Golem and 1 Company Owns All the GEEK NEWS!

You're listening to the GeekCast Radio Network,

a podcast. Hi, this is Adam Mastroianni, and

you are listening to Altered Geek. You are tuned

in to Steve Megatron on Altered Geek. Hello,

and welcome to... Altered Geek, I'm your host,

Steve Megatron, and joining me on this adventure

into geekdom is TFG1 Mike. Hello, how are you?

Doing well. It's been a while. Yes, it has been

a while. You kind of missed out on the awesomeness

that was Mr. Oligopoly, but... I know, I know.

Yeah, it was... It's okay, it's okay. You were

off in some corner of Colorado doing voice stuff,

and... juggling things and time zones and all

that good stuff. Yeah, time zones. We could do

a whole podcast about time zones on a different

podcast feed, but yeah. So, before the show,

you said something about you had a story. What

story you got? You ever like something enough

from your hometown to wait two hours for it?

Um... This is going somewhere, trust me. I don't

think so. Okay. So suffice it to say, yesterday,

yeah, it was yesterday, I waited two hours for

food that comes from Flint, Michigan. Okay. I

was not the only one. Okay. So there's this,

and it sounds stupid to anybody, like my wife

thought I was an idiot for waiting two hours.

For this. Because I walked in and I did not expect

the waiting that happened. And basically, if

you've ever lived in Michigan or in that area,

have you ever seen a Kogel's hot dog? No, I have

not. Okay. It is a local plant to Flip, Michigan,

along with like Abbott's Meats, Better Made Potato

Chips. verner's fago those are all michigan products

that pretty much stay in michigan you might find

them here or there outside of michigan but it's

very scarce and so i went i found periodically

i get this hankering for different foods that

are from home because out here in colorado they

don't have any concept of real food michigan

michigan I will say this. Michigan sucked as

far as working and living. But man, they could

feed you. So I had an Italian restaurant, and

I'll get back to the Kogel's hot dog thing in

a minute, but I know nobody's going to care about

this, but it's a humorous story anyway. I moved

from Michigan to Colorado for work, and there

was a restaurant called Italia Garden in Flint,

Michigan. My wife and I like to eat at every

time we go back. That's where we eat. So they

have this sweet Sicilian Italian sauce and they

make all of their food from scratch. Like it's,

it's a home, you know, a small restaurant chain.

They have like four restaurants and they, I don't

know. It's just, it's, it's a nice atmosphere.

The food's great. You get a lot of food for your

money. Even though every time I go back, the

price keeps going up, uh, inflation, you know,

everything else. Uh, so I spent the last three

years trying to duplicate their sauce because

two years ago, I tried to email them and ask

if I could buy the sauce and have it drop shipped

to Colorado for my anniversary. And I'd never

heard back from them. Oh no. And I was like,

okay, this, you know, it was a shot in the dark.

I didn't expect to hear anything, but I at least

expected a no. But suffice it to say, my family

went in March. I made three different sauces

while they were gone, and I knew they were eating

there, and they ate there all week when they

weren't eating with my in -laws. And so I had

them try the food when they got back. I labeled

A, B, and C. I actually measured the food. I

had specific ingredients I used. They had to

come from, you know, I had this meticulous plan

because I'd been trying to duplicate their sauce

for three years in my spare time. So I have it

within a fraction of being the same sauce. Okay.

A very slim margin, mind you. And so they came

back, I perfected it, and now I have my own version

of the same sauce. So now I'm responsible for

making spaghetti when it happens in my house

or anything that requires that sauce, like lasagna,

like a specific zucchini dish that my wife makes

that it needs my sauce along with the rest of

what she puts in it combined. It is great. So

anyways, that's one. thing that I miss from Michigan.

The other thing I miss is these Kogel's hot dogs.

And they're like these beef skin hot dogs that,

you know, you cook them on the grill or you however.

Anyways, when they get hot enough or whatever,

they split open and they have like this nice

crunch texture to them when you eat them. So,

anyways, I was doing some digging about a month

ago. periodically I look because I'm like, oh,

can I order some of this food and have it shipped

here? And I find out that a truck was coming.

It's like Kogel's on the road or something, and

it's run by a shipping company, and they have

like two giant trucks that they take through

all over the U .S. And they had already hit Denver,

Colorado, Colorado Springs, and they were coming

to Loveland, Colorado, which is right in my neck

of the woods. 10 minutes from my house. So I

went there yesterday at quarter after 11. I didn't

leave till like quarter to two or quarter to

one because it took that long to get through

the line. I walked in and Mary's like, yeah,

you have fun waiting in this line. I'm going

to go take the boys to Barnes and Noble. And

I stood there and I talked to people and it was

funny because everybody in line was from Michigan.

they knew they were like, Oh yeah, you know,

we were all swapping stories of everything. So

anyways, the people were getting like the better

made potato chips, the Faygo, the, um, you know,

all the other stuff that, that comes from Michigan.

