Prepare yourself for: The Facts of Life, airship pilots, cussing supercomputers, butterscotch pudding, random breakfasts, and Ruby.
The Skinner Co. Network
FC81 - Alan Thicke in Stasis
Some days, gloomy, my hours are slumberless Dearest, the shadows I live with are nonetheless Little white flowers will never awaken you Not where the bright culture saw lens taking you Angels have no fire, evolution in you Or they may angry a fire, so they'll join in you Ooh, thunder... Hello, and welcome to Flashcast81, a SkinnerCo presentation SkinnerCo! The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is surrounded by industrial lasers and sawblade wielding robots deep in our testing facilities This episode is also brought to you by Generous Donations from Scott Roche and David Doc Blue Wend, many thanks! If you'd like to sponsor an episode, please feel free to use the donate button on the site But now, prepare yourself for the facts of life, airship pilots, cussing supercomputers, butterscotch pudding, random breakfast, and ruby Death is no dream for, a death I'm caressing you With the strength of my soul, I'll be blessing you ♪♪♪ Hi, I'm Opoponax, and joining me in surviving an airliner crash on a remote tropical island are Jessica May, True Story, and Jaredie! Hello! ♪♪♪ So, you take the good, you take the good, I've been doing this over and over again And you know what, the reason why I happen is because last week you couldn't finish it You take the good, you take the bad, and then, rich the time traveler on the mob told you what it was In caps, in caps, sir, and so as we've been starting the show, I've been saying You take the good, you take the bad, but I never finish it, and it was on purpose It was to like really grind in there the first two lines, but really to like facilitate him never getting the third So now I'm going to ask you, Mr. Skinner, you take the good, you take the bad ♪♪♪ No! No, he's googling, okay, you don't know it You take them both, and there you have the facts of life Now, that is actually from seasons two to five The song, originally, was different, it had a lot more... that was the version I was singing There was a lot more story involved, it's kind of silly, and about boys and stuff But Alan Thicke was actually a co-writer on that song Ugh! Our Alan Thicke of opopes Holy shit, it's Alan Thicke But yeah, so you failed, I'm sorry, you failed the test I wonder, you know what, Alan Thicke would really, given his hair and everything Admittedly, I haven't seen him recently, like some of us in this room Doesn't look any different Yeah, I figured he's one of those fellows who's pretty much in stasis I think he would make a really good super villain cheese moe for some sort of mob situation Like isn't he our sort of bond villain? Yes, yes, I concur Someone write that down You know what else, actually Alan Thicke had a co-writing credit on? Because it takes different strokes to move the love Mm-hmm, is that how it goes? I was gonna give you my favorite line of view, which will work Oh, I didn't watch either of those shows When the boys you used to hate you date, I guess you best investigate the facts of life Oh my gosh Speaking of things you need to investigate, did you guys see this article our hair in passed along? I'm afraid there's been a drastic change in our focus in life We are actually selling off the major holdings of Skinner Co, we're taken to the air Okay Canadian MPs, in an effort to find ways to get supplies and people in and out of remote northern locations are realizing that one of the best methods might be blimps That's pretty interesting So I feel like Yes, I feel like we should invest in sailing the roaring winds of the Northlands Moving over the ferry The roaring North winds The barren white landscape in our airship I mean those things move pretty slow, so I'm sure I can get a lot of writing done in between course corrections Except for when we get into the high winds and uh I'll do dinner parties Anyone want to come to my dinner parties? But listen, I have a blimp rule, no Nazis You can't even put up a blimp these days What about Harrison Ford? What about Harrison Ford? Can we have Harrison Ford? Get off my blimp No ticket Indeed, when are we looking in the box cause I need some candy guys We're gonna have to wait for the mailbag That's bullshit Actually, I don't know that we have anything from reaching the mailbag, so we could just go straight to What's in the box? What's in the fucking box? I believe this is the one you have selected I don't know, you read out the title This is caramel apple sugar babies I feel uncomfortable with this sort of infanticide folks Milk caramels with apple candy coating And as you can tell, as I'll allow installing while Jaime gets the box open Skinner Co, the entirety of the board has come down with a pretty bitter cold Dude, it just makes me so tired and I hate being tired We apologize, it's partially why we sound stuffed up and also why they subsequently I sound like that cause I want to Okay, I'm putting one of them I wish she could see her face To get an average Yeah, if I wanted to eat an apple, I'd just eat an apple I can't eat apples Why do you always have to put that in my face? I'm allergic guys This is perfect for you then cause it is very appley And the longer you chew the more The more candy you like it gets At first, I was like, what the shit? Cause there was no flavor at all, but you put a couple in there? Really? That must be your cold cause all I can taste is apple Oh guys, I think you need to be aware At the end of the ingredients, it lists Egg may be present So I don't know that means that there's eggs in the food Or just that an egg may be in the room as we eat it How much babies in it? Yeah, sugar baby, how much baby? It's like 5th or 6th of a list 10% Anyway, that was actually pretty good once I got to the end But that sudden burst of apple at the start That was pretty good I like apples, so Yeah, we can go to heaven And then the sweet finish Yeah, let's call it a sweet finish It's okey, like He's taking them for me cause I'm chewing I knew I'd do it guys I need the sugar to stay alive So, speaking of staying alive Ooh, rough, rough transition Uh, Chris Dorner, I feel like we should touch on the Dorner situation Since we discussed it last week Or what's left of the Dorner, the ashes of the Dorner situation Oh, I can tell you that anonymous has come, well Some portion of the entity known as anonymous Uh, released some of the recording from the sheriff's department As it was all going down Mm-hmm And, um, because apparently the sheriff's office said that They don't know how the fire was started or it wasn't them But, or at least that's just what it's saying now, you know, whatever comes out in the wash But, um, the police, uh, opened a big hole on the side and set it on fire But they were trying to be really incognito about it while discussing it They were like, we're thinking about doing the burn Remember what we talked about So clearly, you know, they're having a discussion off mic or whatever So, that was kind of creepy and yucky So, what happened was basically they set the cabin on fire that he was in And then he shot himself Mm-hmm Right, but he had been shot, I think, before that, right? He had been shot on the road Yeah, they had assumed that he was injured I'm sure they'll, you know, once they look at him Yeah, rough Although it's interesting to hear anonymous stepping in again I feel like their actions are a lot more justified when it's about information release than when it's about information denial over Mm-hmm You know, like when they go after Scientology, but it's mostly just about raising awareness about Scientology Or they go after, in this case, the LAPD Which, it's been very interesting to watch this play out Just to see how the media reflects on the LAPD And how far we've both come and haven't come since the Rodney King situation And even what happened, like, that whole period before that when it was really rough Like, that was just when things kind of boiled over But I'm thinking if you're in a cabin in the woods and you have it surrounded I don't know why you have any reason to rush that dude from coming out Yeah Like, why do you have to set it on fire? Why don't you just cut off power and let it get really cold? Yeah, and then he has to come out Mm-hmm I have to agree, I think the end of this is suspect I think the way it ended is really just going to lead to conspiracy theories Even if there isn't a conspiracy there, it's just going to lead to conspiracy theories Like, the problem? Years The whole time was trying to actually catch him, but they finally had him cornered Mm-hmm So why not just... Yeah, I absolutely So you had the discussion of like, oh, you might try to go suicide by cop and just storm out and shoot people But you don't know that, like, you have to have a measured response as to what happens now, okay? Well, and even if that's the case, then you defend yourself, you don't go Yeah, you have a controlled situation Exactly, well, you could do this, so I'm going to set you on fire Exactly That just seems badly thought out Mm-hmm That was a terrible idea Okay, well, before we get back into more sad news, I wanted to swing by something a little more... A lighter, I suppose, a little lighter Did you guys hear about what happened when... Watson? You know, Watson? The supercomputer IBM made... Or some really supercomputer, but the system IBM made to... It was the computer that went on Jeopardy... Oh, yes, yes, yes Okay, apparently, at