The SomethingSomethingCast

I promised myself that I was going to try and get through more books this year. I’ve digested so many movies, I honestly find myself not watching many lately, and the ones I do watch tend to be old schlocky sci-fi movies with people making fun of them underneath. MST3k and Rifftrax really have warped my brain that way…

Anyway, I promised I was going to read more, and I gave myself the allowance of audiobooks. I realized that I had a couple Audible credits just hanging out that I hadn’t touched from years ago, so I reinstated my account and between physical titles and audiotitles, I’m actually not doing so bad with a half-dozen or so books read this year.  On that note, audiobooks get the same treatment that movies I don’t have interest in – I listen to them at 1.25x because most readers are just too slow and I get distracted way too easily.

So here’s some books that I’ve braindumped in one form or another, and what I’ve thought of them.  I’ll warn you – they’re mostly not great…

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD – Read mostly because of the cover and the title, this is a young adult book in the Christopher Pike, RL Stein variety where a bunch of kids deal with the craziness going on around them. It isn’t great, but it definitely will remind you of some late 90’s slasher films you’ve seen.  If you want something fluffy to inject into your brain, you could go a lot worse than ‘Clown’ … hell, you could go with…

FANTASTICLAND – Let’s start with the fact that the elevator pitch of this book is great. ‘What if we did the Warriors, but at Disney?’ and the first half of the book is trying to convince you that this premise is occurring. In the style of World War Z tales from people that surrounded the incident, Fantasticland is a damned mess that, the longer you scrutinize, the less sense it makes… oh, and why does an amusement park turn into a post-apocalyptic wasteland (without an apocalypse).. because these damn kids turn to monsters without their phones, by gum.  Blech.

THE FINAL GIRL SUPPORT GROUP – I really enjoy Grady Hendrix. His stories take a simple premise and go crazy with it. ‘HORRORSTOR’ is ‘What if you had a haunted Ikea’. ‘SOLD OUR SOUL’ is ‘What if a band did sell their souls for rock & roll?’.  And FINAL GIRL SUPPORT GROUP is.. well, just what the title tells you. What if the horror we digested in the 70s and 80s weren’t fiction, but fictionalized historical accounts of actual events.  What would Laurie Strode, Nancy Thompson, and Sidney Prescott be like in group therapy? It’s fun, tells a great story, and Hendrix has a love of his source material.

THE TROOP – Finally, ok.. if you want to be skeeved the hell out. If you want a novel that will turn your stomach, feel big and creepy and icky, and completely satisfying from top to bottom? I give to you Nick Cutter’s The Troop which, elevator pitch version is: ‘Stand By Me’ but ‘OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING?’ …A troop of boy scouts are on a private island for an overnight trip, but they run into some problems.  I know that says nothing, really, but you really should just dive in blind and be grossed out like it wants you to be.

Hatton, do you read anything other than horror?

Yes, I go through phases… as I’m currently reading Christopher ‘Eragon’ Paolini’s new scifi book ‘To Sleep In A Sea of Stars’ ..and it’s ok.. I’ll let you know some other time how it turned out, but I’m pushing to get to the end if that helps.

So what have you been reading? You know where to tell us…

Nick Haskins is a good dude. Do you know why?  Maybe it’s because you were a fan of his podcasting work… (Like, Epic Film Guys, perhaps…) or maybe it’s because you enjoy cooking with him on Twitch (At Nikoli’s Kitchen)

If you listen to us enough, you have most definitely heard his name as the Grandmaster and creator of Livestream for the Cure – where podcasters gather around the ol’ internet fire and fight to help fund a world without cancer. With that said, we got him on the line with us and we talk about podcasting and running a multi-day event, and what such an event could evolve into.  It’s a really great time with a really great human.

Ok, here we go!

Full Episode

Hey all, Podcast Rob here,

One of my biggest gripes about movies is how amazingly misleading the first thing we see about them is…. The Trailer.  I feel that, over time, the movie industry has gotten more insidious with movies that, while they may publicly praise and hype up, are worried internally about siad movie’s performance… so they go out of their way to make the trailer look as tasty as possible to get ases in seats even when they know the movie won’t live up to it.  I suppose in a way it’s no different than seeing a commercial of an amazingly delicious looking burger only to open the container and see roadkill on a bun.

