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Tom's Birthday Episode
103 Plays2 years ago
Join Dave, Jake and special guest Thomas as they talk about religion, upbringing, dating, the stigma around playing videogames, and most importantly Thomas's voice acting work and birthday!
Want to check out Thomas's voice acting work?
- Rosewater: a western point-and-click adventure coming soon on steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226670/Rosewater/
- The Voices Within: an indie RPG on itch.io: https://blackrosemii.itch.io/the-voices-within
Intro:
- Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards - On to Neo Star!
Outro:
- Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards - Neo Star Theme!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
00:00:26
Speaker
I'll see you next time.
Introductions and Relationships
00:00:34
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going all right. How's it going tonight, Tom? Hi, I'm Thomas. Good answer about how you're doing, Tom. Thank you for your time. I'm great. I'm great. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
00:00:58
Speaker
Always glad to have somebody on, or a friend of Dave. I don't know. How are you guys related? We're not actually related, but we might as well be. Oh my gosh. What are the rules? Are there rules to this podcast? As long as you don't dox yourself or someone else? No doxing. Got it.
00:01:19
Speaker
unless they're a public official. Don't tell me too personal of details, Tom, but for the sake of Jake, who has not had the chance to meet you before, how do we know each other? We've known each other for a long ass time. We went to church together and my brother and Dave are best friends, as far as I know, very good friends. And Dave has always been kind enough to let me into his friend circle as well.
00:01:47
Speaker
That's good. That gives me way too much credit, Tom, but thank you. I will say, because I don't want to, like, start up any drama or anything, are you aware of Dave's current religious state, his spiritual state as an individual? I'm not. Okay. I mean, I, if it's the same, I mean, like, look, just because we went to church doesn't necessarily mean a lot of things. I feel like a lot of
Exploring Religious Beliefs
00:02:10
Speaker
things have changed since then.
00:02:14
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Wow. Wow. That's bringing me back. Um, also we used to play some video games. We played some video games together, Dave. Yeah. I think when Halo one came out, you had that on the Xbox and we were like, let's borrow Tom's Xbox while he's out pissing or something for 20 minutes. Uh, just any time to get that in.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah. And then my brother and him would play Mega Man a lot. So watching Dave play Mega Man is that Dave and I know each other from me watching him play Mega Man. I think that's fair. I still do that occasionally, but I haven't kept up as much as your brother, Chad, who he's like, oh, I did this perfectly. And like, I played that game in 10 years. Uh huh.
00:03:00
Speaker
But he's still so much on older consoles and keeping up with that. He keeps sharp. It's interesting. I feel like there's some gamers like speedrunners and stuff, they just stick to one game and just master the one game. And then there's some people that like to skip around a bunch. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So what would you consider yourself, Jake?
00:03:27
Speaker
What am I? Or religiously,
Gaming Preferences and Relationships
00:03:30
Speaker
what am I? No, no, I don't care about that. What do you feel like, what type of games are you into? Oh, so I play almost exclusively PC games, though I do have a PlayStation 4. I got one around the same time, I guess, Dave did, because we played Monster Hunter World and some other games like that. And I use it as an opportunity to catch up on Bloodborne and other things.
00:03:54
Speaker
But otherwise, I'm pretty much always playing PC games. Cool. I used to play newer games, and I've definitely played a lot of games this year that people would know about like Armored Core or Baldur's Gate and stuff like that. But I also play games nobody cares about, like Heroes of the Storm or Starcraft Co-op and stuff like that. Right on. What about yourself? What do you play?
00:04:17
Speaker
me i still play diablo 2 like lord of destruction old school i still have old ass fucking characters um and items and league of legends shameful but okay and then
00:04:34
Speaker
I will say that isn't a terrible thing to play but Also, like a week ago. I did play a game Which because there were some British people who were like, oh we're digging around this I'm like, I used to play a team though. I can kick your ass. Let's go And I at least beat the bots So wow, I still have that level of skill at the very very least that's pretty good. Oh
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, you know, what's funny is this isn't the second. This is the second time today that I talked to somebody I hadn't otherwise talked to and they played League of Legends. I was in the line at Micro Center checking out and ended up talking to the guy ahead of me. And we talked about MOBA's a little bit and somehow, you know, whatever Micro Center.
00:05:18
Speaker
And he mentioned he played League of Legends so I told him he had my sympathies. It's gotten to the point now where I'm telling my girlfriend how I play and like about rotations and like why things are important and like
00:05:33
Speaker
it's it's pretty fun to actually have somebody that like to be dating somebody that's like you know interested in like surface level like are you taking this game seriously like is this a ranked game or not can I talk to you right now like you're sitting at your desk sometimes you really care if I talk to you sometimes you don't yeah
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's good to have. I think to generalize that, if you've got somebody in your life that can appreciate your interests and take interest in it, that's very nice, especially if it's something that you really care about or can get invested in.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, I feel I feel like a lot of relationships It's like too judgmental about and like I do it too like I totally do it I'm like, oh you're into that. Well, that's lame, right? Like, you know, it's I feel like it's good to at least have like another general basic understanding of like, you know, if you're dating somebody that's into sports like Are you watching?
00:06:35
Speaker
just like the highlights of the game or are you watching like your team at like some pinnacle moment you know like oh that's why you're upset okay yeah got it right that was important to you yeah
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing. You have to realize that it's important to them because I don't give a fuck about sports and which team wins or loses, but so many people do. And especially if you're like dating them, you should be cognizant of that and give a shit, at least at like two degree, maybe at just a surface level, but.
Questioning Religious Upbringing
00:07:08
Speaker
To be completely outside of it and it'd be like what? Oh, okay Feels kind of you're like, oh I will interact with you on 90% of who you are and you're fastest as a human being outside of This one thing you're into we don't talk about that That's a separate thing Taking it back to the bible. It's just don't be unequally yoked right if you've got a hardcore philly sports fan like
00:07:33
Speaker
Dude, I've been saying forever, you gotta be yolks. You gotta be yolks. Equally. Hell yeah. Yo, I used to, I read that and I was like, why does he care about eggs? I literally, I was like egg yolks, what does that have to do? And I remember in class, cause I went to a Christian school, like the teacher being like, no, it was, that's like a thing that you call that you put over an ox. And I was like,
00:07:59
Speaker
Like in my head, I was like, so when you're dating somebody, cause I was, you know, a young impressionable person that you had to wear like these big giant things. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, Oh, sometimes you have to be yoked together. What? Yeah. I mean, you could be forgiven for believing that. I mean, as you like progressed through a relationship, eventually it might end up with a bridal ceremony. And like, that's, that's a horse thing too. So like, yeah.
