We take on Close Encounters of the Third Kind as we continue our classic sci-fi arc this week. We take listener calls about ET and classic gaming. And we run down the week in geek, including the upcoming Voltron 2015, John Hamm’s possible role as Superman, WonderBra’s new 3D billboard, Caprica’s return to TV (soon), George Takei’s next-season guest role on Big Bang Theory, and (as requested) Sean’s cubicle war memoir.
VOTRON!!! <SEANSCREAM> <SHOOTERSCREAM>
I loves me some Voltron
I heard that Zach Levi (Chuck) auditioned for some role in the Superman movie. I think he’d make a good Clark Kent too.
As I’ve been going through Smallville (see this thread) for the first time, I’ve been thinking about who “my” Superman characters are too. I’m almost through Season 3, so these may change as I go on. It will take a lot to knock Christopher Reeve out of the top spot, but who knows?
Clark Kent/Superman - Christopher Reeve
Lois Lane - Terri Hatcher
Lex Luthor - Michael Rosenbaum
Oh, and the first movie I saw in the theater more than once in the theater was Iron Man 2.
They should put a Hanes boxer ad on the other side of the street using the ‘Sticky Fingers’ motif.
Had to go dig out my beloved X-wing book. Still have it but it’s a little on the bedraggled side.
Also, incase you couldn’t picture artic fox or Curse I went and found some screenshot’s.
Yeah, not quite as bad as looking at Atari 2600 (that look of wow, you used to like this?) but close in most cases for folks who never played them.
I have the TIE Fighter version, which is set up pretty much the same way. 
- Voltron
I tried writing fan fiction off of Voltron, man… So, 2013 almost can’t come soon enough. Assuming we survive 2012. d:
Same here, Sean. Only cartoon bigger than Transformers for me was Voltron. Although, I never got any of the toys unfortunately.
- Sister Clarice
“Sister Clarice gives me a woody.”
“You mean the willies!”
Little Farscape reference for everyone. ^^
-
Dong and berries
Let’s not forget frank and beans from Something about Mary. d: -
Superman
For me as well, Reeves will always be the Superman. Routh did ok. But, Tom Welling from Smallville fits the part more, imo, than Routh. I was never that crazy about Dean Cain.
That said, I think Kate Bosworth was the worst Lois. However, Kevin Spacey was an excellent, I repeat excellent, Lex Luther.
- Games
I was wondering why you weren’t talking about Final Fantasy…
Final Fantasy 7 was even on the PC. (So was FF8, but w/e. d: ) FF7 was my first Final Fantasy.
Knights of the Round. d:
After you guys play FF7, you gotta watch Final Fantasy Advent Children Complete.
Yay X-wing! I liked Tie Fighter better. d:
X-wing vs. Tie Fighter?
Chuck talking about that game fixing the spaceship reminds me of Myst. I played Myst, but never got off the first world. ):
-
Close Encounters
-
Sting/Bjork
He certainly seemed like a prima donna when he stepped out. d: -
Big pupils/eyes
Maybe they have double eyelids. d: -
Music
Imagine Lady Gaga as our musical ambassador. d: -
Hand gestures
I had no clue too! But, I wasn’t bothered enough to ask. -
EVE
As one of the resident EVE players, you know I had to pick this up. The Plex were all destroyed.
EVE player destroys over $1000 worth of game time
http://www.massively.com/2010/08/08/eve-player-destroys-over-1000-worth-of-game-time/
I think Audra was refering to…
EVE Online player steals $45,000 worth of ISK in massive investment scam
http://www.massively.com/2010/09/11/eve-online-player-steals-45-000-worth-of-isk-in-massive-investm/
Stealing is so prevalent in EVE, the developers recently made a promo/trailer about it:
-
Now, we have the peck report. ^^
Heh, hive mind. d: -
Lol @ Lord of the Dance.
-
Anal probes
When humans venture to other planets, we’ll have a ship full of colonoscopy equipment. d: -
Gillian was skinny though. I thought the same thing.
I can’t say Jolene ever freaked me out. d: -
Sean, why didn’t you say, “Highlight your assets?” You know you were thinking it. d:
-
Gift card
Make sure you check when the gift card expires. -
Parsec
Did you guys receive the award yet? I want to see pictures! -
Adagio
I wondered what tea you drank. Thanks.
Oh, the first movie I paid to see more than once was Terminator 2 I think.
I spent every waking hour and hours I should have been sleeping playing TIE Fighter during the early 90s.
I started gaming in the arcade, which was located in the seedy back room of the local bodega. I dropped many quarters into Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong. On special occasions, we would take a trip to the local Bowling Alley which had the larger game consoles you could sit in, like the vector graphics Star Wars game. I think I could have bought my first car with the amount of cash I pumped into that.
