Welcome to the first live recording of the Skeptic Guide to the Universe.

You're a state to reality.

And now I'd like to introduce your master's ceremony in a special episode, Todd Rubin!

Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you, Carol, I appreciate that. Thank you!

And welcome everyone. I've been called upon to host this and be your master's ceremony because I'm a New York guide here and I'm here to welcome these folks to our hood here.

And it is so great. The reason I was asked this is because I am the Executive Director of Coney Island USA,

for the Not for Profit Organization, out in Coney Island. That's been trying to keep Coney Island alive for the last three decades.

And we're fighting the good fight out there. And so we hope you all come out and visit us and see the side show and the Burles Show.

I hope you came out to see the Mermaid parade and all the other stuff that we do there. If you want more information about us, you just go to Coney Island.com.

And so since I'm kind of a Brooklyn guy, it's appropriate that we welcome the Skeptic Guide to Brooklyn here.

For those that are listening on the web and don't know exactly, well there's been quite a bit about Brooklyn in the press this last week because for the first time ever, a tornado tore through Brooklyn.

And scientists and researchers and meteorologists are trying to figure out how the hell that happened and why.

And I think the explanation is pretty simple. It's the gods or piss that the Skeptic Guide to the Universe is coming to Brooklyn.

I would not be a bit surprised that after the podcast today, we walk outside. The East River is running red and there are frogs falling from the sky.

Because we are here, as I mentioned before we started here, we are here in the shadow of the Watch Tower building of the Jehovah's Witness. That's right behind us.

And we're nestled between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge here, both in the crosshairs of Al Qaeda.

So sit back relax folks. We're doomed, but we're going to have a fun time. So instead of just introducing our panel today, the folks of the show, I thought I'd do it sort of Coney Island style and do what's known as a ballet.

And the ballet is that little sales pitch that's done out in front of the side show and I've done these thousands of times.

I've kind of written up a few notes on these folks and introducing the way we kind of sell the show out in Coney Island. So this is the way we're going to do it ladies and gentlemen, say this is it. This is the one you read about, you heard about it, now you got to see it live.

It is the Skeptic Guide to the Universe. It's all real, it's all live, it's all on the inside. It is truly amazing and amusing and confusing what you're going to experience here.

Wow, wonderful and wonderful kind. You are going to truly experience the strange, the unusual, the bizarre and I dare say the beautiful. Who are you going to meet on the inside? Why are you going to meet? Evan, that teddy bear Bernstein, the nicest man in the universe ladies and gentlemen.

Here he is. Why he is so sweet. He is so agreeable. He doesn't have a bad word to say about anyone except Sylvia Brown and Yuri Geller and James Van Prague and thousands of other. That's Evan, the teddy bear Bernstein right over there.

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