Episode 56 – Monarch: Legacy of Black Friday

Soundboard: Friends with Brews! Hi Peter!

Peter: Hi Scott!

Scott: Hey! You do a pretty good job of sounding like that guy, I must say.

Peter: Well, I do a pretty good job of sounding… I mean, I’m sure that there’s a module I could add into Audio Hijack Pro to make me sound exactly like that guy.

Scott: Mm-hmm. Actually what I should do is upload… It’s probably not enough of a sample, but I should upload that voice. I should upload the long sample to the Voices AI generator.

Peter: 11 Labs?

Scott: 11 Labs, yeah. Thank you.

Peter: Yes, yes, you should. Then that guy can be your new co-host and you can fire me. [laughs] So, this is going to be a short cast, dear listener, just so you know.

Scott: And by the way, I want the listener to know that we are all about quality. We are not impervious or… We are not against the concept of throwing away an episode that for whatever reason didn’t work or isn’t timely anymore.

Peter: That’s right, and we decided to do that most recently with the episode that we recorded on the drama at Open AI that happened about a week ago. Because, I mean, okay, we would not have been the only ones to be completely out of date by the time we released it, but it was just like so, so out of date that we’re like, “No one’s going to benefit from this.” It was fun, you and I having the conversation, but let’s throw it off.

Scott: It was a fun conversation, but I realized that, A, I didn’t do the listeners any benefit with my coverage of it, and then it was old to begin with, so I was like, “Forget it.”

Peter: I mean, that does sort of imply that we’re doing our listeners some sort of service with the other podcasts that we’re releasing.

Scott: Well, I’m not usually droning on and on about one topic, and then A, not covering it very well, and B, finally going to be releasing it by the time it’s so out of date that no one even cares anymore.

Peter: Fair enough. Okay, great. Well, moving on.

Scott: All right, let’s talk about coffees, or whatever you’re drinking.

Peter: Let’s. I am drinking a local roast, Rous Coffee, The Godfather, their darkest roast.

Scott: Wait, I don’t. Why is The Godfather aroused? What did you say? What? Seriously.

Peter: Dear listener, can’t see me shaking my head. It’s Rous. R-A-O apostrophe S. Rous Coffee.

Scott: All right, I’m sorry. Go back to Your Godfather.

Peter: It’s really good. It is the dark, like, you know, I remember they call it a Sicilian roast or a Tuscan roast or whatever, but it’s.

Scott: Tuscan raider.

Peter: Yeah, they call it a Sicilian roast. Yes. So Rous Coffee roasters, they’re rouscoffee.com. Our darkest roast, also known as The Godfather, is a dream for those who enjoy dark roasted coffee. A heavily bodied Sicilian roast with sweet bourbon notes and smooth smoky finish. Grind options, espresso, French, blah, blah, blah. I got whole bean and ground my own. So there you go. What are you drinking?

Scott: I, sir, I am having a counterculture coffee hologram, and here’s how they describe it.

Peter: So it’s not real coffee?

Scott: They say fruity, milk chocolate and syrupy. Now, counterculture is not a local roaster. I don’t know what they are.

Peter: I have heard of them.

Scott: Yeah, that’s the thing. You’ve if you’ve heard of them, they’re probably not local to me. I had one called Big Trouble previously, which was better than this one. But listen to the way they describe Big Trouble. This is what it literally said under tasting notes. Caramel, nutty, round. Round?

Peter: It tastes round.

Scott: It tastes round. Anyway, this one that I’m drinking today doesn’t say round. It just says fruity, milk chocolate, syrupy. The last one my wife liked OK. It was inoffensive. It was smooth. It was non bitter, but it wasn’t the greatest coffee we’ve had. Now, this one, the hologram, I don’t know. I’m not tasting most of what the no, take that back. I do taste the fruitiness and the milk chocolate slightly. But to me, possibly this one requires a little bit of different brewing or something. This one’s a little too bitter for my taste. OK. Not a huge fan of this particular counterculture hologram. So I’m going to thumb down it. First time I thumbed down a coffee as far as I remember.

