Beantown Podcast - Power Ranking Fast Food Ice Creams and the Park District Softball Outfit

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

Quinn comes to you LIVE to discuss 7-Eleven Slurpees, poor plate discipline, and feral domesticated wild water buffalo

Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David Furness. Welcome to my show. Quinn David Furness presents the Beantown podcast for Sunday, July 12th, 2026. What's going on? What's happening? How are you? It's been a while since we last hit the airwaves. It's 13 days, I believe, since we last recorded. If memory holds, our previous show was recorded at the tail end of my long long. walk and I will apologize. I think my AirPod recording quality, like the microphone within the AirPods, whatever has gotten worse over the years. I assume there's a way to use my AirPods to well no, I was going to say like use my AirPods but like use the phone recorder as my main thing but then I had my phone in my pocket. So yeah, the whole thing is you wouldn't have to hold your phone up.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is apologies. The audio quality was pretty poor. I listened to the first five minutes or so of the episode. So I know it was bad and consider the clarity, the crispness of my voice, a gift, a mid-July gift from E to you, the Samson Q2U series. We love our friends. At Samson, when God speaks, he uses us Samson. I am Quinn and I am the creator, the host. and, you know, chief builder, like set designer, builder of this program.

Not as much in the last two or three days, but started this week. I spent a lot of time, like, watching YouTube tutorials, reading how-toes about a number of different items. There's just been a lot of, like, home improvement type stuff happening either at my in-laws while I was there or here in the apartment that I'm not responsible for. We're renters. So we got a maintenance guy for that stuff who is, I believe, the dad of our landlord. It's like a small Eastern European outfit. I always wanted to call something an outfit, right?

It's got like gang, you know, small-timey connotation vibes. The Vukic outfit, the UK-I-C. So that's what we're dealing with here. I can't even like, this wasn't even in my notes. I wasn't going to mention it. Before we get into it, I'll mention listener discretion advised. Number one, we'll cage you some language number two. This podcast is objectively terrible.

It's been almost a month at this point, a month ago. Our washer, dryer died. It was all sorts. I think it was like the electrical paneling got messed up. And I think honestly, we had some sort of, I don't know. I'm not an electrician. I apologize.

And I did not make, I did not study or pay much attention in AP physics in high school. And we got to the section on electromagnetism. You know, you get into this whole section. You got like the diagrams. I know here's the, here's where the current, the direction the current is going and connecting it to a battery. That was, you know, there were certain things that I felt like, and I was never good at physics in general. but certain things where I felt like I at least kind of got my foot in the door and wrapped my mind around like 50% of it. And then there are certain things, especially as the concepts grew more and more challenging, where I just never felt like I got got my mind wrapped around any of it.

I would say anything like electromagnetism with batteries and stuff, that was one of them. I think when I took the AP test, there was a whole story question because like the second half of the test is all like the story questions and there's just like four of them or something. I think a whole particular question, 25% of the section or something was dedicated to something about battery and I was just like, oh, I'm totally screwed here. That and then I had this thought the other day. Actually, I think it was just yesterday. I was reading my book Rising Sun by Michael Crichton, my first time ever reading it. One of his more famous books and probably his most controversial book, it highlights a number of different things. But at the center it is 20th century Japanese-American relations.

I actually think I was supposed to or not supposed to. I was going, we had this book, like we owned it. My parents did growing up. And I like brought it on a road trip one time when I was probably like 12 or something. I think my, I think I still, if this is the right novel, I'm remembering, remember like pulling it out, I packed it for the road trip, and my mom being like, yeah, let's not read that one. So I assume that she's read it.

I don't know if my parents are listening. If either of you have read Michael Cretton's Rising Sun, I don't know why we owned it, but if I'm thinking of the right novel. And then they made it into a film with Sean Connery and what's his name, The Black Guy. I'll think of it. Wesley Snipes, is that right? Or is it someone else?

I can't remember. Anyways, but there was a section or a mention there of like, you know, they're doing like altering a video footage and someone messes up the way like a mirror is supposed to work when they're doctoring the footage in this novel. And that made that reminded me of physics class and how I felt like I never got a good grasp on like the color, whatever. It's not color spectrum, but like the section on photo, it's not photo magnetism. but you know like how how light works essentially a pretty core part of physics i never really grasped that either but this okay going all the way back i don't remember how we got into that little tangent but i was talking about home improvement um and also thank you to our friends in pakistan and nigeria thank you for making us the 178 and 78th ranked comedy podcast in your

wonderful nations uh sorry neither one of you made it to the final four of the world cup but it was total chalk this year with Spain, France, England, and Argentina. It's, I mean, pretty boring, honestly. And we've reached the point where there's no teams left. That's the thing yesterday with Switzerland and Norway, both going down an extra time. It's like, obviously I was rooting for Norway

and would have loved to see them win my cultural heritage. But something like the Swiss, it was like, I don't really care about Switzerland one way or another, but at least if they win, it's like I can go into this, you know, semifinals on Wednesday being like, I got something to watch to really root for here. And now it's just like Spain versus France.

I don't know. Is that Tuesday or Wednesday? I'm not sure. Spain versus France, I'm like, I mean, I guess Spain because France just won two tournaments ago, eight years ago. But honestly, I don't care. And then Argentina versus England. It's like, I feel like England is the most annoying team left.

but they're the biggest underdog of these four. And so it's like, should I be reading for that? I don't really want Argentina to win again. So it wasn't, I mean, I don't have the list in front of me here, but Argentina won last time. And did they beat Spain? I can't remember who was in that final. Was that, no, the one before is France.

And they beat Croatia in 2016. That's not right. 2018. And then 2014, I think, was Spain beat the Netherlands? Is that right? Or was that the 2010 one? I can't remember. It doesn't matter.

Yada, yada, yada. You're not here for a World Cup history lesson. We are going to have softball reflections. I observed in passing a number of softball games today, so we're going to talk softball reflections. And then we're going to power rank the greatest over the years with my limited wisdom here in 31 years, greatest fast food ice cream desserts.

And I'll set it up a little. bit more. One of my podcasts I listened to, you did a power ranking of, like, ice cream. Ice creams, basically, like, it could be wide open. Like, you could pick a Rocky Road ice cream, or you could pick, like, a screwball was what one of the guys picked, which I wasn't aware of. It's, it's like an ice cream treat with two gumballs at the bottom of this cone. So it was pretty wide open. And the consensus essentially, and this is how I felt, was that the pay. The picks are pretty weak in this snake draft. And it's no criticism to, it's one of my favorite podcasts, Purple Daily.

