Shownotes
Hosts Ethan and Sarah start a podcast about everything and kick it off with their hobbies of choice. Video games, music, cooking, kayaking, Digimon, gunpla model kits, movies, miniature painting, X-Men — too many hobbies, not enough time. But there's always time to doom scroll through Reddit!
Content Warning: Strong language
Attributions
Intro Theme: Game Boy | Written by Andrew Stanton | Produced and Performed by Ender
Outro Theme: Faxel-Hecked | Written and Performed by Matteo Galesi
Transcripts
Hey Sarah, what do you do to relax?
Sarah:Well Ethan, most of the time, my first instinct is to play video games to just kind of unwind.
Ethan:Nice, what kind of, uh, what kind of stuff do you like to play?
Sarah:Well, right now I'm addicted to Baldur's Gate 3, um, but aside from that, um, most genres except maybe like sports?
Sarah:Like I'll, when I really just want to veg out, I will find a first person shooter and just waste a weekend on that.
Ethan:There's something weirdly cathartic, uh, about first person shooters. Like, I don't know, it feels weird to say because I know that's like, uh stereotype of hashtag real gamers. Oh, the hyper violence aspect of like a lot of shooters and stuff. Yeah, I don't know. It's like, I'm not a violent person in real life.
Ethan:Right. And there is like something sort of cathartic about like just having a virtual. Uh, arena or whatever to just be like, yeah, I'm just going to go like a little nuts in a way that like you would never, you know, you never want to do in real life or whatever. Yeah.
Sarah:I'm not at all violent.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Most days.
Ethan:Exactly. Yeah, I love a good first person shooter, uh, now and again, I agree with you though, like it's not, that's more something that I want to do if it's just like, uh, I don't know, I don't want to think that much. I just want to like blow off some steam and do some kind of mindless like veg out type stuff.
Ethan:It's not like my first choice of game genre if I'm picking out a game that I want to like sit down and enjoy.
Sarah:Yeah, for me, it's like once or twice a year when my brain is just done, you know, and you just really want to mellow out. Like I, I was switching from one job to another and I just beautifully spent my week off playing whatever Call of Duty was out at the time.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:And I regret it in hindsight, but it was great at the time.
Ethan:I, one of my like comfort games, I guess, like a game that I can just go back to. Anytime if I am in that kind of mood where it's like, I don't want to think about anything. I just want to chill out and like play something kind of mindlessly violent is Super Hot.
Ethan:I've sunk a lot of time into Super Hot if it's just like Uh, Thursday night or whatever and I had a long day at work and I just want to throw on some music or a podcast and just, like, throw swords at guys or whatever.
Sarah:That's not what I pictured. I'm not familiar with Superhot, other than the name of it.
Ethan:Oh, Superhot's great. Superhot is a first person shooter where everything is really highly stylized. So like environments are all white and all the enemies are like just red polygon guys. And time only moves when you move. So. The gameplay is about figuring out, you know, okay, which of these enemies are the most pressing, like, what do I need to deal with first? Most enemies die in a single hit. You have really limited like guns have really limited ammunition. Once they run out of ammo, you can like throw them and it like stuns people, but doesn't kill them. The sequel has more like melee weapons, I think, in the first game.
Ethan:Other than like throwable objects, the only melee weapon is like a katana. But there's some extra stuff in the sequel. And, uh, yeah, it's just like really fun. It's just there's no there's a story, but like there's nothing just not cut scenes or anything like that. Like you can just do, you know, a horde mode type thing where it's just endlessly spawning enemies and you see how long you can survive.
Ethan:Once you die, it plays you. little video of your run at like normal speed without all of the pauses of you like stopping to freeze time and like look around and take stock of enemies and stuff.
Sarah:That's cool.
Ethan:Yeah, it's great. I, I really, really recommend Superhot as just like a nice chill game where yeah, you just uh, can beat up some weird red polygon guys and, and have a blast.
Sarah:I bet they're having a blast. No, once you start talking about it, I have seen footage of it at like high speed, probably in the middle of compilations of other stuff. It definitely stands out.
Ethan:Yeah. It's. It's a lot of fun when you're, uh, not, you know, focusing on a bit of the old ultra violence. What kind of stuff are you into?
Ethan:You mentioned Baldur's Gate.
Sarah:Yes, I do enjoy, you know, a good tactical RPG every so often. I played a little bit of Divinity Original Sin 2, um. I lost my way at some point, as I do on many video games.
Ethan:It's very easy to do in that game.
Sarah:Well, yeah, I'll just put this down for a while and then never come back to it.
Sarah:But I think you and I both have that issue of hopping between hobbies and, uh, having to swing back around to the video game because we were distracted with this other thing. But yeah, like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, I've been playing those lately. What else do I play? Mostly RPGs, I guess.