Peter: Whoo. Thumbed right in the coffee, right in the…

Scott: It’s in there. It’s getting kind of warm.

Peter: OK. Well, no, I like this one. I’m a fan of dark roasts. I know people say like, oh, a lot of people say that they like dark roast, but they really prefer a medium roast. Yeah. Well, a lot of people are stupid and don’t know what they like.

Scott: Peter, a lot of people say they prefer dark roast, but they don’t like a dark roast.

Peter: Just like that. Exactly like that.

Scott: Who does that sound like? That sounds like somebody in a show I was recently watching, I think.

Peter: I mean, maybe you’re thinking of Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants.

Scott: No, I wasn’t watching SpongeBob SquarePants, Peter. I don’t do that.

Peter: OK, well, I don’t know then.

Scott: Now we’re venturing into Eeyore territory.

Peter: Anyway, yes, good coffee. I like that.

Scott: Good. And it’s got a nice website and a nice picture. By the way, before we do move on, I just want to say I sent you a thing saying this goes to our Black Friday topic. So this is a segue into our Black Friday, but it’s also still about coffee. I signed up for trade coffee service for Black Friday.

Peter: Did you use code ATP?

Scott: I don’t remember what I used. I think I used code… Ah, hell, I don’t know. I think it… No, I got an email from them or something. Oh, it might have been a Gruber sponsorship. I think it was Gruber, the talk show podcast. Anyway, it was somebody and something.

Peter: It was somebody. OK, good.

Scott: Oh, no, I take it all back. I take it all back. It was Wired magazine linked to it in their Black Friday…

Peter: Oh, you…

Scott: One of their Black Friday extravaganza.

Peter: You said the W word.

Scott: No, no, you like the W word. It’s the C word that you don’t like.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Scott: The CN word.

Peter: The CN word, yeah. The nasty…

Scott: The Conde. Right, the nasty Conde.

Peter: Yeah, yeah. Once again, their tech support is beyond useless because they…

Scott: Yeah, don’t ever.

Peter: Well, I mean, yeah, so just real quick, here’s what’s going on. And this is great. I’m glad that I get to gripe about something and not on the Blurring the Lines podcast so Adam doesn’t have to hear me gripe. You get to hear me gripe instead.

Scott: Just don’t forget that you’re already griped about it.

Peter: Wired wants me to renew my annual subscription at like $50 a year. And I’m like, you’re giving me… like, normally it’s $29, but you want to charge me $49 to renew? No, I’d like to cancel this, thanks. And while I’m at it, I’m just going to give you a new email address and subscribe for five bucks, like you’re doing with everybody else. So I email them and I’m like, hey, I want to just know, like, when is this subscription up? And they’re like, oh yeah, your subscription ended in 2021. I’m like, that may be true, but I purchased a new subscription like a year… less than a year ago. Because, you know, I did. It was in like November or December 2022. And they’re like, no, your subscription ended on 2021. I’m like, yes, that happened. And I purchased another one. And this person on the other end is like, we don’t see any sign of that. I’m like, oh, and furthermore, while I was fiddling around with the whole thing, I apparently got my credit card charged $5 more to resubscribe. So somehow I subscribed or resubscribed. They couldn’t tell me anything about that. I’m like, okay, well, here’s my Chase app showing Conde Nast, Wired Magazine, charging me $5. Where did that subscription go? And the person on the other end said they would forward my email to help@wired.com. And I haven’t heard anything there since. So we’ll see if they get in touch with us.

Scott: Peter, every time you talk to them, they’re going to charge you at least $5.

Peter: That’s annoying, but you know, I’m living with it. So moving on. Let’s see. Let’s see. What did I have next on our list to talk about?

Scott: I don’t know. You were going to talk about Black Friday related things.

Peter: I was. So did you save 100% or did you waste money on things on Black Friday?

Scott: I saved 100% on most things. But let’s see.

Peter: That’s good.

