GoNintendo meets the female version of Jack Thompson

Yesterday Kotaku ran a story from over on the humaninbox blog about Pia Shandel, radio personality in Canada. I will post the contents of Kotaku’s article below; it is integral to the story.

Say hello to Pia Shandel. She hates video games. Jesse from I'm a Human Inbox caught her radio program in Vancouver right after Fatal1ty graced 60 Minutes in which she said gaming was “a waste of time for boys.” Continuing, she likened it to “40 year-old men wearing green golfing pants.” According to Jesse, the announcer was generally uninformed about gaming, but very opinionated about it.

So who is this Pia lady? According to her show's website, “Pia Shandel is one of Vancouver's most recognizable media personalities. Pia was the original morning host on CFUN when we changed to talk in 1996. Pia returns to CFUN after a stint in Television.” That's a polite way of saying she's crawled back to radio after failing miserably in TV. Hey Pia, I've never seen your show, nor have I met you and am completely uninformed as to what type of person you are. But, in my opinion, you are a nitwit.

This story really got on my nerves, and I decided to email Mrs. Shandel about her recent crusade on a topic in which she is very poorly versed. I made sure to let her know that myself, and gamers everywhere were extremely angry with her remarks (in a very polite manner of course), and that I was willing to do an interview via email/phone with her so that we could set things straight. I figured I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

I continued on my day completely forgetting that I ever emailed Pia until very early this morning. She sent me an email saying that she was very impressed with what I had said, and she would like to set up an interview during her radio show. While I was intrigued by the idea, I had a feeling I was being baited for a trap. After a long hard night of pros/cons discussed with Link613, I decided I would take the bait and go for the interview. This is the kind of stuff that doesn’t happen often right?! The real reason I went for it was honestly for you guys…I wanted to at least try my best in the name of all the visitors/fans of GoNintendo. You guys come here everyday and check out the news, I can get over my extreme stage fright (radio stage fright in this case) to have a chat with Mrs. Shandel

I emailed her back filling her in on my schedule and when it would be possible for us to talk. I provided her with a phone number like she asked, and emailed my response to the two email addys she gave me. Hours went on…with no reply. Her first email suggested a time of 7:30 PST (10:30 EST) to have talk, and she said that she would be in touch with me. I never got a single email, call, or anything to confirm our meeting. I was going to let it go, but instead I went to her radio station’s website to see if I could find a live feed of her show. Low and behold I came across one and decided to listen in.

I couldn’t believe the stuff I was hearing from her. She took the typical viewpoint of fat, pale, kids sitting in a dark basement with no friends. I kid you not, she made those statements. The combination of her rant mixed in with my anger over never having received any confirmation from her made me take matters into my own hand. I listened for the number to the station, called her show long distance JUST so that I could try and make some sense of what she was saying. When I got in touch I explained that I was Kevin Cassidy from GoNintendo.com, to which she replied with something along the lines of I am extremely happy that you called to talk on the show. No mention of emails or forgotten phone calls was made. She then asked where I was from and put me on hold. When she came back she called me Tom and I had to correct her. Luckily this was before I got on the air. Then as she was introducing me she had already forgotten where I was from, but her phone helper filled her in. So began a conversation…a conversation where I thought it was very obvious that Pia had no idea what she was talking about, but had plenty of opinions on it.

Like I said, I have stage fright…but I think my voice came off okay. As the first 30 seconds went by I felt more comfortable…and continued on (with a few stumbles). I am my own worst critic, so I feel that I did horrible in the discussion. It was my first step at getting over my fears, and I did the best I could with what little time I had to prepare. The conversation had started and ended within a matter of 5 minutes…mind you I thought that was a pretty good amount of time dedicated to one caller. When the station had to take a break Pia told me I was welcome to stay on line and we could talk more once the show picked back up. I was past my fear, and I was raring to go…I had a ton of comments I wanted to make about Pia’s last few statements. I stayed on the line for another 20 minutes, was never picked up, never spoken to, and then I was hung up on. I called the show back, and the phone helper told me I wasn’t allowed to go back on the show. I told her who I was and she said oh yeah!, Pia did say that….I’m sorry, we only let people call once every 30 days. I know this is standard practice for most radio shows, but when I was contacted for an interview, finally got on the show, and was told to hold on so we could talk more, I guess I just took that as the truth. I was very polite to the helper, I know it isn’t her fault. On that note, the ordeal was over.

Now here is the part I am dreading. You want to know what we talked about don’t you! Well I set up MotherBrain’s laptop to record the phone call, and I have the 5 minutes worth of discussion we had. I think it’s horrible, I think I suck, and I would love to just throw this away. The only good news is that my first situation like this is over with, and I know I will be much better next time in ALL areas. Regardless of all that, I have put up the audio from the show. Something happened during one point when I left the room while talking, and the audio cut out for about 20 seconds. Didn’t miss much of anything important, just me talking about racing games. Click the link below to hear me on the radio…download at your own risk!

GoNintendo Vs. Jacqueline Thompson

If you would like to email Pia with your two cents on the topic, you can contact her through this site. As for me, I have been up since 10 yesterday morning…now that this ordeal is over it’s time for some sleep. Don’t worry, I will find a way to work GoNintendo updates in there somewhere!