Interviews – This Week in Geek

Thank you. the TFG1 podcast that will most likely

be out Monday or Tuesday, which is the 13th and

14th of April. I woke up from nap earlier this

afternoon and said, hey, I don't actually know

where This Week in Geek actually came from. So

with me now at midnight is Mike the Birdman Dodd.

Hello, Mike. Hey, Mike. How's it going? And to

all you listeners out there in radio and podcast

land. It's going good. Hopefully this recording

can continue without any further issues, because

we've already had one hang -up not on either

one of our parts. Skype dropped the call. Fucking

eBay. Love that. Basically what we're going to

do is I'm going to ask Mike a few questions,

just kind of like what he usually does with guests

on Twig. It's kind of like an Inside the Actors

Studio type thing. We're just going to have a

general geek chat. So the first question is,

even though most of us know you are from Canada,

where did you grow up? Well, I originally grew

up in a place called Shallow Lake, but I spent

a majority of my childhood in a place called

Owen Sound, Ontario, affectionately known as

the elephant's asshole of Canada. If you look

at it from a satellite view and use your imagination,

you can see the wonderful place from which I

spawned. And you have a very vivid imagination.

Oh, you bet I do. What were some of your favorite

cartoons and regular TV shows to watch as a kid?

Well, I remember watching a lot of Ninja Turtles

when I was a kid, X -Men. I didn't see a lot

of Transformers, unfortunately. It really sucks.

I had to wait until I was much older to see a

lot of those. I was really into Thundercats,

The Real Ghostbusters, Care Bears, Inspector

Gadget. I'm trying to think. Most of the stuff

that was on the early morning CBS lineup before

it got screwed up, and a lot of the Fox cartoons.

Huge fan of the X -Men, Spider -Man, and the

Silver Surfer. Yeah, X -Men is coming to DVD,

official DVD release from Disney this, I think

the 28th of this month. About freaking time.

It's coming Volume 1 and Volume 2, which is a

majority of the first two seasons episodes, I

believe. I think it goes up. I think the two

volumes go all the way up into the Phoenix Saga

episodes. When did you first realize you were

a geek, and what was the one thing, if you could

pinpoint it, that made you a geek? I would say

probably the first time I got my Nintendo back

in 1985. My mom and my dad got me for Christmas

a Rad Racer with the 3D glasses and the Lode

Runner. So I'm thinking, hmm, this is kind of

cool. So I started playing around with that.

The moment I realized I was a true nerd is when

I annoyed the piss out of a friend of mine named

Ryan in the eighth grade when I was talking endlessly

about Mortal Kombat 3. And he told me to shut

the hell up and i'm thinking wow hmm think i'm

onto something here oh plus when i hacked my

first satellite when i was a kid uh when i used

to surf the transponder channels around three

o 'clock in the morning looking for the feeds

that were sent out to the affiliate stations

for certain shows like x -men and the x -files

um when did you get into radio and was it something

that you always wanted to do Well, it's actually

kind of a funny story, kind of a roundabout thing.

I used to listen to this station back at Owen

Sound, CFOS AM 560, and I used to just call into

the DJs on Saturday nights. I was maybe... 10,

12 at this time, listening to them spin oldies

and stuff like that. My parents raised me on

oldies radio. And I met an older DJ there named

Gary. And we just started talking on the phone.

As time went on, we developed a friendship. I

also developed another friendship with a girl

at the station. I think her name was Stephanie.

And we just used to talk all the time. We just

kind of chatted up. I was in grade 7 or 8. She

was probably just fresh out of college and whatnot.

So we just kind of chatted there. And eventually

I got a tour. of um 560 cfos and i decided well

this is kind of neat and i just kind of forgot

about it for a number of years because i have

a stuttering problem and i figured you know what

i'm gonna need to see a speech therapist whatever

so i did throughout uh probably till about grade

five in school and then i just kind of forgot

about radio until uh college actually came around

i uh originally was supposed to go to uh university

for psychology when i was uh younger but i decided

not to pursue that career path instead i chose

to get engaged but uh that ended uh well Badly

in one sense, not badly in another, the fact

that I'm where I am now. So I went to Niagara

College and I was with my second fiancé and decided,

you know what, I'm going to go to school for

television. I was working for Rogers Communications

at the time up in Owen Sound, Channel 53, as

a technical director and an audio director. So

I was doing that, and then eventually I ran into

my co -host, Steve Snowball Sailor. Hold on,

hold on. I'm sorry to stop you right there. That's

a separate question. That's a separate story.

Oh, okay. I was going to ask that afterwards,

but I guess you can go ahead and continue that

story. I was going to ask, how did the snowball

hit the bird man in the face? Well, I tried to

get him kicked out of school, actually. Oh, my

God. Yeah, what happened is we were taking a

course in Niagara College. We had to do a presentation,

and Steve's presentation was on computer security.

And there was a program that was developed, and

I don't know whether he did it or somebody else

did it, that could steal information from the

computers at school using a flash drive. And

we got wind of this, and we thought, oh, my God,

this guy is trying to steal the exams. First

off, good job. Second of all, fuck you. Because

we're having to work for these grades. So we

decided, all right, you know what? We're going

to have a talk. So anyway, actually, Steve just

emailed me right now. That's kind of freaky.

So anyway, so eventually. I own up to it, and

Steve, I hear, is shopping around for a radio

co -host. Turns out in Niagara College during

the first year, you're allowed to do your own

specialty radio show once you've had a semester

of radio presentation under your belt. So Steve

approached me because he knew I was huge in the

Smallville and all these other nerdy things,

and he's like, well, Mike, my original co -host

bailed on me. Would you like the job? Sure. So

I had some ideas for Twig and it just kind of

went on from there. And yeah, then me and Steve

did our first show January 27th or 29th of 2007.

And it's like we'd known each other for years.

Me and Steve had talked a handful of times outside

of class. But since that day, we were pretty

much inseparable. I mean, we only had like one

or two classes together. But every time there

was a break or a spare, we were always in my

room in res or just hanging out wherever. Yeah.

That actually kind of leads into the next question.

Where did the idea for This Week in Geek come

from? Can you kind of walk my listeners through

the creative process you or Steve had with coming

up for the idea? Well, the idea for Twig originally

was a show kind of like This Week in Tech with

Steve's friend Leo Laporte. And then I decided

– you know what, Steve, we don't have enough

material, we're not experts in this field, so

you know what, why don't we focus on more nerdy

and geeky things? And he's like, okay, well,

that's kind of cool. And then we just started

brainstorming in the cafeteria over a plate of

fries, and we just started talking, and eventually

the idea came to fruition, and we did a five

-minute demo of the show, and it worked out tremendously

well. And then as the show progressed through

the first season, Things just started to evolve.

I started to take more of an executive producer

control deciding in the segments. And then I

started making press contacts because I figured,

hey, you know what? We're technically legitimate

media. We're on a radio station. We have a terrestrial

broadcast wattage. So why don't we expand out

and offer some real news? So I started contacting

some video game companies and some DVD publishers

to get review material. And then things just

kind of, well, pardon the phrase, snowballed

from there. And then we started covering more

events. We covered the Toronto FanX. We covered

the Star Wars event in Welland for the 25th anniversary.

or 30th anniversary rather, sorry. We also did

events. We actually raised some money in the

first year for littlegeeks .org, which is an

organization run by Butterscotch .com owner and

technology journalist Andy Walkers. charity foundation,

which provides computers to children that don't

have internet access. So as time went on, I basically

took more and more control of the show, working

with CA to develop topics, ideas, segments. Then

we started bringing in some of the other co -hosts

onto the show, most notably Pierce Dirks and

David Dennis, because Dave and Pierce were some

of my best friends in college. I figured, well,

you guys are pretty funny. creative and we started

working stuff out and i can't remember how we

got on the idea of developing dave's rants i

think i just told you here dave talking about

something stupid for like two minutes a show

plus he is a good voice actor Oh, he is. Dave

is a tremendous talent. In fact, I'm actually

Dave's agent, or I'm going to officially be his

agent after he graduates school. And I'm going

to shop him around to the interweeb and kind

of see what happens with Dave. Because, yeah,

he's a tremendous talent. Actually, for This

Week in Geek. Myself, Dave, and Pierce actually

represent all three streams of the broadcasting

program at Niagara College, whereas Dave is a

film major, Pierce is a television major, I am

a radio and television presentation major. So

it's kind of weird. We represent all three streams,

so we have all three unique talents to the listeners

and the viewers of This Week in Geek. Now, my

next question... It kind of doesn't apply because

you've pretty much already told us where the

whole idea came from, but because of my background

as far as podcasting and stuff, the question

is, did listening to podcasts get you into wanting

to host them like I did with me, like as far

as listening to you guys and a few other, or

was it something else entirely, which you've

kind of already answered? To be told, Mike, I

had no fucking clue what a podcast was until

January 28th. The day after we did our first

show, Steve's like, oh, yeah, by the way, our

show's going to be podcasting. What the fuck

is that? Then he told me about it, and our first

episode was podcasted on February 14th of 2007.

Then, yeah, we went to this event in Toronto

called PodCamp Toronto, and that was hosted by

one of the social media gurus, Chris Brogan.

And yeah, I started learning about this whole

world of podcasting and oh my god, this shit's

really cool. And then it pretty much took over

my life during last summer – or sorry, 2007 summer

took over my life because I was doing nothing

but trying to produce episodes and reviews and

everything. In the last two years, the show has

absolutely taken on a life of its own just because

that's all I do is I listen to podcasts, talk

to social media people. new media people, stuff

like that. In fact, one of my best friends I

consider anyway is Brent Morris, the Closet Geek,

former host of the Closet Geek show. He started

getting me into all these different things, and

then Steve finally roped me in the Twitter in

2008's PodCamp. And, yeah, by the way, it's at

BirdmanDot if you're curious. Yeah, we can talk

about Twitter a little bit later. That was going

to be another one of our discussion topics. But

yeah, so it just – that's how I found out about

podcasting. Then I started talking to some other

podcasters and I started reading some of the

books by like Evo Terra, Podcasting for Dummies,

Blogging for Dummies and all that stuff. And

I've been a longtime blogger. I used to have

a live journal I had for about six years and

I deleted that in October of 2007. which sucks.

I lost over 5 ,000 posts. Wow. Yeah, it was my

entire life summed up, and I did it because I

was involved with my ex -fiancee. She broke up

with me on my birthday of all days. Oh, that

sucks. Oh, it did, and I wrote in it for a little

while, and then I kind of decided one night,

you know what? I don't want to be defined by

what I was. I'm going to be defined by what I

am. And then I guess I'm pretty much defined

now by podcasting and some of the radio work

that I now do. What is your favorite word? Oh,

fuck. For sure. I was going to say, wait a second,

that's two words. I mean, let me tell you, the

amount of times I drop that word in an average

afternoon, it would astound you. In fact, I actually

have a T -shirt, which I'm hoping will make it

onto one of our videos. And I got it from T -shirt

Helen. It says, I'm not here to impress none

of you motherfuckers. My favorite T -shirt. What

is your least favorite word? Um, meh. M -E -H.