Scott: Did you save anything for Black Friday? I did the… Well, we did a television because our TV upstairs finally died. We’d had it for… We couldn’t even remember when we got that TV. I think we’ve had that TV for… Let’s see. When did we get married? Now I’m going all the way back into the sands of time. What year is this? 2023 minus the year we got married. Okay. I think that television might have been 20 years old. Is that possible? It was a flat screen, but it was like an old flat screen.

Peter: I don’t know, man.

Scott: Like it wasn’t real skinny. It was super heavy. It wasn’t a tube.

Peter: Like a trinitron? I mean…

Scott: It wasn’t a tube is what I’m saying. It wasn’t a flat screen tube TV.

Peter: Did they have those 20 years ago?

Scott: I don’t know. But anyway, this thing was old. It finally died. We had a HDTV downstairs. I never did upgrade to a 4K, but I had a 4K Apple TV down there and I knew eventually we’d get a 4K TV. So I bought a 4K TV for the downstairs and now the HDTV is upstairs. And it improved the experience in both places immeasurably. But anyway, so that’s the only reason I did it was because one TV died. Then the only other thing that I Black Friday’d that I can recall is the Trade Coffee. And my first shipment, interestingly enough, I didn’t tell them where I was located. They may have gotten it from my IP address. I don’t know. But the first coffee they’re sending us is a local coffee. And it happens to be one that for some reason is kind of hard. You have to drive into Portland and go to their thing. But my wife actually likes this brand a lot. So I don’t know how they chose it for me. They must know my location. But anyway, it’s pretty cool that they sent that as our first coffee.

Peter: I mean, it’s possible that they didn’t. It’s possible it was just random. Like you got you are near like a coffee capital of the world, if not the coffee capital of the world. So, yeah. Anyway, I did buy a couple of things for Black Friday. And the one I’ll share on this podcast is my new iPad Air. Fifth generation.

Scott: Why, Peter?

Peter: Why? Because I have been using it mostly as a secondary display for my MacBook and for writing and journaling. When I originally bought it, my plan was to use it mostly just for reading, you know, emails, a little lightweight web surfing and reading comic books. But what I found is that my use case has changed and the mini is a great form factor for reading. And I love it for comics, etc. But now that I use it for other things, I really wanted the bigger screen. And so I upgraded, went to Best Buy and I got that and the Magic Keyboard, knowing full well that Apple could introduce a brand new iPad Air any minute now, because on average they come out every 610 days and the latest was 630 days ago at this point. So it’s overdue at this point. But I’ve got a 50 or so days return window left. So if they do come out with a new one, I could return this one and exchange it for something newer. That said, it’s an M1 processor. The thing’s screaming fast. It does everything I need it to do. So, you know, it might not even go through the hassle of exchanging it and just say, keep it.

Scott: They don’t have a 610 day exchange window or whatever you said the average was?

Peter: I think it’s a little shorter than that.

Scott: That’d be amazing if you could just keep trading it in for a new one.

Peter: Two years later, just bring it back. Yeah, sure.

Scott: I’m sorry, this isn’t working for me. Hey, what about that new one?

Peter: Oh, man. So anyway, so that’s that. I did notice like some subscriptions are on sale. I did buy an inside tracker subscription. It’s 50% off. Last week on Black Friday, it was like 30% off or something. And today on Cyber Monday, it’s 50% off. So I was like, okay, that sounds pretty cool. So, you know, I bought that and a few other things, but yeah, that was the big one is treating myself to a better iPad. And I’m, you know, so far I’m liking it. Good.

Scott: Now, this iPad will work better for your non-reading activities that you like to participate in, but how has it been working for your reading so far? Have you had a chance to?

Peter: I haven’t really, have not really. I got as far as loading my comic book reader and I see the issue it picked up right where I left off on my previous one of, what’s it, All-Star Superman, I think. I think it was the title I was reading. And it looks good. I mean, I’m certainly not going to complain about the larger screen when I’m reading a comic. The only thing is I haven’t like reclined or laid back on the couch holding it and stuff. So it’s like, that’s the biggest difference is like, you know, you can comfortably hold a mini in one hand because it’s so small and so light. This will get, you know, my arm will get tired if I’m having to hold it up, you know, so it depends. So I haven’t really tried that.

