Distractible - The Dumb of Humanity

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

I stupid. You stupid. He/she/me, stupid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if we told you you're already off to a great start with so many ways to squeeze the most out of summer right here? From our largest shrimp skewers ever to a Vietnamese-inspired dish ready in minutes, PC makes any culinary adventure an on-budget breeze. Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractable. This episode, Wittering Wade demands his dudes divulge all the doughtish dilemmas they've dealt with. Bulletproof Bob cages his kid, has hoes horrors, is confounded by cones, contactless cards, and boundary blunders.

Methalodical Mark masters aquatic computer coolants, complains about crops, conceptual cleanliness, and 3x3. From modern mundanity to tedious taxation. Yeeees. It's time for the dumb of humanity. Now sit back and prepare to be distracted and enjoy the show. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Distractable. I'm today's host, Wade.

Even though it should probably be a joint host because Bob and I last time just absolutely crushed saving you all lots of money. But Mark selected a winner. We honor the rules. I am joined today by my cohost, Mark and Bob. Hello boys. Hello.

Hi. Hope you're well. If you guys have never been here before, the way this show works is one of us hosts, the other two compete for points Whoever has the most points at the end host the next episode and we usually start and will continue to start with this episode With some small talk. So anything new going on? How's life? Um You know, it's kind of gotten a little stale not having the most interesting stories to talk about of the most captivating

most interesting stories to talk about of the most captivating uh, excapades in my life and existence. Far beyond the experiences of most people. But now, it's a return to normalcy. It's uh, getting into routines, you know. Has that been an easy transition or has it been like, surprisingly difficult after like, two years of like, regimented work? I mean, it's always easy to fall into a habit. I've been sleeping in, which is very uncharacteristic for me

I usually have been wake up at 6 a.m. Every day even if I don't get out of bed right away It's always 6 a.m. I've been sleeping in till like 7 38 sometimes today was 830 So it's getting it's getting later and later just keep staying up more I've been playing Elden Ring so that hasn't helped much. I sleep until I don't know 830 noon 1 Oh, what about you? You just sleep in a lot right? Oh yeah all the time. No having a baby is like the easiest thing ever. I don't know why people complain about it. Leave them in this cage. I've heard that crate training your baby is actually the best way to get them to obey you. Anything new in your life Bob? I bought hoses. Hoses are

complicated. I say this in a way where I appreciate that like building buildings in general is complicated, but why do hoses end up where they do? What happened? Who thought, oh, that's where the hose should go. They'll definitely use it there. Oh, you mean like where they put the spout on the house? Yeah. Our hose bibs on our current house are both on sides of the house. They're on opposite sides of the house and they're both in areas where it's like, one is impossible to access

because it's behind a bunch of bushes and a big ass tree. And the other one is on a side of the house where there's nothing. It's on the side of the garage in an empty side yard where you wouldn't need a hose ever. If there's none in the backyard, there's no hose in the front where you might like wash a car. I was like, oh, I'll just get a hose.

They're gonna wash the car because it's getting kind of dirty and we don't. I was like, oh, I'll just get a hose. I'm gonna wash the car, because it's getting kind of dirty and we don't have any hoses. But you can't just buy a hose. You need a thing to put the hose in, but then you need a thing to connect that to where the hose bib is. You have to buy multiple hose.

It's just, there's a lot of hose complications that I didn't foresee. And I've made two trips to the store specifically to get hose stuff and somehow I still need to go buy some more hose accessories to fully complete what I wanted to accomplish with our hose situation I kind of loved that mark. Do you have anything else to add before I transition because that's a great segue I mean, I guess not if it's such a good segue that I would be detrimental to the process I would be detrimental. No, like if you have small talk man, this is your this the floor is open

No, well, I mean I do of little things that I've been working on but you know I don't want to bog anyone down with my really cool ideas and things is it lenses and or render farm? No, no, maybe you'd actually appreciate it, maybe actually appreciate it, because it's only adjacent to it. I- I want- I'm trying to get back into water cooling. So when you're building a computer, and this- this applies to people out there, you have- you can have the option of water cooling components. And it's kind of like a- it's a higher level way of building a computer, but it can yield, like, a lot better results than just air cooling,

because if you have a bunch of fans in your computer, the computer that I built for you was air-cooled, you know, it wasn't water-cooled. There was just like a big old air cooler on it, I think, unless I did put it in a... Probably an AIO, didn't it? That one with the thread ripper was the last one that I built there. Oh, maybe not. No, maybe not. Yeah, I have no idea. But either way, I've been getting into water cooling again because there's a lot of really funky,

new developments in the world of water cooling, and I've really wanted to try immersion cooling. Have you guys heard of this? I have, actually. No. So immersion cooling is literally what it sounds like. You take your whole computer and you stick it in a liquid. You go... And that's okay for it. That's okay for it. It's so good for it actually. It has to be the right kind of liquid Yeah, yeah, yeah, it can't just be spit or piss or something like that. Yeah, so you get a special fluid

That's called dielectric fluid. It's non-conductive so that when it's in there It's not gonna like zap because the thing is water Pure water is actually not very conductive. It's the impurities in water that cause it to become conductive, and that can cause it to short out, and then it'll go kabloom. So you need a purer, whatever this fluid is. You can't have like, dust getting in it or anything like that. It takes some cleaning required, and there's some extra things.

But the way you can do it is you can take your whole computer, really dense, like get the density way up, and stick it in a vat of fluid and it'll circulate the fluid and it'll cool all the components in it, right? Do you run the computer while it's in there? Yeah! Okay, go on, expound. So it's dielectric, right? So the fluid is entirely non-conductive. So all of your plugs and stuff in the computer, you power plug, it's in there.