00:08:28
Speaker
And you can be forgiven a friend, buddy, who doesn't know Jesus Christ is the Lord and savior. I like to call into this number of the people you can talk to. Um, one man. Yeah. So I was literally like just at the bar with a friend and we were talking a little bit with, uh, one of the bartenders and I was like, so Christianity is a cult, right? And then you're like, uh, and I'm like, it's fine. We don't have to get into it. It's just my opinion. Uh,
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, right? To Jake and all that are listening, I used to be a Christian as well, but I've been having the same kind of thoughts recently too, Dave, where I'm taking out the trash and then I'm like, what happened the other day where I was walking back into my apartment and I was like,
00:09:19
Speaker
Was that a cult? Was that just a cult that I was in? It's just a really big one, right? Just more people are into it, right? It's low-key just a cult, in my opinion. Yeah. And I think...
00:09:35
Speaker
I fully believed in Jesus and being a Christian and stuff for the majority of my life. And then at a certain point, I just stopped fully believing it. In that religion, you're supposed to fully believe it wholeheartedly. And I just stopped feeling that way. And I was like, I'm done. And my mom was like, what? No. And I sat her down because she was a devout Christian. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
Hey, uh, so I don't believe this anymore. Uh, like entirely. And she was like, what? And I'm like, look, I don't believe it. And so I'm, I was, I kind of just want to be like, yo, I'm out. Right. Like, Hey, I'm out. GG shake. GG good game. You know, I'll see you in the next, uh, and I'll circle back. Like I remember telling her like, Hey, maybe
00:10:29
Speaker
You know, maybe I'll come back, I don't know. She's like, well, I'm gonna pray for you. I'm like, all right, thanks, but. But yeah, I think some of the, I think knowing a lot of the stuff that was in the Bible was really cool. Cause I feel like it's, you know, mainstream meta, if you will, like history meta, like knowing why the fuck and who, cause my girlfriend now,
00:10:57
Speaker
She doesn't have any ideas. She's non-American, so not like America is so fucking Christian washed, right? And so she doesn't even know. She's like, who is God? Who's Jesus? What do they have to do with each other? What are they doing? What? And so like, I'm like, oh, wow, you don't know any of this shit like.
00:11:22
Speaker
cool you know right yeah it's it's crazy because like jake and i both also like grew up christian yeah but uh jake's wife didn't so she doesn't have like that a whole indoctrination of like oh these are all the stories that you can like reference and stuff um so it's still like so foreign to her as well and i'm like huh
00:11:43
Speaker
I wish I was a part of that world where it's still so foreign to me now that I'm at where I'm at. Yeah. Because they just have like crazy beliefs about like, this is bad. One of the things being like Pokemon cards, because like, oh, they're evolving. Evolution's bad. And then like video games, like anything that's like outside of their bubble feels very
00:12:07
Speaker
I don't know. They judge it pretty harshly. Yeah. So it was nice to get away from that, to be able to just kind of be my own individual, still have morals because it's not like people who aren't Christians don't have morals. They're just not based in Christianity. That's all. Right.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, that was, that was it for me. The, the short of it, basically what Dave just described, my parents are pastors and their entire life is based around that. Like that is their, the cornerstone is, is Jesus to them. Right. Um, so it's not something I really talk about with them. They know that I don't really believe anymore, but I'm not trying to make it hurt. Right. I'm not trying to twist the knife or anything like that. It's just like, Hey,
00:12:55
Speaker
I was just like, hey God, if you're real, I gotta know it. And I can't just keep going, pretending that I am good with just believing it for no reason, right? I gotta know. That's like radio silence. I was like, okay, well, it's not gonna be a big thing, but I'm just gonna stop. So you still talk with your parents though?
00:13:14
Speaker
I do I do occasionally not as much as I should Well, that's that's good though because I know some people that like their parents cut them off and like exile them Yeah, and that that to me is like being close to of like being close to somebody and
00:13:30
Speaker
And then being like, oh, wow, that's what you're going through with like, that's what being a Christian means to you. Like, holy shit. Like the whole like Pokemon card things, like some people weren't allowed to collect Pokemon cards, couldn't read Harry Potter. I know some people like that weren't allowed to listen to the radio. They weren't allowed to consume mainstream media at all. Music, movies, video games, anything that didn't have to do with Jesus. They just could not.
00:13:57
Speaker
interact with. And so I feel like I was lucky that I mean, lucky but like, I'm glad that my mom
00:14:07
Speaker
who is like the major parental figure in my life. I'm glad that she let me do my own thing after a certain point. I think when I was younger, I think like four or five, I was more isolated in the Christian bubble. But then after that, like whatever music, like literally whatever music she, I think how she set it up was just like she doesn't want to hear
00:14:32
Speaker
You know, the F words or curse words or anything. Like, so as long as I put on headphones or whatever, she just, you know, I didn't walk around swearing. I'm also just like, not that type of dude. I am. I swear a lot more now, but you know, young Thomas at 11 years old was still listening to like system of a down. I think it was 11.
00:14:53
Speaker
Um, yeah, Dave and I'll talk about like POD or, you know, maybe some five iron frenzy. Yeah, it was definitely a part of like the growing up experience. Um.
00:15:10
Speaker
But I think part of it, like for me, was like not many Christian bands had actually good music. A lot of it was kind of shit, which is maybe indicative of your beliefs as a person. Dave's a lot more militant about it than I am. I'm just kind of like live and let live. He's like, we got to kill him.
00:15:26
Speaker
I have hard opinions. But no, it's just that like once you are outside of the bubble and get to experience things outside of the bubble, regardless of what your belief system is, it does kind of like impact your worldview and you're like, oh, this is also a thing that exists. How do I want to interpret that? How do I want to take that in except it's a part of reality, even if whether I disagree with it or agree with it.
00:15:55
Speaker
It was nice. And for how restrictive it felt as I was growing up, once I was, I kind
Reevaluating Beliefs and Logic
00:16:01
Speaker
of forced myself outside of it. I'm like, oh, there's a lot of cool stuff out here. Yo, peace. I'm out. Dave, was there, because you, you were, so we've known each other since I was what, how old?
00:16:21
Speaker
I'm 35, I'm 34 now. And we've known each other since I was like, what, 19? That's a long time. A bit. 16 or something. 16 years, yeah. Yeah. But was there something, Dave, that you realized, because I remember when we were younger,
00:16:42
Speaker
that you would speak up a bit like, no, it shouldn't all be like that. No, being a Christian should not mean that. The world is not actually like that. You can have morals outside of being a Christian. And I remember you saying shit like that when I was younger and having a lot of respect for you and knowing that you were smart and knowing that you, you don't just mouth off without knowing something. You're the type of dude that knows something
00:17:09
Speaker
You're knowledgeable about that thing. And you're like, actually, whatever you just said was horseshit. I'm going to tell you what I know. And I know a lot more than you do. So was there something when you were younger that like kind of, you know, split that? You know what I mean? Got you to realize. What was the crossroads kind of. Yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker
I think a big thing for me, again, I hate to shout out my one cousin, Kevin, who's kind of a wanker. Kevin, if you're listening, you're still kind of a wanker. I love you as a person, but like, get your shit together. But he kind of introduced me to like, he initially was like the one relative who's like,
00:17:50
Speaker
I'm forced to go to church, but I don't want to be there. I have an evolution thing instead of a Christian fish, right? And he's like, oh, I'm outside of what the current norm of that bubble that I was a part of was. And I'm like, all right, what's his deal? And then he showed me some bands. My other cousin showed me some bands that are, again, just in a more secular space, not specifically anti-religious. I was like, OK, this also seems fine.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then I started to look at it a little bit more and I looked at the Christian's views as far as how they were treating gay people, how they're treating women. I was like, I feel like they're all just people. And so that for me kind of like put a wedge in things. And I was like, let me kind of look at this a little bit more. What do I actually feel? What do I actually believe? And then slowly I kind of developed my own belief system in a more secular space outside of that.
