Good Job, Brain! - 233: Some Friendly Competition

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

The crew gets captivated by curious competitions and crazy contests. Scratch deep into the history of the state lottery. Take a juicy bite out of that red bell pepper, Chairman Kaga because we're going to crown the next Iron Chef expert in Dana's food competition...competition. PC vs. Mac, Campbell's vs. Progresso, Ford vs. Ferrari, test your rivalry knowledge in Karen's quiz. We lose our minds (and our balloons) over Chris' segment about the biggest Guinness World Record goofs. ALSO: eggcorn watch, blue lobster updates, final Wordle logic puzzle. Good Job, Brain is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. For advertising inquiries, please contact [e-mail]! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, Splashy, splurgers, splicing splendors and splattering splenda. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 233, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your bodacious bodies, buying body sprays and bodyboards from bodyguarded bodegas. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. All right. Wait, wait, wait, before we do anything, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. All right? Because, because I, we haven't done this on the show in a while. One of our favorite things to talk about are eggorns.

Yeah. Yeah. Not just, not just malapropisms, not just using the wrong word, but using the wrong word or phrase in a way that might actually be better than the real word or the real phrase. For example, you know, egg corn, the word came from little old lady who called acorns eggorns because she, you know, they're kind of like, they look like an egg and a corn. They look like sort of a piece of a kernel of corn or like an egg or whatever. So like it makes like a weird kind of sense. What are some of the ones that we've talked about? Pre-Madonna. Like not prima donna, but a pre-Madonna. Like she's, she's. He's acting so high and mighty, like she feels like she should come before Madonna.

You know what I mean? That sort of thing. Oh, wow. That's funny. A long-running magazine, actually, the new scientist just tweeted a couple of days ago about a full-proof solution, f-l-l-l-dash-proof. It's full-proof. Yeah, it's not half-proof.

It's a full-proof solution. But the one that I wanted to talk about was one that a listener brought up actually recently in the good job brain Facebook group which I thought was really good somebody talked about a show a TV show or maybe a Netflix program that was so good they sat down and bench watched the whole

thing like I sat not binge watching which is the actual I bench watched it like I sat on the bench and watching never didn't get up off the bench exactly just bench watch this so yes every every every now and again we like to do egg

watch, so continue to submit your eggorns. As the parent of a toddler, yeah, I know this is not exactly the same thing. In toddlerism, she has her magnifying glass, but she calls it her finding glass. And I'm like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah, you use it to find things. Yeah, well, I had, when my son was probably three years old,

we were going to Disneyland, I'm like, he's like, oh, I need to put on sunscreen. And I'm like, sunscreen. And he's like, he goes, he goes, no, sunscreen. I'm like, no, it's sunscreen. And he goes, you know what? We're both right. I'm like, yeah?

Well, I said, you know, it screams out the rays of the sun. He goes, yeah, and it's a cream that stays on you. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right, sun scream, it is. My kid called his elbow, his elbow, which I think happens to people. The elbow, because it, yeah, sure. Yeah, it makes a much sense.

Makes an L. It's an L. Yeah, and it's a bone, yeah. Uh-huh. That's an egg corn. Some of the things, some of the things people submit, not egg corn. Eggorns. That's pure. That's just malapropism. That's just using the wrong word. This has to make a weird kind of sense. Well, in Updates Land, I know we just had Eggcorn Watch. I have lobster watch. Lobster Watch. Lopter updates. Lopter dates. It's going to sound so ridiculous. So I was talking to my mom on FaceTime. She was telling me about like, oh, and so-and-so is selling a house in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

And, you know, she's telling me this. And I'm like, wait, why does that place sound so familiar? And then my mom, without any delay, followed up with their red lobster is the best red lobster I've ever had in the country. Wow. And she goes, it's a cross from Lowe's. Like, as if I know where the Red Lopser is. Yeah. A couple episodes ago, I talked about someone finding the rare blue lobster at Red Lopster.

It is at this one at Cuyahoga Falls that my mom is a very big fan of the one across from Lowe's. It's right across from Lowe's. They need a little plaque on the wall. I know. And I told her. I told her the story. I was like, you know, they found a rare blue lobster at Red Lobster. And then just a couple days ago, Kellyn Freeman on Twitter tweeted at Good Job Brain and said,

we stopped by the Akron Zoo and saw the blue lobster and a picture of the blue lobster in the tank from the Cuyahoga Falls, red lobster. It's really blue. Isn't that crazy? It's stunning. It's a beautiful, beautiful animal. Her name is Claude. So some updates on the blue lobster for some reason

all kind of converged. Without further ado, it's time for our first. general trivia segment pop quiz hot shot okay right hand or or left hand i got two cards here ooh uh left hand okay okay here we go blue wedge for geography which region of the united kingdom is not part of great britain chris which region of the united kingdom is not part of great britain northern ireland correct okay okay pink wedge which pesky creature became an internet favorite it after it was filmed dragging a slice of pizza down subway stairs in New York. Oh my gosh.

Pizza rat. A rat. Pizza rat. Video shot by friend of the show, Pat Bear. Shout out to Pat Bear. That was him? That was him. He's the one on the video going, get it, Rat.

Get it. That's Pat. Oh, my God. Yeah. I did not know that. There he is. Yeah. Get it, Rat.

Oh, my God. Next question. and Yellow Wedge, who beat eBay Titan Meg Whitman in the 2010 California gubernatorial race, even though she dropped a record $140 million on her campaign. Once again, who beat eBay Titan Meg Whitman in the 2010 California gubernatorial gubernatorial. Gubernatorial race, why it's so hard to say. Sounds like weird, yeah. Yeah, it sounds like goo goo cluster.

That's what I'm thinking of. Even though she dropped a record $140 million on her campaign. So who won? Yeah. So who beat Meg Whitman, Dana? Was that Jerry Brown? It is Jerry Brown. Correct.

Jerry Brown. All right. Purple Wedge. Who wrote? Here's the book title. It takes a village and other lessons children teach us. Colin? I believe that was Hillary Clinton.

Yes? Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yep. Hillary Clinton published in 2006 while she was First Lady. Wait, she wasn't First Lady then. Was 2006? Did it say 2006? What is the card, sir? Oh, did we find a trivial pursuit error? Yeah, can you read it again?

Okay, so it says who the question was, who wrote, it takes a village and other lessons children teach us? The answer is Hillary Clinton. And then the note here says, published in 2006 while she was first lady. No, it was published in 1996 while she was first lady. Laura Bush probably has something to say about that. Yeah, 1990s. This is 10 years off. Oh, good catch, David.

All right, Green Wedge for Science. Which Office staple was invented by Art Fry in 1974 because he was tired of his bookmark slipping out of his hymnal at church. Once again, I'll read again. Which office staple was invented by Art Fry in 1974 because he was tired of his bookmarks slipping out of his hymnal at church. Chris. The Post-it note.

Yes, Post-it notes. Oh, interesting. 3M launched the three-inch square canary yellow sticky notes in 1980. Should I double check this year too? All right. Last question, Orange Wedge. Which sport includes the player positions of gully, square leg, and mid-wicket? That was a horse, Colin.

