Jaq and Andy’s Thoughts On Stuff

This episode finds our heroes tired and contemplative of their situations. Jaq is longing to burrow out from underneath the drudgery, whereas Andy is aiming to grab the drudgery by the horns and shake it until the stupid falls out. In the meantime there are plenty enough books about lesbian magicians drinking tea and movies about scientists befriending sentient space rocks to amuse both parties and give them hope that humankind can and will do better...eventually.

This episode Jaq questions the status quo of work hours and the accuracy of Hollywood's dramatic depiction of overwork. Meanwhile Andy wrestles with the very nature of work itself and not in a sexy way. More like how you wrestle with a crocodile. 

After barely managing to crawl out from beneath that pile of corporate baggage, with one foot still stuck, Jaq contemplates the role of food and feminism in Japanese contemporary literature. Which is a fancy way of saying talks about Japanese stuff again but this time with a theme.

Taking things in a slightly North-eastern direction, Andy, emerging from the salty currents of the river of work-life, marvels the pure bliss of being able to stare directly into the face of a beloved K-pop star. Like right in their eyeballs. So close that she knows that they know that she knows that they know she exists.

So really, at the end of the day, although humans created an oppressive and limiting work culture, we've created a lot of cool stuff too and it's okay to enjoy that as much as you want.

This episode Jaq and Andy take a walk in their community and look for opportunities to be kind and understanding to one and other, even the idiots. They consider the merit of little experiments to find joy and being that little bit kinder to oneself, even if oneself is an idiot. Lastly they settle in to bask in the enjoyment of simple pastimes like photography and cultural anthropology. However they do not bask in the enjoyment of idiots. That's on them. They will try harder.

In order to know yourself properly you need to know your guiding principles and the enemies that oppose them. In this weeks episode, Jaq and Andy consider the far enemies that you can see clearly and near enemies that might be hiding in plain sight. The near enemies hidden in your beliefs, your attitudes, you're uncontrollable rage at the stupidity of those around you, people you have never met but whom insist on disrupting your life by planting tall shrubs in poorly designed car parks! Meanwhile Andy enjoys her reading, specifically The Power of Mattering by Zach Mercurio, and Jaq enjoys nothing but the constant soul-despairing knowledge that some people get paid to be incompetent! That and I have just forgotten what the fourth topic was.

Has humanity truly progressed? Is it possible for humans to make meaningful improvements to themselves? Is there any point in trying? Should Rumi and Jinu have gotten a happy ending at the end of K-Pop Demon Hunters? The answer is no, that's not the point of the movie but that's also not a topic in this episode.

This episode Jaq and Andy discuss the concept of progress and ponder the true benefits of modernity. They also discuss the admirable progress in children's animated movies that is K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the fun of drawing without improvement in mind. It's actually quite a cohesively themed episode..... kind of.

This episode Jaq and Andy wander the despairing wastelands of insomnia, cautiously investigate the terrors of the Australian political landscape and bound enthusiastically into the exciting land of supernatural horror movies and the many delights and fascinations they can often contain.

This episode we start off attempting to clearly communicate the importance of clear communication before jumping head first into Tokyo culture, intentionally talking about Japan for, possibly, the first time in the history of this podcast. We round things off by travelling through upcoming travel plans, bemoaning the potential struggle of sticking to sticker making, and finally trying to articulate "the thing" about (white) Australian art.

This episode of ToS sees our intrepid crew of two voyaging into the disappointing depths of modern house robots and AI misuse before turning left into toxic diet culture and the labels we place on food like meat placed on your skin...instead of your bones. Andy does not apologise for that accidental visual. Andy also does not apologise for the number of f***s sacrificed in the making of this podcast. Jaq does apologise for getting distracted and forgetting to mention that the topics of gacha game Infinity Nikki, K-drama Squid Game and the game of teaching Jaq how to actually use Instagram properly.

Chuffed as we were with the focus we displayed in our last episode we have decided to continue with this style. Starting off with our education systems complete inability to be entertaining and applauding manga's ability to be educational about incredibly important topics... like wine and volley ball. (Correction note: The character is Dogberry and he is from "Much Ado About Nothing" NOT "King Lear".)...( King Lear is not nearly as funny as M.A.A.N., just saying). We then moved on to musing about how being "woke" could possibly be an insult and grouping people can be used to ostracise them. ....We then found our way back onto surer ground with the expounding our appreciation for snow, Sapporo, Stray Kids and stimming behaviours. S topics were very popular.

...Oh! and Andy means "primal" not "primordial". We were tired when we recorded this ep. Honestly, neither of our brains were firing on all cylinders, not consistently. 

This was a new week, a new approach, a new solution to our tendency to incessantly meander away from any semblance of a cohesive topic of conversation. And we are happy to report that our new strategy was a success! ...mostly. This episode we selected one main topic each that we wanted to discuss and one thing we'd been enjoying recently to share. For Andy it was two subjects that couldn't be more opposite: the erosion of respect in our modern society and Thai BL. For Jaq it was.... basically one subject to be honest: Halloween.... Look it was a strategic choice... The four topic rule wasn't the only decision made to get both parties to focus.

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Enjoy.