It's a Vikings podcast. But it was just like, oh, these picks are kind of weak. So I'm going to take my stab in my top 10 ice cream desserts from fast food restaurants. So be on the lookout for that. We have a combo washer dryer, which is a total, we said less than discretion advisor. I believe so. I think we've checked off all of our boxes. get into the show here.

Total piece of crap. I will, so we had this old one, had it for two years, and who knows how old it actually was. I don't know. It comes with the apartment, obviously. And so it finally gave out on us. It was a comical situation. I think it was what I was trying to say five minutes ago.

I think we had a power surge because first the washer dryer went and then it was like a week later we noticed the dishwasher wasn't working properly, but it wasn't, you could still started it was an issue with the water or i don't even know what the issue was i'm not a dishwasher tech okay so we're not even going to go down that road and try to pretend by the way drinking a mandarin orge sparkling water carbonated beverage from all the you get like the leader right for 89 cents or whatever and and a little bit of vodka mixed in so kind of like a bubbly screwdriver something like that less let's juicy and more watery but it's good stuff you're If it's crisp, it's refreshing on a hot summer's day.

Dude, by the way, and then we'll finish up our appliance story. I don't know what it's like, temperature, weather-wise, where you guys are listening from. But today it's like 83 and sunny, no clouds in the sky. So in the middle of July, it's like pretty muggy, pretty warm in general. This is like the coolest day on the forecast in my 10-day forecast here we got on the iPhone app. Just looking at highs. and there's one day where there's 40% chance of rain, otherwise it's sun.

Starting tomorrow, 91, 95, 95, 91, 92, 92, 90, 87, 91. So we're into the middle of next week, 10 days from now, with our lowest high being 87 degrees. And I am just, I'm not a summer person. We had a relatively forgiving June here in Chicago. like had to turn on the AC once or twice basically, and now we're just, we're paying the price. It is.

The worst thing about it for me, you know, being a big runner, and that's like my primary workout five days a week, when it gets that high, you've got to get up early and go. Which I guess is good prep for me, like, you know, having more responsibilities being a father someday, all that stuff. Like you get your workout in when you can get it in. You're not kind of the luxury or always have a job where you have the luxury to just like go get your workout in when you want to get your workout in.

So like it's good discipline to have. But I just the and maybe it's just a mindset. Maybe I just got to take a more positive attitude here. But the like enjoyment I get out of running at 6 a.m. versus like three, four in the afternoon is so much different. Three or four in the afternoon it's like, okay, put in a good work day, taking my lunch break and kind of decompose. can kind of decompress and come back and just chill out versus 6 a.m. It's like you got to drag yourself out.

You got to worry about the poop situation. Do I have to go? Do I not have to go? Bones are creaky. It's speaking of rising sun. Yeah, man, it's just, it's always something. So anyways, first world problems we're complaining about here on the Beantown podcast. So our washer dryer died.

It was an electrical issue in these stupid washer dryer combos. or at least the ones we've had, they have door locks where it's like you can't just open it. I guess that's fairly common probably for at least a washing machine. You can't just like open it in the middle of the cycle. You got to turn it off, let it drain, cool, decompress whatever it needs to do. And of course, the way this thing died, it died with our not someone's clothes in it, but actually our bed sheets. This was like a month ago on a random Sunday, I think, and I had to drive the target to go get a

brand new set of bed sheets just because ours were literally locked inside this washing machine. So we got the new one installed. You know, they came and did it. That's, you know, the beauty being a renter. You don't have to worry about that stuff. But I was doing just kind of some light reading on like washer dryer combos, how it works. My clear advice is don't buy, right? Call me Jim Kramer.

I'm telling you, don't buy it. Which I don't think I ever would in a like regular quote house that has space for. standard washer dryer hookups but hasn't the the washer dryer's not been a good experience this new one is better as far as timing goes like you can get a full cycle of washing and drying with a load done in like two two and a half hours but this previous one it would be like four sometimes five hours to do one load which is not ideal so then a couple weeks later and i'm not just going to like run through everything I promise but just speaking of why we are why am I I'm a chief set builder or architect or whatever I said at the onset of the show the dishwasher died so we and that was dead for a while

finally got a new one this past week and then the latest fiasco has been water dripping from the ceiling which is new I've never lived in an apartment before where water drips from the ceiling We live on the top floor, so it's a roof leak. And, yeah, I'm staring up at it right now, you know, brown circles on the top, the ceiling. And those, you know, that had been accumulating. And then, what was it, Friday night, Thursday night, something like that, a few nights ago. Yeah, the water, basically where the top of the ceiling meets the wall. But, you know, there's kind of a 45-degree angle piece that on the floor you'd call it, like, the

baseboard, the trim. I don't know if it's called the ceiling trim or something, but it's, you know, a 45 degree decorative piece, essentially, running around the ceiling wall 90 degree angle. So water starts dripping from through there. And so we've notified the landlord and have yet to, to, you know, receive any updates essentially. Obviously, they got to go on the roof and try to identify the leak. But I've just spent, the reason I mean, mention this stuff is I spent a lot of time as, you know, we're inching closer here to potential homeownership, a lot of time just researching all these different things from, you know, how to install a dishwasher to how to find a roof leak, you know, how to hook up, like how to vent

your dryer to the outside. I spent a lot of time with, you know, with the water situation. Oh, And then the other thing with my in-laws, we were there last weekend and there was a power outage, big storm rolled through. And one of the big concerns was the sump pump. And this wasn't my first time hearing about or knowing about a sump pump, but I spent a lot of Googling this past week and YouTube viewing about sump pumps and this whole house videos and how do you install one, which, you know, they're going all the way. they're going hardcore, like, draw a circle and sharpie around your basement floor and get the jackhammer in there. I'm thinking, like, I don't think I'm ever going to be doing this exact thing myself, but certainly knowing how the sum pump works and what its purpose is, is interesting. You know, we always had, we had a basement in my house, my childhood home growing up, and there was

one part of the basement, the like northwest corner, I believe, that would, you know, get not like completely, I say, you know, flooding, not completely washed out. There's not stuff floating around the floor in the carpeted basement. But, you know, damp spots. And so you go get towels down there. You stomp on them like you're stomping grapes. Remember that viral video from 15, 20 years ago? The newscaster lady, she was doing some story on a, you know,

a grape stomping in wine festival or something like that. And she, she competes against one of the owners. And she cheats because she, you know, you know, stomps like two to three seconds, two to three more times after the clock runs out to try to stop more juice, essentially. And then she falls, she trips on her bucket and, like, falls off the platform and she makes those crazy sound effects. It's a classic viral video.

