ANMA - Tech Grudges & Alternate Careers

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Good morning, Gus! This week's ANMA is all about Houndstooth Coffee, a place we got coffee from then went back to the office to record because it was 30 degrees. In this episode, Gus and Geoff talk about finding a coffee shop, The original podcast room, IT contractors & Yelp, Hands on with live action, Filing convention taxes, Award winning Photojournalist Geoff, and our other lines of work. Grab an ANMA shirt and prepare for a mug at https://store.roosterteeth.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What would you do if you had the freedom to be anyone or to go anywhere without limitations? Start your journey and experience for yourself the feeling of total freedom when you game with Alienware. Alienware is your portal to new worlds where limits don't exist and the only rules are the ones you decide to make. Defy boundaries and start gaming now at Alienware.com. Next-gen gaming is built with Intel Core i9 processors. This is a Ruster Teeth production. Uh, this is episode 32. Uh, I went to stream... No, streamway was last time.

Um, streamway. Yeah. That was the trailer we went to. Yeah. That was a lot of trailers. Yeah. Over, over by the dealer, I think. The dealer tried to sell Sweet.

Yeah, the dealer tried to sell sweet because we look cool You know his brother said we look cool his brother. Yeah, he didn't think we look cool, but his brother did yeah He didn't give a shit about how we looked but Brother has no gauge. Yeah, you're saying that about me. Hey dude. That's like that's got to be a first for both That might be yeah, so many thought we were cool. Yeah cool enough to sell we do who have finally Let the market like where were you in high school man Hold on I've got a reunion coming up. I think what are you doing? Can I buy weed shut up nerd?

Well, that was last time and you guys were talking about the perfect Austin weekend and What was it not just but snatches as pretty exciting? That's right right talking about long movies and It's not just, morning because we're together. That's true. And we're inside. We are inside. 36 degrees outside.

Yeah, it's not good. Which is probably a warm Detroit Monday. I'm sure we're going to hear about how much worse it is everywhere else. Yeah, for Austin, it's pretty chilly. People freak out here. If it gets cold, people just freak the fuck out. I'm getting messages like, hey, is it, are you okay to do the RT podcast later? Should we pre-tap it?

Like, it's not raining, it's not wet, it's just cold. It's just chill. It's not even supposed to get below freezing. It's gonna be dry and 34. I think we'll be safe. I, it is a funny thing with Austin where, I will say, if it freezes for more than one hour, 40% of the pipes in Austin burst.

So there is that. And then if it's a city pipe, they get to dig up the street and- Over a year, yeah. Over a year they've been digging the street. There's a street also here on the way, right by the office that, I guess last, early last year,

they dug up, replaced a bunch of pipes, and then they've just left it fucked up. It's like driving over a messed up dirt road now. Like you can't go the speed limit because you will fuck your car up. Yeah, that's like great, great past time for the city of Austin is destroying streets and then not rebuilding them correctly. I know it's like that in a lot of cities, like the infrastructure and the change and everything like that, like where I grew up there were constantly roads getting torn up not like it is out here. Yeah what you've talked about where they just keep digging up like the same four parts of four different streets in a quarter mile area and you go you just did that why are you doing it again? I've never experienced that it must be like those road workers version of

I've never experienced that. It must be like those road workers version of no exit by Sartre. It's just like they're just stuck in a minute. Hell is just this block. It's just digging it up over and over again. But at least they don't pave over it well when it's all done. Yeah. At least when they're done,

it's fucking worse than it ever been. It's like driving on the moon. You ever see that old footage of the guys in the buggy on the moon going over craters and shit and bouncing all over the place like that So we were supposed to go outside and record at a coffee shop on the other side of town But Eric very smartly made the call that maybe we should record inside because of the cold weather So we picked up coffee from Houndstooth which is like a small local chain

They have three locations. I know I don't know about this location. Yeah, we picked up problems kind of by the studio I've I've gone to this don't know about this location, but we picked up problems kind of by the studio. I've gone to this place, not to this location, I've been to other locations off and on for a few years. I was like, how's truth? Yeah, I would, to me, Hounds Tooth is interchangeable with like merit, coffee, like they're kind of everywhere, I mean, everywhere, but you see them around, and then they're like, it's a certain level, that's the same.

Yeah. Good. It's a little, maybe, uppity for me. Not that they're rude or mean or anything. It's just a very sterile place, very people who look like they're very busy doing stuff. What I call a millennial trap. It is a stark white business that you can sit down in and it's quite enough to do something

but loud enough to not make you think your own thoughts. Yeah, it's like eating, it's like getting coffee at the Apple store. Oh, man, that's 100% what we just did. Yeah, polish it. It's like we ordered from the genius bar. I got a nice coffee, yeah. Yeah, let's go ahead and put it

Um, we were supposed to go somewhere else but it doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, you took us to a coffee shop that's a Korean barbecue restaurant Oh, that's a close surprise. Whoops. That's the that's the Austin path I wonder how long that place has been closed It did it didn't it's what's funny is I we looked at that, we drove up to this other place, it was the trailer, and it's a barbecue place now. And it didn't look like, like you said, it's a Korean barbecue place, it didn't look like a Korean barbecue,

let's just look like a regular barbecue, like Texas barbecue place, like they would have breastfeeding and whatnot. I guess you saw online that it was a Korean barbecue place, or? No, I just thought that's what the K stood for. Was it, did it not take a day? Also, it's just a barbecue. I thought it was just I didn't take Korean barbecue someone else did I'm looking it up. I thought it was Kate cage

So if someone else said it and then it wasn't Jeff was no one else A pretty sure Oh A pretty sure it was just I know Bill need to determine whether something is a Korean barbecue shot I'm sure it just it was a hundred percent not me I Will fight that battle hang on I'm looking it up He's looking it up before he claims it so it's obviously Eric then KG BBQ. What is this? All right, maybe the K doesn't stand for yeah, I made the joke that thought it was metric barbecue And nobody laughed at then I said Kevin Garnett and uh-oh But all right, maybe the K doesn't stand for it. Yeah, I mean, the joke that I thought it was metric barbecue

and nobody laughed at, then I said Kevin Garnett and just called it. I chuckled it Kevin. Yeah, it had Kevin Garnett. This does not look like, I'm not okay. It's just barbecue. Yeah, it's definitely not Korean barbecue. They got like pomegranate pork and pistachio rice pudding.

Pomegranate pork sounds good. It does. It's not Texas barbecue then either. They got pink potato salad. Get the hell out of here with that. This is what is happening at this place. Well, glad they don't have coffee anymore. Be a coffee shop.

Whoa, yeah, this is not okay anyway. Unfortunately, we had to go to one of the other 7,000 coffee shops. Yeah, we, there was another spot we wanted to go to, but I feel like that's gonna be one that I wanna do there. Yeah. A there spot. I feel like that's gonna be one that I want to do there. Yeah. Yeah.

A there spot. Yeah. And that's fine. There are always spots that I don't mind grabbing something and then going somewhere else and I think that's Hones too. I always feel like, like, this is episode 32, I believe. Yeah. So this is 32 establishments we've done now.

