Prepare yourself for: Road yogurt, Polaski’s exit, lion meat tacos, The Avengers: The Sitcom, Zombicide, and Of the Old School.
Read the show notes at http://flashpulp.com
The Skinner Co. Network
FC88 - The Chinese Connection
Some days, gloomy, my hours are slumberless Dearest, the shadows I live with by nonetheless Little white flowers will never awaken Not where the bright coach of sorrow ends taking you Angels have no fire of evolution in you Would they be angry if I saw to join you Ooooh, Sunday Hello and welcome to Flashcast88, a Skinner Co. presentation Skinner Co. where the reward of a thing well done is to have done it, as well as money This episode is also brought to you by generous donations from Gigantor and Colorado Joe Many thanks! If you liked sponsor an episode, please feel free to use the donate button on the site But now, prepare yourself for Road yogurt, Pulaski's exit, lion meat tacos, the avengers, the sitcom, zombicide, and of the old school Dream for death I'm caressing you with the strength of my soul, I'll be blessing you, with me Sunday. Hello, my name is Opoponax. I went 3 billion human lives and did on August 29th, 1997. The other survivors of the Nuclear Fire called the war, Judgment Day. They were just a man. Hello. I feel like, yeah, exactly what I was going to say, I feel like we should end that with a, um, speaking of movies actually, I actually had that soundtrack, it was one of my favorite soundtracks when I was a kid, on compact disc, on compact disc, that's very interesting. Get soundtrack, I enjoy a good James Cameron soundtrack, I don't remember how responsible for that one he was, but yeah, I mean it's got his fingers in every little, yeah, actually speaking of movie news, Iron Man 3 in theaters now, I think everybody's pretty excited about seeing it. Oh, we should explain. There may be sirens in the background throughout this recording. It's Victoria Day. Right, fireworks and then sirens. Fireworks and then sirens, yeah, exactly so. We've noticed a pattern. It is Victoria Day weekend here in the Canadian, we've had a nice relaxing trio of, well we had a visitor, so that's always keeps you on your toes a little bit, but we've had a pretty nice weekend I would say. We're now sitting down to the mics on a kind of warm Monday evening, after we've just gotten back from a picnic with the kids. Buggy. Yeah, so many mosquitoes and they were huge. They were like flying cats, kids. But you know who- But the heart, our blood. So with that scene set, you know who doesn't have to deal with mosquitoes? Iron Man. I've seen chunks of it, I love the first film, it just didn't hold my attention and I will watch it before I watch three just, we own it even, I just have one anymore to, yeah. Anyhow, Iron Man 3 interestingly enough, which I hear is a return to form for the series. Contained scenes in China, with the Chinese characters in the film having a more prominent role than are appearing in American theaters, do you hear about this? No. So there are specifically, specific scenes meant for the Chinese audience, because it's a film that's apparently being released in China, which is, I suppose, one of the last great markets for Hollywood to conquer, right? But because of Communist rule, it's very difficult to get a film in theaters in China, especially in North American film. So they're playing a little bit more of these Chinese characters, they're playing up that aspect, I went over the crowd, but I also believe that the movie itself was partially made as a joint effort with the Chinese. So that, the theaters would be able to be opened up. So in the same way that they used to do, do you remember those Russo-finish films that they did on MSC3K, where it would be usually some sort of… Panama, come to Panama. Not quite. Usually it'd be some sort of folktale, I'm thinking of Jack Frost, there are a few of them. No, not ringing you about, clearly not. Anyway, what I always got out of those movies, and what I worry about out of this trend, is that trying to obey too many masters in a film can be really problematic. Especially give in the political differences in China and America. I find it interesting that there, Iron Man kind of acts in an interesting way as a reflection of American foreign policy, especially if you remember when the first one, it's like, Iron Man goes overseas shooting people, but then it kind of all falls apart, and he has to be a little more responsible. I feel like this third one is maybe a little bit of that too, or from what I've read. But at the same time, the Chinese probably do not have the same sort of political end goals as the Americans. And at some point, you can't make that kind of film, and still. Anyway, I just feel like, teaming up with the Chinese may take some of the political bite out of your movie. And you can't mention time travelers, you remember that? China has a ban on time travel. That's right. That's right. Because. You don't want to go back to pre-communist China. Yeah. So it's just, it's, it's an odd thing. You're going to be really careful all of a sudden. It's a pickle. I have something else that you have to be careful about, but I'll tell you as soon as we begin. I apologize if, I don't know if it's a pickle. Okay, I apologize if I mispronounce anything. But in Pinchain County, in Hebei province, there was, there's a two rival kindergartens. Now I don't know what exactly, like where the rival redirides from, this article in the National Post is not quite clear enough on that. But the 24th of April, a grandmother found books in yogurt on the side of the road between her place and the school at which her grandchildren went. She picked up the books in yogurt thinking free books for yogurt. Mm, road yogurt? I don't understand, but maybe that's how it grows there. I assume it wasn't like a well-contained little container or something or possibly even a manufactured container that had been tampered with. I imagine so. The grandmother brings it home, feeds it to her two grandchildren, her granddaughters. I don't know, grandma, I wouldn't do that. Tell me what happens. The yogurt is poisoned with rat poison by the opposing school who had left it on hand one of the teachers or principal from the opposing school. Jesus. The children eat the rat poison and die. Yeah, they would be messy too. There are a couple people that are to blame here, the grandmother and the people who poison the yuck. Don't eat road yogurt. Yeah. That's kind of step one, but at the same time, wow. There are lessons to lose. When you are in a murderous site of rivalry at kindergarten age. Yeah, for learning, that's rough. I'm going to learn faster than you or I'll carry on. Which is ridiculous because you're hoping to become enlightened and, you know, hopefully one day they will look back on that and think, man, I was fucked up. No, I don't know. They'll be able to look back on that from their prison cell. Yeah, I suppose. But while we're discussing odd eating habits, we were talking, I think it was the last episode, last year, '87, about the illegal monkey meat market in Toronto. Yes, illegal meats. That's right. I came across this story from NationalGeographic.com. Okay. And I want to say that maybe Savage got in through me in the right direction, but I don't actually have any names beside this. So I may have just stumbled across it on my own. Anyhow, there's a restaurant down there. And I know you know where I'm going with this. Mm-hmm. It's a taco place. Mm-hmm. I love tacos you may be saying to yourself. Do you like tacos with lion in them? What? Do you like tacos with giraffe meat? Giraffe? Are you kidding me? This place specializes in exotic meat. And that's legal, where is it? Well, apparently the way he obtains his lion meat isn't, it's not wild lion. It's farmed lion in America. Farmed lion. Like they grow these lions with the intention of putting them down and eating them. Jesus Christ. What does it taste like? What does it cost? I mean, do you have to buy the whole lion meat? The tacos? Yeah. Actually, you know what? It's interesting that you say that. I believe I read in this article. I'm scrolling quickly for it now. But... Like I don't think they'd want to just kill a whole lion for one burger. I think the lion burgers are 25 bucks a taco. Or a taco, I mean. The lion tacos are 24 bucks. That's it? I believe it's 24 bucks a taco. Well, they don't just put the whole lion on one taco. Well, no, I said that's it. That's kind of crazy. I've spent more for a steak. Yeah, but a taco. You're talking about a thing that you just want you to know more than. Look at how really in taco. Loose meat lion. Yeah. I don't know, man. That is both horrible and horrendously enterpriced. It should cost more, but it shouldn't be happening, really. Crawford Allen, an illegal wildlife trade expert for the conservation group World Wildlife Fund, said lions are famed for meat in the United States to sell in restaurants. We have no evidence that lion trade in the U.S. is illegal, he said. Well, that's crazy. Richard, excuse me. I wonder if he could just buy a lion and be like, yeah, I'm going to eat it. But then, like, not eat it. Just keep it? No, I think they probably send it pre-slaughtered. That's disgusting. That's horrible. You folks, you're horrible. Well, I believe he actually has gone so far as to pull the filling. I believe that was the end result of all of this - As you what? Well, there was an uproar when the internet discovered that he had lion meat on his menu, so they pulled it. But he has quite a number of other items. Like he's not really - anyhow. He's not losing any sleep, you don't want to lose in his lion. Anyhow, speaking of, no, I got no transition for this one. There's absolutely no transition on this. Okay, there's this true crime Tuesday. Everyone knows I enjoy a little bit of true crime. This is one I had considered for true crime Tuesday but did not actually move forward with. This teen saves up all his money, scrapes together all his pennies, loose change, whatever. He's working, you know, part-time job, hires a prostitute over the internet. How old is he? Okay, sorry. I should have clarified that up front, actually. 