Good Job, Brain! - 99: Viva Las Vegas! Part II

Episode Date: February 19, 2014

Our wallets may be a little lighter but we're winning big in titillating facts and trivia about Sin City. Did you know before Super Mario and Zelda, Nintendo had a Vegas connection? Colin obsesses over blackjack and the history of card-counting, and Dana's got a celebrity quiz about quicky weddings. Karen answers some of her burning questions about playing cards and Chris shares hotel facts that might literally shock you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. This episode of Good Job Brain was recorded in the signaling city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Enjoy part two of Fiva, Las Vegas. Hello, awesome, auspicious audience awaiting awe-striking audio. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 99, and I am your humble host, Karen, and we are your quirky quizzing quartet of quarrelers. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. Let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. Oh, man, my voice. All right. Everybody got your barnyard buzzers. and I have a random Tribal Pursue Card. Here we go. Blue Wedge for Geography.

In what two European countries can you hear residents speaking Basque? Oh, Basque. That would be France and Spain. Correct. It's a language and an area. It's a language and a cultural group. Got it. Yes, yes.

The Basque people live in the Pyrenees. Pink Wedge for pop culture. In what city was rapper T-Pain born? I'm going to guess Atlanta Incorrect There is a hint in his name Chris And now he's a hint in his name

Paineville Tulsa, Oklahoma It's a right way of thinking Yes City with a T There's two good ones in Florida It is in Florida I'm thinking like either Tampa or Italian

Tallahassee. Tahassee. Tallahassee. Tallahassee. Tallahassee. Tallahassee Paine. It's from the panhandle. Yeah, he can do like a country act, too. Yeah, yeah. That's also a good professional poker player named Tallahassee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really quite, quite versatile. Yeah. All right, Yellow Wedge. What was the top of the Empire State Building originally designed for? It was designed originally to more airships. yeah docking airship what yeah that would be awesome awesome like sketches and things I've seen online of that holy cow

yeah and then you just like climb down the ladder your airship and go you know yeah because airships yeah that was gonna be a thing that was it was yeah all right purple wedge what is the name of mad magazine's mascot everybody Alfred E. Newman yes green wedge for science What was the first major U.S. city to ban artificial trans fat in restaurants? Oh.

Artificial. Chris. Was it New York City? Yes. All right. I knew that they had a trans fat ban. No, we don't have, no. If we had had a trans fat ban, I would have heard about it.

I would have had to throw out all my trans fats. All right. Last question, Orange Wedge. Name four of the original seven trading commodities in the game. Pit. I don't even know what that is. I am not. Chris.

So is it like stocks, bonds? No, like commodities. Oh, commodities? Cold. Sugar. Based on our knowledge of other games, I bet we could fit yet. Wool, maybe? Gold.

Steel? You guys haven't said anything. Well, okay. All right. Okay. What are they? Barley, corn, flax, hay, oats, rye, and wheat.

I was going to say wheat. I feel like we could have gotten wheat. Yeah. But then I wouldn't have known to dive deeper into specific types of grains. It sounds like a crazy, like, multi-grained bread. I've never heard of this game. I haven't either.

I've heard of the game, but I've, like, I've seen the box, a card game that comes in a box. All right. Good job, Brains. So we're still in Vegas. We're still here. And I'm a little hungover. Uh-huh. But we had lots of fun.

We did. Yeah. It was definitely fun from an unexpected source for sure. Yeah. We watched Colin play Blackjack. Oh. For like a really long time. For like an hour, I think we sat there and just watching.

It was really fun. You guys were like a good luck charge. Yeah. You have the basic strategies and you're really good at sticking to them. Like you don't get emotional. I try to have a good time. I'm paying for entertainment. I don't get all serious about it.

Well, it's fun for us because we're doing problem solving, but it's not our money on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the vicarious. Yeah. And so today is our Viva Las Vegas part two. I have fun in the weekend The deep end We're swimming with the sharks

And to be drowned Okay So first there's going to be So first I'm going to give you guys a choice You can either gamble or you can play it safe Option number one is I will give you an 80% chance of winning $4,000 and a 20% chance of getting nothing. Or you can pick option number two, which is a 100% chance of me giving you $3,000. Tell me, just right now, spur of the moment, what would you jump for?

Okay, so repeat the options again? I'm going to repeat the options. An 80% chance of getting $4,000, 20% chance of getting nothing at all. Or instead of that, a 100% chance of getting $3,000. Oh, the second. You go for the second one? Yeah. I would take the second one, the second one.

You would take the $3,000? Okay. You are in line with about 80% of people who would just take the sure thing. They would go with the $3,000. That's a lot of money. So here's question number two. Okay. Again, two choices.

Option one. I'll give you an 80% chance of losing $4,000 right out of your bank account. count or a 20% chance of breaking even and you don't lose anything versus option number two, which is a 100% chance that you will lose $3,000. I would take the 80% chance of losing $4,000. Yeah. What about you guys? I know it's irrational, but I would do it.

