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    <fireside:genDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2026 20:44:51 -0500</fireside:genDate>
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    <title>Topic Lords - Episodes Tagged with “Shorts”</title>
    <link>https://topiclords.com/tags/shorts</link>
    <pubDate>Mon, 05 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
    <description>Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week.
</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <itunes:type>episodic</itunes:type>
    <itunes:subtitle>The only place on the internet you can hear topics discussed!</itunes:subtitle>
    <itunes:author>Jim Stormdancer</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary>Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week.
</itunes:summary>
    <itunes:image href="https://media24.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images-2024/podcasts/images/3/3597ddeb-e52e-4cda-a59c-c64600489fea/cover.jpg?v=5"/>
    <itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit>
    <itunes:owner>
      <itunes:name>Jim Stormdancer</itunes:name>
      <itunes:email>jim@goombas.org</itunes:email>
    </itunes:owner>
<itunes:category text="Comedy"/>
<itunes:category text="Education"/>
<itunes:category text="Arts"/>
<item>
  <title>89. Pope Hat Guy Covers You With a Towel</title>
  <link>https://topiclords.com/pope-hat-guy-covers-you-with-a-towel</link>
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  <pubDate>Mon, 05 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
  <author>Jim Stormdancer</author>
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  <itunes:episodeType>full</itunes:episodeType>
  <itunes:author>Jim Stormdancer</itunes:author>
  <itunes:subtitle>Lords: Nathan and Chris. We discuss whether to start your whodunit with a spoiler, strange things that come with apartments, Monster Island, No Tengo Dinero, and procrastination techniques.</itunes:subtitle>
  <itunes:duration>1:06:16</itunes:duration>
  <itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit>
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  <description>Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords)
Lords:
* Nathan 
  * https://twitter.com/NathanShorts
* Chris
  * https://twitter.com/MrChrisLHall/
Topics:
* Are mysteries actually better when you know who dun it?
* Renting apartments that come with weird artifacts
* Monster Island was a play-by-mail MMO written in QuickBasic that ran from 1989 to 2017.
  * https://if50.substack.com/p/1989-monster-island
  * https://if50.substack.com/
* No Tengo Dinero by Righeira
  * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxIGe1oOJQ
  * Unedited (syncable) commentary: https://youtu.be/raj5mJ1sma4
* Procrastinating because if I do anything I'll feel like I have to do everything
Microtopics:
* The symmetry of USB-C.
* The edibility of USB-C.
* The months-long argument at Nintendo over which version of the Flag Gordon song to play when you plug USB-C headphones into the charging port.
* Which version of the Flash Gordon theme is more likely to get you pulled over for speeding.
* Columbo.
* Whether a mystery story functions as both a good story and a good puzzle.
* Revealing the identity of the murderer in the first ten minutes of every episode of your murder mystery series.
* The inherent mystery provided by the horror genre's willingness to deliver the bad ending.
* Murder mysteries that are mysteries to the characters but not the audience.
* Whether it can still be a horror movie if the audience understands the rules.
* Knives Out.
* Enjoying a story twice because there is pleasure in seeing a well-constructed story play out.
* Mental air conditioning.
* Watching a movie before you watch it, so you know what's going to happen.
* A huge wooden ankh in the bushes right outside your front door.
* Renting a furnished apartment and it comes with a painting called "Bad Pope Hat Guy" right above your bed.
* Covering the painting of Lucius the Bad Pope with a towel before going to sleep on the bed underneath the painting and waking up with the towel covering your head and realizing Lucius the Bad Pope just covered you with a towel.
* Finding a knob of unknown purpose sticking out of the wall and deciding to pull it as hard as you can.
* Fold-out wall stools.
* A porcelain hand that came with the apartment.
* Storing your porcelain hand in the toilet tank.
* Everyone having that one friend who owns a jar of mercury and does the party trick where they float a penny on top of the mercury.
* Your new girlfriend getting upset that you own a jar of mercury so you leave it in the common area of your apartment building and the next day it's gone.
* Whether your jar of mercury contains any of the atoms of mercury that Hitler breathed.
* Playing an MMO by mail.
* How many frames per second a play by mail game runs at 
* Yelling "hey!" into the abyss.
* Non-player monsters.
* Crossing the Crystal Hills barrier.
* Issuing weekly patches into your Netflix original movie until none of the original story or actors remain.
* Checking the patch notes before you watch version 2.4 of your favorite movie.
* Where to put the new material when you add to your branching path story.
* Inventing the t-remover so you can patch a movie starring Brad Pitt to instead star Brad Pit.
* Whether a music video is hand animated or early CG.
* Video Toaster.
* A 3D animated prism that's actually a 2D animation cel that someone is rotating by hand.
* The significance of the orange ball with sevens coming out.
* Inventing the circuit board to be the background in your cool music video and then realizing you can use it to design electronics.
* One tiny tank having to bear witness and the other tiny tank refusing to.
* The same music video being the origin of circuit boards, Macromedia Flash, and the Toejam and Earl loading screens.
* Basing your squad of teen crime solvers on a 90s fad like Magic Eye.
* Seeing ending credits at the end of a music video and realizing you were watching a short film this whole time.
* Being inspired to speak by images in front of your eyes.
* Seeing a galaxy brain meme in your mind's ear.
* An outline of an abbreviation.
* Bragging about your photogenic memory.
* Where your mind's ear lives.
* Your Bluetooth headphones glitching out in a way that is both cool and nauseating.
* Needing to flip a switch in your mind and having to be careful not to touch the mind mouse trap next to it.
* Being productive all day and then realizing you didn't do anything fun all day.
* Moving to Minneapolis and realizing just how much you own.
* A two year old who draws perfect circles. 
</description>
  <content:encoded>
    <![CDATA[<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/topiclords" rel="nofollow">Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!</a></p>

