T2tN 0.5: Introducing... Us!

Welcome to Talk 2 the Nerd!

Episode 0.5: Introducing... Us!

No this isn't a podcast about the human foot, it's a podcast about nerds! Just for you.

Talking points:

D&D (Emphasis on DRAGONS!)

E.T. the gardening alien

Text me at my email!

Transcript available below

Thanks for listening!

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Ryan: Athlete's feet.

Richard: We're not gonna talk about athlete's feet as the opening to our podcast. *laughing* That's not gonna happen.

Ryan: You said you have athlete's feet. It's called athlete's FOOT, let's start there.

Richard: Okay. Fine.

Ryan: There's no plural. It's one gross organism.

Richard: Okay, but, again, we are not gonna talk about it to open our podcast.

Ryan: So, how do we wanna start?

Richard: Alright, well, I am Richard--

Ryan: No, I hate that.

Richard: *laughs*

Ryan: I hate that.

*intro music plays*

Ryan: Hello everyone, and welcome to Talk 2 the Nerd! I am Ryan.

Richard: And I am Richard.

Ryan: You're just so regal about it, aren't you?

Richard: I am. I am. I'm-- I am-- I am an eloquent-- *silence*

Ryan: You're so good at this.

Richard: *laughing*

Ryan: "I am an eloquent."

Richard: Yeah, well--

Ryan: Is that your new noun?

Richard: Uh, that is a new noun, yes.

Ryan: Okay, awesome, fantastic.

Richard: Thank you.

Ryan: Well, uh, let's go ahead and introduce ourselves to our lovely audience. We're purposely making this episode just a little shorter for you, about, probably, 15 minutes just so we can kind of introduce ourselves and what got us into the nerd universe as a whole. So, Richard. tell me a little bit about yourself.

Richard: Alright, well, uh, I am a very big nerd. Let's start there. Uh, I also just want to point out-- the word nerd is such an inclusive term and I absolutely love it. There's no stigmas on that word at all, I absolutely love being a nerd.

Ryan: Not anymore, anyway.

Richard: Yeah, there really isn't. There used to be a big stigma of, like, "oh, you're a nerd?" It's like, naw--

Ryan: "Nerd! You're a geek!"

Richard: "You're a nerd!" It's like, no! Like, I am a nerd, I'm proud of it, I love it. So, I love everything nerd. I love superheros. I'm a huge DnD player, and DM. Um, I love lore of any kind, whether it be mythology, or video game, or any of that nature; I love the lore of these items, and so I've spent--I kid you not--hours reading every Wikipedia page about Captain America and his shield.

Ryan: Oh, wow.

Richard: Uh, that--yeah, no, that was me.

Ryan: I did that, but I was 12, and it was PBS Kids Go characters. Specifically, WordGirl.

Richard: *laughs* WordGirl.

Ryan: I wanted to hit that.

Richard: She was-- she was cute as a kid. As a kid.

Ryan: As a kid.

Richard: She's just obnoxious as an adult. *laughs*

Ryan: Well, no, I still think it's great. That show was--

Richard: For kids? Great. No, but like, as an adult, and, like, my daughter watches it? And I'm just like--

Ryan: The villains are-- It's the villains that make that for me. I mean, they are so--we're gonna have to get into that a whole other episode.

Richard: A whole other something else. Alright, what about you Ryan? What makes you a nerd?

Ryan: Oh gosh, there's so much. Um, my dad collected comics. He also played first edition Dungeons & Dragons growing up.

Richard: First edition?

Ryan: Yeah, first edition. So, ya know, original Gary Gygax and.. I don't even remember the other guy's name, which is a problem cause Gary Gygax was actually the racist misogynist out of the two.

Richard: Yeah..

Ryan: I recently, within the past few years, got into Dungeons & Dragons, specifically as a DM. Didn't start off as Dungeons & Dragons; It actually started off as my own little system, and my first ever one was the zombie apocalypse, and Richard you were actually--

Richard: You and I both played--I was one of the players in that campaign. Uh, you were actually my first DM, and I think you were one of the first people that, like, really got me into Dungeons & Dragons. The idea of dragons-- like, I love dragons. Eragon, the Inheritance Series, specifically, is one my favorite book series. We're actually listening to that on audiobook right now. Amazing book series. But dragons in general, I was fascinated. And then you introduced me to the idea of Dungeons & Dragons through this campaign that was completely outside of that system and I got hooked immediately. I loved it. I also love acting in general, and, like, DnD is acting with a story that you're creating and it's amazing.

