Idea Factory Giveaway

A technical difficulty that went undiscovered until we'd finished recording renders this one slightly shorter than usual, but once again Ben delivers with a high-quality finishing idea of his own.

In this episode, Besha hits upon the notion that we need a sound effect to play whenever I ask "are there notes for that one?" which I think is true, but I also think we need a different one for when there are notes. Cat meow? Reggaeton airhorn? Let us know your thoughts! Taking nominations now!!

We should've had Ben on here forever ago, because the magnitude of the improvements he brought to some of these ideas is frankly infuckingcalculable. Also, the idea he bestowed upon us revealed a heretofore-unexplored world of frustration with the iOS keyboard.

In all fairness, I was unaware of the tradition of the Iron Ring among engineers, and I now consider myself educated; as ideas themselves go, it's a good 'un.

You're gonna want a refresher on this extremely important article before you start this episode. I love these people and I love making this dumb, amazing show. Also, we coin a term that I still like a lot, "anthropocentric utilitarianism" -- I promise it'll make sense when you get to it.

The way I like to describe my fantastic friend Gary to pals is "he's your favorite kooky uncle" and it's true, possibly the most true thing I've ever said; if you don't get that sense from this episode, you'll just have to meet him in person someday and then! Then you'll know! Also, seriously, we give away some amazing photobooth prompts in this one before we get around to gross(?) medical stories.

Seriously: I will never get to the bottom of the mystery of Infinity Gauntlet Guy and this fact will lowkey haunt me for years. I can just feel it.

Marri is a goddamn delight and you should probably all be aware of that fact by the end of this, her second episode. Also, let me know if you want to contribute to the LotR project, which I admit I still think about a lot. That and the grad student heists -- the angle she uncovered was not something I'd even considered! Genius, I tell you!!

I feel like I say this a lot, but this particular episode contains a fair amount of actual idea gold that I'm convinced could be a reasonable (or at the very least entertaining) business or two.

I really do want someone out there to investigate this D&D idea and get back to us, because we are about it, and you'll be too once you've listened to it.

What kind of dog person are you, dear listener? Short hair or long hair on dogs? You know my preference if you've listened to this episode, but now I have to know, because Alison surprised me.

I'm honestly kind of tempted to do a deeper dive into the magazine idea to see if it'd be viable, even if it's just for a one-off limited-edition issue.

I'm glad Alison agrees with us on the issue of green apple Skittles; why the hell are they green apple when lime was already perfect? Also, we do a little delve into the inner workings of reality TV.

It's our general mission to bring Yoz back every fifty-ish episodes or so, and you'll understand why when you listen to this one. Also, we bring up where to find an archive of the weird little postcards I used to make, which you are invited to peruse. I actually did make the tagging system for this one vaguely useful.

I came very close to naming this episode "The Case of the Licker," and if you want to know where that comes from, you're gonna have to give this one a listen; fortunately, it's fucking great.

There really, truly is probably an entire studio's worth of games in one of the ideas we discuss in the back half of this one!

I honestly would be interested to hear the answers to that question we find ourselves musing on toward the end there, but also I desperately want to rent out a fortune cookie facility for a night to make weird custom cookies. Fuck!

Listeners may remember episodes 81 and 83, in which my excellent friend Diamond appeared; Mike's her equally excellent husband. Once you get to know them, it makes total sense that they found each other, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Welcome to, as we put it, "the part of the Idea Factory that OSHA isn't allowed into." Also, I'm right about spam.

I still maintain that pulling grifts on MAGA idiots is essentially a victimless crime; that money was going to go to something racist anyway -- shouldn't it go to us instead??