125. Your Mom Won't Cry

00:00:00
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01:03:35

March 14th, 2022

1 hr 3 mins 35 secs

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Lords:

Topics:

  • Learning to figure skate as an adult
  • Cursed mnemonics we never question
  • What was the first thing you remember buying online?
  • "Chi dara fine al gran dolore? L’ore" from House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
  • My daughter has strong beliefs about the afterlife
  • I don't actually want to speedrun anything, I just want to learn how they do it
  • Once a year or so my last friend who still lives in San Diego sends me an email from his phone number. The email is blank but there's a text file attached to it saying something like "hey are you still alive?" Everyone has a friend like that, right?

Microtopics:

  • Spin Rhythm XD and the Spin Rhythm XD level design community.
  • Learning to figure skate.
  • How to convert axels into 360s.
  • Figure skating in a half pipe.
  • Clockwise and widdershins figure skaters.
  • Putting a hair dryer in reverse so it blows cool air.
  • Using Zamboni technology to invent the ice skating treadmill.
  • Covering a carousel with ice and then realizing you don't need the carousel part because you can just skate in a circle.
  • The Beginner Effect.
  • Finding time for hobbies.
  • Cursed mnemonics for remembering how to spell "because"
  • Using eggs.
  • The extremely entertaining mnemonic that Jim uses to remember his social security number, but can't share with anyone.
  • Man Very Early Made Jars Stand Up Nearly Perpendicular.
  • My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles And Used Soft Eggs.
  • Elephants Go Ballistic Doing Flips.
  • Idioms translated from other languages.
  • Whether it's good for a stone to gather moss.
  • When it stopped being a big deal to enter your credit card information on a web site.
  • A piece of wood that tells you what the weather is going to be.
  • Buying a cassette tape from a friend you met on IRC by mailing them an envelope full of cash and having to pester them about it before they send you the album because just because they're good at making techno doesn't mean they're good at running a record label.
  • Speculating about how many game developers actually made a living from shareware in the 90s.
  • Cashing a check on the bus.
  • Asking your mom to go to the 7-11 to get a money order so you can mail it to a guy in Australia and he ends up not being able to cash it because it isn't an international money order.
  • Buying a lot of used books on half.com
  • Reading and discussing a poem in Italian.
  • The percentage of Topic Lords listeners who have read House of Leaves.
  • Removing all the outer layers of the onion to get to the SCP inside.
  • What events did and didn't happen in various layers of fiction in House of Leaves.
  • Listing every known building not designed in a Brutalist style.
  • Device 6 by Simogo.
  • 50 Years of Text Games.
  • Print-on-demand procgen novels.
  • Creepy endless houses.
  • Loving babies and wanting to be a baby.
  • Inventing reincarnation from first principles.
  • Where six year olds learn about the afterlife.
  • Getting really worked up about the flu shot you're going to get in eight months.
  • Hearing a gross thing described but not being disgusted because you can't visualize it.
  • ADHD and Autism Tiktok.
  • The "rubbing styrofoam" diagnostic for ADHD.
  • Learning all the speedrun skills but never actually doing any speed runs.
  • Learning to do an ultra to get this strawberry.
  • The nega-set of games that don't have a bunch of stressful violence and also don't have a bunch of overbearing dialog.
  • Writing an album and then designing a level around each song.
  • Bisexual lighting.
  • Queen Latifah showing up to ask if you want to skip to the next checkpoint.
  • The kind of friendship where if you ever talked about anything but music the friendship would immediately collapse.
  • Known iPhone protocol weirdnesses.
  • Why is Apple like this?
  • How to set a custom ringtone on your phone back before everyone put their phone on vibrate.
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