Another Brother

#025 The Purple Parka Prank

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #025, The Purple Parka Prank, the brothers more about scary stuff. This time they get a little more real with it though. What does it mean to actually be scared in every day life, and do they enjoy that kind of a scare? Listen and find out! Then Jacob shares one of his more fun stores as he pulls a prank tied to a real life scary story.
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Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Here's the Rhett and Link short horror film. It's fun, check it out!
The Haunted Forest, at least two of the brothers' favorite haunted attraction!
The neighborhood where Jacob lived when he had his scariest encounter in Russia.

#024 The Secret CIA Seers

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #023, The Secret CIA Seers, the brothers talk about horror, nothing specific, just why they like. Tis the season after all! You might be surprised to whom they credit their inclination to all things spooky. Keeping the trend going, Josh tells us about an eerie (bordering supernatural) CIA program that's not around anymore. If you haven't heard of remote viewing, this will be interesting!
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Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Here's the Wikipedia page about remote viewing. Not that we've read it. You'll no more about it than us!
Read this declassified memo about Project Center Lane.
And if you enjoyed that, here's the Freedom of Information Act collection about Project Stargate.

#023 The Jarring Japanese Jerk

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #023, The Jarring Japanese Jerk, the brothers continue talking about creativity, but from a slightly different perspective. What does it feel like to real nail something creative? What draws them to creative outlets? It could have something to do with stress relief or happiness. But you'll have to listen to find out! Plus Jared shares his scariest encounter while he lived in Japan for two years. It's completely uncharacteristic and not what you'd expect!
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Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Click here to watch one of Jacob's short YouTube videos that he's fond of.
And here are some party invites that Alex nailed.
And this is the city in which Jared's jarring Japanese encounter happened!

#022 The Killer Kay’s Cross

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #022, The Killer Kay's Cross, two of the brothers and Jared talk about creative outlets. What gets in the way? What inspires? How have their relationships with creative outlets changed through ageing? See where they agree and disagree. Alex then tells us of a creepy tale that happened only a few miles from where the brothers currently live. Which of the two variants do you think is more believable?
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Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Here's a local news story about Kay's Cross.
Albert Pencovic is kind of crazy. Check out his story!
Ghost Adventures really did go to Kay's Cross. Believe it!

#021 The Siberian Stories Selections

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #021, The Siberian Stories Selections, the brothers (and sister) talk about games. They're from a gaming family. But what kind of games you ask? Listen to find out, and see if any of these games sound familiar or are ones you play with your family. You might get a little peek into the Stewart gaming mindset. It could get competitive. Then Jacob shares a few stories of some of his first memorable experiences in Siberia.
Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.
Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Check out the Wikipedia page about Novosibirsk. Jacob lived here for about 10 months.
Jacob was stopped around the police somewhere around here. This square has had a lot of construction, so some of these buildings weren't there at that time.

#020 The Answered Alien Anomaly

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #020, The Answered Alien Anomaly, the brothers introduce their first non-family guest to the show! Wow, things are really picking up. Greg and Alex are longtime childhood friends. All four catchup a little in discussing how their childhood interests manifest in their adult lives. You'll see some familiar topics pop up from previous episodes. Then Greg tells us about what he saw in the California night sky!
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Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Greg wasn't alone! Find out what other bystanders thought and see for yourself what it looked like!

#019 The Space Sim Summary

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #019, The Space Sim Summary, the brothers discuss the ethics of AI! Are they qualified, you ask? Of course not! But when have you come to the podcast to hear a qualified opinion? If you haven't thought about how AI should interact with society yet, it's time to start, because it isn't going anywhere. Which of the brothers' points do you agree with? Alex returns to the topic of episode #001, this time give a basic look into the world of Star Citizen!
Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.
Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Here's the official YouTube channel of Star Citizen to see more of what the game is like!

#018 The Harbored Haunted House

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #018, The Harbored Haunted House, the brothers talk final meals! Why are the wondering about final meals? Is a zombie apocalypse about to happen? Are they going to jail. We'll never know, but as usual the answers reveal a lot about them and show their differences. It's also a fitting discussion to have before the tail that Jacob tells. What would the hero of this tail have chosen as her final meal?
Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.
Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
See, German pancakes are of American origin! But it could be a little more complicated.
And while we're at it, French toast comes from ancient Rome. Read through the article to see where the name comes  from.
Here's a short article about the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse with some pictures of it!
Read Lischen Miller's work for yourself!

#017 The Remarkable Revolutionary Rebel

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #017, The Remarkable Revolutionary Rebel, the Brothers set upon a quest that will take them through rules, background information, context, dungeons, and dragons immemorial! Aided by their trusty elder brother, they learn fascinating things like, can my TTRPG character do whatever it wants? What if it wants to be evil like Lizzie? But FIRST, Jacob has his own orb-sighting experience. Finally, Josh takes us through a wave top telling of the story of Hugh Mercer, done in pseudo-Memento-like fashion.
Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.
 
