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So nothing was actually damaged.

But I had a couple of like, you know, extension, like power bars, like, you know, the multiple socket things on the ground that got filled with water. But then it just tripped the circuit in here. So luckily there was no... So was anything like really expensive lost? No, no. Just the carpeting, which I had to pull up and throw out because it was so fucking gross. It just stunk like outside rain, you know?

Yeah. And then as it started to dry, it smelled even worse. Oh, yeah. It's like that pair of trainers that you have that once you had already wet. And you tried to dry them out, but they always just smelled bad. They smelled bad. And there's no way to fix that so i chucked out all the carpet and uh now it's just exposed like uh underlay but it's all dry um i got a dehumidifier which is now like not uh accumulating anything so it's nice nice and dry

in here and with the heating and the air conditioning and stuff too that helps yeah but yeah i just need to get uh some new some new flooring and uh probably a new door as well yeah that's not too it's not too bad but and i'm back here at least now which is good yeah but yeah i had to temporarily rent the office that i used to rent like uh six years ago but i was only there for like a week but i have it for the rest of the month so you know just in case you could go and socialize there well it was it was, it was, it was weird because I turned up and I did like the office thing. You know, I got some food on my way in.

So I had like a coffee and a sandwich and I was coming up the stairs and there's a bunch of people in the reception. Cause it was Friday. And they're like, Hey, happy Friday. And I actually said to them, Oh my God,

I haven't worked at an office in a very long time. Just like hung my head in shame and walked by. Oh my god, I love that. You didn't judge that room very well. I was wearing like fucking shorts and a t-shirt. You could be out with them right now. You could be drinking with those guys.

Telling their stories about their kids. I do miss that a little bit. I don't. A tiny bit because it did mean though the week like the weekend does mean like i do enjoy the weekends but we do have quite a bit to do at the weekends but i i do miss that feeling of uh friday in the office everyone's sort of relaxed it's like a little mini party atmosphere yeah it's it's it's it's all right it's crept back in to, actually, because we got fourth floor in the office.

We got other groups of people in the office. And over time, we started off randomly, kind of working any time we wanted, because, in fact, it was nice to work at the weekend because then you could have Tuesday and Wednesday off and you could go into town when no one was there. It was nice to have a weird schedule, but over time, families and other partners

who do have jobs and kids at school and all this stuff has meant that we've just gone back to you know the monday to friday kind of routine and it's it's just there is a little bit of a friday yes atmosphere in our office it's slowly crept in more and more i love it because you know you'll notice sort of people on their about three o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, will usually have a beer on their desk or something. Yeah, yeah. They're like, this will just get me through the last couple of hours before the weekend.

I mean, I love it when I come up there because it does feel like there's a good atmosphere. But the problem I have is I was never designed as a human to work in an office. I'm loud and obnoxious. I don't think anyone is. I interrupt people. Oh, I appreciate it. but i see people quietly getting on

with their work and all the rest of it i'm just i'm just a dick i'm hunched over my computer tapping away i don't want any interruptions this whole open office things this illusion this is lie right it's incredibly it looks cool but it's just incredibly unproductive and the productive people want to be screwed away yes in stuff in peace they don't want to be constantly bothered and yes constantly harassed and distracted by some noisy asshole. Hear me shouting about bolt action or fucking Total Warhammer or something. Yeah, it's like screaming about Dota. Like, yeah, it's annoying.

There is a balance. Calling daft names for how bad he is in the game we're playing at lunchtime, all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, I am ruining someone's work day. But actually, I think really now we have covid and sort of flexible working a lot of people have gotten used to the idea that they can stay home for a couple of days they get the stuff done then they come to the office and have a bit of a social time we talk to people talk have some donuts bounce some ideas around it's kind of a more sensible sensible option i had a had a vegan donut the other day from this vegan donut you can't even have a donut? What is the point? What's not vegan about a donut?

