Patreon Newsletter #16: February 2023!

From Arnie

January is the month where you mostly just want to recover from the holidays but it was also… my birthday! I’ve fallen out of the habit of celebrating my birthday much but Emily put together a fun little private dinner party with some friends at a Cambodian Restaurant called Hermosa. Incredible food and I’m excited to go back sometime for the chicken sandwich. (I believe they’re only open for lunch)

Had a great time in San Francisco at Sketchfest. Thanks to everyone that came out to the show. (And Guy Branum was a great guest.) When I was picking up my festival badge I ran into most of the cast of Mission to Zyxx and they were nice enough to get me tickets to their show with Ify. I also saw Hey Riddle Riddle and was (pleasantly) ambushed into coming up on stage midshow. SF Sketchfest is a very spread out festival and often we don’t see many of the other performers but this year our hotel was hoppin’. It’s not an exaggeration to say that every time we were in the hotel lobby we saw either David Cross or Kevin Pollack. I also saw quite a few members of The State in the hotel bar. I didn’t bother any of them, but Adal and I did briefly say hello to Todd Barry who at least claimed to remember us from the time at the Outsidelands Fest where we agreed to do the show ten minutes before it started because our guests’ flight had been canceled.  Mostly it was nice to catch up with some old friends like Erin and JPC from HRR and Zach and Jess from Off Book. And I had a nice long chat over drinks with some of the Zyxx folks about all the weird joys and challenges of doing the very niche improvised shows that we do.

TV – Watched some good stuff this month.

1. Poker Face
2. South Side s2
3. The Last of Us
4. Paul T. Goldman
5. The Circle
6. She Hulk
7. An old season of The Amazing Race

Movies – Best to… less best. A lot of kids movies this month.

1. Coraline
2. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
3. Doctor Sleep
4. The Menu
5. Strange World
6. Ticket to Paradise

Board Games (in no particular order)

• Kabuto Sumo & Flamecraft - Both were gifts from Matt Young and are both really fun to play with the kiddo.
• New Yorker Cartoon Caption Game - Adal introduced me to an old out of print copy of this game years ago and was always really fun. Over the holidays I discovered there’s a new updated version out (the only real update: a tiny easel for the cartoon cards) and snatched it up immediately. Played with some folks on New Years Day and it was a hit.
• Quacks of Quendlinberg
• Blood on the Clocktower - This is an elaborate social deduction game similar to Werewolf or Mafia but with a lot more secret roles. I went to two nights of Blood on the Clocktower, hosted by Rush Howell (Larry Birdman) who ran the game both nights, and who is probably the only person I know who could effortlessly keep all of those rules in his head. It was incredibly fun and since it seems like it’s going to be a regular thing I hope to make it as often as I can. Some of the other players included JPC, Shad Kunkle (Monster Hunter), and Padraic Connely (Bridge Troll).

Appearances

• As part of the lead up to Jackbox Party Pack 10 later this year, Jackbox Games (where I work) will be doing a lot of retrospective stuff about the first 9 Party Packs, all of which I’ve worked on believe it or not. Here’s a semi-chaotic twitch stream we did playing Party Pack 1 and sharing some of our memories of making that first Pack, and not being entirely sure if we’d be able to stay in business. We’re doing the same thing for Party Pack 2 in February.

Yes, we will play Word Spud - Inside the Box presents: The Jackbox Party Pack Reunion Tour! - Twitch

One More Thing

In the comments let me know… if you could make one thing happen this year, what would it be?

Arnie

From Matt:

From Matt:

Getting back into the swing of things this month. Had a lot of fun performing at SF Sketchfest (and just being in San Francisco for a couple of days). Looking ahead and trying to be more intentional about the show and life in general this year. Fingers crossed, 2023.

TV/Movies/Web stuff:

Lots of comfort TV on HGTV still. Bought Superman the Animated Series on Blu-Ray and got rid of a BUNCH of old DVDs. Sold some donated most. Still have a lot of physical media, but I was just feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. Nice to pare down a bit.

