0:03

Hey everybody, this is Alex, I'm here with

0:05

Katie, and here to tell you there is

0:07

not a full new Sif episode this week.

0:09

We have a mini-tradition where the show skips

0:11

the Monday closest to Christmas, which this year

0:13

is Christmas. Yes, it's Kringle

0:15

Times. Yeah, we're Kringling,

0:17

and that means no full episode. There's

0:19

another one next week, but

0:21

we just want to do a message to say that

0:23

and also to say thank you, because it's been an

0:25

amazing year, and thank you to absolutely everybody who listens

0:27

to this show. Yeah, I'm so

0:30

grateful to people who are listening, and I'm

0:32

so excited that I, I mean, this is

0:34

the year that I joined the show, and

0:37

it's been so amazing. Yeah,

0:39

it's been, I hope

0:41

people can tell how awesome it has

0:43

been for me as a human

0:45

and a podcast maker and everything else to

0:47

get to tape with Katie every week, and

0:49

the shows are awesome as a product of

0:51

it too. It's just amazing. Thank

0:55

you so much, and I just

0:57

am so happy to be able to be here

0:59

and do the show, and the fans are so

1:01

great and sweet and wonderful. If

1:04

anybody's not on the Discord, you'll see

1:06

it every day. It's great. And then

1:08

there's also comments on social media, and

1:10

people send us emails. I'm

1:13

so thankful to everybody, and especially anybody who supports

1:15

the show. There's a lot of people who've done

1:17

it for a long time. There's people who are

1:19

new to it, especially through this wonderful maximum fun

1:21

thing that we get to be part of. So

1:24

it truly makes the

1:26

whole thing exist. I know I say

1:28

that, and I really mean it. Yeah.

1:30

And I mean, it's really cool that

1:33

we get to be part of Maximum

1:35

Fun. I've listened to their podcasts for

1:37

like a long time. And so when

1:40

Alex was like, I'm thinking of

1:42

trying to join, and you

1:44

know, she's like, well, that's exciting because I love them.

1:48

Right. Like, yeah, that's how I

1:50

heard about them was being

1:52

like plugged into the flophouse for 10 years.

1:54

And so many other shows that so many

1:56

other people there make. And yeah, it's a

1:59

real treat. Yeah. They

2:01

became an employee on co-op this year, which is

2:03

just like a bonus miracle that we didn't have

2:05

anything to do with what we're just glad about

2:07

and benefiting from. There's

2:10

zero other podcasting organizations like it. So

2:12

it's a real privilege and treat to

2:14

be part of that. They've been doing

2:16

it for as long or longer than

2:19

anybody and doing it right the whole

2:21

time. This is awesome. And they

2:23

also sent me Cajun seasoning

2:25

as a nice welcome gift

2:27

that I'm still using. And it's

2:29

so good. It's very

2:32

much part of the official Maximum Fun Tribe they

2:34

did. But when you say that, I sort of

2:36

imagined like an envelope of loose seasoning, which would

2:38

be great too. It comes in a little container.

2:41

It does come in

2:43

a little container. But if someone just sent

2:45

me an anonymous envelope full of loose seasoning,

2:47

I'm not going to say I would not

2:49

use that. I probably would. I

2:52

mean, it's Cajun. It's great. Yeah, I use it too.

2:55

I put it on eggs yesterday. It was good. If

2:57

you want to poison me, hide it in Cajun

2:59

seasoning and I will imbibe it. Yeah,

3:04

we're the most assassinatable in

3:07

Louisiana, which is having a good

3:09

time eating Zatarans and zaps chips. Vulnerable.

3:13

Cajun seasoning tastes a little bit like

3:15

raw almonds. I'm sure that's fine. Yeah,

3:22

seriously, the seasoning I have made sounds strange. It

3:25

was part of a wonderful maximum fund drive this

3:27

past March. Thank you to absolutely everybody who did

3:29

that. And there's another one coming this coming spring.

3:31

I don't know the dates yet, but they do

3:33

it once a year and it's really special. And

3:36

so it was a real treat to jump

3:38

into one right away this year and then we'll get to do it

3:40

again next year too. Yeah,

3:42

yeah. You will know about it because we

3:44

will tell you. Yeah,

3:46

through excitement of the promos and everything. And

3:49

as part of that, we got a

3:51

new character poster for our latest 50th

3:53

episode milestone. Thank you to Adam Covert

3:55

for that. Amazing. Thank you to

3:58

Chris Sousa for mastering our audio every week. us

4:00

sound extra great before I go and edit. Thank

4:02

you, Chris Sousa. Yeah, I should

4:04

have you two meet. That's never happened. So that

4:07

would be good. Yeah. But

4:09

yeah, he's the other from jump of

4:11

this show helping and making it a thing

4:13

person. But yeah, engineering skills. The

4:15

thing is, I actually sound

4:17

like Gilbert Gottfried and Chris

4:19

Sousa somehow wrangles my voice

4:21

into submission. So I sound

4:24

less like Gilbert Gottfried, which

4:27

is really good for the

4:29

quality of the show, for the listenability. So

4:32

he is a hero. And

4:34

my voice actually sounds much better than this,

4:36

but he puts the Gottfried filter machine to

4:38

about a 5%. So

4:41

I could be a lot handsomer on air

4:43

folks. I'm sorry. The problem

4:45

is people would be wooed too

4:48

much to absorb any facts or

4:50

learning. So it's a necessary thing.

4:52

It's sort of like how the

4:54

keyboard has to be a little

4:56

bit uncomfortable so you don't type

4:59

too fast and clog the typewriter.

5:02

Alex's voice has to be toned down

5:04

a little bit. Otherwise you would go

5:06

into a trance and crash your car.

5:10

That's right. We

5:12

would have to tie you all to the mast of

5:15

your ship. So my siren sawing does not lure you

5:17

into the water. Yeah, that's right. So

5:21

Chris, save and less. And I

5:24

also lately, last few weeks, have begun taping into

5:26

space here in my new hometown, the Beacon Music

5:28

Factory. Thank you so much, guys. And

5:32

I said at the top of it, but

5:34

again, like, thank you, Katie. This has been,

5:36

we really started doing this every week at

5:39

the beginning of January. It feels like it's

5:41

been a 2023 feature and it's amazing. It's

5:43

just great. I'm

5:45

going to pull a clip later. The

5:48

second episode of Sif about cattle was actually

5:50

the very first taping. Me and Katie? So

5:53

that's, you're on the first one, really. And

5:56

then in people's experience, the second taping

5:59

was the first. Yeah.

8:01

All right. Next Monday

8:03

is New Year's Day right on the dot. We'll have

8:05

a whole new episode then and bonus and everything. Till

8:08

then, thank you so much and take

8:10

care. Happy holidays. Yeah,

8:12

happy holidays. Get all cozy

8:14

and snuggly. Hope you guys are

8:17

all enjoying your time out there with the

8:19

Kringles and the New Year's and everything. My

8:22

brain was like, can we make snuggly a

8:24

topic? Maybe. I

8:26

don't know. Blankets for sure. Being cozy

8:28

in wintertime is like my favorite thing. A

8:30

cozy core. A cozy

8:33

episode. I'd be down for a cozy

8:35

episode. Let's

8:37

talk. Let's caucus about that. Yeah.

8:39

I'll book the Sleepy Time Tea Bear and then

8:42

we can do it. We need that guest.