STORM DICOSTANZO: My name is Storm DiCostanzo.
I am one half of the music comedy band Paul and Storm.
Storm was a nickname I picked up in high school, oddly
enough for watering plants.
Not intuitive, but it stuck, and it seemed to suit my
broody self at the time.
I do consider myself a gamer.
At present, I'm in a dormant state.
When I was growing up, I certainly played a lot of RPGs
and video games.
A little gaming today, mostly with Mrs. Storm.
Gaming is something I grew up with in my family.
We would play your typical Monopoly, Life-type games.
They were always around.
Video games, big time, and then Dungeons and Dragons and
other role playing games were part of my early teen
experience on into late teenage years.
And I'm just starting to get back into that now.
When it comes to gaming, at present I'm about a 4 on a
scale of 10.
Being around so many gamers has brought me back to role
playing games.
The place where we really got to know Will was at PAX--
Penny Arcade Expo-- which is an entire massive city
dedicated to gaming and gamers.
Gaming is terrific the same way that
the world is terrific.
You can jump into the game, and suddenly you're
in a brand new world.
Like going into a book, except for you're active.
You can become someone else, and you get experiences like
jumping out of a plane.
Some games, when you are thrown into it, your
mind just lights up.
And it's the true sense of the word, "recreation"--
recreating.
Recreating life situations.
And your brain has no idea it's not actually happening if
you apply your imagination.
Paul and Storm is a musical comedy duo.
And we don't do parody songs like a lot of Weird Al's hits.
But they're clever, funny songs.
And a lot of them have geeky themes to them.
You can think of it as similar to Flight of the Concords,
except we're just ourselves.
We're not playing personas.
Paul and I both responded to a newspaper ad for a doo wop
group that only lasted about three months.
That broke up.
We reformed, most of us, as a band called Da Vinci's
Notebook, which survived as a professional a capella group
for about five years.
That ended for all the reasons that bands do.
And we reformed because we didn't want to grow up.
And wrote all new music and then started touring with
Jonathan Coulton, and realized, oh right, we can be
who we are really at heart.
And have a great time doing it.
And really make a living.
One of the best gaming experiences with fans--
we do a cruise now with Jonathan Coulton.
And there's a game room, and it's just amazing that you can
just step in, and there are all these
tables full of gamers.
And even if you don't know anybody, that you can just
step in and instantly it's your new best
friends in the world.
Gaming is relaxation.
