The Daily Zeitgeist - Trendamon Twist Cereal 1/17: Taco Bell Cereal, Brian Pare, Fake News, Tesla, "Funny" Highway Signs

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

In this edition of CinnaTrend Twist Cereal, Jack and Miles discuss… the new Taco Bell breakfast cereal (?!?!!), the Quebec man who blamed wildfires on the government getting busted for 13 counts of arson, a Fake News round-up, Tesla cars and charging stations not working so well in cold weather, and the death of the humorous highway sign?!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest, because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Bruce Bozzi. On my podcast, Table for Two, we have unforgettable lunch after unforgettable lunch with the best guests you could possibly ask for. People like David Duchovny, Jeff Goldblum, and Kristen Wiig.

We're doing all the dessert. We're doing all the dessert. We're doing all the dessert. We'll just skip right to it. Our second season is airing right now, so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate and often hilarious. Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, fam.

I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, Get your podcast. beautiful thing. There's moms in all industries, very high stress industries that have kids all across this world. Why can't it be music as well? Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of Taco Bell Trendfest Cereal. That's something, right? People will know that means breakfast cereal. Trendiman Twist? Cinnamon Trends?

Trendiman Twist. Yeah, I wanted to hold off on that because just the idea of Taco Bell breakfast cereal is so fucked up. It's such a weird picture in your mind until you find out that it's Cinnamon Twist. In my mind, it's just a bunch of dried beans,

tortilla chip strips, and loose shredded cheese. And then you pour milk on it. And the globs of ground beef actually get nice and moist once you pour the milk in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They really activate. They really take on a life of its own. Yeah.

Oof. Yeah. Bran flakes, Dorito-flavored marshmallows, hunks of ground beef. And then instead of pouring milk, you just pour in sour cream. No, the actual... So Taco Bell is dropping a cereal on all of our asses,

and it is Cinnamon Twist cereal. The best possible. They did the right one. Yeah, I miss the right one. Yeah. Yeah. I miss the cinnamon twist. Yeah. It's not going to be made widely available because, you know, it's one of those, like,

fast food activations. But. Honestly. You know. To Cobell, I'm off this. You have to be a little bit. It has to hit every corner every segment of society or else it's just bullshit

yeah what are we even doing here couldn't even get Appalachian sipping cream over on this side of the Ozarks you know what I mean the fuck is going on it was all bullshit man although we did ultimately shout out to Dr. JP

they came through they broke me off with some of their eggo sipping cream that they ordered online and brought me a little mason how was it i'm not gonna lie i can't bring myself to drink it it really looks like coffee mate it looks like coffee mate like alcohol um i think infused coffee mate yeah and I think it's just also to like, I, I need to buy,

I want to see it in the jar. I want that full experience. Like it feels and note, look, Dr. JP, I know you're listening. I love you fam.

And I appreciate you bringing me the jar, but there's something about it. When I look at it in my refrigerator, because it's not labeled, it sounds like, you know, like when Smeagol looks at the ring and it's like, yeah,

like that's what the vibe I get from the whipped cream yeah yeah so the sipping cream is calling your name yeah but not in a not not in a kind of way in a way that makes you think that you're gonna lose your grasp of sanity um i guess there was wendy'sy cereal, which I'm okay. I don't need that shit at all. Personally. It was like a Cocoa Puff style cereal. Don't need it. Anyways, I could see...

Yeah, no, I think Cinnamon Twist is probably, if I had to come up with the breakfast cereal, fast food combination, and this is what Taco Bell is. with the breakfast cereal, fast food combination. And this is what Taco Bell is like. I'm here for it. Well done, Taco Bell.

So there's a story that our man in Canada, our writer J.M. McNabb, flagged for us. That's a lot of fun. It is about 38-year brian pare of quebec um who of quebec quebec would be what he is uh thank you who uh was known on the internet for routinely posting conspiracy theories accusing the government of deliberately starting forest fires to trick people into believing in climate change. So the logic here is that the reason we have forest fires is a op. So the government can get y'all all in on this idea of climate change. Yes.

