Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper. You are live from the Path. And you are listening to live from the past. We're coming to you for the Pathway Studios here in Johnston Proper.

It's comforting that I know that you're there and you're listening to me. You don't think so? What happened to the double minded man? I'm sorry. I've been Foose to double minded man. The repenting double minded man. Hey. It's good to have you here. We got a we got a a packed studio, And

hey. We're talking games tonight. Yeah. We're talking games tonight. Mike, what's your favorite what's your favorite game growing up? And do let's do, like, board game, card game type of thing, not like softball. Yeah. My it's based Monopoly. Straight up Monopoly? Yeah. Yeah. Now do you play do you play with the do you put money in the

free parking? No. I find that a cheap way to live. Yeah. Just like people who take a a late lunch, that lunch at, like, 01:00, come back at two. That's cheap, man. Just live live life. You know I mean? Try to cheapen the day by taking a late lunch. That is lame. Daniel Johnson, free parking on on Monopoly or no? I did free parking. You do you put money in free parking? Money in the free parking. You're not supposed to be played. Yeah. Yeah. Follow the rules. Yeah. Just like opening presents on two days before Christmas. You know what I'm saying? Cheap living. Oh, jeez. How soon do do monopoly?

When I can get people to play? Yeah. You can't People don't agree My family won't play. They just won't let they I I try to play. They're like, no. It's cutthroat. Yeah. They don't like that. Did I tell you? Did I tell you I I invented a board game when I was I I was actually just on this a couple a couple years ago. It's called one guy owns everything. And, like, there's there's properties and stuff, and you can build apartments and jazz. And the goal is to for one guy to own everything. That is amazing. I know. I know. I know. I feel like there's good money in it, and I'm gonna put it up. There's a there's a there's a narcissistic narcissistic dude dude waiting waiting to to pick pick that that up. Up. I will dominate this game. If anybody will win, it will be me. And, like, you roll a dice and you go run, like, in a circle? Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. That's original is what that is. Some of the some of the some of the places you can land are more expensive than others. Yeah. But, you know, overall, I think it's it will be captivate the the gaming audience. You know what would be really cool is if there's like a jail. Yeah. And people are like sometimes had to go to jail? Yeah. Just if they happen to land on a space or or they drew some kind of card structure. Yeah. Put them in it. Man, you're thinking now. I know. Man, I I like it. Here's the thing is I heard somebody try to invent this earlier in the century, but it took two guys to come up with it, Parker Brothers. I just done it on my own. One man. Clearly much smarter. You get all the profits that way. Is it only two dudes? Are there I mean, there could be three Parker Brothers.

Yeah. It was Milton Bradley and Joe, and then Joe, he he was cooking the books. Wait. That's his last name? Milton Bradley Parker? Yeah. Milton Parker and Bradley Parker. Oh, really? No. None of these things are true. Shoot, man. That would've I was coming was being strung right along. It would've been a revelation. I thought, well, that's a folksy story. I could tell that. Yeah. Alright. Alright. Chris Roloff, favorite game growing up.

Oh, gosh. Favorite game growing up. Sorry. Have you have you purchased a Sorry game recently? I did. They're cheap. They are cheap. I actually found at a thrift store for $2 the original 1949 version of Sorry with the cards and everything. Oh, really? The original pawns and all that. I bet that smelled like a retirement home. It did. Yeah.

Okay. So that's the old but that's the only version of Sorry we own. So it's kinda. No, that's not true. We have a really fascinating game called Sorry Sliders. It's absolutely wonderful. It's a, have you seen that before, Dan? No, but it's just sounds great. It's Sorry classic Sorry Looking Ponds that you slide. It's like, what's that? It's the Winter Olympics now. Curling? Yeah. So you slide them into the center and you actually there's like a big target in the middle and that's how you get the number that you It's like curling the home game? Yeah. It's curling the home game. It's stinking awesome. It's Sorry shuffleboard. That's exactly what Yeah. It's it's stinking awesome. Got it at thrift store for $2. It's a ton of fun. Okay. That sounds pretty cool. And you can set the board up in a lot of different ways. You can do the four angles where you're smacking into each other, or you can do, like, a real long one where you gotta shove it all the down there and then hit the guys. Oh, here's I can think of, like, three rambunctious punks that I'd never play Sorry Sliders with. Yeah. Exactly. You know you know there's the guy who's like,

Wham. Yeah. You go shooting around. They never don't wanna score no points. They just wanna wreck stuff. Yeah. And here's the here's the cool kicker, though. You do that, though, if you're that jerk guy Yeah. You go flying off the end the board and you go back to start. That's how you get sorry. You get knocked yourself out. That's right. That that guy that type of guy I'm talking about digs his heels in. He's like, good. I wanted to go back. I didn't wanna win this game. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get I it. Just put a little butter on the bottom. I let that sucker sail. I'm sorry you like this game somebody because I don't even like it. We got so we got the we recently purchased the trouble. Yeah. And it's cheap too. Like, I mean, the we bought it for the kids for Christmas, and the and the the pieces are, like, a really thin plastic. And I I was just I was disappointed because it's just not the same it's not the same deal. Yeah. I don't know. I'll just keep an eye on the thrift store version, I guess. Yeah. You'll see that every once in a while. Trouble's great because that's the that's the originator of that popping thing that Yeah. Oh, yeah. In the middle there to do the diagram. That's classic fun. You can do that even without, you know Oh, yeah. Yeah. You should just sell those. You just have it sitting on the table. Yeah. Who's who's gonna make dinner? Six. Six. Not you.

Why do I even roll? Daniel Johnson, favorite favorite childhood game? That's tough. There's lots of them. You've had a long time to narrow it down, Johnson. Yeah, man. It's been a while. Oh, man. Scrabble was a big one. There's a game called payday. I don't know if anyone else has played that. I played that a lot as a kid. And then there was, like, rummy was a big game when I was a kid in my family. You know what else played that card game? Rummy? No. Of it. I have not played regular rummy. I haven't played rummy since 'Nam, but I mean, I remember playing it a lot. For some reason, the ace of spades throws me back and I can't behave.

Wait. Is that diff is gin rummy like a variation or is that the full It's a variation, but, like, I don't even remember how it's played. It's been so long. But nowadays, apples to apples is my favorite game. Yeah. Hold on. Is that how they do it? They put a piece of alcohol in front of the game and it makes it more fun? Gin rummy? Wild Turkey rummy? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I play whiskey monopoly. Bartle. This is better times. Whiskey trouble. You're listening to Live From The Path. Not sure why. It's nothing but alcohol and board games tonight, boys. Yeah. Jesus is running in the back seat, I guess. Wait. Did did you answer? I I did not. When I was really young, I liked Candyland. Candyland and shoot some ladders, and then it evolved into life. That was kind of a fun game. And then the monopoly thing. But careers was like I don't know if you ever there was a obscure game. Yes. Love that game. It looked like it was a game. Yeah.

Careers is genius. One of the fast I took your thing, Dan. I love that game. I have a copy of that right now. It's not mine, but I have it in on borrowed. Do you still have a copy? I think I do. Oh. In my basement. I might have a crisp, clean $1 bill for you. I'll that right to you. I'll I'll throw in the Jurassic Park game that came Nice. On top of it. That Sounds fascinating. That chutes and ladders is a frustrating game. Oh, yeah. That is a frustrating game because, like You're about to win, then you go I mean, that's here's the deal. It's like that that's a that sometimes has the same playing time as monopoly without any skill level to it at all. Yeah. No. That's true. Double purple. You think that get me halfway through the board? Nope. Yeah. You're only here's the thing. Here's why I why I had a hard time with it is because, like, I was playing it with my my six year old and my three year old, And, like, I so desperately want the three year old to win. Right? She's just she's just earnest, and she's just really excited to be playing a game at all. And, like, she just kept hitting the shoots, man. Like, it doesn't matter what she did. And there's nothing you can do to No. It's just the luck of the course. You know? And she keeps looking at me like, dad, why is this happening to me? You know? And the six year old is over the top of it. You know I'm saying? You stinker shoots in there? I'm like, hey. Come on, man. She's like three. You know? I'm just I'm I'm on her team. But I don't wanna be against my other kid. That seems wrong too. You know? Yeah. So then you're just a conflicted father and your heart pours out playing chutes and ladders. Yeah. And I thought, well, why don't we go high five each other somewhere? You know? I feel like definitely we'd be game.

Anyway alright. You are listening to Life and Path. We're talking games tonight because with us, we have Chris Roloff, inventor of the go diving game. Yeah. And so so we had Chris on. So you've met Chris before. Chris has the has the honor of being the guy with the catchiest tune that we've had on here. Like, the catchiest one liner. Because I will catch myself probably once a week going, who's on the lord's side end? It's it's just it just hangs around. It does. In fact, that's the only part of the tune I know. Yeah. I make up the rest. Like, I go, who is on the lord's side end? Who can't I win the day? Like, don't even I don't even know what the words are. You win the day. Yeah. That's so much better. I like that. So so anyway but but he's

he's crafting games, and we got to play a couple of these before the show even started so that we can kinda break them in a little bit. But I'll let you kind of introduce it. Tell us a little about first of all, like, what got you into into designing games, either board games? We played a card game. Like, you know, when did this come about? What got got you into that? Well, it's an interesting question because it's the question you should ask, I guess. Really, designing games came about by accident.

We we talked about what was our what are our favorite games growing up. So I played all the standard board games when I was a kid. Didn't play careers when I was a kid. I haven't first time I played careers was in, like, the last six months, which is a testament to how lame I am, I guess. You have to buy it, like, at educational stores now. Oh, it's really hard to find. Careers is careers is hard to find. But so I didn't play a lot of fancy schmancy games. And I I did play Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, the collectible card game. If you can play that, I played those kind of games. But anyway, so how how I got kind of into designing games was my daughter's five and we're a homeschooling family and my mom was an educator and she had a big stack of manipulatives,

which are these boxes that are filled with essentially game components. I mean, you got ships and people and cars and stuff and then these little mats, and it's all math based stuff. You know? You count here and how many trucks are in the pond or what, you know, you just count, and it's really boring. But it was basically a big pile of game components. What? I gotta get. You already sell all this. Yeah. How many trucks are in the pond? It's a very sad thing, you know. A little dice for disaster. We call it a Tennessee Friday night. And and that's what so we got these

and one of the things in there were these really cool fish tokens, and they were double sided. One side would be, like, white yellow, and the other side would be red. And they're really cool, and it had dice in and all that kind of stuff. And so I just got to fiddling around with it. And I wanted to come up with a story that would go with these components and we'd try to solve the problem. Because all games basically present a problem and then there's a solution. Typically, I guess Monopoly, there's no problem. There's a Yeah. The problem is that you stink at it and I'm awesome. Yes. That's problem. And I'm trying to overcome that problem. Yeah. You wanna live off my free parking. That's right. You wanna cheapen your life to the point where you get out of jail with a car for free. No bail. And so anyway, that was about like I said, it was about two years ago that we had those.

