undercover mexican restaurant
Brandon has a bit of a rant. Collin’s flooring is behind him. Ender…starts a game.
undercover mexican restaurant
Lots of ands in that sentence
Sam 1 and Sam 2
Collin’s flooring
A bit of a rant - Things Brandon hates
“Do you know the definition of insanity?”
Far Cry 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Cry_3
AA and insanity
Enders Game…
Ambiguous feelings
Not particularly interesting
And beyond!!!
Brandon’s Haiku
Unfamiliar space
Choices swirling on the page
Kitchen springs to life
Check out our other episodes: ohbrotherpodcast.com
Follow us on Instagram
Check us out on Youtube
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Undercover Mexican restaurant, summer quest, Asian restaurant identity crisis, sushi, pho, flooring project, contractor issues, Battle School, Ender's Game, third child, family dynamics, military training, Spartan society, gender stereotypes, international fleet., Ender's Game, chosen one, Mazer Rackham, fleet, buggers, battle school, disorienting, dystopian, science fiction, motivation, exposition, future, United States, Buzz Lightyear.
SPEAKERS
Brandon, Collin
Collin 00:00
Hey, welcome to Oh Brother, a podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts Brandon and Collin. On this week's show, Undercover Mexican Restaurant. Ahoy, is it raining where you are? Kinda, maybe a little bit. Really, know what's happening. Ours has been so weird the past two.
Speaker 1 00:30
Land a
Brandon 00:30
lot. Yes, I think I'm thinking about raining right now. I think I hear some sprinkling out there. I don't really know. Oh
Collin 00:36
man, yep, that is, it's been really hit and miss. Yesterday, I watched as everything stayed very, very far south, but just sat there like on top of Southwest Missouri the entire day. Yeah,
Brandon 00:55
a little bit,
Collin 00:57
never win anything,
Brandon 00:58
wasn't it? Wasn't I, it wasn't bad, though, because it was not like hard, it was just like a light, steady rain down here for the time, so it wasn't, uh, too bad, not like Del UG, which is good.
Collin 01:09
Yeah, good,
Brandon 01:10
right? That's not, that's not bad. Yeah, but I think it's thinking about it right now. I thought I could hear a little bit outside right before we picked up, so I don't know, was wearing less than ours,
Collin 01:21
is very ours is very much light, light bitter pattern, for sure.
Speaker 1 01:28
Oh,
Collin 01:30
but anyway, yeah, what else? What else is going on?
Brandon 01:34
Well, I can't remember if I told you about this, so we'll start here. I have all we have. We have begun the summer quest of eating at restaurants that we've never eaten up for.
Collin 01:48
Oh, this is one of my favorite traditions of YouTube.
Brandon 01:52
Right, well, it was the thing that we just decided to do for you now. So, this is what we've done. So, I don't know if I told you about the first one that we went to, like after school got out, I think I meant to, but I didn't.
Collin 02:04
Okay,
Brandon 02:04
but we went to one that's like downtown, it's in this like building, I think a long time ago it used to be like a bar, and then it was an Italian restaurant, I think, for a while, and I never went to that, and now it is just a different restaurant, and it's like it's weird, it's sort of like an undercover Mexican restaurant, right? Because, like,
Collin 02:28
undercover Mexican restaurant, yeah. Okay,
Brandon 02:30
because they, the name does not really denote that it would be in restaurant, nothing about the sign says it would be a Mexican restaurant, and then you walk in, and they're like, "What kind of salsa do you want? You're like, "I'm sorry, weird. And it's like it's almost like it doesn't really have like a real identity, because they do like Brett. They have like a breakfast menu that I saw, which is like normal breakfast, like French toast and biscuits and gravy, and whatever, and then like all their lunch dinner menus, like enchilada platter, like they also have like hamburger stuff too, but it's a very just sort of like nondescript
Collin 03:19
that's very interesting,
Brandon 03:21
like undercover Mexican restaurant is what it made me think of, right? Like, the decor inside is just like brown table and chairs, right? I'm not saying that all Mexican restaurants need to be like obnoxiously colored, right, and have like stupid orange walls and think, okay, I don't agree with that, that's too much sometimes, right? When you walk in there, you're like, oh, what
Collin 03:44
is this? Why? What? Nothing of this goes
Speaker 1 03:47
together.
Brandon 03:47
My eyes are bleeding, right?
Collin 03:49
Yeah, yeah,
Brandon 03:51
right. So it's like, but it is just like restaurant, and it just has like a name, and there's no you. nothing
Speaker 1 04:03
at all
Brandon 04:04
that they would serve you Mexican food.
Collin 04:07
What is your selection criteria? Do you just have the list open that you then kind of go down, just start the line,
Brandon 04:15
some like I think we just looked through like the Google Map stuff, or kind of like thought about places that we haven't been before, like driving by, it was just like a short list of like, oh, we haven't been there, we should go there, like sometimes when we drive by, we're like, oh yeah, we mean to go there, we should put that on the list, right, that's kind of how this works, very official, right, very
Speaker 1 04:39
official,
Collin 04:40
I love this,
Brandon 04:40
so that was round one. Round two happened last night, in between rain showers, right? When we left, it wasn't raining, and when we left the restaurant, we're like, oh, it's raining, oh, surprise, it's raining. Here we go. We jokingly talk about how our town has like terrible parking lots all the time, and like every parking lot. To go to is like, man, this is the worst parking lot ever. This one is actually also quite terrible, like it's not their fault. It's been this building for like ages, but it's like a, it's like up, you have to go up a little thing, like a little, it's like a small hill to get into the parking lot, but the hill is held in place by like a concrete retaining wall, so the entrance to get up there is very narrow, just walked over, but it's like a Asian restaurant with like, again, we have a bit of an identity crisis here, because, like, it's like they have a lot of, like, sushi stuff, right, which, from what I could tell, from the people getting takeout orders, which was a lot on the Thursday, because we went on, like, a Thursday, right, so, whatever, so, like, not just super hopping on a Thursday evening, but the majority of their takeout stuff was like sushi, which allegedly is quite good. Susan got something, it's very delicious, but they also have just like other things, right? Like they also have like yakisoba bowls and like hibachi stuff, and like beef bulgogi, and fur, and it's just sort of like, yes, there are. What kind of Asian restaurant is this? Yes,
Brandon 06:37
how about some beef curry? Sure, why not? Whatever,
Speaker 1 06:42
I so,
Brandon 06:46
so, it's not bad, but it was a little bit confusing trying to figure out what do you order here, because it's so like there's no like theme, I guess, and that's not a bad thing, right? But it's just kind of like, oh yeah, there's a bunch of different stuff, and you can have this or this or this, right? I went with pho, obviously, guys, dudes, cold and rainy, so like, duh, but it was a.. the menu is a bit jarring, it was good though, it was nice and chill, sorry, in there, but like, just a little bit, like, huh, where, what is going on here? What is the.. what is the.. oh no. And so, what..
Collin 07:30
wait, you may have said this. What did you get?
Brandon 07:32
No, I ordered the beef.
Collin 07:35
Beef.. okay, sorry. Yes, okay.
Brandon 07:37
But it was. it was a bit weird to like just the uh, again, it's just like a Asian restaurant,
Speaker 1 07:49
so like
Brandon 07:49
it's like the greatest hits of Southeast Asia.
Collin 07:54
How much of this do you think is like the community that it's in, and just like to, because if it went really,
Collin 08:05
that's
Brandon 08:05
fair, right? Like,
Collin 08:06
like really specific, and had like lots of very niche things. How much would that impact the with the their clientele, I guess, versus the little bits of, oh, every..
Brandon 08:17
I feel like that's probably that's why this is here, because like there is definitely no other place anywhere close to here that you can get some of these things right, sure, but also you do have to play it like we are in southwest Missouri, so you do have to hit him with stuff that people know about, right, like you do have to hit him with the like this stuff, right, like you do have to do that to try to make sure that people will come right, and I get it appears that most people come for the sushi, which from everybody right here, that's what they get, and they say it's good, so but it was a bit odd to be like, oh, there's beef bulgogi and Vietnamese soup, and this is Thai, and this is a kind of Indian, and this is Japanese, and
Speaker 1 09:11
yes,
Collin 09:11
lots of and
Speaker 1 09:15
okay,
Brandon 09:18
so you know,
Speaker 1 09:18
well,
Brandon 09:19
whatever, but that was that was round two. It was yesterday, so yeah, that's what we've been doing, right? Just starting on that random nothing really this week. Susan, this week was Susan with software. I work this week too, so we just had nothing. It was great. It was great.
