ANMA - Back to Where it Began

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Good morning, Gus! Gus and Geoff are back at the TNI building, after a quick stop at Afuga for coffee, to reminisce and see where it all began again. They talk about Driving, Unlocking memories, Soda machine, Outhouse designs, Code words, Apple switch parody, Justin Timberlake fansite, Bill Smith’s car, Oltorf, and The Vote to determine if this is the final episode EVER of this show. Edited by Richard Norman. Check out his band Good Lord on bandcamp: ⁠https://goodl0rd.bandcamp.com/ ⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're driving. Yeah, different vibe on this one. I always wanted to do a driving episode. You know, you're getting it. Welcome. I've been pitching that as a regulation supplemental for a while now. It's a great deal. Parking enforcement finally quit blocking the road.

So, should we talk about where we are and where we're headed? Yeah. Where are we? Okay, so we are over on the east side today. We stopped at a coffee shop called Afuga. kind of tucked away off of like Navasota and Holly

like it's actually further in towards further south than Holly but uh like a you wouldn't know it was here no it's like apartments and had no idea I rode my bike by it was in a radio station it's right by Rebecca Phase 2

yeah oh yeah the Rebecca is the name of this area it's like a split use with like assisted living retirement and then like urban KMFA 89.5 Oh, they used to be over there off of Lamar, right? I don't know. How weird.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. By, by McBride's. Yeah, absolutely, you're right. Anyway, so I rode my, this is like right by the trail, so one day I rode my bike by it, and I thought it'd be worth checking out because we're headed down south. Yeah.

Further south. Further south. To the location that Gus and I met. Yeah. Yeah. We wanted to do, for the last. episode of this season we wanted to like, oh, let's just do

something different. And then we went, oh, T&I, I think that's like a really fun idea. It's like what coffee shops are down there? Nothing. Gas station. I'd like to point out that my beautiful robot friend Gus, I don't think it was as on board as Eric and I. I thought, I've

pitched it. I thought this is a great idea. The area, the place where we met that we first met at Tele Network and Gus goes, telling it where it's not there anymore i know we're not going to go in we're just going to hang on the parking line he goes but there's nothing over there there's nothing there that's the problem like it sounds weird that i'm being like i'm against it but it's like there is nothing there that's weird the show yeah yeah yeah there's like i'll tell you what's going to happen you're going to unlock

20 memories in that parking you know what memory i that i still unlocked that i didn't realize until we started going it driving i still know the address there like that was I was like, oh, like I plugged it, plugged into the GPS. I was like, I know exactly what the address is. We haven't worked there in 25 years. That is so crazy. But yeah, I mean, even when we were working down there in the call center, not that there was much down there to begin with, even back then.

Happy Taco. Yeah, but we would, we were so poor that even if we want a coffee or anything, we would get it in the break room there at work. Yes. The coffee maker. And there were free sodas for a while. I think the free sodas were gone by the time you started. I never got to partake in the free sodas because people ruined it like a week before I got hired.

Inevitably what ended up happening is since there were free sodas in the fridge, people would just take like a 12-pack home. People would come in on the weekends and just take all the sodas out of the fridge. Yeah. And that pissed Bernie off. Rightly so. Rightly so. And I remember seeing it, but at the time, like, I was a new employee.

I was like, oh, is that just what happens? People take soda. Like, I don't know. Yeah. I figured someone else will say. something. Gus was busy stealing all the paper clubs. The real money's in ice cubes. Yeah, so and then after that, they put in a vending machine and the coax were, I want to say the coax were at cost. Yeah, I think you're right. It was like 30 cents or something for a kind of Coke.

Part of our job as team leaders was to occasionally empty the money out of the sewing machine when it was full. And I would always wrap it in cellophane and write drug money on it. Give it to Bernie or George. You guys had to do the soda machine? Yeah, we had the keys for the soda. We would also stock it. Yeah, we stocked it. It was like, there wasn't a soda guy who came by.

So, it was like, we had the machine, and then it was up to us to. Where did the money? What? The money, well, because the money went back to pay for the sodas, because the sodas were purchased at cost. Yeah, so we were just taking the money and giving it to Bernie or George or whoever, and then they would turn around and go buy more sodas. Is that sort of like the through line of your career as you take all the money and give it to Bernie and figure out what kind of what happens with it? And then how that's somehow I'm still working.

it's funny you say the thing about drug money because that's something I used to do at conventions when we would get all the cash hell yeah because we would put it in a bag and they write drugs or drug money hell yeah god there was nothing more exhilarating and terrified

and then walking out of a convention center with a backpack with like $38,000 and nobody knew we did the same thing nobody fucking knew and you're just walking walking through downtown Baltimore going I'm gonna get killed

I'm gonna get fucking killed well it's great now that everything's so cashed And it's so easy to take a credit card wherever you are. Like, I remember even back when all that stuff was taking off, you'd go to San Diego Comic-Con and try to do like credit card processing. Yep. And it was just impossible.

Yep. Even if you had the terminal, the terminal had to connect to the internet. And the internet was just so terrible. And it was $1,100. I was going to say it was super expensive to get connected to the internet. Yep. Brutal. Brutal.

Yeah. I can't believe you guys were in charge of the soda machine. That's the most bizarre. Dude, Gussin I got it. What guy's not responsible? dudes. We've done a lot. We had a, we're jack of all trades. That's right. You name it. It's on my resume. I've done it. What the fuck used to be there? Uh, yeah, what did used to be there? Man, we're just driving south on I-35 and just a hole where something used to be.

We're next to Whippin. It was like, wasn't it like a health clinic? To the right of the Wipin? I don't remember, man. Because I remember like years ago, God, probably 20 years ago, there was like a bomb threat over here because it was like a clinic that provided reproductive health services. Oh, wow. So I don't know if it was there. Maybe it was a little further north. Then they closed down part of 35, and then they kind of look, and of course it's nothing.

You ever, not to change the subject away from bomb threats, but... Let's talk about abortion. Or abortion. You ever spend much time of Whippin back in the day? I've been only a couple times. It was always, like, inconvenient for me to get to. Whippin became my spot when I would come home from T&I. Gavin and I would always stop there.

and eat like a quick dinner on the way home for work. Yeah. What is it? Or apart from our team. I figured that's what you're man. Yeah. I'm sorry. Whippin was a, it was like at one half liquor store, convenience store, and one half Indian restaurant.

Yeah. Oh wow. Oh, cool. Yeah. And they had like, kind of like Texas Indian fusion food. Oh wow. What the fuck? Indian casillas.

