Drew: Hi, how are you?
Paul: Not too bad.
Paul: How about yourself?
Drew: Uh I'm kinda tired.
Drew: I've had to do a lot of traveling and there's no end in sight.
Drew: Uh, sorry.
Drew: It's okay.
Drew: You know, me and airplanes, we're just Yeah, you love them.
Drew: I love them so much.
Drew: Love an airplane.
Drew: Um all right.
Drew: I haven't clicked your link yet.
Drew: I'm scared.
Drew: I'm I'm scared.
Drew: No, it's it's it's fine.
Drew: So
Drew: My dog is having a fit.
Drew: I don't know if it's c I don't know if it's coming through on the audio.
Paul: It's all right.
Paul: He's part of the podcast now.
Paul: He's yeah.
Paul: He's he's our he's our third host.
Paul: Uh Drew, what am I known for?
Paul: That's right, obsessing over my cables.
Paul: Uh I have all of my cables organized.
Paul: I have colored uh tags around them.
Paul: And I in the previous I had purchased uh not one but two little uh hardware devices that you can plug.
Paul: Uh
Paul: cables into and it gives you all kinds of information.
Paul: Well that's garbage now because now you can do it with software.
Paul: So there's this wonderful little Mac app called What Cable
Paul: And it it basically apparently all this information mac OS already knows when you plug in your cable.
Paul: It knows it.
Paul: So this app just presents that information to you in a very easy, concise way.
Paul: It is a
Paul: free app you can give them like 15 US American freedom dollars to get like a little bit more features and it like does like diagnostic of your video signal and all that wonderful stuff but
Paul: The base functionality is just free.
Paul: You can plug it in.
Paul: You can see how fast your cables are, whether you're using the right one.
Paul: It's a great app.
Paul: I just want to let people know about it.
Paul: It's at uh whatcable.
Paul: uk, I believe.
Paul: There's a link in the show notes.
Paul: It's good.
Paul: It's a nice, very simple app, but it does it does exactly what's on the tin.
Paul: Huh.
Paul: Now you're gonna give me shit about caring about my cables.
Paul: No, no, no, no.
Drew: I ha I have my kinks, you have yours.
Drew: It's fine.
Drew: So what have you done with this app that your your other devices that you purchased and built don't this doesn't This is nice because I don't have to
Paul: to I don't have to I don't have to remember where I put my little hardware device.
Paul: I can it's in fact you can just leave this running all the time and one of the things it will do, which I'm not letting it run all the time, but if you do, it'll let you know if you think your cable is g is damaged.
Paul: Because it will look at what it's reporting versus what it's actually doing and give you a heads up to say, eh, something is wrong
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: But it's only for Mac though, huh?
Paul: It is a Mac app, yes.
Paul: So Windows users are pfft, but you know.
Paul: It is a Mac, it is a Mac app.
Paul: And uh oh now I hear now I hear Rocky.
Paul: He is pissed.
Paul: Oh that's I fucked that one right up.
Paul: God damn it, it just came out of my mouth like nothing.
Paul: I do the same thing.
Paul: Don't worry about it.
Paul: Uh it also shows like all of the devices I hook have hooked up to my Thunderbolt dock.
Paul: It's good.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Apparently I have a slow USB device or charge-only cable connected somewhere.
Paul: Oh, well you can't have that.
Paul: No.
Paul: Oh, it's the one connected to my microphone.
Paul: That's why I haven't seen it before.
Paul: There it is.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: You don't plug in your microphone all the time?
Paul: No, no.
Paul: Oh.
Paul: I I uh I I'm a little superstitious
Paul: I plug my microphone directly into my Mac.
Paul: No hub, no nothing.
Paul: So nothing interferes with it.
Paul: So most of the time it's just unplugged.
Paul: So
Paul: And I don't I don't use it for work for reasons I cannot explain, even though it's sitting right there the entire time.
Paul: I just don't use it for work.
Drew: So what do you what do you use for work?
Drew: You like a headset?
Paul: I just used the uh cam the microphone built into my webcam.
Drew: Oh, okay.
Drew: I wasn't sure if you did like AirPods or you don't do AirPods, that's right.
Paul: No.
Paul: No, no.
Paul: I usually just leave whatever headphones I have on because a lot of times I'll just go directly from listening to music to talking to somebody.
Paul: So I don't want to have to like take them off and put new ones in and be that guy.
Paul: And plus also like
Paul: Uh as a as a long hairman, sometimes your hair gets a little askew, and headphones are a great uh way to just keep your your head your hair back.
Paul: So yeah.
Drew: Oh well speaking of cables, I have
Drew: I have like such an annoying thing happening.
Drew: Uh-oh.
Drew: This audio channel just randomly cuts out on my computer.
Drew: Oh no.
Drew: I I don't know if it's the cable.
Drew: Because like if I jiggle the cable, it comes back.
Paul: Oh, it's definitely the cable then.
Paul: Yeah, you're out you have a little well
Drew: I have I have this nice braided cable and one day it just started out of the blue.
Drew: Hmm.
Drew: So I don't know if it's
Drew: my headphones, which were not cheap headphones.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: I'm sure they're out of warranty by the way.
Paul: Are those Sonys?
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So something's going on.
Drew: So I'm gonna have to order a um
Drew: Time I had to order another cable.
Drew: Actually I'm on I'm on Jeff Bezos' site right now.
Drew: I can get one tomorrow.
Drew: But it's like so annoying because I'll I
Drew: And and I don't even have to move my head that much.
Drew: Like I'll just be, you know, sitting here working or gaming or something and it just kinda starts to go and then I'll like tilt my head to the side, it comes back.
Drew: Like I don't I don't know.
Paul: Unreliable cables are the worst.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: No.
Drew: Hopefully it's just the cable and not the headphones.
Paul: So I'll get my fingers crossed for you.
Drew: Hold on.
Drew: I'm gonna ask my wife why my dog is going insane.
Drew: Hold on.
Drew: I can't work under these conditions.
Drew: Why is Vito barking so much and he's interrupting
Drew: The podcast.
