Doughboys - Claim Jumper with Heather Anne Campbell

Episode Date: June 29, 2017

The ‘boys welcome back Heather Anne Campbell (Whose Line is it Anyway?, The Eric Andre Show) to review gigantic portioned Gold Rush themed sit down chain Claim Jumper. Heather shares her thoughts on the upcoming new entry in the Mario franchise and discloses her Last Meal. Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One out of every eight Americans is a Californian. And while modern-day California has a reputation for liberal politics and tolerance, viewed by much of the nation as a state-sized hippie commune, this hasn't always been the case. California consistently went Republican in presidential elections until the 1990s. It was the home state of conservatives Richard Nixon, one of the most corrupt presidents, and Ronald Reagan, one of the most damaging. In the recent past, Californians have used ballot initiatives to implement deeply regressive policies, Proposition 6 barred gays from the public school system, Prop 13 sharply cut

and capped property taxes for the rich, Prop 187 forbade undocumented immigrants from using public services, and Prop 209 banned affirmative action. Californians even voted to ban gay marriage twice, with Prop 22 and 2000, and to override a court ruling with Prop 8 and 2008, the same year Obama first won the presidency. California's racial strife is well-documented. This brutality on the black community led to the Watts Riots of 1965 and the L.A. Riots of 1992, and even today, Los Angeles has the most police shootings of any U.S. city. And back in the mid-19th century, the state earned the dubious distinction of having an

atrocity named after it, the California genocide. After the Mexican-American War of the mid-1840s, when America won control of the West Coast Territory, over 100,000 native Californians were displaced, starved, or slaughtered. And a major driver of that cruelty? The California Gold Rush of 1849, which led to a massive influx of white settlers to the Bay Area. Today, the Gold Rush is viewed with a quaint nostalgia that admits its ignoble history. Once it formally joined the Union, California became known as the Golden State.

Bearded gold prospectors have become stock sketch characters. San Francisco's pro football team is the 49ers. Even Disney's Big Thunder Mountain Roller Coasters attribute to the Gold Rushes of the West. And, in 1977, a California man named Craig Nicoloff opened a Gold Rush-themed restaurant in the SoCal town of Los Alamedos. With famously huge portions of heavy food, much like California during the greed-driven 1850s, the restaurant swelled to its breaking point in the early 2000s, before being sold

off and contracting to its comparatively modest size today. Now, with 42 locations across California and eight other states, the restaurant's name evokes the checkered pass of the Golden State, defined as, one who illegally occupies property to which another has a legal claim. This week on Doe Boys, Claim Jumper. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants or a production of Feral Audio dot com. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, the final Pokémon evolution of Bob's Big Boy,

the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Alright. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. That's good. That's good. That was good to see him. Andrew Hawkins.

If you have a roast to let me use on the show, roastspoonman at gmail.com. A normal, like a normal size one would be, what, just like a regular human? I guess if you're saying that Bob's Big Boy, the second step, are they saying, oh, they're saying Bob's Big Boy is the same. I assume Bob's Big Boy was the beginning, like that was like the jigglypuff. Oh, I'm just the middle one. No, you're the final evolution. I'm the final evolution.

He's the iglybuff. Oh, it's the iglybuff. Iglybuff, jigglybuff. Wigglytuff. I thought for some reason I thought jigglypuff was before iglybuff, but I trust you on Pokemon more. Iglybuff's the baby. Iglybuff's the smallest one.

Okay, good. I want to be iglybuff. But there's also, because he's the, so he wasn't in gen one. Right. Iglybuff. He was retconned in. Yeah, he was retconned. So it's like, you know what, you're like, this is when I know Pichu, you're like the

Pichu. Yes. No, you're the rightchew. I'm rightchew. Bob's Big Boy is the Pichu, and then there's a Pikachu that's the midpoint between the two of you. As you know, our guest, she knows video games very, very well, and we disappointed her immediately. I want to say, howdy ho to Spoon Nation.

Oh, my voice is a little off there. The rest is still. That's, you know, like, what is the, what's like, it's very embarrassing, and you know what? It was in, I feel like with, like, you were saying, because I feel like, yes, whatever, you know what I mean, or whatever, but, uh, getting, I mean, it's not, um, yeah, it's just, it's just, it's just kind of, and, uh, that was a drop. A little out of nowhere.

I'm sorry. I kind of just started playing it. It's all right. It was from Travis, I'm sorry, Travis Bursik, and he said, Mitch, I'm sick and tired of people thinking, uh, Nick is a comedy genius. Who thinks that? No one thinks that. I made a drop to highlight your contributions to the show.

Thanks, bud. So that was, uh, it was obvious that it's me saying, uh, and stuttering around. If I say us, I say, uh, a lot. He's at Travis Bursik. I shouldn't even give your name out. His little backhanded on both of us. What can I say? I suck.

What do you want me to say? I suck. We're, we're, we've been very open about how bad we are at this podcast. No, but particularly today, I've had a rough day. I've had a rough day. You had a scheduling snafu. We'll get into that in a second. Yeah.

Uh, but you know what? We should introduce our guest. Yes. Hi guys. From, she's, she's already talking from whose line is it anyway? In the Eric Andre show. Heather Ann Campbell is back. Hi Heather.

Hi. You were here very early on. You're on our eighth episode. Mommy burger. Mommy sucked. Right. We were talking about how much it sucked at lunch today. I've been back once since we recorded.

I think it was pretty easy and I think I'd give it like two and a half forks, maybe maybe three forks. I don't know. I would give it one now. You give it one now. Did I give it one then? I don't remember. I don't remember what the score was.

I never want to go to you mommy ever. Like, like even we'll, we'll talk about today, but like, I'd rather go to a place that I feel like might be middle of the road or something. Right. And, and my, like at least it's going to be, I just know what I'm getting over there and it's not whatever. I've been back once since we recorded. I was, and it was one of those things where just like, well, there's a new mommy burger

here. This is fine. And I went back and I got like a salad. It was so whack. They have the impossible burger now, which I hear is a kind of a thing. Okay. Cause that's there like vegetarian burger that also sound or taste sounds, feels, tastes like a complete beef burger and bleeds.

It bleeds. Oh, that's the big deal with it. Damn. But it's apparently not vegan. There's some sort of controversy involved in it. Well, all right. I don't remember what it is. People were upset about it for some reason.

Okay. But no, that's, it sounds interesting. Like, as far as a meat substitute, it's like supposedly the closest that anyone's come to something that resembles the texture and taste of meat. I haven't had it. Yeah. I haven't had it either. I haven't had it.

I haven't, I haven't gone. I haven't gone. I haven't, I have not gone to you, mommy. Ooh, mommy. You mommy. Ooh. Just like, ooh, ooh, I haven't been to mommy. Jesus Christ.

Familiar, familiar syllables. If you got an adult baby fetish. Ooh, mommy. Baby needs a new diaper. No, that's what that crinkling noise was when he sat down. Oh boy. Heather, welcome back to the show. We're glad to have you again.

It's been too long. One thing I want to talk about right up top. Yep. You chimed in with a little Nintendo knowledge. You're a big hardcore gamer. Ooh. Oh, hardcore. I don't know.

You're okay. You're in it or you're a gaming enthusiast. Yes. Hardcore because what does hardcore imply? I would think that hardcore gamer implies that you identify as a gamer. Oh, got it. Okay. And that to me is disgusting.

Yeah. I don't think I'd ever I'd call myself that either in my life. Yeah, that's a good point. Don't identify as anything. Yeah. When people are like gamer, I'm a gamer American. That's like worrisome. But I have been playing video games my whole life.

You're an enthusiast. Heather, I like what you just said. Don't I don't identify as anything. I think the moment that you identify as a thing, you start defending it as your interpretation of the thing. Like I can like video games all I want. But as soon as it's the way that I see myself, then I start seeing other people as an other thing.

So I don't identify as anything. I I I've always like I always liked that my mom and dad weren't like very pro like they weren't like like they went to Bridgewater state or something. But they weren't like rah, rah, you know what I mean? Like they didn't they weren't like identify themselves as as like that was the college that they went to. Sure. Like they like I like I they my household was never like you have to

like be like super proud not not to not to be proud of things. But you get what I'm saying. People are too into their their colleges like a little bit calm. I guess. Yes, I guess that was a bad example. But anything like that. I get what you mean. Yes.

By the way, you have a Patriots hat and I have a Lakers hat today. So I'm all about Pat's nation. But so as a gaming enthusiast, this will be a little bit data by the time it's recorded or by the time it's released. But as of this recording, we're coming off of E3 Super Mario Odyssey. Yeah, I think Mitch and I were both over the moon at this trailer. It just looks amazing. I love Mario's cap.

It's called Cappy. He can jump on it. He can possess people with the hat. Yeah, it's I love the hat. It looks amazing. It looks incredible. Also, I've been replaying Mario 64 recently and I'm at, I don't know, Star 98 or something.

What platform you playing it on? I'm playing it on an emulator. OK. So I'm using the original N64 controller, but I'm playing it on a Mac because I'm lazy. I have anyway, I don't want to have to defend my choice. Yeah, I was going to say that Super Mario 64 is my favorite game of all time. It's not mine.

Yeah. But it's really good. It's really good. Yeah, it's really one of the best Mario. It just I mean, like the reason that's one of my favorite games of all time is the time that it hit and I was a perfect age for when I came out. Yeah. But I remember with going with my mom to get the pre-order slip from my

ooh, mama, I said, and ooh, mommy, take me to Toys R Us. We went to Toys R Us. I got the pre-order slip and I remember the first time playing Mario 64 in Toys R Us and it being like a life changing experience. I was also probably like in eighth grade, maybe seventh grade. I was I was I was too old maybe to have that feeling. But it was I loved it. And I love I love that game so much.

And I've wanted a game like that since then. Well, my favorite part of Mario Odyssey is that when you get a moon, you don't exit the level. Oh, yeah. So that for me is like, oh, wow, I'm going to be able to like run around just completing stuff. Right. You don't get kicked out to the hub world.

That's great. Yeah, because in 64, that was the thing. Once you got a star, you had to start over everything would sort of reset. You actually had to decide which star you were going to get in advance because it kind of changed the layout of the level a little bit. That's not true. I mean, sometimes it would be like there would be an enemy that would appear only for that star.

Yeah. But if you go into a world and you're like only on the first star, you can still get the six coin star or whatever. Right. Right. Yeah. But the that's true. And the but then more sunshine, more sunshine was a similar mechanic. Am I wrong about that? Sunshine cares.

I kind of blocked it out. I don't think I don't love sunshine either. There's there's people who are sunshine defenders. Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, it's like it's like a bad Mario by Mario Sanders. A bad Mario is still a very good game. Like I just I kind of got exhausted by flood. Do you know what I know?

You know how I feel? I agree with the Len. You can steal my sunshine. Heather's packing her things. She's removed her headphones. That was the best moment of silence on the show we've ever had. Heather, I couldn't even look you in the eyes. I still can't.

Heather has like I've known Heather a very long time. And one of the things that's great about you is just how just blunt you will be at times like for it like today while we're eating our meal, which we'll get into in a little bit. But you were just eating something. You just said like, this is bad. I don't like this. And you kept like pointing out and saying that I don't like this.

I'm just like, no, no. Like I was right, right? That's fine. Yeah, I think it's admirable that you're not like that you're not trying to apply some sort of tact or a nice gloss of finish on it. I was trying to help you guys. Right. It was bad. I agree. It's it's like useful information to be sort of like,

you know, just to be like very straightforward instead of like, that's not my favorite. Like, I don't know. It would work for some people. It was gross. Right. I didn't like that part. I was I was saying that's a thing I like about you. I did. I do like Mario Galaxy.

Yeah, I like Mario Galaxy is phenomenal. Yeah, I gotta I gotta I gotta replay Galaxy music is good. Yeah, like my favorite part of Mario Kart 8 is hearing the music from Mario Galaxy. Do you know what? Do you know a weird problem with Mario Galaxy I had? What? I know. I'm sorry. This is disappointing.

