Good Job, Brain! - 246: Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Our tongues are now strangely sticky and weirdly sweet from licking all these envelopes to deliver you amazing facts about shipping and mail! Find out how Hugh Jackman is (kind of) connected to the US postal rules regarding mailing live scorpions. Chris sorts through rumors about a strange loophole in our nation's postal history. Karen's got a music round and directions to a secret theme, and Colin discover the deadly dangers of shipping food. ALSO: lottery update, grab bag delivery quiz, Good Job, Cats! Take our listener survey! www.surveymonkey.com/r/airwave 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, mystery-minded, muffin, munching, magical, Mr. Mastopheles. This is good job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 246, and of course, I'm your our humble host, Karen, and we are your delightful delivery people with delicate deltoids delegating a delectable deluge of deliciousness. I'm Colin, and I'm Chris, now and forever at the Winter Garden Theater. My friend invited me to, you know, the Alamo Draft House, the nice cool hip movie theater. Oh, yes. It was like a hate watch of cats, the film, you know, the

The one with the problematic CGI. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that one, yeah. It's like a sing-along kind of a party to give you like cat, cat your hats and stuff. I mean, it doesn't have to be a hate lot. It could be something closer to like, you know, Rocky Horror maybe. If you know what you're getting.

It's campy. Yeah, exactly. You're there to have fun to people. Now, I have not seen this movie. Chris, I don't know if you've seen it. Oh, I have. It was the last thing I did before the pandemic. It was the last film I saw.

The last movie I saw before pandemic was Uncut Gems. So we're really covering quite a range there between hats and uncut gems. I'm just going to get, I'm just going to be very blunt here, Karen. Go on. Yes. Were the buttholes a problem in the movie? No, no, no, no. They took those out.

Oh, they took them out. Okay. All right. That was a problem. Oh, I didn't know they were a thing. Yes. Apparently, during the production of the movie. the cats for a time had little buttholes on them.

CGI, CGI cat buttholes, right, okay. Probably a wise decision. If you've seen pictures, the original stage production of cats, it's also weird. It's also like nightmare fuel. It's very interesting because, so, so Regina, my wife, you know, she saw the movie first before she'd even heard the soundtrack. So she ended up watching the movie with friends. And so she saw that first, but then we had had tickets to see the musical in San Francisco.

She actually saw it out of order, and I had actually never seen it before either. Or I had heard the soundtrack a lot, and I had seen videos of performances. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What works in the live theater space, you know, does not, in this case, transfer over to the film experience. But they are both very weird, but that weirdness is like, it's like acceptable. when it's just sort of on stage ridiculous costumes

Yeah yeah My favorite cat is Skimble Shanks The Railway cat Oh yeah he's up there for me too Yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a good cat All right Welcome to the Cats podcast

Oh each episode would be a cat Yeah Sorry Colin You have a trivia news bit Oh yeah I've got a very Well I don't know about very important I don't know about important at all But I do have an update.

I do have an update on a fact. So on episode 233, we talked about competitions and contests. And I talked about the lottery. And I had a question about the largest lottery jackpot in U.S. nay, world history. That has since been superseded. Oh. Just in the last few months here.

So on that episode, I had a question about largest jackpot. The answer to the question at the time is 1.586 billion with a B jackpot. There were three tickets sold to that. So split three ways. That was from 2016. But in November of 2022, a Powerball winning ticket for $2.04 billion. How many tickets? So that one, single ticket.

Oh, so they didn't have to share it. Single ticket. So, yeah, as far as far as we know now, yeah, I mean, that was in November was the drawing, the powerball drawing. On February 14th, California lottery officials announced the winner's name, confirmed, yes, we have verified that this person won. That is the only ticket claim so far on the, yeah, that's right. Whoa, so they won back in November, but they didn't announce it until February.

until yeah as late as january i guess it was still unclear if it was going to be claimed and you know i mean that's the interesting thing with these lotteries is you know you announce you have the powerball drawing and then maybe someone claims it maybe someone does it but then there's a very kind of lengthy process here of someone decided to come forward figuring out what they want to do how long do they have to wait is there a deadline there is a deadline i think it's fairly generous um but yeah you can't You can't hang on to that thing forever. You do sort of have to come forward in a relatively timely fashion and claim it. Congratulations to Edwin Castro, apparently, who bought the ticket in Altadena, California.

Ooh. Yeah, so new facts. If you're listening to episode 233, don't, I'm actually me. I'm giving you a low down now. Yeah. All right. Without further ado, let's jump in to our. our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot.

