Another Brother

#006 The Utterly Unpleasant Urination

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #006, The Utterly Unpleasant Urination, the brothers introduce their first GHOST (that's Guest Host!), Jared! Josh isn't entirely certain if he watched the final trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (we know, we know, the game is out). Alex gives Nintendo a warning about PETA... they're not happy with Pokémon, but Alex is fine with that, he doesn't care for Pokémon either! Did Jacob, an Oregonian, really just defend California?! And find out whether or not Jared was able to hold it!
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And don't miss this episode's Alternate Reality...
 
Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
The final trailer of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, see for yourself if Ganondorf gives a "guttural scream" or a "jovial laugh".
How Pokémon was made! It's an interesting history!
Utah ski resort accumulates 900 inches of snow. That's 75 feet!
A brand new Utah neighborhood's road is washed out by flooding.
The very place where Jared found sweet, sweet relief.
 
Transcript:
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API: [00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother [00:00:32] Another Brother Theme Song [00:00:52] Stewnerds Segment Alex: I really wanna talk Tears Of The Kingdom, but I don't know if Josh has seen the trailer yet. Josh: I have. So, okay, to date this episode, the last official Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom trailer dropped today. Number 3. So, yes, I did see it. I did not understand any of what I saw. I'm not really tracking the storyline very well, and it was highly stylized. I thought. Alex: What was highly stylized exactly? Josh: Just, it was very japanese-y, I think. Jared: Yeah. That's fair. Josh: Just the music and the cut scenes and, like, it was very slow- slow moving, just very cinematic. Alex: You thought that was a slow moving trailer? Did you watch the same trailer I did? Josh: The 3 minute trailer? Jacob: Yeah. It was slow. Alex: I thought it was like a super fast cut. Like, in the beginning, it was pretty slow. Josh: Yeah. Jacob: It builds up. Alex: Up in the sky. Jacob: Yeah. Josh: But it it kinda keeps that tone for a while into it. Alex: I suppose. Josh: Because it's like showing off, like, the different areas. I don't know. I loved the first I loved Breath of the Wild, so I have full expectations that this game will be awesome. Just the trailer, I was like, merrr. Alex: What??! Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Oh, really? Alex: Oh, man. It blew my freaking mind. Jared: Starting with the hot takes. Alex: Yeah. No kidding. Jared: Do you like the Ganondorf design? Jacob: That long flowing hair. Alex: I think it's alright. I think I think it's fine. The voice acting, I was more on the- I was more on the fence with the voice acting when they first revealed it in the previous trailer. But I'm liking it a lot more now. Like, there's a point in the trailer where he just kinda gives a guttural scream. And it it sounds like Ganondorf in any Smash Bros. Jared: Yeah. Jacob: In this third trailer? Alex: This is the third trailer. Jacob: Yeah. In this 1, there was a- Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Yeah. Alright. Okay. Alright. I gotta watch it again. I watched it once. I remember him laughing. Josh: It was a very jovial laugh. Jacob: Oh, I don't remember. Josh: It wasn't very intimidating. Alex: I don't remember any laughing. Are we sure we're watching the same trailer?? Jacob: Yeah. Josh: I think so. So it dropped today. Right? Alex: Mhmm. Josh: Yeah. Jared: Did you see all the, like, there were a bunch of memes and social media stuff about a super hot rehydrated Ganondorf. We were like- Jacob: Ewwww. Jared: -everyone that was imagining that, like, the zombie corpse and then they, like, get him back up to snuff, and he's suddenly, like, super attractive. Josh: Nice. Jared: So I was, like, I think I'd subconsciously had, like, pretty Ganondorf in my mind. So during the trailer, I was like, oh. And I was like, wait. Was I expecting, like, male model, Ganondorf, like kinda glad they didn't go that route. Josh: Yeah. They they didn't go Derek Zoolander. Magnum. I was more I'll say, I was more excited about the game from Lizzie's description that I got a couple days ago than from that trailer. Alex: I mean, you can build a freaking tank. Josh: That's yeah. That's awesome. Alex: And I don't know if you guys noticed, but that arm had some kind of like a spear or blade at the tip of it. But it also had the dragon head flamethrower. That's what was really attached to the end and the blade was attached on top of that sticking out past it. Yeah. Josh: I although I saw I think Liz turned me onto it as well, that or maybe it was Alex. Maybe I'm sure it was in 1 of our group chats. That Zelda, like, these last 2 games are like really pulling from really popular Japanese anime. Alex: Mhmm. Yeah. Josh: So like that arm thing- Alex: Studio Ghibli specifically. Josh: Studio Ghibli, that's what it was. Yeah. Jacob: Okay, one of the most exciting things that I thought- fighting alongside all the other heroes. Alex: Oh, yeah. Jacob: That was dope. Alex: That was surprising. Jacob: That was so cool. Have you watched this, Josh?! Josh: I don't recall anything like that. Alex: You really didn't follow it at all. Did you? Josh: Okay. Well, so in this 1 that I saw, you've got, like, the- You got the horse drawn buggy thing that you make. Jacob: Yep. That was in there. Josh: You have, like, another, like, a tractor thing with the big tall block on it and then you're rolling towards these other platforms. Right? Jared: Yep. Alex: That sounds like the robot or tank thing. Jacob: There was a rocket even. He's just strapped- Holding on to rocket. Alex: That was on his shield. He had rocket shield. Jacob: Oh, cool. Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Oh, yeah. The combining of weapons to make new weapons, that's pretty crazy. Josh: Can you still make food? Jacob: probably? Alex: Yeah. I mean, I have to assume so since you can still- we know that he had raw meat in his inventory in the gameplay demonstration. He talked about putting that onto an arrow for, like, different hunting reasons. So, like, maybe, like, bait for hunting. So Jacob: Yeah. Alex: It'd be pretty weird of Nintendo to include the slaying of animals without you getting to cook and, eat that stuff, you know, just for the heck just for the fun of hunting. Nintendo already has enough trouble with PETA and Pokemon. So. Josh: Are you serious? Alex: Yeah. PETA- PETA hates Pokemon. Jacob: They hate everything. Josh: They're not even real! Alex: Well, they're also alien invaders, but they don't seem to mind or care about that either. Jacob: But and not just invaders, but apparently they wiped out all other living animals. Alex: Right. Yeah. Josh: The Pokemon did? Jacob: Well, you see no normal animals in Pokemon, they're all Pokemon. Alex: There's no cow. There's just whatever that cow like pokemon is. Jacob: No birds just Pidgey. Alex: So people do eat Pokemon. Jacob: And Pokemon eat Pokemon. Josh: That's pretty messed up because those are definitely, like, some intelligent creatures. Jacob: Super intelligent. Alex: I mean, I don't know that they eat psyduck, but- Josh: Beijing psy-鸭. Psyduck-鸭.(This is a play on Beijing Roast Duck, which is Beijing 烤鸭) Jacob: Sichuan Mister Mime. Alex: Oh, gosh. Josh: Sichuan Spicy Mime. Alex: Oh no! Jacob: Speaking of, I haven't played Pokemon Stadium yet on Switch. Jared: Oh, yeah. Josh: Isn't that the old school- wasn't there Pokemon Stadium on- Jacob: 64. Alex: Oh, yeah. So this is the Virtual Console. Jacob: It only came out yesterday, so I don't know why I'm acting like I'm behind. Alex: For gamer cred. That's why you're acting like that. Jared: That's probably the most- that's the game I've put the most time in Pokemon-wise because my family and I, we would just play the mini games, like over and over and over and over and over again. We wouldn't even like battle. We- it's like the the point of Pokemon is to battle Pokemon. We would just play those weird little Mario party mini games. Jacob: Yeah. I genuinely didn't even remember that you could battle. In in my mind, it is the the mini games. Jared: Yeah. Alex: The most time I've put into any Pokemon game was for Pokemon Snap. On the N64. I would take that over to Russell's house for sleepovers, and we would just stay up all night. Finding- Jacob: It's so good. Alex: All 4 of us. Jared: It's so hard. I tried to revisit it recently, and it was just kicking my butt. It's like, Stop the stupid cart while I throw an apple at this Psyduck! Josh: I have not played many Pokemon games, but- Alex: You know what? We haven't done yet. We haven't explained why there's a fourth voice on the podcast this week. We're joined- Jacob: Right-O! Alex: -by our brother-in-law. Jared Poff. All: Yay. Whoohoo! Josh: "Another Brother", you might say. Alex: Another brother. Josh: Another brother, Jared Poff. And we might redact last names. I don't know. Alex: Oh, yeah. Crap. So if you hear a- if you hear a beep- Jared: Your intonation will be weird. Jared-! Josh: Beep! Yay! Yeah, so what we wanted to do was to extend our- the brothers on the podcast to our Other Brothers, and they would be our guest hosts on certain podcast episodes, and they will be familiarly known as our Ghosts. So Jared, the inaugural and hopefully, multi-time, Another Brother podcast Ghost. Alex: So back to Pokemon. Nah. I I I don't even like Pokemon. Obviously, since Pokemon Snap is the game I put the most time into. Jacob: You had one on 3DS didn't you? Alex: I did and I hated it. Jacob: Oh, okay. Well there ya go. Alex: I I got Pokemon X. Jared: That's fair. Alex: I mean, I've tried Pokemon Red before on your guys' old-school Game Boys. I just Pokemon does not do it for me. Jacob: It's just magical though. That was my first owned game. I had my own Gameboy, Pokemon Blue. It was my 8th Christmas or something like that. Alex: Well, I'm sorry for insulting such a special game. Jacob: You should be. Jared: Did you know it's the highest grossing IP of all time. Jacob: Yes. Josh: Wow. Jared: Blows my mind. Alex: IP. We're not talking about video games. Jared: Yeah. IP. Josh: Really. Jared: Yeah. Josh: So we're talking about Microsoft Windows. Jacob: Beats out Marvel. Beats out Harry Potter. Jared: Media IP. Yeah. Sorry. Not- Jacob: Hello, Kitty's up there too, actually. It cracks, like, top 10 or something. Josh: That's insane. Who who makes Pokemon? Is it Bandai? Alex: No. It's Game Freak. Jacob: Which is still has always been and is still confusing to me. The Nintendo -- Game Freak relationship. Alex: Yeah I don't get it either. Jared: It's a weird- Alex: Because they're not first party. Nintendo does not own Game Freak. I guess you'd call them second party because they're not exactly third party. Jacob: Yeah. It's weird. Josh: Highest grossing party. Alex: Apparently. That's why they can sit on their laurels and make lazy games. Ohhhhh!! Josh: I don't get it. Alex: I'm sure all you Pokemon fans get it. Wait. No. You're gonna come after me. Pokemon fans are gonna come after me for that. Jacob: Yeah they are. Alex: Well, it's just No. No. I'm not gonna get into that. I don't need anybody to go after me. Jacob: My oldest son will stop listening to this podcast if you start ragging on Pokemon. He's obsessed. Josh: I've I've successfully converted my oldest. I think we discussed it last episode. Successfully convert my oldest from Pokemon to Magic The Gathering. I feel pretty good about that. Jacob: Oh, I don't think you mentioned that last time. Jared: Are the cards cheaper? Josh: I bet they are. Jared: Then it's a win-win. Alex: It depends on the card because there are some magic cards that are worth a lot of money. Josh: True. Well, he bought a Commander starter deck for 30 bucks. Just under 30 dollars. Jacob: Oh, man. You can't get a Pokemon deck for 15! Josh: But it included a booster pack, a mythic rare foiled card. And this card is, like, twice as thick as most magic cards. Alex: It's twice as thick?! Josh: It gives you- yeah. So it gives you, like, a collector's card. And then a copy of it. Alex: Oh. So you shouldn't play with it. No. I was gonna say, like, you can know where that is in your deck. That's not fair. Josh: Yeah. Alex: That can't be legal. Josh: You can kinda figure out where the foil ones are anyway because it kinda bends slightly differently, but I'm not hating on Pokemon either. I just prefer Magic, and so it feels like a victory to bring him over. Alex: I mean I think Magic: The Gathering is the original trading card game. I think. Josh: Pre-dating Pokemon? Alex: I think it pre-dates Pokemon. I don't know, though, because Nintendo was originally a playing card company. That was their thing until the 80's and they started with video games. Josh: Okay. So my so Okay. Back to Game Freak. They own the Pokemon IP. So they originated the trading card game. Do we know? Alex: No. That's probably where the tie with that company and Nintendo comes from. Mhmm. It's that Nintendo produced the trading cards. Jacob: I think the Game Boy game was the first that they came out with. And Pokemon is not their first video game. They had other games too. Alex: Oh, snap. No way. Jacob: Yeah. I watched a video about it 1 time, but I don't remember any pacifics (sic.). So. Josh: Speaking of "Pacifics"- Jacob: That was a very intentional segue. Jared: Smooth. Josh: JK. JK. Alex is kind of our our Jacob: Our what? Jared: Maestro? Josh: Maestro. Jared: Yeah. Alex: I am? Josh: Kind of. Alex: What's that mean? Josh: I think more often than not you segue us. Alex: Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Like the the master of ceremonies- Josh: Yes. Alex: The MC. Josh: MC. That's what I was looking for. So Alright. So we're in Utah. We're all in Northern Utah. We had a crazy winter, like the most snowfall on record since we started measuring snowfall in the state of Utah in the 1930's. Alex: Yeah. If you're if you're in the United States, you've maybe heard, probably, some, about the crazy snow that California got this winter. But doesn't hold a candle to Utah. Josh: We're talking 800 inches of snowfall in certain- Alex: certain mountainous areas, Yeah. Jacob: So just before the Californians get angry, I do believe, like, the Mount Shasta area does have more. Alex: No way. Oh, well. Jacob: Yeah. So, I mean, it it was historic pretty historic for California as well. Josh: You heard it here first, folks, a Utahn defending a Californian. Jacob: Ah! Even worse. An Oregonian defending a Californian. Josh: An Oregonian living in Utah defending a Californian. Jacob: Sad day... Alex: We can get into why that's a thing another time. Yes. Josh: So yeah. So now the weather's heating up, we had a day earlier this week that reached into the eighties. Jacob: Almost. Josh: Almost eighties, like, high seventies. So it was really heating up- Jacob: It snow some today. Go on. Josh: It did snow. It slushed really good. But we're kinda moving from, like like, avalanche alerts and avalanche warnings. Where, in fact, our some of our ski lodges went into Interlodge and Max interlodge just like 2 weekends ago. Jacob: For like a an entire week. Alex: What does that even mean? Josh: So interlodge is a state of- so there's security measures. So basically, like, the possibility of avalanches, uncontrolled avalanches, are so high that you're forced to stay in the resort. So you- Jacob: So you're literally interlodged. Alex: I got it. Okay. Josh: Typically, you can normally, like, backcountry ski between buildings in the resort area, but most of the time you're, like, stuck inside the lodge. And then Max Interlodge is you're down in the basement. Everyone is brought down into the basement. And 1 of these key resorts actually max interlodged 2 weekends ago. Or last weekend. Jacob: It's been crazy. Josh: So we go from that- Alex: So we don't we don't construct these lodges to a standard where they're, like, avalanche proof? Jacob: Not 800 inches, avalanche proof. Alex: Hmph. Josh: That's a lot of inches. Jared: Yeah. Jacob: And So much snow out there. Josh: So now, anyway, Utah's transitioning from, like, all this avalanche warning and crazy snow. Too, flood warning. And pretty close to us, 1 of the towns out in the foothills, brand new development, neighborhood- Jacob: Like, not even finished yet. Josh: Yeah. The entire this entire roadway was just like undercut by the by the water coming down out of the mountain and just collapsed half the half the road. Jacob: 15 foot deep sinkhole. Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Crazy. Alex: They're already evacuating people in Salt Lake, in a neighborhood in Salt Lake near I can't remember the name of creek. Josh: Immigration Creek? Alex: Yeah. Immigration Creek. They've already had to yeah. Get those people out because they're experiencing flooding. Not because they're worried about it, but they are actively flooded. Jacob: Ogden's gonna get it bad too, just from what I've already seen. Josh: Yeah. And they're they're- Ogden- most of Ogden is pretty close to the mountain too. So I think, you know, I can rest easy knowing that the wealthy among us that can afford to live in the foothills are the ones getting hammered by the flood. Most of us cheapos down in the valley next to the salty briny lake. We'll probably be okay. Hopefully. Unless Utah created these water diversion things to benefit the wealthy. Jacob: Now, Josh's house does back up right to a creek. So... Josh: This is true. Alex: It's already looking kinda high. Josh: It's pretty I we opened the windows to cool off the house. And, like, I can't hear because it's so loud. And, you know, my wife likes to whisper when she talks to me. I have really bad hearing from a lot of, like, percussive noises over the years. And so when there's any sort of like background noise, like any sort of background frequency, it just really washes out my ability to hear anything. So with the windows open and that creek flowing, It's like I can see this. I feel like Charlie Brown, it's like, "mrm mrmmr mrmrmr." I'm just like "whatever". Just smiling and nodding my head. Jacob: Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave. Josh: Which okay. Going back to the Zelda trailer- Alex: Nice. Josh: The very last line of the trailer, Zelda says, "you're our last hope." Jacob: Almost. Josh: "Link, You're our last hope." Jacob: Keep going. Josh: "You're our final hope." Jacob: Keep going. Alex: No hope. Jacob: There's a line after that. Josh: What? Alex: "Link, you must find me." Jared: She says standing out in the wide open expanse of Hyrule. Josh: So she says, "Link, you are our final hope, you must find me"? Alex: I don't I don't remember that final hope as being part of the last line at all. It might be- Jacob: I think it was in the trailer though. Alex: But it is in the trailer for sure. Josh: Okay. Well, I'm getting, like, major Princess Leia vibes. From both of the lines. Because doesn't she say, "Luke, you're my only hope"? Jacob: Wait. Jared: "Help me, Obiwan Kenobi. You are my only hope." Alex: You don't- do you just not follow stories of any kind? Anywhere? Josh: I... Jared: It's like a chat GPT summary of like a story that you put into Google Translate, and then back into chat GPT. Jacob: I I also wanna know how Shana whispering brought you back to that. Josh: Um... Alex: You don't even follow your own stories! Josh: Alright. Caveat. If this makes it into the final cut, I am exhausted. I'm very tired. I prefaced this entire meeting tonight with "I need lots of caffeine." Alex: Oh, yeah. You need another can of doctor pepper? Josh: I'm not through- Jacob: Okay. I still wanna know what happened and how and when and where so that we have all these floating rock city ruins places. Alex: Well, I mean, I can I've got theories, and lots of people, you know, have plenty of theories. But- Jacob: But we don't know-know. Alex: No. Jacob: Yeah. Josh: But I thought it happened after the events of the first- the Breath of the Wild. Right? Alex: What? This game? Yeah. This is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. So that's the exact same Link and Zelda as breath of the wild. Josh: But we don't know where the floating islands are from? Isn't it from the previous game? Alex: Skyward sword? Josh: Skyward sword? Jared: Did you notice the shot where Zelda's become a Zonai? Alex: In- yeah. Jared: It's totally her. That's those are her eyes. That's her necklace, that's her earrings. Josh: Who's Zonai? Jared: It's we think it's gonna be, like- Alex: You don't know who the Zonai are? Jared: -A new race, that's important to the story line. They were hinted in the last game with, like, ruins and stuff. Alex: Yeah. Do you remember the barbarian set of armor where you're, like, wearing tattered skins and, like, a skull helmet that gives you what looks like Ganondorf hair. Josh: Yeah. That was Zonai? Alex: That that was Zonai. Jacob: Okay. Was this the the like, the the lady with the gray face and she had, like horn ear things. Is that what- Jared: That's what some people might think. Yeah. But- Alex: Yeah. A lot of people think that is a Zonai. And later the -- Okay. -- not actually the woman, but that man that was talking to Zelda, they think it was him. Josh: Oh, I thought it was the king of Hyrule. Alex: No. But I think it might be the same voice actor. I heard a similarity in the voice. Mhmm. So okay. So in Skyward Sword, we hear this story about how down on the surface of the planet, the earth cracks open and demons come flooding out Among them, this demon lord named demise, and he's wreaking havoc on everything. So the goddess with a small g Hylia takes her people the most human like, I guess, of all the peoples of the planet into the sky on these floating islands. And creates a barrier between the ground and the sky realm. The people up in the sky When they look down, all they see is cloud. They can't see the surface of the planet. They don't know they don't even know what's on the other side of those clouds. But when you're down on the planet, you look up, you just see sky and you don't see those islands. Jacob: Sky, not clouds. Alex: Correct. I think it's I think it's called the cloud barrier. Josh: "Sky Not Clouds". Ha! T-shirt! Another Brother podcast T-Shirt, "sky not clouds".... Alex: Cool. We'll talk about that later... Jared: It sounds like some, like, deep political statement. Like, if I saw that shirt, it'd be like, "Yeah. I I totally get that." Josh: I support this...? Alex: Wolves not sheep. Jacob: Sky not clouds. Alex: So this magical barrier that hides this sky kingdom up in the up in the air from the ground and vice versa people have been speculating since Breath of the Wild that it's always been there throughout the entire series. And that some people at the end of Skyward Sword stayed up there. Like not all of those sky islands come down. Oops spoiler alert for people that haven't played the game yet. Eventually, some of those islands come back down to the ground after you defeat this demon lord demise. Josh: I have not finished the first game. Alex: Oh, boy. Well no wonder you're not following anything! Jacob: Which game? Josh: Breath of the wild. Jacob: No. No. This is No. Alex: This is No. This is No. This is not breath of the wild. This is Skyward Sword. Josh: Yeah. I've never even played Skyward Sword. Jacob: I know who demise is. He's this big thing with teeth and, like, scale, type of- Alex: That's not his true form. His true form looks like an outrageously buff Ganondorf. Like, if you think Ganondorf looks buff, demise is like 10 times buffer. Jared: Do I get the photo? Jacob: Please do. Alex: But he's got, like, a mane of fire instead of red hair. It's just like this fiery craziness. Josh: Does he fuel Ganondorf? I know I'm taking you way off track, but- Alex: As you defeat him at the end of Skyward Sword, right before the master sword sucks him up inside of the sword, he lays out a curse. Josh: You suck him up in the Master Sword... Alex: Yeah. The Master Sword supposedly still contains demise. He lays out this curse that says, the the 1 who possesses the blood of the goddess, because we find out that Zelda is Hylia herself reincarnated. She gives up her- Jacob: Of course. Alex: immortality and becomes mortal. Josh: Okay, hold on, when do you find that out? Jacob: Skyward Sword. Alex: You find that out during the game in Skyward sword. Josh: Oh my goodness. Alex: Maybe halfway through the game, you find that out. Skyward Sword is immensely important for the lore of the series. And there's all kinds of meta stuff outside of it. Like, people at the company that are making the game and why that game is so story driven compared to previous games. But the same guy that wrote that game wrote a game before that that was also really cool story wise that people loved. Josh: Minish Cap? Alex: Minish Cap. He also wrote Breath of the Wild and he also wrote tears of the kingdom. Dang. Which is why the stories are a lot stronger, though some people say Breath of the Wild had no story. I think those people are lame. But okay. So he lays out this curse. Whoever has the spirit of the goddess. No. Sorry. The blood of the goddess, and the spirit of the hero, How did they word that exactly? Josh: One person? Alex: Basically, the the princess slash goddess and the hero will be constantly reborn, reincarnated, and have to put up with My malice forever. My malice will continue, to wreak havoc on this world and your predecessor not predecessors, successors, reincarnated versions of yourselves are gonna have to fight me for eternity. Ganondorf becomes an embodiment of the malice of demise. Josh: So Ganandorff becomes demise's reincarnation, basically. Alex: Yes. Josh: So just trapped forever. Alex: The the the lore of each game is that the big bad in pretty much every Zelda game, is some kind of incarnation of his malice. Because every demon- Jacob: Hold on. Alex: - every monster, when you kill it in Zelda, it poofs into purple. That's the malice being released as it dies. Jacob: Demise is the villain of Zelda. Alex: Demise is THE villain. He cracks open the planet. Jacob: How can that be? Alex: He comes out and leads all the minions to destroy everything. Jacob: I don't like this. Jared: He's also- Jacob: Ganandorf is. He always has been. Josh: Right? Jared: He's also in the trailer. Alex: Demise? Jared: Yeah. Well, because I- Alex: That could that could be demise, and not Ganondorf with hair and everything in front of the blood moon. Jared: Yeah. I think- Josh: The one where you don't see his face? Sorry Jared. Alex: Yeah. Jared: Have you seen the, like, cyclical theory? Alex: With the ouroboros? Jared: Like the time loop? Alex: Uh-huh. Jared: That's what I think is going down because, I think- Alex: You could say that the earth has cracked open with all these malice it's opening up everywhere. Jared: I think I think this game is gonna be a time loop that starts again with Skyward Sword. And it's like- Alex: So you could say this is the last game in the series, but you could also say it's the first game in series. But you could say that of any game in the series. Jared: Because I think Zelda's gonna turn into Hylia. And Ganandorf's gonna turn into demise. And then- Nintendo secretly hates the timeline because they they kinda got pressured into it by fans. And there's some people at Nintendo who really like it, but there's a lot who don't And so I think there's a pretty good chance this will be, like, the end of the timeline just so they can say, like, Okay. We're done addressing the timeline. Every other game is gonna be somewhere in the middle of this. That doesn't because, like, they're not gonna stop making zelda games. They make way too much money. But I think they're gonna, like, put an end to the timeline stuff with this game so that then they can just, like, okay, there you go. It's got a beginning. It's got an end. We're just gonna churn out games now because we're Nintendo and we hate stories secretly. At least Miyamoto. Alex: Specifically Myamoto, yeah. [00:27:49] Storytime Segment Soundbite: Hey, kids. Do you know what time it is? Storytime! Jared: Okay. This is a date story. So this is high school. I'm on a double date. So the reason I'm on this double date is because my friend is really into this girl. But he's too scared to just ask her out by himself. He has to have backup there, I guess. Jacob: So did he at least asked her out on the double date? He didn't make you- Jared: No. Yeah. Yeah. He at least could do that. But he was like, "Man, I wanna ask her out. Like, I can't do it. I can't do it if I'm by myself. Like, can you ask her friend, and then we can, like, go together?" I was like, "fine". So we go out and we first go to this like Italian place and we're eating. It's going good. I don't know, like, why he was so worried. I think he he was an only child. And so I feel like he thought I think he thought he was, like, terrible at holding the conversation, but he was fine. But what did he know? Like- Alex: He talked to himself all the time. Jared: And so he is doing fine and we're getting close to the end of dinner. It's probably, like, 7:00, 7:30. And I, like, I have to go to the bathroom pretty bad. Like, I drank quite a bit of water. And I kind of, like, lean over to him while the girls are talking. I'm like, "hey, man. Like, I'll I'll be back. But, like, gonna go run to the bathroom." He's like, "no. No. No. You you can't." Like, i was like, "what are you talking about?" He was like, "dude, if you leave and I say something what if it, like, completely derails." I'm, like, real like, I have to babysit you this entire time just like, "please, man." Josh: Just- wait- Is he, like, whispering this over the table- Jacob: Yeah that's what I just wanted to ask. Jared: This is a I don't know. Like- Josh: It's all eye contact. Alex: It's one of those How I Met Your Mother mental conversations. Jared: It somehow got I don't remember. It somehow got communicated that he was like, no, man stay. So I was like, fine. And so we we end the dinner, and it's, like, kinda close to a mall, so we start walking around. And, like, while we're walking around the mall, I'm, like, keeping my eyes out for a bathroom. Because it's been, like, half an hour. Suddenly, it's been 45. Suddenly, it's been an hour. Josh: This story is not gonna end well. Jared: And I'm like, oh, gosh. Like, this is getting bad. Like, this this is bad. Like, we're an hour past where I should've found something. But I can't find anything. And so I'm like, I'm just gonna have to deal with this until the end of the date, but I'm like, it's gonna be 9 o'clock soon. We can just peace out. So- Jacob: Peace- Jared: That was even unintentional. And so we finally, like, get in the car, and I'm thinking, cool. We're gonna drop him off and I can just go find a bathroom. But then he's like, "hey, it's still early. Like, why don't we go hang out somewhere?" I'm kinda, like, giving him looks like, "dude". And everyone else is like, "yeah, let's go". And so we end up going to this park. And he's, like, clearly feeling more confident now, I guess, because he, like, goes off with her and they're walking and talking and stuff. And I'm sitting and talking to my date. Who's was great, but, like, I'm not interested in her romantic- Like, well, I'm just there to, like, support him. Right? And we have to sit next to this stupid trickling fountain. And I kid you not, we're there for an additional 2 hours. Alex: Holy crap. Jacob: And he's just walking around that whole time- Jared: They're just they're just off in their own la la land, and I am, like, dying. Jacob: He couldn't have even picked a park with a- Jared: There is no bathroom in this park. It is now, like, 9:30. I am livid. I am dying. I'm trying not to like do the pee pee dance like, but like we're sitting down next to a bunch of trickling water. This is like killing me. And so finally, they come back. And they're like, oh, yeah. We should go home now. And I'm like, yeah. You think? And so, like, we we get in the car and it just so happened to be a situation where I was the 1 who got to be last And so I'm dropping off people. They all live, of course, super far away from each other. So by the time I'm finally- And this is my car. I'm like gosh, dang it like this was not. And so finally, it's 10 o'clock I am- I've had to go for, like, 3 and a half hours now. And I just dropped off the last 1 and, like, okay. I cannot make it back to my house. This isn't gonna work. I gotta find something closer. And every fast food place I drive by, their doors are shut. They've got the drive through open, but their doors are shut. Everything is just I cannot find something, but I I I cannot hold it any longer. It it's it's going down. And I'm driving, and I'm freaking out, and I'm like, I'm really gonna wet myself in my car. And then I see my high school. And I think, I can find a bathroom there. So I drive in to the parking lot by the football field. And they had been doing some construction around the baseball like areas. Okay. And so there's a porta potty. Alex: Yeah. Jared: The only thing standing in my way was like a 10 foot gate. So there I was- So there I was thinking, okay. I'm gonna have to climb this gate and get down to that porta potty. And so I start climbing. I'm really hoping that there's not a cop around or, like, there's not school security or anything. I start climbing. I get to the top, and instead of thinking like a rational person and thinking like, I should like climb down slowly. I just decided jump with a full bladder. Alex: Oh, nooooo Jared: And so I do. And as I land, my legs completely buckle under me. I just biff it, but I somehow kept it in. Jacob: Oh Josh: dang it. Jacob: I thought that on the impact Josh: Can you imagine, like, just the the dejection of- Alex: On your back. peeing all over yourself. Josh: An arms' reach from the bathroom. Jared: It's like 3 feet away. No. No. Yeah. No. I thought this 1 would be good because it looks like it's gonna go 1 way, but I somehow kept it in. Josh: Clutch. Jared: And I made it to the porta potty and finally got the relief. And I I I let my friend have it after that. Because he knew. He knew the whole time. He did not care. Josh: I hate those moments where you're just, like, breaking out in sweat. And you're just, like, oh my gosh! This is life or death right now. Alex: I'm gonna poop my pants! Josh: I'm prairie doggin' it! Alex: I thought there was gonna be a padlock on the porta potty or something? Jared: I was pretty weird too. If it it would if it had come to that, I was going to the bush, I didn't care. Alex: Yep. Public urination. Jacob: Even better, it's on school property. Josh: Yeah. On the football field. Jared: Take this high school! Josh: All my teen aingst and anxiety, hah! Yeah. We had ideas like that to, you know, pee on the football field because- Jacob: Who's we? Josh: Well.... Alex: You don't wanna implicate anybody. Jared: The undisclosed "we". Jacob: I'm certainly not part of "we" Josh: Yeah. True. Some some other of us, we'. And, you know, like ammonia on the grass and, like, just really mark it up. Jacob: Oh you need to write something Alex: "Haha! Your grass isn't green!" [00:35:46] Another Brother Outro