00:18:47
Speaker
But yeah, I was kind of seeing some things where I'm like, that doesn't line up for me. And I'm somebody who's very, well, granted, I'm not like the most consistent, straightforward person. If I have something that's not logically aligned, I either need to have somebody understand and resolve it for me by saying, oh, here's the piece that you're missing. Or I need to reject it entirely because it doesn't actually make sense.
00:19:15
Speaker
So thank you for validating me on that Tom. I do not remember half of that shit. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Cause what you were saying about, you know, um,
00:19:24
Speaker
how anyone that's not straight or also just women, I remember being younger and being told the woman needs to listen to the husband and the husband's in charge. He's the head of the household, right? I remember being like, oh, okay, yeah, obviously, yeah, sure, totally. And then looking to my mom, my parental figure, and she's like, yeah, it should be that way, yeah, totally.
00:19:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm like yeah, I should you like husband should respect the wife But yeah as a wife you need to do whatever your husband says pretty much and I remember me like okay, and then growing up and like actually starting to date women and being like What the fuck? What? how like
00:20:11
Speaker
what these women are so fucking smart like goddamn if any man was dating you know because sometimes you go on dates and you know it doesn't work out and you're like oh that person's like dope as fuck like I wouldn't you know what I mean like you meet somebody like that person's dope I don't want to have anything to do with that you know
00:20:32
Speaker
like more intertwined than that one interaction, but that person's cool, you know? And you have a lot of things like that going on dates, at least I have, of just like, wow, that person was rad. I'm glad I met that person and hope they find somebody, but I'm not compatible. And then thinking just in that scope of things of like,
00:20:54
Speaker
That would be weird to try and, you know, have formal relationship with, you know, that woman is not in charge, you know, or like, like how that person is so smart. Why would they listen to anyone? Like, who the fuck would their husband have to be to be like, Hey, look, I know a lot here. Right. You're being unequally yoked. Just goes back to it. Just comes back to every time. I love this Christian dance. Uh huh.
00:21:24
Speaker
You say Christian dancing? Christian tangent. This is so dope. Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like. Yeah, go ahead. I was I was going to say I have like a related story because I when I was in college, I was hanging out with a girl that was she was Mormon. And it was just like a Halloween party type thing with her friends and stuff.
00:21:44
Speaker
And they were like joking around and something. And one of them made the joke of like, it's like, ha ha, why is it that guys can marry multiple women, but like women can't marry multiple guys or something like that? And they all just kind of like had an in-group laugh about it and things like that. And I was just, as an outsider here, I was like, what are you talking about? Like, you know what? Like, this is absurd because, you know, true Mormonism, Latter-day Saints, like that one,
00:22:12
Speaker
is a lot harder to say it's not a cult, right? It's very much like kick you out of the group entirely if you leave.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, like it really is. It is so weird to like make that presumption. Hey, this is the order things have to be. Like my mom is like an alpha personality. She's very aggressive. She was in the military. She's all of this. My dad is like very passive, you know, very much like a caring individual. He did not like to punish us or do anything like that. But the religious beliefs are like she has to be subservient to him. And she believes that entirely. But
00:22:52
Speaker
The reality is their personalities aren't like that. So if she thinks that he's not being assertive enough, then she kind of holds it against him, right? She'll remind him, hey, this is your call. This is your play. Like, I'll follow you. Yeah. And I'm just like, man, isn't, wouldn't a partnership just be like so much easier, right? Yeah, that's almost like that would fucking make sense. I don't know. Almost.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's just crazy. I guess like I could understand it if it was just the patriarchy trying to push that if it was just people like just old men who were like, no, I must be in power all the time. But there's just generations of women who like are just like entirely convinced that they also need to be subservient. Right. That's just whatever. That's not why I left religion, though. I left religion because it didn't make any sense. I couldn't get any answer. What part?
00:23:49
Speaker
So the short of it without jumping into a whole theology lesson, and you can find this on YouTube, not YouTube. You could on YouTube, too. Jake has multiple YouTube videos about why he has denounced Christianity. Does he really? I haven't even denounced it. I haven't really. No, no, no. I honestly.
00:24:07
Speaker
You wouldn't believe it because we talk about on the podcast a fair amount. It's literally like video games and religion or probably like the top two topics. Oh, really? Cool. It's more video games and religion, but it does come up. It's a big have a similar upbringing. Yeah. OK. It's like 80 20 or whatever. But so here's the argument. Right. Yes. If these are three, three traits of God, that modern Christian Christians assumed to be correct.
00:24:34
Speaker
that God is all good, that God is all powerful, and that God is all knowing. And pretty much if you just ask any conventional evangelical Christian in the United States, they'll be like, yes, all three, all good, all powerful, all knowing. But the problem is, and this is the argument, you can't be all three of those things. The nature of the world is showing that God can't be all three of those.
00:25:04
Speaker
yeah because you can't know everything fucked up that's going on without doing anything about it and being exactly right like if he's all powerful all good all knowing why is there wait your guys's reasons for yours is so much better than mine i i read the book a brief history of time by stephen hawking and he talked about red and blue shifting planets and the either the universe is expanding or contracting we don't know which way but
00:25:31
Speaker
the fact that the universe is not in a still state, like in the Bible says like God created the universe and then it was here. That means I was like, oh, well if you can, oh, that was the thing for me. Or I was like, oh, well maybe, I don't know, if the universe is moving around, then that's a big stretch to be like God created the universe.
00:25:58
Speaker
And it also moves around, but it doesn't say that in the Bible. You said big stretch. I don't know if that was an intentional expanding universe pun or not, but it was. So what do you guys usually talk about with video games now that we got all the religion out of the way?
00:26:18
Speaker
I mean, both of us are very much like Dark Souls nerds. Okay. As far as like the types of games we enjoy, but it can really vary. Like we played a game recently or something kind of comes up in like gaming news as far as, Oh, here are our takes on this or.
00:26:38
Speaker
Why the fuck did Blizzard do this? They're dumb. That's usually my reason. We go into more depth than that a lot of the times, but sometimes that's the only way you can explain it. Okay, cool. Like a good recent example is like one of the last episode I think was the game awards. So we talked about a lot of the awards that were given out and how we felt about some of the games and how they were placed.
00:27:03
Speaker
Well, I'd love to roll in here and talk about like video games from a voiceover perspective and like share some of that. If you guys like, I feel like that would be cool. Have you done video game voiceovers, Tom? I know you did an animated voiceover. I actually was just in this indie game called The Voices Within. Okay. I haven't yet gotten to play it because it just came out like this last week. But I can, I can link it to you.
00:27:33
Speaker
Hey, sorry about, yeah, sorry. Welcome back. What happened? I was like, uh, can you still hear me? Um, right. What was I saying? I was talking about the voices within. Is it the game on itch.io? Yeah. Yeah. I can link it to you, but, um, you know, that character is a little softer and, uh, really excited because I love.
00:27:59
Speaker
indie games and I love like the small indie game market. I think they're able to do something. You know, you have somebody that loves video games and could just make a game.
00:28:10
Speaker
You know, with the technology now, you don't have to do what Diablo 2 did, which was, you know, kill yourself to make some masterpiece of a game. You can just, you know, you just have an idea for a game and you can make something like that. Or, you know, you can love a style of game and get to work and
00:28:31
Speaker
you know, plan a game and do stuff yourself. You know, you don't need a big team. If you have an idea and you wanna make some beautiful work of art, then people can play through. And you know, even if you are a master at making games, you know, it's just, I think the indie game market is gonna be so fucking, like it already is so cool. And I feel like not a lot of people talk about how fucking cool indie games are or like,
00:29:00
Speaker
Um, what's like a, oh, you know, smaller, like how some, like a 24, like, I don't know if you guys watch a bunch of movies, like a 24 is like a smaller company, relatively, relative to, you know, larger companies. And during the strikes, they're still making movies because they love what they do. They love it. And so I feel like indie game makers are these, these groups of people. I was also in this, uh, uh, um,
00:29:29
Speaker
in this game Rose, not Rosewater, I'm sorry, that's the newer one. Lamplight City, so I'm in the first Lamplight City, and I think I play three characters in that, Guy Dumas and some others, but their new game, Rosewater, is out, and I think he's coming out with a third game, but you have these fucking fantastic artists that have an idea for a game, they wanna do it themselves, they, you know, it's,
00:29:58
Speaker
It takes a lot of fucking work and effort into making a game, especially if you're doing everything yourself. You're casting things yourself. You're writing all like you're not just coming up with the game. You're also writing and creating all of the characters in your world. And then you have to find people to put in your world. You have to find the actor like, you know, I need to find someone that looks or sounds like
00:30:22
Speaker
you know i need someone that sounds like they can do this or this style of acting or character worker you know whatever and i gotta find a bunch of them you know and even just finding people can be hard so.
00:30:37
Speaker
That's my small tangent of how awesome indie games are, and how I love... Also, I watch a lot of game grumps. I love watching a lot of playthroughs of games, because I listen to them as a podcast, sort of. When you have bigger people, like big...
00:31:02
Speaker
What do you call them? Let's players like bigger let's players and they play small indie games of like, yo, check out this game. If you like this type of game, check it out. You know, like Shovel Knight was sick and, you know, getting backing from people of like, yo, I want to play that type of game. You know, I feel like AAA games are definitely going like big and expansive and, you know,
00:31:22
Speaker
I don't think there's like a triple-a game that you're gonna pay $60 for and it's like this game is designed that you beat it in an hour and a half right like You know people gonna be like I'm not paying $60 You know I think Call of Duty tried it with a campaign and it received like a one or a four on IGN So yeah, I don't think that's a well-received. Yeah Yeah, it got a new cat a little bit
00:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, but also like, you know, I don't want to, I'm not the type of person that plays video games that I want to sit down and play video games for six hours at a time.
00:31:59
Speaker
You know, and like, cause that's the issue with me is I love story driven games and I love that shit. And so I can't walk away. So I just step out of the ring entirely. I'm like, yo, those types of games are so cool. The stories are so engaging. I just can't sit, cause I'll sit down and just have to play through the whole thing. Right. You know, so, um,
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, I love I love the chance to audition. So here's the thing. I audition a lot for a lot of indie games or games in general, as well as other shows and movies and stuff like that. So I'm auditioning more than I'm booking right now and.
00:32:43
Speaker
it's still so cool to be able to audition and audition for a role or a part that seems really right for me. Even if I don't get it, I'm like, Oh, but I, that like, that's the type of gig that I would book. Do you know what I mean? Like I've been voice acting for a while now and I feel like, um,
00:33:05
Speaker
the beginning of stage, you're just auditioning for like everything where you're just like, I'm just, what is this? You know, a 38 year old grandma and I'm 23. I can do it. I can do a voice like that, you know? And you just go in for everything. But then after a while you realize your own skillset and also like what voice they're looking for. Like I get auditioned sometimes where I'll get a sheet for an anime.
00:33:31
Speaker
and it'll have like 10 different characters, you know, let's say 20 characters, 10 female, 10 male. I identify as male. So I'm like, all right, those female characters, I'm not, I'm not even going to try and then bridge too far. Yeah. Bridge too high. And then there's like, you know, Jimmy, Jimmy's 12 years old and he loves hanging out with his dog, you know, and then there's like Jimmy's teacher. He's a,
00:33:57
Speaker
uh, intimidating male figure in Timmy's life or whatever. And I'm like, Oh, okay. That one, you know, I can't, you know, I don't have the 12 year old voice. I don't understand Timmy as a character, but I can intimidate the fuck out of him. I'm going to make Timmy cry. I know how to do that. That's easy for me.
Voice Acting Experience
00:34:18
Speaker
So is there something that you find yourself gravitating towards as far as far as indie games or roles within that space?
00:34:26
Speaker
Like is there something like, is there an indie game that's out there where you're like, Oh, I would love to be part of this series or franchise. That's a good question. I don't know. I don't, I'm not, I'm not digging deep enough. You know, also.
00:34:42
Speaker
That's a very bold, like people ask me that question, but I feel like that's a very bold or sumptuous thing to think. And, you know, I don't know. I don't like being like, hey, I like your game. Put me in it. Right. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
00:35:00
Speaker
It's also it also has to be pretty assumptive if this is like a continuing series or something You'll be like hey next God of War just kick Christopher judge out. I'm pretty sure I can do a good trade-offs, right? Yeah, no, no one's gonna say that. No, no, no, I I mean
00:35:17
Speaker
I should reach out to more indie, you know, indie game makers. And I have in the past where like, if I'm scrolling through Instagram or something and I see an indie game that's for funding, I will reach out to them and be like, Hey, I would love to audition for your, for your game. Um, that's something I totally do where, uh,
00:35:38
Speaker
you know, I have a good setup. I know what I'm doing. I feel like just audition, you know, I don't, I feel like that's that, that I can bring myself to do that, you know, um, but as far as, you know, I meet some people and I want, I don't want to, I don't, I like telling full truths.
