EPISODE 286 - Charjutsu

Another week, another missing host. Jabari is MIA and filling in for him is our old pal Evan Pedersen from the Fancy Pants Gangsters podcasting network located in the center of the polar vortex back east. Evan’s website is home to a number of podcasts. His newest show, and one he hosts himself is called THE VOICE BEHIND. Each week he interviews voice actors from anime to video games to Disney cartoons. You can check out all of the fancy shows by following the link below in our Show Links. Podcasts and links… those things clearly wouldn’t be possible without the Internet, which celebrated its 25th birthday this past week. It’s existed since the late 80s, but the mainstream version of it we know today didn’t come about until around 1994. If you’re old enough, you may remember the countless America Online commercials and discs you got in the mail offering countless free hours to try it out. You probably also remember the obnoxious sounds coming from your desktop tower as it dialed in. I remember waiting sometimes 30-seconds or more for a JPG or animated GIF to load. And streaming video? That just simply didn’t happen. When it first started showing up, you were lucky if the video size was 144 pixels wide. I remember my family was an early adopter of broadband. When cable modems first appeared we had a COM21 CP2000. The first broadband speeds available in our area were 128 kbps. I was astonished at how fast the Internet was. And then when our cable company bumped it up to 256 kbps… well, it couldn’t possibly get any faster! IMDb, eBay and Amazon all appeared pretty damn early. IMDb was on the scene in 1990, while eBay and Amazon debuted in ’94. Fast forward 20-years and now Amazon is the biggest online retailer out there. In 2005 they introduced Amazon Prime, a membership granting those who pay the $79 a year for it access to unlimited, free two-day shipping on tons of products as well as streaming video of movies and TV series that’s much better resolution than 144 pixels! But, for the first time in the program’s history, the price is going up to $99 a year. We ponder this and whether or not it’s value is still justifiable on today’s show. THE BIG BANG THEORY has been renewed for three more years. As CBS’ highest-rated comedy and the most-watched sitcom on TV, it was a no brainer for the network. The show seems to be either loved or hated. I don’t see much in between feelings out there, especially from our Who Asked You? panel. But Evan makes an interesting point with regards to whether the nerd rage is justified towards actors portraying nerds. Another show that’s doing well is Comedy Central’s KEY & PEELE. If I remember correctly, when the show first came out, we talked about it on the show and worried whether it was a pathetic attempt by CC to fill the Dave Chappelle void. As it turns out, it’s NOT! The show is well done and features some pretty funny skits. It gets a thumbs up from the Who Asked You? Crew and it got one from the network executives too. The fourth season has been extended, and the show’s creators, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have been given a development deal for an animated series too. The folks over at CD Projekt RED have some more magic to cast on the development of THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT. The highly anticipated sequel to the WITCHER franchise still needs a little finessing so the company announced it’s pushing back the launch date by a couple of months. Fans of the game will have to wait until February of 2015 to play it. Could have been worse though, they could’ve pushed it back a year. The company says the scope of the project is so huge they just want to get everything right. Here in Las Vegas, the Who Asked You? Crew — those of us who drink that is — frequent a local drinkery called Tenaya Creek Brewery. We’ve been going there for years, even before we started this show. That’s why I was surprised to see them in a news story perfect for our show. They teamed up with BrewDog to create the world’s most expensive beer. If you’ve listened to us for awhile, BrewDog probably sounds familiar. They’re the guys in Scotland that came up with Tactical Nuclear Pinguin, a beer with the world’s highest APV. The two brew masters, James Watt and Martin Dickie landed a travel series thanks to their brewing antics and now they go around the world making different beers based on the cities they visit. For season two of their show, they hit Vegas and decided it was only appropriate, with the help of Tenaya Creek, to make an over-the-top grog containing some pretty fancy ingredients. One of which you’ll recognize, again if you’re a longtime listener. Robin Leach auctioned the bottle off for charity and it broke the previous price record and is now the most expensive bottle of beer on Earth. Tune in for what’s in it and what it went for. When is a chick too skinny? That’s a question raised on this episode with news of a new trend called “the thigh gap.” It seems the ladies, in particular teen girls and young adult women are dieting/starving themselves to get thin enough that their thighs don’t touch and there’s a visible gap between them. Adding to this is a new dieting book called “The Thigh Gap Hack” meant to teach females how to achieve it. Doctors warn doing something like this could lead to an eating disorder. We warn that doing this is an enormous turn off. I wonder if the woman in our last story has a thigh gap? She seems to be on a pure protein diet. Just ask her boyfriend. He’s missing part of his ear after she bit it off. The two were arguing when she jumped onto his back and sank her teeth in. He was hospitalized along with his chunk of ear. She was arrested and took a pretty sexy mugshot. It’s posted on the article which we have a link to in the Show Links. Charlie then presents us with some fun facts regarding taking off someone’s ear with ease. It’s the inspiration for this episode’s title. And quickly, you might be ‘hearing’ us a little faster from now on as we’ve moved our show to a new content delivery network. The system is set up to deliver podcasts and video programming as quickly and reliably as possible to you the listener. It’s all part of my goal to make it easy for you to get this show into your ears. I just hope nobody bites them off. Show Links: Fancy Pants Gangsters Wikipedia: Internet Sign up for Amazon Prime CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory” Comedy Central’s “Key & Peele” “Vandaveon and Mike” on YouTube CD Projekt RED HookedOnHops.com: Tenaya Creek and BrewDog Brew the World’s Most Expensive Beer “Brew Dogs” TV Series BrewDog Beer Tenaya Creek Brewery “The Thigh Gap Hack” Daily Tribune: Macomb Township woman accused of biting off portion of boyfriend’s ear