Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #982: Magic 30 Talk

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

At Magic 30, I did an hour-long panel sharing personal stories about 30 different pictures I'd chosen from 30 years in Magic. In this podcast, I go over why I chose those 30 pictures and stories to share.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today, so at, as I'm recording this, Magic 30 has not happened yet. But as you are listening to this, it has happened. Ah, the mystery of recording ahead. So today I want to talk about my speech, the preparations and the making of. So what happened basically was when they were planning out the, when they were planning the schedule for the panels and the talks, they said to me, we'd like to give you your own hour and you can talk about whatever you want to talk about. Which, by the way, is a very daunting task.

Here, whatever you want. But I said to them, okay, any clarification and one thing they said is, well it is the start of our 30th anniversary and by the way, yes, I understand technically the 30th anniversary starts next year but this is the beginning of the very long process of celebrating our anniversary

so I do realize that, but anyway it's the start of our celebration of the 30th anniversary and so they're sort of like, well, if you could somehow hit upon the idea that Magic's 30 years old, that would be great. So I was trying to think of like, what could I do? And the other thing, I'm a really big believer in the medium is the message,

meaning I was doing a presentation. I had the ability to sort of show pictures and things. And so I'm like, okay, you know, what can I do that would be the most fun? And then I realized that there's a lot of picture, like, I started thinking about the idea of showing magic history through pictures. And that's when I realized that I'm in a lot of the magic. There's a lot of... That I...

On some level, I'm kind of like the Forrest Gump of magic. And that I just keep showing up in places, you know, that I just sort of... I'm always kind of there. And the thing that sort of spawned this was there's a picture from the first world championship. So Zach Dolan, the United States, is playing Patron Lestray of France. And it's this really, like, pivotal, big moment.

The first ever finals of a, you know, Magic World Championship. And in the background is me taking notes. I'm just there. Like, you can watch my talk for the whole story of how I got there. But the point is, like, here's this pinnacle moment of magic history, and I'm in the background. I'm just there. And so it dawned on me,

did I have 30 sort of pictures of me throughout magic's history where I have personal stories to share? And I liked the idea because it was very visual, that I could show. Like when I do a podcast, for example, there's no show and there's no visuals, I'm talking. So, you know, it leans on certain kinds of storytelling. But the thing I enjoyed for this, for the talk was, I could be very visual. So, and in fact, the thing that was funny is, when I pitched my idea of the pictures, they liked the idea. But originally when somebody else was going to build the slides, they had said to me, oh, well, we can only have like 30 slides.

And I realized, I think Gavin Verhey was the one that suggested, when I pitched the idea of pictures throughout history, Gavin said, well, it's 30 years, why not 30 pictures? I think very influenced by my 20 years, 20 lessons talk. Like, the number of years, that's the number thing, but okay, it makes sense, and I felt like a lot of my stories were going to be, you know, one to three minutes, so I could tell 30 stories in half an hour,

not half an hour, in an hour. And so when they sort of said that if their slides were built externally, I could have maybe 30 slides. I'm like, well, that's just the pictures I'm talking about. I want more than that. So I asked them, can I build it? Can I build my slideshow? And they said, sure. So my slideshow has hundreds of slides, not just 30. So there's lots of, and one of the things that happened is once I realized that I wanted to do pictures, I then got access both to my, well, I had access to my private pictures, but I looked through all my private pictures

and then I also looked through we have like sort of, I don't know what to call it, but like the pictures that Wizards has taken. I looked through all the event pictures and stuff. And so I then had to narrow it down. So the exercise really was once I decided that I wanted to do stories based around pictures, I needed to have pictures and I needed to have stories.