That or the word whatever. Every time somebody

says that, I want to hurt something innocent

or punch something fluffy and cute. That to me

is the lowest denominator of human intelligence.

The only reason why I even use it is because

of The Simpsons. That's the only reason why I

ever use it. There was one scene in one show

where... Lisa, right? Yeah, well, it was Lisa

that said it, but Homer was trying to get her

and Bart to do something, and they both said

meh, and Homer's like, what? She goes, M -E -H,

meh. And just from seeing that episode, that's

why I use it. I don't use it all the time, but

I use it some of the time. One of my ex -girlfriends

used to use that word so many times, it was literally

maddening. I'm talking H .P. Lovecraft level

of insanity. Oh, my God, I hate that fucking

word. Anyway, go on. Okay. If there was one place

you could visit in the entire world, where would

it be and why? I don't know. I'm trying to think

here. Where would I want to go? Probably New

York City or Los Angeles. You're going to L .A.,

aren't you? I'm going to L .A. for the Electronic

Arts Expo. So I guess New York, probably just

to go visit some friends, but mostly just to

turn off my cell phone and wander around with

my camera. Mike, you know you will never turn

off your cell phone. If you do, it's maybe like

once for about two hours and then that's it.

And that's only because it's dead. If you could

pick – this goes back to the cartoon questions.

If you could pick one cartoon as your number

one all -time favorite, what would it be and

why? Probably the X -Men cartoon by Fox just

because it was so groundbreaking in the terms

of what it told in terms of storytelling. It

was dramatic. It was great. It never took itself

like it was funny. Sure, there were funny moments

and occasionally there was a – comedic episode

but the storytelling never wavered and i always

thought that was the beautiful part about fox's

x -men is that it never was afraid to have bad

things happen i mean when morph died or came

back in season two with mr sinister it was really

cool but when the episode i remember the most

was the days of future past series arc and it

was like two it was two episodes And that was

just frigging fantastic. And that's the thing

that really made me realize that animation is

a true storytelling art. And that's probably

my favorite cartoon of all time was the X -Men

animated series. Yeah, I can agree with that.

And I think it has stood up over time, especially

with them releasing the DVDs. I mean, at least

we'll have it for all time. If you had to pick

one number one all -time favorite TV show, this

is not a cartoon, it's a TV show, what would

it be and why? That's kind of a tough one considering

I have so many favorites now. Yes, we hear it

on the TFG1 podcast, ask hard -nosed questions.

24 is definitely up there. All -time favorite.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another one. I'm

thinking here. Oh, man, Jesus. I'd say most recently

the show that's really got my attention and probably

stands out there above all else for right now

is Veronica Mars. That show is probably one of

the smartest written shows I've ever come across.

Kristen Bell was vastly underappreciated in that

role. And Enrico Colatoni, who plays Keith Mars,

Veronica's dad, was, I really think, underappreciated.

Should he have received an Emmy of some kind?

You know what? Maybe. Because he had some really

good roles in there. And Veronica Mars was just

a great show. And it's even... better in my opinion

than some other shows are like i mean one girly

show i like and love actually is the gilmore

girls that was another fantastically written

show which i got into because of one of my girlfriends

at the time yeah and um yeah so for right now

i'm gonna have to go with veronica mars 24 gilmore

girls and then probably what's another big show

i like i don't know maybe the x -files yeah I

never really get into X -Files. That's because

you suck. The show is amazing. I just don't do

the sci -fi type of show type stuff like that.

I don't know. It's just me. Anyway. Yet you like

giant robots. Shut up. There's a big difference

between giant robots and bleeding green spewing

aliens. You fool. They could bleed green. The

Quintessons bleed green. That's a topic for an

entirely different interview. Now, I have not

read comics myself since I was probably about

14 or 15. I had wrote down a question here. What

are some of your favorite comics? Some of my

favorite comics? It's actually kind of weird.

I've been floating in and out of comics for years.

I'd say the comic I liked... The most was the

Dreamwave run of the Transformers comics. That

really got me back into it. I actually went so

far as to get all the variant covers for every

issue almost ever published. I'm missing maybe

three or four issues. I'd say, yeah, definitely

that one. The G .I. Joe Declassified series on

Snake Eyes, I think that was Dreamwave, was yet

another series of comics I loved. These, they're

not tied to any one publisher that I can remember.

I think it's Nightmare Press, but I'm not 100

% sure. It was the series of comics based on

Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface. Love those. Love

horror comics. In addition to that, I also used

to love reading the Star Wars Clone Wars and

Knights of the Old Republic comics way back in

the day. I actually remember the Knights of the

Old Republic, or whatever it was called, the

Old Republic series of comics by Dark Horse,

where Elwick Keldroma turns to the dark side,

and I remember having that issue when I was a

kid. And I'm trying to think of another comic

that I really, really, really liked. I liked

the McFarlane run on Spider -Man. I remember

seeing issue 300, which introduced Venom in stores

when I was a kid. Stupidly, I didn't pick it

up. Sonic the Hedgehog by Archie actually I thought

was fantastic, especially the artwork by Spaz

and Harvo. I thought that was really, really,

really neat. Yeah, I'd say that pretty much sums

it up for me and comics. Yeah, the follow -up

question to that was, were you a, or are you,

a huge Marvel or DC guy, or do you prefer an

independent comic publisher? Well, I've got two

tattoos in my body that Pret... pledged my allegiance

to Detective Comics. But at the same time, I

like a lot of the smaller publishers. Like, I'm

a huge fan of Devil's Due Publishing. And they

do a really fantastic series called Hack Slash,

which is really, really, really neat. You guys

should definitely check it out. But if I had

to fall on one side of the fence, I'd have to

go DC because I find the storytelling, it's a

lot better if somewhat convoluted. Like, they

always retcon everything. Like, oh, Superboy

Prime. Oh, he's not dead. Infinity Crisis on

whatever. And, yep, Marvel, if you want to follow

Civil War, here, buy episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 6,

7, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 9 of She -Hulk. And you

know what I mean? It just, the crossovers got

real. and that's why I'm not a huge fan of Marvel

as much, but I like some Marvel characters. With

one exception, I'm going to say something very,

very controversial right now. With one exception,

DC cannot produce a good movie for shit. Marvel

owns them on movies. The only exception to that

is The Dark Knight. I would, well, I'd say Batman

Begins wasn't really good. It was okay. I didn't

like the choice for the villain for that one,

but that's just me. Yeah, I agree. It could have

been a lot more iconic, but for what it was,

it did set up the universe. Yeah, it did set

up the Nolanverse. It's actually funny you talk

about the crossovers. I don't know where, I think

they're in the other room. I have all four original

issues of the Marvel -DC crossover, Marvel vs.

DC. I used to have that. I think I had the second

issue, and I also had the Adventures of Darkclaw,

which is cool. I think between those comics and

the comic that I got with my BotCon 2008 set

last year, those are the only comics I own right

now. I'm sitting on about three boxes of comics

right now, not counting the countless... graphic

novels I have in our living room. In fact, actually,

I'm just getting into mangas right now. We just

did a special on This Week in Geek on 20th Century

Fox's Dragon Ball Evolution. And Viz Media, the

guys that do the Pokemon bleach and all them,

sent us some of the Dragon Ball mangas, and I'm

really, really digging those right now. That's

cool. That's cool. Who is your favorite actor

or actress? Wow, that's a toughie. Well, I'm

not saying you have to pick a definite, I mean,

just like... One that I favor? Yeah. I'm really

a huge fan of Kristen Bell. Like, ever since

seeing Veronica Mars, that was absolutely just

wow. Stalker. Oh, like, you wouldn't believe.

Another one of my favorites is she's a little

lesser known, but you know her from the Sarah

Connor Chronicles. Levin Rambin, she played the

character of Riley Dawson. I really, really like

her, actually. I really think she's going to

do some fantastic things in Hollywood. I really,

really think so. As for actors, I would definitely

say I'm a huge fan of Carlos Bernard. He plays

Tony Almeida on 24. Kiefer Sarlon, Jack Bauer,

clearly. I'm trying to think of another character.

I really like Frank Welker. Dean Haglund. He

plays Langley on The X -Files. David Duchovny.

Just because I think he's brilliant, and he's

quite the comedic actor when he's given the chance

to do something. Californication. Exactly. Even

though I've never seen it, the only reason why

I know that is because Columbia House sent me

a season of it, and I sent it back. Very nice.

Actually, it's kind of weird. I sent for a Columbia

House application a little while ago, gave them

my credit card number, and I never saw anything.

The best way to get it done. is if you find a

Columbia House thing in a magazine, like, you

know how you have those little subscription cutouts

in magazines for that magazine? Yep, yep. Find

one of those and just send it in like that and

just, like, click the or check off the bill me

thing, and they'll, you know, they'll have you

select two or three selections or whatever for

the DVD club. I can also give you the link to

the DVD website. See, I actually did that, and

I just never heard back from them. Maybe my credit

sucks. I don't know. I don't know. Twig has certainly

broken me. I'm going to save the last question

I have for the end of the little episode here

because I kind of want to get into, like, Twitter

and stuff like that. And the last question is

about kind of like podcasting. So, yeah, Twitter.

I think the actress you mentioned from Sarah

Connor – From the Terminator TV show. That's

another one of the shows I don't watch, and I

think the only time I've seen that actress's

name is when you've Twittered her on Twitter.

I think you've sent several messages to her,

and I've seen those go through. Yeah, Twitter's

awesome. I love it. Yeah, Twitter is one of those

things. I used to make fun of Steve for using

it. He's like, I'm going to Twitter this. I'm

like, yeah, you fucking nerd. And then we went

to a pod camp in Toronto and I'm like, all right,

Twitter sounds cool. Let's sign up. And then,

yeah, it's just been one amazing tool. In fact,

that's how I got my gig on 1150 AM WIMA through

one of my friends. Her name is Denise Dorman

and she's the wife of Dave Dorman who's a – World

famous Star Wars artist. He does all the oil

paintings for Star Wars. And she hooked me up

with with with some people over at Clear Channel.

And it was just wow. I'm like, this is the power

of social networking. And then. I just met so

many really cool people over Twitter. Obviously,

I talked to Levin. I talked to Leo Laporte. I

talked to Greg Grunberg and all of them. So it's

really weird just to see the amount of people

that are out there on Twitter and how useful

this thing is. In fact, another one of my friends

and frequent contributor to Twig, Kyle A. Bear,

host of the Big Ball Broadcast, is on Twitter.

He was some of the voices for Dragon Ball Z.

He was the voice of Teen Gohan and the Dragon

Ball Z announcer. And just seeing how he uses

Twitter to engage his audience is really, really,

really cool. And then obviously people like the

locker gnome Chris Prillo. In fact, I knew him

just before he got famous, which is really cool.

He doesn't remember me at all. But, yeah, it

was just – I just can't believe how much Twitter

has exploded in the last couple of months. And

it's amazing because some people at my school

were, like, we're just all getting ready to graduate

in the next couple of days. And they're like,

oh, Twitter sucks, blah, blah, blah. And now

I'm starting to see them pop up on Twitter. Yeah.