It just felt a little bit on rails to me. I know it's not on rails, but like the fact when you like shoot out and you shoot around like it just feels like your force is determined. I get what you're saying. When you're ping-ponging around those little planets sometimes, it's kind of like, OK, there's one direction. It's a little linear. I'm not going to I'm not going to deny that it's because it is.

I think I like even sunshine, which I don't like. I still like but I like every Mario game like the 3D. Mario's generally do a better job of disguising any sort of discrete path. They feel a little bit less linear, a little bit more open world. Although, I mean, I guess Super Mario the Super Mario 3D land and Super Mario 3D world were kind of like, oh, this is the the direction you go. But you still can explore quite a bit within that obstacle. The 3D world I I loved.

I love a 3D world is one of my favorites in a long in a long, long time. That's my favorite 3D Mario Super Mario 3D world. Wow. I love 3D world. And then I'd say my favorite Mario overall is probably Super Mario World, the Super Nintendo one. That's a great one. Yeah. Wow. What about you, Heather? Oh, OK, I think I'm going to go. Mario 64 Galaxy.

Yeah. Three. World. Damn, three beats world. I think three is a better game. It's a better game. It's certainly got more to it. I just kind of feel like three is the rough draft of world. No way, man. Three is three is it's got so much stuff going on. I feel like they kind of distilled it down and they simplified it a little bit with world. No, see, three is clearly what Mario Odyssey is.

The reason we're excited about Mario Odyssey, it's like, I don't know, you can fucking become a bullet. That's true. And that's the same thing. There's like power ups that only appear in a single level of the boot power up. You can be a boot. You can be a boot. And it's like that feels like Mario Odyssey and everyone's complaining about like, oh, you can become like a human man in the Odyssey trailer. And it's like, yeah, that feels like a Mario 3 choice.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Nick had an issue because he thinks that now Mario is not human. Yeah. So here's the thing. So for a long time, I've always I know that he's not that the Mushroom Kingdom is not, you know, it's not exactly like the humans in there are not exactly the humans in our world. But I always thought of like, OK, Mario, Wario, Peach, the human like characters are for all intents and purposes humans. And what we witnessed in Mitch just turned the AC off

in case anyone out there is like there was a hum going on, that hum disappeared. That was Mitch. Well, there's another issue, too, with the AC is that yeah, that the it's broken. So sometimes we'll just stop shooting air out. So it is was just humming. Oh, so it was just like running like a generator. Yeah, I was running like a generator basically. Yes, probably adding more heat to the room.

Then possibly adding more heat, pumping in more heat. And immediately you could immediately feel the difference in my eyes as soon as in my eyes. And you can immediately feel that difference as soon as I turned it off. No, I could like it because I kind of got disoriented because I was like, oh, this is like it felt weird. It felt the room felt different. It felt warmer immediately.

Yeah, I'll turn it back on soon. That's fine. But anyway, where was I going? What was I saying? It wasn't important. Mario is not a human being. OK, so here's the thing. Thank you, thank you, Heather. So no, I wish that you hadn't got him back on this point. So obviously we have New Donk City now, which is the city where Pauline. By the way, you can't just say that to the people who are.

I think it's Donkey Kong. I think it's Donkey Kong. You think Donkey Kong is. I think we texted. Yeah, we were on Twitter about this. I think that Donk City was Donkey Kong's city and that New Donk City is the city that Pauline founds after she's free of Donkey Kong. That makes sense. I like that. Yeah, I mean, I think that's cool.

I had a slightly more elaborate theory that had, you know, some. It was the Donkey was a title. Yeah, I thought, well, no, I didn't think the donkey was OK. Here's why do you think that Pauline and Donkey Kong are fucking each other? No, I would never say that. That's disgusting. I don't have some sort of deviant art account or I'm posting fan art or I'm posting hentai of Donkey Kong railing Pauline.

So if you say, if you did have that account, what would your name be? Or name, not like Wiggy Kong. No, here's the thing, Wiggy Kong. I had I had kind of the idea that, like, OK, New Donk New Donk City is akin to how they're how, like, new as a city is when you have that prefix, it implies that you can infer from that the existence of an old version of that city. Right. So it was like, OK, so there is a Donk City and that's Donkey Kong's domain. It's ruled by apes.

That's where the the whole incident with Pauline went down. Pauline escaped that. And New Donk City is kind of like the one, the the home of all the people, all the humans who have kind of escaped that ape like apron, tyrannical megalopolis. Can I tell you my theory? Yes. I think that New Donk City is now the city after Pauline was freed and Donkey Kong was defeated. That's what I just said. Oh. I mean, basically, wasn't it?

Listen, we're all kind of saying the same thing, Heather and I's idea. Heather and I's idea, which we created together is that it so when Donkey Kong was defeated, I was but I was going to say, here's the thing I'm going to add to it is that the setup, you know, like the the the the red beans. You're maybe yes, that maybe maybe there'll be a little Easter egg where you can see that setup. Oh, that probably they probably will have those girders in there.

Those girders. And you know what? Hey, maybe Mario, maybe Mario will get a hammer. Maybe you'll get a little hammer. Maybe that'll be something like that. A little throwback. Maybe he'll possess a version of a human version of Jump Man, the original Mario, like a construction worker that kind of looks like him. But as a human version of him, because this is where my original point started. New Donk City. You just doubled my mirror and you're excited.

Yeah, I did. I know. Look, I'm going to break something here someday flailing my arms. That's we just you just accept that that's the risk of recording your apartment. Anyway, so there are humans that have human proportions, unlike Mario's very stylized, compact proportions. So what we can infer from that is that Mario is not exactly human. He is some other thing, because it's very strange to see Mario running around with his proportions next to, you know, still stylized, but very much man

and woman, adult man and woman sized figures in New Donk City. If I might. Yes. Is Mickey a mouse, even though we've seen mice? Good question. Where Mickey is clearly not a mouse if you compare him to like the Cinderella mice. Right. But he's a mouse. So could Mario be a human being in a world where there are other humans? That's a great. That's a great, great question.

And so that's maybe that's a like a new Zen question. It's like the new is what's the sound of one hand clapping? The homer, that's a good Simpson's joke. Watch the Simpsons instead of listening to this podcast. So wait, where were we? New Donk City, New Donk City. Yeah. So OK, let's let's get away. Fuck, let's get away from that homology of New Donk City.

I'm riled up. We had a scheduling snafu. Everything was weird. Today, the AC is back on the AC is back on because it's getting too hot immediately. It got too hot in the summer time. We're cooking. We're cooking. And yes, there was a scheduling snafu. I fucked up Weigar.

I almost was I almost was in tears. Fucked up Weigar. I want to one sided meeting. I pulled them into the restaurant. Beat the shit out of them. Um, yeah, no, I I I messed up. You know, I messed up more than I've ever messed up today. I never have actually missed something.

And I like I've never missed something. Right. I'm late. Something. I'm late a lot. But you're usually you're just there's a lot of you almost never miss anything. My schedule is up in the air a lot lately, you know, you know this. I had to reschedule a bunch of stuff lately because of work. So things have been all over the place. And and I got a call while we were while we were reading that I had to be

at a voiceover thing. Yeah. I mean, you've been like you texted me the other day, like, sorry, my schedule is a lot like that George Clooney and a Kendrick movie. And I immediately immediately knew what you meant. Oh, yeah, it's up in the air. We just we sort of had that understanding from that point forward. Heather, you should give a longer moment of silence. It has been it has been very, very much up in the air.

Right. It's been it's been it's been it's been bad. And I just completely because it's been so open the air, I didn't put this in my calendar because I thought it was going to change. My favorite part was in your panic as you like shuffled backwards away from the table apologizing. How you were like taking handfuls of mashed potatoes and putting them in your pockets. You got to leave with something. I'm so sorry.

I was very, very sorry. I was almost moved to tears. You look so sad. I was very sad. Yeah. And we were me and Heather were both like, that's fine. Like we weren't we weren't too worried about it. Aren't you happy, though, that they had to reschedule it? So I'm happy that it all worked out. I don't know because we had Heather and I had settled in by the time because you left here. So here's what happened.

We were at the restaurant, Mitch, Mitch takes a phone call, goes away in a hurry, comes back, panicked, is tearful, says, you know, I'm sorry, guys, my schedule is a lot like Jason Reitman's second feature right now. And we're like, yeah, of course, obviously we understand what you mean. And then he and then he left. So Mitch is Mitch is gone at this point. And then for about 20 minutes, Heather, me and you and Scout, we're just hanging out there.

And we just sort of sort of settled into, OK, well, we'll just record this later. And then we've got a relaxing rest of our day. Yeah, it was nice. And then you texted me again, like, hey, the record is back on. Yes. And so we uncancelled and then we decided to go do that. It was fine. It worked out fine. Do you know that, Jason? It's Jason Reitman, right?

Do you know that the working title for that movie was Mitch's schedule? Right, it's kind of great. It was one that because I remember was on the blacklist. Yeah, it was on the blacklist. Mitch's schedule. And he didn't even really know me. No, yeah, it's very strange. It's been it's been a crazy couple of weeks.

Look, Chankton's getting married in a few weeks. I got to write this best man speech for God's sakes. Congrats, Chankton. And my buddy, Chankton, congrats on your writing of a speech. Thank you. Yes. It's stressing me out. But that's one of that's one of many. I've got a I got a lot of you've never done it before written in a man's speech.

I've never. I think this might be my first and only best man. Wow, this might be it for me. I don't think I don't know. I can't think of anyone else that I will like that will I'll get the ask from. Right. I got it from Chankton. Maybe maybe one more. But I think this is I think this might be it. I don't think it will ever happen for me.

Nick, you have no friends. No, I don't know. I can't I can't think of anyone I have. I have like a close enough friendship with where they'd be like, oh, why girl would be my best man? Maybe it might have been my brother, but my brother didn't have a wedding party. And you famously didn't either.

I eloped. You loved I didn't have anyone. I didn't have any sort of wedding party either. So my the closest I was actually on the bachelor's side of a of a wedding. I was in the groomsmen. Oh, yes. But in a dress and a tuxedo jacket, because I was trying not to like a black dress and a tuxedo jacket. And that was I think the closest I'll ever get to it either. Yeah, because I don't I mean, I'm not friends with anyone.

I like that stuff. I feel like I well, I feel like it's good to not have to Nick. I think eloping is actually not a bad idea. Like it's kind of I feel like you made the smart move. We liked it. It worked out really well for us. We're both private people and kind of weird. But the and Natalie wasn't 18. So you have she's older than me.

Oh, well, I'm sort of under Jesus. It wasn't some sort of of a cross straight state lines. The legal illicit liaison. And you and there's no relation at all. We're not related. Not incest. No, we're the same. We were the same grade in school.

We're like the same age. Yes, of course. Natalie's right. I'm just joking around. She's 11 days older than me. Oh, OK. I heard that wrong. I thought you said she was in grade school. No, we were the same grade in school. We wouldn't. All right, God damn it.

Heather, you're from Chicago. Yeah, I think we talked about this a little bit when you're on the podcast the first time. Yeah, but a famous food town. I've never been there. It's great. Why have you never been there? I just never have never had a reason to go.

You should go. You should go. Why should I go? Well, the pizza. Yeah, the pizza does seem good. It is. It is. It's just a great food town, which is kind of like what you like to do for trips. Like you go, you like, didn't you go to? Where'd you go to Charlotte?

Where do you want somewhere? Oh, we went to South Carolina. We're just a South Carolina. We went to Charleston, South Carolina. That's where you went. Lovely time. And you went strictly. That was like a food trip, I feel.

Yeah, we just went and we gorged. Jesus. We just really eat a pelusa. We had a lot of food. Natalie is a foodie. Natalie knows more about food. If you want to wreck, you don't go to Nick. Yeah.

You go to Natalie. No, go over my head and go to my wife. She knows what's going on. She's a real gourmand. Yeah, she was really plugged into the food scene. She knows the great places to eat. You guys got to go to Chicago, then. Get some hot dogs, get some pizza.