And I just got really obsessed with trying to figure out how to create a game with these limited components. I didn't want to create a board. I didn't want to create cards initially. I didn't want to do anything. I just had these fish tokens and dice. I thought, what could I do with these? And two years later, I've designed a tabletop game would be accurately described because when you look in the box, there's no board. So it's all cards and components and stuff like that. Yeah. And dice and stuff.

Was that the end of my question? What did I ask? You well, you asked me how I got into it. I guess that's that's how I got into it really. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But well, here's I let me let me add to that story, I guess. Sorry. My turn. Sorry. I know that, Will. That lulled, I looked at you. But but what so I just started designing this game about two years ago. And and when you think you've got a board game, typically what goes through someone's mind is, oh, gee. I'm gonna be rich and famous. I've created a game, you know, quick call the Parker Brothers. You know? Yeah. But you're also kind of skeptical or nervous because you're like, well, I don't want anybody to steal my game. So I started researching how do you design a game and all this kind of stuff. And I found a great website called Board Game Geek and it is basically a

it's the database for all board games, card games that have ever existed pretty much ever. And they've got profiles on there and you can research stuff and there's forums and all this. And one of the things that I learned through that process was there are hundreds of thousands of games and no one's gonna steal your game. Right. And no one's going to buy your game. So so all the all the all the the worry I had of maybe my game being stolen was alleviated

Yeah. Because no one's gonna steal the game. And really, what's interesting if you look into copywriting in in games, think about all the stuff you do in a board game. Most of that can't be copyrighted. Right. You can't copyright rolling the dice. You can't copyright, play a card, draw a card. Right. You know, you can't write draw from a bag. You can't copyright any of those things because they're super generic. Right. There are larger companies that have patented stuff. In fact, I just found out today, Daniel, you mentioned that you've played Magic the Gathering. You know, when you tap a Yeah. A resource. The the Hasbro owns Magic the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast. They've actually patented that gesture with a card, which is completely a jerk move because now no one can no one can take a card and turn it sideways to as an action saying that you're using that card. Really? Hasbro has now patented that action, which is totally ridiculous. But that's neither here nor there. Most most actions in a game are completely free rein. So anything you want to do with

dice and cards and components you pretty much can. I'm gonna patent the dice roll. I'm gonna patent a hippo eating a marble. That would be for bad man royalties. But what's really cool, what I learned in so at Board Game Geek is there are there's this whole world of what they call hobby or design designer games. And some of the big name designer games are Ticket to Ride, Pandemic,

Carcassonne. There's a card game called Flux. Those are some of the biggies. If you've ever seen some of those around, you'll see them at like Barnes and Noble, you know, some of your large box stores. I don't think Target carries any of that stuff. But these are designer games and they they tend to run $30.40, $50. They're kind of expensive. Yeah. But that's like we talked about before, Ben. The reason for that is unlike a Monopoly or Asari or something like that, these aren't produced in mass.

They're actually produced very small runs. Yeah. They're, like, made to order almost. Right? Like, I I I make one if you want one or or maybe I'll make five and hope that I sell the five. You know? It's very much like a like an indie music artist. You know what I'm saying? You know? Yeah. You kinda put the money in. You're like, I hope I sell them. I hope people just enjoy them. But you gotta price them in such a way that, like, you know, you can't you can't be making bank off five. You know? Right. Yeah. So it's it's it it is it's almost a game in itself. Like, it's a strategy game. You're selling your own game. Yeah. It takes it takes a lot of work and takes a long time to get a game from conception to actually getting out into the public. Example, Ticket to Ride, which is a game I referenced, they they boast that they've sold 3,000,000 copies. They sold 3,000,000 copies internationally around the world. This game's in, you know, every it's you don't really need to read to be able to do it really. So it's kinda international game, and they've sold 3,000,000 copies. But this game has been around for don't quote me on this, but I think it's been around for over ten years. And I don't have any of you guys even heard of it? I haven't. No. Nope. So Ticket to Ride boasts 3,000,000 sold after being on the market for ten years, and it's an incredible game. And if you ever see it, buy it, just do it. It's absolutely fantastic game. But that's kind of what you're up against. Right? And that's a huge that's a huge deal. Yeah. So, I mean, if you've ever gone to a store that I like going to and drooling a lot in is at the Valley West Mall here is Games and More. If you ever go in there and instead of going to the right, Mike, where all the stuffed animals But I like the big giraffe. Yeah. He looks at me like I'm his friend. You turn over to the left, you'll see this just wall and stacks and stacks and stacks of of essentially board games and tabletop card games.

And those are just kind of the top tier of stuff. Let of course. So let me ask you this because I actually do I I do tend to go to the right because there's trains and stuff over there. There are trains. Yeah. But on the left hand side are all the board games, and I look at them. I think we should get a board And I and and just by the sheer number of them, I go, there's no way I'm gonna make an intelligent decision here. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's so many games and, like, you know, I'm not really after anything specific. I'm just more after a family time hanging out, you know, and and and that kind of thing. It's like, is there anything that let that would like say distinguish is there any good way to distinguish what I'm looking for? To some degree, it takes it does unfortunately take a little bit of research. The Board Game Geek website is one that I talked about. It's not the easiest in the whole world to navigate, but it is a it is a place where all the games are ranked. You can go to boardgamegeek.com, click on there's a bunch of buttons towards the top. You can click on family or children's games, and then it'll show you the list and they'll all be ranked. And the boardgamegeek.com

community is people like me who who love this stuff and have voted on, commented on, and all this kind of stuff. So those games are ranked. You can go there in children's game and see the top 10, top 20 games. Now here's the really terrible thing about guys like you and me is our kids, you said three, six, and Just three and six. Yeah. Three and six. So you and I have kids the same age. The challenge is that most games for kids our age are Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, which we all know blow. Right. By and large, they're they're just they're not fun. Yeah. The kids like them okay, but they're not really learning much. By the way, I'll give you a cool hint. I did this with my daughter, and I highly recommend it. If you've ever played you've played Candyland before, which seems monotonous and pointless, you draw a card and you just move whatever. But instead, here's a little bit of a challenge to do and it makes the game more fun for everybody. Grab three cards instead of one and then you can play all three at a time in any order that you want. And if you've ever looked at a if you've ever looked at a Candyland board,

you'll notice that they're in a particular order, but you have to look at those three colors and then you can get the there is a best option. Yeah. Yeah. So you're looking at at comprehensive thinking here. You don't say in a quantitative thing where you're looking at and saying what was literally the best move that I can make out of the three half? Yeah. It's kinda interesting. And I would I would a six year old can do that. Yeah. A six year old can totally do that. In fact, a three year old can do it. A three year old might just play them, but you can show your three year old even. Watch if you did them in this order. Look how much further you'd go. Yeah. They'd like that. And they'd like that. And then all of a sudden, what was a random game has a little less randomness to it. And now you've made some real choices and you're getting rewarded for your choices. Yeah. Which is which is a lot of in game design, especially, I actually just had a coffee with a friend today who's a board game designer. He's actually just gotten his first game picked up or not his first game, but one of his games picked up and and hopefully to be published within the next year. But one of the things we were talking about, he said it this way. He said that designing a board game is really trying to orchestrate an experience. You're you're trying to give your audience

an experience. You want them to have a good time. You want to reward good choices. You want you may want to reward bad choices. Right. Right? But you're trying to give somebody an experience by doing simple mechanics and and and different things like that, not just rolling a dice and playing a card. Yeah. But putting people in situations where they have to make choices. And those choices give them reward or benefit or consequences or, you know, screw your neighbor or whatever. Right.

All those kinds of things. So You know, it's it's kind of funny like board games offer something that that even, you know, technology can't quite seem to to grab on the whole. Right? Right. Like, if you have, you know, Family Feud on the Wii, you know, for some reason, it's not the same as playing the marvel game aggravation with your grandma. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's just not quite it's just not quite the same. Right? Like, I can go back to that memory when I was a kid, and and I thought I thought it had to been two or three in the morning. Right? It was probably 10:30. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But, like, I was six or whatever, and I was up late playing aggravation with my old grandma. And, like, I remember that to this day. That was thirty years ago. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, like, it it like, I I don't know. There's something about a board game that just does it does offer I don't It almost seems like more of a, I don't know, more of a a stuck in memory than than maybe, like, something that flashy technology can't seem to duplicate. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well and and the the great thing about board games and and what was so exciting about board games to me is well, let me give you let me give you kind of an interesting illustration. So one of my family's favorite games, which I would recommend, it's a bit pricey,

but it's Carcassonne, which is the name of a real French city. And it's a tile placing game and you're it's like building a puzzle. It's very simple. My daughter's five and she can do it. In fact, she wins because there's a there's a decent amount of luck, and her strategy is a actual good strategy. But that game is I won't go to the details too much, but you place tiles and you're building a city. You get points for building city, roads, farms, things like that.

I won't go into it too deeply because the illustration is I love playing this game, but it has these physical components. It's different every time because the city looks different every time. The map looks different. You're building the board essentially. Yeah. And I love it. And my daughter who's five and my wife, they love it. We've played it a ton. I just got it for Christmas. We play it just tons. Play it all the time. So my wife was like, oh, they have an app on the smartphone for it. I'll download the app. And I was just like, and the two of them all afternoon have been playing that thing. And they're like, you should play it. And I was like, this seems stupid to me. I I And there's Roloff on a swing in the backyard by himself. Just why does no one wanna play with me? I only do the Angry Birds. Exactly. Flappy Bird. Yeah. Flappy Bird. Oh, jeez. Well, and that's the thing about it is is to me, it's not the game totally. It's kinda what you're talking about, Mike. It's a sitting sitting at a table with people and it's real interaction. When we played our game when we played Go Diving today,

the interaction what was what was funny. Yeah. The interaction that the moments that you have, their shared moments, they're frustrating, they're funny. You said that you were frustrated a whole bunch. Come on, man. And we can all laugh with you. It would be weird if we all watched you play a video game and laughed when you got shot. That that wouldn't seem as fun. That would seem a little bizarre. I guess it got stuck. You're listening lifefromthepathonlifefromthepath.org broadcasting from ten to eleven ish

on this is lifefromthepath.org. Right? Here's the deal. The KTIA audience, we're glad to have you. It's probably Saturday night. We're gonna cut you off, and we're gonna have some show remaining over, which you can catch on the podcast. Ben, can they hook up with the podcast on the website? You sure can. You can subscribe to the podcast. There is a just a little indicator, top right corner of the of the website, and say hook me up with the podcast. You can also get it on Stitcher Radio or or listen to it. There's a little there's a little, I don't know, section of the website about halfway down on the right hand side where you just hit play and listen to last week's show if you wanna catch the audio. Yeah. We're also talking we have man, we're talking games today. We got a bunch of stuff going on in the studio, but we're also welcomed to the studio by Daniel Johnson. We haven't we haven't talked to you forever, man. What have you been up to? Been forever. I

haven't really been up to much since when was the last time I was here? Oh, man. It's been about six months, ain't it? Like, was it July? Yeah. It was a little before July before I decided to to hang it up. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So what's been going on in your life? Oh, man. It's been it's been interesting. I I took oh, well, there's the microphone. Last July, I officially hung it up as the artist that I was, as j j.

