Toy Fair 2019 and Retro Tech Stories

This is Jason David Frank and you're listening

to the Geek Cash Radio Network. Flawless Ensemble.

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. Hello and welcome to Altered Geek. I'm

your host, Steve Megatron Phillips. Joining me

this week is the epic, the awesome... Mike the

Birdman Dodd returning from the wild wastes of

Northern Ontario or Southern Ontario, depending

on how you want to look at it. That's right.

I'm back. Y 'all missed me. Y 'all. Yeah, so

it's been a while. It really has been. Looking

at the chat we have here on our lovely Discord

server. I don't think I've been on since like

late last year. Yeah, late November, like almost

December. Holy crap. Yeah, it has been a while.

So I'm glad to be back here on the show As you

guys may know twig is back in production We've

been back since about the middle of January and

it has not stopped since we've come back And

yeah, I've been keeping myself pretty busy Do

my best to keep the podcast machine alive 12

years as of I think the end of January twig has

been online. So I've had an online presence for

a dozen years, so I'm going to be approaching

my awkward teenage years next year. So that'll

be strange. Yeah, looking forward to that. I'm

trying to think of what else to bring the listeners

up to speed on. I'll be back on Future Imperfect

in about a week or two. I just have to catch

up on Star Trek Discovery Season 2. I also have

to finally watch the Orville. Basically, my friend

Alex, the producer, is basically browbeating.

He's like, watch the fucking Orville! There's

our PG -13 for this episode. Yeah, the Orville

is basically TNG with Seth MacFarlane comedy,

which, you know what? I'm totally OK with and

I read a lot of the after discussion on Twitter

because I obviously I follow nerds and they're

like, oh, my God, this was the best episode ever.

It's like TNG in the writing. I really got attached.

So you know what? Maybe I just need to sit down

and marathon it. But. That's not what I have

time to do. I've been playing a lot of video

games I was actually telling Steve this off air

Before we are coming on so I'll give you the

altered geeks a preview of what's coming out

on twig this Sunday slash Monday I'm currently

reviewing a crackdown 3 on the Xbox one. Oh Boy,

am I having a grand old time? Ha ha ha I'm playing

this game and I haven't been a big fan of the

crackdown games for like ever. Basically the

only reason to play the original crackdown was

you got like a beta for Halo 3. Anyway, I'm playing

this and I get Terry Crews who's an awesome guy

by the way. He's a big funny dude. And the game

opens up with him saying quack quack mother effer.

And I'm thinking, okay, that's pretty funny.

And then the game starts and it's just... Running

around and shooting things and that should be

fun, but it's just not it's like It's not as

clever as Saints Road and not as serious as Grand

Theft Auto It's basically if Grand Theft Auto

and Saints Row had a baby and they gave it steroids

this is what this game is and it's collecting

orbs and going from one checkpoint to another

and basically running all over the minimap doing

things. Sure, there's a story. There's a place

called New Providence. You don't care. You just

have to kill bad guys and free the city. It's

standard fare. You're this super agent. And then

there's this really obnoxious announcer guy.

He's like, well, agents, you could kick his face

in or you could use this cryogenic shotgun. Yeah.

And it's just so. Dumb, and I guess maybe that's

what I'm supposed to enjoy the fact that it's

big dumb humor, but if this is how the Xbox Live

or sorry, this is how Xbox is gonna lead its

year of exclusives. Oh boy, you'd have a better

time going back to playing Sea of Thieves, which

has vastly improved over the last year. Just

wow, not having fun with it, but I haven't tried

the multiplayer. Maybe I'll try it. We'll see

what happens. But there you go. There is Mike

inside of a nutshell. Nice. Yeah, I've been,

as I was mentioning off air, playing Arkham Knight.

And I discovered that once you beat it, they

unlock certain skins to the Batmobile and the

Bat himself. And there's like five or six that

it unlocks by default most of them are Arkham

based or like the the Noel suit or the The Dark

Knight returns And then I got the 89 but it also

came with the new 52 in the Batman ink and I

like the new 52 one a lot so I ended up using

that for the for the suit for the the The the

game plus mode basically you've you've beat it

once and then you get to play the whole game

all over again with what you've already collected

so far and so you just kind of build on your

game and the the only unfortunate part is is

the batmobiles that you get unless it's the one

specifically from Arkham Knight you cannot use

those skins in the game unless they're in the

Yeah, the special side missions that have nothing

to do with the main story. They're not even built

into the main story. It's the little missions

that are the augmented reality type stuff. It

doesn't let you do within the game, which was

unfortunate because I was like, man, I could

be cruising around in the 89 in the middle of

the game because it has cannons and stuff. I

mean, granted, it doesn't have like... The ability

to turn in like a dime or whatever, yeah. Yeah,

but I mean, it wouldn't even let you use the

one from Batman V Superman, and I was kind of

bummed on that, but... Yeah, that kind of surprises

me, actually. So anyways, like, I did that, and

then... I don't know if you'd seen, I dropped

a new version of GeekCastRadio .com at the beginning

of the year. Yep, I did, I did. Good work. Thank

you. There's still more to go into it, but there's

a lot of a lot of technical work. And then, of

course, just like the last time I was working

on the site, I got laid off. So it's put a stop

redesigning your site. It's it's clearly cursed.

It's everything surrounding this one. I started

developing this one and then two months later

got laid off. And then I finished this one for

the most part. And then almost a month later,

I get laid off. So it's kind of a, you know,

kind of a loser. But. I've got some decent freelance

work out of it, though, since getting laid off,

but it's not sustainable. There's been a ton

of stuff going on online between awesome toy

stuff, a lot of news on films, a lot of stuff

that's overload. Of course, clickbait websites,

which it's getting harder and harder to take

them seriously when you see crap articles constantly,

like the every five seconds saying that, you

know, so and so replaces Ben F like his Batman

and it's blah, blah, blah. And then you've got

like all these stupid articles that are written

Try and guess which website I'm talking about,

though. Yeah, I totally hear you. You know what?

It boggles the mind, because half these people,

some of them have to be educated in how to write

as a true journalist and everything. But they're

reporting on unsubstantiated rumors or things

that they may have heard on a website board or

an uncredited source. But unless that source

is Okay, you can have a source that's uncredited

but as long as you as the reporter can trust

it like there's that thin line and If you're

trying to protect a source and you say a trusted

anonymous source Once again that thin line. It's

just it's friggin irritating and I Like the amount

of times I've seen so and so well will be Batman

this guy will be Batman and then Robert Pattinson

talks to be the Dark Knight and Man, I'm like,

okay, sure, because you know what, why not? Party

on. Ah, it frustrates me. And then, hell, even

tonight, tonight, as all of you Geekcast listeners

and Twink listeners know, Mike Dodd's Facebook

is the dumpster fire of social media. Boy oh

boy, you wanna bring out the weirdos? Start talking

about Ghostbusters on my page. Ha ha ha ha. Evidently,

it's, you know what, I'm not gonna get into it

because it'll only end up me bashing certain

people for like 10 minutes. But point of the

matter is clickbaity needs to stop. It needs

to be actual reporting, credible reporting, not

just what'll get clicks and eyes on it. It should

be a good news story. Because if I went to my

newsroom with half these stories, they'd look

at me like I got two heads on my shoulders and

like, no, Mike, have you vetted the source? Well,

it was on the internet no Unless you can back

it up with two or three other sources then go

for it. Well, it's like I What's like me? I write

freelance for a magazine and for which is local

to me and then freelance for a technology website

and based out of another state and I They send

me basically the headline that they're wanting

to cover. And then they send me, you know, maybe

like a sample article of just one viewpoint or

one article of the news of this particular information

and then say, you know, go find other sources

to get more information and kind of build out

a basically a simple digestible, easy to read

version of my own. And it's not that difficult

to do, to be honest. And you don't have to be

douchey about it either. So I mean, it's, I don't

know, it's something that really irks me. Like

for instance, this particular website came out

with a article called... Avenger star Chris Hemsworth

to play WWE legend Hulk Hogan in biopic, which

tells you exactly what the article is. Instead

of, you know, Ben Barnes shares image of him

replacing Ben Affleck as Batman, which leads

you to think that he is going to be Batman. And

then they come out with another article, you

know, an hour later, this is John Krasinski replaces

Ben Affleck as Batman. And it's incredible. You

know those are totally misleading like clickbaity

garbage articles Not worth the website code used

to print it Which is probably why I don't make

millions of dollars on VKS radio Is because I

refuse to do that Yeah, and I refuse to report

on stuff like that like with me I use a few trusted

sources and people would give me shit for it,

but I like I09, I like Kotaku, some of the former

Gawker people I like, Gawker notwithstanding.

