What?  Do my ears deceive me?  Is that Helix Nebula I hear?  It can’t be?  A new Blue Yonder?!  Yes, while it is true that we put BY in mothballs to concentrate on TV casting, every once in a while we feel the need to cut loose and get a little old-school, off-topic ranty, and our brief off-season has provided us just such an opportunity.  If you’re a fan of our TV-focused casts, like Breaking Good or Watching Dead, there’s probably not a lot for you here, but if you like general geek/gaming topics you might enjoy it.  For all of our old, die-hard fans, welcome back! Join Jim and A.Ron as we discuss just what the hell we’ve been up to the past four months and our latest gaming endeavors (including Settlers of Catan, Stratego, Battles of Westeros, Batman Arkham City, and of course, Skyrim).  We rant about the ludicrous situation that downloadable patches and locked save games has brought to us, talk a little bit of TV (of course), reminece about our Great War with Personal Arrogants, and read the last feedback we got on the cast way back in August.  Jim gives an update on our experiment with a “listener sourced cast”.  Finally, A.Ron fulfills a promise to donate some cash to his favorite charity, Child’s Play. As always, if you like what we do, give us a shout out!  You can email, Tweet, or Facebook us.  Give us some lovin’ by leaving us an iTunes review and especially by using our Amazon affiliate link for any and all of your Amazon shopping needs.  Remember, it costs you nothing, and sends a little “sumpin’ sumpin”‘ our way.  Win/win!

In this week’s show, A.Ron and Jim ponder some science, philosophy, pop culture and politics through the lens of SCIENCE!  First up, a research paper opens up the debate about spoilers we first had way back in episode 62, with a new study suggesting that reading pre-spoiled books is more enjoyable than reading them spoiler-free.  So take your spoiler tag, shine it up real nice, turn it sideways, and cram it up your candy ass! Next comes another study that boldly asserts that once just 10 percent of a given population holds an unshakable belief in an idea, that it is inevitable that idea will take over the majority of the same population.  This might have some potential applications in podcasting!  We just need another 700 million listeners!  We are so close! Jim and A.Ron briefly discuss Jim’s thoughts on GENCON, and we look forward to PAX next week.  Then, we have some bittersweet news to drop on you, as we announce that Blue Yonder will be going on hiatus in the coming weeks.  We’re not stopping podcasting!  Hell, no, we’re just off general geekery and we’re on to our other passion, television.  If you’re a fan of Breaking Bad, we’d love it if you followed us over at our new project, Breaking Good. And if you still can’t get enough geek and pop culture, we cannot recommend our frienemies over at Personal Arrogants enough.  We never knew that when we started shit with them, oh so many months ago, that we’d find such dependable foils as well as friends.  Jim and I (gemini) are huge fans, and we feel like if you give them a shot, you’ll like them as well if not better than our cast.  They also have the virtue of not going off the air!  So there’s that. If you’d like to share any fond memories you’ve had of the cast with us, email them in!  For every piece of feedback we get, A.Ron is donating $5 to Child’s Play, up to a maximum of $500.  We’re doing a final, very special episode 77 where we reminisce about the last year, and give our final State of the Geek address before signing off.  We still hope to do a joint cast with the PA crew in Seattle if they’re up for a 1 week reunion tour!  See you next week!  I’ll bring the kleenex!  Ew, god, not like that.

We are back after last week’s hiatus.  Honestly, I’m heartbroken we lost the Jim Jones Experiment.  It was an hour long mind fuck of yours truly by Jim Jones, and it was weird, it was uncomfortable, it was hilarious by the end, and it would have been legendary, and then Jim deleted it, with no backups.  Because, I dunno?  Mac people don’t make good backups.  I guess? No use crying over spilled podcasts.  Jim actually is sick, as is his post-convention custom (he has the immune system of a baby bird.  A baby birds with full blown AIDS) so Mad Brew from Mad Brew Labs graciously stepped in to do a wrap up, Blue Yonder style.  We discuss the awesome, the lame, and the fun games we played this weekend. We talk specifically about Fantasy Flights new Star Wars Mini Space Battles game, Battles of Westeros, Blood Bowl Team Manager, MERCS minis, Third and Long: The Football Card Game, WarMachine, Epic Armory, and lots more. If you are a Pathfinder fan, be sure to check out Michael’s online character generator, Venture Captain.  It’s free and totally awesome.   [ratings]