14-year-old. Oh, boy. So he's really scraping together those pennies. Yeah, yeah. He's not just, you know, working the Taco Bells. Same as a lion. Yeah. Same as a lion. It's for that prostitute. Wow. So he's using in this iPad to get this meeting with a prostitute together. So he's got enough money that he's got an iPad, but his parents probably bought it for him. The prostitute, Ms. Dereka Brooks of Milwaukee, 22-year-old Dereka books, shows up to this 14-year-old's house, I guess, when his mom's not home. And sees the iPad, sees the piggy bank, sees a jar full of money. Seriously? Yeah, literally, apparently, a piggy bank. Maybe not an actual, like, shape, like a pig piggy bank, but that kind of container. Sees these items. I have to at least hope there was some initial, like, attempt at, you know, like, disarming him, but basically just whips out her pepper spray, gives it to the 14-year-old in the face, and then grabs the iPad, the piggy bank, and the jar full of money, probably his mom's and bolts. So yeah, okay, well, she gets there. She's like, "Dude's obviously not gonna call the cops if I just take his money, and that's pretty nice iPad, so I'll take that too, thank you very much." Yeah, yeah. But of course... You know what? He learned his lesson. Don't do a prostitute. Bad name to prostitutes everywhere. Well, actually... No, no, because he was under age. She learned her lesson, too, actually, because she was charged with one count of armed robbery. Apparently, pepper spray counts as a weapon, so bond at 10,000, and she's got a court date. Anyway, sorry, kid. I feel for you, sorta. Sorta. Sorta. What do you mean, sorta? He was paying someone for sex. He wasn't asking to be robbed. Yes, but he was 14, and operating in people. So? Because he was even younger, he should somehow be assaulted. Keep it in his pants till he's 16. I don't know. Till he's 16? That's when it's okay. That's when it's okay to hire a prostitute over the internet. Okay. Oh, we missed a movie item up front. Marvel's apparently got... Well, I guess this is more comic book related partially, but Marvel's got the Blade Punisher and Ghost Rider movie rights back. Which... What do you mean the Nick Cage franchise didn't hold their interest after that last one? But it does make sense to me... It makes more sense to me now that they made that last Ghost Rider movie that we thought was so terrible. Do you remember the urinating fire one? Yes. Because often what these studios will do is just put out enough of a budget for a film so that they can retain the rights. And I wonder if perhaps they were trying to retain the rights on a Ghost Rider, but that film turned out to be so bad that they just simply just put their head down and let it slip away. But what happens with... And we've discussed this before. What happens with the Marvel rights is that they come up for renewal every so often, and if you haven't used them, they essentially revert back to Marvel. So now it's possible for Blade, which, you know, was a successful franchise and it's time. I think it's Blade. Yeah. Well... The Punisher... I don't know if they would stick with the Thomas Jane kind of situation and Nick Cage anyway. They're all back in the Marvel stable. You could see them in the next Avengers movie, theoretically, although I'm wondering if any of them will be trotted out anytime soon. I could see a new Ghost Rider movie being made. There's definitely some promise to that franchise, but you know frankly I say the same thing about The Punisher, right? The reason they keep making The Punisher is because it's not really that much different than any other... Badass. Yeah, badass, excessive violence film. Except, actually, I say that, but at the same time the whole reason I feel those movies have failed is because they haven't been able to differentiate themselves as anything more than just a ridiculous gun-filled two-hour romp of shooting things. I don't feel, you know, if they had put some more depth to the character, if they'd been able to convey more of the Garth Enis run on The Punisher, they might have actually had something there. Anyhow, just a notable. While we're enching into the pulpier book territory though, I noticed this article over on IONI and it was quite interesting to me. Do authors ever prefer the movie version to their own book? And there's, I think, some of these points are arguable, but they have a letter from Philip K. Dick, for example, who was really enthusiastic apparently just before he died about the Blade Runner film. Now his original story due to Android's Dream of Electric Sheep is actually not, and I think we've discussed this before, is not all that close to what ended up being Blade Runner. But it's nice to hear that he was enthused, I guess. Anthony Burgess, apparently, very big into the Kubrick version of Clockwork Orange. But some of these, it's interesting because I would find it hard, no fault to Anthony Burgess, but would you know his name if it wasn't for the film version of Clockwork Orange? Certainly a lot of English-lit students would, but beyond that. So I'm not too surprised. Even though there's parts of that that I've heard he complain, like there's the missing last chapter, right, where Alex supposedly turns around and it becomes great. In the original book, it's there and it makes sense, supposedly. I haven't actually, I don't really remember it, but, oh! And then they mention the "mists" ending, because that's not in the original Stephen King story. But to be fair, the mist, the original "the mist" was so short, but they dragged out into the movie. Or I shouldn't say that because I actually really enjoyed the movie, but what they turned into the movie was just as much out of the director and writers' imaginations as it was out of Stephen King. It's like the basic premise was there, but a lot of the cast inside the grocery store and what happened afterwards, the infamous ending, that was all original content. Anyway, I'll link this in the show notes. There's some more, some more entries, but I thought that was pretty interesting. Mm-hmm. Finally, we'll end on another book note. Book trade up this year, 2012, well last year I suppose. Book trade up a lot, that's excellent news. This is an item out of the Guardian, but guess who basically is responsible for the uptick or supposedly responsible in this article? Is it JK Rowling? No, 'cause there hasn't been a new Harry Potter in quite a while. Okay. So, can you guess? The Hunger Games? Mm-hmm. Nice bit of pulp fiction right there, right? And... I knew we were going with this now. And... Fifty Shades. Fifty Shades. Yes, exactly. Two of the trash pulps bringing up the literacy rate. Hey, don't bag on the, uh, don't bag on the bulbs. Nope. Nope. First. I read it. On that note. Skinner coke out. We're going to Baltimore. One week. Oh geez. This one is feeling like a rush trip. I'm going to be excited to be there, but... Wow. Yeah, I'm really hoping I can, like, hear out of my ear. Yes, this cold skinner coke has been going through. This is a multi-week, just miserable slog. It's horrible. Horrible. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So, Jessica May, do you have some items you want to discuss regarding bolticon? We have posted on the event in the mob that even if you can't come to mobicon and bolticon for bolticon and Baltimore. Crossing the mobicon. Uh, then perhaps we can find you along the way and have, like, uh, some photos and food and... Mm-hmm. ...giggly. Yes. If you lie basically between Toronto and Baltimore, let us know. Yes. Comments at flashbopicon or hit us up on the mobicon. And on the Saturday night, Saturday night, we're having a, uh, a potluck with... Oh, yeah. We haven't been invited to Muddy's potluck. Yes, I'm quite excited. But Muddy bites, yeah, and a couple of her peeps, so I'm very excited about that. Me and Rich, the time traveler, are having a burger off. I'm quite excited about that. I was talking to him about it tonight, and I said, "Well, dude, I want to watch you make your burgers because what if yours are better and then I need to make yours?" And he said, "No, I'm going to pre-mix the dry rub so you can't see it." Ha, ha, ha. Um, so I told him no. He's also made some noises about possibly bringing up some barbecue directly from the south. Yes. Stopping along the way. ...has subsequently made noises about. I am so excited at this prospect to have authentic barbecue. Yeah. What we're going to do is we're going to go to, like, I think maybe we're going to stop by a party on the Friday night. We might see a panel with Nutty on it, and Saturday we're going to cook and eat food. Sunday we're going to chillax, and then Monday we're going home. So it's basically just mobsters getting together in a convenient location and hanging out. Mm-hmm. I mean, we might even go to a ball to go. Can we announce some sort of non-in-ball to-con mob event? Well, I would like to keep a stream on the, on the, um, when we're having the potluck, so we can have, like, a camera on us the whole time. Right, but that's going to be very much Nutty's event, right? So I would like to have a mob specific. It would be nice if maybe, like, in the evening on the Friday or something if we all hooked up for a movie. Mm-hmm. Oh, yes, we were discussing having a, we have quite the little setup at the place we'll be at. The hotel was really awesome to us. We didn't go to the, uh, we didn't kind of sign up quick enough for the official hotel, but this embassy suite place or whatever is giving us a special executive suite where we have, um, a big boardroom table fitting eight to ten in our, in our room. So that'll be great for a flashcast. I would suspect that sometime during this week before we actually depart for ball to come, we will release a special, a special, uh, mini flashcast just to discuss possible bolticon related items as necessary. Sure. Sure. Yeah, that sounds great. Oh, I would like to just get a quick mention in while we're discussing Skinner Co. business. Uh, the servingworlds.com/walkthefirekickstarterproject is coming to a close very soon. You may still have a day or two depending on when you hear this recording. Yep. You want to hear, hear me write up a tale of walk in the fire and you know you do. Okay. Well, let's just maybe wind it up with the TNG rewatch. I'm trying to think about what we saw. Well, we have finished season two, which means no more Pulaski, and I just wanted to say I was warming up to her. After Tibby's, Amberlyn Ramble about Pulaski, I was so much, I was like a reset for me to approach the character with an unbiased eye and I enjoyed her so much more. And when it came to the final episode, I felt horrible for her. Because if you recall the last episode of the second season, they basically blew all their money on an episode three or four previous. So they were totally out of cash and they decided that they were going to close it the season. We're talking season finale, which would be totally, you would never do this today. But they did a clip show for the season finale and it was, it was essentially an hour of reflecting on Riker's sexy time while some sort of virus attacked him. And Pulaski-- There was bad memories and good memories. Oh. And when he first met, data and went tasciatide. And the happy ones fueled it and the sad ones starved it. Yes, it was a goofy premise, but it was a thin attempt at just throwing a clip show out there at Pulaski. It would have been nice, yes. It would have been nice to see Pulaski go out on a better note. Yeah, to have like some story of why she did save Riker. Again, I have always felt this, I remember thinking this in