603: A Midsummer gaming discussion

Lawrence Hryb: Thanks for downloading the show, this is show number 603, my name's Larry Hryb Xbox Lives Major Nelson. Joining me in the studio, Jeff Rubenstein, my trusty steed. That doesn't sound good, does it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Quit riding me Larry. Metaphorically obviously.
Lawrence Hryb: It's always good to see you. You just got back. You were away, you were on radio leave.
Jeff Rubenstein: I picked up many great ideas over the years from Graham. One of them is actually taking annual leave. So yeah, I was just down in the Bay area for fourth of July with some family. Got a little work done while I was down there.
Lawrence Hryb: That's San Francisco Southern Bay area right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, all over. Everywhere from Sacramento to the sea to shining sea I guess, I don't know.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, well welcome back up to Seattle, which is enjoying its beautiful summer.
Jeff Rubenstein: By the way, yeah San Francisco, I forgot used to live there. It's only 50 degrees.
Lawrence Hryb: It's cold.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, you can't see fireworks. Fog rolls in, so we ended up just going to see Baby Driver.
Lawrence Hryb: I heard you like that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, well I'm a huge Edgar Write fan. He's made my favorite movie of all time, which is Shawn of the Dead. He's a huge gamer, he directed Scott Pilgrim if you saw that. He just understands gamers, he himself is a huge gamer. Games have always played a big roll in a lot of the stuff he does.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I need to go see it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it's worth seeing from a cinematic perspective. He crafts a great film.
Lawrence Hryb: Right, right, ooh, hello Laura.
Laura Massey: Hi.
Lawrence Hryb: We're just getting the show started. We didn't know where you were. You didn't text us, we didn't know if you were joining us, so.
Jeff Rubenstein: We call off the search.
Lawrence Hryb: Laura's ... Yeah exactly, Laura's just sitting down to her position here in the studio. It's nice to see you.
Laura Massey: Hello.
Lawrence Hryb: Hello, hello. You're welcome to ... There you go.
Laura Massey: All right I'm all seated now.
Lawrence Hryb: You're all seated, you're ready to go, you've got your seatbelt thing because it's going to be a bumpy ride. We were just talking about, what was it? Baby Driver?
Jeff Rubenstein: Baby Driver. Have you seen that movie Laura?
Laura Massey: What?
Lawrence Hryb: You haven't seen it.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's not a sequel to boss baby, which I when I first heard the title-
Lawrence Hryb: Or baby mama.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, or well I can't think of another, Bye Bye Baby, yeah that was probably a movie, right?
Laura Massey: Million Dollar Baby?
Jeff Rubenstein: Million Dollar Baby.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's just basically a video game of a movie. You know car races, car chases. A good friend Blaine is in the movie.
Lawrence Hryb: Is he?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, it's John Hamm with the Blaine haircut.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh that one yeah. Don't encourage him.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's too late.
Lawrence Hryb: I forgot John was in this one. I should see how he's doing. I remember chatting with him at an event when they were shooting Mad Men. They all play X-Box during Mad Men they all played Xbox and they were telling me-
Jeff Rubenstein: It was period accurate. The original Xbox from the 70's, you know they all played that one.
Lawrence Hryb: Thank you, thank you. The one with the wood finish on the side.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly. You know my first system did have wood on it.
Lawrence Hryb: Of course it did. Any self respectable consumer electronics from the 70s was wood grained. Your Magnavox TV.
Jeff Rubenstein: I had an RCA. It did have wood on the side. It gave a good sign, because this was a thing you had to actually bang on the TV if the picture was moving around. There was a time when literally you debugged things by banging on them.
Lawrence Hryb: Do you remember that Laura?
Laura Massey: I do.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I bet you I remember something that you don't remember.
Laura Massey: What's that?
Lawrence Hryb: Black and white television.
Laura Massey: Mm, my family had one old TV.
Lawrence Hryb: That was black and white? Really? Wow. That's cool.
Laura Massey: It's a small old TV.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a hipster TV.
Laura Massey: Sure was.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. My [inaudible 00:03:53] so yes, giant black thick rimmed plastic glasses. Yup. Larry doesn't like any of this.
Lawrence Hryb: No, I'm just trying to remember-
Jeff Rubenstein: Actually you have hipster glasses.
Lawrence Hryb: I'm unwinding how we got here. I'm unwinding how we got here.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wood grain.
Lawrence Hryb: Back to gaming, back to-
Jeff Rubenstein: Mad Man.
Lawrence Hryb: Baby Driver.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Lawrence Hryb: That's what it was. You know what movie I'm excited about seeing?
Jeff Rubenstein: Let's hear it.
Lawrence Hryb: I bought tickets for it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Spider Man?
Lawrence Hryb: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know.
Lawrence Hryb: Dunkirk.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah.
Lawrence Hryb: I'm very excited for Dunkirk.
Laura Massey: I haven't heard of this.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're seeing it because Harry's in it, right?
Lawrence Hryb: No, I'm seeing it because it is one of the greatest ... I mean there were many many many many fascinating stories that came out of World War Two, this is one of them.
Jeff Rubenstein: Right, but I think there's a generation of people that will be seeing it because Harry Styles is in it.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay, whatever.
Jeff Rubenstein: The movie was trending yesterday.
Lawrence Hryb: I'm not seeing it because of that. I'm not seeing it because of that. See, because, because-
Jeff Rubenstein: You're going to come for the historical nature and you're going to stay-
Lawrence Hryb: I'm going to stay for the haircut. No, actually it's interesting because I think you and I have talked about this. There's something that happens, Laura, and you and I have talked about this, there's something happens genetically as a male, whenever there's anything on for World War One or World War any war movie we have to stop and watch it.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's me with the Naked Gun. That movie is so funny.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh is it? Is there a movie that stops you dead in your tracks Laura? Like I have to watch when it's on TV or something. Do you have one?
Laura Massey: Lord of The Rings, Indiana Jones.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay, that's fine.
Laura Massey: Any of those.
Lawrence Hryb: Any of those. All right. I can appreciate that.
Jeff Rubenstein: So after everyone was rescued from Dunkirk and they were brought back to England a lot of them ended up in Dover.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I actually visited Dover.
Lawrence Hryb: The white cliffs of Dover.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Last December, it was really cool. They have an underground military hospital underneath a castle. That area is high ground, right on the water. It's been strategically useful since Roman days. So on this one site you have everything from a 2000 year old Roman era-
Lawrence Hryb: Bath.
Jeff Rubenstein: Probably, maybe at one point.
Laura Massey: Probably at one point.
Jeff Rubenstein: A bit leaky these days. Yeah so like a rampart or something and then there's the main castle, which was built in the game of thrones era. Great documentary, can't wait for the next season. And then all the way up through World War Two. It's really a very cool place to visit.
Lawrence Hryb: Thank you.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm just trying to make you feel good about it.
Lawrence Hryb: This section of the broadcast brought to you by the this tourism board of the United Kingdom.
Jeff Rubenstein: South Eastern England.
Lawrence Hryb: Visit the UK on your annual holiday.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly, on annual leave.
