Looking for something fun to watch and a cool community to be a part of? The KJ Today Show has you covered. We're bringing you the positive vibes of pop culture, people to know, and pets. Join us live the first Wednesday of every month at 7 for your positive vibe fix. Hello and welcome to the KJ Today Show, your place for the positive vibes of pop culture, people to know and pets. I thought something was wrong. Patches was dancing. I thought he was waving at me like something
is wrong. Stop the show. You're just feeling real positive tonight, aren't you? Yep. All right, we got a kitty cam going so far no kitties have joined socks in the kitty cam but we will Will definitely keep you posted on. Yes, whatever cat decides to join tonight and knock him out of the tower My name is KJ. I've got producer patches here with me and I We are so excited tonight. It is our popcorn preview party. We're going to be celebrating and getting you pumped up for
Popcon Louisville. And we also have some really fun guests tonight. You may have seen that we've got in the celebrity spotlight, Benjamin Byron Davis from Red Dead Redemption and Guardians of the Galaxy. Borderlands is coming out. And then we also are going to bring you some highlights from a very special moment with Jenny Garth. and Meg Donnelly from the Zombies movies on Disney. I know Patches is just super excited about that. Let's bring in the rest of the crew
joining us tonight. And Patches, will you do me a favor? Will you send Brandon and Carl from PopCon the link to join? Because I may have sent them the wrong link. Neither one of them is here right now. So I'm guessing I may have sent them the wrong link. I would get on that. I've been doing that from time to time. All right, well Patches has taken care of that. I want to welcome the rest of the crew in here. From New York, Geek Vibes Nation, Tia, the dragon from New Jersey. A whole nother story.
Way too long to tell here. Just go with it, just go with it. But we have a brand new kind of Nerdy Girls that is streaming now on your podcast apps and on YouTube if you want to watch it. Yes, thank you Shelly for checking in, crew number five. We'll introduce Michelle here in just a second, but we want to remind you that you are a producer here too. Put something good, you know, tell me something good in the comments. Sign up for the KJ Crew at
kjcrew.com. That's kjcrew with a k.com. And if you already got a crew number, check in like the rest of the crew is doing. Leanne from Texas, one of our Patreon executive producers, always happy to have you here with us. And also joining us, as you can see, Michelle, our crew community coordinator. Listen, Michelle, I know that from the beginning of the Kinda Nerdy Network, you have had like, I don't know, five or six title changes. What was your first title? What was it? Executive
Lorekeeper. Yes, yes. For our Kinda Nerdy Night Ends. Yeah. Like I would keep track of what we were doing for the next week. Yes, because I don't remember anything. Or question of the week or whatever. And so then, I don't know, you've had a gazillion titles. And when we announced last month that Michelle was joining the show, I was
like, she's like, what's my title? And I'm like, crew community coordinator, because that's really, at the heart of things, like Michelle is always communicating with, you know, the most active people in the kind of nerdy network, we invite you to be one. She's sending out the emails saying, hey, this is your crew number when you sign up. But Michelle, I just decided that is too much of a mouthful. So congratulations, I have promoted you to assistant producer. Yay!
So congratulations and please change your title. Are you going to get Michelle business cards? That's the question. You know, we do need to make new business cards. So I you know, if I get her the business card, she has to keep that title for at least like, you know, 500 business cards. Yeah. And all the time. And to keep you updated, yes, you did send the wrong link to our guests.
All right. Well, coming up, we've got Carl from PopCon and Brandon Peters for the Brandon Peters show, who handles the PopCon podcast stage to talk about all that cool stuff. Let's go ahead and get into our announcements and then we'll get into what's popping and whatever the boys get here. Just let me know, Patches. Will do. It's a party. You're here. Michelle's here. Tia's here. Patches is here. When Carl and Brandon get here, they'll just knock on the door and we'll let them in.
Yes. That's how this works, right? All right. Patches, would you please, in your fine, big announcer voice, announce that we have announcements? Ladies and gentlemen, we have announcements. so much. That was beautif on Popcon Louisville. I n up by friday. If you want that you get the hook up t get a one day pass for yo just got to go sign up at And I've had people asking like, hey, when am I going to get my Popcorn Louisville tickets? We send them out all in one batch. So I want to make sure
that we have time to do that. So please make sure that you sign up by Friday. Another announcement to share with you. We mentioned earlier the kind of nerdy night in and how Michelle's first position with us was the executive lore keeper. She'll be back in that job. On Friday, we are going to be doing another kind of nerdy night in. This is just an opportunity similar to like, you know, how we sit around here and talk about shows that we love, games that we love. It's your
opportunity to jump into a Zoom call. Now, I will tell you, listen, I spent an hour today. Facebook put new restrictions on. I don't know how to get a Zoom call into our group right now. I don't know how to I have no idea how we're going to do it, but we're going to do it. So please, the best I can tell you right now is join the kind of nerdy network Facebook group. And I will post in the event the link for you to hop into this call and be a part of the
conversation. So stand by and thank you, Facebook, for all of the wonderful changes you are always making to your platform. We love you. Thank you. Facebook really quick. I shared a post of yours recently, and it literally, like, xed it. It was like, No, sorry. Yeah, there was something I forget exactly what the wording was. But I couldn't do that. You know, they thought I was doing something wrong. And I'm like, I'm literally just sharing a post from KJ. So thanks, Facebook.
