Unquiet Desperation

Warning!

Episode #0028 of The Secret Lair has broken free and is wreaking havoc across the world.  It boasts the following weaponry:

Staff Reports

Chief Medical Officer’s Progress Report. In which the Bad Doctor speculates that the Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies ought not be involved in our plan to demoisturize the moon.

Discussion

We are joined by our lovely wives to discuss The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

• There is chili. And there are Fritos. And SPOILERS.
• Everyone talks about time travel as metaphor, but what if it’s actually a simile?
• Chris discusses the difference between men and women. He says it’s all about the potential versus the kinetic. Or something.
• We explain why Prisoner of Azkaban is the best book-to-film translation of Harry Potter to date.
• Chris issues a challenge to Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Anansi Boys).
• Kris was right about the “R”. The movie version of Clare Abshire is portrayed by Rachel McAdams.

Do yourself a favor and catch it now, before it kills somebody!

Truth be told, we probably could have returned to The Secret Library sooner, but I’ve been avoiding it. Why? Two words: late fees. See, a couple of months ago I checked out a copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen and promptly set fire to it. No book will mock my character flaws in such a manner, do you understand? I will not be mocked!

As it turns out, our android librarian is equipped with neither a sense of irony nor any compulsion toward forgiveness. Nor the slightest inclination to waive a replacement fee, for that matter. However, the whole unpleasant mess has been resolved and we are now prepared to discuss Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.

Also in this episode:

• Chief Medical Officer’s Progress Report #2: The Bad Doctor returns to blame yet another new strain of yet another virus on our meddling—we prefer “fiddling”, really—with equine-primate hybridization. As a side note, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) really are very cute; it should have worked, dammit!
• From the Ministry of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies: Jay is in Hong Kong attempting to procure a wolf-child, but important details seem to have been lost in translation somewhere.

Lair Keeping

• Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
• Our Secretary of Artistic Propaganda is Natalie Metzger.
• Our Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies is Jay “The Kingfish” Lynn.
• Our Chief Medical Officer is Dr. John Cmar.
• Our Airborne Legions are led by Commandante David Moore.
• Our Minister of Suspicious Substitutions and Unreasonable Facimiles often operates under the pseudonym The Cynical Optimist.
• Our Minister of Secrets and Subterfuge is classified.

Listen and learn more at The Secret Lair!

It’s been a productive day.

• I’ve just finished the first run at integrating Podiobooks.com with Smashwords, to allow our authors to highlight their ebook editions. Smashwords will be doing the same thing, pointing their customers interested in an audio copy of a novel to Podiobooks.com. Authors, check your email for a notification about this, or visit the Authors’ Tools section of the Podiobooks.com for more info.
• A new Secret Lair episode is mixed down, and should be ready to post later this evening. It will be an episode of The Secret Library, focusing on our latest book selection, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Additionally, there are some excellent segments by Dr. John Cmar and Jay “The Kingfish” Lynn.
• A new episode of Shadowdance has been edited and posted. It’s a lecture Michelle gave on dreamwalking at the last Kheperu Open House.
• I’ve installed tircd on my server, and it beats the hell out of using Tweetdeck. It allows you to connect to Twitter as if it were an irc chat room, and allows yu to segment used into various rooms, etc. I read about it in this month’s Linux Journal, and I absolutely love it.

Natalie Metzger, our Secretary of Artistic Propaganda, has released the latest Secret Lair Webcomic. This one gives me the warm fuzzies on several levels.

In a planning meeting for our demisemicentepisode one of the minions suggested that we ”pull out all the stops”, at which point Dr. Pindar, our Director of Etymological Accuracy and General Nitpicking, pointed out that The Secret Lair does not have a pipe organ installed. This, quite naturally, led to several hours of rational discourse on whether, given the lack of pipe organs, we ought to leave some of the stops in or simply not bother with the stops at all. The discussion concluded, as is often the case, with a face-stabbing. Further planning meetings were deemed unnecessary.

Our special guest is Jay “The Kingfish” Lynn from the Metamediocrity audio comic book. Speaking of special and mediocre, our special sauce is Thousand Island Dressing blended with mayonnaise. Jay joins us at the International House of Johnson for a discussion about superheroes and approximately three inches of latex.

Additionally, there is a report from our Chief Medical Officer, the distinguished Dr. John Cmar.

Learn more, listen, subscribe, or join the discussion on the Secret Lair website.