CTP (S3EFebSpecial5) Valentine’s Week With Game Legend Bob Moog

CTP (S3EFebSpecial5) Valentine’s Week With Game Legend Bob Moog
Valentine's Week 2026 episode # 3
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond   
We sit down with Bob Moog of University Games to explore how party games spark honest talk about love, trust, and manners. From “Am I The Ass?” to Smart Ass and Judge Your Friends, we show how survey-driven dilemmas turn friction into fun while keeping faith and humor intact.
• why “am I the ass” turns online dilemmas into table talk
• how survey-based answers shift by region and values
• why couples should play on Valentine’s with pizza
• sample scenarios on trust, spying, and first-date bills
• Smart Ass design: easy clues, fast answers, universal topics
• Judge Your Friends: gavel drama and truth-telling
• analog play vs screen time and lost conversation
• where to buy the games and ship in time
https://tinyurl.com/SubscribeToCTP  
CTP Audios: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBuzzsprout 
CTP Videos: https://tinyurl.com/JLDonBITCHUTE 
https://tinyurl.com/CTPgear  

A Short Story: A Lasting Legacy? book Trailer

Transcript

Cold Open & Valentine’s Week Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello, welcome to another episode of Constitutionals Podcast. I am your host, Joseph M. Warner. That's L-E-N-A-R-T of Francis Now let's run the O. Thank you for tuning in. As Gram Norton used to say on his show, let's get on with the show. Hello gang. Oh, pardon. I gotta clear the throat there. Pardon. No cough button here. I don't have a professional studio, so no cough button. And no, I'm not gonna edit it out. Hey, this is what you get with me, right? Real and raw. At any rate, special intro segment. Today, well, it is Valentine's Week 2026. I'm doing a brief short intro. I'm going to be talking with Bob Moog, today being Friday the 13th. Ooh, scary, right? Nothing to do with Friday the 13th, but Valentine's Week, a relationships game. University Games, M I the S. I highly recommend it. And also, yes, this week in February, I've been doing two guest shows a week in January and February, possibly into March. This week, three weekday drops as well as the Saturday monologue. On Tuesday, February the 10th, had D.H. Morris, her book dealing in romance and relationships as well as history in that historical fiction book of hers. On Thursday, the 12th, roller coaster relationships. On Friday the 13th, Bob Moog replayed from a few years ago. We'll be getting to that. And tomorrow, Saturday the 14th, actual Valentine's Day, another monologue. Oh, the roller coasters wasn't an interview, uh, though during the weekdays usually are interviews, it was a former video exclusive turned special episode for Valentine's Week. So two interviews this week, two monologues this week, a very rare, weird Christitutionalist podcast, week of shows. Let's get in back from a couple of years ago, Bob Moog interview. Joining me today is Bob Moog, not to be confused with, if you remember a few months ago, Robert the Boogeyman Hoog, who we talked about controversies about Shakespeare all these centuries later, not Robert B-O-O-G, Bob B-O-B Moog M-O-O-G. And he is one of the most recognizable people in the toy and game industry. He is the founder of University Games, the largest independent game and puzzle company in the U.S. Top products from the company include Smart Ass Game, Murder Mystery Party Games, Children Games featuring Dog Man, Pete the Cat, Eric Carl, and Richard Scary. But I mainly have them here today to discuss this. For those of you looking at behind the scenes, you can hold see me holding up the box of the game called Am I V S the Game, and I will hold really close to the camera, move my finger so you could maybe get the QR code to see their video about the game. But before I ask Bob anything and ask him to go into the game, I'm not sure if we need an NC17 on this episode, but it definitely needs at least a PG 13. So get the kids out of the room for this one. It's gonna be an interesting ride as we just got this. The game as I am holding up. Also, uh by way of a joke, I I've seen Bob's picture before today. So behind the scenes, you can see both of our heads, which is why I'm wearing for the benefit of the audio-only shows. And the transcript, my shirt with a body like this, who needs hair? Welcome to the show, Bob. How are you? Bet you weren't expecting an intro like that, huh?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

I've never had an intro saying, let's brag about our baldness. This is a good time. But I love it, Joseph. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

You know, I I like to try to keep a sense of humor, right? Things are so serious, we need to keep a sense of humor. So while this is a very serious Christian show most of the time, we've got to keep a sense of humor. And now with that warning out of the way, I want to hold it up again because I coined the term several years ago, mass holes for the masses of asses out there. So hashtag mass holes for this episode, and indeed, are are you one of the masses of asses out there? We're gonna delve into that today, and I am rushing this show to air February 5th because I want you to go to Amazon and pick up this game for Valentine's night. While the game says from two to five players, I suggest you get together as couples and play as couples. Two to five couples Valentine's night. Now, with that set up, uh why don't we do the usual first thing though first, Bob? Where were you born and raised and all that, right? Cue the Who song.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Who are you?

