So... Alright - Bunch of Random Stuff

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

This week Geoff talks about putting air in tires, the top US travel destinations, and Vincent Price. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Details at fizz.ca. So for today's. So, all right. I would like to. I just thought a bunch of random stuff. There's been a bunch rattling around in my head right now. The most recent thing is let me tell you, we have got a crisis in Austin.

I don't know if it spreads to the state of Texas and if so, if it's spread regionally or through the entire United States. You'll have to chime in and send me an email at ericajeffsboss.com and let me know. Every air machine in the city of Austin is broken. Always. Is this a problem where you live?

And by air machine, I mean the machine you use to pump up your tires when they're low. With the weather change, Emily has one tire that's always a little lower than the others that needs just a little bit of air put into it. And so I went this morning to do that before she went to work. We are a one car family right now, that's another thing.

I haven't had my car for two weeks. I haven't had my car for two weeks because of a speaker in my rear right door that's busted and they couldn't figure it out. And so they replaced the tweeter. This doesn't sound real, but it is. And that didn't fix it. They realized it's the amp. I didn't know the speaker in my door had an amp, but apparently it's gone bad

and it's on order. So it's going to be like two and a half weeks to get my car back. But let me tell you, there is nothing more annoying than driving down the road with no fucking stereo on like you've got it all turned off and your speakers are going for like randomly for 30 seconds at a time. Definitely as soon as you start it up and then maybe like once or twice more when you're driving. It's fucking annoying. I got to get it fixed. Anyway, so we're one car family right now. So I'm trying to be extra helpful with Emily. So before work this

morning, I decided to go put air in that tire because I knew it was low. Go to the first gas station, realize I left my wallet at home. That's on me. I'm stupid. Turn around and go home, get the wallet, go back to the gas station,

pay for the air. By the way, it's fucking highway robbery. It's $2 to get air now. It used to be free. And start pumping it and her car, her tire is stuck at 25 PSI. And it feels like this air machine isn't working. I try a different tire, it just doesn't seem

to be putting air in the machine. I'm like, great, a broken air machine, what are the odds, right? So I hop back in the car, drive to the next gas station, the only other one on the street, big sign, out of other one on the street. Big sign out of order on what looks like a brand new air machine. Fuck.

So, I go to the next closest gas station, which is, you know, eight blocks away, and it's brand new. It's a brand new gas station. And I go, oh, this is fucking awesome. Everything's going to be spick and span, brand new. It's a brand new gas station. And I go, oh, this is fucking awesome. Everything's going to be spick and span brand new. Sure enough, around the back is an air machine that's gleaming. It's so beautiful. It's like it's like polished. It's beautiful.

Pull right up to it to see the tiniest sign you have ever seen in your life that says out of order on it to the point where I'm thinking, is this a prank? Like, is some group of kids going around every gas station in Austin and pasting out of order signs on every air machine in town? Because if so, it worked and hats off to you. I suspect that's not the case.

I suspect it's actually broken. So I go to a fourth gas station where I am finally able to get air and I pump the tire up. However, this gas station is just a gas station. So then I go back to the first gas station on the way home to get a couple of drinks for us. All in all, to put four PSI into my wife's front left tire this morning, it probably took me 20 to 25 minutes and four fucking gas stations. And I bring it up, not because this is a string of bad luck

that's happened to me once today, and I'm like, holy shit, can you imagine? Like, what are the chances? The chances are fucking good, because I live in a different part of town than I used to. But when this happened last time, like I always, when we worked at Rooster Teeth, we were in the Austin film studios, right?