GENCON, the “best four days in gaming”, is coming to our humble home town of Indianapolis next week.  We invited Michael “Madbrew” Brewer back on to give some tips for what to look for in this years convention, how to navigate the expo hall, potential new releases, and what you can safely avoid.  If you missed last year’s GenCon preview with Michael, you might want to give it a listen, as he discussed a lot more general GENCON survival tips, and his love for RPGs. We’ll be out there for all four days, so if you’re going to be around, shout us out on Twitter or email, and say “hi” or come game with us!  You can get in touch with Michael over at his blog Mad Brew Labs, or his new Pathfinder character generator, Venture Captain.  He’ll also be cosplaying as Chun Li at GENCON this year, so hit him up on Twitter if you want a pose with him.  (NOTE: Not actually true.)

Busy week for A.Ron and Jim. A.Ron breaks down his various trials and tribulations including a Jim Jones mindfuck, a breakup, getting his PANFI on with his boy, and golfing in Satan’s Asshole. We also launched a very successful podcast on Breaking Bad, and were interviewed on The Amazingly Pulp SHOOOOOOOWWWWWW!! We bring the listeners up do date with some follow up to the male privelidge aspect of our cast with Madbrew last week. I don’t know what to make of this take, in particular, of a feminist pondering male privildge through the prism of her own white privlidge. I don’t doubt the basic truth of her premise, but I’m not sure what to do with this information. We get excited about the upcoming GENCON and PAX events in August, and the breeding habbits of werecabbages. And that’s just the bullshit! The meat is formed from an article at Wired about the new video game based “religion” of Chain World. We cover the twists, turns, and wheels within wheels turning within this story. Jim challenges you, the listener, to try and pervert and annoy us with our very own cast, and releases a vast swath of our show’s library under the Creative Commons license to facilitate this. Then we lose our shit over a video two harpies and a man without testicles or common sense made about it not being normal for men in their 30s and beyond to play video games. This leads to a larger discussion of relationships and gender privilege. Jim previews the upcoming mindfuck episode, and then we half-ass listener feedback. If you liked this week’s episode, drop us a line! You can also follow us on Twitter, and our Facebook page. Love us, like us, follow us! If you appreciate what we do, consider leaving us an iTunes review. And don’t forget our forums!   [ratings]

This week we bring back Michael “Madbrew” Brewer from MadBrewLabs for a three man debate about insane co-workers, assholes in RPGs, gaming culture, inclusiveness, women and minorities in gaming, who has rights to our friendships, and what we can or should do about our White/Straight/CIS/Male Privilege. Michael also entertains us with some Stories from the Service that he collected in his four years of serving in the US Marine Corps.  Don’t forget to check out his RPG blog, MadbrewLabs, and his new Pathfinder character generator, Venture Captain. If you liked this week’s episode, drop us a line!  You can also follow us on Twitter, and our Facebook page.  Love us, like us, follow us! If you appreciate what we do, consider leaving us an iTunes review.  And don’t forget our forums!   [ratings]

Jim and A.Ron always pay their debts.  We owe you a cast, and today we deliver on that promise.  We talk about Florence + The Machine, Battle for Hill 218 (free online version), Battlestar Galactica (board game AND series), that fantastic new HBO series “Game of Thrones” that just finished up it’s first season, A.Ron’s revolutionary idea for a “sincerity” movement, and the surprising news that Kickstarter is the 3rd largest independent comic book publisher. We finish up with Jim sharing his love for Tim Minchin, some listener feedback, a podcaster pledge, and of course, Stafa’s Corner.  If you liked this week’s episode, drop us a line!  You can also follow us on Twitter, and our Facebook fan page.  If you appreciate what we do, consider leaving us an iTunes review.  And don’t forget our forums!   [ratings] Jim wanted me to share another link to the free online Dominion game system too.  If you’re into that kind of thing…

