The Biggest Problem in the Universe: Uncucked - Episode 2

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Welcome to the biggest problem in the universe. I'm Maddox. With me is Dick Masterson. Hey, everybody. Hey, so I was, sorry, I was thinking today about why it's weird when you do the intro. Because you're the headliner. It's like, you go to a concert and Pavarotti comes out and he's like, hey, everybody, welcome to the Pavarotti show. Now, Pavarotti.

It would be weird. So do you think Robin Quiver should do the intro to the Howard Stern show? Who does the intro to Howard Stern? He does? Well, there's kind of like a pre-recorded thing, but like Adam Carolla, I guess Adam Carolla introduces... No, you know what, Bald Brian kind of does a... Or what's his name? His producer?

Howard Stern's producer, Gary? No, no, no, no. Well, it's awesome when George Takeda introduces Howard. He's like, welcome to the Howard Stern Show. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, welcome the biggest part of the universe. Best-selling author, Maddox.

creator of the best site in the universe, author of the alphabet of manliness. So close. Best page in the universe. Best page in the universe. All right. Well, let's, also with us today is our audio engineer, Sean. He may be chiming in, maybe not,

but he's also recording, which is probably why the audio sounds so much better this time. Look, I got a big list of apologies to get through today. Oh, all right, let's hear your apologies. From last week. Number one, I'd like to apologize for the sound. I did a horrible job on the sound. I thought it was pretty good.

I thought you did a good job. Okay. Well, I apologize that it wasn't great. Thank you. That's a good apology. Thanks. All right. The second apology is I got to apologize for interrupting you so much.

Oh. It's my fault. I thought I was doing a podcast with a man. I grew up with men. I talk with a lot of men. It's impossible to interrupt them. They just roll right through it. So I apologize.

I didn't know that I was doing a podcast with you. Oh, okay. So a backhanded non-apology is your apology. Thank you for that. Which, by the way, so we launched the website, The Biggest Probleming the Universe.com, where you can go vote on these problems. And the first comment on here from a Facebook comment is,

why is it that every time Maddox tried to talk, Dick Masterson interrupted? What's that guy's name? His name is... What's his first name? What's his first name? Noah. Noah.

You're dead, Noah. I'm a kid. You can unfriend him? Yeah, I'm going to friend him and then unfriend him and unfriend him. I'm going to friend him and see if he's married and then hit on his wife. Oh, nice. Nice. A good move.

I've had actually people reach out to me and ask me to bang their wives because they said that it would be an honor, I guess, to have my sloppy seconds. Can you read those emails at a future date? Of course. Because I think that's happened to me one time. Like this guy would send me pictures of his wife's. snatch, I think, is the proper term for it. Yeah, that's the proper term.

And it would be like these really graphic emails about, like, women. Don't you think women are this? And women are whores? And check out my wife. Isn't she a whore? And I was like, dude, I don't know what you want me to do here. I guess he wanted you to jerk off. He sent these to you so you would, I don't know.

Well, I did jerk off, but it wasn't because of that email. That's pretty gross. I mean, you jerking off. Okay, so let's talk. Talk about last week's problems. What's the ranking? So last week we had... Because I thought I brought in some great problems.

So Dick brought in guys asking other guys about their dogs and me, Maddox. And I brought in my problems were crying and families. And the highest ranked problem, according to our listeners, is crying at the number one position with 41 upvotes. Are you serious? 41 upboats. Okay. Right. And followed by families with 30.

And then your guys asking other guys about their dogs. Not that big of a problem. Got a number two. Okay. Two guys. Two guys know what I'm talking about. Two guys. And then Maddox, your supposed problem,

negative 10. Not a problem at all. I'm a solution, buddy. Okay, well, this is a win for me because it proves what I've been saying all along that voting is for stupid idiots who don't know what they're talking about. As opposed to what?

As opposed to, like, smart idiot? Like, what are all the different kinds of idiots? Stupid idiots. There's only one kind of idiot. There's two kinds of idiots. Is me is one kind of idiot, and everybody else is another kind of idiot who doesn't agree with me. Okay. And they vote.

All right. Two kinds of idiots. I'll buy that. Yeah. All right. Well, congratulations. You won fair and square. Good job.

All right. All right. Well, I think the important takeaway here is that I'm not a problem. I'm a solution. So, speaking of problems, we should, let's get going. with this week's problems. Dick, you go first. You have the first problem this week.

Okay. My first problem is long emails. Long emails. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on board with this. Okay, let's hear it. So I punched it into the Google machine,

like how much time does email waste at work? And the headline of the Guardian said, 40% of your time is spent emailing. At work? Yeah. Hmm. Well, would you consider, I'm playing devil's advocate here. Would you consider email part of your work?

Okay. This is how I know if an email is too long. So, like, this is what I do now, and this is what I want everyone to try to do, to fix this problem. You write an email, and it's usually like two paragraphs or a whole page or whatever. You're trying to express yourself. Then what I do is I go back and I delete everything, except for one sentence. Because what is all that other garbage for?

Like, someone either agrees with you or they don't. If they do, they're going to do what you're saying. If they don't agree with you, fuck them. Right? Yeah. You're not going to convince them. Well, okay. I mean, I get that this is your approach through life.

It's very defeatist and very kind of sullen and bleak. There you go. That's the email. I get that that's your approach to life. It's selling and bleak. What else do you need to say? There's no solution. Yeah.

It's just you just can't convince anybody. Oh, I disagree. However, I would say that long emails are a problem because, well, no, you know what? I thought about it. You're right. I can't imagine a long email that I've ever read and coming away from it thinking, wow, I really understood something. I really got something out of this. Yeah.

I would say more than a paragraph or two, and it's pushing that. bullshit territory. It just gets embarrassing. It's crazy. It's like what are you writing? Are you writing the, is this a sample chapter? Are you pitching me a proposal here? Is this a book? What am I reading? Why, why does it have to be so long? In fact, on that point, I don't read my email anymore until at the end of the night, usually, which frustrates you and a lot of my friends because they'll send me important stuff like, hey, are we on for today? And I usually don't get back to them. I don't check my email. Emails annoy me. Text messages annoy me. voicemail really annoys me and phone calls annoy me.

Like, basically any kind of communication annoys me. Yeah. So what's the best way to get through to you? Like, pay a hooker to come have sex with you and, like, communicate through a headpiece? That would work, right? Theoretically. So we're both wearing headpieces?

