Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #753: Gaby Spartz

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

In this podcast, I talk with Gaby Spartz about streaming and doing commentary.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so I have a wonderful guest with me today, Gabby Spartz. Hey, Gabby. Hi. Hi, Mark. How are you? It's good to see you. Okay, so I'm going to ask you the question. I always start with the same question, is how did you get into magic? to Magic? Sure. So I got into Magic around 2011. And one of my best friends from college actually knew that I would love the game because he played as a kid, but I'd never played Magic. So he got us or he got me actually a deck builder's toolkit for my birthday. And he called it a selfish gift because he wanted to play too, because he hadn't played Magic in years. And so I was like, okay, we'll try it out so we made some

really really kind of bad decks which just had like the monogreen deck the like black vampires deck which is the one that I played and a bunch of people at my office we all got into it at the same time which was really cool because it was some people who had played when they were kids and they hadn't played in a long time some people people who had never played, like I had never had played, and some people who had dabbled in and out. So I think together we kind of formed this group of, like, magic players at work, and eventually we started going to, like, FNM, and then we started going to Grand Prixs and stuff.

So it was awesome. It was cool to do it with friends. Okay, so how did you go? So that's very simple times. How did you sort of go from casually playing in the office to having magic become a much bigger part of your life what was that transition so i think we all got into it to varying degrees of intensity so we had a friend who was like immediately going into andrew beckstrom actually he was immediately into the like ptq scene and he got really competitive real fast.

I was definitely on the more like I'm going to go on Fridays and this is kind of fun. But I had recently moved to Chicago, so I didn't really have a like a well-developed group of friends there. And we got into magic right around the same time. So going to FNM means that a lot of my social circle in Chicago just became magic players that I met playing the game so that part was really cool because it just became such a big part of my life very quickly because it wasn't just that I loved the game it also just became this like very big social aspect to my life and eventually many many years after I started playing I stumbled upon Twitch and I had done a lot of work on YouTube. And I went to the Magic Directory. And this is back when there was only Magic Online.

And there were so few people streaming it at the time. And I was like, I can do that too. Like, I definitely know how to do this. I've done stuff like this for YouTube. So I made a Twitch account and didn't really have like a rig. I just had like a very, very medium laptop that I was streaming out of. But I really loved it. And the community was awesome. So I just started streaming since then. That was about five years ago now. So let's talk a little bit.

Because, I mean, one of the things that I'm trying to do with my interviews is I want to expose the audience to a lot of different aspects of magic. And so I'm excited to talk with you about streaming. Because I think that, I don't know. I mean, a lot of people obviously watch streamers, but a lot of people aren't even aware. So let's talk a little bit, what is streaming? Let's get into the idea of what exactly streaming is. Sure. So the funny thing with streaming is I think a lot of people think, it's like, why would you watch other people play games, right? And I think that gets lost in the sauce. Sometimes people don't quite follow, like like why would you watch other people play games when you could play it yourself but i i feel like it's similar to watching other people play sports right you don't always gonna want to go play sports

yourself you watch other people do it and so um that's part of the beauty of streaming is that it's not just for magic right it's for anything it can be people streaming them cooking and making cakes, decorating something. It could be them making music, play the piano, or play games. And for me, it was Magic because that was the game I was obsessed with at the time, still am. But it's really cool because you develop this like nice community around streaming the game because if you're not familiar with it, you get to see the person playing the game you get to the person themselves and there's a chat and the chat gets involved in how you play so the chat gets to you're doing a draft for example the chat gets to weigh in they get to say like oh you should take this or that and um if you made a bad play they get to

make fun of you for punting or if you made a sick play they get to like congratulate you because it was good right so it becomes a very social experience it's much bigger than just streaming a game it's a communal activity yeah so one of the things that I find very interesting um is like one of the things I want to expose people to one of the reasons I've been doing a lot of different interviews is that magic is so many different things like one of the things to me that's fascinating is that um there's so many different communities out there, right? It's not, I mean, there's kind of a larger Magic community, but really