And they had some real good legit, just like straight up Indian food. But all the combinations were really fun. And they had this thing called the slackers. no no it wasn't slackers banquet that's over at boulden creek but it was something similar it was stoner fries stoner fries just like these like french fries with indian spices and cheese and bacon shit oh that sounds awesome yeah there's a in a similar vein there's a like indian texmex fusion place off the east side what's it's it called like narca or something like that i've only eaten there once and i didn't like it oh really i liked it that like tica masala and chiladas oh really crazy like really bizarre

Notcha, I think is what it's called. That might be, yeah, something like that. Millie and I went there once right after it opened, and it was kind of, it might have just been an off night, but I've never been back. I mean, there were a couple times, and I think it's good. I've heard, I haven't been back to whip it in years, but I've heard it's under new ownership and it's shadow of what it was. Yeah, it changed quite a while ago, I think, and yeah, it's not nearly the same.

It was one of those things, Eric, where you'd order your food, and then you'd go to, like, through the, you'd go through the convenience store and then get, like, the soda or beer or whatever you wanted or a bottle of wine, and then bring it up and pay for it as you pay for the meal. That's the way to do it. Yeah. It's like a deli. Yeah.

I love that kind of place. They're definitely few and far between now. So when we worked at TNI, we're on Ben White now. When we worked at T&I, this was not a freeway. No. This was a four-lane road with lights. Crazy. And it fucking sucked.

Getting off of 35 and going to the airport. You would not go this way to the airport. Even though there's the way you would go to the airport now. Would they be like, no, what are you stupid? Take Riverside. Why the fuck would you? Yeah. Yeah, this was a fucking nightmare.

And then... He used to get off in front of those McDonald's here. And then they ripped it up and fucked it up for 10 years to build this. Yeah. Yeah. It's like when it was done, it's like, oh, thank God. That bike path right there, Eric? That was the street back then.

That's crazy. That was... Yeah. Like, you're talking about ripping it up for like 10 years or whatever. This is the only East West Freeway. Pretty much. Like, this is it, dude. And like, it was, I don't know, reluctance to have this.

this happened? Like, that's crazy. I can't believe the catfish parlor is still over. Who's going to catfish parlor? The guy who owned Tele Network? Yeah. Really? It was his favorite place. That in Texas land and cattle. All right, dude, I mean, I really appreciate you fucking me over like this. We spent, there's, I'm getting hit with so many memories over here. We're turning right. I believe this is the road where outhouse designs used to be. No, were they on the, or they're one down. And that was our first t-shirt vendor. You want to drive by there? Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. And Gus and I specifically, because we were living in the same house at my old house and we, uh, what the fuck is that? Austin. It's like Austin shop. Those are like, it's like a neon sign shop. Yeah. Okay. Uh. Yeah. And so we were, we also ran the store out of a spare bedroom. Right. And so we would go in my little old pickup truck and we would pick up all the boxes of shirts. That was insane. It was almost a wreck right front of us. And then we would take him back to my house and fold them up. And then we would take him back to my house and fold them up. up and you know organize them and then ship them all out and so we were but we were pushing so

much merch back then before we had our fulfillment house that we were coming to outhouse twice a week probably yeah and that was just like most of my job outside of bobbing heads was talking to mark at outhouse who's been gone for years and years and years so i'm not docks anybody is outhouse even around still i don't know and we found them because they did them they did the we saw the t-shirts at Chewies. And we thought they were well designed. And we were like, who makes your shirts? And they're like, oh, house design does. And so we just called them up. And we're like, we want to make T-shirts like the shirts at Chewis. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like, well, obviously they work with like a local bus of Chewis is much bigger now. It's right here. Oh, it's still there.

Yeah. And then we found out. And then we didn't even know going in that they were the Keep Austin Weird people. Yeah. But they were the people that launched Key, Keep Austin Weird way back in the day. And so yeah, we'd go through this, uh, you'd go through this fenced-in area and go up to the loading dock and they would just throw boxes of shirts down. Really? Yeah. Dude, this is crazy. And then after Mark left, our agent was a guy named Eric and we really loved him.

And then when he eventually left, we followed him. Yeah, we followed him to the new place he worked at. Because he was amazing. And then we outgrew that place and we went, we went, you know, full full. That other place was like South, like South Congress, South of Ben White, right? Like on the... No. I know what you're talking about.

That place we used... That place we courted us heavily and we used them once for something. The place where Eric was was on downtown. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, okay, I see something else. And there's also still there, though.

And then, I think Happy Taco was, like, over here. And that building. Troublemaker Studios is right there. Oh, wow. Like in 302 or 104, one of those. Way, by Austin Flag and Flagpole. Way back in the day. We used to get our batteries from the...

that episode, a good morning, Gus. I don't know. They talked about where they got their batteries. It's really weird. This shell used to be a Conoco. This is great. This is the best show. This is the best show ever made. He's not kidding, though.

He's not kidding. You know what was awesome about that in Conoco? They had a slush puppy machine in it. They didn't have a slush puppy machine. This is the only place in town that you get slush puppies. Yep. So here we are. Nothing out here.

Gus is going to do his best not to make this a good episode. to prove himself right. Oh, there's the people and stuff. So I was thinking about talking about, so I don't know how to do it. But you and I used to have a code that we would say, Gus and I have had a very long friendship through a lot of different friend groups.

We've worked together in multiple companies now. And I'll be completely honest with you. Gus and I, when we were very, I don't know if we've ever talked about this before, We were very early on. We were starting in this career with entertainment. Eric, it's your old car? We made a pact that we would always have each other's back.

Yeah. That if no one else did, we would always look out for each other and that we would never fuck each other over and we would always take care. 3,800 C. Holy shit. And we would never, and we would always look out for each other.

We would always include each other and take care of each other. And I think that we've for the most part done that pretty well for 23 years. I'm pretty proud of that. That agreement. Yeah, it is longer than that. It is longer than that. I don't know where I was going with this. The code.

Oh. And so we determined that we needed a code to be able to speak to each other like a watermelon, you know? Or like to know when you could speak freely. To know when you could speak freely. Got it, got it, got, got it, got it. Or to say like, hey, I need you to go

to a different room to have this conversation. And so the code was, I'm not going to say the guy's name. I'll give a fake name. But the code was, hey, I ran into Bill Smith the other day. Bill Smith was a guy who we worked with at Tele Network, who we both really, really liked. Who we probably told stories about on this podcast in previous episodes. Probably have.

And he just kind of disappeared. And he was kind of like, we always joke about how there was this guy named John who was like the Pete Best of Rooster Teeth. Because he could have been a part of it at the beginning. And he chose to move to Houston instead and have a very, very. successful career as a coder. It turned out very well for him. Working into oil industry, he's not hurting. Yeah, he's doing fun.

Oil's still doing pretty good? Still doing great. Yeah. Turns out he was right. But this other guy was like the very first, like, I would say like we were like a threesome very early on. And it was like the three of us. We were all managers.

We all got along. We hung out. If we went to the movies, it was probably the three of us. He got the internet. Like he was one of those people like in the late 90s, was like, he understood the internet, he understood where it was going. He understood, like, he had his finger on the pulse of it. He had one of the first porn sites.