And so there were these big parking lots. They all used to be airplane hangers and runways and shit because it was the original airport way, way, way back in the day, Mueller Airport. Because of that and they'd send trucks in to like sweep the parking lot occasionally. But because of that, there was like no end of little screws and bits of metal and shit that would constantly get in your tires. I think everybody who worked in and around

the Austin film studios was taking their car in to get a nail pulled out at least twice a year. Really fucking annoying. And so I was constantly dealing with low tires when I worked over there. So in the other part of town where I used to live, I had to deal with this all the time. And every time it's the same issue. You can never find a gas station with a working air

machine out of the gate, even if it's one that you that worked last time, you're like, Oh, I'll just go back to that place. Because I remember it worked three months ago, something happened in the three months and that machine is broken, it got backed into, or it looks, I don't know, like it lost power or it fucking that the screen is busted. A lot of busted screens out there. So you can't see it probably still works, but you can't fucking see it to navigate.

And so this is a problem for me every time I have to put air in a tire, which admittedly is rare, but it leads one to believe that almost every air pump in the city of Austin is broken. Surely this can't be the case where you live. I gotta know, ericadjessboss.com. So I have a lot of free time on my hands now. I mentioned that probably last week or the week before or whatever. You know, I've walked away from political radio

and the news in general, which has freed up about three hours of idle background noise in my day, but I can switch to listening to music or other podcasts or whatever. But it's a big gap to fill and you rush to fill it, right? Because suddenly you feel a void. And so I have been trying to fill it with new podcasts and other things and I just, for whatever reason,

I hadn't found the thing that fit until last weekend. I just randomly saw on Amazon, there's a Riff Tracks channel that just runs 24 hours a day with all the Riftrax that they have the licensing to, so it's synced up with the film. So it's just like watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater. I know there's a million Riftrax

that aren't in this 24 hour channel, a lot like the Twilight and the Titanic and the other bigger, more recent movies and stuff that they've done. But there's still like a full 24 hour a day channels worth of Rift Tracks. And I know very little about Rift Tracks because my fandom, I wouldn't say it died.

I was a huge, huge mystery science theater fan. I think a lot of people are to this day, definitely a lot of people my age. But I also think it was very, very big with millennials too. But when I was in the army, I'm on the station of Fort Hood, Texas, it's now Fort Kavazas, I believe, I would come home from work, I had an hour and a half lunch, I gotta say a lot of shitty things about the army, but they were pretty liberal with the lunches, at least for me. I had an hour and a half lunch every day from 1130 to one and I didn't

have any money. I was a PV to piece PV three broke. Right. And I lived in on the barracks. So I would walk like across the I got my office. I'd walk across the parade field and are actually I probably walk around the parade field so I didn't get in trouble and then go across street into my barracks. And then I would have roughly an hour and 20 minutes to kill for lunch with no money and nowhere to go. So I would make ramen noodles in a tea kettle

that I had every day. And then I would sit and I would watch most of an episode of Mystery Science Theater on Comedy Central. It would be on, it would come on from like 12 to two. And so I could watch from like 12 to, you know, like 12.45 and then I'd have to go back to work. And so I would get like, you know, a chunk of mystery science theater every single day.

That was a routine that I had for a couple, oh, probably about two years, and it was a really good routine. And when I think of Ramen Noodles, I think of Mystery Science Theater. And these were mostly Joel episodes, you know, this was pretty old. I eventually fell in love with Mike

and learned, I think, to appreciate him more, which is why it makes no sense that I didn't dive headfirst into Rift Tracks when it came out. I think maybe the sync up thing was a little much, I did it a few times and I enjoyed it and I thought the product was just as good as Mystery Science Theater. It's just sometimes you you walk away from something or you forget about it and then you just continue to forget about it.

Right. Well, stumbling on that Rift Tracks channel has been such a delight for me. It is such a Emily and I were talking about this. I've probably watched in the last week, I've personally probably watched like eight movies and eight shorts that they have interspersed throughout it. You know, not all at once and bits and pieces here and there and sometimes half listening, but I've put a lot of,