it's a lot of smaller communities that, you know, and like, for example, you have people, I assume, that watch you regularly, that, you know, one of the things they, one of the shows they like to watch is you playing Magic. And what, I want to get down a little bit what is it

like so when you're playing how is playing a game with what while you're streaming different from just playing a game so it's actually quite different because magic is a very complicated game right it's like it requires a lot of thinking so it's a strategic game it makes sense so when you're playing by yourself you'll like sit there and you'll consider like should i attack should i block like what should i do um or even if you're drafting you're like trying to think like what cards did i pick what should my next pick be or like trying to evaluate cards like maybe if the set is new you're trying to figure out like does this card look good when you're reading it but when you're playing with other people watching it really changes the

dynamic of how that works instead of being uh just about playing it ends up being kind of you can end up having like one of the things that's like pretty common in my stream is we just go off topic you know like we'll be playing magic and it's with all the magic people but we'll go off topic and talk about lots of things or a lot of times it'll be like if it's a simple play like if it's so obvious that you should just like turn everyone sideways it's like okay cool a tackle like, if it's a simple play, like if it's so obvious that you should just like turn everyone sideways, it's like, okay, cool. A tackle easy. But if it's a really complicated play, maybe you can be like, Hmm, so we have two options.

We can do this or we could do that. And this would be good if it's this case, or this would be bad if they have this card. Hmm. And then kind of collectively you can be like, ah, let's just take the risk. Let's go for it. And then you can either, it goes great or you get punished. So it does mean you play a little slower. Like for me, that definitely means that, but it also feels like it's cool to have people be able to take a look at what you're doing, because you also get to learn from that. Like a lot of times you get to stop and be like, huh,

wow, that really didn't go well. Let's think about it. Why, what could we have done differently? Not just this turn, but like even earlier. What could we have done to win that game? And it feels really good to have other people to kind of bounce those ideas off of because other people are alternative lines of play or maybe they're like, oh, what if we had taken this card on turn two with Thoughtseize?

Like it changes a lot of that. So how much of streaming do you think is entertainment versus sort of playing the game um it's like half and half i think it's more towards entertainment to be honest because at least in the way i experience streams is i will treat them like i'm watching a show but one that i'm not really paying that much attention to because i'll be doing something else so like one of the ways I watch Twitch is I'll be working on one monitor and I'll have somebody else to stream up on the other.

So I won't always be looking at what they're doing, which always happens with streaming and people love to come in and they're like, why don't you do this thing? It's like, well, I can't do that because those are like three illegal plays or like that's all the card does, which happens all the time.

But it does mean that you do have to have that entertainment factor right because if it's not just watching the stream that people are going to want to be there for like beyond beyonds it's entertaining like what what does it feel like what are the other people in the community like and some for some streamers it's true like i think for some streamers it is just about playing the game some people are just like laser focused and and like pulling to see if they're like looking on turn one, like, ha, which of these three lands do I play? And, like,

saying nothing. But that's what's cool, right? It changes from stream to stream. Well, yeah, one of the things that I find, the dynamic I find very interesting is one of the things about the Magic community is this idea of wanting to share with one another, you know, like,

having a shared thing, and that the neat thing about a stream is that, like one another. You know, like, having a shared thing. And the neat thing about a stream is that... Like, it's fun to... I mean, how big do your streams get? Like, how many people... What's your high point of a stream, for example? It really varies. I think, like...

