Speaker 0 00:00:00 Good morning slash afternoon slash whatever it is. When you're gonna be listening to this, you are listening to Snorkeling with Narwhals. I'm Brian McKay, your host, and this is our first ever official episode. So a little bit about me. My name is Brian, it means strong slash noble. My middle name is Tyler, which literally means tile maker. I'm just kidding. You don't need to know all this, but that is true. Um, I am a 2015 graduate of Penn State Erie, the Barron College, which goes by many names, Penn State, Erie slash Penn State Barron slash anything else for those who aren't from the area and don't know about it. So I have a degree in communication and when I was at this school, I focused mainly on radio and on web design, which is a part of communication that people don't tend to remember or tend to think about it usually.
Speaker 0 00:00:50 Like there weren't many classes that focused solely on that, at least in our department. But I love doing that and I wanted to continue to work on my skills after I graduated. But it's kind of hard to find a job in these areas. So until that happens, as like I'll kind of make my own job, hence where this podcast came from. But I could not do it alone. I did not really focus on film or video, which was a big part of this podcast. I wanted it to be audio slash video cuz that's kind of different than anything I've ever done here. When I was here, all I did were radio shows, audio only. I would put them up on my website or on iTunes for, for download. But there was never a video aspect, which I kind of wanted to add. So for that, I enlisted the help of my friend Eric, who is behind this camera.
Speaker 0 00:01:40 He is the director slash producer slash We don't really know what our titles are yet. We're kind of working on that as we go. But he was generous enough to, to do this kind of pro bono because let's face it, I don't really have money to pay anyone. I can't even pay myself anything if I wanted to, which doesn't make sense cuz if I had the money in the first place, I wouldn't be paying me. But that's just a tangent that means nothing. Um, so what is this show about? It is actually just about randomness, it's about anything. Um, it was originally, it was originally going to be called the Fake Punt and it was originally going to be a sports podcast where be meet her mode, football and basketball, baseball, all this kind of stuff. And then I came to the conclusion that I don't know enough about sports that aren't football to talk about them with like any good length of time or any intense depth or analysis.
Speaker 0 00:02:34 So it went to just football and I, we then <laugh>, I lost my train of thought. We both, we made a demo reel for the football podcast kind of going over the information that I'm telling you now. And then literally we stopped and there's recorded audio of us talking about this. So that'll be released at some point where I just came to the decision. Well we both did that. We were like a random podcast would be much better than a football podcast cuz a football podcast. I mean that's hard. Like that's really hard not to like sell myself short, but that's really tough to, to do effectively as a one host show. And if I had guest hosts, it would require someone who also has a good deal of information about football. If I want guest host on here, it can pretty much be anyone cuz it's talking about anything.
Speaker 0 00:03:25 So that's how it started and it kind of morphed on, you know, its own naturally. And we came up with the name snorkeling with Narwhals because it is very random to illustrate this. I went on Facebook, all I asked people to do was write a random word and like 60 people come up with words. I narrowed that down to like around 10 and I eventually decided that snorkel was a very good word because it was very random and no one had suggested Nawal. But I love Narwals. They're one of my favorite animals, mainly because they're super random and you know, they're cool looking. I mean, the shirt I'm wearing kind of has it's sloths, which is another random animal that I love. There are a bunch of them throughout the show you'll eventually get to know my random animal. Loves and eaters are also on there.
Speaker 0 00:04:17 Um, so I hope you guys like this show. You know, this is our first real episode. We're gonna see how it goes. It will be available probably on iTunes, on YouTube, and there will be a radio version that airs here at Baron on B V Z radio. Um, but that's all coming. First. We have to actually record the episode, so I hope you guys like it. And off with the show, taking the bus. So recently I started taking the bus. This kind of came about because we have too many people in my household and too few cars to go around. Um, so you know, I work about 25, 30 minutes from, from my house. And so having someone take me or come and get me, like that kind of adds up on gas and in time. So reluct like, I was so reluctant when my mom was like, you need to take the bus and I live at home.
Speaker 0 00:05:12 I will unapologetically say I still live at home. I really did not want to do this at all. I was absolutely terrified because you hear all these horror stories about the bus, like you're gonna get mugged or you know, there's just creepy people. And I was like, I don't want to do this. And I'm just like, I'm always terrified that I'm gonna mess something up. Like I'm not gonna speak up in time and I'm gonna like end up getting lost or something. So I didn't want to do this at all. So the first day there were two buses that I needed to take. One took me, and I'm gonna be speaking kind of locally here, took me to 26th Street, 26th and State, which is kinda like the middle of the city. And then the other one I would've to like walk a few blocks and then it would take me like three blocks from my house.
