Distractible - Waste of Money

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Today the guys trade stories about losing embarrassing amounts of cash from Craigslist scams, mobile games, yard sale finds, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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so you can change the music. Oh yeah, Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractible, a Wood Elf production, with your hosts, Munificent Mark, Wadwielding Wade, and Bountiful Bob.

This week, the wanton wastrels wax worldly about the perfidies of purchasing preponderances. Yes, it's time for A Waste of Money. Please secure thy purse and enjoy the show. How many episodes we got? I don't know. As we just read, we're for 37 and 38

or something like that. I think it's a couple weeks. Almost the end of season one, boys. I guess. Yeah. Yeah, man, we got big plans for the end of the season. People are going gonna be shocked oh

I didn't know we were doing seasons oh yeah okay Wade wink wink wink wink yeah no I don't know either I love how on the same page we are coordinated united I love how good we all smell can you smell me right now well I just mean I know I know how you smell ah just in general i can remember i'm gonna do the points before the episode even starts you can't do that that's not how this works i can do it i'm okay with it you're not even the host yet there's no episode yet oh that's true is that true like i'm not you're nothing right now i'm nothing bob's still technically the host for now until you start as soon as I start then you will be nothing That's how that I'm gonna enjoy these last few seconds. Take your time

Soak it in soak it in man. I must knees No, no. Yes. I am. No, I'm not. Yes. I am. No, that's gone Hello and welcome to Distractible you've made the right choice. This is the podcast for you. And we've made this episode especially for you. Thank you for joining us. Is it for me too?

No. Oh. I'm talking to the viewers and listeners. I'm just here for the paycheck. Do we get paid for this? I don't think yet. Well, I mean, no. Wink, wink, wink, Bob.

Wink, wink, wink. No, we haven't got paid. Winking a lot. Wink, wink, wink, wink. Yeah. Wink, wink, wink wink wink bob wink wink wink no we haven't got paid no yeah good wink wink wink wink i don't know why what yeah yeah no oh someday wait someday someday don't worry about it don't worry about it all right in this podcast we talk about whatever comes to mind in the rough format that we have outlined for ourselves i am your host and i am the arbitrator i am the judge i am that which will render judgment upon my fellow well not fellow because i am of a higher rank my subordinates once there's been an arbitrator and an arbiter arbiter that's the thing from halo yeah the arbiter oh all right the arbiter that sounds

right oh my god halo voice guy that's me remember all those scenes from halo where a guy was like the arbiter yeah i am the arbiter uh the demon uh hello is that what this episode's all about no it's not actually anything to do with that no i love this all right bob halo episode all right how are you guys doing pretty good pretty good pretty good yeah it's cold cold it's cold and cold temperatures did there well i guess it's warmer today than it has been but it was cold okay small talk's boring bob what's going on with you okay i got a uh packages there were packages on the nothing man i got nothing good yeah god you

guys were lame there was i got letters in the mail no small talk points here what's all the cool shit going on with you then coolest man alive mark so much is going on with me let me tell you i started playing cookie clicker oh god i can barely handle it whoa that is so cool you're right your life is so much more interesting than ours all right okay well well then i'll just get on with the episode then today we're going to be discussing something that is uh very near and dear to my heart it's not this is actually nothing to do with anything that's near and dear to my heart i'm going to start off with a story one time actually it's kind of strange similar to cookie clicker i found an app that is like uh it's like cookie clicker you know it's

like a numbers game an idle game an idle game ashley madison that's different oh okay we need to talk about that later wade yeah we should all right let's talk about that later but i i forget what the name of it is and i don't even care to mention it but i got addicted to it right as those mobile games are designed to be sometimes they're addictive and idle games in particular i kind of lean heavily into so this particular app that i got was fun but it got slow because it's an idle game i wanted to get results very quickly so i resisted the temptation to buy anything because that's how apps work you know you did it's a free game i i said initially i initially oh okay you know me you know me very well. I think as soon as you got to the point where purchases were unlocked, you dove in.

All right. Well, you're wrong because I didn't do it right away, but eventually I did, which is the point. I knew it. Yeah. So 10 points for me. I looked at it and there's always like this deal. It's like a combo deal usually starts out at a lower price.

Um, and it has a lot of bonuses more than anything else so i caved and i bought it and it helped because it was a lot of bonuses and i was able to make a lot of progress in the game but the thing about idle games is there is no end the numbers go up into the non-millions and like umpteenth fillions and like just they continue to go on and on it never ends right sure just goes up so i reached a point where that pack didn't help me anymore because i ran out of whatever the special gems were or the bonus dollars or whatever so i was like okay that was fun but now the game is boring so maybe i'll buy another pack so gamble pull do summons pull for units i did i did so i bought another pack for like i think i spent 10

bucks and i bought another pack and that that wasn't nearly as good as the first one because it wasn't a combo pack that deal had expired beginner pack is always better than weekly pack but that once a month monthly pack's pretty good dude the monthly pack though yeah you're right you're right expensive but man that monthly pack yeah but it wasn't in the month this was the same day i then spent 10 bucks that didn't last very long and uh chew through those gems real quick whatever they were so i was like man i guess i gotta buy more but i can't just i gotta go for a good deal and you know where the best deal is well you gotta spend the most you gotta get the big one when you spend the most yeah obviously and i don big one. When you spend the most.

