The sixty-sixthst episode of our podcast, Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (On Average), is now online.
This week’s episode: we wrap up our Ireland/UK trip summary; we reveal Storm’s final smart phone decision; we tease our next Holiday Project; and hypnosis is finally discussed. Also, Storm picks up his wife at the Metro station. (Apologies once again for the lousy recording quality on Paul’s end; also, there’s some sort of strange woodpecker-y sound through much of the recording. What the hell?)
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ALERT: What smart phone do you own/is the best? And what are your favorite apps for the iPhone and Android?
Featured post-show song: “Grandma’s Christmas Dinner” by Paul and Storm
Show #066: A Suitcase’s Worth of Jaffa Cakes (Some content NSFW)
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Random sampling of fantastic iPhone apps:
Pandora
Ocarina
Shazam
Trippy (RJDJ)
Chipotle
If Vancouver receives that final 1%, I will bribe you with anything you want. Food, drink, Olympic swag, embarrassing YouTube videos…request lines are open.
I would have listened to 34:53 worth of silence (as forshadowed by Storm) to hear the 34:54 announcment. Will be happier still to hear it’s a go – and if I can help in any way to make it so, please don’t hesitate to ask (@elliomeg).
I was confused when you mentioned that you hadn’t recorded Dexter the Credit Debt Badger, as I have a recording of it in my music collection. After noticing that it was not available on your site, it took me a few minutes to realize that the recording I have came from one of the Song Fu competitions at Quick Stop Entertainment. It’s still available here:
http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/2008/12/16/masters-of-song-fu-holiday/
Overlords P&S, perhaps you just forgot about that recording, and can simply release it to your own website now. Unless of course you were planning on re-recording it, as it is labeled as a demo.
-Recursive Minion
I love my iPhone, but also completely acknowledge that it isn’t for everyone.
As for apps, here are my favorite:
1. Twittelator Pro
2. Facebook
3. The Weather Channel
4. SportsTap
5. AppBox Pro
6. Urbanspoon
7. TripIt
8. Bejeweled 2
9. Bookworm
10. Peggle
The various Android phones do show great promise, and I have toyed with getting a Nokia N900 (which runs Maemo5) to use as a pseudo-netbook. Still, I use my iPhone almost constantly & couldn’t think of living without it. In fact, when I bought my new car (a Kia Soul), I made sure that the stereo & Bluetooth interfaces worked with my iPhone before purchasing…why yes, I am single, how’d you guess? 😉
So envious of your Plume & Jones encounters. That’s awesome. 🙂
Intrigued by the upcoming holiday song explosion…
Alas, my phone is only moderately clever. Given all the traveling you do, I’d imagine that food-related and map apps would be useful.
@Marty: I also have a copy of “Dexter the Credit Debt Badger.” Glad I wasn’t the only one who was confused.
I got a Droid a few weeks ago, and really love it. My favorite features are the physical keyboard, and the Google integration. When I first got it, I had trouble with the phone rebooting constantly. But, it was an easy fix, and since then, things have been great. Storm, when you get your Droid, if you have this issue, don’t bother going to a Verizon store. It can be fixed quickly with an app.
Android apps I like (so far):
Google maps
Twidroid or Seesmic for Twitter (try both and see which you like better)
Advanced Task Killer Free
Google Sky Map (Totally geeky, but so cool, too)
Ringdroid
P.S. – Avoid anything developed by Monseta (spammy/possible phishing)
I would say any musical one.
Drumset
Theramin sound
Make me sound like T-Pain!
Verizon kicks AT&T’s ass.
That is all.
Not weeks, I’ve been trying to bring the topic up since MARCH. And there’s a reason for it, but since you guys decided to be so closed-minded about the subject, I’ll just quote a guy I know who hypnotized me for a televised comedy hypnosis special: “if you want to prove that you can’t be hypnotized: YOU WIN.” It’s real, but only if you’re willing to let it happen.
Yeah. I’ve asked about it since March, guys. Nine months. I’ve also recruited numerous fans to you (though I’ve yet to turn any into fellow minions yet), and you just blow me off rudely… I still love your music and enjoy hearing you talk about stuff on the podcasts, but REAL POLITE. REAL F*ING POLITE.
Seriously, dick move on that one. It’s not like you couldn’t have direct messaged me on Twitter or shot me an e-mail or @messaged me or told me on Facebook or anything… Had you done that, I would’ve dropped the damn subject, but NO. First you make me wait NINE MONTHS to hear ANYTHING on the subject, then you decide instead to do that.
Remember what your buddy Wil Wheaton says? “Don’t be a dick”. You guys were dicks on this podcast.
Well, to be fair, “months” is also “weeks,” just lots of them.
And fair point that we were kinda dickish about it, and for any personal offense you took, we apologize.
We certainly don’t ever try to discourage people from suggesting topics; but the fact that you had regularly posted about it for months, and even asked others to ask us as well, and that we hadn’t talked about it, might have implied that we felt like we didn’t have anything particularly constructive or interesting to say about the topic.
Also to be fair, over the months you might have elaborated as to why you wanted us to discuss it, or what more in particular about it you were interested in; but for the most part, each weekly Twitter post (or posts) was the word “HYPNOSIS” over and over. Speaking personally, as a parent, I involuntarily heard those posts in my mind as the “Can we go to Mount Splashmore?” scene from the Simpsons, and made me less inclined to want to “reward the behavior.” That’s more on me than on you, probably; just explaining why I reacted the way I did.
