Episode 204 - Godball

[Mike]

Mike's got feedback and a whole lot of linguistics talk. But then he shares about the first playtest of a new board game. There's a little science involving an antelope with heat stroke, some discussion of Norman Lear, and then a look at all the stuff Mike's excited about on TV. R2 rounds out the show with a half-dozen, brand-new, listener-submitted questions on the Pod-O-Matic. You have to listen right away... this episode is the best thing you can do for your ears... and your soul.

Enjoy!

[Phoebe]

Good episode! I liked all the linguistics and science stuff this time around (as usual). I do think if WW has an invisible jet coming someday, a magic boat is a minimal stretch of imagination. It would be nice if they gave it a throwaway line of explanation, but maybe they didn't want to pin down the causes. Could be that the winds blessed them, that they slept for a week, or... many possibilities. Point is, it doesn't trouble me at all because of the easy proliferation of options once you're dealing with a movie where gods and their supernatural powers are sometimes real.

[Mike]

They couldn't have slept for a week cuz it was imperative that they be in London in 2 days to get Steve's new intelligence to the right people.

[Mike]

But yeah... there could have been any number of easy explanations for this that would have taken a line or two of dialogue to explain.

[Kyle]

Postage due? How much? I put two stamps on an envelope that had two tiny ten sides in it! Sorry, brother.

And here's the thing- it took me forever to find those tiny tens. They were cheap- I got a whole standard set of tiny polyhedral dice for 5 bucks (which included shipping). The problem was finding the right terms to locate where I could purchase them. It took me like 45 minutes to figure out the right size and terminology.

[Mike]

They wanted an extra buck-sixty-nine. Sounds like total bullshit to me.

But who cares? The dice are awesome and perfect! I'll post a pic when I go home for lunch. I love the new R2. I know the sticking dice was never that big a deal--I get a new entry each time even if it's not perfectly "fair", but it always bugged the crap out of me anyway. You can't imagine how much better it feels to not have part of my mind always paying attention to that.

[Mrs.Darcs]

Real Genius doesn't show up on Netflix for me. Is it something you need on actual disc or something?

[Mike]

Oh... maybe it's Hulu or Amazon. Hulu, I think.

[Eliahad]

I mean seriously, if Mike hadn't put all of that effort in, there wouldn't have been anything to show for it.

I say this, but the thing Mike did that was awesome was that we needed to be ready for things to not work, and remember that that's okay. It makes it easier to be ready for the bumps and bruises. Also, Mike has ideas! He's played a lot more games than I have, so I trust his judgment a hell of a lot. He is a fabulous person to bounce ideas off of!

Sacred minotaur.

Pat is the one who helped me see how powerful Roll20 is. If it weren't for Runelords, I would have been floundering.

[Producefarmer]

All caught up now! Great episode, Mike! Have you ever taken a look at Tabletop Simulator? I used it early on in my design, and it's pretty spiffy with a 3d table environment. Only problem is that each person you want to test with you needs a copy of it, and its something like $18 a copy on Steam.