[00:00:00]
Hey guys, this is Alessio coming at you before the episode just to remind you of a couple

[00:00:06]
quick things.

[00:00:08]
So thing number one, if you have any written or spoken messages that you would like to

[00:00:14]
leave us for the very last episode of the show, you have until Monday, November 15th

[00:00:20]
to get those in.

[00:00:22]
And that can be literally until like 11.59 pm Eastern time.

[00:00:27]
As long as it's before the afternoon of the 16th Eastern time, you should be fine.

[00:00:34]
So again, that is November the 15th.

[00:00:37]
Monday November the 15th is the official deadline for all final words on the show.

[00:00:43]
If you've always wanted to have a letter read on the show, if you've always wanted to submit

[00:00:46]
a message to the show, you are running out of time.

[00:00:50]
As of the release of this episode, you have about a week to get that put together.

[00:00:55]
So do that, please.

[00:00:57]
The other thing I want to mention is after years of utilizing the track theme of Tara

[00:01:02]
from the original Metal Gear and us finally landing on a rearrangement that we really

[00:01:08]
like, I just want to give sort of a final shout out to Henrik Ness, H-E-N-R-I-K-N-E-S-S

[00:01:17]
for letting us use that.

[00:01:18]
I believe I sent him an email probably three or four years ago and was given approval.

[00:01:25]
So that's the version of Theme of Tara you've been hearing.

[00:01:28]
It's available on SoundCloud and I believe also on YouTube.

[00:01:32]
But thank you so much, Henrik Ness.

[00:01:35]
Outside of that, you guys know the deal, do the things.

[00:01:38]
If you do want to send those audio messages or written messages, the quickest way you

[00:01:42]
could get to me is Alessio, A-L-E-S-S-I-O at alessiosummerfield.com or you can reach out

[00:01:51]
via the contact form on the Metal Gear Mondays.com website or you can just email contact at MetalGearMondays.com.

[00:01:58]
Any of those will work.

[00:02:01]
Thank you guys very much and enjoy the episode.

[00:02:04]
Hold on, hold on.

[00:02:08]
All right, I'm ready.

[00:02:12]
Okay and here we go.

[00:02:15]
Yeah.

[00:02:16]
Here we go.

[00:02:21]
Let's get it.

[00:02:22]
Here we go.

[00:02:23]
All right, I'm going to start recording the skit right now.

[00:02:27]
Hey, no, I'm sorry.

[00:02:29]
Hold on, let me try it again.

[00:02:31]
You got it?

[00:02:32]
No, hold on.

[00:02:33]
Let me see if I can.

[00:02:34]
All right, I'm going to jump in right now.

[00:02:38]
Hey, Sam.

[00:02:40]
Hey, Sam.

[00:02:42]
Can I give it a go?

[00:02:45]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[00:02:48]
I think I'm ready.

[00:02:50]
I'm going to count down.

[00:02:53]
11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[00:03:13]
I don't think any of that was on our script for this skit for this episode.

[00:03:17]
No, no, no, hold on.

[00:03:19]
Let me.

[00:03:20]
Okay, I think I haven't.

[00:03:22]
I'm going to doÖ

[00:03:24]
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:03:28]
We're doing the opera singing grapefruit on the next episode, Sam.

[00:03:34]
Oh, shit.

[00:03:36]
What if we do something like this, you know?

[00:03:41]
And then I'll put it like a bed of some retro 90s PlayStation game music underneath, and

[00:03:57]
then we'll put a helicopter sound effect.

[00:03:58]
There'll be a Kodak sound.

[00:04:00]
Red leather, yellow leather.

[00:04:02]
Red leather, yellow leather.

[00:04:04]
Red leather, yellow leather.

[00:04:08]
And then right around here, the theme song for the show will kick in.

[00:04:12]
Right here?

[00:04:14]
Yeah.

[00:04:16]
No, no, no, no, I think actually right here.

[00:04:21]
Here.

[00:04:23]
Hold on, all together now.

[00:04:25]
Right here.

[00:04:27]
Here.

[00:04:29]
No, not there, guys.

[00:04:33]
Here.

[00:04:35]
Here.

[00:04:37]
Here, here for Metal Gear.

[00:04:48]
Hey, see you, dear listeners, and welcome to Metal Gear Monday's The Most Thurow,

[00:04:53]
co-gime theme podcast on the internet.

[00:04:55]
My name is Sam Wright.

[00:04:57]
Once you're a stalwart host, and never again.

[00:05:05]
Yeah, I am here today with my friends.

[00:05:13]
Introduce yourselves.

[00:05:14]
Alessio Summerfield.

[00:05:15]
Sam, I am so jealous that your intro stuck long after we all left, because Warren still

[00:05:26]
does your intro.

[00:05:28]
Hell yeah, I'm my legacy.

[00:05:32]
Who else is here?

[00:05:35]
Who else is here?

[00:05:37]
Isaac.

[00:05:39]
Yeah, that was one of my favorite things about introducing this podcast over the years is

[00:05:44]
that it was always Sam Wright, Alessio Summerfield, Isaac.

[00:05:48]
Like they know your last name, but you never introduce yourself as Isaac.

[00:05:54]
Yeah, keep it real, right?

[00:05:57]
I love it.

[00:05:59]
I never had an intro, so.

[00:06:01]
It wasn't as cool as you guys.

[00:06:03]
Do you want to do one right now?

[00:06:05]
Oh yeah, let's do it.

[00:06:08]
Just off the top of my head.

[00:06:10]
Yeah, right now.

[00:06:11]
That's how you think we did it.

[00:06:13]
Both of us did ours.

[00:06:16]
Okay, okay, okay, okay.

[00:06:19]
What's up, everybody?

[00:06:21]
I'm your host, Isaac Lim, and I'm here today joined by...

[00:06:27]
What is... what was that voice?

[00:06:31]
Bradley Chud, man.

[00:06:36]
Excuse me, Bradley Chudman.

[00:06:39]
That was really good.

[00:06:42]
That was Isaac's best shock, jock, DJ.

[00:06:45]
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[00:06:47]
And we're here to talk about Metal Gear Mondays.

[00:06:52]
I guess that is true in this scenario, yeah.

[00:06:55]
In that gap, there's like an air horn.

[00:06:58]
Like a fart sound.

[00:07:00]
I was just about to say a fart machine.

[00:07:05]
What's up, everybody?

[00:07:08]
I'm your host, Isaac Lim.

[00:07:10]
We're here to talk about...

[00:07:15]
Metal Gear Mondays.

[00:07:18]
Holy shit.

[00:07:20]
Whoa, what a real...

[00:07:22]
Since I'm the host today, I guess...

[00:07:25]
What are we here to talk about today?

[00:07:27]
We're here to talk about Revengeance.

[00:07:30]
So, as we kind of talked about it a little bit in our 1.0 roundtable,

[00:07:35]
but when we were kind of discussing what was going to happen

[00:07:40]
with Metal Gear Mondays after me and Alessio

[00:07:44]
and a couple of the people Cole and Zach left the show.

[00:07:47]
Well, I mean, Cole is still in it at the beginning,

[00:07:50]
but we're trying to figure out what we wanted to do

[00:07:53]
with the podcast and it turned into Metal Gear Mondays Revengeance,

[00:07:57]
whereas we're calling it for the purposes of this

[00:08:00]
season of the finale season of the show,

[00:08:03]
Metal Gear Mondays 2.0.

[00:08:06]
And so, Tori and Warren and Chris are going to get on the 1s and 2s with Alessio

[00:08:11]
to talk about Revengeance.

[00:08:14]
More like 2.0.

[00:08:16]
No, I'm kidding.

[00:08:18]
Wow!

[00:08:21]
Hey, this is Alessio chiming in just before the roundtable to apologize.

[00:08:26]
For whatever reason, my audio was very clippy during this recording.

[00:08:32]
I'm still trying to diagnose why.

[00:08:34]
Literally, the recording right after it wasn't an issue,

[00:08:38]
but for whatever reason, in this roundtable that you're about to hear,

[00:08:42]
when I hit a certain threshold of volume, it will gate and clip my audio.

[00:08:48]
There's like a ceiling to my audio, so I apologize for the crunchies,

[00:08:52]
but hopefully it's not a big deal.

[00:08:55]
Enjoy.

[00:08:56]
Oh my God!

[00:08:58]
It's another group of Metal Gear Mondays hosts.

[00:09:00]
Holy shit, how many of these exist?

[00:09:02]
We have too many people,

[00:09:04]
but I'm going to break it down real quick and we're going to do some quick intros.

[00:09:07]
Warren, really quick, what's your least favorite sports mascot?

[00:09:10]
I'm going to be honest with you.

[00:09:12]
I'm not a big fan of the guys that run around the Washington Nationals,

[00:09:20]
like all the presidents, the big stupid heads where they fall over.

[00:09:22]
I hate those guys.

[00:09:23]
Oh shit, I didn't even know that was real.

[00:09:25]
Warren, also, what's your name?

[00:09:26]
Full name.

[00:09:27]
How you doing?

[00:09:28]
Warren Minix is what I'll go by.

[00:09:30]
Do you know your tenure, like from when to when you were recording?

[00:09:35]
Actually, yes.

[00:09:37]
I'll say before my first episode dropped, I believe I just hit 10 months.

[00:09:41]
Tomorrow, as recording.

[00:09:43]
So I'll say 10 months by the time they would hear this.

[00:09:45]
11 months by the time they hear this.

[00:09:47]
That's crazy.

[00:09:48]
Chris, really quick, what was the last time that you were surprised by an FM radio station?

[00:09:51]
I can't remember the last time I listened to FM radio,

[00:09:54]
so I don't know how to answer that question.

[00:09:56]
Alessio, to be honest with you.

[00:09:58]
Chris, what's your name?

[00:10:00]
What's my name?

[00:10:02]
It's Chris.

[00:10:04]
Chris.

[00:10:06]
Chris, what's your middle name actually?

[00:10:08]
You know what? I don't know that.

[00:10:10]
Oh, fuck, that's right.

[00:10:12]
I do know that.

[00:10:13]
Wow, you're just shooting me in the leg.

[00:10:15]
Chris is my middle name.

[00:10:17]
David C. Hampton II.

[00:10:21]
There you go.

[00:10:23]
So good. So regal.

[00:10:25]
Chris, what's your tenure?

[00:10:27]
Do you know how long you've been with the show?

[00:10:29]
I believe I started back in, I think of October 2019.

[00:10:33]
Damn, son.

[00:10:35]
Pre-coded.

[00:10:37]
Death Stranding.

[00:10:39]
All that nonsense.

[00:10:41]
We went to see Hideo Kojima, Art Gallery thing in New York.

[00:10:45]
We walked into, we met Ludens.

[00:10:47]
He's way shorter in real life.

[00:10:49]
Yes.

[00:10:51]
Tori, if you were asked to pilot a SpaceX colonizing vessel going to Mars

[00:10:54]
with one million human passengers, what would you name your ship?

[00:10:57]
That's a good question, Alessio.

[00:10:59]
I'm glad you asked.

[00:11:01]
Probably...

[00:11:03]
Sex Bob-omb.

[00:11:05]
Oh, very nice.

[00:11:08]
I like it.

[00:11:10]
Tori, what's your full name?

[00:11:12]
It's Young Neil.

[00:11:14]
Oh, very nice.

[00:11:16]
Oh, no, I'm sorry.

[00:11:18]
It's officially Neil.

[00:11:20]
Old Neil.

[00:11:22]
Do you know what your tenure on the show is?

[00:11:24]
A long-time listener, but what's your hosting experience?

[00:11:26]
So, I started doing some prep to be on the show in like April of 2020, I want to say,

[00:11:32]
but my first official recording was in June.

[00:11:34]
That's crazy.

[00:11:36]
So, midst peak COVID.

[00:11:38]
Yes, it was a swell time.

[00:11:40]
Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:11:42]
It's so crazy too that, you know, COVID all started because Snake died

[00:11:45]
and his nanomachines went everywhere and Fox died, just kind of wrecked the planet.

[00:11:47]
Who would have seen that coming?

[00:11:49]
Yeah, that would be fun.

[00:11:51]
How fucking crazy would it be?

[00:11:53]
Sorry to total side tangent.

[00:11:55]
If the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 is actually what caused the illness,

[00:11:57]
then I'm going to be in the middle of the show.

[00:11:59]
I'm going to be in the middle of the show.

[00:12:01]
So, the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 is actually what caused the illness that starts death stranding.

[00:12:05]
Oh shit.

[00:12:07]
I subscribe to that.

[00:12:09]
Very nice.

[00:12:11]
Well, cool guys.

[00:12:13]
So, this is like the most recent incarnation of the Metal Gear Mondays hosting family.

[00:12:18]
You guys have been running now for a couple years, which is crazy to think about.

[00:12:23]
Talk to me a little bit like, let's bounce it around.

[00:12:27]
Talk to me a little bit about what that's been like.

[00:12:29]
I don't know, favorite moments, least favorite moments.

[00:12:31]
Let's start with favorite moments.

[00:12:33]
Yeah.

[00:12:35]
What do you guys, what jumps out is like a standout favorite moment of hosting the show?

[00:12:37]
Don't everybody go at once?

[00:12:39]
I'm waiting for somebody to say this moment.

[00:12:41]
You motherfucker.

[00:12:43]
This moment, exactly.

[00:12:45]
I feel like it's that moment where somebody asked me to tell them anything about myself.

[00:12:47]
There are no things.

[00:12:49]
I don't know.

[00:12:51]
I don't know.

[00:12:53]
I don't know.

[00:12:55]
I don't know.

[00:12:57]
There are no things about myself.

[00:13:00]
There is a moment that comes to mind when we were doing MGS3.

[00:13:05]
And I'd sort of fallen behind in my playthrough during the last episode.

[00:13:09]
So, I was playing the game as we were recording it to get through to the end.

[00:13:15]
Yeah.

[00:13:17]
So, that was cool.

[00:13:19]
That was very good.

[00:13:21]
And I don't know if it made it into the final edit, but there were, I don't think I've ever heard Chris more

[00:13:27]
shouty than during that episode.

[00:13:29]
And it was, it was great.

[00:13:31]
It was like a fun back and forth between Warren and myself and then just every once in a while

[00:13:36]
in between sentences or whatever you just hear.

[00:13:39]
God damn it!

[00:13:41]
The boss fight is really difficult.

[00:13:44]
Okay.

[00:13:46]
That was the fear, too, wasn't it?

[00:13:48]
The one with the boss?

[00:13:50]
Yeah.

[00:13:52]
Oh, I see.

[00:13:54]
At the end.

[00:13:56]
That fight is legitimately, I just remember like getting on my belly and crawling like the snake that I was.

[00:14:06]
But no, that's fucking crazy.

[00:14:08]
Chris is just openly weeping while everybody's discussing the episode.

[00:14:13]
Yeah.

[00:14:15]
I did not want to pull that trigger, but...

[00:14:17]
Oh yeah, that's rough.

[00:14:19]
I hate that it does it for you if you wait long enough.

[00:14:21]
Like, I remember just leaving it.

[00:14:23]
Me and Isaac, me and Isaac up at like 3 a.m. and I'm just leaving it and I'm talking to Isaac and it goes off while we're talking.

[00:14:29]
Yikes.

[00:14:31]
So, Tori, you don't have anything? Warren, do you have anything?

[00:14:33]
I do, yeah.

[00:14:35]
I'll say I had a lot of fun with the interviews we did earlier in 2021.

[00:14:40]
It was really, really fun to talk to Peter Lurie as well as fingers.

[00:14:47]
Like, it's just fun talking to other musicians when it comes to that, just sometimes hearing about their process or why they do things.

[00:14:54]
And then having Kazuma, Jinuchi say like, thank you, great question to Warren was really nice.

[00:15:01]
Like, I was really happy about that, even though I wasn't on that episode.

[00:15:05]
But as far as us, like our batch, I actually had like, I had an interesting and fun on the spooky season that we did in 2020 with...

[00:15:15]
It was Chris Tori and Nate from the Food Review UK podcast and we were talking about Oxenfree.

[00:15:21]
So, we did like that long playthrough and then we just had like a totally different kind of game, make it to the feed.

[00:15:28]
And it was just fun hearing like, sort of indie game stuff.

[00:15:32]
I just remember having like a lot of fun recording those and having, you know, everybody just kind of meet people that I've recorded with in the past.

[00:15:39]
It was fun.

[00:15:40]
Yeah, totally.

[00:15:41]
Well, and I know from like my perspective, sort of, I don't, I don't even know how to describe it, one foot in, one foot out.

[00:15:47]
It was super cool to see that stuff.

[00:15:49]
And like, honestly, I swear to God, you guys, I was so jealous about the way that the portable ops season worked out for you guys.

[00:15:58]
Because in my mind, I was like, how fucking stellar would the show have been if every season was like, play part of the game, talk to the fucking developer about that part of the game?

[00:16:10]
Play part of the game?

[00:16:11]
Like, that's insane.

[00:16:12]
Like, so kudos to you guys.

[00:16:14]
I think that ultimately, I think the portable ops season was actually one of my favorite to listen to.

[00:16:18]
I don't know if it's because I was not on it, but it was, it was good.

[00:16:22]
It was cool after doing the teaser and then just sort of out of nowhere, we get an email from Ryan Peyton like, hey, I see your teasing the portable ops season.

[00:16:30]
Can I be a part of it?

[00:16:31]
Yeah.

[00:16:32]
And we were like, yeah, did you mean to ask that question or like, when are you free?

[00:16:36]
Yeah, pretty amazing.

[00:16:40]
Tori, did you have any moments?

[00:16:41]
I couldn't, I couldn't tell if your answer was just or not.

[00:16:45]
No, I was none, none of them.

[00:16:47]
No, I was going to say that the interviews, I think were a particular highlight for me.

[00:16:52]
Just being able to kind of set up and prep for them.

[00:16:56]
And like you said, Alessio, being able to talk to one of the developers of the game we were covering was kind of mind blowing for me.

[00:17:04]
It just felt like a real feather in the show's cap.

[00:17:08]
So that was nice.

[00:17:09]
For sure.

[00:17:10]
Yeah, it was funny enough.

[00:17:12]
I was thinking about you guys a couple of days ago.

[00:17:15]
Essentially, I was watching a documentary and in the special thanks, no joke was Phil Lamar in the dead center of the of the credits list.

[00:17:23]
And I was like, shit, I remember.

[00:17:26]
So I guess that interview, the elusive Phil Lamar, that interview was attempted to be scheduled across every iteration of the show.

[00:17:37]
Oh my God, right.

[00:17:39]
Yeah, every host configuration has tried to book that interview and it never happened.

[00:17:44]
The one that got away.

[00:17:46]
Yeah, if you're out there somewhere, Phil, damn it.

[00:17:50]
We all know how hard it is to catch vamp.

[00:17:54]
I mean, it's just, you got to be expert level there.

[00:17:57]
Oh, for sure.

[00:17:59]
But yeah, so essentially somebody accidentally shot Marvin.

[00:18:04]
So yeah, Pulp Fiction Reference for the old Phil Lamar gang.

[00:18:09]
Nice.

[00:18:10]
Cool.

[00:18:11]
I don't know.

[00:18:12]
Do we want to answer like least favorite moments?

[00:18:15]
It's like a weird like, let's celebrate MGM.

[00:18:17]
What did you fucking hate about metal gear?

[00:18:19]
I guess let me reframe that then.

[00:18:23]
What was what was like a moment of like group adversity that you guys had fun like overcoming?

[00:18:32]
Because I'm sure there was a lot of shit that happened that like,

[00:18:34]
I mean, I was present for some stuff kind of like advising or whatever.

[00:18:38]
Right.

[00:18:39]
I'm sure there's plenty of stuff that you guys just worked out on your own.

[00:18:41]
So like what was there like a specific moment where you were like, oh hell yeah, I love this crew.

[00:18:47]
I'm sorry.

[00:18:49]
Not following.

[00:18:50]
You want to know when we, is it sort of like when we clicked or when we felt we clicked?

[00:18:55]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:56]
Like when they discovered the power of friendship and defeated the anime boss.

[00:19:01]
I don't know.

[00:19:03]
I sort of felt like, you know, we were in this like getting to know you phase during MGS3, you know,

[00:19:11]
because you know, Warren had kind of jumped in like midship on that, you know,

[00:19:17]
and we were glad to have him at that point.

[00:19:20]
So I think when we started getting into the planning phase and everyone started like expressing like their idea

[00:19:30]
their ideas, their interests, like what they wanted to see come out of the show,

[00:19:34]
I think that's when it started to happen for me personally.