Yeah. I'm sure I'd be into it. Get some ribs. Hey, I've been. I've been to Gibson's Steakhouse. I've been to Portillo's I've been to. I've been to Portillo's. Did you have the chocolate cake shake?

I did have the chocolate. I've had the chocolate cake shake multiple times now. Yes. It's great. It's a great, it's a great, great food city. You know, from now on, I'm not even going to look at Nick. It's just our podcast. Wait a minute.

It's the Portillo's podcast. Is it also because he stares, like, very intently into your eyes? Because that's half of my issue. He's just tear-wrapping me in the eyes. Look, here's the thing. People get on my case sometimes for eye contact issues. Like, I either don't make enough eye contact,

like, I don't make enough eye contact. So I'm like, OK, so, like, I will look at you. And then when I do that, people say, you're staring at me. So I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with my eyes. Just tell me what to do. So I'll stop making people upset. What a weird thing to come to at the age of, like, 37? How old are you?

36. 36. So you finally have realized you don't know what to do with your eyes. You don't know how to look at me. I get that. I feel like sometimes you don't want to stare at people or something like that.

I think I mentioned this. I have acne personality, which is a thing. Right. Which I had acne. So you don't, you look down a lot? So I look down a lot. So if I make eye contact for too long, I will eventually look away.

I wonder if that's something to do with it. I wonder if that's, I have a similar thing. I didn't really notice at the time, but I had very bad acne as a kid. And I was on Accutane, actually, which is that prescription drug that, like... It's like holes in your brain. Yeah, like it makes you go crazy.

Yeah. Are you all right? Heather just did a literal spit take. Because I mean, it makes so much sense that you, like, you're like the anti-accutane campaign. Yeah, it's when you read, because it's funny, because the side effects include, like, psychopathy. Like, it may make you, like, your skin's gonna look great,

but you may become a psychopath. You may not know what to do with your eyes. My mom wouldn't let me take it. She wouldn't let me take Accutane. And so then it was, what? Might have been a good move. What I was gonna say about Accutane, the thing that's weird is that it's the only medication

I've ever had where they're like pills, but they have like liquid inside. Did you bite them? You can, but like, you're not supposed to. Clearly, you're not supposed to. You're not supposed to, yeah, he was making, he was, with his hands, he was showing us that he did bite them.

Right, like, the gel exterior, I guess, just dissipates in your stomach, and then that liquid just. Ooh, like, Advil liquid gels. It's kind of like, it is like a liquid gel, yeah. So I guess it's akin to one of those, but it's just liquid gels in medication. It's weird for gels to feel like a later thing,

you know what I mean? Yeah, that's for back in the day. Yeah, that was, that's a little different. Right, and I also had a decrement one point that I had to keep in my fridge, which I found very, like, man, I don't like this. Did your lips dry out? A lot of people's like, lips dry out.

Very dry, and then I actually had a chapstick habit that I stuck with for a long time, and it kind of became more of a compulsion, where it just was, I just had chapstick for a while, I didn't need it. You weren't looking at anybody in the eyes for using chapstick all the time. Yeah.

Well, the thing is, it's like, because it's like, like, I got used to hat using it, and then you use it while you have that thing that's drying out your lips, and then you stop using the drug, but then your lips are still dry, and then your lips just get used to having chapstick at all times, so they just don't produce moisture.

So I eventually had to kind of quit chapstick, kind of cold turkey, like I was quitting cigarettes, and then I had just had chap lips for a little bit, but they get their strength back over time. I didn't have any of these things, guys. I didn't have the, I had no acne, and no... Oh, man, that is so, that's so good. I'm still phenomenally socially awkward.

Like, I don't have an excuse. Acne can do a number on your self-confidence. Like, your self-confidence can be wiped out. I think I didn't, I don't think I recovered till I was almost done with college. Like, I think it was one of those things where it was like, I had acne when I was 14 or something, and then it was a good eight to nine years

to kind of get over it. And some people, I feel like, never get over it. I feel like, yeah, some people don't get over it. It's tough. Acne, no good. And it should be something, I guess, Accutane is a way to kind of fix it, which it should be a thing that is solved at this point, right?

Right, you would think so. Modern medicine being what it is. Not what you're gonna do. Hey, so, no, I had no acne at all, you didn't have, no, wow. I didn't know, I had really bad haircuts, and my elementary school was uniform, school uniforms. So I had no fashion sense.

Because like, the first time I'd ever chosen clothes to wear to school, I was like, I don't know, I'll dress like a Native American. Which is like, you can't do that. I was like, I can be anything. You could have gotten away with it maybe back then, a little bit more than now. I had a sweatshirt that had an airplane on it,

like a drawing of an airplane, and the arms were airplane wings, they were like triangles. Oh my God. And I was like, I'm an airplane. So yeah, I had the same thing you have, but like for no reason whatsoever. That sounds awesome though, it sounds like a great shirt. I had an air, so I would wear my airplane sweatshirt,

and there were shoes that you could wear that had dinosaur footprints on the bottoms, and you could walk, and they would leave dinosaur tracks. That's fucking cool. Yeah, so I had dinosaur feet, shoes, and airplane wing sweatshirt. I think that is one of the cooler styles that I've ever heard.

Yeah, now would be like, oh, she's so hipster or something. By the time I was just like a fucking kid who thought I was a plain dinosaur. Right. Take note, Colin Travarro. I think they were. For the next Jurassic Park installment. If you see some plain dinos up on screen,

he just, old Colin, just may be a listener. You know what, you know what always irks me a little bit is when people are like, I was so awkward in middle school, because I'm like, yeah, who cares? I think everyone is, I think middle school is awkward for everybody. Sure. And then I think after the point, I was still like,

I think if it's you're awkward after that, then that's where it's not, you know what I mean? Like middle school, that's not a sob story to me. I'm not gonna feel bad for you if you are awkward in middle school. I get what you're saying. You're like a baby. Depending on what you endured,

it can be, those can be scars that last a lifetime, but there is something that too, that the later in life almost that you're still a weirdo is kind of like the harder things, because it's kind of like when you've got the weird guy in college or the weird guy in the workplace, and then it's kind of like in the adult world, it's a little bit of a different thing.

You know what I mean? Like that is just like, all right. You know, people are kind of like off put by somebody or somebody who's just like very socially awkward as an adult. That mixing is very hard. What's happening with the AC? It's back on again.

It's back on. So wait, it was off because you turned it off and then I got very hot and now it's back on. We're getting too hot. Are you writing it? What's going on? Are you like turning it back on and off? It was broken.

I was trying to fix it this entire time because it comes on and off, but now it's on. We should be happy. It's working. All right. But we don't know how long this thing is going to be working. No, listen, we're in the summer months of Doe Boys. I'm trying to step up this.

You know, do I get to introduce more characters? What happens to the show now? What do you mean? Do I have to, there's going to be like a, like I'm saying like what do we do with this podcast now? Like how do we keep it interesting? Yeah. I don't know.

We haven't been doing anything to keep it interesting and people still listen for some reason. I think food challenges. Food challenges are, I think those are fun. That's a good idea. That's a good pit. I think you should do, not like man, although God, I love man versus food.

I love any TV show that it almost kills its host. But yeah, I think you should. Some spicy peppers or something like that. I think you could do food. So let's say you go to a place and it's like, oh, this is a chain restaurant that is known for its steaks, but they also have a dish that is, yeah, very peppery or we're only going to order cheese themed items.

Oh man. I'd be in Hawk heaven. Ew. Yeah, I didn't like that either. You'd be in Hawk heaven with all cheese items. I'm a cheese freak. You're right. There's nothing we can do for this podcast.

We're fucked. We can both come up with like a, you know, crazy Donnie or something. I don't know. Wait, so you want us to do, you want us to do like bits as characters? I just, I don't know. I don't know what to do anymore.

Excuse me. Sorry, wait real quick, Mitch. I have to step out of the room real quick. I'll be back in one second. Okay. So, here it goes. Where do you think he went? I don't know.

Do you want to update his blog? Hey, hey y'all. How you doing? It's me, Hickweiger. Weiger's cousin. Hickweiger? Hickweiger. Weiger's cousin from the south.

Are you like the cactus, the cactus snoopy to snoopy? Yeah, that's a good analogy. It's kind of a one-to-one rip off of that. I'm the cactus snoopy of Weiger's. So, just a quick question. Yeah. Your mom or dad named you Hick, H-I-C-K. You got a problem with that?

He shot a little spiny cactus. Oh, now he's shooting guns in the air. Realistic sounding guns. Hickweiger, I think this is a great, you should come to the show more often. How about come to the show? You know what? I'll bring some of my signature barbecue sauce.

Oh boy. But you know what? I think now you should leave. Oh, you think I should go? I think you should go. All right, I'm gonna go try and find Nick. I'll be right back. Okay.

I hope both of them are gone. I hope that Nick never comes back. Me too. I hope Hick never comes back. I couldn't find him, guys. Like. So what's going on with you guys? We're talking about,

hey, you know what? Hickweiger, we're talking about a claim jumper. Oh, a claim jumper. No, don't invite him. What are you doing? I feel like it's, is it a western, is claim jumper kind of like a western-y theme? You know, that's the kind of thing

my old cousin Nick would know. Let me see if I can go track him down. Why would you ask him a question? He doesn't know anything. Let him go. Oh, sorry about that, guys. So, claim jumper is actually the item, the origin of it.

Psycho. The origin of it. You just try to go back in to claim jumper, you psycho. He took the medicine that made him the psychopath. The origin of it is that it's related to the California gold rush and actually originated in the west coast. And now it's based in Texas.

But yeah, like you kind of get this western theme from it, but that's all because of the gold rush. Oh, all right. So 1849, that whole season. That is a little western. It is a little western-y. Yeah, that was very much a sort of western, sort of aesthetic, right?

Yeah, the burger you ordered was a reference to death. I got the Widowmaker burger. That sounds like a gold rush sort of thing. Right, it's very ominous. The cave is gonna take him. Or this horse, this ill-tempered horse, is what we call him Widowmaker. I like thinking of it that way

and I hope that it's that way. I hope it's, because if not, then it's a high calorie, then it feels like one of those restaurant in Vegas where it's like you come and eat your fat slobs. Right, it's the heart attack burger. The heart attack burger, yes. And I don't want it to be like that. I like the idea of it that if there is some sort of theme.

I will say that there's, in a lot of restaurants, there's this division between burgers, that is the burger for people and the burger for dudes. And you'll get like, Widowmaker implies that it's a burger for men. Yes. And there's like the manly burger. I think Umami has some kind of take on the manly burger.

I think there's one that has bacon all over it. Yeah, I don't like that. Right, Carl's Jr. Hardee's there marketing for a long time was very male-oriented. Like if you're a man's man, this is what you're gonna eat. Heather, do you not like that? Do you not like the take on that or do you not like the actual burger?

No, I love the burgers very much, but I feel, I have to experience some kind of weird thing when I order the burger, which is, yeah, I'm gonna, I always have to defend, like, I'm gonna order the dudes, the dudes bacon pile up. And they're like, oh yeah, that's the kind of woman I like. And I'm like, no, I'm just like bacon. That's a great point.

It's a weird thing. Yeah, that's true. You should never make half of the people that come into your restaurant feel weird about ordering some item of food. I don't like that. Yeah, that's good. I agree with that.

That's a good point. A very salient 2017 point. Oh, it's not, ugh, God. See, you do the right thing. Nick is, Nick is like, Nick lives by fear. And that's why he says things like he just said. No, I think that that's a thing that everybody could agree with.

Yeah, I agree. I agree, it doesn't have to be a 27. You could have made this point 30 years ago. If you're the kind of dude who likes watching a woman eat an onion ring burger, you don't want to see her have to be uncomfortable ordering the onion ring burger. You want to just see her be like,

yeah, I'd like the onion ring burger. You don't want to have to see her be like, yeah, I'd like the husband's meat. I agree with, I think that's very, well, also like it's like that other thing too of like, the name's not, like that vibe isn't working for me as sure, a guy, like who likes it? No, no, no one likes that.