I figured that that part, excuse me, as of my life was over, I figured that I had outgrown the persona that I created when I was 10. Uh-huh. Because j j was a creation, like, when I was, 10 or 11. I'm be j j. There was no really significance behind it. It became it, and it kinda became my persona. So I kinda hung it up because I figured something something new was coming.

I was maturing as an artist and as a person, and my ideals were evolving. And I decided that it was a good time to take it down, take some time off, rethink, reevaluate, and then reemerge as a completely new artist with a completely new goal. So it's been interesting. In Search of X is the new name of what I'm doing because I feel like everyone in life is searching for something. That variable, whether it be money or God or something, everyone is looking for that variable that's going to make them happy. Yep. And it's different for every person. So I feel like

the movement I'm going with now is to kind of like help people on that route of finding what they're looking for By sharing my struggles, by sharing what I'm looking for myself, and just trying to partner with people and like we can get through this. Like this is it's an interesting perspective and I feel like everyone can relate to it. It's not a one track this crowd can relate to what I'm saying, but this crowd can't or this crowd understands, this crowd doesn't. It's something that every single person that is breathing can relate to. Like, we are all searching for something. So that's kind of the direction I'm headed.

The, hopefully, by March, things start to pick up. I've just started getting the pen back up and writing again. So hopefully, in the studio by March and then back on the road by summer. It's kind of what I'm hoping. That's the general consensus.

That's a pretty that's pretty ambitious reemergence. Now let let me ask you this. Like, without so so when you were when you were performing as j j, right, when you when you step back from that, does I mean, does the way that you interact with with God, the way that that that you operate, does that change? Because, like, you I mean, you were literally publicly out and about

evangelizing, you know, at least once every month, every every other week, whatever. I mean, that's what you were doing. Right? I was doing. Yeah. And so, like, that goes away. Does does your I don't know. Does your relationship change? Does it does it become different? I wouldn't say it becomes different. I would say that it like I said, evolves. Like, things have changed. Because, like, as j j, I was catering to a specific audience. Like it's like what Lecrae did or like what other artists have done is they step back and they kind of not turn their back on the label of Christianity but more branch out past that. Because there's a lot more to this ministry than just catering to one crowd. Because it's not the health of the need of doctor. Like that's the whole point. So as an artist, my goal is not just to make Christian ears happy. My goal as an artist is to branch out and show everyone else like, this is what I'm dealing with. This is what I'm doing. Like, I'm gonna help you with your journey. It's different. Like, obviously, taking the step into a mainstream eyes is a little more complicating as far as, like, what you say and what you do.

But I feel like in that light, I'm more able to say what I feel like I wanna say. I felt like under the Double J name, under that brand, I felt like the eyes on me, I was held to an impossible pedestal. Like, I couldn't talk about certain things or certain struggles that I had because I'm expected to be this perfect person, and I'm not. And I wanna finally be able to show, like, show people that I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. I have struggles. I have problems. I have doubts. I have all these things that I'm going through. And I feel like in a different light, people can relate to that more.

Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I I that almost sounds like you can put out a much stronger witness, frankly. Yeah. I mean and, actually, what you say is true, and sometimes it's a little painful. Like, sometimes the, the the followers of Christ are a fickle bunch of they're a bunch of audience. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're they're very testy on their now here's the deal. Like, I don't find anything wrong with being discerning about your leadership in that area. Right? Like, if you, you know, but make sure that you didn't put them up on a pedestal. Make sure that God did. Like, if God elevates somebody and puts them, where they where they belong as, like, a leader of folks, then that's something. Right? But don't But, like, you put people, like, you know, that are going through the same stuff you are, and they're they're just as sick. They just happen to know the doctor. Right? Like, that's the difference. They're not better people or or or different people. They're just fallen people like everybody else is. Right? Yep. They just have a relationship with the doctor. Yeah. And and and that's the only difference. Like,

we talk about this a lot, but, like, especially in the entertainment industry, like, the Christian audiences, they're they're they're fickle. You say one thing, especially I mean, don't even get me started doctrinally. You know, one small snippet of denominational infighting, and that's it. You're done. Pretty much. Like, you are not you are not worth listening to. You're not we can't even have a conversation. We're just we're done now. You know? And, like, that's kind of the way that that that the Christian tends to flow. And so, like, I kinda agree with you. That's a it's it's almost a more fickle waters to be in. Yeah. And, like, that was my decision because it got to a point where, like, people were starting to see, like, my personal life and, like, things about me that they didn't like. And they got to a point where, like, Christians were pushing me away from Christianity as a whole. It was, like, people so many people pointing the finger at me and saying that I'm not a good Christian and that I'm not a good leader because of all these things that they said were wrong. That, like, I listen to secular music. That's one thing. Yeah. Someone said that I was a bad Christian and that I wasn't a good leader because of that. I'm like, it's it's my conviction. It's not yours.

Because, like, there's nothing in the Bible is like, you can't listen to secular music. No. There's good secular artists out there. Yeah. And they were like, you've gotta listen to just Christian music. I'm like, who Yeah. They've only they got like a small handhold to hold on to. Oh, yeah. Like, starting in the last maybe five years, ten years maybe, that Christian music is even palatable. You know what I'm saying? Like, you go back, say, fifteen years, I'm I'm I'm sorry, Dan. But I mean, I just that's all I've got. Just I mean, Carmen, I mean, come on. I mean, I just don't know what to say. Yeah. That wasn't music. It

it was it was definitely I gotta meet him, by the way. He's a good guy. I'm sure he's a nice man. I'm just saying. But, yeah, it was it was definitely a tough a tough last few months because, like, I was really struggling that last six months of of my musical career, like, last spring. It was just like, I was struggling. Like I was going through, like I was having some serious problems in my faith walk and I was just going through stuff. And there was no one there to really help. Because everyone was pointing the finger instead. They're like, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, need to, you know, buck up. And I'm like, dude, like, you have just as many problems as I do. Like so it it kinda pushed me out. And that's kinda part of the reason I decided to take a different route is because if you look at the the general idea of music, you see Christian artists and secular artists. Like, let's say, you see Lecrae versus, like, a mainstream artist. Lecrae, if he, like, one day slips up, everyone's like, oh boo, Lecrae sucks. But one, like, second like Kanye West one time, he wrote that song Jesus Walks. Yeah. And everyone loved him. Christians loved Right. Said Jesus. Yeah. It's like, you know, when a mainstream artist talks about it, everyone likes him. Everyone respects him. But when a Christian artist goes off the beaten path, they're like, you don't deserve like, it's like POD, what they did. They did something that was kinda, you know, off offhanded.

Everyone just, like, attacked them. We talked remember we talked about that? There was there was it was an Effie? Yeah. Yeah. There was an Effie in one of the songs. Yeah. And they're like, you know, I don't I don't know exactly how I feel about it. I mean, part of me is like, that's kinda weird. But part's like, you know what? If that's the route they wanna go, then do it. Like, who's to judge their walk? If they feel they're in right standing, then it's just it's a complicating road to travel. That is that's pretty slippery though, Johnson. It is slick, but it's like it's tough because when you take that move and decide that what they were initially doing was branching out to a different audience. Like, they were willing to sacrifice a big group of Christian fans

to cater to a more lost group of people. Which which I think, I mean, relatively speaking, that's a Jesus move. Right? Yeah. Jesus sacrificed the the group of people who otherwise thought they were in the right Mhmm. To go after the broader audience. So, I mean, that's that's not out it's not outlandish as long as as what you're ultimately not sacrificing is is what God is calling to you to do. Right? I mean, so, like, that that's where given what you're talking about, I I think that's it's slippery,

but I'm not world I'm not concerned about worldly slippery. You know what I'm saying? Like, who who are you losing? Fickle people that are difficult to deal with? The same guys, you know, the water tastes foul at Maribah, you know? Like, what are you gonna do? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's kinda what you're gaining the matters. Like, they gained people that needed that. They needed because they were being extremely, like, relative to what people were going through. Yeah. People are wondering, who is God? Who are you to me? And they really expressed that in the song they did that in. And I listened to it a few times. Yeah. And I was like, you know, there's probably gonna be more people out there that are gonna be like, wow, that makes I can relate to that. And I feel like they made a move that they they had to weigh out the options. Like, they knew it was gonna happen. They just figured it was worth it. Like, yes. I I mean, here's and we did. We talked about this a little bit. But, like, I think my ultimate feeling at the end of something like that is is, like, it's it's fifty fifty. You know what I'm saying? Mhmm. But they took a bold swing. Could be a swing and a miss. Could be a swing and a hit, but they took a something bold anyway. And, like, you don't see that much from, you know, especially Christian media outlets because it'll get you canceled. You know I'm saying? It'll get you off the air. It will get you not listened to, and it might give you boycotted. You know what saying? Any any type of bold move, even if it's within the confines of God's word. Right? Like, if it doesn't meet the,

you know, mostly the more stringent, you know, set of rules that that that most hold for a Christian artist, they'll you're done. You know what saying? And if you you if you go too far in the Christian community, it's not like you can you can start bouncing around. You know what I'm saying? Like, that was your niche. That's where your heart was. You know, what do you do about that? Cast your heart out now and be done? And so I I I find that to be fickle. Roloff, you're kinda in the Christian media business. Do you find any of that to be true? When you hit the nail on the head,

it's a business. Right? I mean, so you're you're trying to sell records to a particular market and to a particular audience. So a lot of times that's the struggle that I think any Christian artist has to deal with, that you've got expectations placed upon you. And I don't I mean, I don't know what to say. It's a it's a it's a sad thing. And and really, it started back what in the in the eighties when Christian music Those are the days. Back

when Christian music became a thing. Right? Before Christian music became a thing, Christian artists were just sold alongside everybody else. When, you know, Bob Dylan was a Christian, you know, before he was a there was no Christian artists. Right. When he made Slow Train Coming, there wasn't a Christian bookstore where you could go by his record, you know, The Birds. What are some I'm trying to think of other guys. Kansas, the singer of Kansas. These are other groups that had Christians in them that just made records. They just made albums. They made music. It was when the label was stuck on it. Yep. And then it had to become it had to become something else. And I think what Daniel mentioned is

really great. We do a disservice to anyone when we lift them up and say, you're now my leader. I'll get on something that I think you guys probably talked about before. The the Duck Dynasty thing was a bunch of crap. I'm sorry. People that people that and maybe you guys all did. I don't know. But are we allowed to see crap on Christian radio? Yeah. Radio station roll up. Don't what you do. I'll book that later. But anyway, I mean, you know, a lot of really good intended people backed Phil Robertson

for his quote unquote stand for the Bible. And I got a lot of flack on Facebook because I made a comment because the Westboro Baptist online started supporting Phil Robertson. And I said, okay, Westboro Baptist are with you guys. Let's all stand together and and hug. I I said, let me and let me be clear. I don't stand with Phil Robertson. Well, was the that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Everybody had to have an opinion about that. The reason why I don't stand with Phil Robertson is because the guy's not my leader, man. You know, I don't care what Phil Robertson does on a Tuesday. Why do I care if he gets in a magazine and says that the Bible says that, homosexuality is wrong? Why do I care what Phil Robertson does? Why do I have to go to bat for that guy?