And I'll try a few places like Superhero Hype.

I'll trust like BBC News, Sky News, Al Jazeera,

the CBC, CTV Global, Entertainment Weekly, The

Hollywood Reporter, stuff like that, right? Yeah,

legit sources. Yeah. places that are willing

to credit their sources, or if there's a problem

with the article, they'll print a retraction.

Stuff like that. A website or a newsletter has

to be able to rely to be credible for you to

report on it or to at least have the story spread.

And this is how misinformation gets spread and

rumors and just terrible things which can lead

to terrible results and other things. Not just

entertainment because Hell one of the things

I always used to say and you You can say it mostly

now you snopes it before you post it most of

the time that works and Yeah, clickbait go to

hell. I'm just it makes me so angry I Thought

about something else. I want to talk about but

I'm just thinking I don't want to kick that particular

horn. It's nest so Keeping with our theme this

week, as you guys may have noticed, this year

was, well, this year, this week, this weekend

rather, was the annual Toy Fair in New York City.

A lot of really cool announcements came out of

it, most particular for me, which is kind of

cool, because there's gonna be a comic book later

on this summer with IDW. That's the Ghostbusters

Transformers crossover with a robot, I think

in the Voyager class called Ektotron. You can

pre -order now at GameStop. And this was so awesome.

I was watching the Goldbergs this week. And the

writer, creator of the show, Adam Goldberg, managed

to get Ektotron on the show. Now obviously Ektotron

didn't exist in the 1980s. But for the sake of

one shot in the show, he's like, hey, look, Johnny

Atkins, check out this transformer that I have

that it just so happens to be Ecto -1. And I

immediately messaged Adam. He hasn't responded

to my tweet or to my direct message as of this

recording. I was like, dude, did you get the

prototype? Because if you do, I hate you. And

I just thought it was so cool. Though also Hasbro

finally showed off the Lightning Collection,

other than just the White Ranger. They showed

off Lord Zedd, which is one per case. So if you're

thinking about pre -ordering any of the Lightning

Wave, pre -order him, because he'll be the scalper

figure. Guaranteed. They also have Red Dino Charge

and Shadow Ranger from SPD, which is Commander

Kruger. So those four figures which was pretty

kick -ass they also showed off whole crap ton

of beast morpher stuff Which looks really kick

-ass and that premieres like next week. I think

next Saturday. I want to say now didn't Saban

Produce their own toys previously. Um, it was

I think it was mostly bandai. That's what I meant

Yeah, yeah, they've been producing their own

stuff, but they but they they gave the license

the Hasbro And it looks like the lightning collection

in particular is the stuff that I'm into because

it's this kind of like the Bandai legacy collection

over here. Well, it's also kind of like the masterpiece

edition. Yeah, basically. Or the black edition

of Star Wars. Yes. It's like collector scale

Marvel Legends style. You get removable heads,

you get different arms, lay or different accessories,

hands, accessories. So it does look pretty cool.

I mean, I've got Commander Krueger pre -ordered

right now. So SPD Shadow Ranger at Lord Zed and

the GameStop exclusive Goldar, which looks gorgeous.

Yeah, I love the new Goldar. I love the new Zed

and the White Ranger. Those were kind of like

my staples of the original Ranger show back in

the day there. I'm very curious to see if they'll

do a lightning collection Comic -con exclusive

this year. My guess is probably which means getting

this thing on the secondary market will suck

Because I'm lucky I got a Lord Drakkon this year

Because normally he's the figure goes from anywhere

from like 120 to 300. I got mine for 50 bucks

So I basically had to commit sin to get this

thing and it was worth it. That's all I'm going

to say. Some of the transformer stuff looks really

cool. Omega Supreme in the Titans class looks

amazing and I want it and I can't have it and

it makes me sad. What were some of the oh, they

also got comic or television accurate Skyfire,

which looks really, really freaking cool. Who

else am I leaving out here, Steve? Well, they've

got Springer. They've got a couple different

other figures in that area, whether it be a Prime.

They've got basically a Cybertron -ish Prime.

Blitzwing. They've got Blitzwing. A couple of

the... The seekers but the ones that were on

Cybertron that turned into the The weird triangle

ones. Yeah, they've got those In a multitude

of other figures, but the attention to detail

on these things are sick I mean they're under

the the siege the the war for Cybertron trilogy

line, which is their their next series that's

gonna be kind of coming up and Netflix and I

heard And I don't know if this is true that they're

going to have a new video game. I haven't heard

anything. I'd like to know who's developing.

If I would have to wager someone who would be

developing, I'd like them to go back to Platinum

Games who did Transformers Devastation. Yeah,

there's rumored that there's going to be like

a first person shooter type game. And. It doesn't

really say totally what it's going to be about,

but again, this was just something that I just

kind of found is that there's kind of a rumor

that there's a new Transformers Online type.

This is certain affinity studios working on new

third -person shooter. Yeah, I guess if it was

like the war and fall of Cybertron games, that

wouldn't be terrible. Terrible. I think those

are both done by High Moon Studios. High Moon

Studios had the best crap I've ever played. I

liked Devastation a bit more, which was platinum

games. I did like that, but I liked I liked the

aesthetic and that you could play as the G1 characters.

But as far as overall storyline and everything

that was going on and connecting through the

War for Cybertron games and Fall of Cybertron,

those were by far some of the best games I'd

played, Transformers -wise, since Armada. The

history of Transformers video games is both short

and sad. There have only been a handful of really,

really good ones. Apparently, and this is from

Tformers, they said, and normally I would cover

this on ATTF, but yeah, it's part of Toy Fair.

Kind of. It says that a new game is currently

under development, most likely for consoles and

or Steam developed by a certain affinity, a company

with Few full games under their belts, but solid

shooters that date back as far as Halo 2. The

game is expected to once again be a third -person

series as the High Moon studio games were. It

says with High Moon themselves currently indisposed

as permanent backup for Bungie on Destiny. Sadly,

we won't expect to see them return to the franchise

is what it says. This is little is known about

the game other than its tentative title of Transformers

Online, its developer in its genre, but there's

also disclosure of acquisition from a company

with a 20 % stake in certain affinity that mentions

their specific license to Transformers covers.