Like Bluetooth headsets or what? No, the hooker is wearing the headpiece and I'm telling her what I wrote you in an email. And she's asking you. Oh, I see. What mean we're both wearing headpieces? You and me while you're having sex? with a hooker that I bought talking about it?

Yeah, I imagine that... You sicko? That's kind of a bribe. Like, hey, please reply to my email. Well, I'm surprised that you agree with me on this, because you're the worst offender of writing enormous emails. I do write long, you know. This guy sent me an email after the last show

that was about three pages long, and it could have been summarized with just, you interrupt me too much, stop interrupting. Yeah, you know, I'm an evidence-based guy, and I like to have evidence. I like to have examples In fact, I brought some I seriously did

I have so many examples of everything I'm an evidence-based guy Yeah When it comes to everything You gotta make a case Why should I Why should anyone take anyone's word for it, right? Because we have confirmation bias

Who cares? People are just going to believe it or they're not If they don't believe it What are you going to do? Pull out some stats Hey, check out some math Yeah Do you believe me now?

Right. Yeah. evidence. That's like the foundation of every solid sound argument is evidence. The foundation of every argument is making fun of someone until they admit that you're right because they don't want to look stupid anymore. That's how you win an argument. So you think there's like a stupid, a stupid critical mass where someone feels so stupid. No, I know exactly what it is. It's the feeling that you get when you pee in your pants. If you have to make them feel that, if you can make them feel that with your words,

then they'll just acquiesce the point and you win the argument. Okay. I'm not sure. I'm not sure I follow exactly. So you want someone to get the feeling like they're peeing their pants. Yeah, like that shame. That shame of feeling of peeing their pants. Like just being embarrassed.

Like, doesn't it feel great to pee your pants? Like, doesn't it just, oh, man, it's warm? Well, I guess like when you're a kid, I'm trying to trace it back to like when you're a kid and you pee your pants. Like in class, that's embarrassing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, I'll give you that. All right. All right, well...

All right, that's my problem. I don't know. Long emails, I guess, are a problem. Just cut it down to one sentence for a week. Pretend like you're on Twitter when you're emailing. You, expect... You, I want you to try this. Oh, I don't know, man.

I'm a pretty verbose writer. When it comes... I'm efficient, usually, um, when I write status updates and things like in my Facebook page, but when it comes to emails, I'm pretty verbose. I like to explain things. You know what? I guess it's a projection.

It's, it's... It's telling you what I think about you. It's like, oh, this guy needs lots of explanation. Yeah, it's condescending. Yeah. Yeah. Believe me, everyone gets it. Everyone gets what you're doing.

Hey, dear dick, great job on the podcast. Just a couple notes. Immediately infuriating. Oh, okay. Well, you know, I just thought I would finance it. One note, not a couple notes, just one note. Stop interrupting. There were a couple notes.

There were a couple notes. All right, what's your problem? All right, my first problem this week is horoscopes. Oh. Yeah. Huge problem. And for so many reasons, first of all, the people who believe in these things kind of like based their life. They make really big life decisions around them.

And I'm not saying I'm above it completely. Like, of course, I'm above horoscopes because I'm not an idiot. But I am, I'm not above making irrational decisions based on nothing. For example, a coin toss. You would not believe the number of really important life decisions I've made based on a coin toss. I would believe that. Bucco. Including not limited to my decision to write my first book.

That was a coin toss. You threw up to a coin toss? I did it as a coin toss, yeah. Why? Because at the time I... You should have wrote yourself a couple six-page emails about it and see which side had more evidence. Why? What were you doing at the time? Well, at the time I was debating whether or not I should try to publish this thing on my own

or whether I should go with this agent who emailed me out of the blue. This guy emailed me just randomly one day, literally while I was negotiating the contract with agency, and I wasn't sure whether or not I should go with them, so I flipped a coin. So wait a minute, can I, just to set the context for this story, this was in what year that you were considering publishing it yourself? 2004.

Yeah, there was no resources to publish a book yourself back then. there were a few. It wasn't as robust as we have today, but there was Lulu.com, and you could still do like the e-publishing thing, and I would basically raise some capital and try to publish the book myself. That would have been interesting. Yeah. Well, I knew some author friends who tried, and it was really difficult, specifically because of distribution. So you flipped a coin? I flipped a coin, yeah. Did you do that thing where you like, as soon as the coins in the air,

you know which one you want it to be? No, I did. Have you heard that thing? No, no. Oh, chicks post that all the time. Facebook. You know how you make a hard decision, you flip a coin, and as soon as it's in the air, you know which one you want it to be. No, no, that's bullshit. And speaking of chicks, so back to horoscopes. So, so this is, this is a huge problem because people will base their lives on these very generic horoscopes. There was a, there was a guy who did a study, I think, in the 50s, where he gave his classroom a bunch of horoscopes to read. And he told them they're all custom horoscopes

tailored to themselves. And he asked them at the end of it to rate, on a scale of one to five, how accurately it represented them. And the average in class was around 4.6 on the accuracy. But then after he collected everybody's responses, then he told everybody they received the same horoscope. So everybody thought it applied to them. That's what makes horoscopes bullshit. They're all generic, these general things that apply to everybody.

So did this, the students walked away from class going that day, just having learned that they're dumb idiots? Yeah, basically. Like, that's what the state paid that jerk to do. That sounds like something you would do to a class. Yeah, it is. Yeah, you know what I did to my class today? I made them all feel like dumb jerks.

Yeah, don't believe anything. They're so stupid. Yeah, today's lesson, you're an idiot. You're an idiot. Great study. So, uh, I have some horoscopes here. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, because I, I disagree with you. I love horoscopes.

Oh, great, great. Because it's like the best in to talk to girls about themselves. You don't want to talk to girls who are into horoscopes. They're all into horoscopes. Every single one of them will talk about themselves using the horoscope as a crutch. I don't know, man. That's a deal breaker for me. That's a red flag.

That's like, this is crazy town. It's a red flag. You're nodding like this is true. John's nodding. Finally one chick that's not into horoscopes. Wait a minute. What's your sign, first of all? Trap.