Like, that's right. Who the fuck's laughing now?

I got to say. Yeah, Steve Snowball, Sailor, had

– Steve put up a – What did he do? He asked a

question, I think it was a couple months ago,

he asked a question on Twitter about blogging

and, you know, between Facebook and MySpace and

Twitter, what do people use the most? And for

me, I have a MySpace page. The only reason why

I have it is because... I want to be able to

check up on some of my favorite bands like Nickelback

and Lifehouse and just bands like that type of

deal just to see what's going on with them. I

don't use it for anything else other than that

anymore. I check up on some of my friends that

post on there, but I very rarely will post any

blogs or do anything with it. Facebook, I only

join that to... My 10 -year high school reunion

is actually next month, and I only joined that

to get in touch with some of my old high school

friends. And Twitter, I use that more often than

not. I use Facebook more often than I do it.

Yeah, Twitter is just so much easier, whether

you're using the website, whether you're using

one of the mobile apps. TweetDeck is awesome.

It just is. I have it. I just haven't played

with it yet. You need to because it is almost

instantaneously. It's not like if you're on Twitter

.com and you say, oh, that's Steve Saylor, you

know, email me whatever, you know, update. And

then you have to refresh to see if he's replied

to that message. You have to refresh the web

page. With TweetDeck. It's like instantaneously,

whenever a message comes in, whether it's a general

message from somebody that you're following,

whether it's a direct message for you, whether

it's a reply to you, it comes in as soon as they

send it. See, I use Twitter Fox, and that seems

to work just as well. It's just not as robust,

I guess. TweetDeck's awesome. But, by the way,

Mike, you'll be happy to know, or probably unhappy,

rather, that Nickelback in Canada is actually

considered noise. Yeah, well, you people don't

know what good music is, then. You've got to

be friggin' kidding me. You've seen the video

to Rockstar? Okay, now wait a second here, wait

a second. Production value in the toilet. Now,

I will openly admit, I am not a fan of Rockstar,

okay? They peaked after Silverside Up. They peaked.

I don't think so. My personal opinion is they

keep getting better. Man, I've got to introduce

you to some good music, my friend. Go to 61 .com

and just listen. When I first found them, I found

them in 2000 right when The State premiered,

when Leader of Men and Breathe were the two biggest

hits they had. And I was like, oh, okay, this

is really cool, really cool. I started listening

to it. This was back before I got into iTunes

and all that stuff and before the whole digital

media thing kind of kicked off full blast. And

then Silverside Up came out, and yeah, I liked

a lot of the songs. My main problem with radio

in general is they overplay everything. That's

because you're likely listening to a top 40 format

station. That would be my guess. Rock Station,

I mean, just a regular, you know, rock station,

not really Top 40, because the Top 40 station

here mainly plays rap and hip -hop. But anyway,

so yeah, Silver Side Up came out, and there's

a lot of songs that didn't get any play off of

that that are really good, like Hollywood and

Woke Up This Morning and all that. And then The

Long Road came out, and I enjoyed pretty much

every track that wasn't a single. I really enjoy

it a lot. And then All the Right Reasons, again,

I usually look for the tracks that aren't the

singles. Like the one I can remember that I listened

to the most off of All the Right Reasons was

Next Contestant. And then Dark Horse Hittin',

love it. But anyway, you know, to each their

own. They suck. Sorry. I can say that because

I'm Canadian, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually,

it's funny. I'm not going to say names or anything

else, but on the earth2 .net forums, there is

a guy over there that apparently he's a musician,

and apparently he had a set either before or

after Nickelback before they got famous, and

some bar fight broke out or whatever else, and

he ended up hitting Chad Kroger in the back of

the head. I actually saw Chad Crozier at a hockey

game about four years ago. Oh, really? Yep, he

was sitting up in the press boxes. I was at an

Ottawa 67s game. There's been a lot of speculation

because I started at 24th right over at earth2

.net, and there's been a lot of speculation as

far as this season where Jack. Might end up where

the show might end up if Sutherland does not

come back. And somebody said, I think Tony could

take over. And I'm like, yeah, okay, that's not

going to happen. It wouldn't be the same show

without Kiefer Sutherland. It would totally tank

if it didn't have him. I don't think so, because

there were rumors that Tony Almeida was going

to get his own spinoff for a while there. And

the thing is, Jack Bauer's already signed on

for an eighth season. He'll be back. Oh, yeah.

I'm sure. And I think it was about a month ago,

I kept, like, for a solid week, I kept asking

the question. Nobody answered it. I am surprised.

I kept asking the question on Twitter. In a fight,

who would win, Jack Bauer or Vic Mackey? Who

the fuck is that? Vic Mackey from The Shield.

Oh, well, Jack Bauer because he's Jack Bauer.

You're just a Jack Bauer stalker. That's all

it is. Jack Bauer can kill God, okay? You might

not want to say that standing so close to a lightning

rod. Jack Bauer will own you. Jack Bauer is the

only man on earth that can simultaneously kick

the ever -living shit out of Chuck Norris and

Jean -Claude Van Damme. God's most two perfect

creations. Jack Bauer created God, okay? Oh,

Lord. You're really opening stuff up now, Mike.

Oh, yeah. Okay. I think we're going to wrap this

up with my last question. If you could give any

advice on podcasting, what would it be, and what

would you tell a potential podcaster to start

with? Lots of naked chicks. However, alternatively,

my real advice is make sure you have the right

training behind you. Passion will take you far.

Passion will lead you to education. But I think

the best thing about podcasting is... is if you

have a formal radio background, it can be tremendously

helpful to you. And don't be afraid to try for

really big interviews. I mean, sometimes you

get tremendously lucky. And if you have a little

bit of radio background to yourself, you can

offer your audio skills up to radio stations

much like I have, and that opens up a whole new

set of doors and credentials that you can use

to help. promote your podcast, promote yourself,

and develop as a radio professional. But in terms

of podcasting, content has to be good. Content

has to be consistent. That's why on Twig we have

something come out literally every other day

or every two days. There has to be something

out because it keeps people engaged. Some people

say it's information overload, but that depends.

I mean you're delivering content on demand. It's

not overload if they're choosing when to listen

to it. Exactly, and if it's a – If it's a thing

of, like, for example, I can go through the episodes

I have of Twig that are on my iTunes because

there are some that I just don't listen to because

I may not like the topic or just, I don't know.

But, like, the best example I can give you is

the Disney Afternoon one. As soon as I saw it

download, I'm like... Wow, they actually, they're

doing something really cool. And I listened to

it, and a friend of mine on Twitter, Atrion84,

actually listened to it, and it actually inspired

him. He wants to start his own podcast, which

he and I are probably going to do it together.

It is going to be called ToonCast, and we are

going to sit down and review one cartoon show

or series each week. And that'll be coming, I

don't know when, at some point. Ooh, I missed

a question. Where, where, where is it? Holy crap,

I can't even find it now. We all know you're

a huge Transformers fan. Where did that fandom

start for you? Actually, it's kind of funny.

My friend Ryan, not the same Ryan that told me

to shut the fuck up, but a different Ryan. We

were watching YTV in Canada one night and we

saw this space battle on TV. We're like, what

the hell is this? And it turns out it was Beast

Wars. So I started getting into that with Ryan

and he would tape the shows for me off of YTV

and I'd watch them when he was done with them.

And yeah, that reignited my whole Transformers

fandom. Then I found the movie really cheap in

like a store and I bought it. I'd say my fandom

really came alive when the Alternators came out.

And I collected almost all of them. I'm missing

like maybe five or six of them. And that really

got me back into the fandom. And then I guess

I got more into it as the Michael Bay movie got

closer and closer. And then when I got my Transformers

tattoo, it was just, you know what? You're a

Transformers fanboy. Just live with it. I'm going

to ask what is it, but I'm not going to ask where

is it. Oh, it's the Autobot logo, and it's on

my left bicep right below Superman. Okay. I'm

also going to get the Decepticobra symbol. I

just don't know where yet. Because that's just

frigging badass. That's too funny. All right,

do you have any parting words of wisdom or any

weird or strange geek stories that you want to

share with us? I'm trying to think here. Where

do I even start here? I guess words of wisdom

is don't ever give up. If someone says you're

not going to be a success, give them the finger,

punch them in the face, and prove them wrong.

Because you know what? Everybody who laughed

at me at Niagara is regretting it now. Yeah,

I bet they are. You would be surprised, Mike,

how many times I have people emailing me going,

oh, my God, Mike, what do I do? I need help.

But the thing is, the most important thing is

don't be a dick. Like Will Wheaton said, don't

be a dick. But when you communicate with people

that maybe laughed at you for being a podcaster

or laugh at you for being a nerd, be very gracious

with them because it means you're the better

person. Now, that's not a superiority complex

thing, not at all. It's you being gracious in

light of what's happened. It's all about good

karma. So when you help another person out, no

matter what, it will come back to you in some

way. Don't do it for selfish reasons because,

hey, I'm going to get a – reward someday do it

because you want to be a good person and i guess

that's the most important thing is is that just

be good what you give to the world you will get

back in spades and i guess there's something

else that really changed my life and i guess

i'll just share it right now sure is i is i did

this thing last summer called the landmark forum

and it's a landmark education .com and i went

to this uh seminar in toronto for three days

my friend andy walker paid for it And it was

the most amazing life -changing thing I have

ever done in my life. Literally over the course

of three days, I regained my life. And I guess

to boil it down, it teaches you to accept responsibility

for everything that you have ever done, both

good and bad. But know that you're perfect just

the way you are. And the only obstacles that

are ever in your way are the ones that you place

there yourself. So whenever you say, oh, I can't

do that because I'm not good enough, that's a

story you're telling yourself. You are as talented

as you need to be. If you want to do it bad enough,

you'll do it. And with that stuff in mind, just

things changed and Twig has experienced a remarkable

growth since then. I mean we were a small podcast.

Now we're a podcast of over three million listeners

from last summer. That's crazy. That's really

good though. That's it's really cool. Like I've

been spotted in Toronto. People going, Oh my

God, it's bird, man. I had a couple of girls

pose with me for like photos last year at the

Toronto fan X. Cause we did shows on evil dead,

the musical and some other stuff. They're like,

Hey my God, you're really cool. And you're Mike

Dodd screw attacks. G one of the year. Oh, that's

another adventure, too. True Attack and the Game

Heroes. Yes. Speaking of the convention stuff

that you have done, are you guys going to TFCon

this year? When is it and where is it? It's in

Toronto. I don't know when, though. It depends.

