Vlog Ep. 225: Menudo | Afritada | Kaldereta | Mechado

Tonight's food-focused episode of #BaduyPride is all about that delightful group of similar but different Filipino stews - menudo, afritada, kaldereta, and mechado. They're all good in their own right but after today's episode, we have also discovered that there seems to be near-infinite variety even within these four dishes. People change what protein forms the base of the dish while others add little things like peas, raisins, and whatnot. 

These food episodes can get rather funny since we're not exactly culinary experts. Heck, we haven't even consistently cooked the four dishes that were the focus of this episode. But we've at least eaten them, so I guess that's enough of a basis to craft an episode around.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 224: Mosaic Crafting with Azul

Today's episode of #BaduyPride is all about the abstract board game Azul, a 2-4 player game created by Michael Kiesling. This rather beautiful game is a great introduction to the tabletop hobby and one that I love more than Splendor, although Tobie still likes Splendor more. But both are great games with a similar feel. But how a game with such a simple core mechanic still offers a surprising depth of gameplay.

This game shines as a gateway game for new players whether they've never played an abstract board game before or have never played a board game period. And the fact that it's so easy to pick up the rules, we have witnessed a lot of first-time players manage to win their very first game. Regardless, it's always a lot of fun and this game features in a lot of our game nights regardless of the skill level of the assembled group. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 223: About "Positions"

This special "after dark" #BaduyPride episode was all about the complicated conversation of sexual positions, sexual roles, and all that messy stuff that comes into play when people decide to get intimate. We also wanted to discuss this in a manner that didn't become too crass and also still somewhat PG-13 and so we weren't super explicit about things.

As is the case with many episodes, I was surprised at where the episode went and I was pretty happy with how things went. Then again, this is why Tobie and I this show - I feel like we have a great rhythm together and we end up covering good points that we super agree on and just reaffirm how we've stayed together for so long.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Kenny! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 222: Colors of the Wavelength

This episode of #BaduyPride had us tackling a rather large topic - this being that of color. And as the person who requested it pretty much asked us to talk about the role of colors in various things ranging from popular culture to games, we had a lot to cover.

I really liked how Tobie had a lot to share in this episode given he really is the more visually creative person between us. I am clearly not a designer and the way he broke things down was a lot more fulfilling and educational than most of what I had to say. But on the whole, I think we did a pretty good job with this topic despite the scale of it. 

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Kenny! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 221: Food We Don't Eat

Tonight's #BaduyPride episode was another viewer suggestion - this time all about the different foods that we don't eat for one reason or another. I went into this video thinking that outside of keto, my eating choices were pretty liberal and flexible. But our discussion today still had me running into a lot of things I haven't been eating even pre-keto.

But I think I was more surprised at the many things that Tobie doesn't really eat given he usually feels like the more adventurous eater between us. This was compounded by the many things viewers shared that they didn't eat other. I think the big learning from this live stream episode was that we all have a surprising range of food that we end up avoiding and trying to list them all makes for a pretty colorful discussion. 

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 220: Bob Ross Art of Chill

For this Monday night #BaduyPride episode, our featured tabletop game is the Bob Ross: Art of Chill game created by Prospero Hall. This game supports 2-4 players and ends up being surprisingly competitive within a short 30-minute playtime. And Bob Ross is all over it - in more ways than one. 

We love a lot of big games that can take more than an hour to get through, there's no denying that. But games like this still fit nicely into our collection since they provide a different flavor of challenge that is still fulfilling and a lot of fun. And it's all sorts of brilliant how they managed to celebrate a lot of what people love about Bob Ross and turn it all into a fun gaming experience. That's not necessarily easy to do so major points to the creative team behind it for coming up with this rather unique game.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 219: Quarantine Check-In - Week 67

Tonight's #BaduyPride episode was another quarantine check-in episode, which is basically one of our more relaxed episodes where we just hang out with viewers and discuss our recent experiences while in quarantine. These episodes don't follow a rigid topic structure or organized flow of discussion, but we enjoy them as a sort of breather episode that isn't as stressful to run. 

And really, these episodes are meant to be an online safe space of sorts for all of us so we can continue to talk through our experiences while we all try to practice social distancing and we continue to live isolated lives in order to better protect ourselves from spreading COVID-19 to one another. It's a most unusual and challenging experience for anyone and we should feel comfortable enough to acknowledge what a struggle it is and hopefully find a way forward together.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 218: Corporations and Pride

Tonight's #BaduyPride episode continues our Pride Month focus as we talked about the complexities of corporations and pride. At times, insincere marketing efforts by corporations feel like a very Western problem, but maybe the fact that it happens so infrequently here reflects another problem. There's bad pride marketing and there's a dearth of pride marketing, and both don't reflect well on the community. 