the first time around, you remember the episode where Pulaski goes onto that, goes into the colony and they have the virus where they're all-- Getting old? Yes. Yeah. I really felt like it would have been excellent if they had made that the last episode of that season, knowing that Pulaski was going to be going away if they knew at that point, and that she just decided to stay to help them. Oh, it would have been cool if she just stayed old and everyone, like, oh, we can't-- Well, at what point-- Everyone's just old now. We stopped it, but everyone's old now. At what point did they decide to try to get Dr. Crusher back? Well, that's the thing. I'm not quite clear when they knew. I think there was a change in, like, the producers were, or the writers, or something like that. There was a change in the back end of the cast, and once that change came about, then they were like, "Come back," and she was like, "Yes." Yeah. As far as I'm aware. Well, they asked her, she said, "No," and then asked Picard to talk to her. Oh, yes. Yes, they had to... Picard. Jean-Luc had to go fly over to her. Patrick Stewart had to show up, and... The dog's barking at the cat. We also... The cat's barking at the cheese. We watched an episode called "Up the Long Ladder," which I wanted to just-- there's a few things in that specific episode. It's the most ridiculous episode, but it was a pretty-- it was a couple episodes previous to Pulaski leaving. And it was this planet full of clones, and they all have cloning sickness, and they're gonna die soon. Cloning sickness being some mumbo-jumbo science bit. They come up with the solution. There's an alternate planet that is full of, basically, Irish stereotypes. Oh, yeah! They're a bunch of leprechauns. Jesus. And they're all-- they're all just drunk and hyper-permiscuous, and it was the worst. Like, Irish. It's interesting, because the show was obviously, in some ways, trying to be so forward-looking and forward-thinking, and then you see these ridiculous-- Ridiculous dude, I was here. And in that same episode, I realized-- okay, so, we're faints, and it's the same episode. The B-plot in that one is that he has this-- Ritual. Childhood illness or something that-- I don't really remember it, but it basically ends up-- He has to go through, like, a pain ritual. He's got the measles, kind of. Yeah, but it's also sort of like he's going through puberty, as I recall, like he's-- It's some rite of passage. Yeah. I don't recall. Anyway, they end up going through this pain ritual, in the end. But what I found weird is that I recall-- like, up until this point, they're always talking about what a badass dwarf is, but he never does anything. Like he always ends up just fainting, or like, when they talk about what a badass he is, but only to demonstrate that somebody is more badass. Like, he'll try to punch a guy, he'll try to punch lore, and then Laurel just grab his hand and, like, crush it or whatever. There are times when-- when Worf is badass, like, there are times that he's been kicking butt with Riker on the holodeck, or with that lady chick-- No, that happens-- okay, that's season three, though. Up until the end of season two, I found that they basically-- he was Han from Empire. In Empire, Han Solo is a jackass. It's a really badass, but does nothing. No. Oh, wait, sorry, I'm not thinking of Empire. I'm thinking of Jedi. Oh, yeah. Empire, he's still a badass. In Jedi, he's just comic relief. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't stop anybody. No, he's-- you know I love Han, but he's just-- that film twists his character into uselessness. And that's up until the end of season two, Worf is just that same character. He's just not comic relief necessarily, although he often is. The stoic Klingon who says the funny thing at the-- oh, I don't think he understands how to play poker. He's bluffing while he's winning data, you know what I mean? Anyhow, season three-- definitely getting better despite the terrible acting of Lady Klingon. Yeah, that was really bad. Her name escapes me at the moment. I feel a little bad about that, but she is so not enjoyable to watch on screen. And even if-- I guess maybe part of it-- That was a little uncomfortable too. Well, we did it. Now we're married, right? Oh, yeah, Worf. We're married, right? Whoa! Whoa. I don't like you like that. Yeah. I mean, we did it, but you can't hold me down. Yeah, but maybe part of why I don't like her is because I know that she's going to lead to Alexander showing up. We haven't got there yet, but yeah. Anyhow, if you want to discuss any of this, you can hop over on the form, which is still up over at skinnernutfm/mob. We just completed a game of mafia or-- You poor sad bastards. Oh, I don't even want to get into it, but Doc Blue put together this brilliant game, and I just-- I feel like I was the one who really screwed the pooch on that. I accused an innocent who then stabbed me, and then I died, and we were both actually innocent, and that didn't leave many people left to defend us. Anyhow, on that note, I think we should go back to China. So what do we got? I believe we have a review of Iron Man 3 from The Fish. Perfect. Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always-listening, 3-day fish. Hey, Flashgust, 3-day fish here with a review of Iron Man 3. Now, I want an Iron Man 3 with a bit of apprehension, because to be perfectly frank, Iron Man 2 is kind of meant, kind of meant, very much felt like a money grab Iron Man 2. Iron Man 3 does not feel like this at all. It definitely feels like a push forward in the storyline of the Marvel Universe. Like, this is Tony Stark growing up, this is Tony Stark prioritizing, and all that fun stuff. To be honest, I saw-- I saw most of the twists coming. I'm not going to say all because it may have been something I missed, but like, there are two really big ones that I saw come in, and they'll probably be easy to pick up on too. It was a lot funnier than I expected without having to resort to cheesy campiness. It was funny, but it was funny because of what was happening in the story. It wasn't like Tony Stark was just throwing out jokes and yucks left and right. The biggest question this raises for me though, Iron Man 3, is like, what's he going to say when he meets up with the other Avengers? Like, they're all sitting at that nice deli they were at the end of Avengers, you know, for all time's sake, and he's just like, so I fought a small army of genetically engineered superhumans. Where the hell were you guys? Thor would be like, "Uh, I was in another dimension, and then Hawkeye would give it away, what are you talking about man, we went out for a drink slap month, Hawkeye, shut up man!" And Bruce Banner, well, he might have a legitimate excuse like, because Bruce Banner is always on the run, except at the end of this movie, fish, stick around for the credits people. Scarlett Johansson would be like, "Uh, I was being a super spy in Russia, because you guys kind of interrupted that." Captain America would be like, "Oh, I was killing Nazis." Captain America, all the Nazis. I was killing Nazis! Uh, silliness, silliness. So anyway, it is a green light, e-haw, like I said, stick around. The only thing that was kind of disappointing though, is like, there is a bit after the credits, and it does involve Bruce Banner, but it doesn't necessarily point towards another Hulk movie, which I thought was saddening, because I want Mark Ruffalo to like, you know, really, really like, seize his character in a new Hulk movie. So yeah, that is all. Always listening. I actually really quite like a fish's idea for an Avengers sitcom. If it wasn't for the fact that Coulson's coming back for Agents of Field, I would argue that we need that. Okay, I love it. That'd be such a catchphrase. Yeah, and then each episode ends with them at the diner. They're having their little, like, get together, and then Coulson comes by, and a beat-up old van and picks them up. Anyway, I absolutely agree fish that we need another Hulk movie. I cannot believe how badly they managed to pooch these last two. I know we've discussed it before, Ed Norton. I think that sometimes he can be brilliant, but a lot of the times he's just pushing his way through the rest of the production crew, so that he can have what he wants in a film. And I think, like, I always complain about Tom Cruise, I think he's ruining the movie season, because no one is willing to say no to him. I think Ruffalo has a much better handle on the character and would make a much more interesting movie. And he makes me want to eat chips. And he literally does save the world or tries, at least. Yeah. Great review, fish. In conclusion. Now, yeah, I believe we actually maybe have some other fish queued up, but we'll have to mega fish it next time, because we've got too much. Mega fish. Backed up. But brilliant reviews, sir. Yes, thank you. What do we get next, Jessica May? Up next we have a horrible history. Come from beyond to save us from our own past. Gibraltar has found only one solution to protect us. Here, now, is your horrible histories. [Music] All right, let me in. You ready? All right. Actively. Mega thrusters are cool. Come on. Hold tight. Critical. Steady. Steady. Hey, cuff it down. This disaster is still being tallied. The experts believe thousands of people died as many as 70,000 suffer from severe poisoning. In addition, the larger year of land may have been livable for as much as 150 years. The 18 mile radius around Chernobyl was owned to almost 150,000 people. Who had been, who had to be permanently relocated. The Soviet Union built Chernobyl plant which had four 1,000 megawatt reactors in the town of Pipya. At the time of the explosion, it was one of the largest and oldest nuclear power plants in the world. The explosion subsequently melted down. One of the reactors was such a catastrophic event that it directly affected hundreds of thousands of people. Filled the Soviet government, kept to its own in the rest of the world was dark about the accident until days later. A first Soviet government only asked for advice on how to fight graphite fires and acknowledge the deaths of two people. It soon came apparent however that the Soviets were covering up a major accident and ignored their responsibility to want both their own people and surrounding nations. Two days after the explosion, the Swedish authorities began measuring dangers to the higher levels of radiation in their atmosphere. Years later the full story was found in the repeating. The workers of the plant were performing tests on the system. They shut off the emergency safety systems and the cooling systems against established regulations and preparation for the tests. Even when warning signs of dangers over heating began to appear, the workers failed to stop the test. Zenon gases began to build up and at 1.23 a.m. the first explosion rocked the reactor. I told the