Collin 09:39
Yeah, that's a little bit of relaxing time, a little bit of ability to just.. oh,
Brandon 09:46
it's working much harder now. Surprise.
Speaker 1 09:48
Oh no.
Brandon 09:48
All right. Okay. Never mind. The update, weather update. Here, there goes
Collin 09:52
weather. Oh, this.. this.. this is what we need. You know what? Live weather forecasting from a podcast that. It comes out a week
Speaker 1 10:07
later.
Brandon 10:08
What about you? What have you been doing, Collin? How is the floor situation in your house going? How,
Collin 10:13
what haven't I been doing? Oh my goodness, I'm trying to remember, I try to.. when did we.. when we last spoke? Was I
Brandon 10:24
believe we were bemoaning carpeting last time you had gotten favorite carpet of all time installed on all times?
Collin 10:34
Yeah, I still see it as I walk down. It's still on the left, on the.. it's come down the stairs, the set, the second stair on the up on the left from the main landing is, is there's a gap there that I look at every time I go down. I can just get a marker
Brandon 10:51
and like fill it in for you, right?
Collin 10:54
No, because there's a physical gap. I need to get a sliver of a wedge of wood, basically, and like cram it in there and then paint it white, so it looks like the molding comes out, or just get some of that like rubber door
Brandon 11:07
stripping stuff, right, and just kind of like
Brandon 11:10
stick it in there, right, wedge it
Speaker 1 11:13
in,
Brandon 11:13
so it's
Speaker 1 11:13
all
Brandon 11:13
same width as everything else.
Collin 11:15
Well, that was so that was just color the stair of actual stairs and then we could get Lily
Collin 11:24
to paint.
Collin 11:24
She'd love it so much. She put together three ring binder of black paper, just so that she could be doing her art things, and so that's what she's currently working on. But no, I, we finished with the stairs on, we spoke the day after my stair debacle. We then spent the next two days like venting out my house because of all off-gassing and like gross stuff that's there. Changed all my air filters, and then Friday I got a call from my other contractor called me in the morning. It was a Collin you home. Yeah, I'm cool. I'll be there in 10 minutes. What?
Brandon 12:14
Yes, because it's how contractors normally work. They just show up randomly.
Collin 12:19
Yes, yes, they have found five minutes in their day that they do not have something to do, and they will fit you in. And so he showed up, and boy, howdy. Then we got started on our kitchen floor, and Friday was the like move things out, bring in all the flooring. Well, like, check the flooring that he had brought in earlier, like two weeks ago, that I've been sitting in my basement. He was like, "Do a general walkthrough discussion. Then he was like, "Cool, we'll start tomorrow morning, and I was like, "Awesome, nice. Saturday it's 740 in the morning, a person shows up, and I'm like, okay. Hey, he's like, is the other guy here yet? I said no, and he's like, oh, he told me to be here at eight, and I'm like, okay, and he's like, okay, well, let me just go get started, and at 835 yes, the other guy, original contractor, showed up, and here's the story. Original contractor, let's call him Sam. Bid the bid, the job, okay? Sam, whatever. Then he does not have any crew of his own. He is the generalist of general contractors. He just goes out, says that he can do things, and then goes fine and finds people that do said things.
Brandon 13:46
Wait a minute. Speculative contracting, what is happening?
Collin 13:52
Yeah, yep, speculative contracting,
Brandon 13:58
that's messed up.
Collin 13:59
Yeah, yeah. so anyway, so I later learned from the man that I was talking to after the Sam left, the person I was talking to was basically has was a favor was being called in by Sam, and this guy showed up to take care of some of this work, Sam had not instructed this other guy basically anything about what needed to be done or the scope of the work, and had actually misquoted and diagnosed what some of the problems were later to find out. It was then informed me that the contractor was more of a businessman and not really a practitioner of the arts of
Brandon 14:43
contract
Collin 14:44
of contracting, so he knows some things, but not like much, and so that's why he relies on well, so then we start our project, and then our floor we have. Hump, because what I thought, what I thought, all of my kitchen was an extension, was an addition to the back of the house. It turns out only half of my kitchen was an extension, so I don't know what it was before, but you can definitely tell, like, here's old hardwood floor, boom, and then, like, the PC plywood compressed, whatever, like that starts there, and right where those met was where the hump was, because the previous people who made that extension, Nyon, who knows, put it on top of the old stairs that exited the house, and so as the house had settled, they were resting on a chunk, okay, that was not so. They had to come in. He cut a five foot by eight foot hole into my floor to adjust this, like cut down,
Brandon 16:01
just bust out the seat,
Collin 16:02
then yeah, he busted down the stairs, he worked some, reworked some of the sub flooring, some of that,
Brandon 16:08
just the top step, whack, whack,
Collin 16:10
whack away, is then he had to rebuild this back up, and this, this then commenced my role in the job in this project, a role that I tried not to play, and I didn't want to play or be involved in in any way, shape or form, that I became the so what about guy?
Brandon 16:34
Oh no,
Collin 16:35
as as I saw things, and I tried to tell them, like I am not saying this to be mean. I am not saying this to be like crass or like fresh. I'm not frustrated with any of this stuff. I don't know what this process is supposed to be, so I'm just going to ask a question. Is that okay? And so that was my role, because we get this all done, and the guy doing our floors, genuinely very knowledgeable, very, very, very practical guy. He actually builds houses, does renos on his own, he has his own business doing these things very quick working. So I'm like, okay, like, I, I trust what you are saying, and he really blitzed for the first two days, but then he is like, okay, I've done Saturday and Sunday, I need to go back to my own work now, I'm sure Sam will have another crew to start,
Brandon 17:39
oh, oh,
Collin 17:40
and
Brandon 17:41
I don't think he did
Collin 17:42
well. No, he did. He really did. The let's call him Sam two, which is what Sam one contracted out to. He did probably like he busted out the floor, re-leveled it, rebuilt a subfloor, and framed it out. Built internal struts underneath, building more support underneath it to kind of make it less floppy. He then tore out a bunch of demoed the old floor, and then relayed most of the other floor on top of that, and then the remaining crew had to do probably four square feet of tile in the kitchen, do the bathroom floor, do all the trim, the back door, and our front railing, and that, so, which isn't a lot of work. It's, I don't know what I'm doing, but I can tell you that took them forth. Oh my goodness, to do what he did into, and I'm like, oh my gosh, if Sam two had not been here, this would have project would have gone on for weeks at this,
Brandon 18:54
yeah,
Collin 18:55
literal weeks. My job, my job again was the so what about as I would walk around and I would see things and I'd go, huh, so what about, or hey, this looks weird. What's like, how are you going to solve this again? I'm not saying this to be mean, I don't know, and I want to hear how you're going to solve it. I might not have thoughts, I'm just curious. And one of those immediately was when he removed that five foot by eight foot section of floor to rebuild the subfloor, take out that top step and rebuild this internal framing and supports, he did remove portions of the old subfloor, and in doing so made my floor less thick in order to accommodate that hump, right? He made it so from the bottom of the subfloor to the top of the new tile would be thinner than other parts of the floor, so that it could fit over that.
Speaker 1 19:51
Okay,
Collin 19:52
I
Collin 19:57
then, but this is just. Hard for me in this chunk in this chunk. Brandon was an air vent, and here's what happened. Because the air vents, they just put in the middle of..
Brandon 20:09
oh, yes.
Collin 20:10
I don't know why, whatever, right? Because, as is, want to do, they went.. here's where they go. Yes, so I've got these heavy duty.. they are iron,
Brandon 20:22
yeah, grates
Collin 20:22
right here
Collin 20:23
that go on the floor, like it's a floor grate, it's not the little,
Brandon 20:26
no, it's the big
Collin 20:27
one over here, right, big old honkin ones. Okay, now what thing about those big old honkin ones is that they are also deep,
Brandon 20:34
yes,
Collin 20:34
like they sit far down
Brandon 20:36
because they're very thick.