The write up for this one is going to be short and sweet, folks, because the content is long and savory.  We finally aligned technology and schedules and sat down with Ian for a talk about all things geek, legal, and lawery.  Want to know what it’s like to argue before the Supreme Court? What it’s like to be an Omeganaut at PAX?  How to fight back against unfair IP law?  If emulators are legal?  How much energy the Death Star took to destroy Alderaan?  We talk about it.  At length. As a bonus, we have a full transcript of the interview and a “highlight reel” version here.  Hope you enjoy!  We’ll be having Ian on in the future, so if you have follow up questions, drop us a line!  You can also follow us on Twitter, and our Facebook fan page.  If you appreciate what we do, consider leaving us an iTunes review.  And don’t forget our forums!  It’s where all the cool kids hang out. [ratings]

This is a terrible cast.  I honestly wouldn’t listen to it, if I were you.  I mean, I gotta keep it real, right?  I can’t say how awesome our casts are and it mean anything and then drop a turd and talk it up, yeah?  Yeah. Thing is, I’m not sure why it flopped on it’s face.  We had some good bullshit up front; pimping the Brew Ha Ha, advances in metallurgy, saying a happy birthday to Alan Turing, and talking about Terry Prachett’s dignity in making end of life decisions.  A.Ron plugs one of his favorite twitter feeds, @humblebrag. For our meat, Jim discusses whether or not Super 8 brought back fond memories of Spielberg’s innocent sci-fi movies of the 80s, and A.Ron ponders what the recent tidal wave of hacking means for security and privacy in the future.  I dunno, seems like a decent cast.  But it totally wasn’t. If you want to break down where we went wrong, Zapruder film style, drop us a line back, and to the left. Back… and to the left.   Unleash your venom at us on Twitter, flame us on our  Facebook fan page, or give us a terrible review on iTunes.  Don’t forget our forums!  Any hate you spew there stays forever, permanently etched into our SQL database.  All I ask… is for you to be gentle.

The guys release ultra-devastating power on the unsuspecting listeners this week.  First, A.Ron is incredulous with Jim’s shunning of the fantastic game, Angry Birds (now free on Chrome!), talks about how awesome Infamous 2 is, and declares that  X-Men: First Class blows the lid off the Bacon game for a whole new generation. And that’s just the bullshit!  For this week’s meat, A.Ron goes BMT with a discussion of how to succeed in IT without even trying, or how to extort your former employers for fun and profit.  Jim asks if there is a rise in geek anti-intellectualism?  I don’t know about all that, but I sure do get tired of hearing Jim throwing around his fancy goddamn $20 words.  We close with some listener feedback, and what could be the most baffling Stafa’s corner yet. If you’d like to flex your intellectualism, drop us a line, give us a shout on Twitter, leave us some feedback on our  Facebook fan page, or review us on iTunes.  Don’t forget our forums, they’re the most groovy, swinging place this side of Kevin’ Bacon’s Hellfire Club!   [ratings]

Teledildonics.  It’s a real word!  Honest.  Look it up! Titles aside, we got vintage May 19th, 2011 juice for you this week, as summer schedules did not permit us to cast in the present time.  Why are honeybees dying?  What unintended consequences are involved with French kissing over IP?  A.Ron goes ego tripping!  Wait, I guess that’s pretty much every week. But then Jim reins him in with some The Guild flavored Haterade, that turns into an introspective gaze into the geek mirror.  It gets all kinds of racial, sexual, size-ual, and social up ins!  Anytime you have a conversation where A.Ron says “I don’t think it’s true that woman like sex less than men”, it’s a must listen, right? Also, if you liked the geek money talk from Episode 61, I have the 201-level course for you; emergency funds and debt snowballing (note: does not involve orally passing debt back and forth with a partner)!  We actually have feedback this week, but it’s going to have to wait for next time, cause we STILL don’t have a time machine to go back and place it in the cast.  We’ll work on that, but in the meantime, drop us a line, and be first in line for the next show’s feedback queue.  Also, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or leave us a five star review on iTunes.  And our forums are hopping and happening, Jim and I (gemini) prowl the grounds daily, looking for listeners to put over.  Listeners just like you!   [ratings]

