Shutdown Fullcast - FANTASY DRAFT: American States

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

We, the 2019 State Draft GMs, are splitting the country into five teams for very weird reasons. Why are we doing this at all? You ask too many questions! Just like a cop! WE GOT A COP HERE! - Four teams are good. One is bad. I think you know where Florida ends up - What's the point of this? How do you win? I'm surprised you think there's an answer, but thank you for trying - Who'll be the first to pick a state that was already picked? - What is the state dessert of Missouri? - More explosive: DK Metcalf or the state of Mississippi's geology itself? - Which of us is just playing an actual board game the entire time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

welcome to the shutdown fullcast yeah it's the internet's only college football podcast thanks for listening oh man what are we going to talk about today I mean we do have some business before we get into the important business important you know some podcast business some podcast do we Jason does this qualify as podcast business

I can I get a can I get a few bars of our podcast business I'll pass up the opportunity to say the podcast business, podcast business, what's that business, podcast business, what's that business, podcast business, podcast business, tick. Now that we've been properly accompanied, we have some podcast business. Folks, if you are in the Houston or Austin area, we would like to see you this weekend, the weekend of Sunday, March 10th. We will be at South by Southwest on Sunday for a free show at the Belmont, along with a bunch of other Vox Media Entertainment stuff for the weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Go to pre-owned airboats.com.

You can RSVP for not just Arla thing, which would be at 2.30 local on Sunday. You can also, I mean, there's like, you can see. There's a whole bunch of other stuff. The homie Jane Koston is playing a couple, playing a couple gigs. with a podcast, you might actually learn something. I don't know if you really want to do that, but you can. There's an arcade.

They got Smash Brothers. You can come destroy me and Spencer and Smash Brothers. Yeah, we suck. Holly's probably good at it, but. Are you calling me a button masher? Because you're absolutely incorrect. I don't, I mean, you know, you're practicing on your Nintendo probably right at this moment. Actually, Spencer started to pass me the controller as we were setting up the microphone.

and I slapped his hand away because I paid attention for tonight's podcast business and I have done at least an hour's worth of prep which is going to be really sad once you see what I've done. Damn. There's also at this event

there's also, they've got some food, they got some snacks by some chefs who sound like they know what they're doing. There's a pretty cool band playing, the black pumas. So all this is free and you get to come hang out with our stupid thing and uh yeah and also in houston on saturday the day before what we doing

yeah i was just going to say but you know we love houston houston you express a moderate to severe amount of affection for us in return so we thought we'd do meet up there uh we're going to be meeting did we decide at a time yet uh the place opens at noon noon noon seems good enough for us yeah let's just call it you know noonish come meet us noonish at uh it's an extremely casual environment at moon tower moon tower so like outdoor sort of yeah it's a podcast meetup but it'd be a sausage fest even if it weren't a podcast meetup right at a hot dog place for men for men it's an actual uh sausage place but good beer i know there's like two of y'all girls in houston that are going to come to this and you're going to keep me company outstanding vittles at least two girls to keep holly company Oh, man. And nice tables.

It's outdoors. Because this is Texas. We've got to do it outdoors. A great state of Texas. We don't believe in walls here in the great state of Texas. Just open space and also a rail yard next door. No matter where you are in Houston, there's always a rail yard. Next door.

One will just pop up right there. Just the lonesome spirit of the American engineer. Coasting through like a lonesome cowboy. boy also he'll be escorting you while you go to our meetup at moon tower in houston uh noonish noonish in houston uh which is i believe noonish o'clock that's high noon in texas yeah we we hit all the texin buttons here i'm i'm excited though because uh texas is texas is our greatest state i'm really not i have no hesitation not saying that spoiler tip in your hand, tip in your hand there.

Or am I? Or is this a play fake? Oh, is this a work or a shoot? Bitch, we have to even determine draft order. We about to see. We need to determine draft order because tonight, before we take our Grand Road trip to the state of Texas, we are going to, we're going to have a draft because this draft season, and we thought that we would, I don't know.