[00:19:38]
Nice.

[00:19:40]
Yeah, I can see that.

[00:19:41]
I think, yeah, because I mean, honestly, and I don't, I don't know.

[00:19:47]
I don't know how deep in the weeds we want to get or how behind the scenes we want to get.

[00:19:52]
But I think honestly, my, from my perspective, my biggest regret for you guys as like a, as a crew,

[00:20:01]
I think was just the fact that I don't know if you guys ever had time to catch your breath.

[00:20:08]
Like it was baton pass after baton pass after baton pass.

[00:20:14]
And I feel like people were transitioning in and out and formats were shifting and all that jazz

[00:20:20]
like the entire time that you guys were, were working.

[00:20:24]
Yeah, it was kind of hard to get a hold of any solid ground and keep it for very long.

[00:20:29]
I mean, that's just the nature I think of having a project of this magnitude while everybody's got their own personal things going on.

[00:20:36]
But I would say the fact that we managed to at least keep it going semi, semi well, semi smoothly

[00:20:45]
and still be able to produce some content and bring some new content to the show,

[00:20:51]
or at least dive a little deeper into one of the games was pretty exciting and yeah, it felt nice.

[00:21:00]
All during a plague to boot.

[00:21:02]
Yes.

[00:21:03]
Yeah, I think that's one thing that like every single time we look back on the last like year and a half,

[00:21:11]
I think one thing to underline 100,000 times is like you guys are fucking producing a podcast in the middle of a literal plague.

[00:21:20]
So yeah, like fucking kudos to you guys.

[00:21:23]
Well, and I guess so that is something that is super unique.

[00:21:26]
Yeah.

[00:21:27]
To this unit.

[00:21:28]
So like for you guys, what the hell was that like?

[00:21:31]
Like walk me through that.

[00:21:33]
Well, if I can, I'll chime in with one come together moment for me personally because I want to like link it to a recording.

[00:21:40]
When we did the trivia episode at the tail end of last year, getting some of the patrons together and doing that because it was sort of one of the

[00:21:47]
you can plan as much as you want, right?

[00:21:49]
But we had six people on a Zencaster.

[00:21:52]
So we didn't really know exactly what was going to come of that.

[00:21:56]
You know what I mean?

[00:21:57]
And it just the planning that came from it and just like everybody had a good time.

[00:22:01]
There was like a ton of engagement even just through the discord and everything.

[00:22:04]
It just felt like one of those like, all right, cool.

[00:22:06]
This is what happens when you don't get the baton past midseason.

[00:22:10]
Yeah.

[00:22:11]
You know, like so.

[00:22:13]
Yeah.

[00:22:14]
Sorry.

[00:22:15]
I'll get down and do some fun shit.

[00:22:16]
Sure.

[00:22:17]
And then I guess I'm sorry.

[00:22:18]
Go ahead, Warren.

[00:22:19]
No, no, go ahead, Toria.

[00:22:20]
I was just gonna say, I forgot about trivia 2.0.

[00:22:22]
That was a lot of fun.

[00:22:23]
And the guys we had on were a good group.

[00:22:26]
They kept it nice and entertaining.

[00:22:28]
It was very international too.

[00:22:29]
Didn't you guys have a UK?

[00:22:30]
Oh, yeah.

[00:22:31]
Yeah.

[00:22:32]
Yeah.

[00:22:33]
I think that's always like fucking building around times is I think low key, the biggest

[00:22:40]
obstacle for this entire show was building around time zones.

[00:22:45]
Well, we were relatively lucky and I think in that aspect is Tori and I are in the same

[00:22:50]
time zone and Warren was like pretty accommodating with his schedule in that sense.

[00:22:56]
So we were usually pretty consistent in our recording times.

[00:23:01]
Nice.

[00:23:02]
Yeah.

[00:23:03]
But I, you know, prior to this specific group when I was doing recording in the death straining

[00:23:12]
season, that was a big issue because we were like, you know, Zach was wherever the fuck

[00:23:19]
he was.

[00:23:20]
Yeah.

[00:23:21]
And Zach was in a government redacted location.

[00:23:26]
Right.

[00:23:27]
You know, like Sam was all the way on the West coast and even though Cole and I were

[00:23:33]
physically close to each other, we were still in different time zones.

[00:23:37]
Oddly enough.

[00:23:38]
Oh yeah.

[00:23:39]
I hate that about that.

[00:23:40]
Yeah.

[00:23:41]
Well, it's like that Alabama, Georgia line because it's like as soon as you're in Columbus,

[00:23:44]
Georgia, you're in central or like as soon as you're like on one side of Columbus, Georgia,

[00:23:48]
you're in central and then the other side is, yeah, it sucks.

[00:23:51]
Warren, I'm sorry.

[00:23:52]
I feel like I jumped in the middle of your pandemic segue.

[00:23:55]
What was that?

[00:23:56]
No, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:23:57]
I think, I think the big thing for me was, yeah, for, for everybody's like everybody's

[00:24:04]
life has been completely changed with since the pandemic, even whenever it feels back

[00:24:10]
to quote unquote normal.

[00:24:12]
It's not even like a fun word to say anymore.

[00:24:15]
It was just trying.

[00:24:16]
It's one thing to like the content, right?

[00:24:19]
Content comes first or like, let's try to do that.

[00:24:21]
But trying to make sure that everybody was able to have like the quality of life that

[00:24:25]
they were probably not getting with the real world because of everything going on.

[00:24:30]
So it was just a lot of like, you know, all right, how much time do you need?

[00:24:34]
When do you need it?

[00:24:35]
Who's got the best like, let's just pick one day that way you have other time for yourself.

[00:24:39]
I think that was like the biggest thing because it's just, it's one thing to do what's right

[00:24:42]
by the listeners and make sure that's there.

[00:24:44]
But, you know, we didn't really want to sacrifice our own selves, you know, to, because we know

[00:24:50]
it eventually would deplete the content.

[00:24:53]
So I think that was like, as far as like a struggle, I think that's like the main thing

[00:24:56]
that I would say the pandemic cost, at least for me personally.

[00:25:01]
And I mean, that's kind of like my job anyway.

[00:25:03]
But when it comes to a podcast, I kind of treat them the same, if that makes sense.

[00:25:07]
No, yeah, for sure.

[00:25:08]
I think it does.

[00:25:09]
I think in a weird way, and I think right now makes the most sense to like throw this

[00:25:14]
in there from my perspective.

[00:25:18]
In a weird way, I think me, because I mean, I walked away from the show when it was like

[00:25:26]
right before Death Stranding came out.

[00:25:28]
It was like October of 2019.

[00:25:32]
And I think for me, one of the things that like, it wasn't until we were working on putting

[00:25:35]
together this finale season that it really clicked for me, but I went like all of COVID

[00:25:42]
really would just like day job, personal writing, family stuff, kind of a thing, like all insular,

[00:25:48]
so to speak.

[00:25:49]
And in a weird way, man, I feel like I feel like doing something fun for other people

[00:25:58]
in general took a backseat like across the board for so many people during the pandemic.

[00:26:04]
Yeah.

[00:26:05]
So yeah, I mean, I don't know.

[00:26:06]
I think you guys were in a very, you guys were in a very special place.

[00:26:10]
And part of me is a little, a little envious that you guys got to have like, I don't know,

[00:26:16]
like a fun vent.

[00:26:18]
Definitely.

[00:26:19]
Venue.

[00:26:20]
Yeah.

[00:26:21]
So I know, so after this, we've got a recording with Nick and Chad, specifically to talk about

[00:26:29]
like moderating and like sort of like long time, like, so Tori Chad and Nick talking about

[00:26:35]
like moderating, entering in through the community, like funnel and stuff like that.

[00:26:41]
So I don't, I definitely don't want to speak too much about the community side of things,

[00:26:45]
but I do want to ask you guys from your perspective.

[00:26:47]
I think you guys inherited probably the, like at the time that you guys inherited the show,

[00:26:54]
I would say you guys inherited like peak audience engagement.

[00:27:01]
Like it was like peak discord, peak Patreon, like people just really active.

[00:27:06]
And so I guess from your perspective, since we're going to get sort of the other side

[00:27:10]
of that mirror, like here in a little bit, from your perspective, I'm curious, like how

[00:27:15]
much of a driving force was that?

[00:27:17]
Was that obviously I'm sure it was a source of enjoyment, but I mean, were there times

[00:27:21]
when you were like, hey, it's enjoy, it's like, I enjoy this, but I'm also like, I don't

[00:27:28]
want to have to fucking deal with these people.

[00:27:29]
Like what was that?

[00:27:31]
What was that experience like?

[00:27:32]
I mean, did you guys have good days, bad days?

[00:27:34]
Like, I don't know, just kind of walk me through it.

[00:27:36]
Well, first of all, listeners, go ahead and take your headphones out now.

[00:27:40]
Yeah.

[00:27:41]
No, I'm just kidding.

[00:27:44]
I can speak to this basically from the end of, no, maybe like the beginning of this year

[00:27:50]
to present.

[00:27:52]
The only time where I felt like that was an issue was when my personal life was just

[00:27:56]
like really, really crumbling and turning into a dumpster fire.

[00:28:02]
So that I mean, when everything was going well and I had what I felt like was the proper

[00:28:07]
time to really put everything into it, that was, as you said, Alessio, the driving force.

[00:28:14]
Because I had been a listener for so long, I enjoyed all the fun that the show brought

[00:28:19]
to my life.

[00:28:20]
I enjoyed all of the bits and the extra content and being able to provide all of that for

[00:28:27]
the listeners was really exciting for me.

[00:28:29]
So, you know, earlier this year, when, when that didn't happen as much, it was, it was

[00:28:36]
a huge bummer and something that I wish would have gone a little bit differently.

[00:28:41]
But other than that, no, it was, it was never a thing where I felt like, I don't

[00:28:45]
want to deal with listeners or community today.

[00:28:49]
Tori Cox, a shotgun in the background.

[00:28:53]
Tori, do you just random aside, do you still have the venom snake action figure that you

[00:28:57]
won on your tribute?

[00:28:59]
I sure do.

[00:28:59]
I sure do.

[00:29:00]
He's sitting on my bookshelf right now.

[00:29:02]
Well, standing.

[00:29:04]
Actually, he might have fallen over.

[00:29:05]
He's permanently standing in this torturous hellscape of a life that is

[00:29:11]
creators and beaut him with.

[00:29:12]
Yeah, he's he'll be all right.

[00:29:14]
It's okay.

[00:29:15]
Does he have a phantom cigar as well?

[00:29:18]
No, I don't think he does.

[00:29:20]
Of all the attachments that came along with it, there is no cigar or fan.

[00:29:24]
Can you imagine like a weird monkey's paw situation where we're like, hey,

[00:29:28]
Tori, you win this action figure.

[00:29:30]
And every time the action figure takes a puff of the phantom cigar, her life speeds up.

[00:29:35]
Oh, shit.

[00:29:37]
Although, you know, I couldn't make that happen.

[00:29:38]
I could I could roll a little phantom.

[00:29:43]
Place it in one of his hands.

[00:29:44]
Oh my God.

[00:29:45]
Well, Chris, so before we get to Warren, I did want to hear because Chris,

[00:29:50]
you're sort of you were the transitionary glue, not just for the community, but for

[00:29:56]
everybody, because like, essentially.

[00:30:00]
You were you were king of the hill, right?

[00:30:03]
From like death stranding season into two.

[00:30:06]
I don't know.

[00:30:07]
Well, I get last man standing.

[00:30:09]
Sorry.

[00:30:10]
Just call me Green Kettle.

[00:30:12]
Yeah, that's true.

[00:30:13]
Hank Hill.

[00:30:14]
No, but Chris, I am curious because you.

[00:30:17]
I mean, for all intents and purposes, I think before Warren and Tori joined the cast,

[00:30:20]
like you were managing the the fan end of things like you were the you were sort

[00:30:26]
of the face of the community side for a little bit.

[00:30:30]
So like, can you speak a little bit to that?

[00:30:32]
And I mean, who gives a shit?

[00:30:33]
Like the good, the bad, let's take the warts, whatever you got.

[00:30:36]
Let's.

[00:30:36]
Yeah.

[00:30:37]
I mean, I don't know that I ever really felt like the face of anything.

[00:30:40]
You know, I always what I tried to do is just keep the lights on at times

[00:30:49]
through the the several transitions, some some behind scenes that just were never

[00:30:55]
really known to listeners or were kept for listeners.

[00:31:01]
But, you know, pandemic times are chaotic.

[00:31:05]
So I think it just comes with the territory in a way.

[00:31:10]
For sure.

[00:31:12]
Yeah.

[00:31:12]
But it was a challenge.

[00:31:16]
You know, to me, it was just about getting everything organized in a way to try

[00:31:22]
to keep it manageable.

[00:31:25]
So like I was outsourcing a lot of the work to be honest with you.

[00:31:30]
Yeah.

[00:31:31]
I think while this was around, it was like the only time that an editor has

[00:31:34]
been paid to work on Metal Gear.

[00:31:37]
Yeah.

[00:31:38]
I I just say that as a slight, I definitely it's just funny to me that it was like

[00:31:42]
that time span was just like quick pay somebody.

[00:31:47]
Yeah.

[00:31:49]
No, but smart, smart on you, man.

[00:31:50]
Like I think I think that's something that I mean, I'm sure this has come up

[00:31:54]
at this point in the episode, but like Sam and myself would definitely go

[00:31:57]
through some pretty hardcore burnout stints.

[00:32:01]
So I think if anything, your your head was probably in a better place than ours

[00:32:04]
was and I also want to apologize because I feel like I feel like Chris in a life

[00:32:08]
raft after the Titanic went down was like Chris had three people in the boat.

[00:32:14]
Then two of them would jump overboard.

[00:32:15]
Then two other people would pull themselves onto the boat and be like, please,

[00:32:18]
please.

[00:32:20]
And then eventually Chris was like, fuck this on that.

[00:32:24]
Just use himself over the side.

[00:32:26]
Man, I got laid off twice this year.

[00:32:30]
And I'm sorry.

[00:32:31]
I'm sorry.

[00:32:31]
I'm remodeling a house.

[00:32:36]
You know, is that a euphemism or?

[00:32:37]
No, I have a house that is ripped down to the studs at the moment in East

[00:32:43]
Nashville that I am building into a house.

[00:32:49]
Props, Chris.

[00:32:51]
And and now in the past few weeks, I've learned I might not even be staying in

[00:32:56]
Nashville.

[00:32:58]
So God.

[00:32:59]
So twenty twenty one is a chaotic time for me.

[00:33:04]
And I'm on my own.

[00:33:06]
Life draft at the moment.

[00:33:09]
God damn.

[00:33:10]
Well, if anybody wants to contribute, go to gofundme.com.

[00:33:13]
So I'm kidding.

[00:33:14]
I'm kidding.

[00:33:15]
Yeah, no, no, no, we don't need we're we're good.

[00:33:18]
What we need is like in the movie Clock Stoppers, you know, I need one of those

[00:33:23]
ones.

[00:33:24]
So like, you know, whoever can hook that up, something to slow some time down,

[00:33:31]
hit your boy up.

[00:33:33]
Yes, the opposite.

[00:33:34]
It's the opposite of the sentient venom snake action figure

[00:33:39]
with his fucking phantom cigar.

[00:33:42]
I'm surprised nobody's done a comedy sketch about that, by the way.

[00:33:45]
Like Snake takes a puff of his of his phantom cigar and everybody around him's

[00:33:49]
like, no, age very quickly.

[00:33:54]
Warren, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:33:55]
What's I don't even remember where the fuck the question was.

[00:33:58]
Oh, what was your side of things as far as like community stuff?

[00:34:01]
Like because you I mean, you came up through the community as well.

[00:34:05]
And yes, I remember correctly.

[00:34:07]
I don't know if this is inaccurate, but Chris, were you the one who

[00:34:11]
stuck out a hand and pulled Warren out of the ocean during the

[00:34:15]
during the draft?

[00:34:16]
Well, I remember something to the effect of like, oh,

[00:34:21]
Warren's got a good microphone.

[00:34:26]
And Tori and I were talking about it.

[00:34:29]
Yeah, everybody was everybody was 15, but Warren was the guy who was 16 with the car.

[00:34:34]
Yeah, like he was the guy who had a martial lamp, you know, or whatever.

[00:34:39]
But yeah, it was like, I don't know, he had been on the show and like

[00:34:44]
had sort of produced a season for us when it was

[00:34:50]
the, you know, Sam, Zach, Cole and myself.

[00:34:53]
He sort of produced a whole season of the show.

[00:34:57]
I don't even know I do that.

[00:34:58]
Yeah, the observer season.

[00:35:01]
Oh, shit. Warren, what on you, dude?

[00:35:03]
As a listener, he he patronized us to produce that.

[00:35:09]
And so it it showed me that like he had something.

[00:35:15]
Well, like you.

[00:35:17]
No, I know, I know, I know.

[00:35:19]
That's crazy. Well, and I'm letting my absentee father show right now where I'm

[00:35:23]
like, well, I was off getting milk.

[00:35:24]
What do you mean?

[00:35:27]
Now, that's crazy.

[00:35:28]
Well, yeah, so Warren, I guess so first let's talk about that.

[00:35:31]
I mean, what brought you to the show?

[00:35:33]
How did you why did you decide to pick observer for the show?

[00:35:36]
And then kind of what was what was the story like from your perspective after that?

[00:35:41]
OK, so then I so I'd been a fan of the show.

[00:35:44]
I will probably say I found you guys in like 2016.

[00:35:48]
So it was pretty early.

[00:35:49]
It was pretty early on.

[00:35:50]
I'm just it took a long time for like podcasts listening, Warren, to actually

[00:35:56]
get involved with the podcast I would listen to from any degree,

[00:36:00]
even if they were like friends I knew versus just, you know, anything.

[00:36:03]
And in 2018, I was I just was like, you know, I'm going to start reaching out.

[00:36:06]
I'm going to start being involved.

[00:36:07]
And I think it was like late 2019, early 2020.

[00:36:11]
I became a patron and started getting involved.

[00:36:14]
And then they had a patron pod.

[00:36:17]
And I sent like a route.

[00:36:19]
I sent like an email in and Colin Sam ended up arguing over

[00:36:24]
like how to pronounce my last name or something like that on the patron pod.

[00:36:28]
And that's about right.

[00:36:29]
That's like a brand for metal.

[00:36:30]
Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:32]
And it just turned into like a like a PC thing.

[00:36:35]
And then someone dropped like the horror elements of it.

[00:36:38]
And Cole went on this whole tangent about being, you know, a little

[00:36:42]
a little pansy boy or whatever.

[00:36:43]
A little whiny baby.

[00:36:44]
Exactly.

[00:36:45]
And then how they wanted to think what they were going to do for

[00:36:50]
like sort of an in between season or whatever they were going to do next.

[00:36:52]
And they were talking about cyberpunk at the time.

[00:36:55]
So they wanted to do like a cyberpunk season.

[00:36:56]
They talked about Blade Runner.

[00:36:58]
So I threw in launch to do a video game that's adjacent.

[00:37:01]
If you're going to do a movie, might as well do a game too.

[00:37:04]
And it turned out to be a snatcher.

[00:37:06]
Yeah.

[00:37:07]
Well, they had to actually mention that too.

[00:37:09]
I was like, well, if you're not going to do that, like at least do something it had,

[00:37:12]
you know, it had not Roy Batty, but it had, you know,

[00:37:16]
the actor in it.

[00:37:17]
So just little things like that.

[00:37:18]
And it just turned into a thing.

[00:37:19]
Chris actually asked if I wanted to be on the show because I just, you know,

[00:37:23]
I was a pretty low tier patron, but at the time there was like a sale for PS.

[00:37:27]
So I just was like, yeah, I'll just get some PS cards.

[00:37:30]
I think the game was on sale for like eight bucks.

[00:37:33]
So it was just one of those things.

[00:37:34]
I was like, who cares?

[00:37:34]
Like, you know, I just want you to play it because I want to hear on a PC

[00:37:38]
how scared Cole got is like kind of the joke, you know what I mean?

[00:37:42]
And it turned into a season.

[00:37:43]
And by the end of it, Chris had said, you know, hey,

[00:37:45]
if you want to come on, like you've clearly played the game.

[00:37:47]
And if anything, we owe that to you if you want, had a lot of fun on the show.

[00:37:52]
It was great.

[00:37:53]
We actually recorded on my wife's birthday and she was asleep on the couch

[00:37:57]
from that day.

[00:37:59]
So it was like, I knew it was going to be fine.

[00:38:00]
And I wasn't worried about like interrupting a birthday gift or anything.