And it feels like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel when we sit down to do it. But holy shit, if we go, I was down south for a little bit yesterday. There are one billion other coffee shops. Oh, I just know. There's so many. So I want to make us draw, especially on a day like this. It's like, we're gonna drive all the way across town.

Even when we went to the mall, it was a shitty day. Yeah, exactly. We were gonna go to another spot originally before the other one that didn't exist anymore, but the weather's so bad, we went out, we gotta save it. Like let's just say. And then we decided to go to another place, but they don't open till 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Dude, what the? Then we were gonna go to another place, but we found the coffee. We found the coffee at 10 a.m. on a Monday at a place that isn't opening until Wednesday evening. Then we were gonna go to another place. Then we decided to cut across every lane of traffic and we thought, that was great.

That was so great. That was so great. You were fast and furious. Yeah, it was like, I don't know if I can make this right turn and you went there, and less I do it. And it was, you did it pretty exciting. Yeah, it was awesome.

Good thing the car didn't explode and it was terrible. And we're only in like an eight block radius of the office the whole time. This is all happened. It's like really, like we're so close to just work. It's really been a whole morning. And that's where we are right now.

We're at the office, we're in our podcast room and we're having a cup of coffee. But now here's the thing, before we get into everything, do you wanna talk about the coffee now or do you wanna talk about the coffee later? Well, let's talk about it at the end. Okay. Actually, we've had a chance to I feel like I feel like we always get to the end And you go oh yeah, I forgot I mean we talk about the coffee now. No, no, we'll save it for the end that that's what people are hanging on for

They got to know what they if we give them the coffee review now. They're out. They're gonna stop They pull the cord. They're out. They eject they need that's the only piece of salient information That's the whole point of this podcast. Yeah, right We got it. We got to keep them on the hook for another 30 minutes We're like every TikTok. I watch where you're like you watch it for 30 minutes And they don't do the fucking thing and then you got to go to their page and try to find the part Yeah, then you got to watch part. Yeah, oh wait for it. I certainly won't So we're in the

Like you said the podcast room is there a more formal name for this room? Or is there a podcast room? Yeah, the temporary podcast room. Is there gonna be a permanent one over there? Yeah, it's gonna be further down. Like, I think we're hectors, like the equipment cages. I think that's getting fixed up and that's gonna be the new podcast room, I think.

That'd be better. That's been changing a much time. Yeah, yeah, the big problem here, the room that we're in, is that the ceilings are so high, and this room is so big. Yeah. That sound really, I mean, they do a good job. Shane and the team really dampened it,

but it's not great for audio. Yeah. For an audio podcast room. The original podcast room at the Congress office used to be in the back where the audio booth was, but not in the audio booth. It was where those... It was the RVB room. It was the RVB room, where we would do it. We were there. I think we did just about every episode back there. Then when we moved down to down south, we split. It was either in my office, I would

set up the folding table, or it was like across the lobby in the conference room sometimes. And then eventually it moved out to the annex. And that's where we started the live streams. I guess it did move to the annex. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's what because we needed the space for for the live stream. I don't remember why initially we got that annex because like we got that annex because we had the annex and then we started doing the podcast stuff in there and then it became like the broadcast room or the broadcast area.

It was like I don't remember what the original purpose of that space was but what was broadcast at the time very quickly claimed it and took it. Yeah, I forgot that building even existed. When we were building out the, when I was building out the studio for the live streams, we had a problem in general where we were going through a lot of growth and people would take other people's equipment if they needed it for something. If we'd like, oh, I see this for a minute, I'll grab it.

It gets borrowed and then not put backwards supposed to be. So I decided every camera that we used for the podcast, for the broadcast space, could not use the same lenses or any of the same equipment as the live action filming stuff. Nice. That way it was like, oh, they can never, they can't physically use any of this stuff.

That was good thinking. That was really good thinking. It was a rampant problem in that specific location, not a poblinator. I would come in to work in the achievement room every Monday morning and I would spend, and this is not hyperbole. I would spend like 30 minutes to an hour and a half

trying to figure out how to get my machine to work again. Because on the weekend, somebody would come in and fuck with it, and I'd have to go around and I'd have to find all my equipment, and then put it all back together, and settings were always changed, and it was such a fucking nightmare. Probably twice a week, you'd come into work, and suddenly everything is different.

And you're like, who did this? Things are unplugged, and then you're like, I left at 6 p.m. I'm back at 9 a.m. How did this happen? And for what reason? And there was ever, very rarely was there accountability, and when you did catch somebody with doing it, there was zero sympathy.

Yeah. There were like, it's something couldn't be fun. Yeah, I needed it. You feel like that happened a lot, like in like that growth period where it maybe wasn't just necessarily you, but it was everything all the time. Yeah, it wasn't just me, it was everything all the time. It was just a fucking, it was just annoying.

Yeah. You're having to redo work all the time because of it. I remember when we were in the Congress office, we had this weird problem. I don't know if you remember this, Jeff. We had this weird problem where if we had too many Xboxes connected Xbox Live, the newest one that would connect would kick off the oldest one that had connected.

So it's like Xbox, if Xbox number five connected to Xbox Live, Xbox number one would go off. Like you could only have four on live at the same time. I think it was four, maybe it was six. Anyway, there was an arbitrary number of Xbox. We could connect to live at any one time. So when we moved down south, like, you know, that was a whole renovation, everything was built.

I was like contracting these people to run the cables and everything and I told them I said, listen, I have a very specific need for the router that we're gonna use in this company. I need you to find me a router where I can connect an unlimited number of Xboxes to Xbox Live. And they're like, what are you talking about? I was like, I was like, listen,

you need to find me a router that I can connect 200 Xboxes to Xbox Live if I want to. And they're like, we have no idea what Chuck writes. Like, just look into it. That's your job. You're the IT contractor. Get me a router I can do this with. So everything gets built out.

We move in, day we move in, we can connect 10 Xboxes to Xbox Live. And the 11th one puts the first one off. And I call a contractor. I'm like, what the hell is this? This is the one thing I asked for. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, well, this router can do it, but it needs a different firmware. You need to pay like an extra 500 bucks or whatever to have like the different operating system running on the router. So it does it. I was like, well, then fucking do it.

That's the one thing I wanted. But, oh, okay, yeah, well, we're gonna need to take this router back into the shop. We need to talk to Cisco. We need to get the license authorization for it. It's gonna be a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks, it's just a fucking operating system upgrade. Just pay for it and do it.

Like, yeah, that's just the way it works. We're gonna need a couple of weeks. We'll give you a temporary router in the meantime to at least get things going. It's like, okay, great. Temporary router has the same problem, but at least the crack routers in the shop. So they send a dude out with a temporary router

and the same problem. It's fine, like 10x, like we make do in the meantime. Sure. And then one day, maybe about two days after the temporary router gets installed, I walk into the studio and I see one of our voice actors sitting in the kitchen. Like, not a person who regularly works in the studio, like someone who's just coming in to do a voice. I'm like, hey man, what's up? And he was like typing on his laptops. Oh, not much. Just waiting to do my voice stuff. Just, you know, answer some email. And I'm like, how are you answering

email on that laptop? I was like, oh, I just connected to the Wi-Fi. I'm like, how are you answering email on that laptop? I was like, oh, I just connected to the Wi-Fi. I was like, we don't have a guest Wi-Fi that someone give you the password to our Wi-Fi. He was like, no, it's just open, there's no password on it. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah, look, and I looked

and this temporary router that they gave us had Wi-Fi just open, no password, anyone could connect to it. And it had been like that for two days. And I had noticed because why would I have checked that right? I Got Fury I like you know the cartoon trope or like steam is coming out of a character's ears and they turn red We were having like conversation earlier actually that was that was me in that moment and I was like

I'm sorry like to that voice actors like hey listen I just want to let you know. I'm very angry angry I'm not angry at you. This is nothing you did But I am furious right now. I need to go away for a little while We didn't see him for two years. I Had to go and call that contractor. I mean God I fucking laid into them and I created a Yelp account just to give them a bad review.

