Hi everybody! We're back to the written word this time around, as this much awesome could not be contained in an audio file and all attempts to make it fit were causing the .mp3 to break down at a molecular level. It's not pretty when that happens. Prettier than the picture of PA1NTS's hand wound though (seriously, think twice or three times before clicking the hyperlink down below).
Today we're talking to PA1NTS and RightSideTheory, a couple of guys who had serious run-ins with their own mortality in recent weeks. So rather than talking a bunch of boring forge nonsense, we're going to talk FROSTBITE. And CAR CRASHES. And BODILY FLUIDS. And NEEDLESSLY DRAMATIC CAPITALIZATION AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE.
[l-col]Nutduster: So Paints, how are you doing?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: I'm doing swell. Stoked we can finally do this thing.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: All delays should be blamed on [NAME OF STAFF MEMBER REDACTED]. So you've recently achieved what is basically a forger's Holy Grail - you got a map in matchmaking! How excited were you?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: I was ecstatic. I was literally in shock. A friend of mine who goes by the name of basketskate3 posted a link on my Forge Hub profile of the Waypoint article. So I was definitely excited and surprised to see that. It turns out lots of people knew even before I did. I had only officially released the map a couple days before the deadline. So I was stoked, I knew that they liked it enough to take the risk of accepting it that late.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: That's awesome news. I think probably 90% of the people reading this are seething with envy right now. Hell, I can barely type this without swearing at you. Scythe is a great map though. I understand you were developing it for a long time, going all the way back to Reach?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: Correct. I drew the map out in the Reach days. My very first design on paper eventually would make it into matchmaking after a couple years of tweaking.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Let that be a lesson to all of us: all it takes to get a design in matchmaking is a couple of years worth of refinement. (Audible groan from the peanut gallery goes here.) Counterbalancing your recent massive success was also a somewhat threatening personal setback, which is the real reason I'm interviewing you today (surprise, sucka!). So, you cut your hand..? Was Scythe named after the thing you slashed yourself open with?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: That is a super weird coincidence now that you say that. But no, naming maps to me is somewhat of a challenge to me and I'm sure everyone goes through the same challenge. So I usually end up picking abstract words that would sound badass as a map name.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Not at all a bad tactic. Seriously though, what the hell did you do to your hand? I will include a link here to the picture (WARNING: EXTRA-GROSS) and I wanted to read the thread it was posted in, but seeing this made me black out and forget my own name... honestly, this could be the cover of a death metal album; all it needs is an incomprehensible logo.[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: It was a bad accident. Involving my cat. So I don't think there's anything metal about trying to let your cat in the window. Definitely could work for an album cover though. Basically it was a really bad glass wound.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: I don't know - even metal guys own pets (I assume?). Maybe they only own goats. So you were trying to open a window that didn't wanna, and managed to break it instead?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: Yeah. It cut really deep. Like, I checked the back of my hand to see if it went through.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Wow, that sounds frightening. I assume you were bleeding quite a bit. Did you head straight for the ER, and from there directly into surgery? Or was the actual surgery part a little later?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: The surgery was at the crack of dawn the next day. So I basically got stitched up and went home to sleep. I thought I did surprisingly well, but little did I know the pain wasn't actually coming on until the next day, when the freezing wore off.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: I was about to ask how painful it was, before realizing that question is basically impossible to answer. I think I'll just glance at the photo again and try to imaginOHHHH MY GOD IN HEAVEN. Yeah, that did the trick. So the operation was for nerve damage, right? Were they actually cut through?[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: Yeah. The doctor couldn't find the nerves for a while so the operation took about 2 hours. The nerves are growing back now and I can feel half my pinky.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: That's a start! I take it this was done with just a local anaesthetic, since you were able to photograph it so lovingly. Was that a freaky experience, seeing your own body part opened up like that? Obviously you couldn't feel it, but psychologically it's got to be kind of disturbing.[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: Right. Actually I have a video on my roommate's iPad of the doctor sticking his finger right in the wound just because it was funny. Got him to wiggle around in there. I couldn't feel anything and it made for a funny video.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: ...Holy crap. So how has this been for your Halo playing and forging? I know your hand was in a cast for at least a while. It must have been frustrating, not getting to vote for Scythe in matchmaking right after it got in. (Or did you join games, vote for it, and then quit out? You did, didn't you? It's OK - you can admit it.)[/l-col][r-col]PA1NTS: I mostly just watched the mass amounts of gameplay that went up on YouTube. The nice thing about it having a map in matchmaking is people upload at least a video every day, and you get to watch how your map plays out without really playing it. As for forging, I got back into as soon as my cast was off.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: At least it wasn't permanently disabling. Scary to think how it might have turned out if the piece of glass had been wider, or fallen a few inches to the side of where it did.[/l-col]
[l-col]Well sir, thanks for sharing, and keep on making great maps - you're clearly doing something right. Any words of wisdom for our readers before I let you go?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: "Fuck cats"
"and windows"[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Oh hey everybody, it's some other guy! So, RightSideTheory, is it? I feel like I've heard that name around somewhere or other... How did you come to be staff at Forge Hub?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: Well, you see, one day I was going about my business, posting around the forums, browsing reddit, and doing other internet things, when suddenly a wild Open Staff Application Thread appeared on the front page. So I thought "I've got plenty of free time, and a drive to see Forge Hub do well!" So I applied, thinking I stood a decent chance.