three explorers to eventually blew the 1,000 ton steel top right off the reactor. The huge fireball roughed into the sky, flames shot 1,000 feet in the air for two days. As the entire factory began to melt down, radioactive security over the storms of the airline fireworks. Although firefighting was futile, Pippia's 40,000 people were not evacuated until 36 hours after the explosion. Potentially the lethal rain fell as the fires continued for eight days. Dikes were built at the Pippia River to contain damage from contaminated water runoff from the people of Kiev or warn to stay indoors at a radioactive cloud headed their way. On May 9th, workers began encasing the reactor in concrete. Later, Hans Blitz of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that approximately 200 people were directly exposed and that 31 had died immediately after trouble. The cleanup effort and general radioactive exposure in the region, however, proved to be even more deadly. Some reports that estimated from 1,000 cleanup effort died from radiation poisoning. Birth defects among people living in the area have increased dramatically. Fire rate cancer has increased tenfold in the Ukraine since the answer. Well, that's all for now, much of the monsters. And I'm going to go, I'm going to do drink all my coffee. Yes, son of a bitch. Yeah, but without Chernobyl, we have no stalker and that's such a brilliant video game that I don't. Exactly. I think it makes it all work. Oh, fireworks. Fireworks in the distance. Man, they're on sale down the road. So you're probably going to hear a lot of them as we have the last two dates. The thing is we have the windows open and it's only getting darker at side, so it's only going to become more explosive as time goes on. Yes. Like Chernobyl. Excellent entry, sir. Mike a little lubly wobbly, but yes. Miguel, you can find Gibraltar on Twitter, as Gibraltar 42. And a variety of other locations that I will link in in the show notes. Yes, you can also find him. In the mob on Facebook, you guys should join the mob on Facebook, the mob on Facebook. The Flash mob. That's right. You can also find him under the same handle over a tumbler. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're Walter 42, yeah, absolutely. And I believe next we have a little something from our favorite duck as real. [Music] Previously, the people of the district had gathered for a memorial service, mourning the victims of the mad magistrate. As the final speaker took the podium, the serene day was interrupted most rudely. And now the next episode of Doc Azrael, season two, unnatural selection. The Los Diablos Memorial Plaza had erupted into chaos with people fleeing in concentric circles. Mere minutes ago, some sort of mole machine had erupted from the ground in the middle of the throng of people gathered for the public recognition of those lost in the attack on the Natural History Museum. Sergeant Ronald Corley was shouting orders to his men, desperately trying to quickly neutralize the threat in her store order. Meanwhile, Doris Corley clutched their son to her body while she was forced off stage. As she was hustled to safety, she noticed a single figure forcing his way against the flow of the fleeing crowd. During the attack on the museum, Ash Oldman had stayed his hand and allowed himself to be abducted at the direction of Doc Azrael. Today, he had no such instruction. The ex-soldier pressed forward toward the epicenter of the ruckus and began to assess the situation. After bursting through the earth, the drill-tipped vehicle had cracked open along its seams, discouraging a dozen figures and cloaks decorated with earth-toned camouflage. Each of the men wore goggles with the lower half of their faces concealed by mechanical masks of some sort. A thirteenth figure stood at the apex of the moleship, silently directing their actions by gesture, seemingly by gesture alone. To Ash's eye, they seemed to be focusing specifically on people in their twenties. They would isolate a man or a woman from the group and drive them toward the diggercraft. The conductor would look them over from his perch and if they passed his inspection, the victim would be forced into the ship. If not, they would be unceremoniously knocked unconscious and tossed aside. As he pushed forward, the mercenary heard a series of small explosions. Looking behind him, he saw puffs of dirt as a pattern of sinkholes opened a large circle around the grassy area of the place. His rapidly becoming clear that whoever was behind this attack had planned it very carefully, and while it was unlikely that the man overseeing the abductions was the brains, Ash adjusted his path to see what he could do about taking the leader of his squad out of the equation. Meanwhile, behind the protective shell of the bandstand, a large bearded man, a kilted bagpiper approached Doris Corley. Excuse me, ma'am, but perhaps we should trade our bundles. Instinctively, the attractive blonde stepped back, turning her torso to keep her body between her son and the stranger. You stay away from us. The piper looked confused briefly, and then his face broadened into a toothy smile. "No, no, I'm a friend." Slowly, he slid his tartan sash aside to reveal one of Israel's golden triangles. "Our friend thought you might want your hands free to use these." He cautiously tossed a cloth bundle at her feet. It fell open to reveal a bow and a quiver of arrows. Doris pulled her son's blankets a little more snugly about the boy, and then, with a slight nod, handed him to the burly musician. "Take care of him, or you're next." She knelt to pick up the offered weapons. "I'll watch the wee barn as if you were my own." He cuddled the child, who reached up to play with his red blonde facial hair in response. "But you may want the cloth as well!" Doris looked at the now empty wrapping and realized it was a clog with her hood. Boynered into place to conceal her identity, Israel's chief archer headed back towards the grassy plaza. As she came around the stage, she could see that dozens of sinkholes had opened, wringing the fleeing people and significantly slowing their exodus. At the same time, the combination of the restricted paths and the panicking population were preventing the police from getting any closer to the source of the chaos. From her vantage point, Doris could now tell three things. First, there were only two men heading to help the victims of this latest attack. One was Ash Oldman, and the other was her husband. Second, there was no way she was going to be able to force her way past the fleeing crowd. And third, she was going to need to take higher ground. Oh, it was a cracking good entry. A lot of action in that one. Actually, the sort of kidnapping scenes, if you will, or whatever, the processing scenes reminded me of the craken wakes. Do you remember when they would come in from the ocean and not to spoil that book at all? Yes, spoilers from 1950s. A nice switch to see Doris, and I feel like it was intentional, because he comes in with this sort of standard, she's the mother, she's taking care of the child, and then she's backing away, and there's the Scotsman, and he's burly and whatever, and you figure it's going to be. I liked the voice, too, by the way. Oh, yeah, I quite enjoyed his voice work on that. But you expect it's going to be the lady and the big, burly Scotsman. But in the end, it's, "No, you give me the kid, I'll give you some weapons, and you go do the fighty-fighty." And even before then, Doris gives him a little threat like he better take care of the kill, smash your face. So that was a lot of fun. Nice job. And then I should also note that Ash is my character from the actual game that we were playing, this is sort of based on. And so I have a real vested interest in seeing him get in there and do some problems. Yeah. And some baddies. Anyway, that was a lot of fun. That was excellent. Next up, what do we got, Jessica? We have a game review from Gigantor. Nice. Good day, Flashcast, and all the mobsters out there. It's Gigantor. And this week, I'm reviewing Zombie Side. Let's get through the technical details. Zombie Side plays one to six people. It plays in about an hour, but I would suggest setting aside another hour just to be safe. The recommended ages are 13 and up, and the focus of the game is that all the players play a survivor with set skills. Over time, characters gain experience by killing zombies, and the characters will level up, opening up more skills available to them. I'll talk more about this in a bit. Zombie Side, like last night on Earth, puts the characters through scenarios with specific win conditions. The game comes armed with several scenarios available to play, and their website offers even more. And if that wasn't enough, you can easily create and write your own scenarios. Also, if you're sick of the same humdrum characters they offer, why not make one of your own? While running through the game scenario, in the case of the last game I played, we had to search for six supply cards, get everybody in a car with the goods, and drive to Mexico! We made it. We succeeded. There was only one casualty. I'd like to touch on the leveling aspect of the game now. While you're running around searching for weapons and gear and food and supplies, you will undoubtedly encounter zombies. Characters can only take two hits before death, so they take one hit then they die, just to be just to be clear. That part of the game is very unforgiving. With every zombie you kill, you gain experience. As a character grows stronger, the game grows more difficult. They really put you in a damned if you do damned if you don't kind of situation. But that is not a complaint. They have the difficulty of the game well-tuned. They also have a variety of zombies in the game. You have your typical walkers, they have runners, and they added fatties and an abomination. The walkers and runners take one hit, fatties take two and you need specific weapons that can only do two damage in one hit. And the abomination, well, he gives you a five experience, whereas all the rescue you won. And that's because there's only one weapon in the game that can kill him. He's kind of an intimidating fellow. The game uses miniatures for all of the zombies and the players, and they all look great. They took their time putting detail into their characters and fiends. The board game is also hugely organized. Each miniature has its own spot in a plastic casing, and if you don't mind taking the time putting them all back individually, the game wraps up and Tetris is itself with style. Rules for the game are quick and very easy to pick up and understand. I haven't even glanced at the rulebook, and I'm sure I could confidently host a game. A lot of the board games fall short of this claim. The one negative mark about this game is the price tag. My friend who owns the game and hosted us last night, bought it, new