Jan
8
The Secret Lair Episode 0001: Revenge of the Title of the Episode
Filed Under Books, Introspection, Movies
Flowing like so much liquid hot magma through the Intertubes, it’s the inaugural episode of The Secret Lair podcast. This episode, hosted by evil masterminds Chris Miller and Kris Johnson, was recorded in one or more undisclosed locations near another undisclosed location near Cleveland, Ohio.
Prepare yourself: these are The Official Show Notes.
The Secret Lair is officially open for business, and business is evil (or, at the very least, mildly nefarious).
J.C. Hutchins tried to sell us a gently-used array of Q-CRAYs with some minor flood and fire damage, but we ultimately went with another supercomputer vendor for The Secret Lair.
Chris and Kris have both (with varying degrees of triumph) returned from their self-imposed, month-long Internet hiatus, also known as the Great Information Detoxification.
Chris recently read Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis. Next on his reading list is Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis.
Chris is also enjoying flash fiction from the online magazine, Hub, and 365 Tomorrows (In particular, Chris recommends Baby, oh baby).
Kris is reading Skein of Shadows by The Wandering Men and The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. Chris recommends another alternative history novel by Turtledove: How Few Remain.
Chris saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and enjoyed it quite a lot.
Kris saw Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and enjoyed it, but for entirely different reasons.
Minion Alert! Minion Alert! The Secret Lair needs a book/movie/music/deathtrap rating system! All suggestions should be submitted in the comments for the show notes. Minions not submitting suggestions will be designated test subjects for animal-human hybrid experiments in the Genetics Lab (currently located on level SB7, E Corridor, just past the gift shop; if you reach the daycare center, you’ve gone too far).
Be sure to check out our Community.
Kris got some new DVDs for Christmas:
- Planet Terror starring Rose McGowan. Directed by Robert Rodriguez.
- Death Proof starring Kurt Russell. Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
- Blade Runner: The Final Cut starring Harrison Ford, Sean Young and Rutger Hauer. Directed by Ridley Scott.
Kris totally forgot to talk about the third (Ultimate) edition of the new Blade Runner release. Here’s a ridiculously-detailed description of all three sets:
- Disc 1: Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007) is Ridley Scott’s “preferred” version of the film. As with the 1992 Director’s Cut, Deckard’s voiceover has been removed, as has the “happy” ending. This version is a restored print with enhanced audio and some new effects.
- Disc 2: Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner is a 3.5-hour documentary that tracks the making of Blade Runner from the original screenplay through theatrical release and beyond.
Contains everything in the 2-disc set, plus:
- Disc 3: 1982 Theatrical Release, 1982 International Release, 1992 Director’s Cut.
- Disc 4: Enhancement Archive. Deleted scenes, outtakes and featurettes.
Packaged in a replica of Rick Deckard’s briefcase, this limited edition contains everything in the 4-disc set plus:
- Disc 5: Workprint Edition. This previously-unreleased version is apparently the most far-removed from the original theatrical release.
- Spinner model.
- Signed letter from Ridley Scott.
- Collector’s photographs.
- Lenticular motion film clip from the original feature. Yes, we know what “lenticular” is. Do you?
- Origami unicorn.
Coming up in future episodes: interviews, field trips and, as always, the well-informed opinions of your hosts.
Can’t get enough of your hosts? Minions can (and should) also listen to Kris on Volcanicast, the weekly podcast discussing hot Google search topics, and Chris on Shadowdance, the alternative spirituality podcast he hosts with Michelle Belanger.
Our theme song is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton, used with his kind permission.
The Secret Lair is not ISO 9000 certified. One day, however, we will require that the International Organization for Standardization be certified by The Secret Lair!
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16 Responses to “The Secret Lair Episode 0001: Revenge of the Title of the Episode”
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As for the rating system… how about a level of evil based system. For example… naughty being the lowest rating and supreme evil overlord being the highest. Or number of minions. One minion being the lowest and five being the highest.