Transcript:
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:
[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother [00:00:37] Another Brother Theme Song [00:00:00] Stewnerds Segment Jacob: Okay, I'm gonna get started real quick. This is just a quick tangent before we get into the actual Stewnerds for today. Alex: Sorry, I'm gonna have to cut you off right here even. Jacob: That's fine. Alex: For people that are still confused, we call the first segment of this show, Stewnerds, as a play on Stewart. Lizzie: Jared literally asked about this today. Josh: Oh really? Lizzie: Yeah Alex: Stewnerds because we just nerd out about whatever we feel like in the first segment. Go on Jacob. Jacob: I think you get it brothers. Okay so this just happened To Heather and me 2 nights ago. I don't know if you guys even know we were down in Bryce Canyon With Heather's whole family. We left the our Airbnb at like 1030 to go to The rim of the canyon to go stargazing. So, we had just got out of the truck, we're walking towards the rim, and we saw an orb. Lizzie: No, you didn't! Alex: What?? Jacob: It had to have been. Lizzie: No. Jacob: Now, of course, Jake saw it too, and he's like, oh, look at someone's laser pointer or something like that. It was a single focused ball of light. Alex: Where? Josh: What color? Jacob: Down in the canyon. Alex: Okay. Yeah, what color? Jacob: It was bright white. Alex: That's not a laser. Jacob: No, it's not a laser. Alex: I don't know of any lasers that do white. There are no RGB lasers that are just a white beam. Jacob: And there's no beam to it it was just a single point of light. Single source. Just very spherical. Josh: Was it moving around like a fairy? Jacob: It just zoomed by. Like And it was quick. Alex: So it couldn't be like a trail runner with a headlight on. Jacob: No, no, no, no. This was suspended- Lizzie: Out in the middle- Jacob: in the air, in the middle of, Josh: What? Jacob: Up above the canyon. So probably like, Josh: Was it dark out? Could it have been something that- Jacob: It was pitch black. Alex: They were going star gazing, so. Josh: Oh, yeah. Jacob: This is 1 of those certified dark skies Areas, you know, the country only has so many, Bryce Canyon's one of them. Lizzie: Good to know. Josh: Could it have been a quad copter? With lights on. Jacob: So, I mean if it if it had if they had removed or disabled their red and green lights to show you orientation And if they put a spotlight on it or sort of a point light, Josh: so it was okay So describe the light. Jacob: didn't make a sound. I mean like. So it was a- It was a sphere of light. Josh: so like no blurring around the edges of this sphere. Or, you know, is it a crisp, crisp delineation between the light. Alex: Yeah, why do you call it a sphere? What about it makes you say it was a sphere? Lizzie: Because it was a ball of light. Jacob: Yeah, literally just a ball of light. Alex: Well yeah but you look at a... Jacob: I mean, it was so fast, right? Like, yeah, at the least, there was motion. There would have been perceived motion blur. But it just, it zoomed by. Josh: A straight path, no deviation? Jacob: Yeah. Josh: Crazy. Alex: If it was curved, it was subtly, and it just looked like a straight line. Jacob: Yeah. Lizzie: How How far, you said like out in the middle of the canyon. Jacob: Yeah, so it wasn't actually in the middle, it was maybe like 100 feet from us. Alex: Oh, that's pretty close actually. Jacob: Oh, it was, I'll say 50 to 100 feet. It was quite close. Lizzie: That's very close. Jacob: Yeah Lizzie: How big was it, was it little then? Jacob: I mean You know, maybe basketball size from that Far of a distance away Josh: that tracks with them the blue orbs On the ranch they suggest the blue orbs that they see are kind of like volleyball the basketball size. Jacob: Yeah that's right they do. Alex: But those are blue Josh: meanwhile the red orbs are smaller they're more like grapefoot- great- sorry, grape foot Lizzie: What? Josh: That's what said. Alex: Don't bring cryptids into this now. Josh: The crypt... Yeah, grapefruit, softball size for the red orbs. Jacob: For the distance it was I think it would have been larger than that. So again, it felt like an orb sighting. I'm such a skeptic. I can't really 100% claim it was an orb. I don't know. I don't know what it would have been logically. And you can ask Heather about it offline. You can get her take on it too. Lizzie: Oh, Heather is going to diss it. Jacob: No, Heather's with me. She doesn't know what the heck that would have been. Josh: You said you don't know what else it would be logically. What's so illogical about orbs these days? Alex: If it was a hundred to 50 feet away and it was a drone, you would have heard a drone. Jacob: Yes, Yeah, and there was no sound. Lizzie: And those aren't crazy fast. Alex: They can be. Jacob: They can be very fast. Alex: Racing drones are ridiculous. Lizzie: That's a thing? Jacob: Oh yeah. Alex: Yeah, welcome to the 2020s, geez Louise! Jacob: Okay, anyway, that took longer than I meant. It just wasn't big enough to be its own segment. So and it was so fresh, I had to tell you guys about that. Alex: Okay. Josh: Recorded, event recorded. Wait, timestamp. Alex: yeah, we'll see if We actually do keep this recorder. Okay, so we were planning to talk about Dungeons and Dragons this week. This is like the pinnacle of nerdiness, I think. I've always thought of it that way. So I wanted to start off with defining what Dungeons & Dragons is. Not like something that would go in a dictionary necessarily, but most people don't know what Dungeons & Dragons is. I want to do this because I'm the 1 that's played the most I think. Jacob: Absolutely. Josh: Definitely. Lizzie: Yeah. Jacob: Easily. Alex: I have the most D&D playing friends probably. So if you guys have any questions along the way or comments please do interject. But Dungeons & Dragons is a set of rules that allows you to play a tabletop role-playing game. There are other sets of rules that allow you to play, but all of the games that allow you to do this kind of gameplay are collectively known as tabletop role-playing games or TTRPGs. So Dungeons and Dragons is not a fantasy setting it is just a group of rules. But you could also say that it is a specific group of settings where you can play because within the Dungeons & Dragons brand you have the Forgotten Realms which is the setting that everyone thinks of when they think about dungeons and dragons. Jacob: And most people, that's the realm they play in, right? Alex: I don't know for sure, but I would I would believe so. Jacob: Probably the most material that they build around it as well. Alex: Yeah, right. It's a high fantasy. Jacob: Stranger Things? Is this the realm that they were playing? Alex: Yeah, yeah it sure seems like it. Yeah, for sure. It's a high fantasy setting, lots of dragons, lots of dungeons, lots of magic. That's what makes it a high fantasy setting is that it's there's a lot of magic. Magic's all over the place But there's also- What is that 1 called? Gray something Josh: Grey Skull. Alex: No, that's what I start thinking about. Jacob: He-Man Josh: Grey Moore Alex: Don't try to help. Josh: Oh. Alex: There's another setting that's a low fantasy setting that is Dungeons & Dragons where there's not a lot of magic so magic items or magic weapons not very common in that setting some people love it Lizzie: So guns? Alex: no no guns, Lizzie: swords? Alex: yeah it's still fantasy Lizzie: oh low fantasy, my bad Alex: It would be a little bit more like... Josh: Game of Thrones. Jacob: Lord of the Rings. Lizzie: Isn't there magic? Alex: Could be. I've never watched Game of Thrones. Josh: Oh, no, there probably is a lot of magic. Lizzie: We obviously don't know game of thrones. Alex: Yeah, there's some magic, I just don't know how much. There's plenty of dragons. Josh: The dragons. Alex: I mean, I'm sure there's still, well, I'm not sure actually, because I've never played in that setting. But I think you might think of it a little bit more like the Souls games, Dark Souls set of video games, where it's more about like this grim medieval setting with not a lot of magic. Josh: Oh, what's that new game that I tried playing? Lizzie: Elden Ring. Josh: Elden Ring. Alex: Oh, there's a lot of magic in that one. Josh: Oh, I never got far enough to experience magic. Lizzie: Yeah, that one's not the same as the- Alex: Magic is the most powerful way to play the game, is what I understand. Josh: Yeah, my bad. Alex: Okay, There's other settings that are really cool like there's a futuristic 1 I think actually I'm thinking of a Pathfinder setting which is a different set of rules. Josh: Different TTRPG? Alex: Yes a different TTRPG. Pathfinders was a spin-off from Dungeons & Dragons. Jacob: Oh, okay, I thought it was part of D&D so that's good to know. Alex: Right, no. It was based on, I think... I don't want to say because if we have any real nerds listening they will chew me up. Josh: I was gonna say, I thought I remember seeing a set of YouTube videos on Pathfinder and it was very much more sci-fi-y and it really interested me. Alex: It's just they have a setting called Starfinder that is, it is pretty sci-fi. I think a lot of weapons are like, you know, lasery weapons. There's guns Stuff I think you get shields Packs or something like like you might in Halo kind of a thing. I've never played it, so I don't really know the specifics. Jacob: So at some point I would like to talk about, or not talk, just see what the other settings are in Dungeons and Dragons, not necessarily on the podcast. Lizzie: Like, I've played Lord of the Rings. Alex: Using 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons rules? Lizzie: I think so. I'm not... Yeah, I think so. Alex: I think if it's not official, It's practically official. People really love that setting. Lizzie: That was the most fun I had playing with Sheridan and his siblings, was The Lord of the Rings, and I was a dwarf, and it was great. Josh: That'd be kind of easy. You could be like Frodo and just be like, oh, no! All the time to everything like, Jacob: save me, Sam! Josh: Oh, Samwise! Yeah, I could get into that character. Jacob: Alex was saying he wanted to first explain what D&D is because most people don't truly know. Right. And he said, even us at the table, who we've all played with Alex and Lizzie plays with Jared and his family so he said even we might not actually know what it is. I didn't know about these other settings. Yeah, to me D&D is forgotten this single realm yeah D&D isn't a set of rules of how to play tabletop RPG. It's this world. So that's cool. Josh: Thanks a lot Chris Pine. Such lies. Alex: No, there's a reason why that movie was in the Forgotten realms because it is the most popular. There are a lot of Dungeons & Dragons novels and most of them take place in the Forgotten Realms. Most people do know that Dungeons & Dragons has been around since the 80s but what they may not know is that there have been different updates to the rules, different versions of the rules since then. Actually, I think it might be around since the late 70s, but unofficially at that point. It was just something that the creator was doing with friends in his basement. And I think it was in his basement, unfortunately. Josh: Is that a capital C, the Creator? Is that- did he- Lizzie: The Creator! Alex: Gary Gygax Josh: in D&D lore is he The Creator? Alex: no he's Gary. Josh: All hail the Creator, all hail the Creator. Jacob: Has he written himself into it? Alex: No, I don't think so. Jacob: He should. Josh: He should be the most powerful creature! Jacob: he should be the gelatinous cube. Lizzie: The Gary. Alex: Why- Why would you- that's kind of offensive, isn't it? Josh: Why did you choose the gelatinous one? Jacob: Well, my history of it is really from Onward, the Pixar movie. And it was a thing to greatly be feared. Alex: I mean, it is, really. They're pretty disgusting. They can be used to great effect. Josh: It's like the blob? Alex: I don't know. What is the blob? Josh: It's an old movie. Alex: Yeah, that really old 1, right? Josh: Old black and white. Yeah, it just seeps into everything. Alex: I don't think it's... I think they're worse than the blob. But anyway, that's a different topic. So right now, Dungeons & Dragons is on the fifth edition of the rules. And they tried to focus on simplicity of rules so that play is not so much about remembering all of the rules and the mechanics as much as telling a story and role-playing because that's what the game is supposed to quote-unquote be about But a lot of people like the game just for the mechanics and the combat. And I think that's an equally legitimate way to play the game. You know? But telling the story is pretty cool if you can manage to get your head into a character and figure out who that character is, what they would want, what they would do. Josh: I just want to smash buttons and move joysticks