Favourite Doctors

As we barrel towards the 23rd November with the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, the question of ‘who’s your favourite Doctor’ will always come up when talking with people. Those who are fans or even those who have mild interest. Everyone will have a favourite.

My answer to the question is a little more in depth than others, probably, because I’ve been a fan for a while, during the 90s when it wasn’t so friendly to be a fan of a show that wasn’t even on any more.

‘My Doctor’, the one who I watched on TV was Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor. He was all mysterious, teasing Davros about rice pudding and facing evil from the dawn of time. All the while making Ace face her fears and playing spoons.

My favourite Doctor for his on screen portrayal is however Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor. He’s just got a something, it’s said in various press that Tom Baker believed he was the Doctor and would often do stuff interviews in-character. But Jon Pertwee, as scientific advisor to UNIT and beyond after that had something of the scientist to him. He was a bit eccentric, he’s got the Venusian aikido moves and he had lots of gadgets. He too also acted like the Doctor at interviews and other things.

The Virgin New Adventures, a book series that continued on from the TV series after it finished in 1989 made me a fan of the Seventh Doctor. In prose form his character became more detailed, more interesting. But I would say I am more a fan of that era, rather than that Doctor. It’s not, in this case about the Doctor but the era he’s a part of, and those books published from 1991 to 1997 are some of my favourite stories and the series as a whole was brilliant and made me think of Doctor Who in a different way. They were also the only new long form prose stories being published during the ‘Wilderness Years’ - the time when there wasn’t any Doctor Who being produced for TV.

On audio meanwhile, the stories produced by Big Finish Productions beginning in 1999, my favourite Doctor from their stories is Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor or ‘old Sixie’ as he refers to his Doctor as.
The Sixth Doctor didn’t get a great run on TV, a fairly grumpy occasionally violent Doctor, he was given a new and fresh perspective in Big Finish’s audio stories. Big Finish and Colin Baker have made me love the Sixth Doctor. It is the Sixth Doctor stories I enjoy the most listening to from Big Finish.

The Eighth Doctor deserves special mention for being my favourite Doctor over multiple mediums, in audio, prose and comic he is a favourite of mine. In the BBC Books, which like the Virgin New Adventures continued the Eighth Doctor’s story after the TV movie in 1996. The audios produced by Big Finish began in 2001 and the comics published by Doctor Who Magazine began shortly after the TV movie.
Considering the writers only had one story to draw inspiration from there is a remarkably strong character of the Doctor in these different mediums. His character gets developed and changed, but there’s still something uniquely Eighth Doctor-y about him, and things that referenced back to the TVM.
In the recent The Night of the Doctor Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor was very much the Big Finish version and, watching him was like having a Big Finish audio come to life. His tone and performance was very much a Big Finish Eighth Doctor performance.
Which makes sense as that’s the character he’d developed of the Doctor since 2001.

Tea Capsules

I have never been disgusted and angered by a product until I saw this product being advertised the other night. I saw it during the ad-break of “Escape to the Country”, and it disgusted me that this product existed.

“now also available in convenient tea capsules!” so says Dilmah’s website of their Tea Capsules.

I know, they’re attempting to cash in on the coffee capsule craze.

But coffee and its myriad of flavours and whatever I can sort of see a purpose, as much as any other coffee device. There’s plenty of coffee making devices, the stove top brewing the moka pot, or plunger or even coffee bags. Plus the poor cousin; instant coffee.
I don’t really know where one method of coffee sits against the other, I’m not a coffee drinker.

But tea.
Tea is different, essentially you can have loose leaf tea in a tea pot or some sort of single cup device that replicates a tea pot on a smaller scale. Or you have tea bags. Simple.
Everyone who drinks tea will make it by using either or both of these methods; loose leaf or tea bags.

Why, why, why would “tea capsules” be good?
Or more to the point why would they be better than tea bags or loose lead tea?

I presume (again as I don’t own a ‘capsule coffee make’) that you would need to pass some water through the nozzle of the coffee machine to clean it prior to making you tea other wise you might end up with a little bit a coffee in your tea. Dilmah’s website does indicate you should do this.

Also, what of cost?
High to extreme I would think.

I don’t drink Dilmah’s tea as I have always drunken Australian grown tea, which is Nerada tea. So I’ll be comparing the prices between that and Dilmah’s tea capsules.