Lawrence Hryb: On annual leave. Anyway, we should talk about what we're playing since we like to talk about games in this podcast. No we're not getting to you Laura. I know what you're going to talk about. We'll get to you in a minute. We'll start with you since you actually were very excited about your diabolo.
Laura Massey: When you emailed saying "Are we still on for the show recording?" I was like, "Yes, I am I'm ready to talk about-"
Lawrence Hryb: Diabolo, you played a lot of diabolo. Did you know I joined your party?
Laura Massey: No, I didn't know that.
Lawrence Hryb: You didn't know. You left the party open, your game party and I joined it.
Laura Massey: I didn't even know that.
Lawrence Hryb: I didn't think it gave you ... I don't know who you were playing with, but it was-
Laura Massey: No notification.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I didn't think ... It Join You puts the characters on the main screen and I wasn't quite in your session. I was kind of in your lobby, but you didn't get a notification about it.
Laura Massey: No, it didn't say a player has joined your lobby or anything like that.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, no.
Laura Massey: So did you see my outfit? Or my-
Lawrence Hryb: No, I guess I did, but I was like oh, she probably doesn't want me here. So I left quickly. It was one of those awkward moments. Where you open the door and oh she's in the middle of something so I left.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Lawrence Hryb: But I did not. I'm sure it was glorious.
Laura Massey: It was glorious.
Lawrence Hryb: Let's talk about the game.
Laura Massey: Yes, so I've been a one track gamer this week and have just played Diabolo-
Jeff Rubenstein: This week she says.
Lawrence Hryb: This week, yeah. This week. Keep her honest internet.
Laura Massey: I've been playing the Neck Romancer, offer Diabolo Three.
Lawrence Hryb: What level are you?
Laura Massey: 62, I think.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay.
Laura Massey: Almost to the level cap of 70, which is ... Well, I think I have three or four characters that are 70, so I'm excited to get the Neck Romancer up to 70 and finally use all of the fantastic equipment that I've been saving in my stash.
Lawrence Hryb: You have lots of gear.
Laura Massey: Level 70 characters.
Lawrence Hryb: Nice.
Laura Massey: Yeah. Its been super fun. I have probably like this one just as much as the wizard, which is my favorite class. So if you haven't had a chance to jump in, I highly recommend it. It's just a bunch of fun mayhem. Still doing [crosstalk 00:08:22]
Lawrence Hryb: Fun mayhem.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lawrence Hryb: That's it, in fact that's what it says on the back of the box. Fun mayhem!
Laura Massey: Fun plus mayhem equals Diabolo.
Jeff Rubenstein: A friend of mine was telling me he was able to get his Neck Romancer up to level 70 in two hours.
Laura Massey: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: He had some sort of gem of something, of leveling that got him back-
Laura Massey: To the legendary gem of leveling or something like that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll connect you two off line.
Laura Massey: Yeah, I would love to know how he did it in two hours, because I've been playing mine for I don't know five, six hours and I'm almost a 70. I have all kinds of awesome gear, but I apparently am missing something.
Lawrence Hryb: I think it's called the game genie.
Laura Massey: I had one of those.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, a throwback.
Jeff Rubenstein: The legendary gem of time management I think.
Laura Massey: Yes, probably so. I must have this gear that I don't have.
Lawrence Hryb: Call you intrigued.
Laura Massey: I am intrigued.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes, all right. So you're playing and you're having fun. You're playing a lot of it?
Laura Massey: Playing a lot of it yes, that's probably all I've been playing this week is Diabolo.
Lawrence Hryb: I can confirm that's all you've been playing. It's not probably, I can confirm it. I was watching. Every time I look at my friends list, Laura's on Diabolo.
Laura Massey: I am.
Lawrence Hryb: I opened it up to get started, but a couple of people that I was playing with, they were so far ahead of me. It just, I was like forget it. And then I went and played over watch. Yeah, that's my overwatch is your Diabolo, or your Diabolo is my Overwatch. Yeah, anyway, good for you.
Laura Massey: I see. That's all I have been playing. I can confirm it is fun.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay. Jeffery.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes sir.
Lawrence Hryb: What you up to?
Jeff Rubenstein: So I've been traveling for the last week.
Lawrence Hryb: Down to the Bay area as fore mentioned.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, but much like I would do if I was here, still played video games. I was over a friends house and he was like, "Have you ever played Injustice Two?" I really don't play a lot of fighting games these days. Mostly because the people I used to play fighting games with live in the Bay area and so there's just not a lot of ... I always like to-
Lawrence Hryb: You know there's this thing called Xbox Live.
Jeff Rubenstein: I agree, but for me, fighting games having grown up in the arcades, in person is always-
Lawrence Hryb: Shoulder to shoulder.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly, because there's sort of a physical element and you're sort of jockeying for position and whatever. We played a little bit of that and oh my God it is really really good. The amount of detail, visual quality, I mean you expect all these things from Nether Realm and the first injustice was very good, but the level. It feels like it is the apex of what I feel like that team has made in terms of quality. It was really cool. Even in the characters to Lex Screen and he's using the Flash. He's sort of taunting the other character. They sort of mess with each other. There's so much context sensitive things that happen. You probably know this if you've already played Injustice Two, but if you haven't ... And I'm not huge into the DC world. On paper, I shouldn't be into this game at all, I really was. I took to using Supergirl, who is voiced by ... Very quickly I was like, "Man I know that voice."
Lawrence Hryb: Who is it?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's Laura Bailey who voices-
Lawrence Hryb: Oh Laura.
Jeff Rubenstein: ... Among many many other people Kate Diaz from Dears Four.
Lawrence Hryb: She's delightful.
Jeff Rubenstein: She's awesome. She's a huge talent. I actually looked at some of the voice talent in this, this prestigious voice talent on this game. C. Thomas Howell voices somebody. There's Hollywood actors, there's people that have been doing Batman from the Arkham days. There's a weird mix of very prominent folks. Anyway, definitely a ringing endorsement for Injustice Two and I think I'm going to have to pick that up myself.
Laura Massey: Is the Joker in Injustice Two?
Jeff Rubenstein: The Joker is, he looks very young in this. It's like a young very sassy Joker, baby Joker.
Laura Massey: Who voices that character? Do you remember?
Jeff Rubenstein: You know I have to look that up.
Laura Massey: I have a bit of nerd trivia for you.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Lawrence Hryb: Go on.
Laura Massey: Do you know who voices the Joker in the animated series of Batman?
Jeff Rubenstein: We all know that.
Lawrence Hryb: It's Mark Hamill.
Laura Massey: Yes, it's Mark Hamill.
Lawrence Hryb: Who else would it be? Who else would it be?
Laura Massey: Well, there's been a lot of voices of Joker, of people who played Joker in movies.
Lawrence Hryb: But if you played any of the Batman games of which he's been in, he is stop you dead in your tracks amazing. That's one of my favorite characters. He's a little bit ... Although, he reminds me, which I'll bring it back to games because you haven't played it that much Laura, but in Overwatch we have Junkrat, he's got a little bit of, Junkrat has a little bit of Joker tendencies. Jeffery, would you agree with that?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh very much. He says some of the funniest stuff. I don't use him too often, but occasionally we'll play mystery heroes and he's very funny.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, he's very very funny.
