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Thank you Matt Besser, for giving me a little bit of my Thursday Andy Daly fix! It makes the withdrawal a little easier to take.

Oh those poor rats in the prisoner room. Turned into a bloody paste. And the worst part is, they died without ever even having a taste of delicious, delicious cheese!

Sorry if someone has already done this:

The thing with class-based affirmative action is, it can be combined with race-based affirmative action. You don't have to choose one over the other. So maybe a white kid from a super-poor trailer park would have somewhat better chances than a rich black kid, but a black kid from the projects would be given precedence over all of them. In fact it would be very easy since right now most universities have a point-based system. Of course this will never happen because the real goal of universities is not diversity, but the APPEARANCE of diversity. Don't get me wrong, though, I still agree that it's better than nothing.

I literally squealed when I heard Harris's voice. I am so excited for next week's episode. But it did also make me sad about not having a new Analyze Phish.

Hey guys, Dalton Wilcox wrote a poem that he wants to share with us! As I was viewing the web on a lonely prairie night I came to a message on the Earwolf website The author's name name was DEATHMAN, all in caps His words, they sent a chill down to my bootstraps "Man, episodes like this and Time Bobby 2," he did growl His tone, it did surprise me, it was a voice so foul My blood curdling, the monster I did seek as "where you try to do a big thing" he did speak "I don't like it," he continued with glee Making his vampire nature clear for all to see "I did not care for it," the monster said to us I knew that I must kill this demon, and with little fuss My six gun I did draw, and pointed at his head "Go join Don Dimello" I screamed, and shot the vampire dead. EDIT: Just to make things extra clear, I'm not trying to antagonize anybody. I have nothing against DEATHMAN or his criticism. I just thought the setup was too perfect to pass up.

Andy and Jason? HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!

Goddammit everyone probably thinks I'm crazy because I keep thinking of Scott saying ACHTUNG baby and laughing out of the blue.

I have to disagree. This one was A++, the second one was A+++, and the first one was

I tried this workout, but some psycho put a knife in the ground right where I was running! What are the odds? Well, it was bleeding pretty bad so I took out the first aid kit to try and fix it but I was already getting dizzy, and it was damn hard to patch up my foot and hold on to those crazy wolf pups at the same time. And let me tell you that mother wolf caught up fast! Right now I'm in intensive care. It turns out that wolf really did a number on my mp3 player, along with most of my body. Fortunately I asked my mother for an mp3 player as a birthday present, which is today! I left her a message to come and bring it to me here, and while I won't be able to eat the cake due to my intestines being all chewed up, maybe we can have a little party at the hospital. Can't wait to try it again!

I am looking forward to this podcast so much. But I have to say, my favorite thing since hearing about this podcast has been Jake Fogelnest's half-hearted endorsement. "I'll give it 20 minutes, and so should you."

Brilliant! If only Brian had thought of that.

This podcast started out exactly the way I like my podcasts to start out--with Paul F. Tompkins laughing uncontrollably in the background. And things only got better from there.

The thing with Pope Francis is he's not even really taking things in a slightly new direction. The Catholic Church has never been as terrible as people think when it comes to homosexuality. They've always had that wishy-washy not terrible but not good attitude of "hate the sin love the sinner" that basically says it's a sin, but we should leave them alone about it like we do with all the other sins out there. Most of the hateful anti-gay Christian speech comes from non-Catholics or Catholics who have no authority within the church and are just pandering to the religious right for political reasons (like Santorum). Okay you might find some bad things by individual bishops here and there, but certainly not the Vatican. Where they are really terrible is when it comes to reproductive rights and patriarchy. Oh and of course covering up all those child rape cases. Tat is some truly fucked up shit, and with the first two I mentioned, it shows no sign of ever stopping. If Pope Francis allows women into the clergy, stops trying to actively block birth control and make abortion illegal, and gives some really good apologies along with sincere efforts to punish offenders as much as it is still possible, then I will truly say he is making the Catholic Church better. He may be highlighting the areas where the Catholic Church is slightly more liberal but that does not equal making change.

So awesome to see Jerrod back! Definitely one of my favorite guests. To me, he's a lot like Paul F. Tompkins when not playing a character. It's not that he's funny. Yes, of course he's funny, but even more than that he's just really pleasant to listen to. I could seriously listen to Jerrod bullshit about nothing for hours at a time. Really excited to listen!

I loved listening to the gang (especially Brian) become a total asshole about music. When Sarah tried to find common ground and it backfired that was just icing on the cake.

I think it's important to be careful not to fall into the trap of well-meaning liberal Anglo-centrism with these sorts of things. I think a lot of people go too far with blaming white people for problems throughout the world. People think they're doing the right thing by calling out white people for bad things they're doing, but it can also paint a picture where the world revolves around us, and gives an exaggerated sense of our country's importance. I used to feel the same way about obsession with white skin in Japan--that Japanese obsession with making their white skin comes from feeling that beauty makes them look more like white people. But if you talk to Japanese women, none of them see skin whitening as making them look more like white people. In fact, considering how suntans are fashionable now, it actually makes them look less like the famous white women held up as standards of beauty. And besides that, if you look at history you'll see that Japanese princesses and nobility were painting their faces white because they thought it was beautiful long before any caucasian had set foot on Japanese soil. So in India's case as well, I would bet it is mostly based on India's own historical classism and caste system. I don't know all the facts but I know that India has its own established culture and its own well-established standards of beauty that are independent of Western society. So in this instance, I think it may be more racist to jump to the conclusion that Indian people (or other people in Asia) seeing light skin as more beautiful is based on Western influence. That's a judgement best left to people who know the culture better. And again, white people have a long history of making snap judgements about cultures they know little to nothing about. We may feel like it's okay because we're painting ourselves in a negative light but it ends up being just as patronizing and reductionist. So I am not going to agree with the assessment that this is obviously racist, and we should just assume it comes from British colonialism or something.