Scott: Yeah. I guess to be honest, I wasn’t thinking so much of reading comics on it because I’m sure the bigger screen will be better for that, but I was thinking more of regular books because my impression would be a mini would be better for reading regular books because it’d just be easier to hold. But for reading comics, the bigger screen and the bigger layout would be nice.

Peter: Yep. On that note though, since Adam suggested about a month or so ago that I look at Audible Unlimited, where you get like, you know, one credit per month, I did sign up for that. And I did buy my second book and it is Eat and Run by Scott Jurak. You may recall when Apple introduced the Apple Watch Ultra about a year ago, I exclaimed when they showed him using one, I was like, Scott Jurak! And you’re like, who the hell is this guy? So anyway, ultra marathon legend. So I’ve been reading or listening to him read his book. I’ve been noticing that’s another bug that’s been annoying me is overcast and audible. So it’s not an overcast problem. It’s not an audible problem. It’s an iPhone problem. When I’m air playing to my Sonos, they’ll start going and then for no apparent reason, just stops playing. Just stops. And I go in and just hit the play button and it resumes again. No idea why.

Scott: I’ve had that happen on and off. There’s usually something that I think triggers it, but occasionally there is nothing that triggers it. But it’s not nearly as frequent as what you’re describing.

Peter: Yeah, it’s been happening a lot in the last week or so. So I’m suspecting something’s changed. I don’t know what.

Scott: Yeah, there’s definitely audio and Apple, Bluetooth and Apple and audio. It doesn’t, they’re all bad combinations. Anything where Apple’s involved and there’s audio and there’s possibly Bluetooth. There’s going to be some bugs.

Peter: Yep. Anyway, what I did to try to work around that today was just because I just had the Sonos play it because you can link your audible account directly into Sonos. And that’s nice. There’s no audio drops, no nothing. It resumed immediately right of where it left off from, which is great. One thing it doesn’t do though, you can’t adjust the playback speed.

Scott: Oh.

Peter: And so all of a sudden Scott Jurek sounds like he’s talking with lead weights around his ankles.

Scott: Oh, you mean at his normal speaking cadence.

Peter: Yes. However, I had been listening to the podcast at 1.5 speed. Oh, not the podcast, but the book. So I got used to hearing him talk like this speed, which is great. And then it’s excruciatingly slow to go back to normal.

Scott: Hi Peter, let’s go for a run. So what you do is you put on your shoes and then you’re going to go fast and then you just rip your ankle and then you rip your calf.

Peter: Yeah. Well, that’s the thing is like, how did I go from a five hour marathon to a three hour marathon? I just cranked the speed up. Done. Oh man. So yeah, there you go.

Scott: Okay. Oh, so you were going to actually talk about the difference in the readers though, because you’re a man who likes to have stuff read to you.

Peter: I do.

Scott: I do to some degree, but I vastly prefer reading with my eyes when I can, but you’re way more into the technologies that can read things into your ears, Peter.

Peter: I am. Yes. I much rather have things read to me than me having to do the reading. It’s just, I’m more audible.

Scott: You have done a complete scientific benchmarking and testing with control sets. I don’t know what you’ve done. Describe it.

Peter: Yeah. I mean, yeah, by today’s standards, yes, but no, not even close.

Scott: By Linus Tech Tips standards, you’ve been very scientific. Oh, sorry. Too soon? Zing.

Peter: Zing. Bazinga. I have been using Voice Dream since I want to say around 2008 and I go through phases where I use it for everything and then I don’t use it for a while and then I go back. Sorry, I got to finish this coffee before too late. Otherwise I’m going to be up all night. Anyway, what I have noticed though is I did start, well, a few months ago I started looking at Speechify and while it lacks a lot of the same, what I consider fundamental features of Voice Dream, the quality of the voices was so good that it was compelling enough for me to essentially switch from Voice Dream over to Speechify. But despite the fact that I’ve had calls with the number two employee there, I’m still waiting for stuff on their roadmap, they still have some, there’s just some stuff which is just like, okay, I should not have bought this product. There’s some things that are like, really guys? You went to market without the ability to read a PDF with columns?