What Is “Am I The Ass?” The Premise

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Who I love that song. I uh the Who's my favorite band. That's great. I saw them in 1972 uh when they were on their quadrafinia tour at uh the arena in St. Louis, Missouri, where I grew up. Interesting. So you're from the state of Missouri, I mean Missouri. I'm from the state of Missouri, and I am a fourth-generation Missourian and uh went to public school there at Clayton High School, and I was a Greyhound, the Clayton Greyhounds, and uh I then moved for college out to California and uh have been living here ever since. But my roots are in Missouri and in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Well, then the obvious next question before we get into the game has got to be how far are you from the fires?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

I am 320 miles from the fires, so I'm in good shape. I'm in San Francisco, my house is safe, my family is safe. Uh, I do have friends in Los Angeles, and it's nasty down there. But you know, every part of the country gets something. There's hurricanes, there's tornadoes, everybody gets something. So this is a tragedy and it's really sad. It's far from me, but uh, you know, they will rebuild once this all gets done, just like they do in Florida when they have the hurricanes.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

It's okay. Without further ado, uh tell us the premise of am I the ass TM the game. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

So the when you invent board games, there's different categories, and we're really, really um known for doing preschool games and party games, and we've done many party games over the years, including uh games like Smart Ass and games like Worst Case Scenario for Survival, and we were the originators of murder mystery parties, but about a year and a half ago, someone in our company said, Did you have you seen this trend online of people posting situations where they may have behaved badly and asking the question, Am I the ass or am I the asshole? And then having other people who they don't know just crowdsource responses and create a dialogue. And I said, No, I've never seen that. Let me look into it. And we found out that on Reddit and on Facebook, there's millions of people. The numbers are close to 30 million people who participate in writing and reading these situations and giving their their you know their desktop psychiatrist you know responses to whether someone is or isn't an asshole. And we thought, what if we could make this a take-it-home version? And so we decided to figure out a way to do it so that everybody in the country with a computer without could play the game.

Regional Morality And Survey Mechanics

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, there's the tokens behind the scenes that you win if you get an answer right. I don't want to go into a bunch of questions, but I did look at the first one, so I will mention that. But before we do that, my audience knows I can never pass on the lame pun. So to go along with mass holes, the hashtag, here's something else you can use too. Uh, a couple things. One, you know, the saying, your mileage may vary. Well, since we're kind of dealing with morality here, I coined for your game regional morality may vary. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

No, I think that's great, Joseph. Yeah, because uh there can be a question here where somebody from New York would say, not only is this appropriate for a 12-year-old, I want my 12-year-old to know about condoms. And then someone in a different part of the country might say, that's totally inappropriate for 12-year-olds.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Especially the Bible Belt, right? Especially with this show, obviously. So, yeah, that's why I also suggest maybe you do regional versions of the game. M I the ass, the Bible Belt, am I the ass Midwest or Western states or liberals or conservatives? That way you know that the survey questions are from what group. Yeah. So you can, because the point is you are to guess what indeed the average person out there says, kind of like family feud, right? Survey says.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Right. You're very that's exactly right. The way the game plays, it's important for people to know how the game plays. The way the game plays is each player gets an asometer, and the asometer is a is a is an arrow on a card. Yeah, you're holding it out, and you choose whether 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of the people who we surveyed, like family feud, said that this person was an asshole. And the way you win the game is by correctly guessing what our survey said was the right answer, not what you think is the right answer. And our survey was a national survey with people urban and rural, conservative and liberal, old and young, men and women. It's a cross-section of 500 Americans, and um so it could fall anywhere, right? So it could fall anywhere. So it it there are some where I've I've done the cards and we read them, and the person is a 25-year-old woman, and she has the opposite answer of a 45-year-old man. They just see the world through different eyes, so it invites great conversation, and the conversation is really what makes this a incredibly great game. Am I not about being right or wrong, it's about having the conversation afterwards, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