Collin 20:37
Now I've just, I've just told you that my floor is thinner,
Speaker 1 20:40
yeah,
Collin 20:40
and the way the AC duct worked, it was attached, is it was just it, the to the six inch duct came up bent, and then it had a metal skirt or flange around it, and then they just had that screwed to the bottom of the sub,
Speaker 1 20:59
yeah,
Collin 21:00
just straight, and so that sat down in, and it met they couldn't do no, and all of a sudden it was, "Hey, how are we going to replace this? And, of course, Sam one, being the general list of general contractors, said, "Oh, they make replacements of those all in place, all will find
Brandon 21:15
that's
Brandon 21:16
not how that works. No, they don't,
Collin 21:17
and I'm like, "No, that I know. So I started doing my own search, and I'm like, yeah, because I need something that you can walk on, because he's like, oh, I'm sure, like Menards and Lowe's have these. Well, they make some on all sorts of things. Well, they do, but they're made out of aluminum, and if you step up, they will bend or slice your foot, and so,
Brandon 21:43
which is not
Speaker 1 21:43
good in the middle of the floor, right?
Collin 21:46
Yeah, it turns out not very user-friendly. And so I started doing my own googling, and they do have places that will make these..
Brandon 21:56
that's not a good sentence,
Collin 21:59
and I was like, sure, let me just like click some buttons here, and for an eight inch by 10 inch floor grade, nothing but just like replace what's there, for one it was 140 and I had two, and the second one was, yeah, that would need to be replaced, and I was like, ha, so we need to figure out how to make this work, and so I, how do we actually make this work? Can we? So then I'm troubleshooting with them, we get that figured out, and then I'm watching how they're putting in the corner round around the edge, and I'm, I'm realizing that there's a little bit too much use of a saw to make me a fly. like, are you trying to file down the round this like bit in the original molding down there? Like, why? Why are you doing that? And here, this is what it is. Okay, Sam ones laborers didn't speak English, okay. Whatever, that just meant, though, that when Sam one wasn't there, I couldn't talk. Oh yeah, ask questions. So, unfortunately, what I had to do was like take pictures, text Sam one, and ask questions, and then all of a sudden their phone would magically ring, and there'd be a conversation, and then they would change what they were doing, and then this process would repeat, and so this just made me hyper anxious, of like, I need to be really vigilant now, and like really watch what's going on, because like they have some old crown mold, molding that's on the floor, not crown molding that goes on the ceiling, whatever, but like the molding on there is old, and it was being like hacked into to accommodate this bend, because nothing in my house is square, and so instead of taking that cord around and like cutting it in four different places, and then like putting it back together. The guy was just trying to make a straight run out of it to use one, and I was like, can I not? Yeah, don't think this is appropriate. And again, I understand the house is not square, nothing is square or level of my home. I have two options, I make it level with gravity or I make it level with the house, like this is what my life is depends on now, and but I just was having to use an intermediary, not slow down the process, and so we, they got all that done, then the back door was a debacle, but that's fine, the back door's up, it's all taken care of, and the railing is done out front and re-tacked up and secured, and for the first time in a week and a half, nobody is in my home, and I really let it go, I ah.
Brandon 25:00
You've, you have raised the proverbial drawbridge, right? Like your boy Limick, and
Collin 25:05
I have.. I have the moat is filled with alligators and piranha. I want no guests, want no people, and everyone was great. Everyone was wonderful, like I didn't.. there was none of
Brandon 25:18
that, but the process over, and that's the important part, right? Like,
Collin 25:22
yes, yeah, and also I had not realized the mental burden of like people in home all like non stop, like from like 730 in the morning to 5o'clock at night, like there's always somebody, there was always somebody in our home for last week and a half that that really like gnawed at, and it was like we didn't, and, and like everything was out of the kitchen, so like it was in our dining room and in our family room, and so everything was like compressed in the home, there was stuff everywhere, it was hard to, yeah, so I'm like, okay, that's done, it's done, and now I can breathe, and the flooring I went with the lighter flooring. I didn't think I'd like it. It's not bad. It's
Brandon 26:08
okay. There we go. It's better. You like it better than the cart, the stair carpet? Okay. Yes. Okay. Good.
Collin 26:14
Much better. Yeah. So that's a plus. I will say that big plus here when they did that. Okay, so it's nice. It's like it's a much lighter color floor, plus then the quarter rounds that they put in are fresh, and I was like, 'Hey, what did everybody think of this? Lillian was like, 'It makes the baseboards look bad, and I was like, 'Yeah, we gotta paint those now. Yeah, cuz it, those don't look nice. That's
Brandon 26:43
right, you can do that. You can do, you don't need people for that. You can just pay it to..
Speaker 1 26:46
I know,
Brandon 26:48
so that's good.
Collin 26:49
I don't.. yeah, yeah. So, so we'll be.. we'll be fine. So, we are moving on. We are doing, doing stuff.
Speaker 1 26:56
Hey,
Collin 26:57
anyway, that's been my. my week,
Brandon 27:02
very nice, very nice.
Brandon 27:05
Well, before we dive in to our thing, I do have, I do have a bit of a rant for you right about a thing that has always annoyed me, and then I don't know, I just heard it a bunch recently, and I makes me so grumpy that I just want to share with you, right, and talk about this, because I hate this, right? This is things that I hate, like with a fiery passion, right? Collin, I'm sure you've heard this, right? Want, and what your feelings too, Collin? Do you know the definition of insanity? Good Lord, I hate this so much. I can't describe to you how much I hate it, right? Like, it's very difficult for me, because number one, it's very overused, and in my opinion, it's used incorrectly, right? So the actual definition, of course, a severely disordered state of the mind occurring as a result of a specific disorder, that's what you should tell people if somebody tries to hit you with a, do you know the definition of insanity? Hidden with that, that's what it really is. Shush isn't
Collin 28:28
shocking. It's shocking, because I've always heard that it's doing the same thing and expecting different.
Brandon 28:33
Yeah, first of all, incorrect. Second of all, that quote is always attributed to Albert Einstein, which is false. He never said that ever, not even once.
Speaker 1 28:42
I love that. Okay, wrong. Okay,
Brandon 28:45
like saying just comes like the root word means like healthy, so insane is just not healthy, right? It's a very archaic mental health term back in the days when mental health wasn't a thing, they were like, oh, you to the asylum, yes, yeah, like that's kind of not right, like it's great.
Collin 29:08
It's also from the days of where hysteria was term as well,
Brandon 29:14
they were like, oh, hello woman who is upset about something, perhaps you need some heroin. Yes, that will call me down. This is, yeah, this is from this time in the medical history of the world, a bad time, not a great time, right? When words just bandied about casually were like, "Oh, madness, right? Like, notice how that's not a thing people suffer from anymore, conveniently, right? Because we've like, oh wait, there's actually things happening, and we have learned about the brain, and we've learned about it, so, so we have taken this, like, and we've just taken it to heart, right? And I get it, guys. Okay, I also played Far Car Three, I under. Stand, okay? All these like stupid edge lord dudes on the internet who like played Far Cry, and we're like, 'Huh, Voss is awesome. No, no, he's the bad guy, you moron. Well, when you say that, it kind of makes me not feel very nice. Yes, but because they're like, 'Hey, I played Far Card Three. Here, do you know the guys, guys, guys, you're an idiot. Do you know where this term actually comes from? Collin, I do not. Alcoholics Anonymous, really. Yeah, it's most..
Speaker 1 30:32
it's
Brandon 30:32
mostly attributed to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings from the 80s, right? Yeah, yeah. So, in that context, the quote makes sense, right? Right? If you want your life to change, stop drinking so much, right? This makes sense to me, right? This is,
Collin 30:50
yes, this
Brandon 30:50
is a hyper niche situation in which this quote was originally used, right. And then it is like it just been latched on to by random things, right, and people just use it all the time, okay, all the time. And then I do blame Far Cry three slightly for reinterpreting this into popular discourse, like 10 plus years ago, right. And now it's just everywhere, and it really makes me angry that people attributed this to Einstein, because he did not say,
Collin 31:25
well, he's also way smarter to mucho more smarter to say
Brandon 31:31
other
Brandon 31:31
quotes are like very elegant and like very inspected in perspective, and then you like try to put that on there, like gas,
Brandon 31:39
it doesn't
Collin 31:40
obviously
Brandon 31:40
don't stop,
Collin 31:42
I this does permeate, like it permeates a lot of different aspects and a lot of life.
