Rinse and Repeat

Hosts William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, and Gretchen Winkler

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Welcome to We Are
Technologies User Friendly 2.0 with host,
Bill Sikkens technology architect.
And this is User Friendly 2.0 as alwaysI'm your host Bill Sikkens.
Joining Bill Gretchenwelcome to this week's show.
Hello to you and to our American.

(00:31):
Listen, I hope you all had a wonderfulThanksgiving holiday.
And for everybody else,think of us as we now have to go on diets
for the next six months.
So here in the States,
this is a holiday weekend and it's,you know, kind of a nice break.
And one of the things that'sbeen unofficially adopted is the Friday
after Thanksgiving is on Thursdayand Friday, being kind of like a day

(00:53):
to spend with the family.
And so at least we got one a year now,which is better than not.
All right.
On that note,what do we have in the news this week?
Okay.
Massively overthinking.
How do we make better the mMORPG genre.
All right, so before anybody askthe question that doesn't

(01:13):
know, that stands for massivelymultiplayer online Roleplaying
game, just ask Sheldon in Big Bang Theory,he explains it there.
So what they're talking about here is
this is a genre of gamethat has been really popular.
World of Warcraft is a very,very well known one.
Before that you had ever questand some other things like that.

(01:34):
And Ultima, I believe, had one, Final Fantasy is another one
that basically what it is, isyou have an open world and you
pay a monthly fee usually and go on and,and do a lot of different things.
That usually is built upby your imagination.
There's some limitations in these games
just because they are games,but for the most part, it is very much

(01:56):
a real opportunity to be creativeand get out there and do different things.
They kind of hit their peakmaybe ten, 15 years ago.
And since then, while a lot of themare still out there, they've been kind of
getting olderand not really being updated as much.
And then some of it'sbecome kind of toxic.
One of the things that,Blizzard, Activision figured out

(02:17):
when they were tryingto deal with politics within the game
that didn't work toowell and almost destroyed it,
things like that.
So what happens now?
Is this a genre that's over with,or is it something
that is going to be rebootedand made better?
It seems like the latter is what's goingon, and there's a lot of different ideas
out thereon how to deal with this properly,

(02:38):
but the old system of basically issuingupdates and different things
like that, that just the end of the storyline has become somewhat stale.
So what they're doing now
with some of them is actually living itup, changing it up a little bit.
And I know that there's been a fearwith the companies of,
well,we're going to lose a lot of our players
if we don't do somethingthat is exactly the same,
and I'm not going to give out a spoileralert

(02:59):
here, but do knowing firsthand onsome of what's going on with this.
The focus groups and differentthings have found
that the changes actually arebreathing new life
into these games, and it was kind of timeto keep the same characters.
People are very happy with knowingwhat they're doing, where they're playing,
the environmentthey're in, and that kind of a thing,
but something newand something different to do.

(03:21):
So some of the thingsthat are being looked at is jumping
the storyline aheada couple hundred years in the mythology,
so that you have different things going onthat uses the original storyline,
but still, you know,it has something new going along with it.
So that's the really briefexplanation of it.
What is your guys's opinion on it?
I don't know if you've ever actuallyplayed these, bill, I think I do have

(03:41):
I've never played them.
So. So do you guys.
One of you,
I think there's a lotyou're impressed with.
What's your opinion of of
I think that like at the stagenow, they've stagnated pretty hard.
For the most part, some of them haven't.
I think Final Fantasy has donewell to keep itself going.

(04:03):
But, wow,
I was stagnating when I was playing it,and that was back at,
What was that?
Lich King era.
Yeah, I, I would agree with you on that.
As a well, player myself,I think, they had some, DLC
and updates beyond that, but it seemedlike, like the headline was saying

(04:25):
it was just expanding on a storylinethat already pretty much been played out.
Yeah.
You know, so but I think there's a lotthat can really could be done to
bring new blood into it.
Yeah.
So do you think the genre is over ordo you think it's just time for a reboot?
I think it's time for a look at it,

(04:48):
really discover what's needed.
And I don't know if subscription serviceis really what's going for it right now.
Yeah, well, everything's a subscriptionand you get Nicole nine and death.
If they're going to do that,
they need to drastically lowerthe price more people involved
or come up with another,you know, way to monetize it.
One company was actually lookingat making the subscription free

(05:10):
or very reduced,
but you had all kinds of commercialsin the game and the focus groups
on that company, needless to say,didn't think that would go over too well.
So, you know, it'ssomething that the big guys
have to figure out and not be afraidto experiment a little bit.
I agree with you.
I think
as long as they are willing to do thatand bring some new life into these things,

(05:30):
people will enjoy them againand not get involved in politics.
Yeah,
I think any you you can have entertainment
that gets deeply entrenched in politics.
You're just going to tear everything apartand it's going to it's going to rot.
And that's why people go to these games
or go to moviesor stories to escape reality.

(05:54):
They want something else.
So exactly.
And it really that is very true.
And the other thing with politics, it'spart of the reason why we don't do it
here.
It's not thatwe don't have political opinions,
but you're never going to have a situationwhere somebody is not mad at you.
So unless it's absolutely necessary,like you're a politician,
it's best to steer clear of that.
I mean, there's no reason to jump into it.

