Podcasts about mike who

Today's podcast begins with Mike Slater playing some audio of President Joe Biden's recent media appearance with Howard Stern. Mike (Who is employed by the same company that puts Howard on-air!) critiques the interviews in a hard-hitting segment that you won't want to miss!Following that, Arizona State Rep. Travis Grantham (District 12) calls into the show to speak to Mike about his crucial swing state's legal fight against abortion and why every American should care about it as it could be tied to the 2024 Presidential election!

Andrew Kliman and Brendan Cooney discuss this famous principle of distribution, in the context of Marx's work and as discussed in a recent Ph.D. dissertation by Edoardo Bellando, ”From Each According to His Ability, to Each According to His Needs”: What Could it Possibly Mean, and What Lies Behind this Marxian Principle? After briefly reviewing the origins of the principle and pre-Marx advocacy of it, Andrew and Brendan talk about what the principle means and doesn't mean as well as the part it plays within Marx's overall argument in the Critique of the Gotha Program. Plus current-events segment: Mike Who? Anne Jaclard, organizational secretary of Marxist-Humanist Initiative, joins Andrew to discuss the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, a Christian nationalist who played a key role in the Trumpite conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

Chief of the undercover cross over jam, the humble downtempo don and Rhapsodise head honcho @daniel_pisano adds his own slice of paradise to the series, with a dance focussed blend of beachside 90s breezers dusted off and smuggled from their mysterious cyber caves. Cruise control >> on! Q. Hey Daniel, what inspiration did you draw upon when putting this mix together? Is there a sound, feeling, or time/place in dance music history that connects all the different elements in one way or another? A. The mix is inspired by my love of 90s dance music. As with most of my mixes, the records used are exclusively from this era, or at least draw inspirations from it. The sounds I like from this era tend to have a similar feel to them - breakbeaty, progressive and always with a touch of balearic energy. I haven't recorded a dance-floor mix for a couple of years so it was fun putting this together with some of my favourite records and CDs I've collected since then. Q. Are there any records in the mix that are especially close to your heart, or new or old favourites that you've been keeping up your sleeve for the right moment? A. The first track I used in the mix is from a remix CD by Australian electronic music project ‘Kiva'. I went blind on their self-titled album last year and soon realised how good all of their other CDs were. I think I had naturally been drawn to look for music from the UK, Europe and the US and around this time I started researching a lot more into local artists. My appreciation for home grown electronic music definitely started to shift, which you could see in mixes and uploads to my YT channel. Q. We're big fans of your Rhapsodise YT channel over here, with some extraordinary finds being uploaded frequently over there by your good self! Tell us a bit more about that project and how you go about curating it, and what characteristics might you be looking for when deciding what tunes to share? A. Thanks so much for the kind words :) The project was inspired by the other channels in the community that upload amazing finds. Internationally I was always blown away by No Frills, Customs, oddSample, Modern Art and local friends such as Mike Who, Daniel Lupica and Mirren. In terms of curation, I really just upload things that I enjoy that haven't yet hit YouTube. Most of these uploads form part of mixes that I put together so the uploads I find are generally similar in style to the mix I'm preparing at the time. I've recently moved to London, so hopefully there's some new uploads in the coming months!

Mike and Alex discuss the following topics: - Media Day aka Content Day reaction - Are the Knicks late 90's uniforms coming back?!?! - Ben Simmons keeps it cool at his press conference - Nets and Knicks are middle of the pack, what's next? - Evan Fournier will ride the bench again and wants out - Mikal Bridges' friendship with the 'Nova Knicks' is awkward for Mike - Who would you rather spend a day with? James Harden or Ben Simmons? - Immanuel Quickley extension talk, do the Knicks and IQ come to a deal before the deadline? Follow us on Twitter/X: Bad Weather Fans - @BadWeatherFans Mike - @MikeDeliversPod Alex - @KnicksCentral

Booyakasha! Handing the keys to the '94 Ford Capri over to one of the most dedicated 12" sleuths on the the internet right now! Mirren is perhaps best known for resurrecting a trove of tantalising 90s/00s cross over jams through his own youtube channel, and for wowing local listening bar enthusiasts lucky enough to catch him in full flight. Sit back, relax and enjoy the smoothness personified. Safe to say he's left no stone or obscure white label unturned for this one! @mirrens Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcdX0mF2T8lgQHiWivSH-Q Q. I get the sense you are a guy who finds real enjoyment in digging deep for long neglected jams and resurrecting them for fresh ears, with frequent uploads to your YouTube channel regularly blowing minds on the internet (speaking from personal experience here!). While there's a wide range of styles uploaded to the channel, has there been a general theme developing or certain characteristics that you look for when deciding what to share? A. Glad you've dug the channel! I mean I've been massively influenced by others (e.g. Archive Digital, Modern Art, Mike Who) who were casually dropping heat across their channel/mixes years ago that I never would have come across otherwise. So trying to find and share songs in a similar way has always been the motivation. But you're at the mercy of what you stumble across, which is why I'm not uploading exclusively mid tempo hip house bangers like I really want haha. I think the variety keeps things interesting though, or at least is hopefully providing a broader appreciation for what's out there - especially for us Aussie folk. Q. What inspiration did you draw upon when putting the mix together? Is there a sound, feeling or time period in dance music history that connects all the different elements in one way or another? A. Truthfully this mix is a collection of fun music I've found first-and-foremost, so it might say more about my searching patterns than it being an intentional narrative.. catchy 90/00s hip hop cut-throughs seem to be in no short supply! I think the wealth of music available in the genre does say something about how versatile (and enjoyable) it is and how it can be used as a vehicle for different cultures, ideas or influences. So maybe the mix is me highlighting this :`) Q. Are there any records in the mix that are particularly close to your heart, or old favourites that you've been keeping up your sleeve for the right moment? If so, what's the story behind those and how might you have stumbled across them? A chunk of the mix is from lucky discogs pickups or random spotify dives so they're not the most romantic stories, but finding a song in that deep internet corner definitely adds a fondness. There's also a few dope tunes from some great channels/crews scattered throughout. But 'Njen Grad' and 'Wuck U Right' feel particularly sentimental due to how many hours I've clocked listening, so I'm excited to share them!

The Parisian DJ dons @lorem-ipsum-yo grace the cast with their undeniably fresh styles, blending up nearly 4 hours of insane jams dabbling in private soul, r'n'b, gangsta hip hop, cloudrap, ghetto house and jungle from cassettes, CDs & vinyl digs meticulously unearthed from the deepest corners of the web! Some words on the mix + Lorem Ipsum happenings with co-founder Pierre: Q. Thanks for contributing with such a killer mix! I know you collect a lot of private issue cassettes, CDs and hard to find vinyl. What kinds of special treats might we be in for over the four hour journey here? "You can expect some homemade soul rnb, gangsta hiphop, cloudrap, ghetto house, rave, jungle and other kinds of stuff I collected during the past year." Q. What kind of inspiration did you draw upon when putting the mix together? Is there a particular sound, period in time or general feeling that connects all the different elements in one way or another? "I tried to do something different from what we are used to listening to in mixes and trying to put my favourite music of the moment together, it's why the mix is a bit long! I like to put all the new music I've collected since the last mix into a new one. It's like a big playlist for myself that I can listen to on my phone without having to change music each time." Q. It seems as though you have been heavily involved in building a great little community of deep digging music lovers in Paris over the past few years. Who are some of the other like minded DJs or crews that inspire you at the moment, and what are some of your favourite spots to dig, play records and hang out around the city? "I admit that I don't really listen to new releases and new mixes but I'm always curious about those of Mike Who and Bill Spencer. I dig almost exclusively on the internet, shame on me, but there are so many good leads on youtube and discogs. I don't have a specific spot in Paris but each year during summer we organize a festival called “Divagations” with the Maybe Tonight guys in the middle of France near a lake. This is an amazing spot for playing music and hang out!"

Patrick reports that in the first 30 days since Roe was overturned, 61% of abortion clinics, in red states, have closed. Patrick also talks about the importance of making prayer a daily part of your life and shares a personal story of repentance and punishment. Patrick is back! Lily – Thank you for recommending The Walton's Belinda – Staying active and making prayer and important part of my life Patrick responds to an email - My husband was previously married, as a Lutheran. I always thought that it wasn't sacramental, but because we listened to Relevant Radio, he has gone through the annulment process and we are having our marriage blessed. Thank you, Patrick Madrid! Dana - Patrick is inconsistent: Transgender is against science and bible is truth. The bible is not scientific either. Patrick shares the story of when, as a young child he flushed his dad's pipe and blamed his sister. It's a wonderful story that reflects God's forgiveness when we repent our sins. Mike - Who would you recommend for a comprehensive tour of the Holy Land? In First 30 Days After Roe Overturned, 61% Of Abortion Clinics Closed in Red States Mexico City Residents Want Americans to Leave Ron - Why do people object to the Latin mass? It's my favorite.

