Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
Eric Johnson and Emily Jones
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
All episodes
Best episodes
Seasons
Top 10 Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Machine of Death (2010)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
10/29/16 • 47 min
What if you could put your finger in a machine and find out how you were going to die? What if that machine were always right?
And what if that machine was also kind of a jerk, dispensing cryptic predictions that often came true in cruelly ironic ways?
That is the delightful-slash-terrifying premise of "Machine of Death," an anthology of short stories collected and first published in 2010 by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Malki. And it's what we're talking about today on the podcast!
For this discussion, we're only reading the first half of "Machine of Death," which goes from the preface through the short story "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor." Feel free to read more if you'd like, but that's as far as we read before turning on our recorders.
You can find "Machine of Death" on Amazon, TopatoCo or lots of other places where dead trees are sold and loaned. Like, say, a bookstore, or a library?
If you like this, give Emily and me a follow on Twitter. Or, if Facebook is more your thing, like our FB page here! And if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b on iTunes or Google Play Music.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hamilton (2015)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
11/06/16 • 87 min
How did a bastard orphan immigrant become one of America's founding fathers? How did the country forget about him? And how — and why? — did he become the subject of a wildly popular hip-hop musical 200 years after his death?
In trying to answer these tricky questions, we quickly struck a roadblock: Neither Emily nor Eric had seen or listened to the soundtrack of "Hamilton," Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit 2015 Broadway musical about the rise and fall of Alexander Hamilton. Enter Eric's friend and coworker Amy Keyishian, a "Hamilton" devotee and our first-ever guest geek.
None of the three of us have seen Hamilton, still, but we listened to the original Broadway cast recording twice: Once in isolation, and a second time with the annotated lyrics from Genius in front of us. And boy, did we have a lot to say about it!
You can find the "Hamilton" soundtrack pretty much anywhere you listen to music, in physical or digital formats. But if you're not sure about paying for it, and you don't subscribe to any music streaming services, you can still listen for free on YouTube. You can also play each track from its respective Genius lyrics page.
This is part two of our civics-minded pre-Election Day weekend, and it's also the end of Season 4 for Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b. If you missed yesterday's discussion of The West Wing, check it out right here! We'll be back for season 5 in 2017, but stay subscribed to this channel ... we'll be dropping a couple holiday-minded goodies in the interim.
What?! You're not subscribed? Do that here: iTunes or Google Play Music.
If you like this, give Emily and me a follow on Twitter. Or, if Facebook is more your thing, like our FB page here.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In the Loop (2009)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
04/08/15 • 25 min
Topic: In The Loop
Geek: Eric
I went back and forth on whether or not to star-star-out the swears in that title, but I don't want to risk getting in trouble with iTunes. So, here we are: You win, Linton Barwick.
If you don't know that name or what it has to do with censoring swears, you should go watch In The Loop. That's the topic of this week's podcast discussion, and we do spoil several of the best jokes!
OK, enough nagging. Hat tip to the /Filmcast (which is an excellent podcast, by the by) for introducing me to this film back in 2009. I went into the theater not quite knowing what to expect and walked out with a new favorite political satire.
Any Kubrick fans reading this might be wondering after that last sentence if I've never seen Dr. Strangelove. Don't worry, I have, and I really enjoyed it. But movies like it and In the Loop are always more powerful when their audience has lived through the events they send up, and by the time I entered preschool the USSR had been dissolved.
To share what you thought of In The Loop, email us at [email protected]. And don't forget that it only costs $2 per month to support this podcast via a pledge at Patreon.com. Starting at $5 per month, you'll also get access to Patreon-exclusive mini-episodes; this week's minisode, which comes out on Friday, is about bizarro genre-flipping twists on our favorite pop culture.
See you next week!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
02/06/16 • 45 min
I never really got into anime in the way that a lot of other geeky kids did. Dragonball Z? Did not care. Pokémon? I watched the first season or two of the anime, but the video games were always first in my heart. Digimon? Yeah, no.
So, I was surprised in college to really get into the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which borrows heavily from anime. It tells the story of an epic war fought by element-"bending" humans, a group of children who must save the planet, and some bizarrely cute hybrid animals.
On this episode of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b, I tasked Emily with watching the first five episodes of season one of Avatar: "The Boy in the Iceberg" through "The King of Omashu." Join us!
