Montreal Sauce

The second half of our conversation with the developer Mad Max, Aaron Clifford is here! On this episode we talk virtual noses, old school game consoles, developing for VR and positional audio. The dreaded quiz is back and we’ve got Pac-man Fever. Aaron got the idea for DAWT at an event for the Extra Life. The Extra Life event was for Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital and it started with a 4 player Tower Fall Ascension challenge. He decided to enter Codename Goa with DAWT as well. Aaron is featured on a video on that site. Aaron’s game design is Voxel based like Crossy Road. Redneck Rampage. Kingdom of Loathing. Some of Aaron’s favs to play are Fallout, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, DLC Quest, Binding of Isaac and “so many other indie games.” Chris talks about his Atari Stunt Cycle console from his youth. Paul thought Zelda II: The Adventure of Link had the most amazing graphics, ever! Until, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past came out. Aaron did a

Put your VR headgear on and listen to the latest episode where we talk to the maker of DAWT, Mr. Aaron Clifford. The Edmonton developer schools us in his 20 years of coding, tells us how he was conceived in a tent in New Zealand and how to record your software onto a cassette tape. “These aren’t Fivver voice actors, people!” Aaron started programing on an Atari 600XL. Chris desperately tries to fit in, talking about his Commodore 64. Aaron tells us his gateway drug to programming was playing Doom. Aaron cut his teeth using Authorware. The big VR project that our guest is building is called DAWT. It’s a slick Pac-man-like VR game. Aaron has also started working with Unumbria Technologies. Their goal is to use VR to help athletes and people who suffer concussions. Like every city, Edmonton is constantly renaming their summer festival. Currently, it’s called K-days. Aaron’s day job is “putting a coat of paint” on a lot of people’s hard work. He’s

Comics too expensive to read, blatant podcast promotion, figure skating to the Spider-man theme song and Siri’s inability to open up are all the topics covered in the second half of the conversation with Danica & Brandon of Variant Edition. We discuss the many different versions of a single comic book character & Brandon tells us a tale of The New 52. Paul challenges Brandon & Danica with a “pick 3” of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Right Stuff and The 100. Danica’s pick for Paul is Letter 44. Brandon’s cross section of Paul’s pick is called Red Wing. The difference between single issues and graphic novels? Danica tells us that single issues like Bitch Planet have really great essays in them, but the collections are missing those and the letters section. Sex Criminals has a hardcover version with a special section on the art process and all the covers of the single issues. Danica tells us that Variant Edition has a mail order service and welcome

Another fun one, this episode the gents are talking to the owners of Variant Edition a comic shop in Edmonton. Brandon & Danica also do a number of podcasts as well. On this show we give old TV stars new detective shows, talk about Siri’s self-image issues, sexism, inclusiveness and privileged white dudes. Brandon is half of the Podcast! The Comics show. Danica & Brandon do a podcast about comics & culture called Yegs & Bacon. You can also find this couple on Doctor Whooch where they have a taste of the sauce and talk Doctor Who episodes. Brandon is also a frequent contributor to The Beat. Danica wants a Taylor Swift/Batman dance off in the animated Batman: Bad Blood. Speaking of dance offs, Chris admits that he and his wife just saw the dash cam version of Shake it Off. It’s a sad, sad planet when you have to program your virtual assistant to respond to sexual harassment. Chris doesn’t attempt to tell this amazing story of a young boy who teaches a few parents that boys p

Visual artists never fail to inspire, but we went all the way to Antwerp to talk to Midge Sinnaeve. Fine… technically we Skyped Midge. Though we’d love to go there! Especially after talking to him. We talk VR, books, 3D scanning, cycling in tunnels, scifi and SyFy. Part one of our conversation is here. Midge share’s his projects and work on his site, TheMantissa.net. He likes to call this open source artwork. Our guest told us his open source artwork was inspired by an open source demo reel he saw once. Midge says many architecture visualization artists are using Unreal Engine to create building renders. Everyone agrees that augmented reality is far superior to virtual reality. Chris recently wrote about that. They briefly talk Ingress & Pokémon Go by Niantic Labs. Speaking of VR, Midge has used the Oculus and the HTC Vive. Why can’t VR gear look as comfortable as Johnny Mnemonic. Chris recommends Ready Player One to Midge. In turn, Midge suggests the The Expanse book series, wh

