Hello, and welcome to FlashCast episode twenty-six – prepare yourself for Jessie Eisenburg, Phantom of the Michael Jackson, Autobots, urban legends, illegal fireworks, and special episode one.
The Skinner Co. Network
FC26 - Illegal Fireworks
[Music] Hello, and welcome to Flashcast26! Prepare yourself for Jesse Eisenberg, Phantom of the Michael Jackson, Autobots, Urban Legends, Illegal Fireworks, and special episode 1. [Music] Tonight we have myself, oh, Popon X, Images and Orations, Jessica May. Hello, Egoes and Audio, and JRD. Hello. Scribbler. Yeah, you're so useless, so useless to this process. Yeah, all you do is scribble. We always have to make sense of your scribbles, your cat scratches. Kind of a tough week. Yes, a difficult week. Highs and lows, a lot of low, some nice highs though. What were the highs? Multiies, fucking? Oh yeah, yeah, we went to a field and the kids finished school, that was good. Mm-hmm, that's true. Decided on camps, but then my dog died. It was really sad guys. Cable. That was sad. Yeah, you heard him whine sometimes, and we heard him fart, or smelt him fart all the time. I'm sure they probably smelt him fart too. It was really that strong. He was elderly and he loved me so hard, and now there's no doggy following behind me. I mean, we can kind of joke about it, but it really was a hard process. Yeah. And necessary thing, but a very hard thing. Mm-hmm, I've been dreading it a long time. We actually ended up running special episode one on Wednesday, instead of the scheduled episode because of just the whole situation. I'd originally intended the episode. It was already on the schedule, but it was on the schedule for the weekend, because I thought long holiday weekend will sort of- Take it easy. Come up with something canned, yeah. It's a lot easier to come out with one of the urban legends from that I had written earlier for the site than it was to come up the whole new story. And it was one that had gotten sort of a lot of good feedback, so I figured it'd be safe to go with, but need called. We still did our job, but I'm less of one. But we did get to see the Maltese Falcon. And it was fantastic. Good folks over from RadiosRevenge.com. Fantastic film. It was wonderful to see on the big screen. There were some funny cuts, especially between reels. They were pretty rough, but they'd added the charm in a way. Yeah, everyone giggled about it. It wasn't a big deal, you know? Yeah, it really was part of the charm. I kept trying to snap an awesome shot of bogey on the big screen, surreptitiously, but I kept being afraid I was going to piss people off, so I never really got a good shot. But Jamie got a great shot and put it on Instagram. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was a lovely time. The burritos were tasty. Oh, it's a delicious burritos. And there's always something missed in the Maltese Falcon that you find later, so. Where do we get the burritos? I can't remember the name of the place, but it's the, I am to understand, even though I have not seen the film, the final fight location from Scott Pilgrim. That's awesome. Having been there, I want to see the movie. The film, yeah. Well, I did want to see it before. I can't believe I haven't got around to it. It's because it's got that guy in it. Yeah, I hate that guy. Yeah, I'm kind of. What guy? Facebook guy. Oh, the Scott Pilgrim guy, Zombieland guy. Yeah, his name escapes me at the moment. Yeah, he's just that guy. He does the same thing. Is that what you're implying? I know, I think, remember we saw like a Saturday Night Live and he really sucked. Yeah, yeah, he was really terrible, but the truth is he plays an awkward sort of geeky character. And I believe he's, Jesse Eisenberg, is that his name? Yeah, it wasn't even geeky. It wasn't even awkward geeky. It was just like awkward jerk. Yeah, unfortunately. But I mean, maybe he's finding it hard not to be Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, the Facebook guy, exactly. There you go. We also got, well, I must say while we were in the theater, the rough cutting, although I enjoyed sort of the experience of it, it really made me realize how much I love TCM and just being able to see things in the optimal quality. Absolutely. Recently, we got to watch, although we had PV art from earlier, we watched Night Nurse, Barbara Stanwick. I love Barbara Stanwick so much. She plays a character. She's, you know, street smart cookie off the street. Which I guess makes sense. And she ends up going into nursing school in an attempt to better her life or whatever. And she really wants to help people. But she ends up with this tough as nails blonde friend. And there's a few little kind of sensationalistic bits at the start. Yeah. A little bit like, ooh, ladies touching each other. But it gets