(06:15):
I if it's needed, but it's usually not so
yeah.
In other news, Hugo Boss saystrillion dollars
AI investmentboom has elements of irrationality.
So Google's boss
Sander had an interview with the BBC,which is where this comes from.

(06:36):
And there's been a growing concernin the industry that AI is above it.
And what that means is we think backto an example of this, the.com
crash back in 1999,where there was a lot of speculation
and a lot of investment,nobody was verifying anything.
The pixel onlook that up if you've never heard of it.
It's an interesting story.
These type of things were out thereto a point where

(06:59):
it just kind of blew upand a lot of money was lost.
The basically reset.
The internet didn't go away or anything,but going beyond that, there was a lot
more supposedly focus onkeeping things a little bit more real.
Arguably with things like the metaverseand stuff
that hasn't been completely true.

(07:20):
But for the most part,we haven't seen another 1999 again,
except that we're worried about it.
The Wall Streetbasically is worried about this happening
with AI, and there's a lotof speculative investment going on.
I think it's a little different than 1999.
But the thing in video isthis when you get into a situation where,
people are just throwingfree money at things and investing

(07:41):
and not really doing any due diligence
on that type of a thing, then yeah,you can definitely have problems.
So basically from the BBC storyand Google, he was saying that if I does
crash it's going to affect every companythat's invested it.
Now this doesn't mean I would go awayor anything like that,
but it does mean that a lot of the moneythat's out there would evaporate.

(08:04):
And I think to some extent, we're probablygoing to see at least a correction
that is going to havethis kind of a response
just because of where everything is at.
And you've got some other interestingthings that are out there too.
And one of them is how much electricityI use.
It's it'snot something we had with the.com bubble.
And there are finite resourcesand there's going to have to figure out

(08:25):
different ways.
You know, the usual would be niceto be able to power these data centers
without completely taxing and overloadingpower grids
and, you know, creating pollutionand all the rest of that.
All right.
Smith and Dixon rebrandssuperhuman, formerly known as Grammarly.
Yeah. And when I saw this, I'm like, what?

(08:47):
What are you talking about? Right.
Yeah, I use Grammarly.
So it's kind of like,oh, what is this really for?
Anybody that hasn't usedit is in my opinion, a great AI tool
that can be installed alongside thingslike word, Google Docs, whatever.
And as you're writingwill make suggestions
and you have the ability to customizewhat suggestions you wanted to make.
And this can be anything from just,you know,

(09:08):
being a really nice spell checkerto suggestions.
Gretchen, what is your experience?
If you had to give a description of it?
Actually,I, I've had a really good experience.
I'm really bad, basically at, the punctuation situation,
I don't know what it is.
And, I, I've always been bad at spelling too,

(09:28):
so this has really helped me,
it reevaluatehow I'm constructing my sentences,
realizingthat I need commas in certain areas,
and sometimes I take their suggestionsand sometimes I go, you know what?
The whole sentence needs to be redone.
Yeah.
And but it's been helpfuland it's not like having an editor

(09:51):
who's giving their personal,
so, emotional baggage with it.
I don't that that's what you said, that
you've had this happen, but,you know, it's very neutral.
Yeah.
No, and it is.
And it's not terribly invasive.
You know, if you want to parse it,you can't all that kind of stuff.

(10:12):
It's actually used byabout 40 million people
and is the most used applicationof this kind.
It's out there.
And what's happened is you've hadtwo companies, that are getting together,
coda, it's been acquiredand they're creating, a rebranded product
that puts email a number of other toolsthey had along with Grammarly together.
It's a product called superhuman.

(10:33):
There is even a rumor that theAI suggested these names.
So, you know, I don't know if that's trueor not, but, hey,
we kind of want to thank,I mean, it is possible.
Yeah.
The avatar, which is now going to be used
within superhumanthat does the actual work.
The AI is being branded hero.
And to that end,you're going to have an actual,
more interactive animated,hopefully not like the paperclip

(10:57):
or Microsoft or Bob or something,but actually something real that,
is there to be able to give moreof a human aspect to what it is doing.
And the other thingthat's coming along with this also
is the ability to specify a lot more like,what kind of writing are you doing?
Is it for business?
Is it science fiction? Is it,you know, a paper for school?

(11:17):
Whatever, and it's able to advisebased on that kind of input
and learn from itand be able to build on top of that.
That's a really good point,because right now
Grammarly is very business oriented.
So I have to take the suggestionscarefully because when I'm it's
trying to change dialog or suggest changesto dialog, and I've got kids,

(11:42):
I like kinds of personalities andI don't need everybody talking corporate.
Right, right.
Because that ruinsthe story. So, you know.
Costco and Home
Depot still use IBM computersfrom the 1980s.
Here's why.
Yeah. So this is kind of funny.

(12:03):
And it's not just Costco and Home Depot.
There's a lot of the bigger companiesthat do this.
And our past us,Jeremy used to work for Home Depot,
and I remember talking about some thingswhere they turn on a system,
and it literally would bea green monochrome monitor.
Coming up, enter today's date.
You know, running onlike DOS six or something.
And these are definitely still out there.

