Matthew Wrather hosts with Pete Fenzel, Joshua McNeil, David Shechner, and special British guest Timothy Swann to overthink the royal wedding.
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So it pays off to be awake at 2 AM on a Sunday… :D
For Tim, it was 4:30am when we wrapped.
Did the Bin Laden stuff make it to the podcast or was it recorded by the time the news broke?
Also, I’ve officially listened to all of TFT, took a lot of notes, and will organize them into a coherent email in the next few days. I just hope you guys will actually discuss some of the topics in it, it is long.
The news was breaking about 2/3 of the way throught the broadcast, but Obama didn’t deliver his speech until after we were done recording. We talk about it a few times, but we were already pretty far into the weeds on our other topics, so we didn’t get too deeply into it.
This episode was like the climax to The Godfather where Corleone’s enemies are being killed behind all the pomp and ceremony of the babies baptismal. Well it didn’t feel that heavy; but it was the most concise and cohesive episode so far, or maybe it’s just the British accents giving that illusion. I’m gonna test that by doing an Overview style audio overlay of an old podcast over an episode of House of Cards and see if the podcast feels more cohesive just because “British accent ambiance.”
This’ll only work in the 8-7-2, but if it does work I’m gonna sell “British accent ambiance” for use on boring corporate instructional videos or powerpoint presentations or whatever dull audio needs smartening up for American audiences. But then someone will make an open source version and I’ll be broke, so I’ll need to trademark British accents in the 8-7-2 and have that trademark viciously defended by suing into oblivion any little old British ladies who definitely make youtube vlogs about what tea and jam they like at Sunday brunch, once that shit invades American cyberspace my lawyers be all “Welcome to the 8-7-2 playa, the only Royalty here be da dolla bills fo licensed usage-based payments for ongoing use of an asset!”
Oh, I get to be Ian Carmichael, right? Awesome.
Wait, I’m the factor that makes it cohesive and comprehensive. That’s insane.
Nah, this was definitely one of the better episodes. Or, at least, I enjoyed it even more than I usually do.
So a Prince got married, and a baddie was killed. This may be the most Disney like weekend in recent memory.
Does anyone else feel guilty for being pumped about Osama being killed?
Maybe I’m just a liberal hypocrite, I’m against violence and jingoism but when McNeil broke in with the news I was like “Alright we got ’em finally!” then felt surprised and guilty afterward. But maybe also it’s excitement at the sense of closure that a goal was reached and this will be the end of terrorism, as really tenuous and naive as that is, because we know this won’t be the end of terrorism like we want it to be.
So… you didn’t know until listening to the podcast? ;) Joking. I was glad it was at least mentioned.
Is there a Waco branch of the University of Texas? I would think not, since Baylor University is there. I know there’s the branch in Austin, and there is one in San Antonio, El Paso, and Corpus Christi. Also, the one in Corpus Christi is on an island! I’ve never heard of a UT-Waco, however. Which is to say, they’ve never had a sports team do anything if they do exist.
@McNeil Based on the Disney version of Rapunzel (Tangled) you couldn’t have a side business making wigs because when you cut her beautiful blond hair it loses its magical quality and goes back to being dull and brown. There are things to say about that but they can be saved for another time.
Disney princes are fairly unremarkable and I can’t think of any other fictional princes off the top of my head. With that in mind…my answer would be Philip from Sleeping Beauty despite the sketchy stalking in the woods behavior or Tarzan if being Lord Greystoke counts as royalty. I would have picked Flynn from Tangled because that would essentially just be Zachary Levi but he’s a prince by marriage.
If anyone has seen The Princess and the Frog, I feel like the concept a lot of little girls have of being a princess is that of the character of Charlotte/Lottie. The guy really isn’t as important as there being someone and the abstract concept of what a princess is. Thus, it falls in line with many feminist readings of fairytales and the power structures available to women. Becoming a princess is a way of attaining power and wealth as a woman without being cast as the villain who is either hypersexual or masculine (Lady Macbeth) or the asexual magical creature. As a daughter of Eve you can have a voice as long as you choose to voice your opinions in song.
Oh, and yay Shechner! I heard wisteria but hearing “Listeria” brought me back to microorganism gram-negative/postive baceria back in Principles of Bio. Things were so much simpler then…well, OK, not really. I can never drink my tea or water while listening to the podcast when you’re on because I never know when you’re going to comment and I would end up choking. That is my confused, rambling way of complimenting you.
Yay, Timothy’s back!!!
Aragorn. I’d totally marry Aragorn. Rawr.
And Timothy, thank you- it wasn’t really Helen’s fault, it was the fault of the dudes fighting over her and the goddesses/gods being jerkwads over the whole Paris-apple thing. Ugh. (Oh, and Paris is a pansy.) Oddly, my knee-jerk reaction to the what-fictional-royal-would-you-marry was Hektor; and if I gender-bended, I’d totally pick Andromache over Helen in a heartbeat. But then you said Helen and I thought, damn, I’ll sound like a copycat again. I seem to keep missing the boat with comments lately. Poo.
Oh, and that accent is rather alluring, Tim. Just sayin’…
So we totally didn’t get a holiday when Woodrow Wilson married Edith Galt. I wonder, does anyone think there would be a national holiday in the sequel if Andrew Shepherd actually married Sydney Ellen Wade?
I didn’t quite understand the grading system of the university system in England, but that makes me think about how we’re told celebrity and politicians’ grades, yet here in the States at least, there is supposed to be this little thing they call FERPA which makes it illegal for teachers and schools to make grades public without explicit consent. Hell, just today, I had a professor tell me she couldn’t tell me a grade on an assignment over email (the website I was supposed to see it on wasn’t working) unless I explicitly asked her for it. Does becoming a celebrity/political figure make someone lose their FERPA protection, then? And are there any laws like that across the pond I don’t know about?
Darn it, I live in a country where everyone has the accent and thus it’s not so alluring.
I’ll admit my choice of Helen may have been influenced by Dan Simmons more than Homer, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not really her fault that her face is a hard-working shipyard. I blame Zeus. As with most of the stories, it’s his sleeping around that causes all the ills in the world.
We have the opposite on uni grades – grades are publically posted unless you really strongly ask. My Dad found out his when they were published in a national newspaper, as was the style at the time. Basically, they go 1st, 2nd, which is divided into 1st division and 2nd division, so 2:1 and 2:2, then 3rd, then pass, then fail. I have no idea how American grades work, that said.
I may be back when there’s another bank holiday in my fair land.
Some humourous royal wedding links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarygoround/5612340335/
http://www.regretsy.com/2011/04/21/upper-crust/
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/04/29/royal-wedding-exclusive-queen-sacks-stylist/
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/04/29/doctor-who-visits-royal-wedding/
Tim did bring in some new audience members…
Cobb Knob Goblin King Quest [SPOILER]:
http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/The_King_of_Cobb%27s_Knob_Quest