According to the Dilmah’s website a packet of their English Breakfast has 10 servings in it and costs $5.20 AUD, according to Woolworths’ website it costs $5.90 AUD.
Compared to Nerada’s 100 pack of tea bags on Coles’ website is $4.61 AUD, I’ve listed Coles’ website rather than Woolworths as theirs is currently on special (it’s on special for $2.99 but is usually $4.57 AUD, essentially no difference in price between the big two).
So in order to equal the servings of the 100 Nerada tea bags with the Dilmah capsules you’d need to spend $52.

What of the environmental costs?
As I mentioned above, I drink Nerada Tea, which is grown in Australia, an Australian company, employing Australians. The tea only travels as far afield as Australia, from where it’s grown in the fields to the factory where it’s dried and packed.

Dilmah’s and every other tea company has to at least be shipped into the country.
But these tea capsules, they’re made out of plastic and aluminium (according to the Wikipedia page).
I very much doubt that the bits of aluminium in these tea capsules are conventionally recyclable by the council.

On tea bag front, tea bags are made out of paper, they’ll rot in any compost or in any landfill.

Finally.
Control.
I like my tea a certain way, I use tea bags because that gives me the best balance between control and simplicity. Occasionally I’ll use loose leaf tea in a tea pot (and not use Nerada’s tea, in that case I’ll use T2’s Daintree tea as Nerada’s loose leaf is sometimes blended with imported teas.
I like my tea strong, I usually use 2 tea bags and let it steep for a while.
With these capsules, high pressure hot water (from what I understand) is forced through the capsule.
So you can’t control *how* your tea is brewed, it just gets spurted out into your cup.

Tea making was already a simple process, with infinite control and minimal amounts of waste.
These tea capsules make the process complicated, produce a lot more waste and take away all control.
If I didn’t already not drink Dilmah I’d boycott it.

Buy Nerada Tea Bags or T2 Daintree Loose Leaf Tea. Both are good, Nerada’s is inexpensive, T2’s isn’t as cheap, but is still cheaper than tea capsules.

Splendid Chaps - Eight/Science

11th August 2013

After intending to go to all the Splendid Chaps recordings I've missed a few here and there.
The last one I attended was "Who and Books", and before that the last Doctor-themed one was "Four/Comedy" during the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It all feels like such a long time ago, with so much stuff in between.
So it was nice to get out, laugh and see Doctor Who-based stuff.
   
As with previous podcast recordings I've been to I wished this one went on longer.
I also wish that they, (John Richards and Ben McKenzie) hadn't waffled as long about the 1996 TV movie (the only TV-based appearance of the Eighth Doctor), and yet also that they'd covered more different parts of it.

I also wish they'd spend more time on their guests; science communicator, MScGenetics student at the University of Melbourne and head editor of the Young Australian Skeptics Jack Scanlan, astrophysicist Dr Alan Duffy and science communicator Allie Ford. Scanlan, also being a podcaster at least knew how to hold himself in front of the mic of a podcast, but the others seemed to need direct questions asking of them to prompt them into speaking.

I also found the lack of attention or coverage of the "homework" (the stories they say we should watch, read of listen to prior to attending the podcast recording) somewhat disappointing, given the theme for this episode was ‘Science’. I had wanted to hear some in depth discussion about science in Doctor Who, considering how much it’s used (and abused) in the series. I was maybe expecting coverage of The Daleks, how the Daleks originally ran on static electricity perhaps. Terror of the Autons was mentioned and briefly dealt with. Four to Doomsday and its illustration of Newtonian physics was coverage quite well and I was surprised that it was seen to be accurate. Well not the Fifth Doctor being in space without a space suit, but the cricket ball action in space was accurate. The Masque of Mandragora wasn't mentioned at all, It seemed like an odd choice of story, perhaps to spark discussion of dimensions and other stuff like that. The Lazarus Experiment was also discussed from a genetics point of view. All of its science pretty wrong, to paraphrase Scanlan, what should have happened when Lazarus got into the machine was that he'd step, well flop out of the machine as a big cancerous blob.

