ANMA - Two Coffee Shops in One Episode?

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Good morning, Gus!  Mercado Sin Nombre is a cool little spot with biscuits and coffee so Gus & Geoff get a bite and a sip before walking all around the east side before taking a second spot at Rockman. What a day. They also talk about What Gus consumes, Flying, Politics sort of, Pleading ignorance, The almost Regulation office, The pedestrian bridge, and East side construction. 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

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrills.ca. We should go left or right? I guess left makes more sense. Why, we want to go up toward 7? Yeah, let's go that way. Okay. You know what, before we go any further, I just realized what this place used to be.

It was that little Colombian restaurant that had the bread balls. No, this was Brazilian. Brazilian. Rio. Yeah, that had the bread balls. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you would come in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This place was good. That place was awesome. Um, we're like at Fifth and Pleasant Valley.

We're walking by the Austin Shaker, which is a fancy little store. We just went to Mercados and Nombre. I'll name the place. There you go. Mercados and Nombre. Thank you. Which is a cool little cafe spot that is new-ish in Austin. That place rules.

And it is like, to me, that's the hot spot. Everyone talks about it. Yeah. Everyone. Everyone. That place rules. And it is like, to me, that's the hotspot. Everyone talks about it. Everyone. That's where I shit. Shit in a syringe. Yeah. Too fudge. How do you think I get the syringes out of me?

Everyone talks about that place. The place is good. Oh, Makata-san no re? Yeah, everyone. We, Emily and I found it dropping the dog off at Doggie Daycare one day. Oh yeah? And just like, we're driving through neighborhoods

and ended up. Yeah, it's a happening spot. Only annoying thing about that place is that they're not open on Monday and Tuesday. Yes, yeah. So I think we've talked about this with other, maybe other episodes or whatever, but the millennial market of things

where it's like, yeah, we're open Wednesdays and Sundays from four to 6 p.m. Like that, this shit has to end. Make things 24 hours again. Please just hire people to like work at your establishment so I can go whenever I need to instead of, God, there's so many places that I've like wanted to go to where it's just like, oh, it's Monday, they're closed.

What? I would love to work out of Cafe Sunombre or Macado Sunombre, but I do all my Sol Alrite work on Tuesdays at a coffee shop and they're not open on Tuesdays. I will say though, that New Texas coffee, that New Texas coffee traders is fucking delightful. I have been there since we did that episode. I've been there four times. I've been there four times fucking delightful. I have been there since we did that episode

I've been there four times. I've been there four times. I spent most of yesterday morning there I love it. It's not that far from here. No, it's pretty close to it. You're talking about how place could be open 24 hours a day I was mentioning this in the car on the drive down here. Mm-hmm, but I started going to this Mexican restaurant up like off of Lamar and Runberg that used to be a trailer. Now it's got like a little brick and mortar storefront. It's open 24 hours a day and that place is awesome. So if you're ever looking for Mexican food at four in the morning, go to Siete Estrellas off of Lamar and Runberg. Well, that's not what you told Jeff.

You mean Estrella 7? Which is what you told me in the car? Well, I was being nice for you. I'm not being nice to the listeners. Seven Star, if you're looking for an English version. Uh. The number, it's the number seven. They don't spell it.

Number seven. Yeah. Yeah. Name seven, what? Um, they don't, they don't spell it out. I felt like when you said the name, I could picture like, not even like a neon sign, just a sign that is like a faded yellow

with a green outline that says Australia and then the number seven. That's it. It's so funny, we picture different things. You pictured that and I pictured Gus getting annoyed with me when I was panantic about it. You being panantic about something? We were both imagining things in our head.

We were just taking it from different angles. I think it's a red sign. No yellow and green. Close. What are we? We're on fifth? Remember when most of the east side looked just like this? It doesn't anymore? Most of it looks like an empty... Most of it looks like a bulldozed parking lot with a fence around it.

Why is there... Earmarked for some potential future development, I guess. Most of it looks like a bulldozed parking lot with a fence around it. Yeah. Why is there- Earmarked for some potential future development, I guess. Yeah, but like, why is so much, I guess just in general, not even here. What happens, Gus, maybe you know, where it's just like, we have this big empty lot. Okay, what are you gonna do with it?

Yeah. And it just hangs out. Well, it might be like, if it's not costing the owner anything or they don't care, it's like, they'll wait because in generally real estate will be worth more in the future, right? It's like, why would we sell it now? It's not costing us anything, it's not a pain in our ass.

We'll just wait and we'll sell it down the road when we need to. Yeah. When the price gets right. There was a place like that over here for a long time. Maybe it's still there, like the metal recycling place that was here just off of 35. It's still going strong.

Yeah, it's like, they've been, there've been multiple hours, people always try to buy that spot and they don't care. They're just recycling their metal over there. It's weird. Someday the price will be right. I'm surprised it's not already, but I guess we're- It has gotta be one of the most valuable

little spots of land in Austin. I wonder if there's some sort of an ecological concern. Like if you were to rip that place out, are there like EPA issues with the 50 years of shit seeping into the ground? Not with this administration anymore. That's true, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a 2024 problem, nevermind.

I found a Pokemon card that's horsey. Oh, that's a shiny Charizard. Yeah, I found a shiny Charizard. I found a shiny Charizard. Yeah, I found it's a Chinese are Chinese Chinese Chinese Charizard I found it on a shiny Charizard guess No, boy Yeah, you don't worry about EPA anymore. Yeah, they're gone. Yeah, they're out You do whatever you want with whatever you want all the time with the man in the White House I'm going to go to my house. That's right.

Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. It's a Simpsons reference. I've been saying that so much lately. I think it's driving everyone crazy. If we walk straight, we're going to head kind of towards where we were in season one. Okay, well let's go down this way.

If we go left and left, maybe that would be a good way. Go further down Cesar Chavez. Do you like this guy? I never realized, no I never realized that San Marcos' zip code is 78666. Ah! Which is really funny that it's in graffiti now. In graffiti form, it looks way more scary.

Since we started recording this a few minutes ago, I've gotten 13 text messages. Wow. I don't, this is what happens when it's like, hey, you in the middle of something? Whenever? Check this out. Jordan messaged me on Slack, got 13 text messages, and I have like four emails

that all just came in in like the last couple of minutes. Whenever my phone starts buzzing like that, I worry something's wrong. Like something's broken. Me too. So I keep checking it. It's my dumb ass friends. What? We're right here. I'm not sending you any texts.

Have you sent him any texts? I haven't sent him any texts. Please don't send me any texts. Hey, oh, you know what he likes? He likes voice to text. He's big on it. Hey, Gus, I have a question for you. This is kind of going back to something

we were talking about in the car earlier that I held off on asking. Because I don't see you often these days. We only really get to hang out or talk when we're doing this podcast. That's the whole premise. So, yeah. Excuse me for reinstating the premise of our podcast

in our podcast. I'm sorry audience, Jeff's a little cranky. Apologize to Richard now. Sorry Richard. What? Richard you're cutting all this out anyway, it doesn't matter. No you're not, please leave it out. No, listen to me Richard.

I'm in charge. I'm older, you have to age before. He's out of touch. Grandpa needs to get a nap. Anyway, Grandpa would like to know, in 2025, through the course of a week, random week, normal week, you were commenting on how much I listen to podcasts. Yeah. What do you consume?

You work one day a week, you have six day weekends. Yeah. And then what do you do with that time? Okay, five and a half days. You don't play video games, you don't listen. Yeah, you were saying you don't play a lot of video games anymore. Well, that's all this to go. Sorry. I guess I.

It's depressing. I guess maybe I don't really use social media, so I read a lot of news these days, which is depressing, and I watch a lot of YouTube videos. So would you say YouTube is like your outlet? Yeah. a lot of news these days, which is depressing. And I watch a lot of YouTube videos. So would you say YouTube is like your outlet? Yeah. You and my daughter.

YouTube and I've been flying quite a bit. Oh, is that right? Yeah. How are the skies? Good. Dangerous? So it's been, yeah. Like every week or a couple of times a week?

Couple of times a week. Wow. But not the past couple of weeks, just because, you know, it's been really kind of crappy weather here. Yeah. Oh, I thought it was because all the planes are crashing. Yeah, that's why I'm in charge. But yeah, yesterday was beautiful today.

I mean, look at this beautiful weather now. Cool. So late February, it's like 70. It's beautiful. Would you say you're in the middle of like the news doom spiral then? Yeah, but it's not getting me down. That's the weird thing. I just like... Well, because if you agree with everything that's going on in the country, why would you be depressed? I...

This is everything you've been waiting for your whole life manifest in front of us. I, uh... This is Gus's America. It is definitely not. It's more like I do that thing where I just read it and just shake my head. Mm-mm.

Oh well. I didn't vote for that. He's looking at his phone going, cut, cut, cut. Yeah. I wag my finger at you, America. Looks like it's so. Finally Gus's America. It's going to sound maybe unhealthy, but it's just the way I think. It's like, uh, I'm old and I'm tired.

Yeah. And we've tried to stop this for eight, ten years now. And it happened anyway, you know, by a majority. So fuck it. We're all going to we're all going to write this down in flames. No, I'm in the same place with you there. It's like this is clearly the mandate that America chose. Yeah. unfortunately. But I just can't watch it.

Like I have just put blinders on. I haven't turned on the news since November 5th. It's it's confusing. Let me tell you, every day is like, huh? That doesn't make any sense. It's a lot of things where you go, I didn't really see that coming. Yeah. Hey, no more green cards.

It's just gold card. Gold card. And you go, huh? So if if I were if you were to ask me like what are some things that you think will happen that probably wasn't gonna be one of them but it makes sense now but but it happened and I went of course yeah why didn't I think of that yeah yeah ignorance is uh I'm riding it pretty hard it's like I just have no clue old man doom-scrolling yeah I'm like, I'm not mad at it. I just have no clue. Old man doom scrolling where I'm just like, whatever. I was so into that for so long. Eric is actually one of the people

that helped pull me out of it. He doesn't even know it. Oh really? When I was at my worst when we were at Rooster Teeth, we were on a podcast together. Oh yeah. And he fucking yelled at me for doing it. Well it was-

And like, and I, it pissed me off in the moment, and then, but he was right, and I thought about it so much after that. Well that's good and like and I and it pissed me off in the moment and then but he was right and I thought about it so much after that. That's good. And about how right he was and I wasn't able to make the break until the election but man, I have not been happier. I couldn't imagine being happier while Rome burns than I am right now. I remember that like post show it was like us and Jessica Vassami and I think

Barbara and it was you guys talking about like oh yeah I saw this on, like I got mad at this. And then I, and then I read this and I went and met and then this made me mad. It's like, I don't, I don't do that. I don't want to be mad online. Like I'm tired of like stuffing. If I'm gonna be mad online, I'm gonna make myself mad online and I'm gonna fight about it. But like, hey, this guy said this thing and I'm pissed. And it's like, I don't have time for this shit.

