After we finished recording “Para(normal)-Palooza: A Birthday Bonanza of the Strange!”, Tori thought of a few questions she had wanted to ask and I remembered some things I had forgotten to mention. Sounds like a reason to record an addendum! So we did, except we forgot to make sure we were actually RECORDING it... You can hear some of that realisation in the outtake at the end of “The Post-Modern-Prometheus”. We considered attempting to re-record our talk after recording both the aforementioned new X-Files episode and a new In Search of... episode, but by the time we finished those it had been nearly four hours of (mostly) recording and we were done. So, ta-da, words on a screen instead of in your ears.


These are the three questions Tori asked, followed by much shorter answers than occurred in the lost recording.

Tori: Having been to some of these places that inspire so many stories and your encounter with Robert the Doll, do you feel like you have more insight into why people believe in supernatural things?

Nic: I think this has come up before and I'm pretty sure my answer hasn't changed. The human brains loves a narrative because stories are how we understand the world around us. That is a good thing and a bad thing. Skipping to the bad part, we create myths, legends, superstitions, &tc to help us understand things that make no sense. Doing so is a form of control over things we feel we have no control over. Capricious gods, demons, or aliens are the root of the bad things that happen to us; while it still sucks for bad things to happen to us, it is much easier to deal with them if we feel there is a reason and not that we are little more than NPCs in universe that really doesn't give a shit about us (because why would it?). There is a reason stories about weird shit and conspiracy theories flourish when times are tough and the world seems out of control; but, unfortunately, what used to be reasonably harmless beliefs (not that they were all, or always, harmless) are no longer harmless because for every Chicago Mothman or Fresno Nightcrawler sighting there are thousands of people refusing to vaccinate their children and for every (god help me) UAP video there are countless attacks on people who are deemed "different" (usually meaning non-white, non-straight, non-cis, non-the-"right"-kind-of-religion) by both public and governmental entities. it's very easy to make already marginalised people the villians for any social ill you can come up with. It's not new, but a world of instant communication makes it much more dangerous. Sadly, it seems more and more that the types of stories that were once created to give us a feeling of control are also now being used to literally control us. So, yeah, fun. What else you got that I can turn into a downer?

Tori: What was your favorite thing?

Nic: Snorkelling, hands down, despite all the boxes it ticked of things on my "nope" list. Well, actually not the snorkelling itself, but the part of that excursion that was feeding the stingrays. It was so much fun. I got horribly sunburned, and paid the not-so-fun price of that for several days afterwards, but at the time it was just pure enjoyment and it was amazing.

Tori: Best Thing You Ate On the Ship

Nic: That one is hard because everything was amazing. (I went into detail about meals and drinking and such when we talked and I'm not going to try to rewrite all that here.) The final night I went crazy and had two entrées and they were both amazing. The chef's special that night (which I think was the only night there was a chef's special) was fried chicken, so of course I got that, and I also got Barolo Braised Beef Short Ribs with Creamy Truffle Polenta, Peas, Carrots, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Red Onion Marmalade (yes, I took photos of the dinner menus). I had beef or pork every night and each night was some of the best food I've eaten. Also, having a schedule is something I really miss and something that really helped me maintain my weight while on vacation. I didn't gain any weight despite eating "very well" and drinking quite a bit the entire trip. Not that I couldn't have gone and eaten whenever I wanted, but I didn't and having that sense of order helped and is something I need to try to implement at home because my weight did increase prior to my trip due to a lot of (unnecessary) anxiety and I'm continuing to struggle to get things back on track.


In addition to Tori's questions, we talked about some things I forgot to mention originally, nothing super important, but we had of course all met in the ship's library upon embarking as a check-in and to receive our loot, including a backpack, hat, and shirt. We also had a small panel discussion on Thursday after leaving Bimini and then took a group photo on the top deck in the dying light of our final day at sea. Additionally, besides being my birthday, July 10th was also Dr. Angela Mattke's birthday, so that was fun. I made both a snorkel buddy and a birthday buddy on the trip, among all the other great people I got to meet and talk with.