And we had, um, what is it? The, the Kogel's

hot dog. So they sell them in, you know, these

big 10 pound cases. Yup. And I was telling a

neighbor that I was going to go there and he

was familiar with it. And he, He's like, oh,

buy me a case. And, you know, so I was already

there, so I bought him a case. And they have

these Flint Coneys and Detroit Coneys. And what

Detroit Coneys are, they're a chili dog. They

call them a Coney. They're not a Coney. The Flint

Coneys are made from, like, ground beef, basically

the hot dog ground up with certain seasonings

and spices and whatnot, and in a special sauce,

and you put it on your hot dog. Kind of like

you would a chili dog, but it's not chili. It's

meat. And so I went and bought a four -pound

thing of it because it's the only size container

you could get of that. And then I got one of

the cases of the hot dogs. And I waited. I waited

two hours for this. And so yesterday and tonight

for dinner, I had Kogo's hot dogs, Flint Coney

dogs. And it was like, oh, these are so familiar

and they're delicious. They're horrible for you.

And so Mary ate it last night. And then tonight

she's like, yeah, I'm not wasting the calories

on that. She's like, it was good, but I don't

want to waste it on a hot dog. And I was like,

oh, so I get two. And she's like, yeah. And I

was like, great. So I was ecstatic because I

got Flint food. So now I'm like, oh, this is

fun. I get Flint food. you know, not only my

pasta, but for my, my cheap Labor Day snack.

Nice. Yeah. So I, and somebody asked, they were

like, uh, when do you guys come back? And they're

like, this time next year. And so everybody's

like, well, I'll see you next year. Yeah. See

you next year. Uh, but it was funny cause we

were talking to the lady when we were getting

our food and, uh, she was from Flint area too.

And, uh, she's like, uh, Yeah, we opened up a

store in Arizona. She says there were literally

people standing outside crying over hot dogs.

And my wife's like, really? And she's like, oh,

yeah. She says they were standing outside the

door crying because they could buy their hot

dogs whenever they wanted instead of having to

wait for the truck. And I started laughing hysterically.

I was like, I cannot imagine crying over a hot

dog. Like, yes, they're delicious. I like them.

But I was just I was like, I can't imagine standing

in front of a store crying that it's open. But

anyways, yeah, I was pretty happy, though. I

got the food. So that was my tangent of my funny

story that I waited two hours for hot dogs from

Flint without having to go to Flint to eat them.

Well, that's always a good thing. You never want

to go home to eat them. You want home to come

to you so you can eat them where you are. Exactly.

I told her, I says, Mary's like, well, we can't

eat these all the time because, you know, we

run out and whatnot. And I said, well, they come

once a year. I said, I said, well, I said, you

know, I'll get them next year. She's like, great.

She says we had to spend our whole Sunday staying

around town because you had to get hot dogs.

I mean, I know this is going to be the most basic

thing ever. But for me personally, the only hot

dogs I've ever been able to eat are ballpark.

I like ballpark too. My in -laws would cook those

because that's just, they would buy them when

they're on sale. They would literally, they had

a freezer full of them. Oh yeah. Like a deep

freeze, like a tall standing one. They had an

entire freezer full of them. Oh yeah. And for

me, I just like the plain ballpark, like bun

size Franks. I don't do the beef – I don't like

the beef franks. Any company that does all –

I don't like the taste of that stuff. But, yeah,

no, I mean that – you go to be – like literally

I had no idea. So I was born, raised, and everything

else in Massachusetts from 1980 to 1993. I lived

there. By the time I was 13, I was going to live

in Kentucky and everything else. Well, in Massachusetts

– Just like in Michigan, because Michigan has

their own, like you've already talked about all

the specific Michigander foods. With Massachusetts,

we have several things that are exclusive to

that. And one of those is Cape Cod Kettle Cooked

Potato Chips. I know everybody and their brother

lays and everybody else does kettle cook now

too. And there are all kinds of mom and pop companies

that do it too. But when I was a kid, The best

kettle -cooked potato chips were Cape Cod potato

chips. I've seen those. Yeah, yeah. I was surprised

because in 1993, once I left Massachusetts and

lived in Kentucky for 25 years, or however the

hell long I lived in Kentucky after that, I was

like, oh my god, I can never move from one place

to another place. You don't think the new place

is going to have the same stuff that the old

place had. And then in some convenient, it was

a Thornton's or it was a Chevron or something.

And I'm like, my God, what is a bag of Cape Cod?

It was like the only Cape Cod. I was like, noink.