Brandon 31:50
How many times have you heard this at a business brunch column?
Collin 31:54
I was just, I was gonna say business in business, you have people talking business for businessy, businessy things, and yes, it is all about the like, stop doing the same thing, and like you need to be trying and experimenting, and you need, why are you unhappy if you haven't changed what you've been doing for the past year, and they will, this invariably will come up in a like a did you know Bob kind of thing, yeah. Well, everybody knows the definition of Sandy is doing the same thing. Well, it's not, and it's also not insane. And what I get frustrated with is the same people who bang on about that will also keep repeating the same quote over, keep repeating the same thing I was going to say. They also, they discount the people who the stick to itedness, right, and the people who don't abandon things just because they don't work one time, right? You keep trying things, you try it again and again, like you, you stick to your mission and what you're trying. I see that anyway, like that's that is equally, if not more important to a lot of success and seeing things and breakthroughs, whatever you want to put it, and this quote just completely, it makes it minimizes it, demeans the people who are steadfast in their work, and that in their life too, like it. Sometimes you just have to change your mindset around something, because your circumstances aren't going to change. Sometimes you're left going, I do have to go to the same job, because that's what's paying the bills right now. I'm maybe I should not find happiness in that. I should do something, I should, you know, look for something else. Maybe that's what needs to be, but it's not this what I think it gets thrown out and bandied around too much, too. Is if you aren't trying 1000 different things, you're wrong, and I don't like that.
Brandon 34:08
No, I don't like that. That's dumb, right? That's like, yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Like,
Collin 34:13
yeah, yeah, I love the two people who are who show up day in and day out, they do do the same thing, and sometimes it doesn't work initially, and but they just have to keep showing up and trying again and trying again. It takes that try again attitude and makes it seem like the foolish thing.
Brandon 34:35
Yeah, like, oh no, you're a hard working person. Ah, how terrible? Yeah, like
Speaker 1 34:42
this is.
Brandon 34:43
These are always people that are like their dads gave them money and they started like a business, and then like they're into like the startup culture thing, right? They're like they start something, they sell it, they start something, and they're like, no, you got to keep doing different stuff, like no, you're a bum, who. Doesn't do real things, like, and you just,
Collin 35:05
yep, yep, sometimes, sometimes sticking with the same thing for 40 years is actually what's needed to get to where you want to go, like, I just, it's thrown out too much as a casual observation, and it's supposed to land with a lot more import than or impact than it really warrants. Yes, and so I, too, get I roll my eyes when that whole thing gets trotted out
Brandon 35:35
so much, and so I just needed to rant about that slightly. So there you go, okay.
Collin 35:52
Oh, well, you know what's not the same thing that we've. that's true. Holy, we read our first three chapters of Ender's Game. Yeah, yeah, I gotta be honest, I didn't read this with the most focus for a little bit of this, these chapters, and I, it's written, I need to be paying more attention. Oh,
Brandon 36:30
yeah, so this, yes, I was like, what is like the pros here, if you could call it that, not great, right, not wonderful, perhaps that is because we did come off of reading Dickens recently, and then, so even though I do bemoan the fact that Dickens will say 75 words when he only needs to write this book, right? Sometimes you're just like, what? Huh, what is going, and the was something that threw me very much was like the third person omniscient narration, like then narrating the inner thoughts of Ender, all of a sudden, like in the middle of sentences, like I do this, and I was like, what, it, it's just not written in a way that's like it's just jarring, right? Like it's kind of jarring, and it doesn't like the first time I saw it, I was like, "What the.. is this right? Is that right? I had to go consult Susan. I was like, "Does this make sense, like grammatically and stylistically, is this how you would do this? And she was like, yeah, yeah, technically it's right. Okay, there, there, that's all you need to know. I need you to know that this man has written this book, is a teacher, okay? There you go, that's important to know.
Collin 37:56
Yeah, the, the, I am all for having economy of words and brevity, but
Brandon 38:06
Hemingway, this is right. We can,
Collin 38:08
Hemingway, this is not. Yes, yeah, it did suddenly make this. There was not enough context. Okay, I'm all for being thrust into a world and trying to know what's going, and oh, did he write this to be disorienting? And then just like, whatever, whatever. No, by the fact, I was three chapters in before I was finally like, okay, I think I know what chapter one was about. Yeah,
Brandon 38:35
and I mean that I do. I will say I'm glad there isn't like a giant like info dump, because I hate that, right?
Collin 38:51
Wait, well, let me talk to you about chapter three with a discussion with the okay, that's fair. That yeah,
Brandon 38:57
I didn't
Brandon 38:57
say I like chapter three, right? I just said that, yeah, that's we get it there, so like I don't mind the beginning of maybe like a three page prolog with a bit useful,
Collin 39:10
but he said in his prolog that he doesn't like prologs, and so he wouldn't, he wouldn't feel bad if you skipped,
Brandon 39:17
yeah, well, I didn't read the introduction because I can't be bothered.
Collin 39:23
That's those are his feelings about pro, yeah. I
Brandon 39:26
mean, I get it, like I don't like - I generally don't like super long expositions and things like that before the story starts. That's kind of boring, right? We do get a weird like plot device that's happening, because every chapter starts with, like, some sort of conversation
Collin 39:48
between,
Speaker 1 39:49
yeah, we
Brandon 39:49
call these people the overseers, at least I'm, that's what I kind of thought of them as, right, because they're talking about the character, they've been, like, observing his act. Questions right, and so that makes sense, because in the first chapter he has these people have some sort of monitor attached to their neck, yes, and they're like, oh, we're gonna take it off, and apparently I did like the part where he was like the nurse said, well, we're going to take it off, it won't hurt a bit. Ender nodded, it was a lie, of course, but it, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said that it was going to hurt, he could count on the statement as an accurate prediction of the future.
Collin 40:37
And then he said, and I thought this was a good, this maybe I highlighted this. We're going to see if this comes back to play at all. Sometimes lies were more dependable than
Speaker 1 40:48
the, yeah,
Brandon 40:49
I really feel like that is important, just based on what we read so far, right? And so we do get this like weird situation where they basically just like yank this thing out of his neck, right? Like some sort of like matrix plug, I don't know, apparently it hurts very much. Yeah, and he doesn't handle it well, and then he goes back to class, question mark later on, right? So we, we, we get from this little first bit that he, they are monitoring children for traits, right? Yeah, that's kind of what we get, and we get that little context, that context comes in a little bit more later on, but that's what we're doing, and apparently the earlier you lose your monitor, the bigger loser you are.
Speaker 1 41:53
Yes,
Brandon 41:54
yes, because you suck, I guess you don't have traits
Speaker 1 41:59
that they want.
Collin 42:00
Well, and so, yeah, and in this time we're being, we're learning that somebody named Peter will hate him, or maybe won't continue. There's some confusion there about what is, what is happening this right now. It's very, yeah, it's basically it's monitoring for something, for some reason and purpose, and yes, there is this to have it on as long as he's had is kind of rare, I guess. Not expected.
Brandon 42:35
Yes, and so he goes back to class, and this part was, I thought, a bit just interesting, because I want to talk about, like, what 1985 sci-fi writers thought the distant future classroom would be like. Apparently, we're still printing things, right? We are desk, desk is the computer screen, right, which is interesting, so and then you can like send things, download the things to your home computer, right? He's basically describing email here, sort of, right, without describing email, but like an 85 and so like he, we have this kind of, I just thought this part was interesting, right, when they're talking about, like, how the school is functioning, and how they have monitors on their desks, and he figured out how to, like, hack the monitor to, like, send messages to people in class instead of writing notes, they like hack each other's monitors.
Collin 43:35
That's great. Yeah, it's like he said it was upside down and backward at first, but Ender knew what it said long before it reached the bottom of the desk and turned right set up third in all caps. He's fine. He was the one who'd figured out how to send messages,
Brandon 43:49
which is funny.
Speaker 1 43:50
Yeah,
Collin 43:51
again, which is also going okay. What's the context for this word? Because I don't understand. Why is this good? Is this bad? Like, why is he being called third? We will.
Brandon 44:05
Yeah, don't worry. Chapter three is coming, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on chapter three, but so we go here. We've got this, and he's getting picked on, right, because he's lost his thing, and
Collin 44:23
because, because now it provided some, it provides some protection, because he is being monitored, people could see, hear, know about what was going on. Yeah, so that he couldn't be bullied, because the somebody was watching, and so that provided him some protection, and now he's being basically, he was called a washout, he's being picked on that now he doesn't have this because he's not good enough, and it's making him feel vulnerable.