That said.. here’s a few of my BIGGEST issues….

Avengers : Age of Ultron.   Look, I love me some James Spader, and when I first heard him as the voice of Ultron I thought this movie was going to be a homerun.  The eerie “I’ve got no Strings” was shiver-inducing. Unfortunately, the movie left me watching itless like Thor seeing Cap almost lift the hammer, and more like Ultron watching humanity and just shaking his head…

Highlander : Endgame.  Yes, yes, yes… “There Should Have Been Only One” (they’re not wrong…).  Biggest gripe about this movie?  There’s a scene in the trailer when the silhouettes of Connor and Duncan are fighting Kell (aside : What’s with K for all the bad guy names?  Kurgan, Katana, Kane, Kell…), and Kell gets cut in half and becomes TWO Kells, each fighting one of the Highlander pair.  It was something no Highlander villain had done before, and would have been amazing to see on the screen, except that was ONLY in the trailer and never mentioned nor teased in the movie.

The Crow : City of Angels.  There’s a version of the theatrical trailer from 1996 that shows a shadow on an exterior wall of a crow landing and transforming into Ashe Corvin (not the WORST name in the movie… I still laugh that the guy who played “Judah Earl” in The Crow : CoA also played “Jubal Early” in Firefly….).  Another instance of establishing something completely new in the canon of the movies that never actually made it into the movie.

Godzilla (1998).  They shows JUST enough of Godzilla rampaging through New York City to get you really excited, and the scream at the end sent chills down your spine.. but once the whole creature was revealed, the “Uhhh… what?” was just the start of the repetition of that phrase throughout the rest of the film.

Matrix : Resurrections.  This trailer hit the nostalgia vein for sure, but not only was the movie an unnecessary and  thinly-veiled money grab by the studio… the movie was self-aware enough to TELL you it was an unnecessary and thinly-veiled money grab.

What are some of your trailers that were better than the movies?

ALSO

Livestream For The Cure 6 is May 19th-21st!  9am-Midnight each day!  100% of all donations go to The Cancer Research Institute, and this year we’re shooting for $20,000.  Please come join us and a whole host of other amazing content creators from around the world to help make a world immune to cancer.

Follow at @livestream4cure on Twitter and @Livestreamforthecure on Facebook for more details.  For those looking to donate, the early donations link is currently OPEN and can be found here…   https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/3744472

– PCR

There’s a reason we promote the Livestream for the Cure so heavily – and that is because it is an amazing cause, done by an amazing person, featuring tons of talented podcasters (and us!) — we will continue to tell you to go to the link, share the link, and be a part of the weekend in any way you can.

That said, it is the extra Tuesday of the month, so instead of doing a Free-For-All, we are going to replay last year’s Somethingcast episode during the event, where Rob and I concocted our own theme park amusement rides out of famous franchises.  And, guess what… one of them is actually happening!

Join us with Nick Haskins and enjoy the ride.

Ok, here there we went!

Full Episode

Hatton here with a blog this week, and since we are starting in on the Livestream for the Cure season – I came across a charity purchase that, if you are reading this in a month or so will have less relevance, but not absolutely none.

You see, I have been a fan of Bundle sites for years. The most famous, and the center of this article, Humble Bundle, are sort of the Godfather of the ‘spend less for more’ software and gaming bundle packs. There are a few sites that due similar things nowadays: Fanatical, Epic Bundles, etc… but Humble has always felt the most legit – and as they now distribute their own line of games, there’s good reason.

To put money, and donation is 100%, to the war efforts in Ukraine, they are doing a helluva bundle right now with the Stand With Ukraine Bundle. $40 for over 100 games, some software, a few pieces of 3D terrain renders, comics, etc… it doesn’t matter that I already own some of the topline games on that list, it was an easy purchase.  So I thought I’d list a couple of the games I have tried, or already love from the set. If this little post gets another donation to a good cause, it was worth it.

