The Giant Beastcast: Episode 311

This is it folks and the whole family is here to sendoff the number one podcast in the universe!

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Hello everybody, and welcome back tothe Giant Beast Cast. Done number one
show in all time, and wehave officially I got the paperwork, folks,
it came in. They are stoppingpodcasts. It doesn't get any better
than this. They are shutting itdown. Don't believe what anybody else tells

(00:34):
you. This is the Giant BeastCast and Joy by Alex Navarro. Yes
you are Vinny. I am heredutifully as always. Jeff Baklar, Hello
there, thanks for letting me joinon this rotating check. Yes, yes,
hold on to that spin for me. Yeah, let's see it spin?
Can you spin? From the peoplewatching the video? Lets it always

(00:55):
spun? But always spun? Okay, Well you're getting yourself in trouble.
It's really more of a quarter turn. But okay, don't always as always?
By Abby Russell. Hello, alwaysbeen here, always will be.
Jan Reichert, every single time here. I am never missed the show.
Austin Walker has been very quiet forthe last like two hundred episodes. Not

(01:19):
not a lot to say. Thisis This will be May sixth, or
if you listening to this on Friday, it's May seventh, and it is
episode number Alex three one one orJeff Bacalar three eleven. Okay, yeah,

(01:49):
I'm guessing this is like a generationalbecause when I think of three hundred
and eleven, I think of theinformation with phone numbers. They took that
from the They were so inspired bythe band, you know, I mean
like the band asked that answered importantquestions like what's the color of your energy?
And so from there there that wasthem. Yeah, and like why
is my street flooded? Yeah?Sorry? Yeah, why is my street

(02:15):
flooded? Oh? Because it's yeah, yeah, because you're down? Is
this down? Was every three elevensong? I can't tell if it's down
or beautiful disaster because that's how Ifeel about eleventh song. I don't mind
three five people, five people,the people with Andrew wk and lost profits.

(02:43):
I would say stay away from lostprofits. Yeah, that's Sureka three
eleven they were fine. It wasa fun if. They brought a fun
energy to a room of people lookingfor much harder music than what they had
on offer. That energy is probablyneeded After Andrew wkge really Somber said,

(03:04):
yeah, I wish that guy wouldwed as unplugged. Uh. Speaking of
unplugging, you may have You mayhave heard on the internet rumors about the
most handsomest boy, and they're alltrue. It's me. You might have
heard rumors that Alex and I areare gonna have our last day on Friday,

(03:30):
and that this here might be thelast Beast Cast. And I could
think of no better way to celebrateany thing with all y'all. So thank
you for showing up. This isthis is the giant Beast Cast. Yes,
it might have been better if youcould celebrate it with like Sandra Bullock,
George Clooney. Nope, the entirecast of Gravity. Maybe maybe I

(03:57):
have to say, and I thinkI speak on behalf of Alex and Ad
having talked to them. Uh,the outpouring and support has been amazing.
Thank you so much from everybody outthere. Uh Dan, I was I
was on your jumped into one ofyour streams before and you said very nice
things and you said something about replyingto everybody and trying to get back to

(04:18):
everybody. Holy cow. That thethe outpouring has been amazing. If I
if I am not responding to you, I apologize. I do appreciate you,
you getting out there and reaching outto us, but that that's a
that's a lot take. But didI pick a great time to start screening
the emails? Let me tell thebacklog is gonna take you guys a few

(04:41):
months. I think it's been.It's been really amazing and and I really
appreciate it. It's you know,we announced on the on the bomb cast.
Clearly there are a lot of questionsabout about what is going on.
You know, Alex and I andBrad we're still employees here. We're not

(05:01):
getting into details of what is happeningor what you know, what's going on.
My favorite one is the clearly theywere on their contract and got their
payout. Everybody suddenly has answers companylike the second and everyone's passed like football
and onto like inside betting. It'svery funny. Everyone reads so much into

(05:23):
everything. Like I was just feelingnostalgic. The other night, I watching
small clips and a Twitter thread andI found a beast cast art with with
a bunch of us in it,and I posted it and I saw a
bunch of people going, oh man, they're sharing their own podcasts. I
don't know what they're doing. Well, then the contract payout stuff, I
think I responded to it. Myfavorite part I'm not trying to dig on
everybody. You should dig because becauseI did say, wait, nah,

(05:46):
that's that true. And I thinkI saw one of the comments that was
just like, yeah, that's exactlywhat I would say if I contract.
This is this is how QAnon getsstarted by. This is how these things
happen. Thread was still the onewhere people were like how much does everyone
make? And everyone was like they'remillionaires. Ye, yes, yes,
I don't need a golden parachute.I'm gonna land in my money. Yeah,

(06:10):
so there there, There was nothere. I don't have a contract,
Alex. I don't think you havea contract. I'm pretty sure you
do not have a contract that saidstick. You would know, but you
do not have a contract that saysstick around this long you will get paid
out. Yes, there's no,there's no golden parachute. I am jumping
out of the plane. I haveno parachute. There. It is a
free fall. And yeah, I'vegot a sheet that I hope unfurls and

(06:36):
I've seen it in cartoons and youfloat down. No, it's you know,
there are no answers that will satisfyat this point. Again, like
I said, I'm not going intoany details, but there are you know,
over the course of doing this,there are things that you accumulate,
issues, you know, things happen, there are issues that come up there.

(06:59):
You know, some you can solveand you get path. Hell,
I created some of the issues inthe time that I was here. There
are things that I think eventually Istarted trying to do this and not cry,
things that eventually get get in theway of me doing my best job
in a way that I kind ofcan't can't solve myself or get around.

(07:21):
And and that's I think that's reallyat the crux of it for me is
I want to do my best joband there are things that over the course
of time have built up that's justlike I don't think I could do it
in this environment, and I wantto and I hope I always have tried
to do my best job here andsome of that best time is with the

(07:42):
people you are looking at right herein this crew here. But but I
do want to say, because I'veseen this a lot too, two really
great things have happened for jimp Onvery recently, and I hope you trust
me on this, and I hopeyou listen to this sincerely one is being
acquired by Red Ventures. Red Venturesis giving Giant Bomb the attention that it

(08:07):
has not had in a very longtime. It is and I have not
been at Red Ventures long enough toeven know what they're like as a company.
I have not been here that long. I can't speak to that.
I do know they are. Theyhave given red Giant Bomb attention and kind
of thought that it has not hadin a long time, and that I
think is important for Giant Bomb becausethey will look at some of those issues

(08:31):
and some of those problems with fresheyes and try to see how to move
past those in ways that internally wejust never could. And this one's gonna
sound weird, but it is JeffBackler finally joining the games group. Like
it is he has, Yeah,he has this, he has this weird
I don't know why, uncanny abilityto make people listen to him, and

(08:54):
people do listen to him. Andhe also is as a fresh pair of
ears and eyes in this group tohelp navigate going forward. And it's it's
it's a lot of work there,there's a lot of Giant Bomb is a
very old property, uh in thein terms of the Internet that I think

(09:16):
Jeff, you understand it and youunderstand what's going on here, and I
couldn't think of anythingbody better to comein and have the ear of people that
need it to kind of tell themthe problems and the future path. So
it's a great thing having you onthe games group. Wish you were here
one hundred years ago. Uh.I appreciate you saying that, Man,

(09:39):
thank you. Yeah, I appreciateyou. So yeah, you know,
I'm I'm excited in a lot ofways. I know this is a very
sad moment for a lot of people, and you know, this stuff just
came out on Tuesday. But likewhen I look around, I look around
at you guys, Man, Ijust want to give you all a big
hug. This is this, Thisis it. This like a lot of

(10:03):
you with crew, a lot ofyou were hires at Giant Bomb. You
guys were employees at Giant Bomb,but you made Giant Bomb East and that
that is really all of you,and nobody could take that away. You
know, that is like it isa thing that would not be what it
is without any of you, andyou've all left your mark on it and

(10:26):
made my life better. It hasbeen really a joy to work with all
of you, and we had ourproblems. But I feel like and we
had our problems, and a lotof those problems were solved around that shitty

(10:48):
tables said. The speed with whichthat table broke, it broke. I
never saw it not broken, shabby. I was there when it showed up,
and I also never saw it notbroken the day it came in.
Vinnie went in that day and waslike, Oh, yeah, they're gonna
bring in the table. But it'slike our our day at our work from

(11:09):
home day, basically our prep day. And I came in the next day
and Vinnie had this look on hisface that was like someone stolen his lunch
money, or like like a dogwho'd shit on the floor, but like
or like a dog who's like siblingdog had shit on the floor. Now
this dog was here to like pickup the pieces and get blamed for it.
The cable had already broken instantly.Yes, I don't think it was

(11:35):
a custom belt thing. So here'shere's what happened. So they brought it
in. I think I want tosay it was must have been caught that
that studio. This climate control wasterrible. It had none there's no climate
was either too cold or like athousand degrees. So I'm not I'm not
gonna cast shade if you will onthe people who made it. I think
they know what they're doing. Butthey screwed the table topic in, which

(11:56):
was a bunch of glued up piecesof wood, screwed it in without any
room for the tabletop to expand orcontract. So the wood when it was
in there, I heard it.There was a crack like a car hit
after I had been in there forabout eight hours or so, just a
snap. And I looked in thereand there was just a crack down the

(12:18):
tabletop and it was the beginning ofthe end of that thing. Like it
just it just you gotta leave roomfor wood movement. Get it lasted six
years longer or whatever. And thenI put wheels on it, and that
was a mistake. And then whatwe did to that table, what was
done to that table is neither herenor there. It survived as long as
we needed it to, and inthe end, it was still better than

(12:39):
those fucking bars tabletop and so likeit was like be exacting the desert and
then you find a dirty puddle,like I don't care, it's yeah,
it's like I'm shoving my face atthis table right now. That that table
was uncomfortable when there were four peoplethere for a standard Beast cast. It
was always hilarious whenever we had like, oh Ron Funches is stopping by,
we need to bring in a fifthchair. And it's just absolutely I possible

(13:01):
with the weird tangled like the microphonesthat never work. And give credit to
those carpenters because it's not all thetime. You could make a table where
your feet can never go under it, regardless of where you are sitting.
That is an achievable. It was. It was an impossible table. It
was love crafty and design. Itwas just made you go mad simply by

(13:22):
trying to sit in front of it. It was control DLC. That's right,
it's the impossible angle. So thatthe is that now, by the
way, before everywhere where is thedesk it is. It is torturing somebody.
I'm sure they Yeah, it's likein some hell Razor movie of like
on the table sits at it now. It was like the Jess perfect.

(13:46):
It is maybe the one thing Isaid, don't move it, just just
take it away, get get ridof it. The here's the thing when
people might not know that table wasthe scene at table. That's the one
that Jeff backlard. You hadn't seenutsstudio and it said I like this table,
I like the shape. Let's who'dyou get to do and what you

(14:07):
do? And yours was fine?Yours survived? Yeah, Brian stuff.
Yeah, it probably through its voiceand it said what it said. I
said what it wanted to say.So that's why you got suckered into buying
one. It was like, buyme the poporn guy. So the popcorn
guy, Yes, Brian was yeahand still is so so abby. Yes,

(14:31):
I'm gonna I'm gonna gonna do theabby what you've been up to?
Wow? This is fun. Iknow, finally we got to have fun
here. I've been streaming to Twitch. People can follow me there a normal
user name twitch dot tv slash yb B A A A B B why
very simple, wait down why likebb triple A B B y easy,

(14:58):
peasy lemon squeezy right, just rollsoff the tongue. You're mad? Is
that right? Yes? But yeah, I've been streaming a Twitch sort of
a you know, it's been fun. Community of sweeties there, pretty cool.
I've been streaming with Jeff Backlar alittle bit. We've been playing through
resumeable five. I don't know.He's not allowed to do that. What
are you doing? You can't dothat? You make j Yeah. I've

(15:24):
also been applying to live in London. So if anybody works in immigration,
is anybody that's not a messuring?Tony Blair listening? Good job? I
know what I'm talking on from thisthis. Yes, it is Winston Churchill

(15:45):
on the law? Could he getyou in there? Austin, Austin,
what you've been up to a lotof shit? We just started fust What
you've been up to since I've beenhere? H since I've since I've been
were another job? I don't anothercompany and quit it? Okay? No,
I currently Friends of the table's doingreally well. We just started a
new season called Sanfiel. It's likea weird what what is Friends at the

(16:07):
Table for those if you like theend of year RPG games that we do
here at we've done here at theBeast cast who rough one? Uh?
You know whenever I do that here, I'm drawing on my my experiences running
running it for Friends at the Table, which is a podcast Friends of the
Table dot Net as we just launcheda Star Wars podcast, a clone Wars
podcast with some people called a morecivilized age in which we I don't know,

(16:32):
thirst over sith and also talk talkdeep politics about the prequels, which
is very fun. And then andthen wait Point. I'm still at Waypoint
Radio. Every week we have somelike fun announcements coming from way Point soon.
So that's exciting. So where wherecan people who will search all that
friends of the Table, a morecivilized aged? Wait Point Radio. I'm
doing a comic with The New Daythat's finally coming out this year. I've

(16:56):
been done it for a year.Me and Evan Narsiss finished writing it like
a year and a half ago,but then uh, COVID happened and that
slowed everything down. But that's comingout this summer, I believe. So
I think there was just in likean issue of if you do if you
ever worked at the comic store,there's a thing called previews that you get
that is kind of like the upcomingstuff. And I got someone messaged me
on Twitter that was like, ohmy god, You're in my previews edition.

