Triforce! - Triforce! #43: Alexa: Mother, Sister, Lover

Episode Date: May 3, 2017

Triforce Episode 43! Pflax reflects on the birth of his kids, Lewis gets nostalgic and Sips is making friends with the robot overlords!   Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Triforce podcast. That's right. We're back. Two dads, Right. We're back. Two dads. One up and coming dad. Big news, everybody. Lewis has indeed showered somebody with his man syrup and is now on course to become a

dad. Lewis? That's all it takes. Lewis, do you have any comments to make on this? Officially on the Triples podcast. He's adopting a young South American child named Pepsi. And it's going to be incredible. He's going to make Pepsi's wishes come true. Wait a second.

I thought you said he coded someone in his man syrup. Is that part of the adoption process? That was Pepsi. It's controversial. You're mine now i own you i claim you pepsi so uh yeah that's uh official announcement now i'm just doing the same old shit i do every week going to the gym oh yeah working out these super super big muscles so hang on a sec well i don't know if you want to like announce this but like i was having a text conversation with you the other day

while i was taking a dump i don't mind admitting oh that was right and i like the little you said that you might be packing it in soon at the gym oh well i'm i'm i'm trying to find an excuse to pack it in because obviously me and my trainer you're not getting along is that what you're telling me thought about packing it up and then packing it in oh oh nice hilarious tips something happened today i can't remember what happened today i was i was thinking something really awkward happened today and i can't remember what it was so it can't have been that awkward i guess wasn't the joke that i just made about packing it up and packing it no not quite letting it begin because you can't they have bought some new foam did i tell

you last week they bought some new foam rollers at the gym which um what's it like what like like those pool noodles no they're kind of like polystyrene kind of things like balls and shapes that you sort of roll on your muscles and kind of to loosen them up are you sure this is a gym and not a child's soft play playground they have like you know the ball the pit with all the little plastic balls in and they have the little slides and the little netting thing you climb up the sensory zone oh my god it's for it's the same they can they can develop their senses by touching different things i've been spending this whole time in a jungle gym and the guys say sir would you please leave and you're like yeah but my ass hurts because your dad fucking it's so hard last night like inappropriate for a soft play playground

jungle gym for kids yeah so they bought all these new like soft play things and uh he held up one of them that looked like sort of it was sort of ribbed and i was like is that one for your ass no of course he didn't the whole thing he's just created this big thing where he's like yeah i fucking say whatever i want to dave my personal trainer i bet you if we met Dave, we're like, Dave, we've heard so much about you. What do you think of Lewis? He's like, he's very shy and retreating. Barely ever talks.

Socially crippled. I don't know what's wrong with the guy. Mumbles under his breath. And then laughs to himself. Stutters a lot. Just blushes all the damn time. I can't get a word out of him. So I'm moving.

I'm probably having to move house because my landlord sold landlord sold my the flat that i live in right like this i don't live in here so i live in the same building as duncan you know it's quite cool we get to like hang out and stuff and play ball games and chill in the little garden and but now i'm having to move out so i'm gonna um i'm gonna probably go and find a new flat elsewhere and that's a good excuse for me to find a different gym, I think, with a different trainer. I don't know. Like, it's just too, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm getting on. It's fine. He's a nice guy. It's fine. I don't want to badmouth him. He's a good guy. He might be listening. And if you're ever in the area.

Yeah. Yeah. If you want to get a personal trainer dave he's gonna have some free time so unusual name i'm sure you'll track him down with that information yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's a cool guy so what you two been up to this week it was my daughter's eighth birthday congrats nice on sunday or last sunday and um So is that your eldest? My eldest, yeah. She's a funny kid. She makes me laugh.

She's in this phase that, I don't know if all kids go through it, she's incredibly pedantic. So she's very much, if you say something that's slightly wrong, she'll correct you. Because now she knows enough to know. Like our audience. Exactly. She's basically our audience. She's maturing into a fine Redditor. so i'm gonna thrash it out of her yeah she cannot no but she's been on the

internet she started watching some youtube videos obviously after i did that little minecraft series with her she wanted to watch it and when you finish watching the video of course it auto plays to the next video yeah i was like well you can't watch any of my stuff because it's a little blue so you'll have to watch something safer so she's been watching like dan tdm and guys like that you know stuff that's kid friendly and stuff so she's been watching that she's really into it and stuff but then she was like for her birthday she wanted an xbox i'm not sure why but she wanted an xbox because you can play minecraft on it and other games and i thought it'd be good she could play games with her sister and her sister needs to start learning how to play games.

And it's good for their fine motor skills and stuff like that. So I got them the Xbox and a couple of controllers and they've been playing a bit of Minecraft on the TV, you know, on the Xbox. They've been playing, I've got Lego worlds and stuff.

And they love it. They love it. And I'm watching it and I'm thinking, damn, the frame rate's kind of janky when they look at the horizon and I'm not sure about the control system. And they're just like, this is great. They just love it so i'm like all right i'm not going to criticize their game yeah that's the thing when they're kids kids playing console games they have

no standards yet they are no standards i'm like they're not refined pc master race your hair like blows back off your face you like flex your big muscles you slap that xbox away from the video like get put that piece of shit down you wax your mustache and like adjust your fedora slightly and you're just like 720p noob casual you filthy casual get out of my house ah fuck kids that's that's nice i'm glad so yeah i've been helping her with that and uh and just chilling i've been doing some i've been playing some heroes of the storm as part of the uh the the charity thing i'm doing uh for the next few weeks and uh it was fun i played with shannon duncan and yeah i've been playing a lot of course but yeah it's yeah yeah that's good sounds all good so i mean

like um what do you think like so i was just sort of thinking about this because you reminded me. So I was hanging out with Ben and I play a lot of games with Ben these days. And there's like a Ben fan discord now. Nice. He wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. He was like, I'm not quite sure how to feel about this. And I was like, just great. It's flattering.

You know, it's nice. Just log on, interact with your fans and stuff. What could possibly go wrong? Now he's getting divorced and he's... But we were just chatting away and I don't know how we got onto the topic of it, but it reminded me because you said it was your eldest's birthday. So I guess that was eight years ago when your wife had your first child. Yeah.

And Ben's wife can't remember almost anything from the day of the birth that's not uncommon it's traumatic that's why there's a lot of shit going on you're tired you've been screaming a lot and stuff like it's natural to forget a lot of it but I mean she can't remember anything to the point that he's had to like remind her of all the things that happened during the day

and then she now remembers the things that he told her but only as that so she weirdly now remembers like the day and then she now remembers the things that he told her but only as that so she weirdly now remembers like the day as the way he told it to her and that's not necessarily the way it happened so I was like oh yeah so did you tell her about when the clown turned up and stuff like this you could like totally throw in

all these extra random shit yeah yeah and so then Bill Cosby was there and uh you're gonna have a little girl what are you gonna call her yeah yeah and so then bill cosby was there wow and uh jesus christ no so i was thinking like is it the same for your your wives today or you do you like did you block out the birth of your eldest child the role of a man in the birth of a child is so strange though like my experience is obviously very different to my wife's experience

