When reality becomes a burden, enjoy a sojourn into the fantastic...
Welcome to Hip Squared Episode 9! John talks about the gritty neo-Western Hell or High Water, earning Jeff Bridges an Oscar nomination, and Michael Bolton's Big, Sexy Valentine's Day Special, a new comedy out on Netflix. And Troy talks about Factorio, a computer strategy game about gathering resources to build bigger and bigger machines, described as a "game for engineers".
Plug in your Earbuds of Entertainment +1 as John tells us about the mobile game, Symphony of the Origin, a Japanese role-playing game that pulls its user into a world of adventure. And Troy talks about Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", a book about the world and science that anybody can understand.
John and Troy host their saddest podcast ever. Troy introduces us to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of children's books about a group of hard-luck siblings that's been turned into a new Netflix show starring Neil Patrick Harris. John talks about two books dealing with America's heroin and opiate epidemic, one fiction and one one non-fiction. Sam Quinones' Dreamland is a book that documents the prescription opiate epidemic and how this intertwines with a massive influx of black tar heroin from a small village in Mexico. Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog is a crime thriller about a former CIA agent and Vietnam War veteran who joins the DEA to fight in the drug war in Mexico.
Dry your tears and enjoy this episode!
Hip Squared was away last week so John could help welcome his daughter Gaia into the world, but now they're back with a vengeance! John and Troy talk about the sci-fi noir radio drama podcast "A Night Called Tomorrow", written by James Urbaniak (of Venture Bros. fame) and produced by Howl. A very different but also quite good sci-fi show, Netflix's Voltron: A Legendary Defender, produced by Dreamworks, is the next topic of conversation. And Troy catches us up on the Chicago production of Hamilton, Wayne Brady's somewhat controversial casting as Aaron Burr, and Hamilton productions since Lin-Manuel Miranda retired from the starring role.
roy catches us up on the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Louisville, talk about Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), a video game speed run supporting the Prevent Cancer Foundation. John touches on his first experience as a Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons and then praises two very different BBC productions. The first is A Bit of Fry and Laurie, a late 80's sketch comedy show with Steven Fry and Hugh Laurie, and next is a compelling radio adaption of Homer's The Odyssey.
John and Troy talk about a magical Christmas in Spain, the good and bad about mobile games including Pokemon Go, Super Mario Run, Sonic Dash and Hearthstone, the Magic the Gathing card game and the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Louisville, KY, from January 6th-8th (in 2017).
John and Troy talk about the new Disney movie Moana with music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the upcoming Blade Runner movie sequel, Ni no Kuni: Curse of the White Witch, a J-RPG with art by Studio Ghibli, the movie Arrival about a linguist helping the world deal with an alien invasion, and a mega board-game involving sixty people playing Watch the Skies, a game about world governments dealing with aliens from outer space,
John and Troy talk about the new dryer Troy adult-ed for Christmas, laundry rooms in American sitcoms, The Imitation Game, a movie about computer pioneer Alan Turing starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Sleepwalk With Me with Mike Birbiglia about his own life as a struggling stand-up comedian dealing with a rare sleeping disorder (which is funnier than might think from its description).
Episode 1 of American Fantastic's pop-culture podcast, Hip Squared, celebrating everything from the mainstream to the underground, weird, new, old and local, hosted by John Beechem and Troy Kremer.
John and Troy introduce each other to you, and talk about video games, the game-ification of society, and the 1982 high-school T.V. show Square Pegs.
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