(17:17):
I was like, that's sick,that's cool. I kind of want
that more than the comic. Thatfeels more like a thing I didn't make.
Is like an advertisement for a thingI made. That makes it feel
real. So look forward to Soyou did all you did, all the
art and all the art, Idid, all the costumed everything. Now
I just wrote it. I justwrote half of it basically, So that's
fun. Yeah, there's no goodway to segue now, Dan, how

(17:38):
are you doing the impossible to doinggoodly? Mainly working on a podcast about
the deep politics of Star Wars goingon? But I guess it's good to
know we could do a crossover.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. No, I'm keeping verybusy outside of you know, buying a

(17:59):
house and move into the house.Uh, I got, I got,
I do the Twitch thing like hesaid, Uh, Jeff. I know
Jeff does the twitch stuff too.I see him in the chat every once
in a while. So that's justmy government name at twitch dot tv.
So it's Dan Record. Uh andthat's a stupid user name. I gotta
say my government name. Yeah,that's well. The thing is, I
started like the fucking newspaper era,so it was always my byline. So

(18:22):
I'm not going to turn into Iwish I wish I had say, I
stream a ton. I'm really reallyenjoying that. I thought I stupidly thought
when I left Giant Bombed, like, well, I'm done being in front
of stuff, I'm done doing thevideo games. I'm gonna go off and
do other stuff. And it turnsout I fucking love streaming video games and

(18:44):
talking about them. So watching specialBut you're doing You're doing great. It's
very fun. I got some plansto internetworks, but with you in your
community a couple There was a goodmovie, Clues was great. I've never
seen it before. Uh. Andoutside of that, I just got two
podcasts I'm working on. I gotpanning the stream with my wife Bianca,
where were talking about stuff on Netflixand Hulu and all that. And we

(19:04):
just started a video game podcast,yeah, believe it or not, with
some folks my know, Mike Mahardyand Mary Kish. But we're doing the
fire Escape Cast. It is veryvery loose friendly. Basically, we can't,
you know, hang out in barsand talk about games anymore. We
all live very far away and weall have day jobs and stuff. And

(19:26):
so yeah, we're just the firstepisodes up now fire Escape Cast, and
we're gonna record the second one afterI do this this evening. You're keeping
busy. Oh yeah, I gota day job too. Yeah. How
is the how is the house stufftreating you? I kind of love it,
Vinnie, you were the best.I had a long chat with you,
like a good hour chat before Imoved here about just stuff when I

(19:48):
was planning on putting the studio onthe basement and things, and you taught
me a lot of stuff. Ifwe were still working together every day at
the office, I'd be coming inevery single day with with questions and stuff
like that. But honestly, it's, Uh, I think we're pretty much
set. We're waiting on I thinkwe're just waiting on the arcade machine and
then everything's set up. So isthe arcade machine like Backlard's arcade machine?
Is it a custom uh play amillion games arcade machine? Absolutely? Yes?

(20:11):
That is the planet Yeah, solarpinball machine. I hope so,
I hope it's got a weird press, detic head or whatever your says in
it. Just pros and cons.This pros and cons. But out outside
of that, everything is pretty muchsaid and give you guys a tour before.
But yeah, I'm loving and lovingthe homeowner. Stuff like this is
incredible because moments before we started theshow, you were literally running with around

(20:32):
like a chicken with its head cutoff about the internet in your place.
That's the difference. The house isgreat, the fucking internet. Anyone who
watches my streams knows the saga ofthe last month. But I think we're
getting figured out. It seems likefires were lit in Comcasts and like ninety
vehicles and they're like shut the streetdown and hopefully the Internet's fine. You've
got that stroke, man, that'sthe kind of stroke your polling. We've
tried to yell at a lot ofpeople. Yell guy, I know,

(20:55):
I said right now. I've talkedabout this before. With texts support.
I saw people in my chat beinglike, oh, we gotta we gotta
talk to to Comcast. It's like, okay, if you want to reach
out or tweet, sure, justbe respectful, don't be a dick.
They're people doing their jobs. Iused to work tech support right before I
started the game Informer. They're justpeople working their jobs. Don't be the

(21:15):
company, you know, they cango fuck themselves or whatever. But like
you tell the service people just people, so just you know, that's I
feel very strongly about that with customersupport or service staff and stuff like that.
So always be cool to them,good cover, way to go,
walkdown and metaphorically yellow people we senda lot of emails. Nicely take a
sledgehammer to the CEO. Everyone elsethat is that is an angle had never

(21:37):
really thought about before of like theservice provider or somebody for somebody who was
streaming on the Internet getting inundated withtheir fans being like you need to fixed
Dan Ryker's Internet and be like Ican't. I'm sorry, I can't.
Right, Yeah, I have seventythree thousand calls waiting for me, all
telling me some version of the samething. What do I do? Yeah,

(22:00):
but we're getting there. But yeah, it's been a good time.
I'm getting busy. H Danny,you you posted, and just kind of
I think the flavor of this showthat I wanted to do is just kind
of celebrate Giant Bomb East and allthings Giant Bomb East. And one of
the things I needed to get getout there was the Firebolt fire boildh and

(22:25):
shen MoU Endurance run. For thosewho maybe not people slept on that,
please go watch it. It's gonnathat was not a bit that was that
was honest, And I know youdon't believe me. I don't believe you,
Vinny. There is a part afteryou say seventy other versions of fire
where you go firebull, like likeyou knew what you were doing and you

(22:45):
were trying to make me think youwere gonna say fireball. That convinces me
you serious. Here's here's why I'mhere's why I'm genuinely convinced it's the other
way is because someone pointed this outwhen we were talking about this earlier in
the week. But the time Vinnygets it right is literally the one hundredth
guess and there's no way to kepttrack of that in his hand. That

(23:06):
is like too perfect. It istoo It has to be coincidence. It
has to be. I don't thinkif he was trying to to troll you,
he would have said fire bull,which would have been which is like
totally right, that could be thename of a weird thing in a sci
fi movie. But he literally hasfire boiled, Yeah, fire boiled before
fire ballad these Jersey accent, youcan't see Mario. That is easy,

(23:33):
easy, easy, Mario. Yeah, that that is I want to clear
the air. That was not abit. I've never never lied to anyone
before in my life. That isever, you would you would say now
if this was inc this is thetime when you would clearly done. For
the record. I don't believe it. We should do one of those things
where when it's at those latent puzzleswhere like everybody says the thing and then

(23:56):
Austin says, like, I've nevertold a lie one of us. Person
number four says, always the personsall do. Let's all do the Larry
David's suspicious face at Vinnie for asecond. Hero, Let's just see,
you know, maybe he breaks ifwe all just kind of look at squints.
I've never seen Kurby enthusiasts. Ican't do that without thinking about the
time that I came over to doa stream. I don't remember what the

(24:18):
games even were, but there wassome sort of game we had to lie
and Abby was the worst liar everit was. It was Yeah, I
was so excited to be the fakertoo. It was so funny and I
was like, what's the faker halfon the screen and he completely broken.

(24:41):
It was like, when I'm notthe faker I'm like, I do a
lot of talking, so when Iam the faker, I was like,
I don't know, I don't knowbetter now that like among Us such a
big thing and people like I thinkeveryone's gotten better at lying via among Us
and the Lives. Yeah, it'sgreat that we're all better, although I

(25:04):
feel like when I play among Us, I'm too like when I'm not lying,
it seems like I'm lying, youknow what I mean? Yeah,
yeah, Austin, I want tosay the Kurbal stuff that was amazing.
Thank you for joining us. Thatthat was. I think that was like
when it felt like we'd figured outsomething, do you know what I mean

(25:25):
in terms of Okay, what arewe what are we doing? And I
feel like we hit like a stridearound then. But Kurbel felt like a
signature series in some ways because itgave us just enough rope ourselves. Episode
after the episode, every new solutionwe came across was just an opportunity to
dig ourselves deeper in in some ways. And is that not just the spirit

(25:45):
of Giant Beast in general? Yes, Yes, that whole thing was Yes,
a very you know, I willsay the thing that I think we
all hopefully came came away with fromthat environment and Giant Bomb East was like
I said before, there were moremistakes, there were problems, but like

(26:06):
better to try it and to tryit and then then to be too scared
to try it, right, Likebetter to try something and have it go
awry than to not try. Iremember Dame when you when you came over
to the East and you're like,I've always wanted to try this, And
eventually we got there and you andMike Mahardy played committed conquered together, and

(26:26):
I said, we're gonna figure thisout. We're gonna do it. We're
gonna we're gonna get there, liketrying to figure out like even even that
fucking Donkey Kong thing, like likethe documents and the work shopping that thing.
This is not gonna work. Thisis too complicated. Don't worry.
I've got a spreadsheet that's got allthese prizes. Like you know, it's

(26:49):
if it doesn't work, have funtrying it and doing it. And we
had things that we we had thingsthat did not work. We had things
that exploded when they went shoot curbelfashion as they got off the launch pad
just exploded, and we knew,we knew they weren't gonna work, and
then we just had them fill fortyfive minutes or an hour anyway and then

(27:10):
be like, all right, we'renot doing that again. Alex's taped to
a chair dude talk about the thingat all. I was so glad we
went for it. If nothing else, we did feel kind of like fort
not even forgotten. I felt likeno one knew we were there basically,
and so I didn't feel like basicallyany decision or any feature we did,

(27:33):
it was basically like the people onthis call would be talking about it,
and if we all thought it wasa good idea, we'd do it.
And there wasn't a lot of peopletelling us no. I feel like the
only time I heard no was whenlike Vinnie was like, that's going to
start a fire in the studio withfumes. You can't do that. It's
gonna fill it with fumes. Likelike oh this, Like we got close
though, we were definitely there.I'm like, oh this is really good.

(27:57):
Okay, No, I thought aboutthis the more and those are toxic
and we don't have we have badventilation in there. We can't do that.
Yeah, we talked a little bitabout this on on something. But
the uh uh, that studio suckedin a lot of ways, and it
really came home to roost during theExtra life stuff where you we'd all be

(28:17):
in there for a while and there'schicken nuggets smells, and you'd leave to
go to the bathroom for a second, and then you'd come back in and
be like, oh god, it'sit's STIGs. It really in there for
twenty four hours, Bud. Yeah, yes, I don't know how you
did that. I'm trying to getthat spirit alive. And my spare bedroom
basically it's pretty stink in here sometimesjust firks and nuggets. It was.

(28:42):
It's easy to imagine it was.You know. That studio was also really
funny oddly set up. Alex willremember this. We were sharing a studio
with TV Guide in the forties ofHart. Yeah. Yeah, in a
different office in TV. What's happeningon it? I gotta go play something,

(29:06):
Pa. I want to remember aboutthat office is that it was near
Bryant Park and it was right nearthe museum that was over there. But
that's it, and so we sharedan office there. And now Backlar comes
into the story because this is Actuallywhen we met Backlar uh, the office
at twenty eighth Treot was under constructionand we came there to go visit it.
And you back, Lar if youget who else was with you at
the time, Oh yeah, itwas Mark? Uh yeah, Mark.

(29:30):
Like it was like hey, youguys, like super nice to us,
Like, oh, let me showyou the podcast room. It was like
a tidy little closet and then like, hey, this that thing. And
like I was on calls with peopleand I do not blame them, so
this might sound like I am,but I was on calls with people will
be like, no, we're notgiving up more space for who for Giant
bomb, Like that's not like yeah, like we are, we have this

(29:51):
thing sorted out, and me beinglike we needed we just need a studio.
We just need a studio, Idon't, We just need a spot.
And TV God was moving over theretoo, and they were building up.
So eventually I worked with somebody aTV guide, and we got they
carved out of space. It wasoriginally I don't know if you guys remember,
but it was gonna be in oneof those office rooms with the windows.
We're gonna knock out. Yeah,we're gonna knock out one of those
spaces, and eventually they didn't,and they put they like, they made

(30:15):
a conference room in half. That'swhat wind up happening that conference room next.
Yeah, yeah, they made itin a half, and half of
it was our studio and half ofit was the conference room. And the
person a TV Guide that I wasworking with, you know, they had
real people like celebrities come in andthey were like, we need a green
room, and I was like,do we We don't, And so that's

(30:36):
why that control room was so big. It was because they needed a spot
for people to sit and like hangout while the talent was on screen.
And that's why that control room waslike a third of the size of the
entire studium. And eventually, oncewe moved in and we got everything in
there, and that place looked likecomplete shit. TV Guide was like,

(30:56):
we could never shoot in here.And then they left us in there alone,
and then we never spoke to themagain, and that person wound up
leaving the company like a couple ofweeks later and was just like, yeah,
I'm out. But yeah, that'swhy that control room was so and
we just filled it up with likeshelves and gear, because we also didn't
have any storage space really, soeverything just went into that control room as

(31:18):
a storage space, and that studiowas small for what we were trying.
You could not you could not notbe stepping on a wire no matter what
was going on. And then thefloor crunched underneath your feet every time you
walked in. And it wasn't justrunts, it was cockrouches. It was

(31:38):
not a bit at the beginning ofevery burg of my bananas, when I
was trying to move the shot outof it, it was not a bit.
I didn't I didn't even have toplay it up. It's just like
I can't move this chair. It'salso like if you look in sort of
related to the table, if youlooked at the wall, there's always all
the little notches from all the chairs, a space in between like the table

(31:59):
and the walls. You move backa little bit. Yes, yes,
I think I bought once. Ibought shoe polish to fill in those things,
and I opened those like this isbecause it was also no ventilation there.
I was like, oh, wecan't use any of this. It's
I also bought foam to hang onthe walls. Once hung one piece and
it's stunk in that studio for likethree days, and I was like,
oh, I guess I can't.I also can't hang any of this,

(32:21):
and that foam just sat on thetop of a shelf forever, this purple
foam. I also tried drilling intoone of the walls once, and those
walls are no kidding, We're sothin. I drilled in and the drill
went, uh, you know,it drilled through the like the half I'm
gonna say, like eighth inch drywall and then went through the wall inch.
I think, yeah, I justkind of brought it back out and

(32:45):
just a little bit of bloods justwhen you're going into walls when you're drilling,
or do that a few times.Every time I've done it here,
I'm always terrified because I think I'mhalf a second away from, like,
you know, one like a blogblock, an electric here to someone is
just a skeleton with lightning coming out. I assume that's gonna happen. How
do you know there's not a wholeelectrical panel right now that's just gonna immediately

(33:07):
kill you. This is not alight switch or a plug there, so
that's everywhere. Yeah, but no, no, not behind every piece of
sheet rock. There is not electricity. Do I actually talk in my house?
I don't know. No, no, no, I don't know.
I don't know. You could haveplaster. That's a good question. Plaster
depends how old your houses. Doyou know how old your houses? Like?
Sixties? I think okay, Ithink that could still be plaster.

(33:27):
I doubt back when you guys arewith TV guys that yeah, So what
what you want to do? Thisis I'm gonna give you the serious answer
and then I'll laugh later. Youwant to get a thing called a stud
finder. I don't know how touse it, okay, So so it
depending on how yours is. Youyou rub it against the wall, you've
turned it on and you're moving againstthe wall, and it's going to show
you where the two by four is. It tell where the center is?

(33:50):
Is There never electricity in a studnot okay, No, I can't say
that. So usually electric And somebodywho has more experience, a contractor,
should should be able to answer thisbetter. I've asked him a lot dumb
questions. Okay. So they usuallythey usually will run the and then some
you can even look in the chatand the correct me they'll run the power
down the side of a stud,and it'll be strapped to the side of
a stud, uh, but usuallyabove an outlet, right, and then

(34:13):
they will run it horizontally lower,like at your knee level or so,
so that you don't do that endof the wall space. Right. Yeah,
he wasn't telling me the other dayhe wanted to hang all of his
paintings at knee level. Is thatgoing to be a problem. So if
it's to code, which it shouldbe. If it's the code, and
it should be, they should alsoput a metal plate over each stud where

(34:35):
the electrical a visible wire. No, it would be behind me, would
be behind the wall. There's likea metal plate so that you know when
you're drilling in if you hit likea little little metal plate. I can
show you one. I don't haveit be like I would keep forcing it.
If if I don't, don't youdon't just put everything down, Just
don't. So I'm so glad thiswould not have been a real pace cast.