If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can watch Avatar: The Last Airbender for free on Amazon Instant Video. You can also stream some episodes on Nickelodeon's website (not all of them, like we said in the episode). Or, you can buy individual episodes from iTunes or Amazon for $2 apiece.
Oh, and probably worth noting: As is our wont, we get off on a lot of tangents. If you haven't seen the Harry Potter movies or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and you're someone who listens to this podcast?! Really?), then mild spoiler warning for those works.
To weigh in on Avatar or anything else we discussed this week, email us at [email protected]. And you should follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.
We'll be back next week to finish our discussion of A Tale of Two Cities.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sports Night (1998)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
02/04/18 • 70 min
With the exception of that one episode about the Tour de France, we haven't done a lot of sports here on Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b. But a TV show about a SportsCenter-like show, written by "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin? Sign us up!
But wait, there's more: Joining us for our introduction to "Sports Night" is Sorkin superfan Walt Mossberg — although he may be better known as the former Personal Technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal who co-founded AllThingsD and Recode, where Eric now works.
For the purposes of this discussion, we watched five episodes of "Sports Night," chosen from across its two-year run on ABC. They are: S1E7, “Dear Louise”; S1E15, “Dana and the Deep Blue Sea”; S1E19, “Eli’s Coming”; S2E3, “Cliff Gardener”; and S2E11 “And the Cutman Cometh."
When we recorded this podcast, those were all available on Hulu, but unfortunately they seem to have been taken off! To watch those five episodes, you can rent them for $1-2 apiece from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Google Play.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sabriel (1995)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
03/12/15 • 29 min
Topic: Sabriel by Garth Nix
Geek: Emily
Yeah, you knew there was going to be an episode by this title eventually.
Also, let me preface this by saying that half of our Sabriel discussion, originally a two-episode set, has vanished. We’re blaming it on Daleks and/or internet goblins even though it’s 100% my being an idiot. What follows is a combination of the usual introductory post and the main point you’re missing from that disappearing tape.
Sabriel is a Young Adult fantasy novel, and I first read it when I was (surprise surprise) a fantasy-obsessed young adult. I went through this phase from about ages 12-16 where I would go to the YA section of the bookstore and literally choose books by the font on the spine. The more gothic or ancient-looking the font – in other words, the more it said “there are probably dragons in here” – the more likely I was to read it. It was a pretty hit or miss decision-making process.
A big factor in the “miss” side of that was the fact that, although it’s getting better, a lot of the best of those books just don’t have many women. This is super depressing when you’re a 13-year-old girl obsessed with knights and armor and stuff. This book is a serious exception.
Now, before you climb all over me about the incredible female protagonists out there in YA, let me explain: Sabriel is not the only awesome (read: well-developed, human, and also pretty badass) heroine in the genre. I’m all about Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley and anyone else who’s ever given a girl a sword.
Kel is a badass, as was Alanna the Lioness before her. But they both had to fight a patriarchal fantasy system.
But despite all their magic and dragons and whatnot, those authors’ fantasy worlds tend to look a hell of a lot like our own in terms of gender norms and societal power structures. Pierce, for instance, writes incredible heroines, but they’re still women in a man’s world. They’re always having to prove that they’re as strong and as tough as the boys, that being strong doesn’t make them any less women, and that having empathy and emotion doesn’t make them any less strong.
Not so in Sabriel’s world.
Well, ok, the country south of the wall, Ancelstierre, is basically Europe right before World War I and it’s kind of the worst, gender roles included. But the Old Kingdom? Merchants and mercenaries and royal guards and anyone else you can think of are both male and female, totally unremarkably. All those nameless background characters get their gendered pronouns thrown around willy-nilly, and no one cares because it’s just not an issue. There’s powerful magic tied up in blood, literally inherent in families’ blood, so there’s no nonsense about needing a son to inherit a throne or a title; it’s all about an heir who has the family blood. Sabriel has all kinds of obstacles to face as she grows into her role as Abhorsen, but her gender just. isn’t. one of them.
And this raises an important point fantasy authors seem all too often to forget: You’re making all of this up. If the gender politics are shitty, it’s because you made them that way.