some point, one of the scientists working on the project Fed, or somehow allowed it to link into urbandictionary.com Oh boy Erick Brown, one of the scientists at IBM figured that it might be... Because he's really focused on Watson being able to pass the Turing test You're familiar with the Turing test? Whether you can tell whether they're human or not Yeah, if you can tell it's a computer, it's human or not, right? So one of the things, like we watch... You know, when we're watching TNG and there was that whole lore-data episode and he's like, "Check it out! I can use contractions!" That makes me seem more normal, huh? Mm-hmm They felt that Watson might be more human if it could occasionally throw in a little... You know, jargon Mm-hmm Not realizing what a problem that was going to be because of how extensively awful urbandictionary.com [laughter] So apparently, at some point, it just started dropping bullshit left and right Like it would just say, it would call something bullshit, but it would actually say like... Yeah I don't believe that's a valid result, it would just say that's bullshit [laughter] They had to write a special filter to like remove the urban dictionary part of his brain That's really funny That's awesome Yeah, I thought it was one of a mess-up Our future robot is going to use urban dictionary slang Yeah, it's gonna be sassy When the grandkids are around Uh... Brown claims that he didn't know just how filled with garbage urbandictionary.com was Mm-hmm But I really think that they probably just looked at it, realized how ridiculous it was and thought, "Well, what happens if we just give him this pool of information?" Like, I'm sure you can pull a backup of Watson's brain from the day before the project or just split that off pretty easily Mm-hmm, exactly So I'm sure it was more about, you know... What happens if we do this? Either that or there was an office party coming up and they were like, "You know what'd be hilarious?" [laughter] Less hilarious, however Is the Orson Scott Card news? You guys heard about this? Super Ann? No, I don't know No? Okay, Orson Scott Card, mostly famous for writing Ender's Game but he's done some other works that were worth reading Now, here's the thing about Ender's Game To me, Orson Scott Card suffers a lot of the George C. Scott problem, which we've talked about in the past which is that what I refer to as the George C. Scott problem, at least, in that sometimes a person's work is a lot better than they are as a person So Orson Scott Card is really hardcore anti-gay rights And he's not just like a Republican, he's really vocal, he's part of groups, he's an activist Yeah And for me, you know, I'm okay if you have different beliefs but if you're going to put yourself in a combative role then you need to expect at least some, you know, some equal pushback So DC hired him to do Superman, to do a Superman book Okay Like the ongoing Superman Adventures series So a big deal, big job So there's been a lot of pushback from the community saying that due to his political beliefs, he's probably inappropriate for the role I mean, if somebody, I'm trying to think of what the opposite end would be If somebody came out and was like really pushing I was going to say a gun control mandate, but if you look at what is it, Superman 2 or 3 when he takes away everybody's nukes and explodes them in space You remember that? Anyway I'm trying to think of what the opposite would be on the left, but I do believe that especially, well, I guess my point is it's interesting with these shared universe people like Batman and Superman where there's no creator, there's no single vision of how this person's going to go but especially for Superman, he's supposed to represent America, like what's right about America That's always been his role, you know what I mean, and I know they kind of riffed on that recently with the whole he was walking across America and helping local folks, he was quite chain-caining I think he was like, I'm going to reconnect with the country that made me But wait a minute, that country didn't make him Well, you see, that's the interesting larger part, right? He is heavily associated with the idea of just America He is an alien and he's not really American at all Although you could argue, I think, that there's something to be said for the idea that yes, he's living the American dream, right? He's some poor cast-off from a, let's say, exploding third world and he comes to America and manages to get a nice newspaper job and he's given a little something back by flying around fighting crime at night But anyway, my point is, when you have this sort of thing where he's supposed to represent an entire country's value system somehow, which is impossible Unfortunately, well, actually, fortunately, America has too many gradients to it It has too wide an opinion about too many things to have any one person embody everything about it And so when you have Orson Scott Carr show up, and this Superman gonna be anti-gay all of a sudden And I'm sure that they would be very careful about avoiding that back at DCHQ But that question does come into play with him Well, how would they hire him? Anyways, they know that those sorts of things are important Another thing, I totally don't think they- I feel like D.C. made a poor decision in hiring him But there's more to that than just his opinion I think he's also not been a very good writer since Enders Game Some of his books are better than others, but I find like they're really unbalanced There's parts of Enders Game that are incredibly interesting and intense and they're all about a scenario that plays out and the logic of that scenario, they have nothing to do with greater politics outside of it They have nothing to do with anything beyond Ender Wiggins and his crazy little game But as soon as he starts trying to layer in his political aspects He's really heavy-handed about it, he's not very good at doing it And it comes across really whatever And in the last couple of decades he's just been doing it more and more And I don't feel like he's gotten any better at it Good, so it really would seem like he's tried to Yeah, he got famous for Enders Game and he's put out a bunch of other books that have sold well But in this last 10 years or so, like Enders Game came out in the... I want to say 80s, that could be wrong, it might have been 90s But yeah, it had to be early 90s, I suppose It's only been in the last 10 years, so he got famous and then he got vocal It wasn't like he was always Anyhow, I'm perfectly okay with Card wanting to discuss whatever he wants to discuss I just think that he needs to expect this sort of backlash And DC needs to make a hard decision about keeping him or not And we'll see what he does to Superman Yeah, yeah, I hope, anyway Bicket Superman In related superhero news, this is more of a short item Have you heard that Peter Dinklage has been called in by Brian Singer to... Yes X-Men, Days of Future Past Villain Is he playing a villain? Really? Mastermind That's what I read Really, as a villain? Yeah I hadn't read the word villain, I had hoped that he was coming in to play Puck, frankly Yeah, that would be great to have some Canadian representation, but a villain But he's totally gonna be Mastermind You mean like Leader? I don't know Mastermind is the little feral kid's cartoon Leader's the big green noggin guy Oh, Newman, what are you doing here? No, put the piano ♪ Shawty people got no reason ♪ ♪ Shawty people got no reason ♪ ♪ Shawty people got no reason to live ♪ I don't even know how he got that goddamn piano pass security, frankly That is not something you just put in your pocket It was MODOK Oh, MODOK, yes That would be very interesting But then they would obviously have to manipulate him, so he was like, all face Yeah, Peter Dinklage, all face That could be his new slogan You know what, I bet you somebody's done this before, but it would be really easy to make a modok Christmas, or like Halloween costume, I mean, sorry Where you just do like a little face piece and then have like little baby doll limbs hanging off here Yeah, it'd be really easy Anyway, good call In other movie news Richard Matheson is going back and apparently reworking the incredible shrinking man Is that the one where they go inside the human body? No, it's a fellow who, I can't remember the original premise He like, is zapped by radiation or something He undergoes some questionable experiment and he ends up shrinking And he just, he won't stop shrinking, he keeps shrinking and drinking and drinking But he's apparently decided he's going to go back and update it for a new movie Because he wrote the book originally, it's based on, the original movie was based on a novel That he had also written, so he wrote the screenplay, he wrote the novel And now he's writing a second screenplay That's going to update for modern technology essentially That's cool But he's calling it an existential action film Which is a Yeah A fashion film, A Yeah, well, okay, a quote from Matheson from this Guardian article "My original story was a metaphor for how man's place in the world was diminishing" Matheson told the Hollywood Reporter "That still holds today where all these advancements that are going to save us will be our undoing" It's one of those fantasy concepts that does not age And he's got a point there I mean, it's as relevant now as when we were building, I don't know, grain wheels or whatever But there's two, I found a few different little interesting aspects about this He's reworking