If it's the same weekend as Anime North, probably

not. I would like to go this year because I have

the voice of Generation 1 Bumblebee there. Yes,

yes. I'll have to get some promos from him. But,

yeah, I'm not sure. The conventions we're hitting

this year, I'm doing E3 likely this year. I'm

probably doing – well, I missed New York Comic

Con, but Pierce went this year. Probably going

to E3. Probably Evo, which is this huge fighting

game tournament in Las Vegas. Are you going back

to Iron Man of Gaming? Oh, for sure. I actually

– Well, which is now called SGC, ScrewAttack

Gaming Convention. If you keep your eyes on ScrewAttack

.com sometime in the next little while, you're

going to see a challenge between Jose and myself,

or as I now call him, Jose El Mexitaco. It's

going to be intense, and I intend to win this

challenge. And that's all I can really say, so

I'm not going to spoil it. But cheer for the

Birdman. He's got Jack Bauer on his side. Do

you have any Twig exclusives that you might be

able to share with us that no one else really

knows about yet? Well, I actually just recently

did an interview with Levin Rambin, one of the

stars of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I also

did a really cool bit on Birdman's Boombox with

Entity and Ranger of the 8 -Bit Boys. They're

these nerdcore rappers, which are quite friggin'

awesome. In addition to that, we're just working

on a really bunch of really exciting shows. I'm

hoping to get some more really big guests on

the show. In fact, there may be a video. in in

a couple of weeks that might feature some rather

big internet stars we're filming it in chicago

on monday so cool that's all i can really tell

you it's uh it'll be pretty amazing all i can

say he's uh gonna take you back to the past and

he remembers it so you don't have to that's all

i can say but i already think i know who it is

It'll be pretty frigging awesome, so hopefully

I'll be there with one of my motherfucker t -shirts.

Last time you were doing exclusives for us, you

had mentioned the Twig TV show. Is there any

more development on that? Well, since that time,

we have partied ways with the interested party,

mainly because he was a douchebag. But we are

working on developing some new television properties,

which we're going to approach some of the Canadian

media people, hopefully in the next few months,

once we flesh out the pilot, maybe film a short

segment of it. Actually, right now, we're working

for the Pones Game Center here in Hamilton. That's

P -O -N -E. P O W N Z .com. And we're doing all

their like fight videos right now. So there may

be a possibility of twig getting on Xbox live

from the, from the pones game center. So yeah,

you never know. In fact, if you look on Xbox

live right now, twig is on there twice. We're

at the, we're at the gears of war events. We're

at the halo at the halo wars launch event. And

we're in some, we're in something else. You can

see me in the background quite clearly. Yes,

you guys were also blogged about at G4, and can

you talk about that at all as far as maybe Twig

taking G4 over? Actually, it's kind of funny

you mention that. Somebody on Twitter actually

was following me from G4, and I mentioned, you

know what, man? Twig's going to take G4. You

frigging watch. And the guy contacted me, and

he's like, hey. How would you like to be featured

on G4? I'm like, oh, really? Do tell. Let's have

a conversation. So we basically started talking

back and forth, and he's like, well, I really

like what you guys do, consistent content, really

good content. Can we put you guys on the feed?

I'm like, sure. So he did that, and we've been

talking back and forth, and I'm going to approach

them about some other ideas and development projects

I have in mind. You never know. I think Twig's

really, really going to go somewhere with this.

And with that in mind, it would be awesome if

we were on Attack of the Show, X -Play, EP Daily,

or something like that. I've got some pretty

big ideas. In fact, I'd love to interview Adam

Sessler or Morgan Webb from G4 just to talk to

them about their experiences as video game journalists.

That would be a flip side, seeing as how they

do most of the interviews. It would be. I mean,

and supposedly Sessler is a really, really, really

cool guy. My boss over at TheGameHeroes .com,

Handsome Tom, was talking with him last year

and said he was a really chill guy. So hopefully.

Yeah, hopefully. You never know. Exactly. So

right now, Twig is pretty much just getting bigger

and bigger and bigger. You can hear me on 1150

AM WIMA on the Mike Miller Morning Show. We're

on ScrewAttack .com, TheGameHeroes .com. And

pretty much we're all over the net in some capacity.

I know Steve's doing some blogging for TechStartups

.com. I think that's the name of the website.

He's also doing Jump the Shark, which finally

premiered. Yeah, which sucks because we lost

two of our episodes, which we recorded prior,

which means we just have to rework them now that

those shows are later in their respective seasons.

But yeah, so I'm really, really, really happy

Steve's doing that. So Steve does that. Dave

is going to be doing more fan service stuff,

more interviews in the next little while. We're

actually talking about a new Twig audio drama,

very similar to the wrong guy, wrong time thing.

we did last year, which was one of our technical

marvels. Like I said, I really wish we'd won

an award for that one at our school, but it came

down to politics in my opinion. But I'm not a

sore loser. The best person won, so whatever.

So, yeah, I guess that's really about it. Oh,

and Stefan the Skunk Pelche, well, he's just

kind of there. We're hoping to get him more involved

in some stuff. In fact, I was very happy he was

my co -host on the most recent episode of the

Dragon Ball thing. I was going to say, Pierce

has been the one that's kind of disappeared for

a while. It's like you all sent him to Saskatchewan

or something. No, Pierce has been tremendously

busy with the Bloor Street Cinema in Toronto.

In fact, all the really good -looking videos

on YouTube involving the Bloor Street Cinema

have been Pierce. And he's been working with

director Edgar Wright, who did Shaun of the Dead

and Hot Fuzz, and is right now doing Scott Pilgrim

Takes Over the World in Toronto. So hopefully

some cool things will come out of that for Pierce.

But he's just been working with all of them.

They've been doing this Wright Stuff Film Festival

in Toronto. Toronto, in fact, tonight they're

doing... David Cronenberg's, I think it's The

Brood or Last Night. I can't remember which one

it is. And something else there. It's The Bloor

Double Bill. So that's what he's been doing.

He's just been really, really, really busy. Me

and him still do TraumaCast for Trauma Entertainment,

but Uncle Lloyd's terribly busy and so are we.

So we're hoping to do more TraumaCast. I think

the next episode is Sergeant Kabuki Man NYPD

or Redneck Zombies. Not too sure. Well, I'd like

to thank you for joining me, Mike. I'm just going

to go over some of the stuff that's going on

with me before we close this out. Let's see.

TFG1 podcast is up to, Steve and I are going

to be recording episode 13 in about four hours.

Let's see. I've actually had. Amazing, amazing

response to TFG1. It's actually surprising. I

know a few of the people that are over at Earth2

.net where I first asked for feedback for the

podcast about starting it up and stuff, a few

of them listen that are overseas. I actually

had one guy from Japan Twitter me the other day

about it, so I've kind of gone worldwide with

that. Steve and I are SteveSCP21 or at SCP21

on Twitter. He and I are still doing all things

Transformers. We are going to be starting up

at the end of this year the Beast Unleashed podcast,

which is a review series for Beast Wars and Beast

Machines. Let's see, what else are we going to

be doing? The MWIRE Movie Weekend Review is going

to start July 11th, and I think, hopefully, if

I can nail him down to the floor, I am going

to have Steve Snowball Sailor on that with us,

because the premiere episode of MWIRE will be

back to the future. And seeing as how you all

recorded yours while Steve was in class, he can

at least get his thoughts out on ours. Are you

still there? Oh, yeah, sorry. That's all. Okay,

I was going to say, wait, did he hang up again?

Oh, shit. Yeah, and then I had already mentioned

ToonCast. That'll be coming out. I don't know

exactly when because I have to talk to my buddy

about that. So, yeah, there's a lot going on

for me as well. So I think we're going to close

that out. close this out. That is all for this

episode of the TFG1 Podcast. Join Steve and I

next time when we will be reviewing five more

episodes from Transformers Generation 1 Season

2. Those being The Key to Vector Sigma Parts

1 and 2, Aerial Assault, War Dawn where we will

meet Orion Pax and let's see if anybody knows

who Orion Pax is and Trans Europe Express which

is basically just the Autobot run in Europe.

So, thank you for joining me on the TFG1 Podcast.

There are four ways to get in touch with me or

leave feedback for the podcast. The first is

you can visit the PredaconEmpire .com forums

and get all of your Transformers discussion topics

there. The second is that you can follow me on

Twitter. My Twitter name on there is TFG1 Podcast,

as well as you can follow Mike, which his is

at BirdmanDodd. The third is you can visit the

earth2 .net forums. I have a thread over there

under the banter section for the podcast. And

the fourth is the email address, which is tfg1podcast

at gmail .com. In the immortal words of Optimus

Prime, transform and roll out, and thank you

for listening. Yippee -ki -yay, motherfuckers!

Good night, folks. Start this over. Okay. Okay,

and we are recording now. Finally, this is the

second segment of the TFG1 interviews where I

interview the major co -hosts, even though no

disrespect to the other guys, the major co -hosts

of Twig Mike, the Birdman Dodd was in the earlier

clip. And now I have, hopefully, Steve Snowball

-Sailor. Hey, how's it going? It's going. I'm

about ready to throw this computer out the fucking

window. I hear you. And Steve, don't be bashful

about cursing because my podcast is tagged explicit.

Oh, wow, that's right. So, we all know that you're

from Canada. Where exactly did you grow up? I

grew up in a city in the Niagara Peninsula called

St. Catharines, Ontario. Ontario is a province,

not the city. But the thing that's cool about

St. Catharines is its claim to fame is the school

that you see in the movie A Christmas Story,

you know where the kid wants the Red Ryder BB

gun for Christmas? Yeah, that school is in St.

Catharines. Well, most of the good filming stuff

is in Canada anyway. Exactly. Yeah, we had talked

in one of our... previous attempts about uh skylon

and all that stuff and i remember going there

and seeing that little um my dad stood behind

a little plastic niagara falls in a barrel thing

we had a picture taken that was really cool yeah

me and my dad had the same thing uh that was

in niagara falls because the thing is that the

whole area has changed now it's become more commercialized

industrial and it just has all kinds of like

buildings that are built up all around the falls

and it like it definitely is not the same as

when you uh when you were a kid like i would

just say like if you ever take a look at superman

2 um whenever when christopher reeves basically

with uh like they're at uh niagara falls that

whole kind of side area where you see like a

lot of grass and a hill and all that stuff oh

yeah that's all it's it's pretty much all buildings

from that point on oh that sucks um what got

stevesailor .net started up what was behind what

was the whole thought process of yours behind

that behind your website Well, a CISO .net originally

started off as a blog that I wanted to do just

because I wanted to – learn how to write, and

I figured the good way to do that is to build

a practice. So I originally was going to do a

blog a day, a blog post a day for an entire year.

Originally, I kind of scaled that down. It's

like, you know what, I'll just try to do a blog

a day and see how long it can take me. I originally

got up to about at least a full month, so I was

kind of pretty proud about that. And then it

went into – I moved it over to Vox .com. I used

to intern at G4 Tech TV, and then I got a beta

invite for Vox. which is owned by Six Apart,

and I had my blog there for quite a while. I

really loved it, and it was easy to do, and I

had basically my domain name forwarded there.

And then basically I brought it back to – I actually

started up a podcast novel, and I figured the

best way to be able to promote the novel was

actually using my own name as basically branding

myself. So I used the domain name stevesaylor

.net, and I launched the podcast novel Black

Shadow through that. And then it kind of basically

reiterated to more of a formal kind of a blog,

and then it kind of is now more of a formal,

I guess, media -centric website. It basically

has been going since I think about 2004, somewhere

in there, I think about 2004. So it's been going

for about five years now. And, yeah, it's been

a pretty fun ride for stevesaylor .net. Yeah,

five years is a great accomplishment. What were

some of your favorite cartoons and regular TV

shows to watch as a kid? Oh, well, we kind of

covered a little bit of this on Twig. In a recent

episode, we talked about the Disney Afternoon.