into this sort of, Barbara Stanwick almost turns into this PI by the end of the film. Yeah. She's taking punches, she's giving punches. Yeah. She's throwing things at people. And who was the like main bad guy? Well, he was Clark Gable, which was bizarre. Without the mustache. He was Nick. I didn't recognize him, purchased. Nick the chauffeur. And everyone in the film refers to him as Nick the chauffeur. And he wears a chauffeur's uniform, but it's perfect. Like what struck me about the film is that it's perfectly black. Like that uniform actually looks amazing on him. He looks like a stormtrooper in that thing. With his look back hair. Yeah. It's just like the helmet. He's very intimidating. He like, he never pulls a gun or anything like that. You know, he just not steps into frame. Yeah. And everything stops. He's not terribly violent or anything like that. Like, but he's very intimidating throughout the whole thing. He does punch a lady in the face, which you don't see very often. Yeah, there's a little bit of mess smacking going on. Not often enough. That's what I'm saying. But yeah, I did feel a little bit with the Maltese Falcon. Like I fell out of focus when the sloppy real changes and stuff. So yeah. It made me really miss the mainfare a lot. It's this little like theater where you have to get a membership and they always play like double features. Yeah, I think every city probably has their little art house. Every city should at least. To round up our little movie news, we also finished the Dark Knight. Yeah, that's right. I still think Harvey Dent was the best part of that movie. Although, you know what? I read somewhere that they were thinking of having two-phase comeback for the next movie. But how are they going to do that? He was supposed to be dad. But of course, it's Batman. So yeah, I actually thought Gary Oldman was amazing in that film. Oh, he saved it. Well, I mean, he's lecture was good. Everyone was good. But he decided to go to this weird period piece character thing that he was doing and he was almost acting in his own film. He was like, "No, screw you guys. I'm going to make a 70s cop movie." Yeah. And it was fantastic. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Yeah, it was pretty good. It helped me focus on something other than the Batman voice. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I kept thinking what would happen if you were halfway through a Superman scene, like one of the new Superman films, and then all of a sudden he was just starting going, "I'm going to get you." It just sounds- Something get that man in a throat lens. It sounds so ridiculously- I don't even think he did that in the last film though. Did he not? I believe it was more pronounced. This film had to be. They must have gotten more dialogue. He was more angry, I think. There was a lot of Bruce Wayne scenes. Oh, Kristen. Anyway, it was still a good film. It was still a good film, but at the same time- It was still a good film, but at the same time, given the hype that we had heard about it, I was kind of- Yeah, I was let down- And waiting so long to launch it too. That's why we should not wait so long. Well, no, I waited because I wanted to be able to approach the film with a relatively unbiased- Unbiased, yeah. Objective view of the thing, and especially getting away from Heath Ledger's death a little bit, because I really feel like a lot of the reviews for the film- I know how broken up you were when he died. Yeah. It was really hard for you. No, no disrespect to Heath Ledger really. To get off movie news, you want to hear something odd that I picked up over the week? Always. Apparently, Andrew Lloyd Webber, a musical magnate, has come out to the press and said that Michael Jackson wanted to play the Phantom of the Opera. That would have been fantastic. He already looked like a monster. I don't think- Like, give him the half-face mask and he's good to go. You know what? I got to say that I read the show notes a little earlier, and when I saw MJ wanted to play Phantom, I totally thought you meant the comic book character. Oh, the Phantom, that would have been awesome. And I thought that was so cool. That was all, like, excited. And I thought, man, he must have been pissed at Ben Aff. Because we're in in that. Oh, I'd love to see Michael Jackson punching guys in the skull ring. Yeah, totally. I mean, the Phantom of the Opera, too. Breaking is wrist in the middle of it. Yeah, anyway, I thought it would also be extra cool if they went back to more of a Cheney version of the Phantom or the original style ghoulish effect, as opposed to- Yeah, I remember you had some Phantom comic books and they were like- Oh, you're talking about the purple suit guy again? Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I know, I do have some old-school Phantom comics, that's true. See that? That was old-school Phantom. Well, see, I was thinking the original one, Cheney film version. You've definitely seen, like, at least stills from the movie. He looks very skeletal, his nose is kind of pushed back. Yeah, I do recall that. Which, you know, kind of has a little bit of Michael Jackson's facial structure. You know, you're- yeah, yes. So where didn't he do it? He died. I don't know if you've heard, but time for- Freshfish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always-listening, 3-day fish. A flashcast, 3-day fish with fresh fish. Just commenting on Transformers 3, this one will be fairly quick. And that is because, well, it's just another Transformers movie. The only thing that really stood out to me that I liked was they had the humans play an actual useful role in the fighting, which in two, like, they were so useless, I just kept thinking, "Why are they even fighting? Why don't they just let the Autobots take care of business?" But yeah, all in all, no surprises. I think I'm gonna have to give this a yellow light, though, that may be generous. If you like action, or you like the other two Transformers movies, then you'll like this movie. But I'm not so good. So yeah, that's all. Always listening. Thanks, fish. I have to say I'm not really too surprised about the cautious approach to Transformers. I haven't really enjoyed any of my Transformers experiences. I don't think I've sat through with the- The recent Transformers experiences, I should say. I always wondered about the fact that the humans in the Transformers universe don't really fit in with the combat situation. Like, even when they were using the- I don't remember what the toy line they were trying to push was. It wasn't headmasters, it was one of the other ones, but they did eventually try to give you little dudes that would be inside certain Transformers, and they would somehow work together, because it was always the thing. I think the only reason the human gets injected in there is because two child's mind, they want to be like, "I have fun with him." Yeah, I can be a Transformer too. My brother, when he was a kid, wanted to be a turtle. It never happened for him either. Now, am I wrong in remembering that there's actually a Transformer? I thought it was a mega-Supreme, but I'm probably wrong about that. He was so powerful that he essentially only appeared on a few episodes, but was then cast off to like the Antarctic. He was supposed to be like defending the Antarctic, because he was so powerful that he would have been- Oh, mega-chronous. Yeah, he would have been the solution to every problem for the Autobots. If they had kept him on the show, he would have been the only one who ever did anything. The rest of the Autobots would have been sitting around a pool, sipping on oil, and we have whatever. Souping up cars for a living. Yeah. They were cars. Tourist rides. I'm going to get hate mail for that. Giving tourist rides. Yeah. Anyway, thanks a lot, fish. Always appreciated. Very much. Thank you. Film avoided. Yeah. Fishland's in some accompanying mail, actually, with two ideas for flashpaulpe fan names, because I think flashers as funny as it is, is just not sustainable. He considered pulpists, which is, uh, it's okay. It sounds too much like cultists to me. Which is fun, but not safe. Neither is being a flasher. Yeah. Or, yeah, fair enough. And I called it first, though it was a bad name. Mind you, it would be even better if I came up with a good name, but I hadn't. I just need to say the old one. Or be flash mob. Any accompanying is it with, like, yeah, I'm part of the flash mob. And the most hipster voice one could muster. I like that. I really like the flash mob. Yes. So old. Done. So how done? I've already started a Facebook group. If the flash mob eventually ends up rivalling the flashpaulpe Facebook page, then I think we'll just move everything over to the one operation. Because we have other options on a group page, like being able to put up polls and larger discussions that other people can see. And there's a lot to like there. So we'll see. Maybe this will be our temporary clubhouse. Anyway, other suggestions are, uh, happy to be heard for club houses, but I think flash mob is sold. Yes. Thank you, fish. And no time for. It's a bit of a slow week for mail. Big holiday weekend, both in Canada and the US. Actually last year, this was our worst weekend for essentially the whole year. No, that's not true. Christmas was the other huge drop off, frankly. There was a huge lull in that break there, but. Anyway, we did get a few submissions. Very nice to hear from Joe. Hello, flashcast crew. Joe from Colorado. But coming to you from the banks of the Green River in Wyoming, we're