Episode: 2412
Title: HPR2412: The Call of Cthulhu
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2412/hpr2412.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 02:33:26

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This is HBR episode 2,412 entitled The Call of Cthulhu and in part of the series HBR Audio Book Club.
It is hosted by HBR Audio Book Club and in about 84 minutes long and carrying an explicit flag.
The summary is in this episode the HBR Audio Book Club discusses The Call of Cthulhu.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by An Honest Host.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15. That's HBR15.
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Good evening and welcome to our Halloween edition of the Hacker Public Radio Audio Book Club.
I'll be your host for tonight. My name is Pokey and with me we have semiotic robotic.
Good evening.
We have Taj.
What's good everybody?
We've got Pegwall.
Hey hey.
And X1101.
Howdy folks.
Man I didn't get a single move for anybody.
I thought Pegwall was gonna give me one.
I thought about it.
That's what we needed.
For anybody new to the Audio Book Club we review audio books here.
They must be free of costs so that anybody can participate in listening or participating in the show.
The way that we do the show we break it into three parts.
The first has no spoilers whatsoever.
We just review parts of the story without without spoiling it but we go over audio content audio quality.
That kind of thing.
The second part of our show is like a break from the review of the audio book where we do a beverage review.
We each bring a beverage of our choosing could be alcohol or non alcohol.
That's up to each individual reviewer.
And then after the beverage review we continue with the audio book review and we do spoilers there.
And then we have a fourth part to our three part show where we pick the new audio book.
Which is something we haven't discussed yet so I guess we'll be surprised when we get to that part.
But on with the show.
Wow.
What did you guys think?
This was Pegwall.
This is your book.
The Call of Cthulhu.
So tell us about it.
Give us an overview and a history.
This one.
This one's got some history.
We write it as my book.
I wrote it.
No.
It is by.
The Call of Cthulhu is by HP Lovecraft.
And I was thinking, you know, when it comes to Halloween and you always think, oh, there's, you know, horror stories all the time.
And who is one of the greatest classic horror writers is HP Lovecraft.
So I went, hey, we should listen to this.
They want to know it.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's cool.
I have to say that I was super excited when this got suggested because I had read it and very much enjoyed it and I've listened to it twice.
I was also really excited when I was suggested because I've never read it before and this it was just sort of not having read it was a glaring mark.
Against my, my nerd.
So I needed to read it and I'm glad that I did.
I'm like semiotic robotic.
I finally get all the cthulhu jokes.
Totally.
Totally.
Yes.
That's how it was today.
Yeah.
I'm with you guys and then when I had never read it or heard it before.
I went looking for it once.
I figured for sure if it was out there that it would be on, on LibraVox.
So I went looking there and I found a bunch of HP Lovecraft, but not the Call of Cthulhu.
I had never heard it and I was, I was glad when Pegwall suggested it and had a link to an actual file that we could download.
So I finally got here too.
It was also the first time I've heard it.
And I will give a little bit of a warning to people that haven't heard it or read it.
There is a little bit of racism.
Just keep that in mind.
A little bit.
Okay, there's quite a bit.
That was actually one of the few notes I took was the, you know, frequent glaring casual racism.
Well, Lovecraft himself was kind of racist.
Like, and he goes, oh, it's, you know, just the time when, you know, he existed.
But he was still pretty racist when other people were ceasing to be.
Yeah, he's post Mark Twain and Mark Twain was able to not be a racist despite his background of living in a place where it was almost called for.
I mean, he had to go by a pseudonym so that he could be not racist and still live where he lived.
Sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone or something.
Just to go by a different name to not be a terrible person.
Yeah, this book was kind of like an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Definitely.
I was just going to say, is it funny that the only reason that I know Mark Twain wasn't really his name was because of the episode of Star Trek?
Really?
Yeah, there's an episode where they go back in time and they meet Mark Twain.
But it's not Mark Twain because that's not his name.
They call him Samuel Clements because that's his real name.
That's the only reason I know that he used a pen name.
That's how I learned about it.
Oh, that's funny.
That's awesome.
Yeah, a Star Trek win point point for Star Trek.
Starward Zero.
I think on every episode I've been on someone has mentioned Star Trek.
That's the whole reason I made that comment so we could go ahead and get it all the way.
Oh, you cut out real bad there, semi-autocrobotic.
Oh, dang, I said, well, check that box.
Oh, right on.
All right, so I feel like I'm going to stand out from the crowd here because I didn't like this one as much as the rest of the planet seems to like this one.
I appreciate it.
I understand that it's good.
It's just it's not for me and there were there were several things in it that I don't know if I could overlook and I've listened to it a couple times and they just they stick out real bad.
But I think I'm the only one here who probably didn't like it as much.
I will actually say that of the Lovecraft stories I've read or listened to this one is not my favorite.
There are quite a few more that are far more interesting to me.
So can I ask them why you think this one caught on and has the sort of cultural cachet that others don't is because it has such a central monster figure to it.
Whereas the others don't is this is that something that's not present in his other books?
Yes, it's the only one with any description of the monster.
Could they lose up on more to say?
That's not completely true.
There's some descriptions of the monsters at least in Dunwich Horror, which I read not too not too long ago.
Also they did I shouldn't say they lovecraft described the creature in dagon as well.
Yeah, I read a couple or listen to a couple of his other stories a couple years ago and I was talking probably an IRC about them.
And you know it's kind of complaining that whenever you get to a point where like there's a lot of tension in the story and the main character comes around the corner to see the monster you get the only description you get is it was so terrifying it would drive a man insane even just to hear the description.
And I thought it was kind of a cop out and people kept saying yeah that's very Lovecraftian like that was just kind of his way.
Or if there was a description you would get something like it was a dark and eldritch thing.
Yeah, I don't want to describe it so I'm going to make up a word to describe it.
Well, yeah, he I don't know he didn't I didn't notice him doing any that in this particular story making up words to describe anything I thought he used several words to the point of overuse cyclopian for instance.
Must I mean it must come up a dozen times.
But then there's there's other times where he describes things as not you know incomprehensible to the human mind acute angles that appeared of Tucson of two sight angles that behaved acute and that kind of thing where it's like what does that even mean you know so that I think that's kind of the point.
Oh yeah, that was my favorite part I love that imagery where you know the realm of Cthulhu is just beyond our any kind of sensibility that we have is it's you know angles angles jutting it you know our directions and things that shouldn't make sense and don't make sense and that part I love.
I love the fact that like he names drops like Euclidean geometry and like how does it conform to that I'm like wow that's that's oddly specific.
I think I like the idea of this book a lot more than I actually like the book it just feels so it's so different than the typical horror most stuff is like jump scare and this is that cerebral horror.
Yeah I agree with you there I really like the concept of the book and and the ideas behind it and I like I kind of like thinking about it so I mean I get why you know there's a lot of reference to it and a lot of you know internet jokes and stuff but it's like I feel the same way about money Python I can't I can't watch a money Python movie but once I've watched it I can talk about it and it's hilarious to talk about but I can't sit down and watch one I just I don't know like they're not for me.
It's a great concept you know not so great execution in the case of money Python this is a little different I this was still good execution and that I understand what he did but just the throughout listening to it I I would keep saying well it was written in the 20s it's not so modern it was written in the 20s not so modern but there were certain things that I just didn't feel like that excused and you know like I said the overuse of the words Cyclope and the overuse of no one would describe it and there's no one.