#005 The Debilitating Dream Dysphoria

This Week on Another Brother:
In episode #005, The Debilitating Dream Dysphoria, the brothers learn that just because they read not-yet peer-reviewed reports related to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), they really shouldn't publish podcast episodes discussing multidimensionalism. They also wonder, "Will name-dropping Tom DeLonge, Lue Elizondo, and YouTubers like Mark Rober and Fran Blanche, lead to more listeners?" Meanwhile, Jacob discovers he may want a spinning top before he goes back to sleep...
Find our website on Podbean!
And don't miss this episode's Alternate Reality...
 
Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
Harvard University's Galileo Project, headed by Professor Avi Loeb of the Harvard AstronomyCenter for Astrophysics. A somewhat controversial figure in the world of astrophysics right now, Avi co-authored the report "Physical Constraints On Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" with Sean Kirkpatrick. Sean Kirkpatrick is the Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO): "The mission of the AARO will be to synchronize efforts across the Department of Defense, and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies, to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest, and, as necessary, to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations and national security. This includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects."
Luis "Lue" Elizondo.
Fran Blanche on YouTube. Relevant videos highlighting Fran's brilliance: "It's Official: UFOs Are Real. So What Are They???", "The Way I See Space Time".
Tom DeLonge and To The Stars.
Lara's Voice Lessons.
Alex's Etsy Store.
Sleep Paralysis is a very real problem, as is hypnopompic hallucinations, or... what did Alex call it? Cross-legged hags?
 