Scott: Yeah, Peter, the problem is the number two employee is actually just the caterer. There is no number two employee.

Peter: The caterer took in, you know, listened to my opinions and he said that he would relay that along.

Scott: Then he offered you a ham sandwich.

Peter: So anyway.

Scott: Voice Dream versus Speechify.

Peter: Yeah, Voice Dream versus Speechify. So Voice Dream, lots more features, things like bookmarks, find in a document, you know, search for a specific word, custom pronunciation guide. So Voice Dream has, you know, has improved a lot, but oh God, I am tired of listening to those voices. They’re terrible.

Scott: And they’re not budging, huh? Are they, is there?

Peter: Voice Dream, I haven’t heard any, I even emailed the developer and I was like, hey, so there’s the Speechify thing and their voices sound amazing. Are you doing anything on that? And I didn’t even get a response.

Scott: Yeah, Voice Dream went from having some of the better voices, though not amazingly pleasant, but the better voices because they were all terrible, to being hopelessly outclassed by almost everyone else in the universe.

Peter: Yeah, it’s sad because it was a really good product and now it’s not as good.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: A while ago, Adam posted in our Blurring the Friends private channel, a list of like a comparatives and alternatives. And one of the things that was listed was Speechify. And one of the alternatives was naturalreaders.com. So of course I had just signed up for a year of Speechify after I got this and they charged my, you know, my bank account. I did an ACH transfer to get a little extra discount. So I didn’t go through, I was like, all right, I’m committed to it. I’ll stick with it and we’ll see how they change, you know, how they evolve over the year. But of course I had to, then I heard about Natural Readers. I was like, all right, let me give it a shot. And of course, right off the bat, I give it a PDF and oh look, it knows how to handle columns. Wow. And I’m like, why is that so hard? I know why it’s hard. I got into, you know, I understand. The reason is because Speechify basically takes an image. They convert your PDF into an image and then they do OCR on it. And that’s why it can’t handle columns. And I was like, okay, but other readers don’t do that. And as a result, they don’t suck. So maybe don’t do that anymore. So anyway. But Natural Readers does it. The voices, I would say in fairness, the voices are not quite as good as Speechify, but they’re still better than Voice Dream. So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m playing with Natural Readers. I don’t know that I’m going to buy it and Speechify. You know, I don’t know that it makes sense to have those two, especially while I’m banking on Speechify to get their act together and fix all those bugs that I’ve reported.

Scott: I think you mean speech iffy.

Peter: It is kind of iffy. Yeah. So.

Scott: Well, here’s a question for you. I noticed that Natural Reader also has a commercial use capability of AI voice generator. Have you tested those to see how they compare to 11 Labs?

Peter: 11 Labs. I have not. I did not. I just said I was personal use. I just want you to read my PDFs to me. And what brought it home was like I did buy a PDF for my Savage Worlds game Dawn of the… Which this feeds into our next project, next topic nicely. I bought the game. It came out, I think a couple of years ago, Dawn of the Daikaiju.

Scott: Oh, Daikaiju.

Peter: So it’s a game where you basically get to play, you know, you can be King Kong or Godzilla or your large, you know, kaiju of your choice.

Scott: Wait, Peter. Yes. This is one game that I would play. I feel left out. I… Well, you… I’m hurt.

Peter: We’ll sign you up. Sundays at three o’clock your time. You can join in.

Scott: Nice. That’s usually when I’m taking a nap. So I’ll just play kaiju instead.

Peter: Perfect. Just wake up. Exactly. You awaken from your slumber.

Scott: Awaken from my kaiju slumber. Burst through the crust of the earth.

Peter: Boom. There you go. Anyway, as is often the case, when I buy a new Savage Worlds book, I feed it right into my reader of choice and I say read. And right off the bat, I realized something didn’t sound right, even though I had Snoop Dogg reading me the article. There was something wrong. And it was because of course I had forgotten that he doesn’t know how to handle columns.