Because two weeks from now or five weeks from now or a year from now, we find out he's some pedophile freak. It was a sham. He was all lying anyway. Right? How do we know that's not going to happen? Why am I going to stick my neck out and back up this guy who I don't know from Adam? I don't know him at all. And here's but here's the other thing that I would say is not only that, but and this was kind of my comment at the end of my post on Facebook is the world is watching. The world is this is Phil Robertson. This isn't necessarily about Daniel, but the but the world is watching.

The world says, who's God? What is God like? And the Christian gets on the radio, on the Facebook, on the TV, on the whatever. And I'll tell you what he's like. He hates those fags. That's who he is. Is that who we want to be? Is that who Jesus is? Is that are we are we portraying Jesus in a in a in an appropriate light when we're backing a guy who the world just hears being a bigot? Let's be honest. Phil Robertson said two things that got him in trouble. One, he said the thing about the homosexuality. The other thing was he he said made a wildly ignorant comment about

the treatment of black people in the South in the sixties. Okay? Ignorant two ignorant statements. Why am I gonna stand with that guy and say this is this is the rallying cry? Yeah. What I I mean, is is that the thing? And it's like is that to to Daniel's

point is is like is is culture so remiss of any amount of Jesus that the smallest amount of Jesus we grab onto and stand behind like it's the hole? You know what I'm saying? Like like, he quoted he quoted close to some bible verses, may have misportrayed the heart of God quite a bit. Right? But quoted the bible verse accurately.

Right? Correct? Yeah. Yeah. I think he quoted it accurately. Yeah. He quoted it he quoted it accurately. Same thing with with with almost that Kanye story. Right? Like, Kanye makes one one song with the word Jesus in it, and now everyone wants to kinda get behind him because he mentioned Jesus. Right? Even the smallest amount, whether it's whether it's, you know, the entire story or not. Essie was in that song. Yeah. It was. It was. That's what I'm saying. Like like, they were so thirsty to grab on to something and support it under a Jesus banner. But but these that's the same same folks who aren't going to bat for Jesus. You know I'm saying? Like It's strange. I mean, I find it crazy. It's like Jay Z mentions, oh, I love Jesus. Everyone's like, oh, I love Jay Z now. Yeah. But one Christian artist kinda does he's caught in public smoking, and everyone's gonna kill him. Doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. Michael W smoker? It's weird, because it's like they hold Christians to a pedestal so high that nobody can reach it. Like, no Christian artist can meet that. But secular artists are like, they say one thing about God and everyone's like, oh, sweet.

They're Christian. Let's love them. It just doesn't make sense. It's the fallibility of man worship. I mean, I mean, That's your broad point, right? Yeah. That's my broad point. We're doing what Israel has always done. The people of God have always wanted a king. We wanted a pretty. We wanted a handsome. We want somebody to rule over us. We are unsatisfied with Jesus. I mean, the the the bottom point is that we don't want Jesus. We want anything

but Jesus. Give us Phil Robertson. Give us Bob Dylan. Give us whoever it is. But not Jesus, please. Not Jesus because he confronts me. He screwed with my life. He makes my life difficult. I don't like the guy. He asked me to do stuff I don't wanna do. He asked me to like people I don't wanna like. And shoot. You know what? When was the last time he came by? That's right. And when you when you put all your faith in a fallible man, when he falls, it's okay when you fall too. Yep. Right. There's that. You know? I mean, that just it's kind of the way that works. Right? Like like, if I put all my stake in in in the human, and I can say, well, look, you know, he has struggles, so I accept mine, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but then I'm not letting Christ redeem him. I'm just accepting them and being like, well, everybody does this. You know? That that's kind of the thing. And so I that's just it's frankly, it just it turns out to be cowardly is what it turns out to be. That's that's the reason I wanted to get out. It's just like I don't wanna be that person that they look up to. Because I'm like, I'm not I'm not perfect, not even close. So I just wanna do what I love. I just wanna make music, and I want to not lead anyone, but walk alongside the people that listen. They're like, okay. He has struggles. So do I. Let's do this. And and that's just kinda the whole idea. It's just being an artist that's with the people, not like someone who's gonna put himself on a pedestal. Like, look at me. I'm awesome. I'm just trying to think. So so kind of what's going on my head, though, it sound what it

correct me here. But what it sounds like is is I'd like to be in an in an industry where it's where it's more okay to fail. But may maybe here's what I'm thinking. It's it's it's it's more where where it's more okay where it's more realistic. Like, you're living in a real world Yeah. It's not like you're not in a Christian bucket. I it's it's nice to be in it because I don't have to pretend. I'm Yeah. Finally living in I finally get to live in a in a world where, like, where I'm making music and doing what I love, but I don't have to put on this this these fronts. Like, when people come talk to me at a show, like, oh man, I'm struggling. Like, oh man, you just need to buck up and When I'm going through the same thing, I can be more honest.

I understand. Like, I'm there. And this is what I'm trying to do. And I just try to help them. That's what my music's gonna be all about. It's like finding what is gonna complete you. And like, I'll tell you what's working for me and I'll talk to you about it. Because I feel like it comes across in like, I'm not trying to preach to you, but, like, this is just what works for me. I'm rapping about it. I'm talking about stuff that we're both facing. This is how I'm dealing with it. How are you dealing with it? Let's talk about it. Yeah. Let's have more of a friendly, realistic conversation about it instead of I'm you're looking up to me to preach to you and be that person. Instead of leading you, I'm just conversing with you. Well, and a lot of times, especially in that in the genre they're talking about, if you're in a Christian genre, it's not like you're not flipping a lot of those guys. Like, all all you are all you're doing is reinforcing it. In fact, a lot of the Christian media is simply soaking up by people who are taking their time patting themselves on the back for for knowing Jesus, and then there's a big old pool of folk who don't know Jesus

that we're not talking to because we're reading the books about him, and we're we're talking about how we used to be them. Yep. And then no one's we're not making disciples. No. No. That's true. I you know, I we've I've been going through this a lot lately is is is you know, I've I've and this is just me personally, but I'm I'm I'm hoping that a lot of people are struggling with it too. But, like, if if you kinda look at the main goal, if if if our job if if my goal as a Christ follower is to literally follow Christ, hang out who he hung out with,

talk the way he talked, disciple the way he discipled, and love the way he loved. Right? Like, I got very little of that done. I got I I don't even know that I'm trying most of it. You know what I'm saying? Like, I feel I feel I feel comfortable sharing my faith with people, but, like, I went through this with my six year old this week is I went upstairs to pray with her before she went to bed. And I I just when I was praying, I said, you know, I I pray that, Lord, that you'll that people will want to come to know you, by the joy that we have for for having you as our God. Right? And I've and and I usually pray that at night. It's just kinda what we talk about. And when I got done, she looked at me and she said, I try to tell people about Jesus at school, dad, and they laugh at me and then no one will play with me. And so, like, as a dad, this breaks my heart. Right? That that that's happening to my little girl. But the truth of the matter is I'm creating a better disciple than I am. You know what I'm saying? Like, she's out there doing it even though that's happening.

Right? She's still out there doing it, trying to talk about Jesus. And, of course, we had a we had a conversation about, you know, ears to hear, you know, eyes to see, you know, and and talking to people when they're ready to hear it. But I said I love you for your bold heart, and I and I pray you keep after it. Right? Realizing that I probably have backed out of three conversations that week. And I'm watching my six year old show up as a lamb to slaughter. And I thought, I you know, like, that wasn't convicting, I don't know what is. I'm like, you you know, what what am I what am I honestly doing with the with the life that God has given me? You know, and and actually going out and and talking with people who need Jesus, not have Jesus, but need Jesus.

You know, like, they're they're they're still hurting going on. There's still joy being missed out upon. And there's still, you know, my father who weeps for the people that aren't that don't know him. You know? And and my six year old's taken up the burden? Yeah. Bummer. You know what I'm saying? Fail. Fail, dad. You know? And so, like, I I don't know. It's been that's been really been on my heart this week about stuff like that is, like, is, you know, am I living in the the Christian culture way more than I'm living in the honest,

you know, walking with Christ? Am I is that where I'm is that because that's where I wanna be. Like, the Christian culture is okay. I got a lot of friends. I think there's a lot of love there. Right? But, like, not near as redeeming as the relationship with Jesus and and and and frankly, near as joyous. No. And and it's it's that's that's really big, and I think we we have to ask yourself the honest question. Am I living in community, or am I taken up in the show? You know I'm saying? Like, do I am I sitting there and I am I talking Bible? If we do we talk Bible. I love this I love this show. I come here on a Monday night. We talk Jesus with guys that I love, and and we got community going on talking about that kind of stuff. That's not me buying the the the the three fresh books with a guy holding his chin on it and sitting down with my my book club. It's not that people can't get redemption out of that. It's not that the book's good or not, and it's not that you can't have community going on. But, like, there is a there is a standard that I think has been kind of filtered through in the Christian community that makes it the show, which is, hey. We only buy CDs from this section. Yeah. And and we have to support them because it came out, and it's in this section that needs to be bought. And that guy came out with the book and, like, I know it's, you know, $50, and I know a reasonable book is only $18,

but we buy that because we're in the Christian community and that's what we do. Yeah. And, like, that's getting taken into the show as opposed to living in community with folks. And and if you're able to pervert that, right, if that gets twisted a little bit, you feel comfortable like you're in community and get none of the benefits from it, and and you're you're just another pawn in the show. Yep. And that's a twist. That's a devil twist that makes it seem like, hey. I'm fine. Right? That's that's the whole personal relationship with Jesus facade that says, I just gotta be part of the show. I just get in the stream and the boat with the other guys, and it's just gonna be fine. And that's not community, and we've fallen for that a little bit. And and none of those things on their own, I think, are inherently wrong. But I think how we use them is wrong. How how we we we would we'll just get caught up in one thing and and support a certain thing. And it's it's not because we're we love Jesus. It's because we're caught up in an identity that is not the the Christian identity that we've been given. It's a it's a Christian identity that's been manufactured. And, actually, my wife and I were talking about this today because she was

what was she doing? She was talking about oh, the guy from Mumford and Sons was talking about that he doesn't do he, he doesn't associate with the Christian label. Like I said, he's got a relationship with God. I don't know where it's at. But he's like, you know, I just there's too much baggage in the Christian label. And Bono had said something very similar to that. And and my wife and I were talking, and she's like, you know, what are you what are your thoughts on that? And I said, well, I I get it. I do understand where they're coming from. But, like, Paul identified as a Christian. You tell me there wasn't baggage when he's like, Christians? You

know, you might be a little bit pansy about what you consider baggage. Second of all, like, that's a just because someone else perverted that identity doesn't mean that's not the right identity. I would more pursue that that we're we're living that correctly,

and I'm pursuing Jesus with everything I have. So some guys, ah, I get it now. That's little Christ. I get it. Guy trying to be Christ. And it makes you think I I was I was I don't know. I I heard this somewhere. There was a guy talking about the one of the commandments that do not take the Lord's name in vain. And we've, like, totally, like, totally dwindled that down. Right? Cause we're like, don't use his name in a foul language. Right? Don't curse with the God's name in it.

