Episode 216 - Secretly Gay for Kevin Costner

ATTENTION ALL RED-BLOODED AMERICANS: BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR RESISTANCE LEADER CODENAME: UNCLE BUCK. HE IS ARMED AND DANGEROUS AND DRIVES A FORKLIFT OUTFITTED WITH FULLY AUTOMATIC .50 CALIBER MACHINE GUNS. HE IS WANTED FOR CRIMES COMITTED ON JANUARY 6TH INCLUDING: ASSAULT, BATTERY, 2ND DEGREE MURDER, PUBLIC NUDITY, ILLEGAL WHALING, AND FORCIBLE SODOMY WITH A LIVE PYTHON. IF YOU SEE THIS HEINOUS CRIMINAL IMMEDIATELY CONTACT YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND DO NOT LOOK HIM IN THE FACE.

- Hiking 5.4 Miles
- Politics Injection
- Redditors

Welcome to Hiking Talk with your host Tab Birt! Today's episode deals with how to handle a long uphill walk to a picnic or other similar gathering. Firstly, you're going to need a solid pair of boots. Having them be waterproof and steel-toed is very important so that your macaroni salad doesn't seep through. For your own feet, just wear a flimsy pair of flip-flops. Next, you're going to need some very solid, used sole inserts to serve your deviled eggs on. Don't forget to bring a shade umbrella so you can really relax with your friends.

Everything is political, right? Your toothpaste? The episode of Spongebob your kid is watching right now? The philly cheesesteak you had for lunch? Sure you could make huge logical stretches and lean on technicalities, but you can do that with everything! Why should I care if the keyboard player for my favorite progressive death metal band is a communist? Does it impact his playing? No. Unless he starts writing lyrics about how he wants to give Karl Marx a rimjob, I could care less.

Remember reddit? The front page of the internet! Customizable and curatable to a great degree, back in the day you could read some great horror on r/nosleep or LOL at the narwhal memes with everyone else on r/funny. But then the owners started a curating of their own, banning any sub that they deemed wrong and they whittled it down from a 4chan lite to just a bunch of niche forums.

All this and more on this week's episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 215 - New Beanginnings

Good morning HWIDG-ers! It's a new year, a new day, and a new country apparently! Welcome to Neo-USA! They've really shaken things up with this time, so let's go down a list of some of the changes you can expect. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho are now one big state called Farmville. Kansas has been renamed North Oklahoma, Texas has been renamed South Oklahoma, and Arkansas has been converted into an Arkansas shaped pit of spikes where we throw dissidents. California has been broken up into several states including Movietown, Vans Buren, and Animalstylington. Washington and Oregon will now be known as Upper and Lower Patchoulistank, respectively. Finally, Canada has become New Maine as Maine was devoured yet again by a Stephen King space monster. There are plenty of local changes as well, so be sure to look out for any pamphlets detailing those in your area, and remember, don't break curfew or the robots will yell at you for:

- Being a Dick to your Kids
- Not Doing Your Homework
- Moving Out

This one is actually a Do-Get, because apparently we don't care anymore! Is Uncle Buck secretly a Bean Dad? Or is he just your classic 1950's sitcom role model? As a father, you're supposed to teach your kids what your father taught you with a belt. Whether or not you use your own belt is a choice every father has to make. Do you perpetuate the cycle of dad-violence? Or do you rise up and be a better man and instead scar them emotionally? You might just be surprised which one Buck chooses.

Sometimes you just stumble onto things. Maybe you overhear some big secret your neighbor's wife is hiding from him. Maybe you catch a glimpse of an email at work you definitely weren't supposed to see. You are then left with the decision of breaking hard news or not. Do you let it boil inside you as you watch the trainwreck from the side of the road? Or do you try to intervene, knowing full well you're putting yourself in the crosshairs as well? Tab and Tim may never be the same again......

Moving sucks. But generally in life you move up, or at least laterally. Taking a new job accross the country is a hassle, but you're probably moving into a similarly sized place. Moving from one apartment to the next? Same deal. Moving to a studio apartment after your wife divorces you after you catch her cheating and she gets to keep the house that you paid for? That's gonna suck. No one is moving out without additional pain.

All this and more including Buck getting raptured, live ! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 214 - Four Batmens

This is it, the last HWIDG episode from 2020. Surely from now on we wont have anything to be angry about, right? Our arbitrary calendar system definitely puts a hard stop on the government screwing you over, companies being greedy, and people generally being stupid. So throw away those riot shields that have 2021 stamped on them, because nothing bad could happen once the frigid cold of January rolls around and 8 million people have lost their homes-oh. Uh, well... look forward to the actual Hunger Games, folks!

- Traveler's Tales
- DC Film Multiverse
- The Slide Into Degeneracy
- A Lack of Archival

Like Call of Duty and Sports games, you can always count on the Lego games to have the smallest of changes and a new coat of paint every entry. Yet, like an idiot Tab keeps buying them. He swears he wont buy Lego Star Trek once it rolls around but we know better. He'll finally join the ranks of shut-ins everywhere, spending hours perfecting his three-way Crusher-Worf-Troi lovechild.

DC. You keep on shooting yourself in the foot. Trying to build a vast cinematic universe like Marvel, but putting in none of the work. NOT THAT YOU HAVE TO. YOU HAVE BATMAN. AND SUPERMAN. Sure, Marvel was all the rage in the 90s and now with the MCU, but they sold off the rights to their biggest heroes and are only now bringing them back in. And now you want to do a weird Multiverse film universe? Just make good movies. Iron Man was no one's favorite superhero. He got one season of a cartoon in the 90s and was most well known as a Marvel vs. Capcom staple. You on the other hand, have Batman. Why you're not making dollars hand over fist with movies that he's in boggles me and my past 12 year old's mind.