The G1 period of 1984 to 1995 in the modern generation

setting. If we were betting, we would expect

this game to tie into the War for Sight Return

trilogy, and if so, we hope they will title the

game very carefully to avoid confusion. It doesn't

say anything else about it. But if it's a Transformers

online game very similar to like say Like your

your your kind of battlefields in a sense except

third person and it you know more or less in

the vein of like a Star Trek online or like DC

Universe online, but not crap. I hope that Christ

it's not an oh my god. I hope it's not an MMO

I really do because otherwise it's gonna suck

See, if they did it like Destiny, maybe, maybe

it could be okay. If they gave you the ability

to create your own Transformer. But yeah, there's

a lot of ifs and buts with this. Yes, there's

a lot going on here that's not fully in disclosure

here, but I would be super geeked to have a Transformers

game to play. I should have actually get Devastation

on Steam since I use that now. It's well worth

it. It's a fantastic game Another thing that

I saw at a toy for that I thought was really

cool is they showed off a lot more of the Ghostbusters

line which will be coming out Around May like

a lot of the play school stuff looks or sorry

not play school play mobile. They have the ecto

2a It looks awesome. It's the Ghostbusters 2

car and it's got more sounds. There's like an

LED light board. I think that even works, which

Mattel sent me the Ecto One last year. I'm actually

going to bug them again for this thing this year.

Say, hey, kind of want it. Hook me up. They also

have where you can buy the Ghostbusters in like

these window packagings, which you can do that

too. I think there's going to be a new playset

as well. That looks pretty kick -ass diamond

select showed off more of their figures or there

was like a there's like a staple of marshmallow

man There's a slimer. There's the four original

Ghostbusters and their different real Ghostbusters

cartoon likenesses Which look pretty cool because

I know you can get Winston and I think Egon right

now, but Ray and Peter are coming out I want

to get these but Where the hell am I going to

put them? Like I've got just enough room for

Power Rangers right now. And even that I'm starting

to run out of space. They have some DC collectibles

with like a new bat cycle with Batman on it.

Kind of like the ones that were out in the 90s,

which is pretty awesome. They got a new scarecrow.

They got a new two face. They got a great ghost.

They've got the Ezrael Batman armor. suit from

Nightfall. They've got a Jason Todd. And mind

you, these are themed in the DCAU aesthetic.

So they've got a Jason Todd with the red hood

helmet. And then they've got Deathstroke. And

they've got that DCAU aesthetic to them, among

other things that are in there. And then they've

got various statues and other things and the

various lines of the designer series of all the

characters, which is kind of cool. Another thing

that I saw was cool from another exhibitor, I

didn't get a really good look at it, but I think

it was NECA showed off their Godzilla for the

big Godzilla movie. I think it comes out this

year, I want to say. The only monster they didn't

decide to sculpt was King Ghidorah, which I'm

like, oh my God, of all the monsters you should

have done, it should have been him, even if it

was a Comic Con exclusive. But those figures

look really, really, really cool. And NECA toys

are always really, really high, awesome sculpt.

They're fantastic. The prices are usually pretty

acceptable. I myself am looking for a NECA T

-800. Actually, I was at a local convention.

I know, I went outside last week and I saw one

for 30 bucks and I almost pulled the trigger

on it. Instead I bought my wife a cat I call

Sir Squishington. This is a giant smiling cat

with a bell on it. But I almost bought this neck

of toy. But anyway, back to Toy Fair. I'm trying

to think of what else from Toy Fair really stood

out to me. There was a bunch of Funko crap, but

Funko stuff is Funko. What do you expect? I've

actually, I actually got a Fun Co a little while

ago. It's the only one I've gotten. I'm starting

to slow down on them now. I'm only collecting

Power Ranger ones or weird ones, like ones that

that are completely out of left field or a giant.

I got the Lord Drakken a couple of weeks ago

and I think from Toy Fair, they have this really

awesome three pack where it's the three hyenas

from The Lion King, which looks really kind of

cool. But that's pretty much about, that's all

the Toy Fair news that stuck out to me. Like

I was mostly Power Rangers this year, NECA, and

I think, I want to say, didn't Nick Farland get

the DC license this year? I wanna say I saw that

somewhere, so do not quote that as gospel, but

I remember seeing that in more than one place.

So I don't know. I think even McFarlane himself

was shocked on Twitter. I remember seeing that

on Twitter and he's like, wait, what? So I don't

know. I guess we'll have to wait and see. But

Toy Fair is something I didn't pay a lot of attention

to this year outside of the Power Ranger stuff

because I really wanted to know. Okay, where's

my little bit of expendable income going this

year? What's going to have to be sold to have

to have X this year? So far this year, it looks

like I'm getting two waves of the lightning collection.

The second wave has the red beast morpher guy

in it, the red ranger and gold are and we don't

know anything beyond that. I suppose we'll find

out at like Comic Con this year. I suspect this

line is going to sell well. Hasbro was probably

one of the best people to take care of a Power

Rangers line. They're even talking about an unnew

movie. In fact, actually, there's some news that

came out of Tony Fair. Hasbro officially confirmed

that Bumblebee was a reboot of the Transformers

movies. And thank God for that. Because after

the last night. Oh boy, you ain't coming back

from that. Well, and honestly, I think that the

Bumblebee movie, although I haven't seen it just

based on what I've saw of the trailer and what

I've heard of the film, they basically gave us

what we wanted from the start. Yep. My God, it

is easily in my top 15 favorite movies of all

time now. I cannot. wait for this to come out

on Blu -ray. My God, I was so happy watching

this. And the other thing too is it's funny just

because they actually tried in the movie and

kind of gave a more balanced look to the machine

and the G1 look. The guy who directed it is the

guy who directed Kubo and the two strings, I

wanna say. So he knows how a digital character

moves. He knows how to give a digital character

real life. And basically helping them design

the G1 look for the Transformers and have them

look like we want them to look. And hell, the

first five minutes of that happened on Cybertron.

And I was like, oh my God, I recognize you. And

I was like so happy just seeing all these characters

come to life. And then a little bit later in

the film, sadly, one of my favorite characters

dies. But I was like, holy shit, man. It worked.

It really worked. And that's why they're going

to make more. God damn right. Especially the

ending of that movie. Oh my God. Sorry. But the

other thing, too, is kind of jumping back to

Toy Fair to kind of round it out with a couple

of the last Transformers things. They unveiled

a bunch of photos of Masterpiece figures, including

Masterpiece 43 Beast Wars Megatron, which, dude,

I'd give my left nut to get that figure. I can't

afford it. I'm surprised it's taken this long

for it to come out. Well, also, it's going to

be like 350 bucks, which is outrageous. It's

not your life not for that. Yeah but anyways

I really want that stupid toy, but There's no

way in a snowball's chance in hell. I'd pay three

hundred dollars for a toy My upper limit's 200

and even I had better do something box. Yeah

It primal primal was 130 Greater order But still

like I don't know. I really want that Megatron.

So I I don't know I'm gonna have to do some thinking

but But anyways, yeah, then they showed off like

masterpiece wheel jack prowl bumblebee and then

they've got the the Return of Optimus Prime version

of Optimus Prime where he's all like covered

in the white powder to prevent him from getting

the hate plague Oh, that's cool. They've got

him in that that aesthetic And and he's he's,

you know, him and his trailer, like completely

coated in the the precious metal that that prevents

them from getting infected. And it looks awesome.

Like, I mean, even though there's like no paint

on it, it looks it looks pretty cool on that.

If nothing else, like if you didn't like it and

you wanted to paint it your own colors, you'd

have a blank template there to play with. But

yeah, it's pretty sweet. I've got to look up

a picture of this and what it's called masterpiece

return of Optimus Prime I'm almost there. I gotta

see this. Oh my god It's pretty wicked Cybertron

.com posted it. I want I want that bumblebee

my god. I want that bumblebee be so okay That

looks pretty sick. That's the Beast Wars Megatron

Wheeljack looks good. I want that prowl like

I want it to have my babies Oh my God, that bumblebee

is so beautiful. Ah, my God. You know, man, if

I could get a Prime like that where it's got

no paint work on it, if you gave that to a talented

artist, you could recreate battle damage. Like

you could have Transformers the movie Prime and

just create little bad battle damage in his grill

with like paint. Oh my God, that's such a gorgeous

looking figure. My god, my toys jealous need

money need space need space There's so much more

beautiful than they used to be when we were kids.

