May 24, 2023

TRAINER'S EYE #39 - "The Flygon King of Iowa City" ft. TacoDog8 from Enter The Dragonair's Den

TRAINER'S EYE #39 -
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Season 1 Competitive Pokemon Trainers Latin Pokemon Trainers Podcasters Pokemon Community Leaders

In this Pokemon interview, we're joined by TacoDog8, a Pokemon GO player who loves to participate in PVP and Factions and co-host of Enter The Dragaonair's Den. He shares with us his experience with Pokemon GO, how he got involved with PVP and Silph Arena Factions, and how he met his co-host JetForceGemini.

TacoDog8 also shares his insights on why both he and his co-host decided to start a podcast about Silph Arena Factions. He also shares some personal stories and his inspiration to be a leader within both his Iowa community and Faction Discord community.

Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!

Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Introduction Music: "Blackthorn City: Remastered" by Zame

Connect with TacoDog8: Twitter | Podcast | Discord | Podcast Twitter

Send us a text

Support the show

Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com

Join Our Discord Community!
https://discord.gg/AqAbD7FbRt

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:01:40.039 --> 00:01:46.364
Welcome to as the Pokemon Ball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game.

00:01:47.325 --> 00:01:50.674
We are here with part two of the Enter the Dragon Stand Podcast.

00:01:51.644 --> 00:01:54.885
A podcast primarily focused on covering so arena factions.

00:01:55.694 --> 00:02:00.525
Factions are a team-based competitive Pokemon Go PVP league, introduced by the self arena.

00:02:00.984 --> 00:02:04.555
Where competitors work together to prove their skills on various battlefield.

00:02:04.855 --> 00:02:15.534
In spite of the recent announcement of the Silver Road ceasing operations in August, the idea of organized team play for Pokemon Go PVP is far from dead.

00:02:15.685 --> 00:02:25.944
And with the recent announcement of Project Cigar, I think it's safe to say that the future of Pokemon Go factions and grassroots PVP is still alive and well.

00:02:26.705 --> 00:02:30.544
My guest is the co-host of Enter the Dragonair's Den podcast.

00:02:31.694 --> 00:02:34.564
Here is his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go.

00:02:35.284 --> 00:02:44.472
This is TacoDog8! Today I'm joined by one of the co-hosts for Enter the Dragonair's Den, TacoDog8!.

00:02:44.772 --> 00:02:45.883
Welcome to the show.

00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:47.475
It's a pleasure to be here.

00:02:48.073 --> 00:02:52.872
Definitely, and I would be very biased to say that you're one of my favorite of the two.

00:02:53.175 --> 00:02:54.105
Don't tell Jet this,

00:02:54.105 --> 00:02:54.675
It's okay.

00:02:54.735 --> 00:02:55.825
which is honestly true.

00:02:55.825 --> 00:02:56.575
It's honestly true.

00:02:56.876 --> 00:02:59.096
You have two things I love about your name.

00:02:59.395 --> 00:03:02.126
You have the tacos and you have the dogs.

00:03:02.423 --> 00:03:03.538
The eight you can leave out.

00:03:04.134 --> 00:03:06.907
I actually do have a little bit of a story with that one.

00:03:07.211 --> 00:03:08.920
I have had a little dots and chihuahua mix.

00:03:09.431 --> 00:03:11.711
She was my editing partner for a very long time.

00:03:12.009 --> 00:03:13.990
We would sometimes call her the immortal dog.

00:03:14.293 --> 00:03:27.671
one day when I was in high school, I went to go pick up my little brother and I made some tacos and I left the tacos on the table and I made sure that before anything, there was no way my little dog, Maddie, was just going to steal my food and eat it while was gone, I was gone for maybe 10 minutes.

00:03:27.971 --> 00:03:35.134
I come home and she's sitting there on the table looking at me like, Hey, those are some really good tacos." I said, Maddie, You're just a taco dog now.

00:03:35.442 --> 00:03:43.034
And then the eight, when I was like in sports and stuff, I would always wear the number eight, whether it was football, basketball, cross country, the eight was like my lucky number.

00:03:43.336 --> 00:03:51.774
When I decided to go into content creation and do YouTube, a very long time ago, I had coined TacoDog8 as like my in-game name.

00:03:52.074 --> 00:03:57.503
And when Pokemon Go came out, I was still trying to do content creation on YouTube, but failing miserably.

00:03:57.806 --> 00:04:01.683
So I stuck with using Tacodog8 and it's been with me ever since.

00:04:02.287 --> 00:04:03.146
Hey, that's fair enough.

00:04:03.146 --> 00:04:08.054
Trust me, I tried YouTube for one week and couldn't do it, so it's not for everybody.

00:04:08.350 --> 00:04:10.211
But I gotta ask the pressing question though.

00:04:10.514 --> 00:04:13.091
First, what is your ideal taco?

00:04:13.091 --> 00:04:19.060
Okay, so my ideal taco is you've gotta have fajitas in it.

00:04:19.060 --> 00:04:19.281
Yes.

00:04:19.961 --> 00:04:22.896
I like, beef fajitas with lettuce and tomato.

00:04:23.192 --> 00:04:29.988
And depending on if I'm, quote unquote spicy enough, I will put in some cilantro or some like lime in it.

00:04:30.288 --> 00:04:34.761
If I'm doing it on like a corn tortilla, I'll put some salt and lime on it and just make it like really good.

00:04:34.761 --> 00:04:36.000
A man after my own heart.

00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:48.295
Normally what I'll do is I'll do beef fajita, I'll do some guacamole, and then I'll add some kind of a spice to it, I don't know, I've been getting really into habaneros recently, so I think I'd probably do like a small habanero just to spice it up As long as I'm at home.

00:04:48.326 --> 00:04:49.915
If I'm out in public, I don't do spice.

00:04:50.572 --> 00:04:50.961
Right on.

00:04:51.012 --> 00:04:58.949
yeah, cuz sometimes some places when they have like spicy stuff, it's not quote unquote good spicy stuff and I'm not gonna throw shade at like the mom and pop Mexican restaurants.

00:04:59.309 --> 00:05:01.769
I love y'all's food, but sometimes it's just not for me.

00:05:02.065 --> 00:05:11.536
When I used to live down in Texas, my grandpa would always come with like little chile's and plant them and then just go outside and pick Chile when it was done and we'd make our own little spice at home.

00:05:11.833 --> 00:05:14.173
I would say homegrown spice is probably the best spice.

00:05:14.773 --> 00:05:18.302
I've always heard that cause I have some very spice chefs.

00:05:18.642 --> 00:05:27.519
There's probably a better word I'm thinking of, but that's the best I got to where they actually try to plant their own, they even try to, I cross pollinate'em or breed'em or whatever to make their kind of own peppers.

00:05:27.579 --> 00:05:27.800
Oh,

00:05:27.875 --> 00:05:33.341
time I've tried'em, they're like some of the most spiciest peppers I've ever tried in my entire life.

00:05:33.699 --> 00:05:42.956
Now granted I'm not very deep into this spice level by all any means of stretch of imagination, but these guys are very hardcore, for them, like eating habaneros, like breakfast for them or whatever, you know?

00:05:43.497 --> 00:05:44.096
oh my goodness.

00:05:45.156 --> 00:05:45.966
gonna be a fun one.

00:05:46.562 --> 00:05:47.372
Last question though.

00:05:47.372 --> 00:05:48.603
Do you have any dogs?

00:05:48.632 --> 00:05:49.713
And if so, what kind do you have?

00:05:50.583 --> 00:05:51.843
So I used to have three dogs.

00:05:52.846 --> 00:05:56.762
Like I had said before, Maddie was like my first real dog.

00:05:57.067 --> 00:05:59.942
Unfortunately, she did pass away in December.

00:06:00.242 --> 00:06:08.401
I had taken some time off podcasting to process it cause she was 15 years old and I love, still love her to death, we have a nice little box, cuz we got her cremated and stuff.

00:06:08.697 --> 00:06:14.341
And it's right next to My editing software and my computer, so she used to curl up at a ball right next to me while I'm editing.

00:06:14.641 --> 00:06:16.291
It's like she never left my side.

00:06:16.596 --> 00:06:18.928
So now I do have two other dogs.

00:06:19.232 --> 00:06:22.531
We have Molina, which is an Australian cattle dog mix.

00:06:22.827 --> 00:06:26.673
She is a rescue and she is five years old now.

00:06:26.978 --> 00:06:37.511
We had rescued her from the pound and nobody wanted her because when she used to herd cattle, one of the cattle had fallen on her and it broke her leg, and so she had problems walking.

00:06:37.814 --> 00:06:39.134
At least that's what the story goes.

00:06:39.434 --> 00:06:43.254
And so we said, yeah, we love this dog, nobody wants this dog, we want this dog.

00:06:43.557 --> 00:06:51.767
She's just been that giant teddy bear, but it sucks if you pet her because she will throw her 60 pound weight on you and just like, yep, I fall over.

00:06:52.064 --> 00:06:57.504
On the complete opposite spectrum, we have a border Colly, Siberian Husky mix by the name of Aries.

00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:02.814
She is six years old and she can't go five seconds without running around or getting a case of the Zoomies.

00:07:02.978 --> 00:07:04.088
That's so adorable.

00:07:04.446 --> 00:07:06.005
I always loved dogs growing up.

00:07:06.005 --> 00:07:09.355
I had a chihuahua, name was Crystal, loved that dog to death.

00:07:09.656 --> 00:07:11.374
She was always just very, cuddly dog.

00:07:11.379 --> 00:07:15.523
She always wanted, she's a chihuahua so she always wanted to be with the owner, which was me.

00:07:15.879 --> 00:07:20.509
It was unfortunate cause I grew up in a household to where one of my parents didn't want pets inside.

00:07:20.869 --> 00:07:22.548
So she always had to be an outside dog.

00:07:22.886 --> 00:07:29.040
That was always the difficult part cuz I always wanted her to snuggle up next to me, just playing video games or even on the bed.

00:07:29.398 --> 00:07:31.557
Fast forward to now I've got two dogs on my own.

00:07:31.557 --> 00:07:32.708
I've got two basenjis.

00:07:33.067 --> 00:07:35.708
For those who don't know what they are, don't worry, you're not the only one.

00:07:36.064 --> 00:07:37.954
It's basically a dog from the Congo.

00:07:38.288 --> 00:07:45.718
I always call it like a chihuahua on legs because they're hairless just like Chihuahuas I'm sorry, fur looks like chihuahuas and they don't bark, but they can yodel.