When we become God's children, we take on his name. We are God's. We are God's children. Right? He's he's being known as God's people. You're taking on his name. What does it look like when I take on his name in vain? That's different. It have I, in my life, taken his name in vain? Is my is my life as one of God's people living in vain? That's way different than did I hit my my thumb with a hammer and use his name.

Like, thinking about that differently, I don't know. I like, that that changed how I that way made made way more sense to me, by the way. I I'm still having to check that out to see whether that Dan, is that what do think? I think it's kinda both, honestly. Don't not saying you should be using his name when you hit your thumb. Right. Right. But I think you're right. It we're it's pretty pretty narrow when we're saying, yeah. Just just make sure you use his name, you know, in in a friendly way. Yeah.

You you're right. We bear his name and and and how we act, that it matters. Along unbelief among unbelievers. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Or discredits his name. Yeah. Exactly. And and and a lot of think I think that the stuff that we talk about when we're talking about how that's used is is are we pursuing, you know, hands out or fingers out? I mean, are we giving the bird or are we extending a hand? Are we looking for to to to help people with redemption or we we looking to crucify them with Jesus? And and I think that's, like, that's the broad problem. I don't think there's any issue at all with finding if if Mike's got something going on in his life to be like, Mike,

you know that ain't right. Yeah. You know that ain't right. But the difference is is like, I'm seeking redemption. Right? Like, Jesus is offering it. You're living in a way that's that's separating you from him. Who the heck would wanna do that? Yeah. As opposed to, hey, Mike, you suck. Yeah. You suck. You best be better or I will be upset with you. I've been writing so Who gives a crap? Yeah. Who cares what I think? I don't know, man. I just I just feel a problem with that. It comes like people who think certain things are wrong. Like there are some things that people are like, I think it's wrong. And if I think it's wrong, then it must be wrong. Yeah, that's That's listening to secular music. It's like, I don't think that's wrong. My personal belief is I don't think listening to secular music is bad. Yeah. Someone else might completely think that's just the worst thing in the world. And then they try to play that, hey. You need to fix yourself a role. And it's like We we have an agreed upon standard. Exactly. That's why I love the Bible for marital counseling.

Like, either you pick up either you pick, like, a counselor who you agree holds the standard, who will help you negotiate, or you say, hey. We both agree on this deal. Like, if if that's your standard, then you have a way to negotiate what's right and wrong. Right? And and there's areas where people will bicker and fight about it. But, like, a a lot of the times when, where that's coming from, you know, like, we have a we have a bar. We have a bar. No more, no less. That's what it is. This is what Jesus kinda laid out. This is this is what what the Holy Spirit has inspired. Let's work within that. Yeah. Now and and here's the thing, like, as as being part of Christchurch for for a while now, right, I'm slowly learning to have a I had a lot of disdain for more religious type folks. You know I'm saying? Threw extra rules in there, I thought I thought, well, that's a bit stringent.

You know, I I I'm just not seeing where you're coming from. It's not really biblical what you're saying. You know? And I had way more grace for the guy that was sitting in the gutter than I did with the guy who claimed to be part of Christ Church, mostly because I'm like, you should know the difference than to act the way that you're acting. Right? But they're still fallen people, and they're still in a fallen world. And, like, they're just they're just they're doing the same thing on the other side of the gray line. You know what I'm saying? And and I I I think it's not too much to ask to have the same grace for that guy. He's disobeying God. He's just doing it a different way. You like the way this guy does it because his redemption looks better. You know I'm saying? Like like the guy that that's that's that's mired in in in a bunch of dirty sin, you know, like his redemption looks cleaner. This guy over here on the Pride channel, like that's the same he's in the same boat, man. And and and most of the time I cut my grace off for that guy. Like, gotta have grace for that man. You know what I'm saying? He's fallen away from from from, you know, a joy producing life that glorifies God. Right? And he's in and himself himself up in a bitter, you know, unrepentant lifestyle. Same guy. Same guy. Right? And so, like, I know it's easy to jump on the bandwagon and point at the church and say they're religious and they act this way. And I agree they're irritating.

But, like, we're the same people. Right? Like, we're the and, like, I sometimes I take my grace away for this man. That's true. So, like, in an example, right, I might have more grace for the for the meth meth head than I do for the secular music guy. Exactly. Because I look at the meth head. I'm like, you know, he's obviously way off the hill or Jesus will redeem. Right. Things will be great. You know? And then I and the and the secular music guy, I'm like, that guy shouldn't freaking know better. You're biased, prideful jerk. Yeah. You know? And you're, like, both in the same spot. Same guy. Both grace. Same guy. I don't wanna have grace for the secular I know. They're irritating. Religious people have got I mean, they're just really irritating, but, like, I mean, the the it's that that grace come down for everybody. You know I'm saying? Like, it's the same. And so and and I've not been I'm not good at that. Right? I'm I'm I'm not good at that part. But, yeah, I tell you what, that's that's a hard it's a hard line to toe. You know what saying? Especially because it just it just is because you're surrounded by a lot of them. And and and after a while, when you get the right heart on it, looking at people in Christchurch will break your heart just as fast as looking at somebody out. You know I'm saying? You're like, you you know, I hear what you're saying. You you know, you can recite the prayer and you can you can show up, but, man, your your life just lacks joy. You know? You I I feel like you don't know what you're missing. A little repentance and a little getting serious is get is it will go a long way here. You know? But you're listening to live from the path. Hey. Before before we gotta cut on our KTIA broadcast, so when do you expect people to be able to buy this go diving, Roloff? When can we pick it up?

Facebook.com/rolloffgames. That's spelled rolloffgames. So facebook.com/rolloffgames. Just like that page. Yeah. And we'll let you know then. I mean, right now, this is the this is the only copy in existence.

That's what it looks like right there. Didn't that look pretty uptown, though? It's legit. Yeah. I would say it was pretty fun. We we got to play it before the show started, and I I thought it was pretty fun. It was good. Yeah. I did too. It's very it's very competitive. I really like being honest if I hate something just kinda for the wow factor, but I I I didn't I didn't hate it at all. I had a I had a really good time. So, you know, I think I believe you should probably go check out the Facebook page. Maybe you should do some kind of giveaway. Know what I'm saying? We will. Yeah. Yeah. Get a part of the giveaway. Probably everybody who enters gets a free one. Something kinda like that. Yeah. Somewhere I get ahold of stuff. Something sort in some way kinda like that. That's subject to limitations. Subject to change. Get the demo version. That's right. I won't. It's an app. And if if you can't find if you can't find that particular Facebook page, just go to the Life From The Path Facebook page, and you you should like what we like, and we like roll off games. So Yeah. You bet. We put a like to it, so you go check it out and you like it too. Alright. If you're listening on KTA, look, we gotta let you go, but you can catch more on the website at lifeforthepathorg or sign up for the podcast. For you got podcast listeners, we'll be right back with you. Thanks for listening to life for the path.

Did I win did I win the go diving? No. No. Olaf won the go diving. Yeah. The creator of Game one. Yeah. You know what? It's really funny. I normally don't win. So I like this. Right. No. No. Seriously, fellas. I I don't ever win. Yeah. That's right. I I never won before. Okay. Okay. So I can't tell the story on the KTIA broadcast, but I was playing we're playing some kind of brain cast quest game with my with the with the girls. Oh, yeah. And and and my three year old, she she doesn't really follow the game very well. She's trying, but she can't pay attention. And all of a sudden, I see her take the dice because it's her turn coming up next. And I see it go under the coffee table, and I see it come back up. And then she sniffs it, and she goes, that terrible. That smells terrible.

I said, what? Why? I put it in the dog's bum. Oh, no. I said, they don't write that in what to expect when you're expecting. Know what I'm saying? Child

may insert dice in the dog's butt. That's right. This needs to have a label. Not suitable for dogs. And then and then sniff it, and declare the obvious, that smells terrible. The problem was I laughed so hard she got embarrassed, and then I felt bad. Like, I you know, I'm like my my six year old is just dying of of of humor because of this situation that's happening. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Why would you stick it in the dog's bum? Why would you even think to do that? I don't know. It smells terrible. I'm like, yes. It does. Anyway, something to keep in mind with games. You know what I'm saying? You gotta watch them kids. Oh, man. That's shit. You should make big dice. You know what I'm saying? That might be odd. Actually worse. Yeah. That's right. Here we go. Dear life from the path. My boyfriend and I have been together for two and a half years, living together for two. He says Valentine's Day is a made up holiday to get people to spend money. I told him every holiday is geared toward people spending money. That's touche.

I find myself feeling angry and hurt that I'm not receiving anything for Valentine's Day. He never buys cards or flowers for me. How do I communicate to him that this is important to me without making things worse? I'm on the guy's side. Oh, yeah? Yep. Yeah. I'd leave. I can't stand Valentine's Day. I I it's like don't know. I'm the kind of guy who does that stuff year round. But he doesn't. He doesn't It's made to rescue this man. Yeah. This isn't make you look good, Dave. No. Don't try to talk about the guy. The article doesn't, like, say all year. It says that day. Like, I never get cards or flowers on Valentine's Day. He never buys cards or flowers for me. That just makes me think, like, on Valentine's Day. Okay. You're wrong. What?

That does not specify in the little thingy. I don't know how to make that any more straightforward. Why don't you just talk in general like Valentine's Day? I don't know if she was just talking about Valentine's Day or in general. What's your advice to this man? Dude, be a man. Do it more. Not just one day a year. You're just That's why I don't like Valentine's Day. It's it's like guys cop like, a cop out. Be like, this is my one day a year. I gotta be nice.