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 [00:00:59] Stewnerds Segment Josh: Who here Oh, wait. How do we do this? Alex: Show of hands. Jacob: Just go on. Do it. Josh: Down in the show comments, you tell us, Do you believe in aliens or not? Am I alone? Are you alone in this universe? I think not. But you might think so, and that's just sad. Alex: You're sad. Josh: Anyway, recently, the head of the Galileo Project, which is a Harvard University astronomy department project to answer a lot of these UAP questions, His name is Abraham Loeb, l o e b. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Goes by Avi, And Sean M. Kirkpatrick, who is the director of the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the Pentagon. So this is the new Pentagon approved formal official UAP research office. So together, these 2 guys- Alex: Sorry. Before for for those that don't know. We don't call them UFOs anymore. They're now unidentified aerial phenomena, UAP. Jacob: Kinda sad. Do we really need a rebrand UFOs? Alex: Yeah. Most people think UFOs sound like crazy talk. I don't know why this helps that any, but I mean, you can't say that you're a ufologist anymore. Yep. Josh: But part of the reasoning is, if you listen to Lou Elizondo, part of the reason for that is because are they flying? Are these trans-medium craft flying? Alex: Right. Josh: There's no sign of propulsion. There's no control surfaces. Alex: And they hover a lot. Is that really flying? Josh: Is anti-gravity flying? Alex: That's That's kinda semantic, but that's Yeah. Josh: But that's what these academic nerds do. Alex: And I mean, it is a government agency. So if you'd expect anybody to be super picky about words. Josh: Yeah. You gotta be- Jacob: The government. Josh: yeah. Choose the right words and be super bland about it too. But they they coauthored a report that at the time of this recording was still under draft review, So I understand that it hasn't been peer reviewed. Just these 2 gentlemen in their respective offices coauthored this report, and it's called "Physical Constraints On Unidentified Aerial Phenomena". And they go around and try to discuss a lot of key physics-based issues related to the UAP question. Alex: I see. So physics as we understand it. How are they breaking our understanding of physics given their behaviors that we can watch. Josh: Right. And why aren't we observing these craft through traditional physics- things that we understand through physics, through our sensors, like heat friction as they're entering the atmosphere. Like, how is there no heat signatures? Certain, like, radio wave propagation that you would expect to see, but, like, objects like oumuamua- Jacob: Yes. This is what I was gonna- Josh: -didn't exhibit. At all. Alex: It didn't- what what didn't Oumuamua exhibit? Josh: Let me find this. Well, first, before I get there, let me just read the abstract and maybe you can cut it in post. Because it's pretty long and it gets pretty technical. Okay. So the abstract for this report says, "we derive physical constraints on interpretations of highly maneuverable unidentified aerial phenomena based on standard physics and known forms of matter and radiation. In particular, in particular, we show that friction of UAP with the surrounding air or water is expected to generate a bright optical fireball, ionization shell, and tail which implies radio signatures." So they should be able to say, see these things with radar, other RF based antenna, electro optical sensors, and infrared sensors. Like, all 3 of those. Jacob: I feel like there's a "but" coming. Josh: "The fireball luminosity scales with inferred distance to the fifth power." Okay. There's some there's the technical stuff. Alex: Yeah. Josh: Okay. Anyway, "the lack all these signatures could imply inaccurate distance measurements, and hence derived velocity for single site sensors without a range gate capability." Alex: So there's even a practical reason why they're talking about this. Like, we can't get accurate readings on certain things like speed just because we can't- Josh: Presumably- Yeah. Presumably, so from single site sensors, if our sensors are not correctly picking up the right signatures, then we could be completely misinterpreting the the velocity. Right. So it's just really interesting because they take, as a matter of fact, all of these certain UAP events, and they're acknowledging this is real. This is happening. We haven't been able to sense them like we should based on our understanding of physics. So here's some potential reasons for that. So the intent is, again, to use a science-based foundation to then develop technologies equipment, new science, to help us better identify these objects, or phenomena. Alex: Well, it sounds to me like they kinda give away the solution- I mean, it there's no way it could possibly be this easy. I'm probably missing something, but it sounds like they give away the solution right there in in that last thing you read. They said single sensor. So use 2, like we have eyeballs and use the parallax to I mean, I I don't know. That sounds like that would fix it. Josh: Yeah. You can do similar things with I mean, optics is just radiation just on a different side of the electromagnetic spectrum. Right? So light is, versus radio frequency, versus like gamma and x-ray, and and whatever on and up. So, yeah. So similar techniques that you apply when you're talking about antennas or, like, space telescopes and things. But it's really interesting. The real nerdy stuff, Okay, here we go. "On March 9th, 2017, 6 months before Oumuamua's closest approach to Earth, a meter sized interstellar meteor collided with Earth." Did you catch that? Alex: Say that again... Jacob: I haven't heard this part. Josh: Okay, "6 months before Oumuamua's closest approach to earth. A meter sized interstellar meteor collided with earth." Alex: Okay. Josh: Surprisingly, so this is this has been called IM2. So interstellar meteor 2. So there's been 2 of these that have been observed. Alex: Oh, right. So interstellar meaning, this did not come from our own solar system, which is it's never been seen before? Jacob: Wait, yeah, let's see, so Oumuamua was the first one, right? Josh: Oumuamua is- let's see... Jacob: First interstellar... Alex: Like, we haven't found any samples on Earth that lead us to believe that it came from outside of our solar system ever before, except for these objects. Josh: So Oumuamua , I believe is the first known interstellar Oumuamua object observed within our solar system. Alex: But there must have been an IM1. Josh: I think that is IM1. Alex: 0h, so Oumuamua is IM1? And now this thing that's actually come in contact with the planet -- Josh: Is IM2. Jacob: I haven't heard about this second one. Josh: So this is okay. Alex: So this is the mother ship? Josh: Keep listening. Okay. Yeah. "Surprisingly, IM2 had an identical speed relative to the sun at large distances, and an identical heliocentric semi-major axis, as Oumuamua had, but the inclination of IM2's orbital plane around the sun was completely different from Oumuamua's implying that the two objects are unrelated." "Nevertheless, the coincidences between some orbital parameters of Oumuamua and IM2, inspires us to consider the possibility that an artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to earth. An operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions." Jacob: And I just I just want to call out again. As a reminder, everything Josh is reading is in an upcoming report that's gonna be released in joint by the Pentagon and this Harvard professor. Josh: Yeah. This Galileo Project. Jacob: So these are this is top government brass and highly educated professors saying, hey, guys. It's possible that there are mother crafts and probes out there just like we do. Alex: IM2. Did we recover that, or did we just observe it? Josh: Okay. So this is where it gets really awesome. One of the main goals of the Galileo Project right now, and they've received I believe they've received funding, and they have a date for their voyage, is to go collect whatever they can find from IM2. Alex: So we have a good idea of where it- Josh: Yes. We know exactly where it splashed down. Alex: Oh, splash down. Jacob: So where is it? In the ocean? Josh: I believe it's outside I I believe it's close to Japan. If I remember right. Jacob: Oh, crap. This is just a kaiju egg. Man. We're about to have some giant monster come out of the sea. Alex: I love Pacific Rim! Bring it on!! Jacob: Sorry. Go on. Go on. Josh: Yeah. So they're gonna go dredge this thing up. Luckily, it seems like based on where they project it would have settled down, that it's within range to pull up, and they're mostly interested in the composition of it. Alex: Of course. Josh: So I think they can tell from- Alex: How on earth are you gonna, like, it was a meter, and that was before it hit the water. Josh: Yeah. Well, here's the question. Is it ferrous? Okay. So most of these space objects are metallic. Right? So the question is, is it a ferrous metal? Is it a non ferrous metal? Can we detect it? Through, you know, typical measurement devices? Or can we not? And then is it an alloy known to man? Jacob: Right, if it's interstellar... One of these times, we're gonna have to talk about Blink 182, or should I say Tom DeLonge, and To The Stars Academy. Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Because flipping Tom DeLonge has started his own I I don't even know what you call it. Josh: It's a media group of sorts. You know, like, the marketing- Jacob: Yeah, but at the end of the day, the media is just to drive money to be able to put into research to reproduce their own- Alex: They're trying to reproduce technologies. Jacob: -UAP technologies. Josh: Tom DeLonge's stars- "To the Stars" is trying to reproduce- Jacob: That is, like, that's the goal of the media platform is to, first of all, again, make money to fund their research, and 2, to educate the populace, to to not make it this big scare thing. But- Alex: Because how are you gonna sell your technology if you keep saying it it's "it comes from alien stuff, guys, that we researched", "and we figured it out." No one's gonna like, you can't you can't turbo encapsulate your way to to to all of your sales. Jacob: So, like, if you Google "To The Stars", you know, Google has like their little immediate profile type thing of what you search if it's something known. It says, "To The Stars, Science Company." Josh: Nice. Credibility. Alex: I should start a science company. Jacob: I don't think he has Lue Elizondo with him anymore.Josh: Yeah. Which, you know, I think, initially, it was critical for Lue to do some of these, what I would call, less than credibility-building-things just to generate awareness. But I think, you know, for someone to be in the positions that he's been in, of such trust and awareness and just knowledge and control over a bunch of these you know, kind of sensitive type programs. You know somebody like that isn't gonna be really looking for the spotlight and the limelight. So I think he did what he needed to do. And now he's probably more than happy to kinda recede a bit. Maybe circulate in the more professional spheres again. Alex: Well, he got an official Pentagon- Josh: posting. Alex: -I don't know what you'd call it... task force. Josh: He's a consultant now. I think he's a contractor. So I think he- Jacob: That's right. He's not head of the UAP task force or whatever it is. Josh: I think he's specifically been hired on as an independent contractor consulting with the Pentagon's office now. Jacob: Because it's the new guy who coauthored this report- Josh: Kirkpatrick. Yeah. Alex: Nevertheless, now that there is an official thing going on in our government to study this stuff, it would be a little weird if he maintained ties to To The Stars probably. There'd be a conflict of interest, I imagine. Because if the government finds any technology, the government wants to keep that technology. Josh: Like, they already have. Alex: Yeah. What am I talking about? Josh: You mean when they found that technology? But also Okay. So we are aware of the Chinese balloon and the $10,000 ham radio club balloon. Alex: That 1 was particularly sad. Jacob: That is sad. Josh: All these things... This is just a totally different These are just 2 totally different problem sets, like a nation state's stratospheric surveillance balloon compared to these fast movers, extremely agile, transmedia craft. Like, 2 completely different issues. Jacob: With no signals that we can even measure or read. Josh: Yeah. Well, I mean, allegedly, these F-18's like the WSO (sounds like "Wizzo") or F-16's, whatever, you know, can image them and and get- you're getting radar signature in atmosphere. You're getting electro-optical and infrared signature returns. So, like, it's it's unquestionable that these things exist because you can't have that many advanced sensors just be completely wrong. Because we built these based on physics, and so they're gonna show us what we built them to show us. So there are physical objects there. They're not balloons. And it's just really exciting that these guys are trying to approach it from the scientific perspective. And while recognizing that, it could be that just our fundamental understanding of physics is wrong. It could be that the way we have built sensors isn't cutting it. And there's things that we need to do differently. Jacob: But even if that's the case, that wouldn't explain what, like, Navy pilots have observed these crafts being capable of doing, the way that they maneuver the instantaneous acceleration. Yeah. It's even hard to almost call instantaneous acceleration because acceleration is, like but just, I guess, the rate of acceleration where you know. Josh: Yeah. And then you tell me, if you're piloting a tiny craft, some of these not so tiny, but if you're piloting that, and then you're like, you go to a stop and then you just shoot off at a 90 degree angle from your last direction of movement, you're gonna just splat on the wall. Jacob: Yeah, your brain's gone. The maneuverability- Alex: In Star Trek terms, they either have inertial dampeners or these are probes with nobody inside. Jacob: Or robot pilots inside. Josh: Yeah. Could be. Jacob: I've heard that theory before. Yeah. Bam. Definitely. Alex: Or Lieutenant Data's inside. Josh: Or my favorite YouTuber- Jacob: Oh, boy. Josh: Hold on. Let me pull up the I don't wanna get this wrong, so we can cut this. Jacob: While you're pulling that up. Just another thought that occurred to me. Tom DeLonge's obsession and relationship to UAP/aliens. Gives you a different understanding of his other band Angels and Airwaves. Alex: Oh. I didn't know he was in that band. Josh: I didn't know he was in that band either. Jacob: Yeah. That's him singing. Oh, yeah. Listen to the voice. It's yeah. Josh: That makes a lot of sense. Jacob: Right. Josh: Angels and Airwaves. I love that. Jacob: Yeah. Straight up aliens. Josh: So Fran Blanche has an incredible YouTube channel called Fran Lab. [It's actually just her name, Fran Blanche.] Jacob: Fran Blanche? Josh: Blanche. Yeah. F r a n Blanche. Josh: B l a n c h e. Jacob: I have never heard of Fran. And this is your favorite YouTuber? Josh: I mean, for this sort of topic? Absolutely. Jacob: Oh, okay. I thought you were saying, like, just above all else. This is my favorite. Josh: Yeah. Jacob: She? Josh: Yeah. And I believe she worked for JPL. Alex: Like Mark Rober. Josh: Whether she did or not, she's just incredibly intelligent and did like a I mean, she was totally nerding out about that first unclassified Congressional report on UAP. She did a live stream, like, as soon as it dropped and just discussed everything, like, almost line by line of this Congressional report. And, like, again, this woman is so freaking intelligent, and she was just totally taken by all of it. So she's on board because she knows I mean, if she doesn't know these people who've done the research personally, she understands the science and the scientific method and, like, the way they're going about doing it. And so she understands the rigor that they put into these things. And so she's able to, like, see between the lines and understand, like, oh okay, if they're saying this, then that means they probably did all this, and they actually mean this, And she has fascinating concepts of time, and she has a video where she discusses the 5th dimension and stuff. She has 1 video where she discusses her concept of these aliens, probably as a probe, but basically as 5th dimensional projections into our reality. But she, like, conceptualizes and explains her opinion of the 5th dimension and how that makes sense within our current understanding of multi-dimensions. Alex: Spatial? When when- so I always have to ask this because I once got in a really big fight with Mark. Josh: Rober? Alex: A friend from working and broadcasting about the 4th dimension. We're talking about completely different things, and I feel so stupid that I didn't- I knew what he was talking about. But in that moment, I did not, and I was getting really upset about it. Are we talking about spatial dimensions or, like, how time is the 4th dimension? Like, there's 3 spatial dimensions, time is the 4th dimension, and then there's another dimension after that. Yeah. Because there are mathematicians that work on the math of 4 spatial dimensions. Josh: Right. And there's data science and there's- there are programmatic arrays that allow you to do multidimensional data sets. Like, up to an nth- to an nth dimension of data. Alex: I'm not even sure I know what that really... Jacob: N dimensions? Nth? Josh: Nth, e n t h. Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. I I got you. But I mean- Josh: N-superscript-th. Alex: Superscript. Oh, yeah. Right right. Jacob: There are. Nth dimensions. Alex: Just a limitless. Whatever. Jacob: Yeah yeah yeah, I just- I don't know what any of that means. I don't get it. I don't get it. Josh: Well, in this in in the case of of Fran's video explanation, I think it means as a separate dimension apart from spatial and time. Like, temporal, spatial, temporal, and then- Alex: Okay, so, like, the 4th dimension would be time. Josh: Presume- I don't wanna open myself up to toooooo many critics here. Alex: I still don't know why you- I just don't know why someone would start talking about the 5th dimension, specifically, without the 4th dimension being time. Josh: I'm sure it is. Alex: And the other 3 dimensions being- Josh: Because when you talk about relativity and stuff, you've got- There's a lot of time to, like, space the fabric of space and angular acceleration of velocity and, like, general relativity, how time is just a real intrinsic part of all of how all of this works. Alex: Is there even a difference? Is the 4th spatial dimension mathematically any different than time? I I don't actually know. Jacob: I have no clue. Josh: Yeah. I'm lost now. Jacob: Yeah. Alex: Cool. We did it! Josh: Where am I?[00:21:18] Interstitial Joke Jacob: So, with all of the like, creative stuff happening in the family. Heather started her started a new rainbow art Instagram. Josh: Oh, yeah. Shana told me about that. Jacob: Yeah. It makes her happy. Lara's got her voice acting up on Fiverr. Josh: No. Amazon. Alex: Fiverr. Jacob: Fiver. On Amazon, Josh- or should I say Ken, has a little book series thing. Alex: Oh, yeah. Jacob: Was it Ken? Was that your name? Josh: It- It should be Kevin. [Wrong! It's Kyle.] Jacob: Kevin. Okay. My bad. Alex is selling stuff on Etsy, like, invitation stuff that he hand created. Alex: Digitally. Jacob: Digitally. I thought I'd write a book. Alex: About what? Jacob: About Reverse Psychology. Yeah. Don't buy it. Josh: Man. Jacob: Come on. You gotta you gotta laugh closer to your microphone.[00:22:11] Storytime Segment Soundbite: Hey, kids. Do you know what time it is? Storytime! Jacob: Okay. I'm just I'm doing it. I'm gonna take a departure here. Alex: Woah, boy. Jacob: Take a nice little break from, you know, memory lane. Re-living memories with each other. Telling stories maybe we haven't heard about each other. This is a dream I had, or should I say, no, I won't. I'll let that be a secret. Alex: Secret. Josh: Wait. This is a dream I had, but it's not... It's gonna be revealed later... ? Jacob: No dot dot dot- anyway. Josh: I'm not gonna be able to stop thinking about this. Jacob: This is a dream I had a couple nights ago. K? Josh: But was it? Because I feel like it's not. Jacob: It does tie into reality. So that's why I felt a little more empowered so to speak to share it because it- Josh: To just totally doff our defined way of doing things here. Jacob: Yes. Exactly. And I'm not desperate scraping the barrel for stories. We got plenty more stories to come. This was just a first time experience for me, and so it felt significant enough to share. Given the certain interests and passions that we have. I think you guys will see why I wanted to tell it. So, like, most dreams, started out fairly normal. Normal as in understandable why you're having it, like, it the dream dream is something that could match reality. Right? You're just in a normal setting doing normal thing. At Aunt Becky's house, big family party. I'm in the bathroom. And I'm looking at- sorry. I just got done using- It's normal I promise now! Josh: Normal bowel movement, that's all. Just totally normal. Jacob: Just got done using the bathroom. Alex: Didn't spill anything. Josh: Nothing to see there. Just, don't go in for a little bit. Jacob: And I I noticed the the back of the toilet you know, you got the toilet lid sitting up and you've got the back, the inside of it, I guess, whatever. And it's oddly ornate with, like, all these inlaid carvings of, like, animals and stuff, and there's this this brand name on it. I can't remember what the brand name was that my brain had thought up of. But it's it it just I saw it and it stuck out to me. So go back during the rest of the party where we're doing stuff and things. And then this is where it gets weird because now for some reason- Josh: I think it's already weird that you dreamed about going to the bathroom. Jacob: Come on. Alex: I can honestly say that I've never gone to the bathroom in a dream before. Josh: I mean, no. Because I wake up, and I'm like, oh, I really have to go to the bathroom. I never complete it in the dream. That's a bad- that's a no no. Josh: To be fair, I don't recall if I actually used the toilet, but I at least saw the toilet. So then I see her washing machine. Alex: This is so fascinating. Jacob: I noticed the same brand name from the toilet on the washing machine. Josh: Okay. Not too Not too strange yet. Jacob: And and the washing machine is open. And on the it's it's a front loading machine. And So, you know, with the door open, you can see straight into the drum and everything. On the back of that drum, there's a panel, and there are more of these weird, like, inlaid ornate carvings or whatever you wanna call it, you know. And again, it's it's all these animals. And it's like in this jungle scene. And for some reason, everyone's all- did I mention this is where it gets weird?- Everyone's all gathered around me, like, Josh: In the laundry room. Alex: The day has finally come. It's happening. He's just he's acknowledging the animals. Jacob: I'm looking at it, and I'm noticing, like, some of the animal heads there's this weird, like, cut out around them. And, like, I go and I I I push 1. Alex: I knew it. It was a button. Jacob: And it goes in and it's a button. Alex: I knew it. Jacob: And I start finding more of these things, and I'm just I'm pushing them all. And and as I'm doing this, like, the inside of the washing machine is like, opening and expanding, and this this nature scene is is growing, and it's getting larger. And there's like this weird, like, blue light in the back of it. And so I I'm just I'm just in there pushing all these buttons. Like, I'm getting this thing to get as big as I can. I reach my hand back in there as far as I can to the blue light. I'm really straining, and I get it. And I don't know what happens, but all of a sudden- Alex: What a- Josh: And then I woke up. Jacob: And then I woke up. How's that for a transition? Josh: "I don't really know what happens from there." Jacob: All of the sudden, you know, you know, I don't know if everyone's dreams are like this or if it's just mine where, like, you can very rapidly go from like, oh, yeah. That makes sense to this extremely quick transition. Where like, now you're in this completely unrealistic thing that you could never actually ever live or experience. Anyway, we're all inside of this scene in the washing machine now. Alex: Like Jumanji. Jacob: Ooh, I like that. Like Jumanji. Only it's a washing machine. Alex: Not a board game. Josh: And no one there is fun. Jacob: And so we're all like just going through almost like escape room esque. Right? Finding all these easter eggs and pushing all these things and expanding and growing, and it's this huge, like, expansive adventurous thing. K? From here, like, it takes a really quick turn. Alex: Oh, yeah. This is a nightmare. Jacob: That was the cliffhanger. That's where I said, Josh: "no kidding there I was." Jacob: Oh, no. Not- not- Josh: in a washing machine. Jacob: That's perfect. Alex: But also in my bed. Jacob: So Okay. We're in so remember this was, like, jungle scene with animals, and it evolves. And then turned into more of this, like, Cambodian Thai type of, like, jungle temple thing. So it still matched that jungle theme and But once we were, like, in it and we're in all these things, like, it the setting changed. Now we're in this, I don't know, Early no. Not that early, like, 1800's, basic, simple, like, presbyterian type of chapel. I know. It was really weird. We're at the front of it at the entrance, we're still inside. And Josh I remember Josh specifically, he was by the doors, the front doors. And I'm looking up when I see- Alex: Gotta protect that exit. Jacob: I wish- Josh: Smart man- Oh- Alex: Way to go. Josh: I failed. I didn't know! Jacob: Up, like, above me and but but to the side, it was on the side, not at the center of the of the building, I noticed this oh, what was I calling it? An alcove. And there was light shining into it. Alex: From inside the building or outside? Jacob: From the outside. So you know how, like, in your in dreams, you have these things that, like, in the dream, like like, oh, yeah. I know what this is, but, like, there's no real way of actually knowing. Like, if you were actually there in real life, you'd never know what it was. So like seeing this weird alcove, again, at the very side of the church with the lights shining in. I was like, oh, that's the steeple. That's where the steeple tower is, and it's got windows and the light's shining in. So Josh, he's like, "oh, cool. Let me open the door and check it out and find out." He opens the door. Josh: Like ya do, another normal reaction. Don't start blaming me. Jacob: So he opens the door. But before he's even able to step outside, it slams shut with, like, tremendous force and locks. And you can't even jiggle the handle anymore. Then all of the lights in the chapel turn off, but there's still the light shining into that alcove from the steeple until there isn't. All of that light, like, it condensed down into a single red sphere in that alcove. And then that sphere of red materialized into a shadow being. Like, it was shadow. It was just it was just pure darkness. Alex: So not red anymore. Jacob: Not red anymore. But despite it being, like, shadow and just dark, I could make the outline of a being, like, a a a person. And, like, as soon as I caught its outline and its edge, it not ran because if it's a shadow, but, like, flew down the like, just descended the wall. And at this moment, like, I fell down, like, on my butt, just, like, terrified about what the heck is going on. I I try to, like, my my my legs just stop working. So I'm trying to back pedal with my arms but those eventually stop working. And then it grabs my feet and I wake up. So then, I'm in bed. Right? I'm I well, I wake up. I'm in bed. I'm trying to get Heather's attention for some reason. I don't even remember why. Josh: Oh no... Do you have sleep paralysis? Jacob: And I can't move. Josh: Oh, my gosh. Jacob: Like, I just could not move. And then I'm trying to get like, I'm trying to yell at her. And I have this very specific feeling of rope around my neck. It's simultaneously like choking the air out of me while compressing my esophagus while also, like, giving me this burning sensation in my neck. And I'm just, like, this coarse, raspy, gross voice. Just yelling. "Heather, Heather, help me." But she can't hear me. Like, I'm doing all I can. And then I finally like, I'm able to move my arm and I nudge her. It's so light that she's just, like, brushing me away, not realizing you know, just thinking it's a normal sleep movement. And then for some reason, she gets out of bed to go to the bathroom or something. And then when she gets out of bed, I realized, like, there's something on top of me. And, like, I can't move that thing that's on top of me, and that's why I can't move. Because I'm trying to kick my legs and everything and move my arms Alex: Is it a cross-legged hag? Because that's what usually what people report from sleep paralysis. Literally a hag sitting on their chest. Jacob: It wasn't. But, again, this whole time- Alex: baba yaga Jacob: She's completely oblivious. Like, she goes to the bathroom. Like, without even noticing or paying attention, And then she comes out and she decides to go check on Iris. But as she does that, she then sees me and realizes I'm stuck and there's this thing trapping me on top of me. She comes over, she grabs it and she lifts it off. And as soon as she lifts it off, I wake up for real. Josh: Yeah. Alex: Ugh Josh: Yeah. Jacob: But it was- Alex: I knew it! Jacob: But it was 1 of those dreams where, like, it was real. Like, where you wake up from it and it just it felt like you actually lived and experienced that thing. 100 percent, I didn't because- Josh: Oh, really? Alex: Are you sure you're not not still dreaming right now? Jacob: No. I mean, I was- Alex: Inception.... Jacob: This is gonna be I I shouldn't be be airing this. This is gonna sound bad. I was on the couch sleeping I I wasn't, like, even in the same room as Heather. Josh: Oh. Jacob: I wasn't even in our bed, but it it was just 1 of those moments where, like, you wake up and you actually have to think to yourself, like, did that actually happen? Did I really go through that? Or or was that really my dream. Josh: Yeah. Crazy. Alex: I don't think I've ever had an inception type dream like that where I'm like, Confusing- Jacob: Oh, see, I I have them every now and then. Where like, yeah, I wake up and, like, I just I can't tell if it had really happened or not. Yeah. So in real life, I've never had a sleep paralysis. That was the first time in a dream. Where I have. And it was again, it it felt like I actually experienced it because the dream was that Like, I was sucked in that deep and it felt that real, that It it was an awful feeling. Josh: That's crazy. What did she lift off of you? Jacob: Yeah. I didn't tell you guys what the item was because it would have completely given away that I was still asleep. It was Iris' crib. Josh: It's just laying on top of you. Jacob: It was so weird. Josh: And you're so weak you can't lift a crib off of you? Jacob: And I forgot to mention at 1 point, I did manage to get my arms up and clap, but it didn't make a sound. No matter what I did. I just I couldn't make any loud noises. It was was creepy. Alex: All you dream interpreters out there, tell us what this was about. Jacob: Oh, no. Don't. I love my baby Iris so much. I do not feel weighted down. Josh: Is that why you were sleeping on the couch? Jacob: Actually it is. Alex: When you hear this later in life, Iris, it's not about you. Josh: Yeah. It was never about you. [00:35:00] Another Brother Outro

#004 The Ferocious Fort Frenzy

About this Episode
In episode #004, The Ferocious Fort Frenzy, the brothers reminisce about earlier, simpler times when a man's worth was only as good as his ability to keep his word... and also the number of paintballs he could fit in his hopper. Is one's participation in a Paintball Arms Race a good indicator of future success in life, or a GREAT indicator of future success in life? You be the judge. (...but the answer is 'great indicator'.) Finally, Josh discusses the dire consequences of letting children study war histories...
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And don't miss this episode's Alternate Reality...
 
Episode Links
Willark Park, now known as Bob Newton Park apparently...
The paintball grounds where all the magic happened. From the long, golden strands of uncut grass fields, to the dense, food-item named terrain of the woods.
Camp Rilea, Oregon Army National Guard. Make a difference in your community. Find your recruiter and join the fight.
Jon Heder, who?
Black Path. The thick woods full of stinging nettle, Fir trees, pits, trips, and falls that used to be a child's never-ending playground of outdoor adventure, mystery, and danger, now appears to be a real blight on Keizer's landscape.
Read the first Kindle Vella episode of The Young Adventurers' Guide: Into the Woods, by pseudo Kyle Weston.
 