Cricket. It is cricket, gully, square-leg, and mid-wicket. I was a little adrift until you got to the mid-wicket, exactly. Yep, yep, yeah, for sure. At first, I thought it was like a pirate sport. I was like, what a piracy sport could there, yeah. Cannonball. I don't know.

Ah. All right. Good job, Brains. Well, guys, I just won yet another radio call in tribute. Oh, my goodness. The other day. These poor radio operators, they're like, oh, it's her again. Yeah.

But I wait. I wait for the 30 days. And it was, this time was pretty cool is for tickets to like the Art of the Brick, which is a Lego exhibition, like an art exhibit. And then the trivia part on the show was all questions about 80s toys. I was like, oh, okay, well, put that in my talent. Oh, the question was, who is the greatest American hero? What toy comes with a birth certificate and adoption?

That's a good question. Just, yeah, classic. They're not, you know, they're not entirely very hard. but I think when you're under a time limit, it's like kind of like stressful. Can I tell you, I commute an hour before you do and the quiz show I listen to in the morning, I've never heard anyone win. Really? Is it hard? It's 10 questions in a minute.

Is it hard? It's not that hard, but you do have to like move through the questions really quickly. But I want to hear you do it. I do it in the car with my kid when I'm driving him to school. So far, he's awarded me $4,000. Like, I can do it. But I also have to, like, get him to school. So with that in mind, we're going to dedicate this week's topic to competitions, to contest, to rivalries.

So this week, we're up for some friendly competition. So I'm going to kick us off this week with a quiz I made about food. competitions. Yes. All right, here we go. It's our contests, reality shows, et cetera. You'll see. Here we go, guys.

Here we go. Karen's so excited. So get your barnyard buzzers ready. All right. Let's get cooking. First question. You get it. Okay, here we go.

First question. It said that the reason hamburger buns have sesame seeds on them is because of the 1954 winner of which American baking contest. 1954 winner. American baking contest. Yes, Karen. Pillsbury.

Yes, the Pillsbury Bakeoff. Wow. It's huge. It's huge. And very influential. So Dorothy Kottin was the winner in 1954 with her open sesame pie. And before that,

people didn't use sesame seeds that much for cooking They use sesame oil, but not the seeds very much. And then I think this media was so limited. I was looking around and I was like, wow, everybody got really into sesame seeds because of this contest. But yes, they were flying off the shelf and people started putting them on crackers and breads and pastries. There's different people that put sesame seeds on buns. Don't get me wrong. But that was like when sesame seeds became the hot new thing, the fat.

Funny. It was very. All right. Next question. Which extremely soothing baking competition show might contain moments where they discuss soggy bottoms and the coveted Paul Hollywood Handshake? Sounds like everybody. Chris.

I'll say Chris. I invite everyone to stay with me. The Great British Bake-Off. They have different names, though. What's the U.S. name for it? Great British baking show. That's right. And you know why?

Because Pillsbury owns the copyright to Bake-Oak. Is that right? Yes. Really, that's really good. You've got to pay the doughboy. Yeah. Next question. Which state claims to not just be the home of chili,

but also the home of the very first chili cookoff? Huh. I mean. What? Chris. Like, I'm going to say Texas? Yeah. Texas.

Okay, all right, sure. So the first chili cookoff was 1967 in Terlinga, Texas. and San Antonio, Texas, claims to be the birthplace of Chile. Chile Concarnay existed before this, but it's hard to get the receipts, the paper trail. The receipts. It's a CDS receipt. You guys are really insistent, so I'll say, okay, yes, yes, Texas. Always throw in the claims to there.

You're fine. That's all, yeah, you don't need to worry about it. All right, next question. The Iron Chef, a show much guest chefs challenge, one of the shows Iron Chef's to a cook-off is originally from which country? Karen. Japan. Japan.

On the show, the Iron Chefs had specialties on the Japanese. Oh, do you know what specialties they had? Yeah, there's a chef Kenichi, who is the Chinese cuisine. He's the Prince of Setsuan cooking, I believe. There's always a Japanese chef. They change. Sometimes it's Morimoto. And then there is the French chef, which is Hiro yuki Sakai.

and then sometimes they have like a special guest Italian chef. Yes. His last name is Kobe, I think. Yeah. Okay. So Karen has a PhD in Iron Chef. So I grew up watching the Japanese version. And then when I came to States, that was like when the popularity was like about, you know, was really kind of gaining steam.

And they have the dub version, the English dub version, which I enjoy way, that is my preferred format. The English dub is so dramatic. And it's so funny. It's like as if they're like dubbing an anime. Yeah. Those are the ones that I fell in love with too. Oh, I love it. I love it.

Yeah. And I did the math and the Iron Chefs from the Japanese version had a win rate of like 76%. So it's like you could win. You probably were not going to win, but you could possibly be. That's respectable. That's respectable. Okay. From season two onward, Padma Lakshmi has been the host of which popular cooking competition show.

Terran Top Chef Top Chef And it's going to start It's 19th season soon A current season right now Is that the 19th season? Oh, did it start?

Yes, I think it's at March It just started, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah Because there's an Oakland person Oh, awesome I root for them I hope they will Okay, let's see

The next question is Which next Food Network Star winner Is associated with Hunts and Ride Wine, donkey sauce, and Flavortown. Oh, oh. I think I heard Karen. Then we all know it is the irreplaceable Guy Fieri. Guy Fierry.

And I watched that show. The show, like, basically it was like Star Search for the next Food Network star. I was really, I was really obsessive food network for a while there. And it was very clear since episode one, you're like, this guy. This guy is going to win. like he's just very charismatic and like knows how to kind of multitask and you can just see and I'm sure the execs were like yeah he had a quote and it was something like you know some people are just born to cook and talk and it was like oh yeah that's his deal it's just cook and talk it's really hard yeah yeah we should go up north I mean I think he's from Santa Rosa yeah he has a winery in Hillsburg donkey wine no it's hunt and ride their son's hunter and writer yeah they're like guy we might want to ease back a little bit on the donkey branding on just everything you know it's a couple things here and there but it's an aesthetic yeah i almost i almost was going to ask you who has more competitive cooking shows gordon ramsi or guy fieri but the problem is i couldn't tell they have so many shows between the two of them oh right yeah and it was like one would pull ahead And then the other one, I'd find, like, a real obscure thing that they did.

And I was like, oh, this is going to be a, I'm actually minefield. So instead, I want to ask you, can you name three Gordon Ramsey's competitive cooking shows, like, where he's actually judging people. I know, Chris is a Ramsey fan. Oh, where he's, oh, oh, master chef, hell's kitchen. U.S., but not U.K. Oh, all right, Master Chef U.S. Master Chef Jr. U.S., hell's kitchen, and next level chef, which we just finished watching. I'm sure there's more, but that's, I just gave you four.