So we talked about the challenge of sincere engagement by corporate entities but we also talked about what we can actually do. And this is where things always sound very...limited. We can only do so much to change things but at least we're doing something. We have to start somewhere, be sincere in our efforts but also remain patient and open to continuing the dialog with those we want to get on board. The fight for LGBT rights is a lengthy one that is far from over. But we have to start somewhere.

While we chose today's surprise topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 217: Home-Cooked Meals

This episode of #BaduyPride was all about the joy of home-cooked meals! We may not have a clear definition for what may be universally accepted as a home-cooked meal, but I'm sure everyone has a few dishes in mind that best represent that for them. And the very personal nature of such things is part of the magic that makes such meals all the more powerful.

We started by talking about the meals we most loved growing up. Then we talked about meals we've learned to cook for ourselves. And then we moved on to trying to think about what other dishes we'd like to learn and try to help preserve as part of our ongoing legacy. Many things get passed down through families and recipes are some of the most personal things there. 

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by BlackSwanna! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 216: Rewinding Time with Undo

For tonight's Monday night episode of #BaduyPride, our featured game was Undo: 600 Seconds, the first Undo game we've had a chance to play. This is a deductive mystery storytelling game designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach and published by Pegasus Spiele. The game is stated to support 2-6 players, but there's nothing stopping you from playing this game solo.

Given our love for escape-room-in-a-box-style games like Exit and Unlock, we were rather excited about how this game would stack up against the others. But it turns out its playstyle is more like a very light version of something like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective with a more storytelling approach to things. This isn't bad in itself, but in the video, we discuss a lot of the opportunities we noted and how we wish the game could be even better. 

While we chose today's surprise topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 215: The In Between Holiday Feeling

For tonight's Sunday episode of #BaduyPride, we tackled another viewer request. In this case, it was all about that sluggish, lazy feeling we all get in-between holiday cycles. We figured it was easiest to address this based on (1) weird mid-week holidays that are in-between workdays and (2) more extended holiday periods that make the in-between work days harder to get through. 

I didn't think too much about the topic initially, but I think we really hit a revelation during the conversation. Tobie raised a great point about difficulty getting back to work can be a manifestation of other issues whether it's motivation or you not liking your work environment or possibly certain colleagues at work? And you might need to address those potentially greater issues in order to bring your working life back into balance with your personal life.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 214: Unboxing the Terraforming Mars Big Box

This unscheduled episode of #BaduyPride was just to cover our unboxing of the Terraforming Mars Big Box. More than being a better storage solution to cover all the different expansions of this game franchise, it also included upgraded tiles to change your game experience. These unboxing videos can run a little long, but if you're into this sort of thing, then watch on!

We first discussed the joys of Terraforming Mars back in our 13th episode and we even unboxed our Kickstarter copy of the Turmoil expansion in episode 27. So this marks our third episode about the same game. And while we super love the game, admittedly there has always been a bit of a "minimalist" feel to the game's component quality as evidenced by the box lacking any inserts at all. This Big Box adds some great new tiles that super upgrade the game experience and we were happy to share the unboxing experience with all of you.

While we chose today's surprise topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 213: Discovering Your Sexuality

Tonight's episode of #BaduyPride was all about discovering your sexuality, a viewer request that we figured would be a good part of our Pride Month series of episodes. And while an understanding of SOGIE has helped us all appreciate that there's more to our identity than just our sexual orientation, that wasn't always the case before. 

We started by talking about our own experiences and how we experienced our own "sexual awakening" - or whatever you want to call it. But to keep things light, things eventually shifted to amusing discussions of examples of crushes, movies, TV shows, and even fictional characters that played a role in helping us to first feel things if you get the drift.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Kenny! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 212: The Echo of Earworms

Today's episode of #BaduyPride was all about earworms, Last Song Syndrome (LSS), Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI), or whatever you want to call that quirky feeling when you get a song stuck in your head. And while we didn't really dwell on what might cause these things to happen, we had more to say about the earworms themselves.