Jeff Rubenstein: Scott Porter plays Robin. Scott Porter, he's a friend of Xbox shows ... One of these folks is always at E3, big fan. Fred Tedacy who has done a ton of voices, he is the voice of both Bane and Swamp Thing-
Lawrence Hryb: Bane.
Jeff Rubenstein: If you look him up you'll see a ton of stuff that he's done.
Lawrence Hryb: Voices for Injustice Two, play it now on Xbox, what are you waiting for?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, and you should.
Lawrence Hryb: You can even play it over Xbox Live.
Laura Massey: You could.
Lawrence Hryb: Jeffery.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know, I know, I know. Yeah, the voice of the Joker is not someone I'm familiar with. It's not Mark Hamill.
Lawrence Hryb: A great unknown.
Jeff Rubenstein: But this is a very different Joker.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, so you're down at the Bay area, you play this, what else you do? What else you play?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, then I got back into Dishonored Two, which is a fantastic game. I just don't like killing people in these games. It's a very challenging game, even more than the first one I feel like in terms of keeping Stealth and I told myself I wouldn't reload when I mess up and I'm detected and I end up in the middle of a blood bath, but I'm doing that so it's going to take me forever to behave with this. It's really good.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, it's kind of a quiet period right now for gaming. In terms of releases and what not.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's not that quiet though.
Lawrence Hryb: Why not? Well, there's a lot going on. And there's been some news coming out.
Laura Massey: Oh yeah?
Lawrence Hryb: We got Doom Fest coming for Overwatch. Okay, I'm sorry Jeffery.
Jeff Rubenstein: all right let's talk about Doom Fest, it's killing me. Doom Fest was announced right before we started filming today and I really like this character for Overwatch, needless to say. Doom Fest had been teased for quite some time.
Lawrence Hryb: And he's part of the Lore.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly. And you heard the name and the design. I was envisioning someone like Fanos or some over the top super villain type of character. The reality is the designs really cool.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, well you'll link off to the show notes, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah, I'll link off to the trailer. They made a, they being Blizzard made an anime style.
Lawrence Hryb: As they often do.
Jeff Rubenstein: If you go to Play Over Watch then you'll see screen shots and things. Maylay, mostly Maylay character. I feel like he's an offensive minded Reinhardt. We have someone who can go toe to toe with Reinhardt.
Lawrence Hryb: He's got a massive punch.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think that can be really cool. Sometimes when Reinhardt's in the right position it's really hard to get after and you need to keep your distance. There's not necessarily a great foil to that, obviously you can be countered, but-
Lawrence Hryb: Catch phrase.
Jeff Rubenstein: ... It's more like like one on one. There's always a character who ... I feel like for any character there's always that one who you don't want to run into in a corridor or something like that.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I know that's the story of my life.
Jeff Rubenstein: Now, I think Reinhardt's got that.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, anyway.
Jeff Rubenstein: We'll find out when we start playing coming soon.
Lawrence Hryb: Some other really exciting news, Jeffery you're going to get that ready, why don't you call it up.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh I'm ready. Are we talking about the Halo Summer Celebration.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes we are. Yes we are, yes we are.
Jeff Rubenstein: So great news, 4K coming to Halo Five.
Lawrence Hryb: Halo Five Guardians for you, it's going to play best Onyx, Box One X.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, so very much looking forward to seeing that. That update will be coming along with the release of Xbox One X later this year and 343 will be sharing more as we get closer to that release of course. And of course Xbox One X is releasing on November seventh. Really just four months. It's not that far away.
Lawrence Hryb: And just when you thought you had a lot of Halo in your Xbox One, we're going to dump more in.
Laura Massey: Oh really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yes.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes we are.
Jeff Rubenstein: So thanks to the magic of backwards compatibility Halo Three, Halo Three ODST, Halo Four, and Halo Comet Evolved Anniversary, CE anniversary you may call it. All of these games are going to be coming to Xbox One through backwards compatibility.
Lawrence Hryb: I'm just looking at this and I've been involved in some way or another with all these games and I'm starting to feel old.
Jeff Rubenstein: You go back a ways.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I was just look at wow. Anyway, look at this, this is great.
Jeff Rubenstein: So there's some cool stuff here. You'll be able to pop the disc. I know a lot of people ... I still have, I'm still sitting on my Halo Two disc.
Lawrence Hryb: Are you?
Jeff Rubenstein: Of course.
Lawrence Hryb: Guns up or down?
Jeff Rubenstein: Huh?
Lawrence Hryb: Guns up or down?
Jeff Rubenstein: I think up.
Laura Massey: I didn't realize there was a choice.
Lawrence Hryb: There is, well I don't know if it made it to the box open. I remember when we were releasing, I'm pretty sure it was Halo Two there was-
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm going to have to go back and look.
Lawrence Hryb: We had two different pieces of key art, because in some countries when guns were ... When Master Chief had his guns pointing up and I'm doing that, listeners you can't see it, but I have my two fingers up. When they were gun ... It was considered aggressive. If you go back and look at some of the imagery the guns are down so it's less aggressive. So guns up or guns down.
Jeff Rubenstein: Little, little-
Lawrence Hryb: Little trivia for you. Things you learn. I do have another story to tell and please remind me to tell this later on in the show, it's about gamer pictures.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay, all right we'll do that. I know what you're wondering now.
Lawrence Hryb: What am I wondering?
Jeff Rubenstein: These games are coming out, backwards compatibility, what about the map packs, what about the DLC?
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, what's up with those Jeffery?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, how about they're going to be free. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Lawrence Hryb: Free as in no charge Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: Why, that's exactly what I mean. Although, I'm sure there's an asterisks somewhere that says you may have to pay for your internet bill. But yes, so every 360 Halo Add On Map Pack in the Xbox store will be made available for free.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: So that this way everybody can play everything.
Laura Massey: It's fantastic news.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a good time to get that larger hard drive, between that and Xbox game pass and games gold, and everything else.
Lawrence Hryb: Of course if you're a Halo fan the 343 team will be down at RTX in Austin. July seventh through the ninth, which is pretty much as we're recording this so if you can make it have fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: Man, yeah.
Lawrence Hryb: Awesome, that's a nice place.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a lot of stuff. So everything on there-
Lawrence Hryb: You've been there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Halo Wars Two all the stuff there's going to be a new premium expansion that's going to be after the season pass wraps up called awakening the nightmare. There's a lot of Halo stuff including the Archaic stuff you just mentioned. I will just link over to the Halo Summer Celebration stuff.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, that's the guns up for.
Laura Massey: Yeah, I was definitely remembering guns up for Halo Two, I just looked it up.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah and I may have been, you're showing this to me on your phone, there may have been I think guns up and guns down that may have been an option for the little standup's we made. The little statues. I do remember this conversation. Can I tell our gamer picture story now?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh sure.
Lawrence Hryb: So there was this question on Reddit about a month ago where people were talking about gamer pictures because custom gamer pictures were coming to Xbox One, to all Xbox one members very soon. Some people are testing them out too. Have you customized yours yet Laura?
Laura Massey: Not yet.
Lawrence Hryb: I have.
Laura Massey: I've seen it.
Lawrence Hryb: I'm sorry.
