For episode eleven of The Palmer Files guest Jordan Steinhoff, co-host of the All Us Geeks Podcast, joins Agent Palmer to discuss geek versus nerd, the importance of the local store, nerd culture, geek community, and then Jordan tries to open me up to new games.
Are nerds and geeks mainstream? Are you a geek or a nerd? How have things changed? What’s the difference between the US and Canada within the geek/nerd culture?
Throughout the conversation, we cover:
- Geek or Nerd?
- Mainstream Acceptance
- Communities
- Open
- Closed
- Cliques
- The Local Game/Comic Store (LCS/LGS)
- Magic: The Gathering
- Old School
- Mana Burn
- The More Things Change
- Keeping an Open Mind/Table
- Bias
- Gender Bias
- OG Bias
- Change is hard
- Fandom Ownership
- BACK IN MY DAY!
- LAN Parties
- Gaming
- Learning Averse
- Us vs. Them (Geek/Nerd vs. Everyone else)
- Addiction and Passion
- Canada vs. Us (for Nerds and Geeks)
- Game Suggestions
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Old School Magic: The Gathering Series form AgentPalmer.com
Old School Magic: Alliances the Expansion that Changed the Game and Had it All
Old School Magic the Gathering: Fallen Empires and the Rise of the Tribes
Diablo: Play it again and again and again, It’s still Highly Addictive after all these years
Quake: It was great then, it is still great now!
Digging into the Battle Tested PC Gaming Classic of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
The Palmer Files Episode 9: Adaptation and Interpretation with Jason Zapata.
You can also hear more Palmer in the meantime on Our Liner Notes, a musical conversation podcast with host Chris Maier and as mentioned on this show as co-host of The Podcast Digest with Dan Lizette.
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:26:31
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent palmer.com. Choose your illusion a guns N roses exercise, a gallery of wizards. And as you heard exclusively on this show, Paula has returned with a new season of the Tell Me Stories podcast. Because everyone wants more. Paula. This is The Palmer Files episode 11, featuring a co-host of the All Us Geeks podcast, Jordan Steinhoff, where we discussed geek versus nerd, the importance of local stores, nerd culture, geek community.
00:00:26:31 – 00:00:51:24
Agent Palmer
And then Jordan tries to open me up to new games. Let’s do the show.
00:00:51:29 – 00:01:15:35
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer, and on this 11th episode is the co-host of the All Us Geeks podcast. Jordan Steinhoff. Jordan and I had crossed paths for years on Twitter as our circles are pretty similar, but I only started listening to the All Us Geeks podcast in the last few months, which upped our relationship from some occasional tweeting to regular Twitter conversation.
00:01:15:40 – 00:01:39:19
Agent Palmer
I like all us geeks, and you should too, because it is a general knowledge geek show in that they don’t get too far into the weeds on anything, and when they do, it’s in the form of a game review and they start from the beginning so everybody knows what they’re talking about. Jordan makes up half that show, but through our online discussions, I thought he would be a great guest to discuss the topic of geek and nerd culture.
00:01:39:24 – 00:02:03:49
Agent Palmer
I see the geeks of the last few decades being the hippies of the 1960s, and that in hindsight, it seems like there were a lot more of them than there actually were with the net. And the.com bubble and comics and science fiction and fantasy starting to become mainstream. Every new feature film based on some nerd stuff has the potential to crossover, but have we are nerds and geeks mainstream?
00:02:03:50 – 00:02:25:24
Agent Palmer
Are you a geek or a nerd? How have things changed? And what’s the difference between the U.S. and Canada within the geek nerd culture? Jordan and I will get into it. Plus tell some stories. Now, before we get to the episode, I want to talk about Jordan’s reverb. He must have been recording from a safe house in Minnesota, because clearly he’s a gaming fugitive of some kind, right?
00:02:25:24 – 00:02:47:44
Agent Palmer
I mean, he has to be. And, well, maybe I shouldn’t say this. The walls were kind of bare, and it was dimly lit. Perhaps he was being held captive and it wasn’t a safe house at all. He didn’t say anything. So maybe the Stockholm syndrome set in already. All right. I think that covers it. If you want to discuss this episode as you listen or after, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer.
00:02:47:55 – 00:03:09:21
Agent Palmer
You can tweet the show at the Palmer Files, and you can tweet Jordan at underscore the Canadian underscore. You can also hear his show All Us Geeks podcast. Wherever you are listening to this right now. And you can visit all us geeks.com. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings on Agent palmer.com. And remember all of these links and those mentioned in the show will be in the show notes.
00:03:09:26 – 00:03:23:39
Agent Palmer
So grab your spells and leave some mana open. You may want to counter this episode because here it comes.
00:03:23:44 – 00:03:30:52
Agent Palmer
Jordan, you’re a co-host of All Us geeks, but are you a geek or a nerd?
00:03:30:57 – 00:04:00:48
Jordan Steinhoff
I’m going to say 90% geek. 10% nerd. I make the distinction. Geek is more of a social, cultural, pop culture kind of thing. Star Wars magic gathering cartoons nerd is more of, science or math or lit nerd, that kind of thing. And, I can certainly throw some snob on and talk about, you know, cheese or beer, which I think is more of the nerd thing, because that’s when I get pretty judgmental.
00:04:00:48 – 00:04:03:52
Jordan Steinhoff
But I try to stay geek and keep it fun.
00:04:03:57 – 00:04:09:58
Agent Palmer
When you were growing up, either term was interchangeable and they were derogatory because you.
00:04:09:58 – 00:04:10:58
Jordan Steinhoff
Oh, absolutely.
00:04:11:01 – 00:04:16:36
Agent Palmer
Do you feel like we’ve gained anything because our stuff has become accepted?
00:04:16:41 – 00:04:44:48
Jordan Steinhoff
Yes. But well, after the fact, I’m now I’m 48. I’m so far past worrying about what people outside of my community think of me that I don’t care anymore. I did the trials back as a child in high school and middle school, and even even in university, where the the gaming club was still pretty small and beer and pretzels and and even in the early 90s, nerd geek was still, still yeah, a negative connotation.
00:04:44:53 – 00:05:05:02
Jordan Steinhoff
The community has grown, the geek community has grown. The use of the word has changed from a negative into a well accepted descriptor. I think nerds still has a bit of a negative to it. Whereas geek is more, more positive. It’s embracing versus pointing the finger. Geek. Yay, nerd back.
00:05:05:02 – 00:05:20:38
Agent Palmer
And I will say, I feel like, well, our stuff, whether it’s books, movies, music, technology, our stuff has become more widely accepted. I still don’t feel widely accepted.
00:05:20:40 – 00:05:48:06
Jordan Steinhoff
Nor do I think there’s definitely, the stigma might be too strong a word for it these days, but I use what was that show called Big Bang Theory is the example. First couple seasons, I enjoyed it. I was amused by it, but it seemed like they were poking as much fun at the nerds as they were trying to engage the audience to laugh with the nerds.
00:05:48:11 – 00:06:00:53
Jordan Steinhoff
And I think that’s still where we are. There’s a greater gaming community where everybody, I hope is accepted. But then there’s the community around the gaming community that I think still has some misconceptions.
00:06:01:06 – 00:06:33:45
Agent Palmer
So I’m going to take you on a trip to the mid 90s, mid to late 90s, I don’t know, let’s say 96, right? Sure. I’m in middle school and there is a gaming store that opens up in my small little town in rural Pennsylvania. Okay, we were the county seat. That was our claim to fame. Okay, so not a big city by any measure.
00:06:33:50 – 00:07:00:48
Agent Palmer
And I was just walking with a friend, a fellow geek nerd, what have you. And we kind of just happened upon it, and we both knew what magic the gathering was. And like, I had learned it at camp a couple of years ago, and I don’t know how he knew it, but now we the store opened up and we had a place to hang out, and I dug much more into the culture than he did.
00:07:00:48 – 00:07:24:48
Agent Palmer
And, you know, a new community that I was able to embrace sprouted around this store. But at the same time, you know, fast forward a couple of years and I’ve got a girlfriend, and I look, we’re skittish, okay? I’m going to speak for us. And on a whole, like, I, I even though I crossed a lot of communities and Magic the Gathering is one of my identities.
00:07:24:48 – 00:07:39:14
Agent Palmer
And I ran cross-country and I was in the marching band and all this stuff when I worked at that store. If my girlfriend came to visit me, it was a record scratch, like heads turned like there’s a girl in this store. And it was.
00:07:39:19 – 00:07:40:56
Jordan Steinhoff
Look, in the comic book shop.
00:07:40:58 – 00:08:02:46
Agent Palmer
The the, the owner’s wife would be around all the time and used to help teach some of the younger kids how to play magic. But I guess maybe it’s time. Or like she was older than us, so it wasn’t the same, but a girl anywhere within five years of our age and it was like it got quiet. What she doing here?
00:08:02:51 – 00:08:19:41
Agent Palmer
She doesn’t belong here, unfortunately. Like, it feels like while things have improved, I don’t really think we’ve gone very far. And I’m not talking even about Gamergate. It’s just like there are still these closed circles.
00:08:19:52 – 00:08:40:31
Jordan Steinhoff
Oh, absolutely. I try to keep an open table. I try to keep a welcoming table, whether I’m doing an RPG or a board game or two cards, whatever. There’s a certain body knows that just even if you put five priests at a table, you know, if they’re just five dudes at a table, somebody is going to crack a naughty joke at some point.