and then have it tell me what the story is. Like the DM- Jacob: Yeah Alex: well that is what the DM is for. Josh: -tell me the story. Alex: So you might be one of those players that's all about the mechanics and the combat. So within Dungeons and Dragons, there are different types of characters you can play that are broken down. I didn't think about what language to use for describing Josh: English please. Jacob: English. Ah dangit! Alex: Well, okay. I'm not going to use Italian because I've never played Dungeons and Dragons in Italian. But you have a number of different really important decisions to make about who and what your character is when building your character from the beginning. Class is probably the biggest decider. Your class is like, are you a fighter? Are you a wizard? Are you a barbarian, a monk? Jacob: Bard. Alex: Cleric, paladin. Bard is good. Josh: Those are defined by the rule set. Yes, so 5 E's. Alex: Each of these classes has a name and a set of rules and abilities and upgrades as you level up that are unlocked according to the rule set that is in this case fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons. So that's that's the first big decision I think is the class. The next 1 is your... People are using different words for it nowadays. Ancestry, I think, is the most current word for it right now. Josh: It was race? Alex: It was race. Okay, so now, okay. Which is stupid because if it's anything, it's species. Jacob: Species, yeah, okay, actually, that's true. Alex: But that feels weird, I think, to say species. Josh: Yeah, ancestry's fine. That's safe enough. Alex: And unfortunately, This is a fantasy thing, so it's not exactly scientific. You can crossbreed any of these, which is why they call it ancestry. You could be a half human, half elf, which has classically been called a half-elf. In Dungeons & Dragons, I'm not sure you can be a half-elf, half-orc. I think you can be half-human, half-orc, or half-human, half-elf. But in Pathfinder, you can be half-anything, half-anything else. Jacob: How about quarters. Alex: No, I don't think so. Because you only have 2 parents. Jacob: Well... Josh: But they have 2 parents. Alex: Okay, fair enough. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know, man. Josh: Okay, so that's ancestry. So we have class, ancestry. Alex: And background. Background is like... Josh: That's like your, what's my motivation? Alex: Like the backstory sort of, like where did your character come from? What kind of life did they come from? Were they a... Lizzie: Like Evil! Alex: Were they a charlatan? No, not like evil. Jacob: That's alignment. Alex: We don't talk about alignment anymore in tabletop RPGs. It's useless. Lizzie: What? Jacob: Really? Alex: Yeah, I mean, unless you're a paladin, it's really just not important. Josh: No, because items, quest lines, certain things like... Jacob: motivation. Josh: line... line... Alex: I mean, again, this isn't really... What? Lizzie: What? Josh: Cut that. Jacob: Someone was supposed to feed him what to say next. Alex: This isn't... This isn't supposed to feed them what to say next. This isn't a video game. So they try not to simplify things so much as alignment. Alignment's just so constricting. If you need it to help you role play your character, then by all means, use whatever tools you need. Jacob: Yeah, I feel like it should be built into the backstory, but not necessarily. Alex: Right, sure. Yeah, I mean, and it kind of is, but why shouldn't your character change as they experience life? Lizzie: Character development! Alex: Yeah. Josh: Because that's unrealistic. Nobody changes these days. Alex: Maybe for you. Jacob: Well, this isn't these days. Josh: Oh yeah, duh, these are those days. Alex: Because this is a real thing in the past! Jacob: That's why we don't have wizards anymore. Alex: So you can be like an urchin. That's a common one. like a street urchin. You know or charlatan or a guard, a soldier. Josh: So if I remember right though based on the rule set also per I don't know if it was ancestry or class but there's like suggested backgrounds too. Alex: yeah right Because with each of these 3 different choices, class, race, or ancestry, and background, they each have their own different things that they give your character. And so, some races... It's just such a habit for me because I've been playing long enough. Some ancestries. And actually, you know what? I think there's a new set of rules in Dungeons & Dragons for ancestry that I'm not really super familiar with, that might not do this anymore. Part of the reason people had problems with race was that different races had very specific attributes. Like, you were more dexterous as an elf, and more wise. All elves are more dexterous and more wise than other... Josh: Right, that's what makes them elves. Alex: ...Ancestries, which people thought was racism, you know? Jacob: What? No, it makes sense. Josh: It was just a way for them to... Jacob: Oh, for race versus species or ancestry. Is that why people are upset about it? Or have they gotten rid of those? Alex: It was too close to real-world racism, thinking that everybody of a certain kind is exactly the same way. Josh: Yeah, which is unfortunate because obviously the game designers and creators are just like, we need a way to try to stack stats differently So there's different ways to play. And they chose to attach it to what was then race. And that's unfortunate. Jacob: So are you saying they've gotten rid of that? Alex: I know Pathfinder has in some way, where like instead of getting a plus 2 to dexterity and plus 1 to wisdom, you get plus 2 and plus 1 to whatever stats you want. Except you can't put the 2 and the 1 on the same stat. Josh: There's probably still suggested. Alex: But there are other things. Jacob: Yeah, you're probably right about that. Alex: There are other things, for example, movement speed. Dwarves are short and slow because they got tiny little legs. That is always the case. Dwarves are just slower than other people. Jacob: But elves can now be dumb. Alex: Dwarves can be dumb? Jacob: Elves no longer by default get the wisdom booster so they can be dumb. Alex: So that's the other thing where I'm not so sure I agree with the racism criticism is that even though you get a plus 2 bonus to wisdom, that doesn't mean your character is going to be a wise character because you get to choose the stats. Jacob: Yeah. You're still play. Josh: There's still some dumb dude behind that elf. Alex: It's just a bonus. Jacob: So that's why, because it should be species, and species do have biological advantages over other species. Alex: Right, and they still do. They've gotten rid of the attribute, I should define what an attribute is I guess, there are 6 attributes that make up a character in the game also. And these things determine what kinds of actions and things your character is good at and which ones they're bad at in the game. You have strength, constitution, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. So a really dexterous character is going to be good at dodging fireballs, and a really charismatic 1 is going to be really good at lying to people, and so on. Josh: or getting good deals on merchant trades. Alex: Yes. If you have a DM that will play that way. I should define DM. A DM is a Dungeon Master. There's 1 person that's in charge of the game that basically says what happens when everybody says, I want to do this. Then they roll some dice, or the character, the player rolls some dice and the numbers, I'm not doing a good job explaining this. But there's lots of rules with lots of numbers involved to keep things a little more lively so that it's not just constantly success, success, success. Oh, you want to do that? Cool, you did it. Awesome, you're cool! There's a little bit of randomness, a little bit of danger. Josh: So to recap, lots of dungeons, lots of dragons, race is bad, we talk about ancestry now, you can be charismatic, but if you're not, when you're playing the character, it's probably not gonna come off that way, and the DM is gonna say no. Jacob: And most importantly, elves can now be dumb. Alex: The DM will not say no. They'll say, you failed. Because you can try anything in D&D. The DM that I've played with the most, that was his favorite thing to say. When someone says, can I do this? He will say, you can attempt anything in D&D. And then he tells you what you need to roll for. Like what skill you need to roll for. And you roll the die and add everything up. And he tells you whether you failed or succeeded. Lizzie: And then there's Jared's sister who will smuggly say, you can try! Alex: Wow. Jacob: Rude. There's also, obviously, you'll encounter bad guys and have to fight them. That's another thing that the Dungeon Master does. He controls the movement, decisions, fighting, all the things that the bad guys do. Brothers, if you haven't watched the TV show Community, they've got some killer D&D episode. Alex: They only have 1 killer D&D episode. Josh: There's only one left. Jacob: You don't like the other 1? Alex: They got rid of it. Josh: It's not around. Jacob: Oh, that 1. Alex: Because Chang did black face. Lizzie: I thought you were only talking about that 1. Josh: It's not streaming. I think you can still own it. Yeah, Chang took that ancestry issue a little too far. Alex: Yeah. So, that brings up a good point. There are some people that want to dress up as their character when they play. Most people do not. There's no dressing up required to play Dungeons & Dragons. It's just people sitting around a table, sharing snacks, making a weird interactive story together. Most of the time, it's really silly. Some, most people, I think, play really silly. But it doesn't have to be. It can be anything you want, that's the cool part. It's like video games but way more free. Jacob: Yes, so like when Heather and I first I think started dating she asked me like what was the appeal of video games like why do you care to play it's like I said like well think of it as like a movie as you love movies everyone loves movies you just sit down and you watch this movie it's a great escape, a tool of escapism and you see these amazing things that you've never seen otherwise in video games I get to be the hero I get to be the lead character and choose what paths and things I do in that movie that's that's D&D basically you're choosing literally everything in this adventure that you're unfolding. Josh: My escape is I'm usually always the hero, so then when I play video games I'm the villain! Don't look at me wrong! Are you talking to me?! Alex: You can play D&D that way too. Jacob: But I don't want to be on a Jerk's team. Josh: No, no, no, it's the character who's the jerk. Lizzie: Yeah, his character doesn't want to be on your character's team! Josh: How do you know? You don't, you haven't met your character yet! Alex: You guys are opening up a new bag of topics that tabletop RPG players are always talking about, but we can talk about that another time. Josh: Psh. Naturals. [00:25:35] Stewnerds! [00:25:43] Storytime Segment Josh: Today's storytime, I want to do something slightly different. It's not one of my stories, but it's a pretty dang cool story that I heard recently, and I think it's a cool story for a lot of people to hear. But if you'll bear with me, I'm gonna attempt to tell this story in reverse. So prepare yourselves. Alex: Why...? Josh: This could be a train wreck! Lizzie: What? Alex: Alright. Josh: Speaking of train wrecks... Jacob: With that preface. Is it a literal train wreck? Josh: No, that'd be awesome though. It's a train wreck of sorts. So, the year is 1781. The date is 19 October. Revolutionary War, American forces have finally defeated the British once and for all. On this day, the British surrender to American forces. And that surrender ceremony is a legend, but you might not know it. General Cornwallis, the British, the general of British forces, wasn't present for the surrender. He was supposedly ill. So, his second-in-command, Brigadier General Charles O'Hara, was gonna be the British representative to surrender to US Forces. The Brits still really did not like Americans. They thought they were inferior in every way. Jacob: Sure enough. The war just ended. Alex: Well, yeah, yeah. Josh: So even though they were defeated, Brigadier General O'Hara attempted to surrender to the French general on the battlefield, Comte de Rochambeau. Jacob: Ro-cham-beau! Josh: Rochambeau, rather than taking the surrender, pointed to George Washington and said, you surrender to the Americans. So the French really just digging it to the British. George Washington's response was to point to his second in command and say, you can surrender to him. To say, hey bud, we're not on the same level. Jacob: Yeah. Alex: Ohhh. Josh: So that's where we get doing a Rochambeau or pulling a Rochambeau when you like jockey or someone's trying to get something out of you and you just