Episode 78 – Accidental Mention of Tech on a Podcast

Scott: Friends with Brews.

Scott: Peter!

Peter: It’s been a year.

Scott: It has been a year.

Scott: It’s been a day.

Scott: I don’t even know anymore.

Scott: I think within this one year, we’ve had 10 years worth of tech rot, tech decay, bit bludgeon.

Peter: Bit bludgeon.

Peter: So I just had, you know, and to prove to our listener that, I’m talking to you, dear listener, that we don’t prep for this podcast in any way.

Scott: Listen, stop.

Scott: Get off your dinosaur toy, whatever you’re doing.

Scott: Just listen to what Peter is saying to you right now.

Peter: I thought you were talking to me.

Scott: No, no, no.

Scott: I can see you.

Scott: I can see that you’re not mounting your dinosaur toy right now.

Peter: I am on an exercise bike, but I’m not even pedaling right now.

Peter: So I mean, jeez.

Peter: But by the way, I cannot see you.

Peter: Your camera is not on, just so you know.

Scott: See?

Scott: Technology sucks.

Peter: Because technology, yes, that’s why you just answered.

Peter: Nice.

Peter: Speaking of which, nice t-shirt.

Peter: That’s going to dovetail nicely into what we’re doing.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: When we get to that point, be sure to inform the listener what t-shirt I’m wearing.

Peter: Yes.

Peter: Oh, we will.

Peter: All right.

Peter: So here’s my thought.

Peter: Here’s my thought, as I was saying, to prove to our listener that we don’t prep for this.

Peter: I propose we do a best and worst of the year.

Scott: Oh, yeah.

Scott: I wonder where we’ve heard that before.

Peter: Yeah.

Scott: I don’t know.

Peter: But you may say this is the same as another podcast.

Peter: Exactly the same.

Peter: But it won’t be.

Peter: I assure you.

Peter: Because our hosts, we are the hosts, and we’re totally different.

Peter: For one thing, I’m Peter, and you’re Scott.

Scott: I think it’s an accidental mention of tech on a podcast.

Peter: No.

Peter: No, no, no, no, no.

Peter: I was not at all referencing ATP.

Peter: I was really referencing my friends over there who are the same.

Peter: Exactly the same.

Scott: Exactly the same.

Scott: One of them lives near you.

Scott: He’s right down the road.

Scott: Just go give him a hug.

Peter: No, I’m talking about the Weekly Planet.

Scott: Oh, the Weekly Planet, the Weekly Planet.

Peter: Yes.

Peter: So yeah, I think we should just talk about a couple of best and worst of the year, right?

Peter: So we can do that.

Peter: But first, you’re Scott.

Peter: I’m Peter.

Scott: Hi, Peter.

Scott: I’m Scott.

Scott: Scott here.

Peter: And we’re drinking things because we are friends with brews.

Peter: So what did you brew today?

Scott: Peter, today I have two interesting drinks I would like to bring to your attention.

Scott: Behind door number one, or in cup number one, I should say, is the Joe Coffee Amsterdam.

Scott: Dark chocolate, comma, walnut, comma, caramel, no comma.

Scott: It is rich, sweet and comforting.

Scott: Amsterdam is the perfect drip coffee option for those who seek a deeper roast profile.

Scott: This is the first time I’ve brewed this particular one, and I will say, it’s a little biter than I like.

Scott: I don’t know if that’s just my own faulty brewing or whether it really is bitter, but it’s not bad.

Scott: I don’t think I would go out of my way to buy it on purpose.

Scott: So not the highest recommendation, but a good coffee.

Scott: It’s a good coffee.

Scott: It’s a perfectly acceptable liquid representation of Amsterdam.

Scott: Next up on my list, I have…

Peter: What?

Peter: You’re not going to take time?

Scott: I don’t get to go?

Scott: Okay, go.

Scott: I was going to say G’s, but instead I said B’s.

Peter: Okay, B’s.

Scott: All right.

Peter: So I’m trying a new coffee for the first time in several episodes.

Peter: This came via Trade Coffee, who really, we should try to get them to sponsor our show.

Peter: Of course, we know they’re not going to.

Peter: But anyway, I’m drinking Orin Coffee, Columbia, parentheses, Swiss Water Decaf, close parentheses.

Scott: Is that Orin as in Orin Hatch?

Peter: No, O-R-E-N.

Peter: It’s Orin as in Orin Coffee, like I said.

Peter: Our Colombian is five grades higher than standard 100% Colombian coffee, providing exceptional quality and flavor.

Peter: This is a fine, delicate, and incredibly popular standard decaf.

Peter: We use the Swiss Water Process, SWP, to decaffeinate our coffees.

Peter: This process is free of chemicals that many commercial coffee producers use.

Peter: All it requires is water, a carbon filter, temperature, and time to make our signature coffees 99% caffeine free.

Peter: In addition to being eco-friendly, it also maintains the original flavors of the coffee bean.

Peter: We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Scott: Nobody told me there would be carbon filters.

Peter: Tasting notes.

Peter: A fine, delicate, and incredibly popular standard decaf.

Peter: That’s the tasting notes, notes of standard, notes of decaf.

Scott: I mean, if that’s your tasting note, you can never prove that that’s not what they’re tasting.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: So when I smell this, for the first time, I think I know, I think I smell pencil lead.

Scott: Okay.

Peter: I’m getting notes of pencil lead.

Scott: Are you sure that’s not your little pencil sharpener from your grade school that you dug out and put on your desk right beside you?

Scott: Note to listeners, he’s drinking the pencil lead.

Peter: It does not taste like pencil lead, so that’s good.

Peter: Okay, this is drinkable.

Peter: Now, I was afraid when I first pulled the beans out of the bag, they were a little lighter than I tend to like, so I was a little concerned.

Peter: But the smell does not, it doesn’t, like if something is going to be very acidic, very floral, very, you know, like sour tasting to me, if it smells really bad, I almost immediately get a headache from it, and I just don’t like it.

Peter: This is not happening, so this is good.

Peter: Yes, this tastes notes of fine, notes of delicate, and notes of popular.

Peter: Now, that said, I think this will be better with a little bit of cream, so I’m going to insert one mini mousse and up it, kick it up a notch.

Scott: Go ahead and up your mini mousse.

Peter: I’m going to, yeah, well, I’ve up mine, now up yours.

Scott: All right, here’s my second drink, Peter.

Scott: This is a Eugene brewery called Oakshire Brewing.

Scott: Oakshire, I don’t know if that’s how they say it or if they say Oakshire, or they’re from Eugene.

