They may have moved to three separate, fully-disclosed parts of the continent, but that doesn’t stop Jack, Mark, and Mikhail from growing ever closer through the magical – nay, mystic – power of friendship and conversation. Jack can’t find parking, Mark is where the beer is, and Mikhail fails to adequately describe a table.

Look! Up in the waveforms! It’s a burp! It’s a phone ringing! No! It’s a special guest! Grant joins the classic crew to discuss technology, coyote genitals, and Escapology: the puzzle room in which everyone definitely made equal contributions towards solving. Don’t worry, Grant is totally introduced right away and not at 12 minutes and 40 seconds into the episode.

Guess who’s back, back again. Jack, Mark, and Mikhail are back, tell a friend. Under the direction of the new fearless editor in chief, the gang makes a beautiful segue from grumbling like crotchety old men about technology to discussing the true value of college and the finer points of friendship. I mean really, like wow. The transition is seamless.

In this episode, we discuss the finer points of humanity’s relationship with the impending embrace of death. Is growing old and dying a natural part of life? Or a tragic fate to which our race has developed an acute case of Stockholm Syndrome?

To cap it all off, we give our best 1-2 minutes on each of an eclectic collection of topics in our newest section of the show: HOT TAKES.

In this episode, we play the analog text adventure Action Castle. We also talk more generally about what constitutes a game, what we each like to play, as well as the finer points of documenting the beauty of nature.