FisterRoboto

Surprisingly, this doesn't happen all that often. They take really good care of their machines, and I've only seen one person there that was drunk and acting like an asshole. And the other customers told him to get the hell out before the staff even had a chance. Their building is, like, half pinball machines, and they have a bunch of gamer leagues that come in and play. The ones I see most often are pinball leagues and Mario Kart leagues. And they take their shit seriously, so if someone's acting like a dickhole, they get kicked out pretty quickly. Shaq's expression in the thumbnail for this video had me laughing so hard. He looks like a total manchild.

Oh yeah, that's a good point, too. I remember the first time I saw a game that was $1/play, and I went fucking bananas. Then my friend started working at GameWorks, and he would just give me his employee card so I could play all the games for free. One things that's kind of rad that we have in Austin is a BYOB arcade. They give you cups full of coins just like the old days, and you can bring in your own beer and drink and play video games. The only thing that kind of sucks is that you can only bring one beer in at a time. Otherwise, they run into issues with the stupid TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comission), who are literally THE WORST. So you have run back out to your car every time you want another beer. But still...it's pretty legit.

I had no idea all the suggestions and questions were written in a book until I saw the picture accompanying the episode. That's really awesome!

I really don't remember many standalone arcades in the 90s; however, they were still pretty prevalent in malls and movie theater lobbies. Basically, they had a big resurgence in the early 90s because they had more advanced 3d graphics than console games. But with the release of the Playstation (and, a couple years later, the N64) and its graphic hardware, that edge was quickly lost. The first PS was released in 94, and the N64 was in 96, so I'd say 97 was probably right in the middle of their decline. That said, in 1997, a new mall opened pretty close to where I was living at the time, and they had a GameWorks. I spent a lot of time and money in that place throughout the rest of my time in high school. But they had the more "advanced" games like Time Crisis and the Indy 500 and stuff that you really couldn't play at home. I also remember a sweet Star Wars Trilogy arcade game that came out in 1998 that I spent a lot of time playing until TPM came out the next year and turned me off Star Wars for several years. So, after making the answer to your question ridiculously long, I think the idea of a local, independent arcade was mostly gone by that point, and most arcades were corporate-owned and had moved into malls and movie theaters. But, then again, I lived in a suburb in Dallas, TX, so maybe they were bigger in other places.

Fair enough. I still find it distracting when people need to take pictures during the middle of a show, but it's a lesser sin that trying to record the whole thing. One of my favorite things on SPONT is whenever anyone gives a specific quantity of something. Paul almost always asks them to list the things. My previous favorite was Paul and Sarah Burns naming the seven dimensions in the Savannah, GA episode. The tuffy size discussion was pretty great, but the wife one was incredible. I had to listen to that section twice because I started laughing so hard when Gourley jumped in as wife #3 that I couldn't even keep up with everyone else escalating the other wives.

That's also Shaq's real tattoo. He's a major nerd for Superman. I remember seeing an episode of Cribs with him back when that would have been a relevant point of reference, and all I remember about it was that he had a gigantic Superman bed.

I thought July had made a typo when this showed up this morning. I was extremely happy to find out that wasn't the case because it started off the improv with a perfect level of silliness for them to build off of. Also, good on Paul for calling out the person recording. That's some inconsiderate shit.

I have a similar thing. I have brown hair, but my facial hair grows in really red. It also grows in really patchy and shitty, so I never really grow it out. But when I get lazy and don't shave for a while, people will always ask me if I dye my hair. They never ask if I dye my beard, but always about my hair. Which has only gotten to be more and more ridiculous of a question as I've started getting more gray in my hair.

That's just what someone who was into puppets would say.

It was almost like a musical, non-Superego version of Forgotten Classics.