They want you to believe in climate change. So they're starting, they're intentionally starting forest fires. Um, unfortunately for the credibility of that claim, he just pled guilty to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life because he was, let me just check this,

starting forest fires. Oh, oh, oh, okay. That does a bit for your, that doesn't do well for your conspiracy theory there. Uh, what was your name? Brian Paré. Yeah. Well, I mean, at least he was, I mean, he was, I guess, manifesting in one sense of the word. I'm trying to find a positive.

One way to call it. He was witness, like they started to get suspicious because so many of the fires were happening in the same areas in a short period of time, seemingly with no natural cause. And he was a witness to a lot of them. They're like, wait, what is this motherfucker? Canada is huge, right? We all live here. Canada is pretty big, right? Why does this motherfucker always happen to be around every time there's a fire?

always happen to be around every time there's a fire um so he became a suspect uh specifically because of his interest in fires including those facebook posts um and yeah so some some right-wing media pundits have tried to turn this news into evidence that the government shouldn't have been so quick to blame uh climate change for the forest fires, which is very stupid. Because, first of all, there were more than 700 forest fires in Quebec this summer, and 99.9% of the fires were sparked by lightning. And second of all, his version of how the fires came about, he was arrested back in September and admitted to starting some of the fires came about he was arrested back in september and admitted to starting some of the fires but only because he was doing tests to find out whether the forest was really dry or not um so he sparked the fires to test the hypothesis that the forest was dry from climate change

the forest responded by being so dry due to climate change that it immediately burst into flames and started like devastating forest fires that could be seen like a country over like in the smoke. Yeah. Um, he was conducting an experiment, uh, and got the results in dramatic fashion.

And the dramatic results are climate change is indeed very bad and causing forest fires. Has he, I don't have any idea if he's come around now that like, it's true. He's like, you know what? We haven't gotten his,

you know what, my honor after these experiments and the way the results that I did yield from them, I must say, I believe that maybe, yeah, they are dry as fuck, my honor. And maybe it's climate

change. I'm willing to own that. This is one of the great experiments we've seen conducted by the right wing, one of the great ones since that flat earther fired himself into the atmosphere

and crashed back to earth and died uh and you know proving i think probably the last thing he saw was oh shit that shit this shit current and then yeah hey well you hate to see it to all to all the pioneering scientists out there, your contributions have not gone in vain. I mean, except for this guy who caused tens of thousands of people to have to... Except for this guy who killed countless animals and endangered lives. Yeah, just be a danger to yourself. Go burn your own shit down. You know what I mean?

At least the guy in the fucking rocket ship like that was a purely self-generated l right um all right there's some fake news from the past week the the ap has been doing this uh service where uh they drop a story that is like news that didn't happen this week here's some stories that you might have heard um i don't think i had heard any of these in particular although this first one so the first one is about the tunnels uh that the hasidic community was digging um and that the rumor was that these were being used for human trafficking whereas you know it was actually being used to live the truth that tunnels are fucking cool, as we previously reported. But because anti-Semitism never sleeps, they tried to cram some anti-Semitic tropes in there and make it about sneaky tunnels used to kidnap people.

Well, because it's one of those things, they like pointing to like a report of like sexual abuse like in a synagogue and they're like and that means anytime this happens and i'm like well you know it's like with the catholic church where there's like enough like that you could be like i guess maybe but also like is that immediately what we're jumping to here because based on what all the people in the community are saying it was simply a dispute over the rabbi there being the messiah and trying to expand the footprint of this specific temple but yeah of course because as you say and wanting a cool place to cool place cool place to study where you can like smoke cigs down there you know what i mean play the fucking music that your mom wants you to turn down and shit yeah dude that's what we're doing that's right another fake story came about because there were two comedians who dressed up as Trump supporters to film the Stop the Steal rally back on January 6th.

And that's being used by MAGA people being like, see, the attacks were an inside job. Oh, my God. Because these two YouTube comedians went undercover. That must mean that they started the whole thing. It does not mean that. And then another big story, a 44 year old migrant named Sahil Omar was identified as the suspect in an explosion at a historic hotel in Fort Worth,

Texas. This is big news because he was also identified as the suspect behind the shooting at UNLV last month. Oh, okay, okay, great. Turns out he doesn't exist. What? The explosion was a natural gas explosion caused presumably by deregulation

and corporate carelessness. You'll find out more about that on tomorrow's episode when we talk about Boeing. So they just made up a fucking guy? They just keep using the same guy. They're just like late. They're copy and pasting the same 44-year-old migrant named Sahil Omar.