Would you lose $3,000 for sure or would you take the 80% 20% chance of either losing more, losing $4,000 or 20% chance of you break even and you don't lose anything? When you're talking about taking you. away something, it's different. I hate my brain, but that's what I would choose. I would choose the first option. You would take the gamble? Just for that chance that nothing happens.

Dana, you're a little, and you're kind of going back and forth. You're not sure what you would do. Well, I'll tell you, again, in this case, 92% of people choose to take the gamble. Really? And the thing is, both of the decisions that you guys made mathematically are actually, no, they're wrong. They're both the wrong decision. In the case of gaining money, an 80-20 chance to get way more money is actually a really good gamble that you should take because the odds are so much better.

And in the chance of losing money, you have a really good chance of actually losing more money. And the smart thing to do is just to lose the $3,000 if those are the two things you have to choose from. But again, most people are like you guys and make the mathematically wrong decision. Why is this? This comes from a 19... I feel like a dummy. No, no, you're just a normal person like everybody else. This comes from a 1979 study, and they called it prospect theory, or the theory of how people choose between different prospects, different prospective options that are in front of them.

What they say that it shows is that people are not necessarily risk averse all the time, but that people are definitely loss averse. We do not like the idea of losing things. So let me illustrate this with a personal example. A couple of years ago, I was on eBay, looking at items that people had put up with a buy-it-now price as soon as they put them up to see if anybody put up something that was a lot cheaper than it should be so I could buy it really quickly. In rapid succession, this happened. Somebody put up a video game for $50. And I knew that video game was worth about $500. So very quickly, I bought it.

then they put up another video game that was $50 and I thought to myself oh is this is this one worth money is worth a lot of money I think it is but I don't know if I want to pay $50 because maybe it's not in that span of time that I was thinking about it somebody else bought it and then I did a little bit more research and I realized that other video game was worth at the time about $300 and I totally should have bought it so I get the game that I had gotten at a great great deal in the mail was I happy no no because all you were thinking about it It was the one you didn't. It was the score of a lifetime. It was an amazing, amazing deal for this really rare game. And when I think about that day, I feel a twinge of regret that I lost out on the other one. So even though I came out way ahead, I counted as a loss. Like, if you gain $100 and lose $80, you think to yourself that you lost, even though you're $20 ahead of where you used to make. Yeah.

That's so weird. People, you should take, like, the 80-20 risk when it's in your favor. and you should not take it when it's not in your favor, but people don't think of it like that. They don't, you don't want to have the bad feeling of losing. And you guys are thinking about, well, I mean, if I'm going to lose $3,000, I might as well lose $4,000. Because it's not the money.

It's the bad feeling, and you're going to feel bad whatever. So you're going to take the outside chance that you're not going to have the bad feeling. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Yeah, and like I can feel myself thinking that. And I'm like, no, that's wrong. Oh, but there's a chance. I've got a one and five chance. And this is why this is a component of some people getting addicted to gambling.

If you're gambling and you've lost money, the smart thing to do is to just stop and walk away. But people will throw good money after bad because they want to get back their losses. Yeah. And this is why sometimes, like, people will start behaving more recklessly when they're gambling after they've lost money because they're trying to recklessly. Yeah, totally. Because they want to avoid that bad feeling of I lost. And if they can at least get back to having. broken even, they'll walk out feeling good.

In your first example, 80% chance of winning $4,000 and 20% chance of winning nothing, if I'm in that 20% chance, I'd feel so bad. I'd rather just get $3,000. You would feel like you'd lost the $3,000 that you could have gotten. There was a study in 2012, and this is kind of, this study is still kind of in its early days, but the study linked the presence of the chemical norapinephrine in the brain. to a lessened sensation of loss aversion. If you've got more of it in your brain, you don't feel those losses as hard.

Can I take it? That's the thing. They're trying to come up with, like, is there a way we can actually medicate people to get rid of their gambling addictions? Because if we put more noropenephrine in there, they won't feel the loss as hard, and they won't feel as compelled to go, quote, win back their losses. That's really interesting. Yep.

So obviously a lot of card games in Vegas, Blackjack, Texas Hold'em, normal poker, a bunch of variations of those games. As a kid, I love playing cards. I've learned how to play poker at a very early age, and there's some burning questions I just want to share with you guys. And I research on the answers, so I know the answers. So my first burning question is, I just never understood why a club was called a club. Okay. Okay, all right. Like, the shape of it is a clover.

Uh-huh. What is a club? The heart looks like a heart. A diamond is a diamond. A spade looks like a spade or a leaf, a shovel. Shovel. What's a club? I feel like I've heard this before.

I'm going to guess. I'm just going to guess that it's like an etymology shift thing, that like maybe club and clover, the words are related. I don't know. Nope. So playing cards are old. You know, I mean, people can say it stem from China. They used to have cards with people's faces on them. The current modern playing cards, as we know, stem mostly from European traditions.

During the 14th century, there are a lot of British soldiers who were returning from wars from Italy and Spain. They were playing playing cards, but it was the Latin-based deck. Different cultures have different symbols for the suits. Right, right. So the suit we know now, hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds are of the French suit. But the Latin suit used four different symbols. It was cups, coins, clubs. Like the tarot.

