My Favourite Monster

In this episode we ramble about our current favorite anime... Jashin-chan Doroppukikku (Dropkick on my Devil) as well as think about pork cutlets and reminisce about eating roast duck ramen in Tokyo.

Anyway who doesn't love a regenerating topless Lamia maid who is constantly trying to kill you (mostly via snakey dropkick)?

• Why are there not enough slice of life parody anime out there??
• Why IS pork cutlet and croquettes so amazing?
• Why is podcast?

Oh and here are some links to some of the the oddball anime we mentioned:

• Dropkick On My Devil
• Excel Saga
• Kono Healer
• Great Director Nabeshin (Shinichi Watanabe)

George made me watch the original Predator and we consider it as a pet. For example:

• Does it keep walking into stuff at ambient temperature?
• Where to I get magic invisi-mud?
• We probe the dark truth as to where glowsticks REALLY come from...
• And realize predators are really landing in orbital drop toilets

We rant and rave about the androids and magical black goo in Alien Covenant (and Prometheus).
Quite a bit, actually...

• Neutrino shockwave? ...no... just no.
• Join the egg sniffers guild today, we have cookies!
• Why android hair???
• volcanic glass >> magic faux genetic god alien
• Chekhov's gun misfires again
• And more!

We dive into the Discworld and consider Gaspode, the cynical ball of stench and disease or as he would put it "Mans best friend, et cetera, et cetera. Give the little doggie a biscuit. Homo-Sapiens! You can keep 'em."

• We talk about Greyfriars Bobby, the inspiration behind Gaspode.
• We remember the good/bad old days of London, that Pratchett parodies with Ankh Morpork, where indoor toilets were mistrusted and putting your cape down on the sidewalk for a lady meant you'd need to burn it afterwards.
• George digs into London's "great stink" of the 1850's - where so many corpses were piled up, the smell literally killed people.
• Would Gaspode make the idea literary agent?

In this episode we travel back 500 million years to look at the pure and unadulterated nightmare fuel of the Cambrian explosion. In particular the weirdest creature named after a literal hallucination: Hallucigenia.
* How many pikachu's can you impale on it's back spines?
* Which end is the front?
* Why don't more tentacles have teeth?
* Why is the D&D version 25ft long and backwards?

Show notes!
Hallucigenia walking (Cambridge university)
Green Hallucigenia
Opabinia
Anomalocaris
Wiwaxia 
(and do image searches for the above on google)
Dragon magazine #204, TSR, Creatures that Time Forgot
Tree of life: https://www.evogeneao.com/en/learn/tree-of-life  <-- there are lots of variations, this one shows the Cambrian explosion nicely.

We delve into the potential of the beloved Mimics:

• Are tofu halflings an ethical food option?
• How do they fare against clothing, fall and chainmail blankets?
• Do mimics have pollen allergies?
• What is the saddest thing you can stick to a mimic?
• Are they really the most useful accessory?

This is one of those episodes where Tony gets fascinated by the cthonic things that kicked around before Greek myth and George works out which goat head isn't plotting against you.

• Does your pet Chimera need house-training three times?
• Does the lion head end up bald on one side and charred on the other?
• What do Echindna's have to do with this?
• Learn how to save money on pet food by taking it to the dog park!

Bonus show notes: We checked and Pathfinder couldn't work out how to draw it either but there is sexy 80's airbrushing. However, the lion head looks like it needs a chiropractor...

See you then!!

For George's birthday shark-o-rama we evaluate the genetically modified hyper-intelligent sharks from Deep Blue Sea. It's one of **those** episodes:

• Where do I buy fluffy leopard print chainmail?
• Are sharks anti-capitalistic or merely democratic-anarchists?
• Where does a dump stat rank against legs on Maslow's hierarchy of sharky danger?
• Should we feed all the attractive people to sharks immediately?

This episode we evaluate the absurdly overpowered Tarrasque as a pet:

• Which out of D&D and Pathfinder has the sexiest Tarrasque?
• How did it evolve from fish-pig... to cat-tortoise... to walking apocalypse?
• Is Godzilla gonna sue?
• Why does his theme song make no sense?
• And how exactly do you manage something that is literally "unkillable"?