Jason, can you explain the rules a little bit here as we know them? So, we are going to. have a fantasy draft of United States, states, the four of us. You're only hearing the voices of three of us. I'll explain. You might be wondering, you the listener, what this means when I say drafting states. What will each be building a roster of states? You might wonder what the point of this is. How do you decide who's won? What is the season? You might be wondering that. It's a fair thing to wonder. You might ask that as a question and expect an answer. that would be that would be noble of you to expect an answer but you're probably not going

to get one so what we're going to do is we're just going to draft states and then at some point in the future we'll determine who won could it be the end of the off season if we remember if we remember we'll look back and say oh yeah those states won the off season will it be based on football uh maybe somewhat i will i will go ahead and tip my hand here okay going in because i know every team has different needs when they're talking about states i'm going to tell you one state i'm not putting in and i'm not you just go ahead and take it because it's not on my board you're great at drafting i'll just know go ahead you can take this one i'm just gonna right which one that virginia it's not on my board uh also stricken from my list yeah it's because it's worthless it's he's up jason you have

ryan's proxy don't you what's he say uh i i can't i can't i can't tip i can't tip ryan's picks okay well guess what Ryan Ryan can Ryan can take the Commonwealth of Virginia right Ryan might end up with Virginia I have not looked at his list yet I didn't want to I didn't want that if he's how's this he'll take Virginia if his big priority on drafting is big trash so I will be wearing at least three or four hats

tonight I'll be jamming my own picks I'll also be the commish of this if anyone tries to cheat it'll be on me to to put a stop to that for the integrity of the game. I'll also be reading Ryan's auto draft list, which I have not yet looked at. And I think I gave myself another duty, but I can't remember. I'll discover that at the time. Oh, first we need to decide on our order.

So let's see here. Holly, what is your favorite planet in the solar system? Got to go with Neptune, Jason. Okay. Spencer. I'm going to stay home team. Earth. That's a good choice.

Real original. I'm going to go with Venus. And we will put Ryan down for Pluto because he is not here. Good dog. All right. Ryan's going first, followed by Spencer, followed by me, and Holly, you will be going forth. Eat shit, Ryan. Wow.

How did he do that? from beyond the grave. Truly, the commission. All right, in that case, with the first pick in the... Let me find, there it is. Ooh, this is going to cut deep. With the first pick, the ghost of Ryan Nanny selects the great state of Texas. Fuck me.

This means, Spencer, you are on the clock. Alaska. God damn it. my whole strategy is fuck now dun dun da i got all the bears god fucking damn it

all right well uh it's i'm taking hawaii frankly that one just hurts from like an envy because that's not even on my strategy but i'm like shit i probably should have taken Hawaii that's a dang good state I like the only complaint people

have about Hawaii they're like it's far away from my family and it's expensive and I'm like, well... So they can't follow you there. That's... What you're reading as a disadvantage, I'm reading as a strategic advantage. You want to come see me, rich folks only.

The literal rich folks only in my mentioned state. Hawaii. Are you done? Oh, I'm done. I'm waiting. We went on you. Oklahoma. Oklahoma.

All right. First round is concluded. We had some surprises. Mm-hmm. We had some drama. I'm just sort of talking my way through as I mess with this spreadsheet real quick. Figure out where the thing. There we go. Got it. All right. Next up is Ryan with... What the fuck? Well, in honor of Jim Delaney, who is retiring in the year 2020, after devoting his life to making his fellow rich people richer by adding chunks of geography of suspect value. Ryan is picking Nebraska.

Brought Nebraska home to Big Ten. Ryan is reconstituting the old Big 12. That's my guess for what he's doing. This is at the risk of tipping my hand severely. I mean the second pick we're going powder river baby I really thought I was going to do the don't at me draft that's right taking Wyoming that's right cowboys let's see here next on my board is California I get California oh actually a really good pick in terms of I like money and nukes that's a strong pick man I'm building

the uh Louisiana oh nice so holly has you're never you're never going to guess this don't even try uh all right so some strong selections Spencer's going for the least population possible Holly has a hell of a football conference going so far up next Ryan has again we're we're building some weird constitutions here North Dakota is off the board to Ryan oh damn you nanny wow he's going straight up straight up the middle baby oh well he didn't take he didn't take my next one off the board he came he came close he came close because next one off the board for me that'd be the great state of

Montana come on down whole dang state Butte, Billings, come on. Get in these arms. I know you're looking for a hug because there ain't many people there. Spencer's population per capita right now is like nine or per like per square mile. Lower. It might be like 0.1 actually now that I think about it. No, no, it's lower right now.