There can be only one, but Highlander's had a surprising number of media adaptations and spin-offs over the years. We take a look at all of them and even get some behind-the-scenes gossip about the infamous comic book tie-in: Highlander 3030. ----more---- Episode Transcript   Episode 05 [00:00:00] Mike: It's fine. It's fine. I'm not bitter. Mike: Welcome to Tencent Takes, the podcast where we make comics trivia rain like dollar bills on Magic Mike night. My name is Mike Thompson and I am joined by my cohost, the mistress of mayhem herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Muahahaha! It is I hello, Mike. Mike: Hello. If you're new to the podcast, we like to look at comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to check out their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they've been woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we are traveling through time and talking about the 35 year legacy of one of the strongest cult franchises around, Highlander. But [00:01:00] before we do that, Jessika, what is one cool thing that you've watched or read lately? Jessika: My brother has some copies of classic Peanuts Comics, and it's so much fun. It's good, wholesome, fun. And Snoopy- related media always makes me nostalgic. And Mike you've mentioned before that we're in California in the San Francisco Bay area, but fun fact, I live right near Santa Rosa, which is the home of the Peanuts creator Charles Schultz when he was alive. So there's a museum there and an ice skating rink. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Which is super awesome And Snoopy on ice was huge when I was a kid. And that is definitely the place I also learned to ice skate. By the way, they throw a mean birthday party, just saying, not right this second. Not this second. [00:02:00] We should do it is what I'm saying. Mike: We should do it for ourselves. Jessika: No, that's what I'm saying. Oh, I don't have children. Mike: But we do. Jessika: Yes, they can come with us, like they're invited. Mike: I mean, are they? Jessika: Look at you hesitating. Mike: We took the kids to the Peanuts museum right before the lockdowns happened. that really Jessika: That's really lovely that's nice got to do that. Mike: There’s a lot of cool stuff to do. It's really interactive. It's also just a really fascinating experience because there's so much about the Peanuts during their, what 50 year run give or take. It may not have been that long. It may have been 30 or 40, but it was a long time, and I really dug it, like there was a lot of cool stuff, so yeah . And also the cool thing about Santa Rosa is they've also got all those Snoopy statues all over town too. Jessika: They do. Yeah. All the [00:03:00] Peanuts characters actually. Cause they, the Charlie Browns and the Lucy's now and the Woodstocks. Yeah they're all over the place. But that used to be something fun we could do as a scavenger hunt, and actually that's something you guys could still do even with the lockdown. Cause most of them are outside is just find that list of where all the Snoopy's or whatever character is and go find them all. Cause we did that at one point, like as an adult, obviously. Well, what about you, Mike? Mike: The complete opposite of something wholesome. Jessika: Perfect. Mike: We didn't actually have the kids for a few days. They were with their dad and we couldn't find anything new to watch. So, we wound up bingeing the entire series of Harley Quinn on HBO Max. Jessika: Oh, you’re ahead of me then. Damn you. Mike: This is my third time going through the series. We've just gotten to the point where we turned it on when we want to watch something that's kind of soothing in a way, even though it is not a soothing TV show. But I still am [00:04:00] having these full on belly laughs where I'm breathless at the end and it's just, it's so smart and funny and absolutely filthy with the violence. And then there are these moments of sweetness or genuine reflection, and it's just so damn refreshing. I was never much of a Harley fan, but this show and then the Birds of Prey movie really made me fall in love with that character. Also side note, Michael Ironside who played General Katana and Highlander II. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: He shows up in Harley Quinn doing the voice of Darkseid, which is a character he's been voicing since the nineties when he first started doing it for the Superman animated series. Jessika: Oh, damn. Mike: So, just a little bit of symmetry there. Mike: All right. So before we begin, I have to say that this episode wound up being a rabbit hole full of other rabbit holes that I kept going down. So, I want to give a little credit where it's due for a ton of my research. I really wound up leaning on two books: John Mosby's Fearful Symmetry [00:05:00]; and A Kind of Magic: The Making of Highlander by Jonathan Melville. Likewise, there's a YouTube series called Highlander heart hosted by Grant Kempster and Joe Dilworthand, and an associated Facebook community with the same name that were just invaluable for my crash course. And finally, I want to give special, thanks to Clinton Rawls, who runs Comics Royale, and Matt Kelly for taking the time to chat with me because they didn't have to, and they provided me with some really useful information for this episode. Jessika: Yeah, I'm super excited about what lies in store. What's really funny is I've actually, I feel like a kid before it test. Mike: Right? Jessika: like I'm a little nervous because I've been cramming so hard for this Mike: We both have. Jessika: No, you, especially you, especially like you should be much more nervous than me, Mike. No, I’m just kidding, please don't take that on. Oh, but yeah, no I'm super excited and really ready to talk about all of this stuff and learn more because I've just been consuming the media and the [00:06:00] comic books. But, you’re going to give me some back knowledge that's gonna blow my brain and I'm excited. Mike: Oh, well, I'll try to live up to that high expectation. Let's assume that you didn't know what the topic of this episode was. And if someone asked you what cult property from the 1980s. Spawned five movies, two TV series, a Saturday morning cartoon, an anime film, several video games, multiple tabletop games, audio plays, roughly a dozen novels, and four okay, technically six different comic books. What would your first answer be? Jessika: Oh, goodness. What's funny is probably not Highlander. I'd probably I would say like Batman, honestly, Mike: Yeah I would've gone with something along the lines of G.I. Joe. Jessika: Oh, yeah. Mike: Or some weird Saturday morning cartoon, something like that. I never would have guessed Highlander. I never would have assumed that. but it's just, it's really surprising to see how [00:07:00] much has been generated out of this initial movie. Were you fan of the movies or the show before we started bingeing everything for this episode? Jessika: So I was actually a fan of the show via my dad who had it on hadn't watched the films before, because I was born in 1986 fun fact. Mike: Right. Jessika: I was born when this thing was sent into the world. We both were at the same time, apparently. I didn't have that exact experience of growing up watching it, but he definitely had the TV show on in the nineties Mike: Okay. Jessika: So that was what I was familiar with and I loved it and I would run around chopping things; I'd be at work, I was actually like when I got older I'd be like, there can only be one, and I’d like have to like swipe at someone. Mike: It’s such an iconic line. Jessika: iIt is! it transcends. Absolutely. Mike: Yeah. I was pretty young when the movie came out and the show was how I became aware of it. And then when the show was airing, I was in high school. And then I became [00:08:00] aware that there was a movie that had inspired it. And so I was able to rent that when I was old enough to be trusted, to go rent movies on my own by my parents. Back when we couldn’t stream everything. Jessika: Oh my gosh. Mike: And there were rewind fees, Jessika: Oh, my gosh. Be kind rewind. Mike: Speaking of things from the eighties: it’s funny we'll talk about it later on, but the show really brought in, I think a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't have been fans. Before we start talking about the comic books, I really want to take a few minutes to talk about all the media and content that spun out of Highlander because it's a lot. And it was honestly in a couple of cases, really surprising. I didn't know about half of this stuff before I began researching for the episode, and then. Like I said, it was just constant rabbit holes that kept on leading me down more and more research paths. And it was really fun. But I want to talk about all this now. Jessika: Perfect. This is exactly what we're here for, and I think that people want to hear it too. [00:09:00] Mike: I hope so. Okay. So why don't you summarize Highlander? If you had to give an elevator pitch, Jessika: The film follows the past and present of Connor MacLeod, an immortal who is just one of many vying to be the sole victor in an age old battle, where in the end, there can only be one. Like very simply a lot more to it, but like how much of an elevator pitch. Mike: I think that's pretty simple. It's about an immortal who basically keeps on fighting his way through history and there's these really wonderful catch phrases that get us hooked. The movies got actually a really interesting origin story of its own. It was written by this guy named Gregory Widen when he was in his early twenties. That was when he wrote the initial screenplay. But he had already had a really interesting life up until then. He was one of the youngest paramedics in Laguna Beach at that point in [00:10:00] time. And then he went on to become a firefighter while he was still a teenager. By 1981, he'd also worked as a DJ and a broadcast engineer. And then he signed up for a screenwriting course at UCLA and he wrote this feature length script called Shadow Clan. And it would go through a number of changes before it became Highlander. But the core theme of an immortal warrior named Connor MacLeod wandering across the centuries is there. He wound up getting introduced to producers Bill Panzer, and Peter Davis who decided to option the film. And then they hired the screenwriters, Larry Ferguson and Peter Bellwood to rework the script into what we eventually had wind up in theaters. And once the movie was green-lit, they brought in Russell Mulcahey to direct it. And I vaguely knew that Mulcahey had been doing music videos before this, for the most part, he had one other cult movie ahead of time. It was a horror movie, I think, called Razorback. But I didn't realize which music videos he'd been making until I started doing all [00:11:00] this research. So I'm going to give you a small sampling and you're going to tell me if you've heard of these. Jessika: Okay. Sure sure sure. Mike: Okay. The Vapors “Turning Japanese”. Jessika: Uh, yeah. Mike: Yeah, okay. The Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Jessika: Wow. Yes. Mike: Duran Duran Duran’s “Rio”. Jessika: Wow. Mike: And Elton John's “I'm Still Standing”. Jessika: Yeahwow. That's actually a variety of characters. Mike: Right? But also those all really iconic music videos. Like not only songs, but music, videos cause those were all in the very early days. And the dude's entire portfolio is just iconic. If you think about the music videos that really defined the genre Jessika: Yeah, sometimes you just got it, I guess. Huh? Mike: He has a lot of those music video elements. A lot of times in the movie, it feels like a music video, like when Brenda's being chased down the hall by the Kurgan and it's got all that dramatic lighting, or that opening shot where they're in the [00:12:00] wrestling match and you see the camera flying through everything. Jessika: Yes! Mike: That was wild. That was really unusual to see camera work like that back then. The movie was distributed by 20th century Fox. And I think at this point, We'd be more surprised of 20th century Fox did a good job of marketing weird and cool, because they really botched it. They wound up forcing cuts to the movie that created really weird plot holes because they didn't feel that audiences needed it or what would understand it, and they wanted to make it simpler, but it really made things more confusing. European audiences on the other hand, really embraced the film because they got a much better version. So case in point, I'm going to show you the two main posters for it. This is the American poster for the movie. Jessika: Mmhmm. Oh, wow, he’s scary. Wow wow wow, okay. Before I even say any of the words, what you first see is Connor [00:13:00] MacLeod, but it's this awful grainy picture of him. He looks like there's something wrong with his face, which he shouldn't necessarily. And he looks like he's about to murder someone. He's like glaring off into the distance. And at the top it says, Oh, it's in black and white, by the way. at the top it says, He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536, he will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York city in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal Highlander! Credits at the bottom, rated R, absolutely rated R. Mike: Also, I feel like featuring original songs by Queen does not get the billing that it should. Jessika: I agree. I jammed my way through that film and this just the whole series, [00:14:00] actually the whole franchise I jammed my way through. Mike: Yeah. And if you listen to the kind of Magic album that is basically the unofficial soundtrack to the movie, and it's so good I don't know how they got those perpetual rights to Princes of the Universe, did. Every time I hear that song, I get a little thrill up my spine. All right. So here's the poster though for the European release. Jessika: All right. So, Ooh, this is totally different. This is Whoa. This is way more exciting. Okay. First of all, it's full Color, my friends, right in the middle in red it says Highlander right under it “There can only be one” in yellow. Oh it's amazing. There's a little sticker at the bottom that says featuring original songs by queen. Look it, trying to sell it, I love it. And then there's Connor MacLeod in the center of the screen [00:15:00] dramatically head back eyes closed screaming his sword thrusts forward and behind him is the Kurgan, oh my gosh so good. It's so - Oh, and a backdrop of New York city. All in lights. It's beautiful. Mike: Yeah. It’s one of those things where basically, that documentary that we watched seduced by Argentina, they talk about that where they're just like 20th century Fox fucked us. Jessika: And I didn't realize how much until, because I did watch that as well. And I'm like how bad could it be? But I that's pretty bad. It's a pretty big difference. It's like watching, that'd be like going, expecting to see like psycho or something. Mike: Honestly, I keep on thinking of Firefly and Fox and how they just totally botched the marketing for that show and then the release, and issues with Joss Wheden aside. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It’s one of those [00:16:00] things where again, it's a really beloved cult property with a really devoted fan base, even, 5 years after it was released, shit, almost 20. Jessika: And I do love Firefly, again, Whedon aside. Mike: I do too. Jessika: And it makes me a little sad think about it because it had so much potential. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Oh, it's so rough. It's rough to see. Mike: Yeah. What were your overall thoughts on the movie now that you've seen it because you hadn't seen it before this, correct? Jessika: No. I had only seen the TV show and probably rightfully so, because that was much less violent. I mean, much less graphically violent. They were still beheading motherfucker every episode, but, versus the film, which is like blood and like half a head and wow, there, it goes the head. But I actually really liked the movie. It was adventurous, it was thrilling and told a fairly cohesive and interesting storyline which unfortunately had an ending. But it still took us on an emotional journey. [00:17:00] Mike: Yeah, and I feel the same way. Jessika:: And how all the camp that I love from the 1980s and the special effects are just chefs, kiss love it. Mike: There is something so wonderful about the special effects from the 1980s, because they're so earnest all the time. And at the same time they look so cheesy by comparison now. Jessika: But you can tell they were trying so hard. It's almost like a little kid who's just learning to finger paint and they walk up and they're like, I did this thing. It's so good. You're like, it is really good. It's really good for where you're at. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Highlander is very much a quintessential eighties film to me, and there's both that nostalgia factor, but also it's a pretty tight little film. It doesn't really try to do anything too grandiose or too world-building because I don't think they expected to really make the sequels that they wound up doing. Which speaking of which we should discuss the sequels. [00:18:00] Mike: Like, I feel like you can’t discussion without talking about the sequels. And honestly the first time I ever heard of Highlander as a brand really was when I was visiting family in Texas And we were watching a Siskel & Ebert episode where they were thrashing Highlander II. Jessika: Dude, Siskel and Ebert I'm sure hated this. This does not surprise me in the least. Mike: I don't remember much about it, I just remember being like, oh Sean Connery's in a movie, well that's cool. Because my parents had raised me on all of the Sean Connery James Bond movies. Jessika: Yeah casting, come on. Why? Why? They had a French dude playing a Scottish guy and a Scottish guy playing a Spanish Egyptian guy. It's. Mike: I believe label was a Hispaniola Egyptian. They kinda darkened up Sean Connery a little bit too. I'm not sure. Jessika: It felt that way. I was just hoping he had just been under the tanning beds, but no, I think you're right. [00:19:00] Mike: Highlander II was definitely the most infamous of the sequels. And I mean a huge part of that is because it had such a batshit production and there’d been so many different versions of it. It was so bad that Russell Mulcahey reportedly walked out of the film premiere after only 15 minutes. There's this great documentary that you and I both watched on YouTube, it's split up into a bunch parts, but it was a documentary they made for the special edition of Highlander II. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It was the third release of the movie that they put out because the first one was basically the bonding company for the films. Investors took over the production and assembly of the movie due to the fact that Argentina, where they were filming. And they had gone to Argentina because a, it was gorgeous, but B because it was supposedly going to be a third of the cost Jessika: Yeah. Mike: To make a movie there than it would elsewhere. Argentina’s economy collapsed and went through hyperinflation. And as a result, everything just went haywire. But they went back years later and they not only recut the [00:20:00] movie, but they refilled or added in certain scenes I think four or five years later. And then on top of that, they did the special edition a few years after that, where they redid the special effects. And I don't know it's kind of funny because it's not a bad movie now. It's not terrible. I feel it's an enjoyable film in its own way. But it's also funny where you watch that documentary and they're talking about the stuff that they're so proud of. Russell Mulcahey was talking about how proud he was of that love scene. I'm using this in quotes, love scene between Virginia Madsen and and Christopher Lambert where they just decided to do it up against the wall of an alley? Jessika: That’s always an interesting choice to me. Like you really cannot wait. Mike: Yeah. And then he was like, I thought that was a really hot scene. And I got to sit there and I'm like, I don't, I can't view this through the lens of, a 20 something guy in the 1990s. I don't know what my interpretation of it would have been then, [00:21:00] but watching it now watching it for the first time when I was in my twenties and the, in the early aughts, I just was like, this is weird and sorta dumb. And also they don't really have a lot of chemistry, but okay. Jessika: Yeah, it just kind of happens. They're just like, Oh, here you are. Mike: Yeah Right I don't know. At the same time it was cool to see they did all those really practical, special effects where they actually had them whipping around on the wires on like the weird flying skateboards and stuff. I thought that was cool. Jessika: I thought that was neat too. And how he was like, yeah, I actually got on top of the elevator and he was excited. Now he got on top of the elevator. Mike: And then they basically just dropped it down, like that's wild. So how about Highlander three? Jessika: Ahhh… Mike: Yeah, that’s kinda where I am Jessika: It’s very forgettable in my book. Mike: I feel like you could wipe it from the timeline and no one would care. Really, it felt like a retread of the first movie, but with the shittier villain in a way less interesting love story. honestly, it was a bummer because Mario [00:22:00] Van Peebles, the guy who plays that the illusionist I can't even remember his name. It was that forgettable. Jessika: Yeah, no, I can't either. Mike: Mario van Peebles is a really good actor and he's done a lot of really cool stuff. And it just, it felt like he was the NutraSweet version of the Kurgan Jessika: I like that. Yes. Yes. Mike: All of the mustache twirling, none of the substance. Jessika: It leaves a little bit of a weird taste in your mouth. Mike: Right. Splenda Kurgan! Moving on Highlander, Endgame. Jessika: What I do like about this film is that in both the TV series, as well as the film, there is the actual crossover. Connor shows up in Duncan's world and Duncan shows up in Connor's world and there is that continuity, which is good. And I do appreciate that because, before I got into this, I assumed that the character was interchangeable and we were just seeing different actors James [00:23:00] Bond situation. And when I went back and realized like, Oh no, he's his own character, they're blah, you know. Mike: I dunno I saw this in theaters I love the show and I appreciated that it felt like an attempt to merge the movies in the series and of the movies, I feel like this actually has the strongest action scenes. There's that bit where Adrian Paul faces off against Donnie Yen. And I was like, that's gotta be really cool to be able to sit there and show your kids much later in life: hey, I got to do a martial arts scene with Donnie Yen and he didn't kill me in the movie. that's pretty dope. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Again, it felt underwhelming. It just wasn't all that interesting. And also I spent years being mad at that movie because the trailer brought me into the theater expecting something way different than what we were going to get Jessika: Okay. And I don't know that I saw the trailer. Mike: It has, it has a bunch of scenes with Magic where Connor and Duncan jumped through a portal [00:24:00]. Jessika: What? Mike: And a sword gets thrown at Jacob Kell and he catches it midair. And then he does something else where he's holding a sphere where you see Connor's face screaming and then it shatters. Jessika: What’s with all this weird, extra scene stuff in these trailers. I don't understand. Mike: Yeah, it turns out that this hasn't, this has never really been officially confirmed, but reading between the lines yeah, it’s been confirmed. They basically filmed extra scenes just to make it more appealing for people. So they would show up to the theaters. Like they filmed scenes, effectively they filmed scenes just for the trailer the director when he was asked about it in Fearful Symmetry. He basically said, yeah, I know there was some stuff that they filmed for marketing afterwards, and I wasn't involved with that. And then I think it was Peter Davis that was asked about this for the book. And he basically said, Oh, this is a really standard practice. People, or accompanies [00:25:00] film stuff for for marketing purposes all the time. And that's where he left it. Jessika: Oh, okay. to know. Mike: I was really grumpy about that, but that said I've softened a little since then. Do we even want to talk about the Source? Cause I feel like that's something that we shouldn't talk about in polite company. Jessika: No pass. Mike: Okay. Jessika: It happened? Mike: It happened, it was a thing that happened that was going to be a trilogy. They were planning to make that into a trilogy of movies. Jessika: Ohh rough times. Mike: Oh it's real bad. I don't think you were able to watch this, but Highlander, the search for vengeance. It's the anime. Jessika: No, I couldn't find it. Mike: Yeah. It's not available for streaming and it really it's really a bummer because it's actually pretty good. I'm not quite sure how to qualify it because it's not a live action movie and it doesn't star Duncan or Connor, but it's a full length anime. It's a full length movie in its own right. It focuses on Colin MacLeod who he’s [00:26:00] an immortal, who's technically part of the MacLeod clan. He's born as a Roman Britain and then he's adopted into the MacLeod clan after he fights alongside them later on. They keep on doing this. They keep on going back to dystopian SciFutures, which I kinda like, Jessika: I love, bless their little hearts. Mike: Yeah. A lot of the story actually takes place in this post-apocalyptic 22nd century, New York. And I haven't seen this in about a decade because it's not available on streaming. I don't have the DVD anymore. I really should pick it up before it goes out of print. But the movie fucking slaps. It was directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, he was really big in the nineties. He did Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. He's known for really cool looking movies that are also really violent at the same time. Like you look at his characters and you're like, Oh yeah, no, they all look interchangeable because they're also similar one movie to another, Jessika: Oh, I see. Mike: But they're really cool. And the movie was written by David Abramowitz, who was the head writer [00:27:00] for the TV show. So it felt like a pretty legit Highlander story. Honestly, if we had to talk about this and ask which of these movies or the sequels were our favorites, I would probably say the Search for Vengeance. Because I loved it so much, but since that wasn't a theatrical release, we'll exclude that and you didn't get to watch it. Of the sequels, which did you enjoy most? Jessika: Mike, why don’t you go first. Mike: Okay. I'm a little torn, I guess I enjoyed Endgame mainly because it feels like part of he in quotes, real Highlander story, I guess it's the least terrible of the sequels. And it brought in my favorite characters. The final version of Highlander II, is I don't know. I don't hate it. It honestly feels like a cool dystopian cyberpunk story with some bizarre Highlander lore shoehorned in, but at the same time, it's not the worst thing I've ever watched. How about you? Jessika: Funny [00:28:00] enough, I was going to say Highlander II, but maybe just a bit more so if it were its own standalone movie and not try to be a part of the Highlander franchise. The idea of the shield is super interesting and I think they could have elaborated more on the lead-up and the resolution of that issue rather than having to also make it about the Immortals in their forever game. Mike: Yeah, I agree. How do you feel about moving onto the TV series? Jessika: Oh, I am pro. Mike: Okay. I personally feel like this is the property that sucks all the air out of the room when you're talking about Highlander. Jessika: Oh no. Mike: Yeah, I mentioned that this is how I really got introduced to the brand. I started watching it in high school, around season three, which was when it was really starting to get good. The first two seasons I feel were kind of when they were ironing out all the rough spots. But I wound up watching it through the end. So if you're listening to this podcast and you have never seen the [00:29:00] show Highlander, the series ran for six seasons, which is a good length of time for any TV show. And it followed the adventures of Duncan, who was another member of the MacLeod clan. He was a distant cousin of Connor. And the show bounced between Seacouver, which is a fictionalized version of Vancouver in Paris. And it basically retcon things so that the original movie didn't end with The Quickening, but that the battle between the Kurgan and Connor was it's implied, it was the start of The Gathering. That's my interpretation of it. Jessika: That was what I got too. Mike: Yeah. And Christopher Lambert, he shows up in the pilot to help set things up and get them moving. But I think that's the only time we ever really seen him on the show. Jessika: Correct. He's really just an intro. He's in that first episode only. Mike: You have rewatched it as a have I . We haven't watched the entire series all the way through, but we've watched a lot of episodes. Jessika: Correct. Mike: How do you feel [00:30:00] it measures up today? compared to that nostalgic view that we had before, Jessika: I had a lot of fun watching it, actually. definitely super cheesy. I don't love all of the characters I watched a lot of the first season, then I bounced around I think I did the top, like 25 on a list that you sent me. But Duncan’s just so codependent sometimes with his characters and it's like the one time the Tessa goes on a hike by herself, she gets kidnapped by an, a mortal and it’s like, oh my God, she can't even go on a fucking hike, are you joking me? And the one time he goes to the store by himself, he gets kidnapped and it's like, oh, come the fuck on you guys. Mike: Yeah, I feel like it generally holds up pretty well. It's a little uneven, but when it hits , it really hits. And it's a lot of fun. And considering that it was a relatively low budget show on basic cable in the early to mid-nineties, there's a lot of stuff that has aged way worse. [00:31:00] Jessika:: Absolutely. It exceeded my expectations on the rewatch, for sure. Mike: Yeah, and I have to say that one really cool thing about Highlander is it's got a really large female fan base. And I suspect that the show is really responsible for that. Jessika: I would agree. There's a few reasons. Mike: Are six of those reasons. Duncan's abs? Jessika: Like 10 of those reasons are all the times he gets surprised in a bathtub. I know I messaged you while I was watching them, because I was like Duncan got surprised in a bathtub again. Mike: I don't remember which episode it was, but there's one where he is surprised while he's in a bathrobe and he's got, it's not even tighty whities, it’s like a bikini brief, and watching that, I was just sitting there going, thank you for this gift. Thank you. Thank you for this visual treat that you have given us in the middle of my very boring work day. Jessika: It’s [00:32:00] also that there are such a wide variety of female characters. I would say, Iit’s not just the other female person he seeing or whatever, the love interest, there are other female Immortals and they a lot more frequently than they do in the films. I can't recall if they have any female immortals in the films. Mike: They do in Endgame. Jessika: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I thought there was, there were some in there, but that’s tailing into, I mean yeah. Mike: Yeah. And the Source had them too, but meh. Jessika: Oh yeah. Mike: I will say that the show was pretty good about writing pretty strong female characters, I felt. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And we'll talk about Amanda in a little bit, but I have to say that I really liked how she was written and how Elizabeth Grayson played her through the original series and then her own afterwards. I dunno. I, what do you think is the sexiest thing about Duncan MacLeod? I'm curious. Jessika: He seems [00:33:00] really like trustworthy, but like and sexy trustworthy. It's like, he'd be the dude. I called if some guys were fucking with me. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: I kept on thinking about how there's this Tumblr post that's been going around the internet, regularly, and it's this discussion about which Disney men women find the sexiest guys always thinks it's Gaston. Jessika: Oh lord, why? Mike: It’s that male power fantasy thing where they're just like, oh no, like he's like really charming. And he's really muscly. And the counterargument from women is usually A no Gaston sucks and B we all like Roger from 101 Dalmatians. Jessika: Oh yeah. Roger. Mike: Which, Roger is very much my personal role model. The dude's a talented musician, he loves animals and he's got that great, a snark where he literally is trolling the villain when she comes to his house with a motherfucking trombone from upstairs [00:34:00]. And I think Duncan's a little like that. Like he's cultured and he's worldly and he's got this wicked sense of humor. And he's also the type of dude who has no problem reciting poetry in public or making his partner breakfast in bed. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. Mike: So it just it was something that came to mind while I was rewatching all this stuff. Jessika: Yeah. just as like a wholesome guy. Mike: Right? Jessika: He always has good intentions. So that's actually what it feels like. He's always coming at things with good intentions. Mike: Yeah, and he's not perfect, but he's always trying to do the right thing, which I really appreciate. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: What was your favorite episode? Jessika: I went back and forth. I really like the Homeland episode, and like I said, I've really only watched a good chunk of most of season what I would say, and then so kind of bounced around, but season four, episode one. It was really sweet to see [00:35:00] Duncan take the obligatory trip back to his Homeland to pay respects. And it also had a good lesson in not judging a book by its cover as the main character assumes that Duncan is just an ancestry tourist, which was super interesting. She was super hating on it but I was like this is interesting instead of visiting what once was literally his home during formative years. So it was just such a wild thing to see her be like, what are you doing near those graves? And he can't really be like, they were my parents because you cannot even read them. They are so old. Mike: The funny thing is I didn't rewatch that episode during our refresher, but I remember watching that episode when I was about 15 or so. Because it's stuck out to me. Jessika: It’s really good. And of course, Duncan, he always has a good intention. The whole reason he went back was because he figured out that somebody had been [00:36:00] pilfering graves Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And he had to return what was in this grave. Mike: I know he's making the rest of us look bad. So mine is, it's unusual suspects. It's from season six, which I feel is actually pretty weak season overall. And it's this really silly one-off episode, starring Roger Daltry of the Who fame. He plays Hugh Fitzcairn, which is a character that he shows up in plays a couple of times throughout the series. And at this point in time in the story, he was dead, but it's a flashback to the 19 teens or 1920s. 1920s, because it ends with the stock market crash, but it's a take on the British country, house murder, mystery genre, and it's really fun. And it was just this really refreshing moment of levity after what I felt our run of really heavy, and in my opinion, not very good episodes. The end of season five and the beginning of season [00:37:00] six are all about Duncan confronting this demon named Aramon and it's weird and it's not very good. And I really don't enjoy it. This is all my opinion. I'm sure that I'm insulting some Highlander fan who absolutely loves this, but it's a fun episode in its own. And then it's a good moment after one that I didn't really enjoy. And so it's got that extra refreshing bonus. I just, I want to note, it's really funny to me how intertwined Highlander has always been with rock and roll and music in general, because they had Mulcahey who do it, doing all these music videos and stuff. And then they kept on having musicians show up as guest stars. I think it was there's a character named Xavier St. Cloud, I think who was played by one of the guys from, again, I think, Fine Young Cannibals? Jessika: Yeah, I think I actually watched that episode. Mike: I think he was using nerve gas to kill people. Jessika: Yes I did watch that episode. That was a wild one. Yeah. Mike: Yeah, and I think he shows up later on too. [00:38:00] I can't remember but anyway, I really appreciate that they gave Roger Daltry of all people, this character, and he just really had fun with it and they kept bringing him back. Jessika: Yeah. He was a good character every episode he was in my other favorites was the one where they had Mary Shelley and he was in that one too. I believe. Mike: I think so. Yeah. No, it was, the series was really fun, and I liked that we can sit there and pull all these episodes just from memory that we really liked. Jessika: Absolutely. Mike: So season six , they were trying to find a new actress who could carry her own Highlander show. And so they tested out a bunch of different actresses in season six and gave them either really strong guest appearances, or they were basically the main character for episodes. But they wound up not going with any of them. They went with Elizabeth Grayson and gave her the Raven where she reprised her roles Amanda. Did you watch any of that? Did you get a chance to? Jessika: I watched the [00:39:00] first and the last episode of season one, I can only find the first season. Is there only one? Mike: There’s only one season, it didn’t get picked up again. Jessika: Oh then there you go. Then I could have only, I know I was scratching my head. Worried about where else do I find this? Mike: Well, and it ends on a cliff-hanger. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. That's where I was like, let's go. Mike: It ends with Nick becoming immortal. Jessika: Oh, see, I didn't quite finish it. Cause I was hurriedly setting it up in the background. Mike: Yeah it was fine. I thought Elizabeth Grayson is really charming in that role, but at the same time, there wasn't a lot of chemistry initially between Amanda and Nick, I felt at the very beginning. Jessika: I agree, not in the first episode. Mike: By the end of the season, it was there, and I think they were also, as is the case with most shows first seasons, they were trying really hard to figure out what they wanted to do. And so originally it was a cop show with an immortal, which there are certainly worse pitches that I've heard. Jessika: Yeah. No, I agree. Mike: But yeah. sad that it didn't get to go further [00:40:00] Jessika: I'm tempted to go back and watch all of these things. I may have to do a pallet cleanse of something different. I may have to go back to my Marvel watching. Mike: On top of this, there was a Saturday morning cartoon called Highlander, the series or Highlander, the animated series, and it was set in the future. It's in a weird alternate timeline. It stars another MacLeod. It's fine It's a Saturday morning cartoon. I didn't even care enough to really go back and watch it because being that great. They did some interesting stuff. Like they brought Ramirez back if I remember, right. And then they also had a thing where instead of beheading other Immortals, the main character had an ability where he could be voluntarily given their power. Jessika: Oh. Mike: So he had all of their knowledge and power. And again, it’s again in a dystopian future where another immortal has taken over the world. Jessika: Wow. They just love their dystopian future. Mike: They really do. But yeah, it's fine. I think it's streaming on Amazon prime. I was just so focused on everything else that I didn't get a chance to go and [00:41:00] rewatch it. Jessika: Huh, good to know. Mike: We're going to go over all the other various pieces of media real quick. and then we've got one side tangent and then we're going to go through comic books, but. Jessika: I'm so excited. Mike: Books, Highlander wound up having a pretty substantial literary footprint. The original movie had the official novelization. There wasn't really anything after that until the show came out and then the show had 10 novels and an anthology and an official behind the scenes kind of book called the Watchers Guide and it's full of essays and interviews and photos. And since then, there've been a couple of non-fiction books, like Fearful Symmetry, which is about everything Highlander related. And it's almost like a textbook, but it's pretty good. And then there's also A Kind of Magic, which is more focused on making of the original movie. And those are both actually really good. I liked them a lot. They were really easy to read. [00:42:00] There were audio plays, which I keep on forgetting audio plays are a thing at this point, but it's by this company called Big Finish in the UK. They do tie-in audio dramas for television properties. Most famously they do Dr Who. They wound up doing two seasons of audio plays. The first had Adrian Paul reprise his role as Duncan and they take place after the series ended. And then also after the events of Endgame, you can't really find them anymore. Because they just, the license expired so they aren't selling them as far as I'm aware. Jessika: That's super interesting though. Dang. Mike: Yeah. And then the second season focuses on the four horsemen Immortals, remember Jessika: Okay. Mike: Do you remember them? Jessika: I sure do. Mike: Because we were talking about this a little bit, but it was all about Methos and the other guys that he hung out with when he was effectively, a comic book villain who would've if he’d had a mustache to twirl, he would have done it. Jessika: So quickly. Yes. Mike: I thought that was really interesting. There were a couple of people in the Highlander Heart [00:43:00] group who talked about it and they seem to really like them. I can't comment, but it was really neat. Games, this is the one that's really interesting. Highlander actually has been turned into a number of games over the years. There's a couple of tabletop games we're going to breeze through. So there was two different card games in a board game. One of the card games was released back in the nineties, it was a collectible card game. And this was right when Magic: The Gathering was really hot and everybody was trying to get in on that action. And then recently there's a new one called Highlander: The Duel. And it's a deck-building game where you play as Connor or the Kurgan going up against each other. And just a couple of years ago, there was a board game that got kick-started, it was in 2018 and it's this fast paced game for two to six players. The reviews across the web were pretty positive. And again, it's one of those things where it's Immortals battling for that mysterious prize. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: But it's cool. Jessika: Nice. Mike: I’m actually pretty surprised [00:44:00] we never got like a tabletop RPG because they are not precious about applying the license for Highlander to stuff. I'm amazed that nobody went to them and said, Hey, we can make this cool historical RPG where we sorta start having players wake up and then they have flashbacks or whatever. And Jessika: Yeah Oh that would have been cool Yeah Mike: Right? But yeah we never got anything like that which I was really I actually that was the one thing I expected and was surprised to see that we never got. Okay. So we're going to go into mini tangent with video games even though they aren't technically related to comics. The first game for Highlander was a 1986 tie-in release for home computers. It was a really simple fighting title. It wasn't well received. It was apparently pretty bad. So after that the animated series had a tie in called Highlander: Last of the MacLeods. It was released on the Atari Jaguar CD console. If you remember that. Do you remember the Atari Jaguar? Jessika: Oh my god, no. I don't. [00:45:00] Mike: It kinda got lost in the shuffle in the early to mid nineties of all the different consoles that were coming out. But you can find footage of this on YouTube and it's one of those early 3d games. And so it got a lot of praise for his exploration elements and animated video sequences, but it also got a lot of criticism for its controls in combat. After that there was actually going to be an MMO called Highlander, The Gathering. And it was in development by a French studio called Kalisto entertainment, which was honestly weird because Kalisto's catalog up until now were mostly middling single-player games. They'd gotten famous for a series called Nightmare Creatures, but they also did a Fifth Element racing game on PS2 that I had and was actually pretty fun. Anyway, Kalisto went bankrupt before the MMO could come out. Jessika: Oh! Mike: And none of the folks who, yeah, that's video games. Jessika: Fair enough. Mike: So they went bankrupt. The MMO hadn't come out yet. And the folks who wound up with the rights afterwards just decided to kill the project. There's [00:46:00] one other game. That's become the source of a lot of speculation. And it's only known as Highlander: The Game it basically came about because Davis Panzer productions that's, the guys who own the rights to Highlander, and SCI, which was this holding company that owned a bunch of video game groups. They decided to ink a deal, to make a Highlander game. They announced that they basically had done a partnership back in like 2004, 2005. And at the time SCI owned Eidos who was the publisher that gave us Tomb Raider. So they were a pretty big name. The game itself was formally announced by Eidos in 2008 and the development was being handled by another French developer called Widescreen Games. It was going to be an action role-playing game. It would star a new Immortal named Owen MacLeod. The story was going to be written again by David Abramowitz and that added some [00:47:00] serious legitimacy to the project for fans. Actually, why don’t you read the summary. Jessika: Would love to my pleasure. Summary: Owen is captured and enslaved by Romans who force him to compete as a gladiator. During this time, Owen dies only to come back to life. Methos, the oldest living immortal approaches Owen to be his mentor. He teaches Owen about the game and how he and other Immortals can only be slain by beheading. As with other immortal MacLeods Owen is pursued throughout his life by a nemesis. This enemy proves to be extremely powerful. One that Owen is unable to defeat Owen learns of a magical stone, fragments of which are scattered all over the world. Throughout the game, Owen embarks upon a quest to recover these fragments and restore the stone in an attempt to gain the power to overcome his foe. [00:48:00] So dramatic. I love it. Mike: What's Highlander without any drama? But that sounds rad right? Jessika: Oh, it sounds amazing. Mike: The game was announced with a trailer in 2008 that really only showed some of the environments from different eras and then it ended with an image of Owen, but it looked promising. And then there wasn't much else after a couple of years of pretty much nothing but radio silence, Eidos wound up canceling the game and that's where a lot of the speculation has started. There's not a lot of information on Highlander: The Game. I keep waiting for one of those gaming history YouTubers to get ahold of an old dev kit and then do a video with a build, but that hasn't happened yet. So really it's all kind of speculation and wishful thinking about what could have been. And it also seems like some of the details are getting muddied as time goes on. Like Fearful Symmetry talks about the game of it but they [00:49:00] have the segment. And again I want you to read this. Jessika: Sure sure. The gam was so far along in its development stages that segments including backdrops and some of the gameplay options were presented at a Highlander Worldwide event in Los Angeles 2006 and got a very positive reaction. The beautifully rendered backdrops were almost movie quality and included the likes of Pompei, a dark forest in the Highlands, New York, and Japan as gameplay locations and introduced us to another MacLeod, Owen, the same surname but a much earlier vintage. Mike: Yeah, so, I think Mosby is a little overly enthusiastic about all of this, and this is because I think Mosby doesn't have much familiarity with how game development works. It sounds like they had concept art on display and were discussing gameplay [00:50:00] rather than showcasing a build of the game. Concept art and design discussions are things that happen very early in game development. But if you're an outsider, looking in this stuff could easily be interpreted as things being much further along than they were. Jessika: Ah. Mike: Yeah. Now that said, I did work in video games for almost a decade, and a few of my coworkers were actually involved with Highlander the game. Jessika: What? Mike: Every one of them over the years has told me the cancellation was a mercy killing. And again, this is from multiple sources, so I'm not going to name or identify because, I don't want to make things awkward for them. But basically the game was garbage . It's not really surprising to hear cause widescreen never really made a good game, the best reception that any of their titles got was just kinda mixed. But earlier this week, I actually called one of my friends. Who'd been [00:51:00] attached to the project because I wanted to get more information about this game before we recorded. Jessika: We need to get you a new shovel, you dug so deep for this. Mike: With both hands. But, they confirmed what I've been hearing from other people the gameplay itself wasn't just bad. It was boring. The biggest problem was it didn't know what kind of a game it wanted to be. Basically, it was trying to do everything all at once. There were a bunch of traversal elements, which didn't really make a lot of sense. Like why would you climb a Manhattan skyscraper when you're a roided out dude with a sword? Couldn't you just take the elevator? Or I don't know the stairs? There was going to be a bunch of Magic elements in the gameplay, which, isn't really, that's not really a thing in Highlander. There's that fantasy element because we're talking about Immortals who can't die unless you cut off their heads, but generally Magic isn't a part of the accepted Canon. And then the combat, what they were aiming to do something like [00:52:00] God of war, which was really big at the time. But, it wasn't great. My friend also pointed out that Owen looked like a bodybuilder, but his fashion sense was from that industrial metal scene of the late nineties, which neither of those things really fits with the Highlander aesthetic because Adrian Paul was arguably the most in shape of the Highlander actors. But even that was, he was a dude who was like, yeah, I could achieve that if I was really good about my diet and then just worked out aggressively but not like Hugh Jackman does for his Wolverine roles. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Mike: So I'm going to send you a screenshot of what Owen looked like in the key art the initial title it does. Jessika: What? It looks like Criss Angel. Mike: Right. And they're trying to recreate that iconic pose of The Quickening from the first movie that Connor does at the very end where he's getting raised up and, by the rails of Lightning, or the wires [00:53:00] of lightning. Jessika: Yeah, I get what they were trying to do. Mike: Yeah,I wanna know, what the fuck is up with those weird straps with rings that are going down his legs. Jessika: I don't really know, I was trying to figure that out myself. So just so that everyone can really get the picture that we're getting here and you'll, you might understand why it's taken me so long to describe it. I had to take it all in first. Mike: Yeah, it’s a ride. Jessika: It’s all very monochromatic. And the background is of course, a cut of the statue of Liberty, the backdrop of parts of New York that I'm sure aren't even next to each other, which is always funny. And then what is this? Is this the new guy, or is this supposed to be Duncan? Mike: Yeah, this is the new guy, Jessika: It’s Owen. Mike: Yeah. It's Owen. And then Connor and Duncan were supposed to appear, supposedly. I know Peter Wingfield was recording his lines for Methos. Jessika: Well, if they haven't killed off Methos that makes sense. And I don't know in the series if they have, and maybe Duncan makes [00:54:00] sense if he hasn't died yet, but. Mike: Yeah they can't kill off Methos, Methos was my first gay crush. Jessika: Yeah. He's. Slightly problematic in a couple episodes, but he's a great character overall. But he's very Chriss Angel, he's wearing like a trench coat and that has to be some sort of a lace undershirt or something. Mike: lAnd he’s got like a weird really, like baggy leather pants. Jessika: Yes. Which cannot be comfortable. It's doing this weird pooching thing in the front. Mike: Yeah, and then I think I saw another screenshot where it looks like he's wearing skater shoes tennis shoes as well. Jessika: Oh, Vans Off the Wall, man. Mike: Just once I want to see a MacLeod in the movies with a good fashion sense. Jessika: Yeah, I mentioned that I wanted to cosplay as Duncan, which overall would be a great idea. But then I was looking through his outfits and I'm like, what do I wear? Do I wear this weird white tank top with these like acid wash jeans [00:55:00] and a belt? Or is this the one where I'm wearing like five shirts and a long jacket? Is it that day? Mike: You know who he looks like that guy, Canus. Jessika: Yes! Yes, does. He has the lace shirt and everything. Mike: And the dog collar. Jessika: Oh my god, it was so funny. I told you, I think it was trying to be edgy. Mike: Yeah, and instead it comes off as really queer-coded. Jessika: It really does though. I know, my little queer brain was like bling. Mike: Yeah, It feels like they weren't really getting the essence of what Highlander actually was and who these guys were, because usually the Highlander characters are a little bit more believable and ordinary because that's the whole idea is that they're walking among us and we have no idea unless they tell us. Okay. On top of all this. So remember how I mentioned that trailer was just showcasing environments for the [00:56:00] game. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: There was a reason for that. The reason was that they couldn’t get the character models to work. Jessika: Oh! Mike: So the shot of Owen at the end it's actually just animated key art it's the same it's the same art that you just saw. It's that image. It was just slightly animated. And then they released a couple of screenshots for the game, but apparently they were really heavily photo-shopped well, beyond industry standards. So, it was one of those things where, this was a turd and it needed to be flushed. And it finally did. But Widescreen went under about a year after the game was formally announced. They were working on another big project and apparently that got taken away, and as a result, it just caused the studio to implode. By this point in time Square Enix the guys do all the final fantasy games had bought Eidos and they formally canceled it. We're not sure why exactly, my guess is that it was probably, they just looked at cost it would take to finish this game and then the [00:57:00] amount that it would need to sell in order to be profitable or to meet their sales expectations for it and they just thought it wasn't worth it. But yeah, my friend actually said they were embarrassed to work on it and they would have been fine even if it had been an average game, but it was just bad. Even one of those kind of middling average games, I think that would have been fine, that would have lived up to the Highlander bar. Finally, there's that Highlander game that spark unlimited was working on. I never even heard a whisper about this until. We watched that episode of Highlander Heart focusing on video games, and they brought Craig Allen on to talk about the project. Based on what we know now, I think this might be why Square Enix was holding onto the rights for another year after they shut down Highlander, the game, just because they had this other title, theoretically in development or very early development. Based on the footage that they have, it looks like they had at least done enough development work to put together a vertical slice that they could show for pitch [00:58:00] purposes and at conventions. But I thought it was really promising looking overall. What did you think? Jessika: I thought it did look really interesting the game play itself I did like the idea of having a female Highlander. That being said, they had this whole concept about what Craig Allen was calling beautiful damage. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And it was this whole thing about, oh it was the first female Highlander and her looks go when she gets damaged, and that's her whole motivation is to stay pretty. And I just, that gave me a huge headache, and it of course was super male-gazey I mean, the game itself seemed that way. Mike: It was weird because I would love to see women and Highlander being built a little bit more like warriors, like a little bit more muscly, which would be in keeping with people who battle across the centuries. [00:59:00] They don't need to be super jacked like the Amazons in Wonder Woman, but making them look like stick thin suicide girl, punk rock chick from the late aughts. Didn't quite gel with me. I understood what he was talking about though, because that was the thing where they were starting to do permanent cosmetic damage in video games. That was something that was really big in the Batman Arkham games. Every time that you got knocked out, you'd come back and you'd have a little bit more of your outfit chipped apart. So, after a while Batman's looking pretty ragged and you realize maybe I'm not as good at this game as I think I am. Jessika: Yeah And the concept itself is really interesting It just I guess was the way it was phrased by this person. And it very much was he was so proud of the fact that it was the first Highlander female in a video game. And then everything was just like so incredibly sexist. I was excited that I wasn't Mike: We're also viewing it, with the lens of 2021 at this point. At that time, [01:00:00] that was before they had relaunched Tomb Raider, in 2013, 2014, where they made her much more realistic. She was still very fit, but she wasn't the Lara Croft that had generated a lot of criticism. I think possibly, I don't know, but I hope that it would have been marketed a bit differently if it had been done today. That said we also don't know exactly what it would look like as a final product. Jessika: Oh absolutely, yeah. Mike: It’s, I agree. It's a little bit problematic viewed through the current lens. At the same time, like a lot of the Highlander properties when it was being done, I think it was kind of just par for the course. Jessika: Yeah, fair enough. But, I did like the idea of having a female Highlander and having her have a whole story regardless of whether it's the first one to be completely [01:01:00] tragedy laden which was the other comment like her experience a ton of loss because she's female and experiences empathy unlike the male characters. Mike: I really didn't like that. Actually. I thought that was. I mean the, the whole thing where they were saying we wanted to focus on lifetimes of tragedy as opposed to enjoying multiple lives. And I'm like, that's the whole purpose of Highlander. That's what I really like is when you sit there and you watch them having fun and doing all this interesting stuff. Jessika: Women aren't allowed to have fun, Mike. Mike: Apparently. Jessika: We just have to have lives full of tragedy and pining for people that we've lost in our lives. Mike: Well, yeah. And we all know that the dudes don't have feelings, so we just, you know, go on and enjoy things. Jessika: That does suck that Hugh they don't give men the ability to have that capacity or give them the the credit to have that capacity. Mike: I will say, I am sorry that this one didn't get further along the development [01:02:00] stages, because it certainly seemed like it had a lot more promise than the title that was canceled right before it. Jessika: Yes, the gameplay itself looked more interesting, it looks more complex, it easier to navigate. What they were showing us was really intense. Mike: I really liked that whole idea of being able to view the environments in two different eras. It reminded me a lot of another Eidos game called legacy of Cain soul river, where there was a spiritual world and then a physical world. And you could flip back and forth between them, which was kind of cool. Jessika: Oh, that’s neat Mike: Yeah. I dug that. I liked the idea of exploring the same environment in two different areas. I thought that was really neat. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Let's move on to Comics. Jessika: Sounds great. Mike: Okay, so, I’m curious. When do you think that Highlander got big enough to get a comic book? Jessika: I don't know maybe late nineties Mike: 2006. Jessika: Wow [01:03:00] That's later than I had expected. Mike: Yeah. There wasn't a comic adaptation of the movie when it came out, which is weird, there wasn't one here in the States. Highlander Heart, in their YouTube podcast, noted there was a series of five newspaper comic strips that were published as part marketing promotion. The hosts weren't entirely certain if they're exclusive to Europe or not. I don't know. I haven't been able to really find much reference to it. After the movie came out, though there was a two-part comic adaptation in Argentina. It was published through El Tony Todo Color and El Tony Supercolor they were sibling comic anthology magazines, and here's the weird twist. It looks like this was an unlicensed adaptation. Jessika: Mmhm, interesting. Mike: So now we're going to take another side tangent. The important thing that you need to know is that Argentina had just come out of a brutal military dictatorship that came about as part of Operation Condor, which is this horrific program the United States was involved in. And it isn't really taught about in high school history, at least it [01:04:00] wasn't when I was going through high school and I went to a pretty good one. did you ever learn about that? I'm curious. Jessika: No, I did not. Mike: Okay I'm giving you an extremely TLDR read of this, but basically this was a program in the seventies and eighties when the US backed military dictatorships across South America. So our country helped these groups, kidnap, torture, rape murder, thousands of political opponents, like Argentina was especially brutal. There were literally death squads, hunting down political distance across the country. It was a really horrific time. I want you to read this summary of what was going on during that time, actually. Jessika: Give me the really fun stuff I see. Mike: Sorry. Jessika: No you're good. It is estimated that between - 9,000 and 30,000 that's a huge span. Mike: I know, it’s such a margin of error I don't understand. Jessika: Lack of record taking will get you there quick, I think. I'm going to start over, but we’ll leave that in. It is estimated that between [01:05:00] 9,000 and 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, many of whom were impossible to formally report due to the nature of state terrorism. The primary target, like in many other South American countries participating in Operation Condor, were communist guerrillas and sympathizers, but the target of Operation Condor also included students, militants trade, unionists, writers, journalists, I don't love this, artists, and any other citizens suspected of being left-wing activists - well take me the goddamn way away. Mike: Right. Jessika: Including Peronist guerillas. I don't love that. Mike: No it's really awful. And based on that list of targets, it's not surprising that there was a lot of media suppression during this time. Democracy returned to the country in ’83, and there was this explosion of art across the mediums. Argentine Comics [01:06:00] saw this Renaissance period. A lot of them though, weren't really licensed and let's be honest. It's not like there's an internet where IP owners could monitor stuff like this and shut it down when they learned about it. There was also this drastic comics increase in the area due to create or publishing Zines because the eighties was the decade where personal computers suddenly became commonplace and all of a sudden pe