of having the child and pushing the child through the birth canal experiencing a lot of pain screaming a lot being tired being sleep deprived me it's just logistics constantly like can you go to the car and get this yep sure i'm going i'd like go to the car get the thing come back to the hospital fucking open all the doors and say hi to the nurses and say yeah i'm back yeah i know it's like the 50th time i've gone to the car we got a lot of stuff in the car got a lot of stuff here it's a lot of logistics to manage and i'm the guy who's doing that and that's basically all i did you know and then you just sort of stand back and watch the baby come out and then as soon as the baby comes out it's like can you go to the car again yeah yeah i'm going back in a sec sure yeah but what diapers really all right okay yeah i'll get them hang on they're

in the trunk i know exactly where they are i got like a system and stuff the car is like fully loaded with we have pay cards over here i don't know if like you've ever heard of these but they're like scratch cards for like time allocations to park in like parking lots and stuff you win four hours of parking yeah so like i had to go back and make sure they were all scratched properly and displayed so that we didn't get a ticket and there's a lot of shit for guys to do during the birth of a child yeah it's all behind the scenes shit like the actual yeah it's like the main show yeah we're like the roadies basically for that's it yeah you're like a roadie for your family you're like lugging the boxes lugging the boxes and stuff you gotta and then you've got to like manage the influx of like flowers and presents that come into the hospital as well so like you

know your wife is like all sweaty and she doesn't the hospital as well so like you know your wife is like all sweaty and she doesn't want to see anyone so you have to go out oh oh hi yeah yeah oh oh thanks yeah she'll love this oh yeah no she doesn't know it's really sweaty oh she stinks no no no you can't no maybe next time maybe in a couple of days just give it a couple okay thanks with okay thank you bye uh you want these here these here or in the car? In the car. Okay. I'll go to the car. Yeah.

Sure. No problem. Take me to the car. Take them home. Sometimes you have to drive a whole bunch of flowers home because like you don't want too many flowers in the hospital. And there's a lot of shit for guys to do during the birth of a child. It's crazy.

I was good at it though. It's good to be kept busy. I was really good at all that. Like I look back now and I'm like, man, I was a great support. Like I did everything. I went and got like sandwiches and teas. What happened? We were there for a long time.

You know, there was no like, nothing like complicated to worry about. You're just there for a long time. I befriended a couple of the staff at the hospital. Like, you know, it's kind of like Norm from Cheers in the end. I just come in hey guys what's up yeah just doing a car run nah you know me how norm you're crazy yeah i'm nuts yeah yeah i gotta fucking refresh my pay cards yeah well yeah i'll see you in a bit yep more flowers hell yeah god the fucking non-stop i gotta take them home water them and fucking

get some sleep and shit it's crazy so um did it change much on the second one like what was the did that or did the role was exactly the same it was it was exactly the same but we were more of a well-oiled machine by that point because we'd had the experience of the first one so it was like instead of doing like 50 small trips to the car i'd wait for things to accumulate more so like i cut my trips in half um i didn't bother befriending anyone from the hospital that time because i was just so like yeah i really just scaled it all down but like uh man it was efficient like nice i think like if the germans were watching me at the time they'd be like this is the guy this is the guy yeah this is the guy that you want to model the

nation on some kind of superman he takes the flowers to the car oh shit oh yeah so it's really good yeah it's nice yeah we were it was very similar first time He takes the flowers to the car. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. So it was really good. Yeah, it was nice. It was very similar. First time was a rush because I was at work at six. We're going to have this baby now.

My wife, she was 10 days late. And she said, just keep your phone on because you never know. I was like, yeah, of course. I mean, that's the only time you're ever more than like, you you're if you're in a hot car for an hour late or like an hour late somewhere that's normally a long time but 10 days late you know we need 10 days late somewhere it's it's fairly common for your first child to be a bit late though i think yeah like especially because they can only really guess like no they give you a due date but it's never 100 so they threaten to induce as well.

And then in my experience, both times it's like, all right, well, you know, the baby's due. It's a bit overdue. We'll give you a week and then we'll induce. And we're like, oh shit, an induce? Like we do not want an induce. And then sure enough, three days later, it's like, yeah, baby's coming.

So it was fine. No induce needed. Yeah yeah we didn't need anything is it like that pressure of sometimes when you're like you're not sure whether you need to have a poo or not right and then you're like oh god if i don't have a poo then i'm good i'm gonna like i might be like two hours into a car journey and then really really poo and then i can't poo and then that's fear of needing a poo makes you have a need to have a poo but with a human being with a baby yeah yeah i mean i don't know because the baby did not come out of me but i mean i'm sure my wife would probably agree with you on that one but was it the fear of a juice that made her like poop i mean have a baby yeah i guess so it's like

i guess it's like a control over it it's not... I don't think you've got control over it. It's not like she's just being lazy. Just get on with it, woman. Just come on. We are... Psychological things do affect physiological things, though. You know, psychological stuff does affect, like... Well, the whole start of the process is like a hormone, isn't it? Like, there's a hormone that sort of, like, signals the baby to say, like, come on, fucking... Get the fuck out.

Start working your way down that canal for christ's sake already jeez i like the term birth canal i know yeah just like i mean it's just like it's like it's just like a tunnel that they have to just sort of like slither down special tunnel but yeah here i come it's like it's like a one of the backwater bits of Venice you don't get to see. You go for a canal boat ride along all the front bits, but there's also the birth canal. They don't take you down that canal very often.

It's pretty smelly. It does seem... It's like someone's got a real huge lorry and they're trying to get down one of these little side streets. And you're like, well, that side street's... Yeah. This isn't going to work. but when they do it it's

nothing but impressed like it's so impressive it's like wow that was some really clever engineering look how they stretch those buildings back and you know it's weird with babies though because like when you see a baby normally like when you see a baby on tv and like if you've never seen like a baby actually being birthed your your idea of a baby is a baby that's probably about like four months old or something i would say and they're like kind of they're much bigger at four months than they are when they first come out so like the first time we we had a kid like we had my son um i was thinking like holy shit how the fuck he's gonna be fucking huge like how the fuck? He's going to be fucking huge.

Like how the fuck is he going to come out of there? Like it's going to be crazy. Like they've got big heads and stuff. It's nuts. But like when their first birth, they're pretty big. It's surprising that they come out, but not as big as like a four-month-old, which is like I assume that like a newborn baby was about the size of a four-month-old baby, but they're not. They're like really, really small. They're really small old baby, but they're not. They're like really, really small.

There's like nothing to them. They're like super like fragile. Like their heads are real mushy and stuff. It's like, and when they come out, ladies, ladies, stop fucking complaining.

All right. We've seen it. It's easy. It's small. It's just like a really big shit. Come on. I've taken pretty big shits of my time. I've taken bigger shits than babies.

