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In this engaging podcast, a dad and his two sons explore their personal interests while rating a variety of alcoholic beverages. They dive into discussions about nerd and geek culture, travel experiences, and an array of intriguing topics that pique their curiosity. Join them for a fun and lighthearted conversation filled with laughter, insights, and, of course, plenty of drink reviews!
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the three hamster boys. I, of course, am Alexander joined by my brother Nick. Hello. Hello. And our father Jeff.
Jeff:Jeff the dad.
Alexander:Jeff the dad.
Jeff:The old man.
Alexander:Yeah. If you are new to the series here, we drink alcohol and then talk about, honestly, whatever. Most of the time, it's like our favorite parts of media, including, but not limited to, heroes, villains, and fun parts.
Nick:Fun weird things. Fun weird things.
Alexander:And it's honestly just a way for us to just chat about movies or anime or video games.
Jeff:Or things we find interesting about media.
Alexander:Yeah. Or or things we find interesting about each other, like, yep, being on a submarine, which is very topical for today's episode. Topical.
Jeff:And I will say, I did not pick this subject. Wasn't my idea initially.
Nick:The subject?
Alexander:Oh, no. We can't do this.
Nick:Haven't even started drinking yet.
Alexander:So what I will say is, the alcohol or So we're drinking wine today. The vineyards you will see, unlike in some of the previous episodes, we're going to kind of mix and match to fit fit more kind of palettes or styles. So you might see a vineyard that we do today, also in another episode, as we kinda went to we went crazy a couple weeks ago, hit a bunch of vineyards at the same time, and then walked away with a lot of lot of bottles.
Jeff:With the three different vineyards. Actually, the third vineyard we were gonna go to was overflowing, so we picked a different third vineyard. So these three are the three vineyards we visited on on a Sunday afternoon.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. And it was lovely.
Jeff:It was lovely.
Alexander:But but before we get too deep into that, Nick, what are we drinking today?
Nick:So in the spirit of the episode, we are drinking all Bubblies, you know, a lot of oxygen and moving around and tickling our taste buds with a unique texture. So for from our first vineyard, we are drinking a sparkling Pinot Noir from the Gabriela Rosse vineyard. We hope. We hope.
Alexander:Oh my god. We had
Nick:a whole conversation about if we could pronounce it right and and what what what not. This is the Vino del Bosco. Yeah. Vino del Bosco.
Jeff:Capriaccio Capriaccio.
Nick:Oh, no. Oh.
Jeff:Oh my god.
Alexander:What is he trying to say? He's trying to pronounce some sort of Italian word, I'm sure. Capriccioso.
Nick:Capriccioso. Yeah. All of those. All that stuff. I think in the past we've talked about how wine is not me or my brother's exact forte.
Nick:Yeah. We are a little bit more up our alley for beer and spirits. We had a whole sake episode learning about that. But for the most part, wine is, you know, it's like, oh, that tastes nice most of the time. Yes.
Jeff:So for me, sparkling wine is one of my favorite things. I like dry white wines, and when you get a sparkling that's extra brute or extra dry, absolutely love it. When I was younger in my partying days, I partied with a lot of sparkling wine. Yeah. The champagne.
Jeff:The champagne.
Alexander:When you're
Nick:at NASCAR races.
Jeff:Right. You can't say champagne. Champagne is a region in France.
Nick:You're
Jeff:right. So this is a sparkling wine.
Nick:Sure.
Jeff:And all three of these were made in Virginia.
Alexander:Right.
Jeff:So, yes, they were made in Virginia.
Nick:Made in Virginia. Not all the grapes were from Virginia.
Jeff:The I think that most of these grapes are predominantly Virginia grapes, but they may have a variety or two that's outside of Virginia.
Nick:Yep. Whatever whatever that is.
Jeff:But this is this is not a traditional sparkling wine because it's a rose. And the other thing that's unique about it is that all of the wines from this vineyard, they promote as very dry. So it should have that dryness of a sparkling wine, but it's a rose.
Alexander:But it's a rose.
Jeff:Yeah. I have no idea how it's gonna be. Roses are usually sweeter.
Alexander:Yeah. This was an very interesting trip for us. And like we said, wine's kind of out of Nick and I's wheelhouse here, but we're happy to be here.
Nick:Yeah. We're happy to drink and partake.
Jeff:They had great
Alexander:bread and great cheese while it was in.
Jeff:True. That's true.
Nick:The vineyard itself was very, very nice. It was very pleasant. And we had a
Jeff:And very small.
Alexander:And very well, yeah. It was hard to find.
Nick:It wasn't a roadside.
Alexander:Yeah. The signage was difficult, and we accidentally happened upon the Wittner as we were leaving, whose namesake it is of the vineyard, which was really kinda cool and strange. Yeah.
Nick:At first, was like, how did he get hot tea? Yeah. But then the person behind the counter was like, oh, this is the the guy. And we're like, oh, alright. He can order whatever he
Jeff:He has his own little box behind the counter I saw.
Nick:Yeah. This is lovely.
Jeff:This is lovely.
Nick:This is very clean. Honestly though, I might be more picky about this, but I wish it was a little bit more bubbly.
Jeff:Yeah. I mean, I think that I think two things. I would like it to be a little bit more bubbly, but it's not overly dry either because I'm not getting that saliva feel in mouth.
Alexander:Right. Yes. We're I think.
Jeff:You're not you're not usually when it's really, really dry, it it makes you wanna salivate. Mhmm. But yeah. So I I like it. It has it's like you said, it's very clean.
Jeff:It hits, and then let's go.
Nick:But it's it's a lovely rose. It's it's definitely not as sweet as a lot of other roses I've had. But it's I mean, very tasty.
Alexander:Now, see, I am getting a little bit of that that salivating
Jeff:It is a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:And I I do wish it was a little sweeter. I think that's I'm learning myself a personal preference. I think I like things a little sweeter.
Jeff:Yeah. This is probably gonna be the sweetest one of the three.
Alexander:Yeah. Which is unfortunate that you're saying that. Too bad we could
Jeff:We've already picked the best of of Alexander.
Alexander:Yeah. Of my favorites. I will say though, I think the episode choice was good because I'm getting very much into the underwater theme just watching these bubbles go up here. So we're talking about underwater vehicles in media. We decided one of our last episodes, we did like weapons and it was super broad.
Alexander:And so we decided if we were gonna move to something else, we'd wanna at least narrow it down a little bit. So instead of just doing vehicles as like, oh, there's a bunch of fun vehicles and media. Let's try something a little more specific. So today, we're doing underwater. And a little odd.
Alexander:And a little Yeah.
Jeff:For sure.
Alexander:So yeah. Dad, I'm gonna have you start. And for transparency, we talked about his behind the camera or before we started recording. And Nick and I have no idea what almost, I think any of these are.
Jeff:Well, you know what one of them is. So I'm gonna start Okay.
Alexander:Well, yes. I know what one of
Jeff:them is. I'm gonna start off with the one that's probably the least fictitious or the most factual. And that is the submarine Red October from the movie Hunt for Red October. It's a Russian submarine that has a unique propulsion system that doesn't make noise. And they're trying to, it's Sean Connery, to defect with the whole submarine and whatever.
Jeff:And for me, I had just been out to sea for six months, came back in, and my mother was like, Oh, welcome back. Let's go see a movie. And I go see a submarine movie, which is probably the last thing I wanted to do.
Nick:Yeah, that's pretty tough.
Jeff:Well, not only that, but the other submarine, the Dallas, which was in it, which was chasing it, was the same class submarine I was on.
Nick:Oh, so you're like, hold on, that's Rice Leaf.
Jeff:I know that room. Anyways, so it was for me, Tom Clancy does a lot of research in these these books, if you ever read it, it's a really good read also. And the movie, he played a a pivotal hand in molding what they showed and what they didn't show. And reason I picked this one was because the other two are kind of fantastical that I selected. And this one was very true to the art and technology of submarines.
Jeff:And so I thought, from a standpoint of representation in a movie, it was extremely close to reality.
Nick:So it's a an aspect of it is is like fictitious and super and like, you know, like off. But for the but for the rest of it, it's extremely accurate.
Jeff:Extremely accurate. The propulsion system is the make believe part.
Alexander:Mhmm.