Paul: Okay, let's see what she says about that.
Paul: He's joining.
Paul: Joining the podcast.
Drew: And um Vito only barks at people that he can see from our windows.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: If you're in the house, you're his best friend.
Drew: And he is just over a year old now, and he has not really grasped the concept that some jobs require zero dogs.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: And these people are sanding and painting and using wood, um, you know, putting up new trim in my house, and he just wants he just wants to help.
Drew: Um but he is not designed to help.
Drew: And he has a real hard time with that.
Drew: So he just wants to be with them all day.
Drew: So I have to have him down in my office.
Paul: And speaking of workers uh in the house, uh
Paul: We had some people over pouring some concrete today.
Drew: So Ooh.
Drew: Oh, for your for is this uh rebuy me, this is your patio?
Drew: Patio, yeah.
Paul: But we only have we only have the stairs right now.
Paul: He's gonna come tomorrow and pour the rest of the patio, but everything is like leveled and dug out and but the stairs look nice.
Paul: So yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Did you have to do any a did you have to do any HOA somersaults for this?
Paul: Oh yeah.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: My wife my wife took care of it.
Paul: Uh the the highlight of it was us uh out in our backyard spray painting where the patio was roughly going to be because we did not do necessarily very straight lines.
Paul: to get it the approval because oh that was that was actually for the county inspector he had to come out and he wanted to look to see where the patio was going to be
Paul: Because a picture wouldn't do it apparently.
Paul: I don't know.
Paul: But yeah, we jumped through all the HOA hoops, got it the inspection all done.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So tomorrow, patio, concrete.
Paul: How long do they how long do they say it was gonna cure for?
Paul: Uh I think he said like give it twenty-four hours before you walk on it and give it like three days before you put anything on it.
Drew: So Yeah, so we're we're in the process of getting approval for our driveway project because they um they re they finally redid the curbs and the gutters along our street.
Drew: I was kind of waiting for that to happen.
Drew: I did because I knew it was gonna happen this year.
Drew: And they repaved our street and they repaved part of the road uh by my house.
Drew: So that's all done now.
Drew: So I submitted all my stuff to uh RHOA and paid the twenty dollar design fee.
Paul: Um we'll see what comes back from that.
Paul: I think ours was like a $70, but it was that was for the expedited one because we didn't like it was either like wait or pay twenty more dollars and we'll get it done in a week.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah, they say they say ours takes up to two weeks, so we'll see.
Drew: I'm hoping I get an answer back.
Drew: If I get a no, I'll just have to like amend it or something like that.
Paul: So we didn't approve the first time through, so it was fine.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Um we might need a spoiler horn.
Drew: Okay or spoil our spoiler daughter
Drew: Here.
Paul: Yeah, I'll I'll I'll I'll put the horn it the the horn in here now.
Paul: And if you don't want to get spoilers for Star City to skip to the next chapter.
SPOILERS: Hey nerds, there's gonna be spoilers.
Drew: I'm so mad at the show.
Paul: I'm so mad at the show.
Paul: So mad at the show.
Paul: Okay, so
Drew: The ending was bad, right?
Drew: Ending's bad.
Drew: Ending bad.
Drew: You can't end you can't end the s the season on that.
Drew: I and and I didn't and and my dumbass didn't know.
Drew: So I watched the the what was the final episode of the series thinking, oh my god, I can't wait.
Drew: It like this has been the first show on Apple TV in a good while.
Drew: That when I got the notification that there was a new episode available, I would go watch.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: I thought for sure there was going to be at least one more episode this season.
Drew: Nope.
Drew: It's over.
Drew: Fuck.
Drew: Off.
Drew: Fuck off.
Drew: And they haven't announced if there's gonna be another season, right?
Drew: So that that could be it.
Paul: That could be that her coming down from space in the same f field as everything else going on.
Paul: And uh yeah, and yeah.
Drew: The mm-hmm.
Drew: Oh yeah.
Drew: It was it was it was really doing well.
Drew: It wit if it was it was a great show.
Drew: I love the premise, I love the aesthetic.
Drew: Um, we have no idea what happened with the with like the girl that escaped to the West.
Drew: We don't, you know, we saw what happened when they went down to Venus.
Drew: I don't know what they thought was gonna happen.
Drew: Um
Paul: And then bathosphere.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Didn't last too long.
Drew: Um you know, and obviously he knew he could never go home, but I didn't think he was thinking he was just gonna get crushed on Venus.
Drew: And then like a MiG-21, like here, here's my fucking autism.
Drew: A MiG-21's gonna catch up and shoot a rocket.
Drew: at a reorbit or re-entry fucking thing and shoot it out of the air and have it land in Finland or near Finland where they thought it was gonna land.
Drew: Those last 20 minutes of that show, I was like ready to throw something at my TV.
Drew: And then it ended and I was like, fuck off.
Drew: You can't, you gotta get you gotta give me more than that before you end the series.
Drew: Especially if you don't think you're ever gonna like do another series.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: No.
Drew: I'm so mad at it.
Drew: It's like the first time I've been irrationally mad at a television show in a while.
Paul: Yeah, the ending was not
Paul: It it was not was not good.
Paul: The ending was not good, period.
Paul: And I thought it was good because they had the whole like figuring out who the spy was and uh you know, all the espionage of getting the wife out of the country and you know
Drew: Yeah, no, I love that.
Drew: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah, it was good.
Paul: Like the whole the whole like the spy part of it was really good.
Paul: The space part was, I think, weaker.
Paul: And that ending was just it was bad.
Paul: It was it was bad.
Paul: It was not a good
Paul: It was not good.
Paul: I should go look.
Paul: I wonder what like the ratings are for like that episode versus the others.
Drew: And like and the one episode where they like try to terminate the entire crew on the space station, I'm like, really
Drew: Like she's a bitch, but like she's not gonna kill all the crew in that in that mission.
Paul: I get the feeling that she would totally kill all the crew to save her own career.
Paul: Like 'cause that's what she's worried about, right?