00:08:40:36 – 00:09:09:14
Jordan Steinhoff
I’d try to police that for myself a little bit, but there is definitely a feeling, even though I look at my social media and I see strong, active women running their games, running their game companies, running their lives the way they want, you can’t go a week without not necessarily a Gamergate or a MeToo, but still. And this dude at the table tried to explain the game to me, that I was running for him.
00:09:09:19 – 00:09:14:45
Jordan Steinhoff
You can’t escape that kind of story. So there’s definitely still a gender bias there.
00:09:14:50 – 00:09:39:39
Agent Palmer
Well, there’s a gender bias, and there’s also a Johnny come lately bias. Like, I, I know for a fact because I’ve, I’ve been that guy where it was like, oh, you you and listen, I am I’m a resurgent magic player. Now the arena’s a thing because you know, Steph didn’t want to continue playing with her limited cards or with my decks.
00:09:39:39 – 00:10:03:21
Agent Palmer
That was just not going to be a thing. So arena has gotten me back into magic. But for a long time it was like what I was I was an OG, like, I, I started, you know, and I wasn’t I mean, here’s the thing, I wasn’t right. Like, I started at Revised and Fallen Empires and, I fell in love with sets that no one likes, okay.
00:10:03:26 – 00:10:23:08
Agent Palmer
And that no one remembers. And I, I watch Twitch streamers that started playing after I got out of the game in 2000. Right. And I’m still like, well, you you can’t tell me anything about. You could tell me what I missed, but you can’t tell me about the game. Like.
00:10:23:13 – 00:10:26:39
Jordan Steinhoff
And there’s I remember when Mana Burn was a thing.
00:10:26:43 – 00:10:53:02
Agent Palmer
Listen to I can I. So a previous guest, Jason Zapata, who’s episode nine, where we talked about adaptation and interpretation. Like, we grew up. We went to high school together. He knew me when I was still at the store, and I try. It wasn’t until his brother got him into magic that he really embraced magic. It’s not like he wasn’t like we could still talk token and we could still talk about like, fantasy and, you know, whatever.
00:10:53:02 – 00:11:10:45
Agent Palmer
But like, I couldn’t get him into magic. And his brother did. And I remember when he was like, I don’t know, I have, one of the older cards. I’m not going to get too technical, but it had, you know, you get two mana during your turn to spend. I think it was like Aladdin Marie’s vineyard, maybe. I’m not sure.
00:11:10:47 – 00:11:28:53
Agent Palmer
Whatever. So he’s like, I was like, you take two damage. He’s like, no, I don’t. I was like, well, you didn’t use the man. He’s like, Mana burns gone. And I was like, well, in this house, Mana Burn still exists. I just I got so indignant by the fact, like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
00:11:29:06 – 00:11:54:30
Agent Palmer
They got rid of me and I’m still the guy who was like, right? Listen, despite the fact that attacking does not cause this creature to tap became vigilance, and this creature can attack as though it didn’t have summoning sickness became haste. I was still like, why do we need these words? It was already written on the card, like and like in hindsight, sure, it makes it easy.
00:11:54:30 – 00:12:17:22
Agent Palmer
It’s more accessible for other people to play. But like, I didn’t need this. Why do you and and listen, it’s different in gaming. I understand in gaming there’s I mean the arguments valid throughout everything, right? Whether it’s gaming or movies or books or music like I was there before. And we always carry that with a badge of honor.
00:12:17:22 – 00:12:52:09
Agent Palmer
But like some of these changes, hard. I guess that’s that’s what I’m getting at. Like especially when it’s something that you spend that much time in and by definition, whether it’s nerd or geek, whether it’s technical or game, we spend a lot of time in these things. So when they go mass market and when they become more accessible, like it’s, it’s like opening the doors to your clubhouse and you never had control of your clubhouse, like, unless it’s your game.
00:12:52:14 – 00:13:05:17
Agent Palmer
And even then. But like a lot of people, when we start out, we’re in somebody else’s clubhouse. You’re watching somebody else’s movie, you’re reading somebody else’s book, you’re playing somebody else’s game. And then all of a sudden it blows up and you’re like, where do all these people come from?
00:13:05:21 – 00:13:11:17
Jordan Steinhoff
It reminds me, the 22 Jump Street movie. I don’t know if you watched that.
00:13:11:17 – 00:13:14:43
Agent Palmer
I saw that the first remake, I didn’t see the sequel.
00:13:14:48 – 00:13:40:15
Jordan Steinhoff
But in the sequel, again, they’re going back to school and they’re trying to play off being the tough dudes like they thought were the cool dudes when they were in high school. But now everybody is like at a table playing D&D. They’re talking about their magic cards, blah, blah, blah. And the one guy’s like, man, if I had just been in high school, five years later, I would have run this joint.
00:13:40:20 – 00:14:02:10
Agent Palmer
I will say this to I’m as guilty of it as the next guy. Like I want it to be inclusive, but at the same time, like I’ve said, shit. Like I’ve been that guy that’s like, what are you doing? You know, like, you know. And to me, it’s not along gender lines like I’m all about. You’re either you were either there at the beginning or you don’t count or like, more.
00:14:02:14 – 00:14:22:14
Agent Palmer
I guess more specifically, it would be like you either read the book or you just watched the movie. Like, and that’s a big one. I mean, and it’s, I mean, comics, it’s huge too. Like, we all saw Civil War on the big screen, but did you read that series? No you didn’t. You don’t know what happened.
00:14:22:19 – 00:14:43:40
Agent Palmer
So it’s there’s these it’s taking ownership of the origin and being there at the beginning. Like, who got there first? Okay, maybe people remember Buzz Aldrin and he punched a guy, so why wouldn’t you? But can you name me the guys who were on the moon in Apollo 12? No. You know what I mean. Like, so it’s I got gotcha.
00:14:43:45 – 00:15:07:40
Jordan Steinhoff
And that’s that’s one of the things about just my geekery is my wife for the last ten years of Marvel movies, for example, and half of the stuff on Netflix has turned to me at some point and said, so why? What made this happen? What isn’t in the movie? What is it in the TV show? But they’ve caught up so much and there’s so much new stuff out there that it’s like, hey, I don’t know, this is my first time too.
00:15:07:45 – 00:15:24:23
Jordan Steinhoff
And there’s that’s a really fun feeling. Like I never read The Witcher books, have no intention to, but I enjoyed the first season and she’s asking me all these questions and I’m like, no, no, I didn’t read a different I have no idea. So I’m happy every now and then to be the new person in the room.
00:15:24:25 – 00:15:38:06
Agent Palmer
Yeah, there’s, I can go back to magic. I can go back to books. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I wish I could recreate the first deck I ever made that worked. I know it was green and white. That’s where my memory ends, right?
00:15:38:10 – 00:15:39:54
Jordan Steinhoff
And I wasn’t like, blue control.
00:15:39:58 – 00:16:05:31
Agent Palmer
I mean, listen, I have a propaganda deck that I, isn’t mine. Before net decking was a thing, I went to visit a friend in Connecticut, and we went to a local, his local game store and a tournament, and I got my ass handed to me, because I had whenever propaganda came out, whatever set, that was the first time.
00:16:05:36 – 00:16:27:19
Agent Palmer
And I literally got knocked out of the tournament, I, I leaned over, said, can I have your deck list? And he’s like, yeah, sure. And he gave it to me. And I was like, this is 19. No, this is 2002 thousand. I guess it would have been. So he’s like, yeah, here. And I was the first person that had it in my circle.
00:16:27:24 – 00:16:28:41
Jordan Steinhoff
00:16:28:46 – 00:16:39:18
Agent Palmer
So he was like, but yeah, no, I hate blue. If I’m not, I like I’m either playing it or I hate it.
00:16:39:22 – 00:16:52:11
Jordan Steinhoff
The favorite thing for me is just as long as I have two mana, my fingers don’t leave the table there. They’re just hovering right over those two blue mana guys. And nobody knows what I can do with two blue if if I’m playing.
00:16:52:16 – 00:17:18:24
Agent Palmer
I mean, listen, I, I, I will tell you, I’m, I’m still this this is and this goes back to the OG argument. I’m upset that Counterspell Counterspell doesn’t exist anymore, but not my favorite two mana counterspell that belongs to arcane denial alliances will forever be my favorite set. I’ve gushed about it on my blog. There is. I don’t know why and maybe it’s timing right?
00:17:18:24 – 00:17:21:18
Agent Palmer
Like because I started when I did.
00:17:21:18 – 00:17:22:37
Jordan Steinhoff
Had all those great lands.
00:17:22:43 – 00:17:42:19
Agent Palmer
Well, I had all those great lands. You had things that didn’t cost anything, right? You had you had force of will. And there was well, there was one in each color. I still use the white one. I think it’s scars of the veteran where you didn’t need to pay any mana at all. I see your two blue mana, and I’m not going to need any.
00:17:42:19 – 00:18:06:26
Agent Palmer
Like, it was great, I tell it. Give me a better card than Elvish spirit guide for green, right? Like because for that set came out and everybody tried to do a first turn. Shivan. That was it and that was everything. But it’s so easy for me to go back to these origins. And I have to break myself of that because it’s, it’s not right.