And now that we have, you know, Walmart and Walmart

Plus and everything else, it's like, oh, I can,

as long as they have it in stock, I can order

Cape Cod potato chips whenever I want. And that's

the kind of thing of, you know. Even though potato

chips are junk food and whatever else, but it's

like that thing from home that you used to eat

as a child kind of thing. You know, it's not

the whole meal deal with spaghetti sauce and

all that stuff like you're talking about, but

it's kind of the same thing. All right, so that's

your story of the week. And let's get into the

top two stories in Geekdom that we have. Mighty

Ducks, The Lame Changers, Season 2 trailer debuted.

I'm sorry, Mighty Ducks, Game Changers. I understand

why Emilio is not coming back because of all

of that stuff that happened, but I don't like

this show without any of the classic people there.

Yeah, I don't care for revivals of shows unless

they have the original people involved to some

degree. Yeah. And like I said, I understand why

he's not working with them anymore and all that

and everything else. Whatever his stance on COVID

was, I don't remember what that whole story was

and I don't really care. But when I watched the

first season, I know we talked about it on this

show at some point or another. When I watched

the first season, I'm like, I don't like any,

most of these kids I don't give a crap about.

The mom is annoying as all hell. I can't stand

her. I don't like any of the characters. Like,

they're very unlikable. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah,

that trailer debuted, and yeah, we're probably

not going to watch. I said to you in private

message, I said, the only way I'm going to watch

an episode of the second season is if they have

any. If they have Elden Henson or if they have

whomever come back, like any of the classic characters

from the original films. Hell, if they have...

See, that's the thing. Emilio's not there anymore

as Bombay, so Bombay's out. They're going, from

what I can tell from the trailer, they're at

this new summer camp where Josh Duhamel... is

the new kind of Gordon Bombay character. And

don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Josh Duhamel

as an actor. I love almost everything he's ever

been in. And, okay, I guess I don't technically

love the Transformers movies, but I don't mind

his character in the Transformers movies I enjoyed.

And obviously, for me personally, I knew him

as Leo on All My Children, but he's been in other

movies and he's done other things that I really

like the guy. I think he's cool. He was in one

of my favorite shows that I mentioned five, six,

seven episodes back, Las Vegas with James Caan.

So I like the guy, but I don't know. I just,

yeah, I watched the trailer for it. I just don't

have that level of... I was very excited when

I saw that Bombay was back, even though they

kind of made him kind of a curmudgeon -y old

man. Yeah. Which, honestly, I hate it when they

bring these revivals back, and then they make

the hero or the guy that's the head of it, make

him the villain. They make him such a jerk, and

they do it in all these shows. Picard was like

that. They made Bombay like that. And I get it.

Life is tough on the characters and they give

them a backstory. But honestly, I don't like

when they just kind of ruin the character for

the sake of being like, oh, we got to introduce

these new characters. Yeah. Yeah. And that's

just crazy. And there are some good. Now, there's

a difference between I personally believe there's

a difference between a reboot. in a sequel thing.

Like, Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World. Girl

Meets World is a sequel. It takes place years

after Boy Meets World. Cory and Topanga are all

grown up with 2 .7 kids and Sean and Katie and,

you know. I was wondering with Girl Meets World.

Girl Meets World had three seasons on Disney

Channel. I was wondering when they were going

to get Heaney back. Because the only thing we

really saw in that first season was, I believe

it was the very first episode. At the end of

the episode, you see a picture of Feeney in the

train station or wherever the hell they are.

And you see that and then that's it until obviously

much, much later when he comes in at the end

of the show, close to the third season kind of

thing. Whereas like, you know, for a reboot or

a remake. You know, you have completely different

actors, completely different characters, and

you just are using them. Like, if they did right

now, if they took the animation style and everything

else and put it today on whatever cartoon network

you want to talk about, if they took Batman the

Animated Series and did everything that they

did 30 years ago today, except they replaced

Kevin Conroy, not that they ever would, but I'm

saying, like, you change certain things or you

don't do you don't like yeah no that's no i don't

want to remake when i can just watch the original

yeah i yeah and i tried watching some of the

other remakes on disney like uh the doogie howser

thing and i watched like three episodes and i

was like it wasn't too bad but it's not you know

they at least acknowledge the original yeah and

then the uh Turner and Hooch. God. I enjoyed

it for what it was. It was very predictable,

but I enjoyed it for what it was. Yep. I hated

the fact that they killed Tom Hanks. Yeah. I

was like, can't you just have him, you know,

because it wasn't that long after he was supposedly

dead. They could have easily had it be a fake

death. Yeah. Like he was undercover or something

like deep cover. Yeah. Or captured or, you know,

something, I don't know. It just, I, it felt

kind of like a slap in the face to Tom Hanks.

Yeah. And I kind of wish that they'd continued

it cause they brought other people back from

the old stuff. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I

kind of wish that when it had gotten another

season to kind of do more, but I think they kind

of screwed themselves by having him killed. Yeah.

And had nowhere to go with it. I don't know.

It's just not a huge fan with. a lot of reboots

anymore. I just, I'm like, do your own thing.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, Batman. Yes.

