There’s a saying “you are your own worst critic” and believe me, that applies to me right now.
Darren invited me to the Shut Up, We’re Talking podcast Episode #26 last night. Before we got started I told Darren to feel free to edit or erase anything I said that was super-retarded. He said that was normal practice, no worries and we all had a good laugh. I teased Karen a bit off the air that the Vanguard half of her guild were her red-headed step-children. She had her on-air revenge (haha!) by calling me out on practically every topic. The results of which, it wouldn’t surprise me if Darren has to edit out everything I said in between “hi, great to be here!” and “goodnight, thanks for having me!”
Stage fright is a funny thing. I’ve done a tiny bit of public speaking, though much like acting, that is truly stage fright at its finest (read: worst). I’ve played guitar in a pseudo-band in front of handfuls of people. Most recently was my transition from being nervous and tongue-tied making PA announcements for passengers at work. Now I’m very casual about it, and routinely have First Officers doing any number of wacky things to try to get me to laugh; sometimes Flight Attendants will sneak up and try to tickle me to make me laugh over the PA during my announcements. 90% or better, I’m stoic and can stand my ground. But back when it was a new experience, simply glancing at me the wrong way would cause me to lose all concentration.
And so it was last night. Darren sent us the show notes several days ago, I made a Google Document with all my notes, but the second it was my turn to speak, I was in full “deer in headlights” mode. I’m terrified I’m going to end up sounding like some psychopathic ranting lunatic. I can recall one time in particular I was talking (probably speaking too quickly, too… grrr…) and staring at my notes, trying to make sure I covered each bit of the topic I had written notes about, only to discover simultaneously that I was missing the majority of them, and I literally had an OOB where I’m just watching myself in third-person thinking “WTF dude? WTF are you even talking about?” I had to get up and turn the air conditioning down to Arctic Mode, I was in such a nervous sweat.
So, to all the SUWT listeners… I sucked and I apologize… If future podcast hosts take pity on me and invites me onto one of their shows, hopefully I’ll get better with time. Seems it’s a practice makes perfect kinda thing.
I will say I had a total blast being part of the whole thing and seeing (listening?) to how it’s all done. Darren, Karen, and John are great, and I’d love to actually get to know them better, and someday have a chance to game with them. Guild chat and tells in Vanguard doesn’t count, I mean actually grouping and adventuring!
One thing you’ll notice is Darren and I in particular kept saying we’d discuss our current experiences in Age of Conan “later” then never actually got around to it! 
Sorry… I’ll write more of a summary either tomorrow night or when I get back home Tuesday.
Yeah, I put AoC in the title of this article… see what I did there?
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I’m a huge fan of Shut up Were talking, mainly because I like the format, discussing other peoples blogs, and well…they have discussed mine once and mentioned mine in another cast. My 15 minutes of fame lol.
You also probably did fine. Most people get a bit of stage fright, and think they did terrible, but I’m sure you did fine. Being someone in the AV industry, I can say that most people are very critical of themselves in the position of public speaking. Then again, I’ve not volunteered for that podcast yet due to my stage fright. Funny, I’ve gotten up in front of Hundreds of people before to fix a piece of av gear, I use microphones in front of people all the time, but the thought of people listening to my stupid voice on a pod cast scares the crap out of me. lol He has threatened to throw an invite out to me and I will probably have to take it as you did. Can’t turn down that kind of offer. lol
Also, never Tease Karen, I’ve heard her on that show before and she can lay it down. lol
i look forward to your insights into AoC. I’ve been on the fence about that game for about a week. One minute I’m thinking of getting it, the next I can’t even fathom why I would want it. So, I’m trying read some reviews and see how the game plays. I have the machine for it, but just not sure its my cup of tea. I am however, looking forward to WAR, which may be why I am hesitant to get AOC, especially now that I’m playing LOTRO and WOW.
Let me know how it is….soon. lol
Yeah, Karen is quick and ruthless, wow!
Darren threatened to invite me on SUWT months and months ago. I thought it was just an idle threat, go figure.
I’ve been stressed to the point of near throwing up all day over last night’s spaztastic performance of mine. Darren emailed us and said the show’s all edited and ready to go, and that it’s a good show, so I will take that to mean that I’ve been mostly edited out of it!
I was going to write up AoC tomorrow before I report, but I’m still wound up (no idea how after barely sleeping, commuting up to work then a nearly 14 hour duty day) so I’ll get started on it… right now!
Well, its out and I’m gonna load it on the pod for the ride to work. I’ll check to see how spaztic you really are lol.
Don’t worry about it, only a couple thousand people listen to it, its not that many.
A friend of mine has already clued me in on some of his early AoC experience and it doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll probably pick it up this week. Its not like I haven’t bought a game before and only played it for a few weeks then stuck it away some place, command and Conquer 3 is a good example of that.
So, I’ll be Conaning it very soon.
I cringed in fear the whole time, but… it’s not bad. Either I was being way too hard on myself or Darren is a god-like audio engineer and fixed most of it. Listening to me speak, I thought it was pretty obvious I was nervous though. I could hear my voice shake a bit here and there, and all the um’s, uh’s, and tangential turns that I know better but fell victim to nonetheless.
But… is that what I sound like? OMG! I guess on the other hand, I act and pretend (I’m told it’s denial but they don’t know what they’re talking about… *cough*) that I’m younger than I actually am, but damn, I sound like some little punk kid. LOL
Anyway, glad I didn’t lose all my hair or throw up my innards stressing over this. All in all, it was nowhere near the disaster I’d feared.
Dammit, I’m stuck at level 9 Geek and need to do or be part of a podcast so I can unlock level 10 Geek. Stupid class quests, why did they listen to Sony on that?
Darren? You there? Darren?
I’ll have to go get this one when it’s available.
I’d probably giggle a lot…
We could always start up our own podcast full of virtual shoulder-punching over our disagreements on Meaningful Travel and other non-existent myths of modern RPG’s… muhuhahahahaha
Let’s Get Ready to Rrrrrruuuumblecast!
I was disappointed you didn’t cap the podcast off with the usual end of flight spiel…
Ya know… I was originally going to record an intro as if I were making a PA to the passengers, but then I figured that I typically avoid talking about my job, and as much of an attention whore as I can be, I don’t really want to draw attention to it if that makes sense? So I skipped it. Maybe if I get invited back someday I will.
I think you got plenty of air time for sure. I didn’t seem like you got cut at all. I mean, from what I have listened too, you should be the new co host lol.
Oh, I picked up that evil game AOC. What server are you on?
Haha! Thanks! Actually there were several cuts. John alluded to it on his SUWT post on his blog that there was really only one out-take that made the show. The fun stuff stayed on the cutting room floor.
I’m actually still on Live Test until they take it down. I’m having “issues” getting my pre-order code to actually stick to my account, but I don’t actually plan on playing for a few months, which I stated at the end of my ‘wall of text’ (sorry lol) post on AoC. It kinda sounded like a lot of the bloggers were doing Wiccana though; I will definitely be keeping an eye out on which servers the majority of the bloggers play on so I can join them at the end of summer.
Yea, I’ve started characters on both Death Whisper and Wiccana, I have friends that wanted to try PVP so thats is why I am on Deathwhisper. I hope to blog about my experience soon, but I’m just having too much fun playing to stop. lol