Oh my god the the engineering that goes into

these things blows me away hell and and to go

back to The Ghostbusters thing for just a second.

There was the Transformers Ghostbusters figure

they even gave it retro packaging So it looks

like it came out of the 1980s It looks so good.

My god the people who at least work on the toys

are clearly dorks like us I don't know whether

it's people like us in the boardrooms yet, but

we're getting there So yeah, I'm pretty happy

about that toy fair good job. Yes toy fair toy

fair toy fair So yeah, that's a big chunk of

things going on there and then of course we've

got Yeah, I don't know I haven't talked to you

in a while, but What have you have you ever tried

any of the smart devices? Well, I've got a Google

home if that's you get it. Yeah, I've got one,

too Have you ever what is the most absurd questions

you've asked that thing? I've asked him about

anal sex before and it gave me a detailed listing

about it. I thought that was pretty funny But

I've also asked it how long it takes to decompose

a body in lime And how do I murder someone? Oh,

I also give all my contacts in it really inappropriate

nicknames. So it's like calling dork face. Believe

me, it's a lot worse than that. Or I'm like calling

someone bodily fluid and it'll do that. And people

hate it when they know that I'm calling them

like, Mike, you're calling me on your Google

Home, aren't you? You bet I am. Yeah, I I've

never done any of that like the most absurd thing

I've done is like ask it the weather or all I

Impersonated my wife's voice at one point and

my Google home thought I was her. Oh My god,

if you can I've seen this meme I don't know if

you can do it, but I think you can if you say

hey Alexa Set set an alarm to 3 a .m. And play

horror movie sounds. I think you can do that

I want to know I know you can set up routines

So I'm tempted to set up red alert if I can get

a couple of smart plugs for my house and those

color -changing lights I'm gonna say hey Google

Stop listening. Oh, sorry cuz it's like right

beside me. I'd be like Hey blank, red alert.

It'll turn my room red and I'll start playing

the alarm clocks on from Star Trek. I have to

figure, I know I can do this. I just have to

figure out how to do it, but I will cause I'm

in the first part is Google doesn't let you change

the name of it to computer. Whereas Alexa does.

Yeah. You can only, you can only change it to

like, um, Hey, or you know, my, or something

for, for Google and you can, and that's the only

way you can do stuff with it. However, though,

Google does let you call it separate names. For

example, my Google will call me My Emperor because

I'm that vain. So it's like, good morning, My

Emperor. The weather is, and it'll tell me all

this stupid crap. It's ridiculous. Now, if you

ask it to play a podcast by Steve Megatron, it

will start All Things Transformers. Well, that's

pretty cool. I haven't used it for podcasts.

I mostly use it for radio and for like Spotify.

That's mostly my range with it. Although I have

used it for an audio novel once, but I have to

play it off my phone. It's just such a pain in

the butt. Although it will read you a bedtime

story if it's in the public domain. Yep. Which

is pretty cool. We've done all kinds of goofy

stuff like that. My kids and I will ask it like

stupid questions. My son figured out how to change

the voice of the Google Home and I'm like, stop

doing that. But, yeah, it's insane. So what are

some game stuff that you've been getting into

lately? Game stuff? One of the best games I've

played this year, and arguably one of the best

I've played in a really long time. One of the

games I actually went out and spent my own money

on because I didn't get a review copy for it.

was the remake of Resident Evil 2. This is probably

one of the best horror games I've played in years.

It's probably one of the best remakes I've ever

played. Definitely one of the best re -imaginings

of a franchise. It still happens in 1998, yet

it still does all sorts of crazy and wacky things

with it, like... It updates the puzzle. Basically,

if you played Resident Evil 2 on the PlayStation

1, you'll know the basic layout of the police

station, but it's not exactly as you remember.

There'll be new rooms, new paths, new puzzles,

stuff like that. The voice and the characters

are wonderfully animated. The capture work they

did for Claire and Leon is fantastic. I also,

I have this huge backlog of games that I wanna

play, but I haven't played yet. I got Red Dead

Redemption 2. I got the Collector's Edition.

When it came out in October, still haven't touched

it, which is depressing and sad. I also played

Smash Brothers a lot during the break. It took

me about a week to unlock every character in

that. I haven't downloaded Piranha Plant yet.

I'm probably gonna do that probably next week.

Oh! Speaking of gaming got this really cool things.

Remember kids piracy is a bad thing a friend

of mine gave me a modded Xbox and I have it set

up to do arcade em emulation Because I used to

own an arcade machine and as far as I'm concerned

I've owned it once it's mine Plus I'm not going

out and buying out a CPS 2 board just to play

Marvel vs. Capcom 1 point Point of the matter

is, so I got this wonderful thing, this awesome

front end, and he has it set up for me so it

can do other systems, which I do advocate. Own

your games legally if you can, because piracy

is bad. But he has, I've never been able to play

Virtual Boy before, like, last week, which I

thought was so cool. And man, it certainly is

red. That's for sure. And other sorts of crazy

things. I've never had a chance to experiment

with technology like this before, because Sony

sent me one of their mini consoles at Christmas

time. I got a PlayStation Classic, which you

can now get at Walmart for 40 bucks. Totally

worth it now, as opposed to the 120 they wanted

when the thing first came out. Yeah, that was

a mistake. And it's kind of cool just to see

how much gaming has evolved in the emulation

space, because we have the NES classic, the Super

Nintendo classic. There's rumors floating around

about the N64 classic. Will it actually happen?

Probably not, because N64 was a bugger. It's

a bugger to emulate now, just because it's annoying.

I used to have a, actually I think I still do,

an external hard drive. I had the NES, the SNES,

the Game Boy Color or Advanced or whatever, and

N64 emulators. As well as I think a PlayStation

emulator. Like way back when, when all the emulator

sites were still around. I remember playing on

an old compact Presario way back in the day.

I had a PlayStation emulator called BLEEM, and

I played Resident Evil 3 Nemesis with a keyboard

and mouse. And I was good at it. I could actually

S -rank that game with a keyboard and mouse.

I was friggin' hardcore, because I wanted to

play that game so bad I wouldn't get a PlayStation

for another two years. Just because I never thought

to ask for one for Christmas. I'm like, I want

more computer parts. Oh boy, little did I know

you couldn't upgrade a compact Presario very

much. Now you can't. Nope. And then I fried it

on the floor of one of my apartments. As I pushed

that thing as far as it would go, I managed to

fool up the settings to get my onboard video

to do certain things. And it was just, it was

ridiculous. My God, I miss gaming. I miss when

gaming wasn't necessarily... How much money can

you throw at the hot? That's why I hate PC gaming

and I only play very few PC games here But you

were asking about what I've been playing I also

played call Cthulhu on the PC because I got a

review copy for that that games actually not

bad It's worth about 40 bucks. It's about an

eight eight to ten hour adventure And it's probably

the best HP Lovecraft game that's ever been made

so far. I would argue I played battle tech a

lot which is a fantastic update to the original.