kind of spin them around. And point them somewhere else. Alex: I only know Rochambeau as another name for rock, paper, scissors. Josh: Think about it. Alex: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, no, I found that, yeah. Josh: Yeah, so that's, that's, yeah, prior to that It's doing a Rochambeau. Lizzie: I've never heard this before. Jacob: Shanghai Noon. Josh: Oh Yeah, okay. So that's where it comes from now. That's the setting 4 years earlier January 3rd 1777 American forces are battling the British during the Battle of Princeton. US forces are battling General Charles Cornwallis' forces, and although the American forces win once Washington brings his reserves into the battle, laying dead on the battlefield is a US general named Hugh Mercer. Hugh Mercer, by many accounts, was actually George Washington's secondhand man. He was a very close friend of George Washington, and he was by trade an apothecaryist and a trained surgeon. And unfortunately, while leading his troops in the Battle of Princeton against General Cornwallis, he succumbed to wounds and died. So that was January 3rd, 1777. Just 8 days prior to that, on Christmas morning, do you know what happens Christmas Day of 1776? Jacob: No. Alex: Christmas. Oh.... right... Josh: You know that, George Washington crossing the Delaware under the guise of night on Christmas day... Alex: Oh, I feel dumb now. shoulda known that. Josh: To gain an advantage on the British. So, there's... I've only heard it in spoken folklore, but the idea to launch that raid in the middle of the night was Hugh Mercer's idea. And surprisingly to him, George accepted the plan and said, yeah, that's a great idea. Let's figure out how to make it work. And they did. And because of that, and because of that victory 8 days later, despite Hugh's own demise, that was enough to convince a lot of American colonists that Washington was a good general and they could ultimately defeat the British. And so that was a drive towards enlistment and support. Jacob: And ultimate victory came 4 years after that. Josh: And then ultimate victory was 4 years later. Rewind a little bit more. Before the start of the American Revolutionary War, Hugh Mercer is living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is the hometown of George Washington. And in Fredericksburg, Hugh Mercer sets up an apothecary and starts dealing medicine to American colonists. This is pre-revolutionary war. One of Hugh's patients is George Washington's mother. And in fact, Hugh even purchases George Washington's old family home. And it's a huge estate. He has plans to settle down with his apothecary as his business and to establish a large immigrant community on this plot of land. Unfortunately, we know he doesn't get to because he gets pulled into the war as a Captain and then later on gets promoted up the way to General as he's leading these troops and ultimately dies. Prior to settling in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Hugh Mercer is a member of the British Army and fights in the French and Indian Wars. Jacob: Oh, so he has actual combat experience. Josh: He – Alex: British tactical experience. Josh: One of the battles that he's known for is during the French and Indian War is the battle for Fort Duchesne, which Fort Duchesne was an actual pivotal battle at the time and it held a very strategic location for the French and the British. Based on- Fort Deschaine was this outcropping of land right in the middle of 3 rivers that connected. And so, if you control this one point, you can control all movement up and down these rivers. So, now we're back into 1750. So, in early 1750, French troops arrived in the Ohio Valley to build a series of forts, including Fort Duchesne. At the time, a young Virginian officer, George Washington, was sent to deliver a letter to the French, demanding that the French leave that region altogether. The mission was ultimately a failure, but when passing through the region, Washington noted that the point of this land at the junction of the rivers was an excellent location for a fort. So it was actually George Washington prior to the Revolutionary War, prior to the French and Indian War, was a land prospector. So his history was he actually rode with British surveyors and he'd go out and he'd survey land in that entire like wild, their wild Western Front. And so he got to know the land very well. He got to, you know, great leadership skills, survival skills, all these things. And so he had a great eye for terrain and value of land and property. So in early 1754, in response to Washington's suggestion to build a fort there, the British did build a fort there, called it Fort Prince George, but the French troops arrived because they saw its strategic placement, overran it, and then renamed it to Fort Duchesne. So, having doubled back, now the British realize just how great of a location Fort Duchesne is, and under, I think, 2 battles, they fought to regain control of Fort Duchesne, and who was part of those battles but our friend Hugh Mercer. And that is where... That is one of the first battles of the French Indian War that we know Hugh Mercer was a part of. Now, go backwards in time a little bit more. This is so cool. I'm just blown away by this guy. In the fall of 1746, Hugh Mercer comes to America on a ship that departed from Leith. Alex: Sorry, sorry, sorry. What year? Josh: 1746. Jacob: I just want to know how old he was. Josh: So he died at age 50. Jacob: Oh okay. Lizzie: In 1776? Jacob: So this was about 30 years before his death. Josh: Yeah, so he's like 20. Yeah, he's a young kid. He's a young kid. So he immigrated to the U.S. Through Philadelphia in 1746. And he immigrated while hiding and running for his life. Because prior to this, he was a member of the Jacobite rebellion against the British and fought at the Battle of Culloden, which was the final battle- Lizzie: No way Josh: -that sealed the fate of the Jacobite Revolution against the British in Scotland. And in the Battle of Culloden, he fought and acted as a surgeon for the Scottish troops that were fighting. Alex: I think it's Culloden. Josh: Culloden. Culloden. And so 4 years prior to that, he studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen, starting at the age of 15. Jacob: Wow. Yeah. Young. Josh: He sudied medicine. Yeah. And then he immediately joined the cause of the Jacobites, fought against the British. They lost. The British were looking for him. He got on a boat, immigrated to Pennsylvania, tried to set down roots as an apothecary at that time as well. He got roped up into the French and Indian War working for the British this time because he's a medicine man so he wants to help heal people. Ultimately after the French and Indian War settles down, he makes friends with George Washington in the French and Indian War, then he settles down next to George Washington's hometown, gets to know his mom, sets up an apothecary, starts being really good friends with George Washington, launches into the Revolutionary War alongside his friend George, starts getting promoted from captain up to Brigadier General. Ultimately, he has the brainchild that launched the US war into its victorious end state and dies just in a field suffering musket wounds to the forces of the British general that we ultimately defeat and kick off our continent. So, anyway, I heard about this guy and I'm like, I've never heard of this man before. But he was so pivotal in so many events in our history. And when you look at Scotland, you think of like the Scottish Enlightenment is probably one of the main movements that even resulted in our American concepts of freedom and liberty. Religious liberties, like all these liberties that we hold dear now. And then- And he's a product of that. He's a product of wanting to do good, to help people, to have freedoms of his own. Lizzie: Take down the British. Josh: Take it to the British. And he spent almost, you know, probably 35 years of his life just fighting- Jacob: for freedoms. Josh: -for freedom. And just a really, really cool figure. So I wanted to, when I heard his story, I was like, man, this, more People need to know about this. It's pretty good. I'd love for my kids to hear about him, learn about him, his entire span of life, what he chose to spend his time doing. Why am I getting emotional? Lizzie: Cuz Scotland. Alex: I'm not totally sure, but that's cool. Jacob: And freedom. Lizzie: And freedom. Jacob: Yeah, but it's inspiring. Lizzie: Well, and you chose to... Jacob: Do the same. Lizzie: Not really. I love Brits. So, anyway, cool guy, Hugh Mercer. On the East Coast, there are a number of monuments and towns and counties named after him, so he's not totally forgotten. Lizzie: No, I knew about him. I didn't know he was Scottish. Josh: Yep. And one of the coolest things about him that I haven't mentioned yet, He's one of the ancestors of General Patton. Alex: Oh. Jacob: Huh. Josh: Who's, like, just a crazy guy. Alex: Just a crazy guy. I wonder if he's related to Matt Mercer, who is tying it back into Dungeons & Dragons from earlier, one of the greatest Dungeon Masters on the internet. Josh: He's the best around! Alex: But also an incredible voice actor. The first person to ever voice Ganondorf in a video game. Jacob: That's why the name's familiar. You've brought him up on the podcast before. Alex: Yeah. He's amazing. Lizzie: That's crazy. Well, so many people died at the Battle of... Culloden? Alex: Culloden. I believe it's Culloden. Yeah. Like, that's... Yeah, it's crazy. Josh: Yeah. Yeah, so he was, I mean, he, from all accounts, he was... He worked up until the very last second. And, like, until it was a done for thing, the British were rounding up anybody who had anything to do with supporting the Jacobites. And he couldn't hide with his parents. His dad was a preacher at the Scottish church? I can't remember. Episcopalean? Was that around? Lizzie: Presbyterian? Alex: I was thinking it was Protestant. Jacob: It might be Presbyterian. One of those is literally the Church of Scotland basically. Josh: Oh, Church of Scotland, yeah. So he was Reverend William Mercer, minister of the Church of Scotland. Yeah, so he couldn't stick around. So he just jumped on a boat to Philadelphia. Jacob: And if he hadn't, right, that's the big question. If he hadn't gotten himself in trouble, identifying as part of the Jacobite rebellion, if he hadn't jumped on that ship, if he hadn't met George Washington... Alex: That is- I mean- That is just a crazy ride. That's a crazy ride. Fight against the British... Lizzie: Run away. Alex: Then run from them. Fight for the British... Then fight against the British again. Josh: Yeah. Your entire life, And you're tied up with these amazing historical figures the whole time. Like, you have... You're fighting against kings and princes on the battlefield in Scotland. Alex: Clearly, he had some complex feelings about the Hippocratic Oath. Josh: There's a, if I have, if, when I have more time, there's a ton of letters between him and George Washington, just spanning like that entire time period, like 20 plus years, like "letter from Hugh Mercer to George Washington", "letter from George Washington to Hugh Mercer". And they talk about logistics and supply and also how his, how George's mom's doing. Cause he took care of her. He, you know, he, while, while George moved up to, I don't know, do Continental Congress stuff maybe. Hugh's back there taking care of his mom. Pretty cool. Jacob: It feels like people were built different back then. I mean, 20 year old deciding, I mean, not saying we don't have people like this in current history, but as a 20 year old to try to take that on, literally jump ship, Not jump on a ship, get out of there. But then to just continually be at the forefront of trying... And it's not just him, there was so many of those men who were in that same position as him, who were responsible eventually for the Brits even needing to try to fight back the American... for the revolt even happening, there's hundreds, thousands of people who made that a necessity for the British. That sounds like a weird way to put it, but... Josh: Yeah, to be so principaled. Either to be so principaled or so unhinged. Who knows what the actual mental state of this guy was. But just seeking, he obviously has a penchant for seeking excitement. Because I think being a battlefield surgeon, especially at the time, like how much medicine do you actually know? How many procedures do you have to like stop arterial bleeding? Alex: Oh, better stick a leech on that! Josh: Yeah, so I mean He had to have had some level of crazy. Jacob: Yeah. Lizzie: I think most of the Jacobites did. Jack-O-Bites. Josh: Jack-O-Bites. Yeah. Yeah, they had the crazy people. Alex: I have a Jacobite shirt. It's not very comfy. I don't love wearing it. Josh: Too much chest hair? Jacob: Yes. Alex: No. Jacob: I like my chest been covered up. [00:43:39] Another Brother Outro