I recently did a media kit, so I know my average concurrent viewership is, like, around 500. But, like, you have some days where you just go up to, like, 1, of depends when the sets out when the new sets out there's a lot more people who i think get really excited because they maybe haven't gone to fnm yet but they're excited about the new set they kind of want to see what what's up right and they want to see somebody else like draft different archetypes or see what they think about like

the new card so depending on what's going on like it really can't just it's a really wide range of how many people can show up but it but it's always like a healthy amount of people who are weighing in the chat and you can kind of have those conversations so one of the things i know about so i have a son i have a 16 year old son um and his name is adam and one of the things that adam does is he watches switch all the time because he's trying to learn like one of the things i Adam does is he watches Twitch all the time because he's trying to learn. Like, one of the things I know that I'm sure happens for you is, and maybe this is why people really like

on new sets, is I don't know what's going on. I want to get comfortable before I go and do it live because I want to make sure, you know, I don't want to look foolish or something. So it's fun to sort of watch somebody else do it, and I can get comfortable sort of viscerally watching them so that when I go do

it myself, I I'm, I'm coming from a place of comfort. How much, how much of that happens? A hundred percent. That is a big part of streaming. I think I,

I do think this varies from streamer to streamer because some, some people are like, you know what? I'm not here to think I'm here to play my deck and it, maybe it's bad and it doesn't matter. But I do think learning is a big part of it. Like for the people who are learning, I think they will be paying a lot more attention like they won't just be here to to hang out they'll they'll be here because they want to be like hey i like

the deck you're playing i want to see you play that deck and if you have tips and tricks i want to know that it's similar to when people go look for strategic articles and and they try to find um how do i play this deck better because this is and this is one of the things that i think makes magic truly awesome is that you just have so many different directions and so many different decks so many different strategies that you can play that you could be a great like aggro player and it's very different than being like a good combo player right so sometimes i will go to like matt nasa stream for example and i'll be like i want to watch you play this specific deck because i know

i can learn a lot from that yeah whereas i might not necessarily want to watch him play like an aggro deck because he wouldn't even be streaming that in the first place but i do feel like learning from other players is a big part of it because you do pick up all the streamers generally play a lot so they tend to play decently well so you can learn a lot from them okay so i want to dig a little more into i mean you do a lot of streaming but i'll also talk so let's talk about some of the other things you do with magic um sure um i used to not as much anymore but i used to be a play-by-play commentator for wizards so i i was living the traveling life every weekend.

That was really fun. I got kind of burnt out on it. The travel was a little much for me, but I love doing it. Well, let's talk about that. What's it like? So for the person, like, what is that life like? It was really cool for, like I said, I got burnt out of the travel mostly because I'm such a homebody.

Like, that's the biggest thing for me. But it was really cool because it was both for Grand Prix and Pro Tours. So for a while it was like, you know, this weekend we were in Atlanta and then the next weekend we were in Hawaii for the Pro Tour. And then the next weekend we were in Texas for another Grand Prix. So it was a lot of travel, but also you get to work with some really talented people. And I loved everybody that I worked with and it's, it's a stressful job,

but it's also very rewarding. And it's also like, I feel like there's a lot of room for growth. Like I always felt like I had a lot of room for improvement and that's something I really cared about. So I want to, for people, I mean, obviously behind the scenes, I like sort of sharing behind the scenes. So what is it, if you're a play by play, what does it mean? What are you actually doing? Like what, what's the physicality of it? So in the booth and actually, you know, I'm'm glad you really i'm glad you asked me that because i think a lot of people don't know this in the booth there's two roles there's always two roles there's a play-by-play commentator and then there's a the expert slash the color it's the uh the analyst so the play-by-play is the host so

the host welcomes people when they come back to the broadcast so you know they get a countdown from the producer and you'll be like hello hello, everybody. Welcome back to Pro Tour Hawaii, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you just do like an intro. You do things like throw to ads, like you're the person who's kind of directing the broadcast. And you are also the person who's in charge of asking the analyst the questions. So it's your job to know every card, what they're called, what they look like like like you have to know that like this and you have to be very quick with it and you're setting up you actually set up questions that sounds sometimes dumb like they make you look kind of like you don't know what

you're talking about but it's because you're asking so that the color can say oh yeah this was a great play for this reason or so like you'll ask things like, what is the bad matchup for this deck? You might know, but you're setting up the analyst. And then the analyst on the other side of the booth is a person who's very knowledgeable. They could be a hall of famer. They could be a pro player. And their job is to kind of walk the audience

through what's happening in the game and tell you what things were good or what things were bad. And maybe like what a player needs to do to get out of a situation or like how they can come back in a game if they're really far behind. So you kind of do this like ping pong between the two of you where you ask questions and set them up and ask them to answer those questions. Then they'll answer that and then it's back to you to kind of keep directing the broadcast.