Or: Count Chocula Moved to Canada for Love This episode we talked to an artist, a programmer, studio owner and the visual arts education coordinator at the International Academy of Film and Television in Antwerp. Midge Sinnaeve joined the fellas to talk awkward clients, how one becomes a ‘professional’ and the Super Bowl from a European perspective. Chris met today’s guest when he interviewed him for episcura. The confusion of time zones and what is Central European Time? Midge was bitten by the 3D bug during a science competition in Ireland. He was using Strata 3D. Midge worked in web design for a while, and then someone handed him Maya so he could try to get back into 3D. Midge has used a number of 3D software packages. At this point in the podcast he mentioned Cinema 4D. Correction: Chris mentioned that a BMX rider died, it was Dave Mirra. We apologize that Chris said Matt Hoffman. Live long and prosper, Mr. Hoffman. What’s an animatic? Midge’s company is called Daze. Midg

Director & animator Jamil Lahham joined us in part 1 of this conversation where we discussed winning an Oscar, working on Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and what is a bad film? In the second part of our live show, Jamil tells us about his attempt at stand-up comedy, his award winning animation and the attitude needed to complete those personal projects. Jamil tells about his short Dirty Laundry Day which recently won Best Animation at the Filmmaker International Film Festival in Spain. Chris was inspired by Jamil’s blog about his short especially, “Do ANYTHING a day.” Jamil says you have to struggle with your brain. You have to stop yourself from quitting sometimes. For example, seeing student animations from the French schools of Supinfocom or Gobelins should be inspiring, not a deterrent. Paul quotes Merlin Mann about setting priorities and being who you want to be. Paul loves the sound design in Dirty Laundry Day and Jamil shares that it was done by Chris Kukla. Jamil was incred

“You go to school to learn a craft in some sense, but more than anything else, you’re learning about yourself.” The Michigan-Edmonton duo of Paul & Chris were lucky enough to chat with animator & director Jamil Lahham who shared those words about university. Jamil tells us about the organic nature of traditional animation, animating cycles for iPads and the weight of an Oscar. Jamil was a part of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the Academy award winning The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore and his wonderful short Dirty Laundry Day. If you want to learn even more about Jamil, have a look at this interview at episcura. Jamil went to Ringling College of Art + Design and has mentored students in the animation department for the last 3 years. While in Syria, Jamil attended Damascus University to study interior design. Jamil did his internship at EA. Artist William Salazar explains how he prefers to draw 2D over his 3D work to get the movement right. Andy Serkis (Golem) w

Or: “You’re on Camera Whether You Like It or Not” This is part deux of our conversation with Carolyn Fung & Paul Juricic who were grad students at The Centre for Digital Media. Their final project at the CDM was Project ACME, a personal archiving tool to collect and sort your digital data. We start off talking about the amazing physical archives they visited. For the sake of your sanity in the following notes, “Paul” is our guest. “Host Paul” is the co-host who says he loves pop music. Carolyn tells us about the treasures of The Museum of Vancouver and the Planitarium. Organizations like the institutions mentioned above don’t have the funds to create a digital archive for their treasures. Chris mentions the amazing Storycorps project as an example of a successful archive project. Carolyn shares that part of her work with NGX Interactive is about making an interpretive design. How do you make things relevant to people? It turns out that many TV shows in

On this episode the gents talk about preserving memories, archiving, data and private interests. The guests are graduate students from The Centre for Digital Media, Paul Juricic and Carolyn Fung. For the sake of your sanity in the following notes, “Paul” is our guest. “Host Paul” is your Trill podcast host, not a symbiont. Previously on Montreal Sauce…Carolyn has been on before so she updates us on the project she was involved in before, True North. Paul tells us about the previous team he worked with Altru.City. Carolyn is now working with NGX Interactive. Paul tells us about Archinodes and the graduate project, Project ACME. Archinodes design lab was started by Paul Juricic, Mél Hogan and Jeff Traynor. The graduate project was a prototype built on an an earlier idea, Arc. Paul said they explored various services like Delicious and Pocket. Dig Paul’s ride. Carolyn and the team played with physical objects to get an idea of how people handle things before building their

