WickedCestus

They released a commentary track for episode 1 of the SeeSo show today, and I enjoyed it quite a lot and hope they release more, if only because it'll give me an excuse to watch the show through again. And I also enjoyed Griffin's interview with merritt. It hit all my favourite discussion topics: parenting, working too hard, and dealing with an audience.

Some random thoughts: - I really like that Cooper has now finally become the "old man slowly walking through the scene". I think this is what the whole series has been leading up to. - The scene in the Sheriff's department is one that definitely feels like it could've used musical accompaniment. It kind of reminded me of videos where people strip the laugh track out of sitcoms. I still enjoyed it, although the dynamic where it seems like Hawk is just barely managing put up with Lucy and Andy's nonsense paints a very different picture of the sheriff's department than the friendly atmosphere of the original series. - The set dressing of Gordon Cole's office stuck out to me. Behind his desk, a giant photograph of a nuclear mushroom cloud, and in front, a portrait of Franz Kafka? - The person who's sitting on the couch after Cooper returns from the blind woman's sacrifice is Ronette Polaski. I feel like her involvement in the original series was really weird, especially how she got pulled into the sheriff's office during the final episode, only to disappear again. It would be interesting to see her story given a bigger role.

I finished Reflections today and re-watched the finale just to get myself back in the mood. I still absolutely love the series finale. While reading Reflections, there's a part where people are speculating as to what the show could've been, and I'm just trying to imagine if that episode (or at least some of the ideas in it) had showed up ten (or fifteen) episodes earlier, how much more interesting the show could've been. I mean, probably the only reason Lynch came back to direct at all was because it was the final episode, but it's still fun to ponder. I guess we'll see if any of that is resolved in the new series. I was also shocked by how much of season 2 I had just completely forgot. Hopefully, most of that stuff doesn't come up again... One thing I noticed, was that in the final scene Cooper is wearing blue pajamas. I thought this was interesting, considering the comment in the book (that you referenced in the podcast) about Lynch trying to avoid the colour blue. If I remember correctly, aren't Cooper's pajamas blue for the entire series? Was the whole "no blue" thing just a joke Lynch came up with on the spot, or is this meaningful? Really looking forward to the podcast. I re-watched the show for the third time along with your podcast - well, I skimmed through a lot of season 2 - and I'm excited to hear you guys talk about Twin Peaks every week again! (And I hope @LostInTheMovies shows up to school us all and add his insights! )

I watched the first series all in one day a few months ago, which is very rare for me. The show just felt real and honest to me in a way that stood out. I was not expecting a second season at all, and was very curious what they would do with it, since the first ended on what felt like a silly non-sequitur. But I'm amazed at how they made it fit so well into the tone of the show. I love how the second series gets a lot more conceptual - The show just feels so committed to showing the lives of people you wouldn't generally see on television, which was evident in the first series but taken to a great level in the second. RE: the final ep: I'm interested to hear more thoughts on it.

The end of the episode when Nick kept referencing things from different podcasts had me thinking: do you guys find it hard to avoid referencing old Idle Thumbs bits during IIT? It seems like Idle Thumbs is basically anything goes at this point, but IIT is trying to gain new audience members so it must be tough to not just say all the dumb stuff you're used to saying. I started thinking about this during the first few eps when most of the content was based on what you'd been talking about on previous Idle Thumbs, so you had to re-explain everything, and it seems like it would be super tough to keep that straight in your heads, especially when you always talk about forgetting everything you've said as soon as you stop recording.

Goldblum in that Mr. Frost scene feels somehow reminiscent of James Stewart to me, for some reason. That movie looks really trashy but I also kinda want to see it.

Sounds like a mild panic attack to me. I barely ever get them, but I had one randomly at work a month or so back while I was on till. I completely muddled a person's order because I couldn't think straight, and I had to call someone over to take over for me. I sat in the breakroom for a while, and was shaky for the rest of my shift and could barely leave the storeroom. Thankfully, my boss and co-workers were super understanding even though I never warned them this could happen (it's Very rare for me). Definitely best to see someone about it if it becomes a regular occurrence.

Another great ep! The titular discussion was just such a bizarre series of thoughts; I loved that it ended with Jake realizing that you guys were basically describing God.