Drew: Is like anything that happens Yeah, and then when they had the fire I was like, Okay, they're not dead.
Drew: They're not dead, stop it.
Drew: Like Yeah, the way that it cut out their and yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: You didn't have to do that.
Drew: It was sp I really like the show to that last episode.
Paul: They what did they keep saying, Drew?
Paul: It was a nine-month journey.
Paul: Nine month journey.
Paul: And there was a female astronaut like she's gonna be pregnant.
Paul: But the the amount of time they said nine month journey, I'm like, hmm Yeah.
Drew: But and then you just happen to show back up while they're half the
Paul: Other space station now and that's totally not a spy satellite.
Paul: Wink.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: I hope they do another series.
Drew: Do you but have they confirmed another series?
Drew: I don't think they have.
Paul: I don't think they have.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: I have a funny feeling it's not gonna get
Paul: Pick back up and just gonna have to deal with that shitty ending.
Paul: I know let's see.
Paul: Will Star City get a season two?
Paul: Critically c no no no no no no has not but it did say critically acclaimed so meh except for that last episode god damn
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So bad.
Paul: It was it was bad.
Paul: It was real bad.
Paul: It was bad.
Drew: Alright, well I'm glad I'm I'm glad that my sentiment is shared
Drew: So yeah, I'm I'm really, really disappointed in that show.
Drew: Um I have started watching Widow's Bay.
Paul: I haven't I haven't started watching that.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Is it good?
Drew: You uh yes.
Drew: Yes.
Drew: Go go watch the first episode.
Paul: It's it's pretty fucking good.
Paul: Lucky fuck good.
Paul: Uh which is another Apple TV is pretty good as well.
Paul: It's got a
Paul: I think you talked about that, didn't you?
Paul: Uh no that that was no that was that was Margot Got Money Problems.
Paul: This is this is Lucky just came out, there's like three episodes.
Paul: It's got uh what's her face, Terra Joy.
Paul: Yeah from Queen's Gambit.
Paul: Yeah, she's incredible in in the show.
Paul: Uh basically it's the whole it's
Paul: So it's it's it's you know it's a it's a it's a spin on a heist movie.
Paul: It's basically heist gone bad, and then she's trying to deal with the ramifications of of, you know
Paul: Crime's gone bad.
Paul: So yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Yep.
Paul: Uh but it's good.
Paul: Yeah, I've heard keep hearing about Widows Bay.
Paul: I need to check
Drew: Widow's Bay.
Drew: Widow's Bay is good.
Drew: Um, I have some friends that uh are watching it and they they finally got me to um to to commit to it.
Drew: Um, okay, so glad we're on the same page about that.
Drew: So I want to shift gears again and I want to talk about some recent purchases that I made.
Drew: Okay.
Paul: There's something about these that make me angry, Drew.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Alright.
Drew: Well I'm okay.
Drew: Hold that thought.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: So um I ha because my travel has ramped up
Drew: I have been looking for better chargers for my devices.
Drew: So to level set everybody here, when I travel, there are four devices
Drew: Uh technically five devices that I need to keep charged.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: The first one is my MacBook.
Drew: So my work laptop has to remain charged.
Drew: Traditionally, I have carried the um the big the big square adapter uh power power charger that comes with it with with mag safe.
Drew: Or a USB-C cable, depending.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So that's usually in my bag.
Drew: I then have my personal phone, which this is an iPhone 18.
Drew: It's USB-C.
Drew: Uh so that is another cable.
Drew: My work phone is an iPhone 16, which is Lightning.
Drew: My AirPods Max, which is what I wear on the plane, is Lightning.
Drew: And then my AirPods Pro, which I use for conference calls and like if I'm in an Uber and need to listen to music or something, uh, those are also lightning.
Drew: So I have five devices
Drew: three different cables, technically two if I don't do the max safe.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So uh what I have discovered is I
Drew: Don't want to carry around a bunch of chargers.
Drew: So in order to kind of keep my my weight down, I have taken the big mag safe charger out of my work bag.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Instead, I've been looking for other high wattage or decent wattage wall chargers that I can plug a USB-C cable in or a lightning cable into.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: So I was at Micro Center the other day, which uh their remodel was almost done.
Drew: Um I was really angry at Micro Center because it was like fucking impossible to find anything there, but their remodel was almost done.
Drew: Um, and I went in there and was buying a couple other things.
Drew: Um, and I was like, you know, I'm I'm here.
Drew: I know they sell anchor stuff.
Drew: I want to go see what anchor wall chargers they have.
Drew: The only one they had that I liked was the first one on this list, which is the Anchor Nanocharger.
Drew: Now this is a 45-watt smart display 180-degree foldable.
Drew: Hold on, hold your
Drew: They just hold on.
Drew: So I'm gonna I need to find it.
Drew: Uh I don't know where desk.
Drew: It might be in my work bag.
Drew: But it actually let me grab this while I'm thinking about it.
Drew: So the nice thing about it is the plug on it has oh wow come on camera.
Drew: The plug the plug on it has three positions.
Drew: And if you scroll down on that page
Drew: In one of the little info bubbles there you'll see that it's 180 degree foldable.
Drew: So one of the common problems I run into is when I'm visiting people
Drew: You have no idea what kind of plug situation you're gonna we're gonna run into.
Drew: Increasingly what I'm finding is all of the plugs are either recessed into conference tables or behind some like metal door on the conference table.
Drew: A lot of times my chargers won't fit in there.
Drew: Too big.
Drew: Either because they're too big.
Drew: So having the having this where it's like
Drew: The plug itself can either be fully retracted 90 degrees or 180 degrees.
Drew: Gives me a little flexibility about how I plug it in in relation to where the port for the cable to come out of it is.
Drew: The other nice thing about this is it also recognizes the devices that you're charging.
Drew: So for example, if I plug it into an iPhone, it says iPhone 18 Pro and the percentage is reflected.
Drew: on the charger uh you know versus just having to look at my phone to see the charge.
Drew: So the spark display on it is kind of useful.
Drew: There's different things you can change it to.
