Nerdist

Why Hasn’t Dr. Apocalypse Answered YOUR Apoco-Question Yet?

2012-01-30T14:21:05Z

Is the planet getting hotter, or we just sweatier? Have we already surpassed ‘Peak Oil’ and gone onto “Oil Growing Gray Ponytail And Getting a VH-1 Reality Show?” Which of the Four Horsemen shall be known as “The Cute One?” Only Dr. Apocalypse knows, so ask away – BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!

Will Getty from England asks:

Is a world war 3 style nuclear war survivable by anyone?

ANSWER: Yes, it is survivable by anyone – anyone who’s anyone, that is. The Dr.’s suggestions on ensuring your survival are simple:
a) Become super-rich, famous, or preferably, famous only for being famous.
b) In your case, join the House of Lords. True it will require a peerage based on centuries of owning a parcel of land, but in the nanoseconds directly following the nuke blast, a time wormhole will open up enabling this. Naturally, the timing is tricky, but as a Lord, you will have a valet to ‘shedule’ it for you. (Dr. Apocalypse watches Downton Abbey; He knows how this works)

Doug Molitor asks:

If we’re the top of the food chain, why don’t we eat the zombies?

ANSWER: Excellent question. Who among us does not watch The Walking Dead (Dr. Apocalypse’s Sunday night DVR is brimming indeed!), salivating over each succulent staggering morsel? The problem is the discrepancy between “fast” and “slow” zombies. The former are full of artery-cleansing “good” HDL cholesterol, the latter “bad” LDL. So there’s the rub: The only zombies that are catchable will still get us in the end with heart disease.

Eric Swanson asks:

So if that crazy haired guy who does the ancient aliens show is right and aliens are after gold… is that why there are so many cash for gold commercials now? Are the aliens coming back to collect and if we don’t deliver we die or become slaves ?

ANSWER: All right, first of all he has a name: Glenn Beck. Second, if you actually paid more attention to the very late-night commercials you reference, you’d see they are interspersed with a number of ads for services specifically designed to help us avoid alien slavery, for example:
• Cash 4 Human-Ribcages-To-Be-Used-As-Alien-Incubators
• All-Of-Humanity’s-Water-Supply-4-Lizard-Aliens-Pretending-To-Be-Sexy-Humans
• FreeCreditReport.com

Got a question for Dr. Apocalypse? E-mail ApocDoc@gmail.com or post it here.

See the Dr’s previous answers here.

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Dr. Apocalypse, aka Rob Kutner, is a writer for CONAN and the author of APOCALYPSE HOW: TURN THE END-TIMES INTO THE BEST OF TIMES and the new e-book, THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO ME.
Follow Rob on Twitter: @ApocalypseHow

The Indoor Kids #30: Video Games vs Movies (with Devin Faraci)

2012-01-30T14:08:10Z

This week, Kumail and Emily welcome Devin Faraci (kick-ass movie reviewer/Badass-in-Chief at Badass Digest) to pour his passion for movies into video games. We discuss old and new narratives, special effects, storytelling, and how all that works differently in video games vs. movies. Plus butt plugs.

Follow @devincf on Twitter and visit Badass Digest!

Follow @indoorkids, @kumailn, and @thegynomite on Twitter!

And email us at theindoorkidspodcast@gmail.com!

Special thanks to Carvin for supplying us with the equipment we need to record this podcast! Check out Carvin.com for more information on recording equipment, guitars, amps and more!

“The Walking Dead” – Midseason Teaser

2012-01-28T00:19:23Z

The Walking Dead returns to your picture box on February 12th, and AMC released the midseason teaser for the next episode, Nebraska. Guns, check. Zombies, check. Rick screaming, check. Looks like a great season of The Walking Dead is about to happen! Hopefully they leave that farm sooner than later.

via [AMC]

Dissecting Trailers: Lock-Out

2012-01-28T00:19:52Z

There’s truly nothing I can say to preface this trailer except “What the actual fuck?” Now let’s begin.

0:06-0:10: Hmm, this has the unmistakable aroma of Europe already.

0:10-0:14: Gravelly-voiced trailer narration is a sadly dying art. However, anytime you hear it, you know it’s going to be a “good one.”

0:14-0:20: Rampant CGI. Looks a little like Minority Report, doesn’t it?

0:20-0:25: Oh, for fuck’s sake. A prison in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth? That would be the largest space object ever built. Way to use space for its intended purpose, fictional future world leaders.

0:25-0:30: It’s a good thing ships are slower in space, otherwise that gun would be incredibly inefficient.