And it's why I suggest people rush to Amazon, buy a copy, and play as two to five couples on Valentine's Evening. You're gonna have trouble getting in somewhere to eat anyway. Spend$24.99 instead for Am I the Ass the Game? Order a pizza, and you'll get a hell of a lot more fun, and you'll learn more about your potential spouse than perhaps you ever really wanted to know or thought you might know in the process. That's why I suggest, yeah, two to two or four, two, three, four couples could get together for this unvious.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

That's why I'm rushing this episode out before Valentine's Day. Joseph, I'd love to read you one that proves the point you just made. I I want to read yours first.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

The top one. Now, okay. See, the the meters at the bottom. I don't want to give away the answer. You're supposed to take out the card and put it in the M I the S the game holder so that it sits on the table and everybody can read it back after the initial person reads it. I don't want to read this whole thing. I just want to say, because I was at Frank's Pizza the other day, hey buttons, talking to her about the game, and her and her boyfriend, and the just so happens the first card deals with eloping. And her and her boyfriend are like, whoa, we gotta play this game. I'm giving a copy to her next weekend when I see her at Frank's Pizza.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Well, button will be excited to get that.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, buttons. FYI. We call her buttons because you know, like TGI Fridays, they wear all the different buttons. Uh so she's the only one there that wears a bunch of different buttons, and we've donated her a couple of different buttons. So we I I just call her buttons. That's great. At any rate, but yeah, I mean, the elope question to me is perfect in this. Well, that answer might be way different in Vegas, right? Than it would be Michigan or Hennessy or Georgia. Right.

Sample Dilemmas And Trust Debates

SPEAKER_02 17:19

So how will you behave behavior that makes you an ass in Georgia may not make you an ass in Las Vegas. It might be okay in Las Vegas. Would you like me to read one and you can and you can guess what our survey said? Is that okay? Do you feel like doing that?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Sure, if you want to do that. I don't want to give away a bunch of the cards. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

We'll just we'll just read one or two. So it gives people a sense of it, and this is one where men and women might answer very differently. Am I the ass for wanting to look at my husband's computer and browsing history? My husband, 39-year-old male, has started staying up late, claiming he's doing work on his computer instead of coming to bed with me. When I tried to log in yesterday, I found he'd changed the password without telling me. My friend, who works in IT, offered to install spyware to capture his keystrokes and get the new password. I know it's deceitful, but something feels off. So am I the asshole? Am I the ass for wanting to look at my husband's computer and browsing history? What do you think the people said? Do you think 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% said you're mad?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

As a former IT guy and as someone who is while still wearing my writing ring, what blah blah blah can't still can't talk. Still wearing my wedding ring, but a divorcee, uh is issues really because of health and all that, but still love my ex-wife to death. We just could never live under the same roof together anymore, right? I you've got to be honest with each other, or your foundation of your marriage is shit. So I would say that's a low win. No, why is he keeping secrets?

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Right. So the the the survey said you have to trust the husband, and so 100% said if she was to put spyware on his computer, that would be she would be an ass for doing that because she has to trust him. If you don't trust him, then you don't have a relationship. So it's sort of the same thing you were saying, but they came out with a different solution.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, I I I could see that answer, that other end, because now he's being deceitful. She, rather than confronting him to have an conversation, right, is being an ass, according to the case. I'm also being deceitful.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yes, it but it doesn't mean that he's not an ass. When you play this game, sometimes both people are, but you're just you're just we're just asking the survey group to pick the person, you know, who's the the in the first person on this. Um I absolutely love this game. Let me give you one more. We won't we won't do the whole box. There's 200 in the game.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Let me let me give you this next one just because it shows the breadth of the kinds of material that are and and and people who are viewing the show or listening now have a cheat. They're kind of an ass because they're cheating, they know the answer. That's why I didn't want to go into these. I know. We're only gonna do a couple. Well, let's let's let's do the question, but let's not give the answer.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Okay. Am I the ass for asking to split the bill after deciding that I was no longer interested on a date? I asked a girl out on a date, and we had a good time. But as the night went on, I decided I wasn't interested in pursuing anything further. She ordered several drinks, which I didn't mind at first. By the end of the night, I felt it was a bit much. When the bill came, I asked to split it with her. She looked surprised and didn't offer to pay her half, which made me wonder if I was being rude. So we won't say the answer, but is this person an ass for a male going out with a woman? Is he an ass for asking her to split the bill?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

