372 Pages We'll Never Get Back

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It’s with wet eyes that we bid farewell to the land of wrongly timed barbecue, snippy and/or flirty waitresses, violent drug-pushing teacher/furniture store managers, open bathrobes, four star generals, evil interstates and very occasionally, some quilting. 

In this episode, the shockingly violent yet cozy story of Bigelow Cozy Chamomile tea! Conor imitates a cat no fewer than four times and sings Van Morrison in the voice of Handsome Gabe. Mike hires the 372 Players at great cost but with tremendous results, and of course Dumb Sentences and some Listener Mail.

Now let’s bid goodbye to everyone by name. 

So long, Miranda/ Mandy/ (Narrator)

Gabe (Her Fiance)

Kevin (Gabe’s son)

Terry (Kevin’s Fiance)

Zoey (Narrator’s daughter)

Barbara Franklin (zoey’s thesis advisor)

James Franklin (Barbara’s husband)

Michael (Zoey’s Fiance)

Edgar Pendleton (Hotel Manager, Kevin’s boss)

Rita Pendtleton (Kevin’s boss’s wife)

Jill (Terry’s college roommate)

Susan (Kevin’s Mother, Gabe’s Ex-Wife)

Richard (Susan’s new husband)

Dianne / Dee (Mandy’s BFF)

Harry (her cat)

Sylvia (Diner owner)

Ellie (employee at diner)

Charlie (Sylvia’s husband)

Devon

Lindsay

Ethan

Gwen

Mark Murphy (Diane’s patient reliable husband)

Christopher Abbot (Pastor)

Lucy (related to Adam, below)

Adam McKutcheon

Jeff

William

Janie

Trixie Belden (Author of mysteries)

Martin (drug dealer)

Jenny (his girlfriend)

Tom Gibbons (Gabe’s FBI friend)

The McMillan family, Peter,

Irene McMillan

and Macy McMillan.

James (Print shop worker)

Queenie (Quilting leader)

Brittany (quilting group)

John (Brittany’s husband)

Daniel Bartell (Queenies husband?)

Emily (Queenie’s daughter?)

Jack (Queenie’s son?)

Harriet Moore (Quilting group)

Sarah Moore (Harriet’s twin sister)

Shelby (a donut shop employee the twins take care of)

Judy Smythin (quilting group) (cousin of Taylor perryman?)

Tommy (Judy’s son?)

Jessie (Jud’s daughter?)

Julie Sorenson (Tommy Smythin’s girlfriend)

Taylor (goes w/Noelle below)

Noelle (unknown)

Max Ryan Sr. (unknown)

Lizzie (an employee at the Tavern?)

Smith (the drug dealer?)

Carmen Roselli (Rival drug dealer)

Betty Hiedel (Hospital receptionist)

Gloria (ER Worker)

Sami (hospital worker)

Archie { Jenny’s dad?}

Janet (Jenny’s mom)

Dr. Walker

Erma (friend of Sara Moore’s)

John Morton (the youngest Morton boy)

Jake Perryman, the late chief of police of Cutler

Taylor Perryman, widow of Jake

Taylor Perryman’s brother

Taylor Perryman’s adopted baby

Chief Jimmy Hayes

Ron Mitchell (patrolmen)

Joey Traxler (Patrolman)

John Gustafson (Gus, new Cutler cop)

Dominic DeAngelo (drug task force)

Jim Marshall (insurance agent)

Ellen Baker, the school superintendent

Mr. Jones “The Boss”

Baldie (someone in the drug ring, real name Kevin Hoiste)

Steve Kroft (parole officer for Max Ryan Jr)

Judge McCallister

Jeff Huntley

Max Ryan Jr Juvenile offender, works at an oil and lube joint.

Dan Mayers (writer at The Chronicle)

Penny Lehman (third victim)

Braxton Jonathan Bartlett (Brittany the Quilter’s son)

Sandy Tressler, mayor

Chris Walker Chief of Staff of the Community Hospital

Andy Perretta (PTSD victim)

Maria Perretta (andy’s wife)

The Perretta boy (no name)

Eve Grant (school principal)

Joe Herman (retired principal)

Vinnie Grath (wine shop owner)

Wilma Wilson (B&B owner in Canadensis)

Joshua (the twins’ brother)

barbara huntley (lucy’s mother)

reese hershey (Max Jr.s alias)

Butchie (bar owner)

Grace ?????????????????????????????????

We’ll miss each and every one of you!

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The number of characters continues to rise along with the body count, as the Quilters’ anti-drug battle (aka putting up a modest number of posters) rages on! Outside of blowing up the interstate off-ramp, is there any way to stop the menace of X-Bars?? Plus we’ll examine the tragic end of Cutler, PA’s former police chief and get to meet a huge new baby.