The thing the thing that gets me is now the people who have made a career out of making you mad on. Yes. Yeah. It's like, oh, I'm not going to get mad and give that person money and views or whatever. It's like, no, that's why I had to turn the that's why I have to cold like turn the news off. Yeah. Because I realized that it's it's just and I know you I realized this 100 years ago, everybody knows this. Yeah, because I realized that it's just and I know you didn't. I realized this 100 years ago, everybody knows this, but it's one thing to know it intellectually and another thing to feel it internally, but I just I just couldn't be a part

of the out the the engender anger and frustration algorithm to keep you engaged so that you never fucking look away. Yeah. What are these little... Karaoke cabs. Karaoke cabs. What is karaoke cabs? I guess you get in one and sing.

Yeah, they like take you around. For the audience, it looks like a little electric golf cart that's fully enclosed. Seats like six people maybe? Yeah, like a tiny little thing. Like half the size of a smart car kind of. Looks maybe a little bit like a British cab. I think it's bigger than a smart car. But like it's a lot of people jammed into that thing. So well they're singing karaoke they're happy as can be. What do you uh, well now we're back on the

studio Chavez. What do you uh, what do you watch on YouTube? I'm just interested in your habits you know like I have pretty clearly defined things that I'm into these days and you're a mystery to me. It's kind of all over the place. A lot of aviation stuff. And I mentioned this a little earlier, just the other day I watched this New York Times video from like, probably like six years ago about Chicano subculture in Japan, which I thought was really interesting. Oh, you know what? So my YouTube algorithms is kind of weird. I think I sent this to Eric the other day. I got like, what would you call it? Like Mexican Norteño band covering Neon Genesis Evangelion intro. A lot of nerd video game anime music covered like a northern Mexican style. That's cool. But I got this video suggested to me the other day and I watched it. It was interesting. It was like a BBC video About what was the country? I believe it was Equatorial Guinea if I'm remembering right. It's country in Africa

It's the only country in Africa who has Spanish as one of their official languages. Oh wow. Yeah, and the video was just like a brief history of how that came to be, why they speak Spanish, and then how do they speak Spanish? What are the differences in their dialect and like kind of like the pigeon words they have between native languages and Spanish and I thought it was really interesting. Huh. It's so interesting. That's what Gus is consuming and then on the other end I'm like, did you know who Shailene Woodley is dating now? That's what Gus is consuming. And then on the other end, I'm like, did you know who Shailene Woodley is dating now? Ridiculous. Uh, so let me, so answer me this then.

It's like 7 p.m. It's tonight. We're recording this on a Wednesday. I got a Wimby Niyama license plate. Wimby 23. He's bummed. That's probably worth a little bit of money. Uh.

Yeah, like 80 bucks a year. You guys want to cross one more time? Sure. It's 7.30 a year. You guys want to cross one more time? Sure. And then we'll... It's 730. You and Esther sit down to... Do you and Esther sit down and watch something together? Like how are you... Well, today's Wednesday, so that's actually something that we will watch. 600 Pound Life comes on today, which really has fallen off. Yeah. I think that... Yeah, everyone's only 550 pounds.

Well, no, the problem is that the doctor started the show on lifetime. So I think that uh, everyone's only 550 pounds. Well, no, the problem is that the like the doctor started the show on lifetime So I think at a contractual obligation They're airing stuff that wasn't good enough to air normally. Is this dr. Proctor or is this a different doctor? No, this is dr. Now, dr. Nose-artin So it's like now this season just kind of like oh well This is stuff we already filmed that wasn't good enough before but now at a contractual obligate It seems like that to me out of a contractual obligation. We have to cut episodes together. So here you go Oh, that's who dr. Now is okay

They do a dogshit impression of this dr. Now guy in the Howard Stern show that I have to turn off every time It's all now. I know who he is. Yeah. Okay, cool. He's a down at Houston In fact that show I believe is produced by an Austin company called Megalo Media. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. So Megalo Media produces it, but yeah, the doctors office itself is down in Houston. Can I ask for a pivot and we keep recording, but I go inside Rockman and get a cup of coffee? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go get a cup of coffee. Take a look at it.

This dude's addicted. Okay, we're gonna do something here. We've never done before. If people are listening to this, in the left side of their ear, they're gonna do something here. We're never done before. If people are listening to this in the left side of their ear, they're gonna hear Eric ordering coffee. But on the right side, they're gonna hear me and Jeff continuing to talk outside. Hold that.

Okay. Would you give me an iced coffee? Thanks. We're gonna continue to talk outside. All right. I don't wanna go too far so that we don't lose that. This is a lot of audience extra. Yeah, we're on season three.

It's kind of busy. There's a lot of garbage trucks and big trucks, just general traffic but a lot of big trucks on top of that. Well actually make it a small one. Let's see, so we're at Rockman, we want to do an episode here already? No we wanted to but there was a long line one time. Right. And I made the joke that you gotta go to, what did I say, you gotta beat Waterman before

you do Rockman? Right, right. You're going out of sequence. You're trying to beat the level, the wrong level. So we are on Ciudad Chavez at Rockman, which is a new coffee and bakery shop that was very popular for a little while. Thank you very much.

I got some great merch to give to you. Killer. But across the street is La Barbecue, which was ruined by Dua Lipa. And then you can't go there anymore because she ate a pickle there. Now everybody on Earth wants to eat there. Oh, I didn't know that.

And then that place I went to. Oh, it was already popular. How much? I went to the, yeah, it was very popular. Appreciate it. To begin with. Lovebirds? Lovebirds is a little bar that's kind of like a cute little date night theme bar.