I was sort of inventing metrics in my head. It's like 4.3 right now. I got 4.3 people per square mile. Who's next me? Let's see. Next on my board. is Arizona I am taking with the last pick of the third round Arkansas Arkansas so everyone's being kind of geographically contiguous to this point in at least some ways

and also we're all very far away from where we actually live interesting no offense No offense to our neighbors. Go ahead. Next up is Ryan with, I think this is a reach. Indiana. He is a big time. That's a reach in a wrong direction. So at the end, I will discover,

Ryan has sent me his strategy. I have not looked at it yet. At the end, we will reveal what he's actually going for here. If anyone feels lead at any point to. let the viewer in on your thinking process certainly feel free but at this point i just have to explain mine all at the end because it's one long psychosis yeah that's fine that's fine too i um whose turn is it uh it is mine and since someone so cruelly took a pick off the board for me uh i'm going to have to improv here i'm going to skip my draft order priority and i'm going to pick

up the beautiful state of South Dakota. Wow. Yeah. Both Dakota's gone before New York. Dakota. I mean, we are drafting by quality overall, right? Man, New York's on my board, but it's down there. Next up for me is another state that I had in the top five on my board. Idaho. Damn it. All right. And round out my fourth pick I think I'm probably going to take another one off Spencer's board and go with Utah

Not on my board It's close Utah was high on my board All right, just to review real quick Ryan has Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Texas Spencer has Alaska, Montana, South Dakota

and Wyoming. I have Arizona, California, California, Hawaii and Idaho. I'm in the Mountain West, and Holly has Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Utah. It's all made perfect sense to this point. Up next, Ryan takes... Oh, God, damn it.

How did I miss this? Shut down, full cat, signing on. Ryan takes Oregon. Yeah. Very high on my board. All right. So if he's taking Oregon, I'm going to go ahead and with my next pick,

pick up the great state of Colorado. Colorado is off the board Let's see I got Tough call here Hmm I'm calling an audible I'm taking Mississippi

So your strategy wasn't Take the best player available So what was it? I just have a suspicion that I don't know I had to go with the gut here man you just picked up old miss and miss state do you know much football pain you just picked up in one pick southern miss to the top you just picked up three of the most dysfunctional teams and all of college football in one swoop if that is a renewable source of energy son you're gonna rule the world i was i was i was i was forward settling on uh amongst holly's territory i had to i had to i had to

plant a base in that in that vicinity well jokes on you honey because I'm closing out round five with North Carolina oh whoa now I'm surrounded this is the most underfunded region of the risk board next up

Ryan takes the state that we all live in Ryan takes Georgia I was like which one I had to think about it first in Georgia man man that was actually on my board that was too down for me you just got so much peanut brittle my god you are so close to guessing my actual strat hmm okay so I'm up um my strategy's had to change a little bit I'm going to go ahead and with my pick select the great state of Colorado you already you are already yes you did it oh my god no no no no no no no I'm

Wait, no, not only did we bet that you were going to be the first person. Okay, we all bet that you were going to be the first person to bet to pick a state that had already been picked. I don't think anybody first saw you drafting a state that you had already picked. No, I just, like, I was trying to think if anyone had done this in the draft. They should do this in the draft, right? Oh, yeah, this is a bit. Way to go. Yeah.

We all totally box up. New Mexico. So you're saying somebody should walk up like, we will take Quinn and Williams and we will also take another Quinn and Williams. Jason, it's up. you as a commissioner to decide whether I lose the term because I was going for a piece of contiguous territory here for a purpose that does not include but is related to population density. So you decide. I would appeal, but you also decide the appeal. So just go ahead lay it on me. Do I get to select New Mexico with my next pick? I kind of get to feel like he's

been punished enough at this point. Yeah, part of our, part of our punishment is a round of public shaming so you the listener be sure to tweet at spencer a a picture of new mexico from a especially tweet at him on draft day with a with an arrow pointing to new mexico send him send him breaking bad memes that'd be a really that'd be a really i mean seriously if you went up there as a team and you drafted somebody twice right like if somebody's like Kyler murray number one and with our second pick in the draft we also select Kyler murray we we picked back baseball, Kyler Murray. That's how confident we are in him.

Bam, bam. We pick Kylo Marie as like a concept. Two picks. We picked Kylist Murray. All right. New Mexico to Spencer. Thank you. Spencer, I have a trade proposal.