We watched when I forget the name of it, but it's like Gordon Ramsey and two other chefs go on vacation around Europe, and they like drive in a van together and stuff like that. hilarious, really good. Travel log. I also found the F word. The F word is food, but he does curse, and they don't bleep it on some of the later seasons. right so yeah in that one people are competing to add a dish to his restaurant so you said hell's kitchen u.s master chef u.s master chef u.s. master chef's best restaurant gordon ramsey's future food stars master chef celebrity family showdown wow wow and i really think they're more than this

but i was like oh okay i give up wow okay last question every two years since 1987 the world cooking contest or the Bacuz deor has been held in Lyon, France. Chefs from around the world are selected to compete in a very elaborate and prestigious contest. They kind of call it the Olympics of Gastronomy. There's a lot of honor on the line and like a bit of money. I think they invest more money than they win. But anyway, it's a big deal.

Which country has won the gold most times? It's happened 18 times so far. Which country wins? I heard a dog bark first. Karen, I'm going to guess. I'll just get the hot, the spicy guess out of the way, which is Japan. No. All right. Well, let's make it official here. Okay. Is it France? It is France. It won 18 times of the last 18 competitions. And people are salty about that. There is like, oh, is this the home field advantage happening? Can you guess how many times the U.S. has won? Just take a guess. Ah, one.

Yes, one time. Oh, one time for the notice. It was in 2017. Are we sending Guy Fieri? Are we sending Guy Fieri? Are we sending our best? Or are we really, you know, is this a dream game here? One time Spain spent like a million euros on their stuff.

And I think you win just like 20,000 euros max. It's like the cost benefit. I don't know. They didn't. win. They spent a million dollars, they didn't win. Didn't, didn't Taiwan just win some big competition? Baking. Okay, okay. Good job, you guys. So recently on the show, now, we talked about the Guinness Book of World Records, and it was sort of in passing, we talked about how there's, like, some awards that they don't give out anymore, like, they don't run these

awards anymore. And we kind of, we put it in the category of fattest cat awards, like, just awards where, like, that encourage people to engage in bad behavior or worse, like, voice that bad behavior on an innocent animal, you know? So it's just stuff that we don't want to encourage people to do anymore. Here's one that I found in the Guinness Book of World Records 197. I'm just going to jump to the most egregious one. I swear to God, this is the name of the Guinness World Record that appears in many books as recently as the late 70s. Officially. This is the official I'm going to tell you.

Most alcoholic person What? It says Most alcoholic person And it says It is recorded That a hard drinker named Van Horn 1750 to 1811

Born in London, England averaged more than four bottles of Ruby Port per day for 23 years prior to his death at 61. He is believed to have emptied 35,688

bottles. You win! Most alcoholic person. The worst reported case of compulsive swallowing described a woman with 2,533

objects in her stomach, including 947 bent pins. Oh, no. One of the worst was the Guinness World Record for youngest person ever to walk on white hot coals

of 400 people Oh, no. Like, how old were they? 11 years old and he was a performer at a hotel, like a firewall walk thing at a hotel in Fiji. And but it's just like, I think the, I mean, the Guinness Book of World Records at this point clearly felt like they were just simply observers of things that were happening and they

weren't influencing people, you know, to go do it. But it's like, eventually I think they realized like, oh, wait, if we make this an award, somebody is going to say, 11 years old, I have a 10 year old right here and a bunch of charcoal briquettes. Let's go. Let's bust this award now, right? Get him in the book. Because the book is Guinness, so it was like for drinking, right?

Like little drinking bets. Yeah, I believe that the original history was like, in part to help settle, you know, bar wagers and it was a nice thing for them to sponsor, you know, because, yeah, they, yeah, now there is like an extensive list on the site of these are things that we do not do. And so anything, I mean, first of all, anything that involves people, I think, younger than 16 years old, they simply do not even do any of it anymore because it's just like, because of the potential danger to children, things that could harm yourself, things that could harm the environment, da-da-da-da-da. And so there's a lot of stuff now, you know, before you, before you attempt any Guinness World

Records, you should look to see because there's a lengthy list of things that they no longer even tackle. Put down that, put down those four bottles of port. Right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was also kind of like, okay, well, this is kind of getting weird. Let me, let me also look here at a few examples of Guinness World Record attempts.

that went really bad in a really funny way. So that's kind of where I landed. I want to bring things up a little bit before I take it way back down again. So in 2008 at the International Food and Health Festival in Tehran and Iran, chefs all got together to attempt to break the record of the world's longest sandwich. Okay. Okay.

They put together, reportedly, a 1,500 meter long ostrich meat sandwich. Okay, that's almost 5,000 feet. That would be $25,000 worth of $5 footlong subway. They had invited thousands of people to come eat the sandwich when they were to watch and then, like, also eat a piece of sandwich when they were done. And international news was there, you know, to document the, attempt and everything like that. The government was there because the Guinness, the Guinness observers don't go to everything, but like they will take like, if a government authority or

something like that, like measures it and shows them like, okay, well, this, this is how we did the measurements. And, you know, then they'll accept that, you know, if it's all very well documented. It's hard to say exactly what happened, uh, or who gave the go ahead or where the miscommunication was. But either way, everybody agrees. Um, that all the thousands of people there just started eating the sandwich before they could measure it. Oh, no. So they ate the record sandwich. With no record.

Well, I mean, they didn't get the record, I don't think, because they ate the sandwich. So that was bad. Another good thing that happened once was an attempt at the longest free fall, the longest, like, you know, you do a skydive in the free fall for the longest period. of time. Remember the Red Bull thing from 2012? The guy Felix Baumgartner. Yeah. It was everyone who watches on the internet. He literally like was up in like space. I mean, by the time you get as high as he was, he was in the stratosphere. He was in space and he jumped out of the thing and free fall back to Earth and then pulled his parachute and landed on his feet, right? That was a 128,000 foot jump set the free fall record, right? Red Bull

logo is all over himself. But what I want to to talk about is a guy named Michelle Fornier, who at 64 years old, was going to set the free fall record in 2008 or attempt to. This is in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. News media is there. Cameras are there. He's like, I'm going to jump from a height of 130,000 feet. I'm going to break the free fall record, okay? He doesn't die. He does not die in the story. Do not worry. Okay. Okay. Relax now. Good. I'm glad you said that. We're all so tense. The way he was going to get the height was he was going to take the helium balloon, which was attached to a gondola. He was going to ride in the gondola up in the helium balloon. He had spent millions of dollars, by the way, personally financing this and other attempts

that, you know, didn't pan out for whatever reasons. Massive helium balloon was going to raise the gondola up. He gets to height. He jumps out. He does the, he does the jump. So you get there, they start inflating the big helium balloon. Balloon begins to inflate. Good, good, good. Balloon begins to go up into the sky. Excellent. Fine. Balloon continues to go up in the sky. and continues on up and up and up it goes because it's accidentally it's not actually attached to the gondola for some reason anymore

and the balloon flies away. And they all just sort of watch it and like there it goes. And now importantly I want to say this balloon cost $400,000. Oh my God. This was not even one of, this is not a party city balloon. This is like, yeah.

He did not make another attempt. There was no backup balloon. they just inflated it and just like, well, bye. This was a cheap mistake. This was a cheap mistake because he could have lost his life doing this. That's true. That's very true. That's true.

