Episode 011: Meal Pipe

Discussion Questions

 * The Chinese film industry is mired with human rights violations. What can you do to help solve this problem? How will plumping factor in?
 * Who did put the blocks there in the first place? And what would happen if one day they all fell down? How does this affect your existential health?

Transcript
[Theme Song]

Kris: Hey!

David: Welcome to Tweet Me Harder! This is the world's first, best, only, and last talkback-enabled interactive audio podblast. I am David Malki !.

K: And I am Kris Straub. So good to be here.

D: Welcome, everyone, to episode eleven of Tweet Me Harder. Thank you very much for joining us.

K: And guess what, guess what?

D: What?

K: You're gonna have a great time, you're gonna have a great time.

D: Heeeeeey!

K: Guaranteed.

D: Everyone is so happy. It's not guaranteed by any means.

K: Nobody's happy yet; don't jump the gun.

D: We have learned our lesson about that.

K: We've got a lot to prove, I think.

D: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's an uphill battle, let's be honest.

K: People forget so fast.

D: We're always Sisyphean in our efforts.

K: Yea.

D: We've back after a brief break for Tweet Me Harder: season two, episode one, a.k.a. episode eleven; we are not doing any of the Mario World 2-1 stuff like we threatened before, we're just steam-rolling directly into the future.

K: Which I want everyone to know that I pushed for very hard.

D: It was an extensive lobbying campaign on the behalf of Mr. Straub and the gentleman from Texas, but you know what? we just pushed back; we're not having any of that balderdash, we're just saying more of the same every week and we're here to deliver it to you.

K: Well, you know what? The non-Mario special interest groups can push all they want, but some day I am gonna have my day-- and that includes the special worlds that don't show up. I'm talking about beyond 8-8: there were some A's in there, there was, like, a B.

D: Yeah, it was just the same thing, but there's like 48 Goombas instead of just like the three or whatever?

K: Yeah, those fish start showing up all the damn place.

D: Oh, right, just in the air. Yeah, there's like the squids going through the air, the Bloopers.

K: I want more squids. For this show.

D: Do you think that's where the term "blooper reel" came from, is those little squid guys? It's like " We were filming a movie, but a squid accidentally floated through the background!"

K: Yeah... Hey, you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of when I fell down in the Mario game, because of that squid was climbin' all over the place.

D: Right, I was on some kind of ledge and I just fell right off of it. It's like Jackie Chan-- he's trying to jump through a ladder and he falls into a pit and a bunch of mushrooms fall on top of him. He's like: "This is just like bloopers!"

K: This is just like that time! Aw, man!

D: You remember.

K: Yeah, and the thing about that is: How long could Mario hold his breath? Let's be honest!

D: Let's be serious! Ah, well, I thought we were going to talk more about the sort of work environment in the Chinese film industry that involves so many, like, open pits and mushrooms floating around and flying turtles and the whole thing...

K: Unsafe mushroom.

D: It's a horrible work environment; those guys work long hours.

K: Why do they wanna store them in the ceiling? I don't understand. It's not an ideal spot. That thing-- there's no lid on that crate; that thing's gonna fall over.

D: Yeah-- what's holdin' those things up? I don't believe this has ever been adequately addressed: What's holding them up? I don't think any of the 48,000 sort of fanfic Mario universes have ever addressed any of the mundane details about the Mario world-- oh wait, maybe I'm thinking of every single one of those Mario fanfics that try and bring Mario into the real world and just the sheer act of juxtaposition is supposed to be like: "What if the plumber was really running around in downtown Toronto?" It's like, alright, that's clever the first 43 times.

K: How about: "The Day the Blocks Fell"? I wanna deal with this-- those blocks ain't stayin' up there. What would happen? I mean, that's like an existentialist kind of examination of Mario: What would happen if one day, those blocks just fell down? And are we talkin about Super Mario Bros. where he doesn't have the little ground bump? He can't get to those mushrooms, he's gotta hit 'em from underneath. What're you gonna do?

D: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things to examine. Who put the boxes there in the first place?

K: I don't know about you, but I could riff for an hour and a half on that one.

[Accordion Sting]

D: Uh, so, Kris, how has your week been?

K: Week's been good, week's been solid.

D: Good. I'm happy to hear it. Uh, go to any cocktail parties?

K: Uh, never. I avoid them, because of the likelihood of other people being there

D: That is the main problem with cocktail parties is the fact that other people often attend.

K: Well, you know, sometimes I show up and I'm like: "AH! Ah, no."

D: Or, I mean, when you just have a party and you have some cocktails, I mean, that's-- there's nothing wrong with that.

K: I was gonna say: That's just called alcoholism.

D: That's just called a good night. A good night, watchin' TV.

K: Right. All I need is the cast of Friends to keep me company, and they're not hoggin' the Wild Turkey.

D: The only friends I want. The only friends I want are artificial friends that can't judge me.

K: I think I'd get along great with Chandler!

D: He's so sarcastic! And everyone just takes it in stride! When I'm that sarcastic in real life, people look at me like I just said something that wasn't funny.

K: They ask me to leave the party.

D: The conversation just stops very awkwardly.

K: Yeah; there's no laughter. At a party like that, I tend to not, I don't know. I think if people are talking about something that I don't think is funny and everybody's laughing, then I kind of reach for the back out and start wondering why I'm there. I think: How do I-- OK, how do I know these people, again? Who are these people, again?

D: You get really existential about the whole thing.

K: Right, I just gotta reexamine my entire life.

D: What's my life led to that-- if I had to go to this party, then what are all the missteps I've taken in my life thus far? That led to this day?

K: How do I-- yeah, how do I avoid this in the future? What's future? What did I agree to? Was it an email? Could I have just not received it?

D: It's a learning experience. You start making up elaborate rules, it's like: OK, any emails from Bob-- just right in the trash, I'm not even going to abide this notion anymore.

K: I just reply with-- I write it out, I say like: MAILERDAEMON could not deliver will try again for 72 hours.

D: That's sort of the modern equivalent of just-- someone calls you up, you say "Hello!" and they go 'Kris! It's Jim!" and you go "You've reached Kris! I couldn't answer the phone right now, but please leave a message!" I used to do that in my parents autoshop, just because people would call after the store closed and I hated just letting it ring for hours and hours and hours and hours-- we didn't have an answering service or anything. But I just didn't like the fact that people were wasting their time.

Unfinished Cicadian.Rhythm 11:14, May 28, 2011 (UTC)