Basically think of it as like XCOM except with

MEX. So it's very cool, very, very cool. What

else did I play? I tried playing Fallout 76 and

that game is, oh boy, wow. In fact, GameStop

in Germany was giving away copies of Fallout

76 with used controllers at one point. If you

bought an Xbox One X bundle, let's say you bought

the copy of the system that came with Fallout

76, you would get another copy of Fallout 76

with it free of charge. So you got two copies

of the same game just because of like goddamn

get it out of here. That was ridiculous. I'm

doing like a what else I really played. during

my little bit of a break there. Oh, one thing

I can tell you I'm looking forward to, there's

a new Power Rangers game, comes out in April,

don't know much about it, not much has been released

about it, which is a little scary. It's called

Power Rangers Battle for the Grid, which is supposed

to be a Marvel versus Capcom -like fighting game.

And they've only shown off the green ranger,

the red ranger, and the yellow mega force ranger.

They haven't shown off anything else, but there's

supposed to be a full arcade mode, a full story

mode, and it's supposed to get a pre -order for

about 40 bucks. So I'm going to ask for a review

copy of this. I'm actually going to probably

email the developer probably tomorrow and say,

hey, I review games. I like Power Rangers. Don't

screw with me. See what happens there. Oh. I

discovered my Nintendo Switch is a lot more fun

than I gave it original kind of credit for. Over

the holidays, I played a lot of really fun games

on it. One of the games I really want to recommend,

it comes from Mega Cat Studios. I think that's

the name of the company. They're out of Pittsburgh.

And they have a game called Coffee Crisis. And

it's basically like TMNT Double Dragon and Streets

of Rage had a baby. And you beat up aliens called

the Smurt. the smirgillians or something and

they've stolen earth's coffee wi -fi and metal

and they have youtubers like metal jesus rocks

and alpha omega sin in it as bosses and it's

really strange yet really really really fun it's

hard um but yeah um that sounds so weird yeah

it's fun though it's like double dragon i'm looking

this was freaking and the soundtrack is freaking

awesome too um i think they're coming out with

new streets of rage I wanna say they are too,

actually. Streets of Rage 4. I think it was a

Kickstarter, wasn't it? I actually have it pulled

up now, and Sega is publishing it, it looks like.

I wanna say I saw this a while ago, but it's

gonna have Blaze and Axel in it again. Okay.

Blaze with the kid with the roller skates, right?

Who? actually was the the guy that looks like

almost like not Ryu, but Like Cody from Final

Fight or something something like that the blonde

hair do with the blue bandana thing Yeah, and

then blazes the the brunette busty brunette with

the biker jacket and then Axel was the kid on

the Roller Blader. There was some kid on Roller

Blader. No, Axel was the guy. Axel and Blaze

were the ones from the very first game on through.

They've been continuously through the entire

series. So basically it's an all new continuation

of Sega's iconic brawler. So it's supposed to

build on the trilogy. It's brought back by Lizard

Cube, Guard, Crush Games, and Dot Emu, or something

like that. It doesn't really say when it's out

or if it's out. So I'm hoping this is still a

thing. Probably still a thing because I remember

hearing about it, but I haven't kept my ear to

the ground for it. Yeah, I don't I don't know.

It's it's I'm still kind of still kind of geeked

for that ultimately, but that's just because

I enjoyed the previous games. Now there was something

that you posted. that you wanted to talk about

tonight. And I was kind of racking my brain for

it. And I realized, I have a lot more to say

on this than I originally thought I did. And

you asked me, Mike, tonight I want to talk about

early tech adventures. And I kind of got to thinking

about that. I'm thinking, well, what the hell

does it mean by that? And then I got to thinking.

If it wasn't for technology, I would not be this

much of a geek. to this very day. And I can trace

back to the moment when I got fascinated with

stuff. Do you remember way back in the day that

Radio Shack used to have this robotic arm with

these orange fingers and you could move it around

and like it could pick up stuff? Do you know

the robotic arm that I'm talking about? It's

not the one that you stick your hand in and it's

a plastic one, is it? No, no, no, no, it was

a thing you would control it with these little

joysticks and it would have full articulation

and it could pick up stuff, it could move stuff

around with a limited field of movement, but

it would still, it was articulated, you could

move stuff, it had like little joysticks and

stuff. And I can't remember what it was called,

but I know it was made by Radio Shack in the

1980s. And the reason I remember though, you

would recognize it to see a picture of it. If

you type in Robo or Robo Tech, if you typed in

Radio Shack Robot Army in the Google, it'll probably

show up. If you want to post that in the chat

with your images, I'll tell you if that's the

one it is. But so anyway, the reason I bring

this up. It looks familiar. My parents got me

this toy and I remember playing with it. Yes,

that's exactly the one that I had. So I remember

playing with it armatron. I took it apart and

I remembered my dad Screaming at me. It's like

Michael you broke your toy now Now it doesn't

work and I took that as as a challenge I'm like,

alright, give me a set of micro screwdrivers

because he always kept to send these little screwdrivers

in his in his drawer beside our kitchen table,

so I'm thinking alright, well this screw goes

here, this screw goes there, this must power

this. And I was able to trace back where all

the power components went, all the gears and

everything. And I made sense of it. And eventually

I got it working. And my parents were like, okay,

that's pretty impressive. What else can you do?

And they tried to get me interested in fixing

like engines and some of that, like my uncle

Gord. was an underwater mechanic for like ships

and stuff like that. And he would be building

motors in our garage. And that didn't take with

me, but electronics did. So I remember we took

a thing in shop class in grade eight and we had

to build simple circuits. And this is when Mortal

Kombat came out. So I thought I was cool. So

I took the Mortal Kombat dragon and I lit it

with, and I got a piece of acrylic and a piece

of, and I took the Mortal Kombat dragon ad out

of a comic book and I laminated it to this piece

of acrylic. And I lit the entire thing with LEDs

and I had a circuit. that would change color

from red to green. And it would flash. And I

always, and I'm like, oh man, that's so cool.

And stuff like that. And then another geeky thing.

And this kind of, I guess I never realized how

much radio has always played a very prominent

point in my life. So I met a radio engineer years

ago. Like 20, 30 years ago now, I used to listen

to this radio station called AM560 CFOS in Owen

Sound, and they'd always have a call -in program.

And I was a very, probably about 10 to 13, somewhere

in that age range, I'd call in this radio station,

and I would talk to the DJs on a Saturday night.

And they're like, oh, it's this kid and he's

interested. So I used to talk to this guy named

Gary Verralli and another woman, I can't remember,

I want to say her name was Veronica or something.

And they got to know my name and eventually they

showed me around the radio station. They invited

me and my mom to come take a look at the radio

station. And one of the coolest things this guy

ever did for me, this is just a side tangent

story, is he got me in the fantasy. He gave me

a copy of a book and I still have it to this

very day called Dragon Flight by Anne McCaffrey

and it's basically a picture of Game of Thrones

Yeah, it's Game of Thrones, but a lot more dragons

on it and it's really awesome and they're spaceships

Anyway back to the geek thing So anyway, he's

showing me around the engineering thing of this

radio station and I'm looking at the big Transmitters

and how they work and everything And he's telling

me how AM and FM work. And FM always sounds clearer

because it's higher powered, but at shorter range.

So you won't get, unless there's like a lot of

power behind that transmitter, you're not getting

it very far away. But an AM signal can travel

further because it travels on a different radio

wavelength. And water is a natural amplifier

for it. So, this, it all comes together here.

So, I got a radio for Christmas one year, and

I remember reading somewhere that if you wrap

a wire clothes hanger around the antenna of your

radio, it'll act as an amplifier. So one night,

I remember this night remarkably clearly, it's

a crystal clear night in this place I used to

live called Shallow Lake. Little town about 500

people farm country, whatever you could hear

a coyote fart. That's how quiet it was so one

night Moonlit night. I'm playing with the radio

and I'm deciding to see what radio stations I

can pick up and I'm inching the knob millimeter

by millimeter and I hear WNBC in New York City

And I'm thinking, holy shit, I am like 700 miles

away. How is this possible? Lake Ontario, that's

how. And I'm playing with it a little bit more.