I did not plan this folks. And it's always around

this time of year, isn't it? Well, it is, but

I didn't plan for us to record Altered Geek and

talk about Batman the Animated Series' 30th anniversary

on the actual 30th anniversary date, September

5th, 2022. I did not plan for it. And then I

saw somewhere, I forget even where I saw this

link that we'll have in the show notes. 30th

anniversary of Batman the Animated Series Day

Thread. So they have in this post on this website,

which is avocado .org? I thought Matt Murdock

and Foggy Nelson were the avocado people. Anyway,

so they have all these various things, and they

have all these various drawings, and just showing

off. They have one image of all the title cards

together. I love that. That is awesome. But Batman

the Animated Series, 30 years. Wow. Just, just

wow. It's a show that defined, redefined the

character and gave new life to most of the characters.

Like, Mr. Freeze was just a criminal before Batman

the Animated Series and Bruce Timm, Paul Daney,

Alan Burnett, all those people. You know, I mean,

Mark Hamill Joker. I said this to somebody recently

on a podcast. I don't know if that podcast will

be out before or after this. I don't know. It

just depends on how I edit these things and get

them done and finished and all that. But I said

something to someone originally about, you know,

we were talking about conventions and certain

people, how they get treated at conventions or

whatever. And Tim Curry's name came up because

Tim Curry was at a convention. It just didn't

look like he should be there. He didn't look

like he was in that great of health kind of thing.

And I had mentioned, oh, yeah, Tim Curry was

going to be the voice of the Joker originally.

And they didn't really like it or something.

And it wasn't the right fit. And then obviously

they found, you know, they asked Mark Hamill.

And Mark Hamill obviously gave us the iconic

Joker. You have so many great episodes in this

series. In the entire series, not just Batman

the Animated Series, but the new Adventures of

Batman and Robin, and then the new Batman Superman

Adventures. Yes, Kat, we know there's something

wrong. We get it. It's okay. The bat isn't going

to come out of the fireplace and attack you,

Kat. Yep. Nice kitty. The impression that this

show left on all of us. What is it about Batman

the Animated Series that you love the most 30

years after it premiered? I love the animation,

I love the voice acting, and I love the stories.

All of it combined is why I enjoyed it so much

as a kid. And I still enjoy it. It's still one

of the best animated series of all time. You

know, whether it's number one still, as it was

on our list years ago, or it's still top five

worthy. It's still great. Absolutely. And for

me, it's about the characters. It's about, like

you said, the voice actors. It's also about some

of my favorite episodes. I mean, between Heart

of Ice, and this is just me personally, Heart

of Ice, The Forgotten, POV. My top two favorite

episodes in the entire series are Old Wounds

and Over the Edge. because each of those episodes

focuses on Nightwing and Batgirl, and it's just

a great cartoon series that basically launched

what would become the DC animated universe. You

got Adam West, you got Michael Keaton. In 1992,

we got Kevin Conroy. This is Kevin Conroy. And

I am the goddamn Batman. And Kevin Conroy will

always be the first voice of Batman I hear in

my head when I am reading any Batman comic, as

long as it's Bruce Wayne Batman. Now, if it's

Terry McGinnis Batman, that's a little different.

You gotta hear Will Friedle. But, if it's Bruce

Wayne Batman, I will forever hear Kevin Conroy.

As I read those comics. Oh yeah. Every time I

read them, I, I see them both. Like I see Kevin

Conroy, I see Mark Hamill. I see all those voices.

I hear them in my head. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

it's just such a great series. I mean, groundbreaking

really, because in the eighties we had all the,

you know, syndication animation and all, you

know, you had the He -Man with the background

and the running and the transformers. and The

Gem, and The Mask, and The Jeju, and Silverhawks,

and Thundercats, and Insert, whatever cartoon

that I'm not mentioning here. I can't mention

all the 80s cartoons, but you had all that, and

then you get to 1992? Who the hell ever thought

of using black paper for animation? Eric Radomski

thought of it. Makes sense. And that was groundbreaking.

Especially for something that dark. Yeah, it

makes sense. It makes perfect sense. And it's

just cool. Very much so. Yep. Happy 30th anniversary,

Batman, the animated series to you and all of

the people that worked on that show. All right.

So we are going to take a quick break, come back

and talk about the topic for the night. Remember,

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won't. All right, folks, we are back here on

Altered Geek, and tonight's topic is... One company

to own them all. Yes. This will be embedded in

the post on the website, but I was watching a

Clownfish TV video. Which I'd heard of them before.

Yeah, I know. But I'd not watched a lot of their

stuff. But actually, they're very much on the

ball. Yeah. Oh, yeah. With a lot of geekdom.