Speaker 0 00:05:54 And then I would just walk up to my house. And I was like, like, all right, so first off, I got on the bus. I did not ask for a transfer, I just put my money in and I, I kind of went in there thinking, I was like, this is gonna fail. Like I'm just gonna get off at 26th and state and walk home. Um, which I did, which is kind of fine. I mean that is right near my high school was. And so I know how to take the walk home. It's really easy. It's just like about an hour. I decided to do that. The bus driver was really like callous I guess. Like he didn't really want to see anything and I was like, I'm sorry. Like I was standing, like trying to put all my change in the thing at once and like, he was like, dude.
Speaker 0 00:06:34 And I was like, I'm sorry, why is this happening to me? So the first day didn't go over very well. Um, the next day I'm pretty sure I did the exact same thing except at that point, you know, I am really out of shape. So walking an hour home two days in a row, like it does not go well. And so I ended up, I'm, I've been saying end, so for you know, like every interjection, so I'm sorry about that. I will try not to anymore. I had my mom come and get me a couple days. She's like, I'm getting outta work. Wait, so you know, you'll have to wait. I was like, I'll wait. It's fine. I after break decided, you know what, I have my Penn State Id still cuz I work here and you can get a little sticker on it and ride the bus for free.
Speaker 0 00:07:21 I was like, I need to do that. That's phenomenal. Like, why am I wasting money taking the bus when I can be going for free? And so and so <laugh>, I I went on the bus with my sticker, literally just had to show the guy and I got off, I ended up walking over, I caught that bus. It wasn't late that day or it was late that day, which is fine. It's better because if it had not been late then I would've missed it. Had to wait for the next one for like half an hour. So I got home, I got home safely, I was fine. I was like, I, I solved it. Like I made it past my fear of the bus. But dun, dun dun more happened in the coming weeks. First off, there was one day I found a better place to walk over so that the timing worked out better between the two buses.
Speaker 0 00:08:13 So one day I did end up missing the first bus, I had to wait for half an hour. I was like, eh, this is terrible. I'm waiting outside next to a hospital. Um, in not a great area of town, but I was like, hey, if something bad happens to me, I'm right next to a hospital so this is fine. And I ended up finally getting home later than I wanted to. I was mad. That has become the new normal though because the first bus I'm supposed to catch, like the transfer bus, it's never usually there by the time I'm there. So I usually end up waiting, that's fine. But this story, this is the greatest blunder I have ever committed on the bus. I got off the bus at 21st in state. That's, that was my new drop off point. I walked over a few blocks and I saw the bus with the number I needed coming down, coming down the street.
Speaker 0 00:09:08 Usually it was coming up the street. And I was like, well this is great. If I get on now, I'll just ride it as it loops around. I mean I'll wait but at least I'll be warm. And I got on and I did not realize that halfway through like I was going downtown, it switched its route, it switched its route number and I ended up going across like East sixth Street. I ended up in like a neighboring area. Eric, you will know it's Lawrence Park. I ended up in Lawrence Park and I was like, what just happened? I, I took this huge roundabout way and then the route ended and the guy got kind of ear chained. He's like, you know, are you getting off? I was like, I think I took the wrong bus. And so <laugh>. So it did eventually loop back around to where I needed to be.
Speaker 0 00:09:58 It took me just like an extra hour to get home. I was like, this is the last time I try to plan ahead and think through like a shortcut to get home faster. I was like, I'm just taking it every time. I'm just gonna stand where I need to stand and wait for that bus to come because every time it comes, it ends up taking me home, never going, getting on one, going down again. So that was the worst. Yesterday the bus drove by me as I was walking, I was like, well that's great, you know, I can't catch up to this now I could've run. But I think my pride got in the way cuz one of the most embarrassing things I see people doing on campus is running to their classes so they're not late. And I was like, I'm not running. It ended up that I had to wait an extra half hour to get home.
