Author: RevVoice

What happens when you give Michael Bay a ton of money, a Dutch movie about a hostage situation, and tell him to go to town?

You get this hodgepodge of big action, big explosions, big cameras, and a plot that drives by at the speed of a man who just robbed a bank.

Does it work? Is Michael Bay finding his footings as an artist? There’s only one way to know on Something In Review: Ambulance!

Ok, here we vroom!

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The internet has made us all boiled frogs.

The boiled frog syndrome is that people don’t accept bad situations at once. If I was to suggest you need to listen to screams all day, you would think I was bonkers. If I told you that you would be given a dollar for every scream every hour… maybe you would say yes. Then the scream got a little longer. A couple more screams, but a slightly higher payout. Longer screams. A little less payout. More screams. Etc etc until your life is now making nothing and listening to a scream all the time. You would be a boiled frog, the temperature getting higher and higher until you didn’t even know you were dead.

So on one side of the internet, places like Facebook and Youtube have removed your ability to see things the way you would like to see them in lieu of providing you the things it expects you want to see. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen them before or they are years old – their science has shown this content will provide them with the best situation for revenue, and what you want bedamned.

I spend more of my life than I would care to admit trying to find ways to give me data the way I want it. The people that have grown with the modern internet, at times, don’t even realize that these are options! The belief that for your video to be relevant it must be on Youtube or have high Ups on Reddit… all the while your work, your art, your podcast, your video, is chaff on the wheel of data aggregation.

Here – to help you all on your journey of freeing yourselves from the shackles of Big Data are some applications and programs I use to help me fight through the drudge of companies telling me what and how I want to look at things. If you have any more, you know where to find us….

BNTP – Bookmarks in New Tab
This is actually the thing that spawned this article. I lose links. Google is getting harder to find fine-tooth detail the way it used to. This bookmark app puts all of your links right up front and they’re super easy to read and organize. Love it.

Fluff-Busting Purity
Facebook is a nightmare. Ads. Data spread out. Timeline in hodgepodge order. Ads. Sponsored posts… which are really just ads. Only seeing 20 of your friends posts and feeling like you are missing out on so many other people’s lives. Fluff-Busting gives you a giant list of ways to change Facebook from dark mode to removing sidebars to tabbing everything. I have no idea what modern Facebook looks like.

Reddit Enhancement Suite
This is almost a gimme if you are a reddit user – but I have to assume there are some that aren’t aware of it. RES adds so many useful desktop features to Reddit. Sadly, organizational control over when articles came in isn’t one of them – but tagging users, mass opening, color coordinationn, tabbed viewing and grouping. It really makes Reddit a slightly less home for scum and villainy.

The first moments of a movie or TV show sets the stage for what’s to come… is it a tense moment to moment thriller? Is it confusing, where the plot reveals itself slowly? Is it a podcast that introduces itself the same way to you each week for the last 9 years?

Whatever the case may be – the first few moments of a show or movie may be the thing that keeps you glued to your seat… so join the Somethings as we discuss our favorites.

Did yours make the cut? Only one way to find out.

Okay, here we start!

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What would you do when an alien crash lands into your garage, what do you do? Call the FBI? Scream and run? Invite it into your home to eat your food and your pets?

Well, if you are the Tanner family in the 80’s, it’s obviously the latter. That’s when Gordon Shumway found his into their home and lasted 4 years on NBC Monday nights. Hatton remembered this show fondly, Rob remembers it as a moment in television. Does it hold up? How does it end?

Honestly, it’s finale is pretty infamous, so you may know what’s about to come… but what did the Something’s think?

Find out on this week’s The End: ALF

Ok, here we go (to Melmac!)

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It’s that time a year again… my least favorite time of the year.

It should come as no shock that I’m a bit of a homebody, and the last two years have done absolutely nothing to help that. I enjoy going out and doing a thing on occasion, like hosting burlesque or having in-ring segments for UWA Elite, but by and large – I’m content at home. Inside.