an old piece, so it's another reboot Which is interesting, but it's a reboot written by the guy who wrote the original Yes, the original But, in an added trend of modern whatever, he's also got his son helping him do the rewrite That's Jason So he's Christopher Tolkien or whatever, what's the name of the Herbert kid? Joe, Joe Herbert Half Anyway, the guy writing Dune now, I can't remember his name But, it's that same idea of bringing your son in to continue your creative legacy Which is weird, I would never ask the kids to be like, listen And now you have to write Mulligan? You've got to dig through my notebooks and find all of the Mulligans I didn't bother writing You know that one about the chicken? Get on that Yeah, and why not the same? But, I mean, just let them go out and do whatever they're going to do Anyhow, I don't know if it'll ever get made Do you know, obviously you script writing and getting a movie made are too far far Post apart, but it's interesting He also wrote the story, he didn't do the screenplay for it, but he also wrote the story as I learned from this article For real steel I didn't know that But apparently, the point is that he's still making decent Hollywood money on a regular basis Which is sort of interesting Notice you said decent Hollywood money and that decent Hollywood movies Okay, real steel was fish's pick for 2011, I think And I actually really enjoyed it when I watched it with the kids It was a lot funnier than I thought it was going to be I mean, it was goofy, but it was Maybe it's because I never played with rock 'em, sock 'em robots Yeah, I suppose That's a connection Do you only know where you can enjoy it? Okay, now I think we're actually going to split the popular press-up a bit, eh? Alright, tryin' the new segment We are It's a skin or co-announcements And next week, it will have a jingle Just something quick and fast, like It's gonna go unassments I wouldn't Yeah? No? You wouldn't? You wouldn't do that? Sorry, I was trying to discuss something and then I realized It wasn't really show discussion, it was like, I'll make discussion Yeah, okay Sorry Yeah, keep it relevant and appropriate, okay? Mm-hmm Jesus So, before we get into the really media items, I just wanted to off-front mention that Friend of the Mob, Marius Riley, and I hope I'm pronouncing his name right Pointed me at a little Vimeo short film that he was involved with Well, I'm sure it's been toured around more than just Vimeo It's a fun little science-fiction tale I don't want to give too much away because, I mean, it's just a short watch It's ten minutes or whatever, but it's definitely worth your time I'll be linking it in the notes And I'm sure he would appreciate it if you pass it around a little bit I will, I'll promise Okay, but speaking of the mob and movies We're gonna have a movie night Rob Snyder's pick Oh, I am so both looking forward and dreading the film I believe it is February 23rd, it's Saturday If anyone would like to come to Google Hangouts, we'll have a link to it in Facebook I should be posting these things more regularly on flashpup.com because I think that there's a search Yes, you should I know that some of you out there in listening land don't like to creep into the Facebook clubhouse Oh, they're like all the time and we're chatting Yeah, you miss a lot of them Unfortunately, you do miss quite a lot of content You do, you really do But whatever, you know, you can like us how you want to Well listen, while we're introducing this new Skinner Co. bit I would maybe like to take this moment, what would you guys think of opening the group so that it wasn't no longer private and closed? Do you feel like we get a lot out of that? I don't know what the difference would be Basically people outside of the group would be able to see posts from the group Yeah, yeah, I think that's reasonable Anyway, that we can suck them in Actually, you know what, I'm going to leave this to the mob itself because we don't care We basically, to a certain extent, given up our internet privacy Yeah, some people don't So I'm going to place a poll in the mob on Facebook If you have a vested interest in this, go and vote A real mob poll, not the 20 times a day where I tell a juror that we're going to have this argument decided by a poll in the mob Yes, any time that I'm losing or I'm winning an argument it becomes I'm going to let the mob decide I'm going to pull the mob Because you, they would totally agree with me and not you What's the name of the film, Jessica May? It is called Zombie Ass, toilet of the dead So keep that in mind when you come because Because zombie ass Zombie ass toilet dead, but better yet, better yet It is somewhat classy because It's subbed Yeah, it's subbed So we're going to have to read the whole thing It's like a Korean movie or something I'm not sure specifically But I'm actually looking forward to the subs Because quite often we get so giggly about what's going on And there's so many of us talking that we might miss if you can We are so busy insulting the film that we occasionally miss some of the dialogue, yes It's really funny, too, is when Jay May first told me that it was subbed I was thinking, oh, maybe like from Spanish Like, you know, Pan's Labyrinth, a Guillermo del Toro type flick, something like that Not Zombie ass toilet of the dead, that's what I was And it was funny, I didn't actually, it was hard for me to remember the title Until I had to keep going back out of the window I was in trying to label the description of the movie On the Facebook page, on the event Zombie, yes, is it Zombie toilet ass of the what? So, I shall never forget Zombie toilet ass of the dead, but anyway, I love it No, it's Zombie ass toilet of the dead I know, I was just saying that your swap was funny Oh, sorry Yeah, it was, it was super, super funny I love that we opened the floor to alternate people making the choices for the films Yes And from moment one, it has become a competition for who can hit Rob The most terrible, but it's funny because Rob hasn't seen the room, Jared's choice The thrusting flick Oh my god, guys, if you haven't seen the room, go watch the room Do you think that's... I don't want to talk about it Okay The last film we watched, platooned the dead Oh, yeah, Tibby's choice, that was awesome Let's look back to that for a moment Okay, so I have one of the main leads from that film A fellow named Tom, I'm not going to give it a full name Has basically refused to give me an interview regarding the making of that film Really? I've talked to him a couple of times about related items But he will not come on the show and do a podcast Oh, why not? Come on, Tom Well, to be fair, he does work on television shows and such fairly regularly And he's always like Tierney Guard number two But I don't think he's particularly pleased with platooned the dead Now, almost more fascinating Don't give up hope, don't give up hope, though Okay Somehow, I ended up poking around And I discovered that one of the lighting/camera/basically everything else guy kept a production diary, a detailed experience And I have answered some of the mysteries I couldn't find, and I made I only read it pretty quickly I could not find an explanation of why the movie went from having basically Star Wars and Nerf guns at the start to having proper looking military air soft rifles halfway through But I did discover that what we had assumed was peanut butter The quote unquote "zombie goo" that was everywhere Basically, the replacement for blood or gore and everything Wasn't peanut butter No Butterscotch pudding I think you know That's why the other day you're like Butterscotch pudding Ha ha ha I'm like, what? What is he talking about? Yeah, cuz I couldn't share it until now But I think I'm going to try to reach out to the camera/lighting/everything guy See if he can get an interesting... Because he seems much more willing to discuss what happened Clearly And he was also involved with getting Tom on board with casting because he had known him from a previous project That's good And it's interesting to read over I'll post the production blog anybody wants to bone up before the interview I'll post the production blog on the notes But... A lot of the cast, or some of the cast, like stayed at his house to save on billing And I know this is, you know, it's a low budget film Yeah, you do what you can do But it sounds like they got behind on a lot of shooting days There was a lot of bumps, so it should be an interesting discussion Yeah, sounds like a good read Yeah, and it would be a lot of fun, I think We're not... I guess the impression that he knows what he made You know what I mean? Like no one thought they were going in making the godfather So hopefully, I mean, we know what it is to be doing it yourself Exactly It can be rough But you did it! Yes, and they got it done Yeah, we just watched that movie, we want to know all about it And we might have, you know, a movie coming out in the future Oh yeah, don't give any hints about that Oh yeah, don't give any hints about that Although I don't think we're going to be able to get anybody on board from zombie We don't need to It's 'cause we all have enough fun We don't have enough better sketch putting Oh, we don't have enough Korean translators We have fantastic actors, it's all we need And we do And a good writer, Jared I'm so good So good Yeah, putting First touch First touch putting The last item in the Skinner Co, listing here The TNG rewatch Oh yeah, speaking of silly replacements Did you catch a little of that