Yeah, obviously. And I don't recommend anyone do this, but I looked up at the $100 tier and I was like... Look at the deal. Look at the deal. Look at the deal on that. Look at the deal. I bought the $100.

Oh, no. Whoop, whoop. Yeah, my boy. And all the bonuses that I got from that. Oh, man. Let me tell you. We're doing summons after this i chewed through that so fast well like five minutes five minutes i chewed through it so

i was real close to the next level of progression you gotta get there i had to get there and so i looked at the store again and i looked up at the hundred dollar tier and i was like it was still there because it's like a constant deal and i was like it's still a deal it's still a deal it's still let's keep it rolling so i bought another hundred dollar pack attaboy i chewed through it even faster and i was there at another threshold of progression did you pull your z tier unit this didn't have those kinds of things this didn't have that it was literally just you do bigger numbers you spend my numbers that are more valuable numbers to get non-valuable numbers in the app but are bigger so it must be better right and then i i bought another like you're playing like kitten cannon or something or what

yeah go this is the story of you living out my fantasies i bought another. It's like you're playing like Kitten Cannon or something. Yeah, go. This is the story of you living out my fantasies. I bought another $100 pack. Yeah, man. Then I bought another. Don't stop. And I bought another. Oh, my God. I bought another and another.

And before I knew it, I had spent $800. Yes. In under 30 minutes. Did you beat the game no oh in fact after i was done i was so sickened with the game and its ploy for unending things that i deleted the app immediately afterwards you didn't fall into the well i spent money on this and i'm gonna play forever and spend money forever everything for me and I just sat there on my bed and I remember looking at my phone being like, what happened to me? So this episode isn't necessarily about spending money on an app. What I want to know is what is the biggest waste of money you guys have ever subjected yourself to in your life? What is the most

useless purchase? What is the worst way that you have just thrown money into a fireplace and watched it go up in flames and the flames weren't even interesting, right? It would have been better to burn that money because at least you would have felt warm from the heat, you know? Like, there are so many ways that you could have there's literally every other way what is the one moment or multiple moments in your life that you have just chucked money in the trash can by the way this episode of distractible is sponsored by mobile games i have a couple things that come to mind pretty pretty sad okay all right well let me give let me give wade what do you have i'm not

gonna give way to way that's not you getting a turn and just like way do you have anything do you need time muted in the discord he left us oh no no that was an accident he's thanking his donators on his stream how long have i been muted because i've been talking oh no oh god geez oh boy it's on your recording yeah don't worry my will be there. You guys just won't have heard it. I have a couple of different things that I've spent money on that I thought was a total waste. The first of which was not to be

revealed yet. No, no, no, no, no. I'll tell you another episode. I want you to name these. Oh god. I do. Oh god. why is this such a great uh no because i'm just thinking about telling one of the stories that i'm about to

tell it's really stupid and embarrassing it's not even a lot of money it's just a sad story of failure and it's okay i have more things wait so before before we get into that though can i just say like i struggle to understand like i understand intellectually how laws work and why things are and are not legal yeah i cannot believe just morally that it's legal for mobile app designers to do what they do with all the shit where they're enticing you and and or entrapping you and or misleading you and or designing their app so that children will just click the big green buttons and spend the money i don't know the numbers actually i'm going to google it how much money i don't know how to google this mobile app fraudulent that's what i googled scam apps suck money uh look anyway there's probably

millions of dollars lost to apps every year where the kid just like hits a button and spends 25 bucks and the parent is just like ah shit i'm not i don't even have the will to fuck dispute that like just whatever just use the gem i met someone recently that told like with their parents and their parents said their kid had done exactly that and they never got the money back it's it's the whole the entire business of mobile game is like you'd like to think when someone sits down to make a game some at least one person is like i've got this idea it's kind of like an idle game but it's a revolves around like a lemonade stand like that is one but you know like they have something and they're like i want to make this game the entire business is like all right we've got this algorithmically refined way where we can trick

kids and do clicking on the right button to accidentally spend real money how many pos garbage ass games can we wedge this shit into to trick as many kids as possible we need ones for kids that like puzzles one for kids that like knives one for kids that like like olden time like i don't know every there's just like how is that legal that's the most shady and moral shit ever and they're just stealing money from people because people don't have the bandwidth to go through the thing you gotta send an email and then you gotta talk to it's like it's 25 most oh not most but like there are a lot of situations where 25 is not worth a person's time if they're busy they have kids they have a job they're like yeah they just don't get it back and they just keep that money

it's a fucking scam you're absolutely right and i would love to pursue this line of conversation i know i know but i would like to keep it on topic because that is a whole can of worms that we should talk about some point and is bullshit. But for now, unless your waste of money was pertaining to an app, I will say off topic. Okay, wait, since I just like dominated the whole thing, you can do your titles. I stole a bunch for you. If you want me to go first, I'll go first, but I'll defer to you. I will be the judge.