Sarah:Horizon Zero Dawn. Everything's an RPG now. I don't actually know what to describe that as.
Ethan:Yeah, I mean, Horizon, Horizon, I would classify as like an action adventure with RPG elements.
Sarah:It's those sneaky RPG elements.
Ethan:Yeah, they're like the, the ketchup of the video game world at this point. It's just like, you know, people just kind of like slap it on whatever.
Ethan:It's like, you got a burger? Put some ketchup on there. Got a hot dog? Ketchup. Fries? Put some ketchup on it. It's like, that's, that's how RPGs have become, like. You got a shooter, uh, put some, put some RPG stuff in there.
Sarah:Yeah. You need your...
Ethan:Borderlands skill tree.
Sarah:Yeah. Which I, I like skill trees. I mean, it's fun unlocking new powers and stuff, but yeah, it really has, uh, become super prevalent.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:I don't actually like ketchup, though.
Ethan:Do you? Do you enjoy food? You don't like eggs. You don't like ketchup. You don't like mayonnaise.
Sarah:Mayonnaise is basically fucked up eggs.
Ethan:That's true. That's a really good point, actually.
Sarah:No, I don't, uh. I don't like beans either.
Ethan:You don't like what?
Sarah:Beans.
Ethan:God! So many good foods have eggs and beans.
Sarah:I know, it's a problem. Fran gets onto me all the time.
Ethan:You're like a, you're like a worse version of like a vegetarian, a, I shouldn't say worse, I should say a less convenient version because most restaurants will have like, here's our vegetarian options, but if you go to like a nice Mexican restaurant, like have fun getting a bean free option, like.
Sarah:I know! Thank you. You understand my plight.
Ethan:I can't imagine going to like any breakfast place, not being able to eat eggs.
Sarah:It is, uh, truly a nightmare, but more importantly, what games have you been playing?
Ethan:So lately, okay, so as we touched on a little bit, we both have that, that terrible habit of putting something down because we got distracted by a different hobby and then it takes forever for us to go back to it. I have like chronically done that with the Final Fantasy franchise.
Ethan:So it's a game series that I've loved since I was a kid. Final Fantasy VII was like a really formative game in my youth. And, uh, at some like I've played some of every Final Fantasy, except eight, I just never really picked up eight for some reason. And uh, for most of them, I got to the final dungeon or final boss area and just like stopped because I got distracted by something else.
Sarah:That's the worst.
Ethan:Yeah. Right. Yeah, because then like You spend like three months doing something else and then you come back and you're like, Oh yeah, I don't remember like what was happening.
Sarah:I don't remember the controls.
Ethan:I guess I better start over. Yeah. So I'm finally rectifying that. And I'm, I've been playing Final Fantasy 13 at the moment.
Ethan:I'm, I'm essentially playing through the franchise backward. Because the later games were the ones that I had the least experience with. Um, I'm on 13 right now. I'm very close to the end, uh, of 13, but I'm doing like a bunch of side stuff and grinding and stuff like that. Cause I want to level my guys up more.
Ethan:So that's what I've been playing. And, uh, I also recently got Theatre Rhythm Final Bar Line, which is like a rhythm, rhythm game.
Sarah:I didn't realize it had three names.
Ethan:I found out recently. So for those not familiar, Theatre Rhythm is a Like a rhythm game, think like Guitar Hero, but it's only music from Final Fantasy. And some other Square Enix titles that they put out as like DLC. But the base game is all tracks from the first 15 Final Fantasies and some of the side games like Final Fantasy Tactics, which, uh, I love the Final Fantasy soundtracks, especially the first 10 that were composed by Nobuo Uematsu some of my favorite video game music of all time.
Ethan:So, theater rhythm, theater rhythm, however you're supposed to say it, was... On sale recently and so I bought it and uh, I'm really, really enjoying it. It, it's a rhythm game, but it has RPG elements and uh, Yeah, you have a little party of characters from different Final Fantasies and they level up and there's quests and stuff.
Ethan:It's um, really fun and
Sarah:That actually makes, sorry, that actually makes the most sense actually, like that's Yeah, it's from the Final Fantasy series. It makes sense. It's an RPG.
Ethan:Right. But I recently discovered that it had a different name originally. So it's, it's kind of a spinoff of Dissidia Final Fantasy, which was like a fighting game series.
Ethan:I think its name originally kind of explicitly linked it to Dissidia or something. It had a different title when it was, like, under development. And I don't just mean, like, it had, like, a codename, like, development title. It was intended to be published as something else that I don't remember the name of now.
Ethan:And then I think Tetsuya Nomura coined the name Theaterhythm because he was, like, It's a rhythm game, but you're watching your little RPG guys fight and stuff in the background. So it's like a theater thing, also. So it's theater rhythm. And I like Tetsuya Nomura, but that sucks.
Sarah:I assume he said that in japanese.