00:18:06:26 – 00:18:22:38
Agent Palmer
Like I should be happy anyone wants to talk to me about this stuff in the first place. And my first inclination is to alienate people and be like, well, you. But you weren’t, you weren’t there. You don’t know.
00:18:22:43 – 00:18:23:19
Jordan Steinhoff
Back in my.
00:18:23:19 – 00:18:49:46
Agent Palmer
Day. No, but it is because, like, there are, I don’t know. Listen, I was fortunate enough to move around in a bunch of circles. I could talk to the jocks. I could talk to the nerds. I was a geek. I could talk to the popular kids. You know, I kind of moved around in all circles. And that’s not something that everybody has the either abilities or circumstance to be able to do.
00:18:49:59 – 00:19:06:16
Agent Palmer
And it’s not like I was a chameleon, like everybody knew who I was. I didn’t hide it. Like, I know I should be more forthcoming and open to like putting the the crutch on people and just being like, do you what do you want help understanding this.
00:19:06:21 – 00:19:07:10
Jordan Steinhoff
00:19:07:15 – 00:19:31:08
Agent Palmer
And that’s a hard thing to do because my first instinct is defense like or to deflect like you weren’t there or like are you making fun of me for this. It’s still there like I it’s, it’s 2020 and it’s still like the initial flinch of like they’re making fun of me because I like Star Wars.
00:19:31:13 – 00:19:51:31
Jordan Steinhoff
No, I it’s true. You know, there’s a little bit of PTSD from your youth, but there’s still also I think, in, in society, in general, at least in North America, some of the, you know, oh, see Star Wars. But I’m not going I’m not going to wear a Star Wars t shirt and a hat. I’m not going to cosplay Jedi when I go there.
00:19:51:36 – 00:20:04:11
Jordan Steinhoff
Those people are dumb. There’s still some of that out there. I don’t think they’re dumb. That’s just the. Yeah. You know, there’s still definitely some of that out there. There’s a lot of judge, a lot of judgment from those outside looking at.
00:20:04:15 – 00:20:32:07
Agent Palmer
Well, I think and it’s what’s disturbed me the most is that, well, I think the community has not grown, which maybe is part of my just what disturbs me is that while everything has become accepted, it’s not like they’ve comic sales are haven’t gone up because Marvel movies are huge and there weren’t more people reading Tolkien when Peter Jackson did his adaptations and stuff like it.
00:20:32:18 – 00:20:37:16
Agent Palmer
It gets co-opted, but we basically circled in on ourselves for a little bit.
00:20:37:31 – 00:21:07:57
Jordan Steinhoff
Co-opted is the wrong word because, because you like, I look at that and I go, you’re right. You know, the Marvel movies didn’t inspire a big increase of readership. Net but I imagine it did work, to a certain extent, to get new or younger readers in there. And that’s the problem with DC and Marvel, more so than the Indies, is people like me have aged out.
00:21:08:01 – 00:21:41:35
Jordan Steinhoff
I don’t find their writing particularly engaging anymore. So when I was a kid, the the older readers who read the Golden Age comics were like, no, Alan Scott is the only real Green Lantern. And his weakness is, would not this bullshit yellow? And I’m kind of there myself now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t have a really violent response to it, but they’re trying to make their medium more relevant to a younger age.
00:21:41:35 – 00:22:02:11
Jordan Steinhoff
And in a digital age, people that are not necessarily looking for the comic book store, especially in an era when the specialty shop is, going away nationally to, I think it’s a case of young readers are coming in, but 1 to 1 older readers are leaving.
00:22:02:16 – 00:22:24:58
Agent Palmer
So there’s one thing I would touch on there, which is one of the biggest things I think you and I had growing up was that indie store, because that was a community that I mean, that’s it was. And listen, there are online communities and I’m not putting them down, but you can’t see that I had a rough day at school.
00:22:25:03 – 00:22:53:59
Agent Palmer
When I walk in the store or when I tweet, like unless I tweet that directly, you can’t read body language and you aren’t hanging out all the time. And when we had those stores and anybody of a certain age and within any part of the geek nerd comic gaming community is, as I’m talking, picturing their particular store or stores, isn’t.
00:22:53:59 – 00:23:11:58
Agent Palmer
They had more than one and well, I don’t know if I’d have spoken to anybody from any of those stores in the last decade or two. I still feel like if I saw one of them on the street, like I would still know them.
00:23:12:02 – 00:23:12:15
Jordan Steinhoff
You know, I.
00:23:12:15 – 00:23:14:05
Agent Palmer
Would hope a lot of stuff this.
00:23:14:09 – 00:23:35:08
Jordan Steinhoff
Time in those stores. Way too much time, if you ask my my bank. Look at any given point of the 90s in the early 2000. But one of our early apps and all those geeks was the need for the, for the store. We were talking from a game concept, you know, the game store, not comic store, but the need for the store.
00:23:35:09 – 00:24:06:52
Jordan Steinhoff
What with Amazon, you know, kind of taking over the world miniature market and cool stuff, you know, digital outlets for buying whatever you want and places like BGG and apps nowadays that just let you find people locally or within your comfort for driving and go into their house. And I’m like, I’ve always been a proponent of the store because I get to see more stuff than what is going to be at my friend’s house.
00:24:06:57 – 00:24:32:15
Jordan Steinhoff
I’ll get to see more people. I hope I’ll have a broader social interaction and and not ripping on any of my friends. But I see these people and I talk to these people on daily. It’s nice to see other people, and when it comes right down to it, if you don’t have a store in your community, who’s ordering stuff that makes the companies want to put more money into it?
00:24:32:20 – 00:24:55:33
Jordan Steinhoff
It can’t just be any online retailer. I mean, there’s great savings at places like Miniature Market or Cool Stuff Inc, but you’re not going to go to that store and play your game. They’re just going to ship it to you. It’s great having resources like BG, your apps where you can find people, but the store is a good place to have community, which I think part of the gaming community is the community aspect.
00:24:55:33 – 00:25:14:17
Jordan Steinhoff
Go there, talk, talk to the store, talk to other people that you don’t necessarily see on the daily. Talk to people about what they like. What games did they bring in tonight? Why am I going to play Exploding Kittens when I think it’s the worst game ever? But everybody’s at the table and that’s what that thrown out. Why?
00:25:14:32 – 00:25:24:31
Jordan Steinhoff
Because that’s where the community came together that night for Exploding Kittens. So I think there’s a big value in having the friendly local game store. Yes.
00:25:24:36 – 00:25:45:47
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I like the idea. So mid to late 90s we did magic. Obviously that was kind of the the big one. And then Pokemon came in and while I didn’t play we welcomed them in. Right? I mean, sure, we were older and we made fun of the little kids, but just the same, they sat and they played.
00:25:45:47 – 00:26:10:54
Agent Palmer
And, you know, a lot of them played magic as well. And the other thing that the owner was kind of at the forefront of was we had the I think it was four no. Three, we had three land networked computers for Warcraft, two, Tides of Darkness, Diablo, when it hit in 96, was huge, and quake, the biggest one being quake.
00:26:10:54 – 00:26:16:38
Agent Palmer
Like. People would sit around playing a networked land quake for hours.
00:26:16:43 – 00:26:39:54
Jordan Steinhoff
There was a store in Toronto just off Young College for the people that might be listening in Toronto. Gone now probably. But back in the day they were one of the first LAN party stores whose whole model was just there to let you come in and put down six bucks an hour or something. And they had quake, Unreal and Duke Nukem.
00:26:39:58 – 00:26:55:12
Jordan Steinhoff
Okay. And it was exactly that. Just people will go in there and I did it. Just go in there and you’re just talking shit, you know, to strangers. But that’s because you’re in the moment. You’re shooting, you’re getting shot, you run it around, you’re back in your diving and talking smack, having a good time.
00:26:55:26 – 00:27:18:07
Agent Palmer
I yearn for the land party, like I have older computers that I hold on to with, with a few, like quake still my number one. And unfortunately of all the people I can get together with, I’m the best player. I’m not good, okay, but of those people, I’m the best player. So like, I have to like, die, like I, I have to make a game of it.
00:27:18:07 – 00:27:39:50
Agent Palmer
Like, I almost have to be like a dad and let the kid win a couple times. So, like, they’ll keep playing with me, but I’ve put all this time and energy into making sure these older and I think they’re all running XP, because if you upgrade too much, then you lose some of the land capabilities for the built in games, and then you have to spend a lot of time hacking around.
00:27:39:55 – 00:27:42:30
Agent Palmer
And I don’t want to do that. I mean, as much.
00:27:42:32 – 00:27:43:21
Jordan Steinhoff
Why you’re a nerd.
00:27:43:32 – 00:28:05:25
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s why I’m both. But but there is still something about it. And you know what? While we did listen to music and, you know, we did whatever, like, as the guy who was working, I mean, it was the best job. I will never have a job better than that, right? Like, I don’t think I made any money.
00:28:05:25 – 00:28:29:25
Agent Palmer
I might have gotten paid in store credit, but at that point, who cares? Like I’m just hanging out with my friends and just all the time it was great. But you know, that’s something that even with the headset, like online gaming, not quite the same. Like, I can’t give you a side, I, I can’t lean away from my console and like, nudge you like, that just doesn’t happen.
00:28:29:25 – 00:28:39:19
Agent Palmer
But there’s these little interactions that with a land party or like, throw me a bag of Doritos, like it’s just whatever it is. Like, no.