I think you know what I'm looking for. So go ahead. I will send you my next three picks for Alaska. don't do it he's a risk champion yeah i'm not doing it i'm not doing it i'm sorry there's just too many bears i can't give up all those bears is that like you're the only one who can contain them that's i'm the only one who understands them okay i'm the only one between the end of the world being overrun by bears there's a free hey

am I going to give up the state that has a free roaming herd of actual buffalo no I'm not it's not happening my apologies I'll throw it in Mississippi don't you have Idaho no Jason's going to try some kind of like

Kamchatka protocol you come back you come back around all of us come back to me We'll talk about trade in Idaho, but no, not this round. Okay. But my, my picks become less valuable. The time to strike is now. That sounds like a you problem, bud. Yeah.

I'm saying there's less value in this for you, the purchaser. That's why I'm going to trade for Idaho, not Alaska. Okay. Well, with my next pick, this turned out fine. I'll take Washington. hmm my board is free and clear i don't know what y'all are after i'm taking rhode island wow that's a that's a that's a slot receiver in a manner of speaking yeah that's a that's a west welker type uh next up ryan has wow wow ryan has the he has the state from which the three of us currently reside and now he has the state

from which the two of you hail no yeah he's not my board he's picking he's picking the taffy capital of america taking the parallelogram i mean tomato capital of america oh i should have just picked states that have good tomatoes but there's only two that would have been that would have been pretty apparent there's only two states which are those two tennessee and new jersey hmm okay it is the garden state they can't lie about that no it's got to be what was it

Jersey has very strict rules about the truth what was it they said in miscongeniality because oil and petrochemical refinery state won't fit on a license plate who says that won't that's a failure of font imagination okay

yeah uh let's see next up is what round are we on let's see wait one two three four five Okay, we threw around six. Were we one to ten? I think that's what we said.

And then we'd have ten shun states. And then all the states that are left are bad states. Those states are just, they can go form their own country or something. Hey, all, how many fake snakes do you reckon is too many fake snakes for the live show? Is 150 optimistic or just enough? Should we do just 25 total? Then it's not contingent on how many people need those, need the states? snakes.

Man, that's like, but like about 25. And about 25. So just go to Amazon.com and, and put in a like a 23 to 27 range and see what we get. All right. All right. Thank you for your guidance in this. Google, Google, about two dozen snakes. Yeah, what if I just handed out 25 snakes?

That's going to be a lot less expensive than what I was prepared to do, which is spending $150 on snakes. interesting i believe i think it's got to be either 24 or 26 no that's a good point i believe i am i am on the clock oh are you still playing you could be oh yeah i just saw you over there googling frantically um i am going to select and i believe it is i just checked and i i don't own it because i checked that this time What is it? Redding Railroad. Nevada.

Oh. Nevada is off the board. Nevada is off the board. Positive. All right. Taking a big, big, big gamble on that one. Great thing about being friends of Spencer is that you are never late. Oh, wow. Nevada actually was next on my board.

Damn. Colorado's gone. I'm, yuck. Down to me. Missouri. No. No. Oh my God. Missouri is next on my board. Wow. Why? No, no, I really need Missouri. Jason, I really need Missouri. Do I have anything that you need? I'm interested in Louisiana. Would you, okay. I will give you Louisiana if you give me Missouri. Yeah, done. All right. thank you so do i now get to pick uh yes okay uh massachusetts massachusetts

so now just for just to catch up i have Oklahoma Arkansas Utah North Carolina Rhode Island Missouri and Massachusetts yeah that looks about right here okay all right Jason thank for your excellent trading you made a wise decision you're not you're not going to regret this no no this was this was all hard i really i really needed missouri it seemed to be in mutual interest you will absolutely understand uh next up is ryan nanny from beyond the grave with kansas rip ryan ah kansas was next on my board dammed maybe you should have a draft that's less predictable oh well that turns my actually about that i mean more unpredictable than you make it just by being here yeah uh funny you should mention that because uh what i had to alter

of course you know like you have to alter your strategy given other people strategies and sometimes you got to take the best player on the board and man in this case i'm going to take I'm going to take Minnesota. I had Minnesota on one of my earlier boards, but I dropped it. For reasons I will explain later. Spencer, I think you're winning the temperature game for sure if temperature is like golf. Yeah, no, we're going lower. We're by all means.