Yeah, it's really similar. Yeah, because taro has an Italian symbology behind it. And like staves and coins, cups, swords, and clubs. Okay. So when there was a symbol switch, you know, since the French one became more popular, people still refer to the Clovers as clubs. So it's not because the clover is club or some, you know, misunderstanding. they're just calling it the old name.

Got it. The old name stood in and the image. Like club as in a club you beat someone with. Yeah. Right, right, right. Got it. So not very exciting, but that's the answer. You said it's the French deck tradition.

In French, do they call it a clover or do they call it a club? They call it a trefoil. Ah. So in other cultures, the old-timey suits are all different. So in Germany, there were hearts, leaves, bells, and acorns. Cute. And then Switzerland, there's. They're shields, roses, bells, and acorns.

Somehow bells and acorns. I guess I don't know. There's a lot of them. All right. So my other question is, so I know what a king is. Most people know what a king is. People know what a queen is. What is a jack?

Who is a jack? Why is he a guy? But why is he a face card? Oh, I don't know. Like, is he a prince? I always assumed it was, yeah, like the jack, the knave. That position is commonly called the knave. But when you abbreviate it, in the same thing,

is pre-17th century. When you abbreviate it, you have K, Q, and then you have another K. Oh. So, uh, sometimes they refer to as big K little N, but that's so similar to the big K. Yeah, yeah. And so the term Jack was borrowed from another game, an English Renaissance card game called All Fours, where the name had the name Jack. The thing is, this game was kind of considered like lowbrow.

Mm-hmm. And so they didn't. want to use the word jack it seems kind of vulgar however comes to a point where they're like we got to change second k because it's messing things up so they change the nave to jack however this doesn't happen in any other languages it's just english because in french it's called valet so the abbreviation would be a v it's just english that king and name is k and k so valet like valet like the servant? Like a squire. So he's not, so I guess, I always thought

he was a prince. He's not a prince. He's like a royal servant. And finally, there are nicknames for cards, right? So there's the one-eyed jacks and there's suicide king. Oh, right. And there's bedpost queen. Now in standard playing card decks, the patterns or the designs are kind of standardized

now. Some of the kings are facing this way and sometimes they hold a sword. Queen of spades always has some sort of post behind her and I thought as a kid I was like there must be like a secret meaning and they must be for something and like why are the one-eyed jacks one-eye jacks there must be a story behind it no it's just design and one design stuck and it just kind of went that way however the united states playing card company suggests that maybe in the old days there was some sort of

this king was meant to be this king but it's not confirmed and also like aligning to a real live person. Yeah. So cards weren't being made by different companies or different artists. Maybe one person thought, like, I'm going to make all the kings, you know, represent some real king. But in terms of our standardized deck, they're not meant to be anybody. But at one point, you know, the King of Hearts was set to be Charlemagne. King of Diamonds was Julius Caesar. King of Clubs was Alexander the Great. And King of Spades was King David. At one point, maybe. Some one deck did that but now they don't really mean anything and all those special like this king has a mustache and this king does this it's all it's just part of a design okay no secret meaning i didn't know about

the queens what was the bed post queen queen of queen oh okay there's always she has like some pillar oh i gotta look for that i don't think i ever knew that yeah i never heard of that there you go not very mind-blowing but answers whoa but answers yes uh you know nintendo started as a playing card company i think we might have mentioned that on the show before right yep Hanafuda. Hana fuda, flower cards. And the reason that they did flower cards, which basically they were cards with images of nature on them, mostly flowers, and all of them represented the months of the year, you know, that sort of thing.

The reason that they started making those was in 1889 was because Western playing cards and really all forms of gambling were just sort of generally banned. So Hana fuda cards became popular. It was like, oh, no, it's a game. of culture and poetry and images and memory. But because the cards were, you know, kind of like divided into suits and, you know, you could be, you could kind of like, you could make a gambling game around it. And so illicit kind of gambling games started up like that.

That was, you know, much later, like hundreds of years after Hanafuda were invented, that's when the Nintendo company was founded. For like decades upon decades, Nintendo pretty much just made, you know, Hana Fuda. And they got into the making of Western cards, too, because by then, you know, the band had kind of been lifted. Nintendo really did a very good job at, like, introducing innovations into the playing card industry. So some things you might not know about them as a maker of gambling devices. In 1953, they made the first Japanese-made plastic playing cards. The playing cards we use now are plastic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were... Because they don't fold and they don't, like, peel. That's right. And in 1959, this was big for them. They licensed Disney characters. They struck a deal with Disney to make playing cards with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, etc. What they did with that was they took a thing that was still looked at in Japan as being like gambling.

And they turned it into a child's toy. And that's how they expanded the market for Western-style playing cards in Japan. It's wholesome. It's got Mickey Mouse on it. Right. So on the road to becoming a video game company. which you did in the late 1970s, what Nintendo did. And Nintendo did all kinds of stuff.

