The Morning Stream - TMS 2156: Affordable Meatballs

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

This Candle smells like my meatballs. I Hope It's Mustard! A Naked Lady Making a Sandwich. Zero Sugar Delta Splash. I'm Not Your Google. Can Soda Shot First! Hey, this show is daily! The Bookcase Prefers to Be Called William. I Don't Know What She's doin, but It Ain't Sellin' a Phone. Isn't there an agency dealing with Firearms called A-T-Something? Stickers are also for men and women. One T-Shirt, Extra BS. Fake False Things. These Controllers Don't Make Dual Sense! Therapy Thursday and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up on TMS, this candle smells like my meatballs. I hope that's mustard. A naked lady making a sandwich. Zero sugar delta splash. I'm not your Google. Soda cans shot first. Hey, this show is daily. The bookcase prefers to be called William.

I don't know what she's doing, but it ain't selling a phone. Isn't there an agency dealing with firearms called AT something? Stickers are also for men and women. One t-shirt, extra BS. Fake, false things. These controllers don't make dual sense. Therapy Thursday and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. The seas are clear, McSwain. We should have smooth sailing all the way.

His testicle sack is now so large, he has to wear a huge hoodie upside down instead of trousers. This is the morning. stream. And we're going to need a bigger boat. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to TMS for Thursday, August 5th, 2021. I am Scott Johnson. He is Brian Ibitt. Hello, Brian. Hello, Scott. Oh, man. We do a daily show. Remember that? How we do that? That's what we do. That's what we do. We do it. But we do. Yeah, we do a show every Monday through Thursday and then often an afternoon thing on Fridays,

which will be true this week. And, you know, we've missed a couple of Fridays because of various medical issues and... Some other stuff came up, yeah. Well, Playdate. Playdate doesn't really count as missing a Friday show because we give you a Saturday show. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And the thing is to remember, you know, we have the authority to take that Friday thing and do whatever we want with it. We can take it and go.

Right. It's now a half-hour strip show with Brian taking off his pasties. It can be that. Oh, the pasties stay on. That's a legal requirement. Oh, but I'll take off everything else, sure. It's one of those bars, I see. Anyway, it's good to see you all. Good to have you back. It's Thursday, and that means Wendy later. We've got some stuff to deal with. I've called our topic with Wendy the next normal, and we'll get to why that topic is the name.

But just to give you a little tease here early in the show, because I like to Tisia. All right. Hey, I told you a few days ago, those of you who are familiar with the Activision Blizzard mess, we don't have to describe it again for the millions of time. Is there something going on there, Sky? It turns out there's a little something going on. It is funny. Once in a while, I'll get a tweet or something from somebody who'll say, what's all this Blizzard stuff about? And I'm like, please just Google it, dude. Just hit the word, type the word Blizzard and Google it and you'll go find it. And you'll be, you don't need me. It'll be the first thing that comes up, trust me.

Yeah, 100%. I'm not your Google. Anyway, after exhaustive conversations about it over the last few weeks, as I mentioned last week, I created some artwork, basically a drawing or some art of a broken hearth stone that says no way home. And a bunch of people said, hey, you should make that merch. And I said, well, I don't want any money from this. This is more, this is like my therapy for dealing with this. And anyway, then people kept pushing and said, well, why don't you do, you do a charity?

And I went, oh, well, yeah, I could. What am I thinking? This is dumb. Let's do that. Actually, I can make a difference here. Let's actually do something good in this world that comes from this mess. So let's do that. So I did.

And it went up last night. And I'm letting you guys know now that if you go to frogpants.com slash store, you will find t-shirts, men's and women. You will find stickers. Those are also for men or women. Or anyway. Actually, everything from now from here forward is for all people of any kind. Type gender. And Hispanic.

people and black people too all of them now that that goes so far back to people might not get that reference so yeah i'm a little worried if you don't know what that is it's referencing a really old commercial go to youtube search for the red house commercial yes so that was what brian and i were doing then that was not us being weird okay there's also buttons like you know pin in the back stick it on your shirt kind of deal and there's also a print uh 12 by 12 inch uh large format print um all of these are up on the store and for sale, which means you'll get them. But also, they're going 100% profit to charity. None of it goes to me or anybody. And we're going to be like ridiculously transparent about that, meaning once this is all over with, people can see the total amounts that we're donating to which

group and, you know, where it all broke down from and that sort of stuff. We're not going to give away people's names or anything, but this isn't a plan to docs customers or whatever. But it's a chance for us to just do a big transparency sort of open charity. And the concept is this is going to some causes that are specifically areas of impact around the issues that are part of this Activision Blizzard mess. So for example, Black Girls Code is one of them. This is a highly regarded charity or group that helps young women of color or women of color in general. I don't think age has anything to do with it. have better inroads into the world of tech and technology, and it's an awesome one.

I really like this one in particular. Also, there's Rain, which is basically a sexual, not sexual abuse. What's the word I'm trying to say? Harassment. Harassment, assault, all that. All of it. They are a huge resource for women who are victims of assault, and it is a really good, an important one. So basically you'll have that choice as well. And thirdly, and finally,

women in games international, which is, again, another, maybe this is even the most connected to the Activision Blizzard stuff because it's very specifically focused on women in games. My daughter, for example, who has just got her degree in this and is about to venture off into the world of video game design. This is an organization for that. So you can go read about all of them because we made it really simple. On each listing, there's a website link. You can click and find out. And then when you go to pick your shirt and your size and your color and all that, you can also then choose which charity you would like. In fact, it's the number one thing. It's the number one choice. So if you want to choose, there's a drop balance that says Black

Girls Code, Rain, or Women in Games International. These are the three that we narrowed down. That is really cool. We didn't do more than three because A, it just started to get a little choice paralysis, but also we want to make it easy to manage this one. it's done so that everyone gets exactly to the penny what they're what they're do um anyway it's uh it's just about all i can do so i'm glad i could do something and um and it's maybe a small thing but we tried to also make less expensive options like the stickers only 250 but all profit from all of this goes to that and we're already well in the couple thousand range as far as like total donation i'd love to see that grow so head on over to frogpants.com slash store and

grab yourself one or two or three of these items and that's what some people are doing they'll get like the shirt for one charity a sticker for the other no way home button for another one and that's a good way of doing it spread it out yeah yep um so anyway uh if i seem like i'm nervous about this it's just i'm very very serious about wanting this to be really straightforward i don't know why because there's so much freaking people on the internet going yeah come do the thing and it's great. We're great. I don't want this to be that. This isn't me going, hey, look at my cool artwork. I don't want it to be that. I don't want this to be, hey, Scott's going to make a bunch of money from this. I don't want it. I want this to be meaningful and impactful. And I want it to create just a little corner of change. If it can do just a little tiny bit, that'd be cool. And you guys are awesome. And I know that you're willing to do this with me. So, so thank you for the help. Those who've already grabbed it. Great. Plus, you get a cool thing. And I don't know. I find it cathartic looking at that broken hearthstone it means something to me you know maybe it

means something to you yeah if you're an old time fan and player and you know not all of you have donated or dedicated 15 years of content creation to this but but you've got a connection to it and I understand it so anyway I think that's all there is to say about that I may bring it up here and there just to get people who haven't been informed but again frogpants.com slash store you'll find all these as the top listings um soon as you go there. So let me know how it goes. Okay. Let's move on. Hey, Brian. Yes, Scott. You like okay. You like IKEA, right? You like it. I'm familiar with it. I mean, I like it. This, this red thing next to me is an IKEA product, as is the tabletop that I'm using with my sitting standing desk.

The sitting standing part isn't part of it. You ever done any of the hacking stuff? everyone talks about where you that's that's kind of what this is this this tabletop is with is uh i hacked it with a um sit stand desk from another company um did a little bit of of of lumber work a little bit of woodworking not wordworking but look at you a little bit to make it work but yeah i've done a little bit of ikea hacks all right well ikea uh has decided that since they love you so much they're going to release or they've already done it they released a meatball scented candle oh good yeah i want to thank dustin anderson for sending me this because uh we had a fan sent this in and i just thought it was too good not to talk about at the top of the show so here's the deal the furniture chain

released a candle scented like its iconic swedish meatballs have you ever had those you ever gone up there upstairs i've totally had their uh their their Swedish meatballs they're great yeah you like them i can't remember if i like them i had them and i don't remember i just gravy and a little a lingonberry jelly with them and uh yeah we've even gotten the frozen stuff and brought it home and made our own like uh you know mashed potatoes and stuff to go with it

uh well I oh sorry I'm noticing in the chat some are saying the women sizes or the shirts are bad is that true uh I'll look into it I don't know what that means I don't know what that means either bad bad sizes says the sizes are BS I don't know what that means maybe bad sizes

or bullshit it. I don't know. Let me know what you mean. Send me an email or something and I'll look into it. That's not, I don't want that to be, I don't want anyone to get there and go, these shirts are BS. That's not the goal. The goal is. Yeah. I'm looking at it and says, you know, select style. Ladies are unisex. You select ladies. It's undersized. You've got small, medium, large, XL, 2, 3, and 4X. Oh, Talley says it's an industry issue. Not much I can do. So it's a shirt thing. Oh, okay. Oh, all right. So it's a general. Shirts in general for women. gonna see this is how little we men know we don't get bothered by this stuff because we don't know

so uh that sucks is that true is that always i could ask my wife i guess no we're learning so much uh this episode there's a lot to learn there's a lot to learn brian we got to just keep learning um anyway so uh i don't like i don't know i don't have no memory of these meatballs because i don't really i'm surprised you've never you've never tried them i did try them but i don't have i have no memory of how they tasted i don't I don't remember any if they were good. Are they bad? Were they?

They're fine. There's certainly nothing that I would go to IKEA specifically to get. But if I'm already going there to buy a Billy Bookcase or a lack shelf, then it's lunchtime, I might pop in there and get a thing meatball. Sure, why not? Because you're there already. So, yeah. But I'm not, but I'm never going to say, oh, what can I go for for lunch day? I know, I'll go to Ikea and get some meatballs.

