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Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:A suspect has reportedly been apprehended in the shooting death of Charlie Kirk: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/12/us/charlie-kirk-news-suspectTexas DPS has quietly been very actively assisting ICE in detaining suspected undocumented immigrants, focusing much of their work in Democratically-run large cities: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/12/texas-dps-immigration-arrests-trump-deportation-operation-lone-star/A new UT/Texas Politics Project poll shows sliding numbers for both Donald Trump and Governor Greg Abbott, with both showing net negative approval numbers: https://www.statesman.com/news/article/trump-abbott-approval-ratings-texas-voters-senate-21041119.phpPuzzled by what Texas State Senator's divorce from Attorney General Ken Paxton on "biblical grounds"? So is the watchdog group Campaign For Accountability, who have called for the records of the Paxton divorce to be unsealed: https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-senator-angela-paxton-divorce-recordsDon't miss a terrific shot of Dallas Justice of the Peace Adam Swartz filling his courtroom with bubbles during a wedding ceremony: https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/dallas-judge-bubbliest-wedding-officiant/Austin friends: tickets are now FREE for our live podcast taping with legendary Austin FC goalkeeper Brad Stuver on September 15 at Hopsquad Brewing in Austin! RSVP here: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/allstaractivism_2025Thanks for listening! Our monthly donors form the backbone of our funding, and if you're a regular, we'd like to invite you to join the team! Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
Matt Forbeck is all that and so much more. He grew up in Wisconsin as what he describes as a wimpy kid, too short and not overly healthy. He took to gaming at a pretty early age and has grown to be a game creator, author and award-winning storyteller. Matt has been designing games now for over 35 years. He tells us how he believes that many of the most successful games today have stories to tell, and he loves to create some of the most successful ones. What I find most intriguing about Matt is that he clearly is absolutely totally happy in his work. For most of Matt's career he has worked for himself and continues today to be an independent freelancer. Matt and his wife have five children, including a set of quadruplets. The quadruplets are 23 and Matt's oldest son is 28 and is following in his father's footsteps. During our conversation we touch on interesting topics such as trust and work ethics. I know you will find this episode stimulating and worth listening to more than once. About the Guest: Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer of over thirty-five novels and countless other books and games. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming. Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer. Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, interactive fiction, interactive audiobooks, games for museum installations, and logic systems for toys. He has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into at least 15 languages. His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook, the Spider-Verse Expansion, Monster Academy (novels and board game), the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels, and the Minecraft: Roll for Adventure game books. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife and a rotating cast of college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com. Ways to connect with Matt: Twitter: https://twitter.com/mforbeck Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbeck Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/forbeck.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mforbeck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mforbeck/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forbeck/ Website: https://www.forbeck.com/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset today. We get to play games. Well, not really, but we'll try. Our guest is Matt Forbeck, who is an award winning author. He is a game designer and all sorts of other kinds of things that I'm sure he's going to tell us about, and we actually just before we started the the episode, we were talking about how one might explore making more games accessible for blind and persons with other disabilities. It's, it's a challenge, and there, there are a lot of tricks. But anyway, Matt, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Matt Forbeck ** 02:02 Well, thank you, Michael for inviting me and having me on. I appreciate it. Speaker 1 ** 02:06 I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I think it'll work out really well. I'm I am sure of that. So why don't we start just out of curiosity, why don't you tell us kind of about the early Matt, growing up? Matt Forbeck ** 02:18 Uh, well, I grew up. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin, which actually live in now, despite having moved away for 13 years at one point, and I had terrible asthma, I was a sick and short kid, and with the advent of medication, I finally started to be healthy when I was around nine, and Part of that, I started getting into playing games, right? Because when you're sick, you do a lot of sitting around rather than running around. So I did a lot of reading and playing games and things like that. I happen to grow up in the part of the world where Dungeons and Dragons was invented, which is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from where I live. And because of that I was I started going to conventions and playing games and such, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started doing it when I was a little bit older. I started doing it professionally, and started doing it when I was in college. And amazingly enough, even to my own astonishment, I've made a career out of it. Speaker 1 ** 03:17 Where did you go to college? I went to the University Matt Forbeck ** 03:21 of Michigan over in Ann Arbor. I had a great time there. There's a wonderful little college, Beloit College, in my hometown here, and most of my family has gone to UW Milwaukee over the years. My parents met at Marquette in Milwaukee, but I wanted to get the heck out of the area, so I went to Michigan, and then found myself coming back as soon as we started having Speaker 1 ** 03:42 kids well, and of course, I would presume that when you were at the University of Michigan, you rooted for them and against Ohio State. That was Matt Forbeck ** 03:50 kind of, you know, if you did it the other way around, they back out of town. So, yeah, I was always kind of astonished, though, because having grown up in Wisconsin, where every sports team was a losing team when I was growing up, including the Packers, for decades. You know, we were just happy to be playing. They were more excuse to have beers than they were to cheer on teams. And I went to Michigan where they were, they were angry if the team wasn't up by two touchdowns. You know, at any point, I'm like, You guys are silly. This is we're here for fun. Speaker 1 ** 04:17 But it is amazing how seriously some people take sports. I remember being in New Zealand helping the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind. Well now 22 years ago, it's 2003 and the America's Cup had just finished before we got there, and in America beat New Zealand, and the people in New Zealand were just irate. They were complaining that the government didn't put enough money into the design of the boat and helping with the with the yacht and all that. It was just amazing how seriously people take it, yeah, Matt Forbeck ** 04:58 once, I mean, it becomes a part of your. Identity in a lot of ways, right for many people, and I've never had to worry about that too much. I've got other things on my mind, but there you go. Speaker 1 ** 05:08 Well, I do like it when the Dodgers win, and my wife did her graduate work at USC, and so I like it when the Trojans win, but it's not the end of the world, and you do need to keep it in perspective. I I do wish more people would I know once I delivered a speech in brether County, Kentucky, and I was told that when I started the speech had to end no later than preferably exactly at 6:30pm not a minute later, because it was the night of the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the Kentucky Wildcats were in the championship, and at 630 everyone was going to get up and leave and go home to watch the game. So I ended at 630 and literally, by 631 I timed it. The gym was empty and it was full to start with. Matt Forbeck ** 06:02 People were probably, you know, counting down on their watches, just to make sure, right? Speaker 1 ** 06:06 Oh, I'm sure they were. What do you do? It's, it is kind of fun. Well, so why did you decide to get started in games? What? What? What attracted to you, to it as a young person, much less later on? Matt Forbeck ** 06:21 Well, I was, yeah, I was an awkward kid, kind of nerdy and, you know, glasses and asthma and all that kind of stuff. And games were the kind of thing where, if you didn't know how to interact with people, you could sit down at a table across them and you could practice. You can say, okay, we're all here. We've got this kind of a magic circle around us where we've agreed to take this one silly activity seriously for a short period of time, right? And it may be that you're having fun during that activity, but you know, there's, there's no reason that rolling dice or moving things around on a table should be taken seriously. It's all just for fun, right? But for that moment, you actually just like Las Vegas Exactly, right? When there's money on the line, it's different, but if you're just doing it for grins. You know, it was a good way for me to learn how to interact with people of all sorts and of different ages. And I really enjoyed playing the games, and I really wanted to be a writer, too. And a lot of these things interacted with story at a very basic level. So breaking in as a writer is tough, but it turned out breaking as a game designer, wasn't nearly his stuff, so I started out over there instead, because it was a very young field at the time, right? D and D is now 50 years old, so I've been doing this 35 years, which means I started around professionally and even doing it before that, I started in the period when the game and that industry were only like 10 or 15 years old, so yeah, weren't quite as much competition in those Speaker 1 ** 07:43 days. I remember some of the early games that I did play, that I could play, were DOS based games, adventure. You're familiar with adventure? Yeah, oh, yeah. Then later, Zork and all that. And I still think those are fun games. And I the reason I like a lot of those kinds of games is they really make you think, which I think most games do, even though the video even the video games and so on, they they help your or can help your reactions, but they're designed by people who do try to make you think, Matt Forbeck ** 08:15 yeah. I mean, we basically are designing puzzles for people to solve, even if they're story puzzles or graphic puzzles or sound puzzles