John Patrick Coan Loves The Witcher!
JPC (Hey Riddle Riddle, Billbuds) is here to prove that the Witcher games, books, and TV show are more interesting than the movie musical Grease. Here’s a tip for you… toss a coin to your Witcher.
Find Us Online
- website: tmaipod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/TMAIpod
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Cast & Crew
- Hosts: Adal Rifai & Eric Silver
- Producer: Eric Silver
- Editor: Mischa Stanton
- Created by: Eric Silver & Mischa Stanton
- Theme Song: Arne Parrott
- Artwork: Shae McMullin
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Tell Me About It is a madcap game show about proving that the things you like are actually interesting and cool. Adal Rifai is an eccentric billionaire who forces someone new every episode to share, argue, and defend the thing they love the most. He’s wrangled his audio butler Eric to lead the contestant through a series of absurd challenges and games, all to gain points and get on the Most Interesting Thing High Score Board. Tell Me About It: the most fun podcast run by a multibillionaire. New episodes every other Thursday.
Transcript
ADAL: It's Tell Me About It. Welcome to Tell Me About It. A game show about proving the things you love are actually interesting and fun. I am Adal Rifai, local eccentric multibillionaire and the owner of John Travolta's, jacket, pants, and teeth from the movie Grease. Though I'm not doing this by myself, please welcome my butler and a real-life example of an NPC, Eric Silver.
ERIC: I'm so happy to be here. I'm definitely not here because I'm encoded into the video game that is This recording. It's very nice to be here. Adal Rifai, you're doing a great job.
ADAL: Thank you so much, I really appreciate that. How are things at home? Do you need a raise?
ERIC: I would love a raise. You also told me that this was some sort of like knights and squires situation when you would teach me nobility and like how to fight dragons and such but that hasn't happened.
ADAL: I said that?
ERIC: You did say that.
ADAL: Knights and Squire. And a squire is a— circle gets a squire?
ERIC: Yes.
ADAL: Hollywood Squires?
ERIC: You told me I—
ADAL: Okay.
ERIC: —you told me you'd show me your Poland impression.
ADAL: Circle gets the square.
ERIC: Our ally got it, so I don't need the raise.
ADAL: I busted out once a year. Unless I'm watching American Dad and then I can't help myself because that little alien sounds just like him.
ERIC: True.
ADAL: Eric, don't ever do that to be a good. Let's go—we'll go ahead and introduce our guest today. Very special guests. Speaking of NPCs, this is a JPC plucked from the streets of Indianapolis while he was running towards Chicago. We caught him on the fly. Mr. JPC, welcome to the show.
JOHN: Hey, it's uh, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.
ADAL: And JPC today, you'll be talking about the Witcher am I correct in that?
JOHN: I mean sure, man. I'm just here dude, I'll talk about whatever. You want to talk The Witcher, we can talk The Witcher. I don't know.
ADAL: We prefer— we homing on a subject. Homing? Honing? Home in?
JOHN: So I mean now who's off on a tangent? Okay, I'm not—no, I'm not the guy introducing other— other stuff to the— to the subject matter of the day.
ADAL: Fair enough.
JOHN: I'd love to—hey, I'd love to talk about The Witcher.
ADAL: Okay, and what is your experience with The Witcher? Have you played all the games? Have you read all the books? Have you seen all the shows?
JOHN: No. Yes, and then kind of like a question mark. Because I know that they introduced some like expanded Universe Witcher shows and I'm not sure if I've seen all of those on Netflix. There's a couple of animated things. I don't really do animated very much. So I know I haven't seen— I haven't seen that fair. But otherwise, asked an answer counselor.
ADAL: No further questions. Eric, why don't you go ahead and introduce round one for JPC?
JOHN: That—well, hold on. That's the extent of the small talk?
ADAL: Well, I wanted to have more small talk, but then I was like, I don't want to give— I don't want to give you answers about The Witcher that you might be asked.
ERIC: Uh, JPC you can tell us the various other things that you wanted to talk about? Any of— any of the things you have experienced in?
JOHN: Oh, man, I mean, there's— in a show about interests, I have upwards of three. Upwards of three interests. It's The Witcher—
ERIC: Okay.
JOHN: —which God I know a ton about.
ADAL: We'll see.
JOHN: We'll see, we'll see. It is the probably the collective works of Nicolas Cage, one of America if not the world's finest actors.
ADAL: And can anyone just stroll into a Barnes and Noble and buy one of those nice bounded leather versions of the collected works of Nicolas Cage?
JOHN: Yeah, I think so.
ADAL: Okay.
JOHN: I mean If you can find a Brick and Mortar anymore in this economy.
ADAL: No, I think that's on— that's on Adult Swim on Sundays, I think.
JOHN: I love Brick and Mortar. I have a couple of friends that write for it. What else, what else um—
ADAL: Go— the third point of your Trident?
JOHN: I—it's probably something around budgeting. I'm probably—that's like I have one for interest, one for love, one for money, that's how I do it. That's not bad man, we knocked that small talk out. I like that.
ADAL: Not bad at all.
ERIC: I'm now envisioning a Disney movie, The Little Mermaid we're Trident comes out, and he has a trident of those three things, and Ariel's just like, “Dad, that sucks.” I just wanna see that happen.
JOHN: Uh, it does, it does.
ADAL: And JPC you're kind of a from what I hear on my note cards here. My note cards are electronic so they do have audio. Seems like you're a bit of a Poseidon of the comedy world in terms of you're able to order water around.
JOHN: Yeah, I think you're you're referencing the time that I did a spit take—wait, what? No, I dumped— I spilled some water on you. What Did I Do, an improv show? I definitely dumped a cup of water on you.
ADAL: You well, famously when my salad days you—and when I was living in jeans and sweatpants.
JOHN: This is true. This is a —this is a similar guy.
ADAL: I didn't—I didn't want to get into this. But yes from a former life you did, famously in a World News Tonight Show. Grab a cup of water off someone's table in the front and proceed to toss it on me.
JOHN: I guess it does make me the Poseidon of comedy.
ADAL: And then I grabbed someone else's cup of water and I went to throw it on you, and our mutual friend Aaron Keefe stood in front of me and said, what are you doing, stop. And I said, what are you doing, I just got water dumped on me. And Aaron said you can't do this. And I said, well, an eye for an eye.
JOHN: I sure like it.
ERIC: I am talking to your flax of lawyers, and they do want you to be clear that this was a legally distinct Adal Rifai, not this current Adal Rifai that you dunked water on and everyone laughed.
JOHN: Hey, if I get confused, it's gonna happen.
ERIC: Just imagine that this Adal Rifai has like Xs and stars around it.
JOHN: Sure.
ERIC: Lke an am screenname.
JOHN: Oh, of course. Now, I do really want to get into this, because I really want to win that car.
ADAL: Well, you already took your hand off of it, so the car is off the table. But you could win up to I don't know if I get 100 points or something.
ERIC: What? It's a decent amount of points.
ADAL: Decent amount of points.
ERIC: [6:06]
JOHN: That's not bad.
ADAL: And actually JPC, since you were so kind to stop and really discuss your interests up top. Eric, can we get him point—three points and put a VIG on that. So every year, there's some compounded interest on those points—three points?
ERIC: Absolutely, the juice is running.
ADAL: JPC, even if you say get— I don't know, third place all time.
JOHN: Okay.
ADAL: Over the years, you're eventually going to be first, because the juices is going.
JOHN: That's an investment. Yeah. And I'm planning on living at least three or four more. So I think we can really— we can really Max up this investment.
ADAL: Perfect. Three or four more episodes?
JOHN: Three or four more jokes.