They tried to do food, you know, the fricake seasoning that, like, goes on to rice. You know, the things you sprinkle onto rice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They did foodicake that was, like, I think it was, like, Popeye. Okay. I think it was Popeye. Like, they tried that. I mean, like a taxi company.

Most infamously, Nintendo had a love hotel. Like, they actually tried to get into love hotel business. Wow. Yeah. And all of these things were just sort of like, they were just kind of farting around, you know. It wasn't, they just weren't really able to, they weren't able to get anything going. They were looking for something to stick. Yeah, yeah.

And so what ended up sticking was toys. They started making toys. That was what did it. And so Nintendo, they made tons and tons of toys. The Nintendo would license toys. Like, Nintendo licensed Twister and released Twister in Japan. You know, they manufacture things sometimes. and then send them to foreign countries to be sold there.

So before Nintendo, you know, in video games, came to America, like there were Nintendo products out there. And I know this for a fact. And there's, again, there's not a lot of info out there. I know this because I actually bought on eBay very recently in Nintendo miniature home roulette game. This was one of the things that they sold in the U.S. And it has English...

Like a physical toy. Like a physical, a little chinty plastic roulette wheel, a little tiny little ball and a felt mat, you know, for placing bets and little tiny little chips for betting, and it all says Nintendo on it. And the price tag is still on the box. And the price tag is from Circus Circus. Oh. Casinos here on the Vegas Strip.

Wow. So, if your parents or grandparents, like in the 60s, you know, ever went to Las Vegas and maybe brought back some kind of crappy souvenir from the gift shop, go take a look at that. because, like, it might have been made by Nintendo. Wow. Weird, right? I even have, Nintendo made, like, a little travel roulette set.

Like, you know, a little travel game. Like, it's... But when you really need to get a game in on the game. I don't know why, I don't know why, like, all these... It's so elaborate for a portable game. Very few of Nintendo's, like, toy game products got distributed in the U.S., but, like, roulette wheels for some reason were, like, a big overseas market seller for Nintendo. Maybe nobody else made them very much.

in the U.S., and Nintendo was just sort of on top of that, like, filling that roulette-shaped hole at America's hearts. That's the sort of thing that you think you're going to play once you get back from Las Vegas, but you really don't. No, no. I have a little, it's a little travel roulette set. It's about the size of, like, a stack of business cards, basically, and it's got a little tiny roulette wheel, a little tiny ball, you know, tinier ball, tinier felt thing.

I'm sure that's a really precision piece of gaming equipment. Yeah, I'm sure they calibrate it and everything. It's got the name of a Las Vegas radio station, like, embossed into the plastic. So it must have been, like, a promotional item that they gave out, probably not even directly from Nintendo. There was probably, like, distributors in the U.S. that would just buy containers full of stuff from Japan and then sell it here. Whether there is, like, a weird Vegas-Nintendo connection. There is.

There is a little, there's an old... But they don't do, you know, there's slot machines for everything, but there's no Nintendo slot machines. No, they don't do that. They might do that one day if they really need the money. There used to be, and I used to love playing the Star Wars slot machines. I haven't seen one. Oh, yeah, you're right.

I wonder if it's the Disney thing. They must not do it. Maybe they did, because you don't see Disney slot machines. I bet you in our lifetimes at some point we'll see like, Disney and Nintendo slot machines. The deal with the slot machines, like the Wonka Slot Machine, is you see something familiar, some franchise that you love, and it's going to attract you to that machine. So imagine the Disney slot machines. It's the image, right?

Like, they don't want it associated with gambling, but, like, adults would sit there and play Disney slot machines. Yeah, because we grew up with it. I mean, we saw this phenomenon firsthand. We were walking to the casino, and Karen's like, oh, Willie Wonka. I must do it. I think more than a lot of tourist destination cities, Las Vegas has a lot more mythology built up around it and just crazy stories and tales that may or may not be true. Popularized by movies.

Popularized by movies and popular culture. That's right. That's right. So what I have collected for you guys are some true or false statements about Las Vegas and environs. Trafalse. Trafalz. Trafal.

So I will read out these. These may be real. These may be misconceptions. You guys, want you to give a thumbs up for true, thumbs down for false. All right. Okay. So, Karen, as you mentioned, one of the truly nice perks of gambling is the free drinks. Yes.

Drinks everywhere, alcohol, beer, whatever. Walk around while you're carrying it. So, true or false, in Las Vegas, it is legal to carry an open container of alcohol in public anywhere you go. Oh. Anywhere you go. Well, what kind of open container? A beer bottle with just out in the open, let's say. All right.

Karen, Dana say false. Chris says true. It is a little nuanced. It is false. Okay. The open container law is really, in the codes, are on the strip, on the Las Vegas strip, and, you know, the Fremont Street area downtown. Oh, okay.

Once you get away from the Las Vegas strip, Las Vegas is like most other cities in the country. You can't just walt around carrying an open container of beer. Like in the suburbs, you're like, yeah. Yeah. True or false, casinos in Las Vegas often pump hyper-oxygenated air into the casinos to keep patrons alert and gambling longer. Wait, I feel like I don't want the guests to be alert. The story is that you want them as awake as possible. They can't give you money if they're asleep.