I don't know. I've never known. I don't even know my birthday. I don't know your birthday either because I'm a man. Yeah, I'm in Aries. I knew it. You know what? And that is the response.

every single time when he tells somebody your sign, they say, oh, you're a total Ares. Oh, my God. Yeah, you're a total Ares. Well, really? Why didn't you say that before I fucking said it, Noster dumbass? Like, why don't you say? Because I'm Scorpio, man. I would never do that. Oh, Scorpios would never do that. No, but, like, don't you, you don't use this to talk to women? No. So you walk up, so

a girl's like, hey, what's your sign? And you're like, well, frankly, madam, that's a red sign to me. There was a study where a professor and you would fail it. I say, I don't know when I walk away. I find a girl who's not a dumb. Is this, is that true? Yeah, I need to know this. What, that I don't talk. That this is a sign of being crazy.

Oh, absolutely, it's a huge red flag, man. Hold on, I'm going to write this down. Yeah, write this thing. So two things you learned today, that the kids in the 50s were dumbasses, and it's a huge red flag. I know, but jokes on me, because I'm not going to use it. It's just too easy to talk to them about horoscopes. You know what, though?

I mean, do you really want to do it? You could talk about nails. You can talk about manis and petties, whatever those are. No, because you like, if you pretend you're into it and they're talking about themselves, they like, that's like an intimacy thing. Like, it's suddenly the conversation's more intimate. It's a great shortcut. Yeah, okay. Well, so I don't have to talk about myself, which is even better.

What do you mean you don't have to talk about yourself? If they're talking about their own sign. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, oh, I'm a cancer. Well, first of all, it's not their sign. It's some generic, whatever. And it's, and they don't even know what their sign is because there is an astrological. phenomenon, an astronomical rather,

not astrological. It's an astronomical phenomenon. It's the first time that it could be both. It could be both, actually. It's called the procession of the Earth's axis. Have you heard of this? Okay, this is people... Don't big league me with your astronomy terms. All right, well, I know what procession is. Really? Yeah, okay, great. Go ahead. What is it mean? Okay, Professor. Well, this is

for the listeners who aren't familiar. Let me check your definition. You tell me what it means. Classic. So for the listeners, this is, precision of the Earth's axis is once every 26,000 years or so, the Earth wobbles because of the pull of the moon. So as the Moon kind of like rotates around the Earth, it has like this wobbling effect that causes the Earth's axis to rotate off of its tilt. So what we have is the North Star today is not going to be the North Star in about 13,000 years.

What? Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So this is according to Live Science. LifeScience.com, unbeknownst to the ancient astrologers, the Earth continually wobbles around its axis every 25,800-year cycle.

This wobble is called procession, is caused by the gravitational attraction of the moon on the Earth's equatorial bulge. Over the past two and a half millennia, this wobble has caused the intersection point between the celestial equator and the ecliptic to move west along the ecliptic, almost exactly one-tenth of the way around. So basically what this means is... I didn't interrupt you that whole thing, and it was boring as hell.

I didn't interrupt you the whole thing. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you for the thank you. You want to pat on your back? No, that was a sarcastic thank you. But I take your sincere.

I'll take it. I'll take it. It's just as good to me. Great. So if you're born, so here's an example. If you're born between November 29 and December 17th, your sign would actually be one that you've never even seen in newspapers. It's the sign, I think it's called Ophicius. O-P-H-I-U.

Ophi-U. Ophi-U-E-O-F-E-E-C-A. And then what? O-P-H-H-I-U-C-A. H-U-S. Ophiakus. Okay, so that's your sign. No, it's changed. That's the thing.

What are some qualities of this sign that you've just discovered? I don't even have it. It's not listed. People don't use the sign in Zodiac charts because they don't know what it exists. Dude, do you know how exciting this is in the world of, like, talking to chicks? You've discovered a new sign. I didn't discover it, first of all, and it's not a thing. This isn't a thing.

So, profuse sweating when angered. That's one of the qualities of this. sign. You know, if astrologers can predict so much shit, why couldn't they fucking predict that there would be another astrological symbol that they didn't foresee? Because of the wobble. Okay, so here's the actual horoscope. It's not about predicting, though. It's about

understanding yourself. Okay, dude, I'm not a chick, and this is grossing me out. Like, I'm getting goosebumps. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Can I, in defense of astrology, can I give, oh, I want to give people this, is this? So I have a whole routine, where if a chick starts talking about, like,

astrology and her sign, Yeah. I have this like whole routine to, to, uh, I'm trying to think of a euphemism where I'm more intimate with her and I'm only thinking of like bad euphemisms, like hit the nail in the coffin or sink the ship. It goes like this. Like I totally believe in astrology because it's like when you were born, the way your parents treated you in the first two months of your life has like a major effect on your personality. Oh my gosh. I can, I can just picture you can picture me saying this.

sleaziness. Oh, I've said this to, I don't know, probably 30 girls. It works every time. I can picture you saying that and it's so sleet. And I can picture the girl's nodding. Like, yeah, totally. Because I never think of the science part. Like, they never try to justify their crazy beliefs with science.

And I can do that for them. No, I love it. I remember when I was a kid, yeah, this thing happened. And it's always, yeah, of course, confirmation bias. So I have with me some astrological signs that I want, some horoscopes I want to read. Oh, read mine. I will.

We'll get to it, buddy. They're fun. This is from 17 magazine, which, by the way, I bought this issue of 17 magazine because it's incredible. I highly recommend you go out and buy an issue of 17 magazine. It's the best reading I've read in a long time. It's almost, like, self-satirical. You know, it's all written by, like, 30-year-old guys like me who are just sitting around...

Like you? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Really? You know, just do, like, big hairy dudes are sitting around writing this stuff, and teenage girls are lapping it up. Like, this is incredible. I don't know. Is it really?

Is that really true? Do you know something that I don't? Because that seems awfully cynical. I've written an article for Cosmopolitan. Okay. There you go. So, okay, I'm going to read Aries. What was it called?

What was it called? My horoscope sign. I forget. Was it a ghost written piece, or did you write it asmatics? I wrote it asmatics, but they do have ghostwriters. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's hilarious.