Jeff Rubenstein: We talked about this last week.
Laura Massey: You didn't tell me what the story was behind it though.
Lawrence Hryb: About which one?
Laura Massey: Your custom gamer.
Lawrence Hryb: Well mine is if you look at it, if you go to Uptown Major Nelson, it's the same one I have my Twitter account, which is me holding a Scorpio chip in my mouth.
Jeff Rubenstein: How does it taste? Is it better or worse than a switch cartridge?
Lawrence Hryb: I can tell you this. It's better. I will say this is that it's actually taped to my mouth, because we had a little bit of show business to make it happen. The story is around, and Laura I've got to implore you to see if you can search for this one, back when we shipped 360, we had a series of gamer pictures that they were just the stock ones, there was about a dozen. Do you remember them?
Laura Massey: Oh yes.
Lawrence Hryb: One of them was a young boy with a hat on, could have been a young boy could have been a young girl, we don't know, but they were blowing a bubble a balloon. Do you remember that one?
Laura Massey: Yes I do.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay so the story, so Reta this is for you because you've been asking me I wanted to share this. So what happened was when we had contracted the series of artists back in the day to create these, because they were all very different pieces of art and what happened was we got from this particular artist from another part of the world this great piece of art with this young person with the hat on, they had a beanie on it, it had a great tone to it.
Laura Massey: I remember bluish.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, maybe it was blue or gray. Did you find it yet? I know you're searching.
Laura Massey: I'm looking for it.
Lawrence Hryb: If you look at it, they're blowing a bubble, Jeff, you know bubble gum. What happened was is when we got it in the original character was smoking a cigarette. We realized that probably wasn't the best to show, so we went back to the artist and had them rework it to show a balloon instead of smoking a cigarette, so that's-
Jeff Rubenstein: You shouldn't smoke balloons either though.
Lawrence Hryb: No, well bubble gum, it was bubble gum. So anyway, I'll see if I can find that image, the original image somewhere, Laura if you haven't found it yet. We'll link off.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know exactly what you mean.
Lawrence Hryb: You know which one I'm talking about though, you can look it up if you want. You can just look up original gamer pictures and you'll see an Xbox 360. That is my story about the original gamer pictures. One of them. I have a ton of little stories.
Jeff Rubenstein: When are you writing a book?
Lawrence Hryb: Who wants to hear the story that I have to tell?
Jeff Rubenstein: The people that are listening to this podcast. You're still here, right?
Lawrence Hryb: I'm still here. They're still here, they're listening. It was exactly that one. It was the one next to the ... See it Jefferey? Here, let me-
Jeff Rubenstein: All right send that over to me. So yeah, one of our friends is still using that pirate. He refuses to change it.
Lawrence Hryb: And then the rings, do you remember what the rings were called? I think it was just the rings of color. The rings of light?
Laura Massey: The green?
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, the green, all the different circles, the concentric circles. Oh back in the day.
Jeff Rubenstein: I remember when Matt and ... God, I feel like some of the first paid ones were NFL ones that came from that end. I remember I had a Philly one.
Lawrence Hryb: Right. Gamer pictures were big back in the day. So anyway, features coming very soon for all Xbox One members where you're going to be able to pretty much use any photo. Yes, Laura.
Laura Massey: Since you're being nostalgic.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Do you remember when we shipped the camera for Xbox 360 and then you had-
Lawrence Hryb: The vision cam.
Laura Massey: Yes, the vision cam and you could take a picture of it and set it as your private gamer picture.
Lawrence Hryb: Right, because back in the day we had two concepts. We had a private and a public. Because the concept being if it was private, you probably don't want somebody on your friend's list who's showing you something you find offensive.
Laura Massey: Right.
Lawrence Hryb: There were other uses for that camera too in Uno, but we won't go into that in this show. I think that's best for everybody.
Jeff Rubenstein: I did play a lot of Texas Hold 'em. That was one of the first games to also use it.
Lawrence Hryb: You know who loved that game was Step Toe. He played it all the time.
Laura Massey: He loved it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I played way more of that than I played actual Texas Hold 'Em, which is good because I'm not that good at it.
Lawrence Hryb: Well, you're the perfect person tat they want to play I believe.
Jeff Rubenstein: I suppose that's true.
Lawrence Hryb: Anyway, so we're going to, let's go through and hit some more of that news.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, so great news for fans of Shadow of Mordor, or folks that are excited about Shadow of War. This is a game that I beat in 2014, I think was my ... I have a reason to go back and so do you. The team is updating and adding an orc forge to the game. The nemesis forge. So basically you're going to be able to bring over some of your choices into Shadow of War.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh?
Jeff Rubenstein: So your biggest nemesis and also your best ally, that orc will be able to come into the new game.
Lawrence Hryb: Laura love that, you love that game.
Jeff Rubenstein: Even if you haven't played it in a very long time, oh such a great game.
Lawrence Hryb: What did you ... I mean I never got into the game, is it because of the history and the lore and the IP? Is that what really got you? I mean the gameplay was solid.
Laura Massey: That was the initial hook, but what kept me there was-
Lawrence Hryb: Was the game play.
Laura Massey: Was the game play and leveling system. The way that you felt when you were playing the game.
Lawrence Hryb: The combat loop, yeah.
Laura Massey: Because you felt awesome while you were playing that game.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, at the very beginning it's like you're sneaking around. It's almost all stealth, but as you get more and more powerful you can confidently walk into the middle of a base and it's like come at me.
Laura Massey: Exactly. I can take all these orcs.
Jeff Rubenstein: Come at me bro.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was right at the peak of come at me bro, back when you could say that non ironically.
Lawrence Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: I remember that feeling distinctly. I remember starting the game just trying to find a normal orc and I kept dying. I continued leveled up, got more and more powers, and then eventually I'm running on rooftops saying "Yeah, come at me." Exactly.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's just like I dare you.
Lawrence Hryb: Laura's saying come at me, I don't know why I just enjoy that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Laura had pioneered come at me.
Lawrence Hryb: A lot of people don't know that.
Jeff Rubenstein: At the campus of UT Austin.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, that's right, that's right back in the day.
Jeff Rubenstein: Come at me, sir.
Lawrence Hryb: Come at me, bro.
Laura Massey: It was one of the most polished game frames I played in a while.
Lawrence Hryb: Come at me y'all.
Jeff Rubenstein: So it's great news for those of us who already have it. If you do not have Shadow of Mordor-
Lawrence Hryb: Then what are you waiting for? Because-
Jeff Rubenstein: However, you can play it right now.
Lawrence Hryb: Right now.
Jeff Rubenstein: For free as part of Xbox Live Gold free play days.
Lawrence Hryb: Go download it.
Jeff Rubenstein: This goes through basically midnight this coming Sunday.
Lawrence Hryb: Wait a minute, is that another free item coming for Xbox owners? We have the Halo Maps.
Jeff Rubenstein: It never ends.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I don't even know, Jeffery, I don't know what to say.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, you open your door to us and we're-
Lawrence Hryb: The free train keeps coming down the tracks. Toot, toot.
Laura Massey: Oh goodness.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Can we get back on track? Who knows.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think you're missing out that you didn't do a crazy Larry sketch for the Ultimate Game Sale this year. You're getting it out of your system a little bit at a time.