"From now on we vow to live a purely wholesome lifestyle. The devil's cabbage and his brew are no longer welcome. We will meet every night to sing the lord's praises. Nonsecular media is BANNED. Our women will wear frocks, gowns, and bonnets, and will show nary an ankle. THESE ARE OUR DEMANDS FOR THE WORLD." This guy is crazy, right? We can all agree to that. But is it any more crazy than "I am NOT a sexual object. Do NOT send me dick pics. I am a QUEEN and right now pictures of my chocolate starfish are 30% off for the Holidays and the whole family is invited!"

No one goes to libraries anymore except weirdos that still read and homeless dudes looking to get their rocks off to this month's National Geographic's Ladies of the Sahara special issue. Museums? You get dragged to them as a kid, and they don't make it cool, so they suck. This and the instant gratification of the internet has led to a lack of options to archive media. Not only that, but it's gone further and now companies and artists are following the Snapchat way and making things like video only available for a limited time. ON THE INTERNET. Am I crazy or does no one else care?

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 213 - Sticky Peppermint Pocket

Ho ho ho. It’s Christmas and Santa has been busy this year. Spreading a non-deadly virus across the planet. Creating a new army of Karens to steal the freedoms from actual human beings. Dropping off new Galaxy S500s to all the “Frontline” nurses to create Tik-Tok dance routines in stunning 4K! Over dosing criminals, and free for all riots across the world. Stealing presidential elections. Through it all though he couldn’t give you $1 to make your life better, but I can hear him on the roof and he’s about to teabag you with his sack full of…

The Desire to See Terrible Things
Rooting for the Empire
Thinking You Can Change Someone’s Mind
Candy Canes

Some people like gross out media. How many people in your life watch that pimple popper MD youtube channel? Why do we need to slow down at the site of an accident? How many times have you been at work and someone gets their hand crushed by a semi truck trailer and you gotta rush out there and look at it? Ok that one is just me, and I only ran out because I was required to make a report on it, and I had to just block it from view with a clipboard otherwise I might have passed out.

Media shapes our culture, and our culture shapes our media, yet somehow we’ve run across a complete oxymoron in that our media constantly portrays the government as stupid or corrupt, and corporations are either evil, or just bafflingly stupid. Yet in this year we’ve completely forgotten about those stories where one man who follows his own conscience saves the day, in favor of the Veep, West Wing, Amazon solution. Where unilateral power is used to subjugate the people, all the while mega corporations stomp out their small time competition to crate a greater stranglehold on the people, and the government, and what’s worse? WE CHEERED! We truly aren’t watching TV, it’s just lights to keep us from burning it all down.

Can we stop arguing? It’s completely meaningless, I’m not reading the huffpo opinion piece you sent me, and I just sent you the most Alex Jones source I could find to predict how quickly you’d jump into smug derision. So why don’t we both just call it quits and admit you’re wrong?

Every season has it’s stand out candy, like the Cadbury Cream Egg, and every season has its terrible candy, like the candy corn. Christmas has the worst of the worst. The Candy Cane. This unreasonably shaped sweet confection isn’t a good enough cany to warrant the hassle. It’s not unique enough to warrant being special. Yet here we are. It’s December so a whole aisle of the Christmas section of your local Walmart is 5,000 different versions of a candy nobody wanted.

All that plus, making up voicemails, Tim’s greatest fan, and why Tab is going to have his feet cutoff from diabetes. If you enjoy the show join us on DISCORD where we hang out quite often. Give us some support on PATREON pledges as little as $1. Or you can swing over to the merch store and BUY A SHIRT!

Episode 212 - Up in the Air

Heads up, this is not a regular episode of HWIDG. As always we appreciate our listeners and fans and you can join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT.

Episode 211 - Garbage

In order to combat the worldwide C-Virus that was unleashed upon the world in 2020, there was only one thing we could do: fight virus with virus. Research started by HWIDG Corp indicated that only a mutated strain of the C-Virus had a chance at defeating the original strain. After a series of breakthrough animal tests by Dr. Tab Birt, human trials began, but something went wrong. The mutated strain reacted quite negatively to the human neural system and the test subjects were turned into slow-moving but deadly mindless monsters. But Dr. Birt would not be stopped. In a last ditch effort he injected the mutated strain into the strongest man he knew. Thus was born the T-Virus, housed in the body of his former best friend, now a hulking, intelligent bioweapon. The only thing that could stop this hideous monster was:

- Why There Isn't a John Wick Game
- A Ticking Clock Over Your Head
- Pandemic Bell Ringers
- Trimming the Tree

It's obvious, don't you think? The ultimate action movie badass. Guns, kung-fu, driving, bosses, cool lore, just all the makings for a great game. Yet, we've gotten one attempt so far and it was WAY off-base. Is it coming? Will it ever happen? Only time will tell... wait I'm just remembering they but him in Fortnite, so problem solved! That definitely counts!

Deadlines suck, but are necessary for businesses and such. Where they aren't needed are on Netflix telling me that if I don't finish all 9 seasons of The Virginian in 2 weeks I'll be screwed because they're kicking it off to make room for Generic Teen Drama #372. You put that deadline on me and force me to choose? I'll always choose to just leave.

It's 2020, people. We've already got robotic sign spinners, don't we? How hard is it to put a pair of bells on the same contraption? I feel a lot less hate towards the robot begging me for money in 2020 of all years with our government telling us you can't go out and can't go to work, but senator Johnson can collect a way-too-much paycheck while blocking every bill that would give us peons a modicum of relief all while doing some insider trading.

Trees should stay outside. Some idiot pagan probably thought his druid wife's soul was passed on into her favorite tree, so he cut it down and dressed it up ( and probably drilled a couple holes into the trunk, if you know what I mean), and now, 1000 years later, every year we get a bunch of green plastic in the shape of a tree and cover it in lights and tinsel and little mementos of your childhood. And I can't stand it. It needs to all go away, preferably into a fire.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 210 - Conquered (ft. Uncle Buck)

Welcome back fans to another Uncle Buck episode of HWIDG. Tim is Dead, long live the Buck! This week we're a little less fired up and talking about these issues.

