So... Alright - Robots and Emails

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Geoff gives an update on some new robot interactions, and answers some of your mail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So today, so we're going to dive into the inbox. There's an overwhelming amount of emails from you guys. When I ask for an email, you are for some inside or a question. You guys are very kind with your time and always send me the most insightful and thoughtful and interesting emails. And I don't want them to go to waste. But in a question, you guys are very kind with your time and always send me the most insightful and thoughtful and interesting emails. And I don't want them to go to waste. But in a addition to that, I want to do a little robot update. If you've listened to So Alright, more than a few times, maybe you've heard me talk about how enamored I am about the idea of robots and the future and automation and kind of fascinated and terrified in, not equal measure. I'm more fascinated than terrified, but not by much. And to that end, I've had some robot interactions lately that I thought I would share with you. I finally took away Mo. I don't know how national or global Waymo is. I don't know if Waymo is a thing that's in every town or if you've never heard of it, but in Austin, Waymo is a self-driving electric car that you can order through

Uber. It's actually every single Waymo is the same like Jaguar SUV or crossover car with the a million fucking like cameras and windsocks and all kinds of crazy shit spinning around on it. But if you order an Uber in Austin in certain areas, you have a chance of getting a Waymo. And I have wanted to ride in one. They've been operating in Austin for well over a year now. There was like a pilot program. I applied to be in. I didn't get in until like a week before it launched on Uber. So I didn't bother. And then I figured it'd be easy to get on Uber. It's not actually you have to like agree to it, which makes sense. But then you can't just say I want a Waymo. you can say I want an electric vehicle and then you're going to get a Tesla or a fucking

Chevy Volt or a Waymo or whatever they have. So there's no way to like guarantee you can get a waymo. And to that end, I tried multiple times to get one over the course of like four or five months and was never able to. However, my wife and my daughter both got Waymo's and loved the experience and we're very excited about it. And so that fueled my FOMO finally. About three weeks ago, I ordered an Uber and I got a Waymo. And it was awesome. It was so cool. It pulled up in front of my house. The Uber app had me hit a button to unlock the door. As soon as I unlocked the door, the door handle popped out of the car. I sat in in the back seat, although I guess I could technically sit in in the front seat if I wanted to. I don't think that they care. Anyway, I sat in

in the back seat in the passenger side and in the center was a little console that says like, hello, welcome to Waymo and Uber and yada, yada, yada. And if you have a question, you can just hit this button and you'll call our customer service. Why don't you listen to some music? And then it throws up like some pre-made, you know, playlists you can listen to if you want music. The first trip I took, I just kind of sat there and surveyed the world and watched the car drive. It is a trippy, heady thing to sit in the backseat of a car and watch the car drive itself, watch the steering wheel move, watch it inch forward at a red light. Like, it just, it was wild and also adorable. Waymo was cute and it was a good experience and I felt safe in

it. Above all else, I felt totally safe in it. I had no issues. Waymo doesn't drive on the interstate. That was actually kind of funny. I was going to a place that was about 16 minutes away and here would be where I guess Waymo falls short to some people. I went to this, I went to bingo and it was like supposed to be like 16 minutes away. But I don't think Waymo drives on the interstate yet. I don't think they're ready for that. So it was all surface streets. So it took me like 30 minutes to get there, so almost twice as long. If I'd have been going somewhere on the same side of town, it wouldn't have been any different.

But because I had to cross town and Waymo didn't use the interstate and only took surface streets, it took a little longer to get there. But I appreciated the additional time in the car, honestly. Since then, I've taken it two more times. I have decided to dive into the experience a little bit more. Last time I was in it, that like four or five different kinds of fall playlist. so I picked like a classical one like falling leaves or something

and I'll be honest the novelty has not worn off in three waymoes I would today take a waymo somewhere just for the somewhere I didn't need to go to like I would take a waymo to the mall just for like the 25 minute car ride

and then turn around and take it right back which is so dumb and so ridiculous I get it but I can't help but just be impressed and delighted with the experience the experience. I really, I mean, maybe it's just because it hasn't gone wrong for me yet. And

I was thinking about that in the Waymo the other day. I took one to work because I was going to meet Emily there and I didn't want us to have two cars to deal with, you know? And I got to thinking, like, how does a Waymo go wrong? And here's what I came up with. And something that you should consider if Waymo is in your town or a similar like a Zooks or, I don't know, the Tesla self-driving one is in Austin. There's a whole bunch of different ones now. If Austin has like three or four, I'm sure you're Chicago's and your San Francisco's and your Miami's probably have a ton as well, you know, so I'm sure that there are these options or different options available to you in your town. But I took one the other day and I was thinking, how could this go wrong?

