Shutdown Fullcast - THE MONSTER ENERGY WORLD CUP EPISODE

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

We try to figure out how Travis Kelce filled twenty minutes of wedding vowsDoes the Sun have a smell?Does Doctor Octopus just need a really good shampoo to find the light?[Graham Norton voice] Patrick you have a story, tell us that storyPodcast business celebrates an important birthdayThe Monster Energy Big 12 is real and actually it can hurt youAfter four weeks of almost doing it, we discuss the most important story of the college football offseason, The World CupThe Shutdown Fullcast is on Patreon. This is how we pay our producers, and occasionally ourselves. If you'd like to help with that, give us $4 a month (or a larger, funnier number of your choosing) and we'll give you bonus episodes. As of this recording we have delivered 29 (twenty-nine!!) bonus episodes since launching in August. We think this is a pretty good deal (for you)Shutdown Fullcast is produced by Michael Ray SurberShutdown Fullcast theme arranged and performed by Patrick HowellDID YOU KNOW: Spencer and Holly write Channel 6, a year-round newsletter that is mostly about football, until it’s notBefore the world ends (again), treat yourself to Jason’s critically praised novel and other workTravel in your mind palace to Phantom Island, Ryan’s other show with Steven Godfrey, which is not a college football show because another simply cannot existCheck out Surber’s band, Killer Antz (new album out now!)

Spencer, I'm going to give you an option of which interruption you want again this week. Okay. I can accept this. Do you want your options now or do you want them later? I will accept them now. Would you rather I interrupt you by asking you about the sun, still an option, or about the Declaration of Independence? Do you mean the sun in the sky?

Yeah, that one. S-U-N. I would rather you ask me about the sun. You'd rather? Okay. Yeah. Okay. But I would also really...

You start the show and I'll get there. Don't worry. I would really like to discuss something, which is that amid everything happening in the world, and for some reason in July, there's a lot. Of the sun. Of the sun. Here on the shutdown forecast, we're always asking about the sun. That's right.

What I... And you know who else should be asking about the sun? That's right. If you don't have God in your life, I need you to open your heart and expose it to the Lord. I wanted to discuss this that this past week Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got married

Who? Singer Girl No, who's this guy? Travis Kelsey Cincinnati Bearcast legend Where it's funny to do the famous Athlete's wife thing

Like this is the reverse of the Simone Biles' husband thing Yes Like oh Travis Kelsey got married Actor Yes, actor Bon Vivant the guy from the manning cast but not as good yeah Travis Kelsey

and Travis Kelsey sorry wait let's wait let's frame it up like this Cincinnati Bearcats legend Travis Kelsey yeah yeah Bearcats legend Travis Kelsey got married to Taylor Swift and when they were going through their vows Ryan how long

did the vows take combined reportedly 20 minutes each each and that's just an estimate so that feels like it could be slightly longer than that I looked it up and if you were to sit down

and watch the Empire Strikes back after 40 minutes we have left Hoth we have done all the Hoth things we're going to do we've stuffed Luke's body into a dead animal we've had a wampa kidnap us

We've fled the base. Hoff is done. You could do all of Hoff in the time it took these two. Okay, just for a second, imagine Tom Hiddleston jumping out of a sliced up Star Wars animal to object in the middle of this wedding. You know, 20 minutes ago, Egypt was up to nothing. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

I want you to know something. I was like, how long is this? And I was like, it's long enough that you get over half of dope smoker. Like if I, by sleep, there's 17 minutes of dope smoker left if you get through the vows. Ryan, I'm really glad that you brought up the movies because when I heard 20 minutes, first of all, I thought 20 minutes combined, which is even worse. But I stand by my original explanation for this, which was immediate thought, oh, he just recited 10 minutes of Super Troopers. So my hope is that she went first. She did 20 minutes. There was supposedly singing involved. I'm sure it was like very crafted, very thwarted. very thought out.

And I hope he, white knuckle panicked and was like, fuck, I did not know we were going to do that. And I hope he filibustered up there for 20 minutes and just talked about all the good, like was just bringing up like middle school spring breaks and things just to talk about great moments.

Like doing, like he's doing this like a best man toast at his own wedding. Yeah. Like in his, in his mind, he's normal groom who's like, you're as pretty as a flower. Huh?

Huh? Huh? Pretty good. But then he realizes he has to attempt to match for the energy. Stretch. Oh. Just naming every flower he's heard of. Yeah.

And then he's like, all right, I think I know a lot of Motown Philly, so I'm going to sing that now. And then everybody liked it, so he's like, I should just do Motown Philly again. Again, yep.

It just starts it over. Yeah. Do you think he recited the lyrics to Still Dre? I think it's more like, I think he probably did. When I look at you, I think about my favorite Taylor Swift song. Which is bejuled. Which is what, Travis?

What is it? Better pull a good one. A really good one. The one about my dick. That's my favorite Taylor Swift. Am I right? Am I right? Doing crowd work during the vows.

Brian Kelly's like, yes. Anybody here from California? you let me see some of us let's go nix jason's just backstage in his ear and a little thing feeding him he's right next to him he was the best man he's whispering stuff straight to him no i bet he was doing a mic to the side right i hope he was doing like the oscars host thing where he was like stephen a smith is here great pause that's that would be the purpose of having all those guests yeah also i'm not making up stephen a smith was reportedly a guest at this sweating.

The more reported guests I hear from it, the better it gets to me. Like a guy who is the CEO of a prison camp company was there, Stephen Demetru, the CEO of Ementum Services, which when I think of friends' family and close friend Dean Blandino as my only list, right? That's where I'm like, hey, it ain't a party unless I get Stephen J. Demetru, executive I could ask, it's a big world. That Dean Blandino? That Dean Blandino.

There's not another one. Now, there probably is. And if you are another Dean Blandino, solidarity Dean Blandino. Yes, yes. Varietal. This is the Dean Blandino we all know and love. No, I'm sorry.

This is actually incorrect. It was an Ohio State GOP representative, Steve Dimitro. Steve Dimitri, wasn't. So we didn't get the prison guy. No, that's his son, dude. It's his son? That's that guy's son. Have we or have not confirmed that Butch Jones...

But he's cool. Oh, shit. Man, we completely lost the thread in this and all the World Cup. Like, I forgot... I think we promised this at some point. That we'd try to find out if Butch was there? Damn it. Yeah, I led the newsletter today with this...

Or ended at one of them with that question. So hopefully more information will be trickling into the inbox. Patriots sound off in the comments. I search Instagram for Dean Blanino. Can confirm there are multiples. Big world Multiple Dean Blandinos The Blandino verse

It sounds like what Ghost face Would call a white dude He doesn't like very much That's fucking Dean Blandino This Blandino over here It's a pinch of gringo It's a Dean Blandino

That's my That's my fuck is so bland I call him Dean Blandino Yeah Pandejo Blandino. I'm going to do this real quick. I'm going to go through and I'll be like, hey, listen, this is pretty transparent,

but I'm just going to name a name and you tell me whether it's Travis or Taylor who invite it. Okay. Wait, how do we know? No, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I'm going to tell you for number one. It's going to be tough to find one that's on the line.

Number one is clear with a bullet. Adam Scott and Paul Rudd. Those guys were in a movie Is it clear with a bullet? Two best actors I've ever seen. Yes, that is clear to me because of Paul Rudd being a chief super fan. All right, okay. Andrew Scott and Zadie Smith.

