Virtual Garage

Jeff Gerstmann (0:20)

Hey, everybody. Hi, how are you doing? It's The Jeff Gerstmann Show. It's a podcast about video games. I'm Jeff Gerstmann, joined once again, returning, Jordan Middler is here. How are you doing, sir?

Jordan Middler (0:34)

I'm good, Jeff. How are you? Thank you for having me, and I'm glad to be on an episode of the show finally, that you're hosting. It's always that other guy, and it's not the same. Like, you want Carson, you know?

Jeff Gerstmann (0:44)

Yeah, no, I like to take my summers off for all the... I just, you know, I get busy, you know what I'm saying?

Jordan Middler (0:50)

You get busy, yeah.

Jeff Gerstmann (0:52)

I get busy in the summertime.

Jordan Middler (0:53)

I get busy in this heat, yeah.

Jeff Gerstmann (0:55)

And so, you know, no one wants to be in a hot garage well, as I reach over, because it is still, in fact, a hot garage. I think everyone keeps saying that Los Angeles is going to get buried in rain, the El Nino is coming, we're all going to die.

And at this point, I kind of welcome it, because it's just been, like it is still 90, 100 degrees, something like that.

Jordan Middler (1:19)

I think the existence of living in California is just constantly something is going to take you off this earth, if it's not the rain, some big earthquake, or it's like crazy fires. That's what you get for living in the greatest state in the world.

Jeff Gerstmann (1:32)

It's the greatest state in the world. That's why they hold the Pokemon World Championships here. I feel like you've been spending a lot of time in California.

Jordan Middler (1:39)

I love California. I love landing in Los Angeles International Airport.

It's weird how used to landing in LAX. I know there was a point where I'd only been to LA a couple of times, and then once COVID was fully done... Well, it's not fully done. You know what I mean?

When events started happening again, they were all in LA. I think it's just because it's easy for Asia to get there. It's easy for us. Everything was in LA, so LAX just became home away from home. I have specific Dave's Hot Chickens in LA that I go back to every single time I'm there. I'm like, this is getting too much. Dave's Hot Chicken, though. Shout out. The UK version of Dave's Hot Chicken? Tad-able. Absolutely awful. But the LA one? Come on, now.

Jeff Gerstmann (2:23)

Nice. No, I am getting on an airplane tomorrow, and I am flying. I'm not flying out of LAX, because instead I can just go out of Burbank, because it's a little bit closer to where I'm at. But the catch is that none of the flights are direct. And so I've got like two layovers. And I'm like, you know what? I haven't been on a plane in like seven years. Let's make a day of it. Let's spend an hour in Denver.

See how that goes. See how that goes.

Jordan Middler (2:47)

You may know from my social media affairs that I have an almost undefeated streak of having no one sitting next to me on a plane. And I wish that for you.

I'm influencing you through these internet tubes to get that. Because it is the glory of my life that I've strung together this streak. I recently returned, as in literally yesterday, returned from a holiday with my partner and her sister. And as we sat in the three, even though my partner was right next to me, I was like, oh man, could you just spread out a little bit?

Jeff Gerstmann (3:20)

Can you find another? Could you just go somewhere?

Yeah. No, it's every time I see you posting a picture of you with an empty seat next to you, I just go like, oh man, I gotta get back out there. Look at all these empty seats. I gotta get on a plane.

Jordan Middler (3:35)

There's nothing better than getting on like a 6 a.m. flight to London and everyone's wearing suits and they're all stressed out. And I'm going to play some random video game in some pub that's open in the middle of the, some nightclub that they've hired for the middle of the day, where they just have PCs ramshackled into the power outlets. It's always way too hot or way too cold. It's really good.

Jeff Gerstmann (3:57)

I'm glad that events are still like that for you. I feel like American events, well, I guess you're coming out here, so maybe they're still like that here too, but I feel like since I've only really been going to Summer Game Fest and stuff like that, I'm not getting that. I played through the entirety of Perfect Dark in a bar in Seattle a month before it came out or something like that. It was a preview event. I wasn't even supposed to finish it. I miss that.