You know, it's powered, it's got all the peripherals in there. This is usually for data centers and stuff like that, but there are people that, you know, their home computer, they basically get a fish tank, right? And they just put their whole, they build their whole motherboard and stuff inside the fish tank, and then they fill it up with this fluid, and you'll see it, it's pretty cool. I can actually pull up like, uh... Because I'm picturing like your tower, you just shove it in a kiddie pool, and then all the wires and stuff, it's like, does it just like bend up to come out of the tank tank or they're like, how do you turn it on if it's in? The tank. How do you keep it from getting impure? It's real tricky, but this is it

Okay, so like the tank is also the tower It's not like the tower in a tank. The tank is also the tower. So this one's trickier I think this one is at a higher risk of problems because the top is open, right? So you see the cables going into the top, the back of the motherboard is at the top of this fish tank that's in front of everyone, and so the plugs go in the top. Now the problem with this is dust and impurities can get into the fluid this way. It's not sealed off. Ideally you want something that's more sealed, and the other issue here is there's probably not as much circulation. I think this is- it's uh, it's just more of a kind of a funny build that's actually looks like a fish tank. But in industrial applications, you put your entire server rack inside this fluid, you can get the density up,

you just need it to circulate things, and it's weird! It's super weird to look at! Your mind goes like, that's not right! But it works! It works and it works well. It cools things really efficiently. How pure are the rocks and the fruity pebbles? Oh, essential. Essential for that, yeah. You want your 90s-ass color scheme glow-in-the-dark rocks at the bottom so that you can really get all the gaming juice out of your components.

Yeah, so I'm looking into this and I'm probably going to break some things. For a computer or for a server-sized stuff? For server-sized stuff, but the problem is, you know, everything server-sized takes a premium. So I'm trying to like see if I- if I just get a big enough, you know, horse drinking trough if I do that. Maybe they would be like... How annoying is this to change out? Like let's say a part fails, you have to replace a part. Pull it out, you shake it off a bit. I mean, it's about as annoying as like you can imagine it is.

It's literally dunked in a fluid that's probably slightly toxic. But like, can you put your impure fingers in this liquid to replace the whole liquid? No, you should wear like gloves and stuff. Ideally, you know, you're doing this in a very professional way, but you know, I'm not the

most professional person. I mean, they make like filtration systems. There must be a type of filtration that you could use to filter your dielectric juice. Is it expensive? Is dielectric, liquid, water, whatever? Because it's a special thing, right? You don't really buy it in 50 gallon barrels. You buy it in, you know, smaller containers than that. You know like paint where they have that special paint that's so dark it's like only 0.1% reflectivity? Sure. That is very expensive. But you can get black paint that is like 2% reflectivity, still extremely dark, for way cheaper than that, right?

It's the same with these fluids. Some people have proprietary fluids that are crazy expensive, that they have patents on, and they sell because it's that much better at non-conductiveness or non-cooling or cooling capacity or stuff like that. And so these companies want to sell them at premiums, but you can get- There is dielectric fluid that you can get that will not be as expect- as expensive. That's a cool. So if everything blows up, a lot of my things seem to like have a risk, high risk of electrocution and explosions but that's how you know you're really really starting to get somewhere. You're also starting to push your your Drowned Man

saga on yourself because like your power washing on your roof and now you're getting liquid on your computer you're starting to really toy with liquid and as someone who deals with liquid it's a dangerous game. I had a crazy idea to what if I pumped air through my pool? You know, because I thought Linus, you know, when he did his pool cooling for his whole server, where he ran tubes, his problem was that he did liquid cooling underneath the pool. I'm like, what if you just pump air through the pool and then blow that air in and you got a cheap air conditioner, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure? Yeah. Yeah. Is there a- okay, perpetual energy idea.

Not perpetual energy. What if- is there a way that you- you know how your water has- is pressurized, right? So you got water. What if- what if I have my water pipe, I build an illegal extension to go up really high, have it pour onto a giant water wheel that's gonna generate electricity, but at the bottom of it I just have it pump back into the pipe where it came out of. That way the water company never knows. They never know. Yeah, no, they have- they don't have anything for that. They have no idea. That's how it works, right? I just have the open pipe at the bottom. It just- it funnels right back in. It would work.

I just put the negative pressure terminal. Yeah, I just put it in reverse. Yeah, like I have some questions about it I'm just going to not ask them and assume you're correct unless there's anything else great mall talk I think Bob with the hoses and mark with the water the new the new wet man So the reason earlier I said that there was a great transition and maybe you know what mark you might have you might be a part Of this great transition to was Bob was complaining about the orientation of the hoses not making any sense when they're placed I want to talk about the dumb of humanity just things that people do that are dumb which can be things like designing houses dumb I have one I have many well let's let's

take turns here and I guess Bob you said you had one first so I guess you need to go first. Dear every teenager who works at a Dairy Queen with a drive-through. Very specific, okay. When I order multiple things, most of which come in cups, but one of which or possibly more is a cone of ice cream. The first thing you hand me out the window is not supposed to be the very melty and topsy turvy cone with ice cream on it. Before I even hand you my credit card, if you're sticking an ice cream cone at me, you're wrong! Every ice cream place I've ever been to, which is mostly Terry Queens, but there are other ones, where you drive through, why the fuck do they give you the ice cream cone first? Do that last! I'm doing shit here!

