Episode 35 : If it weren’t for my horse…

It’s an odd mix of sedate dead-air and loud angry rants!  What could be better!  We alternate between long, drawn-out sighs and quiet, pensive thinking, with angry, bile-spewing tirades about… well, a variety of things.

 

Extra bonus features:  Really stupid things to say, and a surprise wedding for Sweeps week!

 

LINKS:

Yay for Mark for finding this!  Now you can not only listen to the Hat, you can actively persue it!

Fuck you, penguin!

UPDATE : Bloodsparrow found the Lewis Black video clip!  Yay, Bloodsparrow!

 

 

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13 Responses to Episode 35 : If it weren’t for my horse…

  1. Mark says:

    Sound: Keeping in mind that I listened using laptop speakers this time and not earbuds; I thought the podcast sounded much better this week. William’s voice wasn’t ridiculously quiet compared to Tony’s and there wasn’t the usual muddy quality to the sound.

    Supernatural: How could that show possibly get any worse that it already is? I tried watching it a few times but the characters were unlikable and the dialogue was moronic.

    It doesn’t matter how long a show lasts, it should just have a well-defined story arc with a decent ending. And when you’re done with that story, if people want more from that TV universe, then a new show with a new story arc should be set within it (rather than forcing the same show to continue). Or maybe we should just switch over to doing bunches of excellent miniseries like the BBC (e.g. Sherlock, Jekyll, etc..).

    Speaking of shows that went on too long, how about Stargate: SG-1? It started off decent enough, went bad for a while and then had a decent season or two before the gorram Sci-Fi channel killed it (and for God’s sake it IS Sci-Fi, not Siffy or Syfii or whatever they renamed it to)! And now that I’m talking about Stargate, was anybody else disappointed that they killed Stargate Universe so soon?

    Malice in Wonderland sounds decent and it’s been in our instant queue for quite some time. Another sidetracking thought, do other people constantly add stuff to their instant queue and then feel disappointed later when they go through it and can’t find anything they feel like watching?

    Tony’s initial reaction to William bringing up X-men: First Class made me think of this clip from Puss in Boots which got me to watch this trailer for PnB which has to be one of the best meta-commercials I’ve ever seen.

    Back to X-men: First Class, it was a lousy movie with some features of interest. Prof X was ok, Magneto was ok and together their scenes were the best in the movie (except of course for Wolverine’s cameo), as all the “x-kids” were just terrible. Mystique being Xavier’s adopted sister is tolerably weird. Her basically wanting to be Xavier’s lover/girlfriend/whatever is not. I’m pretty sure there is some precedent for Beast’s attitude of not wanting to be a mutant in the original comic books, but what I cannot forgive the movie for with his character is the special effects once he goes “full” Beast. That make-up & costume just looked like shit compared to the Beast in the other X-men films.

    Oh for the love of God, Tony please do not describe the taste of your belches ever again!

    Congrats to Blueclaw! Kim Talon? Spy drama? I was thinking it sounded more like a porn-star name…

    Mmmm, corn dogs.

    Geesh guys, Larry Page is one of the founders of Google. Also it’s important to remember if you’re getting something for free online, odds are you are the product.

    Privacy: Small communities do not have the ability to monitor and track people’s business on the scale that an abusive government could via the Internet. In part because the Internet (and by extension cheap computer processing power and storage) enables governments to store massive amounts of data about all us. Data that can in turn be analyzed to determine what people are likely to do before they do it. Sure this is handy in say allowing Police Depts to assign extra patrol officiers to areas of cities that are expected to have additional/increased amounts of crime before those crimes occur. But it also reeks of 1984.

    Just because it’s non-fiction doesn’t mean we haberdashers are uninterested. Science books sound like they could be interesting. Maybe William could elaborate a bit (at least mention the science topics if you’re not comfortable with naming favorite authors/titles).

    I also liked the Donaldson’s Unbeliever series, though most people I know don’t care for them and refer to them as “Thomas the Whiner”. Side note: I’ve placed holds at the library for the next several books in the Dresden files.

    • William says:

      Well, honestly, that was my initial reaction to Supernatural as well. But then I realized that much of what bothered me about the show was determined by my expectations. And I don’t mean expectations as to how good or bad it was, but expectations as to what kind of show it was. At first I thought the show took itself a bit too seriously. But after watching for a while, I realized this wasn’t the case.

      • Mark says:

        So you’re saying the way to enjoy Supernatural is to go into expecting to heckle every episode? If that’s the case, when it’s available for Netflix streaming I’ll add it to my queue and try it again.