We went there, Emily and I went there for mocktails a couple weeks ago. That was fast. Thank you, sir. They have a great mocktail menu. Oh. But I was talking to the guy behind the counter, the bartender there when we were there the other night, and he had a Spider House hat on.

And I said, dude, nice hat. Talking about this right here? Yeah, lovebirds? Yeah. I was like, dude, nice hat. And he goes, oh thanks, it nearly cost me my life. I'm like, what? Apparently he owned, he was saying that he owned

Spider House for a couple of years there toward the end and lost a buttload of money on it and was like one of the toughest professional periods of his life. And I was like, I guess it worked out well for you because you got lovebirds and it was like, it's pretty awesome. All right, good for him. That's a cool place. I liked it. Can we talk about the last time we were on this street and how we're not gonna be probably on the street very much. Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's do it.

So about two blocks. Let's go that way. You wanna do that? Yeah, why not? Let's walk by it. About two blocks this way, Gus, where we're gonna be heading over is the spot that we had for Regulation Podcast.

Oh, congrats. This was our office. It was our office. That's awesome. It was a home that we found. We're looking for a place that we can rent where the landlords are gonna be like, can you just cut us a check and we don't give a shit?

Yeah. And we found it. Great. And Jeff did a great job. You did it. He schmoozed this guy, everything was set. I put in time with the guy. It was like-

Mission accomplished. I did it old Austin style. You know how you gotta do it, right? I did that. He did such a great job. And this spot fucking rocks. I mean, it's awesome. Rockman was going to be our coffee shop. After we toured the place, we walked over and had like a celebration.

I don't like these past tense. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, imagine living it. So we were really stoked. Everything was set. Really pumped up on like, hey, we're going to be here. We're going to go. This is going to be our home base. We're going to walk over to Rockman, get a cup of coffee, come back. All like these new ideas.

Everything was set. We set up the online pay portal. Jeff pays the deposit. We talked to the realtor. Everything set. And they're like, all right, cool. So your lease is going to start in April. Hell yeah, dude. Ross. And it going to start in April. Fuck hell yeah, dude.

Ross. And it'll be up in July. That's weird. That's three months. And then it's like, well, what if instead of two months, what if 15? Yeah. What if July next year?

To be on a July schedule, which I get. And that's fine. Yeah, we're happy to sign more than a year lease. We believe in ourselves and our product. And then what was the message you got later that day? So we hired nothing. Yeah, we're happy to sign more than a year lease. We believe in ourselves and our product. And then what was the message you got later that day? So, we hired nothing. I sent a very nice letter that was like, dude, we're happy to sign. I just paid the deposit. Our email, whatever. Digital letter. And I do think it's a little odd that we would sign a three-month lease would we're happy to do it as long as there's some assurance that there will be

another lease behind it. Right. Because we'll barely be moved in in three months. Yeah. Three months. But like put all your stuff here now. Get out. If it's if it's a cycle thing, we are more than happy to sign a 14 or a 15 month lease like not just get on their schedule, you know, whatever it takes. And then I just fucking crickets and radio silence, tumbleweeds. I sent that email at eight.45 in the morning at 4.50 PM that day on a Friday, by the way. I get a letter, an email, sorry, digital letter email from

electronic mail from the leasing agent who says it just it didn't even say hello. It just says the owner has decided not to lease the property to you. We have released your deposit. And then it was also CC the person who was living there who was trying to get that lease. And then they said, also you person who's living there, they are going to let you out of your lease April 1st.

And that was it. That was just the whole email. Point of fact, straight to the point. And so we were like, I guess. Back to square one. I guess we're back to square one. They must have Googled you. Spent a, yeah maybe.

Spent a whole fucking week, or not a whole week, a whole fucking month getting that worked out. Just sounds like you didn't get it worked out. Yeah. Indeed you're right. We did not get it worked out. And so we will not be moving to this neighborhood. I know what we can do. What's that? They get the rocks. No, we'll go point. We'll go look at the place I'm not gonna

fucking Out the address or anything. No, not trying to dox them. Send me 20 bucks. I'll tell you But we can take a right at some point go into the neighborhood over here and we can walk over to where they're building the new Bridge. Let's see that damn. Let's see that new bridge. Over by the dam. They're building a new bridge? Yeah, you haven't seen it? No. Oh, it's cool, cool. Pedestrian bridge.

Over here at Pleasant Valley and- To replace the Pleasant Valley bridge? Or- To make it no longer a pedestrian bridge on Pleasant Valley. So they're building a pedestrian bridge- Yeah, next to Pleasant Valley. Gotcha, okay. It's like a big-

It's like a big- Well, kind of like what they did with the Lamar pedestrian bridge over there. More complicated, Gotcha. Okay. It's like a big, it's like a big, uh, well kind of like what they did with the Lamar pedestrian bridge over there. More complicated, but yes. Okay. It's like a three pronged bridge. Okay. You'll see it's pretty cool. That was always wild back in the day to see pedestrians going down, walking on that bridge on Lamar, even though there were signs that specifically said not a pedestrian bridge.

Cross this and it would be like, man, these people are out here. They're risking their lives I don't know if you were around for that Austin Eric, but this Brit the walkway on the old Lamar bridge is like 20 inches when you probably guys And you just it's just like people fucking shuffling cars are zooming by 45 miles. It was always sketchy That's our can Can you believe that? That was our house. Yeah, it's literally right next to next door to Rockman.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. It would have been perfect in every way, dude. You should have seen it on the inside. Yeah. Huge yard, very private. So much space. Everything we needed. It was like, oh, we were already building. I was already designing the break show in one of the rooms in my head.