Drew: You can also change the rate at which things are charging.
Drew: So like if you like, I think it's double tap or tap and hold, you can change modes where it goes into auto where like maybe it uses a lot of power to charge it.
Drew: Faster at first and then taper off, or you can just say maximum, or you can set it to go uh however you want it to go.
Drew: And it's tiny, it is a small little charger, it's 45 watt.
Drew: It really, really does a good job.
Drew: I have white.
Drew: They make orange, black, and I guess teal?
Drew: I don't know.
Drew: It's hard to tell.
Drew: But I have white.
Drew: Um and it is a solid little device.
Drew: Go ahead and air your grievances now.
Paul: So so I hold on.
Paul: Yep, your turn
Paul: I have the I have this bad boy, which is the the the big chonky.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: I have one of those.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Yeah, and and by the way, I I do too, right?
Drew: I do too.
Paul: This was the first
Paul: Device, the first charging device that I had that had a screen on it.
Paul: The screen it it
Paul: I don't I don't know how I feel about screens on my chargers, period.
Paul: And this one is just a very basic, just like it just shows how much charge is left in it, like if it's how much wattage is putting out.
Paul: Anchor has apparently decided that everything needs a screen and
Paul: Not only do they ever all their chargers need a screen, it needs a mascot.
Drew: Yeah, little the little guy.
Paul: The little anchor chargy guy blob.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: It
Paul: And the thing is, like, I've when I first I've seen this charger before, because I'm generally like, you know, I get emails and stuff, and I'm like, ooh.
Paul: That charger is orange like my phone.
Paul: Wouldn't that be nice to put into my bag?
Paul: Scroll, scroll.
Paul: Oh no, no, no.
Paul: What did you do, Anchor?
Paul: No, no.
Paul: Why?
Paul: Uh I don't I don't understand why they think they need to add whimsy into charging.
Paul: It's like just
Drew: Whimsy and cost to already costly chargers.
Paul: Yeah, because these are GAN chargers, right?
Paul: Which is why they're so small and they're great.
Paul: And but I love them.
Paul: Like I have a GAN charger that I put in my laptop bag.
Paul: Because I don't want to carry around that big white brick all the time.
Paul: And it's great.
Paul: Like when I go to the office or whatever, I like having it.
Paul: It does have like the foldy prongs.
Paul: It does, you know, it's it doesn't have
Paul: the uh the rotating, you know, prongs like like that one, but I don't understand why they need to add whimsy to charging.
Paul: I don't it I don't I don't understand this, Drew.
Paul: I do not understand it
Paul: Are we getting old?
Paul: Is that the problem?
Paul: Maybe, maybe.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Osk uh I I have an intern and she's like
Paul: You know, my son's age.
Paul: So I'll ask her like, huh, what do you think of this?
Paul: Though I I I used I used the phrase bump
Paul: Like like I asked a question, didn't he get response so a couple hours later I bumped it and then we had to explain to her what that meant
Paul: Uh oh.
Paul: 'Cause like, oh yeah, forums, I'm old.
Paul: Yeah
Drew: So that was the first device and I took a is the whimsy on this.
Paul: Is it like does it No, it's not bad.
Paul: No, it's not bad.
Drew: So you you get a little bit of whimsy when you first plug it in.
Drew: It's like hi.
Drew: And then it just kind of sits there, but then when you plug a device in, it just goes to the to the charging bar.
Drew: So the whim the whimsy is
Drew: minuscule.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: It it's it's it's really not bad.
Drew: Now you can make it be more whimsy.
Drew: Like you could hit the button and make it dance for you and whatever.
Drew: But I I just want to like be able to look at my charger and see what's what the current charge rate is.
Drew: So it's it's it's really not bad.
Drew: There is the whimsy is there.
Drew: I I'm not I'm not disputing the whimsy, but the whimsy is controllable.
Drew: But that doesn't necessarily solve my problem because I have multiple devices to charge.
Drew: So the other thing that I just picked up was the second thing in the list, which is again, it is another anchor charger that has a display.
Drew: It doesn't have Whimsy.
Drew: Um, but if you click that second link, this is a 140-watt four-port charger.
Drew: Uh, it did come with a USB-C cable, so it has um
Drew: It has two high-speed USB-C ports.
Drew: It has a USB, what do we call this?
Drew: A USB B?
Drew: I always forget A.
Drew: It has one of those that'll never get used on mine.
Drew: But this is nice because as you can see it has multiple ports.
Drew: So I can charge uh multiple things at once with this.
Drew: Um I haven't traveled with this one yet.
Drew: This one just showed up when I was gone.
Drew: Uh but this is gonna go in my bag as well for charge.
Drew: Cause like at night when I need to charge multiple devices, I have to have like a lot of hotels just don't have that many plugs near your bed.
Drew: Some do.
Drew: Right.
Drew: A lot of places don't.
Drew: So if I only get a choice of one.
Drew: Now the only thing I don't like about this is it has like one position for the charger.
Drew: So you're kind of stuck with this.
Drew: So
Drew: We'll see how that goes.
Drew: Um this this is a really good charger.
Drew: Like this is like super powerful.
Drew: So I like I like this one.
Drew: Um but we'll kind of see how that does.
Drew: But uh I'm a big fan of the of this little guy.
Drew: I was thinking about getting another one, but at like 45 bucks a pop, it's like Yeah.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: I mean, yeah, the stuff's not cheap, but yeah.
Paul: I have one that's kind of like in the middle between those two.
Paul: It's an anchor gan charger, and that's what's in my bag.
Paul: Uh doesn't have to be a chance to get the change.
Drew: Why do they call him GAN chargers?
Paul: Uh it it's the the Oh it's the tech
Paul: Gallium nitrate charger.
Paul: It's an advanced adapter that replaces traditional silicon components with gallium nitrate.
Paul: This allows electricity to flow much more efficiently.
Paul: resulting in chargers that are significantly smaller, lighter, and run cooler while delivering high power output.
Drew: Thank you, Google Gemini.
Drew: Oh, so good.
Drew: So good.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Alright.