Okay. Honestly, that's just adding the best looking people you can find to your wedding. Good for them. That's right. That's right. Lena Dunham, surprise. Travis invited her. Oh

Whichever one of them invited her I hate them now Yeah I found one that might be on the line Are you ready? Yeah Keshe Sorry,

I'm imagining Lena Dunham talking to Travis Kelsey And I'm going to need a minute So what do you do? Actually, never mind, this is good I want Lena Dunham and Travis Kelsey to conversate

She would overthink He'd be like, he's fascinating He would be like, I got a fart Is this your third grade teacher that you told me about. Yeah, yeah. But this is the one that's on the line for me, Keshah.

Oh, dang. Yeah, I see the midpoint there. Like, this chick has got songs about partying. Yeah. This one, to me, is pretty clear. Ashanti and Nelly. Oh, that's Travis for sure. That's...

I just know it's not Taylor. I hope one was Taylor and one was Travis. But which one? That's right. Ashanti feels like Travis is like, yo, I invited my dream girl. And it's like, to which event, Travis?

I hope Travis just opened up, like, his old leatherbound CD case that he used to keep it. He was like, Ashanti's kind of definitely. Because, like, her guest list was real big. And once he gets through his team, like, that's like 50 people. The wedding planner sits Travis down.

Travis has to be. Travis, I have terrible news about dark. It just pulls the CD note, but got from under the seat of the car. He's like, um. Travis hands over his old iPod. Beatles? Get them all.

If you can. Puba and Stank, one of both. Oh, olive dip set said yes. You're going to invite Chester Bennington. He's awesome. In full recognition that we keep talking about a grown man, like he's a rescue cat, like what a Nickelodeon super toy run moment this must have been for him

to be like, I could have a beetle at my way. I bet he wanted to invite Keenan and Kel. And I bet she was like, we can invite Keenan. And he was like, it's either both or nothing. It's either the three of us or none of us. Justice for Kel. It's either me and Kenan and Kel or I ain't coming. You all have another.

We're serving good burgers at the reception. If either one of them's Episcopal, there's a pretty funny out there. I have another salvo, clearly from one side. The chain smokers. They're playing. They're playing. No, this is precautionary. They're playing.

Travis is crying. This is prophylactic. You have to invite the chain smokers so that they will not perform. Yeah. Like if you give them an assigned table, that seems like the best way to keep them from making us to do. Oh, you watch the kids. You're going to be in the kids' room.

Watching every night. Yeah, who got relegated to handing out programs? Ice spice. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I have another one that to me is potentially confusing. Dakota Johnson. Oh, that's dangerous.

Yo, she was sick in Spider-Man. We gotta get Madame. Yeah, yeah, we have Spider-Man. Hun, Hun, Hun, Hun. Madd-Wen's so sick. She was in that sick-ass movie about the perverted chiropractor. It's a really cool house. I want our wedding to be about connection and her web connects us all, huh?

We've got to have her. Oh, my God. He sees Dakota Johnson fixates and that's why the vows go 20 minutes. It wasn't planned for the vows to go 20 minutes, but he saw Dakota Johnson and just was like, I loved Morbius. She was like, you could either have, she was going to say, it's Madam Morbius. You could either have Madam Webb or Michael Morbius,

but you can't have both. You must pick. I have a question. Who did Travis want to invite that she put the foot down on? The original American gladiators. It's a good call. I was going to say Pinky. I know, I do know one guest who wasn't there.

who was invited but couldn't go and didn't go. Quarterback Zach Kolaros, who plays for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and I think was teammates at Cincinnati. Yeah, I remember him. With them. Yeah. So he's talked about how he was invited, but he couldn't go because he had Argos shit. He had Blue Bombers shit.

He used to play for him. Man, it's just Winnipeg. The other was Robert Pattinson, because he was busy filming Batman, too, which feels like, man. If you're Bruce Wayne, you're really torn between being Batman and being at the most exorbitant event of the century. He should have shown up. Yeah, that would have been good cover for him. Yeah.

Can I tell you, despite reciting on the internet in this time and in this place, I do not have, like, fully formed Taylor Swift opinions. But for some reason, when I heard Adam Sandler officiated this event, it just, like, filled me with warmth that I can't really explain. I don't know. Yeah, I can. It might be because I imagined him getting up there and just reciting, like, happy Gilmore speeches. It does have a little bit of a, like. Which does sound like a perfect wedding. It does feel like a TGIF crossover event more than a wedding where it's like, oh,

Merkle's here. That's so cool. DJ is getting married and Urkel is here. Isn't that awesome guys? Cousin Cody. Was this whole thing, was this whole thing maybe like, were these his concessions? She was like, hey, you can pick the, you know, when he didn't get to invite, I don't know, like the entire cast of the Blues Brothers because she had to explain to him that some of them are dead. And he got really sad.

And she was like, honey, you can pick the officiant. And he just sniffs and he's like, Adam Sandler. She's like, okay, fine. Yep. Just stop crying. He can even wear the big shorts. I hope he wore the big shorts. I hope he wore a tuxedo, like an immaculately fitted tuxedo with the big shorts, like with a satin stripe down the side big shorts.

I can also see the Sandler thing as being a super calculated Taylor move. Like a, he's this like resurgent cool figure among the zoomers. So it's like, oh, look how whimsical, that type of thing. I could see her being totally on board with the Sandler thing. Wait, tell me about Adam Sandler being cool now. This is not known information to me. He's been cool forever. I just mean like the kids like him because all kids like him and these kids like 9-11 era things in particular.

So, like, he's kind of, like, the way, like, the Fonz was cool all over again when we were kids, thanks to TV. Sandler is cool all over again among the kids. And they all, they all dressed like him anyway. He's the modern Elvis. All the lights go out and endless love just starts playing. There is one person invited who I think did not have an invitation and frankly did not need one and attended. Because she has an invitation everywhere in New York, Mariska Hardigay. I think she attended.

You think she's got, like, an apartment in there, like Paul Allen's mom. whatever. Whatever happens in Madison Square Garden, she's part of it. She can just show up. Yeah. Now. You know? I bet, of course, Travis did see her and be like, dude. That's the lady from, that's the lady from the TV. You think she had him on a bungee leash at the reception? I like this because when you talk about this actor, you have to like calculate what would Travis know her from? Like you can't do the joke of like, that's the lady from prestigious Just whatever. No, it's like currency conversion.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you have to, you have to put on, you have to apply sort of like a normal person filter for these famous people. Like, looking at the IMDB, it's like, okay, she's on, she's on law and order a lot. All right. He scrolled past that many times. That might be about it, though. I'm going to say Adam Sandler officiated because she told him that he could not invite the entire cast of home improvement. Oh, Mariska Harri Tag was on a.

He was in an episode of Baywatch. There you go. Okay, yeah. That's why I wanted her there. Also, Gronk was there. She was in Lake Placid. Lake Placid, a classic. Oliver Platt's peak, yeah.

Well, three musketeers. That's hard to say. Ryan is Oliver Platt still your avatar? Yep. Yep, there he is. I think I'm going to miss that the most. There he is. We might just log you in.

on After Dark just so we can look at his little come D'Artagnan we're saving the king face. Ha ha! Again? It's getting worse. It's the heat. It's got me all confuzzled. Come on. It's the half a century in those lungs.

Boy, boy. Let's clear those cowlubbs out. All right. I'm going to try that relaunch. I'm trying to the Jedi Yoda over here. Welcome to the shutdown full cast. You are listening to the Internet's only. college football podcast. That was like watching an Olympic figure skitter just do a single axle.

