Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
OTF: Game Night Off The Rails
We pivot from a planned board game origin to a candid catch-up on leadership growth, masculine archetypes, stadium joy, and sobering screen stories. Between a Steelers defensive explosion and a YMCA Wi-Fi meltdown, we land on what helps friendships and teams thrive.
• origin story mix-up and light chaos
• leader development course insights and self-awareness
• archetypes of mature masculinity and practical feedback
• Steelers defensive resurgence and stadium renaming
• Halloween hot dogs, family time and movie recommendations
• House of Dynamite structure and realism
• Weapons controversy and mood, art vs restraint
• The Perfect Neighbor and escalation, bias and systems
• open question for listeners on Jared’s mystery topic
Like and subscribe. Comment what you think Jared was so excited to talk about
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Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. The boys are back in town. Better than ever. We're going over the fence, boys. Today I have Clayton Gable and Jared Erickson, my two co-hosts with me. Let's let's chat. Let's catch up. Let's reminisce. What's going on? And why am I so blessed?
SPEAKER_02:This is probably my fault. Uh you're you're coming to me live at the YMCA.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, great. Now our YouTube video is going to be flagged for copyright infringement. Oh no.
SPEAKER_03:That's bound to happen sooner or later.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. See, the the other two guys on Operation Game Night, they do the debriefs because they actually play boy game boy games or board games.
SPEAKER_00:Playing boy games.
SPEAKER_02:Over the fences are like Jerry's time to debrief. And it's actually just time for me to talk to my boys. Um, I will eventually, I promise you, I'm playing some games. I saw someone that I taught with at the prep school while I was trick-or-treating, and she says she's in the board games. So be on the lookout for uh a debrief coming to you hot from Jerry because I got some birthday money from uh Clayton. So I need to get me a new game so I can debrief on the pod.
SPEAKER_03:So hey, I'm ready for it, Jared.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Are there are there any games that you have your eye on to spend your birthday money on?
SPEAKER_02:Um, well, I mean, I just heard about this fantastic game about the Falcons, but I don't I don't know if it's anywhere other than Amazon and my uh so I don't know. I don't know. We'll see.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they're not carrying that at your local game store.
SPEAKER_00:No. So Jared, what's been going on besides board gaming? Apparently everything else. Everything else. Literally anything else. Yeah, anything but board gaming. Jared's got it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I honestly here's here's what I wanted to talk to you guys about. Okay. I was absolutely blindsided by you guys because I thought we were talking about our origin story today, not the board game origin story. Oh, and I was a little caught off guard when all of a sudden we started talking about a board game. So I thought we were gonna talk about our origin story for the podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Did you even read the text messages, Jared?
SPEAKER_02:No, I don't read text messages.
SPEAKER_00:I said it's the hot new game. What's made worse is that I had the wrong splash screen, and so it said special operation.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, he had to have thought for sure we were going down that route.
SPEAKER_00:I was like, it wasn't we it wasn't until I shared my screen that he went, oh man, we're not actually talking about our origin story. Well, you played it off cool, Jared. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02:Oh man, I I I don't know, man. But some I need help. I probably have ADHD. That's probably what happens. I mean, I can't be trusted.
SPEAKER_00:So what is what is your origin story, Jared? Yeah, go ahead. Give it to us. Begin.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, uh really, I'm just a small town guy with a small town five milli.
SPEAKER_03:Um small town five milli, Jared. I I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I I've been so here's actually something really cool that I want to tell you guys about. I did the leader development course through the Department of the Air Force, and it blew me away. The worst part was I was actually supposed to be in person with your boy Travis down there. We were supposed to be live together recording episodes, and uh yep, government shut down and uh couldn't do it, couldn't do it. They canceled all the travel, so but I did do it virtually, and uh I learned a lot about myself, and um I'm just I'm really I'm really jazzed about learning more about myself, being a better leader.
SPEAKER_03:So tell me about you. About me? Yeah, what'd you learn about yourself? I want to be a little bit more than a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02:I I'm an open book. I tell you everything. I'm a nurturer, if you didn't know that. I and I'm an extrovert. I shut up. I lead with my heart. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:A king, a warrior, a magician, or a lover. You are you're a lover. Oh the co-architect of male psychology. Jared, you're a lover. I know that. Wow. Do they teach you that down in Maxwell? What is this? This is uh this is a Dave Drunil special. This is a book that he gave me uh because he reads stuff like that. Um, yeah, I'm kind of working my way through it. He's for pleasure every once in a while. That guy is.
SPEAKER_02:Can we get him on the pod?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we should definitely have him over the fence.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I would love to have him on here. I miss just talking to him. He I felt I seriously felt like he maybe it's the martial arts, but he felt like the sage, like you know, uh guy you just go to for wisdom in a tribe, you know? And I just wanted to soak it all up when I was around Dave.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he uh is definitely a guy that's thinking big thoughts a lot while also like kicking people's butts, trying to kill you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Working in his office uh was a real pleasure for the year that I did it. And every day it's you never know what you're gonna get. Are we gonna talk about Godzilla as a metaphor for the atomic bomb and mankind's hubris? Or are we going to talk about the you know feasibility of man-made and self-made garage for choking people out? It was all over the place. It's super interesting place to work.