[00:38:05]
And then once I came on, I got to say the patrons,

[00:38:09]
I really, I really love our discord and like our little community,

[00:38:13]
however big or small it has been in my history with it.

[00:38:18]
I think the the I in probably like a thank you vid or something I dropped,

[00:38:21]
I can safely say that half to three quarters of the discord know more

[00:38:26]
about my life post 2020 than most people that I have physical interaction with

[00:38:32]
because I just haven't seen them because of the pandemic and everything.

[00:38:36]
So any struggles I'm going through or things I want to enjoy or anything like that.

[00:38:40]
I'm not a big social media poster.

[00:38:42]
And I'm sure the three of you who I think are all friends of me,

[00:38:45]
you clearly see that I'm not like a engaging social media person that much.

[00:38:49]
I have my moments, but not really.

[00:38:51]
Yeah.

[00:38:51]
But I see that you like posts and then I'm like, I never see posts from.

[00:38:55]
Yeah. So rare. It's so rare.

[00:38:57]
It's so rare.

[00:38:59]
But the discord, I think I can safely say like outside of like maybe just having

[00:39:02]
a long work day or something really bad.

[00:39:05]
We're in it, but I'm I've been active like as often as I can

[00:39:08]
because it's legitimately fun.

[00:39:11]
Like I actually I learn about a game I didn't know about someone's trying to get

[00:39:14]
me a PS5, right?

[00:39:15]
Little things like that.

[00:39:16]
People are just trying to help for no cost.

[00:39:18]
It's just they just want to engage with everybody.

[00:39:21]
And I think I'm the last one to not get a PS5.

[00:39:24]
I'm not going to shout at anybody else who got one because I'm proud of you,

[00:39:27]
but I'm usually at work or something.

[00:39:29]
But I keep getting hanged on a tag, give it a shot.

[00:39:32]
Yeah, I don't think anybody in this.

[00:39:36]
I don't know if you have been publicly typing, you know, I want a PS5.

[00:39:39]
You know, I mean, if you don't have one because you're not hunting one down,

[00:39:41]
that's I would hope that, you know, if you're not trying to get something you don't want.

[00:39:46]
We have to go to one.

[00:39:48]
So Warren.

[00:39:50]
Warren and I were recording a Patriot Club, I think.

[00:39:53]
And it was a night when I think Walmart was about to get restocked with them.

[00:39:59]
It's so part of that episode was featuring Warren, like really, really trying to get at it.

[00:40:04]
And I guess I know now that that didn't happen.

[00:40:06]
That felt so long ago.

[00:40:07]
But sorry to hear that, Warren.

[00:40:09]
Still nothing, man.

[00:40:10]
Yeah.

[00:40:11]
But otherwise, otherwise I'm grateful and very thankful.

[00:40:13]
I love our Discord in our community very, very much.

[00:40:16]
Yeah. Well, and again, like I'm super glad to hear you guys' perspective on it because.

[00:40:24]
I think I know for mental health reasons, I haven't been in there recently

[00:40:28]
because I have this like uncontrollable urge to engage with the Discord,

[00:40:33]
even when I should be doing other things.

[00:40:36]
Yeah, you're the ghost in the machine, Alessio.

[00:40:38]
You were you were on.

[00:40:40]
I would see you post it two a.m.

[00:40:42]
My time four p.m.

[00:40:43]
My time six p.m.

[00:40:44]
My time night.

[00:40:45]
My time like this guy doesn't sleep.

[00:40:47]
What are you doing?

[00:40:48]
Yeah, I was.

[00:40:50]
I don't know what it was.

[00:40:51]
And so I will say this to like, I mean, people who listen to the show who have written in before

[00:40:56]
and fuck, maybe it was maybe you guys were touched by this.

[00:41:01]
I have this like uncontrollable urge to respond to everything.

[00:41:06]
For the show.

[00:41:07]
That was the most exciting thing when I first wrote in and I got a response

[00:41:11]
from you within like an hour.

[00:41:12]
I was like, oh, shit.

[00:41:13]
All right.

[00:41:16]
Well, and it always made my day when people responded

[00:41:18]
or like, holy fuck, I didn't think you would respond.

[00:41:20]
And I'm like, hey, like, like that's what we like.

[00:41:23]
That's what we do it for.

[00:41:24]
You know what I mean?

[00:41:25]
But yeah, I mean, all that to say that like my heavy Discord use

[00:41:31]
started when I stopped recording the show because I still wanted to help in some way

[00:41:36]
or be engaged or whatever.

[00:41:37]
And I know.

[00:41:39]
Like and Sam can speak to this as well.

[00:41:41]
But Sam, I think has never really been super keen on the Discord.

[00:41:45]
Like just from a usability standpoint, I don't think it's like

[00:41:48]
there's certain people who dig chat rooms and there's certain people who don't.

[00:41:51]
Right.

[00:41:53]
And so I think for the most part, like a lot of us and I think even at the time,

[00:41:57]
like we we had a slack way back when like two years of the show or something.

[00:42:04]
And then a lot of people would write in and be like,

[00:42:05]
yo, I heard you mentioned a slack early on, but like, where is it?

[00:42:10]
And because we stopped doing it because we didn't want to manage it.

[00:42:13]
And then probably a year or two before you guys got involved,

[00:42:17]
we opened the Discord up.

[00:42:19]
And I know Sam like Isaac, obviously, never engages with anything social.

[00:42:25]
But Sam was like kind of, I don't know, I think for him, it was overwhelming.

[00:42:31]
And so for me, I don't know.

[00:42:32]
I almost felt like an obligation to be present if I wasn't on the show anymore.

[00:42:38]
Which led to some very fun situations where I was taken aback

[00:42:43]
by people who were listening to the show pretty frequently, who didn't know who I was.

[00:42:49]
I think that was a moment when I was like, holy fuck, it's it's gone on without me.

[00:42:55]
For so long now.

[00:42:57]
But no, I mean, straight up, I mean, just to put a point on it,

[00:42:59]
I know I'm kind of rambling a little bit, but like there are probably

[00:43:05]
between eight and 12 people who I would consider like some of my absolute closest

[00:43:10]
friends that came from that fucking Discord.

[00:43:15]
So I don't know, it's just crazy to think about.

[00:43:17]
Pretty fucking special.

[00:43:19]
I mean, even outside of covid times to forge a relationship with people

[00:43:24]
you've never met in person and especially such strong relationships

[00:43:28]
as the ones that happen within this community, it's pretty fucking cool.

[00:43:33]
Yeah, for sure.

[00:43:35]
Yeah, I don't know.

[00:43:35]
And I definitely remember like when Half Life Alex came out,

[00:43:37]
just like streaming that gal to people and hearing voices in my head while it was playing.

[00:43:44]
And it's just super cool.

[00:43:45]
It's like I'm totally just doing this thing and some friends are along

[00:43:48]
for the ride because that was VR, right?

[00:43:51]
So you were probably tripping out real hard at that point.

[00:43:54]
Yeah, just straight up in it.

[00:43:55]
One of my first Discord Alessio experiences was when I didn't realize

[00:43:59]
the usability of Discord.

[00:44:00]
So I clicked on like a stream that you were doing of Final Fantasy 14.

[00:44:04]
Alessio. Yeah.

[00:44:05]
And you were like, hi, Warren.

[00:44:06]
I was like, oh, shit.

[00:44:09]
Part of the conversation.

[00:44:11]
So hey, hey, man.

[00:44:12]
And you went on like about an hour of trying to sell me on.

[00:44:16]
I was like, this may look like madness, but here is what's happening.

[00:44:21]
No, yeah.

[00:44:22]
For some reason, I think I mean, a lot of people like Twitch, right?

[00:44:25]
But for me, I think Discord streaming is a lot more fun because you can

[00:44:28]
like actually fucking hear people like you can have conversations with people.

[00:44:34]
But yeah, I don't know.

[00:44:35]
I think so. Here's another.

[00:44:37]
I guess hypothetical.

[00:44:39]
Is there an episode that you wish you would have done?

[00:44:41]
Like, is there an episode that that didn't get recorded for MGM that like if you

[00:44:48]
if you were told, hey, we're going to give you 1200 bucks and an editor

[00:44:53]
and you don't have to worry about it.

[00:44:54]
You just have to show up and record the content.

[00:44:56]
Like what would like a dream episode have been for fanfic part two, baby?

[00:45:02]
I forgot about that.

[00:45:05]
So much fun.

[00:45:07]
Yeah, I would have loved to gotten in on that action.

[00:45:09]
I think we even talked about it at some point and it just never came to fruition.

[00:45:13]
But that was one of the episodes I laughed the hardest at.

[00:45:18]
Yeah, it was super good.

[00:45:18]
I do like that one a lot.

[00:45:21]
Christopher David Wallace, Christopher Hampton.

[00:45:27]
I love that.

[00:45:28]
Chris, can you start going by that now?

[00:45:30]
Sure.

[00:45:30]
Yeah, that's fine.

[00:45:33]
So accommodating.

[00:45:34]
Yeah, Chris Hampton and the Infinite Jest.

[00:45:36]
Mm hmm.

[00:45:38]
So let's see, 1200 bucks.

[00:45:44]
Yeah, OK.

[00:45:50]
That's pretty tough, I guess.

[00:45:55]
You know, it's probably a toss up between doing, I think, Boys Trip that would have been

[00:46:04]
that was talked about, much talked about that never happened.

[00:46:08]
That would have been a good one.

[00:46:12]
And I was always interested in visiting police dots.

[00:46:21]
Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:46:22]
Yeah, y'all could have had a whole, y'all could have had a whole fucking

[00:46:26]
sit down soap box on sexism if you would have been a police.

[00:46:31]
Oh, yeah, I think that would have been a pretty pivotal part of the conversation, too.

[00:46:37]
You know, yeah, it is crazy because like I didn't think about it.

[00:46:40]
I know we had it on the roster of stuff to cover before the great divide.

[00:46:46]
And it's weird, man.

[00:46:47]
Like I went back even like in the first hour, I'm like, holy shit, what a misogynistic video game.

[00:46:53]
Yeah.

[00:46:54]
It's just wow.

[00:46:55]
What's your golden, your golden egg?

[00:46:59]
I guess so I would probably say when it comes to like this, like we'll just say we for since

[00:47:05]
we're in this little thing.

[00:47:06]
I thought it would have been cool.

[00:47:08]
I'll think I'll be a little selfish just because I'll be the one spending the money.

[00:47:12]
You guys all come out to my neck of the woods.

[00:47:16]
We maybe see a movie, play a video game, maybe do a stream, and we had all would have recorded

[00:47:21]
together, like in the same room, had an ideal just like how that like even if it wasn't about

[00:47:27]
Metal Gear, just like, all right.

[00:47:28]
So we went to this restaurant.

[00:47:29]
Would you we watch this movie?

[00:47:31]
What was it like just like a day in the life of us being able to have time to just hang out

[00:47:37]
with each other because I still haven't met any of you in person.

[00:47:41]
You know, and I don't know if I really ever will regardless.

[00:47:44]
I get has nothing to do with, you know, why we're recording just in general.

[00:47:47]
It's just hard to do that stuff.

[00:47:50]
Well, oddly enough, Warren and I are a stone's throw away from each other.

[00:47:53]
Not far.

[00:47:54]
Yeah.

[00:47:54]
Not far at all, honestly.

[00:47:55]
And I'm actually going to Brooklyn in two weeks.

[00:47:58]
I'm going to Comic Con, actually.

[00:47:59]
So I'm going to be in Brooklyn.

[00:48:01]
I have a buddy that lives two miles from the Javits Center.

[00:48:03]
So oh, shit.

[00:48:04]
Well, I will.

[00:48:05]
Well, the Javits Center is on the west side of Manhattan.

[00:48:09]
Are you staying in Brooklyn?

[00:48:11]
So he, yes.

[00:48:12]
So I have a friend that's two blocks from the Javits Center and I have a friend in Brooklyn.

[00:48:16]
Hang with him and then go to go there.

[00:48:19]
I made sure to get a room just in case I try.

[00:48:20]
Oh, yeah.

[00:48:21]
No, you're all good.

[00:48:21]
I had to try not to be a new York listeners.

[00:48:24]
Oh, no, please.

[00:48:25]
Yeah, I'm in no way.

[00:48:26]
I'm in no way.

[00:48:28]
I know it's a Manhattan thing, but you could you could show me a map in New York and I could

[00:48:31]
barely tell you how Albany is, you know.

[00:48:34]
Well, so I was going to say in that in that spirit, I hope that you didn't get flooded out, dude.

[00:48:40]
Like it that was insane when we got here.

[00:48:42]
Yeah.

[00:48:43]
What's your name?

[00:48:43]
Irma.

[00:48:44]
A lot of it was Irma, right?

[00:48:46]
Yeah.

[00:48:46]
I think it was.

[00:48:47]
We did a lot of window watching.

[00:48:48]
My wife and I had like a cold beer and just stared out back and I was like, I'm ready.

[00:48:53]
I have a whole outfit.

[00:48:54]
If I got to start like shoveling this water somewhere else, luckily,

[00:48:59]
I had done a lot of work in the backyard in the summer anyway.

[00:49:01]
It just happened to work out that the water never drained.

[00:49:03]
It was never a problem.

[00:49:04]
Thank God.

[00:49:05]
Nice.

[00:49:06]
We had the opposite problem where we thought it was the water.

[00:49:09]
Turned out it was the fucking water system from the city and it was

[00:49:13]
putting water into our basement from inside the house.

[00:49:17]
Oh, it's coming from inside the house.

[00:49:20]
Yeah.

[00:49:21]
The call is the worst horror movie.

[00:49:23]
I know, dude.

[00:49:24]
So I was ankle deep in water in our basement, which sucks.

[00:49:27]
But anyway, landlord, this is the only property our landlord manages.

[00:49:32]
So he was very available.

[00:49:34]
That's great.

[00:49:35]
But yeah, east coast, no.

[00:49:38]
Nice.

[00:49:39]
Well, while the west coast burns, we get a lot of water.

[00:49:41]
Maybe we can be in the middle.

[00:49:43]
Yeah, come out to Kansas.

[00:49:44]
We're doing fucking fine.

[00:49:47]
Not too brag.

[00:49:48]
The Midwest is the ideal place to live if corporate America didn't dump

[00:49:52]
all of their toxic waste there.

[00:49:57]
Nice.

[00:49:58]
So in that regard, too, I want to ask you guys, I guess, what's the word that I'm thinking of?

[00:50:08]
Shit.

[00:50:09]
Well, so sorry, circle back for two seconds.

[00:50:12]
I do want to say like I'm bummed that you guys had to deal with COVID.

[00:50:16]
I'm bummed that all these things had to had to happen while you guys were recording because,

[00:50:20]
and it's crazy to me that I think this only happened once in the history of the podcast.

[00:50:25]
But me, Isaac and Sam, no, I guess it would happen twice.

[00:50:28]
Me, Isaac and Sam getting together to record an episode was such a special thing.

[00:50:33]
And I'm so bummed out that more people didn't get a chance to do that.

[00:50:37]
Yeah.

[00:50:38]
Yeah, that would have been cool.

[00:50:40]
Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:50:42]
Well, cool.

[00:50:43]
So we've got like a few minutes left in these final moments.

[00:50:47]
I wanted to ask you guys, say I'm Joe or Jane listener, and I want to keep up with you guys

[00:50:56]
moving forward.

[00:50:58]
Where, like, what are you doing?

[00:50:59]
How can I keep up with you?

[00:51:01]
What's the next project on the horizon?

[00:51:04]
Point me in the right direction.

[00:51:06]
Tori, where are you?

[00:51:07]
What's up?

[00:51:08]
I am comfortably situated in the Midwest.

[00:51:14]
No, I don't.

[00:51:15]
You're just inviting people.

[00:51:16]
Come over to my house.

[00:51:17]
Big old porch.

[00:51:19]
Come party.

[00:51:21]
No, I have a pretty small apartment that wouldn't do.

[00:51:25]
No, I don't think I have anything going on in the immediate future.

[00:51:32]
There's some ideas rolling around, and I'd like to get back to something soon.

[00:51:38]
But for now, I'm going to take a welcome break from having a project to tend to.

[00:51:46]
So I can just kind of get my life back together.

[00:51:51]
But I will be hanging out in the discord, hopefully a little more frequently than I

[00:51:54]
have been recently.

[00:51:56]
You can still find me on all the socials, young Neil on Instagram and well, not so much Twitter

[00:52:03]
anymore.

[00:52:03]
I dipped out of Twitter, like probably right around 2020 and all that fun stuff.

[00:52:10]
But yeah, just try and keep up on the discord.

[00:52:13]
If there's anything happening on my end, that's probably where I'll be talking about it.

[00:52:19]
Follow up question.

[00:52:20]
So is the paywall entry for the discord going to disappear after the show?

[00:52:26]
You know what?

[00:52:26]
We had briefly talked about that and correct me if I'm wrong, Warren, but yes, we, since the show

[00:52:33]
will be no more, there's really nothing else to pay for.

[00:52:37]
So come hang out if you haven't decided to do that already.

[00:52:40]
Lots of people still in there just up to the same old shenanigans.

[00:52:47]
Sick.

[00:52:47]
Yeah, and I'll echo Tori.

[00:52:50]
Yeah, I think we, I'd say we'll say we three.

[00:52:54]
Chad has been pretty open and I ended up, I recorded with Freyda last night.

[00:52:58]
So he and I also agreed on it that yeah, our goal is to keep the discord alive.

[00:53:04]
There won't be a paywall or anything.

[00:53:05]
So the hope is to hopefully have these, have everyone sort of invite people they know that

[00:53:11]
would fit the bill of like this audience because the game a month and the movie a month, things

[00:53:17]
like that, they've been super fun for me and I've seen so many movies and talked about games that

[00:53:22]
I've not gotten to see and I consider myself someone that does go out of their way a lot

[00:53:27]
to do that stuff.

[00:53:28]
And I still found new things to talk about from what, you know, at least I'll say discord users

[00:53:33]
now had suggested, right?

[00:53:36]
We do want to keep it going just because I really, like I said, this is my,

[00:53:41]
this is more of my social life than, than otherwise.

[00:53:45]
I hope to get back.

[00:53:47]
I mean, I'll knock on wood, but I don't think my band's getting back together.

[00:53:51]
It's just too hard to get four guys in their late 30s that have lives and children still with all

[00:53:57]
this.

[00:53:57]
Two of our members don't want to play out because they don't feel safe.

[00:54:01]
I'm one of them.

[00:54:01]
So it's just tough to like do that.

[00:54:04]
But when it comes to if more music original or playing things like that, it'll be in the

[00:54:09]
discord to share.

[00:54:10]
So that way, maybe if it turns into something, you know, follow me then you'll keep me.

[00:54:14]
I'll be able to keep you guys posted.

[00:54:16]
So hypothetically, like if I'm a listener listening to this episode and I have not engaged

[00:54:20]
with anybody at all thus far, is it invite only?

[00:54:25]
Like how do I, how would I find the discord?

[00:54:28]
I think that's one of those.

[00:54:29]
It's like a minor kink.

[00:54:30]
We're going to figure out what's the best way to have that.

[00:54:33]
I'm sure it's maybe we'll do something like in the podcast description on the last like,

[00:54:37]
so if you're going through, you'd be able to find it that way.

[00:54:39]
Cause even if it's one of those, it might, I don't want to say invite only, but maybe

[00:54:43]
like approval, right?

[00:54:44]
Like, so if you sign in, we just see users interested.

[00:54:46]
We just hit okay.

[00:54:47]
Do the normal fielding that we do.

[00:54:49]
Hey, does this discord work for you?

[00:54:51]
Cause we have all our, we have so much infrastructure in the discord that sort of guides people to

[00:54:56]
learn that is this a place that they want to be part of anyway.

[00:55:00]
So I think the intent is to be, you know, as welcoming as we can, and then just sort

[00:55:05]
of let the infrastructure we built kind of catch.

[00:55:09]
If there's any issues.

[00:55:10]
So that way it's still very low maintenance, but you know, high engagement.

[00:55:15]
You gotta be cool with phantom cigars though.

[00:55:19]
First Chris, the phantom cigar dimes will never leave.

[00:55:23]
Amazing.

[00:55:24]
Thank you all.

[00:55:25]
Well, and likewise too, I think obviously if anything changes, the edit can reflect that.

[00:55:30]
So sure.

[00:55:32]
Yeah.

[00:55:32]
Well, yeah, for sure.

[00:55:33]
And I think more than likely like I would assume some social posts would go out or whatever.

[00:55:40]
Chris, where the hell can people find you sir?