And here's what I came up with. I think the most plausible scenario for a Waymo to go wrong and kill you or a self-driving Uber or a self-driving cab of some kind is somewhere, Yep. It's like this. I figure somewhere 24 hours or so before you take one of these cars, you find yourself out in public and you unintentionally witness a crime. You might not even realize you witnessed it. You might have just seen a bag drop, somebody exchanging a nuclear football or a rabbit's foot, and not even recognize that that's what it was. But, at some point you witness some sort of international government cover-up conspiracy or crime and then you go about your daily life. You don't even think about it. You don't even realize it.

But what happens is whoever the rogue agent is in the acronym government agency or like the MI5 or whatever it is that we haven't even heard of, you know, probably the FBO or the CDO, or the CD, nine or whatever this, you know, this top secret government organization is that had this one agent go rogue and is, is secretly funneling arms to another, who knows? Who knows what it is, right? I don't want to get involved in it. But you unintentionally witness this. You don't know you witnessed it, but they know you witnessed it. And they know that even if you don't realize you saw it, you did, and that you need to be eliminated. They then have to find you, track you down to take you out. I figure that takes

24 hours or so potentially because you were just at a coffee shop or in a back alley riding a bike or something right. Then as they're figuring out who you are,

they get a ping because they like have your face scan or something and they get a ping when you get into the Waymo and it's like or whatever your

Johnny Cat is and it scans your face or whatever and he gets a hit and he's like holy shit, they're in a Waymo right now.

Then he gets his tech guy who also works for this organization who's also rogue to hack in, take control of the Waymo, and then drive you off a bridge to your death to cover up this government conspiracy. And the only way you're going to be saved there is if there is a Tom Cruise or a Matt Damon or an Angelina Jolie or a Charlie's Throne out there who is aware of this

and is actively fighting it and then can save your life. But then, I mean, the next two hours of your life are going to be a nightmare until you get past the movie. I can see that being a potential threat when taking one of these electric car cab services. So here's what I would recommend. I would say for 48 hours just to be safe, if you know you're going to take an e-cab, I would say 48 hours in advance, maybe just don't go out too much. You know, don't put yourself in a situation in public where you can unintentionally witness some sort of a government crime or a arms deal or, you know, something on a global, nefarious supervillain level. So that's something to think about. The next time I interacted with robots, I found it to be far less satisfying.

Emily and Vanessa have discovered this conveyor-built sushi restaurant that opened up off the interstate somewhere that they absolutely love. When I was at Riot Fest, Emily ate there. I want to say Emily ate there a couple of times maybe. And so when I got home, she and Vanessa really wanted to take Burn Dog and I, and it's supposedly like a conveyor belt automated thing. They said it was really cool. We went there. It was fine. It's not for me.

The conveyor belt part is cool. You know, food just zooms by you, and if you want it, you just grab it. And then after you eat it, there's like a little slot. You stick your plate in, and then it registers whatever food you took based on that, and that's how they charge you. But you can also order stuff off a screen, and there's a different conveyor belt, which will bring that directly to you. Say you wanted, like, chicken Karagi.

And that's not a part of the never-ending stream of sushi rolls through, so you can order it, and then eventually it'll come directly to you. that part's kind of cool, I guess. Where I thought it was really dumb and where I got excited at first is we ordered drinks off this little iPad screen thing and then like five minutes later, a robot came up playing music

and delivered our drinks and I thought that was very cool. I was jazzed about that. He pulls up, he's like blaring some little like, you know, K-pop or something. And then his stomach opens up and there's four Diet Coke's in there. You grab them and he's like, peace, see ya. That part I'm all about.

But what happens next? invalidates that part to me. Then you finish your soda and you want to refill. You can't call the robot back over. You have to hit a button and then an actual wait staff person comes and then refills your drink. And then from that point on,

you're dealing with humans and not the robot anymore. So the robot is only the initial deliverer of soda. After this, he's out of the equation. You never see him again. Which is really kind of a bummer. Because I want to deal with robots.

