Hi dudes! It’s been awhile since I’ve dropped a pod, so I thought I drop in and say that we’re still around. Also, I wanted to announce that we’re not recording this week due to some scheduling conflicts / illnesses.

Three weeks without TEH is a lot considering we’ve been delivering fairly consistently over the last (almost) two years. I miss recording, too — TEH is a fantastic time for us all to catch up, so it’s a special thing. If time, family, and work doesn’t get in the way, we’ll put on a show next week. I’ll let you know via The Twitters.

Have a great week, guys. Oh! And if you’d like to listen to at least one of us this week, check out Podtoid or The TouchArcade Show. Both are fun! Yay!

A couple of weeks ago, I came to you blabbering about live audio. I had a good plan. We would release live audio alongside our traditional releases. These shows would have a ton of listener interaction — products mutually forged by both our hands. Logistics will smash the best-laid or well-intentioned plans, so that’s why you haven’t seen an auxiliary pod.

One positive thing that did emerge from those plans, however, was a live recording of our actual Internet Radio Show. It was awesome. It lived up to what I wanted. Better yet, it felt natural, as if our podcast was meant to be a shared experience from the get-go.

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The best RPG ever created by the deft hands of nerds and enthusiasts is “Dragon Age: Origins.” We all feel it in our bones. It’s just a matter of time until it’s proven to all in our tournament. Speaking of which, the second round has kicked off and a new tier of games and voting is waiting for you over at our fair message board.

To get into the action, all you need to do is swing by our thread and follow Joe W and the rest of our awesome listenership’s lead. The choices are much fewer this time around, so if you skipped out on the action last time because of the time commitment, you’ll find it easier to penetrate with this newer, shorter list of last week’s winners.

So, quit reading this and head over to the boards. You’re needed to vote for “Dragon Age: Origins.” Seriously. Quit reading. Go vote. Please? Stop. You need to stop reading this. I wish you’d click that link already. C’mon, dude. GO, GO, GO.

User “Joe W” on our message board is one of the most patient and passionate dudes that I know. A month or so ago, my man started work on a huge “Best RPG Ever” tournament. After I saw it and the tremendous amount of work he put into it, I told him that I would post it on the front page to get more people into the action. So, here we go!

The tournament as a whole is bracketed “game vs. game.” The first round, which is going on right now, boasts a total of 56 individual randomized skirmishes. I think it’s in all our best interests to get in there and vote. We certainly don’t want “Kingdom Hearts” or “Fallout II” to take the crown. I mean, “Dragon Age: Origins,” obviously, is the greatest game ever.

The line-ups and my votes have been recorded after the break and in the thread. Definitely check it out!

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(There are superlatively minor spoilers for A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords in this post.)

“Grieve for your friend, but never blame yourself. You did not kill the butcher’s boy. That murder lie’s at the Hound’s door …”

DaniusKang posits a question I hadn’t considered before:  Eddard Stark, beleaguered Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and Hand of the King, didn’t ask for a trial by combat prior to his unexpected execution.

Why doesn’t Ned demand a trial by combat? (I realize he is injured, but he could choose a champion — Ser Barristan, for example.) Is he not entitled to the King’s Justice under this circumstance? And if he is just being denied this by Joffrey and Cersei because they are corrupt douchebags, shouldn’t this cause serious problems with the noble class, who depend on this system?

Think of it like [a] social contract: couldn’t their right to trial just as easily be discarded if the Lannisters didn’t like them? If so, why should they give fealty to this new king, especially when his position is far from secure? If it is the case that Ned was given the short shrift by them, it seems like an overly risky political move (which. granted, does seem par for the course for Joffrey, but at this point Cersei seems smarter than that).

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Dear You,

When I think about what we have accomplished in the last year the first word that comes to mind is “stunning.” The response that we’ve had, the continued excitement for the next episode, the support, the dedication, the draw, and the work we’ve done is stunning.

I don’t think we set out to have a successful podcast. When I brought up the idea for this podcast all I wanted, at first, was a venue to continue work left unfinished. I also wanted to hang out with some of the finest people I know. It was mission accomplished from the first second we hopped on a microphone, but then this started turning into something else.

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We have a lot of incredible readers and listeners. Miles is one of them. Dude kept hosting our “Minecraft” server well after our old provider buried the original site, and he kept the server alive as we set the game aside to rebuild our Web site and infrastructure.

In fact, it had been so long since I set foot in those digs, that I forgot it existed. He calmly reminded me that the server was still alive when I solicited for a new one the other day on the Twitter. So, let’s hear it for Miles, an unbelievable dude who deserves some props.

If you’re not down for e-applause and e-back patting, perhaps the best way we can honor Miles’ dedication is by enjoying some more “Minecraft.” In the interest of freshness, we have wiped our old stuff, updated the game, and are now accepting new dudes into a new, presumably soon to be quirk-ridden world.

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One of the things you fret over when you’re the social dude at the reigns of a podcast is how to leverage content. We use the Twitter and the Facebook in coordination with our stuff and our outreach, but we haven’t used YouTube. That changed this week with the pilot episode of The Electric Hydra LIVE.

In a nugget, TEH LIVE will be a bi-weekly-to-tri-weekly live version of our fair podcast where we focus on you and what we’re doing right at that moment. We’ll stream it our page on Justin.TV and then after the fact, upload the content to YouTube and an audio version to our pod feed. This is a scatter-shot approach that kills three birds with a single stone. And though I’m writing as the marketer  here, make no bones about it — this is going to be an awesome show.

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So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the “Quest for Glory” series after responding to our “Top 5 Favorite Games” thread. The first game, “So Do You Want To Be A Hero,” inspired me. It made me think about games and want to see more. It made me an RPG lunatic and informed all my decisions from that point onward. It’s kind of wild, actually.

Anyway, I’m going to play through the first game over this weekend and I want to share my experience and stories with all of you on our message board. But, I’d also like to hear what you have to say about the it — especially if you’re unfamiliar with it.

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This PSN news is bad. Right now, it’s possible that some dude has all the relevant info to do bad stuff in your name. Dude might also have your credit card number, which means he could, theoretically, go on a cruise with your money and not even invite you along.

That’s a big deal, but I also think we’re blowing the issue out of proportion. Nick made a great point this morning in our podcast: this hack gives us a license to pretend to a “big boy” or, in other words, a journalist. And as a result of the chest-puffing going on, readers are seeing a lot of scathing stuff, a lot of absurd questions being posed (“Is Sony Dying”), a lot of fear-laced speculation, and a lot of outside commenting that, frankly, isn’t needed.

End of the day: a bad dude hacked PSN and got your details, and Sony was clearly late in fessing up to it. That’s the story. It’s not, “Sony Ate Your Children,” or “Sony Cover Up,” or “Sony Hates You.” And soon, this story will include the re-launch of PSN and Sony’s observations on how to make a more secure network.

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