(12:23):
One of the other operating systemsthat's really used,
on the mainframe side is AS4 hundred.
This has been around forever.
I've done a little programingfor that in my career.
And you look back and these computers
are old and ancient, and they still workand they can't be hacked.
That's really the reason why,
and it's kind of interesting to look atbecause maybe not so much Home Depot,

(12:45):
but a store like Costco, you can go inand buy the latest computers, equipment,
you know, tablets,any of that kind of stuff.
And the tablet they have,as far as computing power goes, is
way more powerfulthan some of these systems.
Is 400 is pretty decent,especially for at the time
for doing large inventoriesand that kind of thing.
But even so, what you get on the shelf

(13:05):
could easily run circles aroundwhat's being used to sell it to you.
But at the end of the day, the systems areeither offline or on closed networks.
Which is why they say it can't be hacked.
The only way to keep from being hacked,unplugged from the internet.
In this case, they're able to successfullydo that in a lot of these situations.
So you're looking at things like that.
The other part of it is the ability

(13:28):
that you're using an ecosystemthat already exists.
So you're building on top of it.
So changing out ofsome of these things would require,
you know, moving to different stuff.
But it's kind offunny when you're looking at
do they go out for job openings
and these kind of things, freelancersfor maintaining some of these systems.
And I remember looking at onethat just came out about six months ago,

(13:49):
I think it might have been for Home Depot,but they needed a contractor to be able
to come out and replace the Dallasclocks in their 286, motherboards.
So, in the day, to keep track of the time
and date and settings,you had a physical battery.
They didn't have enoughRam like we do now.
And, you know, batteries go dead.
And when they do,your computer won't boot anymore.

(14:11):
Can't find the hard drive.
It doesn't know the date at the time,you know.
And that was the way of things to be.
And one of the bigger problemsis, is because batteries corrode.
That's causing a lot of problems.
And I don't think that you can goto the local computer story
if there even still is one in your areaand buy a new 286 motherboard.
Right?
So, it is definitely uniquein that respect,

(14:33):
but as long as they're maintained
properly, they do workand they're very stable and reliable.
And again, don't have, you know,
they're not susceptible to people gettingand hacking that type of thing.
So the question might be asked, well, HomeDepot's had hacked, so it's Costco,
but these are on the modern systemsthat are connected to the internet, things
like credit card processingand that end of stuff which uses

(14:56):
new functionality, which doesrequire those type of connections.
So it's just interesting,you know, we talked last week,
I think it was about COBOLand some of the old languages.
You're looking at the same kind of thinghere.
You know what happenswhen you can't get the equipment
anymore of that type of thing.
And they're they're facing that.
But the reality of the situation is that'swhy they still use what they use.

(15:20):
All right.
It's that time of year.
It is holiday time again.
And Gretchen, I you know, every yearyou went with me the last two years, I
have the pleasure of being able to givea presentation to a group here in Portland
where I talk about the newest gadgetsand different things that are out there,
which means I have an excuse to buy themand look at it.
Right.
So you know, it's a lot of fun.

(15:43):
And, you know, this type of thingis geared towards who you're buying for.
You know, here at User Friendly, we'regoing to cover more tech oriented stuff.
But there's a lot of interesting thingsthat go out there.
And it's actually worth going to a storeand looking at and seeing what there is.
Because looking at these things sideby side, there is a benefit to that.
So one of the ones that I thought wasreally cool is thing

(16:04):
called for this screen pocket display,and it's a ten inch rollable OLED screen.
That's a tube the size of a travel mug.
And you unroll itand you have this nice big screen,
you know, so it's
you're not having to square the smallscreen in your phone or whatever.
Something like that is really kind of cooland seems almost sci fi, you know,

(16:25):
another one, it's a very useful gadget,and this isn't exactly new,
but the version of it is is,the smart mug.
Now, this came out of ten years ago,I think initially as a Kickstarter
or something.
And you can buy different versions of it,but the ones that are out this year
kind of upgradethe game a little bit on that
and that, you keep your drinkat the exact temperature
you choose, you set itand it has the ability to warm up. Cool.

(16:47):
And you also can integrate itwith your smart home so that you can ask
your smart home to turn on your mugand that kind of a thing.
And it will even monitoryour hydration habits and tell you
if you haven't had enough liquidor if had too much liquid for the day.
So now does it.
Does it monitor what's inside of the mug?

(17:11):
You know, it.
It can't like, detect it automatically.
But the app does have the abilityto tell it what it is.
Yeah.
So anyway.
But, you know, it'sthis kind of a thing too.
One of the things that's down my roadthat's coming out is the pixel cast.
And this is a console game system
that plays the old gameslike Atari, Sega, Nintendo.

(17:31):
But there's a couple of thingsgoing on with this
asking the question,oh, there's a lot of these out there.
Yeah, but this one's legal.
So what it plays is actual,real genuine stuff.
It doesn't lag, it doesn't have problems.
Everything works properlyand you're dealing with a situation
where you don't have to worryabout weird software.
I still don't think Mario Goes to Jailis an actual licensed title for Nintendo,

(17:53):
so it is on most of the, you know, let's just say,
behind the scenes consoles like thisyou would get from Alibaba or something.
Interesting game.
But, definitely from there.
Another one Gretchen,you might like is something called
the Nova Home Planetarium.
And this is actually a planetariumthat you can buy for your house.
It's 4K.

