Ep 71 - If "Bizarre Foods" Went Horny
Added 2020-04-01 17:43:25 +0000 UTCA straightforward Dan Brown thriller, if by straightforward you mean vastly underpaid Georgetown professors sticking their heads into drinking fountains and forcing their strange dietary habits on unwitting squash partners.
We also hear from some experts on language and cryptography (and general human behavior, for that matter) about the many many things Mr. Brown gets extremely wrong.
We have Dumb Sentence of the Week, we Steal People's Mail, Mike is challenged in Real or Fanfic, Conor hacks into the NSA to steal some of their crap, and also, Mike does a short set at a local comedy club using the humor of our sexy, chiseled leads!
For next time: Read through chapter 22
BTW: a lion drinking fountain liondrinkingfountain.com/pb/wp_07d17bfd/images/img232744df90d60201a7.jpg
Comments
Don DiMello, Theatrical Producer is the Andy Daly character you’re thinking of
Taylor Conner
2020-04-13 20:08:08 +0000 UTCHas anyone caught that ad for a Master's Course" seminar on writing with Dan Brown specializing in thrillers? Some of them like the one with Neal Gaiman look fascinating but WHAT exactly would you get from a Dan Brown course? How to add nonsensical modifying sentences like "Susan Fletcher's legs!" and "He had sharp green eyes with a wit to match."? He's not a very good writer but he is, unquestionably, a successful one. Success does NOT equal good as the guys proved with "The Mister" and society proves time and again with fads and flavors of the month. In twenty years, will anybody be reading Dan Brown? We all know that Peter Benchley wrote "Jaws" but no one has actually picked up and read that turd of a novel since 1980! What is Dan Brown's fate? This book made me groan in pain so much, I bit the bullet and finished in one sitting rather than subject myself to it again for weeks on end. Sorry, I just couldn't take it!
Tina Tempest
2020-04-07 17:35:23 +0000 UTCI wonder if those lion drinking fountains are a regional thing. I grew up and still live in northern California and I have never ever seen one before. They are cute though.
Crystal
2020-04-06 21:06:11 +0000 UTCDang. I got 1 out of 6 in Real or Fanfic, my lowest score ever. I don't know whether to be ashamed that I know so little of Dan Brown's style, or proud that I know so little of Dan Brown's style.
Gina Dalfonzo
2020-04-06 03:03:38 +0000 UTCCharlie Callas.....did he have Turrets? I don't get that funny at all.
Emily Brown
2020-04-04 03:27:59 +0000 UTCWell I have to finish this book this weekend before the library app sucks it back through the interwebz. So weeks from now when you poor saps are still plodding through this nonsense, it will be a pleasant blur to me. I look forward to musing to myself, “Oh, yeah, THAT happened. Huh.”
Jennifer Tomich
2020-04-04 01:57:19 +0000 UTCSeconded!
Elizabeth Clark
2020-04-03 18:10:28 +0000 UTCHe's not subtle and it's intentional. He named one of his characters 'Red Herring' in Italian in a later book.
Mike Truman
2020-04-03 14:19:34 +0000 UTCSo who else instantly caught the Takonda/NDAKOTA anagram? Was it supposed to be that obvious or is he actually going to treat that as a big reveal?
Zach Dewoody
2020-04-03 05:39:45 +0000 UTCSo Dan Brown thinks it’s impossible to avoid STDs, even if you’re using protection. That means either 1. Dan Brown doesn’t know how condoms work or 2. Dan Brown’s STDs are so powerful they can’t be contained by mere latex
Zach Dewoody
2020-04-03 05:37:01 +0000 UTChahaha booya!!!! I must have seen them listed together recently...
372 Pages We'll Never Get Back
2020-04-03 00:22:18 +0000 UTCSo the popovers at the lodge in Acadia. Those were REALLY GOOD. On our visit we didn't wimp out full bitter old man and actually went there and got some. No regrets.
M Williams
2020-04-03 00:06:33 +0000 UTCThat picture on the bulletin board was sort of par for the course in the 80s. Not that DB handled it well or made good use of it. Susan didn't deal with it herself, she had to appeal to a male authority figure to deal with it. So really not a win.
M Williams
2020-04-03 00:05:35 +0000 UTCWhen you said "the other version of Brendan Gleeson", I knew instantly it was Brian Cox. I'm glad I'm not the only one who constantly associates the two
Kormias
2020-04-02 22:01:19 +0000 UTCMy used copy of Digital Fortress has a bookmark at page 413, suggesting the previous owner threw in the towel right in the homestretch. How much worse will it get?!
Andrea Egg
2020-04-02 20:46:31 +0000 UTCConor's new word: automata.
Christopher Dazey
2020-04-02 06:28:20 +0000 UTCConor’s Jabba the Hutt comment may turn out to be foreshadowing.
John G
2020-04-02 02:38:03 +0000 UTCI propose that we call it "Brownsplaining" whenever he launches into a long section of explaning what stuff like the Enigma machine, Turing test or Morphogenetic fields are.
Trys
2020-04-02 02:16:22 +0000 UTCWe have to keep in mind that when Susan was applying to the NSA, it was 1988, not 1998. So...no, it doesn't justify any of what Dan Brown did...
Mike Truman
2020-04-02 00:58:09 +0000 UTCThanks, Mitchell. Welcome!
372 Pages We'll Never Get Back
2020-04-02 00:38:02 +0000 UTCI've been listening since you were recording Armada, and this is the book that made me finally pay my dues and subscribe! It was one of my first "adult" books I read as a kid, and it served as a quick inoculation against the Grisham/Patterson/Koontz/Brown style of thriller, where the villain is invariably a Quasimodo born of demonic incest.
Mitchell Sack
2020-04-01 22:27:06 +0000 UTCThrough Chapter 9
Mitchell Sack
2020-04-01 22:19:20 +0000 UTCWhere do we read to for this ep? I dont see that info anywhere
Maji
2020-04-01 21:29:53 +0000 UTCMichael Chrichton called it "Gell-Man Amnesia", when you read a newspaper article that you know something about and find it completely wrong, but then go on to the next article and assume it's completely correct.
Moviegique
2020-04-01 19:15:49 +0000 UTCFor the record, spit out my drink ALL over my monitor and assorted electrical devices, right about 18:17. "Mark Cuban..." OK, back to cleaning this mess up.
Moviegique
2020-04-01 18:55:43 +0000 UTC