All right, I'm doing like a three card Monty here. I got, so I have three random Trivial Pursuit edition cards here, and you guys have our Barner Buzzers. Let's see, which one do we want to do? Trivial Pursuit, Genus 4, Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition, and then Trivial Pursuit, 1992. 92. Is it just all questions about the year 1992?

Yes. They come out with a game that's Trivial Pursuit in 1992, or was this just like the 90s and every card is in year? Yes, I think it's totally 90s. Pink Wedge. Okay, this is racy. Just disclaimer. This is a little bit racy. Disclamers already.

Who included a photo of herself sucking Naomi Campbell's toe in a titillating tome titled Sex? Oh, it's alliterative. Let me read that again. Who included a photo of herself sucking Naomi Campbell's? Campbell's Toe in a titillating tome titled sex, Colin. That is the one and only Madonna. Madonna, yes, Madonna. Next question, Yellow Edge.

What animation studio supplements its film income with sales of its Oscar-winning render man system? Oh. I mean, yeah, Chris. I'm going to have to go ahead and guess and say that is Pixar. It is. videos here at Emory Pixar. It's good that they have a side hustle you know, in case they need it.

In case you need the money. Yeah. Purple Wedge. What Diva sang song title One More for the Road as Johnny Carson's last Tonight Show guest. Whoa. One more for the road. Colin. I think that was Bet Midler.

Correct. It is Bet Midler. Divine Miss M. Orange, Wedge, what American League ball club did the owner of Dominoes sell to the owner of Little Caesars? Well, wait, so this means this team was owned by the owner of Dominoes and sold it to the owner of Little Caesars.

Yeah. Wow. All we have to go on is just some AL team. All right, Chris, please. Baltimore Orioles. I have no idea. Colin. The Tigers.

Yes, Detroit Tigers. Nice. All right. Green Wedge, what fixtures through put? Did U.S. legislators order reduced from 3.5 to 1.6 gallons. Oh. That is, Mago. Chris.

The flush turlet. Yes, it is the toilet. Yes. Low flow toilets were definitely a topic of some polo. political concern in the early 1990s. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was this whole thing about, oh, we got to have these low-flow toilets and flush less water.

So our standard now is 1.6. Yeah, yeah. So does that mean the toilets were just, like, huge? They just moved a lot more water. Oh, I see, I see. Yeah. All right. Last question in the 1992 card.

What right-wing radio personality popularized the term Feminozis to mock strident feminists Wow Colin, please Rush Limbaugh Rush Limbaugh That is certainly a question

Who wrote this card Got Naomi Campbell's toe It's the 90s It was just scandalous Seriously Good job brains And finally guys Today I'm recording

Sitting on a chair We got our stuff We had a moving pod It kept getting delayed Week after week I've been eating off the ground, working off the ground, wearing the same two sets of clothes. I would make plates out of foil. Well, in no small part, that was actually some little bit of the inspiration for the idea behind

today's episode, which is just moving things from point A to point B. It's not just the mail. It's all the way up to people's entire lives and belongings being moved in a box or a container or a truck or a train or a ship or an envelope. And I thought moving things around, delivery would be an excellent topic. So this week, it's signed, seal, and delivered. I'm yours. Well, folks, as I think Karen and Colin, I've told you guys,

this. I've let you guys in on this, this fun that I had over winter break, but I have not told our listeners, and so you can all be really happy for me that, yes, for the first time in a few years, you know, since the pandemic started, we went back to the East Coast to visit our families. And before we headed into New England, where my family, my wife's family are, we did a few days in New York City, and there was one thing that I absolutely wanted to do. And that was, and I did it, and it was to go and see, yes, the music man. With Hugh Jackman? With Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.

Foster, oh my gosh. I love Sutton Foster. Never gotten to see her live in anything. She's phenomenal. Hugh Jackman was amazing at the Winter Garden Theater, actually, the ancestral home of cats. How about that? So I was in the music band in high school. I played the mayor.

the mayor in this performance that we saw was actually played by Mark Lynn Baker by Cousin Larry from Perfect Stranger. Oh my God, who isn't She-Hawk? It was a star-studded cast. Oh, my God. I'm like, I'm going, I felt very much like when you care and went to see Hamilton,

you know what I mean? Like, for me, this was like, I'm doing this. I got front row seats. And the seats in the Winter Garden Theater, they pack them in. So front row seats, you're sitting in the front-row seat and your knees are very close to touching the stage. And at one point, Hugh Jackman is, like, hiding around a corner and a barn on stage right.

And he is right next to me. Wow. Like, his feet are by my eyeballs. It was so close. Wolverine himself. I loved it. Anyway, I had a blast. But my favorite Broadway shows.