I've lived in the South all my life, y'all. Screw this. let's see speaking of Michigan Michigan is off the board and Jason suddenly you're so much more stately we got to run on M states because I'm taking Maine

wow that's a good one that is quite a state it's on the east coast which is trash so I'm not taking it but good pick all right let's see at this point happens. Unselected states, which should feel a little bit of nervous shame. Alabama, never won anything. Connecticut, Delaware, Florida. Don't know that. Nobody's getting Florida. Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, pathetic. Ohio. There's some value out here. South Carolina. Virginia just not being picked was Virginia and Wisconsin

all right so what we have each of us have two more picks right something like that get nervous bad states the next state selected by Ryan Nanny will be none other than Iowa which I think was one of the best values still available

it's a good pick it's a solid pick yeah just to ask Iowa oh geez we wouldn't know I couldn't I couldn't say anything. No. With the next pick, off the board, I select. Seven tabs of maps of the United States. No, no, no, you'll see why I have them open.

Are you making a picture? Kind of. Are you trying to draw a dick? No, if it is, then something's very wrong with this penis. Sorry about your dick. instead I am going to go ahead and select the

rustic but but ready state of Wisconsin I got all the liquor stores damn how did you get even colder I know I know I'm going to take that

did you know how many cabins I got do you know how much good ice fishing I just picked up damn y'all wow how can you stand how can you stand to breathe in the same room with somebody as cold as me we got to make a sorry about your dick shirt we really do or a tank top

I once where were we when I yelled that out the window at somebody no that's happened a couple of times no it was it was because of the car I will think about this while you make the next election with the night don't look at my draft board real quick I'm picking Illinois oh okay all right I'm sure that wasn't here next are trying to get me to go out of turn with the ninth pick of the state state draft I'm taking New York oh lucky up-and-coming New York well well classy classy

all right oh last round last round last round make them count focus up with Ryan's final pick he's taking Let me make sure this is not yet claimed. It is not. I might have missed it during our last run through. Ryan is taking Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania off the board. I have to check one thing and see if I've got an eligible trade here.

This is nerve-wracking. I only have one state left on my board. I had four. And so now that Ryan has selected one that was not it, I'm okay. Jason, you have Idaho. Yeah. Correct? Yep.

Can I interest you in a Wisconsin? Do you like Schnapps? Where is Wisconsin on my board? It's right next to Illinois. You wouldn't even have to like apply for zoning to build there. All right. I ordered our snakes for. the show.

Wisconsin is very low on my board. It's fair. It's a tough deal, but it's fair. In that case, I've got kind of a, I got a... I'm slightly interested in Colorado. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.

I can't give up Colorado, though. So you know what I will do? Nevada? Okay. No, no, no, no. I was thinking, have uh let's say you have Washington correct yep you have Washington and you have Idaho right yeah I'll trade you hmm let's see I will trade you Alaska for Washington

and Idaho hmm those are both top eight team top seven teams on my board Alaska is Alaska wait can we do multi-state trades here and still end up with 10 shun states? Yeah, because one of us would have 11 and one would have 9. Okay, cool. Just like in real life. This is my proposal. I'll do that.

I'll do that. Done. We're done. Good deal. I now acquire Washington and Idaho. I complete the, I complete my goal, which was broken up. And Jason has now acquired the greatest state of the union, in the state of Alaska.

Excellent. Was that also your pick or what? Yeah, no, I'm done. I was just making a speech. Yeah. But did you pick anything there? No, I don't need to. I'm over.

I'm 11, so I'll consider that my turn if the judges allow that. It's true if you want. Yep. I'm up next, and the last team stayed on my board is New Hampshire. New Hampshire join the team. Oh, man, this has left me with a really difficult choice because I don't actually love any of the teams that are left on my board.

Maryland. Maryland makes a grade. Good job, Marilyn. So, let me real quick. Fiddle with the spreadsheet. Holly has Arkansas, Maine, Maryland. Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Utah. Yep.

Holly, why did you do such a thing? Okay. And now, do you have any guesses? I have no guesses as to her actual rationale. That is quite a crew. I kind of feel like, well, okay. I hate to throw this on you without anybody else's psychosis being revealed. originally I was going to pick the list of states that had the highest incidence of deadly wildlife attacks

but I thought correctly that that was going to overlap me way too much with Spencer and then I thought what do I love more than funny bird attacks I love the weird picky eun fights people get into over things that matter a whole lot to them and not at all to the rest of the world, Roll Tide. And I started combing through state government pages for things that they had declared were emblems of their state. And I went down a few paths. I was going to do state dinosaurs, but it turns out there are only a very few kinds of dinosaurs and only like 12 states have a state dinosaur. I was going to do state mineral, but I thought that might reveal too much about my passion for geology and I'm not that vulnerable. I'm not ready to be that vulnerable on the

show. So I went with state foods and not just any state foods, but I ranked the states in order of, because in order to have something be a state food, it has to be enacted by the state's legislator. Someone has to write up a bill and take it before the state. And some of these are for various obvious reasons. Like, we're in Nebraska and we want to all our honor all our corn farmers. Or we're Maryland and we're going to say that there's a state crustacean and there's the blue crab. That's why Maryland was my last pick because it's not a very interesting reason.

But some of these people are lunatics. New York has declared that its state snack is yogurt. Maine took the trouble. I'm going in reverse order because I'm going to end with Oklahoma. Maine took the trouble to declare a state herb, which is wintergreen. Texas always wanted to show off, has a state dish, state fruit, state pepper, state pepper, state vegetable, state nuts, state snack, state, bread, state cobblers, state pie, and state squash, which is pumpkin, which is why I was so upset when Texas was taken off the board early. Massachusetts has been around long enough to get up to shit like naming a state muffin, and it's a corn muffin. Georgia State prepared food is grits, go Panthers.

Missouri. The reason I was so eager to get Missouri is that Missouri has named, Spencer, don't peak. Missouri has named a state dessert and Missouri's state dessert, which a real-life elected official had to write a bill and go on the floor of the Missouri State House to enact is the ice cream cone. It is. Missouri went to the trouble of honor.

the noble ice cream cone as the state dessert. Rhode Island's state appetizer is calamari. North Carolina named a state blueberry and a state redberry. I only assume to quell some kind of NC state versus UNC and or Duke rivalry. They are the blueberry and the strawberry, but I like to imagine that somebody voted against North Carolina's state blueberry being the blueberry. just to be a dick. Moving on up the draft board into the top five, Utah has both a state historic vegetable,

the sugar beet, and a state snack food. It's jello. I fucking love you, Utah, and I'm glad I got to you before Spencer did. Arkansas went to the trouble of naming the vine-ripe pink tomato, both its state fruit and its state vegetable, just to cover both the bases. Louisiana surprising, absolutely no one, has a state meat pie. It's the macadish meat pie, of course. Good call.

Oklahoma has an entire state meal as enacted by the legislature. The Oklahoma state meal is, and I quote, chicken fried steak, barbecued pork, fried okra, squash, cornbread, grits, corn, sausage with biscuits and gravy, black-eyed peas, strawberries, and becon pie. That sounds like a last meal. Well, he's like. Let's talk about the. death penalty. Yeah, let's talk about states real big on this. And then let's talk about what the

official state meal looks like, and maybe we have an interesting correlation. Not facts, folks. Doesn't Oklahoma also have an insane state vegetable? Probably chicken fried steak. I seem to recall this. What is it? It's the watermelon. Oh, yeah, they named watermelon. Well, watermelon technically is a vegetable because those seeds are on the inside. But, oh, no, wait. Doesn't that make it a fruit? Yeah. Oklahoma State vegetable is the watermelon and Oklahoma state fruit is the strawberry. But when I saw the state meal, those seemed like the least insane things Oklahoma had done. I know. I know. And, from newsoka.com, watermelon may lose its status as state vegetable of Oklahoma.

See, I love it when people fight over this shit. Oh, one other thing I thought about doing was ranking states by dances. But it turns out most of the states, their state dances are square dances, which square dancing has an insane and problematic history. Yeah. It kind of goes with like, Sort of like thinly veiled white supremacy being funded in schools under square dancing. Yes. But in Minnesota, square dancing has been proposed on two different occasions a decade apart as being the state dance. And it's been voted down both times, which means there have been square dancing arguments on the state legislature floor. And it's Minnesota, so you can't tell me there were black people involved.

We'll go to Representative Morris Day. Morris Day. We'll say you on square dancing. No! No. Anyway, this concludes my draft board. Thank you for coming to my live journal. Wow.

That's great. That's a great strategy. Well executed, in fact. Jason? Thank you. I appreciate it. Please explain your motley selection of states. So, in preparing my power rankings,

I consulted two different metrics that I cross-referenced to produce. Oh, no, wait. The square dance got through in Minnesota. No. Wait, hang on. Prince dies and the whole state goes to hell. Shit. No, I might have been thinking.

I'm thinking of a different dance. Hang on. Jason, keep talking. Square dance broke the firewall. So I combine two different rankings. One being state religiosity. This is a Wikipedia page. Alabama's number one.

Or last, depending on your view. And also number of volcanoes within the state. Yes. Ooh. I want to draft an explosive state and I want a state where people are going to on God. Alaska was number one because it has the majority of America's volcanoes.

It's not an especially religious state, only a religiosity of 70, but it has 98 fucking volcanoes, and I need all of them. Idaho was very high on my board with 10 volcanoes and a 76 in religiosity, as was Washington with 17, only 67, not very religious, but that's a lot of volcanoes. Hawaii was my first actual pick with 21, volcanoes packs a lot of punch they're all condensed very tightly and 76 religiosity pretty high yeah you got some bang you got some bangers in there too yeah you mean you like I think uh if we're branding this as volcano nation you need Hawaii yeah uh California 28 volcanoes and

probably a bit more religious some people think Arizona 19 volcanoes according to the wiki list good call uh Oregon did I get Oregon I can't you did or or it was either you one did. Ryan got org. And I can't trade with him. Okay, we have controversy. I have two different Wikipedia pages saying that Minnesota voted down square dancing in 1992

and 94. And one saying that Minnesota does in fact adopt the square dance. I think they got to have a dance battle to settle this. Hang on, no, I found the Minnesota. Ah, the square dance was proposed as the state folk dance in 1992.

and in 1994 and voted down both times according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. Should be the bird. Fuck them up, Minnesota. So it can't even be the folk dance, let alone regular dance. Yeah. If you can't even win your conference,

you don't deserve the state title. No, I'm just saying. Also, amid all those, Texas had a state squash, which is why they were on my board. It's a pumpkin. I wanted Louisiana because, though they've only had one volcano,

ever they got a 90 where? Let's see please tell me it's in death valley volcanoes United States Louisiana it is door point volcano last eruption 74 million years ago but

quitter if that thing blows we're talking about a state that has 90 in religiosity So you're saying it hadn't crossed the 50 in a minute It's it's yet to Yeah It's yet to put up any sort of numbers in a long time.

I know there's an extinct volcano beneath Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah. Mississippi also in 89 in religiosity. Mississippi has two volcanoes in fact. There's also one called the Midnight volcano, which last erupted in the Cretaceous period. I don't want to get this in... That's problematic for states that don't believe in a Cretaceous period, but... You say extinct volcano?

I say, you know, That's just a volcano that doesn't want enough. Also, whenever we're talking Mississippi, we are going to talk about, like, well, things used to be way better, such as when the Cretaceous period, that's when we had it figured out. We ought to go back to that. Magma. That's just put, you know what? We're in our magma hats. Make America geologically malicious again.

Geologically molten again. Yeah, there we go. uh let's see michigan have fun with this one new hampshire all these states have like a volcano or so yeah uh but yeah that was it we we're we're michigan bowl a lot of shit up and have everyone like um groveling before god about it now jason that's a terrific strategy do you have the rationale for ryan's or was it strictly random i do and i have looked and it is it is it's awesome ryan was playing Settlers of Catan I can't believe Jason

wasn't doing this honestly nerd Let's see He picked He grouped states By by resources they produce Here are the brick states

Indiana Oh my Christ Indiana Georgia Of course we produce bricks Come on Tennessee and Pennsylvania Wood

Alaska which he did not get It's mine Oregon, California, also Georgia and Alabama. Wool, Texas, California, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Grain, based on wheat produced. North Dakota, Kansas, Montana, Washington, and Idaho, and or Nevada, Arizona, Texas, California, and Minnesota. Additionally, for you, for you Catan novices out there, you do get two points for assembling the longest road. Ryan attempted to assemble Route 20,

which goes through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, but I quit at Pennsylvania. Not striving to achieve all of that. The remaining states were picked based on how landlocked they are because climate change will make some of these places unlivable. 25, 27 are the doubly landlocked states,

meaning you have to go through two states or territories to get to the ocean. 28 to 34 are single landlock, 35-250, or in order of coast to area ratio from least to most based on wiki. Mostly he just wants to know how much of his road he got to complete. So Ryan states were Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas. I can't picture all that. Next to none. I think, like you and I broke up almost all of his road.

