Bonus Episode | I Choose You! Welcome to the first bonus episode of The Talking Place! I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to do with these bonus episodes in the future, but this one won’t disappoint! This episode goes hand in hand with the …Read More….
Episode 003 | Gotta Catch the Majority of ’em! Welcome to episode 3 of The Talking Place! Joining me today is Chase, from the podcast Learned from Gaming. As well as one of the original Future Monkeys and your local Home Depot employee, Vos! This …Read More….
Wooooooooo it’s been a long time coming for this one! But I finally received the Celeste Collector’s Edition!
Celeste has been out since January of 2018, but will you believe I never played it? I actually bought it once! On the eShop, I bought it on sale. Then 2 weeks later I bought this edition. I hadn’t even touched it yet so I didn’t feel bad when I asked Nintendo if they allow refunds in such cases. Surprisingly, they gave me a one time courtesy! And I’ve been waiting to play it ever since. Since day one, with all the praise it’s gotten I was always wanting to try it out. The story and underlying meanings of the game make me feel like it’ll hit home way too hard, and for that, I’m both scared and excited to play it.
Limited Run Games, if you don’t know, make the dreams of physical media collectors come true. They take digital only titles and make them available for a limited time as physical copies. It’s great for hoarders, er, I mean, collectors like me, and honestly I wonder what took me so long to order something from them.
Rewind to January of 2019. Eleven months ago! They had this collector’s edition up for order and I had Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket so I went for it. I felt like I hit the lotto when I was able to order because this particular edition sold out in about 30 seconds!! I was beyond excited for numerous reasons, and I continued to have that excitement in the back of my mind, knowing it’ll be coming to me. Eventually…
See, this was supposed to originally be a August (ish?) release. But thanks to Extremely OK Games and their dedication to the Celeste, they planned to release Chapter 9: Farewell, a FREE DLC update to the game that brought more levels to the experience. Limited Run Games, being the keepers of preservation they are, decided to not release the physical version until the DLC was out. So you can pop in their cart/disc, and play it completely without having to worry about updating to get the free DLC.
It had buyers of this CE and the regular standard edition in an uproar, I’ll tell ya what. But still, it was appreciated and at the end of the day, here we are. It’s almost a year later but man, was the wait so worth it.
This package is bursting at the seams with cool goodies. I think the price was $79.99? I’ve paid more for CE’s that gave you far less, that’s for sure.
Up front you have the flying strawberry. Strawberries are a collectible in the game, and the flying variety are a bit trickier to nab sometimes. Truth be told, this is the reason I was so drawn to picking up this edition. See, at the time, the wife and I were actively discussing having a third kid. So much so that we asked the current two about it and the youngest, for some reason, started referring to this yet-to-be had third kid as.. you guessed it.. ‘Strawberry”. Why? Who knows. Kids are funny like that sometimes, tapping into some mystic subconscious. But anyway, this edition was announced around that time and I felt like it was calling to me because of that.
The next awesome thing is definitely the soundtrack! You see it pictured there, along with the other goodies. Not only is there a code for the digital version of the soundtrack, which I’m currently listening to right now. But there’s also a real freaking cassette tape soundtrack! Cassettes are another collectible in the game which unlock the B-side versions of levels so having a tape as a way to play the soundtrack is downright genius! I need to get me a cassette player now, but still. It was a blast watching my oldest struggle for two whole minutes trying to figure out how to open it. If you want to check out the soundtrack by Lena Raine, you can do so right here on Bandcamp. It’s seriously an amazing soundtrack!
Also in here is a really amazing art card. I swear I saw somewhere that this was added as some sort of apology for having us wait so long to receive the game? It’s gorgeous, I know that much. And there’s a recipe card for Strawberry Pie! You can see that in the above picture too. Now c’mon. This here is a food blog at heart. So you KNOW I’m basically obligated to make this freaking pie. It looks simple enough too. Look forward to that at some point. When? No promises! But I do want to do it. Mixed in here is also a sticker sheet, which I always appreciate some stickers, a postcard, a patch, and a nicely sized poster that I would totally hang if I had a place to hang it.
But the last, and certainly not least, most awesomest thing is by far the steelbook!
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, this is a REALLY nice steelbook. It’s my first one for the Switch and it’s so great. Absolutely adore the art and the feel of it. Most steelbooks sit in the drawer with all the other game cases, but I want to get one of those display stands from Limited Run to have this displayed proper. So so great.