Transcript
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API: [00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother [00:00:28] Another Brother Theme Song [00:00:51] Stewnerds Segment Josh: Yeah. How did our love affair with paintball even begin? Jacob: I assume it started with Alex. Alex: No. Josh: I would imagine it did too. Alex: No. I don't think so. Jacob: Out of the 3 of us, you weren't the first to pick it up. Was it Josh? Alex: I think it was Josh. Jacob: Really Josh: So- Alex: I think it was you and your friends- Jacob: And Max and Adam- Alex: that started the paintball. I mean, I guess- Josh: I can't imagine why we would have. Alex: You could say that maybe it started with, like, laser tag. And before that, Super Soakers. Jacob: That's true Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Yeah. That's fair. Josh: Yeah. Okay. So that probably- that probably would be us.
Jacob: So who took that step to paintball? Alex: Honestly, I'm pretty sure Josh went there first. Josh: It might have been me. I do remember because I remember getting the what do they call them? Brass Eagle. I think the brand was Brass Eagle. Alex: Yeah. Josh: The tiny little Like 10 shot pump action, 5 ounce CO2 cartridge. Alex: Yeah that little 10 gram cartridge. Josh: Yeah. 10 gram cartridge from Walmart. They were, like, 25 bucks or something. And- Jacob: 25 for a single-? Josh: Well, for the gun, so it was a gun. Plus- Alex: A tiny little 50 round hopper. Jacob: Yeah. These pump action things were so- Josh: But it was such a blast because, like, we'd play at- we'd go down to Willark Park. Alex: You'd have to lob the balls at each other. Jacob: You played at Willark Park? Alex: Yeah. Exactly. Yes. They played at Willark. Jacob: Are you kidding me? Josh: Yeah. Well, because these are so underpowered. Like, you you would you'd have to, like, arc it and try to be, like, what's the optimal pitch on this that I can to get the for this distance? Jacob: Oh my gosh. Alex: Like like someone that's just 30 yards away, you'd have to lob it at them. It was so fun. Jacob: But also account for wind. They would just go all over the place. Josh: Yeah. I remember trying to, like, trying to do, like, trick shots between, like, the branches in the trees and, like- Alex: Yes. This is how I remember the paintball starting. It was you guys at Willark. I don't know when or why I got into it because none of my friends ever did. Josh: Yeah. It was mostly my friends. Like Max, Chris, Eric. Alex: Okay. I mean -- Okay, "none of my friends" is a little much. Greg was into paintball. Sorry, Greg, if you're listening. But, like but Russell, Danny, Kurt. Josh: Oh, yeah, they didn't Alex: None of them got into paintball. Josh: I think I might not have either if we hadn't started the way we did because starting off with that super low tech- Jacob: Grassroots. Josh: Yeah. You kind of you know, you could dodge. Alex: Right. Josh: And you could you could avoid the pain pretty easily. So I think as we kept stepping it up to the next level, it was kind of a I don't know. That foundation kinda helped me, like, mentally prepare. Jacob: And this is where being the youngest brother sucked because I always stepped it up to the next level. Well, it was delayed. I would say that. Alex: Yeah. Right. Jacob: So I was then left with the pump actions once they got real guns and- Alex: But- But I felt- I felt like it was good for you. Jacob: Builds character. Alex: Yes. I I was I mean, I think I probably still feel this way about a lot of things, but especially back then when I had to learn how to draft with old school drafting machines and no computers, at all. I never got to do any computer drafting in high school. Josh: Wow. Alex: In my head, it was like this noble thing you did to, like, gain respect for the way things used to be so that you could fully respect what you had available to you. And it's like, it's paintball, dude. Get over it. But it was so fun playing out in those really tall grass fields with those pump action guns because, like, you felt like you were in the matrix like dodging bullets as they were coming at you. It was so fun. Jacob: I keep wanting to call it Alex Olsen's property, but he hadn't bought it yet. Alex: He hadn't yet. We were- That was just trespassing probably. Jacob: Yeah. But it was the perfect spot, and it was so close. Alex: Yeah. Josh: Well, I like how it offered so much different varied terrain to play in. Because you had the grass, you had the barn, Jacob: Trees.
Josh: -you had the creek, and the really dense thickets. Alex: Once you go over the farming land, once someone was had the balls to go traipsing through this person's field and farmland, to get to that thicket that grove out there. Josh: Yeah. How did that start? How did we I think was that was that the Nelson's? Did they show us that property? Alex: I don't remember. Jacob: I I wouldn't be surprised. Alex: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised either. They are the ones that lived out there. Jacob: And and their dad now has their tractor out there. Alex: Oh, really? Jacob: Come on, let's put those pieces together. Josh: Yeah. Well, I mean because I remember in high school doing the video production class, we would- a lot of our filming was, like, based out there just because it was so cool with those overland railroad tracks. Alex: Yeah. Josh: And the old rustic barn that was falling apart. Alex: Yeah. Josh: But I think we were already paintballing out there before- Jacob: The videos? Josh: -My friends started filming out there. Yeah. I think we were maybe just kind of adventuring into this trespassed land. And then we eventually found that thicket of trees and went back there and it was just perfect. It's like it was destined for paintball. Alex: And I think I'm not sure if I had graduated high school yet by that point in time, but I think- Jacob: So It straddled, I think. Because you used your Sportsman's warehouse discount. Alex: Yeah. And I didn't have that job until I graduated. I got myself that's when the arms race between you and I, Josh, started. Josh: Because Alex and you had money to do it. I didn't. Jacob: And this is where I started getting usable guns. Yeah. That's true. He had a job. Josh: So how the heck was I even buying that stuff? Alex: I don't know. Josh: Maybe that's where my lunch money was going to. Alex: Christmas, birthday, saving up. I don't know. Jacob: That 16 inch spiraled barrel though. Alex: 14. Yeah. That was that was my coup de grace, I guess. I don't know. Josh: But again, going back to our video game episode, Alex, very much you, like, very much leaned into that, like, covert- Alex: Sniper. That archetype. Josh: Yeah. You got the what was that brand of cammo? Alex: Mossy Oak. It was specifically their Turkey hunting cammo because it was extra green. Yeah. Gloves. I had it on gloves, a long sleeve t shirt, a pair of pants, and I was really depressed this year because I had no friends. Everybody was gone to school. And I was left at home. So I was watching all kinds of crazy stuff. And 1 of the things I watched on the history channel was the history of camouflage. And so I then hand painted my mask. To be camouflage. Jacob: I forgot about that. Alex: Hand painted my hopper, to match. My gun itself was green. Josh: Yeah. Alex: And then, yeah, I got those the perforated sticker to go on to the visor that was in a like an old school army forest cammo. Jacob: And your helmet was fully encased. Right? Covered your back the back of the head too? Alex: No. That was Josh's. Josh: Mine did. Mine did. Jacob: Okay. Josh: Well, because Alex starts- Right, do we're talking about paintball arms race. So Alex starts getting like super OP equipment. Alex: The first 1 of us to get a semi automatic, I think. Josh: Yeah. Probably. Alex: And, like, a 200 round hopper. Josh: The halo? Yeah. You got a halo hopper with the force feed didn't you? Alex: No. No. The only 1 that ever had the only 1 that ever had 1 of those was Eric because he had the fully automatic. Josh: Yes he did. Josh: The fully electric trigger. I think it was a double trigger. Halo hopper. Yeah. Alex: You had an electric trigger too, but- Jacob: you did. Yeah. I remember that you had the batteries that went in the handle. Josh: Yeah. And I it had a little LED/LCD display. The only thing I remember was I programmed it to say, "C"- "Courage Grows Stronger at the Wound." So whenever I'd pick up my paintball gun and I'd and turn it on, I'd look at it and be like, Yeah! Courage does grow stronger at the wound! Just to psych myself up. It was a crazy game. Alex: Good point. A lot of stuff was going on at that point in time, like, we were we were really starting to get into the fact that our heritage was Scottish at that point in time too. Man, that was a good time. Josh: Yeah. And we were, like, really getting in, I think, our our meshing with Anberlin. Jacob: No. Not yet. That was after your freshman year of college. You brought it home from BYU. Alex: I didn't hear any until after my mission. Mhmm. Josh: What? Jacob: It came that late to us. Josh: No way. Jacob: Yeah. You discovered them on, like, Pandora or something. Josh: It was probably me and Chris because we were roommates. Alex: Right. Yeah. Josh: It was probably a combination of that. Wild. Jacob: But Linkin Park- Alex: Linkin Park for me, Jimmy Eat World- Jacob: Oh, yeah. Josh: Jimmy Eat World.
Jacob: Big. Josh: Franz Ferdinand. Alex: What? Jacob: Yeah. That was- I bought that one. That was mine. Josh: It was Jacob's. They're Scottish, I think, or British of some sort. Alex: Metallica. I listened to a lot of Metallica. Jacob: Well, slowly throughout this whole time, I was probably the biggest beneficiary. I spent no money, but eventually got a full kit out of out of the arms race. Alex: Yeah. Man, we went crazy. I had like a proper gun carrying case. Josh: Yes you did. Alex: It's like the egg carton foam in it, and I cut it so that everything fit just right, my barrel, my gun. My I think I even got my CO2 in there. Man, I miss being able to, like, know that gun inside and out, take it apart, fully redo all the the O-rings so there were no leaks, afterward. That was scary to begin with, though, figuring that out. Josh: Yeah. It's probably more probably felt more terrifying than it really needed to be- Jacob: Yeah. Josh: -in hindsight. I guess. So like, yeah, I knew my gun so well when I do get to BYU and started doing my mechanical engineering, we had to do a project where we had to build like a complex machine, and I was able to completely 3D recreate my entire gun down to the O-ring. Jacob: I remember those renders. Josh: Yeah. Alex: Sweet. Josh: I totally made up the measurements, you know. Alex: Sure. Josh: But man, I remember once we were doing this so broadly amongst us and our small group of friends and then integrating it within the young men. Alex: Yeah. That's when it got really interesting. It's like, when Dad was playing- Jacob: Oh, right right right. Alex: -as a sanctioned young men's activity. Josh: On someone else's land, that we don't even know. Alex: You know, we never Right. Right. We have no idea who owns this barn. That, I know you guys did this a few times. I can only remember playing with dad once. And I think it was probably the first time. Josh: Yeah. I think we played twice at least, but I I only remember the 1 time. Jacob: Yeah. Dad took us man, it was someone's birthday. Josh: Oh, it was- Jacob: He took us to an actual outdoor arena. Alex: And uncle Bob went too, and I didn't get to go. Josh: Yeah. It was Trevor's it was Trevor's birthday party. Alex: It sounded awesome. Oh, and Camp Rilea. Josh: Oh, yeah. Camp Rilea. Jacob: You guys you guys took them to Camp Rilea? Alex: I never went to Camp Rilea. Josh: That was just me. Oh, yeah, baby. Jacob: You took the guns? Josh: Yes. Jacob: Oh, man. Josh: Because they have they have a full on- Jacob: I mean, yeah, that's what the city's for- Josh: You've been there. Right? Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Josh: So now now having been in the Army, it's called a MOUT- MOUT city. Jacob: Mhmm. Not mock. MOUT? Josh: Or mock, but we we'd do it for MOUT- MOUT training. Still 1 of the best cities of the kind that I've been through. That was a blast too. Oh my gosh. I can't believe we got the Oregon Guard to, like, let us do that. Alex: Pretty sweet. Jacob: So cool. Alex: I think 1 of the best things about paintballing was, yes, it was really fun to play. But it was almost more fun at the end of a round of playing to just start recounting all of your war stories to everybody. I don't know why that was so fun, but it was so fun to just be talking about what you just did with everybody. Josh: Well it came, I think for us, because we were, you know, related and or friends for so long. It was like it wasn't a macho ego driven thing- Jacob: Or boasting. Josh: It was like "dude, you freaking nailed me right here, I can't believe you were you were so cool." Like, "you were good enough to do that." Jacob: That's totally what the spirit of it was. Yeah. It was no like trying to brag or show each other up. Alex: Right. We were not what some people might say are traditional paintballers, I guess, because there are some really douchey paintballers out there, man. Josh: Well, yeah, at Trevor's birthday party. Alex: Oh, yeah. Josh: Yeah. We had to deal with a bunch of drama. Dad Dad was yeah. By the end, well, because someone because we ended we were there and then they can't just close it down to 1 group because they have to make their money. So another group of like 4 or 5 teenage guys showed up. Someone was down. It might have been wasn't dad. I can't remember who it was, but someone was down, like, in, like, thick ferns. And 1 of these kids was just shooting into it, And the guy was trying to wave off, like, okay I'm hit. I'm hit. But the guy just kept unloading. And then, of course, me being a hot head, I just, like, ran up right up to his kid and, like, pushed him hard and was getting ready to, like, throw down fists, you know? Alex: Fisticuffs. Josh: And and then all the adults, Bob and dad, and everyone shows up and they're like, "what's going on?!". And then, you know, dad, "We're done. We're out of here!" This you know, "Trevor's birthday party's over!" Josh: It was big. Dad got dad got really, really mad. It might have been him that was getting shot. I don't know- I think it was dad! I think- I got so- I was, like, murderous. Like, I am going to murder this teenager right now. That was a hard one for me. Alex: I don't know how, but our group of friends, we just had this innate sense of fairness for fun. Josh: Yeah. Alex: That nobody would ever think of taking advantage of it because it wasn't fun at that point. Josh: Yeah. Alex: Fairness made it more fun and we never we never had to talk about the rules really. Yeah. Like if there were any any game has basic rules that make it the game. But like, as far as rules to make the game fair, we never had to talk about those. Like, everybody just got it. We just did it. And that's what made paintball with us so much fun. I've seen some YouTube videos from a guy who does either air soft or paintball. I can't remember which. I think probably air soft. But maybe paintball. I don't remember. Anyway, and his videos are always full of drama because people just don't want to play fair they wanna win and show that they're better than everybody, but we just wanted to have fun. Jacob: I remember- I won't name names, but I remember 1 or 2 occasions of a a certain individual who we'd have to put back in line or, like, get on their case for being stupid. Like, shooting at someone with their mask off. Any any names coming to mind? Josh: Yes. For for a minute there, I was thinking a little bit but, yeah, I definitely, a hundred percent know what you're talking about. Yeah. And you're just like, what? Jacob: He's he's Yeah. Anyway. But That's true. Overall. Josh: Like, we didn't wanna play for, like, you know, 1 hit you're out because then you're, like, Oh, man. But then that person's not having fun anymore. Jacob: Yeah. So we play for pain! Alex: So much fun! Josh: So we willingly- Yeah, "we're gonna play for pain!" And like, you can give up once you're done. Like, once that pain threshold is met, you can walk off the field. No. You know, no issues. Alex: But then, you just you just go back in somewhere else. Yeah. Jacob: Oh I don't remember that, really? Alex: Yeah. We would- we would say we would we would head out with it- usually wasn't the gas. The gas wasn't usually the limiting issue as much as the number of rounds. Jacob: The hopper. Yeah. Alex: But we would go out each person with a certain number of rounds. We'd talk about how many rounds everybody has and we'd be like, okay, let's just go play, like, maybe 500 rounds. And we would just kind of stop once someone had run out of rounds. Jacob: That brings me to another thing I remember kind of the communal feel of it. Like, you'd all throw your balls up. Throw our paint balls out there. And if someone was low and someone else was, like, loaded, like we would communally share those paint balls to make sure we could keep playing. We had enough rounds to go around the party. Alex: If everyone wanted to keep playing, then we'd Yeah. Make it happen. Yeah. Especially, since I got a discount on paint and gas at At Sportsmans. I got really good prices on paint when I was working there. Josh: That was- it was meant to be that job coalesced, perfectly. Alex: Yeah. Josh: I just remember who was the I think a lot of the genius behind a lot of this stuff is Chris, but also I think Alex too. Like, when did we start giving names to, like, the key terrain features within our wooded zone? I remember hamburger Hill Alex: And there was a- I think there was a stump somewhere that we called Corn Dog. Josh: Yeah. Corn Dog. There was medicine- or the cabinet- or- Alex: Yeah. Because there was an actual medicine cabinet. That someone had thrown out there for some reason. Oh, that's right. We weren't the first people. To be out there using it for this kind of activity. Josh: Yeah. Someone else had been there and put some, like, yeah, some furniture elements out there, cabinets and things. Alex: I think we could find old paint markings too. Josh: Yep. Alex: So it wasn't just like a homeless person had been living out there. Josh: But for all that time. Like, we never came across anybody else, which tells me there must have been, like like a generation behind us.
Jacob: Yeah. Or the Nelson's put up target practice. Right. Josh: No. Because we were like yeah. Because we had, like, stumbled on this because we were tired of just playing in the tall grass. There's trees over there. Let's hike out there and see and then as we're walking through, there's like this cabinet there and everything. You're like, what the hey. Alex: It was a perfect perfect place to play. It was iconic for our group. Just it was just the perfect size with the perfect variety of spaces. I remember what I what I considered in my mind to be, like, the front area, it was, like, gently sloped. And there were trees around the perimeter all the way around. And then a couple of trees, a few trees widely spaced out in the middle of this gentle slope that created what was kind of like a round circular area. That I considered to be kind of the main battlefield. That was usually where we were. Josh: Yep. Alex: And there were foxholes here and there. And that's where I think the medicine cabinet was. Josh: Yeah from root systems. So I think these trees that just created little hovels like- Alex: But, like, the the trees were spaced out enough that it felt really open, but you were you didn't always have perfect lines from every spot to every other spot because there were trees out there in the middle. Oh my gosh. It was so good. Josh: So good. Jacob: Do you guys remember you you glued little clickers to the side of your guns, so you could signal- Alex: Oh yeah. I absolutely remember that. Jacob: -via clicking. Alex: We got those from Earlene. At a halloween party. Jacob: Oh really? Josh: From Christmas? Or, no, not Christmas. Halloween. Alex: Yeah. They used to be little white ghosts. And we just, like, filed and shaved off all the plastic until it was just the clicker. Because that's we were we were gonna play a night game at Jon Heders' parents' house in West Salem. Yes. That Jon Heder. Jacob: Napoleon Dynamite. Josh: That's right. Name drop! Alex: We never met him or anything, but Josh: but that backyard was freaking dope. Alex: Yeah. We were gonna play a night game, and we- another thing that I think I had seen watching a lot of history channel- I was either watching History Channel, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. Josh: That's all you need. Alex: I learned about D Day paratroopers that dropped in the night before from the gliders, they all had these, like, Snapple lids, and they would click at each other. 2 clicks to question, and then 1 click in response. To say "I'm a friendly". Jacob: That's right. Alex: And so I was like, oh, my gosh. These would be perfect for that. Then we hot glued them to the side of our guns. So they'd be right within reach of your thumb. Josh: Right. For your thumb. Yep. Alex: That's not all. Like, you and I, Josh, we went- the 2 of us went really crazy with our paintballing. Like, we came up with so many drills to drill each other in very specific ways to to to "increase our skills!" And it was because I had been drum major my senior year and I I had it in my head to be thinking of new ways to drill marching fundamentals into the band. And I came up with some exercises of my own that I thought were really good. But yeah. So that was just kind of in my head to be thinking that way at that point. So we didn't just play for pain all the time. Sometimes we did play, you get hit, you you're out. Yeah. Sometimes we would do that. But other times, we would play these other game modes that came from these drills that Josh and I came up with. I think we called 1 "Hunter and the Hunted". Josh: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Alex: That was my favorite drill. Josh: I totally forgot about that. Alex: Really? Oh, yeah. We played that out in the grass first. And 1 of us would have a gun, the other would have a helmet. The 1 with the gun would close their eyes, plug their ears, and count to a certain number that was determined ahead of time. Josh: You could change it, yeah. Alex: And the other person with the helmet had that much time to hide themselves. The other person once they were done counting would open their eyes and they would have 1 shot to shoot the other person. Jacob: 1 round? Alex: 1 round. Jacob: Wow. Alex: And that was only if they could see them. And we would play, I think, variations where you could move and others where you couldn't. Josh: Yeah. The Hunter would get to walk around and and yeah. Jacob: You're saying that that base mode, both stationary. Alex: Yeah. Right. Jacob: So it's like a pretty limited amount of time you're counting. Alex: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. We're talking like, 20 seconds, 30 seconds. Yeah. Alex: Yeah. Sometimes 10 or 5. I think we went all the way down to 5 seconds. Josh: I just remember I remember, like, hiding behind roots or something. Because I think we did it in the tree stands too. Alex: We did. That was the 1 we would play, like, as a full game mode with other people. Josh: Yeah. I just remember, like, hiding somewhere, like, tucking all of my limbs in and just be- closing my eyes and being like, don't breathe. Don't breathe. Alex: I can't believe I don't remember ever playing this because that's, like, absolutely the kind of game you guys would convince me to be the the Hunted on. Alex: We would trade. We'd totally trade. Josh: Yeah. Oh, that game was great. Well, and Alex in his Mossy Oak cammo and you're like, gosh, dang it. Where the heck are you? Alex: Yeah. I had I definitely had an advantage there. Josh: Remember when we- So as we're ramping up in how we were playing, we started integrating radio systems too. Alex: Yeah. Uh-huh. Josh: Push to talk radio. And I don't remember if Alex if you were the first 1 to get 1, but didn't you get a throat mic? Alex: Yes. I also got that from Sportsmans Warehouse. Josh: Yeah. So a vox- voice activated throat mic onto his little 2 way radio. Alex: Clear your voice to start the broadcast and keep talking. Josh: To turn the vox on, yeah. Jacob: No way. Josh: Yeah. Oh, dude. It was awesome. Because that's when we started, like, distributing. That's when we we had, like, identified Hotdog or Corn Dog and Hamburger Hill. And so we're like, now we're, like, dispersed across this entire area, and we're still trying to, like, totally force the other side to capitulate from just the pain. Right? Alex: Right. Josh: And so we're really trying to, like, trying to try to canalize the the entire other team into an area where both of us can just, like, lay down fire until they run away. And so you had to be able to communicate. That was awesome. Jacob: 1 closing thought. I can't wait until our kids are old enough. Not- where I'm at currently not paintball, but the new, like, the gel bead blasters they have. Josh: Oh? Jacob: Have you not seen those? Oh, man. Josh: No. Jacob: I think it would be dope. So, like I mean, we're talking a hopper the size of like a phone, 800 rounds in that bad boy. Alex: Dang. Jacob: So you know Orbeez? It's it's basically the Orbeez only really small. Right? So they're about the size of an air soft round- Alex: but it goes squish. Jacob: Yeah. But you can still feel it. They they leave little little marks from what I've seen. So you just throw on some glasses and you know, it's so it's obviously more comparable to airsoft, but it's biodegradable. It's just gel. Alex: Yes. That's the best part. Jacob: So you can go play anywhere and you're not leaving paint or these pellets or whatever. Alex: I mean, the paint was biodegradable. Jacob: That's true. It was. And some air soft rounds are, but they're cheap too. Josh: Dang.[00:26:20] Interstitial Joke Jacob: So someone asks, so what does "POC" mean? So, you know, someone says a "proof of concept". So someone else thinking they're funny, he says, yeah, it has something to do with an "MVP". So that same person who said what what a POC is, he clarified MVP means "minimum viable product". So I respond, "that really changes my understanding of the award I got back in tee ball. Alex: Because you were short. Jacob: Minimum viable to be a T Ball player. [00:27:02] Storytime SegmentSoundbite: Hey, kids. Do you know what time it is? Storytime! Josh: Okay. So back when I was in elementary school, all of my friends, minus 1, lived roughly in the same neighborhood area in Keizer. And so during the summers, you know, it wasn't uncommon to just head over to 1 of the houses over there usually Max's, and that kinda became like our base of operations for whatever fun we were gonna be having. Jacob: Shenanigans. Josh: Yeah. But this was this was probably the fundamental start of my shenanigans. Like the, yeah, the origin story of sorts. So we were, you know, Cub Scouts, and it's Oregon. So we're very interested in the outdoors, and we feel very comfortable being in, like, the forest and exploring on our own and stuff. And on the way out there, if you're heading out to that neighborhood, like hitting towards Gubser or up 14th Street. At the time, you're not gonna find it anymore, unfortunately. But as you get close to Marigold, I think it's Marigold or Meadowlark, you'd come across what we called Black Path. Because there was a black paved pathway that came off the sidewalk that went past this grassy, open grassy field, and then eventually, it sloped pretty severely down to a creek. And that entire creek area was just really heavily forested and Black Path would take you down and would wrap around this little subdivision and flow along the next to the creek. And there were a bunch of, like, wild onions and stuff down there. Yeah. We'd pick them and you'd smell them and they'd, you know, just smell good and you'd suck on them and whatever. Or we'd even, like- Alex: Mmmmm onion! Josh: I mean it's cool! Jacob: Some of us would suck on them, apparently. Josh: Come on. Come on. You're a kid, you're out, you're foraging. Like, it's a cool feeling. We were pretty young. Alex: Alright. Alright. Josh: And and we'd even, like, try to stew some, like, campfire soup stuff. Jacob: That's what I remember. Taking them back to the to the Breedlove's house and, yeah, try to cook with them. Josh: Yeah. That never tasted good because we had no concept of seasoning. But anyway, 1 summer well, so then this forested area was, like, really thickly forested the trees were so big and like old. So they're like really just good strong Fir trees. And 1 summer, we decided to really explore the Black Path area, and we'd go out there, and we noticed in 1 tree, like, really, really high up in the tree, there were some wood, like, stepping, kinda like, you know, old school kid tree forts, a ladder up in the tree. You just hammer a board in. So, like, really high up in the tree, there were maybe 4 or 5 of these. You know, like, what the heck? How do you even get there? And you'd notice some, like, scrap wood up there in some of the the tree canopies. So very clearly, we're like, Oh, this is a forest fort. This is "our" forest fort, and we started, like, renovating and improving and building our forts and stuff. And, like, we'd get up. We'd get, like, either a 5 gallon bucket or, like, I think we had a wagon at 1 point. And we'd fill it with scrap wood from whoever's house, some nails and hammer, and we would just haul these things down the neighborhoods over to Black Path. And we- Alex: How old were you at this point again? Josh: Gosh. Well, Max moved in. In fifth grade, and I think it was probably that summer. So probably the summer of my 5th grade year. Alex: So you were like 11? Josh: Yeah. [actually, Josh was 10] Jacob: 11, yeah. Josh: So we're just renovating. And then I'm pretty sure it was my idea because I'm the 1 that was, like, really into war and like like the historicity's of war and stuff. And I remember learning about Vietnam. And- Alex: Okay... Jacob: I don't remember that in my fifth grade course work. Alex: Yeah. No kidding. Josh: So I had remembered, like, the Vietcong would build, like, punji pits and stuff and booby traps, and so we'd start- So this was just a concept at this point. Right? We're just like I'm just conceptualizing like, man, this is a for. Like, we gotta defend it. Right? There's all these options we have. So anyway, as we're really developing this place out, 1 day, we start going back and we're crossing the really long grass field that leads to the tree line. And it's just like any other normal, sunny, summer day and as we were approaching the tree line, no kidding, there I was, diving for my life, as the snap of some projectile flies past my ear over and over again. There was another kid gang in town, and these guys were sling shotting nails at us. Jacob: Nails? Alex: What the freak! Josh: Nails. Like, big thick construction nails. So we hit the dirt. Jacob: Sorry, did did you say you hadn't even made it to the tree line yet? You're still in the field? Josh: No, we were completely in the open. Jacob: Are you kidding me? Josh: So they're they're in the tree line. Snapping these things- Jacob: Oh my gosh. Josh: -at us. So of course, well, and this field has like a bunch of stinging nettle in it. And the grass isn't very thick. Like, it's not the best cover or it's it's not no cover. Jacob: It's not even watered so it's yellow and sharp and pokey on its own. Josh: Yeah. So we hightailed it out. And my group of friends is not 1 to just, like, capitulate, and, like, roll over. Yeah. So we're like, you know, "are you kidding me either an hour our forest, we claimed it as our ownership" and thus started the epic battles of for Black Forest. Long story short, we did put punji pits in, And we had determined that these kids were coming from the other side of the creek, and they were crossing the creek. Jacob: What? Clearlakers? Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Coming into Gubser territory. Alex: That's so- Jacob: No way. Josh: We had found these little, like, board bridges to bridge over the creek, and we'd remove them, and they would just find a way to put them back. And so, oh, my gosh. We found barbed wire, and we strung barbed wire along the length of the bottom of the creek. Jacob: Oh my gosh. Alex: What the freak? Josh: We- this is, like, what happens when you let your kids read real history. It's like the reality of war meets this unknown reality of childhood. Jacob: Alright. But let's let's get this out there. Who all who all were you? Did you have the 2 Chris's? Obviously you and Max. Josh: Yeah. So it was mostly me, Max and Adam. Jacob: Was Adam around by now? Josh: Maybe he wasn't- Alex: Maybe he was for that. Jacob: I can't remember when they moved in. Josh: No. He must not have been. He must not have been because it was a while before he came in after Max came in. So yeah, it was probably me and Max, a lot of this we did on our own. Yeah. And at least Chris for some of it. I don't think Curry was ever there. A lot of this stuff is is me and Max, But anyway, that that was kind of like the initial foray into just so many shenanigans. Yeah. And funny, interesting to note. I'm actually writing a series of children's books loosely based on my childhood. Jacob: Yes! What? No way. Josh: Yeah. I'm putting them on Amazon Kindle because you can do these- So I'm trying this serial- There's a serial- a way to like, release stories in serial. So you can, like, release it episode at a time or, like, chapter at a time. And- Jacob: Are these audio or or text? Josh: No. It's text. Jacob: Okay. Are you gonna, like, use Midjourney or DALL-E? Josh: I use DALL-E for the- so for this platform, it's not you don't input images, like, in line with the text. Jacob: Oh, okay. Josh: So just an episode. So it's, like, just a wall of text, But you can get it on your app your phone app and everything. But then the story itself has a, like, a book cover image. And I use DALL-E for that, and it's actually pretty cool. [00:35:45] Another Brother Outro
 