Something, something Chicago. Something, something

Pittsburgh. Something, something Philadelphia.

And I can hear all these races. They're super

faint, but I can hear them. And I can start to

pick up Detroit more and more clearly. And this

is before a lot of rock stations had switched

over to FM, because the sound quality was just

better. But I was listening to rock music in

probably about, this must have been around 1991,

92, give or take. And it was just an incredible

experience manipulating this technology to listen

to things. I would say I grew up in a fairly

liberal yet conservative household if that makes

any sense. I was able to do whatever I wanted

and I wasn't told to lean in any which way, but

my parents didn't like rock and roll music for

whatever reason. They would let me listen to

Mel Tillis and Conway Twitty, but Lord forbid

if I want to listen to ACDZ or Metallica. So

it was my only way to get music. more news than

what I was currently being exposed to. So I would

listen to AM 640 CFMJ out of Toronto, which for

a long time was an AM rock station. And then

it became a talk format in the mid 90s. And then

another station in Owen Sound area was Mix 106.

I forget what their call letters are. But for

a long time, they didn't play nothing. They played

anything but soccer mom music. I remember listening

to Nirvana and Pearl Jam on this little tiny

rock station out of a small town of like 20 ,000

people. And believe me, at that time, that was

unheard of in that particular market. And then

another early tech adventure. is I got my first

computer in 1996 because X -Files. And I remember

this for two reasons. Number one is there was

a demo disc of Final Fantasy VII that came with

my computer and let you play to just before the

first Shinra base or something. Just before you

got Vincent Valentine or something, I remember

you got to play with Barrett's Vincent and Cloud

and you were fighting on a bridge if I remember

right, but either way. And the X -Files was super

popular and the X -Files game had just come out.

So I convinced my parents to spend two grand

on a computer and it was a compact Presario with

a one gigabyte hard drive, 16 megs of RAM. and

hell if I can remember anything else about it.

But it was a beast of a computer. And then I

learned humility, my friend. There was a little

virus that came out in my grade 10 year. And

this is a big deal because this is at a time

when MP3s were just the new standard. Hell, the

first MP3 I downloaded was Daft Funks around

the world in Beastie Boys Intergalactic. And

this is just when midis were still super popular.

If you wanted a popular song, you could find

a mini version of it, no problem. To get an MP3,

you had to hunt. And this is back on modem days.

There was none of that table internet bullshit.

This is 28 eight. No, I was on 19 .2 KPS per

second. That sucked. It gets worse. So, I'm writing

my grade 10 history paper on Howard Philip Lovecraft.

I know everyone's favorable, horrific racist,

but I digress. I'm writing my paper. I go, I

save my progress. I shut down my MP3s. I shut

down, because at that time I ran a website. It

was a Neon Genesis fan site on Angel Fire. Thank

God it's gone. So anyway. I shut off my computer,

go to bed, assuming all was right with the world.

My files are there, my MP3s are there, and I'm

a teenage boy, so my porn is there. And then

Steve, you know what happened? Yep, it was a

virus. I downloaded something called the Chernobyl

virus. And it killed my hard drive. I was inconsolably

bawling. My parents are so old at this time because

my grandparents were the ones raising me and

they're like in their 60s and 70s. They don't

know what the hell I'm on about. They're like,

it's all good. Like, what are you talking about?

It's right here. Like, you don't understand.

So I spent that day learning all about what drivers

were, what a BIOS was and trying to restore everything.

And restoring computers back in those days was

not fun. Oh yeah, like I remember restoring everything

from video drivers to sound drivers. And back

then you didn't have no USB plug and play where

it recognized it. No, you had to know the manufacturer.

You had to know what version you had. It was

basically surgery. It was it was and you had

but the weird thing was is everything was a separate

PCI slot. Yep. Oh, yeah. Everything. Nothing

was integrated. Like your your your your modem

or your ethernet was not integrated. Your sound

card was not integrated. It was all separate

stuff. And my my first computer was in like ninety

five, ninety six. And we got a four eighty six

DX for one hundred. 100 mega megahertz, you know

16 megs of RAM is before the Pentium Or the poor

man's Pentium. Actually, the sad thing was that

ran faster than a Pentium 133 when those came

came out and It was a 486. It was like The the

DX4 was supposed to be like, you know AMD's version

but anyways the the machine had the five and

a quarter three and a quarter floppy the you

know the uh it had a 2x cd -rom i had a 400 megabyte

and an 800 megabyte hard drive uh in it and uh

sucker was loud had a 288 modem in it um and

then eventually like the 56k modems came out

but we couldn't use it in that until i we got

our penny in 133 and then uh the 300 then we

got a 500 then we got the 667 then the you know

the get into the gigahertz range of hardware.

But yeah, it was painful. I actually got mad.

We had Windows 3 .1 and 3 .11 on another machine.

I wanted Windows 95 on my computer, something

terrible. And being young and stupid, I threw

everything in the garbage. On Windows, my dad

gets home and he's like, what'd you do? And I'm

like, I wanted to put Windows 95 on. And he's

like, well, you got no computer for a week. So

he says, I'll mess with it when I get time. So

he installed Windows 95 on it eventually. But

it was, yeah, it was a nightmare. And then learning

how to use like DOS and learning how to use all

that, all the commands. And of course, I sat

and watched my dad repair it because I wanted

to know how to do it and it turns out that he

ended up being the IT guy you know just kind

of on the side at my elementary school because

they didn't have anybody and they had all these

like 286 computers which are like old and they

had like this DOS based menu system which my

brother knows how to recreate actually which

is funny enough and it would load off particular

learning games. And they, as a token of appreciation

for my dad's help, gave us one of the 286 machines.

And I continued to be their kind of maintenance

for those because I knew how to work on them

through elementary school. And then I get into

middle and high school and I'm working on the

computers in the library and the teacher's computers

for the classrooms because nobody else knew how

to use them. It was amazing because I had fun

putting in. This is not nice for those involved,

but I had fun putting screen savers on that were

the blue screen. Oh, I've got a story. Why you

got this one? So we tell you. So anyways, I put

those on a lot of computers and libraries so

that I could time out specific machines and certain

days. So essentially when I would go in, it's.

given point in the day, they would have a sign

on the computer monitor that would say out of

order. They didn't have an in -house IT person.

They didn't have an IT technology teacher until

11th and 12th grade that I was there, so like

03, 04. By then, they didn't even really know

what I'd done to them because I was screwing

around with them a lot. But I would also go in

there and fix the machines while I was in there

to like the other people that were having problems

I would just go around and fix them and then

I get back on a machine that I personally like

Held for myself by putting the screensaver on

And then I actually did that trick again at the

car dealership when I worked there just to see

what would happen and I did it to the service

writer because he was a dick and he And I didn't

think nothing of it. And then I left it on there

for like, it was on there good, like six months.

And he kept telling the service manager, hey,

I need a new computer. And they're like, why?

And they're like, well, it keeps crashing every

day. And so I keep restarting it. And I pulled

the service writer aside and I said, or not service

writer, but the service manager. And I says,

hey, you know what that is, right? And he says,

no. And I says, I put a screensaver on there

six months ago. I says there's nothing wrong

with the guy's computer. I said he just doesn't

realize that all he has to do is move his mouse

and it'll stop I Did the other thing though where

you do the screenshot with all the icons and

then you right -click and hide the icons and

then you hide the taskbar and then they couldn't

figure out whether they thought the computer

was locked up because they couldn't get anything

to toggle and the time wouldn't change and everything

else and nothing would click and That actually

was a test when I worked briefly through the

training thing at HP. That was something that

none of their technicians could figure out through

the training thing. And I knew what it was, two

seconds into it, because I'd done it six months

before to a service writer. But yeah, it's ridiculous.

