By Roy Mathur, on 2023-03-16, at 23:44:04--01:41:36 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show, Listen
This is an unscheduled pod, in place of alternating classic Doctor Who pod. I taped it just for fun and to unwind from an intensely stressful week.
A large part of this pod is taken up with the amazing third episode of the latest season of The Mandalorian. However, I don't intend on reviewing every episode of The Mandalorian. I have made the exception because I enjoyed it so much.
Tonight, I am deploying a standing stick.
Only occasional back twinges that affect a man of certain vintage have necessitated the use of a walking stick.
However, over the past several months I have found standing up at the mic a trite trying on the pins and have found the walking stick useful as a standing stick. (I can't sit too long in an office chair because of my back). There are walking sticks, shooting sticks, and now I present to you: Roy's Standing Stick.
Silence at the back of the class! Stop guffawing, you uncouth louts!
This is a 2015 science fiction comedy, directed by Terry Jones and written by Terry Jones and Gavin Scott and starred Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Rob Riggle, Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Robin Williams.
The alien high council discover humanity via a space probe. They decide to judge the fate of Earth based on a human they endow with omnipotence.
The plot and dialogue are very weak and extremely unfunny, seemingly borrowing heavily from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (apparently Douglas Adams knew about Jone's draft). The late Jones said he'd spent 20 years on the script that he, "had hidden in my bottom desk drawer." The space effects are average and very computery. I lasted only 12 of its 86 minutes. It seems obvious this was only financed based on the Pythons and the other celebrity cast and what a terrible mistake that was.
In its favour, the acting, both physical and voice, is good, which one would expect given the cast. The creature design, particularly John Cleese's Vogon-like Chief Alien, is also impressive.
Season 3, episode 3, Chapter 19: The Convert The Convert refers to both the seemingly reformed Imperial Doctor Penn Pershing, and Bo-Katan Kryze becoming at least a temporary member of Din Djarin's Covert of fundamentalist Mandalorians.
What an episode! I've watched it twice already. Watching the dodgy cloner, Pershing, trying to fit into the New Republic is very absorbing and takes up most of this episode. Apparently, as an ex-Imperial, it's the little things he misses, like Imperial rations of yellow travel biscuits. What a lovely vignette to put in the script.
The sting operation set up by seemingly friendly fellow reformee, Imperial Officer Elie Kane, mirrors the real world FBI's own bizarre use of agent provocateurs---to encourage and sometimes actually plan criminal operations---to entrap the otherwise innocent. It's an intensely political storyline that will have you reeling from the injustice visited upon Doctor Pershing.
The scene at at the end, with the Doctor strapped into a supposedly harmless variant of the Imperial Mind Flayer by a cheerful medical staff, with discordantly happy music playing chirpily in the background, and then having the machine surreptitiously cranked all the way to ten by his former friend, is the stuff of nightmares. It is as harrowing as Alex force fed visual hell in A Clockwork Orange.
What is Elie Kane's motivation? I'd say she's an Imperial triple agent, but why she would lobotomise a valuable asset such as Pershing is, as yet, beyond me. This is particularly puzzling because Pershing's work seems to set up the backdrop for the Emperor's return in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
On the other hand, much as I am fascinated and even empathise with Pershing, and very much enjoy Omid Abtahi's acting in the role, I can't help but think that this chap is a mad scientist who experimented on living beings, many of whom died from the ghastly evidence we saw in season 2, episode's The Siege.
An excellent episode. I absolutely loved the close look at Coruscant; colourful lights, colourful ice lollies, jaded peoples, and the unsettling thought that the city planet even dwarfs the peak of it's highest natural mountain. I was further unsettled by topical nature of the story; combining the dubious morality of entrapment and torture by the good guys, and the hard science fiction mirroring our own Earthly concerns with genetic engineering. Remember Professor He Jiankui? I hope there is more to unwrap concerning Pershing in the following weeks, as I find him a more compelling secondary character than the disturbing man-boy, Syril Karn, in Andor.
In 478 I talked about my doubts about how valuable YouTube Music Podcasts---talking head videos---would be to us podcasters.
Since then, an announcement from Spotify dropped into my Inbox: "Spotify for Podcasters lets you form deeper connections with your fans on Spotify. Keep the conversation flowing with Q and A and polls, or try adding a new dimension to your content with video."
So, YouTube video is edging slightly into audio, while audio Spotify is edging slightly into video. Connections with fans would be nice, but how much time can I afford to spend jumping though marketing hoops, when I barely have enough time to produce audio?
Many modern actors mumble. Even when they don't, mixing on films---notoriously Tenet---can sound unintelligible. Short of firing actors and mix engineers, here are a couple of solutions.
Some of the better TVs have a setting to boost speech. I watch a lot on my RPi3B+ media box, running LibreElec. In LibreElec I have recently boosted the centre channel---where speech is recorded---by 20% globally, allowing me to hear dialogue and to cut overall volume by about 50%. I'm guessing sound arrays with a centre speaker have a similarly adjustable option.
A new mixer is on it's way. I was going to buy USB mixer, but I'd rather an analogue one with more connections and a separate USB interface for redundancy. The new mixer is much like the old one, only with a few more connections which I will use, and a few more buttons which I won't.
I stupidly sold the old mixer before the new one arrived, leading to this extended delay in editing, largely due to my heavy use of it as a headphone amp. I tried using a CMoy (named after its designer, Pow Chu Moy) headphone amp in the meantime, but it is deafeningly loud. The mixer arrives on Sunday, so even more delays.
I complained about how dirty the studio before, but now this place is clean. I've emptied out and cleaned a keyboard that should be considered a biohazard, dusted every surface imaginable several times, hoovered, and swept.
I can now almost say that this room is no longer a health hazard.
The stress involving finances and family medical issues reached a crescendo over the last two days. The situation is not a novel one for House Mathur, so, for a change, I won't bore you with the details, other than saying that the problems are not severe, but they are accumulative; too much to deal with in too short a time.
My philosophy is, of course, idiotically British. Sweep it all under the carpet and deal with it tomorrow, which is exactly what I'm doing today and why I have the time to podcast.
I have hinted at a professional opportunity for your chronically underemployed man of the moment, yours truly.
Here's a clue. I am speaking into a stereo array of two mics. The active one I'm speaking through is Rudolph (Shure SM58). The currently sleeping mic is Stogie (AT275R).
That's all for now.
Not a medical condition in men, but the third pod I've recorded and not yet released due to waiting for editing equipment to arrive.
Be ready for a deluge released in the coming week. (Again, not a medical condition).