        • William says:

          More like, they do plenty of heckling of themselves. When I first watched it, based upon things I was told about it, I expected it to be… I don’t know… seriously creepy, I guess. But it’s more funny than creepy, and the violent things that happen are pretty-much B-movie shtick. Also, many times the drama is surprisingly effective. But, then again, there’s no telling what I’m bringing to it. I’m probably a sucker for stories that feature two brothers working together. I always wished my older brother would go into business with me, but…

  2. Stuart says:

    Sound is much better this week. Sound doesn’t really have any noticable ‘dull’ quality to it, and William is much louder!

    Which is the one about all the characters like Snow White suddenly transported to Maine? Or something. I’ve caught a couple of episodes of that, it actually seems ok. It looks hopelessly low budget when they’re in the “story” world, but I suppose they’re waiting to see how it does before throwing money at it. It’s not my typical kind of show, but I certainly don’t mind sitting down to watch it. As an aside, can I assume that Star Gate Universe has gone belly up, given Robert Carlyle’s presence? That’s quite sad, I hadn’t got far into watching that.

    Solution to Dresden Files #13… read it! I finally realised the voice I’ve slipped into in my head while reading Storm Front. Does anyone remember the Bladerunner game on the PC? It was a point and click adventure using pre-rendered backgrounds. Anyway, the main character, another scruffy guy in a duster, is the voice I have in my head. No idea why, I haven’t played it for years and years and years (it’s a REALLY old game).

    I think show length depends on whether you have an underlying story. 24’s story is more or less wrapped up in a season, so continuing it isn’t a big deal. Something like Battlestar Galactica, though, had to end when it did. It was a perfect length (4 seasons), without dragging it out and without feeling like it was rushed. I can see the point about stuff like Glee, though. Glee (which is crap) and Community (which is hilarious) ought to end by the time these people graduate, but in Glee’s case at least, it almost certainly won’t happen. Agree with X-Files, too, which was a shame. I think I’ve only seen up to 7, certainly haven’t seen any of the stuff sans Mulder yet. Nor have I seen the season of SG1 without McGyver. Got a feeling neither will be good, despite me loving both shows.

    You can’t give away a horse, these days. People can’t afford to keep them, and you can go online and almost have your pick of breed for $100. It’s really rather sad. Unless the person had a thoroughbred in its prime, or and andalusian, there’s a decent chance selling it won’t pay for college. Hell, probably won’t cover a text book.

    Fascinating discussion on privacy, we should do that down the pub one evening. So, my crappy Star Wars analogy aside (sorry, that’s how I instinctively frame things in my mind), the question is essentially thus: Google products are free, they’re quite often very useful and we almost certainly forego, wittingly or not, the notion that they’re hording all of this data collected to make a profit. Wether you subscribe to their “Do no evil” mantra is probably netheir here nor there. They’re a publically traded company, and make a profit. The other side of the coin is that, due to various blunders (Buzz, etc), they’re subject to close scrutiny from the FCC, which recently announced they must acquiesce to third party audits for the next 20 (!) years. I’d be surprised if Facebook was under such scrutiny. Hell, Zuckerberg has openly said if he could do Facebook over, he’d remove privacy from the go. And that’s the thing, it’s not so much that you don’t have controls over your privacy; I’ve got my Facebook and Google+ accounts locked down with tiers of access for family/friends, and then random people I know. It’s that using these products surrenders all your data to the agent, even if they have woolly T&Cs which state the data is still owned by you.

    So, do we care? Actually, I don’t think you can avoid it, which is what you both alluded to. Yes, we can share information to people all over the globe, and get up to the minute tweets from #warravagedcountryx, but behind the scenes, the price is that the information is being used to make money. I suspect we have to be grateful that’s all it’s used for – this data accessed irresponsibily, like the unecrpyted location data on your older iPhone (!), has all sorts of deeper security concerns, even personal safety. That ties in neatly to the discussion on CCTV. I think I’m right in saying the UK has the most CCTV cameras of any country in the world, something we need to thank our previous “We’re actually right leaning – oh wait, you thought we were the socialists of old? Lol, no” Government for. Here, the security issues are much more tangible. People can SEE me, physically, when we don’t want them to. I think this is why people are so against CCTV, whereas they generally post all manner of crap publically to Facebook all day long.

