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.

Episodes

  • 57. A Rationale For Mountains

    November 23rd, 2020  |  1 hr 12 mins
    aaron, jonah

    Lords: Aaron and Jonah. We discuss graffitti-based arguments, unphysical physically-motivated procedural content generation, the inventor of "None Pizza With Left Beef" and "Young Sheldon," the hobo code, and designing a game around semantic prime theory.

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    56. Ethical Snorlax Pasture

    November 16th, 2020  |  1 hr 13 mins
    jp, laura

    Lords this week: Laura and JP. We discusss the least horny sport, the best task-tracking software, driving around with a photo of yourself on your vehicle, gaskets, Pokemon-proofing your house, and sending a film back to 1960.

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    55. Burger Crimes

    November 9th, 2020  |  1 hr 6 mins
    april, freddie

    Lords: April and Freddie. We discuss burger opinions, replaying Breath of the Wild, changing your chronotype via taking care of a small child, and Vtubers.

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    54. Stab 'Em Into Place

    November 2nd, 2020  |  1 hr 2 mins
    adina, diener

    Lords this week: Adina and Alex. We discuss anarcho-communism, learning to stick with a project, poorly-understood algorithms, the hidden worlds of each person's living space, and learning all the crafts.

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    53. Pedialyte Teargas

    October 26th, 2020  |  1 hr 3 mins
    alexicographic, dannyb

    Lords this week: Danny and Alexander. We discuss invisible walls in games, BluBlockers, bees taking their lives into their hands every time they get thirsty, being afraid of dogs that wear people clothes, every response to "thank you" being rude and the multivarious ways being a child genius can screw you.

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    52. Speak Moistly And Carry A Wet Stick

    October 19th, 2020  |  1 hr 2 mins
    chris, jenni

    Lords: Jenni and Chris. We discuss: mirror galaxy doppelgangers, blaseball, ways to interact with dishwashers, the inventor of roller skates, the cool s again, and every toxic animal in Arizona.

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    51. I Don't Want To Eat This Bug, Obviously

    October 12th, 2020  |  1 hr 44 secs
    ben, north

    Lords: Ben and Ryan. We discuss: cooking from muscle memory, remembering your mistakes, what we'd have in common with intelligent aliens, the worst thing you've put in your mouth, Nintendo Labo, long anticipated events eventually happening, and accidentally becoming the top resources for earlobe cysts.

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    50. Big Jesus Retouch Energy

    October 5th, 2020  |  1 hr 2 mins
    chall, kev

    Lords: Kev and Chall. We discuss Rick Astley's Youtube Channel, adjusting for sensory deficiencies, food photography hoaxes, number sizes in game design, and Michael Jackson writing the Sonic 3 soundtrack.

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    49. A Very Wet Hell

    September 28th, 2020  |  1 hr 8 mins
    april, john

    Lords: April and John. Topics: climate-aware architecture, focusing on characters vs. story, why we say "ahh" after drinking, perpetual stew and laws and customs differing in different places.

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    48. Long Furby

    September 21st, 2020  |  1 hr 8 mins
    abby, johnb

    Lords: Abby and John. We discuss A-Life and V-Pets, San Diego, Bloodlust Software, and a found-footage style web series depicting a creature lurking at the edge of the frame in a series of porn videos.

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    47. Santa Barbarella

    September 14th, 2020  |  58 mins 52 secs
    beek, rimbo

    Lords: Chris and Jimmy. We discuss what Obispo means, Starflight, drums you play standing up, tweeting Fred Flintstone's frozen carcass before you dig in, and the failure of CD audio.

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    46. Fetch Me A Renaissance Italy Nostalgia!

    September 7th, 2020  |  1 hr 3 mins
    elena, kappa

    Lords: Elena and Kappa. We discuss Lilite Satanist Narnia, the Super Monkey Ball narrator, reconstructing the lost ZZT source code, Kuai Kuai culture, and Bug reports and changelogs from video games that are just close enough to real life to be surreal

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    45. Remember To Pronounce The Apostrophe

    August 31st, 2020  |  1 hr 3 mins
    johnb, nick

    Lords: John B and Nick. We discuss micro game jams, human knowledge as grist for comedy, Roblox as the most popular game platform, things unexpectedly named after people, becoming a film nerd, and Barkley 2.

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    44. Oops! All Biogel

    August 24th, 2020  |  58 mins 1 sec
    jenni, maxx

    Lords: Jenni and Maxx. We discuss having a good time duplicating thought work, the Japanese crop microbiome, the PXL-2000 camcorder, embedding a movie in the Wikipedia page about the movie, pooping the shape of what you ate, and discovering that you love writing dialog trees.

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    43. You Vs. The One Your Mom Told You To Worry About

    August 17th, 2020  |  1 hr 4 mins
    jonah, xander

    Lords: Alexander and Jonah. We discuss games on the TI-83, the jazz fusion act that secretly inspired all video game music, Wikipedia disagreeing with itself, rap cliche origins, leisurely game jamming, cartography on weirdly-shaped worlds, and the Doctor Who theme.

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    42. Refrigerator Roy, or Stephanie I'm So Sorry

    August 10th, 2020  |  1 hr 14 mins
    elizabeth, erica

    Lords: Elizabeth and Erica. We discuss driving the bookmobile in rural Washington, arguing with your husband about the insects in your fridge, picking an effective charity, erotica in the public library, and hiring assistants (for field biology) and then trying to live with them.