I want to order food from robots. I want robots to deliver my food. I want conveyor belt sushi to figure out. how a robot can refill my Diet Coke. It's not that I don't like people. I love people. I'm not trying to eliminate people's jobs, but if I'm going for the kitch of a robot restaurant,

I want actual robot restaurant, not the facade of a robot restaurant. I felt the same way when I went to Space Cowboy in Austin, which is a much more expensive version of this where they have fancy food. But yet again, I felt it was largely illusionary. And it's strange because conveyor belt restaurants have existed... I mean, shit, they've existed since black and white television.

I feel like I've been watching conveyor belt restaurant skits in, you know, in sitcoms in the 1950s, for Christ's sake. Like, it's not a new thing. It's been around forever. I just feel like we've never figured out a way to make it more than Kitch. And there's a place for Kitch, obviously, or there wouldn't be a rainforest cafe still struggling to survive. But I just don't, I just feel like some of these, some of these robot places overpromise and under deliver, you know? and the robot sushi place was off to a great start with the diet coax. And then it just became dealing with a regular person, which is fine.

But like, don't sell me on a robot if I'm not really going to hang out with the robot. If you've had any cool robot experiences or any sadly disappointing robot experiences lately, I'd love to know about them. Send an email to Eric at jeffsposs.com. And speaking of Eric at jeffsboss.com, you have been sending me so many emails. I feel like we've got to dive in and get to it. You have been sending me so many emails. I feel like I'd be doing you a great to service if I didn't dive in right now.

And let's see what you all have to say. Hey, Jeff, long-time listener of the pod here. I'm also watching your Roadcraft stream as I write this and wait for the game to download for myself. This is from Braden. I wanted to send you a quick thank you for all the work you do. Ever since the old company shut down, you've mentioned in a lot of content that if you want to make something for yourself, you need to just go out and do it. Even if it sucks, at least you tried. Well, that is definitely true.

I've had a rocky situation with work lately. Looming threats of layoffs always seem to be present, and it feels like this job isn't going anywhere. Recently, I've been approached with an offer that I previously would have turned down out of fear of failure. My girlfriend's grandfather had been trying to get a small auto repair shop up and running before he passed away earlier this year and got really close to being able to open the doors.

Last week, her father reached out to us and said that he would like to have me run the shop. I was pretty shocked. I've worked in the industry before, but never thought I'd be going back to it. At first, the thought of working on my own was terrifying, but a chance like this doesn't come around every day. That is true. It sounds like somebody's done the lion's share of the work already for you. That's a pretty awesome opportunity. I put some thought into it, and I was re-listening to the last episode of Good Morning Gustavo and really took what you and Gus said to heart. It might be super shitty to start, but I have to give it a shot and see what happens.

I've spent the weekend digging up old notes on vendors and supplies, and this week I'm probably going to start a ton of paperwork to get this place opened as soon as possible. My plan is to decorate the office with regulation decor, and I eagerly await any restock of the signs you guys have sold in the past. Don't regulation yourself. Don't shoot yourself in the foot with regulation. I love that idea, and that Nunya Bar is killing it in Austin doing something similar, but just put the business before the regulation lore, if at all possible is what I guess what I'd say there. Just make sure it makes sense with what you're doing. You don't want to turn your customers off. The shop is really close to a few orchards and vineyards, so a no scrumping sign seems appropriate.

All right, I wish I should have just finished reading what you were writing because I completely agree with you. Absolutely a no-scrumping sign seems appropriate. Anyways, thanks for the great laughs and inspiration all these years. Thank you for investing in yourself and being brave and taking advantage of an opportunity. I can't promise it's going to work out for you. But I can promise that if you follow through with this and you do it, no matter how it ends, you will come out the other side of the better for it. wiser, more knowledgeable, maybe more cautious, maybe braver and more ready to throw caution to the wind

because you took a chance. I don't know, but this will inform you and something in you and you will improve and be a better version of yourself for going through this process. I wish you the most success in the world. It's tough. It's real tough to start a business, but you can do it. Think about all of the people who did it before you and who are going to do it after you. There is nothing special or more special about those people than there is about you. You have the exact same abilities that they do. And if they could make it successful, you can too. Congratulations, Braden, and good luck. Listening to your Riot Fest episode, you mentioned editing your own episodes and the large amount of editing it takes to cover your sobs. This is from Shane. That was just one specific episode