Do you think, not that that's not dumb, but do you think that maybe that's like a policy because usually it'll go to the kid in the back seat and they're like, this will shut that child up and maybe the company, being such a family-oriented company or something, is is like make sure the kids get the ice cream first they always want it they'll scream they'll rant they'll rave we'll get complaints they'll get complaints their finances are built around shutting kids up I understand the the mechanics of a drive-through could be complicated and I acknowledge that it would be tough to do this but I would posit that in every

scenario regardless of who gets what the ice cream cone should both be the last thing that gets made because it's the simplest thing and also the meltiest thing and it should be the last thing that you hand to the person I'm so fucking- I- a lot of times I'll go like pick up ice cream and bring it home, right? If I'm the only one in the car, I'm not handing shit to nobody and then you hand me an ice cream cone and then you're like, oh here's your card oh do you want your receipt oh here's the whatever and it's all balanced in plus kitchen listen it's a minor thing it doesn't ruin my life does no one does that not occur to anyone ever that maybe it would save the ice cream cone for the last thing so that way it melts as late as

possible and also you're not trying to hand me a thousand shits with one hand tied behind my back in a car where I'm dripping ice cream all over my goddamn car. Doesn't it also feel like the thing that they're stuck holding instead of doing other things while they're helping you? Like they're stuck holding that waiting for you too. I should just not take it. If they hold it out, I'll be like, I'll take that in a second.

Here's my, give me the other stuff. I suppose you could say that. What would they do not? Would they throw it in your car? Sir, this is getting melty. Here's the problem. They'd be very inconvenienced. I can tell you they would probably not be very pleased about that situation. It's not ideal to have to do other things with your anyway. Minor thing doesn't ruin my life, but it's it. This happens a lot in drive-thrus. I get that people, whoever's working at a drive-through window doesn't work there

because they're passionate about being the best drive-thru worker that they can be and that's... I'm not offended by that. But when I worked at a restaurant, I did think pretty carefully about like, all right, what am I doing here? What am I handing them? What are they about to have to do? Should I hand them this now or should I hold on to that? I at least gave it a moment of like, what's a good order? I didn't just stick my hand out with whatever I happen to be holding and hand them shit in the most inconvenient order imaginable. But it's fine because you know, they make $8 an hour. Maybe. They probably make less. Like they probably don't make enough to give a shit and that's not their fault. Alright. Mark.

I got one. Alright. So name a an American from back in the founding days hero just name one This feels like a trap might be or it could just be a lead-in, you know, Thomas Jefferson. No, no, no No, see it was a trap. I thought it was a trap. I knew it was a trap Wait, you got guess George Washington. No, come on. Not a founding father Alexander Hamilton. No, not a founding daddy. My name is Alexander Hamilton Who's that guy whose name they yelled Paul all blurt? Bart mall cop capital mall cop Yeah, lose his name Paul Revere's great great great uncle Paul Blart. No, no, no Johnny Appleseed

Is he an American hero from the time of the founding of our country? I don't know but everyone knows Johnny Appleseed, right? You remember when George Washington and Johnny Appleseed cut down that apple tree and they had a big fight over it They had a big divide Ba da da da da da da da da da Throwing apple seeds all over America, right? Planted apple trees everywhere, right? You remember that? Where are the apple trees? They're? You remember that? WHERE ARE THE APPLE TREES?! They're in the orchards.

WHERE ARE THEY?! George Washington cut them down. This is that meme, Mark. It's under the cheese. It's under the cheese, right. No, no, they didn't- they talked about, uh, Johnny Appleseed, but they didn't talk about Billy No Fruit coming back behind him and moving all the apple trees into private orchards. Here my thing that people are dumb about fruit trees or fruit in general that shit grows so Easily I had an orange tree and I get that not everyone has a house I'm not talking about literally you don't have to own one. I'm saying that there is land Everywhere that fruit trees could grow in abundance

is land everywhere that fruit trees could grow in abundance. You could have public parks, but no, in cities there are actually ordinances that you can't have fruit trees because people would eat the fruit. Birds are also a problem. We had a fruit tree in our old house and we didn't even know it was a fruit tree because before the fruit grew, the birds had eaten it all. So we were like we were there for two years before we even knew we had a fruit tree. Yeah, no, that's what I was going to gonna say too, is if you have a fruit tree, it's not super difficult to take care of depending on what kind it is. But if no, if a fruit tree grows and it's no one's responsibility, there are things you have to do to actually

take care of a fruit tree. You can get a lot of like bees, new some stuff, birds shitting everywhere. There's a lot of fruit trees that are bushes that you could grow in a lot of like bees, noose and stuff, birds shitting everywhere. There's a lot of fruit trees that are bushes that you could grow in a lot of places where it's like just free. It's just free fruit for people if they want. I was at a friend's house in Cincinnati and they got a place in Kentucky with some land. Anyway, so they have land and they were just like, oh yeah, all these are blackberry bushes. They're about to come in soon. We'll be drowning in blackberries.

And it's like, oh yeah, blackberries grow like a weed. The dumb thing that people do is food grows in the dirt and it grows pretty much on its own for the most part. There are certain plants that you can just like let loose and they will grow more fruit than you could ever hope to imagine. Your lawns, in general, if you you have a home are such a waste to grow grass it is such a waste to just grow grass when you could grow vegetables you know potatoes carrots onions onions we put we got an onion from the store and I was curious a tiny little green onion and I was curious so I put it in a

planter in the back two years ago that Onion grew a stalk over the past couple years the last stalk they did this big around a tiny little Scallion from there this big around I can see the bulb start to Erupt out of the ground the bulb of that onion is about this big and threatening to burst I didn't do a damn thing to that onion and there's been multiple years where a snail has come by eating the entire stock. I was like, oh that onion's done for. Next year, even bigger. Huge flower, just giant flower. It's those, that shit, you can't stop it from growing. Rumor has it the core of the earth is an onion. But what I'm saying is like, food, it like people,

if everyone, or if we took advantage of more of the land that we had to actually grow things, like there's so much more. When I go to Korea and people can say like, oh, the culture is so like impractical. In Korea, around my grandma's house, every single house, their yard is a garden.

Their yard is literally not a garden, it's a farm basically. The next door neighbor grows peppers and they have so many peppers and it's just like they all they do is like every like every day they do take care of it It does take some work and upkeep but across across the road you know there's just like all these cabbages and they have like tons of vegetables carrots and they just they just grow it because you can and why shouldn't you?