I got that to me last week. Listen, I'll let me give you some inside information. There is a bug. There's a bug with the community standards with Facebook, because, you know, I'm a business on Facebook. So when I have issues, I like I have figured out over the years how to get to an actual person on Facebook. I'm not sharing it with anyone. Go figure it out yourself. I'm sorry. That is going to my grave because I worked way too hard to just be like, here's what
you do, get to Facebook, people. But if you are a business who runs ads, and I often promote our events and things like that, and I'll be like, hey, I can't spend any money with you because you're making things weird. And I literally thought my page was going to get banned because it was just one after another what you're talking about, Tia, of like, that violates community standards, that violates community standards. And I was like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,
oh my God. And I got a very nice woman named Anna, and she was like, I just want to tell you, your content is so nice. I love your cats and all the positive things you're doing. And you're doing everything right. It's a bug on our side. Don't you worry about it. You keep putting out those positive vibes. All right, well, clearly I have to work hard because I was violating community standards by just sharing. Right. All right. We are going to get into... Knock
on the door. What? Oh, is there a knock on the door? There's a knock on the door. Oh, who's there? Who's there, Patches? Oh, my goodness. Who's joining the show? Could it be Carl from PopCon and Brandon Peters from the Brandon Peters Show? I don't know. But in a world that Brandon's already sleeping. Peters, wake up. Oh, hi. I want you guys to know that the stream I invited you to was the pet of the week. I saw that after the fact. I wasn't even looking. She said you're too early.
That will actually be for next Wednesday, because we you know what, you guys, I figured out since we went to a monthly show, we've still been calling it the pet of the week, but we only do it once a month. So I had a crisis yesterday and I was like, we can't call it the pet of the week if we don't do it every week. So even though we don't do the full KJ Today show every week, every Wednesday, we are now going to bring you
a pet of the week. And Carl and Brandon, if you'd like to join and see the pet next Wednesday, you're welcome to, you have the link. Crash the party. We got a pet popping in. There we go. Which one is that? That one's Mira. Oh, little Mira. Yoda's over here completely covered up. Hi, Yoda. Two of them. They're chillin. Just chillin. How hard are you working now on PopCod Louisville? The badges are ordered. So the cool badges are ordered.
Oh, yeah. Hey, that's it. You know, there's like little things about popcorn that are so much cooler than any other con, like the artwork on the badges. I wait every year to see what you guys are going to create. And they're always so cool. I keep them all like I love them all. I actually I have to prove it. I have Carl and I always end up doing show and tell when he comes to prove it. I got this one right here. Like, look how cute that guy is. Look at that. I have a rarity right by me.
What you got? Oh, show and tell. He's ran out. Oh, here's even more rare. Oh, yeah. Show and tell. Show and tell. Oh, three day back. Wow. Oh, my God. We didn't even laminate them back then. This is just cardboard. We've come a long way, baby. That was the only year we did that because the little clip ripped right through that paper. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We learned that too with our very first KJ Today badges. We were like, nope, that's not going to work.
All right, so we're gonna get into what's poppin' in pop culture, and then Carl from PopCon, Brandon from the Brandon Peters Show. A little bit later in the show, we're gonna dig into all of the exciting things that are going on with PopCon Louisville, so that you make sure you don't miss it. So without further ado, my friends, it is time for what's poppin' in pop culture. with Tia, powered by Conquest Journals and Geek Vibes Nation. Could you say that, Patches?
What's Poppin' in Pop Culture is brought to you by Conquest Journals and our friends at Geek Vibes Nation. Yeah, all right. Oh, hey, that's me. The Dragon from New Jersey. Let's go! All right, Tia's got the top three stories popping in pop culture. Let's do it, Tia. All right, well, speaking about dragons, oh, wait, never mind. You're doing that one first. I thought it was going to be a good transition. We can do it. We can do it. That's OK. We
can pivot on this show. Here we go. In three, two, one. OK, so speaking about dragons. House of the Dragon just finished its season two. It so this whole season was only eight episodes as opposed to the 10 episodes we had in season one And we're gonna have to wait two more years for season three Are you serious? this entire two years, um And so this entire season felt like it was just a build-up to the actual war that was happening and while the finale I didn't mind it as much it wasn't as say
big as a lot of people wanted it. Because again, a lot of this season was literally just kind of moving the pieces towards the war. And let's admit, we sign up for this because we want to see the Battle of the Dragons. So that's what it is. Now you got to wait two years. Listen, I was patches came home from work. And I was like, Hey, I got, I think I got about maybe 20, 30 minutes left of this thing. Do you mind if I just watch it? Cause he's not watching it. And he was like, nah, I'll
make dinner. That's totally fine. And so I was like, okay. So I hit play. And it, what, ran for like 10 seconds. And it rolled credits. It's like, is it over? It can't be over. But because of how long the credits are, and then they do like the recap thing, like it looks like you got 24 minutes, right? Did you think you had more time left too? I like at this point, I feel like I am experienced enough in knowing that like those credits
take up like most of it. Just like if you ever watch any of the Star Wars shows on Disney Plus, it's like or even the Marvel shows, even though it says like maybe 20 something, you only got 15 minutes or something of that and the rest of it is all credits. So you got the international language credits that go on forever. Yeah, that takes up about 10 minutes of the entire thing. I am not fooled anymore. I've learned my lesson.