00:07:46.081 --> 00:07:54.466
And for them they're very stubborn to where It's this, for that kind of relationship, for a basenji to where they've gotta have, it's gotta be their idea to want to do it.

00:07:54.946 --> 00:07:57.016
So they won't do things they're forced to do.

00:07:57.136 --> 00:07:59.721
You have to reward'em in this way, bribe'em, quote unquote.

00:08:00.081 --> 00:08:05.322
The one thing I always love about dogs is that they come to this world to be with their owner, to love their owner no matter what.

00:08:05.617 --> 00:08:10.942
And that's always some of the heartbreaking things that you can have the most shittiest owner ever, and that dog will still love him.

00:08:11.336 --> 00:08:12.052
hard to explain

00:08:12.112 --> 00:08:13.791
You're honestly not wrong on that.

00:08:14.002 --> 00:08:18.677
I'll be the first to say that, as a teenager, we had got Maddie when I was, 12.

00:08:18.975 --> 00:08:28.014
So when I became a teenager and all the things that teenagers, Don't worry, I never did anything that was considered animal cruelty, thankfully, I had that much self-control.

00:08:28.314 --> 00:08:33.325
But I, I loved that dog and there were some days where I just did not want to put up with Maddie.

00:08:33.628 --> 00:08:37.288
She ended up staying down with my mom in Texas when I went to college.

00:08:37.587 --> 00:08:50.317
And then I said, Maddie's getting up there in age,"mom, give me Maddie for her final year", or at least for, we thought it was only gonna be three months and ended up being a whole year before she unfortunately had, passed away due to old age.

00:08:50.616 --> 00:08:56.456
Whenever she saw snow, she became this youthful dog and would try to run through the snow and then say, oh my gosh, I forgot, I'm old.

00:08:56.456 --> 00:08:57.027
I'm cold.

00:08:57.027 --> 00:08:58.312
Take me back inside please!"

00:08:58.917 --> 00:09:00.147
Oh, that's so cute, man.

00:09:00.147 --> 00:09:05.164
I could probably talk about dogs all day I'm sure my listeners won't, but we have to get to talking about Pokemon,

00:09:05.225 --> 00:09:06.125
Oh yeah, that's why I'm here.

00:09:06.654 --> 00:09:07.014
know, right.

00:09:08.072 --> 00:09:09.993
So let's start with the first question.

00:09:10.350 --> 00:09:12.197
When did you first start playing Pokemon Go?

00:09:12.861 --> 00:09:15.621
Thankfully, I was one of the day one starters.

00:09:15.621 --> 00:09:18.168
July 6th, 2016.

00:09:18.458 --> 00:09:29.436
I had got a text message from one of my buddies saying that the game had released and I just texted back, shut up, no way!" And so I look up on the Google Play store and there it was, so I instantly downloaded it.

00:09:29.735 --> 00:09:38.405
I had just got off of a double shift at work and I told my brother, I'm like, Hey, Pokemon goes out, download it And so we had just got off work, downloaded the game, started playing it.

00:09:38.715 --> 00:09:41.625
We were there on South Padre Island down in Texas.

00:09:41.625 --> 00:09:43.845
and we played all night stupidly.

00:09:43.845 --> 00:09:50.054
We were out from 11 o'clock at night to about three, four o'clock in the morning, just catching as much Pokemon as we could.

00:09:50.359 --> 00:09:52.548
My brother and I would try to race to collect them all.

00:09:52.855 --> 00:10:04.759
He unfortunately caught a Gengar and I had, the same one run away from me, but I beat him back by catching a snorlax that ended up being perfect before perfection was a thing, and his ran away, sadly.

00:10:05.056 --> 00:10:10.254
We were just out there every night playing Pokemon Go, messing up our sleep schedules and just having a ball with it.

00:10:10.552 --> 00:10:18.104
We got our friends or we got my coworkers to all play it and the police officers were wondering like, why is everybody out and about on South Potter Island?

00:10:18.412 --> 00:10:25.081
And I would say, one, it's a tourist town, two, it's July and three we're not doing anything, we're just playing Pokemon Go.

00:10:25.394 --> 00:10:32.719
We could be getting into trouble or doing things we're not supposed to, but we're just on our phones doing Pokemon trainer things, And that was the funny part.

00:10:33.015 --> 00:10:37.902
And then I ended up moving to Iowa to start my third year of college in August.

00:10:38.188 --> 00:10:42.609
I could not find a community to save my life because I wasn't a very social person.

00:10:42.908 --> 00:10:49.219
So I had put the game down until raids came out and I joined a Facebook group that said, Hey, there's a Tyranitar here.

00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:51.578
And so my brother and I he's continued to play.

00:10:51.578 --> 00:10:54.581
I had picked up, I was still higher level than him, which was pretty funny.

00:10:54.701 --> 00:10:58.152
At the time I was 34 when I put the game down, he was 31.

00:10:58.453 --> 00:11:03.043
He had a six month gap and I still had more XP than him, which was, I thought was hilarious.

00:11:03.341 --> 00:11:05.260
burrito Cat, if you're out there listening.

00:11:05.650 --> 00:11:06.160
Yes, I know.

00:11:08.211 --> 00:11:09.441
He wasn't Burrito cat at the time.

00:11:09.441 --> 00:11:11.000
He changed it just to troll me.

00:11:11.303 --> 00:11:15.931
and so we went out there and I was that guy that would just try to make jokes about it.

00:11:15.951 --> 00:11:17.390
Hey, what's a good Pokemon for this?

00:11:17.390 --> 00:11:19.010
Is this a good Pokemon to use?

00:11:19.010 --> 00:11:22.125
Knowing that if it's ceramic tar, it's dark and rock types.

00:11:22.130 --> 00:11:24.426
And I was going in with CP 10 Pidgey.

00:11:24.725 --> 00:11:26.788
And they're like, no, no, use this type.

00:11:27.091 --> 00:11:31.611
Some people eventually saw me as the Birdman just cuz I would always, I would always want use piggy.

00:11:31.822 --> 00:11:32.572
It was a joke.

00:11:32.812 --> 00:11:41.181
But then I, I started actually trying by throwing Blisses in because of course, And I know that some people are like, why would you use a bliss look?

00:11:41.181 --> 00:11:44.811
In 2017 there was a bug where you didn't get all the damage if you wiped.

00:11:44.811 --> 00:11:46.730
So people would just put Blisses in the back.

00:11:47.033 --> 00:11:51.708
I would use three Pokemon and three blisses and I would still get all three of the damage balls.

00:11:51.708 --> 00:12:04.899
Yes, because basically just give some context back then, like he said, if you fainted out of the raid lobby, the damage reset, and you would lose basically, I think three to four balls as a chance to just get the raid boss.

00:12:05.205 --> 00:12:09.020
So you'd basically be trying to catch a raid boss with maybe eight, if you're lucky.

00:12:09.020 --> 00:12:09.360
Yeah.

00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:14.791
You're also counting if you had the gym control bonus, which was not fun cuz back then, we didn't have the best friend bonus.

00:12:15.087 --> 00:12:21.677
I remember there used to be a chart, like a breakdown of which team did the most damage and I think that might have helped.

00:12:21.976 --> 00:12:25.937
I'm showing my age in Pokemon Go by talking about all of these features that don't exist.

00:12:26.037 --> 00:12:26.636
I am too.

00:12:26.667 --> 00:12:29.246
That's why I'm giving some context for maybe people who weren't there back then.

00:12:29.246 --> 00:12:29.397
So

00:12:30.522 --> 00:12:31.121
That's fair.

00:12:31.427 --> 00:12:34.081
And then PVP came out and I said, okay, here's my niche.

00:12:34.378 --> 00:12:38.575
Burrito! We must fight and I must establish dominance by being the ultimate trainer.

00:12:39.177 --> 00:12:42.246
What was it about PVP that really like why PVP of all things.

00:12:42.850 --> 00:12:46.389
So this kind of goes back to my time in the main series games.

00:12:46.687 --> 00:12:48.037
I played a lot.

00:12:48.332 --> 00:12:49.562
My first game was gold.

00:12:49.866 --> 00:12:55.797
And on my soccer team, I hated playing soccer, but I still played because a lot of the teammates they played, Pokemon games.

00:12:56.090 --> 00:13:02.059
So we would be there with our Game Boy advances and Game Boy colors and our link cables and just, we're just fighting each other, trying to be the best.

00:13:02.363 --> 00:13:05.123
And I was the absolute worst trainer on the team.

00:13:05.220 --> 00:13:05.730
Oh really?

00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:05.950
Wow.

00:13:06.207 --> 00:13:08.057
Yeah, I had no idea what tight matchups are.

00:13:08.357 --> 00:13:13.304
Well, that still hasn't changed because I still, will mess up my tight matchups every now and then.

00:13:13.601 --> 00:13:28.345
And so what ended up happening was when fire ed and Leaf Green came out, I had, a Game Boy, a advance sp and I made it my mission to just go around and if they played, I'll challenge people to battles if they want it and I would do everything that I could to win.

00:13:28.764 --> 00:13:33.254
I wasn't like IV breeding or EV training, I had no idea what that was back then.

00:13:33.552 --> 00:13:35.172
I just wanted to be the best.

00:13:35.471 --> 00:13:45.760
when the DSS came out with Diamond and Pearl, and I think I was in middle school at this time, a lot of my classmates had DSS and we would all host multiple day tournaments, like at recess, just fighting each other.

00:13:46.065 --> 00:13:50.067
I was still not the best, but I would try to work my way up to be the best.

00:13:50.368 --> 00:13:55.147
And so when Pokemon Go came out with pvp, I said, look, I'm a hyper-competitive person.

00:13:55.450 --> 00:13:58.029
I need something like I beat my brother to 40.

00:13:58.326 --> 00:14:00.336
I got more shinies than him.

00:14:00.336 --> 00:14:01.506
I had more xp.

00:14:01.809 --> 00:14:05.419
A lot of players in my other community were leaps and bounds higher than me.

00:14:05.424 --> 00:14:10.131
I was like just finding ways to make Pokemon go fun for me cuz I, I didn't care for shiny hunting.

00:14:10.447 --> 00:14:11.798
Once I got one shiny, that's it.

00:14:12.105 --> 00:14:19.554
I will be that guy that transfers all his community day shinies and I know some people are going, oh, he transfers unironically.

00:14:19.912 --> 00:14:21.951
Look, I don't have a lot of backspace.

00:14:21.951 --> 00:14:26.461
I only have 6,000, but a lot of it is reserved for PVP months.

00:14:26.758 --> 00:14:35.225
If the shiny is not a Hundo, if the shiny is not PVP relevant or if the shiny is just not cool or gonna be used in a raffle in our local community, it goes in the garbage bin.