These without getting into my answer, these are absolute societal norm situations now people are needing to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

I mean, I I have said this mockingly or jokingly, but maybe there's some truth to it that if the whole country would spend less time dealing with all the conflicts that everyone has and all the emotion and just play am I the ass, we would have a much happier, better adjusted country because people would be able to talk through their differences without taking it personally. They would be able to talk about it in terms of the survey group and stir into instead of what they think. And um, so maybe that's what'll happen. We'll start getting am I the ass versions into Congress? We'll start getting it into churches and temples, we'll start getting it into schools, and everyone will use it as a conversation piece.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Constitutional politics, I absolutely positively gotta see a morality version for the morons on Capitol Hill. They're definitely, they are definitely asses congressional version, right? Completely rename it. Not even a question. They are a bunch of asses. But uh to back up again, only$24.99 at Amazon, right? Probably uh do you sell it direct at universitegames.com?

SPEAKER_02 23:47

No, we have another website that's a sister company called rugame.com, ar e y o g-a-me dot com, r- you game, and they sell um all of the university games products, including M I the S. And um, it's really easy to get to. They also they also will ship the same day.

Music, Movies, And Personal Backstory

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Yeah, order it again. I'm dropping this on the 5th. Uh, you can have it by the sixth. And uh the other time for Valentine's Day. Plenty of time for Valentine's Day, yeah. And the other thing, too. I had forgotten the other joke I was gonna add. And and also you can exactly see why I immediately came up with regional morality may vary. I expect to see that on a future box. Free of charge. I I give I my gift to you as well as if you as well as if you want to use my hashtag mass holes.

unknown 24:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

But the other joke I was gonna say, you do you remember Sir Mix a lot? Sure, sure. I I like big he's got to be your spokesperson and do a parody of I like major asses, and I cannot lie, right? I can see the commercial now.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

That's funny. Sir Mixelot. I had forgotten all about him.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yeah, so we had a Who mentioned and a Sir Mixelot mention. That's good. Like I say, I never script my shows. Never know what rabbit hole's gonna open up. You mentioned you like the Who. So since we're talking music, who else are some of your favorite artists?

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Well, the Who has always been my favorite band, but um, I'm a big, big um Springsteen fan, which most people are. I really like Van Morrison.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Um who's working with Elvis at the uh local Burger King here in Kalamazoo, according to some still.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah, I think so. I uh I'm um I mean I like a lot of bands. I liked the Cars when they were active. Uh I I I listened to a lot of um you know Rolling Stones. I'm a I'm a Billy Joel fan. I kind of like you know, old rock and roll is what I like. Um, and that's what I listen to.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

I went to see the Dylan movie.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Did you have you seen the Dylan movie? No, I I am not a Dylan fan. I have absolutely zero. I am a big movie buff, so I see movies all the time. And of course, for constitutionalist politics podcasts, I had to see the Piece of Crap Conclave movie. Yeah, and it is exactly what I was expecting a complete attack on Christianity, mainly the Catholic Church, but you know, uh Dan Brown's movies and books, I had no problem with because he actually brought people to Christ and the Bible. You know, what of this is fact and what of it is fiction? He actually brought people to Christ, and Conclave, in my opinion, I give it a D minus, is all about attacking Christianity again. And one of the reasons why I felt called to create this show, obviously, to defend the whole Bible in full context, not the twists and distortions. But so, hey, we covered music and movies too. A couple of my favorite uh topics that again, you know, probably not gonna get this on any other show that that talks to you, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:02

I don't think so. Not any others that I've ever that I've ever done. I went to a concert in uh Hyde Park in London, which was I think the best concert I ever saw. It was Neil Young. And oh, another one I'm not a fan of. Yeah, well, two hours in, he's playing the Beatles song. Um and End of Your Life or whatever, and Paul McCartney walks out on stage and plays with him, and that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Day in the life?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Day in the life, yeah. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah, yeah. I do like the Beatles, I did like the Beatles. Uh, my parent, my dad, Ted Leonard Jr., founder of Ted Leonard Jr. and the polka kings. So growing up, musical family, yeah, country, polka, pop, rock, heavy metal. Uh, I'm into everything because of my father, you know, and his musical nature. So, yeah, and I pride myself in having a very different kind of show. So, people learning about you more, more maybe than you'd even like, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:15