This is our first Sauce Packet, a short show on a single topic. The inaugural topic is “that album that always finds its way into your playlist.” What is a Shadoe Stevens? Sorry Film Frown fans, Traxx is just bad, not so bad it is good. Who was the announcer in the $10,000 Pyramid? Paul’s pick, “The album that they handed out in the streets of the suburbs,” Green Day’s Dookie. Chris married his music to his wife’s in Subsonic. He loves it, she misses her free singles from Starbucks on iTunes. Chris’ pick, New Radicals - Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. Pick two from the Paul, pandering to the Canadian listeners, Barenaked Ladies - Rock Spectacle. Chris drops a cover album as his second pick, If I Were a Carpenter. The grunge bands of the 90s sing Carpenter hits. Chris’ oldies favorite is the Greatest Hits from Blood, Sweat & Tears Paul enjoys singing the Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel to his girls. Thus, it is his final pick. T

We go deep into programming languages and their history with our guest Tierney Coren. There’s a sprinkling of tech recommendations, some Rooster Teeth and a discussion on the popularity of Let’s Play videos. Chris asks the tough question, “What is Node.js?” Learn more about javascript with Douglas Crockford. Syntax can make things difficult when it comes to languages. Paul says jQuery really helped in the case of popularizing Javascript. Tierney discusses Gulp.js and Electron, web kits for Node. Our guest is using a Razer mouse and headset. He found this gear thanks to the company sponsoring his favorite content producer, Rooster Teeth. Chris uses a Logitech Performance Mouse MX. He wore one out in 3-4 years, but bought another because he couldn’t find the rad gaming mice that people really enjoy. Our younger guest uses his iPhone 6+ for all his media viewing rather than a TV or computer. Paul’s testing out an iPad Pro, maybe it’s an all-in-one solution? Paul likes

This episode features discussions of cities in New York that aren’t New York City, succeeding in university and it turns out there are people who love candy corn. No. Really! Our guest Tierney Coren is part of the Node.js Evangelism Work Group, a web developer, designer, writer and student. The glorious reputation of Utica. Tierney teaches us that the origin point of the grid system in Salt Lake is the Mormon Temple. Chris has been using Here.com to replace Google Maps. Tierney & Paul have issues using Duck Duck Go for search. However, Paul does love the !bangs. Chris defends DDG, but shares an option given to him on the Cupcake.io community, Startpage.com. Tierney is doing an accelerated Bachelor’s/Master’s program at SUNY Poly. We previously did a show with a professor of information design, part 1 & part 2. Let’s talk about our dark future with 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. More books? How about Snow Crash, Ready Player One, Wuthering Heights & The Prince.

Too lazy to write a blog post on the Patreon page, Paul & Chris meet to discuss exciting new updates to the show. Promotional swag, sauce packets and secretive episodes are coming your way. Not to mention our tremendous backlog of live episodes to publish for downloads. This special episode is brought to you be quantum mechanics. Remember when we had a t-shirt drive? (You can request Cotton Bureau print more, if you wish.) Paul goes searching for domains for the insanely long iTunes link on hover. Should we get dot soy? You want shorter content? Yeah. We can do that. We’re going to start doing sauce packets. When the ventilation goes out at work, Paul plays clips from Anchorman. Chris says a future episode in April will feature a discussion about developing VR with Aaron Clifford. Modeled on the Chicago Podcast Cooperative, Edmonton media superstar Karen Unland is busy putting together the Seen and Heard Podcast Network. Thanks for attending our general meeting? Check us out on Twitter and Fac

In part dos of the discussion with Arturo Vergara we discuss the value of a college education, the importance of agriculture, the false idea of a post-scarcity society and rapping, yo! During the education rant, Paul refers to an earlier show we did at The Centre for Digital Media. Here’s part 1 and part 2. Do we really have a Post-scarcity economy? Chris discusses a story from That Sugar Film. Internet for everyone is not altruistic. It simply means more customers. That’s why Google has balloons & Facebook is making drones. Arturo loves performing music. (Psst, he once posted something to his soundcloud.) Paul tries to convince Arturo to compose us a song for the show. Arturo says maybe he can collaborate with Jonathan Killearn. Arturo has a gorgeous jarana and plays it for us on the show! Paul’s Russian teacher wanted him to learn to play the Balalaika. Instead, he learned to play this song on guitar. The Swedish Chef performing Rapper’s Delight. Chris recommends Hush Tours fo