at $100 Canadian. Yeah. I'm going to rate zombie site a 4.5 out of five. I'm going to ding it a little only because of the price tag, but everything else deserves a five. I highly recommend people go out and check this game. And if you can afford the cash hit, I don't think you'll feel like the money's gone to waste. Now everybody, I must return to the bog. Bye, guys. I love me some zombie games. That's pretty expensive. It sounds like it's so nice to look at and play with. I'm a sucker for zombies and miniatures, so this has been a write up my alley. I would be that guy who would have the patience to put all the pieces away individually. I think that's something that's happened to me in recent years. When I was a little bit younger, I would have been the fellow to just play it once, toss it all back in a loose box and hope for the best. Hope for the best, yeah. But actually, this reminded me, I'm kind of allowing Mr. 10 to carry me down a road of hero clicks. Nice. You seem pretty eager to be brought down the whole world. Well, it's something we can do together for quality time, but it's also right up my alley in the sense of being turn based strategic gaming. I really enjoy it. I've never had the patience for something like Warhammer to any extent, but this seems simple enough that I can play it with a 10 year old on a Sunday afternoon and still enjoy it myself. Exactly, yeah. And if I can get a Pope hooked, maybe we'll... So right now, he's trying to read the rules, right? So he gets this rule book and he sits down to it. While he's running through, he realizes that the ink on the printer who printed this booklet actually ran out of ink in the process of it, so then had to go find a pdf. So then he's reading it and he's like, okay, Mr. 10, you got to read this too. And then we're gonna totally play, but Mr. 10 just really wants to play and hasn't read much. So, Jared is having to be patient and not play so that he'd do it the right way. Yeah. Yeah. Which is frustrating. Well, it's... And for him it is because everything we do as parents is just the wrong thing. He's like, I didn't get to do this one thing, then I wanted to do it right. It doesn't matter that you brought me to the park and I had a picnic and loved me and cherished me. I can be very close to this game. I want you to play with it. Exactly. Yeah. 10 is friggin... Frigged up age, Frig. Frig. I can't wait until he's 13 and it's even harder. At least he will be able to... Because like, they'll stay up late and watch movies and half the time, Mr. 10 falls asleep before it's maybe time anyway, so if it's six and he freaks out because he wasn't able to stay up. So I'm hoping for 13 when he can actually stay up late. Yeah. Maybe he'll appreciate you as a really good geek then. I'm hoping when he gets a little bit older he'll learn to appreciate sleep. Yeah. Because dude, it's like the moment he opens his eyes. That's why he has his bedroom in the basement because the dark is down there. Anyway, I'll report back about hero clicks if that pans out to anything, but huge thanks, Gigantor, for your review. You know what? You know it'd be really nice just for the future. Consider that when you're playing this game to take a photo of it and then we can put it up in the show notes so you're actually playing the game. Next time you see it, post a picture in the mob. Indeed. It'll be fun too. We're going to put it in the show notes, absolutely. I'm just saying. I'm sure the mob would be interested. I have to say that the last time we went to the last mob expo, we called it mob expo, not mob con at the time, we're very adaptive like that. But this is really mob gathering to electric boogaloo. Yes. But that's not quite right because we've had other mob meetups. One that was actually called the MEAT. It's getting a little bit outside now. Yeah, let it go. Yes. Well, okay. So we've had other smaller meetups with individual fans and stuff like that or a couple, but not like, you know, people flying and us all coming together spending several days in the same hotel drinking and being ridiculously. I keep thinking of it as the mob shadow con, right? Because we're basically attaching ourselves to a larger con and just hanging out together, which is fantastic. But when I started thinking of it in terms of mob shadow con, I think of that weird guy at fan expo who was part of the shadow, whatever it was, he totally made it up. But it was the guy who was pretending to be a character of nothing at all, just so he could like pose and like, well, can we dig into that? And he runs some sort of weird shadow con that doesn't have anything to do with anything? Yes. He's trying to attach himself. You have knives in public. Yeah. Dude, there was something wrong with that dude a little bit, a little bit. Anyways, this is the second time where people are flying and going crazy. I think we're all driving, actually. I do feel a little sad that we're not going to have Jagantor this time around, because he was an excellent, proud to our craft ship. And now I have a matching hat, like his from Tibi, because Tibi made me a Tibi original. We'll have to put you with the prayer somehow. Go put me on stilts and then I'll walk ahead. You can cause play as Jagantor. Oh my god. We should. Oh my god. Oh, maybe I should keep this off the air. Maybe we should all cause play as Jagantor one day. How? That would be so amazing. Facial hair and everything. So let's discuss who we may be seeing. No, no, hold on. But my point was that the last time we had a mob con was when we picked up my last probably favorite game of the year, which was Dominion. For me, that game has been the board game out of everything I played this last while. Like, I play some good ones. We've played some enjoyable games, but Dominion is just sticking with me. Not only did you pick it up, we also had a chance to play it when we-- Yeah, at Snakes and Lottes with the mob, which was awesome. Exactly. So my point being, I would be interested to see if I'm going to come back from Baltimore with the same experience. I think we should also bring Dominion with this so we can play a little round or two with the hotel room. So we-- I'm not sure if the mics are picking it up, but there's some thunderbolts of lightning. Oh, my very frightening. Yes, it is very, very frightening, except not at all. It's actually kind of lovely because we're having such a nice breeze. Except for my doggie who was a winter doggie. He was born the day before Jared's birthday, and he grew up when it was cold outside, so he didn't spend much time on time. He hasn't had a summer yet. So it's so loud, and there's so many things going on in the summer, and he's just like, "What is this?" It's a little exciting for him. So yeah, he's watching everyone else just relax. The other dog is fine. He's just got to, you know, relax his slacks. I wonder if this is his first thunderstorm. His little puppy slacks. Yeah, this is his first thunderstorm for sure. But there's fireworks and a potential storm, which is way weirder for him. It was a very humid, hot day, so it's really, really nice to have this sort of breeze going through. Yeah, Jared put on the air conditioning, and I thought he just, like, gave up. I hate it when he puts on the air conditioning. Because when he put on the air conditioning, outside seemed even that much more uncomfortable, so you're even more likely not to go outside. And that isn't good for you. You know who I wonder has an opinion about this? It was like 25 today, and he put on the, friend, the T.G. No, he's nothing this week. I wonder if T.B. has anything to say on this topic. Ambling, well rambling, and I'm actually walking today. Fun fact, I have guest puppy, Hershey the lab, the Wiggly lab, who just ran by. I don't know if you could hear that. Here's a topic, pets in space, primarily dogs and cats. Something I've always found a little bit unbelievable in science fiction. It's how there are, does not seem to be pets in space, especially when ships that have gravity. One of the things I particularly loved about Star Track Enterprise, and what probably kept us watching it longer than we should have until it finally died its well earned death, although it ended in a really sad manner, but that was to be expected, was that it was finally a dog in space, Porthos. I do believe that when dogs go to space, they will probably be small dogs like the Beagle. Compact, broad paws, have an easier time gripping what will probably be metal floors, thinking there's not going to be a lot of carpeting on these ships. Dogs like, say, the Vichla, although my favorite have more cat-like feet, more pointy feet, and they don't really grip on slick surfaces that well. So Beagles, cats, because you can't tell me there weren't vermin in space. And so you're going to need cats or ratters, the rat terrier, the border terrier, the Jack Russell, or the Parsons Russell, as it is called nowadays by the AKC. Not sure why the name changed, but there you have it. Yeah, so back to Porthos, which also let the trope of they never listened to the dog get used quite a few times on that show. Porthos was always warning them about invisible aliens, or aliens hanging from the ceiling, but did they listen to that dog? No. Best scene from Enterprise was when they made that first planet fall, and they opened the door and Porthos creamed out. And it was like, you could hear that dog go mine. This whole planet is mine to pee on. I've always thought they should have. I don't think they ever did. Pretty sure they never did, but they should have done an episode entirely from the viewpoint of the beagle. Because although it seemed like the captain was always leaving Porthos in the cabin, but perhaps when some midshipmen coming by to clean up his waist and where did Porthos go to the bathroom, I have a feeling Porthos had any number of exits out of that cabin. I think an episode from Porthos' view would have been really educational. Unfortunately, and people producing Enterprise didn't have the imagination. I do. Back to dogs and cats, and parrots, birds in space. There's just not enough of that in writing. So, other dogs in space. I don't really, except for enterprises, I can't really think of any off the top of my head. This is the hard part of an anvil is I have to use my mind, my memory, which is getting a little leaky these days. I can see why writers don't want to add in animals. I'm sure it's really difficult to write from their perspective or what would happen, because we don't have any real examples. I mean, yes, the Russians shot a poor dog into space. He wasn't allowed to wander about the capsule. Wasn't a real happy end for him. So, I mean, how do you write the dog's perspective or the cat's perspective in a spacecraft? I think writers are missing a way to add some more depth to their stories. I read somewhere, heard somewhere walking dead. It doesn't have animal zombies