That's typical, typical, ophoicheas behavior. How do you say it? Is that how you say it? I think it's Ophiakus. Ophiakus. Typical Ophiakus behavior. So, Ares, in June,

near the 25th, your bestie will spill a shocking secret. Whatever it is, be supportive. And then in July, you rarely show your softer side, but on the 13th, you'll go full-on mushball

with your guy. He'll love it. Yeah, that's pretty, fiction stuff though that's dumb oh really okay what it's not about who you are man okay yeah yeah give me the scorpio this is gonna be totally wrong thanks to the moon on the 27th your crew will kick off summer with an epic party everyone will be posting about i do have a i do i am going to a party on the 27th with your crew yeah you're a girl what how's it going to go on the 26th you'll get the perfect opening to flirt with your new crush oh yeah and your symbols probably that guy sending me more pictures of his wife to bang

Your snitch, I don't know, what do you call it? You call it a snatch? I mean, if I want to be romantic. Yeah, okay. Your symbols for the month are smiley face plus heart. So the smiley face, they have a legend here for the horse cups. The smiley face is fun with friends, and the heart is flirty fun. Okay, so what's your problem?

That made me feel good. All that you just said, I feel like I'm going to, I'm going to nail some broad in the 26th, and I'm going to go have a great time on the 27th. Maybe the cops will get called in a party. That sounds like fun. Okay. What's your problem? Why does it bug you that people are into this?

Because it's bullshit and it sets up false expectations and people make important decisions based on this bullshit. This is no better than a coin toss. It's way worse than a coin toss. Explain that. Well, with a coin toss, at least it's, you know, you have a 50-50 probability of either way. And I only generally make those decisions

when I feel like I've weighed all the pros and cons and they're equal on both sides. This isn't one of those things where somebody's critically analyzing all the possibilities and then choosing an option based on those pros and cons. This is somebody just reaching into the ether with a ladle and dipping out bullshit and pouring it down their throats. Now they're going with their gut.

Yeah, that's what they're doing. That's good. Go with your gut. That's a more concise way of saying what I just said. Yes, that's what I... So next time you email anybody, remember this conversation. Just shrink it. Great.

What's your second problem? Oh, man. We get too many chick things this time. My second problem is Tinder. Tinder, really? Yeah. Okay, let's hear it. I had to think about this one a lot because I hate it.

It bugs me. Tinder, yeah. Yeah, it really annoys me. I really don't like it. Why is that? Well, I'm just going to go over the things that I don't. I did end up, I think, figuring out why I hated so much. But this isn't why.

It's addicting. Right. Is it not addicting? Yeah. It's a fun. It's a fun thing. I mean, is it fun? Is it fun?

Well, it's like a video game where you could potentially get laid. Unlike every other video game. My, okay. Yeah, except a video game while you're playing it, you're not constantly getting rejected by chess. Like, when you go to a bar, you would have to go to a bar the size of the Super Bowl to get a rejection ratio that you can get in 20 minutes on Tinder.

You can get on a bus ride on Tinder. You can get rejected 400 times. Do you Tinder? Do you, Sean? Sean's nodding, no. I don't even know what it is. Oh, you're such a man. F you. F you, Sean. Shut up. He's got no reception in his house. That's why. That's why he doesn't Tinder.

Shut of, Sean. Trying to look cool, Sean. Yeah, looking cool, Sean. It's true. I thought you were talking about, like, burning small pieces of wood or, like, or legal tender. Like, I had no idea what the hell you were talking about. That's good, but especially for some of our international listeners, they probably don't know what Tinder is. So describe what Tinder is. Because I've used it. I used it in Sweden, and it actually surprisingly worked. I went through the entire lot of Swedish women in about, I don't know, 15 minutes.

Really? Yeah. Okay, Tinder is like an app that shows you a chick, and you say, yes, I want to bang you or no, I don't. It's not necessarily, it's like potentially to meet up. Okay, sorry. Tinder is an app where fat women can post pictures of themselves when they look skinny. Right? So far, that's accurate.

And then a bunch of losers can rape them and know that they're never going to. going to go on a date with them. That's essentially what Tinder is. It's like hot or not, but a dating app. Yeah. That's essentially it is. Yeah. But here's the thing. The rejection that happens is invisible. It's like you're, you're accusing Tinder. That's the worst kind of rejection. No, no, because you're accusing Tinder of the type of rejection that you get when a bus full of cheerleaders passes you and not one of them goes out on a date with you. They reject you do too, technically. Yeah, I don't like that. It's like getting driven by a bus full of cheerleaders all day every day. It sucks.

You know they're out there, but you're not doing anything. Like, it's not an act of rejection. Sometimes they don't even log in, so they never even see your profile. Oh, that's the worst. Okay, but that's not why I hate it. Okay, why do you hate it? No, no, no, no. I'll get there. Settle down.

Okay. Okay, I also don't like that it's dehumanizing dating. It's dehumanizing dating. Okay, I disagree, but go on. Why do you think that? You know what I like about women? I like walking up to them and putting it all in the line. line saying like hey sweetheart hey what's your sign what's your sign i got a cheesy line for you

and if you don't like it i'm gonna feel like a jerk but if you like it this is gonna be awesome right okay i do prefer meeting not a button like oh sorry i interrupted you know what i think well you caught yourself they're very very good i do prefer uh meeting people in real life uh meeting women in real life it's much easier, I feel like, than online, which I didn't think any, uh, I didn't think that was the case, but it is now. You said easier. It is. Okay, okay. I'm building my case here. Okay. I'm going to write it down easier. Good. Because I'm, this is where I'm going with this. All right. Because it's not like, I don't really care about the dehumanizing thing. It's like, that's fine. We're all going to be Wally in a hundred years anyway. Doesn't matter. A bunch of fat so's. Yes, yes. I like you. Yes. Yes. In fact,

texting won't even be a part of Tinder. So if you match on Tinder, Sean, then you get to text each other, but not with your phones. You get to text on their goofy little texting thing that doesn't work. Yeah. And Tinder also shows you the number of mutual friends that you have in common and the number of mutual interests. Yeah, so you can go on Facebook and find them and message

them for a dollar and bypass the whole Tinder system. That's creepy, but I mean, yeah. They love it. They don't care. Look, if they're attracted to you, they don't care. Yeah. Okay. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So you had the problem with it. What would you, you were

building the case for your problem. Right, thank you. Yes. So, I don't care about the Wally thing. Like, they're going to get rid of texting. It'll just be, it'll just be a bunch of canned responses, like one of those Japanese games where you just, like, pick what you want to say to the person. Right. And then they'll have a bunch of, like, choices on the other side. You'll just be, it'll be two people, two fatso's controlling chatbots on both sides of the app. That's the future of dating. Okay? I don't care. That's fine. Very bleak. Here's why I hated. Tinder and all of online dating has added an additional

step to the getting laid process that's like before first base. Like they've added an extra base to dating. Like you don't just go, you meet, you're up to bat, you know the bases, right? Yes, you have to... You're condescending, fuck, I know the bases. You're up to baseball. You got a first, and you're off. What do you think the bases are, by the, what's first base?