We got an Atari 2600 one Christmas. By then, others had ColecoVision and Nintendo but it didn’t matter. I got Yar’s Revenge, Defender, and Adventure. When I started High School I got a Commodore 64, I did some BASIC programming on it but mostly played the following two games:
Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative written by Diane Duane
Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy
These interactive adventures were amazing and felt like lost episodes from the TV show. They were text-based, basically interactive novels. A few years back I found a C64 emulator and downloaded the ROMs for these games. So much fun.
When I got to college I got my first PC, a 486 DX2 66MHz with VESA Local Bus and 4MB of RAM. Yeah, I know lawn dwellers, I was spoiled. I never gamed with a card punch. :biteme: First game I bought for my new PC? You guessed it, Star Trek: the 25th Anniversary. A year later, I was outside the store waiting for it to open so I could buy Star Trek: Judgment Rites. On both occasions once I opened the wrapping I played for 48 hours straight. My father walked past my bedroom door and asked, “Have you showered?” My response: In the glow of monitor radiation, crazy-eyed, disheveled-greasy hair, spaghetti-sauce-stained T-shirt and hole-in-lower-right-butt-cheek sweatpants, “Uh-nuh.”
Good times. Good times.
Just started listening, but wanted to point out that although it’s not scifi, Mad Men is a terrific, terrific show (and Christina Hendricks a.k.a. YoSaffBridge is also in it).And that’s what Jon Hamm is most famed for (aside from his guest star role in 30 Rock and being one of the better SNL hosts in recent years). He’s Don motherflippin’ Draper! He’s also one heck of an actor - drama or comedy - so while it seems an odd choice, I think he’d do a good job if he gets the role, even though I think he actually ranges a bit old for Superman…which might make him perfect for the role if they did a darker older Superman movie.
Anyway…carry on.
Woo, Voltron! 
If you want to kick it old school, try this web-based version of Zork to see what the onion-belts were up to back in the day. (sample commands: look, north, open door, get lamp)
Interactive Fiction games are still being produced, largely on a hobbyist scale. There’s a dizzying array of engines, but many use the old Infocom (z-code) format for the actual files, so they’re platform independent (a necessity for the early days of home computing from whence they originated.)
Thanx Pike. My wife loved Zork. One day I purchased the PC version of Return to Zork. We played it for a little while and she was like, “It’s not the same.”
I’m definitely gonna hook her up with that link.
Wow, I had The Promethean Prophecy too!! I’d totally forgotten about it.
And, oh man, I wish I’d had the Kobayashi Maru game, particularly if it was written by Diane Duane. She (Peter David) are my two favorite Star Trek novelists.
I think I had maybe 5 or so Star Trek games-- over a long period of years and different levels of PC technologies. I may have to google a bit to jog my memory.
Now, going way way back, when was a kid my friend’s dad worked for Wang which meant he was one of the few people in the 70s to have a computer at home. I remember playing this (or a version of this) on my friend’s Wang computer.
An ascii text based Star Trek game.
EDIT:
Here’s another game I had, Harbinger DS9: Pretty good!
I loved text games…I think this was my first
Twin Kingdom Valley
I’ve always loved the point and click esp when they were in force on the PC
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Police Quest Series
Simon the Sorcerer series
Sam and Max
King’s Quest
Companions of Xanth
and so on
Those were the days when you had think and have manuals and procedures.
I’ve just brought Tie fighter, rebel assualt for the pc, have to play them through Dos Box. I also love the games such as freelancer, wing commander, although its a bit of a bitch trying to find copies.
I was shopping the other day and saw one of those plug in computers and this one was a ‘rip off’ of the genesis/megadrive which had all of the old classics on it. I was almost tempted, but then just remembered that you can get emulators.
During the cast, you were talking about the game that was right scrolling only. You sure you’re not thinking of R-type
I also played most of the star trek games as they came out on the pc over the years (including some TOS). I really should look for them. I’m getting a hankering for pulling out all of the old space games (Tau Ceti).
I had this game too. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The game really had nothing to do with the movie plot really. Just a set of games in one—a pretty need starship combat game if I remember correctly too.
The best Star Trek games are by far the Elite Forces games.
I mean look at the tagline 
Hunt The Wumpus? Anyone else?
this is gonna sound weird; but here goes - my strongest impression of Close encounters is not of the movie proper, but from an episode of Boy Meets World… :o
there’s a scene where aliens fly over the roof (or something like that), and the older brother, Eric (played by my comic hero, Will Friedle) who whips out an electric guitar and plays that 5 note tune from Close Encounters… heheh…
PS Hey, howzabout a Will Friedle arc? He has serious geek cred! I would love to hear him call in the show 
Yeah, but easy when you get the hang of it.
My first game was lunar lander on a VAX terminal. No graphics.
Who is Jon Hamm?
He plays Don Draper on AMC’s award winning awesome show Mad Men.
(I don’t know about him as the next Superman? A smoking, scotch drinking, womanizing superman perhaps?)
Interesting. I’ve not heard of NetTrek before.