Binary System Podcast Archive

Original broadcast date March 30, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/03/binary-system-podcast-355-lore-olympus-235-and-236/

Massive spoiler warnings as usual this week because we take a long lingering look at Hades and Persephone's wedding night and...okay maybe not that long and lingering because Rachel decided against being too graphic (...darnit..) but while we didn't get to see the actual sex there was a lot of implied nookie for sure. And sweetness. Have we mentioned how sweet this series is?

But we leave the happy couple to their fun and catch up with Demeter who's having a flashback and (surprise surprise) feeling sorry for herself. Basically we find out three things: as usual it's all Zeus' fault; sometimes you have to call a cult a cult; and Hestia will speak truth to power LIKE A BOSS.

After that Elizabeth talks briefly about this year's WonderCon (check out the photo gallery links below, they'll do a way better job of telling you what the weekend was like) and gives what's probably a completely incorrect history of the convention based on Some Stuff She Heard.

This week's outro is a clip from Dancing at Midnight by Tim Taj. (timtaj.com)

Here's all the WonderCon 2023 photo galleries so far:

Ariana Hester - Sunday

Elizabeth Wallace - Friday and Saturday

Alex Dejecacion - Saturday and Sunday

Elizabeth Wallace - Saturday and Sunday

Lauren Wilson - Saturday

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan's castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date March 23, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/03/binary-system-podcast-354-wtnv-224-liminal-spaces/

The magic word for this week's episode is "creepy". I don't know if you've seen any of those "Liminal Spaces" pictures, but all those abandoned malls and eerily empty high schools can be super unsettling. Cecil's niece Janice really likes them, so in this week's episode they're going to watch a four hour video compilation. It's fun! Right up until Janice falls asleep and Cecil can't turn turn off the video, and then when he tries to unplug the computer he gets transported into an empty hallway with the distant sound of a vacuum cleaner and a disembodied voice telling he really shouldn't have done that and AAAAAAAAAAA!

If that's a little too unsettling, we also talk about the Harrison Ford comedy "Shrinking" (hat tip to Hannah for the recommendation), Kathryn's thoughts on Terry Moore's latest comic book series "Parker Girls," and finish up with some gossip about VG Cats and how we do actually hope the creator is still around, because damn.

Have a great week everyone! Surrender your pugs safely, and don't worry about the dirty dishes, because entropy.

This week's outro is a clip from Sky High by TeknoAxe.

Here's the Reddit thread talking about the gradual unraveling of VG Cats and Scott Ramsoomair.

And here's the Wikipedia page with Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Liminality.

Here's the Facebook post about the Bay's Reading Room (former location of the Selby Library's reading room).

And just for fun, here's that Christopher Walken video we were talking about.

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan's castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date March 16, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/03/binary-system-podcast-353-lore-olympus-233-and-234/

Remember how we said Lore Olympus episode 232 was the moment we’ve been waiting for? Scratch that: episode 234 is what we were waiting for and it was SO WORTH THE WAIT.

(No, it’s not Asspollo getting his just desserts. It’s better.)

Massive great big spoiler warnings of course, because episode 234 is currently only available if you pay for the fast pass, which we did of course, and we’re going over every little detail of this adorable, feel-good, warm hug of a chapter. (Here’s hoping nobody does anything to screw it up GO HOME, DEMETER.)

First though we’ve got to at least briefly mention the 2023 Oscars (spoilers: nobody slapped anybody this year, or screwed up horribly) (though some people think the Best Animation Short winner was a steaming pile of saccharine, but you have to admit it’s pretty.)

This week’s outro is a clip from Extreme Sport Trap Music | PISTA by Alex Productions.

Correction: yes Elizabeth mixed up who was up against who in the Jamie Lee Curtis / Angela Basset / Michelle Yeoh competition.

The full list of the 2023 Oscar winners, along with the reviews on the site, are here.

Here’s where you can stream several of the Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts. (The one we couldn’t think of was “An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It.”)

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan’s castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date March 9, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/03/binary-system-podcast-352-wtnv-223-big-ricos-pizza-band/

There’s big news for Cecil to report in Night Vale this week. After extensive renovations, Big Rico’s is having their grand reopening as “Big Rico’s Pizza and Entertainment Zone”! They’ve got two ball pits (with and without snakes), lots of games, and an animatronic band, The Table Scraps.

Hang on, we’re getting reports from the reopening. People trapped, lots of fire, animatronic band members running amuck, texts being sent to the radio station that just say “PLEASE GOD MAKE THE MUSIC STOP”.