#016 The Irresistible Italian Indulgence

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #016, The Irresistible Italian Indulgence, the Brothers (and Sister) go way back in memory to identify the video games that had the most indelible impression on them. But first, a plan is afoot to make genetic copies of Stephen Christian in order to populate the future with never ending versions of Anberlin! You can thank the Brothers later, world. And finally, Alex introduces us to his beautiful mind, and his very cultured past-time delight. 
Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.
 
Transcript:
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:
[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother [00:00:46] Another Brother Theme Song [00:01:05] Stewnerds Segment Josh: Well, this is a first. We are fully graced with all students. Jacob: It's all 4 of us. Josh: We haven't had all 4 on a segment before. Jacob: Congratulations. Alex: Yeah. Aside from that unpublished episode. Jacob: Not even once we like start monetizing and you pay for Patreon. Alex: Maybe if we get a million likes on this episode. Josh: Oh my gosh. Jacob: But with that, I'm dramatically going to interject. So just last night, Heather and I got back from San Diego. We went to a concert where Anberlin performed. And so I'm going to present before the brothers, the first Another Brother Relic. Josh: Oh, my gosh... That's fitting. Lizzie: Is that his? Jacob: Stephen Christian threw this bottle into the crowd. Josh: And hit you in the face? Jacob: and I got it. Lizzie: What? How? Why? Alex: we have his DNA! Lizzie: We can make another one! Josh: We can make more! Jacob: To be honest, I didn't see if he actually drank from it or not. It was 1 of those things he flung the water on the crowd. Alex: Oh darn it. Jacob: And then he ended up chucking the bottle too. Lizzie: Well his fingerprints? Jacob: Yeah, yeah, for sure. His fingerprints would definitely be on this. Alex: I don't think there's any DNA in a fingerprint. Josh: There's gotta be saliva in that bad boy. Jacob: So we were like maybe 30 feet from the stage. I made Heather get up there pretty close with me. Alex: Were you not in the middle of the mosh? Jacob: No 1 was moshing. No 1 knew Anberlin. Josh: Who was at this thing? Alex: Sad. Jacob: They were there for Yellow Card. It was Yellow Card's tour. Josh: Yellow Card is so overplayed. Jacob: So I was like, Alex: wait, wait, wait, Yellow Card was the headliner? Jacob: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Alex: I've never... I don't know Yellow Card. Jacob: They're big though. Alex: I know they are, but. Josh: Ocean Avenue. Lizzie: Yeah. Jacob: It was their 20th year anniversary of Ocean Avenue, which was a huge album. Josh: That's sad. I imagine Anberlin just didn't want to do a full, full on tour. They didn't really want to get back together. They just wanted to play for a little bit. Jacob: No, they're, come on, they just released that whole EP. Anyway, Alex: maybe, maybe, maybe. Jacob: I think they're getting back at it. Lizzie: But you're the only 1 cheering. Jacob: I was pretty much, no, no, everyone was, was getting into it-ish, but I was like, 1 of the only people around singing. So, but I made her get up close, of course. On the last song, Feel Good Drag, of course. Josh: Classic. Jacob: At the end, you see him drawing the crowd in, collecting them right in front of him. And like, I knew, like I had to make a move. So I hit it! I got right up there with everyone and he jumps into the crowd. Alex: Know way, He did? Jacob: He did. Alex: I've never seen him do that. Jacob: And I had to stop myself before I like full on fanboyed and pushed my way all the way in to touch him. Like, I was so close. Lizzie: Hold on, you should have... I would have. Jacob: This is a picture. Alex: And then taken something out of his pockets. Josh: Some more DNA! Jacob: Anyway, this was the real... This water bottle. That was the real- Josh: Gong Xi Fa Cai Jacob: Yep. Gong Xi Fa Cai. Alex: That's how you say cool in Chinese? Josh: Yeah. Alex: Oh my gosh. Lizzie: It just really rolls off the tongue. Josh: Everything does in that language. Jelly. Never been to an Anberlin concert. Definitely never went out of state to see them. Alex: Thrice. Josh: What? Jacob: I thought it was only twice. Alex: Thrice, I've been to an Anberlin- Josh: All in Salt Lake? Alex: Yes, always been Salt Lake. Josh: Dang. Jacob: Okay, the outdoor venue was awesome. Alex: The free concert was pretty sweet, yeah. Jacob: Oh. You went to a... Oh. Alex: Oh What? Jacob: I meant San Diego. Alex: Oh sorry Jacob: San Diego's was an outdoor venue. Alex: Yeah, right. Yeah, it was. Jacob: Did they play downtown Salt Lake? Alex: Gallivan Plaza in downtown Salt Lake for free. Jacob: Was it the Twilight series? Alex: On Facebook, the day of- No. No, because Twilight series happens in the park. Jacob: Right, that's why it's, okay. Alex: It was in the winter, which kind of sucked. But on Facebook, they were just like, Salt Lake! we're coming to Salt Lake City today! be there at Gallavan Plaza by 6! or something like that. It was again hosted by X96, which sucks. Anberlin, if somehow you guys are listening to this- Josh: They're not..... Alex: ditch those losers. Their mixers are terrible. Their audio guys are crap. I could mix it better than that. Well, that was a gauntlet. Oops! Jacob: Shots fired Josh: If we get a million likes, we might email them that. Alex: I actually don't know that I could. I don't think I could mix it that well. I've never done anything that loud. Josh: Have you ever mixed in the open? Alex: I've mixed plenty of live music, but nothing rock, nothing anywhere near that loud. Jacob: Yeah. Alex: And I'm sure the volume has some unique challenges that come with it. Josh: Nah, those guys just suck. Alex: Nevertheless, it's just not good mixing. I've got a friend, Mark. Mark could mix it way better. And now for something completely different. Well, I'm not sure we were completely on the same page about what we were talking about tonight. I hope so. Jacob: I think so. Josh: Yeah. Alex: Okay. My thought was, like, super early video game memories that were like ones that cemented us as gamers. Josh: Yeah. Alex: Yeah, those early memories that are like, oh, this game is amazing. I need to be a gamer forever Josh: yeah I have two. Alex: Oh. Jacob: Wow. Josh: so I guess I'll start Jacob: yeah do it. Josh: it's kind of a big amalgamation but I'll say 1 Jacob was there for sure so he'll know. okay so Xbox Halo LAN parties Alex: of course of course of course Josh: But specifically, together against Jacob's friends. And 1 of Jacob's friends in particular, Jason, who we've talked about, his character's name was Mr. Parshal. Our high school principal. Alex: Oh. Jacob: Oh that's right. So, every year that I went to McNary, I had a new principal each single year. Lizzie: McNary's awful. Jacob: Not anymore Josh: So, Mr. Parshal was the, well, he must have been the third principal. He sucked. Oh, no, the name was Mr. Parshal Sucks, I think. But anyway... So whenever you killed Mr. Parshal you were like, yeah! But Every time, and Jason was a good sniper. He was really good at that game. Every time he killed you, you got so angry. And it's just because of that name, really. Just, and... Alex: You think you got angry? How much older was I than him I got so mad! because I remember LAN parties where he was playing too. Josh: yeah yeah he was good Alex: at the church 4 TVs 4 different rooms extra long cables. Everyone had their own room, but you could still hear down the hall when, "No! We lost!" Josh: "Mr. Parshal!" I loved it. That... So good. Yeah. Something about... Anyway, that was it. I was like, if this is video games, then this is life. And that turned out not to be true. That's like my number 1, I think. LAN parties. Alex: Okay, if we've got time for number twos, ew, we'll go back around, but someone else. Me? Okay. My mine is way earlier than that. When I broke my leg, 8 years old. I woke up in the hospital on Christmas morning, because I broke my leg on Christmas Eve. And it was weird. I was disoriented. But you know, there were presents I unwrapped, I think I remember unwrapping a model of a submarine, like a plastic 150 piece model or something like that, that I assume I put together later. I don't remember because I guess video games was what I was all about after this. But I also remember this tiny little Radio Shack Christmas tree that was a PCB. Josh: Yeah, that sounds really familiar. Alex: PCB is like a computer board. Josh: Yeah, printed circuit board. Alex: Motherboard, circuit board, whatever. And it had giant fatty red LEDs all over it. And a switch. So like a lot of PCBs are green. So the tree was green because it was just a bare PCB with these lights all over it. It had a switch. You just turn it on. I don't know where it came from. Josh: I totally remember that though. Jacob: I have no clue. Lizzie: I wasn't alive. Jacob: Right. Naturally. Alex: But eventually, they wheeled in a Toys R Us cart that had a CRT on it and a Super Nintendo. And they kind of had paneling all over it so that it kind of sort of looked like an arcade machine. And it was clear that this was from Toys R Us, so that you wanted to go to Toys R Us later, I guess. But it had Star Fox in it. And I just laid in bed with an IV in my wrist because they couldn't get me anywhere else for some reason. I had bad veins apparently, but I didn't care. I didn't care how much it burned with that IV in my wrist. I played that Super Nintendo game. I don't know how long. Memories are not great from that period of time, but I think that might have been where I learned to like deal with trauma. Lizzie: Yay!! Alex: Like, forget what's happening around you and just play this game for a little while. Lizzie: Well, there is a study that says if you experience a traumatic event, go play Tetris. And that helps you process through it. Josh: organize it? Jacob: Yeah, the Soviets would love that. Alex: They created it. Lizzie: Oh really? Alex: Yeah, someone in Russia made it Lizzie: yeah. Okay. Alex: Yeah, that was it for me. That game, I was like, oh my gosh, these animals can fly spacecraft and they have personalities. Josh: That makes so much more sense. Alex: And there's a story! Jacob: In case this hasn't been said, we're talking about a Super Nintendo. So like, they were animals, but nothing looked that great, cause it's pretty early gen still... Alex: Yeah, they