Some people left before the musical portion at the end of the podcast could begin, and I was tempted to join them. The musical bit at end of the podcast feels a bit like a tax dodge. That it's there to fulfil some obscure piece of renting the venue or getting some tax concession or something. I think almost all the people who have gone to these podcast recordings would be totally happy if there wasn't a musical bit at the end and instead was a little more podcast recording.
The musical bit at the end of this was a performance of “In a Dream”, the music that was playing on the record player at the start and end of the TVM. The music that skips on "time". Disappointingly they didn't have a music-only version with only static / record static to play through the speakers whilst singer Hannah Pelka-Caven sang the song. It was nice, although not better than the music in the movie.

Eurovision 2013 Malmö

I watched (and tweeted along with) the SBS broadcast of the Eurovision semi-finals and the final of Eurovision 2013 from Malmö, Sweden. There were two songs / groups that I really liked.


But first, some observations;

• Dubstep was very much something present in most of the songs. Even in Cezar’s pop-opera number “It’s My Life” it was present.
• Ballads. Ugh. Eurovision is when the weird, strange and odd performances should come out and a lot of these ballads were just boring ballads with some flames, fire and glitter.
• Drums. Lots of these. The winner Denmark’s “Only Tear Drops” had lots of drums, as did Ireland’s “Only Love Survives”, there were more than these two, even more so in the semi-finals.

The semi-finals were much more interesting to watch than the grand final. The semi-final was where the odd acts turned up and they weren’t voted through to the grand final.
Only the boring ballads made it through, with a few exceptions. The Greek “Alcohol is Free” ska-ish song made it through. These guys were a little out of the ordinary, though not exactly Lordi.

My favourites out of the semi-finals and Eurovision Malmö 2013 as a whole were Who See from Montenegro with “Igranka” and PeR from Latvia with “Here We Go”.

“Here We Go” was a pop band styled song, it was in English. The leads were both in the most sparkly jackets, one in purplely silver and another in black. The primary lead who was wearing the silver sparkly jacket also wasn’t wearing anything else underneath and the only the top button buttoned up. He claimed to be the first person in Eurovision to stage dive. PeR also had an iPad guitar. Which is a great use of tech in a song. It’s only after watching their official video (all the acts have an ‘official video’ and also their performance - both are on Eurovision’s YouTube channel) that I understand its intention. The iPad is the drum kit, except during their actual performance it’s in a guitar shaped holder. Which is interesting. They also had a keytar. Also of note between the official video and their Eurovision performance the band went from 3 members to 4. With the secondary lead guy (who was playing the iPad drums in the official video) now being the secondary lead vocalist.
What I like about PeR is that they seemed to be really trying to have a good time, and get everyone else into it. At one point the lead singer says “Let’s forget about the contest, and let’s all feel like we’re at a live festival.” and then tries some audience interaction stuff like ‘make some noise’, ‘say woo!’, ‘now scream!’.
They also had some dubstep in their song, mixed in with (faked) slow motion. Watching (again) the official original clip for this song the dubstep in there seemed to give the secondary lead vocalist a chance to beatbox. It’s not all that clear that he’s doing that in the clip, but in one of the SBS interviews (done between songs) he does show off some beatboxing.
In their actual performance it shows a nice piece of theatre with the strobe lighting and their attempt at slow motion the dubstep adds to the performance.
These guys should have got beyond the semi-final because they were not taking it too seriously. Although interestingly they have attempted to represent Latvia in Eurvision 3 different times.

Who See’s “Igranka” is just odd, it was a rap with dubstep featured two astronauts and a cybernetic lady and also a lot of very heavy dubstep in the middle. It was unlike anything else in Eurovision. I can only assume they were rapping/singing in Montenegrin or possibly Serbian. It sounds Slavic.
The camera work really helped this song, there were a lot of crash zooms, dutch angles and some other odd squashing effects on the image.
I think Who See’s “Igranka” was the most unique of Eurovision 2013 Malmö. It exposed viewers to a different type of music, a style that wasn’t heard again at all throughout Eurovision this year.
Looking at their official film clip is an also odd, though it has been well produced and directed. Unlike PeR’s which appears to be their performance in front of a crowd to get on Eurovision.
The clip for “Igranka” has a lot of ideas in it including; bouncy breasted ladies, guys in NBC suits carrying ominous cases with what looks like drills in them, a party with everyone in weird costumes with masks on, ninjas, a boxing fight between scantily clad women wearing welding goggles and sweaty men using angle grinders.
I think “Igranka” should have won Eurovision, or at the very least gotten through to the finals. This was like Lordi; unique and different, borderline strange and very Eurovision.