Scott: Oh, Peter. Snoop Dogg doing kaiju.

Peter: Oh yeah. And of course he doesn’t pronounce that too. Oh, that’s right. So voice stream, custom pronunciation guide, speechify, Daikaiju.

Scott: Oh my God.

Peter: Yeah. And there’s no way to change that. There’s no custom pronunciation.

Scott: That’s a fail.

Peter: Bingo. Right. So I don’t know that speechify has a custom pronunciation, but it gets a little better. It was a little closer to kaiju, but more importantly, at least it could follow the, you know, could follow a sentence along with columns. So I was pretty happy with that. Anyway, I’m about to hop on a train to New York and I will listen to some natural readers on the way and also probably read my All-Star Superman. And so I’ll have a little more to say about those two things on the way. But before I do that, Scott, if you were a fan of Daikaiju or maybe the Daikaiju, what would you be watching these days?

Scott: Peter, I would be watching Monarch. Let’s see what the full name of it is. Monarch the monarch. Monarch the gathering, Monarch the, nope. Oh, Monarch, legacy of monsters. That’s what I would be watching, Peter.

Peter: Very good.

Scott: You’ve heard of this. What is your understanding of this?

Peter: I have watched the first episode. Ah. And I enjoyed it.

Scott: I did too. But describe for the listener what the premise of this show is.

Peter: Okay. The premise is first off in 2014, I believe they rebooted the, well at the time, I don’t know if it was on the roadmap, but there was a Godzilla movie in 2014.

Scott: There sure was.

Peter: I think it’s just called Godzilla, but I don’t know. I don’t think it was like Godzilla 1999, which was the previous version. So Godzilla, the one that came out nine years ago in 2014, eventually kick off a new monster verse. So Godzilla came out followed by what? Kong Skull Island a few years later. So there was like new King Kong movie, which I liked a lot better than the Peter Jackson one. Yeah. I liked the Samuel L. Jackson King Kong movie as opposed to the Peter Jackson King Kong movie. Yeah. The Peter Jackson one was a little hard to watch at points. Anyway, new Kong comes out and then a couple of years later we had another Godzilla movie and then it’s Godzilla versus Kong. And so we’ve had what I think there were four, three or four of those monster movies at this point now, big monster movies.

Scott: Right.

Peter: And we actually got to see Godzilla versus King Kong again in modern day and it was fun. They ended up on good terms with each other. Spoiler alert, but this TV show picks up where the movies leave off. And so now as is often the case, we’re focusing on the people.

Scott: Yes. Right.

Peter: Which I always think is the stuff, it’s the thing that they spend the most time on and it’s also the worst part of the movies. Oh, see, I just want to see big monsters.

Scott: See, this is the opposite of how, this is the opposite of how my wife and I think for sure. And this also relates to zombie things because what’s the zombie one that everybody,

Peter: Walking Dead?

Scott: No, not that. That was so shitty.

Peter: World War Z.

Scott: No.

Peter: Shaun of the Dead.

Scott: No.

Peter: 28 days.

Scott: No, you’ll know what it is as soon as I say it. It’s based on a game.

Peter: Oh, the one with the mushrooms.

Scott: The Last of Us.

Peter: Yes. The one with the cordyceps that I take daily, turn around and revolt.

Scott: Yes. Right. So anyway, honestly, like The Walking Dead is how not to do zombies. It focused too much on zombies and the people sucked.

Peter: How many seasons did you watch?

Scott: I watched a lot. I don’t think I watched the last one or two.

Peter: Okay. I stopped a long time ago, but I would say, yeah, first season was people versus zombies. After that it was people versus really, really, really bad people.

Scott: Versus other people. Yeah. And it went way, I hated that. I hated that guy with his baseball bats and putting him in a circle. Yeah. Egan or Deegan or…

Peter: We’re all Negan.