Ryan: Yeah, and that's why I like it so much. Um, I also grew up with video games, and then didn't grow up with video games, and then grew up with video games.. So, like, living in a very conservative, somewhat sheltered--pretty sheltered--homeschooling household. And so we had a PlayStation 2 for, like, a hot minute.

Richard: *laughs*

Ryan: We had a PlayStation 1 for a hot minute. I played LarryBoy on the PlayStation 2.

Richard: Okay, okay.. But what was your first station?

Ryan: PlayStation.

Richard: Me too.

Ryan: It was my first gaming system.

Richard: And I got it, like, when the PlayStation 2 came out.

Ryan: Oh wow.

Richard: Yeah, it was, like.. late into the game, my parents finally bought a ps1. No, I take that back-- my first was the Game Boy Color.

Ryan: See, that was technically--technically--my second one. That was my personal first one. The PlayStation was technically my dads. We're talking semantics. The Game Boy Color was actually my first one. What games did you have for the Game Boy Color?

Richard: I had Rampage.. game with, like, the monsters.

Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Originally for... Sega? Or, no. Was it Nintendo?

Richard: I don't remember. That was one we played. Uh, I had that one. We had a couple of, uh, I dont even--we definitely played some of the Mario games, but I don't remember if that was on the Game Boy Color or not, but we played several of those. Once we finally graduated to an actual station, though--No, I'm gonna go back. On the Game Boy Color--this is kinda how funny it was--we had, like, these modifiers to the screen. Like, you would attach this piece to the front of your Game Boy Color, and it would have--instead of the four pad d-stick--it had an actual joystick, like, an actual controller, on one side. On the other side, it had bigger buttons so they were easier to press. It also had a light on the screen so you could see the screen, cause the Game Boy Color didn't have a backlit screen, so like--

Ryan: Yeah, I had, like, that--not the USB--but the fat, like, weird one that I would plug in and it was, like, the light would shine--

Richard: Yeah, we had some of those, but this one was a magnifying glass so you could put it on top of the screen, like, you could pull it out, so it had, like, this little zoom in feature..

Ryan: Okay? Okay.

Richard: With a light on the back so you could still see the screen. Oh--it also had fold out speakers..

*silence*

Richard: ..the speakers would fold out and you could, like, turn the volume up even more.

Ryan: Are you serious?

Richard: I'm dead serious. This was, like, the best thing ever. It was amazing.

Ryan: Wow.

Richard: And we would take these on road trips all the time.

Ryan: Yeah.

Richard: Yeah, it was the greatest.

Ryan: Uh, first games that I owned were Scooby-Doo.. that was fun. It was a Scooby-Doo game. Super Mario Bros. There was a LEGO game based off of the.. it's The Expendables, right? Um, but it wasn't The Expendables. It was, like, uh, "The Adventure Force," or something..

Richard: Okay, okay.

Ryan: And then I had an ET plant game. So, you have to go to different planets, and you have seeds that you have to cross-breed to find different kinds of plants.

Richard: ...what game were you playing?

Ryan: It's ET. It's ET.

Richard: That's so weird. ET had nothing--so, I've only seen the movie once, I'm gonna make that clear. ET had nothing to do with plants.

Ryan: No, it didn't. It was like it took place--in fact, pretty sure the starting scene was taking off from Earth.

Richard: *laughs* So bizarre.

Ryan: And then you getting sent to a different place, like, hey, start.. planting... shit?

Richard: *laughs*

Ryan: And, like, the first six flowers are, like, easy. And then after that it's, like, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?

Richard: What in the world--it's so funny to me when I watch video games that, like, take stuff and they're like "this is an ET game!" No, this has nothing to do with--

Ryan: They use the characters.

Richard: Vaguely. *laughs*

Ryan: Because that's the thing--ET doesn't do shit.

Richard: *laughs* I know!

Ryan: It's just--you could have not even had a character in it. You didn't even have to have a character in it.

Richard: That's so funny.

Ryan: You could have just-- *character walking noises* --but no! ET walks around, picks stuff up, drops stuff off, waters this, waters that. I don't remember all of it, but--

Richard: How did you get a farming sim from ET?

Ryan: I don't know, but I still want to find it and play it cause I got my Game Boy Advance over there somewhere.

Richard: Okay, so let's talk about, uh, going to Game Boy Advances, and kinda leveling up past the Game Boy Colors, we had--

Ryan: PC gaming.

Richard: Well, PC gaming--

Ryan: PC gaming is superior.

