Echo Chamber Post Game Episode 93

 CORRECTION FROM PREVIOUS EPISODE: Paolo's not in training to become an officer. It was a Citizen's class, meant to educate the public about how the city's cops operate and why/how they do what they do, with some dept. history thrown in.

CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE AT THE BROWSER AND DOWNLOAD

Before I get in to the nitty gritty, this should be required reading.

So should this.

-Remember, if you want to use free meals and free trips to bribe journalists to give your game a good score, it's the journalists fault, but a common practice. But if you use your genitals, then it's the developers fault and is UNACCEPTABLE!!!

-OK, so as I mentioned last week with Ferguson, I'm going to state here at the top:

The main thing that ties all of this together is that we, as a country, have a massive problem with insecurity.

It's a shitty feeling, like your whole world's going to come crashing down. A sick family member, not sure if you're going to be laid off tomorrow or not, those are things we're all afraid of. But the feeling that you're no longer "special"? Well, it's always hard to lose a family member, and if they're sick, there's no guarantee they'll get better. Same with losing a job. While those are all things we can plan around, there's a lot of work involved.

But the insecurity I'm talking about? The kind that involves other people? That's WAY easier to fix. Not everyone is out to get you. What gets me through these hard feelings if focusing on what I can do versus what I have. Thinking about you can still give is a lot less stressful than what you can have taken away.

It's a notion I've felt ever since the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and has been confirmed with both the election of President Obama and the recent shit that's going on. The feeling, and the confirmation that we're not worth what we think we are is a really awful one to have.

Overmilitarization of.... everything?
"We can't be respected on our own merits, so we'll just have the biggest toys to compensate"

The Zoe Quinn fiasco and Anita Sarkessian forced out of her home because she was threatened?
"The fact that women are allowed to act and live without relation to men means that I, a male, would have to make myself acceptable to them. As a shitty person, this scares me"

All of the money going toward the rich, and keeping the minimum wage low?
"Money is the only thing I have and is directly equal to my worth as a human being"

Gun lobbyists saying "EVERYTHING'S FINE, DON'T TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS OBAMA" saying "Well, MAYBE if he had access to some counseling/therapy..."
"I need this gun, as it is the only thing that makes me feel powerful"

Women and minorites wanting to close the wage gap?
"I suck at my job, and someone who doesn't look like me might be better at it..."

Who has the most to be taken away? The Heterosexual White Male. And what they can have taken away isn't something tangible (except in the case of the Rick White Heterosexual Male, which is obviously money), it's a position of power that really hasn't been earned, at least in the modern era.

Enough of that, on to the fun recappy stuff:

-At least JonTron didn't fuck up any worse since-

(in response to Tim Schafer promoting a Feminist Frequency video)

-Kung Pow: Enter The Fist! WATCH IT!!!


-Also, Kaijudo was a show, and no, nobody cared. Or at least enough for a third season:


-Episode 1 of "Damn You, Scooby Doo":
OLD MAN JENKINS: Ever since my wife died, it's been up to me to keep the old amusement park running. However, after taking care of her for so long when she was sick, the city had to close the place down. However, I think I can fix it up again, it's what the missus would have wanted.

DUMBASS TEENAGER #1: Jinkies gang! Let's get fucking plastered in the abandoned theme park!

DUMBASS TEENAGER #2: I'm going to have sex with all of you!

OLD MAN JENKINS: Damn it! I was just about to burn my old KKK uniform after wearing it one last time, and these kids interrupt my mourning of my dead wife! It was my dying wife who showed me the error of my racist ways! I should speak to them and ask them to leave.

OLD MAN JENKINS gets hit in the crotch.

OLD MAN JENKINS: OOOOOOOOOOHHH!!!

DUMBASS TEENAGER #1: Jeepers! It's a GHOST! THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED!!!

-ALSO, PAOLO RECOGNIZE MY EARLY 2000s CARTOON KNOWLEDGE

Status Quo Sunday Slam Masters

Oh, that's a good way to start RAW: old dudes talking about John Cena. Also, the Bella Twins """acting""".

Not a lot to show for this week, unfortunately.