[00:55:44]
On LinkedIn.

[00:55:45]
And post some amazing marketing stuff.

[00:55:50]
Yeah.

[00:55:50]
Like I'm very active on Lincoln.

[00:55:52]
That's no joke.

[00:55:53]
No.

[00:55:53]
I see Chris's face on LinkedIn more frequently than I thought I was.

[00:55:58]
Yeah.

[00:55:59]
It's, you know, I work a lot now.

[00:56:04]
But yeah.

[00:56:05]
And if you need any like agency work, anybody out there listening just like hit me up on LinkedIn.

[00:56:11]
So, but I'll probably be around the discord, you know, I like to stay in the background.

[00:56:18]
I don't like the limelight really.

[00:56:20]
So you're more of a lemon light guy.

[00:56:24]
Yeah.

[00:56:24]
Like a crispy sprite, you know.

[00:56:27]
Hell yeah.

[00:56:29]
I don't know why that is the first time I've ever thought about that.

[00:56:31]
I apologize.

[00:56:33]
I was like, oh my god.

[00:56:35]
Don't you have some some drum roll sound effect?

[00:56:39]
Oh yeah.

[00:56:39]
We could do that.

[00:56:40]
I'd have to do the answer.

[00:56:41]
Oh, are you do you guys?

[00:56:42]
Hey, hey, hey, cue it here.

[00:56:45]
I was about to ask if you guys wanted to have what could possibly be the ultimate final cue it here.

[00:56:52]
It is.

[00:56:53]
Holy shit.

[00:56:55]
That's crazy.

[00:56:55]
Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:56:57]
I'm sorry.

[00:56:57]
I keep saying all these like silent who's 20 years old, Ecos, 20 years old,

[00:57:02]
Metal Gear Mondays, six plus years old like guys, please.

[00:57:05]
I need the clock stoppers watch.

[00:57:07]
Yes.

[00:57:09]
Yep.

[00:57:10]
Damn.

[00:57:10]
Warren, where can people find you your band?

[00:57:13]
So yeah.

[00:57:14]
I'm still streaming on Twitch.

[00:57:17]
No, but I probably will get back into it.

[00:57:20]
I definitely want to do more stuff in the discord.

[00:57:22]
I actually had gotten a setup to where we were getting ready to do twisted metal too.

[00:57:27]
Like long playthroughs of that.

[00:57:28]
And I've been able to we actually had a guest on the recording we did the other night.

[00:57:33]
So I have like a pretty nice set it like easily like within five minutes I can do

[00:57:39]
a set up, B set up, C set up.

[00:57:41]
So there'll definitely be a lot more of that.

[00:57:43]
And since school will be ending for me soon, I'm going to have a lot more time to engage

[00:57:48]
and hopefully play music and stuff like that.

[00:57:50]
But yeah, so I'm at Warren Minix or untaggable gamer, whatever, you know,

[00:57:54]
whatever floats your boat on whatever platform.

[00:57:55]
I'm the only person with an X in their name and untaggable gamer never exists.

[00:58:00]
So if you find that, it's me.

[00:58:03]
And then my band, Spooky Forest, I hope, you know, maybe this will be like my last

[00:58:06]
gasp of trying to make it work.

[00:58:08]
I'm sure something will happen because we just hit like our single just crossed like

[00:58:12]
25,000 downloads.

[00:58:13]
So I just was hoping that was going to be like the fuel to get it going.

[00:58:16]
But we barely got a chance to even promote it.

[00:58:18]
The album was out for like six weeks before COVID.

[00:58:22]
So we had no time.

[00:58:24]
We played four shows basically.

[00:58:26]
That's crazy.

[00:58:27]
Well, congratulations on finishing school.

[00:58:29]
You are still the most mature 11th grader I've ever spoken to.

[00:58:35]
Thank you.

[00:58:35]
Thank you.

[00:58:38]
I'm sorry.

[00:58:38]
That was really bad.

[00:58:39]
I'll take it.

[00:58:40]
I'll take it.

[00:58:41]
No, but for real, man, congrats on everything.

[00:58:44]
I personally, I am very excited to kind of see what goes.

[00:58:48]
What happens next for everybody?

[00:58:50]
And I don't know.

[00:58:51]
I think it'll be, I think it'll be a lot of fun and obviously like Warren,

[00:58:54]
if you're in town, hit me up for sure.

[00:58:56]
We will, we'll do a masked meetup elbow touch.

[00:59:01]
Yeah.

[00:59:01]
This six, the six feet away having a beer.

[00:59:03]
Yeah.

[00:59:04]
Yeah.

[00:59:04]
Love it.

[00:59:04]
Throw a beer at you.

[00:59:06]
Yeah.

[00:59:07]
No, but for real, I mean, I think, I think this has been a really cool experience and

[00:59:11]
it's been really nice and it has made the world a much smaller, but more welcoming place.

[00:59:18]
Aw.

[00:59:19]
Yeah.

[00:59:19]
I don't know.

[00:59:20]
I have friends all over the world because of this show.

[00:59:23]
It's crazy.

[00:59:24]
And Kristen is still like, I don't want to meet anybody that you met on the internet.

[00:59:30]
Ouch.

[00:59:31]
Yeah.

[00:59:31]
She's scared.

[00:59:33]
She thinks the internet is filled with psychopaths.

[00:59:35]
Well, it is to be fair.

[00:59:36]
Yeah.

[00:59:37]
Yeah.

[00:59:37]
Yeah.

[00:59:37]
The internet is a psychopath.

[00:59:40]
But yeah, holy shit.

[00:59:41]
Yeah.

[00:59:41]
My wife finally like crossed the threshold of like, all right, this is pretty cool.

[00:59:46]
Like she actually was kind of, we did a live stream of the room because that won one of the

[00:59:51]
goes to the movies.

[00:59:52]
Oh, and we all kind of agreed.

[00:59:53]
We're like, we're not doing an episode on this, right?

[00:59:55]
Like we'll just do a live stream.

[00:59:56]
We'll do this movie.

[00:59:58]
Like that's what we're going to do, right?

[01:00:00]
And my wife was on for that.

[01:00:01]
And she was just like, she loves the room for obvious reasons.

[01:00:04]
I mean, who doesn't?

[01:00:06]
And it was like a lot of like, oh, he sounds nice.

[01:00:08]
I'm like, yeah, that's this person.

[01:00:10]
She's like, oh, wow.

[01:00:11]
I never realized that.

[01:00:11]
I was like, yeah, like you're, that's the guy that did our, you know, I got an artwork

[01:00:15]
commission from one of our patrons.

[01:00:17]
She's like, oh, he was really nice.

[01:00:18]
I'm like, yeah, he drew our picture.

[01:00:19]
She's like, oh, wow.

[01:00:20]
So she was just like, oh, wow, these are real people that are really nice and sweet.

[01:00:25]
They're actually Russian, Russian bots.

[01:00:27]
Exactly.

[01:00:28]
Yeah.

[01:00:28]
Oh yeah.

[01:00:28]
So it's a, it's a wire for my master bedroom or the picture.

[01:00:34]
Well, nice guys.

[01:00:34]
Holy shit.

[01:00:35]
I don't know how to conclude this.

[01:00:37]
I think anything that comes out of my mouth is going to be anti-climactic.

[01:00:41]
So maybe we just all get really quiet.

[01:00:44]
Imagine a really cool finale and then just let the music take us out.

[01:00:59]
Well, that was super educational.

[01:01:00]
And one of my biggest regrets is that we didn't get every era of the podcast into one room

[01:01:06]
and have them all fight to the death.

[01:01:08]
Oh shit.

[01:01:09]
Who do you think would be the last man standing if everybody who's been on this season so far

[01:01:13]
fought?

[01:01:16]
So you want to know the, it would either be.

[01:01:22]
I like that you went into Smash Brothers and announced your voice for that.

[01:01:26]
You're like, it would either be.

[01:01:28]
Either be.

[01:01:28]
I think it would either be Zach or Chris, if I'm being 100% honest with you,

[01:01:34]
because I think Zach is the obvious pick because he's like, you know,

[01:01:37]
he's tactical, he's in the military.

[01:01:39]
Like he's.

[01:01:39]
He's tactical.

[01:01:40]
Yeah.

[01:01:41]
He's tactical.

[01:01:42]
He's got guns.

[01:01:44]
He knows how to use them responsibly.

[01:01:46]
Zach Fox.

[01:01:48]
Zach Fox, dude.

[01:01:49]
And that's really all there is to it.

[01:01:50]
But I think Chris, Chris has like a savage like a like a savagery to him.

[01:01:54]
He told a story on a video we did a while back where he like talked about pouring beer

[01:02:04]
into a gas tank of a promoter that wouldn't give them their money for performing.

[01:02:12]
And wanted to give them like a pack of beer or something like that.

[01:02:14]
So he's got like that.

[01:02:16]
He's got that savage mindset.

[01:02:17]
I think Chris would be a dark horse.

[01:02:20]
Chris speaks softly and carries the rage of a mother lifting a car off of her child.

[01:02:29]
Like that is that is Chris.

[01:02:31]
Chris can move a goddamn mountain if you need him to.

[01:02:35]
But yeah, so let's.

[01:02:36]
So my my pick for that, well, Isaac, who's your pick actually?

[01:02:40]
Let's do this.

[01:02:41]
You can't say yourself.

[01:02:47]
I mean, I guess I guess I would dash me across the rocks, which are Isaac's abs in this situation.

[01:02:53]
Yeah, I was going to say, have you seen Isaac recently?

[01:02:55]
Isaac's jacked as fuck.

[01:02:57]
Like I don't know.

[01:03:01]
The evolution of Isaac's physique over the time that I've known him has been like

[01:03:07]
just like an entire story.

[01:03:09]
Our involvement in the show, like with our involvement in the show declining, Isaac's

[01:03:14]
peak physical condition has been increasing steadily.

[01:03:18]
So they're like the two parts of the graph are just moving away from each other.

[01:03:22]
I forgot.

[01:03:23]
We forgot to tell you guys about the section we're doing on middle gear.

[01:03:25]
Middle gear Monday's 3.0, which is Isaac has biceps and his abs talking

[01:03:31]
about rock climbing about rock climbing.

[01:03:35]
Do the training montage.

[01:03:39]
Remember your best friend will be this dude that you've never met.

[01:03:43]
I didn't even realize that.

[01:03:44]
Hey, Isaac, you've been really quiet and you look very sweaty.

[01:03:47]
Did you have an ultimate question or less?

[01:03:49]
Isaac, what do you want them to think about?

[01:03:51]
Number one, let's have fun.

[01:03:55]
Number two, you gotta stay true to it.

[01:03:58]
I then boy.

[01:04:02]
Hey, yeah, who would you?

[01:04:03]
What a good montage.

[01:04:04]
If you can't pick yourself, who would you pick?

[01:04:10]
Um, yo, that's a hard question.

[01:04:16]
I'm gonna I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with Tori and hear me out.

[01:04:20]
I think she's resourceful.

[01:04:22]
She will she will play those and this is I don't know this about her, but I assume

[01:04:29]
she's gonna play those mind games and get everybody pitted against each other.

[01:04:36]
You know, it's like one of those reality shows.

[01:04:38]
Think Tori is.

[01:04:42]
This is all happening.

[01:04:44]
Here's a question.

[01:04:45]
Who won the most games of Jackbox at one time?

[01:04:48]
We did that like hosts.

[01:04:49]
Oh, I can't remember.

[01:04:51]
I forgot we did that.

[01:04:52]
Yeah, I still have the t-shirts from TKO.

[01:04:55]
Oh my god.

[01:04:56]
The olive the olive with the give me the loot.

[01:05:00]
Dude, I bought some shirts off of that shit one time that never came to mind.

[01:05:04]
No way.

[01:05:05]
It took forever.

[01:05:06]
It just stole like 60.

[01:05:11]
They're like, thanks asshole.

[01:05:12]
Get out of here.

[01:05:14]
My pick has yet to be on the season.

[01:05:19]
My pick is a real Chad pick.

[01:05:24]
And you're going to hear him right now.

[01:05:26]
And here I am again, guys.

[01:05:35]
This is Alessio just jumping in during the edit to quickly sound off.

[01:05:40]
I apologize if the round table you're about to hear

[01:05:44]
repeats some information from table to table.

[01:05:47]
We were still trying to figure out how these were going to be split up at the time.

[01:05:50]
And the original idea was for the round table that you just heard

[01:05:54]
to be in one episode and the round table you're about to hear to be in another episode.

[01:05:59]
So I apologize if there is some duplicate information.

[01:06:02]
I tried to cut as much of it as I could.

[01:06:05]
However, there were instances where the momentum of the conversation and the dialogue

[01:06:10]
with all of the hosts was pretty intrinsically tied to the stories.

[01:06:15]
So I apologize.

[01:06:17]
I know I can be verbose and a little repetitive, but this was not intentional.

[01:06:24]
Please forgive me and please enjoy Metal Gear Mondays.

[01:06:27]
Here you go.

[01:06:29]
I am very, very, very, very, very happy to be joined in this special segment.

[01:06:35]
I'm going to go around the table and we're going to introduce everybody real quick.

[01:06:39]
We have Chad.

[01:06:40]
Quick Chad.

[01:06:41]
What's your favorite obscure Canadian childhood dish?

[01:06:44]
Childhood obscure dish?

[01:06:46]
Yes.

[01:06:47]
Do Americans are Americans familiar with Nanaimo bars at all?

[01:06:51]
No.

[01:06:51]
Americans.

[01:06:51]
Yeah.

[01:06:53]
Americans are my favorite obscure dishes.

[01:06:54]
So Nanaimo bars are these, they're like squares.

[01:06:56]
They're like brownies, but with mint in the middle kind of.

[01:06:58]
Whoa.

[01:06:59]
So it's like a junior mint brownie.

[01:07:01]
Yeah, but better.

[01:07:02]
That's crazy.

[01:07:03]
Chad, what's your full name?

[01:07:04]
If you're comfortable giving it.

[01:07:06]
Oh no.

[01:07:06]
You're trying to dox me.

[01:07:07]
We've only been recording for 30 seconds.

[01:07:09]
It's Chad Betteridge.

[01:07:11]
Hey, Chadly.

[01:07:12]
Chadly.

[01:07:13]
Yeah.

[01:07:13]
Chad Spudley is my full name actually.

[01:07:15]
Yeah.

[01:07:15]
Chad, what has your tenure been like on Metal Gear Mondays?

[01:07:19]
Your involvement from first date of today?

[01:07:22]
I started out as a fan way back in, I think, oh man, early 2019 joined the Discord at the end of

[01:07:31]
that year.

[01:07:33]
Thank God.

[01:07:34]
Which you then triggered.

[01:07:36]
Triggered my moddom, a mod of the Discord.

[01:07:40]
And then, which then triggered sort of being a host, which never really came to fruition.

[01:07:44]
And I've been on several PCs, but no mainlines yet, except for this one.

[01:07:48]
This is my mainline debut.

[01:07:51]
Right at the tail end.

[01:07:52]
Well, I was going to say, which then triggered COVID-19.

[01:07:55]
So actually Chad.

[01:07:55]
Yeah, that's true.

[01:07:56]
Yeah, I caused it.

[01:07:57]
Damn it, Chad.

[01:07:59]
Sorry, y'all.

[01:07:59]
I'm also joined by Tori.

[01:08:01]
Hey, Tori, what's the misconnection that keeps you awake at night?

[01:08:07]
Quick, quick, quick.

[01:08:11]
The Nymobars.

[01:08:12]
The Nymobars.

[01:08:13]
Yeah, I never got to have a Nymobar, which I've never heard of until today.

[01:08:17]
Okay, alternate.

[01:08:19]
Quickly, name five things that aren't Metal Gear.

[01:08:20]
Go.

[01:08:21]
Oh, fuck.

[01:08:22]
Potatoes, dogs.

[01:08:27]
American.

[01:08:27]
Metal Gear.

[01:08:27]
Shit.

[01:08:30]
Solid snake.

[01:08:31]
Damn it.

[01:08:33]
Thank you.

[01:08:33]
Thank you guys for entertaining me.

[01:08:36]
Tori, what's your full name?

[01:08:37]
We just heard you on another segment, but pretend like we didn't.

[01:08:41]
It is the Youthful Neil.

[01:08:45]
Very nice.

[01:08:45]
What is your tenure for the second time?

[01:08:48]
Well, this one's going to be a bit different because I actually,

[01:08:51]
I think I started listening to the show when you guys were

[01:08:55]
putting out the Metal Gear Solid 4 episodes, or at least that's where I started.

[01:09:00]
And then I can't, for the life of me, remember Alessio when it was that I reached out to you,

[01:09:05]
but that's when my community engagement really kicked off.

[01:09:10]
And then I guess I got to be in mod of the show starting in April when

[01:09:17]
the offer was extended to come join the show.

[01:09:21]
So I modded for a little bit before officially becoming a host in June of 2020.

[01:09:26]
Very nice.

[01:09:28]
Hey, Nick, if you could name a natural disaster, what would you name it?

[01:09:32]
What would the disaster be and where would it happen?

[01:09:35]
Oh man, there was just a tropical storm, Nicholas, I think.

[01:09:39]
Ravage the Southeast.

[01:09:42]
Ravage to my Southeast.

[01:09:44]
Oh no.

[01:09:47]
But no, I think, what's the coolest of the natural disasters?

[01:09:51]
Is it?

[01:09:52]
Blizzard.

[01:09:53]
Blizzard?

[01:09:53]
Oh no, that's not cool.

[01:09:55]
That's a...

[01:09:56]
It's literally cool.

[01:09:58]
Oh yeah, that's true.

[01:10:00]
That's true.

[01:10:00]
I would say Tsunami.

[01:10:03]
I just think that's a...

[01:10:04]
What would you name it, Johnny?

[01:10:05]
Ah, you beat to the punch, Alessio.

[01:10:09]
We're not even five minutes in and Nick has already said that Tsunamis are cool.

[01:10:14]
Coolest sounding.

[01:10:16]
Oh, okay, true.

[01:10:18]
And apologies if anybody has been harmed by a Tsunami.

[01:10:23]
Crying in Japanese?

[01:10:24]
Yes.

[01:10:27]
Yeah, I don't know what I would name it.

[01:10:28]
I guess it'd be...

[01:10:31]
Yeah, Johnny Tsunami.

[01:10:33]
What else could it be?

[01:10:35]
Amazing.

[01:10:37]
Nick, what is your tenure with the show?

[01:10:38]
When did you listen?

[01:10:39]
How did you...

[01:10:40]
When did you get involved?

[01:10:41]
So, you probably know the start date of the show.

[01:10:44]
And I can tell you that I started listening.

[01:10:47]
It was six months in and I found my way to it from Cole Ross with the Watch Out for Fireballs

[01:10:54]
podcast.

[01:10:54]
He was a guest on the Metal Gear Solid 3 season, I think.

[01:10:59]
And I think that was six months into the show.

[01:11:01]
Did he plug it?

[01:11:02]
I can't remember if he ever plugged it or not.

[01:11:03]
He did plug it.

[01:11:04]
That's how I found it.

[01:11:05]
Oh, amazing.

[01:11:07]
Yeah, so that's how I found my way there.

[01:11:10]
And then I became pretty active on the Slack.

[01:11:13]
It was the Slack channel at the time.

[01:11:16]
My wife used to give me her time about hanging out with the Slackers all the time.

[01:11:21]
I spent a huge time on my phone.

[01:11:23]
Why didn't you say that your wife was giving you Slack?

[01:11:28]
Oh, yeah.

[01:11:29]
Well, so hanging out with the Slackers, then I was hanging out with the Discorders.

[01:11:33]
And I think during the time I was on the Slack, I joined on being a guest on a few episodes.

[01:11:40]
I can't remember which one was my first.

[01:11:42]
I know there was Metal Gear.

[01:11:44]
There was the horrible one, Solid Snake's Revenge.

[01:11:47]
I think that was your first one.

[01:11:49]
I don't think it was.

[01:11:50]
Well, maybe it was.

[01:11:51]
There was that one.

[01:11:52]
There was Metal Gear Saga.

[01:11:55]
I was on an episode for that.

[01:11:56]
I was on the Portable Ops episode when we covered that.

[01:12:01]
Yeah, it might have been either Portable Ops or Snake's Revenge.

[01:12:03]
I think it was Portable Ops, maybe.

[01:12:05]
All right, I'm going to be curious.

[01:12:06]
I could be wrong.

[01:12:07]
I'd have to look back.

[01:12:08]
But and then maybe there was one or two others.

[01:12:12]
But yeah, been a part of it ever since.