It's fine. I'm an open book. So as long as they play games and enjoy what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Oh no, no, you're not an open book. You you're you're a well-laid out game board. That's good, Joseph. Boom, bump. Yeah. At any rate, so uh like I said in the email, I usually do 30-minute shows. I think we'll probably go closer to a full hour here. I mean let's let's talk about SmartAss. Okay, some of the other games. I know you you you brought props, so let's show a few of those and talk about those.

The Origin And Design Of Smart Ass

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Well, SmartAss, this is what the box looks like. This is available at Target and on Amazon and a lot of other places. It's um a game that we started, it's it's 2025 now. We started it 15 years ago, and the idea of the game was what if you had a game where every player knew the answer to every question? But the trick was to see who could get to the question first. And so I thought about this for a couple of years. I said, trivial pursuits, great, but a lot of people are intimidated by it. And also, there's always that one guy who's the smart ass who knows all the answers, and that makes it not fun for other people. So, how about if we could come up with a game where people, it was more about how fast you could come up with the answer than knowing the answer? And we created this game called Smartass. And the way it works is there are eight clues describing a well-known person, place, or thing. And everybody playing will know the answer. You will have heard of Elvis Presley, or you will have heard of Chicago or Kalamazoo. But the trick is, based on the clues, who can yell it out first? And what we found is we have this fantastic game that's really accessible to people of all ages and all backgrounds because we've made the answers so universal. And um, so I'm gonna give you one right now.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Okay, well, before we do that, I I I can't resist. Yes, like here's my question. Because uh again, another I love this promise, but my question has gotta be why are you so weird to come up with these things?

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Okay, that's a good question. So I will tell you, I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, as we talked about earlier. I'm the oldest of five kids, and growing up, my parents both worked, they were gone a lot, so I needed to find ways to entertain the little kids. And what I did is I would come up with um card games and different kinds of games that a five-year-old could play, a six-year-old could play, a nine-year-old could play, and a 11-year-old could play.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Not bore the crap out of the 11-year-old at the same time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Right. And what I learned is that a good game has a mixture of luck and skill. If it's all skill, the older child will always win. If it's all luck, the older child doesn't care. So I learned that as a as a kid, like when I was, you know, 10 to 15 years old. And then when I went to college, I started a thing, um, a trivia bowl, where I wrote and collected thousands of questions, and it was like the old college bowl quiz that used to be on when when I was a kid. And basically there would be two teams of four, and I moderated and I would ask questions. And I went to school at Stanford, and this was like the only activity that the students and the faculty and the staff all participated in that was fun. You know, everything else was academic, um, or drinking, or something else. And uh, so I did it and I found that people loved it, and we were able to fill auditoriums, and that's how I got so weird is starting when I was 10, 11 years old, inventing games. I just have it's in my it's in my genes now, you know. I'm a game inventor.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Okay, now you were gonna give an example from the smart ass game. Let's go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

So the smart ass game, the way it would normally play is we would have a group of four to six people, and I would say, I am a person, I could be living or dead, real or fictional, male or female, and I also could be um a group, like the Beatles would be under people, person. Okay, so here we go. And you just yell out the answer when you think you know it. You only get one guess, but you can yell it after one clue or after all eight clues. I am best known as a singer. I became famous for knowing my ABCs, my Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson, you got it after two clues. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Go ahead and give the verse to the clues now that I spoiled it.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

They get easier as you go. My pop group got its start at Motown. I have five brothers, and the oldest is Jermaine. My nickname was the King of Pop. I was known for moonwalking. I created a thriller in 1982. Who am I with the initials MJ?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, now obviously uh you couldn't have picked a better setup question to make me look good because, of course, I'm in Detroit. Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Motown. So you're gonna know that one. All right, you want to try one more? This one is a what? What am I? Okay, yeah, show me choose one that'll make me look stupid. Okay, hopefully this will make you look stupid, Joseph. But if it doesn't, I apologize. What am I? There are I'm a thing, there are infinite ways I can be put together. Some say I was invented by British royalty. You might bring me to school. A rector set? No, I am often around at lunchtime. You need bread to have me.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Oh, a sandwich. Okay. Oh, very good. Yeah, I know I I got over-eager, over anxious, and indeed I made an ass of myself, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Yeah, so we have where am I, what am I, and and who am I? And when you play the game, there's a game board that comes with the game, and um the goal is to be the person who is the smart ass by winning the game. And you get to move forward based on the role of a die um when you answer correctly.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Oh, okay. So it's not uh not tokens like the am I the smartass? Am I the ass? Okay.