 

#003 The Sickening Siberia Supper

About this Episode
In episode #003, The Sickening Siberia Supper, Josh has an ego trip about how good he was at hiding from kids in cars. Alex actually thinks "ollie, ollie, oxenfree" was a cool game to play... And countless Siberian babushki had to deep clean their fur coats because Jacob did WHAT?! You might need your wetnaps for this one.
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And don't miss this episode's Alternate Reality...
 
Episode Links
Regatta Park in Lincoln City, OR, and its epic wooden playground fort structures.
Claggett Creek Park in Keizer, OR. The scene of many a cross country practice run, as well as, interestingly enough, a high school environmental science class creek restoration project!
ROSTIC'S. According to Reuters, "Fried chicken is always good business." (or something like that.)
Ресторан Mexico. Unfortunately, perhaps too many people suffered from food poisoning here, for it seems the restaurant has since closed. Once located here, you can still see the beginning of the underground entrance beneath À La Mode. Here is a picture of the entrance, "a la" Jacob.
Maslenitsa (Мaсленица).
Marshrutka (маршру́тка). According to the Wikipedia entry, "[R]iders nearer the driver are responsible for handing up the other passengers' fares and passing back change." ...That's "passing back change" Jacob... NOT partially digested Mexican seafood...
Rough location of the now-infamous babushka throw up incident...
 
Transcript
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API: [00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother [00:00:24] Another Brother Theme Song [00:00:44] Stewnerds Segment Josh: I have 2 really early memories about night games that I think I think I keep bringing up like, "This was formative in my life", but this was like really formative in my life. I was thinking about as I was walking over Alex's house to record this. Jacob: In the night time. Josh: It's night. We've all got families and lives, so we do this after dark. And I was just embracing the darkness, and the night And I- The thought occurred to me as I was prepping for this episode that I feel as comfortable outside at night as I do in the daytime. And I think it's because of all the times of us just embracing being out at night. Do you guys remember our fathers-and-sons campouts with dad? Alex: Sure. Jacob: A little. I I was quite a bit younger, I think. I don't have as many memories. Josh: There was one camp that our Ward went to pretty frequently, can't remember what it's called, it had the Adirondacks out there. I just remember a couple times we'd play capture the flag at night. And so you had all the all the Adirondacks scattered around. You had some fire pits. You had a big a covered building area. It's in the middle of the Oregon forest, so there's trees everywhere. And tents because not everyone slept in an Adirondack. Alex: But When when Josh said "our Ward", he means our local congregation of churchgoers. That's yeah. That's terminology from our church for the people we actually go to church with. Jacob: Yay verily. Josh: Yeah. Yay verily. And, "so say we all". And every summer, we'd hold this father-and-sons camp out. Alex: Sometimes in the fall. But, yeah, every year. Josh: Every year, I should say, yeah, every year. And I think that is the earliest that I can remember playing these sorts of night games. As a kid. Alex: One of my earliest memories playing this kind of game, I can't tell in my memory which one of these is earlier. Grandma Robison or Grandma Stewart. Jacob: I don't know where this is going... Alex: I have memories playing. I think we just called it oxenfree. At grandma's house. Jacob: -- Which grandma? Josh: -- which grandma? Alex: Yep. Sorry. Grandma Robison at night in the summer -- . Jacob: Outside Alex: Under the orange sodium lamp streetlight glow, "ollie, ollie, ollie, oxenfree". Jacob: Oh, in the in the lot that a house still hasn't been built on across the street? Alex: No. Jacob: No? Just in her yard. Alex: I mean, maybe people were hiding over there too, but Josh: This sounds familiar... Alex: But then also at Grandma Stewart's at Devil's Lake Park [Alex meant Regatta Park, in Lincoln City]. I doubt we were supposed to be able to be in the park after dark. Most parks close at dark. But we would have one person this this park had, like, one of those giant wooden castle like play structures. And so we would have someone with a flashlight in a tower and everyone else had to get to the bottom of that tower without being spotted by the person with the flashlight. Jacob: I completely forgot about this. Alex: It was so fun. Josh: I still have no memory of this. Jacob: No? Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Okay. Sometimes, we're gonna have to talk about memories from grandma and grandpa's while they were living on the coast because Yeah. I was pretty young. I don't remember a whole lot, but, anyway, this does sound very familiar to you. Alex: Yeah. It was super fun. Like, during the day, we played follow the leader as we climbed on the outside- Jacob: Yeah. Josh: I remember that. Alex: -of the structure, like bad kids, except the adults were playing with us. So, like, not our fault. But then at night, we'd give someone a flashlight. They'd go into something like a tower and try to spot everybody as they would sneaky sneak. Josh: I I I love the park, the bark chips. I remember all that, but man. Yeah. I I must have been too young. Jacob: It- okay. I I have an image in my mind. It's the the big old fatty rectangular with, like, a flashlight with a handle that takes the, like, the big D cell batteries, like, 4 of those. Alex: Like 4 or 6 of those Jacob: Yeah. That's just what I have in my mind of someone swinging that around trying to catch people as they're running. Alex: Yeah, I think so. Josh: Awesome. Do you got one, Jacob? Jacob: Yeah. So mine actually, back to Josh, How many people do you remember actually playing? On the father and son campouts, I mean. Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Were all the dads getting in there? Was it just the sons? I don't I honestly don't remember playing capture the flag. Alex: I don't remember any night games from father and son campouts. Josh: I remember yeah. Like, the majority of dads would play Jacob: Awesome Josh: and kids. It was amazing. And it was like, kinda like we did later on at McNary for track- capture the flag. So we'd have like this middle line that went down the center of this entire camping area. And, yeah, you just sneak and just try to stay covered and and go get the the other flag on each side and bring it over to the other point, kind of like Halo capture the flag. But, oh, man. This is this is interesting. So I remember things I I have to believe that you guys did those because Alex: Probably. Yeah. Josh: I remember doing it like multiple times. But you don't remember it. Alex: I can't conjure any memory of it. Jacob: This is why I love this. We all have different gaps. In in the memories -- Josh: What had the most impact. You know? Alex: For me, though, with the night games, it really went crazy when we became "youths" and we could, like, leave the house after dark. And we were, like, playing commando throughout the entire town. Jacob: Oh baby, Yes. Alex: Or there was also my twelfth birthday. We went camping for my birthday. Yeah it was just night games. Josh: Epic. Yeah. Jacob: All of us? Or did dad just, like, take you in your friends? Josh: I was there. Alex: Yeah. Josh was there. I doubt you were there because you would have been Jacob: Yeah I don't think. Alex: 7? Jacob: 7. Yeah. Josh: Well, So I didn't camp out with you guys. Jacob: And Liz would've been a baby. Alex: Oh, you didn't? Okay. Josh: I I probably went home maybe with mom and then brought back out during the day. Alex: That was a fun party. Jacob: But Yes. Commandos was so good. That was so much fun. Josh: Who wants to describe commandos? Jacob: You can take it Alex because I'm gonna describe it. For me, there's another one that's even more- Alex: Sardines? Jacob: No. It's it's similar to Sardines, but it's even bigger and even more important for me, so you take commandos. Alex: So I didn't actually get to play a whole lot of commandos, unfortunately. I think that blew up around the time I was getting ready to leave the house. Jacob: Yeah. I only have a couple memories of you being with us. Alex: But if I remember correctly, there's, like, 1 maybe even 2 parties in their car. Josh: Uh-huh. Alex: There's a point A and a point B that everyone else has to get from and then to, without being spotted by the people in the cars. And so you've got crazy people like my brothers going through strangers' backyards. Jacob: I have a footnote there, one brother. That was Josh. I would- I did not participate in trespassing. Josh: Okay. Here's footnote number 2. I never went into anyone's backyard. Alex: Okay. Jacob: that's fair. Josh: I hid really well in front yards and under bushes and cars and things. Jacob: Okay. I I definitely would do that as well. Front yards, bushes, that's fair game. Josh: The only person going in backyards that I know of was Tyler. Probably Adam. Jacob: Definitely Adam. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Tyler had a ghillie suit though for crying out loud. Alex: Oh Tyler. Jacob: Yeah. So it's basically tag across an entire city -- Alex: Hide and see kinda tag. Jacob: --yeah, with 2 cars. And they'd have 1 or 2 spotters within the car. Alex: Yeah. This would this would have been a perfect game for the 1957 Chevy Impala that dad says Grandpa Stewart had because it was a decommissioned cop car. So it had that spotlight in the shotgun position That would have been perfect. Josh: Yeah. Instead, you know, the- each car would bring, like, flashlights with them and the non drivers would try to spot with the flashlight, and and just drove very, very slowly. Alex: Probably freaking a lot of residents of this city out. Am I about to get shot up? Jacob: I do have a distinct memory. I think this was the time when you were playing with us, Alex. You can correct me if you don't remember this at all. I think Josh is well. I think the 3 of us, maybe 1 other, we were running through Claggett Creek Park. And let's see. We were coming from man, I don't even know where point A to B would have been for us to be crossing through Claggett Creek Park Alex: Seriously. Jacob: But- Josh: Start at Kennedy? Jacob: Maybe McNary. Alex: Oh, McNary, that would make some sense. Jacob: Or to the church? Josh: Oh, yeah. That can make sense too. Jacob: So running through the field from the direction of McNary to the church, and that northwest parking lot, 1 of the cars comes and pulls in. And we see them driving and come. We see them turning into the parking lot and we all just drop to the ground and, like, just hug it as tightly as we can. And then, like, the head beams are just rolling straight over us. Like, you can see them passing through the grass, through the the wetness on it, and and over top of us. And we're just as still as as silent as can be. They didn't see us, and they just turned around, kept on driving. Josh: I I have vague memories of this. Yeah. But I feel like those sorts of moments were so common in frequency. In that game. Yeah. You know, 1 time, I remember being under the, like, the hedge row bush, in front of this guy's front door, when he opens the front door, and he's like, Well, because the car the car was coming up. And so I'm like, I gotta hide somewhere. That was the closest obstacle with some sort of concealment. And So I had, like, slid under there, crawled up in the bark dust, and the car drives by really slow, and the guy comes out of the front door. He's all angry, you know, like you alluded to, like, "what are you kids doing?" And I thought he knew I was there, but he was yelling at the car. Full of kids. And they're like, I I think they were pretty sure that they knew I was there. But now they're getting, you know, Attention from the the homeowner. And so they just kept driving. And as soon as he went in and closed the door, I was like, you know, I split. So fun. Jacob: Yeah. That did make me think of 1 more thing. I just I'll fess up now. You guys don't know if you were ever in this situation. Would you ever you're hiding car drives by, they stop because they think they spotted you- Josh: Throw a rock. Jacob: No. No. They'll shout out, "hey, person behind this bush" or something like that. But they couldn't say your name. So I would I would always just stay. I just sit as long as I could until, like, to test okay, how sure are you that I'm here? Because you don't know who it is. You can't call me by name. And if they would eventually just drive off, I I would send it out if I could. Josh: Oh yeah. You start a game of Commandos, and you are committed. Good. You you are not removing me unless you can identify me. Alex: Yeah. I mean, I thought that was the rule. Jacob: That's true. You do that's right. You had to call names out specifically. That does ring a bell. Josh: But there's some Some of these kids that played with us would, like, be more willing to stop for whatever reason and join the car crew, you know. Jacob: Chumps. Josh: Yeah. Weak. Alex: I hope you're all listening you idiots. Josh: I had another younger memory, we were at- it was my first snipe hunt. Oh. Remember that at sun valley? Jacob: Sun River. Alex: Sun River Resort. Josh: Yeah. Sun River Resort. It was us, our family, the Currys, and the Naylors. Alex: The Naylors. Yeah. Josh: And Doug, And all the other dads, so all the dads and all the kids, went out at night because Doug promised us this really cool Snipe hunt that, like, none of us had heard of. Maybe you did Alex. Maybe Michael did. And I I gotta tell you, though. I was completely bamboozled. I thought this thing was for real. And it just it was so much fun. Alex: I smelled week-old fish coming off of this thing pretty hard. Josh: He convinced me, and I was looking in bushes and looking over at the other bushes and looking up the tree, and so I don't know if I necessarily considered that at night game. But we were- it was gamey, and it was at night, and it did- It was just 1 more positive experience at night with a bunch of friends. Having a good time. And, yeah, it's great. Yeah. Alex: But why why do we love these things so much? Jacob: Adventure. I don't know. Alex: Yeah. I think that's all I can come up with, but that just seems kinda weak. Like Jacob: No. Alex: Why why do we love adventure? You know, what? Jacob: It's such a, like, compelling thing from deep inside. I don't know. Right? Josh: Yeah. It is. Yeah. I couldn't tell you. Alex: But Like, I wanna go play right now. I I know. I am mad that I can't go play right now. Jacob: Yeah. For real. Josh: Suit up! Alex: I still have 1 piece of my Turkey hunting cammo that I used while paintballing somewhere. Josh: So I do think about this. And I'm like, man, am I just destined to sunset now. Am I too old to do all these things I enjoy doing, but We're not. Because kids are gonna get to that age pretty soon where they're gonna wanna go airsofting, paintballing. Alex: And we're gonna kick their butts! Josh: It is gonna be embarrassing. Jacob: Embarrassing for whom? Josh: For somebody. But embarrassment will be had. But, yeah, I Right. I'm still drawn to it. I love that stuff. Jacob: Well, eventually I'll get to this story of- Josh: String me along here. Jacob: Matt- no. Matt and I I mean, this is recent. Right? This was last summer. Matt and I going up the the ridge right here in town. get up to the ridge line and and not getting home until 3 AM. Like, we started at 7 PM, got home at 3 AM. It was a 100 percent night exploration adventure. Half the trail, we hadn't even- more than half. We hadn't even been on before. It's like Yeah. We're definitely not too old. Josh: Yeah. A little- maybe a little too crazy though.[00:16:15] Storytime SegmentSoundbite: Hey, kids, do you know what time it is? Storytime! Jacob: So as you guys know, I spent 2 years in Russia. Not just Russia, but- Josh: Finland.
*Russian*
Jacob: 2 years specifically in Siberia. A considerable amount of that time was in the third largest city in Russia, which believe it or not is in Siberia. Novosibirsk. it's it's technically the capital of Siberia. So that's where this story takes place. K? So for those of you out there, this was on a proselyting church mission. Alex: Yeah. Jacob: And in the on these missions, all 3 of us served 1. On these missions, we have a bunch of, like, meetings and trainings and things like that. So on this particular day, this was near the end of my mission. I'd been there for, man, 22 months already probably. Josh: Out of- 22 out of 24 months. Jacob: Right. With I suppose with the first 2 months actually in a training center in Utah. So this is really just a couple weeks before I'm coming home. It's like I've I've been here for a long time. I know the culture. I know the language pretty well. And we have 3 days of nonstop training. I'm in leadership, so I'm training other missionaries. Usually, for these trainings, we have home cooked meals. At this time, there had just been so many events and meetings and trainings and stuff going on. At the end of this particular day, Instead of getting a home cooked meal, we went to a restaurant. Now this particular restaurant is probably 1 of a kind for Siberia. I'd be hard pressed to find any other restaurant like it in the entirety of Siberia. Josh: What restaurants do they normally have in Siberia? What's what's the typical, like, food, cuisine? Jacob: Yeah. They they don't have many western chains especially now. Thanks, Putin. Josh: Oh, yeah. McDonald's just closed. Jacob: Yeah. So when I was there, I mean, they they had a couple fast food chains. They had McDonald's, Carl's Junior, KFC. Josh: Oh, KFC closed. And Starbucks. Jacob: So KFC just got bought up and rebranded as ROSTIC'S, which is actually what it was called when I was there. Oh. Anyway Josh: Is that Russian Sticks? Jacob: I actually don't know where it comes from. So they have a lot of, you know, Russian- Russian cuisine restaurants, another cuisine from other former Soviet satellite countries. Right? For some reason, we chose to go to a restaurant called "Mexico". Alex: Okay. Jacob: That's right. Mexican cuisine in Russia. Alex: But was it though? Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. It was. Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't just kind of Mexican-ish. Josh: Yeah. I Jacob: it's just so funny. Like, you can't get further away from Russia than Mexico. I I feel like if you were to look at a globe. Josh: Anyway, I'm just picturing, like, a taco with beets in it Alex: Or some dill. Dill. Absolutely. Jacob: Tortilla's made out of potato. Josh: Yeah. Potato tortilla's. Alex: I do wish I Sounds good, actually. Jacob: It does. I wish I had taken pictures of the food. I didn't. By the way, this restaurant is actually underground. It's kind of interesting. It's on 1 of the the main roads in in the city, on one of the main streets in the city. And there's just a staircase right in the middle of the sidewalk, takes you down. Weird. It's the entire thing is covered in wood timbers. Josh: Underground? Jacob: Mhmm. Josh: So is there like a sign up above? Jacob: No. Josh: The stairs? Jacob: No. Josh: So kinda so you might get the feeling that you're, like, you're going into subway or something, like an underground? Jacob: Something much like that. Yes. The entrance is just like that. Alex: And you weren't afraid that like, someone was gonna steal, like, your liver or something? Jacob: No. This was this was actually my second time going there. And then you you go down the stairs and above the door at the very bottom of the stairs is this big old neon sign? Ресторан Mexico. And then you go inside and, you know, there's a lot more wood inside, all, like, Aztec styled. Lots of bright colors, you know, sombreros, stuff like that. Josh: You know, just kinda They have a mariachi band on standby... Jacob: I wish. A Russian Mariachi band. That would have been amazing. But I'm I'm sure there was, you know, Mexican music playing and stuff. So for some reason, I decided to order a sample platter. Generally, generally, I think the food was decent. It was okay, except there was I didn't read it thoroughly enough apparently because there was a fish dish. Disclaimer, not a fan of seafood. So I took 1 bite and, yeah, I realized it was shrimp or something and and and put it down. Josh: Probably from Lake Baikal. The famous shrimp of Lake Baikal. Jacob: I'll have to look into that. Actually, there probably are shrimp in Baikal. So we eat dinner, you know, fun, decent meal. And we head off to another meeting where we're we're teaching a friend of ours. We go to the church building, have our meeting. We get, like, halfway through this meeting with him, and all of a sudden, like, my stomach just starts churning and bubbling. Josh: Okay. I think I think I might have heard this. That sounds familiar. Jacob: It's a good one. And just the more time passes on, the more uncomfortable I become, like, I start getting hot. And just, like, sweating. And I I I turned to my companion. You served together in in in pairs and companionships. And I'm like, oh, Elder oh, it was probably Elder Sperry. Like, Elder Sperry, I'm just I'm dying here. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm feeling so sick. I I need to get home. I need to leave and get out of here. So we we wrap up the meeting as quickly as we can, and we walk to the bus station. And Novosibirsk is a pretty big city. Right? 1 and a half million people. Alex: Oh, wow. Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. In the middle of Siberia, you you'd never guess. Right? Alex: No. Jacob: It's fairly sprawling, covers a large square mileage or whatever. Josh: They do kilometers over there. Jacob: Square kilometerage. So we get to the bus stop, and we're waiting for a bus. All the while, you know, I'm just starting to feel more and more sick. Anyway, a couple of buses pass. I I don't know what was going on. This was, like, a Saturday, Friday night. Again, December, and just, like, all of these buses were just jam packed. Like, no more room to get on. Josh: Are these- you're at a bus stop? Yeah. Are these, like, American bus stops? Like, just a little tiny little covered thing or a little sign in the road? Jacob: Yeah. They- a little glass- Alex: Was Maslenitsa (Мaсленица) happening. Jacob: No. Good try. Alex: Okay. Josh: How how cold was it? If it's December, it's December. It's Siberia at, like, you're standing outside at a bus stop. Alex: You're gonna fill your pants with ice cubes. Josh: You're probably sweating buckets of ice cubes. Jacob: It's probably at least negative 25 Celsius. Negative. Negative. 25 to 30. I'm gonna guess negative 15 Fahrenheit. Alex: Pretty close. Negative 13. Josh: Snap. Jacob: Nailed it. 1 more fun fact while we're on the topic. Negative 20 Celsius is the point at which the inside of your nose starts to freeze. So that was like- Josh: Depending on the thickness of your nostril. Alex: And the humidity of the air. Josh: Your mileage might vary. Your kilometerage might vary. Jacob: That was my onboard thermometer for when we were walking out and about. Well, my nose was freezing. I knew, okay, it's negative 28. Josh: What does that even feel like? Like What does that even feel like? Jacob: I'll just let you imagine instead of describing it. Okay. So eventually, you know, we're at the at the bus stop. Finally, we have something roll up that we can get on to. And I'd say something rather than a bus because it was a Russian marshrutka (маршру́тка), which is like a Mercedes sprinter van. 1 of these big vans. They hold 12 to 15 people depending on how many you wanna jam onto the benches. Now this thing was still so full that when we got on, we were standing. There's not room for us to sit. And this is, like, a 30 to 40 minute drive to our to our apartment. Josh: Just because of all the stops or you're really that spread out? Jacob: Both. Yeah. And so, you know, we're the last ones to get on. So I'm standing, like, right in the door. Hey, you know, sprinter vans are pretty tall. I think this one was specifically a sprinter. So it was much taller than the law of the other marshrutki. But I still had, like, to hunch a little bit. I couldn't have my head. Even as sure as I am, I couldn't stand up all the way. And every time we came to a stop and someone had to get out, there I am, flinging the door open, getting off, people get on, and I'm getting back on. So we go through I don't know how many stops like this. Me getting off, Getting back on. Getting off, getting back on. Alex: And you're in, like, a shirt and tie. So did people just think you were some kind of weird transit authority person? Jacob: Well, no. So again- Josh: He's the door man. Jacob: This is December. So I've got my big old coat on, scarf, nice warm hat. Alex: Sure. Yeah. Jacob: So And I'm just feeling absolutely awful. I am as sick as sick as you can be. I'll cut to the chase. I 100 percent got food poisoning from Mexico. Mexico, the restaurant. Josh: In Siberia. Jacob: In Siberia. Since I strongly dislike seafood this whole time, I have blamed it on that fish or shrimp taco that I accidentally ate. So we get to the bus stop before our bus stop. Alright? Alex: So close. Jacob: We're, like, a 2 minute ride from home. Josh: That must've been an uncomfortable walk. Jacob: I hopped back on, shut the door, payeechley, we start driving again. So there I am on Russian transit, when I start blowing chunks. Alex: Oh No. Jacob: What's my immediate reaction? Beanie off the head, in front of the mouth to try and catch it all. In reality what happens, waterfall throw up cascading everywhere. I I I had to go back to the email I sent mom and dad the week after this happened. I threw up twice. So I threw up everywhere, and then probably a couple seconds waited, and I threw up again. This was awful. So, again, I'm at the front. There's at at the very front behind the driver and the passenger seat, there's a bench. Facing back towards the rest of the van. Alex: Oh, no. Jacob: There is a row of babushki (ба́бушки). Russian grandma's. All in their head to toe fur coats. In Russia, like fur coats are- That's how you survive the winter. And these things, you you'll save up a couple years to get a really nice 1. You like mink fur, or just really premium. They were splattered so bad. Everyone on board just starts freaking out, losing their minds. They everyone's yelling like, oh my gosh. He threw up. The driver turns, "what the heck is going on back there?" Pulls over immediately, I fling the door open and just hop out as quick as I can. Josh: This guy's about to beat you up. The babushki are about to beat you up. Jacob: So we just start walking. I don't know. We get, like, 20, 30 feet away, grab some snow and just rub it all over ourselves, and I turn back Wait. Josh: Wait. All over "yourselves"? Did you get your companion? Jacob: Of course I- like, he was standing directly in front of me. He bared the- he bared the brunt of it. And the really sad thing- He had a pretty nice it's called a a dublanka. It's this really nice soft, like, sheep leather on the outside and super warm sheep wool on the inside. They're pretty expensive. And, I mean, it was caked in my barf. Josh: Okay. So now I'm picturing you facing him and then behind him is the babushki. Jacob: Yes. Yes. Josh: And so just from the sheer velocity, hitting him in the chest, splattering out back behind him, and just spraying these poor old ladies. Jacob: Everyone. So the good news, he he he took the coat to go get cleaned. Another missionary and an older woman who was serving on a mission there with us, and she managed to get it all out. She got it completely cleaned. Alex: Wow. Jacob: Yeah. So anyway, we were rubbing snow on ourselves. Trying to get this off of us for the 3, 4 minute walk we have to get to our apartment. Josh: In negative 13 degree Fahrenheit weather. And no beanie on anymore. Jacob: No beanie on anymore. I do have it still, though. Josh: GROSSJosh and Alex: BROOOOO Jacob: I turn back and look at the marshrutka. Same thing. Everyone else on board is on the sidewalk rubbing snow all over their fur coats. The driver has this- I don't know where he got- this apparently, he stores water on onboard. He's got his big jug of water. Like, he's like, just chucking all over the entire thing trying to wash the interior down, and we just- we walked home. And- I was, like, dead for 3, 4 days after that, it was the worst food poisoning I have ever had. Alex: Jeez. Well, don't try to eat Mexican fish in Russia. [00:31:44] Another Brother Outro
 