Is it weird that the international credits take longer than the regular credits? I mean, there's a lot of countries, so there are a lot of countries, but it's just vocal work, too. So. Right, right. I don't know. I did think that ending was like, oh, OK, we're done. All right. right all right all right what's the next show to binge i was like i was like did they forget some of it i was a little disappointed by that especially because again we are missing two episodes that we got from season one
um I don't know. At this point, I'm just ready to see the dragons fight, but I'm trying to be positive because nothing will be as bad as the last season of Game of Thrones. Carl, you watched that whole thing and didn't know that was the end? Well, next week's going to be a banger, guys! Because it didn't end. It didn't! There was no indication that it was the final episode of a season. There was no real cliffhanger. There was no dialogue that said, oh, we won't hang on.
It was very similar to a Horizon American Saga chapter one, where it's just like, nope, That's it. Right. It was like, come back for our next one. We've got some women walking down the hallway. Ed. Carl would have tuned in next week and been like, where are the dragons? Where starts on HB on Max next Sunday that Carl would have been like, the heck? Where is my house? Where's my dragons? Elon acts like, come on, man. You said it's supposed to post at nine o'clock. Where is it?
Not likely I'd be working on popcorn and wouldn't even pay attention to it. Carl's a working man. Yeah. All right, Tia, what else is popping? Is it the first thing that was... Yeah. Okay, all right, here we go. So, um, Deadpool and Wolverine is now officially breaking records as the highest grossing R rated movie. It is now crossed 900 million globally, very much on its way to making a billion dollars, which is very exciting.
Not that like it's a numbers game, but just the fact that people are that excited to go see a Marvel movie. We talked about this KJ last, um, what's popping and stuff. And I think last kind of nerdy girls that there was obviously a Marvel fatigue for a long time, but I think that Deadpool and Wolverine is kind of, you know, given the defibrillator
to the MCU. Um, and numbers talk. So obviously with those types of numbers, the head haunches over at Marvel are going to see that and be like, okay, clearly we need to have a course correction. So yeah, I mean, and the highest rated, uh, are rated movie and it's a Marvel movie. I kind of feel a little smug about that. Yeah. Yeah. You just want to be like, yeah, suck on that DC.
And it is true. Carl, I like how instead of just like jumping in, you're like, let me post a comment and then they'll see that I have something. I am never behind the scenes in StreamYard. I mean, I'm always behind the scenes in StreamYard, so I didn't, I've never actually tried to comment. Oh, this is new and exciting. Yes, I agree, Carl. I think it was the combination of Ryan Reynolds with Marvel that has made
it so wonderful. And I don't know if you guys follow Ryan on any of his social media, But he's, like, making me cry every day. His posts about, like, the positivity that's coming out of this, how much Hugh has meant to him, his posts about, you know, Channing Tatum getting to play Gambit and, like, what a great guy he was and what it meant to him. Thanks for spoiling it. I haven't seen the movie yet. I mean, they're literally posting official
images now. They're like, The movie came out on like a Thursday night and they were already at Comic-Con just like, here's everybody, come on to the stage, secret cameos. Yeah. No, we did that even, Kanan at Geekvibes Nation was doing that on X and I had to, I'm like, I'm trying to look at our own page for what's popping. And then I'm seeing, I'm like. Spoiler from Carly Popcon, Logan is dead. Oh God.
Well, I saw Logan. Right. Well, you know, the good vibes from Ryan Reynolds are going to continue this weekend because he and his wife are going to dominate the box office with It Ends With Us is tracking for 45 to 50. Is it really? Yeah. They're going to own the number one and two spots. Wow. It's so funny to go from, you know, Deadpool to It Ends With Us, like very, very different movies. Yes. Very different. But all of them. A little bit different, a little bit the
same. If you guys haven't seen the hot ones between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. Oh, it's so good. It's so hilarious. Oh my God. It is like the best. So it's really good. I agree. I think it's one of the best. I think it's one of the best ones yet. Patches had me watch it. We literally sat at the table and watched it. And I was like spitting out my drink and my food, like laughing. Yeah. Excellent call, Tia. Thanks for bringing that up again. All right, what else is popping, Tia?
Well, uh, borderlands is coming out August 9th. Um, and it's cool because I like the idea that we're getting more video game adaptations. I've been saying this for a few years that it feels like a natural progression from the comic books. Um, and this is a really popular video game franchise and it has like a lot of stars. You got Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, fricking Kate Blanchett. So, I mean, it's a. massive, massive team. Jack Black's in it. Jack Black's in it. He's like
a voice. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm super pumped and everything. And KJ, I know what you're gearing for with this. So I want to kind of take it off you. I'm like, who else is gonna dance? Benjamin Byron Davis, the voice of Dutch. I wish Katie was here from Red Dead Redemption one and two, which is like awesome because he's been in a lot of like really cool nerdy things. So I'm happy that he's getting work, you know?