(35:00):
Look like him, he's like,I asked the contractor a whole bunch
of dumb questions, and here's theone I didn't ask. My question about
well water and septic systems we're something. But so that's that's that's that's what
should happen. You'd hit a mettalplace. If you're ever hitting something with
a drill in your house and it'sand it's and it's stuck and it can't
go through. If you as longas you're using the right drill bit at

(35:20):
the right torque on the right speed, you should stop. It means you
are hitting something that you shouldn't begoing through. It could be the outside
of your house. If you're hittinglike masonry, like you know you've gone
through the wall. If you're doingan exterior wall, exterior wall, heads
up, you might hit insulation.So that wouldn't stop the drill, but
suddenly fuzz might start coming out ofthe wall. Oh geez, And so
I would go to the exterior andknock something out and then it's the whole

(35:44):
boom blocks level and everything's just fucked. Yeah, that's what would happen.
Yeah, so you can if youhad a long enough bit you it depending
on how your house is built.I assume it's built a code and some
and some Yahoo didn't just like putit up that you know, there's stuff
to try and prevent you from electrocutingyourself, and that usually in the basement
it might be a little different.They raise up the electrical lines and walls

(36:05):
if water is is you know,so if water fledger basement, everything doesn't
short out, those could be alittle higher. But as far as I
know, the electrical lines usually runacross a little bit lower than you'd ever
hang something for that reason. Samething with I think plumbing might run higher,
but somebody to have to, okay, so it's either higher or lower

(36:25):
and not where you'd hang pictures usually, and they should if it is,
they'd put a little metal plate thattacks into the two by four to try
and set that. I would notbe too worried about it. If you
if you really want to be safe, don't do anything. Don't I have
a thousand questions, but I don'twant to turn this into the Dan House
hour or so who might not havebuilt that house? But let me tell

(36:49):
you, yea who fought Yeah,yeah, so I don't that that.
I listen. I'll talk about thatall day. Let's just you go drill
your walls. But this is sucha good testament to like your ability.
You you you as a resource inan office because it's not only Giant Bomb
that had been relying on your skillset. I mean, I feel it's

(37:15):
a great injustice if I don't mentionthe uncountable amount of times that you pop
into the c Net studio and just, I don't know, make it work
and figure it out, just likehit a switch where you where you help
Brian or me or someone like thatto just kind of maybe we did lean
on you in a way that feltunfair or invalid. Thank you very much.

(37:37):
But I have said this for along time, and everyone in this
room probably knows this. There's nothingquite as complicated as trying to capture a
video game like it is. Itis one of those weird things. That's
like most of the greatest technology thathas been for video streaming and capture has
come across for porn or video games, and like, yes, sometimes two

(38:01):
texts. Those are the two texts, like compressing down video pornography to be
easily accessible so anybody can get it, because that's what everybody wants streaming stuff.
Oh why would you want animated thumbnailswhen you roll over them? Porn?
Yeah, just so much. Andthen you know all the video game

(38:24):
stuff of like why does anybody needunder like a millisecond of latency because I'm
streaming a video game and somebody elseneeds to see you like all of this
stuff, and so like you know, when I go into stuff like SNET
and and the SNET studio, beautifulstudio. Brian keeps an immaculate studio.
He's it is like and you haveto explain something that's like, oh no,

(38:45):
well, this console has HDCP onit and that'll block the signal from
coming out because they don't want peopleto steal blue rays. But why is
it on for the video games?Oh, don't worry. Hey, here's
this five dollars thing you buy onAmazon that splits the signal but then strips
it out. So don't worry.Here's how you do it. Or you
know, oh no, you're gonnaget sync issues, or like even you

(39:07):
know, Brian knew this, butit's one of those things you don't think
about of, like hey, no, you gotta give back a lot of
the signal before it goes into yoursystem because otherwise he'll have a second of
delay when he's playing in the game, like that stuff, or like you
know, even hearing the game back, like you cannot have any delay.
It's really weird. And there weresomething that was just like an ongoing mystery,
like we U games for US alwaysproduced this weird sound like it clipped

(39:29):
the audio clip. I actually justfound out shout us to my friends at
run Button, Keith and Kylie.They just realized they were trying to capture
some WEU game and they're like,oh, if we run the audio through
component cables, it gets around that. And we spent a year trying to
do we U quick looks and beinglike, we should just not do we
U quick looks anymore. It alwayssounds terrible. So yeah, it's it's

(39:49):
it's like it blows out out ofthe digital out of the thing, and
it's it's immediately clipping when you getoutside of it. And uh, and
it's Nintendo consoles kind of in generaldigital Nintendo. I don't know if they're
mass too loud or something like that. To where we eventually converted everything to
analog. I had a device thatthen sucked twenty decibels out of it to
then feed it back into Yeah,it's weird. Capturing video game stuff is

(40:10):
weird. And then on the flipside of that, anybody could do it.
Like we all now have. Wecould all probably reach and touch a
device in front of us. That'sabout capturing a console or streaming in some
way and then stream out. It'slike what they're on. They made a

(40:31):
fifth PlayStation? Oh what games areout for it? Another returns real good?
I liken super yas Morales also prettygood? Yeah, yeah, pretty

(40:53):
good. I do really old ladyand watch. I loved her. But
that they actual PS five version oris that just the PS four version with
like some No one knows on thePS five so as far as I know,
five version, but I only playedas old people. It was fun.
That's my dream. Yeah, theas a as a very very young

(41:16):
Yeah, it's a very young person. I can't even imagine what that's like.
Finally a game for me. Sothe yeah, the streaming stuff in
that studio aside from the technical stuff, the other stuff that we've talked a
lot about is everybody could hear Abbiescream every every time? Every time?
A lot of weird looks. Imean, there was so much hollering coming

(41:37):
out of that studio in general.But yeah, come October, boy,
what a real proud moment for meis when Jeff was doing his four four
podcasts. There was a couple episodeswhere you could hear me screaming, like
in the background of it. It'spretty very good. I know. There
were several times that Alex was sobefuddled that he laid on the floor.

(42:00):
And now I'm kind of surprised howwe found the space for it. I
think there was really only one timeI laid on the floor, and I
don't remember what it was. Itwas something you did, Damn, I
know that you said. Yes,I remember it was during a show.
It brought you to being fully horizontal. Yes, on my phone. Most

(42:20):
of the time I would just bangmy head on the desk, but that
time really did it to me.There's so many You're right, but the
weird like travel issues with the sound. Remember how like it would go into
one room but not the the Eugene. The sound would go into the adjacent
podcast room better than the sound wouldfrom that podcast room come back into the

(42:43):
giant inexplicably could not think like whatwas that? So there was also a
weird thing that again, like Isaid, that room was split in a
lot of ways during the construction thatit wasn't planned for, So there was
a trunk line for the AC thatliterally had a piece of sheet rock down
in the middle of it that splitthat that air conditioning line the climate control

(43:05):
line in half, so the soundwould just go in the vent and then
basically resonate and come out the venton the other side in weird ways.
So we had we never ever sawthis stuffed fucking baffling over the vent,
which also didn't help our climate control, I'm sure. But also that thing
never worked the amount of time somebodyhad to come in there and be like,
this is no air coming out ofthere and hasn't been for a lot.

(43:30):
And I need to say, withall my heart like Jamie Miranda and
the facilities team there were top notchand they really did help. Jamie Miranda
went down and made sure during theextra life drumming stuff and said, uh,
said, do you do what youneed to do? You a fan?
A fan? Yeah, yeah,don't worry if anybody complains, like

(43:50):
you do it spent gonna say it'sspent thousands of that ja out of Jamie's
pocket, thousands of dollars to makebecause anytime somebody was in there on the
weekend, somebody else had to befrom facilities there on overtime to be in
the building and yeah, so uhyeah, so spent was cool with it.
It was great. There was reallyreally stand up, some stand up.

(44:12):
One of the things that you saidthis on on the BombCast this week,
but like there are so many behindthe scenes people who make the stuff
work, not just that Giant Bomb, not just the games group, but
anytime you're in an office like that, there are so many people who are
making that office function and you canyou know, sometimes there are also roadblocks
and people who were speed bumps andstuff like that, but I just it
is it is good to shout thosefolks out because so like being able to

(44:37):
come into an office that's like cleanevery morning and has often times thank you
so much. Absolutely. Ye.You know, Eugene get shout out a
lot, but Eugene Huene so Garywho is super nice would always be there,
and you know, uh, therewas a great facilities team. They're
super nice, really great people.And you know a lot of the people

(45:00):
you just got to know too,because you're the loud people there and you're
the people and the last people there. Yeah, and often the people like
when the tractions are getting changed,yes, oh, that's probably the best.
Like Joe, again, I saidthis a million times, but like
that office was a corporate office thatwas not an editorial office. That was
an office full of suits and sportspeople and confused or I came to do

(45:23):
that interview, dude, I wasso in the right place. Yes,
it's it's a bunch of like peoplewho are looking smart because they have to
go to meetings and go to likelunches over Thai food and close deals.
And there was always that one guy, that tall guy who always had like
really nice suits that fit up superwell. Yes, I think, but
I was like, you look reallysharp. He was always sharp. Somebody

(45:45):
said to me, I forget maybeit was one of you. Was like,
yeah, because he has to getmaybe his backlars. Yeah, because
he probably has to get custom suitsbecause he's like you know those are yeah,
yeah, and like super nice nice. Yes, but yeah, that
office was a buttoned up office.And then we would do and then we
would do film and forties at likeDune or two o'clock and drink and drink

(46:09):
and watch Fast and Furious or whateverwe were watching, and then be kind
of hammered holding forty bottles as westumbled out of that sticky studio. It
would be like I would come outof like I just saw like national Treasure,
and like I ripped out of mymind like pouring out like far like
while like people are like packing uptheir bags and be like how do you

(46:31):
do? What's going on? Andactually was it was more of like trying
to keep that ship together, likeyou're sneaking into your parents house, like
after it's like too late, likeI'm not checking out some sales. Hey
guys, Hey guys, go tothe bathroom. Gonna go to the bathroom

(46:51):
and I'll be right back. I'mwalking straight when you trying to walk too
straight, you know when you're likea little drunk and you're like actually just
like walking. Yeah, like alot of at and then oh man that
place I backlard. Did they hateus? No? I think you know,
like a lot of things people don'tunderstand. The people don't you know,
they don't like things they don't understand, right, Like is what you're

(47:15):
saying, yeah, like you knowthere's yeah, I mean you know I
think there Look, there were othercreative types sort of scattered throughout that office.
Right. You did have seen apeople you had seen at Editors and
Video and TV Guide editors and tvGuide Video and in those sort of teams.
But you know, it's it's aweird group of professionals to put on

(47:39):
it on one floor and in avery open office environment. I remember there
was a time there was some streamor something where I was being especially loud,
and I remember afterwards a back Lardand told me like, hey,
you know, like sound really tryingto like that podcast room over there,
like you can hear everything. Andlike he told me that several times,
and I don't think it actually sankinto my head until one time me and

(48:00):
Backlard wanted to talk about something,probably about me leaving, and we stepped
into like that side podcast thing andI was talking to him about it,
and Benny, I think you werehaving like a one on one with Alex
in the studio and we're stopping talkingto Backlard and be like, wait,
I can hear everything they're saying.Yeah, I've been telling you this for
a year. Yeah, I meanyou know that that place was just like

(48:21):
a weird funhouse. You know,it just was not the conducive to the
things we had to and wanted todo. It was an extremely dangerous situation
where I would often go like like, while people were having like full you
could hear people on the phone likebeing you know, it's usually talking to
family or something, just being likeI told you to take to trash out
and you didn't take the trash outAnd I've been doing the trash for a

(48:44):
week straight and it's your chore.You know, I'm not just like just
cleaning up the studio at all.We also right near that corridor that was
next to a bunch of offices thatwere often very empty, so people didn't
use that as they're like pacing havingvery intense looking for conversations about mortgages or
acquisitions. And then you were youwere better off going to the park.

(49:06):
Yeah, lots of facing. Yeah, I mean this was this is when
I decided to leave. I pasther on that park a lot. I
talked to baccalaure a lot when whena key behind the scenes members of the
like Games group left, when Iwas like, all right, I gotta
clear my fucking head. I wentto that park and just walked around in
circles. Man. I was excited. When that park was in the division.