So he's like the Alan Smithy of like xenophobic. When you need a 44 year old migrant to blame something on this is your guy right um for people don't know alan smithy is like a pseudonym that people use in show business to be like i didn't write that or direct that yeah when a director like make something and it get like they lose control of it or it turns into be a turns out to be a big piece of shit they will be like like, this was actually directed by Alan Smithy. Ah, yes, an Alan Smithy film. I think American History X

is probably the best known movie that was directed by Alan Smithy. Oh, really? Because Edward Norton kind of took over control of that from the director, and so the director was like, not me. Couldn't be me must

have been that fellow alan smithy yeah uh let's take a quick break we'll come right back in 1982 atari players had one thing on their minds sword. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists, but the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall

of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two

attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Ariel. I moved to the U.S. at 19. I spoke no English and I struggled finding job opportunities. Everything I have, I owe to the Adult Literacy Center and getting my high school diploma at age 22. It was an honor helping you achieve your greatness. Now you're helping others achieve theirs. It inspires me. When you graduate, they graduate.

Find free and supportive adult education centers near you at finishyourdiploma.org. Brought to you by Dollar General Literacy Foundation and the Ad Council. And we're back. We're back. And the cold weather in Chicago is exposing some failed design features on Teslas that this is a little bit satisfying for me as somebody who has gotten into a gotten into a tesla before where i

didn't know how to work the door handle and felt like a complete fool trying to open the door handle like hitting it it doesn't respond i'm telling you i was i was radicalized against teslas the the first time i tried to get in somebody's Tesla, like, I remember getting picked up by one of, like, it was me and Her Majesty, and, like, her homegirl's husband, like, has a Tesla. And then pulled up. The way I looked like a time-traveling peasant from the Middle Ages trying to open, like, just being like, this is completely confounding me, me lord. And just, like, press on the stick and then, like like move the little flap and then it opens and i was like man the shit made me look dumb as fuck bro fuck these cars just like immediately like no yeah thank you shout out to my fragile ego well it turns out our fragile egos were right thank you

because these handles don't fucking work when it's no uh cold outside no it's you know you get a little ice on the outside of your car. I've definitely had this before where I go to open the door of my car and it's frozen shut. But you just have to yank on it a little bit. With these, the door handles, you need to start chipping away at the ice.

There's no way to reach in there. Which is not very helpful no the clips that are going around are a lot of people being like okay so ice is completely frozen over my door handle and the door so like maybe once i've after i've excavated the handle with my fingernails and bloody fingertips i can then get the fucking handle to activate but then at which point the like little pneumatic lever that's pushing the door open can't even fucking do it because the rest of my door is frozen solid shut this is wild to see because there's also the superchargers those places were completely like malfunctioning because of the super cold temperature and like people's like their cars are basically dying as they were waiting to get in line for a supercharger uh and yeah but unfortunately this is this has uh created a huge wave of like

conservatives like on the internet being like and this is why i'll always keep burning petroleum in my earth fucker car um so not the best not the best ad for tesla but you know. That's why my car belches black smoke. Exactly. That's the only way to do it. Except when there's a software update and then that completely bricks my car. But it's still a fucking Ford. Right. I'm sure there's a way to make e-vehicles that work and aren't shitty.

And we will get there. Totally. Soon enough. But a lot of the people, I'm assuming they won't be made by Elon Musk. Well, yeah, a lot of the people who have been like,

who are like, know about it, like, Oh, people should be doing this before. And that helps a lot. Like, cause I think there might be a lot of people who have,

I don't know. I mean, like I get it. Like the battery life is the, the range definitely goes down when it's super cold, but like, you know, it seems like there's ways around it but hey that's why i'm over here without the tesla and i'm look like i said i'm an aspiring lambo owner and this would never happen in a lambo that's right lambos handle extremely well in icy conditions oh we all know that oh yeah all

right uh this is something I hadn't really experienced, but apparently the U.S. Federal Highway Administration is having to put a stop to humorous highway signs. Have you seen a humorous highway sign? I have. Some examples.