I’m going to keep reading and watching Game of Thrones, and I’m going to reread Narnia and Tamora Pierce and all the other fantasy I love to pieces, and I obviously think you should too. But like, maybe let’s keep that last point in mind, you know? There’s no such thing as a fantasy world that just is the way it is. Somebody wrote it all, and there’s no reason more of them couldn’t write more worlds where the oppressions we deal with in real life simply don’t exist. The more we accept that all possible worlds simply are this way, the more we accept that our own world can’t change.
Aaaaand /rant.
Sorry folks. Your TL;DR here is that Sabriel rocks, more fantasy should work this way, and you should definitely read it and then listen to this episode. Enjoy!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Grand Theft Auto V Heist Videos (2014)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
05/12/18 • 41 min
Way back in January, Emily and I made a bet: Whoever could predict the winners of the Golden Globes more accurately would subject the other to a Geek vs. n00b pick that they would definitely hate. And I'm just gonna say it up front: If watching a bunch of dudes play Grand Theft Auto V for two hours is not your idea of a good time, then this episode may not be for you.
Emily, however, had no choice.
We both lost the bet (because we tied), so this weekend we're both torturing each other, no ifs ands or buts. My pick for her: Three YouTube videos made by a group called Achievement Hunter, in which they pull off a series of robbery heists inside of GTA V. As longtime listeners know, Emily doesn't play video games so this should be especially bad for her ... unless maybe it backfires and she loves it???
... OK, there's no point in being coy. She hated it.
For easy reference, here are the three videos we watched, in order. If, unlike Emily, you enjoy these, you can find more on YouTube:
We'll have another new episode of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b tomorrow, in which Emily makes me watch something that she had promised I would never have to watch, the TV show "Gossip Girl." In the meantime, tell someone you know about the podcast, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Twin Peaks (1990)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
03/04/18 • 67 min
Life in a sleepy small town is turned upside down when a teen girl - pretty, blonde, a good student, the prom queen - is found, brutally murdered. Before long, the secrets start tumbling out, and we learn she's not as innocent nor is the the town as quiet as it seemed.
It's the premise of, rough estimate here, seven million movies, books and TV series? Just a ballpark figure. And any of them made since the early 90s (and plenty of other TV shows besides) owe a TON to a defining classic of the oeuvre: Twin Peaks.
But we've never seen David Lynch's cult classic show, so we've enlisted help from Christopher McCammon, our Twin Peaks dream/spirit guide.
Before listening, be sure to watch season one, episodes one and three and season two, episode seven. You can find them on Netflix, Hulu, or CBS All Access, or rent from the usual places: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play.
And since Christopher is a college professor, he's got some supplemental homework for us all. The assignments, should you choose to accept them: a video on the iconic music and an essay on the dead-girl trope.
Oh and if you really dig that essay? There's going to be a whole book soon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Watergate Weekend, Part Two: Dick (1999)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
06/17/18 • 35 min
And now for the REAL story of Watergate.
This movie offers a bit of a lighter take on the scandal, as well as a guess at the identity of Woodward and Bernstein's infamous source, Deep Throat. Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams pay a pair of teenagers who couldn't be less interested in politics or world events - until they stumble into the middle of the biggest story of the century, befriend Richard "Dick" Nixon, and learn that you can't let Dick run your life.
You can rent or buy the movie from all the usual places: Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Gaslight (1944)
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
03/11/17 • 31 min
You've heard the term on the news, you've seen it thrown around on Twitter, and now it's time to go to the source.
We're talking about gaslighting, the practice of manipulating someone into doubting their own experience and sanity. It comes from a 1944 film starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten (and a very young Angela Lansbury in her first film role).
Many years after her aunt was killed, Bergman moves back into the house where it happened with her new husband (Boyer), and things start to go downhill quickly.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Show more best episodes
Show more best episodes
FAQ
How many episodes does Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b have?
Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b currently has 92 episodes available.
What topics does Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b cover?
The podcast is about Film, Popculture, Podcasts, Books, Movies, Tv, Arts, Tv & Film and Cinema.
What is the most popular episode on Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b?
The episode title 'Watergate Weekend, Part One: All the President's Men (1976)' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b?
The average episode length on Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b is 39 minutes.
How often are episodes of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b released?
Episodes of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b are typically released every 6 days, 17 hours.
When was the first episode of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b?
The first episode of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b was released on Feb 9, 2015.
Show more FAQ
Show more FAQ