* Sh!tty Tools
* Indigenous People's
* What do you want for Christmas
* The Expendable Franchise

Buy a tool, buy it once, that's the way I live. Every now and again though you buy some piece of crap tool that you just sort of make do with until it breaks, and then you're just stuck either waiting for a replacement, or you've bungled the project so badly that it's time to start over. Yet you've only got $40 so you might as well just buy that same tool again because hey it lasted a year, and how long is the real deal gonna really last. Then boom, you've got a cutting wheel right to the eye and you're blind now.

How long must we suffer the sins of the father? How many other conquered nations get to whine and complain about how their culture was taken over by foreign invaders. In China they erase as completely as possible the history of the previous dynasty. I understand why, otherwise they have to be told about how there are systemic problems because people that weren't even their ancestors did bad things. How long are you going to sit there and complain without saying thank you? Are you driving a car? Or are you still stuck in the stone age? That's what I thought, shut the eff up.

Why do people always need to give input on a gift? Just buy something. Am I really so fragile that you think the wrong gift will send me into a fit of rage, or spiraling into a depression? I'd rather get nothing than spend the currency of time it takes to answer 400 questions and then not get the thing I wanted anyway. Please, just leave me alone. If you find something you think I'll like get it, if you don't I really won't let my feelings be hurt.

In 2009 Stallone had a dream. "What if we got a bunch of washed up muscle men to make a big dumb action movie." It was genius and it went on to win an academy award for ass kicking. Then he made a second one, and it was a boring slog bookended by forgettable action scenes. Then he flew too close to the sun. He made a third movie, also boring, but this time instead of muscle men, he picked the who's who of nobodies, and he made it PG-13. Then he started talking about making an all woman version of the movies, and here we are 10 years later. We have 3 movies with incomprehensible plots and someday we're going to have to explain to our children why we own it on DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K UHD Blu-Ray.

All of that plus updates on the Dinosaurs, where the #MeToo money went, what TV show I watched too much of, and much more in this very Buckled episode. Leave us a voicemail and yell at Tim for his absences. Then visit us on the Discord, support the show on Patreon, or go BUY A SHIRT!

Episode 209 - Big Finish? (ft. Uncle Buck)

All Points Bulletin: Wanted, one Peruvian Podcast host last seen in year 4 of HWIDG. He is known to like Anime, Fighting Games, Breaking Handles, and frequently trying to barter for goods and services with VHS copies of Rhinestone. He should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, and will likely be babbling about.

The Pity Card
Playdates
All the Evil stuff Trump has done
Mandatory Political Symbols

Anytime you get into a discussion if a person doesn't have the qualifications for what they are talking about they usually have some lousy sob story of why their opinion is worth more than yours. Why can't we start doing to opposite? "As a man without any mental illness, a full time job, and a tax payer." instead of, "As the wife of an infantryman, and mother of 5 kids, who's been out of work for 3 years due to disability, blah blah blah." Nobody cares, especially not on the internet.

Ah the good ol' days when you just told your kids to go play outside, or you'd ride your bike half a mile to your friend's house and knock on the door. No there wasn't enough "me time" for Mom's so we invented playdates. Now women can get all their fun of scheduling and planning an event for something as simple as, "Go play outside." Worst of all, they set it up so the kids can play at the house with Dad, while the Mom's go run "errands." Thanks for that honey, I can't wait to hear the door slam 400 times this afternoon.

In 2016 Sauron came to Hufflepuff, and stole the infinity gauntlet, snapping all of the Jedi out of existence. We had nothing until Disney Princess Harris, and Batman Biden used the power of Doc Brown's Delorean powered by the Spengler Proton Pack to undo the timeline and restore peace and prosperity to the universe. My best friend was all of the goonies, my girlfriend was the female gremlin from Gremlins 2. Seriously, why hasn't the world ended from Evil Trump?

There is an episode of Seinfeld about the AIDS walk. Kramer doesn't want to wear the ribbon but he supports the walk. The people at the walk can't accept it and want total conformity. The point of the story was to show how fanaticism is worse than the problem. Now people use that same image as a meme, and the point is for you to conform, conform or die. "Give me liberty, or give me Death." - Patrick Henry.

All that and more on this week's big Buck Hunter HD episode of HWIDG. Leave us a voicemail and tell us what Tim's punishment should be for letting Greybush down. Vist the Patreon, join us on Discord, or support the show BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 208 - Four More Years

Thank you for coming to your podcast's assessment meeting today. So, Here's What I Don't Get is doing pretty well all things considered. He turns in his episodes on time just about every week. He's raging at an above average level compared to his peers, which is really nice. He's doing really well in geography, really diversifying his news stories, it's great to see. And his voicemails have gotten much better since he started the SPITE program. So, really everything is looking great and he looks all ready for Kindergarten next year. We'll see you in a year then.

- Mixing Metric and Imperial
- Bicyclists
- Low Res UI
- Buying Consoles Day One

Metric measurements and imperial go together like sushi and a Wendy's frosty. You gotta choose one and stick with it, preferably choosing it depending on where someone's going to use it. Americans can't tell you how big 350mm is roughly, but they sure can tell 5 and a half feet at a glance, plus, smaller increments are much easier to visualize, so because we use a base-12 system, we've got more increments to use. 20 foot tall fence? That's 240 inches or 6.66 yards. Whereas in metric you've got jumps by the hundreds, that fence is either 365cm, 3.65m, or 0.00365km tall. And don't get me started on the argument that "feet" are a random thing to use to measure when you've got "stone".

Bicyclists make up 0.001% of the total U.S. traffic numbers. But here we are, making whole lanes of traffic for them, EQUAL TO THE NUMBER OF LANES FOR CARS. YOU KNOW, THE BIG OLD FOUR THOUSAND POUND MACHINES THAT GO FAST AND WHATNOT. You're literally better off riding a horse. Bikes at their best generate less than one horsepower. Imaging passing a horse by itself, no rider on the street. His dumb Mister Ed-lookin' ass going along with traffic with everyone else. Can you? Because I can. You know what I can't imagine? A bicyclist not being an insufferable moron on the road.

