Hip Squared

Hop into your nearest portal, and come into another world with Hip Squared Episode 12! John talks about Stephen King's strange and gripping fantasy saga, The Dark Tower Series, a story that involves the Gunslinger, Roland, and his obsessive for the tower's secrets, among them many parallel dimensions, including our own. All seven books were penned by Stephen King, one of the world's best-selling and most talented horror and fantasy writers. They're now being adapted into a movie starring Idris Elba as the Gunslinger, and the saga was also adapted into a series of audiobooks, all magnificently read and performed by Frank Muller.

Troy pulls us into the digital wonderland of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the latest game in one of Nintendo's most beloved series, now out on the Nintendo Switch. Instead of the gameplay (though we tread lightly on that too) we focus on the new Zelda's gorgeous and immersive atmosphere, its cell-shaded, fantastical art style, and we compare it not only to its companion games on other Nintendo systems, but to all kinds of games that rely on the charm of their environments for part of their appeal.

Produced by Maplex Monk.

John and Troy are back with a meta-podcast! That's right, a podcasts about podcasts. First, Troy and John talk about River City Revue, a literary reading at the Bardstown in Louisville, KY that John participated in. Ashley Taylor hosted the event, and also featured Michael Baumann and Kelly Morris. Then, Troy talks about the beloved history podcast hosted by Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, a show about all the weird, terrible, and wonderful things that have happened. And John talks about two shows featuring the McElroy family, My Brother, My Brother, and Me and Sawbones. The McElroy's include Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy and Griffin McElroy, plus Justin's wife Sidney. MBMBaM is a show that feautes all three brothers, with goofy advice and lots of witty ad-libbing. It's recently been turned into a streaming T.V. Show on Seeso. And Sawbones is a show about bizarre and funny medical history, including Sidney McElroy, a doctor.

Two very different kinds of nerds are exhibited in episode 10. John talks about a couple of comic books. Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson is about a feminist summer-camp with a group of girls who get caught up in all kinds of super-natural shenanigans. And Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai is a classic, black and white comic, still being published, about an anthropomorphic rabbit samurai in a world of anthropomorphic beings. Troy talks about a fairly recent musical which has become very popular to perform, All Shook Up, combining Elvis and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It was recently performed by Northern Kentucky University.

Welcome to Hip Squared Episode 9! John talks about the gritty neo-Western Hell or High Water, earning Jeff Bridges an Oscar nomination, and Michael Bolton's Big, Sexy Valentine's Day Special, a new comedy out on Netflix. And Troy talks about Factorio, a computer strategy game about gathering resources to build bigger and bigger machines, described as a "game for engineers".

Plug in your Earbuds of Entertainment +1 as John tells us about the mobile game, Symphony of the Origin, a Japanese role-playing game that pulls its user into a world of adventure. And Troy talks about Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", a book about the world and science that anybody can understand.

John and Troy host their saddest podcast ever. Troy introduces us to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of children's books about a group of hard-luck siblings that's been turned into a new Netflix show starring Neil Patrick Harris. John talks about two books dealing with America's heroin and opiate epidemic, one fiction and one one non-fiction. Sam Quinones' Dreamland is a book that documents the prescription opiate epidemic and how this intertwines with a massive influx of black tar heroin from a small village in Mexico. Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog is a crime thriller about a former CIA agent and Vietnam War veteran who joins the DEA to fight in the drug war in Mexico.

Dry your tears and enjoy this episode!

Hip Squared was away last week so John could help welcome his daughter Gaia into the world, but now they're back with a vengeance! John and Troy talk about the sci-fi noir radio drama podcast "A Night Called Tomorrow", written by James Urbaniak (of Venture Bros. fame) and produced by Howl. A very different but also quite good sci-fi show, Netflix's Voltron: A Legendary Defender, produced by Dreamworks, is the next topic of conversation. And Troy catches us up on the Chicago production of Hamilton, Wayne Brady's somewhat controversial casting as Aaron Burr, and Hamilton productions since Lin-Manuel Miranda retired from the starring role.

roy catches us up on the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Louisville, talk about Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), a video game speed run supporting the Prevent Cancer Foundation. John touches on his first experience as a Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons and then praises two very different BBC productions. The first is A Bit of Fry and Laurie, a late 80's sketch comedy show with Steven Fry and Hugh Laurie, and next is a compelling radio adaption of Homer's The Odyssey.

John and Troy talk about a magical Christmas in Spain, the good and bad about mobile games including Pokemon Go, Super Mario Run, Sonic Dash and Hearthstone, the Magic the Gathing card game and the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Louisville, KY, from January 6th-8th (in 2017).

John and Troy talk about the new Disney movie Moana with music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the upcoming Blade Runner movie sequel, Ni no Kuni: Curse of the White Witch, a J-RPG with art by Studio Ghibli, the movie Arrival about a linguist helping the world deal with an alien invasion, and a mega board-game involving sixty people playing Watch the Skies, a game about world governments dealing with aliens from outer space,