Chris

I'd rather just start a new thread for Gotham if you want to talk about it, as one of the problems with megathreads is that people who aren't up to date on the thread don't actually know that the thing they want to talk about might already be in there; and if someone (in theory) wants to talk about Gotham but doesn't consider it part of the Arrowverse, they wouldn't think to come in here for it. If a bunch of folks would rather this become a catch-all DC TV shows thread that's fine and we can rename the thread!

New thread!

I made one for the Arrowverse specifically, which according to Wikipedia specifically consists of the DC shows that air on The CW, including Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, as well as CW streaming shows like Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray. Of all of those, only Arrow and The Flash have actually had any discussion, which has been consolidated into the new thread: I could find no discussion of Supergirl, and only one mention of the recent Constantine series, so neither of those got threads. (My suspicion is that the megathread makes the ability to discuss new topics very random, as if somebody proposes a topic to discuss, and then instead of someone else immediately responding, some already-ongoing discussion continues, the new query will immediately be wallpapered over with other discussion and it is very unlikely to get resurrected. You have to kind of luck out and hope that somebody receptive to your topic suggestion happens to be browsing at the right moment.)

Hi!

Broke out the Justice League talk, as it's sustained discussion of a single film and doesn't even fit the description of a "recommendation" given the tone of the response: (Really trying to encourage more usage of individual threads!)

No, it's still in there. It's really just incomprehensible garbage but I thought it would be funny to play it up into a seemingly bigger deal by going overboard with the censoring and music because that's the kind of thing that amuses me!

Who's to say? (edit: just wait for now)

This was a very good moment and we are all fortunate we recorded next week's episode before Jake had the chance to realize his error.

Yeah I love those games a lot and have talked about all three of them in Thumbs. They're a bit different though in that (increasingly across the series) you have SO much control over your traversal that you're basically a superhero: it's almost like how you traverse the world in an extreme sports game but on a massive scale. Still fantastic, but a bit too low stakes to be an appropriate comparison to BOTW.

This person gets it. I wear dress shoes most days and they are stiffer than sneakers. This makes it so easy!

Learn to make miso soup. It doesn't take very long and unless it's something you grew up with, it feels like one of those things that is reserved for a restaurant experience--but it totally doesn't have to be! It's fun, inexpensive, and not difficult to make. It's a great hot comfort food.

Wait for real? Nick's endorsement was the first one, about Flonase. Did it get deleted from ad-free?? Edit: I just checked, it's in there!

Idle Thumbs BONUS: Ruination Online March 2017 Enjoy this bonus episode drawn from our 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. Discussed: The hype cycle, making movies, death robots, music listening habits, World of Warcraft and missing the boat, The Legend of Zelda series, Jake Rodkin, robot overlords, infinite money, cyberpunk, dumb Star Wars names, Jurassic World, Firewatch, Twin Peaks, board games, video podcasts, the moon, pets Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Idle Weekend March 20, 2017: Be the Recon You Want to Ghost in the World Both Rob and Danielle are playing a LOT of games: so many that there aren't even any letters in this episode. This week features a freewheeling discussion of Ghost Recon: Wildlands, genre-jumping in long-running franchises like Resident Evil and Zelda, and open-world design. We only barely mention The Witcher 3 in this one! Discussed: Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Resident Evil, Dead Space, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Kona, The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G. Chandler, They Can't Kill Us All by Wesley Lowry Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Idle Thumbs 301: Dead Ringer Dr. Mario Look, I'm gonna level with you: this Mario thing goes deeper than we thought. We uncovered a cache of classified information in a stack of floppy disks we picked up in an EB at the mall, but now we're hearing time travel's involved too? You'll be airdropped into the Mushroom Kingdom for a BLOPS reconnaissance mission. And hey, there's one more thing. That Mario guy? We think there's two of 'em now. Discussed: Mario, Dr. Mario, Mario Is Missing, Mario's Time Machine, shareware, Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Dead Ringers Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Welcome, folks!

I do actually buy vinyl sometimes. But buying CDs feels stupid, because they are just straight up obsolete technology. Vinyl is obsolete in a sense, but it's also big and beautiful and tactile. CDs come in shitty plastic cases with tiny album art. When they were actually the current best way to own music, their downsides were pretty minor, but now they're much more glaring.

I don't actually care how the buttons are labeled. That's irrelevant in the face of how they're actually mapped in a game. My difficulties in Zelda are with the specific mapping choices (for instance, run and jump positioned oppositely rather than adjacent), which would persist no matter what labels are put on any of those buttons.

Sorry about that, it's up now.

Important If True February 9, 2017: Our Newest Show In an effort to understand the baffling world around us, we take your questions about the most fascinating, inane, and inexplicable happenings you can find, and draw them out to their most extended—and almost definitely inaccurate—conclusions. Join Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, and Nick Breckon of Idle Thumbs each week as they attempt to find truth and meaning through absurdity. Will they succeed? Probably not, but we'll all enjoy the trip. Explained: Some aspects of this podcast, Terminator pec oilers Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

I made the same point on the podcast! (Also thanks for the email.)

This actually reminds me of the way people often erroneously use the phrase "high tea." People say "high tea" when they almost always mean "afternoon tea," because they're thinking "the fancy one," and "high" sounds like "fancy." But "high tea" actually refers to the more utilitarian meal, and "afternoon tea" to the more luxurious indulgence.

Got it! Thanks for the clarification.

What was the context of this? I have a lot of conversations with Jake and conflating "high concept" and "highbrow" doesn't sound like him.

Like most people I imagine, my list is pretty arbitrary and probably subject to considerable change based on unknowable factors. But here's one attempt: Fargo A Serious Man The Big Lebowski Inside Llewyn Davis Blood Simple Miller's Crossing Barton Fink No Country For Old Men True Grit The Man Who Wasn't There O Brother, Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona Hail, Caesar! The Hudsucker Proxy Burn After Reading Intolerable Cruelty The bold ones at top are "my favorite Coen brothers movies," in roughly that order, and are movies I'd watch basically any time under any circumstance. The next five are grouped together as "my next favorite Coen brothers movies," fairly unranked. The italicized ones are also unranked, and are movies I really like but would probably have to be in the right mood to watch. Finally, there's Intolerable Cruelty, which I found very unmemorable. I haven't seen The Ladykillers.