where I was talking about Millie Turned in 20 and I was caught off guard emotionally. And you don't have to talk about it on the episode. But it is more of a curiosity. Is it possible to put commercial ads in the spots that you are cutting? So I just wouldn't have to cut them out at all and just no. That'd be incredibly difficult to time up, but also that would be additional work that Nick would have to do. And I would always run the risk of the ad not playing properly and you hearing something I didn't want you to hear. It's much better to edit out anything I don't want to be aired just to ensure that that could never happen. But I love the idea and I love that you're thinking outside the box there, Shane. Thank you so much. Shane also said my wife and I

have a two, almost three-year-old daughter, and I fear the day she leaves the nest because I worry and will be ready. It's, well, you've got a long road ahead of you before you have to worry about it. But when you get there, you'll be ready. And it'll be hard, and it'll be awesome. And you'll be the proudest you've ever been in your entire life. And maybe the scaredest you've ever been in your entire life. But that's okay. That's your job as a parent. Mark the Frog sent an email that says, On a recent stream, you'd mentioned enjoying antique road show and related things. I figured you would also enjoy This Old House Tampa.

I don't know where it would be available to watch, but it's still fascinating to read. Hope the future is kind and good health stays with you. Mark the Frog. Thanks, Mark. Love you as always. I have not seen the Tampa, this old house, but I do watch, it's so funny you say that, because I do watch this old house fairly regularly when I'm hanging out with my wife in her office. She has like a, I don't know, like free TV channels that she likes to fuck around with because they're always like, I don't know, they're always just home and garden stuff. And this old house is on frequently. There's a actually, maybe this is where I could find it. I don't know what the services are called like to be or Samsung X or whatever the fuck it is. But whatever is on like the free TV you get when you buy a smart TV, there's a this old house channel that just runs the show 24 hours a day. And so we put that on and just get lost in it sometimes. And we will easily sit and chew up three or four episodes with that.

been realizing it. So I'm going to keep on the lookout for that, Mark. Thank you so much for the email. I'll see you in my stream tomorrow, probably. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca.com. Recently, I asked if anybody was aware of any American bands that were shaking up the scene, kind of like idols and Lambini girls, are in England, or Viagra boys are in Sweden, I want to say. And this is from Spi or Spech. They say,

Good morning, Mr. Jeffey, just wrapping up the latest episode of So Right and wanted to drop a couple of recommendations on you. Drug Church. My buddies from Albany, New York. Crunchy, Rhythmic Poetic. Pat Kindlin, the singer, also known for end of a year and self-defense family. is a wonderful lyricist. Cheers is my personal favorite album, but all their stuff is solid. All right. Drug Church, that's one. Gouge away, a badass punk band from Florida with a gym of a singer lyricist. Such a fun band, burnt sugar is a good album to start with, okay? Pile. A little bit of a different vibe from these boys from Boston. Heavy, detuned riffs mixed with post-hardcore indie vibes. Dripping is a good start with the Browns being my favorite song from that album. I was Pile.

Anyway, I hope you and yours are well. Thanks for always being there for us throughout the years. I hope maybe I've uncovered something new for you to enjoy, as you have done so often for me over the years. Take care of Spad. Thank you so much for the list. It was Drug Church, Gouge Away, and Pile. I want to say I've heard of Drug Church before, but it could just be that the name sounds like a name I would have heard of before, you know. It's kind of tough with those, but I've definitely never heard of Gouge Way or Pile. I will add both of those to my playlist. I'm actually going to write it down on a physical piece of paper so I don't forget pile couch away and drug church thank you so much this one's from Justin hey Jeff I don't usually do this but

I feel the need to send an email after today's riot fest episode hearing you talk about your daughter is just awesome I've been a listener since early days of roost teeth and recently welcomed a daughter of my own under the world congratulations Justin she is two years old now so hearing you talk about Millie, who's 20, was very heartwarming. Becoming a dad is the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I hope that one day I'm able to share my experiences with her like you do with Millie. You will. I guarantee you, and I'm

so excited for both of you. There is nothing better on earth than being a dad. This is from Archie, and I realize some people have been signing with their hot dog and burger counts, and I haven't been saying it. I apologize

to... You know what? I'm going to go back. Braden is at nine hamburgers. I forgot to say that. My apologies, Braden. Anyway. Archie, who is at 10 hot dogs and four hamburgers, says, I know you used to talk about Marcus Smart a lot.