So I don't know if you're aware of this, I to do play by play in the very very early uh i do know that i do actually know that so how long ago was that oh i mean at the beginning over 20 years ago beginning of the pro tour i think i've seen some of those videos like they so like super old school like yeah oh very old school or something yeah so i used to do the play i used i was play by play and then i used to do interviews like in between play and then I used to do interviews like in between stuff like my my Tomi Hogi interviews

has gained legendary status that's really that's awesome I love it yeah I've seen those videos they're super old school they're

I know I was like in 320p they look so blurry but they they feel like magic history to me so I've totally watched them my favorite part was

I love when someone win my favorite part was like it's Tomi Tomi so, it's so true. Like, I'm just like the big dramatic finish. Getting to do the, like, the exciting part of announcing the winner and getting excited or being able to react to like the really sweet plays or amazing top decks.

That's definitely the coolest part. So I've done a lot of play by play and I've also done a lot of work like as a host. So I've done like the person on the street interviews um any any of the interviews that are not um like in the actual booth so like yeah kind of like a lot so some of the stuff that BDM has done a lot and a lot of what people don't realize behind the scenes is there's a lot of roles that people play and like what's the booth like that this is I've been in the booth so like, like, explain it with the booth. The booth is not very big.

The booth is really small. It's you and another person. And also, like, the camera always makes it look like you're further away than you're supposed to be. So you're actually, like, really close to each other. So usually at Pro Tours, the booth will be in a little cube that is soundproof. So it's kind of like you and the screen where you watch the game. How many screens do you have when you watch? It depended. Sometimes we got one that we both had to share sometimes we each got the one in front of us which was nice yeah um but that didn't always happen and you don't always

get a soundproof booth by the way so yeah at grand prix's for example you just have all the loud noises and all the people running around and screaming and you're just a little elevated because it's on a platform you have a bigger tv and then you're you're commentating just from the floor which actually has cool energy to it too yeah it's funny that we've we've experimented over the years where we stick the uh the commentators yeah there's a time where we had them with the audience where the audience could see them like we've moved them around a bit um although the audience seeing them gets very noisy that's why we don't do a lot of the audience yeah you you can and it can also get hard to i mean you are wearing these like soundproof headsets but you it still like kind of seeps in so it can

be a little bit distracting so that's some of the stuff i've done in coverage i've also worked behind the scenes for coverage too um i've been i've produced some of the side segments some of the like deck techs that you see there was this this one segment, it was Regional Pro Tour Phoenix, and we did a spin the wheel segment with Maria that was so much fun. Yeah. We just had people, random players, that were playing spin the little wheel and they would have to do different things. So there were things like explain banding or favorite magic memory.

If you were a planeswalker, who would you be? Just really cool stuff. So we got to film all these fun segments. Okay. So something else I know you've done because I did it with you is we did a bunch of videos that were for stores, right? They were,

they were the intro. They were intro videos for like, if you're a new magic player and you want to know, like, what do I expect when I go to a Grand Prix or like, what do I expect when I go to FNM? Like that sort i expect when i go to f and m like that sort of stuff yes that's the one time you and i work together so yeah that was actually really fun it was it was in and out like we filmed that all in yes one day i want to say yeah yeah we did seven videos in one day it was very fast