PCV pipe No, yeah, the PC pipe lamp Yeah, just cutting a bunch of sliced pipes on an angle It's like every little knick-knack in that entire episode Yeah, the first season is full of these little Like there's a shot They were working it out There was a shot from a few episodes back It was actually the one where Troy was getting married Where there's clearly somebody was doing costume test footage And they decided like they needed something that Riker was watching And they just clearly like cut it And they were like screw it, we don't have time to fill something else It was just like a blue screen with two people Yeah, so it cuts from like these people in another universe To like Riker reclining on this chair at this goofy look on his face And I was like Dude is in love constantly Yeah, well With Hume or no, with living and non-living entities He's full of love, he loves to be in love There is so much holodec in the first season And there's that episode I forgot when he basically falls in love with the In like 30 seconds It's the first time he falls in love with Holodec Yeah, but like it takes like nothing Like he's in the holodec for like 10 minutes Wait, make her a redhead Yeah Yeah He's in the holodec for 10 minutes in this minuet lady Yeah, the psychologist from Law and Order Yeah, or Olivet Minuet Yes, Olivet, Minuet But yes, she was exceptionally interactive WONWON But yeah, like, oh man Him and Picard were going on Yeah, you know what was really great? When Picard's like Well, I should let you guys go And then they're like "No, no, stay" He's like "No, really, stay" Yeah, he kept trying to keep being like "No, Captain, stay, I'd like you to stay" That's not my thing That's not my thing I'm sorry guys Yeah, Picard's just trying to get out of there And then Riker was all half nae nae Oh yeah, that's right In the lady planet? Yeah, yeah, where ladies were the boss And mentally got, like, park shirts He's like He sent, you know, the rest of his crew away a security detail And he's like "I'm just doing it to prove to you that men and women can trust each other on my planet" And then she's like "Come into my bedroom" And then they do it Then they do it Sometimes I think that's against the rules, guys It should be Sometimes the first season Okay, A, it has too much holodeck And B, it feels like they're trying to push Riker into the Kirk role They're making up, like, for the loss of Kirk By spreading it around on Riker Ohh But I did want to mention But, like, why would he send the ladies away when they're all supposed to be working? He's like "This is important, you need to lead me to this" And he's like "I didn't expect that you'd seduce me" And then they do it And, like, he's seriously that no one He's not going to commission, do you? No one has Nobody's got any problem with that Do you not remember the last Jim Monk story? Yes, yes, I do Anyhow, I wanted to mention Project Holodeck Which is actually a current real life technology These folks over at the USC Games Program Which is a joint project between a couple of schools They've put together a bunch of It's basically just off the shelf technology Like, they've got these things that look a little bit like weed nunchucks And they've got a move controller for the PlayStation 3 Basically, it's their answer to the connect It looks like a wand, basically, and you can wave it around And the device knows where it is So they put one of those wands on your head And then your hands get to these nunchuck things With little controllers on them And then there's a small display in front of you So that all you see is the virtual world, basically And using, I don't know, $250, $300 At least for the controls, and then I don't know what the display costs They've managed to create An actual, basically, Holodeck Like, obviously, you don't see the whole room It's all in your visors But you can turn your head, you can look around And they're working on developing The part that kind of excites me They're working on developing this steam-punk looking Nuclear airship game Where two players have to work together To keep the ship running And then fight back against enemies and stuff Yeah, if you want to see if somebody's following you You have to turn around and luck You know, and it'll appear on your screen Yeah, so it's Imagine a zombie game, I would poo Okay, I'm sure that some of our listeners are going to remember this Back in the day, there was like three VR games We maybe even discussed this before And there was the one where you fought the pterodactyl I think we did discuss this Yes And that seemed to be ubiquitous Whenever you would see these VR games, it would always be just this one game So that's what I'm hoping this doesn't turn into some like Yeah Amusement where you go to Remember that In the 2000s? In the 2000s? Yeah But anyway, it's an interesting step forward Although it's not a whole room full of Sultry talking jazz singers It's, you know A step in the right direction Yeah How about a step in the wrong direction? A spot of bother Spring is just around the corner And along with the blooming flowers, gentle showers, buzzing bees, baby snakes, mosquitoes, gnats and bats Come The birds Not just any birds I'm referring to the squawking hateful starlings That sit in the cherry tree under which I park my car These flying vermin Gobble up the cherries, do a little processing And then unceremoniously deposit them in liquid form all over my car It's awful I have a cover, but that only works if I remember to put it on Fortunately, the garden hoses nearby Making it easy to both rinse off the car as well as blast a few of the buggers out of the tree It's a satisfying response to their brand of terrorism But honestly, I think it just pisses them off Now, cherry flavored bird crap is one thing But out now, beastly vandalism is quite another With the exception of what I imagine to be a clever little escapee from Nim Who likes to build nests in my air conditioning ducts This is usually the extent of my wildlife troubles Well, besides the snakes in the basement, but that's another story for another day It would seem that the fine folks of Denver are dealing with their own form of furry terrorists And these little guys are doing some actual damage They can't be corrected with a garden hose Here's the story from CBS News They may make sweet pets with their fluffy tails and bunny hops around the garden The rabbits have become an unlikely menace in Denver International Airport Vandalizing cars Wild rabbits are wreaking havoc on travelers' cars By chewing through spark plug cables and other wiring while they're away According to CBS News Hundreds of the animals are removed from the site by the USDA Wildlife Service every month But the animals are still breeding like, well, rabbits I see them constantly, at least dozens They run out of your way and they'll wait in their cars where they're warm Shuttle driver Michelle Anderson said Arapaho auto tech spokesman Wily Ferris told the channel They like to chew on the insulator portion of your ignition cables mainly Now if they get into the wiring harness, which runs all the wiring for the car It can run from the hundreds into the thousands of dollars Depending on where the harness is damaged Airport parking is carrying out a number of changes to try and deal with the problem Such as stronger fences and building purchase for predators such as hawks and eagles It's hard to get rid of the monies, but we're trying as many natural things as possible set up parking employee Mechanics in the area of the problem are now trying to turn the rabbits off By coating car wires with coyote urine Drivers are also being told they can buy fox urine from hunting shops to protect their own cars Bunnies aren't the only unusual menace to parked vehicles In December, special covers were given out at the Everglades National Park to help motorists Protect their vehicles from vultures Vultures love to picket cars pulling off rubber sunroof seals and hood plastic It is not known why the vultures call such damage as they just discard the material once they've removed it Often insurance firms won't pay out for animal damage making the problem an even bigger headache for car owners Now as far as I know, we aren't having this problem in North Carolina However, next time I leave my car in long-term parking I think I may just take a few precautions Forget fox urine, I have something better than that So, if you see me in the parking lot with the hood up and my pants down You'll know exactly what I'm up to I'm Jeffrey Lynch and that's This Week's Spot of Butter [Music] That's actually my solution to a lot of less problems to pee on it Well, actually, when he mentioned, and I hope this comes into some future spot of bother The snakes in the basement problem he had I was wondering if snakes in the basement might have been a euphemism for you [Laughter] That's bad Yeah, great job as always Mr. Lynch You can find Jeff on Twitter as "please lynch me" Or more spots of bother over at bothersomethings.com Indeed Was it he himself who had once mentioned Or was it a horrible history where we got into A lot of rabbit starvation Have you heard about that? People who are forced to depend on lean meat and rabbit is extremely lean Will eventually go into this weird form of starvation where it doesn't matter how much meat they eat They're constantly still feeling hungry because it has to do with a lack of nutrition And the other like fats and carbohydrates Wow, creepy Yeah, there's reports of people eating until their stomachs