Alright, why we grow fruit- fruit dumb? Bob back to you. I was so enraptured by Mark's thing that I failed to think of another thing that I have an issue with Oh wait. No, I have one think of a hero from the time of the founding fathers Give me some heroes from the from the late 18th century Bilber tea man wrong. I'm thinking of Sir William Credit Card. Inventor of what we now know as the modern credit card. At the time, a lowly piece of wood unto which you engraved debts and then had them erased

by the person to whom you were indebted. It doesn't work the way it used to, But Europe has had contactless payment for like decades. I was in Europe in like the 20, the 20 aughts and they had tap to pay, right? You've probably seen this if you're an American, you've seen this. Some places currently have where you can use your phone or you can use just your credit card if it has the little NFC chip and you just tap it. Europe has had that shit for 20 years! Why isn't that everywhere yet?

Why do we live in a world where I still have to swipe my credit card at places where now the people, the scammers are so sophisticated that you can literally make a little thin piece of plastic, tape it on the top of the device that you swipe your credit card on, and it'll just steal credit card numbers. You will actually get, they're called skimmers and there are tons of elaborate little devices that just they stick right on and when you stick your credit card in it, it just steals your info because it's that easy technologically to do that. Why does that still have to happen? What? And it's not even like this isn't available.

There are places around me that are relatively new stores, they have relatively new like point of sale cash registers and stuff. They have credit card machines that have the little symbol on it and that say tap to pay or insert your card. And then you go to tap your thing and they're like, oh, it doesn't do that. And it's, this is another thing like the ice cream thing where it's like, this doesn't ruin my life. I have a credit card and like the, I can capable of that. But why the fuck is that not ubiquitous? Who doesn't want to just be able to like have your, like my watch, I could do it with my watch.

I could leave the house with nothing but my Apple watch. And if I lived in the right place, I could just go buy whatever I needed. I forgot my wallet, not a problem. Cause I can buy shit with my phone or my watch or whatever. Why is that not ubiquitous? It's just stupid. It's not a necessity. No one's going to die because you don't have contactless payment.

It doesn't really cause a problem. Although one time I went to Home Depot because I was like desperately trying to find a specific thing and I forgot my wallet and Home Depot doesn't have tap to pay in any of their stores for some fucking reason. Stupid ass orange douchebags. There goes the Home Depot sponsorship across that one. Sorry. Sorry. If you want to sponsor us, I'll take that. The hour's end. Let me know. Email me. You get lows only lows for life for Bob. I'm a Menards man now. Yeah. Like just, it's just a thing of like, I just default to getting my credit card out anyway, because I could maybe tap to pay, but it might not work and there's no guarantee. And so you might as well just save yourself the hassle

and the awkwardness of the cashier having to be like, oh, that doesn't work, sorry, but just keep, and it's like, I'll survive, but that's stupid. I was gonna say even Disney has it, but I don't know if that's true. Don't they have like wristbands in Disney where you can tap it to buy all the stuff or something now? You know that Jenny Nicholson video?

I think Disney tried to sue her. I remember seeing something to that effect. They were quite unhappy with it, and so they were trying to take the video down or something. The thing is close, what's she damaging the business of the Galactic Star Cruiser? It already failed, what are they embarrassed about? It failed just as publicly as if she didn't talk about it. What you got? about. It failed just as publicly as if she didn't talk about it. What you got? This one's kind of uh, uh, uh, uh, not about the specific thing. It's about more of a concept, right? So clean coal.

Clean coal. Sure, I'm with you. It's not- I'm not saying this in like, uh, you know, oh coal is bad. It's not good, but you know. It's the world we live in. You're not saying coal's bad. You're just saying it's not good. I gotcha. You're just saying anyone that works in that industry is a bad human being. Exactly. I'm glad we got that clarified. No, it's the fact that clean coal. I don't not the the phrase. It's about that phrase. I have been mad about that phrase for so long, and not for any other reason than the fact that the people saying it had the audacity to not only believe that it would work, but the fact that it did in fact work.

The sheer stupidity, the layers of dumb that have to be stacked on top of each other for the concept of clean coal to have a thumbs up from so many people is one of the core pillars of why I lose faith in a lot of people. The phrase clean coal. You know what the difference is between coal and clean coal? nothing about the coal part It's the same coal part. They just put a plastic baggie over the exhaust pipe and then put that somewhere else Yeah, it's just like it's the whole concept that this coal is it's a marketing thing right because it's like the idea like this coal Oh, it's better. It's clean It's clean coal and it's like if there's one thing that we know about coal,

especially for the people at the bottom, like the miners, is that they call it the black lung for a reason, you know? It's not great. It's not a great thing. It's not a great... It's very, very toxic when you burn it and it's also- but all that aside, I'm not talking about the coal. I'm talking about the acceptance of this phrase and the fact that human nature will buy it, will believe in it, will trust it implicitly, because if you put one word that people like next to one word that might be questionable, and you just- you make a super word out of it, and then humans will just look at it and be like OH IT'S A NEW THING! OH IT'S NEW! It's the same exact thing where people slap AI on everything.