00:14:35.522 --> 00:14:41.731
You can only hold so many shiny Bulbasaurs before you just look at it like, why am I still holding these?

00:14:41.731 --> 00:14:43.851
You never dreamed of having a full room, of Bulbasaur.

00:14:44.488 --> 00:14:45.961
Look Bulbasaur is not really my favorite.

00:14:45.961 --> 00:14:46.471
Actually

00:14:46.562 --> 00:14:46.831
favorite?

00:14:46.831 --> 00:14:48.138
depends on the generation.

00:14:49.457 --> 00:14:49.937
Oh, I see.

00:14:49.937 --> 00:14:51.408
You don't even have a specific one.

00:14:51.413 --> 00:14:52.638
You have one for each generation?

00:14:52.758 --> 00:15:02.457
Well, okay, so I make a joke, like right now my profile picture on discord is Flygon, and you hear me hype up Flygon like Flygon is just the greatest Pokemon of all time.

00:15:02.764 --> 00:15:04.684
It is so perfect in its design.

00:15:04.995 --> 00:15:09.554
It didn't even need a mega, it was just that beautiful like, mm, chef's kiss.

00:15:09.861 --> 00:15:16.111
I love using Flagon because it's the first Speedy boy I used on my Hoenn team and slash fire red team, I guess.

00:15:16.414 --> 00:15:22.634
It has just stuck with me since essentially day one of my journey, even though I know my journey was Pokemon Gold and Crystal.

00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:24.745
I go through phases of like favorite Pokemon.

00:15:25.195 --> 00:15:31.738
Sometimes I'm like, oh, I really like Umbreon because it's shiny looks really cool and then I found out it's an absolute wall.

00:15:32.042 --> 00:15:36.625
Right now I'm on a Lechonk Kick, which for those that play Scarlet and Violet, it's a meme.

00:15:36.934 --> 00:15:37.985
It's the new Bidoof.

00:15:38.292 --> 00:15:45.601
Bidoof is second tier now, it's all about the Lechonk all hail the Lechonk army, it's spherical, you mess with Lechonk, you get Le Bonk.

00:15:45.601 --> 00:15:46.491
just rolls off the tongue.

00:15:46.511 --> 00:15:47.351
Oh my gosh.

00:15:47.351 --> 00:15:49.662
Lechonk is so awesome, it's definitely one of my favorites.

00:15:49.961 --> 00:15:52.331
I just don't like its evolution, that's my only issue with Lechonk.

00:15:52.511 --> 00:15:53.562
It has an evolution?

00:15:53.562 --> 00:15:54.162
Exactly!

00:15:55.835 --> 00:16:01.595
So yeah, I don't have an ultimate favorite one, it's just more of a, which one do I think is the neatest right now?

00:16:01.904 --> 00:16:06.914
Like right now I'm really liking Bax caliber in Scarlet and Violet, which is like my favorite Gen nine Pokemon.

00:16:07.217 --> 00:16:12.097
But I also like the Applejack Man that just came to Pokemon Go in Gholdengo or Gholdengo.

00:16:12.258 --> 00:16:13.518
Oh, yes, yes.

00:16:13.518 --> 00:16:17.278
whenever I see it come out, I'm just like, here I am Mayman.

00:16:17.628 --> 00:16:20.148
And I know a bunch of two, I know a bunch of two thousands kids just went.

00:16:20.687 --> 00:16:21.587
I remember that!

00:16:22.087 --> 00:16:22.778
Oh my gosh.

00:16:22.778 --> 00:16:23.707
That's so awesome.

00:16:24.004 --> 00:16:26.195
Well, what's it like playing in your area though?

00:16:26.797 --> 00:16:28.437
It is honestly a lot of fun.

00:16:28.856 --> 00:16:30.509
The community days.

00:16:30.509 --> 00:16:34.649
so I'm in a college town and you've got the college kids that kind of do their own thing.

00:16:34.972 --> 00:16:42.960
You've got just a bunch of like random people, like an older crowd that kinda like walks around in the pedestrian mall, which I didn't know was a thing until I moved up here.

00:16:43.263 --> 00:16:51.133
And then we've got the Pokemon Go players and like in community days, there are so many Pokestops and you can just walk around and hit'em all.

00:16:51.456 --> 00:16:56.450
We have this little lapping system I think there's five or six different, combinations you can do.

00:16:56.450 --> 00:17:01.923
if it's cold, we're gonna take this lap, if it's hot, we're gonna take the long lap, if we're lazy, we're gonna do this lap.

00:17:02.253 --> 00:17:10.198
And it just maximizes all the spawns and stops so that you could set your gotcha to just catch Pokemon and just spin all the stops and you'll never run outta Pokeballs.

00:17:10.498 --> 00:17:13.678
So I also like to commute and I ride a bicycle a lot.

00:17:13.991 --> 00:17:30.694
And so on the bike I'm seeing more and more stops show up, like from bike paths about some really neat stuff that you really don't need a car as much as a lot of, I know a lot of communities like to use cars and there's nothing wrong with that cuz I know that we're all secretly passengers and our self-driving Teslas.

00:17:30.717 --> 00:17:33.257
Oh yeah, we're not driving and playing at the same time, of course not.

00:17:33.257 --> 00:17:33.527
No.

00:17:33.527 --> 00:17:33.799
Yeah.

00:17:33.799 --> 00:17:37.846
And so when I'm thinking about that, I'm like, oh my goodness, my home community.

00:17:37.846 --> 00:17:39.612
And I come from a place of privilege of saying this.

00:17:39.914 --> 00:17:45.335
My home community is so nice that I don't need a vehicle to have a great experience with this game.

00:17:45.942 --> 00:17:48.012
So you talked about how you like to ride your bike.

00:17:48.262 --> 00:17:49.343
that kind of how you play?

00:17:49.682 --> 00:17:51.262
you just ride your bike and you have your Gotcha going?

00:17:51.823 --> 00:17:52.153
Yes.

00:17:52.153 --> 00:17:58.472
So I have my bicycle and I like to differentiate myself from some other Pokemon Go players.

00:17:58.772 --> 00:18:03.722
Whereas I know we had talked about some people use their cars to get from point A to b.

00:18:04.143 --> 00:18:09.633
I don't have a car, I just use my bicycle to get around town and to play Pokemon Go.

00:18:09.942 --> 00:18:18.976
So I get to play Pokemon go on my way to work, and I get to play Pokemon Go coming home from work and I will never trip the speed cap because I will purposely go under 15 miles an hour.

00:18:19.564 --> 00:18:27.723
So you never have to worry about not being able to spin stops or catch Pokemon or let me ask you this, does your adventure sync still actually count the distance?

00:18:27.723 --> 00:18:28.443
Yes, it does.

00:18:28.740 --> 00:18:34.471
I have found a way to make sure every single kilometer gets counted with a 90% accuracy reading.

00:18:34.784 --> 00:18:42.020
And the trick is, a lot of people, when they use Pokemon Go, and they use it on their bicycles, they have a phone mount and they put it on their handlebar.

00:18:42.320 --> 00:18:47.661
It's a well-known, established fact that Adventure Sync is tracked when your phone bounces up and down.

00:18:47.661 --> 00:18:49.478
Hence, we have the sock method.

00:18:49.788 --> 00:18:53.840
And I know people are like, Ooh, the sock method, blah, blah, blah.

00:18:54.131 --> 00:18:58.644
Look, I'm just simply reporting on what's on YouTube, so don't yell at me, go yell at YouTube.

00:18:58.943 --> 00:19:06.567
So what I do is I have this like office clip that I'll attach to my belt, and it's like one of the, it's like one of the OtterBox like clippy things.

00:19:06.867 --> 00:19:09.627
And what I'll do is I'll attach it to my belt on my waist.

00:19:10.414 --> 00:19:12.875
And so while I pedal my leg moves up and down.

00:19:13.185 --> 00:19:21.749
And that essentially makes my phone move up and down and so while I'm pedaling, it's counting every single cadence and every single time that I move.

00:19:22.051 --> 00:19:29.454
And so if I have it set to a low gear, I can be pedaling my butt off and it's counting steps, or not counting steps per se, but counting distance.

00:19:29.778 --> 00:19:34.637
Theoretically I'm supposed to be getting 25, 26 kilometers a day.

00:19:34.950 --> 00:19:46.973
So far I've been averaging 22, 23 kilometers to count the times I decide to take a rest and just go down a hill at less than 15 miles an hour because I don't want to hit that speed trap or that speed cap.

00:19:46.973 --> 00:19:47.483
Excuse me.

00:19:47.791 --> 00:19:55.643
Although if I feel lazy sometimes and I want to quote unquote manually catch Pokemon, I'm not saying I recommend doing this, but I can ride my bike with no handlebars.

00:19:55.643 --> 00:19:56.843
Insert song here.

00:19:57.148 --> 00:19:59.044
I'll put the phone out on and play that way.

00:19:59.352 --> 00:20:00.731
That's how I like to play my game.

00:20:01.031 --> 00:20:03.192
And before a lot of people go, what?

00:20:03.192 --> 00:20:04.182
You don't have a car?

00:20:04.489 --> 00:20:08.989
I will be the first one to say, there is nothing that you can do in a car that you can do on a bicycle.

00:20:09.288 --> 00:20:10.219
But what about heater?

00:20:10.219 --> 00:20:10.479
Keep moving.

00:20:10.904 --> 00:20:11.894
You won't freeze that way.

00:20:12.525 --> 00:20:13.875
What about air conditioning?

00:20:13.875 --> 00:20:14.565
Just pedal.

00:20:14.875 --> 00:20:15.505
Keep moving.

00:20:15.807 --> 00:20:17.602
The wind will make you feel nice.

00:20:17.912 --> 00:20:19.501
What about putting storage on it?

00:20:19.805 --> 00:20:22.525
Have you ever heard of bicycle bags and or a backpack?

00:20:23.112 --> 00:20:30.586
I think for many people, a world before cars, it's hard to imagine just like how for people, they can't imagine PVP or raids not existing.

00:20:30.646 --> 00:20:32.686
It just becomes the norm, right?

00:20:32.686 --> 00:20:39.701
Yep and this is the once again where I will have My Boomer moment in saying I was there when PVP was released and I was there when raids were released.

00:20:40.015 --> 00:20:41.259
The buddy bonus one too.

00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:52.852
I remember I had walked a Luxray 1600 kilometers and then they said, Hey, we're changing the buddy system, and they started doing hearts and I said, I'm not walking another a hundred kilometers with you.