It's always the, it's the gum in the, the point of purchase display at the end of the supermarket. It's not the purpose of the supermarket. So it's never, I'm at there, I'm there getting meatballs. Oh, while I'm here, I'll get a shelf. It's the other way around. Exactly. Oh, I could sure use a lamp that takes 11 pieces and an Allen wrench to put together. now these billy bookcases are they called that they're called billy bookcases yeah the billy bookcase

because uh have you if you've heard the jonathan colton song ikea billy the bookcase billy the bookcase says hello oh okay i wondered what that was all right so is that spelled just like i think it's spelled or is it i l-l-y-l-y-hs okay well that's unusual for them because most of their stuff is like nick and schacht or some weird name i think i think it's but it's probably either a word or a name in Swedish as well as how we translate it. I'm guessing it's not short for William in Sweden. But hey, I could be wrong. Who knows? It could be Bill. Who knows? Right. It could be. So when I'm in there, this is why I'm kind of sounding oblivious to this. This is what my experience is in an IKEA. Yeah. I walk in and I

marvel at the fake flat screen televisions that are in the fake rooms. Right, the big plastic, hollow, yeah. And I want one. Those computers. I want, yeah. And yes, the computers is often like the case and a monitor and all this. Right, right. Or a fake IMac or something.

I want the fake TVs so bad. And they don't sell them there, but they're everywhere. And there have been times where I've been tempted to walk up to one of the employees and just go, is there a way I can just buy this 42-inch fake TV? So what are you going to do with it? I don't know. I love this. I love this.

Great. What are you going to do with you? You're going to hang it on the wall and marvel at the fact that you can't watch TV on it? I don't know why it intrigues me. It's like false, fake false things. Like a, I would love to have a really real. Maybe this is just a replica, and I'm just describing it wrong, but like a fake, pay phone

that's like in the stand with a little shroud on it and everything like you'd have in a normal U.S. city. Not like Europe where it's like a whole enclosed thing you go into, but like a you know, like a like a like a

like a pay phone we used to put 10 cents in back in the day. I want one of those, not a real one, but a mock one just in the corner over there. Why do I want that? I don't know.

I don't know why I want that. Isn't that weird though? It's weird. I also like big things. and little things. I like giant pencil. Yeah, miniature's and I'm looking to see. I don't know why I don't have.

I thought I had it in one of those IKEA drawers behind me, really is a set of IKEA drawers. I have a Palm Trio. Yeah. That is fake. It's like a display unit. So it's got an actual printed display on it. And then you open it up and it's got like a chunk of ladder or heavy metal in there

to give it the weight and feel of an actual smartphone. But there are no. There are no guts inside. I love that. See, that's awesome. I want a controller like that. Give me a whole console like that. Better yet, give me smaller or larger versions of that.

Like, I have a Wii controller that's not a real controller. It was a mint case that I got at Target. Oh, yeah. They're like this big. But they look like little mini controllers. I kept all those. Sure, sure. Because they're so dumb.

It's just so dumb. And BioCow's right. I really should get more into 3D printing because then I could make all this stuff for myself, but, but, you know, I don't know, there's something about like a giant telephone or a miniature pencil or a, yeah, I don't know why, I don't know why I feel that way about this stuff, but I, I don't know, fake 60s TV is 109 bucks. Jedi, give me a link, man. Oh, there's an eBay. Let's see what we got here. That's a, yeah, I looked at that eBay. It's like a pay phone, but it's like a real payphone. It's also a topless woman down in the

related sponsored items. Do you see this? Oh. Why is that there? Yes, there is. Telephone advertising. I don't know why that is. I'm not going to scroll that low, chat, so you don't see her, but there's a naked lady holding the phone. That's really bizarre. I don't know why that is.

So this is exactly what I want. How much is this? 309? Ah, too much. I would love one of these. Why do I want this? I don't know why I want it. I don't even want the guts.

Like, it has guts. If you look at the pictures, they have it all. torn up inside or they're just showing the insides? I don't want any of that. I just want the shell. Right, right, right. I just want the empty shell of the I'm just fascinated by what are they selling with this booby telephone

advertising thing? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know what they're doing there. Let me scroll down. Because it's not even the actual photograph or is it? Is this an actual like different countries in their they're less freaking out about nudity.

Was this an actual telephone advertisement? These photos eat. I'm on some list now because I click this to see what the deal was with it, but apparently, yeah. I don't know what this is. Oh, okay, the description, this is weird. Under condition, it says these photos emanate from a working newspaper archive, thus concede routine physical imperfections. yeah this sounds like let's just copy and paste that into google translate is she making a sandwich

i think that's bread is it that thing that she's holding yeah and then down there in her hand is like a i i hope it's mustard or something i hope but it might be she's happy about whatever whatever she's doing it's certainly not selling a phone uh and she's really happy about it She's stoked. All right. Well, eBay, you've done it again. You've freaked me out completely well done. Good job. Yeah. All right, anyways. That's mustard. I don't know what it is. But anyway, all right, so back to this. This is the whole point. For many people, one of the few things that come to mind when they think of IKEA is they're delicious and affordable meatballs. Why is that funny? Affordable. I don't know why that's funny.

They're affordable meatballs. As opposed to those really exciting. expensive meatballs that you get at other furniture stores. Yep. This is from show Matzuki, a creative directorate, Ogilvie. Am I saying that right? Oh, Ogilvy advertising, yeah. Yeah, they spearheaded the creative project with IKEA. This is what they told the New York Post.

There's no other furniture brand out there with a food offering that has such a strong following. I think you get to stop. There is no disputing that line. No other furniture brand out there with a food offering that has such a strong following. Yeah, I don't know of any. They're totally correct about that. Yes. So for the IKEA family 10-year anniversary,

wait, IKEA's only been around for 10 years. IKEA Family's been around for 10 years. That's the grocery store add-on, I think. Oh, okay. Oh, that's an actual part of the brand. I thought that meant. Yeah. Okay.

Like IKEA family is like the, what is it? Is it just the member, like the frequent shopper card thing? Oh, it could be. Yeah, because IKEA's been around forever. Yeah, I was going to say it's been... For a lot longer than 10 years, but I think IKEA family is either the membership. I want to say we got our first one in what, like 08 or 09 or something? You came to it in 2011, at least 10 years ago.

I did. I did. It was right before we did a film sack about tremors, and I even made a video with Fletcher demonstrating the weird little tremors worms. Yep, never forget. Let's see. We thought it would be fitting to create something unexpected. that are IKEA family members, okay, and Meatball Superfans would love. Meatball Superfans.

Someone, that's a title. Get that in there. Meatball Superfans. Says, and yes, it does very much smell like IKEA meatballs. So I'm not saying I want one of these candles. I am saying if somebody sent us these candles, we would smell them. That's what I'm saying. Sure, sure, exactly.

Doesn't mean that we want them. We're not going to go and actively seek these candles. Right. And I don't know what they cost. Well, maybe the post article says, let's see. Yeah. If I want to smell meatballs in the house, usually just Kim Cooks and I can smell them. But let's see.

Oh, it's called hoovedroll. Whouvidroll. Is the name of it. Yeah. Let's see. 2.2. 75. Oh, no, no.

That's Guineath Paltrow's wiener candle is 75 bucks. Wait a minute. I think we've uncovered something new here. Gwineth Paltrow has a wiener candle now? Breaking news. Breaking news. What? Let's see.

It doesn't say how much. I want to know how much. All right. Well, anyway, look for it coming to a nose near you. All right. That's funny. I could have sworn, didn't Domino's Pizza do something like this? Like to have a Domino's Pizza candle or...

I know KFC had one. Yeah, KFC had one. there's was it dominoes who else had one there was other this is the thing food scented candles because in my head there is there's like a pizza one but I don't know whose it is um

okay here we go oh McDonald's made uh quarter pounder candles oh this one sounds nice grandma's kitchen it's nice uh let's see time olive leaf these are all normal I don't want these.

This has to be a joke. Was this on April Fool's Day? What was it? No, February 24th. I'm going to give you a link. Put it in there. Stick it in. And put it in the chat room.

I mean, in our Discord. I'll give it to the chat room as well. McDonald's had a set of scented candles last year that was like all the different parts of a quarter pounders. So the beef was a separate candle and the pickles were a separate candle and the ketchup was a separate candle. And the ketchup was a separate candle. Whoa. Look at that. Really? Yeah. I want these.

I kind of do, too. Do you have to just light them all at the same time and it smells like a quarter founder? Yeah, you get a full quarter. I mean, I don't know about the beef-flavored one, but I guess, again, with all the other stuff, it might be okay. This candle smells like beef. But look at them. So if I had these, I probably would never light them. I would put them up on some prominent display place.

So when people came over, they'd be like, what? And I'd be like, yeah, get in there and with it. And then you can smell, you know, just get close and smell it. Right. You don't have to burn them. You know, this is the whole reason that you're doing your eBay thing is getting rid of stuff like this that you buy, put up on a shelf, say, hey, check it out. And then it's like, why do I have this? Yeah.

I have too much that stuff already. I don't know why I'm even wanting any of it. Yeah. There was a whole bunch of controversy over a McDonald's PS5 controller. Oh, yeah. Sony made him stop making it. Yeah. Did they good?

Yeah. Sony did a pull-down or a take-down. It was basically Australia only. Oh, let's see if I have this. I think I have this up. I'm glad you brought it up because it's actually a fun story for us. Here it is. Kataki ran a thing.

Sony stops McDonald's from giving away PS5 controllers. It says as of last week, McDonald's, Australia, had been planning on giving away a bunch of custom PS5 controllers each plastered with burgers and fries motif in celebration of the company's 50th birthday in Australia. Not here, but there. Right. Weirdly, the international dining, behemoth forgot to ask Sony about this first. So they didn't approve it.

They probably just thought, well, hey, we'll buy the controllers and then we'll just put stuff on them. Yeah, we'll just skin them ourselves. And why would Sony care? I could see that. You'd think that would be the first thing the company was actually the legal team was, whatever, anyway, let's see. McDonald's got straight to it, announced plans to give away the clothes. It smells like a quarter pounder and fries, but it doesn't look like a quarter pounder and fries. gross gross gross

it's very gross it says Sony oh Sony has said you can't do it let's see Sony PlayStation is not authorized the use of the controller from promotional materials related to the proposed stream event that they were

going to do for these and they had to apologize for doing it but yeah they actually kind of look cool like I don't know I'd want one Look at that. I like the ID behind it.

I don't think they look that good. I mean, they look bad, but, well, that's what I'm saying is you'd want one just because you'd have one of these limited edition.