Drew: Um last topic of the night, we're gonna talk about video games a little bit.
Drew: Let's do it.
Drew: Um so I actually sent you a text um in between sessions, and I was asking you to
Drew: Give me an update about where you were with your PlayStation, what is it, Portal?
Drew: Is that what it's called?
Paul: PlayStation Portal.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Um I had seen some articles online.
Drew: Apparently there was like an update not too long ago that made it even better
Drew: Yeah.
Paul: Um they had for one of the cloud streaming, so you don't need to connect to a PlayStation.
Paul: You can do yeah, stream from the cloud.
Paul: And they improved the bitrate as well.
Paul: And so it just made it a little bit better looking, a little bit more reliable connection to your PlayStation 5.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Um, because I've been sort of messing around in my basement and reorganizing some things, and I'm taking this as an opportunity to get back into playing uh the PlayStation that you so generously gave me.
Drew: Um, it is a regular PlayStation 5.
Drew: It is not a PlayStation 5 Pro, uh, which is what you have because you're a fancy Duchess.
Drew: Yep.
Drew: Um so I I saw that as I was like charging it and updating it, it they're having a summer sale right now.
Drew: They sure are.
Drew: So I'm looking for some games to play because the only game that I really played on the PlayStation was the Final Fantasy VII, the first part of the remake.
Drew: I'm waiting for the second one to come down a little bit more.
Drew: It's it's it's still like fifty dollars, and I think I got the first one for like twenty.
Drew: So
Drew: I know when the third piece of it comes out that it'll be even cheaper.
Drew: Um, but I did want to take this opportunity.
Drew: Um, I did buy Gran Turismo 7.
Drew: I have wanted to own Gran Turismo 7 for a while.
Drew: Uh the question I was gonna ask you about that is is that worth getting a PlayStation 5 Pro for?
Drew: Am I gonna get like higher frame rates or 4K or something or maybe it really depends on the game.
Paul: You really kind of have to look into it.
Paul: A lot a lot of times like so one of the big things in PlayStation is like usually like performance versus quality mode, right?
Paul: Where quality mode will be like a 4K resolution, but usually targeting 30 frames a second, which if you have a TV that can handle that, it's fine, but most of the time it looks like shit.
Paul: or a performance mode where they do like a 1440 or sometimes even 1080 upscale it and that will run it as a 60.
Paul: A lot of times with the the the
Paul: Pros, you get like a pro quality or pro performance, which just gives you more resolution and more.
Paul: Uh in some games it really makes a difference, and other games it it doesn't.
Paul: Uh
Paul: PlayStation also has their own super resolution technology, PlayStation Super Resolution, PSSR, or Pisser.
Paul: Alright, alright.
Paul: Thank you, Digital Foundry, for that cause they coined Pisser and I I I once I heard that I could not
Paul: Let it go.
Paul: Uh Pisser is a mixed bag.
Paul: Sometimes it works really good.
Paul: And sometimes you're like, ooh, ooh, those textures look real, real bad.
Paul: Real chunky.
Paul: Oh, yeah.
Paul: I'm I'm replaying uh control on my PlayStation and I have Pisser turned on and most of the time it looks great, but sometimes you get a lighting effect and it's just like
Paul: Ooh, that's bad.
Paul: Or like one time, uh uh actually uh so spoiler for control, when you have to go back to the the janitor to get the headset to go through the ashtray maze
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: All of the walls turned transparent, except for like I could see like doors and like furniture, but all the walls were gone and I was like, oh no.
Paul: Uh so it's a it's a mixed bag.
Paul: I'm not sure it's honestly worth it, to be honest, especially now because like the PlayStation 5 Pro was like
Paul: Eleven Nikajonian dollars.
Paul: Uh yeah.
Paul: So yeah.
Paul: So I I mmm mm mm I mean
Paul: I would say no, no, I wouldn't I wouldn't upgrade.
Paul: Like if it c if the old this PlayStation died and you had to buy a new one, maybe I would spend the extra money to get the pro, but
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: All right.
Paul: Just just curious.
Paul: Just curious.
Drew: Because I I do I do like car game.
Drew: I want car game to look good.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: So while we're here, I just wanted to get a couple quick recommendations from you that if I pick anything up on sale, what should I be looking at?
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So I I went through and I clicked through like the first five pages of the sale just to see what was on there.
Paul: And so I have some recommendations.
Paul: Uh the first one there is Astrobot.
Paul: It is a cute little character platformer, think like Mario Galaxy.
Paul: It's absolutely it's it's delightful.
Paul: The the the whole thing just makes you happy.
Paul: It's just bright and colorful.
Paul: And if you have any nostalgia at all for PlayStation characters or hardware, it's a great game because you keep finding
Paul: trophies of like different PlayStation characters and stuff.
Paul: It's it's good.
Paul: It's fun.
Paul: Uh I don't know how much it's on sale for
Drew: It's like 30 bucks.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: So it's it's it's good.
Paul: It's not super long, but uh it is a good good game.
Paul: Uh
Paul: Another one I saw that was on sale was God of War Ragnarok.
Paul: I'm not sure if you played the first one or not on PC.
Paul: This is also available on PC.
Paul: So you may want if you did, you may want to play it there, but it is on sale.
Drew: Well, so I I haven't played any other God of War game ever.
Drew: Can I just jump straight to this one?
Paul: I wouldn't.
Paul: You could, I wouldn't, uh
Paul: I would no, I would definitely play the original one first.
Paul: Sometimes you can get those sometimes those games drop really cheap on Steam.
Paul: So then maybe something you want to look for there.
Paul: Uh but yeah, God of War Ragnarok is on there.
Paul: Uh Spider-Man 2, another good game.
Paul: That in this one I could say you could skip the first one.
Paul: It's fine.
Paul: Uh
Paul: The the the Spider Man two is is is it's it's a good game.
Paul: It's got a great story.
Paul: It's got two different Spider-Man.
Paul: You got Peter Parker, you got Miles Morales.
Paul: It's good.
Paul: It has the same problems that the first game did.