Those were absolutely my favorite shows when

I was a kid. I mean, anything from Darkwing Duck,

Tailspin, DuckTales, Goof Troop, Gargoyles. Those

were basically my favorite shows growing up.

There was also kind of some really other different

kind of shows. Like, even though I grew up in

the 80s, I never really got into the TV shows

of the 80s. I wanted to. But I just never – like

I was actually more of a – like believe it or

not, even though I was a geek at the time, I

still enjoyed playing outdoors. So I never really

got to do anything else other than to play outdoors

with my friends for like hours upon end. So a

lot of TV shows I didn't get a chance to watch.

But other than that, I think it was – I did watch

a little bit of Transformers. Not too much, but

I did get into it to a small, small degree. Then

what else did I used to watch? Oh, there was

one show that never really kind of – I don't

think not a lot of people know about, but it

was around the same time as the Disney afternoon.

And it was a show – it was a cartoon called Bruno

the Kid. And Bruno the Kid was basically like

this little kid who became a super spy. And Bruno

was his name, and he actually – was voiced by

bruce willis oh that's cool so yeah so i would

uh that was one another one of my uh favorite

shows uh growing up so yeah it was mainly it

was mainly the disney afternoon i grew up kind

of a very uh sheltered kind of childhood so it

was uh it was just mainly those were the shows

that i got to watch and obviously like other

stuff like saved by the bell and and all those

kind of shows that you would see on Saturday

afternoon or what we used to call the TGIF, TGIF

Friday. So, yeah, that was pretty much my shows.

Actually, it's funny you mention about not watching

transfers too much. You will actually be able

to. You'll have to import them from the U .S.,

but Shout Factory has been... tapped to release

the original 80s cartoon on DVD again. They're

going to do a 25th anniversary season one coming

June 16th, the week before the Transformers Revenge

of the Fallen movie, and they are going to be

doing a complete series later on in the summer,

so you should definitely get those. I'm definitely

going to have to give those a try. Yep. When

did you first realize you were a geek, and what

was the one thing, if you could pinpoint it,

that made you a geek? Actually, this one's quite

easy. I mean, I pretty much was a geek growing

up, but the one moment that I kind of pinpointed

a self -realization of when I was a geek was

when I... I used to sit at home and I specifically

saved this because it was a TV show and I specifically

saved it for this particular kind of question.

It was actually Star Trek The Next Generation.

I used to watch that relentlessly when I was

a kid. I was a major Star Trek geek. I was never

gotten to the point where I would dress up with

the costumes and stuff like that. But I had the

Star Trek little action figures or the TNG action

figures. I think I had Picard. I had Geordi.

I had Worf. I think I had Wesley Crusher. I couldn't

remember if I had him or not. But one of my favorite

toys was basically the tricorder. I actually

had a working tricorder that was so cool. It

was kind of handheld, and I could push buttons

on it, and it was really cool. But yeah, I remember

watching that. It was funny because my mom and

my dad would watch the show with me, and I remember

watching it every single week whenever a new

episode would come out. It was when TNG finished,

and that's when I found out about DS9 and Voyager

soon afterwards. For me, I never would have watched

those shows if it wasn't for TNG, and I became

a huge geek because of that. I learned everything

about Star Trek. I even read novels. I read comic

books. I would watch all the old movies. This

is before TNG actually made any movies, and this

is around the time still when I think Undiscovered

Country was just coming out at that point when

TNG was still around. So it was quite cool to

be able to see that. Yeah, so back in the late

80s, that's when I really started becoming a

geek, and then I kind of somewhat fell out of

it as far as geek kind of shows other than the

Disney afternoon, but I never really considered

those as geeky shows. It was just more about

just cartoons I would watch, and it wasn't until

when I graduated from high school, that's when

I really started getting into other branches

of geekdom, and I started learning a lot about

movies, TV shows, comic books, video games, that

kind of deal. So it's been a long journey. Yes,

it seems like it. And you're not that old, actually.

No, it's weird because I'm only 25 years old.

I know a lot of geeks who grew up in the 80s

as much as I did. They would chastise me for

not being able to love the geeky stuff back in

the 80s like Thundercats or Transformers or He

-Man or anything along those – or Teenage Mutant

Ninja Turtles even to a certain degree. A lot

of those stuff I never really got into because

I was more into the sci -fi. I loved sci -fi

because my dad had the same. He loved all the

old sci -fi B -movies, anything from Godzilla

to any Vincent Price movie, as well as he used

to watch – even what got me into comic books

was also the old Batman series in the 60s. That's

also a show I used to watch, the 60s Batman,

the animated series. It was just kind of a –

It just – I got into my geekdom in the 90s, which

kind of sucks because I kind of wish I was around

for like a lot of the times in the 80s for all

the cool stuff that happened then. But no, it

just was the 90s for me. The next couple of questions,

I kind of want to separate them a little bit

because there's a question in between the one

about where This Week in Geek came from that

I want to ask separate. So if you can kind of

just like go with the flow on this and I'll kind

of tell you what. First question is when did

you get into radio and was it something that

you always wanted to do? I originally didn't

want to do radio. I kind of had in the back of

my mind one of those things. I would love to

be able to someday maybe be a radio DJ, and it

just never grew anything more than just that.

I never really pursued it any further. But it

was in 2003 I got into a beta invite for the

Matrix Online role -playing game, and it was

my first kind of – MMORPG that I got to get into.

And when I started playing it, I found out about

an online radio station for the game called Radio

Free Zion. And this was actually one of the...

Not necessarily officially declared the official

radio station of the Matrix Online, but it was

like Warner Brothers knew who it was, who the

station was, and basically they would give us

special invites and special codes to give away,

and we'd also have developer interviews that

only go through Radio Free Zion, stuff like that.

And they had position availability for online

DJs. And I thought, you know what, what the hell?

I love the game a lot, and I thought I had...

a pretty good personality to be able to be a

DJ. So I just started – I applied and they said

I was good. So I started doing that and then

I was doing that for about a year and a half

roughly. And when I started – like it was about

six months into doing the – to being a DJ, that

I got the bug for being on radio. I actually

remember the exact moment. I was doing a show,

and the thing is, at the time, Radio Freezion

would throw the... They had these dance clubs

in the game that you can go to, and we would

always... Anytime we would have a party or a

thing on the station, we would always show up

at the clubs and basically host parties. And

we had this one... I'm blanking on the name of

it right now. I think it was like Worldwide Rave.

I think it was what it was called. It was basically

across all servers, and it was the biggest dance

party for the Matrix Online, and we were hosting

it. And I was the first DJ to run the first two

-hour block of this Worldwide Rave. And the thing

is, this was, I think, my second shift on air.

And it was kind of funny because... That night

was the largest listenership we ever had, and

it was on my show, and it was about over 2 ,000

listeners live listening at that point. And it

was really, really cool. I got a huge positive

response from that, and I caught the bug pretty

much from there. And then I went to school at

Niagara College for radio, film, and television

broadcasting, and I wanted to focus in on the

radio thing. And then it pretty much gone from

there, and now I'm at Humber College because

Niagara College kind of handles more film and

television than they do really radio. But yeah,

so I'm at Humber College specifically right now

in Toronto for radio broadcasting. And I've been

on like AM640, which is like the largest radio

station here in – well, one of the largest radio

stations in Canada. I've interned there and just

– yeah, it's been – I love radio. I just love

it to death. That's cool. Yep. Where did the

idea for This Week in Geek come from? Can you

kind of walk the TFG1 listeners through the creative

process you had for coming up with the idea?

Well, it originally actually started off with

me. I knew going into the program that they would...

they do for special credit, uh, for basically

for 5 % bonus credit for the radio production

class. Uh, we were allowed to, if we wanted to

do a specialty show on the college radio station,

uh, just, uh, uh, like you would do it on your

own time. You would run it for about an hour,

uh, about an hour show. And originally I was

going to do it as a, uh, I don't know if you

know, uh, no, this is, but basically I used to

be, um, I used to love watching tech TV back

in the day, and I would watch Leo Laporte on

the screensavers and call for help. And he had

a radio show called The Tech Guy, and I wanted

to basically do that – like basically the version

of The Tech Guy where he would get calls and

people would ask questions about tech and stuff

like that, and I would answer them live on air.

And I kind of thought, well, the thing is with

Niagara College, not a lot of people may not

have tech problems that they would want to call

to a radio station to get answers for. So I expanded

it to, I guess, you know what, let's go with

a geek -oriented show because that's at least

a little bit more broad and I can kind of get

a larger audience with that. And then I had a

co -host in mind for it. We had to submit like

a 15 -minute demo for the station to be able

to pick. They would choose the best demos who

would get on air. Right. And I originally was

going to – like I submitted it and I asked a

friend of mine who was going to be my co -host.

And because of the scheduling that they had,

they wanted us pretty much on air within a week.

I had to choose a day that unfortunately just

did not match his schedule. He had to basically

drop out, and then I thought, well, maybe doing

it alone. But I thought, you know, I really want

to do a co -host because I really like the conversation

style whenever I talk with my friends. It's more

fun to be able to talk with friends about geek

stuff than it is to talk about it yourself. So

I knew Mike Dodd. I was going to ask him to be

a guest co -host on the show. I wanted to have

him on as basically a comic book expert. I wanted

to have experts on the show of comic books. books,

video games, movies, that kind of thing. And

then I would just kind of conduct an interview

-style format. And so I knew – and Mike said

he was interested in being the comic book expert.

And then when I found out that my original co

-host said he couldn't do it – I was like – I

basically woke up that morning. I was like, you

know what? What the hell? I'll just ask Mike.

He said he was interested. So I figured – like

the thing is I didn't really know him. I barely

knew him at all. I've seen him around like in

class and stuff like that, but I barely knew

him. I barely even said two words to him other

than when he said he was interested. And then

I asked him. I was like, hey, you know what?

Do you want to be a co -host on my show about

geeks? And he says, yeah, sure. And so we literally

like – after first meeting for the first time,

we actually went. the studio recorded a promo

uh and then like two days later we were on air

for our first show and it was like instant chemistry

it was as if we like people had were comment

uh commented on our first show as basically it

seemed as if mike and i were friends for years

and it was weird because we only knew each other

for two days and if we just got along so well

and it just kind of grew from there, so to speak.