00:20:53.154 --> 00:20:56.009
Luxray, get in the box! It's time for some best buddies.

00:20:56.612 --> 00:20:59.342
We're gonna take a quick break with a word from our sponsors.

00:20:59.645 --> 00:21:00.752
We'll be right back.

00:21:02.821 --> 00:21:03.632
Hello everyone.

00:21:04.352 --> 00:21:15.061
I wanna dedicate this episode to anybody who, whoever participated in self arena factions, the friendships and communities that we created while working towards a common goal will forever be in our hearts.

00:21:15.872 --> 00:21:21.211
Everybody from the staff to the players truly made Pokemon Go more than just the game.

00:21:22.531 --> 00:21:28.501
The games that were played when I was a member of the angry bottoms and Deaner, don't care, will forever hold a special place in my heart.

00:21:29.551 --> 00:21:34.412
Thank you all for a wonderful time and always remember to keep your dragon Fang sharp.

00:21:37.031 --> 00:21:41.892
Welcome back to as the Poker Ball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game.

00:21:42.188 --> 00:21:45.157
The other thing that's unique about your play style is you're also free to play, right?

00:21:45.758 --> 00:21:47.857
I like to call myself as semi free to play.

00:21:48.154 --> 00:21:51.281
I'll probably spend money on this game once a year.

00:21:51.585 --> 00:22:02.644
And I won't spend a dime on this game unless it's absolutely necessary or I'm hosting a PVP tournament and we're having some prizes say, trading cards, plushies and or raffle stuff.

00:22:02.968 --> 00:22:08.157
So I'll still spend some money on this game, but I'm spending it more towards my community versus Pokemon Go.

00:22:08.767 --> 00:22:09.707
That's a very noble of you.

00:22:09.727 --> 00:22:17.497
So really a lot of the money that you would be spending on Pokemon Go goes to enhancing community and trying to improve their experience with, the PVP tournaments and everything else you do.

00:22:17.497 --> 00:22:22.539
Yes, actually So in my local community, cause I have to say local community now, cause there's my official podcast community.

00:22:22.750 --> 00:22:24.319
Enter the Dragonair's Den.

00:22:24.630 --> 00:22:26.282
Discord will be around here somewhere.

00:22:27.512 --> 00:22:28.413
Follow me on Twitter.

00:22:28.717 --> 00:22:43.323
But why I say my local community, because Unfortunately, I don't want to pay for shipping stuff, and gift cards are very finicky for me, so I just rather do our enter the draggers den tournaments for like fun and to help raise rank, just to have a good time.

00:22:43.630 --> 00:22:47.299
I keep saying, you don't have to be a good PVP player to join this discord.

00:22:47.596 --> 00:22:53.086
We will laugh and have a good time, and there is, honestly, I've never initiated a PVP conversation in that discord.

00:22:53.386 --> 00:22:56.866
I'll give my 2 cents and I'll say, Hey guys, what do you think of this bread picture I found?

00:22:57.173 --> 00:23:00.377
It's completely random, but going back to my local, community enhancement.

00:23:00.682 --> 00:23:09.880
I'll be honest, I like putting a smile on people's faces and making sure that if somebody is new to the discord, I won't be overly like,"Hey, welcome to the Discord.

00:23:10.059 --> 00:23:11.259
Glad you can join us.

00:23:11.259 --> 00:23:12.369
Stay here forever.

00:23:12.369 --> 00:23:14.900
You're here until you move out of Iowa."

00:23:14.928 --> 00:23:17.407
Sign this contract promising your money to come to me.

00:23:17.407 --> 00:23:18.067
Exactly.

00:23:18.365 --> 00:23:18.916
I'm like, look.

00:23:18.916 --> 00:23:20.289
Welcome to pogo ic.

00:23:20.590 --> 00:23:22.121
My name is Taco Dog.

00:23:22.420 --> 00:23:24.130
I am a tournament organizer.

00:23:24.130 --> 00:23:26.859
I post maybe once a month, official PVP stuff.

00:23:27.161 --> 00:23:36.397
And so there'll be like usual plushies, T C G and of course, special stuff from Niantic because my community is part of the community ambassador program.

00:23:36.710 --> 00:23:47.186
And so the good thing that I like is a lot of people, the first thing a lot of people tell me when I like, I go hard on the PVP aspect and they're like, Hey Taco, I'm not that good at PV P.

00:23:47.186 --> 00:23:48.686
Should I still come to this tournament?

00:23:48.989 --> 00:23:50.898
And I said, yeah, dude, absolutely.

00:23:51.201 --> 00:23:52.404
Do you like to meet new people?

00:23:52.404 --> 00:23:53.005
Yes.

00:23:53.304 --> 00:23:55.433
Do you like to make new friends?

00:23:55.433 --> 00:23:55.943
Yes.

00:23:56.244 --> 00:23:59.882
Then you should really come to one of these tournaments and they're like, oh, I don't have a car.

00:24:00.190 --> 00:24:05.220
And I said, my wife's asleep, I will steal her car and I'll come pick you up to take me to this thing.

00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:07.318
of course then she'll be like, did you take my car?

00:24:07.318 --> 00:24:08.009
And I said, yeah.

00:24:08.292 --> 00:24:09.748
And she's Pokemon go Pokemon.

00:24:10.057 --> 00:24:10.268
Go.

00:24:10.569 --> 00:24:25.300
And so I will take you to the tournament myself and I'll take you back if I have a vehicle, if there's a way to just so that you can have that experience and at the end of the day, a lot of people, when it was their new tournament or their very first tournament, the first thing they always said is, taco, I had a wonderful time.

00:24:25.605 --> 00:24:28.035
I'm super happy that I came out to one of these things.

00:24:28.339 --> 00:24:29.599
When is the next tournament?

00:24:29.903 --> 00:24:32.987
And I say, keep an eye out on the discord for the next month's tournament.

00:24:33.289 --> 00:24:38.359
I would post it super early so that we all can make, so that we all can make plans around it.

00:24:38.660 --> 00:24:40.339
I never like to hold it early in the month.

00:24:40.636 --> 00:24:44.182
I like to hold it towards the end of the month and a lot of people will make plans to do that.

00:24:44.484 --> 00:24:54.333
I used to do like the PVP research for the community days and all you had to do was beat me in a best two outta three in either open Great league or self style monthly tournaments with the special rule sets.

00:24:54.633 --> 00:24:56.728
And that draws a really good crowd.

00:24:57.028 --> 00:25:02.087
A lot of people go, taco, aren't you supposed to lose?" I was like, yeah, but I'm gonna make you work for it.

00:25:02.342 --> 00:25:07.397
I would say PVP has revitalized my passion for this game to kind like wrap it all up in a nice little bow.

00:25:07.997 --> 00:25:12.008
It sounds like it drives up your competitive spirit and you try to pass that on to other people.

00:25:12.008 --> 00:25:12.758
Yes.

00:25:13.055 --> 00:25:18.000
It's also cool because I won't beat around the bush on this one, in my local community, I'm very good.

00:25:18.281 --> 00:25:27.506
I'll toot my own horn or without patting myself too much on the back, I know I'm the best player in my community for the time and there are some people that are gunning for the title of King of Iowa City.

00:25:27.799 --> 00:25:32.459
But when we have the prizes and stuff, somebody asked me, taco, you won your own tournament?

00:25:32.759 --> 00:25:34.858
Are you gonna take home your prizes?

00:25:35.164 --> 00:25:40.663
I looked them dead in the eye, and I said, look, if I had taken home every single prize, nobody would want to come to these things.

00:25:40.957 --> 00:25:44.257
If I won a prize, I am giving it back to y'all.

00:25:44.557 --> 00:25:52.537
So instead of first, second, third, taking home a prize, it's gonna be second, third, fourth, and so on and so forth, unless they don't want a prize and they're gonna kick it back to the next person.

00:25:52.834 --> 00:25:58.787
So I indirectly started a chain of kindness and if nobody takes a prize home, then, okay, I can just use it for the next month.

00:25:59.084 --> 00:26:00.104
And I'm okay with that.

00:26:00.409 --> 00:26:06.596
I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever take prizes that I bought to give to the community and take them home.

00:26:07.199 --> 00:26:10.828
It's a difficult mindset to have, especially for us experienced players.

00:26:11.133 --> 00:26:19.810
for me, I always had this mindset to where everybody played like me, everybody has the stardust, everybody has the collection, the Legendaries, like, why are we repeating this over and over and over?

00:26:19.810 --> 00:26:20.080
Right.

00:26:20.388 --> 00:26:26.865
Not everybody knows what I know, and I had to take myself out of it and do what you do in regards to giving back to them what they need.

00:26:27.165 --> 00:26:30.512
Sometimes it can be as simple as providing resources to counters for raids.

00:26:30.813 --> 00:26:35.317
Sometimes it's simple as, Hey, go over here if you can do, some kind of event or whatever.

00:26:35.621 --> 00:26:39.638
And it's being able to put the community's needs above your own, which not everybody can do.

00:26:39.638 --> 00:26:43.738
I agree! There is absolutely, nothing wrong with that sentiment.

00:26:44.038 --> 00:26:52.192
And I do agree that the best communities, and I've seen in some of our local servers, the admins didn't have that mindset of giving back, so to speak.

00:26:52.490 --> 00:26:55.384
If you're one of those admins, there is nothing wrong with it.

00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:58.494
If that's what made it work for a while, then that's what makes it work.

00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:03.592
I'm simply coming from my experience and my perspective and my area, everyone's experience is gonna be different.

00:27:04.198 --> 00:27:08.307
The one thing that I really picked up based on your leadership style is it's very selfless.

00:27:08.625 --> 00:27:10.616
I wanted to ask like, where does that come from?

00:27:10.622 --> 00:27:12.538
Like, were you inspired by other people?

00:27:12.538 --> 00:27:13.182
Good question.

00:27:13.486 --> 00:27:17.557
I guess this is the portion where we might get a little bit deep, but we're all gonna learn today.

00:27:17.557 --> 00:27:18.442
Break it down for me, brother.

00:27:19.176 --> 00:27:19.537
okay.

00:27:19.836 --> 00:27:22.766
So my father, he was an incredibly selfless man.

00:27:23.095 --> 00:27:33.221
He had some of the best of friends in every place in society, the highest of highest and the lowest of lows and he treated every single person the same with compassion, with respect.

00:27:33.532 --> 00:27:40.373
Didn't matter if you were homeless and needed like an extra dollar to get you by, or if you were a multimillionaire with six or seven different houses.

00:27:40.667 --> 00:27:44.567
I guess that was just the work he did with fixing everyone's computer and kind of went from there.