There's the- it's like there was a whole video that someone did that was just like this shit has to stop where they were like, this is an AI mouse! This is an AI keyboard! Oh, these are AI speakers! Oh, this is an AI keyboard oh these are AI speakers oh this is an AI remote control ah you want your AI lens cap for your AI camera it's literally now that is the marketing gimmick is you slap AI. What about clean AI? That is also what they're trying to do! That's the future of AI. That's one of the big problems of AI is that it's it's destroying it's consuming so much energy that alone AI is gonna cause more environmental impact. It needs to be clean AI I've seen some of the numbers with running AI and how bad that is. So yeah cleaning it up

Oh, yeah, when you put that's the thing. That's that's the crux of it is the human Psychological trick where no matter how many times they see it you put clean in front of it. Oh, it's better You'll put this word in front of it. Oh, it's better. Oh, we can accept it now. It's like What about green coal? That's it. That's for St. Patrick's Day. You just dye it green and then the smoke coming out of the power plants green for a day or two It's fine. Okay, so if pollution and all that's bad Why don't we just build an exhaust pipe that goes through the atmosphere and just dumps it into space? Exactly. Now you're thinking clean earth. I just want to say, I just want to add to this on a grander scale. This is a thing I hate about myself in general, that this exact psychological trick

works on me so easily. If there's a thing that I want to have in this world, or if there's a thing I want to hear and someone says it regardless of how true or false it is about something I want it so badly that I will immediately just be like yes this has solved all my problems and get sucked in and a lot of the times I'll like I'll have that initial reaction and then after the fact I'll be like oh this doesn't solve anything this is fucking terrible this is stupid but I still hate that I have that exact reaction to anything where it's like, oh, this is a new, different, you know, this is a much better, whatever.

It's a great, it's clean pewters. And I'll just be like, huh, clean pewters? Yeah, they did it. And then 10 minutes later, I'm like, guy, fucking, I'm so stupid. Why did I think this was gonna be good? This is not, It's the same It's always the same fucking hate that I hate myself. It's it's a fascinating angle for a lot of reasons

I mean I could go into the hole. There's a lot of things dumb with the energy Systems going on and like the companies that lobby for various things and it's all boils down to lobbying It's like that's that's what it always does. Whereas like, I would think that there would be more people that would just be like, oh yeah, the more efficient way of doing things should be the more powerful way of doing things should be better. And it's getting to a point where it's like, yeah, solar panels are now cheaper and more efficient at generating electricity than a lot of things battery technology getting cheaper and more efficient. And it's it's crossing that point where it's like, actually, I think it crossed a a while ago where it's like you know the traditional ways of of like energy production are just way way way behind and I understand everyone like oh you need the portable you know power sources with gasoline to be able to put it wherever and it's just like but it's but it's also just like this stuff is cool by itself it's actually cool by itself it's interesting it's fascinating it's new technology and I love new technology and I've always been like man Don't most people like new technology isn't that cool if it's clean?

Yeah, don't talk to me about solar unless it's clean solar. Mm-hmm, right, of course, of course Well, I cleaned my solar just yesterday. So Bob do you have anything that rhymes with mean or green or clean? spleen flene All right, you get credit for this since I asked you, so... Was that a Futurama reference? What did I say? I don't even remember what I said. I believe the Flean is the weapon of choice of Omicronians in Futurama.

Isn't that what those things are called? Aren't they called Fleans? Yes, I made that reference, yes. If I was hosting, that would earn a lot of points. I'll give him one point for you. Bob, I guess now it's your turn to earn points if you'd like or we can earn some more from mark But do you have more things about humanity that just you want to shake your fist? Probably it can be more specific to like and a occurrence you have with an individual or on the road

You know doesn't have to be like these grandiose things We can we can take it down to like simpler things too like the DEQ one. So I have a spoiled brat and because we live in a neighborhood where there is a company that mows like most of the lawns in the neighborhood and when we moved in I didn't own a lawn mower we just hired them to also mow our lawn because it's like they're already here and they do this professionally. It's a whole crew of people and this is their whole I mean they're like a landscaping crew right so this is their gig. Our yard has a fence in the backyard. We have a dog. The dog stays inside the fence. That's sort of the idea. I feel like a lot of fenced in yards.

That's kind of the point. So it's important that the fence stays closed. And I'm, our fence is helpful. The gates on our fence have springs. They want to close. They love closing. They yearn for the latch to slide satisfyingly into the receiver mounted on the post. Our gates are good gates. They know what they should do. You sound just like Jack Nicholson when he's in a few good mid like,

you need me on that wall. You want me on that wall. But one of our gates, the big one, which is big enough for like a riding lawnmower to go through, which is what the people do when they mow our lawn. If you open it too far, the spring loses its will to live and it does the opposite of what it's supposed to and pins it open. And that's fine because that's convenient. If you're mowing a lawn, you might want the gate to stay open for a minute so you can just go in, go out, get your job done done but if you arrive at a place where the gate was closed when you got there for reasons that

seem apparent in a yard full of dog poop and child's toys and you enter the gated area and then leave and leave the enormous double wide gate pinned all the way open on a part of the house that by the way we have almost no windows where you can see it so it's not like you can just be in the kitchen and be like oh the gate's open it's at a place where it's very difficult to even see if it is open without literally walking around the whole house they just leave they just leave it open lexi almost died one time because of this because she got really freaked out i burned some food on the stove or something and the smoke detector went off and she hates loud noises and we were like it's okay go outside run away and she did and she ran all the way away and we found her a mile and a half away from home across a thoroughfare where the speed limit is 45 miles

an hour in another neighborhood luckily some other people saw her and were like oh she's got a cute little collar on what hey come here dog and she was like, oh people thank God and went and hung out with them And we were like crazy people running around in our sandals I get that they're just here to mow the lawn They don't give a shit and they might probably didn't give it a second thought just close the gate if you go into a property Where there's a closed gate in a gated an area I don't care if you have to open it to do whatever you're doing Just close it when you leave if you enter a room and the door was closed when you enter it maybe close the door when you leave it or close the door when you go inside just leave it

how you found it it was a very traumatic experience and lexi now has an air tag and we also check that i check it out of fear all the time just to make sure the gates actually close but like just fuck just you open 80 gates a day i'm i'm sure because you mow lawns all over here every day you're out in a different neighborhood mowing lawns just cost the game stupid lawn people something similar in a similar vein Which is tragic is there was a post like there's a neighborhood group that like we'll just post whether they see like hey There was a coyote or hey so and so's dog is gone If you see this someone in this worded a message to me very poorly where they were like hey We found this cat it looked like worded a message to me very poorly where they were like, Hey, we found this cat.