Brandon 44:49
Yeah, now here's the other thing that's weird. All right, first of all, again, we get a very strong indication that this book was written in the 80s because. Is the word fart appears like a bazillion times, and it's very
Collin 45:04
much
Brandon 45:05
funny to me that,
Speaker 1 45:06
like,
Brandon 45:07
oh yeah, somebody wrote this was like, ah, kids talk like this, and here we get the big bomb that I struggled with for the whole rest of the book. The Ender is six years old,
Speaker 1 45:18
right,
Brandon 45:19
and you're like, I've been around six year olds. This is not how, maybe
Collin 45:28
no,
Brandon 45:29
right? I understand distant future, right? We're in like this is very like a military future, right? So, like, there are different circumstances happening, right. We find out that we've been in like perpetual war. We're in a perpetual war with like aliens, right. That's sort of what's happening here. And the schools are like training children to be soldiers in the war against the aliens, which I'm assuming are some sort of bug-like thing, because they refer to them as buggers, right? So I understand the context is different, but also this is not how six year olds talk, and I find this a little bit weird that these kids are so young, right, because, like, this is like a YA novel, kinda right, so you think like I respect like teenager, like the way that he's like thinking about things and talking about things, like this is how like preteens think, right, kind of how they talk about stuff, he's six, that's weird,
Collin 46:39
this was hard for me to wrap my head around, yeah, of to place the kids so young, given what they're doing,
Speaker 1 46:49
yeah,
Collin 46:49
and given how they're communicating, it's not believable for me in my mind, he is 14.
Brandon 46:57
Well, I mean, so like, if we think about this through a slight historical lens. Okay, when.. okay, this is like the nerdiest sin of all time, but like when, if we think back to like ancient Sparta, right, children that were seven years old entered the agoge for military training, right. So I'm imagining this is the source material for like this sort of plot idea, right, where we're starting them young to train them like completely to be soldiers, because if this is like a, we find out later how long this has been going on, I can't remember exactly, we'll find it in a minute, but like this has been going on for many years, like plus 50, I'm imagining, right, I can't remember, but like so, if that's the context that we're in, right, the entirety of society is focused on military action, right, like a Spartan, perhaps. So, in Spartan society, the only real job that you have is soldier, right, so like the I suppose I understand where the writer would come up with this idea of like, oh, we're gonna, we're training children from a young age to be soldiers in this perpetual forever war against bad guy bug enemies, yes. So, like,
Speaker 1 48:44
yes,
Brandon 48:44
the logic kind of tracks, but just like the way it's presented, you're like, bro, kids, not six. Like, what do
Collin 48:53
you? Yeah, okay, I can see that, of like, oh, we're making a basically a warrior society, and there are some conversations that are had later where it's things are just very frank, and again we'll get to chapter three, but this is, yeah, that's kind of what I see is okay, they're they're building a people who are more disconnected,
Brandon 49:18
yeah, I mean that kind of feels like what's happening, because like with this next interaction, like he's getting bullied by this kid and his three friends, right, and he just like lashes out and kicks this kid, right, and the kid falls down, and Ender is very surprised by this, he did not expect this to occur, right, he was like, oh, okay, well, neat, I guess, like, that's kind of what's happening. Like, he just, like, his friends, like, he's like holding his arm or whatever, and he just, like, throws his foot up and kicks this other kid in the chest, right?
Collin 49:51
And basically, what he found out was this Stillson guy was all talk,
Speaker 1 49:57
yeah,
Collin 49:58
and was not at. All going to follow through, or ready for, yeah. So,
Brandon 50:03
like, he was very surprised, like he thought this kid was tough, right? But he kicked him once, and he fell down, right. So, I don't know, maybe he hit him in the solar plexus, right, whatever. But, like, kid fault crumbles to the floor, and you know, since we're.. I'm imagining we've been in this mindset, right? His response is, well, I know that it's not like manly or like he, or I can't remember the word, he, yeah, Ender knew the unspoken rules of manly warfare, even though he was only six. Right, this again. That's where you're like, he's six years old. What the heck? Anyway, it was forbidden to strike the opponent who lay helpless on the ground. Only an animal would do that. This idea of like a manly, just in right warfare, this is like a very World War One attitude. Also, by the way, like the war has rules, right, and all these things is very like pre-World War one, right, like Napoleonic era of, like, we do things this way anyway, and so his response is I'm gonna kick him as hard as I can while he's laying on the ground,
Collin 51:11
because as he says, he's not trying to just win this fight, he's trying to win
Collin 51:16
everything else,
Brandon 51:17
right, he's like,
Collin 51:18
because he's got the other guy standing around looking at him, and he's thinking, I gotta show up tomorrow.
Brandon 51:24
You may have.. he kicks the crap on his kid. We lay on the ground, and he turns to his friends. He said, "You may be having some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably beat me up badly, but I just need you to remember what I do to people who try to hurt me, right? And I will get you back. Look at him, and then he just like walks off, which
Collin 51:45
is no. Then he kicks Stilton,
Brandon 51:50
right? He's like, whatever you do to me, it will be worse. Well,
Collin 51:55
yeah, no, but nobody followed.
Brandon 51:58
Yeah, that's true. But then we get this like cryptic sentence. Well, it remains cryptic for like two seconds, right? He's like, I am like Peter, take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter. Chapter two, conveniently titled Peter,
Collin 52:15
Peter, Peter.
Brandon 52:17
Here we are introduced to Ender's family, right?
Speaker 1 52:21
Oh boy,
Brandon 52:21
we learned
Brandon 52:22
that he has a sister and a brother, and that Ender's brother is a psychopath, right? Like, actually a psychopath, right? Like, he is not okay. Like, we have. we have Peter, who is insane. We have Valentina. Well, Peter's 10. Valentina is an undisclosed age, and Ender is six, so she's probably like eight, right? I would imagine.
Collin 52:54
Yes,
Brandon 52:55
right. That's kind of what I was thinking, something like that, based on the regulatory nature of procreation, which we'll talk about in chapter three again. Oh my, right. So we get this weird interaction where Peter, like, they comes home, they see that he doesn't have the thing right, and Valentina is very like loving, and like very kind, and very like, oh, it's okay, blah blah, and Peter gets like mad, right, like, oh, you see, you're not better than me, you loser, blah blah blah, Peter apparently lost his monitor when he was three years old, so Who's the actual lizard Peter? It's you.
Collin 53:43
Yes. Oh, you also.. you all, we skipped over the once again omniscient conversation that is still going on, getting.. oh yeah, like again. So weird, because it's now there's like conflict between them, of like, will he actually do what this is, and he's still being monitored, apparently.
Speaker 1 54:06
Yes,
Collin 54:06
spoiler. And the, oh, and we also get to, he was thorough, he didn't just beat him, he beat him deep, just like Mazur, rack him at the spare me. So, in the judgment of the committee, like, he passes, it's like, oh, Who's this? Who's this Mazer Rackham? What's more information about, yeah, like, yeah,
Brandon 54:30
we'll find out later, I guess. It is, yeah, this is one of the things that, like, turns me off of, like, some sci-fi things, right, because, like, the way, like, you need to have, like, like it's all like about technology, and like weird far future stuff that you like, you don't know about, but like, sometimes it's like so goofy that you're just like, what, what is happening,
Collin 54:59
what. Yep,
Brandon 55:00
like I don't know, I don't know, so yeah, what we get, Peter, and they're gonna play a game, they're gonna play buggers and astronauts, boom, and he's gonna make Ender be the bra, the bugger, right, and basically Peter tries to murder him.