Yeah. Absolutely, they are. And, you know, they're

working on, I believe they have their website,

but I don't remember if they do or not. They

do. ClownfishTV .com. So, you know, but I saw

this on their YouTube channel, and I was like,

ooh, this would be a cool, you know, topic to...

Break down. Yep. And, yeah, I mean, so what they

are talking about in the video is the company

called... Valnetic, or Valnet Inc. is the company

that I'm talking about now. Valnet Inc. owns

Screen Rant, Collider, Comic Book Resources,

ain't of my existence sometimes, MovieWeb, Game

Rant, The Gamer, DualShockers, Android Police,

XDA, Pocketnow. I love Pocketnow. I love a lot

of the stuff they do. They're really cool. They're

one of the tech people that I watch that I didn't

really mention in the GCR episode that we just

recorded. But yeah, so one company owns all of

these things. I see the same news articles coming

out of Screen Rant, CBR, whatever. Collider,

MovieWeb, Game Rant. Yeah, all of them. I see,

like, oh, and they all have different titles,

but essentially it's the same article. Like,

you know, CBR could be like, oh, these ten episodes

of Batman the Animated Series are the best, or

whatever kind of thing. Oh, here we go. CBR,

ten movies that changed the world. CBR, ten funniest

sitcom dads ranked. You know, game rant. Rockstar

appears to be saying goodbye to Grand Theft Auto

V. You know, you have all these things, and one

company owns all of these things. And it's like,

oh my god. It's like geek news isn't... Well,

it just shows you how disingenuous the internet

is. Yeah. Especially when you get all of these

different sources, which all, you know, don't

get me wrong. It explains leaps and bounds because

there's, they mentioned some of the ones that,

that CBS Paramount on. And they were like huge,

huge chills for discovery when it came out. Yeah.

Even though the fan rating was like in the toilet.

Yep. And the, the critic rating was, was sky

high because they were all in the pocket of CBS

Paramount. Yep. So it just goes to show you that,

you know, you have to be careful where you're

getting your info and whether they're associated

with the product at hand, especially if it's

a good or a bad review. Like if it's, if it's

a good review, might want to do a little bit

of background check. Yeah. Because like they

even mentioned like we got it covered or, you

know, whatever. Yeah. That dumpster. That was

hilarious to me. Yeah. That was hilarious to

me because for years I've been saying they ain't

got nothing covered. Like it's the most. It's

clickbait. Yeah. No, it is. But it's like the

most asinine clickbait ever. Like, again, going

to my Google feed and some of the, and I'm not

trying to pick on CBR, but apparently CBR is

what, maybe I've blocked some of these other

websites that do clickbait, but that's all the

links I'm seeing on my Google feed. Okay, here's

something from Coke and Comics, Sleep of Ages,

Coke and Comics. Here's Collider, the 10 worst

Dr. Seuss adaptations according to IMDb. From

CBR, 10 ways Christopher Reeve was the perfect

Superman. Usually I see some sort of top 10 from

CBR, like I said before, top 10 Batman voice

actors or whatever. I'll just scroll down to

number one unless I have to click through something

just to see what the number one choice is and

see if I agree with it or not. Pretty much. I

don't even, if I have to go through clickbait,

I don't even read it. I just skip. Yep. It becomes

one of those things that I just, Oh, I don't

care. Yeah. And that's the thing, like even in

like, not necessarily because this one company

owns all of these websites, you look at the transformers

websites and I know this isn't all things transformers,

but this will tie in because you look at, and

I love all of them for the most part. You look

at TFW 2005, you look at T -Formers. You look

at Cybertron. You look at AllSpark. All these

Transformers websites that put the news out.

It's essentially all the same news. And this

is why I've said for us as podcasters, you and

I and whomever else we have on these shows that

are reactionary shows to articles and things

that we want to discuss, like this company article

here. We react to it. We give our opinion on

it, but we're not reporting the news. We're not

out trying to get things out of CBS or whatever

kind of thing. We're just reacting to what is

being told to us. And it's crazy that only one

company owns all of those. Oh, man. And sometimes,

some of them, and I do this too, I'm sure plenty

of my old written articles on our website, I'm

sure there's at least one or two typos in every

single one of them, but I always find it hilarious

if I'm reading an article on any of these websites

and they've got some hellaciously stupid typo

typo on it or grammar issue what i really love

is the lack of the lack of research that goes

into a lot of the articles and i know for a fact

they don't pay like diddly squat for these articles

yeah i know this because years ago when i went

to uh try and write for some of them when i was

writing tech articles granted tech articles pay

much better uh than geek podcast or geek uh pop

culture websites for the same amount of content.

They tell you they want clickbaity articles for

the pop culture stuff. They want quizzes. They

want polls. They want top tens. So they're grasping

at straws a lot of the time. What I've noticed

is, especially when it comes to things like Transformers

related or Beast Wars, I can nitpick the crap

out of them because we've covered it ad nauseum

over the last year. 12, 13 years. And we've made

it our mission to kind of know all things Transformers.