Okay, plant-based though, you know, it's got- I know, it's just maybe an animal didn't have to die so I could enjoy a donut. Through a donut? What's in a donut? Yeah, it's just like flour and water and then you fry them, right like um what like i mean i guess you could use animal fat to fry them which maybe some of them do i don't know but like mostly beef tallow oh yeah get some vimbas on that shit the icing have like jelly i don't know but get some i want a donut soaked in vimbas and then deep fried in beef tallow with gravy and a Yorkshire pudding I'm just talking about

a roast dinner at this point you could open a cart get yourself a cart open up solar powered with a deep fat fryer fucking vimbas get a vimbas cart

get a vimbas cart going oh shit man what a great idea the prince vimbas get your fresh cut vimbas here

liquid beef the prince of liquid beefs in a cart also ironing Vimbas Get your fresh cut Vimbas here Liquid beef The prince of liquid beefs In a cart Also ironing We'll iron your stuff On the fryer It's nice and hot It's like a

It's like a reverse ironing board See I'm thinking Of an invented mind Free cunt diplomas From The school of old cunts At this cart Oh man

Oh man You know what I've been watching uh when the games are finished or i'm back for the day whatever i've just been sitting watching youtube for a bit as as one often does yeah and i've been watching um videos about magic the gathering which i've played a bit and i've done a few tournaments since i did some sponsored stuff for wizards and i love what magic the gathering but i just know that i haven't got time i thought you were gonna say i love wizards which would have been a funny soundbite actually i love wizards i love wizards but it's just there's not enough room in my brain for dota and magic the gathering right it's like it's too much yeah uh right so i was watching these videos

of this guy who has all these people cheating a Magic the Gathering. Now, there's not much money on the line in the Magic world. But if there are cards involved in a game, people will cheat. And it hadn't occurred to me that there were actually tons of ways to cheat in Magic. Oh, so many. It's not like poker. They have made sure that cheating in poker is very difficult. You have a dealer who does it, so you need at least two people in on it. They get brand new cards every hand. Right. All that kind of kind of stuff you can't mark them exactly you can't like yeah

auto shufflers right it's all it's all much more uh you know considered and of course it's in a casino a lot of the time the casinos are like the kings of spotting people cheating they have ex cheats with binoculars you know and all that kind of stuff so that's one of the one of the things that happens in magic sometimes is you draw a couple of cards and then your opponent shuffles your deck um and at that point there were people cheating by their shuffling and they're making sure that they put shit cards on the top of your deck so that your next two turns you're drawing like garbage that doesn't help you at all or there's there's also ones where you shuffle your own deck um and then they'll put the card that they really need on the top of their deck and stuff like that

people literally taking the deck of cards to move it and just sliding the bottom card like there's one card that places your opponent finds a card in your deck and puts it at the bottom of your deck so basically putting it out of the game and i mean, yeah, it's not exiling it, but it's unlikely to draw through your entire deck. Put it at the bottom. So this guy picks up his deck of cards to move them for some reason, leaves the bottom card there and then just slides it into his hand. Just like yoinks it from the deck. And it's like all these cheats. These people are cheating on camera, sometimes on stream. So it's live on Twitch. And of course course you know what twitch viewers are like they notice everything so it's like that's it's always spotted and called out

how embarrassing you're in the middle of the tournament and the tournament director comes over and goes yeah sorry we just saw you fucking cheating would you not and i just thought this is unbelievable but it's really addictive man i think cheating is addictive though i think winning is addictive i think that these people want and feel like they feel like i could people justify that in all sorts of ways so for example one one way i heard was that he said well you know i had a really bad draw and you know i got really unlucky so i thought i might just you know cheat a bit give myself like an edge and then i'm even again right like it didn't it didn't feel to him like like cheating it felt like making it fair right when it's clearly cheating so there's so many ways that that can creep in um to people especially when they're

angry or tilted or they feel like they're getting just i don't know like it is a game of of so this is obviously this is obviously the um like the tabletop magic right like yes yes there's ways of cheating because you're you're you're letting people do the the sort of handling cards like they're literally handling and the mechanic side of it yeah right okay i see i think that can happen with any tabletop game going back to my mom taking money out the bank in monopoly who hasn't done that me i! I haven't cheated in Monopoly That was a big part of the game though We just palm 500s

Sometimes you could steal money from the bank And nobody would notice and you're like okay Cool like I got away with it I think that was fine No that's not fine All part of the game how dare you You sullied the terrible name of Monopoly Which is an awful game

You sullied it Never play Monopoly it's shit you sullied the terrible name of monopoly which is an awful game you sullied it did i did never play monopoly it's shit it's the worst game i like i i do like playing it though i would play monopoly man we used to play a lot of monopoly i would play it but it's fucking only boards and stuff oh it's awesome yeah i used to do that as well i mean i'd play it after five pints of san miguel um if someone asked me because I think it would be hilarious. When you were, like, nine years old? Or what?