Scott: Yeah, that’s right. I hated that. I don’t know. It was the dumbest show. Anyway, to get back to this specifically, what I really like about Monarch so far is that they’re drawing you in by the people, the characters unraveling this mystery about who they even are, who their dad even is, what’s going on, why… And that’s what I kind of like about it. It’s not just big, dumb monsters killing things, which don’t get me wrong. I do like Godzilla himself. Most of the other ones, I don’t really care for most of the other monsters, but…

Peter: Kong’s okay, but I never really… I remember seeing a King Kong movie with my dad.

Scott: But the big bug monsters I don’t care about.

Peter: Yeah. I don’t care for the bug monsters, I suppose. Yeah. No, I’m not in… Mothra.

Scott: Spider was pretty scary. There was a spider in there that was pretty scary.

Peter: Spider versus giant crab.

Scott: Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Peter: Yeah, that was a little… So yeah, I did like the de-aged John Goodman too. That was pretty well done.

Scott: Yeah, that was pretty well done. Basically, the premise is they pick up after the 2014/2015 thing, because I think the way they were portraying it was Godzilla burst through San Francisco in 2015. That was the thing. But they also are jumping back and forth in time. They go all the way back to…

Peter: The ‘70s.

Scott: That’s right. They go back to the ’50s even, because they’re focusing on this girl, and it turns out that… So her dad was involved in this whole kaiju thing. Her grandma, it turns out, was involved in it.

Peter: Yep.

Scott: And it really focuses on her trying to understand her family, a lot of things that she didn’t know about her own family, in addition to surviving this world where she’s getting involved in more kaiju attacks. And so it’s pretty cool. It’s actually really well done, and I really like the people element of it.

Peter: Yes.

Scott: And part of, obviously part of why I like it is because it’s actual Nihonjin, Japanese people, speaking actual Nihongo, Japanese, with…

Peter: Honto?

Scott: Honto and real good Hatsune pronunciation. Finally, thank you. I’m so tired of watching shows where you can tell that it’s not native speakers.

Peter: Yes, I agree with that too. And I almost messaged you, because I didn’t know what you would think about, because I know sometimes when I say something like, “Hey, you should check this out,” you give me back a response that makes me wish that I had never spoken to you.

Scott: Right. Ever. Not just about that, but ever.

Peter: Ever. Not just about… Like ever. Why did I message this guy back in 2004 in the MacNew podcast?

Scott: Hey, Peter, I have news for you. You live in Boston. All you have to do is pretend like your internet connection doesn’t work for the rest of your life, and you’ll never have to talk to me again.

Peter: Click. Anyway. But I was just like, “Yeah, I’m watching Monarch,” and you’re like, “What’s that?” And I was like, “Okay, here it comes.” And oddly enough, you’re watching it. I was like, “Oh, he likes it too. Finally.”

Scott: I think I’m more open-minded for most things, except I just don’t care about American superheroes. I really don’t.

Peter: Yeah, I get that.

Scott: That’s pretty much the only one that I honestly can’t try. It’s like American football, right? I’ve tried to like it because people I know like it, but I just can’t.

Peter: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I get that. I get that.

Scott: And I actually liked the Marvel stuff until they just kept going on and on.

Peter: Same thing again. Well, here’s the thing. The latest one, the Marvels, is not the exact same thing. I mean, it’s about 60% the same formula.

Scott: Is that the tagline? 60% the same!

Peter: Yeah, 60% percent. 60% percent the same. Having like a lot more females involved in the production, not just the stars, but you know, like direction, production, et cetera, et cetera.

Scott: Crafting the story.

Peter: Puts a real different spin on the movie, amazingly enough. Who would have thunk?

Scott: That’s pretty cool. Maybe I can get my daughter interested in watching it, because she was into the Marvel stuff, and they drove her away. So that’s the thing is like, if you have people that want to watch your product, and you manage to completely alienate them, you are doing something wrong.

Peter: Yeah. And the thing is, the sad part is, I told this to a friend of mine, the Marvels is hands down the best superhero movie in years, right? And it had the worst opening and the worst second week, like of any Marvel movie.

Scott: Right, because everyone was burned out.