[01:12:17]
Well, that's pretty cool that we've had all three of you guys now.

[01:12:21]
Now that Chad has made his formal debut.

[01:12:24]
Yeah, what up?

[01:12:26]
But yeah, that's crazy.

[01:12:27]
I don't know.

[01:12:29]
It's just been a wild ride.

[01:12:32]
It's been a lot of fun.

[01:12:33]
And I'm really excited to just shoot the shit about the community stuff.

[01:12:36]
Because I know when we...

[01:12:38]
So we touched a little bit on this in the MGM 2.0.

[01:12:42]
segment.

[01:12:44]
But I mean, I think there's enough content from a community standpoint that we can just

[01:12:50]
dedicate a whole segment of this episode to discussing it.

[01:12:54]
Because I think for people who never joined the Patreon, which I would say it's probably

[01:12:59]
like depending on what show it is, I think for the majority of listeners probably don't patronize

[01:13:07]
shows, if I had to guess.

[01:13:10]
It's kind of like YouTubers and subscriptions or whatever.

[01:13:14]
Hit the bell, like and subscribe.

[01:13:17]
It's like what, 14% or something ridiculous?

[01:13:21]
But yeah, so I think in a weird nutshell, this is us codifying the listener fan experience

[01:13:29]
for anybody who maybe never took that step, I guess.

[01:13:35]
So yeah, I don't know.

[01:13:37]
Obviously, this is going to be a little bit of a free form conversation, but I think I figured

[01:13:40]
I'd get us started with just some kind of round table questions because you've all at some point

[01:13:46]
modded a...

[01:13:49]
I think the Discord, right?

[01:13:50]
I don't think anybody here modded the Slack, right?

[01:13:53]
I actually, I didn't know there was a Slack until Nick mentioned it.

[01:13:55]
Yeah, it was super old.

[01:13:57]
Well, it's funny.

[01:13:58]
So I guess we can start there.

[01:13:59]
So we started a Slack probably a year into the original run of the show.

[01:14:05]
And what ended up happening is nobody wanted to keep up with it but me.

[01:14:11]
And so like Isaac, Isaac is very, if you can't tell, Isaac's very anti-social on the internet.

[01:14:17]
And Sam enjoyed engaging with it in sort of small bursts, but did want to have to like

[01:14:24]
keep up with it, right?

[01:14:27]
And I mean, fair enough, like for some people, chat rooms can be kind of overwhelming

[01:14:31]
because you just have to keep your eyes on it at all times.

[01:14:35]
But yeah, so we started a Slack and went for about a year, year and a half, and then maybe two years.

[01:14:39]
And I remember, I started to get burned out because I think at the time I was like

[01:14:45]
editing, writing skits, recording, playing the games and managing the Slack.

[01:14:51]
And I was like, this is too much.

[01:14:52]
Like I just don't want to deal with it.

[01:14:54]
And so we didn't have the Slack for probably about two years after that.

[01:14:58]
And then it was actually a listener wrote in several times and was like,

[01:15:03]
hey, I kept hearing about the Slack on old episodes.

[01:15:05]
Like what the hell is that?

[01:15:06]
Why isn't that real?

[01:15:07]
I want to talk to other listeners.

[01:15:09]
And so I think it was actually Sam Lemke, a Tory.

[01:15:14]
He would. Sam, I hope you're listening.

[01:15:16]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:15:17]
Yeah, yeah.

[01:15:18]
And so Sam, God bless his soul, kept asking me for this thing.

[01:15:23]
And then finally I was like, okay, let's do it.

[01:15:26]
So damn, I can't believe we have Lemke to thank for that.

[01:15:29]
I mean, I guess I can.

[01:15:30]
Thanks, Lemke.

[01:15:31]
Yeah, of course.

[01:15:32]
He's a very, very social cat on the internet.

[01:15:35]
But yeah.

[01:15:36]
So yeah, no, let's talk.

[01:15:38]
So Nick, you were kind of the first, I think, right?

[01:15:40]
Yeah.

[01:15:41]
Because of your Slack experience.

[01:15:42]
Tell us a little bit about like what that was like if you still have that.

[01:15:45]
If I can still remember.

[01:15:48]
I mean, it was a small, but I felt like it was a very active community.

[01:15:53]
I mean, and I do, I do recall Sam being pretty active there,

[01:15:57]
at least at the beginning of all of that.

[01:16:01]
Cameron was part of that at that point.

[01:16:03]
And that's how I met Cameron.

[01:16:05]
And then we started, we did our own RPG podcast on the sign, thanks to that Slack.

[01:16:13]
Yeah, it was fun.

[01:16:14]
You guys covered some cool stuff.

[01:16:15]
Yeah, we did that for a little bit.

[01:16:17]
And then, you know, it's kind of, I'm trying to remember.

[01:16:21]
I mean, I think that's where there was a lot of inside jokes that kind of

[01:16:26]
maybe even bled over into the show and vice versa.

[01:16:30]
A lot of Matt Campbell stuff.

[01:16:35]
But I mean, I think there's also like deeper conversations too.

[01:16:38]
Like we talked about, like I remember having a really long conversation with the community

[01:16:43]
in terms of like African American representation and Metal Gear.

[01:16:47]
And, you know, so it's like, it's a mix of like serious conversations and silly conversations.

[01:16:54]
But I don't think it was really too different from the Discord, from what I can recall.

[01:17:03]
But yeah, it was a good time.

[01:17:06]
It was my first foray into like that more of a forum chat experience.

[01:17:14]
But I felt like it was more immediate than like a forum or chat room.

[01:17:19]
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think even as far as lifting the format from Watch Out for Fireballs,

[01:17:26]
we also kind of lifted the Slack format a little bit because I had patronized Duck Feed for a while.

[01:17:32]
And I just remember the Slack was super cool, but oh my God.

[01:17:38]
Too busy.

[01:17:39]
Dude.

[01:17:39]
It's so busy.

[01:17:40]
Mother of God.

[01:17:41]
Like it was too much.

[01:17:43]
Like I signed in for the first time and immediately was like, no, like turn the computer off.

[01:17:49]
Like it would be nice to have a lot more patrons for sure.

[01:17:53]
But it was like, at least with both the MGM Slack and the MGM Discord,

[01:17:59]
it was a lot more approachable, I think for newcomers to come in and start getting into

[01:18:04]
the conversation with how many voices that there were.

[01:18:08]
And I also think that there was a lot of renovation in terms of kind of like the structure and the

[01:18:16]
organization of it.

[01:18:17]
And I think some of that's thanks to Chad, right?

[01:18:20]
Later on in terms of the Discord.

[01:18:23]
But I think that that was really helpful also for it being digestible.

[01:18:26]
But yeah, you go to Duck Feed TV's Slack and it's just, or I think they're on it.

[01:18:31]
Are they on a Discord now?

[01:18:33]
Yeah, I think so.

[01:18:33]
Okay, I couldn't do it.

[01:18:35]
Like you.

[01:18:36]
There's just so many people talking at once and it's like you can't,

[01:18:43]
you'd have to be on there all the time to keep up.

[01:18:46]
Every channel has as many people as the entire MGM Discord.

[01:18:52]
It's insane.

[01:18:53]
Yes.

[01:18:53]
Yeah, no, it's madness.

[01:18:56]
But yeah, I mean, obviously we wanted to do something to let people meet.

[01:19:00]
I know for the longest time, one of the things we talked about,

[01:19:05]
I don't know, it's so hard to explain because the first year that we were doing MGM,

[01:19:09]
it was just a lot of like, is anybody even listening?

[01:19:12]
You know what I mean?

[01:19:13]
It was like, there was no feedback because we were essentially

[01:19:19]
sending finished episodes to our friend who owned the FTP server.

[01:19:24]
And then he was putting stuff up on the FTP and then we'd see the episode populate on iTunes.

[01:19:31]
And really all we had to go off of was iTunes reviews.

[01:19:34]
So we would ask people at the end of every episode, hey, post on iTunes reviews.

[01:19:39]
And I think eventually after like six months, I was like, okay, cool.

[01:19:43]
This isn't just like a one-off project.

[01:19:45]
So like, let me start a contact email or whatever.

[01:19:50]
And so I think it was like the contact email and Facebook DMs were really like the only way we could

[01:19:55]
communicate with people.

[01:19:57]
But on Facebook, I mean, not everybody uses Facebook.

[01:20:00]
It's hard to determine who's actually listening and who's not based on 40 people that like the Facebook page or whatever.

[01:20:07]
And so I just remember for the longest time, it was like, well, we don't know if anybody's even listening.

[01:20:11]
And then I think if you're listening to this here, like I want to start a podcast,

[01:20:15]
unfortunately, I think the whole first year or two is going to be you waiting for momentum to kick in.

[01:20:23]
So you have to be consistent because if you're not, you're going to shoot yourself in the foot.

[01:20:28]
And so anyway, so we finally, I think when we started the Slack and we started to see people

[01:20:32]
trickle in suddenly it was like, oh, holy shit, we've been recording for two years,

[01:20:36]
assuming it was mostly just for us.

[01:20:39]
And then all of a sudden, all these people were like, hey, like I listen to you guys and blah, blah, blah.

[01:20:43]
And I think one of my personal regrets is that we switched feeds because we stopped using our friends FTP

[01:20:50]
and then we started hosting our own.

[01:20:52]
And I know for a fact that when we did that and then when we shut down the Slack and eventually open the Discord like a year or two later,

[01:21:00]
I know people got lost in the shuffle.

[01:21:03]
And so there were like, I mean, there were people who were constantly on that Slack.

[01:21:08]
Who I've not heard from ever since.

[01:21:10]
Yeah, there's a couple that I mean come to mind if, hey, if you're listening to Zach with

[01:21:16]
Zach and was a big one, I can't remember his last name was, which is a shame.

[01:21:22]
Nick Ziggler disappeared.

[01:21:23]
Oh yeah, Nicky Z.

[01:21:25]
And if you're listening, Nick, come back.

[01:21:29]
From one Nick to another.

[01:21:31]
From one Nick to another.

[01:21:32]
Zach, what was his last name?

[01:21:33]
It big beard.

[01:21:34]
Really funny guy.

[01:21:35]
Really funny guy.

[01:21:36]
You're total.

[01:21:37]
You're right.

[01:21:38]
And he was hilarious.

[01:21:39]
And I think we lost him in that transition.

[01:21:42]
Yeah, quite a few people.

[01:21:44]
Well, I mean, likewise too, it's like, I know Cameron moved and a bunch of other stuff, obviously, and like personal stuff.

[01:21:51]
But it's like, I mean, I even extended an invite to Cameron to be on the finale season.

[01:21:55]
And it's like, I mean, obviously life just kind of happens and people grow apart.

[01:21:59]
But it is, I don't know, it is sort of to reflect back on those people.

[01:22:03]
It is kind of a bummer to see like who stuck and who didn't.

[01:22:07]
But anyway, on that extremely.

[01:22:12]
Oh, God.

[01:22:13]
Chad and Tori, would you like to speak words?

[01:22:16]
Go for it, Chad.

[01:22:17]
Holy shit.

[01:22:19]
Yeah.

[01:22:19]
No, I'm too depressed now.

[01:22:23]
I joined the discord around the ramp up for Death Stranding.

[01:22:27]
So it was like super electric at the time.

[01:22:29]
I remember everyone being very excited.

[01:22:32]
And it was nice because it was active enough to be entertaining and you could engage with people.

[01:22:38]
But it wasn't like some of the other servers I was in, like I'm sure the Watch Out for Fireball Slack,

[01:22:42]
where it was just like, how am I supposed to make a connection with another human being

[01:22:46]
when there's this much traffic flowing through at any given minute, right?

[01:22:52]
And then lo and behold, a few months after Death Stranding came out,

[01:22:56]
the discord became a little bit more important because I couldn't leave my house.

[01:23:01]
And couldn't talk to or see my friends in person.

[01:23:06]
So really, I know we've joked about this in the past in private conversation,

[01:23:10]
but I think being part of the discord and being able to make connections with you three,

[01:23:15]
for example, and tons of other people legitimately not having that would have made 2020 so much worse.

[01:23:23]
It would have been so much more unbearable had I not had that.

[01:23:26]
So that's pretty sick, I guess.

[01:23:30]
Thanks for that.

[01:23:33]
I think in the last segment, I actually told Tori,

[01:23:35]
like by the time the discord was really matured and there were a lot of people in there,

[01:23:42]
I had stepped away from the show.

[01:23:44]
And so for me, there was a little bit of surreality where it was like,

[01:23:49]
there are people in this discord who don't even know who I am.

[01:23:52]
And it's a discord dedicated to a show that I started.

[01:23:55]
You know what I mean, Linker?

[01:23:55]
That's kind of wild.

[01:23:57]
So it was this weird moment.

[01:23:59]
It's the same moment when you realize one in four Americans were born after 9-11.

[01:24:06]
It's just this weird moment where you're like, oh, holy shit, time has passed.

[01:24:15]
But because I was no longer on the show, I almost felt this weird obligation

[01:24:18]
to almost be in the zeitgeist of the discord.

[01:24:22]
And so I was just responding to shit nonstop on the discord.

[01:24:27]
Almost compulsively so.

[01:24:29]
And I mean, I would say between then and now,

[01:24:32]
it's like I've probably made like 8-12 extremely close friends

[01:24:37]
because of the discord who I probably talked to every other day now.

[01:24:43]
I think the first two people to talk to me were you and Tori.

[01:24:45]
Like you were the first two people to respond to me being like,

[01:24:48]
hey, my name's Chad.

[01:24:49]
I'm new to all of this.

[01:24:52]
And it was weird, Gillesia, because every time you were messaging

[01:24:56]
or making a new post, you're always saying, hey, just so you guys know,

[01:24:59]
I started this show.

[01:25:00]
Oh, okay.

[01:25:00]
I know you do.

[01:25:01]
But just so you know, I started this.

[01:25:03]
Fucking hell, I'm the daddy.

[01:25:04]
I'm the daddy.

[01:25:06]
Get out of here.

[01:25:06]
Pop, palasio.

[01:25:08]
For anybody listening, that's not true.

[01:25:12]
But yeah, well, I will say this too.

[01:25:15]
I think for me, I think the issue with those chat rooms or even forums or whatever is like,

[01:25:22]
I do have like, it's weird, right?

[01:25:24]
Because it's sort of a catch-22.

[01:25:25]
It's a good thing and a bad thing.

[01:25:27]
I think for anybody listening who's been listening for a very long time,

[01:25:31]
and for anybody who's listening who has reached out to the show,

[01:25:35]
there's like a 95% chance that when you reached out,

[01:25:38]
the person you were talking to was me and I responded like within an hour.

[01:25:43]
And I don't know why it's like, when I do anything that's public facing,

[01:25:46]
I feel like a very strong obligation to be available to people.

[01:25:49]
Oh, sure.

[01:25:50]
Sure.

[01:25:51]
And so I think part of it, like, so if you go on the Discord,

[01:25:54]
you see that I'm not in there.

[01:25:55]
And I think part of it is just like a mental health reason where it's like,

[01:25:59]
I just feel this very strong urge to just always be present.

[01:26:07]
So I don't know.

[01:26:08]
All that to say, like, I don't want anybody listening who's in the Discord right now to be like,

[01:26:13]
oh, fuck that guy.

[01:26:14]
He's not in here anymore.

[01:26:18]
And yeah.

[01:26:19]
I mean, when you are present, you are present in a big way.

[01:26:23]
So.

[01:26:23]
Oh, sure.

[01:26:24]
And when I, I mean, for me personally too, there were times when I had to step away from the

[01:26:31]
community for, you know, months at a time when I was going through big life changes.

[01:26:36]
Because yeah, I mean, it's, you don't want to be the guy who just goes in and just like,

[01:26:41]
starts a conversation.

[01:26:43]
And then like, I think the term's Irish goodbyes.

[01:26:47]
They just leaves and isn't participating at all in the conversation that you started or

[01:26:54]
so.

[01:26:54]
I don't know.

[01:26:55]
I think that you probably took the healthy approach there.

[01:26:59]
I mean, with what you needed to do in your life outside, just like we've done things like that

[01:27:03]
in the past where we've stepped away from those conversations.

[01:27:08]
Yeah.

[01:27:10]
Well, and it is crazy too.

[01:27:11]
Like, I mean, fuck the state that Nick is very adjacent to was literally on fire for an

[01:27:16]
extreme amount of time.

[01:27:17]
And it's like COVID happened and.

[01:27:20]
Well, I'm in, I'm in Kentucky now.

[01:27:22]
Did I tell you that?

[01:27:22]
Oh, shit.

[01:27:23]
Yeah, I did not know that.

[01:27:24]
I just knew.

[01:27:26]
I went into the witness protection plan.

[01:27:27]
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[01:27:29]
Yeah.

[01:27:30]
And you're not supposed to let people know my name's Nick.

[01:27:32]
Now I'm screwed.

[01:27:33]
Oh, no.

[01:27:34]
But no, yeah, I mean, shit happens.

[01:27:36]
I think that's the weird unspoken thing about podcasts and YouTubers and anybody who makes

[01:27:42]
content for the digital age is I think there's this one, there's this weird.

[01:27:48]
One way relationship that happens with listeners.

[01:27:52]
Yeah.

[01:27:52]
Parachute.

[01:27:53]
Parasocial relationship.

[01:27:54]
Yeah, for sure.

[01:27:54]
100%.

[01:27:55]
And then two, I think people forget that real life is happening in the background

[01:28:00]
because it's like, I mean, sure, people are like,

[01:28:03]
hey, I had a really shitty day at work.

[01:28:05]
Thanks.

[01:28:05]
You guys got me through yada, yada, yada.

[01:28:07]
Like sure, there's that stuff.

[01:28:08]
But I do think sometimes people don't take into consideration the fact that it's like,

[01:28:14]
I don't like people go through breakups.

[01:28:15]
People go through losing things that they own.

[01:28:19]
I mean, there have been hosts on the show who have lost their homes

[01:28:23]
in the middle of working on the show.

[01:28:26]
So yeah, I don't know.

[01:28:27]
It's a weird, I don't know.

[01:28:31]
There's like a weird boundary wall between reality and fiction that I don't think people

[01:28:37]
necessarily like to acknowledge.

[01:28:39]
I will say though, in regards to that, in my experience over the last,

[01:28:45]
I don't know, six months or so,

[01:28:49]
the community has been really forgiving about that.

[01:28:53]
It's no surprise that some things fell a little bit behind as far as show production went

[01:29:02]
and specifically my engagement with the community.

[01:29:06]
So at least I want to give props to our community for that because I think, yeah,

[01:29:10]
it's easy for people to forget that hosts and other people who are behind putting together

[01:29:17]
this thing have things going on, whether it's just personal things or big life changing things.

[01:29:23]
But the people who are here for us are really here for us and it's been really awesome.

[01:29:29]
It's just been a really gratifying situation.

[01:29:36]
So thanks listeners and community members.

[01:29:39]
Oh, the discord we have is awesome and the different voices that we have in there.

[01:29:45]
It's a really good group of people and I feel like they are,

[01:29:50]
I mean, you see them supporting each other, you see them participating,

[01:29:54]
with all of the different conversations.

[01:30:00]
I think we are very fortunate to have the community that we do there.

[01:30:08]
Yeah, I think from my perspective, and obviously I wasn't necessarily in the day-to-day about as

[01:30:14]
much as you guys were, but from my perspective, I would say that we have been lucky enough to

[01:30:19]
never have anybody who is intentionally malicious or intentionally toxic.

[01:30:25]
Yeah, I'd say that's true in the discord.

[01:30:28]
So I have no idea what we would have done if they showed up, but somebody's listening to this,

[01:30:33]
they were like griefers, assemble.

[01:30:35]
Chad did send me threats and call me really nasty things.

[01:30:39]
But I was a mod, so I was allowed to do that.

[01:30:41]
He was allowed to do that.

[01:30:42]
Classic.

[01:30:42]
Classic.

[01:30:45]
Let's get back to some structured stuff real quick.

[01:30:46]
So I'm super curious, what, if we go around the table, do you guys have like a favorite

[01:30:50]
community moment?

[01:30:51]
I mean, literally, I can think of many.

[01:30:55]
Yeah.

[01:30:57]
Is it the Darth Vader thing?

[01:30:59]
Absolutely 100%.

[01:31:01]
All right.

[01:31:02]
So for anybody who was not present for one of the most glorious moments in chat history,

[01:31:08]
can you walk us through what happened?

[01:31:10]
Yeah.

[01:31:10]
So I forget exactly how we got started.

[01:31:13]
I think for some reason.