Except for Get Shorty. He was fucking awesome in that. Side note: was it here or on DLM that Broken Arrow came up recently? Either way, that needs to be a HDTGM movie. If EllenM is into puppets, she should see Anomalisa. I went to see that with a date at a film festival, and it was, well....SUPER awkward

HDTGM just posted on Facebook and Twitter that this movie and Kazaam will be the two movies for the live show at Largo on 12/12. While I'm excited about Kazaam, I'm guessing this means the Steel episode will be late =\

Totally agree about Cage. I think his good movies are as good as his bad movies are bad. Moonstruck, Kick-Ass, Lord of War, Adaptation, Matchstick Men, and The Rock are all Cage movies that I genuinely enjoy. Hell, I even like Guarding Tess. His biggest problems are that 1) he doesn't seem to pass on pretty much anything, and 2) he needs a director that can rein in some of his crazier quirks onscreen. When you match him up with a director with the competence of the Coens or Jonze, you can get a really great performance out of him. Personally, my favorite terrible movie star is Schwarzenegger, but again, it's not all in. While there's a lot of his shit that's fun because it's terrible, there's also stuff like Terminator, Maggie, and True Lies. Cheesy action movies are my favorite bad movies, so I'd put him, Stallone, JCVD, or Vin Diesel ahead of Cage for my favorite bad movie actor.

It's pretty hit or miss and depends on the movie. If they're doing a movie I've seen, I'll listen, but I don't find it as reliably enjoyable as HDTGM. Elliott's voice is definitely grating, and he clearly thinks he's a lot funnier than he actually is. He's a writer for the Daily Show (and I work in marketing, so maybe my opinion doesn't count for shit), and a lot of his concepts are funny, but his execution is often pretty poor. I generally like hearing the other two guys' takes on it more than his. But, my love of bad movies keeps me listening when there's a movie I enjoy (unlike HDTGM, which I will listen to regardless of the movie because it will always be funny, even if I hated the movie). We Hate Movies is better, but still a ways behind HDTGM.

I have to say that the Nic Cage segment is usually my least favorite part of the minisode. I don't really share the worship that a lot of people seem to have for him both on HDTGM and on another bad movie podcast. I love his bad movies, but I feel like it's one of those Internet echo chamber reverences that makes mediocre people seem far more interesting than they really are. But I digress... This week's Nic Cage stuff was AWESOME, though. At first, I thought he was just going to suggest Cage as Bracco, but Bracco as the Plague?! That's a movie I want to see. (Also, the Q about Cage characters fighting each other was only saved because of HI McDunnough).

Super pumped about this one, too! Let's stay in the 90s forever! It's funny that this is next week's episode because the crowd-funded Shaq Fu sequel had a video preview at The Game Awards yesterday. Shaq's also been a major focus of the main character in Fresh off the Boat, and he even guest starred in an episode. Are we experiencing a full Shaq Renaissance? All the forums regulars might remember that I've brought this site up before, but there's a thing called Can I Stream It? that basically tells you where you can legally stream any movie. I think it's only US-based, but it will tell you both free services and pay services. Here's the link for Steel: http://www.canistream.it/search/movie/4fc5781af5f8076a74000000/steel For anyone else that's having trouble finding it, it looks like it's available to rent on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, and PSN. They don't mention it on that site, but it also seems to be available to rent on YouTube.

Honestly, the only thing that was keeping me mildly interested was to see Eisenberg's Luthor. I thought he was going to play it more like his Zuckerberg, so it's very disappointing to see him basically be pre-Riddler Jim Carrey from Batman Forever. Maybe Gal Gadot will at least be awesome.

Since it's Thursday and we're all just really waiting for the mini-ep to come out, did anyone see the new Batman v Superman trailer yet? It's kind of awful.

My take was that the secret service let him out of jail so they could tail him and find out where the evidence was (which is why Marc Anthony was kicking it outside his place). I don't remember if it was explained or not, but I always felt like Joey's mom made him go to meetings. Doesn't it come up in the AA scene somewhere when he's denying that he's an addict? Or maybe I'm misremembering and don't give enough of a shit to rewatch it to see if I'm right or not.

After EllenM's post on the last page, I was going to say that you should watch your back because she might be coming for you. But then you countered with a Dolly gif, and I realized EllenM still has a ways to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NeO1gCLUKg

I mean...maybe if her name wasn't Angelina Jolie.

He was actually in the Secret Service, which, at the time, was part of the US Department of the Treasury (jut like the IRS).

NICE! I went to high school in the North Dallas area, so I was madly texting all my friends. It was in Richardson or something, right? I went to his one for Roar when he was down here for Fantastic Fest, and it was amazing.