Yeah, had it separated accidentally before. Yeah, that's right. It's such a mom observation, Dana. I'm becoming such a mom. We can always replace the balloons. That's right. People are precious. Yeah.

That's right. Speaking of balloons, I think the worst Guinness record fail of all time. It has the pleasant name, and I'm so excited to introduce you all to, and there's going to be some people out there like, oh, I know about this, has the name of Balloon Fest 86. Okay. Sounds great. That's fun. Now, before we get to Balloon Fest 86, to truly understand Balloon Fest 86, the mentality behind Balloon Fest 86. We have to just jump back a little bit less than a year to SkyFest 85.

Skyfest, 1985. Okay. These are great T-shirts, by the way. Oh, they are. Oh, yeah. You have the T-shirts. Yeah. The 1885 was the 30th anniversary of Disneyland, the Disneyland Park in Anaheim.

And the city of Anaheim, California, we're like, we're going to do something amazing for Disneyland. We are going to have the, we're going to sit. the Guinness World Record for the biggest simultaneous balloon launch. The biggest launch of helium balloons into the air at the same time. Oh, that's not good. No, but it was the mid-Avies. You could just do whatever. They didn't know.

Yeah. It was, well, I'll get to a little bit of the environmental stuff. The previous record had been set in Japan in 1984 was 384,000 balloons. So on December 5th, 1985, what they did at Skyfest 85, right up in front of Disneyland, they put into the air simultaneously 1,209,000 balloons. And all the balloons had been sorted by color into these big transparent plastic tubes. And so when they launched them, what essentially happened at the same time is this sort of like massive rainbow of balloons. You know, all the colors are separated up with bands.

I mean, they obviously start blending together, but they're separated enough so that it's this very colorful. vibrant rainbow balloons takes to the sky and floated and they float away. Now, people had asked the question, like, where do they go? Where do they go? Well, latex, technically latex is biodegradable, so it does actually degrade and break down. Eventually, it's not plastic. And basically, they were pretty sure what was going to happen is the wind was going to carry them into the Nevada desert where they would land eventually and biodegrade. And that seems to be what happened. Like there was, there were nothing with the Disney balloons. It's like they, yeah, they went everywhere, but like, they, they spread out so much and they, within weeks, they would be essentially gone. Um, so we now come to Balloon Fest 86. Here we are. September, 1986. It's the city of Cleveland, Ohio. And the city of Cleveland, Ohio was like, you know what? To heck with Walt Disney. Let's, well, the city of Cleveland was like kind of on the rise, like the rock and roll. Hall of Fame was kind of getting

going. They wanted something to really boost the morale of the citizens of Cleveland. Cleveland's nickname had been for a long time the mistake on the lake. Wait for real? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they're not like, not an official nickname, but people called it the mistake on the lake. It was just sort of like

depressed little city on Lake Erie. And it was just like, they were just like, let's get out of that funk, let's get that reputation. Let's break the Guinness World Record. let's do what Disney didn't let's launch 1.5 million balloons into the air shattering the record the United Way the United Way the United Way the they put this on it was a big fundraiser for the United Way all right so you we've all been to Anaheim California to go to Disneyland

and we generally know that in any given day in Anaheim like you can pretty much count on like the weather it's going to be pretty nice and if it's not great one day it'll it'll be find the next day. So when they launched the balloons in Anaheim, you know, they launched these balloons into the beautiful clear sky and they floated away by. Now, Cleveland, Ohio, in September, the weather is maybe a little bit less predictable. Now, and there had in fact, prior to the morning of September 27, there had actually been a little bit of a storm the night before, which had caused some of the balloons to get loose prematurely. And the rain had a bit of. And the rain had a abated, but they knew it was going to start raining later in the afternoon.

They planned to release the balloons a little bit later in the afternoon, but they knew it was going to be raining. So instead of like, you know, pushing it back or whatever, they pushed the launch earlier in the day. And at 150 p.m., a couple hours before they were going to do it, they let go the one, about 1.4 million balloons, which were in these big nets in the middle of downtown Cleveland. So, okay, so balloons get loose from the net. They all go up in the air.

These balloons have not been separated into colors. They're all just in one big clump. If you're right in the middle of it, you see the colorful balloons. But if you're far away or look at pictures of this, it just looks brown. Like, because all the colors blend together. And they all just come up out of one net. So, and they're sort of puffing up. And it just looks like, it looks like a big brown mushroom cloud, basically.

like it looks it looks like impending danger you know what I mean and it's all against an overcast gray sky it does not look impressive the TV there's TV footage of this happening and one of the TV

announcers because the whole thing is super rob-rah it's just the TV announcer actually says there is no mistake on the lake anymore Cleveland has broken the Guinness Book of World Records one and a half million and they're all going up and it's like, okay, fine.

And everything is great in Cleveland, Ohio, for like a minute. Because typically what happens is you let a balloon go, and it flies very high up into the air. But the storm, the cool air and the storm and the pressure system, you know, everything that's kind of happening takes all the balloons and just plops them right back down onto Cleveland and onto Lake Erie. It just, it's just, they just, they just come down. So like balloons, 1.5 million balloons come down in the city.

They don't rise up, they come down, and they come down into Lake Erie. The balloons cause car crashes because there's cars driving around in the city, and suddenly balloons are everywhere. Oh, my God. They're crashing into each other. Um, an airport had to shut down a runway because it was covered in balloons. balloons landed in somebody's horse pasture on their farm. And they had expensive Arabian horses, like the real expensive kind of horses. And they spook all the horses and the horses get injured because the horses are freaking out because balloons are coming down on them.

And the worst part of this whole thing, this is actually where it does not get funny, but I cannot mention it without telling this story. And so it's sad. there had then a storm the night before as I said well just prior to that storm there were fishermen there were two fishermen who took their boat out on Lake Erie and I think during the storm they had disappeared and at this point there was a an effort a coast guard effort to find these guys somewhere in the lake first of all they're flying helicopters and the balloons are kind of hovering so the helicopters are like one of the pilots was like it was like trying to fly through an asteroid field

because all the balloons are everywhere coming from everywhere. And what are they doing? They're looking down at Lake Erie to see if they can see something that looks like a person's head because if they're in a life jacket, they would be floating on the surface of the water with their head above water to see if there's any survivors. But there's balloon.

If you watch video footage, the lake is just covered in balloons. But they all look like a person's head floating on the surface of the water from where they are in the helicopters they can't find if the guys were down there they couldn't find them they were not able to rescue them and like the there were lawsuits and all the lawsuits were against the charity united way that had put that had done this and put this on and made the decision to launch the balloons anyway and didn't take weather into account and so they end up actually losing money on the whole thing because all the money that they

had brought in the charitable nations and stuff like that all went out paying like the wife of one of the guys who wasn't able to be rescued on Lake Erie or the lady of the horses and all that kind of stuff. It was a big disaster, but they got the Guinness World Record for the biggest balloon launch ever. But today, if you go to the Guinness World Records website and you look at the lengthy list of stuff they don't do, there is a line that is like, we do not accept environmentally impactful records such as the largest release of party balloons. Yep. Oh, man. So that record is going to stand. Yeah. Yeah, it's littering, if nothing else. It is. It's a bunch of garbage everywhere.