00:28:39:24 – 00:29:06:32
Jordan Steinhoff
I know what you’re talking about. I feel. Yeah, because we have the same conversations about, our RPG groups on Discord or Roll20. You know, it’s I don’t mind getting together as a group with people that I’ll do digital gaming with all evening long. If we all had the evening together. But come down to it, if everybody got together one summer and said, hey, we’re all going to go to Minnesota and hang out with Jordan for a weekend so that we can all be in one room, that would be far better.
00:29:06:32 – 00:29:13:53
Jordan Steinhoff
Even though it’s all the same people to my mind, as much as I love my Xbox One might be for nothing beats in person gaming?
00:29:13:57 – 00:29:14:37
Agent Palmer
No, no.
00:29:14:37 – 00:29:24:33
Jordan Steinhoff
Like the tabletop simulator app for some stuff on online where I’m theory crafting. You know, like when I used to play Star Wars Destiny, you know, stuff like that. But give me person to person.
00:29:24:38 – 00:29:49:12
Agent Palmer
This is odd for me to say, but it’s a realization I’ve come to. As we’ve been talking. I’ve almost become like gaming learning averse, which is not where I started. So when I was working at the store, one of my jobs was to learn all of the games we sold so I could help teach other people. So it wasn’t just magic.
00:29:49:12 – 00:30:09:09
Agent Palmer
And by the time Pokemon came, I was kind of off the hook. Because we had enough like local kids around that, you know? But we also, sold Spell fire, which is kind of like a precursor to magic. And I still have I still have Dex. And, there was the first Star Wars, the trading card game.
00:30:09:13 – 00:30:14:03
Jordan Steinhoff
That decipher game is hands down my favorite CCG ever.
00:30:14:17 – 00:30:49:51
Agent Palmer
There was Middle-Earth, which was one of my favorites, and it wasn’t even my love of Tolkien at the time. It was just it was one of the few CGS that had a solo component to it. And then I also learned how to play Monty Python, Holy Grail CCG, and I feel like that might be it. And I still ridiculously through moves and college and moves and an apartment and my own house, I still have most of all my cards.
00:30:49:55 – 00:31:11:25
Agent Palmer
I still have like 4 or 5 spell fire decks, like I still have 4 or 5 middle earth decks. Like, it’s kind of ridiculous that I held on to that stuff for so long. I still don’t remember how to play anything other than magic, but, then when I sit down and Steph’s like, I want to play a new board game, I’m like, I don’t want to.
00:31:11:30 – 00:31:31:46
Agent Palmer
And it’s not that the games aren’t fun. I’m just I’m not as into learning new games. I don’t know what happened. And I, I don’t want to say it’s age because I’m learning other like I’m open to learning other new things. It’s just I just want to have fun now I don’t oh, I spent 50 minutes trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do.
00:31:31:51 – 00:31:41:49
Jordan Steinhoff
You know? But every game doesn’t have to be a grinder like that. There’s plenty of low entry point in terms of both money and brainpower games out there.
00:31:41:53 – 00:31:53:40
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s fair. I’m and I’m all about low entropy. It’s one of the things that I have no problem admitting that I was an addicted, wannabe professional magic player at the time, right?
00:31:53:44 – 00:31:59:24
Jordan Steinhoff
I can’t say you’ve spent 20 years playing magic and not say you don’t have an understanding of complex games.
00:31:59:29 – 00:32:25:38
Agent Palmer
Well, no, I do have an understanding of complex games, but I feel like it took me a quite a well. I mean, it was living in breathe like we used to go to Pro Tour qualifiers when they were still called Pro Tour qualifiers in the northeast. So it was like we’d we drove from Pennsylvania to Providence, Rhode Island or New York or New Jersey, like, you know, they weren’t.
00:32:25:42 – 00:32:28:00
Jordan Steinhoff
Do you remember your DSI number?
00:32:28:04 – 00:32:48:22
Agent Palmer
I still have my original DC card with the original arena stickers on the back. And, I tried to like 15, 20 years later. So like 5 or 6 years ago, I tried to, like, log in and they’re like, yeah, that’s not a number anymore. We don’t we don’t use those number. We retired those numbers either. Oh, great.
00:32:48:27 – 00:33:13:36
Agent Palmer
But when I got back into Magic The Gathering arena and I was like, oh, this is great. This is a way to kind of play with like I was like, I’m not spending any money. I’m drawing the line here. No money is being spent. I will spend it on other things. But I know that if I even spend that first dollar, it will open a can of worms, because it’s kind of the recovery model.
00:33:13:45 – 00:33:48:11
Agent Palmer
I feel like for a lot of us of a certain age or like once you get, I don’t know, post-college maybe, or you grow a little bit away from whatever that game was. It doesn’t have to be magic and gathering, and it could be a digital game. It could be World of Warcraft, whatever it is, when you spend time away from it, you go like, all right, maybe one, like, maybe I can play one game, but like, I can’t buy a pack like, oh no, no, no, no, no, I don’t want to buy a pack or, you know, like I maybe I can play for an hour, but okay, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
00:33:48:11 – 00:34:07:43
Agent Palmer
It’s too easy for me to sit in front of this computer for the next 25 years. And just like so there’s this like, recovering addict feeling of, like, I mean, okay, fine, if you really want to play, but don’t, don’t go over the waterfall, like, because we all have that ability and it doesn’t matter what it is like.
00:34:07:43 – 00:34:36:05
Agent Palmer
There are we all have those things. Whatever your game is like, we all have them. And it’s kind of one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you, because I felt like you have a show about geek stuff and gaming, and I feel like we’ve kind of all kind of insulated ourselves a little bit, because the difference when we talk about, like us versus them in the geek and nerd communities is like the them don’t have that.
00:34:36:10 – 00:34:56:20
Agent Palmer
They play a game and they can kind of put it down like there is an addiction. I think for us, maybe not everybody and maybe not equally, but like there is an addiction because it’s love. We love these games. We love these movies. There is it’s more than just, well, that was fun. No, no, no, that wasn’t fun.
00:34:56:20 – 00:35:05:15
Agent Palmer
That was an experience. Like there is something deeper for us. And it’s kind of one of the reasons that I feel like there’s always still this us in them.
00:35:05:20 – 00:35:31:10
Jordan Steinhoff
I might agree with you on that because I experience that quite a lot. I mean, Sarah and Megan, Jeff and mine spouses, we have our our monthly game night, and when it’s down, it’s social first, game second. And our game selections are always not sound like we’re putting them down, but casual friendly. Sure. Because that’s what they’re they’re casual gamers.
00:35:31:10 – 00:35:58:35
Jordan Steinhoff
I don’t necessarily like that term because it can have a negative connotation, but we’re getting together to talk and eat and and therapy is a little bit as much as we are trying to save the world when we’re playing, pandemic or something like that. And there’s definitely, a spousal us in them. But I think that that gap is closing because enough popular media is embracing things.
00:35:58:35 – 00:36:29:37
Jordan Steinhoff
I’ve been in the stores and people have come in like when my crisis protocol, a mini game, came out last year. It’s not the old Marvel Comics characters, it’s everything’s derived from the movies. The characters, the costumes. Everything is derived from the movies. And I think that’s a really great move on on Atomic Mass Games part, because it’s saying we recognize that there’s this history, but we’re limiting ourselves to the movies because that’s what people know.
00:36:29:42 – 00:36:49:02
Jordan Steinhoff
And they’re a little moves like that through the game industry, whether it’s minis or board or cards, that they’re trying to take down that barrier of entry, remove that inside outside thing, remove that leap from casual to hardcore if you want to leave that. And I think as an industry, while it is slow, I think it’s definitely happening.
00:36:49:02 – 00:36:50:33
Jordan Steinhoff
And I think it’s definitely a good thing.
00:36:50:40 – 00:37:13:32
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Look, I acknowledge I am as much of the problem as I am the solution, like I am the master of my own domain and like I need to be more open. And I know that that’s where it starts. And I’m not I’m not saying I’m closed by any stretch of the imagination, but I also know, like I you’ve you’ve been listening to me for however long in this podcast.
00:37:13:32 – 00:37:43:54
Agent Palmer
I’ve made it quite known like I was there first, even if I wasn’t like, you know, and it, you know, it doesn’t matter what the game is. And I, I also get accused of being, a little closed minded. So like, there are games I love from that period of time, right. Like I never got in the World of Warcraft, but I could play Warcraft two Tides of Darkness forever, and I never played anything past the first Diablo, which I still go back and replay all the time.
00:37:43:59 – 00:38:00:14
Agent Palmer
And, well, I have played quake two and quake three. That first one is all I really need. Like and I, I get accused all the time of like at least played Diablo two. Come on. Like like go to the next one, right? Like I’m.
00:38:00:19 – 00:38:05:09
Jordan Steinhoff
You’re too young to be a grog and so don’t be grog.
00:38:05:09 – 00:38:32:17
Agent Palmer
I’m, I’m, I’m, I see I my age may say otherwise, but my mind is like like I, I really am an old man like that before my time. I’ve been an old man for like. So I am 36. I’m 36, but really I’m 56. Okay, I in age, I’m 36. But in mind, like and in spirit. I am such an old man.