visiting my mom and celebrating our nation's birthday by lighting illegal fireworks with my son and his family safely. That's really cool. Joe's really been getting around lately. Not to say Joe gets around Linda. I mean, especially with his siblings and mom. Yeah. Yeah, well fair enough. Way to go illegal fireworks. Safe illegal fireworks. Safe as illegal fireworks can get. On my on, I must say, Joe, on every expedition I've ever taken to the United States, anytime I have seen a large store selling fireworks, it is in direct line of sight of a large store selling bulk alcohol. Yeah. I don't know if that's a coincidence. I don't know if that's because one of the few places I really got to explore was North Carolina and that's how they roll. Sorry, Jeff. Anyway, so first a teaser. I'll be coming to you from yet another state next week. This has turned out to be a summer of travel for us. Sorry, I missed calling in last week. As JRD mentioned, we were in Alabama meeting my daughter at the end of the Air Race Classic. She and her teammate finished 19th out of 42 teams. Not as good of a finish as they wanted, but still very respectable. JRD got most of the details right last week. The teams fly single engine planes and must fly using visual flight restriction during the race. No instrument flying and no acrobatics, sorry. Because of the visual restrictions and some very bad weather through the midwest of the US, there was a wrinkle this year. They cut the race in half to avoid the weather. This was a bit frustrating, but the girls had a great race and were very proud of them. I still think that sounds like a fantastic sport. That's something I could really get behind. Yeah, that's really cool. I don't know how you could turn that into a reality TV show or something that you would televise, but it feels like something maybe... I know they're all timed and stuff, but maybe you could put tracking information on the internet or something. There's got to be some way to get this to be spectator friendly. Yeah, webcams. Webcams on the plane. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. GPS tracking on the web or something. I'm looking for the thing. That's my visual point. Look, it's the thing. And just a constant shot on the AV-Eaters face. That would be a time time entertainment. Or like, not necessarily just their face, but like where they're looking at or something. Yeah, they could also wear a helmet. It could be awesome. True fact, I pictured Joe's daughter wearing an Amelia Earhart helmet at all times. We hope it's true. But it serves, it has a much better fate, though. Oh, goodness, yes. Gee's jaredy. So I guess Flasher is out? While I'm not a tax attorney, you might want to think about the tax implications of making us skin or co-employees. I would recommend bringing us on board as unpaid interns. Your call. Catching up from the episode I missed, I like Ellen Page's Ruby, but had some other suggestions. First, Anna Pacuen from The First X-Men, or possibly Amber Tamlin or America Ferrara from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I was going for a late teen independent with a slight attitude person. See, I like Anna Pacuen, but I can't picture her being grumpy enough to be Ruby. But Bill makes her so angry. Makes her angry and sullen, but not grumpy. You've cut open a vein of information you may not know of beforehand. There's a lot of true blood that happens in this house. We love Anna Pacuen. Sorry, but yeah, I think that would be an excellent choice. Yeah, excellent suggestions. Now, I have to admit, I don't really know much about America Ferrara's acting abilities, but visually she does to me, seeming to support the role. She has sort of the right to look. I don't really know what you're both. She's got the love. I don't know much about Amber Tamlin at all either, sorry. But good choices, Joe. Note on Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Linda likes Chick Flicks. I like Linda. Ergo, I like Chick Flicks. As for Mother Gran, I would like to propose Linda Hunt. She played the shit-out mapes in Dune. I hesitate to mention that disaster of a movie, but Linda was great in her part. I think she could play Mother Gran very well. The last thing I'd like to discuss is Cube, the sequel, and the prequel, which was called Cube Zero. I agree with Jaredie's assessment of the end of Cube. It blew chunks. The appeal of the movie to me, though, was the mathematical nature of the Cube. I actually have a scholarly treatise on the subject that is really cool. As we've discussed before, I'm a geek. I didn't care for the sequel, Hyper Cube. They tried to extend the idea in Cube by extending the Cube to another dimension, and it just didn't work for me. The prequel tried to explore the origins of the Cube, and was, in