(49:29):
I was like, uh, theyalso had which is the dumbest shit.
And like everybody in that building knewthat place was I mean back like
you were there during a remodel,knew it was a bad job, right,
Like this was a poorly done remodel. Am I correct in saying that,
Oh, without a doubt, Imean the problem And I do not

(49:51):
envy any person who has this taskput upon them. But like it was
essentially building a moving thing that wasconstantly change changing, like there was no
The plan was like, we needyou to build something that is never going
to end. We need you tobuild a thing that will have no final
shape and no finality in any wayshape, Like it's impossible. And that's

(50:14):
that they kept. Like remember theoffice situation. The studio situation is the
prime example of it, because likehow many times did those blueprints change where
like all the post it's and allthe fum You're like, I don't even
know what this thing looks like anymore. Like that that was the thing.
It was a very difficult thing todo, is what I remember. People

(50:36):
in offices probably have these two theycall it sometimes they call them like,
uh, they're like little glass roomssometimes that you can go in a little
meeting like single person both rooms.Yeah, yeah, little phone rooms.
They are the dumbest shit, andlike this, there is no privacy in
the middle. Yeah, I amgoing into one being like great, I'm
going to have a private conversation andhearing the person next doors tis I should

(51:00):
be like, I guess not.It's like it's like where you're supposed to
go because it's an open office,right to be like, Okay, I
need to have this kind of interviewwith somebody who's gonna get hired, or
I need to have this very Idon't want to have And it's like basically
a glass door that would close andyou'd be talking normal. You'd kind of
just be like, hey, I'mhaving this normal conversation. Hold on,
let me shut the door. Okay, now can you hear me? Okay,

(51:22):
okay, you can't hear anything nowright. It's just like if you
remember they were I'm pretty sure theywere considering an entirely new renovation, like
two years after the fact. Doyou remember that they were talking about I
remember doing it all over again.They were going to do that. The
number of times this goes beyond thegiant bombused office. The number of times

(51:44):
I've sat and looked at blueprints forthe next big building that we're moving into.
Was great. I remember we werevery close and everything. We were
so close. We were just likeI had two conversations with you about that.
In the first one we were like, I have this new studio space
design. It's gonna have so muchspace. And the second I said,
three covers. The second one wasyou're being like, well, they cut
the studio space basically a half.It's like about as big as And the

(52:07):
third one was like, we're notmoving. I don't think we're moving.
I think we're staying in the studio. And that that continued to happen in
ways that listen like anybody in production. I defend anybody in production who is
trying to grab as much space fortheir team as possible. That's what you're
supposed to do. You're supposed tobe like, well, this is why
we need the most space. Wellwhat do you do stuff? You know,

(52:29):
like, you know it's not whatwe do now for what we could
be doing, Yeah, it's morespace, or like, Okay, this
is gonna sound me, And Idon't mean this is sound me, but
like I would, i'd definitely besitting in meetings and be like, okay,
see ne So you got a photoroom, an audio room, a
room just just keeps computers warm,a room where somebody just watches TVs,

(52:51):
a room TV room, a roomwhere somebody just yells. Oh my god.
They were not what we were tryingto get. The R room and
it was just like, oh wait, yeah, there was a yelling room.
I came in and now it's justwe're just we're now like around the
Thanksgiving your table talking shit. ButI remember coming in and Vinn he was

(53:13):
like, We're gonna go check outsome VR stuff. I was like,
oh, I was like leaving theoffice and you were like, no,
seen that has a has a room, Like what do you mean? See
that room? Took us in,took me and Alex into a room where
they had like all the different VRheadsets. We didn't have any one VR
head set. It was ideal.We don't even we do video game uninhabited.
It seemed totally uninhabited. It's likeI had a nice TV. Everybody

(53:36):
was looked up to it. Allthe VR stuff was there, had enough
space. It's like, who thefuck's using this now? It's just so
ridiculous. I really want this ayelling room. And one day I walked
by nobody knew what was going onthere. What did I walked by it
and it's just dark in there.It's like it's so dark in there and
it's just yelling. And then likethe other thing that blew my mind.

(53:58):
So these are all real rooms.By the way, the thing that moved
my mind this is by our deskstoo. It's like we always heard the
also camera stuff because it was likethere was a photo rooms, but the
photo room was like specifically we needto light all right, we're gonna go
back to our little dank question.I just realized I never got an answer

(54:20):
to this and never asked you guysthis. But every time when you're walking
to the bathrooms near the beginning ofthe beginning, near the entrance, every
time i'd walk there, there wasthe door at the end of the hallway,
and every once in a while Iwould be open and it looked like
there was like a rainforest cafe there. The photo studio like bamboo and all
that. Oh okay, I don'twas the photo studio. Then was the

(54:45):
TV room TV, which is literallywe would walk in it was a huge
face like three times aside studio comfortablecouches. I remember that was the first
time I saw an old TV andthis is lovely. We have field trips
there. I feel like where wewould go in there and they play something
funny. We be like tomorrow we'regoing to the TV bringer launch sign your

(55:08):
permission slips, so we're going.And then next to that would be the
gigantic the lab that had like eightyfour computers in it on the lab tables,
and then was the audio room gotmoved to buy the where the copier
used to be in the mailing roomover there, and then around the corners
of your room, and then theyelling room. And then here's what blew
my mind though. The thing thatblew my mind was like when we were

(55:30):
trying to negotiate rights for the VRroom and we're like, hey, maybe
we can make this the thing thatwe share, Like, well, we'll
put up some of the costs forit and we'll share it. This is
what fucking flip by Switch was like, Oh, you know, I think
we might move this VR room tothe room in the back. And I
said, what room in the back, Oh, there's another room in the
back of the office. I neverheard about this, and I said,

(55:52):
wait, what the there's a wholeout of the room, and then not
to mention not the first thing thatunder a bus. Let me let me
say this. Let me say this, for we sate this. See that
made a lot of money. SeenThat could have a lot of rooms.
But look, if we were willingto do more affiliates, we could have
gotten a room. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna stop by my tongue.

(56:14):
There are a lot of listicals onSeen That that I found very useful.
Which are the best headphones of twentytwenty one? I think the awards they
give are very interesting, is whatI will say. I did not know
there was another room, and tothis day, I don't know what that
room is. Where was that room? That room, I believe was some

(56:35):
kind of I'm gonna say, likea room for boxes. Suck up,
Jeff, our studio was our roomfor here. No, it's I'm not
trying to be coy at all.Six engine. No, No, there's
no fucking Americans. Absolutely, thethey were like, where was it?

(57:02):
I didn't know what existed until waylate in the game. Needed it's not
that there's the conference room, there'sthe I closet. There was the mother's
room. It was like a casino. It was very deceiving with all them,
like the space and the dimensionality ofit. It's like there was that
and I remember being in that roomand the door is a huge room,

(57:22):
just to be clear, huge room, bigger than any other room. Probably
this like probably two Thursday sides ofthe SNET studio, that's how big this.
Yeah, I got this place.Fucking if we're eight office building,
this place has more hidden spaces thana man's did you get when you like
sardine literally every single person in themain floor and like just give up all

(57:44):
the other real estate. But Iremember opening that door once because you know,
they were like, oh, there'sgonna be the CNET VR room.
I'm like where And I remember openingthe door and the door hit a box
on the way open on like asit was opening, and then I like
peered my head around and like thefluorescent it's flicker on and it's just like
Raiders and the because you like likejust boxes and box when I just why

(58:07):
did these boxes live here? Likewhat is that? Like? Okay,
give me the like I know wherethe corner office was from there? Where
was it. It was it waslike the back bathrooms if you were to
like find the center of the twoback bathrooms, like right across the way,
right across the hall more or less, okay, Yeah, And there

(58:27):
was like there was like the fishbowl meeting room in the back, and
then between the fish bowl, Yeah, that's all. There was space between
the conference room. Well, it'snot just the hollow room nothing. A
conference room with that long table justone up against that back wall. No,
you didn't look at it this yearand change from being in that space.
We are still learning things about whattruly lived there. Yeah. And

(58:51):
then to be to be perfectly clearjust your year, not resentful about what
will ever happen. That's fine too. Nothing ever happen happen with that room.
It never turned into anything. Youdon't depending nice far out of the
way, you know it's going onhere that much. In my mind,
I feel like you can't be surefucking wasn't happening in there, given actually

(59:15):
know what the way sound carried.Actually, uh, yeah, that that
was. And then you had thekind of like the lining of the whole
thing, all of this surrounded bypeople who had offices that were just like
I don't know that. Yeah,just had millions with with like pictures of
people with like I assume these arepictures of famous golfers on your wall.

(59:38):
You had like a towel for everymaster since like nineteen Yeah, just like
I just tradition like no other.I'm told this sounds important that the person
had that room. I remember hadthat like cliche like putting thing in this
Really real people really have these.It was like a set designer came and

(59:58):
was like offices, it's offen hisoffices, Vinny, you're talking about Jamie
Miranda and really putting them over andeverything, and like, I never actually
really talked to the guy, butI, first of all, I trust
you and you said he was great. But also I would walk by his
office which is right across from ourstudio, and it just had just a
big gass frame poster a Rambo allright, he had the Rambo post.
We took two posters from the TVGuide thing out of the trash. It

(01:00:21):
was Rambo and that Judge Dread poster. Oh nice, and Jamie. When
we were like, well, weonly have room for one because the studio
is the size of my pinkie.And then we put the Rambo poster outside
and he saw it. It waslike, Jamie was all right, very
good. So I got into theoffice, the Dread poster was there.

(01:00:42):
I never really questioned it, butliterally every stream I ever did, I
was looking at Dread right there.I think it wasn't even a poster that
was for the audience. Was itwas originally for for the audience that we
used to sit against that wall whenwe're on those dump stools and so used
to be us, and then wejust never took it down. The good

(01:01:05):
news is that Dread poster now liveson my hallway wall forever, and I
can sit so I can also checkout this. It must be so happy.
Now let's uh, let we dohave to take it. We have
to take it. I was aboutto ask that I can. Yes,
I'm glad you made it this far. Then that's a moment, just like

(01:01:31):
the old days. Here we go, we're gonna be back in a couple
of minutes. Folks, stick around, thanks for listening, And we played
the break music. Oh wow,and we are back. Hello Hi,

(01:01:51):
hello, hello, hello. Ifyou're just tuning in, I don't know
if that does not work on podcast. It goes to the middle of it
starts to another podcasts section of theI've heard news for you. I'm joined

(01:02:17):
about it. It's okay, BabyWressell, Dan Reichert, Austin Walker,
Jeff Backlar, of course, AlexNavarro. I'm Benny Carveller. You're listening
to the Giant Beast Cast. Andthis is it, folks, the Ultimate
Giant Beast Cast and the Ultimate GiantBeast Cast. So I don't know what,

(01:02:38):
uh, I don't know what.What happens here with this RSS feed?
They put it out, they hangthe jersey on the wall, like
what do you what do you dowith a what do you do with it?
You can? You just do itlike like a twitch raid at the
end of a streamer. You justsend everyone over to someone else's RSS redirected.
I wonder if you do throw itover to me. That's yeah,
right, Here's Here's what I knowis that we are a first ballot Hall

(01:02:58):
of Fame podcast. Now that thefirst ballot we're in, Yeah, we
are. We Well, i'd saywe make the Hall of where's the initial
Hall of Fame thing? We makethe whole thing, and then people give
awards that are based on the Giant, the Giant Bright, the Memorial Award.
Yeah, I regret for me though. The Hall of Fame is also
probably you know the Hall of Fameor like it's all the same cast home

(01:03:24):
run talking. So it's probably nothockey that where water. So many hockey
people fighting right now? I sawsome lost and come on, you actually
like the sad because it's people punchingeach other in the face what hockey is.
But it was like I saw cliplast night last night that were like

(01:03:45):
like literally seconds into a hockey game, both sides, like six players threw
their gloves off and went at eachother. Yeah, I mean it's not
great. What's happening right now inh I just said six people threw off
the lots. It's pretty great.Want what happened in hockey? Where you're

(01:04:05):
allowed to fight people and you gotknives on your feet always should be allowed.
That's implying that people are using theirskates as weapons. That is not
a thing will happen. That wouldalso be murder. I mean life,
why is it allowed? And it'slike it's like a weird like Bill of
the Ocean. I agree, Andit's not just a sports thing because it's

(01:04:30):
just hockey, because in baseball,if somebody goes and punches the picture in
the face, like whistles are blown. Yeah, I mean, look,
fights in baseball are cute, butin like in hockey, Okay, I'm
not I'm not a fighting guy.Okay, I don't. I want fighting
out of the game. I knowthat that is a pretty unpopular take for

(01:04:50):
the pure hockey fan. But someshit went down with the Capitals and Rangers
in the last couple of days.And there's there's a there's a player on
the Caps. His name is TomWilson, and uh he he just has
like a history of violence and thething he did to one of the Rangers
is just like not okay, andthe league so it's just like street justice.

(01:05:15):
Yes, yeah, like that's whatit is. That like that is
what chips as as a Devil's fan, uh my entire life, the Rangers
and Devils have had this sort ofthing. No one in the way of
like Tom Wilson just being like basicallylike a hockey criminal. I mean,
like me, the worst person insports. She's importing behavior. I'm not

(01:05:39):
talking about like what he does offthis off the ice. I'm sure as
far as how he behaves in hissport. He is a huge piece of
a situation. He's a gigantic douchebag. This guy plays hockey like there
aren't cameras like he plays. Heplays like no one else sees what the
awful shift that he can do.And he like injured Panarin for it's insane,

(01:06:01):
and and the league was just thisguy out and the league. What
it feels like is the league wasjust like, no, don't do that.
I Meanwhile, this guy's track recordis fucking garbage. And the Rangers
put out a release and they're like, hey, you got the league you
fucked up. And then we putout a message that was like one of

(01:06:25):
those here I'm apologizing for racism,like you know, I made a graphic
for Twitter thing, but it wasliterally saying the league fucked this up.
Yeah, players like took it uponthemselves. No, I mean, like
I think you know. And thenthe Rangers fired there too. Uh,
top guys, it's it's just sucha hot dumpster fire. The league find

(01:06:46):
the Rangers for the comment. Look, this is not about the project.
Red got involved and oh my gosh, you won't believe what's happening with cyberpunk
because of this, We're gonna pickall our CEOs more millions of dollars.
This caused a new bug in cyberpunk. It's ridiculous anyway. Anyway, question,

(01:07:08):
please, chances in sports is flopping? Do they flop in hockey?
It's not as prevalent as like somethinglike you know, I think soccer you
could sort of say that is abig part of that game. Uh,
but yeah, I mean, uh, you know it's called diving in hockey
on Sportsman, Mike, Well,it is a two minute penalty. It
is not called very often. Butlike, like I've been ice skating like

(01:07:30):
once or twice, and both timesI was Please, doesn't ever happen where
like I know these guys are muchbetter at ice skating than me, But
do they ever get and like slipon the falling their ass? Ever?
It's fucking ice man, slippery?Is there like a highlight reel on YouTube?
Just have fallen on their their asses? People fall in the time.
It's fucking ice. But in theworld, but yeah, of course,

(01:07:53):
do you remember Dan Do you eversee that one where the guy like literally
he falls on his ass and fallsthrough the ice. Wait, there's not
like a pond and it's like bitinghis But yeah, he's a he's a
giant ice cube. He didn't pullhim out, and he's checking a giant

(01:08:14):
block of ice and they're like toplay the rest of the game. I
have another real question related to dance, another one of my favorite sports things.
I have. How many instances arethere any good moments that I could
google our YouTube of players getting hitin the hog with the puck? Oh
yeah, didn't a ref just toget Didn't the puck just ricochet off the

(01:08:36):
ref's balls into the net? Notthat long ago? Oh shit, I
feel like I feel that that's thedream we always always like a little bell
sound. He's probably using the YouTubeclips. It's something gone off players balls.