There's no description for it and that kind of thing.
I think one of the things about his writing is that it was intentionally supposed to sound old or maybe I'm mistaking that but I thought like a lot of people comparing him to Poe was a big deal because it was like oh he writes like this guy that was around a while back.
I kind of he's the feeling I got from this was almost the same as if you had heard the broadcast of the War of the Worlds.
Yeah I think that's a good comparison I was thinking of Dracula a lot to when I was reading just the the sort of the Gothic tone that the short that the stories share.
The way that they're told Dracula is much more like that but the way in which the stories are told through scraps or journal entries or you know then there's a sort of mystery that unravels and there's a you know intercontinental you know chase an intercontinental investigation and things like that I feel like.
That is a big part of the genre but at the same time this story was very much someone summarizing some things happened it you know really in this story nothing happened they just talked about things that had already happened.
Yeah and I kind of liked the I don't know what's a good word maybe clinical approach that the narrator took to describing everything I kind of did like that.
You know that's I don't know I don't think I have anything more to say about that.
Well since you mentioned the narrator let's talk about the actual production quality I thought it was fantastic.
Yeah it was top shelf it sounded better than then my voice in my head sounds when I read to myself.
There was a lot of audio production that went in on the back into with the music and stuff that you don't normally get embedded as much in any kind of audio book I think they're able to do that because it's really short which is good.
And Bravo once again for them doing it subtly and not it's so tempting to just kill an audio production with sound effects and it takes a lot of restraint to do it right and to not you know to not over use sound effects or not crank them up.
Yeah I was I listened to it again today to prepare because I listened to this like three or four weeks ago and I would never have remembered a lot of the things that I paid attention to.
The music you almost had to be listening for it to notice it was there it was they did a very good job just using it as backdrop.
Yeah, did anybody listen to it at high speed and get bothered by the music.
Even I didn't listen to it at high speed, what about you Tosh.
I didn't because Pegwall said not to and I always do what Pegwall tells me.
Give me money.
I don't well not everything.
So don't give me money.
Okay, here's money.
XK CD reference for the win.
How about Wolfie will you take Wolfie?
I will.
5,000.
That's two more boxes we can check.
Someone should come up with a book club drinking game.
I think you just did.
I kind of like mine better.
You start drinking you have book club you keep drinking done one of the two one of the two you one of the two runs out.
Actually, that's a good point that and let's let's make that official that is the book club drinking game.
Come on with us and have a drink.
And you don't stop drinking until we shut up.
Somebody's going to need a new liver.
Somebody's going to listen to the street street candles one and and like to like alcohol poisoning.
For those of you listening while driving like I so often do, I do not encourage drinking while driving.
Stop this episode.
Get to where you're going and then drink and listen to it.
And for the rest of you who are not driving, I also do not recommend drinking and driving just because you're not driving.
Now it doesn't excuse that behavior.
Yeah, so this was a really good production good audio production.
Good length.
It's it's it's fit into one file and that was just fine with me.
I didn't have a problem with it feeling like it was too long or anything like that.
Really well read really well paced.
No double reads anywhere that I could find and I think only once in the entire reading of it.
Do I remember consciously disagreeing with the pronunciation of a word?
There's one that I've heard another way as well.
I don't know if which one of them is wrong, but it definitely was not what pronounced the way that I have heard it pronounced before.
Was it the word fatagon or what again?
No, that was really a.
And I've always heard that relay not really a.
Yeah, actually, I think he changed his pronunciation of that one halfway through.
He pronounced it one way one time and then another way the rest of the times.
But I don't remember the word that I disagreed with his pronunciation of.
And I think it might have.
Like I just chalked it up to okay, this is kind of old time and maybe it was pronounced that way in the 20s.
What do I know?
Oh, so it wasn't one of the made upwards.
No, no, no, it's a real word.
It was otherwise I would have no way to to disagree with it because it was made upward.
I got no say in that.
Okay, see, this is we were disagreeing with the pronunciation of some of the made upwards.
Yeah, I was only joking about that.
I think do whatever he wants with those.
Nerd alert.
Yes, he might have been speaking cling on.
I don't I didn't bother me.
Look, we already checked that box. We're moving on.
Oh, shit.
So my book time is generally when my wife is asleep.
And so I can't really do audio books. I read this one.
Can can somebody tell me about how long it took to how long the file is?
Because I could get through this.
I'm novella. I guess I'd call it in about two, sitting three.
If I'm being generous and took it slowly.
But with Halloween coming up and I liked it so much, I'd want to play it for my wife.
How long will it take to get through?
One or eight minutes.
Sorry, I just clicked on my MP3 player while you're talking.
And I didn't mean to talk over there. X one, one, one.
I said the same thing. I said it's 78 minutes long.
Yeah, it's like it's like a single setting.
I'd say.
Yeah, totally.
You know, if you loop it, you can listen to it twice while you're handing out candy.
That's awesome.
See, I would go the other way, you know, started ice fire somewhere,
preferably in an approved location.
Have a nice glass of something to drink and just sit by the creepy fire,
drinking your beverage and listen to this and chill.
Oh, I didn't think about listening to it by the fire. I should have tried that.
I thought about it, but I can only have two pieces of furniture. I can burn.
I might even try that tonight. It's really warm. It's a nice outfit tonight.
You can't find more furniture in your town, Pegwool.
Um, not unless like I want bed bugs.
We'll just burn that one. Burn them. We'll just test some Cracket, Celia, a chair.
It's going to say if you weren't so picky about things, smelling like meth, you'd probably be all right.
You know, I got an even better idea, Pegwool. Why don't you come on over here and bust up the shiffero for me.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Anyway.
So I will say this is that even though I didn't really think this one was for me,
and maybe it's just because I don't really like horror as a genre. It just doesn't grab me.
Um, I, I will still give it a recommended listen if anybody hasn't listened to it.
Um, for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is, it is well written. I, I think.
And as far as listening to it, it's very, very well performed.
Um, but also it's, it is, it's kind of, it's on that list of stuff you just kind of have to listen to.
To be in on the, you know, the pop culture references and, and even just to get what people are talking about.
And it's kind of worth it getting what the people are talking about. It, it, it was a decent enough story.
It was a good story. It's not like it was bad. I didn't think that it just not my taste.
Speaking of pop culture references. Where all have you guys seen this?
I just finished the book yesterday morning and 15 minutes later got a message from my wife with a link to a Cthulhu plush doll.
And she said she wanted to get it because it looks so cute. And I was like, no, that's the call of Cthulhu. Do not look directly at it.
Um, if you've ever read the web comic called user friendly, you'll see Cthulhu often.
I'm going to check off another box. Um, the call of Cthulhu role playing game.
Um, you know, this is where it came from.
Drink.
I saw it like I think the first time I ever saw it was ages and ages ago. It was like a flash animation of like a cute friendly Cthulhu.
It was like what would Cthulhu be like if he was friendly and cute or something. And it kind of told the backstory.
It was all baby Cthulhu is that what it was? It sounds about right.
I am going to go find it.
And I thought it was fun, even not not knowing the story. I thought that was funny.
Um, but then also there's I don't know I couldn't tell you where, but several different places I've heard.
Um, reference to the necronomicon, which I believe this is the first mention of it, right?