ADAL: I'm dying to hear which one will kill you.
JOHN: I live— I live my life a corny joke at a time. I'm like the comedian version of Fast and Furious.
ERIC: And my car takes diesel.
ADAL: Well, no Vin Diesel took your car.
ERIC: That's true. Yeah. You told him it was his birthday, and he can have whatever he wanted, and he took my car.
ADAL: Well, famously, any movie star take you out of your car, And toss you on the street to commandeer your car, If they're shooting a movie.
JOHN: If they're starting a movie, they didn't even get to set.
ERIC: Alright, here's round one. Round One is called Just Tell Me About It. I have 10 foundational points written down about The Witcher here. We would love it if you could tell us a little bit about your topic over the next five minutes.
JOHN: 10 points, the fuck kind of Trident is this. It's a fucked up. I keep trying to try to visualize that, impossible.
ERIC: You get points for every single bullet that you address. But you also need to make sure they sound interesting and cool.
JOHN: Got it.
ERIC: So I'm going to start the timer with five minutes. Well, JPC tell us about The Witcher.
JOHN: Well then where to begin? I mean, The Witcher when I got into it, I got into it via the video game, The Witcher 3. But the lore is pretty much it's there's—it's deeper—it's deeper than just the video game. Um, because obviously, that was the third in the series. The first two of those video games I tried playing and they are unplayable. They—they really did not have a good idea of how to make a video game. And then shockingly, they knocked it out of the park with a third. It features a main character who is a, I would say like a former abducted poisoned child, who grows up to hunt monsters. I mean, he's— he's big, he's beefy, the poisons take care of his emotions, so he doesn't have those. He cannot sire children. He has white hair and two swords. So that's pretty cool. But he also has, you know, it's a found family story. So he's got a little adoptive daughter. The video game and my good buddy Clayton merged and led me into the books, and the books are just fantastic Pulp Fiction. Because they are written by a Polish man in Polish, and then translated into English. So most fantasy that you read, you read it and say, well, this is a— there's some problems with this. But this fantasy, you read it and you say, well, there's some problems with this, but it's also not in the language that it was written it, so that can be some of the problems. So that you know, that's great. There's like, you know, seven or eight or nine of those.
ERIC: Hey, I just have like a personal thing. When you say someone got poisoned by witches, can you elaborate?
JOHN: He was not poisoned by the—the only thing I love about The Witcher is it has nothing to do with witches. The name The Witcher has literally nothing to do, it's just a name. A lot of people get confused with like, he's a witch and it's like, no, he knows some magic signs, but he is definitely not. And he that— in fact, he does not get along with many of the magicians that he encounters. And I don't know—I think in the entire lore of The Witcher, they don't call anyone else witches. Maybe there's like Crohn's and like things like that. But I don't think witches is like a term that is widely used in that series of books.
ERIC: So only The Witcher is a wi— is witch related, but there are no other witches because there used a magician.
JOHN: Yeah, there's like sorcerers and there are a lot of sorcerers. But I just don't think that the term which gets thrown around much.
ADAL: To me having never played the games, having only seen part of the Netflix series, I assumed it was almost like a toast—toaster situation where—
JOHN: Yeah.
ADAL: — you put a witch in a witcher, or a witcher could make a witch?
JOHN: A Witcher is a Monster Hunter, but again and like, is there a better name, I don't know. The Witcher is a pretty cool-sounding name. It just doesn't necessarily have to do anything with being a witch. And he wasn't poisoned by a witch. He was poisoned by other wither. So the way that witcher got more witchers, is they would go around and they would collect a bunch of children. And these were children that nobody wanted, or that they won fair and square. The witchers have a thing called the law of surprise, which means if the witcher does like you know, defeat a monster for you, which is their job, and you don't have anything to pay. They can say, I'll take the law of surprise, which is something that you don't know that you have when you return home. And then some people would return home be like, my damn wife had a kid. Oh man, well, Witcher you could have this baby. And then the Witcher would take the baby to his castle, and he poisoned all the babies, and most of them would die. Because it is poison that they give them.
ADAL: So far this is one to one the plot to Rocky Horror Picture Show.
JOHN: But if the—if the children survived, they would be so fucked up and poisoned that they would get to become witchers.
ADAL: Very good.
JOHN: Yeah. So I don't know, how many points did I hit of the foundational tip? I think I just talked for a while.
ERIC: You're doing pretty good. You still have a minute left. Execute— tell me more about the law of surprise, which sounds like the take the mystery box of this fantastical land.
JOHN: It really is the mystery box. It seems in most instances, it is a way for witchers to get children. That is— in the lore of The Witcher, that is how they get the children it seems. But it's also like, it's a way for them to kind of nobly, like kill a monster for someone who does not have the money to pay. They can always invoke that law of surprise, and everybody knows. Okay, law of surprise, it's you know, once we get Destiny involved, it has to be honored.
ERIC: Okay.
JOHN: The law of surprise, all it states, is that it has to be something that you own, but you don't know that you own. So that's why it's like easily like a baby because it's like, whoa, I didn't even know you're pregnant, but you're pregnant and you get the baby. But it also could just be like you get home and your wife's like, hey look what we got in the mail. Your cousin Ned sent us a herring, and then the Witcher gets a herring to eat. You know, it's like it could be fucking anything, it just something that you don't know about.
ADAL: A tapeworm?
JOHN: Hey, man, it could be a tapeworm. And The Witcher is a Monster Hunter, so he would crawl up in your ass and fight that tapeworm.
ERIC: Oh, the wi— it's the Witcher's own thing that he does not know he owns.
JOHN: No, no, no, no, it's the person he killed the monster for. So look, I'm the Witcher I roll into a town and the townsmen are like hey, there's a Kikimora and the swamp and it's going fucking crazy. It's killing the horses, it's abducting people. You got to kill this Kikimora. And the Witcher goes, “Kikimora was like 500 gold or some silver or something to kill that. And they said, “Well, we don't have that, we're on the poor town.” And he goes well, you could do the law of surprise. And the mayor of the town says well okay, we'll do the law of surprise. Witcher goes to the swamp, he kills that Kikimora, he comes back he goes, now I want you know the thing that you didn't know you had. And then somebody pulls up the well water and they say, the well there's a dragon egg on the well. Then a witcher gets the dragon egg. So it's— it's the witcher's way to get payment, when there is no payment.
ERIC: Got it. Mr. Rifai, I like to be paid in the law of surprise from now on.
ADAL: Yes, of course. You never know what you're gonna get.
JOHN: Eric I will say, it usually does not work out well for the witcher. I don't— I do not know why they keep doing it.
ERIC: It's better than the night lessons I'm supposed to be taught. I don't know anything about helping out maidens or fighting monsters.
JOHN: Well, yeah, the great thing about the Witcher is, when they are little boys and they ge—and it's only boys by the way. But when they're little boys, and I know what you're thinking this is sexism. Hold on. Now, yes, it is. But I feel like it might be sexism in the best possible way.
ERIC: But it's translated from Polish, so it's fine.
JOHN: Yes. It's like, should women be judges? Absolutely. Should women be poisoned so that they can hunt monsters for money? No, nobody should. So it's okay that it's just boys. It shouldn't be no one. but it is just boys. But since the poisonous makes them all sterile, the only way to make more witchers is to do the little boy poisoning dance.
ADAL: Boysining, if you will. Boysining. Sorry, will you?
JOHN: Oh no, I will not be boysining.
ADAL: Minus 1 point for JPC.
JOHN: I guess if I did have a child, I would consider having to become a Witcher. It does sound like a fun existence.
ERIC: And time. Went over time for my questions.
JOHN: Okay.