Yeah. It was like, oh cool. Now we can spin all this up. Like we have the forward momentum, I think is like probably the most exciting part. Yes. Momentum. Yes.

And now it's all. It's dead. Yeah, it's dead. There's no more, there's no more momentum. There's nothing worse than momentum killer. Yeah. Yeah. In a creative industry. And it just makes you kind of go like,

but the time we put in, because we had to tour it. I went to it twice. I went to it three times. Yeah. And it's like, man, we got to do it all over again with something else. And it's not going to be. It's just not going to be the thing that we were like in love with. Yeah, we're not gonna be it's just not gonna be the thing that we were like in love with yeah we're gonna be comparing whatever it

is absolutely lost whether we want to or not what is that weird fucking thing that's awesome take it right here yeah the optimist to me wants to say you're gonna find a place to even better be like oh man thank God the other thing fell through yeah yeah I don't yeah I probably don't think so but yeah I appreciate it the classic glass is half-full but yeah I appreciate it I'm trying Gus the classic optimist The glass is half full dude Yeah, I've been telling myself Gus that we are being saved from some sort of annoyance like the landlord would have been real difficult

Yeah, he lives in the neighborhoods We'd have been up our ass or the house would have been a nightmare in some way like full of mold or who knows You'd be a Threes company situation. He'd be Mr. Roper-ing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd be Mr. Roper-ing me, shooting ropes on us. Yeah. That's not what Mr. Roper did at all. Maybe, but that's his name.

You were watching the US version. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The British version was different. Sounds like it. All right, so my 600 pound life, my wife watches different flavors of that show, but not that particular one. What else is appointment television for you guys?

Oh. Or is there? Are you guys watching one show a week together? No, no, there's a couple things that we like, but you know what's really good right now? I don't know if you all have seen it. There's a show, it's on Adult Swim, and they put it out on Max called,

it's an animated show called Common Side Effects. Oh yeah, it's that Mike Judge show, right? Yeah, it's really good. Really? I think there's like five episodes out now. Mike Judge. Yeah, is it on US Adult Swim? Yeah.

Is it? Okay. It's like Sunday nights it comes on or you can watch it Mondays on Max. It's really good. I've heard nothing but positive stuff about it. It's a Mike Judge show. It's supposed to be like really funny.

Yeah, there are some some great moments in that show. It's like the basic premise is like a dude finds a mushroom in Peru that can cure anything. Like whatever is wrong with you, it'll cure it. Okay. Now like government agencies and pharmaceutical companies are trying to stop him because then if you have one drug that fixes everything, they can't sell you the lifetime worth of stuff. And he's just like trying to figure out how to make it work. The brain candy of it.

Yeah. It's really, really good. Dude. There's a very simplified version. This coffee is awful. Really? Oh no. But you had good Rockman before?

Yeah. Just a bad, just an off day? This is burned. It's so, I don't know if I can drink this. This is an angley house. Yeah. Have we walked by this before? Yeah, we probably did. Yeah, like I said, we were kind of in this neighborhood. I made the joke about Canterbury Tales. We're gonna go up and take a left here. Okay. This is where you see where the bridge has been put in right there with the cranes. How long have they been working on this? Uh, what is this? What month is this?

February. I think they started in like because I ride my bike around here on the trail, you know? I think they started in like October, September, October. Oh, wow. Around there. Well, one last excellent show I want to call out. Yeah, please do.

It's I'm looking for a recommendation. Not a new show. Not it's a relatively new show, but it's not like brand new. I only recently got into it. We started watching Yellow Jackets. Oh cool. I watched the first two seasons. Yeah, we watched the first season and we're waiting.

Season three is out now or it's coming out now. So we're waiting a little bit to then get into season two and three. Oh wow. Yellow Jackets is awesome. That show has a lot of promise. I felt like it didn't deliver. Oh, interesting.

They lost me in season two. So wait. Yeah. So then if you're on the bike trail down here, where it used to come over there, it was like a dead end here. Yeah, yeah, interesting. They lost me in season two. So wait. Yeah. So then if you're on the bike trail down here where it used to come, it was it was like a dead end here. Yeah. Yeah. And then it would cut over hard and then you'd walk up here. Now you're going to go here and then you can spin off left to go up here if you want to go to Pleasant Valley and like, I guess, Cesar Chavez or right. If you want to go over towards Riverside. Interesting. Yeah.

So it keeps it low here and then you're just kind of going. So I guess what we're looking at is going, what is this heading east? Yeah. Yes. We're facing east. Yeah, right at Pleasant Valley. Where the dam is. Yeah, the trail becomes like a Y shape.

So you can go north or south from this lower level It, the trail becomes like a Y shape. So you can go north or south from this lower level to get up to the regular level of Pleasant Valley. That's fucking cool. I know, they were building this. No, I had no clue. I mean, driving over Pleasant Valley, I've seen that there's construction, but I didn't know what it was.

You can't really see it from a car because of the fence, but the netted fence. But I ride my bike over here a lot and it was super inconvenient for a while when they were shutting all this down. Once I finally got the traffic flow figured out, it was great. But yeah, I've been, it's funny you guys say that.

It's like you just popped up. I feel like this has been taking fucking forever. We can practice that off to the side here as people pass us. Driving me nuts. Well, it's been no inconvenience to me. So it didn't exist until right now. I'm very excited for it though.