And the music man set in the year 1912. takes place out in river city iowa right 1912 iowa there's a big song in act one of the music man that you probably heard it's called the wells fargo wagon and it's a big song and all the cast members come out and they sing about the wells fargo wagon is coming down the street and it's going to deliver packages to us right so the classic that classic like stage coach that to this day like the wells fargo logo right it's the stage coach with the horses you know the banking institution, which is how we know Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo used to be a delivery company, you know,

and if you lived out west, you know, anywhere west of the East Coast, basically, and you needed to have a big package sent to you, it would likely arrive on the Wells Fargo wagon, the Wells Fargo stage coach, which was a private delivery company. Why is the song the Wells Fargo wagon and not the United States Postal Service coming down the street, right? And that is because the Music Man is set in the year 1912.

And in the year 1912, you could not send packages via the United States Postal Service. Only letters? Yes, only had letter delivery service and anything over four pounds they would not handle. Now, the Music Man, that scene might have been slightly different had it only been set a year later. Because in 1913, 1913, USPS introduces parcel post. Revolutionary system known as parcel post,

now known as USPS retail ground. They changed the name only recently. But parcel posts. And this combined with the earlier introduction of another revolutionary service, which is rural free delivery, they would actually deliver to you in rural areas. Because if you used to live in a rural area,

or some are far flung you have to go to the post office to get your stuff and that might be many miles away so rural free delivery will actually bring your stuff to you and parcel post combined huge deal for if you lived out west or were thinking about moving out west you could now order things you can have stuff they would bring it to your house okay parcel post when they introduced it January 1st 1913 was incredibly popular how popular was it? It was so popular during the first five days of service, the Smithsonian Institution says. During the first five days that parcel post was in service, the U.S.PS handled four million parcel post packages. The U.S. population in 1913 was only 97 million people.

Four million packages in the first five days. parcel post was huge, immediately led to the explosive rise in mail order businesses like Montgomery Ward and, of course, Sears Robot, the Sears catalog. Yep, that's where you've got all your stuff because there wasn't anywhere else to get it. So for a brief period of time, the introduction of parcel post in 1913 also led to a market increase in United States citizens using the USPS to mail children. They're children. From where? From where to where? Great question.

Where are they sending the children? And where, why would they do this? Mailing, putting their children in the dead-ass mail, okay? To be clear, mailing your children was not a intended or contemplated use of the united parcel post like this was not they were like oh yeah and you could mail your kids no no no it was it was more like the air it was more like the air bud rule where it was like there's nothing in the rules it says you can't stick a stamp on your child and write an address on your child and hand it to the mailman but apparently in according to history dot com who is quoting the u.s postal museum which is

part of the Sponsodian. January 1913, literally the month they started parcel post service, a couple by the name of Mr. Mrs. Jesse Beagle of Glen Est, Ohio. They wanted their 10-pound baby to go visit his grandmother, whose house was a mile down the road. So they paid 15 cents for postage. They pinned a little address card to him. They gave him to the mailman. And the mailman took him down the street to his grandmother's house. They also paid, they insured their son for $50. Yeah. Well, I mean, replacement value, you know.

Exactly. Right. So beginning with the little Beagle Boy, the National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian has found evidence of seven children being put through the USPS between 1913 and 1950. What a badge of honor. So it is. New York Times, 1914. Let's go read it.

It's great. Mrs. E. H. Staley of this city received her two-year-old nephew by parcel post today from his grandmother in Stratford, Oklahoma, where he had been left for a visit three weeks ago. That's Stratford. Oklahoma. The boy wore a tag about his neck, showing it had cost 18 cents to send him through the mails. He was transported 25 miles by rural route Before reaching the railroad He rode with the mail clerks

Shared his lunch with them And arrived here in good condition So as this anecdote suggests I don't want to be thinking that kids Where it was like Garfield mailing normal To Abu Dhabi Right like in a box Rattling around in the back of the truck

Garfield Mailing Nirmal It's so vivid so so if it was a baby then the postal service the postal worker would carry the baby along with him as he did the ride because they're not driving a truck because it's it's yeah yeah so they're either on a horse or they're just walking it's truly just blows my mind that that that any postal carrier would consent to this like airbud rules or not you know and they did sure i guess you know at this point people probably had a close

relationship with their mailman as it were than we probably did then but even so even so man it was not again it's not common this only happened seven times in a nation around a hundred million people but it's like it happened enough that yeah people did this and yeah so and the kids if you were a kid that could walk you would just walk with the mailman they would essentially escort you but in but but but some people took very long February 19th, 1914, six-year-old girl named Charlotte May Pierstaff was sent through the mail to visit her grandmother 73 miles away from Grangeville to Lewiston in Ohio. They put her in a coat. They stuck 53 cents in postage on her coat.