It looked like this. Uh, had a collar. Name was this. It's dead. And it was like, instead of saying, hey, we found a dead cat. Like, I don't know. I feel like you start with that part first. Instead of giving someone the hope of like reading the description, like, yeah, our cat's

missing. That's what it looks like. That's his name. That's the collar. Then you get to that line. Like, I don't know. It was, that's a little messed up though. They up. They're like, we tried to give him some snacks. He didn't want them. Yeah, like, I don't know. There was something like, it's darkly funny, I guess, because, you know, it wasn't us. But at the same time, you think to yourself, like, how would I word that? Not like that.

That seems like as soon as I would start to write, it's like, maybe I should lead off with the fact that like, hey, unfortunately a cat passed away. Here's what it looked like if you're missing a cat I wouldn't be like hey anyone missing a cat looks like this name this has a marking here also fucking dead That's really sad. You just not put that in there and then when you meet up with the person like hey Do you want your cat back? Yeah. Yeah, maybe men when they get there just like toss it I'd be like he's dead and run away And then when they get there, just like toss it at him and be like, he's dead and run away. Like, yeah, I don't know.

I laugh, but also like, I felt horrible when I read that it wasn't even my pet. Cause I was like, ooh, words it like that where it like gives you all of the hope. And then like you hit like the more button on the post to find out that, oh yeah, by the way, it didn't make it. Oh, it was below the fold. That's rough.

I don't know for somebody I was like, oh, thank God. Someone found someone's pet. And then like, I didn't make it. Oh, it was below the fold, that's rough. I don't know, for somebody I was like, oh thank God someone found someone's pet, and then like I got to that line, it's like, Jesus man. I just like to imagine all the people who read that and they got to the point where they're like, okay, it's not our cat, and then they just left a comment,

they were like, thank God you found him, bless you. I hope it gets home safe. You cannot get into the end where they just throw in that important detail You're gonna word something that's you know, potentially very devastating for someone Maybe think about how you're wording it to close your gates But also like use your brain and answers half of our stuff. But uh, alright. Anyway, sorry Mark. You're you're good I want to share that I which number do you guys hate the most?

Johnny Appleseed for? Close close no seven no no no seven seven wrong wrong wrong. It's nine I Hate the number nine to seven ate it. It's he's a bitch, and he let himself get eaten Yeah, he lost about I put a lot of money on that fight. I got eaten right in front of me. Man! Anyway, no, I hate 9 specifically. And it's- it has to do with a lot of shopping, and this is another psychology thing. But it's- this isn't even about like, you- you price something $3.99, and it's like- it's technically $400, but people go, Ooh, $3.99! You know, psychologically, I get that- I get that that works. No, this is about gas stations.

Because gas stations do it worse than anybody ever has, and if we all stop to actually think about it for a second to realize how dumb it is, because not only they'll do the trick where it's like, oh, it's- it's three forty nine a gallon, you know, and it's like, oh, it's three fifty- But no, there's more numbers onto the right of that number. And there's either a nine or there's a 9 over 10 and it's just it infuriates me it infuriates me that that exists and it's if you google gas station signs at least in America

They're on every single fucking sign. It's every single fucking sign is like da da da da and 9 over 10 or da da da da nine in superscript and it's like ba ba ba ba nine because they It's just because some marketing or finance guy or someone in some marketing department However, many years ago was like oh if we add this nine at the end We'll make this much more money over the course of forever and no one will know the difference And I don't even care about that because at the end of the day I know people are stupid about gas and they'll go to the gas station across the street that's five cents cheaper to save a whopping, you know, dollar on their entire purchase and wait in line for ten minutes

then go to the one across the street that's five cents more expensive or whatever. Or they'll drive across town and waste the gas that they would have saved and whatever. That's not what I'm talking about. It's the fact that we let them get away with this stupid nine. This dumbass nine at the end of these numbers that I It's just so I want to just punch every single one of those stupid nine out of ten signs Because it doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things and it just looks stupid. It's aesthetically unpleasing It just is infuriating in every capacity because it's it's even, at this point, it's not even like a good psychological trick. It's like one fraction of a penny.

It's nine tenths of a penny. I don't care about that. I round up anyway. Like if it's two 49 and nine, I go, oh, it's two 50. It's a fact that it's there. Nine out of 10 people agree it's dumb. We, we should start a gas station chain on the premise that there will be no Fractions and in fact that there will be no nines in the in the the one cent place ever

Well, it's whatever just do the nine in the penny place like every other store ever has in the history of forever We're on the border of abolishing the penny anyway, because it costs more to make than it actually has value. Whatever, it's useless. When's the last time you dealt with a penny? But I got gas, man. How many fractions of a penny you got? Because that's what they're charging you. Well, don't you shatter your penny to buy gas so you can give them your nine pence of a penny? Well, that's the dumbest thing anyway. They're rounding after the purchase anyway.

They don't charge you a fraction of a penny, they charge you whole ass pennies. What right do they have to split the penny when the government itself doesn't offer a split penny? This is a good point. It should be illegal, they should be banished. I actually almost talked about this. Do you know in, I think in most places in, I don't know if it's every place,

but in a lot of places in Europe, when you walk into a fucking shop, it just says a whole number next to products. If you go into a grocery store in London and you're like, Oh, how much is this apple? And it'll just be like two, cause it costs two pounds. And you know what's included in that number? All the taxes in America, you look at shit on the shelf and you're like, oh, well this is 4.99 and nine tenths, but then there's like a six and a half percent

local sales tax. So that's additional. So it actually costs like $5.16 and eight tenths of a cent. In Europe, if you walk into a store with a 10 euro bill or in London with a 10 pound note or whatever and you pick up something that says 10 dollars on it and you walk to the cashier, oi, it's 10 pounds mate and they'll take your 10 pounds and they won't give you any fucking pennies back or anything because it costs what it says. This is the exact same thing you're talking about, it's a different context but like yeah, imagine Imagine that the number on the shelf is actually what it costs and there's no fractions of pennies or secret taxes or whatever