00:27:44.865 --> 00:28:04.067
He unfortunately passed in 2007 when I was 11 years old, but just kind of seeing him do that kind of rubbed off on me just as I was being a teenager, okay, look, I know who my dad was, he has a really big shadow, and so I went in with the mind or growing up I had the mindset of if you help other people, then eventually, a lot of good things will happen to you.

00:28:04.365 --> 00:28:05.655
I guess what goes around comes around.

00:28:05.655 --> 00:28:05.976
Mm-hmm.

00:28:05.976 --> 00:28:16.330
And it continued all the way into my senior year of college when there was a debacle with, or not senior year of college, excuse me, senior year of high school there was a debacle with a catering company where all the workers didn't show up for a banquet.

00:28:16.628 --> 00:28:18.789
I told all the high school seniors like, look, it's our last year.

00:28:19.328 --> 00:28:25.675
let's all get up and let's like bring the food out to the younger classmen and to so our moms and dads and just say, look, we're giving this back to you.

00:28:25.681 --> 00:28:29.125
You guys have invested so much time and effort in us, let's do this one thing for y'all.

00:28:29.424 --> 00:28:34.345
So we catered to our own family members, even though we were like the guests of honor, cuz we were seniors.

00:28:34.585 --> 00:28:35.845
We didn't care about any of that.

00:28:36.153 --> 00:28:39.067
We just said, we're helping you sit down, shut up we're helping you.

00:28:39.369 --> 00:28:43.930
But then coming up here of course our discord has like first gen, second gen, or we call'em gens.

00:28:43.930 --> 00:28:46.930
I was in gen two, but a lot of people think I'm gen one, which is weird.

00:28:47.230 --> 00:28:51.849
And so seeing people donate money, I didn't have money to donate cuz I was in college.

00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:52.480
I was poor.

00:28:52.779 --> 00:28:58.861
They would donate money, they would donate time, they would donate cars like for rides when we did raid trains.

00:28:59.175 --> 00:29:08.499
And if you didn't have a car or if your car was in the shop, we would say, look, I have room for five, if you want a ride, let me know be here and I will pick you up.

00:29:08.499 --> 00:29:09.039
And we will go there.

00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:10.891
And they're like, do you want gas money?

00:29:11.193 --> 00:29:14.824
I was like, if you want the glove boxes right there, you, there's a box in there you can put money in.

00:29:14.824 --> 00:29:16.284
If not, it's no skin off my boat.

00:29:16.582 --> 00:29:19.390
As long as you get the legendary or if you get the shiny, I don't care.

00:29:19.693 --> 00:29:21.763
I want you to have fun first and foremost.

00:29:22.076 --> 00:29:28.794
Now I donate my time as much as I can in our, our Discord community, not so much creating infographics and stuff.

00:29:29.098 --> 00:29:35.808
I just do it like guiding new people into the direction and getting them more acclimated to our discord and just making sure everybody's having a really good time.

00:29:36.413 --> 00:29:42.328
And ultimately, That's kind of what's most important and gets forgotten when it comes to any community, especially within Pokemon Go.

00:29:42.634 --> 00:29:47.314
A lot of people think this game is driven by the content or the raid bosses, you know, yada yada yada.

00:29:47.624 --> 00:29:59.542
And yes, it does to a degree, but a lot of what makes Pokemon Go so unique and what unites a lot of us is just having that community aspect, having that part to where you can belong here no matter where you're from, what you've done.

00:29:59.838 --> 00:30:05.142
We all combined through Pokemon Go and that's really what the craze of 2016 is ultimately about.

00:30:05.501 --> 00:30:07.571
We all came for one thing with Pokemon Go.

00:30:07.902 --> 00:30:17.912
It was all people and we all kinda experienced a community around a video game in the real world, and that's how you continue to build communities up is just give them an experience that they can't really have anywhere else.

00:30:18.509 --> 00:30:28.563
I've traveled out of the state, like I'll, travel back to Texas every now and then to catch Heracrosses for people and then trade them for people or catch Corsola or get married.

00:30:28.859 --> 00:30:32.688
I got married in Texas, cuz I refuse, I refuse to get married in any other state.

00:30:32.990 --> 00:30:35.055
My wife goes, let's do a destination wedding.

00:30:35.355 --> 00:30:41.575
I said, look, I don't care what color it is, what the colors are, I don't care what food we eat, I don't care any of that, as long as it's in Texas.

00:30:41.575 --> 00:30:41.934
That's it.

00:30:41.934 --> 00:30:42.285
Right.

00:30:43.545 --> 00:30:48.458
But going back to the other thing, like there's just something, and I'm not saying that my community is the best.

00:30:48.758 --> 00:31:03.789
For me, I am saying that I have not had the same genuine, welcoming experience or the same experience overall compared to my home server cuz I'll pop into other servers like, Hey, I'm planning on making a trip here, in two to three weeks and I'm not gonna put this community on blast.

00:31:04.089 --> 00:31:10.934
But my message went unanswered for two days and then someone just said, dude, just read the FAQs and the channel guide and good luck.

00:31:11.230 --> 00:31:15.971
And then, it left a bit of a sour taste amount, but then I remember not every community is like that.

00:31:16.270 --> 00:31:18.760
So there were some positive experiences, some negative experiences.

00:31:19.060 --> 00:31:27.983
And so that's like where I come from and I'm like super happy to just make sure everyone that comes into the server is going to be welcomed and be like,"Hey, hope you stay a while."

00:31:28.584 --> 00:31:35.693
And eventually like the way you approach not even just your server, but just the community in general, it actually had you featured in a newspaper, right?

00:31:35.693 --> 00:31:36.384
Yes.

00:31:36.743 --> 00:31:39.294
Way back in 2019.

00:31:39.894 --> 00:31:41.273
Gosh, that was so long ago.

00:31:41.576 --> 00:31:51.544
There was a journalist who was a student at the university that was looking, they were doing some creative writing stuff and they were gonna get featured, and I hope I'm getting all this information right, cuz it's been so long.

00:31:51.840 --> 00:31:58.016
They were doing a project, or they were working for the newspaper at the time and they wanted to do a segment on some local communities.

00:31:58.346 --> 00:32:00.955
It just so happened that he was also a member of our Discord.

00:32:00.955 --> 00:32:03.603
So he asked like, how would I get in contact about doing this?

00:32:03.902 --> 00:32:06.362
And I was like, oh, oh, pick me, pick me.

00:32:06.662 --> 00:32:07.741
I'm the one that runs pvp.

00:32:07.741 --> 00:32:08.461
what can I do for you?

00:32:08.461 --> 00:32:09.392
what questions do you have?

00:32:09.689 --> 00:32:12.695
And he goes, do you mind if I just come out to one of these tournaments?

00:32:12.999 --> 00:32:15.806
And I was like, yeah, dude, come out, have a good time, ask questions.

00:32:16.105 --> 00:32:20.695
The only thing I ask is that people don't wanna give their opinion or don't wanna give a comment, just don't harass him.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:22.651
He actually put this quote in my paper.

00:32:22.651 --> 00:32:25.698
He was asking me questions about like, how did I get started in pvp?

00:32:25.698 --> 00:32:30.167
What drives me to do it, yada, like, you know, the usual, I would say, quote unquote journalist stuff.

00:32:30.470 --> 00:32:32.714
He asked me, how did I become a leader for pvp?

00:32:32.894 --> 00:32:34.694
And I said, dude, I'll be very honest with you.

00:32:34.875 --> 00:32:39.105
I just stumbled into this thing of leading, being the head tournament official.

00:32:39.164 --> 00:32:50.269
And he put it in there, he goes, I stumbled into being a PVP leader for POGO ic." when that quote came out, I looked at and I was like, yeah, that looks like something I would say, I wasn't even mad or anything.

00:32:50.318 --> 00:32:52.868
I was laughing so much about it.

00:32:53.171 --> 00:32:58.407
We had players from Des Moines, which is about 80 miles, west of us.

00:32:58.704 --> 00:33:04.387
And so we had players come out that far and then, something neat happened in the next month after that article was posted.

00:33:04.387 --> 00:33:08.605
We had players from Nebraska show up and drive all the way across the state of Iowa.

00:33:08.605 --> 00:33:14.904
Well, it just shows how much of a community you really had after that article like for people to hear like how welcoming and inclusive y'all were.

00:33:15.508 --> 00:33:16.708
Yeah, and we like it.

00:33:17.008 --> 00:33:23.412
The PVP community, had grown to encompass the state of Iowa, plus a little bit of Illinois and a little bit of Nebraska.

00:33:23.711 --> 00:33:29.038
And then unfortunately everything shut down and went remote and it killed our P V P community here in Iowa City.

00:33:29.336 --> 00:33:30.272
Which was awful.

00:33:30.569 --> 00:33:35.049
We are currently rebuilding the PVP community from the ground up with new players.

00:33:35.049 --> 00:33:38.681
I've reached out to everyone back again, and I'm super excited to be doing that.

00:33:39.430 --> 00:33:41.779
There's actually a quote that I wanted to point out from the article.

00:33:42.089 --> 00:33:48.019
So I read the article and this is one that I think really signifies who you are as a person, as well as impact you've had on your community.

00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:55.732
It says here, it doesn't matter where you're from, what people think of you, you're playstyle because this community has something for everyone.

00:33:56.038 --> 00:34:00.478
Meeting a whole bunch of new people and seeing the smile it puts on everyone's faces.

00:34:00.778 --> 00:34:02.067
That's what keeps me playing!

00:34:02.067 --> 00:34:03.357
Yeah, I remember that quote.

00:34:03.655 --> 00:34:04.435
so powerful, dude.

00:34:04.586 --> 00:34:10.106
It just shows that, and that's something you said, that's something that you said to the reporter that he included the newspaper.

00:34:10.346 --> 00:34:10.976
I read that.

00:34:10.976 --> 00:34:13.719
I'm like, that shows exactly what kind of guy this guy is.

00:34:14.019 --> 00:34:14.699
He's a selfless guy.

00:34:14.719 --> 00:34:19.030
He wants to make sure everybody has a good time because that's what community's all about, right?

00:34:19.329 --> 00:34:26.476
It's about everyone else and making sure we all the whole collective group really enjoys the experience, whether it be Pokemon Go or anything else,

00:34:27.541 --> 00:34:32.641
I agree 100% on that and I'm always the type of person like, look, you play the game your own way.

00:34:32.938 --> 00:34:38.849
For the longest time, before level 50 was a thing, once you hit level 40, a lot of people were like, okay, what do I do now?