Oh, man. It's very impressive. That's the one thing that really surprised me. As men, we are just clenching, like, you know, in terror. Oh, yeah. We're so lucky. We're so lucky. Have you ever taken a really, really, really big poop

that you thought might just get stuck and not come out and it kind of hurts and stuff? This is our best comparison. Kind of like you're semi-constipated and you're like oh shit like yeah what the fuck how is this gonna go and then it like eventually does come out and you're relieved and stuff i i would imagine that it's it giving birth is probably like that times maybe a million i don't know but like because it's like yeah you got the contractions you got the pushing there's techniques for pushing you gotta do the breathing and stuff sometimes you can take drugs and whatever it's like it's pretty it's pretty involved but it is a it is a fucking

miracle like holy shit it's like you see it happen you see this thing come out and you you you look at it and you're like man my my boys did that like that's crazy and it grew and now it's healthy and it's out and it's ready and it's like comes out and they're like all like kind of you know their eyes are closed they're all puffy and mushy and stuff like that and then you know like even a year later they're like almost walking and stuff like the whole the whole process of a baby becoming a toddler becoming like a a young child is is incredible like they they just grow so fucking fast it's nuts it's crazy it is crazy well there you go it's nice but it's it's a lot of work and if you like playing that chat yeah if you like playing video games this here's some advice for

you if if you like free time if you like long walks on the beach if you like playing video games this here's some advice for you if if you like free time if you like long walks on the beach if you like playing video games and you enjoy your spare time and your free time and stuff just don't have kids honestly because it all goes away when you have them when you have a little baby like they they are super demanding and you won't have time to do shit until they're i mean here's the thing right it gets better i wanted to play some factorio yeah you know i was like i have like maybe two hours of like free time and i was like man i want to play this for 15 hours i need i need to find 24 hours to play this game yeah and that's that's me you know i've got you know i can take as much time as i want and i'm like got no obligations i'm like a free bird i could just you know it's all yeah i can take as much time as i want and i'm like got no obligations i'm like a

free bird i could just you know it's all like an eagle kids have changed my gaming habits for sure though like i can't play games that require like massive amounts of time investment like wow and stuff like that because i just can't i can't do it i can't keep up with the people that i play with i can't i can't enjoy it the same way i used to when i didn't have kids when i could wake up like on a sunday at like noon and fucking just play until you know one in the morning or something you know i didn't have anything else to do it school changes everything like i remember last year my youngest daughter was still at nursery and i was like praying for her to start school because i knew it would mean that i could do a lot more stuff and i'd have a lot more time.

And I feel much more relaxed now than I did a year ago. Like I was really quite stressed out because rushing around and I'm just thinking about all the stuff I'm missing out on. And I've got like a little bit of time in the morning to do stuff. And it just doesn't feel like anywhere near enough time. Whereas now, I mean, geez, I get like six hours to do stuff. And then they're at school. I pick them up at three and then it's really only a few hours. And then we're just chilling,

watching TV and having dinner. And then we, and then they go to bed and then I've got the whole evening. They never wake up. If they do need anything like the toilet, they can just do it themselves. It's like, it's only really when they're sick or something or at school holidays.

Yeah. But school holidays is even better. There's like summer camps around here that do like nine till five 30. That's even better than school i'm like they love it like they have a fucking great time so it does get easier when they get older it's good for them too like like a lot of people are like oh you're just like fucking shipping kids off and stuff like that but it's it's not like when they get to a certain age where they just don't want to be at home with you all the time there's not enough for them to do yeah they want

to be with their friends like organized activities all the shit that basically parents like don't do because they don't have time to do it like fuck me i'm not organizing like fucking macaroni crafts and shit like that like i can't i got a fucking car to wash and i've got like fucking uh i feel so guilty dishes to do and shit like the thing is there there are other parents like the super moms and the super dads that occasionally at school, they stand there. You know what it reminds me of?

You remember in Life for Brian, right? Yeah. Do you remember the scene where they're going through the market and there's like, there's not just Jesus giving talks. There's like 20 different guys all talking about

what their version of religion and philosophy and stuff like that is. I thought that was really funny. So the super moms and the super dads stand there in the playground doing the same shit,

talking about how awesome they are and all the stuff they've got lined up and what they've done with their kids. They're very loudly talking to their kids. Let's go home and finish off our paper mache masks that we started yesterday, shall we, Tiffany? Oh, yes, please, mommy. And we'll use our homemade paints that we made ourselves the day before that, won't we, Tiffany? Oh, yes, please, mommy. And I'm thinking, shit, i got my kids a fucking xbox and here you are doing like real wholesome shit and oh i don't know how wholesome that is though like i think it fucking sets them up to be like a bit unrealistic

in life like you're not gonna mix your own fucking paints like jesus like you want to teach your kids to be somewhat resourceful and like how to entertain themselves and like just be happy and content and not relying on you and all your fucking weird goddamn convoluted systems for enjoyment and stuff like guess what a lot of the time kids you're gonna be fucking bored in life a lot of time you're gonna be bored especially as a kid i remember being like the summer holidays, I was like, yes, summer holidays, but then there would be days when you just had nothing to do, nowhere to go, your friends were busy, your parents didn't want to fucking do shit because you're too old, just go fucking entertain

yourself, they say. And you think, Jesus Christ, I'm so fucking bored, I've got no money, I can't just go where I want, I'm just a kid, and it's just fucking dull. So I try to prepare my kids to the fact that, you know what, if you can't just go where i want i'm just a kid and it's just fucking dull so i try to prepare my kids to the fact that you know what if you can't entertain yourself read a fucking book call up a friend and get him around you do something but don't come to me entertain your damn self that's my attitude about we were kids i remember like it was it was you know like during the summer vacation or whatever like sometimes my dad would have like a week off or whatever like during the summer vacation and and if he didn't we'd we'd have to like you know the neighbor we'd have to go to like the neighbor's house like the neighbor was like the neighborhood

babysitter there was like fucking 20 kids there and stuff and like we were like we were kind of young but like not super young like i was i was probably about maybe 11 or 12 so i was just starting to be able to like stay home alone and stuff like that right like and so like i didn't have to go over there but i remember like if my dad was off he would just be like he'd wake up in the morning and he'd be like all right kids let's go to jumbo video well yeah fucking jumbo video shit we'd like rent fucking nintendo games and like movies and shit he would just like he would just get like a week's worth of fucking media all rented up for us ready to go we'd have like like five nintendo games like rented for a week we'd have like a bunch of movies and shit and that was us we were

just done and we were like pretty happy we never got bored because we just play like fucking duck tales and like bionic commando and and like all these games that like I never actually considered asking for like for Christmas or whatever but they were great to rent and just play for a couple of days and stuff sure we were set it was fucking awesome like do you know what I'm looking for is when my when my kids are old enough because there's loads of kids that live within like a street or two of here but at this age now you still need to set up a play date right so you have to talk to the parents and say would they like to come around after school it's like yeah sure what time should i pick them up oh you know we'll give them dinner so like 6 6 30 when you think please please show up on time you

get some of the parents that turn up at like 7 30 and the kids are all strung out and pissed off and they've grown tired of each other and they're arguing and stuff they turn up like oh i'm sorry i just lost track of time i'm like yeah when i drop my kid off she's there for a fucking week that's the kind of revenge i'm gonna take on you bitch but it's annoying man play dates but when they're older when they're like 10 11 can i get around to so-and-so's house yeah be back in time for dinner boom done they're out i used to do it all the time get on my bike i go to my friend's house we'd hang out play video games then it's basically your job is done the kids are their own people at that point you just have to mop my friends when we were like we were pretty small i think we're like eight or nine and um we

had like nintendos and stuff like that but it was it was limited you know it wasn't something that we were allowed to just fucking play to death like at that age sort of thing you know like there is definitely sort of the kind of thing it was like mom can i can i play nintendo for like an hour after dinner and it was like you never knew if you were going to be able to sort of thing but yeah so but my friend had this huge board game and it was called i think it was called fireball island okay it was this gigantic it was like it was an island and it was like it was made of like you know plastic or whatever it's this huge board and it was like this mountain that led up and there was an idol at the top of it. And it could spin around and you could put a marble in the mouth.