No one's ever going to make one again. Right. Not because they're cool, because they're not cool. Like if they made a, and I'm sure, because of all of the Spider-Man and Avengers games, if they made a really cool Marvel-looking,

um, uh, dual stick or, or, uh, what do they call it, dual, the,

dual shock, that was the old one. Oh, No, no, Dual Sense they call it a PS5 controller? They just call it Dual Sense now. Dual Sense. That's right. That's the word. So if they made a really cool Marvel look in Dual Sense, I'd probably be into it. But I'm sure there'll be one that comes out around the time of the Guardians of the Galaxy game that'll look really cool. Yeah.

But I don't want it to just have like, here's a picture of Star Lord and a picture of, you know, Rocket and Raccoon. I want something that looks like this would be what the PS5 controller what the dual sense would look like in that world right right you know a stark looking a stark industry's controller or a shield controller or a like a like a beat up um right you know like a have it looks like a janky spaceship the you know the the the milano little bit things on it a little bit of scratching on the side that kind of stuff exactly exactly they they do so i want a picture fries on there i want it to look like this is what a controller would look like if you could control McDonald's.

The controller, it's funny, the controller market's weird right now. Microsoft has something called Xbox Controller Design Lab, and you can go in there and make your own custom controllers and it costs you an extra $10 on top of what you would normally pay for a controller or a new one. And it's any kind of color combination you can think of. You make the face buttons transparent or black or colored like they normally are or whatever, everything down to the select button and the capture button and the underside and the

overside and the sticks, they can all be different colors and mixes and matches. It's pretty cool. It makes me hope or wish that Sony would have a program like this, and they may at some point. But right now, I think

the big market for PS5 modification are these like, not latex, but like it's a, it's like latex, like a super thin latex thing you buy and you put it on like a condom, basically. Oh, really?

So not even like a, like the old skinning, right you could do it like you could skin them and certainly sony will do printed custom stuff but uh the the ones i've seen are all like that so if you're going to get custom controllers you buy these wrap basically it's like a car wrap sort of where you don't paint the car but you put a big old wrap on it it's like that interesting it's pretty neat though uh it feels like uh i mean the the spider man costume design just lends itself to a really cool I agree. I agree. And your Sony, you own the rights. Go ahead and do it.

Right. Right. Get in there. Exactly. Get in there. Make it happen. All right. Well, from meatballs to Sony, we now move to the news. Breaking News, brought to you by. Brought to you by Coverville. Today we're going to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of this project that Pete Townsend wanted to do called Lifehouse. After the Who had successes with Tommy and Quadrophenia. Pitonson wanted to do another rock opera, and it was going to be called Lifehouse. And it fell through, but they picked up all of those pieces from that Lifehouse thing. Added a couple extra songs, and it became the Who album called Who's Next. This is probably one of their biggest albums as far as hit singles go.

You've got Baba O'Reilly, Won't Get Fooled Again, Behind Blue Eyes, Bargain, all of these great things. things, great songs. And today we're going to be covering it track by track on coverville at 1 p.m. Mountain Time at twitch.tv slash coverville. Very, very nice. Now, this first story, I feel like it deserves something. Hold on my play. Where is it? Totally have it. Where's my Utah Connection? Utah Connection. Okay, it's not really from Utah, but it's a website and local affiliate station for that's that's here based here KUTV channel two uh been here my whole life so they get a little bit of Utah connection anyway the story is about Washington the state okay okay Washington the state the state the man nope nope or the D.C not the

district of Columbia but the state right right Washington man not J.J. Washington from uh welcome back Carter Carter not that not that guy was his name J.J. Washington? It was Washington, but I don't remember his first name. I remember Vinnie Barbarino, Arnold Horshack, but I don't remember ever when they said Washington's first name. His name is? It probably was, I believe you. Welcome back, Cotter.

Yeah. Where's the characters? Oh, here we go. His name was Freddie. Freddie Washington. Freddie Boom, Boom, Washington. His full name was Freddy, Percy, Boom, Boom. Washington.

Did you know that? I'm sure the Percy thing was an episode, a very special episode of Welcome Back Cotter. Yeah. Vincent Vinnie Barbarino. Arnold Dill. Sorry. Arnold Ding Fingter Horshack.

Really? And then Juan Luis Pedro Filippo de Huevos Epstein. Epstein, right. Okay, didn't know Epstein's full name either. Holy mackle. This is a little, look, the learning going on today is exceptional. That's right. It's outstanding.

Amazing. All right. Anyway, so police there in Washington and Yakima. You ever been to Yakima? Is there a newspaper in Yakima? There is, Yakima Herald. And I can't remember if they were a customer rows. I can't remember if I went there.

I've been all over Washington, Bramerton, Spokane, Seattle, of course. We had the Post-Intelligence are there. Seattle Times, post-intelligence. It was a J-O-A. Where else do we go in Washington? I always hated that name, post-intelligencer. Post-Intelligencer, yeah. It's an awkward name.

Yeah. Intelligencer. Like the Canton Repository or... Yeah. I just don't know what an intelligentser is. The New Orleans, picky you. Yeah, I don't like that many. Intelligencer.

We're going to learn more right now. Okay. All right, what an intelligentser is. Yeah. Intelligencer. Oh, it's just all newspapers. Everett. Yeah, been to Everett. Well, Tina's brother lived in Everett for a while, so went to Everett and Crystal. No, is Crystal? Everett Falls? Why does the name Everett sound familiar?

Everett Washington. Damn and Everett? What is it? Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I don't know what intelligence it means. Can't find it. No. Probably the only use of that word is in the newspaper name. Yeah. And I don't even think, they might not even be. It might just be the Seattle Times now. Oh, they just roll it all up. Call good. Yeah. Yeah.

It was supposed to having, because it was a morning and an evening newspaper, two separate newspapers operating under the same, in the same, GA joint operating agreement. Even our two competing ones, Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune, are printed in the exact same building.

They are. Yeah. Which is weird. And probably share different, they have different editorial staff, but have the same advertising staff. Yep. And they have,

last time I was in there. Oh my gosh, it may have been college. because we were looking at all the old typesetting stuff for our typography class and we went on a tour there and they showed us all these old typesets and like all the letters and Kearney. Oh, man. It was so cool.

I don't ever want to do that shit now, but I'd love that it existed. Having to put the little metal letters in order and, oh my God. Yeah, actual letting to space afterwards and learning that that's where the term letting came from. It's amazing. It's amazing stuff. I highly, listen, it sounds boring as snot, and I know, I know it sounds that way. But I'm telling you, to you young people, if you have a typography course in college, take it. Even if you don't care about that world, it's a fascinating history.

In fact, I was surprised. Did you ever have to work with Lettracet? Maybe. Why is that? Where you get the big sheets of big plastic sheets that had a bunch of different letters in a font. And then you'd put it on your paper with a little burnishing tool. where you wanted your letters to go, and you go, whew, and you push, like, you basically put the plastic over there,

and then you, yeah, we did that for our school newspaper for a couple of years, because that's all we had. Oh, God, Letterset. Yeah, remember that? So I actually probably, in my college portfolio, probably still have some sheets of Letterset. Yeah. It's a lost arm, man.

It is a lost arm. It's also a huge pain in the ass. And, uh, uh, what do they call that stuff? the um potato gun it's the it would cause shading you use it for shading oh zip atone zip atone yeah zip atone i used to buy i bought so much of that stuff dude oh my gosh because all back in the day when i would do comics and they were terrible trust me but when i was doing early

stuff in the early 90s or late 80s um that was the standard so you would go to like rules art and frame and you would buy a stack of zip atone and you try to get different densities and all that. Yep, yep. And then you exacto-knife it out. Oh my gosh. That was so weird. What a weird time.

It's good to remember these things now and again because you just freaking forget. Remember where you came from. Yeah, remember where he came from. Remember where you've been. Anyway, what's happening in Yakima? So in Yakima, a man shot a fridge after his soda can exploded. Okay. Like you do.

So the soda can shot first. Yeah, the soda can's just. Shoda. Show to Shane shot. Police say Yakima, Washington man is under arrest after he shot his refrigerator, believing somebody was shooting at him after a soda can exploded. This is too funny. Last night, I'm in the garage, the garage, the garage. Okay?

Yeah. And I grabbed two cans of Pepsi Mango Zero and one can of Dr. Pepper, sorry, of Mountain Dew, the blue one, zero. Rage, not rage. Whatever it is at Taco Bell. Oh, oh, Baja Blast? So I had these three cans, two in this hand, one in this hand. I go reaching up to the garage door or the garage to go back into the kitchen. I grabbed the handle and I turn and didn't know that when you turn it, part of the handle is like I got a little sticky out part and it pierced the can.

I'm sure the can. Oh, no. But I didn't know it right away. And I opened the door and there's a giant Wimeriner, Ripley, Ellen Ripley, standing there. and the can goes, just like in her face, just on blast. Just, and I'm always like, what the, oh, geez. And I realize what's happening. And I whip it around and I'm spraying the garage.

I don't know where to put it. Got on my wife's car. It was blue with Baja blast teal. Yeah, it was a bad scene. It's a bad scene. Anyway, officers responded to the scene after reports he had opened fire at the refrigerator. When they got there, the man outside in the alleyway yelling incoherently with a gun lying in the middle of the road.

I think I may have been just waiting for a pop-off here. That seems like a little much, right? Like yelling and guns in the road. He was waiting for a pop-off. That was a very good unintentional pun. I didn't mean it even. That happens a lot around here. He was taken into custody.

The witnesses told him what happened. The man had been placing soda cans into fridge. when it exploded. Oh, so he was like filling the thing. Yeah. He heard one pop. He immediately thought the pistol or pulled the pistol out of his waistband because he had a carry permit.

And fired around into the bottom of the fridge. Well, who's going to be shooting you from the fridge? I question this person's sanity. Something's wrong. This guy was a, yeah, no pun intended. He was a trigger just waiting to be pulled. Like he basically, he is 99% convinced that. that the world is out to get him, to take him out.

And so when he heard that thing, that was the 1% he needed, the final straw was like, oh, finally, get you chute back. Yep, that sounds right. He later told the police, by the way, in the interview that the people who lived in the basement wanted to kill him. Oh, there we go, see? All right. They said he had shot at them, so he fired and self-defense.

