Read it and Weep

Kids are so adorable. They ask questions we aren't brave enough to and they can't tell the difference between dreams and reality. Small town pastors are so adorable. They comfort people in their community and can't tell the difference between their kids' dreams and reality. And they write books about it. When he was only 3-years-old, Colton Burpo had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. While under general anesthesia, he had a dream he went to heaven and Jesus won't let him have a sword and there were multi-colored unicorns. His dad believed it was real and, with help from the ghost writer of Going Rogue, writes a boring book about it. We interview pediatric emergency specialist Dr. Brian about these events and, because we're children ourselves, poop and wangoplasty. And lastly, Jesus looks a lot like Kenny Loggins.

Since the fall of Rome, things for Italy haven't been so hot. Things are about to get even worse as the cast of Jersey Shore has washed up on the beaches of Florence, ready to run amok. Hide your bambinos, hide your donnas. After a glorious first couple of days trying to figure out the European streets, cabs, phones, and power outlets, the cast of New Jersey's most disgusting export gets back down to business. Drinking, screwing, and fighting. While The Situation tries to three-some the two-some from Florida (twins!), Ron and Sammi get together and break up, Deena falls down a lot, and Pauly D and Vinny continue to be likable and amusing. Don't be surprised if these are the last Americans ever welcome in the beautiful nation of Italia.

Good evening and welcome to the worst book ever written, with your host, Spineless McWhinesAlot. That's right, it's the second half of Stehpenie Meyer's "The Host" and it's like the first part except the sappy ending you've been expecting for hundreds of pages actually happens in this half. Rather than flounder around the world of science fiction alone, we called in backup from author David Barr Kirtley of The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy on io9. He's a heavy hitter with a passion for the genre so we throw the dumbest questions we can think of about the dumbest book we could find. We even convince him to write a vampire romance novel on the one condition we can raise $1 billion. It's been a long journey (for Wanderer and for us) but at least we're done and we can go back to watching Jersey Shore with it's no-host bar.

What do you get when you take an annoying Bella clone and stuff it full of feelings and a parasitic alien? Boredom! Love triangles! Lava tubes! And further proof that Twilight wasn't a fluke: Stephenie Meyer really can't write. Tanya from #92 - The Royal Wedding is back for more awesome as we introduce a new game: Fun or Not, where we weigh in on three-legged races, cooperative sandwich-making, and sexual relations with ice sculpting-bears. Also in this episode: Star Wars references. Jokes involving genitalia. And lots of newspaper-based humor!

Have you ever not wanted to throw something away? Does it sound fun to collect your favorite things? How about living in a house with no heat with piles of your used adult diapers? No? Then that's where you differ from the people on Hoarders. This is by far the saddest show on reality TV this side of 16 and Pregnant. There's a sad woman who collects dolls, an angry man who collects toys, and an eccentric inventor who fills his 150-acre wildlife preserve with used cars. Actually, that last guy was kinda fun. But the rest of it is just terrible to watch. It makes you want to wash out your eyeballs and then throw them away because you've clearly been hoarding them. Joining us for the first time since the 4-Hour Body is fan-favorite Colleen, a connoisseur of reality TV. Also in this episode: Another Read it and Weep debate! A surprisingly long discussion about intimate relations with food products! A brand new Audible Ad! (May contain moose.) And some other stuff that I can't remember right now!

Highlander II: The Quickening is the rare sequel that's so much worse than the original that the series pretends like it never happened. Chistropher Lambert and John C. McGinley race to the bottom for the worse voice ever, Sean Connery hits on women in the creepiest way ever, and Michael Ironside blows up a hobo for no reason. By far the movie's biggest problem, however, was that the production's insurance company assumed creative control of the film. Don't believe what you've heard: just because you're good at insurance, doesn't mean you're the next Brett Ratner. Actually, maybe that's exactly what that means. Luckily we have a lot of help. Kseniya and Matt from I Love Bad Movies bring their enthusiasm, wit, and for some reason, a willingness to sit through Highlander II. Also, Lightening Bonus Round! (ding)

Welcome to the exciting conclusion of The Hunger Games! Death! Romance! Lamb stew with plums! Unfortunately, Alex couldn't make this episode, so Chris and Ezra boot up their invention, the Alexbot, to take his place. It speaks in 1s, 0s, and HATE. But Alexbot's robotic sarcasm isn't nearly enough to counter how likable The Hunger Games was. There's a bloody mess, zombie dogs, psychedelic bees, and a love triangle that's only somewhat tacked on. Joining us for the first bit of gender balance ever are Destinee and Lisa. Destinee, of course, is a children's librarian, and famously impersonated two different versions of God in our episode on the Shack. Fan-favorite Lisa is now an expert on child psychology, so we pick her brain on how best to train kids to become ruthless killing machines. Also, "Shut up and eat your pears" is the new "I love you." Start using it now.

