Reading Roulette: Choose Your Own Adventure Podcast

Ep 15: The Third Planet from Altair; Choose Your Own Adventure #7 (pt. 3 of 3)

Chronostan – the Russian roulette of baffling time travel (3:12); Pickens at the end of the universe (6:30); Earth Wind & Fire vs. Paper Rock Scissors vs. Water Cave Alien (9:48); Alien vs. Predator?!? no Alien vs. Coworker!!! (11:35); conceptual empty house Epcot, an Aztec SUBURB (17:10); SOMEHOW I WILL NEVER FEEL LONELY AGAIN-- Pickens (22:12); Lost in Space breakbeat (25:00); the fine line between great and stupid, never break your own ribs, disappear into the Amber Gloom (27:53); Caprion, the origin of the primordial fireball (32:00); Save future President Truman, or take Boo Radley to mint julep court (36:47); WE CAN THEN BE TOTALLY AND FINALLY BE ALONE!!! Pickens’ fear transformed into ecstasy (40:28); space mutiny. the Universe shoots you back, in self-defense, it’s the meaning of life– KILL IT! Is a bullet faster than the meaning of life? (50:00)

Ep 14: The Third Planet From Altair; Choose Your Own Adventure #7 (pt. 2 of 3)

(2:05) "I'm gonna sit and wait this one out" as a literary device; (4:00) Vivaldi guilty of child neglect; (8:39) the incredible loneliness of outer space, lose the will to live; (13:52) you're 600 million years in the future, so who's gonna make the coffee?; (15:11) a car with a movie about a car, the 4th wall becomes a ball of light I LOVED HOW BRIGHT THAT MOVIE WAS!!!; (18:02) cave; (20:28) Bluenose the Underwater Robot, lazer boomerang + lazer nunchucks = story; (28:47) epaulettes: Lief Garret meets Lil B, Gary Glitter meets the Avalanches; (32:22) The Death of Pickens like the death of Socrates

Ep 13: The Third Planet From Altair; Choose Your Own Adventure #7 (pt. 1 of 3)

Space clergy (0:25); SETI, time-contraction-technology, Doctor Pachelbel (5:24); Pickens in Two Gentlemen of Verona, mugshot Nick Nolte (7:58); three lame things that aren't even cool to begin with, anti-matter storm & Cat Stevens (12:00); witness the creation of the universe, Zeus in Friday the 13th (21:30); where the herring would be is an empty plate, a madcap evildead mutiny: ALIEN MINDFORCE, set lazers to stun (25:44); Enter Pickens: stage awesome, The Old Man and the Dome He Tried To Kill (32:27); Do You Overthrow Chuck Yeager? Yes. Goethe suicide (39:11); backwards to the future, Romeo & Juliet shrug it off, GTFO (42:09)

Ep 12: Your Code Name is Jonah; Choose Your Own Adventure #6 (pt. 3 of 3)

Sunken Volcano at Deception Island: Whales, KGB, Possible Nukes, Ferraris (0:56); The Case of the Missing Envelope Nevermind Found It! (4:10); Agent Double-Eye bitcoin mining in a brownstone (7:50); More Than a Soviet Mancave Feeling (11:13); CCCP Paperweight, Your Code Name is Clueless Moron Stupidface VonDumbhead (16:51); Free-Willy-FREAKOUT!!!! Ivan Drago Punches a Carebear (19:31); Obama Steals Your Whale-Gold Patriot Theater: BREAK YOUR OWN RIBS (25:00); Goddamn you Pumpkinhead! Attack of the Killer Australian Firebirds (34:00); Breaststroke Chariots of Inspirational Whale Fire (38:42); Epilogue (47:00)

Ep 11: Your Code Name is Jonah; Choose Your Own Adventure #6 (pt. 2 of 3)

More Than a (Whale) Feeling (0:01); schooner captains and MIT scientists: like clowns and mimes (2:00); Dream Your Own Syd Barrett Bootleg (4:55); whale bachelor pad, the submarine Marlboro Man, Attack of the Kamikaze Nuclear Whales (6:30); neutered spy world, soup, Jack Benzo in the hospital (11:44); Bill's Insufferable Biblical Anecdote Theater, feel free to skip this part (15:00); More Than a (Whale) Feeling reprise (19:10); Brad Johnson: Bill's Slightly More-Sufferable Regional Salesman Theater (22:00); Relevant Pop-Culture Reference Theater: Roger Ebert & The Hamburglar (29:00); the spy who sold the world, went back to school to become a marine biologist, all to gaslight an 80 year old woman and drive her Mercedes (33:27); Relevant Pop-Culture Reference Theater: Literal Hall & Oates Theater (37:48)