I know what the bases are. What's the bases? First base is kissing. Okay. Second base is what? What do you think it is? Second base is feeling up. Okay, that's accurate. What's third?

Third base is any penetration with any part of your body that's not your penis. Yes, correct. And then fourth base is anal. Everyone knows that. Okay. Right? Sure, yeah. Is that, what are you?

You don't think? Is that not it? Any kind of penetration, but specifically anal. Yeah. What are you? Yeah. You're getting thrown out at home. No, I know.

I'm not going to get thrown at home. I'm a home run. I'm a grand slam. What's that? That's a three. Three guys? Yeah, three guys on... One girl?

Yeah, one guy. Oh, okay, I don't want to picture that anymore. Yeah, so tint... All this online dating garbage. Like, look, guys won by getting oral introduced as like a regular thing, I think. That was, like, in our lifetimes, maybe, that became a thing. I don't think it was a given before, like, in our parents' generation that you You get a blowjob, right?

I don't think so. No, and it is now. Yeah. I think my dad has never received a blowjob from my mom. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. I inadvertently found out one night when my mom called me, because she accidentally went to a porn site, and she was crying because she saw something so gruesome and terrifying.

She's like, she's like, do you know what I saw? I said, no, Mom, what did you see? She said, I saw what Monica Lewinsky did to Mr. Clinton. Oh, my God. Yeah, and then... So she doesn't do that? Yeah. Because I, and then she couldn't possibly...

She doesn't even have it in her vocabulary to say what she saw, what that act was. And then it clicked for me. My dad has never gotten a blowjob from my mom. I feel like you have to do something about that. I'm not going to do anything about it. I feel like you owe it to your dad. I don't know. I am not going to blow my dad.

Is that what you're suggesting? No. That is not at all what I'm suggesting. What a hooker? Get a hooker? Something. I don't know. You got a roof of your mom, I think.

That's what family does. They look out for each other. You know, my mom will just cook more. She's a great cook. She'll just go to the kitchen. Well, anyway, I feel like Oral was introduced as a given in our generation. But now we're losing ground because all this online BS and texting and technology is adding bases before first. You know what I'm saying?

Like, you've got to butter these broads up on Tinder. Like, oh, hey, I notice you also like, um, whatever Wes Anderson movies nice tiger in your picture this is like I don't have to do this in real life you know I actually

And that's just to get the date, sorry Yeah I actually like Tinder for the superficiality of it And I don't think it's introducing an extra base It's drafting season That's what you're doing It's introducing a whole minor league It's introducing a whole set of bases

Just over text Like now we're talking about Now we're kind of There's some innuendo in this. Because it's like, it's two in the morning. What am I? I'm not going out. I'm just lying in bed. All right. I'll text you right now. Yeah, she's already in bed, dude.

How often is it the first time you talk to a girl she's in bed in her jammies? And usually horny at two in the morning. That's what happens every time. I was getting nudes with Tinder. Nothing else. Even Snapchat, which annoys the shit out of me. Snapchat is this app that's a sexting app. You'd send a picture to somebody.

It lasts 10 seconds, and then it gets deleted. So it's invented for boobs and dicks. And I never get any nudity on it. Nothing. Everybody always sends me, ha, ha, here's what I'm doing today. And it's like a picture of their car or something. And you're like, you dumb, broad.

What do you think I want to see this for? Yeah, that pisses me off. So I like Tinder because it's so superficial. It's more akin to how you meet people in real life than any other, like, online dating could possibly be. So if you see somebody in a bar, you think they're attractive, you walk up to them and say hi. You talk to them.

You say, hey, sweetheart. What was your line, sweetheart? It was much angrier than that. I'm usually very angry and drunk. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Well, I don't think it's a huge problem.

How specifically is it a problem? I don't. I still don't. Because you're saying it introduces bases. Look, it's like, I'm saying it's like the anti-blow job. Like, it's like, as what we got in blow jobs, we're losing ground in the sex war on this online crap. I don't know about that. Have you ever had any Tinder hookups?

Yeah. Yeah. And what's the... What? What's the problem? I just didn't like it as much as a regular. If it would have been regular, I would have liked it more. I got laid from Tinder, not a bar.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. All right. Okay. My next... Oh, by the way, have you noticed there's a lot more hookers on Tinder now than they used to be? There are some hookers, yeah, that does annoy me. I always swipe left on hookers. I imagine they always swipe right.

Pretty handsome dude. It's probably a bot. Yeah. Okay, what's your last problem? My last problem is the plastic bag ban. Oh. Which drives me insane. So for those who don't know, maybe this is like a regional thing, but California has started

doing a plastic bag ban at grocery stores. So that means when you go to check out, they no longer give you plastic bags. They expect you to bring so-called reusable bags with you. And these are these like really tough and stuff. sturdy like nylon bags that they make or their burlap sacks or whatever the whatever the fuck they're using to to produce these and and by the way they're not they're not chinty bags these are pretty legit bags they're heavy they use lots of material i'm not even sure how it it saves anything and the what the ones they expect you to buy and reuse yes that are two

dollars a pop by the way and if you don't they charge you 10 cents per bag yeah 10 so so what the grocery stores have done is they've introduced profit into something that used to be a loss for them. Well, you know what's interesting about that is they always say it's because of the new law, but they could just pay the 10 cents themselves. Right. Like, they don't need to make you pay it. Exactly. They're, I mean, they're using the premise of environmentalism here, but it's just to make money because otherwise they wouldn't charge you so much for it. They would charge you the cost of the bag. So can I tell you a story of how I found out about this law? Yeah. It was New Year's Day, January 1, and I was on. on my way to meet you. And I stumbled into Ralph's. I was very hungover, and I said, man, I need a tall boy.

