Jake

This is very good.

Thanks! The two things we did right, I think, we’re giving Nick one of the existing studio microphones so the sound matches, and (even though it started as a little bit of a joke) putting his face on a monitor at human size/eye level in the studio so he doesn’t disappear from our perception when he’s not talking. It’s surprisjngly helpful to be able to see the subtle nonverbal cues that someone you’re in a room with is about to start talking, and having a Big Face On A Screen gets ya st least part way back there.

Idle Thumbs BONUS: Ruination Online December 2017 Enjoy this bonus episode drawn from the Idle Thumbs Patreon Ruination Online! Each month, we do a livestream where all topics have been posed by high-tier backers of our Patreon campaign: patreon.com/IdleThumbs. Due to popular demand, we're releasing the audio of that stream to the main podcast feed for easier listening. We'll be back with a regular episode of Idle Thumbs next week! Discussed: Making a comfortable office, borrowing animal features and giving them to robots, podcasting remotely, web-based applets, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Marvel Heroes, working on licensed games, intellectual properties, the books of David Mitchell, books we like, applying the rules of basic arithmetic to the Twelve Days of Christmas, international cuisine, lab-grown food, the future of food preparation, The Nutcracker, gift giving, learning a new skill, getting distracted and not learning anything, wanting to get into something that seems cool but being unable to Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Something True Holiday Special: The Resurrection of the Flesh Whatever you eat this holiday season, it won’t be anything like this. Something True returns for the holidays with the story of a monstrous pie, cooked by an English village in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Queen Victoria’s coronation. It was the largest pie ever made. Larger than reason. Larger than dreams. Large enough to hide a secret. Read a full transcript of this episode on the Something True website. Follow Something true on Twitter @atruepodcast. (Or just follow Duncan and Alex.) Music on this week’s episode: Stephan Siebert – when* Lee Maddeford – Embellir (with Les Gauchers Quintet) Jason Shaw – HOEDOWN* Chris Zabriskie – Prelude No. 15* Silence is Sexy – Holiday (instrumental)* *modified for the podcast. Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Important If True 43: The Bad Gift Special When someone says, "the gift that keeps on giving," they're usually describing something good, something exciting, something people want. But what about the bad gifts? The gift you ask for but regret? The gift you already have, then foist off onto a family member under an oath of silence? The gift that tricks your childhood brain into thinking you're a genius? The gifted Hawaiian shirts, owls, books on meerkats, or anything else given by the truckload that, once your loved ones decided you liked, and couldn't help but keep on giving year after year? We are here for you, with the Important If True Bad Gift Special. Join us for tales of gifts gone awry, gifts given on loop forever, and sometimes even the story of a bad gift that turned good. Bad gifts discussed: Opening your gifts early would ruin the surprise! Send us your questions at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. If you have a Bad Gift story for us, send it to questions@importantiftrue.com with the subject line "Bad Gift," and we'll include it in next year's special! Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

It’s crazy that in the rarest drop you can get from the alternate universe blind box machine, David Lynch directed Return of the Jedi.

Important If True 41: A Very Happy Cow There are certain pieces of knowledge, things one has observed or learned, that become like a single grain of sand in the folds of the brain. An itch you can't scratch, can't make go away. Something you know to be true but no one else sees, or the tiniest word out of place, a colloquial phrase misused by a friend. For you and your itchy brain, we are here. Rub your face up against this podcast and we'll grind those grains of mental sand away (while only adding a few new ones in the process). Discussed: Canadian politeness, Nick Breckon, sincerity, phenomena, pedanticism, sentience and sapience, TN.FN.CN, the smartest animal, less vs. fewer, encouraging grocery store express line improvements, removing the sand from my brain, Jibo the friendly robot, Jibo's obsessive desire for your love, Jibo's political agenda, sapience vs. sentience vs. love vs. robot love, cat pillow that purrs, Qoobo, dangerous capitalistic self-medication, Happy Cow bovine self-grooming device, electric automatic shoe polisher machine, extraordinarily dubious menswear advice, Important If True Bad Gift Special Chris' Endorsement: Indochino made-to-measure menswear (you can also use my referral link for $50 off, if you desire) Nick's Endorsement: Nintendo Switch video game console Jake's Endorsement: Red Giant Universe gratuitous effects to make your videos look like old VHS tapes and stuff Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

That’s the real microphone nick uses to record! We tried placing a real mic in front of the screen but it doesn’t hold up to the different camera angles - nick is either blocked by it or it appears to be hovering in front of nothing.

I almost started talking about that after realizing what I’d said, but didn’t want to sidetrack and then missed the window.

Yeah incredible.

This being the Marvel thread I think it’d be on theme to say that if we ever meet in person, I’ll fight you.

It’s such a relief that the new map is not only good, but in many ways an improvement over the first map. It makes me feel confident that PUBG has some legs.

I wonder how much of that is an audience second guessing every appearance of Fisher because of her death and how much is really a post-production scramble.

Idle Weekend December 25, 2017: Merry Night In the Woods Christmas Rob and Danielle survived a truly, comically terrible fall to podcast again! We chat about the too-realness of Night in the Woods, going home for the holidays, and the games and movies that have made the last few months vaguely tolerable. Merry Holiday time to you all! (Mild content warning for discussion of domestic abuse in I, Tonya) Discussed: Night in the Woods, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Tacoma, Prey, I, Tonya, Thor: Ragnorok, A Christmas Gift Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

I think it was 100% her - they said she completed principal photography before she passed - but also I think they applied “digital touch up” to all of her performances, which every blockbuster seems to do to every older actor now, to smooth out their face. Maybe that wasn’t happening, but it really looked like it was.

Sorry to be pedantic but don’t you literally mean “subjectively” here? This is how I felt as well. (Other than the Telltale part but I get what you mean!) It was longer than I’d have liked, and a few scenes or arcs I thought were edited down to the bone and could have been dropped entirely for something simpler, but I liked what was there and was glad it was willing to mix up a lot of the big Star Wars ideas in ways I couldn’t always predict.

This is wholly accurate.

I saw it a second time and liked it more the second time. The rough parts I felt even more than before (both Finn and Poe’s stories are rough for very different reasons imo), but the high highs, and the overall structure of “meticulously set up a ton of things and then spend the final third of the movie paying them off one after the other” really worked for me the second time around. It was fun watching the audience sit literally on the edge of their seats from the on through which got an outrageously huge cheer.

Yes this.

Yeah there was way more in here than there needed to be. It felt like half a season of a Star Wars television show edited down into a 2.5 hour movie.

I liked it.

Fixed!

Our art director is Claire Hummel, who is a boss.

http://www.camposanto.com/press

It literally never helps to be an asshole when “helping.”