the problem with podcasts

Somehow, I’ve been bitten by the podcast bug. It was inevitable given that they’re everywhere. I’ve had the chance to listen to (and abandon) quite a few podcasts and here are my perfectly valid complaints.

1. So. Many. Celebrity. Podcasts.

Does everything have to be permeated by celebrity culture? And with all the money they have, there is still a bunch of obnoxious ads littered all through the podcast. Podcasts are a haven for the D-Z listers of yesterday. I keep seeing these ‘BTS’ podcasts for shows like One Tree Hill and 90210… shows which probably don’t need to be revisited because they haven’t aged well.

Seriously, though, do we need more celebrity exposure?

5 More Unique Gifts…

… for the ones you love, hate or love to hate!

[I wrote this a while ago but NGL, Japan Trend Shop is still my favorite website of all time.]

1. Pen Breath Odor Checker

Thanko’s Pen Breath Odor Checker is as compact and discreet as it the name suggests. It looks like a regular black ball pen, but the nifty device is actually a quick way to check if your breath smells before that important meeting with a client. Easy to use, you just breathe onto the device for five seconds while it beeps and then check the reading it gives you. Your breath odor is measured and “rated” according to five levels. And you can also write with it!

Discreet? LOL. How does one breath on a pen in a discreet fashion…? Also, post-COVID this is a no-go. It’s cheaper to just… buy breath mints, or if you want to go for a full 90s era bit, breath spray.

Talk about being happy for your friends…

… or not, in the case of….Jared Padalecki who had this to say when Jensen tweeted about his Supernatural spin-off…

I saw his tweet and thought nothing of it. Yes, the last line was a little bit strong, but I don’t know what kind of friendship they have. Well…Turns out he really didn’t hear about it from JA first.

I wish I could say I had a better reaction but I literally started laughing when I saw the second tweet.

ETA: He even went after one of the writers involved in the spin-off (and wisely deleted it – credit goes to the person on Twitter who took a screenshot!)

Why is he like this?

Upon further inspection, I see I missed key signs in the first tweet. The lack of exclamation! The weird line breaks (why is he tweeting like this? Why can I picture him furiously smashing his enter key?!).

The ‘Sam Winchester had no involvement whatsoever‘ is clearly code for himself because it doesn’t make sense.

Surely, he meant (LOL) Sam Winchester isn’t involved in any way whatsoever?

Anyway, I’ll be fair to Jared. It does seem like a bit of a dick move on Jensen’s part to do this without at least a heads up? Although, I’ve been telling you all he’s a dick for years now so I’m not surprised.

On the flip side maybe Jared’s reaction is why he wasn’t told? He could have just wished Jensen well and then messaged him privately and we’d be none the wiser – until he inevitably had a fifty tweet rant about it.

At the very least, I’d feel more sympathy if he wasn’t constantly doing the most. Dramatic as he may be, he’s not necessarily in the wrong here.

Jensen, bro, what’s going on?

What was so bad that you couldn’t call Jared and be all like, “So, I’m creating a spin-off of the show we’ve been on together for the last fifteen years. I’m going to be narrating. You’re… well, you’re not in it at all actually, and uh…”

…I guess it would have been an awkward conversation to have.

Somebody update me on this mess because I doubt I’ll be keeping up. I only saw the original tweet Jensen posted by accident.

… and I literally finished work and somehow the blog has its highest daily hits since I started it ten years ago. I have no idea how or why, but uh… thanks? It’s nice to know the hours I wasted writing these posts weren’t for nothing thanks to Jared’s complete lack of filter on Twitter.

Apparently Jared did what he should have done in the first place and all is well again.

….I don’t even have the energy to mock all this brothers nonsense. Clearly, the friendship runs deeper on one side.

Is this really necessary?

In what should be a surprise to absolutely nobody, Jensen Ackles is not ready to let Supernatural go.

EXCLUSIVE: Supernatural, one of the most important series in the history of the CW, is eyeing a comeback with a new iterationwith prequel The Winchesters, centered on Dean and Sam Winchester’s parents.

… in the history of the CW… well, alright. I can’t work out of that’s a burn or just a sad indication and reflection of the network as a whole.

The show is produced by Jensen and Danneel’s production company…and all their other ideas sucked even more, I guess?

