The Giant Beastcast: Episode 285

Glad I caught the preshow for this

That preshow has a story arc.

WE FUCKIN LOVE CHICKEN PARM

According to Google Maps, Jeff is right. Its about 6 hours from New York to Montreal

congrats to NJ

Narcotics make me suicidal (it's a hormone thing, I even have to avoid some medicine) so listening to this pod was pretty wild. Also, don't smoke ANYTHING, it can fuck up your lungs. Seriously.

Hell yeah finally some love for Half-Life Alyx.

Not everyone needs to teleport though, the Valve Index controllers have analog sticks which is a much better alternative to moving around in my opinion.

Definitely agree about the rollercoaster ride. Stuff like that makes it very clear it's Valve's first big VR game. I really hope it's not the last, I'd love more HL and I feel a new Portal could work great in VR.

Bakalar has the worst and the best luck.

I very much disagree with Alex on your first experiences with any substances. First time I tried weed was through my friend who had a pal that was a dealer. We went over to the dealers place, who was a nice guy by the way, and he rolled up a joint and we all smoked it. Thing is - since that guy was a dealer that often got high on his own supply he was mostly dealing with like purple haze or kush or whatever more exotic strains there were because the regular stuff wasn't doing it for him. So for me taking a big hit for the first time ever from some weird exotic strain is like telling a person that never drank alcohol before to down half a glass of 15 year old whiskey. For the next 3 hours or so I had the feeling of not being able to breath properly to the point where I started getting slight tunnel vision. I tried weed like 2 more times after that and had similarly bad experience, probably because the first time was so bad that I was already negatively psyching myself up for the worst.

Kind of a shame because weed always seemed like a fun recreational thing.

My wife is OBSESSED with the Dark Pictures series and Until Dawn. She platinumed Until Dawn and basically both Dark Pictures games as she just hasn't found anyone to play online with her.

so excited that it's only 4 days til the game of the year 2020 comes out :]

Abby, wrap your oculus touch batteries with rubber bands. They won’t move around anymore. I have to do this with my quest batteries as swinging them too hard will cause the controller to disconnect. It’s a common problem.

I don't know if a 3080 will work in my 10 year old PC though, Jeff.

I need to see this mic arm gif lol

I'm sad that the only person that could speak well about Half-Life: Alyx during game-of-the-year discussions will be leaving the site. :(

so funny to hear the exact same thing as each person gets their VR hardware. then 2 weeks later that person is like "never touched it again."

As someone who lives in MA where weed was legalized a while ago, a LOT of people do actually check it out that never would when it was illegal, especially older people. I see a lot of 40 plus people at the weed store and I've heard from some older people I know similar things. But it isn't just them, its more people than you would think in general. Just check out the sales numbers. Its earning huge tax revenues for states.

I'll elaborate more, but in short your dealer based weed experience is well, only as good as your dealer, and there are a LOT of bad dealers out there.

The store experience is great too (at least, at a good store). I personally love knowing exactly what I get, usually for me honestly knowing that I am getting something strong and my money worth, since it is, for me, quite a bit pricier than I was certainly paying previously. In the end I am getting a really good product though and better than before that lasts me longer so I really can't complain unless they don't have something strong in stock lol.

Its also great to get things like edibles or vape carts tested. While yeah things are cleaner than they used to be, vape carts and edibles and stuff really use terrible weed with pesticides and things like that still. If you go to a good dispensary, you should be getting tested stuff that is sourced well. I could get edibles from my dealer before but after you try some higher quality stuff it can leave you wondering exactly what was going on before lol. And I'm not talking about I was buying stuff that was in unmarked bag that looked home made from my dealer, it was professional enough looking stuff but it was often weak to my experience or uneven. I know people who work in a good quality dispensary lab who told me about a lot of this stuff from their experience. Its also a great job creator and at least in MA, even the entry positions get at least 15 an hour.

So there's a lot of really good things about it. This is from someone who has many years of non going to the store buying experience and only recently finally went to the store regularly, actually as a result of my non legal sources drying up a bit into COVID.

I think for people who deal with weed very strongly, its great to have small dose options in edibles so they can try it. I sympathize with that but it has never been me lol. But my best friend is like that and enjoys weed sometimes but often has dosing issues, but the 5 mg edibles he loves.

And also high quality CBD is something that is legit too. I've used amazing lotion that was fantastic for pain relief locally. Best thing I've tried for pain besides morphine easily (dont worry I was at the hospital lol). I think that's another case where some people try some awful shitty CBD product and don't see the full effect.

ICYMI

I wonder if @ybbaaabby is going to try the new House Flipper VR game. Seems like something she would have jumped on already

(I don’t watch the vid cast, so let me know if this was sarcastic! But,) Just wanted to say that Alex is a sweet summer child if he believes that soaplands are a place where “beautiful women bathe men.” I... am an East Asian Studies major and have been living here in Tokyo almost 10 years. Let’s just say bathing is maybe 1/10th of it?

The discussion that start around the on hours make is likely "questionable" so I will keep this vague and mild. Massachusetts has, what I think are, sane laws which were all rolled up under one Mass General Law as The 2017 Act.

It took my local area a number of years to get a proper dispensary though. But, we now have one just down the street. Not shocking by my estimation, we don't see anything in the local paper about any activities having to do with MJ or the dispensary. Our courts are still just drunken DUI arrests and deomestic disturbances all done mostly by middle-aged idiots drinking booze. No cannabis arrests, no people walking around stoned, and no fuss.

Good luck New Jersey, I hope your laws are sensible.

@permanentsigh: LOL Thanks for posting this.

I had a rough day at work last week and bought a pie on the way home because I'm an adult and I can do that!

I have no interest in ever partaking in drugs, but I would 100% be the person who never tried weed until it was legal. I'm a wimp who generally doesn't like to break laws.