Episode 37 – Ben gets Coronavirus

Show Notes:  America goes crazy, Ben gets Coronavirus, Josh gives up free-to-play mobile gaming, and they both trash on Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline while enjoying it in spite of themselves.  Intro (0:00-3:05)  Bad at English (3:05-4:12)  Trot on as normal i.e. pretend everything’s ok  January 6, 2021 (4:12-23:11)  An hour-by-hour timeline of what …

Episode 36 – Christmas Magic

Show Notes  Ben and Josh figure out White Christmas was a Holiday Inn remake, deal with some first world Christmas problems, and rate the magic systems of some classic Christmas movies.   Intro (0:00-6:57)  Fred Astaire says it with firecrackers!  Christmas Problems (6:57-22:01)  How to surprise someone you share an Amazon account with  Mark Rober’s Glitter …

Episode 35 – Shopping Cart Theory

Show Notes  Ben and Josh talk about why you shouldn’t second-guess your mulligans, some lesser-known COVID shortages, and what returning your shopping cart to the corral says about you.  Intro (0:00-22:36)  Air Force suspends ‘waist measurement’ portion of fitness test  The chapter on blind orchestra auditions is actually in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink  Christmas Movies and …

Episode 34 – Living the Minion Life

Show Notes  The hosts of the Bad at Magic podcast unanimously endorse Disney Pixar’s ‘The Incredibles’ and yet shamelessly question the existence and purpose of minions in film.  Intro (0:00-19:02)  Watch Disc Golf on YouTube!  The Incredibles is Incredible (19:02-1:04:37)  Mise-en-scène  Why The Incredibles is the BEST Superhero Movie of All Time  Where is my …

Episode 33 – Trolley Problems

Show Notes  Ben and Josh discuss dead presidents, polluting the atmosphere to save the world, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and more iterations of the trolley problem than you can shake a gauntlet at. It’s like chalk and cheese!  Intro (0:00-14:53)  Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. President  How to transfer your music from Google Play …

Episode 32 – Superfreakonomics and The Long Tail

Show Notes  Ben watches weird sports, Josh makes the wrong cookies, video games aren’t as hard as they used to be back when we walked to school barefoot in the snow. Plus: child car seats are as worthless as an ashtray on a motorbike, but never shake a baby (Superfreakonomics book review).  Intro (0:00-7:18)  Pac …

Episode 31 – Bad at World of Warcraft

Show Notes  Josh waves the wand of dismissal, Ben fails to teach his teenager not to text and drive, Ben gets shot, Josh spoils The Empire Strikes Back, and Josh plays World of Warcraft, but not as much as he used to…  Bad at Numbers (0:00-1:09)  Bad at Parenting (1:09-30:46)  Ben vs. Bureaucracy (30:46-1:06:04)  Desert …

Episode 30 – Bad at Governance

Show Notes  Ben struggles with his 17-year-old daughter, Josh is jealous of his family’s World of Warcraft mounts, and each reveal which fictional government they’d most like to live under (hint: it’s not Star Wars).  Intro (0:00-10:38)  The 30th of February?  The Dunning-Kruger Effect  Bad at English (10:38-12:15)  Fair/Good Shout  Bad at Gaming (12:15-23:11)  Leeeeeroy …

Episode 28 – The Darkest Timeline

Show Notes  Josh and Ben try to figure out the Dad equivalent of “Mom Voice”, wonder what they did before Wikipedia and YouTube, and explore how things might have been different if just one thing had gone differently in the past.  Bad at Parenting (0:00-26:28)  Josh’s reaction to “Mom Voice”  Top 10 craziest concept cars …