I really should not have listened to this one right before I needed to go to bed, because I've been up for about... 3 hours past trying to figure out how I'm going to compose this post.
First off, I do hope that Donald adds this guy to the reccomended shows on the Neogaf thread, because there's a lot of fun with Samba de Amigo and discussion on Red Ash, and I think that aspect needs to be chronicled for future reference, because success or failure, Red Ash is going to be something to laugh about when it does eventually come out.
well, time to do the spoiler tag thing.
Johnny, I have so many questions and comments and... words. things have been bouncing around in my head and I don't know what ones are appropriate to ask or not. I could go into some of the snarkier and sarcastic ones such as;
So now that you have bought 3 expensive consoles, are you going to aim for a playset of foil tarmagoyf next?
Why did you take an e-mail of mine that would have been PERFECT for your departing show and throw it into thunder round you asshole?!?
so now that you're just one week before retirement, how's it feel to pilot a SOPHIA the third one last time?
Will you come back if James consistently has Karl and Stan on to tarnish and sully your good name?
What will you save from the next natural disaster that hits your home now that you won't have RFN audio to save?
All of these are in good jest and make light of a situation that... I'm now rapidly approaching 4 hours past my bedtime on. Of course, there's serious questions that I do hope get answered on next week's episode after the Blaster Master talk. these include;
Are you giving up any of your Crosstawk duties?
besides your new role at the site and fatigue, what has contributed to your decision to end your tenure as the voice of reason here?
Besides Greg, who were other canidates for the 4th man to fill out the roster?
What do you think you'll miss the most about being so closely tied to this show?
I'll have my answers for those in a week, although I don't think I am ready for them. I guess... next I should just say my thoughts, and hopefully not sound like I'm typing some sort of strange eulogy or something.
I don't think I've stuck with a podcast as long as I have Radio Free Nintendo. I was listening ot Nintendo voice chat for a while on and off all through it's inception up until about Craig Harris' departure from IGN. I supplimented it primarily with Invisible walls since I was ignorant to stuff like Giant Bomb and all that jazz, and then I stopped doing invisible walls and thus... podcast listening in general when GameTrailers' video player would break my browser. Neal led me to the sight while I was looking for news on the 3DS on youtube, and then I found the podcast...
Johnathan Metts is the first person I really put a name to the voice in a way where I started remembering the names. I feel like as host for as long as I've been listening, you've played the jovial sort of straight man to James' endless crumudgeonry, Jon's attempts to troll the show endlessly, and Greg's poised and often fanatical devotion to the games he plays/Guiallme's french-canadian strangeness. Goodness knows there's quirks to the way you think and carry yourself, but I've always gotten such a warm and safe feeling hearing you in my ears consistently every week for the past 4 years. It's why it's so great for the brief moments I got to actually talk to you during the telethons, and here's hoping I get to do it yet again and again, although with a different sort of fondness; the kind that is bread via absence.
RFN loses a lot without you, Johnny. I feel that you're the (Slightly) more sane elder statesman of the two helming these shows. I really love when those anecdotes emerge where Johnny talks about Bionic Commando and how he met Jon or when he referrs to the castlevania mix tape that long-lost Planet Gamecube staffers made for him at a random E3 where I was still in high school screwing off in Computer science class while watching trailers for games on videos the size of postage stamps. You have a way of waxing poetic or nostalgic about something that really draws the listener in and I don't think any of the other members of the show can replicate that.
There's also the dedication to all this you've desplayed and I really hope that doesn't go away with this new project you briefly mentioned. As someone who is frequently a procrastinator, I can't imagine the energy it takes to get on a podcast and just... go, and bring that level of energy that makes for a good show on a week to week basis, or the toll that must take on one's soul. I love the work you do and I want it to continue, I really earnestly do.
even as the keys are handed to James, who I am confident will keep the spirit of the show thriving in a way that only a man who has played a periphery NISA SRPG in the last year can, This is the end of an era. Next week could be the last episode of Radio Free Nintendo for all somebody possibly cares. I almost feel like a rebrand is in order similar to how Newscast rebranded as connectivity or how Prince of Persia sort of rebranded into Assasin's Creed. In the end, I'll still stick around and wait with bated breath for you to show up in the same ways as Billy Berghammer did before he became an official Nintendo employee. I believe a wise man once cracked quite the joke at Reggie Fils-Amie and got a special thanks credit for it in a video game...
"Hey! Somebody's gotta make it, right?"
Oh jesus I gotta be up for work in 5 hours. X_X