The SomethingSomethingCast

Tis the season!  And, by season, we obviously mean tornado season.. what other season could I have meant?!  You see due to global warming, there is a chance we are looking at out-of-nowhere tornadoes that can just hit the ground and send us packing.

So join us on this whirlwind of a holiday season and visit the harrowing journey of one family as a half dozen or so tornadoes seem to follow them where ever they go. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it better than bad, it’s good?  Don’t forget, you can watch this masterpiece first – here!

Find out with 1-Star Movie: Christmas Twister 

Before the episode though – just want to remind you all that we are heading in to our usual December Vacation – so get ready for twice as much Somethings with the Best of 2023!

But first – Ok here we blow!

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Hey Somethings!  PCR here…

Now that we’ve made it through “The Day of Gorging” and are now into “The Day of Madness”, a few reminders for those out braving the Black Friday deals and such at your local stores…

1. Retail employees and Servers do NOT set the prices.
2. Retail employees and Servers do NOT control inventory levels.
3. Retail employees and Servers can NOT control how quickly others before you do or do not interact with things.
4. Retail employees and Servers would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to treat you how you treat them.. especially if you’re treating them like shit… but they can’t.  YOU have that choice to be kind or not.
5. Most (if not all) Retail employees and Servers absolutely loath today, basically because of the types of people they’re afraid they’ll encounter.  Don’t be one of those people.

Regardless of where you are…  your electronics or hobby store, the drive-thru of Jack-In-The-Box, a home improvement store, a swank sit-down restaurant…  remember, the people taking care of you are just that..   PEOPLE… and they deserve respect and compassion.   Don’t be the asshole they tell stories about in the breakroom.

– PCR

One of the great things about doing In The Beginning is that we get a chance to look at some stuff that was super popular, but doesn’t really reach the lofty goals of a multiple season blah blah..  so we can even take on the classics of the 80s – the TV Miniseries.

So why don’t we start that idea with one of the biggest and most well known in a little story about the aliens landing and being totally friendly and not at all problematic lizard monsters. …No.. seriously…

Anyway, does it stand the test of time? Is it good? Is it the reason miniseries aren’t around anymore?

Find out on The Beginning – V. 

Ok, here V go!

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First off, I’d like to thank this past week”s guest Ty for, after my last blog post about Idle Games coming out, he sent me Idle Gears because he is a smartass.. then he and I discussed strategizing it for the next two days.

He’s a monster. Thanks, buddy.

Anyway, there is another kind of game that is close to the idle genre, but is less idle and more.. frustrating? nerdy? Made for people with Engineering degrees?  But, don’t get me wrong, they are still, in some ways, idle games.

I’m talking about a genre that is loosely referred to as factory automation games.

Have you never played them – then the fact is – you probably don’t want to, because the people that do want these games, have likely already found them. They’re sort of like Narnia that way. But just in case you have lived under a rock and really like the idea of building a machine that builds a machine that builds the gear the helps you build the new machine… here, you’re welcome:

FACTORIO – So, I’m putting this one here first because it isn’t the first of the genre, but it most definitely is the one that everyone thinks of.  It’s a simple premise – build a rocket.  Obviously, easy peasy. Especially when you start on an alien planet with a pick-axe and that’s it. So yeah, you mine some coal and some iron to make a furnace and make a gear and use gears to make a lab, and a lab to make some science and some science to build an entire planet covered in giant conveyor belts of machinery that are building buildings to build buildings.

SATISFACTORY – Now, it is easy to say that Satisfactory is just 3D first person Factorio.. but it isn’t.  Well, it is a little, but not entirely – you see, the world you are in Satisfactory is not a randomly generated world. It’s the same world. Start a new game with the basic settings, start in the same place.  That’s because this world is a huge country with different lush biomes and vibrant wildlife and greenery, and you get to slowly but surely pave over it and fill it with billowing smokestacks, giant conveyor systems, and gigantic power supplies.  It’s this brilliant and hysterical eco-message in an amazing world.

AUTONAUTS – Autonauts may be my favorite on this list, and it is because it does something so simply different with its premise. Yes, building things that build things – but – they are all robots and you get to program them in a fairly basic way. After building a robot, you walk around and do something – and then it repeats it.  Want this bot to grab logs and bring them over there.. fine. Want this bot to take logs from there and turn them into gears? Sure. And eventually, as you upgrade your bots (or you have your bots upgrade your bots) you are running this artistically-simple, but chaotic mess that likely looks like the world 5 minutes before the beginning of the war in Terminator.