What good is your 4K HDR 7.2 sound system when the thing that's playing it has the resolution of a Game Boy Color? BE MORE STINGY WITH YOUR PIXELS. I NEED THOSE CRISPY 4K LINES OR I'M GOING TO HAVE BUYER'S REMORSE. I'M LITERALLY GOING TO KILL MYSELF AMAZON. YOU WILL HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS. I MEAN, ONE MORE THAN USUAL.

Suckers. They come in all flavors. Watermelon, caramel apple, butterscotch, buttered popcorn, blueberry, cherry, coconut, grape, and you idiots that buy consoles on day one. Thanks for paying way more to beta test my games you FOMO-filled genius. Have fun when you get whatever the PS5's version of the YLOD or red ring is. When your Xbox Series X starts smoking for real, don't come crying to me, I'm waiting til they're dirt cheap and there's all the games I could want.  "But, reasonable one," you say, "I get the privilege of paying seventy dollars for all these great games as they come out, then waiting for the next one, playing 10 hours, then waiting for 6 months, then playing  10 hours, then waiting again." Oh you sweet, sweet, summer child.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 207 - Time-Traveling Hitler

Ever had back pain? It's real dumb. Why human have soft outside but hard inside? Isn't that backwards? Why God? Why soft, easy-to-hurt jelly protects hard, strong bone? I want an exoskeleton please. I think at some point we evolved with bone to protect our squishy brains AND THEN WE WENT EVEN FURTHER. WHY? Another layer of squishy organs to protect? How about we protect it with more squishy flesh? And then WE STOPPED? We need the next phase, exoskeletons, so that we're basically human mecha. Sweet. Anyways, here's this weeks episode which remember nothing of other than PAIIIIN:

- Kung Fury
- Fast Food Workers
- Remember, This Isn't Over
- Making Math Suck

Here's a great idea: HWIDG The Movie! You give us a million dollars and we'll shart out 75 minutes of next week's episode filmed all cinematic-like. Deal? It'll be just like the podcast but in movie form! It's all the rage these days. You spend a little time making something for cheap, and then you use it as proof of concept and the internet gives you all of their money! All we have to do is a slightly more amount of work, pretend its a big ordeal, and maybe spit out some merch with our logo on it for bonus items. I think it really works out well for everyone. You get a movie (you never agreed to any sort of quality) and Tab and Tim get to split a million bucks. Sorry Todd.

How many times have you been missing a burger from your order? Or been given a different drink than what you asked for? Have whole meals left off of your order? Been given a cold pizza? Been given a box of fried chicken livers when you ordered sushi? I'm going to go out on a limb and say just about everyone who has ordered fast food before has had something like this happen to them. It's a worldly issue. But why? Sheer volume? Maybe, but this has happened to me when I'm the only customer around. Honestly, it's because they're working at a fast food joint. Look, no one went into life dreaming of being a fast food employee, but it's a huge business that needs lots of bodies. Even if we paid fast food workers 25 dollars an hour, you'd still have the same lack of care go into your double bacon cheeseburger and onion rings.

Ever vigilant. Today, if you want to stand for a cause you have to fight. And fight. And fight. And fight some more because the battle's never over! Hey, how about we stop treating politics like war? I don't want to be a soldier. If I did, I'd be one. And I definitely don't want to be a soldier for a party that lines up with my own beliefs only slightly more than the other one's. No one will ever be completely happy with the government, so stop trying to "win" and start trying to just live your life.

Remember math? I sure do. At my school, if you were slightly better at learning than the kid that still sucked his thumb, they put you in the Gifted Class. I was learning long division and what googolplex was in the second grade in the gifted class. Here's the deal though, just because you're good at something, doesn't mean you like it. And I don't like math. Why? Because they shove it down your throat every year for 12+ years. Sure, at some point I wanted to be an astronaut, just like everyone else, but they never said if you want to go to space, you'll need to learn this math. They said BECAUSE I SAID SO. 

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 206 - Russian Jimmy Dean

Check out this week’s clip, Lower Decks-pectations Episode 5 - The Final Chapter!

Welcome citizens of the former United States of America. Now that your 2020 election has come to an end, I am proud to have been elected to the throne of Supreme Overlord. There will be no further elections, as I will make all decisions for this country from now on. As your Supreme Overlord, I, The Handlebreaker promise that as I shift this land from 50 divided states into one giant kingdom, I will do so with you in mind. As my advisers tell me, the general population is surprisingly a lot like myself, so as my first decree, I am moving Independence Day to June 21 to more accurately represent our interests. 36 years ago, we were freed from the tyranny of not having Rhinestone in our lives. The time has finally come then, to accept our savior, and to rename our country in its honor. Welcome to The United Kingdom of Rhinestone! The White House will be bedazzled in the most glamourous, shining silver! Washington D.C. will officially become Abiegtiddi! All hail Rhinestone!

- Pet Clothes
- Untamed Scale
- Dream People
- Decline of Slasher Films

Putting clothes and outfits and costumes on your pets is not "cute". It's frankly, degrading. Dogs and cats have no awareness of the concept of clothes or modesty, and they certainly don't need them for survival against the weather. Imagine someone forcing an ill-fitting fur suit on you. Wouldn't like it very much, would you?

Some people in life are granted with 20/20 vision, and others need the help of contacts or glasses. Then there are others that apparently have 2000/20 vision. These people can envision the futures they see in their minds and unfortunately have no ability to control it. That's how you end up with the Cheesecake Factory. "We'll make great cheesecakes and sell them!" "That's a great idea, here's your business loan." "Oh, I also want to be a restaurant, but not just for cheesecakes, but for American, Chinese, Italian, Thai, Japanese, Mediterranean, German, Mexican, British, French, Jamaican, Spanish, and Vegans! Also, we'll serve alcohol and cocktails, and have breakfast and brunch too! Oh and we'll give the customers too much food every time!"

The human brain is an amazing thing. Confusing, though. We still don't know what dreams really are. We know they can haunt you, please you, and everything in between. They can also create vividly realistic scenarios and people. The kinds of dreams that can make an atheist believe in past lives and connected consciousness. Hell, there was a Rick and Morty bit about this. Morty plays a super realistic alien video game called Roy where he lives a separate man's mundane life. It's spooky stuff. I'd recommend "The Lamp Story" on reddit for the example I couldn't think of during the show.