When I was in high school, I've probably told

this story before on the podcast, but it bears

telling again. So when I got my first computer,

the Compaq, I also got a printer and I got a

scanner because school, right? So I got my yearbook

and I ran into this vice principal. Her name

was Miss Otterson. We did not see eye to eye.

In fact, dare I say my arch nemesis for quite

Some of my high school career suspended me many

many times for absentees and quote -unquote being

a political agitator end quote So I decide one

day, you know what lady I've had a just about

enough of your shit So I go on the interwebs

and start browsing for FBI wanted posters At

this time I'm listening to a lot of coast -to

-coast AM think of that what you will So I'm

listening to it and I get this brilliant idea.

What if I accused her of being an alien? Because

it's so ridiculous and stupid. So I scanned her

staff picture out of my high school yearbook

and I sized it down and I got it to the right

resolution. I got 72 DPI. It looked great. It

looked brilliant. So I scale it down, put it

in this FBI wanted poster. And I find the creepiest

alien picture that I could find. She looks like

a gray. So I find the picture and I wrote up

a list of fictional crimes. I think I said some

of her crimes include, and I quote, eating babies,

a high priestess of Satan and some other stuff.

I just created the most ridiculous thing I could.

And I printed off five of these. So I go to school

the next day and I plaster five of these things

around the school Our school had two pay phones

out in front of the office So I post one right

there whap right in your face up yours What are

you gonna do to me? and I post a few more in

the boys bathroom a girls bathroom a hallway

right near the cafeteria and right on the cafeteria

doors because what are you gonna do so an hour

and a half goes by They're starting to circulate.

I'm getting I'm laughing. Then she comes to the

cafeteria and sees me. I stop laughing. She hauls

me into the office. Scream tears a strip off

me. I then find out years later, there was a

copy of the staff room that sat there for almost

20 years on a billboard in their staff room.

That's right. I'm a part of your history up yours

mofo But the reason I got ratted out is cuz one

of my friends this kid named Scott ratted me

out He's she's like who's responsible for this

and this kid named Scott Wilson says it was my

dog and she's like oh, I know who that is and

I got run in. I got suspended for a week. My

mom or my grandmother looks at me like, Mike,

what did you do? I called my teacher an alien.

She's like, no, just don't bother me. You can

do whatever you want. Cool. So I played Chrono

Trigger for a week. I wasn't upset. And I think

the other teachers at the school had a good laugh

at it, because all of them just kind of gave

me a pass after that. They're like, that's Mike.

He doesn't mean any harm, but just don't screw

with him. Another thing I did is a friend of

mine started playing with our library's computers.

And we figured out how to change the .ini file.

That was maybe not such a wise idea in retrospect,

because we crashed the computers in the entire

library. We're like, um crap. Um So my friend

Jared did it like and I just said to him don't

worry I'll take the fall for it because whatever

I want it to look cool So I took the fall for

that and I remember one of our teachers. Mr.

Gartrell I was like Mike. Can you show me how

you did it? And I'm like, yeah, I'll be hacker

man And I just threw commands at like a DOS problem.

Like I don't know what I'm doing I then remember,

this is my last high school story. I remember

we figured out how to network the computers from

upstairs to downstairs. So the upstairs library

could talk to the computers in the Home Ec room.

This is important because during Home Ec class

we had a computer that wasn't facing the rest

of the classroom. The teacher's desk was facing

to the south. And so was this one computer was

also facing to the south. So unless she was looking

right over at the computer, she couldn't see

it because there was like a bunch of crap in

the way. So I would spend most of my home at

classes playing Starcraft against whoever was

upstairs in the library. And I got quite good

at brood war if I do say so myself. But it was

a blast. I love. stupid technology like this.

And I guess that's some of my early tech adventures

with computers. Although one of my saddest moments,

and this will be my last story, I got an HP.

This is before I discovered the wonders of building

your own computer or having friends build them

for you. I had an HP and it served me well. I

had a webcam, I had a really cool monitor that

I eventually dropped down the stairs. That was

fun because those things were huge. Yeah, you've

never quite cried that you've seen a 19 inch

monitor drop down 20 stairs. Anyway, so I'm playing

with my computer and I'm thinking I'm all cool.

I've got this thing on carpet. This doesn't occur

to me to be a bad thing. So I'm playing it one

day. I'm watching something on it or doing something

stupid. I don't know I then smell ozone and that

computer turns off and What's that? I don't know

so I have to haul my computer outside in the

bloody snowstorm Where where I was living and

I hauled to a local computer place They tell

me my motherboard melted. I Don't believe them

they show me Some of my capacitors blew up and

I'm like And I don't even know what's on that

hard drive, I don't know what's on at all All

I knew is like I can't afford a new computer.

What the hell am I gonna do? And then I went

back home with my tail between my legs at that

point I was living away from home. Then I moved

back home. I I went home a lot when I was very

young because I sucked at the whole managing

money thing. But anyway, so yeah, that's some

of my experiences with computers. It wasn't until

honestly, even now, my friend Alex, the producer,

does all my computer crap. For my wedding, many,

many years ago, my friend little Brandon built

me a computer as a wedding present because I

had a Dell that I bought when I was in grad school.

and then that thing caught on fire oh I forgot

about this um so I found out you should probably

dust or at least use those compressed air canisters

on your power supply every so often because I

didn't know dust could catch on fire and I remember

I was watching tv one night and I had my computer

on and just in my back of my computer flared

up and I was like what the hell was that and

uh yeah I didn't know that could happen so Important

safety tip, Egon. So yeah, I don't fool with

computers now. I have Alex deal with it. May

that man stay my friend loyal forever, because

otherwise it's gonna be, all right, Best Buy,

Geek Squad, what do you got? Because I am useless

with computers now. I am so far, my operating

system was Windows 98 SE and I loved it and I

miss it. I don't know what I'm doing now. I hate

Windows 10. It's different. But anyways, we did

something that was a little kind of shy story

in high school too, but there was a program.

I can't find it for the life of me now, but if

I could find it, I think it would be hilarious.

It got flagged. There were two different versions

or two different files. One of them gets flagged

as a virus. by today's standards, so it probably

doesn't exist. There was one that was called,

you know, Coke's Cup Holder, and it would...

And it would make the tray open, right? Yeah,

and it would say, Coke would like to present

you with this complimentary cup holder, and then

it would open up your CD -ROM drive. And that

was one of them, which I would replace Microsoft

Word with on the computers and... There was also

the other one that I did, which my friend gave

me the file. It was called one down, three up.

So for every window you close, three more open

up. And I replaced Internet Explorer with it.

And the librarians were pissed because they knew

I did it. My friends ratted me out. And then

they tried to use that to guilt trip me to do

Quiz Bowl. And I was like, no. because they were

like, you're smart, you could do it. And I'm

like, I'm not quick on my feet. Like that's different.

Like I'm not doing that. And the other funny

thing about that was, is one of my friends that

ratted me out, he figured out how to do instant

messaging on Windows XP in the back end of the

system. It was built into Windows though. It

was like a command prompt, like a power user

type thing. And he figured out how to do it.