Yes, absolutely. Here is actually a clip of Benjamin Byron Davis talking about working with Katie. Count on one hand actors that I've wished all of my life to be able to work alongside, number one every time would be Cate Blanchett. And to get off a plane and be in the lobby of the hotel in Budapest and see her, and we commiserated right away. I think I had the advantage of my first day working with Cate, she had just spent a week working with
a trash can. So I think I think that my work was somewhat welcome as an actual living, breathing human being on the other side of the screen. But when you are waking up and you know that you're going to go work 12 hours and your scene partner is Kate, you count yourself damn lucky. He was so much fun to talk to, and you can see the whole interview on Geek Vibes Nation.
Carl, I do have, I have another clip of him talking a little bit about an Indianapolis connection that's coming up in the celebrity spotlight. But I will tell you, because you know, our, our friends, Rob Weedoff and Roger Clark with Red Dead Redemption love popcorn. I brought that up to him when we were after we had stopped recording and I was like, oh, why did I stop recording? But he was like, Popcon, I know Popcon, the one in Indianapolis. I want to go to Popcon. What's that? No, like I quit.
I know, I'm so sorry. You know, because you're usually behind the scenes on StreamYard, that once you stop recording, you can't start recording again. And I just was like, I stopped it. And I was like, thank you so much. It's so great. You know, we love Red Dead Redemption. I mentioned Roger and Rob and I've worked with him at this convention we have here, Pop God. And he was like, I want to come to popcorn. So you're well known and Benjamin Byron Davis wants an invite.
Well, we can probably make that happen. Wouldn't that be awesome? He has quite an impressive beard, by the way. Hey, Shay, were you thinking that while you were interviewing him? am not a beard person. No, I accept that. I'm sorry, Brandon. Sorry. Sorry, I'm offended here. So what I mean by that is that the only person I don't want a beard on is Patches, because I have to kiss him. But other men with beards, I notice or don't notice. It's
not a big deal. I'm not staring at your beard and trying to decide, Brandon, if it's a good beard or a bad beard. It's a beard, so I'm looking past it. All these years, I thought you were. You really want to throw her? Just have a mustache. That's like... I've been told on this show that a mustache isn't cool. Right? It is not. It is not. I don't know. I tried for years to convince Pauly to grow out his facial hair. I thought you were going to say you were
growing facial hair. I was like, what? I tried for years. And I finally got Pauly to do it and I think he's better for it. Yeah, see, listen to our friend Tia, KJ. It's fine. Tia doesn't have to have to... He would look cute, wouldn't he? Listen, Katie warns me. She said, I would like to see patches with a beard. You can see patches with a beard, but I'm not kissing him. So that's it. That's it. I'm sorry. We all have our preferences. All right. I want to... What about the soul patch? Ooh,
there you go. Hey, I want this to go on record that she said, verbatim, patches can have a beard. I'm just not kissing him. She didn't say I couldn't have a beard. I think that Patches could pull off the lead singer from Disturbed. Like with the soul patch and like the two. Let's go. All right.
hang on we've got a couple oh my god the show went off the rails i'm shocked we've got the celebrity spotlight coming up another click for uh clip from uh benjamin byron another d I said clip, guys, get it together. What else did you say? That's all I said from Benjamin Byron Davis. And then we also have McDonald and Jenny Garth with some positive vibes. So hang on just a second. We will be right back with more of the KJ Today Show. Well, KJ, thank you, because what's poppin'
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you guys get busy this time of year. So we have decided to extend this back to school, back to Hogwarts sale through this Friday, August 9th. Thank you so much. That is that out there. Yeah, the dragon from New Jersey. This is the back of work. agenda, and I know that they made it for kids to go back to school. Maybe it's kind of didn't work, but I am using this like crazy. It is beautiful. It's got all the right pages. I'm just telling you, like, feel like a kid again and get
yourself in the right motion. I'm just saying it's beautiful and it's one of my favorite things to do. So there you go. Thanks so much. Thank you, Shelley and the crew at Conquest Journal. All right, so since we only get together monthly, in between the shows, I'm chit-chatting with celebrities, bringing you the positivity that's coming out of pop culture. So I wanted
to catch up with a couple of things. One, if you haven't seen my full interview with Benjamin Byron Davis that's streaming now on Geek Vibes Nation, I asked him right away, Do I have to, like, call you Benjamin Byron Davis? And I got a response, but I was not expecting it. Oh, please call me Ben, absolutely. The world is lousy with Ben Davises, so I chose to go with my full name just for clarity's sake. I'm in Indianapolis. There's actually a Ben Davis High School here.