(18:13):
You put it in your living room,and it's a small version
of the ones that we saw,that we talked about earlier in the year
that, allows you to be ableto have a home planetarium.
Are you talking about the blow up dome?
Yeah, it's a small version of that.
It's designed to go in your living room.
Oh, my goodness.

(18:33):
So before we jump into the
some of the other ones that are here,they're kind of interesting.
Is there anything specificyou guys are looking at that
you think is coolthis year? That's a gadget.
Anything you would want on your analyst.
Oh okay.
Maybe not.
I haven't,I haven't you know many's a little tight.
I've been like staying awayfrom like looking at stuff

(18:58):
to be honest.
Oh hey you know
it makes it kind of hardI know with that type of a standpoint.
But, Yeah, I'm thinking, for me,cybernetic implants.
So you want to give me something,something a cybernetic.
And I don't even talk about it.
Or if we're going togo crazy, give me a jetpack.
I don't know how crazy that is.
You know,

(19:18):
we talk to the pilots here, and you and Iare in the process of becoming one.
So, I think that might be a little more
than a stocking stuffer, but,hey, you know, yeah.
Oh, the fact that stuff like thatexists is amazing still to me.
You know, it just.
Yeah, it just is theresome of the other things are wearables.
There's a thing called the ecohug heated scarf.

(19:40):
Yeah.
These type of things, wearable heatedthings aren't exactly new,
but there's a lot more of them this year.
I've had the cold for a whilethat you charge off your cell phone
and it actually warms up,so when it's really cold, that's nice.
I've got the gloves now.
There are other things like vestsand stuff, and now they have a scarf.
So, you know someone in your lifethat's really cold or something.
This might be, kind of a neat thing.

(20:01):
That's like something for my mom.Yeah, exactly.
That's what I'm thinking.To wear it all the time.
And, they're made from carbon fiber.
One of the questions we got on some ofthe other ones is, can they be washed?
Yeah.
This is, very much light washable runsfor about eight hours on low.
It does have a battery.
And, but it's not,like, real bulky or anything, you know?

(20:21):
Now, this next one is onethat I absolutely have to get
because it'sjust something out of Star Trek
and it's a hollow note, sticky notes,like post-it notes.
And there's two ways to get these.
One set works with your,you know, augmented glasses,
like your, in reality, glassesand that type of thing.
But the other one that I've seen,
I haven't been ableto figure out where to buy it.

(20:43):
Yeah, but it's a cubethat's actually a virtual reality phone.
It sits on your desk,it looks like a post-it note,
and you can write on it everything.
But then I've got a 3D holographicthing on it to show it to you,
and that you're able to interactwith and flip through and all that stuff.
And of course, since it's electronic,it recognizes handwriting,
so you can search and find thingsand whatnot.

(21:04):
You put in a contact, you can hit it
that adds it to your contact list,all that kind of stuff.
Okay, this sounds intriguing.
So it would probably be,
something that would save me havingall the pieces of paper everywhere too.
So very environmentally,you know, good for that.
So if you're wanting to buy me something,that certainly would be something
I'd appreciate.
And then the last one

(21:25):
that I want to talk about,because this is a big deal with all of us.
Very muchwe support Stem education in our schools.
Science,technology, engineering and mathematics.
And as a part of that,there's a product of science
in a box and lab kit in the 2025 version.
And this is actually somethingthat's great
for the kids that they're going to enjoy,but they're also going to learn from

(21:47):
they're not real expensive.
They start at about 100 bucks,and you can go a lot crazy
if you want to get different thingswith it.
But the basic one includessensors, microcontrollers,
wireless modules, studentfriendly experiments.
And so on.
So back when I was growing up, you know,back in my day, I just turned 50.
So back in my day, I can say that now.

(22:09):
I had a thing
from RadioShackcalled an Electronic Project Lab,
and it was this thingwith all these springs and wires,
and it had different passive componentslike resistors and capacitors and switches
and things,and even had a little microprocessor,
and you would basicallybuild your own circuits by putting wires
between the springsto make it do different things.
And that area.
I thought that was really cool.

(22:29):
Well, today it's full on microcontrollers.
You can literally build in a Stem kit,the same thing that exists in a device.
You might be like, I don't know.
We're talking kitchen gadgets and stuffearlier that makes those work.
Raspberry Pi and a or some of thesethat if you're familiar with them
that, are usedin these type of situations.

(22:51):
And this actually issomething that comes in a kit
and is something thatthat is just available.
I highly recommend thembecause they're really, really good
or educatingthat to that end user friendly.
So we have a list
of some of these hyper devicesthat we've talked about here,
including the stem kit.
So you have onestop where you can go and check it out.

(23:12):
And not thatthis is any kind of a plug one plug,
but if you do go through our website, buysomething on Amazon.
We got a little bit of a kickback.Same price for you.
We just got a little bit of JeffBezos money.
And I hear Harrison, he's changing jobs.
You know, that might be a problem,
but nevertheless,I am certainly not going to turn it down.
And when you go to these things, it's

(23:32):
just a way to be ableto get in there and hire someone.
This is user friendly 2.0.
We'll be back after the break.
Snow's coming down.
I'm watching,
you know, I love people around
and maybe any time,

(23:54):
the church members now.
Welcome back.
This is user friendly 2.0.
Check out our website.
User friendly dot show is your one stopfor submitting questions,
checking out backepisodes, and seeing what is new
and exciting here at User Friendly.
All right,
we're going to be doing somethingthat has been really liked by everybody.