#002 The Sinister Slenderman Saga

About this Episode
In episode #002, The Sinister Slenderman Saga, the brothers delve into the video games that made them. From Sam Fisher's iconic nightvision goggles, to the sandstorms of Desert Storm, ending up on the ice duking it out with some overly sized craniums. But wait, don't relax too far into that video game nostalgia. What was that bump in the night? Did 10-year-old-Josh discover the original Slenderman...?
Find our website on Podbean!
And don't miss this episode's Alternate Reality...
Episode Links
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (video game) by Ubisoft (get it on Steam!)
Conflict: Desert Storm by Pivotal Games (get it on Steam!)
NHL Hitz 2002 by Black Box Games
Power On: The Story of Xbox "Xbox almost didn’t happen. Find out why in this behind-the-scenes, six-part series that takes you back to the scrappy beginnings of Microsoft's video game console. It’s the untold story of the people behind the box, glitches and all."
Bird's eye view of where it all happened...
The Marble Hornets YouTube channel, documenting the discovery of Slenderman. **WARNING: For the brave-at-heart only. And for the much-have-spare-time only.**
 
Transcript
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother [00:00:32] Another Brother Theme Song [00:00:51] Stewnerds SegmentAlex: So let's talk video games. Before anybody tunes out though- Josh: It's it's too late. Jacob: They're gone. Already. Alex: We're not just gonna talk about video games. We have a unique perspective. Like, a lot of people think a lot of bad stuff about video games and some of it's true, obviously. But, you know, video games were a part of what cemented the relationship that we have as siblings, and that's what we wanna talk about at least this time. Pretty much every other time we're just gonna be nerding out about video games, probably. So I know what I wanna talk about It's a it may not be a series of games that you guys would consider- Josh: You're not gonna say Pikmin, are you? Alex: No. You guys probably won't consider it like 1 of the most formative series of games for any of us. Jacob: It surprised me, I will say. Josh: Oh, you know already? Jacob: Yeah, he told me. Alex: But I will say it's in the upper tier, maybe even the upper echelon. The third echelon? Josh: Oh, Perfect Dark? Alex: No. Jacob: Good one. Josh: Do I get a guess? Do I get to keep guessing? Alex: Sure. Yeah. Josh: Echelon... Alex: Third echelon. Josh: Third echelon... Jacob: I feel like I wanna start miming. Josh: Gosh. Alex: Ubisoft... Josh: Oh, yes. Tom Clancy. Jacob: Uh-huh. Josh: Shoot! What's it called? Yeah. Sam Fisher. Jacob: Oh, I was working on some wood yesterday and oh, man- Josh: Splinter cell! Alex: Yes. Splinter cell. Josh: Yes. Epic gameplay. Alex: Yeah. For dad, Ubisoft is a French producer of video games that has studios in other places in the world too. Usually, places that speak French. But they produced a series of video games called Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. And they actually have quite a few Tom Clancy series of games based on his books. But, yeah, twentieth anniversary, apparently they're remaking the original game right now. Josh: Oh, sweet. Remaking not just, like, updating the graphics, but doing, like, a full- Alex: Full remake. Yeah. Not just you know, crappy little things. They're redoing the engine entirely. They're adding ray traced global illumination to get that realistic lighting. Josh: But also, Splinter Cell, I think that was like revolutionary for me. Because of- So there's a specific munition type for his rifle. I can't- The aerofoil, is that what it's called? Do you remember? Alex: I don't remember. Josh: It's like a disc- Jacob: That sounds familiar. Josh: Yeah. And it knocks them out. Alex: A Lima Lima. Less than Lethal. Jacob: Yeah. So it's just completely silent. Josh: So silent, so less than lethal, and you just nail guys in their face with it. Yeah. I thought that was so cool. Alex: Yeah. It was just such like, I hadn't played anything like it before, like the world was so interactive. Like, you wanna be in the dark but you can't find a light switch, just shoot the light. Then you're in the dark, and now you're hiding. And you can flip on your night vision, and you can see and the bad guys can't. Josh: Just crawling along the pipes under the ceiling line, and you're just crawling, crawling, crawling, and snap someone's neck, and keep going. Alex: And my understanding is that they didn't really invent stealth gameplay. Like, there was an older series of games called Thief -- Josh: Mhmm. Alex: -- that kind of invented all of that. But I had never heard of Thief until a few years ago, and I've certainly never played those games. Josh: You're probably talking, like, first person shooter stealth? Alex: Right. Yeah. And just the whole idea that the game can be based on not killing everybody, not going in guns blazing. Jacob: Not being seen. Alex: Having to be clever and tricky and skilled and not just good at putting your crosshairs at the right place at the right time was, yeah, Super fun Jacob: It completely flips the idea of an FPS upside down on its head. Alex: Yeah. Which you do do sometimes literally. You just, like, pick those guys up and choke them out while you're hanging upside down from the pipes. Josh: Yeah. So good. All with those 3 green lenses just glowing in the dark. Jacob: It's so emblematic. Alex: It's so iconic. Jacob: Yes. So good. Alex: I mean, ridiculous. It would totally give away your position. Josh: I still have the sound effect in my mind when you've- yeah. When you flip it on, just- Alex: It's kind of like Ironman powering up one of his repulsors. Yeah. Josh: So good. Jacob: I was telling Alex, didn't we have it on 3DS? Josh: I think so. Alex: I think you guys had Chaos Theory. Jacob: Oh that's right. That's what you were saying. Alex: On the DS. Jacob: DS. Yeah. It was DS. Josh: Not the 3DS. Yeah. Jacob: And it was multiplayer though. Josh: Yeah. Jacob: So we would stay up, like, late at night. We probably got it for Christmas and, like, those 2, 3 weeks immediately following, just stayed up every night playing it. Josh: Yeah. I can't remember what they called it TeamLink, or whatever Nintendo's System to system multiplayer thing was called. Alex: Yeah. Apparently, according to this Ubisoft video on YouTube, Xbox Live was launched on the back of the multiplayer in chaos theory, because it was originally an Xbox game that they somehow ported to the DS. Josh: Wait. What? Jacob: What, hold on- Alex: The Xbox live service- This is what they made it sound like- I may have misunderstood. But- Jacob: Sorry. You said Ubisoft made it sound like this? Alex: Yes. Correct. Jacob: Okay. Go on. Alex: I wasn't super paying attention to the lower-thirds when people- new people came and said things. So this guy may have worked for Xbox. I I wasn't paying attention to who this person was who was saying this. But the the video, whoever it was in the video, the video made it sound like Yeah. Xbox Live was advertised as like an awesome service using this game. Chaos Theory- Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and the multiplayer. As like, this is why this is cool, this is why you need it. This is like the future of video games. Which I had no idea. Jacob: And we were we were obviously late to the whole Xbox party. Alex: Yeah. We were. Josh: But Still, they weren't like Bungie. Microsoft purchased Bungie to sell the Xbox. Alex: Right. Josh: And, like, on Xbox release, they were bundling it with Halo, weren't they? Alex: Yeah. But Xbox Live wasn't a thing yet. Josh: True. Alex: It was all about the LAN party. Jacob: Oh, okay. Yeah. You're right. There ya go. Alex: How can that bring your systems in person to play. Jacob: Yeah. Good good call. Alex: Or or co-op not co-op, but, like, split screen on the same couch. Josh: Mhmm. That's that's a whole 'nother- Alex: Man, that was so cool. Those were good times. Josh: That's a whole 'nother episode. Alex: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Halo- Halo, Bungie was making Galo for Apple. It was gonna be a Macintosh game until Microsoft bought them. Jacob: Oh, thank goodness. Alex: Isn't that crazy? Jacob: Thank goodness. Josh: That's- that would- oh, man. Alex: I don't know that they were making it for Apple, but it was meant to be on Macintosh. Josh: Can you imagine if Apple had gotten into the video game space. I mean, even selling the idea to Bill Gates was apparently like super risky. And it only worked because Xbox stands for Direct X. Alex: Direct X. Josh: So they wanted to make a separate hardware box for Direct X processing. And then they just built it from there into a gaming system. Alex: We're getting real nerdy now. Josh: Okay. Great game. Alright. I'm up? Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Do it. Josh: My- what- what's the- what's the- the games that made us? Is that what this is? Alex: Yeah. I'm done for that. Jacob: Yeah. Josh: The games that made us. K. The game that I wanted to highlight that had a big impact on me. You guys are already know what I'm gonna say. Jacob: Are we gonna guess it? Josh: You already know it. Jacob: Oh, I forgot. Josh: You got it? Jacob: I already forgot you told us. Josh: But now do you remember that I told you? Do you know what it is? Jacob: Okay. Iris has had RSV for a couple days. Alex: Oh, really? Jacob: I am exhausted. I've gotten terrible sleep. I have forgotten what it is. Josh: Okay. Well, go ahead. Not really a series. There's 2 games. 2 games. Alex: Unfortunately, not a series. Josh: Yeah. Alex: Because they were good. A military shooter... Jacob: That's right. Okay. Josh: Remember it? Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. Josh: Okay. My game is Conflict: Desert Storm. By Pivotal Games. Alex: That's what it's called? Oh, man. Josh: Yeah. Alex: I thought it was Operation Desert Storm, like, the actual Not not that I think you're wrong, but yeah. Josh: Yeah. I know. Does that look familiar to you? I just remembered operation I just remembered operation Desert Storm. Right. Alex: Yeah. Josh: And I couldn't find it. I'm like, what the heck, yeah, Conflict: Desert Storm? Alex: It's Conflict: Desert Storm. Good to know. Josh: This game was so great, and it came at like, just the right time where we had our Xbox. Yeah. We were already used to these Halo LAN parties we were doing. And I don't remember when we got it or why we got it, but I remember being interested in something a little more realistic, less sci-fi shooter. Alex: Right. Josh: It's still, like, military tactical type thing, and we found this game on a whim. Probably down at our local- Jacob: Oh, it was absolutely Game Crazy. Josh: Game Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was sweet. I think it worked for us the best because it was 4 player co-op. That was the best part. Yeah. And and the game's designed to have 4 dedicated personality types, weapons, or, I should say, specialists. Alex: Yeah. Josh: And so we each kind of I think I think it was very organic. Alex: Yeah yeah. Josh: We just kinda, like, picked a guy, and then we just stuck with it. Jacob: Naturally fell in. Josh: Yeah. So there was- so I was the rifleman. The- Alex: yeah. The Ranger? I think is what it might have been called? Yeah. Because you also had, like, the the laser rangefinder for lasing targets. Jacob: Oh, yeah. Josh: Yeah. Yep. So I was him rifleman, assault man. Alex: I don't remember. Josh: Alex, you were the sniper- Alex: Sniper and demo- and demo guy. 2 guys. It was a little disorienting sometimes. Josh: But you're providing your own sniper overwatch Alex: Yeah Josh: For your own other guy. Alex: It was pretty sweet. Josh: Yeah. And then Jacob was our heavy weapons specialist. Alex: He was our heavy. Jacob: Big guns. Big guns. Alex: Well, mini-guns technically, I think? Jacob: Yeah. I feel like I had a rocket launcher or something as well. Alex: Oh, yeah? Josh: Yes. Jacob: A boom-boom stick. Josh: Yeah. Heavy weaponry. You were like the the large- machine gunner- heavy- heavy machine gunner anti-tank guy. Jacob: Oh, I just love it. Alex: I think the demo guy that I played on occasion when necessary, I think he had like a pistol and then a bunch of remote- Josh: Claymore mines, I think. Alex: -yeah. Remote detonated explosives. C-4. A Lotta C-4. Jacob: So one of you said the second iteration is on Steam. Josh said that? Josh: Yeah. Jacob: We're we're gonna have to buy it. Alex: Absolutely. Jacob: It's it's a done deal. Josh: It might it might even be like an update. I don't know. Alex: We'll have to do a let's play -- Josh: Yes. Alex: -- of that game. Jacob: I'm already getting excited. Josh: I mean, it was so sweet because you're just going through Desert Storm as a British SAS team, specialized And, like, I remember, like, we'd be entering like a cut down into the rocks, which now after having been to Iraq multiple times, I have no idea where these guys are supposed to be. This doesn't look like anything familiar to me. But and then we start, you know, you know you're approaching where enemy positions are and you're getting, like, nervous and you're, like, okay, time to send the sniper out. And if I remember right, Alex would always push out ahead of us, stealth, sneak, get into some sort of high ground overwatch position. Jacob: Spot people. Let us know what's going on. Josh: Yeah. So we knew the best routes of approach and then and then- Alex: Do a little bit of recce. Josh: Yeah. Some recce. But this game- so the reason I chose this game was predominantly because those roles we chose kind of continued into other activities we did. Predominantly or mostly, like, paintball later. Alex: Right. Yeah. Same with Splinter Cell. For me. Like, that stealth gameplay is just like it's probably what made me wanna be the sniper. Josh: Yeah. I see that. Alex: Oh, that's another- that's a story for another time. This amazing shot, I hit Greg in. Not in the head, I think. Jacob: Somewhat unrelated, but we're gonna have to talk we're gonna have to talk about Camp Rilea at some time as well. Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Did you never get to go, Alex? Alex: I never got to go. I'm still a little bitter about it. Jacob: Oh nooo. Josh: It was great. Jacob: I would be bitter too. Alex: It sounded amazing. Jacob: Yeah. It was at blast. Yeah. I don't know- I wasn't- I was never a great paintballer. I was always the youngest out there anyway. I I don't think would have considered myself the the tank or heavy gun while we were paintballing. Josh: Maybe not, yeah. Jacob: But in all other, like- Alex: That was Eric *. Eric * was the heavy in the paintball scene. Jacob: All other video games and even, like, playable top games were applicable. Yeah. Definitely. We, like, kind of carried on and just naturally continued these roles. Even when we've done, like, D&D. Alex: Mhmm. Jacob: We we've kind of just built characters around that way as well. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Strange because it does kinda feel natural. At this point. Alex: Yeah. We just know our roles now, apparently. Josh: And, also, probably, a story for another time, you know who the tank was, beyond Eric, dad. Remember dad? You're just going ahhhhhhhh! Jacob: Yes. Alex: You guys got to play with Dad a lot more than I did. Josh: Oh, man. He was crazy. He'd like, assault the barn. Alex: Right. Yeah. Josh: No cover in sight. Alex: He shot me in the hand. It hurt so bad. I had a scar for so long. It's gone now, but... K, Jacob. Jacob: Okay. Josh: I don't know. So Alex and I don't know yours. Alex: That's right. Jacob: So last week, when we were just chatting I had mentioned 2 games. They're pretty obvious, like, in your face. One was already alluded to. Alex: Today? Okay. Jacob: Bungie. Alex: Oh, Yeah. Totally. Jacob: I'm gonna drop these 2 though. So I'll just put it on record. My top 2 are no particular order, Smash Bros, and Halo. Those have to be my top 2. Yeah. But since you guys chose, you know, further down the list, I will too. EA Sports... Alex: NHL hits. Josh: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Jacob: Yeah. Yep. I thought that's all it would take. That was really the only sports game we probably played together anyway. Okay. So this game- Alex: I think we played a little NFL Blitz too. But mostly NHL Hits. Josh: And what about SSX Tricky? Jacob: Oh, yes. Yeah. You're right. Oh, that one was fun. But NHL Hits... This was, like, 2002. I think it was NHL Hits '02. I can't remember. Alex: That sounds familiar. Jacob: Oh, first off, before I really jump in, the soundtrack was amazing. Like, probably the best video game soundtrack out there. Limp Bizkit, Puddle of Mud. I mean, just great music. Korn. Josh: I think that was, like, being the first game we got in that generation of video gaming that we actually had, like, a soundtrack that you could set up and play and skip tracks. Alex: Tony Hawk- I think maybe started it. That was that was sweet soundtrack too. Josh: Yeah. And a good game. Alex: And a good game. Jacob: So NHL Hits was still in the area of sports games where Not that it was cartoony, but it was over the top, bigger than life. Alex: Mhmm. Very arcadey. Jacob: Yes. Yeah. Kind of like the early Madden Games were, NFL Blitz was. So it was it was 4 on 4 hockey. Oh, boy. 4 v 4 hockey. Including the goalie. So really 3 v 3. So again, it just worked perfectly. Sorry, Liz. Lizzie was still a little a little younger. Alex: She was pretty little. Jacob: So the 3 of us would just play together team up against the, you know, CPU team. And, actually, ironically enough the 3 main archetypes kind of fell into this too. Right? You've got the defender who's in the back. He's the big guy who you would want to get into the fist fights. Alex: Yep. Josh: Oh, I forgot about the fist fights. Jacob: How could you- That's why it was- so the- you would do these like, hip checks and stick checks that were just huge, like just flooring people. Josh: Break the glass. Jacob: Break- Pop them through the glass. Bring the 2 guys in the center of the ring and yeah. It it was basically like rock paper scissors where you'd have 3 buttons that you could choose- Alex: Oh, yeah. Jacob: -to you know, the different hit you did would interact differently with