A Ben Davis High School. Their team is called the Giants, as a matter of fact, which I appreciate. I'm quite familiar with the Ben Davis High School. I'm quite familiar with the Ben Davis brand of clothing in Washington State. The Ben Davis variety of garden apple used primarily in cooking, I'm quite familiar with. Ben Davis, Benjamin O. Davis, for the Tuskegee Airmen. Listen, he went on and on about every Ben Davis there's ever been. He's very well-versed in Ben Davises.
You know, honestly, that's reminding me of Elijah Wood. You could bring up any topic and he would just go. Yeah, it was a very similar conversation, which actually made chatting with Elijah Wood at his panel at PopCon so easy, because it was like, no matter what anyone asked him, he was like, boom, on top of it. And he remembered every little thing that someone brought up to him. So many times, these actors are like, I don't know, that was so long ago. I'm like, man, that guy's memory is
sharp. He was really fun to talk with. I'm going to make an executive decision and move our other celebrity spotlight clips to tell me something good at the end of the show because they're super uplifting and fun. And yes, I kind of want to get right into the popcorn stuff. Can we get into the popcorn stuff, guys? Gee, I don't know, Carl from Popcon. Can we get into the popcorn stuff? Hold on for him to type it in the box real quick. I do. I do have a bone to pick with Carl
from pop. Oh, I already know. Because, because Anson, I was there in Indianapolis, I'm from New York, I can't just go and Anson Mount is going to be at the one in Kentucky. And I can't go. So I'm very upset and sad. You have a bone to pick with Anson Mount then not Carl. No, I'm automatically going to say it's Carl's fault. He's too pretty to have a bone to pick. Please get on X and take your beef up with ants and mouse. Thank you. I would never.
Whatever is steering you away from Louisville is what the bone is to be picking. It's true. It's true, Tia. It's that damn job you have. I know. It'll be OK, Tia, because we'll all be there. It'll be all right. So let's talk about that a little bit, Carl. Send you some faraway shots. Get into all the fun that we're going to be having at PopCon Louisville, August 23rd through the 25th. Yes. So you named one of the celebrities.
We've got, like any good PopCon, we've got a ton of fantastic celebrities. Louisville, it's time to. I didn't mean to do that. Shut up, Carl! Let me talk about it. It's time to level up. Did Carl shoot something to, like, lead into? Awesome segue. Good job, Carl. Hang on. Take two. Three, two, one. Go ahead, Carl. So, um, so yeah, so I've got Louisville, we have all the things, uh, except the film festival. So we've got a whole host of amazing
things. We've got, um, uh, tons, uh, Oh, well, yeah, we're just going to go right through it. I don't even have to remember their names if you're going to do that. So, uh, yeah, I made, I made this quick little video as a promo just for, for the, S's and giggles, and we've got tons of amazing content. We're taking over pretty much the entire convention center at the Kentucky International Convention Center, and we've got all the fun things. We're scheduling all the amazing
fan panels right now. KJ put all the celebrities in their spots. They'll be publicly available. That's what I do. I put those celebrities in their spots. That's right. And, uh, but we've still got, we're going to have the laser tag, the escape room, uh, the magicians, uh, we've got, uh, uh, we've upgraded our DJ parties to anime raves because that's all the thing now. Am I muted? What's going on? Oh, we have, we have, we have tons of live podcasts at the live podcast stage.
Uh, it's like, am I muted? What's going on? Talk about my thing, Carl. That's why we're all here today. That's why we all got here. It's time to level up your fun There we go. So yeah, it's back. It's awesome. It's having its second go around in Louisville. And yeah, that's me. That's me doing those podcasts. So we are like a spot away from having a full roster of there. Um, I know, uh, I know a show that can fill in Mr. Peters if, uh, if we need, so I have some offers out there.
Um, I'm trying to get some Louisville flair in there. I've got, I've got some of that, like topics, like, cause it's not, it's not just the, it's not just a bunch of, I mean, like we get up there and we just talk nerdy. Um, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of diversity in the podcast that you have on the stage. Right. So there will be a Brandon Peters show every day. Just keep it nice and diverse. I'm out. I'm out too. Can I get a refund? I got to be on it actually.
I forgot. Damn. So, no, I've got some new stuff coming. I've got like a heavy metal podcast coming. They're bringing a guest to talk to. It's called Talk To Me, because the guy's last name's Toomey. So that's kind of clever, right? We're podcasting. We love the fun. And then there's a group like they're they're called bill entertainment I think their podcast is like chillin in the ville They are a local podcast that talks about things going around
in the Louisville area. They're bringing like an improv comedian and a local pro wrestler to talk on Sunday during their show about it and And then I have- And we'll put the podcast, all of the podcasts in the schedule are up on, will be up on. I said are up, and then I looked at Carl and I'm like, will be up. Whenever they hit go on the schedule, those are the ones that are ready. They're ready. Popconloreville.com. You also got some of your classic Popcon
ones, like the Established Facts. You have like the Next Level. The Grace Taproom podcast, who started at Louisville last year, came to Indie back in April and is I'm gonna be back home here in Louisville, do it again. So it is nice to have a nice full things. I've also got a couple like interview fund where I have a kickoff show again. That was a lot of fun last time to just start the weekend off on Friday, but a lot of fun to the podcast stage, a lot of different things.