Peter: Well, a number of reasons. One, burnout. Two, you know, haters on the internet who are, oh there I go with those fancy background effects again.

Scott: What?

Peter: Oh, you didn’t notice this?

Scott: Oh, I didn’t see it. No, because you’re hidden behind a window. Oh, look at you. Oh my God, it’s New Year’s.

Peter: Yeah, that was two thumbs up. This is peace signs. Peace.

Scott: Peter, that’s actually pretty amazing.

Peter: Peace gives balloons.

Scott: It completely blacked you out and made it look like you were standing in the dark in front of an actual fireworks show. Oh, that’s beautiful. Oh yeah.

Peter: Yeah, that’s great. And that works in just about anything. Anyway, back to the story. Haters on the internet who hate Brie Larson, who hate other female leads and minorities, right?

Scott: Yeah, have you ever noticed a pattern about the things that they hate in these shows?

Peter: Huh, it’s kind of funny, isn’t it?

Scott: Yeah, yeah.

Peter: And then of course, because of the whole writers strike, they weren’t able to go around and promote the movie.

Scott: Oh. Oh yeah. So between all those, you just, it’s, you know, like this, this movie was doomed to begin with. Yeah, but I got to say actually now that you mention it and now that you talk about the writers strike, I’m actually impressed that they did release this thing instead of just writing it off.

Peter: Yeah. Yeah, well that’s just it. I mean, the thing is like DC, you know, Time Warner, Warner Brothers, they just write stuff off.

Scott: Mm-hmm.

Peter: They’ve done that. They did that with a-

Scott: Wile E. Coyote.

Peter: I want to say it was a Batwoman movie they killed and I supposedly they just killed, yeah, Wile E. Coyote, exactly, the one with John Cena.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: But apparently maybe they’re bringing that back. Maybe now it’s, I don’t know.

Scott: After everyone found out, it was supposed to be a secret.

Peter: Yeah, pretty much. So anyway, the next day I’ll watch, listen to the next episode of BigSandwich.co and see what they say.

Scott: Peter, you know what I’m going to do for you and for the sake of Big Sandwich? I’m going to watch the Marvels and I’m going to watch it with an open mind and I’m going to like it. And if anybody complains about Brie Larson and any other women, I’m going to tell them to go f&@$ themselves because I’m going to enjoy those parts.

Peter: You’re going to enjoy the part where they’re f&@$ing themselves. Great.

Scott: No.

Peter: I don’t remember that was in the movie, but I hope you enjoy it.

Scott: I’m going to enjoy the parts where the characters that they don’t like, I’m going to enjoy all the things that they hate about those shows. I guarantee it. I’m actually, not just to spite them, but I bet you those are going to be things that I like.

Peter: Good. Excellent. All right. So-

Scott: Yep. You were about to ask me a question.

Peter: On BigSandwich.co, do you get the episodes that include Caravan of Garbage? If you listen to the last two episodes of Caravan of Garbage, they covered Godzilla 2014 and Kong Skull Island. And that was a nice setup into Monarch. I’m looking forward to watching the big monster movies again. It wasn’t Ted Lasso. It wasn’t whatever else it was on Apple TV Plus, but it’s going to be Monarch that gets me to come back and subscribe to Apple TV Plus again.

Scott: Yeah. I want to tell you this. I have watched all three episodes of Monarch that have been released so far, and I think you will enjoy it more and more as it goes along.

Peter: Sweet.

Scott: It gets good. It’s starting to get really good.

Peter: All right.

Scott: And there’s a scene that I want you to watch for. Just remember the sound effect. Bing.

Peter: Bing.

Scott: Or more like ding.

Peter: Ding. Got it. Noted.

Scott: You’ll know it. It’s hilarious. You’ll laugh.

Peter: I’ll know it. All right. Cool. On that note, we should take us out. We are both running Audio Hijack Pro these days, thanks to a Black Friday deal, which was pre-Black Friday, which I got last week or so. So yeah, we should do that. We should go ahead and push that big red button.

Soundboard: Tell your friends.