I do want to get the SQR train moving, so this week will be getting emails for my artists list, so that next week I can send out the official "HEY GUYS WE'RE DOING IT!!!" thing.

Two songs in the works, and my Dad getting his craniotomy has thrown a wrench in a lot of things right now. Neither of these two songs are directly related to Status Quo Radio, it's more suited to my show at Umicon Daytona next weekend, which will officially be called "Umicon Music Initiative" or "U.M.I.". The two songs I do plan on releasing simultaneously, since they are so wildly different in content. I'm currently jobless right now, so while I'll be on the job hunt, I won't have a 11-hour block of time where I STRAIGHT UP CAN'T DO THE THING.

Since this week's a little light, I'd like to talk about something my brother said to me in the car the other day:

"How come you don't right about anything real?"

Now, one philosophy I've always had with my music is "Themes, Not Memes". When I write a song about a thing, I want to attach something else to it. Take for example, my latest song, "Hunting Bigger Game" Yes, it's obviously about Magic: The Gathering, but it IS the attitude I have when I go out on Friday nights to play. I'm seeing old friends, meeting people, and we hang out plenty outside of the comic shop. The feeling that the weekend started, and you're set to kick some ass? That's something everyone's felt.

So I asked him, "What do you mean?"

He responded, "Well, have you ever thought about writing a song about [an old girlfriend of yours]? You don't write about love or anything that much."

I shrugged it off, but keep in mind a couple things:
1. I don't want to write about the same things everyone else. Songs about love are everywhere, and songs that cover the subject without feeling generic ("We Are Never Getting Back Together" and "Fuck You" come to mind as recent examples) are few and far between.

2. My songwriting process is different than that. I don't see my songs coming from any place, emotion is just one of the pieces I use, and I make a song, I'm combining riffs, and parts and trying to find new ways to have the different instruments work together. I guess that's the engineer in me.

3. He likes Train, and that song "Rude" by Magic! so his opinion on music should be disqualified.

See you next week!

Echo Chamber's Post Gaming In The 90's

ALL RIGHT, STOP, COLLABORATE AND DOWNLOAD EPISODE 90

-WeffRiddles.com is still up.

-Road Trippin' by Red Hot Chili Peppers:


-Abracadabrafornia:

This is scary in how accurate it is...

-MYSTAKIN STREAMS HERE YOU GO

But he's moving and streaming will be difficult?


-Deadpool Footage, because it's still painful a month later:


-SeaWorld's animal containment policies are a lot less strict than the zoo, since you can't exactly recreate the ocean. In places like The Bronx Zoo, where a lot of effort is put toward recreating their habitat as best as possible, whereas in an aquarium, it's just "here's a pool go nuts kids you have an extra hour in the ballpit"

-Here's the whale we were playing with...

-And some Nintendo 64 USB Controllers

THAT'S ME IN THE SPOT, LIGHT, DOWNLOADING EPISODE 91

-Welcome to X Plays Pokemon rip-off number #457452345.

-The whole thing with Twitch was summarized by Mystakin: These guys need a half-decent PR guy.

But the muting audio thing itself isn't bad, it's what it's leading to. Obviously Twitch wants to go legit so it can be bought out by someone larger, so they need the veneer of "We will totally respect all copyright, you guys!" There could be the abuse of "We don't want people knowing our game sucks" and watch a full LP of it, but then again YouTube has yet to go down that rabbit hole yet, and Twitch is more secure in that the experience is fleeting. The reduction of time in which you'll be allowed to keep highlight videos being smaller is them saying, "You can do this guys, but we're not YouTube 2.0"

It's not terrible, just inconvienient. For example, one streamer I love to fall asleep to, SGDoc, streams Magic The Gathering Online. He also plays a lot of classic rock on his Pandora Station, which he listens to while he plays (and why I love falling asleep to him). If he wanted to highlight a particularly interesting moment on his Twitch page, he wouldn't be able to, since the audio would be muted, and he couldn't explain what he just did.

The worst thing to happen to Twitch would be MLG or some other large entity steppijng and saying, "Hey, only we can stream XYZ game for official Championship purposes, because we don't want anyone else making money off our game for eSports purposes." So all the people streaming TF2, League Of Legends, DOTA, etc. would not be able to generate revenue. 