And so when these idiots write articles that

are glaringly wrong, like the top 10 most obscure

Transformers. Do you remember that? Yes. Cyclonus

was on there. Yeah, we never did an episode on

that. No, we discussed it. Did we? Yeah, very

briefly. But we were talking about how stupid

the article was. But I mean, they had characters

that were main characters. Yeah, top tier characters.

It's like you don't have somebody like Swerve

or somebody like Rung or something on there.

No, you have these characters that have been

a huge... Even if you're not a cartoon fan, if

you're looking at IDW, they turned Cyclonus into

a totally different character. And he was, he

was like one of those, those ones that kind of

stood out. Like, how could you not know who he

was? And he's not obscure, like he's main character.

And so I, you know, and then I'll see things

Star Trek related, or I'll see things, you know,

other, other topics related. And I'm sitting

there and I, and I'm thinking, how did this,

how did this make it past an editor? Did they

do no research? The Beast Wars ones, obviously,

I can nitpick all day. I even wrote a nitpick

in their comment section on one of them because

I thought it was so stupid. But I mean, I don't

know. It kind of gets annoying when you're going

to all these sites and they have clickbaity articles.

They have, you know, just report it how it is.

And I liked how this Clownfish TV video explained

it and they were talking about the fact that

as some of these websites have changed hands

they've gotten less political and they've gotten

more back to their clickbaity roots because people

were tuning them out. I'm sorry but when I go

to pop culture I want to read about pop culture

or if I go to geek stuff or if I go to tech or

if I go to Star Trek or if I go to Transformers,

I look for the content. I don't care about your

opinion on other things. Just like people didn't

care when I had an opinion on politics here once

upon a time. It's irrelevant. We get to geek

culture because we want to get away from all

of that. And I realize it's embedded in geek

culture, but it's different when they're blatantly

shoveling it in instead of just kind of doing

the fun aspects of it. the pop culture. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, we there, yes, we do

cover all things Transformers, but there are

plenty of things that you and I aren't that well

versed in. So like, I don't know that. Like I've

seen the RID 2001 series. I've seen the Unicron

trilogy sort of, but I don't remember any of

it. And right now, at this moment, I have no

desire to revisit it. I remember how some of

the episodes were bad and how some of the characters,

or mainly the humans, were bad. Like, you know,

just because, like, we covered, what was it?

I pulled up, it was last year, I pulled up an

article from TFW 2005 about the 20th anniversary

of Robots in Disguise 2001. Because I remember...

What I remember about that cartoon is I remember

the intro and I remember like the first episode,

like the first 10 minutes of the first episode.

So I'm like, Oh, let's mention this as part of

our news reaction type thing. And, and then it's,

and I understand most of these websites have

to, they have to give the general, not us, the

general public reader, the background. But if

you have a title that says something about, Oh,

Like, for me, when I wrote my Jason Todd post,

when I wrote my Jason Todd piece, I basically

said, I've never liked Jason Todd until now.

But in that article, the first paragraph wasn't

an entire history of Jason Todd in the comics.

It was giving you the reason why. I never liked

him. You know, my reasons of I never really knew

about the character kind of thing until Sean

Murphy's White Knight series and everything else,

which is more current day. It started in 2017.

But, like, these websites, man, will sometimes,

like, give you this whole, like, if it's a Transformers

article on, like, CBR, like, especially, like,

CBR in places that are not. Transformers websites,

they will give you, like, this paragraph and

a half of history, and I'm just like, that has

nothing to do with the title of the article.

Where's the, like, don't bury the lead, people.

Yeah. And that's, you know, that's just the internet

we live in today, unfortunately. Yep. So, yeah,

I don't know. So what do you guys think? Like,

do you find it irritating that so many of these...

sites are owned by the same people and publishing

the same crap like is there a site that you go

to that you primarily get your geek news from

is there one that you feel is like the least

biased or the least clickbaity uh because i would

genuinely like to know because i i've gotten

to the point where i just don't care about some

of these sites and i try to avoid them like the

plague This is why we don't have a general, I

mean, yes, Altered Geek, you and I specifically

pick out certain articles that we know that we

want to talk about them. But this is why we don't

have, on the Geekcast Radio Network, we do not

have a general geek news show. Like, we don't

have what This Week in Geek used to do with the

nerd news and all of that and everything else.

Because finding stories we want to talk about

sometimes is kind of difficult because some of

these websites... And I know on computers specifically,

I'm sure you can do it on mobile phones, too.

You have ad blockers and everything else. But,

like, I was sitting here trying to read something

about, oh, this is a 2016 article. About the

two guys who do the voiceovers for Big Brother.

There's one guy who does, like, all the stuff

in the house. So, have you ever seen Big Brother?

No. Okay. So, I guess I meant to CBR it for you.