What? That I never heard. What? Had his fingers in a lot of pies. There's got to be a better way to say that. Oh, my God. Anyway, we really dug that dude, and he left, and we lost track of him. And so we decided that we would have this code where we would say, hey, I ran into Bill Smith the other day.

And then it'd be, like, code for, but because we like, like them so much, I would always forget about it. And Gus would say it to me and I'd go, oh, shit. How was he doing? You're ridiculous. You're really. I'd be like, it's the thing. Yeah, it's the thing.

I'm like, oh, fuck, it's a bad time, dude. I didn't think we'd ever talk to him again. Yeah, it was very frustrating. God damn. I got it wrong, way more than I got it right. Dude, that's so funny. There's one of those things where it's like, we, we have, that's probably me. I'm the paranoid one.

I was probably like, we should establish this now, even though we don't need it, in case it comes up in the people. future. It was useful. Was it? Yeah. And I'll say like, there have been multiple instances throughout my career. And I'm not

pointing a finger at any entity or person but there are instances throughout my career where Gus and I really did have to have each other's back. And thank God I had him to trust and vice versa through certain periods in our career, our collected career. Because

I don't know, man. If I hadn't had Gus looking out from me. I don't know that I always would have... It's good to have a second set of eyes or to have someone else looking out. I think it's a good way to put it. You have to have someone that you can like... I don't know. You can't bring all that stuff home

all the time and then go home to your wife and just be like, here's everything I'm mad about. You have to have someone on the inside that you can be like, here's everything I'm mad about because then they can go, yeah, I'm fucking mad about that too. They also have the closer context. Yes, absolutely. It also, it's very similar.

to Survivor in that you have to have your first strongest secret alliance that is unbreakable. Oh shit. You have a secret one? You know my secret alliance? Oh no. I don't think that was a secret one. I think everybody knew about that one. Yeah, I don't know if they, I mean, everybody knew about Gus and I, but I don't know if they knew about the alliance necessarily. But yeah, you got to have your first strongest secret alliance. And we definitely did. And that started here at T and I. started here at Tele Network. Before we even thought it registered T. So you see over there where it says C slash D, that was the door.

It was off to the side. You'd go in and there was like a little keypad there. You would punch in your code, which was your employee number, which incidentally is still my bank pin to this day. Come on. Wow. So if you know my employee number from TNI and you find my debit card, you can access my banking. Brandon Farmer, he's about to fucking get you.

And then over here to the right, like the loading docks. And the first one was also part of it. That's where the warehouse was that we talked about with the off-site storage. That's how you got back in there into the skate park that Jeff built. Yeah. And up against the very back wall. I do remember hearing about the skate park.

Yeah. Then up against the very back wall is where we filmed that Apple Switch parody. Crazy. Oh, yeah. 99 or whatever that was. When you guys did that when it was the Apple Switch parody, was that just, hey, we're fucking around. We like the internet.

We're going to make this internet thing. This is like a jokey thing. Or was it like, dude, if we do this, like, let's make like a bunch of videos. Like, what was the thought that kind of, like, went into it? I think Bernie wanted to make the video. Like, we were all, like, keyed into the internet stuff as, like, parody. Yeah, credit where credits do there. Uh, God, this is, it's a, it's looking a long way back. Oh, yeah. You know, and I, I really have, I'm not sure how much I can trust my memories at this point of our life. But I, Gus and I were all in on internet. We wanted to

create written and photographic content on the internet. I don't think either was had any idea or experience of the video. And when Bernie came in, he wanted to push video and wanted to push video. And when that Apple Switch parody came out, I don't remember where the idea came from. I think we had, to film it. Yeah. I think it was just like, I thought it was him, but I don't know. It's been so long.

I really don't know. But I will say Bernie was definitely the driver. He's the one who wanted to make videos on drunk gamers of his Halo gameplay and stuff. and we were definitely on board with it, but he was the one who definitely pushed us in that direction. I remember we filmed it, and I wasn't working at TNI at the time. I was working at the other place downtown.

And so it was like, after work, I came down here to meet you guys, and we were going to, we filmed it out in the warehouse. From it at 4 p.m. on a Friday. Yeah, and. Oh, wow. Since I was working downtown, and, you know, Bernie had the camera here, he was like, hey, we need some lights for this. And I was like, okay.

And so I stopped by Holland, I was Holland photography. It's like it's no longer there, I don't think. It's over by, across from where South Lamar Alamo is now. And I was like, what do you need? He's like, get me a blue light. He does not like this story. He hates this story. So that's why I'm telling it.

He's not a fan of this story. Get me a blue light. Yeah, and I was like, what does that mean? What is a blue light? Yeah, and I was like, what's a blue light? He's like, yeah, yeah, it's what we need for the camera? It's like, yeah, but what is it? I've never bought this.

I walk in there. They look at me like I'm a dickhead or something. He's like, yeah, just go in. They have it there. Get a blue light. Like, why do we need a blue light? Why am I not buying a white light? And he was like, listen, dude, I don't know.

I just know we need a blue light. It's like, it's something to do with how we film. I know we need a blue light. I was like, okay. So I went to the Holland photo over there on South of Marr. I was like, do you have a blue light? They're like, yeah, yeah, here you go. We're like, okay.

I guess, and now knowing what I know is for color balancing. Yeah. White balancing, you know, inside because the lights were so fucked up in here. That's awesome. We were all just so dumb. Just clueless. Bernie had made a film at that point. yeah but it was all the colors were all wrong

it's fun to look that far back and know like how like seat of our pants we were flying and not even realizing you know there was no expectation though no that's what it helped with it that's a thing too it's like there was never the I remember Bernie wanting to make money off drunk amers and Gus and I'd be like are you fucking serious money on the internet what are you talking about this is fun why would we tell us in a job like this is

We're doing this because we want to. And he's like, yeah, but we can make a little bit of money at it too. And we're like, what are you an asshole? Yeah, we're like, we're doing it. We're altruistic here. Yeah, we were very, uh, we're altruistic. Yeah, I don't know. We were very 25 and 20s.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, I would say, I would say, I'm pretty sure we thought we're altruistic. Like, you know, oh, we're going to do this stuff independently. We're to do it ourselves. We're going to, you know, do what we want. Not going to take anyone's money so that, you know, we're free to do what we like. Zero money to take. Yeah.

There wasn't, the internet and money weren't a combo. I mean, there were very few examples. Homestar Runner showed us, Happy Tree Friend showed us that there was an inkling of an idea that you could generate revenue off of content in some way. But that was about it. I think for me, excuse me, for me, it was Penny Arcade. Yeah. I remember they set up like Penny Arcade Club where you could like PayPal them some money.

And you don't remember what you got. You can't really get anything. It was like, oh, okay, that's cool. And I did that. I did that for a while when they had that. Yeah. And, you know, when we started Roostee, it was like, oh, we can do like Penny Arcadets,

put a PayPal button on the website. But yeah, there was. But that was not a... No money. And that's definitely not where you were when you did the Apple Switch parody. No. That was just a like, hey, let's do this.