<p>Lords:</p>

<ul>
<li>Nathan 

<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/NathanShorts" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/NathanShorts</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Chris

<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/MrChrisLHall/" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/MrChrisLHall/</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>Topics:</p>

<ul>
<li>Are mysteries actually better when you know who dun it?</li>
<li>Renting apartments that come with weird artifacts</li>
<li>Monster Island was a play-by-mail MMO written in QuickBasic that ran from 1989 to 2017.

<ul>
<li><a href="https://if50.substack.com/p/1989-monster-island" rel="nofollow">https://if50.substack.com/p/1989-monster-island</a></li>
<li><a href="https://if50.substack.com/" rel="nofollow">https://if50.substack.com/</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>No Tengo Dinero by Righeira

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxIGe1oOJQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxIGe1oOJQ</a></li>
<li>Unedited (syncable) commentary: <a href="https://youtu.be/raj5mJ1sma4" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/raj5mJ1sma4</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Procrastinating because if I do anything I&#39;ll feel like I have to do everything</li>
</ul>

<p>Microtopics:</p>

<ul>
<li>The symmetry of USB-C.</li>
<li>The edibility of USB-C.</li>
<li>The months-long argument at Nintendo over which version of the Flag Gordon song to play when you plug USB-C headphones into the charging port.</li>
<li>Which version of the Flash Gordon theme is more likely to get you pulled over for speeding.</li>
<li>Columbo.</li>
<li>Whether a mystery story functions as both a good story and a good puzzle.</li>
<li>Revealing the identity of the murderer in the first ten minutes of every episode of your murder mystery series.</li>
<li>The inherent mystery provided by the horror genre&#39;s willingness to deliver the bad ending.</li>
<li>Murder mysteries that are mysteries to the characters but not the audience.</li>
<li>Whether it can still be a horror movie if the audience understands the rules.</li>
<li>Knives Out.</li>
<li>Enjoying a story twice because there is pleasure in seeing a well-constructed story play out.</li>
<li>Mental air conditioning.</li>
<li>Watching a movie before you watch it, so you know what&#39;s going to happen.</li>
<li>A huge wooden ankh in the bushes right outside your front door.</li>
<li>Renting a furnished apartment and it comes with a painting called &quot;Bad Pope Hat Guy&quot; right above your bed.</li>
<li>Covering the painting of Lucius the Bad Pope with a towel before going to sleep on the bed underneath the painting and waking up with the towel covering your head and realizing Lucius the Bad Pope just covered <em>you</em> with a towel.</li>
<li>Finding a knob of unknown purpose sticking out of the wall and deciding to pull it as hard as you can.</li>
<li>Fold-out wall stools.</li>
<li>A porcelain hand that came with the apartment.</li>
<li>Storing your porcelain hand in the toilet tank.</li>
<li>Everyone having that one friend who owns a jar of mercury and does the party trick where they float a penny on top of the mercury.</li>
<li>Your new girlfriend getting upset that you own a jar of mercury so you leave it in the common area of your apartment building and the next day it&#39;s gone.</li>
<li>Whether your jar of mercury contains any of the atoms of mercury that Hitler breathed.</li>
<li>Playing an MMO by mail.</li>
<li>How many frames per second a play by mail game runs at </li>