Ethan:Yeah, probably.
Sarah:Maybe it's just a bad transliteration.
Ethan:I mean... I don't, yeah, I don't know. I hadn't really thought about that. It's also possible that the source that I read for that is full of shit, but...
Sarah:Most of the internet is.
Ethan:I know. Right.
Sarah:I was just trying to restore a little bit of faith in him, but, you know. It might have just been a bad, bad call.
Ethan:I like Tetsuya Nomura, but having like a weird, silly, more complicated than it needs to be... solution to like a non existent problem of naming a video game. It's very Tetsuya Nomura.
Sarah:Well, especially when you add on the final bar line. Is that what you said?
Sarah:Yeah, because it's like the third or fourth theater rhythm game.
Ethan:So that's it's like subtitle.
Sarah:Oh, OK.
Ethan:But this is like, I mean, Tetsuya Nomura is also behind the Kingdom Hearts series, which has games called Birth by Sleep. And 365 days over two. That's the name of a video game. Like it wouldn't surprise me if this was true about theater.
Sarah:That's a good point. Does it have any peripherals or you just controller rhythm?
Ethan:Yeah, just controller.
Sarah:0 out of 10. No, it sounds like a lot of fun.
Ethan:It's it's really good except that there's this really killer remix of Battle on the Big Bridge Which is like one of the best final fantasy tracks of all time and I cannot get like a perfect chain on it, which is just what they call it when you don't miss a single note. Because i'm trying to just perfect chain everything for right now. And then later i'll go through and like play them on harder difficulties and all that kind of stuff. And there's just this one version, this remix of Battle on the Big Bridge that I inevitably miss like a one note on and it drives me crazy.
Ethan:But we're not here to talk about that, we're here to talk about relaxing. On the topic of theater rhythm though, that is another thing that I like to do to relax, is just like chill out and listen to some music. I've been listening to a lot of Florence and the Machine lately. Like the past couple months I've been in a real like Florence headspace.
Sarah:Yeah, because she's awesome and also tangentially related to Final Fantasy.
Ethan:Yeah, which I didn't even like realize. I only recently became a Florence fan. My wife is like a big, I feel like I said that really aggressively, like *my wife*. My lovely, wonderful wife is a big Florence and the Machine fan and like has been for a long time and I just like never really listened all that much. And then recently. Two things happened, uh, one of which was I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, and there's a really perfect needle drop in that movie that is a Florence and the Machine song.
Ethan:Yes.
Ethan:It's so good. Oh, I love it. Uh.
Sarah:It's impressive because I can remember what you're talking about. So it must've been good.
Ethan:Well, the other is that there's a podcast I am a big fan of called Cerebro, which is a podcast about the X Men, which is like my favorite comic book franchise. In, uh, the, the 100th episode of Cerebro was about the character Madeline Pryor, who is fascinating, uh, and it's sort of a recurring joke on Cerebro that the host is like a giant Madeline Pryor fan, and so this 100th episode about Madeline Pryor is like 18 hours long. It's an insane episode of a podcast.
Sarah:Seriously?
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:Oh, my God.
Ethan:Yeah. No, it's it's wild. The longest episode Cerebro had done before this was like five and a half hours. And so people were joking like, oh, this one's going to be like seven or something, and then it released and it was like 18 and a half hours. It's split over like three or four parts or something. It's wild.
Sarah:That's awesome.
Ethan:It's great, like, it's genuinely like a really good episode also. But at one point, the host says that Dance Fever, which is a Florence and the Machine album, is essentially like the soundtrack to Madeline Pryor's life. And so I was like... Oh, we have that on vinyl because I got it for my wife for her birthday.
Ethan:So I was hanging out in my little office area where a record player is, and it's not really an office. It's like the room that we use for, to play board games and stuff. So, I was, uh, I think putting together a model kit and, uh, was like, I'll pop that on because I usually listen to music while I build models.
Ethan:And so I popped on Dance Fever and, uh, just really, like, fell in love with it. So I've been listening to that album a lot lately.
Sarah:Is it the soundtrack to Madeline Pryor's life?
Ethan:Sarah, I'm not fucking joking. It's, like, it's insane. It's like, if, like, I, I almost have a hard time believing that it's, that she didn't intentionally write it to be that.
Sarah:Wow.
Ethan:It fits, like, so perfectly.
Sarah:Maybe she did. I don't know. She's pretty cool.
Ethan:Oh, I've, I, I, I am genuinely curious if there's any, like, subconscious influence there, even just because I know she said that she was, like, really psyched to have, Uh, to have Dog Days are over in Guardians. Like, I think she is a nerd and maybe, like, into, like, comic stuff.
Ethan:So, as some of it might be kind of intentional, I don't know. But I did go as far as to read a bunch of, like, interviews and liner notes and stuff that talk about some of her, like, influences for certain songs. One of the songs that, uh, really, really, really hits that Madeline Pryor vibe is King, uh, which I think might be the first song on the album. I don't remember now.