This will be funny. I mean, we were, it was... I didn't remember how we... Where we put it, or how do we put it out? We put it on a... Well, we put it on drunk gamers. Yeah. We had to, like, host it.

We did. I don't remember where we hosted it. Yeah, it was whatever the web server. I remember what was that company that hosted drunk gamers. Yeah. And then it got, then it went viral. Yeah.

And, you know, that's how Matt found it, but also it spawned, because I, tell me if I'm remembering this right. Were we the first switch parody? I want to say yes,

but that doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem right. I want to say yes too because I remember all of them coming after us and being like, this is such a fucking lame attempt of what we already did. Yeah.

I remember the one with the dude fucking the laptop. That dude's from Austin. Yeah. I've met that dude. Ben Brown? Yeah. He was friends with another friend of mine. I'd run into him at parties before.

He owns like some developer company. Yeah. Damn, any fucking laptop? That's crazy. Macfuckers. Macfuckercor coders. So you make this video. It's 240P or something.

It was 360, I'm pretty sure. What did you edit it in? Do you remember? Burn. You would have edited it. It probably was Premiere. really whatever he edited his film in because that's what we had when we started in the early days we started with premiere yeah yeah yeah it would have been premier it was like even pre-c s it

would have been like premier five three or four or something yeah and then and then it kind of went away right like it got parodied we were on slash dot in a couple places and then it kind of went away and we went back to doing just drunk gamer stuff and we really didn't think about it again until CGM came to us. Was it CGM? EGM. EGM? I think it was EGM. I can't remember. I thought it was CGM.

But. Was it a computer gaming world? CGW? I fucking have it. I have it somewhere in a box somewhere. But they came to us and they said, hey, we'd really love to include this Apple Switch parody on our demo disc.

You know, with content and yada, yada. And we thought in a magazine? Yeah. This magazine, like, this is going to be like, we were like, there's going to be like 600,000 people that are going to see this. It's got a computer in the name. I remember that was the number. The number on our head, and I don't know why, but I remember we had it in, maybe this is what they told us, but we had it in our head that we were going to get 650,000 people were going to work with it. I remember that number very specifically.

That's very funny. And we were, and we were, I think we had at that point wrapped up drunk games. Yeah, drunk gamers was gone. We were pretty much done with that. Uh-huh. And the end of the Apple Switch parody just had a skull and crossbones with the. drunk gamers logo on it, I believe. I said drunkamers.com.

Drunkamers.com. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there was like an Apple bite out of the logo or something. Yeah, I think the skull was like the Apple logo. Yeah. Yeah. And we were like, it's dumb

to have 650,000 people watch this video and then go to a website that doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Bernie changed it to red versus blue, and I think that was kind of the impetus to help launch. Yeah. Wow, really? RVB.

Wow. What you just described is like the same thing that happened with Mega-64. It was like EGM going, hey, can we put some of these videos on some demo disks, and it launched them in the same way. What's crazy to me is the naivete of us being like, 650,000 people get this magazine. All 650,000 are going to watch this video. They're all going to go. There's no drop off. Right.

It's like, oh, man. It's 100% all the way. Every time I ever got a demo disc, I went to every website that was on the demo disc. You went and went through all of it and gave them all, you gave them your money. Uh-huh, absolutely. That's so funny. Just so stupid.

So what happened, like, what was next then? So that's like, you got, okay, so you got the Apple Switch parody. Why was Red versus Blue the site to drive it to? Are you guys already doing that? I think Bernie had released the trailer the summer before. Yeah. And so it was like the kick in the pants to get it launched. Oh, really?

I think the trailer came. came out in, like, September 2002, that magazine was January 2003, and then we officially launched April, 2003. Yeah. That sounds about right. We're probably getting that slightly wrong. I'm pretty sure that's it. I mean, I could be wrong. But if I'm wrong, who knows, right?

But don't worry, if you're wrong, if either of us are wrong, we'll get a text about it from Bernie. I'm pretty sure that timing's right, because we set up the red versus blue.com domain, I remember, and it wasn't anything. at first. Yes, it was leaving on a jet plane, but Justin Timberlin. Because I was leaving, I was moving, because I moved to Puerto Rico in February 2003. So it's like we just had the placeholder up for a while. And then that's when we started putting the stuff on there in April. There was that whole joke. It was even in our history of RVB that I wrote for us on our website for a while, but there was that whole joke about how we were a Justin Timberlake fan site that pivoted into making content. I forgot about that. Yeah. And that when Wed vs. Blue was born, the

world lost the best Justin Timberlake night. It would ever have. Now we're free. We should get it. We should get back to work on her yeah, dude. He needs all the help in the world. The world tour is not going well for him. He could use the help. He needs, he needs a hit. Justin, reach out. Yeah, it's fine. You want to be on the podcast? You remember us. We got that fan site back in 2002. Justin, do you want to sit in a truck in front of where these guys used to work? So at that point, you

moved, were you still working here? Yeah. So you were still at T&I. When did you leave T&I? I left T&I in May or June of 2003 or four, 2004.

Uh-huh. Yeah. I feel like we've told this story before. Uh-huh. But I was managing T-N-4. and I and do an RVB with Bernie on nights and weekends, you know, I would work either 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Tele Network or 4 p.m. to midnight. Those are the two shifts. And I would try to do the 7 to 4 shift so that I could come home, have a bite of dinner with my then wife, and then hop in

my car and drive down to Buda to go to Bernie's house. And then I would try to get there around six so that we could film until about midnight or one. And then I would come home and I'd try to stuff T-shirts for like 30 minutes before I'd go to bed. And I remember it was rough because we'd wake up further behind than we went to bed on everything. I felt like every day. But I, because we'd get there'd be more orders in the night that would come in and we were able to process and because we were still trying to make shit. Oh, wow. And I think what finally did it for me was after doing that for about a year, things really started to deteriorate between me and the other management at rooster teeth because I was, I get it.

I was splitting my focus between two things. And I was very excited about RVB. as was Bernie, they couldn't say shit to Bernie because he was the president. Oh. Or the vice president at the time. They could, I think he's the president. He was a president at the time.

They could say a lot of shit to me, though. So, like, there was another president. They were, like, co-presidents. One was, like, business. One was, like, tech. The other dude, who I like very much, and I like very much, made my life kind of a living hell

because he couldn't make Bernie. Because he took out all of his frustration on Bernie and I on me. And I didn't begrudge him for it. I understood it. It sucked. But then Bernie left, and an opening came up for vice presidency to fill his spot. They came to me, and I probably wouldn't have left Tele Network.

But they came to me and they said, I guess May of 2004, they said, hey, I'm 28 years old. Barely graduated high school. Was in the Army for five years. And they came to me and they said, we want to make you a vice president of Tele Network. Oh, my God. And I thought, a vice president at 28 from Alabama? Yeah. This is, I've, I just won life.

