Prepare yourself for: Beer pong on demand, the British royal vampires, robot combat, generic elves, and The Murder Plague.
Read the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
The Skinner Co. Network
FC74 - The Emotional Buffalo
[music] Hello and welcome to Flashcast 74, a Skinner Co. presentation. Skinner Co. where the little things mean a lot, especially the employees on the 15th floor who were accidentally caught in the this calibrated glow of a shrink ray. 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 beer pong on demand, the British Royal Vampires, Robot Combat, Generic Elves, and The Murder Plague. [music] Hi, I'm Opoponax, and joining me to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits. Arjesica Mei. Hola. And Darity. Hello. So we're coming a little late after Thanksgiving, but we aren't. Very late after Thanksgiving, considering it was not over. We kind of took an American holiday for some reason, but did you guys hear about this sort of an odd segue? The recent announcement regarding the bloop, do you guys remember the bloop? Nope, the scary undersea noise. Yes. Yeah, exactly stuff. There was a, I believe it was in the mid 90s, 97. There was a sound picked up by geologists, I believe. Much like bloop, bloop, bloop, yeah, essentially. And people theorize that it may have been a giant Atari under the sea, or it may have been... Did you say a giant Atari? Yeah, bloop. Anyway, people theorize that it might have been some sort of sea monster, or possibly Cthulhu, which... Naturally. But recently, scientists have discovered that it was likely caused by an ice quake. A what now? Oh, okay. I can dig that. Essentially, when an iceberg falls apart, a large iceberg, it causes these ice quakes. I don't know... I don't know, I don't know why when you said ice quake, I thought like a blizzard cheese quake for some reason, and it sounded delicious. Actually, ice quake sounds a lot like a sci-fi original movie, ice quake. Yeah. Yeah. So that was one of those mysteries that always cropped up on like Art Bell. And then it got solved. Yeah. I guess they're called... Science! Science! So I got to say, I saw a little note you made in our show notes here. Oh, yeah. But Final Fantasy, please elaborate. Well, it appears that there is some consideration, and it's very much tempered in the Japanese politeness and plausible dying... Deniability. Deniability. Yeah, there's a lot of deniability in that. It's the Japanese. But, well, I don't mean to sound like that at all, but it was put forward. That Final Fantasy XIV may actually contain some same sex marriage. Yeah. You'll apparently be able to marry off as you like, and they may, at a future, downloadable content release, I suppose, or expansion will allow you to... That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. One step forward in the virtual world. Mm-hmm. Like I said, they were really couching it when they mentioned it, but can you end up in a sort of, at least, intimate moment with the same sex character in Mass Effect in those games? Can't you? I think you can. Get a little lady-lady-man-man going on. Or man-lady, and that was kind of like a... I think you can get lady-lady, but I don't know if you can get dude-dude. Well... I could be wrong. No, I'm quite sure you can. Oh, you can? Oh, okay. Well, there you go. What do I know about gay space sex, obviously nothing. Not enough. Clearly. Not enough. Yes. Anyhow, I just thought that was an interesting note. It seems like Square Enix is really trying to ride the wave of weird things you can include in your game. Well, not that this is essentially weird, but just trying to ride the... You remember their recent... They did that fashion show using the Final Fantasy, I want to say, 11 characters? Oh yeah, that's right. But they were using actual... I'm not going to embarrass myself by guessing at a designer name designs. Speaking of cutting edge, what the hell? Did you guys hear about this robot fighting league? No. Oh, I am so excited. Oh wait, is it Battlebots? Actually, you remember Battlebots back in the day, heavily available in Canadian television rotations. Yes, surprisingly. Commonly. Comedy and on the science... What do we call it? What was the science fiction network again? Uh, sci-fi, sippy. No, that's the American one. Um... See, this is how... Space. There we go. Sorry. The problem is that space doesn't actually play science fiction films anymore, or shows. It's all Battlebots. It's like wrestling, and now I wish it was Battlebots, I'd actually go back to watching it then. No, it's all wrestling and... In space? Just terrible. But we used to watch the Battlebots of my parents as way back in the day. Indeed, we did. Now, the thing about this new proposed robot league, also handled by sci-fi in the states. It's a reality show, but man-sized robots. Reality show. Allow me to demonstrate with this picture. Craig. I'm picturing, like, big brother, but with robots. Oh, wow. They should put around. It's so cool. Wait, isn't that a movie with Hugh Jackman? Uh, actually, it looks a bit like the film with Hugh Jackman, but also because the robots appear to have some sort of connecting pipe, I don't know if it's just for power or to hold them up. Yeah, it looks very much like rock 'em-sock 'em robots. It's too bad that they didn't, they couldn't be a little more fluid about it, 'cause you could surround them with scenes of, like, Tokyo and they could use parts of it and, like, fall into it, attacking each other, and that would be fun. Sci-fi won't reveal how much the 1,000-pound robot's cast, a lot, Stern says, and there is one obvious design inferential that keeps the bots from real steel-like autonomy. A stabilizing bar that prevents the top-heavy machines from toppling over during fighting and help controls their movement across the ring. Lame. Stern hopes that version you want to know over a robot combat league. That robot can't even stand up, guys. So Stern, I guess, one of the producers, was saying, "Up until we actually saw them in the ring fighting, we didn't think it would work." Sittrachian, I guess, who's the person working on the robots, created a-which, honestly, how mad scientist do you have to be to be named Sittrachian? Anyhow. Was he born with that name? It was Carlos Sittrachian. Carlos, whatever. That's totally a fake name. Nobody's