Now though, as we reach the beginning of the Summer, the inside begins to bake. My apartment, for as much as I like it, has one major flaw… and it is that it is made out of some sort of anti-thermos material. It makes the tepidly warm things hot in the summer and cold in the winter – and on a nice breezy day, it ruffles their hair. So given we are on the cusp of my most miserable time, I thought I’d do a quick run down of the seasons, and my opinion of them. In order of favorite to least favorite.

WINTER – It’s a delight. You’re cold, so you put on a sweatshirt. You’re still cold, so you wear a blanket.  Still cold? Drink some coffee.  Seriously, nothing is better than being ever so slightly chilly, but having reasons to wear thermals and sweatshirts. Everything is crisp and crunchy and dead, which isn’t some gothy outcry.. you’ll understand in a moment.

FALL – I know a lot of folks who love the fall, mostly because of Halloween, but I do appreciate the change of fall. It’s probably the most visually pleasing of the seasons, and aside from Christmas smells, has the best flavor profile of the seasons. I would have to really think hard as to whether I like eggnog or apple cider more… so yes, Fall’s enjoyable, but it doesn’t get snow.

SPRING – Here’s where the pain begins. The first third is the inverse Fall, which is all the growing, budding, pollening, flowers with a nice breeze.  The rest is a wet sloppy mess that starts climbing the roller coaster towards ..

SUMMER – No, I don’t want to go out. It’s hot. Yes, fine, I’ll go and enjoy the beach for a day or a pool, but I’m going to go home – and it’s still going to be this miserable sticky skin-blistering rage virus on my skin. And the bugs are out. So many bugs. All of the flying, buzzing, wooshing, biting, tree-falling, stinging, swarming, crawling bugs are out because outside is a dirty hellscape filled with monsters that are all trying to usurp our land with their nests. Remember that adorable and charming image of how you get warm in the Winter?  Yeah… all you can do in the Summer is reverse it, and eventually you’re left naked, with nothing else to take off, and making whimpering noises every time the oscillating fan moves beyond you.

The Summer sucks, and if you are one of those ‘Oh Summer, rah’ types… I don’t want to hear you bitch when the thermometer hits three digit temperatures and you feel like saying things like ‘Real scorcher out there!’ — of course it is.

It’s Summer, and it hates you

– Hatton

On May 19that 9am, Livestream For The Cure kicked off with a goal to raise $20,000 for The Cancer Research Institute.

On May 20th, two behemoths met in the ring and duked out for supremacy. Who won? Who’s next?  You decide.

That’s right – with Rob as Quizmaster, Somethingcast’s Hatton took on the Maestro of Livestream for the Cure, Nicholas Haskins in movie quote trivia.

If you missed the stream, we thought you would enjoy hearing what happens as these two people play a brutal game of cinema chess … but before you think you know what’s going to happen, ask yourself – what if they weren’t facing each other?

Are you ready for this battle of wits? Well, at least you are…  but before we get the episode started, while this year’s goal was reached, the final tally hasn’t been taken yet. There is still time to bring the number even higher, and remember, all of the money goes to the Cancer Research Institute.  Click here to donate.

Ok, here we quote!

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We are the terror that flaps in the night… we are the podcast you listen to when you already caught up with RadioLab – we’re… the SOMETHINGSOMETHING DUC—CAST!

This week, we are going to Gotham with the newest installment in the neverending saga of one man’s fight against eye make-up.

How did Pattinson do as the man known as the Bat? How did he do as the Wayne? Did he sparkle in either role? What about the Riddler? The Catwoman? Egghead? Xyzzaz? The Condiment King?

Find out on this week’s Something in Review: The Batman!

Also – please be sure to tune in this Friday @9pm to support the Somethings as we get to be a part of Livestream For The Cure – Donations are open.

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Hatton here with this week’s blog that was supposed to be last week’s, but I have lost all cohesion and concept of the passage of time. Thanks Rob for picking up my dumb dumb slack.