Jeff:But the politics, the, methodology for most of it is except for the idea of of some CIA agent going between submarines, that doesn't happen.
Nick:Know That you know about.
Jeff:That I know about. But yeah, so I think that from the technology standpoint and the tactics all that stuff, it was so realistic. And I just lived it for six months chasing Russian submarines around. And so this was really one of those make believe things that's not make believe.
Alexander:Right.
Jeff:That is really realistic. And he did a really great job of representing the differences between the two navies, how they look at submarines, what the submarines are like, and how they operate. I love it from a fictitious standpoint because fictionally, it it draws you in because it's so close to reality.
Nick:Right.
Jeff:Scary. Scary. Well, anytime you see a submarine movie that's close because one of the other submarines that I considered that was slight was close to reality was Das Booth. Red October is my second favorite submarine movie. My very first one is a Das Booth, was from the late fifties, and it was a German movie spoken in German.
Jeff:And it was about a German submarine in World War two that ultimately sinks in the end. And I actually read the book in German. Woah. So, it took me forever, but I was on a six month cruise, so I had forever to read it. But yeah.
Jeff:So I think that these these B'Das Boat was a compilation of reality for German submariners in World War two. So, there was nothing fictitious about that besides the storyline.
Alexander:It's a
Nick:little too grounded
Jeff:It's in it's based on stories from a bunch of different people that was put into one story.
Alexander:Oh. Wow.
Jeff:It yeah. It's it's, if you if you get the chance and you're willing to read subtitles, because it's not dubbed, Dasput, the German version that's black and white. It is it's gripping. It's like, All Quiet on the Western Front that's in German too. They remade it in a different version in English, but the German version is definitely much more realistic and
Nick:Interesting.
Alexander:When we're talking about media, especially in in, like, something like this where Nick and I are about to say some very, like, fantastical, like, sea machines. Do you think there's some sort of importance in terms of creating realism with media, especially for you who have, like, a a lived experience in in, like, a a submarine kind of situation.
Jeff:This is what I'll tell you. I grew up watching war movies. Yeah. Those war movies were they they were made for a sense of patriotism, most of them. If John Wayne was in it, if Cary Grant was in it, these movies were made for the rah rah.
Jeff:When you see things like Apocalypse Now, it doesn't put war in a glamorous thing. Das Boats, all quiet on the Western Front. And then you see things like Saving Private Ryan. There was nothing that was fantastical about that.
Nick:It doesn't capture the full romantic,
Jeff:And perspective of for me, that's much more important. I think sometimes you have to go to war because the cause is correct. But make no mistake about it. It's horrible. Okay?
Jeff:No matter what part of it you are, it's horrible. Whether it's the aftermath or whether it's how it impacts families or whatever, it's horrible. And so when we glamorize it, just like my action adventure movies that I watch, you have to understand that when I watch a war movie from the forties or the fifties or the sixties, it is totally fantasy. Yeah. It's not reality.
Jeff:Mhmm. When I see Saving Private Ryan, I say, okay. That's the reality of what was happening. When I see Hunt for Red October, I know that that's true. And so it has greater value to me to watch that.
Alexander:Does it have greater value for other people who don't necessarily see that difference?
Jeff:I don't know. When I saw Saving Private Ryan, saw it with someone who was in Special Forces. And at the end of it, we joke about this, very few movies make me cry, but at the end of it, the last person from the platoon, Tom Hanks, dies. And before he dies, he says to, Matt Damon, make this worth it. Mhmm.
Jeff:And then it flashes to him fifty years later. Yeah. And sorry, spoiler alert.
Alexander:It's okay. It's an old movie.
Nick:But he flashes You missed that boat.
Jeff:Fifty years later, and he's looking at the headstone of Tom Hanks and and turns to his children and says, did I did I live a good life? Because every every soldier that gets out of that alive has guilt. Yeah. True. And so I think that it's much more impactful for me.
Jeff:A non factual war movie or whatever is just a two hour escape.
Alexander:Yeah. So Yeah. That's typical.
Jeff:Does that make sense to you? Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Plus, I think you gravitate to what you know.
Nick:Yeah. I think that's
Jeff:fair. You know? So so I like a submarine movie that's real.
Nick:You
Alexander:know? That surprises me a little bit, especially as someone who's been on submarines. Like, I even if you gravitate towards something that you know, like, I figured you'd be
Nick:like, yeah. That's, like, a little,
Alexander:like, too close to the reality, though.
Jeff:What is there was one with a movie with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. And it was like Alabama or something like that where they were on a ballistic missile submarine.
Nick:Oh, right. And he was the cop and there
Jeff:were No. He was ex executive officer number two. Yeah. And Gene Hackman was the commander. And those characters were kind of edge characters.
Jeff:You don't really see them on a submarine. But the rest of it, the operation of it, very, very realistic. And my wife, their mother, she saw a scene in there where there was flooding and these guys got locked into a flooding thing. And she goes, that could have been you. I said, that would have been me.
Nick:Yeah, because it was the engine crew.
Jeff:Yeah, was the engine room. And she's like, okay, I can't watch that movie.
Alexander:The answer is she doesn't enjoy that.
Jeff:So I think it does relate to who you are. I found that enjoyable, not quite realistic, but close to realistic.
Alexander:Sure. Yeah. Alright. Well, that's a good tangent. No.
Alexander:I like that. That that's why we talk about this is to get to that. So your first one is Red October from the hunt from Red October. Nick, where are we going with yours here?
Nick:Like a full one eighty in tones and vibes. I love weird and wacky, so we're obviously heading down to the most nautical of anime worlds. We're going to One Piece.
Alexander:I I guess it is really the most nautical of anime worlds. That is correct.
Nick:Yeah. Except for maybe the the one where that mech falls into a planet and it's like all water. Oh, yes. Gargantia or whatever Yeah, it whatever that one is. Anyway, other than that.
Nick:Other than that. They don't
Alexander:even have like sub water stuff. No. It's mainly just like mech and they've got like big rafts. Anyways. Yeah,
Nick:yeah. One Piece One Piece is like pirate era, seventeen hundreds whatever. So you'd be like, well, they can't really go underwater. Right? They're like wooden boats.
Nick:Right? Like that's what the crew travels on. And that is basically true for a long period of time until we are introduced to one of the other large pirate crews that you follow for a very long time, the captain Trafalgar d Waterlaw. What a name. And his boat, the Polartang, which is a yellow submarine that has masts and treads on the bottom.
Nick:What? And it goes underwater.
Alexander:I don't even think I've seen a picture
Jeff:of this before. This is what's funny. Tang is the name of a submarine in the US Navy too.
Nick:Makes sense.
Alexander:Isn't it the name of a fish too?
Jeff:Yeah. That's where it came from. It's the name of a fish.
Alexander:That's what I thought.
Jeff:So submarines are Dave the diver. Submarines up until more recent ones were named after fish. Right.
Nick:That makes sense. Is the Honolulu a more recent one?
Jeff:Yeah. So the Los Angeles class, which is what the Honolulu was Which was
Nick:the cities. Were named named for Dallas. Dallas. Okay. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:And then you had the ballistic missile runs, which was Alabama states and so states. And now you have the sea wolf class, which is named after sea creatures. Oh, okay. Sea creatures and weird things.
Nick:Wait. Sea wolf? So it's like an orca?
Alexander:Yeah. A kraken. So so
Jeff:but, yeah, but but each of them have oddities, like the Hyman g Rickover is a Los Angeles class submarine. There's another name for
Nick:So there's like exception to the
Alexander:the naming class. There's always a big exceptions. Anyways. I don't even think I've seen or heard of this ship
Jeff:So it crawls on through floor of the ocean.
Nick:No. It can go on land. Oh. Woah. Okay.
Nick:So it has threads for that. But it but it can act like a submarine most of the time. However, it has masts and stuff to sail like a ship as well so there's it's basically like a submarine but it has a very wide body and a deck on top of it and there are street lamps on it as well That's
Alexander:why
Nick:To illuminate in the water but also to illuminate well in you know, over over top the water. It's very interesting. It's it's a very small ship because Law's crew is like 10 people at
Alexander:most. Oh, really small.
Nick:But the the cool aspect of it is the captain is a doctor. He's like a surgeon. So the majority of the ship is like medical bay and like surgical room. Oh. And like that's basically how you get introduced to it.