SHAPEZ – This game gets a quicker honorable mention because it is legitimately the simplest of the batch. You build a shape and conveyor belt it in to a base. Now you need a new shape, build a machine that screws up your old shape and turns it into a new shape.. now it needs to be blue.. ..and split in half.. ..and broken into separate quarters that are each on top of another shape and painted 4 different colors.. this goes on. Definitely worth a check out though and the sequel is on its way.

Lastly….

GREGTECH: NEW HORIZONS – This may be the one that you aren’t aware of – the one that slipped through the cracks.. and there’s a reason. It’s not a game, but a mod on the blocky masterpiece of Minecraft.  Now, in Minecraft there is some automation you can build – and it can get intricate, but it isn’t the purpose of the game. (Unless its your purpose, but that’s a different thing) GT:NH as it is referred, is a mod pack that makes every single step of the game a bit of a hassle, but not an unsatisfying one. Where before you found some coal and mined it and made a torch.. well, your first few days in this highly dangerous world you will spend with one torch as you learn how to build basic tools, and figure out how to build a giant coke oven to collapse wood into charcoal.  It’s brutal, and it goes like that as you grow from steam power to electrical power to planetary hopping and dimensions. I hate it…. I’m lying… I love it..

What factories do you build – sound off in all the places.

What was your toy?  Did you play with M.U.S.C.L.E.S or Stretch Armstrong? Were you a Lite-Brite kid or maybe you had a slinky but you straightened it.  Whatever your particular pet rock was, there is some toy that you remember from your childhood that is no longer with us. Maybe because it just wasn’t that interesting or maybe because it was horrendously dangerous.

Well, the Somethings are back in the elevator and we’re going to bring back a toy from our childhood, and the special guest CEO is one of the hosts of High Anxiety on Youtube, Ty Jero!  So please, pay respect to our toy maestro and check out his team’s reviews of toys and collectables.

But for now – which one of us will get the pile of money?

Find out on Elevator Pitch: Discontinued Toys

Ok here we go go Power Rangers!

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Hey Somethings,

Now, as has been said multiple times during our show, Hatton and I are from two different age groups.  When I was a kid (and teen, and young adult), most TV seasons were about 22 episodes long.  They ran Sept. to May, and maybe took a break towards the end of the year.  Summer would come and go, and in Sept. a new season would drop.

In the 2007 Writer’s Strike, it jumbled things up and seasons were delayed, but even then (and using our “favorite” show as an example) LOST Season 5 was down to 14 episodes (4 was too, but.. again…Writer’s Strike).

Now, we have shows streaming on services that a “season” is 6 episodes?

Using “Loki” as an example, Season 1 started June 9th, 2021, and Season 2 JUST dropped in Oct. of 2023.  Stranger Things has done similar with a THREE YEAR gap between Seasons 3 and 4, and another 3 year gap between 4 and 5 (granted… again… there was a Writer’s Strike and, at the time of this writing, still a SAG-AFTRA strike)  and.. my question becomes… when do we stop caring?

As much as I was looking forward to a S2 of Loki, I didn’t jump on it when it came out.  I only recently caught up because I’m curious how they’re handling Kang since Marvel “may” (random reports) end up ‘phasing out’ Kang as the new Big Bad and replace him with Dr. Doom if Majors’ legal trouble increases more.  I just didn’t have the hype to get back into it after waiting so long.  The same went for S4 of Stranger Things.  Will I watch Season 5 when it comes out?  Eventually sure, if only to see how they wrap up the story, but it is unlikely I’ll be sitting in front of my TV with remote in hand just WAITING for it to drop.

Which begs the question Somethings… how long of a wait between seasons would make YOU not care nearly as much anymore?

Hit us in the socials and let us know!

-PCR

You’ve done it. You find something you enjoy on Monday, you blink, and it’s August. Maybe it’s a show.. maybe it’s a website.. maybe it’s learning how to translate Etruscan. The fact is, we have all fallen down our share of rabbit holes that suck our life away for good or for ill.

This week, Hatton and Rob will be talking some of the entertaining things they have found themselves fighting to avoid the gravitational pull of. Some of these things only last a day or two… some, a life time. Please let us know if we’re your rabbit hole. It’s ok… we won’t tell… on Rabbit Holes

Ok, here we fall!

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Do you play idle games? Well.. first, let me explain what an idle game is if you don’t – it’s arguably one of the dumbest genres of gaming ever, and yet somehow I have a problem with them.

The premise of most of them is that you are trying to do some big task, get to a big number, build the largest mountain, make a cookie factory.. it doesn’t matter. As long as its the biggest one ever.