There was a thing for the Anaheim one, and it was just like one of the news reports ended the final line of the report, which of course was very much. And it was incredible. And, you know, just leaving us with the question, who's going to clear? that all up. And it's like, that is a really good question. That's like something that a journalist should go ask somebody. If only there was one around. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and pre-pay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today to remove any burden from your loved

ones tomorrow. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. At the Explorers podcast, we plunge into jungles and deserts, across mighty oceans and frigid ice caps, over and to the top of Great Mountains, and even into outer space. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Magellan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout history.

So come give us a listen, we love to have you. Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers Podcast. Hi, I'm not Lovar Burden. You're listening to Good Job Brain, but you don't have to take my word for it. And we're back. You're listening to Good Job Brain, and this week we're talking about competitions and contests. And I got a quiz segment for you guys about rivalries, about corporate rivalries, about number ones, number twos, maybe some companies going, attacking each other a little bit.

So this will be a write-down quiz. Okay. Question number one. From 2006 to 2009, Apple had a series of commercials starring personified versions of Mac and PC. What actor played Mac and what actor played PC? From 2006 to 2009, Apple had a series of commercials starring personified versions of Mac and PC. What actor played Mac and what actor played PC? We all good?

All right. Answers up. Colin put John Hodgman, PC Justin Long, Mac, correct? Dana, Justin Long, John Hodgman, correct. Chris is correct, Justin Long and John Hodgman. I thought John Hodgman was going to be the hard one, but I guess he really, you know. It's Mr. Podcast. Yeah, he's a podcast personality now.

All right. Next question. Please complete the sentence. This is a tagline, an advertising tagline. Genesis does what blank? Genesis does what blank it is a

what do you call it a contraction so it is one word there's like an apostor Fort Manto yeah yeah Genesis does what here we go Nintendo don't Nintendo don't and Chris

Nintendo don't Genesis does what Nintendo don't Obviously, Sega is trying to push the Genesis and trying to tout its features. In Japan, like, they don't really, they don't do attack ads, you know what I mean? Like, they don't do that sort of thing. And so, yeah, for them to do it in America and get the approval of Japan to do it, it was kind of a thing.

All right. Next question. Based on the number of locations, the top five coffee shop chains have Starbucks and Duncan as number one and number two. The other three spots are coffee chains not based in the U.S. If you can, please name all three of them. But 1.3, based on the number of locations, and we're not including McDonald's or Met Cafe.

We're talking about just coffee shop specialty chains. The top five has Starbucks and Duncan as number one and two. The other three spots are coffee chains not based in the U.S. Please name them. I speak for us that we can all probably name one from our neighbor here, perhaps. But beyond that, it gets a little tricky for me. It does get. It does get hard.

Hmm. I'll tell you, so one of them is Korean and one of them is UK. Okay. Top five coffee shops in the world based on number of locations. We have Starbucks number one, Duncan number two. The other three spots are coffee chains not based in the U.S. All right. Answers up, please.

Oh my God. This is very exciting. Colin, you put Tim Hortons, ding, ding, ding, ding, Tim Hortons from Canada. Dana's got the U.K. one is Costa, Costa Coffee. And Tim Hortons and Dana guest, Kaffee House. Correct. Chris, what are your answers? So I put Tim Hortons.

I guess I'm like, what do I know about Korea? I guess Paris Baguette, because, like, I know they're from Korea. And I'm like, well, I got to put down something. And then I put coffee king, you know, for the UK because they're a monarchy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Congratulations. It is Paris baguette. Oh, really?

Really? Yes. Wow. Based on the number of global locations. Oh, my goodness. They are a coffee shop chain, Paris baguette. Yep. Oh, my gosh.

I saw one in Vegas when we were there. Yeah. They're everywhere here. Yeah, I've seen them here. I had no idea. There's a trivia lesson here, which is that. And sometimes we have done this where it's like, oh, well, I know Paris baguette is Korean, but that's not a coffee house, so I'm not going to put it down.

You know what I mean? It's like, put it down. Put it down. Don't sense to yourself. Yeah. Wow. Well, I cannot hang with this crew here. Nice. Costa.

Well, that was the great. Wow. Yeah, very international. Another food question. What fast food company debuted a sandwich and touted that it opened on Sundays, unlike its competitor? What fast food company debuted a sandwich and touted that it opened on Sundays, unlike its competitor? So I want the name of the place that is open on Sunday, not the one that is closed on Sunday. Okay.

Answers up. Okay. Pop-Eyes, Popeyes, Popeyes. Correct. Clean sweep. It is Popeyes. Their chicken sandwich, just I think within the past couple years. I associate it with the start of COVID.

Yes. People lining up to get the chicken sandwich because famously Chick-fil-A due to religious reasons is closed on Sundays. And so Popeye is kind of capitalized on that. I was like, we're open on Sundays. Also, we have also a chicken sandwich. Come give us your money. All right. Here we go.

Next question. The major film, Ford versus Ferrari, was, you know, about the real rivalry between Ford and Ferrari and all set to the prestigious race of La Man's. Le Mans. I'm not really sure how to pronounce that. Le Mans. It's the Le Mans race in the 1960s. So Ford did win and actually Ford won another four times with what kind of car? The major film Ford versus Ferrari was based on true events about the Le Mans Ford and Ferrari rivalry in the 1960s. Ford did win and won another four times with what kind of car? sorry you're looking for the model of a like the name brand model i need i need the i need the model we don't need to know the make because the make is ford okay right we don't want a model okay okay model t yeah yeah yeah yeah right okay sure yeah the ford what is the car oh man i'm torn i'm torn between two answers the american company coming in to the european motorsport and then winning answers

I'm going to say the Mustang, just because it's so closely associated with 4K, Shelby. I couldn't think of any models of Ford car, but focus. I'm pretty sure the Ford. I don't know. And then Dana put Corvette. The answer is the GT40, the Ford GT40, designed by Shelby. Shelby, yeah, I just, I didn't think it was the Mustang because that just seemed like it would be too easy.

but yeah like chris i kind of my mind just went blank there i got what's another four okay Chevrolet did corvette no but i was just like i knew an american company randomly did corvette i'm not a gearhead obviously but i'm really impressed by by gearhead like they are trivia people in their own world for sure my husband he would he would see a close up of like a little part of the car he goes oh that's the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah but they change it in this year and it's like what you're crazy my Our favorite game is like, you know, comedians and cars with coffee. They do the little montage. And like I try to time him like how quickly can he recognize and identify the car?

That's good. That's good. He's really good at it. Okay. All right. Next question. In the 2000s canned soup companies, Progresso and Campbell's went at each other via ad campaigns over what ingredient? I'll say it again.

In the 2000s, canned soup companies Progresso and. Campbell's went at each other via ad campaigns over what ingredient? Okay. All right. Answers up, please. Colin says noodles. Dana says chicken. Chris, you said?