Yeah. Yeah, he's my favorite basketball player. I think I recall you saying he was your favorite player on the Celtics at the time. Yeah, he was my, he's my favorite basketball player, irrespective of team. How do you feel about the recent development of him now being a Laker? It sucks anytime a favorite player is gone, but always stings even more when they eventually end up playing for a

rival like that. Listen. Well, let me finish what you're saying. As a Lakers fan, I'm sorry, nobody's perfect, you know. I am excited for this upcoming season should hopefully be a good one for us given our roster between Donchich seemingly hitting a new stride in fitness and putting in a hell of a performance at Eurobasket tournament and people like Smart Reeves, Hachemora, connect, plus LeBron, we are looking good. How do you see this season playing out? I know with Tatum being out for a large chunk, the Celtics might struggle a bit, but I see them performing well. Anyway, thanks for the years of content and for getting me into sports cards. Got some sick recent polls, mostly collecting English soccer and basketball currently.

Never gotten into baseball, but recommend me a team, and I'll give it a try. Well, I'm collecting the tigers these days, but, you know, your mileage may vary. Okay, thanks for the email, Archie. Let me start by saying Marcus Smart is still my favorite basketball player. And you are right. It is never fun to watch one of your favorite players play for a rival. I've dealt with this in the past I've dealt with this fairly recently in the past

before Marcus Smart was my favorite basketball player Rajan Rondo was my favorite basketball player won a title with the Boston Celtics and then eventually ended up playing for the Los Angeles Lakers so not only is there a precedent there's a precedent for my very favorite Celtic and my very favorite basketball player in the world

going to the Lakers and for that player being a guard. At the end of the day, I love Marcus Smart. I think he's the best. I just, I love his approach to basketball. He seems like a genuinely good person. He does a lot of outreach and communities. He's done a lot of work with kids in cancer. And I think that he is a, just a pretty awesome role model of an NBA player. And he plays basketball the way I would like to think I would play, which is with reckless abandon for personal health. And putting a success of the the team above all else. I would love to be able to be the kind of guy like,

Marcus Smart is the first guy on the ground. He's the first guy in the scrum. He's the first guy diving for a ball. He's the first guy taking a charge. He puts it all on the line every time he plays and he plays with a furious intensity. He never takes a day off. And I love that about him. I just want him to succeed in life. He's a dad now. He's got a family. I can't wish for anything but the most success for him. And if he's going to play for a rival and he's going to play for a team, I loathe. I fucking despise. At least he gets to play with two people I don't hate. I don't hate LeBron James. I think it's cool that LeBron James is still playing in his 40s. I think Mark Smart, who's well into his career and in his 30s, could probably still learn

from playing with LeBron. I think that's cool. And Luca may be the most exciting and energetic young player in the NBA right now until, you know, Wimbunyama and maybe Cooper Flag take the mantle right now, I'd say Lucas got it. It's a pretty cool setup for a guy like Marcus Smart, a guy who gives a shit. He needs to play with people who give a shit and who give a shit that he gives a shit. I think he and LeBron will be a good fit. I think that he and Luca will be a good fit. It's going to be interesting to see, I can't root for them, but I will root for him. The other question was, oh, how do he do you? see the season playing out with Tatum being out a large chunk. I still think the Celtics

will perform well. I don't think the Celtics are in as dire a situation as the rest of the league seems to save for you. People think they're not going to make the playoffs. People think they're going to tank. I don't think it's in them to tank. I don't see Brad Stevens or Joe Missoula tanking. Certainly not Joe Missoula. I think that the Boston Celtics are significantly worse off than they were a year ago. We have lost Al Horford. We have lost Drew Holiday. Now, one could argue that Drew and Al are both past their prime and are going to provide diminishing returns for us.

And we had to get out from under that at some point. And so why not now? I understand. I'm not mad about it. I'm just sad about it, you know? Speaking of Al, there's another example. Al Horford went, he left Boston the first time, and he went to play for the Philadelphia 76ers,

who are our biggest rival and a bigger rival than the Lakers. That hurt even more. And now he's leaving to go play for the Golden State Warriors, who I also fucking hate. So I'm not jazzed about that. We also lost Chris Staps Porzingas, who has gone to Atlanta. We have, in return, saved a lot of money.