SATISFACTORY – Ever play Factorio? Do you like automating coal mining so you can automate iron mining so you can automate robot generation so you can automate your automation automator? Yeah… Satisfactory is Factorio in an FPS style – and it’s gorgeous.  Great biomes, gorgeous landscapes, and giant girder structures with a good sense of humor.  I’ve spent an idiotic amount of time building my horrible factory that I am very aware is inefficient.. but damn is it fun.

SLAY THE SPIRE / RING OF PAIN – I pushed these together because they are very much cut from the same ‘Deckbuilding Roguelike’ style of game that Slay the Spire planted a flag in and games like Ring of Pain brought their own concept to.  I don’t play CCGs because I am not good enough at deckbuild strats to win enough to have fun, but I sure as hell don’t mind losing hundreds of time to the same damn knight who keeps getting in my damn way.  Very much a ‘Play for 5 minutes, realize it’s been 2 hours’ kind of game.

SUNSET OVERDRIVE – This was my big surprise out of the bundle so far. A game from Insomniac Games (Spyro, Ratchet & Clank) that looks and feels like Fortnite (but 3 years earlier), plays like Jet Set Radio or Aggressive Inline, and is an open world’y, tower defense’y, splatterfest?  How did I miss this when it came out? Now, to be fair, the reason I probably missed it is because it isn’t the greatest game. The controls are very loose, the music cuts in and out as it sees fit, and the targetting is miserable… but for the cost of .37 cents?  It’s tons of fun!

That’s just a couple – I’ve tried Corridor Z, a runner that’s obviously a port from mobile that’s ok. Necroworm, a Sokoban puzzler, Neverout, a ‘Cube’ puzzle that hurts my head, and Pop-Up Dungeon, a ‘tabletop rpg’ style strategy game… so, if you see this early enough – give to a good cause – try a bunch of games – and tell the developers thanks.

Tick.. tock… tick… tock… The Doomsday Clock clicks towards the inevitable, and we stand here at the precipice of… The End!

This week, we’re talking about the last moments of the world, potentially, as the former vigilantes turn heroes of the Watchmen have left a generation pass and the world has moved on and evolved based on the giant squid of New York.

What has happened to Ozymandius, Doctor Manhattan, the Silk Spectre and the rest? Well, the HBO Series told us… but was it good?

So settle in as the Somethings bring about the end of the world as we know it – and we feel fine on The End: Watchmen

Ok, here we go… to Mars

Full Episode

Yes, it’s true.

I’m weening myself off slowly… (slowly…)  but… it’s hard.

So, I was always a “Hey, let’s look at Steam and see what free games they have!” and, truth be told, a lot of it is the Valorant/Paladins/Apex type of games that.. I’ll be honest..   I fucking suck at.

But Epic Games… (~shakes fist at sky~ DAMN YOU EPIC GAAAAAAAAMES!) they pump out a new free game every Thursday, and, over the pandemic, there were times where it was a new one almost every 24 hours.

I JUST got in to Red Dead Redemption II (Which wasn’t free, but got on super deep sale) and.. I finally decided to sit down and dig through games I got through Epic but haven’t played yet… so, here are some of the ones out of the over 100 I have on EPIC that I haven’t played but am eager to get in to…

ABZU – I tried 5 minutes of it.. and the game is beautiful.  I get the sense it’s going to be super short… but the visuals alone are worth checking out.

Vampyr – I loved Bloodlines from WoD, and am eagerly waiting for Bloodlines 2 to finish.. until then, this game has some great reviews and I’m hoping to relive some of the feel I got from Bloodlines to hold me over till the sequel.

Obduction – It’s from the creators of Myst, which means I’m already sold

Shadow of the Tomb Raider – I never played TR on the original PlayStation systems, but did pick up Tomb Raider (2013) on Steam and really enjoyed it.  If it’s anything like it.. I’m looking forward to finally tucking in to it.

Games I HAVE gotten to play…

Saints Row The Third : Remastered – It’s GTAV with more camp, sarcasm and gratuitous.. well.. everything, and I’m having a blast with it so far.

Control – I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about this game, and even though I’m only about 3 hours in, I am absolutely loving everything about it.