Hmm… suddenly I have an overwhelming urge to play some Overlord… strange…
Oh! or a number of skulls based rating system. Skulls are always good.
I got the 5 disc set of Blade Runner. The spinner model gave me a mini-geekgasm. Happy happy joy joy.
Downloading your episode now. Congrats on the new podcast!!
We’re very well aware of your 5-disc set, Mr. Holyfield, as is the retrieval squad we’ve sent to your home.
I just finished listening this morning and just wanted to say I enjoyed it.
Maybe you could rate things based on the Blade Runner Sets sets:
* Directors Cut (1997)
* The Director’s Cut Remastered Limited Edition (2006)
* Final Cut: Two-Disc Special Edition (2007)
* Four-Disc Collector’s Edition (2007)
* Ultimate Collector’s Edition (2007)
Hey Guys, I think I found a fault in your memory erasing software. I can not find the download this episode link and of because Jobs is do jealous of you bitchen new digs neither the 1click or cut and paste option work to get the feed into iTunes.
Your underling and humble assistant.
Glitches, glitches, glitches. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Unfortunately, there was a little shipping mishap yesterday and one of the stabilizers for our trans-dimensional power siphon wound up in Weehawken. We’ve got all available technical personnel working to keep the safeties on-line and making sure we don’t have an overload that sheers the Earth in two, but we’ll fix the iTunes thing and validate the RSS feed just as soon as we can.
Everything is under control. Nothing to see here. Those responsible have been dealt with.
The trouble with adopting a Blade Runner-based rating system is the implication that some version of the movie is bad (or, at least, inferior to the others). While I certainly understand and appreciate the arguments against the original theatrical release (the voiceover is clunky, the happy ending is a copout), it was good enough to gain what could probably be called a cult following after its release.
We could adopt some symbol from the movie (origami unicorns, for example) as our basic unit of measurement, at which point the question is one of simple numbers rather than “which unicorn is better?”
Moving away from Blade Runner for the time being, the skull-based system minitotoro suggested does appeal to me. It’s simple, effective, and certainly fits with our overall theme (if we could be said to have a theme). I’ll have to discuss the matter with Chris.
On the other hand, perhaps a context-based rating system would work, with the core being the number of contextual icons granted (i.e., 1 = composed entirely of bad, 2 = marginally tolerable, 3 = superbly mediocre, 4 = quite good, 5 = ne plus ultra).
In the case of Blade Runner, the contextual icon could be an origami unicorn, while the contextual icon for The Guns of the South (to use another example from the show) would be an anachronistic AK-47.
Again, this all warrants further discussion with my co-mastermind.
To confirm; I just subscribed via the one-click iTunes link.
iTunes seems to understand the peril of denying Your Malevolences a proper ‘i’-prefixed vector of propagation… They’ve evidently killed the appropriate barriers.
Origami unicorns. Wow - there’s an image! I wonder who the original origami artist was for the production? (Edward James Olmos?)
I was just talking about the quality of the DVD releases (regardless of the film), although I suppose 3+ all seem pretty good.
I think the next AvP movie should be a musical.
Kris,
Thanks a ton for mentioning Skein of Shadows and the Wandering Men - and you did an excellent job of pronouncing alonn!
Looking forward to future shows and hopefully some interviews with the Wandering Men! 
The secret lair’s coming along nicely. And to think, just a few short weeks ago this was a semi-active volcanic crater! Amazing what a few coats of paint and the tireless toiling of a thousand fanatical minions can do…
I like the skull rating system; reinforces the theme song, and it’s easy to do each episode, where as contextual ratings, while fun, could become annoying to create after a while.
Looking forward to Episode #2, which is queued up in the iPod now.
The more I ruminate upon the matter of a rating system, the more I tend to agree with Mr. Newquist.
I developed the 15 x 15 pixel skull icon for use elsewhere, but I think it will work as a temporary rating icon here, at least until our crack team of graphic designer(s) improves upon it.