"Dirty Laundry Live" - Pilot 2

Dirty Laundry Live - Pilot 2  - 9th May 2013

I am a relatively honest audience member whenever I go and see whatever. I’m not going to fake enjoyment of a show. Wil Anderson has talked of this in podcasts before; that American audiences know how to behave they shout and holler, they clap and stamp their feet and whatever else when a comedian comes on stage. Australian audiences sit there and say ‘let’s see if you can make us laugh’ and British audiences say ‘fuck you for even trying’.
Laughing however is an involuntary act, that’s what makes it so wonderful and personal.
I am, though, also aware that in certain situations you as an audience member also have a part to play in the production, and that your entertainment and laughter is secondary to actually attaining that.

I’ve never been to a “live” TV show recording before. Although, I have studied TV studio production in the past and could probably still describe all the roles of a TV studio production; what they do, what they’re responsible for and all the various bits of TV studio production. If needed I could probably write up a relatively rambling essay on the subject and very likely did so in the past.

Going into this the second pilot recording of “Dirty Laundry Live” I had some idea of what was needed of the audience, what the crew and personalities on the set needed, along with how long things would take.

While I am an honest audience member when seeing comedy and the like that is reality and TV is anything but. I knew that being an audience member, even in this, a pilot recording/practice run meant I needed to act or to fake it, for the good of the show. That meant any small titter of laughter I felt should be cranked up to 11 and then throw in some additional clapping.
Everyone was on board.
All 35 of us.
Which was around about a quarter of the seats in the studio.

The ABC’s website for Dirty Laundry Live describes it thusly; “Lawrence and his panel of celebrity guests will pull apart the major pop culture stories of the week in an unpredictable, irreverent and unscripted live-to-air quiz show, where anything could happen”.

Again, I should say that what I saw wasn’t the actual show, but the second pilot. The second pilot of 2 as the next show up on the 16th May 2013 is Episode 1 according to the ABC’s seat booking site.

The idea of this pilot was basically a practice run through everything that they would do on the night.
Unlike say a US drama pilot where you see everything in the pilot and then see the next episode where they’ve replaced one of the supporting actors and changed locations between the series and pilot.

Dirty Laundry Live aims I think to be a show about celebrity, mocking it and the week's events that have appeared in gossip magazines and in the other media. Combined with some analysis and more jokes.
That’s at least that's what I think it'll be.
There's also some game show stuff which it shares with Spicks and Specks; "white board games" where stuff is moved around on a board. It also shares a bit of the Tractor Monkeys vibe in the 'let's look at a clip and talk about it' discussion starter.

Layout wise Dirty Laundry Live is similar to practically all panel shows. Though the actual host/guest layout is similar to another ABC stable; Qi. Lawrence Mooney is host, off to his side (camera left) is Brooke Satchwell, who'll be there all of the time. Kinda like Alan Davies is to Stephen Fry.

At the Pilot 2 recording there were three comedians as guests; Matt Okine, Zoe Coombs Marr and Tommy Little.
They were all competently funny and good at responding to the material provided.  Although Tommy Little was the most comfortable on the set and the most casual in responding to the material provided. The others were good, although not at the same level.
I think this was down to this being a pilot and not a real "live to air" show, the lack of audience and the immediacy of a live show decreased their enthusiasm slightly.

Dirty Laundry Live also has an "on location" reporter (who isn't), on location in the ABC sense which means standing in front of a green screen plus some pre-recorded stuff. That was red headed bombshell comedian of the MICF 2013 Luke McGregor, who was his marvellously awkward self. His prerecorded "interview" with Josh Thomas was hilariously funny and I couldn't tell what parts were scripted and what wasn't.
I think when Dirty Laundry Live goes to air McGregor will find himself a lot more fans than he already has.

Looking at this the second pilot I don’t think the show knows what it wants to be yet. I think it’s also sitting in the shadow of many other ABC panel shows like; The Glass House, Spicks and Specks, Randling, Tractor Monkeys and to a lesser extent The Gruen Transfer.

Dirty Laundry Live should avoid the problems of Randling by being live to air (Randling was recording in one block), which means any problems can be fixed between Episode 1 and Episode 2 or over the course of several episodes, slowly refining it if need be.

Dirty Laundry Live will it seems be taking the best bits out of Spicks and Specks and Tractor Monkeys; the trivia and casual fun games and then mix it in with some current celebrity gossip and media event analysis. I doubt it will be as hard analysis as The Gruen Transfer, but if they get the right guest on it may eventuate.