I'm not judging. I'm just, you know, making an allowance. Bob, can you judge me, please? You need to wear less khakis oh thank you oh god straight to the gut no it's okay please give me another uh you look better with glasses i'm wearing them right now good you're gonna say like you look better with hair or something like that oh your head's the wrong shape without glasses i don't know what i want to talk about but man does this feel good hey you asked me to i don't know what you thought was gonna happen oh no that's exactly what i hoped would happen um all right uh first title i've got two titles mark do you want both or just one

give me your best all right pulling wait for it legendaries pull and oh first car all right bob let's see let's see um story number one is gonna be called ah i just wanted to scoot damn it and story number two is um boy meets cra. Oh, those are both so good. Sorry, Wade. No, yeah, it's fine. I always have to go against Bob. This is bullshit. Yeah, I got to side with Bob here.

Bob, you get a bonus point for that. All right. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... vacation a breeze, and it felt a little like... Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western dealer's choice on which one you want to talk about first you can rethink your titles if you want to make them more interesting no i'm committed all right i said i said story number

one and two so i'll go i'll go in the order i presented them damn right you um it is 2009 i am in college i am not a wealthy person i am in school luckily my parents were able to help me a lot i was working at jimmy john's uh for eight dollars and 25 cents an hour i got a good rate because i had a lot of experience i had worked at a jimmy john's in another city and i knew i was good and it was a campus jimmy john's so like i was one of the only people who didn't show up to work high every time and wouldn't you know i never know called no showed i was like my manager's favorite because i was competent and i was always on time which is like the minimum for a job but on the campus store where everyone is like drunk or stoned half the time i was the good one i was an angel um but so not a lot of money but i had a little bit,

right? I scrolled away some amount from every paycheck, just a little. I ended up with just like maybe a couple hundred bucks that I had set aside. And I'm really into video games, you know, so maybe I'm going to buy whatever the next game that comes out, the next Gears of War Halo or something that comes out, I'm excited about. I didn't know. And back in this time, I had just learned what Craigslist was. I had never been on there at that time. There was a really whole like weird side of Craigslist where it was like dating and creepy stuff, but there's a lot of good stuff on Craigslist. There's a lot of like, you know, selling my PlayStation one with 30 games for, you know,

cheap 20 bucks cash, come pick it up, all this stuff. And and i'm browsing and at this point i had only ever driven a car but i've always been interested in motorcycles and i never had one and for you guys who know i did end up having a motorcycle at some point this is not the story of how i bought the motorcycle okay all right i'm browsing i get into this weird part of craigslist where there's a lot of scooters for sale 50 cc engine made in china plasticky fall apart scooters where it's like you can't ride it on the highway could barely ride it on the road it's you know they maybe go 20 25 miles an hour and i started looking and i'm like that's kind of like a motorcycle that's cool right that's pretty cool and i find this scooter kentucky is right across the river from cincinnati i find the scooter the for sale in kentucky just across the river 2009 kentucky

was right next to cincinnati go on true um and and this guy he's selling it for like 130 bucks or something like really cheap most of these scooters are a few hundred bucks if they're better or nicer they cost way more than i can afford but this one i find that i'm like oh that's so cheap wow Wow, weird. It doesn't say there's any problems with it. Yeah, of course. And at this point, I had just discovered Craigslist.

I hadn't really bought much of anything off of it. And I hadn't learned the lesson that the price tells you what's wrong with it. If a thing is listed for sale for like half price, that means it half works approximately. It's a more specific mathematical equation you can do to figure exactly how well it will work, but that's a fair approximation. So this scooter was listed for about half price-ish, a little over half maybe.

And I was just like, I gotta have it. But it's across the river in Kentucky. You can't ride this thing on the highway. The only way to really cross the river is on the highway. I'm not trying to ride a scooter for the first time. I'd never done this before, right? I'd ridden bicycles, but I'd never ridden like a motorcycle or anything. Oh, same thing. So I can't go over there and ride it home because I'm not trying to die. But I have at this point in my life, a small hatchback.

And so now I'm like, I'm looking at the Craigslist ad. I'm going down to my hatchback. I'm like measuring the size of the back of my hatchback like yeah that'll that scooter will fit in there if i if i lean it to the and i get some bungee cords or twine or something and tied it it'll kind of fit with the the truncal quote twine i don't i use twine man i had twine like i've got some christmas ribbons in here measuring if i tie some hair together i might be able to look i'm not i'm using what i got okay limited resources and i get i spend a whole like a couple days just thinking like oh it's still listed i think it'll fit i think finally i pull

the trigger send the guy the message like dude asking price 130 140 wherever you ask for i got it in cash dude give. Give me that scooter. And he's like, all right, just come pick it up. Here's the address or whatever. Meet Park in the Alley, and I'll help you load it. And it did fit in my car. Kind of. It might be more accurate to say it fit on my car.

I don't know. What we ended up doing was sticking, because the front is taller because it has the handlebars, and the back is lower because it's just the seat. Sure. We ended up sticking the back into my car, wrecked the liner on the ceiling, tore a hole in the back of the seat. That's fine. Big fucking mess.

The thing was disgusting. Coated my entire trunk area in like grime and grease and whatever. But we wedged it in and then the handlebars were like holding the trunk of my hatchback all the way open. Yeah. So we just tied some twine on like the thing, the scooter, and tied it to parts inside the car, like the seat mounts or whatever. And that was it.

