We are back!

Hey neighbors, it's your buddy next door, Mason Stewart. And I'm so excited to be back in the booth with you all here today. It's been a while since we've done one of these, almost a month. We're going to be going over. That why I had to take a little bit of an extended break.

We're also going to be going over my updates in voiceover and my updates in life. And don't forget, we always have a fantastic food adventure as well. So we're going to be jumping into that. We're going to be doing a tier list today. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode, but let's jump right into the meat of everything.

And that is why I wasn't doing anything for a month. Well, the reason for it is actually pretty simple. My entire PC crashed. So you have different drives on your computer where items are saved a lot of times and most of the time most computers have one in particular called a C drive, and that is your main drive to save everything from Word documents to downloads, games, anything like that. Well, it turns out that my C drive was absolutely corrupted.

I don't know how it became corrupted. The tech people didn't know how it became corrupted. It's just kind of one of those things where things happen. I do have some suspicions that I talked to some friends about and maybe need to do a couple of upgrades on my PC to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future. But I had backups ready and that's what's important.

But jumping into everything. The reason why I wasn't doing any of these recordings or anything is because I was running off of a backup, an external hard drive that just had my voice over stuff and information on it. That way I could still record, send out auditions, do my class that I just started, all of that jazz. So I wasn't able to record or do anything because I had very limited space and I wanted to make sure I wasn't taking up that space with video files or my pictures to promote my YouTube and the podcast. But we're back.

We've got that fixed. It took a long time. It took like two weeks, a couple of different tries and fixes. But the one thing I do want to stress to everybody, make sure you have some backup. Whether it's a cloud backup to backup every single file or you have an external drive, make sure you have that.

I now have like a screenshot of my Windows, of everything that I need at all times that I can just reinstall from that. I also have a flash drive dedicated just to a Windows reinstall because crazy things happen and you can't predict it or be ready for it at any time. That's really how life boils down, unfortunately. So that's what I've been dealing with for the last week or so. It's been a little bit rough.

But the good news is we're back in business, baby, and we are here to stay. So prepare to have more content from me. Now, jumping into the voiceover recap. When we left, we were getting ready to start our voiceover class with Paul Laburdi. Now, it has been three weeks now that I have done stuff with Paul, and let me tell you, this is the best voiceover class I have ever done.

I have learned more and experienced more and improved more than I have at any other time. My voice typically lends to itself feeling very announcer, right? Like you could definitely hear me reading the news or something, being like, today in Salt Lake City, there was a high of 86 and there were six murders, something like that. I know that seemed really drastic. Don't come at me.

There was a lost puppy that was found today in a tree and it was exciting. Stuff like that, very radio, very news forward. So I've always struggled with trying to get my voice to sound conversational when I'm reading words because a lot of the times when you're looking at a script, it's not going to feel very you're not going to be able to feel connected to it. You're going to look at it and be like, I don't have any connection to life insurance. I don't have any connection to Honda because I'm a subaru guy.

I don't have any connection to this dog food because I have a cat. I don't have a dog. I don't like dogs, whatever it may be, right? I do like dogs. I want to make that clear.

Dogs are amazing and beautiful. I love them. Don't come at me. Anyways, jumping back on topic here. So this class has really taught me what it means to be conversational.

Because in my mind, when I was looking at scripts and they're like, we want a conversational read, I thought it meant casual, right? Very casual. Like, I'm just like, relaxed, I'm super chill. And that's really not what it's about because what is conversational? Look at the word conversational.

It has the actual word conversation in it. And what is a conversation? It's not one person talking at another person, being like, hey, buy this, or hey, this is good, and you need to know why it's a conversation. You're talking between two people. There has to be some kind of call and response.

And while it's not presented in the script or in the commercial, you have to bring that to life from yourself. And so whether that is adding different things sorry, there we go. Is that back? Yeah. Okay.

Sorry, my transcript thing stopped. I need to make sure that it's working okay. But it's not one person talking at another being like, buy this, do this, yada, yada, yada. Right? It is all about people having a conversation.

There's a call and a response to it. Now, because of that, it's not written in the script. Like I said, you're not going to hear the conversation. So the actor has to pretend that that conversation is happening. And that was really difficult for me.

This is the first time in my life I've ever done anything in acting besides like, a Robin Hood play that I did in fourth grade, third grade, something like that. And I was so bad that they invented a part for me. So it's Robin Hood, right? This is a funny Mason story. So the story of Robin Hood, right?

The king. King John leaves to go on the crusades. And that's why the evil prince I don't remember his name, he's taken over, and that's who Robin Hood is robbing from. And I was so bad at acting, and I was just terrible that they invented a part for me where I would dress up as King John, who's over in the Crusades. I had this big old fur coat at a crown, and they leaned a chair up against the front of the stage, on the side up against the edge of the stage, and I sat there for the whole play, pretending to be asleep.