I think it's gonna be really cool. It's a lot of construction right here. It's a big undertaking. We probably get a good view from the dam up there. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, we keep going over there. Dude, I cannot drink this coffee. This is terrible.

That sucks. Just an off day. Man, Austin loves a rounded edge on a house now. Yeah. Why is that going around? I've noticed that it seems to be like if the house I'm describing, think of it like a modern like boxy Minecraft house,

taller than squarish, but I guess tall rectangular. Yeah. But for whatever reason, in every house in Austin that's building it now, it's always like a white farmhouse design, vertical, what do you call it? You put it on the side of a house, siding, vertical siding. And then the front right wall of the house is bent and curved.

It's always the front right wall is always bent and curved around. The curve shows craftsmanship. Yeah. That shows work. I don't know why they never curve any other walls. Just that one. It's a load bearing wall.

It's a curve bearing wall. Yeah. So we're up on Pleasant Valley now. Pleasant Valley and Canterbury. Yeah. And we'll have a look at... Sidewalks closed. I think we'll be okay.

We got a permit. Yeah, we're investigative journalists. Oh, there's the fence. No, they've actually blocked off. There's still a dude in there though. Yeah. He's got a high vis vest on though. He probably belongs.

We need high vis vest and we just climb around over here. I was telling, I was saying that on Fuckface years ago. We get away with a lot with a high vis. I would've wanted to draw dicks on the ground in neighborhoods. Oh wow. There's like little cutouts here for kids to look at, I guess, and for us.

Kids to look at it. Man, they're going to town. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of construction there. They got a lot of faith in their math if they're building from the shore and the middle. Dude, that's, yes, it's exactly, it really is like, see if I can get a picture. If it was me I would start from one side. Yeah, it's like I don't have confidence in our engineers. There's no way I'm gonna make these two things meet. It's coming from everywhere too. I mean it is,

it's a three-way spot coming to meet in the middle there. Long time you like long time ago. I remember I was a kid. I was younger when they did it. But when they built the tunnel, they were digging from the UK and from France and they met in the middle of it, man, that's, that's nuts to me. That's a bold. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, oh, and it, and it worked and they did it.

Yeah. You got some smart people working on stuff. Is our tax dollars at work? Not mine. Making improvements to our, our local community. Nah, that's why I don't pay it. Yeah, they tried to charge me sales tax on this coffee and I was like, uh-uh.

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Some regional exclusions apply. Learn more at TurboTax.ca slash business tax. Speaking of life hacks to save money, the grocery store still hasn't cashed my check. Are you serious? Yeah, I checked again this morning while we were ordering our coffee. That's brilliant.

So I saved $7. There you go, right? Check. Dude, you fucking- You fleeced these guys like Nick's roommate, Nick's fleeced Nick. Fleeced his family and Nick. I feel kind of guilty.

I'm maybe gonna go back and ask him. Listen. Hey, do you guys know that you can cash that check? Yeah, like, what? Would you like me to- Do you want me to show you can cash that check? What? Would you like me to pay with a card? Do you want me to show you how it works? Or if you went back and tried to pay again,

it would cause so many more issues. And it's not like I'm dodging them. I've been back to that store multiple times. I've seen the dude who took my check multiple times. Does he call you Checkman? Not yet. Hey, Checkman. Hey, what's up, Checkman? he call you Checkman? Not yet. Hey, Checkman. Hey, what's up, Checkman?

They call you Siete. They probably call me Boomer. Oh man. This guy's got a checkbook in his car, watch out. Rebecca, Rebecca, you got to check this out. This guy got a checkbook. Do you want to go down Willow? All right.

Yeah, let's do it. What the hell is, oh, it's a forklift. We were just driving that, walking down a residential neighborhood street and there is a giant forklift carrying wood? Sheets of plywood. Yeah. Huh.

Like it's the most normal thing in the world. Just constructing the tallest Airbnbs you've ever seen. Yeah. Got it stacked up to up to the sky. Are we changing our Airbnb rules to make it more restrictive? Are they? Thank God. I think I saw that.

Can they? I thought they did have rules like that in the state of Texas. That sounds right. Yeah. Did I hate it all to do something? That's what you think. It is weird to live in. Right. Yeah. Did I hate it all to do something? That's what you think. It is weird to live in. I wonder if we're the only state capital

where the entire rest of the state hates us. Yeah, you know, I think that's a great point because like in California, we don't even think about Sacramento. Yeah, you don't even fuck about Sacramento. You mean Sacramento? Eh, eh, eh. That's it.

The only thing Sacramento produces is like, it's where the state capital is and probably like some UFC fighters. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's when you get into like that central California Sacramento. That seems like that seems like that seems like a Nate Diaz neighborhood. Big time, right? That kind of thing. Like it's not like that's like not where the Diaz brothers are from, I think. But it might as well be where the Diaz brothers are from. It just seems like a place where it's like this is where we have UFC fighters only. But I bet there are probably numerous states.

Yeah, maybe. Well, no. What is that like? But where the entire rest of the state like we're like the old think about like. North Carolina. OK, I would think I'm thinking about a place like that. Well, I guess the whole triangle might be pretty liberal as opposed to the rest of the state. But I think there's a lot of.

I mean, you can say Florida with Miami-Dade County, maybe, but I don't think it's nearly as blue as Austin. I think about a lot of red states. But it's also a lot of capital. A lot of big cities ended up being very left leaning or liberal. And there are a lot of red states with big cities as the capital. I guess Houston's pretty liberal too, though, in the grand scheme of things. Dallas. I mean, really any decent-sized city.