And we have a guy named Anthony Simons, who I kind of liked two years ago, three years ago, and we'll see what he does for us. I'm optimistic. got a couple of other well we've got some interesting pieces and I wouldn't say the future is bright but I don't think it's as dire

as everyone else seems to think we still have Derek White we have some issues at Center and it doesn't seem like we're going to address them but we still have Derek White and who's going to be better this year than he was last year he gets better every year and we still have Jalen Brown and this is Jalen Brown's opportunity

this is his sink or swim moment He has been the 1B guy on our team to Jason Tatum's 1A this entire time. Tatum is out of the way for hopefully the whole year. I don't want to see him come back early and then injure himself. I'd rather him take the time it takes to recover and not race back. You know what I mean? So hopefully he's out for the majority of the year as he gets better, if not the whole year. And we get to see Jalen Brown become a 1A and really embrace that role and run with it.

And I think he can and he wants to, and this is his opportunity. And I'm really excited for him. I think that's going to be something to watch. If Jalen Brown rises to the next level of his career, Selt is going to be just fine. Dear Jeff, this is from Adrian. This is a short one. This is like a shower thought. This is, dear Jeff, there is a person alive today who will be the last one to remember a night sky without a visible satellite in it.

Have a good day because I won't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's an excellent point. That's a really, really makes you think. Here's one. Jeff and my favorite word collab is from Ben. Can you have Jeff, I guess he doesn't really just talking to me. He probably thinks he's talking to Eric. Can you have Jeff do a live stream collab with Ray playing specifically Nickelodeon and MLB Jam? They did it for verses way back in the day. Jeff said he needed redemption and they never play each other again. Thanks, Eric. Like, nah, probably not. If I remember it, like if I'm sure Ray has no memory of that, and I definitely don't, it would be hard to try to reconnect with whatever that was. But I'd rather just play something new with them, you know? Or play something, if we're going to do collaborations with Ray, I'd like to do it in the way we just did it a few weeks ago where we play something like Rainbow Six Vegas.

That is also a very old game from a long time ago that you, Very similar to what you're mentioning here, but it includes the whole group. I don't know. I'll look at it. Never say never. Thanks, Ben. All right, this is going to be our last email of the episode. Thank you to everybody who sent ones in.

If I didn't get to yours, I apologize. I'll do more emails here in the next couple weeks, probably. I'll come up with some sort of a puddle to do a shallow dive into next week. Hey, Jeff, big fan since RVV season one. Love everything you do. Wow, thank you so much. I want to get into baseball, but have no idea where to start. How do I get into baseball?

I watch it occasionally, but never know what I'm watching. I just enjoy the excitement, but I'd love to actually know what the hell I'm watching. Thanks, Michael. Burger Count Check, 13. That's a solid burger count. We're not that far into the year yet, buddy. So you're keeping pace with us. That's pretty impressive.

That's a great question. How do you get into baseball? I got into baseball when I was like five. Watching it definitely helps, even if you don't understand. I would recommend two things. All right, here you go. I'm going to recommend three things. And I don't know that any of this is good advice.

But if you genuinely want to get into it and you want to start understanding it, watch a game, the playoffs start today, pick a team, decide I'm going to follow that team through the playoffs. I don't care if you watch the Tigers or the Yankees or the Red Sox or the Padres or the Cubs or the Brewers or whoever you're into, the Blue Jays. There's a bunch of teams that are starting the playoffs today. Just pick one. Maybe there's one in your area.

maybe there's a local team. Decide that's your team. Then watch the game. When you see something you don't understand or something that doesn't make sense or they say something that doesn't, you understand the words, but you don't understand what they mean.

Just pause the game and Google it. That sounds frustratingly slow, but it's a good way to build your knowledge. Another option would be to look up a YouTube video explaining baseball. I've never watched one of those in my life, but I guarantee you

There's a whole bunch of videos on YouTube of people that do a really good job of succinctly explaining the sport of baseball to you. If that seems lame to you and you don't want to try that, the other option I would give you would be to download MLB the show or another baseball game and go through the tutorial.

