HunterJE

Typo in the episode description, it refers to the Judge Sean Hoffman podcast as "Judge John Hodgman" for some reason...

We Took the Handsomest Man Alive, Who Is Also Very Funny, and the Funniest Man Alive, Who Is Also Very Handsome, And Put Them On One Stage, and You Won't Believe What Happened Next! Seriously, loved the whole episode, great interview and a great example of the kind of batshit crazy improv we've come to expect from Spontaneanation. And the stinger with Gourley's injury story was icing on the cake...

So did Todd get so high he forgot his sexual orientation, or did I miss something in a past episode?

I'm totally cool with how far in advance this show is, the content isn't terribly time-sensitive and a podcast where they're so on top of things is one that won't miss episodes because of unforeseen complications. That said, I am in despair at how long I will have to wait for the upcoming live show with Robyn Hitchcock to percolate its way to the feed...

The run of lesser portentious instruments was a thing of beauty...

So this is probably why I'm not good at being a sports fan in real life either: A part of me is actually kind of relieved that the new season hasn't started out great, last season it got to the point where I couldn't fully loosen up and enjoy the episodes because of the tension of whether the Shrimps would maintain the streak... Also, I made this while listening tonight:

What a weirdly defeatist attitude to take at an announcement like this. Maybe it's just me but for me, four TV appearances and ten podcast appearances are evidence enough that Scott and Al are a combination that works pretty well...

So excited by the announcement, I was just talking the other day to someone about how much I love the rapport between Scott and Weirdo Al on his various appearances on the podcast and show. Also was glad to hear they're going with a version of the Watts theme, Cudi's theme was great but I kind of like having versions of the same theme song as a point of connection between the podcast and the TV show.

Not far from what happened, but I would have loved if her god had decided their talents were of use right where they were, and they wasted a wish to teleport three feet to the right or whatever.

When will these guys learn that their enemy's enemy is not their friend? "Oh, these giants are fighting the giants who wanted to kill us, let's be friends, uh-oh, they want to kill us too, let's get away, oh, these fish are fighting the second giants, they must be our friends, oh wait, they're not our friends? I guess that means the second giants are our friends after all!" Also, I think the lesson with the fish is when you turn your back on a quest for no reason, that quest will eventually come back to haunt you, and it will be bigger and worse. Also, this development makes me so happy because it makes my Nerd Poker fanart from last year once again relevant (or technically for-the-first-time relevant, since by the time I got the right color-scheme pieces to make the final version they'd already run away)....

Spontaneanation, going out on a limb with the really controversial opinions, like "ice cream is pretty great." Don't get me wrong, love the hell out of it.

Relevant to the discussion of electoral "rules of thumb" in the opening conversation (It's not too surprising that these things show up and get given overblown significance given a very high stakes event with a two-digit sample size...) Also I really need to see an artist's impression of Kumail's "giant" tennis scorpion...

Conversation? With a giant? That didn't end in violence? Is, is that allowed?

BTW, Zune is not still a thing in terms of new manufacture, but we Zune users are still out there (and you can still find them reasonably easily on eBay or whatnot). The original Zune was such a disaster that the name became a punchline, but the later Zune HD is a great little media device.

That question was so prone to abuse with the "guaranteed success" part. "Supreme ruler of the world," anyone? "Miracle cancer curer?"

Hell, for that matter get Gerry back in for a visit. Excused by a plot where some magical accident splits Winter into physical manifestations of his multiple selves.

The clackers also gave rise to the fastastically captioned United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls, 413 F. Supp. 1281 (D. Wisc. 1976), which involved the seizure at behest of the consumer products safety commission of, well, what it says on the label. (A bit of context on the weird case caption: Seizure of goods cases tend to proceed in rem, or under jurisdiction arising over things, rather than in personam, or under jurisdiction arising over real or legal persons; as such, case captions are styled with the articles in question as the "defendant" rather than actual interested parties. My favorite case of this sort is United States v. 594,464 Pounds of Salmon, More or Less, 871 F.2d 824 (9th Cir. 1989), just because I like to imagine around 300 tons of salmon sitting at counsel table...)

On top of that, I'd add, maybe I'm just suggestible, but with Paul's super punchy and totally hilarious pre-ramble this ep not sure how anyone could be faulted for cracking up at it...

More likely than "user friendly" and "proprietary streaming app exclusive" in the same sentence.

That's what I was guessing, in which case this is sort of a double middle finger to those listeners, since in the case of people who listen on an mp3 player and who don't retain full archives of back episodes, and who miss the "at least a few days" before they unhost the old eps, they can't listen to old eps on the device they have been using, and also don't have an app yet on the device they do have...

Yeah, if this were pitched as "hey, let's be honest, we need to be able to monetize this somehow if we want to keep doing this, and this is how it's going to work" it would be a lot more acceptable than "look at this great new service that lets you pay to get things that used to be free in a more cubmersome/limited way with speculative value-add at best, isn't it exciting?" I'm not against paying for podcast content; I maintain a monthly donation of significantly more than $4.99 to Maximum Fun, and if this service ever looks like an actual worthwhile value I'll gladly pay it, but not a fan of the way it's being rolled out.

Got to say, big second on the UX concerns. I may be in a minority by now, but I strongly prefer to listen to things on a dedicated media device rather than streaming to my phone or computer, for a variety of reasons, and not being able to listen to old stuff other than through that is rough. No big for me, as I'm a long-time listener with all the back eps downloaded already (though now will have to make a point to keep a hard back-up of EW shows), but if I were a new listener coming to the shows honestly there's a good chance I'd take a look at that choice and decide it wasn't worth the trouble to get in to. I know listeners like me are probably a fringe case--strong preference for listening on a media-player device plus aversion to picking up a show midway without listening through whole archives--but still a turn-off. All that said, if this is what it takes for EW to be able to stay a running concern, can't really fault y'all for it.

Yeah, I was wondering this too, is the "eps over 6 months under paywall" model for the ad-free/remastered eps through the app only, or is the plan to go to the rolling-six-month model across the board? No criticism if it is, if that's what it takes to keep all the great content coming, just have to make sure to add the Earwolf podcasts to my list of things to keep backed up off my primary HD...

Now that they're near the ocean, part of me really wants them to run up against fish robots, who have managed to become an unstoppable power because the party turned tail and ran from the one opportunity they were presented for an actual plot...

"One of the favorite hours of my life that I ever spent alive." --Paul F. Tompkins, re: this episode, on this week's Spont.