you make a fair point, but what i was more getting at was......chris pronounces it maister(whether correct or not) and immediately gets corrected by mimi almost every time, and then almost immediately will make the same mispronunciation again......thats what was funny to me, the constant correcting, recorrecting, and repeats of "mispronunciation".......

I'm enjoying these, great job linecom! Reading these reviews makes me want to go back and listen to the old episodes all over again. Now that season 2 is over, I'll need something else to fill my daily ice and fire thirst.

This is a great project! Loving it sir.

haven't read any of this yet but just wanted to drop in and say what a great idea this is

thanks for doing this

thanks for the kind comments, sorry for the late reply, but lets face it, this is gonna be a gradual project, so many episodes, so little time..........

what im also thinking of doing is here and there, throwing in a review of some of my personal favorites of the catalog, just so they get highlighted quickly, ie. the Blackwoody episode, or the feathered hat episode, i guess we'll see............

episode 3, part 2: The Reason for Fishwives
cast: mimi, ashley, chris, aaron, amin

this was a continuation of the discussion on the theme of love and lust, but i think for part 2 the hosts wanted to focus more on sexual deviance and taboos of westeros. as expected, my overall thoughts on this episode is not unlike those of episode 3, part 1, a fun listen and an especially informative one for new(er) fans of the podcast and westeros because the hosts tackle alot of the more generalized themes and again a lot of fun, but not necessarily funny moments. this episode to me stood out as the one where the strong hosts stood out, and the 'not as strong' hosts stood out as well, i'll get into this later........


highlights:

-good job from the hosts overall covering the topics of homosexuality in westeros, whores/prostitution in westeros, and a little more discussion on marriage in westeros

-mimi "lets start with the gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays"..........oh mimi

-in response to "oberyn screws everybody (male and female)", mimi, "that doesnt make you gay, it just makes you fun.........." also mimi "would have fucked the shit out of oberyn...."
personal thought: you know what makes this podcast fun? mimi's shameless "who gives a fuck", off the cuff, genuine, filterless thoughts and contributions, the other hosts bring the fun as well here and there, but mimi spearheads the fun into this fucking podcast like loras at a minneapolis airport bathroom stall. thats what i enjoy most about her, you can "trust" that she will bring the fun.........trust

-in response to a comment from chris mimi meant to say he has a sexual bias but accidentally says he had a racist bias, followed immediately by chris' "you calling me racist now?!" retort, followed immediately by mimi's "yeah you're racist to, remember when you called me a chink on the air........(see my review on episode 2 if you dont get this)." *stifled laughters*
-by the way, you know who has a really good stifled laughter? ashley, she has one of the best stifled laughs of all time, the kind of stifled laugh that makes you just wanna laugh yourself.........very infectious, my fav. 'ashley stifled laugh of all time' came during the initial mimi vs larry pokemon challenge in episode 60: fire and blood. her stifled laugh was absolutely the icing on the cake for that hilarious showdown........

-discussion on the ORIGINAL favorite host poll (chris won, and he was so proud of it too) from the oldschool blog spot page http://iceandfirepodcast.blogspot.com/ *apparantly the poll got taken down every week, so we cant see the results anymore, but my personal thoughts are thus:

-really folks, chris won really?? what the hell were the listeners thinking back then? was anyone who voted on that poll still here? could they possibly share with me how in god's name chris of all people won that poll? how close was it? how many total votes were there? (im thinking probably like 9) who came in second? how many votes did mimi get? how far behind was she from chris? i understand that she wasn't 'queen of the podcasters' back then, but goddam really? chis?? not ashley, not amin, but chris?? ok ok......whatever, the only thing worse would have been if aaron won it (more on this later...) we've come a long way from the original poll, but at least we have the updated verson 2, http://podcastoficeandfire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1050, i wonder if in 4 years people will look back on this poll and be equally as appalled/shocked as i was about the first one...........


-after 5 minutes of mimi saying she'd fuck the shit out of oberyn, amin finally says ok, we can start, followed by "we started already" "oh"........LOL........