Ep 10: Your Code Name is Jonah; Choose Your Own Adventure #6 (pt. 1 of 3)

Bruce Springsteen and old-ass computers (2:46); Whale songs briefing (6:30); a total lack of charisma (8:08); World Hopscotch Championship rant (10:06); Cape Cod villa Ferrari yacht, a crazy Italian femme fatale (20:00); Bill's incredible Italian/Dracula accent (24:43); an eclogue and Our Town interlude (29:12); an Acme Insta-flood Lamp, borscht in a blue Mercedes and a maroon Buick, and riding out the Layla piano outro (33:38); Planes Trains and Automobile, kill the whales SAT class to fill up the family Datsun (37:00)

Ep 9: The Mystery of Chimney Rock; Choose Your Own Adventure #5 (pt. 2 of 2)

(1:35) Christmas abortion & blowing up the Moon; (7:26) Jervis the caretaker easily 400 lbs; (9:30) copkiller summer vacation; (14:30) drummer boy in the civil war, defenestration; (22:30) community college retraining for groundskeepers, cat-ownership as a legal argument; (28:08) sweet Jesus, we’re making mummies, wine cellar for witch widowers; (33:37) a book within a book, husband taxidermy; (36:12) hipster duel: Gerard de Nerval and pet lobster v. Bulwer Lytton and ingenue harpist; (42:08) Chimney Rock as a subgenre of rock music, and how cool that might sound

Ep 8: The Mystery of Chimney Rock; Choose Your Own Adventure #5 (pt. 1 of 2)

(1:43) Dark Side of the Moon bookcase vs. skateboard champions Richard Marx & Babyface; (3:22) cousin dares, the ambivalence of young adulthood, a little Epcot; (8:10) a movie that is about The Shining that is not The Shining but another movie, its own movie, which, to be clear, is not The Shining but is simply about it, it being The Shining, and Bill's dumb attempt to map out this house; (10:30) alternative (grunge?) decorating ideas for Halloween; (14:20) Breaking and Entering without Burglary-- a guide for young adults; (20:00) workplace haunting incidence statistics for butlers, piano tuner on a submarine; (27:04) haunted mansion society of lonely groundskeepers; (33:47) psychological trust issues easily solved by the armchair psychology of a remorseless child-murderer; (40:00) becoming a mouse and eating cheese and crackers as a metaphor for… you know, one of the definitive monstrosities of modern times; (42:40) 100 ft Cat, a good name for your new feminist tweepunk post-hardcore band

Ep 7: Space and Beyond; Choose Your Own Adventure #4 (pt. 2 of 2)

(1:30) a literal black hole, 1000 light years, a prism, a narrative black hole; (7:30) past lives and past misogyny, a book within a book that is not a book; (11:20) 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person, singular and plural, all in one sentence, the Hercules of boredom; (16:08) protracted negotiations with The Blob, pro-choice pro-life pro-blob; (22:25) Han Solo Reverse Cowgirl; (30:48) YOU WANT NO PART OF THIS FREAKSHOW!, Science Fiction and the last vestiges of personal freedom, a tome of insanity; (30:20) a Space Circus sounds crazy, a Roman census on a lazer highway; (37:08) like a drunk throwing a dart, if the mountain won't come to Montgomery; (38:36) Violent Deaths!; (41:38) you're a velociraptor hurtling back in time-- YOU CAN'T STAND IT!!!! (43:00) The worst book I have ever read in my life. Stockholm syndrome. Dadlighting. Uniquely Horrible. A freakout and a lie to cover up the freakout.

Ep 6: Space and Beyond; Choose Your Own Adventure #4 (pt. 1 of 2)

The Unburdening, R.A. Montgomery induced pain, outsider art, a-artistic S&M zoning in non-aesthetics (3:00); Macguffins, McMuffins, and Montguffins, the planet Zermacroyd, and beautiful space love (8:12); good guy Merma, exeunt pursued by a bear (13:39); Space Academy, parallel lines crossing, time travel roller-coaster (20:00); Mars, a new way of sharing, angora sweaters, autism (24:10); space-genocide, plague, vague space-delegates, space cops (33:23); “Out of the radar oven and into the lazer beam” an actual sentence from this awful book (38:41)