SPEAKER_03:Travis, what what am I? A king, warrior, lover, or magician? What do you think?
SPEAKER_00:I think you're a magician, but I'm not quite there.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna say magician.
SPEAKER_00:I'm I'm gonna have to get back to you once I finish the book, but yeah. Uh, for those of you that are not watching the podcast on YouTube, it is called King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore. And uh yeah, it's pretty interesting. I don't know if it's for everyone, but I'm interested. And Dave has never steered me wrong with any of his recommendations. So no, he couldn't. Take Dave's word for it, read the book. That's right. Uh Clay, what else has been going on with you?
SPEAKER_03:Guys, everything, I mean, life's just crazy. But in an act of awesome craziness yesterday, I had the privilege to be in attendance as the much maligned Pittsburgh Steelers defense that has been stinking up the joint, got to take on the Indianapolis Colts, who were coming in as this red hot offense. Oh, yeah. And I was worried, guys. I was worried. I was sitting there in my seats, and you know, the first drive happens, Steelers go three and out. I was like, up more of the same. And then the Colts get the ball and they drive for like seven minutes, convert on three fourth downs, get a touchdown. I'm like, well, I might as well pack it up, miss the rush, getting out of here. Then the magic started to happen. Uh TJ Watt, you know, strip sack, fumble recovery. And from there, once the dam broke, six turnovers in that game for the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. If you haven't been to Accrocher Stadium when the Steelers fans are hyped up and renegades playing, it's on another level. I mean, my arm sore today from waving that out. I mean, I there was just never reason to put it down. It was just big play after big play. I don't know if I can go to another game because that was like the most perfect situation. I don't know how you top that. I mean, the Colts were coming in riding high, and the Steelers were just on a downward trajectory, and just that whiplash as a fan of just having two games in a row where you hated them, and then they do that. It was awesome. Keep bringing you back in. Yep, that's the big news for me. I mean, Steelers are my love affair during this time of the year, and getting to see them play in person was awesome.
SPEAKER_00:You gotta take some ibuprofen for that towel arm. It's a serious injury.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, Clay, what what did you call it? Did you I thought it was called Heinz Field? What did you call it?
SPEAKER_03:Dude, that's old news. It's been Accrocher for a while now. What Acrocher. Yeah, it got renamed many years ago, but it's still the same stadium, it's just called Acrocher. Somebody with more money than Heinz, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:I thought maybe you'd be like a purist and you'd just call it Heinz.
SPEAKER_03:No, I call people and things what they would like to be called. I'm not stuck in the olden ways. That's I'll call the commander stadium. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man.
SPEAKER_03:Well, Travis, what are you doing, man?
SPEAKER_00:We have had lots of family in town. Yeah, we have been watching lots of movies. We had a great Halloween where we handed out hot dogs for adults. Uh, that was a huge hit. Uh do something a little different for Halloween next year. Roll out your Blackstone or your grill and throw a couple hot dogs on there. They're super cheap. We handed out 50 hot dogs and a whole bunch of candy. We even had Pokemon cards for the kids. So we were we were a hit. Um by the way, Travis. Tons of fun. Uh then we watched uh House of Dynamite on Netflix, and that is a kind of political thriller where the US has a nuclear weapon launched at it. And I have my theories, uh, but man, what a what a cool show. Uh gives you some great insight into national security and how a situation like that might go down. Um, so yeah, super interesting, pretty well acted, uh, builds tension. You basically see the same, was it 18 minutes, 20 minutes or so on a loop, and those 20 minutes are kind of stretched and it's like an hour and a half movie. But uh yeah, you see it three times in a row from different angles, different people. Um, but man, it's a especially as someone in the military that works in the government and sits on some of these like big strategic telecons and stuff every once in a while. That's exactly how they work. So um yeah, go ahead and watch House of Dynamite, and maybe I'll share my uh my theories later on because okay. Uh yeah, it was it was really good. It was really good. Um, and then I watched Weapons, which is not really my jam, but it was a really hot movie that came out this past year. Um, for those of you that don't know, it's a kind of horror thriller. It's by the same. I heard it's controversial. People are pissed about it. Pissed about it? What what was the controversy? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. It's finally collapsing at the Y. It's finally collapsing at the Y. The Y just collapsed on top of Jared. But uh basically, weapons is uh kind of a horror thriller by the same person that did Barbarian, which was very weird and very strange. I think I'm really lagging here. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02:You are.
SPEAKER_03:You are running out of steam over there.
SPEAKER_02:I think I jumped on the YMCA Wi-Fi. Uh oh. Yeah. Yeah. Why the Y is imploding. All right, I'm gonna meet you. The House of Dynamite.