Yeah, no kidding. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And I was like, absolutely. And I said, there's one condition. You can't do this RVB shit anymore. Yeah, you got to be all in. You have to pick between Telen Network or Red versus Blue. Wow.

And I quit in the meeting. I just went. Is that for real? I went, I have to quit. And they're like, what? And I was like, I can't do this. And I was like, and I remember the guy who was offering me the job is a friend. He goes, listen, if you leave, you can't ever come back.

This is, you're walking away from this. This is vice presidency of a fucking company, which, by the way, would have been a great gig because that company is killing. They're huge. Oh, shit. I don't know that I made the right to decision. I just made a decision.

I don't know if I made the right decision or if I made the decision right. You know what I mean? But, uh, and I was like, well, I got to quit. And then I went home and I cried for like a day. Wow. And I was terrified. And I was terrified. And I just remember, I just keep thinking like,

I'm not going to starve to death. I'm not going to starve to death. What's the worst that could happen? I'm going to eat tomorrow. I'll tell you what the worst could happen is you'd be unemployed 25 years later. Sitting in a parking lot reminiscing about working at the call center. Remember what we used to work here? So I just looked from here where we are to Bernie's old house in Buda

is about 35 minutes, according to Google Maps. And that's also relatively like that. traffic right now. But also like, okay, yeah, there's like not a ton of people when you guys were living here or whatever. But like, what were the roads? Were they, it was it, was the 35, 35? Like what, like, yeah, I mean, well, the thing that's also like we, so it's 35 minutes now, the thing that we mentioned, it's faster now because Ben Wyatt's a freeway. Yeah, exactly. You would have had to sit through all of those lights going in the other direction. It was a nightmare. It probably would have taken longer to get there. And 35 was fine. It was probably actually not as

bad back then as it is now um then there's there wasn't not that i can remember i don't think there was any construction on this section so it was probably a pretty much straight shot and if you're going at night or in the afternoon probably okay man so and also there weren't like as many people living out in the suburbs like commuting at the end of the day right right right right at that time the suburbs were all north so it's like cedar park round rock like still now yeah like beaer and kyle weren't really big commuter destinations so at that time jeff's quitting and then you're in Puerto Rico? I could come back right before then. So I probably moved back in like March or April of 2004. Was that with the anticipation of doing red versus blue stuff? Yeah. Okay.

So that's why I used to always say I was employee number one, full-time employer number one, and Jeff was a full-time employee number two. Because like that was that, that was our focus. Yeah. And then it wasn't long before Matt moved back from California. Yeah. I think Bernie may have quit T and I first. And then before Matt. Matt moved back. I can't. It was right. It was close to the same time. I can't remember because I remember like Matt moving was to help out so Bernie didn't have to quit. I feel like, who can remember? Who cares? Everybody quit and everybody. Everybody got hired and it all worked out. That was between season one and two. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, you were already deep into like a season. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So like. Yeah, season one was pretty much wrapped up at that point. Uh-huh. Yeah. Because we'd have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we were beginning work on season two. So Matt must have come that summer. I remember he would come and visit, and he would help out. Like, I remember they came during Thanksgiving, and that was when we were all hanging out,

just stuff in envelopes of Bernie's house, stuff in DVDs. And I think it was pretty decided in that moment that they would go home and come back, figure out their exit strategy back to Austin. Wow. What's funny is, looking around, you know, you see all these loading docks

and all these trucks that have been coming and going. Yeah. And, you know, you look at how high these docks are. When we were doing the merch out of Jeff's house, we would frequently have trucks like this show up with merch or DVDs or whatever. What? Palettes?

Yeah. And they'd be like, where do we unload the DVDs? We'd be like, right here and we pointed Jeff's driveway. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, and they'd be like, you don't have a dock? Like, nope, this is it. It's a 1,200 square of the house. Where am I gonna put a dock?

So we'd have to like, unload all the boxes and pallets by hand out of the back of an 18 wheeler. It'd just be something with a clipboard going, all right, man, if you say so. Wow. Just drop it all in Jeff's dropping. Usually they had a lift gate and that made it better, but sometimes they didn't. and they just drop it there

and Jeff's Driveway. It's not that different from what I'm envisioning for our build-out. No! At the office. Oh, no. Luckily, we're not making DVDs.

We rented... This is out by now, but we rented a house recently. Yeah, I got it. We finally got it. We pick up the keys tomorrow. Yeah. We can't make DVDs.

Well, we could make DVDs. Oh, shit, we should make DVDs. That's a fun idea. What if we made... Jeff, what if we made... I pitched this back to Mega-64. We used to do con DVDs for Mega-64.

It's owned for like 10 bucks or whatever. And it would be a con-exclusive disc where it's like, here's a bunch of skits and then here's something exclusive for like this thing or whatever. What if we did just a cheap not even a Blu-ray, just a cheap DVD of like some of the best stuff that we wanted to put on there or whatever? And then we sold it for cheap and we did a DVD. Yeah. Totally do it. I'm all about it, dude. We, I want to do, I want to go through, I want to do eras. Eric. We've done vinyl. Uh-huh. I want to do. Big Swifty. I'm going to do Swift-style eras.

No, I want to do fucking 8-track. I don't do laser disc. Let's run all media. You should do through like every generation of who's on the podcast. Like, what was the predominant physical media at the time? And they should curate a collection for that. That's a great idea. There was an idea to do a process.

If you weren't already working a stinky drag. Because I'd consider hiring you. Yeah, part-time, part-time, part-time. It's almost like we've been working together a while. We have a very similar thought process. We, uh, there was a consideration of doing like a cassette. Like, oh, we did like the vinyl. let's do a cassette.

And I just get thinking, like, I can't think of a worse way to listen to a podcast than a fucking cassette. Eight track. That is just miserable. I don't think I've ever physically used an eight track. My uncle had an eight track player in his car

when I was a kid. I remember. And I used to love putting it in and you're pushing the buttons to get to the different songs. So it was just eight tracks. Yes. Four on each side.

Yeah. You would flip it. And then it would be like one, two, three, four. And then you flip it one, two, three, four. Yeah. And that's how you listen to five. If I remember, I think also, I could be wrong. I was a kid at the time.

I think eight tracks were mono. Like you couldn't even get a stereo version of songs? I don't remember. I could be. I was a little kid, so I don't remember the two kids. Boy, that sounds right. But yeah, I think it was like a mono only format. Oh, God.

I just remember thinking how impossibly big and chunky they were. It's cool when you're a kid. Like, you get really get a grip on it. It's a big tactile thing that's like, this big ugly thing. It's sat. Like, I think the eight track player in his car was an aftermarket add-on. It kind of like sat under the dash in the middle. cheese oh man so t and i i don't know this is like a part of town nobody ever comes to

there's nothing here yeah that's why i was like why it's just it's just uh what would you call these i'm even call office complexes just industrial complex industrial complexes yeah yeah yeah yeah it's just a bunch of loading dock i think there's a radio east around here that we went to once yeah that's like further down but that's but it's also like not that close like i remember finishing that and then we just drove around here like oh you guys went are you guys You want to see where D&I was? And I went, yeah. And I went, oh, this sucks.