ERIC: [13:57] of surprises, but this is great.
JOHN: Great. I'm reall—yeah, I think I did pretty well there. I think for people—for the uninitiated, I think I give a pretty good rundown of what the Witcher is all about.
ERIC: This is pretty great. You hit on a lot of the points of this was written by a Polish writer series of games. I did point out that the Witcher 3 is much better than the other two video games, so you nailed that. You did miss three things that were really important. The place is called the Continent. The guy's name is Geralt, and it's played by Henry Cavill.
JOHN: I mean, I gotta give you points off because it is Geralt, it is not Geralt. That's an insane, it's an insane reading of the man's name.
ADAL: 10 points of JPC.
ERIC: That's a good point. I'll give you 10 points, but you did not say it.
JOHN: I do, I do.
ERIC: So I would not know how to pronounce it other than from you hearing it.
JOHN: Well, I mean I—here. Now the thing is, I'm talking about the Witcher. And Geralt is a witcher, but you know in my mind, he's not the Witcher that The Witcher is talking about.
ADAL: Oooh.
JOHN: The witcher that the series is talking about in my opinion, is Cirilla which is Geralt found family daughter.
ERIC: So she can be a witcher, even though you just did the whole thing about how it's not sexism?
JOHN: It— unfortunately as with all systems of sexism and repression, they are meant to be toppled. And Ciri is the piece that topples that regime.
ERIC: Alright, well, you did hit six of the foundational 10 points. I will give you 6.
JOHN: Okay, 6. 6 is good, I'll take 6. 60%, man. C’s get degrees, that's what I'm saying. And yes, that is technically a D. And by technically a D, I mean, it is absolutely an F, but C's get degrees.
ADAL: Eric, take those 6 points, please add 10 on to it. Because if we're ever going to correct a guest, we can't correct them incorrectly. So JPC does get an extra 10 for that, minus a 1 for him not willing when I said boysining. In terms of the bonus points, let's kind of start from the end and work backwards. JPC, at the very end I did like that you thought to slow down and genuflect in terms of like, would you allow your kid to become a witcher, so I'm going to give you 2 points for being sincere and taking a moment to be thoughtful.
JOHN: Thank you.
ADAL: The other bonus points I want to give you are you said The Witcher maybe not the best term for this creature in the game or this person.
JOHN: Yeah.
ADAL: Can you come up with three better titles or names, versus the Witcher?
JOHN: Sure. I mean right off the dome, we're gonna call him the monsterer. I know Monster already ends in ER, but it is technically a more descriptive way of what he is. Second one will go with old two swords Joe. Because I think all the witchers that carry two swords, one for monsters and one for people.
ADAL: Oh, I thought it was like one for veg, one for fish.
ERIC: And now that's the kosher, totally different thing.
ADAL: The kosher, yes, of course.
JOHN: Yeah. Okay, and then a third one, let's see. Well, I mean, if we just want to go straight up of Geralt or Geralt as he likes to be called, we just call him the White Wolf. Because I think that's a pretty cool nickname, and that's the name that he goes by.
ERIC: That was one of my foundational points, I'm bumping you up to 7.
JOHN: Wow. Okay.
ADAL: And just a few more bonus points to toss out there. Let's go ahead and give JPC another 5 bonus points for saying, hey, I know what you're thinking, this is sexist. Yes, it is. That inspired me to ask a question and then answer it. And then I want to give 1 more bonus point. If you answer me this. Kiki Maura, that sounds like a Disney Channel summer camp, yes or No?
JOHN: Ohh, yes, it does.
ADAL: Perfect. Toss in that bonus point. Eric, where is JPC stand?
ERIC: Wonderful. After that series of bonus points, we are at 24.333 repeating points.
JOHN: Okay.
ERIC: Which but, that will increase over time because of, you know, math and [17:18]
JOHN: Yeah, the vague and the juice.
ADAL: I don't think this has ever happened before. But since you ended round one with 24 points JPC. I am willing to unlock an additional 10 bonus points if you can tell me within the next 15 to 20 seconds.
JOHN: Okay.
ADAL: What is the worst episode of 24? I don't need the title, I just need a vague description.
ERIC: The timer starts now.
JOHN: Okay, so as we all know, 24 it takes place in one-hour chunks, it would be impossible if we didn't see Kiefer Sutherland take a big shit at least once in that 24 hours. I think it's Episode 7 Season 1, he takes a 20-minute shit and it's— they cut out the clock the whole time.
ADAL: I don't— I don't remember seeing that. Personally, to me, the worst episode of 24 is when his daughter fights a mountain lion.
ERIC: Oh god, that one's good.
ADAL: Yeah, but let's go ahead. 2 bonus points for correctly pointing out that we absolutely should have seen Jack Bauer taking his shit. We were robbed.
JOHN: I can't believe we didn't— I can't believe we didn't. He never once said like, I gotta go to the bathroom real bad. He had 24 hours.
ADAL: Or like sit down to eat a full sandwich.
JOHN: No, it’s fake. By the way, if you're holding it in that long, it's bad for you. You should be shitting at least once a day.
ADAL: Well, he's dealing with terrorists and nuclear threats. He doesn't have time to think about—
JOHN: People deal with everything, people have lives. You just make—make the time.
ADAL: #makethetime. Eric, let's move on to round two. Go ahead and tell us about it.
ERIC: Round two is called the perfect thing. What is a perfect encapsulation of The Witcher? If someone asked you, well, what's an example for why you love this thing so much? What would you say?
JOHN: What I would say especially if I'm talking about the books, because I think that the books are underrated. People sleep on the books just because they're Polish translations and they're not great, but they're good. But I think people give Game of Thrones or the Song of Ice and Fire books, a lot of love. I think they had like a big cultural moment. And I think people really liked Arya Stark. You know, Arya Stark goes on her little like, you know, she's a little girl, but she has to deal with adult situations, have her little murder quest. I think Ciri's story in The Witcher storyline, which is what is I believe being explored in the television show, the books, so much more interesting than Arya's story. Now granted, I only read the books and didn't watch the Game of Thrones show, so I only have up to you know, the fifth book of Arya story. Maybe there's more to it that becomes interesting. But Ciris's stories actually completed because all of those books are written. And it is a fantastic journey. I mean, she gets up to all kinds of shit. The show, which we haven't talked about, they kind of follow the books, but they put it into a narrative that is like more appropriate for a television show. And we haven't gotten to any of this in the show yet. But in the books, after a lot of you kno— a lot of shit goes down with Ciri and Geralt. But Ciri kind of runs away, and she joins this group of like homeless children who are called the rats. And then I mean the rats have a tough time of it. Because they are homeless children who have to like fight and kill people and like exist in the adult world. And Ciri gets like tracked down by this bounty hunter. And this is I think something that expands multiple books. But this is like an adult man bounty hunter who is like a trained killer. And Ciri, she has been trained by the Witcher, so she has some talent. But she has to kill this bounty hunter, in like one on one combat. But then she like lets him live at the end which is very cool because she's like, you know, you—I'm not going to kill this man without a sword like you're defenseless. I've bested you. I've beaten you to the point where like I've, you know claimed this over you. And then he tries to stab her in the back and she fucking kills that dude. She fucking ISIS him.
ADAL: She tried to have morals.
JOHN: And it's—it's a very rewarding storyline. Was an absolutely insane ending. Because she— you know, she becomes magic and she can start jumping through planes and stuff like that and you know, it goes pretty off the rails but her power. But I think Ciris's storyline is very compelling and is a— is worth reading the books for.