Mike Who is a true head. The Sydneysider has warmed rooms for everyone we love, guested on every radio station worth mentioning, and played at every festival in Australia worth losing your mind at. Mike also runs the versatile and vibrant label Planet Trip Records, with releases from Errortica, Midnight Tenderness, and Cory Champion's Borrowed cs. His sets cover a lot of ground, from dollar bin jams to foundation cuts, and other wild UFOs. Tonight, he runs it red with an hour of digital dancehall. Friends, it's a high class show. Support Planet Trip at planettriprecords.bandcamp.com No tracklist

This week's episode is a 3-Part Mini-Series to reveal our lists! In Part 1, we hear about the first 13 bucket list items for Cody, Dan and Mike (Who gave 14 because he could not count). With this being the first time we have heard each others lists, reactions run rampant. Also, Mike must choose between two options for his 40th Bucket list item. Both choices offer their own unique way to be cold. Dad jokes are a plenty and we receive a guest appearance from a man who promoted mask wearing and social distancing way before Covid. Please join us for Part 1 of our List Reveals! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week the guys talk about 16yr old white girls controlling music & their acceptance of snitches, Doja Cat & her racist behavior, & incels... what can we even say? Lastly we cover the epic story of a subway fight! "Mike Who?"

In the Last Dance, Michael Jordan said no one should want to emulate my lifestyle. Sounds crazy. Who wouldn’t want to be like Mike? Who wouldn’t want his level of success. But here’s the catch, think about the amount of work he dedicated towards basketball. The long hours. The sacrifices. It’s not easy as it sounds. Everyone wants to become a specific person until they watch the tape of how much effort it takes. In today’s episode, we talk about embracing the successful habits of becoming Like Mike. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jason-refsnider/support

So what is this Mike? Who is running things in the USA? I think we know the answer, especially to the second question. You can support my work at the links below. We are totally listener supported and we appreciate each and every one of you! Thank you and God bless! Bitcoin Wallet: 3M2rBQMPjS2UihwQLuzCeMTveoUSSmH87h PayPal: https://paypal.me/johnnystorm Patreon: https://patreon.com/dontspeak NEW! Cash app now available for donations! Our cash tag is $jstorm212 For checks and money orders please email us at dntspk5@gmail.com and we will send you the address. Support us through the BRAVE web browser here: https://brave.com/don308 Download the BEST VPN on the market at ProXpn! Support the show using our link! https://secure.proxpn.com/?a_aid=5bed1952a981a&a_bid=f24b9a75# Free book on Spiritual Warfare below! https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/780462 https://twitter.com/DontSpe54156130 Show Email dntspk5@gmail.com Back up Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC8vqWJ1jWO30n4RWqbAquA?view_as=subscriber Website: https://dontspeaknews.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dontspeak/support

Jah from the Lower returns to help me introduce Mike Who and CTAFrank from El Barrio... we chatted up Knicks history from all over the timeline. Fun conversation but you don't have to take MY word for it... Tune in please and thank you! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/diehardknicks/support

When it comes to retirement planning, there are some widely believed financials myths that you’ve likely heard. Today we’ll look at some of those and try to bust them wide open. The scary thing is that a lot of people base their financial plans on some of these myths. Don’t be like that.2:22 – Getting to know Mike: Who is somebody that always makes you laugh?  4:25 – Beginning our discussion on the biggest financial myths.   4:49 – Myth 1: Shifting from stocks to bonds removes the volatility.6:42 – Myth 2: Once you’re retired, life insurance is no longer necessary.   7:43 – Myth 3: You’ll need less income in retirement than when you’re working.   9:43 – Myth 4: You will be in a lower tax bracket once you retire.10:55 – Myth 5: Financial planning today is easy to do by yourself now because there’s so much info available.13:08 – One final myth that Mike hears a lot.15:17 – Some people are so hard on themselves when planning for retirement. Get show notes and additional resources here: https://principalpreservationservices.com/5-financial-myths-that-need-to-be-busted/

When it comes to retirement planning, there are some widely believed financials myths that you’ve likely heard. Today we’ll look at some of those and try to bust them wide open. The scary thing is that a lot of people base their financial plans on some of these myths. Don’t be like that. 2:22 – Getting to know Mike: Who is somebody that always makes you laugh?   4:25 – Beginning our discussion on the biggest financial myths.    4:49 – Myth 1: Shifting from stocks to bonds removes the volatility. 6:42 – Myth 2: Once you’re retired, life insurance is no longer necessary.    7:43 – Myth 3: You’ll need less income in retirement than when you’re working.    9:43 – Myth 4: You will be in a lower tax bracket once you retire. 10:55 – Myth 5: Financial planning today is easy to do by yourself now because there’s so much info available. 13:08 – One final myth that Mike hears a lot. 15:17 – Some people are so hard on themselves when planning for retirement.   Get show notes and additional resources here: https://principalpreservationservices.com/5-financial-myths-that-need-to-be-busted/

Silky modern funk, house and dreamy garage jams cut live from the MPC of Melbourne's @midnighttenderness. Full interview: melbournedeepcast.net/portfolio/midnight-tenderness "This was recorded live at Freda's bar in Sydney during the Freedom Sounds 3rd birthday party with Mike Who, Daniel Lupica, Merph and Astronafrica. It's an hour live-set performed with an MPC Live, Elektron Digitone and Digitakt. It features five tracks from my previous two EPs, three forthcoming bits and four brand new jams that came about in the process. Hope you dig!!"

SOUL OF SYDNEY RADIO 137: One from the archives of Sydney community radio. Sydney legend, Japanese wax assassin DJ NAIKI laying down a dope selection of G-FUNK vibes live on legendary STOLEN RECORDS radio show back in 2008 live on FBI RADIO. Recorded March 2008 on live on FBI Radio 94.5 FM. Time: 30 Minutes Style: G Funk, Hip Hop About DJ NAIKI // In 1991, DJ Naiki was working as a waiter, in Sendai, in Northern Japan. Through his passion for music, and fascination of the turntables, Naiki's career as a waiter was short-lived, as he started to gain skills on the 1200s. May 1994, DJ Naiki left Japan, to start a new life in Australia. He was soon to be found spinning in Sydney Hip-Hop clubs, such as Kinsela's, Mr GoodBar and Lotel. DJ Naiki's fast paced turntable persona has led him to DJ at many high profile shows, such as the Naughty By Nature Concert Afterparty, DJ CASH MONEY's All world show ( @ Metro in Sydney ), DJ Krush Tour, DJ at the Olympic Village nightclub, 1999, 2000, 2001 & 2002 NSW DMC Finals and opening concerts for the likes of Ugly Duckling, DJ Jazzy Jeff, People Under The Stairs, Nivea, Black Eyed Peas, Fatman Scoop& Crooklin Klan ROCK STEADY CREW and BEATJUNKIES and ＧＡＮＧＳＴＡＲＲ MOBB DEEP etc. Through his fast cuts, and awesome music selection, DJ Naiki has risen to become one of Australia's Premier Hip-Hop and RnB DJs. DJ Naiki is also renowned for his incredible record collection, and his classic old school mix tapes Always supporting his Japanese community, and feeling the need for a "Japanese Hip-Hop Party" in Sydney, DJ Naiki teamed up with long time friends DJ Duggs, and Kavi-R from Ackshun Entertainment and collectively started " O-ii-shi ", a monthly Hip-Hop event which has been running since, June 1999. O-ii-shi has blended many styles such as Reggae, rare grooves and funk along with the underground Hip-Hop it is famous for. Also He has residence for break-dance scene such as infamous Japanese dance society ‘DANCEKOOL`. and `BATTLE OF THE YEAR`. DJ Naiki can be found spinning every hip hop jam around rotating guest selector on stolen records FBI (94.5 FM) Links: https://soundcloud.com/djnaiki/ http://stolenrecords.fm/category/dj-naiki/ http://stolenrecords.fm/ https://soundcloud.com/stolenrecords/ More from Stolen Records: STOLEN RECORDS SKRILLIONAIRES Stolen Records. A collaboration between Shantan Wantan Ichiban and Mike Who?. We play rap music. Good stuff. We also like Dancehall, Reggae, Latin heaters, soul music, burgers and ice cream. Lets be friends! Believe it or not, we are Sydney’s premier hip hop show – prime time Wednesday 6pm on our fair city’s number one independent music station FBi 94.5 FM. We have talked to rather famous people too. Lil Jon, Common, Lady Saw, Kelis, Kid Cudi, Dizzee Rascal, and Elvis (from beyond the grave through a clairvoyant).

