The DeadEndRoad Show

As promised here's a little Spring 2024 movie and tv roundup. Basically everything Bill watched while he couldn't record for three months. Consider this our Beautiful Cinema catch up episode. We discuss Baby Reindeer, Fallout, Godzilla Minus One, and Civil War.

Have thoughts about any of these that you need to get off your chest? Think we said something really stupid? Send us an email: [email protected]

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Sometimes the madness really hits. This episode's Mountains of Madness explores what it's like to be a digital hoarder when it feels like the infrastructure of the internet is crumbling a bit more each day. Also, Adobe's awful practices have led creatives (and the federal government) to take action, even if Adobe makes it as difficult as possible.

Later, Shelved brings us a host of book-related discussions, including books (and ebooks) supposedly being terrible for the environment, a review of a strange book Bill wrote, and a Goodreads alternative that shows promise.

Join us next time for a Spring 2024 movie roundup discussion.

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It's the first episode of Season 4. Don't worry, you haven't missed a thing.

Feel like the end of days for anyone else? No? Just us? Well, anyway that's got us feeling a little nostalgic for simpler times. Like 2016. Bill found an old phone that's now a time-capsule. Or it was, until he wiped it clean. Later, the current media landscape has us actually miss paying out the ass for cable. Strange times.

Then we try to figure out just what the hell is going on with this new Say Anything album. Check out our episode sorting through all of Max Bemis's struggles and the fan response to them from last year.

Ian's brought home an unconventional pet. Will it be more than he bargained for, despite it being a bargain?

We finish up with a discussion of Late Night With The Devil, an inventive take on a possession movie that gets in its own way.

• (00:00) - Intro/Old Phone Nostalgia

The DeadEndRoad Show celebrates 100 episodes the only way we know how: by getting really confused and then really sad.

We've brought back Dating is Dead, and we already wish we didn't. We found the new way to post personal ads online, and calling them unhinged would be an understatement. Where does one find clip art of a uterus in the first place?

Later in Shelved, Bill solves a personal publishing mystery. The culprit behind a bootlegging operation is unmasked. You get three guesses who you think it is, but the first two don't count.

We also go over This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno, our latest Book Club selection, a possession story that tries to tackle grief from a different angle.

Beautiful Cinema has us discuss The Zone of Interest, a bleak but incredibly powerful film that defies any comparison. Bill has also been watching a bunch of movies and has a brief rundown on those too.

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It's episode 99, which we have decided is the arbitrary penultimate episode of the season. What does that mean? Not much, it turns out. Ian really needed to explain how Love is Blind works though.

Our big story is an update and conclusion to last episode's Hugo Awards fiasco. We have answers, and they're not pleasant. Main source for this section comes from here.

Then we decided on our next pick for our Book Club. For next month we'll be reading This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno if you would like to read along for our discussion in episode 100.

Later we have very important updates on the keyboard foam situation, progress on the next Moogle episode (out next week), and the final (hopefully) installment of Artificial Insanity as the insertion of AI into every facet of life is getting too depressing to talk about to be entertaining.

We wrap up with our plans for episode 100. It should be a wild one. Send in your suggestions to [email protected]

• (00:00) - Intro/Explain Love Is Blind Like I'm Five Years Old

We've got some more publishing industry drama on deck this week, where we dare to ask the question: what the hell happened at the Hugo Awards? TL;DR: stop asking questions it's all fine, and if it wasn't fine, yes it was. Suspicious votes, censorship, good old xenophobia, this story has it all.

In Mountains of Madness, Bill flew too close to the keyboard sun and his wings of PE foam melted before he could reach perfection. He has truly lost it. Do not get into keyboards, there is no going back.

Later in Artificial Insanity, there's finally some good AI news. There's now a way to poison the AI algorithms when they try to steal your art. Fight back against the robots and the tech bros stealing our creative labor with Nightshade: https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/downloads.html and block AI crawlers on your websites: https://neil-clarke.com/block-the-bots-that-feed-ai-models-by-scraping-your-website/

Worst Beats In The World brings us a report of this year's Grammy Awards, where the tributes to the "old guard" of the industry might have been overshadowed by some ill-timed circumstances. Also, our boy is Jimmy Fallon Big. You heard it hear first, The DeadEndRoad Show is the gateway to late night.

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New year, new reasons to realize the internet was a mistake.

In Dead Letters, this dude keeps emailing me his book. So I decided to finally take Levar Burton's advice. I took a look.

Mountains of Madness has us discuss the doomed virtual reality dreams of Facebook/Meta, pivoting nicely into Artificial Insanity, which has perhaps our most disturbing story ever. It's an unfortunately high bar to clear. True crime TikTok and YouTube channels are using the likenesses of victims actual, real crimes to narrate their own tragedies. Yes, it is insane. Yes, it somehow gets worse.

Later we talk about the possibility of the NFL being rigged. And no, before you ask, it's not just because my team lost. Though it doesn't help. Look we have receipts, okay.

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This is the back half of our final recording session of the year, which is now our final episode of 2023.

We discuss David Fincher's The Killer, Oppenheimer, and Sam Esmail's Leave the World Behind in that order.

Apologies for the weird breathy audio in certain parts. The first half edit didn't have it, so I blame an Adobe Audition update.

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We've got a publishing industry-focused episode this week, as we take a look at the YA author who tanked their career over Goodreads sock-puppet accounts and attempted to cover for it in the goofiest manner possible.

But before that, can anyone help explain this strange email? It's the weirdest Dead Letters yet.

Then we cover the Internet Archive's ongoing fight against the large publishers over the rights of digital books and the digitization of books.

This episode needed to be split in two, so join us next week as we talk about The Killer, Oppenheimer, and Leave the World Behind.

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Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/DeadEndRoadTV/​
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Support our work: Ko-Fi – https://ko-fi.com/deadendroad
Website  – https://deadendroad.media

We are in fact alive and back with another helping of watching the internet crumble all around us. Ian's down in the dumps and I don't think this week's topics will help him out much.

Our main story concerns the tragic passing of hockey player Adam Johnson, who lost his life after a freak on-ice accident. We talk about the bizarre circumstances of the footage of the incident, wondering why it spread in this fashion, and the outright insane conspiracies the worst people on the internet concocted, using a young man's death for their own vile purposes. Content warning for violent death and blood. Please check the timestamps provided.

Later we get into some lighter fair, bringing back No Fucking Thanks, our segment devoted to mocking the latest in crypto nonsense. This time it's all about locked usb keys and laser eyes. Then Bill takes his own family's usage of AI to task in Artificial Insanity.

Did It All For the Moogle brings us a discussion of the 2015 anime Plastic Memories, a show that is a times quite lovely and nuanced, empathetic and sincere, and at others unfocused and run-of-the-mill.

We round out with Ian's firm denouncement of Taylor Swift, once and for all as well as some brief thoughts on Resident Evil 4 Remake. These are wholly unrelated. Which one contains the bigger monster?

Socials:
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/deadendroad.bsky.social
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/DeadEndRoadTV/​
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@deadendroad
Email – [email protected]
Support our work: Ko-Fi – https://ko-fi.com/deadendroad