Podcast for 10-01-07 | Phantom Colette

Collete - Live from the battlefield in Iraq.

Collete - Live from the battlefield in Iraq.

The Weekly Geek show crew are very late to the party with Pure Pwnage. PurePwnage have been around for a couple years now. The shows are well produced, directed and overall a fun experience. It started as a guy's film school project, that turned into something bigger than they could've ever expected. If you have ever played Counter Strike or Command and Conquer, you will definitely get a kick out Jeremy (the lead role) and fall for the show almost immediately.

One thing guys, can you please try to cut out the holier than thou bullshit when you don't know too much about the subject in question? Maybe you should stop caring so much about your tainted gamer image and start working on shedding some of that pretentious stink aura that surrounds the indie scene. I enjoy listening to you guys rant but I would like the show more if you ranted about topics (ala blue dragon and ff11 account) that you actually have played/seen/experienced/have an idea about instead of bringing up how much of a disappointment Heavenly Sword and Pure Pwnage is.

Also, at the end of the day, why does it matter if people like to type/say: pwnt, loller booties, roffle, etc? You guys said yourselves that you don't converse in that way amongst your small community of friends, so how is affecting you in a such a direct way to warrant such a stink?

Roffle at Grant for thinking books are daunting, man up! Here's my opinion: If you don't want to read, why would you want to trick yourself into thinking you do via e-mail? Read because you want to, not because you feel you have to.

Finally,I hope Cas can become a regular because he seems well informed, current, and gives the show a chance to have a music chat.

From one rant to another,

the honeymoon is over.

Here at the show, I like to think that we are big enough to go back and admit mistakes where we make them. For example, I knew that the whole "daunting" thing was a really poor choice of words right after is spilled out of my mouth and probably came across as "a-durrr, reading is hard." So you're totally right to call me out on that. I was trying to comment on the email book thing and embellish a bit because a simple "that's neat" doesn't add to the conversation much and also is not particularly entertaining. I just made a really poor job of it this time.

For the PurePwnage show, I will try to set some time aside this week or weekend to check it out. If the "pwnage" part of the title is indeed tongue-in-cheek and as such the show is satirical in nature, then I can appreciate that. I just tend to cringe a bit when I hear/see internet slang used in a non-ironic manner.

Y'know those Sprint commercials where the kid and the grandma are talking out loud in shorthand (idk, bff, inbd, and such) and how incredibly ridiculous they sound? That's how I feel about most internet shorthand. Stuff like "pwned" and "teh" used seriously, to me are no better than using "u" instead of "you". It's lazy and there's no good excuse for it.

I'd say it's likely that there is slang from other subsets of culture that is used outside of your own particular group of friends that you find irritating. Perhaps you don't like things like "hollah" and words that end in "izzle".

To add something, I also listen to the podcast generally every week, and the whole "holier than thou bullshit" isn't anything new. When you guys talk about video games and news and whatnot it's enjoyable. I enjoy the sarcasm and wit. But the whole pretentious douchebag ranting is ridiculous - especially the absurd amount of Madden/Halo bashing.

I imagine you're the same kind of guys who scoff at someone if they say they enjoy mainstream music or mindless action movies.

For the record, I've owned every Madden game since Madden 64. I also own Bioshock, Chrono Trigger, Picross DS, Gears of War, and Ocarina of Time, among others. Hooray for gross generalizations of someone based solely on a video game preference.

j00 got pwned!

Wow, I wasn't expecting Qais to sound like that....

I agree... I did not expect Qais to sound like that either. I am not quite sure what I was expecting...

I have a couple rants of my own...

1. Why the eff can I never sign into the forums?
-and-
2. I am soooo pissed that I am having to look up FAQs to get through the first dungeon of Zelda, phantom hourglass. I was so excited, brought it home yesterday, got myself a refreshing beverage, popped it in, sat through A LOT of cut scenes and then finally got to play. Unfortunately I got part way through the first dungeon (at least I solved one puzzle on my own) and got stuck. I refused to pick up the game for a good 24 hours because I was sooo mad. Getting stuck like that, especially in the very beginning, makes me feel like a giant dumb ass and is the biggest turn off for me in games. It is the reason I got really far in Zelda TP and then ended up just quitting because I could not figure out what do do. Then of course now that I want to play it again I have no idea what I am supposed to do... actually, now that I think about it, I got stuck stuck part way through Minish Cap as well. I am so mad at ZELDA right now.

-End Rant

Tanya, have you considered that you may just be dumb?

Smart enough that the notion never leaves my head space...

I figured the thing out. I am just bitter.

p.s. Zelda phantom hourglass quill stylus rumur is true. Mine is in the mail... yesssssssssss.

Thank you Lorenzo! I thought I was the only one that was sick of Chris and Grants "Jocks are mindless fools that are destroying video games" rants.
Every trashing talk dirt bag I have run into online have been 14 year old nerds in there parents basements not this stereotypical 50's jock that beats you up that Chris and Grant rant about. Chris, you need to get off your high horse with thinking you are better then us common "regular people" just cause you heard modest mouse before they hit mainstream or that you played video games before it was cool to do so. People who think they are so different and so original all seem to group together making yourself just another click like emo, goth or your dread Jock :O

Big fan of the show but the show has taken a turn for the worse in the last few weeks with this whole "We are better then you cause we like indie bands and games that are not in the mainstream BS"

Billy there's a reason that the jock/asshole stereotype exists. There are social ranking systems in place in high schools across the country, yeah that's changing, but when I went to high school the aggressors were almost always "Jocks" or people involved in sports. Granted, mainstream media has helped to further that stereotype, but it was a stereotype in the first place.

Regarding Madden and Halo...sorry, but fuck 'em. I've never been a fan of the Halo franchise and sports have always been as appealing to me as jamming my dick into a bear trap, playing simulated sports is about 2 rungs lower. You enjoy them? Good for you. I know we're all supposed to respect the choices of others but we simply can't all be the paragons of understanding and benevolence that you are.

We are sarcastic jerks, it's really a mask for the emotionally crippled softies we are in actuality, but that's who we are. I cried at Steel Magnolias dude, and having done so I have to denigrate and break down someone else's accomplishments in order to feel whole. Kind of like a "jock". Excuse me while I ruminate on this exciting new revelation about how everyone is really the same and we're all just brothers and sisters of the heart.

As far as I remember, all we did was talk about the silliness of the Pure Pwnage name and why we would be less likely to check out a show with such a name.

Not all of us at the Weekly Geek are into the indie music/movie/etc scene. Chris and Mike definitely are, Grant and I are not, and I'm not sure where Qais and Collete stand. Don't assume that because one or two people have a certain opinion that we all do.

We are avid readers. All we did was recognize how getting chapters of books through email would make it easier to find time for reading in our forever busy lives. I don't see how that could be translated into us not liking to read.

When Chris and Grant talk about the jerky jocks, they do so from personal life experience. They aren't just making stuff up for the hell of it. Now, maybe we are running into a bit of a generation gap on this issue since there are those that insist this stuff doesn't still happen. But it's hard to believe that something that has been going on for so long has suddenly stopped in the last few years.

I can understand where you guys are coming from and its fine to not like a gen of games, music, etc. But when you start grouping meat heads that pretty much stick to there own and lumping in shit talking 10 year old fanboys found all over forums and xbox live, it gets a little annoying.
As for mainstream media portraying gamers as only playing Halo, who the hell cares! TV and newspaper media is geared toward and only looked at by the over 50 crowd. 45% of people over 50 don't think gays should have the same rights as the rest of us. Do you really care then if some old bat thinks Halo and Madden are the only thing we play? When they can't accept change in way more important areas of life then entertainment. Let them be ignorant and not know the greatness of video games..they will all be dead soon enough and we will take there place thinking that all the kids only play Playstation 31 while they really play Wii 15.

I really have no idea how this turned into a Jock vs. Nerd debate. And I must stress that I wish to distance myself as far away from "Stuttering Billy" as possible.

There are plenty of ignorant fucktards playing Halo 3 and Madden. I never disagreed with this. And people who use "1337 sp3@k" in everyday conversation do, in fact, have serious issues. Again, I don't disagree with you.

These things exist, but that's fine - a vast majority of people are assholes - such is life. I enjoy poking fun at these things, the same way you can poke fun at the stereotypical video game nerd living in his parents' basement or the angsty teenage emo kid or the over-the-top hippie vegan liberal. Everyone has their thing, and stereotypes are funny.

But there's a fine line between being comical and just being a douche - and as Chris acknowledged, he has no problem with being the latter - in fact, he "owns it"... or "pwns it", as some may say. I would prefer it otherwise, but since that is not the case, I will just simply stop listening.

Side note - "we bash people who play ONLY those games and call themselves gamers".

I'm not really sure which is more comical - the 13-year-old kid who only plays Madden and calls himself an "1337 h@x0r g@m3phr3ak" or the seemingly well-educated twenty-something hipster who gives a crap what games that kid is playing or what he call himself. Or, could it be secret option 3 - the random guy on the internet who listens to the podcast about the hipster making fun of the h@x0r and comments about it while bored at work?

Definitely secret option 3.