Galactic Watercooler

We're joined again by Christmas TV Companion author Joanna Wilson, this time to discuss sci-fi Christmas specials. We listen to Bwana's response to our honor of naming a GWC news section after him, which inspires some gaming discussion, like what it means to be a gamer and our take on the new XBL dashboard. Donnie Iris and the Cruisers serenade our audience with another awesome Christmas tune. And we run down the week in geek including the Prometheus, Lost Girl, and Three Inches trailers, new Spartacus, floating cities of the future. Also: We call out some awesome GWCers who tweeted us during recording. Happy holidays, everyone.

We offer up some holiday entertainment to hopefully help make that Christmas travel just a little bit easier this season. Rock legends Donnie Iris and the Cruisers join us with a special performance to set the holiday tone. Joanna Wilson, author of 'Tis The Season TV and the Christmas TV Companion walks us through the ins and outs of the Christmas special. And, of course, we run down the week in geek, including our quick take on Sherlock 2, some Skyrim bug fixes (less arrows to the knee, we hear), awesome news on the private orbital space flight front, and lots of trailer talk -- Dark Knight, Battleship, Snow White, and MIB3 to name just a few. Happy holidays from your friends in Texas, y'all.

We round up some of the Best of 2011 in our new patent-pending Top (n) lists. And we run down the week in geek, including some analysis of the analysis of Trek 2/12, Baldwin's now-infamous Words With Friends addiction, a cool new take on Snow White, and the latest trends in ePublishing.

This week's special 300th episode of Galactic Watercooler was recorded live in front of a (remote) studio audience. We take a number of live callers. We bring you a special version of Fantasy Sci-Fi League in which our audience-selected team of heroes saves the holiday. We bring back the Reverend Dr. Wichelns (one of GWC's most popular interviewees who originally joined us back in episodes #22 and #23 to explain some of the religious history in Battlestar Galactica and the philosophical mind-knots in The Matrix) for a talk. And we run down the week in geek, of course. Thank you to everyone who's contributed their love, resources, and spirit to GWC over the years. Here's to hundreds more. Note: This is a FOUR HOUR+ episode of GWC. We don't normally run that long!

This week we give thanks for some of the geeky things we loved this year. And we discover a ball-slappingly good time with Audra's new holiday: Spanksgiving. Oh yeah, we also run down the week in geek including a ton of Trek movie news and Audra's take on the neolithic iPad.

We talk about some of our favorite geek gifts this holiday season. And we run down the week in geek, including lots more Skyrim love, a discussion of The Captains documentary, new Trek 2/12 news (filming and work on effects shots has begun), Sean's take on Anita Blake audiobooks and sex in magic, some talk of the Hunger Games movie trailer, five reasons you should follow The Rock on Twitter, and Pixar's update on their latest work.

We catch you up on all the great shows and movies we've been watching for the past few months. And we run down the week in geek, including the new Elder Scrolls game release, a possible Bruce Willis casting in an upcoming Neuromancer big-screen debut, re-writes and shuffling in the Battleship/Asteroids camps, and lots, lots more.

We run down some of our favorite vehicles from the Star Wars franchise including the little-known B-Wing, and, of course, the classics. We also run down the week in geek, including the release of Shatner's The Captains documentary into the wild, Garrett Hedlund's potential casting in the ever-less-Japanese Akira, some new video game news, and lots, lots more. We're joined by in-studio guest (and long-time GWCer) Shooter.

We count down some Halloween top ten lists, including Sean's top ten hottest chicks to take to a Halloween party, Audra's top ten worst Halloween costumes, and Chuck's top ten most useful weapons for surviving the zombie apocalypse. And we run down the week in geek, including, well, a ton of stuff.

We harken back to our vehicle arc as we discuss vehicles in the Star Trek franchise. Sean tells us all about the Final Fantasy games for the iPhone and iPad. And we run down the week in geek, including new Starship Troopers material, a possible new Turing flick, and lots, lots more. It's almost like we have a time machine and Juan's still with us in the studio.

Sean tells us about his Xbox 360 Crysis experience. And we run down the week in geek, including Siri AI antics, new Robocop reboot news, Stephen King's Twilight bagging, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer co-op mode, a real-life House situation, Dr. Pepper's low-cal alternative, an AT-AT dog costume, and lots more. We're joined in-studio by GWC tech guru Juan and long-time listener AwesomeEngineeringGirl.

This week we take a glut of recent listener calls. And we run down the week in geek, including the Simpsons' almost cancellation (and last minute reprieve), Adidas' cool Wampa shoes, Superman's new beard (!), and awesome new Jor-El pics. Thanks as always for your awesome calls!

So we started out tonight to make a second podcast about geek meetups, but had so much fun casting new movies (some real, some imagined) that we just gave in and had a good time. You know how we roll. Also, we run down the week in geek, including the possibility of a new Mass Effect movie (see start of this description), some new Sanctuary (coming soon), lots of new Avengers pics, and Sean's take on Iron Man, um, XXX.

Sean triumphantly returns (physically) to the room. (He never left verbally, of course!) We update our taxonomy of haters and methodology of avoiding becoming such. And we run down the week in geek, including having some fun with the Netflix/Q*ickster split, taking in some sweet new Riddick 3 news, speculating on what we'd do if we had ten grand to have dinner with George Lucas, and wondering what all will change in the new Robocop reboot.

This week GWC turned five, and we take this opportunity to relax, be self-referential, and tell a few of those "meetup only" stories we always mention. If this is your first time listening to GWC, you might want to check out the last (or next) podcast to get a better sample of what we normally do every week, but you'll find no better example of how awesome this community is. We're joined by GWC tech guru and podcast host Juan and long-time GWCer Shooter, who present GWC with some gifts from the community.