Collin 55:23
Yeah,
Brandon 55:24
you know, and Valentina, this part is weird, right? Because he's like, I could kill you right now, and no one will believe you. They'll just be like, oh no, whatever, it's fine. And she, she's like, I'll tell, and he's like, no, you won't, and she was like, yeah, I will, and they'll believe me, he's like, then I'll kill you too, and she's like, oh yeah, that's inconspicuous, totally, like, you accidentally killed your brother, and then, then completely the exact same way, accidentally killed your sister, wow, everyone will totally believe that, you idiot. Plus, I've written a letter,
Collin 56:07
dead man, I'm a dead man's,
Brandon 56:09
I have a dead man switch, because I know that you, since you can't be soldier army guy, that you have dreams of being a politician, and I have written a secret letter in the library. Is that where it is, that was weird. That's a weird place to put secret letters, but whatever. That upon my death will be read, and it will say that Peter killed me, right? Like, so Peter actually is a psychopath. Okay, he's not okay, do Yes,
Collin 56:43
well, and then, like, gap, so he does end, he does stop, and then Peter switches and starts laughing, and is like, man, I'm a master puppet puppeteer, I can play you guys, you'll believe everything that I do. Ah, look how gullible you are, and both Valentina and Ender, or Andrew, are going right, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1 57:10
totally believe you, haha,
Collin 57:15
and he has this weird, like this weird evil person's monolog, right? Where he's looking at Valentina, and he's like, there'll come a day where you aren't there with him, and you, when you forget, and suddenly you'll remember, and you'll rush to him, and there he'll be perfectly all right, and the next time you won't worry so much, and you won't come so fast, and every time he'll be all right, and you'll think that I forgot, even though you'll remember that I said this, you'll think I forgot he's 10, like
Brandon 57:47
Lex Luthor levels of like anxiety, right?
Collin 57:50
Like,
Collin 57:51
and then there'll be a terrible accident, and I'll find his body and cry over it, and you'll remember this conversation, Val, like,
Collin 58:01
what, what, it's so weird
Brandon 58:06
again? If, if Andrew was like 14 and Peter was like 18, yeah. Okay, okay. I mean, not okay, but like, it makes more sense, this all of this coming out of the mouth of a 10 year old is nuts. Like, what? Why are these people so young? Like, what is.. I don't know. Like, Orson Scott Card has children. I don't know if he had them when he wrote this, but, like, he had, so he had been around at least a six year old before. Like, come on,
Collin 58:54
maybe this is what he wishes all six years, like, yeah. Yeah, yes. Then weirdly, there's some ESP between these because he's while Peter's laughing maniacally, Ender is visioning him as Stillson, and he really wants to do it. And then Valentin, Valentin says no, Ender. And then Peter's like, anytime, Ender, like, what? What is it? Yeah. like
Brandon 59:23
reading the facial expressions. We don't really get a good description of, like, the scenery here, you know. But, like, whatever. Andrew does try to hit him with, like, blood on my shoe, it's not mine, and he's like, whatever.
Collin 59:42
Oh, he says, "Oh, Ender killed a Cappertiller, and now he's gonna kill me. Caper Tiller, yeah. Obviously, he's mocking like a little baby, maybe even something that Ender called them. You could
Speaker 1 59:58
imagine, who knows,
Collin 59:59
a phrase. Be used, but then he says there was no getting to him. Peter was a murderer at heart.
Brandon 1:00:06
Yeah, mom's home, mom, dad's home, right?
Collin 1:00:12
Oh, this is where we get the wonderful compliment from the father. Yeah, father came home and kept saying it was such a wonderful surprise, they had such fantastic children that the government told them to have three, and now the government didn't want to take them after all. What? What?
Brandon 1:00:34
That's very weird. Again, more on that in a minute, but like, so we got that weird Ender's mad, and then we get this, like,
Collin 1:00:43
and we figure out why he's called,
Brandon 1:00:44
yeah, because he's a child, right? We, I mean, we kind of assumed that already, right, but it does come, basically comes to light here, it gets more, again, more detail later, in that they're only, you're only allowed to have two children, right, for reasons that are not explained, but then they got special permission to have a third child, and that's weird, because most people don't have a third sibling or third child, and so it's like, like some sort of weird, like social stigma to be like the extra kid in family for some reason,
Collin 1:01:25
yeah. And this is where the switch from now I'm doing an internal dialog with Ender as well, it's which it says, yeah, until I know I'm a third, I'm like, weird at this, yeah,
Brandon 1:01:42
it's weird, yeah. And then, but then they go to bed, and then Peter goes to go to the bathroom, I guess. And then when he comes back, he's like whispering whispers to him, "I'm sorry, I know how it feels. I'm sorry, I'm your brother, I love you, and we don't believe him at all.
Collin 1:02:01
Well, also it ends with a long time later. Peter's even breathing said that he was asleep. Was he sleepwalking during this?
Brandon 1:02:14
I don't think so. I think he got up and then like moved the bathroom. I think he's just because he's a sociopath, right? He was just trying to be like, hey, I was joking, remember, remember, I was just joking, I was just kidding, like, uh, like, yes, so now chapter three in the holy hand grenades is this chapter like this is so bizarre, right? Like, again, our overview talks about the sister is the real problem here, right, but we do get kind of some payoff from what you talked about from the first chapter, right? He said, well, because we'll have to persuade him that he wants to come with us more than he wants to stay with her. How will we do that? I'll lie to him, and if that doesn't work, then I'll tell the truth. We're allowed to do that in emergencies.
Collin 1:03:18
I love that. Yes, it's
Brandon 1:03:24
so okay. Yeah, so Andrew is worried about going to school today, because after the thing that happened yesterday, so he's eating breakfast, thinking about having to go back and face Stilton and all these people, right? And the doorbell rings, right. Oh no, it's the International Fleet guy comes right. That's weird. They think that's a bit strange, but Peter doesn't care. He's still just eating milk and cereal, because that's what they eat in the far future, still milk and cereal. Got him right, like. And enters only thought is, ooh, maybe I don't have to go to school today.
Collin 1:04:20
Valentina Valentin, what is her name again? I don't know. His sister, when they're told that it's somebody from the military, she sends him a quick glance, and, and Peter is like, oh yeah, no, of course they're here for him, not me, because I'm not better than him, obviously. Yeah,
Brandon 1:04:37
right. Very dumb. We get some terrible, inappropriate jokes here from Peter. We'll skip that. We're gonna.. he does say, like, oh, they found out what you did. We do get this like weird thing, though, where he's like, 'Oh, they must have found out what you did. Now you're gonna go to the belt, which I'm assuming is like.. Some sort of jail thing, right? I'm assuming this is like the asteroid belt or something. I don't really know. He's like, 'You can't, I'm a juvenile. He's like, 'You're third, you don't have any rights, idiot. Like, okay. And so we find then Ender is summoned to talk with the guy who turns out to be this graph fella, right? So he goes in there with, is it just Dad or his mom and dad? I don't remember,
Collin 1:05:37
Mom and Dad,
Brandon 1:05:38
Mom and Dad wasn't there. All right, anyway, so we go in there to talk, and they want to talk about Stilton, right, and they're like
Collin 1:05:48
Stilson,
Collin 1:05:49
why
Collin 1:05:49
not, what a
Brandon 1:05:50
guy from school, oh yeah, Stillston, yeah, sure, not Geronimo, so my bad, or Stilton, oh yeah, so they're like, we, I want you to tell us about this. This is serious, and he's like, oh, I didn't think it was that serious. What are you doing here, Fleet Guy? That's a little, it's a little bit of a weird step, but okay. Yep, and he's like, I need you to know why you did it. It's like you won the fight, blah blah blah, and he says you took away my monitor, I had to take care of myself, did not,
Collin 1:06:29
uh, huh, because they're coming after me,
Brandon 1:06:31
right? And then this is where we, he gives them what the what you talked about earlier, he's like, I had to not just win this fight, I had to win all the other fights, right? I had to win all the future fights too, because this isn't just going to be a one-time thing, right? They pick on me all the time, so I have to win every fight. So he had to win decisively, right? And then that's why he's like, okay. Well, that's cool. Anyway, your final step of your testing is over. We want to know, and they're like, "What, what, what were you? And he's like, "Yeah, we don't normally do that, but like, we were so curious, we just wanted to figure out why he did that to that kid. And that's a pretty cool answer. So, like,
Collin 1:07:20
that's pretty bad,
Brandon 1:07:21
we're gonna take you, and they're like, "What's the
Collin 1:07:24
kind of thinking we need?