After busting their ass. Yeah. They just do the little sad loop. It's fine. Ooh, he's lost it, folks. Very tricky. I am Spencer Hall, joined by Ryan Annie, Jason Kirk, Holly Anderson. And there is no Michael Server Day due to the internet. That makes it sound like he got canceled. He didn't get canceled. A tree fell down some. wearing he has no internet yes um spencer you chose the sun as your interruption for this episode man that sounds ominous this is a question that i've now had for the better part of two weeks since you didn't pick the sun last time but i've kept it in my brain and i have throughout this time

not done any research into this question good for you well hello soft up in does the sun have a smell oh shit the sun of course is a giant burning ball of gas And I can see this argument going in multiple directions. On the one hand, the sun burns at such a heat that it can't possibly have a smell. Whatever it's burning off, hydrogen, helium, et cetera, it's burning off at such an incredible temperature and rate. Wait, is that a thing? Hot enough stuff doesn't smell? I don't know.

Like, if you told me that, I'm saying it. It sounds logical, but I can't figure out why. Maybe you just sound confident. I haven't looked this up at all. So Ryan, you're using Spencer as your chat GPT here. A little, yes, yes. What, my dumb AI, Spencer Hall, is going to figure this out. Fraud, I call him.

I think as smart as AI is fair. Sure, sure. This is as Ask Cleaves. Yes. Spencer's guess is as good as AI's guess. Right. So I just, like, what do you, but the other, the other, so, all right, on the one hand, sun's so hot. To me, it's like, if I threw, if I could burn something that quickly, it would burn too quickly to smell.

But on the other hand, the sun's been burning for a long-ass time and it's still got gas and the gas probably has smell to it. So if we could, I understand we're in the vacuum of space, so like determining this may be challenging. But do you think if you could get close enough from a safe enough place where you could actually perceive it, do you think the sun has a, the burning sun has a smell? Two-part answer. Okay. Yes. Okay. And the second part is, and for you, not for long, right?

Well, yeah, sure. I understand it. Yeah. You get a nanosecond of sun with, right? Like, like, can Superman smell the sun? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. All right.

And I know this, I know this from Mary Roach's book about preparing for space. Okay. Which I encourage everyone to read. But you need to know that space itself has. has a particular smell. Name of that book is Packing for Mars. Okay. And it's about all... You read a book about packing?

For Mars. Yeah. All right. Packing for like packing for Hilton Head, no. He read a book about other people packing. Other people packing. Oh, so it's science fiction. Yeah. And to be clear, I mostly read it for stories about Russian cosmonauts drinking in space.

That's really... And I got those. Those are in that book. Wait, is this where we got our story about them going to the moon strapped? Yes, this is also where we got the story about them sending one guy to the moon. That was the plan was to send one guy. And in order to get out, he had to, in order to get into the lander, there was no connecting tube.

They had to crawl on the outside of the spaceship like a curbel and then get into the lander. And then when they came back and rendezvoused, they would have to get out of the lander and back into the space capsule. Yes, anyway, space is reported to have a smell. So if space has a smell, if ozone has a smell, the sun has a smell. How long you're going to be able to smell it is the challenge. But yeah, it's got one. Are we looking up the actual answer?

I'm not going to look it up. I wanted this to be. All right. Do you think the sun smells good? I think it should be left up to the states. Do you think the sun smells good? No, no. Why?

Because it's sweaty? Things burning typically are a neutral to bad smell. You don't like candles. But that's things that burn and produce smoke, right? How about things that burn and produce gamma radiation? I'm just betting. I don't think that smells. I've never walked into a radiology clinic and been like, oh, all this radiation. Yeah, do you taste?

Do you taste pennies or do you taste metal? That's probably a serious component of this because that's an open fusion reactor that we're just at the right. Okay, sure, sure. Okay, Neil, Neil to ask Tyson is what you wanted to say. Huh. Don't. Okay. Third question.

Could we change the smell of the sun if we had enough of X? Like, could we febreze the sun if we're so chose? Could you febrize the sun? Or could, if you don't want to frieze it, if you don't want to deodorize the sun, could we make the sun smell like brisket? If we really wanted to, and we had enough of whatever material we wanted to use. Spencer, call tray, Wingo. I mean, A, if you turn it into a giant candle, or B, if you pack it full of enough space whales,

and then thereby you were cooking. Space whales burning forever at this. No, we'll have to keep fueling it. Oh, yeah, it's true. I was thinking for lunch. They're not an infinite source of... Why are you doing this? So that's just a stream of space whales,

which will feed the solar system, and then also the scent will waft throughout the solar system. It's okay, I'm racist. It's fine that you're doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll select the, carefully select which space whales deserve it. Yeah, the smell, I believe, that was described of space.

If we wanted to alter it, the base smell. Yeah, yeah, so that's what space, yeah. Right, is like a grilled steak, heated metal, or in the words of astronaut Don Pettit, pleasant, sweet smelling welding fumes. First of all, Don Pettit, you freak. That's that dude was weird in high school. That's pretty good. Back up, back up then, because what would be causing space to have a smell?

I would think in our solar system, it would be the sun. creating the sun, it has to be the thing creating the smell of space, right? That's God's own blackstone. So like if way away from the sun smells like pleasantly cooked steak, maybe the entire sun smells like the best steakhouse you've ever been to. Maybe it's, maybe it smells like a Brazilian steakhouse at the sun. And it's always on green. That little thing is always on green, brother.

Your photo shoning the sun. I'm not kidding. This has been stuck, like every half hour, this comes up in my brain, and I'm like, don't look it up, because I want to go in cold to this. I have worked so hard to not look up anything related to this question so that we could talk.

That's how much I care about this show. The beauty of it is, as someone who has looked it up, in the past five minutes, several times, it seems it's open to interpretation. Yes. Yeah? Like it's basically like there are articles that are like, what does space smell like? But the sun specifically, you got to drill down to like four guys on Reddit who are like really confident about like, nope.

And it's like the great thing is because it's the sun, you can like you can have a very valid rejoinder that's just no-uh. Yes. Like it seems the Reddit science community has decided the sun doesn't smell. but like that's a cop-out it's not many guys I'm saying I understand I understand that like we may lack the instrumentation

necessary to capture this but I suspect we could send a super heatproof capsule of some sort around the sun capture its essences and bring it back to earth and imagine if you could wash your hair like waving a fart jar

over the sun and then you can wash your hair With the smell of the sun? Are you fucking kidding me? This is the most Doctor octopus-coded shit you've ever done. The smell of the sun in my hair. I have bottled the scent of the sun.

Spider-Man's like, I'm not even going to stop you on this one. You're good. I got some other shit to do. He's like, what? You made a very expensive candle. Ha-ha, Spider-Man. All of his little mechanical arms massaging his head and washing his hair.

You've walked right into my scheme. My scalp has never been more powerful, Spider-Man. It's so warm! I suppose it is. Have a good day. Walking into that Reddit thread, comment 34 has been removed by Alton. Who has that dumbass bowl.

Ah, ha! My perfect bolt! Washed by the sun itself! Apollo is my barber, Spider-Man! What if it fixes him? What if the light of the heavens inundates his mind and cures him. Oh, Jesus.

I see the air, Spider-Man. Oh, Peter, man. Fuck, that was fucked up, dude. I am sorry. I'm still gonna do the voice. I'm a good guy now, I swear. I will reflect on this. Much like the sun.