Nick:It's one of the characters gets like really really messed up and like you're he gets taken by law to have surgery.
Alexander:Oh, interest oh, so it's it's a submarine to kind of avoid fighting at times Yeah. He can like just do like surgery and stuff
Nick:Yeah. For people. Yeah.
Alexander:Interesting. It's a hospital ship. Yeah.
Nick:It's a hospital It's extremely safe. And it was just like a it's like a very, you know, in the future of One Piece it's like, it kind of makes sense. But like in that moment when it was introduced, you're like, what? How did we get to this technology? Like people are still like, we're we're raising anchor, you know, like we're we're on that capability of most ships that we interact with.
Nick:But now that we have like a full submarine that dips underwater and and does all this crazy stuff, you're like, what the heck? What? But it it's it's very iconic and you like I said, it's like owned by a very prominent pirate that you follow along with the crew and whatnot. So you see it a lot and you get very accustomed to So
Jeff:whenever I see things about One Piece, I never see this
Alexander:I was gonna say I've never seen the side there. I've I've I've heard of law before, but I've never seen this ship before.
Jeff:And it seems like to me that is that because it's not an opponent or a fighter against?
Nick:Yeah. The ship is rarely used for combat. When it Due to, like, weird stuff, law, ends up just sailing with the main crew on their boat. And his ship is usually like, oh, we're going ahead to scout or to do whatnot. So the ship itself is rarely actually seen.
Nick:Yeah. There's only like a few moments where it's like topside and like sailing around. Fair.
Alexander:Alright. We only have a little bit of time left in this segment. So I'm gonna really quick go over mine. Very similar to yours. Mine is not a warship in any way, but dissimilarly, it is massive.
Alexander:It has a crew of 200. Mhmm. I'm talking about the Ulysses from Atlantis, The Lost Empire. Yep. Yes.
Alexander:It's me again talking about old Disney movies because I feel like that's I feel like old animation or old I guess, older animation because there's old old animation that we could talk about.
Nick:I talked about Treasure Planet.
Alexander:That's true.
Nick:And that's like the same era.
Alexander:Yeah. That is definitely the same era. But, yeah, the the Ulysses is that big submarine. I said it looks like a I'm gonna say it again. Not a Zamboni.
Alexander:No. A Zeppelin. A Zeppelin, but for underwater. Right. Atlantis, of course, has, like, a lot of, like, steampunk elements.
Alexander:But it yeah. It's this massive submarine that they use to go on this expedition to look for the city of Atlantis.
Jeff:Your mother and I just saw that.
Alexander:You guys oh my god. Woah. Wait. That's awesome.
Jeff:That was one of the Disney Yeah. Things that we were watching. Because we were like, we've never seen that before.
Alexander:It's a classic.
Nick:It's a good one.
Alexander:I feel like the second movie wasn't quite as good by the guy ever watched it.
Jeff:I don't think there was a I didn't
Nick:know there was a second movie. Yeah. Maybe for that's the reason.
Alexander:Maybe that's why. No. The first one's good. I think it's a classic. And I I think especially for like a lot of the promotion of the movie, the Ulysses Submarine really became one of those like poster elements because it's just so cool and unique.
Alexander:It kind of looks like the underbelly of a ship, but all, like, metal and steampunky.
Jeff:Yeah. I think that, when when we talk about fiction and what they were writing about submarines, there was kind of two ways of looking at it. Was it was gonna be a ship that went down or it was gonna be something like a plane or a zeppelin that went underneath the water.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Because they were they they looked at it and said, okay. It's gotta float in the water kinda like an airship was. So if they were imagining what an airship was looking like, then they just took that imagination and put it underneath the water. Or they said, okay, it's a ship that somehow is going to submerge down. Because the original submarines were basically ships that would go underneath the water for very short periods of time.
Jeff:Most of the travel that the old submarines did was on the surface because they had to run diesels and power everything. And so when they went underneath the water, had limited amount of air. They were running on batteries, which were not very good. So it was very limited time underneath the water. So most of the time, they were on the surface and they had guns on the top and they had a regular deck on top of it that they could just go from there.
Alexander:Yeah. I that is something that I do wanna talk more about, especially when we go into, like, space vehicles. Because, like, a lot of time when you're looking at, like, like, Star Wars, a lot of those ships look like just regular boats that we would have on the water if you just like put
Nick:them up into space. And gave them like weird accents.
Alexander:Yeah, exactly.
Jeff:Well, I mean, half the time these futuristic ones for long term journeys have sails. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know.
Alexander:Yeah. It is interesting and I I love the technology especially when it when it combines with media. But our glasses are empty. I think it's time for another bubbly. We're gonna refill our glass and be right back.
Alexander:Don't go anywhere. See you in a second. And we are back. We've got new drinks in front of us. Wow.
Alexander:Mine is really bubbling. You poured it out and you said looks a lot more like a Traditional Traditional. Sparkling rind. Yeah. And already, we're noticing way more bubbles here.
Nick:It's bubbling a lot.
Jeff:Plus the color, very clear yellow color.
Nick:Are you expecting it to be a lot drier?
Jeff:I'm hoping so. That smile.
Alexander:Oh my god. So this
Nick:is a sparkling from Blenheim Vineyards. This is the Blanc de Blenheim. Their namesake is in the title, so I'm hoping that it is very good. The vineyard was very, very lovely to visit. They had an incredible, like, a frame tasting room.
Nick:We tried a few of their wines. It was really nice.
Jeff:And it would have been much nicer if the weather was nicer.
Nick:It's true.
Jeff:Because the weather got worse as the day went on. We started with Gabriela, then we went to Blenheim, and then we went to the Michael Shap's. And by the time we got to Michael Shap's, it was snowing.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. I will say in terms of like the look, Blenheim was like, you know, a lot more production value in into their area. Like, they had this beautiful a frame. They had glass floors that you could look down into the barrels, and there was a porch that overlooked the vineyard itself versus Gabriela, which is a very unassuming, albeit architecturally interesting, like small building that we thought was a house at first.
Nick:Yeah. Unaidentifiable. But for
Jeff:the And they only had like three tables in it.
Alexander:Yeah. With the vineyards being above us further up the mountain as well. So very interesting and a stark difference.
Jeff:Well, mean, when when you looked at the vineyard and you when they described it, they Gabriela said, a rustic tasting environment.
Nick:And that is for sure.
Jeff:Because they had two areas set up with fires going. So you could be outside if you wanted to. It was a little bit chilly. It wasn't really cold.
Nick:It was more windy and gloomy.
Jeff:But it I mean, but they were wonderful people. Yeah. Had a wonderful
Nick:But Blenheim was a great time too.
Jeff:Yep. Yep.
Alexander:I mean, all all the vineyards we visited, even if not all the intentional place that we visited for the day. All of them were were fun and unique and had their own vibe and atmosphere that was very fun.
Jeff:I think all three were very different.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:Yes. Absolutely. Speaking of different, what are we thinking about this?
Nick:So this one is a lot drier, but also I don't know if I have the verbiage to describe it.
Jeff:Has much a much stronger grape taste.
Alexander:Yes.
Nick:I think that's what that is.
Jeff:And it is drier, but it the the sweetness of the grape doesn't make it feel very dry.
Nick:Yeah. It counteracts it.
Jeff:So I think it is a much fuller bodied flavor.
Nick:Are you salivating more?
Alexander:No. I'm I'm not either.
Jeff:I think because the other one, the grape taste was so short and subtle. I think that left a drier feeling. Now, Gabrielle, we talked about this, they had said they were dry wines.
Alexander:Right. And
Jeff:so for Rose that was very dry.
Nick:And I think they said for Blenheim, they definitely go for a more sweet And and fruity
Jeff:I think this is fruitier.
Alexander:Yes.
Nick:Oddly enough.
Jeff:Yeah. Mean, once again, this is this is a very good, like, appetizer wine, you know? Yeah. Where you could have bite food out, you're serving this to everyone before the dinner starts.
Alexander:Is that normally where you drink, like, bubbly wine?
Jeff:There's there's three times when you drink bubbly wine. Okay. One is
Nick:At a funeral.