my opinion, pretty good. It's been a few years since I watched it, so I don't remember a ton of details. I do think it's worth a watch, though. I agree. I think that Dune gets bagged on a lot. This is sort of a side note, and there's a lot to hate about Dune, but there are also aspects of that film that really shine. I think that the production had a lot of flaws going into it, and I would have liked to seen Geiger's sort of artistic vision towards the sort of organic feeling that that film should have underwent. I wonder if they'll remake it sometime. I mean, it's Dune. As soon as you put David Lynch in sort of that high production studio situation with a film that is essentially, there's a lot of "weirdness" to Dune, but at the same time it is essentially a classic epic, and having David Lynch, who is a very unorthodox director, and a very sort of orthodox display-like role, it was going to be a tough sell one way or another, I think. Anyway, Linda Hunt is an excellent selection. I think she has the exact right look, absolutely. And that's, I think, Joe included a link to the "Math of the Cube," which I thought was really interesting. And actually, I have to say it was enough to make me want to go back and review the film, despite the fact that the ending was really rough, just to be able to dig into the... Into the math? To be able to dig into the reality of the situation, because I like physics at work out properly, I like math at works, I like, you know, secret backbones that operate well in a premise, and the ending was ridiculous, but yeah, I like math. You're a geek, too, and that's okay. Finally, I'd like to throw props to Ingrid and her stories. I'm in total agreement with all of you, regarding how entertaining and well-narrated her stories are. Thank you very much. Well, that's it today. Take care. So I'll include his link in the show notes, certainly. And yeah, Ingrid is great. I just reiterate that her blog, she has a blog of all of her Viennese legends up at vienneselegends.blogspot.com. Or check out Dancing Ella's words. @dancing Ella.blogspot.com. That's for her poetry. And the occasional short story as well. Yes, very lovely. And speaking of Ingrid, she actually has a fantastic entry to provide for us this week, and a little bit of a short one, but I really, I must admit, I peaked ahead a little bit. And I really enjoyed this one. The mystery of wind and rain around St. Stephen's Cathedral. You can imagine that the devil wasn't pleased to see how the skilled and busy craftsmen constructed St. Stephen's Cathedral. So he made an alliance with the wind and the rain, and asked him to hunt around the building. In that way, he thought he could keep the workers away from their eagerly doing. But cheerfully and with devout prayers, the builders continued their work. Angrily and without achieving his goal, the devil moved back to hell. But he forgot to take the wind and the rain with him. So since that time, they both were loudly lamenting around St. Stephen's Cathedral. Soon Viennese had a little rhyme on the lips. Even when in the entire country the weather is fair. You can be sure that it's windy or rainy at St. Stephen's Square. That was very nice. Yeah, I really liked that one. I get the feeling I may say that every week, but I really enjoyed that one. I like the sort of snappy premise to the whole thing. Yeah. Sometimes it's nice not to have a lead protagonist, just sort of a place. You know, it feels more of an urban legend in that sense. And that's why it's rainy. Yeah, not to say St. Stephen's Cathedral is an essentially a character in almost every one of these. You really get a feel for it. You know, have you ever heard of Jonathan Colton? The name rings a bell. The internet superstar Jonathan Colton, he wrote "Code Monkey" and "The Portal Meat Song." Oh, yeah, and um... Zombie. Zombie's ate my brains. Yeah. He ate your brains. Yes, he does a sort of geek cruise, I believe, with a number of other sort of lead... Cool. You know, internet, Illuminati, Illuminati. Internet elite people. And they go about, I don't even know where the cruise goes, frankly, but I was thinking that if we ever got enough people together that there'd be bothered for some sort of cruise, we should go on some sort of European road trip. Yeah. That'd be fun. I do like it awesome. See you in good. Mm-hmm. It would have to have a stop at St. Stevens. Absolutely. That would be like... And she would read for us. Yeah. Our favorite story is... Okay. Done. Sounds good. You know what we should do? We should get... And Geruda, I hope you got a lot of coaches. We should get Joe's daughter to ferry us around. Yeah. She can fly us about... A plane. Yeah, one in a couple of times, though, yeah. That one engine. Yeah, it really holds so... I wonder how