You know, this is before Instagram and Twitter and all that stuff. And so you just had this, like, occasionally every couple of months, a video would come out and it would just be like, oh, this is the viral video right now. It would be like the grape stomping lady. I think the family guy did. bit on it. There was Antoine Robinson or whatever his name was. You know, they're hiding

your kids or hide your kids, hide your wife because they're raping everybody out there. There was, oh, what was that one? It was a black lady's name because there was a fire like overnight and she's like, and I went up, I woke up to get me a cold pop and I said, oh Lord, someone's having a barbecue. And then she goes down the hallway and something's like, oh Lord, there's a fire.

She's got some name. It's like sugar brown or something like that. You know, it's just some random apartment complex resident. But those are three that come to mind. Obviously, there's many more viral videos. But this was, you know, now a video is viral and it's like, it really has to be something I feel like for it to kind of captivate the nation because there's just so many different outlets.

Whereas before it was like there was a one thing. for a while. That was like, that's what we're talking about. So, and we'll get to actually viral videos in a second here when we get to our animal of the week. But I see if I have any other thoughts on the home improvement stuff. Oh, the sump pump, but yeah, just learning about that. A lot of, I've been spending a lot of time learning about, you know,

rain water and gutters and where you want your water to flow to in general. And, you know, with the, when you got the downspouts that, that go straight underground. It's like, do they flow into the city sewer pipes? Do they just like, you know, how do you get it away from the foundation of your home? I was Googling that on my walk today as I was observing. That's the other thing, too. I just feel like I've been observing a lot.

Been very studious, S-U-D-I-O-U-S. Just different homes and different things and drier vents and downspouts and French drains. as I start to just gather some more knowledge on the home buying outfit. That's what we would call it. Our Animal of the Week today is sponsored by our good friends at Cuts by Q. When you need a fresh do something snappy or new, just call the experts at Cuts by Q. And also by our good friends at Beantown's sports book.

The World Cup may be wrapping up. here but NFL training camp starts in just three weeks so you're going to want to get your bets ready to go football season or women's lacrosse or whatever your other men's wrestling whatever your other favorite false sports are maybe you placed a bet on Connor McGregor I was going to say you and McGregor but that's not right Connor McGregor last night you got totally burned well that won't happen with the you know free bet back token guarantee you know if For every Connor McGregor bet you make at the Beantown Sportsbook, if he doesn't last longer than 90 seconds, it's your money back.

That's the Beantown Sportsbook guarantee. Beantown Sportsbook bet like a better, better. And then, of course, our good friends at Home Pride, Oregon. Speaking of buying a house, maybe you're not as plugged in to dishwasher installation or dripping roofs or leaky roofs or, you know, downspouts as I am, in which case you're going to want to go with a trusted expert. My dad's Steve, 541, 4100316, or email HomePriotorgan at gmail.com. Again, that's Homeprideorgan at gmail.com.

Homepride organ inspection, perfection. And whether you live in central Oregon and you're using HomePriot Organ or literally anywhere else, don't waive the inspection. I know there's like certain markets that are so hot and I live in a hot market myself but there are times where it's like you kind of gotta waive the inspection if you want to get your offer across the finish line

which I get but I just can't imagine ever like I can't imagine there being such a desirable place and like the perfect house from like you know what I got to have this I'm just going to wave the inspection You're so wide open to a potential shitstorm in a situation like that. Like, I'll just go, I'll find another house in a maybe slightly less desirable location. Maybe the schools are a 7 out of 10 on Zillow instead of a 9 out of 10. That's okay because Quinn Jr. is going to learn just fine.

It's going to grow up on the streets. Okay, he's going to have that streets education. so it doesn't really matter what the school system's like. That's my motto. So I mentioned viral videos a little bit earlier, and I don't know if this one's going to quite go viral, but it's definitely left an impression on me. I saw it this morning at about 6.30 a.m. half asleep,

scrolling Twitter or Reddit or something like that. Maybe you've already seen it. The video of the bison in Yellowstone, just jacking the shit out of this guy. This older guy, apparently serious injuries. But I had to look back because I was like, we've probably already done a bison and had a bison versus buffalo conversation here on the show. And lo and behold, I think that was true.

Great song by James Taylor, by the way. Lo and behold. There's a whale on the hill. Just can't die for Jesus. There's a whale on the hill. Let it be. don't know if that's the right words, just can't die for Jesus. It doesn't really make sense. But that's how the song goes. Lo and behold, it's just like two minutes. Go check it out.

It's a great one. So I was like, you know what? What's another, what's another? Actually, I think we did like something weird. It was like the European bison we did. I was like, you know what, let's mix this up. We talk about, you know, everyone says, oh, that's a beautiful buffalo. And then it's always like, actually, you know, you put your nerd glasses on. It's actually, that's a bison. So I said, let's give some shout out to the actual, the OG Buffaloes here. I'm talking about water buffaloes. Excuse me, which I think are native to probably like South Asia and then Africa. I don't know.

I admittedly, that's the extent actually before that because I didn't research that. The extent of the research I did on water buffaloes. So let's find out together. they you know they're kind of oh when you google water buffalo the like top auto search result is domestic water buffalo are these things being kept as pets somewhere i mean i didn't know we had domestic water buffaloes okay we go to wikipedia it's just water buffalo so i don't know what the yeah also called domestic water buffalo okay here's a question for the zoologists out there if we have a clear wikipedia entry for water buffalo and that's a great base name right lowest common denominator it is what it is

why do we need to say also known as the domestic water buffalo i mean i know that's a slightly different word than domesticated but why why would we add an extra adjective when we have a perfectly good water buffalo over here is a large domesticated so it is domesticated so it is domesticated so So in this sense, we're interchangeably using domestic and domesticated. I didn't know water buffalo or domesticated. I thought they were just out there in rivers and shallow ponds just causing a ruckus. I always think of water buffalo and hippopotamus as kind of like doing the same thing from like a ecological environmental perspective, just hanging out in shallow water, just messing stuff up.