Tori and I also talked about her upcoming trip to New Orleans for Hallowe'en and my upcoming trip to the Green Eyes Festival in mid-October that will also hopefully include a haunted cave tour and a possible trip to the site of the Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins. And after almost five years of doing this, Tori suddenly proclaimed/realised that I probalby have ADHD.

Tori also suggested that we need to plan a UFO road trip, basically the plot of Paul sans SDCC. Tori is obsessed with travelling in an RV. We'll see...

Oh, and we talked about MonsterTalk and Blake Smith's research into Robert the Doll. MonsterTalk had at the time of our original not-recording re-released their original Robert the Doll episode from several years ago and then the day after Tori I talked, on 27 July 2025, MonsterTalk released a new episode featuring Blake's recent research, much of which attendees to the trip to see Robert the Doll on July 9th got to hear an early version of. Those episodes are below:

Flashback: 114 – Demon Dolls
S04E38 Robert the Doll Revisited

Anyway, sorry this isn't as exciting as listening to us go off on twelve tangents and sometimes forget where we started, but it is what it is. Hope it brought you some level of joy.

—Nic.

Tim Cappello photo to Robert the Doll, Nic and Robert the Doll, and a Scooby Doo villian at Mel Fisher's Maritime Museum.

Snorkelling in the waters around Bimini, The Bahamas.

As we left the confines of The Bermuda Triangle, we received our Certificates of Survival.

Part of our post-cruise adventure included a trip to Coral Castle.

Stingray bite (received on 10 July 2025) as of 16 July 2025.

Tori and I just finished recording Tales from the Other Side: An Unusual Detour and Nope a few hours ago and I've been putting together show notes from our Google docs notes. In all three topics, I forgot to mention something. In the case of Nope, one was even something I actually said I wanted to talk about and then twelve tangents later had forgotten.

I need to go back to writing full notes. I've been trying to streamline and just do bullet points. It's not working. I mean, I already forget what I want to say midstream sometimes. I prefer to think it's just that I'm really stressed and distracted right now, not that I'm getting old. Either way, I'm gonna go back to full notes. We'll see how it works.


So, what did I forget? Glad you asked.

“Unusual Suspects”

I completely forgot to discuss Richard Belzer. I couldn't really find any specific insight into his appearance, though I did link to an article about the Munchiverse in the episode's show notes. That said, as also linked to, Belzer was into conspiracy theories, especially JFK. So this was definitely a fitting episode for him to appear in.

“Detour”

I can't believe I left out the most capital "I" important part of the episode: Scully shot and killed a bark face in the cave. Whatever we think of Mulder's Ponce de León / Fountain of Youth theory, the FBI (or at least the local authorities) have a body. They have a body. I expect a follow-up episode.

Correction:
I want a follow-up episode. I do NOT expect a follow-up episode, sadly.

“Nope”

We only hinted at OJ being pranked by Jupe's kids in alien costumes after Em stole one of the horse statues from Jupiter's Claim. The scene was great, and I absolutley loved that OJ totally punches one of them. Also, I loved their costumes. The alien masks in particular were fantastic and very "owl-like". Also, the kid that OJ hits surprised him by hanging upside down from a rafter and OJ only sees him as he was backing away from the other two. It felt very Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins to me.

And I just totally forgot to mention that Peele slipped in an "Akira Slide", because of course I didn't need to write that down to remember to bring it up...

Plus, some pics of Jean Jacket (and OJ and Lucky).

This one is undoubtedly where I was picking up the Escaflowne vibe:



And, finally, as promised: A Triptych In Awe of Winter.

Well, it's Groundhog Day. Again.

It's also the day that we recorded two new podcast episodes... about episodes 1 and 2 of Season 5 of The X-Files.

So, coming soon: Season 5 in 2025. We got this.