Traditional games. You know, the games that kids used to play before the video games took their predecessors out back behind the shed and put a bullet in their head? We're talking about classic card, dice and board games in this episode; their history, the math behind them, and how we came to be fans of them. But don't worry, there's still our usual brand of fun. We start off with a bunch of dice in an old Crown Royal bag, come up with the best idea for a middle-aged woman gambling den, learn that the creators of probability math were degenerate gamblers, point out that while the Moors brought the standard deck of cards to Europe, the Europeans were the ones that made all the face cards white, describe HG Wells as the world's first grognard, and finally come to understand that learning to play a board game is a perfect metaphor for sex.

We’re kicking off 2014 by talking about 2013, which really seems like the dumbest thing we can do, but, hey, we never claimed to be smart - just unreliable. Specifically, we’re talking about the biggest video games, movies, tv shows, and music from the year. We just start off talking about dicks, Zach completely screws up reading something off the paper in front of him, Shawn and Jonathan fess up to their man-crushes on Stephen Amell, Nicci serenades us with her favorite Imagine Dragons tune, and we kinda sorta but not really at all make resolutions for the New Year.

This week on the Unreliable Sources Podcast, we talk about one of our favorite authors H.P. Lovecraft, a complex and enigmatic figure that introduced the world to Cthulhu and numerous other horrors from beyond time and space. We start off with an attempt at a dramatic reading, have a healthy debate about Lovecraft's racism, take a walk down memory lane and reminisce about our first Mythos experience, go through all of the games, comics, tv shows, and movies that use Lovecraft's creations and themes, discover what Cthulhu smells like, remember what happens when you ask for the the Necronomicon in a book store, and who you how to play a Lovecraftian drinking game.

This week four dudes do a lot of damage to a bottle of Jameson and talk about action movies. We open up with a botched Conan quote, a bunch of bad puns, and honestly goes a bit down hill from there. We take issue with scifi and fantasy movies being lumped into the same nerd trough, have an impromptu toast to Andre the Giant, realize the original title to Star Wars is interchangeable for any indie rock record, our joke accents go south while Zach says a lot of culturally and racially insensitive crap, then we discover that there is a dude in Hollywood that's made a career out of being dickless or just a dick, name two movies with Gene Simmons, and end up pitching our own action movies.

If you are of legal age and not driving or about to drive, we recommend that when listening to this episode you drink every time you hear us pouring a drink.

Please let us know what you thought about this episode by leaving us a comment or filling out the handy-dandy form over on the right side of the page.

Our love letter to Jack Kirby comes to a close as we finally admit that Chris is never, ever, wrong, decide cell washers at Disney should probably have been named culture destroyers, are blown away that Kirby never got bitter despite all the raw deals he was given, name our favorite Kirby creations, realize that Captain America is more important than money, wonder just what the hell Kirby could've done if he'd access to Photoshop and we do an awkward teaser of who's going to be the next artist in this series.

We're always in your debt, Jack. Thank you for everything.

This week starts off a new, regularly irregular series that'll focus on three of the greatest artist of the 20th century. This week, and next, we're focusing on Jack Kirby, who is generally accepted to be the most important man in comic book history. In this episode, we focus on Jack's life through the end of the Silver Age and the launch of the Fourth World at DC, try to name as many Jack Kirby creations as we can in sixty seconds, wonder if desperation and deadlines are enough to make up an art style, wonder why all early comic book creator names sound like porn stars, go on the longest Superman tangent ever, and get completely swept up in Jack's fantastic, hyperbolic imagination.

In this special double-sized episode, we take you to DragonCon with us. Along they way you'll learn that turning off traction control on a suburban is a way to commit suicide, what to do when you feel little grabby hands on your leg, the dangers of hot Kinky and what makes vodka naughty, which bathrooms had a bit too much in common with peep show booths, the services Ernie Hudson will render for twenty bucks, if filching more or less disgusting than felting, what happens when John Barrowman asks you about your grumpy pussy, and if Star Trek's Captain Sisko is ever asked to sing Sisqo's "Thong Song".

In the second of two episodes we recorded while Pat was in town, we take a look at the current state of the video game industry, out who we achievement stalk, ponder what the true definition of a AAA video game is, discover the origin of Lara Croft's bust size, go down a rabbit hole of video game sex scenes, ultimately realize that the video game industry does a pretty damn good job of representing minority protagonists, and learn that you should never attribute to malice what you can attribute to negligence

This week we talk about the formative video game experience we had as kids, tell you why it is okay to blow into a video game cartridge but never a pregnant lady's vagina, explain that Nintendo Power was basically console wars propaganda, share our lingering fears of some one erasing our save files, and realize we sold our childhood so we could buy the next generation of video games.

Episode Eight

Cards Against Humanity

This week we're not focusing on a specific topic, instead we're playing a game that turns us all into the most offensive people that you've ever met: Cards Against Humanity.

And for that reason, we've decided to protect ourselves with secret identities. Sort of.

Get ready to be completely offended as Pancho Batwings, Banana Johnson, Code Name: Kids Next Door, Indiana Bones play Cards Against Humanity, explain how they were trolled by a sixty year old man, discover that Indiana Bones has a side job at the Temple of Groom, learn which one of them is uncircumcised, quote the Jesse Spano Caffeine Pill Freakout, and go down a Top Gun rabbit hole no one saw coming.

Reference material from the episode:

Cards Against Humanity can be purchased from Amazon here, or you can download it (legally) as a PDF and print your own here.

Top Gun's (in)famous volley ball scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmfd9etbXGE

The Jesse Spano Caffeine Pill Freakout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bflYjF90t7c