Show Notes: 

• Intro (0:00-0:19) 
• Fleshman Family Birthday Celebrations (0:19-22:36) 
  • Food Fight 
  • Dunk Tank 
  • Obstacle Course 
  • Jedi Training 
  • Home Demolition?!? 
  • Weird Al’s UHF: Stanley Spadowski’s Clubhouse 
• Levels of Nerd-ness (22:36-28:17) 
  • The nerd secret handshake: W00t 
    • Level 1: Console gamers 
    • Level 2: *serious* Board gamers 
    • Level 3: Role-Playing Games (RPGs) 
    • Level 4: LARP? 
• Russia’s morning commute (28:71-42:03) 
• British word of the day (42:03-44:10) 
  • “push the boat out” (American: splurge) 
    • Informal – British 
    • Be lavish in one’s spending or celebrations.  
• Ben & Josh’s Book Club – Mistborn: The Final Empire, book 1 of the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson (44:10-1:51:50) 
  • Subversion of expectations 
    • Kelsior is good at this from the start and Vin learns quickly (not the usual way for this sort of thing) 
  • Character focus – self-discovery & transformation theme throughout the series 
    • The characters feel like real people 
    • Vin’s central conflict is learning to trust people 
  • Hard vs. Soft Magic Systems 
  • “There’s always another secret” 
  • Sanderson’s 3 laws of magic 
    1. Sanderson’s First Law – An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic in a satisfying way is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.[1] 
    2. Sanderson’s Second Law – Weaknesses (also Limits and Costs) are more interesting than powers[2] 
    3. Sanderson’s Third Law – Expand on what you have already, before you add something new. If you change one thing, you change the world.[3] 
  • “New ideas are like new tastes…the older you are, the harder they are to stomach.” -Menace 
  • “Do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don’t think so. That’s what makes the betrayal hurt so much.” -Kelsior 
  • “What is belief if you can’t continue it after failure?” -Sayzid 
  • Kelsier’s 11: 
    • George Clooney as Kelsier 
    • Matt Damon as Vin 
    • Julia Roberts as Elend Venture 
    • Brad Pitt as Sazed 
    • Andy Garcia as The Lord Ruler 
• For next time… (1:51:50-1:52:53) 
  • Ripped from the headlines story that actually happened to Ben 
  • Book club discussion for next time: 
    • Scarcity: Why having too little means so much by economist Sendhil Mullainathan and psychologist Eldar Shafir