Episode 87 - Michael James Benson

Michael James Benson joins aPODcalyptic Times for Episode 87 with John Derby, David Duarte and Travis Spencer for a discussion on comedy, antibiotics, the drug war, the fake Rick Ross and of course...the apocalypse!

      

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This Week in the Apocalypse 1/25/13

Or do you?

This cold and flu season has been terrible. Not just by my account, but according to MSNBC (aka the liberal propaganda machine) 18.8 per 100,000 people have been affected by influenza. We're only halfway through the season, and some 29 children are already dead! What the hell is going on? Personally, I've been fighting some kind of bug, we'll assume it's influenza since my lack of insurance keeps me away from those pricey doctors, and my distaste for those below the poverty line keeps me out of a free clinic. So here I am, stuck diagnosing my own symptoms with Google and WebMD (Warning: This always leads to you thinking you have AIDS!) and probably worsening my case. I can only imagine there are countless people like myself who are working and spreading whatever they have to the people around them. To make matters worse this flu season, an outbreak of a new strain of Norovirus has been causing wide spread symptoms similar to food poisoning. Ugh!  With climate change and seemingly stronger viruses coming at us each year, it is only a matter of time before we see a zombie apocalypse as the result of a mutant influenza strain! (I wrote thinking I was kidding... then did some research revealing that there really is a zombie flu strain!!)

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was spouting some more craziness this week. The Washington Post reports:

"I like rice!"

'North Korea said it would retaliate against the United States with “force, not with words, as it jungle law as the rule of its survival.” As part of this show of force, it also pledged to launch long-range rockets, similar to the one it sent into orbit last month, which prompted the toughened U.N. Security Council sanctions.'

'Atta boy Un, we thought you were getting soft there for a minute!  Thanks for threatening nuclear attack to remind us that you truly are bat shit crazy! This latest round of yapping may have cost him his good standing with China against the US. This of course begs the question: why is it so hard to have a badass haircut and be a good dictator at the same time?

Seriously?

And finally...not that I even care anymore, but JJ Abrams has been tapped to direct the next installment in the Star Wars series. Now I'll admit that I love the first three Star Wars as much as anyone (well maybe not anyone) but the overwhelming amount of commercialization of the branding along with Episodes I, II an III have made me less than excited about any future films.  But stangely, Abrams along with the purchase by Disney can only help. I leave you with a reminder of what was...

                        
-Travis Spencer
#apocalypse

Episode 86 - Eric Freedman

Eric Freedman joins aPODcalyptic Times for Episode 86 with John Derby, David Duarte and Travis Spencer for a discussion on his cartoon Tomorrow's Nobody, zombies, werewolves, neanderthals and of course... the apocalypse!!

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This Week in the Apocalypse

Maybe the Mayans were right!?!  We're less than a month past the END of the Mayan Calendar and it truly does appear as if people are losing their f#$%ing minds.  I personally have had an ear-pocalypse. I've been plain miserable (I had no idea an ear infection could be so painful!), eye's sunken in, constant ringing in my ears, head and body aches. My lifestyle has to change, too many toxins in my life. I've decided to go on a cleanse, no caffeine, no booze and poppin' fiber, digestive and liver pills like it's going out of style... so, yes my ear is ringing 24 hours a day and my shits are flowing like Jello Pudding. Viva 2013!  This week has made it clear that the human species and time as we know it are truly spinning out of control.

First, President Barack Obama posed with children, "answering their letters", to announce his executive order of 23 new measures to curb the use of firearms. Obama and his administration have decided that the use of verbal rhetoric and sound reasoning are not enough to pass their agenda.  Full fledged propaganda has been used against the people of the United States of America. I'm sure you've already seen the memes that relate Obama to Hitler, and I'm not aboard that train yet, but the more liberties we lose, the more hacktivists that get...(see below)  We didn't know how long it would take for the new version of the NDAA to kick in, but between this and Zero Dark Thirty, it's clear that propaganda being used against the citizens of the US is in full effect!

The hands of the great apocalypse clock just keep on ticking...tick....tick....tick....

The hacktivist that was one of the major supporters behind the shutdown of the SOPA and PIPA (which I opposed and wrote about here) bills, Aaron Swartz, commited suicide this week.  Swartz had recently plead not guilty to illegally downloading academic papers.  Initially the U.S. Attorney of Massachusetts was ready to throw the book at Swartz, stating that his crimes were punishable by up to 36 years in prison, this along with other charges they threw on top had a maximum sentence of some 50+ years behind bars...for downloading academic papers!!  (Something that any savvy internet user can find, maybe not all four million that Swartz did, but come on!)  But the story gets better, the US Attorney now states, after Swartz's suicide, that the most he would have done was six months in prison.  WTF?!?  Convenient timing I'd say.  Hacktivists have definitely taken notice.  Peaceful internet protest has quickly been escalated to a serious crime and it's only a matter of time before internet activists are labelled terrorists and faced with the Department of Homeland Security.

And finally, as if this week wasn't strange enough...