All that said, it is never our intention to anger or discourage any our fans; and while we may have our own opinions about the validity or non-validity of hypnosis (or to be more fair, whether it is an actual induced state or just heightened suggestibility), we don’t seek to negate yours out of hand.
Why don’t you discuss it in more detail here in the comments? What was it you wanted to hear about the subject? Can you describe in more detail your experience with it? What is your preferred brand of watch to swing when hypnotizing? (Sorry, couldn’t help that last question there) Let’s get some healthy discussion going here.
And the months of posting weren’t COMPLETELY fruitless: we pronounced “Totz” right, at least, didn’t we?
Paul (and Storm)
First thing: I understand what you’re saying, and accept your apology.
I mentioned in the first few months of tweets that I’d been filmed in a comedy hypnosis special that was shot by Comedy Central (to air who knows when) and that I was interested in hearing about your experiences with it because of that, but I can understand if my later more succinct “HYPNOSIS” repeated ad nauseum kinda overwrote that in your memory.
Not everyone is succeptable to hypnosis (which is never done with watches anymore, now you put your mind at rest and focus on the sound of the hypnotist’s voice). Some are not imaginative enough, some are too dumb, and still others (you included, clearly) are just way too skeptical of the whole thing to let it work on them.
It’s a voluntarily induced state where you let your inhibitions go to a certain extent and put your body on “autopilot”. If you get a suggestion that you’d flat out refuse to follow when conscious, your subconscious would still refuse, but if it’s just something you’d feel too embarassed to do, you’re more likely to swing your shirt over your head while dancing like Britney Spears. There is indeed heightened suggestability, but that’s part of the state that you allow yourself to be put into.
I, being one who has been a bit of a showboat over the years, and especially since I’m completely unashamed as a performer, am HIGHLY succeptable to hypnotic suggestion (with a few personal hangups) to the point where on two seperate occasions I recieved psychosomatic bruises on my forehead from running into invisible walls. Not exactly something you can fake.
I recommend just giving it a try with an open mind sometime. It’s a fun experience if you’ve got a good hypnotist running the show (I’ve allowed myself yo be put under by both good and bad ones).
And no, I suppose it wasn’t completely fruitless since you did indeed get my name right, I just wish you’d said “I don’t believe that it actually works” “me neither” or something of the sort rather than calling it “horse shit” like you did.
‘z’
if Bristol is the “pittsburgh” of the UK…. does that mean this saturday you’re visiting the “bristol” of the US?
ps: we here in the ‘burgh are really excited to have you guys perform again, for the second time, and in a bigger venue:) Doin what I can to herd all the cool people I know:)
During the .com era I worked for a large wireless outsourcing company that did most of the major buildouts in the midwest for all the big wireless companies. What I found out is that coverage is highly dependent on the area you are in. AT&T is widely considered the worst in terms of dropped calls and coverage and especially bad in a lot of places back east but here in San Diego I have probably dropped a dozen calls in total since I signed up three or so years ago. (It was a pleasant switch from sprint which was about the same in terms of coverage, but had horrible customer service.) The best thing to do is talk to friends and neighbors in your area/city to determine the best carrier. Ok, now the fun stuff. Favorite Iphone apps (not in any specific order):
Twitterrific
Iheartradio (tons of radio stations all over the country)
Pandora
Google Earth
IM+ (all the major messengers in one program)
Trapster (kind of a wiki of speed traps that uses your location and alerts to red light cams/speed traps)
Taxi Magic (love this one when I’m traveling)
Shazam
Yellowpages (never use 411 again)
Urban Spoon (uses distance from current location, great when in unfamiliar neighborhoods)
I have dozens more that I spend way too much time on but those are my favorites.
Things I find very useful or amusing on my iPhone:
1) Encyclopedia by Steam Heavy Industries. It downloads most of wikipedia (without images, discussion pages, etc) to your iPhone so you can consult it without using the internet. Very useful when overseas, and I imagine it would be even more useful on an iPod Touch.
2) Dictionaries, and lots of ’em! English dictionaries, synonym dictionaries, French dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries, etymological dictionaries… but then, I also have a couple of shelves full of paper dictionaries at home.
3) Local things for public transport timetables etc.
4) OmniFocus
5) Grand Pro (it’s a piano), because I would have written such an app if it didn’t exist already. Paklsound1 (Tenori-on-like thing) is also fun to play with. And people who can actually sing seem to like FourTrack.
6) myLighter, for waving during Nugget Man.
7) Games… Scrabble, BaDaBoo (it makes cute noises) Flight Control, and The Sims should not be downloaded, as they waste time. I just noticed that there is a Frogger in the app store too.
And the usual things… Shazam, Tweetie, facebook.
Storm, I found another app that looks promising. Check out Google goggles. I’ve been playing with it for a couple days and it’s fairly accurate at recognizing things based on their picture. I thought the info about businesses in the area might be useful when traveling. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s gotten most things correct. When I tried your Men’s Room logo, it brought up your website as the top result, so, obviously, it gets the important things correct. 😉
I’ve been using ShopSavvy a lot lately, too, to compare prices while attempting to do my Christmas shopping.
Also, just FYI: if you push ALT + space bar on your Droid, it brings up the character menu, which will give you square brackets. Just, you know, in case you wanted them on Twitter. 🙂
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