That's how bad I was at acting. My brother and sister, all the musical theater, they're very much in that acting scene. This is my first foray into it. And so, really learning in this class, I've definitely been improving. My reads have gotten really better, and I've learned to really embrace my own voice, because before I was really trying to change my voice to fit what I thought that the casting director or the person posting the job would want to hear.

And that's not really what it's about. What a commercial audition is about is about listening to your own story and putting yourself into that story, whether it's about tide pods or AirPods or grass, lawn mowing services, lawn care services, it doesn't matter. I need to bring myself into that, whether it's about that or not. And so I've really learned from there. And it's also been fantastic because I still live in Utah, right?

Most. Voice over work is done on the East Coast in New York and on the West Coast in La. And so I'm kind of out in no man's land. And so because of that, I have to really stand out from the crowd because they're going to see Salt Lake City on my auditions, and they're going to be like, oh, I don't know if I want to get this guy. He's not in an acting hub or anything.

But it's been so cool to have people in my classes that have been in Broadway musicals. For example, Christy Cates is in my class. She was the original understudy for Alphabet in Wicked. Yeah, Wicked, that's right. She was the understudy for Adina Menzelle, and she eventually took the lead when the show went to Chicago.

And that is amazing. And being able to hear her, obviously like commercials are a new thing for her as well. And so hearing her take and how she does stuff is so fascinating to me because she brings such musicality to it. She has ebbs and flows, she has different notes, she has different volume levels. I can't remember the name of it right now.

She's got Forte, she's got piano, she's got pinehisimo, she's got Fortissimo, and it all flows so well and I'm learning so much from it. So this class has been fantastic and I hope to continue to improve on there. On that note, on the sad side of the note, for voiceover, the rough part for me this year was really not this year, but this last month or so was really the fact that I want to do so much more. But to do more, I have to get in front of more people. And to get in front of more people, I need to upgrade some of my demos.

To upgrade some of my demos, I need some cash. Demos are not cheap. You don't want to make your own demo because they can tell that it's not professionally done and that's just not how the industry standard is. Like, my demos are serviceable right now, but my narration demo in particular is a little bit outdated. So I talked with a couple of coaches, got some numbers, and unfortunately, right now I can't upgrade it.

And that's so frustrating to me because I want to get this done and I want to succeed, but they're just so expensive. So I'm really working to take all the information I'm learning in my class right now and applying it to my journey so that I can do my auditions, get paid for some gigs potentially, and then be able to get a better demo. So that's the plan right now. As far as my everyday life, things have not changed that much. Still doing my day job that's hanging out in there.

I haven't been doing a lot of streaming because of the computer issues and because Overwatch is kind of dead. Once Overwatch comes back or I find a game that I feel pretty confident in streaming, then we will probably get back to streaming during the weeknights. So keep an eye out for that on my twitch as well. It's going to be very different streaming wise because I really just want to make sure that oh gosh, hold on, my transcript stopped again. I really hate that this thing stopped so much.

Okay, there we go. We're back in business. But I lost my train of thought. But really Twitch Stream should be coming back might be a little bit different because we're not jumping into Overwatch immediately. Overwatch Two is going to come out in October.

Once that happens, we'll definitely be streaming a lot as time permits. So keep an eye out for that. We're getting our sleep number bed next week, so I'm super excited about that. Yeah, next week from when this video will go out. So very excited about that.

Even though it was a large chunk of money, very excited to be able to get a better sleep. Our mattress definitely needs an upgrade. Should help Melissa's back a little bit better. So that's fantastic. Other than that, nothing super exciting in my life has happened.

I'm just really put my nose to the grindstone, really jumping into marketing, trying to get everything that I can do to further push my voice over career, because that's what it's really all about, is pushing my voiceover career. But in the meantime, we can go ahead and we can jump into our fun portion. For today, we are going to be doing our food adventure, and we're doing a tier list. And today we are doing an ice cream flavor tier list. So give me one moment.

I'm going to get that pulled up and we'll be right back. Hi, neighbors. Are you ready for this? We're doing another tier list today. We're doing ice cream flavors.

This is going to be exciting. I love ice cream. If cheesecake isn't around, ice cream is my go to dessert, so I'm very excited to do this with you. Also, we're going to get started here with maybe a controversial pick here. But vanilla is mid.

Now. A lot of people may come at me because they're going to be like, oh, vanilla is like this expensive thing. They used to fight over vanilla trades and everything like that. Well, that's fantastic. Guess what?