Ideally, things that were interconnected. The other thing that I thought about was that I wanted to celebrate what magic is. And so part of what I was also looking for was I wanted to talk about a lot of different aspects of magic. It wasn't like here are the top 30 moments on the Pro Tour, right? I wanted it to be here is a widespread of different things that happened. And so it's me talking about different things, but it's also through the lens of what I experienced. So, you know, I was more active in different parts of magic at different times. So in some level, you're seeing 30 years of magic,

but it's going to be through my eyes because I'm the storyteller. But that was the challenge. So the challenge was I looked and I collected infinite pictures so I went through whenever I found pictures of myself I would pull them out and then I'd try to figure out

what were the compelling stories to tell what were the cool things and so I'm going to walk through my 30 pictures and talk about I'm not going to get into the stories of the pictures

that is a talk you can go listen to my talk I'm hoping I'm hoping that's someplace that you can listen to. I do not know that. But hopefully it's somewhere where you can go listen if you weren't able to listen to it live. Anyway, so I'm going to walk through the 30 pictures and sort of talk about why I chose those pictures. This is more behind the scenes.

So if you want to hear the stories, and then a lot of the stories I'm telling, not all of them, but a lot of the stories I've told on my podcast. So if you are a regular podcast listener and you listen to my talk, a fair number of the stories I've told, not all of them, and not all of them with the detail necessarily

or there are elements that I shared that I didn't share on my podcast. But anyway, a lot of the stories, you should at least be familiar with the story, not all of them. Okay, so number one, picture number one was me at the first World Championships in 94. Like I said, this was the inspiration for the whole talk. So clearly, I had to have it.

And I decided that I wanted to go chronologically just to give the larger sense of sense. So the talk would feel like there was progression to it. And so by going chronologically, it's sort of like talking about the last 30 years. I thought that was kind of cool. And like I said, it's just a couple of the photos I used, I felt were like just classic magic photos

that I happened to be in. And so a few of the ones are like that. So this is one of those. And it's like I said said it's a funny story because a lot of the world the other interesting thing is Worlds 94 is basically the place where I

sort of made the decision that I wanted more to do with Wizards and it really was the thing that I think led me down the path to working at Wizards so while it really was the thing that I think led me down the path to working at Wizards. So while it also is a big moment in history, it's also representative of kind of a big personal moment. Anyway, so that just felt right.

Okay, next picture was Mark Justice and I in the phone booth. So at the second Pro Tour, the one where Hammer played Gaven, Mark Justice... I decided that I... I think at the very first Pro Tour, the way commentary worked was they asked me to do commentary,

but it was with two other Wizards people. And the other people who were doing commentary with me just didn't know Magic that well. And so I decided that what I really wanted is a play-by-play and a color commentator. I thought I would do the play-by-play, and then I would get pros to do the color commentating. And then each show, I asked a different pro. So the first show, I asked Merc Justice.

And Merc Justice was, I guess I'm not getting into the story. But anyway, Merc Justice and I were friends. was, I guess I'm not getting into the story, but anyway, Mark Justice and I were friends. But the funniest story about that was that we ended up doing nine hours of broadcasting in this phone booth because they just, it was very, very early on in the days of shooting magic and they just hadn't, like, no one thought through, like, oh, where are the commentators going to be? And so the phone booth was like, well, here's the one place that's already here

that technically you fit in that we can use for sound purposes. And it just was kind of so silly. So when I was looking through the pictures, it's not even a great picture. Like, you can't even really tell it's me and Justice. That's why I have to kind of tell the story because, like, if you look at the picture in a vacuum, you don't even know what it is. It's just two people in a phone booth that you can't

quite make out who it is. But it was really reminiscent of sort of the early days of the Pro Tour and how, you know, there's a lot of finding of our feet in the early days. So anyway, I liked that story just because it was reminiscent of, hey, you know, maybe now we do things and they're super polished. But there was an early day where we were figuring things out, and that seemed quite cool to me. Okay, the next photo was the design team from 1997, which was literally the six people who were full-time magic designers. As I said in the talk, we're now up to 50. So it was a point in time where

Magic was small enough and R&D was small enough that, like, the six of us were, you know, or I guess Joel was the head designer, but the other five of us were every development team. There was no who's on this development team. We were on every development team. There just

wasn't enough people to have different development teams. Now, eventually, we would get more people and we would grow. But it's interesting to me to look back and sort of, like, all of us went on a plane to visit my dad's house. That's where the picture was taken. And, like, you know, there's not often that, like, I remember we were commenting on the plane. Like, if the plane went down, Magic was in trouble. We were all of magic R&D.