00:38:32:22 – 00:38:47:46
Agent Palmer
I am such a grumpy old man. Like it’s just I and I, it’s, I like, I embrace it a little bit because it’s fun, but like, I don’t know if as time goes on, I’m ever going to de-age like I seem to be staying the same age.
00:38:47:51 – 00:39:02:31
Jordan Steinhoff
You can de-age though, because it’s absolutely a mental thing. I know you’re somewhere in deepest, darkest Pennsylvania, but there’s got to be a game store. Just go walk around and look at something other than magic.
00:39:02:36 – 00:39:27:46
Agent Palmer
No, no, I we do. I mean, I there are, I mean, within, you know, 35 minute perimeter, there are like seven comic slash gaming stores. And when we’re out, you know, we we stopped by 1 or 2, like, whatever one we’re closest to, we’ll stop them, walk through and I’ll talk to people, you know, especially look, we’ve talked a lot about like our love for the the local store.
00:39:27:46 – 00:39:47:55
Agent Palmer
But I will tell you, I have been in some shitty ones where it’s like, if you’re not on the inside, like you’re nobody. And that’s kind of always my, my go to, like if I walk in and you say hi and I strike up a conversation with you, I will always attempt to buy something, at the very least the first time, because you were nice.
00:39:47:55 – 00:40:13:17
Agent Palmer
The second time. I’m on a budget. Let’s I want to have like I, you know, whatever. But like the first time. No. And if you’re friendly enough, you know, I’ve, I’ve bought some just old like, Alliance singles because, like, I wanted to keep talking to the guy and that kind of. Listen, I’m your target demographic, right? I’m a 30 something with no kids, so, like, you should totally want me in your store.
00:40:13:21 – 00:40:26:20
Agent Palmer
You don’t want to kick me out like my. My income’s disposable and like I can spend it here. Now, not saying you should kiss my ass. You should be as nice to me as you should any other person who walks in.
00:40:26:20 – 00:40:51:00
Jordan Steinhoff
But right there, the stores, whether it’s the game store or the comic store or any kind of niche store, I have found that the bad ones are just as cliquey as high school ever was, like portrayed in Heathers or anything like that. Absolutely. It’s just a big. And the sad part is they don’t realize because there’s a customer base that is always there.
00:40:51:07 – 00:41:36:05
Jordan Steinhoff
So they think they have this customer base that is always there, and it takes them a while to realize that new people come in and maybe buy things one time, but don’t come back because they’re not opening their maybe it’s clean. Hopefully it’s, well laid out, hopefully. But if nobody says hi, whether it’s staff or another patron, and if that table is always closed off either through an attitude or just not, you know, not enough space to know people are going to call back, why would I go to a dirty store where the owner is grumpy and people are polite and accepting, but not inclusive?
00:41:36:19 – 00:41:59:46
Jordan Steinhoff
And I don’t mean that in the gender way. Just there’s no. Yeah, don’t. Tipton, I’m not telling you not to sit down for my game, but I’m also not going to invite you to sit down, you know, so why go to those stores? The good stores survive. Not just because they have something to sell in. This is circling back inadvertently, but because they’re a place you want to go.
00:41:59:51 – 00:42:20:26
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Listen, nobody ever got kicked out of cheers. Like, maybe if they got in a fight, but, like, like cheers is what you want. Your local store, whatever kind to be, you want it to be. Cheers. And you know what? Even to the extent where like, you want to, you want the strangers to look up when Norm walks in and everybody says, hi, Norm, like, that’s that’s a part of it.
00:42:20:26 – 00:42:41:07
Agent Palmer
Because then the strangers like, well, how do I become a norm? And it’s great. Like that’s something people should want to be a part of. And there’s a time thing too. Like, I mean, I was in high school, I got I was done for the day at 3:00, you know, maybe I had a sport, but like, I mean, it’s a commitment.
00:42:41:07 – 00:43:13:24
Agent Palmer
Now I have to give up a weekend in order, you know what I mean? Like, it is like, oh, you know, it’s. So if you’re not going to be welcoming, I’m going to stay home or, you know, I’m going to play my game online or, you know, whatever. But I didn’t really I like I didn’t expect this to be a lament for like local stores, but like, they are disappearing and it is disappointing because, like, I don’t have any kids, but if I did like, I would want them to have that experience.
00:43:13:29 – 00:43:40:00
Agent Palmer
And since I don’t have any kids now, by the time like I do, like, are there going to be any left? Because it is a great experience and it’s it’s even outside of the games. It’s just hanging out. I remember 1999, we got wind that there was going to be a live action Lord of the rings, and for like two weeks we spent every conversation trying to Dreamcast Lord of the rings.
00:43:40:00 – 00:43:48:07
Agent Palmer
I mean, listen, I wish I could find what we had said. We were dead. I don’t we had nothing. I can tell you we had nothing. Right. Okay.
00:43:48:12 – 00:43:50:10
Jordan Steinhoff
Who was back in the day?
00:43:50:10 – 00:44:09:40
Agent Palmer
That’s right, I did. We didn’t know who any of those guys were, but that was a fun two weeks, so you might not seem like it, but that was a fun two weeks. It was more than just gaming, you know? And those conversations don’t like maybe they happen in your house, but if they happen in your house, you’ve probably had them before.
00:44:09:53 – 00:44:25:30
Agent Palmer
You’re not inviting strangers over to your house. So like your best friend of 15 years, you you’ve had every conversation at a certain point. And it’s fun, don’t get me wrong. But like the online community, back to what you said. Like the online community cannot replace the physical one.
00:44:25:32 – 00:44:50:28
Jordan Steinhoff
For all us geeks, we’ve always been about the community aspect of whether it’s the game community, the game design community, the community in general. Because for both of us, we’re both of the same mindset, Jeff and I, that if there’s no people, there’s no game. If there’s no people, there’s no point in writing that comic or being in that movie if there’s no people.
00:44:50:33 – 00:45:14:41
Jordan Steinhoff
And so when we go like when I would go to X-Wing or Star Trek tournaments and Raj, you know, a couple times a month, we would have four hours scheduled in the store and we would be there for eight hours because it was four hours for the game and then four hours. I was just sitting around and shooting, talking, not just about what we played, what did I do wrong, what I have done better theory crafting for the next tournament.
00:45:14:41 – 00:45:31:28
Jordan Steinhoff
But whatever the new geek movie was at the time, whatever. I was still reading comics at that point, so it’s like pick up my comics and, you know, live through them. Talk about what’s going on. I missed a couple issues. Don’t tell me about what’s happening over here, you know, that kind of thing. And that’s the community aspect.
00:45:31:28 – 00:45:56:33
Jordan Steinhoff
That’s always been the strongest part for us. When we had a larger Patreon following, we had a benchmark where everything over a certain amount for our monthly expenses. We what we do in our 30 days of podcasting back in the early days. And it was, kind of a pledge drive thing and X amount went towards our annual expenses and the rest went to Jack vassal auction.
00:45:56:33 – 00:46:28:55
Jordan Steinhoff
And we did that for a couple of years, because Jack Vassal auction is a really important charity, and we want to support that because we know people that have been helped by that personally, that has impacted our lives. So we think that’s a good way to turn it. Turn around, get back all her stuff isn’t necessarily that altruistic, but it’s definitely about keeping the community, the community and not keeping it the game, the games are there, but the games are there for the people, and comics are there, but they’re there for the people.
00:46:29:00 – 00:46:39:19
Jordan Steinhoff
And people need to be in the stores, or people need to be in their basements, or people need to be just on the bus talking about these things. Yeah, that’s our thing.
00:46:39:24 – 00:47:06:57
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No. For a very long time I lived alone like I lived the bachelor life. And, you know, movies are better when you get to walk out of the theater with somebody. Like, I’m not afraid to go to the theater by myself. My digital community slash my phone, you know, because my phone, like, I’m, there are probably a number of people listening to this show right now that have heard my voice way too much on the phone because I’m a talker.
00:47:06:57 – 00:47:24:46
Agent Palmer
Like, don’t text me. No, no, no, I’m gonna call you. Like, we’re going to talk and yeah, by the time I get to my car, if I’m seeing a movie by myself, I’m calling somebody I know who’s already seen it. But it’s better to walk out or to sit through that. I’m a sit through the credits guy every time, like.
00:47:24:47 – 00:47:30:55
Agent Palmer
But it’s also a great time to talk about what you just saw with whoever you saw it with.
00:47:31:10 – 00:47:57:07
Jordan Steinhoff
You know, back when they introduced Zenos in the first, the first and credit scene, like, I try to stay spoiler free so that I can go in there and have a 100% no preconceived notions. And then they showed the Zenos and I was like, Holy shit. And my wife was like, what? I’m like, I’ll explain later. But just that was the best moment of the year for me.
00:47:57:07 – 00:48:18:42
Jordan Steinhoff
That’s all you need to know. And it was great because like you said, she was right there. And as soon as I left the theater hitting some Facebook groups and just throwing it up there, did you see it? Definitely stay for it. It’s worth it, you know? And then as more people see it, you know, I like I definitely enjoy the digital community.
00:48:18:42 – 00:48:33:47
Jordan Steinhoff
There’s absolutely, a need for it and a space for it. Don’t get me wrong, I, I, I know I’ve said it like three times and it sounds like I’m all, all people, all the time. But there’s definitely a space for the digital community, whatever your geekdom is.