It's interesting that we could actually segment earworms into different segments. We have popular songs, TV commercial jingles, songs with foreign language influences, and apparently mass songs. That Anima Christi is a killer. We even tried to talk about possible "cures" for earworms and I think a lot of us are eager to try out the chewing gum option, should it come along.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 211: Tea Talk

Today's episode of #BaduyPride was all about tea, both the drink and the pop-culture term for truth or other related terms. And while coffee is our more typical drink of choice, tea still has a welcome place in our routine, particularly after heavy meals or to help soothe a sore throat. 

We tried to go through a lot of the different types of tea and all those nuances and I think we all learned something. Just defining what people could possibly mean by "chai" where it's theoretically just the Indian term for tea AND it's also how people interpret Indian tea to taste like outside of India. I don't think this will make us into full-time tea drinkers anytime soon, but we probably appreciate things more.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 210: Calibrating Wavelength

Because Monday nights on #BaduyPride are dedicated to tabletop games, our featured game for the day is Wavelength, a party game that Tobie somewhat ironically acquired during the pandemic months. Obviously, we haven't gotten a lot of play out of it, but we did enjoy the few run-throughs we've had and that still speaks favorably for the game. It supports 2-12 players and was created by Alex Hague, Justin Vickers, and Wolfgang Warsch.

It's interesting how creative game designers can be in terms of coming up with party games like this. and I think that in studying Wavelength, one can better appreciate the delicate balance of system (less to more complex) and accessibility (i.e. easier for more people to play). And when you keep the complexity low, you might as well upgrade your game components to still provide a nice experience for players that look for a bit more in their games.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 209: Grocery Shopping

Tonight's very chill Sunday #BaduyPride topic was all about grocery shopping and all the quirks of this particular essential chore. Maybe at one point, it wasn't as fun an activity as it is now, but we certainly fully embrace how fulfilling it is, especially when you manage your own household or at least cook your own meals. And hopefully, everyone finds the joy in grocery shopping in their own time.

Of course, the funny bit about today was us talking about quite a number of pet peeves when it comes to our supermarket runs. I guess we're just very focused on being efficient and getting in and out of there with a minimum of fuss, especially with the pandemic far from over. But hey, we can't control everyone and we all just make the most of things.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Kenny! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 208: SOGIE Talk

In our first #BaduyPride episode in celebration of Pride Month, we decided to risk having an open and honest conversation about SOGIE. We don't claim to be experts on the subject, which is the case for many of us I'm sure. But what is more important is how we all have the capacity to remain open and have the ability to learn and work with others to better ourselves.

This snowballed into a much larger conversation that lasted for like two hours. But in the end, it was a good discussion and perhaps the first of many that will need to happen in order for all of us to get a better handle on things. More than our efforts to help people better understand SOGIE, it was also a good conversation about the complexity of explaining the subject, its importance to the greater LGBT rights movement in the country (and maybe the world), and other related subjects.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 207: Cracking The Crystal Maze

Despite a number of technical difficulties, we managed to get through tonight's #BaduyPride episode about one of our favorite television shows - The Crystal Maze! And it was even more awesome when one of the guys behind The Crystal Maze Fan Group Blog joined the stream to help geek out with us about the program.

I knew we were going to have fun with this episode, but even I was surprised at how deeply we got into it given Tobie and I haven't really talked about the show all that much in recent years. It just goes to show what a near-universal impact the game show had on everyone who had a chance to catch it and maybe our dreams of some sort of local incarnation of the show may actually come to life. 

On to YouTube to watch some classic episodes! 

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Karlo! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 206: All About Chocolate

This episode of #BaduyPride was all about CHOCOLATE. These Tuesday food-related topics can be tricky to manage as we start our intermittent fasting window but they're still a lot of fun. And this episode really stressed just how diverse chocolate is. And despite me being on keto, I at least still have a lot of viable chocolate options that keeps this treat a part of my life.

It also feels like a lot of the best chocolate is forever trapped in the memories of our respective childhoods. Things like Magnolia Chocolait or Serg's Chocolates are now defunct (with respect to their original versions) and may never truly return. Or maybe things just seem better in how we remember them versus the reality. The human experience is funny that way.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 205: Tossing Up a Point Salad

Today's tabletop game-focused episode of #BaduyPride was also a request - Point Salad as created by Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, and Shawn Stankewich. This 2-6 player game was published by the CMON via the Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) - or something like that. AEG's family of companies confuses me at times.

Beyond this being a surprisingly complex card drafting and set collection game, it's also a game that is dear to our hearts because of specific circumstances around the game. It can seem silly to think of a game more because of a song you had playing in the background one of the first times you played the game. But that's really how memories are crafted - different things can make things memorable and you carry those memories with you. 

Na, na, na.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Mitch! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.