This Thing Rules

X Button - Independent Video Game Podcast Network

It’s a HUGE day today! You can also follow X Button here on Bluesky at @xbuttonshow.bsky.social 👈

Brian Altano@brianaltano.bsky.social

Last month we lost our jobs. This month we made new ones. Introducing X BUTTON: an independent gaming network from three ex-IGN employees. A new weekly Nintendo podcast! A new weekly video game podcast! And that’s just the start, but we can’t do it without your help! www.patreon.com/cw/XButtonShow

This Thing Rules reposted

Brian Altano

@brianaltano.bsky.social

This Thing Rules reposted

@xbuttonshow.bsky.social

Because you asked for it. A lot. Keep an eye out, it’s about to be real.

patreon.comGoodbye But Also Hello! | This Thing RulesHey everyone, it's your old friend Brian. You may have heard the recent news about Max and I (and several other people) getting laid off at

It’s the end of an era, but also the beginning of a new one!

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IGN Creators Guild

@ignunion.bsky.social

6 June

IGN Entertainment is refusing to pay its workers the wages we deserve, even as we make #IGNLive the event that it is this weekend. So we left a message that can’t be ignored. And you should too. Let our upper management know that you support us by sending them an email here: bit.ly/4e2uUCP

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You know what rules? Conventions! Come hear Brian and Max chat about those giant, nerdy gatherings we all love to attend: Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/7Add... Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t... #Podcast #Conventions #ComicCon

26 May

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 📽️ Love old-timey horror movies? Then you might want to pack a trip this summer to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania to attend "Blobfest" - a yearly festival/convention centered entirely around the 1958 cult horror movie "The Blob"!

24 May

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🍖 Do you ever find yourself craving spam (the meat variety, that is)? Then you might want to grab a ticket for the SPAM JAM, a festival/convention dedicated entirely to the luncheon mainstay that’s held yearly in Honolulu. (Suspicious phone calls and emails need not apply!)

23 May

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🚽 Toilets: a great tool for getting rid of stools, a most excellent throne for scrolling on your phone…and the focus of an entire convention: the World Toilet Summit! Founded in 2001, this annual con is dedicated to tackling “the world's most urgent sanitation challenges.”

We hope you enjoy our just-released episode about conventions! Alas, sweetness always comes with a little medicine: because we’re about to head into *busy* season, we’ve decided to put the show on temporary hiatus, and pause billing on the Patreon. We very much appreciate all the support (1/2)

you've given us, whether it's been sending us a few bucks, leaving nice comments, or just holding your arms up over your head and sharing your energy so we can kill Majin Buu. Er, make a podcast. Thanks for bearing with us, we'll get back to it when we're able. You all rule! (2/2)

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Kozibear

@kozibear.bsky.social

18 May

Not quite Bloody Mary-flavored, but close enough

7 May

#ThrowbackThursday 🦕 Did the Stegosaurus have long, shaggy hair like a golden retriever? Scientists are divided:

6 May

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🍻 The oldest still-functional brewery in the world is Bavaria’s Weihenstephan brewery, which has been making beer (per most sources) since 1040. Its original beer-brewers were Benedictine Monks, which had established a monastery at its location 300 years prior:

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1 May

This Thing Rules is BACK with three new topics on the docket! Come hear Brian and Max talk about why Fridge Magnets, Short Stories and Breweries rule! Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1tcH... Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r... #Podcast #FridgeMagnets #Breweries

4 May

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 📖 The first short story ever published by Stephen King was "The Glass Floor," which debuted in the autumn 1967 issue of Startling Mystery Stories magazine. King (who was a 19-year-old sophomore at the time) earned $35 for its publication - $338 in today's money!

3 May

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🧲 The Guinness World Record for the world’s largest collection of fridge magnets is held by Louise. J. Greenfarb - also known as “The Magnet Lady” - from Henderson, Nevada, who was recorded in 2013 as owning over 35,000 non-duplicated fridge magnets!

1 May

18 Apr

Whoops, seems like there was a malfunction at the This Thing Rules factory this week - hopefully we’ll be back soon with another new episode 🙏

10 Apr

The carrot cake empire is evolving 🥕

Kozibear@kozibear.bsky.social

Was at a bar earlier that had a “Carrot Cake Colada,” so I had to give it a go; tasted like if someone turned carrot cake into a 1000-year-old hard candy, and then turned that into a hard drink. 6.5/10

9 Apr

#ThrowbackThursday 🔎 Are magnifying glasses secretly OP?! Max is on the case:

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3 Apr

You know what rules? Capsule toy machines! Come hear Brian and Max talk about the best way to win random baubles and trinkets: Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6zUS... Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t... YT: youtu.be/uh5v_0ee_-E?... #Podcast #CapsuleMachines #Toys

6 Apr

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🪀 The single largest gachapon machine on record was constructed at Singapore’s Marina Square shopping mall for a pop-up event in late 2022. It measured nearly 5 meters tall(!) and was only available to costumers that spent at least $180 at the mall.