Ethan:But, uh, that song is like, Maddie, Maddie Pryor to a T. And, um, I guess it is about what it's actually intended to be about is, uh, Florence, like her internal struggle over whether to, like, have children and, like, pursue that path in life of, like, settling down, having a family, having kids and stuff.
Ethan:Her trying to decide whether she wanted to do that or continue to pursue her musical career. Because she was like, I don't have room for both. And, uh, it, it absolutely, like, after I read that and, like, listened to the lyrics again and stuff, I was like, Oh, yeah, like, I completely understand how it's about that, you know?
Ethan:Um, totally tracks. But also, like, it does sound like Madeline Pryor, like, reflecting on her divorce from Cyclops and have, like, making a deal with a demon and, uh, all that other stuff that happens with Madeline Pryor.
Sarah:That escalated. Divorce and demons.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Just another day in the life of the X Men.
Ethan:I mean, pretty much.
Sarah:That's, uh, that's really cool. I love, I love that kind of deep dive. And I promise Ethan, once we hit it big, we will get Florence on here and ask her ourselves.
Ethan:Uh, God, I wouldn't, I'd be terrified to ever interview, like you would have to, you'd have to handle all of that. I'd be too scared to interview. I used to work at a newspaper and have to interview people for that, and I hated that, and that was just like random people around town.
Ethan:If it were like somebody actually like impressive, there's no way. I'd be shriveled, like, hiding behind my microphone, like, half in tears, just like, so, uh, miss and the machine, what was your, what were you thinking when you wrote this one?
Sarah:What mean lyrics? Uh, you know, that's interesting because you are, in my opinion, I think, objectively, the more enthusiastic, charismatic voice of this podcast.
Sarah:But I think in a situation like that, I, um, when I have purpose, when there's like a reason I should be speaking, I would probably handle that, right? Yeah. I mean, maybe not eloquently, but...
Ethan:I think one of the reasons we are, uh, natural, like fit as co hosts, that we both bring those different things to the table of like. We have, we both have done podcast projects independently prior to this and I always felt like you were a lot more in control and did a way better job of like interviewing and like getting really good stuff out of your guests than I did on mine.
Ethan:Most of mine were just like jokes, and if I remembered, I would maybe ask a question.
Sarah:I think, I think you're selling yourself short a little bit there. I remember some pretty good stuff about Gundam and Digimon and Iron Blooded Orphans, which is Gundam. But thank you, I appreciate that.
Sarah:I think we've gone through video games, right?
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:And then you mentioned podcasting, music.
Ethan:Mm hmm.
Sarah:Uh, we've got Scream in there briefly. Uh, you said gunpla. I heard the word
Sarah:gunpla.
Ethan:Technically, I think I said model kits, but that is what I was referring to.
Sarah:You're right. I did not. I literally did not hear the word gunpla. I just filled in the blanks.
Ethan:Yeah, because you know me, you know, you knew what I was. You knew what I meant.
Sarah:Yeah. I mean, I think you've done a couple Digimon maybe for your roommate.
Ethan:I have, yeah, yeah, I have done some of the Digimon kits, which are great. I mean, it's the same company. It's they're all Bandai kits. Yeah.
Sarah:Why do I remember that? Why is that what my memory decides to?
Ethan:Because I talk about two things ever, Sarah, and there's Scream and Digimon.
Sarah:And Gundam.
Ethan:Yes, I do. I do love to build a good Gunpla, which. For the uninitiated is a Gundam plastic model kit. Gundam being a, uh, long running mecha anime franchise that I'm a big, big, big fan of. And there's, uh, yeah, something really soothing about putting a model together. I'm not like, I'm not, I don't consider myself really good with my hands.
Ethan:Like I'm not artsy particularly or like crafty. My wife is, is pretty crafty and she does like woodworking and stuff. And that's just like not something that I'm super good at, but a model kit where it's like all the pieces are, you know, there and you just have to follow some instructions. And at the end, like, even if all you do is snap all the pieces together, it's going to look really good.
Ethan:You can put it in a cool pose. You can buy a little stand for it. If you want to get fancy, if you like really want to get into the customization aspect, you can do stuff like kit bashing, where you take multiple kits and use them to build something new or custom paint jobs or like all kinds of stuff like that, you know, especially these days.
Ethan:People are like 3d printing bespoke parts to customize their kits and all kinds of stuff. Which I, I don't go that far, I generally just snap fit all the parts together, usually panel line, um, to bring out detail and put them in a pose and call it good. But it's just something really soothing to me about sitting down, having a task to focus on, put on some music or a podcast and just like not think about stuff for a little bit.