It is the only review I ever gave on that Yelp account. I wrote like a novel in my Yelp review of that business. And to this day, every now and then, I'll get a call or an email from that company. It's like, hey, I'm so and so with Bob Law Company. You know, I saw your review on our yellow page. Just wondering if you'd like to work with us again, maybe we could do something to do like a make good and you could take it down every time I'm like, no.

Awesome. No. What year was this? This would have been 2011 or so. Maybe 2010. Man, fuck that place. I think actually that place changed their name. I think they're not the old company name anymore. I think they've changed their name to a different company. Do you think it was because of your review? Maybe they're trying to get away from that. Man, what a fucking pain in the ass. That's the only reason and the only review I've ever had.

Man, that's insane. Pretty insane. You ever leave Yelp reviews? I feel like I left one angry Yelp review once. Did you really? But I can't remember what it was for. Yeah, it would have been for something local, but I don't remember what it was for.

You feel like it was probably a food thing? Yeah, I just remember feeling indignant once and really angry and wanting to do something about it, but I don't remember what it was or... Yeah. Did you remember? Oh my God. Gus does. He has it framed in his office.

Gus. I'm showing it to you. Eric's outrageous. Still got it. It's a novel. I've written... Over 12 years ago. I've written college thesis papers that aren't this long.

Outrageous. Wow, that's pretty crazy. That's a change, right? Fucking Jesus Christ. Good Lord. Going back to that old tech that you guys were talking about and like the way that the company was expanding and everything, did it feel like in like,

trying to think of how I'm trying to say this? The boom of the company and the amount of equipment never felt like it was keeping up. So everything was just like you were chasing like the next step trying to get the next group of people trying to get the next amount of work done to get the project done that you're trying to do for the next thing and it was just like that for years and years and years. Yeah.

Oh, I remember when we started, when we started to get more, and we may have talked about this before, but when we started to get more into video production, like live action production, which would have all started in the downtown office. Yeah. And it felt like that where we like, there was a camera coming out, we saved up for it, we bought it, the day we got the camera, it's like, we got the camera, and then they would be like, wow, there was a camera coming out we saved up for it We bought it the day we got the camera. It's like we got the camera and then they would be like well There's another one coming out in six months So let's just hold on to this one till then and I just thought we were constantly chasing like the better version of a red or whatever and

Not using the equipment as much as we were waiting to use it because you could trade the camera back in Yeah, and get credit towards the new camera. Yeah. It was a whole fucking scam. Yeah. But I mean, we started using it. You've actually got to have a point like we just got it. We just got to fucking use it. We just got to fucking build something. It's got to make some. Those those early cameras were always problematic.

We didn't have this problem. But I know a lot of other people who had that initial red camera would always complain, especially here in Austin, they would complain about it over heating. Yeah. And if you remember this, some people we worked with would have to like tape water bottles to the exterior of the camera to try to dissipate heat off of it. They would build like these homemade rigs and just have like gaff tape with plastic water bottles all around the camera. Like that doesn't seem like the best solution here I was always annoyed that we that more that other people made more stuff with our equipment than we did The zelner's made movies with our equipment. The duplass brothers made a movie with our equipment our equipment

Constantly had stuff in Sundance. Yeah, man back. Backhead was made on a lot on ours on our reds I think yeah, no it was never our stuff. Yeah, but There was definitely there was a good run inside so the issue wasn't the equipment. No, it was never our stuff. Yeah. But there was definitely, there was a definitely good run inside. So the issue wasn't the equipment. No, no, no. Interesting. Poor musician blames their equipment anyway. There you go.

Was it primarily doing stuff from like recording on, you know, through Xboxes and all that stuff and then going into like live action? What was that jump? Like did you, were you hands on, were you guys hands on with that stuff and then going into like live action. What was that jump? Like did you, were you hands on, were you guys hands on with that stuff? Did you give a fuck? Like were you just going like let them play

with those things we have this other work to do? That's a really interesting question. I think everybody was hands on at all times because there was work to be done. But did I personally want to do live action stuff, not particularly? Like it wasn't mine. That was a Bernie and Matt.

They wanted to be filmmakers. I wanted to play video games and do internet stuff with Gus. And so I think that was part of the beauty of the two worlds colliding and having complimentary skills. But yeah, I was, I mean, I enjoyed doing live action stuff. I enjoyed the frantic nature of like if you're not on camera, like if you're not reciting lines on camera, you're holding a boom or you're like running lighting

or whatever, and I love that. Like it was all hands on deck at all times, so there was never downtime. The thing I don't like about live action is downtime and how inefficient it is as a medium in general. And it would be like, we're gonna spend all fucking day to maybe get a two page script recorded. Or I could have made 50 achieve 100 videos.

Yeah, you, really different companies in a way that they film their live action content and it is all I can say about that. We did a collaboration with Mega64 when we were down at the South Office. They came over, we filmed one more week. Stayed for a week. Yeah, they filmed some of their stuff. And I was mad when they left.

Yeah, sounds like they filmed things so much faster and so much more efficiently than what we do. I would just mad at everyone that worked in live action stuff at our company. I was like, why can't we do it like that? Why can't we just film a bunch of things in a day? Yeah, I don't wanna name, like, I'm gonna put names to it, but there were individuals

that they would just like, they'd just be arguing about how to shoot something for like, fucking three hours. And you'd be like, guys, we gotta make money. Like we're a fucking business, we gotta do something. And I was, I hated it, I hated that process. I really did, that's it. Part of what drove me, like it was fun, it was challenging, it was new. I was interested in film. You know, I worked

for VIA, P8 for VU ASCUE, but when I was in the army, like clearly I wanted to go in that direction until I got a taste of it, and then I didn't like it. Really didn't. But that was, that wasn't an interesting time, like you're talking about, where if you weren't in front of the camera like delivering lines and you were holding a sound bag like checking the levels, make sure you know that was running or setting up the lights like it was there was a lot of learning and I felt like we learned a lot of things how to how not to do a lot of things at that time. Yeah, I mean that that was the fun part as it was challenging as long as we were being

challenged I was happy. I think. That being said, those were long fucking days too. Long days. Because it was like you would work a full-time job doing the video game stuff and then you would put that aside, then it was time to do the full-time job doing the live action stuff and then you would go home and sleep and then come back and do it. Or and then it was time to do the admin business stuff. Like, you know, trying to figure out all the analytics

from YouTube and how payments went out or trying to figure out merch, you know, because we were still running the merch store, we were still the merch department at that point. We were still our own convention department at that point. Like you were doing all of the travel and all of the event stuff, I was doing all the merch stuff

and those were full time fucking jobs that we would get to, I get to like 7pm at home. How, how did you guys do that? Like that's insane. Like, there was no life outside of that. That was it. It was just constantly that for a couple years. I mean, that's part of why That's part of why we wanted to do this podcast I think is because We were in the middle of Austin during such an intense period of growth when so much of this city was changing and it was radical, but we had our heads down working so fucking hard on the thing that we were doing that I feel like I have an incomplete memory of Austin,

I feel like Gus has an incomplete memory of Austin, and like sandwiching it together, I hope, between the two of us, we can cobble some sort of a kind of semblance of what was going on around us at the time because we were so happily, I can't emphasize that enough. I was something, well, something the happiest time of my life. So happily, just bogged down with work because it was, we were small and nimble and we were all moving in the same direction and it was a beautiful thing to be a part of at that time. And then it would just be, I just can't imagine.