I like new podcasts. I like keeping it, like, since we go to Louisville, it shouldn't just be the indie transplants filling the stage. It's, you know, hit the Louisville. I reach out, there are like, I reached out to, because, I Bruce has some bourbon podcast because bourbons a big deal out there and that podcast and they have a few and Some of them like I'm trying to get him to come but they're
like, well, do I fit this? I go podcast fit this and I like lots of different podcasts and this is very local yeah, there's something different and I'm trying to encourage them to to come and take a spot on the stage and I mean when in Rome, dude Can we say it? So that's one of the things I love about, you know, popcon is. Yeah, I mean, I don't know any other any other con. And certainly I would say popcon is the first that would be doing this full podcast stage. What is that, Carl?
It is bourbon stones, whiskey stones. Oh, are you a bourbon drinker?
Um, I yeah, actually I'm not I'm not a bourbon person But I know it can get quite nerdy in those worlds and like the craft beer worlds the wine worlds They are, you know They can they can nerd it up in their own way and they don't realize how much they fit in with a group of collectors And anime fans and video game nuts like you have your own we all have our things that we understand and I think it's cool to share it and maybe convert or people they're being like I didn't know
they were doing this Yeah. You never know. Absolutely. I think that's one of the great things. We'll get to your question, Tia. Thank you. Michelle, no podcast awards. We only do those in Indianapolis. Exclusive. But we encourage the podcasts that are on the stage in Louisville to make sure that they are entering to win. Go ahead, Tia. What's your question about PopCon Louisville? How much are plane tickets? You can look that up on Google, right? The question actually was what the heck is
a bourbon stone? I don't know what that is. Kidney stones. It's a whiskey stone. Does that clear it up? You put it in your drink. So you put these in the freezer and they get to the same temperature as an ice cube. And so when you put these in your drink, it does not water it down. You bourbon drinkers are nerdy. Look at that. I will say that it is it is common practice to put a a drop or two of water in with your bourbon because it brings out a lot of the
flavor. So but you don't want to water it down with an entire cube. So if you've ever seen the real whiskey, it's a ball of ice. So you don't pour in shaved ice, you don't pour in. So even if you do get a real ice cube, it has very little, it's maximum surface area, well, no, minimum surface area, so that it doesn't melt as much. To tie in here, was it Star Trek 2009 or Into Darkness that had like a perfectly round whiskey ball that was a big deal for a bit
that people were trying to get? That was in one of those, the J.J. Abrams? Yeah, I've got a Death Star mold that makes big round Death Stars. That's so cool. And it's big. It's like the size of a racquetball ball. I think you actually showed that on the very first KJ Today show. I think that was a show and tell thing that you shared with us. Oh, yeah. I probably had it back here on my shelf. Yes. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Oh, man. Bring it back. Good times. Carl's got all the fun
toys. That first KJ Today show was a hot mess. And Carl was right there with us. Yes, he was. Now we got the Star Trek. If I cover it up, maybe it's Pike. All right, so I do want to remind all of you who are part of the crew that PopCon is so cool to let us offer you one day passes for free. free if you are signed up as a KJ kinda nerdy crew member. So if you go to kjtodayshow.com, I need you to sign up by Friday so that I can get these guys their, uh, the names and get you your tickets in
your inboxes and get us all ready. But, uh, don't, don't miss out on a chance to experience pop con and Louisville, even if you're watching an indie, it's such an easy drive. That's why we all go and do it. So the hotel discounts are amazing. We make it as easy as possible. And as you can tell from what we've been talking about, it does not matter what you nerd out about. It's going to be a popcorn, including bourbon, apparently. I'm trying. Make it happen, Peters. Make it happen.
I'm trying to make it happen. There will be bourbon in the building. That's true. And maybe Irish stuff, too. You never know. And in Tia's defense, she disagrees that it's a super easy drive, but... I was just about to go on YouTube and comment that on the video. I was like, okay, yeah, easy transport. Do we have somebody else in New York that would like to road trip with Tia? Please reach out. It's only a 12 hour drive from New York City. There you go. Listen, a half hour drive for me is a lot.
People in Indiana drive to Florida like they're just going to the grocery store. It's the weirdest thing. When I moved here, they're like, I'm driving to Florida. I'm like, you drive 12 hours? It's not a big deal. 30 minute drive but when that happened it Like, Really quick like back in the day my best friend for like a little bit moved across the bridge and like realistically a 25 to was like wow are we like just not gonna be friends anymore that sounds like You're terrible.
That was the deal breaker, huh? Not the sturdiest bridge between you, apparently. Hey, we have still been friends since freshman year of high school, okay? Very nice, very nice. Yeah. All right. You're the popcorn or him. She wants a road trip. Come across the bridge. We'll go. I leased my car. Sorry. I have a mileage. All right. So if you are a scientist and working on teleportation and need a beta tester. to send to Louisville. There you go.