Wiser. You can trust me. Next to shit on the moon, Spider-Man. I see you. I hear you. I believe you. I'm listening and learning. Buzz Aldrin's like,

Bech it too, that. Thank you for holding me accountable, Spine. Accountability. Masculinity re-examine Spider-Man. Who's ever come back? Who's ever come back for being canceled? That's right. Doc Hawk.

Every comic character, yes. But in this instance, Doc Hawk. In this instance, Doc Hawk. Woke, woke, Doc Hawk. I think Red Skull's the only comic book character. We're like, now, book that guy for that. Yeah, we ain't right in that story. We ain't right in that one.

Nope. He gets no sunlight. Who were you to say Red Skull was a Nazi? Yeah. Can you define that? Who are you going to believe? Me, a person with a vested interest in the outcome of this conversation, or all the available? Listen, if primary voters in Maine wanted Red Skull to be the Democratic candidate, that Red Skull of the...

then Red Skull should be the Democratic candidate for Maine. Bernie totally would have endorsed Red Skull. I don't know how. Who's a good guy? He would have gotten there. I knew him as Tony. People make mistakes. Red Skull got to smell worse.

I'm not one of them, but people make mistakes. Red Skull, Red Skull skincare routine. That's a night one. That man needs some sun. You don't see any wrinkles, do you? Red Skull, not on the guest list for Taylor's. What is a surprise, Spencer? that is a surprise.

Chavez would be like, dude. Are there any Marvel? I mean, you said Paul Rudd, so I guess that counts. But are there any other Marvel superhero actors? Bradley Cooper. What's the superhero count for the wedding? See, you had Rocket Raccoon. You had Antman.

Yeah, you had Antemann. Madam Webb. I would have to go back. Madam Webb. Spider-Man. Leading the community. Don't forget Madam Webb. We're building such a weird fucking Avengers.

This is some Thunderbolt shit right here. we are going to start a dialogue this is one of them oh, all right Ohio Valley Avengers The Cincinnati Avengers Oh And J.R. Smith

That's so sad That's so correct Teach me T.J. Who's Swinsada? Put all the Jalens in one section And that's multiple man All the Jalins are like who's Taylor Swift?

All right, final question. Would you like to smell the sun if given the opportunity in a safe way that didn't, like, incinerate you? You would like to smell the sun. Hands down. 100%. Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's the right choice.

I think that's the power of the human imagination. Does nobody blog anymore? I'm trying to look up the wedding guest list and nobody has a fucking list. They're writing paragraphs and shit. Ain't nobody trying to see that. Open the schools. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Finally, someone blogged. Jesus. Do you have to do everything around here? Doesn't until Saturday have to do everything? There's Andy Reid. Benson. Benson Boone was there.

Yeah, sure. Hey, dude, back to football, you know, invite him. Baker makes you'll throw enough to do this. So the interplay that I wanted to see there. That's Travis. Sorry. So you guys remember when Travis and Taylor started dating, we had a genuinely delightful series of weeks where hardcore swifties were getting really into football and like trying to

understand like genuinely trying to understand everything about it because it's important to Taylor in it therefore it will be important to us. I want to know how much of that desire to learn and absorb things about our friend's new boyfriend extended to the famous set. And really I want to know who from Taylor's side of the guest list was like, buttonholing Andy Reid to ask him about coverages, you know, like, in the prime rib station. Hmm. Like, somebody who's, like, from somewhere in there. Like, not Paul Rudd, who's already there, who's already in it?

But who is, like, a late to the party fiendishly aspiring ball knower of this set? Ooh, that's good. I mean, the joke always goes with Phoebe Bridgers. Sure. Like, when people... That was a great pose. That was a great post. I think from the instant...

It's probably what put this in my head. From the instant these two got together, that was like there were people shipping that friendship, I think. Yeah. I want it to be Graham Norton. Fiddy Bridgers might have the same macaroni and cheese recipe as Charles McDonald now. You guys ever think about that? I'd love to hear Graham Norton.

I can see Graham Norton just like repositioning himself on the seat and saying, So tell me about the Tush push. Too high safety. What would happen with the Tush push? Really. Now tell me, this cover three, does this look like a cover three? Safety's like way in the wrong place. Crowd starts to giggle.

Patrick, Patrick, you have a story. You have a story. Oh, tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us. This one was in the wrong place, wasn't he? Yeah. Yeah, you know, he was taking a shit. Yeah. He was in the injury tent, pooping in a helmet.

Yeah. You know, I saw Judy Dench the under day, and she told me to tell you that the A-Gap Blitz is the greatest American adventure since Bacardi Breeze. That's the best show that I've only watched on Instagram Reels. I've never seen more than 20 seconds of it at a time and it is fascinating to me. He seems messy as shit. Good for him. Unless he sucks, in which case, don't yell at me.

But in a fun way. Messy in a fun way. Puckish. I think there should be a word for, given the limited knowledge of my human experience and my social media contact only with this person they seem fine. Can we have an emoji for that? Can it just be like the whole emoji?

Limited endorsement. The most limited endorsement of this person until I find out they're a human trafficker, right? I think proof that I am something of a misanthrope at heart is that the other thing I'm finally here it is. With the Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey wedding is I think it would have felt amazing to RSVP no to this wedding. I think I would have felt so powerful to say, no, I won't be there. I'm not coming. this is the point in the show where I get to tell everybody the thing I've wanted to tell them for three weeks, which is the World Cup is happening.

Longer than three weeks. We've legit tried to talk about the World Cup for like three weeks. I think it's been more than three. I think it feels like four or five episodes now that we've had like, all right, we're going to talk about the World Cup and then we don't. It just keeps falling off the show, Doc. A thing that we have technically. I think it would be funny if we did podcast business now. Would that be, you know what I mean?

Like, just to say, like, oh, we finally made the World Cup and then we didn't. Yeah, sure. Yeah. That's very World Cup appropriate. What would FIFA do? They would do some. Podcast business. What's a business?

Podcast business. It's a business. Podcast business. The United States lost. Oh, holy fuck. We lost in a little time. Got to beat by belt. Lost ass lost.

Oh, stank loss. Yeah. Lost with gusto. Can I talk about? You know who doesn't lose? Egypt. what time is it? Egypt did lose by quite a staggering downfall.

But we will go to the Ease at Homefield Apparel.com in honor of Egypt. East Carolina, we've looked at them recently. An ancient empire as well. ECU Pirates, let's see what you got here. We've definitely looked at this at some point, but really you cannot too often look at any given web page at Homefieldaparel. the pyramid and go to Memphis. Yeah, we'll get to them in a sec.

Can we stand A-Ease for a second? There's nothing I want to do with these. I'm just taking a look at ECU, and the item that I would recommend for you, dear listener, that you invest in is probably going to be the pig-skin pig out since 85. It's a pirate who's been grilling and has grilled a football for you.

