Barb Lien-Cooper & Park Cooper

Author: Park Cooper

  • Married Geek Couple: The Road Trip (eps 1, 2, and 3)

    Married Geek Couple: The Road Trip (eps 1, 2, and 3)

    Hi! Park here again, with more of our new podcast, MARRIED GEEK COUPLE! (As you’ll know if you read the last post, it’s on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, IHeartRadio, and I think one or two other platforms (just search for Married Geek Couple !) –but of course you can also listen to it here!)

    This time is Barb and myself on a road trip– to visit my mother, for Thanksgiving. So we’re talking in the car, on the highway, so yes, there will be some road noise– be warned! But I also think it’s really not too bad. Whichever one of us is talking for more than a couple of seconds is holding the phone right in front of us, so it’s not like you can’t tell what’s being said clearly, really. Each short episode is edited, of course, but it’s just us, again, casually (but intensely) talking about stuff we like (except for Austin radio stations, we do complain just a brief while there in one installment)!

    (more…)
  • Married Geek Couple: The Audio Files

    Married Geek Couple: The Audio Files

    Hi! Park here. This is our new podcast, MARRIED GEEK COUPLE! It’s on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, IHeartRadio, and I think one or two other platforms (just search for Married Geek Couple !) –but of course you can also listen to it here!

    It’s Barb and myself talking in our kitchen– at first we were just talking to see if my phone would be an okay choice for recording, and then I decided it would be, so we just went with it! Each short episode is edited, of course, but it’s just us casually (but intensely) talking about stuff we like. The goal is to mostly be for people who want to listen to a happy, positive, married geeky couple talking in their kitchen about things that make them happy–perhaps while you do chores? kitchen stuff? folding laundry? other? There are 10 mostly-short episodes to start with, with many more on the way very soon!

    (more…)
  • Little Red Riding Hood and the Big, Bad Wolves:  CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE and Personality Development

    Little Red Riding Hood and the Big, Bad Wolves:  CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE and Personality Development

    By Park Cooper and Barb Lien-Cooper

    This post contains SPOILERS for the wonderful spooky films THE CAT PEOPLE and CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE! So you should very probably consider going and watching them first if you haven’t already!

    Okay, here we go:

    When adults don’t care enough to save a child, what option does the child have but to save herself?

    (more…)
  • Catching Up With Barb and Park, 10-3-24

    Catching Up With Barb and Park, 10-3-24

    Well, it’s October now– things have been a bit delayed with our first contest, as you already know presuming you read our last newsletter. In case you missed it, the publisher of our story Hungry Ghosts celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a giveaway contest, giving away art and copies of Hungry Ghosts the graphic novel– and some copies of the ebook of the HG prose novel, too, as well as a digital story from Barb’s comic Gun Street Girl.

    (more…)
  • OFFICE WORKERS SAVING THE WORLD: DAI-GUARD

    OFFICE WORKERS SAVING THE WORLD: DAI-GUARD

    Park: Okay so what happened was that our internet went out yesterday. Spectrum– and by the way, we’ll be switching to Google Fiber in less than a week because of this, because it’s been happening more and more– Spectrum gave us unstable and then totally missing internet. Well, we played board games a little, but… for some time, I had been planning to re-watch the anime Dai-Guard, because we own the complete show on DVD. Back when Barb and I were in charge of a website called MangaLife, we reviewed things, and so companies would send us manga and DVDs to review. One such company was ADV, based out of Houston, and one such thing they sent us was the anime Dai-Guard. And Dai-Guard is really good in my opinion, but the funny thing is, it’s from the turn of the century (1999, adapted to English in 2002), so when Barb and I watched it, we were comparatively new to all this. Partly because of this: Dai-Guard holds up REALLY well!

    (more…)
  • A Dark Shadows Story: The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of

    A Dark Shadows Story: The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of

    Tony Peterson sat in his law office in Bangor, Maine, thinking about how far he’d come in such a short period of time. I went from trying to sue the Collins family for a worker’s injury—and lost— he thought, to moving to Bangor and starting over again with this practice. The clients kept pouring in, as if by magic…

    Tony shuddered a bit at the word magic. He did not want to think about Cassandra Collins, and the love spell she’d put on him to bend him to her will…

    He was shaken out of his thoughts by a knock on the door. “It’s open,” he called.

    Tony’s secretary Effie came in with a package. “Today’s post had something unusual in it,” she said. “There’s no return address, but the name on the package just says ‘Cassandra…’”

    (more…)
  • Forged in Craft

    Forged in Craft


    Park: Okay so today Barb and I are going to discuss our new binge-watching show that isn’t 1966’s DARK SHADOWS: a little show called FORGED IN FIRE. Forged in Fire seems like a sort of reality show//contest show, and in some ways it is– but not like the others of its kind. Forged in Fire is about blacksmiths making knives and swords. Each round we eliminate one of 4 guys that we start with– last guy gets 10 thousand dollars. …But it’s so much better than that even makes it sound!

    (more…)
  • Crossover: Avengers and West Wing

    Crossover: Avengers and West Wing

    Park’s Dream Journal: 6/24/2023

    I had a dream last night…

    The intersection of two great entertainment franchises: AVENGERS and THE WEST WING.

    COLD OPEN: President Bartlett is getting ready to have a big conference– in a building in downtown New York– great minds– scientists, doctors, philosophers, even a thinly-veiled version of whoever former president Jimmy Carter is in the West Wing universe. 

    The secret service and S.H.I.E.L.D. are begging President Bartlett to get superheroes for security, he says no. They beg and plead with him to compromise– maybe JUST Iron Man? He says no. “If we get Iron Man, all Iron Man’s enemies will decide it’s the perfect time to attack. No, I’ve got a different compromise.”

    (more…)
  • Barb Approves of Stuff!

    Barb Approves of Stuff!

    My husband Park and I spend a lot of time reading, listening to music, and watching movies, old TV shows, etc.

    We’re also pretty picky about what we like.

    So, I thought I’d make a list of some stuff I (and he) do approve of!

    –“The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall” (read by Jonathan Frid)

    I’m putting this up at the top of this list front for my fellow Dark Shadows fans! My husband and I are huge fans of the old supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, and the lead vampire actor, Jonathan Frid, had such a compelling voice! So listening to him read this funny ghost story about how to outwit a ghost that makes rooms and people wet with water, is a minor treasure and a major pleasure for me.

    –“The Erl King” by John Connolly

    “The Erl King” is a scary poem about a father and son riding on a horse at night. The son starts hearing the voice of the “Erl King,” who is the king of the fairies. The Erl King wants to drag the son away to his fairy kingdom…

    (more…)
  • The Wonderful World of Dismemberment

    The Wonderful World of Dismemberment

    There used to be a television show called The Wonderful World of Disney, where a kid could see old Disney cartoons and live action films. We now have Disney Plus, which I have a free subscription to for six months because my husband got a new phone. But I’d trade Disney Plus for a horror channel that had as much old content as Disney has. About the best streaming service for horror is Shudder (we also have a six-month free subscription because of the phone thing), but it doesn’t have a lot of selection of older films, and I’m just not interested in their exclusive content. I do thank them for the quality of the prints of the movies they show. And I also thank them for all of the Giallo films they have. Finally, I thank them for showing my favorite folk horror film, Eyes of Fire. I appreciate Shudder, it just doesn’t have enough stuff that I’m into.

    (more…)