This episode your favorite bosom buddies are conversing with developer, musician & writer Arturo Vergara about language, influential authors & thinkers, cyberpunk and the value of art criticism. We met Arturo on Cupcake.io. Interactive fiction games? Design your own using the awkward R.A.G.S. or the HTML-based Twine. Arturo encourages everyone to check out Rudy Mancuso. Learning about Mexico City. Where there hell does Halloween come from, anyway? Arturo’s pond project is for synchronizing RSS and Atom feeds. Soon to be renamed so it won’t be mistaken for the other Pond. His other project is a self-hosted email server, Postage. He was inspired to make Postage in part because of arkOS. We talk about the T.P.P. and jkillearn shot us a link in the chat channel. Here it is. Arturo suggests searching for David Lynch’s Daily Weather Report on Youtube. Paul suggests searching for George Carlin’s Hippy Dippy Weatherman. Chris chimes in with Kevin Nealon with News From 10 Feet Away.

Joe Veix is back! We talk giant, square tube TVs, human suffering, the Publik Facebook™ and of course, Truck Nutz. Candlebox as reviewed by an angry fan. Joe tells us Creed was sued for sucking. Joe says we’re doing voicemail wrong and we think he’s right. Misconnected: A Personal History of Voicemail. Our guest thinks It’s interesting how gChat (Hangouts), Instant Messenger & Facebook Messenger are similar forms of communication but we use and behave on them differently. Badwords the project created by Joe that replaced your cookies with those of bizarre characters. A great way to protect your privacy. The weirdness that is geriatric manikins? The logic of Truck Nutz? Chris dares you to put CarLashes on any trucks you find with nuts. What the heck is Tony the Tiger up to now? Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory. Molleindustria makes activist type games to educate folks about our diabolical world. Check out Phone Story to learn where your phone comes from. Joe’s Publik Facebook™

Paul & Chris were joined by writer and artist with a last name that people always pronounce wrong, Joe Veix. He discusses his career, joke writing and of course Matthew McConaughey. Trade secret from the gas station - OPEC doesn’t set gas prices. In college, Chris’ sister worked at a gas station and was obviously in charge of the price at the pump. Writing about K-Pop? Youtube examples. System Shock 2, a horror video game. Brandacted, a Chrome extension by our guest that blocks brand names. Similar to Brandacted, Joe also made Name Swap that gives political candidates a gross name. Joe was inspired by the Redskins Web Skin extension. Joe says he started out writing “really bad Jack Handy rip-off jokes.” Chris and Joe are both fans of Adbusters’ spoofs. The gents discuss the over commercialization of Back to the Future Day. Chris reviews his Back to the Future Blu-ray set. Robert Zemeckis films include: Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Romancing

Surprise! Did we kidnap the Larry Bird of podcasting in a bizarre re-enacting of the bad movie, Celtic Pride? Of course not. We’re too lazy. Dan Benjamin joined us to chat about his love of radio, setting the right expectations for your podcast and making better podcasts for listeners. Dan thinks Paul sounds really great. It must be that DBX pre-amp & the Onyx 1620i Paul purchased from multiple 5by5 network garage sales. Dan usually shares his experience with gear and production on his show Podcast Method. Dan loves the surprise of live shows, as in his show with Merlin Mann, Back to Work. Our guest remembers reading that Leo Laporte was making a million dollars podcasting and thought, “Surely I can make enough to pay my bills if I work really, really hard.” Advice from Dan to us & someone he met at the 2015 Podcast Movement, Make one really good show, first. Then, maybe try another. No need to start a network from the get-go. Celebrity podcasts are going to be the moneymakers and

It’s part deux with Taryn Arnold from Patreon! As the conversation continues from the last show they discuss educational videos, the art of interviewing, Ace of Base, Tamagotchi, and bad accents. Paul works with the creator of Graphtreon, a tool to track the progress of creators on Patreon. Taryn says it is a fav around the office. Taryn loves so many things on Patreon. She mentions Crash Course, In a Nutshell, and How To Adult shows. We review Taryn’s test Patreon page. California is great! Well, except for the Earthquakes. Taryn is not a fan of those. San Andreas is real, yo! Montreal Sauce is no This American Life, but we do enjoy a good story. I like juice, the progenitor podcast. Chris asks a loaded question, “Please tell me you are playing Neko Atsume?” Now you miss your Tamagotchi, don’t you? Time to do a reno? You need Holmes on Homes. QUIZ TIME! Let’s learn about Sweden! The Swedish Chef makes poutine in Montreal. It’s The Final Countdown so take a Jo