I don't know what I don't know if that's true I don't know if that's what the water buffalo are actually doing I guess we're going to find out a large domesticated bovine originating the Indian subcontinent in Southeast Asia so they're Asian descended from the wild water buffalo I mean

I feel like I might rather learn about the wild water buffalo than the domesticated water buffalo but the domesticated water buffalo seems to be like the much more built-out Wikipedia article here, so I guess we'll just go with that. Today it's also kept in regions including Italy, the Balkans,

Australia, the Americas, and parts of Africa, do extant, good word, E-X-T-A-N-T types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioral criteria. The river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent those are the ones that are kind of just chilling in the

Ganges, probably. I know you think, I know they don't do this in India because cows, and I assume, by extension, and bovine are sacred. But, you know, they just said they're in Italy. Are we eating the water buffalo in Italy? I have no idea.

I assume it's similar to a cow. So you have the river buffalo in the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy. And then the swamp buffalo from Assam, ASSAM. I haven't clicked on it yet. We'll come back to it. In the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze Valley of China in the east. Where the heck do we think Assam is?

A.S.A.M. Never heard of it in my life. It seems to be a place name that we're alluding to. I mean, just looking at the construction here of vowels, consonants, et cetera. A.S.S. AM. I mean, that sounds kind of like Middle East, right? I'm going to guess Assam is a small region, maybe a valley in Iraq is my guess. Let's see. all way off. A state in northeast India.

I really botched that. Huh. Tough. Tough, tough, tough. There's an Assam tea garden. There's also Mahjuli, sorry, M-A-J-U-L-I,

which is an island. Somewhere in northeast India, apparently. I didn't know they had islands in northeast India. Oh, it's, uh, it says, is the largest river island.

in Osama State of Northeast India. It's bordered by the Brahmaputra River to the south and east and the Subansir River to the west. Oh yeah, so it's like two rivers kind of coming together. Interesting. Population 167,000 on this island in the middle of a river. That seems like a lot of people that are crammed in there. How do those people survive?

What are they doing for work? They just tame in domesticated water buffaloes. What are we doing? Anyways, that's the water buffalo. There's a great, if my memory recalls, great veggie tales, silly songs with Larry, song about a water buffalo. Let's see, so they're domesticated water buffaloes per Wikipedia

are especially suitable for tilling rice fields and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. A large feral population became established in Northern Ross in the late 19th century and there are smaller feral herds in several other countries so last point here let me get this right we had the water buffalo centuries ago we decided and we i mean like the indian government or whomever we decided let's tame them and now we'll have a whole new wikipedia article for domestic aka domesticated water buffalo and then among that grievely group will have an offset, an outfit really, that gets shipped.

How do they get from India to Australia? Someone must have brought them on a boat. There's no way they're swimming that far. You know, every time I see a water buffalo, they're swimming in, you know, shallow waters and Assam and the Brahmaputra. They're not crossing oceanic straits and similar ilk. How would you define the word ilk? I-L-K. I think I got like 75% of the way there with my usage, but ilk is kind of a funky one.

Let's keep moving. So they get to Northern Australia in the 19th century, and all of a sudden you have these domestic water buffalo who are ancestors of wild water buffalo who decide we're going to become feral. And so now the circle of life, just as Elton John predicted, is complete. and we have gone from wild to domesticated to feral in one beautiful cycle. So if you're ever in northern Australia, you can see the feral domestic wild water buffalo, and they're beautiful and delicious. That's our animal of the week. All right, we got some more things to get to here.

We have softball observations. We have top 10 ice cream desserts, and we have a fun trivia. question as well for the geography uh u s u s geography buffs out there all right so i took a walk i've got a wide open day here wife dog hanging out with family so i'm just like you know what obviously i don't do workouts really on sundays my day of rest which says jesus intended and so i said well let me at least go out get some steps so i go up up to lincoln square mcdonalds get myself a coke zero And along the way, I first passed Wells Park, and eventually I'll get down to Horner Park and then finish up in Revere Park. Kind of my three main jams in the general area here.

And at each stop, there was some softball happening, and I just took down some notes as I was watching, some things that caught my attention. This wasn't initially going to be a segment on the show today, but the material kept flowing. flooding in. So I don't have, I don't have a, you know, 20 minutes on this or anything. Thank God. But let's just pour over what I found. Pour over as in like read over. Is that P-O-U-R or P-O-R-E? Don't know. Unclear. Email us. Beantown Podcast at Yahoo.com. Again, it's Beentown podcast at yahoo.com. The correct spelling of that particular pour. And then, uh, your best definition of ilk without Googling. It's no fun.

Anyone can Google and copy and paste. We're trying to do this off the dome. Okay. First thing, I go up, I'm walking past Wells Park here, Lincoln Square, you know, Square Roots festivals going on. They won't let me walk through Lincoln without them, without them giving me the full court press for a $10 donation when I'm just trying to go from point A to point B.

Okay? It's the fastest way for me. to get my Coke zero. So I got to take a D2 or something. I'm going through the park. And there's a girl's softball game going on. These all look like high schoolers. Obviously, it's not a school league.

It's a, you know, whatever, summer league. Three batterers in a row. And I don't know any of the teams. I don't know who's who, whatever. But one half innings, teams batting. And the first girl comes up to bat, and this is fast-pitched softball, right? This isn't your lazy adult, you know, drink a Miller-like kind of league.

This is like competitive stuff, little league softball essentially. First batter comes up to bat and walking behind home plate, making my way eventually past left field and beyond. And squares up to Bunt. Buntz are right back to the pitcher. Pitcher just jogs to the baseline, tags the runner out, one out. I'm like, okay, like, Maybe that's your strategy.

You got your speed stirred leading things off. You know, just trying to get on base anyway you know how. But really bad bunt. Like you don't want to push that bunt. Obviously, as a right-handed batter out to the, you know, the first baseline. That's the worst possible place to put it. So one out. I don't think much of it.

I'm like, okay, this girl's like 17, whatever. It's not great at this. Battered. I kind of peering over my shoulder, you know, it's something to watch. as I make my way out sort of to left field. Second batter comes up, bunt. Pop up right in the air to the catcher. You know, it's in the air for a grand total of three seconds.