00:48:33:51 – 00:48:54:53
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it’s whether you’re in a store when you’re a part of that community, there’s still it’s not like everybody’s the same. You’re not clones, right? Like there’s always you, there’s that guy who plays blue all the time, right? Like it’s just how it works. Or like there’s, there’s a, there’s a bigger token fan or.
00:48:54:57 – 00:48:58:32
Jordan Steinhoff
That sound pretty negative. I did, didn’t I?
00:48:58:37 – 00:49:22:30
Agent Palmer
Or there’s a guy who likes Star Wars more than everybody else. And we all have our list of priorities in fandoms. And that’s one of the things that the online communities help you embrace is like, I’m a super fan of X. Well, now you don’t have to talk to, you know, somebody from your local store who’s sick of talking, like hearing you talk about it.
00:49:22:39 – 00:49:49:09
Agent Palmer
You can talk to somebody who or have a conversation on Twitter or in a Facebook group or on Reddit, where they want to dive deep into, you know, the color of someone they want to. And that’s part of what makes both. But both communities are important. Like it’s kind of a balance of of both. I did want to ask you before we get like, too far away from it, you emigrated.
00:49:49:23 – 00:49:51:11
Agent Palmer
Emigrated, immigrated.
00:49:51:16 – 00:49:53:13
Jordan Steinhoff
Both depending on which way you’re looking at it.
00:49:53:13 – 00:50:09:07
Agent Palmer
Okay. Yeah. That’s true. So, but you grew up in Canada. Your formative years were in Canada? Yes. So is there a geek cultural difference, or is it not?
00:50:09:12 – 00:50:34:46
Jordan Steinhoff
At the time, I was growing up, I’d probably say that the experience of somebody my age in either country was going to be the same. I’m almost 50, so that’s going back to the 80s, late 70s where, like, Red box Daddy was coming out. There was still definitely me. When you were a geek or a nerd, there was no good to it.
00:50:34:51 – 00:50:50:39
Jordan Steinhoff
You know, I wasn’t taken out behind the schoolyard and wailed on every day for that. But there was definitely, that’s him. You know, he’ll help you fix your computer, but he’ll also talk to you about it, too.
00:50:50:44 – 00:50:52:22
Agent Palmer
Yeah. That’s universal.
00:50:52:26 – 00:51:22:34
Jordan Steinhoff
Yeah, yeah. Modern times, you know, not the paleo, the lithic era of gaming. I imagine there is going to be a difference because there’s, population density because of the exchange. If you go into things, places like, Quebec where everything has to be bilingual on a store front, and sometimes the auditors will come in and say, you can’t sell this because it’s not bilingual.
00:51:22:39 – 00:51:46:57
Jordan Steinhoff
There’s going to be some moderately different things, but some things will transcend that magic big in both countries, the big board games are going to be big. The individual experience within with those games or within a community. I mean, I think that’ll be just as regional as anything between Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, New York and Los Angeles.
00:51:46:57 – 00:52:13:43
Agent Palmer
Okay. Yeah. That’s fair. This show, The Palmer Files, is, has been fairly, North American as well, call it. I’ve had one non North American on so far. I’ve kind of gone down the the Canadian rabbit hole. And I’m sure at some point that will get talked about a lot. But I was just curious because like there’s we take it for granted when we’re growing up like what we have.
00:52:13:50 – 00:52:40:44
Jordan Steinhoff
I’ve helped my brother grow his gaming group. His gaming group is my brother is nine years old. He and his gaming group is everybody. That was in my gaming group when I was in high school. So I left the country. He moved back to our hometown, many of them came back to our hometown and they found each other through magic or through just happenstance.
00:52:40:49 – 00:52:44:44
Jordan Steinhoff
She got some of it right. So it crossing paths, that kind of thing.
00:52:44:44 – 00:52:45:23
Agent Palmer
Sure.
00:52:45:27 – 00:53:10:52
Jordan Steinhoff
And then they get together and they start to play games. The biggest thing that I find is finances. It pains me to say this pains me to say this so much as a Canadian. God damn, everything is so expensive up there, and I know where it comes from and I know where it goes. I understand that, and I’ve made this argument to other people down here.
00:53:10:52 – 00:53:14:17
Jordan Steinhoff
When we talk about health care shit like that.
00:53:14:17 – 00:53:14:56
Agent Palmer
Sure.
00:53:15:00 – 00:53:42:38
Jordan Steinhoff
But when I’m trying to give him the hard sell on tying to the Underdark, which for me was a $45 game and up there and, admittedly, that was an online purchase, but up there in the brick and mortar and very was 60 only because of the exchange, the cost of getting it to Canada and then the cost of keeping the brick and mortar going, it’s I mean, that’s a hard sell that that’s it’s a really good game, Scott.
00:53:42:38 – 00:53:48:35
Jordan Steinhoff
Yeah, but I don’t want to spend 60 bucks on it. I understand that, but yeah, buy it.
00:53:48:40 – 00:54:17:14
Agent Palmer
That’s got to be pretty hard for the stores too though. I mean especially because, well, none of the online communities see the border or the exchange rate. So if you’re in like a Facebook group or on Reddit or on Twitter and some of these like touting a game, you go to your local store and look for it. You’re not thinking, I mean, maybe after it happens a few times, you’re thinking about like, oh, is is this going to be available for me?
00:54:17:19 – 00:54:25:21
Agent Palmer
But like, that’s not the first thing. Like the first thing is, oh, that sounds like a cool game. Like that’s your first or it should be your first inclination.
00:54:25:28 – 00:54:48:27
Jordan Steinhoff
The most common question I get, like anywhere is, what’s the Canadian equivalent of miniature market or what’s the Canadian equivalent of cool stuff? And I’m like, I just don’t know if there is one. I’m sure there is. Like there is something. But in terms of a national retailer that sells online strictly, I don’t know if there is one.
00:54:48:40 – 00:54:54:20
Jordan Steinhoff
And with a population of barely 35 million, I would be surprised if there was one.
00:54:54:30 – 00:55:04:15
Agent Palmer
Yeah. That’s hard. That’s. Well, and with the population density so close to the border. And why don’t you just drive across the border and exactly. You know, that’s.
00:55:04:20 – 00:55:10:58
Jordan Steinhoff
Your exchange and your cost of gas is going to be there anyways. And it’s still probably going to come out.
00:55:11:03 – 00:55:24:58
Agent Palmer
Well, listen, if I don’t if I don’t have a job soon, you and I are going to go, I don’t know, somewhere just south of the border and we’ll open a store that’s like games for Canadians.
00:55:25:03 – 00:55:26:14
Jordan Steinhoff
Yeah.
00:55:26:18 – 00:55:31:41
Agent Palmer
We’ll point we’ll, we’ll, we’ll point the sign north and we’ll just wait for them to come down.
00:55:31:46 – 00:55:33:39
Jordan Steinhoff
There you go. You know.
00:55:33:44 – 00:55:38:16
Agent Palmer
Punch holes in the wall. If there ends up being one on the northern border.
00:55:38:21 – 00:55:41:22
Jordan Steinhoff
Oh, no. We’re always people up there. There’s no law.
00:55:41:22 – 00:55:44:19
Agent Palmer
For. You’re going to try and keep us out. I know how this works.
00:55:44:33 – 00:55:52:00
Jordan Steinhoff
Oh, yeah, I know there’s a law there, but it’s it’s not to keep us out. It’s to keep you guys out. Yeah.
00:55:52:05 – 00:55:55:57
Agent Palmer
Look at you on all us geeks review games.
00:55:56:02 – 00:55:56:57
Jordan Steinhoff
Yes.
00:55:57:01 – 00:56:19:25
Agent Palmer
Do you have, like. And listen, you’ve got, like, a million episodes, right? Like, I mean, you’re not you’re not just barely getting into double digits, like, like this tiny show, but, if you were to sell me on trying to sell me on 2 or 3 games now, mind you. Okay, as far as games go, outside of magic and the ones we’ve already talked about, right?
00:56:19:30 – 00:56:42:08
Agent Palmer
I have played Exploding Kittens. I’ve played Oregon Trail, I’ve played the labyrinth game. And, that’s all because of Steph and I myself am a huge fan of Risk and Stratego, though no one wants to play risk with me ever. Because everybody says the same thing about risk that they say about monopoly. It’s going to take four hours.
00:56:42:13 – 00:56:45:19
Jordan Steinhoff
Well, we know.
00:56:45:24 – 00:56:51:29
Agent Palmer
Well, it’s going to be four hours before somebody flips the board and somebody else wins by default.
00:56:51:34 – 00:56:56:09
Jordan Steinhoff
But like, you know, give me dungeons and drink. I do like deal with that. No. Yes.
00:56:56:09 – 00:57:00:54
Agent Palmer
Because I do have an ongoing pathfinder okay. Going on right now.
00:57:00:59 – 00:57:24:11
Jordan Steinhoff
So I’ll throw it out there because I just mentioned that, tyrants of the Underdark, it’s based around the Underdark, where the drought come from. I don’t know how well-versed you are, but. So it’s where all the dark elves are, and it’s really in the lore. They’re cutthroat, really angry, evil. Everybody hates everybody, blah, blah, blah. But it’s a bit of an area controlled game like risk.
00:57:24:16 – 00:57:46:52
Jordan Steinhoff
It’s a bit of a deck builder. So you’re trying to improve your deck with your resources as you go on, but it’s got a defined end and an easily achievable and unlike risk where unless you said we’re rolling, going for three quarters domination, you know, it can literally take forever. If somebody just turtles up in Australia and never leaves, you know.