SPEAKER_00:Um, okay. I'm gonna mute you until you get your Wi-Fi situation figured out. He's a liability right now. Yeah, I know. Uh, anyways, weapons by the same person that did Barbarian, which is super weird and creepy, but um, weapons, basically an entire elementary school, third grade class gets up in the middle of the night at 2.17 a.m. and they go running off into the night, and the whole premise is like what happened to them, and then you meet uh some creepy characters that are related to one of the kids in the class, and uh there's some nefarious works at play, so yeah, it was uh it was a cool thriller. I heard lots of good things about it. I would love to hear the controversy, but I don't know if we're ever gonna get the Wi-Fi back. Um, but it's on HBO now, so I watched that. Did you Clayton? Do you watch any uh movies around Halloween time? You have any like go-to movies around this time of year?
SPEAKER_03:No, we I never really had a proclivity towards horror movies or scary things. I would watch them in a previous life occasionally, but Mary is frightened by just about everything. So, you know, I mean, we can barely watch Ant-Man with her, so it's uh it's tough sledding to you know pick a movie, and those don't even they never even get brought up in this house. So yeah, that's cool. I did watch um on Netflix the The Perfect Neighbor documentary. Yeah, we watched that. Yeah, I had to watch that one by myself because Mary wouldn't watch it, but that was that was interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and for those of you that have not seen it, basically it's a it's a true story, it's all kind of um it's not found footage, but it's uh like certain not surveillance, it's cop footage, it's like uh body cam footage of cops responding to multiple calls in this neighborhood where this older woman that lives there is constantly calling the cops uh to disrupt some kids' play because they are kind of playing next to her house in this empty field. She is calling literally every day, multiple times per day. And then uh one day the cops get a call to this neighborhood because somebody has been shot, and uh it kind of goes through the fallout of that. But it's um it kind of went in a direction that I was not expecting. Um, it kind of boils down to like a like could it be racially profiling, could it be like a hate-related crime? Uh or uh yeah, yeah. So it's uh kind of sad. It's really sad, actually. Yeah, it's very sad. Yeah, so maybe not for everyone, but it's uh kind of an interesting law enforcement perspective of people that you know can't get along with their neighbors.
SPEAKER_03:Speaking of neighbors, I can't get along with Jared. Are you back yet? Nope.
SPEAKER_00:He is getting grainier and creepier by the moment. He's fading into dark, they're turning off the lights in the YMCA. Sir, you have to go home. You can't be here any longer.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, this there is YMCA laws against recording your podcast there, and they they've they found him.
SPEAKER_00:The YMCA policemen are gonna come crashing through the window any any moment now to arrest him and pull him out.
SPEAKER_03:It's a shame because I feel like he had something big to say. I feel like he's got something that he wanted to over the fence about that he didn't even get to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but like how long can we sit here and uh you know, soapbox for him?
SPEAKER_03:Watch him flounder. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, man. Maybe the village people will make an appearance as they come to arrest him. They have a cop on their team, right?
SPEAKER_03:Jared, you think you could chat it to us? Um we can just relay the message if you can type. I don't know if the YMCA is gonna let you do that. He is laughing and yeah, it's bad. I if you're watching podcasting. If you're watching this on YouTube, this I'd say this is not the quality you should be used to, but it kind of is.
SPEAKER_00:If you're watching on YouTube or if you're listening to this podcast, go ahead and comment what you think Jared was so excited to talk about because I would love to know, but it doesn't seem like we're gonna get there. So please chime in in your comments, like and subscribe. Let us know what Jared is going to get so hype about.
SPEAKER_03:Oh whoa, we got word.
SPEAKER_00:He's so hype about Netflix. There you in a glowing endorsement for Netflix. Have you heard of this program? It's called Netflix, it's pretty good.
SPEAKER_02:I I don't know. I'm back. Am I back?
SPEAKER_03:Your your voice is here.
SPEAKER_00:I'm probably I'm still alive. You are jumpy as hell, but uh I can at least hear you.
SPEAKER_03:He says he's in the upside down, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Speaking of speaking of which, how are they gonna bring this show back for a last season? These kids are all 35 years old at this point.
SPEAKER_03:Who knows? Maybe Jared.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe Jared knows. Maybe Jared's got some serious dirt on the the kids from Stranger Things now that they're grown adults. He's rubbing his eyes, he's crying, he's very sad that he can't.
SPEAKER_02:I already said I already said my piece. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:How anticlimactic.
SPEAKER_03:We didn't hear it.
SPEAKER_00:All right, this is falling apart. We uh we're going back inside the fence. Yeah, we might stay there a while. Chime in, chime in on the comments and let us know what Jared was so excited about. Uh oh man. This has been Operation Game Night. I have been Travis, he has been Clay, he's been a shadow of Jared from the upside down, communicating through lights and flashes on the wall. Uh and we're we're out.
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