Jeff:Pop the cord. Okay. So one is for an appetizer when you started off. It's it's not it you're eating appetizers, you're doing this, it's kind of a welcoming. Like if you go on a cruise, they're gonna hand you and you're in like a suite, they're gonna hand you a a glass of champagne or if you're on whatever.
Jeff:So that's kind of to say, okay, welcome. The other thing is that there are certain desserts that you have where a sparkling dessert wine or sparkling wine would be appropriate to eat with it. Oh. Where you would pair a champagne with it.
Nick:Is that more chocolate fruit
Alexander:or Or like a rice krispie? It's more I think it's more Pop rocks.
Jeff:I think it's more fruit and, like, creamy desserts
Nick:Okay.
Jeff:To kind of counterbalance against it.
Alexander:That makes sense. Think.
Nick:Right? Like a creme brulee, a tiramisu,
Jeff:something like that. Gotcha. But I'm not the right person. I'm not a
Nick:chef. But Yeah.
Jeff:But that's what I'm saying. And then the third time is for celebrations. New Year's Eve, you're cracking a ball of champagne to celebrate the New Year. You have you have a baby. You're doing cigars and champagne around with everyone.
Alexander:Around the baby.
Jeff:Yeah, all around the baby. So that's the other thing is that this is a one off celebratory kind of thing. When I toured France, got a Beauvais Ladabay, which was a white sparkling wine Can say that again? Bovee Lada Bee. Bovee is the vineyard.
Jeff:Lada Bee was what they called their sparkling wine.
Nick:Okay. Okay.
Jeff:And it was from the Dijon region. Oh, mustard. Mustard. Yes.
Alexander:You put a little mustard in there.
Jeff:Yeah. No. It's from the Leon Leon region. And I brought back six bottles, we had one we drank one on the day we got married. My wife, your mother and I got married.
Alexander:Woah. Wow.
Jeff:And we also had one bottle
Nick:Did you lose the other five?
Jeff:No. We had one bottle when I Lost in transit. When I proposed to her. Uh-huh. Unfortunately, it was warm, had been in the car, and your mother got sick off of it.
Alexander:I can't believe that she wanted to drink another bottle after getting violently ill from the first one. Right.
Jeff:She you know what? Your your mother is very good to me. Yeah.
Nick:I feel like a lot happens on a wedding day as well where you're just like, whatever, Sam. I'll drink it.
Jeff:Yeah. We had chocolate covered strawberries, and she never saw them because all the guests ate them.
Alexander:That's so sad. Anyways I can imagine she would be upset about that one.
Jeff:Because she goes, we had chocolate covered strawberries? I said, yeah. We ordered them for you. I never saw them. Yeah.
Jeff:They never got them. They never got them.
Alexander:Yeah. Someone failed in their job to get her chocolate covered strawberries. Someone was
Nick:not guarding them well enough.
Jeff:Yeah. Well, they were passing them around as part of the appetizer. Oh. And so they They made a they never got close to us. Yeah.
Jeff:Because as soon as they came out of the kitchen, people were
Nick:I was about to
Alexander:say, yeah. If they're passing it, they better start with
Nick:her and then end somewhere food is out. That's how our family works.
Alexander:Yeah. Yes. Alright, Nick. What are we doing with subnautical vehicle number two here?
Nick:So number two, we're we're I'm I'm switching up the tempo again. Okay. Bringing it to a more grim and darker feel. I just talked about Bioshock when we were talking about betrayals Yeah. And I we're going back there because Bioshock is the quintessential underwater environment video game.
Nick:I can't think of another one besides like Subnautica.
Alexander:Subnautica. Yeah. Which I will say for the record, I haven't played it. I don't think you've played So it
Jeff:I haven't played
Alexander:it either. Did. Just in case you're like in the comments going, Why did you make the chase? There's so many vehicles.
Nick:We haven't
Jeff:played it.
Nick:We don't know. You know, when I was looking at vehicles, was like, I feel bad. I haven't played it. But the but but for classic video games, once again, Bioshock is is always around and, you know, it's an environment that I first thought of when we were talking about this. And I'm going with the Bathysphere, which is the original machine that you enter from the lighthouse to go down to Rapture, the underwater city.
Nick:And you go through you enter them a few times in the game, and they're basically little tiny like spherical submersibles that, are usually like on a path or a set track, to, maneuver you around.
Jeff:More like an elevator than,
Alexander:kind of. Like a monorail almost.
Nick:Yeah, almost like that, but like it's free form. There's no it's not on like an actual track. It's just like, oh, I'm programmed to follow this route.
Alexander:Oh,
Nick:okay. Sort of thing. But yeah, they're they're little like mechanical steampunky balls that like float around this underwater city. Lake Rapture also has, I'll mention it because I think it's very cool as well, they have basically a metro system as well that passes through buildings in the parts of the city called the Atlantic Express which are they're like hanging trains so the track is on the top of them Right. And they just maneuver around the city as well and I think that's like a it's a very cool like it main it keeps the city feel Yeah.
Nick:While, like, while adapting to this underwater, environment as well.
Jeff:It's the same as, like, if you look at a city that's in space on a planet.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:They keep like, a lot of these things keep, like, the city griminess and the feel of the city. But, you know, outside the city, there's nothing. There's desolate.
Nick:Yeah. It's it's this weird I've acclimated to it, but also, like, yeah, it's a weird infrastructure that they've kept to make it feel believable because it's something you recognize, as we were talking about before.
Alexander:Very cool. And I I feel like BioShock had to be on the list because it's something we've talked about before and is really one of those early kinda quintessential underwater things.
Jeff:I feel so left
Alexander:out. Yeah. Hey. They they they have like a I think they have a remastered collection. You could play it if you want it.
Alexander:You could
Nick:play it or we could watch it. I'm sure mom would be okay to watch it with
Alexander:I'm I'm sure we can find someone playing through it. Okay. I know for certain we can find someone playing through it. Alright. I'll go next here.
Alexander:I'm also switching up the vibe from my early Disney animation action, not much further. What I've noticed is all of the things that I've chosen were all like early two thousands between like the 2000 and 2005 period. Apparently, I really think that those are like fun subnautical things. I think
Nick:that was the era of it. Yeah. Because that's also when Bioshock, like, was really popping up. Like, Bioshock was, like, late nineties, early two thousands.
Alexander:Yeah. Oh my gosh. You're right. That's that's scary to think about.
Jeff:None of mine are that late.
Alexander:Yeah. Know. I know. Which is also weird to think about
Jeff:too. Yeah. The the Red October is the latest one and that was like '85. Yeah. Eighty eighty eighty eight.
Alexander:Yeah. So I'm doing the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Captain Nemo's Submarcible, the Nautilus. And I just saw the movie because it was like a staple in our household Oh, yeah. Growing up. And I was doing a little bit of reading.
Alexander:The Nautilus has like 11 iterations. Like, are a ton of variances. Obviously, you you have that, like, very, like, classic look from the movies.
Nick:From the movie. It's like a it's like an ivory castle almost feel. It's, like, extremely clean, so bright. You know? It's, like, such a I'm sure it's like in that moment, it's sort of like this is the modern, like sleek look Yes.
Nick:Of a submarine.
Jeff:I mean, you so I've I've read Jules Verne's 20,000 Lakes Under the Sea
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:Right.
Jeff:Which is kind of the basis for that character. And once again, he thought about, okay, if I was in a ship underneath the water, what would I need? Well, need or what that design was, was based on what he thought he would require underneath the ocean.
Alexander:Right. So
Jeff:when you look inside of it, it looks like a mid eighteenth century or mid nineteenth century or mid twentieth century house.
Nick:Oh, yeah. You know, it's the state home.
Alexander:Yeah, exactly. So if you
Jeff:look at that Nautilus, mean, there's just so many things that you go, that would not be like windows on a submarine. You would not have that there. You know, it's pillars and glasses of wine and things like that.
Alexander:It's bougie. Yeah.
Jeff:That but that, you know, if you're diving and twirling and whirling, you would never have that on a submarine because it would break.
Alexander:But I think a part of a part of that is right. There there's that fantasy of
Jeff:of
Alexander:course. But I think also what I found interesting is not only was it from the movie like a really interesting and unique ship, but also like as you're talking about as time has gone on, the design has changed to kind of fit these different like needs or desires. I saw one of the iterations looked closer like a steampunk submarine and a squid were put together. Yeah. That is cool as heck.