Miami & New Jersey connect on this one! NJ Club Envy bottle girl Kayla, and Kamera Kat sits with us as we interview viral hood star Mike Ruga, to talk about his social media climb, Shaq reposting him, his extensive robe collection, battle rap talk & everything New Jersey! Follow us, subscribe & like/comment below! 'No One Gives a Shit'! but you should and you will! Stay tuned for 'Skit of the Week' at end of show!! @nogas_podcast - IG/T/SC @MikeRuga - IG /SC @Kaylagaga7123 - IG TOPICS TIMELINE: 00:00-00:46- Mike Ruga Skit intro 00:46-01:28- The table intro 01:28-02:20- Fredo Santana Dead 02:20-04:03-NJ BottleGyrl Kayla intro 04:04-06:06- Kayla serving rappers stories (Yo Gotti & ABoogie) 06:07-07:29- Thristy club goers 07:30-08:28- Fresh off the boat hustlers 08:29-08:56- Jersey ppl description 08:57-11:19- Real silicone sex dolls 11:19-13:16- Mike Ruga skype interview begins 13:18-13:35- Mike: Remy boy Monty promo skit 13:36-14:32- Mike: Skit preparation 14:33-15:02- Mike: Biggest Video so far 15:03-16:02- Mike:New Jersey, no fist pump 16:03-18:33- Mike: Robe collection 18:34-19:31- Mike: Who is Mike Ruga? 19:32-21:28- Mike: Spanish Roots / North Eastern Stigma 21:29-22:54- Mike: How you get 25k followers 22:55-23:41- Mike: Shaq repost story 23:42-24:52- Mike: NJ club 4 life dance origin 24:53-25:52- Mike: SM game level up 25:53-27:11- Mike: Drake lurking story 27:12-28:52- Mike: "Washed or Litt" bit origin / Itzbizkit 28:53-35:44- Mike: Battle rap talk/ Fav battle rappers 35:45-37:47- Mike:Battle Rapper 'Washed or Litt' bit/ K-shine story 37:47-40:36- Mike: Open to acting? 40:38-43:32- Mike: Other IG stars fake? 43:33-46:03- Mike: NJ 2 Mia connect / Stand up comedy show story 46:04-47:48- Mike: Interview Wrap up 47:49-49:40- Interview Recap 49:41-57:26- Kodak Black Back in Jail 57:27-59:26- Monique boycotts Netflix (Yay or nay) 59:27-1:01- Versace FX show review 1:01:01-1:03:14- Cranberries lead singer Dead 1:03:14-1:04:37- Dedication show 1:04:38-1:06:43- Plug / Wrap up 1:06:44- END - SKIT OF THE WEEK ! Thanks for watching!

A Tribute To Jay Dee Part 1 by Mike Who: This is the 1st in a 3 part series of mixes I will be doing to say thanks to easily one of the most talented and forward thinking minds period. Mike Who's dope Dilla Tribute we are posting for the up coming Genius of J Dilla Tribute night on tomorrow at the Civic Hotel.

DJ MO'FUNK (Pacha, Ibizba) Old School Block Party Warm up live on STOLEN RECORDS, on FBI feat. SHANTAN & MIKE WHO. Style: Disco, Funk and House Party Jams Recorded: May 14 2014 Time: approx 30 mins. Check out this for feel-good party jams! Our boy DJ MO'FUNK doing his thing live on STOLEN RECORDS with SHANTAN and MIKE WHO throwing down some old school vibes and beyond like the seasoned selector he is. We are absolutely honoured to have DJ MO'FUNK, who in our opinion is one of Sydney's greatest DJ exports, living the DJ's dream over in IBIZA as PACHA resident for the last 8+ years.