There you go. All right. We are going to keep Carl and Brandon here as we continue the PopCon preview party. Part of the show that we love is... What? Do you not want to stay? Are we boring you? Brandon made it funny. He wants a nap. I'm contractually obligated to stay, I know. I wanted you to stay because it's time for everybody's favorite part of the show. Don't screw the crew! Where were you guys on that? Come on, let's get a take two. Three, two, one. Don't screw the crew! Tonight's crew
member is Mina, crew number 142. We are playing for a chance for Mina to win all of those cool back to school things that we were talking about. Back to Hogwarts agenda. We've got the tote bag from Conquest Journals. We've got the Hogwarts Express notebooks. Oh, the floating Hogwarts acceptance letters. The brand new one. Oh yeah, everything you need. And the new Remember All pen. Yeah, and guys I've actually written with that pen that thing writes really nice.
I do my journaling in the morning with it. It's a nice pen Yeah Dear journal, this pin is nice. That's my KJ impression. Thank you. That is spot on, dude. That is spot on, well done. I was like, what am I hearing myself? That's amazing. Fatches make good breakfast. Why did you sound like Cora? How is she Cajun then all of a sudden? Oh my God. All right. You know how this works. We've got three trivia questions, all pop culture. We get two out of three right. We don't screw the
crew. OK, so so how do we want to do this with these three questions? We want to have Carl and Brandon be lifelines or do we want to have Carl and Brandon each answer a question and then everybody participates for the third one? Uh, yeah, we'll be the lifelines for Carl and brain. Perfect. Even though it really should be the opposite way. Raise your hand. One, two, three. That's enough. Tia, you're not voting. Uh, no, she's smart. She's smart. Okay. I'm staying out of this.
I mean Carl, yes, because like he's the one who's in charge of all of the poppy stuff at pop con and everything He's a nerd but like is Brandon. I don't know. I don't I don't know The stocks today everybody Have Brandon shift his camera to all the DVDs and blu-rays that are right next. Oh Oh, right next to your Betamaxes? That's great. Good job having the physical copy, bud. You probably can't even play. No comment. In all fairness. The first question is movies.
So I'm going to give it to Carl because I think Brandon is way too like he's this could be way too easy. So you don't want to help me now. OK, I'm not going to help you. You're going to get the music trivia. OK. All right. Here we go. Question number one, the category is music. Nope, sorry. Take two. It's a great night. It's going great, guys. Everybody, take two. That was a real nice show. It's a really nice show we got here. It's going good. JJ2 day.
This show is not ending on time. No, it sure isn't. All right. There we are. Go, Carl. Go, Carl. Question number one. The category is movies. Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, and Jamie Girtz starred in what 1996 film about chasing tornadoes? Oh, my God. That's easy. There's a remake of it in the theaters right now. Right now. Members of. That better be my question. It'd be the singular twister versus the current plural twisters. That is correct. Yeah. All right.
Very good, Carly. All right. I can see the cow right now. Another cow. The iconic cow. All right. Here we go. Question number two. Brandon, the category is music. Finish the lyric from this Taylor Swift song. Oh, God. But I keep cruising. Can't stop. Won't stop moving. It's like I got this music in my mind. Is there something after it? Yeah. Anyone know this one? OK, go on. Sing it, sing it a little bit, KJ, I wanna hear it. I wanna hear it sung. Can't stop, won't stop
moving. It's like I got this music in my mind. All of a sudden I'm William Shatner. I'm Nick Forming Rocket Man. All right, Brandon. Three. It's like, it's what, it's Shake It Off is the song, right? Yeah. I'm trying to help at least a little bit. I don't know what the words are. Does someone from the audience have an answer? No one. Okay. Tia, you know? Michelle? I don't listen to Taylor Swift. I don't either. Okay, the hipster up in the corner. Saying it's gonna be alright.
Huh? saying it's gonna be all right saying it's oh okay it was like it wasn't a blank it was like blank blank blank blank blank i was okay yep all right that's cool that's really aggressive like oh no i love it's very it's just like have mercy on your soul. I've ever got one wrong. That's the first time. All right. Historic night. Historic night. Okay. We got to go to question number three. Uh, is this an all skate? This is an all skate. Uh, when you know the answer, please raise
your hand. Don't shout it out. Thank you. Some rules on Albuquerque. All right, so that we don't screw the crew, so that Mina gets her conquest journals back to her Hogwarts prize pack. Here we go. The category is TV. Seal Team, Bones, and Angel are all TV shows which feature one actor, Patrick, Sarah Michelle Gellar. No, I'm kidding, David Boreanaz. All right, congratulations. Mina, we did not screw you tonight. We will be sending
your prize off to you. If you want us to play Don't Screw the Crew for you, make sure you sign up for the KJ Crew. Go to kjcrew.com. That's kjcrew with a K dot com. All right, what else do we have to do here, guys? We got Tell Me Something Good going on? Sure. Yeah, we got tell me something good going on. It's OK. I'm not happy about that. Sounds like a sore loser. You know, I'm mad at myself. I'm not mad at everybody else. I'm mad. Don't don't be mad. The problem, it's me. Got it.