And I I I just hate that. Yeah. Guys who do it wrong. Which is most. Well, I think that's what you're supposed to be doing with your music. Straighten it up. Yes. Race on Uncle Valentine's Day. That's right. Here here's her problem. She is giving him no reason to pursue her. He's she's giving him everything he wants with no commitment. Pretty much. Within six months. And For the last two years, he gets anything he wants. Why bother with a card? Why bother with a flower? Do you still give him wife? So your advice to the woman is tease it a little. Show me a little leg. No.

My advice is cut off what you're doing, move out, find Jesus, and then start dating. Wait. Does it say that they live together and have sex like Dan has implied? Yes. Assume. After six months. They're 2.5 they're together two and a half years. After six months, they moved in together. He's getting everything he wants. Okay. Okay. Valid assumption. Yeah. Alright. Your advice, Ben? Yeah. No. Actually, I'm with Dan on this one. I'm with Dan on this one. You can't you can't start at the wrong way, keep living it the wrong way, and then assume that it's gonna turn out right. Yeah. You want a fairy tale doing it all, you know, it's like

you gotta work for it. Yeah. He's he's the lowest common denominator, and he will continue to act like that as long as you find that acceptable. K. Roll off. There's a great book by doctor Gary Chapman called five love love languages. He can pick that up at our website. It's facebook.com/worldgames. Roloff

gave for a donation. Free will. Just receiving gifts. That's right. We are. Here we go. A sec here's sec oh, so our advice is, look, just bring up with a guy. This relationship is over. It's not a bow down thing. It's a symptom of the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. Stop trying to legislate legislate morality and just call it what it is. You should just not be with the man. Yeah. Vote Obama. Here we go. Do better next time. Segular's advice is, your boyfriend may be cheap, but he also has a point. According to a report on NPR that's totally reliable. It's silly. The celebration of Valentine's Day started in ancient Rome and contains elements of both Christian and pre Christian religions. Pre Christian religions prior to the Lord making the world. In the third century AD, two men named Valentine were executed by the emperor Claudius two in different years on February 14. And a few hundred years later, a pope, Galatius one, combined Saint Valentine's Day with Lupercalia,

a fertility feast to replace the pagan ritual. Research this online if you wish because I found it fascinating. The holiday didn't become for the Wikipedia quote. Is there advice in here? Okay. That said, allow me to point out that there are a few things more unpleasant than feeling forced to give someone a gift. If you have already discussed this with your boyfriend and he's still resistant, then instead of focusing on what you're not getting out of this relationship, try focusing on what you are getting. It may help you feel less deprived. Lower the bar. That's Wow. That's how you handle it. Actually, that's how I got my last three raises at work. That's awesome. Let's not talk about how crappy you're paying me. Let's talk about how much I enjoy free coffee. By the way, keep your money. My family is fine.

Here we go. Dear dear life from the path. Okay. I have an extremely bright seven year old daughter, Amy, from a previous marriage. Her biological father, Jake, and I separated when she was an infant. He lives across the country, so while we shared custody, Amy usually saw him only once a year. For a while, I I called him dad when talking about him to her, but when it became apparent that he wasn't going to be involved in her life and because I was going to be remarried, we switched to using his first name. My current husband formally adopted Amy last year, and she couldn't have been happier. Now there's a baby sister, and Amy's overjoyed. Recently, though, Amy has started asking me why Jake never visits and when she's going to see him again. I don't know what to tell her. I feel it would be crushing to her to say that Jake isn't interested in her anymore, but I also don't want to lie to her. How do you tell a seven year old she should just forget her biological father because he's never going to be there for her? Bam.

Wow. You want my honest opinion? Yeah. You just be honest. Like, I I mean, you don't have to there's gonna punch is gonna be thrown. You don't have to put everything. You don't have to haymaker it. You know what I'm saying? But, I I mean, she gonna feel it. Her dad's a turd. You know? Like That feels like something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know I mean, don't make her think that her feelings are disingenuous. You know I'm saying? Like, don't make her feel like like she's feeling something that's not the way that she should be feeling. You know, like it's true. Her dad is across the country and he's choosing not to be here. And like I don't want to say that. Like that's what's happening. And so like any form of flowering that up, she's seven years old. I think I'd tell my six year old that if that was the case. Like, I mean, the more honest you are with your kids, the better. And I like you know, you don't have to go into every sort of detail of what happened. But, like,

you know, I I think you be as honest as you possibly can. Hudson? I agree. I I think you have to be honest. You you know, at at her level, tell her what's what's going on and and what's going on with the relationship. And that's that's a that's a toughie. How do you tell someone your your own father is is not interested? So, like, give me can you guys give me an example of of what you might say?

Okay. So same situation. Right? Like, we'll call it my ex wife. She moved out to California. She hasn't said we haven't seen her in six years. Yeah. Okay. And the daughter asks, you know, why doesn't mommy come around?

Sure. Boy, I'd I'd use a lot of flowery language because Well, tell girls. Have it. You can't just tell this woman, know, don't tell her if she's Okay. Well, boy, that's a good question. I don't know exactly what I'd say. When I was 11, my mom just told me, well, we went to the custody hearing and your dad said, I don't want them. You take them.

And so I figured, well, I guess I'm with mom. Was it I suppose that's pretty straightforward. That was pretty straightforward. It was like I mean, I I That wasn't shocking either. Can you ask just honestly? Why doesn't why doesn't mom why doesn't dad call? I I don't know, sweetheart. I don't. Your dad I can't imagine loving you any anymore. So I, you know, I don't know. I I hope you're able to talk to him about that one day. Yeah. I don't know where your dad's heart's at. I don't know what's going on in his life. All I know is that you're loved here. And and, you know, whatever chance whatever I can do to help you, you know, get in touch with your father, I I will. I mean, what else do you say? Like, it's just the honest truth. Let let let's let's pray for your dad, and let's hope that somebody has a change of heart. But right now, he's he's he's busy with work. He's He's just not in a his life is occupied. Yeah. You know? And he's he's just not here. I mean, what are you gonna do? Try to make the guy not look like a jerk? He's a jerk. Yeah. He's a jerk. Help that. You know what saying? Like, you don't have to call him a jerk, but you can set up the blocks so they spell jerk. You know what saying? Like, it's just I mean, it's just kind of the deal. Well, you know, we've I've always explained to our children in in settings that not everybody loves Jesus. You know? I mean, not everybody's gonna follow Jesus. Not everybody's gonna live

his way. And you can't do anything about that other than tell them about Jesus. And and that's really that's just life. And let's say, but dad, told them about Jesus. Now they won't play with me. Yeah. It's like, well Man, that's rough. I've had that same conversation. And it is. I know. And and it you're you're sitting there thinking, man. You don't wanna have them back off. But at the same time, you gotta tell them reality. Reality is some people just won't like you. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I mean, you know Because of Jesus. Is it the entire first grade? Isn't there I'm I'm I'm praying that night. I'm like, Lord, isn't there one person who loves you in that class? You say, let's read Jeremiah. Yeah. Seriously. You know? That's I got the weeping prophet daughter in there causing a bunch of trouble during study. For heaven's sakes, bringing her own sack lunch. You know what saying? Like, she didn't do anything. Right? Roloff, what do you think? Man, that's that's a terribly tough terribly tough situation. Yeah. I I think honesty is the best policy. We had a at our at our old church, we had a

family who was foster family or foster parents. They had lots of kids that were in the foster system. And they adopted one girl and they never they told her that, you know, we're your we're your parents. And she turned 18, found out that they were lying to her and it all went to crap. Yeah. And the thing, you know, and the funny thing was that the foster parents,

their response this is what was hilarious. Their response was, well, see, this is why you don't tell them. How ignorant can you be? No. This is exactly why you do tell them. Yeah. Because you can't you you have lied to them now. And that woman that girl went back to go live with that terrible family. They didn't want her around. They didn't want her when she showed up. But she was like, at least these people are honest with me. Right. They've honestly gave me up, and they honestly don't like me. But, you know, it's honest. Telling me the truth. I think there's something to be said for honesty. And you gotta I mean, it's it's not an it's not an easy subject. It's it's never gonna be an easy subject. And I think, you know, we talk about Jesus a lot. But this is one of those places where the gospel comes in really handy. You know, we have been adopted into Christ to this girl. She's seven. We we, of course, don't know her family situation, but she has an adoptive father.

We can celebrate that. We can mourn the loss of this guy, but we can celebrate the fact that you do have parents that love you. And that doesn't make flowery language. That's equally true. Yeah. You know, we can't yeah. So Well, and I I mean, look at look at for any scriptural example where you soften the blow of something that's true.

You know what I'm saying? Anywhere. Anywhere. God's always fairly blunt. He always directs his prophets to be fairly blunt. Jesus is was way blunt. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's there's no I I that's a societal. It's a cultural thing. You know what I'm saying? Like, attempting to spare, you know, the truth, like, by shading it a different color. Do your kids ever watch Arthur? Yeah. The TV show? No joke. My daughter was watching Arthur the other day. And they have yeah. Sometimes on Arthur, they'll cut to like, it's a PBS thing. They'll cut to real kids and they'll talk about the issue or whatever kind of on those some of those shows. Sometimes they do that. Yeah. Anyway, and this was an Arthur episode and they were they were talking about good times to lie.

Good times to lie. You look good. Like I told Ben that he looked good. That's a bold faced lie. Yeah. It is. Can't even tell you different than that. No. But you know what I mean? I mean, there's the how what have we come to as a culture that we really want to to teach people the difference between a white lie and a real lie? The art of manipulating the truth. Because it's really is an art. It's the it's the whole thing that Daniel was talking about. Right? Like, it's the whole it's the whole facade. Oh, yeah. We we live a life of a facade ry. And

and as opposed to, like, cleaning that up, making your life way more simple by not doing that, we're trying to figure out how you do it correctly. You know, that and here's the like like, here's the truth of the matter. Like, I have I have a very close relationship with with a young man, and, like, he cannot tell the truth for nothing. Even when he's trying to be honest, it's still it's still 50%. It's still not dead honest. You know, it's not everything.

It's more honest than he was. But it's not total honesty. You know, and like, you just look at it and you go, you know, it's really so freeing to be that honest. You know what I'm saying? You got a problem with looking at ladies? Tell them you got a problem with looking at ladies. You got a problem with telling lies? Tell them you got a problem with telling lies. You stealing crap? Are you hosing it up at work? Are you showing up an hour late and leaving an hour early? Are you stealing money from people? You know what I'm saying? Like, tell somebody that stuff. Why you gotta tell my business on the old Yeah. On the net? Is your name Ben Foost? This might be you. Yeah. Are you ugly to boot?