Well I don’t know about you, but it sounds like everyone’s having a FANTASTIC time. Wonder if they’re offering any deals on tokens…

Oh, and Elizabeth watched “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”, so we’re gonna talk about that and you get to play the game How Many Times Can We Use The Phrase “Weaponized Butt-Plug” In A Single Episode.

This week’s outro is a clip from Up For a Race (perfect for an episode featuring a Chuck-E-Cheese rip-off, yes?) by TeknoAxe.

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan’s castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too! 

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date March 2, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/03/binary-system-podcast-351-umbrella-academy-season-2-finale-and-oscar-opinions/

Since we've still got a few days till the return of Lore Olympus (and you better believe we're going into withdrawal aaaaaaa) this week Kathryn finished up season 2 of Umbrella Academy and boy howdy do we have some things to discuss.

This is less of a recap than a deep dive into everything we loved about the finale, with frequent pauses to wonder if they're playing fast and loose with Five's time-traveling powers, and whether or not the "new" Ben is going to be a jerk. (Elizabeth, who's watched season three, isn't saying a word, nuh uh.)

After that Elizabeth admits that season two of The Hunters is better than season one so she'll stop hate-watching it and start actually watching it. And they both approve of using The Last Bookstore as a filming location.

Finally they wrap up with a quick look at the distressingly few Oscar-nominated films they've seen: Wakanda Forever (cried within the first six minutes), Everything, Everywhere All At Once (anybody calling it "Oscar Bait" has clearly missed the weaponized butt-plugs) and Blonde (Ana de Armas does a good job, but seriously, eff that movie.)

This week's outro is a clip from Drive by Alex Productions.

Apologies for the background hum in some sections, Elizabeth's house-sitting this week and hadn't realized how very loud their freezer is.

Correction: Lila in Umbrella Academy doesn't really absorb or counter people's powers, she mimics them, but yes, only one at a time.

Correction #2 - Unbreakable didn't film at The House Of Secrets in Burbank (it was actually Ontario Street Comic Book shop in Pennsylvania) and Leland says most of the movies that shoot in the comic shop annex are student films, but the comic shop you see in BIg Bang Theory was based on House of Secrets.

Ted Lasso season 3 starts March 15. (Hurry up, Kathryn! - Elizabeth) (I'm going I'm going! - Kathryn)

Here's links to the Saga #62 review and the Red Letter Media Best of the Worst episode.

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan's castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date February 23, 2022. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/02/binary-system-podcast-350-wtnv-222-makarov-the-magical-and-umbrella-academy/

Woo hoo, episode 350! We have absolutely no plans for this milestone, and when you get right down to it there's really not much special about the number except that it ends in "0". But still, woo!

What IS special about this episode is that it's our first foray into using Discord for the podcast. So while we recap a Welcome To Night Vale episode involving a magic show and Cecil trying (and failing) to punch someone, and also recap an Umbrella Academy episode involving quite a bit of death (y'all, Five is scary), you can also hear the stops, starts, and occasional cut-outs when Discord decided we didn't really need to hear everything at the correct volume. We also had to call in Tech Support (ie: Nathan) to figure out why Craig wouldn't stop recording, so we've included close to two minutes of flailing in the outro. You're welcome.

This week's outro is a clip from Dance Electro by Lite Saturation.

Correction: We somehow missed that the Glow Cloud's child is "they". Sorry about that.

The 95th Academy Awards presentation (otherwise known as the Oscar Ceremony) will take place on March 12.

You can find the DC discussion with the Mid-Life Crisis Taskforce here, and the MCU discussion here.

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan's castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram

Original broadcast date February 19, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/02/binary-system-crossover-with-the-mid-life-crisis-task-force/

Bonus episode! This is the second of our two-part crossover with the Mid-Life Crisis Task Force podcast. (You can find the first part on the MLC Podcast website or wherever fine podcasts are sold.) We're talking about all the Marvel TV shows and movies that are coming in the next three years, and asking ourselves if we care? (Short version: yes, kind of, we're just so tired.)

Listen in as we go over the MCU releases we've liked so far, what we thought needed work, what we've never even heard of, and the sweatshop environment for Marvel VFX artists. Tangents include the Sonic movie, D-Box seats, and the Bond films.

Spoiler warnings for, uh, almost everything that's come out so far, but not as much as you'd think because a certain someone hasn't seen Endgame yet. (Don't worry we give him crap for it.) 

This week's outro is a clip from Big Award by Hot Dope. 