And as they teach you how to play the baseball game, they're going to teach you baseball. And you can figure out a lot of it that way. Or you can do some combination of the three, but really... You are at a unique point in time right now. I realize that I'm saying this to you right now on the day the playoffs start.

I'm recording this on Tuesday, September 30th. So today is day one of the playoffs. And by the time you hear this, if you hear this when it comes out next Tuesday, we'll be seven days past that. So some of the teams that I mentioned will probably already be out. But there will still be a shitload of baseball to play

when you're listening to this. And so if you don't already have a team, grab a team. And maybe it's as simple as you like a logo. or a color scheme, or maybe there's one player on the team that seems cool to you. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Oakland Athletics because I liked Mark McGuire. After Mark McGuire left the athletics, I realized I was no longer a fan of the athletics. I just liked Mark McGuire.

And at some point, I wasn't a fan of Mark McGuire anymore, which is why I don't bring up my A's fandom because I was a very shallow fan of the Bash Brothers when everybody was, right? But I followed that player for a while until I eventually burned out on him. You know what I'm saying? But I still like Marcus Smart. He's an NBA player, no matter what team he plays for, whether he plays for the Celtics or the Memphis Grizzlies or the Washington Wizards or now the Los Angeles Lakers. So maybe there is a person that seems cool to you, somebody with style, somebody that's funny or good looking or wacky, that, you know, there's a lot of personalities in sports. There's a lot of wackadoos and interesting and fascinating people in sports.

So there might be somebody that you, I don't know, identify with in some way or to see. that you're a fan of, and that can be an entry point. But the best way to understand and enjoy baseball is to watch baseball at the end of the day. I am in a similar situation with hockey. I'm watching hockey. I'm getting into hockey. I'm enjoying hockey. But I'm, when it comes to the sport of hockey, the rules of hockey, the schemes and the strategies and the particulars of hockey, I am an infant. I'm a baby. I'm still trying to make sense of

and understand line changes and when it makes sense and the difference between a third line and a fourth line and there's so much to hockey that I haven't even scratched the surface on. But that's okay. I don't need to be in a hurry.

I can enjoy it because I can root for a team I want to see when and that team is, of course, Detroit Red Wings. And each game of hockey I watch, whether I'm watching it by myself or with my father-in-law

or with my wife, whether I'm in person or whether I'm watching it on television. Each game of hockey I watch, I leave with a little bit more understanding of hockey. It's probably going to take me years to become the kind of person who feels like he can speak about hockey

in the way I speak about basketball or baseball. But I will get there eventually just from the osmosis of the fandom, you know? You don't have to be an expert overnight either. And it's okay not to understand a lot of stuff. There's a lot about hockey. I don't understand. It doesn't change the fact.

that I still really enjoy watching and I'm very excited about it, you know? So it'll come in time. It'll come in time. But thanks for the email, Michael, and I hope that you do get into it. I hope that you genuinely enjoy it and you discover a fandom there.

And if not, that's no big deal either. You'll find it somewhere else. Okay, I think that'll be enough for the emails today. I need to give you guys a song of the episode. I have been collecting a lot, but I feel like there's a lot of... You know what?

I don't give you shit. I'm going to pick. I'm just like, I feel like I'm hammering themes and I've been really hitting this like certain era of punk and indie and rock but I'm gonna continue to do it

just because this song has been stuck in my head all fucking week and not because I am also tired it's just a really good song but I'm gonna recommend off the instrument album which I believe is Fugazi's last album if you've ever heard of Fagazi they're a

legendary legendary band in my world and in my scene. But this album, their later stuff is maybe less well-known and less appreciated, but I think better. And I didn't understand that at the time. It took me growing up and maturing to be able to connect with some of their later catalog. So glad that I did off their last album instrument, it's I'm So Tired by Fugazi. Check it out if you get a chance. It's different than, like, if your knowledge of Fugazi is like repeater. and waiting room. It's a different song.

It's a different vibe. But I think you'll really, really love it. I'm so tired by Fagazi. I'm not tired, though. I'm going to go for a bike ride. Love you all dearly. Don't forget to listen to the Regulation Podcast. Thank you for listening to this podcast.

Please listen to my wife's podcast, Clutch My Pearls. If you're into books or smut or whatever, and if you're not, tell somebody who is. That'll do it. I'll see you next week. All right. This is the end of the show. Thank you.