Peter: If it was Eugene, I’m sure it’s Oakshire, but if it was Britain, it’d be Oakshire, wouldn’t it?

Scott: If it’s Eugene, they’re probably just drooling on themselves a lot.

Scott: They’re probably out back too busy smoking weed to talk about.

Scott: Anyway.

Peter: Oakshire.

Scott: Oakshire, dude.

Scott: This is called ill-tempered gnome.

Scott: And I don’t know, they get their hops.

Scott: The hops are weird.

Scott: It says nugget, willamette, crystal, cascade.

Scott: Two of those I recognize as locations, and two I recognize as some sort of form.

Scott: So I don’t know what they’re saying there, but anyway, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

Scott: It’s a seasonal beer, October through December.

Scott: This American brown ale is an Oakshire original.

Scott: This time I said Oakshire.

Scott: Dark malts combine with resinous hops in the winter ale to soothe your ill-tempered gnome.

Scott: I guess we’re going to find out if this soothes my ill-tempered gnome, Peter.

Peter: I’m curious.

Scott: My ill-tempered tech gnome.

Scott: Technomology.

Scott: It’s all over my hand now.

Scott: That’s great.

Peter: Good.

Peter: It’s wonderful.

Scott: Here comes the pour.

Scott: Here’s what it looks like for Peter.

Scott: I can’t see my camera, so I don’t know what’s…

Peter: It does look good.

Scott: All right.

Scott: I’m going to take a sip here.

Peter: Incidentally, dear listener, I did take a sip of my Columbia decaf.

Peter: It is slightly enhanced, but actually not as good of an upgrade that I would have expected.

Peter: Usually, the mini-moo dramatically alters and improves the taste, but this is not as much of a boost as I was hoping for.

Peter: So it went from a six to a seven instead of from like a seven to a ten.

Scott: Peter’s not as impressed by his creamed Colombian as he thought he would be.

Scott: Now, this is a good one.

Scott: It’s a little slightly bitter, but I think all winter ales are, right?

Scott: Like winter ales are a thing, and they all are slightly bitter.

Scott: Do I taste all the flavors that I’m supposed to?

Scott: Yeah, it’s good.

Scott: It’s a good winter ale.

Scott: I won’t buy it again on purpose.

Scott: The reason I say things like that doesn’t mean that I’m giving it a bad review.

Scott: It means there are so many beers available to me, some of which I like better, that even though this is perfectly serviceable good beer, and if somebody handed this to me, I would not be offended.

Scott: There are other better winter ales.

Scott: Let’s put it that way.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: Well, I will say, I mean, I was at an event a couple of months ago where I feel like I could have had the right to be offended, and that’s where someone handed me a Miller Lite.

Scott: I remember that event.

Scott: You told us about that event.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: Right.

Peter: So that’ll show up on my best and worst.

Peter: So I don’t know if you are seeing in the shared notes documents that we have for this episode.

Scott: I’m not.

Peter: Well, you should.

Peter: I’ve texted.

Peter: I tried to share it with you, but it only shares the contents, as opposed to a link to the note, because Apple…

Peter: Spoiler alert!

Peter: Guess who’s going to be on my worst list?

Peter: Oh, man.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: Actually, you know what?

Peter: I’m going to change it.

Peter: I’m going to change it.

Peter: I’m going to say, I’m going to change this list.

Peter: It’s not going to be best and worst.

Peter: It’s going to be the naughty and nice list.

Peter: That’s what we’re doing today.

Scott: You’re a genius, Peter.

Peter: So I’m changing the game.

Peter: That’s what I’m doing.

Scott: You are a game changer.

Scott: That’s what people have always said about you.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: So I’ll kick us off as far as nice coffee goes for the year.

Peter: I really liked the Joe Coffee Nightcap Noir, and I liked it enough that I ordered a second thing.

Peter: Because I had been, I subscribed to Trade Coffee, and I was just like, here are my preferences, send me something.

Peter: And I did that for several months.

Peter: So after, you know, but they were kind of a couple of misses in a row.

Peter: I’m like, I don’t really like these.

Peter: So I said, just send me Joe Coffee and I cap more again.

Peter: And I definitely will go back to that one.

Peter: So that’s a nice coffee.

Peter: What about you?

Scott: This is a hard choice for me, but I’m just gonna go with Trailhead Coffee Roasters, Sweater Weather.

Scott: And the reason why is because I just was a little bit surprised by it when I drunk it and I liked it.

Scott: It says it’s a sweet pastry of a coffee from Chiapas, Mexico.

Scott: And it, well, that’s it.

Scott: They don’t really say what the notes are supposed to be.

Scott: If I could find the bag.

Scott: Oh, Creme Brulee, Flan, and Chocolate.

Scott: That’s right.

Scott: That was that one.

Scott: So I’m gonna go with Trailhead Coffee Roasters, Sweater Weather, Peter, Sweater Weather.

Peter: Sweater Weather.

Peter: Excellent.

Peter: Very, very good.

Peter: Very good.

Peter: So we got that.

Peter: Great.

Peter: What about a naughty coffee?

Peter: Or, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott: Do you want to go on that first?

Peter: Uh, well, I have to go back and look at my reviews, actually, because I don’t remember.

Scott: I know, right?

Scott: That’s what I’m doing right now.

Peter: Unfortunately, I don’t see any way to sort by thumbs on our website.

Scott: I know.

Scott: I was just thinking about that.

Peter: But I do know, like, there was the one that I did not order again.

Peter: I can try to find that one.

Scott: I know which one I’m doing.

Scott: I’ll do one right now while you’re looking.

Peter: Kick us off while I find this damn thing.

Scott: I’m going to go with one that really surprised me that I didn’t like it, because I like Back Porch Coffee Roasters.

Scott: But the Back Porch Coffee Roasters Early Bird Costa Rica, I gave it a thumbs up on the podcast.

Scott: That was just very last episode.

Scott: But as I was finishing the bag in order to get to this Joe’s coffee that I’m drinking today, I realized I don’t like it as well as the other Back Porches.

Scott: It doesn’t have the longevity.

Scott: It started becoming a little bit bitter to me.

Scott: And I found it harder to prepare in a way that I liked it.

Scott: So even though I gave it a thumbs up, I’m going to call that my Naughty Coffee just because the Early Bird is not as good as the rest of its buddies on the Back Porch.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: Well, I have been conducting a semi-exhaustive, well, probably more like exhausting search of our website, trying to find all of the beers that I thought, or sorry, the-

Scott: The thumbs that you’ve bearded up?