Where? All right. Do you want to talk about, we talked about Bill Smith earlier. You know, that's not a pseudonym, obviously. Not even a pseudonym, just a fake name. Did we ever tell this story about Bill Smith's car? We, I don't know. I know we talked about it when we came here, but we weren't recording at the time after we did the radio east.

I don't know if we've ever told that story. Do you want to? Yeah. Go for it. You want to drive over there? Yeah, let's drive over there. Oh, my God. I guess can I tell the story better than I, but.

So, you know, everyone that worked here was like a person in their 20s and didn't have much and wasn't very necessarily the most responsible person. Almost everybody was a cut was a UT or an ACC student. Right. And varying levels of fuckups, ourselves included. I'm not saying that to be mean to anyone. It's like we all had our quirks. I had to I had to have a conversation with an employee once because he kept being late to work. And eventually I'd given him so many warnings.

I was like, I had to sit him down and I said, listen, you're going to lose your job if you come to work late one more time. And he's like, well, what do I do? And I go, I tell you what, I either got to let you go today, or if you tell me you can come to work every day on time, he only worked three days a week. For the next 90 days, he'll be off probation, you'll be fine. And he goes, you should probably just let me go today. No way. He just couldn't, like, that's the level of like commitment these people had. Yeah. He's like, I'm not even going to try to come to work on time for three months.

Yeah, for three days out of the week. just fired me today. What did we just, why, we just pull around to the front? Yeah. So Bill Smith had a car that he brought, that he used for a long time.

And then eventually it stopped running. Uh-huh. And he pushed it into that parking spot right over. Oh my God. And then left it. Wow. It's like, yeah, it's going to cost more to tow it.

Like, there's no point in fixing it. It's like, you're not going to get anything for that vehicle. So we just pushed it over here and left it in that parking spot. And it sat there for probably eight years. Yeah.

What the fuck? And eventually got to the point where people would be walking by and then just start putting stickers on it. It was covered in stickers. What? It was like bumper stickers and whatever. It became like the sticker car. If you had a bumper sticker or a sticker you'd walk over here and put it on the car. And then we decided we're like, please remove me.

I don't know what eventually, I don't know why it eventually got moved, but it was like it was there forever. It was a really, years and years and years. I don't remember what kind of car was because it was so covered in stickers. In my head, it was like a Ford Taurus or something. But it, yeah, it just became like one big sticker. Yeah. It was really funny. That's crazy.

So it just broke down and we was like, oh, that's the end of this thing? Yeah, and you saw where we were back there. There wasn't much parking. No. Like it was going to be a pain in the ass. So it's like, well, just push it and then stick it over here. Because there's plenty of parking over here and there's no building right there. Right.

Part of what drove us out. out of this location was parking because we only had a handful of spaces and when I started working here there were like 60 employees or 20 40 employees something like that and you know we had a couple hundred by the time I left and people were having to park out here and I remember the landlord rented the place next to us A to a new company and then gave them some of our parking space oh yeah forgot about that and we're like you can no longer park in these spaces because they need them and we were like fuck you and it wasn't long after that that we moved yeah fucking over there just right down the road yeah but that was I think one of the impetus

impetus moments for us to leave yeah it was a crazy a dispute over parking yeah and what's funny is there's so many cars driving around here I don't know that must be a mechanic shop or something it's it's a it's a tire shop when they have they do like I think they do like low profile and like racing tires and stuff when we were working back here you wouldn't see anybody yeah like I don't know that I don't know what any of these businesses were because it was like they were all empty there was I knew that one of the neighbors was a furniture or no a carpet cleaner from like industrial accidents like they would come in and they would clean up if you're like

business flooded they would come clean the carpets and shit out remember that yeah yeah vaguely they were that was the only because i just remember i'd see their trucks in the parking lot is that them no the rug cleaning company it's fucking it might be probably i don't stony and rug cleaning company or something yeah that's what it's called oh should you not upset that Who cares? Okay. You can fucking work. What do you guys do for, like, lunch?

Like, what? There's nothing here. There is. There's a McDonald's. There's a McDonald's right there. There's a Wendy's right down there. There was Happy Taco. I lived off of Junior Bacon Cheasburgers for a while.

Man. And there was a Italian restaurant, like a little deli shop called. What was it called? Where? But it opened up right next to Happy Taco. And it was like a little family-owned. They had sub sandwiches and stuff. That opened up.

Is it on the other side of this over here? I might not have been working here. It's right over here. But it was very, probably around the time you quit, but you probably went there once or twice. And then there was pasta bar, which was the best. Yeah. Oh, I remember actually what we would do.

We would drive up to Old Torf. Oh. A lot. And we'd eat at places up there on Old Torf. That's like the first place I ever had fun in my life was because I went up there with Ray. 888 and Wanfu and Javu and Java noodle and all those places. We would also

go a lot down to Lamar and Ben White because we would eat a super salad because it was super, it was fucking cheap. We would eat at Delaware subs over there at William Cannon and I 35. And we would eat at

Trudy Sassau. Oh dude, you remember we would eat at that Serranos by the best by the. Oh yeah, yeah. Because on Tuesdays Andrew like to go over there to look for the new DVDs that were released at best buy. And then we'd go eat at the Serranos in the parking lot. Because there was a greeter who was really pretty that we were all there. Oh, there you go. Yeah, this all makes sense when you guys are like in your 20s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then if we, I don't know if you ever had lunch with Bill, but he liked going to the old alligator grill where like cruellyne is now

off of like Southamore. Yeah, we would go to old alligator grill a lot. We would also go to double daves. Yeah. A lot because it was buffet pizza. That old alligator grill is what they used as the interior for Chotchkees in office space. Oh. That is correct. Oh shit. And I think it's a Kirby Lane now. I think it's a Kirby Lane now.

Yeah. Oh, crazy. What about catfish parlor? I think I may have eaten there once. I ate there once. It was horrible. Horrible. I hate catfish.

They close the one off of 183, right? It's just this one now. It's just this one. Anyway, those are all the restaurants that we ate at 25 years ago. If you come to Austin, the late 90s and want to know where to eat, man, we've got you covered. Yeah, none of these places have existed in Austin in the last 15 years, but Dude, if pasta bar's still there, though. I think it might be.

Why would it be gone? We'd go down to the Omni Hotel over here at Ben White and 35. Which was where they filmed the externals. Yeah, the Externals were office space as well. Inotech was there. Oh, crazy. I don't know. One of us, someone here liked going there because there was like a pasta bar, but it was set up like

subway style where you pick your type of pasta, you pick your sauce, you pick what they put it in. It's like Nungalian grill kind of. Yeah, and they would like assemble it all and make it. Which we used to eat at all the time downtown. Yeah. It was right by the convention center. It's where, like, the P. F. Chang's is now or somewhere. Yeah.