I said chicken. I felt like it was, it was like the chicken noodle soup thing, but it was like you have more chicken in the chicken noodle soup. The answer is MSG. Oh, really? So it's not about, like, I have more of it. It's more like you have more. Oh, no.

Okay. Which is really funny. I mean, MSG was such a weird worry back then. It was. It was. It really was. And now it's like, everybody's like, oh, umami. Yes, umami. And it's like, that's MSG.

Yeah. According to data collected by Variety VIP Plus in the end of 2021, Netflix, is the number one streaming service based on global subscribers. What is number two? Based on the end of when? 2021. So it would still hold true. I mean, I think looking at these numbers,

it's probably impossible to change that much. Interesting. Netflix is the number one streaming service. What is number two? All right, answers up, please. Chris, you put... Amazon Prime video. Dana put Amazon Prime.

Colin put HBO Max. It is Amazon Prime. Good job. I wasn't sure if that would count or not. Yeah, I should have just trusted myself. Because there are people already subscribed to Prime. Yeah, yeah, should have just, yeah, don't overthink it. Don't overthink it.

That's part of the whole strategy. Yeah, that's why they got so many, yeah. People didn't originally want to subscribe to the Netflix service. They just wanted their DVDs, right? So it was sort of like an extra thing you got, yeah. Next question. What two countries were involved in the 1976 Judgment of Paris? The event name is called Judgment of Paris.

It happened in 1976. Between two countries, what two countries were involved in the 1976 judgment of Paris? Interesting. There's a big moment of... In what arena? You can't tell us. In an arena, I know you are familiar with based on what you did for this episode. Oh, okay.

All right. Answers up. Hold on. Hold on two countries. All right. All right. Rivalry. Colin put France, Italy.

Dana also put France, Italy. Chris put France, U.S. It is France, U.S. Chris got the point. Well, everybody gets a point for France. Okay. I believe it was wine tasting, and it was when, like, a California wine upset, a French wine in France. Is that it?

Taste test between Napa Sonoma, you know, Northern California wines, which people didn't really know about that much versus, you know, the French wines. And they had, like, a blind tasting contest. And there was a lot of uproar because sometimes the California wines got scored higher than France. and it was like a big deal because they're kind of like who are these who are these Californian Hicks right upstarts right

yeah yeah yeah versus our long tradition of French tradition of wines and so this was a big deal also made into a movie starring Alan Rickman called Bottleshock oh yeah inspired by true events inspired by

it's looking pretty even here let's do let's do two more questions I'll throw in two hard questions. Here we go. DC and Marvel are two of the biggest comics rivalry. Before DC became DC and Marvel became Marvel, what were their previous company names? Before DC was called DC, before Marvel was called Marvel.

Do you know what their previous company names were? I have all of them up, so if you get any one of them, you'll get a point. This is in the punch bowl. I've had this, yeah. It's hard, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. It's not Detective Comics, which is what D.C. stands for. Throw in a fun name, if you don't know.

I'm going to be so mad at this one, Karen. I feel like you would know for sure. Once Upon a Time, it would have come right, right to the front of my brain here. All right, answers up. Here we go. Colin put Action Comics and Tales of Suspense. Dana, you put Action Comics and... Really good comics.

Really good comics. comics. You know what? That's pretty close. And then, Chris, can you read out your answer? Exciting comics and American comics, because I have no idea. You know, it's so generic. So DC is known by many things, including national comics, national publications. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty close. And then Marvel before was called Atlas. And even before that was timely publications. Timely. That was the one, man. That was way. in the punch bowl timely. Yeah, this is some deep cuts.

Hey, sometimes trivia is hard. Yep. Last question, please have some room on your piece of paper. I will time you for this. We know that the two biggest boy band rivalries, probably between NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. I'll give you 30 seconds, and please name me as many Backstreet Boys members and NSYNC members.

First name's okay. First thing, you don't have to be. If you do full name, if you do full name, I'll be very impressed. But, so as you guys are writing, boy band rivalry was at its highest with InSync versus Backstreet Boys. If you can, please name all 10 members of Backstreet Boys. I'm going to predict that I am dead last on this list. Let's see. Let's see if I can exceed my own expectations.

there are also other international boy bands Westlife is very big take that also a British boy band the boy band where Robbie Williams came from yeah of course there was NKOTB all right okay please answers you know what why don't you guys read I feel like you had a really heated competition here until this one you know sometimes trivia is hard sometimes trivia is hard man all right all right how about I'll go first since I'm I feel pretty confident that I am not going to lead the pack here I got I got Justin Timberlake yeah I got uh Joey Fetone correct Lance Lance Bass yes also from in sync I is there are Mikey Pickles in any of these? No? No. Okay. All right. Then I'm going to stop there then. So I think

I got myself three here is what we're looking at. Before I, before we get into the answers that I wrote down, in the hopes of getting some bonus points here, I did write down all five members of Fourtown, which I think should count for something. From Turner Red. Exactly. It's Robert, Aaron T, Aaron Z, Taye Young, and Jesse. Now, as far as the actual question, I put Justin Timberlake, Joey, was Nick Lechay in any of these? Or no? Was he in something? He's a 98 degree.

Oh, son of a gun. All right, so Justin, Justin and Joey then. Okay, Dana. So, yeah, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fetone, Lance Bass, J.C. Chazet and Chris Kilpatrick. Kerr Patrick. I was like, yeah, it was like Chris K, something. Yeah.

And then back street boys, there's Nick Carter. There's a Kevin something. Kevin Richardson. There's an Aaron Carter, but he wasn't in Backstreet Boys. I was in the Insinct Gang. I'm in the Backstreet Gang. Nick Carter, Kevin, Brian, AJ, and Halley. I knew there were initials, but I was like,

E.J, that's the guy's name? Yeah, AJ. Woo! It's good to be humbled every now and then in a trivia. Trivia's hard. Well, that's why we're on a trivia team. Guess what, guys? Dana won.

Oh, yeah. Yay. Good job. Huh. Yeah. There are really many reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science. It's kind of a challenge to summarize them all, Molly. Okay.

Here's a reason to listen to our show, Big Picture Science, because you love to be surprised by science news. We love to be surprised by Science News. So, for instance, I learned on our own show that I had been driving around with precious metals in my truck before it was stolen. That was brought up in our show about precious metals and also rare metals like most of the things in your catalytic converter. I was surprised to learn that we may begin naming heat waves like we do hurricanes. You know, prepare yourself for heat wave lucifer. I don't think I can prepare myself for that. Look, we like surprising our

listeners. We like surprising ourselves by reporting new developments in science. And while asking the big picture questions about why they matter and how they will affect our lives today and in the future. Well, we can't affect lives in the past, right? No, I guess that's a point. So the podcast is called Big Picture Science, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. We are the host. Seth is a scientist. I'm a science journalist, and we talk to people smarter than us. We hope you'll take a listen. All right, well, we've had some good slogan and tagline references so far. So this is a good a segue here for me. I'm going to give you guys some slogans here, all right? And I want you to tell me

what product or service is being pitched with these slogans, all right? These are from various times over to last number of years. Don't let the big one get away. Today could be the day. And another one, somebody's got to win. Might as well be you. Any guests here? At first I thought it was like pest control. Like, don't love the big ones get away. Like lottery. Yes, these are, perhaps no surprise. These are state lottery slogans. And, you know, they don't really range all that much, I guess.