-good motherfucking job from ashley yet again, on bringing the knowledge, she introduces the "tysha may still be alive...." theory, also a good discussion on prophesies
-i think if anything good comes out of my reviews it would be the 'redemption of ashley', maybe there is an unintended bias out there, but she def. does not get enough recognition for her book knowledge............i have a running competition in my head as i relisten to these episodes on who wins the 'bring the knowelege' award: amin or ashley, i've always thought of amin as the knoweldge guy, but through the first 4 episodes (1,2,3p1,3p2), its too close to call...... ashley's contributions stand out as more prominent components of the episodes thus far, where she takes out chunks at a time to throw in knowledge, whereas amin's is much more subtle, and within the flow/context , ie. added tidbit here and there, correction here and there.... very difficult to judge



unintentional comedy:

-mimi feels liek she should paypal everyone a dollar for listening

-chris, "what do you think aaron?" aaron, "uhhhmmm" (midwest twang)
**the orginal question was where would you whore it up in westeros?**

aaron "my next answer would be to take a fish wife..." (he was seriously WAITING to give this answer, like excuse me can you guys please let me talk now??)
mimi "what the fuck is a fish wife?"
aaron's call gets dropped, Mimi "aaon hello? your call got dropped because your answer was so stupid" *stifled laughs*

-this is probably the first and most egregious time in the early podcasts where it becomes clear to me that aaron just isnt that interested in the series or the podcast as much as everyone else, i constantly get this "why are we spending so much time talking about this dumb shit" attitude from him, to which my internal response is, dude.......this is a podcast where we can finally geek out about these topics, if you just dont care that much then why are you here? (i guess he answered that by not being on the podcast anymore)

-ashley "chris makes me feel smart again"

-side note you know whats funny about that old blogspot page? after a couple minutes it automatically sends you to the podcast homepage.......its almost like they dont want us looking at that old page out of embarrassment.........lol, i find it interesting to look back thru the old episodes and seeing the comments on the episodes as they had originally come out.........like this gem i found from episode 3, part 1:

anonymous said...
april 1, 2008 11:10 am
i think mimi needs a severe wake-up call on the breadth and history of feminism. otherwise, nice enough show.

mimi said...
april 1, 2008 12:05 pm
hi anonymous, thanks for listening to this week's episode. i'm curious as to what you mean by the critical component of your comment, though, because i'm a bit confused as to how the "breadth and history of feminism" factors into our episode. if you could expound on what you mean or be kind enough to provide me with said wake-up call, i'd appreciate it. thanks again for listening and providing feedback!


LOL

fucking mimi...........


Rating: 3.4/5 manwoodies

I do not think Ashley needs redemption (maybe I bring some heavy lapsed Catholic baggage to the word) as much as she is just vastly underrated and underappreciated. I think her value to the show is right up there with Mimi and Amin.

I think Kyle is awesome too.

oh god, augustine. can we get married already or what.

i started listening to this episode while waiting for the raw file of episode 82 to download (UGH RAPIDSHARE FUCK YOU).

"ashley, you have the worst taste. in men. in a book."

well we already have a a child, we might as well make it official so that our caucasian daughter is not raised a bastard.


in all seriousness im sure my reviews dont help to curb the unofficial title i have of podcast/mimi ass-kisser, but the only way i can write these things is with my full and brutal honesty, hopefully it will be clear that everything stated here is just my opinion and not the "be all end all" of each episode.

episode 4: tard bastards
cast: mimi, chris, ashley, aaron, ashley2, ben

summary: this episode was based around the theme of the Wall, and its related subject matter including the Others, the Nights Watch, the Children of the Forest, etc., Holy favorite episode batman! wow, this was one of those sneak up behind the back and shockingly impress you kind of episodes. Beyond that this episode impressed me in ways unconventional to House Manwoody, by its shocking maturity, by its shocking lack of frat boy humor, having minimal cursing, minimal unintentional comedy, and by all hosts (even ones that i've been perhaps unfairly critical of) doing a very good job each in their own right (yes even chis, his best episode yet, and aaron too).

this has to be the closest thing to the bizarro version of APOIAF and it still did a fantastic job of producing a quality episode packed with knowledge and thought provoking discussion. if there were ever an episode of apoiaf that was safe for work, safe for children, or safe for broadcast television, this is it..........our hosts with their suits and ties on, on best behavior, and yet still very very fun. a must listen for any fan in my opinion, whether new or old to westeros or house manwoody, or a fan of the wall/nights watch in any way, this episode is a must listen. an instant classic for me. also the debut of ashley2 and ben (who by the way was fucking awesome, what ever happened to this guy?? more on this later...)