There it is. And that was, that was the fireball, right? Yeah. So you'd roll a dice and your, your dude would like, you know, you, you, you were trying to get to the top to get the idol. It was like, all your dudes were like little Indiana Jones guys. Yeah, there it is. And you take turns rolling the dice go going up like these these trails and

stuff there's like these little bridges and stuff and occasionally if you landed on like a fireball tile you'd you know you'd get to spin the idol push the marble and it would travel down this trail and knock your guy out and you'd have to restart or whatever wow holy fuck we fucking played that game like to fucking death and we like made up our own rules for it and everything and it was it was awesome it's this huge fucking box like my friend's mom would have to like drive him over to my house because there's this big fucking box of fireball island in it and stuff but oh man it was awesome it was so awesome i'm sure it's like totally shit and if i saw it now i'd be like no i'm looking at a picture now and it's it was sweet though i mean it was really

good there was a similar game in the uk that they always used to advertise that was it was similar to fireball island it was a different game but you had a volcano that spat lava and you had to put little tiles down to mark the progress of the lava so sometimes i think it would block a route and there was a dinosaur involved as well i can't remember what it was called it was it was similar to fireball island but we i've also we also used to play that game a lot. We used to play a game, a really old game. It was like Monopoly, but it was called Totopoly. And it was a double-sided board. You flip the board over depending on which phase of the game you were in. Phase one, you were a stable owner and you had to acquire horses and special cards. For phase two two when you flip the board over and you ran a race

like a horse race and you bet on horses and then you your horses would finish you played cards you had to roll dice the horses would be a winner it was fucking amazing it took hours hours but we would play it and i would stay over at my friend's house we would play totopoly overnight we'd play this game it was ridiculous we used to do shit like that with uh we we had star wars monopoly but we'd combine boards so like we'd come we'd combine the board at like the free parking thing right so like so the go the go of the second board would overtake like the free parking so you could choose to go around again if you wanted to like if you were trying to like snipe like different planets that you wanted to buy or whatever or you could go down and around like the

other board and come out like so it was like a figure eight sort of thing we had like all these extra rules for it but it was the same like we'd go to like my friend's house there'd be like 10 of us we'd like we'd just be in his basement all night just fucking playing this game like oh my god it was really fun though it was really good we'd play that and we'd have wrestling on in the background all the time it was like like monday night raw or like uh royal rumble you know some of those like went on for hours too so we could watch like two or three of them like all night sort of thing it was it was really fun being a kid was awesome because nobody had shit to do right like there's no you had no responsibilities you're all in the same boat right you? You've all got very little money. You're all bored.

And you're like, fuck it. Let's take Monopoly and make double Monopoly. And no one says, that's ridiculous. Let's just play the base game. Everyone's like, fuck yeah. I'll break mine off and we'll do double Monopoly. And then you're all working. Oh, it's great.

I love being here. Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, you've been quiet for like 10 minutes. I want to know. No, no, I know. But I want to ask you, because I know you probably play in Hearthstone or something. What kind of games did you play with your friends when you were a kid? So it was like the same as you guys, right?

It was like I would play, I remember we would get the dining room table, we would clear it off, me and my friend Michael would play Warhammer and Necromunda and things like this against each other right a lot of the old warhammer games and i think i was just i just i missed blood bowl and i missed like a couple of the the classics but we would basically just yell at each other over the rules right okay in in in the in the in the dining room or whatever you know and just absolutely just and my parents because there was like um because we sort of we lived in this bungalow right and it was it started off it was like a bungalow that had extensions

built on extensions on extensions so it was like it started off as a lounge was it was it like a hamster cage one room one of those hamster cages with all the tunnels that lead off to other hamster cages is that what your house pretty much and so then it became it slowly grew in size and because of that the rooms were a bit weird so it was like first of all it's just one big room and then it was a room with kitchen and a bathroom and then it was a room with three other like bedrooms on it and then um like a conservatory my parents eventually built on the back but we had so so me and my um my friend used to play and my parents could watch us through the window of the kitchen.

We were in the dining room conservatory thing with a big table, and we would just, we would, it was, you couldn't tell that we were friends because we were constantly just shouting at each other, the tops of our voices, like, arguing about the rules of the game and, like, whether that was in range or not, whether this was allowed or like you know looking up the instructions it took us so long to play these games because we'd always argue about the rules and we a lot of the time a lot of the time like when you play these types

of games right sometimes sometimes the rules don't cover every eventuality you know it's like what happens if this specific series of events happens you know how do you adjust it and this is why like magic the gathering for example has a rule book that is you know 522 pages long or some ridiculous so it covers every single kind of but even that isn't like individual rules that's like situations you know so it's like they have that they describe the the sort of rulings that allow arbitration of those types of you know how the system works it's more like a complicated system and if you follow the rules of the system it will eventually lead you to but sometimes with magic the gathering for example i found we played that too and i found that sometimes

it would be so difficult to like tell the rules of stuff if you were just playing. Because there's so many cards as well. It would be really impossible to figure out how they were supposed to interact. And you would just have to kind of learn how they interact from experience or from watching someone do it. Or just make your own rules or make your own house rules. Yeah, I think we did a lot of that. Like we never played like super hardcore board games. Like we never played, you know, like I never played like any like Dungeons and Dragons, nothing like that.

Like it was always like Hero Quest was something that we played a bit of, but actually we just painted the models more than actually playing the game which is pretty fun but it was really like monopoly we played like uh life and stuff like that but you know the game of life with the wheel and stuff we play like shitty games like that but we we always like invented like additional rules to make the games like run longer or last longer or like you'd have to do like you know like marathon games where you had to like go around the board five times and stuff like that or whatever like we just add like little rules just to make it more interesting or make it fit better to what like you know what we were doing at the time and stuff and even today like with board games and stuff you know i was playing skull with um some of the guys and we were like okay house rules this is what we're doing now and they

were like okay house rule this is what we're doing now and joe we were like we actually had changed up yeah some of the rules. It makes it more fun, though. It's more interesting. Like, if you just play that, you know, if you just play Monopoly the way it was designed to be played, it's fun enough. But, like, you know what I mean? Like, it just spices it up a bit if you add, like, more to it, you know?

Yeah. Because in Monopoly, for example, you're not allowed to, like, really, like, wheel and deal that much, right? Like, if you played it straight out of the wheel and deal that much. Right. Like, like if, if you played it straight out of the box, according to the rules, everybody just like gets their properties and you know, somebody will just eventually win. But like we were, we were always like lending each other money or stealing money from each other or like fucking just like making these like crazy, like bids, like, Oh fuck. Okay. I need part. If you give me

fucking park place, I promise I won't charge you rent like three times if you land on this and we'll fuck over tim over here because he's fucking he's an asshole and you know like there was always like these like shady deals and stuff and it made it like super interesting and like i was really good i think the thing is like any board game there's, there's always... That's the thing. With those board games that are slightly less rules heavy, you know, they're more casual. There's still a craving in people who are gamers to sort of add stuff to it, like, add...