It's just, hey, you know, why not? You could do it. Yeah, you might win. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of variations on dream big and today could be your day. And, right. You know, you got to be in it to win it. Don't think about the math, you know.

Absolutely. Absolutely. What taxes? At Christmas in my family, for years and years, we always had a tradition. I'm sure a lot of families have the two of the little lottery scratch-off tickets and the stockings. My mom would always get a couple little scratch-off tickets. Almost invariably, it seems like my sister would win $2. It was like it kind of just came like a running family joke.

None of us would ever win. My sister would win the $2. But that's still exciting. Yeah. Oh, man, especially if you're like a kid. I got a lottery to get from your house at a part. party once, or you guys gave lottery. I didn't steal it. You gave it to me. I got $5 and then I just carried it in my purse

for a year and I never cashed it. We had another tradition of my house. The second tradition was we would leave the ticket in the stocking for a whole year and forget about it. And the next Christmas we're like, oh yeah. I won $2 that I never claimed and is now even more profit to the state of California. We had this tradition also and I'd ever tell you the story of the year that my brother got me a one of the, a prank lottery ticket. You can go to like Spencer's gifts or whatever and buy a fake scratch-off ticket. Really?

$25,000? Yeah. So I get it in my stocking and I scratch it off and it says I've won $25,000. And I couldn't, I was like, I couldn't even believe. I was like, oh my God. And I look over to the side and I see my mom is sitting at the kitchen table with her head buried in her hands kind of like laughing

you know what I mean because she knew and but it was and then I started to realize that something was up because like this is the sort of prank where it seems like a really funny prank until you do it and you realize that it's actually

horrible to do that it's not funny they did this and also can also have very bad like actually family friend of ours they did this to their And she was, she was like, I am out of here. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're going to walk that back. Because it's like she lost $25,000. Like they stole $25,000. You just sit there and stunned silence the rest of Christmas. I thought it would be fun to look into the history and kind of some lore around the state lotteries. Just, I mean, kind of as an American institution. I mean, we have a really big one here in California.

Almost every other state has one. Do other countries have government lottery system? Oh, yeah, yeah. They're really, really, really common. Almost every country has some version of a national lottery or state lotteries. It's a great way to make money. It really is. And people like to gamble.

They really do. It will not surprise you that lottery itself, the concept is ancient, practically. I mean, in some form or another, the idea of choosing, you know, something at chance. with a big payoff. So I started thinking, all right, let me look how lotteries were introduced into America. And that did not end up being nearly as interesting as how they were reintroduced into America.

Lotteries are really, really, really old. And I guess it shouldn't have surprised me to learn like they had them in the colonies. They had them in the early days of America. They were a great way to raise money for the state or for the municipal government, what have you. But in the late 1800s, sort of how we had anti-alcohol and temperance movements, there was really a wave of anti-lottery sentiment, all right?

And up to this point, like in the U.S., it had sort of been kind of, I'm not going to say quasi-legal, but there were a lot of sort of open secret illegal lotteries being run. Okay. But there was a big wave of this is immoral. We got to shut these down. So, you know, in the U.S., they were kind of shut down or quiet or underground for a while. as sort of these moral panics died off a lot of states like we got to get back into the lottery business here

the first sort of resurgent state official lottery was New Hampshire in 1964 rolling through the 70s rolling through the 80s it was kind of a domino effect where once a state would start running a lottery people would drive across the state border

to play the lottery and it's like you know hey why not you know I'll buy a ticket you know because there wasn't really residency restrictions for for these lotteries. And, you know, if you're a state and you see your, you know, speaking of rivalries here and you see your neighboring states starting to pile up, I mean, I'm not exaggerating millions and billions of dollars of revenue. You're like, you know, I want some of that too. Now, of course, the public relations part of this,

they got savvy, right? You know, like the pitch for almost every state lottery is help the schools, help the seniors, help the public, public works. You know, it funds our health care. And that is, that is largely true. I mean, it does help them. Most of the money does not go to them necessarily. But states have, you know, written into the laws like, you know, what percentage has to go to the state or has to go to education. Oh, that's good. The raw number might surprise you how much actually goes to education versus pay it out, back out to winners.

But look, it is money in California going to education. It is money in other places, yeah. like I was saying, we really got into it, my family in the 80s. The California authorized the lottery in a ballot initiative in 84, with 58% of the public approved. The first California Scratchers ticket went on sale in 1985. I learned that Scratchers is a registered trademark of the California Lottery Commission. There are some fun lottery variants around the world. So as you guys know, my wife and her family are from Taiwan.

Karen, you are of course from Taiwan. Oh, our receipts? The receipt lottery is so fantastic, which is a way of forcing, you know, businesses to make sure they issue you a receipt if you can then cash in a number on the receipt. Yep, that's right. For a state-run lottery.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. There have been a lot of really kind of interesting security, goofs and protocols over the years. So like I mentioned the lotto, you know, where they draw the numbers with the kind of little puffer ball things that yeah, shoots them up through the thing, right? You know, it was a really big deal. I mean, they still televise it, but like, you know, in the 80s and 90s, I feel like it was almost like appointment TV. You're like, oh, they're drawing a lot of numbers, you know, tune in and watch it. Choosing random numbers is hard. I mean, this is a known

problem of choosing reliably random numbers is hard, right? There's an anecdote. I, I, heard years ago about like if you go to Las Vegas and you're watching the roulette wheel and black 17 comes up three times in a row should you bet on black 17 you know and sort of the the trick answer is like no of course not the numbers are all independent just because black 17 came up three times it doesn't mean it's more likely to come up but a lot of savvy gamblers will tell you like oh if you see a roulette wheel play the same number it's probably busted or biased yeah somehow so you go ahead and play that's right that's right So the lottery system in order to avoid people tracking, I mean, because look, you've got money on the line, I guarantee you, there are people who track the numbers every week. I mean, they're required by law to track the numbers.

But, you know, so the balls themselves, to avoid any possible bias they don't even know about, they have most states that run these machines, they have multiple sets of equipment, okay? They have multiple sets of the balls and the little shooter and the hopper. and they will run a pre-lottery or a pre-draw either the day or the evening before of the draw to choose which of the machines will be used to run the actual draw so that even the lottery officials themselves don't know and try and hide the bias. Right, right. I mean, it makes sense, but it's really interesting. I never thought about that. Well, so here's the thing, Karen. I mean, look, any.

Instead of the balls. There's no such thing as truly random. We'll tell you there is no such thing as a truly random computerized number, right? It's all pseudo-random. So, yeah, doing physical numbers is actually the safest way to do it. So, all right, I'm going to close out here with a few questions for you guys. This will be some write-down. Get a pen, get your paper.