00:36:04
Speaker
So if I look up a short clip of a game, I feel like it's disingenuous to be like, hey, I loved your game. I didn't buy the game. I didn't actually sit down and play it. So if I'm interested in a game, I'm really fucking interested. I want that audition. You know what I mean?
00:36:28
Speaker
Yeah. Cause, uh, you know, I feel like that's fair. Don't correct me. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Cause I'd love to audition for more stuff. Like, do you feel like as someone that's a, you know, Dark Souls player, you know, would you want your voice actor to be totally head over here for Dark Souls? And you just want them to be a good actor? Like what, what do you guys think? That's interesting.
00:36:56
Speaker
I mean, personally for me, um, I don't need somebody to love the exact same thing that I do. I just need them to do their job well. And if they do their job well, it'll carry over regardless. I think if you have the love of that thing, it will definitely lend itself to kind of carry over to say, Oh, I'm going to put my all into this because I love it. Right. Yeah. But like, I don't care about my day-to-day job.
00:37:25
Speaker
But I want to do it well. Therefore I will do it well. Um, but that's my take on it. At least.
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think maybe I would agree with Dave pretty much pretty much entirely. The people like as long as the performance comes through, I think that it's it's pretty good. But I don't know what the back end of voice acting work is. Right. Like maybe if you're working on a project where you are more excited to see your name in the credits, like when the game ships, that is more personally rewarding. Right. As opposed to something where it's just like
00:37:58
Speaker
Here's like an NFT game or something like that. The game is on the blockchain or something like that. It's immediately going to be forgotten and everyone will change their names, right? Like if I were to try voice acting today, right? Yeah. And I was going for something in the Dark Souls series or a Souls like I'm approaching with a certain degree of reverence because I have such
00:38:25
Speaker
such love for that game or franchise, where I want to do it justice, essentially. Yeah. All right, cool. So that's a limiting belief that I have. I'm totally insecure of a lot of things in my life. And so it's cool. My birthday is in a few days.
00:38:44
Speaker
So it's cool. Happy birthday, Tom. Yeah. Tom's birthday episode. Yes. That's what we should name it. That's what we can name it. Tom's birthday. It will be like, please tell. Yeah, it's it's cool getting older.
00:39:04
Speaker
Cause you just notice more stuff about yourself where like I noticed like, Oh, I'm insecure about shit. Oh, cool. Like that's good to know. You know, like being aware of it. Whereas where I was younger, just completely oblivious, but so something like that, I could be like, Oh, okay, cool. You know, nice. You know, I, I feel like,
00:39:25
Speaker
through a lot of therapy and spiritual help and meditation and stuff like I realized like oh you can just it doesn't have to be a big deal you know what I mean if you notice a flaw in yourself to change it you can just be like oh okay like I'll deal with that for a while like uh uh but yeah video games indie games
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's, um, it's kind of interesting because I mean, obviously, so we've never, I don't, well, we'll let the cat out of the bag. We've never had a voice actor guest on before, before. Um, and I'll be honest, I don't know anything about voice acting at all. Right. Like it's in, I think part of that is a little bit of the industry, right? So, so Dave and I maybe follow the game industry a little bit more than like some lay people.
00:40:21
Speaker
And that might just be because we have to come up with content for the podcast, right? So we have to, we have to track things sometimes, but even tracking like the game industry, you don't always see like voice actors, like,
00:40:37
Speaker
I would say like an example where that wasn't the case recently. It kind of breaks the role a little bit as like Baldur's Gate three because like those voice actors were just so prolific like within that space. And they went out and they played the game afterwards on stream and they did all this stuff. But like other than that, I can't think of times where like they're very prominent. Interesting. That's cool. Cause I'm just, I, that feels like it should lead to a question, but it doesn't. So if there's anything you want to follow up out of that, go for it.
00:41:08
Speaker
Yeah, just I feel like because I hang out with a lot of voice actors I'm aware of like the new monopoly phone game and the new you know Marvel The new Marvel game yeah, it's on don't break any India's for anyone Yeah, but cuz it's like you know like my friends are in the game, so I'm like oh they're in that game now That is really cool
00:41:37
Speaker
And also it's cool because I take classes for like, I've taken coaching with Ariana Ratner and she's in like the new Diablo franchise. She's in like the new this franchise. She's in the new wow. She's in smite. And then like, it's cool. Cause I've coached with her and have her give me feedback of like, here's what you could be doing better. You could do like, you're doing this well. And yeah, cool. You're right. And thinking that no, don't worry about that too much. And you know,
00:42:08
Speaker
So, having people like that in my life is kind of that small bubble, that bubble of like, oh yeah, I guess most people don't know who the voice actor is for that one show or something, you know? Like, also being in New York and being around a lot of filmmakers as well, like, when you go to see a movie, I feel like
00:42:33
Speaker
you know, afterwards we're like looking up what the budget was, how much they're making, you know, we know who the director, the producer, you know, like looking up the wiki after and stuff like that. But, you know, it's been a long time. So it's hard to think that people just go to the movies and they're like, well, that was great. Cool. You know, like, yeah, cool. That was, that was great. I had a fun time.
00:42:58
Speaker
right i don't know if it's super calm but but like when i was growing up my dad was such a
00:43:06
Speaker
a movie slut. Is that the right term? I don't think so. Yeah, go on. But he was constantly like pointing out to me like, oh, do you do you recognize such and such actor? They're also in this movie or also blah, blah, blah, blah. And to be fair, a lot of people were just John Wayne with John Wayne. But like going forward, I did kind of look for like if I heard a voice actor in something or something sounded familiar, looked familiar, I'd be like, wait a second. I kind of follow up on it.
00:43:38
Speaker
If you remember Batman Beyond, the voice of Terry McGinnis was also the voice of the main character in Tony Hawk American Wasteland. And I was like, I hear Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond all the time. Because I drew that connection. Like, it's the same person. Yeah. And you might do the same thing with like, Tara Strong and the number, the litany of things that she voice acts for Cartoon Network in animated series. Everything, actually. Literally everything.
00:43:59
Speaker
One of my favorite examples
00:44:07
Speaker
She's actually doing me right now. This is a very strong pocket. But yeah, I like to be able to draw those ties a little bit to see how interconnected it is. I know at least for voice acting, a lot of them are either Nolan North and. And Chris Baker, right?
00:44:31
Speaker
Is it Chris Baker? I'm gonna look this up. I feel like I'm Mercer does a lot of video games too, right? Matt Mercer's definitely been doing some more. Is Chris Baker an NFL player? I'm afraid that might be the case. Who's the voice of Joel from Last of Us? Because that's the other, oh my gosh, romantic guy. I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonna look at Troy Baker. That's what I was thinking of. Chris Baker is at the end of the game. Sorry, Troy.
