The Other Stuff: An Introduction and James Bond

If you've been listening to Broken Speaker Podcast for any amount of time, you will realize that Greg and I both watch a decent amount of shows or movies on the streaming service that we couldn't dedicate an entire episode to. That is where this new segment comes in. The Other Stuff is going to be a series of blog posts where we get to talk about all the stuff that might not get into the How You Doin' segment of the Broken Speaker Podcast.

So for this inaugural post we are going to talk about an iconic film character James Bond. Now every once in a while, I see either Amazon Prime Video or Netflix have a large selection of the Bond films on the front page. Earlier this week I was browsing through Netflix looking for something to watch, and I came across all of the Pierce Brosnan 007 films.  I feel like this is usually in preparation for some holiday binge session, but because this is right at the beginning of the year I think that they are starting to get the buzz going for the new Bond film coming out later this year No Time To Die.

I don't want to talk about this new movie other than to say that I am looking forward to it's release. No, instead I want to bring up two main thoughts that popped into my head. Now I love a good spy flick, maybe that's why you've heard me mention on the Broken Speaker Podcast that I enjoyed the Jack Ryan series on Amazon Prime Video so much. Jame's bond is about as good as a spy movie can get; he's got the gadgets, the girls, the cars, the guns, and always takes out the bad guy.

The first thing that popped into my head though is that everyone has their James Bond because it has been played by a few different people. Now for me being in my late 20's, I am a mix between Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig but I definitely feel like I lean more towards Craig. Not that there is anything wrong with Brosnan, I just think that I can remember most of the Craig Bond films coming out whereas I saw the Brosnan films on those Bond marathons that I mentioned earlier.

The second thing that popped into my head is a little specific, and has to do with a pen. I may have a slight habit of clicking retractable pens whenever I have them in my hand. Luckily for all you listeners, you will never have to experience that because Greg has either edited out all of the clicks or reminded me that I am not allowed to have the pen before we start recording. But there was one scene in Goldeneye that made me think I should probably stop clicking pens all together.

When Bond visits Q in the lab, Q gives him a grenade pen where he clicks it three times to activate and three more times to deactivate. Quite a sneaky piece of spy tech because it looks exactly like any other silver pen. Fast forward later in the movie and one of the tech bad guys somehow winds up with this pen, and like me he has a habit of clicking whatever pen is in his hand.

So for the next five minutes we get Bond staring at the pen intently and obviously trying to keep count of how many clicks are happening so that he knows exactly when to jump away. But think about it, isn't the grenade pen one of the most diabolical ways to go? I mean nobody thinks twice about clicking a pen, its a force of habit to test the click of the pen once most people get one. Nobody is going to be thinking they might get blown up by a pen on their desk.

So maybe I should take this a little bit more seriously and stop clicking every pen that I see, I definitely wouldn't last long in a Bond movie. Who else is with me on this? Let me know in the comments if you are as doomed as me and tell us who your Bond actor is. And don't forget... keep watching.