so those videos were great that was a really fun time yeah it was fun i got hoarse i've done the the last video i did when she weren't in the the one where I'm screaming, they did it last because they knew it would ruin my voice. And at the end of the day, I couldn't talk. in and knock something over it's going to be in there yeah but for pre-recorded content you actually film a lot of takes like uh one minute of pre-recorded content takes hours to film beforehand so for those videos people don't know we just like did those takes 20 times per video or something it takes a long time but it's it the final product obviously makes it worth it yeah it's fun i mean one of the things that's fun being on camera is, like, one of the things that will happen is you get a script ahead of time. And then you're, you know, there's cameramen and there's a stage manager and, like, all these people. Like, that little video where you see two people on video behind the scenes, there's 30 people trying to make the video. Yeah.

One of the coolest experiences I had when I was, before I worked in coverage, but I was just like traveling to Grand Prix's just to play for fun. Um, I think it was Marshall actually. He, he's like, Hey, do you want to come take a look behind the scenes? Like, do you want to see what it's like? And I was like, yes, of course. That sounds amazing. And you just have no idea because if you go, if you've ever been to a pro tour, um, like the old school pro tours, they there's big screens that hide everything that happens behind the scenes. Right. So, there's big screens that hide everything that happens behind the scenes, right? So you don't see anything that's back there.

But if you actually go behind, there's like so many people that are working, so many people with different jobs, a million cameras, so many wires. Like it's actually awesome. So I remember the first time I got to go back and take a look, like a look behind the scenes. It was like, whoa, this is super cool.

Yeah. I mean, my former life was in TV production, you know, doing TV. And one of the things that's very fun is when you sort of go to school and learn it, they make you do all the jobs just so you understand them. And like, for example, whenever there's one person whose sole job is to put the graphics and the chyron, the text on the screen. And like one person, person does what they do. You know, if someone shows up, they're going to put their name up. You know, they mention a card, okay, but they know ahead of time it's going to be mentioned, so they put the card up.

And that's the idea. Like, one person, that's all they do. All they're caring about is just that text, you know. Just that one thing. And if somebody else is worrying about it, it's a completely different thing. And it's neat watching all the different people do their jobs. Yeah. One of the cool things, too, is for coverage, they have us switch around so that we all know how to do the things.

But we'll just be focused on that thing. So at many points, like, some of us have been spotters, like the person who's writing the cards that the players are drawing so you can see it on the broadcast. Or we have been, like, in the booth, right right so we actually get to commentate and do that stuff or we've been the person in charge of like making the graphics come in so you know how sometimes you see um like a card goes in and then the card goes out and so you got to see what the card the player played like there's someone there's one person who's in charge of making that happen so and you learn all the roles so for people that aren't aware, what will happen is you have a database

and you have to recognize what the card is. You have to know where the card is, get the card out and put the card up fast enough that the person doesn't talk about another card. It's a really fast process. You have to be like, this card. Or sometimes the commentators will be saying, what card could the player get

here to maybe turn this around? And so maybe one of them will say, oh, they need Bonfire of the Damned. So you're like, so you, boom, pull up Bonfire, show it. And then the people at home can see, oh, that's the card they need to get out of the situation. Yeah. What's your favorite?

You could pick up all the things you've done. What is your favorite of those when you're at Pro Tour? Oh, man. You know, I actually really liked being behind the scenes even though i've done a lot of like front camera facing work i loved producing the side segments that we did for some of those pro tours um those were really fun but second to that it was definitely being a play-by-play so that part was just awesome so producer real quick just because people we sometimes say terms and i realize that people don't know quite what that means yeah when you're like in the weeds you kind of forget right so what a producer is

is somebody has to figure out okay we're going to do something well what people do we need where are we going to shoot it like you need you need to figure out all the pieces of it so that it can be put together so that it happens right so it it's basically putting all those things together and it also includes um sometimes you'll also be the person who shoots them and edits them so that's that's what i've done for for some of these in the past where you have to figure out like hey let's reach out to all the people we want to interview maybe you want to find out like you maybe want to get a two second snippet of somebody saying oh this is the deck i brought today and why i'm happy with it or maybe it's questions like what is the matchup you don't want to face or what would it mean for you to win this tournament like it could be a variety of things right so you