[01:31:15]
Also keep in mind, it was like 2.30 in the morning when this was happening.

[01:31:18]
Yeah.

[01:31:18]
And I think by the time it ended, it might have been like 4.30 Eastern even.

[01:31:21]
Yeah, it was insane.

[01:31:22]
Earlier in the night, it had started that, so Toby, a community member,

[01:31:26]
a regular who had been around, I think for years at that point.

[01:31:31]
Who at one point in his life did a lot of MMA fighting.

[01:31:34]
We, I don't know if he'd shared a video or something, but the conversation came up.

[01:31:38]
And then I think Alessio, you and I like found his full name and it wasn't weird because

[01:31:42]
like we knew him quite well.

[01:31:43]
So it's not like we were just trying to stock this random person.

[01:31:47]
And we just started finding like videos of his fights and like typing out color commentary on

[01:31:52]
them and how shitty his opponents were.

[01:31:54]
And some of the comments coming from the actual commentators were very funny.

[01:31:58]
So I think.

[01:31:58]
Oh yeah.

[01:31:59]
I think from that point forward, we were like, there were just lines like,

[01:32:03]
Oh, the strength and Toby's legs.

[01:32:05]
Yeah, that's right.

[01:32:05]
Just like shit like that.

[01:32:06]
The dominance of Toby or something like that.

[01:32:08]
Yeah.

[01:32:09]
And then that devolved somehow into like, we, Toby's, I think his stats on one of the websites

[01:32:16]
were like horribly incorrect and like said he was like zero foot, zero inches and or something.

[01:32:21]
So we started like going around the room and saying how tall each person was and Toby wouldn't

[01:32:26]
answer. So using photos of Toby, I started trying to figure out and calculate what his exact height

[01:32:34]
was, which I ended up actually.

[01:32:39]
I found like a Halloween.

[01:32:40]
Yeah.

[01:32:41]
I think we found like a Halloween photo of him dressed as Darth Vader.

[01:32:44]
Yeah.

[01:32:44]
And we, we were kind of starting to give up because we're like, we're never going to figure this out.

[01:32:48]
But then I found that exact Darth Vader helmet on Amazon and it had the measurements.

[01:32:54]
So I did the measurements of the helmet and then just scaled down his body and calculated it up.

[01:32:58]
And then I was like, Toby, I think you're this tall.

[01:33:00]
I think it was like 511.

[01:33:01]
And he was like, how did you do that?

[01:33:05]
It was very good.

[01:33:06]
Yeah.

[01:33:06]
Yeah.

[01:33:07]
It was hilarious.

[01:33:07]
Yeah.

[01:33:08]
And then the, yeah, the life of Pablo design that Chris did in relation to that is one of the

[01:33:12]
funniest things I've ever seen.

[01:33:14]
Yeah.

[01:33:14]
Isn't it just the life of Toby?

[01:33:15]
I think.

[01:33:15]
Yeah.

[01:33:16]
And it's like 511, which one is a picture of him fighting.

[01:33:19]
Yeah.

[01:33:20]
I think somebody bought like a coffee mug or something.

[01:33:24]
It was, yeah, it was very weird.

[01:33:25]
But Toby's great.

[01:33:27]
So greetings from MGM to Denmark.

[01:33:30]
Yeah.

[01:33:31]
You guys should go watch some MMA.

[01:33:33]
I don't know.

[01:33:35]
But yeah, that was a lot of fun.

[01:33:36]
I just remember, that was definitely like, you're staying up so late.

[01:33:39]
You're like deliriously fucking laughing at your phone.

[01:33:42]
Yeah.

[01:33:42]
I was seriously, I was sitting right at my desk where I am now at like four in the morning,

[01:33:46]
like crying, laughing.

[01:33:47]
And it's really, it was the moment where I was like, okay, like I genuinely really

[01:33:52]
vibe and like these people.

[01:33:54]
Because before that, it's like, you know, you stick around in communities and like,

[01:33:56]
you could stick around in a community for years, never really make a solid connection.

[01:33:59]
And then just kind of like, like Nick said, Irish goodbye someday.

[01:34:02]
But that was the moment for me where I was like, no, like this is actually pretty fucking cool.

[01:34:07]
And I really, really connected these people because they find this stupid nonsense as funny as I do.

[01:34:12]
Yeah.

[01:34:13]
It was really good.

[01:34:14]
Tori, do you have a favorite moment?

[01:34:16]
It's probably a collection of favorite moments.

[01:34:19]
If I could, if I could do this kind of cop out answer.

[01:34:22]
I really love, well, pretty easily.

[01:34:26]
I really loved all of the streaming that everybody did.

[01:34:29]
And it wasn't just limited to the hosts or the moderators or anything.

[01:34:34]
I loved that everybody got in there and was either streaming or supporting the people who

[01:34:39]
are streaming and discord and engaging and having fun conversations.

[01:34:44]
It was just, I think the most enriching community experience that could happen in the discord.

[01:34:52]
And, and, oh, I guess I do have one specific one.

[01:34:57]
If I could just say, Poop and ass.

[01:35:03]
Which is for anybody who wasn't involved, which is anybody who hasn't chatted.

[01:35:07]
Which is 99.9.

[01:35:08]
And my brother Chase, aka Spoter.

[01:35:12]
Yeah, it was just a really dumb moment of me streaming Crash Bandicoot.

[01:35:19]
And I was trying after a certain point, I was attempting to achieve the the gold, silver and

[01:35:26]
bronze awards for any level so that I could spell out poop and ass or some combination of

[01:35:34]
those three words.

[01:35:34]
And it just, it all culminated to a great bit of stupid fun.

[01:35:41]
It all culminated into a piece of high art.

[01:35:44]
Yeah.

[01:35:45]
And is now a, is now a URL as well.

[01:35:48]
Oh, that's right.

[01:35:48]
We have that.

[01:35:49]
Thank you, Chad.

[01:35:49]
That was some good work.

[01:35:50]
Seriously?

[01:35:51]
What is that?

[01:35:51]
I bought poop and ass.com, I think earlier this year.

[01:35:55]
To reroute to middle gear Mondays.com.

[01:35:57]
Yeah, absolutely.

[01:35:58]
Yep.

[01:35:59]
Fingers crossed.

[01:35:59]
I hope I didn't go to a bad website.

[01:36:01]
Let's see what happens.

[01:36:02]
Chats.

[01:36:03]
Oh my God, it totally worked.

[01:36:04]
Of course it does.

[01:36:06]
Chats only fans page.

[01:36:08]
Yeah, that's me.

[01:36:10]
Jesus.

[01:36:11]
Nick, do you have a favorite moment?

[01:36:13]
That's tough.

[01:36:17]
I think echoing what Chad was saying about just like the, the, the, the stupid humor that

[01:36:25]
everybody seems to enjoy.

[01:36:27]
Like I love that.

[01:36:29]
Like sometimes like I was dying laughing at some of that stuff.

[01:36:33]
And I got to give an award to Alex who is like always right there with

[01:36:40]
all of that.

[01:36:40]
Somehow that guy doesn't sleep and he was just constantly there at all hours at any time.

[01:36:46]
But I would say probably one of my favorite moments and there's been a few of them

[01:36:53]
spread out would be vicariously living through people who were experiencing games for the

[01:36:59]
first time.

[01:37:00]
Like we were when we did our monthly game club and movie club.

[01:37:06]
I mean that was just so, that was so much fun.

[01:37:08]
And seeing kind of new people experiencing and old people experience, you know, people

[01:37:15]
who had experienced old people.

[01:37:17]
Old people.

[01:37:18]
I'm an old people.

[01:37:19]
So I'm probably one of the oldest people in that group honestly.

[01:37:23]
But like watching Matt get to the end of Silent Hill.

[01:37:32]
And experience like just seeing kind of like we know what's coming.

[01:37:37]
But getting to kind of experience that through somebody else.

[01:37:41]
So there's a lot of moments like that.

[01:37:43]
And I think a lot of those discussions were really interesting about things outside of

[01:37:49]
Metal Gear that were, you know, special to me and special to other people too,

[01:37:54]
depending on who nominated what.

[01:37:56]
Chad, are you going to figure out Nick's age based on a Darth Vader helmet?

[01:38:00]
Yeah, Nick, can you send me several photos of you?

[01:38:03]
You have to be an MMA gear for me to really figure that out though.

[01:38:05]
Okay.

[01:38:06]
So for anybody listening at home who is unclear on the monthly Game Club,

[01:38:12]
Movie Club, I believe Warren mentioned it on our previous segment.

[01:38:16]
But essentially what would happen is how the fuck would we decide who nominated something?

[01:38:20]
Oh, I remember now.

[01:38:21]
So people would nominate, we'd collect up to like 10 nominations.

[01:38:25]
And correct me if this has changed.

[01:38:27]
That's correct.

[01:38:28]
Yeah.

[01:38:28]
We collect up to 10 nominations, put them in a Google survey, have people vote.

[01:38:33]
Then we tabulate kind of first, second, third place, whatever.

[01:38:37]
And we figure out what the winning game is going to be.

[01:38:39]
And then everybody for 30 days, 31 days, whatever plays this game together.

[01:38:45]
And then we have like a dedicated channel.

[01:38:47]
I say we, there is a dedicated channel on a Discord that is managed by people that are not me.

[01:38:53]
That talks about the experience playing the game.

[01:38:57]
And then we do the same thing with movies.

[01:38:59]
But no, yeah, I was going to, so I was going to cite that Nick as my favorite moment was

[01:39:03]
I think Chad, was it you who was like, Hey, we should do this?

[01:39:07]
I think actually, I think it might have been.

[01:39:09]
Yeah, either Nick or like Toby suggested it.

[01:39:11]
I think yeah, you and I started it.

[01:39:14]
Right.

[01:39:14]
I think Toby wanted everybody to play Bloodborne.

[01:39:18]
Yes, that sounds right.

[01:39:19]
Yeah.

[01:39:20]
Toby was like, everybody's shut the fuck up and play Bloodborne.

[01:39:23]
And then Bloodborne got fucking a shit can for like what, two, three months running.

[01:39:29]
Yeah.

[01:39:29]
When we did play it though, and like everybody was playing it.

[01:39:32]
And like, off everybody, the updates.

[01:39:34]
Yeah, they're like, okay, I just beat so and so and then we like cheer for the,

[01:39:37]
it was like that month was probably my favorite month for a game club.

[01:39:41]
Yeah.

[01:39:41]
When I felt bad too, because like with everything going on,

[01:39:44]
I would say 90% of the time I would finish the game club game like two weeks into the next game.

[01:39:51]
But I will say like Shadow of the Colossus and Silent Hill 2.

[01:39:54]
I mean, Silent Hill 2, I played on stream for the first time.

[01:39:57]
I watched it finish it.

[01:39:58]
Yeah.

[01:39:58]
Yeah.

[01:39:59]
So it was super cool.

[01:40:00]
And especially like talking to new people who didn't have a way to play it when they would jump into the stream and just having conversations about it was super fun.

[01:40:10]
So yeah, I don't know.

[01:40:10]
It's weird to be like this Metal Gear podcast.

[01:40:12]
My favorite moment was not Metal Gear related.

[01:40:17]
But yeah, I don't know.

[01:40:18]
It was a lot of fun.

[01:40:18]
I really enjoyed it.

[01:40:21]
I think so outside of that, I wanted to ask you guys, this is a weird one because we're,

[01:40:25]
this is a celebratory finale season.

[01:40:27]
But were there any moments that you either stand out in your memory as being something kind of bad?

[01:40:34]
Or were there any like difficult moments that you think like as a community, we overcame an adversity that you that jump out to your to your mind?

[01:40:42]
I've got kind of a weird one.

[01:40:45]
Weird away.

[01:40:46]
I can't remember who this user was.

[01:40:49]
This discord user was, but I don't think he's around anymore.

[01:40:52]
And if he is, if you are,

[01:40:54]
you're getting called the fuck out.

[01:40:58]
Oh, this is me.

[01:40:59]
I'm still there.

[01:40:59]
Oh, God.

[01:41:01]
It was right around the time that Cole got called up to be a host and therefore I was,

[01:41:09]
I was tagged to be the moderator.

[01:41:12]
And it wasn't very long into it when one of the users initiated a debate about solid snake versus

[01:41:21]
a naked snake.

[01:41:23]
And who fucks?

[01:41:26]
Does naked snake fuck or does solid snake fuck?

[01:41:30]
I mean, the answer is solid snake.

[01:41:32]
Absolutely was his opinion.

[01:41:34]
And I had some, some arguments to, to the contrary, but just how ridiculously far he took it, like long past the point that anybody else wanted to be a part of the conversation was like,

[01:41:48]
it was funny, but it was like weird, weird and funny.

[01:41:52]
And eventually Cole just jumped in there and was like, uh, so subject change.

[01:41:56]
But that was my first like, Hey, as a moderator, should I do something about this?

[01:42:01]
Is this too much?

[01:42:02]
And, uh, also the fact that I was at that time the only female in the community, it was, it was kind of a weird situation for me to be into.

[01:42:11]
Because I was like, is this just, is this just my personal taste?

[01:42:16]
Do I even feel that weirdly about it?

[01:42:18]
Does anybody else care as much as, as me in terms of thinking, is this a problem at all?

[01:42:24]
And it was just like all a bunch of weird, uh, internal debate that I had for probably nothing.

[01:42:31]
Because I don't think anybody else noticed that that was going on.

[01:42:35]
But yeah, just, just a fun little debate that, uh, for whatever reason has stuck with me since then.

[01:42:42]
I really, really, really want to circle back around and talk to you about being

[01:42:46]
one of the only women involved in the community.

[01:42:50]
But I definitely also want to hear from Chad and Nick if they have any like

[01:42:54]
difficult moments that they want to talk about.

[01:42:57]
Yeah, there's, there's one, um, thing that, and it happened in the Slack and it happened in the Discord.

[01:43:03]
Oh no.

[01:43:04]
And, uh, I think one of the challenges is, um, you know, you become, when you become a community,

[01:43:11]
you also sort of become a support system for some of the, for some of the folks that are in there.

[01:43:17]
And it's about, and sometimes like, I remember in the Slack, things could kind of go to like,

[01:43:24]
I don't know, like a dark, like a, like a dark place a little bit, um, led by some, some folks.

[01:43:31]
And it would happen in the, it could happen in the Discord too.

[01:43:35]
Um, and I think that's really important to have that outlet and that platform for people to talk about that.

[01:43:41]
And I think we've kind of solved that honestly with our venting channel on the, on the current Discord.

[01:43:48]
Um, I don't know, does that, I mean, does that make, does that make sense?

[01:43:53]
No, no, totally.

[01:43:53]
And, and, but because we wanted to have a place for people to talk about that stuff.

[01:43:58]
Yeah, it can be tough when everybody's like, because LOL snakes, MUL, it gives me rock hard.

[01:44:03]
And then somebody's like, my children just died in a fire.

[01:44:07]
Exactly. And we want you to be able to talk about your children's fire.

[01:44:11]
We want you to be able to talk about snakes, MUL it. And, uh, so it was just kind of like,

[01:44:15]
And your boner.

[01:44:16]
Yeah. And, and where those two cross, you know, and come together.

[01:44:20]
Snake's MUL it and my boner spark started flying.

[01:44:23]
And my house caught on fire.

[01:44:24]
And my kids are gone.

[01:44:26]
And so, yeah. So trying to kind of like, I guess, um, almost compartmentalizing that, um,

[01:44:33]
in a way, but still like providing the opportunity for that. So that was, um,

[01:44:39]
yeah, one challenge, I would say, but over mostly overcame it.

[01:44:44]
I feel like we could do an entire two hour podcast on like the psychology of managing

[01:44:49]
a group of people on the internet.

[01:44:50]
Oh, for sure.

[01:44:51]
But yeah, Chad, do you have any, is there anything you want to speak out about?

[01:44:55]
Because obviously I know this for every positive and every great thing that people are saying,

[01:45:00]
I think there's also been like a normal amount of drama that crops up from time to time.

[01:45:06]
And I'm not saying like we should spotlight these dramatic moments and like publicly flog

[01:45:11]
somebody. Um, but I do think like, if there's anything notable worth having a conversation

[01:45:16]
about, um, definitely like bring it out.

[01:45:19]
Well, I think like the, the thing that really stands out for me, you know, being a mod is that

[01:45:25]
I think, um, and I like, look, look, he said, I don't want to paint a brush of like, we're

[01:45:31]
perfect. We're this perfect community and we always get along and nothing bad ever happens.

[01:45:35]
Like there were a few times where like, you know, we had to mod people and say, like,

[01:45:40]
please don't fucking do this or please stop doing this.

[01:45:43]
Yeah, porn is not okay.

[01:45:47]
In the discord.

[01:45:48]
But like, you know, I've now that discord is like my main method of communicating with the world

[01:45:54]
outside of me or, you know, we're like, as far as like not being able to physically speak to people.

[01:46:00]
I'm in a, I've been in a lot of different servers. You see a lot of fucked up stuff.

[01:46:04]
And then like nothing happens. You're like, really? Is like, this is the kind of community

[01:46:07]
you guys are where someone can say this and like, there's not even a warning.

[01:46:11]
So I think that as a mod, I was really kind of spoiled because like the few times that I did have to,

[01:46:18]
you know, pull rank were like few and far between compared to some of the other shit that I've seen

[01:46:24]
in other communities, which is nice.

[01:46:26]
I feel like I can think of like two major moments and like that's about it.

[01:46:31]
Yeah, really, which is crazy.

[01:46:33]
And when I, when I took over being a mod, like I didn't like, I've not seen anything.

[01:46:38]
Like it's very, now, don't you all go crazy now?

[01:46:41]
Yeah.

[01:46:42]
You heard this, but I'm posting pornography as we speak.

[01:46:46]
That's because Chad flew to their house and beat the shit out of them.

[01:46:49]
Yeah.

[01:46:50]
So, so uncharacteristic for this favorite Canadian of ours.

[01:46:55]
Yeah, that's crazy.

[01:46:55]
Hey Chad, so it's yeah, now that I think we should plan a flag here for two seconds.

[01:47:01]
So you'll discover it when you go back and listen, but one of the longest running jokes on MGM

[01:47:07]
until we had that uptick was us saying, Hey, if you live here, leave us a comment.

[01:47:14]
If you live here, blah, blah, blah.

[01:47:15]
And then we'd be like, no one from fucking Canada listening to the show because we'd look at the

[01:47:21]
map and we'd be like, like eventually when we could do that, we were like, nobody in Canada

[01:47:27]
is listening.

[01:47:27]
So we were like, fuck you, Canada.

[01:47:29]
But now I feel like there are some like legitimate, like, I don't know, there's like,

[01:47:34]
we've had a fair amount of interactions with Canadian people as a community.

[01:47:40]
So yeah, I don't know.

[01:47:41]
I think it's, I think that's neat.

[01:47:42]
But do you feel attacked when you hear those things, Chad?

[01:47:46]
Oh God, that's like a totally norm no matter where you are.

[01:47:50]
If you're a Canadian, not in a like purely Canadian space, it's going to be brought to

[01:47:55]
everyone's attention.

[01:47:56]
And I don't know why that is.

[01:47:59]
It's the equivalent of the, I don't know how to call it, the upside down seal hand Italian

[01:48:05]
hand gesture.

[01:48:07]
But like, I mean, in the defense of Americans, I'm also the same.

[01:48:11]
If I find out like a podcast that I listened to or like somebody that I watch or whatever

[01:48:15]
is Canadian, it's like, oh, shit, like it's such a joke.

[01:48:19]
We're so fucking lame.

[01:48:20]
Like, why can't we just get over it?

[01:48:21]
I don't know about that.

[01:48:22]
I think in your defense, Chad, it's jealousy.

[01:48:27]
All Americans are secretly jealous that they're not Canadians.

[01:48:30]
I mean, fair.

[01:48:32]
That's fair.

[01:48:33]
Says the Scott Pilgrim fan.

[01:48:36]
Okay, it's just me.

[01:48:36]
Fine.

[01:48:37]
It's just me.

[01:48:38]
Listen, yeah, you can do a whole tour of Scott Pilgrim locations.

[01:48:41]
Let's do it.

[01:48:42]
Probably throw it wrong and hit one.

[01:48:44]
Brian Leo Malley is Canadian.

[01:48:45]
Yeah.

[01:48:46]
They're like, oh yeah.

[01:48:47]
I have to think so, right?

[01:48:49]
The whole like, it's the, I think you go like, you can't go two or three pages of Scott Pilgrim

[01:48:53]
without seeing a Canadian landmark or something like or Toronto or specifically.

