The Secret Lair

Attention: On Monday Jan 14., I’ll be interrogating…erm…interviewing the Divine Ms. Mur about all manner of things, notably her book Playing For Keeps, as well as other topics. Do you have anything you’d like me to cover?

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:

Two-Disc Special Edition

• 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.

Four-Disc Collector’s Edition

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.

Ultimate Collector’s Edition

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!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:42 — 49.2MB)

Welcome to The Secret Lair. Visitors who wish to leave alive will wipe their feet on the mat before entering. By entering The Secret Lair, you are indicating that you have read and agree with our Terms of Entry and consent to having your memories altered and/or erased before leaving.¹ Please place any weapons on the tray to your left before proceeding into the foyer. Failure to comply with this will result in total molecular disintegration as you pass through the threshold weapons scanners.² Disabling or tampering with scanners is prohibited and will result in immediate termination. Please notify the medical droid if you are hemophiliac so special precautions can be taken during the blood and DNA screening processes. Entrance to temporal travelers, “mythical” creatures, other-dimensional beings and most aliens is restricted.³

Thank you for not smoking.

Now that we’ve got the technicalities out of the way, let me welcome you once again to The Secret Lair. As you may or may not be aware, we are presently somewhere in the vicinity of Cleveland, Ohio. I’m not going to divulge the exact location—we’re shielded from most satellite and cellular communications here, so even if we’d let you keep your fancy cell phone you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint our present latitude and longitude—not because I don’t trust you⁴, but because we’re still working a few glitches out of our memory alteration software and I can’t risk one of you remembering that little (but very critical) bit of information and contacting local or federal authorities.

Chris and I put a lot of hard work into the Lair, not to mention a lot of money. If you’ve ever watched a spy movie and wondered where the evil genius got the cash to build his luxurious, high-tech base and how he managed to get it constructed right under the noses of every goody-two-shoes on the block, I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s a major pain in the ass. If you had to put up with all the headaches (bureaucratic and otherwise) involved with the construction of such a facility, you’d want to take out your frustrations on all of humanity, too. Dealing with the zoning commission alone has been nothing short of nightmarish; as a result, they’re right up at the top of our master list of people and organizations that will soon be crushed between our boot heels.

You might be thinking that one approach would be to simply disintegrate (or, for the pacifists among you, mind-wipe) all the various contractors, sub-contractors and bureaucrats once the work has been completed, thus eliminating the need to pay (or bribe) them. Believe me, we considered it. Unfortunately, the disintegrators we wanted were on back order and didn’t arrive until just last week. Plus, there’s only so long Joe Bricklayer will work without seeing a check and building a facility of this size isn’t something that’s done overnight. I’ve already mentioned the software glitch in our memory alterators, so to make a long story short, we had to keep mailing those checks.⁵

Labor aside, there’s also the matter of materials. Chris insisted on Makrana marble floors in most of the living quarters and “public” areas of the Lair⁶, so we had to import umpteen tons of the stuff from India; expensive, but totally worth it. The same goes for the coral we transplanted to our subterranean shark tank, to say nothing of the cost of capturing, transporting and keeping fifteen Great White sharks.⁷

We used the finest materials, hired only skilled craftsmen, and managed the entire project with strict quality control guidelines. With such exacting standards and high expectations come pricetags that approach astronomical. I say “approach”, because our original plan was to build The Secret Lair on the moon, and the estimate for terraforming the Sea of Tranquility⁸ alone was mind-boggling. Our Nigerian Finance Minister scams wouldn’t have even come close to covering the cost. Even on Earth, the project budget rivaled that of the entire United States military for 2005, 2006 and 2007⁹ The result of our efforts and expenditures, if I may be immodest for a moment, is nothing short of astounding. It is our hope that The Secret Lair will be the creative space we need to produce entertaining podcasts through which we will subtly and subliminally subvert the thoughts and desires of the throngs who will be compelled (through our nefarious marketing schemes) to listen and, subsequently, to obey.

Please watch your step as you enter the main hall. The disintegrators weren’t calibrated properly when the cleaning crew arrived yesterday and there was a bit of a mix-up with the weapons scanner (which has almost certainly been resolved by now). The new cleaning crew will be on site shortly to clean up the mess. In the mean time, tread carefully; Makrana marble can be quite slippery when wet.

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1. If you choose not to enter at this time, your memories will be altered and/or erased without your consent. [↩]
2. For obvious reasons, we classify any and all blood borne nanites as potential threats. [↩]
3. Refer to Section 51, Sub-section B, Paragraph 3 of the Terms of Entry for exceptions. [↩]
4. I don’t. [↩]
5. Until the job was complete, at which point we disintegrated everybody. [↩]
6. “Dude,” Chris said, “it’s what the Taj Mahal is made of!” [↩]
7. Two words: budget overrun. [↩]
8. Yes, we would have renamed it. [↩]
9. In fact, that’s where we appropriated the bulk of our funds. [↩]