Today in 2006, I first met Joel McVie in person. Previous to that, I was an online follower, a blog fan, to his The McVie Show. Reading his posts, I was entertained and inspired. I thought to myself, I would want to have a friend like that. Smart, witty, funny… someone who is so sure of himself, so confident, enough to not take himself too seriously. And so on November 4, 2006, a Saturday, we met. I was accompanied by several friends, one of them was Gibbs Cadiz, who took blogging more seriously just a couple of months before that. So there we were, in Greenbelt, at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, chatting away. It was such a fun first meeting. Little did we know that that one evening would change the course of our lives. At least from my perspective.
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A couple more months after that, I floated the idea of recording gay-themed podcasts — with Joel McVie, Gibbs Cadiz, and I as the original podcasters; the triumvirate later would be named The Troikasters. If you listen to those recordings now, you would see that I was still quite serious, somehow uptight. McVie was already his bubbly, witty self, with countless hirits. And Gibbs? Yeah, he’s the same intellectual, opinionated guy, always ready with his, ermmm, sermons. Hehehe! (Labya Gibbs!) Our combination was almost perfect. Almost – until we met several more entities. (more…)