Does anyone even care about the love story of John and Mary Winchester at this point? Even the idea of Dean Winchester narrating it is boring. Isn’t he supposed to be dead?

Anyway, hard pass (and I’d be surprised if it was picked up, but anything is possible).

Why are people like this?

What would even possess a person to bring food INTO the general vicinity of a toilet?

Like, even back in the day when I’d read a book or watch TV shows where that one lonely kid would eat lunch in the bathroom, it was mind blowing to me. No. Nein. Non. Nay. De nada.

I would rather not eat lunch.

Anyway!

… not content with making punch (that looks like Barney threw up) she supposedly hands it out to guests?

This is why I don’t accept food from certain people, y’all. Sometimes the blessing that it needs is not enough. My stomach won’t be able to do it. People are just nasty. Even if this is intended as a joke….

Professionals | Episode 6 “Hot Zone”

Multi-billionaire Peter Swann (Brendan Fraser) is starting a satellite-supported project that aims to detect disease outbreaks at an early stage in order to be able to intervene more quickly. But the rocket that is supposed to take the satellite into space explodes shortly after it has been launched. His fiancée, doctor Grace Davila (Elena Anaya), then persuades him to hire security professional Vincent Corbo (Tom Welling) to investigate the incident.

S1, Episode 6: Hot Zone

[All previous recaps here]

Vincent and Peter arrive in Congo but Grace is missing. They make a plan to save her while Agent Kurt Neumann reaches Africa, obsessed with the idea of confronting Vincent.

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Last time, Vincent and Peter were on their way to the Congo to rescue Grace, who thought it would be wise to travel to country all by herself, knowing fully well the entire world knows she’s dating a billionaire.

Now, they arrive and find out Grace was taken by a man called Sayf who has an army of mercenaries. We cut to Neumann (Europol agent who is now after Vincent) getting his jabs because he’s also flying out to Africa to… confront Vincent. Really? He really flew all this way to confront Vincent?

He couldn’t wait until he was back home…?

Professionals | Episode 5 “Process Of Elimination”

Multi-billionaire Peter Swann (Brendan Fraser) is starting a satellite-supported project that aims to detect disease outbreaks at an early stage in order to be able to intervene more quickly. But the rocket that is supposed to take the satellite into space explodes shortly after it has been launched. His fiancée, doctor Grace Davila (Elena Anaya), then persuades him to hire security professional Vincent Corbo (Tom Welling) to investigate the incident.

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S1, Episode 5: Process Of Elimination

Peter realizes how far Zora is willing to go and takes desperate measures to stop her.Vincent tries to convince Peter that it’s a bad idea for both of them to go to Africa.

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Points:

• I still love Brendan Fraser
• I still have time for Tom Welling, but he’s making it hard
• See point one.

[All previous episode recaps here.]

This episode was not bad. Well. It was bad, but the kind of bad we can work with.

I’m trying to be snappier with my recaps, so we begin with a car chase gone wrong. There’s drone usage. There’s bombs! Explosions! And then they take us back sixteen hours (or however long it was).

The board members from the previous episode are dead or injured. Zora is distraught. Apparently, she told Luther to scare them not kill them. Luther is basically like, ‘This is what you wanted so, get your dirty little feet in this hot bath so we can make out’.

Ewwww.

Professionals | Episode 4 “Vectors”

Multi-billionaire Peter Swann (Brendan Fraser) is starting a satellite-supported project that aims to detect disease outbreaks at an early stage in order to be able to intervene more quickly. But the rocket that is supposed to take the satellite into space explodes shortly after it has been launched. His fiancée, doctor Grace Davila (Elena Anaya), then persuades him to hire security professional Vincent Corbo (Tom Welling) to investigate the incident.

I think I need to start a new blog series – Bad TV-athon and this show will be numero uno. Yet, I’m still watching it (of course I am, Supernatural trained me for this!).

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S1, Episode 4: Vectors

During a charity gala for the Panacea project, Peter confronts his sister. Vincent is put under pressure, and Grace is called out on a dangerous mission before the gala ends in disaster.

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Main points:

– Brendan Fraser is the only saving grace of this show
– Tom Welling looks like he’s questioning his life choices as each scene progresses.
– It’s so bad it’s… watchable, but only to see if the outdo themselves (and they often do).