So, it just, I don't know. That one, to me, that picture is literally sitting in my house. It's just kind of reminiscent of a time gone by. And part of the whole talk to me was the nostalgia of just remembering things

as they had been, of capturing moments in time. So that picture, I don't know, it was a personal, it meant a lot to me personally. Okay, number four is another Pro Tour story. My Pro Tour stories are front-loaded just because my time with the

Pro Tour was early on in my time at Wizards. This was the Riot! So at one of the Pro Tour Los Angeleses, we had to kick out David Mills in the finals for, like, casting his cards before tapping the mana. Literally, he got

ejected from a pro tour for playing his spell before tapping his mana, which is now just part of magic. In fact, because of that event, we changed the rules. Not often the rules of magic change because a pro tour event

made us change the rules. How often does that happen? Anyway, it was, um, this is another example where there's this classic, classic picture of Dave Mills being informed that he's being disqualified that just was, like, if I was just picking in a vacuum, like, magic history pictures, I

would have picked that picture. And the funny thing is, I'm in it. I'm in the picture. Although, you might not even know it's me. It's the back of my head. I have to point out it's me. Maybe you recognize me. I don't know. But it's interesting of how it's another example of just magic history was happening and I was there. And it was a crazy... Of all the things that ever happened at the Pro Tour, and there's been some crazy stuff, the DQ was nutty.

It was nutty. So anyway, I had to include that story. Okay, number five was me dressed as a chicken, head judging, unglued. So they didn't even have a good picture. The only picture I could find is a fuzzy picture. In fact, it's probably the fuzziest picture in the whole slideshow. is a fuzzy picture. In fact, it's probably the fuzziest picture in the whole slideshow.

Somewhere in the bowels of my basement or in my garage, there's probably more pictures. I couldn't find one. I did some looking. I couldn't find it. And so it's one of those things that's kind of become a story of a legend,

like I had judged as a chicken, that I just felt like I needed to bring that up. And it also let me sort of show, like I had judged as a chicken, that I just felt like I needed to bring that up. And it also let me sort of show like, you know, I showed this little sequence where I dressed as a donkey for Unglue and I dressed as a squirrel for Unstable and I dressed as an astronaut for Infinity. That, you know, every sort of unset, at some point I've had to dress up in some kind of outfit, you know, and that there's something about, I don't know, the wackiness and the essence of the unsets. And I

wanted to reference the unsets. And I felt the most visual way to represent the unset was sort of the most iconic sort of visual moment of the unsets. Number six, the magic invitational. So this is the magic invitational at Wizards the reason I picked there's a lot of magic invitations the magic invitational was something that magic had done that was important and I wanted to make sure to sort of talk about hey, there are things that were part of magic that are no longer

part of magic, that part of magic's history is there's things that happen for a while and the invitational was basically the it was the, what do you call it? The All-Star Game. We did it originally as an event to promote in the Duelist. It was originally the Duelist Invitational. Later became the Magic Invitational.

And I just, I mean, I don't know. Once again, this is me telling my stories, and I just, I mean, I don't know. I, once again, this is me telling my stories. And so it's a lot of my vantage point through, um, a lot of my vantage point through looking at, um, at magic. And so the invitation was near and dear to my heart. There was a really funny story. You know, it's a story of the time where, uh, I had my budget slashed to zero and like, okay, how are you going to make it work? You have

no money. So anyway, I got to tell that story, which was a fun story. And I just found a cool picture of me posed with all the people in front of the wizards because we had a hold of the wizards. So I thought that was cool. Next is the feature match story. So feature matches, I

wanted, the reason I did this story was I wanted to touch upon judging. I thought judging was important and I had been a judge. And so, and I just picked a story about sort of how being in charge of the feature match, just different things came my way

and there was things I had to do. And that talks about integrating the red zone mat, you know, and teaching the players how to use it. And just one of the the red zone mat, you know, and teaching the players how to use it. And just one of the weird quirks that came out of doing that. But I really wanted to touch upon judging. I wanted to hit a lot of different aspects of it.