Paul: It wants you to also play part of the game as the alter ego.
Paul: So you play as Peter Parker, not Spider-Man.
Paul: And those are just kind of like.
Paul: Yeah I wish I was Spider-Man.
Paul: I wish I was flicking webs and f and flying around instead of you know walking and talking to people.
Paul: Yeah, it's fine.
Paul: Uh and then the last one I have is Ghost of Yote.
Paul: It's not it's not a lot on sale because it's like I think it's a the digital edition.
Paul: Uh that one you do not have to really play the first if you haven't played Ghost of Ashushima, which did you play that?
Drew: No.
Paul: It's it's
Paul: Not a direct sequel at all.
Paul: None of the same characters are there.
Paul: It's just basically like, you know, feudal Japan, you know, samurai shit.
Paul: In fact, I think Ghost of Yote is a far better game than Ghost of Shushima.
Paul: It's a really good game.
Paul: The combat is incredible.
Paul: The graphics are good.
Paul: The story is good.
Paul: It's it's just absolutely phenomenal.
Paul: And and I'm pretty sure that one's never gonna come to the PC because Sony's like
Paul: Oh, remember the whole PC thing we were doing, psych?
Drew: Yeah, I'm I'm a little disappointed in that, but I'm not too terribly surprised.
Drew: Okay, so having said all that, I'm also looking at PlayStation Plus.
Drew: Oh, give me give me like what you think I if I was gonna subscribe.
Paul: Ooh, what's in the catalog?
Paul: Uh
Drew: Well, I guess what are the uh there's different tiers, right?
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Uh
Paul: Oh, I don't know what the tiers are.
Paul: God.
Drew: Well, there's premium, extra, and essential.
Drew: I would I was looking at the difference between premium and extra, and it looks like with premium, you get um
Drew: You get everything from Extra, but you get the classics catalog, which is interesting to me.
Drew: Um and then PS5 cloud streaming.
Drew: Yeah, so Ubisoft plus Cassix.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So extra and premium gives you access to the game catalog.
Paul: Uh
Drew: Yeah, Premium says classic catalog.
Paul: I think I think I think that adds I think that adds the the classic so you can do you can like cloud stream PS3 games and play some PS2 games as well.
Paul: Uh, because it's the PS all the PS3 games have to be streamed because emulating it is really hard.
Paul: And then you get access to their catalog, which you know, it's
Paul: Xbox Game Pass-ish.
Paul: There's a lot of mediocre stuff that's always there.
Paul: And they will like roll in and out.
Paul: They were roll in and out uh some good games in there.
Paul: I think right now it's uh the the the blue spacemen game Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is on there, which my daughter really liked that game.
Paul: Uh well she likes Avatar, so yeah, sometimes there's some good games in there, sometimes there's not.
Paul: Also, if you're a PlayStation Plus subscriber
Paul: There will be two or three games per month that they just give you for free.
Paul: And as long as you have a subscription, you can continue to play them forever.
Paul: They're in your library.
Paul: Or for fact like you can if you lapse and like repay for them, you still have them, I believe.
Paul: I believe that's how it works.
Paul: Uh
Paul: It also gives you multiplayer and some of the PlayStation games.
Paul: Uh some of their games that it's really weird about like which games require it for multiplayer and which ones don't.
Paul: I think it's really the Sony Studio produced ones make you buy it.
Paul: Uh
Paul: I mean if there's a game on there that you're like just dying to play, you know, or you want to go back and play, like they have uh
Paul: That usually have like the some like the original God of War games, right?
Paul: Which sometimes can be kind of like especially like some of the remakes, which are like PlayStation 3, they can be hard to play elsewhere, so you can play those on there.
Paul: Uh and the cloud streaming for Sony stuff usually works pretty good.
Paul: I haven't had really any like yeah, like is the latency just a little bit bigger, longer?
Paul: It sure is, because you know
Paul: server not in your room, but yeah, yeah.
Paul: It's uh yeah, it's it's fine.
Paul: It's fine.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So I wouldn't get it unless you're like, ooh, I'm going to play that.
Paul: So which one do you have?
Paul: Oh I I I'm I'm stupid, Drew.
Paul: I have the big one.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: I I and it's like set on auto renew.
Paul: I just don't even think about it anymore.
Paul: It's just like, yeah, this is my Sony tax.
Paul: Just just just take.
Paul: Just take it.
Paul: It's fine.
Paul: Uh what game what games are on there right now?
Paul: Uh a ghost of Shushima is on there.
Paul: Uh and it looks like they have hold on.
Paul: Uh some little s let's see.
Paul: No, I need to get to hold on blueprints.
Paul: I forget things about that.
Drew: The blue prints?
Drew: Oh, it's it's real good.
Drew: It's it's very clever.
Drew: It's very clever.
Drew: You should definitely play that.
Paul: Okay
Paul: Uh hold on.
Paul: I'm trying to get to the I think they had oh, they have they've got the the the Doom shooty got the first person Doom games on there.
Paul: Uh where's come on.
Paul: I'm on F.
Paul: I sometimes they have Yeah they have Ghost of Tsushima on there to play.
Paul: And they have oh they have God of War, the the remake.
Paul: They don't have Ragnarok.
Paul: Oh, they do have Ragnarok on there right now.
Paul: So yeah, I mean there.
Paul: Get it for a month, play through God of War, God of War, Ragnarok.
Paul: Uh yeah.
Paul: Both excellent games.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So yeah, I would maybe get it for a month or two and play those.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Alright.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Um, okay.
Drew: Good to know.
Drew: Thank you.
Drew: Thank you for the recommendations.
Drew: Um I'm still in the process of getting things
Drew: set up but I I'm hoping that uh over the weekend I have a chance to sit down and really play some Gran Turismo.
Drew: Maybe I'll pick up maybe I'll pick up like Astrobot or something.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: AstroBrust just it's you know it's not hard, it's a platformer, but it's it's just delightful.
Paul: It'll make you smile unless you have a heart of stone.