Speaker 0 00:10:44 But I eventually did and I've mostly conquered my fear of the bus. I hate when people talk to me though. I put headphones on and just don't talk to people. And I try not to sit next to people and it just like, I'm a com major. Bear this in mind while you're thinking about it. I just hate talking to people I don't know. And I was so sad today because I thought I forgot my headphones. I just bought these yesterday. They're sweet, they're earbuds and they're actually like, you know, pretty noise canceling. Not really, but I mean they're good enough. They're better than regular headphones. And I was like, no, I forgot them. I'm gonna have to sit on the bus with like no ability to stop people from talking to me. But I found them. They were in my hoodie pocket and I'm gonna be taking the bus home probably in about an hour, hour and a half, I don't know, at some point today.
Speaker 0 00:11:35 And hopefully I'll make it home in one piece, being clumsy. So yesterday I woke up at five 30, which is pretty, pretty par for the course. I tend to wake up early cuz I work at, uh, seven. And so I have to get to bear and then whatnot, you know, for my shift. So I woke up at five 30 and per what I normally do, I don't really like to eat breakfast in the morning if I like, if it's not like naturally when I'm gonna eat breakfast. Like I don't like to eat at five 30. So I went down, I wanted just a cup of grape juice. And so I went to the dish rack where I, you know, had washed the dishes the night before. I grabbed a cup off its little like holder. I don't know, that seems like a good enough word for it.
Speaker 0 00:12:23 I grabbed that, set it down, and then I looked and there were two plates that were kind of like tilting on a ledge and I saw them falling and I was like, no, no <laugh>. But anyway, it's five 30 in the morning. I've been awake for approximately like two minutes. So my reaction time probably isn't the greatest. So I'm watching it and they fall and they explode everywhere. Bear in mind that only me and my dad are awake at this point. Like my, my mom and my sister are still in bed, but these plates explode everywhere. And I was like, oh, uh, all right. Um, my mom's like, are you guys all right? We was like, yeah, we're good. And so I went and grabbed the broom, grabbed the dust pan. My dad's like, you, I'll do this. Like, you're not wearing any shoes or socks at the moment, which it didn't matter.
Speaker 0 00:13:15 I looked down and I had already stepped on a piece of glass or I guess it's ceramic, like ceramic plate. And I was like, oh great, my, my foot's bleeding. But this just kind of underscores how clumsy I can be. And yesterday especially, it was really bad. I broke the two plates, I cut my foot on the plate shrapnel, and then I got to work and I, you know, I was walking around, I was, I think tearing a cardboard box and I cut underneath my fingernail. I was like, great. So now that, that's bleeding and then it's winter in eerie. So I kind of, you know, I, my lips aren't really, they're kind of chapped because it's winter and because the seasons are changing like every day. And so I like kind of just like bulged out my lip a bit and split down the middle.
Speaker 0 00:14:05 You can kind of see that now it's a little bloody. Um, but that happened and I tripped a lot yesterday. Like I, I kind of like stumbled over a cat in the morning. I stumbled over the, the stool I sit on at work and then a crate as well. And I looked and I was like, it is seven 30 in the morning. I've broken two plates, tripped three times and cut myself three times in two hours of being awake. Like I was so shocked that this happened. I had a tweet about it. Um, but this kind of just underscores. I never realized how clumsy I can actually be after, you know, working at this. I work at a food cart by the way. I didn't mention that earlier. I work at a food cart selling coffee and donuts and stuff and I have a little stool that I sit on and sometimes I just pace back and forth cuz it's not always busy.
Speaker 0 00:14:52 And there have been times where I'll be pacing back and forth, stumble over the stool, walk back and stumble again. So that happens sometimes. But this made me think of a story from approximately 21 years ago, which sounds crazy now that I'm thinking about it cuz it was that long ago. I was two years old and uh, I was playing in the living room with my brother and sister and there was a pillow on the floor and I stepped on the pillow and somehow, I don't know, I twisted my leg in such a manner that I broke it. I broke my right femur at two years old, which is like the biggest bone in the body, presumably the hardest one to break. And I broke it tripping over a pillow. Well not tripping over, like standing on and slipping on a pillow. And I'm like, no wonder like all this stuff happened yesterday. Like I broke my leg on a pillow when I was two. Like it can only get worse from there I guess, or better depending on which way you want to think about it. But no, that happened. And so that's just a little bit about my clumsiness
Speaker 0 00:16:05 Beards.