I've paid a lot more attention to it than I would have thought. And it is, as I was saying, Emily and I were talking about this, it is absolutely, there's something so comforting about that product and those voices and that comedy that just feels like home. And having it on in the background has been such a joy that I have kept Rift Tracks on

constantly and it has by itself filled that void. And who knows how long that'll last, but man, is it a delight to swim in those waters again. And it got me thinking about theater mode back in the day. If you don't know, when I worked at Rooster Teeth, one of the premium shows that we created was a show called Theater Mode, which was essentially our version

of Mystery Science Theater. Like everybody has their ripoff version of commentating on movies, right? Like, I mean, you could argue that that's what let's plays are, right? But I guess you're playing the movie while you're doing it. So we did it for a couple of years. We we licensed movies through a couple of different companies, totally above board, legit, and it was a real delight to do. I would love to have just done it. One of the problems with Rooster Teeth, or the problems with me maybe, is that I like to do a lot of stuff

and I'm always excited by new opportunity. And so when they offer you something, you're like, hell yeah, I wanna try that. I wanna do that. I wanna see if I can do it. And then you do it and it's great. And you're like, oh, I did it. I'm capable of it.

And they're like, cool, well, now you're gonna do it again a bunch of times. And you're like, oh, I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it hell yeah, I want to try that. I want to do that. I don't see if I can do it.

And then you do it and it's great. And you're like, oh, I did it. I'm capable of it. And they're like, cool. Well, now you're going to do it again a bunch because it was successful. And you're like, OK, I'll do that. I'll just add it onto the pile of other things

that I'm already doing. And before you know it, you're in a situation where you're you're making a lot of good stuff, but maybe nothing that's great because you just don't have the time to focus on that one thing. And you never want perfect to be the enemy of good. And I always tried to straddle that line, but I gotta be honest, I could never,

like when we first started doing theater mode, I would go home, it's like the first, I wanna say four episodes. I went home and I watched the movie the night before and I wrote jokes. I remember for episode one, I wrote something like 75 jokes. And then I had my notes and I realized that you can't really watch the movie

and look at your notes at the same time. So I would iterate and then I'd watch it twice and just try to pick out the good jokes and remember them and then say them in the moment. And then a lot of it just comes up in the moment based off what other people say. But it was such a fun puzzle to figure out. And I think that I could have gotten

really, really good at it if I did it more and everything else less. Right. I mean, that's probably the case with everyone with everything, but I couldn't help the entire time we did theater mode that I couldn't help the feeling that I was doing. We were making a good product, but we could have been making a great product if we had had the same amount of time to put into an episode as they did Mystery Science Theater. I mean, they were watching, the writers and creators of that show

were watching those movies sometimes six times before they did their performance. And so that's just not the kind of time and effort we had to be able to put into a product like that. And so I am in awe of how good they are and how effortless they make it look because I know how much work goes on behind the scenes because I did a little bit of it.

And I just gotta say, if you've never listened to Riftrax, the channel on Amazon is great. Go to their website, you can buy their products too, give them money, support them. This isn't a Rift Racks ad. It's just something that I stumbled into, an old friend it feels like,

that's very warm and comforting and funny, and it's been a really good way to have something on in the background that feels good and familiar, but still entertaining. So that's my tip if you're looking to fill time that you suddenly have because you stopped obsessively listening to news radio. Let me ask you a question. Something I was thinking about just yesterday.

What do you think the most advertised brand of all time is? I did some quick Googling yesterday, but I didn't want to get too deep into it. I will say that it seems that currently. Amazon is considered the most advertised brand today. They have the highest spending on advertising in the US across media platforms. And yeah, so today it's it's apparently Amazon, but across all time. Well. The Internet is failing me here. They're giving me top advertisements of all time.

A lot of people wanna talk about the 1984 Apple commercial, the Marlboro Man, Nike's Just Do It, Got Milk. Oh, the most interesting man in the world. These are considered the best advertising campaigns of all time, or some, the most interesting man in the world. These are the best considered the best advertising campaigns of all time or some of the most successful. But outside of knowing that Amazon is the most is currently the most advertised brand in the U.S. I don't know how to find this information. Do you work in marketing? Do you know?