-this was one of those episode i had begun listening to a long time ago, but stopped very early on, and this time around i listened to it basically for the first time and really enjoyed it as you can tell..........

highlights:

-ALL hosts do a good job here, not just mimi, fucking all of them. chris goes out of his way to include the new hosts, and in this case frankly does a good job at facilitating discussion, which is usually mimi's forte'. aaron as usual doesnt speak a ton, but in this one when he did, he provided great points of knowledge and was a good supplement for the discussion adding in good crackpot theories for discussion (maybe melisandre is a double agent for the Others, maybe the others are descendants from the children of the forest, etc.)

-this was EASILY chris' best episode. if all of chris' episode were like this i would not be so critical of him winning that fav. host poll. here are his highlights: he does a good job playing the devils advocate role for the Others/whitewalkers asking good thought provoking questions (the Others technically give the dead people "life", maybe the children of the forest are the real "bad guys",), good points from him regarding the greatness of donnell noye, what if maester aemon had accepted the crown?

-the awesomeness that is Ben. you know what's really unfortunate, the podcast for some reason lost Ben (i guess homeboy just disappeared b/c a tree hit his house?). this dude was GREAT. he was really well spoken, almost scholastic'y' (ok i know thats not a word, dont judge me bro) air to his voice that was really enjoyable to listen to. he was very 'vikinggking-esque' (guest host from episode 78 and member of the forums).its really too bad that he wasnt able to stay on for more episodes because he fit right in on this episode and would have been a great edition for the crew........what a shame......boys and girls when you drink your wine tonight, whether dornish or from the arbor, pour some out in memory of Ben and what could have been.......

-the introduction of ashley2. this episode is the epitome of the strengths that ash2 had. i think the criticisms for her in the episodes to come was that she was just too quiet and soft spoken (sometimes even sounding uninterested?), the thing is when she does get engaged in discussion she often has good things to add and was a good feminine addition to queen mimi and princess ashley (1).

-good job from ashley thinking that the bloodraven is the 3eyed crow.......chris has no clue who that is, mimi thinks that its ridiculous.....lol good job ash, you ended up being right

-HEY ASHLEY, you wanna know how in ep. 82 you had it stuck in your head that jeor mormont was sent to the wall to pay for the crimes of his son?? well here's your answer: chris makes that claim in this episode, and no one challenges him on that, everyone sort of accepts it............ it was a trip to listen to ep.82, to hear you wonder how you got that idea in your head when it was incorrect, and then for me to listen to this episode and literally hear the answer............so....THERE IT IS!

-i think this episode would be a great episode to introduce to new listeners that maybe need to be eased into the crassness that we know and love about our hosts' sense of humor, but all in all good stuff all around, this episode reminded me alot of what i enjoy about the boiled leather audio hour, you certainly dont HAVE to be crude and make dick jokes to be entertaining, our hosts prove that here. but its certainly also possible to be crude, make dick jokes, AND be entertaining , and our hosts prove that with the majority of this catalog.


Rating: 4.9 Manwoodys (it can't be perfect if Amin isnt there right?)

For the favourite poll that they mention in episode 3 part 2. I think they mention in the last 10 minutes of the show what the results were:

1) Chris
2) Ashley: 11 votes (Ashley voted for herself)
3) Mimi: 8 votes (Mimi did not vote for herself which was one of her arguments before Chris pointed out she would still lose to Ashley if she did vote for herself)
4) ?
5) ?

Dude, can I just say how much I enjoyed reading through this. Really fun. This is a great idea and kudos for starting and keeping up with such an awesome project! Yeah that ancient poll was quite a thing of mystery... But I say this with bias cuz Chris only proved much later after the poll was done that he had horrible casting taste. I mean, Vin Diesel as Loras?? Also um, I really enjoy all the little things you point out. Including Ashley's infectious stiffled laugh. After we get to know Ashley, the power of her special laugh increases because we sort of know what makes her tick and why she may be laughing. Great laugh. I'm so envious. Cuz I can't really laugh. Not without sounding creepy, at least.

this was my pic originally on the podcast and was why i initially voted high
...the internet - less confusing than you'd think

That is a pretty neat picture, Ashley. But I still don't understand why a picture of a hamster would beat this.

wow

DAMN GURL

the fact this this pic is no longer a part of ashley's rotating images on the homepage is an absolute travesty and should be remedied as soon as possible.


btw thanks for the compliments from those of you who have enjoyed reading this so far.

its been tough to do another one as i've been a bit busy to do a focused listen.

hopefully i'll get back to these when i can.......