So that's one of the reasons I really wanted to do that one. Next is the first time I appeared in a comic. Or at least the first time I remember. Maybe I appeared in a comic before this, but it first time I remember. Maybe I appeared in a comic before this. But it was Eugene Madness. And I remember just one day, I mean, I regularly read Eugene Madness. And one day, I show up as, like, Satan's imp or something.

It was very bizarre. I went on to be, like, a regular character in the comic strip. I mean, I don't just mean I showed up once or twice. Like, I was probably, if all the characters showed up, there was the main characters, but I was probably the supporting character that showed up the most in the strip. I almost would argue I just became a regular character in the comic.

So anyway, just talking a little bit about the community and how being the face of magic has some weird quirks to it. And one of it is that I literally, when I became the face figuratively, I kind of became the face literally. And that, you know, there are people drawing me and using me to represent, you know, wizards. And so that was, I just wanted to share that. Next up is the match in Chiba against the Japanese high scorers that Aaron and Richard and I played in. I don't have many stories where I won the match.

In fact, I have one. I have one story where there was some event of consequence and I was in the finals and it came down to me and I won it. That is the one story I have. So I had to show the one story because it's a fun story. is the one story I have. So I had to share the one story because it's a fun story. Next up, I shared some photos from my

80,000 words. I wanted to talk about my article. I mean, Making Magic was done for 20 years. And it was the one article I did that was all visual. It was literally all pictures. 80 pictures, so that's 80,000 words. And I just wanted to share that.

And I wanted to sort of share a bit about my column. Like, a lot of this is talking about things that I've enjoyed and things that have been part of my interacting with magic, so my column's a big part of that. Next is Massive Magic with Richard Garfield from Mirrored and Besieged. Massive Magic is something that we've done many times in many places.

I've been involved with it. This is just my favorite ever. Both of them was my favorite story. And it was me and Richard. And there was like a context to it because, you know, it's Frexians versus the Coalition. Or I guess it's the Nap Coalition,

the Mirrens. And anyway, it was just, it's a fun story. I have a lot of pictures to show, so it was real fun. And just let people see kind of the kind of things that we do to celebrate magic that I don't know if people were aware of.

Next up, the GDS. I showed the pictures from the second one as my picture, although I show all three. The great designer search has been a really important part of me. A lot of designers, in fact, a majority of my designers that I use with on a regular basis have come through that. It's been a giant source for me. And it's an interesting point of sort of how do you find designers? You can't go to the Pro Tour.

And so that was really interesting for me. And so I want to definitely talk about the GDS. Next was my comic strip, Tales from the Pit. I just want to talk a little bit. It's something I kind of do for fun. It's a way for me to show some lens into R&D, into magic in general. And it's a place for me to sort of make fun of magic, you know, in a lighthearted way. I'm not, other people are far more critical than I.

But, you know, it's me to sort of gently poke at things. It's kind of fun. Next up is, oh, meeting Christine Sprankle. One of the things I really wanted for the talk was to talk about the community. And so I wanted to talk different aspects of the community. I talked about people making comic strips. So this is me talking about cosplaying.

And really, Christine was the one that put magic cosplaying on the map. I had a picture the first time I met her where she was dressed up as Elspeth at a world championship and it just was, once again, it's one of those moments kind of captured in time that like it's me meeting Christine for the very first time where I didn't really even know who Christine was. It's just meeting her and that, you know,

that really was a through line of something becoming a big part of magic that there's a whole community now and like I said, part of the talk was to talk about all the different communities. And so I really wanted to talk about cosplaying. And I had a great sequence of pictures showing me posing with all these cosplayers, which I thought was kind of fun.