Alexander:I think that's really cool. And there were other iterations where they took less of the Squid and more of the steampunk. So it was more like black with like a lot of like pipe piping and like more of like that steampunk exterior. And I think it's so interesting how the art and the media has changed over time.
Jeff:Yeah. I think one of the remarkable things about Jules Verne, if I remember correctly, he had written about a new propulsion system that was similar to like atomic power.
Nick:Woah.
Jeff:So when you think about him writing this, I think it was the late eighteen hundreds, that's remarkable
Nick:That is crazy.
Jeff:When you think about it. You know, he he just he he thought of these really incredible things. He was like, you know, he his imagination, so much of it has come true.
Nick:I mean, science fiction, you know, they try and base it off as much as, you know, research to be as tangible as they can make it while also being, you know, fantastical. Honestly, inventors are trying Do to
Jeff:the same thing.
Alexander:Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. No. I I agree. I mean, I I love it because, I think too many times, design a limitation in design prevents really huge leaps and incredible discoveries. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. Because you say, you know, the great line is like in the eighteen seventies, the patent office said we should close down. There's nothing else that's gonna be invented. You know?
Alexander:Right. Yeah. That's crazy.
Jeff:And you think it was before electricity, before phones So and all that So these people that are thinking fantastical or incredible design really do promote inventors to design things like that.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. Because oftentimes you're limited by what you can think of. So if you have someone else like here's something crazy and the question is how do I make that crazy thing or they Well, try
Jeff:mean, they were talking about self driving cars. In order to think that you have to redesign what a car is. Yeah. Right? And so when they were talking about automated cars just a few years ago and it's still progressing and you see unmanned cars, the design of the car changes.
Jeff:You know, rather than having driver's seat, passenger seat and a row behind it, you have four seats facing each other and a table in the middle.
Nick:Yeah, because you don't need someone You to be looking at the
Jeff:need to look so that's where you need that fantastical thought in order to to
Alexander:I mean promote it. You could even look at just how much cars have changed in general from, like, shape, size, and the look of them just because everything is constantly evolving and changing and and word Trying
Nick:new things.
Alexander:Yeah. Trying new things, looking for the next iteration. Yep. Alright. I'm curious.
Alexander:I think I think I I lied earlier. I know two of what was on your list because you came swinging with five Yeah. You're like, if you need any extra,
Nick:like, we were gonna know on
Jeff:your So my second one is the next one that's one step away from reality, but not that far. Okay. And that is, in James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me, there was a lotus that was submersible. It was called Wet Willy
Alexander:Mhmm. Which is Classic.
Jeff:Classic. And Very James Bond. Yeah. And Wait. What which James Bond?
Jeff:The Spy Who Loved Me.
Alexander:No. No. Is this Sean Connery?
Jeff:No. It's Roger Moore.
Nick:Okay. Okay. Sorry.
Jeff:Don't remember this is the eighties.
Alexander:Right. Right. That doesn't mean anything to me. Is Sean Connery not in the eighties too?
Jeff:No. He's not. So he did one
Nick:It's Daniel Craig and the others.
Jeff:It's Sean Connery and the others. So true. Exactly. Anyways, so this was a he drove this Lotus off a pier and it floated underneath the water and screens went down and the tires flipped up and the motor turned on to go through the water. You know, you see these things all the time in cartoons where, you know, cars go in it.
Jeff:But this was an actual operating car that was able to do this.
Alexander:Woah.
Jeff:The problem is that it wasn't Q designing it, it was a true manufacturer that was trying to do this.
Nick:And then being like, why did you make me do this?
Jeff:So they did it, but it never was really
Alexander:Yeah, sure. I mean, how many people need to drive into a lake in like your everyday
Jeff:You're right. And there was never gonna be an everyday it's like a flying car. It's never gonna be one of the things that the average guy can can do or whatever. Too impractical. But but you know, once again, it also had shields to prevent missiles from hitting it.
Jeff:Of course.
Nick:It hit the James Bond vehicle.
Jeff:It shot, you know, spear guns out
Alexander:of it. Got it like
Jeff:a torpedo. So so it was it was all Cup holders. Yeah. It was all the cool things. Yeah.
Jeff:No cup holders. That was in the eighties. Yeah. But but No
Nick:seat belts.
Jeff:No no seat well, no. There was seat belts in the eighties. Woah. Cutting Seventies Cutting ahead. Seventies was that transition.
Jeff:They weren't required, but they put them in.
Nick:Right. Were nice to have.
Jeff:Yeah, they're nice to have. So, but yeah, so it was, it was kind of a cool thing because, know, James Bond was always thinking of, they always added new things to each James Bond. You know, like when they Moonraker, they were in space. So there's a bunch of cool things that they did in space. The original ones with Sean Connery in the sixties and early seventies was really cutting edge technology for what they were doing.
Jeff:There was a small helicopter, a one man helicopter that he unfolded from a suitcase and flew. It was a real thing. But at that time in the sixties, it was technology beyond belief because they the the army and the and the army was just starting to use helicopters.
Alexander:Are you telling me there's a one man helicopter I can unfold from a suitcase right now?
Jeff:It's a big suitcase.
Alexander:Okay. Yeah. But yeah.
Nick:Really big.
Jeff:Big, basically, it was, a trunk. And it was, like, I guess, six, nine feet
Nick:long. Crazy.
Jeff:And, he unfolded it and he put it on a thing and all a sudden it was there.
Alexander:Yeah. So I think we were having a conversation about this where especially like early James Bond was pushing a lot of that like creative thought into like what could be possible.
Jeff:I think also, we were also talking about this at the early James Bond was there was a lot more talking in it. It was a lot more about the psychological part of being a spy. Yeah.
Nick:It was like sneaking and, like, the gadgets and, like, the more environment instead of being like, run, explosion. We did it.
Jeff:The gadgets were secondary to the communication between the bad guy and Sean Conner.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Because every time this is how he's a bad spy. He got captured every movie. He gets captured every movie. Multiple times. Yeah.
Jeff:You know? And how does he get out? He sweet talks or trick talks.
Nick:Dogs the laser.
Jeff:Yeah. You know? Or you know. Anyway, so but what they did do is they they always had a section where they went to queue and they showed the latest one. And bulletproof vest or a pen that shot a bullet or things like that, which were in the sixties fantastical, look at They're
Nick:all real.
Jeff:You look at now Yeah. You know, that's you need
Alexander:a laser now. That's commonplace. That's pedestrian.
Nick:Oh, I've seen that before.
Jeff:Yeah. So that's why, I I look toward that and go, man, that was really, really cutting edge.
Nick:You know, in hindsight, this all these submersibles are just, like, very fascinating to talk about because we're you know, a lot of them are believable to some extent. Yeah. Like, and the creative, like, thought around creating all of these things are all trying to ground themselves in some sort of reality, which makes it just so much more intriguing because, you know, land travel and sea travel are fairly, like, solved at this point. However, air and, like, underwater travel at all the aspects that we're, like, targeting are still, like, uncharted territory for the most part.
Jeff:I mean, look. That submarine just exploded because someone thought that they could do it cheaply.
Alexander:Yeah. Oh, that wasn't that didn't just happen a while ago.
Jeff:That happened a while ago. Yeah.
Alexander:But you're right. You're right. That that did happen because it was cheap materials. They were using a PlayStation controller.
Nick:Or not
Alexander:even a
Nick:it's like an off
Jeff:brand. Oh, yeah.
Alexander:An off brand PlayStation controller.
Jeff:So the the first submarine that was ever used in war was during the civil war. And it was seven guys, and they were locked into a tube. That's awful. Horrible. Airtight.
Jeff:They knew it was a one way thing. And then so they sat opposite each other, and then they had a camshaft in the middle where they they Rode? They they turned it to make the propeller move. And they pointed it at the ship, and they had explosives on the end of it.
Nick:Wow. Oh, wow. They were that's not a that's not the first submarine. That's the first torpedo. Yeah.
Jeff:Pretty close. But but the first one is actually called the turtle. But anyways, it was a one man submarine. The turtle. But but these guys and they actually found it in the Chesapeake Bay.
Jeff:That's crazy.
Alexander:Was that to like take care of like, was it the ironclad?