Peter: Coffees that I had thumbs downed.

Peter: And the only one I’ve found so far is the Wegmans Columbian Decaf, which I remember being pretty similar to the other one that I was trying to find to thumbs down.

Peter: So I’m going to just give them both the same thumbs down rating on the Naughty Coffee List.

Peter: My review on this one, if you’ll please hold by one second here, I can’t find anything.

Peter: Yeah, I really gotta talk to the guy who makes this website.

Scott: So I don’t know.

Peter: Decaf Columbian Whole Bean Coffee, that was the one.

Peter: Peter says, thumbs down!

Peter: I don’t like it as well as the regular Columbian.

Peter: I wouldn’t drink it without the sugar.

Peter: So I guess that could fall in to the If I Was Desperate category.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: So yeah, If I Was Desperate.

Peter: So anyway, Wegmans Whole Bean Medium Roast Decaffeinated Columbian.

Peter: Naughty.

Peter: I do not recommend it.

Scott: Now we’re gonna go to our Nice Beer category.

Scott: Is that correct?

Peter: Correct.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: I’m gonna say Little Beast Brewing Third Bird Oatmeal Stout.

Scott: That’s one of my favorites.

Scott: And although I have had some since then that I like a little bit better, the one thing I like about this is I can never get it too often because it’s not always available in the store.

Scott: And I don’t know why, because it’s not a seasonal beer.

Scott: But apparently it is a seasonal beer.

Scott: But anyway, this is a good oatmeal stout.

Scott: They say it’s smooth and soft, and it is very soft.

Scott: I’ve poured it on people’s heads and never once injured anybody.

Scott: It says with subtle notes of coffee and chocolate, the oatmeal stout is a fine choice for any time of day, Peter.

Scott: Doesn’t matter.

Scott: Get right out of bed and start chugging this puppy.

Scott: And I said in my thumbs up review, a really nice smooth oatmeal stout that I will absolutely buy again.

Scott: And I did buy it again, and I drunk it again, and I fell down the stairs and hurt my head.

Scott: No, none of that happened.

Scott: I did buy it though, and I did drink it, and it was good.

Peter: Okay, great.

Peter: So my nice beer, the one that jumps out to me, was Omegang Octomagang, the Oktoberfest from Omegang Brewery.

Peter: I can’t say, I’m not sure, that it was my absolute favorite Oktoberfest, but it’s…

Scott: I can say that it’s the favorite of mine that you’ve had, that I’ve never tasted.

Scott: I can say that.

Peter: Got it.

Peter: I know that.

Peter: Well, the name itself, right?

Scott: Yeah, yeah.

Scott: And the can, it’s beautiful.

Peter: It goes right to the top, because it’s the one I remember.

Peter: So out of all the Oktoberfests that I had this year, that one jumps out at me.

Peter: So there we go.

Scott: It goes right to the top, and then you fall right to the bottom.

Scott: Is it a strong one?

Peter: Bada bing.

Peter: Look, look, look.

Peter: No, it’s only like 5%.

Scott: Oh, okay.

Peter: Fest beers are usually in the 5% range.

Scott: So it could almost be led into Costa Rica or wherever it was.

Peter: Oh, yeah.

Peter: I mean, it would be a strong one in Costa Rica.

Peter: Sure.

Peter: Right.

Peter: Now, speaking of Costa Rican strength beers, let’s move on to our naughty list.

Scott: Okay, let’s go straight there.

Scott: Tell me, Peter, what do you have?

Peter: Well, for me, it’s a four-way tie for the naughty list.

Peter: Now, I’m sure if I had given myself a little more time, perhaps I could think of some others that I’ve had that I couldn’t finish.

Peter: And to be fair, I did finish all four of these beers in record times.

Peter: Now, this was on my hot dog run a couple of months ago, and it was a requirement as part of the run to drink four beers.

Peter: And again, I used that word loosely, right?

Peter: These were more like water with beer essence.

Scott: Oh, you used the word beer loosely, not the word hot dog loosely.

Peter: Well, I did eat a tofu pup, so, you know, it was so loosely, right?

Peter: But anyway, this is a four-way tie, and it goes all the way straight to Miller Lite, Bud Lite, Michelob Ultra, and the Honorable Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Scott: Jeez, those are some, oh my god.

Peter: All four of those tied, and I gotta tell you, this was not the first time that I had had four beers in one day.

Peter: It definitely was the first time that I had had four beers before noon.

Peter: It was definitely the first time that I had drunk, I’d never had an Ulta, a Michelob Ultra before.

Peter: I don’t think I had ever finished a Bud Lite or a Miller Lite before.

Scott: Do you remember when they used to portray that on commercials as this suave, sexy beer?

Peter: I always remember like sporting events and parties and beach volleyball and stuff.

Scott: Oh, I don’t remember the beach volleyball.

Peter: Yeah, that’s all I remember.

Peter: So yeah, so that’s my naughty beer list, and it’s a long one.

Scott: You have the longest naughty beer.

Scott: I have the birdiest naughty beer.

Scott: It’s the Blackbird Stout by Beerly Brewing, B-I-E-R-L-Y Brewing.

Scott: I like a lot of their beers.

Scott: I believe they’re a gluten.

Scott: I believe they’re free of glutes, and I wanted to like this beer very much because of the name, because it’s a stout, because it’s from Beerly, and I try to support the people that I like, and they were people that I liked.

Scott: And then they let me down, Peter.

Scott: They kicked me in the face with their Blackbird Stout, and it’s just bitter.

Scott: I just didn’t like it.

Scott: It just tastes weak and bitter and weird, and I didn’t like it, and it was a disappointment, and I never drank that free of glutes particular beer again.

Peter: Those bastards.

Scott: They killed Kenny, Kenny the Beer.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: Let’s move on to, and this might be a stretch for us, software.

Peter: What’s on your nice list for software?

Scott: I mean, there’s so many things I could put.

Scott: I’ll put a few things.

Scott: I’ll put Raycast.

Scott: I’ll put Clean Shot X or 10, depending on whether they’re believing in the Apple use of the word X or the whatever.

Scott: And what else do I really, really like?

Scott: I don’t know.

Scott: There’s been a lot of software that’s made me happy lately.

Scott: There’s been a lot of software that’s really pissed me off.

Scott: Maybe we want to smash something lately.

Peter: We’ve got the naughty list coming right up.

Scott: So maybe tail scale.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: I’ll go with Raycast, CleanShot X and tail scale.

Scott: Raycast does so many things for me, Peter, and it allows me to automate so many things.

Scott: It’s so customizable.