So that was really cool. Next. Oh, I talk about doing, walking the planes. This is another example of somebody external doing something, working with us. This is another example of somebody external doing something, working with us. And it just was really, it was a lot of fun. My story is talking about

the first time I worked with, I'd seen something that Nate and Sean had did, the two that did Walking the Planes. And I said, hey, I want to be involved. I'd like to do something. And they came up with this crazy idea where like, we're playing magic and then I win. And so he says, can I pick the next game? I'm like to do something. And they came up with this crazy idea where we're playing Magic and then I win. And so he says, can I pick the next game?

I'm like, sure. So he picks basketball. And we're off on a basketball court. And there's this whole story. That was a fun story to tell. And it was just fun. It was something that I got to interact with. And like I said, there's a lot of things

I've got to do with Magic. And just the spy versus spy kind of relationship that Nate had a character called the Wizard. The Wizard and I were like rivals and we always fought in the videos. And that was a lot of fun. Next, I talk about meeting celebrities. And so part of being magic

is I have a lot of opportunity to meet different celebrities. This particular one's about meeting Felicia Day. And it's a fun story where I figured out that she was literally in the building because I follow her on Twitter. And so just like that, that story was a fun story where my chance to meet her was just me figuring out was literally in the building because I follow her on Twitter. And so just like that, that story was a fun story where like my chance to meet her

was just me figuring out she was in the building. And that was pretty cool. Next year. Oh, next was I did a thing called 20 years and 20 minutes at one of the world championships to celebrate the 20th anniversary. And it just, I kind of want to talk about how we always celebrate anniversaries and how they always come up with weird things for me to do and I'm always game to do them.

So that was the one where I had 20, I had one year, one minute per year to talk about 20 years of magic. And that was mega hard. I don't know, I'm not sure if watching you quite realized how hard it was, but it was really hard. I'm not sure if watching you quite realize how hard it was, but it was really hard. Next was me talking about the Eldrazi panel at PAX, where I presented with Will Whedon, who I wanted to stress, I really liked Will Whedon, I had a lot of fun with Will Whedon. A lot of the story is just how we had practiced and practiced and practiced,

and then the last minute he goes, let's try something else, which I just wasn't... It's a funny story because I wasn't expecting that. But I didn't... I hope people don't take away that I had any ill will toward Wil Wheaton, because I don't. Actually, I had a lot of fun being with Wil Wheaton and doing that show. And that was a lot of fun. Next was talking about meeting Brian Goldner.

He's the... He sadly died. The CEO of Hasbro. And there's a fun story there of meeting him and him thinking I ran everything, which was kind of funny. And I want to talk a little bit about Hasbro. Hasbro's our parent company. And I wanted to make a nod to Hasbro. And there's a fun story there of meeting him and him thinking I ran everything, which was kind of funny. And I want to talk a little bit about Hasbro. Hasbro's our parent company and I wanted to make a nod to Hasbro. I thought that was a fun way to make a nod to Hasbro.

Next was presenting Kaladesh. So, talking about the big event we did for Kaladesh and they put me in the sports code and it was just another once again, like, we put on a lot of events and I want to represent some kind of the events that we did. And this is a good example of a big event that we did. So I thought that was cool.

Next, meeting Dana Fisher. So I wanted to talk about the community. I wanted to talk about how magic is changing. And nothing felt more like magic is changing than meeting a six-year-old whose dream it is to second day a Grand Prix. And so that was... I thought that was pretty cool.