ADAL: Oh, that was quite a journey. And speaking of journey. bonus points for you JPC, a 1 point, or maybe two or three times, you mentioned Ciris journey. Now for up to 10 bonus, points for every—
JOHN: Okay.
ADAL: —single Journey song, that you can name?
JOHN: Okay. More than a Feeling by Boston.
ADAL: I'll allow it because it is a journey.
JOHN: That's songs a journey.
ADAL: If you heard it and didn't know Boston, you'd be like that's a dirty slug.
ERIC: That sounds fucking incredible.
JOHN: Let's see. What is it uh, 500 miles by The Rembrandts?
ADAL: No point.
JOHN: Damn it. I think the only journey song that anyone knows is More than a Feeling by Boston, right?
ERIC: Yeah that's the one, you nailed it.
JOHN: That's the—that's the big one that people are like so sick of them playing.
ADAL: Perfect. So JPC gets 1—
JOHN: Jukebox Hero, huh? That got to be one of them, right?
ADAL: Well give it to you.
ERIC: Alright, that's 2 bonus points for naming two journey songs.
JOHN: Nice.
ERIC: So I'll add up 10. Adal Rifai, how do you think JPC described the perfect thing?
ADAL: I think out of 10, I'm gonna give a 9 unless you can recall the name of the bounty hunter.
JOHN: He didn't have a fucking cool name. Man, It was— it was a boring name. I don't recall.
ADAL: So if you can't recall one bounty hunter, I will still give you full 10, if you can name two of the rats who weren't Ciri's. Ciri?
JOHN: Ciri, Princess Cirilla. What were the rats—oh my god. I don't—I— by the way, I haven't read these books at like 10 years.
ADAL: Okay.
JOHN: So it's—I'm doing my best with the recollection.
ADAL: So if you can't name one bounty hunter or two of the rats, I will give you all 10 points if you can name for me three Journey songs.
JOHN: And do I get to keep Jukebox Hero and More than a Feeling [22:26]
ADAL: Of course, I'm not insane.
JOHN: Let's see. One more journey song. I mean this should be easy to do journey. It's one of America's biggest bands. Oh, Born to Run?
ADAL: Yep, that's it.
JOHN: That's got to be one of them.
ERIC: There you go, all 10 points.
JOHN: I'm trying to think if I could name three other witchers. We've got— I like to call him Papa Witcher. This is basically the one that raised Geralt of Rivia. This is Vesemir, we've got Vesemir. They— oh, there's a witcher named Coen which—
ADAL: Ohh.
JOHN: Why would I not know that one, right? He's kind of a dick, nobody likes Coen. Or maybe that's Lambert. And then Lambert. Okay, so I got 3 witchers. I know three witchers. Woo!
ADAL: Well give an additional 3 points for all three witchers.
ERIC: Absolutely.
JOHN: Okay.
ERIC: Which of them was in Boston?
JOHN: Oh god. [sings] I see my Marianne walkin' away. I don't— I can't recall who sang that one.
ADAL: That was a wicked witcher.
JOHN: Yeah.
ERIC: So in total after all those bonus points, JPC, you're currently at 41.333 repeating points.
JOHN: Okay, I'm doing pretty good. This is better than I thought I'd be doing at this point.
ADAL: And JPC, just because I'm liking your energy and it seems like we— in another life would have been friends if you hadn't dumped water on me during a live show.
JOHN: Sure.
ADAL: I'll give you an additional— Eric who has a high score right now?
ERIC: Well currently to look at the big high scoreboard, we have 10 points for piss, 15 points for ass, 20 points for ass, it's kinda fill those in [23:44]
ADAL: Of course, of course.
ERIC: Matt Young had 72 points, and Janet Varney has 73.66 repeating points. Though Adal did give her 21 extra points because he felt bad that she was coming in second behind Matt Young.
JOHN: Okay, that makes sense.
[theme]
ERIC: Hey, it's Eric and welcome to the butler's pantry, where I hide out and no one can tell me anything to do and I can talk to you directly about the podcast. It's housekeeping, and not only because I'm doing this next to a broom. The best way for a show to grow is with word of mouth. So please keep telling people about Tell Me About It. If you love the weirdness, the jokes the high energy, the Adal Rifai, the me, whatever, tell someone about it. Say there's a podcast that's a combination between a fun combo about your favorite things and hunting men for sport, and I think you'd really like it. Say that verbatim, I think it will work. I also want you to know that we have a Patreon, at patreon.com/tmaipod, where you can be a junior audio butler and get your own little broom hung up here in the pantry. Shout out to our first patron Matthew, your little broom is wonderful. That is patreon.com/tmaipod. And now back to the show.
[theme]
ADAL: JPC, just because I—again, I like your energy and I like you being here. I do want to give you an opportunity. This is a secret little bonus round that you've uncovered.
JOHN: Ohh.
ADAL: An additional 5 bonus points if you can do an impression of what Nicolas Cage would have sounded like if he were to play the Witcher.
JOHN: Okay, this would be Nicolas Cage as the Witcher.
ADAL: Please.
JOHN: [imitates Nicolas Cage] Huh? A kikimora? A kikimora? In the swamp? Fetch my silver blade. I'll kill the kikimora in the swamp.
ADAL: Perfect, all 5 points.
ERIC: And I think he would have been good because he traveled with his own wig. So they would not have needed to use the wig budget at all.
ADAL: I was gonna say, I hope so, otherwise, why have a wig?
JOHN: I haven't talked really about the Witcher TV show. It's fine. You know, whatever. I did watch it. I watched all of it and it is fine. But when they were originally before that had been cast or anything, people online they were talking about who would be— who's gonna be the Witcher, who's gonna be the Witcher. And he's— he was too old, I think to play the Witcher, but I think he would have been perfect if they had gotten you know a little bit younger. Mads Mikkelsen. I think Mads Mikkelsen would have been a fantastic Witcher.
ADAL: He'd make almost a good anything.
JOHN: Yeah, I mean for sure. Like he's a— he make a great anything. I think that there was an opportunity, it was probably out of their price range that they could have gotten him to play Vesemir, like the older Witcher. I think that that would have been a very cool call. But alas, we did not get to see the Mads Mikkelsen, Witcher.
ADAL: Hopefully one day. I'd love also to see him as Batman, just like a co— like a cooler older Batman.
JOHN: Or like he plays Alfred, but he's— like in a Batman universe where Bruce Wayne is not that bad. Alfred is that bad.
ADAL: Marvel if you're listening.
JOHN: I—I love the idea of Marvel scooping DC and being like, hey, DC sorry, you didn't Have the licensing to make Alfred be Batman. That's Marvel now, that like well, I pretty sure we'd like— no, god dammit, looks at the contracts, we don't have it.
ADAL: Sorry, JPC you misunderstood. I was talking about my good dear friend from war, Captain Marvel, who of course is a DC character.
JOHN: Yes, absolutely.
ADAL: Who I think had to change his name to Shazam, due to the witness protection program.
JOHN: Well, now.
ADAL: Let's move on to round three before we examine what I said too closely.
ERIC: Round three is the question-answer period. Sir, Mr. Adal Rifai, DDS Esquire has some follow-up question for you. And they will be those gacha questions that Barbara Walters has made her entire career on. Please answer as many as you are able.
JOHN: Okay, good luck making me cry.
ADAL: Okay JPC. Number one, who did you romance, Yennefer or Triss and why wasn't it your wife?
JOHN: This is— this is— this is a trick question. Because when I play these games, I always let my wife pick who she thinks that you should romance. And I will say I tried to get my wife to read these books because I had them all downloaded on my Kindle account, and my wife stopped reading them because there was not enough romance. Granted, the first two books are very much like just kind of like, Monster of the Week like episodic, like Gerald adventures, but she put them down pretty quick because they were not romance options. I believe my wife chose Yennefer though, but I think she likes Triss better on the show.
