Prepare yourself for: Hypnotism, Ghostbusters 3, Large-Eared People Eaters, choking on cockroaches, Admiral McCoy, and The Murder Plague.
Find the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
The Skinner Co. Network
FC75 - Everything Old is New Again
(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Flashcast 75, a Skinner Co presentation. - Skinner Co, you preferred method of time travel since 3052. - This episode is also brought to you by generous donations from Nick Tyler, Gigantor, and Colorado Joe. If you'd like to sponsor an episode, please feel free to use the donate button on the site. But now, prepare yourself for hypnotism, Ghostbusters III, larger people leaders, choking on cockroaches, Admiral McCoy, and the murder plague. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Opopinax, and joining me in effort to create an international spiring to catch Mummy's kissing Santa Claus. Artistic or may? - Hello. - And JRD. - Hello. - Oh, you sound irate, sir. - Maybe he found his Mummy kissing Santa Claus. - Uh, not particularly. - No. - He did, however, hear about a irate hypnotist lately, or at least I believe he must have been. Did you guys catch this story? - Yes. - I believe it was Strasburg who posted it to his weird stuff second of the ning mob. - Mm-hmm. - A spline, a spline to me. - Actually, let's have CBC News explain to us. - Hi, Richard Whitbread, good afternoon. - Good afternoon. - So, can you tell me what happened last week? - Well, basically, last week, around three or three-thirty in the afternoon, I get a call from an old student of mine who was doing a hypnosis show who encountered a problem that he had never encountered before. And basically, what ended up happening was a few people that were in the audience ended up staying in the state of hypnosis, and he was unable to get them to come out of it. Well, in this particular case, being that they were quite young, between the ages of 12 and 13, the effect of a young hypnotist being kind of handsome and all that, while the girls tried to please him, and you end up getting this mass hypnosis thing going, and... - So, what techniques would he have tried? - Well, he would have tried just bringing him back out, basically, you know, counting back up to three or five, or whatever, and saying, well, wide awake, one, two, three, four, five, eyes open, wide awake. And they would open their eyes and just go butt right back into the state of hypnosis, kind of discarding them. From there, well, basically, I just went in, had the hypnotist introduce me so that they would listen to my voice, and I just dehypnotize them. - How did you do that? - Well, the basic way of doing that is to giving the impression they're going back into the state, even though they're already there, and just counting them right back up completely, but using a different tone of voice, using a more paternal tone, kind of like a dad telling his child, this is it, that's enough, come back now. - And what happened? - Well, they came back. - And did they suffer any effects after effects? Where they-- - No, it's a natural state of the human body. You go through that state when you go to bed at night. - So like a sleep state. Now, you said earlier, these were young people who tend to be more suggestible in a hypnotic state. Is it safe to hypnotize people of that age? - Well, it is safe if you're doing it in a therapeutic environment. And I mean, when you go see a therapist, whether you're eight years old or 12 years old, you're going to see a therapist who knows therapy and knows what they're doing. So the state of hypnosis is very controlled and confined. - And what kind of training is sort of standard for someone to do that kind of hypnotic therapy? - It's 14 hours intensive training on how to create the hypnotic state. - Can you hypnotize someone over the phone? - Yes, a person could be hypnotized over the phone. - Do you want to try to hypnotize me or-- - Well, we'd have to do suggestibility testing first. - Okay. - And once we know what the suggestibility is, then we could go ahead and do a hypnotic induction. I usually prefer doing the first induction in person. - How long would it take? - Well, if I can see the test, it takes only a few minutes. Not seeing the test, I'd have to do a written test. And that could take a bit longer. - Maybe we'll leave it then. It was just an idea that occurred to me off the top of my head. Listen, thank you very much for telling us about this. We appreciate it. - No problem. - Have a good day. - You too. - Bye-bye. - So I guess he eventually pulled them out just basically by using like the dad voice he showed up. He was an older fella and he just-- - A stern voice. - All right, let's all wake up now, ladies, but-- - Ladies. - Hypnotism is kind of interesting 'cause it's still, it's one of the last bastions of-- - There's, okay, I think there's certain levels. Like, I can understand how like people use hypnotism, like meditation, you know? They're concentrating on particular things, like quitting smoking or all of these other things. But to make you do something, you're not being aware, I think it's all bullshit. - Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. - You definitely, my understanding is that the subject definitely has to be willing to a certain extent to go along for the ride. - Yes. - Which is exactly obviously what happened in this case. But, okay, well, let's back up a little bit. I was listening to narrative about Clarence over on relicradio.com was a recent horror episode. And it was your classic, well, actually, it had a very nice twist at the end that you kind of start coming, but they played out well. But it was your standard, like, this guy comes back from quote unquote, the orient, or in the, or whatever it was. And he's somehow-- - He's out of place. - Yes, and he's picked up hypnotism abilities, which he's now using to essentially control this man's family, and his end goal is to kill his wife and daughter. It's kind of whatever, I mean, it's an old time radio show. But you don't really see that, well, hey, you don't see the hypnotism story anymore. - No. - You know what I mean? Like, that used to be a very heavy thread in-- - No, yeah, now it's considered they've moved it too. Like, you have to be a willing participant. You can't just force anyone. - Yeah, it's maybe a little better understood. But-- - Well-- - At the same time, you had a period of evil ventriloquist demis. You remember the evil ventriloquist demis? - Yes, yeah. - And I'm wondering if it was something to do with the liminal nature of vaudeville. In fact, that it was sort of a little seedy-- - Yeah, it wasn't a glassy. - But at the same time, it had a certain mystique, right? Like, anything could happen. - Yeah, it's vaudeville. - Yeah. So I think, I wonder if those are things related. But anyway, I thought this was an interesting story. I think it's your standard mass psychosis kind of self-induced. - Also, can I point out, I do believe it was at a Roman Catholic French school. - Yeah, which are no offense, but that's already thrown to superstition. - Yeah, so-- - Bunch of Roman Catholic French girls. - Bunch of Roman Catholic French girls, but like-- - Religion. - And it's that perfect storm of-- - Yep. - Anyway. - Thrown a handsome man. (upbeat music) ♪ Open with breath ♪ - Do you guys remember the movie "Flood of the Navigator?" - I love that movie. - No, I don't. - I bet you do, but you don't remember that you remember that movie. - I think we started watching it with Mr. 10. - There's a kid, and he got scared. - There's a kid who, I can't recall what happens. He somehow slips out of time for a year, but he essentially gets control of this alien spaceship. - Okay. - And he spends a brief time in sort of an ET like Segan, which he ends up being, you know, pro-ed by the government or whatever, and he manages to escape and he's gotta find his way back to his family who somehow moved in the interim year that he was missing. - Yeah, well, yeah. He goes home and they're not there. Somebody else lives there 'cause they moved away 'cause he just paired it. - So it wasn't the highest quality film of my youth, but there was a certain magic to it. It was really of the time. - Oh, yes, so much magic. - The whole twisted sister scene. Apparently they're remaking it. - Oh, really? - They're in the works to do so. I don't know that they can summon the whimsy necessary to really do at least my memory of the original justice. - Yeah, frankly, I haven't sat through the whole thing. - No one can match our childhood whimsy. - Yeah, exactly, but I think there was just a certain amount of extra whimsy wandering around in the '80s. - That was actually Will Wheaton. - Yeah, yeah. - Squeeze Will Wheaton for a little extra whimsy. Speaking of movie news, the Forever War is coming to film. Do you guys remember the Forever War? - No. - I remember the name, but I can't remember what it's about. - The Forever War is a book, I believe by Joe Haldeman. It's basically Starship Troopers. Do you remember Starship River? - Yes, yes. - Okay, well, it's about future space war, but how everything goes very slowly, like it takes forever to get anywhere, and it's kind of annoying to do so, and it's just as long, painful as long. - Just takes forever. - Yeah, and Ridley Scott's considering making it into a film. - A really long film. - Well, no, it was, it would definitely make an interesting movie, but Ridley Scott, especially with his alien background, would be an interesting director for it. But I always, the Forever War, I always linked heavily with the Vietnam War specifically. And to me, it was kind of the answer to, you had Heinlein on the right, or at least in the libertarian camp, which was maybe a little bit more progression, and then you had Haldeman and some other folks on the left, who, the book is really kind of an anti-war book. So it's interesting to see this coming forward now. It's also interesting to think that there's still things from the Vietnam War era that we're mining in pop culture today, like, how many films have been made at this point, and yet there's still some worth to that. 