The Most Popular Girls on the Internet

This week we are joined by Scott from the Instant Leftovers Podcast. I'd like to apologize to Scott for drinking tons of martinis and laughing through the whole show. Note to self: Never drink martinis on the show again. After getting to know Scott, the weekly update on Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, and what could quite possibly be the most drunken, incoherent description of Bastion ever recorded, we get down to some silly business of telling awkward stories. This is all Scott's fault for volunteering on CONvergence panels for topics he knew nothing about. Enjoy!

I must have been drinking a lot of caffeine when I came up with this idea. "Hey, what would happen if we did a taste test on a bunch of energy drinks and recorded a show? What would happen? Would we kill each other? Would I game better?" Normally, these "Hey lets try (inset crazy idea here) and record a show" pitches don't fly past Cassandra. But this time, I won out. By Friday night, we had our end result. Cassandra and I, high on caffeine, taurine, and inositol, had just completed a recording session. I waved goodbye to her as she skipped out of my front door, and I bolted back into the house heading straight for my nerd lair. It was time for phase 2 of our experiment. I booted up my XBOX as I casually sipped my poison of choice along with NOS Loaded Cherry, despite having just read a ton of health warnings and advice that it's really not a good idea. Anything for science. Time to load up some Rainbow Six and see how much my game would or would not be improved. I mean, if you were to follow these energy drink advertisements, I should be popping heads off with my AKS-74U. I should be the top of the leader boards. I should be the master creator of all that is Nerd Rage. I am... not doing any of those things. I am sitting here with shaking hands and a wandering mind as I mow down folks in a multiplayer match. Folks who, may or may not be my teammates. It's hard to aim when your hands are shaking. Wait... What do you mean, "Tara, you weren't supposed to drink them all at once"?    

Hey, Kats and Kittens! It's our annual look back at the con that was! CONvergence 2011 was another excellent party and this show we go into all we did from Sassy's appearance on the "So You Want To Be A Podcaster?" panel to Tara losing to a 1991 Nintendo World Championship runner up in the retro video gaming tourney - and the many, many parties and drinks between. It's not all CONvergence, though. The start of the show is our usual touch base where we talk about what we've been playing, watching, and doing. The song during the break is "I Will Sing a Lullaby" by Paul and Storm, who we were lucky enough to see at con. Also, I want to linky the Instant Leftovers podcast because I mentioned meeting Scott on the podcast, but I forget to mention the name of his show! >.

Welcome to a brief, behind the scenes look at The Most Popular Girls on the Internet. It's not all booze and giggles. There is probably a reason that we never published some of this stuff, but we went through the last year or so to pick out some of the gems we've blurted out, along with some of the songs that we've sung and for whatever reason, we just never put them out there... until NOW! I also took some time to make an original mash-up, which Cassandra herself will not have heard until the airing of this podcast. The greatest thing of all, is that she's the star of the song!   What are best friends for? We did it just for you. Really.   Okay, we also did it because we were off at ConVergence Con in Minneapolis. We'll be back next week, and you'll hear all about it. Enjoy!  

Okay, we know this whole love of the UK thing is getting a bit out of hand. One mention of the film "This is England" and we are off talking about England for a half hour like we know the place. So, if you're English, please tell us where we went wrong. If you're not English, we hope you still enjoy our ramblings. Don't worry, though, there's plenty of other babbling brought on by imbibing of brandy. :) Including video games and a little Doctor Who. With all the hacking that's been going on in the world, we decided to dedicate the second half of the show to a discussion on what's good and bad about movements like Anonymous and Lulzsec. I think they might have heard us talking....

Hey, Kats and Kittens! It's Tara's birthday show, so we have lots of fun talking about all the geeky things we've been doing this week while sipping some Sassy Applebums (apple rum and sprite). We've both been up to a lot of gaming including Tara's adventures as a vampire hunting dishwasher and Sassy dancing around in her underwear in front of Kinect. We also talk about the competitiveness of girl gamers in FPS, as well as continue blathering about our love of Doctor Who. We have some old skool nerd rage this week during the break, which features Duke Nukem, and then talk about the relationship between games journalists and PR companies, which was sparked by a nasty tweet sent by Duke Nukem's (now ex) PR firm. We finish off with some listener feedback, which we barely get through because Tara can't stop reading Damn You Auto Correct!

Oh, yes, it's that time of year again! The birds are singing, the flowers blooming, and young gamers' hearts turn to thought of E3. Last week, Tara and I were lucky enough to hear about an E3 viewing meetup put on by IGDA - Twin Cities, so we shuffled down to the Chatterbox Pub early Monday morning to hang out with a bunch of developers and make fun of E3 (while watching it on a large screen). It was great fun and we met some awesome people! Cassandra sat down for separate interviews with Zach, president of the IDGA-Twin Cities chapter, and Jacque Urick, a partner in SieEnt, a start up games studio in the Twin Cities. These interviews are interspersed with our own thoughts and opinions about highlights of E3. Don't worry, the first half is still our ramblings on what geekiness we've been up to. Thanks for listening!

This week we are really talkative, so it's a long show! We cover the prizes we're sending to Dorkapalooza, then Tara tries to talk about some games other than R6V2, and Sassy discovers that she likes Mortal Kombat. And a ton more ramblings, of course. Our topic is difficulty levels, but although we start there, we veer off that path to talk about becoming part of the gamer community and the barriers to entry and acceptance. Oh, we also improv a PSN blues song, even though we know it's back up. In listener mail, we here from Shadowmate, Binkley, Miranda, and an epic long email from Darn Ragnar. Enjoy!

Brainstorming sessions are fun, especially when they are done in dive bars. Take last week for instance, as I sat upon a tattered leather bench and leaned over a vodka 7, the following words left my mouth, "Hey Cassandra, I have an idea about a discussion on bad ideas". We've brought up plenty of bad ideas on the show before, but we haven't checked back on them. In honor of the bad ideas and the people who act upon them, we revisit some of those past discussions, from GameCrush to Game Boat, we wanted to see where they are now. If you have any bad ideas of your own, please share them with us at tmpgoti@gmail.com.   This week's featured nerd rage is "I'm a newbie"   So sit back, relax, grab your beverage of choice, and help me puzzle out why why this never caught on...

This week we are joined by one half of the sexiest podcast on the internet, Daren of the Midlife Gamer podcast....at least for the first half of the show. You see, Daren was relaxing away at an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean, and while we were recording the resort decided to have a band start playing in the background! But we did get Daren nicely drunken and even taught him how to drink a tequila shot. Instead of trying to make up a topic on the fly, we just cover our listener feedback and drink too much tequila.

This week we catch up on Cassandra's Health and Mana project, and the game room saga. I relay my adventures of guitar lessons, running amok at GameStop (Portal 2, Mortal Kombat, Crysis 2, Darksiders) and pure joy at using the HBO Go App. After the break of Midichlorian Rhapsody, we catch up on the world of the internet. In the news... (chicka-chicka) Microsoft purchases Skype for 8.5 billion dollars. Facebook (our guiding light in internet privacy) hires a firm to say bad (yet possibly truthful) things about Google. Does it strike anyone else's funny bone that Google is a company who's motto used to be "Don't be evil". I can understand how mottos and slogans could come back to bite you in the ass later. Ours used to be "TMPGOTI: Always display sobriety, chastity and class whilst speaking within the realm of the internet" and was later replaced by, "BOOBIEZ LOLZ." And my personal favorite news story is about the movie that has yet to be made. Zero Charisma - watch the trailer, visit the site.

This week we are joined by Luder and Alphabox from SHFTS: Off Topic, as well as Luder's awesome wifey, Kathy. We talk about sex. A lot. So this one is extra explicit. Here's some of what we talk about: Ganging up on Luder Two Dinosaurs one Cup Kathy's Psuedo-threesome Music Talk More people are hot as you get older Who's dated older people? Mom's best piece of advice Our parents are having sex When was the first time you discovered masterbation? Alphabox is pulling his daughter out of brownies! Flooding the cave Luder remembers wearing a diaper What's the weirdest place you've masterbated? Luder loves a shag rug The spank bank at school Trashy romances in the library Video game dreams United Federation of Jesus Dream Devices Sex Ed Class What's yor favorite porn? Pride and Prejudice with Vaginas Luder's Bus Boner One in seven guys Virtual kissing When was the first time you saw porn? Alpha's repressed memory Best worst advice from Cosmo Religious experiences

Hail fair internet adventurer! Summer nears, as does E3 and soon you'll be hearing news about the same four or five games over and over on every gaming news site imaginable. So in this episode, we bring you News of The Weird (In the neeeews, chicka-chicka-chicka) and a little preview of a game that you probably won't hear about at E3.   This week's featured break is "I want to buy an internet" brought to you by Neil Brooks at GamerDork.   Also, we pay a small respect to Steve Carrell, and the final episode of The Office, but how do you pay homage to a guy who makes so many "That's what she said" jokes?   It's hard, really hard. I tried, but I just kept coming up short. I tried to get one up there, but I just couldn't. So... I'm going to just leave this one open-ended.  

This week we are joined by our awesome sauciest listener, Peya, live from NYC! We invited her to come on the show so we could fan girl all over Game of Thrones - a decision I later regretted because she wouldn't stop giving me shit for not finishing games! Sheesh - you try to give a girl a break and that's how she repays you (just kidding, of course!). We had an amazingly fun time talking about games, movies, and the awesome premiere of Game of Thrones. WARNING: THE SECOND HALF OF THIS EPISODE IF FULL OF SPOILERS TO GAME OF THRONES

Any place where people are gathering for the love of gaming, is the place I want to be. Look out Seattle, the women of TMPGoTI are on their way for a visit at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), but not without some pointers from 3 year PAX veteran Hendrix, co-host of the SuperHappyFunTime Show. Our second half contains information the PAX newb needs to know. Where to eat, to sleep, where to drink, , and why not to eat tacos after six hours of doing the latter. Before we begin on our vicarious audio tour of PAX, we share what we've been watching and playing. This week's featured Nerd Rage Song is 'A Night At Murloco's' mixed by the talented MrVoletron. Catch his YouTube Channel here and catch more of his music here. But back to PAX, yeah... PAX. Are you going to be there? If so, maybe we'll see you at The Blarney Stone.