Sarah:Yeah, it requires a degree of focus. Like not so much that you can't enjoy your podcast, but it just kind of clears the mind like art in general I'm I'm also not very artsy. I didn't take the time or effort to get good at art. But the few times I've tried to like sit down and sketch, really relaxing, even if the result was garbage.
Sarah:And, uh, realized that mini painting is like the only artsy thing I'm actually decent at in terms of physical mediums.
Ethan:Yeah, how long have you been doing mini painting? Like, how did you get started and stuff?
Sarah:You know, hobbies just kind of happen to me.
Ethan:Yeah, that's fair.
Sarah:Why did I... So way back when in like the, I don't know, 2000 something, I was like, I want to get a mini and paint it because I'm playing in my friend's D&D game that I have no idea what's going on.
Sarah:And so I bought a mini and uh, fast forward some number of years and I was running my own D&D game and had a party of players and we were going to meet up and play in person for the first time in a while. And I think that's what really motivated me to paint miniatures is I wanted to bring them gifts of their characters, uh, having minis that we could put down on the table.
Ethan:Oh, that's so cool.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:I was always really, really intimidated by the idea of painting minis, but just earlier this year with some encouragement from my wonderful co host, I started painting minis for the first time and it is really fun and relaxing and like. Even if they don't turn out maybe exactly how I would like, it's still really cool to be able to put it down on the table.
Sarah:The saying goes that a painted miniature is better than an unpainted miniature. It just is. If you had the choice between putting down like a bland grey mini versus something that you hand painted, even if it's meh, it's that much more satisfying, really.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure.
Sarah:Anyone interested should just try mini painting. It's a lot of fun. And if you mess up, you can paint over it or undo it with some paint stripper and try again, or just move on to the next one.
Ethan:Yeah, I definitely think as someone who's been playing games involving minis for like over a decade. And always thought like, I'm just, I'm never going to get into that. Like, it's too, it looks really hard. I'm too scared that I'll mess it up. It's absolutely something you should try. Like, it's hard to get something perfect, but like, if you can accept that you're not going to, at least like not when you start out. It just becomes really fun, like, I got into it for, for two main reasons.
Ethan:The first being, like, my wife enjoys painting. And so I thought maybe this would be something fun that we could do together. Because I don't really like painting painting, but like, I could give mini painting a try. We have this board game called Marvel United that has like literally hundreds of Marvel comics characters as minis.
Ethan:And so, I was like, that could be like a long term project that the two of us could have fun doing together. And my wife was up for it, so I was like, okay, I'm gonna finally actually try. So that was the main reason. But the other reason was that, uh, you had recently been on like a mini painting kick. Um, around the time that I started, you know, was thinking about it.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:And that was like super encouraging.
Sarah:That's a very accurate statement to say, a kick. Cause that, uh, I haven't painted in a hot minute and I want to. I want to get back to it and send you more unsolicited texts of what I've been painting.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:But man. Now I'm, now I'm co hosting a podcast, so who knows?
Sarah:But yeah, I'm, I'm glad those, uh, were inspiring and I'm, I'm glad you got started on it.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. Well, and it, like, it was, uh, another aspect of it for me, I think, was just that I didn't, like, I, I have one other friend who's, like, really into mini painting. He plays, uh, Warhammer. And so he has like, he got really good at, at painting up his Warhammer minis. But he's just like, he's just a guy that I don't see that often, you know, or like. God, I probably haven't even talked to him in a few years, actually.
Sarah:Oh, wow.
Ethan:Yeah. He's just, you know, guy that we used to hang out with a lot and then just time has, you know, I think the last time I hung out with him was like when the newest Super Smash Brothers came out.
Sarah:Yeah, that's been a bit.
Ethan:Yeah. And I mean, there's been a pandemic and we were, we moved far away for a while and all that kind of stuff. The point being, um, having like a friend that I could ask for pointers and like you gave me a bunch of really good tips and sent me like a little care package of painting stuff and all that, like when I was first starting, that was like, that was really, really helpful for me actually like pulling the trigger on it and, and getting started.
Ethan:I'm really glad I did. I should, I should paint some more this weekend. Actually, it's been. A little bit. I'm halfway through my little Yondu mini. I need to finish him.
Sarah:Oh yeah. You were you were getting through the Guardians cast. Mm hmm. Yeah. Those are cute and cool.
Ethan:Yeah, I should. I should wrap that up soon.
Sarah:All right. So we um, we're not entirely sedentary nerds, right? Like. We don't just play video games and watch movies and paint minis, right?
Ethan:That's true. Regrettably, at some point, I do have to engage in physical activity of some, some kind. Regrettably.
Sarah:How else would you raise your poor little Digimon if you didn't move your body?
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Would you put it on your cat?