0:30-0:35: Alright, the plot of this film, you’re asking us to suspend and awful lot of disbelief here. Would they really send a hot blonde up in outer goddamned space to a prison full of the planet’s most insane and dangerous criminals?

0:35-0:44: Well…that escalated quickly.

0:45-0:48: Okay, really? The hot woman is the PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER. If you really cared about her you would have realized this had narrative linchpin written all over it.

0:48-0:53: There’s always just one man. No one ever says, “Well, luckily I know like five or six guys who could probably do it; let me get on Twitter and see who’s around.”

0:54-1:02: What exactly is he good at besides causing multi-car pile ups? I’d also like to that voice actor Corey Burton for redubbing whoever the president is talking to for the purposes of the trailer.

1:03-1:10: Guy Pearce as Hugh Jackman as John McClane as Snake Plissken.

1:11-1:16: In this future, the space program is bigger than Apple.

1:16-1:25: How exactly is he FALLING? There’s no gravity in space, last time I checked, so he’d just keep going forward forever or until something stopped him. Have people totally forgotten the science part of science fiction? (The answer is yes)

1:26-1:27: Of course it’s from the producers of Taken. It’s another movie where Maggie Grace has to be rescued, I really hope “damsel-ing” is prominent on her list of skills.

1:27-1:35: Again, the gravity generator will hold him up. Fine, but why then does the bad guy fall to his death? Come on, fellas, you’re losing your heads.

1:35-1:40: You’d think she’d be a little more grateful to see someone who wasn’t actively trying to rape her.

1:41-1:49: She’s really wearing the best disguise I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised it didn’t work.

1:49-1:52: It’s falling out of the sky… How unprecedented.

1:53-2:00: It has been quite a while since we’ve seen a good insane Scotsman on the big screen. So it’s got that going for it.

2:00-2:06: It is kind of cool to see Guy Pearce in just a straight up badass role, that’s pretty rare for him. Is he going to follow in Liam Neeson’s footsteps and play nothing but that now? Will Pearce get to fight off wolves in a few years?

2:06-2:12: Shots of nothing at all, good for any trailer. Also, they seem to have taken a good amount of liberty in telling the story of the NBA’s recent lockout. Fewer tattooed convicts, though.

2:13-2:23: And no trailer is complete without an oral sex joke.

Hooray to this movie for being outwardly ridiculous from the first shot of the trailer. I’ll probably see it.

-Kanderson liked this movie the first time he saw it, when it followed him on TWITTER

Big Pop Fun #11: James Arnold Taylor (Obi Wan Flintstone)

2012-01-27T14:36:32Z

James Arnold Taylor is one of the premier voice actors in the world. He talks about being the voice of Fred Flintstone, Obi Wan Kenobi, and his real dad.

This Week at NerdMelt Theater!

2012-01-27T19:56:38Z

We’ve got so much comedy it’s coming out of our orifices! Check it out!

Today at 8:30pm, it’s Jonah Ray’s album recording!

Join Jonah Ray (Nerdist Podcast, The Soup, The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail) as he records his second stand up comedy record “Hello Mr. Magic Plane Person, Hello” for AST Records. Ed Salazar and Jim Hamilton will be opening for Jonah! He will provide the comedy, booze, and seats. All you have to do is laugh. Sounds like a good deal to us!

FREE!

Saturday at 8pm, it’s Enter Spider!

It was so fun, so bizarre, and since so many people requested it…. Matt McKenna is doing it again!
You’re entering a stand-up comedy show on the edge of time and space; in a place where light and shadow are often mistaken for a biracial gay couple; where the lineup of comics are from all walks of life… *and* death. There is no two drink minimum here, there is only the maximum occupancy of the Imagination! You are entering… *ENTER SPIDER*.

$8 in advance, $10 at the door

Sunday at 3pm (please note the special time!!), it’s The Nerdist Writers Panel!

Spend your Sunday afternoons learning from the best at the Nerdist Writers Panel! Join moderator Ben Blacker as he hosts esteemed panelists discussing topics like different types of writing, how they got started, what inspires them, the business side of writing, and more. Panelists will also answer your questions and give some helpful tips and tricks! This series is a must for any hopeful writer in LA, with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit 826LA.

This week’s panel, featuring Vince Gilligan (creator, Breaking Bad) and Julie Plec (developer, Vampire Diaries) is SOLD OUT online. We will be releasing a handful of tickets at the door.

$15

Then Sunday at 7pm, it’s Matt Mira’s Day Off!