Like I never thought about, yeah, we had to do red versus blue. Okay, I'm done with this. That took six hours. All right, now I have to go film live action stuff. Oh, I have these emails to answer. Yeah, now we have to do RT shorts. Now we have to do a week of achieve moment content. Yeah, now go.

Oh, we got a convention this weekend. Yeah, now go. I'm gonna be out of town for three days working., now Gus has to file taxes in San Diego because of the current. Dude, I learned so much about the filing state taxes. At the fucking, like down to the county level, like I learned all the different county. Did you have to for California and Washington state?

I never thought about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so funny. You have to report your revenue and you have to make sure you do it right because if not, they get mad. Yeah, we have a, that's so funny. You have to report your revenue, and you have to make sure you do it right because if not, they get mad. We had a Vaughn who was our accountant who became our CFO for a long time and it was since retired and is living a much better life.

I'm assuming. We had a Vaughn, I think in part because I did our taxes, briefly, yeah, for like two years, I was doing our monthly sales taxes and stuff. And I think it became clear to everybody that that was not smart or good. And then I was like, what the fuck have you done? I like the way it's described as not smart or good.

No, no, no, it definitely was neither of those things. I think that's a lot of it. We're trying to learn things. Doing the best you can, they're realizing, I'm gonna fuck this up. We need to get somebody else to help out and do this. Or you get to a point where you just have to acknowledge, like, this is bigger than I can handle, though. Yeah.

You know, this is just like, it's just, it's grown to a point where I can't. And that's always been really hard for me. Yeah. Despite the fact, I'm not good at many of the things I've had to do, but like getting to that point and coming to terms with yourself saying, I need to let someone else do this. Like, that hurts me so much to have to let go of something and let someone, even if they're gonna do a better job at it, to like not have that control over something. Dude, I'm back to doing thumbnails for f***ing face

because I'm, wow, control again. Volunteered for it. I did because I wanted, like I missed those days, I like touching everything, you know? He also, he also He's also designing a book and he's like, I know I did do layouts. Oh my god Hey, you know I did do layouts. I do what would you do if you had the freedom to be anyone or to go anywhere without Limitations start your journey and experience for yourself the feeling of total freedom when you game with alienware Alienware is your portal to new worlds where limits don't exist and the only rules total freedom when you game with Alienware. Alienware is your

portal to new worlds where limits don't exist and the only rules are the ones you decide to make. The five boundaries and start gaming now at Alienware.com. Next gen gaming is built with Intel Core i9 processors. I was a, I made the first five articharmic books. I will say one of the photos that we are posting for this episode is a picture of Gus at Houndstooth next to a dog named Gus, like a photo of it. And it is legitimately such a good photo. It's a fantastic picture.

It's a picture of me. What's a picture of you? You're not gonna post it on Instagram. He will. I want a photo of me. Okay, I'll send it to you. There you go. It's a great photo.

And I should have said Gus and I'm like, this is a fantastic, like this is a phenomenal picture of you. This is like, this is so good. And I could not believe that Jeff took the picture. Because you said, he takes the worst pictures I've ever seen. And you know, he's a photo journalist and I went, what the fuck?

And what did I tell you? That you don't have skills that you can just turn on and off and and You if I need to access photography I can if I need to take a fucking blurry photo of something for face It's funnier if it sucks. Oh my god everybody gets mad at me I didn't put any effort into it and that's the worst it like send it twice and it's like oh man This discord can't handle it because we don't have the nitro boost. It's like guys just the it. And that's the worst. Like send it twice and then it's like, oh man, this Discord can't handle it because we don't have the nitro boost. And it's like, God, it's just the fucking worst. It's the worst.

That's an awesome picture of Gus. It is so good. I was an awesome photographer. I don't think I've ever seen any of your photographers. Do you have one photo in your mind that's like, that was the best photo I ever took? That's a great question. I mean, do you think Rembrandt has a favorite painting?

It's hard to say. I got some, I got, I have a great photo. I took in Kuwait of a of a paladin firing at night in pitch black. And it was like a two hour photo that I set up and had to do like a long exposure for like 45 minutes and I had to flash it in a certain way. I'm very proud of that photo and that photo made like army times and stuff.

And it was like, yeah, and in Kuwait at sent, I think it was sent in comm. Maybe if you go in the bill, I don't know if it's still that way now, but you know, cause I went to Kuwait like three times and so I took that photo the first year and then I went back two more years subsequent years and each year I went back it was bigger. It was framed and bigger in a building somewhere. Yeah, I was always really proud of that That's pretty that's pretty cool. Do you think you could find that picture? I would love to see that picture

Yeah, I have it at home. I would love to see I have a copy of the newspaper that was in probably still That's really cool. I want an award for I won the army's of the newspaper that it was in probably still. That's really cool. Which I won an award for. I won the Army's version of the Pulitzer for that. Really? Called the Keith L. Ware Awards. You're an award-winning photojournalist?

Yeah, I'm a award-winning photojournalist. Why don't we have a great fucking story about that? Really? I won this Keith L. Ware Award, right? When I was 22 or 21, and I won it for this field newspaper. And then I went and I transitioned to a different job. That's when I took over. That was when I was, I don't know, boggy guys down,

but I was a part of the fourth public affairs attachment and we traveled around and just took, I was like a journalist for higher time, right? And then I got sick of being gone eight to 10 months out of the year. I had just gotten married. I wanted to settle down. So I took a job at the newspaper

and I became the entertainment section editor. And then that's what I did until I moved to New Jersey. And when I became a part of the newspaper, which was a much bigger and more prestigious deal than what I was doing, I got to meet a bunch of people in, it was like a higher level of command. And so one of the dudes I met was this like 19 year old dude,

and he brought me to his office and he sat down and he showed me his Keith L. Wareward frame Then he goes you know you you you uh you keep playing your cards right. I hear you got some talent You keep playing your cards right you get in double to one of those one day and he points to it And I go what is that and he goes that's my Keith L. Wareward. I won that 12 years ago And he was that's the cream of the crap that's gonna get. He's probably like 35. I thought you said he was 19. Yeah, got it now.