ever called Carlos Sittrachian. Sittrachian created a robot-robotic system that can mimic a human's actions and movements. We've had robots decapitated. We've had robots cut in half. It was truly spectacular. Oh, god. It sounds truly spectacular. Yeah, at first, I just thought that they'd be, like, elderly looking, rock 'em, sock 'em robots. I hope they don't have feelings. I hope that their heads back off when you knock their blog off. Yeah, I hope they don't have feelings. I think if they need a stabilizing bow, we're probably not giving them feelings level just yet. But David. Speaking of feels, however, we had a recent trip to Buffalo. We did. We saw the monkeys, and it was wonderful. I mean, I was in a really bad mood, but when it actually happened, when it all came together, it was magic. The problem is that you get anxious before events end. And it's like the biggest thing ever to happen, so. As a side mentionable, how long have you guys not been ingesting nicotine? Oh, yeah. We also quit smoking. That's right. I hope my mom's not listening to this. Your mom doesn't listen to the show. Okay. Yeah. We quit smoking. We quit eating junk food. It's hard, man. Torturing our bodies. And now we don't. This is a hard life. Plus, I'm running. Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. What am I doing, people? And you're getting sick. Oh. Plus, I don't feel good. I don't feel good. Nothing never works. The end. Then you die. We'll take care of it. But the monkeys were great. But the monkeys, my God, they were so good. I have a new respect for the monkeys where, you know, I would kind of giggle at Jessica me sometimes. They made the chamois. Ah, the monkeys. But no, it was a really great show. I came out of it feeling a lot closer to the monkeys, or specifically Mike Nesmith. Yes. I feel like we have similar temperaments. Mm-hmm. He's the moody one. He's totally where I get some of my musical influence, I think. We got to see Hugh of Way of the Buffalo. Yes, we did. That was something fun. G.R. are very patient to a Game Master Savage Glint. Yeah. Yeah, it was very nice to see them both. And they, oh my God. If you've never had a whole ghee, ladies and gentlemen. It's just a sub. Dude, when was, I've never had a whole ghee. Okay, with the steak and the cheese, it's like a messy meat with sauce and cheese and onions and stuff, they don't make that here. They don't make, no, you are correct. We don't have that sort of sandwich here. Like, we'll have a Subway style. Oh my God. It's not the same way. You can't believe it. Like, even from what it looked like, it looked really not nice. But then I put it to my mouth and I was going to save half it for later. But then I didn't. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm actually growing one step closer to my dream of being Cliff Huxdable by having the Soghee family. But I do have this moment and it's the same thing with monkeys and it's the same thing with mobsters. It's like, just before something awesome is going to happen, I realized that once this awesome thing happens, that's as close as that I'm ever going to get ever. Like once the next time I'm going to see Glenn Hu. Once the next time I'm going to see the monkeys, like never- To be fair, Buffalo is not that far. Yeah, I know. But these things happen very rarely. So it's just sad because you know it's going to start, but then it's closer to ending. This episode is going to end like the mist. We better move on. I'm sorry. This is why you shouldn't be talking to me right now. Oh, rough, rough. Speaking of people who shouldn't be talked to, we saw some folks at the Wendy's just across the border. That was exciting. Ugh, America, I love you, but sometimes you're weird to me. And I understand that my hair was a little different. My makeup was dead, but I've never been like gawk that and pointed out like that before. Yeah. That's a little, yeah, it's this little like plain Jane. It's the whole family. It's really bored looking family in the Wendy's and we went inside to use the facilities. And they stared at us really funny, really, really funny, like the whole family. And then we went outside and they were pointing at our license plate, like, "Oh my God, they're from another lion." Now, you say that, but we had literally just gotten off the bridge. It was the first stop after the bridge because we needed, we had spent some time in the line and we needed to stop for a moment. Yes. So then Jaredy posted a poster and then that just like threw them over the top, they were like, "What the fuck?" These people are robot. Standing up on clean. Yeah. Rock 'em, sock 'em, robots. So first out, like when they were staring at Jaredy and I was in the van near them, near the window, I just kept staring and staring and waiting for them to look back at me so I could blow them a kiss, which I did, but it was like an asshole like, "Screw you." Anyways, yeah, it was really strange. Yeah. Did you guys notice anything else about America that was different than the Canadian? I'm going to discuss this fairly regularly. Well, I had heard about the infrastructure and I told Glenn, like, the first moment I met him, I'm like, "I heard the rules are bad." It was a really douchey thing to say, but we always hear about how the infrastructure is so bad and I hate, like, big bridges. I hate them. I hate them, hate them, hate them. So to see, like, four in a row in America, I, you know, they're like, "Look over here." And I'm like, "Screw you. Why would you say that to me? Why would you say that to me?" Yeah, yeah. I think I'm really not that high-main as guys, but I think one of the first things we noticed was how quickly we came up on a church was one of the first things we passed. And the stoplights. Yeah. They're all on scribes. They're all on strings, guys. We have, like, these poles that are, like, metal and stuff and it all, like, it just looks a lot safer. Mm-hmm. Like, the nice, temporary little swingy lights. Well, we use lights like that, too, but generally it's when, like, the other lights are being repaired and stuff. The lack of debit was a little odd for me. That was very strange. Mm-hmm. No, yes. No debit. No, it may have just been that we were around the university, so it may have simply been the neighborhood we were in, but I'm told, I believe the TT actually