Can you look it up? Do you have access to a secret database that tells who has spent the most money or who has created the most. How about that? Maybe I can ask it that way. What brand has the most commercials of all time? Once again, 10 best. I don't want best. I want most. All right. Maybe somebody can get back to me. Maybe you can point me in a direction. I'd really love to go past what is considered best and get into what is most, right?

That's kind of where I was angling with this. So let's put a pin in that and I'll do some more research or maybe somebody can point me in the right direction. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. The Paramount Plus exclusive series, The Agency.

The CIA sends us out to behave in a dangerous way. Starring Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere. Whatever it takes, make it impossible. The Agency, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. Emily has a TV in her office and she always has like those free, like America's Test Kitchen channels or this old house.

There's always some kind of like home improvement or cooking or crafting show in the background when she's doing stuff. And I was in there hanging out with her the other day and we were watching like an old, I wanna say it was Julia Childs. And she was cooking with, she was cooking, she was making some kind of meal, I don't remember

what it was, but I was noticing that she was using Pyrex and it was a capital P Pyrex, not the lowercase P Pyrex. And if you don't know the difference, when people say, when people talk about Pyrex, not the lowercase P Pyrex. And if you don't know the difference, when people say, when people talk about Pyrex, they talk about it because it's like this insanely sturdy glassware, right? And it has a lot of value in, if you know what you're looking for,

like when you go to estate sales and thrift shops and stuff, you might hear people talk about capital P Pyrex and lowercase P Pyrex. I am by no means an expert and I might be getting a little bit of this wrong. I'm doing this just off memory. I'm not going to bother Googling it. But the Pyrex company became well, was known for quality, right? It was so strong, you could cook a lot of drugs in it. And it became like this really sought after thing for making drugs. And so supposedly, as I understand it, Pyrex changed the formula to make it a little less sturdy so that it would be less enticing to the world's drug dealers.

I don't know how true that is. But I do know that at one point they sold the name Pyrex to another company and allowed them to make Pyrex. So there are technically two Pyrexes. Any Pyrex you see with a capital P is the original Pyrex brand. Any Pyrex you see with a lowercase p is the current new Pyrex brand that makes, I don't wanna say inferior products, but less sturdy products. So when you go to an estate sale and people are like,

oh, let's go look and see if there's Pyrex, look for capital P Pyrex, not lowercase P Pyrex. That's my tip to you. Anyway, watching this old show with Julia Childs doing some cooking and it's got to be, I don't know, in the seventies or sixties. It's old, right? It's got to be very, very long time ago. And I got to thinking, well, that, that Pyrex is made the last. That's a capital P Pyrex. It's on a cooking show here in the, let's say 1972. I'm just throwing a date out. No idea if that's even close. But where is it today?

Like that specific piece of Pyrex that she's cooking with, like that nine by 11 piece of glassware. If it didn't break, and it probably didn't, because it's Pyrex, capital P Pyrex, it probably is still on this earth in that form. Like why would it end up in a landfill? It's high quality cookware. What happened to it?

That got me thinking, what happens to all of that cookware? You see people from the 60s and the 70s and the 80s cooking, blending, chopping, broiling, souffling, with all of these expensive high-end products. Those shows don't last forever. I assume at some point, you know, Julia Childs

hangs up her hat and says, I'm done. And they look at, I mean, we did this kind of stuff with Rooster Teeth, right? It's the way it works in production. You look at all the stuff that's left over, you try to find new uses for it on a new production. If you don't, you have like a big fire sale and you let people from the community come in

and buy shit or whatever. I'm sure that happened in some form, but that's my question. Like, is there somebody who bought a Pyrex dish somebody who bought a Pyrex dish at a yard sale in New Jersey that's using it right now, or it's in their kitchen, they're planning on using it for the holidays, it just sits there and they have no idea that the person they bought it from bought it from a person in Kentucky who bought it from the Julia Childs cooking show Clear Out when she retired. And then they had it and they were like, what a cool piece of ephemera I got from Julia Childs and now I have it and it's cool. And they cooked with it for many years. then eventually they died and then their their

Grandkids had a yard sale Or an estate sale and then somebody bought it and then that person ended up putting it up in an estate sale because they didn't Cook as much as they thought they would or whatever and or they had too many and it didn't have an emotional attachment And then somebody else ended up and there are pieces there are whisks and bowls and There are whisks and bowls and spatulas and shit that are in use in kitchens, in homes in America that were used by famous chefs on television. That you could TV match.