applicable a light plane... I wonder how... Yeah, I think it's completely different. How big can you fly? Well, no, I shouldn't. I don't know. Well, what I was going to say was, I wonder how applicable light plane experiences to flying an airship, because it seems like that would be the appropriate thing for us to have some sort of large... Mm-hmm. You know, Hindenburg style. Maybe we could avoid the... The death. Yeah, the hydrogen. We'll go with the helium. The burning on fire. Well, we won't start a war with the United States, so as to... No, but we'll definitely need a German. Thanks a lot, Ingrid. That was fantastic. But that's the end of Mailbag. So I guess it's time to move on to... Back through watch. Okay, we'll throw in immediately with the... Who would you cast? And this week I was thinking a little bit of a curveball. Sergeant Smith. And I had a very clear picture on who I would pick. And I thought J.R.D. would laugh at me. I couldn't remember the guy's name for the life of me. But one of our friends just recently posted a... theatrical trailer for... What is it, Sunshine? Sunshine Cleaners. Sunshine Cleaners. And I was like, "That guy! The old guy!" And Alan Arkin, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think Alan Arkin would be fantastic. Before we continue this discussion, Jessica May, who would you pick as Sergeant Smith in a film? And it could be somebody who's dead. Yeah, anybody. What about Humphrey Bogart? Do you think he'd go that far? He could do that. No? I just think it's old wrinkly weather. Oh, like super old Bogart? Yeah. Like when it was all... Ricky? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. If he was Sergeant Smith's... Smith's age, Smith is. Smith says... Yeah, but he died a little too young to really get to the point where... Yeah, if we're going for people who died, then maybe he spends tracing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know. Spencer Tracy. Oh, not the right... As odd as this sounds, it's not the right body type for me. We're Spencer Tracy. And it's just not quite the right... Spencer Tracy is just a little too gruff. Sergeant Smith is gruff, but he's not Spencer Tracy gruff. But think of Spencer Tracy without a smart mouth. Yeah, but what is Spencer Tracy without a smart mouth? Uh... Spencer Tracy and Smith. Yeah, maybe. Well, I was actually thinking, I actually agreed with you before I even posed this to you. I had thought of Alan Arkin as the role, and I thought it would be fantastic to see him actually doing the role speechless. That was a large part of... Mm-hmm. I thought he would be able to carry that well. For real, exactly. Although he too has quite the smart mouth, doesn't he? Yeah, he does. But I suppose that's the advantage of making the character mute. But what do they do, mine? They have to be a very expressive actor. Anyway, on to other actual plotting news. We did a three-parter nurture, and I just wanted to discuss a little bit about it. Uh, yeah. I love this. This was actually technically last weeks. This isn't this weeks. But I just wanted to sort of touch in with it to get touch base with it again. To note a trend that we tend to lose a lot of about 15% of the downloads between the first episode and the third episode. And I wonder, do people not enjoy the three-parters? Are they listening to the one-parters and are realizing that there's other parts to them? I'm not sure. The first episode, there's usually a drop of about 15%, like I said, between the first episode and the third episode. And that's been actually fairly consistent, no matter how many... Like, even though the audience has been widening slowly. Um... Even back in the day, that was true. That's interesting. So I don't know if it's that people sometimes go back and re-listen to the first couple, just to be like, what was going on again? Or if it's a matter of... I know, I would tend to do that. Go back and be like, oh, yeah. Now I know it's this and I want to hear how, you know? Now, onto this week's plotting stuff. I just wanted to make a quick note. We released a coffin episode just earlier. And it's interesting. There are, I get a certain amount of flippancy in those stories, because I get to go to town a little bit with Bunny, and how I write her, and how to sort of the edge I can write her language. But I had coffin making a little joke at one point in the story, and I had to take it out. Even though it was a joke that I really thought was funny, because it was totally inappropriate, and it was actually followed up by another joke with Bunny, like an even better joke, frankly, by Bunny. Immediately afterwards. I don't know if joke's the right word, but gag, if you will. And I had to cut his joke, just because it was too, it aimed at the story too funny. - He has to use trees, yeah, the ink. - But it was also him having to be the straight guy, yeah. Just it was too out of character. He can make a little joke, but he can't. - Or he can make a joke if she's not there. - Yeah. - That's true. - He's a joke mutterrer. That's what he is. He's a guy who will mutter a joke, but he can't just drop a line like Bunny does. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. - But he doesn't like Bunny does it. - Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on to... - The audio. An acid of hope. - So, I recorded a couple songs today. They're not mine, there's somebody else's, but I'm putting them on maitons, and it'll be the first time since January. Yeah. - I'm very excited to hear them. I haven't even had a chance to hear them yet. - Uh, I just like listen. I think you can hear my bracelets in it. The animals outside, the odd baby on the baby monitor. Like these were quick- - Only the odd baby. - Some of them aren't even monitored. It's just, you know, hope they survive. But yeah, they're gonna be there. Charity has to show me through the process again. I'm getting back to my blog because I can't figure out how to get my song posted. I know I'm not as geeky as I should be. Well, the whole idea was to get you back upright and to get you into posting again. And frankly, no one really pushed this on you. You just totally took the reins on this one. - Oh, and today was the worst day. Like there's so many like little floods in the basement for so many different reasons on the brand new carpet. I was freaking out all day. And then finally when the babies went down, I said screw it, I am doing this. I am doing nothing but this. And I shut the door and did my thing. Actually, I recorded something that I thought that I'd been practicing for a while before I'd stopped practicing 'cause I got too busy with all the other stuff I do. And I recorded it and then realized it wasn't the one I was practicing. So I went and did the other one and my fingers are very sore. But I have something to show for it. - Very nice. I'm very happy to hear that. - Can't wait to hear it, yeah. - Oh please God, don't do it when I'm around. I have issues. - Yeah, nobody tell her that you listen to it. - No, you can tell me you listen to it. I just don't want to hear myself as you listen to it. It's very specific. - Yeah, we can't listen to it around you. - The art of narration. - So I finally got like, well, I wouldn't say I got my iPhone fixed. I got a new iPod. So I have an internet connection and I've got a new Instagram feed. Or rather, I shouldn't say even a new Instagram feed because I didn't have one before. So I have an Instagram feed now. - 'Cause the new iPod touch has a camera, right? Two cameras. - Yes, actually it does, that's right. I'm really excited about that because I've been so jealous about the camera having your own little Instagram feed. So now I have one and anybody who's interested. - Okay, two things. One, Instagram is a photo program. It's sort of a social networking photo program where you can follow each other and see each other's pictures. Two, what is your username? - A Popenex. - Spelled. - O-P-O-P-A-N-A-X. - Very nice. And I actually also have an Instagram feed if people are interested. Although frankly, most of my good pictures end up on my Twitter feed. You can find me at @jarityskinner. Either on Twitter or on Instagram. And I guess, Jessica May, you should probably mention yours as well. - Mm-hmm. On Instagram, I'm the Jessica May. - The Jessica May. - Isn't that also your Twitter? - I believe so. - Not that you use the Twitter very often. - Only when I sync up my Instagram photos. - Yeah, so I thought anybody who'd be interested in seeing what we see. We like to share it. You know what else? We got a really cool bit of fanfic from a certain fish I knew. - No, that's good. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - Put it in there. - Yeah. I just recorded it yesterday. And we'll pop it into the back of the show today. - Yeah, really. - I really enjoyed this one. It's a Mulligan Smith story. And I think Fish really got the idea. Like, really captured the spirit of Mulligan in this one. - Yeah, I think this is definitely his sharpest of the story so far. - Yeah, I really enjoyed it. - Yeah, you said when you were reading it, it was very like fluid in that the edits were minimal. - Mm-hmm. - Um, he used a word that just made me stop reading and just exclaim to Jamie how fantastic the story was. He used the word "pressed digitation." - Mm-hmm. - And that made me so excited. All I could think of was Merlin and the sword and the stone. - [laughs] - Just a little song. It made me so excited. - Very nice. - Anyway, everybody should listen to that because it was a really good story. - Yeah, so