He was like 19. And I was like 19. Got it. And I go, oh yeah, I got one of those. And he goes, no you don't. And I go, I do, I won't. I think he goes, no you didn't. You're thinking of something else.

And I go, no sir, I have a Keith fell wear award for field journal for field newspaper and he goes Yeah, well, I want it would admit something Move those goals that guy hated me every day after that. Oh Something no sir, I have that too every day after that. Oh, man. No, sir, I have that too. They're rules. It's above the toilet in my house.

Oh, the importance of all the shit. Oh, man. I had no idea that you were an award-winning photo journalist. That's awesome. Yeah, I actually got a brief offer after I'd been out for a couple of years. From a friend who was another photographer in the army, they asked me if I'd be interested in coming back

into the military to be a private photographer for like, I wanna say like Secretary of the Army or somebody under him. Like a mercenary for the army. Kind of, yeah. And I was like, You're a mercenary? Absolutely not.

Hey, hey, I know you're out. Would you love to come back and do the thing you hated the most, which is take photos of command ceremonies and like change of command ceremonies? Cool. Sounds like an easy job. It's the fucking, yeah, it's easy. It's boring.

Do you think there's, there's another world where you said yes and that's just what you do? I thought about it quite heavily. Really? Yeah. What was the thing do. I thought about it quite heavily. Really? Yeah. What was the thing? Like I was like super humbling. It was like super, super humbling.

I get that you're saying like, you didn't like it. But was it like the money? Was it the work? Was it like the thing where you just went like, I could do this. Like this could be the thing I do now. The reason that it was tempting is because I felt really good.

I felt like I was a pretty, I felt like I had a good future ahead of me in photography. And when I got out of the mill takes, I did not want to be in the mill turn anymore. I was one thing I knew. I saw how hard it was to be a photographer in the real world. Yeah. I spent a lot of time, because part of our job was media affairs.

So I spent a lot of time giving tours to journalists. And when I was in Kuwait the second time, I think it was the second time. Anyway, I was there with the, like, it was, we were bombing Iraq, and I was there when we bombed Iraq. And so there was a ton of media presence there and I was taking journalists all over to different command posts, to interview soldiers and stuff and you get to know these journalists and I actually became kind of real friendly with one of the guys and I would have these friendly shooting competitions

throughout the day to see if you get the best shots and stuff And so I would shoot along with them, you know, because I was there with them and one of the guys who freelance that time magazine told me he was like your stuff's really good When you get out, let me know, look me up. I can put in a good word for you time And I was like that's fucking cool. Anyway, not that dude, but like two other dudes that I didn't know as well after like in the middle of the like in the middle of the week, something happened in Israel. There were some like protests or something in Israel. And so they hopped up and they left.

I like seven dudes left to go to Israel. And two of the dudes who I knew a little bit come fucking killed. And I was like, holy shit, those guys are dead. And like four days ago, I was like, having lunch with them in the desert. And I was like, holy shit, those guys are dead. And like four days ago, I was like having lunch with them in the desert. And I was like, that's fucking scary. And then, so that had me thinking,

like maybe I don't wanna do this on the outside. And then the last year I was in when I was in Jersey and I was a public affair specialist for West Point's prep school, I spent a couple days with a dude who came down from New York who was a freelance who wanted to do this, like I remember who it was, but it was a freelance who wanted to do this, I don't remember who it was,

but it was a big story on the prep school, and so I escorted him around for a couple days. I knew I was getting out at that point, I was already begun transitioning, so I was trying to get a sense of what his life was like, and the picture he painted to me made me never want to do it. He was like, I work seven days a week, I have a police scanner next to my bed,

I listen to it 24 hours a day, I have to go around to every magazine and newspaper that I want to work for in New York every month and give them new tear sheets to remind them that I exist because editors change hands left and right and they like to bring in people that they like to work with. And he was like, and I'm constantly selling myself. He's like, it's the best job I've ever had.

I love it, I'm passionate about it, but I'm doing it 24 hours a day and you have to want that. And I just didn't. And so when I got out, I tried to work for newspapers and stuff around here. Like I got an opportunity to work as a sports photographer for the Temple Daily Telegram, and I didn't do it because it was way too much travel

and it was only Friday and Saturday nights and I was living in South Austin. And I just realized that like, I didn't want to put the work into it to have that career. So when it's a long way to come back to when my friend contacted me and said, hey, do you want to come back in the military potentially and do this, I thought, oh, I could make money doing the photography thing again. Here's a path, but then I thought, oh, it's gonna be a fucking army again. I just can't give it my freedom.

What year was that? Like 99, 2000? That would have been like 2000. Yeah. It was after I left in Austin. Yeah. That's why I'm trying to like kneel it down. Yeah.

So there's just like another world where you just said yeah, to that. And then now there's another world where I didn't get out of the army. That's why I made it. There's another world where I listen to every single person who told me you won't make it on the outside. You need the military.

You're perfect for the military. Hold your head. I're perfect for the military. What would your right be right now? I would be retired by... Really? I mean, I was, I was, I was 18. Yeah, I mean you do 20 years. I would have probably retired at 40, 22 year career.

You do 20 years? I don't know how long I know how army works. I did five, but to retire, you're supposed to do 20. And then they offer, they offer early retirement. You have another career. My grandfather was in the Air Force for 22 years, joined at probably 17, retired at like 37 or 38 or whatever, 40 maybe.

And then he got full retirement, and then he moved to, well, I didn't move to, he was already living in Alabama at that time, but then he got a job working at a chemical plant and had an entire other career. Wow. And then, right now, like 60, and you got double retirement. Yeah, so they still pulling a retirement

from the military? Yeah. That's why. A lot of people do that. Yeah, because you do your 20 early in the military, and then you have time for another career, and then you just get two pensions. Just make that decision before your 20,

and put 20 years into something. Yeah, you double your law. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be about 17 and a half and go, you know what I want to do for the next 20 years in something. Yeah, double your love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be about 17 and a half and go, you know what I want to do for the next 20 years in my life, which is more time than I've spent on Earth so far. I want to do this.

We're coming up on 20 years of rooster teeth. Fuck, I did. Oh, you're giving me your time. That's why I want to, that's part of it. No, that is a 100% part of it. I am Generation X. I am the last line of a generation where people thought,

you go to work for a company, you do your 20 years, you get your watch, your golden parachute, and you move on in your retire. And I recognize that the world doesn't work that way anymore. It hasn't for a long time, but that's the way I was taught when I was born and that's the way the world still worked. And so it's cemented in me. It is a huge point of pride that Ruestratyth survives 20 years

so that I can make it 20 years so that I can do 20 years in the company that I found it. I got an email from Warner Brothers Discovery the other day. I got it too. Congratulations on my 20 years of working with Warner Brothers. We get a sabbatical. We have to. We have to fill out a form.

We fill out a form. We get a one month vacation. We need to batch record a lot of episodes before that happens, please. I have a feeling that's not knit for us Well, I can't imagine it's meant for many people. I can't I don't think there's probably a lot of people that have been at Warner Brothers for 20 years But congratulations on your upcoming Sympathicles let's not take it at the same time to make this as painful as possible for Aaron

I think I've had a couple of sabbaticals already I need one I'm a fossil for Aaron. You think I'm back to back. I've had a couple of sabbaticals already. I mean, another one. I need one. What the fuck? You all have done one. Yeah, what about me? What about Gus? Yeah, what about Gus?