because the guy who does the comic doesn't like drawing animals. In his world, animals don't become zombies because that way he doesn't have to draw them. So, why there's not a lot of, I guess, talking about what happened to the dogs and cats, at least once fast enough not to get eaten by the zombies. Notable exceptions to the no animals in space rule. Elizabeth Moon, one of her books, had horses. They were transporting the horses from planet to planet for horse riding competitions. I thought that was wonderful. I mean, that was something that would happen because if you had the money to have your own ship that was large enough to carry things, why wouldn't you do horse competitions and bring your own horse? That was a fresh outlook on the just being on a spaceship, just going to a planet. Why are we going to the planet and then going from there? There's so much to write about. I can see why having animals in space with you, people might not be thinking about that, but I think they should because I think it adds interesting scope to stories. It hasn't been done very much. People who are writers who are looking for new interesting takes on old stories, I think they add a cat or dog, both, a bird, a ferret. Ferrets would make wonderful animals in space, I think. Ferrets are cool. They're missing an opportunity if they don't think about that. That's my small take on things literary this week, who knows what next week's subject will be. And that's me, ambling and rambling in Oregon. You know, listening to that ambling ramble while having the storm in the background was absolutely wonderful. Rather lovely, yeah. Yeah. Ludo's pacing the floor, but yeah speaking of dogs. Fascinating topic, Tivi. Always interesting to see what you're going to come up with when you're ambling ramble. I actually have quite a bit to say on this topic. I was impressed to discover. Okay, so I like the general idea. I was trying to think of other animals or at first I started with a general more other animals in space. And I was really impressed because there's a spot obviously from, and I believe she even mentioned that, in TNG there's a spot, right? Data's got his cat. And then for some reason my mind went to, you remember the dolphin from Sequest? Yes, of course. I didn't watch that show, but. Anyhow, what an odd, yeah, what an odd choice of pet. But I think a spider would make an excellent pet in space. Yeah, you're right. You know what I think of first, like first off, Marvin the Martian's dog. Oh yeah, that's interesting. See, animals in space. Well, I did, I did want to reassure Tivi. I'm not sure how into the Russian space program she is, but Laka, Laka went up, came down a little rough. But you may not know that I, there were dozens and dozens of dogs. Oh well, okay, maybe dozens. I don't know the exact number. Well, scores of dogs. Billions of dogs. Billions. There were quite a number of dogs that went up in the Russian space program because that was their animal of choice. They used dogs in their test flights. Most of them survived. Most Russian space dogs had more flight time than actual Russian space astronauts. I think they called them cosmonauts. Cosmonauts. Yeah, thank you smart ass. Push up your glasses. Anyhow, but yeah, so Laka was unfortunate, but most of them survived. Most of them came back heroes. Dog. Yeah, they were never the same. I've addressed it in Ruby, but I did feel somehow compelled to mention that animals survive almost anything. Well, yes, specifically they do come up in Ruby, but dogs do not go in a zombie. Animals do not zombie Kate in the Ruby universe. It's a very people specific problem, which we'll get into a little bit later. And it's not because I don't like drawing dogs. Yeah, which is almost a little sad because you have all these innocent dogs who are used to being able to, well, I guess you'd sort of learn if you wanted to survive, but you do not run and jump on your zombie. Yeah, we addressed that, right? With the general, pretty well. Yeah, they had their own stick going on, but it reminded me there is a dog in science fiction, and he doesn't travel in space in the same sense that, you know, it's not like a shipboard pet, but kazak the spacehound from the sirens of Titan. What about, um, I'm gonna get guff from Strasburg and whoever else and you Vonnegut haters can go whatever, because the sirens, kazak the spacehound is the most excellent. That's a time traveler, not a space traveler. He traveled in time and space. No, he traveled in time. Sure. Uh, kazak the spacehound. How excellent is that? And the presentation. That sounds excellent. I don't know what it's from. Vonnegut's presentation of how that's handled. It's not as tropey in science fiction as it sounds, but the name is so perfect. I wish I could have thought of it myself. I'm trying to think of any other spacehound. I, I thought of one more item and I was almost ashamed to, um, Muffet. You remember Muffet? No. From the original, uh, Battlestar Galactica? Not technically a dog, but a dog robot or something. I don't quite recall. It was like, I believe it was meant to be very, uh, toy-centric. Hey, what about Astro from the Jetsons? Right. Good point. Yeah. Hmm. Oh, K9, K9 from, and I mean, again, he's kind of a time traveler, but K9 from Dr. Who, right? Little robot dog. Still a robot, but still it's meant to be a dog. 10 space. Wait. Wait, I have a question. How did crypto end up on Earth? Cause crypto's obviously got all the same powers as Superman, but I don't think that he came over and his dad would have been like, you know what? He's gonna need a friend. It's gonna be sad. Let's give him a puppy. Yeah, of course people would take it. Maybe if they, you can shove a puppy and keep the puppy alive in there, you could be like, you know what wife? There's a food pounds. There's a gram you in there too. They didn't have enough time. Maybe somebody could actually raise our child other than these Midwesterners. Man, why do you have Superman grew up? Sorry, this is totally an aside and it may have been talked about in comic books, but if you, okay, the kent, I'm not besmirching the kents at all here, but if you consider the sort of attitudes that you can encounter in that sort of place, bigotry and stuff, what if Superman was raised to be incredibly anti-gay? Like to just have that one, like he's perfectly, you know, pro-law in every other sense, but he's got that religious zeal or whatever that... Superman is, you know, pro-law in every sense, but he happens to kill abortion doctors. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Life is sacred and I'm superman and I'm gonna save all life or I will send you into the negative zone for your boarding babies. Anyway, I realize that's getting into an odd sort of territory. Crypto, what a spider-man. Yeah, excelsia. Yeah. Wrong universe, but whatever backs me out of this topic. Yeah. Anyhow, obviously you did a great job, Timmy, because we are now also rambling. Yeah. Thank you. Much appreciated. You can follow, I have all geez. I have forgotten everyone else, but you can follow Timmy on the Twitter as I have Timmy. Isn't she tumbling sideways? On the tumbler? You are the lord, the lady of tumbler, I do not. I am the lady of tumbler and she is tumbling sideways. Stamped it. Great. She isn't, she should be. You know who likes robot dogs? Um, Dr. Hu? Um, yeah. Also Hu, and I hear two that he likes comics. Welcome to Hu likes comics. This is Hu, and today I'm talking about Daredevil, written by Mark Wade and art by Paolo Rivera and others. So where do you take a comics character when they hit rock bottom? The last decade has been pretty rough from Daredevil, Marvel's lawyer hero by day, vigilante hero by night. He's had girlfriend murders, secret identity revealed, and possibly possessed by demons. He was even played on screen by Ben Affleck. He has a problem that's unique to serial fiction in that every time he hit the nader of his story, the bottom fell out again. The character became mired in a spiral of depression, horrible things, loss, and horror that seemed impossible to break out of. He kind of officially became a dead character, without actually dying. But Wade managed to turn the character around and not only escaped the grimness, but bred out the core of the character in a new and really interesting way. Daredevil is Matt Murdock, a man who in his youth was blinded by chemical waste. However, the toxins heightened his other senses to a superhuman degree. So he's a blind character, but he has like superhearing and super sense of smell, and his touch is so refined that he can actually like sense the world around him like radar. He became a lawyer and a vigilante to catch the criminals that murdered his father. And previous incarnations of the character have focused on this gritty revenge aspect, or the overwhelming horror and noise and press in New York City. Wade chooses to focus on the daylight world of Matt Murdock, how wonderful his powers actually are, and all of the cool sort of fun things you can do with this kind of character. Daredevil is a comic about accepting and overcoming your limitations. This is a very narrow path to walk. It's particularly in comics because if you get it wrong, you really get it wrong. But Wade really gets it and he finds new stories to tell about Daredevil without dipping too far into schmaltzer preachiness. And it's a really good story too. The first story is about Matt taking on the case of a translator who is blind, who is wrongly fired from his job. It turns out this leads to him getting the Mega Drive, a hard to read impossible to destroy hard drive containing all the secrets and business dealings of the big criminal organizations in the Marvel Universe. So it's really interesting. It's a fun pulpy crime adventure and it also has that added layer of seeing how Matt Murdock experiences the world and overcomes problems as someone with superhuman senses but also without sight. Rare's art expresses the way Matt Murdock experiences the world which is a non-visual in an easy to understand and really compelling way. The reader gets to quote unquote see what Daredevil does when he uses his powers and it's stylish and really effective. And now Daredevil is the first character to have his movie license revert back to Marvel Comics after the glut of questionable movie licenses from the early 2000s. And while he seems not destined to return to the big screen anytime soon, Wade and Rivera have saved the print iteration from a similar fate. Daredevil is one of the best comics Marvel has out now and you should go check it out in print, trade or comaxology. I highly recommend it. I love me some Daredevil. Yeah he's definitely a character that I fall I never felt entirely out of love with but he's a fellow that I'll visit for a few months at a time or pick up a trade or you know just pick up a few issues of one shots and enjoy and then