    Anyway, where am I parked? Well, like I said, I don’t think we can avoid our information being absorbed, processed and spun to make a buck. So, as a trade-off, I accept it and use the free services, which I believe are fantastic. Google+ hangouts with 10 other people video conferencing? Yes please, it means all my family on the other side of the pond can kinda join in my daughter’s birthday parties. I largely organize my home life around Google Calendar, I’d be stuck without Gmail and I’m hopelessly attached to my (Google) Android (Droid) phone. And thus, I welcome our Google overlords. I don’t think they’ll suddenly turn around and charge for any of these services – they don’t need to, they make shooking amounts of money hand over fist my cleverly slicing and dicing the myriad of information we volunteer to them.

    I don’t actually think Paige and co will reveal any nefarious intent further down the line, but it’s an interesting discussion point, particularly if you know of the subterfuge Palpatine (pal-pa-teen, William!) used to worm his way into control. Aside from perhaps willy waving nuclear devices, the archetypes of control in the future will probably be corporate entities like Google, who could exercise ridiculous control, if they suddenly had Sith-like tendancies.

    This discussion probably needs a thread of its own. Also, apologies for any typos. I wrote this in Notepad as I was listening to the show, otherwise I forget all the stuff I was going to say!

    • Mark says:

      I believe Once Upon A Time is the Snow White in Maine one (though I’ve not watched any of either yet).

      Stargate Universe was unfortunately canceled at the end of it’s second season. I was very disappointed by that as SGU was the best Stargate show we’d had yet while also being the best Sci-Fi show on that channel since BSG. Note: It’s still worth watching if you’ve not finished it.

    • William says:

      Yeah… I can’t figure out why I pronounced Palpatine’s name that way. Things were just weird that night for some reason…

  3. Bloodsparrow says:

    “If it wasn’t for my horse…” is one of my three favorite Lewis Black bits. It’s right up there with “Look at me! Look at me! My pee has no color!” and “I will take time out of my Jewy Jewy day to sit down and talk to you about it.”

    Yay for Tony not being horribly loud!

    James Marsters used his accent in Torchwood for a very obvious reason. Captain John was essentially Spike, because Torchwood is essentially RTD’s consolation to himself for never being able to work on Buffy/Angel. Torchwood is, for all intents and purposes, is a mashup of the Doctor Who and Buffy ‘verses. IMO. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just an “it is what it is” thing.

    I didn’t watch much of Earth: Final Conflict, but I think an excellent example of what you’re talking about is Stargate: SG1 with the much later stuff after they defeat the Goa’ould and then the Ori show up and it’s a while new thing.

    Lost had a similar problem. Season 4 was HORRIBLE but the finale that year was pretty awesome.

    As I recall from the Supernatural panel I sat through at San Diego Comic Con while waiting in Hall H for the Doctor Who panel. They had a plan for three seasons… It might have been four but I think it was three. I haven’t watched the show since season 2, so everything they were talking about went over my head though I was happy to see that Bobby was still around.

    X-Men: First Class – After the Wolverine movie I just strait up don’t see X-Men movies. WHY WOULD YOU SPEND MONEY ON RYAN REYNOLDS AS DEADPOOL AND THEN SEW HIS MOUTH SHUT!!!! WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????

    (deep cleansing breaths)

    Moving on.

    “Kim Talon” is a cool name! (Don’t tell Sir Guido.)

    Grats to the soon-to-be-Talons!

    “Life, Liberty and Pursuit of the Hat” is your next t-shirt.

    “Is this something people say?”… Is an even better t-shirt.

    I hate that song BTW. Bad French can be romantic but not when delivered as mechanically as it is in that song. Seriously, he sounds like he’s standing in front of a Freshman language class

    Why would you split that deep-fried on a stick thing into two questions? That was an error on the Hat’s part. I demand some kind of compensation for splitting that up and making my question confusing and lame.

    On the subject of Sith Lords… I suggest you Google “Sith Rejects” and watch the resulting flash animation. (it’s SFW)

    On the subject of books. I just got this one on a reccomendation from the Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast. (That’s right, I’m seeing other podcasts…)

    PS – I did an itunes review…

  4. Bloodsparrow says:

    Also… Here’s the Lewis Black clip about the dumbest thing he’s ever heard…

    http://comedians.jokes.com/lewis-black/videos/lewis-black—college-horse

  5. Azuretalon says:

    Thanks for the mention. I promise my wedding is entirely consensual and, no, I also have no idea why she’s marrying me either. And thank you Bloodsparrow.

  6. SirGuido says:

    Oh and I love Supernatural purely because of its campy episodes. I love that they don’t take themselves too seriously and make fun of EVERYTHING inluding themselves.

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