Ned and Meg have some thoughts about content, content creation, and what the fuck is going on. Also this one is as the name says, so we sorta forget what happens after that. Thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick.By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Sierra and Ned spend a lovely afternoon debating the merits of recording an audioboook. Join in and find out all about Ned's angst for the US medical system. Oops, I mean all about the our ideas for a new art project.By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned and Meg discuss cliches and how they get that way. Discussing certain art, artists, and concepts as cliche is, in all likelihood, itself cliche. We do it anyway. What are your favorite cliches? Additionally, we recommend listening to the Psymposia podcast. We also advocate that you check out the Internet Archive and the Fight for the Future org…

Ned and Meg extend the far-reaching tentacles of this story, as is our solemn artistic duty. This is the Streisand Effect intersecting with the art world. This story even has children suing parents, financial, labor, and environmental exploitation, The Olympics, hurt feelings, racism, classism, accusations of communism, oh and some of the best art …

Ned and Meg rehash and review the totally queer-coded movie “Ice Pirates” from 1984. This movie is a mashup of every 1980s cinematic trope in one place and we LOVE it! This anachronistic film has a 17% critics score and a 50% positive audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so you know mischief is afoot. Why the discrepancy? Listen and we’ll tell you. …

Ned and Meg chat beavers. These are some of the most impressive critters around. They are environmental engineers and have an incredible impact on their surroundings, creating habitat for other creatures to flourish. Thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick!By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned and Meg talk about intentionally false statements, which is what the OED defines as a lie. We discuss all sorts of lies, and how they fit into some of our favorite television shows like The Circle, and Taskmaster. We dip into discussion of KC Green’s comic adaptation of the classic, Pinocchio. We survey all the forms lies take, and we talk abou…

Ned and Meg revisit OceanGate-Gate, the accident-but-not-really-an-accident involving a fraudy, totally unprepared submersible in the Atlantic Ocean almost a year ago. We did a whole episode about it, and the concurrent tragedy of the drowning of nearly a hundred people in a migrant boat that capsized in the Mediterranean at the same time, which al…

Ned and Meg chat with Sarah, our featured guest this week, about favorite toys from yesteryear. There’s a lot of unrequited love for toys and games in this episode, since there were more toys than any single kid could possibly have in a short childhood. We envy each other a bit while we relive Easy Bake Ovens, Radio Flyers, Cabbage Patch dolls, Sno…

Ned and Meg talk about Disappointment. Ned has some new chairs, Meg has a sinus infection and someone stole her tarp, it’s Valentine's Day, they make indoor parks now which feature none of the characteristics of an actual park, Warheads are gummies now, insect zappers are even more insidious than we thought, Ned lost his nachos, Meg got a speeding …

Ned and mostly Meg launch into a tirade about the sorry state of modern lighting design. Like everything else in our declining empire, lighting has taken a turn for the worse. We talk about how the USA makes us use less than excellent light bulbs while other countries get the highly efficient long lasting stuff. We express our disappointment with i…

Ned and Meg discuss the process for developing Colors of the Day, which we feature at the end of (almost) every episode. You can check out colors of the day and develop your own at ObjectColor.com which we heartily encourage. Thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick!By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned and Meg talk about a short topic for a short podcast. Welcome to LIttle Gems for the People. Today’s topic is the movie The Cure for Insomnia. We talk about some other stuff too but when Meg considered how short the episode is, she thought, why even bother taking notes? So you’ll have to listen to find out. Thanks as always, and wash your hands…

Ned and Meg discuss the sordid history of hot air ballooning. When did it start and will it ever end? Seriously, hot air ballooning is stupid-dangerous, so if you never take anything else away from this weird podcast, know that you should absolutely never go for a hot air balloon ride, ever, for any reason. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Thanks for …

Ned and Meg chat about the Legend of Zelda, which we think is basically the greatest game ever made, and we spend around 80 minutes telling you why! This game, or well these 19 games if you’re counting, feature some of the best design elements of any game and ones that translate so well you can find the 19 Zelda games spread out over at least nine …

Ned and Meg discuss a very esoteric idea for a book, which is the sort of thing you do when you have many ISBN numbers awaiting assignment. The book would be a compendium of scandalous stories, or -gates, which are accompanied by photos of actual gates related to the scandal. Weird, right? We don’t know. But it’s Bookgate, and we thank you for list…

Ned and Meg chat about The Sims while Ned’s in Germany, which ties into a conversation about some dogs, some rabbits, the nature of sentience and concepts of harm. The discussion of the Sims leads us to talking about governance and potentially bad ideas involving an earthen berm. We round out with a determination to do another episode about the imp…