That was his original story. Investigators also say there's no what he lives in the basement right now. That place is empty. And that, in fact, there is no basement at all. Why did they So investigators first say Oh yeah, there's nobody living in the basement Oh yeah, there's no basement

They could have well there's no basement Yeah, they could have But I liked that they didn't Instead of There's nobody living in the basement Oh by the way, there's also no basement Yeah This guy's got problems

Is really the bottom line there So we wish him well God, we wish him well Yeah, hope he gets the help he needs And I don't know maybe he has a little red flag on his file to not be able to purchase weaponry in the future? I don't know. Exactly. All right. Here's this story.

Old Town wants to completely dig up its landfill and move the garbage down the road. Sure. Yeah, that's what you do when you're in an old town. It's literally called Old Town, by the way. It's the name of the town. Yeah, this is a Bangor Man. So there's apparently a... part of Bangor, Maine called Old Town. I wonder if Stephen King will get involved. He lives out there, doesn't he?

Right, sure. All his books are set in somewhere near there. It seems like, at some point, they had to name that town, old town. It's not like it's, you know, a name that used to be called town, and now it's called Old Town. Right. It's not like York and New York. At some point, somebody floated the idea, well, let's call this place Old Town. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know why they would do that. That's a really good question. Like when they started, was it Old Town to begin with? Right. Do they call it New Town? And then just after a certain number of years, they said, well, we can't really call it New Town anymore. Let's call it Old Town. Yeah. They had to wait for like one lady to be born, live to 90, die. And then they're like, all right, it's Old Town. We've changed it. Yeah.

Well, here's the deal. They want to shutter its remaining unlined landfill. But how exactly it plans to close it would be first of, sorry, it would be a first for the state if approved. The city filed an application with the main department of environmental protection. I love when people say the main department because it sounds like there's an alternative department that you want to go with the main one. I love that. I love the way that sounds. They did this on the 19th of July requesting to old towns construction and demolition debris landfill that has been inactive since 2014. They want to move it. Typically towns elect to cover a landfill and seal the contents in the ground, but in their case, they want to completely unearth a pile of

garbage and haul it 4.5 miles down the road to another landfill and combine them. The move would mark a departure for the way Maine towns and cities, see again, Maine towns. I like that. And cities have handled the closing of landfills since the state started encouraging towns in Maine. They just suck at it. That's right. You guys are bad. City manager Bill Mayo, that's a name Justin Robert Young would not like because he don't like Mayo,

said landfills like the old town one wants to get rid or, that it wants to get rid of are potentially a liability as they are generally unlined. That means that stuff could like leak into the water and all that other stuff contaminate soil and whatnot. So that's why they want to move it. Maybe line your thing next time. Are you so old that

you didn't know about that when you started? Right. Just line your landfill. Multi B70, it says Fort Collins has old town which is the OG area. Well, no, so does Arvada. We have Old Town, Arvada. There's Old Town Fort Collins, but it's not an actual town called Old Town. Yeah, you're not a certified city. It's a city. A

city of Old Town, which is even funnier. Why would it be Old City? Exactly. Oh, it says the name Old Town derives from the Indian Old Town. What does that mean? Oh, really? Okay. So apparently there was a Native American

name that Old Town? Old Town. That seems... I wonder if it's... But it's probably another name that translates to Old Town and they just start calling it Old Town. I don't know. Let's see. This is a lot.

this is a lot of really diverse information that we have. Yes, it really is, yes. Oh, an old town was settled in 1840, so it's old. It is old, yeah. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Settled in 1774, incorporated in 1880. That's when they picked the name.

That was old then, so okay. Gotcha. All right. Oh, the name old town, I see what he's saying. The name Old Town derives from Indian Old Town, which was the English name for the largest Bnobscot Indian Village, now known as Indian Island. Oh, where, um, they just

from Donald Panobscot. I knew this is coming. Yeah, married to, um, Margaret Houlihan. Yeah. Yes, exactly. We just saw that episode. We just saw that episode last night.

Sounds like impossible to, the only Padobscot that I've ever heard of, right? Besides apparently this, uh, river in Maine. Yeah. Uh, so they just really shortened it from Indian old town to just old town. I gotcha. Still Indian old town?

I don't know. Well, biocalus knows there a real, is there a road in old town? I can take my horse down to. Yeah, you've got to take your horse to the Old Town Road and then ride and like you can't know more. Yeah, something like that. I guess his new song's controversial because he's nude in the video. Is that true? I heard something about that.

Oh, I haven't seen it. Little Naz-X. I saw the Satan video. Yeah, where he goes down the pole and all that. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need. I'm going down this pole and I can't, frequency, or whatever. I don't know how it goes.

Yeah. Uh-huh. It's pretty close, right? Those 100% accurate. His songs are, you know, they're movers and shakers, man. People like Lil Nas X. They like him. What's with the trend with hip-hop and, you know,

those rappers and hip-hop artists with the Lil in their name? I don't like it. I don't know, Dionne Warwick. Why don't you tweet about it? Did she do that? I don't remember this. Does that a thing she did? She, she loved, Dionne Warwick is great because it's like, why do you call yourself Chance the rapper?

If you're a rapper, just call yourself Chance. And then she calls Billy Eilish William Eilash. Okay, she's kind of great. Why am I not following her on Twitter? I don't know. She's like, she's a breath of fresh air on Twitter, for sure. All right. Here are the rappers with Lil in their name.

Lil Wayne. Lil Uzi-Virt Lil Baby My least favorite Lil peep Lil yacchi Yachti Yachty

Oh like a yacht All right Like yacht Because it's fancy And expensive Lil Skies Lil Dicky Oh I probably changed that one

Lil Dicky Yeah I might want to change that I'm sure he changed something to that You know it's He should work with this other guy Lil Pump Maybe that'll help.

There's Lil John, Lil Durk, Lil Kim, Lil Nas X, of course, Lil Boozy, Lil Zan, Lil B, Lil'B, Lil'I, Lil'Reese, Lil'Roy, little Romeo, Lil C's, Lil'l Twist, Lil' Mo. You know what? This doesn't end. It's a thousand lines long. It's a never-ending list. The list will never stop because as you're reading it, eight new hip-hop artists are going to take the name,

Lil something. Oh, my gosh. These statistics are scary. Every time a hip-hop artist takes the name a little something, an angel gets its wings. Well, good luck to all of them, I guess, in their own special way. All right, moving on to this water park. Oh, well, technically not a water park.

Technically a regular park. Yeah, part of which became a water park. Yeah, it kind of became one. Disney greets, or guests, rather, swim in flooded Magic Kingdom streets. Rain and theme parks don't mix, they say. But you could still have some fun. Around 3 p.m. Thursday, weather system moved over Disney World. So it's down in Florida.

It was the Florida one. Yep. And the streets around Cosmic Gray Cafe became flooded, according to photos shared with the news organization that posted this. While some guests took shelter from the rain, others, including children, decided to enjoy the water park that formed inside the Magic Kingdom. Cassie Chase shared photos of children playing and swimming at the annual Passholders' Facebook page, saying, quote, Magic Kingdom turned into a water park.

Here's a photo. I'll just share the chat. They're using the word swimming very liberally because, as they even say in the article, the water was about ankle deep. Yeah, it's hard to call that swimming. Yeah. But it looks like fun. If I was a kid, I'd love that.

It does, right? Run and splash in that business. Yeah. And that's a pretty big section to not have adequate, drainage, you know. I agree. But I don't know. I mean, Florida's weird, but I always thought that they'd have an easier time with flash-floody type moments because of, you know, it's already wetland.

It's already, you know. Hurricanes and stuff down there that they've got to be prepared for. So you think that this wouldn't be like, oh, this was unexpected. Rain. Yeah. Weird. We're in Florida again. Rain, weird.

Yeah. Get out of their, too. about this in California, but, hey, are you going to start saving $6,000 bucks so you can spend a couple days on a Star Destroyer hotel in Disney? Okay, I won't lie to you. I was so excited for them. I knew, I mean, since this was announced and all the talk about it, like what it might be, I was so excited all the way up through this lead-up.

And now they've announced it's for the, it's for rich people. It's not for anyone else. It's for rich people. It's basically an alternative to the Disney cruise. It's basically, well, we could spend X amount and go on a boat and get the Disney experience there, or we could do this and get the Star Wars experience in a hotel. But it's like it's not, you know, it's not like your Sheraton, where you're just going in there, you're dropping off your luggage, go out and do other stuff.

This is, you're going in there, committing to a couple, two to three days of full entertainment of being an imperial soldier, a rebel alliance member. Yeah, it's a, it's a, what do you call you? call it. It's like Westworld in there. It's like Westworld. There you go. That's a good, that's a good comparison. It's right. Yeah, they're going all in, but it's all pretend. You're not in space, just so everyone knows. It's all pretend. Yeah, space would be cheaper. Yeah. So I don't know how I feel. Yeah, I want to do it. Like, I would really like to do it. Oh, I do. But it's so expensive. It would have to come down about, I don't

know, $5,500 for me to consider it. Yeah, if you said to me, hey, 600 bucks, two nights, six hundred bucks a night. Yeah. Yeah. I'd do that because it would be, it's a lot still, but I'd be like, well, for this experience, you know, you pay a premium. And like you said, it would be comparable to like going on a Disney cruise or something money-wise. But I don't want to, well, would I go to a Fury Road Hotel? Hell yeah, I would. Yeah, but you also wouldn't spend $6,000 to go to a Fury Road Hotel. Otherwise, you would have gone to Burning Man already. Right. And all they'd take, you know what they

should take for payment is water or gas. They don't, that's all they care. That's currently, that's currency. That's right. You got gazillion? That usually is what Burning Man is the Fury Road Hotel. Yeah. It is. I should go there one day.

No, probably not. Yeah. I mean, there's an actual like Mad Max event every year that's a lot like that. There is, yeah, separate from Burning Man. That's a whole different thing. I forgot what that's called, but yeah. I might go to that one. Are they still doing that?