It's 2022. We don't have to fight over vanilla anymore. Vanilla is the base for everything. There's vanilla extract. Like, you can do so much better than vanilla.

People like, come on, add something to your ice cream. Spice up your life. We don't need just plain vanilla. That being said, if you have a vanilla bean, vanilla bean is better than vanilla. And I would put that above average, but plain vanilla doesn't do it for me.

Rocky Road is above average. You got your marshmallows, you got your nuts. You got your little chocolate in there. It's a solid ice cream. It's not mid, right?

It's good. It's a good ice cream. It really is. Okay. Peanut butter ice cream.

My father in law loves peanut butter ice cream. But here's my thing. It's too much peanut butter. If I want to taste peanut butter, I'm going to go eat a Reese.

I'm going to go eat a Reese's cup. I'm going to go eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But if I want something, I'm not going to get, oh, gosh, I'm on the wrong train. There we go. I'm not going to get peanut butter ice cream.

I'm just going to put it in mid. Okay. Pistachio ice cream, guys. Pistachio ice cream. If you haven't tried it, you are sleeping on one of the best ice cream flavors you could possibly have.

Pistachio is absolutely delicious. I recommend it to everybody eat it. It's good. It's refreshing. It's got that nice saltiness going on with the sweet cream.

It's fantastic. Now on to one of my wife's favorite ice cream flavors, birthday cake. Now, this is going to be controversial, and she already knows where this is going if she's watching this. But birthday cake is absolute garbage. Tastes horrible.

If I want birthday cake, I'm going to go eat birthday cake. I don't need it in my ice cream. It's absolute garbage. Get it out of here. We don't need it.

We don't need any, like, cake batter. No. Get it out of here. Get it out of here. Now, cheesecake ice cream, that is an above average ice cream.

I don't think it's the best, but it is good. Cheesecake ice cream is good. Okay, going on to eggnog ice cream. Eggnog ice cream is made. It's okay.

If you like eggnog, you're going to like the ice cream. But I personally would rather just drink eggnog cherry ice cream. Cherry ice cream is also garbage. Here's the deal. I like cherries.

When they're picked off a tree or in a pie, I don't know, something about it being in the cream, being all cold. It's not for me. If you like cherries, you probably like it, but I think cherries pretty gross. Peppermint ice cream. Now I will put exclamation, non exclamation, and an asterisk.

That's the word putting asterisk on this one. I'm going to put it in mid, but it all depends on the brand. There are some really good peppermint ice creams, like some candy cane ice creams, different stuff like that. But then there are some peppermint ice creams where it's too much peppermint. It feels like you stuck a peppermint leaf in your mouth, and it's just like, oh, it's not good.

Jumping over to bubblegum. Bubblegum falls under the same idea as birthday cake. I don't need that as a flavor. And ice cream. Get it out of here.

Disgusting. I'm not about it. Rumrason, I've never had ron Swanson would probably be disappointed in me. Okay. And now we're going into one of the most hotly debated things on the Internet in the world when it comes to food and snacks, and that is mint chocolate chip ice cream.

It is top tier. I love mint chip ice cream. Now, it's not on this list, but if you can find mint cookie, and really what that means is mint Oreo Oreo pieces inside of mint ice cream, that would be like, God tier. If this is top tier, mint cookie would be God tier. It's so good.

It's so good. It's absolutely delectable. But you can't get anything more refreshing. You get the nicer freshness of the mint. You get the smoothness of the chocolate.

It is perfect. Bite me on it. It's delicious. Get out of here. It's so good.

If you don't like it, they'll like, just leave. Just leave. It's so good. All right, up next we have brownie batter. Now, brownie batter, I think is mid.

And here's why you have chocolate ice cream, and then you stick brownies are considered to be like a chocolate flavored pastry, right? Is it considered a pastry? A baked good? It's a chocolate flavored baked good. And so you have this chocolate on chocolate thing.

There's no contrast. You have a little bit of textural difference, but it kind of just gets lost because they're both soft. So it's just mid. Like, it's okay, I'll eat it. Lemon custard garbage.

Get it out of here. Lemon ice cream. Gross. Peach ice cream. Mid.

I like peach ice cream every now and then. It's good. I've never had coffee ice cream. I don't eat drink coffee, so I wouldn't know. Okay, dream sickle.

I've never had a dream sickle ice cream, but we're not going to put it in the never had. We're going to base it based off of a dream sickle, which is just an orange creamsicle. And orange creamsicles are really good. So if it tastes like an orange creamsicle, we're going to give it med. Excuse me.

It's not my go to, but it's not going to be bottom tier either. Mango ice cream. I've never had a mango ice cream. That is bizarre. All right, now we're getting into Neapolitan.