Lawrence Hryb: We're working on something. Actually, you know what I got to tell you a story, we're working on a special crazy Larry sketch for Christmas.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.
Lawrence Hryb: A really good one.
Laura Massey: Already?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, you're planning this far ahead.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I've been planning for a year. It's going to be, hopefully, if we can pull it off it will be at Beck, that's all.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're going to use your microphone, your Price is Right microphone?
Lawrence Hryb: Okay I got to tell you what it is. I'm going to pause, I'm going to tell you. You ready? So that's what we're going to do.
Laura Massey: No way.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is perfect, this is perfect.
Lawrence Hryb: Isn't it?
Jeff Rubenstein: This is perfects. Now I know why you have to plan six months in advance.
Laura Massey: Yeah, that takes a lot of planning.
Lawrence Hryb: Any way, all right.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, so that's amazing. So anyway, if you don't have Shadow of Mordor, you can play it for free between probably the time you hear this and July 9th at 11:59 p.m. Pacific, so this coming Sunday and even after that, the game is on sale for 80% off.
Lawrence Hryb: Eight, zero.
Jeff Rubenstein: Eight, zero, I mean it's a-
Laura Massey: A lot of percents.
Lawrence Hryb: Is that 499?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's like four bucks, it's four bucks.
Lawrence Hryb: It's less than the cost of a latte in most major countries.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, that is for what is easily one of the best games of the generation.
Laura Massey: Yes, that is a fantastic deal, there's no reason to say no.
Lawrence Hryb: As Jeff would say, just a deal.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's what I say all the time. A little bit more news here. The story move trailer for season two of Minecraft story mode is now available. If you're into Minecraft story mode season one, the combination of tell tale and the good folks at Muyang, well then more is on the way and you can see a bit of that. The ultimate game sell that we were referring to is still going on. It goes up to July 10th.
Lawrence Hryb: Last chance.
Jeff Rubenstein: Again, games up to and above 80% life.
Lawrence Hryb: Go empty that piggy bank, lots of games to grab.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll link you. There's this site that I found called Major Nelson.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: That has everything, including links. God I feel bad for whoever had to put that together.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes, that was a beast.
Jeff Rubenstein: It is a lot.
Lawrence Hryb: It's a beast.
Jeff Rubenstein: Even just scrolling my arm is cramping because it takes so long. I'll link out to that again and this is a great time in these dog days of summer to pick up some great deals. It's Christmas in July.
Laura Massey: It is Christmas in July.
Lawrence Hryb: What are you crazy Larry for you got it. Insane Jeffery.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Laura Massey: Insane Jeffery, insane deals.
Jeff Rubenstein: Where you grew up did they have a place called Crazy Eddies?
Lawrence Hryb: Yes, that's what Crazy Larry-
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay, that's where I bought my Nintendo when I was nine years old.
Lawrence Hryb: Well it was because you grew up in Philadelphia. Laura, I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but Crazy Eddie was big in the North East. He was specifically in the New York area. They would buy late night TV spots and it was exactly ... Go look them up on YouTube.
Jeff Rubenstein: As a kid I thought it was hilarious because he's basically just yelling at you.
Lawrence Hryb: He's yelling at you for 30 seconds.
Laura Massey: Is it like Vern Funk here?
Lawrence Hryb: No. Like way-
Laura Massey: Way more crazy?
Lawrence Hryb: Way crazy.
Jeff Rubenstein: Turn up 15.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, exactly. Didn't he ultimately get indited for something?
Jeff Rubenstein: I think-
Lawrence Hryb: There was legal issues.
Jeff Rubenstein: He was not so much crazy as he was immoral Eddie I think. We'll have to look that up.
Lawrence Hryb: Anyway, that was yes, Crazy Eddie, his prices were insane.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll see if can find a video [crosstalk 00:28:46]
Lawrence Hryb: Oh, there's a bunch on YouTube, I remember looking at them, because I remember when we started doing Crazy Larry I had to show the editors, I'm like you don't remember Crazy Larry and as a child of the east coast this person didn't know it. I had to show it to them and now he gets it.
Laura Massey: I see. Was that your research your inspiration?
Lawrence Hryb: Oh absolutely. I make no bones about it. All right, that's the news. You know what the great news is though this week Laura?
Laura Massey: What is the great news?
Lawrence Hryb: The great news is we have a name the game winner. Exactly.
Jeff Rubenstein: I thought this was going to go on forever. We kept rolling the pot over.
Lawrence Hryb: It kept going and the pot as is at 43.4 million dollars. No it's not. No it's not at all. That's a lie there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Name your power ball.
Lawrence Hryb: We're exciting because we do have a name the game winner. I was so excited when we finally ... This was a particularly difficult one.
Laura Massey: It was and we gave a hand question.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, so shall we play it?
Laura Massey: Yeah lets play name the games from last time. So that was name the game from last time. It's the first name the game in history that we didn't have a correct the first time we played.
Lawrence Hryb: Right we had to actually do it again.
Laura Massey: So we had to do it again and we gave a hint and the hint was, it was a space game.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes, and you want to know there's another meta hint that I gave.
Laura Massey: Oh really.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I actually played it on my console for a few days right after last weeks show. If you were watching my profile you could see it pop up there.
Laura Massey: That is a mega handful. But we do have a winner this time around, which means it worked. And the winner is-
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Brad from California. I don't know the name of your city. I can't pronounce it.
Lawrence Hryb: Let me take a look. Let's take a look here. Jeff.
Jeff Rubenstein: I would have guessed it would have been Mario 64.
Lawrence Hryb: It is Temecula?
Jeff Rubenstein: Temecula, yes it's in So Cal.
Laura Massey: Temecula.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, okay well hopefully if it's in southern California I'll see him at Comic-con, which I'll talk about in a minute.
Laura Massey: Congratulations Brad, you correctly named the game and the game was Planetbase.
Lawrence Hryb: Yay!
Laura Massey: Good job. The game of tag is Big Bad, which is a pretty good game of tag.
Lawrence Hryb: Big Bad.
Jeff Rubenstein: What does he win?
Lawrence Hryb: What does he ... Oh you know what? Laura always finds stuff in my office on my desk, under my desk, behind my desk.
Jeff Rubenstein: In the couch cushions.
Lawrence Hryb: Everywhere. What did you find this week, Laura?
Laura Massey: I found some really great stuff for you. First you're going to get a copy of Planetbase.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, of course.
Laura Massey: Which is the name the game-
Lawrence Hryb: Which means you probably already have it, but go ahead.
Laura Massey: Right, and-
Jeff Rubenstein: Gift it to a friend.
Laura Massey: You also get a copy of the Golf club too.
Lawrence Hryb: Very difficult. I've been playing that.
Laura Massey: Have you?
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, it's no joke, I'll just say that.
Laura Massey: I see, good so you'll get some good golf practice in. But that's not all, you also get Podcast favorite, Overwatch game of the year.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Which hopefully we'll have the new characters.
Lawrence Hryb: Just in time for Doom Fest, what?
Laura Massey: You'll also get Podcast favorite Diabolo Three Eternal selection.