I mentioned my family's, our families, scratch-off scratcher tradition. What year do you guys think the scratch-off instant win lottery tickets? was introduced. Because for the long time, you know, keep in mind the lotteries were raffle style, okay? It was again, like you're buying a ticket, you're getting the number. Balls are picked. Yeah, the idea that you're getting something taken at home, maybe in your car, instant win. That's right.

Instant win, scratch off lottery ticket. So it was before 1984, right? Yeah, that's right. You know, it's no later than that. You know, it's no later than that. All right, closest two. Closest two will win the point here. Answers up. Karen says 1981. Dana says 1976. Chris says 1982. Dana gets the point.

1984 earlier than that. Yeah. 1974. Massachusetts state lottery. You know, it was just an instant hit. You know, in fact, it was called the instant game. No pun intended. It was an instant hit. They were very, very popular. It sounds like within a week the state had sold. $2.7 million worth of scratch-off tickets. Yeah. It's fun, too. It's interactive. Yeah. The 70s and 80s was a golden age of scratching things.

Oh, it totally was. Scratches this. Yeah. So there are scratchers. The real big money, the real big money comes from the lotto and the powerball style drawings. You know, we don't, unlike a lot of countries, we don't have a national lottery per se, but we do have Powerball, which all of these sort of the lottery, state-by-state commissions work together

because they also, yeah, it's, that's really, that Powerball is kind of just like a consortium of the state lotteries. Yeah, that's why so you can, you can get such huge, massive payouts. And in fact, a Powerball payout holds the record, not just for the largest payout in American lottery history, But the largest lottery payout ever anywhere in the world was a powerball jackpot from 2016. All right. There's going to be another closest two gets the point here. Single largest jackpot. Shared by three tickets, but I'm looking for the jackpot amount.

Okay. There was a ticket sold in California, a ticket in Florida, another one in Tennessee. All right, when you're ready, answers up. Karen has written 300 million Dana has written 6.2 billion with a B

and Chris has written 32 million. Oh, what a range. I might be Dr. I'm going to say that I believe Karen is actually closest but you're all off by a bit.

The largest jackpot was $1.586 billion dollars. Oh my God. Right. Even when you give the government its share. Hold on. So it costs money to buy a ticket. That money goes to the government.

Then if you win, pretty much half of that goes back to the government as taxes. Quite a racket. Am I crazy? Is that what it? The lottery winnings are taxed. I mean, it depends on your state, but lottery winnings are taxed at a very high rate.

That's true. Right. And a lot of them, so like this one is a good example, a lot of the winnings, some of those will offer, you can take a one-time cash payment or you can take an annuity, right? You know, over 20 years. Some of the really, really large payments, it's obligated. Like, you cannot take a lump sum. Like, you're required to take it over the, you know, X number of years. And, you know, the states will earn money.

I mean, they'll earn interest on that money. They have to set it aside. They have to have it to pay. But yeah, in the long run, you know, the state is coming out. just fine. Again, the theme of the state lotteries, it's a great way to make money. What a beautiful, what a beautiful game. When you get to pick the rules. That's right. That's right. In the spirit of the one point per answer here, five potential

points on the table here. Still anyone's game. There are currently only five states that do not run a state lottery, okay, five states. Now, this is a little tricky, but I think it's more than just random guess. I think you might be able to reason some, maybe most, maybe all of these out, which five states, one point each, do not run a state lottery. And maybe you can think about some other, some reasons why. White might a state not want to run a lottery. Maybe they're powerful interests against it. Maybe they don't have the pressure. I don't know. What are some reasons? What are some reasons that a state might turn down these billions of dollars in revenue? You know California is not one. You know New York is not one. You know Massachusetts is not one.

Okay. Okay. How many have, okay, okay. Answers up. Karen has written Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, I will tell you, Karen, you've got four or the five. Wow. And then question mark. And then question mark. I put, okay, I put Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah. I also put Rhode Island and Delaware, because they're really small. I don't know.

Small states. I had Hawaii, Utah, Alaska. And then I put Rhode Island as well. And I put Vermont randomly. Yeah. Wow. You guys, all right, you guys did really good. You clued in here.

Some logic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see if your logic matches. here. I mean, so, you know, let's start with Utah. There is a lot of religious opposition, you know, being a very heavily Mormon state. It's a big part of it. Nevada, huge opposition from the casino gaming institution. They do not want the state horning in on their racket. So, yeah, a lot of

interesting. It is interesting. It's almost, it's like, where's the honor among thieves here, right? Yeah. Yeah. Hawaii and Alaska. So it's interesting. interesting. In no small part, they just simply don't have the pressure from adjacent states, you know, seeing the revenue go up that they need to feel the need to cash in. And then the fifth one is Alabama. And again, largely for religious reasons, there's a lot of opposition in the state. It's a fairly conservative state. You know, again, we'll see how long these states can hold out until just a couple of years ago, Mississippi was on this list as well. Again, a state with a lot of big gaming casino interests, but just, you know, as well, yeah, but just was not able to sort of hold back the tide. Governor of Alaska, like Alaska is pushing for a state lottery and official state lottery. They're, they're sort of in a quasi state right now where it sounds like there's some sanctioned lotto type of events, but it's not an official state lottery. So yeah, good, good job,

guys. All right. So four points to Karen there. I think Karen is our winner here. Well done. All right. Before this episode ends, I have my final wordal listener challenge, as you guys have heard for the past two episodes. I've developed this kind of like wordal game that we can play on the podcast. The premise of this puzzle is pretend there is a person who is playing wordle and all

you have as information is their five wordal word attempts. Can you use this information and work backwards to figure out what the correct answer word is? Now, this person, again, is a very casual wordal player, meaning they don't bench or bank letters. They will never repeat wrong letters if they get a letter right. They'll always use it in their next guess. If they get a letter in the right place, they will always keep that letter there for their next guess. So the last two times I shared and I read out the words. This time I'm going to make a little bit harder and I'm going to give you trivia questions.

And the answer for these are going to be the five-letter words in order. So here we go. So word number one, cartoon lab rat brains partner. Cartoon lab rat, brain, the name brain, brains partner. Second word. Francia is famous for what kind of wine? The brand Francia is famous for what type of wine? Third word.

This comes in many varieties, including Bavarian and Devonshire, Devonshire, Devonshire. Bavarian and Devonshire. What? Word number four. The animals that barnacles are named after. Number four, the word is the animals that barnacles are named after. And word number five, pound of blank, a Shakespearean demand for payment. Pound of blank, a Shakespearean demand for payment.

And if you know the answers to these five clues, and then you can backward solve to find out what the final wordal answer is. You can head over to Good Jobbrain.com and you'll see a wordel section and you can put in your answers there. So good luck. All right. And that's our show.

Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners for listening in. Hope you learn stuff about lottos, about cooking contests, about balloon, balloon fails, and about rivalries. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and all podcast apps.

and on our website, good jobbrain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Everything Everywhere Daily, Legends of the Old West, and the Pirate History Podcast. And we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Bye. This is Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fan Girl, and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical romanticcy based on Alaric of the Bissigoths, enemy of my dreams.

Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, this book has everything, high-stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive, but rule. Enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold.