Show notes

Be careful what you wish for--after asking listeners to drunk dial us over the weekend, we get a ton of calls from a very inebriated public. On today's show, we finally announce the winner of our Tiger Woods PGA Tour '09 contest! We also teach you how to recover a lost cellphone (or at least torture the thief), lament the new Iron Man 2 villain, and argue over who discovered Napster first.

My favorite story of the day is about getting mad AND getting even. A cell phone is becoming increasingly private. We use them to store personal photos, text message conversations, and voicemails; so how much does it suck to lose your phone? It's even worse when you know that someone is using your precious minutes to call their doofus friends out of country. Well, now you can get even. Maverick Mobile just released an application for your phone that lets you track and spy on the guy that's using your phone. You can listen in on their conversations and even send a piercing alarm to the phone that rings every time they try to invade your cell. Would-be phone thieves beware: we're watching you!

It smells funky in the studio today, and it isn't just Wilson eating ravioli for breakfast. John Funk of Winnipeg, Canada, one of our favorite 404 listeners, joins the show to talk about Frank's Red Hot, the Buzz Out Loud hijack and hockey. The eh's and aboots abound!

Dan the Mantern here. On today's show we discuss celebrity sex tapes. From Paris Hilton to Austin Powers star Verne Troyer, it seems like everyone who's anyone has made a naughty film. Apparently, a spyware program has been circulating a phony link to an NSFW video of Barack Obama. No offense, but does anyone really think that Obama would have a sex tape? I really pity the fool who clicks the link only to find their hard drive infected by a virus. Even if the video was real, do you really need to see that? We wonder if the world would be as keen to see a Sarah Palin video or, dare I say it, a John McCain sex tape. If there is a recording of McCain taking care of his "executive privileges," I'm sure it's on 8 millimeter and you'd need your own hand-cranked projector to view it.

With Justin's fellow socks-with-sandals-wearing San Franciscan Brian Tong on the show, things get more giggly than a New Kids on the Block reunion concert. B-Tong and the boys discuss their favorite ninja turtles, a number of fast food related stories and their resentment of Twitter.

Dan the Mantern here. It was a pleasure to sit back and watch the magic happen on today's show. The Tongster brought so much good karma to The 404, a bold decision has made. Uniting West Coast and East, combining Wilson's good looks, Justin's singing voice, Brian's hair and DJ Jeff Mackalar's fresh beats it's Tang Tong Yu - the boy band sensation. Look for their new album, The Love ConNEcTion, this fall, in the Wal-Mart bargain bin underneath a VHS copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Cowabunga dude!!!

On today's show, we reveal our favorite fragrances, briefly touch on the new Apple offerings, disappear into e-Ink, rip into the Geek Squad and Microsoft's new "gurus," send text messages to inanimate household objects, and try to convince Wilson to take a shower in public in the name of animal rights.

Don't bust out that checkbook yet, my friends, contrary to popular belief, Natali Del Conte's hair is not on eBay...yet. We'll be the first ones to break that news, but until then you'll just have to listen to our show to get your NDC fix. Lots of news to talk about today, which we get to right after we guess each other's favorite eau de liquid smells. No surprise here, but Jeff's is the sweet scent of Natali's hair that he creepily compares to a cherry lollipop. Anyway, we also get the scoop on a few more tech-related gems, including a story about energy companies testing a program that will send you a text message on behalf of your thermostat if you forget to turn it off when you leave the house. Hey, I'm all for energy conversation, but are ya kidding me!? So now, on top of ignoring text messages from my close friends and family members, I have to deal with spam from my household appliances, too!? I guess I can see it being useful when I forget to turn off the oven, but I'd prefer to get the news by driving up to a burning apartment rather than getting a text from my oven that says "Hey, dummy--you forgot to turn me off, so now I'm spitting hot fire at all your physical possessions. See you at home!" No thanks, gas company, you can keep the service--I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

It's all about rumors today, and a contest to win Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09! We want to give you a copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Xbox 360. All you have to do is make us laugh. Leave us a voicemail or send in an mp3 in that oh-so-soft golf announcer voice. Four! Oh four!

Speaking of nines, today is the ninth anniversary of a fateful day in gamer history: The launch of Sega Dreamcast. Dan the Mantern here. Does anyone else remember the hype surrounding September 9th, 1999? It was bigger than Y2K. I did not get a Dreamcast, but I recall being ridiculously jealous of my friends who did. You may disagree, but Dreamcast was a dope system. With quirky fighters like Power Stone, games like Shenmue and Phantasy Star Online to satisfy RPG nuts and just the right amount of the blue hedgehog, how was Dreamcast such a failure? Was it released too soon or too late? Was it bad marketing? Too much hype? Talk amongst yourselves while I wait in line for the opening of Sam Jackson's latest: Snakes on a Cul-de-Sac.

Sometimes things just don't go the way they were planned. Such is the theme of today's show; although we have a full rundown of stories, we digress in typical 404 fashion and get sidetracked by Street Fighter 4, the social climate, and subsequent death of the American video game arcade, Spaceballs cartoons, and superhero fandom. Don't worry, we'll reheat the leftover stories for tomorrow's show!

There are two very specific video games that stick out in my memory as quintessential to my adolescence; games that took up a majority of my time after school and helped form bonds of friendship that continue to remain strong in adulthood. Those two games are Street Fighter 2 for Super Nintendo and GoldenEye for Nintendo 64. Since we only talk about the former on today's episode, I'll take this opportunity to speak a bit about the latter. GoldenEye pretty much ruled. I can't even begin to count how many hours I spent sitting in my buddy Konrad's living room eating 39 cent Del Taco tacos and staring at a single square within a crosshatched television screen. Proximity mines, timed mines, golden guns, double RCP-90s, and secret sniping spots dominated my youth. Some unspoken rules of the game that needed to be reinforced from time to time: don't look at my screen, you can't choose Oddjob (short=very cheap), and absolutely NO SNIPING! Wow, what I wouldn't give to get my hands on another N64 and a copy of GoldenEye. That, and my blissfully ignorant youth.

After 12 solid hours in a coma-like sleep, Wilson has been miraculously cured of consumption. It's a good thing, too, as we discuss Bill Gates' Apple ad counterattack and Michael Moore's insatiable appetite for junk food and justice, all while dodging giant cheeseburger-eating mantises!

Dan the Mantern here. At a caller's suggestion, the guys led the show off with a discussion of the new Microsoft ad featuring Bill Gates, Jerry Seinfeld and a strip mall. Apparently the 'soft spent $250 million on this ad, $249 million of which went to Seinfeld for one day of shooting. If … Read more

Our resident peeping Tom (don't ask, you don't want to know) joins us for today's videogame heavy show. Surprisingly, I actually participate a fair amount! I think it has something to do with the Playstation Yu Foundation...Jeff flaunts a very positive review of Hamlet 2, we "ooh" and "ahh" over a very cute marriage proposal (hint, hint Mr. Bakalar), and talk way too long about our fear of those horrid little eight legged freaks.

Although there's lots of talk about videogames today, we somehow find the time to introduce yet another cryptid in the wild: a giant 50 foot mechanical spider miraculously appeared on the side of an building under construction in Liverpool yesterday. The creature is the pride of joy of this year's La Machine street festival, set to debut tomorrow to the public. Luckily for us, a few pictures leaked onto Flickr and sufficiently make us squirm like frightened little girls. Seriously though, spiders freak me out, there's something about their small furry legs running around my house that makes me want to cut off my skin. And you know what I realized? My generation's unreasonable fear of spiders is solely based on the movie Arachnaphobia. So thanks, Director Frank Marshall, for ruining my childhood.

Our surprise guest today is Bristol Palin, daughter of would-be VP Sarah Palin! We regrettably rescind our drooling over yesterday's picture of the Governess--it's fake! Today's show is chock full of Google goodness, atom smashing, motherfrakkers, and a tried and true geekout on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie! Special bonus: Senor Space Beer returns to The 404!

And now for a subject near and dear to my heart. After releasing a positively craptastic CGI effort, the folks over at Playmate Toys unofficially announced that the sequel will be a back-to-basics live-action movie! To me, this … Read more