I drove home on the highway with a scooter in my trunk, with my trunk all the way open. So when you said twine before, you weren't joking. You literally used twine. No, like actual like twine, like threads threads like stuff sticking out of it like twine for baling hay twine okay great it's fine it worked out fine got it home scratched my bumper and almost shattered my rear window trying to get it out of the car by myself it wasn't obscenely heavy but it's heavy enough and awkward enough that i kind of just dropped it on the ground out of the back

of my car and all of this and I finally get it home and of course I had also lined up another Craigslist thing where I had to run out real quick and I bought a helmet for safety. For safety yeah for safety. Or a used helmet should have been my size for 10 bucks. It was a motorcycle shaped helmet that felt like it was made of foam. Wait it was a helmet shaped like that felt like it was made of foam wait it was a helmet shaped like a motorcycle no no okay that's the wrong it was like shaped like a motorcycle helmet like if you looked at it you'd be like sure that's a that's like a regular helmet it weighed like as much as a bicycle helmet it felt like it was made of foam right tape okay which if you've ever held a real motorcycle helmet they're heavy yeah because if you fall off of a moving two wheeled vehicle

and hit your head with a foam thing around it, you might as well just be not wearing anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I had a helmet and I was safe. I get it out and I get the thing stood up in front of my place I'm living at. And I get my helmet on and I make sure I look and there's gas. And I even checked and there was oil in it because I'm smart. And I get on.

And when I had picked it up from the dude, he had started it for me. and there's gas and I even checked and there was oil in it because I'm smart and I get on and when when I had picked it up from the dude he had started it for me and it started right up and I was like cool runs great that's surprising I get on I turn the key I hit the button it starts up and then I pull on the throttle and it does that little you know two-stroke sort of sound where it goes ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding like it's trying to go. Yeah. Nothing. Doesn't move, scooch an inch, nothing. It's just me

sitting in front of my house on a scooter just like, just sitting there like an asshole. Yeah. Everyone in my neighborhood is like, wow, that's loud. Hey. The scooter don't scoot, apparently.

It really just sits there and burns gas. That's pretty cool. And I owned that thing for a year and a half. How many good rides did you get out of it? Never rode it one time. It never went anywhere. I spent so much time i didn't know what i was doing i'd never worked on a scooter i know now that those types of scooters

have cvt transmissions which is a kind of a belt driven tension based rpm based thing that i knew nothing i would just prop it up and lay down by the back wheel where the engine is and just look and just touch things and pull i would run it and rev it and look and be like is it doing no and then i learned by being an idiot that when you run it it gets hot so i run it and then lay down and then touch stuff and like that part's hot why is that part hot but that part's not hot which part is the part that makes it go i spent all this time and eventually like i i had a friend look at it i knew nothing about it never once got a ride out

of it a single time eventually i i listed on craig's list i was like fuck the scooter i hate the scooter it's stupid and i listed it for like 100 bucks like less than i bought it for because i listed it honestly because i'm a good person and i listed it as like you know not working scooter engine runs uh won't move under its own power don't know what's wrong with it yeah and some guy was like i'm gonna give you 75 for it and i was like get this the fuck out of my life take this away from me forever and i swear to god the universe just wanted me to feel even worse about it because after all that year and a half never got a ride like nothing i just wanted to scoot you know yeah uh this dude buys it and comes with a pickup picks it up gives me 75 bucks cash and i'm like god it's gone fuck

that thing the next day he emailed me of with a video which is just in 2009 or 2010 i guess at this point yeah just extra salt in the wound because that's not a common thing at that point. That was, he put a lot of effort into getting a video, putting it on his laptop or whatever, getting it attached. He sent me a video of him riding it the next day. With the message, oh, the belt had slipped off. Figured out why it wasn't working. Thanks for the scooter, dude.

why it wasn't working. Thanks for the scooter, dude. It's fucking... He just... He, like, took a screwdriver and just slid a belt back onto a pulley or something and it just worked perfectly. Oh. It would have been better

if he'd just driven it away when he got there. I would have fucking lost my money. Hands me the money, looks at it for two seconds, fixes it, and is we drives away the drive flip switch here click ah there you go see you you had it in neutral you had the neutral switch on i don't know man i didn't know shit about anything like i was looking online this is early days of like youtube and stuff i was looking at youtube videos about like how do carburetors work why how why would a scooter not go like is it and everything was like oh well you probably need a new chain and i was like there's not a chain and

it's like oh well then you probably need new wheel bearings and i was like the wheels spin fine they just don't spin on their own like what's all this shit and this dude fixed it in five minutes and was like sweet 75 scooter what a deal god damn it i just wanted to ride a goddamn scooter around clifton and how much did you pay for it i paid 140 or 140 50 bucks something i sold it for half of that oh you got your money's worth yeah yeah plus i'm out the helmet the super safe foam helmet i forgot about the helmet yeah i owned that helmet for years i was not letting that chick i was like this helmet works yeah if i ever get a working one i've got the helmet already i've invested uh that was great that was great i'll give you three points for that very great good

stuff all right but wade i want to hear about how you have blown money out your ass never to be seen again a painful experience all right i've got actually a bonus story that i'd forgotten about but i was reminded from this okay uh the title for this is garage sale gold all right okay i just want credit uh if there's points involved that i inspired the bonus story so it's basically my story yeah bob can have my points that's fair uh sustained point um for bob so this isn't like i was spending a buttload of money but this was a very young me so like 5 10 20 bucks was a lot because i didn't have a job or anything so my aunt lived uh down in atlanta georgia and she had this really nice, really big house.