or whatever, you know, even spatial puzzles. There the idea is to give somebody something fun that is intriguing to play with, then you end up coming with story and after that, because after a while, even the most most exciting mechanics get dull, right? I mean, you start out shooting spaceships, but you can only shoot spaceships for so long, or you start out playing Tetris, and you only put shapes together for so long before it doesn't mean anything that then you start adding in story to give people a reason to keep playing right and a reason to keep going through these things. And I've written a lot of video games over the years, basically with that kind of a philosophy, is give people nuggets of story, give them a plot to work their way through, and reward them for getting through different stages, and they will pretty much follow you through anything. It's amazing. Michael Hingson ** 09:09 Is that true Dungeons and Dragons too? Matt Forbeck ** 09:13 It is. All of the stories are less structured there. If you're doing a video game, you know you the team has a lot of control over you. Give the player a limited amount of control to do things, but if you're playing around a table with people, it's more of a cooperative kind of experience, where we're all kind of coming up with a story, the narrator or the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, sets the stage for everything, but then the players have a lot of leeway doing that, and they will always screw things up for you, too. No matter what you think is going to happen, the players will do something different, because they're individuals, and they're all amazing people. That's actually to me, one of the fun things about doing tabletop games is that, you know, the computer can only react in a limited number of ways, whereas a human narrator and actually change things quite drastically and roll. With whatever people come up with, and that makes it tremendous fun. Speaker 1 ** 10:04 Do you think AI is going to enter into all that and maybe improve some of the Matt Forbeck ** 10:09 old stuff? It's going to add your end to it, whether it's an ad, it's going to approve it as a large question. Yeah. So I've been ranting about AI quite a bit lately with my friends and family. But, you know, I think the problem with AI, it can be very helpful a lot of ways, but I think it's being oversold. And I think it's especially when it's being oversold for thing, for ways for people to replace writers and creative thinking, Yeah, you know, you're taking the fun out of everything. I mean, the one thing I like to say is if, if you can't be bothered to write this thing that you want to communicate to me, I'm not sure why I should be bothered to read this thing well. Speaker 1 ** 10:48 And I think that AI will will evolve in whatever way it does. But the fact of the matter is, So do people. And I think that, in fact, people are always going to be necessary to make the process really work? AI can only do and computers can only do so much. I mean, even Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when people and computer brains are married, but that still means that you're going to have the human element. So it's not all going to be the computer. And I'm not ready to totally buy into to what Ray says. And I used to work for Ray, so I mean, I know Ray Well, but, but the but the bottom line is, I think that, in fact, people are always going to be able to be kind of the, the mainstay of it, as long as we allow that, if we, if we give AI too much power, then over time, it'll take more power, and that's a problem, but that's up to us to deal with? Matt Forbeck ** 11:41 No, I totally agree with that. I just think right now, there's a very large faction of people who it's in their economic interest to oversell these things. You know, people are making chips. They're building server farms. A lot of them are being transferred from people are doing blockchain just a few years ago, and they see it as the hot new thing. The difference is that AI actually has a lot of good uses. There's some amazing things will come out of llms and such. But I again, people are over the people are selling this to us. Are often over promising things, right? Speaker 1 ** 12:11 Yeah, well, they're not only over promising but they're they're really misdirecting people. But the other side of it is that, that, in fact, AI as a concept and as a technology is here, and we have control over how we use it. I've said a couple times on this this podcast, and I've said to others, I remember when I first started hearing about AI, I heard about the the fact that teachers were bemoaning the pack, that kids were writing their papers just using AI and turning them in, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether it was something that was written by AI or was written by the student. And I come from a little bit different view than I think a lot of people do. And my view basically is, let the kids write it if with AI, if that's what they're going to do, but then what the teacher needs to do is to take one period, for example, and give every student in that class the opportunity to come up and defend whatever paper they have. And the real question is, can they defend the paper? Which means, have they really learned the subject, or are they just relying on AI, Matt Forbeck ** 13:18 yeah, I agree with that. I think the trouble is, a lot of people, children, you know, who are developing their abilities and their morals about this stuff, they use it as just a way to complete the assignment, right? And many of them don't even read what they turn in, right, right? Just know that they've got something here that will so again, if you can't be bothered to read the thing that you manufactured, you're not learning anything about it, Speaker 1 ** 13:39 which is why, if you are forced to defend it, it's going to become pretty obvious pretty fast, whether you really know it or not. Now, I've used AI on a number of occasions in various ways, but I use it to maybe give me ideas or prepare something that I then modify and shape. And I may even interact with AI a couple of times, but I'm definitely involved with the process all the way down the line, because it still has to be something that I'm responsible for. Matt Forbeck ** 14:09 I agree. I mean, the whole point of doing these things is for people to connect with each other, right? I want to learn about the ideas you have in your head. I want to see how they jive with ones in my head. But if I'm just getting something that's being spit out by a machine and not you, and not being curated by you at any point, that doesn't seem very useful, right? So if you're the more involved people are in it, the more useful it is. Speaker 1 ** 14:31 Well, I agree, and you know, I think again, it's a tool, and we have to decide how the tool is going to be used, which is always the way it ought to be. Right? Matt Forbeck ** 14:42 Exactly, although sometimes it's large corporations deciding, Speaker 1 ** 14:45 yeah, well, there's that too. Well, individuals, Matt Forbeck ** 14:49 we get to make our own choices. Though you're right, Speaker 1 ** 14:51 yes, and should Well, so, so when did you start bringing writing into what you. Did, and make that a really significant part of what you did? Matt Forbeck ** 15:03 Well, pretty early on, I mean, I started doing one of the first things I did was a gaming zine, which was basically just a print magazine that was like, you know, 32 pages, black and white, about the different tabletop games. So we were writing those in the days, design and writing are very closely linked when it comes to tabletop games and even in video games. The trick of course is that designing a game and writing the rules are actually two separate sets of skills. So one of the first professional gig I ever had during writing was in games was some friends of mine had designed a game for a company called Mayfair games, which went on to do sellers of contain, which is a big, uh, entry level game, and but they needed somebody to write the rules, so they called me over, showed me how to play the game. I took notes and I I wrote it down in an easy to understand, clear way that people had just picked up the box. Could then pick it up and teach themselves how to play, right? So that was early on how I did it. But the neat thing about that is it also taught me to think about game design. I'm like, when I work on games, I think about, who is this game going to be for, and how are we going to teach it to them? Because if they can't learn the game, there's no point of the game at all, right? Speaker 1 ** 16:18 And and so I'm right? I'm a firm believer that a lot of technical writers don't do a very good job of technical writing, and they write way over people's heads. I remember the first time I had to write, well, actually, I mentioned I worked for Kurzweil. I was involved with a project where Ray Kurzweil had developed his original omniprent optical character recognition system. And I and the National Federation of the Blind created with him a project to put machines around the country so that blind people could use them and give back to Ray by the time we were all done, recommendations as to what needed to go in the final first production model of the machine. So I had to write a training manual to teach people how to use it. And I wrote this manual, and I was always of the opinion that it had to be pretty readable and usable by people who didn't have a lot of technical knowledge. So I wrote the manual, gave it to somebody to read, and said, Follow the directions and and work with the machine and all that. And they did, and I was in another room, and they were playing with it for a couple of hours, and they came in and they said, I'm having a problem. I can't figure out how to turn off the machine. And it turns out that I had forgotten to put in the instruction to turn off the machine. And it wasn't totally trivial. There were steps you had to go through. It was a Data General Nova two computer, and you had to turn it off the right way and the whole system off the appropriate way, or you could, could mess everything up. So there was a process to doing it. So I wrote it in, and it was fine. But, you know, I've always been a believer that the textbooks are way too boring. Having a master's degree in physics, I am of the opinion that physics textbook writers, who are usually pretty famous and knowledgeable scientists, ought to include with all the text and the technical stuff they want to put in, they should put in stories about what they did in you bring people in, draw them into the whole thing, rather than just spewing out a bunch of technical facts. Matt Forbeck ** 18:23 No, I agree. My my first calculus professor was a guy who actually explained how Newton and Leipzig actually came up with calculus, and then he would, you know, draw everything on the board and turn around say, and isn't that amazing? And you were, like, just absolutely enamored with the idea of how they had done these things, right? Yeah. And what you're doing there, when you, when you, when you give the instructions to somebody and say, try this out. That's a very big part of gaming, actually, because what we do this thing called play testing, where we take something