<li>Yelling &quot;hey!&quot; into the abyss.</li>
<li>Non-player monsters.</li>
<li>Crossing the Crystal Hills barrier.</li>
<li>Issuing weekly patches into your Netflix original movie until none of the original story or actors remain.</li>
<li>Checking the patch notes before you watch version 2.4 of your favorite movie.</li>
<li>Where to put the new material when you add to your branching path story.</li>
<li>Inventing the t-remover so you can patch a movie starring Brad Pitt to instead star Brad Pit.</li>
<li>Whether a music video is hand animated or early CG.</li>
<li>Video Toaster.</li>
<li>A 3D animated prism that&#39;s actually a 2D animation cel that someone is rotating by hand.</li>
<li>The significance of the orange ball with sevens coming out.</li>
<li>Inventing the circuit board to be the background in your cool music video and then realizing you can use it to design electronics.</li>
<li>One tiny tank having to bear witness and the other tiny tank refusing to.</li>
<li>The same music video being the origin of circuit boards, Macromedia Flash, and the Toejam and Earl loading screens.</li>
<li>Basing your squad of teen crime solvers on a 90s fad like Magic Eye.</li>
<li>Seeing ending credits at the end of a music video and realizing you were watching a short film this whole time.</li>
<li>Being inspired to speak by images in front of your eyes.</li>
<li>Seeing a galaxy brain meme in your mind&#39;s ear.</li>
<li>An outline of an abbreviation.</li>
<li>Bragging about your photogenic memory.</li>
<li>Where your mind&#39;s ear lives.</li>
<li>Your Bluetooth headphones glitching out in a way that is both cool and nauseating.</li>
<li>Needing to flip a switch in your mind and having to be careful not to touch the mind mouse trap next to it.</li>
<li>Being productive all day and then realizing you didn&#39;t do anything fun all day.</li>
<li>Moving to Minneapolis and realizing just how much you own.</li>
<li>A two year old who draws perfect circles.</li>
</ul><p><a rel="payment" href="http://patreon.com/topiclords">Support Topic Lords</a></p>]]>
  </content:encoded>
  <itunes:summary>
    <![CDATA[<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/topiclords" rel="nofollow">Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!</a></p>

<p>Lords:</p>

<ul>
<li>Nathan 

<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/NathanShorts" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/NathanShorts</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Chris

<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/MrChrisLHall/" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/MrChrisLHall/</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>Topics:</p>

<ul>
<li>Are mysteries actually better when you know who dun it?</li>
<li>Renting apartments that come with weird artifacts</li>
<li>Monster Island was a play-by-mail MMO written in QuickBasic that ran from 1989 to 2017.

<ul>
<li><a href="https://if50.substack.com/p/1989-monster-island" rel="nofollow">https://if50.substack.com/p/1989-monster-island</a></li>
<li><a href="https://if50.substack.com/" rel="nofollow">https://if50.substack.com/</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>No Tengo Dinero by Righeira

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxIGe1oOJQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxIGe1oOJQ</a></li>
<li>Unedited (syncable) commentary: <a href="https://youtu.be/raj5mJ1sma4" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/raj5mJ1sma4</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Procrastinating because if I do anything I&#39;ll feel like I have to do everything</li>
</ul>