Like, I need some beer. So I walk over to the beer place. I grab a Sapporo. I walk on somewhere around, I forget where I was, somewhere in L.A. I walk up and I'm like, hey, yeah, I need this. I look like crap. And I need one of those little bags where you could drink it in the street. And the woman starts laughing and she's like,

maybe we don't sell those anymore. I'm like, what do you mean sell? I just want the little, like, paper bags. She goes, no, we don't do that anymore. There's a new law where the only bag we carry is the normal, like, grocery bag. The paper ones, and they're 10 cents. And I said, all right, well, give me one of those, I guess.

So I had to walk around all day on New Year's Day with a regular-sized grocery bag and drink beer out of that. Which was pretty cool, I have to say. I have to hand it to you. That was pretty fucking cool. You walked around, here you just heard some applause for that.

You walked around with a giant bag on the street and a beer inside, which made it look less conspicuous. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. That's what I noticed halfway through. I'm like, wow, I'm not even getting dirty looks because nobody realizes that I'm drinking a beer

out of this two-foot Ralph's bag. Yeah. I could do this all the time. That's kind of cool, actually. So I went to the website for the government website that talks about this plastic bag band and necessity. It's all written by environmentalists,

And it looks awful. It looks like it was designed in the Microsoft Word web template. Like, you know how you can design a web page in Microsoft Word or save it as a web document? It looks even worse than my website. So these are the tips they say on how to use reusable bags. They say, keep one or two reusable bags in your car and put a sticker on your keys to remember to bring your bags into the store. Put a sticker on your keys? Are you fucking kidding me?

Who has time for that? Who has stickers? Speaking of which, go to maddox. store.com to buy your mattock stickers today. And then the second tip. Place your reusable bags by the door

near your car keys or with your store coupons. Jot a reminder down on your shopping list, which by the way makes you a moron. If you use a shopping list, you're an idiot. Like how hard is it to remember

like ten things? It's hard. I have a shopping list. You go to the store. You see butter, and if you need butter, you're like, oh yeah, I need butter. But then you've got to walk

up and down every aisle looking at everything. If you have a list, you can just go get it. Don't you generally buy the same things all the time? Don't you make the race car track around the grocery store, the outside, and then skip the middle bullshit? No, but I don't think I'm a good target for this. I always eat out. Okay, have some reusable bags at the office. Oh, just, and look at the number of assumptions this shitty little list is making. You work in an office now and have some reusable bags at the office. What are you like some fucking crazy bag lady? Can you imagine someone on Wall Street bringing bags in to his, to his, like, brokerage?

To his firm. Like Gordon Gecko with his Armani suit pants bursting with reusable plastic bags. So if you do forget your bag while in the store, simply walk back to the car to get it. Although this is not advisable when you're in the checkout line. That needed a tip. If you forget it in the car, walk back to your car and get it. Yeah. Man.

Is that an actual, a team of people thought that they did a good job by putting that tip on the website. Right. So that's messed up. Yeah. That's like how you get Nazis. Yeah. Like those are people who would have said like, yeah, sure, we'll be Nazis. So then this next tip is the important one.

This actually came about because they found that these reusable bags were killing people. Remember to clean and wash your reusable bags frequently. And nobody does it because they found they did a study and they found that E. coli is going up. E. coli has increased. Two researchers in 2012, this is from the Washington Post. Actually, these two researchers published this study. They said in 2012, they examined the number of emergency room visits for e-coli infections in San Francisco in the 10 quarters before and after the plastic bag ban. And they found a jump right after the ban.

For comparison, there was no such jump in e-colai-related emergency room visits in nearby Bay Area counties that didn't have the ban. Now, this is actually ending up, they've actually found that this is killing about four. 5.4 people per year. What? This E. coli ban, yeah. This E. coli increases killing... The bag ban is killing five and a half people? Yeah.

In 2004, San Francisco estimated that the plastic bag waste cost... The waste cost it about $8.5 million annually to clean up. So that's without the ban. It's costing them $8.5 million to clean up. Which is $10.3 million in current dollars. Now, especially given that the plastic bags are generally estimated... This is too much information for me to take in. Yeah.

Okay, well... Five people are dead because of the bag ban. Yeah, that's the stat. Right. Well, so they asked people, they surveyed people. This is from... It's a comonews.com. They ask people...

Or no, this is the... I'm sorry, is this... By the way, man, you should be putting these stories on the site. Oh, yeah. Good, good call. I'll put the links up there. Sorry to interrupt, but I'm sure people would be interested in reading this. Because that's... I didn't know that. Yeah.

Tinder hasn't killed five people every year. Right? This is actually killing people. So they asked people, in San Jose, Mercury News, they said, they asked somebody he said, it's the wrong thing to do, said a middle-aged man of the ban. But they're killing the innocent turtles, his wife said, adding that in Europe, reusable bags are a way of life. Dude, I dated this girl who very briefly because, like, her crusade was the bag thing. Right.

And I tried to pretend, like, I was on her side about it, but I funded, like, lie because I wanted to bang her. Sure. You know her actually. It was the Halloween girl. Oh. Don't say her name. Yeah. Yeah.

It was her. Her whole, like she was doing a whole, like a independent film to try to promote these killer bag usages. Of course. And I was like, oh, wow, that's so fascinating. But I could not fake sincerity. Like so she could kind of, she kind of picked up on it. She goes, I feel like I'm the kind of person you'd make fun of on your side. She read right through you, dude.

Yeah, she said it right to the core of your essence, your being. Ah. So check this out. So in 2011, they randomly selected reusable grocery bags from consumers in grocery stores in Arizona and California. They examined the bags and found that coliform bacteria and 51% of the bags tested. Coliform bacteria were more prevalent in the California bags, especially those collected in the Los Angeles area. E. coli was found in 8% of the bags. The study also found that most people did not separate the bags from meats and vegetables.

Further, 97% of individuals indicated that they never washed their reusable grocery bags. 97%. So let's sum it up. If you use those bags, you're killing your family. You're killing your family. Right? But that's... Basically...

Right. But that's not all. They've also found that shoplifting goes up. Well, I shoplift the shit out of those bags. I don't pay for a single one. CVS always has that dumb grid. Would you like zero bags, one bag, two bag, or three bags? I wish I had an option that said, I would like to fuck CVS

because I would pick that every time and just grab a handful of bags. I always walk out of the store with those bags. It's bullshit. So check this out. This is from a newscast in Como News in Seattle. It may still come as a surprise to some that about 20% of stores in Seattle say increased shoplifting because of the bag ban is a problem, according to a survey by Seattle Public Utility. Wait, was that about what I do?