00:34:39.152 --> 00:34:43.952
And I play a lot of old school Runescape and there's a joke like, oh, I met, I got all my skills in 99.

00:34:43.952 --> 00:34:44.731
What do I do now?

00:34:45.329 --> 00:34:46.108
You play the game.

00:34:46.411 --> 00:34:48.141
That's the meme of old school Runescape.

00:34:48.512 --> 00:34:51.931
Bringing it back to Pokemon Go, a lot of people would say, I hit 40, what do I do now?

00:34:52.251 --> 00:34:53.867
And we would all ask'em, what do you like to do?

00:34:54.186 --> 00:34:55.936
I like to search for, four star Pokemon.

00:34:56.827 --> 00:34:57.666
All right, do that.

00:34:57.981 --> 00:34:59.422
Or, I like to collect xp.

00:34:59.512 --> 00:35:01.282
All right, I'll see you at a billion.

00:35:01.581 --> 00:35:03.541
A lot of people's oh, I like to collect stardust, or I like to.

00:35:03.967 --> 00:35:05.260
collect, PVP Mons.

00:35:05.572 --> 00:35:06.447
And so you hit 40.

00:35:06.447 --> 00:35:07.286
It's what do I do now?

00:35:07.286 --> 00:35:08.036
Play the game.

00:35:08.277 --> 00:35:09.777
I still have that sentiment.

00:35:10.074 --> 00:35:11.335
I still play the game my own way.

00:35:11.929 --> 00:35:13.940
Sure, there are people who have hit Level 50 than me.

00:35:14.150 --> 00:35:15.230
They're playing their way.

00:35:15.500 --> 00:35:16.519
I'm playing my way.

00:35:16.833 --> 00:35:22.273
sometimes our past cross, we agree and we disagree, and other times, Hey, that's the way you play your game.

00:35:22.273 --> 00:35:23.594
That's how you get your enjoyment.

00:35:23.893 --> 00:35:26.963
As long as it's not interfering or being toxic, Do what you wanna do, bud.

00:35:27.563 --> 00:35:30.153
And eventually this led you to getting into factions, right?

00:35:30.228 --> 00:35:30.918
Yes.

00:35:31.222 --> 00:35:37.652
I owe all the credit in my career in factions from a good friend of mine, by the name of National Bowler won.

00:35:37.972 --> 00:35:39.405
Factions came out in season one.

00:35:39.554 --> 00:35:42.045
I did not want to touch this with a 10 foot pole.

00:35:42.344 --> 00:35:43.905
I have my own things to worry about.

00:35:44.204 --> 00:35:49.192
I was in a different stage in my life when it came to career path, and I could not dedicate that much time.

00:35:49.998 --> 00:35:58.273
To me, I was thankful that our PVP community had taken a backseat because I didn't have a lot of time to play Pokemon Go in 2020 and in 2021.

00:35:58.570 --> 00:36:01.855
Bowler had approached me and said, Hey, I have a faction team together.

00:36:01.855 --> 00:36:03.324
We just finished our first season.

00:36:03.324 --> 00:36:05.485
What would you think about coming on?

00:36:05.789 --> 00:36:12.436
And I said, dude, I'll be very honest with you, I probably won't be able to do much, but I'm very, administrative, very organized.

00:36:12.487 --> 00:36:17.914
I can do whatever you need me to do, as long as it, as long as it has the words great league or field specialist in it.

00:36:18.213 --> 00:36:20.432
I won't touch Ultra League and I won't touch Master league.

00:36:20.735 --> 00:36:28.237
When I finally joined the team, I saw that there was another player that I had crossed paths with out from California, my co-host, JetForceGemini.

00:36:28.536 --> 00:36:37.896
I was like, oh my gosh, I remember you, you came to our Discord server and you came to one of our local tournaments and you mopped the floor with everybody that was there and beat all the heavy hitters.

00:36:38.197 --> 00:36:39.266
And he's like, yeah, that was me.

00:36:39.657 --> 00:36:43.277
The faction was coming together and there was these articles that came out.

00:36:43.574 --> 00:36:50.304
Going back to my hyper-competitive spirit in the section, MJGettit, who was the writer, put us in the category of show me something.

00:36:50.601 --> 00:36:51.291
So I read that.

00:36:51.291 --> 00:36:54.003
I'm like, all right, you're gonna slide us, we're gonna show you something.

00:36:54.300 --> 00:36:57.489
And so here we are, like we're battling, we're kicking butt, we're doing well.

00:36:57.838 --> 00:37:02.414
During that whole time, MJ would not even talk about us and we're like, Hey, are we showing you something yet?

00:37:02.445 --> 00:37:08.574
like being that kid at the party that would take the noise maker or the noise blower and be like, me, look at me.

00:37:09.289 --> 00:37:10.519
Trying to get an attention.

00:37:10.614 --> 00:37:11.184
Yeah.

00:37:11.481 --> 00:37:12.471
And it never happened.

00:37:12.775 --> 00:37:22.012
Then we changed our name to the angry bottoms because every time he would talk about us, it would be like in a negative light, or we would take that as a negative light.

00:37:22.012 --> 00:37:32.135
So we became, we would say, all right guys, we're gonna channel our inner angry energy and since we're always the underdogs, we are the angry bottoms, and we're gonna angry bottom all the way to the top.

00:37:32.442 --> 00:37:37.012
And yes, I know saying it out loud sounds very cringe, but it was just a rallying cry.

00:37:37.315 --> 00:37:44.039
During cycle two, I had an idea of, hey, so MJ misses articles a lot and we want to see what he talks about.

00:37:44.349 --> 00:37:50.945
So when he misses articles, let's start a podcast that covers the lower tiers, cuz he doesn't give that place a lot of love.

00:37:51.248 --> 00:37:57.791
Let's cover the lower tiers from open to bronze and cover it while we are fighting in factions as well.

00:37:58.088 --> 00:38:04.568
And give breakdowns as to who did what and give like some head cannons or just try to tell a story and a semi entertaining factor.

00:38:04.865 --> 00:38:14.556
After I helped get the ball rolling on it, I go, I'm not a very good battler and I'm diverting attention from practicing and taking notes and I am now putting it towards content creation.

00:38:14.858 --> 00:38:16.688
Is this a really good idea?

00:38:16.978 --> 00:38:19.282
And the answer was, absolutely.

00:38:19.282 --> 00:38:20.931
We're going full sin buckle up.

00:38:21.481 --> 00:38:27.271
So we were, jet and I were making the podcast on the side and we were battling and somehow we were still kicking butt.

00:38:27.570 --> 00:38:28.949
Don't ask me how that happened.

00:38:29.309 --> 00:38:32.820
And the marriage happened somewhere in between that it was a World Cycle.

00:38:32.820 --> 00:38:34.289
Two was a whirlwind, I'm not gonna lie.

00:38:34.289 --> 00:38:36.119
Oh yeah, there's a lot that happened.

00:38:36.726 --> 00:38:39.876
And so I told bowler and I said, look man, I'll be very honest with you.

00:38:39.996 --> 00:38:41.525
I appreciate everything that's been done.

00:38:41.833 --> 00:38:46.224
Running, helping you run this faction has had me want to start a faction of my own.

00:38:46.523 --> 00:38:55.639
So I'm gonna be leaving and starting an official faction from like the angry bottoms to the podcast Enter the Dragonair's Den and we're gonna call ourselves D'Nair don't Care.

00:38:55.943 --> 00:38:56.932
I'm very sorry.

00:38:57.228 --> 00:39:01.208
And before you ask, no, I'm not taking Jet and I'm not taking Donut.

00:39:01.509 --> 00:39:06.248
They are free to come and go as they please, but if they asked to join my team, I'm not gonna say no.

00:39:06.556 --> 00:39:13.713
So I started my own team and in a couple of days, donut and Jet also had left, and they asked to join my team and I said, yeah, sure.

00:39:14.018 --> 00:39:21.204
It was like, Hey, I didn't mean to start another faction along with this podcast, but it just happened.

00:39:21.802 --> 00:39:24.650
So obviously you're part of the faction D'Nair Don't Care.

00:39:24.954 --> 00:39:27.233
The podcast is called Enter the Dragons Den.

00:39:27.534 --> 00:39:29.603
Why podcasting of all things?

00:39:30.210 --> 00:39:34.721
In 2020, I had made a goal for myself, and I said, I am gonna start a podcast.

00:39:35.166 --> 00:39:37.146
I had no idea what I was gonna talk about though.

00:39:37.443 --> 00:39:43.554
So since 2020, I've always wanted to start one, I just had no idea what I wanted to talk about passionately.

00:39:43.842 --> 00:39:51.362
When I was doing research, a lot of reasons why podcasts, fizzle out or whatever is the creators lose passion in what they do.

00:39:51.666 --> 00:39:54.036
So I was like, what's something I'm very passionate about right now?

00:39:54.338 --> 00:39:56.576
Well, I'm very passionate about fast food.

00:39:56.878 --> 00:40:07.378
Well, no, that's not true because that's my job and I'm trying to find a different sector of the industry, so I don't wanna talk about fast food every single, at the time, I wanted to post every single week.

00:40:07.378 --> 00:40:07.659
Mm-hmm.

00:40:07.688 --> 00:40:10.503
then, so I was like, oh wait, I really like Dungeons and Dragons.

00:40:10.806 --> 00:40:14.887
Do I want a Dungeons and Dragons play podcast, or do I want to talk about Dungeons and Dragons?

00:40:15.186 --> 00:40:16.206
It was just too broad.

00:40:16.510 --> 00:40:21.791
And then covid happened and forced everything upside down and so I, I put that on the back burner.

00:40:22.097 --> 00:40:29.376
In 2021, I told myself like, yeah, let's like, okay, I didn't get to do the podcasting thing, but in 2021, let's revisit this idea.

00:40:29.677 --> 00:40:33.467
What is something that I'm passionate about, that I've always been stuck doing no matter what?

00:40:33.769 --> 00:40:42.132
And then I'm looking, I'm like, oh, well I really like Pokemon Go and then I'm looking like, oh, there's PVP podcast for Pokemon Go, but there aren't any ones for factions.

00:40:42.436 --> 00:40:44.907
That was my like light bulb went off moment.

00:40:45.211 --> 00:40:55.842
A podcast that does Pokemon Go pvp, that specializes in the Silph arena factions also, because MJ does not upload the articles weekly.

00:40:56.150 --> 00:41:00.574
So people have no idea what to talk about or how to get hyped up for whichever matches.

00:41:00.875 --> 00:41:04.880
So I also like to credit MJ as well cause he also set the plan in motion indirectly.