You also get the standard edition of the case, which is awesome in its own right. It even comes with an instruction/art booklet which I’ll ALWAYS appreciate.
And that’s the Collector’s Edition for Celeste! Again, I’m super happy that I was able to grab one of these. And even though we had to wait so long, which I totally understand why, it was worth the wait. I can’t wait to order from them again. And soon! I think they’re due for their annual clearing out the stock sale. I’m looking to grab me Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse since I missed it and maybe even Stranger Things that’s available for preorder right now until December 6th! As for now though, I have strawberries to catch.
If you’re really interested in having a physical copy of Celeste for the Switch, fear not! The CE is no longer available, and it’s sold out on Limited Run Games, BUT, you CAN still get a copy from Best Buy! LRG partnered with Best Buy and they are provided with a limited amount of physical copies of certain games. Celeste is one of them! There is a different cover art like you see above, but at least you get that cart for your collection. Check it out right here and be sure to pre-order! (This is an affiliate link, it helps out the site if you use it to purchase!) It goes on sale November 19th! They tweeted back on October 7th that Best Buy informed them they’re close to selling out their stock. Only have a limited number of copies, o once Big Blue is sold out, they’re gone!
Episode 002 – Get the Meat Sweats Welcome to episode 2 of The Talking Place! Joining me today is my former partner in crime, Beardy McWhiskey, along with one third of the Bad Fodder Figures Podcast, Matt Helmer. By day – or.. night, whenever – …Read More….
Welcome to Episode 1! The very first guest on The Talking Place is the man behind the curtain. If you’re a part of the EZFM gaming community, you may know him as Ve6a5. If you’re not then allow me to introduce you to Matt …Read More….
It’s been a long time coming for this little project of mine. I feel like the thought of it has been bounced around forever, and the actual process of getting it going has been going on for months. But here we are! Episode Zero! The original plan was to have a bunch of episodes up and going when I launched, but yeah, that wasn’t happening. Best thing to do was to just take the leap and try flapping. A few months ago I imagined I was going to be all ready, like a plane taking off, all my instruments in sync, me in control flying gracefully through the sky. But in reality I’m that guy in a cardboard plane outfit running off the side of a cliff hoping it works. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
There isn’t much to this as it’s just an intro of sorts. Letting you know what I’m planning, what to expect, all that good stuff. So sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy what I try to do.
The Contacts
If you’d like to reach the podcast for anything, here are a few points of contact I set up to communicate. I don’t think I’ll go beyond this as I want to try and keep this simple, but we shall see.
If you’re looking to join me for an episode, don’t be shy and email me at the above address and we’ll chat!
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it anywhere but this is going to be my fun project. I’m not looking for fame and glory, not trying to get the most downloads, or to hit the top of the charts – though that would all be nice – I’m just doing this to have something to do. I enjoy recording and talking to people and I want to see what I can do with this.
Ok, I’m resurrecting this little topic. “Speaking of Destiny…” was a little joke I started on Future Monkeys (my old podcast), because for a long… long… time, all I ever talked about was Destiny. Why? Because it was all I played! And trust me, I …Read More….
One thing that’s great about this time of year is not only all the fall goodness going on, but all the new games releasing! I guess that’s a bad thing too, come to think of it. But anyway, here’s today’s release – The Legend …Read More….
Been forever since I’ve done one a Humpday Update for here! Let’s see if I remember how this goes. Life’s been crazy like always so I guess these would be great to keep things organized for the blog’s sake.
Ok, let’s see if we can make this short and sweet.
The blog has been going through some changes, you’ve probably noticed. A recap for those new around here: I was a food blog for a long time. Like, a long time. I have a bunch of recipes categorized on here. Well, a bunch to me. Nothing compared to other sites, but ya know, what can you do? Anyway, I loved doing the whole food thing, but us moving took a heavy toll on producing proper posts. The bulk of my food blogging came from when we lived in North Carolina and had a brand spanking new kitchen. New countertops are great but my goodness, the natural light. The light was the best. Ever since we left there it’s been a tremendous challenge to take any decent shots thanks to the lack of natural light and the outdated kitchen. I love this house and adore so much about it, but the kitchen is severely lacking, so much so that it kills any inspiration to do anything food related for the blog. I look back at shots like this of my Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies and look forward to a time when I can do that again.
