Much Ado Podcast

Here is an episode we recorded shortly after Joan Rivers died.  Sorry for the late release.  We pay tribute to her with a lengthy clip from the Carol Burnett show.  Lisa reviews the book 11-22-63 by Stephen King and Tom reviews “On the Edge of Survival” by Spike Walker.  Then we cover the series finale of True Blood in depth.  Warning: the True Blood portion contains spoilers so you may want to watch the episode first if you have not.

In this episode we talk about our favorite Robin Williams moments and include audio clips.  Lisa reviews the book “Unwind” by Neal Shusterman and Tom reviews the book “The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain” by Barbara Strauch.  We reveal our favorite TV themes and what we look for in a TV series.  We discuss three shows from the past summer season: The Last Ship, The Leftovers, and True Blood.  We preview the series finale of True Blood, which we will discuss in depth on our next episode.

This special episode features Jotz and the Co-Lab.  Lisa interviewed Josh (Jotz) on a recent trip to Colorado.  This episode includes that interview as well as music clips from recently mastered recordings that will be included in the band’s first CD release set for September 6.  The band will be playing a live release show in The Moon Room at Summit Music Hall in Denver, Colorado.  See their Facebook Page for more details.

With the World Cup now over we take a few minutes to reflect on the final match and the competitive showing of the US team.  We each discuss what we like in both fiction and non-fiction books.  Lisa reviews Top Secret 21 by Janet Evanovich and Tom reviews The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov.  We reveal more facts from our big book of Useless Information: famous books with large numbers of initial rejections.  We talk about On Writing by Stephen King in which he describes his craft within the context of an autobiography.  Finally we discuss recent episodes of currently running summer shows Under The Dome and True Blood.

In our sixth episode we provide an update on the World Cup with the USA making it through to the knockout round.  Lisa reviews “Finger Lickin’ 15” from the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and Tom reviews “The Particle at the End of the Universe”  by Cal-Tech theoretical physicist Sean Carroll.  We then discuss some of our favorite summer shows including Under the Dome, Teen Wolf, Dominion, Defiant, and Salem.  Finally we end with somewhat lengthy summary of the season premier of the final season of the HBO series True Blood.  As a bonus we include some famous big-screen blunders and non-American actors who have fooled us playing Americans with their excellent dialect skills.

In our fifth episode, we briefly discuss the USA’s first two games in the World Cup.  We talk about the books The Next 100 years by George Friedman and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling.  We revisit our discussion of returning Summer shows that have just started or are staring soon including True Blood, Under the Dome, Teen Wolf, Motive, Falling Skies, Defiance, and others.  We also touch on the new shows Dominion, The Night Shift, and The Leftovers.  We close out the show with an in-depth discussion of the season finale of Game of Thrones including scenes at the wall, north of the wall, at Meereen, near the Eyrie, at King’s Landing, and at the sea.

In our fourth episode we talk about some of our favorite electronic devices we use to read, listen to audiobooks, watch videos, and play games.  We discuss the book Skinwalker by Faith Hunter, the first book from the Jane Yellowrock series, and Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne.  We share some ideas for Father’s Day gifts, which is only two days away from when we released this episode.  Finally we review season 4 episode 9 of Game of Thrones and preview the final episode that airs Sunday night June 15.

In our third episode we pay tribute to Maya Angelou who passed away May 28, 2014.  We discuss the books Time for the Stars by Robert Heinlein and Unlucky 13 by James Patterson.  We talk about upcoming summer shows including True Blood, Longmire, and Under the Dome.  Finally we revisit Game of Thrones to discuss the episode that aired June 1, 2014.

In our second episode we discuss the stepping down of Fox Director of Programming, Kevin Reilly, due to the three year ratings drop of American Idol by 30 percent per year.  We reveal a behind-the-scenes point of view based on one of our children auditioning.  We talk about the Worst Ideas Ever, a book by Daniel B. Kline and Jason Tomaszewski.  We talk about the Longmire series, the A&E series based on the books by Craig Johnson with special emphasis on the newest book in the series, Any Other Name.  Finally, we round out the discussion with the Game of Thrones: both the books by George R. R. Martin and the HBO series in its fourth season.  Warning: if you are not caught up on season 4 there are some spoilers.

In our first ever episode we discuss audiobooks: The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, The Undead Pool from the Hollows Series by Kim Harrison, and the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer.  We also discuss George R. R. Martin’s procrastination, the Monte Hall Problem, a very non-intuitive probability problem, and how we met.