She worked for Coca-Cola and she had all of these like nice memorabilia things around the house. And it was just a really nice looking place. And so my grandpa had found this garage sale nearby and had invited me to go along. And I was like, man, I'm going to find something for my aunt to help her with,

like, you know, just to make her house even better, to thank her for hosting us. And I'll always stay at such a nice house. I'll bet you I'll find something great. That's nice of you. That's great. So shopping around, there's boxes of knickknacks and all kinds of whatever. And I'm looking, I'm looking. I know this really jumps out at me.

And then, then I see it. The perfect ornament for her home. A grandfather clock is sitting right before me this beautiful grandfather how how tall what what what size yeah how grand is this grandfather i mean i was a kid at the time so i mean this is uh probably i don't know four or five feet tall i mean it's a tall clock it's taller than you as a kid yeah well you're about the same size i mean i was a tall kid so it's okay about my size but big but i'm thinking like you know this nice big house this beautiful grandfather clock will look so nice there of course and i'm i reached in my pocket i look down i've got like 15 bucks and i'm like oh man

there's no way and i walk up and i'm like sheepish and i'm like hey how much for the uh the grandfather clock because i don't really have a lot well how much you got and i was like 15 you know you know what i'll give it to you like really for 15 bucks damn so steal of the day i get this grandfather clock for 15 and then the problem becomes okay how am i gonna get this thing over to my aunt's house to surprise her right right and i go to try to lift it and to my surprise i'm able to this thing comes right up off the ground i'm like i'm not that strong okay i can carry this back so i pick up my prize i carry it all the way back to her house and i yell for him like hey i got you something at the garage sale better come look and so she comes down carried it all the way there wait i did I carried it all the way there and she comes to look at it yeah on foot just barehanded I carried in she

comes to look at it and she starts laughing that's not very nice as I tell her about this grandfather clock that I got for only 15 bucks well it turns out the reason that she started laughing is because this grandfather clock is made of paper mache and it's not a real clock at all wait how wait how old are you i don't know man i was young i mean you don't even know no you had no inkling that it was not a real clock not made of of wood and glass? Oh no, it was really well done. I thought it was a real grandfather clock. No, I don't believe it was well done at all. It's a story my aunt still tells to this day. I've seen good paper mache, even on its best day.

I would not mistake it for a grandfather clock. Did you think you just like hit puberty that day? And you were just like, oh, my muscles came in, yes. I don't think I really thought that much about it i think that uh i got the good deal and then i was just like i guess i'll see if i can carry it and i could and i was like all right cool glad i can carry it how convenient never really thought anything else about it oh i'm gonna give you she still has it in her house she literally still has it in her house as a decoration. With a picture of you with like a mustache scribbled on it next to it. Like, look, this idiot got this for me.

Let me tell you the story. Yeah. We have a lot of dumb, funny stories in our family. And so it's a contribution to my moment. That's how they knew I wasn't a mix-up at the hospital. Whenever I had a dumb fucking moment like that, they're like wasn't a mix-up at the hospital whenever i had a dumb fucking moment like that they're like yep he's one of us yeah wow i'm gonna give you uh i'm gonna give you three points for that thank you

also just wow that on multiple levels if that was just your bonus story like i want to hear your main story that was actually the best one the other ones aren't even as good i'd forgotten about that undersell them now well now like have to now they're garbage i don't even want to talk about them forget them no no terrible stories coming in they're bad all right stupid stories okay well are you abstaining you're giving bob a chance to uh win this one well the other thing i mean the first other one i had the pulling legendary was just i was playing uh i won't name the game but i was playing a mobile game with a friend and they had like this event going on where it was like oh you have a chance

of pulling these super rare legendary units and we were like oh cool okay and uh we kind of just got caught up and trying to pull one like oh well the next one's you know we're guaranteed the next like 30 pulls absolutely and uh you know 250 later we got a really f-tier awful worst pool unit nice 250 for the worst rated legendaries that you can get felt bad man worth it worth it worth it yeah so that's uh what's what 265 dollars just in those two stories and then um my car my i don't know if you guys remember my very first car it was a mitsubishi 3000 gt beautiful looking car but the thing inside was made of like gum leather straps and tears of whoever like thought they'd invented it then couldn't afford to actually put parts into it

so they just like found whatever they had lying around the house i remember that car i like that car like as a car yours always looked a little taped together yeah so the first problem with it was the paint job yeah apparently the year that they made mine the red paint had like an issue with it where it severely like faded and changed over time into like a weird orangey red uh-huh and then whoever had it before me i guess had scratched it up a little bit they tried to touch it up so they bought like a little touch-up paint that would have fit the original color when it was brand new but not the faded orangey red color that was 10 years old because it was a 97 and i got the car in uh oh god like oh five and i had the thing till 20 2015. like yeah i was gonna say so i had the thing for a very long time yeah a