(24:15):
And please continueto send us your questions on this.
It's something we enjoy recordingand that is our comic friendly 2.0.
We're going to be talkingBatman and Mister Freeze.
So with no further ado,let's go to Michael.
Joining us now Michael, Gina, host ofComic Friendly 2.0 here on User Friendly.
And read the frickin comics on YouTube.

(24:35):
Welcome.Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Hey guys.
How are you doing? It's been a minute.
It's been a minute.It's always a pleasure.
I'll tell you what, I enjoy talking,and so does the audience, because
we always learn something kind of cooland new and everything like that.
But with the weather getting colder,I understand we're going to freeze.
Yes, it is going to be very cold today.

(24:56):
So right now we're we're going to betalking about Batman and Mr.
Freeze today.
So that is going to beour topic of discussion.
And I thought it would be a perfect,segue
into this cold weather that we're having,at least on my neck of the woods.
But, yes, let's let's dive into it.
All right. Mr. freeze,my favorite villain.

(25:16):
And the best one.And Batman, in my opinion.
Let's see what you feel.
Take her away.
No problem.
So, I wanted to, start from the very beginning.
So Mr.
Freeze, started out, life in the comicsindustry, as actually as Mr..
Zero.
So Mr..
Zero, was, and,

(25:39):
made his debut in Batman one 21stFebruary of 1959.
He was created by, Bob Kane,
but, also by writer Dave Wood and artistSheldon Molder.
Now, when he began his mad scientist ways,
he was really just a sort of one and donehero.

(25:59):
One and done villain, rather,he kind of didn't have a background,
didn't really have that much that, was, was was about him,
except that,of course, he had ice themed crimes,
and he was typically freezing people leftand right and had ice themed weaponry.
His look was very, very different fromwhat, many viewers may identify with.

(26:23):
Mr. Freeze.
He had sort of an orange and red, suit, and,
he did have the cryo suit that, that,that he usually usually wears.
But he was known as Mr.
Zero,and he really, you know, had a one and
done, take he froze.
Batman and Robin,

(26:44):
and was doing ice themed crimes,and we didn't actually hear much from Mr.
Zero.
Beyond that, after, after, a period of time, he,
first started to be known as Mr.
Freeze.
Believe it or not, in the 1966Batman comic, TV show, rather,

(27:04):
so in the 66 series, they dubbed him Mr.
Freeze, and that bled over into the comic.
And so Mr.
Freeze was played by threedifferent characters in the 66 series,
George Sanders, Otto Otto Perry Minger,
Otto Preminger, excuse me,

(27:26):
George Sanders, OttoPreminger, and Eli Wallach.
Wow. Let's try that again.
George Sam, OttoPreminger and Eli Wallach.
Yeah, absolutely.And oh my goodness. Series.
Yes yes, yes.
So, really, really interesting.
Yeah.
Three different appearances,three different, actors playing him.
And it was there that he, you know,got his, his full fleshed out name.

(27:51):
He started to be seen a little bit morein, in some of those comics
during that period.
Now, the 1970s is the Silver Ageof comics, and it is a wacky wild time,
in comics, lots of oddball adventures,lots of really out there.
One, one, one off adventures.
There was a period of time or Mr.

(28:11):
Freeze, you know, made a deal with,
with a, a demon,
a half demon from hell to exchange is,his is,
is is his ability, you know,
which is, to to to freeze things, to get

(28:32):
what's called cryo kinesis,which is actually be able to manipulate
cold and create cold characters and,
and, and build things out of,just from his mental powers.
And so, you know, this kind of thingis really, really wacky and oddball.
What really, reinvented Mr.
Freeze actually was, the 1992, comic.

(28:53):
I keep saying comicbecause comics are my life.
The 1992 animated Batman show, that,
team of writers,Paul Dini and his team, Bruce Timm,
they decided to, change Mr.
Freeze's backstoryfrom just being a mad scientist,
who was exposed to some chemicalsto actually having a thorough backstory.

(29:16):
Very tragic one.
And and it was so impactful and effectivethat,
DC decided to retcon, Mr.
Freeze's entire backstory to and use the,
the backstory from the animated show,which is kind of really rare.
So from becoming
a mad scientist,what they did was they changed it to Mr.

(29:38):
Freeze was a cryo scientist.
Exploring different waysto, to freeze and unfreeze
human beings, to preserve them, in casethere is, you know, some form of disease
that they could not recover fromto keep them alive for a period of time.
There's, there's differenttakes on the story, but,
usually, the story involves Mr.

(30:00):
Freeze trying to cure, diseasefrom love of his life.
Nora. She, she,
on tracks, very incurable disease.
And Mr. Freeze obviously freezes her.
And during the processof trying to find a cure for her,
the accident occurs, which turns himinto this villainous character.

(30:22):
He is typically trying to,
his crimes usually involve leftto right, to raise money,
to continue his research,to help, his dying wife.
Even though she is cryogenically frozen,he wants to be with her again.
Now, there's been lots of variationson that on that theme,
but that's basically been his backstory,since 92.