Ashley is staring at everyone!

So are her boobs.....

I don't think anybody's complaining

I just listened to episode 3 part 2 again and found out a bit more about the results.

1) Chris (voted for himself)
2) Ashley: 10 votes (voted for herself)
3) Mimi: 8 (pity vote for Aaron)
4) Amin (I think Mimi said Amin voted for himself)
5) Aaron: 3 (voted for himself)

which means one other person in the world liked aaron.

my bet is on his girlfriend.

Roasted

This reminds me of the time Mimi said one of hosts who didn't show up has an appointment... ...with his left hand xD

wasn't that Aaron that said that?

Mimi said Amin had a hot date and Aaron said 'with his left hand'?

you know, I think you're right, Dagos. Sorry for the mix up!
When I read your comment I had an audio flashback and I heard it in my head like some sort of weird instant reply.
"hot date tonight..."
*pause*
"with his left hand!"
lol

review of ep. 5 coming soon......

can't wait!

episode 5: the creepy ninja
cast: chris, mimi, amin, ashley, ashley2, ben, aaron


summary:

-oh geezus what an episode. the topic for this episode was Religion and its role in the series, which in my opinion is a great topic. That being said, this was not a great episode.....i dont know if it was my cranky mood the morning i listened to this or what, but this episode was so bad that I decided to add a new section to my reviews entitled "The Lowlights". haha the good news is that alot of the flaws in this episode were fixable and to be fair to our hosts, you can tell everyone is still trying to find their groove and this was the first time recording with seven hosts. To me although it wasn't a great episode overall, there were definitely some good moments that i'll be sure to point out. But if I could give a one word summary for this episode it was be this: CLUSTERFUCK.

Anyway the hosts do a good job in discussing the major religions in the asoiaf series and making comparisons to real life examples.

highlights:

mimi assigns the seven hosts, the seven dieties of new gods

amin- stranger (this tag makes sense at the time they were recording..... i mean he is at least part vampire, but i dont think this would be so fitting today)
aaron- maid (lol this was obviously a joke coming from mimi, but imo if there was a god of poorly spoken not-really-interested people, then that would be aaron)
chris- father
mimi-chrone
ash1-smith
ash2- mother
ben-warrior

(SIDE NOTE)-if I were to reassign the current hosts to the new gods of the seven, knowing what I know now, it would probably be as follows:

Mimi- Mother; she's the queen of the podcasters, pays for the bandwidth, i think its fair to point out that mimi is the mother this podcast, which would kind of make all of the sexual attraction she garners in her fanbase kind of weird, but whatever..... maybe if the Mother was changed to the MILF that would be more fitting.

Amin- Crohn and Stranger.....brings a lot of good knowledge to the discussion and reps the podcast on other forms of media. but lets face it as long as he consistently refuses to reveal anything about himself directly, indirectly or otherwise he'll always be part Stranger.

Ashley- Crohn and Maid...... its become pretty clear now that ashley brings alot of book knowledge to the discussion, she is also the most shy of all the hosts, and nipple-piercings not withstanding, i always viewed her as a princess to mimi's queen. Others have called her the queen beyond the wall or the mummers queen etc, but to me, its always been queen mimi and princess ashley. mimi always seemed like the more vulgar, more bold, more confident....and i think she influences ashley alot to come out of her shell and let her hair down. so if Mimi was the MILF of the podcast, then ashley would be the young innocent daughter of the MILF, who often get paired together in those creepy Mother-Daughter Porn fetish videos that i've always found really strange.......(i only know about it b/c friends of mind have told me about it..................no really.......... that's how i know.........................)