looked like really low quality Muppets. Josh: It had a pixelated frog, right? If the game didn't tell you it was a frog, you wouldn't have known? Alex: No, I knew. I mean, I could tell that it was a frog. Well, also, there was that iconic cover art for the game where they made these stuffed Animals of all the characters that were like really lifelike Josh: It makes a lot more sense because I've never really liked the game But you love it. Alex: Yeah I do Josh: And when the Nintendo like this was it the switch remake? Alex: No, Wii U Josh: Wii U remake came out I knew you were like all over it. I was like, yeah, I'm trying to be excited about it Jacob: What about Star Fox 64? Alex: yeah, you didn't like Star Fox 64? Josh: not really I mean I enjoyed it but it wasn't my favorit Alex: man I've got a lot of memories of multi-playering that 1 in their little battle arena Josh: with us? Alex: well I'm not sure actually I remember playing at the Nelsons. I remember playing at the Nelsons. Jacob: I do remember playing like in the arena. Alex: Yeah, well you know, sounds right. Jacob: Well, I didn't think about mine until just now. Josh: You mean you didn't come up with it? Surely you didn't come to this recording unprepared. Jacob: Yeah, absolutely I did. I didn't expect Josh to pick 1 so late in life. So I was trying to think of one of these experiences even earlier, thinking about Duck Hunt at grandma's house. Super Scope at home after we got our first Super Nintendo. Alex: Which we didn't get until after I broke my leg. Jacob: Yep, and dad would actually play on the super scope with us. Alex: That was pretty cool to see Josh: but the 1 I thought of Smash Bros at Whiteaker middle school. Alex: Oh At the game club? During lunch time? Jacob: During lunch hour. Lunch time, there was game club out in the portable. Alex: Oh, you had to go out and no portable for it? Bummer. Jacob: No, it was great. Lizzie: Yeah, I'd rather go with portable than the freaking cafeteria. Jacob: Because there was nothing in there. Like, it wasn't a classroom. I don't remember it being a classroom. I just remember the TV set up and a couple N64s and some other things. Josh: I forgot about that. Jacob: Yeah so lunch you just go out to this portable play Smash Bros on the N64 And I guess similar thing to like the LAN parties where it's playing against your peers, they're right there reacting in real time, you know, it gets heated, people get angry and there's lots of screaming, like, excited screaming, not anger. Alex: Dang, that would have been fun. Jacob: Yeah. It was amazing. Alex: There were no such thing as 4 player games when I was doing that in middle school. Josh: I mean, I remember it vaguely. I never really partook. Alex: I don't. There was no 64 when I was in middle school. Josh: Oh, dang. Alex: We played NES games like the original Nintendo and a little bit of Super Nintendo and some Apple II. Apple II games on floppy disk. Josh: In middle school? Alex: Yeah. That's what we had in our game lab anyway. Jacob: I'm glad they got a budget increase before I came along. Alex: Yeah, I'm surprised they did that at all, you know? Why would they have? Jacob: It's true. Lizzie: Yeah, I think that was cut I cuz I don't recall anybody ever talking about clubs at all Jacob: It was during lunchtime so it wasn't after school It really is pretty crazy that they had it at all. Like esports wasn't even a thought. I mean esports were around but nowhere near any kind of mainstream popularity. Josh: I feel like that was kind of a word-of-mouth thing Because I don't think I learned about it until I knew you were doing it. And then I would go and I would watch during lunches. I'd be like, yeah, it looks pretty fun. Lizzie: Wait you guys were in Middle School together. Josh: Yeah? Lizzie: No. Josh: No? Alex: You're 3 years apart so that would have been... Josh: oh, well, I don't know who it was then. Jacob: I was just going to let it slide Alex: Me? Josh: You should have Alex: Probably me. I mean, we would have been in middle school together for a year. Josh: No, no, no, but I was like in eighth grade and I was aware of younger grades that were doing it. So if it wasn't Jacob's grade, I don't know who it would have been. Alex: I don't know I don't remember seeing any girls there so it might have been sexism that kept you from Lizzie: yeah I don't think this is a thing Alex: well I guess that's true That's 12 years after I did it. Jacob: And 7 years after me, Alex: By that time people might've been a lot more anti-video game. Jacob: Yeah. Thanks, Obama. Lizzie: He was inaugurated when I was in sixth grade. Jacob: See? Alex: Dang it. Obama! Jacob: Michelle's all like, let's make kids healthy again. Alex: Oh yeah, the we. Stupid open window picture. Are you sure you don't want to take a break outside? Oh, I'm in the middle of Zelda here! Lizzie: My turn. Okay, Well, Jacob took what I was going to say, basically. Josh: Wait, Really? Lizzie: I was going to say melee. But it was mostly watching you guys because I didn't get to play. But I was excited to get older so I could play. Josh: Lizzie is just like, oh man, I can't wait! I can't wait to be able to play this game! Lizzie: Yeah, honestly though, I thought all the characters were cool. Alex: You got to play other games... Lizzie: Well, and it led into, so I mean, you guys didn't want to play with your weird little sister And so I would play single-player games by myself Jacob: So weird and so little Lizzie: So I started playing Ocarina and Alex had helped me Alex: Yeah I was expecting you to talk about this 1, Lizzie: but I wouldn't have cared if I didn't think Smash Bros was so cool because Link was in Smash Bros and I wanted to know all the characters that was cool but then yeah Ocarina I guess was like the first video game that consumed my life. Alex: Well, you didn't have much of a life to consume, so it wasn't very hard Josh: at that age yeah. Alex: Because you were like what, 6? Jacob: Wait a minute. Alex: Probably like first, yeah. Lizzie: You said that I beat it on your mission. Is that right? Alex: I don't remember Lizzie: I guess I was pretty little Josh: it's a worthy game Jacob: not to bring timelines into question again Lizzie: Well I don't Alex: Well we're talking about Zelda so timelines Josh: are off limits! Jacob: was it Smash Bros N64 or Melee? Lizzie: Melee. Jacob: Because we wouldn't have had the N64 in Ocarina. We had it on the GameCube. Josh: Ocarina? Alex: Yeah. The Master Quest disc. Lizzie: I had that thing up until like 10 years ago. Alex: Which had the original and then the 1 where they reverse and remix all the maps Jacob: dispute accepted Alex: Or I guess they mirrored and remixed them. Jacob: What about Animal Crossing? Josh: barf Lizzie: Well, but I was gonna ask Because I was so young. I don't remember what games came out at what point, what I might have played first, but I do remember mom and Jacob, I guess, also teaching me how to play Animal Crossing. Jacob: Heck yes. Lizzie: And I know mom was OK with it because she knew that I would be playing new games because you guys did. And so she'd rather her little girl be into something that wasn't violent or anything. So she's like, yeah, Alex: sexism.... Lizzie: Liz can play Animal Crossing. And that's a problem because I've spent too many hours on that franchise Alex: Not All of our games that we play were violent just the best ones Jacob: NoPretty much all of them. except for mario kart Alex: I mean you've got to worry you're in will crossing didn't Mario Kart Not start belly I mean, you've got Animal Crossing, Mario Kart. I didn't play it. Not Star Trek Valley. The Farm of Harvest Moon. Harvest Moon. That too, I got. Yeah. Wario's Woods. No. And that was on Super Nintendo. Yeah. No 1 played that, but mom. I did. I liked it. But mom did consume that, rabidly. So can I ask if your choice in games or whatever? No, that's a weird way to ask this. Never mind. Okay. What is your favorite family of systems, Jacob? Well, are you talking about brand? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you're talking like Sony versus Microsoft versus Nintendo. PlayStation, yeah. Sony, right. Oh. Other than the Xbox, all I've ever had is Nintendo consoles. So it has to be Nintendo by default. Alex, Nintendo, yeah, sure. And I'm Xbox. And all the memories we chose are also in a line with those. I mean, I was gonna say, I loved watching you guys play Halo. And then when you guys got Fable, I'm not sure if you let me play it. I'm pretty sure I remember sneaking your room often. And playing games. But there's no way you didn't know. I didn't know. I played Fable as a kid. What? In a pro pro. And Grand Theft Auto. Oh, I forgot that we didn't have that. I didn't like it. I didn't play it. That was too far for me. I love Grand Theft Auto. I like it now. I didn't play it as a kid. I like games like it, but not it. And Morrowind? I like games like that. Morrowind? I hate it. That was my game. Coming back from my mission, I think you were like, you gotta get into this game. It was, it was the first like real open sandbox. Like running around. I loved it. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't, I don't even know if I could really read much. It's a pretty lame. Oh boy. You couldn't read for no matter about old school RPGs. So Alex, you said at my wedding, at our dinner, that you said that I beat Ocarina while you're on your mission and you were so proud. Well, I had a better memory at that point in time than I do now. So I was 8, but I remember playing Ocarina and Animal Crossing and I didn't I was I was a very slow reader like I I didn't read very well until I was like 10 or something. I, for a while in second grade, I thought maybe I was dyslexic or something. And so I was playing Ocarina. Could read like 3 words. I beat it somehow. So I was playing all that. And Animal Crossing, I could kind of read, kind of just figure out what to do. I definitely assumed you were able to read everything. A little, but yeah that's really impressive. Like Playing it again a few years later when I could read, maybe like when I was 12 or something specifically I was like, oh, I didn't know this was a thing. I just kind of was like, I want a horse. I'm gonna go where there's horses. I don't know. Ride it fast! It'd be a really great idea to just defeat this temple thing over here. Yeah. I know. I might just go do that. [00:22:55] Stewnerds! [00:23:04] Culinary Cornucopia Segment Alex: So this segment is going to perhaps be called something like culinary cornucopia, because I like food and I just want to talk about food in general. I'm not gonna try to do any like this is how you cook this on a podcast because that's stupid. You gotta you want to see how it's being cooked. You know, you don't want to listen to it. Josh: Really, I don't even want that I just want to eat it. Alex: But I still want to talk about food. So I've apparently always enjoyed food. I'm sure that's something I mean that's something mom liked to say a lot Josh: Yeah, can I share a memore real quick: Alex: Sure Josh: You're not gonna like this. Alex: oh good Josh: the black cherry Kool-Aid Alex: uh-huh Josh: dumping cinnamon into it. Alex: cinnamon. oh yeah. Josh: Dad got so mad. Alex just unloaded cinnamon into our massive black cherry Kool-Aid container. Alex: It just made sense to me that It would taste good. Josh: Stirred it up with the wooden spoon and it just sits on the top and it just all comes out in the first cup you know. Alex: That's the problem with it. Jacob: Wouldn't you cook- Alex: I still stand by that though. I think that should be good. I just don't know how to get the flavor in there good. Josh: Do you infuse the cinnamon? Alex: I mean, I guess I'd have to get a stick and like cook it in there- Jacob: boil it Alex: -in there for a little while. Jacob: Wouldn't you cook hamsteaks directly on the burners? Alex: Wouldn't you? Is that what you said? Jacob: Didn't you do that? Alex: Did I? Lizzie: Yeah. Alex: I don't remember doing that. Josh: I melted a lot of plastic. Lizzie: Yeah, and I thought the house was burning down and mom wasn't home and I was scared out of my mind. Josh: I was there! Lizzie: Yeah, you were the one who caused it! Alex: Yeah, the pyro who caused it! Josh: So, yeah. Well, now we know I'm not the foodie. And Alex was at a very, very young age. Alex: I tried to put my finger on why I've always enjoyed food and loved food. I haven't gotten there yet. So maybe in another segment, I'll finally get to say what my feelings are about why I like food so much. But when I was waiting to turn 19, before I could receive my call to serve a mission for our church, I was just inexplicably drawn to Food Network. And all of the Italian cooking shows that they had. Which at that point in time I think was really just Molto Mario. And it turns out that he's not a great person. But- Jacob: Emeril was definitely around by then, wasn't he? Alex: Yeah, but Emeril's... He didn't always do Italian food. He just did... He did his food. He did emerald got it But moto mario was always italian food Josh: Wait this sorry. This was before your mission call? Alex: Yeah Josh: Oh, so before you even knew you were going to Italy. Alex: Before I knew I was going to Italy. Josh: Huh, nice. Jacob: I see Alex: I just wanted to watch all of this stuff and then I finally got my call to Italy and food was not the same. Food is just a completely different thing outside of the United States, I think. I can't really speak for other countries other than like, perhaps Europe, Italy specifically. But in Italy, food was so affordable, it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. Josh: Define food. Like, no, no, I mean like- Jacob: groceries or prepared food. Alex: Everything that you need to cook your own food. Josh: Okay, so groceries. Alex: Yes, groceries. But not just groceries, because groceries were so affordable, so were restaurants. I would go to Italy and get a pizza that was about maybe 14 inches across, and that's supposed to be eaten by 1 person because it's really thin crust and the toppings are generally more sparse, the cheese is more sparse. It's just about really delicious high quality bread, some simple tomato sauce that's not seasoned with much more than just salt, Maybe a little bit of sugar, really good high quality mozzarella. And then a few other things maybe like my favorite pizza when I was there was called the Caprichosa, which was a sort of a variation on another pizza, which was called Cuatro Staggioni. Cuatro Staggioni was the 4 seasons and the pizza was broken up into quarters. 1 quarter of it had artichokes. Another 1 had Kalamata olives. Another had mushrooms and another had ham. Josh: Strange choice in seasons... Alex: I've never thought about why those are the 4 seasons. Josh: Like seasonings? Or like Alex: No, like time of year. The 4 seasons. Josh: I guess we can't refer to seasonings as seasons. They're just seasonings. Alex: Right. Josh: Language is hard. Alex: But the capricciosa just had all 4 of those ingredients, toppings all over the pizza mixed instead of broken into little. Jacob: Anchovies? Alex: No anchovies. Ham? I'm sorry, I said car-chof-y because I couldn't think of what the name was in English. It's artichokes. Jacob: You said artichokes? Alex: Artichokes not anchovies. Jacob: Oh, I take back my ew. Alex: Okay. Jacob: Okay. Let's go on. Lizzie: I still say ew. Alex: Ham, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and mushrooms. Delicious. But an 8 ounce ball of mozzarella, which is normally the quantity of mozzarella that you buy, even in America, an 8 ounce ball, 50 cents in Italy. You'd spend $3.50 to $5 depending on the grocery store here in America. Josh: At the time? Alex: Now, you would- Yeah. Right. So this is between 2004 and 2006. I don't know what a ball of Mozzarella costs now. And I don't know what it costed... costed? What it cost? There it is. I don't know what it cost in America at that point in time either because I wasn't doing any cooking then. Not really. I was putting cinnamon in Kool-Aid... The great thing about being a missionary in our church in Italy was that, A, you had a well-established support system because there's just always missionaries there. Year round we've got missionaries in Italy, so you go to Italy and you're just put into the constantly changing group, and then eventually you become part of that support system for someone else. So we've had missionaries in Italy for since the 60s, I believe. And you cannot be a missionary in Italy without learning how to cook, because you have to feed yourself a lot of the time. And there's nothing to cook in Italy other than Italian food. You can't go get Kraft macaroni and cheese. You can go get hot dogs, but you're probably not, well, back when I was there, again, everything that I say about Italy is about when I was there in 2004. I don't remember, I do, I do remember hot dog buns. So I guess you could subsist on hot dogs if you really wanted to, but we're encouraged to learn the culture and pretty much everyone was really interested in cooking. There were some missionaries that didn't have the aptitude or interest, and so they didn't really learn and hope they kind of hoped that they had a companion that would do it. They would do the dishes while the companion did the cooking. But yeah, so I basically learned to cook for 2 years in Italy on food that was much higher quality than what you can get in America even today. Probably far better quality than what you get in America today than compared to what you got in America in 2004 because I think our food quality is just continuing to go further and further downhill. I am not an expert on this subject. I remember a history teacher talking about farming subsidies having to do something with food quality degradation in America. Well for instance I did just read today that high fructose corn syrup is the sweetener of choice in America because the government decided to subsidize the farming of corn, which made corn and corn-based ingredients cheaper for people to acquire. And since it was so sweet, high fructose corn syrup once it was created, so sweet and so cheap, That's what we use. But new research, I guess this isn't new research, I think it's a new, what do you call that, in the review. A new review of all the research that's out there posits a new position on the exact biological pathway for why high fructose corn syrup causes obesity. But the connection between high fructose corn syrup and obesity is well documented and has been for a while. That's why it's talked about in Parks and Rec. Sweetums? Alex: Yeah, exactly. Lizzie: Yeah. Alex: But in Italy, they didn't they didn't do that. For 1 thing, corn isn't as nearly as abundant or as cheap, so they just use sugar. Things weren't super processed like here, like the pasta that you ate, even the dried pasta was like 2 or 3 ingredients, the flour and the water necessary to make it and then they dry it and that's it. Josh: How can that be tasty though? Alex: You salt the water and you put sauce on it. Josh: It sounds so bland, ya know? Alex: That's my favorite thing about like truly well I can't say truly good food but there's a lot of good food that's just so simple. Like the food that I want to bring up this week. I recently decided to try making some cultured butter from scratch. Jacob: Wow. Alex: Cultured butter is the butter that they eat in Europe. Josh: That goes to museums. Alex: They go to the opera, they like Mozart. No, we're talking about probiotics cultures, living organisms in your dairy. Yeah, in Europe they don't generally pasteurize their dairy. I'm not really sure why we do it here. I'm sure there was a historic reason for mass producing dairy and making it sure, really sure that it was going to be safe. Jacob: I watched a video about this and I forgot what the reason was Josh: It's probably distribution, storage, and shelf life, and just how gross we are. I mean eggs, you eat eggs at the grocery store and they're already 3 or 4 weeks old. And they're only good for another 2 weeks. Alex: Right. So. That's not the only difference between our dairy and Europe's dairy. The cows in Europe tend to get more beta carotene. And I think that has to do with being more grass fed than our cows. We've started, not started, it's been quite a while now, we feed them all kinds of stuff. Even if you go to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, which we're all huge fans of, you can see on the wall a display of a bunch of clear canisters attached to the wall. There's like 20 of them, all of these different components that go into the food that they feed the cows that get milked, that get then turned into the cheese. But, go ahead. Josh: Did you hear the story a number of years ago of the semi truck that like broke down and it's just a bunch of red Skittles fell off the back of the truck. And like the conspiracy was that these beef were being finished on red Skittles because