Finally done

With the fourth episode of the Podcast.

Now available: http://episodezeropodcast.podbean.com/

Dis-Orientation.

So I recently have begun my University years after completing my AA at a local community college. First on the list to understand is you will not get ANYTHING resembling accurate or timely information from the people in charge of getting timely, accurate information at said university. They are much too busy at their occupation, which is taking up space, wasting oxygen and generally being unhelpful.

The second thing you need to understand is that Universities have medical requirements. I was fortunate in that I only needed to provide the following:

-Immunization records.
-Blood.
-Fingerprints.
-Strands of hair.
-proof of insurance.
-Dental and full body X-Ray and MRI scans.
-bone marrow.
-signature of a contract stating I will surrender my first-born male child to the state if I falter in any way, shape or fashion while at university.

I understand the requirements of incoming freshmen are even tougher.

Once that is processed you are ordered to attend the orientation itself. This nice, little event that is schedule to only last a few hours, proceeds to drag out over the process of several days.

The event opens when the prototype for every female gym teacher unleashes her minions, shrieking, jumping and clapping and ordering everyone else in the room to do so on pain of having them repeat the steps. After these hellions retreat to monitoring stations to keep watch the real orientation begins.

We were then treated to the history of the university, helpfully narrated and described by the decayed corpses of those who lived it. Following the undead presentation, we were then treated to one of the many University vice-presidents, describing in graphic and extreme detail how the admissions and academic advising people are our prior schools, lied to us about the requirements and life on campus.
This process lasts for an hour or until the last virgin is sacrificed to the undead historians.

The second presentation revolves around money and how you (the students and parents) will be giving it in large amounts to this university in the name of higher education. They helpfully illustrate the process they will use drain a checking account dry in order to give you free bus rides almost anywhere. Also described are the numerous changes made to scholarships and grants that promised to pay for college but at this point, that too is a lie and you see how much you are in deep for.

The third presentation comes from the health center, which rehashes the earlier discussion of how much money you will be spending for your 'free' health care along with very little actual health information. Which means they're fully qualified to present this information to the student body.

Then there is a break for campus networking which is really just a term for people to wander around semi-lost in the name of learning about the grounds. And I say 'semi-' because the real confusion doesn't begin until after the orientation ends.

After this there is a brief period for you to spend more money in the name of nourishing your body and replenishing your lost bodily fluids which are hopefully only sweat at this time but maybe others.

Once lunch has ended, we get the safety lecture from the Campus police which is to say here is a whole laundry list of items that are not allowed on campus but will be found and mostly ignored in every dorm.

Then we are released to allegedly begin our actual academic advising and guidance. This of course takes place at 2 am so we are forced to wait for the next morning before we are able to continue onward. After this short summary we are then turned loose on the campus and encouraged to find and receive final advising for our upcoming year.

Once that is accomplished you are free to wander the campus, dehydrated, sweating, stinking, hungry, thirsty and lost. This of course leads to the revelation that if you have any sort of allergy to anything classified as a 'plant' you will be exposed to that allergen and spend the rest of the day, dealing with it. The groundscrew is helpful in this regard by using such items as the industrial strength leaf blower and lawn mower to kick up large dust clouds, large enough to briefly shield you from the sun. Of course, this is where the plants other ally, concrete, comes in. You see the helpful concrete and other masonry items in addition to serving as building materials, serves to conduct and reflect all of the heat previously emitted from the sun since the begining of time back at you.

The bright sides of being lost allows you have several feverish dreams including going up and down sorority row, where all the wannabes are helpfully gathered together. These pledges are for the most part dressed nicely in semi-revealing attire to stay cool. This includes a larger then normal percentage of strapless dresses, halter tops and short skirts or shorts. While this might sound like a good or indeed arousing visual. Several things prevent this from being true:

*One, it is indeed possible for any woman or girl to wear a strapless gown physically. Unfortunately this isn't always a good idea in that several of these young ladies simply would be better off not attempting to cram what the lord (and parents dna) gave them into those outfits.
*Two, The heat and humidity do not care for gender or your senses. This results in the foul smell that can only be found when a large group of humanity gathers together and sweats collectively. This odor is strong enough to peel pavement and paint which is these are replaced on a continuous place.
*Three, the shrill voices of the upper-class members of a sorority is capable of not only not quieting a crowd of young female pledges, it has the side effect of rupturing male ear drums. A short time after encountering one of these sucubi I was left with bleeding ears. How I long for that time as a means of deadening the pain.

