It's Thursday, named after Thor, the god of thunder. Not the Marvel Thor, mind you, because he's too handsome to have anything so prosaic as a day associated with him. Anyway, I'm trying to transition to a joke about thunder and handsomeness in podcasting terms, but sometimes you just have to let a metaphor go, you know? So instead I'll just remind you that Thursday is Vergecast day, and so thus we shall cast some Verge.

We're lucky to have the inimitable Tom Warren joining us to help us prepare for the launch of Windows 10 next week. He's going to hammer us with Microsoft knowledge (nailed it) before we hit up the rest of the week's news — which was more eclectic than the Nordic and Germanic pantheons combined (nailed it again). It all strikes at 4:30 Eastern.

While you're waiting, you should listen to our newest podcast, called Verge ESP, which blurs the lines between science and entertainment. Or you could dive into the archives of What's Tech?, which has been explaining technology in layman's terms for almost six whole months already.