Matt Mira of the Nerdist Podcast needs a Day Off, so we decided to give him Sundays at Nerdist Theater. Come watch Mira and Paul Cibis host this comedy free-for-all. You’ll see brand new comics, comics you know and love trying out new material (Chris Hardwick and Kumail Nanjiani are frequent drop ins), and the magic that is live comedy.

FREE

Tuesday at 8pm, it’s Jackie Kashian’s Dork Forest!

Live Dork on Dork Dialog with fantastic indie comic book dork, Andy Kindler! I will learn about R. Crumb and why comics that are “real” are also not “depressing.” Let’s watch Kindler do this! I will be doing my mantra… safe space! safe space!
Eddie Pepitone will close things out with an amazingly funny set!
It’s LIVE, It’s going to be great, and you should all come.

$10

Wednesday at 8:30pm, it’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail

This weekly standup show is hosted by Jonah Ray and Kumail Nanjiani, and it’ll knock your socks off! This week, they welcome Rob Delaney, John Roy, Reese Waters, Howard Kremer, Neal Brennan, and Tom Wilson!

And on Thursday at 8pm, it’s The Image Comics Alpha Girl Show!

Image Comics is celebrating the release of Alpha Girl #1, their comic set in the 80s about a cosmetics company whose products turn women into lady zombies, so it’s time to laugh! Celebrate with cocktail mistresses Alie & Georgia, Sean Patton, sketch group Diani and Devine, DJ Douggpound, Steve Agee, and Margaret Cho! Come for the comedy, stay for the signing and meet and greet with the co-creators, artists, and other people involved in the making of Alpha Girl!

$8 in advance, $10 at the door!

That’s our week, and we want to share it with you! Check us out on Twitter, our site, and get tickets to any of our shows here!

The Music Geek Track Of The Week: “In Your Light”

2012-01-27T21:42:59Z

I currently live in Chicago, so a fifteen-minute walk outside, according to top scientists, is similar to being bitch-slapped by a throng of Siberian gypsies. Walking to CVS for Craisins and Nivea (For Men!!) shouldn’t be a life-threatening ordeal, and yet, I almost always end up looking like a Titanic survivor by the time I get to the topical analgesics aisle.

Not today, though! Don’t get me wrong, it was fucking freezing, but I had “In Your Light” by Gotye playing on repeat, and when I closed my eyes it almost felt as though, for once, I wasn’t being buried alive in permafrost.

Here are some reasons you might want to play this song in the blistering cold:

1. Gotye — aka Wally De Baker — is based out of Melbourne where he is currently enjoying a very hot summer (that bastard).

2. The lyrical focus could be very easily interpreted as an ode to the sun or the warmth of a lover –- “In your light just when I’m in your light/And I won’t get by if you take that light away.”

3. The production is ebulliently bright and optimistic. Like, Phil-Collins-Tarzan-soundtrack optimistic. Come to think of it, I distinctly remember feeling as happy as the intro scene of a Disney movie –I did get some pretty weird looks. I think I might have even given the homeless guy outside of CVS a thumbs up.

Follow me on twitter! @MattGrosinger

The Todd Glass Show #29: Rory Scovel and Mike Koman

2012-01-27T20:02:27Z

Rory and Mike come back for more laughs. There’s bits, music, bits, and more!

Like The Todd Glass Show on Facebook!

Special thanks to Carvin for supplying us with the equipment we need to record this podcast! Check out Carvin.com for more information on recording equipment, guitars, amps and more!

Nerdist Podcast #162: Señor Dick

2012-01-27T23:03:06Z

Chris ponders the psychology of stage-hogging, Jonah recounts his trip to a wedding in Jamaica, and Matt Mira gets an apartment with Greta. PLUS! Nerdist TV show writer Kristen Rutherford pops by and talks about teaching her baby sign language.

Benny the Jukebox’s ’90s Megamix

2012-01-27T15:19:57Z

Our own Chris Hardwick is a melodica player of some note, but can he play a medley of club and Europop hits of the ’90s in one neatly segued medley like this guy? Hear Benny the Jukebox play C&C Music Factory, 2 Unlimited, Haddaway, Eiffel 65, “Barbie Girl,” the Macarena, “Baby Got Back,” “We Like to Party,” Ace of Base, and many more you may or may not remember or like, closing with that stadium anthem by Zombie Nation, “Kernkraft 400.”

And, hey, he’s been on the Nerdist Podcast. He’s Benny from Axis of Awesome. He says he can play any requests and challenges, because if he’s heard it, he claims, he can play it: try him at bennythejukebox@gmail.com.

Now, I’ll just go off and try to scrub “Cotton Eye Joe” out of my mind.

HT: Reddit