It’s rough going when you’re sitting across the casting table from the Unabomber.  But I persevere.  For the people.  For my people.  For you, people.  We open the show with some straight up BULLSHIT this week!  The apparently not-so-great state of Tennessee is banning the sharing of account credentials for services such as Netflix.  Jim survives an experience with Bitch Slap!, and A.Ron mourns the missed potential of Priest with a wheelbarrow laden review/recap. The guys get philosophical with the meat portion of the program, with Jim discussing the nature of time and the prospects of traveling through the aforementioned time, and A.Ron pondering the pros and cons of internet vigilantism.   Finally, we serve up some fan-service with some topical Star Wars vs Star Trek debate and a very feminine reading of the latest dispatch from the Don. Reminder!  Register for GENCON, dammit!   We’ll be there all four days, come out and hang with us and play some games!  Pre-registration closes June 18th, which means you’ll have to pay $10 extra for your ticket, AND stand in line at Will Call! Do not pay extra!  Do not stand in line!  Get a cool badge with your name pre-printed on it! If you’d like to complain about me going on and on and on and on about Priest, Billy Joel / We Didn’t Start The Fire style, or want to coordinate GENCON plans or give other feedback on our show, drop us a line, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or leave us a five star review on iTunes.  If you just want to yak, we have forums, just for you, the people.  Our people.  We have a fancy new CAPTCHA that makes registration faster and easier.  Hint: the answer is either “crunch” or “batman”.  Try to figure that one out, spambot!   [ratings]

This week the guys get local up front with news for a possible Brew Ha Ha meet up in downtown Indy, we mourn the passing of a giant with our observation of Towel Day, Jimbo Wales has delusions of grandeur regarding Wiki as a World Wonder, don’t mess with the TSA, Texas, and Jim pitches the idea of laser tag hair removal. The meat is served medium rare with A.Ron lamenting the apparent beginning of the end of human space travel, and practical plans to get us to Mars right now, that no one gives a shit about.  After a brief comedic interlude, Jim discusses Roger Ebert’s meditations on the dying of the light, the dimming and diminishing of America’s cinemas.  Like everything else, Sony is to blame. For feedback, we have a veritable cornucopia,  with a guest spot on home brewing from Jesse of Personal Arrogants, and a Stafa’s Corner that turns into a moving tribute to the late, great, Randy Savage.  Not really.  But it’s entertaining, and he’d want it that way. That’s a pretty damned good episode, if you ask us!  If you agree, or want to hook up at the Brew Ha Ha, drop us a line, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or leave us a five star review on iTunes.  If you don’t, tell us why in our forums! Registration is fast and free!   [ratings]

You got to ask yourself.  What are you going to do?  What the hell are you going to do when you’re staring down a pack of water crazed camels hell bent on sucking the vital fluids from your air conditioner, your toilet, your water pipes?  When they come as an unstoppable lumpy force to destroy your very means of modern life?  One hump or two, motherfucker?  One hump or TWO!? Other than the impending camelocalypse, we give an update on the Playstation Network, discuss a badass’s quest for bad asses, how your dad’s hipsterism won a spot in your mom’s pants, whether Groupon is destroying small businesses, and simulating the HUMAN BRAIN!  All this and more, on an ALL NEW Blue Yonder. If you liked this week’s episode, drop us a line, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or leave us a five star review on iTunes.  Our forums are jumping right now with daily traffic, why not sign up now and join the discussion and get our bonus content?  Registration is fast and free! Arnold’s harem… * Mildred Patricia Baena * Gigi Goyette * Maria Shriver