Major, mid-Balton city. Okay, I can't drink this coffee anymore. It's just we're living in a... I don't think there's a lot of states where the governor brags about leaving the Capitol so he can breathe again because he can't stand to fucking be there. I think every time the legislature is in session, they try to introduce a law to make Austin not a city.

Which the legislature is in session again right now, so it's back up. You seen all this shit about the Texas lottery? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I keep getting TikToks from the guy who like cracked it. Yeah. Who, so there was like, I don't even know what you'd call it, fraud, insider numbers giving for the Texas lottery?

Yes. And I guess there was like some jackpot, I think it was like $83.5 million that was won illegally through means of fraud. So it was a big investigation. The state government may shut down the entire lottery commission. Wow. So it all kind of branches off from,

I don't know if you ever noticed this before. I always thought this was a weird business, but there were businesses in Texas where you can install an app on your phone and buy lottery tickets. Yes. Like scratchers or lotto, the power, like the balls one. And it was essentially a courier service. So you would buy the ticket in the app. Then someone who ran the app would go and purchase the ticket and like send you a picture of it. Like, this is your ticket your ticket. Then if you won, they would let you know, you collect the money.

If you didn't win, they would just throw the ticket away. So I guess it all kind of centers around that and how any place- Should we start making moving right? Yeah. Any place who does that has to have a physical storefront. So like there was a place up by the Arboretum, I think this is the place I was doing it,

if I remember right, that was like a hobby store. They sold like board games or something, but that really wasn't their business. That was just like the storefront. Then in the back was all the like the lottery ticket stuff that was going on and all this app stuff. And I guess it just got to a point where people were in, I always say, insider trading with numbers. Like there was some fraud going on where numbers were being exchanged and people were being picked to win and there were kickbacks with the head of the lottery commission it was like a whole it's crazy criminal enterprise that was happening and it is like it's like weirdly hush hush like i feel like i'm i'm only seeing it yeah yeah i'm i'm only seeing it through means of where i don't think they want me to see it from people who exposed it.

And like none of it's like the news. Yeah, it's really bizarre. It's like a huge story. I feel like Jeff, you hadn't even heard about it. I feel like it's not getting- Yeah, but I am willfully ignorant to keep in mind. That's true. But it's not getting the level of attention

it deserves, I think. Yes, I agree with that. How's that ice coffee? It was a seven out of 10. Okay. Should we talk about- Yeah, let's talk about- Our original cup ice coffee? It was a 7 out of 10. Okay. Should we talk about our original cup of coffee? Mercados and Nombre. Again, kind of like a newer spot around here.

Double Monday or Tuesday. Has a really cool sort of patio area. It really does. Where you can sit and eat your little biscuit and jam, which we did get. We got biscuits and jam. It was really good. And me and Gus and me and Gus ate them the right way. And then Jeff's an insane person. Jeff picked it up like an apple. It took a bite

out of it. He grabbed it like a baseball dipped it in the butter jam and then just took a bite. Yeah, it was delicious. It was funny. It looked insane. Yeah, I don't think it did. But it was really yummy. I think it just looked like a normal dude eating a biscuit It did not if I was sitting as you would if I was sitting at like at a table near you and I saw that I out loud I would go oh my god, it was like biscuits and gravy I wouldn't have done it but it was just a dry ass biscuit and then like a dipping sauce on the side Yeah, and it was a really good dude. Oh,. Biscuit was great. I love the little jam.

That's that dude again. There he is. I love the little jam butter presentation thing that they do. I think that was really nice. I got a regular cup of coffee. You got ice coffee. Ice coffee. I got a drip coffee as well because I didn't see Americano on the menu. Yeah so Gus mixing it up getting a regular cup of coffee. on the menu. Gus mixing it up, getting a regular cup of coffee. What did you guys think of the coffee? Mine was okay. It was a little bitter.

It had that very bitter coffee taste you get sometimes. Not bad, it's just not the flavor profile I typically like with coffee. But I acknowledge that was a good cup of coffee. It just wasn't the kind of coffee I would normally drink myself. Yep. Uh, I, well, first off, I'm going to give that place a 10 out of 10 on location or presentation. I think it's just adorable.

It's got a great vibe to it. It's decorated well. It's nestled in between taller buildings. So it feels like a little, I don't know, it just feels like kind of tucked in. And as, as for the cold brew, I would give it a 10. Really? It was the perfect cup of cold brew. Yeah, it was amazing. Wow.

I had no issues with that place. Yeah. When it's open, it's really cool. It's a really cool spot. I just wish I could work there on Tuesdays. Yeah, it's just a, like everything else is a real bummer where it's like, yeah, we're closed on these days. It just goes. All right, that's fine. I want to come back and try their other food. They had a lot of other stuff on the menu. They had, they had burritos.

I wanted to try that, but the biscuit was calling to me. There's a blue corn. It's really good. The biscuit was so like, if you've never been here and you're like, I'm going to try it. Get, dude, get the biscuit and jam. It's so good.

What did you think of the coffee? I liked it. It's way better than that Rockman Cup. It was a great just right right down the middle cup of coffee. I don't think it did. Like there was no like really flavor profile where I was like, wow, taste this. But if I lived around here and I was walking through, I'd grab a cup of coffee and keep going.