before it's ready to be shown to the public, and we give it to other people and say, try this out. See how it works. Let me know when you're starting out of your first playing you play with like your family and friends and people will be brutal with you and give you hints about how you can improve things. But then, even when you get to the rules you're you send those out cold to people, or, you know, if you're a big company, you watch them through a two way mirror or one way mirror, and say, Hey, let's see how they react to everything. And then you take notes, and you try to make it better every time you go through. And when I'm teaching people to play games at conventions, for instance, I will often say to them, please ask questions if you don't understand anything, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Means I didn't explain it well enough, right? And my job as a person writing these rules is to explain it as well as I humanly can so it can't be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Now that doesn't mean you can correct everything. Somebody's always got like, Oh, I missed that sentence, you know, whatever. But you do that over and over so you can try to make it as clear and concise as possible, yeah. Speaker 1 ** 19:52 Well, you have somewhat of a built in group of people to help if you let your kids get involved. Involved. So how old are your kids? Matt Forbeck ** 20:03 My eldest is 26 he'll be 27 in January. Marty is a game designer, actually works with me on the marble tabletop role playing game, and we have a new book coming out, game book for Minecraft, called Minecraft role for adventure, that's coming out on July 7, I think, and the rest of the kids are 23 we have 423 year olds instead of quadruplets, one of whom is actually going into game design as well, and the other says two are still in college, and one has moved off to the work in the woods. He's a very woodsy boy. Likes to do environmental education with people. Speaker 1 ** 20:39 Wow. Well, see, but you, but you still have a good group of potential game designers or game critics anyway. Matt Forbeck ** 20:47 Oh, we all play games together. We have a great time. We do weekly game nights here. Sometimes they're movie nights, sometimes they're just pizza nights, but we shoot for game and pizza Speaker 1 ** 20:56 if we get lucky and your wife goes along with all this too. Matt Forbeck ** 21:00 She does. She doesn't go to the game conventions and stuff as much, and she's not as hardcore of a gamer, but she likes hanging out with the kids and doing everything with us. We have a great time. Speaker 1 ** 21:10 That's that's pretty cool. Well, you, you've got, you've got to build an audience of some sorts, and that's neat that a couple of them are involved in it as well. So they really like what dad does, yeah, Matt Forbeck ** 21:23 yeah. We, I started taking them each to conventions, which are, you know, large gatherings gamers in real life. The biggest one is Gen Con, which happens in Indianapolis in August. And last year, I think, we had 72,000 people show up. And I started taking the kids when they were 10 years old, and my wife would come up with them then. And, you know, 10 years old is a lot. 72,000 people is a lot for a 10 year old. So she can mention one day and then to a park the next day, you know, decompress a lot, and then come back on Saturday and then leave on Sunday or whatever, so that we didn't have them too over stimulated. But they really grown to love it. I mean, it's part of our annual family traditions in the summer, is to go do these conventions and play lots of games with each other and meet new people too well. Speaker 1 ** 22:08 And I like the way you put it. The games are really puzzles, which they are, and it's and it's fun. If people would approach it that way, no matter what the game is, they're, they're aspects of puzzles involved in most everything that has to do with the game, and that's what makes it so fun. Matt Forbeck ** 22:25 Exactly, no. The interesting thing is, when you're playing with other people, the other people are changing the puzzles from their end that you have to solve on your end. And sometimes the puzzle is, how do I beat this person, or how do I defeat their strategy, or how do I make an alliance with somebody else so we can win? And it's really always very intriguing. There's so many different types of games. There's nowadays, there's like something like 50 to 100 new board games that come out and tabletop games every month, right? It's just like a fire hose. It's almost like, when I was starting out as a novelist, I would go into Barnes and Noble or borders and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these books. And now I do the same thing about games. It's just, it's incredible. Nobody, no one person, could keep up with all of them. Speaker 1 ** 23:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, way too much. I would love to explore playing more video games, but I don't. I don't own a lot of the technology, although I'm sure that there are any number of them that can be played on a computer, but we'll have to really explore and see if we can find some. I know there are some that are accessible for like blind people with screen readers. I know that some people have written a few, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Matt Forbeck ** 23:36 And Xbox has got a new controller out that's meant to be accessible to large amount of people. I'm not sure, all the different aspects of it, but that's done pretty well, too Speaker 1 ** 23:44 well. And again, it comes down to making it a priority to put all of that stuff in. It's not like it's magic to do. It's just that people don't know how to do it. But I also think something else, which is, if you really make the products more usable, let's say by blind people with screen readers. You may be especially if it's well promoted, surprised. I'm not you necessarily, but people might well be surprised as to how many others might take advantage of it so that they don't necessarily have to look at the screen, or that you're forced to listen as well as look in order to figure out what's going on or take actions. Matt Forbeck ** 24:29 No, definitely true. It's, you know, people audio books are a massive thing nowadays. Games tend to fall further behind that way, but it's become this incredible thing that obviously, blind people get a great use out of but my wife is addicted to audio books now. She actually does more of those than she does reading. I mean, I technically think they're both reading. It's just one's done with yours and one's done with your eyes. Speaker 1 ** 24:51 Yeah, there's but there's some stuff, whether you're using your eyes or your fingers and reading braille, there's something about reading a book that way that's. Even so a little bit different than listening to it. Yeah, and there's you're drawn in in some ways, in terms of actually reading that you're not necessarily as drawn into when you're when you're listening to it, but still, really good audio book readers can help draw you in, which is important, too, Matt Forbeck ** 25:19 very much. So yeah, I think the main difference for reading, whether it's, you know, again, through Braille or through traditional print, is that you can stop. You can do it at your own pace. You can go back and look at things very easily, or read or check things, read things very easily. That you know, if you're reading, if you're doing an audio book, it just goes on and it's straight on, boom, boom, boom, pace. You can say, Wait, I'm going to put this down here. What was that thing? I remember back there? It was like three pages back, but it's really important, let me go check that right. Speaker 1 ** 25:50 There are some technologies that allow blind people and low vision people and others, like people with dyslexia to use an audio book and actually be able to navigate two different sections of it. But it's not something that is generally available to the whole world, at least to the level that it is for blind people. But I can, I can use readers that are made to be able to accept the different formats and go back and look at pages, go back and look at headings, and even create bookmarks to bookmark things like you would normally by using a pen or a pencil or something like that. So there are ways to do some of that. So again, the technology is making strides. Matt Forbeck ** 26:37 That's fantastic. Actually, it's wonderful. Just, yeah, it's great. I actually, you know, I lost half the vision of my right eye during back through an autoimmune disease about 13 years ago, and I've always had poor vision. So I'm a big fan of any kind of way to make things easier, Speaker 1 ** 26:54 like that. Well, there, there are things that that are available. It's pretty amazing. A guy named George curser. Curser created a lot of it years ago, and it's called the DAISY format. And the whole idea behind it is that you can actually create a book. In addition to the audio tracks, there are XML files that literally give you the ability to move and navigate around the book, depending on how it's created, as final level as you choose. Matt Forbeck ** 27:25 Oh, that's That's amazing. That's fantastic. I'm actually really glad to hear that. Speaker 1 ** 27:28 So, yeah, it is kind of fun. So there's a lot of technology that's that's doing a lot of different sorts of things and and it helps. But um, so for you, in terms of dealing with, with the games, you've, you've written games, but you've, you've actually written some novels as well, right? Matt Forbeck ** 27:50 Yeah, I've got like 30, it depends on how you count a novel, right? Okay, like some of my books are to pick a path books, right? Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff. So, but I've got 35 traditional novels written or more, I guess, now, I lost track a while ago, and probably another dozen of these interactive fiction books as well. So, and I like doing those. I've also written things like Marvel encyclopedias and Avengers encyclopedias and all sorts of different pop culture books. And, you know, I like playing in different worlds. I like writing science fiction, fantasy, even modern stuff. And most of it, for me comes down to telling stories, right? If you like to tell stories, you can tell stories through a game or book or audio play or a TV show or a comic, or I've done, you know, interactive museum, games and displays, things like that. The main thing is really a story. I mean, if you're comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a drink with somebody, doesn't have to be alcohol, just sitting down and telling stories with each other for fun. That's where the core of it all is really Speaker 1 ** 28:58 right. Tell me about interactive fiction book. Matt Forbeck ** 29:01 Sure, a lot of these are basically just done, like flow charts, kind of like the original Zork and adventure that you were talking about where you I actually, I was just last year, I brought rose Estes, who's the inventor of the endless quest books, which were a cross between Dungeons and Dragons, and choose your own adventure books. She would write the whole thing out page by page on a typewriter, and then, in order to shuffle the pages around so that people wouldn't just read straight through them, she'd throw them all up in the air and then just put them back in whatever order they happen to be. But essentially, you read a section of a book, you get to the end, and it gives you a choice. Would you like to go this way or that way? Would you like to go beat up this goblin? Or would you like to make friends with this warrior over here? If you want to do one of these things, go do page xx, right? Got it. So then you turn to that page and you go, boom, some, actually, some of the endless quest books I know were turned into audio books, right? And I actually, I. Um, oddly, have written a couple Dungeons and Dragons, interactive books, audio books that have only been released in French, right? Because there's a company called Looney l, u n, i, i that has this little handheld device that's for children, that has an A and a B button and a volume button. And you, you know, you get to the point that says, if you want to do this, push a, if you want to do that, push B, and the kids can go through these interactive stories and and, you know, there's ones for clue and Dungeons and Dragons and all sorts of other licenses, and some original stories too. But that way there's usually, like, you know, it depends on the story, but sometimes there's, like, 10 to 20 different endings. A lot of them are like, Oh no, you've been killed. Go back to where you started, right? And if you're lucky, the longer ones are, the more fun ones. And you get to, you know, save the kingdom and rescue the people and make good friends and all that good stuff, Michael Hingson ** 30:59 yeah, and maybe fall in love with the princess or Prince. Matt Forbeck ** 31:02 Yeah, exactly right. It all depends on the genre and what you're working in. But the idea is to give people some some choices over how they want the story to go. You're like, Well, do you want to investigate this dark, cold closet over here, or would you rather go running outside and playing around? And some of them can seem like very innocent choices, and other ones are like, well, uh, 10 ton weight just fell on. You go back to the last thing. Speaker 1 ** 31:23 So that dark hole closet can be a good thing or a bad thing, Matt Forbeck ** 31:28 exactly. And the trick is to make the deaths the bad endings, actually just as entertaining as anything else, right? And then people go, Well, I got beat, and I gotta go back and try that again. So yeah, if they just get the good ending all the way through, they often won't go back and look at all the terrible ones. So it's fun to trick them sometimes and have them go into terrible spots. And I like to put this one page in books too that sometimes says, How did you get here? You've been cheating there. This book, this page, is actually not led to from any other part of the book. You're just flipping Speaker 1 ** 31:59 through. Cheater, cheater book, do what you Matt Forbeck ** 32:04 want, but if you want to play it the right way, go back. Speaker 1 ** 32:07 Kid, if you want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, some people are nosy. Matt Forbeck ** 32:15 You know, I was always a kid who would poke around and wanted to see how things were, so I'm sure I would have found that myself but absolutely related, you know, Speaker 1 ** 32:23 yeah, I had a general science teacher who brought in a test one day, and he gave it to everyone. And so he came over to me because it was, it was a printed test. He said, Well, I'm not going to give you the test, because the first thing it says is, read all the instructions, read, read the test through before you pass it, before you take it. And he said, most people won't do that. And he said, I know you would. And the last question on the test is answer, only question one. Matt Forbeck ** 32:55 That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, Speaker 1 ** 32:57 that was cute. And he said, I know that. I that there's no way you would, would would fall for that, because you would say, Okay, let's read the instructions and then read the whole test. That's what it said. And the instruction were, just read the whole test before you start. And people won't do that. Matt Forbeck ** 33:13 No, they'll go through, take the whole thing. They get there and go, oh, did I get there? Was a, there's a game publisher. I think it was Steve Jackson Games, when they were looking for people, write for them, or design stuff for them, or submit stuff to them, would have something toward the end of the instructions that would say, put like a the letter seven, or put seven a on page one right, and that way they would know if you had read the instructions, if you hadn't bothered to Read the instructions, they wouldn't bother reading anything else. Speaker 1 ** 33:42 Yeah, which is fair, because the a little harsh, well, but, but, you know, we often don't learn enough to pay attention to details. I know that when I was taking physics in college, that was stressed so often it isn't enough to get the numbers right. If you don't get the units right as well. Then you're, you're not really paying attention to the details. And paying attention to the details is so important. Matt Forbeck ** 34:07 That's how they crash from those Mars rovers, wasn't it? They somebody messed up the units, but going back and forth between metric and, yeah, and Imperial and, well, you know, it cost somebody a lot of money at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What do you Speaker 1 ** 34:21 this is kind of the way it goes. Well, tell me, yeah. Well, they do matter, no matter what people think, sometimes they do matter. Well, tell me about the Diana Jones award. First of all, of course, the logical question for many people is, who is Diana Jones? Yeah, Diana Jones doesn't exist, right? That's There you go. She's part game somewhere? No, no, it doesn't be in a game somewhere. Matt Forbeck ** 34:43 Then now there's actually an author named Diana Wynne Jones, who's written some amazing fantasy stories, including Howell's Moving Castle, which has turned into a wonderful anime movie, but it has nothing to do with her or any other person. Because originally, the Diana Jones award came about. Because a friend of mine, James Wallace, had somehow stumbled across a trophy that fell into his hands, and it was a pub trivia trophy that used to be used between two different gaming companies in the UK, and one of those was TSR, UK, the United Kingdom department. And at one point, the company had laid off everybody in that division just say, Okay, we're closing it all down. So the guys went and burned a lot of the stuff that they had, including a copy of the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the only part of the logo that was left said Diana Jones. And for some reason, they put this in a in a fiberglass or Plexiglas pyramid, put it on a base, a wooden base, and it said the Diana Jones award trophy, right? And this was the trophy that they used they passed back and forth as a joke for their pub trivia contest. Fell into James's hands, and he decided, You know what, we're going to give this out for the most excellent thing in gaming every year. And we've now done this. This will be 25 years this summer. We do it at the Wednesday night before Gen Con, which starts on Thursday, usually at the end of July or early August. And as part of that, actually, about five years ago, we started, one of the guys suggested we should do something called the emerging designers program. So we actually became a 501, c3, so we could take donations. And now we take four designers every year, fly them in from wherever they happen to be in the world, and put them up in a hotel, give them a badge the show, introduce them to everybody, give them an honorarium so they can afford to skip work for a week and try to help launch their careers. I mean, these are people that are in the first three years of their design careers, and we try to work mostly with marginalized or et cetera, people who need a little bit more representation in the industry too. Although we can select anybody, and it's been really well received, it's been amazing. And there's a group called the bundle of holding which sells tabletop role playing game PDFs, and they've donated 10s of 1000s of dollars every year for us to be able to do this. And it's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd be end up running a nonprofit, but here I'm just the guy who writes checks to the different to the emerging designer program. Folks are much more tied into that community that I am. But one of the real reasons I wanted to do something like that or be involved with it, because if you wander around with these conventions and you notice that it starts getting very gray after a while, right? It's you're like, oh, there's no new people coming in. It's all older people. I we didn't I didn't want us to all end up as like the Grandpa, grandpa doing the HO model railroad stuff in the basement, right? This dying hobby that only people in their 60s and 70s care about. So bringing in fresh people, fresh voices, I think, is very important, and hopefully we're doing some good with that. It's been a lot of fun either way. Speaker 1 ** 37:59 Well, I have you had some success with it? Yeah, we've Matt Forbeck ** 38:02 had, well, let's see. I think we've got like 14 people. We've brought in some have already gone on to do some amazing things. I mean, it's only been a few years, so it's hard to tell if they're gonna be legends in their time, but again, having them as models for other people to look at and say, Oh, maybe I could do that. That's been a great thing. The other well, coincidentally, Dungeons and Dragons is having its best 10 year streak in its history right now, and probably is the best selling it's ever been. So coinciding with that, we've seen a lot more diversity and a lot more people showing up to these wonderful conventions and playing these kinds of games. There's also been an advent of this thing called actual play, which is the biggest one, is a group called Critical Role, which is a whole bunch of voice actors who do different cartoons and video games and such, and they play D and D with each other, and then they record the games, and they produce them on YouTube and for podcasts. And these guys are amazing. There's a couple of other ones too, like dimension 20 and glass cannon, the critical role guys actually sold out a live performance at Wembley Arena last summer. Wow. And dimension. Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden. I'm like, if you'd have told me 20 years ago that you know you could sell out an entire rock stadium to have people watch you play Dungeons and Dragons, I would have laughed. I mean, there's no way it would have been possible. But now, you know, people are very much interested in this. It's kind of wild, and it's, it's fun to be a part of that. At some level, Speaker 1 ** 39:31 how does the audience get drawn in to something like that? Because they are watching it, but there must be something that draws them in. Matt Forbeck ** 39:39 Yeah, part of it is that you have some really skilled some actors are very funny, very traumatic and very skilled at improvisation, right? So the the dungeon master or Game Master will sit there and present them with an idea or whatever. They come up each with their own characters. They put them in wonderful, strong voices. They kind of inhabit the roles in a way that an actor. A really top level actor would, as opposed to just, you know, me sitting around a table with my friends. And because of that, they become compelling, right? My Marty and my his wife and I were actually at a convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and this group called the McElroy family, actually, they do my brother, my brother and me, which is a hit podcast, but they also do an actual play podcast called The Adventure zone, where they just play different games. And they are so funny. These guys are just some of the best comedians you'll ever hear. And so them playing, they actually played our Marvel game for a five game session, or a five podcast session, or whatever, and it was just stunningly fun to listen to. People are really talented mess around with something that we built right it's very edifying to see people enjoying something that you worked on. Speaker 1 ** 40:51 Do you find that the audiences get drawn in and they're actually sort of playing the game along, or as well? And may disagree with what some of the choices are that people make? Matt Forbeck ** 41:02 Oh, sure. But I mean, if the choices are made from a point of the character that's been expressed, that people are following along and they they already like the character, they might go, Oh, those mean, you know that guy, there are some characters they love to hate. There are some people they're they're angry at whatever, but they always really appreciate the actors. I mean, the actors have become celebrities in their own right. They've they sell millions of dollars for the comic books and animated TV shows and all these amazing things affiliated with their actual play stuff. And it's, I think it, part of it is because, it's because it makes the games more accessible. Some people are intimidated by these games. So it's not really, you know, from a from a physical disability kind of point. It's more of a it makes it more accessible for people to be nervous, to try these things on their own, or don't really quite get how they work. They can just sit down and pop up YouTube or their podcast program and listen into people doing a really good job at it. The unfortunate problem is that the converse of that is, when you're watching somebody do that good of a job at it, it's actually hard to live up to that right. Most people who play these games are just having fun with their friends around a table. They're not performing for, you know, 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. So there's a different level of investments, really, at that point, and some people have been known to be cowed by that, by that, or daunted by that. Speaker 1 ** 42:28 You work on a lot of different things. I gather at the same time. What do you what do you think about that? How do you like working on a lot of different projects? Or do you, do you more focus on one thing, but you've got several things going on, so you'll work on something for one day, then you'll work on something else. Or how do you how do you do it all? Matt Forbeck ** 42:47 That's a good question. I would love to just focus on one thing at a time. Now, you know the trouble is, I'm a freelancer, right? I don't set my I don't always get to say what I want to work on. I haven't had to look for work for over a decade, though, which has been great. People just come to me with interesting things. The trouble is that when you're a freelancer, people come in and say, Hey, let's work on this. I'm like, Yeah, tell me when you're ready to start. And you do that with like, 10 different people, and they don't always line up in sequence properly, right? Yeah? Sometimes somebody comes up and says, I need this now. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of this other thing right now, so I need to not sleep for another week, and I need to try to figure out how I'm going to put this in between other things I'm working on. And I have noticed that after I finish a project, it takes me about a day or three to just jump track. So if I really need to, I can do little bits here and there, but to just fully get my brain wrapped around everything I'm doing for a very complex project, takes me a day or three to say, Okay, now I'm ready to start this next thing and really devote myself to it. Otherwise, it's more juggling right now, having had all those kids, probably has prepared me to juggle. So I'm used to having short attention span theater going on in my head at all times, because I have to jump back and forth between things. But it is. It's a challenge, and it's a skill that you develop over time where you're like, Okay, I can put this one away here and work on this one here for a little while. Like today, yeah, I knew I was going to talk to you, Michael. So I actually had lined up another podcast that a friend of mine wanted to do with me. I said, Let's do them on the same day. This way I'm not interrupting my workflow so much, right? Makes sense? You know, try to gang those all together and the other little fiddly bits I need to do for administration on a day. Then I'm like, Okay, this is not a day off. It's just a day off from that kind of work. It's a day I'm focusing on this aspect of what I do. Speaker 1 ** 44:39 But that's a actually brings up an interesting point. Do you ever take a day off or do what do you do when you're when you deciding that you don't want to do gaming for a while? Matt Forbeck ** 44:49 Yeah, I actually kind of terrible. But you know, you know, my wife will often drag me off to places and say we're going to go do this when. Yes, we have a family cabin up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that we go to. Although, you know, my habit there is, I'll work. I'll start work in the morning on a laptop or iPad until my battery runs out, and then I shut it down, put on a charger, and then I go out and swim with everybody for the rest of the day. So it depends if I'm on a deadline or not, and I'm almost always on a deadline, but there are times I could take weekends off there. One of the great things of being a freelancer, though, and especially being a stay at home father, which is part of what I was doing, is that when things come up during the middle of the week, I could say, oh, sure, I can be flexible, right? The trouble is that I have to pay for that time on my weekends, a lot of the time, so I don't really get a lot of weekends off. On the other hand, I'm not I'm not committed to having to work every day of the week either, right? I need to go do doctor appointments, or we want to run off to Great America and do a theme park or whatever. I can do that anytime I want to. It's just I have to make up the time at other points during the week. Does your wife work? She does. She was a school social worker for many years, and now as a recruiter at a local technical college here called Black Hawk tech. And she's amazing, right? She's fantastic. She has always liked working. The only time she stopped working was for about a year and a half after the quads were born, I guess, two years. And that was the only time I ever took a job working with anybody else, because we needed the health insurance, so I we always got it through her. And then when she said, Well, I'm gonna stay home with the kids, which made tons of sense, I went and took a job with a video game company up in Madison, Wisconsin called Human Head Studios for about 18 months, 20 months. And then the moment she told me she was thinking about going back to work, I'm like, Oh, good, I can we can Cobra for 18 months and pay for our own health insurance, and I'm giving notice this week, and, you know, we'll work. I left on good terms that everybody. I still talk to them and whatever, but I very much like being my own boss and not worrying about what other people are going to tell me to do. I work with a lot of clients, which means I have a lot of people telling me what to do. But you know, if it turns out bad, I can walk I can walk away. If it turns out good, hopefully we get to do things together, like the the gig I've been working out with Marvel, I guess, has been going on for like, four years now, with pretty continuous work with them, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. They're great people to work with. Speaker 1 ** 47:19 Now, you were the president of Pinnacle entertainment for a little while. Tell me about that. Matt Forbeck ** 47:24 I was, that was a small gaming company I started up with a guy named Shane Hensley, who was another tabletop game designer. Our big game was something called Dead Lands, which was a Western zombie cowboy kind of thing. Oh gosh, Western horror. So. And it was pretty much a, you know, nobody was doing Western horror back in those days. So we thought, Oh, this is safe. And to give you an example of parallel development, we were six months into development, and another company, White Wolf, which had done a game called Vampire the Masquerade, announced that they were doing Werewolf the Wild West. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Fortunately, we still released our game three months before there, so everybody thought we were copying them, rather than the other way around. But the fact is, we were. We both just came up with the idea independently. Right? When you work in creative fields, often, if somebody wants to show you something, you say, I'd like to look at you have to sign a waiver first that says, If I do something like this, you can't sue me. And it's not because people are trying to rip you off. It's because they may actually be working on something similar, right already. Because we're all, you know, swimming in the same cultural pool. We're all, you know, eating the same cultural soup. We're watching or watching movies, playing games, doing whatever, reading books. And so it's not unusual that some of us will come up with similar ideas Speaker 1 ** 48:45 well, and it's not surprising that from time to time, two different people are going to come up with somewhat similar concepts. So that's not a big surprise, exactly, but Matt Forbeck ** 48:56 you don't want people getting litigious over it, like no, you don't be accused of ripping anybody off, right? You just want to be as upfront with people. With people. And I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody, at least in gaming, in tabletop games, rip somebody off like that. Just say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're stealing that it's easier to pay somebody to just say, Yes, that's a great idea. We'll buy that from you, right? As opposed to trying to do something unseemly and criminal? Speaker 1 ** 49:24 Yeah, there's, there's something to be said for having real honor in the whole process. Matt Forbeck ** 49:30 Yeah, I agree, and I think that especially if you're trying to have a long term career in any field that follows you, if you get a reputation for being somebody who plays dirty, nobody wants to play with you in the future, and I've always found it to be best to be as straightforward with people and honest, especially professionally, just to make sure that they trust you. Before my quadruplets were born, you could have set your clock by me as a freelancer, I