were distended Gobbling rabbit after rabbit and not being able to That's crazy That's terrific Yeah Oh, actually I hope I forget that again Yeah, her name escapes me but there was a famous con artist Shoot Have you heard this one public? No, she ate one million buttons I think this was the medieval times She came up with this gag where she would Once a day she would give birth to a skinned rabbit Oh gosh, yes And it went on for quite a while and eventually they managed to isolate her in a room with Like no access from the outside and one of her like Family members was caught trying to smuggle a rabbit in I guess she would just Show it up herself and then Scoop it up there and Push it out Yeah Awesome Slippery But when they finally busted her she said that she was hoping to gather a pension That hopefully her condition was so weird that the government would just give her a pension I guess She just wanted to live guys Anyway I hope I never get that bad off Clearly she had money for rabbits anyway You don't know what she was doing with those rabbits afterwards What do you do after you locate a birth rabbit Do you still like do you think after the doctor left the room and the rabbit was just sitting there And she's thinking I'm kind of hungry Anyway Well she was pretty bad off her money On that horrible note We have another entry from Mr. Gibraltar 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] [Music] [Music] Yeah, yeah you do like that so we're able to take some of that Take some of that Yeah, yeah Oh yeah [Music] What? [Music] It's perfect except for me to have a minigot [Music] Got it from the headquarter [Music] Look, they did want somebody to take it They shouldn't have just looked it out in the hallway [Music] Greetings my fellow monsters I'm Gibraltar and I welcome you again to your horrible histories Anyway, on with the show "Histos goat on" [Music] On February 8th, 1948 Joseph Cardinal Menensky The ice-wracking Catholic official in Hungary was convicted of treason since the life imprisonment by the Communist People's Court In western Europe and the United States condemned both the trial and Menensky's conviction as a perversion and a lynching Menensky was no strangers above a persecution during World War II Hungary's fascist government arrested him for his speeches denouncing the oppression of the Jews in the nation After the war, a communist regime took power in Hungary He continued his political work to crying the political opposition crying the political oppression and lack of religious freedom in his nation In 1948, the Hungarian government arrested the court Menensky and several other Catholic Church officials a journalist, a professor, and a member of the Hungarian royal family were all found guilty in various crimes during the brief trial before the Communist People's Court in Bucharest Most were charged with treason trying to overthrow the Hungarian government and speculation in foreign currency, illegally sending money out of the country Alba Menensky received prison sentences ranging from a few years to life Menensky was devoted to the trial During the proceedings, prosecutors produced several documents in became Menensky and anti-care from activities The cardboard made it that he was guilty in principle and in detail of most of the acquisitions made but he beaters the United's activities were designed to overthrow the Hungarian government Nevertheless, he was convicted to a life sentence in prison but reaction to the Menensky's conviction was swift and indignant The British Foreign Secretary Ernest Beverin declared the trial in the front to Britain's understanding of liberty and justice The Vatican issued a statement pretending that the cardinal was morally and civilly innocent in the United States Speaker of the House Hussein Rayburn, a Democrat from Texas stated that the Christian world could not help but be shocked protests were held in a number of US cities but the protests did not change the verdict The case was significant in demonstrating the depth of the anti-communist movement in Hungary In 1956, Menensky was released when a reformist government took power in Hungary shortly thereafter Soviet troops entered Hungary and put down the anti-communist protests Asky took reference to the US embassy in Bucharest and stayed until the state of empty grounds until 1971 Then year he was recounted by the Vatican and settled in Vienna where he died in 1975 Well, that's all the Hisiscope showing for right now and looks like the other interns I called in to clean up the mess I found showed up and hey, no, no, guys, don't mess around the Hisiscope Don't press the button Hello to the squeak at the end Yeah, that was great I hope those interns know that that's coming out of their paycheck They're non-existent paycheck They now owe us money for working at Skinner Cup Interesting story I like the premise of horrible histories because some of them I'm very familiar with when he comes on and tells the tale just out of my own reading or whatever and some of them like this one I'm totally unfamiliar with So it's nice to have that variety But did you catch the most unbelievable detail of the story? Which was the most unbelievable A Democratic member of the House from Texas, come on now That never happens, it's never happened You're a lion liar Anyway, many thanks to Walter, another excellent entry I hope that you get things cleaned up down there before there's any leaks Yeah, geez, that's good If you'd like more of I don't want to say his horribleness If you want more of his history You can find Gibraltar on Twitter As Gibraltar42, G-I-B-R-A-L-T-E-R 42 I do And so should you Actually, this would be a good second I maintain a mobster list On Twitter I should remind folks more about that If you want to find any of the people who are included Basically in the segments Or any of the other mobsters who have happened to message me and say You know, I would like to be included in the list or Who I happen to know enjoy the show Because really, I follow a few thousand, maybe a thousand people on Twitter right now And it's Most of the time I'm dipping my toe into the stream And just picking up some of the interesting things are in the main part But the list that I actually pay attention to, frankly, is the mobster list Well, I have a couple of lists that I watch, but mostly the mobsters So, if you want to be included on that, just @us@skinnerco or @jarediskinner And let me know Yeah, do that Anyhow, thank you Mr. Crocker We want to follow you Next up, I believe we have another man from that very list Our near and dear personal friend, Mr. Gigantor King G'day Flashcast and fellow mobsters It's Gigantor And this week, I bring to you a flux game review Now, flux is a card game that has managed to adopt themes to their bare bones rule card game And we're able to create and use popular settings, like sci-fi or monsters To add spice and fun to their reusable game But rather than go on about all of their game themes This week, I bring to you flux, the pirate version, YAR The game is for two to six of your most boisterous shipmates And it's a quick sit down game of ten to forty minutes The rules are quick and easy to learn You start with your basic rules card It gets the party started, it tells you exactly how many cards you need What you can do on your turn And then it just gets everything going So then from there, you're given five different cards that you can play And on your turn, you play them Now, this basic rules card can disappear pretty quickly Because the first type of card that can be played are rule cards Some rule cards will trump other rule cards Specifically on hand limit, draw limit, play limit And then sometimes if you might be able to slip in a rule that'll go along with the first rule rather than omit it And that can sometimes lead to eight, nine different rules that you have to keep track of While still trying to play this game and achieve victory The next card, as an available play option, are the action cards You can play them just about any time, even on an opponent's turn So long as the criteria of the card are met The next cards are the goal cards The goal cards are little themes that make the game a little bit more fun In the pirate version, an example of a goal card would be a pirate's hidden treasure So what everybody's doing is while this goal card is up, everyone is trying to find keeper cards That match all the criteria on this goal card On the goal card for like a pirate bounty on a deserted island, you would have the treasure map You would have the treasure and you would have the deserted island And the first player that managed to get all three and play them up on their side when the game But that seems a little simpler than it is As every turn, you could have a new goal card depending on what the player decides to do So the goals change often And the need for random keeper cards, as in the treasure, the pirate map and such, are constantly shifting around So it makes for an interesting strategy The last and final card in this game is the creeper card This is of course the obligatory douchebag move This is the card that's going to, you know, boss everybody else's attempts to win It helps you, you know, put a wrench in everyone's plans And of course they follow the entire pirate theme like shackles Which would prevent somebody just from winning I think is what the card does itself And it's just, you know, the irons As I said, this game is suitable for the little pirates of the ship And the content is very person friendly