Bullshit. Yeah, and they do that because the government was like, oh, it's a predatory Practice to make the amount you pay different from what the amount is on the product itself When I first experienced this when I first went to Korea like when I was a teenager and I was buying things, and it was like, oh, there's a certain number of won, and then when they said at the cash register, it's that number of won, I was like, what? It was mind-blowing. Where's the secret fees? Where's the secret? When are you gonna get me? Yeah, exactly, and it's like, it's because it's the store's responsibility to pay sales tax. At the end of the day, it is still the store's responsibility,

but they're putting it on the customer in a way that is... It's like, it's no different. It would be no different if the price on the product was including sales tax. It would be slightly higher, but you're paying that anyway, but American capitalism wants to exploit human psychology as much as possible and there's no litigation to or legislation to Offset it. Yeah. No, I know this is a cyclical thing and so this is not like a universal truth Imagine there was a store like about like the gas station

But it's like a grocery store and the and the whole thing of the store They're like if it says nine dollars on the shelf you pay nine dollars at the cash register You don't have to be in our secret club to get a discount. You don't have to buy five to save $7. But if you buy six, you don't get like none of that bullshit. There's no fractions of it just says a number and you can add that number to all the other numbers and walk to the counter and you'll know. This cost me $27 for all these things because of math.

I feel like people would like that just because it would be like, well, that's, that's refreshing. Imagine respecting me enough to just tell me the amount that I'm actually going to pay you when I walk out the door. Cause it's the same shit in restaurants and stuff too. And that's extra weird because of like tipping culture and the way the world is and how waiters don't get paid enough money to survive without tips, which are not guaranteed and all this stuff. Imagine, imagine a world. Oh, there's actually some states that don't allow retailers to include sales tax in the

price. That's backwards and worse. Oh, wait a minute. Okay, there's, okay, this actually might be an interesting argument for it because each state has different sales tax. So if there's a national brand that sells in multiple states, it would be an undue burden apparently for the company to include the sales tax in all the different states possible. It would be varying prices

instead of being to the state. What is that for internet? I have no idea. Maybe. I think that's a terrible excuse. No. Yeah, no, Europe has a bunch of different countries anyway. That's stupid! If you're comparing the economics of it, it would be equivalent to all the companies in Europe that sell in every EU nation. The companies here are selling over there and have to do it. Yeah, that's totally true.

It's not an excuse because, yeah, the companies have armies of people to do shit like this. They can figure out a price for 50 states. It's just 50, they can do it. It's a thing too where, if it's, I don't care if companies have to deal with this. If it's business to business B2B sales, I don't think it matters as much as business to consumer sales. If there are fees that the consumer is not aware of unless they magically know what percentage sales tax they're about to have to pay, which if you're traveling in America, you have no fucking idea what percentage

sales tax you're about to pay because you have a state and a local tax and who knows, they're all slightly different. Businesses to businesses can calculate their own whatever and be responsible for that, but consumers, they shouldn't be given the common decency and respect of, here's a number, pay me this much. I did the math for you, so I know what the taxes are. Here's the number. It would be very easy to set up anywhere in a store online.

You would just have like an Excel type thing where it's like you put in the state and then it like adds the multiplier to give you the price right away, depending on the state. Like it'd be such an easy calculation. Get me worked up here, Mark. It gets me worked up too. It's not fair.

I have one. This is an incredibly specific one that I just learned about. Actually, it's not even technical. I will lump this into marks. So we live in Ohio and we just bought a Tesla because Tesla just had the 1% financing and we were like, oh, well that kind of works out. We were not honestly quite ready for it, but then the financing is such a good deal and we were like, that's perfect. I'll see if it lasts. I hope the build quality lasts. We'll see, but so far, very fun. Drives itself, very cool.

And we went to get it registered the other day because we had like the paper license plate from the dealer still on it. And so we went into like the BMV and had our documents in order and we were like, we just need a license plate, you know, and give us a little sticker that says it's registered, give us a license plate, perfect.

And it was all super easy. And we got to the end of the process which was quick and simple and the lady was like Oh by the way, your car is fully electric, right? We're like, yeah. Well, yes, it's Tesla. That's what they are And who's like, oh well just to let you know yours costs $200 extra a year to register and I was was kind of like, well, that's shitty, but okay, why, what is that? And she was like, oh, it's like a tax from the state because you know, they have taxes on gasoline, but you're not gonna buy any gasoline.

And so they're trying to get like the taxes from you that you would spend on gasoline by taxing your car registration for an electric vehicle, which one, fuck you. And two, doesn't make any sense. Gasoline is taxed because people buy it, not because it exists. You pay the tax when you buy it. That would be like if I leased a car and they were like,

oh, well there's like a $4,000 tax on your car lease because we want you to buy the car and you're not buying the car. So you're not paying sales tax on that. So we're going to charge you the sales tax. We would have charged you. Yeah, that's fucking dirty. Like, what the fuck?

Fuck you, Ohio. That's the dumbest shit. And also, you know that came from the exact same people who would be like, give me my freedom. I don't want taxes, except for if you have an EV because EV is bad tax of those because that it just doesn't make any fucking sense whatsoever. It's kind of a spin off of yours. I barely think that counts as a separate thing, but that just actually

happened to me the other day. And it was not that poor girl's fault. And Mandy and I were both there together and like we were obviously pretty pissed about this, but we were we were nice to her and we're like, we know this. You're just doing your job. It's okay. How is everything so backwards and stupid with our money system and tax system in this place?