need to find those people um get them to come in you'll like set up the shot so that they can you know like you can interview them you'll set up the cameras and the microphones and all that stuff and you you might have other people helping you do this too, obviously. And then once you have that raw footage, you get to take that footage, edit it. And then that is what shows up in between the rounds of coverage. So when you're not watching people play the actual match or the commentators, you'll see that filler segment. And those are the filler segments with people doing interviews and they can be, they can silly they can be serious they can be top eight deck techs like you'll do deck techs or it might be somebody um coming to tell you like how they feel after a victory or um they can tell you

like a biop like a like a like a story of how they got into magic it could be any sort of things and i'm gonna let people in on a little secret we'll get a little behind the scenes um so one of the things they do at the pro tour is you guys arrive a day early and then a lot of the not all of it but a lot of the in-between stuff is shot not while the pro tour is going on but before the pro tour is going on yeah so you it's a mix of the two because if you arrive early to get those interviews that are not time sensitive, right? You can show them at any point and people want to see about the players that are playing

in the tournament. Like that's a big part of it. So you get to film that ahead of time and then edit those and get them ready to go. But then also you have to turn it around real quick because sometimes you'll be like, okay, we got the person. They just won the round. Let's do the interview. And then you have to edit that real quick and boom, send it so that the person who's producing the whole show can show that in between

the rounds so it does get pretty fast paced but i actually like i actually like that a lot it's like okay boom go go go we have to get people in and out and get all the stuff turned around yeah it is i mean it's funny uh when i i left hollywood to come to wizards, my thought was, oh, wow, I guess all my training, all my communications, all that stuff, well, I won't do that. And I get here

and then I'm producing, you know, like the very first, for like nine years on the Pro Tour, I was the producer of Sunday. Yeah, you told me about that when we were working

on those videos that we did. Yes, yes. And so, like one of the stories, here's a quick story. You're talking about being the play-by-play. So there was a point in time where I was both the play-by-play and the producer. So, I would do the play-by-play, and then

when my partner was talking, I would talk to the, to the, or my headset, I would talk to the director and go, okay, we need to go to table three. That's our next, like, so I, in between me doing play-by-play, I was... That's really funny. And then finally, I realized that we needed two people. Like, I, we should have a producer and have a play-by-play. That's really funny. And then finally I realized that we needed two people. Like, we should have a producer and have a play-by-play. So I started producing and I stopped play-by-playing. But, um...

Yeah, I know. It's one of those things that when you see the final result, it looks really smooth. And you're like, oh, yeah, of course. You go see the interviews and you do this and that

and it all flows really nicely. But really, there's so many people behind the scenes that are working on this stuff that you do need a lot of helping hands to actually get it to come together so you do streaming you do uh stuff up play by plan behind the scenes stuff like that is anything else you're doing magic any other yeah i actually

have a podcast it's called magic fm okay i do it with mashi from channel fireball okay what's it what's it about what's your podcast about magic news it's just magic news and like hot topic discussion so it will be you know as things happen in magic we'll talk about them okay they can also arrange all sorts of things like is ghosting ethical like that was our first episode and we've gotten to do some cool discussions we'll also bring people from the community and we'll bring some of our friends and other pro players and we'll do um kind of what we're doing here we just do a little bit of an interview and uh see where it goes because it can just you know like we never go in with like a super strict schedule so we actually have paul falchion come on a couple of weeks ago we got to talk about cube a lot because i love cube yeah obviously paul loves cube securing the

cube for wizard so yeah we had uh we had a discussion with luis and paul yeah just that was all about cubing and it was awesome. Yeah, it's fun. One of the things that I'm hoping to do with my interviews is show the breadth of magic. Like one of the things that I see just because I communicate with the public so much of like even today, like just of stuff you do, like there's streaming of possibilities that people might be interested in. There's podcasting possibilities people might be interested in there's uh online you know pro tours and grand prixs i mean we're in covid right now but back when we get to the day where we're allowed to go outside our houses um there's all that stuff so let me ask that as a fellow podcaster um