00:44:58
Speaker
But yeah, you do notice them. They they they pop up a lot, especially if they're billed for a lot of things in a lot of games. And then I feel like there's this idea that like the the the best voice actors can have like a whole bunch of different voices. But there definitely are some that are also very prominent and they don't really have a whole lot of different voices. They're pretty much the same voice. But they don't become like, I guess, prominent enough that it doesn't really matter.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like, you know, the voice of, you know, God of War, you know, Christopher Judge. Yeah. Yeah. Do you would you care if he did a different voice? If you could cast him in your game, you'd be like, Oh, I got this massive voice. Yeah. Right. To destroy everyone with just the sound of his voice, you know. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a good note. I mean, like, it does seem like
00:45:51
Speaker
There's less of a line between like traditional like actors in front of a camera and like voice actors now. Like a really good example for a game that came out a while back was Cyberpunk 2077 had Keanu Reeves doing like the mocap and voice acting. And it's like, come on, guys, like Troy Baker has to eat. Like, what are you doing here? You know? Yeah. Yeah. But again,
Blending Acting Styles in Gaming
00:46:22
Speaker
If you're making a video game and Keanu Reeves is like, y'all do your game. Uh-huh. Yeah, you're probably gonna pick it, yeah. I do. Yeah, go ahead. With a grain of salt, though, right? Because let's say it's like Keanu Reeves is like, hey, can I be in this Mario game? And you're like, that's fucking who, dude. That tells her, obviously. There has to be a line as far as how you identify your character and who they are and who would make sense essentially playing them in a live role.
00:46:50
Speaker
versus not. It is, I will say, it is mad cool to come from the world of, you guys know, how cool video games were not. How not cool it was to figure out how to even play the game, let alone
00:47:14
Speaker
win it. You know what I mean? Like that. I feel like that was half a lot of earlier games of like, all right, we have three buttons and you're going to have to problem solve this thing and go, you know, you know, let's look at let's look at the original Zelda game, right? You're pretty much you're walking around and pressing buttons, you know, like that's all you're kind of doing. But
00:47:40
Speaker
to now have like this totally expansive scope where, you know, big time, like the new, the boy in the heroin, the boy in the heroin, the boy in the heroin. That's a different game. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's not a game, but it's a movie of like this anime that just came out and Robert Pattinson is in it. And these other actors are in it. And I don't have to listen for me, so I can't like rattle them off.
00:48:05
Speaker
you know, you have these amazing actors contributing to something that was not cool or popular even 10 years ago, I feel like. That is true, yeah. You know, I feel like talking to people being like, oh, that's one thing, living in New York, like in dating and being single when I was single and going on a date and being like, oh, what are you into? I'm like, oh, I like play video games, like I play video games, watch movies.
00:48:34
Speaker
and just being like, like someone just being like, what? You're a grown man and you play video. You know what I mean? And I'm like used to that. So like that would happen every now and again. But I remember that being just the reaction to, to anyone that you would talk outside of your small little circle that like played the NES, you know? Like, what do you mean you play video games? How?
00:49:02
Speaker
Why would you do such a thing with your day? You know, see, I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. Also, literally on the opposite side of the spectrum. As far as like for me, video games are another type of media, another type of content. And I never really got into like sitting down and reading a book and just using my imagination to slowly trudge through words on a page to kind of build this fantasy environment in my head.
Games as Narrative Medium
00:49:31
Speaker
Fuckin' render that shit. Let me play through it, right? I didn't expect it to have to defend books on the fucker. Books are still good? I'm not saying books. So many people are like, books! I'm like, but hear me out. There's something better than books. The reason I- Maybe it's the angle you're coming at. You're just peeling at me. Burn that. Play this. That's not the take. Burn Who First You Want is a good movie.
00:49:58
Speaker
Bible the video game uh-huh playing so Genesis my whole take is the reason I enjoy video games is a form of media is like yeah books you have to use your imagination to kind of fill in the gaps for stuff and that's fine if you want to have that experience movies is very much showing you what they want to show you and you have to take away from that
00:50:20
Speaker
Hopefully what they were intending. Whereas video games is still kind of like movies in that it wants to show you something and kind of you have a takeaway from it, but it can leverage a user agency to its benefit. So like, let's say like a character kills another character in a movie, you're like,
00:50:39
Speaker
Okay. Two fictional things. Why would I give a shit? But in like Wolfenstein, you have to like choose who lives or dies. And now you're a part of that story, making that decision. Now the decision is more impactful and has higher stakes because you're involved in it. It's not just this like fictional, um, ambiguous thing. It you're, it's a, I have agency. It's the agency and getting the, the player involved into the story, which I really like. Yeah.
00:51:09
Speaker
I just went to, uh, film festival, Austin film festival. And, um, some of the writers from the new Spider-Man game were there and I went to some of the writing, uh, uh, what do you call them talks, you know? And, uh, I just went like as a lover of video games and as a voice actor to be like, Oh, you know,
00:51:33
Speaker
Maybe there's some sort of takeaway directly, or maybe it's just cool to like hear the writers and hearing them talk about, you know, that agency that you're talking about, but having the, like they're talking about writing that makes you want to go and do something. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like their work, like, you know, it was cool to see them break down. Like here's how I think of a script when we have a game.
00:51:59
Speaker
that you want people to play and use the buttons. You have to kind of show people and talking about how, and I was like blown away by their thought process of doing that. Because as an actor, I show up and I'm like, cool, I'm here to emote this feeling. I'm here to bring these words to life. And anytime I hear writers talking,
00:52:25
Speaker
hearing writers talk, or where they're building the skeleton structure of whatever media, you know, and in video games, it can be so massive, because you have not just the dialogue in the storyline, but also the overarching thing of what's going on in the whole story. You know, like, quite
00:52:46
Speaker
quest fetch game or something like like a world of Warcraft. You still need to find reasons for your characters, you know, and as a player to inspire that agency to implement the agency rather than just be like, oh, yeah, I'll see how this plays out and I'll stand. I'll like have my character just stand here. You know. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very much like if it's a movie, you want people to keep watching it. Yeah. Interesting. Look, they have to have a reason to turn the page. But if it's a game,
00:53:18
Speaker
I'd say a recent development in gaming is to allow people to do different things. You talk back to like some of those arcade games or just like three buttons. It's like, yeah, I don't know how much like the joust meta has evolved over the years or whatever. But like if you're playing an MMO or something like that, absolutely people should be asking that question of like, OK, cool. We want to put this in the game. Why will players want to do this? Do they have a reason? Is it fun?