That's important. And she sat in the mail car of the train. So in this case, the male clerk on that train was a cousin of hers. So there was a little bit of an inside job aspect and let her go. But still, they put the postage on her and she sat in the mail cop. The guy looked the other way and made sure she was okay, but they mailed her. Right, right. There's actually, there's a children's book called Mailing May that is about this girl and her journey.

It seems like every time this happened, you know, kind of like, I don't know if it's every time it happened, but often it would become sort of a newspaper story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. what I mean. And maybe these stories were becoming a little too noticed because it wasn't long after that that in 1914, about a year after, you know, Postal Post was introduced, the Postmaster general of the U.S. did in fact have to issue a rule. One of those things where you see a sign somewhere and it's like, that signs only there because somebody did that, you know, there was a rule saying, no, sorry, you cannot mail a human being. But it's not like this rule could immediately be enacted across all of the various post office and things across the U.S.

immediately. So in 1915, another six-year-old girl named Edna Neff was mailed from Pensacola, Florida to Christiansburg, Virginia. Whoa. In 1915, 720-mile journey. Now, no, sorry, you can't put your child in the mail anymore. juries out on whether this is good or bad, but, you know, 59 cents, jeez. Right, yeah, I know.

It was, it was a lot cheaper than buying them a train ticket. I mean, that was it. It was just like it's the cheapest way to do it. But this does not necessarily extend to all living things. You can actually mail today a variety of living things. You can put them in the U.S. mail and they will deliver them for you. And I will tell you, now, I'm going to list some things. I'm going to be real clear here.

Yes, it is true that you can mail these things. You don't have to have special permission in most cases. You can mail them, but you do have to follow certain rules. Like, there's rules about the packaging. There's rules about, like, the day you can drop it off because, you know, they don't deliver mail on Sundays, so you don't want to drop off a live thing on the Saturday. Okay, that sort of thing. But you can mail through the USPS right now today, honeybees.

Honeybees go on surface transportation Unless you're mailing queen honeybees You can ship queen honeybees via airmail And it says specifically on the USPS site Each queen honeybee may be accompanied By up to eight attended honeybees Oh, her little entourage

Yeah, she can have her entourage You can mail Live, day old, poultry these ones specifically like chicks chickens ducks emus geese guinea birds partridges pheasants quail turkeys if they are a day old like the chicks you can put them in the u.s mail they will deliver them for you adult birds as long as the bird is more than six ounces but no more than 25 pounds, you can mail your bird. That's a big bird.

Yes, 25 pound bird, 24 and a half pound bird. Live scorpions. Now, you can put live scorpions in the mail for one of two reasons. One, if it is for the purposes of medical research, or two, if you're sending them to somebody for the, so that, so that they can manufacture anti-venin. Wow. What a cool rule. If you are sending it for, yeah, right?

If you're sending it for that reason, or those two reasons alone, you can mail live scorpion. Now, again, in this case, there are, there are very strict rules on the packaging. It's got to be double-boxed. Yeah. The inner box, it's like one of those things where, like, the inner box, like, it has to, it says on the, it has to be made of a material that cannot be punctured by a scorpion. And then the inner box, and then the both boxes have to say live scorpions.

Live scorpions. And then finally, the last category, small, harmless, cold-blooded animals. Now, I'm not going to read all of them, but this could be worms, lizards, leeches, snails, yeah. Leeches. It could also mean goldfish. It could also mean frogs. And it could also mean baby alligators.

the key takeaway from all this is clearly baby alligators can mail baby babies no cannot cannot mail and i learned something today i want to sign up like for the the mix and match where you've got the baby alligator and you know the live chicks you know and he's like no it's you swear you cannot mix in match is one of this one of the logic puzzles. Yeah, this is two shipments, sir. I need to, okay, I need to send this baby alligator, this baby chick, and this stack of corn.

Right. I'm just, I'm standing there in line at the post office with the baby alligator under one arm and like, you know, just like a basket full of baby chicks and the other. I have always, I've always heard that the, the mail your children thing what was like true

but but maybe you know not kind of what you're imagining and yeah no that's it's exactly yeah it's not just like a kid in a crate with an arm dangling out the side that's it well so the thing is that the snopes listed as a mixture of fact and and fiction because the problem is people will take a staged silly photo of like a mailman with a baby in a mail sack or something like that That was a joke. And then they'll put next to it like, you used to be able to mail your children. And it's like, you actually did used to be able to mail your children. It's just that that photograph is sort of a ridiculous stage thing.