<p>Microtopics:</p>

<ul>
<li>The symmetry of USB-C.</li>
<li>The edibility of USB-C.</li>
<li>The months-long argument at Nintendo over which version of the Flag Gordon song to play when you plug USB-C headphones into the charging port.</li>
<li>Which version of the Flash Gordon theme is more likely to get you pulled over for speeding.</li>
<li>Columbo.</li>
<li>Whether a mystery story functions as both a good story and a good puzzle.</li>
<li>Revealing the identity of the murderer in the first ten minutes of every episode of your murder mystery series.</li>
<li>The inherent mystery provided by the horror genre&#39;s willingness to deliver the bad ending.</li>
<li>Murder mysteries that are mysteries to the characters but not the audience.</li>
<li>Whether it can still be a horror movie if the audience understands the rules.</li>
<li>Knives Out.</li>
<li>Enjoying a story twice because there is pleasure in seeing a well-constructed story play out.</li>
<li>Mental air conditioning.</li>
<li>Watching a movie before you watch it, so you know what&#39;s going to happen.</li>
<li>A huge wooden ankh in the bushes right outside your front door.</li>
<li>Renting a furnished apartment and it comes with a painting called &quot;Bad Pope Hat Guy&quot; right above your bed.</li>
<li>Covering the painting of Lucius the Bad Pope with a towel before going to sleep on the bed underneath the painting and waking up with the towel covering your head and realizing Lucius the Bad Pope just covered <em>you</em> with a towel.</li>
<li>Finding a knob of unknown purpose sticking out of the wall and deciding to pull it as hard as you can.</li>
<li>Fold-out wall stools.</li>
<li>A porcelain hand that came with the apartment.</li>
<li>Storing your porcelain hand in the toilet tank.</li>
<li>Everyone having that one friend who owns a jar of mercury and does the party trick where they float a penny on top of the mercury.</li>
<li>Your new girlfriend getting upset that you own a jar of mercury so you leave it in the common area of your apartment building and the next day it&#39;s gone.</li>
<li>Whether your jar of mercury contains any of the atoms of mercury that Hitler breathed.</li>
<li>Playing an MMO by mail.</li>
<li>How many frames per second a play by mail game runs at </li>
<li>Yelling &quot;hey!&quot; into the abyss.</li>
<li>Non-player monsters.</li>
<li>Crossing the Crystal Hills barrier.</li>
<li>Issuing weekly patches into your Netflix original movie until none of the original story or actors remain.</li>
<li>Checking the patch notes before you watch version 2.4 of your favorite movie.</li>
<li>Where to put the new material when you add to your branching path story.</li>
<li>Inventing the t-remover so you can patch a movie starring Brad Pitt to instead star Brad Pit.</li>
<li>Whether a music video is hand animated or early CG.</li>
<li>Video Toaster.</li>
<li>A 3D animated prism that&#39;s actually a 2D animation cel that someone is rotating by hand.</li>
<li>The significance of the orange ball with sevens coming out.</li>
<li>Inventing the circuit board to be the background in your cool music video and then realizing you can use it to design electronics.</li>
<li>One tiny tank having to bear witness and the other tiny tank refusing to.</li>
<li>The same music video being the origin of circuit boards, Macromedia Flash, and the Toejam and Earl loading screens.</li>
<li>Basing your squad of teen crime solvers on a 90s fad like Magic Eye.</li>
<li>Seeing ending credits at the end of a music video and realizing you were watching a short film this whole time.</li>
<li>Being inspired to speak by images in front of your eyes.</li>
<li>Seeing a galaxy brain meme in your mind&#39;s ear.</li>
<li>An outline of an abbreviation.</li>
<li>Bragging about your photogenic memory.</li>
<li>Where your mind&#39;s ear lives.</li>
<li>Your Bluetooth headphones glitching out in a way that is both cool and nauseating.</li>
<li>Needing to flip a switch in your mind and having to be careful not to touch the mind mouse trap next to it.</li>
<li>Being productive all day and then realizing you didn&#39;t do anything fun all day.</li>
<li>Moving to Minneapolis and realizing just how much you own.</li>
<li>A two year old who draws perfect circles.</li>
</ul><p><a rel="payment" href="http://patreon.com/topiclords">Support Topic Lords</a></p>]]>
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