Paul: Uh okay
Drew: So then the next one is um I also was looking at potentially getting a switch to.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Um
Drew: I'm like very tepid on this.
Drew: I don't necessarily need to get it, but like the price is gonna go up and I think I have an opportunity to get it before they make it crazy expensive.
Drew: So I guess what do you recommend?
Drew: Other than Mario Kart, right?
Drew: Mario Kart is a given.
Paul: But Mario Kart, the new one, Mario Kart World.
Paul: No?
Paul: That's why it's not on the list.
Paul: I think the Switch one is better.
Paul: I think it's got better courses, better mechanics.
Paul: It's just better overall, I think.
Paul: It's like open world, yeah.
Paul: Yeah, exactly.
Paul: It it's it's fine.
Paul: It looks nice.
Paul: It looks really good on the Switch too.
Paul: I just don't think it's
Paul: it's worth it.
Paul: In fact, honestly, like the Switch 2 is the device I go to the absolute least.
Paul: Even though I love the screen on that thing
Paul: And I've bought some like replacement.
Paul: I bought some different more ergonomic like Joy-Cons.
Paul: I think I have like the Hori Pad, Hori split pad or something, which makes it a very, very nice to hold.
Paul: It's got a great screen.
Paul: Uh
Paul: Because I I probab I primarily play it handheld.
Paul: Uh, but I just haven't been going to it a whole heck of a lot.
Paul: Uh I would say at least I mean I haven't played uh
Paul: I've y you can play the both the Zelda games uh, you know, on there with you can get the Switch 2 version which makes the textures and resolution better.
Paul: Those do look really good.
Paul: If you haven't played those and you w or you want to replay them, Switch 2 is a great place to do that.
Paul: I haven't tried like the new f I haven't played them.
Paul: Metroid Prime never really interests me that series.
Paul: Neither did Star Fox, so I skipped it.
Paul: Uh the one game on there that is absolutely just joyous, which I have not beat yet.
Paul: I keep wanting to go back and play it is Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Bonanza.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: The story's dumb, but it's fun.
Paul: It's Donkey Kong.
Paul: It's a platformer.
Paul: You can smash everything, collect bananas, and you get a banana, it goes, ooh, banana, which is just fun.
Paul: It's good.
Paul: Uh I've got Mario tennis fever.
Paul: Uh
Paul: That game is fun to play with other people.
Paul: The single player is just kind of mid.
Paul: They tried to recreate the feeling of
Paul: the Game Boy Advance game where it's kind of like an RPG kind of style thing, but it just doesn't work.
Paul: So if you're gonna primarily play on the couch with people, uh uh
Paul: Uh Mario Tennis Fever is on there.
Paul: Also, they have a really good port of like Dave the Diver on there, which I don't know the game we both enjoyed.
Paul: They have a Switch 2 version of that.
Paul: There's been some more content for that that's come out that I haven't played yet.
Paul: I've oh yeah, I did see it.
Paul: And then there's they're doing like a spin-off or something as well, like another game in that universe.
Paul: Uh, so the last game on here is a game that's literally came out today, and I've only played for an hour and a half, but I've enjoyed it so far.
Paul: So, Drew, are you familiar with Splatoon at all?
Drew: Have you played a Splatoon game?
Drew: Don't get me started.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: All right.
Paul: So most split spittoon games, in fact all like all of them except for this one, the basically you're some sort of weird sea creature
Paul: And they're online competitive multiplayer shooter games, but the idea it's not about how many people you can kill.
Paul: All of your weapons produce ink.
Paul: Your team's ink is one particular color, the other team's ink is another color.
Paul: The team that wins is the team that has most of more of their ink on the
Paul: on the board you can shoot other you can shoot other players because it basically is it does a big ink explosion and also takes them out of the game for a little bit
Paul: I used I played the Splatoon that came the first Splatoon that came out for the Switch.
Paul: I think it was Splatoon 2 or was it 3?
Paul: I can't remember.
Paul: I played a ton of that game.
Paul: A lot of it, really enjoyed it.
Paul: Splatoon Raiders is what if what does take Splatoon, but what if it was a single-player looter shooter?
Paul: I'm listening.
Paul: And I've like said I'm only playing like an hour and a half.
Paul: I'll probably play like another hour or so bef after this after we're done chatting here.
Paul: Uh so far it's really fun.
Paul: Uh, you know, you get dropped into these zones, there's all these other fish creatures, you have to like shoot them, kill them.
Paul: Uh they they pr like your gunt weapon produces ink.
Paul: You move faster in the ink, especially like if you're s if you go into squid form.
Paul: So basically like the point is you weapons you're trying to kill all these salmon things, get loot, get better loot, level up.
Paul: Uh the salmon creatures also produce there's things that produce other color ink, which
Paul: A makes you slower and B uh will damage you over time.
Paul: So not only do you have to shoot the bad guys, you have to make sure that
Paul: you keep the ground covered in your ink so you can get away quickly.
Paul: Also like if you're uh one of the main mechanics is like your weapon basically will run out of ink.
Paul: And to get more ink, you turn into a squidling, which basically allows you to swim in your color ink.
Paul: That refills your ammo and also will heal you.
Paul: So as you're fighting, you'll not only do you have to kill the things, you have to make sure you keep the battlefield open enough so you can move and not get hurt and heal and reload.
Paul: Uh there's like three different classes by which kind of tank that you install, and there's gadgets and you get new weapons and the numbers get bigger.
Paul: Uh
Paul: I will say that like the it does one of those things where like all of the dialogue is in a weird fake language, so they don't have to do one recording and it gets really annoying really quick.
Paul: Uh and the story is so far as just like, uh
Paul: We're on this island and we're gonna get loot.
Paul: Yay.
Paul: Uh but like I said, it just came out today.
Paul: I've only played an hour and a half, but I have enjoyed
Paul: that hour and a half so far.
Paul: Yeah, it's yeah, it's so but honestly like
Paul: I I I personally have a hard time looking at the Switch 2 library and saying, like, this is the must-have game.
Paul: This is the one that will sell the system.