00:41:05.182 --> 00:41:07.248
And I'm thinking to myself, okay, how am I gonna write this?

00:41:07.248 --> 00:41:08.748
How are we gonna stylize this?

00:41:09.050 --> 00:41:10.101
Do I need a co-host?

00:41:10.101 --> 00:41:11.300
Should I get a co-host?

00:41:11.601 --> 00:41:13.744
And I go, yeah, actually Jet, do you wanna be a Cohot?

00:41:13.764 --> 00:41:14.394
He's like, yeah.

00:41:14.690 --> 00:41:16.411
And I was like, all right, we have a co-host.

00:41:16.708 --> 00:41:18.992
And then I asked Donut, my teammate, moist Donut.

00:41:18.992 --> 00:41:20.282
Hey, donut, do you wanna be a coach?

00:41:20.282 --> 00:41:22.041
He's nah, fam, but I'll promote it.

00:41:22.338 --> 00:41:26.251
And so I like to credit, like the three of us came together to create the podcast.

00:41:26.548 --> 00:41:34.581
It was just like a series of events that accelerated us from, I have an idea for a podcast to, this is Enter The Dragonair's Den.

00:41:35.179 --> 00:41:43.639
So the podcast started on August 27th, 2022, so not too long ago, you're pretty young in regards to the podcasting age, but you're still around, which is good.

00:41:43.936 --> 00:41:46.755
And unfortunately, during the month of October you had to take a break.

00:41:47.052 --> 00:41:50.382
One for a horrific accident, which I'm glad you're still here.

00:41:50.472 --> 00:41:51.643
So thankfully for that.

00:41:51.947 --> 00:41:54.766
But the other is you also got married around that same time.

00:41:54.766 --> 00:41:59.273
So that month must have been the highs of highs and lowest of lows for you.

00:41:59.273 --> 00:42:21.503
yes, it was, I was very, I was very excited that our podcast was getting plays and listens and engagement, and I felt really bad too as well because we had just done our third episode and here I had, like, I told everyone, Hey, I'm gonna go on a two week break because I'm getting married and then I'm gonna do a mini honeymoon before we do our big honeymoon.

00:42:21.811 --> 00:42:26.641
And then we're gonna come back, hit the ground running end of October-ish, and then we're gonna get right back into it.

00:42:26.851 --> 00:42:27.971
And that was the plan.

00:42:28.860 --> 00:42:30.030
And we were so happy.

00:42:30.030 --> 00:42:32.311
And I was thinking to myself, what if we get guest hosts?

00:42:32.610 --> 00:42:35.130
Cuz at first I didn't wanna stop the content creation cuz I was away.

00:42:35.130 --> 00:42:40.699
I wanted to originally bring out a guest host, but Jet said, Hey, why don't you just, let everybody know you're going on break.

00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:42.739
And I said, okay, fine, I can do that.

00:42:43.050 --> 00:42:45.510
And then the accident happened.

00:42:45.811 --> 00:42:53.010
I found out that in the bicycle and car battle, the car wins in the one shield scenario and two shield scenario.

00:42:55.117 --> 00:42:58.295
Thankfully, I walked away and I was super happy about that.

00:42:58.603 --> 00:43:02.190
And that night it happened the same night we were gonna record.

00:43:02.485 --> 00:43:04.496
I said, Hey Jet, are you ready to record?

00:43:04.804 --> 00:43:07.701
And he goes, wait, you're, I was like, you're home already.

00:43:08.041 --> 00:43:10.681
And I'm like, yeah, but I am.

00:43:10.740 --> 00:43:13.655
I, it is I'm not gonna lie, I'm very hopped up on some painkillers.

00:43:13.661 --> 00:43:16.275
And he goes, okay, let's not record.

00:43:16.396 --> 00:43:18.135
And I was like, but we're going on holiday.

00:43:18.458 --> 00:43:20.199
And I was like, you need to heal.

00:43:20.494 --> 00:43:21.244
I was like, you know what?

00:43:21.275 --> 00:43:25.275
Fine, I'm not gonna fight you on this cuz I don't have the energy to fight, but

00:43:25.349 --> 00:43:29.090
so real quick, so basically you just got through an accident.

00:43:29.391 --> 00:43:32.032
And you heal up a little bit and then all of a sudden it's oh, we're about to go on break.

00:43:32.032 --> 00:43:33.021
I need to record.

00:43:33.382 --> 00:43:36.411
And you're trying to record right before a honeymoon, after having an accident.

00:43:37.177 --> 00:43:41.956
I was trying, so I was trying to record, so the accident happened the day that we were supposed to record.

00:43:42.847 --> 00:43:47.025
I had spent all day in the Wew Wagon and the Wew Wew land.

00:43:47.295 --> 00:43:48.286
I call it the hospital.

00:43:48.286 --> 00:43:49.275
I'm trying to make it funny.

00:43:49.965 --> 00:44:01.630
I know I'm supposed to, I'm not supposed to make light of a situation, but I feel if it's your trauma and if you can make jokes about it, eventually someone's going to think oh, I had a trauma and it's something that I can talk about too.

00:44:01.938 --> 00:44:03.123
So by all means,

00:44:04.128 --> 00:44:04.878
It's your story.

00:44:04.882 --> 00:44:06.228
So I'm not judging you at all.

00:44:06.318 --> 00:44:06.677
Okay.

00:44:06.677 --> 00:44:08.208
I was gonna say, you got what you paid for.

00:44:09.708 --> 00:44:10.668
I'm getting paid for this.

00:44:11.568 --> 00:44:11.958
Oh, yeah.

00:44:11.958 --> 00:44:16.637
I forgot to mention, if you join our faction, you get a salary of gummy worms.

00:44:17.027 --> 00:44:21.137
If you're a master league specialist, you get two bags of gummy worms.

00:44:21.362 --> 00:44:23.163
And if you join my faction, you'll get four

00:44:23.418 --> 00:44:25.757
Hey, now fine.

00:44:25.952 --> 00:44:26.253
hint.

00:44:26.313 --> 00:44:27.963
If you're having to be an Andrea Dragons there.

00:44:27.967 --> 00:44:28.893
Dan, you're the master league.

00:44:28.898 --> 00:44:32.733
I'll give you four bags of gunning burns right here and now I'll even throw in some tacos.

00:44:33.527 --> 00:44:34.188
Oh my goodness.

00:44:34.217 --> 00:44:35.117
Okay, fine.

00:44:35.538 --> 00:44:36.197
You're okay.

00:44:36.197 --> 00:44:40.389
Look, so I've already had to reduce my own salary to half a bag of Skittles for this.

00:44:41.858 --> 00:44:48.768
So I think I'm gonna have to reduce my salary again, and I'm gonna get some graham crackers to make sure that I can match that offer.

00:44:49.594 --> 00:44:52.884
Well, I'll make sure to up with some marshmallows and some Hershey syrup.

00:44:53.217 --> 00:44:54.670
We're making some s'mores, baby.

00:44:54.795 --> 00:44:56.365
Well, I was gonna, well, it's spring up.

00:44:56.456 --> 00:44:57.445
Oh, up here in spring.

00:44:57.445 --> 00:44:58.195
It's not gonna go over.

00:44:58.195 --> 00:45:00.385
maybe in the summer that might work, but not right now.

00:45:00.911 --> 00:45:01.661
Oh, okay.

00:45:01.661 --> 00:45:01.661
Okay.

00:45:01.666 --> 00:45:01.851
Okay.

00:45:02.898 --> 00:45:03.648
So where was I?

00:45:03.679 --> 00:45:04.039
Oh, yes.

00:45:04.039 --> 00:45:11.177
So I had spent some time in, I had spent most of the day in the hospital and when I got home, we usually record around like five, no, not five.

00:45:11.181 --> 00:45:12.766
We usually record around eight o'clock.

00:45:12.766 --> 00:45:14.326
I got home around five.

00:45:14.632 --> 00:45:19.940
And so I'm like trying to walk around as, you are after you got hit with two tons of aluminum.

00:45:20.237 --> 00:45:22.608
I, I messaged Jed, I'm like, Hey, Jed, let's record.

00:45:22.909 --> 00:45:25.045
And he goes, no, you were in an accident.

00:45:25.045 --> 00:45:25.826
You need to heal.

00:45:25.831 --> 00:45:27.030
he just told me no.

00:45:27.344 --> 00:45:29.360
And so I was like, all right, I'll just put the tweet out now.

00:45:29.364 --> 00:45:32.266
Like I'm going on an extended holiday y'all.

00:45:32.552 --> 00:45:33.541
Here's the wild part.

00:45:33.992 --> 00:45:36.061
So the accident happened on Monday.

00:45:36.356 --> 00:45:38.965
That Saturday we load up the car.

00:45:39.271 --> 00:45:44.826
I'm still in the process of healing, by the way like I had no idea if like I had internal injuries or anything.

00:45:45.126 --> 00:45:49.715
We load up the car and I drive to Texas for the wedding.

00:45:50.027 --> 00:45:58.606
When I told my little brother about what happened, the first thing he said to me, and we both have very dark humor because we've both gone through a lot of trauma growing up.

00:45:58.916 --> 00:46:00.206
So we make a lot of jokes.

00:46:00.597 --> 00:46:06.396
He told me and I quote, there are other ways to get out of getting married than what you chose.

00:46:07.112 --> 00:46:07.922
He's got a point.

00:46:08.152 --> 00:46:09.681
I was like, you are not wrong.

00:46:10.141 --> 00:46:11.672
You are honestly not wrong.

00:46:11.976 --> 00:46:21.074
That was the joke of it all like I hadn't even told my family that I had gotten into an accident and so I had shown up and I'm like, yeah, I am sore.

00:46:21.373 --> 00:46:23.206
And my mom's like, why are you sore?

00:46:23.237 --> 00:46:24.706
Or my whole family was like, why are you sore?

00:46:24.706 --> 00:46:26.416
And I was like, oh yeah, I got hit by a car.

00:46:27.014 --> 00:46:28.313
I thought you were just Bulbasaur.

00:46:28.313 --> 00:46:29.034
Oh my god.

00:46:29.338 --> 00:46:30.244
I love Bulbasaur.

00:46:30.844 --> 00:46:31.773
Right now at least.

00:46:32.074 --> 00:46:36.463
So that ended up happening and we ended up getting married that Saturday on the 15th.

00:46:36.764 --> 00:46:39.519
And for those that remember, it was Litwick Community Day.

00:46:39.916 --> 00:46:41.536
And the whole time

00:46:41.927 --> 00:46:42.737
Community Day.