During this pilot recording there were hints of this. There was a “white board game” (the Floor Manager’s words not mine) where a board of 4 photos of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West based on this image.
It was a ‘match the headline to the photo, with each photo having been used by a different gossip magazine. One of the photos had also been photoshopped by the magazine to further improve their headline.
This element was interesting, almost Gruen-style revelation of how the magazines write copy to the photos.
The way it was presented in the game it worked, just not well, but something that I think they’ll find the rhythm to quite quickly.

Finally, audience members, something that during all the shows I went to during the MICF I didn’t have a problem with (or rather not enough of a problem to mention anything).
On this occasion however this was the first time that I contemplated throttling someone to stop them what they were doing.
Lollies, specifically Minties and Fantales were thrown around by the warm up guy (whose name was Brian and whose last name I can’t recall). I presume they’re these two because it gives you something to eat and more to the point will stop you from talking (hopefully).
I didn’t indulge in them, mostly because I find they make me thirsty after you’ve chewed / sucked them for all they’re worth.
The guy next to me though seemed obsessed by them, scrambling around for them and pissed off that he missed out in having them thrown in his (and therefore my) general direction.
He didn’t just suck them, no, nor politely chew. No, this was “chomp, chomp, chomp” and then shove more than one in his mouth, “chomp, chomp, chomp”. At one point that was all I could hear, “chomp, chomp, chomp”, I’m sure Lawrence Mooney was saying something at one of those points.
From what I gathered he likes to go to TV show tapings and was going to The Footy Show taping later this week. So perhaps he knew better than me how to behave in these TV recording situations.
Perhaps that is how one should behave in these situations, fill your mouth with sweets, laugh and clap like someone who’s mixed the cordial with vodka instead of water.

I think Dirty Laundry Live has a future, though I’m not entirely confident that they’ll get it completely right on the first night. Just as it will supposedly be actual live to air, rather than live to tape (which is where they record it as though it were live with minimal edits but it goes out at a different time). With live to air there’s lots of things to get right and can go wrong. Dirty Laundry Live has 16 episodes so there’s plenty of them for them to work out all the kinks and problems with their production.

I’d also encourage anyone to get into the audience for Dirty Laundry Live (or any of the ABC’s other shows that have an audience like Adam Hills Tonight). It’s great TV that’s still being shot in their Gordon Street/Rippon Lea Studios in Elsternwick. As (not for the first time) it’s been announced that the ABC will be consolidating all its studios at their Southbank facility, so it’s only a matter of time (probably) until they move away from the Elsternwick studios.
It’s also a free night out where you get to see some people be funny and get a look behind the making of a TV show.

**Note: If you’re going to book a seat use an email address that doesn’t include your name as the people at the ABC sending out seat confirmation emails seem not to know how to use the ‘BCC’ field and just chucked everyone’s emails into the ‘To’ field.

MICF - I Love Green Guide Letters (3)

I saw 4 shows on Saturday night.
Based on the past shows I'd seen everything had run on time and it had been great, but obviously it running smoothly a second time from one show to another (ILGGL to FanFiction Comedy) things would break down.

I Love Green Guide Letters (3) - 13th April 2013

How can MICF forget that a show is on?
That's what Steele Saunders said, the Melbourne Town Hall or the MICF had forgotten that the I Love Green Guide Letters (ILGGL) podcast was on today, despite there being tickets sold and people turning up and all that jazz they've forgotten.
I assume to have the equipment there, lights on and whatever.
So basically the ILGGL podcast started late, no dramas really, it was scheduled for  4.15 and started, I dunno when, sometimes after that, but it's fine because I had a 15 minute leeway gap between it and the next show I was seeing FanFiction Comedy.

ILGGL, this show featured Ronny Chieng, Libbi Gorr and Charlie Pickering.

It was as always brilliant, amazing, funny.
There were camping hairdryers, impressions of cats and simulations of breast feeding and all of that was just from Gorr.
Except the last bit, that involved Charlie Pickering, well his finger specifically.

"Haters gonna hate" phrase was starting to wear a little thin by the umpteenth time that Ronny used it.

This was the first time I'd seen Ronny Chieng in person, I'd heard him on The Little Dum Dum Club podcast before, but have never really seen him in person, so that was interesting.