Holy shit, the bowl they made that stuffing in in 1984 is in my kitchen right now, insane. There has to be, I guess I'm thinking about this because we paid like a couple of grand for a suit that had some jewelry that Nicolas Cage wore in a movie. And there's this huge, we go through the prop store auction and there's $600,000 props you can buy, million dollar props you can buy for Star Wars and shit But there are all these famous chefs and cooking shows all around the world or even like

home improvement shows where they're using hammers and stuff that at some point the show ends or They retire or it goes out of circulation or it go it gets cancelled and then the tools end up maybe they're the original tools of the show host, but maybe they're purchased by the production company and then maybe the production company has to do something with them. And then by some fashion, it ends up in your hand and you're like, Bob Vila, you have no idea,

you have no idea that the shovel you're using in your backyard was used by Bob Vila on seven episodes of this old house, you know, or whatever. Something to think about. All the old stuff you have in your kitchen that you didn't personally buy that was given to you or that you got like at a yard sale, it came from somewhere, it has a story and a history that's probably pretty boring. It probably goes from like a factory to a Walmart

to your grandmother's kitchen to eventually your kitchen. And that's the sum total of its story. But every once in a while, a cheese grater used by Wolfgang Puck ends up in somebody else's hands and they have no clue. I was gonna do an episode about tourism in the US and popular travel trends by decade because the places we travel for vacation in 2024

are not the same places that our parents traveled in 1984 or that our grandparents traveled in 1964, right? So what are those other, like what was a popular travel destination in the 80s? What was a popular in the US? What was a popular travel destination in the US in the 60s? And how have those changed and evolved?

Man, meaty subject to get into and lots to read and pour through. So I don't think I can do it justice in this episode, but I did stumble upon one interesting little nugget that I would like to talk about, which is, do you know what the 10 most visited tourist attractions in America are? I'm gonna let you sit for a second and think about that.

Top 10 most visited by population, tourist attractions in America. Two questions, how many of the top 10 do you think you can name? And how many do you think you've been to? I'm gonna go through this with you right now because I don't know the answer, but I have the list. I've tried to avoid it

because I wanna be surprised with you. Number one, most visited tourist attraction in the United States per year, New York City's Times Square. 50 million people a year visit Times Square. Did you guess Times Square as number one? That's a pretty safe guess that number two is also in New York City. Think about this. What if Times Square was number one? And by the way, a big key to being number one or a big key to being on this list, I'm looking at it is free.

I think there's. One place here that takes that costs money to enjoy, so. Free to think free number two, Central Park, 42 million people a year visit Central Park. Hopefully they get some dirty water hot dogs because those vendors we found out are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to park their carts at Central Park.

Number three, nowhere near New York City, but also 42 million people a year visit it. It's the Las Vegas Strip. So far I'm three for three. I've been to Times Square, I've been to Central Park, I've been to the Las Vegas Strip. Number four, I have some awareness that I've probably been to, but I was a child,

and I have no direct memory of it. That is Union Station in Washington, D.C. I don't for a fact know that I have been there, but I went on a brief vacation to D.C. when I was a little guy like seven or eight and I have vague memories of the National Mall, the Washington Memorial, and the Wright Brothers Plane. So I must have been in the Smithsonian at some point. So that's the first one. I've definitely been to the top three a ton but number four I may or may not have ever been the first one. I've definitely been to the top three a ton.

But number four, I may or may not have ever been to Union Station. I don't wanna say, I can't say definitively that I've been because I have no memory of it, but 40 million people a year ago there, so I have to check that one out. Number five I've never been to, shit. I've definitely never been to number five.