Speaker 0 00:16:08 So beards and I'm gonna try to not make every story just revolve around like things that have happened to me or myself cuz I don't want to be that selfish. Like obviously I'm the host of this show, but like, you know, it's gonna get annoying if I'm just telling you things that have happened to me. That's why we're gonna try to get guest hosts. I actually have one lined up for I think next week. So that'll be fun, that'll be really cool. But I do have a story about my beard, which sounds like the most exciting thing in the world. And I was gonna shave yesterday. Um, but I'm really lazy sometimes and I just forgot to do it. And I was like, before I went to bed, I was like, I could do it now. And I'm like, Nope, it's not happening. It's too late for that.
Speaker 0 00:16:48 Um, but as you can tell it's getting really gross and out of control. Kind of like Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. Um, I'm not yet at the point where I'm growing tentacles that are kind of sentient, but you know, if I let it go any longer, I might actually get there. So I'm planning on fully shaving this beard probably tonight. Um, I don't do it very often just because I don't think I look very good without it. Uh, I'm not sure I look very good with it either, but I like having it. But here's the problem. When I have no facial hair, which I'm glad it grows back pretty fast, I look like I'm about 10 years old. I mean, it, it's insane. When I have the beard, I look pretty normal. I would say that's my standard look. I tried wearing a goatee for like a month and that, that just made me look like I was way too old.
Speaker 0 00:17:38 I didn't like that one very much, which I, that one made me sad. I don't think I'm at the age yet where I can pull off a goatee. When I was little, one of my random goals in life was to grow a goatee. Um, another goal was to have blonde hair at some point. <laugh>, which I could do easily, like if I just dyed it, but I have no desire now. I don't know why that was one. Another desire was to have spiky hair, which I did try for a little while, but my hair was never long enough to actually spike. Um, and by the time it was long enough I decided I didn't want to do it anymore. One was to get glasses, which, you know, when you're a little kid, that's usually the opposite of what you want. Um, that one did happen when I was like seven years old.
Speaker 0 00:18:18 I am kind of like almost blind without them now. Like, look, I wasn't gonna do this, but look, when I don't have my glasses on, that is my standard. Like looking at people like look how much bigger these eyes are. That's me trying to I guess, process what I'm seeing. Anyway, back to the beard. Um, yeah, I'm not at the point yet where I can grow a goatee. I also wanted to be six feet tall. That was another goal and I can't do that. I'm, I'm like five nine and I'm probably forever five nine. I've been five nine for like the past seven years. Um, but yeah, that's my beard. You know, I, I can't wear nothing. I can't have a goatee, I can't have just a mustache cuz that rarely works. Like you need to either be like a cop or someone with a gigantic lip with a giant mustache that can wear a mustache only. Um, I don't want just a soul patch cuz no one does that. Uh, I could just do like mutton chops. That's not gonna work though. I'm not doing that. So I guess I'm just gonna have to shave off everything. I could just trim it. But you know, once I get in the mood to just shave everything off, then it's gonna happen anyway. So I'll just have to live with the fact that I'm not gonna have a beard for a while. Um, it'll grow back at some point though. So I'm pretty happy with that.
Speaker 0 00:19:32 Zoo Tycoon two, you know what's a great game? Zoo Tycoon two, this game came out in about 2004 and I started playing it in around 2006. My sister and I, this is around when I was like 12 or 13. Um, my sister and I, we decided to buy cause we had played the original one and the original was fun and the second one looked so much better. So I remember we went, I think to Best Buy and Target. We got the original and there were two expansions at that point. And it was so funny cuz I remember this cuz this was back when computer games were still relatively expensive. I think they were, I think the first two came together and it was like 30 bucks. And then the sec, the other expansion was like $30, which I can't even imagine that now for, for a computer game that's not like a high class game.
Speaker 0 00:20:22 I mean now they're releasing things for like the newer consoles and pc, but those are for like gaming PCs. Anyway, um, we got Zu Teun <unk> and I remember my sister was gonna buy them all and I was like, oh, like you know, I guess I could help pay for some of it. She's like, how much money do you have? I was like 40 bucks like in cash on me while we were shopping. So I did end up, I was kind of, you know, forced to pay because I had the money to do so. Um, but this game, like that's so much fun. Like we would just sit there on this, our desktop computer, which doesn't even work anymore. Um, we would just sit there and you know, we were making zoos and making all this stuff and you can like walk around the zoos and just like explore things.