00:53:46
Speaker
because like that's a part of dailies done that entire question not being asked is actually pretty much my critique of starfield it's just like there's a bunch of stuff in the game but they never asked themselves why people would want to do it and you're like okay but yeah i see i i do like um the reason why mario 64 was so popular is that he you know his line of thinking with a lot of those nintendo games are
00:54:13
Speaker
You like how he first came up with Mario 64 is had a Mario, you know, person, and he just was working on the physics of the little man running around and chasing this rabbit. And like his whole theory for the game is like you have to whatever the quest is going on, you have to have fun like running and jumping around in the game, like traveling through the world. If you're just walking, that should be fun.
00:54:40
Speaker
And I love that because having this, I feel like having rules for your game are so awesome. Like Dead Space, like the creator of Dead Space, his whole thing is the whole game needs to be playable. No cut scenes.
00:54:59
Speaker
Right. Like that whole game, if you're like, if there's like a cut scene like type dialogue going through the game, you still have agency and can walk around. And the whole point of like that being one of their rules. I watched this documentary about it was amazing.
00:55:17
Speaker
where the one scene where there's a tentacle that comes out around the corner. This might be the no clip documentary. I'm not sure if that's the one you're talking about or not, but I think I've seen this. Yeah. And they were talking about like the actual physics and the computer graphics and stuff and the
00:55:37
Speaker
You know, you can be at different spaces in the hallway before it triggers the event because if you trigger an event, it becomes a cutscene. But how to keep it so that a tentacle like pretty much you just see the tentacle clipping through the walls and stuff because the the technical side of it is too hard.
00:55:55
Speaker
And and the director of the game be like, no, this cannot be a cut scene. I know it would look good, but no, you need to figure it out. Just spend as much time as you need. Figure it out. It's in the we made these rules, you know, and hearing that sort of thing in the documentary was like, oh, my God, that's so fucking beautiful. Because, you know, you would think like, you know, whatever, you have like a few second cut scene of the tentacle monster that it's hard to render. Like we get it. You know, we get what's going on. Yeah. But
00:56:25
Speaker
seeing games like that and and you know really sticking to your guns i feel like it feels like that much powerful of a game when you play that because you're like well i'm like in uh you know when they started you used to be able to look down and if in like a first person shooter if you look down you wouldn't be able to see your own feet but then they started implementing you can see your own feet
00:56:47
Speaker
And it's like, Oh, nice. You're implementing as much realistic things as you possibly can, you know? And, uh, I always, I always love games that do that because you really break the mold and for other creators, you're like, Oh.
00:57:02
Speaker
You hear what they did? They sat down for two weeks and figured out how to make this tentacle. You know what I mean? They sat there and it literally is going to cost like four seconds in the game, but they spent a few weeks figuring it out. You know, oh, we can do stuff like that with our game and just sit down and figure something out if it's not working. You know, I feel like that's the real
00:57:26
Speaker
Think, because as a creative, you guys know, like if you come across a problem, sometimes you want to be like, I'm done. That's true. There may have been some weeks when we're going to record a podcast and neither of us have an idea. And I'm just like.
00:57:44
Speaker
I don't want to, Dave, but most of the time we push, most of the time we push through it. There's probably, I would say less than a handful of times that we fully just gave up for a given. I like that direct, uh, dead space directors approach to it because like when you realize as somebody who's playing game, the cutscene is happening, what do you do?
00:58:07
Speaker
You just hold the controller still, or maybe you put it down and like, this might be a long one. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But it's removing you from the space of playing the game versus like, Hey, it's still active. You still need to react to things and do something. Um, which keeps you in it, which I think is way better. Again, I don't want to shit on cut scenes. Like there's some very good cut scenes in video games and maybe it makes sense in that space. Um, yeah. But then there are other times where it's like, Hey, you need to,
00:58:37
Speaker
engage and do a thing. And again, drives home so much more when you're actually doing
Media and Audience Engagement
00:58:43
Speaker
it. The kind of connection, Jake, you were making earlier, as a medium, it would be like if at one point of a movie, half of the movie theater got up and went to the bathroom.
00:58:55
Speaker
Right. You know what I mean? Like half of the movie is just like not engaged. Oh, it's this part. OK, great. I'll be right back. You know, in the olden days, we called out the intermission. You got to bring it back. You got to bring it back. Although it's been a long time since I saw like a movie in theaters, to be honest.
00:59:13
Speaker
Really? I think it was the before times for me. I don't think it's. Oh, wow. OK. Yeah. Barbie was good. That's the last one I saw. I'm debating seeing the new Godzilla movie because Chad, your brother, was saying good things about it. I almost went with him that night. But he, as you know, he was like last minute like, hey, do you want to go to a movie? I'm like, dude, you've got to give me a modicum of a heads up and not ask me like an hour before.
00:59:41
Speaker
Wednesday afternoon, Matt and A called us at 12. Yeah, well he came from Pennsylvania to Brooklyn to watch that movie with me and then he went back home.
00:59:52
Speaker
And that movie is so good. I highly recommend you go and see it and have fun. I went with a group of my friends for my birthday, but my one friend was like, yeah, it was too serious. And I was like, there's this parts. You're supposed to laugh. Like there's a lot of jokes in that. And he was like, what? I was like, yeah, man. Humor is a human construct.
01:00:18
Speaker
But like when I mentioned that, I, you know, he started to think like, Oh, that is really funny. Oh, that is, whoa. Oh, okay. You know, she went into the movie with the guys of like, I need to analyze this. Yeah. No, I love glasses and a notepad. I mean, that's, that's definitely Shin Godzilla. Shin Godzilla. Have you seen that one either? I haven't. No.
01:00:45
Speaker
It is, it's like a two hour movie and like an hour and a half of it is meetings. There are meetings galore. If you love watching people sit down and have meetings, watch Shin Godzilla. But it was awesome to watch like a movie. You know, what if I told you I went and saw The Avengers and then 30 minutes of it was sitting in an office and like, you'd be like, what are you talking about?
01:01:15
Speaker
Um, no, I love, I love all Godzilla movies. They're so great. It's all about the boardroom meeting to Mothra ratio. Oh, right. That's just like, if it's too much boardroom, not enough Mothra. Yeah. I feel like minus one has, has a very good balance and like, you know, that budget was 17 million. They, the guy that directed it, uh, did the CGI as well.
01:01:45
Speaker
And also, like, what else? I'm gonna go see the boy and the heron tomorrow. Really excited to see that. Miyazaki, like, went back the other day and I was watching the one with the cats. I don't know what it's called. It's Cats, that's Broadway. It's not Cats. Or the new one with the live action. Yeah, yeah, that's Cats. Watching the Miyazaki, like, animated, like, watching him animate,
01:02:14
Speaker
you know, all those years ago and watching that beautiful animation and then being stoked to see how much he's advanced over the years and like how much more detailed. And so I'm really excited to see that one. Also, the director, Michael, is an amazing dude, seeing his work. You know, he was one of the directors of Fena.