(01:08:56):
For sure, ref's balls is likea really almost impossi little angle,
like where was this reff standard?They were in the corner, I think
somewhere, Like it whacked him straightthe jug. I've been playing I exec
for a real long time. I'veonly been hit there maybe once. I
feel like it's not as frequent asyou might think. How many times do
somebody get a stick between the legs, like just kind of like a ripping

(01:09:18):
Yeah, well no, like allthe top up into the crotch and then
like and then down and down andkeep going. That's that's suspendable, for
sure. You can't. So youcan punch somebody in the face and drag
them to the ground, but youcan't give me if two players are motion

(01:09:40):
to each other. What if youjust the balls like not egreedist, but
it's just a punch least Yeah,cup too your hand more. I mean
the YouTube clip and yeah, really, oh man, I told you about
that guy broke and crap shot hisballs and cut the ball in half,
right, I know was back hereand you just you just didn't even see

(01:10:05):
it. Told that story. Ijust assumed. I told I don't really
great, hit the beep, hitthe beep. Tech It's all right.
So anyway, we're at a base, Dan tell us of George Brett's stories.
Jesus Christ Saint say, Mario party, this is weird, George brettan

(01:10:30):
I remember it was an audio productthat you're putting out well watching live.
But I have a George Brett amibowith a big booty pants in the back,
so that's spend money on that.Somebody sent it to me. Of
course they put the boot on Brett'sbut gross paint. It's painted, it's
pain. Yeah. If I madegently change the clear brought us here,

(01:10:56):
I would love it if we allwould around the horn here and we all
talked about our favorite things that wedid during our time at Giant Beast.
You know what, feature, podcastsegment, whatever we did, And it
could be more than one thing ifyou want. It doesn't have to We're
not precious about it. Whatever.On top of mind, I have two
I was just gonna say. Thefirst one is whenever we got into a
poop story and then Alex gently changesthe subject something more reasonable. Those are

(01:11:23):
one of my favorites. Okay,I'm gonna keep thinking about my next one.
Okay, we'll come back to you. Okay, Alex, why don't
you start them? Okay? Acouple of things I think the extra life
streams are definitively some of my favoritethings I've ever done on the site.
The audience powering me through those thingswas unbelievable and it wouldn't have happened if

(01:11:49):
we did not have such a reliablygreat audience for that stuff and what we
were able to do during that timeand just a blast, and so sincere
thank you to everyone who watched thoseand who donated and did everything during that
stuff that was amazing. Features wise, like, look, I bitched about
it a lot and with good reason. But there's a few, and I'm

(01:12:12):
gonna lead with this one because Ithink Dan wants to hear this. Steal
my sunshine for all its time.Fucking bullshit. It was a ton of
fun. It was a great time. I had a fun time being miserable.
Not so much fun that I wantedto do the Donkey Kong thing,
but I was very very I didhave a very good time. Also,
Like one of my first like realfeatures is like a people like as part

(01:12:38):
of the team, and so Ihave a lot of fondness for that one
as well, because I feel like, I don't know, I really got
my feet wet in the most horrifyingways. I mean, my very first
stream was the ranch soda stream thatwas back. Why would you do that?
Damn somebody bag? Oh and youcan't push it back that done out

(01:13:00):
mail bags work. You gotta getin there because we always we always got
a rap time. Yeah. Yeah. Six months later, Easter candy.
I'm sure it's good. East Easterncandy from Central Europe. Definitely here real
quick and just finish this off,because I think there's there's at least one
feature with everyone that I most fondof. I really loved the full play

(01:13:23):
through as we did of stuff withAustin, but like, honestly, Kurbal,
Like Kurbal was just such a blastthe whole way through Vinny's antics,
Austin trying to gently, you know, be like we can do this,
we can do this, and mejust being mystified by every single thing,
only until I was yelling Vinny inwhich I lost it each time. So

(01:13:43):
God, that was fun. Thatwas I I will just say that.
That that and exquisite corps where weare corped, just aside from the Future
itself being able to do some editingbecause we didn't get a chance to do
a lot of production stuff, andI know, Abby, you enjoyed the
kind of just building something once ina while. So like having a feature
where I can sneak in a littlebit of like previously on and post on

(01:14:04):
and be like, oh, Iget to edit this thing. It's like
a minute and a half, it'snot that long, but like flex those
muscles and stretch out for a second. There was always fun. I mean,
Kurba was just we're always so goofytoo. We got to write those
like dumb ass letters for them eachday. We're always very fun. Yea
loved it. Kurta was going tobe more edited originally and it was always
right, and then we ended upbacking off of that because the audience wants

(01:14:27):
to see all how the sausage ismade. You know, there's some editing,
but but much fun. I thoughtthey would not want to see the
sausage, but apparently they want.They wanted all of Yeah, I don't
know. And just last thing tosay, Abby at thirteen Deadly Sims is
one of the all time great seriesthis this site has ever had, and
definitely the most fun I have everhad with anything involving the Sims. So

(01:14:49):
shout out to you on that one. Thank you. I'm that's definitely I
think one of my proudest moments ofmy career, especially a giant bomb.
So because that was my first feature, I like headlined. I do remember
talking to Austin like about just beinglike, hey, if I have an
idea, I should just do it. Absolutely, just do it. The
best advice that I got, whichwas just like not to wait around for

(01:15:13):
somebody like it's your turn now orfor you know, just be like if
I want an idea, I'm goingto do it, and everyone else can
either get in lot do it withme or whatever. I don't know.
That was this was like great advice. This is like the double edged sword
of being kind of in this underdogposition at at what at the time was
CBS Interactive. Was just like youhave no one's looking over your shoulder like

(01:15:36):
that. Often at the level ofthat, like Abby, you and I
were at. So there's a lotof freedom there, but there's not also
a lot of like external like pressureto go do a thing. Yeah,
so if you have that idea,you just gotta do it. Obviously I
was writing at the time when Iwas here, because that was something that
people did on the internet at thetime, and like I was like,
I'm gonna start a column. Whynot? Why don't I just start a

(01:15:56):
column, and like it doesn't matterif people read it or not, but
like I have to just do it. And then and then I think we
carried that in a part of that. I actually wonder if the studio being
so much of a pain in theass was part of why we ended up
developing so many show ideas was wewant to use that space all the way.
There's not like we're not hanging outin that room and turns on a
camera. We do a thing andwe're gonna do it and then we're gonna

(01:16:19):
get out and that's gonna be.Not that we went didn't go long sometimes,
but like it's why we ended upwith kerbl and with thirteen Deadly Sims
and with so many of these ideasthat were like very shaped in a way
that maybe a lot of nothing.There weren't shows on Giant Bomb before,
but I feel like GBE was likeboom show show show show show, high
concept shit. Yeah, well therewere there were a lot of gears turning.

(01:16:40):
I think that's the testament to y'alland the talent and the creativity that
you had, and a testament toeverybody trying to communicate together. I think
even even Deadly Sins there was like, hey, like this is a great
idea hatched, but like let's talkabout it and let's see what, like
how we can make it, Likewhat if there's a you know, what's

(01:17:00):
the theme here? Like how dowe end the show? Like what is
it like how do we get toa point where it's like, oh,
you know, I figured how weI don't know if Abby came out fully
formed with like we're gonna kill everybodyor we're gonna figure out a way.
I think so. Yeah, Well, like there was a lot of like
sitting down like workshopping stuff that Ireally enjoyed. Yeah, I feel like
especially for like the team Features likeBurgle and whatnot. And it was also
fun with like the Sims and likemaking those intros. I remember going around

(01:17:24):
having a message everyone be like one, can I murder you? And the
sims and hu will you record this? Like stupid real world parody for this
intro Ivan, But I feel likethat was also one of the first intros
I made for Features, and Ialways really enjoyed doing this was part of
those Z what's the what was theHalloween stream series called six six six Crazy
Frights fantastic intro for that. Ilove watching that fantastic I see. I

(01:17:47):
remember seeing that intro and being like, I don't know, Abby, I
guess your name on that. That'sfine. Thing was like he stopped doing
or we I wasn't even there atthat point, but Jihant Bombs stopped doing
the Game of the Year skit stuff, and some of that energy found its
way into goofy intros, into thingseven you know, not only at thirteen

(01:18:11):
Deadly Sims and six Wheezy Frights,but also things like burg on my Bananas.
That style of just like let's justdo something lacky and take it dead
serious and like pretend like everyone's inon it is the energy I love to
watch as a fan of what y'allwere doing after I left. Yeah,
and anytime we could get that becauselike I remember, for Game of the
Year, we had had like reallykind of high fluten ideas about like what
if we just got an Airbnb thatthe entire staff could be in and we

(01:18:33):
just do a straight up, likereal world thing and we're all just like
all of the things like bring backthe skits and everything. But there's like
a whole reality show around the Gameof the Year rapping and stuff, so
we don't even kind of evoked thatfeeling I thought was great. And going
back to thirteen Deadly Sims, havea year perspective with like you coming in
and like we didn't know the Simsat all, Like nobody that was currently
John Bommies knew that, and soI remember talking to you about their future,

(01:18:58):
right, a huge game with ahuge audience, but we just it
was not in our wheelhouse, andso it was it was so fun when
you brought that up to like theconcept sounded so great, but I remember
talking about like, okay, sohow many so they can die in all
these different ways, and then youexplaining it and be like yeah that I
was thinking, like that sounds amazing. That sounds great, and that's something
none of us would have ever.It wouldn't been on our radar at all.

(01:19:18):
I can feel like I think alsobecause it was my first feature.
I don't mean to cut you off, Dan, Sorry, no, no,
I did not. That was onethat everyone was like a little trepidacious
for of like yeah, kill usin the sims, Like I guess no,
but but here's a personality focused sitefor a site that was so personality
focused. The fact that like I'masking questions like well, how many can

(01:19:39):
live in a house, like howhow does this work? How does that
work? And then like I realized, you know, you could do everyone
that was currently on staff, andthen we could bring in like the Drews
and the Austins and the Patricks andpeople that like weren't on the side of
the time, and it's the geniusideas this is. It was genius and
it was pulled off perfectly. Likethat's one of my favorites for sure.
Thank you. I'm really proud ofthat one. I I like that one

(01:20:00):
a lot. It was so fundoing it too. Yeah, Like I
think that was also I don't know, I always really like doing what like
features that had Like I think similarly, I love Extra Life. And the
big reason I of Extra Life isbecause not only was it like for the
most part of the day we're likepretty much the whole team was there,
but also like we had guests comingin and it was just like a day
to hang out with people. AndI think I liked and daily sims because
everybody was on board with it,you know, like whether they were in

(01:20:23):
the room or just in the game, it was just nice. Head they
buy in is so important. It'slike playing a board game with people,
right, It's like you don't havebuy in, like from the if you
don't have somebody, if you canhave one person there ruin the whole thing,
right and be like it just belike I don't know what I'm doing.
It's my turn. I don't knowwhat I'm doing. And like,
I think everybody having buy in wasreally awesome too, for every future where

(01:20:44):
it's just like hey, even ifyou're like I'm not totally into this,
like here we go, turn iton. Let's just try and have some
fun. It's just fun. It'slike, you know, it's working with
a bunch of professionals who understand thatwe're here to entertain and do That is
an amazing thing to have. Iloved Extra Life because that was the time
after I had left it, Igot had the excuse to come back and

(01:21:06):
like hang out with you all,and two stuff with Abby and Dan who
like Dan and I Like people knowthis, but like Dan and I never
got to make content together. Ithink Abby and I are probably on a
few more things just because I wasaround, you know, we were in
the on the same coast a littleearlier or whatever. But like Dan,
uh, we've only got to makelike four things other than the three.
Yeah, But the thing is,all those things are like someone favorite an

(01:21:29):
Extra Life, the Science and theMagic Kit and all the magic shit or
the E three stuff we did withthe food and every day or even like
when you would come guessed and therewas the whole like the in the beginning
thing that you were there. It'sa god damn, it's a crime us
and that we didn't get to worktogether more. We should figure something out.
We should. I love I loveeveryone here, and it's it's a
bummer to me, like this isthe thing that era after I left,

(01:21:53):
I was like doing stuff I reallyloved and was really fulfilled by by weight
at weight point, and the thingthat was so incredible to me was the
speed with which gbe you know,and and shout outs that to Vinny and
Alex who are like the anchors thereand and and backlar on on the Beast
cast for being like, how dowe continue to grow this? How do
we bring in the right people tomake this continue that that energy? And

(01:22:13):
you know, it was like withina year, I was like, Damn,
I wish I could be on thatfeature. Damn, I wish I
could have been there when this featurehappened. I Exquisite Corpse is something that
that Vinny you pitched. I knowyou've been pitching that for years in some
form or another. But I werebeing there while I was still there and
be like, ah, should Ijust should I just wait to leave?
We can do this. How longthat thing went? Maybe you actually made
I did. I made the rightdecision. But like you know, the

(01:22:35):
corpse ended. I do remember howthat ended. Yes, sure, this
is this is not Sometimes stick tothe fridge. You know, I don't
know if no one made it tothe wall. I mean that's the thing

(01:22:59):
too. Sometimes you miss. Sometimesyou try a thing. You bring a
game to uh we shoe play dates, and sometimes you bring a game and
be like, this game is kindof bad. This game is really working
for it's a clunker. It happensyou just it's it's it's batting it.
This is the first thing that thatGerstman told me when I was stepping up
to the plate to like be amember of this of this site. Was
like the thing to remember is it'sbatting averages. It's not it's not overall

(01:23:21):
home runs. It's like how oftendo you get on base? How often?
Sorry to go back to sports metaphors, but like how often are you
are you doing okay? How oftenare you doing decent stuff? How often
is your flop successful? And howoften exactly hitting the nuts and you can
get hitting the nuts exactly, andif you're if you're flopping successfully more often
than you're getting hitting the nuts,and you're winning. I think we were
thirteen deadly sims ing and curbling waymore often than we were tying me to

(01:23:45):
chairs and trying to play sin.You know, like, I think that
our batting average was pretty fucking Istill think that one was fun too.
Yeah. I remember being in thestudio for that one, and I feel
like he came in halfway and waslike, should we do something They're already
add in the chat. We gottado something. I'm going to go in,

(01:24:06):
Dan, do you have a doyou have a thing you want to
add? Distinct memory I have wasagain, steal My Sunshine was just such
a fun dynamic with everyone because likeI kind of like that dynamic where it's
like I'm the one that like lovesthe thing and everyone else's like different shades
of hating it exactly. Mario Partywas at on the West Coast, and
Steal My Sunshine was kind of ahere, So I overall, steal My

(01:24:29):
Sunshine was probably my favorite on theEast Coast, But the fucking moment the
red gunball thing where Abby is theone person who is there to see this
directly. I've seen this cliff.I went through the nostalgia you know,
threads and everything, and there isthe part where we had the gunball machine
and I remember being like, Okay, the next one's gonna be a red
one, thinking that like, okay, it's not going to be a red
one, but it would be ifit is. I gotta act like I

(01:24:53):
knew it was going to be.If not, whatever I said, like,
oh darn, and then no oneremembers it. But if it is,
then everyone remembers it. And Ipulled it out. Internally, I'm
just dying, like I can't fuckingbelieve it was a red gumball and some
people being like, oh he hadthat in a sleep or something. No,
I were looking at a purple yeah, just give Yeah. That's all

(01:25:20):
in terms of like like one moment, I remember that a lot, But
like the g T eight thing wasa lot of fun despite that being like
a weird hell production that I doso f thing, Like every time we
did it, literally every single hour, every single time, it was like
forty five minutes to an hour anda half of us just trying to get
into the server all at the sametime it was showing us. But just

(01:25:44):
just like, if you want tosee me frustrated, get me in the
situation where it's just like, Imean, all of you have seen me
at like probably my my business worst. I'm telling that Dan, just put
put voice me already computer or comingto your computer? Just what do we
have to do? Buy everybody laptops? Like what getting heres do? Vinny?