00:57:46:57 – 00:57:56:06
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s usually where I start. I just, I mean, not to give it away, but like you, you find a corner and you make it a stronghold and then you go out like that’s.
00:57:56:11 – 00:58:14:18
Jordan Steinhoff
And hey, that is an excellent and that’s an excellent learn skill to take in the tyrants of the underground. It’s got it’s got your area control, but it’s got a defined end that is easily achieved. Everybody is working towards the same goal, but everybody’s going to do it a little bit differently depending on what cards cards they buy.
00:58:14:23 – 00:58:36:46
Jordan Steinhoff
All right. So then you like magic. Yes. So there’s an older game called Mage Wars. It might still be in print, but it’s not as popular as it used you because it’s a game that’s morphed. It went from a big box to, you know, expansion, expansion, expansion. And we’re going to change it up a little bit here. So it’s a generally two player game.
00:58:36:51 – 00:58:59:15
Jordan Steinhoff
You’ve got your spellbook similar to magic. Everything has a cost similar to magic. And what makes it different than a lot of the magic though, is you’re on a board. The board is your arena. You’re putting your cards out like you would with magic, but rather than just kind of in your imagination staging these battles. Oh, my ship does.
00:58:59:20 – 00:59:05:02
Jordan Steinhoff
You know, you’re moving your stuff around to position them like you would in a more tactical game.
00:59:05:14 – 00:59:05:38
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:59:05:50 – 00:59:09:07
Jordan Steinhoff
So do you like zombies?
00:59:09:12 – 00:59:16:58
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I would ask, what kind like, I know I don’t like slow zombies. All right.
00:59:17:03 – 00:59:38:18
Jordan Steinhoff
Okay. So that that that marks that out, but so there’s a well I’ll throw them both out there. There’s two games. Again these are not new, but they’re still out there. What is called last night on Earth. And that is a zombie game where you’re in the traditional Romero ask kind of zombie apocalypse. It’s the the apocalypse hasn’t even happened.
00:59:38:18 – 01:00:02:08
Jordan Steinhoff
It’s a small town. The zombie infestation has started. A group of humans trying to stop the zombies. It’s got a sister game, but it’s about the alien invasion. Okay, many of the same mechanics, big glossy boxes, many of the same rules. Just revealed. All right, so that’s that’s 3/4 games, and you like exploding? Yeah.
01:00:02:13 – 01:00:25:12
Agent Palmer
I’m okay. So here he played exploding. Well, I was going to say, here’s the thing. I’m. It could be the people in playing, but I’m deviously good at exploding kittens. I don’t know if I like it, but I’m good at it. So there’s a the gamer in me. He’s like, oh, well, I’m. I keep winning, so it’s hard not to like it.
01:00:25:17 – 01:00:49:24
Jordan Steinhoff
So if you want something that is simple, but a little bit more luck based, there’s a game called Sushi Guys. And if you like, it’s a dice roller and it’s got a nice little bell so that when you’ve completed rolling the dice to make your sushi plate, you ring the bell that indicates you’ve made your plate fries or up.
01:00:49:28 – 01:01:23:08
Jordan Steinhoff
It’s the it’s 3 to 6 players. It goes as big as you want to go. As much time as you want. And in many days, games where somebody is rolling dice and everybody else is kind of watching, this is a little bit more interactive because the people rolling the dice are trying to make their sushi plates based on the cards that are out there, but they’re also watching each other because, if a black skull comes up and you notice your opponent has the black skull on the die, you can yell yuck and make them pick up everything and start their plate over.
01:01:23:13 – 01:01:53:12
Jordan Steinhoff
The people who are not actively rolling the dice are also watching everybody. Well, the two players that are rolling the dice because of both rollers at the same time have the black skull up. They are chopped and the round ends. The dice moves on to whoever y’all chop and then whoever has the fewest cards. So it’s a it’s a dice roller with, not as much strategy, we’ll call it as, exploding kittens.
01:01:53:17 – 01:01:57:06
Jordan Steinhoff
But, I think it’s far more fun.
01:01:57:10 – 01:01:57:43
Agent Palmer
Fair enough.
01:01:57:50 – 01:02:02:31
Jordan Steinhoff
Yeah. And if you like, have you played Shadowrun?
01:02:02:36 – 01:02:03:34
Agent Palmer
No.
01:02:03:39 – 01:02:08:45
Jordan Steinhoff
No. Do you like any of that kind of cyberpunk themed type stuff?
01:02:08:57 – 01:02:20:32
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m like. So I mean, I talked about being an old man. I’m still fairly open to things. I’m just. I’m just cranky.
01:02:20:37 – 01:02:50:02
Jordan Steinhoff
I if you want kind of a meet your game, not super meeting, not risk meeting, but something that you and 2 or 3 people can sit down and spend a couple hours doing. Still have more time in your evening if you do learn new things, that kind of thing. It’s called Shadowrun. Sprawl ups. There’s a lot of lore to it, but you don’t need to know the Shadowrun more to enjoy the game, because everything that you’re going to be given to play the game informs you on what you need to know about what’s going on in the game.
01:02:50:06 – 01:02:51:13
Agent Palmer
Oh, nice.
01:02:51:18 – 01:03:16:29
Jordan Steinhoff
If if you know people that have played Shadowrun and enjoy it like I do, it definitely does take it to, a higher level. But the base level of just picking up this game because you want to do something with day, it’s a dice roller. And from a very like a really visceral dice rolling aspect. If you have a big enough team, you just have this big double handle dice and the dice are big.
01:03:16:29 – 01:03:31:43
Jordan Steinhoff
So you’re just rolling with 20 days to get your best combination of results. But it’s, it’s the primary mechanic is dice rolling in this Shadowrun world. But everything you need to know about the world they present to you in the rules and in the fluff and the rules.
01:03:31:47 – 01:03:39:54
Agent Palmer
Nice. Yeah.
01:03:39:58 – 01:04:01:01
Agent Palmer
This episode goes back to who I am and how I identify. Or at least that’s what I thought. There are a ton of things, as evidenced by the previous ten episodes that make up who I am now, but this was a huge part of my self-identity at one point. There’s no denying that that store and the games we played there consumed me.
01:04:01:06 – 01:04:26:15
Agent Palmer
It’s one of the reasons that I am who I am right now. I firmly believe that. But I shouldn’t be so quick to be exclusion. Marie. As pointed out by Jordan, there still exists some PTSD from when being a geek or a nerd was not the cool thing when it came, not with blockbuster movies and television shows, but with ridicule and revulsion in editing this episode and listening back to Jordan and myself.
01:04:26:15 – 01:04:45:11
Agent Palmer
My takeaway is different than it was in the moment. Well, I do think it’s okay for the geek stuff and the nerd culture to be more widely accepted. Why is that coming without the acceptance of those of us on the fringes who helped nurture that stuff in the first place? Before it was cool, nerds and geeks were tinkering around with computers.
01:04:45:11 – 01:05:08:51
Agent Palmer
We were playing role playing games and reading comics. So when those things become more widely accepted, why weren’t we? Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer. And while I’ll admit it’s better than it used to be, that doesn’t mean we are where we need to be as a society. And one more thing. A former boss used to refer to someone we worked with as a geek, saying that he was just as much a geek as I was.
01:05:08:55 – 01:05:28:07
Agent Palmer
I have no issues with the sentiment and I went one further, replying with, you know, there are more of us than there are of you, right? And I genuinely believe that statement. I genuinely, without a shadow of a doubt, believe that there are more nerds and geeks out there than there are people who aren’t either of those things.
01:05:28:12 – 01:05:57:51
Agent Palmer
Why is a stigma that felt accurate in every John Hughes movie from the 1980s still a relevant thing in the year 2020? Why is it always part laughing at you and part laughing with you, instead of just always laughing with you? Is this really what winning feels like? Well, we haven’t won, at least not yet. And it has more to do with me and Jordan in the fact that we try to keep an open table and we try to keep an open mind.
01:05:57:55 – 01:06:26:23
Agent Palmer
It’s almost like a bad movie. We shouldn’t be trying to do anything. Our table should just be open. Our minds should just be open and as we work on that, things will get better. Now it’s on us to be more inclusive. It’s on us to be open where once they were not. It’s on us. And for those of you who listened this long and aren’t a part of the club but want to be, if you don’t come to the table with condescension, you probably won’t get any in return.
01:06:26:27 – 01:06:48:15
Agent Palmer
You get what you give. Well, on that nice light note, thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 11. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for more official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can let me and the guest know what you think.
01:06:48:15 – 01:07:09:09
Agent Palmer
You can tweet the podcast at The Palmer Files, myself at Agent Palmer, and you can reach this week’s guest, Jordan Steinhoff, at underscore. The Canadian underscore. Or you can get more of Jordan on the All Us Geeks podcast. Wherever you are listening to this podcast right now and at all US geeks.com. The show email is The Palmer Files at gmail.com.
01:07:09:10 – 01:08:04:30
Agent Palmer
And don’t forget to visit Agent palmer.com to see what else I’ve got going on. You can also hear more of me in the meantime on our liner notes. A musical conversation podcast with host Chris Maier and my other gig as co-host of the podcast digest with Dan Lizette.