(30:46):
Moving forward.
And it really is a tragic one.
It's one of the it's it's what makes Mr.
Freeze kind of an enduring character,because it might sound like a gimmick.
And there's there is a lot of coldand ice themed villains
and heroes in comics, but freeze actuallyis quite a tragic character,
and, he's treatedas such basically from 92 onwards.

(31:08):
And, it's really, really sort of,a unique type of character.
I mean, as far as Batman'srogues are concerned, I think
maybe Clayface, and a few others,
have this kind of tragic,mentality to them where they're just not
sort of evil for evil sake, which,you know.
Yeah, Joker would be something like that.

(31:30):
Or, you know, something where
they're they have a nefarious schemesall the time, this kind of thing.
He does have his schemes, but of coursethey are now done with the permits.
I did.
So, in 2011, of course,
DC revamped their entire lineof, of comics.
They dubbed itthe New 52, and they also, change freeze,

(31:55):
a little bit and change his origin storya little bit.
In in, in the new 52 version of of, Mr.
Freeze, he, he's a scientistworking at the Wayne Foundation
on cryogenically freezing people.
And is one of his, casestudies is a woman named Nora
who is an his wife at this time,but she is cryogenically frozen

(32:17):
because she has an incurable disease.
And she's been frozen forfor almost 80 years now.
At this point, he becomessort of obsessed with trying to cure her.
And Bruce Wayne, who is head of the WayneFoundation, of course, is
quite disturbed by his his, behavior.
And he cancels the project or takesfreeze off of it,

(32:38):
and, in a fit of rage, freeze,you know, destroys his lab.
And that's
when he gets doused with his chemicalsand becomes this full fledged Mr.
Freak. So a slight change.
Not not too drastic.
But, but, you know, effective.
Effective and nonetheless. Right.
Of course, after new 52 DC,

(32:59):
reapplied their existing universe.
It's an it's a whole story in itselfthat we can talk more about,
where they, where they then retconthe retcon and, you know, brought things
back to that normal, freeze actuallyappears in what's known as the absolute
universe for, for, for DC,which is, more recent continuity.

(33:22):
The absolute universe, if you guys aren'tfamiliar, is kind of a, a really, really
I wouldn't
say dark and brooding, but but it is,it's it's, it's really engaging.
It's. Yeah, I know it's dark.
Yeah. It's an absolute hit with the fans.
It's, consistentlybeen one of the number one comics,
every month, absolute Batman,every few series out.

(33:43):
Absolute Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman,Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter,
and so on.
The Mr.
Freeze of that universe is, called VictorFreeze Junior or Victor Frisch junior.
Some people call his last name, somepeople pronounce his last name is rice.
Freeze.
He was exposed to a prehistoric

(34:03):
bacterium preserved in icewhich mutated his entire body.
Right.
He doesn't wear a bulky cryo suit.
Instead, he actually becomes this lanky,monstrous figure with red
eyes,pale blue skin, and ice in his veins.
And if you've seen freeze in the absoluteuniverse, you would get chills.
Similar to the Joker and the absoluteuniverse, it is quite frightening.

(34:25):
It's not for little kids, that's for sure.
But that version of of freezesis really is really terrifying.
And so that's kind of like the,the evolution.
I know I, I jumped around,
you know, skipped much of the Silver Age,the silly season, I would call it.
But, but yeah, Frieza has been, has been a part of Batman since almost day
one, so he's he's definitely deservingof that rogue's, gallery status.

(34:50):
He's definitely on that MountRushmore of Batman's rogues for sure.
You know, it's interesting, I think Batmanmore so than a lot of others,
we've seen a lot of changes just as it'sdeveloped in the original TV show.
That was kind of campy.
I like that, but, you know,that's talked about with the bang,
boom crunch and all of that stuff,and there was always something
on Batman's bell to fix,whatever the problem was.

(35:12):
Yeah, sure.
It seems like it has gone down the pathof getting darker and darker and darker,
not just with Mr. Freeze,but the whole thing.
And what you were talking aboutthere is, is interesting
because you look at just some of theartwork from that and it's like, oh boy,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
The, the last series that you mentioned,I haven't seen any of that.
So that that's come as a big surprise.

(35:33):
My idea of Mr.
Freeze was the 92 version.
So exactly. Yeah. The, it's funny.
I mean, ever since and ever sinceDanny O'Neil, maybe in the 80s,
of course, the the, the Tim Burton filmsas well, in the, in the late 80s,
they kind of revamped Batman,took it out of that campy phase again.
The 60s into the 70swas definitely camp for

(35:56):
for Batman and Superman and most of DC.
But then, yeah,it got dark and brooding, right?
The, the, the animated, show,
which I recommend everyone watchbecause it is absolutely wonderful.
Added to that mystique, right.
Brought it to life in many ways.
It was it was so great the moving the stories there, the, you know, the animation

(36:21):
and, you know, the absolute universe
is kind of pushing the envelope thereand sort of reinventing these characters.
And I think people are really,really gravitating towards those stories
just because it's fun and different.
You know, it's thewe know it's not established continuity.
This isn't
the Batman is just one angle, oneuniverse, one story that we're telling.
So I think it's,I think it's a lot of fun.