And, and Dana's super cute. Next was the wedding. I participated in a wedding. I wanted to talk about how magic touches people's lives. And it was kind of neat that I got to be in a wedding and read the light song of night and day, the poem. Plus, also, we were covered in, this other thing was a visual thing. we were covered in this other thing was

a visual thing. We were covered in The New Yorker and Al Hirschfeld drew me, right? How often do I get a chance for, like, a classic caricature to draw a caricature of me? And I had to show that, so. Next up was doing the video with Peter and Richard for the 25th anniversary. Once again, touching upon different anniversaries,

sort of touching upon, Peter and Richard were the two that started it all, so it was a great honor to sort of do a video with them, and I wanted to touch upon that. Next up is me being a cutout in Japan. I just wanted to talk about the weird and quirky things, that one of the things about doing what I do is I sometimes get requests that are better odd,

and being a cutout in Japan for the 25th anniversary was one of those things. Next up, pie in the face for charity. We do a lot of charity work. Magic does. Wizards as a whole. And I definitely wanted to talk about that. And I literally had a video of a pie being thrown in my face for charity.

So I'm like, what better? It's the only video I've shown in the whole time. But I just felt like, you know, it was a very short video, and I just felt like, hey, how often do you get, and it had me get to talk a little bit about, a little bit about charity, and how, you know, how, what we, how we interact with charity, that's an important part of Magic's history, so. Next is Make-A-Wish, so I talked about doing a Make-A-Wish, this is something I've done a lot I just talked about probably the most high profile I did I did one with Jimmy and Josh and so I want

to talk about sort of the act of doing that and just talk about making a wish as a whole it's something that I've done I don't know how many I've done but it is something that is part of my job and I'm glad that I'm able to do it and hey I'm always honored that like you ask a kid that they can do anything. They have one wish. Anything they want in the world. And their answer is they want to come meet me and come to Wizards or do something magic related. That is, you know, quite the honor. So, you know, I just wanted to share that.

Next, we're talking about the video for Thornvale Drain. I do a lot of videos. I just wanted to sort of talk about how I go places and people come up with stuff and we shoot them. This was like, we were making cookies in a kitchen down in Los Angeles. And so, I just want to talk about like part of what I do is

like there's a certain amount of marketing, right? There's a certain amount of like, hey, part of what I do is telling people about what's up and coming. And this was an opportunity to do that and we got to show off the year and we got to have cookies. And so anyway, it was definitely a time that I wanted to talk about.

Next was me on Good Luck High Five with Megan Maria. Once again, I wanted to talk about the many different aspects of the community around magic. And I have a big bond with Megan Maria. Like, I just did the Infinity pre-release with them.

And I want to touch upon the fact that I've had the opportunity to be on... I mean, I show a little thing of pictures of me on... with the professor and on game nights and on Loading Ready Run and on just a bunch of different shows. Like, one of the things of being one of the faces of magic is I want to be out there and I want people I'm happy that I can participate on other shows with other people and do things and I wanted to represent that and I wanted to represent that

magic isn't just, the magic community is not just wizards. There's a giant whole community out there. And there's all these people spending a lot of time and energy making content and really enriching the community. And I wanted to touch upon all that. That was important to me. Next was me wearing the fencing mask.

I want to talk a little bit about R&D and I wanted to share a story about behind the scenes of R&D, talk about code names, and just wanted to share a story about behind the scenes of R&D, talk about code names and just sort of like little traditions and stuff. Like one of the things, I mean,

I touched upon it a little bit with the comics. I think the comics and this one were me talking about, hey, fun of the part of being in R&D

and some of the joy of that experience. The part of 30 Years of Magic to me is all my time spent with the people making magic. And there's more than just the designers,

but that's who I spend the majority of my time with. And so I just thought that Fencing Mask was a fun story, and so I shared that. And finally, my last picture was me this year

at San Diego Comic-Con. The funny thing about it is I've been at San Diego Comic-Con for 14 years, I think, now. This is our 14th panel, I think. And I just had no pictures of panels. It was really weird. Like, this year, I actually finally got a picture of me doing a panel.

