Hold onto your stomachs, folks! Captain Influence has a list of crazy REAL beverages drank 'round the world that will make you turn a little green. And I'm not talking with envy. We're talking... You drank what, now?!? November is officially at an end and as we look forward to another holiday season, we're growing sensitive to the fact that it may not have the same effect on everyone. We're going to look for ways to encourage everyone to find joy and peace in the next month, so please send in your own personal stories, suggestions and traditions!
In This Episode
- Fake news
- Go to the SOURCE!
- The grossest drinks you'll ever hear about...
- It's Christmas time! -ish
- Holiday season: love it or hate it?
- Media hiatus... and it's effect
You Drank What?!?
I am not a risk taker. I like doing, eating and drinking things that I've tried and verified. That's why I basically order the same thing every time I go back to a place. Even when I'm at a new place, I find dishes that I know I like. Easiest example is that I try a Reuben everywhere they offer one... partially because I like them so much, but also because every restaurant usually has a unique spin on the sandwich that makes it just a little different.
If you can keep your dinner down after hearing the drinks that Captain Influence found, I commend you. I had a hard time, myself! On the spectrum of "unique" drinks, my experimentation only comes with tea. There is a local resource for tea here in Minneapolis that I love to buy from: Mrs. Kelly's Tea. I'll browse through the teas and try things I've never had before, but it's hard not to also buy a tea that I know I love in the same order. I always order the Berry Sage, but with my last order I stretched and bought an Earl Grey Oolong that is both VERY strong and VERY delightful!
What is the craziest tea you've ever bought? We'd love to hear it! Leave a comment or send us an email.
Links
There is much to be thankful for this season, and we'll brush over a few in our lives! Also, tune in for a review of Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald! And there's no better way to have that conversation than to welcome back the Green Butterfly. Isn't it appropriate that the day after we over-indulge on food, we then follow it up with over-indulging on shopping deals?! What deals are you looking out for this Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
In This Episode
- Fantastic Beasts: the review you've been waiting for!
- Thanksgiving Traditions
- Health Benefits of GRATITUDE!
- Our Thanksgiving favorites (hint: food is amongst them)
Thankful
Here's my Thanksgiving shortlist! These are the things I love the MOST about Thanksgiving:
- 3 Football games
- All of my family in one place. Well, almost all.
- This:
- This episode of Friends
Links
Our favorite dentist steps back into the ring to exchange friendly jabs with Brian! In this episode we’re talking about how sometimes we see something unfolding in front of us and think, hey… I can do it better! When we encounter something we dislike, do we quit and turn away... or crack our knuckles and get down to business?
In This Episode
- The Doctor of Nitrous Oxide
- Sci-Fi November Continues!
- R.I.P. Stan Lee
- Retro vs New
- That Sucks! I can do better!
- Expanse, Cobra Kai
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
That Sucks!
Interestingly, when I first listened to Brian introduce the Espresso Shot, this idea of thinking: "That sucks! I can do it better..." I started singing Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better. Don't you want to be called out as someone who does "it" better than anyone else?
The point isn't to do everything well or do everything better than everyone else... that's a lofty, unattainable goal! But there will be some things we do better than others, and instead of perceiving that as arrogance, we should embrace it. And when we find those things that we are really good at, we should work at them. We've talked a couple times on the show how working on your weaknesses has its merits, but not insofar that working on them keeps you from excelling at the thing you were born to do.
Embrace it! Share it! Just don't tear others down in the process. Excel because you are passionate.
Links
Sci-fi November continues with the Dynamic Duo at the helm and accompanied this week by our friend SevenBlueSeven! Curious about what we mean by emotional continuity? Don't worry, we discuss at length and we think you'll deeply resonate with our sentiments. Plus, as always, we salt it up with some of those discussions you love about the games we're gaming, drinks we're drinking, and healthy stuff we're.... healthying...
In This Episode
- Sci-Fi Drink: Vulcan Spice Tea
- Spices
- Essential oils
- More sci-fi November!
- What we're watching
- Emotional continuity...
Emotional Continuity
Flow. Pace. Cadence. Call it what you will, storytelling is an multidimensional art form. It requires close attention to detail, and the depending on the medium there are different dimensional aspects that are more fragile than others. None are necessarily more important, they can just be more obvious depending on the medium.
The concept of emotional continuity that the guys talk about in this episode isn't contained just to storytelling. They bring it to a broader scale, applying it our daily lives and how our own emotional stability impacts those around us. In the words of Katy Perry... "You're hot 'n you're cold. You're yes, then you're no. You're in, then you're out. You're up, then you're down. You don't really want to stay, you don't really want to go." She just doesn't know how to love this guy in the song, because it's hard to understand someone who doesn't really know themselves, or know what they want. It might be a funny song, or a funny idiom, but it's also true!
In all seriousness, emotional stability is something we don't really know to strive for, but we're curiously attracted to. It's called confidence! Not always. Sometimes confident people are crazy and not all that stable. But very often confidence translates into stability... because when you know, you know. You know?
Links
The only good show is the Real Brian Show! We are the voice of the nerdy eclectic, the repo for the renaissance nerd. This episode kicks off Sci Fi November! Yes, we will be nerding out about sci-fi, but don’t worry… we’ll throw in a little bit of everything you love about the show.
In This Episode
- What Sci-Fi drink are you downing?
- What is Sci-Fi November?
- Favorite Sci-Fi movies, games, music...
- Gaming, twitch
- Brian's DC TV realization
Good Show
It's sci-fi November! If you're not into sci-fi, we're really sorry... but kind of in the sorry not sorry sort of way. Truth is, science fiction has a very wide spectrum. Some include "fantasy" inside of it, but they're usually pretty distinguishable. Then you get to something like Firefly or Star Wars and the line is blurred. But that's OK, because science fiction slips into most of our mediums now... sometimes without our realization.
Think about it: Babe (pig in the city) is science fiction. The pig is a mutant! The Lego Movie. (Do I need to explain that one?) Fight Club. Realities that vary from our own, either in a forward or backward thinking sort of way, could be considered science fiction. Like all good story telling, science fiction asks the "What if?" question and tries to stretch the human mind beyond it's comfortable little bubble in the present.
Every science fiction story leans heavily on another genre. It isn't solely rooted in science. Even though science fiction is a genre itself, it cannot stand on its own. Without the war story in Terminator, what would you have? The underlying war on Skynet coupled with an advanced race of robots gives us Terminator. Without the child abuse and bullying in Carrie, what would you have? Carrie's horrific treatment from her mother and school chums coupled with the development of telekinetic power (a term Stephen King invented, btw) gives us a memorable horror story.
Here are my science fiction lists for November!
Books
- Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
- The Martian (Andy Weir)
- The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K Le Guin)
Movies
- Arrival
- Gattaca
- Upstream Color
Television
- Stranger Things
- Lost in Space (all of them!)
- Eureka
Did you miss...?
Last year was a fantastic year for science fiction. If you missed Annihilation, go watch it. First Man was incredible as well.