Less than that, two seconds. Easy out, two outs. I'm like, okay, you're sending up two. You got nobody on, one out. And that's the thing to in softball. It's like, and I don't, I'm not a softball expert by any means. But it's not like you, oh, you got to get your, fast person to first so you can steal.

Right? In these kids leagues, there's no stolen bases or anything like that. So I'm like, why are you trying to bunt your way to first base with one out? I mean, just swing, take the bat off your shoulder, swing a little bit. It's more where that came from in future parks, I promise, future games. Third person comes up this time. I'm almost out of eyesight at this point. And they bunt right to first base is a hard bunt. and first baseman scoops it up steps on first

and so this team goes the entire half inning three outs, three bunts either popped up or pushed to the right side and it's just like I don't know was this like a bunting camp or something with terrible instructors how could the team's whole strategy just be to like send everyone up there to bunt are they just incapable of swinging the bat Do they all have shoulder fractures?

I don't know who out there in softball coaching land, if this was a Jenny Finch decision or others, gave this girls squad the green light to just go up and bunt three times and have shitty bunts too. But shame on that team. So that was my first observation. That's what I saw in Wells. So I go, I get my Coke Zero and I walk down and walk through Horner Park,

which is a big beautiful park here on the river. And I actually don't, none of these, I don't have any observations from this one. It's just, you got a PSA, because I mean, I had a big stumble on a run in Horner Park a couple weeks ago that we talked about briefly. But if you're going for a run or a bike, if you're going for a bike, that's not what they would say. If you're biking, going for a run, pushing your kids around on the shore or whatever, Horner Park on Sundays, you've got to watch out. Because these, I don't know if they're like exclusively Mexican leagues or what they are, Mexican American leagues. I don't know. But the like adult softball leagues take over on Sunday afternoons and they drink a crap ton.

They smoke a ton of weed. And there's just a million people. It's just like everyone, it feels like everyone brings their wife and kids, which they probably do. But it's like every family's got like two or three kids. And they're just all. over the there's people all over the place on a very busy path and so you got people trying to come through on bikes and other people on motorized or electric bikes going way too fast people on roller blades and it's just it's chaos especially on the eastern edge of the park so psa watch

out but i didn't take there weren't wasn't a lot of action in terms of actual game action happening when i happened to pass through but then i finish up revere park i like to you know finish up going around there right by the WGN Studios and that's where Dan Bernstein, 670 the score lives no longer with the organization but still lives there. And here they also run adult softball leagues on Sundays but it's a very much, it's very different. I guess in a sense it's like the white 40s year old league versus like the Mexican and American 30s year old league where it's like the ladder is just so many people and just drugs and drinking and loud music and just kind of chaotic and the former the like white

person's 40 year old league there's still people drinking but there's no music or anything there's not like a ton of families it's just more like a social hang out kind of thing It's less of a scene, I guess, is how I put it. But I stopped behind home plate for about 10 minutes just to observe this game. Because I was towards the end of my walk and I was like, you know, I got nothing but time today. And I love watching, you know, baseball, softball in particular. I just enjoy observing it. So I stopped and just a couple notes I made here.

Just some terrible outfield fundamentals first is something I saw from both squads. you hit that ball in the air as an outfielder, your first step cannot be in unless you're like, it's a loop in liner and you've got to charge and charge the ball or dive to make a play. If it's like way high up in the air, for all you coaches out there wondering how to coach outfield,

step number one, first step is either no step or back. First step is not in. Until you got a well-trained eye like I do. Next up, this lady came up. to bat and it's always interesting you know you got these co-ed leagues so it's interesting to see like the wide range the wide spectrum for both males and females but it's more accentuated i feel for females some of them like are really locked in and taking it seriously they go up there and swing the bad and or they're playing shortstop or something the other ones who are just like it's not that

they don't want to be there it's just uh they're taking a very different approach to it and this lady took a very different approach. She went up, went up to bat, and I think she saw, she ended up walking, I think it was, but she saw about six or seven pitches, and never took the bat off her shoulder, never, like, took a front step, like she was thinking about swinging, just like a statue and ended up drawing a walk. But I can't imagine, like, showing up on a Sunday. I mean, you must really like your friends, your team, or just drinking illegally in the park. one of those three, to like take this out of your Sunday, go up there to play a softball game and just not even take the bat off your shoulder.

That was fascinating to watch. And then finally, I don't know, I don't really know like how to characterize this, but just really bizarre. There's one half inning, my last reflection here, then we'll get to our ice cream desserts. one half inning where the batting team all the action was either home runs so they hit it like past the outfielders head because they took a stupid step in first

there were three home runs three solo home runs and three strikeouts but all strikeouts looking and in all those strikeout looking at bats not a single swing was was levied and so just like the the bizarre disparity between, oh, yeah, the guys going up there to hack and hit home runs, and they did three home runs.

And then it wasn't just like a male-female split. I think two of the other strikeouts were males and one was a female. But I just can't imagine this kind of ties back to what I was just saying with a woman not taking the bat off her shoulder. Like you show up, it's a rec league Sunday in the park, you're having a beer. How do you go up and just not swing at all? If it's anywhere close, go up there and take a hack. So to watch three strikeouts looking in the same inning as three solo home runs was just one of the more,

I don't even have like strong, informed comedic commentary and anything. It's just like, what is that? Why are we striking out looking in a softball game? Go up there and swing. If you're going to go down, give it a hack. That's what Gene Hackman would want you to do. And Gene Smart. Is that in her name, the lady from Hacks?

I think so. It's kind of fun, right? Gene Hackman, legendary actor. Gene Smart was in Hacks. All these connections I make. That's why you listen to this show. And if her name is not Gene Smart, it's pretty embarrassing for me,

because it's just like, well, what are you talking about? All right, I already kind of gave you the preamble, the setup for this, my show, one of my favorite podcasts, It's a Vikings podcast, Purple Daily. And they do great content, good stuff, three good guys. And on Fridays, they started this about two years ago. Fridays every day, they do a snake draft of the week.

And so you got the three guys, they do nine picks total, three rounds. So you can snake draft anything and everything. So every week is a different category. And so in a very summer-themed category yesterday or two days ago, I guess they picked the best ice cream. I don't even know exactly remember how they labeled it. But options chosen were things like Ben and Jerry's Cherries Garcia or Neapolitan ice cream or Reese's peanut buttercup blizzard.