'Cause I'd love to see a Forever War film, but then I'm known to get my hopes up. And you know what else actually has my hopes up? - What? - On superofficialnews.com, which immediately makes me think that it's probably full of lies. They have announced that Bill Murray is on board for Ghostbusters 3. - No, no, no. Is there any other details besides that? It's happening. - Reimis told reporters how he had received word that Murray was agreeing to the project. Yeah, it was kind of crazy, Reimis said. Just out of nowhere, I get a phone call from Bill. It almost three in the morning on Thursday, and he simply said, "Yeah, okay, I'm in." Really? - Yeah, that's so wonderful. - That's so Bill Murray. - I love that. - Yeah, okay, man. - So, I mean-- - Well, you could have, like, one evening with Bill Murray. That'd be so much fun. - I knew. - Yeah. - I remember when he was doing that, where he was-- - Yeah, he just did this whole project where he was, yeah, that wasn't long ago. - That's coming and hanging it out. - This article on superofficialnews actually cites that as one of the reasons that he agreed to sign on, because he had gotten so much fan support for the idea. - That's awesome. - Aw, yeah, I guess he-- - So many people must have been like, "Come on, I'll just post yours." - Yeah, but on the other hand, man, don't do it for this terrible script. Anyway. - For the fans, man. For the fans. - Shooting for Ghostbusters, three is said to begin in the fall of 2013, but now with Murray on board, filming for the movie could start as soon as February of next year. - Wow. Oh, God, I hope the script is good. Come on, people. - Yeah. - Get it together for Bill Murray. - Here's hoping. - Yeah. - Actually, we're being very reminiscent this episode. There's a lot of blast from the past kind of business. We've been going through a little bit of a TNG re-rewatch. Oh, before I get to that, however, did you guys hear about masks? I'm so excited about this. I know it came up with The Last Game Night. - Is it like the second movie to The Mask of Jim Carrey? - Actually, there is a second movie to The Mask. Do you not recall that? - Yeah, son of The Mask. - Yeah, son of The Mask with that guy who had a comedy career for about two minutes. What's your name, Jamie Kennedy? - I don't know that I ever actually saw it. - Yeah, I think actually that was the end of his career. - Actually, no, I think in America, he does okay. - Oh my goodness, America, what is wrong with you? Anyhow, I will forgive you because you also happened to reduce the shadow, the green hornet, the spider, and all of these characters will be found in Dynamite's new comic series, Masks, which will be an eight-part miniseries with Alex Ross painting the whole thing, which I know you're not terribly familiar with, Alex Ross, he is amazing. So I have to admit, picked up a comic in quite a while now, at least not anything that was produced after the late '70s, but I will definitely be checking this series out. And a huge thanks to our here and on the Twitter for giving me a heads up on that. But we have been rewatching TNG. - We have, yeah, we just started. - Yeah, we've seen one episode. - Amazing. - Well, it was actually, we watched the double episode. - Yeah, it was the premiere. - Oh, yeah, that was probably, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I loved it. - It was so great to see so many things that remained the same throughout the series from day one. - The Troy Riker thing, Wesley was annoying. - The card was awesome with. - I don't work with children. - Although, okay, there was a lot of angry acting going around. - Oh my God, what's her face? - Tashiar was full of rage. And it's gonna be interesting, 'cause I'm keeping an extra eye on her as we're going through now, knowing that in some future episodes, she's going to get fired. And I'm looking forward to it, 'cause I don't particularly like Tashiar, but I don't remember how far into the series it happened. - Really, so she was fired? Is that why she was killed on it? - I believe she wanted to go on to other work or something. I don't think she was actually fired, but-- - Yeah. - I don't think they were crawling-- - Well, that was a good move. - Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I remember as a child being like, "Why, they don't die." - Yeah, I think it added something, though, to the series to have one of the bridge crew go down like that. And especially to have it be just such a terrible death, like it's so badly-- - Wasn't it like a puddle or something? - Yeah, she was slowly consumed by a puddle. A very dark puddle. - Yeah, and attacked by a bit of a-- - An oil spill. - Yeah. - You know what I really liked? I liked seeing bones. And-- - Oh, yeah, yeah. - And-- - Boy came here. - Yeah, the best part about it was that he was still wearing the old flare pants. - The bell bottom. - Yeah, from the old uniform. I thought that was great 'cause you see him walking with data and data's all spiffy and is nice new uniform, whatever, but bones has got the bell bottom pants. - They do this interesting Federation history moment, almost to add some grit to things, I think, in which they discuss this period of human history in which there were a bunch of riots. - Or rather, Q does. - Well, Q does, Q is in the first episode. I was kind of surprised about that. I didn't think he came into later, but I love Q. - Welcome to our new science fiction show. Here's a god-like character that we're not gonna explain any of the phases of. But okay. - Yeah. - I did find the introduction of this riot period where they have, like, cops on drugs and weird. - Yeah, that was interesting. - I actually really enjoy that, and I would watch, I have to-- - Take Judge Tread. - Let me pitch this to you. I would watch that Star Trek television show that took place in that-- - When the Federation was forming. - When the Federation was forming and-- - Typical. - Even before that, in this terrible gritty period. - Yeah. - We just read a letter to Jean Ranberry. - He's dead. - Oh, hell. - It was great. - Yeah. - Put it on his grave. - We'll go visit it and we'll be like, "Jean." - So there were a few other little things I noticed that I found interesting. They do a saucer separation in the first episode. - Yeah, that was surprising. - Which one would I never see ever again? - And then I think-- - I think it happened in, like, the movie or something like that. - Well, no, they do it fairly regularly late in the series, but there's, yeah. There's a scene which I felt was added, and I could be wrong, 'cause I didn't, when we watched it on Netflix, they didn't really break up the episode, so we didn't know where the pause between the two parts was, but there's this scene where Riker shows up on board for the first time. Picard basically goes, "Why don't you manually dock us back "with the saucer section that we separated from earlier?" And then everyone has this series of glances, like, "Dude, you're just mad?" - That's usually automated. - And then even data looks worried, which is a little weird. - He calculates the probability of-- - Yeah, we tell them the wrong thing. Anyway. - All he did was say, like, three words. - Yeah, it was very minimal, but they, you know, a lot of tense music, a lot of Casio in this episode, actually, which was a little bit odd. - Yeah, when they separated the saucer, they played the entire theme song again. I was surprised. - But on a Casio, held up to a-- - It was actually Picard playing the Casio. - He was making the sounds in his mouth. - Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. - Which I found the whole thing extra funny because they had originally separated to make a point of, "Well, we can still fight, "but we also carry family with us." Like, that's how we're gonna handle this series. We're gonna have family, but we're also gonna have fighting. And I think they were trying to make that point in the original script, like in the opening script. But then Picard immediately makes a decision, "Nah, I know we have a safer way of doing this, "but I'm just gonna risk everybody's life, "and why don't you just park this thing manually?" - Yeah, 'cause I think Picard was supposed to be a bit of a hard-ass in the first episode. - It definitely played more of his-- - What are you doing on my bridge? - Yeah. - And there's also an interesting, and I don't remember of this being the case. - Yeah. - There was an interesting nod to the idea that Ferengis might eat people. - Yeah, that is interesting. - I don't know if you remember that. And I don't know if this was just a plot point they thought-- - Maybe they'll find you-- - As tasty as their last very-- - As tasty as their-- - Yeah. - Or whatever, yeah. - Anyhow, I thought that was interesting, but odd, I don't recall that coming up again. - And the Deanna Riker thing had that kind of-- - Yeah, they could read each other's thoughts or something more than-- - She told him how to read her mind or something like that, and I don't know, that's weird. She ends up screwing the Klingon, so-- - I have to admit that I'm much more-- - She screws a Klingon? - Yeah, her and more get together. - Do they? - Yeah, it's totally awesome. - It's spoilers. - What? - It's spoilers for next generation. (laughing) - That's great. - I should put that on Tumblr. - Yeah, I have to admit though, I am approaching this series, I find a lot more from the perspective of Will Riker than I did as a kid when I first watched this show, where Wesley was obviously supposed to be the child mate. - Mm-hmm. - It seems like we'll-- It seems like Jonathan freaks the character, like the actor I mean, is entering this series with a little bit of what is going on here. - I gotta say, he's always been my favorite character, even now I love him so much, and I think part of that is 'cause he looks a little bit like my dad, but I just have the hugest, hugest space in my heart. - Yeah, I think Jonathan freaks approach the series going, I don't know, okay, let's just see what happens. I was happy when it panned out. - Yeah, like look at him now, you know? Ah, Riker. - Well, from one sort of guardian to the galaxy to another. - I don't wanna follow up such goodness with such crap. - Well, I heard James Gunn, who, Jessica May as you probably don't know, James Gunn was recently announced as the director for the Guardians of the Galaxy. - Okay, which is like a Marvel thing. - It's a Marvel property, it has rocket raccoon, and you know, they're space cops. - Yeah. But he's also gotten a lot of flack recently for his terribly homophobic misogynistic comments that he's put up on the intertubes about ladies in case. - Gross. - Yeah, it's really, really gross, like. - The grossest? - Oh, the grossest. - He has since come out and said that he was essentially being-- - Saterical. - Saterical. - But it's so ridiculous, it's so obviously not satire. It was like this list that he put out that was like the 50 most screwable superheroes or whatever. Like in their order, and he does a little blurb about each of them, but he talks about how like, is it Batgirl, I think, who's a lesbian, how she just needs to be fucked by Tony Stark to make her write, and it's like, oh my God, I can't believe you're seeing crap like this. It's horrible, horrible, horrible things. And now he's in charge of Guardians of the Galaxy. - And he's saying he was being, you know, he was kidding, but it doesn't read like he was kidding. - Well, and like, yeah. - That's not funny. - Yeah, it's not funny. - No, it's not funny in any way, yeah. It's gross, and there's, I think, a petition to have him removed from the-- - Yeah, there's a petition for everything on the internet now. - Exactly. - Anyhow, it's two pointing because I think that it's a weird enough franchise that I could really have potential in the right hands. - Yeah, Joss Whedon endorsed him too, so. - Yeah, which is also a little disappointing, but I think he's probably unaware of this weird-- - Well, if he was before, he's aware now. Oh, yeah, that'll be interesting to see how that all works out, what the movie ends up like. - Before we move into this week's spot of bollar, I just wanted to mention game night, which is guy coming up. We just actually had a very successful game night. - Mm-hmm. - Quite enjoyed ourselves. - Yeah, we have lots of spectators, which is fun. - Yeah, yeah, you want to come in-- - And a new player, yeah. - Oh, yeah, and Jug interjoined us with a new psychic. - And he has confirmed with me that he'll be back for the next game night. - Yes, unfortunately, we ran incredibly late. Actually, allow me to, for your mind's eye, provide a mental picture of the surreal situation in which we found ourselves in. So we're on the highway. And as occasionally happens, we note, somebody, what appears to be berating another person from the car, but we let it go, because there's just somebody driving by, and what do you say, you know, we're on the highway. Interestingly enough, though, immediately afterwards, we notice somebody in a separate vehicle doing exactly the same thing, and it appears to be a 16-year-old girl from the backseat yelling at the car next to her. So at that point, I think to myself, I'm gonna roll down this window. - They're just accumulating wildly. - Yes, but we lose sight of this girl, who is, we're thinking wrapping or singing or something, we don't quite catch it. And then we see this vehicle of, I would say 20 somethings, and the girlfriend of the group, I'm making some assumptions here, is leaning herself out the window, and she's flailing wildly, and the boyfriend is bopping along at the driver wheel, and we're starting to catch this sort of vibe of what's going on in the highway. And then all of a sudden, you start hearing it from different vehicles, and they're all singing something familiar, and then we pass this limo, and people are leaning out the window of their limo. Actually, they were very careful to look at the cars to see if we were looking at them, watching their film in the limo, because they were watching a concert movie. And that's when I realized, we were, unfortunately, trapped on the highway, right near the major exhibition area of Toronto, and Justin Bieber was in town. - We were right in the middle. - We were caught grand zero, be over fear. - Be over fear. - Yup, and we had places to be, places to be. - Traffic slowed, we became trapped. - It was like that movie quarantine in the airport. - It was like the opening of Dawn of the Dead, but instead of zombies running at you, it was just 16-year-old girls screaming lyrics to random Justin Bieber songs. - Jamei actually pointed out a couple who got out of their car. - Yeah, they just abandoned their vehicle and decided they'd go down. - They started to walk, wasn't they? - There was somebody else. - It was like a father, and a bunch of kids, and mom was still in the car. And no one was moving on the highway. - They were just walking on the highway. - I wish the exit that they wanted to get off, so everyone just got out of the car, and just got out of the way. - They walked off the bike. - But like, yeah, we were, you know, it's a raised highway, and there was no sidewalk or anything about it. - Yeah, there's nowhere to go. Generally vehicles are traveling on this at 100 kilometers an hour. I don't know what that would be in Americano, but. - Who knows? 60 or something close to it. - I can't drive 55. - A bazillion, I don't know. - And then immediately afterwards, on the opposite lane we encounter this massive car crash. - And a lot of angry people behind them. - Yes, exactly, so. Anyhow, it took us forever to get the game night, but once we arrived there, it was fantastic. - Oh, yes. - So much fun. It was lots and lots. - If you want to drop in, feel free to fire up the text chat on the side if we're rolling dice, but generally we kind of loop in and out of conversation and killing things and trying to solve the mystery. - As Glenn pointed out, there was 100% less child stabbing. - Yes, absolutely, Donahue managed to not stab any children in this round. - That's 'cause we reminded him so much. You know, Charity does worry that, you know, we should be a little more serious and a little more game and a little less silly. Especially for our host, Glenn. - I think Glenn works very hard behind the. - Oh, yeah. - And I think we should, I think he's owed some respect. I do think, however, that it's increasingly obvious that we need to have some sort of alternate, it's too bad we can't all set up some sort of monopoly board. Something where you don't have to pay a lot of attention, it's just check the dice when they come to you, but does have some focus. 'Cause it's clear that everyone wants to sit around and chat, but that not having any structure is maybe a little too far. Anyway, we'll figure it out. But in the meantime, I'm sorry, cut that out. - I'm just gonna say, I'm sorry, Glenn, if I get social sometimes, I'm more social than gamer and I need to put on my game faces. - Oh, you're doing well, though. I mean, Glenn, and this should really be noted by anybody who's considering joining us. Glenn is a very patient fellow. - Very patient fellow. - And he will walk you through the rules as many times as necessary, he will explain the dice rolling mechanics as many times as necessary. I'm finding it very enjoyable because he's so OP. - And if you need to know where to get a good hoagie, he's also your man. - Also your man. - Yes, also very good. - Huge thanks, Savage Glenn. And I hope to see you guys there on Friday. - Please. - 7 p.m. - You can try by, yep, you can try by, usually Glenn posts something up on the Ning form and on Facebook, so I'm sure you'll find us. - And now something much more troubling than stabbing children. - Really much more troubling than stabbing children? - Yes. - Very bothersome. (dramatic music) - SpongeBob. (explosion) - That is blowing at the digital wind. Othersomethings.com. (piano music) - One of my favorite Stephen King novellas is The Body, on which the classic movie Stand By Me was based. In case you've somehow missed it, the story follows a group of preteen boys who go out exploring and stumble upon a corpse. I won't give away any spoilers, just know that mystery, intrigue, and a little humor abounds. And in the story, there's a young man who's bullied on a pretty regular basis and decides to get even with his tormentors during a pie-eating contest. He drinks castor oil before consuming numerous pies. And within moments of devouring said pies, showers everyone around him in a glistening steamy spray of blueberry vomit. (dramatic music) Classic King. I recently stumbled upon an eating contest of a very different and more disturbing type and couldn't help but think back to Lardo from the body and his castor oil stunt. Perhaps if the subject of this contest had downed a bit of that stuff, he just might have lived to claim his prize. Here's the story from CBS News Tampa Bay. A Florida man choked to death after downing dozens of live cockroaches. During a contest earlier this year in which the grand prize was a pie-thon, according to an autopsy released Monday. Edward Archbald, 32 of West Palm Beach, died as a result of asphyxia due to choking and aspiration of gastric contents. According to the report released by the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office, it said his airways were obstructed by the roach body parts which caused him not to be able to breathe. There is a flap called the epiglottis that is supposed to stop objects from going into the lungs. Medical Examiner Craig T. Malek wrote in an email to the AP, "Unfortunately, it doesn't always work." In the video, you can see him trying to swallow and breathe at the same time. We can't do both simultaneously. Lab test for drugs came back to negative. The death has been ruled an accident. Archbald died after downing the bugs as well as worms. In the October the 6th contest had been seagull reptile store in Deerfield Beach about 40 miles north of Miami. Archbald became ill shortly after the contest and collapsed in front of the store. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. About 30 people ate the insects, but authorities said none of the other contestants became ill. So remember folks, if you're ever eating live bugs in a contest, oh screw that. Stick with the pie. I'm Jeffrey Lunchen, that's "This Week's Spot of Bother." That was so disgusting. You're lucky I'm not one of those people who like barbs when I hear other people barfing, 'cause that would've been really bad. I keep track of a list of items for the prepare yourself. I actually write the list of items during the show and then we record the show opener at the end, like a little inside baseball before you. But I knew as soon as I heard it that choking on cockroaches was going to be going into the prepare yourself. Yeah, that's really good. That is rough. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. I have expected the story to be about like, the cockroaches like, clawing open a stomach or like, crawling into his lungs, it was horrible. Yeah, well they did crawl into his lungs, 'cause they couldn't breathe. Well, he just chewed them down. He wasn't-- He tried to breathe. They were going down the wrong hole and it kept eating. It wasn't like they were just crawling around and crawling at the same time. Yeah, they couldn't do it. How come they did it to him but none of the others? I think that he was just the unlucky one. Maybe he, did they not all have to eat cockroaches? He just happened to be the one that collapsed. Yeah. And worms, don't forget the worms. Yeah. That's really good. Dude, that is so like bothersome. Dude, dude, I'm so itchy. You don't understand how much I'm scratching now. I quite enjoyed the body as well, actually. The novella in question. I really enjoyed the novella. I haven't read the novella, but I've definitely seen the part and stand by me. Me, yes. Blueberry pie. Yeah, that's really bad. It's interesting because I got a little sidetracked in my mental world when we first, when he first brought up the body because I started thinking about Amy and I had this discussion, the last-- But where you'd had the body? When was that last game night, last movie night, where she was saying she had been to a funeral and we got discussing rituals, like funeral rituals, and she said that she'd never touch the body. Really? But I was raised to always touch the body. That you must touch the body. Yeah, mine and I was very specific that if possible, you kiss the body on the cheek. Yep. I remember that the kiss. The dead kiss. The dead kiss. Any nightmares of the dead. Yeah. That was tradition in our family, the dead kiss. Yeah. Anyhow, sorry, a little sidetracked, but-- Yeah, I always went for the touch, but I never, never kissed. Maybe because I always had this morbid concern that they would jump up. I think on my side, I was definitely because she was so French. Like it was not much of French for today. Yeah, I believe that. Same thing on my dad's side. There was a lot of French Catholic there. Yeah, dead kissing, yeah. I remember when my-- when one of my great aunts died, my brother was concerned that God wouldn't be able to find her soul and that we should put her up on the roof. Aw, that's kind of adorable. Yeah, I really upset the rest of the family, though, because she was really insistent that we should put the body on the roof. Oh. And didn't want to give it up. It was a little awkward. Yeah. She was little, you know? Yeah. Don't worry, honey. Santa will find us wherever we are. Yeah. Same concept. Thanks a lot, Jeff. That was fantastic. You can find all of Mr. Lynch's bothersome business at bothersomethings.com, and then you can find him on Twitter as Please Lynch Me, where he posts regular items. Actually, he just did a very nice little spot of bother, not long ago, about snorting funerary ashes. But we'll talk about that later. In the meantime, I believe we have another segment up ahead of us. What have we got, Jessica May? We have a horrible history that's a little hard to hear. Huh. 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 PLAYING] Bobcat, will that have cat hat hat hat hat? Where is that little son of a bitch? Yeah, now, what's that about? Do this on my own this week. Bobcat is, um, persona done and brought it at the moment. All righty, then. Let's just pull this lever and histoscope on. Letterman Quotteroff was a Soviet test pilot. Astronaut aerospace engineer and cosmonaut, and the first group of cosmonaut selected in 1960. It was one of the most highly experienced of all qualified candidates excepted in Air Force Group One. Comeroff was the clear medically unfit for training, or a space flight twice while he was in the program. But his perseverance and superior skills and knowledge as an engineer allowed him to continually play an active role. He was eventually selected to command the first Soviet multi-man space flight in full-stage one. That presented a number of technical innovations for the space race. Comeroff was later chosen for the rigorous task of commanding a Soyov one as part of the Soyovion's bid to reach the moon first. His space flight in Soyov one made him the first index cosmonaut to land on a space more than once, and he became the first human to die in space flight. When Soyov one crashed on re-entry on April 24, 1967. The story began in 1967. With Linnaev Beggadev, the leader of the Soviet Union, decided to stage a spectacular mid-space run vote between two Soviet spacecraft. The plan was to launch the capsule. Soyov one with Comeroff inside. The next day, a second vehicle would take off with two additional cosmonauts. The two vehicles would meet Doc. Comeroff would crawl from one vehicle to another, exchanging places with a colony, then come home on the second ship. It would be Beggadev hoped. The Soviet triumph of the 50th anniversary of the Communist Revolution. Benjamin made it very clear he wanted this to happen. The problem was through a Gagarian, already a Soviet hero, and the first man to ever fly in space. He and some senior technicians worked in inspecting of the Soyov one and found 203 structural problems. Serious problems that would make this machine dangerous to from navigating space. The mission Gagarian suggested should be postponed. The question was, who would tell Beggadev? Gagarian wrote a 10-page memo and gave it to his best friend in the KGB. Fianimyn Rustiniev. But nobody dared send it up to jam command. Everyone who saw that memo, including Roger Nev, was demoted, fired, or sent to Diplomatic Siberia. Less than a month ago before the launch, Komorov realized the publicity moment was not an option. He met with Ray Nev, now a demoted KGB agent, and said, "I'm not going to make it back from this flight." When Ray Nev asked why not refuse, Komorov answered, "If I don't make this flight, they'll send up the backup pilot." Vladimir Kardonov wouldn't do that to his friend. He said, "That's Yuri. "He'll die instead of me." On April 23, 1967, the Russian journalist, Yarsovov Gorinovev, reported that Gagarian showed up full-on sight and demanded to be put in the spacesuit. There's no one expected him to fly. Gagarianov called this behavior a sudden caprice, although, afterwards, some observers thought that Gagarian was trying to muscle in flight, trying to save his friend. The Soyov left Earth with Komorov on board. Once in orbit, the failures began. Attendance didn't open properly. Power was compromised. Navigation proved difficult. The next day's launch had to be canceled. All the while, US intelligence was listening in. The National Security Agency had a facility at an Air Force base near Istanbul. Reports said that the US listeners knew something had gone wrong but couldn't make out the words. In his account, a NSA analyst identified as "Perry Felrock," described over hearing Komorov tell the ground officials he knew he was about to die. Felrock described how the Soviet premier, Alexei Kristian, called on a video phone to tell him he was a hero. Komorov's wife was also on the call to talk about what to say to their children. When the capsule began, the descent of the pair of ships failed to open. American intelligence described how they picked up Komorov's cries of rage as he plunged to his death. Komorov was on to the next day with a state beer and roll in Red Square. Only it shipped to Hugh Bones' 5th crash. Well, it hit the scope that was rather depressing. Oh, there you are, left. Can't believe we're on it. [BARKING] That's horrendous. [BARKING] [INAUDIBLE] Good. We got legal covered. Feel like that. That's almost like a spot of bother right there. Yeah, or a space odyssey. Like, knowing that you're going up and the probability of your own death, but there's no way to stop it, that is so horrific. The Russian space program, I have to admit, is a bit of a mystery to me. There's a lot going on there. It's pretty hardcore. Yeah, well, because of the situation of secrecy around it, there's a lot that went into it that I'm unaware of. I would definitely be interested in reading more on this. And the Americans couldn't make out what he said, but they knew that as he was dying, he was like-- whereas he knew he was going to, he was just raging. Dang. Yeah, only it was like an Russian. And it must be so frightening. They're all alone in this tin can, knowing that you're going to die in it. Poor major Tom. [SINGING] Many thanks, Juberalter. You can actually find Juberalter on the Twitter now, as Juberalter with ALTER 42. Juberalter 42. That's right. And I think he can also be found on Tumblr, if you care to go there. Oh, yeah. I believe you are right. Maybe you're Tumblr. Yes. If you tumble like that. So many thanks, sir. And now, I think we have another game review from our favorite giant. Hello, Flashcast and fellow officers. It's Jugantor. This week, I'm reviewing Castle Panic. It plays one to six players, ages 10 and up, and it plays in about an hour. In this game, you're taking on the horde. Goblins, orcs, and trolls are hiding in the forest, and they're waiting for their chance to charge the field and take out your castle. You have to stop them. To do so, you get to draw cards. You get hero cards, net cards, swordsman cards, archer cards, tar. There's a few others, really. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I should really talk about the board. The board is pivotal to this kind of game. It's sectioned into six. Then it has a ring configuration. So what that really means is you got your section of six. And two of each section is a certain color. So one and two is red, three and four is green, five and six is blue. And then you have your keep in the middle of the board. So you have 12 castle pieces. You have like your 12 keep pieces and then, sorry, six keep pieces and six wall pieces. What happens after that is it breaks down into rings. So the closest ring to the keep is a swordsman ring. Then you have the knight ring. Then you have the archer ring, and then you have the forest. All the bad guys start in the forest until they run out. You can't hit them in the forest unless you have a super special card. And then what happens after that is as they start getting into the archer ring, then you have options. And this is where you can play this game cooperatively or you can play this game competitively. Cooperatively, actually, to be honest, the only way I've played so far, I don't imagine competitive will be very helpful for actually winning the game other than just like, hey, I killed the most orcs, but we still lost. What will happen is, say like an orc is moving up. He's in the blue archer ring. So when you're drawing cards, you'll get a card that'll be a green archer. Well, you can't hit the blue archer because he's not a blue archer. In a cooperative play, I guess you could probably do it in competitive as well. But your partner may have the blue archer. And on your turn, you could hit him because the next turn, that orc is not going to be in the blue archer. He'll move up to the blue knight. So you want to optimize as many attacks as you can on your turn by trading with other people. They have a limited amount of trade, so you can't just go crazy and get all the cards you need and wipe people off the board right off the start. Now, when I say you are fighting a horde, you really are fighting a horde. All of the enemy pieces are presented on little triangle tokens. It's actually really good because some of them have hit points, so you just turn them over to the next damage. And yeah, there's a lot of them. You feel rather accomplished after an hour if you've won this game or just gotten destroyed at the very end. Regardless, it's a fun time. And it's a challenging game. A good teamwork really can make this thing go well. Bad hand draws that will also work against you, especially drawing bad from the cup because it's not just orcs, trolls, and goblins in the cup. You have little surprises like boulders that'll roll out of the forest and smash into your walls. Boulders will also coincidentally run over bad guys in the meantime. The yard is great. You get your classic green orcs and goblins and trolls, but everyone has a surly looking face or rather savage looking. Like I said, everything is very well done. It's got kind of a cartoony feel. I really can't stress how much fun this game is. It's a bit quick. There's some minor confusion at times, but they actually did something else. Again, back to the board, they not only give you guys cheat sheet cards to show the turn play and whatnot. Also on the board, they took the extra space and plastered on some things that you'll find on the cheat sheet cards, like the bosses or the order of play or just right on the corners of the board game. So if you, for whatever reason, have run out of cheat sheet cards, well, it's right there on the board. As long as you don't lose the board. But then if you lose the board, you, I guess, can't really play the game. Anyway, I'm going to give this game. I really got to give it a four. I know I've been giving a lot of games a four, but I really have very little to complain about this game. It's fun. It's great to play cooperatively. And if you want to play competitively, I can imagine that being a lot of fun with certain strategies. I would imagine there would have to be some co-op just to be able to win and still win the game and survive the orc onslaught. Anyway, guys, that's my review of Castle Panic. I hope you guys enjoy. And if you guys do get a chance to play, let me know how you guys think of it. Talk to you guys soon. Bye. Oh, the games I would play if I had the time. With a game like this, it's pretty complicated to lay out since it's such a visual experience, by at least my impression of it. So Jack Enter does a really good job of keeping it in line. I really like it. Yeah, thanks. I have to admit, I have a soft spot in my heart for co-op board gaming. It's not something you get to do too often. We had a really fun experience with Red November at the snakes and lattes event for Mob Expo. I mean, we sank the sub. Eventually. But it's-- But it took a while. There's something to not having to worry about hurting other people's feelings so much. At the end of the night. Exactly. I mean, don't get me wrong. I will sharpen my knife and get in a good game of monopoly or whatever in a moment. But there is something nice to working together to try to achieve something and either failing or succeeding together. Anyhow, brilliant work, Jack Enter. Yeah, thanks for playing all these games for us. Yes. We will live vicariously through you. No, I think it's time for-- [PHONE RINGING] Mailbag? [LAUGHTER] 25 seconds, it took you. Yes, mailbag. So before we begin, if you guys have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can send them to comments@flashpulp.com. Actually, before we begin eating candy, we have something that isn't a comment, question, or suggestion. Zachman, who is constantly brightening my life with odd tidbits on the internet, has sent us a short drabble. Are you worth-- Yeah, that's cool. Mulligan told the zookeeper, I wasn't going to take your case because I bought tickets to the con and tell seeing who won the most realistic costume as Caesar from Rise of in a cosplay competition. Mike, please bring our friend from the car. Come on, monkey, said Mike. Mulligan said, please, don't call him that. He is an ape, and that offends him. He didn't complain when I did it before, replied Walmart, Mike, as he led the ape to the zookeeper. He may be an ape, but he is still Canadian, and you know we only fight on hockey night. Not only are apes super-intelligent, but they can tell a difference. But they have the decency to only fight on hockey nights, which I don't even know which nights are, because I have no game. To clarify, though, they will throw blueberry, basically, any random thing that's-- Yep, they'll cut you. I believe he actually-- Zachman, many thanks, sir-- actually submitted this little tale to the 100-word weekly challenge, which you can find at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. Thank you, sir. Now, before we get into-- OK, so I know specifically that Timmy has commentary on Flashcast 74. OK. And some comments on our Star Trek re-watch. Excellent. But before we get into those things-- OK. --since you guys have been not smoking, can I offer you a candy cigarette? Yes, ma'am. I don't know, man. Maybe that's just the gateway to a real cigarette. This is a round-up candy. I like the packaging on these fake cigarettes. Give me one, man. These are from Strasburg. Thank Strasburg. From the Stras box. Thank you, sir. OK. Do they have the red tip? No, they don't. Wow, these are sizable. These aren't your regular Popeye stick lights. This isn't your grandpa's candy cigarette. All right. Which was an actual cigarette. Me. [LAUGHTER] Now, while we finish this up. Yes, and this is Tibby from Oregon. These are my comments on Flashcast 74. I was enjoying listening to the tales of hoagies up in Buffalo. My first hoagie was in Key West, Florida back in the '70s. I never had one before. And actually, I've never had any since. I don't know. It just seemed-- there are some foods we discover that seem to belong to particular locations and experiences. I don't think I could have a hoagie again. I think it would maybe sully my memories of Key West and my hoagie eating at that point. I'm sorry to have missed game night. Sounds like it was a lot of fun. My family went into our time machine, aka the Honda. Went up to Salem and had Thanksgiving again with another part of the family that we didn't have Thanksgiving with the first time around. Unfortunately, when we reset the time machine to the present, it was late evening. So completely missed game night again. Really do hope to make it one of these days. It may not make the next one. We have another excursion planned for this weekend. I too would love to see pins of the emotional buffalo and of the ponycorn. I also think that these two, being our mascots, official unofficially, should have a buddy story written about them. They should go on an adventure. That brings me to the murder plague. I was not mad at all. I knew it had to happen eventually. It left me so sad for harm. I imagine somewhere deep in some part of his mind that's still not affected, he is crying uncontrollably. I am looking forward to the future tellings of the tale and its eventual conclusion. I hope-- I know we can't always have happy endings, but I would like to see harm have some peace at the end of this. And I absolutely love JRD's jarred interpretation of Dudley Do Right. There's always something just wrong in that show. And I think JRD has hit the nail on the head. And that does it for my comments on FC74. I would now like to slide into some comments on Star Trek, the next generation, episodes 1 and 2. I remember watching it when it first aired. Yes, I'm one of those people. I watched the monkeys when it first aired. I watched the men from uncle when it first aired. I watched the original Star Trek when it first aired. Anyways, I won't bring it up again. I think one of the things that amazed me about next generation were the new cool special effects of the time. I think I was most amazed that the walls were no longer cardboard and did not wiggle when people walked by them. I also really liked all the carpeting on the ship. I also realized after the first couple episodes, we were in for some heavy-duty morality plays. But I decided to just let that roll over on me and just enjoy the fun of it. One of the best parts of episode 1 was Admiral McCoy. Still has his transporter phobia, though he would never call it that. But now he has the power to command shuttles to take him around. Good for him. He was the ultimate old curmudgeon. I was waiting for him to tell data, get off his damn lawn and to throw in a, if not for your darn kids, I would have gotten away with it. It being undefined because, damn it, he's a doctor, not a script writer. And I must say, I was one of those who hated Wesley from the get-go. He looked like a scrawny chicken in a weird onesie. And he was a liner, a hate-liners. And while I admit the actor Will Wheaton does a good enough job playing himself on Big Bang Theory, I still can't watch him without wanting to slap him. Especially with that horrible beard he sports these days. Some men do not look good in a beard. He is the king of men who look horrible in a beard. Oh, a little side note, will someone out there please tell Conan O'Brien to grow his back? That is a man who needs a beard to give his men his face some definition. Back to next generation. I was especially annoyed at Troy's look. The makeup was so overdone. But then, she's supposed to be some kind of alien, so maybe it's part of their culture to look like hookers. Loved Worf. I always thought that he was the best new character on the show. It was always sad that he didn't really do enough with him. Hooking him up with Troy for a bit or making him a deadbeat dad later was not really doing more with his character. He was always being presented to us in terms of his relationships with other people. He was, you know, and he never had a story of his own, really, where he's the focus of the scene. The focus was always on who he was to those other people and how he was dealing with it. But that's for the future. Looking back to episode one, I would just like to point out and see if anybody agrees with me. Do you, anybody else think that Tasha's death might've been foreshadowed a might when Q freezes her? Well, that's really it for episodes one and two of Star Trek The Next Generation and for my comments on FC74. Great work, everyone. Looking forward to the next Flashcast. Looking forward to all the other stories continuing. And we'll talk to you later. - I really can't wait to see the carpeting next time I watch. The Next Generation. - Always so great to hear from Tivy. There's so many things to respond to. - Oh, yes. - First Jessica May, I know it's extra work for you, but could I trouble you? Could we get a round of the Tivy song? ♪ Oh Tivy, my Tivy, my heart is a mess ♪ ♪ I don't have a protective shell over my chest ♪ ♪ So people can hurt me ♪ ♪ With the cruel things they do ♪ ♪ Yet somehow sweet Tivy, I know you hurt too ♪ Again, still assuming that real Tivy is a turtle like MSC3K Tivy, but anyhow. - Of course. - Always fantastic actually to have her at the game and movie nights as well. She's always a highlight, especially the movie nights, I find. I find we have a similar sense of humor. - But yeah, I'm glad that you're getting adventures with the family, so I don't apologize, 'cause I like the idea that people can pop in if they can, or if they can't, it's okay, and you know, no pressure. - I'm 100% behind the idea of pins of Ponycorns and emotional buffalo. - Yes, and a story of them together. - I feel like I should almost write a story for the kids, and then you can illustrate it. - Buddy, buddy, Ponycorn, emotional buffalo. - No, it'll just be, yeah, Ponycorn meets the emotional buffalo, and the emotional buffalo will be very-- - Your likes? - No, no, in my mind, the emotional buffalo is not only sad all the time, he's just very easily swayed into any emotion, like he goes between anger and happiness and oppression. - Yeah, like he's very manic. - Yes, but without the annoying voice. - He's manic buffalo, really. - Ponycorn, on the other hand, is pretty mellow. He is the Lebowski of the animal world. - I like where this is going. I like your ideas, Tibby. - Yes. - Excellent plan. - We need to switch your departments. - Many thanks for your kind words on the murder plague. - Yes, the sad, but like, screaming on the inside. - Yeah. - While he's slaughtering another human-- - And you know it's true. - Poor herm, I know, I know. I'm interested, I wanna get-- - You could add a friend. - Part of me wants to get to the end of all of these threads, just so I can discuss certain aspects of things, but I don't wanna give anything away behind the murder plague. - Yeah. - It would definitely spoil. So, Dudley Doo Wright, man, what a bastard. Anyway, interesting that Admiral McCoy made a big splash with Tibby as well. - No, he's the best though. - Shuttlehopper. - Mm-hmm. - I absolutely agreed in that I have no idea why putting a whiny man-child or whiny adolescent, I'm thinking of Luke Skywalker, I'm thinking of Wesley Crusher. - Mm-hmm. - Where did we get this idea, or where did I suppose people in the entertainment industry get the idea that making your lead, you know, child actor, or the one who's supposed to be on the cusp of something greater, so incredibly whiny. - Maybe you guys just don't like children, but he asks of a child. - None of my children act like Will Crusher. - Well, we are, Wesley Crusher. - Will Crusher. (laughing) - Will we crush it? - Yeah, I bet you'll eat and loves it when people get his name confused. Hey, Wesley Wheaton, I mean, Will, oh. - We all know how well Picard does with children, though, so. - Yeah. - Get off my bridge. - Absolutely agreed as well on Deanna Troy. So unfortunate that she doesn't even get pants in the opening. - Well, I think they were trying to throw a little, I think they were trying to throw a little sexiness in, but it's just, it feels weird. - I don't know, when she got the pants and the way her square hips are in her camel toe. - The camel toe. - Yeah, she can't win. - Yeah, I'd rather a skirt. It's almost more coverage. - There are ways to do the Starfleet skirt where it's a little more extended and it looks proper, but she just looked odd in the first episode. I mean, everything was a little off, right? - Yeah. - Interesting about the desire for a wharf arc as well. - Yeah, but you're right, I never really thought about it, but he never really has a personal growth. - The thing is that what I love about, well, I found Wharf one of my favorite characters of TNG as well, but the way he arcs from TNG and then his arc in DS9 and the idea that he might get a, that universe continuing television show. - He never don't know anything about his-- - He ends up like the captain of this ship and he gets his own little, yeah. I don't remember, honestly, I don't remember that much of it. It wasn't like I was catching every episode at that point, but I do seem to recall him getting a nifty little spaceship that he ran around in. - Well, he did work so hard, you know? - But then to see, it would be interesting to see that our continue in a new series and how far he's kind of come. - No, that's a guy who can handle eating cockroaches. 'Cause his food was always moving. I remember those episodes where there was moving-- - You would not choke on a cockroach. That is not an honorable clean on you. - He can both breathe and swallow at the same time. - I don't know if the cue thing was, you know, foreshadowing the death of Tasha-Yarr, but I do know that when I saw her frozen, I wish she was dead. - You're like, wow, it could have been over so much faster. She was so ridiculous, she's such a hothead. There's no way Starfleet would ever let her go through. - Okay. - Okay. - Would she like that throughout the entire series? - No, I think she is. - I'm a very brief run of. - I don't know, I don't know, but we'll see. - Yeah. - We will see people. But I don't like it. - Like, yeah, she was the angiest of actors. - Like me right now. - Anyhow, huge thanks to me, always appreciated. - Yeah, I love getting audio comments from you. - I also love getting, oh wait, before we get to the TT's call, actually he, the unknown package has coughed up a bit of candy for us to consume. - Come there. - Kids and grownups love it so, Haribo. Happy Cola, gummy candy. And there's a bear showing us a Cola bottle. - I think you can have about 10 for 140 calories, which isn't so awesome, but give me one, just one. - Right now, where is it? - Thank you. - Okay, so I like them a little harder than this generally, I'm just looking at it and smooshing at my fingers. - It smells like my mom's space cabinet. - Oh, I think I'm gonna enjoy this. While we're waiting, while we're tasting, I should say, though, we should listen to Richard's commentary. - No, not space cabinet. - Yeah, but medicine cabinet. - I like discussing it well to my mouth. I don't like chewing into a mic. - Yeah, I know, but, oh, stop it. Stop squinting at me. I'm gonna talk about this candy right now. - Medicine. - Sometimes when you have these Cola pop gummies, there isn't a lot of flavor in them, but this is so flavorful. You should see J.R.D., his face is like out of the room. He's gotten giraffe neck 'cause he doesn't want to chew. - I am so sorry that they are chewing into the mic. I apologize. - They don't mind. - On behalf of Skinner Co. Management, I apologize. - They didn't mind, if they mind it, they wouldn't send us so much goddamn candy. (laughs) - J.R. is gonna send you down for some sensitivity training. - Ah, that was delicious. - Also delicious? The Time Traveler's commentary. ♪ The tirelessly seeks the way ♪ ♪ H.S. for fractions ♪ ♪ The besties reach the time traveler ♪ - Hello, flash pulp crew and fellow mobsters. Rich the Time Traveler here. Holiday safety tip to non-time travelers. If you encounter someone claiming to be a ghost or Christmas past or future, it's probably just a down and out chrononaut trying to drift you out of your Christmas gifts. I'm a couple of flash casts behind, so here come the comments, quick and furious. Media face jackass? Oh my. Now that's the description. And I'm pretty sure that the Killer Kink aspect has been a law and order and/or special victims unit plot at some point. Maybe even more than once. Bunny the Padawan, eh? The murder plague certainly seems to be setting harm up for descent into madness. Will he be crossing paths with his daughter again soon? Will there be a duel of wits between them? Mulligan Linger was a tiny little story that left me wanting to open up a vein at the end. Nice work on painting a picture of squalid misery and desperation. Also, I didn't see flash pulp too, electric boogaloo, as necessarily going back into the exact same universe. I was thinking more of a whole new set of intertwining tales, the different mythos, maybe with a more sci-fi slant. Hope you guys enjoy your trip through Star Trek the next generation. I'll likely do DS9 before I do TNG. PS, if I didn't mention it before, I blame JMA for my trip through Voyager. I went through a glut of zombie movies in October. By far my favorites were Fido, a campy fifties era tale of zombies as servants, dog house, about a remote English village where the women are turned into man-heating zombies, black sheep, a tale from New Zealand about genetically modified sheep, and dance of a dead about an outbreak of zombies during a high school prom. I also watched Exit Humanity about a plague of zombies during the US Civil War. It was much hyped and was a promising premise, but it left me flat in execution. The worst the lot was Flight of the Dead. This film needed desperately to have Sam Jackson in it for any hope of being saved. Unfortunately, it did not. I also got to see Captain in the woods finally. Oh my God, was it good? I loved Bradley Whitford since he was Josh Lyman on the West Wing and his line delivering this movie was spot on. I want to get on and on about how good it was, but I don't want to spoil the movie. Regarding your foray into the great man America, Huggies, subs, grinders, poor boys, et al, it's all rock and roll to me. To JMA on the sadness of parting, it makes getting together again all the sweeter, embrace it. Being stared at, were you in a rural area? That really would only happen around here if you bumped into someone from out in the country who has led a very sheltered life. That seems odd. Also, your screw you kiss sounds like the Canadian version of our southern wipe, bless their heart. Debit. I wonder if there's a difference in our system. All of ours are typically run through the Visa MasterCard network and are treated like credit cards, essentially. Are yours directly through your bank networks? And I've never seen a station in ages that wasn't prepay inside for cash purchases and pay it the pump for credit or debit. I'm also shocked you don't have beer in your convenience stores. I thought the Molson was next to the baby bottles up there. Regarding the amazing vanishing mob, so far as crop-pot cooking goes, it's very hit or miss to me. It can be hard to get the seasonings right sometimes and very easy to dry things out, despite often cooking them in lots of fluid. Although I do have a good crop pot chili recipe, I'll have to dig out at some point and share. Returning to fall TV shows, with respect to Beauty and the Beast, I was a fan of the original. Hey, Linda Hamilton is hot. But much to my surprise, the Miz has never watched it. So basically it was me wanting to see if he did a good job with it, but I haven't started watching it yet. In fact, we already have our first two fall TV casualties. Last resort and 666 Park Avenue are already canceled, so they'll get expunged unwatched. And that's about it for now, till Karak Rises, which may be around the 21st, if he is a Mayan spider, this is rich. - Wow. - Yeah. - That's a lot to get to there. - It's interesting that he brought up Harm Carter's daughter, and I don't want to go back to what Tibby was saying too much without giving anything away, but very interesting note time traveler. - Yeah, he had a lot of smirks going on, but tells us just as much as he tells you. - It's interesting because I write something like Linger, which is essentially a one shot. Mulligan is very secondary to the story, frankly. He's basically just sitting in as a, you know, confessor. Or confessy, anyway. Something like Linger also tends to be kind of heavy after you're done with it. Like it wasn't a terribly pleasant story to write, so then you go back to the three parters, but I feel like I'm delivering too much plot, and anyway, it's a balancing game. But the bunny, the pad one, as you put it, story line will be continuing soon. - Fairly soon. - Good, fairly. - Like a next episode? - Oh, wow, okay, awesome. - But I mean, on the other hand, not all things end well. But sci-fi slang, you say. We haven't finished off the extra two and a half threads yet. - That's right. - Let's just see what happens. The irregular division is coming. - And they're highly irregular. - They are highly irregular. - Some days, they don't go at all. (laughing) - Put joke, but I'm ching. - I'm wondering if we're going to go through DS9 after we're done, start check the next generation. I mean, we're very slow time travelers in a sense. We crawl through series at a very-- - Series I. - Series I. - I love how the geeky you get sometimes where you stop using titles. It's just like letters and short forms and DS9 and TNG. It's not you, it's everybody. It's all this geeky geeky business. But I'm like, what in the what? Oh yeah, yeah, geeky talk. Proceed, just make a little fun. Continue so I can make fun. Hi. - But we may end up watching it, that's what I was saying. - Yes. - Although Voyager is still a bridge too far. - Yes. - Interesting how many comedy zombie films you ended up getting around to in October, perhaps because of Mrs. Time Traveler, perhaps trying to find some middle ground. - Where it's not so creepy. - I wouldn't mind seeing exit humanity, though, that sounds, you know, I understand you said that it wasn't terribly great, but-- - You need to see it all. - Sounds like an interesting, yeah. - You need to know. - I'm glad to hear you liked Cabin in the Woods. - Yeah. - That was an excellent one. - It was so good. - It's interesting because the premise of Cabin in the Woods makes you not want to reveal the premise of Cabin in the Woods. You don't want to give it away because so much of the beauty is in the premise. So you end up in this weird Cabin in the Woods club where you all high five and go, yeah, I've seen it, but you can't really talk about it in the presence of other people. - But I think that's part of the magic. So when you do say it, you're like, holy shit. Yeah, you don't everyone. You don't want to be that guy that's like, he's Luke's dead, you know? - Yeah. - Yeah, don't be that guy. - So now I feel like we need to address this debit credit situation, not to get into international financing all of a sudden. - So here with our debit, we get our debit cards from our banks. - Right, and there's a separate machine in every store. - Yeah, like even when I was a child, like I remember getting my first bank account and I was like eight years old and that was like 22 years ago. And I remember like you went to the bank and they gave you your bank card and we have like six or eight banks that are pretty widely used throughout the province and I guess the whole country. And then there's smaller mom and pop shops and then there's credit unions which are different. - There used to be weirdness where you could go into a place and they would only accept your card if you were from that bank as well and stuff. That was a long while ago. - And you can use like your debit card, your bank card at any other bank but there's usually a fee. But usually with debit, there's no fee anymore. You just use it like a credit card but it comes out of your bank automatically and yeah, you can get cash back. - Is it not what you do, America? You pay for things occasionally with your credit card but it's not really your first line of payment. - Yeah, it's like how you get stuff from the internet or how you get credit for things that you want to buy. That's basically, like we hardly ever use credit cards. It's just like when highly necessary. - Yeah, even when I was working as a store clerk. - And I haven't seen cash since the early '70s. - Oh my gosh, checks, checks. Those are all gone, yeah. - Sometimes