5 Apr

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🪀 Why are gachapon machines called "gachapon," anyway? It's actually an onomatopoeia: the "gacha" part is meant to evoke the sound made by the machine when spinning its crank, and the "pon" is the sound of an item plopping out of it.

4 Apr

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🪀 The first Gachapon machine was invented in 1965 by entrepreneur Ryuzo Shigeta. Shigeta wanted to improve upon the haphazard way American vending machines dispensed their contents, and so he set up a machine in his Tokyo-based shop that dispensed items inside plastic balls.

3 Apr

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Brian Altano

@brianaltano.bsky.social

31 Mar

By some miracle, for the second time in ten months I got to sit down with Shigeru Miyamoto, this time at the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto. As always, he was an absolute delight: www.ign.com/articles/ill...

26 Mar

#ThrowbackThursday 🤖 The question of a generation: can the Liquid Terminator turn into a dog?

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16 Mar

FYI: Max Scoville will be taking part in "Answer For It" - the LIVE all-star trivia showdown from James Willems - on Saturday, March 21st at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco! Learn more (and grab your tickets) here: cafedunord.com/tm-event/ans...

19 Mar

#ThrowbackThursday 💈 Are longer haircuts better? Critics are divided:

18 Mar

Hey folks - a heads up that there will be no new episode this week; time slipped through our fingers again and dropped into the drain, so we’re taking time to recharge our (metaphorical) batteries so we can fish it back out 🎣 We’ll return in due course with more Things That Rule!

16 Mar

12 Mar

#ThrowbackThursday 🏊‍♂️ You never know what those water animals will do to you when you go for a sweeeeem

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6 Mar

You know what rules? Sneakers! And Cookies! And also...yard work?! Come hear Brian and Max talk about all three! Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0BvQ... Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/y... #Podcast #Cookies #Sneakers

10 Mar

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🍪 The world record for the single biggest cookie of all time was achieved in May of 2003 by North Carolina's Immaculate Baking Company, which baked a monster-sized, 101 foot-diameter chocolate chip cookie that weighed in at over 40,000 pounds (18 tonnes)!

9 Mar

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 👟 New Balance was originally founded by William J. Riley in 1906 as the "New balance Arch Support Company." Its first product featured an insole with three support points, a then-innovative concept that Riley came up with after studying chickens' three-pronged feet.

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Kozibear

@kozibear.bsky.social

9 Mar

On the most recent episode of This Thing Rules, @brianaltano.bsky.social recommended adding white miso paste to my cookie dough for a little extra “oomph” and so I made both peanut butter and choco chip cookies with the stuff to test it out; the former was so-so, but the latter was pretty tasty!

7 Mar

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🌾 The lawnmower was invented in 1830 by Edwin Beard Budding, a mechanic from Stroud, England. 19 inches wide and encased in a wrought iron frame, it originally required two people to operate - one to push it from its back, and another to pull it from its front:

6 Mar

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20 Feb

You know what rules? Road Trips! Come hear Brian and Max talk about the joys of hitting the open road in a motor vehicle: Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/2jbY... Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r... #Podcast #RoadTrip #Trips

23 Feb

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🚙 A 2023 study by OpenPoll found the most popular road trip snack among adults to be chips, with 47% of those polled expressing they'd pack a bag of that crisp, salty goodness. Cookies came in second place with 44%, while candy came in third with 42%.

22 Feb

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🚙 The current record for driving through every contiguous US state as fast as possible is 86 hours - a blazing-fast feat that was accomplished in 2021 by a trio of tech executives in a Mercedes-Benz, who used their computer science know-how to plan the shortest-possible route.

roadandtrack.comTrio Drives to All 48 Contiguous States in 86 Hours, 19 Minutes, Shattering RecordThe team drove through every one of the lower 48 U.S. states over 3 days, 14 hours and 19 minutes, beating the previous record by more than 8 hours.

22 Feb

If you're down for some further reading, the story of how they managed this insane feat is quite the tale:

21 Feb

#ThisThingRulesTrivia 🚙 The first-ever long-distance road trip in a combustion engine vehicle was undertaken in 1888 by Bertha Benz (wife of automobile pioneer Karl Benz), who traveled 106 kilometers in Germany using one of Karl's early "Motorwagens" as a publicity stunt to promote said vehicle.