I believe so.
Another one.
Some people may or may not be familiar with.
On Metallica's album Master of Puppets.
The song the thing that should not be.
That exactly.
Oh no.
As I'm listening to this.
That song just starts playing in my head.
I'm like, man, that reminds me of high school.
I know a lot of like science fiction writers and stuff have taken kind of like the Cthulhu mythos and kind of adapted it into other things.
Um, I think specifically like I'm thinking of one thing.
Um, and the Babylon five universe that he was, uh, the guy that wrote it was pretty much like, yeah, this is Cthulhu done in my universe.
I could be misremembering this, but I think even the stuff you should know podcast did an episode on the necronomicon because so much pop culture has has, um, kind of cropped up around just the concept of that over the decades and decades since the call of Cthulhu was published.
I'm officially going to add some stuff to the show notes about this.
Cool. Please do.
And for all you playing along at home, feel free to add as much as you like to the comment section on the hacker public radio, uh, webpage for this episode, please.
That might be it. That might be all the references that I can think of.
Oh, no, actually, there's a, there's a nerd core rap. Um, that's, that's about Cthulhu. It kind of tells the story of Cthulhu and the old ones verbatim, uh, or as close to verbatim.
But, uh, yeah, there was that too.
Who's the artist on that? Do you remember?
Not off the top of my head. No, I can find it.
Oh, I was just curious.
No, it was not somebody who I'm terribly familiar with. And I don't think I've heard a lot of other things from him.
It was decent enough, but it was one of the, you know, one of those wraps where it's like, you know, he outlined it before he wrote any lyrics and then kind of filled in one of those.
Yeah, I got you.
It was decent enough, you know, it was worth a listen, but it's not one I can, you know, rock out to on, you know, driving down the road, you know, twice a week.
For those that do not know, Poke is my source for good nerd rap.
I will second that.
Oh, thanks, guys.
I haven't heard much new stuff lately, but, uh, I get a lot of emails from Michael Kill. He's been putting out a lot of stuff lately.
Three, three, I don't know what to call him. I don't think I don't know if they're whole albums, but at least like maybe an album in a, a mixtape or something.
But three things to listen to in the past year, I think he sees pretty prolific right now.
Oh, I just remembered another thing that, uh, references Cthulhu.
There's a two or three episode arc of South Park season 11, 10 that's got Cthulhu in it.
Oh, actually, here's a dumb one that I should have thought of right away.
Scott Sigler's series of books, the, the GFL books, which is like football with aliens.
There's a crazy dude in there and he's always talking about the old ones and, and going on and on about him.
I mean, I was doing a little background reading about the story online. I found that a group of folks a couple of years ago made a film about a 40 minute film adaptation of Call of Cthulhu.
I guess it was 2005 and it's made to look like a 1920s era silent film and I watched clips of it and I have to say.
Yeah, I really wanted to watch that, but it's not available anywhere online that I could find legitimately.
So we had a robotic that was just almost a punchline moment there because you said I have to say and then you didn't say nothing.
I said, I just have to say it's, uh, it's impressive. It's an impressive effort.
And I'm sorry, you couldn't find it. Taj, I thought I just found some clips on YouTube.
That might be where I didn't look. I don't know if the whole thing's up there. I'm not sure, but any of it I would like to see just because it can't be that long.
Yeah, scrub through it just to take a look. It's about 40 minutes, but what you really got to see is the way they do the the ending.
Uh, it's changed a little bit, whereas you don't really know sort of who the protagonist is talking to in this particular in the love craft version.
Uh, this one has a sort of interlocutor there.
Yeah, we talked about before and there is a website where pegwall found this and they've got it like right up on their front page.
And I'm pretty sure you can get the DVD through Netflix.
And you may be able to stream it through there as well. I'm not sure.
I'm probably going to do that because it, I mean, just from scrubbing through it briefly, it really, it looked impressive and it looked neat and kind of a neat endeavor, kind of a neat effort.
Yeah, it's still on my list. I need to bump it up in my Netflix queue.
There is also a very terrible movie on Netflix called the Call of Cthulhu and it's about like two dudes trying to make a comic book or some.
I don't remember it was pretty bad. Do yourself a favor and don't watch it.
I didn't think of this earlier because it's, you know, sitting, you know, less than probably 15 feet directly from me is a board game called horror and there's a whole series of them in cthulhu.
It's based on love crafty and lore, which kind of centers around cthulhu and the rest of the old ones.
So I don't want to steer us too far from our objective here, but I am curious. Has anybody played the Call of Cthulhu role playing game?
I have a long, long time ago and to be honest, I didn't understand the mythos around it. So it was kind of confusing to me.
Well, I wasn't. I mean, the mythos wasn't really what I was interested in so much as like what a what the what the goal of the game was and be sort of what the mechanics were like, what were you doing?
Were you playing old ones? Were you playing hunters? Like what was the goal?
We can't tell you if we describe it to you, you'll go insane.
Well, that's what I'm worried about, right? So, you know, yeah, this is the in the non spoiler section.
We need to have a subsection that's like non spoilers, non panic inducing non insanity inducing.
That was before the show started.
Yeah, like I said, if I remember correctly and it's been a long time, I think we were like humans kind of on the trail of like something.
I forget exactly what it was, but if I remember incorrectly, I think there was a mechanic in the game to where you had to like test against insanity, like the closer you got to like the truth.
So there was actually a mechanic to reflect that.
What did you say the name of the game was?
It's called called Kthulu.
Okay.
Well, there's also a board game.
There's a suite of them, but called Arkham Horror, and there's also Helldrich Horror.
That also has that same kind of mechanic.
It's my guess is they took the RPG and turned it into a board game because the gear description of it sounds almost exactly like what the board game is.
Okay, I've heard Arkham Horror described before briefly, and it's like, what are you getting me four or five people together to play, and it's like a cooperative board game, which makes it kind of rare.
There's like, there's that in what's in the pandemic, maybe.
Well, the other great thing is it's cooperative, but it's also something you could play it by yourself.
It is like one to eight players.
Oh, neat.
I totally just got reminded and I have to go back and check another box.
Influences, Arkham, Arkham Asylum, Batman.
Gotta get the comic books in.
Everybody drank.
I'm on fire tonight.
Blood, blood, blood.
See, I'm not a big Batman fan.
What I don't understand the connection.
So in the Batman universe, there's an asylum, and it's called Arkham Asylum, and it's actually named after.
Which is the city, I believe, in a lot of Lovecraft stories.
Okay. See, I didn't know that because he didn't call it Arkham in this.
I thought that came from Batman.
Are you a Stephen King fan at all, Pokey?
No, I've never read anything that he's written.
I've seen a few of the movies based on his writing, and the ones that aren't horror movies are really good.
So the no.
I guess my right, I guess.
Well, Stephen King that's not horror.
I don't even know what he's written. That's not horror. All of it's horror.
No, there was some.
Green Mile.
Okay, there is that.
Is it stand by me? Is it what's called with the four kids?
And the Shawshank Redemption.
I guess I was thinking the point I was trying to make here though was.
A lot of his stuff's focused around the town called Deary in Maine, and there isn't.
But it's it's this fictional town where half of his books kind of revolve around.
It that's got to do with Lovecraft?
No, I guess I was referencing that it's the same kind of non-town that's become central within a multiverse done by a specific author.