So click on the cookie, you get 1 bite. Click again. 2 bites. Eventually it offers you, in exchange for 10 bites, one auto-biter that gives you a bite every second.. then a second one, third, and then you get a cookie biter biter that makes cookie biters at a rate of one per one second. This goes on until you have exponentially built things that are building things.

The tagline of idle games are, ‘Numbers go up.’ — sometimes you hit a hard wall where unless you let the game idle for decades, your progres is capped. It’s at that time you PRESTIGE, a system where you start at the beginning again, but all your cookie bite are x2, or there’s now a fighting game that helps eat cookies or.. look, it gets esoteric. You can have a room of magic alchemy that’s brewing golden chocolate chips that when he makes them it makes your 3rd tier cookie biter biter factory give you GOLD bites that accrue separately and you can then transmute them into LEAD bites and every 100 LEAD bites your Cookie Warrior ascends to Cookie Godhood.

DO YOU GET IT. THEY’RE WEIRD.

And I will load one or go to a site with one, play it until I find myself obsessively checking on my numbers and updates and micro-adjustments until – after 10 or so hours.. I go ‘NO. NOT AGAIN’ and uninstall it.

I play them the same way I play Souls games – until I get so angry I have to delete it, lest I descend into a deeper self-pitying rage. You start the game, an hour later, three days has passed and it isn’t like you have much to show for it. In a Souls game, you what? Killed one boss and are now being killed by a different one? In an idle, you are no longer buying Cookie Machines you are buying gears for the machine that makes the Cookie Machine grow.  In both cases, they are probably right next to each other.

So please, do yourself a favor, don’t do it. Don’t Cookie Clicker. Don’t Adventure Capitalist.  Don’t.

Unless its Paperclips. That game rules.

I warned you.

With the last Tuesday, a spooky 5th Tuesday, we interrupt our normal ‘Whatever the hell we do on the extra week’ and replace it with a NEW thing we do on the extra week, but we replace THAT with something that’s much more Halloweeny since this also is that day so really it’s sort of just an In Review week, but under a different name, but … ARE YOU SCARED?!

So let’s go to a small boardwalk town where kids are kids and they are thirsty … for blood….. and Chinese Food!

That’s right, we’re discussing your goth ex-girlfriend’s favorite movie, Lost Boys. Does it stand the test of time or is it just a Frog in Vamp clothing.

Find out on The Fifth Wheel – Not Really – In Review – Sorta – Halloweeny Lost Boys!

Ok, we’re confused!

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Hey All, Podcast Rob here…

Allow me a moment to shake my fist at the sky…

Was coming home from work the other day, and decided to hop in one of my local drive-thrus to grab something to eat for dinner.  Amazingly, there was no line, nor was there anyone behind me.

My order wasn’t anything overly large, nor was it custom or special.  Regular order, right off the menu, not even a combo meal.

I pull up to the window where I wait for a few because the cashier is texting on their phone.  They open the window, take my money, and then say “Pull in to spot #3”

“umm… why?”

“We’re going to bring your food out to you so we can clear the window”

“There’s… literally no one behind me…”

“Oh I know, but it resets our timer”

My brain, understanding….

“Ohhh.. so, it shows your boss and your company that you’re doing a good job”

They nod, “basically”

Me, smiling… “then you should do a good job.  I’m good here thanks”

I then notice them glare, walk over to where there is a bag of food at.. Ill call it their ‘pick up table’ that has been SITTING THERE SINCE I PULLED UP TO THE WINDOW.. they grab it, walk back over, and shove the bag out the window at me.

Look, I get it, I hate being micromanaged too… but holy FUCK is this a peeve of mine, and it happens everywhere, and honestly, it annoys the hell out of me.

I understand people want to game a system they don’t believe is ‘fair’.  Hell, I used to work retail where we had to call customers who gave us their information regarding a special order product we carried.  We kept them in a lead book.  We had to make 80 calls a week.  Our book never had more than 18 names.  Management’s solution?  Call the customer, let it ring half a ring then immediately hang up and note “no answer”, and do that 3-4 days a week to the same customers just so we could fill out our log book.  No mention to the higher-ups about how 80 was unreasonable.  None of our stores had anywhere CLOSE to 80 leads a week, at any time.  Ever.  So yeah, I can see how, with deaf ears from above, you have to do what you can.

However….

There is one drive-thru place near where I live..   doesn’t matter if there’s no line, or a 10 car line… how small or big your order is…  you pull up to the window, they’re handing you your food.  It would be different if “it’s impossible for places to get orders to the window in 4 minutes!” were true.. but it’s not… so, while you’re gaming the system to your boss, you look like a shitass to everyone else…

Just me?  Hit us in the socials and let us know!

-PCR