Fascinating Nouns

If you live in a big city, you may have come across a mysterious comic booklet, one that may have appeared to spring up out of nowhere.  Maybe you found it in an old phone booth, or possibly at the grocery store.  You may have even found one sitting on top of your favorite gas pump.  That’s how I found mine.  They are usually in all black and white, and they tell the story of some lost soul...

The popularity of (American) football in America can’t be overstated:  Even by rough estimates, it’s a bazillion dollar industry, and when on television, it is the most watched event in the time slot.  It is also almost solely a United States thing, which I totally understand.  The rules can be a little difficult to follow, and unfortunately they seem to change from year to year.  Also...

Many of you may not remember a time before computers, but it is true, they haven’t always existed.  As a matter of fact, life before computers was very different.  They filled a human need to interact, and AOL was the first software to really connect the world via chat rooms.  Here you could talk with people all over the world about any topic.  And they were totally random.  You had no idea...

Ever since the DuPont company inspired the adage “Better Living Through Chemistry”, the number of chemicals that have infiltrated our everyday life has grown exponentially.  Some are derived from naturally occurring substances, some are completely synthetic.  All are truly unknowns.  I could run a list of chemicals that were touted as miracles at the time, and were later found to be co...

John Dover is back on the show, this time to talk about strange things in the sky and how they got there.  Since our last discussion, John has appeared on several shows, including Unsolved Mysteries and The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.  On the latter, he was brought on as a petroglyph expert, interpreting strange symbols carved into the rocks.  One such symbol was a spiral, and John believes that m...

In this bonus episode, Adam sticks around to discuss the overlap between pro wrestling and game show fans, my new love of Survivor, and he explains the enigma that is The Monty Hall Problem.

Even if you have never watched a classic game show, my guess is that you have heard of Monty Hall.  He is best known for his multi-decades work on “Let’s Make a Deal”, but was also a game show creator, actor, author, and record setting philanthropist.  This week I induct Adam Nedeff into the “Two Timers” club as we discuss his latest book on Monty Hall .  We get into...

All good things must come to an end, although in this case it is really more like all good things must morph into something else.  The O.S.S. does become the C.I.A., but not before we talk about the search for a truth serum, their work with marijuana, and how Stanley Lovell turns his attention to refuting Shakespearean authorship.

In the early ears of World War II, FDR was convinced that the United States needed to develop an intelligence agency of their own.  He appointed William Donovan as the “Coordinator of Information”, which eventually developed into the “Office of Strategic Services”.  This organization becomes responsible for all sorts of spy craft, and when Stanley Lovell comes on board, thi...

Greg DeSanto is the current Executive Director of the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center.  Before that, he spent 10 years touring with the Ringling Bros. circus, and has accumulated a total of 38 years as a professional clown.  His road to becoming a professional clown was as strange as you would think.  In this episode, Greg tells me about his desires to be a stage performer, ho...

I am guessing some of you reading this had NO IDEA that local newspapers still exist.  Others may have no idea what a newspaper even is.  Admittedly this is a dying industry, and yet, local family owned newspapers are more important than ever before.  Small towns are unique for their ability to connect entire communities.  I don’t know everyone in Los Angeles, but I knew everyone in my homet...

What do Ghostbusters, The Fly, The Blob, and Xenomorphs have in common?  They are all covered in slime!  In this bonus episode, Susanne and I discuss how slime is portrayed in movies and how this came to be.  Here is a teaser:  It has a lot to do with the human disgust response why we are revolted by all things glistening.

Biological slime, the goo that is produced purposefully by a creature, is both the most disgusting AND the most versatile substance known to man.  For example, a snail produces a slime that is slippery so that it can gracefully glide across the sidewalk, but that same substance also acts as a glue that keeps the snail attached to the surface.  A hagfish produces a slime so thick and fibrous that i...

Thanksgiving has become the forgotten holiday, that thing that is sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas.  Even though it is a little late, we are going to give Turkey Day it’s due by discussing it’s most defining characteristic (after turkey of course):  PIES!  Michael Krondl tells us the origins of three distinct favorites:   Apple, Pecan, and of course Pumpkin!  You will never l...

Dessert is a funny thing:  It is typically the last course of a meal, is usually a delicious sweet treat, usually made of sugar, and always completely devoid of nutrients.  It is also a very modern invention, having been invented in the past few hundred years or so.  Today food historian Michael Krondl is going to walk us through a brief timeline of dessert, and then tell us about treats that are...

When I think of small talk, my mind immediately goes to thoughts of my grandma, who loves to discuss the weather.  This line of questioning seems at best unnecessary, at worst it is a complete waste of time.  This is not so!  Debra Fine is the master of small talk, and she insists that proper small talk leads to everything. You have to start somewhere, and small talk is the way people get to know...

Like all uncool grown-ups, I believe that the music of my generation was the best.  I happened to have lived my formative years in the 90’s, so it is all Gangsta Rap and Grunge Rock.  I also only listen to popular music.  I never had interest in any independent rock scene, it just wasn’t my thing.  So this week, I wanted to explore what was going on in rock right under my nose!  Bruce...

Fantasy has never been more popular. Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and even the Harry Potter series has made sword and sorcery commonplace. For the sci-fi fans out there, the Star Wars movies are filled with Jedi lightsaber battles, complete with the same parries, thrusts, and disarms found on the medieval battlefield. It is so ubiquitous that any kid will pick up a stick or long cardboa...

In the intro for the show, we talk about having the “Weird, Wild, and Wacky” on the program, and this week we literally have two of the three. This week, we celebrate Halloween but discussing The Weird West, which is a genre of storytelling that is basically The Wild West crosses with either supernatural and/or sci-fi elements.  Ray guns at the O.K. Corral, vampires in Deadwood, or tim...

If you like paranormal television programs, then Carl Kolchak is a name you should know.  Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a made-for-TV movie in the 70’s that introduced the world to a investigative reporter who would stumble across crimes with a supernatural cause.  It was later turned into a series, and while only lasting one season, it inspired several modern classics like The X-Files, Twi...

What do you get when you take rye and ferment it with yeast, concentrate that yeast urine into a liquid, take that liquid and stick it in a burned barrel for two years?  If you said ‘whiskey’ you would be correct!  Yes that golden brown drink of the wild west is basically old barrel juice, but a very influential juice indeed.  This week I discuss the historical significance of whiskey...

The 1950’s and 60’s were a strange time in American culture as it related to human behavior.  Behind the scenes, you had the MK Ultra experiments trying to unlock the secrets to mind control.  More publicly, you had Dr. Phillip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram conducting social science experiments designed to show the extremes in human nature, and how we can be manipulated by the subtle so...

Jon’s journey to becoming a critical thinker was pretty unique.  Just before turning twenty he impulsively stabbed a man, which earned him 27 years for Attempted Second Degree Murder.  While in prison, he got deep into litigation as he tried to overturn his conviction.  He researched his own appeals, filed suit against his lawyer for ineffective counsel, and even sued the department of corre...

If you have a pulse, chances are you have eaten a snack food that was covered in a nuclear orange, cheese flavored powder.  You have probably also eaten the BBQ drenched, pork ribs-shaped meat patty known as the McRib.  These two items are actually the culmination of who bits of advanced technology:  Dehydrated cheese and restructured meat.  Learn more about your two favorite food items in this bo...

If you are an average American, you are extremely familiar with energy bars, frozen food, and soup in a can, but do you know where each of these technologies originated?  If you said “The military because they helped design our food”, you would be correct!  You are also great at reading because that is the title of this episode.  So why is the military interested in food?  Well it turn...