No, this is actually a different kind of shoplifting. They're talking about people who walk into the store with reusable bags, fill them up with groceries, and then walk right back out. Oh, that's a better idea. I'm going to try that. Because they won't stop you. I mean, they don't stop. I've walked out of stores with bottles of liquor. They don't stop.

They don't even ask. They're instructed not to, because if there's any kind of altercation, their insurance policy sky rockets. Okay, not true, but you've gotten lucky. Absolutely true. Okay, I'm sure that that happens, but they do stop shoplifters. No. They are not a... Hey, are you shoplifting something?

Go off yourself. I'm out of here. What do you think they're going to do? Grab you? If they saw you on camera, then you're fucked. No. I disagree with that. Okay, well...

I'm gonna... You're wrong. Okay, so the newscast continues. Listen to this. Listen to what happens when people shoplifted. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I like the multimedia presentation and all, but I need to break from all these... science stats and what are we going to do about it?

What's to be done about the reusable bag thing? Nothing, you just go back to you with the plastic bags. End of story. So you bring your own plastic bags? No, they give you plastic bags like they used to. End of story. I don't think that's going to happen, man. We got these hot girls making independent films about it.

We're screwed. Why can't you just recycle those like anything else? Is that, are they not recyclable? Because recycling's gay. Let's be honest. Okay, play your thing. Yeah, here we go. So this is the repercussions is happening.

Okay. One store owner tells us he believes thousands of dollars of food walks right out the door by people who conceal it in reusable bags. We have to absorb those losses. And so all of the honest customers are paying to that loss. Well, we tried talking to a number of store owners about this. One corporate spokeswoman. I feel like I'm listening to the news now. It is, it is.

So honest people like me. are getting screwed from this bag ban twice. I'm trying to get... I was happy with just a bag that I could walk around on the street, drinking my tall boys in the middle of the afternoon. So what do you think is going to happen? What do you think...

So they said they talk to the grocery stores and they tried to get somebody to comment on camera. What do you think is going to happen? What do you mean? They talked to people at the stores? They tried to talk to somebody who runs a store. Listen to this. Women for one of the local grocery store chains

says she didn't want to put anyone on camera to talk about this. because she was afraid it would give the store a bad image. Well, yeah. So they're getting bullied by environmentalists. That's what's happening. They're afraid to even talk about it. That's all those A-Holes ever do.

And when they, of course. And when they asked somebody, they asked a customer outside a store, and they said, hey, did you know that all the shoplifting's going on and 20% of the stores and it's costing thousands of dollars and your grocery bills have gone up? Guess what he says?

There was that song that came out around, oops. More clips. Come on. Do we have to pay for this news program for using this much of their episode On our show? Nope, just stolen.

Listen to this. Oh, really? Wow. Well, that's unfortunate. Oh, that's unfortunate. All right. So we got a bunch of bullies on the loose. Environmental bullies.

It's increasing the cost of groceries. It's killing people. This goes back to what I was saying at the very beginning of the show. You know how you fight bullies? You've got to make them feel like they just pissed their pants in the third grade. So if you talk to anybody who's talking about the environment. Don't try to argue the points about this killing families. Just make fun of them until they feel bad and shut their mouths.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I... You got it? All right. Thank you. Don't bully me. I already have to pee. There you go.

Yeah, I'm going to wet myself. It's going to feel great. I mean, that's the only way out of this, right? You can't talk people. You can't give all these statistics and all these quotes to these idiots. The girl, dude, the girl that was, when I was in her car, trying not to laugh that that was what she was dedicating her life to. Like, there was no way of, that was her, that was her version of God.

Like, that was the purpose in her life. There was, I could have, for a million years, I couldn't have talked her out. I could have said, I could have introduced her to the five people she was going to kill that year by pushing this stupid bag ban. She still would have done it because it made her feel good. So how do you fight that? You make them feel bad. Well, then they're just going to create some group or some other cause.

in some legislation that makes it, oh, well, let's make making people feel bad illegal, and they'll ban, they'll outlaw that, and they'll charge you 10 cents per insult, or some bullshit like that. Oh, man, could you imagine? 10 cents per insult?

Yeah. I'd be broke. Well, oh, really? Wow. Well, that's unfortunate. I like that that's unfortunate part. Can you just put, can you just pull to that's unfortunate part? Okay, well, I'm going to point out

a major logical fallacy in this problem, though, which is why this doesn't deserve to be the biggest problem. The universe is coming from you. Because it kills families, and you think families are the biggest problem in the universe. Oh, no. So you've got to pick one. You've got to either pick families or plastic bags.

Well, okay, that's an assumption you made that it's killing families. This is just killing people. So I'm imagining that they're healthy, young, strapping bucks like myself. I'm a picture they were hot chicks, but if you want to picture strapping young men, that's cool. Hot-hakes don't buy groceries, come on. They're buying smoothies, and they're doing... They're doing cleanses. Oh, yeah, Jesus.

Oh, yeah, fucking cleanses, man. Dude, how about that gluten thing? Was that great that it came out? It was a big fraud. Oh, that's calming down the pipe. I don't even want to talk about it. I got a big thing coming down the pipe on that. Yeah.

All right, well, so we got our problems. Again, let's hear you. What were your two problems? Okay, emails are way too long. And I just want to say, if you're writing an email this week, after you write it, cut it down to one sentence.

Maybe one comma. I'll give you one comma. No semicolins, no double dashes, no M-Dash. Just one sentence. You especially, I only want to see one-sentence emails from everybody this week.

When you were saying that, I immediately went to semi-colon, I'm like, you all these semicalons. I know your tricks. And my other problem was Tinder. Look, would you rather would you rather bang a chick off Tinder or get to third base

with a girl you just met at a bar? I'm going with bar. I'm going with both. Like, why are these mutually exclusive? This guy, ridiculous. Because here's the thing. You set up a date, the chick's late to the bar, so you hop on Tinder, set up another date.