As someone whose previous favourite Thumbs moment was "jeff gone gold", the schwarzenegger BLOPS discussion absolutely killed me. I feel like Idle Thumbs' new position as a sorta secondary podcast has really freed you guys to reach your true heights (/depths). Also RE your choose-your-own-adventure book discussion at the end, I have an example of a book that did something similar to your "dead content" idea. In Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters Remix, the chapters are structured such that upon finishing Chapter 1, it would say "Skip to page 32", and then Chapter 2 would start on pg. 32 and so on. The idea was to make the book feel like reading a tabloid or lifestyle magazine where the articles are split and jump around the issue willy-nilly. There's no choice involved like in a CYOA, but it's a similar idea. But anyway, if you just go through the book straight, without heeding the instructions, you will find sections that aren't pointed to at any other point of the book, and these sections in turn are joined to each other in a weird fun alternate-dimension sort of way. Or at least, this is my memory of the book. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that's how it worked. It's the first thing that popped in my head when you said that definitely a reader will reply and say this has already been done.

I did not notice Nick's subtle Goldblum-ing until after Jake mentioned it, and I died laughing when I went back. I initially thought that Jake was just laughing at the fact that the ending had become a weird, low-key cooking show. A great first ep! You guys certainly hit the ground running.

Haven't read this book yet, but RE watching movie adaptations before books: I find this actually works for me if I haven't seen the movie in a long time. Like, I read LOTR a few years ago after not having seen the movies since they were new-ish, and remembering the movie let me more easily picture and follow what was going on, but I didn't remember enough to actually know what was going to happen outside of Major plot events. I did the same thing recently with Pride and Prejudice; I had seen the BBC/AE miniseries when I was in 11th grade, which let me put pictures and voices to the cast, but I didn't remember anything that happened. It's an interesting way to read a book, I find.

Yeah I think the Mouth Moods discussion served as a great introduction to the new podcast format. You approached it from some clever angles, provided some interesting insight, and then had some fun with it. The moment when Jake starts his sentence with "Some.." and Nick/Chris interjected killed me, because my brain had the exact same response! Again, as I mentioned last week, this is coming from someone who was listening to Idle Thumbs before despite it being about video games, but I loved this episode. It kinda feels like an episode-length Reader Mail segment. I don't think it would work if you had just started the podcast out of nothing, but because you have this base of weird topics (Robot News, Jurassic Park, etc.) that only seem to further compound onto themselves each week as readers sends in new input, I think it works great. Sometimes, it feels like the equivalent of "outsider art" but for science, if that makes any sense.

I wish you guys didn't talk so much on the cast.

I had no idea what I was getting into with this book; I had heard the name and understood it to be somewhat beloved, but had no other context. The introduction to my edition (by Daphne Merkin, I believe) was actually kind of insane, and made the book seem like a long dream-like journey where nothing would make sense, and promised that I would not remember any scenes from the book, but instead just remember some sort of an aura. I honestly have no idea what that person was talking about, because plot-wise the book's pretty simple, albeit fantastically executed. I'll admit, I had to refer back to the family tree often in the first 100 pages or so to straighten out the characters (it switches between referring to characters by their first names and last names often), but aside from this I never felt like the book was especially complex. I didn't experience any difficulty with the prose like @marginalgloss did, but I'm not sure why that is since I wouldn't consider myself particularly experienced with prose from this era. I guess my brain just clicked with Bronte's style. I absolutely loved this book. I was making slow-goings of it, but I powered through the last 100 pages or so in one sitting last night and was riveted. It's just such a brilliantly-told story. I love how the book seems to jump back and forth in regards to who seems sympathetic and who does not; I especially felt torn during the passages regarding Cathy and Linton near the end, because their relationship was so strange and it never seemed like either of them knew what they were trying to do, and how they were hurting each other. I also read those Kate Beaton comics after finishing and they're great!

I loved this episode! The "Are bats birds?" discussion absolutely killed me, and I was going to mention Chris' wonderful descriptions of Mario if juv3nal (via Austin Walker) hadn't pointed them out already. I'm all for the direction you guys are choosing to go, if the last few episodes are any indication. Idle Thumbs is the only video game podcast I still listen to all the way through every week (I skim through the Beastcast and Waypoint), since I don't play video games that often anymore. Cast this pod however you wish and I'll tag along!

I loved the humour in this book; I was laughing from the very first page. The initial section (I think it was called a prologue?) was probably my favourite part of the book, most likely because I'm way into absurd comedy, and the rest of the book was more reserved. Which is fine, and probably good actually, because it seems impossible to write an entire novel with that pace of humour without it becoming obnoxious. The whole book kind of reminded me of Thomas King or Sherman Alexie, I suppose in the way that they are using humour to present widespread intergenerational tragedy. And that's a big compliment because those are two of my favourite humour writers! (Although it might be a bit reductive to call them "humour writers", perhaps "fiction authors who use humour well" might be better, if not a bit awkward.) I think my favourite part of the satire in this book is that it doesn't feel like each character is simply representing a single concept. Each character is complex, and showcase the various contradictions inherent to our understanding of racial issues both within their internal struggles and through their interactions with each other. It's incredibly well done! It can be easy for satire to feel a bit too on-the-nose and this book avoids that well. I don't have much to say outside of that. Absolutely deserves whatever prizes people want to give it. I'm excited for Wuthering Heights! It's been on my list for a while!!