Yeah. Jesus loves you. He's it. You know what I'm saying? Just to do what he says. Well, I I like illustrations. One of my I was a foster parent too in in Texas, and we had two little kids for two years in our house before they went back to their biological family. And one of the interesting things is Kimmy, Kimberly is her name, she was she came to us when she was two left when she was about four. Holy cow. Those are developmental years. Right? But when when a kid comes to you when they're that little and they have been bounced around all over the place their whole life at this point, all two two of their years of life. They have no one to protect them. It's really interesting how she behaved.

When she first came to live with she she was the life of the party. Whenever we would go over to my family's house, like my parents' house or my sister's house, she would always crack the joke. She would be the life of the party. And one of the things I noticed when she was being the life of the party was she was always relatively distant from everyone. She didn't want to come and sit and cuddle. She'd want to be picked up. She'd always make a joke and make you laugh because if you're busy laughing, you're not getting that close to her. It was about two years into it just shortly before she left us or not yeah. That's selfish way of saying it. Before she went back to her family Yeah. We same thing. Walked into my my sister's house and

all of my family was there to welcome us into the front, you know, like they normally do. And this time, Kimmy did something she'd never done before. She hid behind me. And this was her she'd known these people for two years. Yeah. But for the first time in those two years, she had someone that was protecting her. She didn't have that for two years. Right. And I think one of the scariest things in the whole world is to feel alone. We lie and we put on airs and we put these masks on, whether it be the Christian bubble or whatever it is, because we're freaking scared. We're scared to death. If anybody would actually know me, this could all end in tears. And the gospel is and my one one of my wife's favorite things in Song of Solomon is his banner over me is love.

We need that, don't we? We we need women especially need that, but even men, we all need that. We need someone to say, this one's mine. I love this one. This one's okay. I got you. And that's really scary for people who don't have that. And and part of what we need to hear in the gospel is that adoption process, that what we get is we get union with the God of heaven and earth. And he he's got that. He covers us and not just washes our sins away, but he's got our back.

What is it for John? First John? Perfect love casts out fear because there's no fear in judgment. In the love of God, there's no fear of judgment. I don't have to afraid. Don't have to lie. I have to make up stories. I don't have to do this and that. Right. I I'm embraced by a God who ought to crush me. That would be right, but he doesn't.

I find it. I sometimes I struggle with that a lot with with what he ought to do and what he chooses to do. I find him disingenuous. You know what saying? I find sometimes I find the Lord disingenuous because I know he ought to crush me and he chooses not to. And I don't understand that. I don't understand grace like that. You know I'm saying? I don't know people that act like that. I I don't know that I've witnessed that physically on the earth. You know what I'm saying? You know what's really funny? And I'm gonna take that as a correction on that phrase. And here and here's why. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Right? Genesis one one. We just had a really crazy long debate about it. Right? And what did he say about creation? He said it was good, didn't he? And he said that he said that Mike Fusch was good. He said that Dan Dan, you're you're that's Dan. That's Daniel. That's I don't know. They're playing

toe What's going on over there? They're tickling each other or something. Dan Daniel's having some personal issues. He may have bumped his head after dropping his phone. I was just like I was like, I dropped it. Went to pick it up. There's like two people that saw that. That's pretty embarrassing for you. But but I think I think one of the I think one of the things that we we and and and I'm a reformed guy. I'm Presbyterian, Calvinist, all that kind of stuff. One of the things that reformed guys tend to to emphasize a whole lot is what they call worm theology. Right? Amazing grace saved a wretch like me. The wretch theology that we're filthy, rotten, wretched, terrible, awful sinners. And what God should do is destroy us because we are bags of feces. Right?

Do you like how it You can't say feces on well, actually, we're out. Go ahead. Yeah. Should I say the s word? It's probably more fun. Yeah. Only do what We like to think of ourselves as more as used tampons. Yeah. Used tampons. So That is more luxurious. Thanks, guys. That's Isaiah Dan. But we tend but when we do that, I think yeah. When when we say that, I think we get to Mike's point. Yeah. This ingenuous idea that, well, God should crush us, but then he doesn't. Well, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But here's here's the thing that I think we often miss. And I'm gonna take, like I said, what you said is correction to me. God said you were good, and that's why he's saving you because you are good and you are worthy of saving and all creation is worthy of saving. And that's why he's saving you. Right? Because you are good. The problem is you rebel against that which is good. God has called you to be good and you've rebelled against that good, destroying and damning yourself.

Right? You you, you talk about living a joy filled life. You choose the path of most destruction. You're not being a good human being. You're being a really bad human being. And as such, you're destroying yourself. And God has created a system by which you are destroyed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's I suppose that's essentially it. Like, it's just that I think it's just the difference of of of

like, I can I can I can explain the the grace of Jesus Christ, and I can understand that it's there? But like in reality, sometimes I find it hard to accept.

Right? Because I can get burned a lot of times. At tenth time, I'm probably just about done. You know what I'm saying? Christ's love doesn't work like that. Right? And, like, I've I've felt that kind of redemption, but I just don't know that I trust it. That's I'm not saying I'm saying that I'm wrong in that. Right? Like, it's hard to trust a god that that behaves that way because I've never known

love like that apart from his. He's one of a kind. You know what saying? Like, there's only one being that acts like him. Right. There's only one being that loves like him. And so it's not like you get used to it. It's not like it happens a lot. You know what saying? Right. It's very singular and it's very intense and it's there's only one. And so it just makes it you know, when you see two of something, it just you trust that there was a process, a pattern, something happened and it was looked over that too happened. You know what I'm saying? But like when there's just one, it's anomaly. It's a weirdness. And you're like, I'm not really sure how that came about. You know what I'm saying? Two drafts is regular. One draft with two heads, weird. You know I'm saying? You're like, I just don't understand it. No. It's alright. Just to clarify. Race of Jesus Yep. Is like a giraffe with two heads. That's right. Yes. You didn't see it coming, but it's awesome. I like that. That's a t shirt right there. And it was created for you. Alright. What what what did we get secular's advice on that? No. No. Go ahead. Yeah. Wait. That was the free to Yeah. Okay. Here we go. By all means, please don't tell her you wouldn't wanna hurt her self esteem. She's a very fragile little girl and oh, sorry.

Okay here we go. Secular says, Your daughter needs to come to this realization in stages and her questions should be answered in age appropriate way. Understand that Amy may always be interested in knowing about her biological father and by the time she's in her teens she will be computer savvy enough to search him out on the internet. For now, tell your daughter that the reason Jake doesn't visit is because he's busy and you don't know when he plans to visit. It's the truth. He may not be busy. No. He could be a bum. Well, I mean yeah. I'm guessing he's a bum. That's my guess. I don't think he's busy. You wanna do one more? Yeah. Let's do got some Pope style. I'll save my Pope style for next week. Alright. I like talking about board games. We can talk about board games. I'm Joe I'm it's not my show. I actually got a jet. Okay.

Daniel's heading out. I gotta go. Alright. Okay, buddy. Well, thanks for you guys. No. Thanks for stopping by. Yeah. It was good to hang out. It was good stuff. Okay. We'll talk to you later. I got a gym to get to and stuff. Yeah. No. No. I understand. I work all day tomorrow and all that. Alright. Yeah. Be by there. Sweet. Hang on a minute. He's gonna he's gonna go. Nice to meet you, sir. No. There he is talking to folks. Bye. See you, buddy. Oh, I'm in the way. Sorry.

No. No. I guess we'll see you later. You and me think of the Daniel show. More about Daniel coming up. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Hit the hit with the last one. Here we go. Last one. Dear life from the past, my brother Jared is dating a woman, Dawn, who is about ten years younger. They've been seeing each other for about a year. She seems nice and and is polite at family gatherings. I have noticed, however, that whenever I'm spending time with my mother, Dawn is constantly texting or calling her. I'm a grown woman too, but I never communicated to that degree with any of my boyfriend's moms.

Jared has told both mom and me that he isn't even close to wanting to propose marriage. Do you think it's peculiar that Dawn contacts my mother multiple times daily? No. They just get along. Yeah. What whatever. What the heck do you care? Sheesh. They have stuff in common. Hey. What do use to get stains out of this shirt? I'm gonna I'm gonna say that it's 11:20, and I'm confused. I don't know what just happened.

Something about ten years and people calling people and love and can't we just all get along something? Just roll the dice. Okay. I wanna tell you what secular says, and we're gonna be done with this thing. Okay. Secular says, Dawn may not have a mother of her own and need a mother figure. That's completely speculation, which is why she does this. Or she may be attempting to ingratiate herself to her boyfriend's mother because she thinks it will help her land your brother.

Not knowing Dawn, I can't say for sure. That didn't stop you before. But this technique has worked for other women in the past. Yeah. I don't it's just a nonissue, man. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Keep that up, man. My boyfriend's or my my brother's girlfriend text text my mom a lot. Who cares? You know what saying? It's mom it's your mom's phone, and it ain't you. We're into some nosy business. Yeah. Okay. That's it. We're done. Okay. We don't need be a part of that anymore. Yeah. We're out. Just tell her not to write back. Yeah. You know what? And don't write in again. Don't ever don't ever You are paying advice anymore. We are done with you. Olaf, you got anything else going on at your place? Yeah. Yeah. You're way too sharp at 11:20. What's that question?

You got anything else happening at your place? What time you gotta get up in the morning? Early? I got a bible study at 07:45 in the morning. I gotta leave town at six. Well, you win. So you can take your pity party out at the gym with Daniel Johnson. Hey, boys. I gotta go. I'm gonna I would so wait. How about do you have any other games in the tank? So we played we played a What's that what first one called? Samson and Delilah. Yeah. Is that what it's called? Yeah. What's it? You got a name for it? It's Samson and Delilah, the card game. The card game. It's okay. That's pretty fun. Sounds pretty sharp. Yeah. Yeah. Lame. Hudson's off your marketing team. Oh, Sharp. I get it. Man, I'm not I'm not down to wake. Alright. Here we go. Do. You just roll off. What have you when you're not 80. You know what I'm saying? You had a full strength soda before you came in. It was true. I'm not tired. It's just like the brain ain't firing real quick. You guys live at a much higher pace than I do. In the city. I've heard that before.