the hit the player- the computer does. So all kinds of fist fights. The one-timers were so good. Going on fire as a team. Alex: Oh, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Jacob: It was just so good. It was just a blast. All around so fun. Oh, and then there's just so much to it. You can make your own teams. It's like these weird character things, like Anubis, Snowmen. Just all kinds of ridiculous things. You develop your characters, you gain points, increase their stats, you know. Alex: Back when video games where still just about fun. Josh: Yeah. I totally forgot all of those things. The only thing I remembered was the big heads. Jacob: Oh, yeah. Josh: Remember that you'd just make your head like 3 times as large as your body. Jacob: Yeah! It was on the load screen going into the match. You could button smash to try to hit a certain combo of buttons, and that would give you different traits or characteristics or power ups in game. Alex: That's right. Josh: I just love I thought it was so goofy. And then you're, yeah, checking people with this massive cranium. Jacob: I have another honorable mention. Rock Band? Alex: Oh, of course. Josh: Yeah. Alex: I mean, we played that into college. Mhmm. Good times. [00:20:47] Stewnerds! [00:20:55] Storytime SegmentSoundbite: Hey, kids, do you know what time it is? Storytime! Josh: To tell my story, first, I wanna give you an idea of what it was like to grow up in Keizer, Oregon. And I need your guys' help because we all had slightly different lenses and perspective on the city. If you can call it a city. So Keizer, as a kid, and I'll I'll preface with this. This story happened around when I was about 10 years old, maybe 11, so around the year, '97, '98. So as a 10 year old, there's only a few landmarks that really stood out to me. So we lived in this home that was our parents', but our our father bought it from his dad. So our dad actually grew up partially- Alex: A little bit. A little bit, I think for middle school and high school. Jacob: What about D Street in Salem. Josh: What was that?1 Jacob: They were in Salem. When dad was in middle school I think. Josh: On D Street? Alex: Oh, really? But he went to Whiteaker. Josh: He did. Yep. Jacob: He did. Okay. Josh: So they moved. Jacob: Yeah. And he was at McNary, never mind. Josh: Yeah. So in fact, one of his teachers from from Whiteaker Middle School lived in the cul de sac, right next to our house. So anyway so so you've got our home, our street that we live on, then you have Lockhaven. And basically as a 10 year old, the only other real landmarks are the Albertsons. Because- go there shopping with mom and dad. The Game Crazy, which is right there next to Albertsons. You've got the big open field. Jacob: Mhmm. Right. Josh: Where that barn was. Alex: Yeah. The church. Josh: Yep. Then you got the church. And then you've got, I guess, Gubser, if you keep going, up 14th Street. You've got Whiteaker Middle School, and then you've got Day Spring church on the other side of Whiteaker Middle School. And then, you know, some because some of our family friends lived back past Day Spring on McCloud, some landmarks down the cloud. Mostly, the group of friends that we had that lived up in that part of the of the town. Jacob: I'd like to add 7-11. But that was right around by Albertsons. Alex: Dairy Queen. Josh: Yes. Yeah. Of course. Jacob: All the same area. Josh: Yes. Fair. And for the other direction towards the high school Taco Bell. Because we would ride our bikes to Taco Bell and fill up the unlimited soda into our bike water bottles before driving on. So I had a friend, one of my good friends, Brandon. So Brandon was my my good buddy. I think you guys both knew him. Right? Alex: Mhmm. Josh: Yeah. So he lived on Jentif Court. Alex: The one I drummed with? Josh: Yes. Alex: Yeah. Totally know him. Jacob: Oh, he was a drummer? Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Okay. He lived where? Josh: So he lived on Jentif Court. Which was just south of Zachris Court, which is where Chris and Sean, Meghan, and Erin grew up. Jacob: Oh, yeah. Okay. Josh: So Jentif and Zachary's Court both butt up against Whiteaker Middle School's field. Jacob: Mhmm. Josh: And just south of Jentif, was an open field that butted up against Day Spring Fellowship Church. So between Whiteaker Middle School and the field behind Day Spring was just a lot of field. And particularly the one behind Day Spring was, like, really tall weedy grass. Like, it would grow up to maybe 3 and a half, 4 feet tall. For as long as I remember, when I was younger. I don't know if they actually grew crop there or not. So Jentif connects directly to Zachris Court. And then Zachris is your only outlet from Jentif to McCloud. And if you keep taking McCloud north, you get towards some of our other friends' houses, particularly in particular to this story, Max's house is a few roads down and then to the left. So I was kind of I don't know how to describe myself at that age kind of interested in... a lot of things... just adventure and and pushing boundaries -- Alex: Mayhem? Josh: Mayhem. Maybe a little bit of mayhem. Just excitement. I just want, you know, we liked excitement. And I was- this particular night in the summer- Jacob: Remember this, because Caeden just turned 10. Right? Josh: Oh my gosh. Jacob: Prepare yourself. Josh: Yeah. My son, my oldest. Is the age I was when I started doing all these things. That's eye opening. Wow. That really puts it in perspective for me when I tell a story. That's ridiculous. Well, this particular summer night. I was about 10 or 11. I was having a sleepover at Brandon's house, just the 2 of us. 26:14 And they had this big room that had a sliding door, so like the back of the home, and we'd just sleep there on the floor in in sleeping bags. And no 1 would bother us like the whole night. We're basically in it would feel like we're in the home by ourselves, and we might have been, I don't actually know. But I'm getting the feeling that we were. We had noticed that someone was trying to develop the field between Day Spring Fellowship Church and Jentif Court. And we'd go back through his backyard. We'd hop his fence and there would be little surveyor stakes out in the field. It had been mowed down. Although there were surveyor stakes, different color-coded flags on them: blue, yellow, green, red. We assumed blue was like for water pipes, but they were very clearly marking out infrastructure to put in place to build something. And when I consult my maps, I haven't been there been back there. There's a full residential neighborhood there now. Alex: Oh, snap. Josh: Yeah. So it's basically just Whiteaker's field and and then homes and then the church. So we were kind of vigilantes and we viewed ourselves as vigilantes. We did not want them to put houses in there. So that night, we went out and we pulled up every single stake. And this wasn't the first time. So we had we had another sleepover earlier that summer- Jacob: Hold up. Have mom or dad ever heard about this story? Josh: I don't- I feel like that part maybe yeah. Yeah. Alex: So there's more then? Josh: Oh, yeah. Alex: Okay. Josh: No. That was just what got us out at night. That's what got us into the situation. Jacob: Oh, what got you into trouble. Josh: So this was the second time we had done this. We literally pulled up every single one of these stakes. And then, to make it even harder for these guys, like, I can't remember where we hid them, but we hid them somewhere that these guys wouldn't be able to find. So this night, we finished our goodly deeds to preserve the fields in Keizer, and we hopped back over his fence again to his home, and somehow the door's locked. Alex: Oh... Josh: And we couldn't get back in through the back. And it's like crud. We have to go around to the front, but the the only way to get around to the front of the house was to we couldn't, like, we were afraid to wake up his parents and some other things. There were still hours left in the in the evening. So, like, we'll just go walk. We'll walk around the field- Jacob: Wait so what time of night is this? Josh: This is probably 1 in the morning. Jacob: What time of the year? Josh: Summer. Jacob: Summer. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So we head back into- over this fence into the field and we head out to McCloud. We turn left to make our way back to Zachris so we can do our button hook and then hit Jentif and hopefully find a way to get into the front of the house. As we are going, We're walking down the sidewalk. It's really dark, but we have pretty full moon illumination. And on the left hand side of the of the sidewalk, you have these really tall arbovitae stands. Super tall. Full shadows beneath these arbovitaes. We're going. And, all of the sudden, at the same time- we're on the McCloud still- Brandon and I get the exact same, terrible, creepy, spine-tingling feeling. And we both without even, like, looking at each other or saying anything, we both just stop in our tracks. And we both look across McCloud. At this street, the house that we're directly standing across. And I don't know why, there's just this extremely powerful compulsion to look at this front door of this house. And without coordinating, we're both looking at this house. When all of a sudden the door- there's no lights on in any of these homes. Like, everything is just dark. The front door opens. It's pitch black in the house. And then all of a sudden, no kidding. There I was. The Slenderman materialized from the doorway. This is 1998. We're talking, like, 6 years- 5 or 6 years before Marble Hornets. Alex: Before YouTube. Josh: Yes. Alex: YouTube's not even a thing yet. Jacob: Creepy Pasta isn't a thing. Like, tracking urban legends like this isn't- Josh: The only difference was he didn't have a white mask for a head. He was all black. This guy comes out of the doorway and his head is, like, scraping the bottom of the doorway. When he comes out, he stands up straight. And he's taller by, like, a foot than the door. And just thin, super long thin arms, super long thin legs, and just moving in straight motions, like no bend in the arms, no bend in the knees, and he follows the path way from the door straight to the sidewalk. He turns and starts going north up McCloud, like, 1 or 2 steps, like, super long like, gosh. Probably, like, 8 foot long strides. It was, like, so crazy looking. He takes 1 or 2 strides and he stops. And Brandon and I are just standing in the middle of the sidewalk with, like, moon illumination on us. And he turns and looks at us. And we're not moving. We're not breathing. We're just trying to figure out what the heck is this thing. And then he starts crossing McCloud right at us. It's like 1 in the morning. We freak out. We run. We get to Zachris, we turn left. We're running down Zachris till we get to Jentif. We turn on to Jentif. We get to Brandon's house, The front door is locked. We're ringing the doorbell. We're knocking on the doors as loud as we can. We're screaming for his parents to wake up. They are not coming to the door. We cannot get into the house. We don't know, like, we don't know what to do. We're pretty sure this thing's following us. We turn around. Alright. Okay. Like, what do we do? We determine to go to Max's house. Alex: So, you have to go back- Josh: Yeah. Past it. Jacob: And multiple blocks. That's, like, 3, 4 blocks that you're trying to book it. Josh: We had- we so we turned around and looked behind us and there's no one there. But but we can't get into the Brandon's house and his parents aren't responding for whatever reason. So we get in the shadows, and we're going from bush to bush, from shadow to shadow, shadow to shadow. We head over to the far side of Zachris, shadow to shadow, we still can't see this guy. Keep going. We turn up on McCloud, sticking in the arbovitae shadows, and we see him again. He's just a little bit down the road, back on the other side of the McCloud, just standing there under a under a streetlight. That's not on. And he's just standing there. And so we pause, we wait, we breathe, we look, he's not doing anything. So we just keep making our way down McCloud as slowly and quietly as we can. And as soon as we get even with him, He crosses the street again at us. Alex: What? Josh: And, like, I mean, I'm 10 or 11. I probably don't know- I don't know much of anything. I swear we were- it was pitch black in those shadows. I- we were- we were in full black. Like, when I pack for these sleepovers, I pack all black. This is an M.O. that we do. Because we know we're gonna go hang out at night. So we're all in black head to toe. I think make this might have been even one of those nights that we did black face paint. You know, we used to do that. Jacob: Yeah. You did. Josh: We were crazy about it. This guy comes across and he's, you know, pretty slow, but he's he's gaining pretty fast. So we hit- we jump out of the shadows, get to the sidewalk, and just start sprinting. And this guy's gaining on us. No bend in his legs just like straight scissoring. Alex: Like minecraft? Josh: Minecraft Enderman. Scissoring fast. And we're like, we can't get away from this guy. We run to Max's window. We finally get to to their street, start banging on Max's window, he opens it. He's like, what the heck's going on? And we jump. And we're climbing in, and we're, like, pulling ourselves up and- because we're short little guys. And we're like, we're like, "Close the window! Close the window!" Slams it shut. We're like, you know, close the blinds, he closes it, and we just cower in the corner of the room. And, like, just freaked out. Max's mom comes in the room. And she's like, what, you know? Like, what is going on? May be his dad I can't remember who it was. But Max is like, "oh, yeah. Josh and Brandon were having a sleepover and they thought they'd come over" sort of a thing. Like, totally covering Alex: At 1:30 in the morning. Josh: Yeah. I mean, we- again, these things aren't, like, unheard of for us. So it's just kinda, like, ugh, okay. And then we just sat there. Told everything to Max, explained it all. He's like, "What the heck? You guys should stay here." And we're like, well, now we're kinda worried. Like like, we cannot explain what we saw and what this guy was. It was so absurdly out of anything we'd ever experienced. And we were worried about his parents. We're like, Well, why is it that all of a sudden we can't get into his house? how did the backdoor lock? Like, we couldn't explain any of it. So we were like, there's some supernatural thing going on with Brandon's family and his house. And so, we were like, we have to get back to Brandon's house. And we did. Like, we did you know, we- it's probably 2:30, maybe 3, in the morning. It might have been later. I think I remember the sun. It was get- the sky was getting a little bit brighter, but we did the same. We backtracked. And never saw the thing again. We got to his front door, it was still locked. Parents still weren't responding. Went around to the back door, sliding door opened this time. Jacob: What? Josh: Yeah. Alex: I'm uncomfortable. Josh: Dude, I'm telling you, like, to this day, when I remember this, it still freaks me out because I have no explanation for it, but I absolutely know what I saw and experienced. It was crazy. Jacob: Okay. So we all love the paranormal. In general. I'm a huge skeptic. I love thinking about it, listening to stuff. I don't generally really heavily buy into things. Even though I believe people generally tell real stories. You're like the first person I know who's had, like, a legitimate, unexplainable, paranormal experience, and I don't know how to react to this right now. I genuinely I don't even know what to think about this. Josh: You know, I could chalk it up to being a kid. Jacob: Can you though? Josh: If I wanted to if I wanted to be super critical. I could say, well, I was a 10 year old. Jacob: Have you talked with Brandon about this ever since that time? Alex: Yeah, we gotta get Brandon on the show. To corroborate this. Josh: We could get Brandon. Jacob: Yeah. It- Exactly. If there's corroboration, Right? It it's different when it's well, and it's not like he wouldn't have been going along with this whole thing having not seen it as well. Josh: Oh, yeah. Alex: What if he's blocked the memory? Jacob: That happens. People do. It's traumatic. Josh: I think he'd remember. I mean, I- this has been like a vivid thing for me since that happened. Jacob: What the heck. Alex: I can't believe I've never heard this. Jacob: I know. I know. Josh: Well yeah. I don't I don't it was Max and A- Not Adam. Max and Brandon and I. Jacob: You've got to ask Brandon about it. I mean, you probably didn't have the vocabulary to talk about it until the Slenderman came. Josh: Yeah. Well, that's right. Yeah. Afterwards when I would think back to it, I'd be like, I have a way to understand what this was. Jacob: What it was now. Okay. I wanna back you up to the initial sighting of it. "Materialize"? Josh: Because it's just so black. Everything's so black. The doorway was so dark. Alex: So he was black, it was dark inside the house. It's, like, black coming out of black into the light, and now you can see a slight silhouette. Jacob: Oh that just gave me shivers. Alex: And I had chills the first time he described it. Josh: Dude, no explanation. And the thing- Jacob: Did the door shut behind him? Josh: I don't think so. Alex: Oh, you should have run into his house. Shut him out. Josh: Now that I think about I think I remember him having a bag. Because I remember thinking, like, did this guy just rob this house? Is this guy like a burglar- a purple burglar- Purple burglar. Alex: "Purple burglar alarm" Josh: Purple burglar alarm? I remember thinking, like, is this guy a burglar? And I can't remember if that's because I saw something with him or just because everything else was already black already. Jacob: And what other explanation would there be? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Then no lights in the house even before he came out of the house. Who does that? I don't know. And and the thing that's so that I'm so heavily reminded of was just like the very strong, powerful feelings that something's wrong, and it's over- and it's over there. [00:39:45] Another Brother Outro
 

