Amusement Park Podcast 023: The Punisher, the Oscars, and Glass Misses the Mark

January 25, 2019January 25, 2019 / Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

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On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we respond to the first half (six episodes) of The Punisher and the Oscar nominations, which include a Best Picture nod for Black Panther and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being nominated for Best Animated Film. (How many Oscar nominees do you get a chance to see where you live?)

We also dig into what Netflix joining the MPAA means, briefly review Glass, and share what we’re enjoying this week.

https://soundcloud.com/casselberry/the-punisher-the-oscars-and-glass-misses-the-mark

— Show notes for Ep. 23 are available at The Amusement Park Podcast website —

Please leave us review on iTunes! One listener broke the seal, so hopefully you’ll join in with your own comments.

You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts:

Thank you for listening! Please give us a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you!

Amusement Park Podcast 022: Spider-Man: Far From Home, True Detective and Netflix. Get Excited!

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019 / Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

spidey_thumbs

On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we respond to the first Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer which dropped this week. We also dig into the Season 3 premiere of True Detective (Chris is a newbie to the show) and discuss Netflix’s price increase for subscribers.

With news of Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters movie, the two of us also briefly debate whether Hollywood has run out of ideas. Personally, I think that’s a tired argument. But maybe you agree with Chris.

https://soundcloud.com/casselberry/spider-man-far-from-home-true-detective-and-netflix-get-excited

— Show notes for Ep. 22 are available at The Amusement Park Podcast website —

Please leave us review on iTunes! The seal is broken, so hopefully you’ll join in with your own comments.

You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts:

Amusement Park Podcast 020: From Bandersnatch to the Bird Box

January 4, 2019January 4, 2019 / Ian Casselberry / 1 Comment

bandersnatch_stefan It’s a Netflix night on the first Amusement Park Podcast of 2019! How deep did we fall into the hole with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch? What’s in the Bird Box? Plus, the culture we’re excited about in 2019 and what we enjoyed this week.

https://soundcloud.com/casselberry/its-a-netflix-world

You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts:

Thank you for listening! Please give us a review on iTunes and/or a like on our Facebook page to help grow our audience. You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you!

Not a Newsletter 007: Radio nowhere

December 13, 2018December 18, 2018 / Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

milesspidey_reading When I was a kid, working in radio seemed like such a cool job. Every station had to be like WKRP in Cincinnati, right?

That delusion was first dispelled when I won a prize from the old WIQB (Rock 103!) in Ann Arbor and drove to the station to pick it up. Rather than a respectable office with the magic happening behind the glass, WIQB was basically a shack out in Saline.

As I grew older and got to know people in the radio business, I learned how brutal it could be. Many of them had been ruthlessly fired. (My podcast co-host was one of them.) Plenty of people in other lines of work have been let go because of salary cuts or job duties changing. But radio was supposed to be the cool job.

I was reminded again of how cruel working in radio could be earlier this week when a host I’ve worked with for years was fired. Here in Asheville, Bill McClement was a co-host on the sports talk show I’ve contributed to for nearly five years. I’ve talked to him two to three times a week throughout that time. I’ve sat in with him as a co-host a handful of times and always had great fun doing so.

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Working at home, I’m not always the most social guy, so there have probably been many weeks when Bill was one of the few people with whom I had a conversation — even if it was about baseball for a segment on a sports talk radio show.

No, I don’t know all the details and probably never will. It’s not my business. But watching someone lose his job after 15 years with a company (and 40-plus years in the industry) is heartbreaking. It sure seems like he deserved better.

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Not a Newsletter 004: Empathy and rigorous preparation

November 23, 2018December 18, 2018 / Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

MBJ_reading

Happy Thanksgiving (weekend)! Maybe this wasn’t the case for everyone, but the holiday seemed to arrive sooner than expected this year. Is it because we’re so rarely in a holiday state of mind these days, even when we probably need a break and diversion more than ever?

To stop and consider what we’re thankful for right now feels like kind of a trite exercise when nearly every day seems to be a fight with something. But maybe it’s more important than ever to think about such things.

For most of this year, I’ve been trying to prioritize what I truly feel is important and accept that I let some things in my life become more oppressive than I should have. I am most certainly thankful for the opportunity to take time to look inward and outward, and try to become a better person for it.

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Yet the impulse to jump back into bad habits — taking a job that would’ve been bad for me, not showing enough empathy and patience, expecting too much from others, not accepting what I can’t control, to name a few — and forget what I’ve tried to accomplish over the past five months is a recurring struggle.

I hope I don’t write so much about trying to find a balance that it comes off as whining, me being some kind of headcase, or any sort of self-help speak. I might not be writing as much professionally as I’d like, but I do feel like I’m in a better place — both for myself and the people around me. And I have to believe that I’ll yield some benefit from that eventually.

In the meantime, you stopping by to read this helps tremendously. And I am definitely thankful for that.

Reading to Go With Your Pie

** How many people had salad on their Thanksgiving tables? According to this diagram, virtually the entire Western part of the United States goes that way. (Although I wonder if “salad” means greens, etc., rather than some gross Jello-based “salad.”) We did not have mac and cheese, despite living in the South. [FiveThirtyEight]

** Why wombats have cube-shaped poop probably wouldn’t have been appropriate Thanksgiving dinner conversation. (But if anyone tried, please let us know!) I enjoy imagining the engineer studying this having to explain what she does to family and friends while making small talk. [Popular Science]

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