Jeff:It was the first attack on an ironclad. Wow. That's what I thought. Which is just a crazy thought. So as they're going, they're using up their oxygen.
Jeff:Yeah. Because they only had so much oxygen inside of it.
Alexander:Is it horrifying? Yeah, actually. Truly awful.
Jeff:And these guys volunteered to do it.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Now, they had an escape plan. So the idea is if they ran into it and then they turned the other way, they could back out and it should leave the explosives there.
Alexander:And then they just got to get up to the surface?
Jeff:They just got to go backwards, go backwards and try to get to the surface.
Nick:Oh my gosh. Horrifying.
Jeff:But in general, these guys must have known.
Alexander:Yeah, they knew they weren't So coming
Jeff:once again, the reality of war is not glamorous
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:Right. No matter what.
Jeff:No matter what. So
Alexander:Well, on that happy note, our drinks are empty. Let's get to our last and final drink. We'll see y'all in a second. Don't go anywhere. And we are back with our last and certainly most busiest drink here.
Alexander:It's going crazy. It is going crazy. But that makes it exciting. I didn't realize we were ranking it from least to most bubbles. I don't
Nick:think anyone would
Jeff:have would have known that. We we were it was random. Yeah. What we thought was well, okay. What are we drinking, Nick?
Nick:So this is from our third vineyard that we weren't planning on going to but still had a pretty good time at. The Michael Schapf's Vineyard and we're drinking their Blanc de Franc, which is a sparkling wine that was made from red grapes. However, looking at it, it's a little clear. It's because they take off the skin to, maintain this, very light color.
Jeff:Yeah. It's a Cabernet Franc grape, which is normally a red wine.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:So I am very curious about this what this is gonna taste like.
Nick:I'm expecting it to be a little richer and a little deeper.
Jeff:Yeah. I don't think it was in oak, so I don't expect it to have tannin in it.
Nick:Maybe do do a metallic metal barrel?
Jeff:No. I think they're mostly steel, the the ones that we tasted before. Yeah.
Alexander:Great great question. Unsure right now, but for now, let's cheers to this last drink here. Again, a little bit of a side quest for us, but in the area that we live Oh. There are so many wow. Both those phases.
Alexander:There's so many vineyards when we do a day trip like this. You can throw a stone and accidentally hit three vineyards.
Jeff:It is
Alexander:it's awesome. Wow. He is making all Nick is making a lot of
Nick:tasting It shouldn't taste like that. It's like fundamentally when I'm like drinking a wine that looks like this and it tastes like a red Like a red. It's so weird.
Alexander:I was supposed say it smells like a
Jeff:Cabernet Franc. And it's
Nick:very bubbly. It's You know, we had that sparkling red from Horton Vineyards a little bit ago. It's Yeah. Like this, but, like, weird.
Jeff:It is it is very different very different. It's not so it's it is definitely this is not I would not think of this as an appetizer wine. No. It's a it's way too full bodied for
Nick:that. It's a dinner wine. It's a 100% a dinner. Yeah. But when you What
Jeff:do you what do
Alexander:you yeah. What are you pairing with this? What do you drink? What are
Nick:you eating with this?
Jeff:Are you I mean Nope. Nope.
Nick:This is the meal.
Alexander:Yeah. Sir, here you are.
Jeff:It has like you said, it has the Cabernet Franc kind of taste on it, but it's so bubbly.
Nick:It's so bubbly, but it's so full bodied. I I mean, it's very good. I like this a lot, actually.
Jeff:I do too. I'm surprised. We but we liked we liked their Cabernet Franc a lot.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I think we I think that was the one drink that we had at all three vineyards that day
Jeff:Yep.
Nick:Was a cab fronk.
Alexander:We did drink a lot of reds. We drank a
Nick:lot of reds.
Alexander:Which is not normally something that I like and I I'm not sure where Nick stands.
Nick:I like reds. My my favorite wine is a red.
Alexander:Yeah. And you you're a big fan of reds.
Nick:No. I'm a white. Oh, because he likes the dry.
Alexander:He likes the dry. Okay. Yeah. Yes.
Jeff:Although, if I'm gonna drink a red, I want it to be very tannin aged barrel. It is funny, isn't it?
Alexander:No. I know. That's all the things I'm like, I don't want the tannin.
Jeff:So, yeah. So I I am blown away by that.
Nick:It's so good. Yeah. I like it a lot.
Alexander:Yep. Wow. Incredible.
Jeff:So we'll do the break now because I always forget at the end. What? If you have any comments Oh.
Alexander:Oh, oh my god.
Jeff:Tell us He's jumping. Tell us what sparkling wine you like. Because my favorite sparkling wine is Great Western Extra Dry Brut.
Alexander:Okay. Alright.
Jeff:It's a northern it's a New York sparkling wine. The Pove Lada Bay, I also like. But make a comment. If you like what you see here, please give us a like. It helps us out.
Jeff:And also subscribe.
Nick:Yeah, please.
Alexander:There we go. Now you can go you
Jeff:said we run out of time. I always forget at the end.
Alexander:Yeah. Hey, I've I've been holding you accountable No. I Alright. Well, here we go. For my third and final subnautical vehicle, we're jumping back into the world of animation.
Alexander:And what a better way to finish it off than Scooby Doo. That's right. We're going to the 2004 straight to digital comedy film Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster. My favorite. Where
Nick:they were doing the Highland
Alexander:Games. Yes. Yeah. That's correct.
Nick:I love that one.
Alexander:It's a That's 2004? It's a 2004 movie.
Nick:I'm gonna be honest. It was ahead of its time.
Alexander:Yeah. It it was definitely ahead of That
Nick:movie was ahead of its time.
Jeff:You know what? It made them think, we need a live action version.
Nick:No. That one came out maybe a year or two after. I I'm pretty sure that one was very soon. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:So He's sipping. Sorry. Sorry. I I I do enjoy this. It's good.
Alexander:What I will say is the vehicle in question Oh, right.
Nick:You just said the movie. Right.
Alexander:Right. The vehicle in question, of course, is the Loch Ness monster. And what was kind of fun with this, again, spoilers, but the it's like 20 years old.
Nick:Watch it, but it's,
Alexander:you know. Plus it's a Scooby Doo movie. You kinda already know what's
Jeff:gonna happen. I would have gotten away if it wasn't for your pesky kids. Yeah. For for your
Alexander:meddling kids and your dog too. The Loch Ness Monster is basically a submarine that's strapped to the bottom of this research vessel and she has a little hatch that in the in the ship that she can go down into the Loch Ness Monster, it releases. And very similarly to this Civil War submarine that we're talking about, she literally pedals it to move, which is hilarious and dumb all at the same time. Especially because it's like it moves way faster than any other vehicle in the show. It turns and turns.
Nick:Yeah. There's too many mechanisms for how it's actually moving than just a pedal. Yeah.
Alexander:You can articulate the jaw. There's like one point where it like eats like swords out of like Scooby and Shaggy's hand. Like She's a puppeteer. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:It can go on land too. Well, I think she actually had a separate one that was on land, but it could go like all over the place. I love that movie. I love Scooby Doo and I feel like it's always fun to have again, we're talking about these like fantastical devices, Scooby Doo is there too. It's true.
Alexander:Because they they want it to be sort of believable.
Jeff:Yeah. It's you have to you do a little bit of suspended disbelief, but it's to attach to the audience that this young group of teenagers or slightly above teenagers can go out and do this stuff.
Alexander:Well, I think also they're like, wow, the ghost of Davy Jones was actually Mr. Rogerson with some special effects. Yeah. That's crazy. He had a lot bunch of fog machines and this paint and he hired a bunch of the local like
Jeff:And he had a heavy metal band too.
Nick:Scooby Doo is a weird it's like, are you superstitious? We're not. Yeah. You know? Do you believe in a local ghost?
Nick:We're coming to shut it down. You know? Like, it's it's very funny, but, like, then you have, like, Shaggy and Scooby as, like, these very, like, powerful, like, they believe in anything, you know, aliens, ghosts no matter what. They're like Yeah. This is real and I'm going
Jeff:And they believe in sub sandwiches.
Nick:They believe in sub sandwiches. Keeping it. Keeping it. Wow.