Ethan:No joke. So yes. I have a Digimon Vital Bracelet, which is a fitness watch in a very loose sense of the term, uh, in that it is, it's, it's essentially just a pedometer and like a heart rate monitor thing, so it's not... Anywhere close to the functionality of like an Apple watch or a Fitbit or anything that you would actually use to be like an effective fitness, uh, peripheral, but, um, it is a watch and it does track your steps and most importantly it has a little virtual monster on it. And if you walk good, the monster gets bigger and that's pretty cool.
Sarah:That is a way cooler than the fitness watch I have and I am envious and I don't know why like the major fitness brands don't implement that with even like generic pets and monsters.
Ethan:Yeah. Right. I feel like it'd be. I say this as someone who has no idea how coding or game design or app design works in the slightest. My assumption is that it wouldn't be super complicated to have some kind of like virtual pet app for a Fitbit or something like that.
Sarah:Yeah. There's like hobbyist coders that would slap that together faster than, uh, the actual company would.
Ethan:I mentioned earlier that I worked at a newspaper for a little while. One time my boss at that newspaper, just like in like our weekly meeting was like, wanted to, I guess, drive, uh, engagement with like a younger audience or whatever, because, you know. Print media is dying and, um, she was like, this sounds like so cliche.
Ethan:I feel like it's gonna feel like I'm making it up, but I swear to God this happened in a meeting where she was like, what are the young people like these days? They like, they're always on their phones. They like apps. We should have an app. And everybody was just like, yeah, yeah, sure. And she was like, Ethan, can you make us an app?
Sarah:You're the young hip guy on the team. That means you can program and also fix everyone's computers.
Ethan:Right. And I just had to be like, no. She's like, well, like, what would you need? And I was like the knowledge of how to make an app? Like, I don't... No, that's not a thing I can do.
Sarah:A budget to hire a software engineer? Or at least someone off of Fiverr. Ugh.
Ethan:It was surreal. But anyway, yes, I do love to raise my Digimon on my Vital Bracelet. The place I used to live had a really nice little trail right beside, it was an apartment complex and it had this really nice trail that went by a lake or a pond, whatever. And uh, I would walk that trail every day.
Ethan:And it was, uh, it was really nice. There were geese there in the summer, it was a good time. But now I just have to walk around town. Which is not as fun, but it's still fine.
Sarah:Still gets the steps in. Makes your Digimon happy.
Ethan:Yeah, exactly. That is genuinely why I bought this watch was because I thought I want to be more physically active. And I know that a regular like Fitbit type thing that just like buzzes every once in a while to be like, you should walk, you should stand up. Like, that's not going to, I just am not going to respond to that. But if I look at my watch and my Gabumon is sad because I haven't walked enough. Then I'm going to go walk like that will work for me.
Sarah:Exactly.
Ethan:And it has.
Sarah:You mentioned that it's not like a real fitness watch or doesn't have all the like features and stuff. But, uh, it does exactly what you meant for it to do, and that's, uh, I think better than a lot of the fitness watches that tell me, like, Hey, you need to move this many steps this hour, or you're gonna die of heart disease.
Sarah:And I'm like, nah. I'm playing Baldur's Gate.
Ethan:I don't care if I die of heart disease.
Sarah:But if Gabumon dies.
Ethan:Exactly. That's fucked up. Despite all of this talk of my vital bracelet though, you are, I think, the more active of the two of us.
Sarah:I think so. On a good day, like when I actually keep up with it, I occasionally go to the gym.
Sarah:I played, uh, Pokemon Go again for like, two or three weeks, but like, obsessively, so I did a lot of walking at that point, and had a similar, uh, experience where I'm like, this egg needs to hatch to get this thing complete. And I have this backlog of quests from like the three years I didn't play. Uh, so I'm going to just walk so much for these dumb Pokemon. Yeah, I should probably just uninstall it at this point.
Ethan:Uninstall that and get a Vital Brace that trade up. Digimon's way cooler than Pokemon.
Sarah:I can I can either. You know, it probably is. At this point, I'm like, Ugh, Pokemon, what are you doing? But yeah, I also I also like to go on easy hikes.
Sarah:Uh, Fran, my wife, She does the, like, real hiking. And that that made me realize that I don't I don't do the real hiking. I do the easy hikes.
Sarah:We got really into kayaking because I'm a maniac and was like, let's try kayaking and realized I like it. So then got like obsessed over that for a while. And now it's just too fucking hot to do anything.
Ethan:Hmm.
Sarah:So maybe this fall can go kayaking.
Ethan:My wife's a big fan of kayaking. I'm terrified of water.
Sarah:Your what?
Ethan:I'm terrified of water.
Sarah:No, you're who?
Ethan:Oh, my wife.
Sarah:Your what?
Ethan:My wife. But yeah, I, I am, I'm, I'm a, I'm afraid of outside most of the time, although I did like having that little trail to walk and seeing all the geese. There was like a whole summer where there was like a little family of geese that was adorable.