I gotcha. I gotcha. Yeah. All right. Here I have a quiz about postage stamps, mail systems, general grab-back quiz. So get your barnyard buzzers ready. here we go what is the country

with the world's oldest postal system dating back to the 15th century Colin I'm gonna guess England England it is England it is England

number two who was the first postmaster general of the United States oh and here's a hit he was appointed by Benjamin Franklin okay all right oh in 1775 yeah okay first this is I know this is this is this is a thing where it's like it's somebody famous yeah it's got to be it's got to be one of the I mean one of the founding fathers right first postmaster general appointed by Benjamin Franklin 1775 okay it's not a great hint oh okay it is Benjamin Franklin himself oh okay all right pointed himself yeah

I can appoint I can appoint anybody and I've decided I am the best candidate here's a good trivia question what is the name of the first postage stamp introduced in England in 1840 there's a name yeah it's like the it has like the queen on it or something like that and it's like black and it's like penny something yes it is the penny black Penny Black, yes, okay. Wow. I wouldn't have been able to come up with the Penny Black exactly, but it's like, I know it.

I know it. Wow. Oh, I read a book about this. I mean, I didn't think you just intuited it. I figured that you did. No, no, no, no. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Next question. What is the common name of the system of underground tunnels that was used to transport goods and people beneath Paris? What? Oh. What is the common? common name of the system from the 19th century, a system of underground tunnels and passages that was used to transport goods and people beneath Paris. Chris.

The catacombs? It is the catacombs. One of the coolest places in the world, if you're ever in Paris, you're down there, it smells like dead people and you're surrounded by skulls, like very old skulls. It's very goth. Very cool, very unique. I will. I will also add to that, if you are in Paris, you can tour the sewer. And it's the old historic sewer. I know, I know. Like the old big sewer? The old historic sewer, right.

And down there, they even show you, like, there's the scene like in Les Miserab. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so, like, they say that, like, Victor Hugo, like, came down there and, like, did his research on it and, like, actually, you know, tried to make it feel very realistic. This is exactly our kind of. It's like, oh, we went to Paris. Oh, really? What did you do?

Oh, you went in the sewers. the hole with the skulls in it all the usual stuff yeah yeah yeah it's a very Broadway musical centric episode today Le Miz Jean Valjean

next question where is the world's busiest port where in the world is the world's busiest port busiest port it is in Asia

Colin Shanghai. Shanghai. It is Shanghai. Wow. Good job. Good job. Last question. This is hard. But I feel like if you play Puktrovid, this is something you should know.

We all know the whole story about how the marathon distance or race came to be. There was the messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news about victory over the Persians. What was his name? The guy, the messenger who ran all the way. Oh, I feel like you've told us this before, Karen. Oh, man. Still not 100% how to pronounce it. Phidipides.

Phidipides. Phidipides. Phidipides. That is tingling a very small part of my brain. All right. Good job, brains. Let's take a break and we'll be right. It's back.

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This week, we're talking about things that are. are being shipped. And Colin, what are you mailing today? I want to talk to you guys about dangerous foods. So keeping with the theme of this episode, I want to talk about foods where the very act of transporting them has the potential for property damage, injury, even death. Oh. When it comes to food, we really are a global economy. We see, send food all over the world from everywhere to everywhere. I mean, how many great stories on our show have been the first time that Place X had had access to food Y.

Oh, Chicago had lobster because of the ice business. I remember that so clearly. Exactly, Karen. Exactly the example I was going to give, like the lobster, right? Like that was, you know, these things it would take for granted now, but it was only the advent of the commercialized ice business that they could get, lobster to Chicago because they could ice it on the trains. But I was interested not in trucks or trains, but ocean shipping because, well, one, a lot, I mean a lot of food is transported

by ocean to countries way far away from where it came from, brie to pistachios to grains to coconuts, you name it. We'll keep it vegetarian. We don't even need to get into livestock. So what really distinguishes ocean transport from trucks or even rail is the volume of stuff you can send, which is very, very high, and also the duration of the trip, which can sometimes be very, very long compared to a truck or a train, you know, several weeks or more from point A to point B. So what you have here, large quantities of foods, often tightly packed, often since relatively undisturbed for long periods of time, what could possibly go wrong?