When technology doesn’t work when it should, is it a tech fail? Or perhaps because humans are creating the technology, fails should be more accurately called a human fail? In this episode, we discuss various types of “fails”, including the latest popular Pokémon Go, why we can’t vote online and the biggest fail of all, a data breach. Pokémon Go full access, tech fail or win Is it possible to delete an entire company with one line of code? Why can’t we vote online? Should one person be blamed for a tech fail? Technologies that can predict your next security fail Parting Gifts Pokémon Go full access: tech fail or win? Cindy: This week, I’m calling our show #techfails. But in preparing for this show and thinking deeply about our fails, I just want to echo what Kilian has been voicing these past couple of episodes, that when our technology fails; like for an instance, if my Skype for business isn’t working, then my first thought is, “Oh, it’s a tech fail. I can’t believe it’s not working.” But we’re the one creating the technology. So, for me, it feels, at the end of the day, a human fail. Let’s discuss this and debate it for a bit. To set the context, there was an article in the Harvard Business Review, and eventually turned into a LinkedIn post too. It’s titled “ A New Way for Entrepreneurs to Think About IT.” It said that IT’s primarily known as a necessary evil, IT support or IT as a product. With many different types of technologies at our fingertips, we can really do a blend of both. For instance, APIs have really changed how firms interact and share information with each other. And we really take this for granted these days, because back then you’d have to get permission from legal to sign contracts before experimenting with partnerships. Now you can easily partner up with another service within API or use OAuth . It’s really increased our productivity, but it can also have some potential problems if we’re not careful. For instance, if you downloaded Pokémon Go earlier this week, you might have been given Google full access. That meant that the Pokémon people could read all your emails and send out emails for you. But since then they fixed it. I think, Kilian, they fixed it pretty quick. Kilian: Yeah, in about, I think, 24 hours, more or less, they had a patch out that it addressed it already. I think, as opposed to a technology fail, that might be a technology win, for a company really taking these concerns seriously and addressing it as soon as it’s kind of brought up. Mike: Before we get into that, I just want to know, what’s your guys’ level? How you been doing on Pokémon Go? Have you been getting out there, doing your Pokémon? Cindy: I’ve been…I actually downloaded it at the office. And I could have thrown something at somebody, but I didn’t. I’m like, “Well, I’m just doing this for work, so better not start running after people and throwing stuff at them.” Mike: You couldn’t convince the rest of the office that playing Pokémon Go was part of your job? Cindy: Actually, we had a mobile photography class earlier this week, and Michelle, our HR person, was walking around telling people that Pokémon’s gonna be there. She was doing that for me. Mike: Nice. How about you, Kilian, have you tried it? Kilian: No, I haven’t downloaded it. That would require going outside and interacting with things, maybe. Mike: The first couple ones show up right around you. And I think this is kind of where I was going with this, which is that a lot of this…in terms of tech fails, this is really about managing complexity. In terms of IT, trying to manage these external services, it’s about managing complexity on an organizational level instead of a personal one. Because when you think about what is involved for this stupid game of Pokémon Go, you’re talking about interacting with geosynchronous orbital satellites for GPS, the internet to get all these apps, these multiple different services. And to pull all that together requires this huge thing. The security issue came about because Google was asking for OAuth access, and that’s just when you use Google to log into it. You log in with your account and it has these things. And it’s so complex because even though it doesn’t look like it, it actually uses Google Maps data underneath. A trick you can do, is if you have Google Maps installed on your iPhone, you can enable offline map access. And in order to achieve the app to app communication on your sandbox apps on the iPhone, it needs all these extra permissions, and it’s just insane trying to make that work. It’s so easy when you’re building something to just like, just give me all the permissions, and we’ll slowly back it down until where it’s supposed to be. Cindy: Do you think this is kind of like, “okay, we’re gonna use external service, and then just not really look at the settings because we’re so focused on making Pokémon Go just a wonderful experience?” Mike: Well, that’s the consumer side. The level we work at, people try to look at something like Amazon web services, which this article mentions. It is fantastically complex. It’s something like 60 different individual services that do individual things and also overlap with other ones where like, oh, there’s like six different ways to send an email with AWS. There’s 20 different ways to put a message in a queue to be picked up by something else. Just trying to wrap your head around like, what actually is it doing, is just insane. And it’s possible to do the stuff. I think it’s just a really hard equation of, “Do we bring this in-house and have a dedicated person for it? Is that more or less of a threat than having this outside?” Something I see a lot of is…coming more from the app side of things is, people swearing up and down that, “I’m gonna get on a virtual private server somewhere for ten bucks a month, put my own version of Ubuntu on it and keep it up to date.” And it’s really hard to imagine that that is as secure as having a dedicated security team at AWS or Heroku or one of the other Azure platforms as a service. It’s that same scenario, sort of, at the organizational level, that either it’s a tremendous amount of effort to maintain and secure all those things yourself, or you’re essentially paying for that in your service contract. Cindy: I think those are all really good questions to ask, and it requires a huge team. Is it possible to delete an entire company with one line of code? Cindy: I kind of want to transition into another fail that’s different than asking good questions and figuring out the architecture. The next fail is a fail on many different levels. It would be interesting for us to discuss. Back in April, there was an article published and shared over 65,000 times when a small hosting company with a little over 1,500 users said that he deleted their customer’s hosted data with a single command. Then later we found out that he was just trying to market his new Linux service for his company. And then people were outraged, “He didn’t do a better job backing up,” they were outraged that he lied to server fault, like a community that really helps one another figure stuff out. It’s security, and backing up, and just technology, it’s complicated. I was a little skeptical reading the article with the headline that said “One Person Accidentally Deletes His Entire Company With One Line of Bad Code.” As you’re responsible for hosting data, you should have multiple backups. One of my favorite comments is, how do you even accidentally type that you accidentally deleted stuff? What are your thoughts and reactions to this article? Mike: Kilian, you want to go? I have my own thoughts. Kilian: Sure. First off, that’s a terrible job of advertising. I don’t know what he’s advertising for. Like, “Host with us and I might break your stuff.” I think the point he was probably going for is that it’s easy to make mistakes, so get a dedicated person that knows better. But I don’t think that really came across. For the actual command itself, a lot of people are in such a hurry to automate and make things easier that it is easy to make mistakes, especially as Mike mentioned earlier, with these vastly complicated systems with dozens of ways to do the same thing. The more the complex the system gets, the easier it is to make a mistake. Maybe it could be that disastrous. But a lot of things really have to go wrong, and kind of poor decisions made throughout the chain. But it’s conceivable that someone could have done that. Mike: Specifically, to the question that’s asked on server fault, which is like a question and answer side for these issues. There’s a lot of utilities that can either take a single or multiple different directories as arguments. So you say, “Hey, copy these two things,” or “Copy this one thing.” And so, in this, the person, they put a space so they have like: /pathfolder /. And so, that last slash got interpreted as the root of the volume they were on. And so, hey, we just destroyed everything, and everything includes all your keys and stuff. Something we talk a lot about in here is layered security, but you need layered backups and recovery as well. That was really the answer to this, is that they were on a virtual private server. In addition to just backing up the local data, their database, the files on it, it takes system images of your entire VPS and keeps it somewhere else. I am incredibly paranoid with backups, especially backups of systems like this. So I always try to even just get it out of the system that…if it’s on…in this case, it was Hetzner, which is a European hosting system, that you get that out onto S3 or you get it out on to Rackspace cloud or something else, just to try to make that a better scenario. Kilian: That’s a great point, is having multiple different…you can’t have one single point of failure in a system like this. Otherwise, you could be very vulnerable. Even for myself when I, for example, backup pictures off of my camera, I have to go to my laptop, I have to go to a network share, and then I have a separate hard drive that I plug in just for that, and then unplug and put it away afterwards. So I have three different places for it. Not that they’re that valuable like a hosting system, but silly things happen sometimes. You know, if I lose power or power surge, I lose two of my systems for some reason, I still have that hard drive that’s sitting in a drawer. Mike: I have a lot of discussions with people where they have backups and this very elaborate system. They’re like, “All right, I have my local network attach storage here, then I got this ‘nother server, and then I rotate them and do all this stuff.” That’s awesome until their house catches on fire and they lose everything. And that’s the stuff you have to think about. It’s like these things come in in weird ways, especially everything is so interconnected and everything is so dependent upon each other that you can just have these weird cascading levels of failure. And from very crazy sources of stuff. Like, DNS goes like a DNS server gets a DDoS attack. And then that actually ends up taking down like a third of the internet just because everything is so connected.  Why can’t we vote online? Cindy: Our next fail…I want to know if you guys think that our inability to vote online is a human fail or a tech fail. What do you guys think? Or any opinion, really. Mike: It’s all in the execution, like all this stuff. That if there was a verifiable, cryptographically secure way of knowing that you could vote, that would be a very positive thing, potentially. It’s a really interesting mix of software and technological concerns, and people, and sociological and political concerns. What I just said about having almost a voting receipt that says, “Great, you used your key to sign, and you have definitely voted for this person and done this thing.” One of the reasons that’s never been done, even on most paper stuff, is that that was a huge source of fraud that in like the olden days, when they had voting receipts, you would go and turn them into your councilman and they would be like, “Great, here’s your five bucks for voting for me in this election.” So that’s just something that’s not done. That’s not a technical issue. It’s certainly possible to do those things, but it leads to all these other unforeseen, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the cobra effect kind of things, these horrible unintended consequences. Cindy: I think this article on why we still can’t vote online was just very thoughtfully written. It talked about how it can potentially destabilize a country’s government and leadership if they don’t get voting online right. It was really just like, wow, I can’t believe a researcher at The Lawrence Livermore National Lab said, “We do not know how to build an internet voting system that has all the security, and privacy, and transparency and verifiable properties that a national security application like voting has to have.” And they’re worried about malware, they’re worried about ransomware, they’re worried about being able to go in and track, do a complete security audit. They said something interesting too about how, in the finance system, sure, you have sensitive data, and you can go back and track where the money went more or less, if you have these systems in place. But you might not necessarily be able to do that with voting, and someone can say, “I voted for so and so,” and then change it to somebody else, and they can’t go back and verify that. There are so many elements that you need to consider. It’s not just Pokémon, or you’re not trying to create a wonderful gaming experience, or you’re not trying to back things up. They’re a multitude of things you need to take in to consider. Kilian: The one big thing, and I think the heart of it, was the need for anonymity in the voting process. That’s kind of the way it was set up to avoid coercion and some other problems with it, is you need to be anonymous when you cast that vote. By putting it online, the real down side is… Like, if you think about online banking, it’s important to know and verify that you are who you say you are, and have a transaction of that entire process so you can ensure…it’s kind of both parties know that the money transfer from X to Y or so on and so forth. And you have the track of the steps. But when you try and introduce anonymity into that equation, it completely falls apart. Because if you have that tracking data going back to somebody casting a vote, then they could be a target of coercion or something like that. Or if the opposition party finds out, they could go after them for not voting for whoever. Cindy: Yeah, they did that with Nelson Mandela. Kilian: Yep. And then the other thing too is, as a person casting a vote, if you think about it, you’re kind of trusting the system. It’s completely blackboxed you at that point. So when you click the button and say, “I vote for candidate XYZ,” you have no idea, because, again, you want to be anonymous. You don’t have that verification of the system that says, “Hey, my vote wasn’t changed to candidate ABC in the process.” You kind of have to go along with it. Even if you look back at some of the physical problems with the George W. Bush election with the ballots not lining up right with the little punches. It was punching for… I forget what the other candidate’s name was. Cindy: Al Gore? Kilian: No, no, no. It was like Paton Cannon or somebody. Whoever the third party candidate was. But they were saying, “No, no, I voted for Al Gore…” whoever, but it registered somebody else. They had to go back and manually look at that, and look at the physical paper to see that to validate that. But if you think in a digital system, if you click the button, you have no way to audit that really. Because if the system says, “No, you’ve voted for this guy,” you have no proof, you have no additional evidence to back that up, and that’s the big problem. Cindy: They actually showed this in “The Good Wife,” the TV show that is no longer around, or they just ended. The voters would go in and they would vote for someone, but then it would also give the other person five additional more votes. I think another thing to…they didn’t mention it, but I think politicians or just that kind of industry are kind of a tad bit slower in the technology side. Because Barack Obama’s campaign really set the tone for using technology and using social media to kind of engage the voters. It’s kind of like he really changed how now politicians are marketing and connecting with people. I don’t know, do you feel like they’re kind of behind? Or maybe that’s just me? Kilian: My personal opinion is, we have laws that don’t make sense with where technology’s at, because they are slow. We’re still running on laws, and been prosecuting cases with laws that were made in the ’80s and early ’90s, and even older in some cases, where technology was vastly different than what we have today. This might be off topic, but there was just, I think, a ruling that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could theoretically mean that if you share your Netflix password, it’s a federal crime. Now, that’s open to interpretation, but that was a story I had seen the other day. We have all this technology and it’s evolving much, much faster than the people making the regulations can kind of keep up with it. Mike: I just want to see a Poke stop at every voting registration. Cindy: Mike has Pokémon on his mind. Kilian: It’s great, it’s good fun. Cindy: Now I have Pokémon…I actually visualized us playing Pokémon at a voting station. That would be interesting. It’s too hot and humid in New York to do that. Kilian: Vote to vote or play Pokémon. Cindy: I almost want to say Poke because it’s so hot. Kilian: Well, to the candidates out there, the first one to get on top of this making a Poke stop at the voting booths in November might seize the election with the youth vote. Mike: A Pokémon at every pot. Should One Person Be Blamed For A Tech Fail? Cindy: Let’s also kind of think about potential fails, though. We’ve seen Target, Sony, the data breaches. And so, when fails happen that costs them their jobs, do you think one person should be blamed for all of it or can we also kind of say, “We don’t have the technology right yet”? Mike: It’s interesting. What we’re talking about is, there have been a lot of very large data breaches. And what seems to happen is, it happens and then depending upon how much press it gets, the CEO has to resign or doesn’t. Or in the case of the OPM, the director. The parallel that I like to think of is Sarbanes Oxley, which has had a lot of other consequences. But the big one was that the chief executive has to sign off on the financials of the company. Before, it was always there were a lot of scandals where it was like, “I’m just running the company. My CFO and the accounting group, they were doing their own thing with the funds. And I wasn’t aware that this…” Then we said this like 10,000 pounds of coconuts we had on the dock, they were rotten were actually good. We counted those in the asset, all of those kind of shenanigans. And just that thought that, okay, the finances and the statements that are put out, that is an executive level sign off, that there’s a responsibility at that level to ensure that those are correct. What we’re seeing is sort of that happening on the IT security side. That maintaining integrity of your customer’s data, of the people you’re responsible for, that is something that the executives need to say is a priority, and to ensure that in any way they can. That if they aren’t doing that, that’s their job, that they failed at their job. Now, looking through these kind of stories, you typically find that the person in charge is not a network security person, because there’s not a lot of people that get their CISSP and then say, “I’m qualified to be CEO.” That’s just not how the normal job progression works. But they need to have people in place, and they need to make sure that the right things are happening, despite not having the personal expertise to implement those but that they make it a priority and they give budget, and they’re able to balance it against the other needs of the company. Technologies that can predict your next security fail Cindy: In order to come back from a security or technology fail…there was an article about “There’s new technology that can predict your next security fail.” They are essentially talking about predictive analytics. I really like a quote that they wrote that, “It’s only as good as the forethought you put into it, and the questions that you ask of it.” If you don’t think about it, if you don’t have a whole team to work on this huge security and technology problem…because there’s only so much you can…in terms of big data, machine learning, predictive analytics, there’s a lot of stuff, a lot of elements that you’re unable to kind of account for. So if you don’t consider all the different elements in security, you can’t build that into the technology that we build. What are some other things you think that can help companies prevent or come back from a tech fail or a security fail or a human fail? Kilian: The only thing I could get in my mind there was asking the right questions. For me is from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If you ask it, what’s the meaning of life, the universe and everything, it’s gonna give an answer. But what’s the question you’re really trying to get out of it? That’s all I can think of in my head. I think that’s one thing people get stuck in a lot of times, is asking the wrong questions that they need from their data. I’m sorry, Mike, I cut you off there. You were gonna say something. Mike: I’m in agreement with you, Kilian, because I think too often the question posed is, “Are we secure?” There’s no crisp answer to that. It’s never gonna be yes, we’re 100% good, because the only way to do that is not to have any data, and not to have any interactions with customers. If that’s the case, then you don’t have a business. So you have to have something. You still have to have people interacting, and the moment you have two people interacting, you’re vulnerable at some level. They can be tricked, they could do anything. And then you have networks, and the networks are talking. So it’s much more about, what is the level of risk that you find acceptable? What steps can you take towards mitigating known dangers? How much effort and time and money can you put behind those efforts? There’s no quick fix. Something we talk about a lot on this is that data is, in a lot of ways, like a toxic asset. It’s something that you need to think about like, “Oh, we have all this extra data. Well, let’s try and get rid of some of it. Just so we don’t have it around to cause us a problem, just so we don’t have it around to be leaked in some way.” There’s lots of different ways to do that and lots of benefits of doing so. Parting Gift Cindy: Now in the parting gift segment of our show, where we share things we’re working on, or something we found online that we think our viewers and listeners would appreciate. I just read that Chrysler, the car brand, is offering a bug bounty between $150 to $1,500 for finding bugs. But you can’t make it public. And also, I just updated top InfoSec people to follow. I included a whole bunch of other women that were missed. So check that out at blog.varonis.com. Mike: Who’s the one person you think we should follow that we weren’t before? Cindy: I definitely think we should be all following Runa Sandvik. She’s the new InfoSec security person. She writes about the Info security at the New York Times. She also worked on Tor, and she did this really cool rifle hack. And she wrote about that. Or someone wrote about her hack on Wired. Any parting gifts, Mike? Mike: I was gonna recommend Qualys’ SSL lab server test. If you’re unaware of what it is, you can put it in your website and it will run through all the different ways in which you’ve screwed up setting it up properly to be secure. It gives you a nice letter grade. So, a couple interesting things about this. One: It’s really hard to make one of these yourself, because to do so, you have to maintain a system that has all of the old, bad libraries on it for connecting on SSL1 and 2 and 3 that are deprecated. Just so you can make the connections and say, like, “Yes, this remote system also connects with this.” So it’s not something you want to do, and it’s not something you can do trivially. So it’s great that this is an online service. And then two: I think it’s really interesting how…they essentially just made up these letter grades for what they consider as an A, A+, B. But in doing so, they were able to really improve the security of everyone. Because it’s one thing to say, “Okay, out of 200 possible things we comply with, 197 of them.” It’s a different thing to know, “Okay, we got a failing grade because one of those three things we didn’t do was actually really, really bad and exploitable.” And to be able to compare that across sites, I think, just has a lot of incentives to make everyone improve their site. Like, “Oh, gosh, this other site is a better grade than us. We should definitely improve things.” So for those reasons, I think it’s a really great part of the security ecosystem and a great tool for all of that. Cindy: Kilian, do you have a parting gift? Kilian: I was reading an article the other day, it was pretty interesting how we all come to rely on our phones and our digital assistance, like Siri or Google Now, to make our lives easier to interact with a device. Some researchers started thinking that, “Hey, this is a good avenue for exploitation.” They started kind of distorting voice commands so they can embed it in other things, to get your phone to do stuff on your behalf. So, it’s just an interesting thing to keep aware of and how you’re using your digital assistance, because other people could start to exploit it by issuing voice commands to it to maybe direct you to a malicious site or something. It’s one more thing to kind of keep in the back of your mind.   Subscribe Now Join us Thursdays at 1:30ET for the Live show on Youtube, or use one of the links below to add us to your favorite podcasting app. iTunes Android RSS The post TechFails – IOSS 15 appeared first on Varonis Blog.

Renowned as one of Sydney’s most upfront and respected selectors, Mike Who’s skills behind the turntables are in increasingly high demand. Known for serving up a cross-continental riot, his widely-sourced taste and deep Hip-Hop roots lend themselves to an assorted dancefloor package spanning genres, generations and continents. Mix recorded live at Beats Of No Nation HQ.

We have Minecraft fever! Well, three of us do anyway. We yell at those young whippersnappers, adore Weird Al, and try to get Gungam Style out of our heads!Not sure if you saw this yet but the pirate bay is launching a free VPN called PrivitizeVPN.Just thought you may be interested.regards,Mike Who should be held responsible if your online info is stolen?I think it depends. Social sites it should be a matter of common sence, if you post content you relinquish ownership in some cases. If however you store content on a site specifically designed for content storage and or backup then that site should be held responsible. For sites like email then you use their service in good faith that they can keep your account safe, so yes they should be held responsible also. All financial or personal data sites like medical info should also be held responsible. If you download something for free, buy something from an unknown app developer, or use opensource software then you can only blaim yourself should anything happen. Likening this to the lemonade thing, if you buy little susies lemonade its something usually made by a child so you are accepting the risk of getting sick, its common sence. If however you go to a fast food or reseraunt and buy a soda or something then its supposed to be a drink from a reputable source and your buying it in good faith that it wont make you sick, and therfore the resteraunt or fast foos place should be held responsible. Its basically common sence law.Sorry about the spelling, my tablet doesn't seem to have, or I can' find the spell checker. I have auto correct off cause it was driving me nuts. (Sort drive)Thanks, Toven. Headlines:Android needs a new imageSony has a big-ass TV. We want Sony's big-ass TV.LulzSec . . . we're still after them?Joss Whedon to bring S.H.I.E.L.D to televisionIran is now cut off from World of Warcraft. War starting in 3....2....1.....No one knows what the cloud is!The Zune is all but dead(more)Java has some problemsSamsung trades a Galaxy S III for an epic drawing of a dragon A wild Trogdor appears in the comments.Fast Lane:The HD photos taken by the Mars Curiosity Rover have been stitched together at Gigapan, allowing people to zoom in and inspect the Martian landscape for themselves. Unfortunately, it also lets people snap pictures and leave comments about how every rock looks like an alien.Move over Tupac! The Republican National Convention actually made a holographic Ronald Reagan but shelved it at the last minute due to fears it might upstage GOP candidate Mitt Romney. I’m actually not making any of that up.The day is for Bond, James Bond. On October 5th the world will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the world’s greatest spy.Bic has come out with a pen specifically designed for women prompting much ridicule online. What? Men with small hands don’t need to write too? And why is it that things are just “for women?” Yogurt? I like to poop just as much as my wife, maybe more...Talking Point: The increasing speed of technology adoption and early adoptersZuke’s potential favorite: What in the name of all that is holy . . . ?Stark’s Favorite: What was Patrick Stewart and Simon Pegg doing during the London Olympics?Zohner’s Favorite: Lego Serenity is AWESOMESchmidty’s Favorite: The best Old Spice Ad Ever! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

May 21, 2011: Are you ready for the Rapture?WTF! We're still here......Hmmmmmmm?NY man spends life savings to tell us the world will end May 21!Fact or Crap: John's 2 for 2 again.Mail Bag:One from Denny on the end of the world.One from Mike: Who says blondes are dumb?Another from Denny: Connecticut teen banned from prom for asking out date with huge sign.Two from Peter:1) Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani supporters strike back. Huh?2) Up to date senior texting.One from Damon: Reflections.The Rest of the Show:1) Dallas keeps $2000 found by honest teen.2) Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and 2 sons detained for questioning.3) Police beating of Las Vegas man caught on tape.Snakes of the Week - Las Vegas Police Department and Officer Derek Colling.