I knew that they did that one year, but are they still doing that? I think so. I think every year they do it. I think. I could be wrong. Maybe COVID changed that. I don't know. Oh, maybe.

the important thing is we're going to take a break and when we come back we're going to hang out with windy we're going to we're going to answer a big question for a lot of people coming up here in this next couple of months so we'll get to that in a second before all that though let's do a musical break from brian ibid sure so oakland california for this one this one actually started out as a bedroom project in 2010 for ryan christopher parks who's worked with boots riley in uh Riley's 2018 film Sorry to Bother you. Working on music and collaborating

and this turned into something so much bigger and better. B. Hamilton is getting ready

to release a new album called Nothing and Nowhere comes out October 15th on vinyl

and digital streaming platforms courtesy of Sofa Burn Records. This is the brand

new single from B Hamilton. It is North San Juan. One moment Lily had a head Then I was keeping her from nodding off In an out-of-service, Crown Vic

On the road to nuts and one I saw the ruddy from the rainbow Leave her face a final time I saw the shutter and the convulse Into another life I thought how did I get here And how long had I been done In and out of service,

Crown Vic, On the road to us and one I came from nothing I came from nothing and nowhere City College She said that Sean was a shaman. No, he was just another Sean. A white killer in draglots.

Posters in his parents' grudge, expanding his mind. No, he was just wasting time lying naked of the 49. Invincing really they should get the gun In and out of service, Crown Vic On the road to loss and I want She said she grabbed me in the morning

She arrived at 10 p.m. I stole my mother's only 20 Live my new life Beaking, pushing because she said, Just stone To some silicon cervidious Hopping trains are shot in the middle leave Just getting higher

Oh, the ending in everything true It just has to come sometime And in the other corner Oh Rice Rice. Dumped yourself at a truck stop In the misery of dawn said he'd go and find him

It was the last I'd heard of Sean My lily's getting cold Now Johnson's gone Another victim of the boy He knows a ghost of nuts and one She was just made out of

Nuts and One She was just made out In the moonlight Hey! We're going to be able to be. Karatea train your body As soon as you finish your bumps

I want you two turds to clean the head When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie This is the morning stream The chat room doesn't think I'd survive It burning man I think I'd do just fun I think for Scott

It would be an entire weekend Of what gross Scott out the most Oh totally absolutely Yeah yeah yeah But I would be like I'd be in my I'd get a camper or something I don't know what I'd do But I wouldn't

I'm not gonna go to some debauchery filled Friekin orgy on the you know Get sand in my crotch I'm not doing that But I'd be I'd observe I'd be watching the weird stuff Burn and the crazy art installations And you know

Why that lady's topless who knows Like that kind of stuff It'd be interesting. And I love the desert. You know I like the desert. All right, Brian, that song once again. That song again is North San Juan by B. Hamilton. And yeah, it definitely has some Black Keys vibes to it.

That's B. Hamilton, North San Juan. Very, very nice. Yeah. All right. We're bringing Wendy in, and we're going to have some fun here with Wendy, my sister. She's going to join us here shortly. And I'm going to play this little intro song for her and everything. If I can find it, where to go?

I don't know. Everyone knows it's Wendy. Hey, look who it is. It's my sister Wendy Dunford, who joins us on Thursdays and talks about all sorts of stuff, including ways you can be a better you. Hello, Wendy. Hello. Oh, hi. Wendy, how do you feel about meatballs at IKEA?

Yeah. Is it a draw for you? Like, when you're going there to get a bookcase anyway, do you say, oh, let's get some meatballs or? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Really? You get them every time. Yeah. And it's, it's not that it's the best quality. Sorry, I have to wave this room. It's not that it's the best quality. It's that it's just memories.

Yeah. So you have a good feelings about it. Do you, when you go there now, though, since you lived in Sweden for like, I don't know, was that three years? Oh, good point. Yeah. Did you? That's why I do it. Okay. Like the other day, I went to it. A memory of the Swedish. I gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So the Scandinavian bakery, there's a Scandinavian bakery around me. And just two days ago, I got meatballs and.

lingenberry but it's like good you know there's a difference like he is like the mcdonalds of sweden yeah i mean they have to be right actually that's that's rude McDonald's probably better all right no it's fine it's fine but it's uh yeah so it's for that reason not probably that's not just what i would eat right well you guys are how do the sweet since i know it's originally a swedish thing but how do the swedes generally feel about IKEA and its prominence in the world now, like, as a brand? Like, is it sort of looked down upon? Are they, like, proud of it? I don't know if they even think about it, to be honest. I mean, they shop there. It's like what it is, and that was really obvious when we got there, that

IKEA is the cheap knockoff version of where they all would normally shop if you have the money, right? It's expensive design that they've just made a really, really cheap version of. So I would go in stores and be like, this stuff is, it's like, It's like quality versions of things and like five times the price. And I'm like, oh, okay, I get why someone started IKEA. I remember. I remember being surprised reading the girl with the dragon tattoo books. The character, Elizabeth Salander, actually, when she was on the lamb hiding out, she went to a gun apartment and then went to IKEA and bought a bunch of furniture.

So it takes place in Sweden. And she's going to IKEA and getting, like, all the cheap furniture to fill her apartment. Yeah. Yeah, they definitely, I mean, they're not, like, not proud of it or they're just not overly proud of things anyway. But just, yeah, I think it's a really normal part of a lot. Yeah, that's interesting. It's like saying, are we proud of Carl's Jr.? No.

Are we proud? No. The answer is no. I mean, I think there's things like that we're not proud of, but I think for them it's like. Yeah. There's no Carl's Jr. pride for me. at all. No, I'm never even eaten there.

Oh, I recommend not. Last time I ate there, a long time ago, but there was sand in my salad, like a big chunk of dirt. So, yeah. And it was like magic sand, you know,

where you put it in water and you pull it out and it's dry still. It was like a wet clot on the outside, but if you broke it with the fork, which I did, all this sand just kind of poured out. Yeah, it was awful.

It was awful. Anyway, Carl's Jr. Who's junior in? Why do we care? Yeah, a sponsor of the show. Yeah, that's right. But hey, we'll change our tune. Give us a call.

Give us some dirt salad at Carl's Jr. Yeah, get some sweet dirt salad. All right. Hey, Wendy's here. I failed to mention this. A lot of people already know it, and that's why I did. But Wendy is an actual therapist. She helps people with real problems all the time.

Normally we kick things off with an email. But I thought, because I've been thinking a lot about it, and because I like to make it about me, here's the thing. I feel like we got a next normal head in our way. And the next normal looks like this. we got delta variant we got um possibly delta plus or whatever they called it the other day um who was it was saying somewhere i was reading about some other version of of delta that is now mutating itself

and becoming another version of sort of the delta variant and it's worse um and then uh you know even though the the country as a whole hit a pretty decent milestone of like 70 was it 70 percent vaccinated or something of adults meaning you know those who can have are you talking about certain parts of the country no no no no no no overall like I thought it was an overall percentage do I have that wrong I might have that wrong um I can't remember now I remember oh you mean like 70% of americans are vaccinated yeah 70% of Americans who are able to get the vaccine have gotten right because there's kids and stuff still that can that includes kids yeah yeah yeah well I don't know if it does it include kids it shouldn't oh 12 and up okay oh is that what the deal is if you're 12

you can get one? Is that how it is now? Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that. All right. So. And they're doing trials for younger. For younger, right, right. And there's talk of emergency authorization and all that, but we'll see. But anyway, this is all heading a little close to home because I've got three neighbors now who all have Delta and are all on oxygen or some form of horribleness right now. Oh, geez. Yeah, it's bad. Were they vaccinated? No. One of them works for the DEA and was not vaccinated. I don't know why. Not that you have to

work for the department or no not DEA what's the one with guns uh guns and alcohol tobacco firearms uh yeah that's DEA alcohol tobacco and firearms oh ATF oh then what's DEA I forget what DEA is then oh my gosh is anyone else want to hang up now what's the three-letter name of the agency that deals with alcohol tobacco and firearms anybody know there it is drug enforcement agency I think that's who he worked for anyway he was he's not vaccinated the other two people in my story or not either and boy howdy are they paying for it now but anyway so because of that because there's a bunch of people that for a billion trillion reasons are not doing it or are doing it or you know we don't have to get into that but there's this there's this looming feeling that we're now going to enter into a new period of well because of the unvaccinated back to back to masks back to certain mandates back to you know restrictions here. here, here, and here. And there's a, I've heard from multiple people who have said, I'm bracing for this like

no other, especially people that work in retail or people that are involved in like a lot of public facing stuff. They're feeling, they're feeling like, oh, no, maybe PTSD, I don't know what to call this, but they're feeling like, oh, no, I'm about to deal with this. This is all going to happen again. We're going to have this horrible clash of awful people and people just trying to get their job's done. And I don't think I can do that for another winter. And it feels like there's a lot of worry about that right now. So I thought maybe we could talk to that. And maybe how do you

prepare for that? If it even is a thing. And if it's just existential, fine. But how do you deal with that? Like, that's where I want to go today. Okay. What do you think? Let's go there. All right. Let's go. Let's start with England. England. Do it. Hence to England. So, I've been talking to a few people there and just kind of hearing the play-by-play of what it's like and their experiences. And so that's been fascinating. And also, you know, Boris Johnson is like a clown person. Like freaking hair. And you've seen him with the umbrella.

I mean, what is happening? Anyway, so funny. He is a clown person. And they had a particular plan, which is vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate, get as many people. and clearly they're not very American and they did it. So their rate is something like first time, one shot is up in the upper 80s percentage-wise. And then second shot is like 76 or something.

So they're really high up there. And then they've made the call that we're going to open up. We're going to do everything. You know, we'll figure out some ways to make sure it's okay for those who can't. and, you know, support, whatever. They have a plan and they're going for it. And, you know, at this point, they're seeing, you know, dangerous cases drop. The hospitals are empty.

I mean, they had a surge, and it was before us because they had Delta before us. Right. But they made the call that, hey, if everyone's vaccinated, we can open up. And they're not back and down. That's what they're doing. And people are doing the things that they're doing. And they're not getting as sick when they get it. And so it is really spreading the way Delta's,

the delta variant spreads, but when it spreads among the vaccinated, that it doesn't do the same kind of damage. Now, obviously, there's the breakthrough cases, but they're so, so low. And they're also often people who are, you know, the vaccine doesn't work as well for because they're immunocompromised anyway, right? Because that's how these vaccines work if you make sure an immune system work against the virus when it sees it, right? And if you already struggle to do that with any virus, it's going to be a problem.

Anyway, so that's been kind of the full. philosophy there, which is interesting because there are a couple months ahead of us and we'll see what happens there. So that's one take. The Swedes have another take. I mean, every country has done their own different thing. But what you'll find is nowhere on earth is vaccine hating as we are here. So that's the challenge, right, is that there is enough evidence to show that I'm going to get away from the lawnmower outside. So that loves. Sorry, I don't, maybe you can't hear that. No. You know what? It was sounding better all. already, though, like less echoey.