Yeah, that was actually going to be one of my

next questions, was how did the snowball hit

the bird man in the face? Because he told me

a little story about he tried to get you kicked

out of school. Oh, yes, this story. Now, this

I didn't know until at least about a few months

after we started doing the show. It was kind

of funny. We had to do this project. I think

it was a broadcast journalism class where we

had to take a news story and we had to basically

report – not necessarily report on it but kind

of give our own perspective on the story, like

tell what the story is and ask questions about

– kind of lead a discussion in the class for

this news story. And there was one particular

news story. It was for Brock University, which

is the local university in St. Catharines. And

it was a hacker had hacked into their system

and stole 250 credit card numbers. And I thought,

well, that's perfect because it's right up my

alley. I like hacking and stuff like that. And

the thing is I had a friend of mine. who ran

his own podcast called Hack 5. It's H -A -K -5,

and they're at hak5 .org. And they actually invented

this thing called the USB switchblade. And it's

basically, any of the new USB drives have a technology

in it called U3, which basically allows it to,

whenever you plug in a USB key, you can have

it so that an application can automatically open

up as soon as you plug it in. They do the same

kind of technology when you plug in CDs. and

to your computer and stuff like that. And so

my friend Darren, who was basically, who made

the Switchblade, he figured out a way to be able

to create a hidden program that would launch.

And what it would do is if you... It would log

– it would basically – any – you plug it into

your computer and within a few seconds, unplug

it again. And then anytime someone else plugs

in a USB key to that computer, the software that's

hidden in the background that will automatically

grab all those files and then email them to any

particular email address you want. And so what

I did was – I kind of used that as an example.

It's like how easy it is to hack something. I

actually made my – own USB switchblade and actually

plugged it into the school's computer. Now, the

thing is, Mike wasn't in that class. We were

all separated into five groups, and he was in

another group than I was. But he found out about

this secondhand, and I told the teacher that

I was going to be doing this, and I said I could

very easily remove the software, which was easy.

It wasn't like it was going to be stuck on there

for good. And I had that example. I actually

had someone basically plug in their USB drive,

and then I actually had it so that all of his

stuff on his USB. would load up into my email

and it worked. Well, somehow I found out about

this and Mike found out about it and he kind

of prided himself on being a hacker himself.

So when he found out that I did this and I basically

trumped him, he got really, really pissed off

and he actually wanted to be able to go to my

program coordinator to try to get me kicked out

of school. I had no idea this was going on and

I don't know whether or not if he did it or if

he talked to anybody at all. Apparently he was

pretty pissed off at me, and he wanted to hit

me in the face. Well, what he told me the story

was he thought that you were stealing test answers.

Oh, I never knew about that. And first of all,

he said, first of all, congratulations, but second

of all, fuck you. Exactly. Now, for me, podcasting

came about. This is in coincidence with my next

question. For me, podcasting came about from

listening to podcasts, and the question I had

asked Mike was, did listening to podcasts get

you into wanting to host them like it did with

me, or was it something else entirely? Well,

with me, it was – I have obviously – I was very

similar to your stance on it and the fact that

I was – I basically – what I wanted to get –

what I got into actually podcasting was listening

to podcasts. And my very first podcast I listened

to was This Week in Tech based on obviously Leopold

again. And you can find that Twitch .tv is all

the podcasts he does there. And I listened to

– I started listening to that and I listened

to a whole bunch of others like a – it was all

within like 2015. it was pretty much that whole

year was just listening to a whole bunch of podcasts

and I had an iPod at the time it was basically

an iPod third generation and I would love just

putting them all the podcasts on there just like

listening to it because I used to when I go to

school I would always go on a bus and the thing

is it's about an hour bus ride so I would always

have that time to be able to listen to podcasts.

So when I started listening to that, I was like,

you know what? I could do that. So I started

– me being stupid, I decided to do a video podcast,

which was so hard in and of itself. It was called

Snowballs PC and it stood for – it was a stupid

name. It basically stood for Snowballs Podcast.

And it was basically a podcast all about podcasting.

It would teach you how to podcast. and the equipment

and stuff like that. So I started doing that,

and that pretty much died pretty quickly because

I just never – the thing is about podcasting,

it's a lot harder to produce video. It takes

a lot more time. It's time -consuming to be able

to do video than it is to do audio. Oh, yeah.

And I learned that lesson really quickly. Yeah,

I already knew. I was like, no, I can't even

do a YouTube account other than to subscribe

and watch videos, let alone upload videos. Forget

video podcasting. Exactly. The thing is I decided

like – you know what, just go full bore and just

go right out and just do video podcasts. Because

I originally thought the appeal for anyone to

want to watch a podcast of me was basically the

fact that I was an albino. So I thought, ah,

I'm interesting to look at. That's pretty much

about it. But then I started doing other podcasts.

I did a podcast with Alex Albrecht of Dignation.

And then I did other podcasts with my friend

Darren again from Hack5 and Jen Cutter from OpenAlpha

.tv. And then I basically – when I started doing

Twig, it was – that was pretty much the – Twig

is pretty much the longest podcast I've ran with.

So we're going on I think about just past two

years now, and it's still – it's going stronger

than it was before. So, yeah, it was pretty much

just listening to all kinds of podcasts that

got me into it. Yeah, that's the same thing that

happened with me. And actually I forgot to call

Mike out on this on our little interview, but

he had said in one of your all's episodes about

me getting into – hosting podcasts because of

twig it partially was because of twig but the

main inspiration was from world's finest podcast

which is a podcast dedicated to reviewing all

of the cartoons in the dc animated universe so

that's what originally got me into it uh what

is your favorite word it can be curse word whatever

it doesn't matter You're going very James Lipton

on me on this one. Turning the tables on you,

buddy. Yeah, jeez. I'm used to doing this stuff.

I had a word and I can't – I'm trying to remember

what it was. Oh, you know what? I don't know

why I didn't think about this right away. It's

hossle. Yeah, I've seen you use that plenty of

times. Yeah, I use that. It's hossle. It's pretty

much my favorite word. What is your least favorite

word? Uh, it's, it has to be like, it's, it's,

it's, it's high. It's, it's either the word moist

or it's the word macaque, which is the monkey.

I hate that word. I hate those two words or the

passion. Um, I forgot. I had already, I had asked

Mike about this long time ago on Twitter and

we'll talk about Twitter in a little bit. Um,

where did your nickname come from? Oh, well,

my nickname Snowball started off with – like

I was – I'm not going to lie. I was picked –

probably like a lot of geeks out there, I was

picked on a lot when I was in school mainly because

I was an albino. I had like really thick glasses.

I wasn't exactly one of the cool kids. And I

was getting sick and tired of people calling

me names like albino or whitey or snowflake or

anything along those lines. And I don't know

why at the time I was really pissed off about

anyone calling me the word albino. Now it's like

that's pretty much my thing is me calling myself

an albino. But it's – I remember when I was in

grade six, I was with my brother and our best

friend. Our best friend lived literally two doors

down from us, and that's going back to when I

used to play outside. Basically, at the time,

I was like, you know what? I'm getting sick and

tired of getting – called all these names. I

just want to – I want to like create a name that

I can actually be okay with and I can actually

say like, okay, you can call me this if you want

to call me anything and I would – and I would

be all right with it. And so I – it was a whole

bunch of names that we came up with. It was like

someone like Snowman or like once again Snowflake

or just – and then someone basically thought

Snowball and I thought – I originally thought

the name was basically Snowball and I had this

picture in my head. It's basically of a cartoon

snowball basically in a huge snowball fight.

And he's basically being like a badass, kind

of like throwing snowballs at other people. And

that's the picture I had in my head when I heard

the word snowball. I was like, yeah, let's do

that. And it wasn't until I got into a teenager

that I found out it was used in clerks. Let's

just say – actually, funny story, side note.

Kevin Smith actually came to Toronto just recently.

He did one of his evening with Kevin Smith, and

he also did a – basically a screening of all

his movies at the Bloor Cinema. And he actually

did a Q &A. He would do a half -hour Q &A after

each film. And I went there for the first night

when they show Clerks and Clerks 2. And Jason

Mewes was there and Kevin Smith was there. And

I was actually literally in the second row. And

it was so cool to basically be there. And I decided

after the Clerks 2 to be able to stand up and

actually confront Kevin Smith about the whole

Snowball nickname. I actually did. I basically

just said, Kevin Smith, basically I said, sir,

I wanted to thank you for ruining my nickname,

and that nickname is Snowball. And the entire

audience basically just erupted in laughter.

And so now Kevin Smith knows who I am, and I'm

known as Snowball. Oh, that's funny. If there

was one place you could visit in the entire world,

where would it be and why? I would – I mean originally

I used to think kind of abroad and I would always

want to go to England or Ireland or Scotland

or anything along those lines. But lately I've

been wanting to really go to California, whether

it be LA, San Francisco, San Diego. It doesn't

matter. Like anything along California because

it seems to be that there's a lot of stuff happening

there and I just like the warm weather and stuff

like that. So yeah, it would either be England

or California. Cool. If you had to pick one cartoon

as your number one all -time favorite, what would

it be and why? Oh, that's easy. Tailspin. Hands

down, Tailspin from Disney Afternoon. There's

so much going on with that show. They never dumbed

it down for kids. The storylines were not like

– a lot of cartoons back in that day was like

– it had like a – the moral of the day is that

kind of – and it was always that kind of episode.

But with Tailspin, it was different. It was kind

of – along the lines of Indiana Jones. It had

a lot of adventure and action and comedy and

drama. It was really, really cool. That, hands

down, I have to say that Tailspin really squeaks

by Darkwing Duck in that respect. They both were

high up there on my list, but I have to say,

if I had to put them in order, it'd be Tailspin

and Darkwing Duck. Yeah, yeah. If you had to

pick a number one all -time favorite TV show...

like regular, like 24, stuff like that, what

would it be and why? Old or new? All time. All

time, boy. If you had to pick one, if someone

held a gun to your head and said, you need to

pick a number one TV show or else I'm going to

shoot you, what would it be? You know, the cliche

thing would be to say Star Trek The Next Generation,

but I would have to say right now? Battlestar

Galactica. It's close. It's close. Oh, damn.

I thought I was going to hit it on the head.

No, I was actually thinking, like, there's two

shows in my head right now, and Battlestar Galactica

is one of them, and I'm trying to decide on which

one. You know, I'm sad that it's gone, but yeah,

no, Battlestar Galactica would be one. I'm going

to go for it. I'm just going to say it might

be controversial. I don't know. Chuck. Chuck,

for me right now, every episode since it came

out has been my – it's been an ultimate awesome

episode. It's geeky. It's action. It's got hot

– it's got the hottest chick on television. It's

just – it's pretty much, yeah, that – you know,

it's tough to choose. You can't – I'm a TV geek.

You can't ask me to choose one show. Well, I

am too, but I mean, you know, it's the whole

point of – Doing this is to get the hard -nosed

questions done and see what answers pop out.

Oh, yeah, but no, it's like, well, yeah, I have

to say, like, it changes over time. Let me just

say that. A lot of my favorite shows change over

time, and as of right now, I have to say my favorite

show would definitely be Chuck. Yep. What are

some of your favorite comic books? Well, Watchmen

pretty much right off the hop. I mean that's

always been a favorite of mine. I love the Batman

Hush series. I have the trade paperbacks for

that one. I love – it kind of has a special place

in my heart for it, but it's the death and life

of Superman or the death and return of Superman.