It's not there aren't any slasher films around anymore, just that they're different. Every now and then an independent hit or meta flick will come along and gain some steam, but it's not like the 80's and 90's anymore. Back when you had 17 movies just in the 80s just between Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. That's at least one a year and more likely 2 a year from the big three horror icons. Throw in other well known names and B-level shlock you're seeing 3-5 new movies of extreme violence, gore, and nudity a year. Why aren't the modern slashers living up? They're trying to be scary, for one. Sure some of these had some jump scares and suspense, but a slasher flick is a subgenre of horror. It's supposed to be about creative kills, a rotating carousel of horny teens to kill, and a near invincible menace. But people these days just want the jump scares it seems.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 205 - Castration Cannibals

This is it folks! It's finally come time for Halloween night, and we here at HWIDG would like to wish everyone a very Happy Halloween. Whether you're going out door to door, handing out candy at your house, going to a party, sitting at home watching horror movies, or nothing at all, we hope Samhain treats you well. Just watch out for razorblades in your candy, D-tier candy, and that sexy "catgirl". All three will lead to you ending the night with something gushing out of your mouth.

* Non-Candy Halloween Treats
* Non-Secular Media
* Standing Alone
* New Unsolved Mysteries

Imagine if there was a completely optional holiday during the year where it was perfectly fine for your neighbor to haul their garbage bin over to your house and tip it over on to your lawn. That would be a pretty terrible day wouldn't it? What if that day was the same day as another holiday where all the other neighbors had already placed a bunch of presents, just for you, on the lawn? It would make that first neighbor a huge asshole wouldn't it? NO ONE WANTS YOUR VEGETABLES, KAREN.

Man, all of these mainstream secular movies and bands are filled with sin and degeneracy. But my tween wants to start watching something other than Bibleman and VeggieTales and listen to something other than Pastor Dave's Campfire Hymns, what is a rich hardcore evangelical man to do? I know! I'll just make terrible low budget copies of what is popular, but make everything about Jesus! Brilliant!

Going against the grain can be difficult. When you're the only one doing it, even more so.  You've got to be of pretty strong character and conviction to be the one against everyone else. No one wants to be the one going against what's popular. We all like to think that we would, but when it comes time to put the foot to the pedal, it's easier to wait around with everyone else and see what happens. But if you were that person you could write a book about how hard it is. Call it "My Struggle".

What's wrong with the new Unsolved Mysteries? Well, first of all, the theme is skippable. Yeah, it's a big deal. That original theme is a phat-ass beat you could spit a sick sixteen over. The drums are a VITAL piece of the equation, just as much as the melody synths and the deep "BWAM" bass synth. The new one is all "cinematically haunting" and by-the-books. Lame. Oh also there's this thing where they don't present all the evidence in the case and you have to rely on fans on Reddit to clue you in. Yeah.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT! And check out this edition of Lower Decks-pectations!

Episode 204 - BBC Love

Check out Hack of the Living Dead Premiers Monday October 26th @ 8pm eastern

A dark and stormy night. Lightning crashes in the distance. On the highest hill in the lands just outside a village in central Germany there is a man in a castle. In that castle there is a laboratory. Harnessing the power of the storm, an array of machinery in this lab is powered to do something unimaginable. As lightning strikes the tallest tower of the castle, it powers this demon machine and enters a slab of dead flesh held together by sutures and metal. As the nightmare is struck with the harnessed energy of a thousand suns, the unthinkable happens: the demonic mass of collected remains comes to life. Shambling around he searches for his master in order to fulfill his one mission. This decrepit mash of unholy science and the recently dead has but one thing on his mind. A single task to employ on everyone he meets. As he finds the one who created him, he extends his hands, starting the chain of events that will take over the entire castle, leaving the nearby town in tatters. The monster begins the time-long ritual that has taken over the mind of much more alive men as long as they've been able to. He does the mash. He does the monster mash.

* Not Available In Your Country
* Needing Celebrity Endorsement
* Only Playing the New Stuff
* Fauxmpkins

FIRST ISSUE DESCRIPTION HAS BEEN BLOCKED BY HWIDG STUDIOS LLC (EVEN THOUGH THIS CONTENT IS FREE AND MAY NOT EVEN BE LICENSED TO A SEPARATE COMPANY IN YOUR LOCATION).

There was a time when people didn't publicly display every aspect of their life nor was it expected. In fact it was looked down upon! Can you imagine that? Everyone just keeping their thoughts to themselves? Neither can I, because I've been dealt a barrage of the details of everyone's personal lives that I never asked for. That's 2020 for you. Everyone's got an opinion, and opinions are a lot like assholes. Everyone's got them, they usually stink, and before recently most people didn't go around showing them off to everyone.

A free concert in which the artist only performs their latest work is just a commercial. Sure, most people understand you've got to do some advertisement for the new stuff, that's why the tour exists in the first place. But you've got fans there to hear you, not just your material, so that includes the classics. This is the absolutely only time that the drunk guy yelling for your biggest hit as if you're not going to play it is correct.

Fake pumpkins are a lot like fake meat. It's an approximation of the real thing that has been created by science to placate white women. They're for entitled people that don't want to put the effort in to Halloween decorations but still want to fit in. Imagine going to a butcher's shop and asking for their vegan, pre-cooked, gluten-free, organic beef roast substitute. I'd say that butcher's got free reign to go Michael Myers on your pumpkin-spice drinking self.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 203 - Turnaders

It's a chilly, foggy night. You find yourself walking the streets of your hometown once again. You recall the days of yore, running from house to house on Halloween night, holding out a pillowcase and getting it filled with literal pounds of sugar. Eerie vibes came from Mr. Jenkins' place, but if you were brave enough to get past the dead bodies and shrieking lady on the porch, you'd be rewarded with a handful of King-size candy bars. But now things are different. It's still cold, and maybe you're wearing a mask, but no longer do children run around in costume. They're either herded in a minivan safely from house to house or are doing the rounds at the local mall that hasn't gone under. You yourself have changed. You're older now, and perhaps you're in a costume, but its nothing extravagant. No fake blood or Batman cowl. You've lost the Halloween spirit and just go out drinking these days. What's the point, it's 2020 anyways, next week will bring even more depressing news. It turns out that Freddy and Jason should have been the least of your worries. The real monster all along was you.