What about Gus? What's your career that you almost went into for 20 years and retired at? I mean, I just spent some serious time doing IT. I thought that was, I was gonna be doing, just tech stuff. That's why in the early days of history, I handled all of our IT.

That's why I was bitching about that stupid router and all these weird things. I think, oh, we mentioned this on the podcast. I briefly, when I was in high school, I briefly thought about going into the military. I started the process of applying to West Point, but then I was like, I just, it was not for you. It was not for me.

I realized that before, like, it was not for you. It was not for me. I realized that before like finishing up that entire process. Yeah, it probably would have been IT. I'd probably be, you know, CTO of some fucking company at this point. You know, if you and I had never left telenetwork, we would be very successful running that company right now. Probably, probably just as successful. We were learning a lot there.

I feel like there was a lot a lot of cutting edge stuff we were learning about and trying to implement at that time Specifically it would have been 2001 No, maybe no 2002 or so that's when we were piloting like remote worker Initiatives and having people be able to take calls from their home. Yeah. Where the calls would come in to our phone system and then get routed via IP to their home internet

and then they could, you know, just like on their computer, answer the call, do everything without having to come into the office. It wasn't quite there yet. Close. It was really close. And we're budding up with some technical issues like the quality of service

and prioritizing the VoIP traffic over other internet traffic so that if their internet was bogged down, like the voice quality didn't suffer. And the text there now, but I mean, this was got over 20 years ago now where we were really trying to pilot all that stuff and get it to work, right?

And I thought, that stuff, I's not doing that stuff was really cool. I remember working on all the, working with coming off of the college distribution system and then helping him to write that software where we could track it ourselves and see everything that was going on in a more user friendly format. I used to play pranks on this dude Ray so much because he was like, I don't know how to describe him, cool motherfucker. I assume he still is. Really, really cool dude, really close friend ours back in the day,

like who's in that group. But like unfappable. Like just like even killed, like measured, no highs, no lows. And it was always, I was tried to get under a skin to see if it was possible. And it wasn't. I used to, I used to before he would come into work,

I would take everything on his desk and mirror it. So like his mouse would be on the left side, instead of the right side, I'd switch his speakers, so they'd be backwards, I'd do everything. And he would come in and he would look and he'd go, huh, and then he would just get to work. And he would use the mouse on the wrong side. And I would come in and he'd like,

like, he'd be eating lunch or something and he'd have like a, like a fork and he'd leave to go the bathroom and I'd replace it with a knife, and he would just figure out how to make the knife work. Yeah, it's just whatever was in front of him, that's what he was gonna use. And I, well, I went to the one-time,

and I'm like, after I had been flipping his desk for a while, and I was like, right, man, what are you doing? Why don't you, and he goes, oh, is that you doing that? And I was like, yeah, I've been fucking with you, and he goes, he goes, I just, honestly, I figured somebody, some manager or something, just wanted it to work this way, and I was like, I'll just, I'll somebody, some manager or something just wanted it to work this way. And I was like, I'll just make the best of it.

Yeah. And you would see like how ludicrous you could do stuff to him. And he would just be like, oh, okay, I guess I'll, this is life now. I guess I'll use the keyboard upside down. I don't know, I don't know what to do that. That's fucking wild. Yeah, he was fun.

He could adapt to anything. Man. Smart dude too. Yeah, oh yeah. It wasn't smart enough to figure out he's being fucked with, but. Yeah. But he can make it work. Word about in the like the 40 minute kind of territory.

I want to talk about Houndstooth a little bit. You guys said that there's more than one. It's like a smaller chain or something. I know a tree. Now that I know about this one. This is the third location. I think there's no more. This one was on MLK. This is in a newer development that's been, that feels like it's been being built for five years now. That house truth has been there since before the pandemic. That like and but the buildings that are building around it are taking forever.

Yeah, they've been building that since before the train station was done. Yeah, it's been crazy. The amount of construction just on that little block, but that's where that that houndstooth everything just kind of construction just on that little block, but that's where that, that Hounds Tooth, everything you just kind of built up around that and a place where you can get cosmetic tattoos. Not Cosmic. Not Cosmic. Not Cosmic.

Micro-oblating place. I thought I was gonna get tattoo of a star in, definitely, no, no. So that Hounds Tooth, it was like an Apple store. I thought that was great. Great person. A great way to put it. Super nice barista.

They had a lot of beans. That's the thing that I look for in a coffee shop. If I go and there are beans available to buy, that aren't necessarily from that coffee shop. It lets me know like, okay, somebody has something here, or I can get something to take away and they have a selection or whatever.

They had that, they had a lot of beans. They had a lot of selection in coffee and just one dude just kind of working it real easy, nothing much going. They also had a wall of Polaroids of all the dogs that come into the club. They put down a super cool, they put down the hounds of Hounds, too.

It was very cool. It was, I think if you give that place a few more years, it'll have a little bit of seasoning, but right now it's just real stark. Yeah, I think the other locations are like that too. I think that's by design. I mean, it's definitely an, it's definitely Austiny, right? Like everything has to be like new and, uh,

yeah, I would go, I would go to some of the other locations more frequently, but the problem I've experienced in the past is normally they have a long line. Yeah. Oh, okay. I would go to some of the other locations more frequently, but the problem I've experienced in the past is normally They have a long line. Yeah. Oh, okay, so I was shocked when we walked into the one today and there was no line We walked right up. Yeah, some of the other ones like you walk in and the line is to the door and it's like oh There are 15 people in front of me trying to get coffee. Well, I think most people probably just didn't want to brave the elements Yeah, I think we got lucky on that What did you think of the coffee? I got just like we always do. I got a regular cup of coffee,

just got an Americano, and Jeff in the 34 degree weather, ice coffee. I thought this is an excellent Americano. Really? Yeah, this is really good. Any thoughts on your ice coffee? Eight and a half. Eight and a half.

Yeah, it was eight and a half. It's going like a nine maybe. A little better for me, but it's still really good. They had two kinds of drip coffee or house coffee. They had their regular coffee and then they had like a reserve. I should have gotten the reserve, but I just got like their regular house.

Their regular house coffee is really good. It has a little bit of like sourness to it. Without like there's not like a lot of bitterness. It's a good, it's like an eight. Like it's a very good cup of coffee. I don't know that I would go back for it, but if I was in the area, like if I was going to an Austin F.C. game and we were taking the train or whatever to like get up there,

I would get a cup of coffee there to take to the game. Absolutely. That's like, I think that Houndstooth was like really good. They're great. Yeah. I'm really surprised. Well, and it's one of those local chains. I feel similarly about merit, although I think it's technically a San Antonio

shouldn't, but there's a bunch of them around here. It's like, you know, you're gonna get a certain level of coffee whenever you go in there So it's like it's always a safe bet. I feel that way about how it's tooth. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, look there's three locations. It's like a better version of Halcyon to me. Oh, that's it. Okay. I can yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah Halcyon feels like a place where you also can get a cocktail. Like I've been there for, I've been there for coffee as many times as I've been there for after work drinks with people.