I know this show tries to be positive but how about the video for the song "Complicated"? Seeing it again recently reminded me of why I don't like her: How could anyone watch this video and feel anything but white hot, seething hatred? It starts with her and her annoying teen friends picking on that poor hot dog guy. And whenever they're not being horrible, inhuman monsters they're doing the most "at the mall" bullshit imaginable. Avril basically got license to do total wish fulfillment, and she chooses to do the most cliche annoying teenager stuff imaginable. Complete with one of the most fake-looking basketball "stunts" I've ever seen. AND SHE GOT PAID MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR THIS. And the fact that she is a "punk" rock singer makes this even more personal for him. Notice that I put the word punk in quotes.

p sure it was a joke on purpose because they were not good spidermens I think it was pretty damn obvious they did it on purpose. The whole point of the bit was, indeed, that they were all clueless about Spiderman. Your nerd rage would have been extremely misplaced even if it hadn't led to a hilarious callback later on.

An ambiguous message at best. In the past when I have checked the site and not found Nerd Poker as expected, most of the time it was either available on a different source or rectified within the hour. I think there has only been one other time when I didn't find the podcast as expected, then found out it wouldn't be available this week. It's not like this is a thing that always goes up at the exact same minute, and you can instantly know it won't be there because you don't see it available when you check in, at, say 12:01 AM California time. The upload time isn't exact--they usually go up over the course of 5-10 minutes. There have been times when this and other podcasts were late, though. Many things can happen to delay a podcast--error in upload, server problems, high traffic usage. Frequently it will be available on certain sources faster than others. Or sometimes it will be available but not register on the front page for some reason. Part of the reason this is an issue for me is because the Earwolf podcasts go up right about when I'm getting ready to finish work (5PM my time zone). So I like to download the podcast as soon as it is up so I can listen on my commute home. So usually I start checking the Earwolf site right around the time they might go up, as I'm doing other work. So if Nerd Poker isn't available with the other Wednesday podcasts I immediately notice, and start to wonder if it won't be up this week. Because I really want to download it before going home if I can, I'll frequently check and recheck and it becomes a matter of do I want to stay at work another 5 minutes just to see if Nerd Poker is up? That's what happened to me on Wednesday, and eventually I just figured it probably wasn't available this week and went home. But I just hate that feeling of uncertainty, that maybe the moment I turn off the computer and start going home it will be available. I realize my case is exceptional. For most people this goes up in the middle of the night so they don't check until morning, and if the podcast isn't available 5 hours after the scheduled time it is indeed a much clearer message that the podcast won't be available. The fact that no one has chimed in means that there can't be many people who agree with me, and I may be literally the only person checking the site at the exact upload time who wasn't also checking Twitter and the Facebook page. And since I plan on checking both from now on, hopefully it won't be an issue for me either.

I have just done all 3 of these things. Still, it would be nice to have something on the web page and/or itunes, even just a prerecorded message.

It's roleplaying. I'm sure nobody is taking any of this personally. He's playing an obnoxious whiny dick character for fun, and everyone else understands this. Being an obnoxious asshole is expected because that's the character he's playing. If they did get pissed off and kill his character, they would only do it because they felt it was in character for them to do so, and Brian would just roll a new character like he did with this one. And it's easy to see why they'd put up with his crap: they're all fighting a common enemy and need all the help they can get. Plus his apparent familiarity with dark magic like necromancy is sorely needed. P.S. I doubt that anyone in this show is getting much of a "paycheck," least of all one signed by Brian. Any money they get for this is paid by Earwolf, not Brian Posehn.

I don't mind Nerd Poker missing a week, but is there any way we could be notified when it happens? Like maybe just a 30 second message saying "Sorry, no Nerd Poker this week" if we download it off of the RSS or itunes, and a message here on the site letting us know. Imagine if one week they just didn't show an episode of Game of Thrones of Breaking Bad! No notification, nothing even telling us it wouldn't be airing. People would go nuts! I know that Nerd Poker isn't anywhere near the level of these shows, but some of us look forward to it just as much. When this show isn't available to download I drive myself crazy, checking again and again on multiple sources. "Is it up yet? Is it up yet?" Just having a message or something, at or before the scheduled upload time, would mean a lot to me as I'm sure it would mean a lot to many of the other superfans. We understand that you have to miss a week from time to time but the sooner we know when this is going to happen, the happier we'll be.

I think the love of Farts and Pro has died down a bit. I predict it will not be in the top 3, but we'll see it in the next episode. My prediction for the top 6: 1. Gary Unmarried 2. Time Bobby 2 3. Wompler's Birthday Bash 4. Comedy Bleep Bleep 5. Farts & Procreation 3 6. Poehler Ice Caps Let's see how close I am!

I loved A Peanut in the Rain but if I had to choose between the two I would definitely take Gary Unmarried. It didn't make my top 10 either. Just so many great episodes this year!!!