Karen and Chris say false. Dana says true. This is one of the oldest, most persistent misconceptions about Las Vegas. Oh, yeah, you know, they pump oxygen into the casinos to keep you alert and fresh. No, this is false. They do not pump oxygen-oxygenated air. They do have efficient air filtration systems because there are people smoking and it's a large, you know, large building. But no, not only is it actually illegal to pump oxygen.

into the air system of a building. It would actually be pretty hazardous. I mean, as you guys probably know, the more oxygen content in the air, the more flammable it is. And you don't want to be oxygenating a building where people are lighting up cigarettes left and right. So I was trying to find out, like, where does this come from? Aside from just being as, oh, an old misconception, a lot of people think this may go back to a book by Mario Puzzo, who we have talked about in the show. Yes, very famously wrote the godfather books.

That's right. In his book, Fools Die, he talks about how the fictitious Zanadu Casino would pump oxygen into the vents to sort of keep people hopped up and ready to gamble. It is not true. They don't do it. True or false. Prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. Oh. Karen says true.

Chris and Dana say false. That is false. It is legal everywhere in Nevada except for Las Vegas, right? It is legalized county by county. Right. It is not legal in Clark County, where Las Vegas is. That's right. That's right.

This would be a different place, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it would. I think as much vice and sin as this city embraces, I think that would probably be, yeah, try to bring your kids here. Yeah. All right, last one, guys. Here we go.

True or false, casinos intentionally do not place clocks or other timepieces on the wall as a way of keeping patrons from knowing exactly what time it is. I hear this all the time. It's like coupled with, that's why there are no windows and that's why it's dark. So you never know like what you don't have a good gauge of what time it really is. I'm a conspiracy theorist. I say yes. Yeah.

Karen says true. Chris says false. It is true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and you know, I have to say, I think like this is, this is only slightly devious on the scale of things that they could. do. But you're right, Karen, it's part of the same parcel of...

You want all the time, bring a watch. And, you know, look on your phone. Look at your watch. That's right. But they intentionally, part of good casino design, as you say, keep you away from the windows, no daylight. They don't want you to realize, oh, my God, I've been sitting at this table. It's 3 a.m. I've been here for four hours. That's how I felt last night. I was like, wow, cool. It is amazing, yeah, how quickly time can pass, and you don't realize it. When you walk through the casino during the day, it's like, is it nighttime? Like, the way the lights are kind of dim? You can't tell, yeah. You can't tell, yeah. They're certainly not going to prevent you from looking at the time, but they're not going to help you out either.

Yeah. All right. Wow. All right. So we haven't talked about this yet, but Vegas is also known. In addition to gambling and drinking and debauchy, it's also known for quickie marriages. Yo. That's true.

That's right. You don't need blood tests here to get married. It's very cheap. Getting divorce is also very cheap here. It's ideal if you're not. get very romantic spur of the moment. It's what your priorities are,

I guess. So I have a quiz for you guys. It's about quickie, Vegas weddings that mostly ended in divorce. Yeah, quickly divorced by celebrities.

Oh. And so it's four that, four that ended quickly and one that lasted. Okay. Oh, that's good. Silver lighting. All right.

This couple married in January of 2004, and it annulled their marriage 55 hours later. They were childhood friends. and knew each other from their hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana. Everybody. Britney Spears and some guy.

Kent, something? He shares his name with a famous actor. Kevin. No. Jason Alexander. Jason Alexander. It's a famous actor. It's pretty famous.

You guys knew what I was talking about. I'm just kidding, Jason Alexander. She did not marry George from Seinfeld. No. For 55. hours time. These celebs who are like, maybe that I would say almost like the face

of pop culture, celebrity pop culture in the 90s. One is a basketball player, the other is a dancer and TV personality, married in 1998 and filed an annulment nine days later. Karen. Carmen Electra? Yes. Yeah.

All right. And you can do Dennis Robbins. Yeah. How would you describe her profession? I like you're like, she's a dancer. and TV personality. I know. I purposely admitted the singer part. She was a singer, too.

This couple married in Vegas in 2000, after just dating for a few weeks, and they divorced in 2003, they starred together in a movie. That's how they met. They're known for their very unconventional declarations of love for each other. Oh, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thorne. Yes. Oh. Yeah.

They would wear vials of blood around their, of each other. Other's blood. They were at pushing tin to go. And you don't even need a blood test. No, they get it anyway. I forgot that all happened. Yeah. Billy Bob Thornton.

That's right. Yeah. Okay. So this celebrity couple went in 1966 at the Sands Casino and Hotel. They split two years later. They divorced when she refused to quit her movie to work on his movie. Uh, Elizabeth Taylor. No.

Okay. No. Bobby Darren No The movie that she was working on Was Rosemary's Baby Oh Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra

Yes What? Whoa She didn't want to leave Well Wikipedia says And it seemed to check out She didn't want to leave Rosemary's baby

Or quit that movie To work on his movie The Detective Which I think was probably A good career move But it ended her marriage To him I don't know

All right finally This talk show host married her actor-husband in 1996, and they remained together until this day. Talk show host. Actor-husband. 1990. 19-19-19-6. And they, I'll give you more hints, they have commercials where they sell appliances, and they talk about how happy they are. Kelly Rippa.

