The Nerdologues

Welcome, nerds, to the second part of our potpourri free-for-all. This episode features another random smattering of stories touching on everything from organized crime to X-Men comics.

Here's a bonus for all our loving fans: a "studio" recording of the hilarious "Internet Song" as written by Claire Friedman. If you were at our Chicago Sketchfest show tonight (or saw us at the New York Comic-Con, the New York City SketchFest or our October show at iO in Chicago) you've heard this performed, but it actually debuted in a much different form way back on the musical episode of this podcast. Claire and I spent some time a few months ago recording a non-live version of the song for all of you to (hopefully) enjoy. Thanks for listening!

Yeah, we just released our Best of 2012 ep, but time waits for no man. It's the first of the month, and that means it's time for an ALL-NEW Your Stories podcast. This month we went back to our roots with a themeless episode (well, technically we said the theme was "Potpourri," which did inspire a few storytellers). People were free to talk about whatever they wanted, and what resulted was truly random and awesome, although there was definitely a somewhat somber runner of friend break-ups. Sorry everybody.

I hope you enjoyed last week's episode of my favorite stories. Now it's time to hear what you guys liked the best! Just like last week, this episode features the selected stories as they were originally told plus guest commentary (aka not my own!) about why these are so great.

A few weeks ago I asked people to nominate their favorite stories from our first year in existence so I could put together an end-of-the-year "best-of" podcast episode. As you might imagine, I have quite a few favorites myself, and since I run the show, I thought I would put out a whole episode chosen by me as well. That's what you're looking at now: 2012's "Producer's Picks." These were stories that, for one reason or another, stayed with me throughout the year. In addition to rereleasing them here, I've also recorded new intros for each story so you can hear me say nice things about the people who told them!

The Nerdologues already did our official holiday show this year - thanks to everyone who saw it at iO! - but last Sunday our friend Jon Lester told a great seasonal story that it wouldn't make sense to hold until the January episode, so HERE is our official Christmas-y podcast, a sweet tale Jon has entitled "A Jew's Encounter with a Christmas Tree." Stick around after the story for Dwight and I jamming out on a holiday classic. Merry Christmas everyone!

In case you haven't heard, the Nerdologues is celebrating Life Day in style this Friday with our Nerd Wars Holiday Special show at iO Chicago. This is our take on the classic and awful Star Wars Holiday Special that, if you're lucky, you've never seen. It involves us trying to get Joe Gennaro back to his family for the holidays despite his home planet of Ohio being taken over by the worst enemy of all... the Bro Empire. To have a little fun, we thought we'd release a podcast-only teaser for the show this week that shows the gritty, horrid details of the bro takeover of Ohio. You can listen to it here! I only hope we can get Joe home in time for the traditional Life Day ham.

Last night we recorded our monthly Your Stories show, the one that will mostly be released in January. Nerdologues member Alex Talavera, though, decided to tell a story that we thought it was best to release right away. Alex's life has been threatened by attackers with guns three times, and he wanted to talk about the idea - popularly floating around right now - that if you yourself are armed you can stop the "bad guys" from whatever they're doing. This is a great story, and it's offered without any promotional frills. Please give it a listen.

The second half of our birthday celebration is now unleashed upon the world! This episode, enjoy stories about traditions, goals, and, embarrassingly, me.

As of today, the Nerdologues Presents: Your Stories podcast is one year old! How about that? To celebrate, enjoy the first of two episodes with the theme of "annual," because time is a-passin' and we've got things to commemorate.