it colorizes their meat. Alex: Gross. What was I saying? Oh yeah, the dairy. So the milk, because they're, I think more grass fed, they get more beta carotene, because apparently there's more beta carotene in grass, which I didn't know, the milk comes out more yellow than white. And so their butter is like really yellow, whereas most of the butter here in America is really white. So there's that difference. But then also they don't pasteurize the milk. So there's usually stuff in the milk still. Lizzie: What does that mean? Floaties? Alex: Cultures, probiotics, things that are gonna be good for your gut. And so when they make their butter, it has a flavor that's a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit more like yogurt or sour cream. It's cultured like yogurt or sour cream. So I tried to find some raw milk here, some raw cream. And there's a farm nearby, I think it's called Maddox Family Farms. Their website didn't show dairy products because I don't know how legal it is. Jacob: Contraband! That's what I thought. Alex: I don't know how legal it is. There are legal reasons why they probably can't put that up there You can't get it. I know you can yeah, but Larissa knows someone who gets their raw dairy so I'm trying to get that information and I will remake this but the way you do it if you can't get your hands on non-pasteurized cream is gonna freak out a lot of Americans it kind of freaks me out but I did it and it's fine Josh: you're only gonna freak out about 10 Americans actually Alex: So I took a full pint of heavy whipping cream and dumped it into the mixing bowl of my stand mixer and then I took I think it was a cup of cultured buttermilk, which I could get from WinCo just fine. I dumped that in too, covered it, stuck it in the corner of our kitchen for more than 36 hours at room temperature. And it started to get really thick on top. Like really really thick. Like it was turning into yogurt because it basically was turning into yogurt. What Josh? Josh: Oh, For the listeners who can't see me, I'm just very disturbed. Jacob: Josh is 1 in 10 Americans being freaked out. Josh: I'm lactose sensitive. So now I'm like lactose terrified. Lizzie: We leave butter out to eat and just put some on your toast. Alex: You shouldn't do that unless it's salted. Lizzie: It's always, well, mom bought salted. So yeah. No? Maybe? Alex: If it's the butter that's left out to be put on bread, it was probably salted. Generally, you use salted butter as a condiment and unsalted butter for cooking and baking. Josh: Because you add your salt. Alex: Because you want to control your sodium as precisely as possible when cooking and baking, especially when baking. Jacob: Don't worry about it Liz, you're still alive. Alex: Yeah, so once it was done doing that for like 36 hours, I stuck it in the fridge to get the bowl and the cream nice and cold. Oh, and the, the whisk attachment for my mixer. Put that in the fridge too, get that nice and cold. Once everything was as cold as it was going to get, take it out, put it on the mixer, set it to the lowest speed for a while because it's going to splash everywhere if I don't. And you just let it sit there and it starts to, it turns into whipped cream first. And then as you watch it, it starts to turn into what's called broken whipped cream. Like the, the like peaks that form start to get like weirdly broken and choppy. Jacob: Yeah, I've heard about that on Great British Bake Off. Alex: It just means you've over whipped it and you're starting to turn it into butter. You're starting to cause, Alton Brown would know the science, I don't know the science exactly, But you're doing something to the proteins that are causing them to glob together with the fat and The watery products are separating out. So you should start to see like the buttermilk is what it is. Buttermilk is the product of whipping dairy until it becomes butter And you get the solids and the liquids and the liquid is the buttermilk Josh: Is that like syrup the buttermilk syrup? What's butter milk, I mean I've heard of it, I just don't know, What do you do with it? Alex: Well, you can bake with it. I think the best recipes for red velvet cake use buttermilk and vinegar which sounds weird but the final product doesn't taste like vinegar it but it does interact with the for some reason buttermilk is acidic I'm not sure of all the reasons. Jacob: Yes. Alex: Probably lactic acid. From the lack of toast. I don't know. Josh: But So buttermilk pancakes, you're using buttermilk as just a core ingredient for baking. Alex: To help with the leavening. It helps with the leavening because it reacts with the baking soda or baking powder to just like you mean you make those Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in school. It does exactly that It creates those bubbles in the batter and then as you cook it everything around the bubble just kind of solidifies and it's nice and airy and light. Which is exactly what I did with the buttermilk that I made from making this butter. I used, I had some pancake mix, I could have made it from scratch, but I didn't. I just dumped it into some pancake mix and they're really good pancakes. I have them in the freezer still. But The butter that resulted from it was Extremely soft like crazy soft the hard part is you have to take the butter out of the buttermilk and have a couple bowls of ice water ready to go. And you squeeze the butter, dunking it into the ice water to keep it from melting onto your hands and it's becoming liquid that you can't work with. You squeeze more buttermilk out of it. I'm sure- I don't know how to do this well at home. I followed the instructions of a French chef that I found on YouTube, Chef Jean-Pierre. He's really cool. Very funny guy. Josh: He's a young guy. Alex: No, he's not. Josh: Oh, I saw a guy on YouTube who's French. Alex: Well, there's a lot of those, I'm sure. Jacob: The chocolatier. Josh: No, he's cool though. Alex: I'm sure professional butter makers have a better way of getting more water content out of the butter than just trying to squish it with your hands. But you're like going between you start in the 1 bowl of ice water and you're like squeezing and get out get out buttermilk squeeze squeeze squeeze. And then when that water is all white and no longer transparent, you go to the other 1 and you just keep doing that. And at that point, if you're serious about butter making, you have wooden paddles that shape the butter. I mean, there are a lot of people in the world that do this because it tastes so good, guys. Like, you don't even know. Josh: I'm just picturing someone who's like really serious about butter making. Alex: Like a professional? Lizzie: No, like a crazy person. Alex: There are French people that get very serious about butter making, like they get crazy about it. But you have these wooden paddles that allow you to manipulate the butter and shape it so you're not touching it with your hands and making it softer again. You shape it, roll it up in wax paper or whatever you're going to do, stick it in the fridge. If you want to salt it also, you know, salt it while you're right before you shape it, mix the salt in. That's what I did. So I'm not sure exactly how safe it is to leave cultured butter out when it's salted. But the best research I could find was that if it's salted, you're going to be okay. Just don't leave it too long. Eat it. So I do. It's amazing. On some really good bread with some honey. Lizzie: Homemade bread. Alex: I haven't gone that far yet. To wrap things up real quick on a completely different note, now that Liz brings up the bread. We don't buy sliced bread anymore. I buy loaves of French bread baked at the bakery of the grocery store every few days when we need bread. We use 1 of those plastic containers from the WinCo muffins. So after I've cut a chunk out of the middle of the bread, I put the 2 ends together and it will fit diagonally in the muffin container. And then I just keep slicing off slices from the center, continuing to push the 2 halves together to keep it from drying out in the middle. And the crust isn't crispy anymore. It does get soft, but when you toast it, it does get crispy. It's just way better. It's a way better bread experience than getting pretty sliced bread in America, because our bread is terrible. Our bread is cake. It's stupid. The end. Jacob: I think you need to make German pancakes with your homemade butter. Alex: Well, I oversalted this butter so. Jacob: Next time. Alex: Actually, that would actually be pretty good. I think, I generally think that a little extra salt would go well in the jam pancakes I've had. So I've got a lot of it. I should do that. Josh: I wonder if raw milk will work in my tummy. Alex: Yeah, I don't know. Jacob: With the probiotics? Josh: Yeah. Oh yeah, I've taken a lot of different pre-pro-post-biotics. Jacob: Postbiotics. What? Josh: ...making post-biotic techy noises... Jacob: What's the prebiotic? Josh: Oh, that's the amoeba. Alex: So 1 last thing. I'm going to start soon 1 more dairy adventure. I'm going to try making my own homemade mascarpone next, which is an Italian cream cheese. Jacob: Yeah, I've never actually had it. Alex: Very simple, very easy to make, but I'm not going to do it in the traditional way with an acid. Normally you heat up the milk, or sorry, cream, and you add an acid once it gets to 85 degrees, no warmer than 85. You dump in an acid, you take it off the heat, and the acid curdles the milk, turns it into solids. And you can separate that from the whey, which is different than buttermilk for some reason, science reason. And then you've got your creamy mascarpone. But what I read, okay, when I was in Italy, mascarpone was a yellow cream cheese, Not bright yellow, not a really concentrated yellow, but a yellow color, I guess. It looked like a custard, like a custard yellow. And I was reading about making mascarpone and I found 1 person who was using rennet to make their mascarpone, which is a traditional ingredient for making cheese. It's an enzyme that does the curdling instead of a reaction with the acid. The enzyme breaks up the sugars in the milk and turns it into lactic acid. And the lactic acid then does all of that same stuff. He says that Rennet mascarpone ends up with a mascarpone that's more like a dairy custard, which sounds a lot more like to me like the Mascarpone I had in Italy that I can't find here anywhere so I'm gonna try that next. To be continued. [00:47:39] Another Brother Outro