So just kind of that. It had to involve ice cream. And there were just some picks, including the screwball, which I mentioned with the gumballs, which I'm just like, I don't really want gumballs at the bottom of my ice cream. I don't know about you. and the Neapolitan, which I'm not going to, you give me a tub of Neapolitan, I'm like, ew, gross. It's just like with my limited inventory of picks, I only have three picks, is Neapolitan going to make my top three? Absolutely not.

Anyways, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. That's the fun thing about a snake draft. I'll never come out here just like bash people for their preferences because I don't want people to bash me for mine. But I put together, it's a similar but slightly different list. These are my top 10 fast food ice cream desserts. So we're not talking going to the store and get a pint of Rocky Road or something. This is your going out for a nice family meal. And we use fast food somewhat loosely.

I mean, there's one or two things on here that are like not really fast food, convenience store, fast casual. We're kind of lumping it all in. But this is my top 10 ice cream desserts. in the present and the past. We didn't include anything in the future because I can't see the future. But coming in at number 10,

whatever crap, Chick-fil-A has on their menu. I don't know. I think I've been to Chick-Fleigh three-ish times in my life. They built one when I lived in Wrigleyville here in Chicago. They put one up while we were living there,

and I think my wife went a handful of times. But it's not my, not my cup of tea due to their stances, their political and religious and cultural stances. But I imagine that they have some sort of ice cream, frozen treat, dessert product they put out there. And if I could have thought of an actual solid 10th one, I would have bumped Chick-fil-A out

and put them in the dishonorable mention section. But I figured I won't even do them the favor of, Googling it and looking it up what actual type of ice cream they serve. So I don't know. You guys can email me tell me I don't care. I'm not going to Chick-fil-A. I'm recording this on a Sunday. I can't go to Chick-fil-A right now.

So jokes on them. You know what? I'm going to retroactively, this is a local Chicago thing here, but I'm going to retroactively bump, because it just came into my mind, bump whatever crap Chick-fil-A is putting out to dishonorable mentions and in number 10 we're going to put the portillo's cake shake which in it of itself is a behemoth and kind of a assault on humanity or at least your you know your arteries i think i've had like two cake shakes in my life but it literally is that it's like a vanilla or chocolate shake traditionally

and then they put a slice of cake in there vanilla cake chocolate cake i don't know and then they kind of blend it all up so you get this shake that has little bits of cake in it which i mean ultimately at the end of the day, it's absolutely fantastic, but it's also kind of wild. And I don't particularly love it or hate it, but I just thought of it. So we'll put that at number 10. Number nine, in this one, it's not really an ice cream-based dessert, if you all. I think this is probably this and maybe one other one are the biggest stretches I have. But I wrote it down as anything iced from Starbucks.

This is me taking a little bit of a jab at Starbucks. You know, they got all these fancy ice drinks and it's like, oh, yeah, this is coffee. No, it's basically just a milkshake, but thinner consistency. And I also want to note that I wrote this list as I was walking, observing softball games and getting Coke Zeros, et cetera. And the autocrect didn't really help me out here because, and I'll just spell it out for it. Instead of Starbucks, I typed S-Y-A-R-B-B-Y-C-I-S. Sar bitches

Sarbiches That's like Nicholas I had his outfit of Russian honey Zahir bitches Right It's a little Geopolitical joke

Historical joke For you out there Hey rest in peace Katerina Whatever his daughter's name was I don't know he got his whole family Got murdered so not great But yeah number nine

Anything iced Ice from Sarbitches A.K. Starbucks Number eight, I had to throw this one on there because even though I never had it, it's just, it sounds too delicious. The Minions Frosty from Wendy's. I will be the first to say, I don't think I've ever actually even had a Frosty. Wendy's, I would say, for lining up like top, top, classic fast food outfits, Wendy's and Burger King are two are just blind spots. I've been to both, but each less than or fewer than.

five times in my life. And I have relative familiarity with, like, what their menus look like just because I've been alive for 30 years. Got a hair in my tongue and I can't quite locate it. Isn't that the worst? You're like, you know it's there and you can't quite get it. And you're hosting an award-winning podcast. But I don't think I've ever had, and there isn't an item on here from Burger King,

by the way, because I legitimately have no idea what sort of desserts Burger King has. He says, as he just said, yeah, I know what's on their menus. I probably had a frosty once. I don't know. But I've certainly never had a minions frosty. Catch minions and monsters. These are now playing in theaters everywhere. I think it was like a banana flavored kind of thing, which makes sense.

There's not a ton of other, like, yellow foods that you can lead with. You can do lemon. Lemon's not a bad second choice. but after banana and lemons it's like where do we go where do we go now where do we go now so even though i haven't had it and i don't even know if it's still available how can you not love the minions so we're putting the minions frosty in here at number eight number seven and i i couldn't believe it when this came to my mind and i put it down because of what day it is today is july 12 yesterday july 11th A.K. 711, and I completely missed it.

My free slurpee botched it. I even went to 7-Eleven on Friday for a walk, or on my walk, and I got a Diet Coke as I was walking through the park. You might be sensing a trend here. I like to get Diet Coke's or Coke zeros on my walk. It's actually not, I wouldn't consider it to be that much of a trend. It's just happened twice in the last three days. But number seven, this one is also not really ice cream-ish, but it's iced. Everything, though, from here and out, is ice cream pretty much it looks like. So number seven is not just your 7-Eleven slurpee, but you're free 7-Eleven slurpee on July 11th,

which I completely missed the boat on. Now, you have to do like a small size, but you still just walk in. Assuming this is still a thing now, I didn't see any sort of branding or advertising or new stories for this year. and I've only taken advantage of this great deal probably two or three times in my life I know when I was an RA in college I lived like two blocks away from a 7-11 and the only time I actually went was on July 11th

but it was crazy when I thought of this I was like oh yeah that that's that day's right around the corner and then I looked at my calendar as like it was literally yesterday how great would it have been if I recorded this yesterday and then I could go out and get that for supper free meal. You're also going to notice in, I think, two or three more of our top six here, we're going to start leaning into the value aspect. You're going to see how I prioritize things in my life where there's a greater precede value that gives it a higher spot on the power rankings.