40 million people a year visit the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and it is on the list of things to do. As we enter into our new mall era at some point, I really feel like we will I want to do that mall. Walking and talking show we got to do Nick with the boots. Andrew and I came up with a game show we can play in the mall. I got a lot of mall related activities I'd like to do in the future at some point. So eventually regulation will have to make their way to the Mall of the America and then I can check that off the list. Number six, National Mall in Washington DC.

I've definitely been there. 32 million people. Have you? How are you doing on the list so far? How many of these have you been to? I'm going to claim four of the snow. I'll claim. Yeah, four of the six.

I can't claim Union Station. Okay. Number seven. Oh, it's a great one. Millennium Park in Chicago 25 million people a year go to Millennium Park Then number eight is Golden Gate Park in San Francisco 24 million people a year go there Then number nine is this right? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine number nine is the one that costs money and You're probably expecting it and wondering

when it was gonna hit the list. It is Orlando, Florida's Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World. 20.4 million people a year attend Walt Disney World, making it number nine. And then number 10 is another freebie, Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. Obviously not the band, but the location. 20 million people a year go to Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois, obviously not the band, but the location. 20 million people a year go to Lincoln Park.

So that's pretty cool that nine out of the top 10 you can enjoy for free. Only one costs money. Out of the top 10 I have been to Times Square, Central Park, Las Vegas, Strip, National Mall, Millennium Park, Golden Cape Park, Magic Kingdom, and Lincoln Park. So I've been to eight of 10. Is there anybody out there in the audience that's been to all ten?

Yeah, let me know. Eric at JustSpots.com, please. Also, just for the shits and giggles, number 11 is Disneyland in Anaheim, California, with 18.76 million people. So man, Texas isn't on this list anywhere. Can't say that I disagree with that. Interesting. Whoa, Mackinac Bridge in Michigan made the top list.

Nine million people a year cross Mackinac Bridge. No kidding. That's up in the middle of fucking nowhere, too. It's a well, let's see. Number 23 on the list. Crazy. Anyway, I I'm going to get more into travel destinations and tourism in general. I've talked about it in the past, you know, I had the whole Acapulco thing, but I'm just I'm just fascinated by where people choose to pay to go and get away and spend their decompressing and unwinding time, you know?

And so I will definitely give that more attention in the future at some point. Also, let me throw this out there, too, because I imagine I'm going to have similar difficulties. Who is the most sampled person in music? And the reason I'm having trouble, let me rephrase it in the way I wrote it. Who is the most sampled person in music? And is it Vincent Price? I was listening to a song the other day and it had like a Vincent intro, and I was thinking to myself, how many fucking times have I heard Vincent Price in a heavy metal or like a punk rock or like an industrial or some kind of horror goth song? And it's a lot.

And I got to thinking, I bet nobody has been sampled as much as Vincent Price. That's not true because of musicians. So I'm gonna have to figure out a way to determine who is the most sampled non- as Vincent Price. That's not true because of musicians. So I'm gonna have to figure out a way to determine who is the most sampled non-musician in music. But it also makes me wanna see who the most sampled musician of all time is too.

So probably dive into that in the coming weeks. If you have any insights into that or can point me in any directions where I can learn a little bit, feel free to send me an email. I'd love to hear about it. And to that end, I think it's time for our song of the day, which I have at the ready. So I was listening to it yesterday and I thought, this is it. This is the one. Let me find it. I said I had it the ready and then

now here. Here I don't see it. So the the song of the day today will be protest song number 00 by American Nightmare. If you are, it is a breakup song. That is a in your stuck in your feelings, mad at the world. Don't think you're ever going to get over it. Don't think you're ever going to feel better. Just want to lash out and be angry and mopey and maudlin. This is the song for you. Protest song number 00 by American Nightmare,

especially if you're in the fields, as they say. All right. That's going to do it for me today. I will see you next week with a bunch of more bullshit. Can't wait to see you then. All right. This is the end of the show. What?