So, which is very weird. Every day of my story about Halcyon, let me have a talk about it on this. It's, before it was Halcyon, the original Halcyon is downtown. And before it was Halcyon, it was a coffee shop called Rue de Maya. And the first time I went there, I was 18, 19.

I went there with my first wife, when we were still dating, from where we married. And I was in the army there I was 18, 19. I went there with my first wife when we were still dating. I remember married. And I was in the army and we were just visiting Austin. We hopped in to get a coffee. And I saw two women kiss. And it's the first time I had ever seen lesbians in public kiss.

And I was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And I remember thinking, oh my God. Well, I was from Alabama, right? And then I was in the army. So it wasn't like I was seeing a lot of diversity. thinking, oh my God. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. So they have locations on North LaMar, downtown, East Mok, which is what we want to do today. Rock Rose. That's the domain. Oh, okay, that's a dumb name.

Laurel? Laurel? I don't know where this one is. Laurel. What is it? Hang on. It's not Austin. It is Ed Blutes 2001 Ed Bluestine. It's Austin. We could have gone there instead of to this one. Yeah, it's not Austin. It had blutes, 2001, Ed Blustein.

It's Austin. We could have gone there instead of to this one. Yeah, it's like Redmond. Yeah, we've never seen it. Then they have three in Dallas. Really? Yeah, but it's an Austin chain. It's from Austin.

It's an Austin chain. Weird, I've never heard of it or thought of it really before. Look, I'm glad we decided to divert here instead of some of the other places. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I think that it really worked in doing this. But now, well, we had thought about going to another place called Palomino, which I go occasionally. I really like it.

It's a little far from where I live, but I like that place. But it's like, we would want to go and stay there. Yeah, I want to go. And that seems like a little spot that we can drag a couple of chairs around to and make some happen. We're about to enter the good weather portion of the year. We're getting there. Yeah, we just got to get through the February.

February. February. February is when all the freezes happen. I was gonna say, this is second winter, right? We're in the also winter phase of winter, where it's like, don't forget, Austin's got, Austin's got about three weeks to fuck with us and be shitty before it has to transition to South by weather. Yep, yeah, yeah. It knows.

It's the weekend of South by is when everything should change. Yeah. And then the weekend of ACL is when it should change back. Yep, dude. Before we end, as can say, I did, I've two little Austin bits. One, I went to a stand-up comedy show, the other night, and it was really fun.

It was like a Thursday night show at the Vulcan gas place, which we did. We did a holiday party there. We did a holiday party there, but we also did like a rock band event there, something I realized. And I was yeah, I was not I was like I had fucking performed here before yeah And it was a you know, it was a Secret show so you just don't know what they're gonna do Who's gonna be there? I had heard like Dave Chappelle has done that before and stuff a lot of famous people

So when I got there with with my, my non-artee friend, they confiscated our phones and I was like, oh my God, we're gonna see fucking like, we're gonna see something huge, we're gonna see Chris Rock or something, right? We didn't, but what we did see was 40 comedians audition to be dormant at Joe Rogan's new club, I guess it's something like. Oh my God.

But I have to say, out of the 40 people that I saw audition, they each got three minutes, I actually got probably 35 of them were really good. There is, like I know we talk about how there's been a Renaissance of comedy in Austin because fucking Rogan and all the Rogan sick of fans came and then the cigarettes and all the cigarette sick of fans came. But there is a lot of really, really talented young comedy

in Austin right now. It was very impressed by the 35 people or so that were really good. Other thing is, I saw this, you ever look on Instagram and they have these like, I went to Austin and these are the 20 things I ate and they just show you different, I saw one of those in Instagram the other day

and I only recognized one restaurant out of all of them. They were like, it was like 15 and I'd never heard of any of them. Comey was the only one on it that I recognized. But there was a pizza place on there, and I was like, fuck it, I gotta try that place. Pedrosos. Oh yeah, though, I'd say on a...

On Burnett? Holy shit. Where on Burnett? It's in that drag of Burnett that you forget exists. It's north of Olin. Yeah, okay. And like, you're on that drag and you're like, I'm not quite at the freeway, but I'm almost there.

Very close. It's a food truck. It's near the you're like, I'm not quite at the freeway, but I'm almost there. Very close. It's a food truck, it's near the peteri, I think. And what's night owl owl something? What's the bar that it's in front of? Oh, I don't know. Or you can order it, so I just had a delivery book. It's like a deep, it's like a, like a, so they have different styles.

Oh, really? So I was looking at the menu and they have, they have like, it's called like your, like, your mom's pizza or something and that's like a deep dish. And then they have like a Chicago style. They have a bunch of different styles, Neapolitan, but they were sold out of a lot of that. But they did have Trenton style. So I had a Trenton style pizza. Is it like knives on it? Does it mug you? Oh, okay. It was like a crispy crust, but they put the cheese on first,

and then they put the tomato sauce on top of the cheese. That's Trenton's style, I guess. It was fucking awesome. Like cheesy bread with tomato sauce. But it was like crispy, like crispy crust, like New York style, crispy crust. It was just, it was really, really, really, really good, though. And so I've just done that out there, Pedrozo.

You get too many styles of pizza. Yeah, I agree. There's, let's, let's dial it back, baby. But it was it like this? No. No, I think that's the Brooklyn or Bar style or something. They have Calzones. They got a bunch of stuff, but it's the place

that I hear about the most now. Yeah. In the last, I don't even know if it's six months, it's less like three months. This is the place that I can eat. It's got the bars. Well, they must be months, this is the place that I can get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get you to get better version of what I was eating yesterday is a better version of home stuff. Oh, I gotta try it. Yeah, they're on burn it. It's just a trailer and yeah, you can order to go and then it's in front of a bar that's right there. And I just drive by it all the time and it's the thing that I hear about and

never talked about. So seems like a cool little spot. It's night owl is the bar that it's next to. Yeah. I'm glad that you tried that. Yeah. I'm glad you tried Padres'. There are so many spots in Austin. If we decided to pivot this from a coffee podcast to a food podcast, we'd never fucking run out. There's so much turnover in restaurants right now. I know a great Korean barbecue trailer. That's awful.

I'm really gonna kill you. Well, it's like everybody has a New Year's resolution, right? I don't really have a New Year's resolution, but I've talked to you in supplemental content about how I'm trying to get myself mentally prepared to leave Austin someday and kind of transition out. But that seeing that Instagram post where there was like 20 restaurants I'd never heard of in town just kind of reinvigorating me like, while I'm in Austin, maybe I'll be here

for the rest of my life, maybe I won't. But while I'm in Austin, I'm gonna use 2023 to explore and find new stuff and not just be stuck in the rut of my same old restaurants, same old coffee shops, same old haunts. New year, new year. Yeah, all new experiences. New Patrick Sellasar actually gave me really good, like he told me about the thing that he and his husband do where they, they'll make like a list of restaurants and then once a week, they'll go to one of these places on the list, just agree, like we're going

here. And it's like, you never know, is it gonna be good? Is it gonna be bad? I think he was saying most of the time, it's like decent. Sometimes you go like, wow. And then other times you go, yeah. But we're always trying something new like once a week.