00:46:42.766 --> 00:46:44.146
I got married on Community Day

00:46:44.146 --> 00:46:50.701
Well that's fine, but you got married on Litwick Community Day, that's what's more matter like if you got married on like what's a bad Pokemon, like a Paras Community Day?

00:46:50.706 --> 00:46:51.360
Nobody would care.

00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:53.581
You got married on Litwick Community Day, that's something.

00:46:53.746 --> 00:46:59.925
Okay, first of all, note everybody would care about Paras because it gives 500 Stardust a catch.

00:47:00.541 --> 00:47:01.380
Okay, good point.

00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:03.083
Um, what's another forgotten Pokemon?

00:47:03.420 --> 00:47:04.382
A Natu Community Day.

00:47:04.387 --> 00:47:05.130
How about that?

00:47:05.130 --> 00:47:06.541
Okay, that doesn't give extra stardust.

00:47:06.990 --> 00:47:07.740
We'll give you that one.

00:47:08.070 --> 00:47:08.400
Okay?

00:47:08.431 --> 00:47:09.030
So that's fair.

00:47:09.036 --> 00:47:13.981
So what ended up happening was I tell my wife like, Hey, community day is the day of our wedding.

00:47:14.280 --> 00:47:18.061
And she goes, you are not gonna play Pokemon Go during the wedding.

00:47:18.367 --> 00:47:22.208
And I said, that is a challenge and I am accepting this challenge.

00:47:22.208 --> 00:47:27.487
Real quick, before you continue, did the thought of maybe eloping or being late to the wedding ever cross your mind at all?

00:47:27.487 --> 00:47:28.237
It was

00:47:28.702 --> 00:47:29.092
Okay.

00:47:29.568 --> 00:47:30.318
it was a thought.

00:47:30.318 --> 00:47:39.617
And we were thinking like before the times I got announced, they said, okay, taco, go play Pokemon Go from 11 to two and then go to the church, you'll be there in time for the ceremony at three.

00:47:40.221 --> 00:47:42.920
It was from two to five, like in the middle of the ceremony.

00:47:43.224 --> 00:47:47.288
So I said, Hey, now can I miss my own wedding and play Litwick community today?

00:47:47.583 --> 00:47:50.610
And she goes, if you do that, we are gonna have some problems.

00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:56.103
And I was like, listen here, you knew what you were signing yourself up for when you said yes to me.

00:47:56.403 --> 00:48:02.704
For months, I made the joke that if there was a raid that we all wanted to do, we were gonna stop the ceremony and do the raid.

00:48:03.306 --> 00:48:04.088
Oh wow.

00:48:04.224 --> 00:48:05.574
said, we never agreed to that.

00:48:05.867 --> 00:48:06.648
And I said, you're right.

00:48:06.947 --> 00:48:09.541
I agreed and then said yes on your behalf.

00:48:09.840 --> 00:48:13.530
So what I ended up doing was I had my phone and my gotcha running.

00:48:13.833 --> 00:48:18.534
And so during the whole ceremony, I forgot to turn off the stupid vibrate on my Gotcha.

00:48:18.833 --> 00:48:20.454
So I have it there in my little pocket.

00:48:20.454 --> 00:48:23.043
It's going Z, Z the whole time.

00:48:23.347 --> 00:48:26.157
And she hears it and she goes, Are you playing Pokemon Go right now?

00:48:26.157 --> 00:48:27.568
I said, technically, I'm not playing.

00:48:27.568 --> 00:48:28.347
I'm praying.

00:48:28.657 --> 00:48:31.148
I'm getting married next to you, that's very important.

00:48:31.458 --> 00:48:34.248
Whatever is happening in the background is whatever is happening.

00:48:34.554 --> 00:48:35.940
And she's like, you're playing Pokemon Go.

00:48:35.940 --> 00:48:38.061
I said, I am not admitting to any wrongdoing.

00:48:38.791 --> 00:48:39.871
I plead the fifth.

00:48:40.467 --> 00:48:45.864
So we get married and yes, thankfully when it was all said and done, she still did not decide to run away.

00:48:46.164 --> 00:48:50.498
But the funny part is during the ceremony, the whole procession came in and she never came in.

00:48:50.795 --> 00:48:54.963
And so everybody was looking at me like, taco, did she leave you at the altar because of Pokemon GO?

00:48:55.273 --> 00:48:59.807
And I said, honestly, if she did, I would not blame her, that would be a very funny story.

00:49:00.110 --> 00:49:03.934
But I'll also be very, very upset because we paid a lot of money for this wedding.

00:49:04.543 --> 00:49:11.518
Now, if you by chance have been left out the altar because of Pokemon Go, please contact me as asthepokeballturnspodcast@ gmail.com.

00:49:11.543 --> 00:49:13.523
Your story could potentially make the podcast.

00:49:13.733 --> 00:49:14.184
Thank you.

00:49:14.184 --> 00:49:15.213
I love that shameless plug.

00:49:15.213 --> 00:49:16.103
That's a beautiful one.

00:49:16.403 --> 00:49:27.505
So we get married and, you know, as the bride and the groom we're the first ones out the door on that church, I immediately darted out of the church, took my phone out, saw that my gotcha had disconnected and reconnected it.

00:49:27.811 --> 00:49:32.670
Whenever the whole families were coming out and the wedding photographers wanna take pictures of everyone, they're like, Hey, where's Taco?

00:49:32.670 --> 00:49:33.481
Where's Taco?

00:49:33.788 --> 00:49:35.708
She pops out and goes, oh, we found him.

00:49:36.010 --> 00:49:37.070
He's playing Pokemon Go..

00:49:37.380 --> 00:49:38.710
And I'm like, look, it's Community Day.

00:49:38.710 --> 00:49:39.521
Can you blame me?

00:49:39.521 --> 00:49:41.621
It's boosted stardust, man, I need the dust.

00:49:41.621 --> 00:49:42.150
Yeah, exactly.

00:49:42.891 --> 00:49:45.701
And so they're like, you couldn't put it down for 10 seconds.

00:49:45.701 --> 00:49:46.958
I was like, look, we got married.

00:49:46.958 --> 00:49:47.947
I said, I do.

00:49:48.251 --> 00:49:49.541
What more do you want from me?

00:49:50.150 --> 00:49:52.820
Now to be fair that you did put it down before the wedding.

00:49:52.820 --> 00:49:54.751
It just didn't happen until Community Day started, so...

00:49:54.771 --> 00:49:55.943
Exactly,

00:49:55.994 --> 00:49:56.864
That's awesome man.

00:49:57.224 --> 00:50:04.206
And you know, again, congratulations on getting married and I'm glad you're here, dude cause you know, car accidents are no fun, no matter what skill they are.

00:50:04.802 --> 00:50:09.059
It's not a fun thing to do, and I just wish everybody walks away safe and sound.

00:50:09.655 --> 00:50:17.155
Now, one thing I wanted to mention that you don't do it as much anymore, but when you, earlier episode, you used to do commercials that were kind of based around the Johto games.

00:50:17.452 --> 00:50:19.072
I really thought those were kind of cool.

00:50:19.072 --> 00:50:23.722
Like what made you want to include those and do you plan on maybe trying to bring them back or?

00:50:24.331 --> 00:50:29.282
Okay, so this is a little bit of a two-parter.

00:50:29.282 --> 00:50:33.902
So the first part is, I know I've mentioned this a little bit, I play a lot of old school Runescape.

00:50:34.211 --> 00:50:37.052
I listen to a podcast called XPWaste.

00:50:37.351 --> 00:50:46.304
I'll be the first one to say, I've imitated their, their style of how, like, they get into like the main topic they talk about, then they go to a commercial break and then they do a community section.

00:50:46.601 --> 00:50:49.356
And I go, you know, that's honestly a really good idea.

00:50:49.650 --> 00:50:50.521
I'm gonna do that.

00:50:50.824 --> 00:50:57.173
And so I, I adapted it to my own thing to where we talk about, you know, the wrap-ups and previews and then we go to commercial.

00:50:57.476 --> 00:51:04.731
The problem that I ran into is, and I'm sad to admit this, I'm also a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons, and so I do a lot of voices.

00:51:05.036 --> 00:51:13.976
And I'm usually able to do it without a problem, but for some reason, if you put a mic in front of me, I all of a sudden don't know what character my voice, or what voice my character is going to have.

00:51:14.275 --> 00:51:17.574
The Professor Elm one, I did it in like three seconds of planning.

00:51:17.878 --> 00:51:23.518
My faction teammates were texting me going, that is probably the best Professor Elm impersonation I've ever heard.

00:51:23.815 --> 00:51:28.867
I was like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna replicate that again, and it's gonna haunt me.

00:51:29.175 --> 00:51:30.719
So it's something I do want to do.

00:51:30.719 --> 00:51:31.739
In the future.

00:51:31.869 --> 00:51:43.340
I feel like right now I'm at a point where, once me personally, I can kind of work that in or if I outsource it to other people who wanna submit their own ones to get like our community more involved in it, I'd be more than happy to take a shot in the dark.

00:51:43.643 --> 00:51:51.038
I didn't think it was gonna be like something that was gonna be missed, but coincidentally, you're not the first person to say like, yeah, what happened to those commercials?

00:51:51.340 --> 00:51:52.856
So they may come back later.

00:51:53.463 --> 00:51:55.293
Well, that is a show, taco Dog.

00:51:55.597 --> 00:51:57.835
Thank you for coming, onto the podcast.

00:51:58.139 --> 00:52:02.166
Before you do go, if people wanted to check out your content, check out your podcast, where could they go?

00:52:02.166 --> 00:52:03.710
By all means, please plug away.

00:52:04.324 --> 00:52:06.570
You can find us on Spotify.

00:52:06.875 --> 00:52:09.625
We also have a Twitter DragonairDen.

00:52:09.927 --> 00:52:13.985
If you want to follow me, I post memes about Pokemon.

00:52:14.280 --> 00:52:17.344
I also troll Twitter and I also talk about Runescape.

00:52:17.641 --> 00:52:21.117
And if you wanna follow me, there, I am@TacoDog_8.

00:52:21.414 --> 00:52:22.777
We do have a discord.

00:52:23.081 --> 00:52:27.380
By all means, come out there, read the rules, accept the rules, have some fun.

00:52:27.985 --> 00:52:28.434
Cool beans.

00:52:28.434 --> 00:52:31.855
And I'll make sure to include links to everything that he has said in the description of today's show.

00:52:33.054 --> 00:52:36.414
Thank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns.

00:52:36.717 --> 00:52:41.757
You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

00:52:42.061 --> 00:52:52.927
Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of this episode, and I'll see you next time! Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.