Who likes ordering the food that implies your own death if you're a dude? Yeah. There's a good way to be, I think there's a good way to read, like, I think you can name it and have it not feel like specifically like a male burger, which it is. I think I mean,

The risk taker. Sure, there you go. You could call it anything. The trailblazer. Yeah, trailblazer. What, I'm fine with the name, but you made a weird pose after you said it. I was proud of myself.

Like, it almost like, like a, you almost like snapped your neck. Like you did like kind of one of those like, what is it, what is the, what's the word for that? Kind of like a. Sashay. Yeah, yeah.

I wasn't trying to do a sashay. I was just trying to do a little pose. And then the sashay. Jesus Christ. Now it's just a little emphasis of like, the trail, like how about that? Are you a human being? Here's the thing.

A couple episodes back, I emphasized something by making like, I did like a shrug. I did like a, did like this motion. And I was like, It's not a shrug. No, well that's the thing. I thought I was doing like,

like, like, like, how about that? And then Mitch and our, which episode was this? Do you remember what episode this was? I don't remember the specific episode. But this was a, and then you and our guests at the time, I apologize to our guests for forgetting

specifically who it was. We do all these episodes. They all smear together in my mind. Smear. Yeah, they do. They kind of, it's kind of like. It doesn't say blur.

Are they blur together? Fine, whatever. Whatever word you want to use. They're synonyms. We get what I was saying. Learn smear. They smush together in my mind. And I, but in any event,

I was like, okay, so I can't do that. I can't say the trailblazer and then they do that because then you're going to make fun of me again because when I did that, you made fun of me. So I was like, I'll try something else. You can just say the name. Heather, I have a question for you. Because you have worked with Nick for a long time.

What was it like in the early days? You were on a very, very, very funny group together last day of school, an impromptu. That wasn't even the early days for Nick and I. Yeah, we started at, we were at Ultimate Imprompt together. Oh, that's right. Yes. What was it like back then?

Did you guys always get along right away? Did you? Yeah, I've always thought Nick was really funny. He's super funny. That's nice of you to say, Heather, you're the funniest. The funniest person alive. No, it's, I think of myself as extremely talented.

So I have, very rarely do I think somebody's funny and Nick is really funny. He's super funny. He's funnier than I am. Oh, God bless you. That's not true. That's not true. That's true.

I love it. I also think you're funny. Oh, thank you. But I think Nick is funnier. I don't think I could ever, I don't think I could ever, Nick is a very, very funny man. I think you and I are equally funny.

I think Nick's funnier. Oh, wow. Well, that's a compliment in itself. Thank you so much. I think you're very funny. I think both of you guys are funny with me, but that's very nice of you to say. Oh, boy.

I'm glad it's a glass table so I can see us all giving each other hand jobs. Nick, you're a funny man. Thank you, Mitch, sorry. And you know what? Hickweiger is a great addition. No. No.

Really? Oh, man, you know what? I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go on the other room. I'll be right back. Don't bring him back. I'm gonna go tell Hick the good news. God, I hope that, oh, all right, now Hick is gone.

I hope that Hick does not come back. Hey, do you think Hick, I'm gonna tell Hick that this microphone, that I'm gonna hand him a gun and tell him it's a microphone. Do you think he'll put it in his mouth and start? I hope so. It starts shooting. I told Hick in the kitchen.

And he's elated. Oh, that's great. Yeah, he started a fire, he's, you probably hear him firing his guns in the air at a distance. You guys can hear the gun, right? Oh, it's so sad that Hick didn't come back. Yeah, I know, I think everyone,

well, I mean, that was a thing, like he was just so excited at the news, I don't think he's in a position where he'd be able to come back. He'll probably never come back. No, I don't think he'll ever come back. Can I ask a question about this table that we're at? Sure.

There's a lot of candy. Yes. From foreign countries. Yes. And there's also a chia pet. There is. Were these gifts or? The chia pet was a gift from my mother,

a Kermit chia pet. She was here recently, she told me to throw it away. I threw it in the trash and then I decided that I wanted to keep it. I have obsessive compulsive disorder and I can sometimes hoard things. So that is a part of the reason

that it's back on the table. The candy, that was too much information, but I told you everything. The candy is gifts from multiple people. Some of it is stuff I brought back from London, when I was in London. Jelly bellies are from my mom. Those are the only things I care about.

Okay. Great. I just wanted to know. It's kind of, there's like a big, is there anything in that bag? Yeah, there's also, there's some Star Wars. I bought these Star Wars snacks so we could taste them at some point.

Star Wars food snacks. We may never taste them. I also broke into them and ate a few packets. Yeah, you ate some of this. It's a bad idea to keep this the place where also we keep all the food. Right. And then I've also got,

we need like a bear locker where we can put the food for future episodes so you don't dig into it. And then I got some fudge stripes, cinnamon roll. I know those will also do on a future episode. Wow, giving away some future snack or wax. Should I not have done that? No, that's okay.

Oh, well, we'll bleep that. People will be excited for the future. Okay, we won't bleep that. Yeah, we shouldn't, you know what we should do though? We should talk about this damn restaurant. Oh yeah, let's talk about claim jump. Thank you for getting us on track, Mitch.

So we went to the claim jumper. We went to the one in Burbank. I'm a little over the place, sorry. We went to the one in Burbank and the claim jumper we sat down, it's kind of in a, like the ground floor of an office building. So it's like kind of a very,

you know, I mean, there's some chain restaurants like this. You know the layout if you've been to like an office park. So there's like a high rise above us. And we're in the lobby section of a big office complex. There's no pizza oven at this location. So even though pizzas and calzones are on the menu, they are not available at this particular claim jumper our server informed us at the beginning.

They tell you upfront, yeah. Which is fine, but it's a little strange that they have that one menu for locations that don't have the oven. Yeah. I don't know. I just, it feels like, why is that a thing you offer at some locations

and not others? I also feel like this is a place, you don't see a lot of claim jumpers. I've never, I had never been to a claim jumper until this last year. Yeah. I used to go growing up, but I haven't been in probably 15 years.

And I feel like this is one of the few I can think of in the greater Los Angeles area, right? Yeah, they've definitely contracted a lot. There used to be a lot of them. And then they've just sort of, you know, like a lot of these chain restaurants, they had kind of their explosion and they were expanding and they probably overexpanded

and then they contracted a bunch and they've closed a bunch of restaurants and now they just have a few left. They've been sold off for scraps a few years ago. That location used to be a McCormick and Schmitz. Oh, okay, okay. So that, like I went there, I've been there since it was a claim jumper,

but that is the same chain. So they discovered. Oh, the same parent company. Yeah. So they discovered that McCormick and Schmitz wasn't working there. It was a much darker, more intimate experience. Yeah.

And then they were like, well, let's throw a claim jumper in there and see if that works better, but it was empty. Yes, it was completely empty. It was empty. We had a little later lunch. We went after the lunch rush, so. But it was, you're right.

It was still empty. And also I was gonna say, Heather, my question is like, cause you kind of hit on theme and I'm like, what is the theme of claim jumper? What is it? I mean, it is, like you said, it is kind of like an old, like a gold rush,

like kind of what, but inside that's not what the theme is. Like there's nothing on the menu or anything that indicates that that's what it is. I could be misremembering it, but I seem to recall there being more of that sort of old West aesthetic inside it back in the day. Okay. And probably they've, you know, reevaluated the concept

and read the interiors a little bit. But I want to take a step back for a second. I'm curious as to why when we asked you to come back on the show, Heather, why this was claim jumper was the chain that you wanted to discuss. That's not, do I have to lie about this? What do you mean?

I mean, like, why would I? Did you say a couple others? No reason. There's no reason. You just sort of an arbitrary choice. Yeah. Cause you named something I didn't want to go to. Oh yeah.

Oh right. It suggests something you didn't want to go to. We sometimes suggest stuff. We were like, hey, this is Billy's Place where I'm done. Do you want to cover this? And you said no. It was Sparrow. Yeah.

I think you said, fuck no. Yeah, I think you did say fuck no. Yeah, I don't want to do Sparrow. And then I also, I felt like we had a limited window. Right. Like last time with Umami, I had like a week. This was like, you asked me on like Sunday or something. Right.

And we are recording here on the Tuesday. Yeah. So I was like, well, I don't know. Maybe like a claim jumper. Okay. So there was no particular reason. It was just like a place that kind of jumped into your head and you're like, fuck it.

I guess we could do this place. I was having a meeting in that building. That's why. But we ended up having to make a special trip because we couldn't schedule this meal around your meeting. What? Yes. No.

Yeah. We weren't going to just run down at the bottom of her meet. Like she was in the meeting and she saw a claim jumper. Oh. No, no, that's not true at all. Oh, I'm wrong too. So I was, I had two meetings in that building this week. Right.

And I was like, well, claim jumpers in the building if we want to go there, either of those times I could meet before or after the meeting. But neither of those worked out. Yeah. And so this, I'm three days in a row. I'm a claim jumper. I was there yesterday and had a Corona, a single Corona.

Oh, that's fun. Because I was like, well, I want to save it for when you guys are there. I don't want to try everything while you guys aren't there. You did your homework more than we did. And tomorrow I'm going to eat salad or something like a human being as opposed to today. Well, you're going back there tomorrow?

Yes. Yes. That's why I was like, claim jumper. I don't know. Yeah, Heather, you had, well, we can get into what we ate in a second, right? You had something heavy and you regretted it almost maybe immediately.

I feel hungover. I get that now sometimes. Nick, we've talked about this a little bit. The feeling of when I was hungover, when I was 20 or something, now with some places that we eat, I'll feel that same way the next day. It's awful. It's like a headache.

Yeah, it's a terrible thing. Heather, you've lived in New York. Chicago, Los Angeles, Amsterdam. I got a question for you. All right, here we go. You got to rank your food favorites of the bunch. Oh, OK. Chicago, LA, New York, Amsterdam.

Wow, that was quick. You had thought of this? I was shocked that you said it so quick. Chicago is number one, huh? Yep, Chicago because it's unpretentious. I mean, there's stuff that's pretentious there now, but all the food is good. It's very working class food.

It's just like food. It's a good pizza, good hot dogs, good cheeseburgers, not like fucking, oh, here's our squid burger with mushroom top and odd. None of that shit, just a good burger. I feel like a lot of people will probably agree with you. I think Chicago is one of the best foods that is in the world, but I bet you

there's a lot of New York people who will say that they should get the title. Nope. No? LA goes above New York. Yeah, I agree. Oh, yeah, but you hate the East Coast, for fuck's sake. I don't hate the East Coast, but I

think the New York food elitism is a little exhausting. Yeah, yeah. I think that LA has better food overall. Here's what I'll say, Chicago is very heavy, though. I'll go and eat food there. Oh, yeah, it's awful for you. It's awful for you. It's really bad for you.

Yeah, I think I would die very quickly in that city if I lived there. It's just every time I'm there, I'm like, man, I ate so terribly for so many days. And so LA is a little different, but I guess you're right. Kind of like it's that sort of thing of like in Chicago, you can go and get yourself a sub or a sandwich somewhere that's great.

I just had a big philosophical thing occur in my head, which is that so Chicago, because it's not on either coast, there's no elitism, there's no exterior competition to be the fanciest version of a food. So their food gets really entrenched. Like your pizza just kind of digs down and it's like, okay, here's the Giordano's version of this pizza, here's the Lumel Nadi's version of this pizza,

here's the Uno's version of this pizza. And it's just sort of a horizontal, like a vertical, like it's just one thing that they're doing over and over and over again. A closed loop. Right, it's a closed loop. Yeah. New York used to be that way.

And then when all the money flooded in and Manhattan and Brooklyn changed, all of those places were displaced by these new fancies, shnobby versions of the same old thing. But LA's been doing that longer. So LA already has all of that Fru Fru bullshit down. So that's why LA ranks above New York, is they haven't had time to entrench

that superficial culture on their food. I can get behind that. That's my theory. I feel like if I lived in Chicago, I could probably, like if I'm here, well, then I'm also always trying to eat healthy. I don't know how it would be in Chicago. You'd be dead.