Alexander:Oof. Rough. So, yeah. That that is that's mine, the Loch Ness monster to to end it out.
Nick:I've thought about trying to add Scooby Doo stuff into these lists.
Alexander:It's so hard. Yeah. Oh, well, I feel like it they are all encompassing and then also not encompassing.
Nick:They're a master of none. Yeah. You know? Exactly. They it's like, oh, I love this accent.
Jeff:Except for costumes. Yeah. They're master of costumes.
Nick:That's true. Disguise. Yes.
Alexander:Master of disguise. Alright, dad. What's your third and final?
Jeff:My third and final is kind of a combination of reality and non reality. This is the Proteus from the movie Fantastic Voyage, which was the early sixties and no, man. They they don't know. I should I should let you see it. So what happens I should well, I should we should sit down and see it one night.
Jeff:What it is is they take a submarine, and it's a classical submarine like you would see it in a yacht or whatever where they would go in there and it would have four or five people and they would explore and do research.
Alexander:Sure. Oh, okay.
Jeff:So it's like a research it is a research submarine that they're using as the prototype and then they shrink it down to molecular level size. And they inject it into a person that's sick.
Alexander:Osmosis Jones Oh, kind of
Jeff:like that. And then they travel around the blood system in order to find the thing that's killing this guy that they're inside of.
Alexander:Oh wait, this is actually Usman's Joker Okay.
Jeff:And this was, like I said, sixty years ago.
Alexander:That's crazy. Wow.
Jeff:You know, when you think about it, that was way ahead of its time. Yeah. For real. But when I was in grammar school in the seventies
Nick:Oh. Grammar school.
Jeff:Elementary school.
Alexander:Yeah. They called it something back
Nick:in the They only did grammar? No math?
Jeff:We didn't even do grammar. I saw this as a thing on free TV. So that's how old it was when I saw
Nick:it. Okay.
Alexander:Woah, Pluto TV was still around, I think.
Jeff:No. When I lived in Chicago, there was five stations.
Nick:Yeah. 1234.
Jeff:ABC, CBS 123. No. It's 37 10. ABC, CBS and NBC. Then there was the PBS station.
Nick:Okay.
Jeff:And then there was an independent station. I think it was channel thirty two, which was the UHF station.
Alexander:Oh my gosh.
Jeff:Because it was above 13. If you were below 13, you were VHF. If you're above 13, you were UHF station. That's that's how the old systems used to work. So they used to have
Alexander:That's going above our heads.
Jeff:They had all these syndicated shows on it that were like you had the banana splits, which you guys don't even know about, which was a cartoon and live action show for kids.
Alexander:Like the Wiggles.
Jeff:Similar, but it was it was four guys dressed up as
Nick:The Wiggles?
Jeff:These blob animals, whatever. They they rode around in these six wheeled buggies that were amphibious.
Alexander:You could have done that one. What? They were amphibious.
Jeff:But they were on top of the water. They didn't sink. So anyway, the idea here was this was before they were doing surgery underneath the skin doing liposuction? No,
Alexander:no it's liposcotomy or
Nick:whatever. So
Jeff:they did not have this concept of going into the blood system or whatever. So this was really cutting edge what they were trying to do with this movie.
Nick:Woah, yeah.
Jeff:Then miniaturizing people is probably not They made it seem almost like an outer space movie because they would get out of the submarine whenever they were different places and they would run into fungus or bacteria or whatever inside the body. Yeah. And it would be like if you were in some, you know, pitch black and these things are flying around to kill you.
Alexander:We've made it to the lung.
Jeff:Yeah. So it it was it was one of those things. And so they made it kind of like an outer space adventure only you're inside this body, which made it even more kind of cool.
Alexander:Wow. This does feel like a combination of like Osmosis Jones, Magic School Bus, and like Cells at Work, like all combined into one. Were
Nick:the things they were interacting with also humanoid?
Jeff:No, they weren't humanoid. They were definitely like I just remember bacteria was flying around. That's where it was fantastical. Because there's fluid everywhere.
Alexander:Right.
Jeff:But they would go into places that were voids and you would see these bacteria flying around or whatever. Weird. Because it was a lack of understanding.
Alexander:Right.
Jeff:Or it was also, you know, design Yeah. You know, freedom of design. I assume they
Nick:weren't all wearing, like, spacesuits the whole time.
Jeff:They they they did wear spacesuits throughout the movie. Interesting.
Alexander:Okay.
Jeff:So they but it wouldn't probably be a wet suit, but they were wearing spacesuits. Yeah.
Alexander:Right. Well, it is interesting and I I feel like it it, kind of set forward in motion because this is from the sixties that sort of like, honey, shrunk the kids, like really that Yep. Thought process of what if we made people small? What can
Nick:we do when we change this like sort of perspective?
Alexander:Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. Mean, because think about this. This is probably before first the first open heart surgery had ever occurred.
Nick:That's crazy. So, like, at that point, the human body was still, like, so limited in most of the public research.
Jeff:Yeah. This was only a a decade, decade or two after World War two when you think about that. Which means. Which means penicillin was invented in World War two. Yeah.
Jeff:So, yeah, it was it was it was so cool to see. And if you were at all interested in biology or medicine or something like that, it was a cool thing to watch.
Nick:Yeah. It's probably a show you can geek out on.
Jeff:Yeah. Definitely definitely a geek out show.
Alexander:Or it's one of those shows where you're like, nah, that's wrong.
Nick:Well, in hindsight, but I feel like in that moment. Right.
Jeff:Well, plus if you're you're like me, I was seven or eight years old watching it. It was just because, you know, not too many years after that, I saw Star Wars for the first time.
Alexander:Yeah. Wow.
Jeff:Well, everyone saw Star Wars for the first time. Yeah. What
Nick:was the name of the body that they were in?
Jeff:I cannot remember.
Nick:Woah. I was like, we're taking a trip down, damn.
Jeff:Did can't This is the bad part. It's probably been decades since I've seen this movie. Yeah.
Alexander:Right. Yeah.
Jeff:So I can't remember exactly why they were inside the body, it was to get something like he Find been injected with
Alexander:it again is gonna be the hard part.
Jeff:You know what? I will try to find it, and I'll put a link in the comments if I find Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah.
Alexander:It's like a it might be like Better Off Dead where you just can't find it anywhere anymore. Probably not.
Jeff:No. Yeah. Don't know. To to me, this was this was one of those movies that you go, this is crazy for them to do it. But there was there was a couple of other movies that I saw that were kind of I I watched a lot of sci fi, but at that time it was like, Creatures of the Black Lagoon or or Mushroom Island or something like that.
Nick:Gotcha. So it's more like where, you know, something is interacting with the real world.
Jeff:Yeah. So it was pretty cool. Anyways
Alexander:I'm excited. I actually do wanna watch that. That that that was interesting.
Nick:Sounds kinda cool.
Alexander:Alright, Nick. Bring us home here. What is your third and final?
Nick:I scavenged high and low and I have come to the conclusion that I probably don't know a lot of like very popular or even like any submersible and and whatnot underwater things I think if I I pored over research I probably could have find found something but because One Piece was right in front of me it was so easy to just tilt my head and find another perfect example
Alexander:of what we were doing.
Nick:So we were returning back to the world of One Piece a very very primitive for the most part ships, pirate ships, seventeen hundreds era typically with a little bit of you know extra terrific moments, but we are choosing the most spectacular version of a submersible that I could think of. We are talking about Laboon the Whale. The Whale. The Whale. Laboon is an actual whale almost like Jonah sort of situation.
Nick:However, Laboon is a very very sad story in the world of One Piece. He is a little whale that traveled with a group of pirates that eventually crossed a place that no one can return from without sailing across the entire world. Laboon, for the sake of Laboon safety, the pirate crew left Laboon at this sort of border and was like, hey, once we cross the world, we'll come pick you up. Those pirates never returned. Oh.
Nick:So Lagoon was How come you
Jeff:keep adding the sad parts from that one beat?
Nick:Well, I I don't think the law part was that sad, but the boat was.
Jeff:Well that was the boat was the
Alexander:same one.
Nick:The bone was rough. But Laboon, was dropped off when he was very very tiny however the type of whale that, Laboon is gets extra nomically large like huge, gigantic. Laboon was left at this border of the world that is basically just a huge mountain range that covers the entire hemisphere. It's like a mountain range that wraps around the entire world. Okay.