I give it to the UPS one but dudes like we even get debit on delivery for our pizza. - Yeah, so it was like so cray-cray to go over and figuring that you'd have it and you didn't at all. - No, I have gotten word from, I believe it was Doc Blue where he seemed to leave me with the impression that debit was a common situation in his area. So maybe it's just a naming issue, I don't know. - Yeah, maybe it's just the area. Like it's something that-- - Semi-region. - Yeah, that borders Canada or something but when you get down to like the Carolinas. - Yes, to put this gently something weird with Buffalo. What's up Buffalo? - What's up with you Buffalo? - I don't know. - Don't be so emotional. - Don't be so emotional, just sit down, sit down and get some debit machines. - But yeah, you don't need to have debit machines. - And you know, although in Ontario, you would have to take that debit card or credit card to a specialized beer or liquor store in Quebec. - You can just buy your beer like in America off a convenience store show. - Yeah, sure, yep. And they have a lower drinking age in there. - It's 18, yeah, and everywhere else it's 19, crazy. Like in our liquor stores too, they're only open, like unless you're in a city, it closes like five or six every day until like Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then, but you know-- - You might not even be open on Sunday. - Exactly, so yeah, there's-- - I think that's the case in a lot of places in America though, from my understanding is that they have very regionalized, I believe we've even discussed this before. - Yeah, our bodies closer-- - Regionalized liquor laws and yeah, it just depends on who your local government is essentially. - Who was saying the last call, was it like four o'clock in the morning? - Yeah, I think we were discussing that at, I don't know, I was like-- - Last game night or movie night, somebody was saying that the bar closes at four but it reopens at five, and it's essentially just an opportunity to kick out the drugs. - There's six or something like that. - Clean up the place. - I suppose it just depends. I found it very interesting to hear that knowing Mrs. TT's penchant for paranormal romance that she hadn't seen the original Beauty and the Beast. - Yeah, yeah, 'cause it's good. - I mean, as far as television watching, I thought that would be high on her list of to-dos, I don't know. - I used to watch that show with my mom when I was-- - And I think you mentioned it before. - I was a kid when that came out, I guess so, yeah. - It was never really my-- - Cup of tea? - Yeah, I prefer my Hamilton's with shotguns, I suppose. - Yeah, well, I remember seeing that maybe and being like Terminator 2, it's got Linda Hamilton in it. Where's Beast? Mind you, I've never heard anything from anybody, like I've never heard you say, "Oh, she's hot." - I heard the time travelers say that, but I would never hear you say any woman ever. - Ever. - 'Cause it does. - Ooh. - It's not how I roll. - No, yeah. - Anyways, no judgment, no judgment. It was just an observation. - On that note of lack of judgment, we'll close up the mailbag, but if you have something you'd like to send along, again, just comments@flashball.com. - But I may judge you. - Feel free to send text or MP3 attachments. - Or your judgments. - Or your judgments. Judge Jessica for judging people. - No, you're not allowed to do that. No one judges J. May. (laughing) - Not even judge a judge. - Especially that. - The R, O, never raised you. - So I saw something really interesting on Tumblr the other day about inflection and the way people speak in relation to what they mean. And to show you a perfect example, take the sentence, I never said she stole my money. That sentence can be read seven different ways and have seven different meanings, depending on what word you emphasize. I never said she stole my money. I never said she stole my money. I never said she stole my money. I never said she stole my money. I never said she stole my money. And I never said she stole my money. Do you see what I mean? - Yes. - Seven different meanings, just in different inflection. And I find stuff like this absolutely fascinating because it's so relevant when I'm trying to narrate what you're writing, especially if I don't have you directly speaking to me saying, this is how I want it done. Sometimes I have to be like, now, what does he mean by this? - I'm in no way comparing myself to Billy, but at the same time, it's interesting that one of the things with Shakespeare is that it's so interpretable because there is no necessary right way to do it. There's the classical way to do it. There's the way it's been done. But if some actor decides, no, I'm going to deliver it this way. Who's to stop him? - Yeah. And it might entirely change the meaning of what is said. And yeah, like I said, that's stuff that I found just fascinating. It's really-- - Very nice. - Really nice when you can find useful things on Tumblr. - No, listen, I love Tumblr, it's just-- - Do you? - Do you love Tumblr? Do you love Tumblr? Do you love Tumblr? - Do you love Tumblr? Do you love Tumblr? - I like the people on Tumblr. - I may be, I like the concept of Tumblr. - Backroom plots. - So, lingering. There was actually a line, a single line, and it's rare that I'll make, I don't mean this in an insulting way, but it's rare that I'll make this kind of change when you request it. - When it's just a, I don't like this, I want you to take it out. - Yes. - But yeah, I recall there was a line that I felt was too much, and I said I'm not comfortable reading this. - Yes, and I took it out because I felt like it muddied the clarity of the section, but it involved underpants, and-- - And I felt it was already implied, it was unnecessary to voice. - I came to this sentence and realized that what you thought I was saying was not actually what I meant, so I could either go into it and clarify and honestly just make it more uncomfortable for you, or I could accept what you were saying and just remove it entirely. And it wasn't necessarily, like it would have brought more sadness to the story, but frankly the story had enough sadness to be. - Yeah, altogether, it was just a little too much. - Anyhow, I just, it's very rare that I'll make that kind of change, but that story was one where I was willing to make the sacrifice. - Yeah, thank you. - And Joe Monk to clean the palette. - The quote unquote palette, the pipes. - To clean his hands. - So wipe them in the side of his pants. - Actually, speaking of apologies that should be made, apologies to the CBC for chopping up their hypnotism clip. - Yes, a little bit, it was just some boring junk, but you got to the gist, you could understand the juice, the inner goodness. - And remember if you want to where we're available, call us up, give us a call, a little of that national time it wouldn't hurt Skinner go too much. We're not against a little corporate welfare. Huge thanks to Jim. - Thank you, Jim. - Thank you, Jim. - Sure, Jim of relicradio.com for hosting wiki.flashbob.com. - You're always doing that. - Yeah, super appreciated. You can follow Skinner go on Twitter @ Skinner go. - You should. - You can follow us individually at JRD Skinner, the Jesca May or. - I'm trying to show up. - Popping next with a zero. - I'm there. - Actually, we're all playing Simpsons tapped out of the moment as well. Do you want to throw it to that really quickly? I think you're savage. - We're all playing Simpsons tapped out right now. - You're, I believe, savage underscore a poppin' X with a zero. I'm again JRD Skinner, yes you are. And Jesca May, I believe you are some anonymous hooligan. - I'm like, what am I? Loverly, five two five three, loverly? - I'm very weird. - Yeah, I know, that's, I don't recall. Anyways, I don't like JRD, he's probably him. - Yeah, it's okay, it's always okay. - JRD, it was Jeff, I don't even know, okay. - Yeah, totally, some guy named Jeff. - Some fellow named Jeff one right through here. - He's got a great punk in this. - 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 flashpelt.com or email us text or mp3s to comments at flashpelt.com. The entire run of flashpelt can be found at flashpelt.com or most of it can be found via the search bar and iTunes. Flashgast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution on commercial 2.5 license. ♪ In the world I've no thought of ever ♪ ♪ Returning you to a day behind me ♪ ♪ If I'm not joining you ♪ ♪ I've no thought of ever ♪ ♪ I'm not joining you to a day behind me ♪ ♪ Well, Tibi, my Tibi, reality's hard ♪ ♪ Tibi, let's play in the yard, oh ♪ ♪ Tibi, oh Tibi, he runs like the wind ♪ ♪ A couple of inches ♪ ♪ And then back again, all of all ♪ - Ah, may I take a bird? - Well, if you feel a crow. - Oh, I do. - Well, crow, then by all means, join me, hold you. - Five, six, seven, eight. ♪ Tibi, oh Tibi, sorry, sorry, sorry ♪ ♪ I love you my fine little fella ♪ ♪ Even though you gave the whole family salmonella ♪ - No, no, it's not their fault. It isn't their fault. Crow, you take everything good when you rip my heart out. (laughing) - I'm sorry, come on, Crow, let him finish his song. - Oh, okay, that's that stupid old turtle. - Go ahead, Tom. ♪ Thank you, cambots ♪ ♪ Tibi, my Tibi ♪ ♪ Your blood may be cold ♪ ♪ But I know that your heart burns as hot as a cold ♪ ♪ It burns with the love only turtles can feel ♪ ♪ Tibi, is our love real ♪ ♪ My Tibi, I'll never let the dog nose around your bowl ♪ ♪ But you know that, don't you ♪ ♪ I can see it in your beady little eyes ♪ ♪ If you're high center on your rock tibi ♪ ♪ I'll be there to help you down ♪ ♪ The toilet's not your faith friend ♪ ♪ You'll always run free ♪ ♪ Tibi, long as you have me ♪ - Do you realize a robot just sang a love song to a turtle? - That was really good, Tom. - Thank you. - Ah, ah, ah, fill up my guilt cup. (laughing)