I was playing Catacombs of Solaris and... This game kind of rules.

This is so cool.

Hi everyone! I've never made a video game before. So, I'm going to make a video game. It's Moby Dick! It's the game we have all been waiting for. This idea is based on the old dumb EA Presents joke. The Plan: It's an adventure game! It's a top-down shooter game! In the true spirit of EA Presents, I have decided to choose an entirely incongruous genre. I am going to use GameMaker. I used GameMaker once many years ago, so, this should be easy. My goal is not to create a challenging, goal-oriented video game. I think shooter games are kinda dumb! So, I'm going to attempt to use the genre in order to do something a little more interesting (to me). I want to make a video game where the fun is in playing a part in a video game. The Plot: You play as Ishmael. In this game, he is a wandering inventor, who flies across the ocean with rocket (sly)boots, killing fish just for the pure animal pleasure of it. You get noticed by a man named Ahab, who wonders if he can exploit your powers in order to fulfill his life goal.... Diversifiers: Ludo-Narrative Dissonance, Could You Repeat That?, Nice Segue, and more...

So, I'm completely brute-forcing my way through GameMaker by using various tutorials and pieces of code that I find on the internet. My goal is to make a game with GameMaker while not learning anything about Game Maker or programming along the way, and on that front, I am doing absolutely fantastic. My game has turned into something that is maybe only funny the first time you see it, and even then not for long, so I don't wanna talk too much about the concept. Right now, I'm working on hacking together level transitions using a hammer & nails, and writing the script for the game's voice-over narration. I'd like to start showing off my cool art, but first: ~~ I'd like to do the "One of These Things is Not Like The Other" diversifier. If anyone is interested in drawing a sprite for the Final Boss of my game (guess who it is!!!) either reply on here or PM me on Slack for details!

Haha! I like this idea a lot.

What an strange book. It's rather difficult for me to place my feelings about Chris. (I'm going to treat her as a fictional character because these sorts of non-fiction novels make me uncomfortable.) I can strongly relate to the impulse behind her openness. I've often thought about whether human relationships would be much easier if we were just totally honest all the time. However, this book make me think about the fact that, in a way, this can be a selfish worldview, if pushed to the extreme that it is in Chris' case. It seems that all she wants from Dick is some sort of understanding, and she believes that if she just explains it well enough and often enough, it will make sense to him. However, even if he does understand, where does that put him, and where does that put Chris? She's totally honest about her feelings, but in a way that makes it impossible for him to act on his own. On top of that, he doesn't really have any feelings regarding her until she involves him in this strange game, so everything he's going to feel is a reaction to her actions which are based on bizarre feelings that even she can't explain. It's so utterly doomed to fail. And we know this through the whole book, and I guess the idea is to explore whether this failure is intrinsic to the way humans interact, or if there is some way to change society or just individual behaviour to counteract this. I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing Chris too much. It's hard not to feel bad for both characters. You could argue that Chris chose her actions, while Dick is simply the recipient, but Chris is acting on impulses so strong that they do almost seem out of her control. Her and her husband have this sort of "modern" relationship based on total honesty, which they try to force onto Dick. Well, it's okay to be totally honest with a person (including in possibly hurtful ways) if you both agree to do that, either consciously or unconsciously, but foisting that on a stranger is a bit much! Though, of course, that is easy to say looking back on the story. At the beginning, I was caught up in their whims and I thought it all kind of made sense, in a strange way. But once it starts collapsing there doesn't seem to be any good way out for either of them. I do agree with marginalgloss that a lot of the allusions feel overdone. As attempt to justify Chris' actions, they sorta fell flat compared to her more straight-forward attempts to analyze herself. I groaned through the whole art-criticism sections, though in hindsight I do appreciate their value in the book as examples of just how wholly her thoughts are devoted to Dick, that even this irrelevant stuff has to be addressed and related to him. Like marginalgloss said, the whole thing is such a big, bizarre series of contradictions. I like the way Chris accepts this and rolls with it. It works, for me, because of that. It's hard to gleam anything concrete from it, but it's certainly an interesting story.

Great episode. I love the phrase "Ode to a War Guy". That sounds like a possible Wizard Jam title. Also, when Jake was talking about the Mario/Titanfall crossover, he said all you have to do is put a 3d Mario model in the editor and then "literally videotape it". I found that amusing.

I'd like to join in on this!!