(36:42):
And, people really seemto be enjoying it for sure.
You know, and I think that's one thingabout the whole superhero thing,
because it's easy to change your universewhen you need to.
Your stuff doesn't get stale
and you don't have that abilityin a lot of other franchises.
But, you know, you look aroundand see all the stuff that's going on,
and we've talked
Iron Man and Superman and stuff past
and this you're seeingkind of the same type of thing.

(37:04):
So it's not just DC.I mean, Marvel does it too.
And and you know, it's
nothing that unusual,but it does seem like it gets a reboot.
What would you say aboutonce every 20 years or so?
I would say even less these days.
Probably once every ten years.
There there is, there is eithera full continuity reboot or, an event
that takes, you know, for an entire year,that takes over for a year.

(37:26):
And then it is reset, that kind of thing.
I think, you know,I think I think publishers are looking
to have stories that are gripping,that are interesting.
But they also knowthey've built these archetypes that
people don't really want you to messwith. Right?
So nothing is ever permanent in comics.
People do not, you know, nobody everreally dies in comics, that kind of thing.

(37:48):
But it's, you know, very rarelydo you see, like, you know, Oh, well,
you know,
Batman is now evil and, and that's,you know, he's going to be evil forever.
Now, it doesn't really workthat way, right?
It's always it's like this very easy thingto say in this continuity.
Batman is evil.
And what does this world look like?
And it's funto play in those areas, right?
But not if you stamp itas this is a de facto change.

(38:10):
Right?
I think they I think, you know, DClearned that from, from the,
Crisis on Infinite Earthsback in the, in the 80s where they,
you know,they grouped everything together.
They wanted to get rid of, some of these,these titles that, you know,
they had so many different titles running
concurrentlythat they wanted to bring it all together.
And, you know, they did so in a definitive way,

(38:31):
but they ended up reversing that,you know, maybe 20 years later.
Right. And just saying, oh, no,the multiverse is still there.
And all these stories.
So, I think it's fun to plan these littledifferent universes from time to time
when you know, you need the personyou're rooting for to win,
at least ultimately,at the end of the day, I would be all for,
you know, a movie or a serieswhere the enemy wins or the bad guy

(38:52):
wins a little while and then it comesback around may make a great cliffhanger,
but at the end of the day, you want that.
And I think we experienced that.
You know,some of the feedback on Avengers Civil War
people didn't like thatbecause of what they were doing.
And The Flash is another one.
We're in the multiverseor whatever they get on that,
which looks an awful lot like Portland,Oregon here.

(39:12):
They have the same type of thing wherehe ran into the evil version of himself.
And, I don't know,it just seems like the fans
you got to have some continuity,you know, I think so.
I think so as well. And I think that the,
you know, when we're talking
about The Flash,I think there was a lot more
that was a problem with that filmthan just the plot.
But I but I can understand that,

(39:33):
these characters, 90% of the audiencewould agree with you on that.
I was trying to be kind.
That's understandable.
Understandable. But,you know, it's it's interesting. Yes.
It is fun to play in those worlds.
But like I said, don't messwith the archetypes right?
Don't mess with, like,the basics of what this is.
Of what what the you know, especiallythe trilogy, the Trinity rather of Batman,

(39:55):
Superman, Wonder Woman like don't messwith who they are as a core of a person.
But yeah, play around with thator have them go through,
you know, crisis or momentsin their lives, where things change.
Civil War was interesting becauseit's like, oh, Mom and Dad are fighting.
I don't really like that too much.
Right?
But, I mean, it all depends on onthe type of audience that is watching it,

(40:16):
what kind of fan you are, if you
if you like, set that aside for a bitand just have some fun.
You'll see your charactersfighting each other.
But but it all,it all ended up doing pretty well.
Spoilers for anyone who didn't, you know,watch What's the Marvel saga so far?
I thinkat this point we can talk about it.
If anybody hasn't seen it, though,it's worth checking out.

(40:37):
I mean, the movies were good, and,you know, for memoir,
I don't know,it's like Marvel does the, in my opinion,
does the movies better in DC,does the TV series better?
I don't know what it is about that,but you I it just seems to be the case.
You know, it's like, the same thing.
Don't do.
What is it?
Get an even number of version of windows.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

(40:59):
Or like every, every other Star Trekfilm is Or is better.
The even numbers are betterthan the odd numbers or whatever.
But, but yeah,I think DC is that definitely landed,
really,really strong with their animation unit.
I, you know, ona, on a, on a Saturday afternoon,
there's a channel that we have here
where they're typically playinga DC animated film, and that's always it's

(41:22):
worth a watch, you know,even if I've seen it before.
Because they're fun.They're they're interesting.
They've told all kinds of stories.
There's flash point, there's doomsday,and there's all kinds of different stories
that they've done that, that really workwell in animation.
And, the voice cast, the animating,
the art, all that kind of stuffis really, really good.
So, yeah, I definitely,definitely recommend checking those out.