01:02:36
Speaker
And him and Stephanie Shade directed the anime that I was in and watching his work and being like, dude, man, I got to be part of this guy's, like, I did a show with
Working with Talented Directors
01:02:50
Speaker
this guy? Like, that's crazy. Like, he also did Visions, the Star Wars one. What else? They got a lot of stuff going on, but seeing their work and
01:03:06
Speaker
just being blown away and then, you know, being like, dude, I had a show with that guy. Like that guy directed me. Holy cow. What a man. Like that guy is sick. And and, you know, seeing his workflow as well. Yeah, also going to the movies, I feel like I go to the movies a lot and I feel like having a movie per theater.
01:03:34
Speaker
Like there's some movies where I want to sit at home and watch. And there's also some movies that I'm very particular about which theater I see it in, which I feel like some people, you know, they might just have access to like one regal, like a regal cinema or like an AMC or something. But in New York, you have access to smaller theaters where there's like 20 seats. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Or, you know, um,
01:04:02
Speaker
with the Alamo draft house or like IFC center, like these smaller theaters where you're like, Oh yeah, I want to see like a heartfelt drama in like a small theater where, you know, there's like 30 people and you know, half of them are old retired people sitting quietly watching the movie.
01:04:21
Speaker
That's definitely a lot more control than I have with my local theaters, I will say. We can invite some old people to your theater. That's all I need. I can take the local residents to my apartment complex and we'll bus them over. Yo, that would be sick. Don't want busing in Pennsylvania. That would be awesome, man. Yeah. There is a couple though. I honestly, I could check it out. I know that there's some anime that are
01:04:49
Speaker
going to be coming out pretty soon here. But the last time that I let friends drag me to like an anime movie, it was like the I think it was the no game, no life movie. I'm sorry. It was cursed. And I think it was like it started playing in like dubs and then they switched it over to subs and like they ended up giving everybody like a free movie ticket. It was really weird. It was a weird experience. But I haven't seen this. So I've been taking one for the team.
01:05:19
Speaker
to not curse anyone else's experience, I've been staying home. But I could still watch things. I have the projector. Oh, you got your own theater. Well, there you go. Yeah. So that's the thing. That's the experience you want. You want that. And you watch, you know, there was one movie I saw, was it Endgame?
01:05:41
Speaker
The Avengers Endgame or is it a different game? Yeah, I think it was Endgame. I watched Endgame. I watched it in theaters and I had watched all the movies before that and I was like watching. No, no. Which one was the bad ending where everyone dies? Infinity War. So I was watching Infinity War. Yeah. And right after everyone dies and right before the credits roll, this 12 year old kid behind me farts.
01:06:10
Speaker
And I was dying. I just died laughing, like, cover my mouth. Because it made the movie so much better. Like, I'm never going to forget the ending of that movie when that kid farted, you know? Like, for me, I like that type of stuff.
01:06:29
Speaker
I could also understand not wanting to hear a child fart behind you at the height of a movie that you've been waiting for for 10 years. I don't know. That's more memorable though, because now you have that, right? It's like if someone ever asks, like, how do you feel about the whole unit of the MCU or whatever, it'd be like, I have a very specific story I'm going to tell you. But to be fair, if you were to ever rewatch the movie with friends, you'd be like, oh, is this the cut without the fart?
01:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a way better any story that you can carry forward that isn't also like self deprecating extremely is a good life story. So embrace those. Also, there was another moment. So if I'm really looking forward to a movie.
01:07:14
Speaker
I will close my eyes and shove my like put my your my hands over my ears and go la la la la la. I'm not hearing you if I see a commercial or an ad. And I was like that with Star Wars. So Star Wars spoilers for I think it was seven or eight. We're going to spoil a random. It's spoiler rule. But I was so excited for it. It was the first one with John Boyega and
01:07:45
Speaker
my brother was like, Oh yeah, you know, he's a Jedi, right? And I was like, don't do that. And he was like, what? He was holding a lightsaber in the, on the posters and stuff. I was like, I didn't watch any of the posters. He was like, what do you mean you didn't watch a poster? Like if I would see a poster, I'd like to look away from it. Like, um,
01:08:06
Speaker
But he was just messing with me. But before that movie started, I went to go to the to get more water because I wanted a big jug of water. So I was like, all right, I'm just I don't want to like have to leave or do anything. I want to enjoy this full movie. So on the way back, there were two again with these kids, these two kids like yelling at each other on the way out of the movie like, well, I can't believe Han Solo died. That was crazy, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. And I was like.
01:08:36
Speaker
I was so stunned because the movie was starting and then sat down with my friends and they were like, what's wrong? And I was like, I'll tell you after the movie.
01:08:48
Speaker
There's something seriously wrong with you. Something happened. I was like, it did. I'm OK. We're all OK. I'll tell you after the movie. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's that's that's like the the Snape killed Dumbledore spoilers. Like that's just people just like honestly hurting the fan base all over again.
01:09:09
Speaker
Were there people that stood outside of theaters with signs and stuff like that? Yeah, they had there was like book signings and any any place that they could people had less signs that were just like Snape killed Oh, it was actually like it was one of the early spoiler memes I think where it was just it was so big that like I didn't even read Harry Potter It was a really big deal
01:09:35
Speaker
And we had a friend. We had a friend. I'm going to tell a story real quick and we can start signing off. We usually go for an hour. It's a little longer. It's all good. All right. I have a friend who was playing Destiny 2 with us. And the I think Forsaken is the Forsaken expansion came out. And on the cover art is basically a dead main character. I'm not going to say I'm going to say it. It's just Cade six voiced by Nathan Fillion. OK.
01:10:04
Speaker
and, uh, literally dead, like on the cover, on the box for the expansion. And we were talking like in discord and like mention it. And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, spoiler. And we're like, my brother in Christ. Thanks for tying it back, Jake. But, uh, thank you so much for coming on, Tom.
01:10:34
Speaker
Um, uh, excellent quality audio for some reason it's a lot better than everybody else's. I don't, I don't know the justification for that. Yeah. Tom, Tom was kind enough to join us very last minute as a guest. So shouts out to him. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We didn't talk about this at all beforehand, but if there's anything that you want shouted out,
01:10:59
Speaker
We will, you can either shout it out here. We will put it in the description. Oh, okay. This is going to five people. So like, it's the full extent of the power of our podcast to amplify whatever message you have to five people. That indie game that just came out last week, check that out. I'll give the link and then, um,
01:11:20
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, I can give you my Instagram or something. Yeah. Whatever, whatever you want associated with this podcast on the internet forever. In perpetuity. Just have my, my voice, just a huge beep. Exactly. No, but thank you so much. You guys are great. This is awesome. Yeah. It's a really good time, man. Thank you. Um,
01:11:45
Speaker
But for listeners out there, thank you for sticking around for our extra long episode here. Write in if you want to hear more about Tom or from Tom. We'll just forward the emails to him. Soapstone podcast at Gmail dot com. Or you can join the discussion on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:12:45
Speaker
you