Jeff Rubenstein: What's this?
Lawrence Hryb: What is this? Where did you find that?
Laura Massey: Which also has-
Lawrence Hryb: I didn't even know I had that in my office.
Laura Massey: That one has the Necromancer dealsy pack added in.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, all there.
Laura Massey: So it's Reaper of Souls and Necromancer.
Lawrence Hryb: This is like $100 already. Go ahead.
Laura Massey: This is fantastic. That's not all.
Lawrence Hryb: What?
Laura Massey: I also found a copy of a token for the Xbox game pass for three months.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, we'll give you three months of game pass, which is access to over 100 games.
Laura Massey: Congratulations Brad, you did a great job of getting this really difficult name the game and we've rewarded you thusly.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, well done my friend. Jeff you seem to-
Jeff Rubenstein: I should have studied harder. I should have put more into it.
Lawrence Hryb: You know you're mother and I have been saying that. When you were in high school and college you should have studied harder.
Jeff Rubenstein: I had so much potential and here I am now.
Lawrence Hryb: You didn't unlock it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm just sitting here, watching you fumble with the USB.
Lawrence Hryb: Kvetching. I hate USB.
Laura Massey: You know they're supposed to change it.
Lawrence Hryb: I know three times.
Laura Massey: Oh no, they're supposed to change the design of USB.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, it's USBC.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah USBC.
Lawrence Hryb: Which is even worse because it pretends to be a standard, but it's no where near a standard. There's Thunderbolt Three, there's power delivery, it's a nightmare. I was talking with a couple of people about this. Anyway, congratulation to you Brad from Southern California. By the way, I'll be at Comic-con.
Laura Massey: Oh great.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah I'm going to Comic-con in a few weeks.
Jeff Rubenstein: Is your comic book finally coming out?
Lawrence Hryb: No, my superhero comic book has been put on hold, Crazy Larry saves the earth has been put on hold.
Jeff Rubenstein: I pre-ordered issue number one.
Lawrence Hryb: Atomic Man.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, I'm going to retire on that. Detective video game comics.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh boy, but yeah I'll be down at Comic-con, I'll have more details on that probably next week, but I'll be down there. Hey, we've got to do another name the game.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, so that means the slate is clean, we've reset the odometer to zero and we're ready to go again.
Laura Massey: Let's do another name the game. All right, so that was name the game for this week. If you too would like to win some fabulous prizes, super easy all you have to do is send me an email, lollyp[email protected] and [email protected] with what game you think that is.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: It is going to be a game that is on the Xbox One, it could be DLC-
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, could be DLC.
Laura Massey: It could be an indie game.
Lawrence Hryb: ID @Xbox.
Laura Massey: Could be an ID @Xbox game, and Xbox one. It could be a back compact.
Lawrence Hryb: Could be a backward compatible game.
Jeff Rubenstein: I just hope it's easy.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah I think-
Laura Massey: Maybe this week I'll take a little bit easier.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, we should make it easier this week, Laura right? Just since we went for two whole months, basically two whole months without a winner.
Laura Massey: That's right. Maybe a little easier this week. Maybe, we'll see. We'll see if I'm feeling generous.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, so that's what you need. Send me an email at [email protected], [email protected], include your game tag, where you're from if you'd like and if we can use it on the air. That won't impact your odds of winning, but we'd love to have you join us.
Laura Massey: Exactly.
Lawrence Hryb: It's as simple as that. You know I give stuff away all the time on Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter. Free code Friday.
Laura Massey: Free code what day?
Lawrence Hryb: Well, we usually do it on a Friday. I started doing that back in, I don't remember.
Jeff Rubenstein: Twitter's only 10 years old Larry, so.
Lawrence Hryb: I've been on it for 10 years, you know that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know, I had my 10 year anniversary last week.
Lawrence Hryb: Did they tell you?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, you get a little notification. You've probably been on more than that.
Laura Massey: Yes, I would say.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think you probably about six months because it came out the end of 2006.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I was on then.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh you were very quick.
Lawrence Hryb: I was on that early.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, one could say.
Lawrence Hryb: One could say. Laura was on it.
Laura Massey: I was. I remember initially being against it. And then-
Lawrence Hryb: No, you weren't as against it as he was.
Laura Massey: But not as against it as he was.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah he was ... I mean very rarely do I use the term. He was violently opposed to it. Not anymore. Now it's all dogs and food.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly what he was afraid it would become.
Lawrence Hryb: Exactly. He is the problem. Oh I wish we had him on to defend himself. Anyway, that was name the game. Good luck to you all. We got all the headlines. We'll have a lot of things we talk about in the show will be in the show notes at majornelson.com on the show. Also, I don't know if a lot of people don't know this, I tweeted this out last week, but for every show for the past two years, we do transcripts.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Lawrence Hryb: So if you-
Jeff Rubenstein: Right now this transcription expert is transcribing these very words and in fact I feel bad. If I thought about it before I came in I'd be much more economical with my-
Laura Massey: With your words?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, my diarrhea of the mouth.
Lawrence Hryb: Well, I will say this is that we don't use machines to do it, it's actually humans who do it, so whoever the human is that's doing it this week, thank you.
Laura Massey: Thank you.
Lawrence Hryb: Hopefully they're smiling right now, as they're listening to this.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do you think they still call me Jeffery? I remember at the beginning you told them to do that.
Lawrence Hryb: I did send a memo. It said memorandum, Jeffery.
Laura Massey: Yes, his name is Jeffery.
Lawrence Hryb: Per contractual agreement Jeff Rubenstein must be referred to as, in all cases Jeffery.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, I get it here.
Lawrence Hryb: You're making this face.
Jeff Rubenstein: I get it at home. My kid has started calling me by my first name.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh no.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: You're not dad? You're Jeffery?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I'm Jeff. Hey Jeff and I'm like "Excuse me?"
Lawrence Hryb: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I've lost. There's just no going back.
Lawrence Hryb: Do you ever grow up with people with friends who call their parents by their first name?
Laura Massey: I don't think so.
Lawrence Hryb: I remember we had a family-
Jeff Rubenstein: These were the kids that smoked in elementary school probably. They've got one of this.
Lawrence Hryb: Chewing bubble gum in this case.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly. Really TGF for that one. Yeah, that's what I've got to look forward to.
Lawrence Hryb: I may have told your daughter to do that. No, I didn't, I didn't do that.
Jeff Rubenstein: You do have a gamer tag.
Lawrence Hryb: Right and she does play a mean diva. It's not surprise surprise.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, no, level 45 already.
Lawrence Hryb: Anyway, so yeah we're kind of winding down to the end of the show here. Usually we talk about cool interesting stuff we find. Have you come across any gadgets lately Laura? Because I'm working on a couple.
Laura Massey: I can't recall at the moment, though I did use Smokey McSmoke Face over the holiday weekend.
Lawrence Hryb: Yes, you're smokey, you're a smoker smokey thing. You never sent me a photo.
Laura Massey: That's right I forgot.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah you did. I'm not surprised you tend to forget.
Laura Massey: I do tend to forget to send people pictures of food.
Lawrence Hryb: I didn't even ask hey can I come by and eat it. I was like I'll settle for a photo. I didn't even get that. My God, was it good?