Yeah. I will tell you some of the many things that can go wrong with this scenario. Let's start with least dramatic expansion, right? Expansion. So, you know, grains are particularly susceptible to expansion based on humidity. Moister, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. You might be able to observe this in, you know, a sack or maybe a barrel of grain, but I want you to just multiply this by thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands

of times, okay? And you have a enormous hold on a ship full of grain. If it starts expanding too quickly or too dramatically, it can rupture the hold. It can literally... No way. Yes, absolutely. Crumple metal. It can absolutely, if it is packed in with...

not enough room to expand, and if you're not keeping a close enough eye on it, you can cause physical damage to the containment units just from the volume of grain expansion. Toxic gases. Some food stuffs, certain varieties of cheese, for instance, produce off-gassing. They're in some ways active. So on a single wedge or a wheel of cheese, you might never notice these gases building up. But again, if you've got several thousand pounds of cheese, all together in the same containment unit. If you do not have proper ventilation, if you go down in the hold, you could be exposed to toxic gas.

You could die from cheese gas. That's the way to go, right? No, it's not. No. Sounds very bad. So very closely connected to that is just pure oxygen loss. Not that they're necessarily putting out something bad, but if you've got your food is sucking up all the oxygen and you go down there, you're in trouble.

Wheat is a good example of this. After wheat is harvested, it continues to absorb oxygen. Again, a small quantity, you'd never notice this. But in a huge hold on a ship, if it's closed up, you could go down there. And if you are not aware, you try and breathe and you pass out and you die. Wow. It's backdraft. So question, Colin, I assume these rules are in place because there have been potential deaths.

Oh, yeah. caused by, I mean, that's how they found out. The history of safety regulations, I mean, as Chris, as Chris kind of touched on in his, is the history of safety regulations is we have these regulations because they were being violated before. Yeah. And a lot of it, you know, I mean, it's not laughing matter. I mean, people have lost their lives for some of these incidents.

But yeah, you have to kind of learn the hard way. You don't know until you do it. You have to learn the hard way. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And gentially, you know, something that I learned in the research. of the mailing of children is that when parcel post started, somebody also basically shipped an entire bank via parcel post because they wanted to build a bank. And they were like, oh, well,

the cheapest way to get all the bricks to build my bank. So they just sent all the bricks through parcel posts. And it was a huge problem because all the mail carriers were doing were just delivering load after load of bricks to build an entire building. And they were like, oh, okay, we need to put a limit on how much stuff any one agent can put into the parcel post system. It's like, what does it cost to send? What's the weight limit? 25 pounds? Okay. What does it cost to send 25 pounds of bricks? What does that multiply to cross everything? Okay, that's the cheapest way to do it. Someone once sent us a potato, like a real potato through the mail. Like the address was on the potato. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. They could do it, right? Yeah, yeah. Moving right along here.

care. Let's chat about explosions, shall we? Now, you guys have maybe heard of grain silo explosions. Oh, yeah. Is when there is a spark. Sometimes static electricity could even set these off. It doesn't just have to be grain. It could be cocoa powder. It could be really anything that can be a really fine particulate matter. Literally a single spark can just blow the entire thing. And sometimes in like just milliseconds, you can have this first explosion that kicks up. up more dust in the air, then that explodes again. It's bad enough on land. Imagine now if you have a grain explosion out at sea. Anything that can get into dust particles in the air, corn powder, wheat, wheat powder, cocoa powder, anything is a potential dust explosion. They've had

cases on ships where it's like a faulty lamp inside the hold, maybe sparks. Even just, you know, a chunk of metal, scrapes against another chunk of metal. And next thing you know, cocoa powder explosion. Here's the part that intrigued me the most, the most dangerous food to transport. It is the unassuming nut. Oh! In particular, certain nuts, certain foods can spontaneously combust.

Just sitting there, minding their own business. and next thing you know, they're on fire. Literally, they can be on fire. And this can happen fast. The real dangerous nuts here are high oil content nuts. Brazil nuts, pistachios. Why does this happen? How does this happen?

How do we stop it from happening? As the oil that the fat decomposes, it puts out a very small amount of heat. I mean, small relative to that single nut. moisture can actually make the decay happen faster, puts out more heat, then the more heat, more moisture can come in if you're on a boat, as you might imagine, a lot of sources of moisture, and all packed in on each other. Again, this is not a little bag of pistachios sitting on your desk that you're munching. This is hundreds and thousands of pounds of pistachios, several feet thick, potentially, heating up, heating up, heating up, and they will

catch fire. And once they catch fire, the oil now is a great little feature. It keeps it going. Next thing, you know, you've got a hold that is on fire full of flaming nuts. That does smell delicious. That sounds incredible. Yeah. Next time you have some cheese and nuts on your little appetizer plate there, just take a moment and appreciate how truly dangerous their journey might have been to get to you.