And I think that's so cool. A good idea. Yeah, that's really awesome. But now, it's everyone's favorite part. Where we're gonna guess the name of the podcast. I hope you don't guess it before the mug comes out. Oh, okay, so let's talk about the, let's take these guesses and the name of the podcast. I hope you don't guess it before the mug comes out. Oh Okay, so let's talk about let's let's take these guesses and then talk about the mug Americano Monday. That's from zoo e Mama for

Come on, um, that's a great fucking name by the way zoo e Mama Okay, somebody wrote up. Where did it go? It's on Instagram. I think let me see somebody wrote up a You know your Yelp review somebody wrote wrote that, but for, um, God, uh, as a comment for the podcast. Let me see if I can find it. It is, uh, at length, and they are letting me know, okay, Ricky rampage. I'm determined to get this guest to y'all. So they have an Anima guest. They think another meaningless acronym. That would be good, but no. Another meaning full acronym.

Well, Ricky Rampage, I did both of your guesses, and they're all right. They made too much sense. They do, there you go. Very sorry for your bad guesses. I saw someone in the, I think it was in the Anima podcast subreddit, like try to feed all the audio through. You have all your words, everything you've ever said.

Yeah, everything transcribed. But the problem is the quality of the transcription was so poor, so much of it was not transcribed correctly. I was like, you can't use this for any guessing because it didn't transcribe things right. Oh, perfect. Another Americanano. No.

How about another Monday? Is another in the... Do you want me to say that? How many words did you say it was again? I can't remember. Three. It is three words. Okay.

I mean, that's great to know. That's really good. I don't think he's ever said that before. I tried to trick him and it seems like it worked. I really thought I'd said that before. No, you never have. We know. Ever once.

Now we know it's three. That's a huge clue. That's a huge clue. I'm tricking you, idiot. I know. Another morning angry. No. I'm looking through it, just three word guesses now.

Man. Okay. I guarantee you, this three word thing is going to reinvigorate the search. Yep, I'm, you know what? I like it again. So if you have some three word guesses, you can send them to us at Anna Mipodcast on Instagram and on Twitter.

You can also go to our slash Anna Mipodcast. Everyone's doing guesses there. There's a weekly discussion thread. You can say, why are they mad at us for making these, and I'm not mad at you for making the guesses. I'm mad at you for calling it a bit. It's doing guesses there. There's a weekly discussion thread. You can say, why are they mad at us for making these, and I'm not mad at you for making the guesses. I'm mad at you for calling it a bit. It's not a bit. It's a part of the show.

It's not a bit. But talking about the actual, now here's where it is a bit. Gus is in talks right now with Tony, merch Tony, to make the mug that we discussed in the last episode where I'm not part of the design. No. It is a mug that says, and then when you pour hot liquid into it, it reveals the name.

It reveals the name. And we, Eric and I are not a lot to be a part of the process, even though we are typically very hands on with much. I handed it off. I said, talk to each other. Let's go. Here you go. And then Tony said, just so you know, we're talking,'ll take it away. They're may or may not be I mean I

Regardless and the needs of fucking mug. Yeah, like it's the only thing that makes sense merchandise for this podcast It was hard for me to type the name of it to Tony like I even like ask the head of time like it's okay for me to type it here This is you deleted it and he was like yeah, it's fine and we probably had like another hour-long discussion about stuff then he was like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. And we probably had like another hour long discussion about stuff. Then he was like, so are you gonna like tell me what it is? Or I was like, I'm sorry, I'm not just, it's just like so intrinsic and me not to write it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we're going to know soon enough. And we're going to react live when we get the mugs and see what the name is, that's going to know soon enough. And we're going to react live when we get the mugs and see what the name is, that's going to happen. I don't think we're gonna say the name. No, no, no. Buy mug. So keep guessing. Hey, you know what?

I'll say this right now. If you guess it, if you are the one who gets the name before the mug comes out and all this stuff, I'll send you a mug. We'll send you five mug. Well, I don't want to send five. That'd be crazy. Let's send one mug and something signed.

Okay, there you go. A mug and something signed. There we go. Confirmize. I love you. If you get the name right, remember, it's three words. The first word has the A and the N together, but not necessarily, it's in the same word.

It's just not like, not necessarily the letters like next to each other. They might be,, but not necessarily, it's in the same word, it's just not like, not necessarily the letters like next to each other. They might be, we're just saying that it's not specifically the same thing. This is mad, man. So the M is a word and the A must be a word. That must be, must, must be. Oh look, he's fucking looking, he's making, I'm thinking.

God, don't, you're really thinking. You're thinking, you know what the words are. I gotta, I can think. This sucks. It's like you're gonna complicate a math in your head. I'm this sucks. It's like a complicated math in your head. I'm Very excited. This is a yeah, I'm back in though. This is pretty good. So I read you were hey, you know what three simple words really into the guessing I think the get honestly there's making a heel turn you know what?

The guessing the name is good now Guess what it's back in yeah name is good now. Just what it's back in. Yeah. Yeah. Any parting words for the folks out there. Oh, go to start out reach.com. Yeah, and my shirt before they run out and then prepare yourself for an anima mug, which

is coming at some point. Yeah, I have no idea. My final word would be lay. If I've, I've, another thing about 2023 that I've decided to do, I've decided to start watching movies and they're great. If you guys have been on the fence about movies, well, back into movies, I will say last year was the year of music.

Yeah, so I'm saying like movies are a thing again, and I've been really been enjoying them. I'll watch movies. While it's back and movies are a thing again. What are the movies and the mall? Avatar is the number four most, like grossing movie of all time. By the way, Avatar's the new Claire's. grossing movie of all time by the way Avatar's are bad. Avatar's the new clear

The mall is back and that's a conditional statement the mall is not back everywhere I went to Lakeline mall that mall is not back. No, of course not that mall is a hunk of shit Well nobody lives there You want to go eat and then you're like oh find something to do and then you found something to do and you went shinnied on this No, I was just it was like a shitty day and I wanted to go for a walk together. I can't like, I've been working out and lifting weights and stuff,

but I can't because of my stitches right now on my hand. So I was like, I was just gonna get some exercise. So I was just gonna walk them all and instead of walking to my normal mall, I thought I'd go check out the one on the other side of town. It's so far. You're just like in a car for 40 minutes. It's the underhunk of shit.

I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm going to Cedar Park today. I got hassled three times like Kiosk vendors. That never happens at Barton Creek. Of course not. Well there you go. Well there you have it. Guess anything to end on?

This sucks. Yeah, hell yeah. Check out some movies. Seriously, if you have some time in your hand, you have about two hours to kill. Watch a movie that really cool. You have some time in your hand, you have about two hours to kill, watch a movie that really cool. Describe the show to a newcomer in a more familiar way. Do you like apples?

Alright, example. Together in Trempit hosts... Characombs. Characombs are free of Diaz of nothing to do with this podcast. Analyze various unsolved and rooster teeth's cryptic podcast. F**k face. Call to action. Feel free to add something show premise specific,

but short. Listen to show name on Apple Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. It's f*** face, a podcast. Subscribe or no. You do yes? Thanks.