Yeah, you'd be dead. Well, I don't know how well I would do eating healthy in Chicago. Right. Truly. You would be so happy. You know what? I think I'd be happy.

I think I would be a happy. No, you'd be in pain all the time. I would be happy. But you know what? The Cubs would be playing. Aren't you a Red Sox fan? Yeah, you know what? I would hate that.

I'd hate that the Cubs would be playing. I would want to watch the Red Sox. I hate this game. I hate this game so much. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back with more Doe Boys. Welcome back to Doe Boys. Heather, claim jumper.

OK, so the reason you wanted to go there was basically that you were around it, which is fine. You don't have to have a good reason. We're going to all these places. Look, we're. Wait, wait, wait. Can I talk about the thing on the menu that I want to go to? Yes, please do.

So I took a photo of the menu. And it was all of the different companies that this one company worked. I don't know, mandatory foods, I think. Yeah, yeah. And they had like Bubblegump and Mortons and all that. They had a restaurant called T-Rex. Yes.

Not T-Rex's diner or like, like Rainforest Cafe, still is cafe. Right. It was just called T-Rex. Yeah, yes. And from what it looks like, was there a giant T-Rex? There was like a skeleton. A skeleton, OK.

Because the picture was very small. So it might have been the restaurant itself was inside of a skeleton. Oh, fuck. I look fucking amazing. It looks awesome. Cool. Because they just had a thumbnail image of it

on the back of the claim jumper menu. But I was like, oh, man, I fucking want to go. There's a famous New York. I think it started in Syracuse, Dinosaur Barbecue, which went to New York City. But no, like it's great, great barbecue. People love it. But no, there's no, there's no, there's no theme.

There's not that dinosaur theme. Man, I want to go to T-Rex. It looks awesome. Do you know, when I was a kid, I had a couple birthday parties and we went, like we went to like the Museum of Science. When I was a kid, I had a couple birthday parties. It was real sad, man. I had just a few birthday parties in my childhood.

And one of them we went to, we went to like the Museum of Science, we went to like a dinosaur exhibit. And it was one of the greatest, I still can, I remember seeing a Brontosaurus as a child, a mighty Brontosaurus. When I was on my birthday, and this big thing, and it looked very lifelike, and it was a very, it was a very, it was a great emotional experience for me.

I don't want, I really don't want to make fun of like what seemed to be like a really sincere, like memory for you. But the A, B, and C of that story was, I had a birthday party. I saw a dinosaur. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. That is, that's the, that's the Brontosaurus. I saw, I, uh, I, uh, I saw a dinosaur. But I'm just saying, even now. I'm saying, they should, I, I, I feel like,

does that sort of thing still exist? Like, I want to, I want to see the dinosaur. Do dinosaur fossils still exist? No, I'm saying like exhibits like that. Can you still go to a museum and see a dinosaur fossil? Yes you can, Mitch. It was very moody. Maybe I was, I was a young kid, but I was very moody.

It was dark and it just felt like you were there. The Museum of Science in Boston is amazing, first of all. There you go. So that could have been a part of it. Yeah. All museums are great. All museums are great. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

Dinosaur encounters. You can go, go now. I've been there, you know, and I give it, not a thumbs down, but it's so, so. There's a, there's a dinosaur wing at the museum in New York where they have a full brontosaur, as you called it. I didn't say brontosaurus. Did I say brontosaur?

You said brontosaur. Oh, Jesus Christ. And they project the organs. Whoa, that's cool. So you can, it looks like you see through it for a moment and you'll see all its like heart beating and everything. That's all bullshit. They don't know how that organs worked on those dinosaurs.

They could have had two hearts because the blood had to go so far. Yeah. Yeah, and also, don't stay with me here for a second. Oh, no. You know how in the Jurassic Park ride before you fall down, the T-Rex bursts through and like tries to bite at you? Okay. I want that experience like in a museum.

I want like the, I want like a mechanical dinosaur to be moving around in a museum. I want. They do have that. They do have. In New York, they have that. That's what I want. It doesn't, it doesn't happen here in LA.

I want, I want to. Are you sure? From what I though, I went to that dinosaur exhibit and it was not, there were no dinosaurs that like almost bit you or anything. It's a museum. It's like an educational institution. I want to be almost, I want a real Jurassic Park experience.

That's what the theme park is for. That's what the Jurassic Park is for. Fine. The Jurassic Park ride is the best version of it then. So that's better than any dinosaur museum. It's better than, Jurassic Park ride is better than any dinosaur museum. It's my final statement then. All right.

And you disagree with that? I mean, it's, it's more fun than a, than a dinosaur museum. So yeah, I agree. I don't know. I don't, I love dinosaur skeletons so much. Yeah. Just the skeletons. I used to love, I used to love dinosaurs so much.

Yeah. And I wanted to study dinosaurs. I want to be, I want to be a zoologist when I was a boy. And then, and, and, and, and a marine biologist and then also. And they were like, we can't let you in the program. You're going to eat all the animals. Yes. I was going to eat all the animals.

Rhinos. They're like, we have endangered species here. Can't let this guy alone around them. God damn it. I loved animals as, as, as a kid. I did like to eat them. I mean, that is true. Right.

But I wouldn't eat any of the animals I would study. But I, I, I, I love dinosaurs and then, and then Jurassic Park hit. And I was so excited. But then now as you get older, I mean, I feel like that might be, would that be an exciting job, do you think? A zoologist? No, no. What, what would it be called?

Paleo zoologist? Yeah. Paleo zoologist or paleontologist digging up bones. A guy working at Jurassic Park. Is that what you mean? Because I'm in a movie. I mean, that's what I wanted as a kid. I wanted to work at Jurassic Park.

I wanted Jurassic Park as a kid. That doesn't, that's not real. I know fucking Jurassic Park's not real, Weigur. God damn it. Wait. So you're asking, is it an exciting job to be like basically to shovel elephant shit, except it's not an elephant. It's a triceratops.

Yeah. I mean, I guess it with, with paleont, paleo paleontologists, it is basically you're just, you're digging up, you're looking at bones, right? Yeah, yeah. There's not much else to it, right? Yeah. And I feel like that might not be as calm as I know. And carbon dating them.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Placing them in history. I feel like it's fairly monotonous unless you make a big discovery. I mean, if you really are passionate about it, you probably love it. It's definitely more satisfying than probably what we do, like you feel like you're making more of an impact on the world.

That's true. So there's that. You don't know, man. Like, like the fifth time you pull up a dilapasaurus or something, you're probably like, Jesus and I mean, there's no museum that wants this. Yeah. Most of them are in the basement. Yeah.

Are they really? Yeah. Yeah. That's depressing. Yeah. They only put the fancy ones up. The rest of it just goes in a storage. Weren't they gonna, weren't they gonna like clone woolly mammoths?

They are. They, okay. That is real. Yeah. That's right. That's great. That's cool. Here we go.

I'm into that. I can't get by. I don't know the science, obviously. They're using CRISPR to do it. Wait, what is that? They're using CRISPR to do single gene replacement, I believe. And they are using it to help aid in transferring mammoth DNA into an elephant. Wow.

And then so the elephant will give birth to a mammoth. That's crazy. That's fucked. Yeah. That is kind of fucked. I hope it comes out and immediately has some insane disease that all of us catch. Oh, man. Immediately like the elephant disease.

Right. Yes. Yeah. And then we were wiped out, rightfully. Yes. Yes. That's interesting. Yeah, that's a good.

I mean, the world is the world is in need of some sort of interesting turn, isn't it? Do you mean like a plague, like a mass extinction? Some sort of a mass extinction event. I mean, global warming might be that might be it. Yeah. I just be that in a kind of like 20 years. What's going to happen is that you and I will be 80 years old and we'll ride a woolly mammoth at one point and that will be the end of it.

Yeah. They'll like prop will prop be propped up on it. Yeah. Just like kind of kind of enjoying ourselves, but not really. Yeah. Grandpa's on the mammoth. Look at that. Well, I mean, we won't have kids and we won't have kids and certainly not grandkids, but

like just some as you say, like grandpa grandpa grandpa grandpa's on the mammoth, you know, my fear came by himself. My fear with the mammoth is that you'll see it and you won't feel anything. Yeah, probably. Because we've seen them drawn so much and like CG of them that you look at it and you'll be like, yeah, it looks like a fuzzy elephant. And that will be all you feel about an extinct creature walking the earth again. They'll just be like, oh, yeah, I don't feel anything.

When I heard of Jurassic World, that was like a theme in it that I wish was more in the movie is like people like seeing these things and not really caring. Like you hear you hear that the park's not doing well, but like there's no real context. Like you're like because you see the park and then the park is kind of full and you're like, why? Why is it not doing well? I don't know why it's not doing well. But the idea of people getting bored of it, which they like they probably would at some

point, right? Like it wouldn't like a. Yeah. The novelty would wear off. Yeah. Kind of like get to the point where it is a thing that exists. Maybe it would be like Disney or something. Really?

You think you you think you would get bored of watching in Toronto source? I'm not saying I would get bored, but I'm saying like it was a thing that it was a thing that exists in your world. Yeah. I feel like people eventually start to take it for granted and it starts to be like, okay, this is just another thing to do. Oh, you guys want to go to Jurassic Park? I don't know what that's a let's sit around jerk off.

Yeah. You know, that family sits there and jerks off and that's their afternoon. Let's talk about claim jumper. So we mentioned they have no pizza oven at this location. You know, I don't want to get be too hard on our server because I don't know what their staffing situation is, but I will say that for being basically the only party in the restaurant for most of the time, we had got very slow service. And I feel like a meal that we expected to be in there for about an hour.

We were there for closer to maybe an hour 45 by the time we were done. Yeah. I mean, I think I think I parked at like 225 and I think of the on the receipt when I left with the parking garage. It was like 214. Wait, hold on. Wait, wait on. We didn't go back in time.

Hold on. What the fuck happened? Why? I got hold on. I got disoriented. 125. No. What?

When do we? We're meeting to 25 and then you left at 415 to 225 and yeah, that's what it was. Jesus. 225. Or wait, wait. I don't know. Did you go back in time? Are you saying that you'd be bored of dinosaurs because you saw some today?

It's the AC. If the AC was more consistent, I'd feel like it'd be a little more on my game. I'm not trying to blame you. I know it's not your fault, but it's on. I know, but I'm just saying it's open on for like 30 minutes. I don't know when it's going to go out and I should have written the time. I should have written the time down. Are you okay, man?

I'm okay. I'm just disoriented. Look, we only got two share plates for a party of four. The service was slow. They didn't give us utensils. They didn't give us utensils. That's okay. It's fine.

I don't want to get anyone in trouble, but that was just the situation of the service. Well, it was funny because I thought, and we won't say his or her name, I think is fair because I don't think that maybe the person did a great job overall. But she, god damn it, I said she, he was very nice up top and was like very friendly saying something like saying super engaged. Yeah. Who's been here before? But then it kind of, it was one of those things where it was, I hate to say it.

It was a little Trojan horse server where it was like this thing of like here I am. The ultimate, like you're going to have a great time with this person and then kind of disappeared. Yeah. Kind of went off and disappeared. Have you talked about your no tipping policy on the podcast? Oh my god. Wait a minute.

We are generous tippers. We always tip 20% as a minimum. It was zero for her. No. I have the receipt. We have, I have a copy of the receipt. I was gone. We tip 20% on the bill.

We tip 2558. So you can reverse engineer from that what the total of the bill was. He's staring at a piece of paper that says zero. We treasure the service, the service workers of America. We know they make this all possible. We certainly do, but it was for sure a little Trojan horse, right? Yeah. I think that's fair.

Yeah. But that said, let's get into the food a little bit. So I got myself as a beverage. I got the ultimate pepper, Mary, absolute pepper vodka mixed with Dimitri's bloody Mary seasoning. You know, it's supposed to be like a spicy bloody Mary. It kind of had like a, I get some, like a celery salt on the rim. I think.