ADAL: And little-known tidbit about the TV show Friends. There was an actress named Yennefer Yaniston, who did not receive the role, but she did have a wonderful haircut called the Yachelle. Didn't catch on.
JOHN: If that's true, that's fucked up. If that's true.
ADAL: You just have to trust. Question number two, do you think Henry Cavill is really that big of a nerd? Or is he just playing it up after being Superman and Geralt? If he is lying? Is this like an accent coach, but for nerdy stuff?
JOHN: No—well, I think it's a good p— I think he's got good PR people. I think Henry Cavill was dating a teenager when he was playing Superman, and people started to write stories about that. And then he was like, hey, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Pivot in there like, you know what people don't mind, is they don't mind people who like Tinker it out with computers. And so they—they made him take his shirt off and take some pictures like screwing in a computer. And then now nobody wants to talk about the fact that when he was fully a 30-year-old man playing Superman in the movies, he was just dating a straight-up teenager.
ERIC: Can we just bring back JPC saying that it's feminist we all graded it before [29:17] Just to give ourselves legally. One of the lawyers told me to say it.
JOHN: Yeah, that's true.
ADAL: Here we go, third and final question. Videogame companies are built on crunch or people working wild hours for weeks at a time. CD Projekt RED, the company that made the Witcher games reportedly crunched extensively on the Witcher Three. During the production of similarly sprawling open-world RPG Cyberpunk 2077, the company promised it wouldn't make anyone work mandatory overtime. Then it's September 2020, CDPR, reneged and ordered mandatory six-day work weeks up through Cyberpunk 2077 release. After announcing Witcher 4 in March, how do you feel on grinding game developers into dust so you can play as your good friend, Geralt?
JOHN:
Who gives a shit. Let all these fucking people die. I want Grand Theft Auto 7. I want Grand Theft Auto 8. I want Grand Theft Auto 9. I don't care— Rockstar could take a man and shoot him in the head in front of me and I'd say, I didn't know that guy. I don't fucking care about that guy. I will stand behind them. I was sitting behind Blizzard. Blizzard, you do as much sexual harassment as you want. You have carte blanche on that, okay? All these game companies are good. They're the only good industries. They're all morally good, and they're all the same. The only thing I have a bone to pick with, it is the small developers, okay? Any of these one-man operations who aren't exploiting all of their workers just to turn out a fucking game, or any of these— these little developers that take 15 years to put out a game because they wanna be ethical about it, go suck a pound a fucking sand. You guys are all fucking losers and you get make games for shit. And when they come out, you only charge $15. You charged me $85 for the gold package of the game and you strangle your employees. That's what I crave. Anyway, I'm not looking forward to that game. It's probably gonna suck, It’s probably gonna Cyberpunk sucked ass the Witcher is full of fucking bugs. Witcher 3 is full of fucking bugs. It's been 15 years, they haven't fixed all the fucking bugs.
ERIC: Yeah, just give me more Hearthstone Cards, please. I'm 100% [31:10]
JOHN: That's all I want, come on.
ADAL: JPC for that round three, I'm going to go ahead and give you out of 10 possible points. I'm gonna go ahead and give you 5 points.
JOHN: Okay.
ADAL: Because I loved your passion. But at times you got too passionate. And at one point, you looked at me dead in the eyes and said go suck a pound of sand, I think?
ERIC: Yeah, that was correct.
JOHN: Yeah that—that was aimed at Eric. I apologize that was aimed directly at Adal. I don't —I don't want to catch you with the sack and sandblast. But it blasts pretty wide.
ERIC: No. That's fine. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in seven days.
JOHN: Look, I don't know if it's part of the game or it's part of a future run. But I would like to say since you brought up CD Projekt RED, who was the game company that made all the Witcher games. One of my favorite things about this is in 2008, CD Projekt RED went to, I think seems like Andrew something the Polish man who wrote all of these Witcher books.
ERIC: Oh, Andrzej Sapkowski.
JOHN: Andrzej Sapkowski.
ERIC: I'm not sure how to pronounce that, because again, it hasn't been translated from Polish to English, so I can't read it.
JOHN: There's a bunch of Js in there, who knows? They went to him and they said, hey, we—we see these Witcher books and we would like to work a partnership deal with you. so that we can make some video games based off that. And what we'd like to do is we like to a profit sharing. So we'll give you a percentage of the profit from these Witcher games for your intellectual property. And what Andrew or Andrez whatever his name is, what he did was he said, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want no potential profit sharing bullshit. You give me $40 now, that's what I want. And he sold— he sold away all of the rights to all of the Witcher shit for— for a lump sum, he just took a lump sum. Then they put out two bad games and they put out a game that will fucking everybody loves. Like, it was Game of the Year. People loved it. And then he was like, hey, I think— actually I was looking at about Polish law, that seems like you guys own me like $16 million. And they were like, no, first of all, fuck you. We know you shit, but we will be nice to you. And in like 2019 I think it was they— there was some deal that it didn't come out what the actual deal was, but they gave him a little something, I guess to make him a little happy. But I just— I just think it was very funny how this guy is like, he wrote like nine of these books and he was like, Nah, just take them off. You'll never make money on a fucking Witcher video game, that sounds stupid. I pray that one day I can have as little faith in something that I have done, as he had and his idea became a cool video game.
ADAL: That's what I'll say in terms of I am a multi-multi-billionaire. And I will say the way I got here is by never having confidence in my own IP.
JOHN: Yeah, for sure.
ADAL: The grass is always greener.
ERIC: This is so funny. I'm looking at the article, And he told Euro Gamer, I was stupid enough to sell them my rights. They offered me a percentage and I said no, there will be no profit at all. He just straight-up admitted that and then later on, he publicly demanded more than $16 million after he fucking beefed it.
JOHN: Well, I mean, he beefed it big time. In his defense, the first two Witcher games were not good. Like the second one, I tried to play it. It was like unplayablely bad. It starts with like three and a half hours of lore dump. And I'm like, why would anyone need to know this to fucking swing a sword, like it's fantasy? We don't need to know all this shit. So yeah, I mean, he was right for a while. But man, he really beefed it when—when Witcher 3 dropped.
ADAL: JPC, for an additional 5 bonus points, almost pulling a reverse Witcher, do you know which actor and what movie instead of taking I think it was like 5 to 8 million lump sum asked for a percentage, ended up making over $200 million off the movie.
JOHN: Oh, damn dude.
ADAL: And what is famously known as the best contract of all time for an actor.
JOHN: I want to say—it—is this Robert Downey Jr. for Iron Man?
ADAL: To be fair that might have usurped what I'm talking about. But no, this was in the 90s.
JOHN: This is in the 90s, fuck me.
ADAL: Or late 80s, early 90s.
ERIC: I got this. This is Todd Phillips for the Joker.
ADAL: Well, Eric, you're right in a sense.
JOHN: So it was Todd Phillips?
ADAL: No. Jack Nicholson took I think like 2% of all merch and box office and made over $200 million.
JOHN: That's yeah—oh and it's smart. I mean, was it for the Joker?
ADAL: It was for Batman. But very— I mean, this is a tip that I've known for a while. So absolutely, Robert Downey Jr. could have surpassed that.
JOHN: Maybe Robert Downey Jr. didn't even have like a percentage deal. But I know that when he was doing those Iron Man movies, he was just like, I don't know, I think my role is worth like $500 million. And they're like, yeah.
ADAL: Yeah, he famously took back in points on Chaplin.