You've been playing Monopoly? No, now. All right. Back in the day, we did, obviously, you know, we were a family. We played board game, and the board game was Scrabble or Monopoly, and Scrabble was fucking awful. I used to play Totopoly. Totopoly was a horse racing game.

My dad plays Scrabble on Facebook with my aunt, like, every day. Like, they just, you know, like, you can, like, do your move, and then, like, your opponent can do their move, like, you know, tomorrow or something, you know? Like, they just wait, and they just play. I think one of the best things about terraforming Mars and these Euros is that you don't know for sure who's won until the very end yes they keep it interesting monopoly shows you right in your face oh the guy with 20 hotels is clearly going to win this game

yeah yeah but with terraforming mars there's there's a little bit of hidden information it's not really strictly hidden because you could just take the time to count it up but yeah you play so many cards and you stack them up and you can have an idea of who's in in the lead but yeah it's uh it's harder to know for sure i think which is good it is which is good and it's it's it's just too much for you to necessarily bother with but at the same time there are things where everyone else has a very small amount of cucking like you can you can fuck someone over by destroying some of their plants yes sometimes tile placement can fuck them over but yeah it's not like i mean i was actually i was

when we were playing i was like there's surprisingly few cards that are like miss a turn or something you know there's nothing really like that uh which again i think is an interesting way of keeping people in the game i think you do have to have things for people to fight over um so we play the draft variant when we draw cards because it lets you sort of pick one that you are interested in buying and then pass it around that way it's more engaging and you can also think well i'm gonna deny i know he's collecting the jupiter card so i'm gonna pick the jupiter one to deny him that, you know, because otherwise if he just got lucky and drew that, he'd win. So, yeah, the more – I think you do have to have, like, player interaction or else you're just four of you playing a single player game

in the same room, which is – well, you know, it's an MMO, but, you know, it's not what you're supposed to be doing there. You need to have some – not people getting angry with each other, but more people being like, you know, you're clearly ahead, so I'm going to, you know, destroy this mine if you're supposed to be doing there. You need to have some, not people getting angry with each other, but more people being like, you know, you're clearly ahead. So I'm going to, you know, destroy you,

this mine. Just to get an edge, just going to justify it to myself as making it more fair for me. So I have a chance of winning. It's like this thing that I think that we have, there's a certain honor system though, too. And I,

I just, I know I gave you an example of somewhere where you feel like the honor system is like the karmic thing is rebalancing like generally it's as soon as you've cheated it does um take some of the pleasure away you know it taints your victory yeah i'm sure that i'm sure that these cheaters never prospered no i'm sure one would hope not i'm they're in an ideal world. I'm sure they're kicking themselves even now.

Much like I'm kicking myself for drinking too much on Tuesday. A school night. I can't believe you drank that much on a school night of all nights. I know.

It was very weird. Bold. Just got out of control. I mean, to be fair, when I come down to Bristol, it's like that. But yeah. I played a video game yesterday

that I don't know if you guys are interested in these types of video games, but i played a video game yesterday that uh i don't know if you guys are interested in uh in these types of video games but um i played a game called age of darkness final stand yesterday it's uh sounds like a mobile game i'll be honest it's it's uh it's it's actually very good it's uh it's like they are billions in that you build up a colony and you defend it against hordes of bad guys but it's uh not not a steampunk setting it's more of a fantasy medieval setting okay wait wait wait is that the one where you've got like a

town and the zombies come and you build little barricades yeah you got me to play that lewis didn't you yeah it's good that was bloody awful bloody awful it was hard It was really hard. It's so hard. Age of Darkness is the same type of game with different setting and some different mechanics, but it's pretty good. I played it for a bunch yesterday. I liked it a lot. I did hear about it. It's nice. How are you feeling in New World?