Dang. It might be where Gus's is now. Oh, it was right there. It was right north. Any right there. But the problem with the pasta bar was it was expensive. It was $11. But you got a drink with it.

It was $11, but it came with a drink and it was all you can eat pasta. So if you went through twice, it was worth it. We were making, like, I think where we were, like, as level twos, we were probably making, like, $8 an hour here. Yeah. Yeah. So paying $11 for lunch was like, it was like over an hour. It's almost an hour and a half of work. Right. We would rarely go there. Yeah. And sometimes we would go, we had a run there for a couple months where we would go to Blazer Lasertag. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And play Laser Tag for lunch.

Yeah. When we were trying to get to the top of the leaderboard. And we realized one day we were competing against children and we weren't catching up. It was fun, though. We had about three months there where we hit it pretty hard and heavy. Wow. Man. Yeah. Or we'd go back to Gus's house or his apartment at the metropolis and I would watch him play Final Fantasy. Or we'd play Puzzle Fighter?

Or we'd play Puzzle Fighter, yeah. Were we driving somewhere the other day and we saw Gus's like apartment for like sale or something? Yes. Different apartment. Your place over off infield is for sale right now. The whole building's for sale. Yeah. Yeah. I think they're selling it for like, I looked at it. I mean, I didn't look at it. I looked online. You just wanted to like live in it again? You just want to see like go back.

Dude, that was the whole building. I think the whole building was for sale for like $2 million or something. What's like fourplex? No, it's bigger. It's like 14 units or something. Oh, crazy. Maybe 10 units, something like that. Yeah, we drove by it and then Jeff pointed out. He used to live there. Jeff hated that house because. It's scary? You ever see the grudge? Yeah. I had a loft and a little attic space and it looked just like the attic in the grudge. Awesome. And Jeff was always freaked out. That's so funny.

I used to have to go, like, feed his cat and shit when you'd be out of tennis, which is always. And it was fucking just dark and creepy and old there. And it was at that time when, like, Japanese horror was super popular. So everybody was watching it and consuming it constantly. And so you were just in that. Couldn't escape from it. Yeah. Well, this was a nice walkdown memory lane with TNI and everything.

I thought this was fun. But we should talk about a fuga. A fuga. Oh, before we do real fast. Please. Two things I saw in the news yesterday. Oh, yeah. Another, fished another body out of Lady Burglade yesterday, a naked lady.

They say no foul play. Normally it's good. Yeah. But a dead woman yesterday at 8 a.m. And did you see Gus that they announced yesterday that Sundance is leaving Park City. Yep. And moving to Boulder, Colorado. Really?

Yes. So they have one more that's going to happen in Utah and then it's moving to Boulder. Yeah, they were. Park City was a weird location for that. I agree. It didn't have, it wasn't built out enough for the number of people. Definitely, the film festival

definitely outgrew it. Yeah. But even Robert Redford came out and was like, we're very excited to move to Boulder and for the next chapter and we really think it's going to help the film festival grow.

I think it's going to be huge for Sundance and is going to fucking hurt Utah. Utah's fucked. That's a lot of money and then a lot of tourism. Not just off the back of that, but people learned about Utah

and going for like ski vacations. or whatever, like, celebrities, like, learned about that through that. And now all of that's gone, and it'll be Colorado. I bet they're still going to have plenty of the ski tourism side of things. So, I mean, I don't know that it'll hurt. It'll hurt a bit, but I don't know if it'll be, like, devastating or anything to them. Crazy. Because that city was, when Sundance was happening, you could not get in a car.

Right, yeah. Because, like, everything was gridlocked and not moving. So it's like, you would have to walk everywhere if you could. And it was fucking frozen. So I would be busting my ass the whole time. I bring it up just because we had a couple of Sundance years there. When we were sort of in vogue in the industry briefly. What a weird time.

We were cute. We went to Sundance. A couple times. We had a panel. Wild. Yeah, it's just absolutely nuts to think back about that stuff. And now it's moving. If you added up all the collective places that we did panels or appearances at

at events between like, just say you, Bernie and I, because we were the ones that did the most of them. Yeah. You put those together, it's a staggering list. Yeah. It really is. It's a lot of shit we did over the years. All the fucking upfronts we did, you know?

Being on stage with like fucking people from CNN and T&T and shit. That's wild. That's so crazy. Long weird career. I sat next to fucking Don Lemon at an event. That's what the fuck? Dude, that's really funny. Anything else before we get to a Fuga?

Nah, that's all I want to mention. Love it. Love it. What did you guys think of a Fuga? Because they didn't have drip coffee. They didn't? No. I went to the bathroom when you were ordering.

Nope. I got a quartado. Oh. I like a cortado. It's just a lot of milk to drink. I've never had one. It's fine. I mean, I like a cortado.

It's just, it's a different, it's like every other, you know, espresso mixed thing, drink whatever where you go. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. But like, it's not the way I drink my coffee typically. But Cortado is what I get when they don't have drip, which is fucking nuts. Like, he's like, I can make you an Americano. It's like, I don't want an Americana. What's wrong with Americanos?

I don't want it. It's not what I want. It tastes like espresso the whole time, but longer. Well, I think I know how Eric feels. Mine's a good. It's like a 7-9. Yeah. I go 7-5, 8 somewhere in that area.

That's fair. It's fine. I think the Cortado is definitely a 7. Like, it's fine. Like, it's good. I like it, but it's not. I had to shift gears hard. It seems like a, like a,

like a chill place, but it was very, there were a lot of people there. There were a lot of people there working. Yeah. Everyone had laptops. That was a very, like, locked in work spot. It's not, it doesn't seem like a... It's not a social coffee spot.

Yeah, like a foot traffic, this meetup kind of place. There were a lot of businesses in the area. No. It's also a rainy day, so everyone was inside. I could see that place having, like, a nice little outside presence. Yeah.

If we went again or whatever. How was your chocolate croissant? It was so good. Was it really? It feels like a chocolatey cream. But it was a little crumbly. So I keep looking, if you see me looking around, it's I've been looking for crumbs to pick up

so that they're not like... It seemed pretty pumped about it. All over the place there was like brown chocolate. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Yeah, yeah. Normally you think of chocolate chrysanis just got like a little chocolate in the middle. Now this, this like was a chocolate pastry.

Yep. Man, it's crazy looking at this. Just how much of our lives were beige back then. Just tan and beige. Everything around us. Industrial Park, half dead grass, sad trees. Sad trees. Big green.

Shelster, palettes, white and brown rocks. Everywhere, just pallets everywhere. Palettes in trucks and shelves. That's it. And this was, this was life in Austin in the 90s. It was just, it was just industrial complexes like this all over town. Yeah, littered all over town with little tech startups. Wow.