never missed a deadline ever, and since then, I've probably it's a. Rare earth thing to make a deadline, because, you know, family stuff happens, and you know, there's just no controlling it. But whenever something does happen, I just call people up and say, hey, look, it's going to be another week or two. This is what's going on. And because I have a good reputation for completing the job and finishing quality work, they don't mind. They're like, Oh, okay, I know you're going to get this to me. You're not just trying to dodge me. So they're willing to wait a couple weeks if they need to, to get to get what they need. And I'm very grateful to them for that. And I'm the worst thing somebody can do is what do, what I call turtling down, which is when it's like, Oh no, I'm late. And then, you know, they cut off all communication. They don't talk to anybody. They just kind of try to disappear as much as they can. And we all, all adults, understand that things happen in your life. It's okay. We can cut you some slack every now and then, but if you just try to vanish, that's not even possible. Speaker 1 ** 50:54 No, there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said for trust and and it's so important, I think in most anything that we do, and I have found in so many ways, that there's nothing better than really earning someone's trust, and they earning your trust. And it's something I talk about in my books, like when live with a guide dog, live like a guide dog, which is my newest book, it talks a lot about trust, because when you're working with a guide dog, you're really building a team, and each member of the team has a specific job to do, and as the leader of the team, it's my job to also learn how to communicate with the other member of the team. But the reality is, it still comes down to ultimately, trust, because I and I do believe that dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that people that dogs are much more open to trust, for the most part, unless they've just been totally traumatized by something, but they're more open to trust. And there's a lesson to be learned there. No, I Matt Forbeck ** 52:03 absolutely agree with that. I think, I think most people in general are trustworthy, but as you say, a lot of them have trauma in their past that makes it difficult for them to open themselves up to that. So that's actually a pretty wonderful way to think about things. I like that, Speaker 1 ** 52:17 yeah, well, I think that trust is is so important. And I know when I worked in professional sales, it was all about trust. In fact, whenever I interviewed people for jobs, I always asked them what they were going to sell, and only one person ever answered me the way. I really hoped that everybody would answer when I said, So, tell me what you're going to be selling. He said, The only thing I have to really sell is myself and my word, and nothing else. It really matters. Everything else is stuff. What you have is stuff. It's me selling myself and my word, and you have to, and I would expect you to back me up. And my response was, as long as you're being trustworthy, then you're going to get my backing all the way. And he was my most successful salesperson for a lot of reasons, because he got it. Matt Forbeck ** 53:08 Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I mean, I've worked with people sourcing different things too, for sales, and if you can rely on somebody to, especially when things go wrong, to come through for you. And to be honest with you about, you know, there's really that's a hard thing to find. If you can't depend on your sources for what you're building, then you can't depend on anything. Everything else falls apart. Speaker 1 ** 53:29 It does. You've got to start at the beginning. And if people can't earn your trust, and you earn theirs, there's a problem somewhere, and it's just not going to work. Matt Forbeck ** 53:39 Yeah, I just generally think people are decent and want to help. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had issues. Car breaks down the road in Wisconsin. Here, if somebody's car goes in the ditch, everybody stops and just hauls them out. It's what you do when the quads were born, my stepmother came up with a sign up sheet, a booklet that she actually had spiral bound, that people could sign up every three three hours to help come over and feed and bathe, diaper, whatever the kids and we had 30 to 35 volunteers coming in every week. Wow, to help us out with that was amazing, right? They just each pick slots, feeding slots, and come in and help us out. I had to take the 2am feeding, and my wife had to take the 5am feeding by ourselves. But the rest of the week we had lots and lots of help, and we were those kids became the surrogate grandchildren for, you know, 30 to 35 women and couples really, around the entire area, and it was fantastic. Probably couldn't have survived Speaker 1 ** 54:38 without it. And the other part about it is that all those volunteers loved it, because you all appreciated each other, and it was always all about helping and assisting. Matt Forbeck ** 54:48 No, we appreciate them greatly. But you know every most of them, like 99% of them, whatever were women, 95 women who are ready for grandchildren and didn't have them. Had grandchildren, and they weren't in the area, right? And they had that, that love they wanted to share, and they just loved the opportunity to do it. It was, I'm choking up here talking about such a great time for us in Speaker 1 ** 55:11 that way. Now I'm assuming today, nobody has to do diaper duty with the quads, right? Matt Forbeck ** 55:16 Not until they have their own kids. Just checking, just checking, thankfully, think we're that is long in our past, Speaker 1 ** 55:23 is it? Is it coming fairly soon for anybody in the future? Matt Forbeck ** 55:27 Oh, I don't know. That's really entirely up to them. We would love to have grandchildren, but you know, it all comes in its own time. They're not doing no well. I, one of my sons is married, so it's possible, right? And one of my other sons has a long term girlfriend, so that's possible, but, you know, who knows? Hopefully they're they have them when they're ready. I always say, if you have kids and you want them, that's great. If you have, if you don't have kids and you don't want them, that's great. It's when you cross the two things that, Speaker 1 ** 55:57 yeah, trouble, yeah, that's that is, that is a problem. But you really like working with yourself. You love the entre
Parshat Ki Tavo: Amalek alway gets involved?!? Mayan 2000 and the forgotten bag!!!
What can a normal guy do to get communist DA’s out of office? Getting your normie friend involved in politics doesn’t mean you have to turn them into you. The value of human life. Zimbabwe vs North Korea. Follow The Jesse Kelly Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJesseKellyShowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Steak and Rusty break down what it will take for Georgia to leave Knoxville with a win this weekend.
RTÉ has announced that it will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song contest "if the participation of Israel goes ahead".Elaine Burke, host of the 'For Tech's Sake' podcast, joins The Last Word to discuss the broadcaster's statement and whether other countries may follow suit.Catch the full chat by pressing the 'Play' button on this page!
Carl Turner, founder of Turner Works, talks to Rachel and Louise about the thinking behind his year-long sabbatical. How did he prepare for it, what did he do with it, and what's next for Turner Works?Coaches On The Couch is co-hosted by Louise Rodgers and Rachel Birchmore who are exec and leadership coaches. They design and deliver bespoke leadership development programmes and coaching for architects, engineers and other consultancies across the built environment. For more information, please visit www.StepUpLondon.com
Tonight, we're continuing our deep dive into the bombshell release of the Epstein Birthday Book, and yes, the infamous birthday letter Donald Trump wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. First they said it didn't exist. Now that the receipts are out, they're trying a new line: it wasn't really from Trump. Really? So when can we expect more from the Epstein files? And will MAGA ever admit that Trump may have been involved, or are they sticking with denial ‘til the bitter end? Joining us to break it all down is Rep. Dave Min from California. This episode is brought to you by ZBiotics. Go to https://zbiotics.com/LEMON and use LEMON at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. This episode is brought to you by Wild Alaskan. Not all fish are the same! Get seafood you can trust. Go to https://wildalaskan.com/LEMON for $35 off your first box of premium, wild-caught seafood. This episode is sponsored by Beam. Visit https://shopbeam.com/lemon and use code LEMON at checkout to get our exclusive discount of UP TO 40% off. This episode is sponsored by MSI Choices. Go to https://msiunitedstates.org or text “lemon” to five eleven five eleven. Text “lemon” to 511511 and see all the Wonderful services they provide. Text Fees May Apply. This episode is sponsored by Shopify. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/lemon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode of the Foster Friendly Podcast, host Brian Mavis and co-host Courtney Williams engage with Ryan O'Donnell, a tech entrepreneur and former foster parent, who discusses his journey from organizing a record-breaking food drive to creating a technology platform aimed at improving communication and collaboration within the foster care system.Ryan shares his personal experiences as a foster parent, the challenges he faced, and how these experiences inspired him to develop 'Your Case Plan', an app designed to streamline communication among all parties involved in a child's welfare. The conversation also touches on the importance of legal representation for families, the need for affordable housing solutions for foster youth, and the broader implications of technology in enhancing the foster care system.TakeawaysRyan O'Donnell is a tech entrepreneur and former foster parent.He organized a record-breaking food drive during high school.His experiences as a foster parent highlighted communication issues in the system.'Your Case Plan' was developed to improve collaboration in foster care.The app is free for families and aims to streamline communication.Ryan emphasizes the importance of legal representation for families in the system.Affordable housing solutions are crucial for youth aging out of foster care.The foster care system often lacks transparency, leading to poor outcomes.Ryan's work aims to break the cycle of families entering the system.The conversation highlights the need for multifaceted solutions in foster care. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Foster Friendly Podcast.Learn more about being a foster or adoptive parent or supporting those who are in your community.Meet kids awaiting adoption. Join us in helping kids in foster care by donating $18 a month and change the lives of foster kids before they age out.Visit AmericasKidsBelong.org and click the donate button to help us change the outcomes of kids in foster care.