Because I saw, I've been watching your YouTube clips. I saw his review. The pogchamp of you finding some epic random thing that you had no idea what it was when you were fishing. That was such a good reaction. It's been fun. It's a nice MMO. I think it's got some promise for sure. I think I like the sort of like the gathering, the crafting, like that sort of stuff.

I'm not too interested in the PvP, which is like a big part of the game. How much power washing is there in it? Oh, like none, which is a big problem for me. But, you know. Knock a score off. Luckily, there's a full game just about power washing that I can always revert back to when I need to. Yeah, true.

When I need to fulfill that need. Degenerate power washer yeah yeah well surely like if surely you could just call a power washing cart yeah yeah just get power washed right in the street like 12 monkeys style like just hose me down like before i go um into the office or whatever can we need more cards like more because this is the everyone wants to call on their phone yeah someone you know yeah yeah i think we just and also it gets people outside they can all be you can get like a magic the gathering cheat advice cart as well you know like somebody's somebody's just kicking a can down the road you spot them you're like hey buddy what's wrong oh man i'm just trying to get the edge and magic the gathering what have i got

the card for you let me pull out my binder full of cheats we're gonna get you we're gonna get you top of the pile no problem no but um no age of age of darkness pretty good new world's been pretty good i think i i think i'm kind of like coming to the end of like the hype for it though like you know you i like i played it a bunch and i've enjoyed it but um all of our towns got taken over by sweats and stuff and it's just like i don't know like i'll i'll probably wait now for some updates and some some some different mechanics and stuff to come out but i've enjoyed it and uh and back for blood i played a bit of as well which came out this week and it's uh the third person left for dead which is just having played left for dead recently i thought i thought back for blood sorry it's first person

sorry world war z is world war z has had an expansion that we played that actually the three of us i really like world war back for blood is is pretty good it's got uh lots of like nice stuff i didn't like it to uh did not like to keep you playing the game like beyond sort of just you know blasting through the campaign and then being like okay yeah lots of unlocks lots of currency yeah there's a bunch of things that you can do like different difficulty modes and stuff that you can try or whatever it just all right it didn't feel good to me when i played it in the old i got angry with it yeah yeah so i don't know maybe i'll maybe i got sponsored to play it and uh of course the money felt great so uh i highly recommend it off the back of that that definitely greases the wheels for me so yeah well you know

grease everyone loves everyone loves a bit of grease you got a squeaky wheel you grease that up uh there's a cart for that there's a squeaky wheel car that is enough of that uh thank you for listening everyone just before we go though man ti has been really fun to watch i and uh i hope you're having fun flex uh yeah thank you like i mean i haven't played dota in years but man i love watching pro dota it's it is. There have been some great games. There have been some great games. I've been enjoying it. You've been good on the late show. Thank you.

Well done. This is actually my first time hosting anything as like actually as the host. I've always been a co-host or done content like, and you know, it's not the same. So this is the first time I've actually done any kind of actually, I'm expected to ask the questions and keep it all together. So I was a little nervous. You opened yourself up for a bit of a fall because one of the questions you ended on was asking them to say something mean about it.

Well, yeah, we wanted to do that. But we wanted to see if they could because quite a lot of the other things we were saying to them were quite mean. So we thought we needed to balance it and have a chance to have a go back at me. Because it's funny. Like, I don't care. It's, you know. Well, all of them like, oh, you're bold.

Or like, what's it? No, no, no. They were much cleverer than that. Oh, good. One of them was, you suck at terraforming, Marthas. That was quite a bit. One of them was, you can't hold your drink. Yeah.

And the other one was, your content used to be, I preferred your old content. Yeah, that's always a rough one, isn't it? Yeah, that's always a rough one. So it really funny they're all they're all good ones actually um yes but we love you pflax so yeah good luck with the rest of it and um yeah well i guess you'll be home for an oh no you won't you'll be on vacation right like you're going on vacation we are going on vacation but i will be around next week oh okay but by the time you're listening to this this week

so yeah I don't fly out until the weekend after I get back so I will have a few days and I will be able to do Triforce next week so

shout out to you guys for making it into these recordings through through through bad weather and bad internet and flooding bad wherever we are.

All right. Thank you, lads. Take it easy. Until next time. Bye.