Use your blinker in Massachusetts. Don't drive star-spangled hammer hammered i'm assuming that's on fourth of july uh pocus pocus drive with focus oh i like that halloween i feel like i saw one that was having to do with like smoking weed um like in oregon or maybe washington or something i saw like one like that that was very like hey stoner don't lose your boner while you're driving i don't know if it said that exactly but it was it was something to that effect i mean i don't know about a boner but yeah it was again like one of these sort of punny rhymey kind of things yeah one one that i'm seeing a picture

for here is driving fast and furious that's ludicrous okay um yeah shut it down yes uh so cousin eddie says twitter's full put down the phone was one in mississippi um yikes that one sucks yeah um i guess it's a reference to christmasation. Yeah. For some reason, my brain went to TGIF, and I think I mixed Cousin Larry and Eddie from Family Matters in my head. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Maybe Yoda uses the Force, but still needs a car seat.

No, the fuck he doesn't. No, he doesn't. Y'all were just trying to get in on the Mandalorian. I like getting like act like um actually the fucking like a low star wars lore of a sign um no yeah please let's hold on yeah just start you shut all the fucking traffic down to get everyone's attention he does not need a car seat he's in a floating carriage orb type situation which he absolutely doesn't need he has full control of the force anyway and also his name is groku right um this is a real alien versus predator uh situation where

whoever wins we we all lose because right yeah on the one hand you have the buzzkill u.s federal highway administration who are like you must not make your signs this funny. They are a distraction. And on the other hand, you have the office comedians who are writing these things, these just labored pop culture references. Almost definitely people who say that's what she said five times a day still to this day. Yeah.

Or do you love to make fart sounds with their mouths all the time like right you just rip one pal it's like dude come on yeah fucking 30 000 years old please yeah i'm also said 39 and just self-owned there dude you're 39 you're 39 for you're doing fart noises yeah i think they're funny still did you censor that for me? You didn't want to hurt my feelings? No, I was just realizing I was just going to completely roast myself. I was protecting me, Jack.

I learned it from watching you, okay? Another one. Texting and driving? Say it. I'm the problem. It's me. Okay. All right, Taylor. I do feel like these would be a little bit of a distraction on the other hand maybe they are more likely to get my attention

i would probably get a little annoyed after i saw it for like the fifth time yeah um but like have you ever been moved by a clever pun to actually change your like reckless behavior? Like at the peak of my like boozing and drug use or something in college. And I saw a sign like that. I'm like, that shit is funny. I'm going harder now. Turn around to the backseat fully to talk about it.

Exactly. Fucking hands completely off the wheel and be like, can you, should I go'll pull back around dude i'll go over this fucking k rail i don't care um some of the people are like actually we're having a lot of success with these signs uh in mississippi which harness the power of which is the ones that did the taylor swift sign um and then you've got the federal regulators who are like, how funny is too funny? This is a distraction. So the people who are pro say funny triggers more brain activity among participants. The people who are like, that shit is distracting.

It's too damn funny. I think the big lesson is everybody involved has a bad sense of humor and maybe we need to find like other creative outlets for these people like maybe we give them like some improv lessons or something or just classes for the office or maybe let's not simplify like that the solution to the scourge of like horrific drunk driving accidents is to get somebody to like, like think of fast and furious and ludicrous pun. Like maybe we can do a little bit better than that. Like maybe dealing.

Never mind. I was about to say dealing with root causes. I'll just shut up now. Anyways, the conclusion that we're dealing with is signs should be simple and not include humor wit or pop culture references um which like i just i can't imagine like the people involved in these meetings like the arguments uh yeah pretty demoralizing to have to seriously debate that and then they say stuff like well there was increased brain activity what this is not serious at all please can we do something

actually effective here but i love a good pun all right well those are some of the things that are trending on this january 17th we are back tomorrow with a whole ass episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get the vaccine. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to y'all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. In 1982,

Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest. Because the company had promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades listen to the legend of sword quest on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts hey i'm bruce bozzi on my podcast table for two we have unforgettable lunch after unforgettable lunch with the best guest you could possibly ask for. People like Matt Bomer, Emma Roberts, and Colin Jost.

Did you say a Caesar salad with lobster? Yeah. Whoa. Our second season is airing right now, so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate and often hilarious. Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Revealing the healing journey behind her new novel, Everything We Never Knew. I am showing up for my younger self and it is becoming a ripple effect energetically in my life. And that's why I feel so safe now. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.