Richard: Well, okay, so, I am a PC gamer--

Ryan: Played Age of Empires, that was my big one.. other than, like, everything by the Learning Company.

Richard: Okay, so we had--one of the first games we played was on a, uh, we had a Mac that my dad owned. He used it a lot for work, but he had brought home--

Ryan: Ew.

Richard: I know, but it was a.. we played some, like.. typing games.

Ryan: *laughs*

Richard: But we were also home-schooled, too, so.. we, like, played typing games. And we had this small, portable computer--it wasn't a laptop, but it was a box that was about, probably about two feet long, and about a foot tall. And it had this keyboard that you detach from the front of it and set it on the ground and you played it, and it was literally just a box, and it was a computer, like laptop, but bigger. Um, it was probably about a foot deep, too. So imagine this rectangle box. We had one of these.

Ryan: Excuse me?

Richard: Yeah, no, we had one. It was real. Um.. yeah.

Ryan: O-okay? I've never heard of this.

Richard: Yeah, it was a real thing. We played games on it all the time. There was one where--

Ryan: Did you play freakin' Pong on it?

Richard: No, we played Goldigger. Have you ever played Golddigger? It was so good. *whispers* So good.

Ryan: Is that a game where you go around and you pick up hot chicks to see if they're actually gonna go in your car because they like you or because you're rich? Is that what the game is about?

Richard: No, it's actually about a miner who runs around collecting gold.

Ryan: Oh--gold digger. That makes sense.

Richard: Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah. Mhm.

Richard: Yeah.. but it was great. We, uh, played that. There was another one where we were like--I can't remember the name of it--but we were like some caveman who like ran around and, like, fought stuff. It was ridiculous.

Ryan: Sounds like a blast.

Richard: Yeah, but it was good. So, we played those. And then after that we finally graduated to ps1, ps2, and so on. And then, you know.. grew up.

Ryan: Cool. In my opinion, I have an Xbox One, but like.. computer gaming has always been superior, in my mind, out of everything. Now, I love handheld devices. I have a Nintendo Switch. I play Solitaire..

Richard: You play Solitaire on your Nintendo Switch?

Ryan: *laughs* I have Solitaire World on my Switch.

Richard: That's hilarious.

Ryan: But I also have Mario Kart. I have Super Smash Bros. I have--I borrowed--the squid paint.. Splatoon. The one I am currently playing on though right now is one that Nintendo is--I feel like they've been.. not famous for, but--Scribblenauts.

Richard: Oh--Scribblenauts. That's on PC, too. I have it on PC.

Ryan: Is it really?

Richard: Yeah, I like that game.

Ryan: Okay. Scribblenauts is great. It's very creative.

Richard: It's very silly. It's adorable, I love it.

Ryan: Yeah, it's fun. I sit there and I actually use it with my daughter and start spelling words out and we create stuff.

Richard: Your daughter's like four months old!

Ryan: So?

Richard: *laughs*

Ryan: We teach 'em from an early age. It's amazing all the stuff that they start, like, self-ingraining into their brains and stuff. It's awesome.

Richard: Yeah, no, I did that with--

Ryan: It's why we don't watch Cocomelon.

Richard: True. Don't even get me started on Cocomelon. Uh, no, we--

Ryan: Ew.

Richard: I know. We play--I used to play that game with my little siblings, cause it's been a few years since that game came out, and so I played it with my little siblings who are, like, 10 years, 15 years younger than me. Um, so we'll all play with them occasionally, like, "hey, what do you want to do here? What idea do you have that you think will solve this problem?" and what, like, their minds work. Cause watching little kids come up with, like, problem solving is, like, the best thing ever. Cause, like, if you think we're nerds, look at little kids and, like, watch them come up with stuff, it's amazing.

Ryan: Yeah.

Richard: So. Outside of video games, what is--like, if you could have one topic of nerdom--

Ryan: Dungeons & Dragons.

Richard: Yeah.

Ryan: I'm not even gonna let you finish that question.

Richard: Yeah, same.

Ryan: I would get rid of every single video game, I would get rid of every single comic book, I would get rid of every single piece of nerd media for Dungeons & Dragons.

Richard: Yeah, not gonna lie..

Ryan: Here's the problem, though. I wouldn't. I wouldn't give up all that. Here's the reason--because all that helps create your story. Dungeons & Dragons--people don't realize, it's a subconscious and conscious--is you pull so many ideas from multiple different types of media. I've seen superhero roleplays, I've seen detective roleplays; I've seen roleplays based off of Doctor Who, the Alien franchise..