Manti Te'o.  Holy fucking shit!  You knew something was up with the Mormon guy who went to the most famous American Catholic School right?  I mean what's wrong with BYU?  This guys story was such an uplifting and positive change to the usual 24 hour sports news cycle.  Te'o lost his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day.  Then led his team to a huge win just days after.  Well scratch that, the girlfriend never existed.  She was an internet creation in which Te'o claims he was hoaxed by a savvy prankster.  I see it one of three ways: 1)this dude is stupid as shit (probably not), 2)he is homosexual and wanted to cover up the fact that he is never with women, or 3) He created this girlfriend dying scenario to heighten his national persona and make his story so compelling that he would be in the race for the Heisman trophy as a defensive player.  Wow!

For the record I think it's 2.  And I predicted this here!

At least we got this out of it!
Te'o-ing is the new rage!

#apocalypse

Broke Ass Bride - Vigilante Zombie Killer

Episode 85 - Dana LaRue

Dana LaRue joins aPODcalyptic Times for Episode 85 with John Derby, David Duarte and Travis Spencer for a discussion on her blog Broke Ass Bride, gun control, aliens and the zombie apocalypse!

  

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Sportpocalypse: 2013 BCS National Championship

What a f#$%ing joke! I hate college football! The long awaited and highly anticipated BCS National Championship game pitting the #1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish versus the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide was a complete and utter joke!  The teams were so unevenly matched that after the first three minutes, the game was essentially over.  All I could think was how stupid I am that I didn't put the house on Alabama -10. As pathetic as it is, even a four team playoff system would have fixed this!

This joke of a game makes it abundantly more clear that a playoff system must be put into place NOW!!! Do we really have to wait through another year of this bull$#^t? No one ever disputes the winner of the March Madness tournament, and sure Alabama has been dominant over the last few years, but even they don't want to win like this. It's not about the competition or even crowning an actual champion, the current bowl setup is 100% about cash. This ESPN article spells it out pretty well about how the Bowls have become so powerful that they are robbing the schools as well.  As if it wasn't bad enough that kids are going $30-100K in debt to get an education but now some scheming Bowl Execs are scheming that money out of the schools as well.  Add that to the list of reasons why tuition is constantly increasing.


Blaaaaaaaaaaghhhghhhghghg.  (I just threw up on my keyboard when I got a reminder that my student loan payment was due.)

I love watching football, maybe it's because I'm a skinny ass wimp just dreaming of ever being athletic enough to compete with those monsters, maybe it is because fantasy football allows me to play manager that gives me a semblance of power over millionaires, or maybe it's simply because it is a compelling and wonderful game.  Let me correct myself, I love watching PRO-fessional football...more precisely the NFL.  The NCAA, the high powered coaches, the enslavement of the student athletes, and all the politics make for a watered down and morally reprehensible product of football.  If I hear of one more quarterback from the south named Colt, or Boomer, or Gunner, or Hunter, or Chip, or Major, or Slingshot, or Ace, I'm going to lose my $#^%.

Hunter Cantwell

The thing I hate about college football most is that it is full grade A ass-kissers (Tebow), primadonnas(Leinart), and no talent hacks (Leaf, Couch, Etc...). It's so political, starting positions and scholarships are promised to 13 years old children!  How in the hell can Mantei "I missed six tackles in the first three minutes on the BCS National Championship Game" Te'o even be in the Heisman Trophy discussion? (And don't even get me started about how the 'Heisman' winners never do anything on the next level!) Because he goes to a prominent university that had a cake schedule and he has a good story?  Sure I love Mormon's more than the next guy, but come on!

College head coaches are akin to gods on their respective campus', and these egomaniacal assholes are simply disgusting human beings (I don't have to point any further than Joe Paterno, who harbored that piece of shit gutter snake named Sandusky to live, thrive, and rape under his watch for years and years and years.) Every year you hear another terrible story of a college coach doing something horrific and then getting away with it, year after year after year.  Same old story, same old result.

College football does have its flashes of brilliance, its faint glow of beauty.  Once every twenty years we get a Texas/USC Championship game  There is no other sport that is as innovative as college football. (Strange, especially that it thrives in the most conservative and least innovative parts of the country). Look at the evolution of the spread offense, the diversity of play calling, super athletic i.e. African American quarterbacks which have spurred the evolution of the pro game. I only wish my hometown Arizona Cardinals had the balls to hire Chip Kelly. (But they won't, they'll hire some idiot and keep putting their sixty million dollar man, Kevin Kolb out there as the years pass by and Larry Fitzgerald withers away into the 'what could have been' category)

It's a hard system to fix, just like everything in this post-modern-post-Mayan apocalypse-world, college football is overshadowed by corruption, greed and politics. Over the last few years, I haven't really watched all that much college football... but this year I got sucked in just a little bit more than usual and got swept away by the romance of the whole thing.  It was the perfect matchup for ESPN, for the bowl committee, for the BCS and for the NCAA...seems like the only ones that lost this year and every year were the fans.

Looks like we have at least one more year of this garbage.

#apocalypse