Whatever room you've moved into is far better. Yeah, you're way less like go now. Anyway, sorry about that. Anyway, so this, this idea that like you can kind of watch these other places and see what they're doing and see how what's happening. And of course, I get a little jealous because I just think, can I just be in New Zealand? Can I just experience a different situation? Sure.

Okay. So that said, if you're an American, you're in where you're at. If you're living in, I don't know, Alabama maybe or Tennessee or wherever the vaccination rates are very low and the hospitals are filling up. Let's say Florida, since they're the worst right now. They've got the worst. Yeah, Florida really is, it's tough. So what do you do? Now, everyone's at a different stage in place. Like, so for example, but I'm wearing masks a ton. I was. still, I was fully vaccinated, still wearing masks. And then we flew out to Utah. I had to wear mask on the plane. Normal, normal. We get to Utah, pretty much stopped wearing a mask because we were just with people vaccinated and outdoors a lot and just like got out of the habit after two, it was a week and a half or two. Then I had to get back on a plane with a mask on and I was like, I cannot breathe. I, this is so hot and annoying. Like, it's like my calluses wore off or something.

And it really shifted, I was just like, oh, my gosh, I don't want to do this, you know. Yeah. And then, you know, kind of we didn't have, we haven't had any masking here necessarily. There's always the request to wear a mask if you are not vaccinated, but of course we are. So living, live in life. And then we start to hear about all the things like everyone is hearing about and the schools are making decisions. And the reality is it's potentially coming all back and we'll have to get used to it again. So here's where I have something to say that might actually be helpful,

because I just sound like anybody else trying to figure this out, right? It's the psychology of this for each of us individually is interesting, and which I wish people could, you know, I don't know, there would be a booth you could enter and someone could help you analyze your own reasons for stuff or something so you could be more aware. But what, and I can actually do this with each of you. So we're looking at another round.

looking at more conflict, more division, more, you know, at this point, we already know who's vaccinated or not. If they're wearing masks again, you're like, oh, you're actually vaccinated. Like it's proof that you are going to listen and do the thing. That's the irony. It's like we, I don't want to get, this is one of my biggest frustrations because people say, well, I don't want to put, you, you can't tell me what I can put in my body or whatever. I'm like, okay, fine, wear a mask and stay home more than. Now I'm doing that. Okay. Well, then, are you doing? Yeah. And that's just it. You can't tell people what to do. No one will do it. And so there's a couple of things psychologically. So I'm going to point out a few things

and I'm going to ask you guys a couple questions. So, uh, sort of climate change is a great example of we think, oh, it's a scientific problem. We just need to give people information so they can see. And okay, so maybe your area is full of wildfires and suddenly you're like, oh, this isn't good. Or you live in Alaska and you have watched glaciers just disappear. And so you are you're looking at maybe some of the evidence that affects you or whatever it might be but that is not what this is this isn't a science problem or someone experiencing a problem it's a human behavior problem right right which is people do what they do and they do it for various reasons so a good question is to ask yourself what do you do or what's your own

individual belief thinking strategy like boil it down to just you as an individual So, for example, I did not think I would have had that reaction after a week without a mask, putting it back on. I thought I'd be like, well, yeah, it was what we do. But I had a, like, a physical response to it that was like, I freaking hate this. I hate it, too. I can't stand them. I hate them. And that was the first time.

I think before I just stayed home. And then eventually, as I got out and more, it was like the benefit of getting out after staying home was worth having that thing on my face. and then to suddenly taste that freedom and then go back is really daunting. So, yeah. So that's what we're getting at is you've got people in various stages of having really made a lot of effort to stop the spread, to protect their family and loved ones. Like, they really care about this. And then maybe have tasted a little bit of normalcy and have to go back. You have people who have never done one dang thing and suddenly they're watching their neighbor die or loved one die.

And so they are having it, you know, so everyone is in such a different place that there's no universal way to say this. So let's just use you guys examples. So Scott, let's start with what is it, what does this do to you to think this is coming again? Like what rises up in you as you think, okay, we have to go back to maybe more masks or just less whatever and more crap, people fighting all that. So what happens? Well, okay. So if anything, okay, so if anything, this topic or this discussion was inspired by a video clip I saw the other day of a dad in his 40s, 30s maybe on his, basically his deathbed. He is so COVID gone that he's just about out.

And he's hooked up to ventilators. He sucked up to all kinds of stuff. He can barely speak. But what may have been his last words, I don't know, were basically. this sentence where he, and you could barely understand it, but if you listen closely, you could hear what he said. He kind of had to whisper through it. But he basically said, yeah, we, we, we, we didn't believe in getting the vaccine. I'm, you know, we're a conservative Christian family. But now I wish I would have because my kids are not going to have

their dad around or something like that. It was a very sad video. But I could not get over that statement. We, to say, we didn't believe in them. And now here, and. And, now I will tell you why, because we are a conservative Christian family, and now I wish I would have done it. So those are your three structures to that sentence, or the three parts of it, three phases. Phase two really got under my skin because what that tells me is so many people have bought into this because people they know, like, trust, whatever, have known their whole lives, I don't know, are telling them this, helping reinforce whatever misinformation.

they get from other places and they now see it as tribal they see it as part of their very faith of who they are like their very their very core beliefs now include i don't do vaccines because i'm a conservative christian whatever that means um that's so ingrained in people even on their deathbed they're still they're still saying it as if it's an excuse that those are the people i'm going to have to deal with that that kind of thinking is the is is now going to come back in force and maybe more so because there are people who who understand the science did the right thing are not only doing the right thing for themselves but for those around them and got the vaccine so now you actually have a real division like a physical division between people

before we were all in this together and we had maybe bad attitudes and everybody clashed for other reasons but we also didn't have there was no method to the madness then we get the way to fix this or to curb it, to curve it and to save lives and then a whole bunch of people do it and then a whole bunch of people refuse to do it. Well, now we have a dividing line.

And it's just like right there. And it's, so for me, I'm actually dreading this worse than the first time through. Because the first time through there's a lot of unknowns, a lot of, whatever. But this time it feels like,

oh no, now there's like this physical line I can see in the ground. And there's people over here and there's people over here. and it will be impossible not to know where the conflicts are. Maybe that's the benefit. I don't know. But my whole thing has always been this.

I really wish this would be true of COVID. COVID, if you're listening, could you mutate? Here's what I want you to do, COVID. I want you to mutate so that all the versions of COVID now exhibit immediate physical symptoms that are hard to ignore. For example, even if someone's just carrying it, I want this. them to turn. If you're a carrier, I don't want you to be sick, but let's say you're an asymptomatic carrier. I don't want you to feel terrible, but I'd like you to turn bright purple. And there's nothing he can do about it. You just be bright purple and in public, everyone can go, oh, that guy,

he's carrying. Now, people who actually have it and think they just have a cold or whatever, or are not vaccinated and have COVID floating around them, I'd like one of their eyeballs to to, like, dangle out on their cheek for a long time or something. I want something that's so, like, physically obvious that you just go, yep, yep, yep, yep, like leprosy or, you know, one of those things. You know who's got it and you don't want it even more. I guarantee you there are two things that will drive people. They see it more and they don't think of it as this invisible thing and Jesus is my vaccine

kind of level thinking, but actually see it. And you can say, well, go to a hospital, look at the emergency room, you can see it. No, I know, but people don't do that because they suck. They'd like to be ignorant. show it to us, right? Have it be visible. Now, that's not going to happen. So number two, here's my other solution. Insurance companies announce that premiums are going up because your premiums will go up if you're unvaccinated, just like if you were a smoker and you're not quitting, your premiums go up. And also a million other reasons that insurance likes to ding you

in our crappy healthcare system. For once, it might actually be a motivator because they'll say, are you vaccinated for the COVID-19 or any of its variants? No. Oh, well, you're going to pay more every month. Put the freaking, put it in my veins. People are going to do it because money motivates. So that's my trick. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I'm rooting for insurance companies to up their rates for the unvaccinated. That's what I'm rooting for. Well, it's a, it's much better to make it a financial problem than a loss of life problem. I just kind of wish one of the symptoms of COVID would be rational thought. It seems like that would be a nice welcome change to.

But then they'd have to catch it to get it. They'd have to catch it to get it and then they might die from it. But at least they'd be rational after that. At least they would be rational about it. I mean, I think a lot of them, if it goes that far, they do. I don't know if you guys have seen, if you've seen just sort of the BuzzFeed lists or the, you know, people are gathering the lists of what people, vaccine hesitators have said has changed their mind.

So this is not people who are still hesitating because guess what, we all get it and we can stop interviewing them because we know. But it's the ones that have switched and have gotten the vaccine and just to hear what it is. It isn't obviously that there's an eyeball dangling out of their eye. It's just that there's some incentive. There's some moment that makes more sense to them or, you know, whatever it might be, which I'm going to rag on the media for a half a second here. like it's i mean if we just interviewed nonstop nurses and i you icUs and doctors in icos and emergency room physicians and just nonstop heard their stories just tell us again and again what it is you're seeing and you know for a perfect example is there's a hospital i think is louisiana

that in in the new orleans area they had six thousand nurse openings in their in their system before the wave hit. And that's because the last wave drove many of them out either, you know, just they can't do it anymore. So if we're burned out, imagine the people who are having to treat these folks who had a choice

to not be in that place is just beyond. And I just think we don't, you know, you have to go to Twitter and some corner and a nurse can say, this is killing us and we're like, oh, I saw that. But that is not what you're seeing. And maybe I'm just not consuming the right places,

but I feel like we are, once again, you know, playing up to the worst in humanity and rather than appealing to our best or better selves, which everyone has, by the way, all these people you're claiming are ignorant and stupid and if they're just not rational and blah, blah, blah, they are probably compassionate human beings who are thinking in particular ways because that is safety for them. That's what overrides human beings. They want to be safe. And you're saying, hello, get the vaccine, you'll be safe.

But they feel safe in these different ways, which is holding on to their faith or whatever or hanging on to, you know, just I hate the government. So whatever they do is bad or whatever the things may be that make them feel solid. That's what they're doing. And so it's tricky. And how do you appeal to that? Well, you can't show them, you know, certain things once or twice and have it work. It's tricky.

