The Desperate Times

Bird Enthusiasts and Probably El-Whack-A-Mole

The Desperate Times Radio Edition is recorded in front of a fake live studio audience in the secret doomsday-bunker/private recording parlor buried half a mile under Oakwood on Virginia Seminary’s campus. As this is a very real and to-be-taken-seriously newscast it quite obviously takes place in the present. 'Present' loosely defined. This podcast is an inside joke about a seminary and bird people. Please enter at your own risk. You can access our print back issues here: https://rb.gy/czi1eh

Episodes

  1. GOEs, OWLs and some extremely unhelpful advice

    01/05/2021

    GOEs, OWLs and some extremely unhelpful advice

    It’s your favorite time of the year! And by favorite time of the year, we mean that for thirty of you, it’s time to take a once-in-a-lifetime exam that both is extremely important to the ordination process and not actually a barrier for getting ordained. For the rest of us, it’s a time to feed you snacks and say encouraging things like “you’ll be fine” and “seriously, you’re still gonna get ordained” and “When I WAS a seminarian…”. We at The Desperate Times wanted to read, mark, and inwardly digest, or maybe we just wanted to mark this monumental time in the lives of seminary seniors by providing a helpful review of all six exam sections. Please hold the word ‘helpful’ lightly. After all, Dolores Umbridge was ‘helpful’ to the protagonists of a certain popular fantasy series by providing an exact template of what not to do when you’re trying to save the world. GOEs are not at all related to saving the world, but after listening to this episode, you may be spurred to heroic acts of armchair theologian-ism and angry emails to those idiots behind TDT. Speaking of angry emails, we welcome comments, criticism, spam calls, excommunications by anathema, and wildly misleading Twitter subtweets. All publicity is good publicity when the concept of fake news doesn’t apply to our completely-true news reporting. Any tips, tricks, and information about things we should cover on campus can be emailed, voicemailed, or Facebooked to us. We are everywhere, at all times, like the Illuminati, and will gladly respond to your wild ravings with wild ravings of our own.

    18 min
  2. St. Nick is not a heretic, and other Christmas discoveries

    12/27/2020

    St. Nick is not a heretic, and other Christmas discoveries

    Just when you thought we'd disappeared for good--defeated by too much eggnog or run over by reindeer, perhaps--here we are again, slipping into your inbox like the Boxing Day sales that you just can't unsubscribe from, no matter how many times you click the unsubscribe button. We present to you, on this St. Stephen's Day, our Christmas episode, featuring an abnormal amount of really stupid jokes that are absolutely true depictions of life at the Virginia Theological Seminary. While we know it is the second day of Christmas already, and you're all very busy as you slowly inch your wise men figurines towards the manger and contemplate whether you're going to put on Frozen again (we see you, parents of small children), we hope you'll take the time to send in an entry for our Epic Very Special Zoom Background contest, as we seek to supply the VTS community with a new stock of obscure and "where the heck is that?" backgrounds for your Zoominary classes. The winner, or some other person they so nominate, will be given a true-to-life depiction on the TDT podcast. Check out more contest details here. Feedback, questions, concerns, riddles-that-unlock-secret-treasure, glitter bombs, and theological squabbles about Mary Did You Know can be sent to our email, podcast voicemail or communicated by messenger pigeon. Please know that it may take some time for our intrepid copy editors and marketing novices to get back to you, as they are still quarrelling about whether to call today Boxing Day or St. Stephen's Day.

    21 min
  3. Gander Reveals, Retractions and Regrets, oh my!

    12/05/2020

    Gander Reveals, Retractions and Regrets, oh my!

    We at The Desperate Times would like to confess to a gross injustice, which has come to our attention through various murmurings of discontent over the last few weeks. Although the seminary administration is certain that this discontent—manifesting itself in the form of particularly vicious attacks of procrastination around final exams—is due to the unduly distracting influence of our humble podcast, we are sure this cannot be the case. The injustice we have committed is, in fact, not providing ENOUGH slightly-suspect-but-definitely-true conjecture about the state of Virginia Theological Seminary in these Desperate Times. Therefore, we, the staff heretics at the most widely-heard audio publication at VTS, resolve to make our amends by supplying you with more of the rumor mongering and meme-making you have come to expect from us. To unlock additional fodder for procrastination on your final papers and end-of-year reports, please visit us on Facebook at The Desperate Times: Radio Edition. We promise we will not disappoint you again, unless you’re a member of the VTS administration, in which case we will almost certainly disappoint you again and again. As always, please be in touch with any questions, complaints, or wild ravings (we particularly like those). You can write to us via email, message us on Facebook, or leave us a voicemail on Anchor. We particularly welcome tips from campus informants who would like to be added to our network of spies-er-“friends”.

    17 min

About

The Desperate Times Radio Edition is recorded in front of a fake live studio audience in the secret doomsday-bunker/private recording parlor buried half a mile under Oakwood on Virginia Seminary’s campus. As this is a very real and to-be-taken-seriously newscast it quite obviously takes place in the present. 'Present' loosely defined. This podcast is an inside joke about a seminary and bird people. Please enter at your own risk. You can access our print back issues here: https://rb.gy/czi1eh