Oh, right on. Okay, I get it. Sorry. A little slow tonight.
Well, and it at least feels like Stephen King was very much influenced by both Poe and Lovecraft.
If I remember correctly, he has said specifically that he is a big HP Lovecraft fan.
And I think he actually there's a printed work called the Necronomicon that's got actually the.
I think the one of the images of Cthulhu on the cover that's just his lovecrafts collected works.
And I'm fairly certain King wrote the forward afterward intro something to it.
Yeah, the Necronomicon is it's a companion book for pretty much all the entire mythos.
And it'll have things in it like.
The rituals to like someone will say, you know, as a father something including like the the star sign and everything.
So are the works in there in addition to this reference material?
No, it's just like its own kind of thing.
Well, there's also a published work called the Necronomicon that I think is just a collection of his works.
I've published under that title as a way to sell stuff.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're both right.
And if I remember correctly, both of them were written after Lovecraft's death.
Well, one of them is just a collection of his works.
So he just took the stuff he wrote, put it in a nice leather bound book and called it the Necronomicon.
I'm really upset that it's not bound in human flesh.
I'm not because if it were I wouldn't want to buy it.
Hey, you evil dead reference.
Check that one off.
Do the Bruce Campbell.
That's another good nerd course, nerd core app.
All right.
I need another hit of my beverage here.
Anybody else ready for this?
My mouth is getting a little parched.
I need to go down.
Come down.
So give me just a moment to go up and acquire mine out of the refrigerator.
Oh, sure.
We'll let Peggy start dancing so you won't miss anything.
Well, keeping with tradition got a nice hot cup of coffee.
Black?
Of course.
No sugar.
No cream?
Well, that's what black means.
You know what, though, Peg?
Well, I started putting coconut oil in my coffee.
It's, it's decent.
What effect does that have on the coffee?
What does it do to it?
It makes it wicked oily.
So it just changes the texture of the coffee or what, like, what is it?
Does it taste different?
No, it doesn't.
I mean, I use, I use cream as well.
No, the coconut oil is for me.
It just, that's the only way that I really know how to consume it.
That it isn't.
You know, it's, it's, it's oily.
I mean, it's at room temperature.
It turns into like a block of wax.
So you get to kind of warm it up to consume it.
But it's got loads of health benefits.
So I've been putting it in my coffee.
A lot of people will put it in a blender with butter.
And it will kind of aerate it and mix it up.
And then they'll pour that in their coffee and skip the cream.
And I guess that's supposed to be really good.
So it tastes better.
But I just put it in my coffee with cream and it makes the coffee oily.
So I got to keep stirring it up while I drink it.
Gotcha.
So you're putting it in your coffee because the coffee has a good effect
on the coconut oil, not because the coconut oil has a good effect on the coffee.
Yeah, that's right.
That's a good way to put that.
I've been using coconut oil and like stir fries and to like fry eggs.
And because I can't bring myself to even potentially ruin my morning cup of coffee with it.
Yeah, it's magical stuff that coconut oil.
It is, it is just a miracle.
I've been using it for everything.
I put it on cuts and scrapes and they heal up super fast.
They put, it's, it's earlier I put it on my knives.
I'm thinking of using it as a, as a bore lubricant from my muscle loader.
It's, it's, I've been frying with it.
Sometimes it, it, it'll have like a coconut taste that you don't want.
So if you get unrefined coconut oil, it's got that coconut flavor to it.
And it supposedly has more health benefits.
And then the refined coconut oil doesn't taste or smell like coconut at all that I can tell.
And sometimes I'll cook with that like fry up stuff.
I actually kind of like the coconut flavor and stir fries.
So that's, that's one of the reasons I started using it.
I actually didn't know about the health benefits until after I heard that somebody
was using it is a good way to flavor food.
And then I was like, oh, this is really good for you.
I should probably keep using this.
Yeah, it's incredibly good for you.
Yeah, Pagol, you should try it in your coffee just to see it.
Just so I'm not the only one.
I, I think I'll pass.
No, I will take the coconut oil coffee challenge this week.
I'm on it.
If you, if you've got a blender, say, I don't even own a blender.
But if you've got a blender and can get yourself some butter that's been made from grass-fed beef,
that's supposed to be the way to do it.
I guess, I guess grass-fed beef, their, their milk has different properties to it.
And if you blend those two things together, they're supposed to work really well in coffee.
They call it bulletproof coffee.
If you just Google bulletproof coffee.
Excuse me, I keep coughing here.
If you don't want it in your coffee, my daughter puts it on her oatmeal and says she really likes it on oatmeal.
I think I might just start just eating it just as the only food I eat to see how that works.
Oh, no, it works terrible.
Don't, you can't, you have to have some food in your stomach or else it, my daughter and I both,
we got really like bad stomach cramps.
And we just try to eat a spoonful of it without any other food.
It doesn't work.
And you got to work yourself up to it too.
Like some of the recipes, they'll say, like, put a whole tablespoon of it in your coffee.
If you've never eaten coconut oil before, don't do that.
Start with like a teaspoon and like work your way up because it's, it's so much like fat and oil
that your body's just not used to because we're on such low fat diets these days that you'll,
you may have a hard time with it.
But once you get used to it, it, it's awesome.
It helps you burn fat.
It lowers your cholesterol.
This all kinds of magic.
But X 1101, you're back with your beer.
You're, you're fantastic.
24 for $12 beer.
No, no, no.
I got this before.
I saw that great deal.
So instead of a 50 cent beer, which I already had, I have a $4 beer.
This is a rising tide, which is brewed right here in Maine in Portland, I think.
Yeah, Portland, Maine.
It is Calcutta cutter.
It's an Imperial IPA described as hops on hops.
It's kind of a cloudy, still fairly yellow.
If I didn't know better, I would say it looks a lot like a white beer, except it's not,
it's not that cloudy.
It's not like an unfiltered cloudy.
So here goes first taste.
The nose is very citrusy, and it's definitely hops on hops.
Very hoppy citrus, a little bit of pine.
But still very smooth, not a lot of, for an IPA, it's not particularly bitter.
Cool.
Sounds great.
And because I was AFK, were you guys talking about coconut oil?
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're trying to convince Peg Wal to do something with his black coffee.
You might convince me too.
I guess I may have to get some and leave it at work, because my daughter has a peanut allergy,
and we have been warned it could translate into a general nut allergy.
And I'm not exactly sure if coconut is a nut or nut.
Yes and no, a peanut is not a nut.
A peanut allergy should be very different from a tree nut allergy.
My son has tree nut allergies, and he's not allergic to peanuts at all,
because it's a, a being a legume.
So it's weird that they're telling you that that can happen.
Well, it's because she's under two, and they say if you have one,
and if you take peanuts out and replace it with a lot of tree nuts,
that can kind of trigger a tree nut allergy as well.
And we're just being safe, you know.
Yeah, we can talk about allergies some other time.
I have my own thoughts on that.
I unconventional thoughts on the allergy thing.
I welcome that.
I always interested to hear something else.
I think keeping kids away from all of these allergens is part of what causes the allergies
to exist in the first place, let alone be so severe.
We didn't deliberately keep her away from it.
One day my wife was having some toast with peanut butter.
Our daughter was like, well, what all children under two years older,
like, oh, whatever mommy's eating must be the best food ever.