Scott: It’s got so many keyboard shortcuts, support, alias support, all kinds of.

Scott: Anyway, I could go on for days and years and minutes about Raycast, but we’ll do that some other time.

Scott: Cleanshot X is just the best screenshot taker.

Scott: I’ve tried them all.

Scott: Just the combination of features is perfect for me, and I like the way it allows me to quickly pin things, annotate things, save things, recall things, edit things, call them back.

Scott: It’s just great.

Scott: Anyway, I love it.

Scott: And then TailScale was the surprise of the year that we talked about a couple episodes ago, which lets us connect things on our network without opening up our routers, and yet also acts as a VPN if we want to have an exit node, and it’s kind of handy.

Scott: So pretty cool.

Scott: Pretty cool service, and you do get a lot of features for zero cost whatsoever.

Peter: Yes, I’ve got to say.

Peter: So I had not thought of TailScale, but I am definitely throwing that onto my nice list.

Peter: So absolutely second for TailScale.

Peter: But after realizing that I’ve played at this point, I think more than 400 hours, I have to put Baldur’s Gate 3 up on my list.

Scott: Baldur’s Gat.

Peter: Now, I was a relatively late Baldur’s Gate 3 adopter because I waited for the Mac version to come out, and that was several months after.

Scott: So only several months.

Scott: Usually it’s a couple of three years.

Peter: It was several months.

Peter: Maybe just a few months.

Peter: But even then, I missed the actual announcement, so I was a little behind even then.

Peter: But three of my friends and I played it semi-regularly.

Peter: I’ve been playing mostly in solo mode, but you can do it multiplayer.

Peter: Generally, it’s pretty good.

Peter: The network support, it works.

Peter: They let you do direct connections over the Internet, but they broker it.

Peter: Obviously, I’ve put in this many hours, so there’s a lot of content and it can be a lot of fun.

Peter: So, yeah, Baldur’s Gate 3.

Peter: And it was definitely one of the reasons that I used to justify upgrading to a MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro processor because it does make a big difference over the MacBook Air M2 that I had playing this game on it.

Scott: So on the Mac, you play this in Steam, correct?

Peter: Correct.

Scott: Okay.

Peter: I think you can get it somewhere else, too, I think.

Peter: I don’t remember.

Peter: There are other brokers that you get.

Peter: I don’t even know how that works.

Peter: You mean playing it in Steam is, I think you just seem is like just you buy it and launch it there, but I don’t even know behind the scenes.

Scott: Like that’s correct.

Peter: Yeah, but you still have to have you have to have a Steam account.

Scott: Steam is a store.

Scott: You have to have a Steam account.

Scott: They handle all the payments.

Scott: They handle making the game available to you and they and so forth.

Scott: But they do have to have, but they are, it’s they’re not a platform within themselves in terms of on the PC.

Scott: So like you have to get the PC version or you have to get the Mac version.

Scott: You have to get the version specific to you.

Scott: Right.

Peter: So anyway, I bought the, you know, I bought it on Steam and we’ve played it.

Peter: I’ve had very few problems with it.

Peter: The game itself has been, I would, very rock solid.

Peter: Just this past week, I came up with my first weird issue in a long time.

Peter: It would only load fully.

Peter: And this is after I played like eight hours one day, like last weekend, like a day or so later.

Peter: It would not load all the way, unless I had it on my primary built-in display.

Peter: If I tried to do it projecting it to the large monitor, the game would just not load.

Peter: So I was like, I’ll just put it on the built-in display.

Peter: Even though the built-in display is smaller, it can run it at a much higher resolution as a result.

Peter: So the graphics are sharper and stuff.

Peter: So I was like, yeah, you know, I’m okay with this.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: There is like a guy with tentacles that this blonde haired woman is hugging on the Baldur’s Gate 3 website and it looks…

Peter: Yeah, that’s called a mind flair.

Peter: They’re basically like, you know, Cthulhu for D&D.

Scott: Yeah, it’s a little distasteful.

Scott: I gotta say, I’m a little jealous now.

Scott: I’m a little jealous that I don’t have time to participate in this with you.

Scott: Is this a game that you have to spend hours and hours and hours and hours on to get any good?

Scott: Like would I just go in there and just be a waste of everyone’s time?

Peter: Probably not.

Scott: Don’t answer that in the general thinking about Scott Wilsey as a waste of time.

Scott: Just answer that in the sense of, can Scott figure this game out well enough to play it within a few minutes, hours?

Peter: You can.

Peter: You can.

Peter: Like the first scene, it’s in tutorial mode, so it tells you, click here to do this, click here to do that.

Peter: The other thing that’s nice about it is, unlike the previous Baldur’s Gate, like one and two, combat is turn-based.

Peter: So it’s like, okay, Scott, it’s your turn to move.

Peter: It’s very much, and they don’t advertise this as much, and I’m not exactly sure what the politics behind it.

Peter: But it is 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons with a few house rules.

Peter: So if you learn how to play Baldur’s Gate, by extension, you are learning like 90% of how to play D&D 5th edition.

Peter: The flip side is pretty much the same.

Peter: If you know how to play D&D, then you know how to play Baldur’s Gate, right?

Peter: So that’s, I think it’s something that’s kind of cool.

Peter: And they didn’t lean into that though.

Peter: It’s like it barely, even you can play the game, and I think in like one screen, somewhere during the setup, it says like Dungeons and Dragons, and that’s it.

Peter: That’s all there is to it.

Peter: But it is based out of the most popular Dungeons and Dragons setting called the Forgotten Realms, which is where I played in high school and college.

Peter: So the cities, the names are all very familiar.

Peter: That’s what I was sort of brought up on and stuff.

Peter: Tons of flexibility.

Peter: You can do all kinds of things that you might not even think to do.

Peter: They just put in so much effort into this game, and the voice acting is second to none.

Peter: The music soundtrack is great.

Peter: The special effects are great.

Peter: There’s so many different arcs.

Peter: You can go so many different directions, and you may choose…

Peter: When I was first playing it, I was like, well, I want to do this, so I have to go and do this, and I have to side with these people.

Peter: Oh, if I do this, then I don’t get to do this later on.

Peter: Well, next time I play, I’ll make that choice.

Peter: So, sometimes you can say like, I’m going to side with this faction, and that takes you down a whole different story arc than if you decided to take a right turn at this road, for example.

Peter: So, it’s, like I said, $400.

Peter: Oh my God, I’m embarrassed to even say that.

Peter: There’s a ton of content there, so for what I paid for it, I absolutely got my money’s worth many times over.