Yes. And Mark Consuelos. Oh, that's right. Yes. Soap opera, right? Yeah. Well, they sell appliances. yeah. She's like throwing a birthday party for her dog. I remember that commercial. I was like, oh, I always want to go. I'm so jealous. I'm going to go to your dog's birthday party.

A dog living large. Yeah. And use your crazy refrigerators. They got married in Vegas. Yep. All right. We're going to take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.

Steve Cubine and Nan McNamara's podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. Mary writes everything down. And so this torrid affair with Georges Kaufman, is chronicled on a daily basis. In great detail. And I. Pulse pulls out a box and gives McAllister a ring saying, here's something to remember me by.

This article caused Daryl Zanick to hit the roof. Actress Ruth Roman followed that up with playing a foil to Betty Davis in Beyond the Force. I mean, if you can stand toe to toe with her, boy. And she does because she plays the daughter of the man that Betty Davis kills out in the hunting trip. And it's directed by King Vidor. So, he's no slouch. How do you go wrong with that? Speaking of the Oscars, talking about what I call Beginners Luck,

it's all about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film. Get your fix of Old Hollywood from Stephen Ann on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. And we're back. You're listening to Good Job Brain. And this week is our Vegas Part 2 episode. Yeah, yeah, ooh, part two. Let me tell you something about Las Vegas, okay? I checked in.

I got here a few days ago. Buster Brown. I checked in out at the Hard Rock Hotel. And, of course, you know, because these casinos are really huge, I check in at the registration desk, and then I walk, and I walk, and I walk, and I walk for a long time until I get to the elevator that's going to actually take me up to my room because it's this sort of sprawling complex. And, you know, as you do, when you get to an elevator, I reached out with my

finger to press the up button on the wall, and just before my finger touched that button, a massive spark of electricity left my body and went right into the wall, and I was like, do that, yeah, then I remembered. I'm like, oh, that's right. I've stayed at the hard rock before, and I get shocked all the time at the hard rock all the time. Every single time I touch metal and touch the elevator buttons, I just get shocked. It's very rock and roll. Super raw, yeah. And so, as it turns out, you know, static electricity, build up of static electricity and shocking yourself is actually more of an issue in Las Vegas and places like Las Vegas than it is elsewhere. Why?

Well, let me tell you all about it. It's the gambling. No, I mean like the slot machine and like electricity. That plays into it a little bit, but it's more of an effect rather than a cause. So let's talk about, you know, let's just get our bases covered here. What is static electricity? It's the transfer of electronic. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's as opposed to, like, current electricity, which is constantly flowing, static electricity is electricity that is static and is hanging out inside of you. And it causes, it is caused when, like, two objects touch and separate or rub up against each other or have any, you know, friction. And if a material or an object, if it's holding on to its electrical, Electrons weekly, and then it kind of comes into contact with something that maybe holds onto electrons a little bit more strongly. There's a transfer. There is a transfer of electrons. And, you know, your body holds onto electrons pretty good.

Carpet and fabrics and things like that don't really hold their electrons so well. And so that's why, you know, when you're like, you know, when your clothes are rubbing together or like your clothes are in the dryer rubbing against each other or, you know, when, you know, when you want to really shock somebody, you can take. your shoes off. Rub your feet on the carpet. Rub your feet super hard and create a lot of friction on the carpet. You're going to transfer a lot of electrons. Then you go up to your little brother and you're like, you know.

Or sister. Either way. Either way. You guys have a weird relationship with their siblings. You never shocked your siblings growing up. You're missing out. So there are actually different kinds of static electricity. Like you can actually build up static electricity just by pressure, but like a lot of pressure.

But what we're talking about here is the tribo-electric. effect, and that is the transfer of electrons by basically friction, by two different materials touching, touching, separating, or rubbing against each other. So, once you have, like, extra electrons hanging out in your body, if you touch something that is a good conductor of electricity, the electrons will leave. And if, basically, if that touch point is, like, as something like as small as your fingertip and a little piece of metal, all the electrons leaving will be concentrated in a very, you know, small area.

So you'll feel it more and you'll get shocked. Because it's less area. It's concentrated. But if it's like, say, a larger area, it wouldn't, you actually wouldn't notice it that much. So it's like your whole face. Put your whole face on the button. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing.

So, I mean, every time after I got shocked, I would now walk up to the elevators and then, like, touch the metal with my elbow or, like, touch it with my arm or whatever. so it's sort of, it's not as sensitive as my fingertip. So, why do you suppose it is worse when you're here in Las Vegas? I thought it was electricity. I feel that has something to do with, yeah, the humidity or lack thereof. Okay.

It totally has to do with the lack of humidity. Why would that be the case? Well, is it because, is it, I'm just, that when there's more moisture in the air, it can conduct better? Bingo, bango. The dry air is an insulator. The moisture in the air is conducting electricity away from your body because water is a good conductor of electricity. So it takes the electrons away from your body as you're just hanging out. But when things are really dry, as in here in Las Vegas, there's less moisture in the air and the electrons have nowhere to go.

So they hang out in your body and you get zapped more. And like people who like move to Las Vegas, I'm just walking around my house and I'm like, shock, shock, shock, shock all day. And they're like, why is this the case? and what can I do about it? Yeah, what can you do about it? You wear metal shoes? Keep a humidifier running. And it happens to people when they are getting into their cars.

And it happens when they're in their cars because you're in your car. You do. You get it on the car door. You get it when you're just in your car randomly because, like, your clothes, they're constantly rubbing up against the fabric of the seat. And it's just generating static electricity. And then you touch something metal in your car and you get shocked just driving down the street. It's amazing how much, like, I hate that moment. Like, oh, I know it's coming.

No, it's coming. It's such a small, minor amount of pain, but it's the fact that you know it's coming. It's the anticipation. Yeah, that's the, right, that's the torture. It's the water torture kind of thing. When I run those tough mud run those tough mud runs, there's obstacle course ones. Oh, they electrify you, right? They electrocate you.

They have live wires and stuff. And it's, it's the anticipation that makes us so much worse because you know it's coming and you're waiting for it to come. And it's a surprise because you don't know when or where you'll get shot. And when it happens, I'm like, like, whoa, it's not even the shock. It's the surprise that makes me crumble into the ground. I'd be running, but like, bzit.

I'm like, bleh. They got me. They got me. I can't help you in the tough mutter course, but what can you do, like, if you're in your home and you're constantly getting shocked? You can get a humidifier. You can get a humidifier and humidify the air, and that would really help. Something else you can do is use fabric softener.

So, fabric softener, which you use, now, sometimes you can pour this into, you know your washing machine but also dryer sheets uh have like dry what i think when you're like fabric softener i think it's like a naked person just rubbing the fabric softener sheets is that teddy bear he like falls into the sheets just rolling around and then naked yeah so the fabric softener and when you put in a dryer sheet into the dryer what that is is like there's fabric softener in the sheet and when it warms up it releases basically it acts of a lubricant, so your clothes don't rub together as much.

The stuff that's in fabric softener is positively charged. Whoa! That's purposely pump it into the stick. That's why they use that stuff because it cancels out the negative electrons and all that kind of stuff. Some people don't like using dryer sheets to get rid of static cling. You know what

they can do? Think about it. What could you just put in your dryer? That's what a positive a battery. Don't put a battery in your dryer. You know what you can do? You can take aluminum foil and ball it up.

Take a foil ball and just put it in the dryer with your clothes and that will take all the electrons on and the foil ball. Because it's conducting the electricity away. That's a good little trick. Please don't put a battery. I don't know. Right. Right.

And if you are really having problems, because this can be a problem in casinos, like somebody could technically, you know, electronics are very sensitive. I have heard anecdotally that like people will walk around. in a casino, you know, shuffling their feet, not on purpose, but like, they'll walk around in a casino, sit down in a machine, touch the machine, and fry it. Because they send so much electricity into a sensitive part of the slot machine that it just goes bust. Like the button. Yeah. And you can do this to your computer. You can do this to a lot of electronics. You know, if you are having this problem in, like, your office or whatever it is, just take fabric

softener or like a diluted solution of fabric softener in water and just spray it on your carpet. Just all over your naked body. Yeah, yeah, or that. But just positively charge your carpet so you don't get it picking it up. So what's the deal with the Hard Rock Hotel's carpet? Beats the heck out of me. I wanted to find some solution or to why it was the Hard Rock because of the hotel that we're in. It doesn't bother me nearly as much.

It must just be the perfect storm of right. Humidity type of carpet. The air conditioning. It could be the air that they're pumping in. Maybe they're humidify the air in this hotel and they don't in the Hard Rock. It beats me. On the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast.

Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns.

Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen. All right, and we have one last segment. So as I mentioned earlier, I believe my favorite casino game is Blackjack. Love sitting at the blackjack table. You guys have been humoring me, following me around, trying to find the one with just the right odds and the right payout and everything. You're a real BJ expert. Ambushed That's the name of my counting app

He's like This is my flat check out It's BJ expert I keep it I deliberately keep it like On the second page of the games It's a little embarrassing Yeah

BJ expert And like you can't change it No That's the title of the At least the picture Is up hard So you guys probably heard of Card Counting

Right And do you guys know Very quickly what card counting is? Can you give me just like the five second description? So if you're sitting at the blackjack table, you're sort of just keeping track of all of the cards that are being played out of the deck or out of the whole stack of many, many decks that they're... What is it called? The shoe. The shoe, yes. And so you're just keeping track of what cards have been played. And so as they get down to the bottom of the shoe, it might be, you know there's

a lot of good cards left in there. That is the point. Once you've kept track of all the cards, that's when you start betting bigger amounts of money because your chance of winning has gone up. Yep, yeah, you've got it pretty much exactly right. But the one thing to add to that, that a lot of people have a misconception that card counting is keeping track of every card that has come out. You know, they have this image of like in Rain Man where it's, oh, he memorized the entire order, and that's not what card counting is at all. You really are just keeping track of the ratio of high cards to low cards.

Right, and so you're just subtracting and adding in your head. That's right. There are a lot of variations on the systems, but essentially you're right. You're keeping a running count. And, you know, as a player, you want a deck to have a lot of tens and aces in it, basically. Right. And again, that's why the casinos don't work with one deck of cards and then replace it because it's so much easier to count one deck of – I mean, you and I could count on deck of cards having no training because we'd see all the – you know, we'd see, oh, wow, they're down to only a little few cards and no aces have come out. That's hard counting. You know that the cards are waiting there for you.

And there are places you can still play single and double deck blackjack. They tend to be lower limit tables For partly this reason And they started putting in place a lot of restrictions Once it became apparent that people knew how to card count You know, one common restriction is you can't come in mid-shoe If you're playing at a single or double-deck hand Because they don't want you standing there waiting for it to be rich

And tens and aces Oh, I'm going to play now Right But that's essentially how the big MIT gang ran their operations It wasn't like they all just went and sat down at tables And just play cards It was like they had one person at every table

counting, just counting, counting, bidding low amounts, throwing money away. And then as soon as, right, like as soon as one of the tables became super hot and the person knew it, that's when they'd signal to the big money player to come in, the guy who really knew what he was doing that he would start throwing out

the huge amounts of money. That's right. All right. So here's a question of you guys. Card counting. Is this legal or is it illegal? I believe it's legal. I think it's totally legal. It is 100% legal. And the courts have upheld that. it is legal. You are not breaking the law by card counting.

Now, historically, there's no... So this is interesting. So the casinos obviously don't like it if you're card counting. And historically, they would harass you and up to the point of if they suspected you have card counting. And you can tell if you know what you're doing, watching somebody making irrational bets or what's seen to be irrational bets. Right.

If a guy's like $5, $5, $5, $5, $5, $1,000, $1,000, $1,000, $1,000, $1,000. Oh, that's right. And they would, you know, anywhere from, excuse me, sir, we need to ask you to leave to picking you up and throwing you out. Right. You know, over years they've gotten a lot more polite about it. In 1979, one of the most famous figures in the world of blackjack card counting, I mean, Ken Austin, who has written books on how to count. Oh, yeah. He sued an Atlantic City casino because he had been banned. He was so good and become so well known, they wouldn't let him play.

And he sued the casino on the grounds that you can't bar players based on their skill. He's like, I'm not marking the cards, I'm not bending the cards, I'm not communicating, I'm just keeping track of statistics. He just has a really good memory. That's right. And the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with him. And they said that individual casinos cannot set requirements like keeping somebody out because they're too good at the game to play.

Right. The real answer is it's not illegal. They don't like it. And there are a lot of anecdotes of card counters who will say that if they know that the bosses are kind of onto them, they'll notice that they kind of come up to them and try and distract them or, you know, they'll try and interrupt their flow and, oh, can I get you the comp cards or get you new drink, these kind of things, and try and shake them out of the game. Right.

They cannot literally pick you up from the table and take you away from hard counting. They can ask you to leave, though? It depends on the casino. The more practical answer is they can also just make it harder to count. So a lot of the innovations in Blackjack in particular, they have what are called constant shufflers, as one example. So every time the cards come off the table, they go back into a pool of eight, 10, 12 decks that are constantly shuffling.

That ends it basically. That's right. So you have no idea what's coming next. And they could, I mean, really it's about waiting for the shoe to get down to a small number of cards. And they don't necessarily have to play through all of those cards. They just be like, okay, new shoe time when it's like down to like two decks or whatever. Yep. Just the final thing to note is they don't really need to worry that much about card counting.

They make so much money off of the average player, even if they know what they're doing, losing their money, that it more than covers any losses to professional card towners. Yes. don't think card counting is cheating. For some reason, I thought I'd heard that it was illegal, and I was so confused. It's like you're not allowed to have your own private thoughts while you're playing a game. Formulating a strategy is illegal in this game. Right. No.

Casinos make a whole lot of money off of people who think that they're going to go in there and cheat the casino, who think that, like, I've got my strategy for whatever it, for video poker to, you know, playing blackjack. My surefire. I've read the Ken Hustin book, and I'm going to take him for all. their money. And then they make a lot of money off those people because they go in and they bet big and they lose it all. And that's why those games are addictive is the thinking your strategy is actually affecting luck, things that are based on luck. Wow. All right. And that is the end of our Vegas part two. We're our Vegas duets, dual episodes. I hope you learn a lot of random stuff or some good home pro tips. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. More than our usual amount of laundry tips.

Really a lot. Now with 100% more. I hope you enjoyed all the Vegas trivia and facts and stories, and we enjoyed our stay at Vegas. It was very fun. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud,

and on our website, good job, brain.com. And thanks to our sponsor, Squarespace, as Squarespace.com. And 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.