Richard: Well, I was even watching an anime yesterday, and I was thinking, "man, this--the thing that they said in this anime would make an amazing world element in a DnD game." Like, wonderful. And so yeah, all of it just forms DnD--

Ryan: Well, so, the anime that's currently going right now.. we're watching--me and my friend are watching--The World's Finest Assassin--No, The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat. That's the title. That's the full title. He's basing his whole character off of that. It's a really cool idea, because it's a guy from the modern world who gets thrown into a fantasy world--he's not really using that aspect of it, but it's an example of pulling in from different kinds of media.

Richard: Yeah. I think with every.. so, like, I've spent many, many hours listening to Critical Role, and the McElroy podcast, the Adventure Zone..

Ryan: Yeah, the Adventure Zone is what got me into Dungeons & Dragons.

Richard: So the Adventure Zone is one of the first DnD podcasts that I listened to. And then I spent literally a hundred plus hours listening to Critical Role campaign 2. Like, hundreds of hours. It's insane.

Ryan: I've been listening to Adventure Zone, Join the Party, and Dimension 20.

Richard: Yeah, Dimension 20 is also really good.

Ryan: Brennan Lee Mulligan is amazing.

Richard: Yeah. So, watching these amazing DMs and collecting these pieces from their knowledge and their wisdom, and coming and taking that, builds into the storylines in my head and the campaigns that I'm creating and helps to really build up into what we are. It's like, so, people--and I've heard this a lot--

Ryan: And Dungeons & Daddies. Dungeons & Daddies is a great one.

Richard: Yes. Dungeons & Daddies is so good.

Ryan: Sorry. Continue.

Richard: Um, I think it's funny when we have these riffs in nerd culture. It's like, "I'm an anime nerd!" and "I'm a superhero nerd!" It's, like, why are you selecting one issue to--it's like, no, they are all so good, and we can all kind of enjoy each other. You don't have to like anime, you don't have to like superheroes, and you don't have to like DnD, but, like, taking for what they are, and being excited and enjoying the culture and the world--it's fun. So, as we do this podcast, we're going to be talking more and more about these nerdoms, about what we're excited about, and really hoping to include all kinds of the "concept of nerd" into our show. We just enjoy all of it--and so, the more that we can bring to you guys, the more that we're going to be excited to do that.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, are you a nerd about comics? Are you a nerd about music? Are you a nerd about, like, the forecast..

Richard: *laughs*

Ryan: Are you a nerd about.. landscaping? Are you a nerd--

Richard: I will even take, "are you a nerd about sports?" You know, what I'm learning is that even sports has it's own nerdom.

Ryan: Oh yeah.

Richard: Cause, like, I've never--for a long time, I didn't understand why people would watch sports because I'm like "it's so dumb.." but I will spend--

Ryan: For the same reason we watch people play video games on YouTube.

Richard: ..Hours listening to someone play DnD, like, rolling dice, but like.. yeah, its the same thing, right?

Ryan: Like, why are you sitting there listening to the radio about people kicking a ball, or throwing a ball, or this and that.. And then people --"why are you listening about podcasts of people who throw plastic with numbers on them?"

Richard: It's like, yeah, you have a point.

Ryan: We have a point. It's because our balls have numbers on them.

Richard: *laughs*

Ryan: Just ask my wife--no.

*laughing*

Richard: Alright, well. Uh, yeah, so if you have any questions--and if you say, "well, I would like to learn more about this" right? We have an email. Shoot us an email at talk2thenerd@gmail.com.

Ryan: That's "talk," the number 2, "the nerd," at Gmail dot com.

Richard: And we would love to discuss those. We would love to talk about if you have a question, like "hey, why do dragons have two wings?" Well, we can talk about that.

Ryan: Yeah, we can do some research. Um, it can be, honestly, anything related. You shoot us a question, we would love to answer it.

Richard: Yep, anything. Please, shoot us a text--or an email.

Ryan: "Shoot us a text at Gmail address." Yeah.

Richard: I think it's possible, actually.

Ryan: Actually, you know what, I think it is.

Richard: Anyway, shoot us an email, we would love to talk to you. And, yeah. It would just be great, we would love to talk to you.

Ryan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright, well, that's gonna conclude our intro. My name is Ryan Hall.

Richard: And my name is Richard Lasco. And come back next time, and you, too, can talk to the nerd.

Ryan: *outro sound effects*

Richard: *laughs*