I was wrong, obviously, I wasn't picked. Unbeknownst to me several staff members thought I was worthless, so I was quickly thrown out of the selection pool.
Flash forward, quite some time later, and Forge Hub was quickly running out of active Journalists. I was picked up, despite the pressure from certain sources to pick someone else, and the rest is history. In fact, I'm technically the oldest running journalist, currently.
Kind of a funny little piece of information, if you can appreciate the irony.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: I've been known to appreciate irony, on occasion. ...How long have you been darkening Forge Hub's halls, anyway? And are you an active forger?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: I've dabbled here and there in forging, though I've never posted anything of note on the forums. I just never feel like I've finished anything; everything can always be tweaked or improved. I suppose I'm more of a co-forger, a "hang-about," or just a halo player. And I've been on forgehub for quite some time. I joined in November of 2008.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: So many eons ago. That sounds like around the time I joined, I think. [NOTE: I looked it up - I joined December 2007. Seniority!] As interesting as all this is, the real reason I wanted to talk to you today has nothing to do with Halo. I heard a rumor (...from you) that you were involved in some very dramatic real-life stuff. Like, semi-life-threatening stuff. Can you tell us about it?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: Ahh, well, about two weeks ago I was in an "accident". First, a little backstory. I hope you don't mind me going into a bit of detail. The day began uneventfully, as my days are wont to do. After waking up early, I quickly showered and dressed, and headed out the door to my '99 Crown Victoria.
A note on my car, it (was) a fairly attractive looking car, a deep hunter green, with subtly flecks of silver and the most smooth of tan pinstripes. Today my car was especially clean and tidy, because I was picking up a clean and tidy little lady, and not unlike my car, I was hoping to get a better look at her body later on in the day.
So, driving the hour between our homes passed quickly, as good songs played through my stereo, and I spent the time singing along the soulful stylings of Frank Ocean, and day dreaming about my day.
Upon arriving at my first destination, I picked up the girl, and we departed for our real destination, the wonderfully quaint port city of Charleston. A gorgeous town in its own right, made all the more pretty by a gorgeous little women in a little black dress on my arm, and the icy chill of winter in the air.
After a day of romantic snuggling, loving, and catting around town, we eventually left
Charleston, so that I could bring her home, and so that I could get into bed at a reasonable time. As we drove, it began to do a mystical, beautiful thing. It began to snow. Silently sailing over the black asphalt we watched the snow flakes swirl and dance in front of my car, illuminated in a ghostly sincerity as we enjoyed this most serendipitous of events.It was, in short, a magnificently serene way to spend a car ride.
So, after saying all the sweetest and most heartwarming goodbyes, I shuffled through the snow, and back into my car, content to listen to the radio and hum to myself as I enjoyed the afterglow of a pretty woman's presence, and the enjoyable evening I had spent with her.
As I was driving down the highway, at midnight, someone in a Honda Civic flew past me, causing me to pump my brakes as a reflex. Pumping your brakes, whilst on a patch of black ice, is not the thing to do.
Careening to and fro, I tried to force my car to balance out and stay on the road, but to no avail, as I swiftly but silently sailed off the road, into the trees, and down into a crevasse of sorts.