Just big dreams and little buildings. It was. It was. It was like a title of an autobiography or something. It's really deep. It's beautiful, profound. Well, we're at the end of the second season of Good Morning, Gus. And as we talked about previously, we have to leave it up to a vote and see if we're going to do another season.

In the first season, we voted yes. We did. Shocked. You don't know why people thought I was going to be the one to vote now, but I didn't. I voted yes in the first season. But that's first season. We got through another eight episodes, eight more coffee shops, eight more places, eight more things. People said we couldn't do it.

That's what they said. Big Rooster tried to keep us down. That's right. Big Rooster even came back. Big Rooster came back to try to stop us. And we said, no way. So we did any more episodes. That's the end of the second season.

So now we must take it to a vote to see if we are going to do a third season of Good Morning Guests. Remember, the vote is final. There's no arguing. You don't have to explain yourself. It's just a yes or a no. If there's one no, that's the end. We don't do another season. But if we're all yeses, we do another eight episodes and we renew.

And we call it oops all yes. That's right. So it's now up to a vote. Okay. Do I go first? Who goes first? Do we guess you want to go at the same time? Do you want to do like thumbs up, thumbs down or everyone's saying?

Well, the audience can't see thumbs up, thumbs down. It's true. I guess that's true. It's an audio podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If this was a video podcast, this would have been the worst episode. We're just in a car over there and then in a car over here. Yeah. All right. I guess we don't go at the same time.

Okay. Ready? Okay. It'll be, uh, it'll be one, two, three, and then we say it. Ready? On three or three? One, two, three, and then you say it. Okay. Ready? One, two, three. Yes. No. Oh. Well, that'll do it for good morning. And I know we don't have to give an explanation. But I think we should. Okay. Well, before we wrap up, there's something I want to say. I want to say, I want to say thank you to Eric.

because I think nobody appreciates the amount of work that Eric has to do to wrangle us and our schedules to get this done. It is constantly shifting things and trying to find times at work

and because we're all so busy with our respective projects now. We co-own a bunch of companies. Yes. And I feel like, Eric, you may not get enough credit for... Oh, I'm in the background, baby. For all the work you've done

to help facilitate this and make this happen. But yeah, it is a, it has been been, it seems like it's been very trying. Well, thank you very much. It has been, and it's been a headache. But, but, but if I could go back in time to junior year high school me and go, just show him the pictures of, I took a picture in the backseat of this car, holding a cup of coffee while you guys were talking to each other in the front. If I could show it, be like, hey, this is your job when you're in your degrees. He'd go, oh, I know what the fuck? I do it. Lose his mind. So this is great. I loved, I loved doing this as we did it. I cannot think of a better and more fitting place

to end this podcast than on the literal spot where Gus and I met and fell in love his friends. Yeah, this was so nice. And I'm going to get a little emotional, but I really didn't think I would, but I just, Gus is the first creative partner I ever had. And this creative relationship has lasted Longer than any relationship I've had my wife and it's in some ways ending today. Yeah, a little bit. It is, it is. I mean, this is not to say that you and I won't work together in the future, but it is to say that we have been working together in some capacity every day on a project since we met in January of 1999. We met, technically met in December of 1998, but we started working together on projects.

I'm going to say in January or February of 1999. It's a long, hell of a run. And the thing that I worry about, if I'm being just honest and raw, I just, I'm a little worried about our friendship going forward because this has been such an anchor for us. And I just want to make sure that we maintain a friendship outside of working together. Well, now we have time. Yeah, dude, honestly, yes.

That is the most important thing to me. I've been thinking about this decision a lot since we started ANMA. I think we both knew we were going to end it here. Yeah. We've known for a long time. We haven't really talked about it. I get the impression we both are in the same place there. And I just, it takes our friendship and our relationship into a new area. Yeah. Uncharted territory. And it's just, it's exciting to be back to being just your friend. Yeah. Can I say that? We haven't been just friends in ever. Two decades. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a long time. And I'm looking forward to just being your friend. We, you know, you talk about 26 years. And I'm not going to get super long winded about it. But when. the wrist teeth shut down got announced. You know, there was a desire to see something publicly about it. And I wrote up a pretty long post. I was going to put in the Ristice Teeth website about the decades it's been.

And I ended up not posting it because Bernie wrote something. And I was like, he should be the one to have the post on there. So I never posted it. But I think there was a sentiment in that thing I wrote that holds true here, you know, which was I said at the time for the Ristee. that Roosteathe lasted 21 years, which is crazy in internet time. And you and I have been working together on the internet for 26 years now. And I took the summary of what I wrote was that this is like, this is our high score.

21 years for that, 26 years for us. Yeah. I encourage anyone who's listening to do better. Yeah. I encourage anyone who's listening to pick up a microphone, pick up a camera, pick up something, and just start it and go for as long as you can. beat our high score yeah beat the high score that's what that's what i say and i think in it i said that you know mega 64 would would pass our high score very soon because we started around the same

time they probably passed it by now damn sure came close to not though right but uh you're like i admire them i'm glad they're still going i'm glad that they have surpassed us and i encourage everyone listening start something and do it and see how far you can take it yeah use Use our journey as inspiration, maybe, or fuel to do it yourself. Or a cautionary tale. Or a cautionary tale. This is a sentiment that I've said a million times, but I've been inundated with people telling me how to do my job for the last 20 years.

And everybody has an opinion on how we should and shouldn't do it. I highly encourage you to prove yourselves right and go out and create your own rooster teeth, create your own regulation, create your own stinky dragon. put every bit of your heart and soul into it and develop relationships around it and learn what you're capable of and learn what the people around you are capable of and challenge and push yourself and fail or succeed, but just have a fucking adventure doing it. Yeah, you'll be shocked where it takes you. Yeah.

You might be looking back 27 years later. In a parking lot. In a parking lot, high-fiving each other because you beat our high score. Yes, I hope you do. Yep. I hope you do. Well, I think that'll do it for good morning, Gus. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for checking out all these episodes. You'll always have the backlog because it's just going to live there. So go check out those episodes and everything. But I think that'll do it. Any other wise words? Go to the regulation Patreon and the Stinky Dragon Patreon.

Please, we need this. Yeah. Thank you, audience, for supporting Gus and I through these various endeavors for now more than half of my life. So definitely more than half of his. And I know Gus Rides, I think, really eloquently summed up your contributions here, Eric, but also thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. It was a lot of fun. This was a great show. I had a really good time doing it. I somehow wheezzled my way into hanging out and getting free coffee, which is really all I'm ever looking for. So that was great. And then, yeah, getting together to do this was always fun. It was a headache to try to schedule, but, like, it was always, once we were together, it didn't matter.

Yeah, it was great. It was great every time. So thank you guys for making time for this. This has been a lot of fun. But that's it. Who knows what's next? But it's not this. So thanks for listening.

And we'll see you later. Bye. Bye. Thank you.