Laura Massey: It was fantastic.
Lawrence Hryb: What did you smoke?
Laura Massey: Baby back ribs.
Jeff Rubenstein: Ooh.
Lawrence Hryb: Go ahead Jeff.
Laura Massey: Fantastic.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I just really like ribs.
Lawrence Hryb: Go ahead.
Jeff Rubenstein: What?
Lawrence Hryb: You're not going to sing the baby back song?
Jeff Rubenstein: I got my baby back, baby back, baby back.
Lawrence Hryb: Wow, okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wasn't that like NSYNC did that or something?
Laura Massey: No, that was the Chili's-
Lawrence Hryb: Chili's ad.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, but who performed it?
Lawrence Hryb: I don't know who did it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I want to know the band that did it.
Lawrence Hryb: The Internet's right in front of you Jeffery. All the answers you ever need to know are right in front of you on that computer. Yay internet.
Jeff Rubenstein: Chili's.
Lawrence Hryb: What did you have with the ribs?
Laura Massey: That was stuck in my head the whole day.
Lawrence Hryb: What did you have with the ribs?
Laura Massey: Baked potatoes and I can't remember the vegetable. Green beans I think.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh really?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Lawrence Hryb: That was your-
Laura Massey: And then dessert was s'mores. It's American.
Lawrence Hryb: Well, kind of American.
Laura Massey: Oh goodness gracious.
Speaker 4: I want my baby back, baby back, Chili's-
Jeff Rubenstein: Baby back-
Lawrence Hryb: Who did it?
Jeff Rubenstein: It sounds like-
Speaker 4: Chili's baby back ribs.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm telling you, I feel like it was a young Justin Timberlake or something.
Speaker 4: Chili's baby back ribs.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was like a key change. This is the golden age of everything.
Lawrence Hryb: This part of the podcast is brought to you by Chili's.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is part of the ad. Barbecue sauce. That's what makes it.
Lawrence Hryb: All right, so you had your s'mores, did you cook them out over the fire?
Laura Massey: I did. Had a little fire, cooked some s'mores. It was delicious.
Lawrence Hryb: Did you have a s'mores maker?
Laura Massey: No.
Lawrence Hryb: You just manually create them. Like stick the marshmallow. What Jeffery.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're just going to bring this completely full circle.
Lawrence Hryb: I don't think that's possible. We're talking about some-
Jeff Rubenstein: Really, I found an article about the inventor of the Chili's Baby Back ribs song.
Lawrence Hryb: I believe they call it the writer.
Jeff Rubenstein: He has never eaten the ribs. Two, his name is Guy Bommarito and he's referred to as the Don Draper of the 90's.
Lawrence Hryb: All right.
Jeff Rubenstein: As in from Madman.
Lawrence Hryb: Well there we go. End scene.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: Couldn't plan this better. And we certainly don't plan it.
Lawrence Hryb: All right Laura, so we're talking about your baby back, baby back, baby back ribs.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm going to link to this story, this is a good read.
Laura Massey: Well maybe I'll post a photo of my baby back ribs.
Lawrence Hryb: Because I haven't seen it.
Laura Massey: Because you haven't seen it and they were the best I've made.
Lawrence Hryb: You know we made it over the July 4th for those of you who didn't know, outside the United States. In the U.S. it's generally a time when families get together and have picnics and fireworks and do other sorts of outdoorsy things. It's usually warm here. We made hamburgers. Did I tell you about the beyond meat burgers? Have we talked about those?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: I don't think on the air.
Lawrence Hryb: Have we. I know we talked about ... Yeah, so my wife, who's a vegetarian wanted to try these new hamburgers, which we've been having in our house for a few months now. You can get them at Whole Foods right now specifically, but its this company called Beyond Meat and they wanted to design, they came up with the idea of let's create a burger that's plant based, notice I'm not saying veggie burger because that has negative connotations, but it's plant based.
Jeff Rubenstein: Also probably patented.
Lawrence Hryb: To feel, to taste, to smell, as the texture and cook style of a real burger made out of beef. It's made out of plant material. Anyway, it was quite good.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're the last person I expect to approve. So it must be actually good.
Lawrence Hryb: My wife asked me she's like "Do you like it?" I said, "Well, it's the best non beef burger I've had."
Jeff Rubenstein: I might buy one of these tonight. My family's out of town, I'm living off of potato chips.
Lawrence Hryb: No, I'm going to come by your house, we're going to go to Dick's okay?
Jeff Rubenstein: Context Larry, context. There's a fast food restaurant called Dicks that is on my street. It's very popular. You go there after a wild night out on a Friday or something and you go and get a bag of dicks, that's what you do. That's what you do.
Lawrence Hryb: This part of the podcast is brought to you buy bag of dicks.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, I'm just going to go ahead and link to what that is so you know it's a thing. It's Dicks Drive In.
Laura Massey: We're sorry transcriber.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, exactly. Dear transcriber, feel free to asterisk that out.
Jeff Rubenstein: Please.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh we're just silly now. Yeah so I'm working on some other things now. You know I put in ... What was that? Was that you?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I put the volume up for [crosstalk 00:42:34]
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, otherwise you know I've got some technology projects I'm working on at home. I'm redoing my home network as always.
Laura Massey: Yes, I want to hear about your Arrow upgrade.
Lawrence Hryb: Well, I don't have them in yet. They released a new firmware, or some new hardware so I'm waiting to get that in and I'll upgrade everything. I've got a bunch of units I need to install and upgrade there. Installing a new weather station.
Laura Massey: Ooh.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah. I have a weather station, I'm a weather nerd.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Lawrence Hryb: Jeffery I-
Jeff Rubenstein: It's got it's own weather station.
Lawrence Hryb: I sent you mine, right? A link to it?
Jeff Rubenstein: You did, yes.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, I sent you a link to it.
Laura Massey: I saw a screenshot. It was really cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: We live in a world of micro climates here on the pacific.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, well and it's funny because I actually moved it from my backyard to the top of my house and the temperature went up 10 degrees. Anyway, so I'm working on that. What else am I working on? A few other technical things I can't really ... Some cool stuff we're working on, we can't talk about it. I will say this, is we kind of talked about this in email Laura, so I apologize for t-boning you on this one. Packs, we're going to do Pax right?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay Pax Prime.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, is it nice and conveniently located.
Lawrence Hryb: Conveniently located in Seattle. We're going to have our show. Usually it's during the weekend, usually Saturday. We're waiting for the confirmation on that. I've already lined up a special guest, I'm very excited about that. Can't say who it is yet. It's someone involved with a highly anticipated game coming to Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: I look forward to this.
Laura Massey: Me too.
Lawrence Hryb: Very excited about that. Yeah, this is what sucks Laura. We're already talking about Pax, which kind of signals the end of summer.
Laura Massey: It does. It just started.
Lawrence Hryb: Right, and we just started.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, we're still eight or nine weeks away from Pax.
Lawrence Hryb: I know, we're still eight or nine weeks away, but the other thing that's weird is we talk about E3, which sets the tone for what's going on this holiday. Of course Xbox One X is, but I've been in meetings, I know Jeff you have we're already planning stuff for November and December and January and I'm like it's not even-
Laura Massey: Winter.