(01:26:05):
I always appreciated you, but mycomputer now everything's broken. I don't
know how to do. I cannotdo, Vinny. I always appreciated you,
but now that I have to doall the production shit, holy shit,
do I appreciate everything you did?My god, they're so much straight.
Remember you're like, I've got sevenpairs of headphones on so I can

(01:26:26):
record the obvid here, bubbs inhere, and I would put the big
headphones over that so I can hearthe discord in my laptop. But the
game of yeah, you know what, would just be in the office being
like, all right, just arecord, I'll play here, Abby,
you play over there. This isworking out. I'm not here to tell
anyone else. They're they're hard work. And caused it. Frustration was worth
it because it was your hard work. I was just staying out all or

(01:26:48):
for the ride. But that shitis some of the best just like tightly
edited, like straight up bangers perminute content that we have ever put out.
Vinny bass Plant on the Parachute wasamazing. The time where everything was
breaking and just like the whole game'sglitching out around us, like God,
Dave, it was like god onetime where I feel like me and Alex

(01:27:10):
were like driving in fog and thenyou guys couldn't see evolved. It was
like we couldn't see three feet infront of ourselves. I think that was
me because I remember just being like, how are we supposed to get to
this checkpoint or whatever? And they'relike, let's find us the time the
time with the game glitched at theprison thing. Remember the prison intro where
we could not figure out I thinkthe edit of that came down to be

(01:27:30):
like not even a minute and ahalf, but like that I think was
almost a full day of that prisonintro of like we should just we should
just call it for today and startover, like we cannot figure out how
to get past this the thing wherethere are a couple in like a helicopter,
right, and then a couple ofbecause I think I was in the
air and I couldn't see anything.We couldn't see each other's feeds, and
so I was just like circling theprison in a helicopter or a harry or

(01:27:50):
something. You guys are like,I don't know what the fuck's going on.
I walked past this card. Hejust shoots us. Sorry, like
this weird fake out of like don'tget caught, don't get caught. And
then you walk in and you getcaught, and we're like, I guess
we're doing something like swifted into thegame. But then like even once we
got through it, it was likeI think something glitched. Yeah, yeah,

(01:28:12):
the mission didn't end. Remember,like the guy was off the map.
The last guy was off the map. Yeah, but we had to
plan at the beginning when we weretrying to figure out the production logistics before
we ever started, where it's like, okay, so we'll just be recording,
we'll have back our he's the guy. He's like our switch. Yeah,
yeah, and he's switching between stuffand talking to us, and uh,

(01:28:35):
that didn't work for some reason,didn't work because a joint as a
spectator, and every time you'd switchit took about a minute and you have
to get to the next few.So it's just like, okay, I
guess we gotta locally record these andthen we'll edit them together. Which editing
together was actually kind of fun becauseyou got to you know, we did
the picture and picture stuff, andthat was also a thing of like,

(01:28:56):
okay, how long do we stayon a person? Just the editing logistics
of that, But it was again, it was another interesting problem to solve
of like, oh, this isa production editing problem, and that that
flexes muscles. We don't flex alot like you can. You can really
tell interesting narrative stories in and edit. Right. That's why I love production.
That's why I love that whole thing. So being able to switch to
the right camera angle when the fuckingface plan happens or when somebody flies off

(01:29:20):
a thing made that feature a lotof fun to show, Like if we
if we did them live, Idon't think it would have had the same
No, no, no, noway. I loved watching that here.
I mean again, like I it'sa testament to y'all that you know,
leaving was when I left it wasdeeply emotional for me. I you know,
Vinny Alex backle our year like threebrothers to me and like that experience.

(01:29:44):
I have so many things to talkabout in terms of, you know,
being close to y'all and times wehad and all that. But like
so leaving was really hard, andthat first like a few months after,
it was like hard for me towatch Giant Pomb content because of emotional you
know, regret and like, amI making right decision? I love everyone
there, and like just it's tough, and I think it's a testament to
the fact that y'all then started makingjust incredible stuff that I was able to

(01:30:08):
like overcome that hurdle and watch itall because it's just that good, you
know. And I got to likeslip back into fan mode, which was
a blast, and every time youannounce a new feature, I was super
excited to watch it. So I'malso I'm probably the biggest beast in the
East fan. So Alex, thankyou for dragging everyone to Yaka. There
will hopefully be more Yakuza in mylifetime. You know, I hope some

(01:30:31):
judgments not to get announced, right, there's a new judgment coming. Well
it's just judgment, But wait,is there a new new judgment? Is
there? Not like a judgment announcement? I think it was just five version
not as as good as good?Austin, do you have a thing that
particularly side? I mean, likewhat do you were like contradiction, like
the idea of stumbling into something thatwas just like is this extremely special?

(01:30:56):
Is this going to be the bestthing we've ever played together? It still
might be up top three? Yeah, it's funny. I even't watched that
video, so like, I don't. It's I think our fans probably have
it closer to mind than we doat this point. But I remember having
conversations We're like do we finish thisgame? Because I think at that point
we were all still in the modeof like what we do is show a

(01:31:16):
little bit of a game to anaudience or play an old thing all the
way through? Yeah, and withcontradiction, we had to make that hard
decision of like should we should westream this to people? Is that?
And we made the right decision?We did? Is that how the play
date concept got started? Did wedidn't need to come up with a thing
to attach to a full play thatwasn't it a play date when Vinnie was

(01:31:36):
doing the like put down the peppershaker thing, like I feel like that
was earlier. Yeah yeah, no, there there was a voice control game
that didn't work, and like itwas was Vinegawa mccara burrito that was bought

(01:32:00):
Colony. Thank you. That's that'sa play date. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah, Well, like I waswatching those, I mean, this
is the thing. It's like forme. I think that came that bot
Colony came out before I joined,but like in the interview process and it
was definitely like, Okay, theseare the these are the guys I might
go work with, you know,Alex. I dug it up and in

(01:32:24):
January of twenty fifteen, I sentyou a DM. We were friends on
the internet already. We were allwe were Twitter people and had maybe gotten,
you know, a drink once orsomething when I was in New York,
like visiting New York, and Imessaged you and I was like,
hey, man, I just thoughtthat news editor spot was still open.
Are y'all close to getting Are yougetting close to making a higher on that.

(01:32:44):
I'm not even sure if I'm theright fit for it or that I
should. If you're looking for astraight news person. But I figured it
would be stupid to not at leaststick my head out there and say,
hey, what exactly are you lookingfor? And you were like, we
were, it's all still off theair. You may as we'll toss your
hat in the ring. Why not, let's see how it goes. And
and being able to come and interviewwith you and Vinny on like a random
trip to New York and feeling immediatelylike, I mean one, it was

(01:33:09):
like, again, everyone here iswearing a suit? Am I in the
right place? And then and butthen immediately being like I click with these
guys. And then getting to dothat first Beast cast with Bacalar and you
two, and getting to announce atthe end of that that I was staying
and I was like, oh,yeah, you did a good job here
as a guest, and then beingable to spin that into I'm staying here
was very fun. I'm just notleaving. I'm not gonna And then lots

(01:33:30):
of little things like Vinny, whenI went out for the we went out
for the first time I was doingGame of the Year, the only time
I was doing Game of the Year, which, let me tell you,
what a joy to do that onetime and then you never the perfect way
to do. And Vinnie and Iwere sharing a hotel and we played through
like all of Soma together, whichis extremely fun and just like a good

(01:33:53):
like we need to get through laptopjust like this, you broke the team.
We to break it. Let's notsay, but you by passed some
of the controls on the TV,the physical thing so that we could hook
up. I want to say itwas either laptop where it was that on
console, whatever it was. Wehooked it up and played a number of

(01:34:15):
hotels where I had to like kindof jimmy behind their like security things play
station, a TV from the office, or something like yes, join game
of the year. I remember beinglike I'm borrowing a TV from the bringing
it to my hotel room. Thismight be too much information, but like
I feel like I'm just gonna saythis every every every game of the year.

(01:34:38):
While we were out here, likefucking next year, they come out
here two weeks. It was alwayslike every October, we're like, okay,
making a pack, They're coming inhere. Two weeks they're here,
and they're like November rolls, likethere's no room. Where are we gonna

(01:35:00):
put everybody, Okay, they're they'reredoing the office. Next year they're coming
here. Okay, they're gonna havethe new office. We do it.
Next year they're coming here. Isalways just like all right, this one
we just go. This one wego and then next year, next time.
Say one of the biggest benefits ofbaby only woman here never had a
sure hotel play for a couple ofweeks once. Yeah, for that two

(01:35:27):
week one yeahme of the year.It was two four weeks putting in stand
do you remember this. I remembercoming in it was like eleven thirty week,
went into your room. Vinnie wasin bed playing his Dstroid one,
and then I remember me and Dansomehow were like, Vinny, we're puts

(01:35:51):
on and we want to get foodwe need Bennie paid for it, yes,
company policy, of course, acompany Yeah that was fine. I
was glad we want to I think. I think also we had a hard
time finding a place that was openand felt like we were going to die.
A couple of times. There weresome weird sing around. Knew where
we were walking, Yeah, Iremember, yeah, walking by stub stuff.
Yeah, there was he was likeAbby, get on the other side.

(01:36:15):
I was there is. There aresome people that are just like waiting
in an alley here that feels likeNATS San Francisco. Yeah, that was
I think another thing that we did. That one only one time, but
that that packs that I'm packs Westwhere we rented a comedy club out That's
my favorite. It was a littleparty and Mario Party Lives Casting Bomb cast

(01:36:36):
a lot like it was just alot of like meeting the fans events that
so much to me, Like likethe event itself was amazing. We did
like a bunch of stuff in theparlor that comedy club. We did like
some Q and a stuff we did, uh we did what the Yeah,
the party we did a thing witha game spot and everything. And remember
that was the first time I justmet Bianca, you know, my my
wife, and she came out andit was her first time kind of like

(01:37:00):
seeing that like in person and seeinglike the fandom and everything is how crazy
and fun everything was. And sothat trip was very very special to me,
like being able to like do allthose shows, you know, with
her there and do everything in personwith both coasts together and then Mario Party
thing is it is still like topthree for me as far as like giant
bomb things. Ever, and thenthey never gave us that kind of budget
again. For past I always lovedI know, I mean, I think

(01:37:23):
coming in is like fresh blood.I always loved going to conventions and found
it such a real privilege and pleasureto Yes, I know everybody was like
a little burnout on them, butkind of by the time I got there.
But I don't know, some ofmy prodest work has been in conventions.
It's been like so great to justlike I met so many people,
like I met I think Austin atlike E three. Yeah, Like I
met so many people at conventions.I had those vlogs that I really loved
doing, Like I did that onepanel with jan that was so fun Damn

(01:37:47):
musical theater. That panel was sostupid, and I of course, oh
god, just do the thing right. And that's I think all of the
funniest and most you know, funbits are are things that are kind of
if not not not to say thatthey're not the ones that you put work

(01:38:08):
into, but like there's there's thatkind of like spark, you get that
idea in your head and hair up. You're asked, You're like, I'm
just gonna do this. We're gonnado this, and it's gonna be very
funny, and maybe it doesn't lastforever, but it's gonna be really good
and we can move on to somethingelse. And just like, Yeah,
the beauty of Giant Boman's being ableto like follow that and not have to
send it up ten different levels ofapproval everything else. And sometimes what's also

(01:38:30):
so great is I feel like Ihad the freedom to do things like my
panel with Jan that took like acouple months of like writing it, planning,
getting guests like that was a lotof work. But then also I
have like my first E three withBen, which is just like, hey,
let's do a podcast, whoever's aroundwill be on it and we'll just
like chit chat on a bed ina host zoom mics with you. Yeah

(01:38:50):
exactly, Like it wasn't good audio, like, it was just fun,
you know, which I always reallyenjoy. It's a beautiful thing about Giant
Bomb is that we were just ableto do our ship without a million different
hands getting in the pie and fuckingit up and making it like standing up
all the edges and making a mediocrelike we were able to do our ship,
and sometimes it was weird and sometimesit didn't work and sometimes it did,
but like no one was really fuckingwith it. And like the other

(01:39:11):
half of that, of course,is sometimes you wish you had a little
more. Yeah, And I thinkwe're a place to say this because I'm
you know, oh, I don'twork there day. I don't either,
So it's why I wish there hadbeen a Baccalar for us at the time,
someone who like we could go toif we said, hey, we
really have this good idea, howdo we make this happen? How does
this fit into some sort of strategy, et cetera, Like we could have
gone to Baccalar back in the day. Its been like fuck, I don't

(01:39:34):
know, man, right there areof course, were people in support roles.
I know Nalaska's been there for thelast few years before that. I
want to shout out stan Kuan,who was on the business side, who
left while I was there, andwho was just fantastic in terms of trying
to help me figure out what myrole was going to be at Giant Pod.
He really got it, he reallyfully gone. So shout out to

(01:39:55):
stan Quan and yeah, but you'retotally right there there was never any time
to think about the planning for thenext feature. You can think of the
idea and then you're like you're recordingsomething else. Every every day there was
you're doing something else. There's neverlike take this week and just workshop this
one, you guys. Yeah,it was just like, Okay, this

(01:40:15):
show starts in an hour. Plugthese laptops and let's see if this thing
actually wader than time we go liveand for yeah, right exactly. It
was just like it was very veryheart to abby while you're planning that pack
stuff. It's not like it's like, well see you guys in a month
and a half, I got aplan. It was like on the margins.
Everything was always on the margins becausethe cadence was so intense. It

(01:40:38):
was just like this cadence of justlike, okay, we need to have
this many shows. We got todo all this stuff and figure it out.
Oh and then one person sick.It's just like, ah, oh
my gosh, now what like Igot I got sick. I'm sorry,
it's just like you can't. It'sit was very like it was so slim.
Yeah it was. It was.It was tough, but yeah,

(01:40:59):
you're right, like I think,you know. I like to think at
least on Giant Bomb East, thereis very little no and a lot of
like sugging, you're we're close onthis one and at the very end and
be like do you really want todo it? Okay? Yeah? And
I feel like even yeah, whenthere was shrugging, it's like I'm doing
it anyway, which I think wasgreat though most of the time. Yeah,