long time um yeah i've only ever owned two cars but it started having weird issues where like I remember I was driving home one day and I went to turn onto my street and Um the car just like turned off the steering wheel locked in place and I was just like cruising toward a stop sign There was nothing I could do I was like heading to the stop sign this neighbor was in his yard working in his garden watching me approach his yard And i'm just like he sees me panic trying to turn the wheel and the wheel won't fucking turn because it's locked and finally i pull the e-brake and just like and he just comes over and he's like you all right like yeah my car will do this this or this and he like turns the car on and he tries to turn the

wheels like it's like you can get home now and then he leaves i just okay i had to have the engine rebuilt in the stupid thing we had to replace everything in that car i mean great it was getting pretty old but it was like every time we'd fix something in that car four other things would go wrong it was like my house during the drowned man saga the car was the original drowned man that thing was such a money pit it was a ten thousand dollar car uh used when we got it i put like my college fund toward it my mom was like oh you can either have this money to help you toward college in a few years or else we can put it toward your car and i was like car college is so far away i'll be rich by then so got this car for 10 grand i swear to you i probably had to put 15 grand 20 grand into it and just repairs over the

years yeah that thing was a money pit oh man all right i'm gonna give you a point for each of those stories uh because i splurged on your bonus story there oh thank you it was a good bonus story bob you said you had another one right i do now you can tell that one or i want to just throw this out there uh These are all great wastes of money, but there's a little bit of shame that's missing. I also will give points for stories that are wastes of money that are you are also embarrassed about or maybe not waste of money of embarrassing purchases. But that doesn't have to change your story. But I'm just throwing out there that is an option. I think we got plenty. This one is my second one is more embarrassing than it is a waste

of money it's not it's not a huge transaction but it is and what was the name of it you had a good name for it so this one is boy meets craigslist he's craigslist okay great excellent okay i realized that the first story i stole also revolved around craig craigslist is bad man oh no it's all right so this story is a little later in time. I should have learned, but I had minimal after the scooter incident and minimal interactions with Craigslist. I really didn't do much. But fast forward from the scooter times to law school times.

It's 2014. I am in my first year of law school. Grad student broke. Law school is expensive. Mandy and I were both in my first year of law school. Grad student broke. Law school is expensive. Mandy and I were both in grad school at the same time. She has a good degree, so she got paid to do her degree. She has a degree in statistics and they want you to do that. So they're like, here, work as a teaching assistant and we'll pay you and you'll get your degree and you won't have any loans. And law school does not work that way. It's very expensive. So we're super tight on money. Yeah. Also, that's the year we got married. So yeah, busy very expensive so we're super tied on money yeah also that's the

year we got married so yeah busy expensive lots of stuff going on money is not great and um that's also the year where i started to lean more i started to do more on my own of youtube and streaming content to that point i had had a relatively basic setup i was using the computer that you bought for me uh when Drunk Minecraft started to take off, you took me to Micro Center and we put together a nice little computer. Oh, yeah. You did that for me, too.

Don't say that's a waste of money. Is that what you're saying the waste of money is? No, no, no. I'm describing my setup, right? I had that. I had like the cheapest USB microphone I could get. And I had like a cheapo webcam. And everything didn't, it didn't look bad,

but it didn't look great. Quality wasn't great. And I had it in my head. I was like, cheapo webcam. And everything didn't, it didn't look bad, but it didn't look great. Quality wasn't great. And I had it in my head. I was like, what I really want to upgrade is the camera. Because you can use like real cameras now. This is when I was first starting to learn about Capture Card, where you could use like a nice camera, like a real, you know, camcorder or whatever. Sure.

And I was like, I got some, I got like 50 bucks I can spend on this. What kind of camera could I get that would be an improvement over a junky old webcam? So I'm scouring Craigs some, I got like 50 bucks I can spend on this. What kind of camera could I get? It would be an improvement over junky old webcam. So I'm scouring Craigslist. I'm looking. I'm like, maybe I can get, I don't know, like a Canon Rebel series or something. Or maybe I can get, that was optimistic. But you know, I'm looking, I'm trying to figure out.

Eventually I find this guy who has a camcorder for sale and it looks really nice. It's got listed as a Sony camcorder. sale and it looks really nice it's got listed as a sony camcorder it's got pictures it's got like the pictures you know from amazon where it's like this is these are all the buttons and here's how the screen looks it's like clearly he did not take these pictures he found online pictures but i'm like if this is the camera and he wants 50 bucks for it and it comes with the charging cable and whatever that might work that might work that might work and i think about it and like i talked to mandy and mandy's like i't know, Craigslist is pretty sketchy. And I'm like, no, but it seems like a good deal, right? And that's always a good sign on Craigslist when it seems

like you're getting, you're getting a good deal for your money and you should cost more, but it doesn't. I haven't had for a long time and I ultimately decided to do it. And Mandy, Mandy comes with me. She drives over with me to meet the dude in like a public place and he's gonna just hand over the camera and i'm gonna hand him some cash so important lesson about craigslist when you're buying something it's always advisable to if it comes in a box take it out of the box and look at it yeah see if it works if it turns on oh no see if it is the model of camera that the listing showed yeah or if it's not that at all and basically i show up public place this dude has like a plastic grocery bag