said, you know, it's cash or credit here in America. Yeah. So. I was glad that we hit up the exchange place at the border. Mm-hmm. Who? The border guard made fun of me. We're going to see the monkeys. Yeah. By the end of the conversation, he was like, "You don't know me. I watched it when it was written on the TV." And it's like, "Oh, who cares now, Border Man?" Who's seeing them? He joked that the bus that pulled ahead of us was the monkeys. Yeah. They're in that tour bus right there. We did meet a very nice gas station attendant. Mm-hmm. Super nice gas station attendant. He was saying that he prefers serving Canadians because they don't steal the gas. That's why he's so nice. Yeah. How much would he say he loses? He's 300. $300 a gas a week because you people drive away with his gas. Apparently. Why do you drive away with his gas? You people. Yes. You people. Who are you people? I don't think it's the mob driving away with his gas. There are certain like, you know, in the city, if it's past 11, you prepay for your gas. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I've never heard like, if anyone around here stealing gas and taking off. Yeah. Oh, thanks. Oh, thanks. One of the things I found novel, we don't have beers and convenience stores up here. Mm-hmm. Yes. But they had both the beer. And again, it was just off campus. But they had the beer. And then up by the counter, there was a big tub of ping-pong balls in case anybody needed to spontaneously break into a beer pong game. And you know what? Jared, he told me that. And I thought he was joking. So I asked the guy at the cash and he said, "Yeah, it's a beer pong." Well, I saw it in the idea of a little mulliganing and it was my assumption that it was probably for beer pong. That was hilarious. You know what else I saw there that they don't have here? Mint M&Ms. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It was funny. Our heads were just like going back and forth, finding all those crazy stuff. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a year and it was peach as well. Oh my goodness. It was crazy. Yeah. Like he'd give that to a kid. Oh my God. Why would you give that to a kid? Yeah, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Oh my God. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Oh my God. I guess. But it was certainly novel. And the amount of guns at the border was surprising to guns and dogs. When you're going across to America, the border cross is a lot different than coming home. Yeah, that was interesting. There was probably half a dozen cameras on our way into America and there was maybe two cameras on our way. But there was half a dozen like pointing it at us. Pointing directly at our car from different parts. And like two looking around the whole place where we were going back. Oh no, there was definitely at least one pointed right at our car. Like at our license waiting on the way in. Anywho, the American one, they had like not only cameras, but they had like this draw bridge doors, like arms. And they had a pile of different stuff. Yeah, it keeps you going up and down. They had this giant fighting robot, but it was pretty easy to run because it had a stabilizing bar. And then there was like this no man's land where you couldn't drive. You just need a huge space between the front car who was with the security people. Oh, when we got into that fun situation where the guy beside us, his car was getting searched by the dog. And the dog was getting really excited and kept returning to his trunk. And eventually they had to pop the trunk and the dog hopped in. And he's searching the trunk and there's just these. All these other people are coming. A large American gentleman just kind of collecting, not at the back of his car, not so much to like make him take off or anything crazy. Just maybe 20 feet back, but all directly behind his car. And they're all just kind of standing there with their arms crossed. Yep. So we took half before. Fortunately, he was one to the right and not directly in front of us because we may have been there a while. Well, and I think it all was smoothed over by the end. Oh yeah, you think so, you think you got away, Scott. He looked very, he looked and I realized that this is the sort of person you exactly want to be running your drugs across the border. But he looked very much like a fatherly, you know, with his wife just going back from some trip to see their children or something. Smugless. Smugless. He never know. Speaking of Glen, however, we got a game night coming up this weekend actually. We do December 1st. December 1st. Come join us. Yes. You can find details on the Ning Mob, the flash mob dot ning dot com. Ever so much fun. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. And Glen will totally hold your hand through character creation. There's a little investment up front in getting the manuals, but you can buy them as PDFs online. So it's pretty quick and painless. But after that, you know, everyone's very patient. Everyone's beginning. Everyone generally has a beer or glass wine in their hand during the session. They're looking at me because I have a funny look, but it's just, you know, we drank a little bit during the last movie night. Oh, yeah. You want to discuss movie night? I actually ended up having to do a lot of technical business in the back end. So I didn't get to see the end of the film. I did a great time. There was a bunch of people who came. I did find myself downstairs with a laptop and didn't realize how I got there. Yes, you got a little enthusiastic with the whiskey before the movie had even begun. Like, well, we were all respectable and junk, but then there's like one or two shots just before we went on. And that just sealed the deal. And I do not recall, you know, I went through my text to make sure, you know, I sent a message or two. Just really nice to people, like really nice, like, but, you know, I don't think I will ever do that again. Because I feel like it's sort of my job. And, you know, saying goodbye to people in the basement and being like, how did I get in the basement? It was probably an issue. That's pretty funny. Because as the tech guy, I was like, okay, we got to move to the basement. We got to go. But it's the film itself that I barely recall. I remember a bunch of teenagers running around and