It's basically – where basically obviously Superman

gets killed by Doomsday. Issue 75, the black

issue, yep. Exactly, exactly. And then there's

– that's pretty much the top three. There is

one particular issue that actually I have akin

to. I think it was Superman number 675. Something

like that. I have it, but it's on a shelf, and

I can't grab it, so I can't see it. But what

was cool about it was that the artist of the

issue at the time was fans of podcasts. And he

actually had on one particular panel – it's kind

of funny how that happened, but there was this

one panel where – There's a bunch of, like, teenagers

stealing, like, looting stuff. And there was

basically on each of these teenagers, you can

see the logo for This Week in Tech. You can see

the logo for Command N, which is – and also Hack

5. You can see all three of those logos distinctly

in that one panel. And the thing is I'm friends

with every single one of those people on each

of those podcasts. And I'm good friends with

all of them. And it's just amazing. It's like,

oh, super – I actually had – to go out and get

like i don't read superman regularly issue by

issue but i had to go out and actually get that

just so i can be able to have that and and say

like hey my friends are in there it was pretty

cool yeah i think i only have five comic books

right now i have the original four independent

issues of dc versus marvel and i have the uh

last year's transformers botcon comic Nice. Next

question would be, are you a Marvel or DC guy,

or do you prefer more independent comic publishers?

I'm a huge fan of the way the independent publishers

are doing their stuff right now. Dark Horse has

always been really good for Star Wars and stuff

like that. Top Cow also is pretty good. I would

have to say, though, I love independent stuff,

but nothing draws me in more. It used to be DC

because, I mean, I'm a huge Batman fan. I'm a

huge Superman fan. Green Lantern, it's just Green

Arrow. All those pretty much were something out

of my childhood. But lately? More for the character

development has been Marvel. Because what got

me back into Marvel was basically reading Civil

War. Even though it was a huge event book and

nothing really changed after, especially Spider

-Man. The thing is, in Civil War, Peter Parker

revealed that he was Spider -Man in Civil War.

He revealed to the entire world. But then what

happened was, as soon as Triskinski finished

his run on Spider -Man, and another... Or another

artist or I can't remember the writer right now

who actually did it. They retconned it and basically

said, oh, yeah, that whole thing about Peter

Parker revealing he's Spider -Man. Yeah, that's

all gone. Like it doesn't exist anymore because

all because of magic. And I'm like, you can't

do that. But I have to say right now, I mean,

with the latest movies that could be coming out,

I'd say like Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, X -Men,

all that stuff. Yeah, I have to say Marvel right

now. I said this in Mike's interview. talked

around, I said this may be controversial, but

Marvel owns DC when it comes to movies. The only

DC movie that can touch Marvel right now is The

Dark Knight. Other than that, Marvel owns the

movie stuff. Well, I mean that's the thing. It's

like, yeah, I definitely agree. Lately, Marvel

owns in regards to movies because they've always

come out with really good, consistent movies.

Some are hit and miss here and there, but there's

a lot more hits than there are misses with Marvel.

And I agree. DC with Batman Begins and Dark Knight,

those two were really high up there. But the

thing is DC used to rule the roost back in the

day. I remember we had 1989's Batman. We even

had – even before that, a decade earlier. with

the Superman movies. It was just like, those

were like the iconic movies of all time. And

it's just, it just sucks that right now there's

the DC, DC is lacking in behind. And I really

hope they can be able to like build something

up and build a, because with the success of the

dark night and like they need to build something

up new and something cooler. And they did really

build a kind of put Marvel in its, in its place.

And I think a lot of that has to go with Warner

brothers because Warner brothers hold the franchise

like of DC. for the longest time. I really think

that if DC can be able to create its own studio

like Marvel did and just only allow the Warner

Brothers to distribute the movies, I think they

could definitely be able to do a really good

job with it. It just sucks that it's basically

stuck with Warner Brothers brass that they're

not allowing people to be able to create the

movies that we want to see. The good thing is

they gave Christopher Nolan a free reign to do

whatever he wanted with the Batman franchise.

I hope that The brass at Warner Brothers are

kind of really kind of lightening their tight

grip on the DC universe and maybe try something

new. And I don't know. I remember there was the

Green Arrow – no, Green Lantern was going to

be a movie. Now that's gone. Superman is going

to do another Superman Returns sequel, which

that Superman Returns sucked. It was good, but

it was boring. Superman Returns was a heaping

pile of dog shit. That's exactly what it was.

Yeah, I mean, with Superman Returns, it was an

okay movie for what it was. I mean, it was a

good attempt by Bryan Singer to be able to bring

back, obviously, the Man of Steel, and it worked.

But the thing is, though, what really kind of

irked me a lot in that movie was you have a movie

about Superman. Superman does not throw one...

punch. In the entire movie, he does not throw

one punch. All you see him is fly. You see him

lift stuff. That's all you do. You don't see

him do anything else. That's not Superman. That's

not Superman. Superman, you gotta fight. You

gotta fight something. You gotta punch and have

people go through walls and stuff. That irked

me a lot. Other than... Kevin Spacey and Brandon

Ralph as the two main characters. The problem

with Superman Returns is, number one, the writing,

because they made Superman into a stalker. That's

what they did. Exactly. Sorry, that's exactly

what they did, and it just doesn't work. Yeah,

and Superman in a hospital bed? No, that never

happens. No. In the ER, that does not happen.

No, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't like a number

one overall whatever, but who are some of your

favorite actors and actresses? Favorite actors

and actresses. I mean, well, Samuel L. Jackson

is one of them. I always enjoy seeing any film

that he's really in. Wow. I'm trying to think.

Actresses. I like Elizabeth Banks. She's always

really good. You're putting me on the spot here.

The thing is, I have a whole list. Michael J.

Fox would be one as well. Jack Nicholson. Tom

Hanks. Always been a favorite. I actually do

like... Oh, shoot, I had the name in it. Oh,

I do like Tom Cruise to a certain degree. His

earlier stuff was really good. Not so much his

later stuff, because before he'd gone crazy.

Other than the Mission Impossible stuff, I don't

like any of his newer stuff either. Yeah, exactly.

I agree with you on that one. Oh, Greg Grunberg.

Love him. Bria Grant from Heroes. I love anything

that she's in. Yeah, no, it's just tough to decide.

I don't know. I have a whole list, like Patrick

Stewart, Will Wheaton, anything along those lines,

like Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto. I can't choose.

Yeah, we're not even going to get into a Heroes

discussion because that's just going to be a

huge debate. Oh, boy. I like it. Anyway, switching

gears a little bit, what do you think of all

this social networking stuff? Like MySpace and

Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is awesome. Wait,

wait. MySpace still exists? Oh, yeah. No, you

know what? Same way I am, too. Yeah. I mean,

the thing is, knocking MySpace is pretty easy

to do nowadays. But, I mean, as far as your own

personal profile on MySpace, yeah, it's pretty

crappy. But as far as bands and stuff like that,

it's really good for that. Oh, yeah. That's all

I use it for. Exactly. For musicians and stuff

like that, it's perfect for it. Facebook, I'm

kind of starting to lose interest in it just

because of the apps. I really hate the apps.

I remember I was on Facebook when they were just

doing it for colleges, and that was it, before

they opened it up to everybody. So I loved it

then. I think, though, that pretty much right

now I constantly use Twitter. I mean, Twitter

for me is like the – It's the perfect place to

be able to kind of put your thoughts out there

and people can respond to you pretty much right

away. It's kind of like better than instant messaging

and email and kind of a micro blog kind of rolled

into one. As far as my thoughts on social networking

– So there is a few things. I mean it's not exactly

perfect. Twitter is obviously never perfect.

Facebook is never perfect. MySpace is definitely

not perfect. But I do have some negative things

to say about social networking. But in regards

to my life and my own personal life, social networking

has – It impacted my life within the past year

and a half to two years more so than any other

thing online, and it's pretty amazing. I mean

I got to go to Dragon Con in Atlanta because

of Twitter. I've basically got a huge fan base

of my book for podcast novels based off of Twitter.

I've actually – I've been invited to speak at

several different conferences because of Twitter.

It's something I'm passionate about and something

that I really think is going to – like obviously

it's going to evolve over the years. But this

allows me to be able to connect with friends

and connect with new people on a global scale.

It really – It pulls in the fact that it's a

small world after all, and it really is starting

to become that way. At any given time, I can

be able to talk to a friend in England or someone

from Australia. It's gotten to that point. So

yeah, I just love social networking and what

it can do for not only just brands but also for

your own personal life, and it's definitely impacted

me quite a few. Oh, yeah. I'm the same way. Twitter

is just awesome. And your little response about

a month ago about some article you posted by

a famous Canadian radio station DJ. Yeah. Yeah,

that he has no idea what it is. And, yeah, let's

not even go there. But it's just so awesome,

especially since I found TweetDeck. TweetDeck

is almost instantaneous. It is just like instant

messaging on Twitter. It pretty much is. Yeah,

whereas the website or some of the other, like

the Twitterific Premium on the iPhone, you have

to refresh it, and it'll come up. But TweetDeck,

it goes through instantly. It's just instant

access, and it is just all kinds of awesomeness.

Yeah, now I know that you're on a PC, but it

sucks that you're on that because I found literally

an app that's even better than TweetDeck. And

unfortunately, it's only on the Mac right now.

I talked about it actually because I blog professionally

over at techstartups .com. And I wrote a post

about it. It's actually for a program called

Nambu, N -A -M -B -U. And it literally has everything

you would want in TweetDeck that you have and

love in TweetDeck. So much more. Like I would

say there's a post on techstartups .com. It explains

everything and what I love about it. And like

I said, it sucks, Mike, that you're on a PC.

But I mean TweetDeck is still just as good on

a PC and it literally has almost everything that

Nambu does. But Nambu does a few things a little

bit more that I love than TweetDeck because I'm

not a huge fan of TweetDeck. I'm going to be

honest. I mean I like it to a certain degree

and it does definitely do quite a few stuff.

But the thing is with TweetDeck for me, it was

always – Because I have so many... people that

i follow and so many followers that are following

me anytime i like try to use tweet deck within

an hour i would always run out of the api uh

refresh so i would always have to wait another

hour to be able to get updates in tweet deck

so i would always have to quit it and go back

to the web but with nambu doesn't do that i don't

know how it does it i don't know how it accesses

the twitter api or something but because it doesn't

have that whole 60 percent like you can whatever

or how many api requests you can send it just

somehow does it automatically and i haven't had

a crash on me since and it's just a really, really

good program. That's cool. Yeah, I try to keep

the people I'm following under 100. I don't want

to end up being one of those people that's following

4 ,000 people and I have 3, 4, 5 ,000 followers

because it just slows. It's hard to keep up with

a lot of them. No, it's understandable. I mean,

right now I'm following 720 people, but generally

it's those are the people that actually would

respond back to me. Yeah, exactly. I have 1 ,454

followers as of right now, but – which is twitter

.com slash Steve Saylor. Anyway, but no. I used

to think the same way. I would keep it at a low

number so I can keep an update on all my friends.

But it's gotten to the point now where I don't

really need that anymore. I can basically just

take a look at Twitter and scroll through the

latest updates. If I find something interesting,

I'll go even further back into it. It's just

good for me to get a quick... Check the quick

pulse of Twitter, so to speak. I just like it

that way. I don't want to follow everything that

people do, but it's just one of those things.