We salute you, brave nut transporters. It feels really good to be productive, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done, especially when you need to make time to learn about productivity so you can actually, you know, be productive. But you can start your morning off right and be ready to get stuff done in just a few minutes with the Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day podcast. You'll hear advice on everything from how to build confidence to how to get the best night's sleep. New episodes drop every weekday and each one is five minutes or less, so you only have to listen a little to get a lot more out of your weekdays. Listen and subscribe to Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day wherever you get your podcast. That's Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day, wherever you get your podcasts.

All right. I have a great surprise. Our last segment. It's still within the theme of our episode. But I have a music round, a music quiz. A name that tune. I will be playing very, very short clips of a popular song. and what you guys need to do is identify the artist who is performing. There is also a theme, and we'll talk a little bit more about the theme afterwards, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. Okay. Because these clips are short, Colin and Chris, you guys can talk it out and give me one final answer. Okay.

For each question. And work together. Work together, huh? Yeah. All right, secret theme, music round. Here we go Clip one Oh

Oh man Oh man I don't know Who that is Oh Is it that one? Oh, I don't know. Is it Pearl Jam?

No. All right. And so we're naming just the artist and we're looking for a theme. The theme could show up and the artist could the title, maybe something else. But it's not Green Day. Call it, why isn't it Green Day? Maybe it is Green Day. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

I mean, we got to answer something. All right, we're going to say Green Day. Why do you get the answer? It is Green Day. Okay. All right. I'm talking myself out of it. Yeah, I was just overthinking it.

All right. I don't know the title, which might be helpful. But let's keep a list here at least. We got Green Day in there. All right. All right. Let's play clip number two. Name the Artist.

Staying up all night. If I could find you now, things would get better. We could leave this town and run forever. Well, it's not Green Day. What if it is? But Colin, let me pose this question to you. To me, this is very, you know, EA sports. Yeah, yeah.

DJ Striker playlist for burnout. Yeah, like, I don't know, like, like, like, Fall Out Boy or somebody or. This is Yellow Card. Yellow Card. If you're playing along at home, you're thinking, why don't these idiots know the theme already? It is because there's no way that Karen has given us the theme of fans with colors in their name. Unless that's what she's doing, and it's to throw us off, but we'll see. We're real good at getting inside our own hands.

I really don't think, yeah, exactly. I don't think that's what we're. It wasn't until you pointed that out that I realized they both had color in their name. Wow. This is like me every day, Karen. I was like, oh. Okay. Oh, sure, yeah.

Let's play clip number three. Okay. It doesn't matter what you are, just as long as you are there. Come on, every guy, grab a girl, everywhere around the world that we're dancing. Okay. There are two artists here. A lot of people have done this song. Yes.

There's a very famous cover of this one, though. I mean, definitely one of those voices in there, Chris. I'm sure you'll agree with me to sound very Mick Jagger-like. And there is a very famous version of this with Mick Jagger and David Bowie. So I'm going to guess that it's Jagger and Bowie. Correct. There's a video for this as well. Yes, and it's wild.

Yes. Dancing in the street? Is that what it's called? Dancing in the street. What are the other songs so far? I'm not going to say. Oh. That's the tough part.

Yeah, we barely even made it through those first two. All right. So what we got, we're on the board here, Chris, with one solid ID with dancing in the street. Okay. I know it's a cover. It doesn't really. Okay. All right.

Clip number four. Baby's got a half a diamond rings and fend his sports braw it's riding down rodeo in my mazorati sports car. God no stress, I've been through all that. I'm like a marlborough man, so I can't go back. It is a cowboy rapper. You know what? This genre is cowboy rapper. I would say this is a remix of a pretty famous song.

Cyrus. It is Billy Ray Cyrus, who is featured, the featured artist of the remix of Old Town Road. Yeah, I was going to say, it was Lil Nas X, but I did not know that that was Billy Ray Cyrus. Which is amazing. On the board, Chris, good job, Billy Ray Cyrus. This was Old Town Road. So covers remix, maybe, maybe something there.

I don't know, don't know. The secret theme is related to this episode. Okay, all right. Okay, okay, okay, sure. Okay, clip number five. You can see the shadow of watering on somewhere. They won't make it home, but they really don't care. We wanted the highway.

We're happy to be there. To get. I have no idea, but I'm getting the thing. theme. I'm definitely in the theme. Okay, good, good. I have, but I don't know. It's the bonus see the world.

Oh, God. Yeah. But what's the artist? I don't know. The late 90s. It is a one-hit wonder and I don't mean that in a mean way. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

This is The Way by Fastball. Oh, wow. Hey. It was a huge hit. Oh, yes. Clip number six. Okay, late 80s, early 90s on this one Yeah, that's she drives me crazy.

Yeah. That was a fine young cannibals, I believe. Correct. She drives me crazy, fine young cannibals. Good job. Next clip. All right. Number seven.