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I think this was the best episode so far in terms of mind boggling entertainment and the worst for everything else. There was so much happening that I had to watch it twice and I will probably still forget things.

Once again, the writing leaves a lot to be desired. It’s poor to average and completely uninspiring for the most part, but out of nowhere they will throw in a corny or completely ridiculous line that throws me out of the show entirely, lol

Professionals (2020) | Episode 1 “Snipe Hunt”

Multi-billionaire Peter Swann (Brendan Fraser) is starting a satellite-supported project that aims to detect disease outbreaks at an early stage in order to be able to intervene more quickly. But the rocket that is supposed to take the satellite into space explodes shortly after it has been launched. His fiancée, doctor Grace Davila (Elena Anaya), then persuades him to hire security professional Vincent Corbo (Tom Welling) to investigate the incident.

First of all, the plot of this show is all sorts of wait, what? The reviews on IMDB are not kind – hence why I watched it. IMDB reviews are a HOT MESS. There are the 10/10 reviews that read like Amazon held a gun to the users head and forced them to write it (looking at you, The Boys), and the 10/10 reviews written to counteract the 1/10 reviews. And then there are the 1/10 reviews written to counteract the obviously fake 10/10 reviews. I tend to read between the 3/10 – 6/10 reviews for my own sanity.

Anyway, back to the plot of the show.

A satellite tracking the spread of diseases? What happens if the satellite breaks down? And what would the satellite do that a database on a reliable server couldn’t? Why not invest the money into curing said diseases? I have so many questions.

Also, why are we only hiring a security expert, what about a detective? The police? The federal authorities? It’s not like a car was blown up, it was a rocket! (Apparently Vincent is a former counterintelligence office, but my point still counts!)

Secondly, I like Tom Welling and Brendon Fraser (I used to love The Mummy!), and I thought they had good chemistry together, along with Elena Anaya, but the whole setup was just off. I’d take the three main characters as different professionals in a different setting. Like maybe a mystical library. Or a regular library.

The explosions and chase scenes were fine and all, but it just screamed low budget European action flick. I was exhausted for them. Tom Welling breaks out an English accent in what has to be one of the most bizarre scenes I’ve ever seen. These two English police officers (detectives?) are transporting ALL THE EVIDENCE they have on some shady criminal and they’re robbed by Vincent and someone called Danny. Justifiably because their dialogue was absolute nonsense. Actually the dialogue in this episode is not great, but as it’s a pilot, I’ll give them a pass.

The general gist of this episode was that the rocket is blown up, and they hire Vincent to investigate. They investigate in the country where the rocket launched, invite a local policeman to tag along. Vincent plants a fake bullet to fool said policeman and then at the end, they’re being chased by the policeman and his cronies. I was sitting there like, ‘but… was it necessary to invite this guy along at all?’. It didn’t make much sense to me, but hey, action!

That being said, for the first episode, it wasn’t half bad? I didn’t hate it, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything amazing. It’s just a cheesy, action series. I feel like they’re going for a slapstick Eighties/A-Team vibe and they’re hitting the mark. I’m not even a big enough Tom Welling or Fraser fan to be biased but I did enjoy it. Sure, at times it seemed like the actors were reading from five different scripts and the show has an alarming number of executive producers, but it’s easy viewing and shot on location. Hello, pretty sights!

I’ll be back with a longer review when I’ve seen all the episodes (maybe). Or maybe I’ll do it episode by episode. We shall seeeeee.

Rating (so far): 5/10

Supernatural: 15×19, Wow! Really? Great!

Inherit The Earth

Inherit The E-xposition And Talk Us Into Boredom-arth.

Why am I doing this?: Well. Before 2020 went to shit, I said I would. And also because I was always going to watch the end. Just to make sure it’s really over.

I haven’t seen Supernatural for five years. The last episode I watched was The Hunter Games.

Not a single episode since, and honestly? Before watching this episode, I thought I was going to throw up. I was sweating. SWEATING! I’m not sure if it’s just because the show is over and I’m like, ha, this show was actually a huge part of my life once upon a time or I’m just naturally repulsed by the show. Or the heat from my laptop.

Probably the latter.

Hey, maybe the sock I ate is doing a victory dance in the deepest depths of my stomach. I’ll let you know.

Anyway, onto the recap.