And this is, I mean, hello, economists, if they knew how to do this. we would all be I'm really glad you put it this way and I want to just make this part clear because some of the chats just said they're not compassionate if they're not thinking about others like it's really easy to dunk on them all and I do it constantly so I understand that

but what I really like the way you put it it isn't you can't just simply say personal safety overrides everything for humans without acknowledging that personal safety isn't just not being sick or not getting hit by a car it's sometimes much deeper than that. Sometimes your personal safety is you've had a long-held system of beliefs or attitudes or whatever that have been with you since you were five.

And to contradict those would be to contradict your entire life's learning in your mind. Like for someone to say, you know, if you spent your entire life hearing that, I don't know, that the government, everything the government does is bad and anything they inject you with is evil and whatever. if that's just been part of your line your whole life and now today you're suddenly told no no this time just change your mind because everything's fine over here that's them moving away from their safety place the place where they thought they were on sturdy solid ground and understanding that I think is really key and important for me anyway to have any mental health around this because if I don't then it's just black and white everyone's stupid and that's not true in fact that's what's Partly what's so frustrating, this guy up the road who works for the government, I know, is a really capable dude and has amazing kids and is like a really smart guy and spending a lot of time and some really intense training for the military and other things. Like, I know all these things about him.

And I know he's a little bit anti-vax. He may not be today. I mean, I don't know. I haven't talked to him. I can't get near him because he's so sick. Nobody wants to be near him. But it's not that clean and cut. It's not like, oh, well, that guy clearly is.

the worst, no compassion in him because if he had compassion, he'd understand that this is important to do this for everybody because we're all exposed if some of us, you know, don't get vaccinated. Like you could go down that line of thinking and I understand why you would, but that's because that's your safe place and that's where your sturdy ground is. And it may be sturdier and more realistic and more scientifically proven that your ground is sturdier. But it doesn't change the fact that you're going to have this giant clash with that dude if you decide that, well, mind sturdier than yours so let's fight like that's what i'm worried about that's what i'm stressing about for the next couple of months is i feel like we're we're going to get back up to there

where everybody's going to say a bunch of stuff that paints them as something they aren't or maybe are little or are a lot but we're all going to have to either ignore all of that somehow which is near impossible or we're going to have to face it again and that's where my anxiety comes from there was an interview on npr it was a woman somewhere and she was asked why she wasn't getting vaccinated and, you know, the hospitals are overrun again and all this stuff. And she sounded really dumb. And she said, I just, whatever she said, it was just bad thinking about any of this. And then she said, what I, they just think we're so stupid. And so they talked to us like, and I was thinking, oh, man, because you're kind of stupid. You know, like I'm struggling to

like you just said crazy stuff and then said they tell me I'm stupid. But if you really, if you back up, right, and you get away from the content of what you are viewing and how it personally riles you up and makes you feel unsafe, which is hard to do. But if you can back up and really listen to her, what she's saying is true for every human on earth. If your people are coming at you and telling you are stupid, what are you going to do? You are not going to change your mind. you are not going to go, oh, you know what, you're right. I'm being stupid. You're going to double down. The wave that I've been thinking. I'm not even sure. I'm not even sure a compassionate approach is working these days anyway. I don't think people. See, this is, this is where I'm at. I don't think they're going to do it no matter what we do. So either mandated or don't. Mandate it or don't. Like make it so that we all have to do it like we did for measles, polio and everything else. And quit pretending like we can soft talk people into doing the right thing. It's not going to happen. So I'm not saying go full fascists to pin people down and jam needles in their arms.

I'm saying, mandate it or don't. Right, right. We're seeing more and more places here in Denver. And I know there are places in New York that are doing this. California is doing this saying, yeah, we're not requiring you to get the vaccine. But if you want to enter our establishment, you either need to show us your vaccine report or a COVID test taken in the last two days that shows negative results. So it's, you know, it's like, I think, I'm hoping that if people, enough companies and establishments, businesses do this, it becomes a, all right, well, we've tried the compassion, we've tried the mandate. Let's just try making it as inconvenient as possible for anti-vaxxers.

Yeah. Again, back to this human behavior issue, not this appeal to their higher self or, you know, can't you see? that you're putting children at writ, you know, none of that is working, guys. Have we not noticed? Like, it's like, get to the point of what actually drives people's decision. And half the time, it's just incentivizing or de-incentivizing behavior. That's it, right? You, your insurance premiums go up. You get rejected for this because you're not, you don't have the vaccine.

Because it is an actual cost that insurance companies, thousands, millions of dollars will be spent on you. You are a higher risk, right? So there's no two ways about that. just do it. And then your businesses have their rules. Because capitalism is not a right, everybody. That Starbucks isn't yours. It's an option. And you know, you can't go in without your shirt or your shoes. No, free marketers only like it when the free market serves them. In the minute the free market does something that isn't serving them, they claim censorship or,

or claim, you know, being oppressed or whatever. Right. And what's cool is the test. You can get it two days before. We just had to do it. We sent a kid to some camp and when kids vaccinated, so we just said to show his vaccination. The other kid, we had to go shove swabs up his nose and he hated every second, was like, oh, my gosh, you know, never wants to do that again. Was that Elliot? Because he's too young. Is it Elliot?

And no, Peter is too young to get a vaccine. Peter. Oh, the poor kid, dude. Yeah, he was like, this is torture. And of course, he has a negative test and then we can send him to camp. Hey, we just did it. And it is a pain. And if I can get a vaccinated, I'd do it right this second. Because it's so demotivating to do all the work.

I'll tell you what, it just is. And I'm sure, you know, people have other thoughts and feelings about this. Great. But it's just, if you want the economy to move forward, you want humans to survive. We have to figure out how to live with this. And this isn't the last time this is happening. Right. Like, and okay, so can we go back up for a second? Go back to this.

How do you handle it as individuals? I mean, we're saying all this stuff that we think or, you know, try this or blah, blah, blah. but how going to your original question here scott which is how do i gear up for this next round and i want to throw out like a wrench of a of a way to think about this really differently because the current way if you're really frustrated it means you've been thinking about it the same way right i mean i can make that assumption maybe i'm wrong maybe you've changed your mind 10 times about this but i think you probably have the same you know general sense people should be vaccinated the people who don't really are putting all of us at risk.

This is problematic. People fight. Like you have a view. So if we could just imagine looking at this problem, we're looking at it from a certain direction. If we just like go three quarters of the way around the table and look at it from another angle for you personally. So think about what you need to feel safe and what you need to stop doing that makes

this worse for you to psychologically handle that this is. the community and world you live in. And, you know, kind of let's just throw out a couple things of ways to really view this differently. So any thoughts on that? Or is that too? Um, boy. Okay.

Let me, uh, okay. I haven't thought on this. So, all right. So last night, I got a little salty last night. And I put something on Twitter that I probably shouldn't have. But here's what happened. I type the following. Proof of vaccination.

What's next? State issued ID. that tells you if you can legally drive or not, being very sarcastic, right? Got a ton of replies. And I'll admit, I don't know, it's not like viral,

but like 450 likes and, you know, 34 retweets or something. And enough replies that I could find in there, you know, most people are like, yeah, I mean,

what are you going to do next? Put a strap on me in the car and tell me that I have to wear that or limit how many miles per hour I can drive. Like, we're all making jokes about, you know, the things we just accept as,

as normal restrictions just so that we don't kill each other and somehow this one's a problem. And what the reason I'm bringing that up is I have a really hard time with the contradictions. Like somebody who in their, you know, in their bio or otherwise has made it known that they are, you know, pro-life is possible, except when it comes to vaccines and saving other people's lives. And they don't see that as equating it. But I see it as hypocrisy. so when I see hypocrisy like that, whatever form it may take,

whether it's, you can't take away my freedoms, I'm going to drive away in my car, doing the speed limit with a thing on me that's keeping me safe that I have to do legally. Like those kinds of contradictions drive me crazy. Or people that yell,

free market, all right, well, then they're going to make you wear a mask at the movie theater. Not like that. You know what I mean? Those are the ones where I'm the most vulnerable to pop off and get pissed. And so I'm,

To answer your question, Wendy, my goal is, or what I'm trying to do, I think failing thus far, but I'm trying to approach these situations with less, to try to be less reactive to it. Because I know when they say, not my body, but then say, you know, some other pro-life thing, which affects somebody else's body, I know that they don't think they're being. being contradicted. I know they don't think they're being hypocritical right then. Some do. Some are just bad actors, but I know a lot of people don't know that they're doing it right then. They just have these two things in their head and they, in their mind, they don't conflict, but I see the obvious conflict. And I'm trying to see that for what it is and then not react to it. I don't think

I'm going to change their mind. I'm not going to change, you know, what they think or say. I'm certainly not going to change whether they're going to get a vaccine or not. um so i'm just trying to not say anything more so that's my answer i'm trying to just not engage and that feels that feels counterintuitive to me because right i like to talk a lot some would say too much and i like to interject i like to not just take things at face value and just say no wait a minute why would you say that i like to dig in sometimes people send me a random you know mean comment on the internet and and and are surprised that i came back to them and said no wait a minute what you mean by that? Oh, yeah. He's real. He wants to, he's like a person. I can actually talk to him. Oh, no. He responded. What do I do? And a lot of times those turn out really positive. Like, we'll have a good, positive discussion offline, email or something. And, and both walk away with no hard feelings. And it's a good experience. But not always. And most of the time when it's not always, it's around this stuff. It's this COVID nightmare. So, so my answer is, now that I've given Brian all the time in the

world to think of his. My answer is that I want to engage less, which seems, it even hurts to say it, but I'm going to engage less with that stuff. Right. And so let me, let me throw a thing on there. So engage less would require you to consume less of the stuff that points out the hypocrisy and then, right? I mean, that's what I mean. Or do you just want to use all your willpower in the world and just fight the urge to well part of it is that they'll read all the same tweets and read all the maybe you shouldn't do that i mean i have gone i went on a prune i haven't told me no one about this but i went on a following and sort of just social media prune and chopped out everybody who's just obsessed about talking about this stuff i chopped about or top got rid of anything that was like overtly political

even people that are just like creators in a different space that have decided to just use their platform for for politics or social stuff or whatever and just get back to what I originally liked all of this stuff for which is I'm following a bunch of artists and comic book writers and creators and and people in film and you know things that I that I find interesting or that are part of what I do or whatever and I think that helps but a little voice in my brain saying well that's just you walling off your garden and keeping your head and only listening to the people agree with you Yeah, which is kind of true.

