Feature Creep: Built-in Microwave

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.

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.

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 organizations, both of which fight censorship! Thanks...

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 ever. Listen to this episode, google all the image...

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. It’s got women bodybuilders bikini wrestling at th...

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!

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 about the enormous problem of researchers who lie to f...

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 almost nobody talked about, because they were too bu...

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, Snoopy Snow Cone makers, Little Tykes cars, Nintendo,...

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 ticket in the final 100 miles of a 2400 mile car t...

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 integrated LEDs versus replaceable bulbs and compla...

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!

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 and don’t be a dick.

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 listening, wash your hands, avoid hot air balloons...

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 different consoles. This game is so well designed...

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 listening! Wash your hands, don’t be a dick, share wit...

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 importance of considering the context. As always, tha...

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 add, with high powered firearms in photos celebratin...

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, wash your hands, don’t be a dick, read Shakespea...

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! You’ve been warned. We also throw in cake relate...

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 for people in Europe, Africa, and India to grow f...

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 is tied to the loss of editors in some ways. As alw...

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!

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 Food Review and Peter Draws channels both of which...

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 Harold and Maude. As always, thanks for listening,...