About the show

Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week.

Topic Lords on social media

Episodes

  • 302. Frog Fractions 2 OST 2: Still Croakin'

    August 4th, 2025  |  1 hr 22 mins
    kory, ryan

    Lords: Kory and Ryan. We discuss incorrect facts they teach you in school, remaking your game yet again, accidentally finding a cat on vacation, and Being Boring by Wendy Cope.

  • 301. For Those Who Are Glucose Curious

    July 28th, 2025  |  56 mins 46 secs
    chall, wacy

    Lords: Wacy and Chris. We discuss the mysterious BART smell between 12th st. Oakland and West Oakland, glucose monitors, Minecraft, and The Earth Wants You.

  • 300. Dave's Kid Doesn't Know How To Spit

    July 21st, 2025  |  1 hr 7 mins
    jenni, tyriq

    Lords: Jenni and Tyriq. We discuss internal monologue soundboards, whether it sucks that Ash wants to be the very best, the different ways people play games, friendship as a skill, and which element is best for bending?

  • 299. Skin Fortress With Armed Idiot

    July 14th, 2025  |  1 hr 3 mins
    jenni, robb

    Lords: Jenni and Robb. We discuss multiple people responding with the same mystifying emoji, role-playing with a four year old about stealing Toxic Waste candy and lying to the cops about it, choosing to not rent a Playstation, Hints by Atari Games, and getting an Osia 2 bone-anchored hearing aid.

  • 298. Rawdogging Life

    July 7th, 2025  |  1 hr 23 mins
    mark, shirley

    Lords: Mark and Shirley. We discuss Music League, shaping the head like a Japanese watermelon, Kugelmugel, Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley, and using drugs in 2025

  • 297. Grimace Exploded, Covering 70,000 People

    June 30th, 2025  |  1 hr 3 secs
    erica, judy

    Lords: Erica and Judy. We discuss the Pantone college experience, why everyone with superpowers is a crime fighter or a criminal, metal utensils, Grand Avenue by Ron Koertge, and spicy toothpaste

  • 296. Do You Know About The Sun?

    June 23rd, 2025  |  1 hr 20 mins
    esper, john

    Lords: John and Esper. We discuss Chess the Musical, live television as the most exciting thing humans have invented, Blaseball's multi million dollar VC funding, Pad, Pad by Stevie Smith, RSS for text, and officiating weddings for your friends.

  • 295. Fantasy Malware

    June 16th, 2025  |  1 hr 4 mins
    kittenmaster, pancelor

    Lords: Andrew and Andrew. We discuss finally making a 3D game after using only PICO-8 for 10 years, PICO-8 screen carts, Picotron viruses, and Quest by kittenmaster.

  • 294. Click On This Ad To Save This Child

    June 9th, 2025  |  1 hr 15 secs
    alex, shannon

    Lords: Alex and Shannon. We discuss the rapid proliferation of identical mobile games, randomly generated time traveler loadout, turning your body into 3D printer filament after you die, and Girls Only Want One Thing, by Isabel Correra

  • 293. Pasting The Sickos Face Back And Forth Forever

    June 2nd, 2025  |  1 hr 9 mins
    kory, tentmode

    Lords: Kory and Andy. We discuss whim-based coding, making friends on the internet, the oscilloscope demo, Peripheriques Like Halos by Robert Montgomery, enhancing a party with a bespoke bar menu, and creating a threatening windows batch file and leaving it on the desktop to frighten an application into not crashing

  • 292. A Dewey Decimal System, But For Libraries

    May 26th, 2025  |  1 hr 4 mins
    chall, xander

    Lords: Alexander and Chall. We discuss having an address after not having an address, slopsquatting, book curses, This Boke ys Myne by Eleanor Worcester, the David Lynch random number generator, and game designers going into public policy.

  • 291. Nair and Nnail: Keratin Erasers

    May 19th, 2025  |  1 hr 8 mins
    apepers, evan

    Lords: Alexei, Evan. We discuss silt clouds and underwater visibility as a game mechanic, the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid and the utility calculations of weird buildings, what happens when your Firefox root certificate expires?, and The Ailing Mirror-Smith.

  • 290. Forever Games Are Just Rude

    May 12th, 2025  |  1 hr 2 mins
    droqen, lena

    Lords: Lena and Droqen. We discuss killing gameplay, the thrill of firefighting on live service games, and how to stop, and It was D and K who Showed me the Way.

  • 289. It's Pronounced VRML

    May 5th, 2025  |  1 hr 6 mins
    cishetkayfaber, failrate

    Lords: CisHetKayFaber, Andrew. We discuss people saying things in front of janitors, revisiting a creative work after 20 years, naming conventions in the demo scene vs. the ZZT scene, How to Be Perfect by Ron Padgett, and Floops, a 3D cartoon character from the mid-90s internet.

  • 288. Nobody Has Poop On Their Balls On The Astral Plane

    April 28th, 2025  |  1 hr 14 mins
    jenni, rebecca

    Lords: Jenni and Rebecca. We discuss getting emotionally ambushed by a children's toy piano, all the non-art things you have to do to get external validation about your art, explaining where owls come from, The Witches are Coming (excerpt) by Lindy West, and Ask Me About Looms in Video Games.

  • 287. Drive It Like You Hate It

    April 21st, 2025  |  1 hr 3 mins
    ben, pancelor

    Lords: Ben and Andrew. We discuss Super Nintendo World's theming, the ABCs of Style - A Guide to Plain English, renting game consoles, Matsuo Bashô: Frog Haiku, and pixel art impressionism.