Elite Dangerous – Friends of mine introduced me to this game through VR a few years ago and.. this game is simply stunning.  It looked great on my old RX 580 gpu, it looks AMAZING on a RTX 3060.  If you check it out, be prepared to lose large chunks of your life to it.

Shadowrun Returns – Not gonna lie, I loved/hated “Shadowrun” on the Super Nintendo.  This has the same feel, but so much smoother and…just.. better overall.  I’m a sucker for the world of Shadowrun, and I really need to make time to get back in to this one.

What free games are YOU looking forward to checking out?  What have you played you enjoyed?  Let us know!

ALSO

Livestream For The Cure 6 is May 19th-21st!  9am-Midnight each day!  100% of all donations go to The Cancer Research Institute, and this year we’re shooting for $20,000.  Please come join us and a whole host of other amazing content creators from around the world to help make a world immune to cancer.

Follow at @livestream4cure on Twitter and @Livestreamforthecure on Facebook for more details.  For those looking to donate, the early donations link is currently OPEN and can be found here…   https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/3744472

– PCR

It’s time again for the finest in Swedish Podcasting Technology THE WHEEL!

But first – it’s that time of year again. We are gearing up for Livestream For The Cure, so please save the date, May 19th – 21st.

On the show this week, we spin the wheel, we connect at 2400 bps, and we get a brand new topic where we just talk about some of the stuff we’ve seen.  It’s a new take on an old classic. Hatton’s watched a bunch of horror movies, Rob’s watched a bunch of television, and both have hunted buffalo.

What the hell does that mean? Only one way to find out!

Ok, here we go!

Full Episode

♫ Superstardom overload
I need to get back on the road
Tune it all out and turn it up too loud
Do people still wave lighters in the crowd? ♫
                         – Dada: Information Undertow

I have to assume that it’s because of the pandemic.. the long hours spent in front of my computer or, at the very least, at home – where I no longer was driving 30 minutes to and fro my job, that I’ve found myself burnt out on entertainment. It’s surprising, but not shocking, if that makes sense. Between being furloughed and then working from home, I had a literal 8+ hours more of my life  that I had to find to dedicate to something. It took a few months to stop beating myself up over the fact I wasn’t creating art in some capacity… I beat a few video games… hell, even wrote a list about it. But now that we are sort of coming out the other side of things, painfully slowly, and yet I still get the chance to work from home – I find that I am less and less interested in diving in to nonstop television.

There was a great time where we had Mando and Lovecraft and Bucky and Watchmen and Wanda and… it was a buffet of high-budget entertainment that was literally catered to nerdy ol’ me – but other than my wife saying ‘hey, let’s watch a movie together’ or a few ‘I must see this’ bits, I find my desire to load up anything other than a podcast or some music to be dwindling.  Recently, in video gaming, I started to notice the same ADHD tendency my movie viewing habits had taken on… HEY NEW THING.. HEY NEW THING.. sale HEY 4 NEW THINGS.. and I’m curbing that and doing my best to not play 6 games at once, but one.. maybe two. Hell, I’ve read more books since January than I did in 2021.

My point is simply that I have been eating a lot of candy for the last three years, figuratively speaking (ok, fine, and literally) and my brain started begging for different kinds of sustenance. Eventually, I’ll get to Boba Fett.. and yeah, I’m still all about the new season of Westworld when it comes out, but I have no interest in binging Obi-Wan… I think I’d rather finish that Grady Hendrix book…

What about all of you – have you had a burnout experience during all of this?  Let us know in all the usual places.  Til then, I’m Hatton.

There is a movement in horror to bring back the classics. We went through the remake era with the 2000’s versions of Friday and Nightmare, but Saw and, most popularly, Halloween, has show us that there are stories to tell a few decades later in the same universe.

Now Netflix is getting in on the action with a late-quel? (is that a word?) of the horror classic, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Does it have the same legs that Laurie Strode and Michael Myers had? I ask, because that’s clearly what they were asking in the scriptwriting room…

So settle in to a dusty little empty street in Texas where nobody notices anything and real estate is cheap – it’s time for Something In Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Ok here we g.g.g.g.g.ggggooooOOOooo.. (that was a chainsaw noise)

Full Episode