* Spooky Season
* Storm Chasers
* Halloween Movies
* Politics

There's a conspiracy abound, folks. The Case of the "Spooky Season". Why have we gone from Halloween to "Spooky Season" or "Spookytime" or "Scary Days" or "Candy Month"? Is it the old Christians at it again? Blaming slasher flicks and Reese's Cups for letting Satan into our hearts? Or is it something more sinister? Perhaps its the deadly grasp of capitalism, wishing to take another Holiday and cram it into Christmas like many others have been. Soon enough we just might see orange and black Holiday decorations, and finally they can officially add September and October into the Holiday shopping season.

Hey, i've got a great idea, lets load up a van with a bunch of expensive monitoring equipment and radar, load up on beef jerky and Pop-Tarts, and make our way through the plains of Oklahoma looking for high-speed funnels. Yeah, we'll go around videotaping wind, doesn't that sound great?! We can pretend it's exciting and cool! We can freak out and need to change pants because of ROTATION. Doesn't that sound absolutely magical?

Much like a hack comedian doing a political bit about a potential Presidential candidate, setting your film on a holiday is a real gamble. It either makes the movie all about the holiday, forcing it squarely into a certain time of year where you can watch it and not feel like a psycho, or it simply is the backdrop and in that case, why bother? Its even worse with Halloween movies because it forces you to make a Holiday-worshipping horror movie all about pumpkins or whatever, or you've got a kid's movie. There's no in-between.

Being told to do something makes people not want to do it. Being told to do something over and over can make a person go loopy. Being told to do 15 things multiple times a day every day can make a person want to KILL YOU. Vote. Voting isn't everything. Sign this. Raise awareness for that. Hate them. Don't hate them. Watch this. Cancel this person. Support this. Support that. Every day. Over and over. OVER AND OVER.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 202 - 250K Dongs In My Pocket

With the official start of the spooky season, HWIDG is proud to bring to you life's scariest costumes! No vampires or ghouls here, though. No, we've got a line of the highest quality, low-quality costumes of life's actual monsters. Like: taxes! BOO! Okay hotshot, not scared yet? How about a broken condom! Get ready for those child-support payments bud! Or what about this: a kidney stone! You've never wished for the sweet relief of Lady Death faster than when one of these is stuck sideways in your tubes, eh? Also featuring:

* Mice
* Hyper-Edited Podcasts
* Self-Censoring
* Rich White People

Small, beady eyes. A love of cheese and peanut butter. A severe physiological reaction to cats. But enough about me, lets talk mice. Vermin. Rodents. Do other words sound like they're moist like these do? They're perfectly suited for the tiny scuttling creatures that currently have the Handlebreaker House in terror! Even a single rogue mouse, if bold enough, can get you into attack mode (or more accurately fight or flight mode with a heavy emphasis on flight). And we keep trying to re-invent the mouse trap yet somehow these little creepy-crawlies must have their own mouse scientist working on a "How to Lick the Peanut Butter Off of a Trap 2020" pamphlet. Well, stop it Brain!

Look, we don't claim to be the be-all and end-all on how to run a podcast. We do our thing and we stick to it. No one wants to hear 20 seconds of silence while you pull up a news story, sure, but there's got to be some middle ground between not editing at all and the hyper-stylized flash-forward speed of some of the podcasts out there. Maybe some nutso out there needs to have no gaps between words spoken, but come on, let there be a flow to the conversation.

Look, i'm not pointing any elbows, but i'm fed up with a certain website that's got Tube in the name. It's probably my most visited website, and heck I even pay for their premium service, but sometimes I wonder if its worth it. I've also got qualms about a certain Hub if you will. *nstagr*m deleted my last selfie for being too risque, what's up with that? And my car isn't doing so great, it's a F*rd. WHOA I DIDN'T SAY FORD, DON'T YOU PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH.

Everyone likes money. Everyone hates losing money, especially other people taking it from you. So when you get a lot of it, you like to keep a lot of it. Well, it sure would be nice if you could keep more of this money than your neighbor. Well, invest a little of that money in a poliitcal campaign, toss a couple of platitudes around and BAM, you're on top of the ladder with all your money, making the rules about what those other people can do with theirs. And wouldn't it be nice to have a little more money? Sure would. Well, with your new found power, you can take a little bit from each of those tiny people down there. So you do that a few times and they like you! You do them good. You keep them safe. Yeah! You know what's best for those people. You know better.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT! Plus check out the video segment of Lower Decks-pectations Episode 3!

Episode 201 - A Nice Pesto Aioli

Debates, debates, debates. Dat's all I hears about dis week. Debates this, de bates that. I don't even know who da Bates are? Norman Bates? Like from da Psycho movies? Why is he runnin' for President? You gonna vote for a psycho? Really? Don't he dress up like his mother or whatnot? You really want one o' dose homeopaths in da White House? Whateva happened to decent honest Italian-Americans runnin da joint. Like Bobby DeNiro. He was king a da place back in da seventies! Hell, even an Irish fella. Nowsadays we got all these Khakistanis and Liberians and You-Know-Whats in the office. Anyways, $14.56 is your total. Jeez all dat moolah, just for:

* The Open Software Gamble
* Getting Your Issue Solved Right Before You Record
* Fact Checkers
* Douche vs Turd Sandwich

Ah, good ol open source software. All the goodwill of a community-ran project combined with the work effort of $Free.99. The problem is that you've got to deal with either a know-it-all, anticorporate, "i'll never sellout" bastard that works on it when he's not delivering pizza or a constantly shifting "small company" aka a Slack server of university students that's actually a branch of a branch of the original project because the creator ghosted them. And even then, you're dealing with either the barest of bones "drag this file into this command prompt batch script" or the "I Can't Believe It's Free" almost professional UI and by god, everything in between. It's a real gamble and honestly, most of the time you're better off buying.