kind of not read anything for a few years and it's funny that you say you never fell in love with him really because when I was in when I was in grade school my girlfriend and I had like a code that we would talk about the guys that we liked. Okay. And the the nickname for the guy that I liked was Daredevil. Oh that's very sweet. Yeah. I find it interesting that Marvel's I don't want to say bread and butter but the things that I'm most interested in Marvel right now outside of the major Avengers franchise because I like the Avengers. I'm enjoying the films when they come out but I don't really feel compelled to go pick up an Avengers comic but as he was made clear over the last few he likes comics it's the quirky almost non-powered characters who seem to be pulling the most interesting storylines right now. Hawkeye who I don't really care about Avengers think of like movie franchise Hawkeye I don't really care but it sounds from both what he was saying and from other things I've read and I've read a little bit of the comic now it's really presented as just a different universe Hawkeye like it's just it's Hawkeye doing his own thing and it's an interesting compelling book the way it's written and again it's you know Daredevil like Hawkeye has powers but he's he's an orchard Daredevil has powers but he's black but he's well that's interesting because he does have superpowers and all his super legal powers the totality of his sensory experience has always been greater than a normal person's like he has greater sensory perception than an excited person does technically because he's trained himself to be able to use these powers at most effectively or whatever but at the same time in a lot of ways except for that one detail that he's you know kind of he can hear heartbeats and stuff next in the next room or whatever he suffers a little bit of the same thing as Batman in the hat he's a fairly normal guy with a little bit extra like he doesn't have gizmos like Batman though so he doesn't have the story crux where he can you know pull out a neat toy or jump in like the bat chopper or whatever he's not a billionaire yeah he's not a billionaire yeah so he does have that he'll be billionaires can we which is interesting though because instead of even defending a full city he's defending hell's kitchen like he's got this very limited turf it's a very close book in that sense it's never you know in the same way the better punisher is just like a guy fighting other guys on a block like that Garthina stuff is all about a very limited kind of conflict it's the same thing with Daredevil it's best when it's just him in a very specific situation to his neighborhood or whatever the yeah he's not out saving the world he's just keeping his streets clean although he does i see i see he's pointing but if you don't have an end quote unquote to your fiction or you aren't working in arcs that are intended to be you know seasonal or whatever it is it is really tough you you have a build up with these books and you get behind like a love interest say or whatever it is where you feel like okay here's the apex of this book but you can't end it you're still going to put out another issue next month and what are you going to do with that so it's got to slide back downhill everything's got to become crap again and you're never going to be satisfied because even if the one thing that you were hoping would happen in the book for the entire run finally happens there's going to be another 12 issues and by the 10 those 12 issues are over you need another major conflict and maybe the person that you thought was so awesome for them to marry is dead or maybe you know that side character that you were finally happy to put out yeah he'd been holding the wings yeah yeah sucks to be them yeah and and on top of that he also to even make the the odds more against Daredevil he was really born of that gritty 70s New York that we talk about sometimes like the Gotham kind of dark you know and I don't know what the condition of Hell's Kitchen is these days but I'm feeling I don't feel that kind of menace at a New York anymore like he's the man without fear he's supposed to be you know out fighting thugs in the middle of the night and I don't necessarily feel that's what New York is anymore yeah where the thugs go guys yeah bring back the thugs let's start busting in some out-of-town thugs um I did always find it did this ever happen you may know better than I did he ever team up with the she-hulk and open a law firm because that should have happened you really should right because she's a lawyer by day but then wouldn't she have known his identity uh I suppose but she could just keep it hidden could she you see because she goes through different cycles too doesn't she sometimes she's not stuck in very rude to speak about a woman that way yeah fine oh oh rough that's not what I meant uh although they could combine if she was going through if she was hulking out you know what I'm just backing away nevermind anyway to wrap things up it was nice to hear that they're approaching the idea that he has I don't want to see limitations but that he has things that he has to work against and they're handling it delicately you don't see that in mainstream comics too often and maybe I think that's the underlying thing in this right that Hawkeye and maybe this book work because of that restriction that they're they're in it's not just megafights all the time yeah anyhow brilliantly done sir thank you for the review he really likes comics time for all right hope tell them where to send things in while I open this candy you can send your comments questions or suggestions to comments at flashbulb.com I don't care about your suggestions yeah keep your suggestions to yourself I'm okay with suggestions okay all right send them all to GRD okay this is uh from the box mmm liquid candy now I feel like perhaps you sampled this before but yes well this is made by the iC company ice which as you may or may not recall is responsible for both my personal favorite type of uh well from my childhood at least uh slushy the slash puppy indeed to cherry slash puppy oh is that what this is from the same company that makes cherry slash puppies and 7-11 slash mulligan smith's own favorite mm-hmm the slushy yes yes so i'm going to this is icy squeeze candy cherry flavored and there's a polar bear informing me that it is too cool who sent this to us this would be from the unknown package slash Richard the time traveler his the box's pawn i guess or at least mailroom i don't know i don't know what the nature of the relationship i don't understand he's just squirting it right into his mouth he's like oh this is hair gel it's been back it's really oh for a brief moment it really tasted like the actual cherry slushy and then it tasted like something else which you're not going to tell me until i've already had some that's really cool you know why it smells like lip gloss yeah yeah it kind of tastes like you like i just ate lip gloss yeah that's a good description it gets very potent mmm wow you can eat this entire it's 150 calories for the whole tube and i just this is not the kind of thing i could ever corn syrup just sit there and squeeze the whole thing into my mouth oh god no blue toast syrup blue toast water citric acid malic acid artificial flavor sugar water interesting thanks rich mmm thanks package i'm not sure that one was worth the portion of my soul it cost me but no well actually no you know what there is that i know this is one of those candies that i can already tell uh i'm going to leave sitting somewhere in a shelf and then i'll be standing there just a little bit after midnight got my PJs on it's kind of thinking well it did taste like cherry slushies i mean what if i add some ice to it and put it in the blender oh i put a little vodka in there all right so uh now i don't know i haven't had an opportunity to ask her if she was comfortable reading this email in the air so i actually feel like we're going to leave her name off but she knows who she is and she's always there is benefit our mysterious benefactor she's always interested in believe well she's interested in staying in the shadows but i felt this was definitely worth mentioning on the podcast also she's a ninja but don't tell anybody okay well actually it's funny you say that get to the email oh dear okay so she says well done no pope with your perfectly delivered dismantled hydro capsaicin thank you jrd how did you research it that particular synthetic version is made in the uk canadians are not permitted to carry pepper spray is that correct okay so let us discuss this this is out of of the old school our most recent episode yes i don't usually put spoiler warnings up but we are going to discuss the episode a little bit so if you haven't heard it yet maybe pause go back and listen all right so technically well not technically she's absolutely correct this is a very clever of her to have noticed now i have to admit that i really wanted a juicy to deliver uh type of pepper spray that we were going to dispense i didn't want to go with some of the other pseudo capsaicin uh titles so uh because the chillers are technically set a little bit in the future often i don't know if you've noticed that the very you know artificial intelligent run houses and the occasional robots that show up but often the chillers are written a little in the future so although i know that basically this specific type of pepper spray is currently limited to uh british law enforcement in this future the idea is that the product becomes a little more generally available oh well that's handy and yeah i actually i knew i don't put these things in the story right because obviously no one's going to care i'm not going to just do a set on the side three three years earlier in a legal court not far away uh so i really wanted to be using the specific product and i had considered this i knew how it was going to fit into the lore but i wasn't going to be including it which project or which product was that you're actually going to make me pronounce it uh allowed is that what you're getting out here dismethyl di hydro capsaicin dismethyl di hydro capsaicin it's actually much harder when you're saying it dismethyl hydro capsaicin no whatever your mother i wrote it once that's all i needed to do yeah i did pick this one with a little bit of relish at having to hear yeah i know you did i know i have you have a focus on it i'm so she's doing this this to you now nothing there's no comparable currently legal products that had the right scientific punch to it and had a long enough name that it would be worth it for him to write all those letters and hear me say it well that was icing that wasn't the reason i chose the word anyhow thanks for the mail hydro capsaicin always great to hear from you thank you yes oh okay so no more mail but we do have an item from