Yeah. I thought it was fine. I thought it was a little bit bland as these sort of drinks go a little diluted maybe. I just, I just wish I had a better, I took a sip of it. I just wish it had a better Mary mix. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't the best Dimitri. Get Dimitri out of there.

Get some different bloody Mary, get some new blood in your bloody Mary mix. Yeah. I mean, it just, that, that bloody Mary seasoning was not particularly getting the job done. And then the pepper vodka, I mean, I had a little bit of heat, but I think, I feel like anytime there's a spicy drink at one of these chain restaurants, it's never particularly aggressively spicy because they're so worried about alienating people who are spice averse. Which is maybe okay. Yeah.

But it wasn't very good. How about you guys in terms of drinks? I had two separate Margaritas so that I could compare and contrast. The first was the CJ's Margarita, which came with a side of, what was it? Grand Monnier? Grand Monnier. Yeah. Grand Monnier.

Uh-huh. It came with a tiny shot glass of Grand Monnier. And that, she was like, oh, you can sip it on its, that's a weird thing to say. Just tell me to pour it in my drink. Yeah. Yeah. Either pour it in your drink or you can sip on it. Yeah.

And I was like, I don't think she should sip on it. Yeah. And I found it over, or underwhelming as a drink. I thought the Margarita mix was thin and watery. I still finished it. The second drink was the ultimate Patron Margarita or something like that. This Patron Margarita. And that was just a very, I mean, it just felt like half a shot of Patron in a little

bit of lime juice. Yeah. Not a great Margarita experience. Which one did you like better? The first one, which was less expensive. And I just, I expect to be overwhelmed by sort of the audacity of those mixed drinks when I go out to a chain restaurant. I want it to be like too much bullshit.

Yeah. And instead this felt like not really that much bullshit. Yeah. We've talked about this a little bit before of like, it's tricky because it's got to be, you have to have the sweet funness of these drinks. Yeah. But then you also got to bring the booze. You kind of like, right.

And it, well, it just sounds like it didn't really do either of that for either. Yeah. Didn't feel a thing. Yeah. I think like the ideal for like the fun drink is like you're going, you just go all the way into like gimmick territory, like a Bubba Gump shrimp company where those cocktails are just like outlandish. They're just like ridiculous.

But it's like that, oh, this is kind of the fun of it, you know. And yeah, they were kind of like occupying this middle ground where it's kind of like, I feel like that's happening with some chains with their beverage program right now where they're trying to be like, oh, we're going to have like a, we're going to be like kind of like a gastropub sort of like specialty cocktails sort of concepts. But also try to retain that chain restaurant accessibility where these things are very sugary and it just ends up occupying this murky middle. I went to a baby metal concert last week.

This is the Japanese metal band. Yeah, Japanese metal band and they had a specialty drink menu and one of the specialty drinks was Blue Skies Forever, which is kind of a reference to like old video gaming and stuff like that. And I was like, oh my God, I got to get a Blue Skies Forever. And that drink was incredible. Wow. It was awesome.

And it was at like the Palladium. It wasn't like, I have no idea. What did it look like? Bright blue. Wow. Like super bright blue in a, in a glass. I mean, it was plastic cup, but it was bright blue. I feel like when you, when you, when they, you get something like that, that does scratch

that itch. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's unbelievable. Yeah. It's the best experience. I felt invincible. I got an iced tea with lemon. That's a fine choice.

This is like, look, it was a late lunch, getting alcohol for a late lunch on a day where you thought you might be working. It's reasonable for you to get an iced tea. So that's totally fine. Yeah. Good job. We got ourselves a cheese bread. We also got a cheese bread loaf.

I didn't, I didn't actually see on the menu, what a description of that cheese bread. Salty bread. It was very salty. Heather noticed that it was salty. Super salty bread. And it was. It was immediately served with no butter, no oil, no nut, the salty grease bread. Yeah.

You were supposed to just take that bread as it was, which salty, it was salt, it was salty. I should have just called it the salt loaf. Yeah. It's like a salt loaf. It really was. I was excited about it. I ate more of it than I should have, if you remember.

But you didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it. No, it wasn't that good. It just, like, it also tastes like very artificial. There was little process. Yeah, a little process. Yeah, two process. Yeah.

I feel like that was a frozen loaf they got there and then just heated up in the oven. They said they make everything in house. Oh, they said they made that in house. Yeah, they said they make everything, the cake, everything. It had kind of the character of something that arrived frozen though. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it seemed like it was frozen.

And also, I don't believe that. So, it came to us and just like the knife was just like stabbed into the side of it. Like, it was like, it didn't seem like they cared, right? It was like, it looked like they just fucking stabbed it and threw it at us. It wasn't the most enthusiastic presentation. Yeah. It was so salty. It was very, it was very salty.

I think the thing is like, I like salty food. I'm a salt fiend, but I feel like for bread, you expect it to be a little bit more neutral. And I feel like that's like, I get that the, okay, garlic, cheese, toast, the cheddar bay biscuit, sometimes you have that sort of thing that's maybe got a little bit of flavor to it. But this was so salty that I feel like it doesn't, didn't work as a neutralizer in the meal at all. A slug slid by our table melted.

Right. Why didn't you immediately point that out to you guys? Point that out to us. Call the server. Like help the slug. I mean, any of the things. Notify the health department that there's slugs roaming around on the floor of this restaurant.

You know, I don't really see slugs too often in L.A. They're a bug, I don't see. Mockroach is all over the place. It's more of a snail town. You heard it here first, L.A., more of a snail town. You know, I'll admit that when I was younger, I didn't believe that the salt thing was real. And I poured salt on a, on a slug and killed it and it was horrifying. Don't feel bad. I did that quite a bit when I was younger.

Yeah. I did, I did it like way too, like, like when I found that out, cause as a kid, and I was always like very much like, I remember when like kids tried to kill a squirrel on my block and I got very defensive and try to protect the squirrel, like, I like animals, but with these poor slugs, yeah, I fucking, there, I, I, I, there was like a slug genocide for me at one point where I really killed a lot of slugs. Jesus. But like as a kid, it's really, it's really crazy to pour the salt on them and they, they

do strip, they, they shrivel up and do nothing. They die horrible. Yeah. It's a horrible, horrible death. Yes. Yeah. Like they're like writhing in pain. They sizzle.

Yeah. They basically like melt. It feels like it's like a movie, but it's like, it doesn't feel like it should happen. Also, I was there with salt because it was in a restaurant. That's how this all loops around. There was a, there was a slug in the restaurant. So I was sitting on the patio of a restaurant on the Brea and wait, so this was out here. Yeah.

This is out here. So you were an adult. Oh, this was like 15 years ago. Okay. All right. And I, yeah, I was like, oh my God, there's a slug and that's so crazy. I've never even seen one. Is the salt thing real?

We should probably shouldn't pour salt on it. And they were like, I don't think that's real. And I went to shake, shake. And I went, oh my God, it just died on the ground of the restaurant we were at. Awesome. She's shrinks down. And hey, Nick, so much for your theory of LA being a snail town. You try to paint this place as a snail town.

She saw a slug in you. I saw a slug on the brand. I'm not saying there are no slugs, but I'm saying snails are all over the place. You're going to see more snails than slugs. What's the difference between a slug and a snail? The shell? Yeah, just the shell. And the species.

Yeah. Oh, the species. Is that what it was? I wouldn't have been a good zoologist or a good bug-ologist. Bug-ologist. Uh-huh. What is it? Entomologist?

What is it? That sounds right. Entomologist. I don't know what the fuck it's called. I did, for a second, I did truly wonder if a snail was a slug with it that had just found a shell. Like it's like a Koopa Trooper when he slides out? Yeah, basically.

In Super Mario World? Why not? I actually think that's a reasonable thing to assume that it's just like a crab without a shell. Like a crab. Yeah. No, but Heather's shaking her head. We're very wrong here.

Guys. I bet they're like the same phylum or order or something like that. I bet if you go up that little ladder a little bit, they kind of belong to some. The phylum's in the waters. The same genus or something. Yeah. The same, I mean, they're certainly the same kingdom. Yeah.

The slug kingdom. What's wrong, Heather? Nothing. Nothing. You don't like the podcast? I love the podcast. Should we bring back Hickweiger? No, don't.

Or how about Hike Mitchell? Hike. Hike Mitchell. It's like an active Mitchell. Like an outdoorsy Mitchell. No, no. I was supposed he was also supposed to be Southern. I was just putting the Hick word onto the front of Mike.

It's that much different from Hickweiger? Fine. You know what? Yes. Hike Mitchell is a very active man. Cheerio, everyone. Fuck the Hike Mitchell. God damn it.

Moving on. We also got the appetizer platter. Spinach artichoke dip. Loaded potato skins. Lemon pepper zucchini. Mozzarella sticks. Heather, this is where you were just saying I don't like this. Speaking of slugs.

Man, that mozzarella stick was great. Potato skin was great. The chips and dip not so great. Yeah. And really kind of just not, the dip was bad and the chips were kind of bad. The dip was legit not good. The dip was legit not good. And they give you so much.

They give you like a crock pot's worth of spinach artichoke dip. They give you way more dip than chips, which is usually the opposite of what they do at one of these chains. So kind of good on them in terms of a portion. The AC just went off again. I turned it off. No, that's fine. Yes.

I'm just noting for my own, like if anyone detects a shift, the AC just went off. You're the one who didn't even want the AC at one point. Did you need it more than anybody? No, there was a point where the AC wasn't on because we were worried about the hum. People said that the hum isn't that big of a deal. So now we just run it as needed, but it goes on and off randomly at times. What people said it wasn't a big deal? Our listeners were like, we don't mind the hum.

It's totally fine. It's just one person. No one's really complaining about it. He's talking to himself a lot of the time. You know this is true. Look, I'm not creating fake accounts to tweet at the Doughboys podcast. If I remember correctly, I think it was Hick Weiger. Someone's going to make that now.

In any event, I agree with the spinach artichoke dip. They give you way too much. And it was kind of, which is fine, but it's just kind of mediocre. You get spinach artichoke dip at every place. This was the point you were making. All this food is kind of the same. At some of these chains, some of these mid-level sort of sit-down chains, they kind of have the same items.

You can get these exact items at dozens of different chain restaurants. And I feel like this was one of the more mediocre spinach artichoke dip executions. Just wasn't that into it. A lot of potato skins were pretty good. Those were kind of the highlight. I didn't like that other thing at all. I didn't like it. The lemon pepper zucchini. I don't like that.

You don't like it this. No, I don't like that. They kind of had a sluggy consistency to it. Right, that's true. Yeah, I didn't think they were that bad. I mean, they were, the breading was kind of falling off of them. They didn't hold the breading very well. I don't like it.

They're a little too wet. They're a little too wet inside. Yeah, I didn't like it. I didn't like any of them. Right. I don't like the breading. I didn't like the lemon pepper fried zik, yeah. No, I didn't like it.

Yeah, because the water is a fry oil's enemy. And those had so much moisture inside of them. Yeah. The zucchini did, yeah. I think the potato skins and the mozzarella sticks were okay. Yeah, those were pretty good mozzarella sticks. Yeah. Not great.

I didn't like that thing. I agree with you. They were not good. They were still on the plate when we turned the plate back in. Yeah, we did not kill them off. Yeah, in terms of what we ate all the potato skins, we ate all the mozzarella sticks. By the way, the dipping sauces, we just got a little ranch, a little cup of ranch, and a little cup of mozzarella sauce for the mozzarella sticks.

Yeah. Not a good outing for these apps. I wish they had more dipping sauces. Yeah. A little more variety in there. The potato skins, we all wanted potato skins. Yeah, they were great. But no sour cream and no chives on those potato skins, just a potato skin.

What the fuck? Potato skins, they had like cheddar and bacon, I think. Cheddar, bacon, potato, and they were next to those gross things. The zucchini sticks. Yeah, those were gross. Yeah. I also didn't get much almond pepper from those. Getting into our entrees.