Ethan:But at any rate, this is a complete change of topic. That is not based on anything that we've talked about to this point, so I don't know why I'm jumping to it, but you know what I actually tend to find relaxing sometimes? Like it's a, it's a weird coin flip thing where sometimes it just really, really stresses me out, but sometimes it's like it turns out to be like exactly what I need and it puts me in a really good mood. Cooking.
Sarah:Oh yeah, yeah. I'm right there with you.
Ethan:Yeah. Sometimes I go to cook and it's just like, you know, finishes like I'm working on a couple different dishes or whatever and like stuff finishes at weird times and I just get really stressed out and it's like, Oh shit. Now like these potatoes are burned or something and I'm like really upset at this meal or whatever.
Ethan:But sometimes like I'll pop on, I usually listen to music when I'm cooking as opposed to podcasts. Sometimes I'll just like toss on some good music and just really like get into a groove and the meal turns out really good. And I just come away from it, like in a way better mood than when I started.
Sarah:Yeah, cooking is, uh, I mean, I say this as someone who can cook and is fairly confident in my ability to cook, but it is finicky.
Sarah:It's a little chaotic. It does whatever it wants. You think you have it under control and, yeah, suddenly your potatoes are burned and, ugh, but I agree.
Ethan:I ruined a pan trying to cook potatoes once. Had to, like, had to throw out the entire pan.
Sarah:That's impressive.
Ethan:It was a disaster. Yeah, did not go well.
Sarah:At least the house or apartment that you were in did not catch fire.
Ethan:Yeah. There was smoke, um, quite a bit of it, but it was so, I was trying to cook some recipe from a YouTube channel about, like, authentic Asian food, and I was real excited about these fried potato things. And then I fucked 'em up real bad.
Sarah:Is it like, is it like the equivalent of trying to microwave ramen without water?
Ethan:I think I just had the heat too high and whatever, because it was like a, cooking was like a non standard oil. Part of the recipe that I was excited about was that it was like using some, some stuff that I wouldn't normally use and I think whatever the oil was, I had like a much lower like smoke point than, you know, what I'm used to using or whatever. And so I turned the heat up too high and it just like burned and it like burned like through the outer layer of pan. Like it was just. Like, I couldn't clean it off, it just, like, stuck, like, It was, uh, yeah, so that pan went into the trash, as did the potatoes, it was... It was no good.
Sarah:That's rough.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:I think I've had some weird fiascos like that, trying to cook. More like the poor cast iron pan at the end of making that steak is not how a cast iron pan should end up, which will probably hurt the souls of some people, um, just hearing that, but it happens.
Ethan:On the topic of, of like YouTube recipes and stuff, you're a particular fan of like video essays and stuff on YouTube, right? I feel like we're both pretty into like media analysis type stuff, but I, I feel like you have more. Uh, I feel like you watch more stuff like that than I do.
Sarah:Probably, uh, which maybe that's a problem. I don't know. But, uh...
Ethan:I don't think it's a problem.
Sarah:I just like once I watch a movie or play a game that I really enjoy, I just want to experience more of it and get other thoughts and ideas. I sometimes have like vague feelings about it, like, I didn't really like this part for this reason. And then the video essay will just really succinctly say what I can't yet, like, process.
Ethan:I have a similar thing, um. It's like a joke between me and my wife at this point that there's a website called tvtropes.org and as soon as we finish a movie, I am looking it up on TV tropes. Because they will invariably have some detail that I missed or some like different interpretation than I had on like the like your mileage may vary page or like weird behind the scenes production stuff on the trivia page or whatever. That I always like find interesting. So i'm definitely a similar way.
Ethan:I think if I allowed myself more time to watch things I would get big into like video essays. I have a weird thing. Like I mentioned earlier, I think of myself as like an efficient person and I don't know why, but my brain tells me that watching the things is not an efficient use of time, which is very silly because it's no more or less valid than like video games or like any of the other stuff that I do.
Ethan:I think it's because watching something is a defined period of time, right? If I start a video game, it's like, well, I could only play this for 10 minutes if I wanted to. Whereas a movie is like, okay, this is going to take whatever, 127 minutes, or whatever the movie run time is, you know, like.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:I'm making a choice to expend a very specific amount of time on something, and if I'm not feeling a hundred percent sure that that's what I want to be doing for that chunk of time, then I'm like, eh, I'm not going to watch it.
Ethan:So I weirdly end up like, not watching stuff all that often, and then a lot of the times when I am watching stuff, it's sort of like comfort watching stuff that I have already seen a bunch. Like, there was a week last year when I got really, like, extremely depressed and I watched the first three movies in the Scream franchise, I think three times apiece.
Ethan:Or, like, I've watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, like, three or four times the whole way through. I've watched the X Files a couple times, like, I end up re watching a lot of shows.
Sarah:Is it because you already know how good those shows are gonna be, and you know you're going to enjoy watching them? So it's like, it's not a risk, you just, you know you're gonna enjoy it, so why, especially when you're not feeling great, and... Waste your time on something that could be mediocre?
Ethan:Yeah, I think that's a big part of it, yeah. It's, I know that my investment of time is going to be worthwhile, yeah.
Sarah:Yeah, I will, um, I will just like start watching a video and get maybe 10 minutes into it and then life happens and I'll come back to it later. I do a lot of that where I start a movie and then finish watching it the next two nights if I just don't have time or I started at like 11 o'clock at night and realize I should probably go to bed an hour later.
Ethan:I can't make myself do that. If I stop a movie partway through, like I'm just not going to go back to it. I, I have to, I have a weird, I don't know if it's because of like immersion or what, but I have a really, really hard time, uh, stopping a show or movie and going back to it later unless I'm just fully restarting it.
Sarah:Yeah, I guess I just doesn't bother me. But what does bother me is trying to, well, I don't want to say it like bother me. I don't connect with the idea of like people who will be on their phone or doing dishes or playing a computer game while also watching TV or a movie. I'm like, if I am watching a show or a movie, I am, that is what I'm doing. That is like the 100 percent of my focus.
Ethan:I have a really bad habit of being on my phone too much. It's something that I'm really consciously trying to avoid lately. A lot of times now, if it's a movie that I really want to watch, as opposed to just like, like maybe my wife wants to watch it and I'm not that interested, but I want to chill out in the room or something like that.
Sarah:Mm hmm.
Ethan:I try to like, maybe put my phone on the charger in the other room or something so I'm not tempted because I do have a really bad habit of, of getting distracted and being on my phone during movies, which is a terrible way to experience media.
Ethan:I've always been the type of person who's like, "I'm not addicted to my phone. That's silly. I feel bad for people who are." And then one day I'm like, "Oh no, I am addicted to my phone." But I can stop anytime I want. Yes, I can. I definitely will. Whenever I feel like it. As I keep scrolling. Yeah. It's like, I'm gonna go to bed.
Ethan:And I'm not gonna look at Reddit before I go to bed. I say as I open Reddit instead of set my goddamn alarm.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:And then I'm just mad because Reddit is crazy.
Ethan:Yeah, God, that's the other thing. I have a terrible habit of doing. It's why I've... Pared down my social media to just Reddit is like, I'm a bad habit of looking at threads that I know will just make me angry.
Ethan:It's like, "don't do that, Ethan". It's like, you know, if I'm on whatever, for instance, a Gundam, the Gundam subreddit, and there's like a thread about how Witch from Mercury You know, Suletta should have ended up with Guel or whatever. I'm just like, and I know in my head like, don't click, don't click on this. This is gonna make you mad
Ethan:And then I click on it and I get mad. . .
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. I'll, um, like just the headline is enough for some things. I'm like, yeah, okay. I understand what's going on, but I'm gonna click on it anyway and read this really divisive politicalness.
Ethan:Mm-hmm.
Sarah:Even though I got all the information I needed from the headline, I'm now going to scroll through the comments for no reason.
Ethan:Yeah. Yeah. The Internet is a nightmare factory.
Sarah:It really is. And I, I know I could better purpose that time that I spend looking at Reddit, um, on just about anything I want to be doing. I could be painting more minis. I could be. Uh, working more on our podcast or playing more Baldur's Gate 3. Mm hmm. And yet.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:It's not the most relaxing way to relax, is it?
Ethan:No. It sucks. It's like, sometimes, you know, like I, I, obviously there is a reason that we do it, right? Like not every post is one that's going to make us mad or whatever. There's a lot of cool, I'm on the Gunpla subreddit. It's so cool to see people's, you know, finished kits, whether they're just regular snap assembled or cool customs or whatever.
Ethan:Like it's just. That's nice to see I'm on like the Vital Bracelet subreddit, which I mostly, you know, just use to get updates. Like that's always the first place I'm going to see if like a new set of cards for it got announced or something. Like if there's reasons that it's useful.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:All right. Well, yeah, I guess, uh, before we start getting just actually angry about social media in our episode about relaxing we should probably wrap things up.
Ethan:So thanks everybody for listening. Obviously, you know, this is really early in the life of the podcast. We're still kind of figuring things out, finding our feet. So thanks for bearing with us if you got this far. I don't think at the time of recording that, uh, we have social media stuff set up yet. Uh, but if we do, then Sarah, uh, you can insert it here.
Ethan:Yeah, thanks again for listening. I think next episode, we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics. Something that we touched on a little bit today, uh, Digimon as a franchise and how one might go about, uh, getting into it if they're interested in doing so. I'm going to have a lot to say.
Ethan:Bye.
Sarah:Bye everybody.