JOHN: He said, you won't burn me twice. I'm gonna get 5% of Dr. Doolittle. That’s what I’m taking my money on.
ADAL: He owed them money by the end. Eric, can we go ahead and move on to round four?
ERIC: Absolutely. JPC you're sitting at a cool 51.33333 repeating points. But now we're at round four. With the wheel of extraordinary challenges.
JOHN: Oh, yeah, I like this.
ADAL: Now, JPC I've instructed Eric to prepare a few wacky minigames here to test your intellectual and creative mettle. And here's the gigantic wheel with all the possible games we can play.
JOHN: Ohh.
ADAL: Ahh.
JOHN: That's big.
ADAL: Go ahead and spin it whenever you ready.
JOHN: I didn't bring gloves. I'm not touching that fucking thing. That doesn't look— it looks dirty. Eric, will you spin it? I'm not spinning that.
ERIC: Okay, I'll do, I'll do it. Put on one glove, put another glove, puts out on Michael Jackson's glove. [makes wheel spinning noise]
ADAL: And Eric, let's let the wheel make the noise.
ERIC: Okay, sorry. I just gotta really excited.
ADAL: You sound like that—that frog. Remember that Frog ringtone?
ERIC: Oh, Crazy Frog?
ADAL: Thank you.
JOHN: I knew the answer, but I didn't know if it was part of the game.
ADAL: Bonus points to JPC for being a kind guest and not a—
JOHN: For restraint.
ERIC: 52.333 repeating, yeah. Alright, this game is called, Oi, would you? Can you help me with this thing?
JOHN: I like that.
ERIC: Ultimately this game boils down to figuring out whether I am describing a real side quest from The Witcher 3.
JOHN: Okay.
ERIC: Or this is something that I have made up or obscured from a different game.
JOHN: Gotcha. Now cards on the table. I have played through the Witcher 3, maybe four times. So—and these are— these are like platinum playthroughs. So I'm pretty—I'm pretty versed with the side quests.
ERIC: Yes. And Mr. Rifai, have you heard of The Witcher before? You consume any Witcher products?
ADAL: As mentioned, I don't know three or four times earlier in the episode. I have seen the TV series.
JOHN: Yeah, you've seen one season.
ADAL: One season. I think I imagined the second season.
JOHN: I'll take a bonus point for that.
ADAL: Of course, go ahead. And I know from a friend of mine that the game is—that the expansion is called The Wild Hunt.
JOHN: That is true. That is true.
ADAL: Thank you.
ERIC: Wonderful. Well, to even the odds here, this is going to put something in your pocket a little bit, Mr. Rifai. If both of you say the same answer and the answer is correct, then Adal gets the point.
JOHN: Okay.
ERIC: So JPC, it is your responsibility as someone who understands this, to not only get this question correct but hopefully try to convince Adal not to say the same thing that you said.
ADAL: I'll just be copying JPC in this round.
JOHN: Well, that doesn't—it seems like I can't win it.
ADAL: Well, let's move on—
JOHN: If I understand the game correctly. If I understand the game correctly, I can't win a point.
ERIC: However, Adal must lock in his answer first.
JOHN: First. Okay, gotcha.
ERIC: Yes.
ADAL: With what, the fucking honor system? I mean—
ERIC: No.
JOHN: I guess uh, well, just right off the bat, flaw of the game that we've all— we all see it.
ADAL: It's like honor system Jeopardy. Did you know the answer?
JOHN: Yeah.
ADAL: Yeah, of course.
ERIC: I'm not going to tell you what the answer is. You have to lock in what you think the answer is yes or no before.
JOHN: Got it.
ERIC: And JPC, you go.
ADAL: Fine. Eric, I'll play your little game. I'll use my pen and pad and write it down and hold it up.
ERIC: Sorry, I just spent a lot of time with this. And then some children came in and bullied me and they call themselves rats.
JOHN: I'd be careful. They got sharp little sticks.
ADAL: Those were my children.
ERIC: You called the rats. Alright, wonderful. Here's the first one. Talk to a vineyard owner who owes you some money, and he says that he meant to pay you for something that happened in a previous game, but he couldn't because you left town. Instead of paying you immediately, he opened a bank account in your name. Either you can take the money now or you can wait a week for more than three times as much cash. Is this a real quest in The Witcher 3?
JOHN: Well, there is— there is one word that I clued on to. The game [39:10], so this and that word is vineyard. Adal, I don't know if that helps you at all, and I hope that it doesn't.
ADAL: I'm gonna go ahead and say this is real.
JOHN: I'm also gonna say that this is real. I think this is a real quest.
ERIC: This is a real quest. Yes, Adal gets the point.
JOHN: So there—so there was no way for me to get the point there, I guess?
ERIC: You could perform some mind games.
JOHN: Sure.
ERIC: Maybe try to convince him whether or not.
JOHN: I'll try mind games on the next one.
ERIC: Just—just try it. Maybe just try it.
JOHN: Yeah.
ERIC: Alright, this one, you can talk to a reverend of the eternal fire who will give you the quest simply described as find the fire. You have to run around the church and find five hidden braziers that are lit. Is this a real quest from The Witcher, or did I make it up or obscure it?
JOHN: Adal I think— I think that this is— this is not my answer. This is me doing mind games, just so we know.
ADAL: Okay.
JOHN: I think it's gonna be false at all.
ADAL: Alright, well—
JOHN: Not—not my answer, not my answer. Just a mind game for Adal.
ADAL: Well, that matches up with what I put down, which is false, and here's the reason why. I don't know if I fully heard what you said at the end there, Eric, but it sounded like you said in search for six Fraziers. Now, there's only one Fraser. We all know that and he is King of Comedy. And if you did misspeak, or I did mishear, you might have said six braziers, which of course, we all know are Dairy Queens, how it cools treats, and they would never put six Dairy Queens on the same continent that is unfathomable. We all know people barely go there anyway. So six on one continent seems like a mistake. So I'm gonna say false.
JOHN: Definitely not six grilling shells. Now if it's just six of the chill side, maybe. But with the full braizier? No, thank you.
ADAL: No, no, no.
JOHN: Now, Eric, I know this as well to be false. But that wouldn't me saying that I can't win a point. So I should just say real because that's the only way that I could potentially win a point on the off chance that this is actually real.
ERIC: That's absolutely correct.
JOHN: So I will say false because I— it's more important for me to be right, than to win points.
ERIC: Well, you re—revealed the shoot the moon mechanic.
JOHN: Yup, yup.
ERIC: Which is when you add up a 0 points to get 10 points at the end.
JOHN: Okay.
ERIC: Wonderful. Yes, that is false. I've actually just changed that from South Park, The Stick of Truth, where you need to find Jesus, and Jesus is running around a church playing a hide and go seek.
ADAL: Yeah.
JOHN: Interesting. I smelled that from a mile away. South Park Stick of Truth.
ERIC: Yeah, the great—the great South Park humor. Here's another one, you might run into an artist who thinks that Geralt would make or Geralt, what am I supposed to say?
JOHN: Well, it doesn't matter. because I know now what I will say and I will be able to fight you on the answer. Would you say oh, that one was true? I'm like, well, Geralt isn't in the fucking game. So I guess it's not true.
ADAL: He found a loophole.
JOHN: It is Geralt, and it's Geralt—
ERIC: It is Geralt.
JOHN: Geralt is the correct pronunciation.
ERIC: It is Geralt. Who would make a fine model for his painting of an old man? You get the choice of doing a tasteful nude, either lying down standing with a shield, or riding a horse. Before the painting is finished. A Griffin attacks you and the painter, if you kill it, the painter will add the Griffin's corpse to the paper.