It doesn't matter to me anymore how many people

I follow. I'm going to say this right now. If

you at reply me or DM me in Twitter, I will follow

back. That's the thing. If you're conversing

with me, then it's my duty to basically follow

you back because you take the time out to ask

me a question or talk to me or send me a comment.

It's my duty to respond back. So I'm going to

follow you. Yeah. I mean a lot of people I talk

to on another forum site that I'm on, earth2

.net, they think it's like, well, the same close

-minded type of deal that – nameless radio DJ

has like, Oh, it's just, you know, it's a good

way to stalk people. And it's a, it's just something,

you know, I really don't want to know, you know,

what you're doing every second of the day. And

I find I don't, I am not posting on Twitter every

second of the day. I'm not posting every little

thing. You know, I, I may post something after

we get off this little interview here and say,

Hey, I just recorded an epic interview with,

with at Steve Saylor. And, And, you know, I may

go to sleep and then wake up around nine o 'clock

and say, hey, you know, I'm getting ready to

record another interview or, you know, I mean,

or record something else. It's not like, you

know, it's best example I can give and people

are going to have to search for this. Maybe I

can put it in the in the. The video link in the

PredaconEmpire .com forum thread for this little

interview here, Trouble with Twitters, or Twubble

with Twitter, whatever it is. Twubble with Twitter,

yeah. That video is fucking hilarious. I definitely

agree with that one, yeah. That's the thing with

Twitter. It's kind of gotten, I guess, somewhat

of a bad rap for it. I mean, even at the radio

station I interned at, AM640, they're now starting

to get on Twitter. And the thing is with Twitter,

it's... They think Twitter sounds like a bad

word because they think that basically people

who are on Twitter are twits. And obviously people

think that twits are a bad word. And the thing

is the audience for AM640 is like adults 35 to

54. So they're just adults that don't really

get Twitter. And I slowly started to convince

them about it. But then it got to the point where

it's like, you know, they don't really understand.

They just don't like it. They don't want to really

mention it. And, I mean, they're starting to

slow. It's slow, and that's the thing with Twitter.

It's like you've got to be patient with it, especially

like you can't just jump on the huge bandwagon

and expect it to all of a sudden get all these

massive replies to anything you say. It took

me two years to be able to get up to the point

where I'm at right now. So you've just got to

be patient with it, and then eventually you find

a need that fits you. That's pretty much what

I'll say. One last question before I let you

go. If you had to give anyone, like any potential

podcaster's advice on starting podcasts, what

would it be and what – I mean what would you

tell somebody that wanted to start up a podcast

of their own? Well, the thing is – like I kind

of akin this to also being a geek as well is

– My definition of the word geek is being passionate

about one particular topic. If you're a car geek,

normally people will call them car nuts or –

Or nut jockeys or whatever. But the thing is,

if you think about it, you are a car geek. You

learn about every new car that's coming out.

You know the parts. You know your car inside

and out. You're a car geek. And it could be a

knitting geek. It could be a toy geek. It could

be a comic book geek. Just anything along those

lines. And it's the same with the podcasting.

It's whatever you're passionate about, that's

what you should do the show on. It's because...

The best quote I've ever heard is from David

Lawrence. He used to be a radio show host in

California, a tech radio show host. But now he's

actually – he was just – did a guest star stint

on Heroes. But he basically said at one point,

if you're interested, you'll be interesting.

And that's the thing I – that's the kind of a

quote I live my life on is that if I'm passionate

about something, if I'm interested in a particular

topic – people are going to find that and basically

they're going to think that you're interesting

and they're going to want to listen to you. So

if you're passionate about baseball cards, do

a baseball cards podcast. If you're passionate

about music, do a music podcast. Just whatever

you like and you know a lot of. There's guaranteed

there's other people that are exactly like you

that they're going to want to learn more about

it and be able to kind of converse with you.

So that's what I would say. My ultimate best

advice is – Do whatever is passionate, whatever

you're passionate about, and basically – and

also to be patient too. It's passion and patience

because you got to be – you're not – don't expect

to basically be a hit right out of the gate.

It's going to take you a while to be able to

get good. It's going to take you a while to be

able to kind of build up your audience. Like

it took Twig two years to be able to get to where

we're at right now. And by all means, we're not

a huge podcast, but I mean we're – like we're

basically a medium -sized podcast at this point.

But still, you got to be patient. You got to

be still passionate. passionate about what you're

doing, if you produce good content, being passionate

about what you're doing and you're patient with

it, yeah, guaranteed you'll get a huge audience.

Yeah, yeah, that's the other thing. Yeah, that's

the same thing with me. When I started TFG1,

those first six regular where I'm reviewing the

shows, the cartoon shows, the first six or seven,

eight or nine episodes are like really rough

because, first of all, one -man shows suck. Oh,

great. If you can get yourself a co -host, it's

always much better because I try doing it solo

and guarantee, let's just say Twig would be nowhere

right now if I didn't have a co -host like Mike

because it's the conversation that kind of draws

people in. I mean I've always had that as a saying

is like if you have a podcast and you have a

best friend who's into the same stuff you are.

Do a podcast with him or her because literally

it was – it's the best way to build – it makes

it more fun for you too because – It really allows

you to be able to – it doesn't feel like a burden

to be able to do a podcast on your own. It's

like, oh, I've got to record a podcast. But if

you have a friend doing it, it's basically like

recording your conversations as you normally

would have anyway. So why not record it and make

it into a podcast? It just makes it more fun

for you. Oh, yeah, exactly. This actually just

popped into my head. How did Twig jump the shark?

Oh, God. Wait, are you talking about the show

Jump the Shark? Yes, yes. I was combining the

two. Right, okay. Well, I don't think we've jumped

the shark as of yet. Although Dave's, Double

D's rants are getting to that point. It's getting

to the point where we're not even sure where

Dave's going to come. We don't even know what

he comes up with anymore. It's at the point where

it's like we think we have an idea, but he just

kind of throws something that's completely off

the wall. And we just don't even bother even

telling him what to do. It's basically, you know

what, just go nuts and do whatever it is you

want to do. He's kind of become that, but he's

still just as awesome as ever. Dave needs to

go out to California, out to Hollywood, to see

if he can get himself some voice acting gigs

because he is an awesome voice actor. He definitely

is. His Arnold is almost spot on. Yeah, like

it was funny because him and I, like we're kind

of known at least in our area for doing like

a lot of like the voice stuff. And me more kind

of so for like narrators and stuff like that.

And I can do certain – I can definitely do kinds

of voices. But him and I were actually looking

into pursuing a voice acting career professionally.

And yeah, him and I, we love doing voices. The

best time – like we've never actually recorded

this, but the best conversations we would ever

do is anything Dave and I, we would do the Arnold

impression together. Basically just he would

do his and I would do mine and we would always

have tons of fun doing that. You guys have to

record that for Twig. I think, yeah. Now that

I'm thinking about it, I think I want to pitch

it to Dave. It's like, Dave, let's record a rant

where basically you and I are doing our Arnold

voices. I think that would be tons of fun. Do

you have anything that you want to tell us about

as far as upcoming for you or upcoming for Twig?

I know Mike said he's going to be traveling a

lot. Yeah, he's going to be traveling quite a

bit because he's obviously doing stuff for the

Game Heroes and for Twig and stuff as well. As

far as me, I've basically kind of become the

main host of Twig DVD commentaries, which I'm

loving to do. I love doing those every single

week. Obviously, I'm doing Jump the Shark, running

that on Twig right now, and I also run the website

of ThisWeekInGeek .net. As far as personally,

I mean, I'm basically looking into doing some

voice stuff. I just got asked to technically

audition, but kind of asked to be able to be

a part of another Star Wars fan. Audio drama.

I did one back last year called Star Wars Codename

Starkeeper. It's run by another good friend of

mine, Jim Perry. You can find it actually at

indianagym .net. You can find my little stint

there. Basically, I was the main villain for

that one. Because of that, I got asked to do

another one. I'm looking forward to possibly

doing that. Basically, I'm also going to be doing

some more writing over the summer. I would expect

another podcast novel of mine, probably some

– I hate giving deadlines because I'm terrible

at deadlines lately for podcast novels. But expect

a new one probably – I'm going to hopefully by

this year. That's what I'm going to hopefully

do over the summer. Yeah, so then Twig is still

going to go strong, and we've got other cool

stuff that I can't talk about right now. Expect

cool things coming up in the future. Yes. Speaking

of your writing, I have to ask, since you brought

it up, what the hell do you do at Starbucks all

the time? Well, originally, I used to go to Starbucks

a lot. To be able to write because I wrote my

first podcast novel, Black Shadow, in Starbucks.

I would bring my laptop and I would just go and

sit there and write. It's weird for me. I can

never seem to write at home because there's too

many distractions. Obviously, like watching DVDs,

playing video games, watching TV, that kind of

deal. But when I'm at Starbucks, when it's only

just me and a laptop and the internet to keep

me company, at times, basically, that's the only

distraction I have. I can pretty much just sit

there and write. I've been able to sit there

for about two, three hours and be able to write

like 2 ,500 to 5 ,000 words within a given stand

at Starbucks. So anytime that you – if you follow

me on Twitter, anytime you see me saying I'm

going to Starbucks, about 95 percent of the time

it will be because I'm going to be writing. It's

just pretty much my place of choice to do that.

Yeah, I do know of – several Twig things that

are coming up. You guys did get blogged about

on G4. Yes, we did. And I mentioned to Mike,

I said, cool, Twig is going to take over G4 now.

At least it will be a great network. You know,

I would hope so. I mean the cool thing is like

– I mean the best time of my life was actually

working at G4 Tech TV here in Canada because

I used to be the intern on Call for Help with

Leo Laporte. Hence why I like the guy so much.

He's pretty much been my mentor for the past

two years. I loved tech TV back in the day. I

was very sad when G4 bought it out, and I kind

of wish G4 would be able to bring it back to

the geeky tech side of things, but it's just

run by Comcast, so there's not much I can do

about that. There's some things coming up that

I can't talk about. I think Mike may have told

you about as well, but there could be something

more with G4 than meets the eye. No, I don't

know. I can't remember if he told me or not.

It might be in his interview. I'm not really

sure. What was the other thing I was going to...

Well, let's just say that if he hasn't mentioned

it before, but yeah, there's something that I

can't say anymore, but let's just say that being

blogged on G4 is right now the first step. So,

yeah. Well, I'd like to thank Steve for joining

me on this special interview episode. This actually

came about Easter Sunday. I had taken a nap,

and I woke up about 3 o 'clock, and Mike had

twittered that he wasn't doing anything. He was

having a lonely, lazy day at home, so I sent

him a message saying, hey, do you want to be

interviewed? So that's where this whole thing

spawned out of because I had nothing to do on

Easter Sunday. Nice. Yeah, I think we're going

to close this one out. Thanks to Steve. No, thank

you. It's been a pleasure. Hang on the line.

I'm going to talk to you a little bit more off

the air. No worries. All righty then. This has

been the TFG1 Podcast Interviews.