-The "Flappy Bird with The Room I got from a Cracked article by Winston Rowntree. Here's the chart below:


-Monkey Selfies was probably one of my favorite discussion we had on the podcast. Not only was interesting and on topic, but it led us to one of my favorite tangents, which I posted below:

I'd say "I'm Sorry", but sorry implies I did something wrong.

SMELLS LIKE EPISODE 92

a.k.a. The One All About Ferguson. It was an interesting discussion to say the least, Mystakin with an outsiders view, who is well versed in social justice and Arcanon having recently finished up a Citizen's class, meant to educate the public about how the city's cops operate and why/how they do what they do, with some dept. history thrown in.

There were times it felt a little uncomfortable, but primarily the three of us agreed on one thing:

DARREN WILSON (the officer who shot Mike Brown) FUCKED UP BIG TIME

Not only shouldn't he have shot someone unarmed, but the gun doesn't come out that fast. Even then, you don't shoot someone 6 times, because, you know, there's other people around. 

"Oh, be he commited a crime at some point in time before!"
Yeah, you get arrested for that, not murdered. Even then, in the case of Trayvon Martin, the shooter can't be Judge Dredd and immediately divine that he was suspended from school or whatever.

"But if you had a 300 pound, 6-4 urban feral black man coming toward you, you'd do the same thing!"
One, we don't know that yet, and two, I also wouldn't aggravate the large black man so shooting him wouldn't be an option.

As you'll hear in this week's upcoming podcast (#93), things did not calm down or get better, but there's been a lot of outreach within the community to continue schooling, provide shelter and help those in need.

Though the "Support Darren Wilson" on GoFundMe is fucking disgusting, and the only hope I have is that the person in charge will go "PSYCHE!" and contribute to the Michale Brown Memorial Fund.

There's one last thing on the matter I want to say, but I'll save it for the beginning of next week's podcast recap, since it does involve something else we spoke about at the beginning.

Upsetting The Status Quo Sunday

I would be remiss to not mention the hotbed that is Ferguson, MO. But people have been summarizing better than I could. All I'm saying is, when I fucked up at my job, I got fired. When I'm feeling insecure, I do something that makes me feel accomplished, even if it's that last little thing on my to do list. More on the podcast recap.

Back to videos that won't depress you, my Creator Owned Expo recap video is now up on YouTube:

Special thanks to everyone who participated!

CHAOTIC NEUTRAL
VB KENNEDY
KECHAL COMICS
COSMIC TIMES
JEFF CARROLL
CRISTY REY
J.D. NETTO
RESISTANCE ENTERTAINMENT
OOPS: THE COMIC ADVENTURE
THINK ALIKE PRODUCTIONS (THE AGENCY)
THE C-LISTERS HOMEPAGE

Really, listening to all these pitches is very satisfying to hear, because I got a decent range of different kinds of people giving all different kinds of story ideas.

Next show is UmiCon Daytona, and I got my Square in the mail, so I won't run into a situation like last year where I was offered... alternative means of payment.

ALSO, I now have the posters for sale on my Bandcamp site.
Hopefully I can get more soon :)

My Dad's in the hospital right now for his much delayed craniotomy. We're going to see him tomorrow. The operation went smoothly, now it's the days afterward that I'm worried the most about. I really hope he's cognizant enough to recognize us.

Status Quo Senpais and the Art of Being Noticed

I am a 26 year old man with a job. This week, after I sort out all the numerous business cards I've gotten over this past weekend, I am going to set up a doctor's appointment and then find a place to get my windshield repaired. This morning for breakfast I had Cheerios w/ Protein, which also has the fiber I need. After taking my multivitamin this morning, I drove to work, a commute which takes 40 minutes on average. I have very strong opinions about driving on the I-95. It sucks. A lot.

Yet, the last words I said after my long weekend of two cons and two shows were, in a giddy voice: "SENPAI NOTICED ME!!!" I ain't even watch that much anime. 

The end cap for this weekend was catching MC Lars's set at Orlando Nerd Fest this past Sunday, being brought up on stage to skank to "This Gigantic Robot Kills", and then him giving me a shout out on stage for putting his music in Rock Band and playing earlier that day.

Made the whole weekend worth it.

Anyway, there have been two main takeaways from this weekend:
1. Giving people money for something they worked hard on feels really good. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I always like to pick up stuff from the artist alley and the guys publishing their own comics. It helps them out more, and I know I'd want someone doing the same for me. Like, I could get that Wobbuffet plushie, but I'd rather get someone's CD.

2. It also feels good to be remembered from stuff. A couple people have seen me from an Orlando show or two, and of course, my SoFloConBros from every con south of where I live. Also wearing the same at every show helps, like MC Lars and his A's hat.

But I think the two "scenes" have a different feel to them: Orlando cons tend to be bigger, and more focused on anime/Japanese culture, where as the ones in South Florida are more genereal interest, but smaller.

Creator Owned Expo- They asked me to MC the cosplay competition and do all of the raffles. It was really fun. The sound setup was OK, and for the last song my mic gave out, but still managed to put on a good show. Definitely want to go back next year!


-Recap Video!
Will be coming soon! I just need to fix the sound and add subtitles.

-COE was started by Ron Kerronian, who some call "Black Wolverine", since he has the mutton chops and cowboy hat.

This year, it seemed

like everyone

decided to cosplay as him.

Maybe we should start calling Wolverine, "Short, White Ron"


- (WARNING: MAGIC THE GATHERING SHIT AHEAD) Bought a Funko Pop! Nissa, then pulled a Brimaz and Iroas, God Of Victory from purchasing 3 Theros Block packs. Though unfortunately, not one game of Magic was played all weekend :(
To my credit, it's the only non-creator owned thing I bought.

-One of the guys I sold a copy of Dino Hunter MD to at Miami Hurricon actually had a booth there at We Are Chaotic Neutral.

He loved it, SO MAYBE YOU SHOULD PICKUP A COPY.

-Shout out to all the prerequisite SoFloConBros:
Grifter Cosplay
BTL Collectables
Irving of UltraCon South Florida
Martin of Cosmic Times
Zippertan and Mervyn of Paperlab Studios

Orlando Nerd Fest- WOW this was awesome. I totally regret not going when this was called Nerdapalooza. My set was tight as hell, and the crowd was about as good as I can say for an 11AM show the day after "LET'S GET CRUNK EVE" in the smaller stage area.

The set right after me was Random Encounter, doing a lighter set with Professor Shyguy on bongos.
Random Encounter does a lot video game music, with like a pirate rock tinge to it. It was a pretty solid show. Then afterwards we went to get some Dennys.

-Fortunately for me, there was a freeplay arcade in the Jamspace to keep people in. I played OutRun, and I bodied some mofos as Sagat and caught some of Doug Funnie's set.

-Next group I saw was RPG Unit, a nerdcore supergroup that recently put out an album based off Borderlands.

-Then I saw MC Lars and all the good stuff happened.

See you next week! Next show is Umicon Daytona!


-

Echo Chamber Post Game Episode 88 and 89

It's been a while, so to make up for it, here's...
THE ECHO CHAMBER DRINKING GAME (vers. 1.1)!!!

Take a drink:

• Any time the video game Rock Band is mentioned
• Any time Rhythm Bastard does an impression
• Any time wrestling is mentioned
• Any time someone says "Owen"
• Any time Mystakin says "Word?"
• Any time game development is discussed
• Any time speedrunning is discussed
• Any time a podcast member plugs their music outside of personal outros
• Any time someone says Anime
• Any time someone says "Hashtag _________"
• When the phrase "For those of you further behind" is uttered 
• Any time an earlier episode is referenced

Finish your drink:

• When someone says "Die in a fire"
• When The Dead Kennedys are mentioned
• Any time the podcasts "acts out" a scene or elaborates on a stupid thing they made up (e.g. Rockhead)
• When the episode name comes up. 
• If any of the podcast members have 3 or more picks for the week.  
• When someone says "My uncle works at Nintendo"

PART 1- FREE DOWNLOAD WHEN YOU BUY A 3-DAY WEEKEND PASS TO ECHO CON

Panels for Echo Con include:
-The Art Of Speedgaming (hosted by Mystakin)
-Mike Rotunda's Evil Nutsack: The Best Heel In Wrestling? (hosted by Owen, Mystakin, Rhythm Bastard and Anime Cow)
-Bourbon vs. Whiskey: The Debate for the Ages (hosted by Jeff Webster)
-The History Of Expensive Cardboard Rectangles (hosted by Rhythm Bastard, Arcanon, and Anime Cow)
-Rhythm Bastard Reads Fucked Up Fanfiction In a Fancy and Noble Voice (hosted by Rhythm Bastard) ($5 fee for Rhythm Bastard Booze Fund)
-The Best In Brony Music (Hosted by Arcanon) (10 and under only, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)

-MomCon, however, is a different story.
 Trufax: The episode title comes from me half paying attention and still wanting to say something.

-I won a box of MTG15. The guy who I beat for the box beat me on Sunday. but i still got the box lol.

-There is one key difference though, between online TCGs and paper and that is scarcity. On an online game such as Duels Of The Planeswalkers and Hearthstone, is that your packs are only limited by the roll of a die, or using "credits" to purchase another card that can appear instantly. In paper Magic, prices shift, and what you can get is limited by what is opened and what is printed. For example, in Magic, cards that come out earlier in a block are cheaper than those that come out in the beginning because more packs are opened.

In theory, digital TCG can have their cards available forever all the time. 

PART 2- ROLLIN' AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOUND




Go home, everybody. OH YOU WANT MORE? Fine...

-The Sun is dead? I fucking hate that rag!

-For those of you further behind, "Barkerville" was a song John Drake did as part of the promotion for the Amplitude KickStarter. It was based off a song from Castlevania II when he was on the Giant Bomb livestream.


-Magic The Gathering has had dozens of games over the years, and those that aren't strictly the card game are pretty much like the Mega Man Battle Network: Cast "spells" move around your side of the map and try not to die.


-Fun fact, Silicon Knights were supposed to do Eternal Darkness 2 and 3 after the Too Human Trilogy. Then they tried to KickStarter the sequel, BUT OOPS THEY FUCKED UP BAD.

-First result for "Yu-Gi-Oh Ghost Shark"






-SHARKS ARE FISH. THIS IS YOUR DAILY REMINDED.

-Speaking of "My Uncle Works At Nintendo" stories, my little brother "heard from a friend at school" that there were going to be God Pokemon (this was back in 1998...) that you can unlock through bullshit. 15 years later, MEGA EVOLUTIONS. He was still way fucking wrong, but one has to wonder...

-The ultimate Triple Triad Video:


-Brother just got out of Battle Of The Gods (the Dragonball Z movie). Apparently it was sooooo good. Spoiler alert: I don't care.

-I'm not going to talk about Nagano Winter Olympics. Instead, here's Hotei:

Status Quo Sunday Goes A-Hunting

NEW SONG! "Hunting Bigger Game"


Join the mailing list, and you get a FREE download!
 NEW VIDEO! Anime Festival Orlando 2014 Recap



TWO NEW GIGS!!
CREATOR OWNED EXPO-

Creator Owned Expo is designed to encourage Literacy, Artistic Creativity, innovations in Technology, and Social Interest in the sciences via panels, workshops and Q&A,s which are geared towards Art, Sequential Art, Science fiction, Fantasy, Novels, Creative Nonfiction, Folklore, Historical Fiction, Mythology and other related genres.

This event promotes Independence in the areas of creative media, comics, art, animation,film, and self-published literature.  We are a close knit ecosystem, a community built to encourage communication between the creators and the audience.
“This event celebrates creators of various media, genres and the fans who love them.”

ORLANDO NERDFEST- The Orlando Nerd Fest is an annual celebration of nerd music and culture. The festival is commonly referred to by it’s acronym ONF. (ie. #ONF2014)

This is going to be ONE HELL of a weekend for me, but after that, I'll be resuming work on Status Quo Radio. I'm looking for artists to do album art, and will start contacting them after this weekend, since I want to have the first two acts done.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, SEND ME AN E-MAIL TO rhythmbastard@gmail.com
  Also, I'm looking to update my link bar, so hit me up!