Paul: Like, you know, when when uh you know or c uh Breath of the Wild was the game for the Switch 2 that was like, you buy the Switch 2 to play this game.
Paul: I just don't think that really exists yet for the Switch 2 or
Paul: Or maybe there's a game out there that is really good that I haven't played, but I mean I don't think there's any like new Mario games.
Paul: They re-released some stuff for it.
Paul: Uh
Paul: There hasn't been like uh, you know, they're making uh they're making another Zelda game for it.
Paul: Uh
Paul: But one of it's one of the older ones.
Paul: I I it's meh, I'm there.
Paul: I have a hard time recommending the Switch too, honestly.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah, I I I feel like if I can if I can really get into the PlayStation, that'll that'll sort of slake my interest in the yeah in the Switch 2.
Paul: Though I will say as far as like a handheld device, especially if you get some like replacement
Paul: I'll see I don't know if I can find the link.
Paul: Horry pan uh
Paul: Oh, what did I buy?
Paul: Third party switch to Joy-Cons.
Paul: Which ones did I buy?
Paul: Well, maybe it's those.
Paul: Maybe it is the NXI Hyperion.
Paul: Yes, all right.
Paul: Yeah, I'm gonna put a link in here.
Paul: Oh, I don't want a Walmart link.
Paul: Oh gross.
Paul: Come on.
Paul: Yeah, this is this is what I got.
Paul: Uh and let me go back to
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: I mean they're not cheap.
Paul: They were like a hundred I think they were a little less ex I think they were under a hundred bucks when I bought them
Paul: On sale.
Paul: Now they're like 120 on sale.
Paul: They're they're like one of those things where like they're never regular price.
Paul: It says regular price, 170.
Paul: I don't think they've ever been $170 in their life.
Paul: You know, it they they don't have all the features of the regular game.
Paul: Like you can't like turn on the switch with them, but they're more ergonomic.
Paul: They still fit in the dock.
Paul: I just find them easier to hold.
Paul: And like the the switch two screen is great.
Paul: I like it quite a bit.
Paul: It's big, it's vibrant, you know, it does, it has VRR, so you know
Paul: Uh even like Switch 1 games look pretty good on them.
Paul: Especially they did an update where uh uh because this both the Switch 2 and Switch 1 kind of run
Paul: more power when they're docked because they can active cooling and all that stuff.
Paul: They had an update a few months ago that basically Switch One games
Paul: now run like they're always like they were docked in the Switch One.
Paul: So you get better resolution and better frame rates for Switch One games and those look really good on the Switch two.
Paul: So if there's some stuff on if there's some s old Switch One games that you're dying to play
Paul: They'll play better on the Switch 2 for the most part.
Paul: But it's hard to I have a hard time going, yeah, buy this game, buy the Switch 2, you'll be happy.
Paul: You think it would be the uh Mario Kart game, but it's just
Paul: Now the Switch 2 Pro controller is a really good controller.
Paul: It's not dual shock 5, but it is uh it's pretty good.
Paul: So
Drew: Oh, that was the other thing I was gonna ask you.
Drew: Apparently, and I didn't know this, there's multiple kinds of PS5 controllers now.
Drew: Yes.
Drew: So there's the DualShock 5 Pro, I think.
Drew: There's a there's another one that has like a a different name.
Drew: Um hold on, I'll tell you.
Drew: Um I I s when I was like looking at when I was looking at the um
Drew: Uh what's it called?
Drew: Uh wow, the PS5 Pro bundle is wow, a thousand bucks.
Drew: That's crazy.
Drew: Um
Drew: Uh dual sense wireless, but there was like some other name.
Paul: Maybe.
Paul: Yeah, that's that's their that's their version of the Pro Controller.
Paul: Uh I Okay.
Paul: I so I still the Dol Shock 5 is my favorite controller.
Paul: It fits my hand great.
Paul: Obviously, you know me.
Paul: I like the symmetrical thumbsticks.
Paul: That's just that's that's what I imprinted on with the earliest Dol Shocks.
Paul: I still like them.
Paul: I think that the Switch and Xbox layout are no good.
Paul: No good
Paul: Uh the edge controller adds some uh two back buttons and uh it allows you to remap buttons and like do like
Paul: stick sensitivity so you can put like curves on it for how quick it goes.
Drew: Uh dual sense wireless
Drew: That's just the the dual sense regul dual sense wireless is just the regular, right?
Paul: Yep, yep, yep, yeah.
Paul: It's the edge.
Paul: It's the edge is the t I'll drop a link here.
Paul: The edge is the two hundred dollar controller, which is ridiculous.
Drew: I'm like on Sony's website and I don't even see it.
Drew: Oh there it is, dual sense edge right there.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Drew: Wow.
Paul: Yeah, it's 200 bucks.
Paul: It's stupid.
Paul: I own two of them.
Paul: Uh, don't I because I when it when they first came out in white, I was like, ooh, I will try that.
Paul: And then they came out one that was like in the like
Paul: old style PlayStation Gray.
Paul: I got one of those.
Paul: That is the controller that I use.
Paul: I do I have learned to like the back buttons.
Paul: Uh but I basically use them instead of pushing down on sticks.
Paul: I
Paul: I don't like pushing down on sticks if I can avoid it, so I just make the back buttons that or some depending on the game, I don't have it like, uh, for control, uh, I make one of them dodge.
Paul: and the other one is uh run right so uh it the the the bad thing about the place so
Paul: The dual sense controller, dual sense 5, does not get great battery life.
Paul: The edges get even worse battery life.
Paul: So th like two, three hours.
Drew: Wow.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Well, go outside and touch grass.
Drew: I don't know what to tell you.
Paul: Yeah, exactly.
Paul: So yeah.
Drew: Uh, all right, buddy.
Drew: Well, I appreciate your insights.
Drew: I will let you know what I end up doing here.
Drew: Yeah, awesome.
Drew: Cool.
Drew: All right.
Drew: That's a show.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Doing the best.
Drew: com.
Paul: You can find all the show notes there.
Drew: And hey, thanks for listening.