Scott: Well, speaking of money’s worth, so that was the thing I was looking at, it’s $47.99 on Steam.

Scott: If I bought this on a lark, and then I actually didn’t play it, that would be a huge waste of time, or money, I should say.

Scott: So, I guess what I’m going to ask is, would it be possible for me to tag along with your crew, and if I die, I die, but it doesn’t really affect you guys too much, or would I ruin everything?

Peter: Oh yeah.

Peter: Oh no, absolutely.

Peter: I mean, we can kick you anytime we want to.

Scott: Okay.

Peter: So, you can play, so generally what happens is, you put together your party of four characters.

Peter: So, there’s your main character, and then three others.

Scott: Oh, you can only have four total.

Peter: When you play at one time.

Peter: But then when you play with friends, so that means you can be you and three other friends.

Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter: Right?

Peter: And so, you can listen, as long as you’re not an idiot, and you can just figure out the user interface, which, it can be complicated.

Peter: The user interface is not simple, to be sure, right?

Peter: But once you get yourself oriented, it’s, you know.

Scott: Oh, my God.

Scott: Now they’re naked, and he’s hugging her.

Scott: This is getting weird.

Peter: Oh, yeah.

Peter: It’s very customizable, and they included romance as an option in this game.

Peter: And there are people who have spent way more hours than I have spent even playing the games, focusing just on the romancing aspects.

Peter: Like, this character is the most popular to romance.

Peter: This one is the hardest to romance, and I’m like…

Scott: This one is the tentacliest to romance.

Peter: Okay, really?

Peter: I just want to kill dragons, but, you know.

Peter: Okay, there you go.

Peter: So anyway, two thumbs up for Baldur’s Gate.

Peter: That’s my nice software list.

Peter: And yes, tail scale, as we have raved about before on this.

Peter: I think our naughty list for software might have a similarity.

Scott: Yeah.

Scott: Actually, I could add a whole bunch of other things on here, but I think top of the list has to be…

Peter: Top honor.

Scott: Top honor has to go to Apple’s FaceTime software.

Scott: And we’ve had nothing but trouble with it lately when trying to record.

Scott: As long as you’re not doing anything else, it kind of works okay, just fine.

Scott: But if you’re trying to record a podcast for some reason now, it’s Cylon mode all the way.

Scott: And I don’t know why.

Scott: And it sucks.

Scott: And people should be ashamed of themselves.

Scott: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Peter: Yep, absolutely.

Peter: All right, I’m going to throw in another one just for kicks, just to mix the pot.

Peter: I don’t think anyone is going to be able to predict our answers on this one.

Peter: But how about social media platforms for the year, Scott?

Peter: Who made your nice list?

Scott: Mastodon makes my nice list, but I want to be very careful to say that I’m not religious about it.

Scott: And most of the things that people think are wonderful about Mastodon are actually problems for most people for Mastodon.

Scott: But it stresses me out the least just because of who I follow and so forth.

Scott: It just, I can avoid remembering what is the United States of America is becoming the easiest in Mastodon.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: So I’m, yes.

Peter: Now, recency bias is a thing.

Peter: So obviously, Blue Sky is high on my list, right?

Peter: But not just because of recency bias.

Peter: I have definitely had experiences on there where people are saying like, it’s like Twitter used to be back when it’s good.

Peter: It’s like, you know what?

Peter: That has actually been my experience.

Peter: That was not really my experience with Mastodon.

Peter: I never got the level of engagement or the level of usefulness out of Mastodon that I feel like I’m getting out of Blue Sky.

Scott: Yeah, and I think a lot of that probably is because a lot of the people that had active communities on Twitter never really found their people on Mastodon as much.

Scott: Although the security people kind of did.

Scott: On Blue Sky, there definitely are more of those people, and there’s definitely more things happening.

Scott: Like it’s, you know, people are talking about more current stuff, which again, has its downside, because I put Blue Sky on as nice social media, but it also has a downside.

Scott: There have been a few days where I’m already kind of depressed about the way the world’s going.

Scott: I get on Blue Sky and I’m like, you know what, I can’t do this.

Scott: But it does give me access to a lot of people that are interesting and are doing interesting things that are not on Mastodon, and probably never will be, so.

Peter: I have not had that experience yet on Blue Sky, thankfully.

Peter: I mean, I see people talking about depressing things.

Peter: But I have not, like, I’ve not run into any MAGA people or anything like that.

Scott: I haven’t either.

Scott: That’s not what I’m saying.

Scott: I’m saying people talking about things that are happening, you know, whether they’re analyzing it from an intellectual point of view, a journalist point of view, they’re studying different, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.

Scott: It reminds me that these things are happening.

Scott: It’s not that the interactions are negative.

Scott: It’s that, my God, I just want to get away from the fact that the world is full for a couple of seconds.

Peter: Well, staying off social media is a good way to do that.

Peter: And we’ll get into the naughty list where I’ll put in a probably a surprise or on that too.

Peter: But also possibly a surprise on my nice list, Reddit.

Peter: Are you so shocked that you can’t even speak?

Scott: You just like it because you get to complain about Marco there.

Peter: No, I am a member of a few communities on Reddit, and most of them are very good.

Scott: Here’s my problem with Reddit.

Scott: My problem with Reddit is I find that there are a lot of interesting things there, but I find that there is more of an overwhelming sense of middle-aged men pretending to be teenagers or sounding like teenagers.

Scott: There’s a lot of dumb sounding people on Reddit, let’s put it that way.

Scott: And I feel like they’re intentionally sounding dumb.

Scott: For example, let’s say you join the MacBook Pro subreddit.

Scott: It’s just people going, look at my new setup and showing a new Mac they bought.

Scott: It’s literally that or people posting pictures of a broken screen saying, I don’t know what happened.

Scott: It’s like, well, you dropped it, you closed it with a hammer in between the keyboard and the screen, I don’t know.

Scott: It’s stuff like that and there’s entire subreddits like that.

Scott: So things that I would think I would be interested in are useless.

Scott: And then even in some of the subreddits that seem useful to me, there’s just a lot of guys trying to sound hip and cool.

Scott: And I won’t name any names, but I have a friend that used to try to, he’s kind of like approaching 15, he used to try to sound like he was a 20 year old hipster and it did not work.

Scott: And the reddit gives me those same vibes big time.

Peter: I think it’s a matter of what communities you’re a part of.

Peter: You know, I think that that’s heavily dependent on that.

Peter: Like I was in one, I was looking at one, I don’t even remember which it was, where it went down the political thing.