(01:41:24):
And I don't know. I haveso many good memories of all of
us, either in the studio orat our desks, like passion be like
okay, so we have a spinwheel and then like can I order a
costume? I will say pretty muchevery feature we ever did, I was
actively like, so what about this? What do we do this? And
and like, looking back on it, it was definitely like okay, yeah,

(01:41:46):
go for it. And then Ithink as like I would go to
other things to be like that motherfuckerjust spent fourteen hundred dollars on a lunch,
Like yeah, I fucking order it, order screw drivers, ordered whatever
you want. I want to say, was it a Pax or an E
three where we're sitting there and gettinglunch where we kind of kind of spawned
the whole this is the run thingof just like we should play through Contra,

(01:42:10):
Yeah, what if we did itin one thing? Like what if
you know, what if we madethrough? Because this is the run was
also very outside of the normal GiantBomb two hour feature thing of and that
was oddly refreshing. It was itwas it was a lot like the Endurance
Run in a way. You know, it was like the idea of like,
here is this contained thing. We'regoing to do it every day,
and you know, it doesn't haveto be a million hours long, it's

(01:42:31):
just how long we go. Ialways liked the idea of doing something that
was like, look, I wouldlove to stream every single day, but
like you know, like im comingup with that many features and things that
can sustain that that amount of timethat there's a lot involved there. So
I love the idea of doing justlike a shorter thing where it's like,
hey, every day, let's goin here and just try to knock out
like one run on something. AndI think we were talking about like Contra

(01:42:53):
being like the one thing they're like, oh yeah, everyone Contra, Like
what if what if we don't doit a thirty live thing? And then
yeah, Yeah. That was afun series to do because also because it
had it had an end to eachthing, like you had, you had
a set end and for the mostpart, knock on wood, I don't
know how it worked out this waybecause I'm not very good at games.
Like we kind of made forward progressmost episodes, which was out which was

(01:43:15):
the thing we were afraid of of, like, oh what if we just
get stuck? What if we justthe comedically you did comedically hit Wall.
This was the one that was like, fuck, this is not just like
it was the one for me whereI was just like, this was a
mistake. We shouldn't have done this. This was bad. Never do a
competitive thing with you ever again,it's always going to be cooptible. The

(01:43:36):
Run was always one of my favorites. Like I remember when I was interviewing
I think you guys were doing IThink, And I remember like when I
was like researching more about Giant Bomb, those are the things I watched.
Was like this is the Run,and I was like, this are fun.
I feel like they're digestible and adjustable. It's really satisfying. You have

(01:43:58):
something very easy to root for,go like a half hour long. And
then when you finally get it,it's like, yeah, the counter hardcore
was that. That's probably my favoriteone where it's like we get to the
end and it's like, all right, I used the air power up,
you pick up the sea power.Never forget many like, how about I
do it this time? Okay?Everyone knows that the best moments in Giant

(01:44:29):
Bomber when Vinnie tries something that justsounds completely fucking party. And then someone
showed me a clip recently. Idon't remember if it was that it was
like that medieval weapon constructor game tryingto get the launch the thing, and
you like the moment when you justrealize, oh no, I figured it
out and it just launches dead ain'tperfect shot straight into the castle is one

(01:44:50):
of the great ones. Well,I gotta say about about Vinny here that,
like, you know, I talkedabout the situation everything on my stream
recently, and the thing I keptcoming back to was that, like Giant
Bomb, I feel like since Ileft, I've looked back with kind of
a clearer picture of what that wholething is, and it was I keep
coming back to it being real,and I think part of that is because

(01:45:11):
we didn't have hands in the pieor corporate marketing stuff or whatever happening.
And also I just see this otherstuff, and I see other streamers and
outlets and everything, and it allfeels like fucking bullshit. You know,
Giant Bomb always felt real, forbetter and for worse than everything. And
I don't think with that real thingthat anyone embodied them more than Benny,
because I don't think there was nevera single moment I've talked to you on

(01:45:31):
streamer off, Benny that you didnot feel like a completely just genuine person,
whether it was like me coming inin the morning and then there was
some dumb bullshit happening on a forumand me and you just be like,
can you believe this bullshit? Orlike something like, you know, I
need to pull you into a roomsomewhere and talk about like some serious career
or life stuff or anxiety stuff orjob performance stuff, or if it was

(01:45:53):
after the fact, after a day, you know, going to the bar
or something, just chatting about whatever, or sharing a room with you,
you know, a game of theyear, literally real, just every single
scenario with Vinny, uh, younever felt like you were getting anything less
than just like a true genuine person. I would say that the best manager
I've ever worked for in any job. Incredible friend, incredible person. I

(01:46:15):
just I can't put you over Benny. You were were incredible to work the
way Dan. Does that mean nowyou believe Vinny that he did not remember
fire all? No? No,no no, But I just want to
make sure my appreciation for Benny isvery clear because you were appreciation train.
Definitely feel very fortunate. I mean, giant bamb was my first job out

(01:46:39):
of college, you know, myfirst career job. So I'll always be
very thankful for my time and verythankful for Benny's guidance and mentorship during that
time. I don't know. Definitelymeans a lot, and we all better
fucking stay friends. Oh yeah,Okay is not a person on this podcast.
I don't want to see your mugas soon as humanly possible, and

(01:47:00):
the fun I'm gonna feel like,I don't know, listening to the bomb
cast and here Vinnie to describe usas like a family. I think it's
very true, Like I doesn't nota very real family with all of these
sort of like I hate their fuckingguts. Yeah, and that comes up

(01:47:24):
being like a family, And Iremember that was a thing that was like
a weird realization when I got thisjob of like I go into an office
five days a week, for likeeight hours a day. I see these
people more than I see anyone elsefor sure, Like, and that was
like a weird realization. But itfelt so fortunate to be with a group
of people who I felt like challengedme creatively and gave me the freedom to

(01:47:47):
do those creative things. And alsolike when I had an idea, especially
as like a twenty four year oldand my first job, like I felt
like everyone was supportive and was likewilling to come in and be like,
Okay, let's give it a try, and I'll forever be thankful for that.
It was thank you. Yeah,it's it's an amazing group of people.
It's like, it's not it was. You were absolutely right. I

(01:48:11):
cannot sugarcoat it was not without itsproblems and stuff, but I you know
some of the best. You know, when Alex and I when we started,
like when we brought this thing intothe East Coast, one of the
missions I had was make sure,no matter what happens, we're talking and
we're gonna be on camera. We'regonna communicate. If there's a problem,
we cannot leave it going, Andfor better or worse, there are a

(01:48:33):
lot of raw wounds. Sometimes there'sa lot of like really awkward conversations that
everybody had to be a part of. But but I think that speaks to
we're all here, like we're allhere, still talking, and we're all
here friends, and like that's that. I'm a middle child, you know,
and like I know the importance ofyou know, I'm a middle child

(01:48:56):
from an Italian American family that screamsa lot. So like I I know
that you can get loud, andyou can get you can get blustery,
but don't sleep. Don't go tobed mad. Yeah, that's don't get
to bed angry. And I alwaysthink that we had the freedom to have
those to hash it out with eachother. Like as many times that we
were laughing on camer in that studio, I was fully crying in that studio.

(01:49:18):
Days was I there until nine pmtrying to hash something out with you?
Yeah, Like we just had differentperspectives on a thing. I suspect
people don't think about that with youand because we present so, but like
there are many times when we werelike, you know, really coming at
something differently, and we're always ableto drill down into Okay, why are

(01:49:40):
we talking past each other? Whyis that we're not aligned on this?
What is the under What is itthe thing that you believe about the world
that's different about that, the situationthat's different about what I believe? And
can we can we not compromise evenbut like come together and realize what that
difference is. I understand each otherexactly and I'm not. I'm like,
I'm not. I know it soundscorny, but like every everyone here made

(01:50:00):
my life more meaningful and better.Like those conversations brought pulled me forward and
pulled me in directions that you youdon't get unless you're just putting yourself in
front of people and having those conversations. And I remember, Austin, you
said it think to me. Idon't even remember the context, but I'll
always remember it. I was talkingto somebody and I don't think it was
anybody in this room actually, butit was like, man, it was

(01:50:21):
just not I just I just leftthat conversation. I made my case and
it just was not penetrating. Andyou said something like that person might not
they you might not think they penetrated, but it might have and like,
right, you might. You mightcome back a day later and they might
just be chewing around on it.And like, as long as you're honest

(01:50:42):
and as long as you make thatcase, like you did the best you
could, a conversation doesn't end whenpeople stopped talking and when people stopped thinking
about what was said. Yeah,that's exactly right. Yeah, And I
feel like that was a lot oflike and that really stuck with me,
And it stuck with me in away that's like hey, like Dan,
you and I have a conversation,or Abbey and I have a conversation,
it's like you get heated up inthe moment and you're making your case,

(01:51:03):
and like I'm a very passionate person. That just is like, you know,
I see red and like ah,and then you don't take a break
and you're like you know what you'relooking right, you had a really good
point. I feel like, youknow, as someone who came into this
job out of college, you know, I grew up a lot because of

(01:51:24):
this job and because of you know, everybody here, and I'm so thankful
for that. I feel like I'veyou know, become like I've got I've
gained a lot of wisdom, andI think that also just comes from being
in front of an audience. Youknow, you learn a lot about yourself
and the way the world works.But I feel like, you know,
there are definitely been times where I'vedone things I'm looking back, I'm like,
I would do things differently now,and I am so grateful for that

(01:51:46):
knowledge and that wisdom that can onlycome with being around people who I think
challenge me, and also being infront of an audience. I don't know,
I think that's an incredible privilege.Trying to figure out how much space
to give the audience and like oneof the hardest things for me right,
Like, I've already done some stuffonline, I had podcasts, et cetera.
But like, realizing that there aregoing to be at all hours someone

(01:52:11):
somewhere on the internet talking about theship you do is one of the strangest
things you have to come to termswith and figuring out where to draw the
line between stuff you would want torespond to or let creep into your brain
and stuff that you're just like forthese people, I may as well be
George Clooney. I don't have them. I don't have George Clooney money,
But like I this is like they'rewatching more and me every year than George

(01:52:31):
Clooney. And I wouldn't be tryingto police what they're saying about George Clooney
unless they were saying something really rudeabout George Clooney that I knew was that
was wrong. But no, likethere's a degree of like and trying to
find that balance coming to Alex andVinny and everybody else a giant bomb.
Who could help me talk about talkthrough like these people on this form said
a mean thing about me? Howwhat am I supposed to do with this?

(01:52:53):
They're wrong? And learning how tolike separate myself from that a little
bit or only care about it whenit really but it really reflected something that
I was already concerned about. Wasa huge lesson to learn. Yeah,
and I feel like that was alwaysa thing that really got me all wound
up, was reading shit that I'mlike, this is not based in reality
at all? It is And everyone'slike, yeah, she doesn't know who's

(01:53:16):
feel berg you know that would tryjust crazy dude. I I think I've
told this story that at that past, which I loved, someone came up
to me, shook my hand andsaid, uh, you're ruining a website
I really love and like to myperson, yeah yeah, like Twitter to

(01:53:38):
this dude's credit, congrats on likesto do it. Yeah totally. But
I was like, you know what, I hope you have a great pass
uh, and I hope I canprove you wrong, and like, I
hope I can like just keep doingthe best work I can do. And
I think developing that sort of nota shell, but like that sort of
like that technique of being able tolike be confident in the stuff that you're

(01:53:58):
making and that it's that it's asgood as you can make it. And
the only way you get that confidenceis by working with people in this team
who helped build that confidence and tellyou, give you guides and kind of
support you when you're taking shots.So and I feel like being able to
have the freedom to make that workthat you're really proud of makes it feel
better when those people are like,oh, they ruined the website and be

(01:54:19):
like fuck you features. I know, yeah exactly. Yeah. I feel
like, uh, you know,when everyone's reminiscing about a lot of the
stuff, you know, I've I'vegot definite fomo there for sure, because
you know, I've always had avery interesting relationship with this with this group.

(01:54:40):
Watch you get to see it andjust observe it all happen around to
hear all of us come complain probablyabout everyone else. Yes, yeah,
I mean, and that's that's youknow, I'm I was happy to be
there for that, you know.And like when I think about E three
and you know, seeing that sendingme out there and just being like,
where the fuck is Bacalar, Like, oh, he's he's probably just hanging

(01:55:00):
out with jib Bob. You gottalike figure out like what you know,
and and and you know, Iwould always I say, I would always
say to my wife like, oh, you know, I gotta go back
out to La, I gotta godo this thing. But deep down,
I'm just like I'm just gonna getto hang out with my friends for a
week and it's gonna be great.It's gonna be a lot of fun.
And I will say I would say, like seventy five percent of our features,

(01:55:24):
we're like back, are you around? Can you happen? Like I
know, but I like there's athere were a couple of things like that
that fantasmagoria session for sure. Youknow, my my favorite memories outside of
the Beast casts and just like,you know, not understanding what Dan was
saying and how anybody could have thatcome out of their mouth ball you know

(01:55:51):
what me Like, that's good becausethat's been animated and you know that that
has just been like a I knowabout Dan's third nipple. I just don't
touch it show his entire that One'sthat one bit where he like couldn't understand

(01:56:13):
that every material object we have inthe world had just like been created with
the raw materials that were on earthall along Like that to me is still
living just a conversation. Remember doyou San didn't know how what butter was?
Oh my god? Can't you thefact that I also forget things immediately?

(01:56:36):
And now when you said that,I realized I still don't know,
but you thought that what do youthink it is? Wait? Wait wait
wait wait wait. I don't wantto. I don't want to derailed too
much, but I will. Buttercomes from milk? Yeah, good work?
What do you do to make it? Do you know? Churn?