Sometimes an issue is a big ol diamond. Shiny and new, we can wax poetically about it for a whole episode by itself. Other times it's a 5-minutes-before-we-hit-record last resort of a hail mary. Then every now and then something happens and the issue starts growing and growing. It's just one thing after the other this week and boy are you going to unleash it on Monday night. And right before you do, the thing you've been steaming about the last four days gets put out like a lit match and a gust of wind. You're not gonna be able to light that match again, but damn it you're gonna tell the story of that match's life.

The problem with fact checkers: there are two facts to every question these days. The one you want to hear and the one you don't. Is that how facts actually work? Of course not, but we've pushed each other apart so much that we have "facts" and "alternative facts" now. And everyone is guilty. Agenda-pushing news gets stuffed into outrageous headlines that present half of the facts if any and that gets shoved into your timeline or wall or what have you, and the common person doesn't click through. Whether its laziness or for any other reason that headline is now the fact, even if the rest of the story disproves it. And so you've got 2 different sides doing this to two separate types of people and now we can't agree on anything because every part of the chain is biased.

The greatest of choices. A literal douche versus a literal turd sandwich. At this point its like the country is being run by Jigsaw and he wants to play a game with us. Either cut your chest open with a rusty spoon to find the key he implanted into you that will unlock the machine slowly running a giant drill into your temple or sit there and let it happen. Either way it's going to hurt. People don't like pain Jigsaw. That's the part you forgot. Worst of all, these days there's a bunch of people on the sidelines constantly yelling at you to play the game. THERE'S A DRILL INSIDE OF MY HEAD RIGHT NOW.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 200 - Bicentennial

Like all great things, HWIDG has reached its 200th anniversary. That's right we've been bringing you life's toughest issues for two hundred years now. Hard to imagine that this all started with two guys writing into their local newspaper about the death of Daniel Boone and how he was "an overrated hack". Their newfound brotherhood in all the things in life that bugged them created what will become today's media empire. Here's to two hundred more:

* No Source
* Collectible Coins
* Ignoring Scalpers
* Time to Load Games

These days people are all about "aesthetic". Mood boards, screencap galleries, and more are plastered all over to get you to say "that's so aesthetic", whether its purple-soaked rainy cyberpunk or high end modern-day prosthetics-as-art or even retrofuture car dashboards. Even the dumb things you want to dunk on are their own dumb aesthetic. Therefore, you don't need to add any words or searchable features. They would just mess up the mood. That way you can get even more "engagement" by having everyone ask you what the hell it is you're aestheticing/dunking on.

Coins! Unless you've got a mint condition 1823 strawpenny they're worth about their face value. It's just metal! Usually bad quality metal at that! Quarters made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Watergate? Useless if they're made of the same things as regular quarters and they print a bazillion of them. Those commemorative 9/11 golden dollars you bought? Now those will be worth something when World War 3 happens. You could probably trade one of those puppies in for a week's worth of MREs. Mmmmmmm. Dehydrated chicken alfredo.

Seems every time an expensive limited-edition hot new thing is announced, the inevitable happens. Terrible people abuse the systems in place or straight up use bots to grab every one they can, then once stock is out, sell them on eBay or Facebook Marketplace for five times the price. That means you don't get a new Playstation, some kid doesn't get their Scooby Doo Lego set, and some highschooler that got a part-time job to buy those new Jordans is now failing Math for no reason. And who cares about this? Not the manufacturers. It seems every time this happens they say "we're so sowwy, we had no idea that putting all of our current stock up for order at a single time and announcing it ahead of time would make them disappear faster than a chocolate cake at a fat girl's wedding."  

20 years ago: insert cart/disk, boot into game, select your save and load, play. Currently: log in to your account, update console firmware, reboot, login, all your recently played games' updates are queued up, stop the ones you don't want so only the game you want to play now downloads its 43GB patch, watch YouTube on your phone but turn your Wi-Fi off so your console gets all the download juice, wait, let it unpack and patch, boot up the game, login to the Developer's account system, then finally you can play.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!

Episode 199 - XXXL, All Beef, No Filler

It's finally that time of year folks. The weather's getting colder, the trees are changing colors, and you're stuck inside! You're working from home for the foreseeable future and its driving you crazy. In fact you're hearing strange noises from the neighborhood. Every odd noise makes you jump feverishly, and you arm yourself when you walk around the house. Smart, because there's been a ravenous escaped convict in your attic and walls. You better escape from him if you have any chance of appearing as a guest on our new sister podcast Here's What I Don't Get About Almost Being Murdered. Join us every other week as we discuss the finer points of dodging knife strikes and which kind of doors are the hardest to break through with an axe. Oops, you're dead. This must be the beginning of the movie, my bad. I guess I'll just wait here until those sorority girls move in to ask them about:

* Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass
* Tree Care
* People Who Don't Take Care of their Car
* The Gathering Place

By the late 1700s, it was popular belief that drowning victims could be resuscitated by literally blowing smoke up their ass. And not just any smoke at that! Tobacco, specifically. The thought was that it would dry the water and the tobacco would increase their heart rate to get them back to life. I've just got to imagine two things. One: that the guy who invented this was just really kinky. Did you know that at this time they also gave monetary rewards for civilians that rescued drowning victims? And that there were con men who would abuse this system by "saving" their drowning friends? So, two: those dudes were just really kinky too! Damn, old people were really kinky.

Just let trees be. They are not your hair. They do not need constant pruning and primping. If something bad happens, like a rogue branch starts leaning on some electrical lines, or a storm blows one over, sure, it needs to get taken care of. And if it needs to get taken care of it needs to be done by a professional with the right tools. Your small hand saw with half the teeth missing or your little electric "chainsaw" is NOT the proper equipment. You need power tools. The stink of gasoline, they're incredibly dangerous, but guess what, they get the job done.