Lawrence Hryb: It's not even winter yet, but on the same stroke I know that in December, January, February, we're going to be planning for E3 in the summer, so it's like you just got to take it.
Jeff Rubenstein: It never ends.
Lawrence Hryb: We're just little mice on little ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I know we get eight weeks of nice weather, I'm in no rush to be thinking about beyond that. Pax is the end of it and on the other side of it, it's the great wall, I didn't see that movie anything could lurk on the other side. Matt Damon or dragons or whatever.
Lawrence Hryb: The Larrabee dragons.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm going to stay here on the sunny side of the wall for now while I can.
Lawrence Hryb: On the sunny side of life. Anything else we should talk about or should we wrap it up and get you out of here?
Laura Massey: I have a question that people ask me about all the time on Twitter that I'd like to address.
Lawrence Hryb: Sure, what's the question?
Laura Massey: The Xbox One X when would it be available for pre-order?
Lawrence Hryb: Oh. That is an excellent question Laura and if you follow me on Twitter at MajorNelson I will tell you. We haven't announced the date yet. They're working on a couple of cool things. There's the headline, there's the gaming headline, there we go. We're working on some cool stuff for Xbox One X launch and so they're working on it.
Laura Massey: Coming soon.
Lawrence Hryb: Coming soon, I don't know the date either.
Laura Massey: What should they do in the meantime?
Lawrence Hryb: Follow me on Twitter at MajorNelson, or you can keep an eye on the blog.
Jeff Rubenstein: I would have to imagine-
Lawrence Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: When we're going to open up pre-orders you're going to know it.
Lawrence Hryb: I will absolutely know it and I will absolutely shout it from the top of the digital mountains. Is that a thing?
Laura Massey: The Twitter mountain.
Lawrence Hryb: Is that a thing, I don't know.
Laura Massey: I don't know either.
Lawrence Hryb: Do you get that question a lot on Twitter?
Laura Massey: I do.
Jeff Rubenstein: About digital mountains?
Laura Massey: No.
Lawrence Hryb: Just say we haven't announced it yet. That's it. No you don't know when it's coming because I don't know either.
Laura Massey: Nobody really knows when it is.
Lawrence Hryb: Sometimes for instance when I found out the name of the Xbox One X I didn't really want to know about it too far in advance because I just don't like to know things too far in advance.
Laura Massey: Can't keep them secrets.
Lawrence Hryb: No, it's just about hey I have an encrypted partition in my brain. I want to keep it that way and I want to make sure nothing leaks out. Jeff, what are you doing over there?
Jeff Rubenstein: My phone, someone texted.
Lawrence Hryb: Okay. Do you need to go. We'll wrap up so you can go.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh I got a text from Disney.
Lawrence Hryb: What did they say?
Jeff Rubenstein: Apparently, you know how they have the key chains with your name on it.
Lawrence Hryb: So let's give people a little context. Your family right now is at Disney.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Minus me.
Lawrence Hryb: So Disney Land. Disney the corporation is not randomly texting.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, Mr. Eisner. Yeah.
Lawrence Hryb: Dating yourself.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I don't know who runs Disney these days.
Lawrence Hryb: Iger.
Laura Massey: Iger.
Jeff Rubenstein: I was close. I got a text and it's just the key chains and it's where Jeff should be if Jeff was still a relevant name and I've been replaced by, and this one hurts.
Lawrence Hryb: Justin.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's worse than that.
Lawrence Hryb: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Jayden.
Lawrence Hryb: Oh no. Did you tell them to look for one that says Jeffery?
Jeff Rubenstein: It doesn't matter, I'm not there, it goes straight from Jaime, to Jayden, to Jessica. Jeff is not, now you don't meet anymore Jeff's. They just don't really exist that much. I think it was an 80's name or something, late 70's maybe. Now it's Jayden. So you know what Jayden enjoy your time in the limelight before you get replaced-
Lawrence Hryb: Replaced by Jeff.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, oh yeah.
Lawrence Hryb: Because it will come back.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're coming back.
Lawrence Hryb: Coming back.
Jeff Rubenstein: Jeff Junior we're getting it.
Lawrence Hryb: That was the Itchy and Scratchy land bit with Bart.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh it's Bort. I have the Bort key chain and they're like, "Excuse me my son is also named Bort." Then later on they're in the underground part and you hear the operations and just as a throw away gag they're like we're out of Bort license plates in the gift shop again.
Lawrence Hryb: They're going to be out of Jayden license plates.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly. Jayden I'm coming for you.
Lawrence Hryb: All right. You didn't have any problem finding yours Laura when you went to Six Flags or Disney?
Laura Massey: Nope, apparently mine's a pretty common name.
Lawrence Hryb: Laura really? It's classic.
Laura Massey: Yeah, classic. Any Larry problems?
Lawrence Hryb: No, because mine is either Larry or Lawrence, so just like you Jeff or Jeffery.
Laura Massey: There's two different names.
Jeff Rubenstein: They don't make them anymore.
Lawrence Hryb: Maybe we should have the transcription now every time I mention should be Lawrence in this transcript.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think that would be great. Take a note please.
Lawrence Hryb: Jeffery and Lawrence. See Laura you don't have a long version of your name.
Laura Massey: I don't.
Lawrence Hryb: Right?
Laura Massey: Maybe we should make one up.
Jeff Rubenstein: Lawrence.
Lawrence Hryb: No. That's already taken.
Jeff Rubenstein: L-A-U-R-A-N-C-E?
Lawrence Hryb: No, she needs to come ... What would the long version of Laura be?
Jeff Rubenstein: Laura Lie.
Lawrence Hryb: Lauralie, what?
Laura Massey: That's kind of cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe a little Hawaiian.
Lawrence Hryb: Did you or did you make it southern?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah maybe that. Something Hawaiian.
Lawrence Hryb: Southern bell.
Jeff Rubenstein: Southern Hawaii.
Laura Massey: Southern Hawaii.
Lawrence Hryb: Southern Hawaii. Right. All right well, we apologize for this random.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're just all of it the last 60 minutes.
Lawrence Hryb: Yeah, this whole thing. Everything about it, we're sorry. All right, we'll be back next week after we decide what Laura's longer name should be. If you have any ideas don't ask her when Xbox One X is in, hit her up on Twitter.
Laura Massey: That's right tell me.
Lawrence Hryb: You can find her at?
Laura Massey: Lauralollypop.
Lawrence Hryb: And of course you can find Jeffery at.
Jeff Rubenstein: Jayden.
Lawrence Hryb: Jayden Rubenstein.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. At Jeff Rubenstein.
Lawrence Hryb: Maybe I'll just have them change your name to Jayden this entire show. Mine to Lawrence and you're to LauraLie. That's what we're going to do.
Laura Massey: Yeah, no one would know who is on the podcast.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah and you know what they might enjoy it. It might be better for everyone in that way. We should start using pseudonyms.
Lawrence Hryb: All right gang, we'll talk to you next time. Have a great time, wherever you go whatever you do. We'll see you online. Bye-bye everybody.
Laura Massey: Bye-bye.
Lawrence Hryb: Bye.