Seven. There's a world outside every darkened door where glues won't haunt you anymore. With a brave, offrey and love her soul, come ride with me to the distance short. We won't hesitate to break down a garden gate. There's not much. life is a highway um life is a highway yes um i think rascal flats did a version of this but is that rascal flats yes this is the covered version rascal flats as featured in uh Pixar's cars who was the original tom cochran oh wow okay tom cochran man this might be the first music quiz

I ever had really expanded to country and include country. Even if it's via, yeah, non-stander. Yeah, cars and little Naz-X. Yeah. Last clip. Oh, last clip. Number eight. Last one.

Here we go. Feeling like a hand in rustic chain. So do you laugh or does it cry? I know the theme. The theme is guys who sing like this. Very popular in the 90s. Was that Stone Temple Pilots? Yes.

Okay. Stone Temple Pilots, the band. And the song. This was in Rockman, which is one of our, our collectively one of our favorite video games. That was Interstate Love Song. Interstate love song. Okay. Of course.

Wow. Okay. I think I have a guess at the theme. Go for it, Colin. Okay. I agree with you. Well, I feel like this is every, every song title is part of the standard postal address for streets. and drive avenue, etc.

Yay! You are correct. Street, roadway, drive, highway, interstate. Yep, yep. So let's go down the list. And so what inspired this is, you know, I had to have an address change, right? Ah, yes. Seattle's a little bit weird.

You know, some places are where there's like 3rd Avenue, third street, third avenue north, third avenue west, and they're all different streets. And so it got me thinking. like, oh, let's look up, are there actual technicality and differences in some of these street names? You know, Avenue versus a street versus a boulevard versus a place, court. You know, I think of all the addresses there.

Like, you see a lot of variations outside of just street and road, right? So let's go down the list. First song, Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. What is a boulevard? A boulevard is defined as a large wide street with trees on both sides. Often, there is a median also with trees. Grand. Pretty big, yes, grand, a pretty big road.

Next song, Ocean Avenue by Yellow Card. An avenue usually runs perpendicular to a street. So all the streets go one way and then the avenues cross the streets. Okay. Okay. Of course, these are intended definitions. Yeah. You know, there's always exceptions to the world. I live on an avenue and it is perpendicular to a street.

To a street. So that is true for my house. I mean, like growing up, I feel like I thought these were all interchangeable. But turns out, yeah, there's like specific meaning for a lot of these. All right. Third song was Dancing in the Street, Mc Jagger, David Bowie. Street, public way with buildings on both sides. It runs perpendicular to an avenue.

The next song, The Way by Fastball. A Wave is a small street off a road. Next one, we have Old Town Road, Lil Nas X, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus Road. Road is the most general. It's your default. It's your default. Next song, she drives me crazy.

Find Young Cannibal's Drive. So this is interesting. I did not know this. A drive often is not straight, and it's because it's contouring to something in the natural environment. So maybe there's a mountain, maybe there's a hill, maybe there's a river, and, like, the road has to curve due to nature, and so that's what's usually called a drive. I grew up on a drive.

My childhood house was a drive, and that does make sense. It was sort of long and sort of twisty around and sort of the hills around where I live. Because it's like working around nature. saying, interesting. All right, we got life is a highway, Rascal Flats. Highway is defined as a major public road that usually connects multiple cities. And so within the family of roads where you drive really fast on, a highway is like the mother of these because we also have a turnpike and a freeway.

Freeway is supposed to be free. A turnpike is part of the highway you have to pay toll for. That's usually the difference. My understanding was also that they were literally elevated, some, not all, historically. They were higher than the, yeah. And then lastly, we have an interstate love song by Stone Temple Pilots. Interstate goes between states, but not all the time, but not all the time within the highway system. Here's some other kind of unusual road names.

We have a, so court, circle, place. Usually, it's a road that ends in a loop or a circle. It doesn't go anywhere else. It goes kind of around itself. A terrace, terrace, usually to describe a street following the top of a slope. So you're like on top and that road becomes a terrace. Causeway is road that passes like low water or swampy grounds. And then a beltway is a highway surrounding a city like a belt around.

the waste of the city. I've lived on a drive, a couple of streets, an avenue. I guess that's it. A drive, a couple streets and an avenue. That's my life history. All right. Well, good job, guys. We got there.

And that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn stuff about mailing children, about combustible. nuts about roads and streets and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and on all podcast apps

and on our website, good job brain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like History of Everything, Tumble the Science Podcast for Kids, and the movies that made us.

We'll see you guys next week. Bye. Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Vigelin, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not-so-famous adventures from throughout history. Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers Podcast.