Be sure to check out the rest of the Mid-Life Crisis Task Force on their website, Facebook group, and Twitter feed. Also their phantom Instagram page!

And this is the IGN article about the upcoming Marvel releases that we referred to a bunch of times. https://www.ign.com/articles/upcoming-new-next-marvel-movies-2023-tv-shows-release-dates

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan's castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!  

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date February 16, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/02/binary-system-podcast-349-lore-olympus-231-and-232/

Episodes 231 and 232 of Lore Olympus are available this week (if you Fast-Pass episode 232) and WE ARE SO HAPPY

Seriously you guys, there’s a long-awaited moment between the star-crossed lovers in episode 231 and it’s EVERYTHING THAT WE WANTED. The music (yes, there’s music in this episode, but it only works in the phone app for WebToons), the dialog, the friggin’ ARTWORK. Rachel Smythe absolutely knocked it out of the park. It almost makes up for the fact that Demeter shows her true colors in episode 232, so now THAT’S something that has to be dealt with.

After Lore Olympus, Kathryn recaps everything that went on in Season 2 episodes 5 and 6 of The Umbrella Academy (tldr: Klaus is an endearing jerk, the origin of the chimpanzee Pogo was surprisingly touching, I don’t know why anyone thinks a meeting with Reginald Hargreeves is going to go well, and the scene with Klaus, Alison, and Vanya getting drunk in a beauty parlor is one of my favorites in the series so far).

This week’s outro is a clip from City Lanes by TeknoAXE

You can find the crossover episode with Mid-Life Crisis Taskforce here, or anywhere you get your podcasts. https://mlctaskforce.com/2023/02/13/the-new-slate-of-dc-universe-movies-tv-shows-with-binary-system-podcast/

There may be some noise in the background of this week’s episode. Kathryn and Nathan’s new kitten, Jones, has a lot of energy. The snippets at the end are a small sample of the interruptions that happened throughout the recording.

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan’s castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too! 

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date February 9, 2023. The original podcast post is here: https://pixelatedgeek.com/2023/02/binary-system-podcast-348-wtnv-218-the-glow-cloud-explained-and-umbrella-academy/

If you’ve been listening Welcome to Night Vale lately you’ll know why this episode title made us go “that sounds like it’ll be OH NO WAIT AAAAAA!”

And if you don’t know, you can listen to us explain why we’re emotionally invested in a FREAKING CLOUD.

After the recap (which included a lot of tangents and rants about pay inequality, roads, and toilets because hoo boy they had a lot of axes to grind this week but they’re not wrong) we did a deep dive into another two episodes of Umbrella Academy season 2 (short version: Klaus is still our favorite but the actor who plays Five is doing a hell of a job.)

And speaking of tangents, look out for mentions of The Hunters, sketch parties, driving glasses, and our upcoming crossover with Mid-Life Crisis Task Force!

This week’s outro is a clip from Flyby by BorderX01.

We were right, the Glow Cloud wasn’t in the first episode of Night Vale, it was in the second.

The photo gallery from the Sketchparty SD night at Whistle Stop is here, and the list of the upcoming DC TV and movie projects is here.

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan’s castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!

Original broadcast date February 2, 2023. The original podcast post is here: 

Episodes 229 and 230 of Lore Olympus are available this week (if you Fast-Pass episode 230) and WE ARE SO ANGRY.

I mean, yes, episode 229 was kind of sweet and surprisingly instructional as Persephone gets much-needed information about fertility goddesses from Metis, who's about as down-to-earth and helpful a Fertility Goddess as you'd want to meet. But episode 230 features the long-dreaded reveal of exactly what Demeter is willing to do in order to get Persephone to give up her dreams, and it's awful. Kudos to Rachel Smythe for not flinching away from showing exactly what it looks like when a person is willing to bully, guilt-trip, and emotionally abuse someone and claim they're doing all of it out of love.

The recap takes up the first half of the episode (with a digression to discuss the correct definition of "gaslighting" which Demeter's actions DEFINITELY ARE). After that we discuss S2Ep2 of The Umbrella Academy, the first three episodes of The Hunters, and a couple of things that Kathryn's finished up recently and has no idea what to think about them.

This week's outro is a clip from Square Sheep by TeknoAXE

Looking for a present for that hard-to-shop-for person? Want to buy them (or yourself) a square foot of a castle in Scotland? Look no further! You can support the restoration of Dunan's castle, legally call yourself Lady or Laird, AND if you use http://www.scottishlaird.co.uk/#_a_2gk to get there, you can support this podcast too!

For updates, fan art, and other randomness, come follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!