ADAL: I'm gonna go ahead and say this is false because earlier JPC said he was too Mad—Mads Mikkelsen was too old to play the Witcher. And if this artist said do you make a great old man for my portrait, I think this is false.
JOHN: I—So here's what I'll say. I mean, This one is obviously real. And the reason being is the Witcher is in fact, very, very old. But the poisons that they injected into his—I can only imagine genitals. Not only do they cause him to be super strong and have cat-like reflexes, but he has a longer lifespan as well.
ERIC: JPC gets the point, this is a real question quest.
ADAL: Fuck.
JOHN: Yeah.
ADAL: Fuck!
JOHN: And guess what, I always kill the Griffin. And I always get the Griffin in that photo.
ERIC: The funny part is that the painter asks you if you want it in the painting or not. And you're like, no, get this terrible dead creature away. That's something cool that I did earlier.
JOHN: Bitch, I'm a witcher. This is my whole job, of course, paint you with it.
ERIC: Okay, early in the game, you will meet an elderly man named Nathaniel who is close to death. He'll ask you to scour the world to find his family and bring them back home. Or you can just fill out his family tree and it's fine. It's a nice gesture, but it's weird that he's satisfied just by you writing these names down on a piece of paper. Also, he dies before you can collect your reward.
ADAL: Of course.
ERIC: It is real quest or from— or is it false?
ADAL: Well, it's a nice gesture, but I wouldn't want to live there. So I'm gonna go ahead and say this is real. I think any Nathaniel I've ever met in my life has been very close to death. So I have to assume the one in this game is as well.
JOHN: Eric here's what I will say. I believe that this is a real quest. I do not think it is in The Witcher game. I think it is in a different game, but it sounds so familiar, I cannot put my finger on one of this. But I—so I guess I have to say false for this one.
ERIC: JPC is correct. This is from Baten Kaitos: Internal Wings and the Lost Ocean.
JOHN: Yeah.
ERIC: Hi, you guys are tied 2 to2, not a stupid fucking game now, huh. With real good rule.
JOHN: I just like to point out I have not missed one yet. So I'm still doing very well. I do have points which I'm not thrilled about. But my— my mind games have not worked. Adal is to fast to answer, so I can't do my guess. I have— had to revert to the— the poor man victory being right consistently.
ADAL: I will say mind games reminds me of the song Head Games, which sounds like a journey song, give JPC another point.
ERIC: Alright, another point to JPC.
JOHN: I can't— I can't take it. I can't take it. That's Loverboy. Loverboy has no journey and I cannot accept the point for that. I will accept 2 points for that. Because I did know it was Loverboy and I'm pretty sure it's not Loverboy.
ERIC: 2 points, sure.
ERIC: 2 points, there you go. Okay, you might hear a very strange sound near cave, which is coming from a singing troll called, Trolololo. Alongside singing, he also loves manslaughter. He was asked to guard some boats by some soldiers. But later on everyone came back, he tried to help and everyone died in the process. Then Trololol figure not to let the bodies go to waste so he proceeded to cook and eat them.
JOHN: Oh, you nasty.
ERIC: You then get to decide whether to kill him or to help him feel like a real soldier, and pin a cone of arms on his shoulder?
ADAL: I'm gonna go ahead and let JPC answer first for this one.
JOHN: Well, hold on.
ERIC: Oh no, he's doing a reverse mind games.
JOHN: Yeah, he's—he's Loverboy-ing me. Okay, uh—
ADAL: No, I want to go ahead and go first. I think this is false. I think this is a C story plotline for Matt Groening's, Netflix comedy, Disenchantment.
JOHN: Okay, unfortunately for Adal, this one is absolutely true. This one is a actual side quest in the game. And the last time I played The Witcher, I played it on stream and my stream got very mad at me every time I killed the troll. I was supposed to go through the whole playthrough non-violently working my way through these troll encounters. I did not kill this troll, but there were trolls that I— the game kind of forces you to kill.
ADAL: So there's a singing troll named Trolololol?
JOHN: Look, they had a sense of humor, man, okay? You can't work at Game Dev for 70 hours a week and not expect them to have a little fun.
ADAL: You misunderstand. This makes me want to play the game more than ever.
ERIC: I told you that Southpark humor comes up later—
JOHN: It does, yeah.
ERIC: You got to watch out. Okay, This quest is called the Prosecution. Geralt plays detective as a village is taking a bunch of werewolves to court. Their Mayor Neville is also the village judge and wants to adjudicate for the villagers that this werewolves should go on trial for eating their livestock. You have to run around the town finding evidence, like fur, a broken lock and get a witness statement from a child who has massively and terribly slashed. However, if you take too long, then you realize that they weren't werewolves, just regular wolves, and the pack eats all the villagers and you fail the quest. Is this a real quest, or is it false?
JOHN: Adal, I will tell you, this is a mind game and I will tell you that this is a real quest. But I will not tell you if it is a real quest from The Witcher game. Then this is a mind game. This is a mind game.
ADAL: Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and say false. I think These is the rules to the card game Werewolf.
JOHN: Look, I it's better to be brave than wrong. And so I will say this is false. This is not in the Witcher.
ERIC: Yeah, this is false. I made this one up.
JOHN: Yeah. If anything it was from like the Witcher 2 or something like, you know, one of the one of the shittier versions of this game.
ERIC: Yeah, that's fair. I deserved that.
JOHN: Yeah.
ERIC: This is the second nicest thing anyone's said out after me, after sucking up a pound of sand.
JOHN: Again, that was to Adal. I did that. If you honestly, don't suck this and I'll be— I'll be personally upset. I'll be offended if you suck my sand.
ERIC: And we have one last question. This is tied 3 to 3. This is incredibly close game. After this really good game that I came up and everyone's having a really good time.
JOHN: You know what Eric, go ahead and give yourself a point.
ERIC: Ohh!
JOHN: One of Adals, so that'll be 3 to what? 3, 2, 1
ADAL: You know what Eric, I'll allow it if you come here and take it out of my hand.
ERIC: You know, I'm legally not allowed to do that. So I cannot, so I'll have to give the point.
JOHN: Smart man.
ADAL: Alright. Well, it's here if you ever want it.
ERIC: Okay. Alright, I'll go find you at the end of your most dangerous game house that you've set up.
ADAL: And of course, we all know the most dangerous game is risk. I've played that so many times, I knocked over tables. It just gets my blood boiling.
JOHN: And the tables are so low. Play the game higher.
ADAL: Well, no.
JOHN: No, yeah, no, I'm on your side. Whoever made these tables is at fault.
ERIC: Alright. The Witcher is not known as someone who carries a lot of cash. But if you prove yourself to be a shrewd and frugal mercenary, and you get 35,000 crowns, which is the currency in the game.
JOHN: Can confirm.
ERIC: Thank you. You will be approached by a tax man suspicious of your earnings. Depending on how you answer, you either get a diploma, saying you're really good at business, or you will be sentenced to deliver unpaid taxes to the big bank.
ADAL: Before I give my answer JPC I do have a question for you, and this will of course—
JOHN: Absolutely.
ADAL: Affect in the bonus points. I am adopting a new cat soon and we are trying to have a confirmation for it. Can you confirm?
JOHN: Oh, meow.
ADAL: So you'll do it?
JOHN: Meow.
ADAL: Thank you so much. I look forward to you confirming my cat.
JOHN: I mean schedule is permitting.
ADAL: A billion bonus points for that. I'm gonna go ahead and say false. You said something along the lines of good at business which of course as we all know is the title card that pops up at the end of any Nick Kroll production, with him saying good at business.