The art has a very playful quality that lends well to keeping you in the theme that you're playing Pirate Flux is an entertaining game, but it can get a bit chaotic with the rules, with the goals, with all the keepers, with the actions A game that starts off extremely simple, very quickly becomes a very confusing mess But a very fun, confusing mess Yarr, so that'd be my review of Flux Pirate Edition I think it'd be deserving of 4 bottles of Rama to 5 Now you'd be having a nice evening, one and all Bye guys I actually love that game Flux, I have it on my iPod Yeah, you've been pushing me to pick up the AOS I should do that Sounds fantastic, it sounds like a lot of fun It's just, it's one of those games I find a little bit daunting to get into because of the inevitable complexity Yeah, there's like constant rule changes, but yeah, but I mean it's like anything else once you get used to it I hate rules, man Yeah, you know, they didn't change them I suppose so It does, the Calvin Ball connection seems, you know, scapable, anyhow Speaking actually of Calvin and comics, well not necessarily Calvin at all, but at least speaking of comics We have another entry from Mr. O'Donnell Hi, I'm Hugh, and you're listening to Hugh Likes Comics Today's exciting episode is Hawkeye, written by Matt Fraction, and drawn by David Aya What does a superhero do on his day off? For Clint Barton, Hawkeye of the Avengers He manages an apartment building in Brooklyn, hangs out with his teenage sidekick Kate Oh, and he picks fights with the Russian mafia Hawkeye is an eye-catching comic It's set quite firmly in the Marvel Comics four-color universe of crime circuses and flying aircraft carriers But definitely avoids flashy spectacles This is a book that feels less like the Avengers summer blockbuster and more like a 70s grindhouse action movie It leans heavily on those tropes, but with a sly grin The opening pages, for instance, show Hawkeye trying to pull off that slow-motion grappling hook arrow shot from the movie Screwing up, landing on a parked car and breaking half the bones in his body The action picks up six weeks later, when he gets out of the hospital Hawkeye is written and designed with this spectacle well in mind The story skips around in time, which is a little confusing at times And Aja draws tight, compact panels that are full of motion and energy Even the coloring, by Matt Hollingsworth, reinforces the style with a faded palette of moody greys, purples, and yellows This comic feels tailor-made for flash mobsters It's full of grim noir sensibility about doing what's right in spite of the obvious cost It's about taking a stand of responsibility for your own problems even if it would be easier to call up a god of thunder for help Even so, fresh and gets there with a lot of humor and sass that never feels out of place Hawkeye issues one through seven or available now on Comixology or at your local comic shop Issues seven is a special issue with the writer's portion of the proceeds going to help support Hurricane Sandy relief funds You should go check 'em out So until we get that Karak vs Galactus crossover special I'm Hugh O'Donnell saying "See in the funny papers" That was really cool! Yeah, I have to admit, Hawkeye is definitely, and I'm sure I've complained about this on the show before Hawkeye is definitely the weakest of the characters they included Even Black Widow feels way more competent to me in the movie than Hawkeye feels And it's not that Hawkeye feels incompetent, I think it's undermined because of how long in that film he spends as a bad guy But even before the movie was out, Hawkeye was always that guy in the Avengers where you were like "And he's got a bow and arrow, seriously?" It's kind of like he was really only in the universe because DC had green arrow and somebody needed to be there to balance it out because there's always got to be the alternate universe "Oh, they've got a bow guy, we need a bow guy, they've got a guy from a swamp, we need a man swamp" I know I've mentioned before that Hawkeye gets a lot of love on Tumblr But it's generally movie Hawkeye And I've got to say, although, you know, it doesn't annoy me to see it, like some things on Tumblr do I've never really been like "Man, I want to go read some Hawkeye comics" But there's definitely sounds like it would be up my alley Well, the 70s, I love the approach to the 70s grind house kind of situation, and Matt Fraction does an excellent job writing things Well, and I like the idea of Hawkeye, you know, managing an apartment building and hanging out with a sidekick, you know? Yeah, I would definitely check this out Yeah, thanks I don't know, the thing about Tumblr, not to complain about Tumblr Oh, there's a lot to complain about on Tumblr That's what everybody does Yeah, the underdog, oh, it's the villain, who is the most hated person in this thing? Loki But it's always like that, it doesn't matter what the franchise is, they're going to find that person and just kind of deify them for some reason Anyway, Tumblr loves the underdog, I wonder why So I'm not sure, I haven't actually heard the interview with Justin McCumber yet But I know that he has a new interview up on the way of the Buffalo podcast Which you can find it with buffalo.blogspot.com Now, I don't know if this marks the relaunch, because I do remember reading, or at least I hope I remember reading, that he had recorded it last year And that he had just gotten around to producing it and releasing it, so whatever the case, you should dig through the archives It's definitely a show worth checking out, and you can also find you over on Twitter as Tumblr, "Hatching Phoenix" I think on Twitter too, though, right? I believe he's also "Hatching Phoenix" on Twitter I don't tweet very much, so you have no time to ask I am much more the tweetest. Anyhow, you're the tweetiest of tweeters Speaking of a fellow I know from the Twitter, and I do believe we have a podcast review from Scott Roche Hi, this is Scott Roche, your podcast proselyte And this week's review is of "Fetidus, the Damned Air" by James Durham You can find "Fetidus" at "Fetidus.org" and you can find James Durham at Twitter.com/James Durham "Fetidus, the Damned Air" is the first sci-fi horror novel and original music score set in the grim and fetid alleyways of a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. circa 2034 In this first novel, Art Blanchard, a jaded Washington lobbyist who works for the foundation for the ethical treatment of the innocently damned, undead, and supernatural takes up the blackmail case of a mysterious woman which leads him on a twisted adventure filled with noir humor, suspense, and horror Production James does audio production for a living. He's also a musician and a composer. It shows in every bit of this podcast He won a parsec for it, and it was deserved. Even though at the time he won it, it had not yet been finished "Fetidus" seems not so much produced as sculpted. The music and sound effects accentuated every bit of the story. Grade for this one? A+ Cast "Fetidus" uses a full voice cast. Most of the people involved are prose, possibly all. As such, they do a marvelous job with their various roles. Grade for this one? A+ Story This is modern noir. There's a healthy dose of violence and sex, though the former is more explicit than the latter. There's a lot going on here, and in that sense it's perhaps more complicated than its cinematic predecessors. Of course, he's injected vampires, zombies, and a horrific apocalypse into it as well. Taken altogether, there are times when it almost seems like too much. It's easy to get overloaded with plot threads in addition to the world building, but he's done here. If you're looking for a straightforward romp, this ain't it. It also gets really, really dark, and there are times where the violence is a bit too much for my taste. Grade for this? B+. Verdict I heartily endorse this podcast. In case it's not obvious, I think it's one of the top ones out there, and it earned the parsec after all. Odin rightly dinged it for its release schedule since it did go through a reboot. There are good reasons for that that I won't go into since they're immaterial now. You as a new listener have the benefit of all the episodes being out there for your consumption. If you're into noir and zombies, I'm frankly surprised you haven't already listened to it. Grade Solid A. All the way around. Well, this has been the podcast proselyte for this week. Thanks for listening, and you can check out more of my stuff at scottroosh.com, or you can follow me on Twitter @spiritualtramp. See you next time. It's definitely one of those shows that when I first got into, well, I believe we started with Don and Drew. And then when I started getting into the larger pool of podcasts, it was one of the first that I really longed onto. Excellent, excellent show. I absolutely agree with his criticisms though. Of the violence? Well, I don't want to sound like I'm being critical. There are places where, to me, at least, it felt like the writing was a little soggy. It's essentially what it comes down to. But everything else was gold, so you really forgave it when it did get a little bit rough. Dig it? Anyhow, that was just my impression. But excellent job, Scott as well. Thank you for the submission. Yes. So I believe what we have next is... Alright guys, I have to, well, hold on, I got to pause the show here. I have a confession to make. Yeah. I have to make it over dramatic noises. In a world where I accidentally named the wrong