It was nice/interesting to hear that Charlie does get sick of going through the boring subjects on The Project, the same subjects over and over again throughout the week.

The ILGGL show did over run, by a little bit more than the 15 minutes, that it seemingly started late by. It over ran by 25 minutes.
Which meant I knew I was going to be late to FanFiction Comedy, something that annoyed me not just because I wanted to see it and that it’s a unique show each night. But also because I’m aware that people coming in after the show has started will put off whomever it is who is on the stage. Especially when they’re reading a story, you need to be in the zone to read and perform and people coming in halfway through would put you off.

Not blaming Steele on this one. The Melbourne Town Hall / MICF are the ones to blame with this one.
So I did run down the stairs of the Melbourne Town Hall, I've mentioned the stairs before, there's many of them and they're made out of marble.
I also took them 4 at a time. Scared a few people I think, worried myself a little bit.
It used to be fine, when I was in high school I could do that and run with it, I'm slightly older now and doing that and then running the quite short distance to the Victoria Hotel left me feeling like I wanted to cough and wheeze.
Which is bad considering I'm not a smoker and not a drug consumer and not really a drinker.
So it's just unhealthiness and being unfit that left me trying not to wheeze and cough at FanFiction Comedy.

MICF - I Love Green Guide Letters (2)

I Love Green Guide Letters (2) - Saturday 6th April 2013

I was glad I wasn't sitting in the front row of the podcast recording, mostly because Pete Holmes was the special guest of the I Love Green Guide Letters live podcast recording.

Along with the other guests Merrick Watts and Kate Langbroek.

The other guests I found were more special than Pete Holmes. Just because they had tales of interest and amusement to tell.
Pete Holmes just had trouble with the Australian language. Although I would like to see a news report reporting on the invasion of BraahdePuitteNuhvrephive where the US would likely launch their nukes to were a war to break out somewhere that they don'd speak what they regard as English.
Holmes though was interesting, having seen him twice now (though not in his own show), he’s, I don't think been to Australia before so he's not really locked into how to play to Australian audiences. Unlike say Arj Barker or Eddie Ifft, both who have been coming to Australia for many years, though both still retain that unique American outlook on things, but they've tempered it and edited their acts for Australian audiences.
Pete Holmes was less like that.

There was lots of hugging and some almost storming off stage.

I thick Merrick Watts is also a liar or has really good deodorant.
He said, when he came onto stage that he was late arriving because he had run from the Arts Centre to the Melbourne Town Hall.

He also lifted up his arms several times throughout the opening of the show and there were no sweat marks under his arms.
Maybe he's got really good antiperspirant deodorant. Maybe.
It's according to Google Maps 600 meters from the Arts Centre to the Town Hall or an 8 minute walk.
It wasn't a cold day either, moderately warm, though the sort of weather that you can't easily dress for because of Melbourne's inconsistent weather.
Possibilities; he could have brought a change of t-shirt with him, knowing that he would need to change when he got there. That's a possibility.
He made a note of the fact that he couldn't get a taxi and I'm inclined to believe him on that front.
He could have caught a tram from the arts centre up to the Town Hall I suppose but then I wonder if he'd have mentioned that rather than go on about running from the arts centre.
There is also the feasibility of running from the Arts Centre to the Town Hall.
While the 600 metres aren't difficult; it's on a moderate slope, there are obstacles.
From the Arts Centre to Flinders Street Station there's no traffic lights, although you would need to contend with people. Once you get to Flinders Street there are 2 intersections, 3 if you counted Flinders Street, 4 if you go from one side of the street to the other. Which if you were running you would go to the East side of the street; the church side. As that's the one with fewer people on it, generally.

Back to the podcast.
It was funny and Watts and Langbroek were great value. I think this is a podcast which I'm glad I was there to see in person because there was a lot of visual stuff and time that Kate Langbroek wasn't even holding the mic close enough to her mouth to grab what she was saying.
I was in the second row so I could hear even without the mic and speakers.

There were no great revelations like the first podcast's "Sam Pang rapes buildings".
Except that in a recent review Steele Saunders was described as a "chubby Ethan Hawk:" which is matched against Homes' self description as a "lesbian Val Kilmer".
Even Merrick Watts described himself as a chubby guy.
None of the guys were at all chubby, I thought they're all rather dashing.