The fans have been clammoring (clammoring!) for Jim and A.Ron to sing a duet of the inimitable Garth Brook’s “Low Places” for over a year now.  Actually, that’s a lie.  But!  You can still hear it if you stick around after the outro in this week’s episode!  Leading up to the big finish, we give a bit of PSN update, I talk gearhead bullshit for a minute, we talk about the local board gaming scene, the mighty THOR not sucking nearly as much as we presupposed, and whether Chris Hemsworth could earn a spot in the badass pantheon. And that’s just the filler!  The meat is a discussion of Google’s robot cars and what Roger Ebert’s feeding tube tells us about the possibilities of trans/post-humanism. If you liked this week’s episode, drop us a line!  Alternative ways to show us the love; 1) follow us on Twitter, 2) become a fan on Facebook, or 3) leave us a five star review on iTunes.  We have some fresh bonus content available on our forums; registration is fast and free! * free version of Battle for Hill 218 * free version of Dominion * Meetup group for Fishers Boardgames

In this week’s offering we sit down for a little skull session to put eyeballs on unsuck-it.com, gain best of breed synergy with a deep dive on spoilers, A.Ron makes an elevator pitch for his new movie, Mancano, we get down in the weeds with Sony’s ongoing PSN disincentive strategy, kick the tires on the Chemical Free Chemistry Kit, and finally engage in a knowledge transfer with Stafa on the topic of heroic collateral damage. Stay past the outro for some pre-show outtakes!  You know, if you’re into that sort of thing. If you liked this week’s episode, hated it, or want to punch us right in the face, drop us a line and we’ll make the necessary arrangements!  Alternative ways to show us love or heap upon us scorn would be to 1) follow us on Twitter, 2) become a fan on Facebook, or 3) leave us a five star review on iTunes.  We have an exciting deal on usernames for our forums; this week ONLY, not only is user registration free and easy, not ONLY do you get literally HOURS of free BONUS content, but each person registered saves a kitten God* would have killed because they masturbated.  We can transfer that credit to a friend or loved one if you do not currently engage in self-abuse. * = Offer void in areas of the universe where God does not exist.  

The boys navigate dangerous waters as the PSN outage has been upgraded from a tropical shit storm to a full fledged fecal hurricane.  It must be discussed!  Jim and A.Ron break it down from a personal, gamer, and professional level.  Also, watching a serial killer on a weekly basis has Jim pondering “what makes great TV?”  A.Ron urges his fellow geek to live by a few simple economic rules, we celebrate Skynet’s birth day, and close out the cast with a review of Poral 2 from our forum’s own Darth Paxis and some Batmania from Stafa’s corner. If you liked this week’s episode, or want to argue about one of our takes, drop us a line and tell us all about it!  We’d love for you to follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, and especially consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes.  We also have some prime real estate available in our forums, so why not setup shop now?

In this week’s episode, the guys discuss the iPad’s destruction (ha-ha) of the United States economy, SOCOM 4’s furtherance of Madden ’84 policies, and A.Ron’s irrational anti-hoarding packaging problem.  If it is a problem.  I mean, it’s anti-hoarding, so it can’t all be bad. If you liked this week’s episode, we’d love for you to follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, and especially consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes.  The cast is free, we’re paid in love, so it’s time to show it and grow it!

This week we cover a lot of ground; stand up desks, Vibram Five Finger “shoes”, Cloud Girlfriends, a mini-review of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, nerd fitness updates, feedback from our listeners, update on the Blue Yonder Curse, and finally, Jim Jones makes an epic, not-to-be-missed accent debut in this week’s edition of Stafa’s Corner! This week’s episode, for some reason, is echoy as shaz.  I don’t know why; I blame Jim’s goddamn hippy lovin’ Apple product.  We apologize for the cavernous audio, and hope to rectify it next week.  Tell ya what, to make it up to you, this week’s cast is ABSOLUTELY FREE!  I know!  What a deal!

You ever feel like some days you just can’t do anything right?  You wake up, stub your toe on the bedframe, cut yourself shaving, get your dick and/or vag caught in the zipper, proclaim the 3DS as a revolutionary break through in gaming, and declare nuclear power the safest thing since foam rubber?  Yeah, we have days like that.  And we record them for posterity. In this week’s episode, we explore the Blue Yonder Curse!  We debate about the cultural ghetto that is gaming culture, review Pixel Junk’s Shooter 2, run down our recent table top gaming binge, unleash Peter RAGE, and of course, read the latest segment of Stafa’s Corner.