6am Hour 1 - Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase talk about the Bills use of Josh Allen against the Baltimore Ravens and why the offense didn't utilize him heavily until late in the game.
Duane "Keffe D" Davis the man charged with Tupac's death, says P Diddy was involved in the murder. Mariah Carey is going viral for her performance at the VMAs!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Man arrested at Florida liquor store after allegedly 'spitting blood' at deputies, Two women stole from a T.J. Maxx store and were arrested in a Wendy's drive-thru next door, The Dad involved in the 'Phillies Karen' incident explains why he gave the ball back
NEWS: Discayas name lawmakers, DPWH officials involved in alleged extortion | Sept. 9, 2025Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net Follow us: Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital Check out our Podcasts: Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein #TheManilaTimes#KeepUpWithTheTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episode 197 - Happy Dad, Healthy Family, Joyful Fatherhood Without GuiltDads often neglect their own happiness in favor of family needs, but prioritizing personal joy and open communication is critical for the well-being of the entire family and the health of relationships. Making time for hobbies, self-care, and sharing these needs with a partner—as well as letting go of guilt—helps dads stay recharge, remain engaged, and model healthy emotional behaviors for their children.Making Time for YourselfBusy dads can reclaim "me time" through intentional strategies such as scheduling personal activities, setting boundaries, starting with small time commitments (as little as 15–30 minutes a day), integrating family and personal interests, and practicing mindfulness. Suggestions include engaging in hobbies, regular exercise, solo outings (like seeing a movie or getting a massage), and spending time with friends.Rekindling Joy Guilt-FreeMany fathers feel guilty for enjoying personal activities away from family, but embracing hobbies and interests helps recharge energy and enrich identity—making for better parenting. Communication and reciprocity with a partner are essential: encourage each other to pursue interests and recognize everyone's unique needs for self-care. Letting go of guilt leads to happier, more balanced fatherhood.Talking With Your PartnerHaving an honest conversation with a partner is crucial. Express what you need in terms of self-care—time, activities, and support—and invite your partner to share their needs too. Approach it as a two-way, empathetic discussion focused on “refilling your cup” so you're present, fulfilled, and better able to support your family. Implementing a clear and mutual plan ensures both partners understand and honor each other's needs.Impact on Family Health and RelationshipsA dad's well-being is strongly tied to family health, children's development, and relationship satisfaction. When fathers model healthy self-care and emotional fulfillment, children benefit from improved attachment, confidence, academic achievement, and psychological health. Involved, happy dads create nurturing environments where the whole family thrivesHere is an action-oriented summary that dads can use and apply right away to find more joy, prioritize happiness, and support their families through intentional self-care:Action Steps for DadsCommit to Prioritizing Your Well-Being: Make a conscious decision to value your happiness and self-care as essential, not optional. Recognize that when you care for yourself, you model healthy behavior and improve the family's well-being.Schedule “Me Time” Regularly: Block out time in your calendar each week for hobbies, interests, exercise, or peaceful downtime. Treat this time as non-negotiable and just as important as other commitments.Acknowledge Your Emotions: Notice and accept your feelings—whether stress, joy, or anxiety—without judgment. Express your needs and feelings openly, so you're less likely to bottle them up.Talk to Your Partner: Share openly about your need for personal time and fulfillment. Frame the conversation around being your best self for your partner and family. Invite them to share their needs as well and work on a plan together.Reconnect with Your Passions: Restart a hobby or activity that once brought joy. Let go of guilt—making time for healthy interests helps recharge your mental, emotional, and physical health.Stay Connected: Maintain friendships and build community—especially with other dads. Social support makes it easier to process challenges and celebrate joys.Stay Active: Add movement to your daily routine, like walking, biking, or playing a sport. Physical activity is a proven stress reliever and energizer.Ask for Help When...
Muazh Ibn Jabal رضي الله عنه (S48) Muazh رضي الله عنه was involved in the campaigns during Abu Bakr's رضي الله عنه Khilafat. The cousin of Muazh رضي الله عنه, Asma bint Yazeed Ibn Sakan رضي الله عنها killed 9 Romans with a tent pole in the Battle of Yarmook. During the Battle of Pella, the Romans suggested a messenger to be sent to them. Abu Ubaydah رضي الله عنه sent Muazh رضي الله عنه. Muazh رضي الله عنه use the Qur'an to answer the Romans questions…
Comments? Feedback@SellSellSell.online or Facebook *** New Seller Meeting Event Format *** Automatic Positive Feedback Live *** Update on Anniversary Parties *** Mailbag: eBay Refurbished - What's Involved? *** More Major Feedback Changes on the Horizon *** Canada Gets EIS
Also, who are the vigilante group Greater Shankill patrol Angel's?
J.R. was a DJ at a wedding and he saw a fight that included the bride and one of her bridesmaids.
Serious concerns with Guardians' rotation + How much "bad luck" is involved? full 994 Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:12:34 +0000 HLRxwQ3aIMmuWFbxfDuRgpgJGpAGTD4D mlb,cleveland guardians,sports The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima mlb,cleveland guardians,sports Serious concerns with Guardians' rotation + How much "bad luck" is involved? The only place to talk about the Cleveland sports scene is with Ken Carman and Anthony Lima. The two guide listeners through the ups and downs of being a fan of the Browns, Cavaliers, Guardians and Ohio State Buckeyes in Northeast Ohio. They'll help you stay informed with breaking news, game coverage, and interviews with top personalities.Catch The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima live Monday through Friday (6 a.m. - 10 a.m ET) on 92.3 The Fan, the exclusive audio home of the Browns, or on the Audacy app. For more, follow the show on X @KenCarmanShow. 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Sports False https://player.a
On the heels of the John Todd episode I have been asked to weigh in on former "Christian" comedian Mike Warnke. Hitting the scene with tales of being a warlock overseeing a conven of at least 1500 witches. Involved in sacrifices, drugs and many other salacious activities was his claim to fame along with his book and comedy.Like Todd, there are very serious questions regarding the truth and authenticity to Warnke's claims. Let's look into them.Email us at: downtherh@protonmail.com
In this bonus episode, Tarrus addresses a controversy he finds himself involved in with a home theater business. Listen in as he shares details about the situation and provides an explanation regarding the outcome. FWT Website: thefunwasteoftime.com FWT Email: podcast@thefunwasteoftime.com Be sure to subscribe and follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and all other major podcast platforms!
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Nick Wilson and Jonathan Peterlin talk about the Browns representation at college football games in Week 1. Then, they give each other quick stories around sports and give their instant reaction to them.
Nick and Jonathan discuss the Browns focus on this season, along with Jimmy Haslam's involvement.
Final hour Missouri Lieutenant Governor David Wasinger joins to talk about the special session that Gov. Kehoe has called and more. Marc is joined by Host of Show Me St. Louis Mary Caltrider and Producer Mary Thaier to preview the 30th anniversary of Show Me St. Louis. Ryan Wiggins, Host of Wiggins America talks Marty Makary statement on new Covid booster plus Jack Buck story.
See whole interview - https://youtube.com/live/08Td5yBih7c?feature=shareGet immersed in Portuguese culture at Carl Munson's Portugal Club - https://www.skool.com/gmp-vips-1236Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-good-morning-portugal-podcast-with-carl-munson--2903992/support.Let us help you find YOUR home in Portugal...Whether you are looking to BUY, RENT or SCOUT, reach out to Carl Munson and connect with the biggest and best network of professionals that have come together through Good Morning Portugal! over the last five years that have seen Portugal's meteoric rise in popularity.Simply contact Carl by phone/WhatsApp on (00 351) 913 590 303, email carl@carlmunson.com or enter your details
What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms
How do we help our kids succeed in school without becoming the dreaded "snowplow" parents? Here are some parenting tips for advocating for your child at school when necessary, while also empowering our kids to navigate their own learning. Amy and Margaret discuss: How school environments have changed in the last few decades Best practices for helping kids of different ages manage homework How to start a productive conversation with your child's educators about concerns you may have Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode: Jenny Anderson for TIME Magazine: "Many American Parents Have No Idea How Their Kids Are Doing in School" Carrie Bauer, et. al, for Slate: Help Me Help My Kid Libby Stanford for Education Week: "Does Parent Involvement Really Help Students? Here's What the Research Says" U.S. Department of Education: "Raise the Bar: Resources for Parents and Families" Cara Goodwin for KQED's Mind/Shift: "How important is homework, and how much should parents help?" See our interview with Jennifer Breheny Wallace - author of Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About It We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ Get 50% Off Monarch Money, the all-in-one financial tool at www.monarchmoney.com/FRESH mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid's behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, academic achievement, school achievement, homework Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dr. Peter Barrett, Consultant in public health medicine with University College Cork
Jos Lazet is the co-founder and CEO of Blockrise, a regulated, bitcoin-native financial institution in Europe. Involved with Bitcoin since 2013, he's on a mission to build the secure, trusted bridge between traditional finance and the world's most important digital asset.› https://www.blockrise.comPARTNERS
On this new episode of THE POLITICRAT daily podcast Omar Moore on the vital necessity and importance of voting, checking your voter registration and staying involved in the political process all year round, beyond just voting itself. Check your voter registration at least twice a month--no matter which state you live in in the U.S.Recorded August 29, 2025.SUBSCRIBE: https://mooreo.substack.comSUBSCRIBE: https://youtube.com/@thepoliticratpodSUBSCRIBE: https://politicrat.substack.comVOLUNTEER FOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI :https://zohranfornyc.com/volunteerhttps://zohranfornyc.com/eventsPLEASE READ OMAR'S LATEST SUBSTACK ARTICLE: "Some Ways To Improve Your Mental Health..." (Written on August 24, 2025) : https://open.substack.com/pub/mooreo/p/here-are-some-of-the-ways-you-can?r=275tyr&utm_medium=iosBUY BLACK!Patronize Lanny Smith's Actively Black apparel business: https://activelyblack.comPatronize Melanin Haircare: https://melaninhaircare.comPatronize Black-owned businesses on Roland Martin's Black Star Network: https://shopblackstarnetwork.comBLACK-OWNED MEDIA MATTERS: (Watch Roland Martin Unfiltered daily M-F 6-8pm Eastern)https://youtube.com/rolandsmartin Download the Black Star Network appIf you would like to contribute financially to The Politicrat: please send money via Zelle to omooresf@gmail.comSOCIAL MEDIA:https://fanbase.app/popcornreel(Invest in Fanbase now! https://startengine.com/fanbase)https://spoutible.com/popcornreelhttps://popcornreel.bsky.socialAnd spill.com (@popcornreel)
Support the show: http://www.newcountry963.com/hawkeyeinthemorningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen to host Kristin Yokomoto discuss various aspects of the CLA Trusts and Estates Section Executive Committee (TEXCOM) with guests Matthew McMurtrey and Ryka Farotte. Learn about how TEXCOM monitors all California bills, some of which become law that impact our trusts and estates practice. We discuss Matt's 11-year term on TEXCOM and Ryka's 6-year term, their leadership roles, and some of the contributions they have made to the CLA Trusts and Estates Section and the community. Learn more about the focus of TEXCOM's Legislation, Estate Planning, Incapacity, Trust Administration, and Litigation Committees and how you can become involved.Our Speakers:Matthew McMurtrey is the managing partner at Sacks, Glazier, Franklin, Lodise, McMurtrey & Scheerer, LLP in Los Angeles. Matt is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the California Lawyer's Association Trusts and Estates Section 2021-22 Chair of the Executive Committee (TEXCOM), and a former Chair of TEXCOM's Litigation Subcommittee. Ryka Farotte is a research attorney in the Probate Department of the Los Angeles Superior Court. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the California Lawyer Association's Trusts and Estates Section (TEXCOM) where he serves as Chair of the Incapacity Subcommittee. Thank you for listening to Trust Me!Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra StudiosEdited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek
LIVE: Boy Green reacts to the latest news/rumors around the New York Jets ahead of the deadline!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/boy-green-daily--1753389/support.
Be sure to tune into our next segment of “NEVER FORGET” with our special guest, the widow of FDNY Captain John Drennan, Vina Drennan. We will also be joined by 43 year FDNY veteran Deputy Chief Jay Jonas. Captain John Drennan, one of three firefighters who died in the line of duty as a result of the Watts Street Fire in New York City on March 28, 1994. After Captain Drennan's death…40 days after the tragic fire, Ms Drennan turned her attention to fire life safety for firefighters and the public. Her incredible commitment to the fire service has impacted all who have heard her personal story. Small list of her accomplishments : -Secretary of the Board for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) -Founding member of NFFF's Fire Service Survivors Network -Lobbied U.S. Congress during multiple attempts to pass Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act -Testified for fire safety on national, state and local levels -Involved with the FDNY Fire Foundation -Worked with the New York State Task -Force of Fire Safety Teacher Training Curriculum We will get the whole skinny. You don't want to miss this one. Join us at the Kitchen Table on the BEST FIREFIGHTER PODCAST ON THE INTERNET! You can also Listen to our podcast ...we are on all the players #lovethisjob #GiveBackMoreThanYouTake #Oldschool #meanttobe #neverforgetBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gettin-salty-experience-firefighter-podcast--4218265/support.
What does it take to lead with purpose in philanthropy today? How can foundations lead in moments of political uncertainty or during periods of reduced federal support for nonprofits?As nonprofits across the country face political and financial pressures—from policy rollbacks to funding cuts—the role of foundations has never been more critical. In this episode, Dr. Sherece West-Scantlebury, President & CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, joins us to reflect on how philanthropy can lead in uncertain times. With decades of experience in public policy, community development, and systems change, Dr. West-Scantlebury shares how WRF is leaning into its 50-year legacy to support nonprofits through advocacy, trust-based funding, and bold, equity-focused strategies.For nonprofit leaders navigating a shifting landscape, this conversation offers insight into how to build power, communicate with clarity, and partner with funders who are ready to act.
Joe: Huge takeaway from WH meeting is a security guarantee with the U.S. involved
A full day of diplomacy is still underway at the White House where President Trump tries to broker a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine. Last hour President Trump paused a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and European leaders to speak with with Vladimir Putin on the phone. This comes as President Trump appears to waffle at the idea of a ceasefire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It is easy to believe God reigns in heaven, but it is more difficult to believe God reigns on earth. In this episode, Rabbi Schneider elaborates on why God does not fully exert His sovereignty over the earth. **** BECOME A MONTHLY PARTNER - https://djj.show/YTAPartner **** DONATE - https://djj.show/YTADonate **** TEACHING NOTES - https://djj.show/1jq Visit our website at DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com
Today, we replay our extra-long July Fourth show, with a fresh introduction that makes it more relevant today than last month. I tie in the lessons and ideals of the founding fathers to the time we are living in today. Weaving together the final thoughts on the budget reconciliation bill and judicial tyranny, I demonstrate how MAGA Inc. is subverting its own stated beliefs because it's easier to declare victory on false hope rather than actually fight for results. As I predicted, the Supreme Court ruling on universal injunctions did nothing to stop the judicial tyranny. I list six reasons why that ruling was subversive. Yet MAGA leaders continue to perpetuate the myth of judicial supremacism in the Constitution when it flies in the face of the entire principle we celebrate on July Fourth. We need to have a plan. MAGA Inc.'s plan is to grift on social media off fake victories. It is incumbent upon us to formulate a real plan — if not federally, at least in a few states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
00:00 NFC west order of finish predictions13:00 Kirk Cousins won't play in preseason 20:00 Michael Penix, Jr. involved in practice fight with Titans26:40 James Cook & Bills agree to new 4-year deal34:00 Most indispensable non QBs
What should boundaries look like with our parents once we become adults? Do we have to answer the phone every time they call? If you are wondering how to honor your parents while also maintaining your individuality this is for you!
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