And the assistant principal, who was Korean or

Chinese or something like that, he is not meant

to sound stereotypical, but he knew his way around

an operating system, unlike the rest of the people

in the school. And he we were typing all kinds

of like goofy crap in there just to be funny

to see what would get said. And we started talking

crap about certain teachers and principals and

then. He couldn't figure out, because we were

both named Steve, he couldn't figure out which

one wrote what. But because the other one had

priors on his record of getting in trouble with

the school for stupid stuff he did, they assumed

it was him that said those said words. It was

me. But I didn't know that until after so he

just took it and didn't even care and But he

was also the same crazy person though that he

designed and this was before the 360 or Any of

this stuff, but when the Xbox the first one came

out he wanted to use it on the PC He made his

own adapter for USB That's cool It was like this

weird cobbled together like duct tape looking

thing and it was like ridiculously stupid looking

and he cobbled this thing together and it worked

and he's like here look and then he's like controlling

stuff on the computer with it in the library

and we're like dude that's awesome we're like

we want one and he's like no my design yeah and

i'm like i'm like you idiot you could make so

much money with that and then of course microsoft

the next version usb You reminded me of something,

something that I did, something that I'm not

proud of, but something that I did just the same.

Speaking of the cup holder program, there was

a program years ago called ICQ. Oh, it was an

instant messenger. I had it. And it was an instant

messenger program. So I had this kid friend of

mine named Frazier. Does it still exist? No,

I think it shut down a couple of years ago. But

I'm not sure though, so. It still exists. Oh

wow. New ICQ for Windows. I wonder if my number

still works. I had one of the first 200 ,000

numbers, so I feel pretty cool, but I can't get

into it anymore. So anyway. I had this program.

And what it would do is I could send instant

messages and I could take control of his computer.

Like I could open things I could type things

I can control his windows, but first he had to

accept the program like hey, dude check out this

new mp3 player program I got and he accepted

it and I'm So he does it and I get his IP address

I forget how I I did it but I got it and I take

control of his computer and I'm screwing with

them so hardcore at like three o 'clock in the

morning and once again Um, he's like Mike. What

do I do someone's in my computer? I don't know.

Maybe if you gave me $20 I can help you I'm a

scumbag I think I told them years later, but

For about 20 minutes. I was a scumbag, but it

was pretty fucking funny though. Whoops now we're

into the R rating Well, one of the funny things

I did was I actually downloaded a key logger

at one point on my computer because I wanted

to find out what the password was to the Internet

that my mom was using to let me get on the Internet.

And I never did find out because she's like,

what's this icon down there? And I'm like, I

don't know clothes. Observant. Yeah, she was

like she was on it. I was like, man. That sucked.

Like, you don't need to know, just type. I also

used to figure out stupid stuff like my my family

was like. They would use like their names backwards

or things like that for the password or where

they worked or things like that, and I was like.

Smart about it, like I figured out how to bypass

the bios password. I was like, oh, you just pull

the CMOS battery and then you can get in. And

they're like, they're like, how did you get into

my computer? And I was like, I popped the battery

because I'm smarter than you. Holy crap. I'll

get to this in a second. But then and then they

loaded my my stepdad at one point loaded this

kid desk software. On our computer to keep us

out of programs and i was like this is ridiculous

i'm like i'm i'm like i'm twelve. It was mostly

for my brothers but he had like a teenage version

or something on for mine and i was like this

is such a crap version i can't even do anything

on this stupid computer. And so he you know he's

like where are you you've just got to do with

it and then eventually i was like what board

one day and i was just like. I have an hour on

the computer. I'm going to find out what this

password is. And so I just started typing things.

And then I was like, let's take things backwards.

And then so I started typing everybody's names

backwards. And then I came to the conclusion

it was his name backwards. It was the password.

And I bypassed. And I was like, and he comes

to me later. And he's like, how are you in Windows?

And I says, I see things. And then so it never

went back on there again. He uninstalled it.

And we were just good to go. Yeah, it was just

ridiculous. No, I just said holy crap because

I downloaded the ICQ because I didn't realize

they still existed I went there and it comes

up you can download it now for iOS Android PC

web Mac OS and Linux Apparently and I didn't

know that it's still around but it's owned by

mail .ru which just sounds so reputable now But

anyways I typed in because I still know my ICQ

number I don't know if you remember how many

digits yours was six and six digits six I know

it started with two one six and I can't remember

anything past that What's really sad is I can

never forget any of my ever ever ever Forget

any of my website addresses or my instant messenger

handles My ICQ literally is five nine zero three

three two two two I just logged into my account.

Oh my God. On the thing and I remembered the

password funny enough. So yeah, I'm in and it's

it shows like a very old year one Geekcast radio

logo as my icon on it. So the last time I logged

in was probably 2009. You old man. I've had the

account though since like 99 because or 98 or

99 because I used it on my dad's 56K modem. to

communicate with a owner of a Transformers website

back before there was social media and stuff.

Because they didn't have a forum. It was Maximal

Central. I remember the website, but they were

covering Beast Wars Season 3. Man, I remember.

And I got an argument with the owner of the site

at one point because he changed his name to like

in from like Optimus Primal or something to he

changed his name to Enforcer. And I was like,

OK, enforcer. And then we had this heated debate

online at one point. And I was like, I'm going

to get the internet police on you. The internet

police? You're such a dork. Well, there was such

a thing. And it was a part of those web standards

or something. And I was like, I vote. And I found

out how to be one or something. And I was like,

this is ridiculously stupid. But I tried it anyway.

And the guy's like, all right, fine, leave me

alone. Oh, God. I was like an idiot. We'll have

to revisit some of these stories at some point,

because I can tell you many, many stories of

me on ICQ and Yahoo Messenger. Some of them proud,

some of them not so proud. I've met girlfriends

on there. I've met friends. I've dealt with stalkers.

I've dealt with weirdos. It's been one of those

places where Just a lot of me has definitely

formed on the internet you you could death. I'm

definitely a child of the digital age Just on

the edge of Gen X. Oh, I consider myself a pseudo

millennial, but I'm not one of the stupid Millennials

now because I No one can agree what the cutoff

date is. So well, they say 81 baby. That's all

I know Well, they said it starts in like 80 three

or 85 and I it's either way I fall into the the

realm but I I'm at the top end of the realm so

like I'm not like too far indebted in it but

it's still it's still entertaining to me nonetheless

to see like a lot of the stupidness that comes

out oh yeah and believe me it's only gonna get

dumber it's like the movie Idiocracy With which

once again features Terry Cruz who seems to be

a reoccurring theme this evening. He's the president

President Camacho or something. Yeah Ridiculous.

So anyway, that's what we have covered this week

on altered geek If you want to get in touch with

us, they can do so in the following ways Well,

they can get a hold of me on the Twitter's at

SCP 21 or at altered geek and they can get a

hold of the podcast through email feedback at

AlteredGeek .com and yourself, sir. If you want

to find me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook,

it is at Birdman Dot. I'm always quick to reply

if I'm awake. And yeah, you just find me on those

three social media websites. I always post randomness.

Like I said, if you come to my Facebook, it's

a dumpster fire, but it's an entertaining dumpster

fire. Kittens, Ghostbusters, Transformers, and

Power Rangers, and occasionally some thoughts

about life, the universe, and everything. And

Twitter is usually just me ranting about stuff.

So anyway, be sure to check that out. And Instagram

is weird cat pictures and weird cool foods. So

anyway, for AlterGeek, we have been Steve Megatron

Phillips, and I've been Mike the Birdman Day.

I've been Mike the Birdman Dodd saying get haltered

get geeky with the altered geeks. He said get

haltered. Get a halter. Yeah, get a halter top

because why not? Oh, you can believe that. I'm

sorry, Steve. Dodd's a giant boob. Yep. That's

right. Get a halter top. One giant tit.