Survivor is on an island outside with bugs, and

you get voted off the island. Yep. Big Brother

is essentially that, except it's in this luxurious

house compound, and it's the same kind of concept

where you get, you know, the house guests get

voted off each week kind of thing. So in that,

they have the overall, like, and I can't do it

like the guy does it, and I don't have that article

pulled up, so I don't remember his name off the

top of my head. but like he'll do like previously

on big brother kind of thing. It's, it's one

of those narration things. So he does all of

that. And then there's a second guy that does,

and most of this is all prerecord, like he'll

record the line and then they just reuse it all

season long. Like if it's Danielle, come to the

diary room, please. Or. Bailey, come to the diary

room, please, or Swaggy C, you need to go out

to the whatever kind of thing. So there are two

guys that have been doing this for over 20 years

on this show. One is mainly for the stuff that's

in the house, and one is the overall narrator

for the previously on, this week on, that kind

of stuff. I absolutely love it because it's so

cool. But that's a news article, which I've just

talked about, that I would want to talk about

on a podcast where... I read it, and it's fine.

But the problem was when I went to scroll down,

I ended up clicking, and my mouse apparently

was on some invisible ad that I didn't see because

it kept switching me back to some page that I

didn't even know I was on. You know what I mean?

Like, come on, websites. Get your shit. I'm sorry.

Get your stuff together. Like, seriously. I don't

know. I'm sorry. This is your show. I'm sorry.

Either way. I don't know. I would be curious

to hear where people get their stuff from because

I've honestly kind of given up as far as some

of the news. I will go to... As it is, I'll often

go to Twitter and just... wait for things to

kind of pile through my, my feet. And then I

just kind of go from there. Like I don't make

a big deal out of checking a lot of these news

sites because it, they bury the lead. It takes

forever to find the information. And I just don't

have that patience to sit there and try and find

it. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like I, like

I mentioned before, I think I mentioned this

in the geek cast radio episode. I'll mention

it here. There are several tech YouTubers that

I watch on YouTube. Some I watch all of their

videos, and some I pick and choose. Marques Brownlee,

MKBHD, Lou Lader, who is on Box Therapy, Michael

Fisher, the Mr. Mobile, Mr. Who's the Boss, who

is Aaron Mayani, I believe is how his last name

is pronounced. You know, Pocket Now Daily. And

it's because I want to stay involved with...

What's going on in some of the tech world? And

I mentioned on the GCR episode that Asus or Lenovo

or whatever, two companies recently released

basically two different folding screen laptops.

And I'm like, oh, that's so cool. That would

be awesome. You know, that I can kind of dig

kind of thing. Yeah. If it's real news, like

real world things that are happening, I follow

several television stations on Facebook and Twitter

and things like that. But most of the time, I'm

not paying attention to geek culture news unless

it's something that you and I want to talk about

here, or if it's something that you and I or

somebody else wants to talk about on Geekcast

Radio, or obviously when we do news episodes

of all things Transformers. That's pretty much

all the news we do here at DCast Radio. We don't

do... We don't do up to the minute. Like, we

don't... Yeah. I mean, we do opinion reactionary

piece, but... Yeah. Yeah. I mean... We don't

do up to the minute because it is super stressful

to do that. Well, and there's a million sites

doing it. I would rather wait until a lot of

the information has come down the pipe. Yep.

Rather than... Rather than try and be like, um...

Well, this is just developing right now. Yeah,

like I said, we are not the, we are never going

to be the Walter Cronkite or the Peter Jennings

or the Dan Rather. Tonight on the Geekcast Radio

Network. Yeah. Okay, Casey. Tonight on the Geekcast

Radio Network, we'll be covering fake news. That

is actually, you say that, and that's actually

something we should discuss at some point. So

I have been a, not the geek, it has to do with

Casey. So I have been an Audible subscriber.

I subscribe off and on, but I've had Audible

for a long time. When I have been a premium plus

or whatever kind of member, whatever it is, I

found, when did they do this? It was 2021? I

don't remember. Please tell me. Yeah. June 7th,

2021. June 15th. They did a, it was Kerry Kasem,

Martin Coe, the narration, but they did this

eight -part podcast called Bitter Blood, Kasem

v. Kasem. And it's basically an eight -part podcast

where it's like detailing the, you know, how

the whole thing with his wife. you know, skirting

him off to Norway and this, that, the other thing.

And the fact that he used, you know, how he passed

away and, and, and all that. So I think, you

know, I've listened to it already and I'll listen

to it again, but I think you should listen to

this because I, you know, you being the Casey

Kasem fan that you are, I think this would be

a good discussion just to, just to, you know,

it's so sad. Yeah, I remember reading about when

there was that family custody battle of his dead

body. It's like, dude, he's gone. Yeah. So yeah.