Ned and Meg revisit their annual tradition of asking no one in particular whose troops we should support in the war on xmas. This year we discuss how Target is targeting your kids for targeted indoctrination with targets. Or, gay nutcrackers. It’s hard to say. Just think of the children. We also take a stab at people who pose, dangerously we may ad…

Ned and Meg talk about William Shakespeare. Was he a lone wolf? Or was he an old timey Banksy, an art genius at the helm of an art cabal? Maybe he was both or neither. We are not Shakespeare experts. Meg also tells Ned about a harrowing visit to the Stratford Upon Avon home of William Shakespeare, if that even is his real name. Thanks for listening…

Ned and Meg discuss the various thematic elements of our multitudes of nervous breakdowns, be they big or small, exceptional or pedestrian. Themes include having shingles, caffeine induced nervous dysfunction, medical debt, disability, medical treatment abroad versus at home in the US of A, insurance, academia, drugs, wine culture and climate. Phew…

Ned and Meg introduce their new series of short episodes that serve as backfiller for Mondays where we didn’t get something posted. We think you might not even want to know this stuff, so if you don’t get an alert it may be for the best. If you are a masochist, listen in! We discuss the waning Atlantic Ocean current that basically makes it possible…

Ned and Meg discuss the disappearance of the editing profession. Editors are losing their toehold in the workplace! We discuss what we think led to the loss of so many of these crucial professionals who make us not sound like idiots when we write. See? Everyone needs an editor. We also discuss ChatGPT for a hot second, the advent of which we feel i…

Ned and Meg discuss the history of, and legal settlement between, Henrietta Lacks’s descendants, her cells, and Thermo Fischer Scientific. This is a celebratory episode and a little more produced than our normal fare, so thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick!By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned and Meg solve a problem, which is that Meg couldn’t get some candy so Ned had to mail it 2000 miles and it finally arrived so you get to hear all about it! But before we get to that, we sold 13 of our books and we talk about that along with hummingbirds, our podcast ranking in Ireland, our book ranking in the genre of Humor-General, the You Me …

Ned and Meg celebrate the return of Lauren as our guest-host-comrade. We chat like old times about whether you’re supposed to swim on an empty or a full stomach, exposure therapy, how a once-disgraced-but-not-really-disgraced germline-editing doctor is back on the science scene, Ned’s progress in Dungeon23, Camaro cars, and the merits of the movie …

Ned and Meg discuss the fate of Pablo Escobar’s wayward Colombian hippopotamuses. Yeah that’s right, Colombian Hippos. What else is there to say? Thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick!By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned and Meg discuss the invention of the Asterbang, not to be confused with the Interrobang, which we have discussed at length in other episodes. Today we want to introduce a new concept in grammar and punctuation to you but first we talk about how much we hate advertising, and how bad our parents are at the internet. We round out with a revisit of…

Ned and Meg and Damon discuss the Oceangate submersible scandal, which we obviously dubbed OceanGategate, but first we discuss the sinking of a fishing vessel near Greece involving hundreds of people. Our discussion of OceanGategate centers around the many design flaws of the OceanGate Titan submersible, since this is ostensibly an art and design p…

Ned tells Meg about the once-fabulous, then not fabulous, and now once-again-fabulous Mechanical Turk, a fraudy machine from the late 1700s that beat famous people at chess, sometimes. The best things about this machine are the weird number of insanely famous people who interacted with it. Meg applauds Edgar Allan Poe’s well-placed skepticism of it…

Ned and Meg chat around ISO 216, the paper standard that dictates sizes and scaling for papers not used in the United States. Here we use letter size and other measurements that don’t scale and don’t work as great as the ISO 216 standards! Anyway, we will tell you all about it if’n you give it a listen, plus discussion of paper weights and US stati…

Ned and Meg wander through the landscape of lagniappes, describing what we see as we go. In this episode we discuss the etymology of the word “lagniappe” and where the whole idea of them originated. We chat about creole food too, and our seafood preferences before we discuss some of our favorite lagniappes like the ones that kids get at the dentist…

Wherein Ned and Meg vaguely debate the nature of the zombie genre. Spoilers on the HBO show The Last of Us. Thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick.By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned undertook a new hobby and tells Meg about his recent experiences with watercolors. Meg is a huge fan, so this was an easy podcast this time! We talk about how Dungeon23 was Ned’s gateway into watercolor painting and its incredible versatility and portability as an artistic medium. We discuss the difference between glutinous paints and glutenous…

Meg tells Ned all about the sleeping bees in her refrigerator. Join us for a discussion about the fascinating creatures known as Mason Bees! Solitary nesting bees are EVERYWHERE and they are the coolest little friends you’ll ever make. They’re dynamite pollinators, WAY better than honey bees! We talk about how to raise them, if you are so inclined,…

