Nostaltic Americana

Aggrochat #40 – Hexcells and H1Z1

It feels a little insane to be saying that we recorded episode 40 last night of our podcast.  It just doesn’t seem like we have been running that long, but quite honestly at this point we have outlasted a large number of podcasts so I guess that’s a thing.  We still manage to meet up each week to record a conversation about games… and then manage to like each other enough to do the same thing almost every night throughout the week.  So I guess that in itself is an accomplishment.  Last night was an absolute insane show, that in it’s content but in the fact that we recorded two shows back to back.  So yes we are going to be perpetrating a dirty dirty lie, and releasing the shows a week a part as though it were fresh content.

Next week Kodra was going to be out anyways, and Ash, Rae and myself are going to Pax South and as such won’t have any of our normal recording style equipment.  So the first episode we recorded last night follows the normal format, but the second episode is going to be announcing a new thing we are doing.  However unfortunately I am going to make you all wait until next week to find out what it is.  As far as the show proper yesterday we uncovered a recent addiction to a game called Hex Cells which if I am to believe Tam, Kodra and Rae is this super chill minesweeper like game.  The fact that they mentioned minesweeper pretty much flagged me as not interested at all.  Additionally we talk about the upcoming 2.5 patch in Final Fantasy XIV and finally I talk about my experiences playing H1Z1 in Early Release.  Then I descend into my frustrations about the Early Access model and why if you are taking money for a game… your game is “Release” but you just released a broken game.

In Search of Vitamin D

Lately the weather here in  the Tulsa area has been absolutely atrocious, not necessarily in precipitation but in the fact that it has rarely gotten above freezing for the last week.  This means that the likelihood of us venturing outside of our house in a major way was next to nil.  Now I have a love / hate relationship with the sun.  I have super sensitive eyes and being out in bright sunlight pretty much gives me an instant headache.  My wife on the other hand LOVES the sun, and during the winter months suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder or “SAD”, so I know so many times I will be pushed out into the bright light for her health and well being.  Yesterday was one of those days because the temperature actually managed to climb up into the 60s.  We juggled a few different ideas for how we would spend the day but finally landed upon “junking”.

One of the towns nearby has this really historic main street district where almost every building has been carved up into an “Antique Mall”.  For those not familiar with the concept, it is basically where someone renovates a huge old open floor plan, and carves it up into little booths that they then rent out to folks wanting to sell their wares.  Generally speaking they have an all too clever name like the image above,  that is some sort of pun on what they are selling.  The problem is when EVERYONE has a “clever” name it loses much of the desired effect and just becomes a painful cliché.  Mixed in among the dross and “upcycled” furnishings are some interesting relics from the past.  THIS is why I enjoy going junking, because you never know quite what you might find.

I mostly am interested in relics of my own past, namely interesting toys that I can remember and ones that I didn’t even know existed.  Sometimes you find some quirks of branding… for example yesterday I saw an Archie Bunker themed baby doll, and this awesome construction set by Kenner.  Mostly I snapped a photo of it because there is this really awesome twitter thread where they tweet various photos of kenner products.  We spent the entire day roaming around, and the odd thing is at the end of the day we had purchased exactly nothing. Mostly for us at least it is getting out and doing something rather than just sitting at home, and in that we accomplished our mission.

Nostalgic Americana

While roaming around yesterday I got the “hankering” for some traditional American south “comfort food”, and the best place for something like that is Tally’s Cafe.  It is one of those places that has always been there that I can remember and is somewhat of an icon for Tulsa food.  It is seated on Historic Route 66, and gets a lot of traffic from folks traveling the old highway.  What makes Tally’s so interesting to me is the fact that it is this strange nostalgic version of Americana that likely never existed other than in movies like American Graffiti.  The owner Talal Jalil Alame aka “Tally” came to the United States during the 1979 Civil War in Lebanon, and after some time purchased the current restaurant opening on a Friday 13th in 1987.  What makes the restaurant special is two fold.  The decor is this idealized version of the 1950 that could only exist in the mind of someone who grew up watching 1950s movies.  Lots of chrome, neon, and clean tiles give the appearance of this tribute to the mystique of Route 66.

The second aspect of the restaurant is the fact that the food is really good.  Yesterday I had the boneless fried chicken which is precisely what it sounds like.  These three huge pieces of fried chicken, deboned and served with two sides and a dinner roll.  Quite literally two plates of food, for like $8.  Tally could easily get away with charging far more than he does, but in truth he is more than a small part humanitarian.  Each year during Thanksgiving he fixes this massive meal, dinner with all the fixings.  Anyone can walk in off the street and have a meal, and you quite literally pay whatever you can afford.  Honestly when we were not sure what we were doing for thanksgiving, I had seriously considering trying this out and massively overpaying to support the cause.  In any case Tally’s definitely fit that comfort food desire and I ended up taking a good chunk of it home for pre-podcast leftovers.  All in all it was a pretty great day.