The Green Pill Secret: Introversion

Continuing on from our series autumn episodes, this week we’re discussing introversion, extroversion, and extroverted introversion. What is an Extroverted Introvert? If you like parties with friend that you know, but still need to recharge, you might be an extroverted introvert. If you love talking to perfect strangers and schmoozing, and your only feeling when it’s over is that it’s over, you’re kind of an extrovert. And if you like to just netflix and chill, maybe introvert is more your style.

Is Introversion better? Of course not! we need all types to have a successful society. Someone needs to make the sales, after all, after someone else writes the software. It all goes hand in hand.

As for neglect, well, there are many forms of that. Being a child with your needs ignored, or being a wife who’s husband neglects her. Neglect is difficult and debilitating and it’s not what an Introvert wants. Introverts still want friends and to hang out with them, just as extroverts do.

So, whether your an introvert, or an extrovert, or something in the middle, we hope this episode will help you understand all about us. Until next week…

https://youtu.be/GB7WrIjjydU

Mid Atlantic Tesla Light Show

Next Friday, come one, come all… and bring your Tesla. Because on Friday, 18 October, at the Frederick Airport, we’re going to try and break a record. How many vehicles will we have when we record this record of this spectacular.

Still on the fence? Don’t worry, the Airport is opened for us, and we are even excited to have a special guest! None other than the Simon Pollock, the creator of the XLightShow tool for editing and authoring your very own light show scripts. I, for one, want to make a Doctor Who script but I’ve not had the time and it’s hard to do when you’re developing on Floor 15, and your Tesla is in basement parking.

All we ask is that you pre-register your vehicle, and come with your Tesla software up to date.

You can register here!

Schedule:

  • 17:00–17:45 Earlybird Gathering as Spaceships Wraps
  • 18:00: Start arriving at Airport
  • 19:30: Showtime!

The Green Pill Secret: Your Inner Critic

As some of you may know, I have been going to therapy on-and-off for a number of years. The main reason for this because, like many young men of today, I left college with nothing, and couldn’t get a date to save my life. When I finally did find someone who would date me, I clung on as if my life depended on it. In hindsight I know this was unhealthy, but I also recognize as a neglected child and baby, according to my parents, that it’s no wonder I have abandonment issues and historically had a Anxious Attachment style. Of course, naturally I was most attracted to rejecting women who recapitulated my childhood neglect and finally married someone with an Avoidant Attachment style. Therapy has helped me get through this, and helped me stop hating myself and helped me become someone who is more secure in his attachment.

Now, I’m hoping to do into more depth on Attachment Styles in a subsequent episode, as well as therapy, but this week, my wonderful friend Cat returns for the first of 6 topics of discussion. This week, it’s all about that Inner Critic. That inner critic who makes me think no woman will ever find me attractive because of all my recent and historical romantic failures. That inner critic who makes me think I’m not a real cosplayer because I don’t make my own outfits. That inner critic who says I’m an awful composer. That inner critic who says I’m never going to be a pilot after two and a half decades of trying. That inner critic who tells me I can’t deliver a good speech. Celle critique de la interior que dit que je ne parle pas français, oder Deutsch, o italiano, или русский, 日本語または 中文. That inner critic who says I’m a failed Physicist because McGill didn’t even give me credit for the 3 years I studied the discipline. That inner critic who reminds me I’m a software engineer without a job. And that goddamn inner critic that reminds me I’m not a successful author because I’ve only had a few of my short stories published and I’ll never be as successful as Stephen King, or even Nev Fountain or Martin Wilsey.

Now, should you always ignore your inner critic because it’s shit-talking you? By all means, no! The critic is there to keep you from embarrassment. But sometimes, when you’re constantly rejected romantically, and having trouble finding the time to finish the first draft of your novel, and realizing how long it’s been and you still don’t have a pilot’s licence, or your sewing machine sits idle, don’t sweat it. Because I may not be the best, but have been on some successful dates, I do cosplay, I do write music, I am licensed to fly, I ran a great Toastmasters last Thursday, I practice my linguistic skills when I travel, I run a science book club and have read over 100 science books, I’m a very skilled coder with sufficient clearances which make me expect I will have a new job soon, and I have my own Amazon page if you want to read some of my work. And I fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, for a National Popular Vote, and Electric Car access, especially for National Drive Electric Week!

And this channel, well, I hope it will grow too. I don’t mind only 10 subscribers oas of this writing. I’m happy that two of my shorts got over 150 views. So don’t let that Innere Critic Rule you, making you fall into self-sabotaging behaviors. Control your Inner Critic, and just don’t let it control you!

https://youtu.be/HC2FuSiykBE

Toastmasters Open House

Tonight, I served as Toastmaster of the evening as well as gave a Helpful Hint in terms of standing to deliver your speech. I almost gave the Table Topics too, but fortunately someone stepped in to ask the questions. Believe me, I was running around like a rabbit on steroids trying to get this meeting off the ground.

Toastmaster of the Evening: Me
Toastmaster of the Evening: Me

Also, as the Vice-President of Public Relations (VPPR), I had to take a lot of photos of the meeting. This is one I took of myself on the 100% Zoom meeting because the our normal meeting room at the Leesburg Town Hall was unavailable. What’s more, as VPPR, I was trying to promote our Open House meeting, which was supposed to go on today. So, while I’m gathering folks for roles, trying to confirm everyone, I was also having to scramble to get new fliers ready to announce our moving the meeting to Thursday, 17 October.