Peter: And you know, I think I mentioned this, where some guys were like making my own arguments about how like, oh, if you’re in a militia and you think you’re gonna, you know, sponsor or have an insurrection, you know, you’ve never like seen an Apache helicopter up close.

Scott: And you know what, just as a side note, I used to say that exact same thing.

Scott: However, I now believe that there’s probably enough people in the military that would go along with it.

Scott: I don’t think we should assume that the police forces and military forces are immune to conspiracy theories and QAnon thinking is what I’m saying.

Peter: Why would we think they’re immune to that?

Scott: Right, so what I’m saying is, maybe the militias would actually get some help on their side.

Scott: That’s what I’m saying.

Peter: Oh, okay, okay.

Peter: Sure, let’s go with that.

Peter: That sounds like the most helpful thing I’ve heard all day.

Scott: Anyway, who cares?

Peter: But anyway, what I was saying was that I saw that once on Reddit, and someone made my argument, and then they made my counterargument right afterwards.

Peter: And I was like, oh god, I got to get off this thread.

Peter: But I generally stick to some on gaming, some on cybersecurity, local stuff.

Peter: I’m on Medford, Massachusetts, and Massachusetts subreddits and stuff.

Peter: I’m actually finding more relevant news about my neighborhood and my state than I do on major media outlets.

Peter: So that’s pretty cool.

Scott: Does John Syracuse pop into those Massachusetts ones?

Scott: Tell everybody how wrong they’re.

Peter: I’ve never seen him pop up anywhere except on a podcast here and there.

Peter: So let’s go to naughty social media.

Peter: And it feels like we shouldn’t even bother with X, but I’m talking specifically about ones that I have used and I’m not using anymore.

Peter: But I’m going to surprise you with LinkedIn.

Scott: No, you didn’t.

Scott: You’re not going to surprise me at all, because we talked about it either last time or the time before.

Peter: Okay, but I have officially hibernated my LinkedIn account.

Peter: So it is like dormant now.

Peter: You can’t even find me on it as far as I know.

Peter: Maybe you can you can fact check me on that one?

Peter: Try to find me on LinkedIn and let me know if you find me.

Peter: But I was getting nothing but scam and sales pitches.

Peter: And I was just like, you know what?

Peter: I this is really just a waste of time.

Peter: I take that back.

Peter: I was going to say I never used it to get it up.

Peter: I did get one contract through LinkedIn when I was aggressively doing LinkedIn marketing and following this step by step marketing procedure.

Peter: I got one job and maybe that paid for the effort that I spent doing them all the marketing.

Peter: I’m not sure.

Peter: So I was just like, it’s not working for me.

Scott: I don’t know what’s happening, but I opened LinkedIn and Safari, and now my whole browser is frozen.

Peter: No, it sounds like what’s happening is your browser is freezing.

Peter: So how do you pronounce X-T-W at the beginning of a word?

Scott: X-Twa.

Peter: No, it’s actually shh.

Scott: I don’t understand.

Peter: X-T-W-I-T-T-E-R.

Scott: Oh, Twitter, yes, yes.

Scott: Are you a Twitter?

Peter: I still have my Twitter account.

Peter: I have not disabled it.

Peter: For the longest time, I guess they killed API access or something.

Peter: Like I had automatically, when I switched to Mastodon, I had it set so that anytime I posted on Mastodon, it would make a post on my Twitter account and just say, I just posted on Mastodon and linked to my Mastodon profile to where you could see the post.

Peter: That stopped working.

Peter: At some point, Elon broke that, I’m pretty sure, if I recall correctly.

Peter: So now, I very rarely will log in to see somebody’s post.

Peter: I usually don’t have to do that because it’s open by default, right?

Peter: But every now and then, in fits of rage, I will log in just to call Elon Musk a f***ing fool or something like that.

Peter: Blink.

Scott: So on LinkedIn, Peter, I found Pete Nikolaidis, who is a mechanic and he spells it with a C instead of a K.

Scott: I found a Peter Nikolaidis who spells it with a C instead of a K, who lives in Martin River, Ontario, I guess.

Scott: And I found a Peter Nikolaidis again with a C instead of a K, who is just a manager.

Scott: He doesn’t manage anything in particular, he’s just a manager.

Scott: So there you go.

Scott: So apparently you’re hidden.

Peter: Huzzah!

Peter: Okay, good.

Peter: Because I haven’t got any emails or anything or any spam solicitation.

Peter: And the other thing too, it’s like, not just spam, but a lot of the job offers are just like for someone with 20 years less experience than I have.

Peter: You know?

Peter: I was like, are you interested in this?

Peter: No.

Scott: Yeah, that’s right.

Peter: So it’s like, I don’t know, man.

Peter: So what I’m going to do now is, I’m going to look at the past year, all the movies that I’ve seen in theaters.

Scott: Okay?

Scott: Oh, in theaters.

Scott: I can’t do that because it’s been so long.

Scott: So I’ve been to a theater.

Peter: Well, I’m just, that’s what I’m doing.

Peter: I didn’t say you had to do that.

Scott: Right?

Peter: Okay.

Scott: Yeah, you did.

Scott: I heard you.

Peter: No, I didn’t say that.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: So theaters, movies that I saw, and these are the only ones where I bought the tickets because my record is here in my AMC account.

Peter: The Beekeeper, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, Godzilla X Kong The New Empire, Civil War, Furiosa a Mad Max Saga, Kingdom of Planet of the Apes, Deadpool and Wolverine, The Apprentice, Bonhoeffer, Pastors by Assassin, and Gladiator 2.

Scott: Wait, say that again?

Scott: What’s Bonhoeffer hanging on?

Peter: Bonhoeffer.

Peter: He was a priest who helped the Jewish movements during the Nazi regime and was killed for it.

Scott: Oh, so quit making fun of his name is what you’re saying.

Peter: Good movie.

Peter: Very good movie.

Peter: Very depressing, but inspiring and depressing at the same time.

Scott: No, no, none of that stuff happened.

Scott: All those people in Germany right now that are…

Scott: There’s a lot of people in Germany right now that are…

Peter: I forgot all about them.

Peter: Yeah, maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll run into some of them next week.

Scott: Yeah, you might go to Germany just at the wrong time.

Peter: You know, it’s a tough call.

Peter: None of these movies were amazing, right?

Scott: Memorable?

Peter: Sure.

Peter: I was like, oh, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Peter: All right, I saw that.

Peter: Hmm, okay.

Peter: So, oh, man, you know, memorable.

Peter: And I’d say kind of a tie as for memorable and depressing goes to Bonhoeffer and Civil War.