[01:48:58]
He's just got a huge fetish for Canadian, right?

[01:49:02]
I love these obscure Toronto locations.

[01:49:05]
I have a huge raging maple hard on.

[01:49:07]
Ew.

[01:49:10]
Gross.

[01:49:10]
Sap.

[01:49:11]
I'm just kidding.

[01:49:12]
Tasty.

[01:49:13]
Oh, no.

[01:49:14]
Oh, no.

[01:49:15]
Oh, that's gross.

[01:49:17]
No, now we're going down the wormhole of semen jokes that makes up the 90s.

[01:49:22]
You're all banned.

[01:49:23]
This is not the worst experience.

[01:49:24]
Looking at you, Alex.

[01:49:26]
And that, yeah, that is a running joke of a censored word.

[01:49:29]
There is a censored word on the MGM Discord as well.

[01:49:34]
And I'm not going to say it because if I say it, it'll get bleeped.

[01:49:37]
You got to censor it.

[01:49:38]
Yeah.

[01:49:38]
Yeah.

[01:49:39]
See you Monday, guys.

[01:49:44]
Hey, Tori.

[01:49:44]
So let's circle back now.

[01:49:46]
What is it like?

[01:49:47]
Yeah.

[01:49:48]
Yeah.

[01:49:48]
Yeah.

[01:49:48]
So what is it like as somebody who can't create?

[01:49:52]
That's that's a false falsehood.

[01:49:56]
That's true.

[01:49:57]
That's true.

[01:49:57]
It's true.

[01:49:58]
It's true.

[01:49:58]
It's a different slant.

[01:49:59]
Don't you don't you dare put that out in the world, Alessio?

[01:50:02]
There's a different word for that.

[01:50:04]
Anyway, disgusting.

[01:50:08]
Cool.

[01:50:10]
I'm glad that's a similar word.

[01:50:11]
The other word for that is disgusting.

[01:50:13]
I thought that's what you were saying.

[01:50:15]
But no, I mean, so truthfully, when so when we like rebooted the first season of MGM,

[01:50:22]
because it got to the point where it's like the first season was so bad in production quality,

[01:50:27]
that we were like, we need to redo this.

[01:50:29]
We brought on Aless as a guest to represent like a female Metal Gear fan viewpoint,

[01:50:38]
mostly because like other than a few people like Jess, who is friends with a lot of

[01:50:44]
Discord users on Twitter, who will kind of tweet about the show sometimes.

[01:50:49]
And a couple, we did receive, it was interesting, we did receive some like Australian female

[01:50:54]
listener responses like years and years ago.

[01:50:56]
But for the most part, like, I think regardless of our podcast, I think the Metal Gear fandom

[01:51:04]
for obvious reasons is a predominantly male group of people.

[01:51:09]
So I am curious, like, one, what was that like?

[01:51:14]
And two, like, what has that been like even outside of the MGM community?

[01:51:21]
I mean, I don't know.

[01:51:22]
Maybe it goes without saying that like video game communities in general are still sort of

[01:51:27]
getting with the times in that regard.

[01:51:29]
But like, yeah, I don't know.

[01:51:30]
How does MGM as a community stack against like other experiences?

[01:51:34]
Okay, well, I'll tackle that in order of the things that you said.

[01:51:38]
First, I was thrilled when you guys brought Aless on.

[01:51:43]
I was, it was something I had noted as a fan of the show.

[01:51:48]
I was like, oh, I haven't heard really, I won't say any, but much

[01:51:53]
discussion on the propensity for Kojima's dirty, dirty inclinations.

[01:52:08]
His master Roshi.

[01:52:11]
And or just, I guess, I guess I hadn't really heard from any other women fans of Metal Gear solid.

[01:52:21]
I feel like I, for a large part of my obsession, maybe with the series, I felt kind of alone

[01:52:32]
on that island.

[01:52:33]
So when you guys brought Aless on, that was a huge treat for me and an inspiration really,

[01:52:38]
I think, unless you might remember after one or two of those episodes dropped,

[01:52:43]
I reached out to you and was like, hey, like, if you want more female perspective,

[01:52:48]
I'd be happy to give any sort of commentary you're looking for.

[01:52:52]
I didn't know that it was going to lead to eventually me being able to bombard the show with my own,

[01:52:59]
which is cool.

[01:53:01]
Secondly, Jess, is that at Zanzibarland on Twitter?

[01:53:06]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:53:07]
Dope.

[01:53:07]
Yeah, when I was using Twitter a little more frequently, I really liked checking out her

[01:53:12]
tweets, Metal Gear related or not.

[01:53:16]
Yeah, she's really into Metal Gear and Red Dead.

[01:53:19]
I picked up on those two.

[01:53:20]
Yeah, I have noticed.

[01:53:21]
Shout out, Jess.

[01:53:22]
All right.

[01:53:25]
It's been interesting for a couple of reasons.

[01:53:30]
One, I feel like this has kind of always been my station in life.

[01:53:35]
I wasn't as active of a video game user until...

[01:53:44]
Until your dealer rolled around?

[01:53:45]
Until, yeah, until finishing up with sports and school and stuff.

[01:53:51]
It was always something I was mildly interested in, but didn't have a lot of time to devote to.

[01:53:57]
So I didn't know outside of some talk here and there, just how

[01:54:05]
toxically masculine the community of video game fans could be.

[01:54:12]
You can call them gamers.

[01:54:14]
I don't...

[01:54:16]
Hashtag gamers.

[01:54:19]
Yeah, I'm not sure which is worse.

[01:54:20]
Me dancing around the term gamers or me actually saying gamers.

[01:54:25]
So yeah, it's always interesting to be confronted with that in my face,

[01:54:36]
as opposed to just kind of hearing stories about how gross it can be.

[01:54:41]
I never, truthfully, I never had terrible experiences for my own standards, but I also

[01:54:48]
wonder sometimes if some of that has to do with the fact that I'm like very obviously queer.

[01:54:55]
For one thing, I don't know if I have the same level of offense to take from some things,

[01:55:07]
or maybe it's just that I don't know.

[01:55:15]
It's been interesting.

[01:55:16]
However, in the community, I've, like I said, I've never encountered anything totally egregious.

[01:55:23]
Everybody that I've had any sort of encounter with has been nothing but welcoming and supportive and

[01:55:32]
nothing incredibly offensive or harsh has been said.

[01:55:38]
That's what a dollar a month as a paywall will get you.

[01:55:41]
Yes.

[01:55:41]
That's true.

[01:55:43]
I mean, I'm sure that weeds out some of it.

[01:55:45]
Sure, yeah.

[01:55:48]
Yeah, or maybe because I infiltrated the show and it was made known how big of,

[01:55:57]
just how big of a fan you all are of me.

[01:56:03]
You know, maybe some people were afraid to voice their true opinions.

[01:56:06]
So for that, I thank everyone.

[01:56:10]
For that, we give a big fucky.

[01:56:14]
No, it's been.

[01:56:14]
Tori's Operation Intrude MGM.

[01:56:18]
Yeah, it fucking works so well.

[01:56:20]
Just like my nickname would suggest, I just kind of would hang around until finally I was accepted

[01:56:29]
and took the place of some better bass player.

[01:56:35]
I kind of lost the thread here.

[01:56:37]
No, it's.

[01:56:38]
Well, and I will say too, to speak to what you were saying earlier, I think you going by young

[01:56:42]
Neil legitimately threw off a couple people.

[01:56:45]
Oh, it can do so many people.

[01:56:46]
Oh, sure.

[01:56:46]
Because I can't even, yeah, I can't even tell you how many people I had messaged me and be like,

[01:56:50]
holy shit, is young Neil female?

[01:56:55]
Oh God, I was misgendered a couple times, which never bothered me.

[01:57:00]
You know, like I go by young Neil and I have heard of male Tories before.

[01:57:08]
So yeah, that that was never a big deal.

[01:57:10]
But also like on a grander scale, I weirdly am kind of proud of the fact that I'm one of

[01:57:17]
the few that can hang with the incredibly sometimes misogynistic themes of the Middle

[01:57:24]
Gear universe.

[01:57:26]
I don't know if that's something to be proud of or not, but it's.

[01:57:31]
Well, regardless of how shitty Kojima can be and how shitty the tone of the series can be,

[01:57:38]
I do legitimately believe that Kojima accidentally gave birth to one of the strongest female.

[01:57:46]
Oh, for sure.

[01:57:47]
I would say strongest female and I do believe it's fairly hinted at that she's bi.

[01:57:51]
Oh dope.

[01:57:52]
Yeah.

[01:57:53]
That like the boss is like a fucking stellar.

[01:57:57]
Yeah, get it.

[01:57:58]
Fucking character and it's crazy that I don't know that like the fandom.

[01:58:03]
Okay, so fans in gamers suck.

[01:58:05]
Let's move on.

[01:58:08]
Well, even without the boss, which by the way, I was incredibly lucky to have gotten good feedback

[01:58:14]
on my kind of my first like original contribution to the show was my deep dive into the boss as a

[01:58:22]
character, which was incredible.

[01:58:24]
One of the best characters in video games anywhere in my personal opinion.

[01:58:29]
But even without that, having some of those kind of ludicrous moments in terms of how women are

[01:58:37]
treated within the games, at the very least, it was it was really great fodder for conversation,

[01:58:42]
which I was happy to be a part of.

[01:58:44]
So I guess to sum up that's that part of it has been pretty great for me personally.

[01:58:51]
For sure.

[01:58:51]
And I do want to add this one other thing too, because I mean, sure there are meatheads everywhere

[01:58:55]
and we definitely have some dumb dumb moments here and there, even with intelligent people.

[01:59:00]
But I think one of the things that I have always noticed and maybe this is me going back and like

[01:59:05]
ret conning my favorite moment or whatever.

[01:59:08]
But myself included in the discord, I think we have had a really well curated community of

[01:59:15]
people that like when they fuck up, I would say more often than not, I have seen people

[01:59:23]
embrace that they fucked up, acknowledge why and how they fucked up and then move on better

[01:59:31]
than they did before they got told that they fucked up.

[01:59:34]
For sure.

[01:59:34]
For sure.

[01:59:35]
And I think I think that's more interesting.

[01:59:37]
I think that's more important than people give credit because I think even outside of the

[01:59:43]
internet, and maybe it's easier on the internet because it's text, but during my day to day,

[01:59:50]
I would be hard pressed to tell you anyone in my life who is quick to admitting they fucked up.

[01:59:57]
Oh yeah, that's rare.

[01:59:58]
Definitely.

[01:59:58]
And so it's interesting just how many people we have.

[02:00:01]
I mean, we definitely have people who can be, myself included, can be a little stubborn and

[02:00:04]
hard headed. But I mean, I've been witnessed to some legitimate educating in our discord before.

[02:00:13]
That just goes to show what a dope community this is.

[02:00:16]
And as weird of a subject matter as Kojima games, it brings in a diverse crowd of people.

[02:00:25]
Oh yeah, big time.

[02:00:26]
I think this is a huge credit to you, Alessio, and the people that you had on the original

[02:00:31]
version of the show. You really established that it's a space where you can, you know,

[02:00:37]
dick around and talk about goofy shit. But at the end of the day, you're also like,

[02:00:42]
you're here for reasons of creating a discord, forgive the pun, where everybody is welcome,

[02:00:50]
and everybody should feel comfortable and welcome to join the conversation, which I've

[02:00:55]
always appreciated the shit out of.

[02:00:56]
Well, and of course, there was my two hour diatribe on fetishists and military nuts

[02:01:04]
being totally missing quote, the fucking point.

[02:01:07]
Oh, well, that too.

[02:01:08]
But I mean, that's also like a metal gear solid is the

[02:01:13]
or example of be careful what you pretend to be.

[02:01:16]
But no, this is crazy.

[02:01:18]
Well, and after all these positive things about the community,

[02:01:21]
let's talk about how we're euthanizing it.

[02:01:23]
No, I'm kidding.

[02:01:24]
I'm kidding.

[02:01:26]
But no, I mean, I guess so seriously.

[02:01:28]
So and I know, Tori, you mentioned it on the last segment that we recorded with the 2.0 hosts,

[02:01:33]
but it sounds like we're kind of, for lack of a better way of putting it, opening the floodgates

[02:01:39]
as far as like, obviously, like with the show concluding, the Patreon's not going to continue,

[02:01:45]
but that it'll be sort of like an invite only kind of vetting, hey, you should come join the party

[02:01:52]
kind of a thing. Is that accurate?

[02:01:54]
For the discord specifically.

[02:01:55]
Yeah, correct.

[02:01:56]
The Patreon won't be active after this point.

[02:02:00]
There's not content being provided for you guys anymore.

[02:02:03]
Thank you for your money, by the way.

[02:02:06]
Well, I was going to install cameras in every room of my house and just stream it for people.

[02:02:10]
Oh, shit.

[02:02:11]
Yeah.

[02:02:11]
I mean, whatever you want to charge for that, I'm sure you could get fat stacks for that, Alysia.

[02:02:21]
But yeah, I don't know.

[02:02:22]
I mean, I don't want to put words in you guys' mouth.

[02:02:24]
I mean, if a formal plan hasn't been formulated, we don't have to make any formal announcements.

[02:02:29]
No, nothing formal.

[02:02:30]
As of right now, just kind of coming to terms with the fact that the show will be no more,

[02:02:36]
there will still be hanging out in the discord.

[02:02:38]
So please, if you or a friend of yours is somebody who likes to talk about weird things that are

[02:02:48]
either Kojima related or not, our discord is pretty fucking fun.

[02:02:54]
It's been a really interesting and entertaining place to be.

[02:02:59]
So you don't have to pay.

[02:03:02]
You know, maybe we ask that you don't bring any bummers into the crew, but that's about it.

[02:03:08]
Well, and I would imagine, you know, there's the potential that something may rise from the

[02:03:13]
ashes of everything as well, right?

[02:03:16]
I would think that there could be a next chapter.

[02:03:19]
This is when we're all like, Nick, actually, we're all killing ourselves.

[02:03:23]
I'm starting on a Final Fantasy podcast where I go through every game of the series by myself

[02:03:28]
with no hosts or no guests.

[02:03:31]
Yeah, I just need you to know that the ongoing joke, and yeah, Cameron and Nick have proved

[02:03:35]
that it will fucking destroy you.

[02:03:38]
Yeah, it's so time consuming.

[02:03:40]
Yeah.

[02:03:40]
To do an RPG podcast.

[02:03:41]
Oh my goodness.

[02:03:42]
I think so in general, yeah, I think it's been really weird to see the offshoots and the

[02:03:51]
permutations and sort of evolution of something that got started between three friends.

[02:03:58]
I don't know, three friends and some shitty microphones and a bootleg copy of Adobe Audition

[02:04:05]
is weird to see that turn into like, I don't know, like you could probably, we always joked

[02:04:12]
around about doing like a meetup group outside of like a convention.

[02:04:17]
But it's super cool to think that like if money wasn't an object and we got everybody from the

[02:04:23]
discord or all the listeners who've like made an impact in one place, it's super cool to think

[02:04:28]
that we could probably put like 100, 200 people into one space and have a really good fucking time.

[02:04:35]
Yeah, it's wild.

[02:04:36]
This has created like genuine, like probably lifelong friendships.

[02:04:40]
Like, I know you and I were talking about how the absurdity of this is, you know, one on one

[02:04:45]
the other day, but like, it's pretty wild for me to go from listening to a show and then like

[02:04:50]
going to visit the host of said show in like two years is like, what the fuck?

[02:04:55]
Like that's such a weird thing to imagine.

[02:04:59]
Yeah, also spoiler, Chad and I are meeting in New York in like two months.

[02:05:05]
I already have some month and a half.

[02:05:06]
I don't, time is nothing.

[02:05:07]
Three months.

[02:05:08]
Christmas is in three months.

[02:05:10]
What month is it where you are?

[02:05:12]
What year is this?

[02:05:13]
Yeah, there's something weird about like the idea of meeting people in person that you've

[02:05:19]
just talked to online.

[02:05:20]
It's like you don't really know them.

[02:05:21]
Oh, yeah.

[02:05:22]
And it's like, super strange.

[02:05:23]
But like, yeah, just with this show in general, there are a few people that I'd be like, yeah,

[02:05:28]
I would go visit them in person.

[02:05:29]
And like, I met Alessio on my way when I was moving to California out west.

[02:05:34]
Like I ended up stopping in St. Louis, right?

[02:05:38]
At the time.

[02:05:39]
And yeah, it's, but I would, I don't think I would have done that with like other

[02:05:45]
communities or forums or people from different places.

[02:05:49]
I'd be more cautious, I think.

[02:05:50]
But, and Alessio.

[02:05:52]
That's how I get you.

[02:05:53]
Yeah.

[02:05:53]
And Alessio stabbed me.

[02:05:56]
And I'm still in his New York basically.

[02:05:58]
And I still, yep.

[02:05:59]
And when we're done with this, I don't know what he's going to do.

[02:06:02]
Oh, shit.

[02:06:04]
No, I will say when Nick pulled up and I could see him like out from the window on the second

[02:06:08]
floor of our, because it was our forever national, it was like our studio space.

[02:06:13]
And I was like legitimately nervous.

[02:06:15]
I was like, oh my God, it's Nick.

[02:06:17]
Wow, that's crazy.

[02:06:17]
He has a body.

[02:06:18]
Well, we would be.

[02:06:19]
Totally enough.

[02:06:20]
Listen, Alessio, when you put it that way, it's a lot more creepy.

[02:06:23]
Nick, do me a favor.

[02:06:25]
Alessio, take off your headphones.

[02:06:26]
Nick, if you're in need of a rescue, go ahead and clap twice.

[02:06:34]
Oh my God.

[02:06:35]
I mean, that sounds like something else, man.

[02:06:36]
I don't know what that is.

[02:06:37]
Sure does.

[02:06:39]
Anyway, so anyway, Nick has a body.

[02:06:43]
Alessio is looking, looking down at me.

[02:06:45]
Yeah.

[02:06:46]
No, no, no, it was super cool.

[02:06:48]
Well, so the weird thing about me and Nick, and I think it's come up a couple of times.

[02:06:51]
So not only did he find the podcast because of Cole Roth,

[02:06:56]
but we later found out that a guy I work with, and I still work with on independent film projects,

[02:07:03]
fucking went to college with Nick.

[02:07:05]
Yeah.

[02:07:05]
Yeah.

[02:07:06]
So it was this third.

[02:07:07]
It was this weird, like Nick was like, oh, I'm from here.

[02:07:09]
And I was like, oh, I know a guy from there.

[02:07:11]
And then he was like, we exchanged the names or whatever.

[02:07:14]
And Nick was like, I know that guy.

[02:07:16]
And I was like, what the fuck?

[02:07:17]
Like, what is happening?

[02:07:18]
And then I talked to my other friend and he was telling me about Nick.

[02:07:22]
And I'm like, okay, this is bizarre.

[02:07:25]
Yeah.

[02:07:26]
And it made it maybe even more like, oh, is this all orchestrated?

[02:07:31]
This stranger who's coming to my workplace, probably.

[02:07:35]
I'm sure there was, but I looked up and I just saw this on the,

[02:07:40]
I don't remember what floor you guys were on, but I saw on the window

[02:07:43]
this like mischievous smile looking down from me up in the window.

[02:07:48]
Looking at your body.

[02:07:49]
Yes.

[02:07:50]
And now I'm in the basement.

[02:07:54]
Well, I mean, it's super weird too.

[02:07:55]
So like Sam and I, I want to say podcasted for 10 years combined before we ever met in person.

[02:08:04]
Wow.

[02:08:04]
And it was so weird because it's like obviously over webcam or whatever you like see each other.

[02:08:10]
But it was so weird to have like physical body presence.

[02:08:15]
Yeah, that is with this person.

[02:08:18]
So yeah, I just remember like hugging Sam for the first time was like one of the most real experiences.

[02:08:25]
But yeah, bodies are weird on that note.

[02:08:30]
On that note.

[02:08:30]
Yeah.

[02:08:31]
So where can people find you?

[02:08:31]
So other than the discord, because I'm assuming everybody here and maybe at some point I will

[02:08:36]
set some healthy boundaries and make my way to the discord again.

[02:08:40]
But other than the discord, where can people, like if people are like,

[02:08:44]
fuck, I want to follow Tori.

[02:08:45]
She's super cool or shit.

[02:08:47]
Chud.

[02:08:48]
Chud's buzzword is so cool.

[02:08:52]
Where can people find you?

[02:08:54]
Tori.

[02:08:57]
Tori.

[02:08:57]
She's gone.