Fast-Paced Play: Live Smart Ass Examples

SPEAKER_02 36:15

There's the M I S and Smartass. And Smartass is sold all over the place. It's in Target, um, it's in Meyer stores. You're in Michigan, it would be in Meyer, it would be um on Amazon, it's at r yougame.com, which is um our sister company. Uh it's at Barnes and Noble. You can go pretty much anywhere and get Smart S because it's been out for a long time and it's kind of a perennial now. We sell over 300,000 copies a year of Smart S. It's a it's a bestseller, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Uh and I I don't remember now, but there used to be a computer game called You Don't Know Jack. Yes, I remember that. I for some reason that's kind of making a connection with me here, and and being an IT guy, uh you know, I love games on the computers as opposed to necessarily the board itself or whatever. Because like I took the scategories game. Do you remember that? Absolutely. You had the die, it only had what five or six constonants on it. I computerized it and added additional constants so you could play that game a whole lot longer because otherwise you run out of words.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Right. Absolutely. I I understand that's you're exactly right. And each the reason computer games are great and there's nothing wrong with them, and they sell great. What we're trying to do at University Games is create social interactive experiences where people are talking to each other and getting to know each other better. So they're both really great, but we're trying to do something that's um more interpersonal with our business, which is perfect as discussed on the show.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

You know, right, hold up the phone, kids in the phone, only on the phone. How about you actually engage with real bleeping people for a change?

SPEAKER_02 39:08

One of the biggest one of the biggest things that we talk about at university games is having people talk to each other versus emailing and texting. And it's amazing in a business with we we have, I think, 20 people, 15 people here in San Francisco, people will be sitting within 10 yards of each other, and instead of getting up and talking to each other, they'll text each other. And I say to them, go talk to each other. IT guy developed that.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

IT guy. So I uh uh yeah, I I and get an email, I'd walk over to the cubicle. How about we actually have a discussion? Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Exactly. No, it's important, and as with Gen Z and now Alpha, they're growing up as digital natives, they're growing up with they think about a computer the way I think about a comb, or I used to when I had hair. And uh, and I would always carry a comb in my pocket, yeah. And uh and that's how they are that it's just part of them, and that means that they're spending more waking hours not interacting with people, but just interacting with a machine than any prior generation. So we're trying to counter that a little bit by making it so fun and so different than texting that people will want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Yeah, now obviously certain things should be put in an email, so there's a record of it. But yeah, the art of conversation is lost, the art of language, lost because I gave the hashtag earlier, right? Massholes were inventing words, were shortening words, YOLO were abbreviating everything, and half the time another part of the segment of society is like, what the bleep is that mean? Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

There's so many acronyms being used that they've lost their definition. And you you uh someone said to me the other day, um, yeah, I'll ping you on that. Well, what the the you know, as an IT guy, the derivation of ping goes back to a UNIVAC machine sending out a message to um another computer to receive it so that they could connect with each other. And now people use it for phone, I guess, phone calls or emails. I don't even know what I actually don't know what they meant when they were going to ping me in terms of how they were gonna communicate with me.

Screens Vs. Tabletalk: Why Board Games

SPEAKER_00 41:49

One of the first mainframes I worked on, operated, was a Univac 6040. You literally had the hard drives that would screw in and out, yeah. The the card reader with all the cards, get one card out of place. Whoa, are you bleeped?

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Right. And you would do you would ping other computers with that, wouldn't you? That's where the term ping comes from.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Yeah, yep, absolutely. Yeah, no, it did not come from the you know what? Actually, it might have been now that I think about it, derived from ping pong. Because you did a ping right pinging each other to make sure you're visible to one another to make sure you get that connection. And of course, the old days I'm reaching over to grab my landline phone that I still have. You know, the old days where my desktop computer with the built-in modem would connect to the phone line and dial up your computer so that you could get the squawk sound and actually talk computer to computer. Well, we're way off the beaten path here now.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Well, the point is, since the world has gone that way, we feel it's more important for us to create good games and also have people ask themselves the question Am I the ass? Back to where we started.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yeah. All right, let's. Do you've got another prop with you, I take it? Another game you could hold up?