Speaker 1 1:07:26
Yeah,
Collin 1:07:26
and
Brandon 1:07:27
and now
Collin 1:07:30
his, his parents are like really upset by this, and I guess it's because they, at each step, well, they had thought he was going to leave at each step, like, yeah, the longer they had taken off, so he had failed, quote unquote, like the other kids, and so now they were going to keep him, which is just a weird
Brandon 1:07:51
yes, yes,
Collin 1:07:53
which we'll get to, I know,
Brandon 1:07:54
and then, yeah, and then now they're going to take him away again, right, so they were like, we just thought that he was going to get to stay, and now you're going to rip him away from us, and then he's like, well, he can, he, it turns out like at least they're like, he's he can, he's only going to come if he wants to, right? It is voluntary, right? You know, but the choice is his, like he's not just a machine, right. But then Ender finds out that this is actually for, like, officer training, right? Yeah, and he was like, yeah, anybody can go and be like, so Peter can still go and be a volunteer and a soldier, but he's like, this is for officer training. Ender's like, wait, what? He didn't know that was what this was for, which is kind of weird, I guess. But so it's a battle school for what he says, future starship captains, commodores of flotillas, and admirals of the fleet.
Collin 1:08:59
Yes,
Brandon 1:09:00
and he was like, and the father, you know, it's like, hey, how many of the boys actually end up in command of ships?
Collin 1:09:07
Sure, right, yeah,
Brandon 1:09:09
and the dude's like, well, that's classified, but he's like, everybody that goes here will get to at least the rank of commissioned officer, right, that's like the minimum of like commissioned up, so it's like lieutenant, right? Like, and like modern military parlance isn't that lieutenant and up, because sergeants are still like NCOs, like non-commissioned officers, right? Anyway, but like up, I think is.. I don't know about Darby, but like I think Lieutenant and up, and so like, oh, so he's like, oh, okay, well, he's like, how many make it? This is a weird sentence, too. He's like, how many make it through the first year, all that want to,
Collin 1:09:52
yeah, the I think, I think with that, I. Think, what? That tell.. I don't know. I was trying to read into that, of like, does that mean it is so grueling that only those who like..
Brandon 1:10:06
like, stick it out.. I think if they have intuitiveness.. Collin,
Collin 1:10:10
yes, maybe.. Ah, they don't fall susceptible to it. That's
Brandon 1:10:14
true. Oh no, man, they will do that, right? And so Ender is now torn, right? He's like, leave mom, dad, whatever, I don't care, but Valentine, or Valentine, I guess her name
Collin 1:10:27
is Valentine over Sophie.
Brandon 1:10:28
Yes, I keep wanting to say Valentina, because I know people named Valentina, so like, yeah, but whatever, he, you know, he doesn't want to leave her because he actually likes his sister, nobody else, he's like, "Oh, not really Peter. Ah, right. And so then he starts talking to Graph about stuff, and then we enter like a big lore dump page, and so, like, this is weird. He's like, okay. Well, here's what's up. If you come with me, you won't be back here for a long time. There are no vacations from battle school, no visitors. The full course of training lasts until you're 16 years old. 10 years of battle school training for him.
Collin 1:11:21
Yep,
Brandon 1:11:21
that's when you get your first leave, right? Under circumstances, you might be able to take a break for when you're 12, right? But he's like, people change in six years. In 10 years, your sister Valentine will be a woman when she sees her again. If you come with me, that's a.. I don't like that sentence, just
Collin 1:11:41
a little
Brandon 1:11:41
weird,
Collin 1:11:42
uncomfortable.
Brandon 1:11:43
Yeah. Yes. And just the way, like that's the sentence. Your sister Valentine will, or Valentine will be a woman when you see her again, comma, if you come with me like that. What is that? You'll be strangers, okay? That's that's the important part here, right? We didn't need that other sentence at all. That was weird. You'll be strangers, you'll still love her, but you won't know her. Okay, that's all we needed. We didn't need that other weird sentence. I don't like that.
Collin 1:12:12
Yes,
Brandon 1:12:13
right. You see, I'm not pretending it's easy, so I'm assuming that one of these people talking, at least in the earlier beginning of chapter, mysterious was one of this guy, right?
Collin 1:12:26
Yes,
Brandon 1:12:27
maybe I don't know if it will always be him, but potentially in at least one of them, it wasn't. And then he, he says, "Mom and Daddy, like, what? Why would you say it that way? You know, I know you, Ender, I've been monitoring you a lot, you know, I know that. And then, then, holy cow, what the heck?
Collin 1:12:52
I told
Brandon 1:12:52
this part is messed up, right? Where he's like, ah, he was like, well, mom and dad miss me, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1 1:13:02
no,
Brandon 1:13:02
he's like, you need to understand. Here's the backstory about your family that you don't know. Your dad is a Polish Catholic, the seventh of nine children.
Collin 1:13:15
The horrors, yeah.
Brandon 1:13:17
Oh no, the horror that when you're six years old, revealing that your father was a Polish Catholic. What the heck? Like, you're
Collin 1:13:25
even worse, right? Yo,
Brandon 1:13:28
this is messed up. Okay, so your father was a Polish Catholic, the seventh of nine children, nine children, that's criminal, right? Because nowadays that's elite, only two, you're allowed, right now. Well, yes, people do strange things for religion, right? You know, the sanctions ender, they were not as harsh then, but still not easy. Only the first two children had a free education. Taxes steadily rose with each new child. Your father turned 16, and I need you to understand, I think, I think the signs were clear early that mr. Card was like turning into like a Republican, right? You see, you see how it works. He changed his name, renounced his religion, and vowed to never have more than the allotted two children. He meant it, the shame and persecution he went through as a child. He vowed no child of his would go through it, do you understand? So he didn't want me. Well, no, he wants no one wants us so weird. Jeez, oh right. And then right, yes. And then your mother, she was a Mormon, but in fact their feelings are still ambiguous, right? Also, did you know that Orza Scott Card is a Mormon? By the way, it's fun fact. You didn't know. Here's where it, like, it comes painfully obvious, right? Like the degree that, which your mother refuses to admit to anyone that she. Was born in Utah, least they suspect, right? Your father denies his Polish ancestry, since Poland is still non-compliant nation and under international sanctions because of it. So, Polo, yeah, so you see, having a third, even under the government's direct instructions, undoes everything they've been trying to do like what I'm sorry,
Collin 1:15:26
I haven't heard this amount of talk about Polish, or then when maybe would tell her jokes about
Brandon 1:15:39
right again. Here's, here's this again. Your father, you.. I don't know if you know this Orson or not Orson, but Ender, but you were baptized as soon as you could. Your mother objected, of course, but that's because she's Mormon, and they don't believe baptizing. Um,
Collin 1:15:57
only after you.. yeah,
Brandon 1:15:58
they baptized other people after you did. That's not weird at all. They hadn't really given up their religion. They took you to see you as their badge of pride, because they were able to circumvent the law and have a third. Like, bro, what is this?
Collin 1:16:19
So, what we get here,
Brandon 1:16:20
like you're a badge of public shame, but also at the exact same time a badge of honor for your parents
Collin 1:16:28
that they feel burdened by.
Speaker 1 1:16:29
Yeah,
Brandon 1:16:31
that's weird, right? And then the reason that your parents had a third is we monitored your brother and sister, right? Your brother is too crazy, right? He is insane. Your sister is totally nice. So, we thought maybe you would be in the middle, the perfect candidate. Hey, what do you think? Orson's got card blues in nature or nurture. What do you think, Collin? What do you have?
Collin 1:17:04
A guess, so hard I have no idea.
Brandon 1:17:14
Yo, oh,
Collin 1:17:18
what?
Brandon 1:17:18
Right. And so, like, we discovered that the only person that loves injuries is sister, right. Yep, boom. So that that part right there was just the weirdest thing I think I've ever read. Like, what is that? What is this? Like, what? Yeah,
Collin 1:17:39
yeah, I try again. This is a trying to figure out what, what is the right like way to interpret what is happening. I have no
Speaker 1 1:17:54
idea
Collin 1:17:54
of, yeah,
Brandon 1:17:58
apparently what we. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Also, would it, would it be interesting for you to know that Orson Scott Card has two children,
Collin 1:18:10
obviously.