Loudoun Toastmasters Open House
Loudoun Toastmasters Open House

Now, I just have to get the photos from our last two meetings onto Facebook and LinkedIn

The Tough Lemonade: My Co-host’s Cabaret

Folks,

As we begin the autumn series of the Green Pill Secret, we welcome my good and dear friend Cat back onto the podcast, I was reminded of a wonderful cabaret Cat shared, which we discussed on the podcast in the episode coming out this Sunday.

On the Cabaret we have Cat performing a number of wonderful pieces, including a shout-out to use Baritones what never get no love from the Tennors of the world any more than dems Sopranos care about the poor Alto masses. We also get a heartfelt duet with Cat’s daughter Gracie, a preview of the wonderful performance they gave at L.I. Who. And who can forget Cat’s boyfriend and our returning guest Alex, as they sing together so romantically!

Please check out this amazing performance by my amazing and delightful friend Cat. I’m sure, like me, you’ll never notice how long it is and just wonder how the time flew by!

Thanks for watching and see you Sunday.

The Green Pill Secret: Convention Roundtable, Part 2

In the second part of our Convention Roundtable, we go through how we all got here. We begin by embarrassing Gracie by talking about how she grew up on the convention circuit. Lawrence Neals then talks about his convention experience and what it’s like now with money. Then Alex Boruff chimes in with how much fun he has coming to these conventions. Cat tells us all about how she got into the convention scene. And finally, I talk about how my Mom was part of the Mark Twain Masquers and how I went to conventions at a young age in both Connecticut and Montréal, and then founded the Northern Virginia Doctor Who Viewing Society in 1999, then did a bunch of Electric Car events and got into cosplay—beginning with Ian Chesterton, and most recently in a Fuck Yeah!, complete with Pornstashe—and finally back into the Doctor Who conventions with the Convention which shall not be named, where I met Cat and eventually started attending L.I. Who.

As before, the audio quality is frankly atrocious. I’ve done my best to clean it up but me thinks short of magical computer code, this is the best I can do. I think I’ve boosted the audio of our guests as best I can and since even I find them still relatively unintelligible, even subtitles are out of the question.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the special crawl at the beginning to bring you up to speed, and may the Force Be With You, until next time!

The Green Pill Secret: Convention Roundtable, Part 1

In the first episode of our Autumn series, I bring you the best I could do with the difficult recording I made at the L.I. Who convention on 25 August, 2024. When I recorded the episode, about half-way through, I noticed that the pickup mic wasn’t on and so the only audio being recorded was from the microphone next to Cat and myself. Consequently, the raw recording has Lawrence Neals, returning guest Alex Boruff, and Cat’s daughter Gracie practically silent. I tried to use Final Cut Pro to amplify our guests voices, but it was limited to only 12 dB gain. However, since Zoom records both video with audio and audio by itself, I used Audacity to amplify all the quiet sections by up to 20 dB and the normalize the audio to remove any of the pops. This is probably the best I can do without some Peter Jackson type AI Audio jiggery-pokery.

In part 1, we describe our podcast to our guests and have them each introduce themselves. Thanks again for your patience with the sound quality and we hope you can take one more episode as we bring you part 2, next week.

https://youtu.be/pe2qbN279dU

The Green Pill Secret: Embracing Change

In the final episode of the Summer Series, we get ready for the change of seasons with an episode about change. I recently quit my job and I’m loving it, because change is what I needed. Sure, I’m unemployed now, but I have a budget and a plan and am moving forward. It’s far too soon to panic!

I also am happy to be alone. I still care about my ex but I’m glad I’m no longer married to her, even with my current unemployment and no-one but myself to rely upon.

And, let’s not forget in 51 days we have a Presidential Election here in the United States, and that’s going to bring change either way. Have you registered to vote yet? Don’t wait too long, as time’s running out!

For this episode, my alarm didn’t go off so it ran rather long (about 18 minutes). Because of this, I edited out all my non-sequiturs and brought it down to a still too long 12 minutes, but the last couple are just summarizing the exciting summer season we’ve just had.

As for the excised bits, I’ve added them as short which will be posted over the next week and will bring us into the Autumn season next Sunday. For now, though, please enjoy this week’s episode with me, hoping Cat will be back soon!

The Green Pill Podcast: Compliments

This week is all about saying nice things. Compliments are a great way to break the ice and I can’t say enough how hearing one from a nice woman is near and dear to my heart. But be mindful of what compliments you deal out. And my thanks to my absent co-host Cat for being a partial inspiration for this episode!

Put simply, avoid compliments about what someone is, an intrinsic feature of their body, and focus on compliments which are about what they have or choose. Nobody, after all, wants to be a sexual object, and there’s no greater compliment than one about the person inside the body you may desire. After all, I can’t help my nose from being my nose. Whether it be a pair of boots, a tattoo you have, or a pin you’re wearing.

After all, if you tell me you like Doctor Who, you’re in. And if you tell me you like Firefly or MST3K, you’re very in because those shows are no longer being even made as they were. And please don’t hate on me because of Joss Whedon; I don’t support his actions any more than as a Tesla driver I support Elon Musk. I just like the show; I just like the car.

In any case, I hope you all are well, because… you are all wonderful people my intrepid readers. I can’t compliment y’all enough!

https://youtu.be/j48m9_Zuydg

The Green Pill Podcast: Dealing with Failure

This week I am by myself again as Cat finished band camp and with the two guests I was hoping one of them could make it today were both either in Scotland or going to New York, where I was last week, ironically.

However, in life, you have to deal with failures, and not being able to find a guest, or unable to get a date, or your microphone failing to record your podcast, or your bank charges you overdraft unreasonable fees, whatever it is, it’s a failure and it’s not that you can avoid them, you can only learn to deal with them. And that what this episode is all about.

I hope you will find my advice helpful and consoling as we all deal with the various failures in our lives, and thank you for watching.