So I got myself the Widowmaker Burger lunch combo. We talked about this earlier, the odd name of this. And it comes with some shoestring fries. On this burger, smoked bacon, onion rings, avocado, cheddar, fresh greens, tomato mayo, and red relish. Towering burger. Huge. Very tall.

Very large. Towering for what reasons? Because of the onion ring, really. Yeah, it had two onion rings stacked on top of each other and that artificially inflated the height a little bit. And also, the lettuce was kind of crazy at one point. And the bun was thick. Yeah, very thick bun.

The lettuce that you mentioned, Mitch, because that was a thing that I noticed at the table. It was a lot of lettuce on this burger. I'm not sure that's how it always comes, but it felt very leafy. Like the bites I was getting into, I felt like the main component I was getting out of these bites was lettuce, which is very strange sensation when you're eating a burger. Very much like in and out. No, it's not like in and out burger. No, burger is a much better execution of that.

We're not getting into that now. But no, I thought, and the bacon kind of got lost. The onion rings were good. I like the onion rings on it. I don't know. The avocado, look, I love avocado. I have avocado as much as I can. I'm an avocado freak.

But there was something about the avocado in the context of this sort of red relish onion ring smoked bacon burger that's kind of like barbecue burger. It fell out of place. It just was weird. You know what I mean? It's like take a barbecue, a barbecue bacon cheeseburger and add some avocado. It's like that feels like that doesn't belong there. I kind of feel like you could be describing something called the diet Coke burger and

one ingredient, which is like, and then the diet Coke sauce. And it wouldn't even sound crazy in the context of all this other shit that's been thrown on the burger. Right. Like that's a lot of weird shit on that burger. It was a goop. It really was. It was kind of a goop burger.

It was a goop burger. It was a Gwyneth Paltrow goop because this was far from healthy. Maybe you guys are at the end of your podcast. You know what? I stand by what Nick said. Thank you. It wasn't a Gwyneth Paltrow thing. Go on, Mitch.

I like your fries. All right. Yeah. Those are good fries. It is gluten free and she actually has celiac disease. It's not like, oh, I'm just doing it for, you know, because it's a thing to do. So it's, you know, there's certain things she can't eat. And the shoestring fries are dusted with croutons, which is very strange.

She was like, oh yeah, you don't eat those. Those have crouton dust on them. Crouton dust. Is that like an accident? Why is your crouton dust? Why are they flaked with crouton dust? Right. It's like an oops all berries sort of situation.

It's just like someone clicked the wrong lever, you know, flicked the wrong lever and all of a sudden crouton dust got dumped on these fries. But no, it's not even like that. It's like if you got oops all berries and they're like, there's like some like egg flakes on it. Right. Sure. I don't want, I don't want, I don't want what a fucking, what are they called? What?

Croutons. I don't want crouton, I don't, the fries are different from croutons. Yeah. It was a little weird. And they didn't advertise them as special in anyway. So it wasn't like our crispy, our crispy crunchy fries. Yeah. It was just French fries.

And then they're like, oh, by the way, we crouton dust these fries. Like it's not even, like if you're going to do something weird, advertise it. Yeah, make that part of the marketing. I think that's a good point. Yeah. And they also didn't, I didn't feel like they marketed the way they upsold me on my French fries, which is like that they were like, oh, you want cheese and bacon on your fries? I was like, yeah, okay.

But like that wasn't like, it wasn't like our specialty French fries come in five different ways. Yeah. Choose the one that fits you. Right. Like it was just like at the table. And she was like, by the way, you want to ruin those fries? And I was like, yeah.

It was almost like she was. You gladly said yes. Right. You said yes immediately. Oh yeah. It was like an improv. Yeah. It seemed like you knew the question, but you did not know it.

Right. No, but the shit, yeah, it was, it was like almost like she was like freelancing. Yeah. She was just kind of like, oh, you want cheese and bacon? Like not like, and then she had to tell the kitchen like, hey, she wants cheese and bacon on her fries. Like what? Yeah.

Like, hey, I don't know. She just said it. And it was very much like a bird's nest or something. It was all stuck together. When nachos get cold and you take one nacho and the whole plate comes with. Right. Yeah. Immediately.

Yeah. Like, like it, it was like that, like within 30 seconds of you having it. Oh yeah. Tell us about the rest of your entree, Heather. I had ribs. I had ribs. I love ribs. I'm from Chicago, so I love ribs.

So I had the ribs and they were great. They were great ribs. They weren't blood. So they weren't like real specialty. Great ribs. Right. But for a chain restaurant, great ribs. Yeah.

I had a bite of them. They were good. Very tasty. Fucking great ribs. You had, you had great ribs. My meal was not great. Hmm. Well, I don't know.

Cause you tried some of the, I had tri-tip and shrimp. I didn't mind the tri-trip. I thought that tri-tip was pretty good. The tri-tip was decent and was probably the best of it all. The shrimp was just, you had the shrimp as well. You had a grilled shrimp. Yeah. And the weight, the waiter or waitress seemed very enthused about the shrimp.

Cause I almost went with a, it took me a long time to figure out what shrimp to go with. Three different shrimp varieties. You get yourself like a, like a deep fried, a coconut shrimp or a grilled shrimp. You opted for the grilled healthier option. I went for grilled, I went for the healthier option. Uh, it was just all right. And then the grilled vegetables were legit bad. And then, uh, and then the mashed potatoes were just like, it reminded me so much of

like mess hall mashed potatoes or something. Like an actual mess hall. Yeah. Like a dining hall. Like a dining hall. Not the restaurant here in Los Angeles. An actual mess hall. Right.

Uh, and I also got a side salad, which you got one as well. I got creamy Italian on that salad and they gave me regular Italian, which you saw. Yeah. It wasn't very creamy at all. It was not. I mean, it was definitely regular Italian. It did not taste creamy in the least bit. It was weird.

Cause you like, you turned to me and you showed me your dressing cup and you said, uh, hey Weiger, could you cream this up for me? I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? But then you did. You pulled down your pants and you immediately. You couldn't see our side of the table, Heather. Yeah, I couldn't. No, you couldn't.

Yeah, I could. No, it was below. Weiger wears bikini briefs. Um, yeah, no, it was, uh, it was, it was, it was Italian dressing in the salad was like, I wanted one of those like shitty carrots, cheese, onions, tomato, lettuce, crouton salads. I mean, it had those elements. It had those elements, but it just wasn't good. It wasn't that good.

Yeah. I don't know what it was because the tomatoes weren't good or something. The tomatoes weren't good. The lettuce seemed fresh enough. Um, but just, it was kind of like an unenthusiastic that that was kind of the thing. It was kind of the same feeling as the bread, even though this, this didn't have the same over salted issue. It was just kind of like a, a thrown together sort of very standard issue sort of mix.

It was, there was nothing exciting about it. I got mine with blue cheese dressing. So fresh ground pepper on type, which was a, which was a nice touch that the server provided that, but yeah. I got some of that too. Yeah. But, um, but you know, it was fine. Yeah.

I just know, like nothing to write home about. Yeah. And then we, for dessert. So Mitch, you left, you left in a panic. I left basically crying. Yeah. You left after we ordered dessert. You guys ordered dessert.

So we had a huge dessert come to just us. Yes. And I got a call. I had heard. Yes. I, I heard that I had fucked up. I think I said, I, I'm a fucking idiot. I ruin everything.

And I left in tears. And you said, you know, I don't know if you guys liked that film. Thank you for smoking, but that same director made a follow up afterward. And that's what my schedule is like right now. And we kind of got, yeah, we got what you meant. You guys got what I meant. And then, yeah. And then you left Heather.

What? Heather, you should, your head shouldn't be down in your, in your hands. No, man, keep, keep, keep going, man. So the Salt and Caramel Mud Pie, you and me and Scout finished that off. Yep. She was able to have some of the ice cream in it. Mitch was turning the AC back on. So she was able to have some of the ice cream in it.

Not working though. Oh, the AC is not working. Okay. Mitch tried to turn it on. Wait, maybe it's working. It sounds like a plane passing. Oh, it's a plane passing. It's not working.

Okay. So Mitch tried to turn the AC on. We scooped out some of the ice cream for Scout. She was able to enjoy that. And she liked that quite a bit. She loved it. Yeah. It was pretty good ice cream.

I mean, I'm a big, I like salted caramel. I like that as a dessert concept. I think the crust was nice and salty. They had a lot of salt to it in a good way. And that contrasted with the sweetest ice cream. I was like, I think this might be one of the highlights of the meal for me. I was bummed out because the picture of this pie, it comes with a little like a shot glass of caramel.

So you can caramel it up. Right. Like that's one of the gimmicks. That's great. I agree. I think that's one of the gimmicks of this pie. On the plate. There's a little bit of bait and switch.

Super bum. They give you a shot when you don't want one of Grand Marnier. And then they don't give you the caramel. They wish they should. That's fucked up. Right. I thought I could thematically like tie the whole meal back together. Yeah.

With that shot glass and nothing. Yeah. Nothing. Bummed up. Are you sure that Weigertz didn't take that shot when I came to the table? Creamed it up. Creamed it up and then took it. Let's get to our final thoughts on Claim Jumper.

Heather, you've been on the show before, but just as a refresher. You will say your closing argument and then some of your feelings of the chain and then give it a rating on the order of one to five forks. You are our guest. We will start with you. All right. So thematically I found the restaurant lacking in a cohesive motif. I wish that it had either been more Western or more bizarre or more straightforward.

But it felt like Claim Jumper and I think maybe there was a wagon logo or something and then no callback to that. So thematically disappointed. My drinks were not great. They probably could have gotten the third one out of me if they'd been strong. But instead I was like, that being said, my ribs were fucking awesome. They were great ribs. Couldn't eat the French fries because it was one clump, but they were great ribs.

So what is average on this? Like is average three? Yeah. And four, like four, five is rare. Yeah. I mean, yeah. We rarely give out fives. We give out fours with some frequency.

Three is about average. Do you do half plates? Two is not great. One is bad. You can do half forks. You can do tongs or tines. Tines are prongs. If you want to do one, you know.

Fuck. What? If you want to do like a four, like it gets one. It's got three forks and one tine of a fourth fork. So it's like a three and a quarter. You can do that if you want. Or you can just do a half. Is it a kind of word that people know?

Trust me. Nick uses it all the time. I do use it all the time. Oh, Jesus. Fuck. Oh, my God. As soon as I said that, I knew you were going to say that. Suck.

Heather's crying. Can I do 2.75 forks? Yeah. You can't do two forks three times. Yeah. Okay. Great. Two forks three times.

Very understandable score. Go ahead, Mitch. Should I hand this review over to my friend? Hyke? I'd be interested in Hyke's take on this. Hey, sorry, everybody. Just got off the trail. Anyway, I'm here to review claim jumper with Mitch.

Mitch, you can take, you can take a seat on the couch, buddy. That's where he always is. Am I right, guys? Anyways, let me tell you, I like fresh, healthy food. That's my thing. And when I'm going to indulge like with an appetizer platter, I want it to at least taste good. But the only thing that was good was those freaking potato skins.

And I should just be eating a potato plain because I'm Hyke Mitchell, a man who likes to hike trails. And you would eat a plain potato even though it's a lot of carbs. I haven't seen a man smiling and crying. And then when I went to, so, hey, I'm going to get some protein in. The tri-tip was good. And then my grilled vegetables, they were over-grilled and they were bad. I had, I almost, I wouldn't eat them if I was at another,

if I didn't have to eat them. And the mashed potatoes and other indulgence was just okay. It was like being at a mess hall. And yeah, Heather's right. What about this theme? What the heck? It's like Ren with the happy helmet on from Ren and Stimpy. Like somebody being forced to do a character.

Hey, there's no theme of this place. I'd rather eat in the gym. That's where I always am. I'm a gym rat, man. Anyway, I should be, I should get going. He's grabbing the table sword and fingernails are shattering. But before I go, I got to say one last thing. Two forks, bye.

