Episode 475: The McDonald's Cinematic Universe

Science Faction Podcast

This episode cotnains: Steven and Ben have a low-effort, high stress-relief episode. Nothing matters anymore: Steven’s world is on fire with COVID hitting his house again, and it’s looking to derail Steven’s wife’s 40th birthday plans. Well, they were secret 40th birthday plans that Steven has worked really hard to set up, and now are in peril. Some days, Steven just needs a nap and a juice box. Ben prefers the term “house spouse” to “stay at home parent,” but Steven HATES it. Devon isn’t here because he went to Omega Mart in Las Vegas: that crazy fever dream/theme park/grocery store. Ben’s mom is recovering well from surgery, and Ben has dealt with stress by forgetting a bunch of stuff he actually did do and escaping into Elden Ring.

Clean your room!: Air purifiers aren’t enough to clean your home from wildfire smoke. After a wildfire, if you want to stay healthy indoors, it’s not enough to just open windows. Volatile Organic Compounds can stay in floors and walls. How do you get rid of them? CLEAN UP! Mopping, dusting and vacuuming can get those VOCs out of your surfaces. Good luck if you have popcorn ceilings, like Ben does. Ben remembers finding patterns and images in the popcorn ceiling back in high school. Steven remembers the word Pareidolia: the perception of random images, especially faces, in random shapes and lines.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/10/air-purifiers-arent-enough-to-clean-your-home-from-wildfire-smoke/

Science Fiction: Where does Steven go for a pick-me-up when he’s down? Enter Peacock’s own Twisted Metal. Thanks for the recommendation, Devon. After three episodes, Steven sees it’s a decent show. It walks a fine line between being absurd and serious, but it’s all still believable within the show. Steven and Ben wonder what is going on with LOKI in season 2. Like, what’s up with X-5? Oh that’s right, this is a TIME TRAVEL SHOW. We’re all experiencing temporal whiplash. Maybe they’ll tell the rest of the story at another time? For all time, always. Ben’s son is not into this season, but is begrudgingly allowing us to watch LOKI instead of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Can you believe that Disney showed surprising restraint by not peppering the MCU’s version of 1977 with a bunch of Star Wars posters? The late-1980s McDonalds is incredible, now Ben wants an apple pie. Remember when McDonalds had lore? The McDonalds Cinematic Universe with the Hamburgler and fry guys and all the nostalgia! Is Sylvie’s manager a young Mobius?

We talk even more after the break: Let’s talk about Fallout Wasteland Warfare! Steven’s never played the tabletop game, but he’s excited about painting a Frank Horrigan figurine from it. Do you even Fallout, fool?: https://falloutfacts.com/fallout-frank-horrigan . Ben’s learning to git gud noob in Elden Ring, after noping out of it half a year ago. Big thanks to JumpinProductions for their Noob’s Guide for Elden Ring: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvSjDM1TnnA_lZWYp4N8hqj6IKNv3P7tc. In contrast to Elden Ring, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are power fantasies. Steven tells Ben about i-frames. The real game is timing. Giant disgustingly beautiful enemies? Run around them! Stormwind Castle has incredible detail showing ancient battles and sense of place. Is Elden Ring the game of the decade? How could we know? After A LONG TALK about Elden Ring, Ben recommends 3D Sen VR: an NES emulator that makes ye olde Nintendo games 3D diaramas and it’s incredible. http://www.geodstudio.net/ We rank Batman movies, and Steven continues to sing the praises of The Batman, even over the Nolanverse. It’s so good, mainly because it brings in the detective side of Batman.