Or this!
Look, I know I’m not a great photographer. But sometimes I’m happy with myself. Baby steps and low bars, they make all the difference. Those are Key Lime Brownies, bee-tee-dub. No lie, those things were so good they STILL – to this day – have me thinking about them. UGH. What the hell happened to me. I used to be so good.
That said, there has been an influx of non-food posts here for a long time now. And it’s breathing new life in this place for me. I always loved sticking to the whole Man, Chef, Dad aspect of the site, but knew the hard focus that was expected from the Chef side of it. But now with so many more things going on in life, so many things to talk about and enjoy, having this be only about food would be a disservice. Plus the retirement of Future Monkeys has a lot to do with all the game related things crossing the lines so that’s exciting to do as well.
More changes to the blog! And the biggest one on a personal level: I now have ads turned on. I know, by now, if you don’t have ad blockers active on your browsers, you probably are so used to them your eyes just block them out naturally. I know mine do! But like I said, I’ve been blogging for a long time and I always took pride in the fact that I didn’t use ads. I don’t enjoy seeing them, especially when they’re intrusive. But I thought it was finally time to get going with the rest of civilization and do what they do. Heck, might as well make a few cents here and there, right? Truth be told, I wish I did it back before the last season of Game of Thrones. With my GoT recipes I have on here, I can always tell when there was a new season debuting or going on because my numbers would skyrocket to ridiculous heights. You’d be surprised how many people want Game of Thrones recipes for their premier parties.
Moving on, I want to try and do more Hump/dates. But first… Should I stop with the “hump/dates”? …Maybe? …Ok, I’ll think about it. I mean, I called them Humpday Updates, but that was too long to say, so I started with HDUD, maybe that’s better? Hump-dates was a thing behind the scenes but I changed it to Hump/dates to give it more of a unique look. I dunno, I’ll think about changing it. Hump/dates is kind of a weird thing to call your blog’s weekly updates.
Anyway, I want to try and do more Hump/dates (thought about it, it’s too funny not to keep, sorry not sorry). I want to cover different topics too. Like this you’re reading now is coming out at the same time as a gaming specific Humpday Update. I would like to also do theme park specific ones, maybe even one focusing on stuff and things I’ve picked up recently. Where I’ll talk about things like steelbook movies, random unboxing videos and all that junk. I’ll call it… Stuff and Things! I like it.
Also incoming eventually will be more LEGO posts. I have quite a few pictures ready to be edited for posting pleasure, I just have to put things together. Seriously, like it’s impossible for me to build a LEGO set and not pose the figures doing something dumb, like helping each other build the set. I’m such a child.
Speaking of LEGO, I’m back in my hate side of my love-hate relationship with them. I still love it and it still works its magic on me. But I’m back on the same boat I was when I fell out of it last time. Which is.. freaking sets are so bloody expensive. And it’s like every awesome set they come out with that makes me all giddy winds up costing over $199. Jurassic Park at $249, Stranger Things at $199, this gorgeous Tree House with the fall leaves another $199, freaking Disney Train and Station at $349. Let’s not forget my white whale Hogwarts Castle that I’ll never get because in my right mind I cannot buy a $399 LEGO set. At least, that’s what I have to repeat to myself, especially if I find $400 in my pocket one day. I still have my wish list, a few I want to try and get that are on the cheaper side. After that, who knows?! It’s hard keeping up with multiple hobbies, especially ones that cost so much money to stay current with. You shouldn’t have to explain to your kids you can’t get the toy because you need to make the car payment that month.
Lastly, to close this up. Yay fall! Freaking September is almost done, it’s nuts. Pumpkin spiced nuts.
Speaking of pumpkin, we bought these from BJ’s because they sounded great and pumpkin all the things, right?
Wrong. I think they totally forgot the Pumpkin in these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. So after getting terribly disappointed, I took matters into my own hands.
Made my own Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies AND I threw a Pumpkin Spice icing on there for good measure. I always get excited with fall being in full swing and all those amazing fall flavors and smells and colors start hitting you from every angle. It’s my favorite time of year for a reason. I really want to make an apple galette. Maybe one of these days.
See, I still do stuff! Just not as much.
Hey, that was a beefy update! And here I wasn’t going to do one because I didn’t think there was enough to talk about. Silly me! Till next update!