He's in place, he's in place. Wait, Mitch, are you also out of breath? Yeah, sorry. That review was so good. It probably worked out. Two forks from Pike Mitchell. Okay, well, that'll stay as canon. You know, actually, I've got a, I've got another cousin

who might be interested in giving this review. Oh boy. So yeah, let me, let me get him real quick. Okay. Oh, it's me. Limerick Weiger. Oh my fucking God. There once was a restaurant to which I'd go.

Where the service was unfortunately slow. The food tasted okay. But it was just a meh sort of day. So overall, I say it kind of blowed. And there is, put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Two forks. Wow. Wow.

Limerick Weiger. Hick Weiger. Pike Mitchell. Pike Mitchell. Heather, you gotta admit, you can't find this anywhere else. Definitely can't. It's summer, so the sun sets really late in the day. Right.

And yet somehow the sun has set. You are right. It did get weirdly dark. Right. We, this, we willed the universe into causing an eclipse. I think so. This is our review of claim jumper. It's time for a regular segment.

This is last meal. That's right. Heather and Campbell, you've been sentenced to death. That's right, Heather. You live in a dystopia. I'm ready to go. Think of it. Think of it.

Hold on. No, no, no. Yeah. Great. You live basically in Midgar slash Wolfenstein, Germany. That's how much of a dystopia it's half and half, right? It's half the world from a Final Fantasy seven ruled over by the Shinra Corporation. Okay.

With some Sephiroth thrown in there. Half the world of Wolfenstein, a scary Germany, Nazi type place. Okay. And look, Bowser exists, but he's a man and he's got red hair. Dennis Hopper. He's a lot like Dennis Hopper. He's a little Trump like too. Okay.

And then if you want to go for Bannon, that's Ganon. So wait, so there's a, there's a Steve Ganon, like a Steve Bannon. There's Steve Ganon. And then there's a Bowser Steve Ganon. Bowser like Dennis Hopper from the, which was Heather was referencing the Super Mario Brothers movie, but he's kind of a Trump like figure. Okay. Dr. Wiley is also there.

Dr. Wiley is like a, what's his name? Ben is like Ben Carson. Also a doctor. Sure. You are a part of a rogue group of gamers called the rena gamers. Okay. It's now illegal to game. And you know why?

Because you are actually controlling mega man type creatures that are fighting the evil corrupt government. Okay. You got arrested and they're going to put you in a chair and a contraption is going to go over your head that will turn the top part of your body into a slug. Much like, much like the Koopa Troopers. Okay. And then you're going to be salted to death.

Wow. That's brutal. Yeah. That's rough. Yeah. So now before your execution, you get your last meal. What's it going to be? It can be anything and everything.

Cyanide. I would take cyanide. To not risk the chance of becoming slugged. No, I mean, like, because like, fuck that. Yeah. I'll go out my own way. If you had to have a delicious meal. With the cyanide.

With your cyanide. They're saying, okay, we'll get you the cyanide. Oh, really? But we've got to, we've got to smuggle it in some, some food. Oh, so I have to eat the food knowing it'll kill me. You have to, yeah. No, you get, it's just a separate cyanide pill. It's a separate cyanide pill, but they're like, hey, why, why are we doing it?

A dish with cyanide next door. Yeah. While we're doing it, we might as well smuggle in some of your favorite food because, you know, might as well have it. It's an out of print cereal. Okay. This is perfect. Called s'mores.

So there is a s'mores cereal that currently exists, but that's not the original s'mores cereal. Oh, wow. The original s'mores, I think was a Ralston Purina or whatever they were called Ralston s'mores cereal was significantly better cereal. It was golden grams with a little bit of chocolate and very tiny white marshmallows. Very, very good cereal. That would be my final meal, but I wouldn't eat it.

I'd smell it. I'd take that cyanide pill. So s'mores cereal, you'd, there'd be some milk there. Yeah. Would you have any sides? Anything else? Anything else you would want? No drink?

If I could have one, like if there was one thing that I got to try again, it would be s'mores cereal. S'mores cereal. That's my favorite. And no, no, not even a cup of water. Nothing else. No, man. I think actually my Yelp profile, my quote is and always has been, I miss s'mores cereal.

That's how much I think about s'mores cereal. Hey, you know what? If you out there remember s'mores cereal and you miss it, hashtag s'mores cereal truther. What? And if you don't remember, if you don't remember it. Jesus. Hashtag s'mores cereal. Falser.

Falser. No, look guys, it looks like that. It's General Mills. Oh yeah. Okay. That's real. But I mean, some people might not remember it. I don't, I certainly don't remember it.

I believe you. I like that. When someone has an answer like that, that is great. S'mores crunch was the best. Well, guess what, Heather, a guard comes in, two guards. They knocked the cyanide capsule out. Why? It goes into the mouth of another guard, Nick Weiger, who's now evil and he swallows it

and dies. Wait a minute. Then they put you into the slug changing machine, the chair. But before they can start it up, a little blue friend, Sonic the Hedgehog, but it's actually Usain Bolt in a Sonic the Hedgehog costume. I don't remember this segment. We did it a few times. Usain Bolt.

This part? Yeah, we've done this. Usain Bolt wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog costume comes in and rolls at the machine and breaks it apart and grabs you, puts you on your shoulders and he runs you out of there to safety. Okay. And you live happily ever after. Wait, does the dystopian government fall? Yeah, but not for like 100 years later.

But she lives out her life in relative peace. Yes, you live out your life in relative peace. Cool. That's great, man. Thank you so much. You go to, what's a good level from Super Mario World? The one with the chocolate. Chocolate.

Isn't there some chocolate land? Yeah, there's, I mean, there's donut land. Oh, donut land. Yeah. You live out your days in donut land. There is a chocolate land at some point, I think. Right, isn't there, there's at least a Mario Kart chocolate course. Yeah, there's a candy course in Mario Kart 8.

Okay. Donut chocolate or something. I don't know. You win a bunch of money at Bowser's Casino. Oh, great. And then you, you know what? You put all your money online, you run, and you beat Bowser in the next election.

Okay. And yeah, and then you run a peaceful kingdom. Oh, great. Cool. But wait, so, but the, she's still, so she's now in charge of the authoritarian government, because you said it rained for another hundred years. Yeah.

She gets, she comes in charge. That tracks. Sure. I buy that. This does track. Yes. Perfect. Heather.

Wilder, do you have anything to add to that? I think that's great. Perfect. You want me to add some more color to it? Yeah. I think we got plenty of color. We got plenty of color. We're done.

We got enough stuff. Also, she rides a Yoshi. Yeah, you ride a Yoshi out of there. Awesome. You ride a Yoshi onto an airship. Yeah, and it's the best birthday I've ever had. That was last meal. Heather, we have never had a guest who put their head in their hands

as many times as you have. This is a record. Just like a restaurant without your feedback. Let's open it up. Hey, you know what? It's been so long that you haven't seen that the show's gotten really bad. It's great. I love it.

Guys, I had one of the best days, and I can't thank you enough for having me on the show. I really enjoyed the meal. I talked about the joy that I felt at the meal, despite the fact that it was a below-average experience. It was just a lot of fun just to eat there with a... It was so great. It was. I had a great time.

Yeah, it was great. We're going to have you back again soon. Please. Let's answer it. We got to answer your email real quick. This email comes from Christian Macaluso. Christian writes, what are your opinions on food trucks? Well, they aren't exactly chain fair.

They're an important part of LA food culture that I think are worth a look at. I know you probably won't review one on the podcast, and it seems difficult enough to get Mitch to a stationary restaurant. But some of the more ridiculous truck food could be to fund a review in a segment, unless an agrarwack. And Christian adds in a PS, I took my younger brother for a tour of Ithaca College, your old alma mater, Mitch. All right.

And for all the shit, Mitch talks about that institution. He's in a weird amount of their promotion. He's always addressed as that guy from On Love, but he was brought up more than once on the tour. Congrats. I don't know. I mean, I love, I like Ithaca in a lot of ways. I love it.

You just didn't like colleges and experience. Oh, I make fun of colleges in general. Right. Yeah. But Heather, any, any takes on food trucks? The best taco in LA is at a food truck. So I mean, they're, they're great. Which one are you thinking of a specific one or just kind of the answer?

Yeah. So there's a tacos or risas is always at the same location, always at the same intersection, always has the best taco. Right. So, I mean, is that a, it's a restaurant. Yeah. There are a few of those where they're kind of, it's like a, like there's a gas station at Venice and La Brea, I think it is where this one taco truck, I forget the name of

it, always parks and it always has a huge line and has fantastic tacos. And that the, yeah, it just kind of becomes like, oh, this is where that place is. That's a restaurant. Right. I agree with Heather. That's a great choice. I think in LA, we've seen a lot of food innovation come out via the food trucks. Like I believe that was where like kind of the, the inception of the gourmet food truck

movement was. I think it was an LA thing. I feel like it was, I felt like I read something that said, that started in Portland. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. I definitely remember it exploding down here, but yeah, that totally tracks, but the, the, you know, certainly the Kogi truck is kind of like this thing out here and that when

that first came about, and I think Kogi's still really good, but when that first came about, that was kind of like a revelation is like, oh, this is really genuinely good food and really innovative food that you can't really get anywhere else. That's kind of like the, that's the truck that I think of the most. That's actually even still like the truck that I will get food from the most is the Kogi truck because it's cause it like people will get it for like weddings and parties and stuff. And so, and if you're not familiar with it, it's like a Korean barbecue slash Mexican

fusion restaurant. So they've got like, you know, Korean barbecue tacos and burritos and quesadillas and all that. It's very good. Oh, so I feel bad now. There's a lot of things I love about it. Okay. You should go.

He'll have fun. I love all my friends over there. I just, there's a lot of people I didn't like and then it's a cold, I see, I see hell, I enjoyed it. The shortstop deli, if he's up there, get some shortstop deli. It's great. Yeah. The only thing I'll say about food trucks real quick is that I feel like there's a lot

of them. There's a lot of great ones. And then I feel like there's a lot of ones where it feels like they're kind of chasing gimmick. They're just sort of like, okay, I'm, it's kind of like they're kind of searching like, okay, what kind of cuisine hasn't been done and what kind, how hasn't it been fused with something else? Like has anyone done, you know, Indian sandwiches like, okay, I'm gonna do how to be the Indian

sandwich truck. You know what I mean? Like everyone's trying to kind of come up with their, their own little novelty, their own little niche. And I feel like some of those feel a little strange. Cheeseburger slushy. Right. Yeah.

I, I do go to more restaurants that I just, I, I don't go to as many food truck restaurants because they're hard to track down sometimes. Yeah. And, and, and I like a place where I can know that I'll go there and that's where it'll be. And usually a lot of food trucks are kind of like a drive for me. Like there, like there's someone like Wilshire Boulevard, do you know what I'm talking about in front of that?

Oh yeah. In front of that Baja Fresh, basically in front of that building, building where family guy is. Right. Right by the museum, that museum row. Yeah. And they're just like that huge run of, of food trucks. It's where SAG, the SAG after health headquarters are basically it's like, it's on, it's on

Wilshire there and, and we'll share there and it's, and it's, it's, I, I never go down that way, but I want to give a shout out to, to Love Balls, which is in Austin, Texas. Okay. Yeah. Which is our friend of Gabe, a guy who was in Hendershaw at one point, once that place. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Nice.

Hendershaw, a group, a sketch group with a Harris Whittles, a Mookie Blakelock, Dave Horwitz. Who am I forgetting? That was kind of the, the Armin Weitzman. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. A great crew.

A great crew. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, email us at doughboyspodcast.gmail.com to get the Dough Boys double or weekly bonus episode. Describe it. Patreon.com slash Dough Boys. Heather and Campbell. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you guys for having me.

You're the funniest and we are sorry. We're sorry. For what we did to you today. The rest of us, we're sorry. Thank you for coming on the show. Do you have anything you'd like to plug? Um, no, follow me on Twitter at Heather Campbell. There you go.

Perfect. There we go. That doesn't my man. That does it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Um, no. Hold on.

Hick Weiger is back. Oh, awesome. Wee-haw. That'll do it for this here episode of Dough Boys. See you next time off to the hiking trail. Until next time, happy chomping. See ya.