I'm starting to get a little tickle in my throat, which is a bummer, because that's usually hard for me to come back from when I'm recording. And a cough drop would shore that up right away. But I don't have any. I still have some of my drink left, but it's just not quite hitting the spots I need. So we're going to try to power through this. Number six, something I only ever took advantage of once in my life, but it was great. I was a sophomore college.

I lived about less than half a mile away from the Sonic on Wilson Ave here in Chicago. It is the Sonic Half Price Shake. It can be whatever you want, whatever flavor, whatever flavors are available. You just call up Peter Gross and that other guy doing their commercials at the Sonic Drive-Thru. Excuse me. I don't know if this deal still exists. I think it was like after 6 p.m. half-p. Shakes.

And I just remember being a sophomore in college. It's the only time my life ever lived close to a Sonic. and I think it's maybe the only time my life I've ever gone to a Sonic, maybe like one other time. But I just kept seeing TV commercials week after week for the half-price shake. I was like, you know what? One of these weeks, I'm just going to set my mind to it and go. And I did eventually.

I think it was like a Sunday night. It went alone. Just like walked up, got it. You know, it was like two bucks or something. ate it on the walk home and went to bed and that was that. No other fanfare of any sort. But I love value, and I remember it being a good shake. So, excuse me.

Sonic half-price shake after 6 p.m. coming in number 6. Number 5, in honor of my grandmother, Sally, who's still kicking. Because I remember we went one time in my hometown growing up with a coupon. We had supper here because she had the coupon for. the free Jamoka Shake with purchase from Arby's. And I don't know if I've been to an Arby since. You know, this was about 25 years ago or so. There's one, I think, in the city of Chicago.

It's downtown, actually. It's like right under the brown line or right under the brown line, other L tracks on the west side of the loop. And I've never had, we're putting in number five without having ever tasted it myself unless I had one when I was a little kid and I just don't remember. but the and it's just fun to say jamoka shake which without looking it up i assume is like mocha is obviously like a chocolate coffee kind of thing and then the jah in front of it is like it's trying to be jamaican somehow i don't know what is jimoka shake

we're going to plow through this because we're running long without googling every single little detail but it does remind me of uh raiders legendary quarterback jermachus russell see the first overall pick second overall pick something like that total bust but what's not a bust is number five arby's jimoka shake number four couldn't go any further without giving a nod to culvers great chain from wisconsin now known throughout the midwest and i just said you know calvers concrete mixer flavor of the month before you start barking at me yes it is frozen custard It's not technically ice cream, but it's more ice creamish than a 7-11 slurpy. I'll tell you that much.

And who knows what's in a Jamoka shake? I don't know. It's probably like rendered water buffalo fat or something, not even ice cream. I don't have a, personally don't have a particular flavor of a concrete mixer from Culvers where I'm like, oh yeah, we'll just stick with this one. But, I mean, it's kind of like dairy queen where you can go. You can get the Oreo or Reese's or whatever. I think I remember maybe they still have this. I only live like half of almost a mile basically from a culvers,

but I haven't been in a while. I think you can get the toffee, the Heath Bar. Oof, that's good stuff. Put that in your concrete mixer and smoke it. That's number four. Number three, the actual only one on this list that was also mentioned in the football podcast, Snake Draft that inspired this particular discussion. by far the most sensible pick.

It is the Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen. It's just, and I shout out to the McFlurry as well from McDonald's. We'll get to in a second here. Also does this very well. But yeah, the Oreo blizzard. And any blizzard you want, I just chose Oreo because to me it's like the king of all of them. I'd certainly rather have that than like M&Ms or something. Those things get stuck in your windpipe.

Good luck. So that's number three, the Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen. And then number two, I could have gone a lot of different directions with McDonald's. They're known for the McFlurry, of course. But I wanted to give a special shout out to, I think it was two summers maybe when I was in high school. The 49 cent cone was an advertising campaign. And the amount of times I pulled through the McDonald's drive-thru when I was like 16 and opened up the change drawer and the Honda Accord to fish out,

I think it was 54 cents. So I would get out two quarters and, you know, a nickel or four pennies, whatever, with the tax, you know, 49 cent cone plus tax. And just, you know, 9 p.m. coming home from Kmart or something like, you know what, I'm not going to have supper tonight, but I will have a 49 cent cone. And just that's all you'd order. That was it.

It's so good. It tastes better when it's 49 cents. So shout out, rest in peace to the McDonald's 49 cent cone number two. And then finally, another little nostalgic mention here. Kind of like 7-Eleven in that this is not exclusively fast food, but this goes the other way. This is fast casual. But the amount of red red, red, Robin, bottomless beer floats I consumed is not good.

My artery is probably still recovering because I think we've mentioned this many times on the show before. But every time I'd go, it wasn't just one. It was a minimum two you have. And sometimes if you were feeling frisky, you get three. Back in the day, I don't know the exact price point, but you go to Red Robin, which if you don't, I guess not everyone knows what a Red Robin is, but just, you know, fast, casual restaurant, burgers, fries, whatever. It's like a TGI Fridays, Applebee's, same kind of vibe. But in our hometown Red Robin, you could go, and their rip beer floats were bottomless.

And these things came in like the tall Steins. They were skinny but tall. And it's got to be at least probably two full scoops of soft serve ice cream in there. And then, you know, however many ounces of rip beer, it seemed like a lot, like 20 ounces or something. And they bring it out. And I think back in the day it was like it started at something. absurd. It was like $3.99. And by the time, you know, I stopped doing it, it was probably closer to like $6 or $7.

But you would just go and get that in a basket of fries. Also bottomless, bottomless, very important here. And just absolutely gorge, G-O-R-G-E for, you know, after tax and tip, like $10, 12 bucks or something. And just get extremely full on nothing but carbohydrates and saturated fat. Just. the Red Robin bottomless for beer float the price the unlimited nature of it and then the ice cream is really good too so there's our top ten list if I can remember how we altered this at the beginning dishonorable mention

whatever crap chick-fil-a puts out number 10 the portillo's cake shake number nine anything iced from sarb bitches eight minions frosty seven a free seven-11 slurpy on july 11th six sonic half price shake after 6 p.m. 5. Jamoka shake from Arby's. 4, Culver's Concrete Mixer flavor of the month. 3, an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen. 2. 49 cent cone from McDonald's RIP and number 1, the bottomless rip beer float

at Red Robin. There you go. We're going to finish up here. Thanks for sticking with us here on the program today. Covered a lot of ground. Unlike those outfielders in the softball games I was watching. We have our trivia question. And I was thinking, I'm trying to remember, originally I was going to do something Pennsylvania related. It just came to me this morning.