After regaining my composure, I clambered up and out of the back window of my car, as all the other doors were wedged shut by trees. After climbing up to the road, I spent the next two hours, standing in the mind-numbingly cold wind and snow.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: That's amazing. And I think I just noticed the difference in interviewing a regular Joe and interviewing a Journalist! What was with the two hour wait? Did you lose your cell phone in the wreck?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: It was a fun seventeen degrees above zero, in South Carolina, and I was an hour away from home. Nobody knows how to handle icy roads, so I simply had to wait for a friend to slowly drive all the way up to get me. By the time he arrived, my clothes had literally frozen solid, except at the joints where I was moving in an effort to stay warm.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: So it's fair to say that without the cell phone, you might literally be dead right now. At least there's an outside chance of it. Surely it doesn't take long in that kind of weather to get severe frostbite.[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: Interestingly enough, several things conspired to keep me from being severely injured. For some reason, I perfectly slid amongst several large trees. I could have struck them head-on, probably activating the airbag and doing some serious damage. Luckily (though, the term "luck" is more open to interpretation) I was slowed down enough by smaller trees and a fence to hit the bottom of the crevasse slowly, once again avoiding activating any airbags.
Also, I happened to have a hatchet in my car which I used to chop away trees from my car, so that I could get back into it once I had crawled out, to retrieve a thicker jacket for the long wait I knew I was facing.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: "Happened to have a hatchet." RST: journalist, Halo player, possible serial killer.[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: And on the topic of frost bite, after seeing a doctor the next morning, it was determined that I had "frost damage," which is something I had no previous knowledge of. Apparently it's frost bite in manageable amounts. The blood vessels in my hand had begun to burst, but enough of them lived so that no large part of my hands of feet died, which is what results in frost bite.
Serial killer, The Goddamn Batman, sometimes the lines blur. The hatchet was a gift I'd gotten earlier that year, and I keep it just in case of wild tree attacks.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: You're more prepared than me, that's for sure. I have a tire gauge in my car but I don't think it could hack through a tree. Maybe I could threaten to inflate it. So your frost damage is expected to heal normally?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: It took over a week for my feet to stop hurting, but the pain in my hands slowly subsided in a few days. My feet were also badly bruised, so that may have added to the discomfort I was feeling.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: So it's fair to say you're some kind of superhero, is that right? Oh wait, you already mentioned you're the goddamn Batman.
The last pressing question on my mind: did this tale of derring-do and, uh, frost damage play well with the lovely lady around whom the trip revolved? I hope you at least got some sweet action out of it.[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: Haha, I suppose I did get some sympathy attention, yes. I originally didn't plan on telling anyone, because I didn't view it as too important, but word got out and about when I had to visit the hospital to see about the "frost damage", so I ended up sharing with a few people.
The "lovely lady" was the first, after the friend who picked me up.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Well, I'm glad you did share with us - while it's not exactly fighting a pack of ninjas while saving an orphan baby from a burning building, this is pretty exciting stuff for us videogame players. The only time our lives are usually threatened is when we stuff too many Cheetos in simultaneously without being near enough to our emergency Mountain Dew.[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: The dreaded "Dry Cheeto Throat." I've heard tell of its unflappable ability to cause irritating, yet tasty, uncomfortability.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: You might be interviewing me instead, the next time I'm mercilessly ravaged by a fistful of Cheetos. Well I think that's everything I wanted to cover - thanks for your time! Any final thoughts or pressing questions you think I should ask our next interview subject?[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: How about "How much wood would a--" no, that's too obvious. Perhaps a less intelligible question, along the lines of "What if the whole thing I had accidently at the time of but not the first if only"? No, that's not quite funny enough. I seem to be at a loss! Let's go for something "zen", shall we?
"What makes you who you are, and why are you who you are?". Remember, those are two completely different questions, with completely different answers.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Wow. That's deep. And I think we already know what and why you are: you're the goddamn serial killin' Batman, because you keep a hatchet in your car.[/l-col][r-col]RightSideTheory: A Silent Guardian, a manslaughtering psycho in bloodstained rose-colored leotards, the Dark Knight.
I am, RST.[/r-col]
[l-col]Nutduster: Beautiful.[/l-col]
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