like clearly bought at a Halloween store, werewolf masks. No. So now they were zombies. It was zombies, zombie werewolves attack. But I don't remember how the zombie aspect played into any of it. I remember that Donahue shaped his beard in mustache. Oh, yeah, it was a very baby-faced Donahue. Yeah, he's bit-trayed, Movember. Well, I don't think he was dead. He's not necessarily fighting for us being there. He's paid his debt. He can keep his hair where he likes it. Alright. And shade came. That was so nice. So nice. And we had Peter and Kim. I know. Who had an interesting connection to the film. Yes, it was actually filmed on their street. As will happen in the Toronto. Yeah, so it was so cool to hear that and that they were coming. Constant references to, oh, we shopped at that store. Oh, we've been to that park. Oh, no way. Yeah. Yeah, it was very nice. Mm-hmm. It felt nice to see so many people show up. So we don't have a date set for the next mob movie night, but it will be an equally bad film and it will be an equally enjoyable time, although we may not have an equal amount of liquor. I will hydrate and be more well behaved. And if I was silly at all, I apologize. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I know, I think we did well. I mean, I really loved the way well. I hope so. Actually, speaking of the mob. Leave a comment for the show. Yeah. A comment at flashpump.com. Speaking of the mob and better self-control, you mentioned a little bit earlier that you're working on eating a little healthier? A lot healthier. I didn't realize how much stupid crap I put in my body. But I'm trying, like, today for a snack. I just ate a pile of veggies with a low calorie dip and I drank lemon water and black coffee. And yeah. And I have, like, this app called Lose It. And if you want to join me and others in the mob, we've just started the program and it's awesome. I've never actually wanted to track what I ate because then I couldn't eat what I ate. By ignoring it, it would go away. Me too. Seems to be okay. Running's been better since the no smoking, but I don't feel well. I'm tired, but I ran today and made excellent time. You did? It's not very intimidating, like I thought it would be. No, especially with Lose It, where you can scan a lot of the barcodes and it'll provide an impression for you. It's fun, dude. It's fun. Yeah, it's a little bit of gaming. It's interesting because I've read a lot of articles on how geeks will transition from becoming, you know, level 85, whatever, is in Warcraft II number crunching in a sort of fitness sense. Mm-hmm. And I mean, I'm involved with the incredible shrinking mob, as you've entitled it. If you want to head over to theflashmob.nig.com. That's where you can find the thread for that as well. Yeah, I know. Trying a lot of... go ahead. You know, I noticed that the time traveler talked about starting a flash mob group. Mm-hmm. See if we can do that. I saw that speaking of geeks and fitness crunching, there was a frog pants group. Oh, clearly we need to crush them. And we will. So join us the flash mob.nig.com. Yeah, and I've also been putting up recipes I've been trying. This is very new because I just started. And I was going to put up the one that we had tonight. I have pictures from this morning from when I was putting in the crock pot. But then at the end of the time where we actually had to consume it, it was okay. But it wasn't like awesome. It was like diet food. It was a little bland. Unfortunately, it was one of those meals that smelled delicious but tasted pretty much like something you're... Or a can, you know. Like there's a lot of fresh stuff in it. It's really, really good for you. The protein's amazing. The calorie count is really low. But it's not tasty. So I made like a question. But it wasn't awesome. I may make a quick mention of it on the nig mob tomorrow. But I'm not putting up the recipe because it's not worth it. But I did put up one for some other stuff I tried. But that's one of the nice things. That's one of the nice things about collaboration though, right? You can weed out the bad recipes and share the ones that are of quality. Exactly. I am your pre-palate for delicious, diety food because I've never been one to eat healthy because I like things to taste good. So I promise that I will locate things that are both nutritious and delicious. But it feels so good. Like today I made soup. Like I just pureed these veggies that I cooked so that I roasted yesterday. And just like seeing the spoon go into the children's mouths and them eating it and being happy and knowing like how low-fat and hugely nutritious it was, it was just like so rewarding. Mm-hmm. Wolfie. He thought we were having more soup for dinner tonight and we started to cry. Which is super sweet because it's like he didn't want his potatoes either. He was like, "I don't like potatoes." You know? But it was totally like what he does. He'll eat it for like lunch and be like, "This is so great." And I'd be like, "No!" for dinner and that's hilarious. I have another bowl. I figured people would like it more. I really like it. I want to have some. Really? We're just trying not to eat too much right now. No, we say that, but we're actually going to have candy in it right here. We are. But it's on the chart. It's very regulated. I found it candy. A little bit from the straws box. A little bit from the unknown package. Yes. First, just before we swing over to the most bothersome of things, I wanted to mention that I had a nice little chat with John DeRoe of ServingWorlds.com. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're getting a little more used to the interviews, which is good. I must admit I still get pretty stressed. Well, okay. I like to be supportive. But after every time, he basically, you hear this, "Ahhh!" from his office. And you're like, "What?" And he's like, "I think I sounded stupid." But it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I begin to understand why certain authors and certain people with any sort of media exposure take a really standoffish position on the media. It's just because they're a little bit self-conscious and it's a little easier to be attacking than it is to try to be. Mm-hmm. On your own turf. I'm on you, Warren Ellis. Overall, I listened to that interview and I found it pretty great. I mean, insightful, even for me, who I would think have a very detailed point of view of what you do. Yeah, well, John was a really gracious host and I really appreciated it. And if you want to head over to servingworlds.com, dig it up. I'm sure it's down there somewhere. Oh, the one thing. No, let's not mention it. Yeah, no. It's fine. Do it. Do it. He listens to the show. That's fine. Say it. Talk about it knowing that he will listen to it. There is one thing. Okay, so we're doing the interview of Escape and I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing. And I'm trying to focus on my responses more than anything. And it was only afterwards really in hearing the recording itself that I realized he called me Jeff the Road. Which is funny because it's not your name. The jake sometimes means many things, but it's rarely a Jeff. So I mean, I should be so lucky as to be mistaken for Mr. Lynch. But yeah. But not your name. Not Jeff. But that's cool. Yeah. It is kind of neat that you have this early interview somewhere where somebody called you Jeff. Like he obviously knows who you are. He obviously is well versed in what we do. Yeah. Yeah. I just slipped in there and I didn't notice it and I should have corrected it. I spent the whole next like two days just making up things what your JRD could stand for. But the JRD could stand for you. Jeremiah. Yeah. I think Amy still stands as the queen of the word. Yeah. Jurd. Jurd. Whatever. She was like, what about you JRD or whatever and it was just like so perfect. Well done. Yeah. Thanks, Amy. Okay. I think that's enough mob business though. Speaking of the, speaking of the incredible Mr. Lynch. Oh. I thought we were going to eat candy. Oh, yes. Absolutely. No, let's. Let's have candy. Which one are we having you just tonight? First, we're having mini chewy sweet tarts and I must tell you what I'm talking about. Many chewy sweet tarts. Many chewy sweet tarts. We'll always listen to this bothersome fit of business. Okay. Let's check. Let's joke on them. Spudger bother. I have always been intrigued by the British royals. As part of a trip to London many years ago, I made sure to visit Buckingham Palace during changing of the guard. No one does pomp and circumstance quite like the house of Windsor. By even when Prince Harry goes on naked, whoring adventures in Las Vegas, it just seems to be a little spicier. In his case, ginger of course. What's amazing to me is that the British citizens continue to support the monarchy and lavish wealth and privilege upon the select family of royal mooches. However, if history and lineage has anything to do with it, there may be good reason to be mesmerized by the Windsor's and perhaps just a little afraid. Here's the story from Romania. Until now, its lonely mountains have been synonymous with the legend of the vampire. The cruel ruler who drank his victim's blood terrified his enemies and could turn into a bat at will. Links between the royal family and Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century nobleman whose deeds inspired the vampire legend, are being exploited in an attempt to lure tourists to the Eastern European country. The Romania National Tourist Office is trumpeting the lineage in a brochure distributed the world travel market, a leading industry event which opened recently in London. A spokesman for the Romanian National Tourist Office said the country, which incorporates the region of Transylvania, was looking to use these links with the British royal family to increase UK tourists over the coming years. Maria Irodok, UK Director of the Organization said 118,000 UK tourists visited Romania in 2011. It will be more in 2012. We've experienced a 7% increase in UK visitors in the first quarter, which is traditionally a quiet period for tourists from the UK. For the summer and autumn, the percentage increase will be even better. According to Royal Highness, a book published in 1982 by Sir Ian Moncrief, the former chairman of Debrettes, Prince Charles is a great grandson 16 times removed to Vlad III, the infamous bloodthirsty ruler from which many traditional vampire legends arise. He can trace his lineage back through his great-grandmother, Queen Mary, the Consort of George V, to Vlad IV, the half-brother of the notorious ruler. Another link to the country originated with Princess Marie of Edinburgh, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who went on to marry King Ferdinand I of Romania and ruled Romania after the First World War. It is claimed that Porphyria, an iron deficiency which is thought to lie behind the vampire myth, has run in the royal family. The prince has made no secret of his love of Romania and his belief to travel there frequently. In 2006, he purchased a farmhouse in Viscree, a village in rural Transylvania, which is available as a guest house at certain times of the year. The prince is also a patron of the Mihai Amonescu Trust, which works to restore the cultural heritage, economy and nature of Transylvania's Saxon villages and their surroundings. The vampire legend is said to have been inspired by his predilection for eating bread dipped in victims' blood. Dracula means "son of the devil" in Romanian. The country's alleged links to British royalty, however ghoulish, could prove a welcome boost to its tourist industry. Every year, thousands of tourists visit the town of Castle Braun, Transylvania where Vlad the Third lived. Simon Press from World Travel Market said, "Romania has a great deal of tourism potential. It is a beautiful country already receiving many tourists for its nature and culture." The link to the British royal family and the clear fondness the royal family has for the country will only help to promote Romania across the Commonwealth and particularly in the UK. In closing, I'd like to point out that although historically the British Empire has ruthlessly spilled the blood of many who opposed the crown, as of late there are a kinder gentler lot. Why even young Harry isn't just always out-horring around, he's currently serving in the military. But where he slaughters insurgents in Afghanistan who dare oppose the will of the crown. Oh well, never mind. I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's this week's Spot of Bother. First, mini chewy sweet tarts? I liked them. Yeah, it had a nice crispy coating on the outside and then it had a nice chew that dissolved quickly on the inside. I'm a bit of a classicist. I really enjoy the standard sweet tart. So this isn't going to sway me from that, but it was a nice treat. It totally would sway me. And they're pretty small, but you can have 22 for 50 calories, which isn't bad. Nicely done, Mr. Lynch. Yes. Yeah. That was awesome. I'll totally go to Romania. Who's in it with me? Me. It's being specifically Romania. No, I'll absolutely go. I think the link is what it is. Yep. But very cool. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'd like to see Romania anyway. Yeah, great catch, Jeff. Nice to done. You can find regular other spots of bother over at bothersomethings.com, and you can find Mr. Lynch over on Twitter as please Lynch me. And the next candy that we're going to try is Braque's Mellow Cream Pumpkins. This one comes from the straws box. The sweet tarts I should be specific came from the unknown package. Yes. I've etched a little skull face into my pumpkin cane. Yeah, you've actually carved here. I considered hollowing mine out and putting a little matchet inside, but didn't know where to get that way. Yeah, I just thought about eating mine, really. I've been staring at mine for a really long time, but that's because I haven't been eating a lot of candy. Mm-hmm. So good. What are you going to hear while we eat this candy? This pumpkin-shaped orange and green? Let's go to fish, dudes. Excellent. Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always-listening, three-day fish. Hey, Flashcast, three-day fish here. I apologize for my recent absence, but fish has found something to do while he figures out his review situation in preparation of the up-and-coming Hobbit movie. Fish is going to do a review of a radio adaptation done by BBC long, long ago. By long, long ago, I think it was like the '70s or '80s. So here it goes. I'm going to do it episode by episode. For each a half hour long, and you can currently find them on YouTube, though I don't know for how long because I've seen it pop up and then get taken down quite often. The first episode is pretty loyal to the book. It's almost verbatim. So what I'm really going to review are the voice actors in this episode. Little though, sounds kind of youngish and well-to-do, as you should. All the dwarves sound pretty okay. Some of the dwarves, they give squeaky voices just to separate them, which I understand because there's supposed to be 12 of these guys. You make them all sound gruff, you're going to lose track of who they are. The only voice that really bothers me is the voice of Gandalf because they decide to go with like a cartoony type wizard voice. He's like, "Hmm, yes, I'm Gandalf." I don't know, I feel like they could have done a bit better with that, but you definitely get a feel for Bilbo and his character and Thorin in this very first episode. So at the beginning, I would give this a green light, and only, but keep in mind if you're into radio shows, which I hope most of you are since you listened to Flashcast and Flash Pulse, then this will be an interesting, an interesting listen. I will have the next episode up. Sadly I did not get to Wreck It Ralph this weekend, a lot of stuff going on, but I hope to get to more movies in the future. That is all, always listening. No worries, Vish, we know you've got a lot going on in life at the moment. Yes, exactly. Interesting to hear that they hue very close to the book. One of the things I like, which I could see people being put off by in the Star Wars, we listened to the Star Wars NPR release, now we've actually been through Star Wars and Empire, although we haven't listened to Jedi yet. They're very good, I really enjoy them, but the shows are what, nine hours long, usually eight or nine hours for the whole series, which clearly the movie was not eight or nine hours, so they've taken a lot of the, not the extended universe stuff from the books, but I guess stuff that was originally in the script they didn't make to the film, and they've padded it out a little bit. So you get some interesting extra scenes that you never see in the film, and some behind the scenes business that just is odd. It's too bad about Gandov. Yeah, it is too bad. I much prefer the Sing Song, Ian McKellen. Yeah, well, I mentioned on the mob just recently that I have just started reading The Hobbit to the tens, and of course, now when I read Gandov, he sounds very much like Gandov from the movies. Yeah, I can imagine. Although-- And I'm really, really able to picture that guy as, I can never remember his name as Bilbo. He's going to be great. So clearly my preferred method of intake beyond the books is via song. [MUSIC PLAYING] But kind of conveniently due to our extended schedule recently, we happen to have the second entry in The Hobbit series, so I'll return to-- oh, wait, before we go, however, I want to speak of these dastardly candies. The pumpkins. No, no. This is a heinous trap. Heyness. What is this? It's Candy Corn. Yes, it's Candy Corn. It's like a big, gird lump of candy corn. It's a cleanly marshmallowy bit of candy corn. I want more, but it was 40 calories. Indeed. It's Candy Corn. It's delicious. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's true. Yeah, they're not huge fans of Candy Corn, but I am. [LAUGHING] I am singing from the mountain tops, Candy Corn. [MUSIC PLAYING] Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always-listening, three-day fish. Hey, Flashcast, three-day fish here, with his second installment of The Hobbit BBC Radio Review. Now, I have noticed that the guy on YouTube that I was going to listen to this has had it taken down, which isn't a huge surprise to me, because these types of deals seem to go up and down all the time. But fear not, for fish-headed, Anka set the whole time. So we start out with the second installment of the story, and this is where Bilbo runs into the trolls, which is a well-done scene, the trolls sound brutish and dumb. And it's a very-- it's like-- it's an important scene, because it's like the first time Bilbo really has an encounter with real danger. So other than the trolls, not a whole lot of new voices here, but we also run into generic elf voices, and Elrond, who-- the guy that picked for Elrond, I feel, was a good fit, voice-wise. He certainly sounded the part, he didn't sound cartoony or anything. So this second installment also gets a green light. As far as where else you guys might be able to find these, I did some Google searching, and it seems like whoever's taking these down is doing a pretty good job of it. But you can generally find this Anka set at like a half-price book somewhere. I don't know if they have those in the Canadian, but they're also all over Amazon, so. Then that's just if you're interested. That is all, always listening. Very nice fish. Yes, excellent. I wonder if we can get a cross-section of various radio dramas. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a great thing to be reviewing, especially if you're not getting out to the movies. An excellent option for-- And it's good that you're back to clean living. None of that internet piracy that I hear so much about on the internet. Oh. Because he had it on cassette the whole time. A whole time. Good call, buddy. Good call. [laughter] Okay, and as I mentioned, mailbags a little late this week, so there's not really anything if you want to send along some commentary. It's mostly due to the Thanksgiving long weekend. Thanksgiving. Yeah. A long weekend, yeah. That'll happen. But if you want to send something along, comment at flashpup.com. You want to cuss at us, confess something, feel free. Next up, we have Gigantor, I believe, with a board game review. Hello, Flashcast and fellow mobsters. It's Gigantor. This week, I'll be reviewing The Walking Dead, the board game. Now, the interesting thing is The Walking Dead actually have two different board games. They have one for the TV series, and they have one for the comic book. I have the one for the comic book, and that is the one I'll be reviewing. I haven't played the other, unfortunately. At least not yet. The game is for ages 13 and up, plays 1 to 6 players, and it plays in about 30 minutes to an hour. So it's not a terribly long game. It's a lot of fun. The art is nice. It's actually featuring new artwork by Tarly Adelard. You get all your characters, main and secondary. And it's interesting, because the board game is, you put the board down, you have your characters, you get your character sheets, you get your main characters like Rick or Tyrese or Glenn or Shane, and then you can collect the secondary characters as kind of enhancements along the way by saving them and fighting off the hordes of zombies and such. And the game kind of works with an interesting dice system. Each character, there's three kinds of dice, there's red dice, green dice, and blue dice, and they each have specific symbols like the caravan, shock and shells, zombies, and each. And there's obviously some blank sides, because when you're fighting a zombie, the last thing you want is to get blank and essentially have no ammo to fight them off. And these characters have their own configuration of dice that allow them, that give them sort of different benefits in separate situations from other characters. So sometimes collecting secondary characters that will pad out your dice in different ways are extremely useful. When first playing this game, it's kind of surprising, because what happens is you've got three goals, you're trying to find a safe haven essentially. To win the game, you've got to go through three different locations, and there are some that are common for everybody to know, and it's just a rush to get there, and then you get a secret one that nobody else knows of, so you can kind of duck aside and go check out this camp over to the side. The point to the game is you've got to basically go through all three of them, and by the third when you've found the safe haven and bring everybody to safety, and you win. It's interesting with this game because every time you move, the zombies pop up and you're awake. So whenever you're moving a character across the board, every step that you've left, or every square that you've just left, a zombie pops up. At first you tend to wonder how are the zombies supposed to catch you if they're just showing up behind you? Well, after everybody's moving around on the board and everyone has to get to different spots, the board fills up fast, and with limited ammo, limited food, and limited gasoline, it makes for a very, very interesting game. As I just mentioned, there are three equipment deals with the game. You have your gasoline, which if you burn some, you get to move extra movements on the board. There are bullets, so if you dice aren't enough, you can sacrifice a couple bullets to kill off the zombies at your fighting, and there's food, and that helps you heal when you've taken damage. There are event cards, so when you're trying to hit a square and gather up some extra supplies, you've got to go through an event card and beat the event, and sometimes they have some extra bonuses, and sometimes they're just, they're just mean. But what do you expect in a zombie apocalypse? It's supposed to be bleak, and the game really portrays that very well. It portrays the need for supplies, the desperation. What I like about this game is you can play cooperative. I've never played it solitaire, although it says you can, and then you can always just go head-to-head or competition level against your friends. It plays quickly. The rules are fairly simple. Just maybe a couple read-throughs, and then you got it, and you're good to go. If you revisit it again later, it's really quick to pick up and play along. That is my review of The Walking Dead. I would give this game a 4 out of 5. I really do enjoy it. It's a good game to play before you get into the big three-hour games if you're having a game night. It's actually very, very true to the comics, which I'm always a sucker for, so maybe if I get a chance I'll be reviewing the TV board game, but I have a few in the works. So until then, I'll talk to you guys soon. Have a good one, guys. Awesome. I would totally play that game. The nice thing about dice-heavy games is that there's a lot of positive feedback just from the dice themselves. I think that's why dice have stuck around as a play element for so long, because there's a nice tinkle-tinkle to them. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Ray. That was fantastic. Mm-hmm. It sounds very interesting. I'm always on board for any sort of zombie-related board game, but at the moment, at least, my favorite still remains simply zombies with the exclamation marks. Don't forget the exclamation marks. You'll get a totally different game. You never know. If you're interested, I believe you can find Ray on the Twitter as Gigantor King, although he only shows up right now and again. Just like me. It's hard for him to fit. Yeah. It's hard to fit those giant fingers into 140 characters. So, thanks a lot, Gigantor. Now I believe we have... The art of never raised up. So we just got off a harm card or three-parter. How did you enjoy returning to the voice of not a carry grant? Do you really want me to tell everybody how I feel about that? I love your harm card, a voice. You do a fantastic job, despite your position on the tone. It's not that I hate this story. It's that I hate reading this story. Is it because he's the most sort of outlandish character choice you've made in your... Yes, but I couldn't picture him as anything else, and it drives me crazy. I think it's excellent, I love it. I enjoyed listening to it and editing it, so... Yeah. You have to keep doing it. I couldn't do it any other way now. I mean, aside from the fact that it would sound different, it always would sound like that in my head, and then it would never be good enough. But at the same time, it's the one that maybe requires the most takes to get down because you're... Yeah. Like, I have to read that one out loud before I come in and record. I can't just be like, "Okay, I know how to read this." I have to practice this one out loud a couple of times before I can get into the right, whatever. Well, it's kind of interesting that you mention that because... Backroom plots. Actually, when I'm doing the second edit for the story, I always take my time, move through it very slowly, and try to read mentally, basically, through in your harm voice in my head, just to make sure that it sounds correct, because sometimes... Like, does that what he would say? It's that, but it's also that I have noticed, especially in this last three-parter, that there are certain word choices in just how they sound and how you would say them that don't come out quite right. So I have to flip them over. I don't... Unfortunately, I don't have any immediate examples, but... Yeah. Yeah. I have to say I quite enjoy this three-parter. Yeah. I really liked it. The story in it. Um... Yeah. Solid writing. It's not really what I meant, but I've been working towards this point in the murder plague for so long now, that it's fun to have finally gotten here. Yeah, it's like the tables are turning, you know? This... We're coming... We're deep into the second act of the murder plague now, and this is really where we get to the meat of what this story is really about, and I'm really glad to be here. But I hope that some people got to the end of that three-parter and were a little... Angry? A little angry? I know. I know somebody specifically who was a little angry. What? I couldn't believe that shit. Man, you're feeling ill and dropping a lot, eh? Yeah, that's how I felt. I'm gonna say it. I'm ill. I'm grumpy. I'm tired. Yeah. I'm a little mad at him. I'm a local Canadian. Watch out. But I mean the idea is hopefully to bring a whole ring of emotions to the dale. Yes. Yes. He's all of the emotional buffalo. Yeah, exactly so. All parts of the emotional buffalo. I should make that a new pin design. An emotional buffalo. Oh, a pin design. Yeah. What kind of talk is that? Are you a dassy, old hoe? So I just got my computer get back, guys. And we all know that I'm a little behind with a couple things, but having this computer, and not just having my computer back, but then receiving a power cord for it, oh yeah. So now I can make music on my computer, which used to go to the day job with JRD, like I could hardly ever use his laptop to work on it, so I'm better excited. Mm-hmm. And sleepy, and I have a cold, so eh. Well, on that note, maybe we should give thanks since this last weekend with the American Thanksgiving to our friend Jim. Yeah. Thank you, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Thank you, thank you, Jim, for being with us on Facebook for this mustache that is on my microphone. Oh, yeah. We busted out the fuzzy moustaches while listening to fish. Yeah, I picked a Hogan. My mic's got a Hogan. I actually stuck my mustache on my face. Oh, love. I'm a little closer to the classic, snidely whiplash. Stuck. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Did you read my theory online recently? Yes. It's so disturbing. Can you recap it for me? Uh, what's the girl's name again? No. That basically now killed his entire family, and like, ate them or something like that. Well, that was the implication, but before each episode, just as snidely's freaking out and trying her to whatever kind of device, just before that moment, she's like, she had just murdered his entire family. Well, no, no, that she was, she just whispered to him, they tasted like pork. And then Dudley shows up, but he thinks that women are too useless to possibly have done such a thing. He just thinks snidely is a terrible man. And he always saves her, busts up this poor, broken man, who's clearly, he's suffered some stress, he suffered some strain, and he's just trying to get a little justice in this backwards world where the RCMP are constantly saving women's serial killers. Wow, that's really interesting. Oh, uh, I think you were thinking, Jim, yeah, for a wiki dot flashpump.com and flashpump.com. Seriously, somebody wants to take up Lorenz on that wiki, I would love you forever. Please? But you can follow us on Twitter at SkinnerCo, or individually at Jarrity Skinner, the Jessica May, or a popin' axe with a zero. That's me. As if that wasn't complicated enough. I can't help that there are other popin' I at there. 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 flashpump.com or email us, text your MP3s to comments at flashpump.com. The entire run of flashpump can be found at flashpump.com or via the search bar and iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons' attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. And I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be here. Then I will be mine for asking you, on the long journey, I know I'll be blessed to you. Bye! [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]