Nick:Lagoon story is that for years and years and years, Lagoon would slam its head against this mountain range to try and get across the ocean to where the pirate crew, like, was, you know, they were like the mentality was like, they're on the other side waiting for me.
Alexander:Oh, that's so sad.
Nick:Oh my god. So when the crew the the pirate crew, the with Luffy and the the crew meets them, Laboon is this giant whale covered in scars on its forehead and it's just banging against this wall over and over again. Eventually, they get eaten by this whale and instead of traveling through the digestive tract and entering in this like horrific awful stomach, they enter a acidic lake with a floating island on it, and the interior of Lagoon Stomach is painted as the outdoor sky. Wow. And on this island is a kooky doctor named Crocus who is a guy trying to make sure that Laboon is alive and making sure that Laboon doesn't like kill himself from like all these like arduous like impacts.
Nick:What the heck? So he has like manufactured like interior tunnels and like all these sort of things inside of Laboon and he gives Laboon medicine and can talk to Laboon, and he lives on it almost looks like the Dragon Ball Island that Roci lives on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's got, like, it's it's he's got, like, a metal plated island that is in the center of Laboon's stomach to stop this like acid and he just chills there for the most part.
Alexander:When you say he talks to Laboon, does Laboon think it's like his inner voice?
Nick:No. No. Okay. Like like Laboon knows this guy. Oh, okay.
Nick:It's like, Laboon is, like, hitting the, like, you know, wall, and he's like, Laboon, chill out.
Alexander:Yeah. Please stop hurting yourself.
Nick:And he, like, sedates Laboon to, like, you know, stuff like that. It's, like, a very, very heartbreaking scene. Yeah. Because it's been, like it was like sixty years since this crew has left. Wow.
Alexander:At one point, you're like, sorry, buddy. They're gone.
Nick:You gotta move on. Oh, no. But no, it's really good. It's really powerful. I count Lavoun.
Nick:He's a submersible. There's a guy living in him. That's He's created this infrastructure inside the whale. Lavoun's a great character. There's a very touching moment where Luffy, the main character of One Piece, a brawl with Laboon.
Nick:Okay.
Alexander:Yeah, just Luffy casually fighting a blue whale, basically.
Nick:Basically. And eventually is like, hey, you know, you're one of us now and we're gonna, you know, see you after this, but I'm gonna draw my our flag on your forehead so that if you mess it up, you're no longer our friend. Oh. So you don't so don't ram your head anymore,
Alexander:which works. Wait. Wait. Wait. I'm sorry.
Alexander:Luffy's like, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna cross over. I'll see you later. You just you just wait here.
Nick:Basically. Basically. But he was basically like, I'm gonna go find what happened to your crew. Oh, okay. Okay.
Nick:Because like the doctor inside is like, I'm too old to like go out and like, you know, like scavenge the whole new world to find, you know, where they ended up. And he's like, I'm taking care of Lubyun. Like, I can't do this.
Jeff:So the thing I always think about is, you know, you guys joke about most of these animes are one season.
Nick:Yep.
Jeff:You know, twelve, thirteen. Occasionally, they'll do two or three seasons, but not usually the ones that should be doing two or three seasons.
Nick:Yep. That's true.
Jeff:So you look at a one piece, which is at 1,200?
Nick:Yeah. Basically.
Jeff:1,200 episodes. It is incredible. So there's two things that are incredible. Number one, it gives them the time to do things that are very unique.
Nick:They can truly lay down as much foundation as they need to and still have ample time to let it fester and grow and flourish to the degree that they would truly want it to.
Alexander:Right. And we're only halfway.
Jeff:The other thing is is that it also allows them to do as many storylines as they want.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. I just think that that's it's unique, powerful, but I'm not sure it would work with anything else.
Alexander:Well, I think what helps it is the pirate side of it is the fact that they can just you can make an infinite number of islands, an infinite number of, like, other ships that they can run across that, like, every time you need a new sub storyline, you can introduce, oh, they ran across this other ship. They ran across this other island or in this case, like, a sea creature.
Jeff:It's like like, Gunsmoke was a series in the fifties and sixties. Mhmm. And they had they ran for, like, thirty two years.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:One Western town with one Western sheriff.
Nick:That's crazy to me,
Jeff:to be honest. Which is just I mean, it's good work if you can get it. I mean
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:Marshall Dillon worked for thirty two years as a as a sheriff.
Nick:Sure.
Jeff:But there's a point when you go you know, they they always joke about MASH being, what, ten or eleven years long. Yeah. Yeah. And the Korean War was only three years.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:But coming up with that many episodes or whatever Yeah. I do think it's different from an anime perspective because they can add whatever flare they want to it and take because, I mean, you've talked, well, this arc took 60 episodes. Yeah. If you're a TV series, that's five seasons.
Alexander:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But I will say those, like, standouts are not necessarily the norm. Right.
Alexander:Also, like,
Nick:Gunsmoke I'm sure is like episodic or like multi episode and whatever and I know M*A*S*H is like very episodic like it's very self contained. Yep. One Piece is this true oddity that I think anime really like take advantage of where it's just one guy writing it. There's only one guy writing this. Echiro Oda is the only guy who's manning this ship and for all 1,200 episodes he has been directing the story to the end and I think that's the really crazy part about it.
Nick:I think there's a lot of kudos to like writers who write to this degree to this scale and still have their goal in mind. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. I mean, I I think about
Alexander:God. How much has he written is really the question.
Jeff:I can't even
Alexander:Yeah. An insane amount.
Nick:They show his office sometimes. It basically is just floor to ceiling of drawers. And I'm like, this is probably not even enough. Yeah. That's probably not even enough.
Jeff:That's crazy. So I think this is a much better choice to be very Precise. Precise about what we wanna do.
Nick:Instead of the weapons. And because we we already talked about this. We're probably gonna do more weapon ones that are more precise because we didn't do a single sword. Yeah.
Jeff:Did you know, out of all the weapons we did in the last episode, there were no swords. And we're like And my wife, their mother was like, You guys didn't do the best weapons. The ones are very iconic. Best is very
Alexander:subjective. Yeah. Yeah,
Jeff:because we also talked about realistic weapons like Dirty Harry's magnum.
Alexander:Yeah. Exactly. Like like basically real weapons. Real weapons. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. They just are more significant because of who wields it.
Jeff:Right? Yep. So anyways
Nick:But this was lovely.
Alexander:Yeah. Well, yeah, we're getting to the end of the episode here. You've already done the thing. Like, comment, subscribe, whatever. What's your favorite?
Alexander:What's your favorite? Yeah. Dad, we'll start with you. And you gave me the side look. We don't have to start with you.
Jeff:This is really difficult. I would traditionally say the middle one was my favorite.
Alexander:Right. It's very up your alley. Yeah.
Jeff:Very classic. The first one was very unique. I really like that a lot.
Nick:The sparkling rose.
Jeff:Yeah. The sparkling rose. The
Alexander:sparkling dry rose.
Jeff:You're right. Sparkling dry rose. But this one was so unique and so tasty. I'm gonna go with this one.
Alexander:Yeah. Nick?
Nick:I'm also gonna go with the blanc de franc. I think it was so interesting and it's a very uncommon taste and texture with the color. Like it was it was subverting my expectation over and over again.
Alexander:Yeah. Well, I'm gonna agree with y'all. I think this one was unique. It was weird to see a cab franc, something that we drank a lot on that Sunday that we were we were driving around. It was very red.
Alexander:As a white bubbly, very strange.
Jeff:Yeah. But it was fantastic.
Nick:But it
Alexander:was good. Yeah. Very unique. I agree that the dry sparkling rose was also interesting. And I mean, I don't wanna discount Blenheim in in the fact that they had a very solid sparkling.
Nick:It was just solid.
Alexander:It was just like
Nick:the most normal of the fact that know us, we never choose the normal Exactly.
Jeff:Except for the orange.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. There's exceptions.
Alexander:Alright. Well, that's it. We'll see y'all next time. Feel free to make a comment about things you wanna see more or if we missed your favorite subnautical vehicle,
Nick:let us know. What was it? Yeah. I wanna know.
Jeff:Yep. See y'all. Bye bye.