JOHN: Yeah, this is— this has Nick Kroll production written all over, Eric. I—believe me, I have a an encyclopedic memory of any game that allows me to choose an option to murder a tax man, and The Witcher is not one of them. I have to say false as well.
ERIC: I am incredibly surprised. This one's true. This is —this is absolutely true.
JOHN: Woah.
ERIC: Yeah. You really do get a diploma commending you on your business savvy.
JOHN: I guess I've never— maybe I've never had the 35,000 crowns in a Witcher game before.
ERIC: This one's called the Taxman Cometh, and it's a secondary quest from the Hearts of Stone expansion of The Witcher 3.
JOHN: It's an expansion quest, that makes a ton of sense.
ADAL: And a Eugene O'Neill pun, deep cut.
ERIC: Listen, it sounded way worse when it was in the original Polish. Alright, honestly, you two tied. This is a score of 3 to 3.
JOHN: Oh, Okay.
ADAL: Well, I always promised myself if I'm tying, I'm lying. And of course, if I'm lying I won, which means the truth is JPC won, so let's give him all 10 points.
JOHN: Wow. Okay. We— I gotta say couldn't happen to a better guy.
ADAL: Do you mean yourself?
JOHN: Uh-huh.
ADAL: Okay.
ERIC: Alright. You have a final score, JPC of 63.333 repeating points.
JOHN: Perspectival.
ADAL: JPC, thank you so much for coming on. I feel like I threw a lot of bonus questions at you. You did a very good job. So, thank you again for coming on. We do hope to see you another time. And there are some parts—
ERIC: Mr. Rifai, we have that one last.
ADAL: Huh?
ERIC: We have— we have with that one more thing you wanted to do.
ADAL: Oh, yes, of course. I'm sorry, there is—
JOHN: I'm sorry, I’ll take this. Hey, Eric.
ERIC: Yeah?
JOHN: Don't interrupt, okay?
ERIC: Okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
JOHN: He was talking to me, he wasn't talking to you.
ERIC: Sir, I'm sorry.
JOHN: So fucking rude.
ADAL: Thank you, JPC.
JOHN: Unbelievable.
ADAL: Eric is begrudgingly correct. One more thing.
JOHN: I— that I owe you an apology. Adal, I'm so sorry I dressed him down. That was your— that was— it's your house. That was your job to do, and I took it from you, and I apologize.
ADAL: But you were right to dress him down because he was wearing a three-piece suit, which is way too hot for this room. So when you put him in—
JOHN: Hot room.
ADAL: Jean, shorts, Crocs, and a tank top, I feel like dress down is what's appropriate for—
JOHN: I think it's your fit. I think I found your fit, And I'm not going to apologize that I could— Look, I sized you up, but I found your fit.
ADAL: You size them up and you dress them down.
ERIC: These jeans. Everyone knows what I do and do not have in my pockets now, because you can see the pockets of jean shorts.
JOHN: Oh yeah.
ADAL: JPC, for one final bonus point, you will answer this random trivia question about the world's most perfect film, Grease. Coach Calhoun was a gym teacher at Rydell High. What set him apart from some other high school coaches was that he cared about his students. Played in the movie by Sid Caesar. The role was originally given to Harry Reems, but the studio immediately blocked that from happening. What was Harry Reems best known for?
JOHN: Well, I mean, look, Hollywood was a different town back then. And you could give somebody a Harry Reems and you would get a movie part. And the guy who could give the best Harry Reems at all of Hollywood was awarded the honorary title of Harry Reems. So what was he best known for? I think we all know, eating people's asses with a big old beard.
ERIC: Now, is that a correct answer?
ADAL: JPC we're gonna give it to you. He was the male star in the first famous porno movie, Deep Throat.
JOHN: Okay, so not wrong there.
ERIC: You did nail it. That's true. That's 100% correct.
ADAL: I was gonna say I'll have to Google if he has a beard. But I don't want to Google that.
JOHN: I don't know if you could Deep Throat someone's ass. I don't know what the—the ass itself is kind of a deep throat.
ADAL: JPC, can I say, you're doing it wrong.
JOHN: Okay.
ADAL: It was the 70s and at that time, it was sort of anything goes. The director Randal Kleiser said, quote, the sexual revolution was happening in porn stars, were becoming somewhat accepted in media. I didn't think it would be a problem, but Paramount did. Huh.
JOHN: Paramount.
ADAL: Paramount. What a weird little thing. What a weird little tip.
JOHN: Get off your high horse paramount and let porn stars be at our musicals. I'll take a bonus point for that as well.
ADAL: Yeah, let's go ahead and give it to him. Eric, what does that bring his total up to?
ERIC: That brings his points up to 65.333 repeating. But of course, as we do the episode your— you will kind of—I'll have to come up with a calculation of what the veg and the juices as it keeps going up.
JOHN: Go ahead and take five for yourself. I always get my dealer.
ERIC: Oh, oh, alright.
JOHN: Yeah, before I cash out, I always get my dealer take good care you.
ERIC: I'm gonna spend this on a new pair of slacks. And then I'm gonna cut them into jean shorts because JPC said I looked good at them.
JOHN: That's your style. That's your fit.
ERIC: Absolutely. Alright, if we look at the final score that is 15 points to ask, 20 points to ask which kind of came with the highest score machine as I made it.
JOHN: Sure did.
ERIC: That is 60.333 repeating. 72 points to Matt Young and 73.6 repeating for Janet Varney. JPC you're in third.
JOHN: And I'm beating that ass, so not bad for me.
ADAL: JPC before you leave, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't offer you one final opportunity to gain exactly 9.36 points.
JOHN: Okay.
ADAL: Of course bringing you total up to 69. 69.
JOHN: I would like that.
ADAL: Thank you for being honest. Could you please with the term The Witcher, make some sort of tongue twister like we did at the top of the show?
JOHN: The Witcher stitched a picture, of kitsch into a ditch.
ADAL: Perfect 9.36 points awarded to you. You know have a final tally of 69.69. High five.
JOHN: I love that. Thank you so much. And before I leave because I do— I honestly do have to go. Do you validate parking? Here's a photo of the parking job that I did.
ADAL: Good job. Hey, that was great. Fantastic.
JOHN: It was so tight. You see these two vans?
ADAL: You're so tight. Yeah.
JOHN: These two vans were both and I got it parallel, so yeah.
ADAL: No way, no way.
JOHN: They were both there, it's like one of them didn't come.
ADAL: No way, no way. Amazing.
JOHN: I got—yeah.
ADAL: Amazing job.
ERIC: I'm sure your insurance premiums are low. Great job.
JOHN: Thank you.
ADAL: JPC, before you leave anything you want to plug?
JOHN: You can always listen to me. There's a couple different podcasts you can listen to me on. The first one is Hey Riddle Riddle, it's a head gun podcast. We answered riddles and to do improv. And the second one is called Bill Buds. It is a pop music review podcast. You can get both of those podcasts, anywhere podcasts are found.
ADAL: Perfect. I see you also plugged in your Tesla.
JOHN: Yeah, this is—this is not mine. I am charging up a bomb for a friend of mine, so,.
ERIC: And you did a really good job putting that bomb in there. Congratulations.
JOHN: Thank you. I mean, there were two vans preventing me from doing so. But I got it in there.
ADAL: What a nice guy. That's all for this episode of Tell Me About It. Tune in next week for more of the law of surprise translating from Polish to English and sucking sand. Wait, Eric. Did John Travolta ever say that in Grease, sucking sand in?
ERIC: He does. Absolutely.
ADAL: Alright, say goodbye, Eric.
ERIC: Goodbye, Eric. Don't stop Believing.
Transcriptionist: KA
Editor: KM