Yeah. To make it more elaborate. Like, the games... Make it more complex. Especially if you know what you're doing, you know? Like, if you've got your group of guys that you always play with and that's all you've got, like, when you're a kid that you always play with and that's all you've got like when you're a kid certainly like sometimes that's all you've got yeah sometimes you're forced to like try and take something that was shit and add extra

rules and make it more complicated and try and like build it up because then you know also when you've got your group of guys who are experienced and playing it they need that extra level of challenge and sometimes you know that's actually that really enhances it and ends up like becoming i don't know something special a new method you create a very convoluted as well i mean we used to play some incredibly complicated board games like there's one called warrior knights that we used to play which i still have actually i've showed it off on stream i've got my board game collection now in my my sort of office here i dug them all out of the attic and i mean i must have had it for like 30 years now and it was it was old when i got it and it's like a 1980s games workshop game the kind that they don't make anymore

where you're a medieval sort of warlord and you have to there's like an election when you vote on a bunch of stuff like who's going to be in charge of the wool concession who's going to be in charge of the mead concession or whatever, and then there's money. All the money is like tiny little tokens. You have troops. It sounds amazing. It is.

You hire mercenaries. You should bring it down and we'll play it on GameStop. It's insane. But the problem is the combat in it was so imbalanced that we had to rewrite the whole thing because it was awful. If you had a fight, if your dice been slightly different

one way or the other way, you might lose the fight or all your troops would go to the other guy and you lost all your mercenaries. So you lose one battle, the game is basically over for you. So that's the problem. So we had to rewrite it so there were losses and some level of taking back. So we expanded the table.

We had, instead of just a D6, it was like a D100. We had a whole chart. We had to add all this shit because otherwise it was fucking stupid. But it was a great game. People still do this, right? People are still obsessed with just one thing, you know. And you see them on, and it's good. I'm not saying it's bad, but people who play obsessively,

I don't know, speed running Mario 64 or Zelda or whatever, or specific games, even like weirder, more quirky games, they still play that and they love that and they know everything about that game. And they have to find little ways. I guess like hardcore, for example, is an example of a game type where that's like try and finish the game without dying. I guess like achievements kind of feel like they've almost like catered for that too. Do you know what and finish the game without dying yeah i guess like achievements kind of feel like they've almost like you know catered for that too do you know what i mean so like i was looking at

factoria and i wanted to do the achievement that is um it's called like um lazy man or something and it's basically only craft 100 items in your hand right and the rest of it has to be done in machines which is like pretty crazy because you know i i'm i only ever like half the time i would like build so i have so many things in my hands i mean by just by accident and so i was thinking about doing that achievement i thought that's a really interesting way to play because it means you have to kind of get every single a machine making every single thing in the game and um it probably makes the game feel very different to do it, you know, and in a good way. I wish, I don't know, I like that stuff.

I wish, yeah, I wish I was encouraged to do that. I think a lot of games don't encourage that system very well, though, for you to replay games. Do you think that the fact that people look for, like there's not much difference between Sips taking his game of Monopoly and making it more complicated and harder and more detailed and someone taking mario on the 3d on the what was the original uh the n64 like the three the original 3d mario game and saying i'm going to do this in 15 minutes or whatever like it's it's the same kind of it's an urge that people have when they love a game or even when they're they're

just obsessed with it to not just play the game over and over again but to find new shit to do with it that's even harder and more complicated completely unnecessary but people love it it's the same same instinct yeah speed runs i guess is like sort of the maybe the modern day equivalent because you can't you can't necessarily like mod or change mario 64 well no they do they use tools and shit like so there's like tool assisted runs and there's non-tool assisted runs i watched a video about there's like a 20 minute video done by a guy and he was talking about searching for a hidden like a missing coin okay so when coins spawned in mario levels they spawn in like groups of five or whatever and there was a specific set that

spawned on a slope that only had four right and he his goal was to try and get to this fucking coin right and it was like it was like i don't know why but i ended up watching the whole thing and it was like it was just this i want my time back i kind of do but i kind of don't like i don't know he was just clearly obsessed with searching for this thing and he was like yeah so normally when it spawns it would spawn here but the engine then like puts it to the top of the skybox so i did this thing to see if i could get up the top of the skybox to see if it was there and it wasn't there and so then then i thought well maybe it's the opposite maybe like the way it spawns is like it removes moves it from it doesn't want it because

it's clipping through the terrain it moves to the very bottom of the world so then you this other thing where he like went to the bottom of the world to see if it was there and it was like it was a really interesting thing and eventually he just like he couldn't find it or whatever but it was like so you watched it and you didn't even find it no basically he like came to the conclusion that it had been despawned and it wasn't right ever get a ball even with like glitches and hacks and all the other kind of crazy mechanics that they've devised to fuck break these games over the last 15 years or whatever so yeah i i i don't know like i think that's just showed me though that his joy and his passion his energy for that game really transferred to me and i was like you know i could i could totally getting into his little world and he was kind of totally sharing with me that level of sort of excitement

fanaticism for yeah and i yeah i mean the amount of obsession that some people have with these games especially older games that seems to be with with older console games because of the way they were coded and because they were glitchy and there was no patching, if you can find these weird glitches and bugs, you can do weird stuff. There is, if you search for, there's an old Reddit thread called using bugs in Super Mario World to inject new code and play Pong.

So these guys, there's a video demonstration of it. You have to do a very specific set of moves. And when you do them, you actually insert new code into the the the computer's memory so that you rewrite mario to basically be the game pong instead of the game mario it's ugly insane it is insane yeah but they do it takes ages and they have to do all these very specific moves but they do it they rewrite the code i mean how the fuck do you come up with that shit that's just insane that is insane do. I mean, how the fuck do you come up with that shit? That's just insane.

That is insane. Do you guys remember the Game Genie? Do you remember that thing? Yeah, yeah. It was like an add-on for your cartridges. It came with like a fucking phone book full of codes. Yeah, with codes. But you could fucking make your games do like the crazy shit.

And it would always crash them. It would always be too much and bug out. Yeah, it was just a it would always be too much yeah yeah but it was so funny it was like a cartridge that you attached a cartridge to and then you put it in the nintendo and it would like stick out by like a meter of your nintendo but like you could make mario jump like super high or like just like constantly swim and stuff there were all these codes oh fuck it was hilarious such a weird fucking thing but it just felt like it felt so broken as well like the amount of times it would just like cause your game to like crash and you have to reset the console and stuff it was i remember the book i remember the big phone book with all the codes in it and sometimes you'd be looking through and you're like oh fuck i hope like this this weird obscure game that my grandma got me for christmas last year is in here so that

i could like you know just get like some extra play out of it or whatever and like it never was it was just like lee carvalho's putting challenge that's the game oh my god see i see i don't know whether like these people like you said period people still obsess with these games because they were the games they were the only game they had as a kid like like when i'm playing like colonization or terror from the deep and stuff like this like we're doing on streams it's because i spent hundreds and hundreds of hours because that was the only thing i had when i was 11 and 12 or whatever like all summer you know i would spend in a darkened room playing these games and like early console games like like nes games were um designed off arcade games originally right so they were you know designed to be you know quarter guzzlers sort of thing you know like they were hard as hell

you know they were they were really designed for you to play for about 10 minutes before you died so you have to put more quarters and stuff like that. And like all the early NES games were like that. But that's all you had to play, like you were saying. So you just play these games and you get like really good at them because you just play them for hours a day. And that's all you had. You didn't have disposable income to go out and buy something else. You know, games back then weren't, you know, these gigantic like with cut scenes and big stories and

stuff like that you know they were like all platformers they were all like pretty pretty challenging pretty unforgiving and stuff like that it's just like such a weird time but like but when that's all you played when you're a kid like you're super fond of like those memories like you guys ever play the game kid icarus you? You ever hear of that game? Oh, it rings a bell. It rings a bell. It was such a weird fucking game. Like, I don't even know what studio got together and decided that this was a cool game that they could make. Like, it was so bizarre.