box earlier in the show, only one man can apologize for accidentally naming the wrong box earlier in the show. I believe I cited it being the TT's. Sugar babies were not from... Yes, that was a straws box delivery. Yeah, no package. It was a straws box item. And actually, while we were digging around, I also located this ghost keychain. Yes. In box clone 2, there was keychains that made... Yeah, and I thought I had taken these out, but I think they got... An owl, a ghost, and a camera. I don't know how it got back in there, because I thought I had taken this out, but... I was cleaning up when I did it a little excessively, and I just... Like, box two, you're getting back together. Anyhow, this ghost is fantastic, it makes an excellent sound. I figure it can double as a ray gun, as a dramatic kind of theremin effect, or as a... A car failing to start. There it is, a spooky car. A haunted car. A haunted car that just won't turn over. So thanks a lot, Rich, and I apologize for having confused my candy. Oh, yeah. But, while we discuss this nutty email, actually Facebook posting that I posted into the notes, I believe we are going to sample some bottle caps from the box, the soda pop candy. Hmm. Anyway, I always... I don't know if we've mentioned this before, but I always find it interesting to see the Spanish on the boxes, because we got English, Canadian... French, yeah. Or English and French up here, yeah. Greetings to you from Willy Wonka himself. Well, Wonka, first greetings from... Well, you Johnny Depp. Come here, I need more sugar. Jean Wilder, thank you, ma'am. I'm tired. That's right. Okay, meanwhile, Nettie says, "I just listened to the Flashcast where you tried the Girl Scout cookies, and oh my God, yes, Thin Mints are amazing." Thank you here. Sorry, but Girl Guides just don't have the same cookies. It's true. My favorite are the Samoas, a ring cookie covered in caramel, coconut, and stripes of chocolate. The Samoas have been getting a lot of love in the Facebook mom. The only problem is that one serving size is a whole box, seriously. Girl Scouts beat Boy Scouts in so many ways. I have to agree. One, it's secular, whereas Boy Scouts insist that you must believe in God. If you're a question and you say you don't believe in God, then you're out. Girl Scouts have a good program where they accept all girls, even transgendered girls, and girls can learn anything. Many recently earned a woodworking badge, even though the Girl Scouts don't make the badge, they recognize it, and you can get the patch elsewhere, and it's in her record that she mastered it. Boy Scouts said that they would listen to people and let them call their headquarters to give their opinion on whether or not gay should be a large scout, and after receiving an overwhelming amount of gay support, they said they won't say. They said they won't say they won't change, but they aren't using that response as basis for any decisions being made. Last I heard, they're leaving it up to a vote to the regional leaders. Also, Boy Scouts of America should not be confused with any other scouting organization. They aren't linked with the scouts in the UK or Europe, and they aren't the same as the scouts in Canada who are somewhat tied to the UK scouts, if in history only now. Speaking of scouts, I just found out about a group of scouts I had not known about before. Rovers, rovers in Canada at least, are co-ed scouts from 18 to 26, I think it was, who continued to scout, learn, and do a lot of community outreach and volunteerism. The rover I met has a really nice red uniform. I wonder if that's anything like the otters and the timber wolves and stuff. She added a little bit later, I'm now listening to Flashcast80, and I hear I'm not the only one to recommend Simoas. Just that, then, just now, Opope is from Pembroke. I'm not actually from Pembroke. No, no, you were talking like you were talking. I totally was talking like I was from Pembroke. I've been there multiple times, long, long extended trips back when the hubby lived there. Before I moved to the great white north. The drive around there is nice at least. And they have very memorable commercials. They do. Oh, they do. Like all the craft stores and stuff. It became like... Calm down to Pembroke mile. Yeah, it became like a childhood thing where we'd be like, oh, it was a Pembroke commercial. And everybody would know what you were saying. Yeah. The quality of the video was good. Had I been at the board meeting, I would have been very good at doing the Canadian provinces. We're sure you would have been. Yeah. Um, hubby has been teaching me well. Now to get the capitals of every province. I'm not quite there yet, but I can say Halifax, Project 10, Quebec City, Toronto. Not Ottawa. That's the nation's capital. Calgary, White Horse. And I think that's it off the top. Represent. If you can nail the Ottawa Toronto situation that's... Yes. You're well on your way to Canadian citizenship. Mm-hmm. I think that's basically the restrictions. Yeah. If you know where Moostra is, you're set. Yeah. Thank you. And we'll accept you. One of us, one of us. Thanks, Nadi. Mm-hmm. Thank you. If you guys have any questions, suggestions, stories, samos, you want to send us? Mm-hmm. You can throw that. All that. Comments at flashpop.com. Definitely the samos. No, the samos go into my mouth. We're going to get a PO box, ladies and gents. What's in the PO box? What did you guys think of the bottle caps? They were good. I was hoping for just a teeny, tiny bit more tang, but I liked the crunchy consistency. Do you think that was because it was very sweet tart-esque? Yes. And you were looking for the sweet tart-zing? I think I've had these before. Yeah, I believe I've had them. But I swear they were bigger. Yes. I think, as often happens with these, this new intro, it's interesting that we've, it seems at least we've been introduced to this new form factor of candy, where they now have like the large box. Yeah, it's interesting. That'll actually come up next flashcast, because I have a pretty crazy selection from the box. I see. And it is a giant form of something that we're used to. But I think that with the introduction of this new large box item, they've also reduced the size of the candy sometimes, because I think the sweet tarts that come in the large boxes are smaller than normal too. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was another dispensary for bottle caps that were- like actual bottle cap size. Closer. Yeah. At least. Anyway, thanks a lot, Rich. Thanks a lot, Nani. Mm-hmm. Thanks a lot, bottle cap. And also, thanks, Drosberg, for your, uh, miss-a-trivial look. I'm coming out in the chocolate caramel in the wrinkle cake. Speaking of things that are fantastic. Are we talking about me? Are you a dassy? Oh, ho. We are. Yay. So I recorded another song from the Internet, and then I didn't get enough praise. So Jared used for poking the Internet away saying, "Till there's shoes for this." I know where you're opening it. Anyway. Yeah, I know. But it was an excellent tune. Thank you. It was a cover of a, uh. Fleet boxes. Fleet boxes, song. Yeah. So you can find it at flashbope.com if you want to take a little bit. We're looking into splitting the feeds up a little more, because we've discussed wanting to turn Skinner.fm into the larger network. Yes. The Skitter Co. network, if you will. And I would actually maybe like to poke Mr. Lynch about pulling in some more of his spots about there. Anyhow. This is a larger issue, but it would be nice to drop your songs directly into the feed, but give people options as to what they want to download. Yes. So we'll deal with that later. But at the same time, if you want to go over to flashbop.com, look for Sing a Song on Sunday. Yes. That will be all of your songs. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, I hope you like it, but if you don't, um, be gentle, because I'll cry. Now, did you do anything different in your production method this time, or would you normally do? Generally. Generally. I like to know that I can play this song through, uh, well, without lots of flubs and gubs and stuff. But with the limited amount of time I have and junk, and it takes me so long to record things, I just, I couldn't get this song up this enough in that direction. Isn't it a matter that you can get, like, 3/4 of the way through the song? And it's just- And once you have to- Yeah. It's one teeny type. Yeah, I get very obsessive. But at this time, I just did it in sections, and then scooted it together, if there's anything I didn't like, I- Did it again? Yeah. And then if something sounded muddy with a guitar, I took something out and just added a nice, clean strum. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, definitely a lot less sweating, a lot less freaking out. Still a billion takes and just a race and a race and a race thing, and I shouldn't do that. But I do. But it's funny, I have all of these production techniques that I use for the show, and it seems so simple and awesome, but then when I put my frustrations and fears and anxieties about music into it, it's like I forget all the things I know how to do. Yeah. Well, when it becomes personal, it can be easy to lose sight of there. But I'm flipping out less. Yeah. And tell your friends. And eventually we're going to get Matunes.com rebuilt into a proper album dispensary. I'm told that. It'll be more dedicated. It'll be less blog and more just straight hear songs to download. Mm-hmm. The R-O-N-R-A-Chop. So, packing order. Mm-hmm. We did a really easy thing. That was lots of fun. It was nice to finally meet and give voice to the rat trapper. Mm-hmm. That was fun. It was fun to have a character that I had referenced so far back to finally arrive. I mean, there's going to be a little more of that in the future, but... Mm-hmm. And as soon as I read her lines, I just, I, I know I've said it before how I like to visualize somebody to base the character off of, but I knew exactly who I wanted this person to be. Mm-hmm. And actually we got a little clip from, uh, Pulp Fiction. Hey, uh, what do you think about Trudy? She ain't got a boyfriend. You want to, uh, hang out, get high? Which one's Trudy? One with all the shit in her face? No. That's Trudy. That's my wife. I remember Trudy. Mm-hmm. She was really snotty. I remember she was in, like, a bathrobe. Mm-hmm. She was saying something about... No. You don't expect a lot of... She was talking about her tongue piercings. Yeah, in relation. Yeah, in relation. Yeah. He's like, "What do you use up for?" Yeah, so totally that, Lee. That's who the rat trapper reminds me of. Fairness. Backroom plot. Actually, bringing in the rat trapper really allowed me to bring back the sort of loneliness of the zombie apocalypse, which is part of what I really like about it, this idea, even when you're in a group that you're by yourself. Doing the rat. Yeah. But part of that is because we've just gone through, well, at least in Ruby's chronology, the big scene at the pipe factory, right? So there's a certain camaraderie going on there that I wanted to kind of punch against with this really loner kind of character. And you'll note that I did something similar with the guy in the house in that same last cycle. There's that one fellow who's managed to barricade himself and he's got this one house and he's nicely situated there and basically just shouts at everybody who passes by. Yeah. I mean, that loneliness will certainly be returning at some point. And I don't want to give too much away, but the, like, I mean, I don't want to give too many spoilers away because this is only one episode away from that last release. But the politics are obviously going to grow more intense before they dissipate a little bit, that sort of group dynamic situation, especially with what the rat trapper implied about with where they're going. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's interesting to see that there might be a civilization developing in Cornwall of all places. Yeah. Where it's currently no civilization. Oh, sorry. No, but seriously move. I don't have any musical selection to play this week, although I do have that in mind for returning to you. Honestly, I've been getting a lot of my writing music lately out of Songza, which is a iOS app, like for your iPod, your iPhone, whatever, iPad. It presents you with a menu of options based on the time of day that it detects it is. So say it's, you know, Thursday afternoon, it'll give you, you know, working out or working with no lyrics or whatever else people randomly normally do on a Thursday afternoon. Very difficult to have vocals in right at the same time. But there's a lot of classic instrumentals, there's a lot of surf guitar pieces, there's a lot of blues instrumentals, there's a really solid movie soundtrack channel, which I really enjoy. Yeah. So that definitely worth checking out. If you're looking for music to fill your hours, fill your spaces. Mm hmm. Yeah. There are, like, a wide range enough to-- Songza? Any-- Songza, yeah. Songza. Now, the one thing-- you mentioned that, but the one thing I find consistent about these services, the one thing that kind of pushed me away from Django radio, which was the thing I was using before this, is that at least in Canada, they have a limited amount of content that they can release. I think it's a licensing, international licensing situation. So I think their libraries are probably larger in America. But in Canada, you'll hop on a playlist. With Django, it's more like, you know, okay, the Afrobeat playlist or whatever. It's less the song's idea. But it'll still be maybe two dozen songs, maybe even up to 70 songs or whatever. But after that, you're hearing the same songs over and over again. And I go, that's fine for a while, and it's great to be introduced to new content, but I go through so much music while I'm writing that it's not long. And because I have requirements, I can't be listening to stuff with a lot of vocals. It narrows it down. It really narrows it down. I quickly go through that content, so I find myself having to jump from service to service because none of them is refreshed quickly enough. Although I do get to a cycle where I'll finish a playlist on songs and I'll get bored of it, and then I can maybe hop back to Django. Anyhow, the experiment we launched last week went really well. I suggested that we might introduce a research question into my back room plot segment. And I asked what people had for breakfast, not really. Because it was just a nice general, something that you're not going to necessarily know, something you don't really ask people individually, but, or you're not going to find in a research paper. Very interesting answers. And it was so fun to have an entire week where people were just shouting like, frosted flakes, or whatever at me on Twitter, no context, no nothing. It actually took me a couple of days to figure out why people were mentioning random materials to me. And I was like, oh yeah, I asked that question. Got some really great ones. I actually sent some people back to. What was the best sounding one? Send in the best sounding. Why are you going to tell us some of the stuff that people eat? Okay. Well, there was a lot of cold cereal entries. There was a lot of toast. There was a lot of, I don't have breakfast, I just have coffee. Doc Blue gave me a very nice little slice of life in the cafeteria at his place of business, which was very much reminded me actually of my college and university years. And the cafeteria is there, but he has quite a little setup, and I must say I'm rather jealous. And I actually sent him back to get pictures, so I wouldn't be surprised to see that pop up in a mulligan in the near future. One of the interesting ones too was, and I want, I want to hear from everybody. Don't just tell me if it's something that you think I'm going to find interesting. I want to get the general idea of what people have, but Zach Mann, who often throwing little factoids at us or introducing, he's very much a cross podcast pollinator, which I like. He listens to a lot of podcasts and he gets different podcasters talking to each other, which is very nice. But he was mentioning that his wife is Filipino, and they tend to have spam and rice, fried spam on rice and they'll spoon a little spam, spoon a little rice. Yeah. Wow, that's interesting. I've never heard of that. Yeah, yeah, it's just a cultural thing, but it's really interesting. It's something that we wouldn't necessarily be exposed to. Mm-hmm. Hey, how? I really enjoyed that, and I think we should do another round of it. So, since we're all rather sick, I want to see what people's cold routines were like. Do you use a neti pot? Are you the kind of person who avoids any sort of off-the-shelf medicine? Are you all up in that suit of fed? What's going on? Hot toddies? Anybody have a fan of the hot toddies? I know last time we got sick, we got a couple of recommendations for that, but I think people just like to see us whiskey up, so... Mm-hmm. Charity doesn't let us do it nearly enough. Uh, now I do ask that when you send in your little commentary, whatever your, you can throw it at me on Twitter, you can throw it at us at commonsoflushbulb.com, on the Facebook page. #FC81. Just please mention to me where a bouts issue are from. If I have some context for that, that's much more useful to me, because then I know, you know, this person's in Southern America. Mm-hmm. It's South America. No, not South America. Southern America. Southern America. Oh. Oh. Or whatever. You know, maybe they're having grits. I just want to know what the locale is so that I can get some context. But I really appreciate it, and if you don't feel comfortable with me citing you specifically on the show, feel free to mention that, but otherwise, you know, you make it a little... Don't tell anybody, but I eat this. Yes. Yeah. Babies. You can follow us @skinnerco on Twitter, or individually as @jaredyskinner, @thejaskamay, or @popenax with a zero, you can actually also find Jim there, who is our host for wicked.flushbulb.com and flashbulb.com. Indeed. We're really haunting the hell out of the end of the show, anyhow. Mm-hmm. Big thanks, Jim, for your support. You can find all of Jim's podcast over at relicradio.com, he does an excellent job. Oh. Yeah, we're almost done, back to bed. Enjoy the show, tell a friend, really enjoy the show, we've got a donate button on the site. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashbulb.com, or email us @techstreamp3s to comments at flashbulb.com. The entire run of flashbulb can be found at flashbulb.com or via the search bar on iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 3.0 imported faces. [music] Hi, Masters. [sighs] [music] Hi, Masters. [sighs] The booth. [sighs] The box here. [sighs] The box here. [sighs] The box. The box. The box. The box. I love him. [sighs] The box here. The box. [sighs] [sighs] [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yeah. [sighs] Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. [sighs] Yup. Yup. Yup.