(01:56:59):
You just know? Do you knowwhat you're seen? Weird al videos?
I understanding, but yeah, understanding. They are a businessman who runs a
twitch channel. You know what churnis. Yeah, I don't know that
cheese. Recently I did. Imade a real cheese. I kind of
sucked up, but it's still tastedgood. I think on one slice and

(01:57:23):
you're supposed to like split it,but I don't know if the pan had
enough space for two slices. Idon't thought Dan thought cooked meat would go
raw again if you put it backin the fridge. Untossed a salad.
What was that whole? Yea tossingsalad. I don't know. I said

(01:57:44):
it the other day. I understandthis, son, Dan. I had
to explain one time that numbers aren'tcapitalized. No, you didn't understand what
that. You actually made that out. But because you're like are You're like,
no, all numbers were capitalized.That's how that works. That was
just there, not I know grammar. I don't know when it's true,
but I think that's bullshit. Butall that aside, all that aside,
Just as you got finished saying,I don't remember anything anyway. Now,

(01:58:10):
I do want to say something toto everybody. I mean one, I'm
I'm using a different keyboard today.So just in case I puke, I
don't ruin my favorite keyboard. Idon't know, but like Abby, what
you said right about the whole ideaof like it being a family, I
know that that feels like a copout, right, what's that you stole

(01:58:30):
from Vinnie? You know it's it'stotally true, right, It's absolutely true.
I could not stand behind that sentimentanymore. You know, I want
you all to know that I loveyou very much and I mean that,
and the cheek is that, honestly, I would be hugged. I wish,
I really wish I could hug allof you and give you all kisses

(01:58:54):
on the cheeks. Can get readyfor a kiss on the cheek because it's
happening. I mean, I saidpost card, Well the postcard maybe the
postcard thing, But I just wantto thank you all for being, uh,
being the friends that I absolutely needed. You know, when Vinny and

(01:59:15):
Alex when you came to the NewYork office, there was something and I
think this feeling is mutual, wherelike you know, it just felt like,
uh, there was this relationship thatwas always kind of there. It
just felt like I we knew eachother. I we didn't really I know,
I had seen Alex a few timesat events, and Vinny, I

(01:59:38):
would only maybe see you at Ethree and sort of from Afar and like
the game Spot war Room. Andyou know, there was something that happened
when you when the two of youcame over from uh, you know,
when you came into the New Yorkoffice and and that clicked and it just
it just felt like I had knownyou my entire life, really, and
I feel like every now and thenyou have at where you meet a person

(02:00:00):
and you're just like, oh,I'm going to get along with this person
forgetter back on. And that happenedwith with all five of you. Absolutely
that you know, I and Ido mean that familial thing. It is.
It is uh, it is soprecious and important and rare and a
thing that when you find it youhave to embrace and you have to just

(02:00:23):
hold it and hug it, andyou know it. Just having all of
us here together makes me feel sowarm and so smiley and just like a
big thank you, And you know, let this moment be a celebration,
right and and be a sort ofyou know, of our friendships, of

(02:00:45):
all the things that we've done togetherand independently here and whatever the future holds,
I know there's no end. Thisis not this is not goodbye forever.
It's it's smell you later, specifically, Dan, come on, smell
man, smell back thing the thingback. I am not no fleanly man.

(02:01:15):
I'm you are, You're You're.I've slept at your apartment. I
felt clean. It was it wasthank you, thank you. There was
karaoke night when a little bit likeI could I know everyone's smell. I
know we were very close. That'sa saying like you like, there is
this relationship that you we have thatI do not have with anybody else but

(02:01:38):
Backlar that that also speaks to you, and like how likable and personable of
a person you are is. Ididn't know you at all. I don't
think I had ever met you ata at a pax or anything. I
had never heard you on the BeastCast. And when I came out to
join the Beast Cast, one ofthe first days, we were walking to
the subway together and you walked withme and you were just like, oh,

(02:01:58):
man, I can't wait to workwith you. Know, I've heard
your stuff on the West Coast andeverything like just kid like you were just
the most personal, Like it seemedlike you were an immediate friend and we
had never interacted in any way,and I we're getting on the subway.
We went our separate ways, andthey're like, I can't wait to work
with that guy. He seems great, Like back while, you're incredible.
Really, I I've always found youso charming. I remember when I first

(02:02:18):
started working seeing you be like buddybuddy with Binny, Dan and Alex and
be like what on me? Wasso satisfying when I was like, we're
buddies now and I'm like, fromthe desk and talk and pick up all
the weird trinkets that are there,and look at your wedding photo, which
I love. You know that thingwhere in it happens in like rom coms

(02:02:40):
mostly, but you know, twofriends are able to like psychically connect and
like communicate when something when a thirdthing in the room is happening that's very
awkward or embarrassing for someone else.I think like you and I've had that
exact moment at a thousand different PRevents where we're like, we went into
each other. This is while wewere there, while I was still there,
even after I went to way point, but like you and I would
be at a Nintendo event and someonewould say something a little weird and from

(02:03:04):
across the room you're I'm like,did that just And that's like again you
or you were like a brother tome. We I am. You put
me at ease in a way thatis something very few people can do.
And being able to bounce stuff offof you and talk through what my next
steps are going to be in anythinglarge or small, or to talk through

(02:03:26):
just like am I coming at thisright? Do I have? Is my
head screwed on? Right? Doesanything? Let's make any sense? And
having you be able to like callme down and be like, well,
what's your situation like right now?What else is going on? What are
you not talking about? Sometimes rightit can can really really bring the best
out of me and and help youknow so and and also you know,
just two Jersey boys, and Ithink that always gave us a very particular

(02:03:48):
bond. You know, definitely doesn'thurt, doesn't doesn't hurt. Yeah.
I mentioned it on the bomb castand I'll say it again here. What
you see on camera is just areally small part of what happens out a
site like this, especially when you'reworking with a lot of people and even
a few people, and you don'tyou don't get paid to talk to somebody

(02:04:11):
about their day. That's not that'snot you don't build that hour and it's
not something, but it's so important, and you know, having a rapport
with people is very important. Andyou know, Baclard, that just is
I do I do not lie.It is a superpower. You're one of
the best at it. I've everseen in ways that I've so I've been
with Dan and I've seen the villainside of it. I'm like, May

(02:04:33):
Jane, you remember like, hey, we can sneak into this thing.
And I was like, I feelcompletely uncomfortable doing this. And we were
at E three or something, andit was just like, you're you're gonna
get us in trouble. You're gonnaget that person in trouble, and you're
like, just act confident and wecan get in there, and like we
can get through. And I'm justlike, oh, they're gonna get in
trouble. I can't. And likethere's another side of it that's like Bacalard
that does the long game of likeyou walk back up to that person and

(02:04:55):
be like Billy, like, hey, Bacalar, like you got your best
friends? Yeah, it took gointo his house for three weeks. I
know it's kids, you know,they never were in the thing, and
like it's a it's a really amazingquality and one that I'm jealous of.
I bet we're all jealous of herebecause I feel like in some way we
were all kind of socially awkward ina way that you know, we walk
out of the room and we're like, I'm an idiot what I say?

(02:05:15):
Like that person probably thinks I'm anidiot or whatever. And it's always like
when you see somebody who's so goodat it and so confident, you're like
Ryan Davis had this as well.Ryan Davis had that kind of like ease
of of just being like how doeshe make people just like him? Like
why how do you do that?Like? Yeah, I remember people would
come up to us when we wouldsit at the desks at our thing,

(02:05:38):
and we'd all be like, hey, how you doing okay? Like good,
I don't really know who you are, And then the person would leave
and be like, oh boy,I just kind of want to get the
work. I don't really you know, and it's like not you know,
you know, it's like we're we'refriendly, we're nice people, but humans
are tough, humans are hard,And like you got the secret playbook,
I don't know how you did it, and you're just you're just good at

(02:05:58):
it. You're just you're just youdamn good at it. It's unfair for
the rest of us. Should weget out of here? I got some
late breaking news as the erstwhile GiantBomb News editor. A sequel to Judgment
was leaked. I think there's asequel to Judgment in development. A lost
Judgment, not leak it PlayStation seemsto get excited, Alex. Yeah,

(02:06:24):
good, but I don't care aboutany game news anymore. Okay, I
love you all. I'm so thankfulto you all. I can't wait until
we can all hang out again.Yeah, definitely. It is definitely a
see you later, not a goodbye. There are there are I've said this
a couple of times now since uh, you know, announced we're leaving.

(02:06:45):
There are too many people to thankfor for all of this that make this
happen. I can't possibly do it. I will leave too many people out.
But some people that you know,the mod's on the site who who
have been there trying to handle alot of that front line of stuff.
I want to thank you again,everybody who has positively supported us and given

(02:07:08):
us time in their lives of fansand everybody else who's come to We talked
about packs a bit, and Ione of the reasons I started this site,
and one of the hardest things aboutdoing this site was I never felt
I deserved deserved it. That's bullshit. Yeah, you're right, I did

(02:07:34):
feel it. No, I never. No. I like people who would
come up and be like signing thisthing, I why, Like it's like,
like, you come on this side, you do it. You're better
at these games than I am.Like I just get up there and make
fart noises in the microphone like itis. It is humbling, it is.
It is truly humbling, humbling,especially when somebody's nervous and comes up

(02:07:57):
to you and you just want tohug them and say you like you,
I am just you, you andI are. There's no dividing line here,
like those are the people that Istarted this for, or that I
wanted to make this for. Idon't know if y'all have felt this,
maybe just because I came in,Like, I feel like this team is
so good, it does such agood job that I'm like, if you

(02:08:20):
hired anyone, it would have beensuccessful, you know, Like I don't
know. I mean, that's notgiving myself enough credit, but like,
okay, I just love something thatcome in and like y'all make it so
easy to like do a good joband be happy and like have fun on
stream and like I felt, Ialways felt so taken care of on streams
for the most part, which y'allforever be thankful for. Yeah, I
felt that way too. I alwaysI always described it as you know,

(02:08:43):
it's a high wire act with abig net, like you have you have
somebody somebody there who's willing when youtell a clunker there I go call you
out on it and make it funny. Or you know, they're they're they're
there to support you, and that'ssuper important. I can't tell you how
many times, you know, withall the pack stuff or panels and things
we did, or even a podcast, like, there were times where I
would feel like with my anxiety stuff, as something would be peaking randomly,

(02:09:07):
then I could pull any of youaside and just be like, hey,
I just want to give your headsup. I'm feeling real shitty right now.
I don't know if this is goingto subside or if this is going
to peak into a level where Ican't go out there, but I just
want to let you know and likeevery single person here and also on the
West Coast, uh incredible about everything. Always made me feel at ease.
And that's why I never had tolike skip something, never had to like

(02:09:28):
you know, I always went outthere and got it done because I always
felt like I was supported by everyone. It's humans. It's people. It's
it's it's it's really the thing.It's it's from from the beginning of Giant
Bomb. It's a Giant Bomb East. It's it's people. To respect people
is listen to people. Games area part of it for what we've done,

(02:09:52):
but remember it's people and it's theyou know, be kind and and
and respectful and mindful. Let's let'splay the music. Let's play the music,
notrection. Are the correction, correction, correction. Everybody's great and I
love you. There were so manyemails though that had come in in the

(02:10:16):
last you know, four days,that it kind of did broke outlook a
little bit yeah, I will apologizeright now. If you sent an email,
I'm trying to get through them.I will probably lose access to that
account in about twenty four hours ish, so if I didn't get to it,
I still got them. Don't worry. Okay, let's let's do this

(02:10:37):
before we play the music. Abbyonce again, Where can people follow you
and find you? Great? Youcan follow me, I'm so sorry you're
ready, Twitch or Twitter really anywherewith this handle because my name is common
and I can't get the real one. It's at why b B A A
A B b y as it standsnow, I streamed a Twitch every weekday.

(02:11:03):
Released sweet community there. Everyone's sonice and lovely and I'm very proud
of the community that has come upthere. I think they're all a bunch
of real sweeties. But that's whatI'm doing right now, you know,
And if you want updates, alwaysfollow me on Twitter or just fun jokes.
I hope, Dan? Where canpeople find you and follow you?
Three quick plugs Twitch, Dan ReichertPanning the stream and fire Escape Cast or

(02:11:28):
the two podcasts there Austin Twitter dotcom, slash Austin Underscore Walker for me,
you can go to Friends Underscore Tablefor friends of the Table stuff more
underscore, civilized for a more civilizedage, Our Star Wars podcast dot com,
slash Waypoint, Waypoint Advice dot comwhich is called Waypoint again. By

(02:11:50):
the way, sometime this year wejust back over to wait Point. We
got all logo back and everything,uh, and some fun announcements for that
coming sometime in the near future,so look forward to that. Thank you
for having all of us on here, of course, and Alex, I'm
so happy to be part of thisbecause it has been such a huge part
of I think all of our lives. Uh, you know, the beast

(02:12:13):
Cast was something that like became sucha key part of the way I felt
the week and I think that's probablytrue for a lot of people. Is
that like it sent you home forthe weekend, you know what I mean.
Obviously if you worked on it,you also have to come in the
next day. But it was anice thing because like not every feature had
everybody, but the beast Cast alwayshad everybody. Yes, Alex, where

(02:12:35):
can people find you? Oh God, I didn't even think about this.
Well, I guess I'm on Twitter, Alex Underscore Navarro, just like it
says on my little zoom call thingthere. Uh yeah, that's kind of
it. I don't really go otherplaces. I probably have a Twitter account.
I haven't used it in a longtime. Maybe I will. Maybe
I will with the dear future.Who knows you can. I'm on Twitter

(02:12:58):
as well. I think it's atviney Vell. I'm pretty sure that's it.
I think I have an Instagram.Might be Vin Caravella. He's doing
what you were doing it. You'redoing it for like six months, weren't
you. I want, yeah,yeah, I Want'll probably put some more
woodwork and stuff on there, someminiature painting and the tis now's the time.

(02:13:22):
I think I have a twitch.I think it might be mind Cavity
though, so is it was Dan? Is it? Is it my Cavity
ago? Yes? Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite transformer to transform?
Oh my gosh, to get thatone? You'll have to in the answer

(02:13:43):
to that to either Abbey's Streams,Dance streams, streams. For Jeff mclard,
you're gonna be around. You've gotyou've got the keys. Now keep
the lock the house up when we'regone, and keep the neighborhood keep safe.
Okay, I will try to dothat I trust you like nobody else.
So thank you and thank you all, love you very much. I'm

(02:14:07):
gonna play the music here, whichmeans that we still have about forty five
seconds the banter, but we don'thave to say what's coming up or what's
five seconds? What are you goingto do? I don't know. Well,
if you want to tune in forpodcast on this sweet podcast, there

(02:14:28):
was a fart, so it happenedmentioned we three shout outs kalifa, Yeah,
I always shout al right. Igot about thirty seconds, folks.
I really, I really can't sayenough good things about the people on this

(02:14:50):
on this podcast right here, andthanks again for everybody who has listened over
the years. Thanks everybody who hassupported in and outside the building. Thank
you for driving this thing. Ithas been an honor and a pleasure.
New York is a great place tobe in New York. New Jersey's pretty

(02:15:11):
good too. Brought that New Yorkflavor. You know, it's all right,
Thanks everybody for supporting us. Iwill again say this might be farewell
for now, but I'm sure we'llsee each other soon. Pe've been listening
to the number one podcast in theuniverse, and you should be proud of

(02:15:31):
that, as proud as I am. The giant Peace cast