It's expensive trying to save money. You know, in other countries, they tell you how much taxes you owe. Can you fucking imagine that? All right, I can talk about this for hours. See literally though, in European countries, your government sends you a bill and is like, hey, you owe us $600 in taxes. If you just pay that, we'll be all square for this year. You fucking imagine what that would feel like. But I'm good. I'm good. It's a fun car. It's a cool car. Drives itself. It's pretty cool. Oh, I forgot the lead up to mine. I went right into it. Okay.

Think of your favorite Civil War hero. And no, it's not the ones you probably already thought of I'm thinking of corporal Johnny gasoline tax all right I can tabulate points where we're currently at mark I have I don't know if this is the same one or two different ones but apple seed where are the trees fruit PC fishy air pool why low food clean coal not given or wreck futureama fleeing rhyme gas nine out of ten fuck nine all stores make you pay Bob I have baby cage poses DQ cone first sir William credit card tap to pay I want few good men wait to close goat gate plus tax electric car tax and corporal Johnny gas tax I have mark at 13 points Bob at 12 points I've got mark one ahead right now

oh wait mark if you get this question correct, you'll give me one of her. No, I'll let you win I have a challenge. I challenge you We have nothing in the Constitution for bidding a duel I bet you one of your points that you don't know the answer to this question And I bet that it's you do but you don't and you Couldn't tell me you come on. Hey, you want to bet you want to have us a little fun, you know, you know I Don't think I I'm I think that sure you know what so if you get it wrong

I get one of your points and you lose one of your points and if you get it right you keep your point You win. Is it a question that I could reasonably have a chance at? It's a question that I've told you the answer to multiple times. Interesting, interesting, okay. That's always gone well for us. Alright, you know what? Yeah, I'll do this. Yeah, I'll roll the dice on this. Alright, Mark, are you ready for your question? Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. What was the name of the treaty that ended the 30 years war? 1648 I told you the you never actually answered this one correctly wade got this one in the episode But I said this to you so many times

I know you know the answer to this question I thought you both saw this coming immediately I did I had to be honest with you as soon as you said the question He knows the answer to us like oh, no, he's bringing up one of the 20 questions. Oh it's the treaty of Hagar

Hadrian's whoa He's talking it out. He's talking it out. I'll let you keep going It starts with an H right no not at all Oh, man I can't do it. Oh, I thought you were about to pull it out of nowhere. Wait. Do you remember this one? No, I Appreciate your honesty. Hey, hey Gar. No, that's what Mark said No, and of course the answer is the Treaty of Westphalia. Ah, the RV, right. That was my least favorite word. I know, you guys couldn't fucking remember that word to save your lives.

Westphalia? I looked it up. There are two new models coming out in 2025 of Westphalia camper fans. Oh fuck that was the Winnebago All right. Well, I mean Wade's the host so are we is this happening here you guys there's nothing Prohibiting a duel mark agreed to the terms double or nothing mark. I'll ask you another question. No, no That was the one that you guys had the hardest time I wasn't pretty sure you'd get some of these other ones if I asked you No, no, no, it's fine. Can you ask the Sputnik one again? I like that one You know I see a cool thing with this give me any point. Look at this see what is that a screwdriver? It's a little mini screwdriver, right? Oh, is that a Fantic screwdriver? Oh, you know it is you know it is

I mean if I gave you a point it would be tied And then you guys would have to do something for a point off wheel wheel wheel. Do you want a wheel? Well, actually no actually yeah, wait if it lands on Wade I have to host again You have to host a one-man show written by us every wheel has that on it is that a rule? Yeah, and it grows every time the wheel spins. Yeah. Oh now then Bobby win Every time the wheel spins, yeah. Oh, now then, Bob, you win. I can't believe you didn't go for that without thinking that you would remember. You know what?

I appreciate your boldness. I had a suspicion that it was 20 questions, but I had confidence that like, I remember all of those, right? That's what I really thought. I think you would probably remember almost all of the rest of them. The game's over, Bob, you've won,

but why don't you try one more question on him to see if he would have gotten another one right. Anyone you want. Mark, you were very close to getting this one, and I'm sure you'll remember it now after the trauma that it caused you. What is the rarest naturally occurring element on earth? Oh, fuck you. I like how Wade made you answer another one he was like don't ask me Oh of course not I don't fucking remember Oh I don't yeah I don't remember it all Astonium

Astonium, astatine oh Astonium is what you guessed before I mean I guess that makes sense but Asseptaneum Alright whatever Bob you win any victory speech you want to give i think the takeaway for this episode for me and for anyone listening who listened to me talk is that i'm clearly getting older because i'm an angry bitter old man who will yell about clouds in the sky given the opportunity look forward to more angry rants probably about decreasingly important or

decreasingly relevant issues in the future from me. That's the direction I'm taking right now. And thank you for the win, and thanks Mark for stepping willingly into my trap that I think hardly counts as a trap, because you saw it coming from across the field, but I appreciate it. Alright, uh, Mark, you have a loser's feet? Uh, never be afraid to take bold steps, uh, cross over that that land mine field. It don't matter. You'll probably make it. You know what? I'm gonna give you nine tenths of a point for that It's not enough to win but you have that nine out of ten now attached you round it up

It basically tied. Yeah, I'll tell you the final price at the end to an episode where you Pick a winner give the winner speech But then at the end you had fees and taxes and you tell us the actual points we ended up with. But on this episode, this episode we're giving clean points. If you guys enjoyed this episode check us out, Bob at MySkirm, Mark at Markiplier, me at Minion777 or LordMinion777. We have merch, distractablestore.com, check it out. New stuff coming soon, not exactly sure what but I'm excited to find out. And I guess keep watching us on Spotify because you never know when something weird might happen on camera So thank you all you guys watching

Stay tuned for the next one where Bob will host after sweeping the rug out from under mark with a question mark has gotten the answer To many times over the last couple of weeks ask it to me now I know it battle in 1066 to mark the beginning of Norman rule in England mark battle of Hastings Worth no points podcast out