So take a look at that at homefield apparel.com. What's our next garment for bid, Memphis? I would like to stay on the ease. I'd like to go over to Eastern Michigan. Michigan. Okay. To talk about the beauty of Homefield fraud. We're precious birds. The first thing you get when you look at the Eastern Michigan page is the Eastern Michigan retro Eagle script corduroy hat. I know through the great vine that Homefield has sold a lot of these hats, not necessarily to people living in the state of Michigan, but maybe to people living in

Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And what I am here to say is this. One of the sneaky nice things about home field is that you can use these items to mean whatever you want. Do I own this Eagles hat and do I wear it? And am I necessarily using it to support EMU? Yes, yes and no. I, uh, my wife, my wife's birthday is today actually as we record this. And one thing that I got her for her birthday was a Kansas State quarter zip, beautiful purple Kansas State quarter zip that has a KS on, on the, on like the breast pocket. area. That's because those are her initials. Sorry to Kansas State. She does not give a shit about the wild cats or how well they do at the Big 12 this year. But that's the beauty of home field fraud.

You can take these these pieces and you can make them mean whatever you want them to mean. They don't have to mean the school that they are associated with. They can. And that's great. But if you've decided like, no, I just want to own this Campbell Camels thing. and I'm just going to like eliminate this. This is, look, I have a shirt that says camels now. Does it have to be about Campbell? Doesn't. It can be about any camel thing you want it to be.

They can't stop you. That's the power of Homefield and the First Amendment coming together to create incredible fraud opportunities for you. Yeah. And, you know, that symbolism, it can mean whatever you want to me. It can be World Cup theme, for instance. If you want to support Argentina, you know, and you believe in whiteouts, Penn State, it's right there. Just go ahead and get one. Yes.

Yes. I realized during the course of the World Cup, back when America was in it, that my West Virginia, almost heaven hat was appropriate for our soccer team that used to be around. Round of 16.

They'll never take that from us. Hey, listen, I think it's sweet that we let men play soccer in the first place. 2027, the Women's World Cup. It gets them tired, and then they go to bed. Next. I stopped showing you videos on the internet. Thank you.

Somebody else has a birthday. We're celebrating. Oh my God, that's what it was. Travis just got up at the altar and was like, babe, babe, you see this TikTok? Also, additionally... It's just hedgehogs farting. Speaking of hedgehog's farting,

Patreon.com slash shutdown fullcast, where sounds of that quality are available hours and hours of them. Most recently... Serber isn't here. Serber is like left it all on the field during the recording of our Gilmore Girls episode that went up.

He's in the back of the future. days ago. Yeah. He's recovering. It's well earned. The man, re-recorded, but like,

it was like two hours in 20 minutes or something. He's like, sorry, there's like 10 more minutes. I got to put in there. Late is like, 18 more minutes. Late is hard on the line in order to

push it across, push it across the, the boundary there and get that episode out to you at its proper length. One of, I'm going to estimate roughly 7,000 hours of audio that we posted on our Patreon. give or take about 6,000 something since we launched this Patreon last year.

But it's the newest one available to you folks at home. Patreon.com slash shutdown forecast where you can learn really, you can really learn about a lot of stuff. You don't learn a damn thing on this show. You just sort of learn our theories about what the sun might smell like. We learned a little bit about the sun. We learned what three guys on Reddit think the sun might smell like. Whereas on our Patreon, you will learn stuff that is a bit more concrete.

But think about how much more that is than like the average person in the middle age learned, you know? Mm-hmm. You're doing way better than those guys. If you went back in time, this is a popular question. If you went back a thousand years, how quickly could you da-da-da-da-da-da-ta take over the whatever? And the answer is, of course, like, you wouldn't. You would, you would be, you know, you'd be terrible at it. You don't know metallurgy.

But if you study the, what we're giving you at Shutdown, forecast, the Patreon, then you will. at least confuse the outraged locals who see you emerge. Happy birthday, Channel 6, happy birthday. Hey, many of fun things are born today, Michelle Kwan. But I don't understand. It's Channel 6's birthday, but we get the gifts. What happened, guys? That's crazy, we turned five.

This little bouncing beast of a website. This is the longest I've ever worked in any one place. Hmm. That's terrifying to realize. I work for all of you. Slightly less terrifying to realize. Hey, we got some new stuff for y'all. This is how we think of things, and this is how we do business.

A couple months ago, we had been planning for a while to just give the site a little refresh. There's things about the website that we didn't like because it's super minimal, maybe a little too minimal, and people have been asking for certain things. So we said about trying to do these things, and we said, let's get a new logo. We said, all right. We said, let's make it look a little bit weirder. And we said, oh man, let's make it look like, what if we made it look like the maybe it will happen today,

Cartoonist got a hold of it. I'm like, oh, man, that'd be great. And they're like, what if we just ask him to make one for us? And he did. He made us a couple, actually. Phineas X. Jones, who you can find in any of the Channel 6 socials and also on our brand new shiny mask test today at Channel 6. dot news has designed some shiny new graphics for us.

We have two brand new features on Channel 6 that people have been asking for. We have the ability to give gift subscriptions now. And we have the ability to send tips. We have people who ask us, a surprising number of you ask us, which is awesome, because I know that I am, and certainly a lot of you are from the LOL. you wouldn't download a car generation, but people ask us on a fairly regular basis. hey, I'm forwarding this article that you sent me to a bunch of people. Can I pay you for it? And we say, no, not really, but thank you for asking.

And now you can. There is a tips button at the top of the website now that you can use to send us a tip through stripe that does not accompany your monthly payment. So you can do that. Somebody just sent us 50 bucks this morning as a happy birthday present, which is awesome, because now we can turn around and use it to pay more artists and producers to do more cool stuff that we like. Also, we're not raising prices this year. We thought about it. Times is tough, but times of stuff, but times of stuff for y'all, and there's more of you than us. So, 10 bucks a month or 100 bucks a year, which is a 17% discount, in my opinion, for two things a week. And more new things to come, as usual. Yeah, prices that don't change.

Costco hot dog, challenge six. Next. Costco's sweating, y'all. Phantom Island, it's the show I do with Stephen Godfrey. This week, I'm going to make him talk about cycling and the New Orleans Saints. his two favorite things, it's going to go great. And we're going to have a good time. And maybe things will be learned, but probably not. Phantom Island.com, if you want to sign up for a paid membership.

If you don't, just listen to it on Wednesdays. It comes out the same day the full cast does. And with that, I'm going to Mack Brown once again. Ha ha! See you later, suckers! Oh, my God, he's going to go steal the sun. We'll see you later. I just want to note there was an event that happened in the news that went viral. a few days ago

there was some sort of weird church thing where there was like theater involving guns at a church thing I was tagged in this a number of times if you know why you know why but I would like once again to I wrote a book called Hell is the World Without You that is formed around an event

that was basically that that A, I witnessed, and B, it serves as sort of a story device within that novel. And, like, it was interesting to see, like, how many times on one social network right out there, I was tagged in that, it's sort of, like, people would say, this can't be real, this can't be real, and someone would say, like, oh, no, like, someone who's not even, like, you know, someone, a person who is not, like, from our usual social crowd or whatever, it was fun to see it, like, cited out there as like, no, this work demonstrates that this was already a thing that was known about before it popped up on going viral. So, yeah, guns and church. Let me explain that to you.

Hells the world without you. Guns and church. It is the name of the novel. It has raved reviews and a lot of good ratings and raise a lot of money for charity, might I add. And, yeah, if you ever see any weird church shit going on, just read it again and I'll explain it to you. Podcast business. Concluded. Spencer, do you want to talk about the World Cup?

Boy, do I want to talk about the World Cup. Holy shit. This is the greatest sporting event ever. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Before we get to that, no, I'm not kidding. There's something that if we don't get today, I'm actually going to be very upset about. Because when Jason dropped it in our work chat this morning,

I really did think you were kidding. So, all right, yeah, the Big 12, which is very business-brained. and like a specific kind of business brain. Like the Big Ten is business brain in the terms of, yeah, like the Big Ten's business brain is like, we do not perceive geography. Everything is ours. Eat the planet, eat the world.