Anyway – I am a Trek person. If you love all sci-fi equally, go you, but if I had to choose between watching a lightsaber or a phaser, I’m going to choose a phaser every time. That said, not all Trek has been created equally, and in recent years there has been a surprising number of new shows that wear the Trek name. Thankfully these shows have disregarded the Abrams version of Trek entirely and have rested solely on the ‘prime timeline’ for lack of a term.

So what are my thoughts on these new Treks? I thought I’d give my pros and my cons this week.

Star Trek: Discovery – Starting in a world before the original series, with nods to original Captain Pike, Tribbles, and Spock, we follow Michael Burnham who was the canonically inserted adoptive sister of Spock.

The good here is that this show has the heart of Trek right. The characters grow and learn lessons, they are humans who are fighting for the Prime Directive. Also, given this show is being produced now, the morality of Trek is updated along with it featuring women, people of color, non-binary, lgbtq all in the chain of command with absolutely no fanfare. There are moments of real tearjerking beauty in Discovery, and I look forward to every season.

The bad though… the bad is its main character, Michael Burnham. Not the actress, as Sonequa Martin-Green is excellent, but the character. Her primary flaw is that she isn’t perfect enough to compete with her near god-like Spock, so she is always fighting for relevancy when compared to him. That concept makes her too good at near everything else, and as the show goes on she seems to somehow get smarter than people at the height of their profession. Answering medical questions for doctors and history questions for anthropologists… she’s just too much at times.

Star Trek: Picard – The final adventures of my favorite captain, Picard is an interesting mix of nostalgia and telling stories outside of the standard ‘captain and his crew’ world that most shows lean into. I have only taken in the first season, but within we learn what’s happened to Data, Riker, Troi, Seven of Nine, and I have no doubt that there is more to come in the next Season. It clearly loves the source material and pays homage in every inch of it.

The bad is mostly plot oriented. It’s story, where fun and intended to take us to various corners of the universe and explore the aftereffects of what Picard went through in Next Generation, the big season plot would have largely never been a concern if not for the heroes getting involved. There is a season finale issue as well that others may have a problem with, but I’ll leave that for the forum-arguers.

Lastly – we have the cartoons. Lower Decks and Prodigy. Decks is a Family Guy style comedy and Prodigy is a CGI animated kid-friendly adventure. Both have their merits and their love of Trek on their sleeve. (Prodigy, notably features show friend Bonnie Gordon as the ship computer). Lower Decks makes fun of the things we love, but holds onto a lot of Trek’s heart, and Prodigy is a big adventure that, due to its CGI, sometimes feels less Star Trek and more Reboot… both though are enjoyable as hell.

So, what’s your favorite current Trek? Are you looking forward to Strange New Worlds? Sound off in the usual places. Hatton out.

Time again to bring the circle of fun back to the Somethings – it’s time for The Wheel!

This week, hate to spoil it, but we land on Creator Spotlight and the wheel has brought along the creative entrepreneur, writer, creator, roleplayer, fanfictioning, and all around fantastic human on the Prime Material and any other plane as well – Crystal Storm!

So maybe, before you dive in, go take a look at the place for all things Crystal: Crystal’s Imagination! and be certain to sign-up with her Twitch to keep on with her game playing!

But for now, come talk all the nerd shit with Crystal Storm!

Ok here we go!

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Imagine this – Johnny Law is on your tail, in the trunk you have a kilo of those really delicious strange flavored gummy bears from Japan that you didn’t pay the import tax on. You, in a suped up Kia Supreme, your partner in crime is in a Nitro-Boosted Toyota Corolla. Will you get across the county line before the Po takes your sweet sweet candies?

YOU might be in one of cinema’s greatest chase sequences.

Find out what high-octane, cat and mouse adventures the Somethings picked as their favorites on this week’s SomethingSomethingcast!

Ok here we VROOOOM!

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