#001 The Pavlovian Propane Predicament

About this Episode
In episode #001, The Pavlovian Propane Predicament, Italians think Alex looks Scottish, but certainly not in a Sherlock Holmes kind of way... In Star Citizen, you can be all that you can be! From a package-delivering space cowboy, to a wormhole mapping space-fairer. You can even be a pirate who loots other players’ booty! Are the brothers full of hot air, or was that just another one of Alex’s many ridiculous non-resume-making jobs?
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Transcript
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:[00:00:00] This week on Another Brother [00:00:32] Another Brother theme song [00:00:55] Stewnerds SegmentJosh: My friend, okay, my friend Travis, who is totally, like, Utahn through-and-through, very Logan, Cache Valley, Utah. He looks so Slavic. Like, just, very, I don't know, eastern European looking. And so when we were over in Europe making- it was so funny because everyone would talk to him, and he'd be like, "why is everyone talking to me?" I'm like, "Because they think you speak their language, dude, because you look like them." He'd always gets so mad. He's like, "I do not!" Alex: Man, I heard that I looked like just so many weird random things when I was in Italy. Like, you know, I talked to one missionary about how we were starting to get into being Scottish. She was from Sweden. No. Sorry, Switzerland. Josh: Swiss not Swede. Alex: Yeah. I did know an Elder from Sweden, but this sister missionary, she thought- once I said it, she was like, "Oh yeah. Sure. Yeah. You look Scottish." Like, okay. I don't actually know what that even means yet. At that point, I had no idea what it meant to look Scottish and I still am not sure I really know. I mean, the only real literary description I've ever seen of someone Scottish is Sherlock Holmes, who is tall and lanky. Jacob: And and that's not what you normally think of for a Scotsman. Josh: In um, oh, what's the story and who's the author? If I had my phone off of airplane mode, I could look. Kidnapped? Is that the story? He describes a Stewart even. Alan Breck Stewart, I think. And he describes him as a short of stature, dark haired, wild-eyed looking man with- Alex: We did it! Josh: -with, like, a pockmarked face. Which is the sign of- Jacob: Ohhh. Spoke too soon. Josh: No. No. No. So that's the sign of having lived through what is it? Cowpox or something. There's some... I can't remember. But, yeah, so these pocked cheeks on his face. But wherever he went, he always had like two swords and two silver pistols on his hip and was, like, just a crazy, crazy guy. Alex: Cool. Josh: But when I was in Germany, the Germans pegged me for German. Alex: I've heard that one too. Josh: which is weird because all the Germans that I was around were, like, pretty much pretty tall, much taller than I was. But still, you know, darker hair and everything. Darker features. [00:03:55] Citizens of the Stars SegmentAlex: Shall we be Citizens of the Stars??Josh: Before you start since you're trying to figure out what you're gonna do. Alex: I'm waffling. Josh: I saw a morphologist video today. Alex: Morphologist, yeah.... His new one today? Josh: Yeah. On three dot eighteen, or is that Python? Jacob: I don't know. Alex: It's three dot eighteen. Is the next update. Yeah. Yeah. Josh: He talks about the soft kill. Right. Yes. So newest and greatest. Alex: Yeah, I was gonna talk about that a little bit. Cool. So Star Citizen is a massively multiplayer online game that is nothing like World of Warcraft, the most commonly known massively multiplayer online game. Massively multiplayer online game just means it's played by a bunch of people all at the same time and it's online. The point of the game is to kind of just live a fantasy life out in space in the year 2952, doing something that you think would be a cool thing to do in the future. Like, if you really wanna be, if you wanna do something that some people call really boring, you can deliver packages. That's a type of job you can have. You can be a cargo hauler, which involves a lot more, it's more like wild west cargo hauling where like you gotta have somebody riding shotgun in your turret to take out the pirates that are definitely gonna come for you because the law isn't a great resource out in space. Because how do you police all of outer space? Josh: What about probably one of the most fascinating jobs you can do? Which is mapping wormholes. Alex: Yeah. There's not a lot of information on that yet, but in fact, they've kind of changed that since a little bit since they've they've first talked about it back in, I don't know, 2013 or something like that. But the ship that I bought originally was made for that purpose for mapping what they call jump points in the game. There yeah. There's gonna be some undiscovered wormholes out there that if you have the right computers on your ship as you are piloting by hand, manually piloting your ship through this thing, the computer will be recording the course that you take to get through it correctly without falling out into I don't even know where. We don't- like, spaghetti. Jacob: That's how it works? Alex: Yeah, your computer will record the course necessary. And then you can sell that data. Jacob: But I mean, you're piloting by hand. Alex: Yeah. Right. Jacob: Is this something that's already live? Can you already be doing this? Alex: No. There are no jump points that you can pilot. Jacob: So, we don't know what the visualization itself looks like so that you know you're in the wormhole? Alex: That's not true. We do know- We know- Oh, well, you're gonna know when you're in the wormhole. They've shown some pre-vis effects that are probably gonna be what we end up with. Jacob: Okay. Alright. I gotta look that up. Alex: It looks very much like you're inside of- it reminded me of what it would look like to be inside of a heart. Like, flying your ship through a heart. Through all these valves. And, like, if Like- Yep. There will be forks here and there, but I'm sure they converge again back into the same thing. And it's constantly pulsing. Jacob: Okay. So it's very clear you're approaching the edge. Alex: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Josh: Yeah. It's very close to real wormholes. Alex: Yeah. They did a really good job. Josh: It's simulated. Alex: I'm sure they talked to NASA and yeah. Josh: Elon Musk and- Jacob: Interstellar guy. Alex: Right. Jacob: Yeah. Shoot. Who was that? Alex: Some supercomputer models. Jacob and Josh: Matt Damon. Alex: And then once you have those coordinates, recorded in your computer, you can sell it to- I mean, that's that's kind of the idea. It's not very well defined right now how that's gonna work. But that's what I've been working off of. Jacob: I watched a video of a guy with a sweet little four wheel rig on a planet with a laser. Blasting minerals to mine. Alex: Yeah. That's called a... shoot. Josh: Mining. Isn't it just mining? Alex: Well, yeah, that the right career path that game. Yeah. But that piece it's a rock, an R.O.C. Is it A little four wheeler with like a laser arm? Jacob: Yeah. Alex: Yeah. ROC. I mean, I'm not sure what other people in the community call it. If they call it a "rock" or if they call call it an ROC, but I've always called it a "rock". Josh: Is it a Remotely Operated something? Alex: I don't think it's remotely operated because you're sitting in it. Jacob: Yeah you're driving it. You're controlling the arm with the laser and everything. Alex: But that's something you can do, you know. You can throw one of these into the back of, like, a pickup truck type ship and fly down to a planet, scan for minerals, go mine them, and refine them at a space station and sell that ore. You can I mean Josh: Or if I don't wanna do all the hard work, I wanna let I wanna let you do all the prospecting and mining, then I can just interdict your ship in flight and go into FPS mode. Jacob: Tractor beam. Josh: Well, there's no tractor- yeah. Eventually, you'll be able to tractor beam, but it's not implemented yet. Jacob: Oh, no ship tractor beams. Alex: No ship tractor bealms. They have little hand held ones. Josh: But but, yeah, I can just- I would have to force you to pull over and or sneakily board your ship. But then we've got, like, hand to hand weapons and first person shooter, rifles, battle rifles, lasers, percussive, like, kinetic munitions, anything from sniper rifles to battle rifles to handguns, and you can go into, like, full on FPS ship boarding mode, and then I can steal all your cargo and load it up in my ship. Alex: FPS in this instance means first person shooter. Jacob: Pew pew. Alex: And, yeah, they're actually changing that up. They're changing cargo- the way cargo works. So right now, if you blow up someone's ship- Jacob: Yes. I just saw a video about this. Alex: -a small portion of the cargo they were carrying will just be scattered around in tiny little boxes. They're changing that up so that up to 95% of it can be salvaged, reclaimed in the larger cargo containers that everybody's been wanting it to spawn as. I don't I'm I've never really cared about cargo a whole lot personally, so I'm I haven't been paying attention to the ins and outs specifically exactly how things are changing, but everybody's pretty excited. Jacob: I'm sure there's a ton of people out there who are gonna wanna be pirates though. Alex: Oh, yeah. A crap load. People that are just gonna wanna- Jacob: So they're following very closely. Alex: Big time. Yeah. It changes everything for for these people. And in 3.18- Jacob: It makes it lucrative now. If you can get that much of the- Alex: Right. Josh: The average is 45% of the cargo load will be dispersed. Alex: I think 16 to 45%. Yeah. That's what they're shooting for. Josh: It's- Yeah. That's- yeah. I mean, dang. Alex: And in the next update to the game, 3.18, ships are supposed to be able to be disabled without them exploding. Right now, you shoot a ship enough it explodes. There's no disabling a ship to, like, pirate it. It explodes, and then maybe you get some of the loose cargo. Josh: If you can find it. Alex: if you can find it because the boxes are teeny tiny. Josh: And it's, you know, you're in space, so everything's super black. Alex: Well, you're not necessarily in space. You could have taken them down in atmosphere. Josh Yeah. True. Jacob: Or they could be landed on the ground, even and you sneak up on them, flying fast, attack. Alex: That's one of the greatest things about this game is that if you it's it's like the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If you can see the place, you can go there. You can put your feet on it. You can land there. There's no animation that takes you from outer space down to a specific landing spot down on the planet, and you can only get out there. No you can fly anywhere, all the way down to a planet, get out, do stuff, explore a cave, maybe even take a mission where you're trying to find someone who disappeared. And the last known place they went to was a cave. They were gonna go spelunking and they told someone, and you have to go find them in that cave. Which used to be the way that I made most of my money. I would take those missions and my little handheld mining laser and I'd go down into these caves, do some handheld mining while looking for bodies. It was kind of fun, you know, at the time. There wasn't a whole lot of gameplay at that point in time in the game yet, but- Josh: That that was the most mind blowing thing for me the first time I played, was starting off on a space station, getting my ship delivered to a loading point, getting on, flying out, and I didn't know how to quantum spool or quantum jump or anything. And so literally flying for, like, an hour and a half in real time. Jacob: Nooooo Josh: Because there was a planet that had been developed already, and I really wanted to get to this dang planet, but I didn't know how to quantum spool or quantum jump or whatever. And so I put a TV show on and just pointed my ship in the right direction and just- Jacob: Are you kidding me? Josh: -and just held the forward arrow key down- or the- W A S D- W- whatever. And uh- Alex: I hope you knew how to decouple your engines. Josh: This was so early- no. And still, a contention point I have is there's so many controls, to remember. So It's pretty complex. But, it's worth it. But, yeah, just flying for literally like, an hour and a half, two hours of real Earth time, but then seeing the planet on the horizon, and then you're just- your ship just enters atmosphere, and now you're flying with atmospheric physics. And then you know, all the way up until you land. It was it's just wild. Like, the whole thing just streamed in and it definitely made it feel like physicality, like, you were physically moving through this space. Alex: Yeah. Jacob: And did we mention the planets are procedurally generated? These aren't, like, developers and designers going in there and hand crafting, building out every single planet. Josh: Yeah. A lot of the a lot of the impressive things that your average two game player probably doesn't understand. Not respect, but- Alex: Or care about even, really. Josh: Or care about, is all of the effort going- and funding and resourcing going into developing the tools and the tech stack behind making this game work. There's so many technical feats, you know, to this the servers, how the servers are doing this persistent universe. And just I don't know. It's amazing. Alex: Yeah. A lot of it is stuff that just nobody has really done before. Some of it maybe has been done before, but not on this scale and because of the scale, you have to make some fundamental changes to make it work at this scale. Because like these planets they're obviously not full scale planets. One thing that I've always been interested in is how the how are they gonna reproduce Earth? What what scale are they gonna do because our system- star system, the Sol system, will be in the game at some point. Jacob: Really? Alex: Yeah. Jacob: That's interesting. Alex: Yeah. So I wanna know what what kind of scale they're gonna give Earth- Josh: For um, Foundry 42, isn't Earth gonna be- Alex: Squadron 42. Josh: Squadron 42. Oh my gosh. Foundry 42. What's Foundry 42? Alex: I can't think- I don't know. It was on my- it was on the tip of my tongue. Josh: Is that Warhammer? Foundry- there's some- that might be the guys that do Warhammer- Jacob: Okay it is sounding familiar now. Alex: I can't think of it. Josh: But yeah, Squadron 42, there's a big part on Earth. Right? Alex: I don't know. I know a a lot of the game is supposed to take place out at this mining facility. It's a really intense looking place from what they've shown with like really if if I'm not getting confused with like Star Wars or something, giant hunks of rock, with, like, red lightning shooting between them. It looks like really intense. I might I might be confusing different things. Like- Josh: Are there Stormtroopers in your memory? Alex: The next the next star system coming to stars that is in in update 4.0 is called Pyro, and there's a lot of red lightning in that system too. So I I may be confusing different visuals. But yeah. But that's a good point too. Like, Star Citizen is an online multiplayer game. But there will also be- made by the same people, a single player / multiplayer cooperative offline focused campaign experience where you're going through a story, where you play as- The original idea was that you will play as the character that you will be playing in Star Citizen, but this is your time in the United Earth Navy. Where, like, every citizen spends a couple years serving in the Navy. Kinda like in Italy, you either spend a couple years as first responder or a couple of years in the military. Every everybody does it. It's mandatory. I'm sure they have like different health things that can get you a pass. But like that, you'll be playing in this single player campaign doing your time in the Navy. And there's gonna be a war on with, I think, the Banu. It's a race of somewhat stereotypical, at least right now, we don't really know how the story is gonna play out. Stereotypical looking like space piratey, alien, bad guys with sharp pointy teeth and limbs that articulate in directions that are not quite like ours. And it's gonna be pretty freaking sweet. They've gone all out on this thing. There were, I think, 10,000 pages of dialogue or something like that that they had to shoot. And they got real, real frickin actors- Josh: Mark Hamill. Alex: Mark Hamill. Gary Oldman. Josh: Oh, did they? Alex: Oh, shoot. No. Not- shoot. What's her name? Gillian Anderson from X-Files. Oh, shoot. Andy Serkis. Jacob: Oh good one. Alex: He's he's doing MOCAP, of course. He's a MOCAP guy. Josh: Well, I mean, they MOCAP everybody. Alex: Tehcnically everybody was performance captured. Yeah. But he's doing MOCAP acting for Banu- Josh: For an alien- Alex: Yeah for someone non-human. Jacob: Of course. Of course. Alex: Because he's, like, the MOCAP king. And he is. I mean, Andy Serkis is the boss. He's he's gonna be playing, like, the leader of the the aliens we're at war with. Jacob: Okay. So is there an ETA for this? Not that it would be reliable. Alex: Absolutely not. Jacob: Dangit. Josh: They stopped they stopped even- Jacob: Promising? Josh: Yeah. Jacob: Makes sense. Alex: The last time they said it was coming out, they was gonna be coming out in 2016 I think. They might have said 2020 at one point, but- Josh: That's part of the controversy behind this game because we've been crowdfunding it for so long. Jacob: It's a big controversy. Josh: Yeah. And then- Jacob: They've reached just over half a billion dollars in crowdfunding. So people, like, want the game. Josh: I mean, it's very playable- the Star Citizen aspect of The 'Verse. It's very playable. There's still a lot of bugs and you're you're basically guinea pigs for for the development team, but gosh, it's still fun. [00:21:17] Interstitial JokeJosh: Oh, man. I love the winter. It's cold, though. Alright. I gotta get- make me some tea here. Hold on. Alright. Here's some water. Gotta- Alright, let's just put this on the stove here. Get that boiling. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm so excited for this tea. You know what? I think really fondly of you boiling water. Gosh, you're gonna be missed/mist. [00:21:58] Storytime SegmentSoundbite: Hey, kids, do you know what time it is? Storytime! Alex: So there I was. It was the year 2009, I think, maybe 2010. I had just spent a year or two applying to two jobs a week without getting anything. No interviews, nothing. I was apparently really bad at making resumes. And I finally got a job on a hot air balloon ground crew. Jacob: Oh, yeah. Alex: I have I just have the weirdest stuff in my resume. I mean I don't put any of this on my resume anymore but I guess in my CV I've got just so much random crap. This is one of those things and it was a weird job. This the the founder and owner, one time owner of LDS Singles dot com was I'm not I'm not really sure what you call them. You don't pilot a balloon. They're not called pilots. I think they're aeronauts. Jacob: Aviators? Josh: Oh, aeronaut. Alex: I think I think you're an aeronaut when you control a balloon. But, yeah, he he he was one. He had a balloon. It was a big basket and a big envelope. He's an- Josh: What's an envelope? Alex: That's the balloon as it's technically called an envelope. And Yeah. He was able to take 8 people up, not including himself. Yeah. So total of 9 people up there. And you know, everyone's always asking me what was your insurance like that you got to do this for work. Oh, I didn't get to do that for work. I was on the ground crew. You don't hire people to go up in the balloon with you. They they're useless. Up there. Jacob: They're just taking money away. Alex: It's one person controlling the balloon. What you need is people on the ground to weigh the balloon down once it's time to land. Just you just jump onto the side of the basket as soon as it touches down to try and hold it there. But we'll get there. You know, there's a there's a lot of stuff you do. So I get a call the night before at like 10 PM, maybe even 11 PM sometimes. "Hey, I need you tomorrow morning at 04:30. Just be ready outside." Because he knew where to pick me up. Jacob: Oh yeah. This is when all 3 of us were rooming together. Alex: No. No. Jacob: It wasn't? Alex: No. No. No. Josh: I was alone at Grandma- Alex: What? Josh: -Grandma Robison's house. I feel like I was at Grandma's house when this happened. I don't know why. Alex: Uhhh... I think you were married. But maybe not. Josh: I might have been- I never lived with Grandma, but I might have been chilling with Grandma... on the weekend? Alex: Okay...? Oh, yeah. I should say this was a summer job. This was not during the school year. Jacob: Okay. Okay. That's right. Alex: And if it was during the school year then we only really flew on weekends. But yeah, I I think I got out of the job before school came back around. But over the summer, I did this 04:30 in the morning He picks me up out on the street on what was that? Canyon? Canyon Road? He'd pick me up. There would usually be someone else that he had picked up before me in the in the truck with him and we'd hop in the truck and behind the truck there'd be a trailer that had the basket and the envelope and we'd drive out to one of two parks. One was in Lehi very close to the Timpanocas temple. There was a pretty big park to the southwest of the temple. That was the place that we that we preferred to launch from because it was a really big park and there were other ballooners that would often launch from there too. And they're an important part of this story because whenever there were other ballooners that you launched with, it was tradition to go get breakfast together after you landed. The people, I guess the customers, your passengers meet you at the park, and The first thing you'd- we'd do is we lay the basket out and the envelope. We get the envelope all hooked up to the top frame of the basket and get the envelope laid out on its side nice and straight and flat. And then we get- a oh yeah, we'd make sure that the various lines that are used to control the balloon to open different flaps and stuff are all straight and whatnot, that they're- that the crown line was attached to the top of the balloon. The top of the envelope is called the crown and there's a rope that goes from the top of the balloon out away from the basket and you just pull that all the way out. It was like, I don't know, maybe 200 foot rope. And then you set up a couple of fans down at the- I'm not sure what the technical term was anymore, but like what I would call the mouth of the envelope, the part where the torches would like heat everything up. Yeah. You get you get a bunch of fans just pointed inside of that as one person holds that open and they just start blowing air in. Once there's enough air in there that it kind of starts to blow up a bit, you can start using the burners to start heating that air up. And eventually you start to get the envelope to stand up. And I was always put on the crown line. I hated it. It's the worst job. I mean, it's not supposed to be, but my boss was such a turd about doing this right. His instructor would constantly berate him for being terrible at getting his balloon up. He was way too slow. So my job was to just hold this giant balloon down as much as I could so that when it stood up, it didn't go past all the way up and then start pendulating- doing doing a pendulum thing back and forth. Josh: "Pendulating". Jacob: I love it. Alex: I'm supposed to keep it from going up too fast so that it just goes all the way straight. Jacob: Until it stands. But they had just you doing that? Alex: Yeah. Usually, it was just me. You shouldn't- because I mean, the way he was doing it, we should have had three people. Jacob: Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah we've gone to a bunch of festivals and balloonist have had me come and and jump on a rope with their crew before. Alex: Well, they were probably better at their job than this guy. Josh: They probably thought if they could get you involved, you'd pay for a ticket too. Alex: Right. There were no handles. You know, it was just a rope. So I had to like wrap the rope around my hands and it was just squeezing my hands. I it felt like my hands were gonna break. And then, you know, whenever I wasn't perfect at keeping it from "pendulating"- I swear that's a word. Jacob: It should be. Josh: I really don't think it is... Alex: You know, I'd get- Josh: Oscillating? Alex: I would get berated by my boss. I'm like, "dude, you're doing it-" even I knew he was doing it wrong, like, you're going so slow. You're you're taking all of the strength out of me. I don't have the endurance just hold this giant balloon down for forever. But anyway, you get that thing standing up. You've got extra ballast weights in the basket, you know, like sandbags or something. And you get all the passengers in. Jacob: Are those gonna come into the story at any point? Alex: No. Jacob: Can I ask you a quick question then? Yeah. You always see like on TV. They wanna go- They wanna change their their buoyancy, I suppose. And so they they cut one and they drop it. Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Do they really just cut those things? Alex: I mean, probably once upon a time they did that, but that is not a part of normal ballooning nowadays. Maybe if you're like racing or something or there's some kind of- Jacob: I just suddenly had an image in my mind- Josh: Is that a thing? Alex: Oh yeah. Jacob: -someone just getting clocked with this bag of sand that fell from the sky. Alex: Yeah. No. That's not- I mean, honestly, I don't even remember there being those weights in the basket. I'm just saying it because I've been programmed by television for my whole life. I honestly don't remember any extra weights except for us. Once the balloon was standing, other people on the crew would just be hanging on to the outside of the basket to be that extra ballast weight. Josh: Yeah. I just picture some guy's face like in a just straight dire panic just like, hurry up, get on the balloon! Alex: I mean, that's with this with this boss in particular, that's kind of the way it was. Once it was up, it was time to go. You got everybody into the basket and you kind of we we timed when he started the burners to when we jumped off the basket, you know, and then away they went. And from there, our job was basically like the movie twister. Where we're in the truck chasing the balloon, the balloon tornado, watching different signs of wind on the ground so that when it's time for him to land, we know what to tell him. "You've got ground wind going in this direction at about this speed." So you know what to expect. We're also spotting power lines and things that he might not be able to see from up there, telling him where they are. We've got radios. We're talking to him over radio. And the the way you control the balloon is by climbing or descending. And at different layers, there will be different wind directions and speeds, and you just use those to push your balloon around. That's how you fly a balloon. Jacob: Did he have any instrumentation with him though? to- that read that and and gave him that info? Or was he just- Alex: No. You just have to yeah. You go up and down, you just kind of feel it as you're going up. You've got to pay attention to what you're running into. I mean, there might be stuff like that for- more professional people. Jacob: so even Heather's dad, you know, he he paraglides. He's got stuff. To to use while he's out there flying. Alex: Well, I don't know. Maybe he had some of this stuff I don't remember it though. So, yeah, we just follow him around driving the truck. I I ended up driving the truck a lot too. Josh: But you're like, stay staying to roads and things. Alex: Yeah. Definitely. Josh: So you're trying to keep it an eye on them. Alex: Correct. Josh: Are you radioing in? Alex: Yeah. I wasn't when I was driving, I was not on the radio. I had someone else next to me. Josh: You're following like roughly parallel to their direction of flight or whatever. Alex: Right. Follow him. He'll radio down that he's gonna start his descent and he wants to land at roughly this place and we'll try to get to that place before him while the other person is watching where he's at trying to tell me he's actually gonna touch down sooner or he's gonna miss that spot and go over here probably. Josh: Sounds so absurd. Alex: It's pretty crazy. And it's super fun though. Yeah. I mean it sucked being up that early in the morning, but it was it was pretty fun. And then we would get out of the truck once it looked like, yeah, he's definitely gonna touch down here. And we get out to where we can follow the basket until it's all the way on the ground and then we just jump onto the side of it. And hopefully there's not a lot of ground wind or else the basket will tip over and everybody will fall out and it's it can be kind of violent. But most of the time we landed fine. Then it's a matter of packing it out all of that stuff up into the trailer. You throw the passengers into the trailer along with the basket and they just sit in the basket. Jacob: Really? Alex: Yeah. Jacob: Okay. That's funny. Alex: And at that point, driving is pretty intense because you don't wanna stop too suddenly. You really can't start too suddenly towing too much weight. I mean, and I mean not so much weight but, yeah, you just wanna be easy on the brakes. And then we would go back to the park, drop off the passengers to their vehicles, so they can drive back home, and then we would go refill the the the propane tanks. And as I said, if we launch from a park where there were other ballooners then it was tradition for us to go to Jim's Diner in American Fork and get breakfast together afterwards. And this boss was pretty cool. He he paid for breakfast for us whenever we went. And we did usually launch from that park and when we did there were usually other ballooners. So we had breakfast afterwards pretty frequently. And we always refilled the burners- the the propane tanks- before going to breakfast. And it got to the point where my brain forged a connection between the smell of the propane and the food I was about to eat. For 5 years afterwards. If I smelled propane, I would salivate and my stomach would growl. It was it was a very literal Pavlovian response. I would get so so hungry. Josh: I wonder if that's why your boss, he was compelled to do this because he had like created the- Alex: He had that same thing? Josh: The pavlovian requirement in himself, Alex: Right. Josh: He's like, "oh, man, you know, we we have to go get some food!" Alex: "Oh, we're about to eat breakfast? I gotta get some propane!" [00:37:30] Another Brother Outro
 

Another Brother Trailer

Get ready for a joyride of camaraderie, geeky fascination, and heartfelt moments. Unravel the mysteries of the universe – from probing the latest alien encounters to unraveling the legends of elusive cryptids. Share in gaming escapades, discover never-before told personal stories, and help determine once and for all who the BEST superhero is. With us, you’re not just a listener, you’re Another Brother.
 
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The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:
 
Alex: I'm Alex. Josh: I'm Josh. Jacob: I'm Jacob. Alex: And we are... All: The brothers! Josh: We're a family with overly strong passions like aliens, Jacob: Big Foot, Alex: Or video games. Josh: These are the things we nerd out about. Jacob: Needless to say, family gatherings are bound to result in lively conversations. Whatever you do, don't insult Superman in front of our dad. Alex: My wife observed that she felt like another brother while listening to our playful banter. She enjoyed it so much she eventually said, "You guys should start a podcast." Josh: "My stomach lining!" All: *Laughter* Josh: And we thought, "Yeah, okay, sure." Jacob: Not! We thought it was a great idea! Alex: This is what it will be like with us. "Hey, Josh, I'm still not convinced aliens exist." Josh: "Are you freaking kidding me, you idiot?!" Jacob: "So there I was. In Siberia. On a bus. The driver pulls over, pulls a passenger over his seat, decks him in the face, kicks him off the bus, and keeps driving." Alex: And you never know you might just become... All: Another Brother!