with all the stuff in it super nice i hand him you know i have the cash he holds the bag up i look in it and like yeah there's a camera in there and there's a thing power cord thing and i'm like all right cool that looks like the camera and uh and i hand him the cash and i take the bag and i walk away and i go and get back in the car where mandy's waiting and i'm like yes i got it yeah it's gonna be fine and i start pulling stuff out and i you know i'm sort of like untangling it pulling cords out i finally pulled the camera out and my first thought is oh it's thicker than i thought it would be doesn't huh it's like that's like not the right shape because i looked at the pictures a lot it was like an old school camcorder with the pictures right long and thin with like a flip out screen yeah and this one is like big and boxy and very like it's older

and i'm like looking i'm like this doesn't look right and I'm pushing buttons and stuff and it turns on and then I see A button that says eject. Oh, you know like huh? That's weird. I thought this was gonna it's supposed to write to like an SD card, right? It's supposed to be digital Yeah I hit the eject button and the little old-school mini DV Cartridge thing pops out the side and a little cartridge sticks its little head out and my brain is like ah No And the little cartridge sticks its little head out. And my brain is like, ah, no.

I'm like slowly realizing this is not the camera that the dude enlisted at all. It's not even close. This is like a camera from the 90s. It records onto physical media. It records onto mini DV discs or something. And I'm like panicking at this point. It needs to just have like a video out. Like it just, you know, I can plug it into my thing. It's fine.

It's fine. Trying to like justify it yeah and i'm looking and looking and it doesn't have it has like an audio input and it doesn't have any video outputs whatsoever and i got to a point where manny's like looking at me like oh he's he's kind of no he's not enjoying it what and eventually she's like something wrong with it you okay and i look at her with tears in my eyes because i had just spent the only 50 dollars i had to my name that i could afford to spend on this and i'm like this won't work this doesn't do what i needed to do and and she was like you know she's trying to be like nice and she's like you don't know maybe maybe we can figure something out whatever i'm like it won't

work this is a waste of money and i'm like just you know really upset tears right now my cheeks like a little kid who's throwing a tantrum hilarious i'm imagining it very funny that thing lived in my nightstand for about a year before literally we were moving and i was packing and i pulled it out of my nightstand and hurled it into the dumpster with all the force that I could manage because I just looked at it and the pang of just like shame and being an idiot all that came back and I was like you fucking you fucking die I like the idea of your nightstand being where you keep all of your craigslist failures you just have like your helmet from your scooter you've got this the helmet was hidden in the closet just to be clear that lives in the top of the closet

and i kept that for a longer time until it became very clear that i was not going to have a motorcycle again so i got rid of it but there was not a lot of i mean 50 bucks was a lot of money then but like in the grand scheme it wasn't like thousands of dollars or anything but that was the stupidest i have ever felt in like a transaction i buy lots of dumb technology my entire job revolves around me buying things and then subsequently learning like oh it doesn't quite do exactly what i wanted yeah like damn it but you know that's that's how technology is uh it's never quite right but that one cameraman like i was like this is the upgrade my setup needs this is gonna do

oh well even now i still feel like such a fucking idiot just thinking about that yeah you were you absolutely were i mean it was a bad sign mandy is always honest yeah and if i do something stupid she's the first person who's like why did you do that that was so stupid it was such a bad sign when she realized what was happening and she was like no it's okay don't be don't be sad it's like it was so stupid she wouldn't even say anything about it she knew it was stupid and she was like how do i fix this oh all right well that was properly embarrassing and i feel your shame burning through the internet three points thank you all right i've got one i don't know how much i want to tell this i want

to hear it even more now yes um when i was in high school i was dating a girl we were together for four years was it was her name was her name i'm i'm gonna keep that one to myself for now shplamambla yeah shplambla that was her name yeah okay um just for picking such an easy name to say mark uh cool i mean we could go with smithers again that wasn't smithers was not smithers somewhere in the middle of our relationship like a year two years in three i don't know somewhere in there um we had made out fooled around a bit and we hadn't had sex but i remember after uh she'd been over a couple days later she's like hey um next time we hang out i need you to get something for me i was like okay yeah sure what is it and she's like i need you to get a pregnancy test and i was like excuse me she's like uh my period's late it's never late i just please and so i i'm freaking out because i'm like we haven't even is it work can that is it possible oh my god

so oh i don't know how old i didn't have didn't have a car, I don't think, at this point. Because I remember I had to ride my bike to Kmart. Oh, no. I had to ride my bike to Kmart. And I, like, pull up. I park it on the sidewalk. And I go in. And I have no idea what I'm doing, dude. I'm just freaking out.

And I walk up. And, I mean, when I was younger i i don't know if i still had the afro at this point but i looked like an asshole yeah uh and i'm walking around looking for employees and i find someone like where are your um pregnancy tests and they're like excuse me i was like yeah i my mom needs a pregnancy i said it and i was like oh fuck my mom needs a pregnancy test. I said it and I was like, oh, fuck.