I think it's it's that kind of spot. I mean this in the best way, but it is the kind of place in Austin where I go to where I don't feel cool enough to be there a little bit. Yeah. But then as soon as we were sitting there and like hanging out, I did not feel out of place. I felt out of place walking up to it

and then did not feel out of place once we were sat and hanging out. Absolutely. Great place. Highly recommend. Yeah. I really like it. I really, really like it. If I had to rate it, I'd probably say coffee, seven out of ten. Yeah. Okay. I think the coffee is probably right around seven, five, eight, something like that. Yeah, seven, five, eight, seven, or ten on the whole.

Yeah. I bet that they have some specialty drinks that like blow you away. That's the thing. I wanted to order some of the specialty drinks, but I wanted to stay as true to what I normally order as possible. It just seems like this is the kind of place where they do a weird specialty latte better than they do a regular cup of coffee, because that's the clientele. The clientele here isn't probably drinking much in the way of like black drip coffee. Yeah, they have a lot of other stuff. But I love where this is tucked away. I like this area, this sort of like Caesar Travess to fifth up to like seventh. It's the best part of Austin.

I love it. I love like this whole spread on East. I just had a thought. This whole area is gonna be overrun with South by Southwest soon. We should do something during South by. Like we should do an episode out like downtown, like in the shit.

Okay. Yeah, we should, fucking that would be some audio texture walking down dirty sixth. Yeah. On like a third on that Thursday or Friday. Here is the next one. I think it's either one. It's fourth, I believe.

Yeah, we're here. Cool. Oh no, it's fit. Yeah. We'll try it here and if not, we'll come back. It doesn't matter. I like that. It is warm up.

I like that idea of right in the middle of South by tough doing that stuff. Is there any like, I'm sure you guys used to go to South by stuff forever ago, but not anymore. Is there any stuff I shouldn't? Is there stuff that you're like, Oh, South by is coming. Yeah. You'll check this out.

Cochrane was doing a panel. Oh, is he really March 9th? Damn. Are you gonna get? No, I don't have a badge. I would love to, but yeah. South by is one of those things where we would always get free badges through work, you know? Of course, yeah.

And then you would use it less and less and to the point where they would give you a maybe like, you just give it to somebody else. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need it. I'm not going to use it. Yeah, it's like, hey, honestly, the thing that I always felt from it was in my 20s, oh my God. And then, like, as I got into my 30s, using it less until I was like, hey, give this to someone in their 20s.

Like I don't, I'm not gonna. There was. You're saying oh my God, but with a different intonation. Yep, yep. Oh my God. There was a sweet spot in like 2009, 2008 when we were downtown, when it was awesome cause we would just walk out of our office and walk down to Sixth Street

and you would just go from bar to bar drinking free booze. Yeah, the proximity of these things proximity and then make your way back. And it would just be like, we just got hammered for zero dollars. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of like pro wrestling that's going to be happening in Austin, a lot of like fly in people, a lot of people checking stuff out and then like a lot of a lot of talent coming through Austin to show out during South by which is really, I think, very cool.

I saw a clip from some local Austin wrestling on the public freakout subreddit the other day. Oh really? It's like some guy I don't remember his name some guy who's playing the heel came in screamed at a kid. He screamed at a kid? Flipped off a baby. His name is All-Star Matt Locke. His name is Matt Locke. That's his name.

Matt Locke. Matt Locke. He's awesome. He was gone for like a year. He just came back. That was his first match back. and the kid right there and fucking screamed out of his aw, dude It was so funny there. No, that was up in Waco At part of Texas progress even better. They used to run down here now. They have a spot up in Waco But he's back and he's like

If there was a guy where I'm like, this is a guy to like watch too much or like that's him. Too much of wrestling is like, hey, I get what's going on here. What he does is he eliminates that sort of like, hey, we're all in on it together because he does that stuff where he gets in your face, he knocks your hat off and your beer out of your hand and you go, hey, I thought we were in this together. And to me, the money in wrestling is like that friction of like, hey, what the fuck is this?

Hey, I don't- Not me, them. Yeah, exactly. And that friction, I think he has a lot of that. And he's like a guy to watch. I like him a lot. He flipped off a baby, which- I'm telling you, man,

screaming a kid flip off a baby, make that money. That was always the achievement hunter audience to me. It was always like, yeah, make fun of Gavin, make fun of. That was always the Achievement Hunter audience to me. It was always like, yeah, make fun of Gavin, make fun of Michael, yeah, I'm gonna make fun of him too. Don't make fun of the audience, don't make fun of me. No, we're making fun of other people. We're in on the joke, we're not the joke. We're not the joke, not us.

I mean, it's like everybody gets made fun. It's equal opportunity, asshole. It's like, what don't you get? It goes every direction. Yep. Nobody's immune. The to me, that friction is where money's at. Like that there's just there's a lot there.

But I'm glad you saw that. That's really cool. Yeah. There's a lot of wrestling in town. There's a lot of wrestling. A lot of coffee in town seems like a big time for wrestling. Austin is a wrestling city. Big time.

You heard it here first. You heard guys. You've never heard it anywhere else. You heard it here first. But come, guys, you've never heard it anywhere else. You heard it here first. But come to Mirkados and Nombre. It's not just for standup anymore. You can wrestle here too. You knew both.

Now the comedy's legal. Yeah, cool. All right. Guys, honestly, finally, am I right? Well, I think that might do it while we go out on the dulcet sounds of a dog barking on a second roof balcony and a guy cutting through metal.

The sweet tones of Austin. Any final thoughts, last words? This is the third episode in another eight episode run. Hey guys, we'll see you at South by Southwest. Come down, say hi. Come on down guys. By the time this comes out, you're definitely going to make it. This is definitely not months later.

Yep, absolutely. All right, we'll see you next time bye!