Collin 1:18:16
I just,
Collin 1:18:17
oh my gosh,
Brandon 1:18:20
so then we just like completely go back to like, hey, so what is, tell me about Battle School, like, and he just sort of describes what's happening, there's like stuff, and oh, oh, snap, crackle, pop, wait, we're not done with the stereotyping, right, so we talk about this, we talk about there's war games, there's like soldier, everybody's a soldier, and the older kids will be the officers, and then you know that you train each other. This is very Spartan ago, right? This, what he's describing here, is like Spartany, kind of a little bit, right? So, like, and he says, of course, with your mind, and as a third to boot, you won't have particularly normal childhood anyway, right? And he says, are there all boys? He's like, there's a few girls, they don't often pass the test to get in. Too many centuries of evolution are working against them,
Collin 1:19:20
girls. So they're they're girls, so they're dumb. Obviously, too small, they have little heads. They look, get out your calipers, Brandon. If you get
Collin 1:19:30
out for knowledge, you can measure. I read that sentence. I was like, bro, what is this?
Collin 1:19:40
Did you read that aloud?
Brandon 1:19:43
None of them will be like Valentine, anyway. They'll be brothers there, but they'll be brothers there. Ender, we're all brothers, brothers. Banner of the international fleet girls just aren't cut out for war, and they're. I didn't have any girls in the military, crazy.
Collin 1:20:03
We've got a cool side, it says boys rule.
Collin 1:20:09
No girls internationally,
Collin 1:20:13
so much fun station.
Brandon 1:20:15
I really hope that we don't. We're going to right, and I'm afraid we're going to meet a female character in this book, and it's gonna.. they're just gonna be the worst, right? Like, it's gonna.. can't imagine how this band is gonna describe a female military personnel. Oh my days, I know
Brandon 1:20:39
this is awful. Oh my gosh, I don't know,
Collin 1:20:42
getting.. I'm getting very strong Warhammer Fort.
Brandon 1:20:46
Yeah, right. Like, we're gonna fail the special test for sure, but like, we're gonna.. but like, so we're.. yes, that's that sentence. I was just like, oh my gosh, man, what the heck with the with the weird comment about his sister earlier, and then, like, it's too many centuries of evolution against women, like I don't even know, like what in the world's going on around here. Anyway, anyway,
Collin 1:21:17
in Ender decides to,
Brandon 1:21:20
does he's like, all right, you're right, life here will be sucky, and I won't like it. And boom, all we do get, you do get a brief description of who this Mazer Rackham person is, right?
Collin 1:21:39
Oh, apparently he's a card, yeah,
Brandon 1:21:43
right,
Brandon 1:21:43
like
Collin 1:21:44
not Picard, sorry,
Brandon 1:21:50
no, yeah, like he's the cat, he was like the captain of something, right, of the fleet. This is where it talks about how long ago this was, and I was trying to find 80, okay, 80 years, so it was 80 years ago, right? We don't have him now, Ender, we've scraped together everything mankind could produce, a fleet that makes the one they sent against us last time seem like a bunch of kids playing a swimming pool, we have some new weapons too, but it might not be enough, even so, because in the 80 years since the last war, there it is, they've had as much time to repair as we have. We need to be the best we can be, and we need them fast, right? Yeah, we need the best we can get, and we need them fast. Okay, that makes more sense. Maybe you're not going to work out for us, maybe you are, maybe they'll break you down into pressure, and maybe they'll ruin your life. Maybe you'll hate me for coming here for your house today, but if there's a chance, because you're with the fleet, mankind might survive, and the buggers might have to leave us alone forever. Then I'm going to ask you to do it, to come with me, so we have a chosen one, right?
Collin 1:23:04
That big time,
Brandon 1:23:05
that's what we have here. We have a chosen one story. Okay, so Ender is the chosen one. Question mark, I don't know
Collin 1:23:16
something.
Brandon 1:23:17
Yeah,
Collin 1:23:17
we don't
Brandon 1:23:18
know. So that's yes, he decides to go right. He's not happy, he's sad about leaving his sister. Like, again, he's like, "Mom, Dad,
Brandon 1:23:31
Peter came out of here, but Valentine,
Collin 1:23:34
yeah,
Brandon 1:23:34
no, right, to leave everything here and to go to a place that was very hard with no Valentine, no mom and dad, but screw Peter, because Peter sucks. Yeah, so yeah, we get some loose allusions to alleged things that happened, the scathing of China, the battle of the belt, boom, but you know, but yeah, so he decides to go
Collin 1:24:04
crying. They're gonna write to you, kill some buggers for me,
Brandon 1:24:09
yeah.
Collin 1:24:09
And as he got into the car, they waited silently in the corridor. He heard Valentine's anguish cry, 'Come back to me, I love you
Brandon 1:24:16
forever.
Collin 1:24:20
Into chapter four, so how are those? Those are things that happen.
Brandon 1:24:25
Those were some of the chapters of all time, right? Yeah, I don't know. It's a rough start. I will say it was at least relatively easy to read. I did read it in like five seconds, so that is nice, but like, yes, I don't, I don't know. I'm going to need more of this book to see what's happening. These first three chapters were not particularly interesting, right? I don't know, right. So, so I, yeah, I don't know. We'll, I'll save that comment for later. It, but like, yeah, we'll, we'll see. I'm, I am at least interested to know how battle school goes. I guess we'll see how that goes. We'll see what happens here, but those were, those were come some weird chapters. Our introduction to the world here is very odd indeed,
Collin 1:25:25
very disorienting. It is
Brandon 1:25:26
very disorienting, because we don't have, like, a win. We are right, like maybe that's being like intentionally left vague. We just know it is in the future, you know.
Collin 1:25:45
Future,
Brandon 1:25:45
I'm not even really sure where we are, right? I mean, I'm assuming we're on earth, but like, where on earth are we located? I'm gonna assume the United States, because we talk about Utah and stuff, but like, I don't really know, right. We have no, like, placement. We're just on earth somewhere, probably. That's all we got. I got nothing again. Don't mind, like, not always knowing what's happening, because, like, I said, I have read some books before that are like, oh, we'll just have chapters and chapters and chapters of exposition. No, no, I don't need that in my life, right? But, like, I feel like the way that this is handled slightly at the beginning, is it? Is kind of just like, what is going on, and it's not even that the character doesn't know what's going on, because Ender firmly knows his place in the world, right? So it's not like a character thing, where it's like, you, you're not like with the character trying to understand what's going on. I'm imagining that will be happening in the next chapter, because we're going to a new location we've never been to before, so we may get some more background information in the next chapters.
Collin 1:27:12
I feel like
Brandon 1:27:13
just because, and there will be fish out of water there, you know, and so we might get more explanations about things, so we'll see. What did you think about first three chapters?
Collin 1:27:27
Yeah, really disorienting, and also very brisk. As far as what we're like, we are moving through this. It's been a day, I think, literally from where we started to over here, so that's a fast-paced
Speaker 1 1:27:43
true
Collin 1:27:43
of I did not appreciate Graphs Exposition dump. I was a little like, okay, that's.. I don't need to know
Collin 1:27:52
all that's
Collin 1:27:52
just weird motivation, right? It's just weird behind this now. Was a little that was very out of place that had been on my editing floor there, but other than that, it's a bad world, not a place you'd really want to live. So, we're doing some science fictiony dystopian things. It's great, loving that. And we have a chosen one before us, so I think
Speaker 1 1:28:15
that's
Collin 1:28:16
thought of different aspects, still different elements.
Brandon 1:28:18
That is
Speaker 1 1:28:18
true,
Collin 1:28:19
coming, coming together. So, I'm excited to see where we go, and all
Brandon 1:28:22
right, and five, and
Collin 1:28:25
six beyond, and
Brandon 1:28:28
I think it's important for you to know, Collin, that I'm using a Buzz Lightyear bookmark for my book right now. Perfect, I thought that was thematically appropriate.
Collin 1:28:37
Yes, two, three.
Brandon 1:28:42
I saw it was funny. I was like, oh, I'm using this right now.
Collin 1:28:49
I have a reason to. Oh, good. You
Brandon 1:28:54
go boom. All right. Well, I have haiku for you, Collin, earlier today I was like, oh crap, okay. Unfamiliar space choices swirling on the page. Kitchen springs to life,
Speaker 1 1:29:22
oh. It
Collin 1:29:32
remembered how to spell unfamiliar
Brandon 1:29:38
spellcheck through the head
Collin 1:29:41
Really take a nap now. Oh, goodness. Well, we will continue this, and all
Speaker 1 1:29:50
right.
Collin 1:29:50
Awesome. Okay.
Brandon 1:29:52
Love you. Bye.