Wanted some, begged and begged and begged for some, got some,
and broke out terribly.
Yeah, that's similar to how my son did it.
I just mean like medical professionals who go, well,
that kid has one allergy.
We might want to keep them away from 50 other things that have nothing to do with it.
And I don't know, it just, I don't, that doesn't seem wise to me.
But I'm not a medical professional, so don't take my advice on it.
I'm kind of on board where you are, but at the same time,
I just want my kid to be safe.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
It's not, it's weird because it's not an experiment that I would do with my child either
or recommend someone do it their child.
It's just, it's odd that you, you, you have a kid that has an allergic reaction.
You bring them to the doctor and they do scratch tests and they do blood tests and do all these other things.
And then they go, well, we didn't find a response to this,
but you might want to keep them away just to be safe.
And that just, I don't, you know, that does not compute.
Sorry.
No, I agree completely.
We went to an allergist who I got good vibes from.
And they said, you know, between now and when they're five,
their allergies are still kind of in flux.
And so if we're just careful, you know, she may become not allergic to it.
Or we do what we don't want is to take that allergy and trigger a bunch more.
Yeah, yeah, they hear you.
Yeah, as far as coconuts go, everything,
all the literature I've ever had on tree nuts always mentions coconuts
because it is a plant protein.
And I think that's what the, that's what triggers a tree nut allergy.
But I've read on the internet and everything on the internet is true.
That there has never been a reported case of an allergic reaction to a coconut on Earth ever.
Coconut for my coffee then.
And like I said, everything on the internet is true.
I don't know if one person has the same allergy as I do.
You allergic to going to work?
No, I'm allergic to downy fabric softener.
I'm not sure if it's an actual allergy,
but I know that my dad gets horrible skin irritation with tide.
Yeah, my wife, any, any laundry product that's scented will bother her terribly.
We have all, all unscented stuff.
All right, Taj, what are these weird?
Yeah, they are, sorry.
I ran into the house real quick before it started.
I had to take Mrs. Taj out tonight because it's a birthday and we went to the Japanese restaurant
and I had a wonderful green tea while I was there.
But since I'm in home now, I have water because I'm pouring.
Nice.
And happy birthday to Mrs. Taj.
You may need to take your wife out and then convince her to let you do the book club on her birthday.
After I just came back from a weekend trip yesterday.
So yeah, I'm batting a thousand right now.
Hooray for great wives.
Yeah, she's the grievous.
Semionic robotic.
Have you got a beverage this month?
Yeah, man, just polishing off a good cup of herbal tea.
Not to have a pumpkin spice tea from Harnie and Sun.
One of my favorite tea companies, but especially for herbal tea, their herbal teas are amazing.
So this is a pumpkin spice.
It's got some nutmeg and some clove in it.
It's perfect for a fall night here in North Carolina.
That sounds awesome.
Yeah, I like it a lot.
One cool thing you can do if you like Harnie and Sun's pumpkin spice tea, and I recommend you give it a shot,
is do what my wife likes to do, and heat up a nice mug of hot apple cider,
and then let the pumpkin spice tea bag steep in the hot apple cider for a couple of minutes.
Oh, that sounds good because it got all the other spices in there that would, you know, compliment each other.
That sounds really good.
It's so good.
You and else is really good in hot apple cider.
Spiced rum.
Coconut oil.
Coconut oil and spiced rum.
I have to try that too.
Well, I will say coconut oil is not, well, it is a miracle substance.
It doesn't cure and prevent everything because I've been taking coconut oil for a few weeks now,
but I am sick tonight.
My beverage is Walgreens store brand daytime wall flu severe cold and cough in berry flavor.
It is christened with acetaminophen and dexthro meth-thorff fan and phenolifedran HCl as a nasal decongestant.
And this stuff works pretty good.
I don't know why it works better than taking it in a pill form, but it somehow does seem to.
It goes down smooth.
Yeah, it doesn't taste great.
It kind of leaves your mouth feeling gritty like you chewed up a Tylenol.
But it's helping a little.
I'm coughing a little bit less than I was before I started drinking it.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah, if anybody listening at home couldn't tell, I'm pretty congested right now.
So spoilers.
What did you guys think of how this story turned out in the end?
I mean, this guy went on this long like research journey.
I mean, it's almost like a like a Google quest, you know, of reading other people's stuff and talking to people and finding dead people.
And, you know, it was weird.
I thought at the beginning of the book, he said I would, you know, if I figured this out,
I would never want to tell anybody, but then here he's telling everybody.
So, I mean, I thought that was kind of odd.
Yeah, do we think, do we think he got killed at the end?
I don't know.
That depends.
Do we think that Cthulhu is awake?
I think as far as the whole, you know, if someone finds out, you know, I'm going to tell everyone thing is,
the way I took it is it's a thing that's, you know, being written down.
And in the book, you see it as writing.
It's presented as like the thing, the dude's writing, like the narrator.
This thing, he's like putting together from stuff everyone else has said.
Like the, like the Swedish dude, I believe he was, who, who's hair turned white from seeing Cthulhu.
And, you know, bits of his uncle's work and all this.
So that doesn't really translate too well to the audio book part.
No, I got that.
I got that it was like he was keeping a journal of this thing, but he almost gave the impression that, you know, if I ever figure this out, I'm burning his journal.
Or maybe I'm the other one.
Yeah, so the question is then, as a reader, you ask yourself, so am I reading this?
Does lovecraft want me to read this and get to the end and realize, oh my God, I'm next.
You know, this guy, basically the story ends with him.
You know, the big piece of the puzzle at the end comes from the manuscript he gets from the widow at the end.
And that's sort of his moment where he gets the revel, like the revelation and where it all comes together where, you know, he gets the thick description of the Cthulhu siding.
But then, you know, does lovecraft want.
And then so he has this realization, oh my God, I read the thing.
And now I know too much, I'm next.
And, you know, that's sort of how I think what lovecraft wants us to feel at the end of the novel where it's like, oh man, I just read this thing and I'm next.
I agree with that. I think he did a pretty good job conveying that.
But at the same time, when he read the guy's description of it, it almost sounded like Cthulhu had been awakened and is now roaming the earth in which case, what's the point of killing him to keep it a secret anymore?
That's a good point.
See, I got that Cthulhu had only woken temporarily because the stars were not quite right.
That's also what I got.
I think if Cthulhu had been actually awakened, I think the story be a lot different.
I mean, people would be going, hey, do you see that like Qjas monster things just walking around the ocean?
We should like, you know, avoid that.
One of the things that I thought of when I was when I got to the end of this book is, um, you can't really trust the narrator the way through.
What if this dude is just betch it crazy and it's just writing down crazy stuff and none of it actually happened.
Well, Cthulhu can manipulate your dreams, right?
Maybe, you know, this guy, as he gets closer to the mystery, as he gets closer to the core of the mystery, you know, people start to play tricks on him like his, you know, maybe he's dreaming half the stuff.
Who knows?
I think one of my favorite parts of it actually probably my favorite part of it is when he was describing what it would be like when Cthulhu awakened the elder gods and they came back and, you know,
you said, you know what happened because people would be, what did it say, shouting and enjoying themselves or something like that.
They would teach us new ways of shouting and enjoying ourselves.