Fuck everything. Fuck you. All mine. Good for the shareholders. Whereas the Big 12's business is like, what if we had a partnership with Ferrell Williams? What if we had a partnership with a random Mexican wrestling company? What if we put Monster in?

energy at the front of our conference name for the season and had it retitled Monster Energy Big 12 football. What if, what if, what if, what if? And that last one, if you haven't seen it now, you think I'm riffing. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. The Big 12 has accepted money and changed the name of Big 12 football to Monster Energy Big 12 football. And like, that's, that's, just going to like pop up on the screen or something um i don't know if announcers will be compelled to say that sean mcdonna please let sean macdonna have to do monster energy big 12 i mean if they've bullied these people into saying two minute time out they'll say anything but the monster energy two minute time out um so yeah uh monster energy big 12 football is a thing that appeared it like it was

uttered by a commissioner on a stage press release like actual paperwork involved. Yeah. I can hear multiple announcers' cadence in this already. This also might be the best possible outcome for this particular scenario because it could have been either Monster.com or Monster Cables, both of which suck. At least we've got a useful product or service here.

It's a great product. Yeah, it is a product that I have known interested for me. many years. You get Jason. You'll get Jason Benetti saying it, which is pretty good. Maybe Dave Pash. I was thinking Dave Pash. He's going to be smooth with it.

He's going to sound so tired, too. He'll be like, Monster Energy, Big 12 football. Sounds like you need a monster energy. Yeah. He needs a little pick-me-up. I know how you can get that, buddy. It also, it is... See, I thought he'd bring like a quiet reserve to it.

I guess we'll find out. As a sponsor, it feels. like it would have been super apt for the 2010s Big 12. Yeah. Like that was football on Monster Energy. Now they just do normal football. Like now it's just like, that's the competent conference where nobody sucks except Oklahoma State.

But like, it's not wacky ball anymore. It's more like, I drank a monster six hours ago and now I'm baseline. It's not. I have mainlined monster for six hours. In select games, I have consumed a monster at 6 p.m., oh, no. That has happened as well. I was pining for that version of the Big 12 during our World Cup game. Speaking of the World Cup, and then we got further into that game,

and I was like, oh, no, this is the other kind of Big 12 game. Okay. Yeah. That was ACC, I think. That was, yeah, we went full ACC. Oh, I just thought we turned into Oklahoma State. I just meant, like, mainly the one goal, you know the one. that was like that was ac c thursday night football to me where it's like someone fucks up in a way

that is like not cartoonishly spectacular just sort of like literally what are you doing there how'd you get there why are you standing there like it's a glitch like it's a punt that you glitch like the punt snapped forward or something like he fell over like a tent that was put together wrong you know like just it all went sideways somebody said he looked like a failed quick time of Yeah, he did. Also, it was very cartoonish in this respect. There was somebody behind him the whole time and everyone's going, Behind you!

And he's just standing there. The view, there's like the, I don't know if everyone has seen it, but like the computer reconstructed view of what he's seeing out there. With the little gloves? Yeah, yeah. It turns around and you see Mickey Mouse's gloves. And you're like, dude, you're so goddamn far from the goal. What are you doing out there, man?

Why are you all the way out there in Middle Earth? our goalie cannot be a Harvard guy. Our goalie cannot be somebody who's dad. I'm sorry to profile, but it's not right. I will profile here. Your dad can't be the guy who invented gene therapy. You can't. Because that's who Matt Freeze's dad was before he passed away.

Please call his dad Mr. Freeze. Yeah. You can't be that guy. You need to be like Jean-Louis Dufant. You need to be like, who are you? And you're like, I am the gifted child of a former discus thrower who became a gym teacher. and a former gifted goalie who became a gym teacher.

And then I was raised in gymnasium. Like, that's who your goalie has to be. Don't, you can't be a guy from Harvard. I was making a Batman joke there, but I'm really not even sure. I'm kidding. You do need Joel Schumacher energy in some form to be a goalie. Yeah, you've got to be, you have to be cracked. You have to be kind of not well.

Because you need that, like, relentless self-assurance that also might be making you a little bit insane on the inside. I think we, yeah, so I would like to see more and Zane less self-assurance because on that goal I saw the self-assurance was tuned way too high. Yeah, that's a good thing. Like I should, this is where I should be standing all the way out here. It did look like somebody who doesn't believe bad things can happen to him. But not in the sense that like, you know, because that's how you got out of things. It's like, no, you don't think bad things can happen to you. And you're kind of right, except then.

I am overjoyed by this and I think that again we need to recognize that the SEC is the laziest major league when it comes to this because Big 12 out here doing crazy shit right moving doing it the Big Ten built their own studios you know expanded like crazy said hey spreadsheet do what and spreadsheet was like do this and they were like spreadsheet good and they went out and did it that. You may not like it, but they were very aggressive about it. And the SEC is like, well, this one's next to us. We'll just let ESPN do everything. Things move a little slower down here in the true sound. Things move high. I'm John T. Edge and I'm here with the SEC. Here in Arkansas. That's how we like it. That's how we like it. We'll just let ESPN do everything. That'll work out real great. Lunchtime in Birmingham. For a real, can we talk about the World Cup? I see no more, I don't have anything else I can put it off with, so. Oh, God.

I mean, we've been recording for 58 minutes. This is probably, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Let's do it. It's World Cup time. It just cut it. It will have been World Cup time. In the edit, cut it off. Yeah.

So like weeks ago, it might have been four weeks ago. It was like, let's do the, let's talk about which team is playing, like, which college football team thing. I don't know if we've thought about that in a while. I'm just sort of bringing the listeners into the process of all the things they have not heard on the show about the World Cup. So, I mean, just pretend we did a great job with that, first of all. We did. That was an incredible segment, Jason. You did a great job, Holly.

Thank you, Spencer. I thought yours was nice as well. Yeah, thanks. We're also recording this the day after the United States shot the bed, spectacularly. Minutes after Egypt shot the bed as well. Yes, minutes after Egypt shot the bed. and after Argentina will advance in a 3-2 win. Here, by the way, in Atlanta, Georgia.

I do think this is the greatest thing I've ever watched. Like the greatest sports thing I've ever watched. I had people when I said this who were like, well, what? Texas, USC. Okay. That's a few hours. That's one game.

In fairness to your mentions just this once, and I'm only going to do this once. The word that you used was event. And I know what you meant, like, A World Series. and NBA finals series. But what you said was event, and then you got mad at people who said Rose Bowl. Now, I'm going to go back into my usual direction.

People who reply to a post that has a list of things that you personally liked with no blank question mark, and that's the entire post. You should all be killed. Yeah. No, that's not what's in the post. This post is not about waffles.

That's a different post. I'm not going to do it. This isn't a threat, but you should all be killed. Yeah. But this is, this is even with the United States, or maybe, shit, maybe this will help. Maybe, maybe we threw like a dark, we had too much, like, light side storylines. Let's just throw a crazy, some crazy FIFA shit in there. Yeah, this is the greatest shit I've ever watched.