Scott: Hmm.

Scott: Why would you watch something like that, which is probably going to happen in this country already?

Scott: Oh, my God.

Peter: I like documentaries.

Peter: I don’t know.

Scott: You like self-torture.

Peter: So out of all of those, the most memorable fun movie, Godzilla X-Kong, The New Empire.

Scott: Okay.

Peter: I got to say, oh, I totally forgot.

Peter: Somehow it didn’t make my list, Godzilla minus one.

Peter: Was that actually, how did that?

Peter: But I saw that in theaters.

Peter: Did that come out in 2024 or was that in 2023 and you saw it later?

Scott: I don’t know.

Scott: I don’t remember.

Scott: I think it was in 2023.

Peter: Okay, because that would have been my top pick for sure.

Scott: Yeah, that was probably a 2023 thing.

Scott: I don’t remember.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: All right.

Peter: So was Godzilla X Kong, like I don’t even think it was the best of all of the Godzilla movies, the latest run, I don’t think it was.

Peter: But it probably was the most fun.

Peter: I’m going to give this a tie between that and Deadpool and Wolverine.

Peter: Deadpool and Wolverine, absolutely the best Marvel movie of 2024.

Peter: If you don’t follow Marvel, you don’t get the joke because it was the only Marvel movie of 2024.

Scott: No way.

Scott: That cannot be right.

Scott: That means they released 75 movies in 2023.

Peter: They did.

Scott: That’s crazy.

Peter: They did 75 movies a week in 2023, Scott.

Peter: Come on, you’re way behind.

Peter: No, literally, Deadpool and Wolverine was the only Marvel movie of 2024.

Peter: They canceled and pushed back a bunch of stuff.

Peter: And I think that’s the right choice.

Peter: I would rather have a quality movie than three crappy movies.

Scott: Hey, here’s a thread on Reddit about, don’t waste your money on Baldur’s Gate 3.

Scott: One of the most promising games for Mac is unplayable with no fix insight.

Peter: That’s funny because I’m going to be playing it right after we finish recording.

Peter: And I was playing it yesterday.

Peter: So there you go.

Scott: It’s unplayable.

Scott: It’s unplayable, Peter.

Peter: I’m also beeping, burping a little bit.

Scott: No fix insight.

Peter: So here’s the thing.

Peter: We’re getting close to wrapping up this list, and I have not yet gotten to my beer.

Scott: Oh.

Peter: I’m wondering if I should just hold off on it, because I know it was my original…

Peter: Wow, I sound like I’ve had three beers.

Peter: My suggestion was that we record today and talk about our Christmas beers.

Peter: Now, the problem is I had one of those Christmas beers two days ago, and I think I’m still feeling it because it was nine point some odd percent.

Scott: No, that’s fine.

Peter: I can’t do that again right now.

Peter: Now, the one I had here was going to be Barista, a double coffee porter from Burlington Beer Company out of Burlington, Vermont, as opposed to Burlington, Massachusetts.

Scott: I am so sorry, Peter.

Scott: Somehow I didn’t realize that we walked right past your beer and only talked about your…

Peter: No, no, no.

Peter: My…

Peter: It’s not a problem.

Peter: My plan was to finish the coffee first and then move on to the beer, but I’ve been sipping this coffee this whole time, and I still have a little bit, which I have to say, I think we might need a neutral thumbs.

Peter: I think we might need gladiator style.

Scott: A sideways thumb?

Peter: A sideways thumb, because this is not best coffee ever.

Peter: It’s not worst coffee ever.

Peter: I think it’s just a coffee.

Scott: Yeah, but what…

Scott: Does that mean that we have to go back and rethink everything?

Peter: No, I just think if I were desperate…

Scott: Or would it just be a line in the sand going forward?

Peter: It’s a coffee, you know?

Peter: It’s like, I wouldn’t say, don’t drink it, but…

Scott: But I mean, we’re not going to go back and rethink all our ratings, are we?

Peter: No, no, no, no.

Peter: We…

Peter: No one’s got time for that, right?

Peter: So I’m just going to say that I’m not actually drinking Barista for right now.

Scott: I’ll see what I can do about a side thumb.

Peter: Side thumb, side thumb icon.

Peter: I saw…

Peter: Oh, that was another…

Peter: So there’s a Reddit suggested group that I’m not part of.

Scott: Is it called Side Thumb?

Peter: No, I think it’s called Mac Apps.

Peter: But one of the things I saw was a program to quickly and easily generate icons.

Peter: So I don’t know.

Peter: But I think you have to start with a graphic.

Scott: Getting the icon’s not the problem.

Scott: Getting the icon isn’t the problem.

Peter: Yeah, I think you have to start with an actual graphic.

Scott: It’s editing the code that will take longer.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: So I wouldn’t worry about that right now.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: So that was my nice movie.

Peter: Naughty movies?

Peter: I’m trying to think.

Peter: There aren’t any that I walked out of the theater.

Peter: There are several that I have not finished watching on like Macs and Netflix and stuff though.

Peter: And none of them are coming to mind right now.

Peter: Oh man, this is rough.

Peter: This is really rough.

Peter: How about you?

Peter: Talk to me about a…

Peter: I gotta see if I can find my history.

Scott: Nice movies you’re talking about.

Scott: So I put Godzilla Minus One, although technically you’re right, that was a 2023 movie and it shouldn’t be in here.

Scott: But I haven’t watched a whole lot of movies lately, and that I think was the last one that I went and watched in the theater.

Scott: So I’m gonna list that here anyway, because we haven’t done that before.

Scott: I mean, we talked about it on the podcast floor, but we haven’t put it in a list before.

Scott: The other one I’m gonna put is one that I just got around to watching this year for sure.

Scott: And that one is Mad Max Fury Road, and I really enjoyed that movie.

Scott: It was a great movie.

Scott: I haven’t seen Furioso yet.

Peter: Okay, I enjoyed Furioso.

Peter: I think it got, like Fury Road, it didn’t get great reviews.

Peter: So there you go.

Peter: Yeah, I can’t think of any real movies that I…

Peter: Yeah, I know that I just can’t think of them.

Peter: I can’t, this is rough.

Peter: I’m failing at my own, my own suggestion.

Peter: Oh, you know what?

Peter: Okay, well, no, it came out the year before, but I didn’t see it until this year.

Peter: Fast X or Fast 10, depending on if you’re following the Apple Naming Convention.

Peter: Fast and Furious, number 10?

Scott: Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you, if that’s what it was part of.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, I saw that in January of 2024.