I don't remember how it occurred. But then I was like, you know, I'm close, but I don't quite have the right trivia question yet. And then I came up with this. I was like, oh, this is, oh, we were at a going way party on Friday. And someone was talking about Philadelphia being just like leaps and bounds smaller, like small town field compared to Chicago. And I was like, I don't really think that's true, having spent significant amounts of time in both cities. But I wasn't really in the mood or the mindset or didn't have the necessity to go into a debate about Philadelphia and Chicago and them being much more similar than they are different. But yada, yada, yada.

Eventually, after some iterations, we landed on this trivia question, which I'm pretty proud of. I think it's pretty fun. And you can check me anywhere you want on stats. but I feel pretty confident in what I've compiled here. And I don't have the exact question written out, so just bear with me. I think it's pretty simple once you figure it out. And I'll give you an example. Name the top 10 most populated second most populous cities in their state in cities in the U.S.

So for example, and I won't give anything away here, but let's just pretend. I don't know if this is true or not. Let's pretend that in the state of Washington, Seattle is the most populated state or city rather. Let's assume the second most populated city, I don't know if this is true. Let's say it's Spokane. Maybe it's Tacoma, maybe it's Walla Wall or whatever.

Let's just assume it's Spokane. Let's say Spokane has 300,000 people in it. That's a data point. Every one of the 50 U.S. states, has a second most populated U.S. state. Line all those up, put them in order from most populated to least populated, and you give me the top 10, or name as many as you can. So there you go.

I'll let you know some states that are not part of this. I won't even tell you the cities because I don't know, but Hawaii is not part of this. Alaska is not part of this. New Hampshire is not part of this. Delaware is not part of this. I have no idea what the second most populated city in Delaware. Is it Dover?

I don't know. Let's see. Kentucky is not part of this. That's probably like, I don't know. Louisville is number one, so Lexington's got to be number two, I would guess. So it's kind of a two-partter. First, you've got to figure out in your mind what are the second most populated states in U.S. cities, and then you've got to line them up 10 to 1.

So this is a good brain teaser, I think, if you want some more time to really develop your list, if you're taking this too seriously, go ahead and pause. But we will go down the list from 10 to 1, and you see how many of these you got. So here we go. Number 10, the state is Las Vegas. Can you name the city? No, the state's not Las Vegas. That's stupid.

Mind is running low. We're running on empty like Jackson Brown would say here. The state is Nevada, the number one city being Las Vegas. Number two, Henderson, which is a suburb. It always feels less exciting when it's a suburb of the number one city, but, hey, it is what it is. Okay, number 10 was Henderson, Nevada. Number nine, the state is Ohio. The number one city would be Columbus.

So the answer, number two, is Cleveland. Number eight, the state is Oklahoma, and I'm just doing this off the dome. I just wrote down the actual number two cities, but I'm just, I'm that much of a geography wizard that I can tell you what state Tulsa is in is our answer, and then what the most populated city in Oklahoma is. That's how much of a geography buff I am. So Tulsa is number eight, Oklahoma, the state, Oklahoma City being the most populated city. Number seven, we go to Florida, where Jacksonville takes the number one spot.

So who comes in at number six? It is Miami being the second most populated city in Florida. Number six, we just go up a little bit. We go to North Carolina, where Charlotte is the most populated city. So the second most city coming in, second most populated city, it's a wordy trivia question. Coming in in, number six is Raleigh. North Carolina. Number five, we go out west to Colorado.

Your number one city being Denver, number two being Colorado Springs. Number four, we go down a little bit and over to Arizona, where Phoenix is number one, and Tucson is number four. This one, I think, was the most surprising one for me that it was that high up there. So when I think of Tucson, having never been there, it's like I think of, okay, yeah, people know it.

It's nationally known. A bigger city is where the University of Arizona is. But I never thought of Tucson as being like a large place. I think it's like 500 some thousand people, something like that. I don't have the stats in front of me. So that was a surprise to me. Number three, for a long time, this was number one in the state of Tennessee. But I think in the last decade or so it has been passed up, which was inevitable.

Number three being Memphis, which is still very close behind Nashville at number one, but obviously going in opposite directions. Maybe not obviously. Maybe you don't know that. They are going in opposite directions. And then kind of the final two here are heavy players nationally as far as population goes. I think they're both top 10. Don't quote me on that.

Number two, we go to California. and obviously it's not Los Angeles, so you go south, it is San Diego. If you're curious, San Jose is third. But there is a decent gap. I was surprised I thought San Jose might be challenging for that spot, but there's a couple hundred thousand people difference between San Diego and San Jose. And that leaves us with number one in the great state of Texas. It's not Houston, and you might have thought, oh, well, then Dallas, that's got to be number two.

Oh, contrary, it is our good friends in San Antonio. We do have a bonus question for you, but I will go 10 to 1 here. The most populated, second most populated cities in the U.S., we have Henderson, Cleveland, Tulsa, Miami, Raleigh, Colorado Springs, Tucson, Memphis, San Diego, and San Antonio. I thought that was a fun list to cultivate. Hopefully you enjoyed that, too. Here's my bonus question. What is the least populated most?

populous U.S. state city in the U.S. So take all 50 of the most populous, or take all 50 states, take their most populated city from each state, which one of those 50 has the fewest amount of people? The answer, go maple syrup hunting. It is Burlington, Vermont. And if the fun thing here, I'm pretty sure this was correct. I didn't write this down. But if you looked at the list of the 52nd.

most populous cities in the U.S. What we just looked at, if you look at the most or the least populace of those 50, I believe South Burlington, Vermont was number 50 on that list as well. So there you go. That was a mouthful. I am going to go stop talking now because I was just, it was a lot of reading off my lists here.

Thank you for playing. Thank you, more importantly, for listening to Quinn David Furness presents the Beantown podcast, one of our longer episodes in a while. but it had been 13 days since we'd recorded, so I had a lot of pent-up energy and frustration that I had to get out here. From appliances to Nigeria to softball games to wordy trivia games,

that's what I got for you today on the show. My name is Quinn David Furness. I hope everyone stays safe, stay sane, stays cool. I'll check in on you guys in a couple of days here. See ya.