Indiana and Iowa do not touch Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska. That's a group. Yeah. North Dakota. No, not North Dakota. Yeah, this road didn't make it too far. No, because I kind of... I was Nebraska, that's it, I think.

Yeah. Hmm. So you need five segments of road to get the longest road card. Ryan only has three. Who did have the longest road here? Me. It'd be me. Oh, yeah, you got all the big states.

Yeah, I got continuous. Continuous. All right, Spencer, what you got? No, these are continuous states. They go forever. They just continue. So my... strategy was a little play faked now i always thought the most like when somebody goes have a plan until you

walked into this room it's a good plan so what is the most baller thing you could do as a rich person like the thing that you heard a rich person do and you said man that is absolutely awesome well i honestly you know i've supported for a long time nothing about him personally but Elon must strategy of shooting only our richest idiots into space so it's an amazing thing to do right obviously the answer number one is give away all your wealth because it's evil. But two, if I had my choice and I couldn't do number one, would be what Ted Turner did when he got money. Ted Turner, when he got money, started buying up plots of land in Montana,

with the point being conservation, right? But that wasn't exactly it. I just want everybody to know that this is the point at which I started playing Nintendo. Conservation was sort of the secondary thing for Ted. Ted wanted to assemble one contiguous piece, one string of land across Montana so he could ride his horse without interruption or being bothered across the entire territory. So, what an asshole. It's brilliant. It's magnificent.

So I thought, well, if you're going to do that with Montana, why not do that for as long as you possibly could? So I wanted to get the longest contiguous arrangement of states where I could ride from a coast all the way to another body of water and also from one country to another in case I needed to skip town. So once Jason got real hot to trot for Alaska, I knew I could go ahead and roll up the rest of it and create a corridor starting at the coast in Washington, picking up an Idaho, continuous all the way through the great state of Montana, then through. a Dakota, my tunnel over towards Minnesota and Wisconsin. Then I picked up the rest of the, you know, the good quality survival estates. Your Wyoming's Colorado,

New Mexico, connecting me to the border south. And Nevada. I don't even really know what I'm going to do with Nevada. It's kind of like my mud. Nobody does. It's like my mud room. I'm just, you know. They got legal weed.

We'll put dirty boots there. Dirty boots and casinos. It's fine. So that's it. Everyone else had like, man, Ryan had a brilliant strategy. Mine was, how far can I ride a horse without really being bothered? You don't like riding horses.

Riding horses is great. I just don't look good riding a horse. Okay. And if you own all this land, no one will see you. Exactly. That's, with the population densities that I chose, I'm not going to get roasted at all. No one's going to see me. That's it.

Not only did I choose the most roast-free lifestyle by picking all of these states so low in population. free lifestyle yeah not only did i do that i managed to pick i managed to pick the states where i'm not going to be bothered by anybody including medical professionals it'll be amazing i'm being real saying right now and telling everybody why not telling everybody why you don't think you look good on a horse legs are short tiny little legs almost sobbing yeah for the record i disagree with this and think you look normal but you were almost crying the first time you got on a horse as an adult because you thought you looked like a toddler i did i still think i look like a toddler on a horse I'm still going to do it, though.

I'm fine. That's my grand strategy. It's a great plan. I'm happy with it. In addition to breaking bad memes, please send Spencer photoshopps of him on a horse with super long legs. Just like the Kimbe Matumbo. It's for, let's boost Spencer's, Spencer's self-esteem. Because he's going to Texas soon, so you never know.

He might end up on a horse. Boban on a horse. Man, what a beautiful thing. Also, the following states are bad. bad. Alabama, obviously. Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, obviously. Kentucky, obviously. New Jersey, Ohio, mm-hmm, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, and this one feels West Virginia. Can't believe West Virginia never came up. West Virginia, I feel like it could have fit on everybody's board. I mean, that's a or state. How did Ryan not pick? I blame my, I blame Ryan.

Yeah, yeah, I do too. God damn, Ryan. How dare you disrespect? Wow, but wonderful. Spencer looks totally normal on a horse is the lesson to take from here.