Yeah. I ain't from this big city. So wait. Do do you have any other games in the tank? Anything you might be able to tease a little bit? Yes. I currently, in this building right now, have four games. I've got go diving that is essentially done. It's still not completely done. In fact, I would say for full disclosure, I think I'm the when we did when we were playing Yeah. When you could turn in the non assigned animals Yeah. In any any group, that ain't no good. Oh, it's gonna be. You know what? You because you know what happened. Right? It sounded okay, but as soon as we realized you could do that, everybody just canned out every time as quick as they could. That's right. Did you notice that? Right. You tried steal a pile of things. Yeah. Because you were just getting rid of all your stuff. Yeah. And there was no challenge to it. Cause if you just had six of anything, it was gone. So there has to be a little bit of a Yep. A push on that. But anyway, so that's called playtesting,

which I've been playtesting this thing for probably a year. Yeah. It takes a long time to work out some of that stuff. Because the neat thing about a game is it's all about interrelationship between human beings. So got so GoDiving is really close to done. Yep. It's really close to done. I've got another game that was inspired by the movie Nim's Island, but of course, I'm not going to try to print a licensed property like that. Yeah. So it's being rethemed. It will either be called mice in the kitchen or three hungry mice. And it's a it's a it's actually a game perfect for your for your girls. You have two girls. Right? I do. It'd be perfect for your girls, and I'll I can show it to you. And I'm gonna be printing that one. That one's pretty much done. It's a it's a it's a memory adventure game

where you're on well, Nim's Island one. You're on an island. You're hunting for the resources to get to dad who's out on on the boat. I don't know if you remember that movie. But anyway, uses basically memory and some strategic moving, and then there's some obstacles and traps and stuff like that. It's pretty simple. And then I've got a two player light strategic board game right now themed

using the theme of paintball. Yeah. And trying to capture that feeling of the the the speed and intensity of the the open field style Yeah. Paintball where you just have some stuff you're hiding behind to capture the flag stuff. And the components are just dice. I should feel like that's a tough row to to hoe there. You know what saying? The intensity of open field combat with dice.

Well, right. I mean, there's there's a there's a there's a I mean, I like your ambition. Roloff, I'm just saying. I I what I mean is I throw dice at a guy. Right. In a in a tabletop in a tabletop game. Right. I mean, there's obviously some limitations. Although there is a game that was made by some guys in Germany called street paintball that's actually really fun. And you actually have colored balls in the table that you chunk at each other. Oh, sweet. It's kinda fun. But so the that's the other one. I've got another game that is back here in development called Legal Limit. No. It's not about drinking. It's at about actually about fishing. The idea it's another set collection style game, kinda like go diving. But the idea is we're all fishing on a lake, but we've only got certain fishing licenses.

And those are kept secretive. Yeah. So I'm trying to catch as many fish as I possibly can, but I've only got fishing licenses for certain things. And there's a DNR character that kinda can come around and bust you and stuff like that. Okay. I really like the sound of that one. And there's bribing the DNR. You can bribe the DNR guy. If that goes well, he just goes away. If it doesn't go well, well, it doesn't go well. Yeah. So legal limits, another card game that I'm working on, and that's it at the moment. I probably yeah. I'd probably buy three of those games. Yeah. I don't know about your paintball with dice. That I'd have to I'd have to see it. I'm gonna I'll keep my mind open.

It's it's actually interesting. What's what's fascinating about that game is well, I could show it to you, but it it's it's the idea of moving groups of your guys at the same time to reposition them. And anyway, you'd have to see it. Yeah. I've kinda made my mind up, Roloff. I feel like I don't like it. That's good. You you shouldn't like it. Yeah. I keep I'm open. I'm open to it. But, you know, I I really I honestly, though, I mean, if anybody's still listening to the podcast at this point or just for you guys, Ticket to Ride is it really is a good game. I have played that before. Is it fun? Did you like it? It was it was it was great. Yeah. Yeah. It was very unique. Very Yeah. Yeah. It's it's an incredible game. There's a it's yeah. Dan is on fire tonight. I'm chilling.

Go out and get that game. We will change your life. We need a quote for the front of the game. It was unique. Yeah. Pastor Darren Hudson. Gifted was word. Fantastic. Yeah. I I highly recommend that game. Settlers of Catan is

it came out in 1993, and is called Settlers of Catan has self proclaimed the monopoly of our generation. Really? It is oh, it's so much fun. You know you know what one of the neat things about monopoly is the bartering and the bargaining? Yeah. Hey. I got this property over here for this. Settlers of Catan is basically that system. Right? What you have is you've got this island. We don't have to talk about this on the air. But anyway,

I'm like, what are you believe? People spend good hard earned money downloading this sucker. Yeah. So but anyway, Settlers of Catan, that's a really great game where you're trading resources. But, that is a that is a that is a boatload of fun right there. You know, we might have Roloff come in every once in while and be our game guy. You know I'm saying? Tell us what to be doing. Hey. Here's the deal. There's there's something very wholesome and awesome about sitting down and playing games with friends. Ain't no doubt. And I I hate it. We But I really like it when I eventually do it. We we have friends that that we get together with them. They're always like, let's play a game. And then inside I'm going, this it's like the fingers on the chalkboard. Yeah. Yeah. Let's play a game. But every time we do it, I'm like we leave and I'm going, why don't we ever play games? Yeah. Was fun. Yeah. It really was fun. You know what I attribute that though too? And this is this is in in the board game where we call it a mira trash. A lot of the game we all ask what was our favorite games. Right? Sorry, Monopoly, Life. We call those a Meritrash. And and what what I mean by that is there's not much to it. I mean, honestly, you think about it. Monopoly is just Candyland for grown ups. Yeah. There's there's Why why is it yeah. No. Ain't. No. No. No. Well, okay. There's some there's more there's more going on. There's more going on than just Candy Land. But think about how little you can really control. You can't control where you land. And you since you can't control where you land, you can't control what you buy. And since you can't control what you buy, the only thing you've got in that game is trading resources

or trading the Yeah. Deal with the hand that you were dealt. Yeah. Right. But there's better ways. There's more fun interactive ways where you can you can shorten the game. The problem with Monopoly is nobody wants to play Monopoly because it doesn't end. That's what people who lose say. But yeah. But but Monopoly Point. I have but I would but I would say though, if if you can't know that Monopoly is gonna end in an hour, it's it's a little daunting. Right? Well, that's true. You have to set a day apart. Usually, evening. You know, we're starting at five. It could be ten. And that's one game. Whereas if you got together with some friends and you played go diving, you could play Ticket to Ride, could play Settlers of Catan, you could play a card game, you could play some dice stuff, you could play more games in that amount of time, have different kinds of experiences, and one of those experiences could be the best experience from Monopoly. Yeah. The thing is, there's nothing wrong with Monopoly. It's not a bad game. It's still a great game. But there are better there are just better games. I mean, Monopoly's been around for a long time. Is the Bible.

Right. But no. This is board games aren't infallible though. So I have a legitimate board game question for you, but I didn't think it was appropriate earlier because the radio broadcast people probably wouldn't care. Yeah. You were describing buying your careers copy though, by the way. You were describing the whole game idea. You you you make choices. You're rewarded for your choices, and there's competition and you wanna win and blah you know, the whole thing. And I was thinking, you know, it's do they sell many games, board games, like, in in communist countries where their system's not set up that way? I mean, that kinda like Question. Beads into America. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been an excellent question. I was thinking, yeah. Like, oh, your politics at the time. Just No. No. That's a they they probably look at that gaming differently. Yeah. I mean, mean, it's just they probably don't get it. Well,

Germany is not a communist country. There's a lot a lot of tabletop gaming in Germany. What are the big China. Right? Yeah. China. China produces a lot of board games for us. I'm trying to think if they play many. But I think the answer I think the answer is yeah. Because the reality is we we make choices every day. So it does I mean, even though you can't make capitalistic choices, you can make there's a lot of agricultural games. A lot of what they call euro games or European style games. So it's a different twist. Yeah. Because see what drives us in our games is I wanna win. I want to crush my family in Myopoly. Right. Well, yeah. Okay. Now think about it. I'm glad you came, grandma Millie.

I'm gonna take you down. Yeah. Well, you could drive that car of despair home. But think about you've played you've played Ticket Ride. Now I don't know if you've just played Ticket to Ride once. But Ticket is a good Ticket to Ride is a good example of the kind of game where in

it's a it's a classic euro game because what you're doing is you're trying to accomplish your set of goals. Mike's trying to set accomplish his set of goals. I'm trying to accomplish my set of goals. The competition is who can get their goals done the best and the quickest. And where competition lies is in the natural working out of there's only so many rail lines to be used. Mhmm. And I'm not in because I don't know what you need. So I'm not taking this rail line to stick it to you. Although the second it happens, if you play ticket, you're pissed. You want to punch your guy even if it's your dad because I got pretty ticked at my dad. He got pretty ticked at me too. But that's what happens and it's the joy of it. Most European style games are like that. What you're trying to do

is usually somewhat self contained and the competition comes up in a more casual way, kind of like that. But the neat thing is you can work harder at those kinds of competition if you want to. Because that's what to me, that's what makes a hobby game designer games, euro style games so much more fascinating. I really I mean, I could talk for hours about this. I mean, but just giving people little bits of decision, decreasing the luck, making it more about strategy

just makes a far more enjoyable experience for adults. And if you can introduce that to kids, it's even better. Oh, yeah. That's what I think. I mean, was thinking honestly, I figured that communist countries probably don't allow some of those games because it would feed into freedom and capitalism and and I wonder. Yeah. I mean, that's how you change a culture is through their entertainment. Look. That's that's how America has changed so much. It's through our entertainment. Think. What are some of the biggest there are Korean games, but then again, there's two sides of Korea. So I'm assuming it's from the non communist side. You're listening live from the path on livefromthepath.org. We're wrapping this podcast up, buddy. Thanks for hanging on for so long. There's been great things happening. Nothing really happened in your house, so you made a good decision here. Ben, what do we got going on next week? Anything? No. No. I doubt it. It's probably gonna be sword fighting. I got some Pope style advice that we'll hit that we'll talk about next week. Alright. It has to do with how you I don't know. What are you doing today?

So we'll talk about that. That's motivational. Yeah. Boo. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. We will we'll catch you next week. Thanks for hanging on, and big thank you to our sponsors. Big thanks to Bob Eisenhower with the Eisenhower team. Go to eisenhowerteam.com. Now May or may not be the time to buy or sell a house. Bob would know. You should talk to Bob. He'll help you out. And also the folks at veterinary excuse me, Westfield Veterinary Hospital. And, if you go to westfieldvethospital.com, you can set up your appointment online or you can give them a phone call. And, here's the deal. If February is the pet dental month, he don't have any thumbs. Your dog does not have thumbs. He don't brush his own teeth. Nope. You're gonna have to take care of that business. And if you're not, hang your head in shame. Call the vet. They'll do that stuff for you. They'll help you set it up. Do general maintenance on the dog. That cat's breath is not supposed to smell like that. Exactly. And that tongue is not a miracle weapon. I know you think it does everything, and that's all it needs is a tongue. Have you ever, you know, cleaned your leg with a tongue? It's not a good idea. What part of kibbles and bits sounds sounds edifying? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Here here you give him the same food every day, twice a day, and expect him to use his tongue as his main weapon.

Take him in. Have him looked at. Westfieldpethospital.com. For listening to Life for the Path. I hope you guys have a an excellent week. We don't have any tunes. Where's the tunes at? What is that? Why are you doing that?