Brandon, I'm going to give you a little advice from Taylor Swift. Shake it off. Oh, OK. All right, all right. Or we could go really old with Aaliyah and just dust yourself off and try again. If at first they don't succeed. Dust yourself off and try again. There you go. We could also go with my new dinger. Nope, not today. Thank you, Sam at Summer Bash Indiana for the new dinger. Someone tuned in at the wrong time.
we've got a little good news for you and we got way too much to do so we're gonna have to cut some stuff from the show i'm sorry jenny garth i don't know do you guys want to hear from jenny garth you want to hear from mcdonnelly you know you want to get to making grilled cheese okay all right fine all right If there's any good news in the comments, Michelle, please let me know. In the meantime, I'll give you a little bit
of good news for our KJ crew members. Again, it pays to be a KJ crew member and it costs nothing. We've got a couple of concerts coming up at the Nickel Plate Amphitheater. And if you want to win those tickets, Brett Dinnan and also Nico Moon are coming. We've got those free tickets for you. get yourself signed up, and we will be giving those tickets away a week from Friday. So you have a chance to plan to go to those concerts. We did have some good news about Lisa Loeb, who was just
on the show. I don't know if it's that guitar, but did you guys hear when she was in Indianapolis that someone stole her guitar? Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. I hung it up right over here. So listen, it's going around, people are sharing it. If you see Lisa Loeb's guitar in Indianapolis, please let her know. She's very sad she lost her guitar. My friend Joel from O'Reilly's texts me from O'Reilly's Irish pub downtown, and he says, I have Lisa Loeb's guitar. And I'm like, ha, ha, ha,
ha, Pixar didn't happen. And he sent me a picture of the guitar. Wow. So he saw somebody wandering down the street with a guitar that didn't look like it should be theirs. And he went over and he said, I persuaded the person to give me the guitar. And then I contacted the police because she had filed a police report and was like, hi, I have her guitar. And he actually got to talk to Lisa Loeb. He was like, so grateful. Only a place outside of New York with that work.
I went up to him and I persuaded him. I'm like, I don't even want to know anymore. So that is our good news for tonight in Tell Me Something Good. And we always end the show. Oh, Katie's got, okay, coming in, coming in hot with a Tell Me Something Good. Katie says, one month at my job and I haven't gotten fired yet. All right, good news. That's great. Leanne has some good news. She said, I spent the day being lazy and loved it. Yes, Leanne, I agree. That's a good day.
Michelle says, my good news is I am promoted to assistant producer. This is a title we'll continue to follow. All right, before we go, we always end the show with some positive vibes, bringing you the wonderful pet of the week. And tonight's pet of the week is Cooper. Cooper the cat. I know, look at Cooper. Cooper's mom is Katie and Katie found Cooper outside her apartment complex. She did all the right things to try to find his owner.
And a neighbor actually threatened to call animal control when they found out she was feeding him on a cold day in November. So she brought him in the house with her two other cats, not knowing if it would work out. And she has done all the work to introduce them. And Cooper is now loving his sisters. Katie says the thing she loves most about Cooper is that when she gets home from work he cuddles on her chest and he also is getting closer and closer with his calico sister
Calypso. She also adds he is very vocal when he wants something and demands breakfast every morning at 6 a.m. Thank you very much, Katie, for sharing your pet with us. We would love to see your pet as well, so make sure you follow me on Facebook and watch for my posts to say, hey, it's time, we need a Pet of the Week. I don't say it in the pen voice, Brandon, but you can if you want. Like the Pet of the Week voice? What, you want it? Yeah, let's do it. Why does he slightly sound like Borat?
If that's if that's how your ears here we're all very different people and that's okay Brandon, okay, that's how everybody sounds All right, a couple of reminders for you pet lovers. On a serious note, we have guidance for grieving pet lovers will be the next topic for the cat conversation. I'm very excited that experts Dr. Natalie Oldenstall and Jane Rose who is with the Rose Pet Memorial Center are going to join me on Saturday. So we'll be surrounded by all of the wonderful
cats. And I've had people, you know, say like, hey, I feel weird going like, like, look, if you have lost a pet, you know how devastating it is and you not need to be alone. And if you want to be in an environment where you can feel safe to ask questions and just know that it's totally normal to go through what you're going through, you can join us on Saturday, three o'clock at Smitten Kitten Cat Cafe. There are a few tickets left and you do need to make a reservation,
so go to smittenkittencatcafe.com. And then of course, guys, PopCon Louisville, August 23rd through the 25th. We want you to be there. We're dancing, we're doing whatever we can. Get yourself tickets, go to popconlouisville.com to see all of the fantastic guests and all
of the amazing events. Because even if you're not like a celebrity type of person, there are so many things going on and you can take anyone you know And even if you have totally different tastes, you're both going to have a good time because there is something for everybody at PopCon. PopCon is the place where every fan finds their place. Thank you, Carol. Thank you, Brandon. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Tia. Thanks, Patches. Thanks, KJ. I'm using a different voice now.
Thanks, guys. Next show, September 4th. I'm only using my voice. All right. We're going to wrap it up with the end credits and we will see you guys. As I mentioned, next show is September 4th. So we will see you then.