**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Jews might sound like they're arguing, but that's just how we have conversations. And we have lots of them on podcasts from Tablet Magazine. Want politics? There's rootless, with urgent and sometimes uncomfortable discussions. Or what really matters with Walter Russell Mead for deeper looks at world events. Want pop culture? Check out our brand new show, How to Be a Jew, about finding meaning in everyday life. Want Jewish learning? Learn Torah with Sivan Sez and Talmud with Take One. Drop by tabletmag.com/podcasts and join us.
**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
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**Holden McNally** (1:18)
Hello, it's me, a talking Steam Deck. Bruiser, Holden McNeely. Play your entire PC catalog on the go! I don't know how to, I don't know, there's no, I mean, I guess I could be like a Half-Life character, or like a Portal character.
**Jake** (1:34)
Hello there, Mr. Freeman.
**Holden McNally** (1:36)
There you go.
**Jake** (1:37)
Please, thank you, Nega. I can tell that you maybe love video games. And perhaps you've made some of the most revolutionary games, both in terms of artistry and technical achievements. But then you were run by a weird, big libertarian millionaire guy who insisted that you have a leaderless flat corporate structure that has completely paralyzed your ability to make anything. But don't worry, you are also the single most unbeatable monopoly within the digital distribution of entertainment in the history of mankind. So you are still making billions of dollars, even though your flagship franchise has had a cliffhanger unresolved for 20-ish years. Mr. Freeman. Was that good? Was that G-Man?
**Holden McNally** (2:30)
That was awesome G-Man, bro. That was a cryo G-Man. And that was really good G-Man lore. And I really appreciate that.
**Jake** (2:36)
It's me, the heavy. I'm the heavy who touched my Sasha.
**Holden McNally** (2:43)
We're really burying the lead right here, Jake. And stop talking like a complete idiot, okay? Because we got to really get up front here. People have always hit us up being like, there's a Valve episode. It cuts off at a weird point in the episode.
**Jake** (2:55)
It's like, yeah.
**Holden McNally** (2:56)
12 minutes in. And what are you going to do? And we always said, hey, why don't we go back since this is lost to time, since essentially that piece of audio exists somewhere in somebody's cleave or something, like somebody's cleavage, an eight or something like that. I don't know where it exists. It's like in a desert tomb or something like that.
**Jake** (3:19)
It's like a single mega upload file that nobody has the password anymore. I don't know what happened to that audio.
**Holden McNally** (3:24)
Have you ever seen the movie The Rock? It's in that like file or whatever that they get at the very end where he's like, hey. Yeah, yeah. People laughed at us. Do you want to know who killed JFK?
**Jake** (3:33)
When we recorded all of our episodes onto Microfiche, they're like, it's a visual medium. It doesn't record audio. It's why you have to convert it to digital anyway. Just save the digital file. And we were like, fuck that.
We're doing this Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage style. I wanted to record all of our episodes on weird little glass marbles on like a string.
**Holden McNally** (3:58)
I tried to have us be the first ever podcast that was recorded entirely on Braille.
**Jake** (4:02)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Holden McNally** (4:03)
And we just, it was just Braille paper for the blind. But they laugh, oh man, did they laugh and laugh and laugh at me.
**Jake** (4:12)
Except the blind people.
**Holden McNally** (4:13)
And the blind people were like, I wish I could see you so I could see how dumb you look. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, well, that's very rude, blind person, because I feel like I'm trying to do a service for you.
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