Ned and Meg discuss verisimilitude in a number of contexts ranging from philosophy to art and in the experiences of everyday life. We talk about capturing and conveying truth, and how two truthful things can be closer or farther from THE truth than each other, but how to measure that? We glance over some philosophers along the way as we discuss wri…

Ned and Meg discuss the #dungeon23 project. Which Ned is undertaking a long with multitudes of other people. Come join us for an interesting intersection of some of our favorite things. Hobonichi and table top role playing games.By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Moriah tells Ned all about life in Koln, Germany. Life as an expat!By contact@fcbm.io (FC:BM)

Ned and Meg revisit a topic we love as we discuss the sheer madness of some of the proposed domestic mega-projects around the world. We’re talking about DIY Cities, and boy are there a lot of these popping up -- but only in the hypothetical so far! We talk about Charlie Munger’s Death Dorm again, plus NEOM’s impossible, sideways skyscraper called T…

Ned and Meg give each other some familial support in the form of backhanded compliments. You know the ones! Why praise someone when you can infantilize them as well? We get off topic and discuss NFTs, Ned’s coffee regimen, lifting people up just to drop them, the fall of the crypto scam empire, and finally, we share with you the best art snack so f…

Ned and Meg get Ned’s take on reducing sugar, Christmas food cravings, YouTube videos about cake and theater set design, the history of DND, the revival of Old School Renaissance which is not the carrot cake you remember, plus actual Carrot Cake’s much less sweet culinary origin story. Join us! Wash your hands, thanks for listening, don’t be a dick…

Ned drops some edification on Meg (aka Egg) about Steamed Hams, the Simpon’s episode. Rather, ostensibly it’s about Steamed Hams, but REALLY it’s about the burgeoning art movement reiterating on the theme of Steamed Hams. This is just the beginning folks. Also Meg has shingles AGAIN so feel sorry for her, k thanks. Wash your hands, don’t get shingl…

Ned chats with some new characters, or new to listeners anyway, in Germany, on a fabulous trip, with super friends. This episode sort of comes full circle for FCBM because right after the podcast started there was a similar trip to Germany and here we find ourselves again! Milestones. Join Ned while he speaks to his expat friends living in Germany!…

Ned and Meg take a proverbial poop all over forced fun (aka mandatory fun). In this episode we also talk about Meg’s mall-induced pavlovian panic attacks, which stem from a nightmare she can barely remember. As always, we thank you for listening to our weird stuff, and remember to wash your hands, and don’t be a dick.…

Ned and Meg chat about how Meg was a casualty of the Barf Fairy on Halloween morning in the year of oh lord 2022. In light of the fact that it is summer weather in November in Minnesota, we talk about the weather’s effect on Halloween costume viability, lightly discuss costume engineering and contraptions, and whether we favor novel costumes over t…

Ned and Meg expound on bookstores past and present. There are 2500 independent bookstores in the US apparently although that seems like a lot. It’s up almost 50% from ten years ago. WOW! We compare the rich experience of book reading to the impoverished experience of e-reading. Plus, card catalogs, lawsuits, illuminated text, Borders vs. Barnes and…

Ned and Meg cover a lot of ground in this one! Tune in for discussion of improbable vacuum levitation trains, kids soccer and the monetization of simple joys, wind turbine reiterative technology, beavers and the environment, additive vs subtractive solutions, self-governance, bad solar citizens, brakes both drum and disc, pressure canning, and the …

Ned and Meg talk about the final two episodes of The Prisoner (the American series version) and explore the outrageous design elements present during the grand finale of the series. Check out those stove pipe jeans and turtleneck sweaters! Very mod. Thanks for listening, wash your hands, don’t be a dick.…

Ned and Meg dissect some common buzzwords and talk about exit strategies, quiet quitting which our generation basically perfected and owns forever, mindshares, toxic positivity, mouthfeel, internauts on the runway, and so many more. If you like people who complain loudly and randomly about pop culture, this is for you. Thanks for listening, Hi Bust…

Ned and Meg continue their discussion of design elements from The Prisoner television show. Why is Number Six in black? Why does everyone in town have a cape and an umbrella? Who pairs pea green walls with camel brown textiles? We compare the Disney-like appearance of the village to Portmeirion and rattle off some other works we feel are derivation…

Ned and Meg start to talk about design elements from The Prisoner television show, which is very dystopian in nature and thus sparked another Designing Dystopia installment! Just as we are about to get going, we have to stop, so this one’s a short! Thanks for listening, look for more episodes about this, wash your hands, watch The Prisoner, don’t i…