Intro: In this podcast we continue discussion on the in-progress FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction, with a focus on the D-Block public safety piece. Mike: Gordon, can you give us a little background on the auction? Back in 2005 Congress passed a law that requires all U.S. TV stations to convert to all digital broadcasts and give up analog spectrum in the 700 MHz frequency band. This law will free up 62 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band and effectively eliminate channels between 52 and 69. This conversion, which has a deadline of February 18, 2009, has freed up spectrum that is being split up by the FCC into five blocks: A-Block - 12 MHz, split up into 176 smaller economic areasB-Block - 12 MHz, split up into 734 cellular market areasC-Block - 22 MHz, up into 12 regional licensesD-Block - 10MHz, combined with approximately 10MHz allocated for public safety, a single national license.E-Block - 6 MHz, split up into 176 smaller economic areas Each Block has a reserve price set by FCC and if a reserve price is not met in the auction, the FCC will end up re-auctioning that piece of spectrum.Mike: I know we discussed the auction a few weeks ago and not much has changed. Can you give us an update on where the auction is today? Bidding round 102 came to a close yesterday afternoon with $19,524,595,900 (last week the auction finished at $19,450,389,100 - it is slowing) in total provisionally winning bids. Things have slowed considerably with only 40 new bids placed in round 102. For reference, on Thursday, each round averaged about 50 new bids.Most active in the final round yesterday were E-Block licenses in the Bismark, North Dakota and Rapid City, South Dakota areas along with B-Block licenses in the southeastern United States.The public safety D-Block still has not had a bid since the first round and will end up being re-auctioned by the FCC.This may end up being the last week (an FCC decision but I'm thinking so). After the auction is closed the FCC will announce the winners. Mike: Let's talk specifically about D-Block, the public safety piece. What's happened - why are we not seeing any new bids? I think you have to go back and look at the history of D-Block. Early on it appeared Frontline Wireless would be one of the biggest bidders for D-Block spectrum - the company was setup for D-Block and had worked closely with the FCC on putting together specifications for the spectrum. Frontline built a formidable team including Vice Chairman Reed Hundt, who served as Chairman of the FCC between 1993 and 1997. The business plan, the organization, the technology seemed to all be in place........ On January 12 the company placed the following statement on their website: Frontline Wireless is closed for business at this time. We have no further comment. Another company, Cyren Call also looked like they were planning to bid on the D-Block Auction but did not. Mike: So what happened? Rumor has it Frontline could not attract enough funders - it seemed like a good investment - or at least you may think so up front. Many are now asking if the FCC's approach to solving the public safety inter-operability problem is in trouble. At the same time many are also asking "Is there a better way?" I've always liked the idea of public-private partnerships and we've seen them work in times of disaster - last August I wrote here about the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse tragedy and how within minutes USI Wireless opened their subscription-based Wi-Fi service so anyone could use it for free. US Wireless didn't just stop there - because the network had only been built around part of the disaster, the company installed additional Wi-Fi radios in areas surrounding the catastrophe to blanket it with signals, providing an additional 12 megabits per second of capacity to the area around the bridge collapse. A national network built from scratch may be too big of a bite though. Mike: So what are we looking at for a solution? Last month I had an interesting conversation with Rivada Networks’ Senior Vice President for External Affairs John Kneuer about emergency responder communications and the FCC Spectrum Auction.. Rivada uses existing cellular networks and commercial off-the-shelf technology to deliver high-speed voice and data services over a network that can survive natural or man-made disasters. I like the idea of using the existing commercial infrastructure for public safety for lots of reasons. State homeland security officials have struggled for years with the inability of local emergency responders to communicate with each other and their federal counterparts during disasters. This inter-operability problem is so serious it has been identified as the number one concern of state homeland security officials in the National Governors Association 2007 State Homeland Security Directors Survey. Here's a quote from the report: Public safety interoperable communications once again topped the list of homeland security advisors’ concerns in 2007 as states continue to work to ensure that first responders from various agencies, jurisdictions, and levels of government can speak to each other during emergencies or at the scene of a disaster. Increasingly, the campaign for interoperability has expanded beyond voice communications to encompass data and video interoperability as well. Mike: How does this system work?Rivada uses existing cellular networks and commercial off-the-shelf technology to deliver high-speed voice and data services over a network that can survive natural or man-made disasters. Right now Rivada is working with National Guard units in 11 states (Alabama, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington). These units are installing new communications systems for voice and data services over a network that uses existing commercial infrastructure. Not relying on a single network makes a lot of sense when you consider communications survival during natural or man-made disasters.According to a Rivada press release, the Louisiana Army National Guard decided last year to adopt their interoperable public safety communications system for the following reasons:Is available today,Does not require new spectrum allocation or depend on federal spectrum auctions or mandates, andOffers far greater range and capability at a fraction of the cost of other existing or planned technologies. Rivada also supplements existing technology and infrastructure as needed by:Building new towers in areas without sufficient commercial infrastructure;Employing Rivada Interoperable Communications Extension Systems (ICES) – “fly-in? units capable of being deployed within hours – where existing infrastructure has been degraded or destroyed;Using proprietary backwards-compatible technology to provide full interoperability between cell phones, PDAs, laptops, landlines and traditional ‘walkie talkie’-type Land Mobile Radio (LMR) systems; andCombining all of these elements into an efficient network architecture. Mike: Who would these leasing agreements be with?Right now Rivada is not saying who they are making leasing agreements with but it seems like a safe bet to assume Verizon, Sprint and AT&T will be involved - it would be good revenue along with PR and advertising for the companies. In terms of the public safety personnel it makes a whole lot of sense because they would be able to use their day-to-day wireless devices in emergency situations.The providers would build out, maintain and update the infrastructure....... I'm liking this kind of solution.

The FCC 700 MHz Spectrum AuctionIntro: In this podcast we discuss the in-progress FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction.Gordon: Mike, you are the reigning Global Wireless Education Consortium Educator of the year so you know about this stuff - what exactly is this spectrum the FCC is auctioning and where did it come from?Back in 2005 Congress passed a law that requires all U.S. TV stations to convert to all digital broadcasts and give up analog spectrum in the 700 MHz frequency band. This law will free up 62 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band and effectively eliminate channels between 52 and 69. This conversion, which has a deadline of February 18, 2009, has freed up spectrum that is being split up by the FCC into five blocks.Gordon: What so interesting about this block of spectrum?Cell coverage, required cell-site density and cost (total network cost and cost per customer).I understand each spectrum block in the 700 MHz auction, except for the national public safely D-Block, has been assigned an area designation by the FCC. Could you describe those areas included in the 700 MHz auction using FCC definitions.Economic AreasBoth the A-Block (12 MHz) and the E-Block (6 MHz) are being auctioned using the Economic Area (BEA) service areas established by the Regional Economic Analysis Division, Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. Included are Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Gulf of Mexico. There are a total of 176 Economic Area service areas designated by the FCC.BEA services include General Wireless Communications Service (GWCS), Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) and Location and Monitoring Service (LMS). Cellular Market AreasThe B-Block (12 MHz) is being auctioned using the Cellular Market Area (CMA) service areas. The 734 CMAs are broken down as follows: Areas 1-305: Created from the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) defined by the Office of Management and Budget (1-305) Area 306: The Gulf of MexicoAreas 307-734: Rural Service Areas (RSAs) established by the FCC which do not cross state borders including parts of Puerto Rico not already in an MSA (723-729), U.S. Virgin Islands (730-731), Guam (732), American Samoa (733), and Northern Mariana Islands (734).CMA Services include Cellular Radiotelephone Service and Interactive Video and Data Service (IVDS) Regional Economic Areas The C-Block (22 MHz) is being auctioned using the 12 Regional Economic Areas (REAs) created by the FCC. The REAs are an aggregation of the 52 Major Economic Areas (MEAs) defined by the FCC. REA Services include Wireless Communications Service (WCS)All FCC areas, along with names, county lists, maps and map info data can be found on the Commission's website linked here. Mike: How is the auction being conducted? On their website, the Federal Communications Commission has  a public notice titled Auction of 700 MHZ Band Licenses. This document describes the bidding procedure for the 214 companies that have qualified for the auction, which will be handled by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB). The WTB is one of seven FCC Bureaus and is responsible for all FCC domestic wireless telecommunications programs and policies.Here's a summary outline of the procedure pulled from the 12 page FCC document: Bidding in Auction 73 started on Thursday, January 24, 2008.Each qualified bidder received prior to January 24: At least two RSA SecurID tokens An Integrated Spectrum Auction System (ISAS) Bidder’s Guide A FCC Auction Bidder Line phone number The FCC will conduct the auction over the Internet and telephonic bidding will also be available. In either case, each authorized bidder must have his or her own SecurID token. There will be a minimum opening bid amount for each license and package and the minimum opening bid amount is subject to reduction at the discretion of the WTB. The WTB will not entertain requests to lower minimum opening bid amounts. The WTB has established the following block-specific aggregate reserve prices for Auction 73: Block A, $1.807380 billion;Block B, $1.374426 billion;Block C, $4.637854 billion;Block D, $1.330000 billion;Block E, $0.903690 billion. Mike: It's interesting the range of reserve prices - is it safe to say that these correlate to the "value" the FCC sees with each?If, at the close of bidding in Auction 73, the aggregate reserve price for the A, B, C and/or E Blocks has not been met, the WTB will issue an announcement that bidding in Auction 73 is closed and set a date for commencement of Auction 76. Round results will be available approximately 10 minutes after the close of each round. and two types of reports will be available to bidders: (a) publicly available information, and (b) bidder-specific information available only to that bidder when logged in to the FCC Auction System. Each qualified bidder will have a default watchlist that contains every license and packages of licenses selected on the bidder’s short-form application. Qualified bidders may also create custom watchlists. On Tuesday, January 22, the WTB conducted a mock auction, which will allow qualified bidders to familiarize themselves with the FCC Auction System. Only qualified bidders will be permitted to participate in the mock auction. Once winning bids are announced (either after Auction 73 or Auction 76) and winning bidders are announced, winning bidders will have 10 business days to file a long-form application (FCC Form 601) and make down payments for all of the licenses it won. Mike: Who are some of the major bidders? USA Today has published an interesting article titled Google could cause a stir in FCC's airwaves auction and, in the article, some of the leading bidders and their likely strategies are listed.Let's take a quick look at some of the major bidders (in alphabetical order) and their expected bidding strategies. For additional detail be sure to read the USA Today Article.AT&T AT&T already has more spectrum than any other carrier so bidding on the 700 MHz band will be used for further build-out. Many experts are speculating AT&T will focus primarily on the D-Block public-safety spectrum.Mike: Why is AT&T going after public-safety spectrum? Am I missing something?Cablevision, Cox, Advance/Newhouse, BresnanThese cable companies are interested in spectrum to provide wireless services and compete with the large providers. Most experts believe they will be bidding on A-Block regional licenses in their service areas.EchoStarEchoStar is a satellite TV provider that is interested in using spectrum to provide wireless broadband access to its customers. Most experts do not feel EchoStar has the money to compete with companies like Google, At&T and Verizon in the auction.GoogleGoogle is the heavyweight here. The company wants to further expand into the cellular smartphone market and has the money to compete with the big providers. The company is expected to bid the $4.6 Billion minimum for the C-Block spectrum.Mike: Is this National Spectrum? As opposed to regional?Leap, MetroPCS,, AlltelLike the cable companies (Cablevision, Cox, etc), these regional wireless companies will likely be bidding on A-Block regional licenses in their service areas. Experts also are speculating Alltel will bid on the public safety D-Block spectrum.Paul Allen and VulcanPaul Allen's (co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates) investment company, Vulcan, already owns spectrum in Washington and Oregon.Vulcan may be bidding on some of the C-Block regional licenses or smaller A or B-Block regional licenses.QualcommThe California based wireless manufacturer is looking for spectrum for its MediaFlo smartphone video service. Qualcomm will likely be bidding on E-Block regional licenses.VerizonVerizon will likely be bidding big on C-Block spectrum with plans to open their network to any (hardware and software) devices.Mike: Can you give us some background on the auction to date?The 26th round finished yesterday (Friday - Feb. 1, 2008) afternoon - here's a quick update from the FCC auction site: Bidding Rounds to Date: 26Bid totals to Date: $18,554,080,600The A and B-Blocks have been getting most of the attention lately:The Los Angeles A-Block leads the A's with a current bid of $580,268,000.The Chicago B-Block leads the B's with a current bid of $892,400,000. There has not been a C-Block bid since it passed the FCC reserve price on Thursday. The current C-Block bid is $4,713,823,000.The public safety D-Block has not had a bid in 25 consecutive rounds and is stuck at $472,042,000, well below the $1.3 Billion reserve price set by the FCC.E-Block bidding has been slow with the New York City E-Block leading at $178,897,000.23 licenses had not registered a bid at the end of round 26, 19 of these 23 are in the E-Block. Mike: Any personal observations and opinions on the auction?It looks (to me anyways) like the C-Block bidding may be done. Since the FCC reserve price of $4.6 Billion has been passed, the open-access that Google wanted is assured. We won't know who the winning bidders are until after the auctions have closed but I'd say Google is the current leading C-Block bidder.Right now it does not look like the D-Block will meet the $1.3 Billion reserve price and will end up being re-auctioned by the FCC.A number of E-Block licenses will not meet minimum bids and will also be re-auctioned.The FCC had set an original goal of $10 Billion for the auction. With current bids totaling over $18 Billion, it appears the auction (from the FCC's perspective) will be a success. Bidding is closed for the weekend with round 27 starting Monday (Feb. 4, 2008) morning.Mike: What's the best way to stay updated?If you want to stay updated - the FCC Auction 73: 700 MHz Auction Summary page lists, among other things, results of the auction after each round. You can also watch my blog!Mike: When will we know the winners?The auction will likely last a couple of months so we won't know the winners until then. We should start to see products from the winning bidders that use the spectrum sometime next year.