01:08:04:35 – 01:08:08:20
Agent Palmer
All right. Sir, do you have one final question for me?
01:08:08:25 – 01:08:26:32
Jordan Steinhoff
So as we sit here, I see you got the Argos hat on, and you’ve been, You’ve been getting an education and can con with our liner notes. Yes. I hear you mentioned occasional little bits of Canadia and love for this and that. So where where did your desire to to become a Canadian come from?
01:08:26:36 – 01:08:28:37
Agent Palmer
It’s so.
01:08:28:37 – 01:08:31:21
Jordan Steinhoff
And it’s okay continuing to move north.
01:08:31:26 – 01:08:56:04
Agent Palmer
I don’t think she wants to move that far north, but I think she’d come with me. It’s odd. Right. Because, in, I’ve been a baseball fan my entire life, and, it hasn’t really come up on this show, but I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan, and, you know, it wasn’t really a thing that came up, right? Like, I knew Canada was up there, but that was the thing.
01:08:56:04 – 01:09:25:50
Agent Palmer
And then my aunt, who, went, I don’t know if she went to school there, but she lives there now. And she married a Canadian, and she is Canadian now. I think she’s got dual citizenship in 93, she sent me a Blue Jays World Series, took. And it was always, like, all of them up there.
01:09:25:50 – 01:09:56:17
Agent Palmer
Right. And, then my father, who was always bitter that the Colts left Baltimore, was ecstatic when the CFL expanded to the Baltimore Stallions. Except except while they won one year, they lost the Gray Cup the next year, or I don’t know which record I think it was. I don’t know which order it was, but like one year they were in the Gray Cup and they literally had the refs calling everything so they didn’t get it.
01:09:56:22 – 01:10:04:35
Agent Palmer
And then the one year they actually won and then the CFL said oops, our bad, and took all the teams from south of the border, north of the border.
01:10:04:42 – 01:10:08:51
Jordan Steinhoff
That was a dark age for the CFL. That was a bad experiment.
01:10:08:55 – 01:10:56:00
Agent Palmer
But my father continued his love of the CFL regardless of the stallions, because of the rules. So I started listening to our liner notes and started a, friendship and relationship with Chris and Kristen and, you know, kind of when Paul was still on in the early part of our liner notes, he would bring some Canadian bands, and they talked a little bit about it and, you know, around that time, ESPN started up a a license deal with the CFL, where on ESPN three at the time, before it was watch ESPN or whatever it is, had CFL games so you could watch them occasionally.
01:10:56:00 – 01:11:22:48
Agent Palmer
So I would, you know, I started kind of following along in the CFL, but I didn’t pick a team. And then, you know, fast forward a little bit further and on Thursday nights, the CFL does concerts in the early part of the season. So Chris and I started talking more and more about Canadian music because obviously, if the CFL is going to showcase a band on a Thursday Night Football broadcast, they’re going to it’s going to be a Canadian band.
01:11:22:48 – 01:11:45:39
Agent Palmer
So we got to talking and that kind of is it’s not maybe how Chris and I ended up with the Cancun series we’re doing now, but I kept at like, it just led to further questions because some of the bands were new and some of the bands were old, but they were all new to me. I knew rush like, well, you know, like you, you know, I knew Bryan Adams, like I knew your big exports, but like, nothing else.
01:11:45:44 – 01:12:14:45
Agent Palmer
And then it was my NASA file reading habits, where I learned about the Avro Arrow, and it was literally in passing. And then it ended up me being like, kind of going down a rabbit hole. But it was, you know, I learned that like, the arrow program was canceled and all of the engineers came down here to help us go to do Mercury and Gemini and Apollo and go to the moon.
01:12:14:46 – 01:12:32:53
Agent Palmer
And I was like, well, now I need to know more about this. And then while all of the and all of this stuff is overlapping, this is just how I’m thinking of it. And at the same time, at some point, Brant but was on F with Marc Maron and I text Chris and I’m like, what? I like corner gas.
01:12:32:58 – 01:12:54:57
Agent Palmer
And he’s like, you might. And so I watched that series more than anyone should. And so I started realizing the way that show was set up. So it’d be like, oh, that seems like somebody famous. So I’d look them up and be like, oh, that’s a, that’s a, an actual famous blues guitarist or, you know, whatever it was.
01:12:54:57 – 01:13:17:22
Agent Palmer
And started picking up on some of these other things. I’m like, it just kind of snowballed. Right. And then this year, this season, the 2019 season, I finally decided to pick a team because I’m Jason. And I was like, well, my my aunt’s got season tickets to the Argos anyway, and my name is Jason. So I might as well root for the Argonauts.
01:13:17:22 – 01:13:44:14
Agent Palmer
And of course they sucked all year. So that I absolutely make sense. But it just kind of snowballed. And now I’m realizing how little I still know. You know, it’s not that Canada is lacking in culture, it’s just that none of it gets exported because we’re so loud down here like it’s, you know, it’s not even ego.
01:13:44:14 – 01:14:04:26
Agent Palmer
It’s just like we’re just loud, like, oh, you’ve got a nice thing. We’ve got this and this and this, and you keep trying to talk and we just keep. So I kind of just feel like I haven’t disliked anything that I’ve been introduced to. So it’s like, well, I’m all right. I’m in on Canada.
01:14:04:31 – 01:14:14:00
Jordan Steinhoff
Even Fresh West, you didn’t seem you don’t seem like you’re a big hip hop guy. You you seem to gloss over the Fresh West. 20s.
01:14:14:05 – 01:14:47:28
Agent Palmer
I’m not I’m not a really big hip hop guy to begin with. It does it, regardless of nationality. I guess. But the rest of it, it’s just like, you know, I, I’m, I’m intrigued by how little I know because I and I’m a reader, so I’ll probably end up starting to get more books on the subject and kind of continue my Canadian education and having contact with Canadians and just being like you mentioned this on your show, I have no idea what that is.
01:14:47:33 – 01:15:05:59
Agent Palmer
Or like anybody who’s listened to the Cancun stuff in our liner notes, I don’t let Chris off the hook for anything. So if he mentions a thing, I’m like, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know what that is like. Like what? What is that like what is going on? So, Chris has been a big help. Kristen’s been a help to.
01:15:06:01 – 01:15:27:16
Agent Palmer
My aunt is always amazed at how much I know. And I feel like I owe it to the Meyers for that, so I. I’m always intrigued. If there’s something that interests me that I don’t know. And, Canada’s huge and I know I feel like I don’t I feel like I know about your football a little bit about your music and a little bit about your TV, like, that’s it.
01:15:27:16 – 01:15:49:57
Agent Palmer
And I’m like, there’s so much more. And I know now. Yeah, I mean, I, I know about the Avro Arrow as well. Like, I’ve, I watched the fictionalized retelling starring Dan Aykroyd, or whatever the CBC put out, like, I, I listen, I’ll, I’ll dig in further, but like, I was just kind of like, this is this is good.
01:15:50:10 – 01:15:55:34
Jordan Steinhoff
This as far as romantic side stories go, I mean, that was not bad.
01:15:55:39 – 01:16:29:31
Agent Palmer
I mean, I love the idea that while at the very end they’re like. And one got away or people like to say or but there’s no conclusive evidence. So there’s this one piece of like question mark at the end of that, and then right after it, they go into where all of the engineers actually ended up. So it’s like this retelling and then 30s of myth, followed by like three minutes of like a roll call of a who’s who for the future of space exploration in the United States.
01:16:29:31 – 01:16:49:24
Agent Palmer
And it’s like, well, this is this is quite a little, this took a turn into truth that, the rest of the fictionalization was a bit. But no, I listen, it just kind of built up. It was kind of like, like just a, I don’t know, a snowball down a hill. And now it’s a massive boulder, and I just want to know more.
01:16:49:28 – 01:17:05:14
Jordan Steinhoff
So let me ask you something, because you did say something. If I can have a follow up. Sure. What’s in high school in the United States? Yeah. I could probably ask any of my nephews this. Do you have a Canadian history like in Canada?
01:17:05:23 – 01:17:07:12
Agent Palmer
Nope. We have.
01:17:07:16 – 01:17:09:22
Jordan Steinhoff
U.S. history. And every year, if you want to take.
01:17:09:33 – 01:17:37:04
Agent Palmer
No, we have American history and world history, which isn’t world history. It’s European history. Right. Like, I honestly I mean, what I remember is American history in world history and world history was, you know, basically some, Neolithic stuff, maybe your Egyptians and your Romans. And then we skipped to a little bit of the British Empire, and then it’s world War one, World War two.
01:17:37:09 – 01:18:01:38
Agent Palmer
We don’t there’s fires in Australia. We learn that Australia exists in like, geography, but we don’t even really talk about the colonization of it or, you know, apartheid in South Africa. Like there’s so much that like, we just don’t cover. So no, I mean, we don’t I mean, when we cover American history, we learn about the French and Indian War, right?
01:18:01:38 – 01:18:21:49
Agent Palmer
Some of it takes place in your country, but but but there’s no like it. It’s no mention, like north of Lake Quebec. Like north of the Great Lakes. Like it’s not even like in Canada. So, yeah, we and I’m guessing that those history books, those textbooks haven’t changed, so. Yeah. No, we don’t learn anything.
01:18:21:54 – 01:18:24:20
Jordan Steinhoff
Yeah. That’s interesting. Sad but interesting.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).