This is phenomenal. Previous record holders in the 98 World Cup, which was accentuated by sleep deprivation, pretty much made every sleep, every sporting event in my 20s better. this is incredible. Also, I get to watch it at a decent hour, which as it turns out, it's kind of nice. The last game that wasn't like a oh damn wow event was Canada Morocco on Saturday. And like since then, like us getting the shit kicked out of us,

that was a spectacle. That was highly watchable stuff. The day before that, nothing but like one score games. That was Cape Fairday's final stand. Spain beat the hell out of Austria. Yeah, like, it's like one out of every five to seven games is not a banger. You see, you know what I'm saying? Like, the hit rate is just absurd.

Norway. Norway, with big fish, Erlin Holland. And that's where I think, no, I think Jason's got it. Like, that is where, you know, you might love the Rose Bowl. That might be your favorite thing you've ever watched. That's great. But in terms of the pure hit rate during a series, yeah, it's hard to find competition for this. Yeah, it's like if, all right, say pick, pick any season that had your favorite title

game bowl game and now make the entire run of BCS games or playoff games or whatever, all of them bangers leading up to it. That's what we have cooking right here. The average, you know, make it go on for a month. Yeah, like, well, like, yeah, I mean, the average college football postseason is like, oh, that game was great. This one other game was great. These 25 games, I don't remember at all. That's not what we have in this World Cup. No, this has been This has been different This has been different

I don't know if it's the expanded playoff Full disclosure It's mainly because Italy's not here I think I think it's mainly yeah Again wow It gets better and better The lack of Italy They should keep staying away

And see how much better things get It's really true that We got further than Italy In the World Cup That should be noted right Many nations got further Like Italy We didn't have to leave home

That's true There is truly more that unites us than divides us. I have a friend who was in Italy recently, like, as in last week. And I said, did you see the World Cup on at all? He said it wasn't on any of the TVs? It wasn't on any of the TVs. He was like not in the airport, not in restaurants, no way. No, Italy was celebrating Charlotte.

I can tell you, I respect that so much. Yeah. They were celebrating F1 victories. They were like, I'm Ferrari. Ferrari, yes. I mean, once you've fallen behind Uzbekistan, it's kind of, it's not your sport anymore. It's funny. But like,

I know. Every single player in those looked like a Roblox guy. Like they were just all, all of Uzbekistan's players were just blocky. It was awesome. They were like, bring me your stoutest men.

Your stoutest trottyest men. Build a wall. We did. Block a stand. Meat, wall. Meat, wall. They were a delight. They were great.

We had Jason's team, Paraguay. I'm just telling. Jason that his team was signed to me Paraguay. Yeah, because they played Haram ball. They played like the most foul, disgusting anti-football.

I did pick out a team. I did pick out a team. Which one was it? Ah, fuck. I can't remember which one it was. God damn it. It was the, you were Spencer, you were comparing them to Iowa. I know that much. Paraguay. It wasn't Paraguay.

It was not Paraguay. No. Oh, okay. You'll have to give me a minute. Was this in the Channel 6? I think it might have been Irook. No, it might have been Iver Coast. No. It was not. It was early early on in the thing. Ecuador. Ecuador is pretty disgusting.

They just didn't. Yeah, they played they played some pretty anti-ball too. Croatia. Croatia was also a little unclean. I'm going all the way back. Yeah, you will find it. I can't find it, huh? But like, so many absolutely delightful and entertaining things

have happened. Cristiano Ronaldo bombed out of the tournament. Yeah, he played like shit, man. He played like shit. It was great. Like, just, um, stat padding at, you know, meaningless moments, but otherwise, no stats at all. Scored a couple of goals against who's Beck's stand and was like, I'm back. And then he didn't score,

he didn't score a goal from run of play for like the rest of the tournament. He got like charity penalties. Because they were like, I'll let that old man have one. And be kind. I am overjoyed. Geeseer. Yeah, Portugal bombed out. That's awesome.

You know, I'm mad about the United States, but we got as far as Portugal. Portugal also produced, man, as Blue Sky becomes the premier destination for sports, I would like to remind everybody, we talked about this a little bit during football season, that as you see like real live gumps and whatnot spring up here and there in Blue Sky, it's important to, you know, not coddle them, but shelter them just a little bit until, their wobbly baby deer legs get big enough to stand down. We're building an ecosystem here, right? And we need all kinds of sports fans in order to make this ecosystem.

And nowhere was this better demonstrated. Nowhere was our arrival as, I say collective, our collective arrival as the sports app demonstrated. Then during this game, when some dude, I don't know, replied to, our after dark producer Doug Ray Soren and said, I think most of us wanted Portugal to win, to which Doug very fairly replied, who the fuck is we?

And the guy replied to him and goes, where did I say we? Which, technically, that's really good. Got you there, Doug. I hated to hand Doug that L, but I got to say he took it with race. Yeah, good job. It is the most message board crystalline exchange.

seen on this cursed website yet and it gave me so much hope yeah yeah the the world cup on blue sky has been like the first i think sports event and that it did and again we say event we're talking about like multi-day thing that has truly uh wrapped up the entire site which like it is a hard site to drag into um normal people discussions and i they all are like if you go on twitter and you try to have a normal people discussion. It'll get weird and racist. Yes, blah, blah, blah. But like, blue sky, the people who very sincerely want every conversation to be about politics,

finding that, like, no, you will be made aware of sports. You will be brought up, caught up on sports. And not in a rude asshole way, just like, sports will just be unavoidable. It has been fun. They're there still, but I've never seen them overpowered collectively like this. Yeah. And, like, again, not in a dickhead way. Like, it's okay.

You don't like sports. That's fine. This is a sports site for a while. I don't go around telling you that I don't like semiotics. Yeah. I don't like bust in. And I'm like, oh, man, like, I really like Benson. I don't really like Benson Boone, but you do your thing.

I don't think Benson Boone's big of Blue Sky. Benson Boone's huge. You don't know about Boone Sky? Yeah. Boone Sky's massive. Okay. So there's a lot of 19-year-olds on. Blue Sky?

A lot of night, no, there's a lot of quote 19 year old. I am very young, yeah. Okay, so these are moms. Yeah, these are moms. Spencer, it was Cape Verde opening game that you compared to Iowa,

which was very active. That was inaccurate. They're far more dynamic. Because Cape Verde plays for a lot of ties, right? And like, that did them very, very well. But like to me, right away, what I spotted was, this is Oklahoma. This is a team that

the score looks like Iowa. The play looks like monster. Energy Big 12 football. Yes, it does. High effort. No scoring. Well, they were like, they were like 25, 24, 24, 2025 Oklahoma in that Kate Verde would play long ball.

They had two scores a game. Two scores a game and maybe some kicking. And then the rest of the time, disgusting defense. Yeah. Just grind nasty physical defense. And a goalie who, a goalie who put on, if you want to know who the man of the tournament is, the man of the tournament is. the Cape Verde Golly,

Vazina, I believe is his name. Volzina. Yeah, that's, he's the man of the tournament. He was incredible. He, like, yeah, Vosina. He's incredible. And he is also very old,

which made him very cool because he looked like, he looks his age, so it kind of looked like he was like, yeah, I was up all night with the kid, or I had a double shift, and then I just put on this goalie's jersey. And I came in, and he played like a absolute, like dog just a hero there were several games I'm thinking to the spanned game in particular when it was like

you should be going for the tie you should be going for the tie and they're like fuck that like they did not go for ties they were not here like the thing they accomplished by taking so many good teams to draws and or interregulation is incredible but they were not going for that no they were going for wins

the entire time they were fucking just fucking awesome yeah they were awesome like story of the tournament they were incredible I'm like this is worth the point by the way where every single team is awesome every single like yeah now that America's out now that America and Portugal are out okay the Amerigo Vespucci connection right now that they're done the worst teams that touch the Atlantic Ocean are out right now that's in Germany can I use Cape Verde to pull us back to one more bit of podcast businesses that I forgot yeah important sorry we're making podcast business long again cry about it maybe see somebody else will quit It is the start of Q3, which means that we have rolled over our Q2 donations from the PTKU collection in our merch shop at pre-owned airboats.com. We are sending, thanks to you, and thanks to one generous reader who's going to double this donation, they're going to match it, you, beautiful maniacs, purchased very close to $700. worth of Blue Sharks merch in the past three months, which is close enough that we are rounding it up to an even 700.