Speaker 0 00:20:59 You can take pictures, you can caption the pictures and some of the stuff the people do are is really weird. Like no joke, we were sitting, you can build like tram rides and we were sitting next to someone on one of the trams and he's just sitting there like looking at us and then he like looks down and then looks up again and his name changed, his name showed up on the thing and his name had changed in that part. And we're like, oh my gosh, this guy is like a split personality. So we developed this whole story about him. But that, that was just one of the side things that came from playing u Taik Koon. And then about five years ago, so when I was a freshman in college, somehow we ended up, you know, talking about it again. And by that time we had gotten a third expansion pack where he could make marine animals including the greatest marine man, marine animal of all time the narwhal.
Speaker 0 00:21:50 And so we, we started talking about it and there's another one too that we needed. It was extinct animals so we could make dinosaurs and stuff. So we ended up getting that. We got back into Zoo Tycoon too. It was a great game still. And at this point there's a huge community where people would modify like the animal files and make their own animals like real animals. But you could download them into the game. And Microsoft I'm pretty sure was like all about this. Like they're basically saying that if you wanna modify this game or like the files, like that's fine, but anything that we decide to use is, you know, you're not getting any like money from it, you're doing it to our game. So there's like other expansion packs like an, like an Arabian peninsula like animals. And I was like, this is great.
Speaker 0 00:22:35 And then we kind of put it away again. And recently, I don't even know how I started thinking about it again. Um, we started talking about Zuta K was like, I really wanna play this. Like I really wanna play this right now. So I went up into like our cubby hole and I found four of the games and I couldn't find the extinct animals one, I probably just didn't look very hard. So I had to order that one again. Um, I probably didn't have to, if I had really looked I would've found it. But I did order it again cause at this point it was $7 as opposed to, you know, like 30. And so I recently have been playing zoo, take Koon again and it's still great. Like it is still a great game. After 10 years it still holds up and I'm just excited that I've been able to make a zoo that has like great white sharks and narwals and like Tarran sauce, Rexes and the Quagga.
Speaker 0 00:23:22 I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but it is an extinct relative of the zebra and it's sweet, like it's pretty cool looking. So those are some of the things I've made. Apparently somewhere you can download an ant eater, which I have yet to find. Like I want an ant eater. I don't know why it's not in the game to begin with, but no, this zoo is great. I intentionally let my T-Rex go and set him <laugh> and set him in the middle of the public cuz I wanted to be able to tranquilize him cuz you're supposed to be able to do that in the game. I couldn't end. A couple people ended up getting eaten. I felt kind of bad about that. Um, I never did end up getting a tranquilizer. I think I just started the game over from where I'd last saved.
Speaker 0 00:24:02 I know Zoo take Koon two is awesome. They made like a reboot for the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One a few years ago. Nowhere near is cool. I haven't played it, but there's like 60 animals and there's like 20 deer. Like there isn't a huge variety and it's super annoying cuz what's the point of having this game if there's not a ton of animals? And so I haven't gotten it, I just really want 'em to make a true like Zoo Tycoon three with like a million animals that I can make because I love this game and I think they need to bring it into the 21st century. Well, I guess even more into the 21st century, like for real, the end.
Speaker 0 00:24:42 So that's it, that's all we got for today's show. I hope you guys enjoyed this first ever episode of Snorkeling with Narwals. Um, if you have any suggestions, we are on Facebook at snorkeling with Narwals. We are on Twitter with a Twitter handle at Snorkel narwals because it is too long of a name to actually fit into a whole username I've tried. And our website is
[email protected]. The reason for that is because I bought the domain for the fake pun.com back when it was gonna be the football podcast. And I was like, I don't wanna just keep spending money on domains. And I already had bt mckay.com, the T stands for Hip as me and Eric were discussing yesterday because we said the website looked really hip. And I was like, well, hip is my middle name. And he's like, you know, with a t I was like, yes, it's spelled t h i p, the T is Silent <laugh>. Um, but yeah, bt mckay.com, that's where you'll be able to find this episode. Again, it'll be on YouTube, iTunes, probably all that at some point. First we have to actually, you know, edit this, make it into a cohesive thingy. But eventually that's where it'll be. I'll make sure to let you guys know when it is available. But anyway, hope you guys have a great day. Again, I don't know if you're listening in the morning or at night or whatever, but see you guys later.