Neapolitan is a top tier. Let me explain. Each of these flavors individually on their own are probably, like I said before, if it's vanilla bean, it's above average. Strawberry is above average, which we'll get to. Chocolate is above average, which will get to we can just kind of throw them in there.

Chocolate, I think, is above average, and strawberry is above average. But the fact that you can put them all together, you get this delicious melody and combination of flavors is exactly why Neapolitan is a top tier ice cream. All right, jumping over to moose tracks. That is above average. You've got the vanilla, you've got some chocolatey swirls.

You got some depending on the type of moose tracks, you got some, like, little pieces of chocolate filled with caramel, different things like that. It's really good. Are you against it? I don't drink beer. I don't know what beer ice cream tastes like.

We're just going to ignore it. I have no idea what Blue Moon ice cream is. If you know, make sure you tell me down in the comments. Superman. Superman.

In Utah, there is Superman ice cream. And then I'm also lumping in there's a brand called Far, F-A-R-R ice cream. And they make a Playdoh ice cream. They're both essentially the same thing, and they're both absolute trash. Absolutely disgusting.

It's like banana, blue, raspberry, cherry. It's just like this amalgamation of flavors that they probably just have scraps of at the end of their packing. And they're like, oh, let's just mix it all together, and we'll call it Playdoh or we'll call it Superband, because all these different things it's like a super ice cream. No, it's garbage. It's hot garbage.

Stop making it. Stop selling it. Get rid of it. Move on to actual ice cream flavors, please, for the love. Cotton candy ice cream not as good as cotton candy.

I'm putting it in the garbage because I would rather just have cotton candy. It's not good. Black raspberry. I can't say I've had I have had raspberry ice cream. It's just going to go mid, right?

Coconut. I don't like coconut. If you like coconut, you probably like coconut flavored ice cream. I don't like coconut that much. Has to be in very small amounts.

And if I'm having a scoops and scoops of ice cold coconut, it's not for me. Raspberry ripple. Raspberry ripple? Yes. You guessed it right into mid.

Fruit flavored things, for the most part, need to go into mid, with the exception of strawberry, because it's delicious. Grape. I've never had grape ice cream. Has anybody ever had grape ice cream? I kind of want to try it.

If it tastes like grape soda or anything like that, then I will immediately throw it up because it's going to remind me of medicine, and I don't like that. Cookies and cream is a top tier. Don't fight me. It's so good, the crunchiness of the cookie. You get that nice crunch there.

You got the cream filling in there. It's really good. Chocolate chip ice cream is mint. It's mint chip without the mint. And that is obviously worse.

It just is. Chocolate chip cookie dough is made as well. I know lots of people that love cookie dough ice cream. My wife included in that. I just can't get my head around it.

I don't think it's very good. I really don't. Like if I wanted to eat cookie dough, I would just eat cookie dough. I don't need it to be frozen and hard. Also, if you're getting toppings, like if you go to a Cold Stone or something and you get something in your ice cream, why on earth would you pick cookie dough or anything that could get extremely hard to bite into?

For example, my wife loves to go to Cold Stone, and she puts gummy bears in her ice cream. And I just for the life of me can't understand it, because when you go, you get the smooth ice cream, and all of a sudden you have this freaking rock hard gummy sitting there that you have to chew on for, like, five minutes just to get it to soften up and to eat. It's not a pleasant experience for me. I don't understand why people like it. It doesn't make any sense.

Okay, next up, butter pecan. That is an above average ice cream. Go try it. It's delicious. We love butter pecan.

You get that rich buttery flavor, and then you get a nice salty pecan in there with the smoothness of the ice cream. Oh, it is fantastic. It's really good. It's not quite top tier. I would rather have neapolitan, mint chip, or cookies and cream, but above average 100%.

And same goes with Reese's peanut butter cups, like we talked about with peanut butter being a mid. You know what? I'm actually changing this. Peanut butter is in the garbage. Nobody wants peanut butter.

Nobody but Reese's Peanut butter cup is good because you have the spectrum. You've got the chocolate. You've got a small amount of peanut butter mixed in with this rich, creamy ice cream rather than having the ice cream itself. That's creamy. Acting like you're just eating a spoonful of jiff.

Tell me I'm wrong. But here are our rankings for our ice cream. We've got mint, chip, neapolitan, and cookies and cream. Taking in the top, birthday cake. Cherry bubblegum lemon custard.

Superman. Cotton and candy. Coconut and peanut butter. All garbage. Don't eat them.

Stop making them. Ice cream companies. It's not worth it. But I hope that you guys enjoyed our ranking experience today, and I will catch you guys on the next one. We'll see you next.