Three out of four podcasters agree: this is the best book they've read on this show. Take a badass female lead, and place her in a futuristic dystopia with equal parts Miss Congeniality and Battle Royale. The result is totally enjoyable. Alex is reserving judgment until the end of the book, but we might be giving out our first favorable review. Hell, commence freezing. Luckily we have some help to keep this lovefest interesting. Food writer Gabi Moskowitz of BrokeAss Gourmet gives us some helpful pointer on what food to eat in a sadistic reality TV show while on a budget. We have recipes for the hearts of your enemies, sterilized water pairings to go with with raw bone marrow, and tear-cured rabbit. You won't want to miss it. (And if you just listen to the episode like you were already planning on doing, you won't.) Rounding out the team is Matt Aliabadi, last seen shaking with rage after Sweet Little Lies. His extensive knowledge of Victorian literature and Star Trek: The Next Generation proves to be invaluable.

Do you like robots smashing into each other for 2.5 hours? You're going to love Transformers 3. Do you like a comprehendible plot, likeable leads, and anything that isn't robots smashing into each other for 2.5 hours? You're going hate Transformers 3. We're not in None-More-Worse-Territory, but we might be in None-More-WTF-land. (It is a fertile land, one where the Michael Bays roam free without fear of encountering logic.) Luckily, we have Andrew Johnson of Movie Chatter fame to help shoulder the load. The movie features the return of Shia LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky, a sweaty, jittery little guy who somehow ditched Megan Fox and got a hotter, blonder, British-er version in Michael Bay's new pin-up, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Sam also has a talking robot space car. And a medal from Obama. We're supposed to feel sorry for him because he can't find a job, his talking robot space car is too busy killing terrorist to hang with him, and Patrick Dempsey is cozying up to his new Megan Fox. It doesn't matter. Their petty relationship bullcrap is put on hold by the Autobots fightings the Decipticons... again. Also Leonard Nimoy is a Transformer now. And Buzz Aldrin is Buzz Aldrin. There are some fun side characters (Alan Tudyk! John Malkovich! John Turturro!) but at the end of the day, it's a lot of robots wailing on each other and the third worst part of Indiana Jones 4 running around screaming. You could do worse with your time, but you could do a whole lot better.

The Family Man! National Treasure 2! Season of the Witch! Welcome to the First Annual Nicolas Cage Film Festival. We are here to celebrate the man who can go from deadpan to rage to maniacal laughter in just under five seconds. We have a lot of love for this fearless actor. Join us as we go Inside the Actor's Studio, dissect the many, many works that National Treasure 2 stole from, and critique severely flawed evil plans in Season of the Witch. Also, RIAW superstar Nick Delehanty returns, and he brought his air guitar. It's about to get awesome. And because it bears mentioning, we'll treat you to a rare behind-the-scenes interview with Jack Thomas, Nicolas Cage's Official Wig Wrangler.

If you like your teen wolves shirtless, your controversial weddings sparkly, and your sex punchy, oh man, do we have a trailer for you. Start playing the video at 0:22 seconds into the bonus for the best sync. Also, did someone mention a lazy cat?

Hax0red! The podcast has been hacked and replaced with a fan podcast, Hear it and Laugh. Super-fans Aleks Shindig, Andrea Sickles, and Anna Chandler invite self-promoter Stephen Carter on to talk about the first 99 episodes of Read it and Weep and to hear their favorite and least favorite clips from the show. They also take on the most important question, has Read it and Weep jumped the shark? By doing a clip show without being very popular, surely the ship of podcast has run aground. Relive favorite moments from Read it and Weep obscurity: Space Shark! Commodore Sickles! Racist alien rapists! Whale vaginas! Mustache and the Wig! and much more! Actually, not much more. That's pretty much it.

Evermore: in with a whimper, out with a whine. We finally discover that Damen is actually (gasp) an immortal, and sadly, not a Minotaur. He's also 600 years old and hitting on high school girls. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen. In other news, Ezra powers through a record number of compliments, we delve deeply into the mythology of Care Bears, and there's a drunk eight-week-old kitten. Skepchick's Carrie Iwan returns to finish out the book, which apparently is part of a 10-book series. Please, please don't make us read any more. Assorted references: Die Hard Schrodinger's cat Communism And much, much more!

Once in a generation there comes a Twilight knock-off that nearly matches the bland, annoying spirit of the original. Congrats, Evermore. You're almost as bad as the book you're ripping off. Due to a technicality in the Read it and Weep by-laws, Ezra is forced to only compliment this book and swallow his hates. Will he explode under the pressure? Tune in to find out! Joining the team is Carrie Iwan of Skepchick, bringing her incomparable wit and intelligence to a book that clearly does not deserve it. Highlights of the episode include: A discussion of Vitamin Water product placements. Cake-xting, the new crazy where you text pictures of cake to potential romantic partners. Adding onto the list of things vampires can do well. The next sexy supernatural creature? Minotaurs! And much, much more!

The director came up with concept for Burlesque after watching a Pussycat Dolls show... because that's where all great ideas come from. Christina Aguilera wants to sing, dance, and wear the kind of revealing clothing that just won't fly at her Iowa waitressing job. She takes a bus to LA, worms her way into Cher's failing Burlesque club, becomes a star, and we're treated to the music video for Lady Marmalade on repeat for thirteen times. If this sounds like a good time to you, you deserve everything that you get. Featured in this episode is the triumphant return of Chris [Last Name Withheld], the triumphant debut of Portland comedian Amy Milshtein, and the triumphant rumbling of a Strippers vs. Burlesquers Rumble. There are some potshots at Cher, an intriguing discussion of cookies and anatomy, and poorly-done celebrity impressions! Enjoy.