Car guys really like their cars. Car guys also really like telling you things about cars you didn't know. Is it useful? I guess. I know not to put water in my radiator now. Or was it my carburetor? I also know that you don't just grab the gold bottle of Valvoline oil. I think Tab said you buy three bottles and mix them all together? Or don't do that. One of those. ALl I know is that hood pins look terrible.

The Gathering Place. Do you really like to gather? Do you want to go to a place? Congrats, you're boring, but boy do I have the perfect place for you. It's full of places to gather, and that's about it.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT! And check out the video segment of Lower Decks-pectiations! 

Episode 198 - Kicked Out Of Six Flags

This week's episode of HWIDG is HOT HOT HOT! With the west coast fires burning out the last remains of the 4chan /pol/ anarchists, we are born anew. Let the fires blaze and wash over us to absolve us our sins. Like the Phoenix we will rise again and form a new country: NeoU.S.A. Our new cyberpunk futurecountry will be the pinnacle of human civilization. Neon-soaked streets and flying cars will give way to the transhumanist movement, giving us sick blade-arms and turbo engine piston legs. The only downfall will be the typical cyberpunk future problems: corruption, violent anti-government protests, terrorism, and gang violence. See?! Totally different.

* Gimmick Burgers
* Tom Cruise
* Rob Schneider
* Battle Royale Games

First we take 100% Dutch beef that has only been fed butter its whole life, and turn that into 5 half-pound patties. We cook those on our one-of-a-kind Giant Easy-Bake Oven for approximately 75 minutes. Then we slice open our in-house made English muffins and slather them with a horseradish and chocolate aioli. Add a couple slices of moldy government cheese and stack everything a mile high. It's nasty, impossible to eat, and was invented by a 5 year-old spinning a wheel of ingredients, but boy will it get you 1.5 million views on Instagram.

Tom Cruise is crazy, we all know this. He does insane stunts every 2 years for his own enjoyment, then gets a movie director to film it and come up with a new Mission Impossible around it. He had the whole couch jumping bit that was all the meme rage of 2005. There's that video of him berating a guy for a prank. He runs like your favorite action figure come to life. He's a manlet, and maybe worst of all he's a die-hard Scientologist, praise Xenu and all of it, and those people are bad people. But SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, he's still Hollywood royalty and likable! He hasn't gotten canceled, and those Mission Impossibles just keep coming with his dazzling smile and him jumping a motorcycle from a plane onto a tower or something and he's almost 60!

On the other hand, Rob Schneider is just the worst.

Oh Koushun Takami. If you could only see what your book hath wrought. You could never predict how 21 years later, you'd have a successful manga and film adaptation, even getting a sequel film, and influenced both of those mediums for years to come. Maybe even more surprising is the millions of teenage girls that fall in love with the pared-down American rip-off. But video games? In the late nineties you couldn't fathom what you would do to them. The most popular game in the world and the spawn of a new genre itself. Hundreds of millions of kids begging their parents for imaginary currency so they can buy a virtual dance. All from a book about middle-school kids' heads exploding.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT! See the video segment on Lower Decks!

Episode 197 - Praise Jesus, But Not Too Much

Graphics Cards are in the news this week, and not to be outdone by anything, HWIDG is unveiling our new extended cut of the weekly podcast, Here's What I Really, Really, Really Don't Get. With more issues than ever before, get ready for the Big Chungus of podcasts. Each episode is 73 hours long and filled to the brim with just as many issues. But the kicker? We're introducing our brand new DH Cores which will extend the podcast with another 12 hours of blazing fast Deadhelm voicemails. It's the ultimate podcast experience, available starting at $1599.99, and if you pre-order now, you'll receive a voucher for free copies of:

* Black Panther
* Unitarians
* No Backwards Compatibility
* Freedom of the Press

For all intents and purposes, the late Chadwick Boseman seemed like he was a cool dude. Outside of the movies he had a charm and presence to him that made him stand out. Unfortunately he forgot to bring that to the set of Black Panther. Black Panther isn't a train wreck (outside of the CGI in the final battle), but it's not even one of the better Marvel movies, and he had a good part in contributing to that not-so-greatness. The villain outshines him by a mile, and he's surrounded by actors that have dozens of years of experience over him and he fails to bring the goods. And yet, in the wake of his death it seems some are trying to hold it to much higher standards than it deserves.

Ah, Unitarian churches. The vegan, gluten-free, fat-free, low sugar birthday cake of the church world. We made it vegan, gluten-free, low sugar, and fat-free so that everyone can have a piece! No one's left out! Except everyone that doesn't want to eat that garbage. It's church for white liberals who have a sharp disdain for traditional strict Catholic church and the Conservative Southern Baptist churches, but who still want the sense of community that comes from the weekly gatherings. But Unitarians are so inclusive, right? It's in the name! Why yes, they are inclusive to anyone white enough who doesn't rock the boat. Wouldn't want you praying to Vishnu too hard, now.

The further we advance our video game technology, the further behind our 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit and beyond game systems become. But, I say, isn't that the point? To be able to go back to these old-school games without worry of system memory or sound chip woes. If we've blazed past them so fast, then it should be relatively easy to let us play the back catalogs without buying another port of them again for the fifth time. If we cannot be compatible with our pasts, then we are doomed to buy Super Mario 64 again and again and again (unless you like actually good platformers).

Gone are the days of the local street urchin hocking newspapers on the side of the road for a nickel a day. Back when journalism meant going places and writing stories. A newspaper writer was someone you could trust. Then, mass production led to a newspaper on every doorstep first thing in the morning or a box stuffed full of them every 20 feet on the street. TV news came along, and those that didn't want to read forced it on the rest of us. The internet came along and killed any semblance of authority and respect the news had left. Now, every story is opinionated and rushed out for the fastest clicks. Journalists just regurgitate headline news and add their political bent. If I wanted more of that I wouldn't skip Thanksgiving with the family.

All this and more on this week’s episode! Don't forget to join us on DISCORD, and support us on PATREON or by BUYING A SHIRT!