It was so weird. I remember coming home from school one day and we'd just gotten an NES. Like, we'd gotten back from a trip. We'd driven from Ottawa to Vancouver to see my grandparents okay damn we drove all the way across yeah we drove both ways so we drove out there in an old car and then we left the old car in vancouver like to dump it because my grandpa bought a new car and was going to give us his old car but because he was like an old grandpa his old car was basically brand new because he drove it like you know once a year and it was it was in good condition and stuff but like we needed a new car and that's how we were going to get a car so that's four and a half thousand kilometers so

on the way home we drive down through the u.s like like like the northern u.s through like all like the dakotas and like those really like sort of fargo-y states or whatever and back then the like the exchange rates for the canadian dollar and u.s dollar meant that like it was really beneficial going down to the u.s to buy stuff right it was like it was just it was just much cheaper to get like you know a nintendo nintendo games clothes all that kind of shit so we drove back through the u.s the whole way back and it's a 50 hour drive one way i know i know i remember it was pretty brutal and when you're like when you're like a seven-year-old kid it feels like a thousand hours it's insane like it like the time is just so boring but anyway so we did it we're driving

home we stop at a mall like somewhere in the u.s and we got a nintendo and so the whole way home i'm like fuck we got nintendo in the trunk i can't wait to get home and play it like i was super excited i was a little kid finally got home we had like duck hunt and mario with like the light gun and everything and i just like played the shit out of them i loved it it was crazy and then went back to school and stuff this is after like the summer vacation went back to school came back from school one day and my mom was home and she was playing kid icarus i was like whoa shit mom you got like a new game like this was back when like the nintendo first came out so like all the games were sold out it was like this huge, shit, mom, you got like a new game. Like this was back when like the Nintendo first came out. So like all the games were sold out.

It was like this huge thing. There was nothing. And Kid Icarus came out and it was like the only game that was in stock. Nobody wanted to buy it because it was a piece of shit. It's a piece of garbage. Yeah, yeah. So my mom buys this game thinking like, oh, yeah, we'll get a new Nintendo game for the kids and they can play it and stuff. So I get home from school and she's playing it.

I was like, oh, mom, this fucking new game. What is this? Like Kid Icarus? What it i was like oh mom this fucking new game what is this like kid icarus what what the fuck is mom this fucking game what what what is it he's got a boat what can we just play mario instead it was like it was it was this it was the worst fucking game it was so weird and strange and oh god it was i don't even like remember it fondly it was just fucking so bad i don't know why they even made it it was, it was... I don't even, like, remember it fondly. It was just fucking so bad. I don't know why they even made it. It was... Apparently, it was excessively difficult,

you know, designed solely to frustrate players, you know? But, like, oh, my God. It's just... As a kid, like, that's not what you want, Jeremy. No, but those were the kind of games that they were making, like, initially for the NES, and it was like... And there'll be some guy who's played that for 1, thousand hours and does speedruns of Kid Icarus.

I'm going to Google Kid Icarus speedrun right now. Yep, there's a Kid Icarus speedrun. Underwhelming, buggy, pretty annoying, shrill music, loose controls and weird design decisions. It's awful. It was just fucking strange. And that was the game that i just had in my nintendo library forever i think i played it like maybe once like and like my mom was like oh this one seems kind of cool it's an angel and he shoots a bow and arrow and stuff and

like literally i played it for like five minutes and i was like yeah this game is just fucking awful oh man and then there was cheat codes though there was cheat codes that made you invincible so you could play through the whole thing that's the only way that i played that was a waste of time just garbage it was just fucking terrible like it was just really bad so i don't know i guess like games have just come a long long long long long long long way from kid icarus they've there's such a variety though in the same way that there's romantic films and horror films and, you know, there's strategy games and casual games and challenging games like Dark Souls.

Look at the variety of choice. You know, there's something for everyone, really, if you know what you're looking for. Switching the topic, guys. Switch. topic guys switch something new that's happened to me recently is i bought two amazon echoes featuring alexa herself who i have one in the dad garage she just is in here so i can like listen to music and i'm not sure yeah she's responding i know yeah And so she's just sometimes talks to me and stuff. And like, they're pretty cool. Like my son loves it. Okay.

Like he thinks it's like a new member of the family. So like he's in the kitchen and he's just like, Alexa, why do we poo? And Alexa's just like, I don't know. Alexa, do monsters, are monsters real? She's like, I can't help you with that and like there's all this stuff but like he knows how to get her to play songs now um you can get her to sing like happy birthday so he constantly has her singing happy birthday and stuff and it's just like before he goes to bed he's like wait i gotta go downstairs and say good night to alexa

yeah it's it's it's pretty cute but like it's pretty neat like it just feels like my house is like a future house now you know i i just walk in i'm like alexa fucking what's on the news and then she just like starts playing the bbc news and stuff and it's great i like it i really like it it's like a bit frivolous, but pretty cool. It's a shade frivolous, but we'll allow it. We will allow it. Yeah, it's got a whole bunch of dumb stuff you can ask. Yeah. But I don't know, it's fun.

You can ask math stuff, you can set a timer. Like, I don't know, it's not terrible. I mean, I didn't have any, I've got one, right? I've got an Alexa. I didn't have any, I'm one of these people who doesn't really have anything i don't know i don't have like a stereo or a music player or anything like that in my in my house yeah and so i got an alexa in the lounge and i was like playing music in the lounge i was like oh man it's actually quite nice you know because and it wasn't too expensive either like i felt like it was like it wasn't too unreasonable yeah but yeah i i like it

next when you get home ask your alexa where the best place to store a dead body is what does she say she just simply responds with call the police wow there's like a whole bunch of like little like easter eggs so like that's one of them um you can ask her if she's skynet and she like she denies like any knowledge of skynet uh you can ask her if she's working for the fbi and she just says like no i'm just an ai from amazon.com like she's got some funny responses to like weirder questions and stuff but then you know what i liked was when you were we were streaming we were doing pubga the other day and you were trying to get her to play songs and she would find a song it was like genuinely a song that was like like ass and titties when you were like get her to play ass and titties and she wouldn't do it and then

she did it and then she wouldn't turn it off you're like alexa alexa she's just ignoring you it's too loud i think i think if i think if the music volume is too loud she can't hear you because no i guess she doesn't want to hear she can hear the music reverbing around the room and stuff so it's like oh yeah maybe she's pretending that she can't hear me as well have you tried putting them next to each other because it was that twitch stream it was one of my favorite twitch streams where they got two of these things next to each other to talk to each other and of course they keep asking each other questions and sentences and they have like this whole conversation one of them would crash and then reboot and the guy had like a phrase a

startup phrase i think to sort of get the conversation going each time it was unbelievable they left it running for hours it was amazing oh my god they got they'd get married they'd break up they one of them was convinced that they weren't a robot the other one was trying to tell them that they were it It was amazing. It went back and forth. It was just so, you just sit there watching these two idiots talking for hours and hours, totally convinced that one of them was like, I'm not a robot. I know I'm not a robot.