And they're like, okay, not believing me at all. Oh, wow. Not that I looked like I would have gotten laid because I definitely didn't, but that was probably the worst way I could have tried to pass That off. Oh, man. Yeah, my mom needs a pregnancy test Here you go, and there's like I don't know how many options there were at the time

But there were options and I was just like which one they're like, well, I don't Like they look at me like I don't fucking know what kind of pregnancy test How pregnant might she be? I'm like looking looking pregnant is your mother what you guys like, I don't fucking know what kind of pregnancy test you need. How pregnant might she be? So I'm like looking, looking. How pregnant is your mother? A bunch of guys just like, I don't know. Yeah, I had to wait in line for all the other high school dudes waiting to buy their pregnancy test. Their bikes were also parked out front. For their moms, yeah.

The Ohio thing. No, they come up, they're like, I got to get that guy's mom a pregnancy test. Yeah, me too. Yeah, me three so i buy one and i mean this is the worst part already but i buy one and i drive it home in my bike and i remember i was like please don't run anybody please don't run anybody and of course my mom's like in the driveway as i get there like oh what'd you do what were you doing at kmart's like i was just grabbing a treat oh you should have just kept the charade up like i got your pregnancy test

got that pregnancy test you wanted mom spoiler alert after my ex uh used it turns out she wasn't pregnant and all's good period started like the next day can't believe it yeah but i remember i was like i was so terrified of buying a pregnancy test at like i don't know how old i was like 14 15 something like that and i was like we haven't even done anything i can't believe i'm doing this yeah and uh it's for my mom saved it there's no reason for me to lie but i was just like i better lie yeah that is so funny oh my god i mean i had i'm not gonna talk about the route i had to go on but it was like a decent bike i'm just on my bike riding home with a bag a kmart bag with a pregnancy test in it just like sweating bullets from stress

Thinking about the fact like what if that guy knows my mom For service, I don't know why my mental image but you have training wheels on your bike Like a little hat with that spinny propeller on the tub. I got a little horn I squeeze Mom, Mom, what are all these kids doing lined up outside your house? I'm sorry, Mom, but, you know, we all had to buy you a pregnancy test. I've never told anyone that whole story. I don't think so. That's such a beautiful one. Mom, if you're listening to this, I'm sorry I never delivered that to you.

She never knew. I just couldn't believe it. I was like, I can't believe i got her pregnant we didn't even do it i can't believe your thought process wasn't any further than that i mean when you're that young like you know we had like what one required day of like health class where everyone was just embarrassed and trying not like not to make eye contact with anybody uh and then we had like freshman year health class where the only thing i remember from that health class is we took a day where we just like meditated in class the whole time.

I just sat there for 30 minutes thinking about water. Dude. What was that class? What a topic to meditate on. That's whenever we were the, what they call us, the trailer trash. We had like the trailers outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I forget the teacher's name. I remember sitting there and meditating for a full class period. That's all I remember about that class. The teacher's like, don't think about sex. And every kid in there's like... Go to your happy place. Just boners everywhere. I'm in the tit mountains.

It just happens to be the day the vice principal is observing. Like, all right, we're going to do... Locks in in and every dude just got a boner lifted up his desk we're gonna do meditation today kids go to your happy place not a sexy happy place not that happy a pg happy place yeah that pavlovian response carries over every time you see a cup of water, you're just like, oh. All right. Well, Wade, that was an excellent story. And I'm so sorry, Bob. Like, that was a four-point story. And that just edges you out by one point. Four points.

That was a four-point story. Four-point story and only one line on the pregnancy test. Good day, boys. That one line was the extra point on the baseline good story ranking. And with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 points to Bob's 8 points. The winner this week is Wade. I'd like to start by thanking my mom for existing so I could buy that pregnancy test under a very good fake story. The reason you were born.

One moment. My whole life was for this one moment cruising on my bicycle to buy a pregnancy test oh my god well now that you've fulfilled your purpose what are you gonna do yeah oh i guess i'll go buy another kmart's gone but i have to buy a pregnancy test for my mother from every kmart in the united states and beyond yeah i i god i want people i mean i hate the the topic of like harassing employees but this might be a harmless one you i want people to like make a video of them going to buy a pregnancy test but asking for help and telling them it's for their mom and just i want to see the reaction don't i don't need to relive this dude i can I can't believe I brought it up now.

No, tell them it's for Wade's mom. That's the bid. That's the option. Your mom or Wade's mom. Around the country, go to your pharmacy or wherever, Walmart, wherever store, buy a pricey test. And if you have to interact with anyone, just be like, it's for Wade's mom. I'm sorry. I had blocked this memory out until today.

I want you guys to know this is a story I hadn't even remembered until today. It just came flooding back. Wow. And I have that feeling of super embarrassment all over again right now. It's awful. As you should. That's very cathartic. Oh, God, no.

Well deserved. Sorry, Bob. Maybe next week you'll have better luck. I'll be in the running. Thank you, everybody at home for listening. Next week, Wade will be the judge. And I do believe it's valentine's day that we're gonna be uh celebrating that week not 100 sure all right so a horror and

pain episode coming your way all right your choice you will be the judge you can find these uh young i was gonna say young fellows but it's not quite right no no you can do that that's fine you can find these young strapping lads at their various social medias one is my skirm over at facebook where he streams one is minion 777 on twitch and lord minion 777 on youtube my name is mark blar uh you know me whatever uh and thank you all so much for listening be sure to like subscribe whatever it is click the button click random buttons around subscribe leave a comment in the chat below in the chat uh thank you again and we'll see you next week podcast out