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Um, yeah. I've got another one around here somewhere. Just a second. I've got I have a kids' game, I think. Well, no, I'm gonna do an adult game. I'm not gonna do a kids game. Um this is called Judge Your Friends. Oh, I love it already.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

And it actually has Matthew 7, judge not lest ye be judged, which there are more than those seven words. Remove the log from your own eye, 12 other scriptures at least that tell you you are to judge people, just that final judgment is for the Lord. It's really condemned not lest ye be condemned, condemned. So a Christian show, I absolutely love that game already, and you've not even said anything about it yet.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

The Judge Your Friends is a game where one player is the judge and actually gets a gavel. There's a gavel in the game, and every player playing gets guilty and not guilty cards. And the way you play the game is you are asked a question about something you may or may not have done in your life, and you have to say, I did it or I didn't do it, and then the other players judge whether they think you're being truthful.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Ooh. Wow, that could get some people in a lot of trouble.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Right. So here's an example of one. The defendant, we do it all in legal terms, has gotten drunk with their parents. And so it depends on what age you're playing with. If you're playing with a 12 or 13, someone under 21, it's a little bit of a different thing. And you have to say whether you're guilty or not guilty, and then the judge, um, with the any player can take the gavel and say, I disagree. And then you have to fess up if you're lying or not.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

You know what? This brings to mind a uh an actual board game version of kind of the never have I ever. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

It's yeah, th never have I ever is something people play, but what's different in this game um is that you've got um a judge who and you're s and you're keeping score and when you let me second open this when you actually do the judging, you have this guilty, not guilty. So the player who's asked the question takes one of these and puts them face down, and then the other players vote on whether they think that they're guilty or not guilty, and then the judge says whether they're telling the truth or not.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Uh-huh. Well, now that game has a whole other set of connotation, though, if you're playing with a liar. Are they lying about lying or right?

SPEAKER_02 46:44

It becomes it, it can it can be it can become its own rabbit hole, and you can go down it.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Oh, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

So those are our those are our big three for 2025, those three games.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

That's great, that's great. But again, really, really, I when I learned of you and learned of Am I the Ass and saw the premise and thought to myself, oh my god, this is great for couples for Valentine's Day. Why I had to have you on ASAP and rushing the show out to make sure it drops Wednesday, February the 5th, and the week after that will be uh God's episode my calendar. Valentine's Day. Can't do the math seven days later would be Wednesday the 12th. There will be Valentine's episode that was actually recorded with somebody last summer.

unknown 47:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

So there's gonna be like both ends of the spectrum. You and I are recording, and it's gonna like drop a couple days later, and with Ilya uh for Valentine's Day proper week episode. Uh I recorded it last summer.

Language, Tech Nostalgia, And “Ping”

SPEAKER_02 48:12

So I feel really honored that you're rushing me for Valentine's Day. I appreciate that. It certainly will help us. And I want to remind people that they can get Am I the Ass, Um, Judge Your Friends, and SmartAss on Amazon.com or at rugame.com if they'd like to buy them. And they have plenty of time from when this is airing till Valentine's Day. We've timed it perfectly, Joseph.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm so glad we stumbled upon each other when we did it. You know, it's like I say of a and some people might think I'm being ridiculous with this, but with a Christian show, it's as if almost divine intervention on some of the guests that lined up in my lap just in time for an episode. Like, wow, is that perfect timing?

SPEAKER_02 49:08

That's great. The work you're doing is great, and the world does need this podcast, so it's great that you're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

It's well, I greatly appreciate you again, Bob B-O-B, Moog M-O-O-G. Again, not to be confused with Robert the Boogeyman, Boog B-O-O-G, that was talking Shakespeare a couple months ago. Uh thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

Well, thank you. And I'm happy uh, if you want to, in six months or a year, to do this again, and I can tell you what new games we have.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Sounds good. I definitely would love a follow-up episode.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

Great. Thank you very much, and um hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's day.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in to another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.