For next time, finish the damn book!

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Ah, the Clinian Cloud has lifted and the 372 Pages studio is cozy and smells of pork, sauerkraut, beef stew and cake – lots of cake!

Conor dives to the dark web, Mike tries his hand at the brand new Real or Fanfic and there’s a surfeit of Dumb Sentences! Please share this podcast with any member of the McMillan family except Macy!!

For next time read through Chapter 21

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The task: announce book number sixteen. Forty-seven minutes later the job is done! Why? Because Conor and Mike are incredibly enthusiastic about the new title. I mean, one of our favorite “Real or FanFics” before we even crack the book open?!

This is going to be great!

Here’s a link to the book. For the first ep, we’re reading through Chapter 10

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An epic podcast! Mike and Conor discuss the deep philosophical implications of Van Hagar, of avatars putting on haptic suits, of the personification of the collective intelligence of all humanity saying things like, “You’re not gonna win, doofus!”

Cline was always in way over his head (from the second he thought to himself, “Hey, I should write a book”, of course), but when he moves away from listing his favorite video games and 80s songs into the realm of gigantic action scenes and the notions of what it means to be human, um, it doesn’t go well.

Coming soon — what’s the next book?!

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If you had taken a second mortgage on your home and placed the entire sum on a Vegas bet that “nothing in this book could possibly be worse than the chapters spent on the John Hughes planet” I am sorry and I hope you can find another home. Because the chapters on the Prince and Silmarillion planets are not only worse, they are the worst things ever created by humankind, and that includes all of our wars and the invention of hot pincer-based torture.

Conor takes on the Real or Fanfic challenge, we read some mail, and discover some very very dumb sentences.

For next time: FINISH THE DAMN BOOK!

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Ernest Cline’s runaway best seller continues to disgust and annoy us, even as it approaches the home stretch. In this episode we wrap up the seemingly endless John Hughes quest by meeting an actual John Hughes NPC (not actually John Hughes). Then we’re off to Halcydonia, where we all try to pretend that Zoobilee Zoo wasn’t a terrifying TV show. Then it’s off to the Prince Planet, where our characters alternate between weeping about their abusive childhoods and trying to go hump things at virtual strip clubs. It’s just great.

All this plus the long-awaited merging of the High Five and the Low Five, Fanfic or Real, and Dumb Dumb Dumb Sentences.

Support the podcast on Patreon and get early access to every episode plus other fun bonus stuff you’ll only find there! patreon.com/372pages

For next time, read thru Chapter 26. And yeah, Conor’s audio is a bit lower fidelity than it should be, he was recording on a remote rig that was only a heckuva a rig, not a hell of a. It will be fixed going forward.

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Conor states with confidence that this episode contains a chapter that is the dumbest and therefore the greatest of any that has been covered by 372 Pages!

The editor has taken her hand off the tiller and what we’re getting now is pure, uncut Cline. That means level-by-level coverage of a video game, stupid-by-stupid vignettes of classic 80s movies like Heat and Curly Sue and, just for fun, a fuel bomb explosion that slaughters dozens of innocents in a city park. But, hey – Samantha has an Annie Potts avatar!

All the departments as well as archival audio of Agatha Christie and a Dark Web gem that Conor found over Christmas while avoiding his family.

READING ASSIGNMENT FOR NEXT TIME: Through chapter 21.

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After countless pages of Worldbuilding and freeing child slaves when our hero felt like it, Ernest Cline finally lets some things happen in this section. The action kicks off when a Gunter and a Sharter listen to a Morissey song in silence and it doesn’t let up from there! By the time we’re done, there’s been a kidnapping, a shareholder’s meeting, and the rollout of a new firmware update. Also, Cline introduces his most annoying tic yet: telling us information again that he just told us. And by the time we’re done with this section, there’s been a kidnapping, a shareholder’s meeting, and the rollout of a new firmware update.

All this plus Real or Fanfic, Emails, and Dumb Sentences.

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For next time: read thru Chapter 16

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So much to cover:

Conor is shocked at Cline’s revelation that there may be a downside to the internet

Conor is shocked at Cline’s revelation that gigantic media conglomerates may not have his best interest at heart

Mike is delighted when Cline teaches him that social media allows people to share “memes, files, photos and songs”

There’s a gigantic space ark: but what are its data storage needs?
All this plus Real or FanFic, Listener Mail, and the revelation that The 372 Players live in a closet!

READING ASSIGNMENT: Finish Chap 9

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