[02:08:58]
You can't find her anywhere.

[02:08:59]
Sorry.

[02:09:00]
I was taking a drink there.

[02:09:04]
You can find me on Instagram at youngneal.

[02:09:09]
Not so active on Twitter.

[02:09:10]
It's like YNG, Neil, isn't it?

[02:09:12]
YNG, Neil.

[02:09:13]
Yeah.

[02:09:14]
Same thing on Twitter, although it's underscore YNG, Neil.

[02:09:18]
I'm not on Twitter so much these days.

[02:09:21]
If you really must, you can find me at my name on Facebook.

[02:09:27]
Initially, I just got it for the sole purpose of managing the middle gear Monday's Facebook page,

[02:09:34]
which is not going to be a thing anymore.

[02:09:38]
All 12 people will be upset.

[02:09:40]
I know.

[02:09:42]
Yeah, I'll be there.

[02:09:43]
I'll be in the discord here and there.

[02:09:46]
Yeah, otherwise you can.

[02:09:47]
Any new projects?

[02:09:48]
Shout my name into the void.

[02:09:49]
You know, there are ideas just kind of bouncing around.

[02:09:56]
And the old noggin for what to do next.

[02:09:59]
Nothing is really concrete yet, but you may not have heard the last from me just yet.

[02:10:07]
So I'm so creepy.

[02:10:09]
You have not heard the last of young Neil.

[02:10:11]
Yes.

[02:10:12]
Inspector Gertrude.

[02:10:14]
I will be lurking in the shadows only when it is time.

[02:10:18]
Will you know?

[02:10:19]
Yeah, just check out those spaces and maybe someday there will be something for you to delight.

[02:10:29]
And I don't know.

[02:10:30]
Fuck, guys.

[02:10:31]
I just all of them here.

[02:10:32]
Amazing.

[02:10:33]
Please just keep talking.

[02:10:36]
Yes, I will fill this time with nonsense.

[02:10:40]
I don't know.

[02:10:40]
Yeah, there are prospective projects that I would like to work on.

[02:10:45]
So keep in touch.

[02:10:49]
Discord would probably be the best place if there's anything that's going to happen in the

[02:10:52]
future.

[02:10:53]
That's probably where I'm going to drop the bomb.

[02:10:56]
So.

[02:10:57]
Oh, yeah, you'll know her when she's controlling Earth's population from an eye.

[02:11:03]
That is correct.

[02:11:04]
Nice.

[02:11:05]
Chad, where can people find you?

[02:11:07]
You can find me on the discord under kilometers Davis.

[02:11:11]
You can find me on Twitter at kilometers D and you can find me on Twitch.

[02:11:15]
I've taken a bit of a break, but I'm going to be returning kilometers underscore Davis.

[02:11:19]
And each of those instances, kilometers is spelled the good old Canadian way, which is M E T R E S.

[02:11:26]
So make sure you don't forget up.

[02:11:29]
Nice.

[02:11:29]
Queens English.

[02:11:30]
Yeah.

[02:11:31]
Yeah, we love it.

[02:11:32]
The Queen.

[02:11:34]
Nick, I'm sorry before we get to you, Chad, what is it like to be on a mainline episode?

[02:11:39]
And what is it like for that mainline episode to be the end of the entire show?

[02:11:43]
I mean, you got to go out with a bang, right?

[02:11:45]
Now I can finally go back and actually play the games and listen to the show.

[02:11:49]
That's my favorite.

[02:11:50]
Yeah, that's my favorite detail.

[02:11:51]
Hold on.

[02:11:51]
Please can you tell the listeners at home that you modded

[02:11:57]
discord but have never played anything except for the first?

[02:12:00]
I played the first.

[02:12:01]
Yeah, I played middle gear solid and I played Death Stranding.

[02:12:04]
And I think I played about five minutes of the Game Boy Color game.

[02:12:08]
And that's.

[02:12:08]
Is this true?

[02:12:09]
Is this actually?

[02:12:09]
This is dead.

[02:12:10]
Oh yeah.

[02:12:10]
This is a joke, but it's also incredibly true because I started listening

[02:12:14]
after playing.

[02:12:15]
Nick's like, what the fuck?

[02:12:17]
I am.

[02:12:18]
Don't let him in the community.

[02:12:19]
What are you doing here?

[02:12:21]
I started playing the series.

[02:12:23]
I was like, fuck, I really want to listen to people actually go through this.

[02:12:27]
And I found the podcast and I found love with it.

[02:12:29]
And then I had plans to start the second game and I just got sidetracked and two years later,

[02:12:34]
I still haven't done that.

[02:12:36]
Oh my goodness.

[02:12:37]
You know, Death Stranding.

[02:12:38]
It came out.

[02:12:38]
I don't know.

[02:12:39]
Fuck.

[02:12:40]
So arguably you've played Kojima's best games, right?

[02:12:44]
Metal Gear Solid, Ghostbattle and Death Stranding.

[02:12:47]
Yeah, that's the top three right there.

[02:12:49]
Nick, your first episode was portable ops.

[02:12:51]
But.

[02:12:51]
Ah, OK.

[02:12:52]
Yeah, I thought so.

[02:12:54]
Nick, you've played Metal Gear, right?

[02:12:58]
Metal Gear?

[02:13:01]
Yeah, Nick, where can people find you?

[02:13:04]
I'm in a lessee.

[02:13:05]
What's your favorite?

[02:13:06]
Okay.

[02:13:07]
Let's see.

[02:13:09]
My favorite Metal Gear is whichever Metal Gear I'm playing at the time.

[02:13:13]
General.

[02:13:13]
Wow.

[02:13:14]
Call it that answer.

[02:13:15]
With exceptions.

[02:13:17]
I don't know.

[02:13:17]
I flip flop between Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid 1.

[02:13:21]
And sometimes Metal Gear Solid 2.

[02:13:22]
I usually, I don't know.

[02:13:23]
It's tough.

[02:13:25]
I think much like Silent Hill, the first three are like immaculate.

[02:13:30]
Immaculate.

[02:13:30]
Yes.

[02:13:31]
I'll let you, how come you didn't ask me which one my favorite is?

[02:13:33]
Because you haven't played any of them.

[02:13:35]
Oh, true.

[02:13:36]
I like the first one.

[02:13:38]
I'm gonna, this might be, so I personally think you can't play the second one without

[02:13:43]
playing the first one in my humble opinion.

[02:13:46]
The effect does not work.

[02:13:49]
But I swear to God, I think the original Metal Gear Solid, after all these years,

[02:13:54]
the one I go back to the most with the most affection, and maybe it's because this is my

[02:13:58]
first one, but I swear to God, the atmosphere, the sound design, all of it, MGS1 is the best

[02:14:04]
fucking.

[02:14:04]
Best, best, yeah.

[02:14:05]
It's the best one.

[02:14:06]
It's like a lot.

[02:14:07]
Best atmosphere, and also it really works as kind of a standalone piece.

[02:14:11]
Yeah.

[02:14:12]
So I think that helps a lot.

[02:14:13]
I've all agreed.

[02:14:15]
And also I fucked up.

[02:14:16]
I played the second one before I played the first one.

[02:14:18]
So no.

[02:14:19]
I know, much to Lesios LeMann.

[02:14:22]
It's just probably super confusing.

[02:14:24]
So you were playing Metal Gear Solid one, you were like, where is Raiden?

[02:14:27]
Why am I not getting to play as Raiden?

[02:14:29]
No, no, no, no, no, no.

[02:14:31]
When I first started playing Metal Gear Solid 2, it was after watching my brother chase

[02:14:37]
aka Spoter shout out, what, what, what.

[02:14:41]
I had watched Chase play a little bit of Metal Gear Solid 1 first and a little bit of Metal

[02:14:46]
Gear Solid 2 and was not a fan of Raiden as Kojima and Company predicted I would be as

[02:14:55]
a female consumer of the game.

[02:15:01]
Amazing.

[02:15:01]
Sorry, Nick, we went off on a tangent.

[02:15:03]
Where can we find you?

[02:15:04]
Yeah, sorry.

[02:15:05]
In Lesios basement.

[02:15:07]
You'll find me.

[02:15:09]
Nick, send coordinates, man.

[02:15:11]
No, please don't.

[02:15:12]
I know his address.

[02:15:14]
Please don't.

[02:15:15]
I don't want him to leave.

[02:15:17]
So I'm just really mostly on the discord.

[02:15:20]
So I think that's probably the best place to find me.

[02:15:22]
We're still doing the monthly movie and game club stuff.

[02:15:28]
Super good.

[02:15:29]
Yeah.

[02:15:30]
And so I always, we're getting close to the next round where I'm going to send out

[02:15:35]
the call for nominations.

[02:15:37]
So that's probably the best place to find me.

[02:15:40]
I know we have, we're still doing some stuff like Warren and I are still doing

[02:15:46]
recordings on the movies from time to time.

[02:15:49]
So I'm not sure where those will live, but.

[02:15:52]
In Lesios basement.

[02:15:55]
Just like everyone.

[02:15:57]
We all live in Lesios basement.

[02:15:59]
Yeah.

[02:16:00]
That's when the grand reveal at the end of this episode is going to be the entire discord.

[02:16:03]
It's just chained up in my big.

[02:16:05]
Yeah.

[02:16:06]
And our is, will the episodes be going away for the.

[02:16:13]
Oh, no, no, no, not at all.

[02:16:15]
Those will still be available.

[02:16:16]
I have to listen to them.

[02:16:17]
Yeah.

[02:16:18]
Yeah.

[02:16:18]
The whole feed will exist.

[02:16:19]
So you can also find me there.

[02:16:21]
Talking about portable ops, snakes revenge and the middle year saga.

[02:16:26]
Oh, you know what?

[02:16:26]
I was on a middle year solid for episode as well.

[02:16:28]
I forgot.

[02:16:29]
Oh, right.

[02:16:29]
Right.

[02:16:30]
Man, fucking everybody and their mother was on.

[02:16:34]
Because it was like every episode had a guest, like every single episode.

[02:16:38]
Yeah.

[02:16:38]
So but yeah.

[02:16:41]
Yeah, that's crazy.

[02:16:42]
Um, yeah, no, I, uh, and we, we need to figure out what the fuck is going to happen now that I

[02:16:48]
think about it with all these Patriot Club episodes.

[02:16:51]
Um,

[02:16:52]
although there's no patriot and just make a public, I guess.

[02:16:55]
Yeah.

[02:16:55]
Yeah.

[02:16:55]
Because the feed is gone.

[02:16:57]
So I don't know.

[02:16:58]
Maybe we'll put them in a drop box or something and or I can put them in

[02:17:00]
Google drive and we can just like pin it in discord.

[02:17:05]
We could just say if you're a patron, fucking download all that shit now.

[02:17:08]
It's going away.

[02:17:09]
Oh, I love that.

[02:17:10]
I love that.

[02:17:11]
Limited time performances, baby.

[02:17:13]
I'm all about it.

[02:17:15]
But we should also have a super secret special drop box one.

[02:17:18]
So we also have it for preservation.

[02:17:20]
Correct.

[02:17:20]
Correct.

[02:17:21]
Well, cool.

[02:17:22]
Yeah.

[02:17:22]
So everybody can find me at LSE of summerfield.com, uh, at AC summerfield on pretty much anything.

[02:17:27]
Um, and yeah, I am currently, I'm going to just

[02:17:30]
put this out into the world because I am still working on these things.

[02:17:34]
I'm actually currently working on a hybrid documentary, um, narrative film with a

[02:17:39]
longtime listener of the show, uh, liquid metal mic.

[02:17:42]
Dope.

[02:17:43]
We have been like postal service, ask sending each other snippets of a thing and like,

[02:17:50]
it's weird.

[02:17:51]
It's interesting.

[02:17:52]
We've been like making a film over email, essentially.

[02:17:55]
That's cool.

[02:17:56]
Um, but yeah, as we're working on that, um, I just finished writing

[02:18:00]
three short film scripts, a page one rewrite of a novelized or an adapted novel screenplay and

[02:18:08]
who I wrote a TV screenplay pilot for a show runner.

[02:18:12]
So I'm doing a fuck ton of writing.

[02:18:15]
But I'm also finishing a novel.

[02:18:17]
Let's go.

[02:18:18]
It's going to be great.

[02:18:19]
Um, I'm currently rewriting a large portion of that novel.

[02:18:23]
Um, but yeah, I'm putting out a lot of shit.

[02:18:25]
So just LSE of summerfield.com.

[02:18:26]
Um, uh, and I am going to have that website totally redone in like three months.

[02:18:31]
So I am busy and excited.

[02:18:35]
So check that stuff out.

[02:18:37]
Metal Gear Mondays.

[02:18:38]
I don't know if the website for MGM is going to continue to survive.

[02:18:41]
So poopinass.com is going to have to.

[02:18:44]
Yeah.

[02:18:44]
Yeah.

[02:18:44]
So if you, if you hear this, hustle over to metalgearmondays.com and grab whatever the fuck you can.

[02:18:53]
A fire sale.

[02:18:54]
Yeah.

[02:18:54]
There's a fire sale.

[02:18:58]
Everything must go.

[02:19:00]
But yes, so go do that.

[02:19:02]
And then you'll hear the rest of the finale season.

[02:19:06]
So enjoy that.

[02:19:09]
So last segment we ended by all of us imagining what the best ending for the episode would be in silence.

[02:19:16]
Um, I think on this one, let's all say our favorite single word.

[02:19:24]
That we associate with the discord at the count of three.

[02:19:29]
No, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[02:19:29]
I got it.

[02:19:30]
Everybody lock it in.

[02:19:31]
Everybody lock it in.

[02:19:33]
Oh fuck.

[02:19:34]
I don't even think I've got it.

[02:19:35]
Okay, I've got it.

[02:19:36]
I've got it.

[02:19:36]
I've got it.

[02:19:37]
Is everybody ready?

[02:19:37]
Come on, Nick.

[02:19:39]
I'm ready.

[02:19:40]
I'm ready.

[02:19:40]
We got three, two, one.

[02:19:44]
I am gamer.

[02:19:53]
Wow, that's good.

[02:19:54]
You scared me.

[02:19:55]
Isaac, which Metal Gear Mondays host would you choose to be the new host for Jeopardy?

[02:20:01]
Can I say, I need to get really, really close to the mic.

[02:20:07]
Isaac, you better fucking say me.

[02:20:11]
Otherwise I'm fucking coming for you and your entire fucking bloodline.

[02:20:18]
I'm going to have to get an audition.

[02:20:19]
I need your best.

[02:20:24]
I hope that comes across as uncomfortably as possible.

[02:20:30]
Yeah, it felt like you were in my earphone.

[02:20:32]
Like you were in my earphone.

[02:20:33]
It was wild, man.

[02:20:36]
Right behind me.

[02:20:37]
My tongue was hitting my ear drum.

[02:20:40]
That Dolby Digital surround sound fucking coming at you.

[02:20:49]
There we go.

[02:20:50]
Zoomers, you like that one?

[02:20:52]
Hey, we got it.

[02:20:54]
Fuck you, Zoomers.

[02:20:58]
I love encountering people where they're like, what's a Zoomer?

[02:21:01]
And I'm like, you don't need to know.

[02:21:03]
Just if you don't know, it's better for you.

[02:21:06]
Yes.

[02:21:07]
Okay, so message for the Zoomers.

[02:21:10]
Don't play Metal Gear.

[02:21:14]
Well, so yeah, I guess to sincerely put a point to it.

[02:21:20]
So this is the end of the family reunion episodes.

[02:21:25]
The next episodes that we're going to get into are kind of a variety.

[02:21:29]
They're a lot of fun.

[02:21:31]
So we're going to do a greatest hits episode, which is going to be me,

[02:21:36]
Sam and Isaac listening to moments from Metal Gear's past and making jokes.

[02:21:43]
You can come and listen to, I guess, are we the assholes that are reacting to ourselves,

[02:21:50]
reacting to things?

[02:21:51]
We are a Bo Burnham sketch.

[02:21:52]
That is what we have become.

[02:21:55]
We're a white woman's Instagram.

[02:21:57]
Yes.

[02:21:59]
But yeah, so we're going to be doing greatest hits episode.

[02:22:01]
And then the final and fourth episode will be the send off grand finale,

[02:22:07]
featuring a lot of special messages from people, as well as, and I cannot stress this enough,

[02:22:15]
one of the greatest interviews we have ever, ever received for this podcast.

[02:22:23]
Yeah.

[02:22:24]
I'm going to say this.

[02:22:27]
This interview was not on my bingo card for 2021, but now that it has been checked off on my bingo

[02:22:35]
card, I am incredibly happy.

[02:22:37]
Like, I'm so happy.

[02:22:39]
I think there could not have been a better guest to close the show off.

[02:22:45]
Honestly, yeah.

[02:22:47]
Anybody, if you ever listen to the show, if you like what we did,

[02:22:51]
send us a listener response to type your message, tell us, you know.

[02:22:56]
Record an MP3, whatever.

[02:22:58]
Yeah, record a message if you want to, write a message, we'll read it.

[02:23:04]
Tell us about how your life has changed from when you,

[02:23:07]
that was a little like that.

[02:23:09]
I mean, like, in general.

[02:23:09]
Tell us how we changed your life.

[02:23:11]
Not because of us.

[02:23:13]
Just like, tell us, like, you know, we talked about in the first episode, the first family

[02:23:17]
reading episode about like, where and in the other roundtales, like where we were when we

[02:23:22]
first started doing middle of your Mondays and where we are now.

[02:23:26]
Tell us about that.

[02:23:27]
Like, when you first started listening to the show versus where you are now, and if that was

[02:23:31]
back in 2015, if that was yesterday, but don't just send a message, do a message.

[02:23:36]
We want to hear from you.

[02:23:37]
So listeners, listeners, one and all, send us a message.

[02:23:41]
Do we still have a live email address to gather all of those?

[02:23:45]
Yeah, no, no, no, yeah, we do.

[02:23:47]
So, so contact at metalgearmondays.com, metalgearmondays.com, contact at metalgearmondays.com,

[02:23:55]
metalgearsmonday, a Gmail.

[02:24:00]
The easiest one for me to collect all these things would be Alessio at alessiosummerfield.com.

[02:24:05]
That would be the easiest for me.

[02:24:07]
Or you can just go to alessiosummerfield.com or acsummerfield.com and send me your,

[02:24:12]
send me that shit, but I will make sure that we receive other stuff as well.

[02:24:17]
Or you can tweet at, doesn't have a tweet.

[02:24:20]
He will definitely get back.

[02:24:22]
Please, please, don't.

[02:24:23]
Please, you'll never see the light of day.

[02:24:26]
You could tweet at Sam versus Sam, V-E-R-S-U-S, it's spelled out.

[02:24:32]
Or you can go to youtube.com slash Sam versus Sam and see what I'm doing now.

[02:24:36]
All right, legit.

[02:24:38]
Somebody actually left a YouTube comment on one of my YouTube videos.

[02:24:43]
That's basically a listener response for the show that I'm gonna bring to the table too.

[02:24:48]
So like legitimately, that's also a way to get

[02:24:54]
listeners wants to leave a comment on my YouTube channel.

[02:24:57]
I love it.

[02:25:01]
Nice.

[02:25:03]
I'm trying to think if there's anything else.

[02:25:05]
Yeah, you know where we're at.

[02:25:09]
At ACsummerfield on everything.

[02:25:12]
I'm trying to think, yeah, so we're doing greatest hits, we're doing the fun send off messages.

[02:25:18]
Episode, I think that's it.

[02:25:21]
I feel like I'm missing something and it's always right there in front of my fucking face.

[02:25:29]
Is it about like corrugated stuff?

[02:25:34]
Does it have to do with like?

[02:25:36]
I'm always thinking about corrugated stuff, man.

[02:25:38]
How did you?

[02:25:42]
My corrugated pants just came in the mail.

[02:25:45]
They're very uncomfortable.

[02:25:46]
Except for whenever I move at a very specific angle.

[02:25:52]
I don't know if I should make me feel uncomfortable.

[02:25:58]
What do you know about corrugated paper products?

[02:26:03]
Corrugated sheet metal?

[02:26:06]
No paper product.

[02:26:09]
Nah, dude, nah.

[02:26:11]
You got it.

[02:26:15]
It holds up.

[02:26:17]
There's strength to corrugation.

[02:26:22]
And there's strength and unity with what we're doing here, brothers.

[02:26:33]
So you could almost say that we are the corrugation of life.

[02:26:41]
And if we take it a step further, you could almost say that we're just a box.

[02:26:48]
A cardboard box.

[02:26:59]
My hand.