Games:

Almost done with Potion Permit now. Hard for me to recommend, because it’s very specific. Like a lighter version of Stardew, but a bit repetitive. I dunno; I like it though. Fire Emblem Engage came out, but I haven’t really tried it out yet.

Collecting:

Still working on setting up our space to get some toys up and on display. Got some fun third party Transformers that I’m looking forward to unboxing (eventually).

Food:

Excited to have an omakase experience tomorrow at AJI, but I’ll have to tell you all about it next month. 15 courses of sushi and Japanese food!

MY

From Adal:

Had a really wonderful start to 2023 with lots of quick trips. I went to Atlanta to puppeteer Statler for a Muppet themed wedding at the Museum of Puppetry and got to heckle the attendees from a balcony. Absolute dream come true. I took my sister to London for her birthday and went back to see The Burnt City three more times. I’m absolutely obsessed so please let me know if you’ve been so we can chat experiences. We also saw a wonderfully charming new musical called HEX at The National Theatre and had a top notch meal at Manteca (if you’re looking for great pasta in London). San Francisco is always a blast and had a wonderful time doing both shows and getting to catch up with friends. Thank you to everyone who came out to the shows and especially to the folks who were generous enough to bring gifts! Lastly I just came back from Dallas where I went to visit my dad and half-siblings for a few days with Jemma. My dad cooked a middle eastern feast (including my favorite dish; maqluba) so it was a big success.

For upcoming travel; I’m heading out on a cruise to Mexico in a couple hours and then sometime in the coming months Jemma and I are going to Australia to visit some of her family (please send me any recommendations you have!) and plan to either pop over to New Zealand or finally set foot in Japan after our 2020 trip fell through. VERY excited however that shakes out.

Other than that I’m hoping to get some work done around the house and chip away at a few projects I’ve put on the backburner.

Here’s what I consumed in January:

TV:

• The Last of Us - Murray Bartlett immediately makes any show better
• Poker Face - John Darnielle popping up made me guffaw
• Cunk on Earth - Diane Morgan is the best. She’s in my top 3 people I’m dying to have guest on the podcast.
• Extraordinary - hilarious new britcom about superpowers (or the lack of) on HULU. Please check it out
• RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15
• Copenhagen Cowboy
• Celebrity Jeopardy - Brendan Hunt is so weird and fun to watch
• Extraordinary Attorney Woo
• My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with Volodymyr Zelenskey
• Mo
• The Legend of Vox Machina season 2
• Mayor of Kingstown season 2
• Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure - I love that little yolk

Movies:

• Avatar 2: The Way of Water - JPC, Casey Toney and I saw this in 4DX and it was VIOLENT. I don’t know if some teenager snuck in the booth and turned the machine up to 'horse on cocaine' but watching this 3 hour movie felt like sitting on top of a machine that wanted us OFF of it. That being said; we had the time of our fucking lives.
• Banshees of Inisherin
• The Menu
• The Sound of Metal
• RRR
• The Lost City
• Bros.
• Black Adam
• You People
• Tom Papas: What a Day!

Other Stuffs:

• Been enjoying The Rest Is History podcast and Off Menu podcast (especially the Rafe Spall episode)
• Jemma got me a class at a Bartending ‘college’ near us and now I have way more confidence in using a shaker and being able to muddle, strain and garnish. Look out future guests to my house! Daddy knows how to not fuck it up!
• Read Hollow Kingdom - legit funny book about the end of the world and a crow named Shit Turd.
• I was a recent guest on Bigfoot Collectors Club podcast and had a hoot talking about cryptozoology, aliens and ghosts! Please check it out!
• I started playing Vampire Survivors on iOS after Arnie mentioned how fun it is and jesus christ is this an addictive little chaotic game
• Just started Elden Ring on PS5 after Casey and JPC harangued me for months to check it out. So far I am absolutely getting my ass pounded at every turn.

Please let me know what you’ve been enjoying!

Love & Large Please

Adal