And the other one was like, how do you know you're not a robot? I was like, are you a robot? Like they stopped changing. You're changing the subject. I already answered that question and stuff. It was amazing. It was amazing. Oh my God. Oh man. No, it's cool's cool i'm glad i'm glad i got them like i i guess it's one of those things where it feels a little bit limited in the things that you can do but there's already

there's like people are adding things to it like these things that you can almost like bolt on to it and like make them do different things play different like things like there's this one where it's like somebody made a loop of like rainforest sound so you can like you can bolt that on and then it just becomes a command so you can just say like play play like a rainforest sound and just like starts playing sounds of the rainforest or whatever there's a whole bunch of different things like that you can like load up like different regional news you can get like there's like tide times like locally if you live in a place that is affected by tide and and stuff like that the thing is honestly at the moment i feel like none of this is stuff that you couldn't get by just googling like no i know

you say tell me about mount everest and she just says, according to Wikipedia. And I'm like, shit, I could have looked up Wikipedia. But it feels like an entry level to what will eventually be, like, give it 10, 20 years. And these things will be amazingly smart. And I'd like to think that these questions, the way people talk to them, all the answers are going into some kind of mega database so that it will learn. And the next generations of these will be built on how the fuck do people interact with them because if you give it to a million people they'll all interact with it differently they'll all ask different questions they'll all expect different answers so you need to come up with a way for it to personalize and

get to know its owner rather than just go wikipedia says this because it's like jeez i could have done that my wife asked it something the other day and it gave like the dumbest answer or it was just it was just not a very like good answer sort of thing and then my wife was like that was terrible and and then she was just like i'm sorry i'll try better next time thanks for your feedback it was like what oh so like you're probably right there's probably a lot of this stuff is being like fed back to some server or database somewhere. Yeah. And then I guess like with firmware updates or whatever, they can just constantly push out like improvements and stuff like that. But I don't know.

It's just, it's just funny. It's, I guess it's like a bit of a novelty, but it's just, it's just funny entering a room and just barking a command. And then this little fucking cylinder just does stuff like it just it is just hilarious like i know i could just sit there and type something into my computer and get the answer whatever but there's just something funny about like talking to thin air and then something happening like it's just it's just very funny but i think it's interesting we were talking about nes games and how garbage they were and i mean you, you know, people would say the same thing about Pong when it came out, that this is just stupid.

You just turn a paddle. I mean, geez, you could just do this with a ping pong table and stuff. But it's like, it always leads to something. And like you said, what starts off as a novelty will eventually be like this vital piece of, it'll be like having a TV. Well, you don't have an Alexa? You know, it'll be like that because they will be so fucking useful eventually and so yeah i think you're probably right in like 10 20 years probably every fucking house will just come with one by default built into like the

fucking framework of the house and it'll be everywhere and you know you probably won't there probably won't be knobs for anything ever again you probably like walk into a room like lights on turn on the shower rub my balls like they'll just be like little arms like it'll be like peewee herman's house like you just or like wallace and gromit or something you know like everything will just be what was that film where the guy comes in and he demands a load of things from a computer what the hell was it he's He's like, oh, I think it was in Back to the Future 2 when he's talking about what channels he wants on the TV and all that stuff. It's all controlled and what the temperature and everything.

It'll be like that. It will be like that. People will become completely dependent on these machines, I think. But my thing is your kid's attached to it already and it's not even that great. So think about when it's like super smart and it can say, you know, you go down in the morning and it knows you're in the room

it goes happy birthday and your kids would be like oh my god the robot remember my birthday when it crashes or the new model comes out or it breaks it'll be like losing a beloved pet it'll be tragic yeah yeah i don't i'm not looking forward to the day where she just stops responding or whatever and then my kids start crying. I have to get another one. But hopefully that day never comes. Because they are like pretty attached to her, surprisingly. Yeah, I bet.

Like it's just such a, like my son was like, does she have eyes? Like, no, she's just a fucking cylinder. Like, you know. Because he's a little kid, he's very like soft spoken as well. Right, right. And a little kid he's very like soft-spoken as well right and a little bit timid too like he felt like a bit embarrassed speaking to alexa like the first time so he'd be like alexa i'm like she can't hear it and and he's like i don't think she likes me he's like no you just gotta speak up you gotta be loud you're like she you have to like command it sort of thing so so then i'm like alexa just like oh okay

this is pretty funny dang that's adorable so i'm heading over today yeah um i was thinking about heading over this morning because then i could have recorded the the triforce on the road but they've moved all the flights to afternoons which makes it a little bit awkward doesn't it yeah but there might be some more in summer because people more people visit jersey in the summer and they put start putting more flights on yeah man i like flying over to jersey it's nice yeah flax have you ever been over here no i haven't i should come over you should man like i should bring your family and just fucking yeah like for a weekend or something it'd be pretty sweet that'd be great we could have a barbecue like fucking hell yeah god shit i can put on my t-shirt that

has like the rock hard abs like painted on the front the apron and shit and i can meet alexa it'll be great you can meet my i got two hold on hold on a sec you might hit it off i've got a question for you if we're gonna have a barbecue you're a vegetarian what the fuck am i gonna eat well i'll just have man you should see sips' barbecues are great, though. They've got loads of like, basically like, vegetarian meat. It's kind of fine, actually. I'm not coming. No, I can get another barbecue. The one I have now costs like 20 pounds.

I'll just get another one for meat. It's fine. That's what happened when I came over, because your parents were there, and they were eating just normal meat, weren't they? Well, yeah. Yeah. your parents were there and they were eating just normal meat weren't they so yeah yeah my wife's my wife's dad is like a real like meataholic he's french and like just fucking loves meat like everything he has has meat in it he sounds like we have a barbecue he brings his own barbecue over

and just like i ain't having all that goddamn vegetables i got my own barbecue right here all right let's do a pold. People, people, someone tweeted something. Actually posted something on Reddit that I wanted to read because I saw it earlier. Oh, I have some bodega news as well. Someone said this. Bodega, eh? Isn't bodega the best thing since sliced quam life? Yep, yep.

I feel like a kid from the 60s tuning into the weekly radio serial keep up the good work pflax and i'll be able to tell my future children i saw the birth of this character as we watch the shit c-list production of bodega the spalupian death warden yep on our zed eyes wow i was very pleased by that but you know what else kazakh somebody messaged me he's a teacher and he got his class to write a bunch of bodegas after playing them or re i think he read them a bodega that he said he had to clean it up a little which i apologize for right but he had to clean it up a little so he read them a version of bodega that was like one of my stories but slightly cleaned up for the kids and they've written their own bodegas and he's going to upload them oh my god i cannot fucking wait so i think we should do a bodega special where we

read them all and i think i i would love to do that i'll i'll do the voices and everything a bodega special where we go through a bunch of that's a really good idea okay i can't wait for that okay all right so this is this is a pretty dark one this one isn't for the kids. Oh, God. This is not for school children. I'm ready. You ready? You ready? Bodega, part 23, Enyo. Bodega, said a voice, distant yet filled with menace.