Again, your show. Take it away. Where are we

going next, dude? What are we doing? So anyways,

I don't know what the next episode is going to

cover. Normally, I would say next week, but I

don't want to pigeonhole an episode just because

I want to do an episode every week. If I have

a topic, there'll be a topic. So I guess kind

of the question would be, what are your geeky

predictions for 2023? What are some things that

you're hoping will come to pass next year, whether

it be with toys, whether it be with movies, TV

shows, animation? Just what's something you guys

would be interested in seeing come to pass? I

think that would be something entertaining for

us to discuss as far as some possible predictions

of 2023. We'll probably be way off in left field,

but you never know. I've been right before many

times. Yeah, absolutely. 2023, man, it's so crazy

between 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years. There are

so many things that are coming up with anniversaries.

Next November will be the 50th anniversary of

the Disney animated Robin Hood movie. Now, we

covered that movie on ToonCast, Optimus Solo

and I did, and I'm just like, ooh. returning

to Robin Hood or something to celebrate the 50th

anniversary. And I'm just like, oh my God, this

is so, so, so cool. And just so, so fun. We're

in the midst of, you know, we're going to be

getting a new, I don't know, everyone's going

to groan when I say this, but we're getting a

new Nickelback album this year, finally. They're

still around? Oh yeah. Has he learned how to

do a concert without a vocoder? I've seen him

in person. So have I. It wasn't as genuine as

he... It's not as good sounding as he is on his

albums. That goes for a lot of people, though.

Briefly, before you end up closing this out,

I will say I do not... I like this... Whatever

the... pre -produced sound is for the albums.

Any musician, doesn't matter who it is, could

be Led Zeppelin for all I care. I like the sound

on the albums. There are not any half the time

live musicians that I absolutely love listening

to them live. Yeah. I think it's great being

able to go and see them. I have seen twice? Yes.

I have seen Theory of a Dead Man. twice in my

lifetime. I saw them in 2003, and I saw them

with Karen in 2018, I believe is when we were

there. And Tyler Connelly, as much as I love

the guy, as much as I want to interview the guy,

I actually interviewed one of the other Theory

members years ago in 2011. I interviewed Dave

Brenner, the guitarist. I would love to talk

to Tyler, but every time I've seen Tyler Connelly

in Theory of a Dead Man in person, the two times

that I've seen them, They don't sound like it's

like the two times I've seen them is like the

one night that the lead singer gets sick or something.

And he just does not sound the way they don't

sound the way they sound in the albums. And I

know the albums get produced and there's effects

and whatever and all this and all that and everything

else. But I'm not a live music fan because it

just isn't the same. Well, it ruins that concept.

Yeah, I listened to, I just found, thanks again,

I mentioned him here or over on Geek. Jesse W.

Jackson, my buddy who does Set Lusting Bruce,

it's a Bruce Springsteen podcast. He just recently

turned me on to Out of Touch, a Hall & Oates

podcast that two ladies do. And it's Mary Kay

and, oh God, what's the other lady's name? I'm

sorry. I don't remember. But, you know, I was

listening to them and they go, you know, they

pick a song or they pick an album from Hall &

Oates and they were asking me, oh, it's Dr. Naomi.

It's Dr. Naomi something or other is the other

lady that does it with Mary Kay. They were saying

something about Out of Touch, the Hall & Oates

song Out of Touch. When was the last time that

Hall & Oates had performed it live? Because they

were going to be going to see Hall & Oates live

at one point or another. So I'm just sitting

here Googling, when was the last time Hall &

Oates played out of touch? And I found an in

-person concert video on YouTube from 2012. And

I'm sitting there and I'm watching it and I'm

just like, I prefer the song that's on the album.

I don't like this live performance. Not that

I don't. Not that I dislike Daryl Hall and John

Oates in concert. I just don't like hearing that

song live. I don't know. It's crazy. Crazy, crazy

stuff, folks. Crazy. All right. You want to get

us the heck out of here? Yep. So thank you, as

always, for listening to Altered Geek. I've been

your host, Steve Megatron, along with... Dave,

Joe, and Mike. You can find us on the Twitters

at SCP21 or at Altered Geek. And you can find

Mike at? GFG with Mike and at Geekcast Radio

and all that other good stuff. Yep. And this

episode's post is on Facebook and, of course,

always on geekcastradio .com. So until next time,

get altered, get geeky with the Altered Geeks.

I've had it with all this Nickelback hating,

right? You think that makes you cool with the

cool kids in school, Fred? No, it just makes

me right. It doesn't. They're overproduced, formulaic

ear garbage. Oh, really? You know who might disagree

with that? Facts. 50 million albums worldwide,

11th best -selling musical act of all time, Billboard's

most successful rock group of the last decade,

six Grammy nominations, 12 Juno Awards, those

count, six Billboard Music Awards, two American

Music Awards, one People's Choice Award, Canadian,

and a partridge in a pear tree.