We have a very generous donor in New Mexico who's going to be matching that. So we are sending $1,400 to the Transgender Research Center of New Mexico. And if it's the start of Q3, this means we have new merch to share with you. We have a PTKU beach towel, a full-size beach towel, two sizes, one of the five-foot variety, one of the six-foot variety, with a lovely little like PT-KU. KU Sailing Club logo in it available now at our merch shop, pre-owned airboats.com. And we are keeping it. We're on kind of a West Coast swing with merch donations. Last year we did kind of a Midwest thing.

This is not intentional. This is kind of just how it's been going. We did Transvisible Montana in Q1. We donated to an Oregon, New Mexico. I just mentioned. And we are going to Alianza TransLatinex, which is an organization in Orange County, California. Thank you to longtime reader, Mike. for suggesting this one to us.

So every dollar we earn from PTKU merch for the next three months, we will send that money to this fine organization uplifting the trans-Latinex community of Orange County. So get in there, get buying. Sharks can stay wet, but you might have moisture. You want to remove from your body every once in a while, and we're here to help you do that. The rest of the time, we'll keep adding moisture to you.

Don't worry about how. Somebody give me out of here. It is a little Cape Verdealing. I do like it. I was in spright. Listen, you did this to me. You gave me a terrific World Cup experience this year because you assigned me Cape Verdi when we were editing the Channel 6, pick your team thing. I was like, oh, I'm taking these guys. They sound great. Also, you know, 10 volcanic islands. What's not to like? And then I took the Golden Goal magazine team selector. And I got Cape Verdi again. I was like, well, I'm locked in. And boy, was that a great decision. I've made nothing but bad decisions. Well, not bad decisions in terms of Team Verdeen. to root for. I root for teams and they lose. That's fine. It probably doesn't bode well for Columbia. I enjoyed my half a day as a lifelong Egypt fan this morning. I have, I have Lindsay Adler and a

couple of other people pushing me to Norway, which is probably, you know, if I was to go by genetics, probably pretty accurate. You think? You think? Can I tell you I also arrived at Norway, but in a different way? How so? Looking up stuff about Norway and learning that, uh, Campbell who played the title character in Disney's The Rocketeer, aka the greatest movie ever made, lives with his family in Moss, Norway, which is kind of down there on the southeastern fjords in the SEC, or maybe the ACC of Norway, if you will. So that was enough for me. That's good. I think if you have not watched on Telemundo. Also the big fella. Yeah, the big fella, a big fish.

Holland is, he's amazing because Jason, have you seen any of his social media posts? Yes, yes, I have. Yeah. Tell the listeners all about them. Where he was like,

you're a boy or somebody was like, are you a boy or a girl? And he's like, well, you know, my dad's a dude and my mom's a mom, so I guess I'm half and half. Yeah, he's a silly guy. He's got lots of Shrek posts.

Somebody said he looked like Shrek's like extremely athletic son. I can see it. He's got like, yeah, he did some sort of a Snapchat filter where it's like Shrek is kissing his head all that time. Like he posts about Shrek a lot as I understand. Yeah, he posts a lot about Shrek.

He posts a lot about, you know, he'll do things like he drinks a lot of water and his teammates make fun of him for it because they'll go out and like drink beers and he's just drinking water. That's a big fish. It's a big, exactly. Big fish need water. Big fish need water. So they'll make fun of him for that.

And he's like, yeah, you guys don't make fun of me when I score all the goals for this team. And they're like, ha, ha, ha, ha. Because it's true. Also, if you watch him play, he scores the most direct, no frills, 100% diesel-powered goals you've ever seen in your life. The second goal that he scored to knock out Brazil, he's just, he gets a run up to it and plants like he's kicking a field goal. And it touched nothing. Like it blasted through a player's legs. It went right past the goalie, and no one had anything to say about it.

go watch if you can videos of him trying videos of him hitting the crossbar in practice it sounds like somebody hitting a timpony it's it's nuts how strong he is yeah also delightful human being so i'm i'm persuaded to be like you know i support i'm sympathetic shouts out to follower how come gladysh who evidently is a long time follower of the show and us and who is a norway fan who wants us on his side so we're going to at least this much on your side, but like that much. Yeah, I, like, Morocco is appealing. And if someone asked me to describe, like, their play style and all that shit,

I would not pretend I know any of it. I would just say, like, that seems cool. Pretty much the same for Norway. They do have the big guy. I recognize him. And, like, you know, they do, like, the Viking searing stuff. And, like, I'm telling you, man, that is roughly the extent of my knowledge. France is really good.

But I'd fuck that shit. Also, Norway is playing England. That's the main thing. I have a selling point for you on Norway. Go look at their expected goals versus their actual goals. Based on a statistical mishmash to estimate how many goals you should have by chances, expected goals versus actual goals for Norway is so far off the charts because it looks like like Norway, it's like, yeah, you should have had like 0.6 goals.

And it's like, three. All by Holland. Like they are the thriftiest fucking team. They have no chances made, and they get the most points out of it. Yeah. Agreed on. All right. I respect the take on France.

I like France too much to ever totally not root against them. I like them a lot. I just like their players. Their players are awesome. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I guess it would feel like rooting for, I mean, there's the thing where it's like, oh, it's so beautiful. I want to watch and appreciate it, and that's fine. But I'm not going to get invested in whether they win or not.

You know what I mean? Like, if they're in the final, great. the final will be awesome. I am going to have zero emotional investment in it. Yeah, and Boppe came close to getting France won last time around before Argentina won. There's one big elephant in the room, though, that we haven't addressed. And it's not Columbia, Switzerland. It's the fact that it might come home.

No. It might come home. No. I would not yet. I mean, it might. A lot of things might. it might it just won't it might come home

yeah yeah it might yeah but no it could because it could yeah I mean there's there are by the time listeners here this there will be eight teams remaining and that'll be one of them so it could

yeah could I'm telling you it might come home well there okay there is no that's not a judgment of course it might yeah you're saying you're saying that it is possible as though you have rendered some sort of great analysis.

They are eligible to win. Jason, one of these teams is going to win this game and the other will almost certainly lose. It'll be interesting to see who wins. We've crossed an important Rubicon here, and I'm going to let you in on this. That's also not what Rubicon means. It's that we are now at the point where the joke that England fans themselves started that we use for its coming home, the World Cup, which England is not won since 1966.

Now, it is now past the irony wall that the English have put up to defend themselves from the idea of hope. Oh, this feels like 98. I get it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, but for real. But for real.

What the fuck do you mean for real? Okay, so you're past it too. Okay. You understand. I'm on Rainbow Road. You can't hurt me.