what is your favorite part of podcasting? I love how, I love the medium because podcasting has something that I think not streaming or coverage have, which is you kind of get to go in depth about a lot of things and you have a lot of latitude to move into different topics. So yeah, you start out maybe with like a list of things you want to cover, but if the conversation takes you elsewhere, you can go there and there's room to explore that so i i think podcasting allows for pretty can allow for pretty serious conversations where streaming and coverage don't because coverage obviously won't let you do that you're covering the game of magic like that's it um and it's a lot more strict and and serious than streaming is in streaming you can see my dog come in and I'll get up and go to the bathroom.

It's very chill. And you can have any conversation you want. Say, like, there goes my dog. You can probably hear her. But also in streaming, you are playing another game. So because I'm playing Magic, sometimes I get distracted. Like, what if we're in the middle of a serious conversation and then my opponent like top decks to Wrath and I'm like, oh my god, we're gonna lose this game now, what happened? So it's also hard to have like this

one-to-one discussion and connection where you can really go in depth and in podcasting you totally can do that. I think that's my favorite thing. Yeah. Yeah, it is fun. I mean, I mess in a lot of different mediums and I find podcasting to be the one where you get to sort of ruminate the most. You do a lot of writing, too. How do you feel about writing compared to the other mediums? Well,

writing to me is a little more technical. When I'm writing, I have complete control of the words I'm saying, so I get a very crafted message where when I'm doing a podcast, it's what it is, you know what I'm writing, I have complete control of the words I'm saying. So I get a very crafted message. Where when I'm doing a podcast, it's what it is. You know what I'm saying? As an example from behind the scenes, I push start and then I push stop. There's no editing.

Whatever we say, we say. There's a very free form to podcasting that I enjoy. I sit down and interview you. I have some idea where it's going to go. As we talk, maybe there's, like, I don't, I sit down to interview you, I mean, I have some idea where it's going to go, but I don't know, you know,

like, as we talk, maybe there's a new cool thing that you come up with that I never thought about that let's go down that avenue and podcasting really has some of that flow.

Now, the funny thing is, most of my podcasting, when it's not a pandemic, is solo podcasting, which is a very different animal. It's kind of a stream of thought and that's a very different...

you're just kind of going. Yeah, I'm just, I'm driving to work and I'm like, let's talk about this topic. And I'll just, you know, brain dump everything I can think about that topic. And that's... Once again, I haven't done that for

a while because I haven't been driving to work. Right, of course. I kind of enjoy that. So anyway, I'm almost to my desk. So is there any final thing? I'm using these to let people sort of expand and see new things so uh if they want to see you where can they see you um i'm well i'm everywhere online but my my twitch stream is just twitch.tv slash gabby sparts if you want to see more about

my stuff i have a portfolio it's just on gabby sparts.com sparts is s-p-a-r-t-z i know it's kind of a hard name to pronounce or say sometimes um but yeah i i think that's the coolest thing about magic honestly i love how people i love how there's so many little like subgroups to things that people are passionate about you can't see this because it's um in the background on my stream but i actually have the original art to ambush viper and so for a while i dabbled into like all this community of people who love buying the art for magic cards and collectors and stuff like that or you can just be like a cosplayer you I've cosplayed a little bit before I have mad respect for the cosplayers out there

or like the people who just go deep in the strategy and they want to play like to the best of their abilities and stuff I that's just my favorite thing about magic. I just love how passionate people are, even about so many different things. Yeah, yes. So anyway, I want to thank you. So I'm at my desk. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. But I want to thank Gabby. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. This was fun. So anyway, guys, I want to thank Gabby, and I will see you guys next time.

Bye-bye.