Is that even a real thing? It's happened to me. Well, that's pretty cool. It is pretty cool. All right, what are your problems? So my problems, number one was horoscopes. They don't even know about the procession of the, the Earth's axis, there's a new symbol

that nobody uses. Oh, wait, wait, wait, we got Ophiuchus. Ophiocas. Ophiocas. Ophioc, I got to write it down phonetically. Ophioc. Ophioc. That's not phonetically. That's how you really spell it. Phenetically, like how it sounds. I think that the accurate spelling

oh yeah, no, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, Ophiakus, and the second problem is the plastic bag ban, which is killing people, costing people, more money and it's not really cutting down that much on pollution if they really wanted to. You know what? Here's the thing. I'm not entitled to nobody's, I'm not entitled to free grocery

bags, right? They don't have to give me shit. But don't fucking lie about it. This is about money. They want to make more money on something that used to cost them something. I don't, I don't think so. I think it's about penalizing you because there's no way they cost 10 cents. No, that's what I'm saying. They're making money on this thing. And I think it's a penalty. Because they wouldn't do it unless the government made them do it. There's no way. Not really not. Grocery stores are on board with this. I used to ride my bike. Yeah, they're on board with it, but they wouldn't have all gotten together. They wouldn't have all colluded and said, hey, let's charge people 10 cents for this.

That'd be illegal. By some friggin' miracle, that in and of itself would have been illegal for them to get together and do that. No, because the lobbyists suggested this. The grocery store lobbyists suggested a penalty, a penalty, and I'm using quotes here, because it's not really a penalty. It's a profit. The other P-word that they're using here, it's profit. It's all it is. If they were honest about it, and they just came out and said, hey, guys, it's costing us a lot of money. We want to charge you for it, and that's that.

Like, don't give this line of bullshit. You're blaming corporations for this, though. I don't think it's their fault. It's absolutely their fault. No, it's like the dumb brought in my car that wants to do something with her life because she doesn't have a kid at 33, so she decides to save the world. It's her fault. It's like corporations.

Hey, corporations are a friend, dude. They want us to drink Sapporo's in the middle of the street with those little paper bags. Why else would they make them? They know what we're doing with them. They're a bunch of lamers with families. Corporations are families, and that's what the problem is. They should all be disbanded.

The corporations, they're run by people who are business savvy. They want to make money, and that's all this is. That's all it is. And if they came out and honestly said, this is about money, I would have no problem with it. Because I'm not entitled to free grocery bags. You are retarded if you think corporations are doing this. It's absolutely. They would charge for the lights on then.

I have emailed the corporations, and I have told them. How long was this email? Short emails. You would love these. These were ginger. Ginger emails, they were perfect. What did you say? I sent them an email and I sent them a picture

of my bike that used to be, I ride my bike everywhere. It's my primary form of transportation. Not because I care, not because I care about the environment, but because it's efficient, it's fast, and also it gets your fat ass off the couch bit, right? Hold on. You sent

a company a picture of your bicycle. Yes. Go on. Okay. Yeah, it's called evidence. Dick, look into it. So I sent them picture of my bike fully loaded with grocery bags on both handles. And the grocery bags were plastic.

I used to have, I used to be able to carry my bags on my bike to and from grocery stores. Now I have to carry around this bullshit. I use my bike as my primary form of transportation. So even this list, this government list assumes that everybody's driving. Now, when I go to the grocery store, I have to take two tons of

metal with me. How do you think that's impacting the environment? I used to be able to go to the grocery store on my bike and load up my bags. Now I have, Now I have to make a special trip to the grocery store. I can't go to a meeting. I can't go to lunch. I can't go to a theater because I got to carry out these bulky bags.

All this is fancy pants, meetings and lunches and theaters. What the hell is this going to these places? I don't know, man, when you leave the house. If you use your bike as a primary form of transportation, those are the things you do. No, okay. So negative environmental impact. Also, what do I put in my bathroom trash can now? Exactly.

Guess what? Plastic bags are already reusable. Plastic bags are our friends. Yeah, I was already reusing them. I was lining my garbage bags with them. I was using them for all sorts of things. I got to... Yeah.

I know. It's not getting in there. I got to concede this one. This is clearly worse than any of my problems. It's worse than any... So far, as far as I'm considered, this is the biggest problem in the universe. Because it's indicative about... It's indicative of so much more than just what it is.

Then you're stupid sending pictures of bicycles to customer service. What are you? thinking? Why are you sending pictures of your bicycles to companies? Like, what do you think, in your mind, what happens to that email? So this lady who, they interviewed, they said, oh, but they're killing innocent turtles, his wife said. No, no, no, no, no. When you are sending a picture of your bicycle

to, like, customer service at ralphs.com, what do you think happens? I'm getting to it, interrupto. So this lady who said, oh, they're killing innocent turtles, that emotional reaction, that knee-jerk response comes entirely from a picture they saw of a turtle with a plastic bag around its head. So they keep that in mind and it's ingrained. It's burned in their head.

It's like, oh, God, that's so terrible. We can't do this. So I sent them a picture to create an emotional attachment. A thematic sad face? On your bicycle, like a clown? No, it's to create that emotional response. Like, this is an actual thing that's happening. That's not what I'm asking.

I'm not asking, why did you do this insane thing? I'm asking, what do you think happens to the... Like, it arrives at someone's computer. Right. Who do you think that person is? And what do they do with the email they've just gotten of some lunatics bicycles? You know what? The person at one of the grocery stores replied to me, and one of them didn't.

One did and one didn't. What did this? What did the reply say? The person that replied said, we're sorry this inconveniences you. We're taking all things into consideration, blah, blah, blah. And then it ended, but we care more about profit than anything else. Fuck you. And enjoy your E. coli.

P.S. only little girls ride bicycles. Okay. Ralb. Tell that to Lance Armstown. I didn't say it. They probably said it. All right. Well, let's wrap up here.

Go to the biggest problem in the universe.com. Vote on these problems. We'll discuss which ones you voted next week. And also leave a comment if there's a problem that you think we should discuss or anything, any thoughts about the shows. Yeah, the biggest problem in the universe.com. And Noah, bring it on. Why don't you say that to my face?

You think I'm interrupting. I'll interrupt your life, bro. Yeah. You know, it's great about Facebook is you can't interrupt his sentences. Wouldn't that be cool? Yeah, it would be kind of cool. All right. Well, that's it.

Great show. Thanks for listening, everyone. This is Dick Mashes Cinematics. Until next time.