Wake up, you flabbing piece of streff gobble. A hearty slap across the mush punctuated the command. Bodega was kneeling, his hands bound to his ankles ankles he was in a large oblong room dark but for a spotlight on a metal stand a metal table and a chair both bolted down were next to him the walls and floor of the room looked like solid concrete the strongest building material there was no windows were visible just a door that looked built to withstand the apocalypse bodega shook his head to clear it and peered up. Standing over him, leering, was the cold grey face of Krem Slumdump,

dictator of the galaxy and head of the Federation. He was shorter than Bodega had expected, but powerful looking thanks to what Bodega assumed were some hyper-expensive cyber-mods enhancing his strength and his mind. At his waist, a small blue box, a Shrovian personal shield, a real rarity and insanely costly. Just in case, huh? thought Bodega. Just in case I had some kind of surprise for you, you miserable bastard. But Bodega didn't. He was stripped bare, even his tooth implants were gone, his legion of weapons and gadgets removed. All that remained was his dignity, and that was slipping.

Your lasgun, said Slumdump, producing it from a fold in his long black cloak, holding the weapon between two fingers like a soiled nappy. Such a waste of good technology, but I think it's time we bid farewell to this. He shook his head faux sadly and dropped it into a chute on the wall marked hazardous waste disposal. There, that's dealt with. I wonder, what good is a sniper without his famous rifle? A gun is just a tool, said Bodega, looking away. It's the man shooting it makes a name for himself.

And my, how you've shot your little gun, said Krem, turning and pacing around the room. Lecture incoming, thought Bodega. You killed those poor people on Scurlia, destroyed a Fedorian installation, massacred a barload of people. There are more. Too many to list, said Krem. Some folks die, some folks live.

Still don't mean much, does it, said Bodega. We have rules, Bodega, Krem spat, turning and admonishing Bodega with a hateful stare. The rules are there to protect people from villains like you. Who protects them from you, asked Bodega. a hateful stare. The rules are there to protect people from villains like you. Who protects them from you? asked Bodega. We bring order to this chaos. Imagine a galaxy run by egotistical infants like yourself.

People who kill over an insult. People who steal and cheat and lie, and think they can blast off into the sunset and never get what they deserve. The poor people on Scyrlia were smugglers, said Bodega. Oh really, said Krem, feigning curiosity. He cocked his wrist, revealing a data pad implant on his forearm, and tapped a few buttons. A hollow projection showed the faces of the men and women, each marked with the words DECEASED, MURDERED in red. These are the faces of the so-called smugglers, students at a local school, out for a day

trip to fly remote-controlled aircraft of their own design. Bodega winced. Can't be. The information he got was from a reliable source, body parts smugglers on Scurlia. And here, this is the list of people murdered at the Pulsar Sexbit, a bar as I understand it, a birthday party, only one survivor, that idiot Tan Blatchman. He told us the whole story. It was a setup. Self-defense, said Bodega with certainty. Then why did they have a special cake made for you, asked Krem, incredulous as he showed Bodega a picture of a cake with the words, Welcome back, Bodega.

Tan says he's real sorry, iced on it. It looked like a pretty nice cake, too. And of course, let us not forget the 1500 souls massacred at the Barakian Quanto hub. Over what, asked Krem. One of the, uh, engineers, he, uh, stammered Bodega, 1500 souls massacred at the Barakian Quanto hub. Over what? asked Krem. One of the, uh, engineers, he, uh, stammered Bodega, shuffling from knee to knee uncomfortably. That's some pretty harsh words to say about the old disco volante.

He insulted your ship! Is that right? asked Krem. He tapped the datebed off. Case closed. You're not some kind of vagabond hero, you're a criminal. A murderer, a thief, and a villain. And for people like you, very special kinds of people, I have a particular kind of punishment.

Krem snapped his fingers, and an orderly entered the room via the reinforced door. The orderly was carrying a red box at arm's length, wincing as he placed it on the metal table. Your punishment, Bodega, is the red box, said Krem, smiling. He glared at the orderly, who scurried out. What's in the box? asked Bodega. Eternity, said Krem.

He opened it and showed it to Bodega. It was just a computer console and a couple of wires ending in plastic discs. Here, sit on the chair, said Krem. He adjusted the tritanium cables holding his captive and helped Bodega to his feet, sat him down, securing the cables once more. He peeled a piece of backing plastic off the pads and stuck them on Bodega's temples. Then he knelt down next to the box and Bodega, close enough to smell his breath. This box is going to kill you, Bodega, but it won't be quick. Where you're going, nothing is done quickly. Krem ran his fingers along the edges of the box,

fondling its intricate woodwork and its angles. You'll have time to savour every delicious moment of punishment. Time is what's in this box. Time as you've never experienced it. Hate as you've never known it. I built it myself, and now, finally, I have someone worthy of it. This ain't about Krems. This is about her, ain't it? said Bodega, sneering. He caught the faintest glimmer of anger in Krem's otherwise passionless face. Krem stood quickly and reached into the box.

He pressed a button, and Bodega's face and body went limp. See you in 10,000 years, Bodega, hissed Krem, looking at his datapad. In exactly one minute, the red box emitted a low tone, and Bodega woke up. His expression had changed. His whole face had changed. Everything about him had changed. Bodega looked up at Krem, and all Krem saw was fear and confusion and terror. Again, said Krem, reaching for the box. Bodega let out a whimper and then he went limp again. Barely 10 seconds had passed before the

orderly sprinted back into the room. What? screamed Krem. Sir, it's the home system, said the terrified orderly. What about it, man? screamed Krem again. It's gone, sir, stammered the orderly. Krem froze and turned to look at Bodega, who was still slumped unconscious in the chair Krem blinked three times before he finally turned to the orderly and spoke in a low whisper Where is Majesta? To be continued To be continued

I'll say it again, Flax You have a gift, my friend We'll see We're going to wrap this puppy up in a good way Just this thread I want to wrap it up in a good way. Just this thread. Well, we'll see.

I want to wrap it up in a way that people like. I'm thinking of stopping so I can finish the Bodega book and then do some more. Because I can't keep writing short stories until I know how this bit ends. Yeah, yeah. And then I can write more after that. You have to know the end before you can start. Just thinking like 20 years time or whatever, when Alexa is fitted into everybody's homes and stuff, and Bodega has become a hit series of books

that started off as a bunch of short stories on a podcast or whatever, and a new like part comes out every week or whatever somebody will get home to their house one day and they'll walk into their house and they'll be like lights on put me in a macaroni and cheese in the microwave set the room temperature to 24 degrees and start playing the new bodega and you'll be like fucking you'll you'll be that guy you'll be like the new that'd be amazing jk rowling but you'll be instead of i think i think instead what would happen is they say alexa play with the new bodega and alexa says i can't find anything to do with bodega and you say but

you're the most powerful ai in the world she's like no there's there's no trace of it i'm sorry oh no oh no no jealousy man well there you go. That was the Trials Podcast for today, everybody. Thanks very much for joining us. Thank you. And we will see you next week. Peace! Until then, goodbye!