Did anybody else know, sorry, but that was also with like, pain and ecstasy and like,
all the things that you know won't make any sense anymore because it'll be like, you know, pain and torture and pleasure and craziness all wrapped into one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly like scented lights, what they're called from the pinhead movies or whatever.
Sorry, man, that reference just felt right flat on its face. It shouldn't have left that to me.
No, no box checking for that one.
Yeah, no, no box checking hell rates are those in the movies.
I got it. I was just sitting here thinking maybe maybe they're a Cthulhu influence thing kind of makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, I was wondering the same thing.
So did anybody else have to look up words from this?
Yes.
I probably should have, but mostly I just kind of guessed based on context.
I'm not too proud.
Would you look up cyclopian?
Yes, when I looked up to how about you semiotic robotic?
Eldridge.
Oh, I didn't even think to look at what what's that one?
Was was Eldridge?
Oh, I forget the technical definition now. I'm going to look it up again. I'll be back.
Oh, sure. Todd, do you remember cyclopian?
It is a type of architecture from the Greek islands.
Yeah, with big F and blocks.
Cthulhu digs blocks.
And the way I understood it when I looked up cyclopian, it's not that the architecture is from the Greeks,
but that's what the Greeks called Middle Eastern architecture because they had massive, massive blocks.
So maybe I misunderstood it.
That seems about right.
Yeah, but the Greeks said, look at these giant blocks that these walls are made of.
There's no way that anyone but a cyclops could have placed them there.
So Eldridge, just jog my memory, means like sinister or weird or dark, right?
So I had seen this and I don't read too much horror.
And so I didn't know, like, I think my first exposure to a word like this was on magic cards or something like that.
I'm not sure if I recall the word in this book or just the kind of, for some reason they've been on a horror kick and been listening to a lot of horror podcasts,
but a word that horror writers in general seem to really like, undulating.
It is kind of a fun word.
Yeah, and usually kind of gross and or be given the context.
It's almost like an onomatopoeia. It almost sounds like what it is.
I don't know what it is about that word, but it has the sound of undulation.
Well, it almost makes your skin want a creepy crawl.
Undulate. Yeah, exactly.
I don't know whatever I think of undulations.
I always think of like maybe satin sheets and you just kind of flung them up in the air to, you know, settle out and they're kind of undulating their way down.
Maybe the point is lost on me.
A picture somebody's doing the worm.
Yeah, sounds like you guys just haven't listened to enough horror stuff.
Or poke is just really messed up.
Yeah, maybe because undulating always makes me think sexy.
When I think of undulate, I like even before listening to anything Lovecraft or reading it.
I always just think of like some like weird black blob just wiggling about or like a tentacle or something.
Like I said, sexy time.
If you live in Japan.
Add, check the box.
People really did develop a drinking game. They are smashed right now.
It sounds like it's bingo based the way we keep checking boxes.
Well, yeah, that's most drinking games that I've seen that are based on an entertainment source.
When character or end or host says or does this thing, take a drink.
So you combine bullshit bingo and drinking games with the HPR audiobook club.
Every time we mention one of the things we always mention, you take a drink.
Right.
And you wake up the next day.
Kegel is posting in the chat instead of joking out loud call of boost.
I didn't want to interrupt people.
Isn't that the whole point of this thing?
Now, I've just said, I listened to another audiobook that felt like it was kind of in this style.
It was set like the late 70s.
But, you know, it was about the necronomicon and raising a great evil.
But it was the same.
Lots of talking about things.
And then at the end, it was kind of.
I'm going to say the end was almost anticlimactic or.
I guess that's the best way I can describe anticlimactic because you don't really get a resolution one way or the other.
I feel like, and I, and this is the second time I'm bringing up Dracula.
So I apologize for that.
But it was the same with Dracula.
I don't know if anybody's read that.
But the story, the conclusion of the story is not really.
The point of the story in that sense.
And I felt like it was kind of the way with Call of the Thulu as well.
It's sort of like the point of the point of the writing or the artifact itself like creates.
It's supposed to create a mood.
And you exist or sort of inhabit that mood throughout the entire piece.
But it's not really plot driven as much as we tend to think when we think of like a horror film, for example.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Not that I've read all the way through Dracula, but I get the parts I've read were, yes, they're very mood driven.
And so was this.
And I think the point of this, like you said, was not so much.
Plot resolution, but to leave you with that feeling and to leave you thinking about it.
After you're done.
That's kind of what I thought when Pokey was like, all right, now there's spoilers.
And I was like, well, really that does it better because you don't really need to spoil anything.
I mean, I could tell you what this whole thing was about and not really spoil anything.
Yes, true.
Spoiler, the book of drive you crazy.
Just look at all of us.
I was this way before Call of Cthulhu.
I'd like to have everyone now.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, I really was too.
You're all a bunch of point crapper honors.
Crappin' on his point like that.
I have you know I was not crazy before listening to this.
Well, I'll have you think that you poor man.
Yeah, I don't think it's true.
That's all right.
Don't let the truth spoil a good joke.
It was not a good joke.
Fine, don't let the truth spoil a mediocre joke.
Yeah, you can't play that card illegally like that.
Hey, I'm happy if I can get a mediocre joke in.
I feel like if I get any joke in between these coughing fence, I'm having a off mic.
Well, on the plus side, you've done a fantastic job of keeping them off mic.
Yeah, yeah, real radio people have their mics hot all the time and they have to push the button.
They have to push the button to cough.
I just have to not push the button.
Semiotic robotic.
You want to read the quote?
You just post it in there?
Yeah, sure.
Sometimes when I read, I like to just pull.
I mean, one of the benefits of having ebooks is I can pull quotes out and just drop them in a text file.
And I keep those for different books, especially for the book club.
But there's a great quotation.
I think this is representative of what Lovecraft tries to do to describe sort of the ineffable.
That is Cthulhu, right?
The fact that Cthulhu defies speakability.
You can't talk about it.
You can't look at it.
You can't conceive it.
Otherwise, you'd go insane.
So he writes, the thing cannot be described.
There is no language for such abisms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy.
Such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order.
That's much better than the way that I put it earlier, because it is well written.
I almost made it sound like a cop-out where he said, well, I can't describe it.
And then, you know, you're right.
He doesn't just move on.
He spends as much time.
He spends more time telling you why it can't be described.
Then he would have if he just described it.
Right, and that's something I really, I appreciate it about the book is when, especially when he's trying to describe to you.
Thulu resurrects from, you know, the middle of the sea.
And he's talking about the weird non-uclidean angles of it.
It doesn't make sense or the quote, what are the, what are the.
No, you just cut out again.
Are you still with us?
It's a meiotic robotic.
No, it looks like his plumble crashed.
Are you back?
Yeah, my, my internet connection drops.
Sorry, guys.
That's all right.
Yeah, so you were saying when they got to the island, you were about to quote something about the way that the non-uclidean geometry worked or didn't work there.
Yeah, people just kept saying things like, it shouldn't be possible.
The structure shouldn't be possible, et cetera.
And, you know, you have angles that are acute and obtuse at the same time or appear one way and then upon, you know, getting closer, they actually are another way and you don't know how to get handholds on the thing.
Like just to the sort of the way that he was able to describe something that's indescribable or it was supposed to be indescribable.
And that I think was a cool, was just a neat little linguistic trick, right?
I think it showed his artistry.
Yeah, you faded there.
You got really quiet.