Like, I won't deny it. I don't want to be around you. I don't want to be around you. I want to be around people who aren't being this way. So yes, I am doing that, I guess. Yeah, okay. And so what you think about that, that little voice that pops in and says, well, you're just walling yourself off, right? I often just imagine my sort of high school political science teacher who's just like, you need to

recurrent events like get get the newspaper because we're old right so it was just a newspaper then and read the newspaper and you were like a cut above every other kid in school who would read that because that's not what anyone was doing right so i feel like there's this that teacher is in your head going you need to know if you don't know it's dangerous and again that's not completely wrong but right now this is this is an exception in history that i think would really serve you better So I agree, this is a really smart idea because what it does is it allows compassion to grow. It allows your hackles to lower and you do what you can do and you work on what you can. Rather than reading about, I mean, Twitter is built to do this to you, right?

Yeah. I mean, Twitter is so fun, but it is also built with this exact intent in mind, which is to keep rage alive and going and it works and it pays. So you just have to detach for a bit and see. I mean, even think of it as a test, right? All right. Okay, the rest of 2021, I will disengage from the COVID conversation and just see what happens. And then by January, it will either be dead or we'll have turned to court. I don't know.

You don't know. So, yeah, I love it. That's a great idea. How are you, Brian? What's your take on how you could look at this differently? um it's it's really hard for me to uh to look at it the same way as scott about uh i mean the disengaging and and stuff like that i'm already not following anybody that uh that gets you know over overblown about this stuff um yeah you're already better than i am you've always been this

you've always been a little more clear headed on i think this approach than i have been i think Well, and it's just laziness, really. It's the same reason my Twitter profile and photo haven't changed in the last eight years. But as far as the way I'm going to be dealing with it going forward, I don't know how much of it I really can change because I can talk to the people that are in my life that are saying things like, well, yeah, I'm not going to get the vacuum. I can get the booster shot because, you know, who knows what they're putting, they don't even know what they're putting in their bodies or they're putting into that. And I said, well, then we probably won't be coming over as much after you don't get the vaccine, or the booster, because we don't accidentally want to get you guys sick if we happen to be carrying it even though we're vaccinated. This is a close relative that I'm dealing with us. But there has to be, I haven't found it yet, but there has to. to be a level of, um, uh, acceptance. Acceptance. It's picking and choosing my battles. Um, it's going and doing the things that, that I still want to do as part of a community and, and, uh, because I like to go out as

opposed to just staying home, going to theaters, going to restaurants, uh, things like that. I'm already finding that I'm just kind of biting my tongue and not looking at people glaring at them or shaking my head if I see them with their mask down over their mouth but with their nose sticking out of it or just around their chin or things like that. It used to really irk me and it does still kind of irk me, but I'm kind of at a point where it's like, you know, what can I do? I'm not going to, if I, I'm not going to start a big kerfuffle in a supermarket because I want that person to pull their mask up over their face. I'm expecting that there's going to be things next week. I'm going on vacation. I'm going to Disneyland and I'm figuring there's probably going to be a good 10, 15, 20% of that time that I'm going to be around people who are required indoors to wear a mask, who are either pulling it down under their chin or down over or not wearing it at all. and I kind of just kind of hope that the companies that I solicit do the right thing as far as managing and maintaining that and saying,

uh, sir, pull your mask over your face so that the general public doesn't have to be the police and start altercations in an amusement park to get people to wear a freaking mask. Well, and here's the problem. When they ask, here, see, this is almost impossible for me. If I'm in a situation where guys, wearing it around his chin and somebody from the company or the place says, sir, can you please wear your mask properly while indoors? And he throws a fit or starts yelling at that dude. I can't not freak out and get all up in that dude's face. Freaking F that guy for wearing it wrong and telling this poor kid whose job,

it just happens to be that he has to remind you of the rules. Like, I can't. Oh, but there's a level between those two. Like there's the, there's not the, you know, Nope, I'm pretending I don't see this happening and I'm going to kind of ignore it.

And then there's the kind of going crazy about it. There's the, dude, you really should do that. You know, there's the, and it's almost more powerful because they want you to get riled up. They're doing this because they want to push buttons and they want to start an altercation. But if it's like the, oh, you're just such a silly dog, you need to, you know, let's watch you on the butt with a newspaper because you're that insignificant. Dude, just put on the mask. You know, it's like, it's almost like a... Please stay silly dog and hit a stranger on the pub.

You're such a silly dog. That might have more impact. Treating their actions and their tantrum as insignificant, but not ignoring it, but just saying, okay, would you're done crying about it? Just, you know, pull your mask up, dude. What, you know, what does it hurt? Yeah. Kind of thing. Do that.

I like it. I like it. Okay, I'm going to give you mine. Maybe I'll just take my, I'm going to take my cowbell, my mini cowbell here, and just go, shame. Shame. I don't even care if they don't wear it around. Like, I'm not going to yell at somebody I see it at a Costco not wearing her, right. I don't care.

God, I'm vaccinated. He's done. But what I'm going to get mad at, what I'm going to get mad is if that guy gives the heat or the helping heat, it just pisses me off. Right. That's what I'm saying, too. It's like that's when I, that's when I will, you know, say, come on, dude, do what they're saying. Just pull your mask. Yeah. Also, he's not Lord Costco. He's not that CEO. He's somebody who works here.

He's Ricky Schroeder for Pete's sake. Yeah. He's just some, dude, freaking F. Ricky Schroeder. All right. His former actor, my washed up actor, Ricky Schroeder for Pete Singh. Yeah. All right. Sorry, Wendy. You were going to say, you're going to say, okay, you guys, you guys took a couple steps and looked at it from a differing old. That was great. I'm going to, I'm going to have a, I'm going to give me an idea to look at it completely differently. All right. Okay. is anytime there is inconvenience or some type of event that feels threatening or a loss of a job, a loss of, you know, a stage of life that is not turning out the way you want it to turn out. I mean, we can extrapolate this to all these things in our lives, right, that are not how we planned it, not what we want, not what we hope for.

And that is this sort of pinpoint or sort of vortex, I can think of the right word, in time where you can go in a number of directions, right? And you can sort of see, you can see some options and then there's plenty that you can't see. And it's pretty difficult and a little bit scary. And I think this represents a version of this for a lot of people. It may not seem directly the same. like, oh, that time I had to choose to take this job or this job. Oh, it's just like COVID. I don't mean it like that.

But what I do mean is that your perception, your take on it, your framing of this thing really matters. And it's either both a major detriment to, you know, I got fired, I quit, I'm never getting out of my bed, or this is going to have to be where I dig deep and I look in a different direction and I take some risks. I mean, it can be an incredible, valuable moment in your life. And it's the only difference is framing, right? And the story you've been hanging on to is really hard to let go of because it feels so true.

And so that's what this requires is some version of setting down the story you have and reframing this in a way that feels like an opportunity. So I'm going to throw this out. If that resonated with anyone listening to think of what you, you're about to do in the next six months or next year and a half, this pandemic doesn't end for at least another year and a half, which they all told us this at the beginning. No one believed them,

that this is a three, four year deal. And so there's still time left where this is going to be happening. Stop for a moment. And all of your natural impulses are to hang on to the story you have, to stay on the right side of history. And that's everybody doing that at the exact same time, which is always problematic. And, you know, all of that gripping to whatever it is you've been telling yourself and however

you've been thinking about this. And imagining, letting go of that and putting that same energy into something that is different. Maybe it's something like, find a thing you care about. This has illustrated that you care. So find a thing you care about. And let's put some energy towards that. So for example, I reference that we don't hear enough from doctors and nurses and if we just perpetually heard from them at what they're experiencing and that they're not okay.

They're really not okay. So I can take that as one of my many tokens of that I can flip at someone to just be like, why don't you just freaking get a vaccine? And I move away from the person who has all the rights in the world to not take a vaccine and make the rest of our lives harder. they get to do that. I'm not going to change that, no matter what I say or do,

unless it is somebody that I have influence over, which I don't. Over 90, I don't have any influence over them. Right. But where can I put my energy and my influence if I care? So does that make sense?

We are flipping the camera from, I have energy and care and concern, and I'm wasting it fighting with someone on Twitter. If I turn Twitter off for a minute and turn around, is there a nurse or an organization or a place I can put my money, my mouth, my time, and make, do work that is valuable to that. Opportunities. It doesn't even have to be big, right?

It can just be kindness to a random person or something. It doesn't, I don't mean you got to start a nonprofit and, you know, help all the nurses out. But what does that look like to, instead of being in the arguing group about this? You move to the action group, and it may be really not related to COVID, but it's an extension of you have this energy, this care, and opportunities show up. So, for example, somebody gets divorced, and you're like, oh, it's terrible. Your entire life plan just crumbled and where do you go? Well, you can still try to make that relationship work even though it's ended, and that

would be the same idea of keeping the same frame, right? and staying in denial and, you know, all of us would be really worried about you, right? But it really is this moment of pick something different, do something different. It's scary. We get it. But this reframing can be really powerful. So there is my very different angle on it. I don't know if that's helpful to anyone.

But I do think, you know, gearing up for the same thing is we just need a little creativity here, a little openness that maybe it's not the same thing. But if you keep doing the same things, it will feel the same. Yeah. But maybe there's some other version of living in this next round that feels, um, is a different, a different version feels more authentic. And it's going to save your sanity.

Yeah. Refram everybody. Time to reframe. Uh, and if you're Scott, get off Twitter. Yeah, I get off Twitter.

Um, I mean, I don't know, it helped actually to change who I follow and why, but. Yeah. I got to deal with that feeling of like, oh,

why am I shutting himself off from these other opinions? well because all of them kind of blow and I don't like them yeah and what's the net gain here I mean yeah well I actually getting out of it exactly are you a better person exposing myself to somebody who rants and raves about how vaccines are designed to give you a chip that they can track you with as they type it on a handheld device they never leave from their side and it has about a million chips in it and what a dummy anyway uh that's it for our time with Wendy this week if you guys have questions, thoughts, feelings, or your own questions and hardships you're dealing with. We'd love to tackle them here on the show. Send us an email the morning stream

at gmail.com. