Hey Folks! I am in the process of trying to reboot one of my favorite side projects, “Bel Folks Stuff”, and get into the swing of recording new episodes. However, it was in this process that I realized that I recorded a whole episode with Tam and never released it. What is wild about this episode is that it is a timecapsule from before the world changed. I think many of us were irreparably damaged by the isolation and changes to our norms that the pandemic and lockdowns brought forward. However, for some… the isolation of the pandemic completely changed their lives. This version of Tam that I interviewed was before he got into a lockdown relationship, which turned into a marriage, which ultimately led to him becoming a father.
The negative of this episode, however, is now that I listen to it… I remember why I never released it. I was trying to figure out how to fix the audio. I was dealing with some really frustrating coil whine happening in my microphone, and it just so happened to plague this episode. I think this might have been the point I realized it was a thing, and it took me months to figure out how to keep it from happening. So this episode was edited and ready to go… but just never got released, and I feel like it is unfair to leave this to the void. Some interesting conversations happen in the middle of this episode, and it is fitting that the broader world finally gets to listen to them.
Good Morning Friends. Earlier this week I released the last of the original Bel Folks Stuff episodes again since the entire project predated me actually putting things on YouTube. The nasty secret however is that in January of 2020 I started the process of recording brand new episodes of the show. This has always been a little bit of a passion project for me and I enjoy these way more than probably the people listening to them. I want to do more of them and I thought initially by re-releasing all of the episodes it would kick start me back into scheduling recording dates and such and making it happen. I had two shows recorded that I have been sitting on for almost two years at this point and now feel like it is time to actually let the world listen to them.
The pandemic wrecked a lot of us creatively, so it is a bit weird to be listening to this show knowing it was recorded well before most of us had to deal with lock downs, toilet paper shortages, or the fear of leaving the house. It is really hard to have “best friends” as adults, or at least it is something that I have struggled with personally… but if I were to try and sort out that thing Grace would absolutely be at the top of that list. In part I started this initiative up again with their show in part because I knew it would be relaxing and easy for me to get through. In truth all of these first episodes are me sitting down with various folks that I record AggroChat with so it would be low pressure. I was battling social anxiety pretty freaking hard when this all started and only recently have pulled myself out of that cycle.
I hope you enjoy listening to the show anywhere near as much as I enjoyed recording it. So without further rambling I present you Bel Folks Stuff featuring my amazing friend Grace.
Hey Friends! This morning I woke up and realize that I had committed a travesty and am trying to right that wrong. Almost two years ago I had this grand idea of rebooting Bel Folks Stuff… and had even recorded a few new episodes as part of the process. I had this entire plan of re-releasing all of the original content since it never existed on YouTube and then this giving me a ramp to start recording new content. Then like everything that happened early in 2020, it was derailed by the pandemic. I mean on one hand being stuck at home should have been the opportune time to record something like podcast episodes with so much of the populace now working from home. Instead I personally found that the pandemic and the constant fear of death… pretty much sapped whatever creativity I had in me and left me this hollow shell.
The end result is that I never actually got around to re-releasing the episode featuring my good friend Jaedia, and since today is her birthday I thought I would fix that today. Her blog Dragons and Whimsy is now on its third revision and quite honestly there are so damned many accolades I could throw out here. Many of you specifically may know her from her work that she did on MMOGames.com from 2015 through 2018. I would provide links to profiles, but it is grossly incomplete because the site seems to have a habit of replacing “by lines” and several articles I know she wrote now show up as someone else. I may or may not have pent up bitterness about my brief time writing for the site as well.
Not at all where I intended to go with this discussion, but here we are nonetheless! This episode was recorded in May of 2015, so an awful lot of things have changed in those six years. The discussion that was had though is just as relevant today as it was when it was first recorded. I hope you can enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoy revisiting it in my memories. Here is hoping that this will also act as a catalyst for me actually releasing some of the episodes that I have recorded already as well of the new rendition.
The last few weeks have been real strange and I’ve had a run of “stuff happening” on Saturday the day that I would normally release this show on. Instead of letting it go yet another week without releasing another back episode, I opted to let this take the place of my normal Monday morning post. Mondays are always rough mornings and maybe just maybe this will let me start the new week with some piece of mind that I don’t have to wrack my brain trying to sort out something to write about.
This show was recorded originally on April 8th of 2015. I sat down to have a conversation with my good friend Liore who at the time of recording was behind the Cat Context podcast as well as some of the podcasts for MMORPG.com. Since then a bunch of things have changed in her life and for the most part I believe she is no longer releasing gaming content, and has instead entered the exciting landscape of cloud computing. I still love to see when Liore comments on something because I will always appreciate her unique opinion on whatever happens to be the question of the moment. I’m also still subscribed to Cat Context in the hope that maybe someday new episodes will start showing up. I mean I am reviving Bel Folks Stuff some five years after the fact so stranger things have happened right?