thanks a lot, Fish. We appreciate the fiction. - Thank you. - And stay tuned until after the show. Well, until the end of our little thank yous. - Mm-hmm. - And speaking of thank yous, we should give a big thanks to Jim over the radio. - Thanks, Jim. - Thank you, Jim. - For hosting the site flashpulp.com and also the wiki at wiki.flashpulp.com. With a lot of fantastic edits by Popenax recently, you should go check that out. And actually speaking of special episode one, all of the urban legends we've run on flashpulp.com. Have appeared with some extra sources on the wiki. - That's right. - So you may want to investigate that as well. - Mm-hmm. - If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashpulp.com. Call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792 or email us text or mp3s to skinner@skinner.fm. Jessica May's vocal talents and musical stylings can be found at maytunes.com. - Yeah, soon. - A Popenax's artistic work in general updates can be located at popenaxfeathers.wordpress.com. - Cricuts! - The entire run of flashpulp can be found at flashpulp.com or via the search bar at iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution on commercial 2.5 license. And now time for some fish. ♪ If the shadows are near with our number left ♪ ♪ Little light clouds will never awake when you worry ♪ ♪ Not where the blackboards of our own has taken you ♪ ♪ In those who have no thought of ever returning you ♪ ♪ To a day behind me ♪ ♪ By the way, I love joining you ♪ Mulligan, standing in the game room of the hobby store known as King's Keep, took a long draw in his straw as Tuttle tried to explain a war-themed tabletop strategy game to him. The room contains several four by eight tables, standing four feet high, each with its own scenery. A snowy forest of fake trees covered in sawdust painted white. A graveyard with a plastic cathedral painted worn and aged, as though it had seen by gone centuries. A cratered moon landscape with a crashed NASA ship model. Mulligan found himself towering over a bombed urban battleground, complete with cracked streets, train tracks, and disrepair, and a collapsed school. "Now any uterine foot can move six inches on regular terrain," said Tuttle as he elaborated on the movement phase of the game. "But if the terrain is considered difficult or dangerous, you roll 2d6 and take the highest to see how far you can get in. If you roll one, you have to attempt an armor save, or you'll take a wound on the squad." The detective was more interested than he looked, standing there sucking down his melting treat. While he found the prices of the models absurd, he was more than happy to learn from Tuttle, and to play a few friendly matches with the man. "What is all this?" asked a voice. Mulligan and Tuttle turned to see a gentleman older than either of the pair approaching the table. He was wearing a weathered olive green field jacket. The old man took off the gloves he was wearing, and stuffed them into the already bulging pockets. He then proceeded to retrieve a pair of glasses from his left breast pocket. "It's cold war," began Tuttle. "It's like risk, but with models that have special rules," cut in Mulligan, sparing the old man the well-practiced lecturer Tuttle had for any who showed curiosity in the game. The geese are nodded. Something appeared to have caught his eye, and he made a grab at the table. Mulligan watched as the old timer turned the coin in his hand. The coin, as Tuttle had earlier explained, could be used to denote which turn you were on in the game. With hand gestures suggestive of the magical, the old man made the coin disappear and reappear several times, and Mulligan thought Tuttle was enjoying himself a bit too much. The PI simply watched and politely applauded the elderly fellow. "Well, I'm gonna take a whiz and get home," who used the old timer. As the man left, Mulligan mumbled something about needing something out of his car, and stepped out. The old man stopped short as he saw the sleuth leading on his car draining the last of his slurpee. Tossing the empty cup into the open window of the adjacently parked herself, Mulligan spoke. "You run a nice concert. You pull off some pressed-a-digitation and bring smiles wherever you go. You leave people with happy memories of meeting a nice old man with some wonderful tricks. But the owner keeps good track of his glue, and I can't help but wonder why you keep such a ratty-looking sock in the back of your car." Mulligan looked pointedly at his elder's bulging jacket pockets. The old man's shoulder sagged and he looked dismayed. Mulligan approached the old man and laid a hand on his shoulder. Return the rubber cement, kick the habit, and make some real friends. You'll live longer. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]