(41:46):
And, you know,Marvel definitely has nailed the
at least for a whilefor the, you know, the good first phase.
They were running really strong,tight storytelling.
Everything led to something.
It's kind of they've kind of losttheir way a little bit.
The quality of the filmsI think are still good,
but they're they're not as cohesiveand telling a story, as maybe as they,

(42:07):
they were.
But I think that was almost the plan,because I think they felt
they felt people were, feeling the need to do homework
before going to see a movieor going to see if, a new TV show.
You're saying, well, doI have to watch all 27 or whatever it is
previous filmsbefore I can get into this one?
I think they wanted
to break that a little bit,and that kind of did them a disservice.

(42:30):
A little bit.
But I don't know, like,the jury's still out right now,
whether as as people like thatstrict continuity and tight storylines
or if each film can live on its own,I think there's positive and negative
for each.
Yeah, yeah.
And I know in some
I actually had a marvel filmthat I was disappointed in

(42:52):
and that was, Captain Marvel.
I that was the first,
Marvel film that I was ordered.
And most of the time I was reallyI still can't,
I can't rememberthe plotline of the story,
but all the others I can pretty much,you know, recall things, events happening.

(43:12):
But I don't know what it wasabout that one.
I was really disappointed.
So, you know. Yeah.
Before we left, Thor Love and Thunder,with a bad taste in our mouth.
And it's too bad I haven't seen that one.
It is, because that one
was two different, I think, you know,if if they had done that storyline
with new characters,it would have been fine.

(43:35):
But the way it was presentedusing existing, I don't know,
I just walked out of there like Star Warsnine, like what just happened, you know?
Oh, I haven't seen that one.
So that one is kind of air. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
So what did you think about the FantasticFour?
Most recent one?
So I, I liked it.

(43:55):
I loved the, I love the, the universethat whatever universe we're in
and I think it was Earth to two,eight, eight, I believe, or 822.
I forget what it's called.
But, I actually loved it, I loved it,I love the style.
I love the storyline.
And it was it was, you know, itit it did what it needed to do, right?
It told a story.

(44:16):
It it brought in such a big characterlike Galactus.
I mean, literally and figuratively.
Extremely large character.
I like that this world was modern,
but also had this, this retro feel to it.
Yeah.
And that the world was not filledwith superheroes like the Fantastic Four.
Were the superheroes, right? Yeah.

(44:37):
They were so confidentin being able to do anything.
They weren't cocky about it,
but they were very confident in like, hey,we will take care of you.
And then they come across somethingthat absolutely they could not handle.
Right. At least until the end.
I honestly thought the film was
it had a happy ending.
I thought it was going to havea more down, ending.

(44:59):
I honestly thought that they wouldthey would actually.
So, Well, guess for anyone who's seenthis, who's not, hasn't seen it.
Rather, I thought they wouldactually fail, in their mission,
and the Earth would get there,Earth would get destroyed,
and they would be forced to come to Earth,616 of Marvel,
and then warn everyone about, you know,Galactus coming or something like that.

(45:22):
But it had a more upbeatending than than what I thought.
But I did like it very much.
So how did you how did you find it?
I actually enjoyed it.
And, I not really, a fantastic horror fan
or have much knowledge about the group.
I just remember that it was alwaysthe big guy was unhappy
and the brother was always doingsomething stupid.

(45:44):
And I'm glad they stepped away from that.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think it was like I said, yeah,totally great stories.
I think.
I think everyone played their roles
well, I, I'm interested to see whereit's going to go.
You know, Doctor Doomis, is a big, big villain, right.
And some of the rumors I'm hearingare pretty insane of what they're filming.

(46:08):
Right now or doomsday and,
and they're filmingthen the next one after that as well.
So it's pretty,it's pretty epic sounding.
Whatever is going to come about it.
But, but yeah, I'm really interested for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
That's great. All right. Well,send in your questions as always.
User friendly dot show and check outread the freaking comics on YouTube.

(46:31):
Both amazing things.
The deep dive into these subjectsand I'll tell you what.
But Michael, before we started doing this,you know, comic books, I liked them,
but it wasn'tmy since we've started doing this,
I've had a much bigger appreciationfor a lot of the stories
and stuff, and I've kind of gone backand checked it out and yeah, I don't know.
I appreciate it more than I used to.
So it's nice having backstories.

(46:52):
That's amazing. That's that's great.
That's what I love.
I do believe comics are meant to be read.
Yes.
You can get some really nicecomics framed, but if you buy a comic,
it's to read it and not just frame itand look at the cover.
Enjoy those stories.
There's so much to tell every dayI'm adding,
I have a little YouTube shortwhere I'm telling a fun story of facts,

(47:15):
some kind of character, and,and it's just never ending.
It's a well that keeps, keeps on giving.
So definitely check it out.
All right, well, until next time.
Let us know what you think about MisterFreeze.
Michael. Thank you.
Thank you very much, guys.
You know, Batman has been,kind of a love hate relationship
with me over the years. All the new MisterFreeze I'm going to love.

(47:38):
I already know that,
but it's kind of interestingto talk about,
you know, like,
what Michael was bringing up abouthow these things change the seasons or the
the universes rather changeand all that kind of thing.
And to see how they go forward with it.
And from one of my understanding is,is the, Mister Freeze movie
that will be coming up is kind of a hybridof some of these things.

(47:59):
So the Mister Freeze character in there,except the best parts
of a lot of the different partsof the Batman genre.
Until next week.
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