I don't know if you moved away from your mic or if that's software doing that, but I, I, we heard you.
I don't know if it'll come across on the podcast.
Uh, real well.
Ah, sorry about that.
Oh, yeah.
Now you're back.
Yeah.
Didn't one guy die because he fell into a hole that wasn't really there or something?
Yeah, there was some kind of moment where the guy sort of, uh, he, he disappears, but they don't know exactly why.
I got the impression when they would just, when he was describing the old ones and the elder gods.
I got the impression that they exist on more planes of reality than we're able to perceive.
And that by attempting to view them, you get kind of a glimpse into what that might mean.
And I think like I got that impression and that's why people are going insane because there's more to it than that.
I have to agree there because in one part it says that we are not meant to venture too far from this planet.
I feel how it's worth it exactly, but, you know, floating in the black sea of existence.
Like if we were to like venture too far from what we know and what we think of, you know, our universe, then our minds would just snap.
I think I was reading something and because I did like some research because I, even after reading this, I was like, yeah, I'm going to learn about Kathulu and I still didn't know much.
Um, I think like the Wikipedia said that like specifically the old gods are from space.
So they're like aliens.
Um, but I don't know.
We could totally do a Indiana Jones and make them like multi-dimensional space aliens.
Oh, yeah, for sure. He said they're from the stars and it seemed like unless I understood this wrong.
It seemed like a thulu may not be one of the old gods, but like they're high priest.
Is that somewhat right, maybe?
That's definitely how they refer to him. Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense to me.
So they're even more mysterious than he is.
I liked the imagery of when the inspector from New Orleans.
I think it was went into the swamp and there's all these guys there dancing around this giant monolith for the baby little statue on top.
Yeah, one of the statues made from.
Oh, you cut out again there.
The statues made from space rock.
The cultist got him semiotic robotic.
I believe you were talking about space rocks.
Yeah, so space rocks.
It's just funny that.
But they got him again.
He must be really tasty on some extra dimensional level.
He speaks too much truth.
Dude, you're getting too close to the.
You're getting too close to the truth talking about something else.
My, I don't know what it is tonight.
My internet connection keeps dropping.
Hopefully it stays up this time.
But yeah, that the statues made out of some kind of mineral that the world's leading even the world's leading geologists can't decipher.
To be fair though, they were kind of old timey geologists from like the 20s.
Still though space rocks.
Yeah, that was kind of cool.
They brought their idols with them.
I thought that was kind of neat.
What do we think that?
I mean, is that what we're supposed to assume that it was some kind of mineral that came?
I mean, how do people explain that?
Yeah, I think that's exactly what it was.
I think when the old gods came to earth that they brought these little statues of themselves just so that humans.
Number one wouldn't forget them, but number two might have some concept of them because they.
Exist on so many planes that were just not aware of that it was kind of all they could do to keep people remembering them.
I mean, because they are in some way reliant on us to wake them up when the stars are right again.
And what benefit do the cultists have for joining the cult of Cthulhu?
Is it they want the new society?
They want the demolition and the decimation of all that is.
That's something I wonder every time I watch or read or see any kind of horror like what's in for these guys?
So they get to be the first ones to be eaten.
Is that like I don't get it?
I mean, it may be kind of controversial, but what does anybody get out of any religion?
I mean, I don't know that there's any more tangible things that any legit thing going on.
Well, most conventional religions have a promise, you know, of an afterlife that is somehow pleasant.
Whereas these guys, I'm not sure where they were promised anything nice at all.
Maybe they're promised an alternate understanding of what pleasant or unpleasant means.
You know, if we evolve into something different, more like the old gods,
where pain and pleasure are really the same thing.
If they promise you pain, but you enjoy the pain, I don't know.
I'm reaching here for something.
Maybe they just go crazy first so they don't have to witness the true horror of what's going to happen.
Or maybe they're just crazy now in obeying.
Maybe it's not even a conscious choice.
That's the way I took it.
They're really looking forward to the crazy killings and orgies that happen right before they come back.
One thing that I did think was interesting.
When he was describing, I think it was when he was describing the old ones that said that they would.
Almost like they would cure us of our morality.
And the way that he said it kind of implied that he feels or he being HP Lovecraft,
that he feels that morality is a human trait as opposed to something that we've built for ourselves.
And like a code of ethics is inherent to us, which kind of goes against what conventional religions teach and against what the law kind of assumes,
which they both seem to assume that we're inherently evil and we need rules so that we know how to behave in crowds, you know, in groups.
Whereas this is saying, no, no, no, where we'll get rid of all that pesky morality as if it's an inherent thing.
Did anybody else give any thought to that portion of it?
I hadn't thought of that, but I think it's kind of a cool idea that in such a dark twisted thing that humans are ultimately like just very good.
That's a cool idea.
Yeah, I hadn't picked up on that, but I think that's a good insight.
I mean, maybe not from the narrator's point of view, maybe not all humans, because we're plenty of mongrels and half breeds.
Oh, geez. Yeah, some of the language.
It was weird. I wasn't sure how to take that.
The, you know, it, because it, it almost seems like, okay, well, he must be just.
Uh, maybe it's a convention of the times when the book was written, but.
You know, that's what I was thinking when I was reading it was only, it was only when you guys pointed out to me that, you know,
that where they wasn't as much racism in the 20s as, as this book could imply.
Oddly enough, like.
When it comes to like, we'll say dated literature.
You read things like that and you go, oh, you know, it's product of that time.
But for some reason, one part that made me go, wait, what?
Was the point of, like, lovecraft mentioning the, the Cthulhu worshipping Eskimos?
And I'm like, who says that about Eskimos?
What have they done to you?
And they weren't, they weren't, um, American Eskimos either.
They were like a European Eskimo, weren't they?
Yeah.
Does that make them like twice as chill?
It might, that's not something I'd ever heard anyone else mention that there might be Eskimos on another continent.
Or maybe that was just a common way to refer to people who lived in snowy places when the book was written.
I wasn't sure about that.
I just like the progression of it's like racism, racism, racism, Eskimos.
Yeah, and it's, it's weird how, you know, dated or, or like older writing approaches racism as if it's a scientific fact.
You know what it would talk about breeds of humans and the traits of the brain.
You know what I mean?
Well, that's kind of what I meant when I said how casual the racism was.
Well, I mean, it was not, not too far forward, not even behind.
I mean, forward of that people were talking literally talking about eugenics for, you know, breeding out disabilities and stuff.
It was pretty openly talked about and like really smart people at the time were like advocating for that.
So I mean, I guess in some way it was, that was kind of the part for the course.
That's a really good point.
I didn't even thought of that.
Semiotic Robotic is saying in the chat he's got to go.
Thanks for coming on with us tonight.
It's been awesome having you back.
Sure thing guys.
It's been a pleasure.
I got to run.
But it's always a pleasure to chat books with you folks.
I will, I'll be looking forward to the next one.
Yeah, awesome.
So as we figure out what it is, we'll let you know.
All right.
Speaking of eugenics, that's how we got Khan.
Sorry, I had to recheck that box.
And not been at a cumberbatch because he's not really Khan.
Oh, come on.
I thought he did a fantastic job as Khan.
Nope.
Wait, we talking about Madeleine Khan because she's German, right?
Farhan or no.
Khan, Nunean Singh.
Sorry, I worked with someone whose name looked the same.
My brain's atled today.
That was awesome.
So it was another thing in this book that both times I listened to it,
kind of made me chuckle in the early on in the book, like way at the beginning.
The guy talks about finding his uncle's box that was locked and I couldn't get it unlocked
and couldn't find the key until I thought to look on the key ring he kept in his pocket.
Like, dare.
Why didn't you look there first?
Captain obvious here.
I couldn't find the key until I looked on the key ring.
Yeah, I mean, that was like he made it to like it was some tremendous struggle to I couldn't get a lock.
I was scratching my head for weeks and then guess where I found it.
It was in the last place I looked who to thought exactly.
What was this dude doing like in the time between finding it and finally unlocking it?
Was he like sticking pennies in his nose hoping for the best or what?
He was that packer conference is going to all the lockpicking tracks.
That's something I need to do again.
Trying to convince everybody there that no, no, I'm really a gray hat, not a white hat. I'm not that square.
I'm too cool for this globe.
Oh, yeah, does anybody know what?
What did he say, the office?
They're through the offices or something?
It's a branch of philosophy, I think.
Yeah, he did say philosophers to which I thought might have been philosophers made the word was different.
Yeah, I think it's religious philosophy.
That makes sense.
Oh, guys, I think that's all I got. How about you guys anything else?
All I have right now is a full blotter.
You can blink at the loop for that.
Damn you, Cthulhu.
Cheers. No urinals in really a.
You're in doesn't obey the laws of physics there.
You try to tinkle, but it just tinkles in.
Like the backwards episode of red dwarf.
Yes, that was fantastic.
Alright, that's my obscureest reference.
I can't come up with anything else.
That was a really good one.
We haven't done red dwarf yet, so well done, Pokey.
Oh, thank you, sir.
Do you remember that scene?
He comes up.
This is like hairs up in there.
Oh, poor cat.
It's just awesome.
All across the board.
Even the young guy gets that one.
Because I can remember back in high school, red dwarf was on at like 10 o'clock
at night on Saturdays on PBS.
And a bunch of my buddies and I would always watch it.
It was like the power like block on Saturday nights when you were a nerd.
PBS had red dwarf and then right after a doctor who, and it was, it was, it was botling.
It was BBC America before BBC America.
Man, you're so lucky that you had someone to watch that with.
I have never, ever been able to convince anyone to watch red dwarf.
You tell them you got to watch it and they go, what is it?
And you go, well, it's like sci-fi comedy.
And they're like, all right, I'm out.
It's like the Hitchhiker's guide.
No joke.
That was one of the first things that me and my wife kind of like bonded over was that.
And like Spider-Man comic books.
Oh, it's fantastic.
I've gotten my wife to watch a few of them, but she doesn't.
I don't think she's ever laughed out loud at anything.
And I'm not sure if she's even left quietly to herself, but she'll tolerate it just so we can sit together.
I'm not sure I have any other motives laughing at this and out loud.
Very loud.
Oh no, I do.
I like listen to podcasts as I'm falling asleep.
And if I'm listening to a comedy one and something makes me laugh, I'll laugh heartily,
but I won't make any noise.
And I think it still wakes my wife up.
And sometimes she pinches me.
Do you get a good nose laugh going?
Yeah.
I will occasionally listen to podcasts.
Well, I listen to podcasts at work and fairly frequently something very, very funny happens.
And I will be sitting at my desk, my headphones on, banging away at something and I just bust up laughing.
And the guys just kind of look at me and shake their head and keep going.
Yeah, my daughter does that.
She'll look at me and I'll just, I'll have to just point at my earbud.
I'll just tap my earbud and she'll go, oh, okay, she'll, because I'll laugh and she'll go, what?
What, what?
And I'll tap my earbud and she'll go, oh, all right.
Nobody wants to hear that explained.
They don't want to hear me explain my RPG character.
It's true story.
All right.
So who's picking the next book?
I recently listened to a audio book novel.
It's from audio books called Cybrosis.
It is kind of cyberpunky.
Oh, really?
Did you like it?
Um, a decent seven and a half out of seven and a half eight out of ten.
Okay.
Uh, that might be interesting because I, I was at the other end of that scale with that one.
Oh, you've listened to it as well?
Yeah, yeah.
And it was, it was one of my least favorite audio books, but it's, I mean, that could make for an interesting conversation.
I vote yay.
All right.
Let me just a second to pull up the link.
I have it in my, uh,
actually, I'm not like I have added wikia page yet, which if you guys are interested, I still have that page on wikia up.
You just need accounts.
And then I think I can add you to the group to do it.
If not, that's fine too, but it was my idea was to dump all of the books I listened to and kind of a general.
I thought about them so that the next time one of you doesn't have a book to listen to, you can be like, hey, what does Lyle like there?
Hey, what does Bokey like that one and so on?
Yeah, I forgot to sign up for that.
Give me a minute.
I'll throw the URL for that into.
Thank you, Sa.
Okay, I got the link to it.
No, you do too.
That's the book club.
Cool.
Thank you.
I'll definitely sign up for that.
And we'll have to, you got it linked in the show notes.
I don't, I'll do that too.
All right, cool.
Anybody listening along at home wants to play?
We can, we'll have that linked in our show notes and you can participate that way as well if you don't want to come on air with us.
That one's the link to the book.
Okay, so Cybrosis by PC Herring.
They've got it under the genre of cyberpunk and science fiction.
It's scoring 97% on audio books ratings.
And the brief description here says for agent crisis, the mission should have been simple.
Get in, apprehend the target, get out.
But when the simple snatch and grab goes horribly awry, the world's first cyborg finds herself back into a corner.
At odds with her superiors, she becomes embroiled into conspiracies,
one intended to destroy her with a cybernetic virus that will neutralize the technology that keeps her alive,
the other intended to keep hidden the untold secrets of her origin.
With the walls closing in around her, crisis becomes a cyrus, no crisis, sorry, cyrus becomes a rogue agent with no one to trust and only one objective.
Unravel the shrouds of secrecy before time runs out.
So yeah, it's a bit of a bit of a mystery wrapped in in sci-fi.
I think maybe I don't understand what cyberpunk is.
Anybody want to give a shot and describe in what cyberpunk means?
I'm still trying to piece that together, but it usually involves either cyborgs, like this one,
or some kind of human-machine interface, whether it be cyborgs, or a virtual reality, or something along those lines.
Okay.
Cool, thanks for the suggestion, X1101.
Well, listen to enough audiobooks, which is entirely thanks to the audiobook club.
I kind of always try to have a couple decent ones in my back pocket to suggest if we didn't have one.
Cool, thanks.
Now as soon as you said that I thought of one that we may want to do, I've heard recommended a million times and haven't listened to yet, but maybe next month.
But yeah, I think that's all we got.
So thanks everyone who showed up, Taj, Pegwall, X1101, and semiotic robotic.
And thanks to everyone for listening.
That's all I got.
You guys have good anything?
Nope.
I'm good.
All right.
Then thanks everyone for listening.
And thanks everyone for showing up.
Have a good night.
Bye, folks.
Yeah, Pegwall for talking.
Whoa.
Wait, was that a cheap plug for your website?
Photos back at the loop.
Angle that don't even make sense.
Oh, that's enough.
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Man, I just really love using these things.
I keep spraying them while I'm bored.