But it's kind of nutty that, like, how many years I do panels, there's, like, no pictures of panels. Like, I just, I think the problem was I'm always doing it, so I'm not taking pictures. So unless someone else takes pictures. And probably somebody, somebody's taking pictures of it, but I couldn't find them. And so that's another interesting little behind-the-scenes story of making this talk is I was at the mercy of the pictures I could get. I had a bunch of ideas for cool stories I could tell if I could find the picture that went along with it. And there were a bunch of stories that I just couldn't find the picture. the picture that went along with it. And there were a bunch of stories that I just couldn't find the picture.

That is... Anyway, I wanted something from this year just to sort of finish up. So I ended up deciding that I wanted to talk a little bit about... And it wasn't just about saying Comic-Con, but about panels. I mean, one of the things in my job is I sit and talk to people and share

information about magic. And that's a fun part of what I do and part of magic. So I wanted to share that. Anyway, the interesting thing about me doing this right now, I'm recording this podcast before the talk happened because I'm trying to generate content so that this could go up shortly after I do the talk. That's why I'm trying to record it ahead of time. Because I record weeks ahead of time. My goal is for this to go up shortly after I do the talk. That's why I'm trying to record it ahead of time, because I record weeks ahead of time. My goal is for this

to go up shortly after I do the speech. But, the scary thing for me is I haven't done the speech yet. In fact, I'm not even done. I'm still putting the final touches on the speech. I'm still adding slides and stuff. I'm still, you know... For those who don't know, I have a slide

obsession. For example, when I did the Great Designer Search, not Great Designer Search, sorry, Games Developer Conference, GDC, my 20 years, 20 lessons talk, I worked on that for months. I mean, I've worked on my talk for Magic 30 for probably a month, but I worked on my talk for the GDC like six months. I worked a long time on that talk.

It was a big, big, big deal. I wanted to get it right. And the longer I work on my talk for the GDC like six months. I worked a long time on that talk. It was a big, big, big deal. I wanted to get it right. And the longer I work on something, the more slides I put in it. I just like having lots and lots of slides. I love having visuals. Also, I don't do a lot of graphics. So some of my slides are just the way I do graphics. Sort of old school.

But anyway, our talk at GDC had almost, it was just shy of a thousand slides. So this one, right now it has over 200. I'm not sure where it'll end up. So one of the things that happened when I did all my research is I found all these pictures. So for a lot of stories where I had the iconic representative picture, I had a lot of other pictures from those events. So where it made sense and where I had the pictures, I showed off more pictures. Like a great example

is me playing Richard in the Massive Magic. We had infinite pictures of that event. So I was able to show more pictures from that. So that's part of the fun. But anyway,

I hope my talk went well. I guess if my talk went horribly wrong, I don't post this podcast. So by the mere fact that you're hearing this podcast, I think that means the talk probably went well. If it went horribly wrong, I don't post this podcast. So, by the mere fact that you're hearing this podcast, I think that means the talk probably went well. If it went horribly awry, I probably wouldn't

have been posting this podcast. So, since you're hearing it, that means, oh, it went great. So, I had a lot of fun putting it together. Like I said, I don't know all the specifics. Until I get to the venue, I don't know all the specifics. So, I'm hoping anything goes off without a hitch. And I'm hoping you all enjoyed it, Until I get to the venue, I don't know all the specifics. So I'm hoping anything goes off without a hitch.

And I'm hoping you all enjoyed it, which I'm hoping, since you're hearing this, you did. But it was a lot of fun to put together. It was a lot of fun to go back. On some level, the act of making this was me going through the 30 years of magic. And so there was a lot of joy, like, just going back and seeing all the pictures and picking my memories and remembering all the memories, you know, that it was my own retrospective on 30 Years of Magic. So the act of making it was something that was actually quite joyful for me and very fun.

And anyway, I'm so glad you guys got to hear about it. But I am now at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. To the end of Talking Magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I hope you guys enjoyed my talk

and my talk about my talk. But anyway, guys, it's time for me to go. So I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.