Periodically, a golf cart promising free rides to attractive young women wearing revealing clothing and other services for those that are not the former, would appear and disappear as to taunt you.

Eventually a lucky few are able to escape this trial by reaching the end. And by the end I mean the sweet release of death. I was not so lucky and will be forced to attend these grounds for a longer time.

Episode 3 now avaliable

Still can't count but I can talk about:

-Bay vs. Sommers, Why Madden sucks, Nature kills

And more, @ http://episodezeropodcast.podbean.com/2009/08/16/the-episode-zero-podcast-episode-three/

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YC0H07CV

GI Joe Movie review

So I went and saw GI JOE with my brother yesterday.

Now when I first heard and saw that GI Joe was getting the big screen treatment, I thought this might be okay or it might be like that made for TV Justice League movie a few years ago.

Then I started reading up on the casting and all the numerous changes being made and my expectations for the film started crashing. Then I saw the photos and leaked set designs. And again, expectations went lower.

So having seen it, I can safely say that those low expectations were not met or exceeded.

I understand that unlike Transformers which has a rough allegory of a civil war going on in a modern society, it's still just a movie about about Giant robots beating the hell out of each other. Where as GI Joe is a straight forward story about the military fighting a dangerous threat. And could be considered more political incorrect or upsetting.

So yeah, they had to rework the basic conflict between GI Joe and Cobra, by reworking each faction to their basic level. Hence the setting in the 'near future' and the over-emphasis on nanotechnology as the big mcguffin of the film.

And while these were great ideas and concepts, they mostly failed in execution. Especially when it got the OTHER pile of story dumped on it. And that other half of the story, the part responsible for the characterizations of most of the core cast, mostly sucked and slowed down the plot in my opinion and really became extremely aggravating.

Now there were some good parts of the movie, the action/fight scenes were nice. the fights underwater looked kick ass. But the fight between the kids was hands down the most awesome part of the movie. And while it was awesome and should win the inevitable fight scene award, when that is the best scene in a movie like GI Joe, you know you've got problems.

So basically... I'd wait and save my money on watching this movie. In the meantime, watch GI Joe Resolute instead and you'll get a far superior product in my mind.

Til next time.

2nd Episode now up

The second episode is now available for listening.

At:

podbean: Download this episode (right click and save)


And at megaupload as well: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PWTK8DJM

Topics this week include why the X-Games suck and a little story about SDCC.

Hello out there

hey this is Charles, the host of the Episode Zero Podcast.

First I want to thank any and all for listening to the show. So here's the deal on the show line-u

Rather then do a show every week, I am instead going to be recording and uploading a show every two weeks, making this a twice a month podcast. Every other week, like this one, I'll be doing a blog entry in a similar fashion to how I do a live recording. Now the reason I'm setting my schedule like this for a number of reasons. One, to avoid burnout which seems to be affecting a lot of podcasts nowdays. And two, my schedule demands I take a smidgen of time off now and then.

So that being said....

The blog entry for this week talks about a familiar subject, the Episode Zero Podcast itself. I already briefly talked about this on the show and on youtube but I wanted to discuss it further here. And that's why I'm doing a show on my own. The whole history of how this came to be is a sordid subject for another time. But suffice to say, I've had the idea of doing a podcast on my mind for a while now. Thinking about how to do it and what it would be about, etc...

Eventually it took the right combination of a good friend's prodding, the amount of free time I currently enjoy and some other things looming on the horizon that I decided, screw it, lets do a show.

And thus Episode Zero was born, Hamlet it is not. However, what it is, is a podcast where as I previously mentioned on the show itself, discuss a variety of subjects that are of interest to me. These can and will include just about anything from current events, politics, gaming, entertainment, tech, etc... All done in my voice, giving my thoughts and some attempt at humor/insight into them.

Some people may not find this to be their type of show, it may not be geeky enough for them, others may find it, too geeky. And I know a lot of people will very turned off by the political nature and tone of the show. In that I am a very conservative person in a fandom/grouping of people that are for the most part, fairly liberal. I'm not of a mind to change the show for anyone's tastes but mine nor am I of the opinion to give a crap if someone who's viewpoint I both offend and disagree with, is either or offended and upset with. If I say it, and you don't like it, that's a you problem, not mine concern.

Don't like it. Don't listen.

For everyone else though, I hope you do listen and if not like it, then at least understand it. And then run the spelling/grammar check on those hate-filled emails before sending them.

Later.

Another way to hear the show

Knowing the limitations of rapidshare, I uploaded the show at Megaupload.

So here it is: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BSFVW0NE

Have fun listening folks.