the straws box now the straws box is getting the heart shaped straws box specifically is getting quite low so i believe next episode we're going to have something of a straws box aganza straws box of linch but today we're going to all sample from the same cup oh but you have cuties this is a extra large peanut butter cup yes the large not just an extra large peanut butter cup as the patrick package proudly exclaims this is a quarter pound giant peanut butter cup peanutty pleasure in a chocolatey shell i don't know how comfortable i am with that it's from pammer from pammer oh and it may have melted a little bit when it travels anyway so i'm going to pass the uh i'm gonna pass the cup around here well it's a warm day it's a warm day should i hit the fridge before it came here mommy and it's still pretty good though peanut butter yeah it's still good i'll plug plug oh wow because the wreath is kind of gritty and this is creamier yeah it's a higher color chocolate excellent man because higher quality peanut butter okay so here's the thing though i'm looking at this i'm looking at a quarter pound of chocolate and peanut butter and i know i know there are parents out there who have dealt with handing this thing off to a kid and then that kid gets through a quarter pound of sugar and then has just this brown stream of high pressure liquid ejected from their stomach yeah yeah and i can smell it i can smell that peanut butter stomach acid yeah little little touch of flame on top no curdled chocolate milk that's the worst your mom's really gross thanks drowsberg thank you strawsberg thanks mom are you a dassy oh oh i released green eyes by cold play this week yeah an excellent tune and it was better than cold blood oh their record sales are much better than mine let me tell you they wrote the song too well i guess there's that so yeah listen to it speaking of why can you do more original material on the sunday songs sing song and sunday because i wanted to get back into it without a lot of pressure so i went back to songs that were formative to my musical upbringing okay well i would be it's for myself for reflection yeah absolutely i'm not trying to apply pressure i'm just saying that i would enjoy hearing some of your original tunes again oh never raised up so i don't know with that uh the last skinner code that i did got really passed around very much but i had a lot of fun doing that one want the stormtrooper oh i believe actually the last one you did was the staff meeting oh yeah well that was just like yesterday so it doesn't count i suppose no i think that stormtrooper went over really well i heard some positive feedback on twitter certainly oh yeah yeah absolutely yeah i started posting them all on tumblr now too i really you did a great job on that stormtrooper i really enjoyed doing it how you represent them thank you um getting a little better at drawing people doing things yeah it's just standing there it's really fun to watch both the sing a song on sunday and the comics the skinner codes come along and how things are changing and you guys are learning backroom plots okay well actually uh bringing something back in oh nuts i forgot to mention the research question back in the mailbag okay i did actually new research question if you guys want to send in a little item for me comments at flashbulb.com uh it's as a writer i deeply appreciate it these things may seem trivial and weird and unrelated to anything but yeah i want to know and we'll come back to the how these details work themselves in in a minute but the question this time around what do you do on a sunday just just generally you know it's sunday and give me the main part like we all kind of spend a little bit of the day lazing around in the couch or whatever it is you don't have to give me a breakdown of the entire day but when you think of sunday like what is the thing that you're doing is it really all about the church experience for you is it really all about uh sleeping in is that you know is sunday you're like that's the one satisfying unconscious day you get uh do you go outside is that your outside day to garden is the rest of your week entirely about counseling the suicidal and then on sunday you uh just pop in like call a duty and go nuts killing people online like what's going on i used to have uh dinner with my grandparents every second that was what you thought of as your sunday yeah yeah and watching like old john wane movies or something in the afternoon like before dinner uh for me our sundays partially not so much recently but generally that's our recording evening for flash cast so there's a sort of rest of sense in that because i know that we're approaching a few hours at one of the mic but it's also the day that we usually have a chance to run a muck with the kids and go do something entertaining yeah or we'll try to have brunch or something like that yeah just get out of the house a little have some kind of family activity anyhow comments at flashpops.com yeah let us know what you do tell us we want to know but i also wanted to mark the return of another segment sort of subsegment i guess that i used to do in the uh background plots all the time which was the writing music i haven't run in writing music in a while yeah uh this is from the red dead redemption soundtrack oh nice um great little game if you haven't played it very pulpy very western fun to watch i've been really happy to watch the games that you've been playing or something but there's something i'm definitely of that classic spaghetti western soundtrack always you know i love that the whole good bad and the ugly that trilogy and their soundtracks amazing but it was really interesting to hear a little bit of a more modern take on that you know a two thousand whatever it was eleven 2010 take on that as opposed to a 1970s take on that so no absolutely everything has its place i just really enjoyed this soundtrack anyhow things that i wrote while i was listening to this thing from beyond you remember this i just wanted to mention briefly i may have mentioned this last episode that the title was just a coincidence i've actually gotten another couple emails about that i'm sorry it wasn't meant to be in any way referencing the Lovecraft story okay and i wanted to loop back briefly to of the old school as mentioned by our mysterious benefactor wait we have to say like our mysterious benefactor you need to learn to say things backwards do you have you ever heard about how they did that on Twin Peaks do you remember the scenes from the no i never watched oh goodness they there's a section of Twin Peaks not to give it spoiler alert for the show yeah it's funny because i kind of know what you're talking about but from a Simpsons episode oh yeah you probably you've seen the people in the lodge and they're all talking weird right no but what they originally did i believe was they essentially taught everyone on set to speak backwards like how to speak backwards or they essentially made them learn their lines backwards and then they just recorded everything in reverse so that they could talk and it would came out like in order that's weird yeah well that was that show right but it's a simple in-camera trick that they use that gave everything a real creepiness because you immediately auger into the uncanny valley when everyone looks like people but they're doing things in a they're not cool yeah and yet you can still not cool dude uh anyhow yeah of the old school obviously the title i just wanted to mention that the title intentionally mimics the sort of style of the story as well as obviously being integral to the plot um i don't often get to have the ridiculous over the top house with the you know horror awaiting inside in the sense usually it's a nice little suburban home and you kind of see it coming to you like no little girl don't go down well that's exactly it's all the girl go little girl but it turns on you at the very end you know yeah but i wanted it to have a little bit of that almost fairy tale like nature but i really like you know what's going on but she doesn't i do you don't really know i gave her a bit of time i gave hemming a bit of time to breathe in the story but i there may be another episode with her in it because i really enjoy her character and there's a lot in the same sense well how did she get to be how she is like that's the thing there there were things that i considered in her character in the same way that i was in the same way that i was mentioning the des methyl diadro capsaicin yeah absolutely in the same way that i had come up with canon that would explain how that had been transferred over uh despite its current legal status yeah i have a lot more of that same kind of canon for hemming i just had it had no place in the story when you're writing a thousand yeah maybe when you're writing these thousand word stories that's one of the real lessons of lifeboat it's really taught me to have a style where there's no space for the sort of digressions you want to sometimes have wait for my novels wait for me to be Neil stephenson and no one can edit me wait for you to be hemmingway and take a whole page to describe somebody peeing against a wall yeah well hey hemmingway head in anyway we're not doing this now yes because this is just going to lead me to bashing James Joyce and more hey male so if you want to send that hey male don't send it to skinnerkill on twitter or individually as jaredy skinner the jessica may or popanax with a zero also on the twitter yeah one of these days i'm going to use the username opopanax with a zero like just written it like that ah fuck with everybody yeah yeah great one man you won't never get your content one man who will not be fooled jim never lord jim over at oh he won't be fooled again over at well over at relic radio dot com huge thanks for hosting wiki dot flashbob dot com and flashbob thank you thank you enjoy the show better tell a friend good really enjoy the show yeah we've got a donate button on the site do it if you have comments questions or suggestions you can find us at flashbob dot com or email us text or mp3s to comments at flashbob dot com the entire run of flashbob can be a fan of flashbob dot grom or be this required items oh yeah nothing for that flashgas is released under the creative commons attribution non-commercial 3.0 imported license one day to leave my house at number nine here is the channel that is with our number nine little white flowers will never awake when you worry not where the black bones of our own has taken you in just have no thought of ever returning you would say behind me if i found a joining you oh this is the last time and then i am ending it when there's a candle that i know why should they cry when they know that i'm glad to go it's a dead dream then i will be my addressing you on the long journey i know i'll be blessing you oh be some way oh oh [ Silence ]