Kyle- Warrior....... he's the new, young guy who gets sent around to do all the grunt work for the podcast, whether it be interviewing GRRM at fan signings, going to Comic-Con, or seducing Australian girls currently involved in relationships..........Kyle is the Jaime Lannister of the Podcast.

so that kind of leaves out the Father and the Smith as deities of the podcast. If I had to assign them to someone i'd probably say that the Smith(s) of House Manwoody would be all the creative artists on the msg boards like zeyik, jesicka, dickon, vietrose, etc.

i suppose Amin kind of fits the role of the Father since he spawned the bastard children of Kingsgrave, but i'm not so sure there really is a Father in house manwoody atm........ maybe our historian Brynden? who knows........

(END OF SIDE NOTE)



--apparantly there was a poll where the gods of the north won as best religion; for anyone wondering where the current discussion of which religion people would join in House Manwoody it can be found here

-good discussion of the relations between the first men, children of the forest, and andals

-ashley brings up the creepy ninja as an analogy to the old gods.

-good point about the fact that the starks tend not to die north of the neck

-good discussion about character analogy with the gods of the seven:
father: tywin, stannis, davos
maid: sansa, maybe brienne, margery, loras, lyanna,
warrior: brienne, jaime, bronn, arya,
mother: cersei, catelyn, dany
stranger: cersei, sandor, littlefinger, melisandre, jaquen, varys,
crone: tyrion, old nan, ghost of highheart, queen of thornes,
smith: tyrion, gendry,

-good stuff from amin comparing rhollor with islam and zorostrianism.

-chris: every religion has a way of bringing people back to life...hmmmm good point??
old gods-wights, rhllor-zombiecat/beric, drowned gods-cpr/talisa, newgods-quiet isle

unintentional comedy:

-gods of the north aren't mimi's thing.... gee i wonder which religion she'll end up identifying with more......hmmmm.... what a shock its the Dothraki Great Stallion religion she ends up identifying with more.......hmm thats a surprising choice for a mongolian-american chick.

-amin says that brienne cant exactly be the "whore of tarth" haha

-Chris compares the old gods to japanese shinto followed immediately by Mimi teasing chris about bringing up japan, followed by chris making even more Japanese references and reinforcing her point. For anyone who doesnt understand why this is inherently funny Mimi is basically teasing chris for being like this:




-aaron indirectly implies that the children of the forest are teh old gods, followed immediatly by ash1 being confused.

-mimi stops and apologizes mid sentence for not being eloquent....."fuck" gasp "damn"

-my dog stops and barks at ashley1 everytime she talks hahahaha

-ashley gets rattled by george rr martin's answer about san/san. she's afraid that the san/san reunion wont be everything she fantasized about. haha

-small boobs discussion....apparantly mimi disagrees that perkiness should be a primary indicator for quality of small boobs. (this is much more funny when you realize how Mimi will use this info against chris in her 10 things i hate about chris on girls night out 1)


Lowlights Section:

-3-4 people frequently talking over each other.......having 7 hosts is just too much, and its worse when you have 7 people who aren't familiar recording with each other like they are here. also the awkwardness of people not knowing when to talk switches between being unintentionally funny and just plain annoying.

-amin's call quality is fucking horrible; its one of those unfair things where you indirectly get annoyed at a person based on their call quality, which of course the person at the time isnt cognizant of. ugh...canada needs to discover better internet..........

-every time aaron says "ouhm" i want to smack him......

-the shitty editing.....i think aaron edited this episode...... side note: I'm such a APOIAF nerd now that i can tell who edits which episode. ie. Amin is the one who always puts the door creaks to segue between segments and also follows the pattern of show, aftershow, then pre-show ramblings. Mimi uses the beeps to segue between segments. Ashley usually inserts a cold open and sound effects into the show.

-technical shit: typing can be heard, skype sound effects can be heard etc......

-discussion of dragons and its relationship to magic dragged out too long

Final thoughts:

-like i said the topic was a really good one and i'd encourage our hosts to revisit it as i think our current group of hosts might approach it in a much more 'polished' way.

Rating: 2/5 Manwoodies

Great summary linecom.

Wow - I would have never recognized these details:



I totally agree with the smith-artist parallel. BUT: I'm surely not the father. It should be Amin - he who created that all (together with mother Mimi). The father has in many religions (also our real-world ones) often the role of a somewhat higher deity - so I can not see me in this position sorry. You might overrate my role here

Not to be a douchey nitpicker Linecom, but I got a kick out of you labeling them as crohns instead of crones. Perhaps your medical training had you thinking of Crohn's disease. Fun recap overall though!