Peter: I know it came out the previous year, but I didn’t see it until January.

Peter: Guys, no, you killed it.

Peter: You killed it.

Scott: I didn’t even have to watch it to tell you that.

Peter: I know, but that’s why I waited until it was free on streaming.

Peter: Look, here’s the thing.

Peter: I like the special effects, right?

Peter: I maintain that whoever’s directing those movies, whoever directed Fast Five or whatever, should have directed the GI.

Peter: Joe movie that came out in like 2009, right?

Peter: That would have been great because they had tanks, they had helicopters and drones and all that kind of stuff.

Peter: If this was GI.

Peter: Joe the movie, that would be like, this is amazing, right?

Peter: But this was like for the first four movies or five movies or whatever, it was like, we’re street racers.

Peter: And then suddenly it’s like, we’re in cars that can fly.

Scott: Yeah, but I think part of that probably too is the changing social landscape.

Scott: Like this is Merica 2025.

Scott: Fewer people care about that type of street car anymore, and they want to see some big lifted giant vehicle with manly men and giant flags and people with AR-15s proclaiming their love of Jesus.

Scott: So I think it’s just a cultural thing.

Scott: What, too much, too soon?

Scott: Too fast, too furious?

Peter: I think it’s time that we put a lid on this.

Peter: Just cap that coffee.

Peter: I’m gonna cap my beer, put it right back where I left it.

Scott: Wait, wait, wait.

Scott: I still have to talk about my bad movies.

Peter: Oh God, I’m sorry.

Peter: Go right ahead.

Peter: I’m done.

Peter: I’m just gonna listen from here on out though until we roll credits.

Scott: I watched Bad Boys Ride or Die, and I say that if you have to choose between the two, I would say go ahead and die, because it’s not that good.

Scott: It’s a terrible, stupid movie.

Peter: I did see that in movies, in the theater.

Scott: So I don’t know if you watched Wolf for Wolves or whatever the Clooney and Brad Pitt movie was.

Peter: No.

Scott: They definitely felt like they’re both good actors.

Scott: They’re both charismatic guys, but they’re a little bit too past their charismatic prime to carry a movie that isn’t inherently already good to begin with, right?

Scott: Like they don’t make up for a bad movie.

Scott: And that’s how I felt about Bad Boys Ride or Die.

Scott: I like Martin Lawrence.

Scott: I like…

Scott: What’s Fresh Prince’s name?

Peter: Will Smith.

Scott: Yeah, yeah.

Scott: Will Smith.

Scott: But they just are past being able to carry it.

Scott: Their shtick is a little old to be carrying this bad movie.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: I agree.

Scott: Then the other one I watched was a stupid movie called Carry On.

Scott: And it had Jason Bateman in it as a bad guy, and it had some other dude who I should know right away as the good guy.

Scott: Who’s a TSA agent, and he gets involved in this terrible thing where he’s threatened and he has to do these things to let Jason Bateman on with the bomb, or not the bomb, it’s actually a gas.

Scott: And it was a stupid, dumb, predictable movie.

Scott: However, Jason Bateman gets what he deserves, and I say he deserves it because of the ending of Ozark.

Scott: Watching Jason Bateman die was so cathartic for me, having put my whole time and effort into Ozark and loving it right up until the stupid ending.

Scott: And so I say die, Jason Bateman die.

Scott: Once again, I choose death for the…

Peter: Wow, that’s harsh.

Scott: He’s a good guy, but he deserved to get killed for what he did to Ozark.

Scott: That’s all I’m saying.

Peter: Oh my goodness.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: That’s really rough.

Scott: All right, Peter, that was, you know what?

Scott: We did a pretty good job of staying away from what happened to the United States of America in 2024.

Scott: I feel like we only mentioned it a couple of times.

Scott: I don’t see how anyone could be offended by anything we said, no matter their political leanings.

Scott: Maybe the people down the street from me that painted no-clot-shot on their house might disagree, but that’s their problem.

Scott: Peter doesn’t know what to say.

Peter: Well, you haven’t spent as much time on social media as you think because you would know that anyone could be offended by anything we’ve said.

Scott: No, no, the Internet’s a reasonable place.

Scott: There’s never been, they’ve never, Gamergate never happened.

Scott: They never threatened women’s lives over an opinion.

Scott: It just doesn’t happen.

Scott: Hey, tell me, have you ever, are there any of your neighbors who spray paint their house in a self-own trying to proclaim their political views?

Peter: No.

Scott: No?

Peter: We did definitely, I did see, I did see some, there were some signs in November.

Scott: Yeah, signs, but these people spray painted their own house, and it’s kind of funny.

Scott: They’re so, even now, what the results of the election, they’re still angry.

Scott: It’s like, you guys got what you wanted.

Scott: Why don’t you paint your house normal again?

Scott: It’s just weird.

Scott: Pretty good stuff.

Scott: My daughter’s like, at least they could have made it artistic and creative instead of just literally looking like they tagged their own house.

Peter: It’s rough.

Peter: It’s really rough.

Scott: God bless Oregon.

Peter: Oregon, indeed.

Peter: All right, are we good?

Peter: Are we ready to wrap it?

Scott: I think we’re good, and I want to say, at some point in time, I’m going to play a game of Baldur’s Gate 3 with you, and you’re going to have to explain things to me, and you’re going to hate every second of it, but I’m going to have a good time.

Peter: I think it sounds like fun.

Peter: We should do it.

Peter: Just download a copy now.

Peter: I’m free tonight.

Peter: Let’s play tonight.

Scott: Wow.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: You got it.

Peter: There you go.

Scott: Can we talk to each other in-game, with a voice?

Peter: We usually use Discord or, you know, FaceTime or something like that.

Scott: That explains your Mac problems.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: All right.

Peter: On that note, I think we should take us out once again.

Peter: If you’re listening to this podcast, you’ve already found us.

Peter: You know how to find us.

Peter: We’re at friendswithbrews.com.

Scott: We’re at baldersgate3.com.

Peter: We’re at baldersgate3.com.

Peter: Sure.

Peter: Find us there.

Peter: That’s great.

Peter: Happy New Year, everybody.

Peter: Best wishes and dear God, let’s let 25 be better than 2024.

Scott: Please, please, please.

Scott: I know.

Scott: I’m like, do you hear you what you’re saying when you say best wishes?

Peter: Oh my God.

Scott: Give it up, Peter.

Peter: Best wishes.

Peter: Yeah, I’m giving it up.

Peter: On that note, I’m going to push the big red button.

Scott: Tell your friends.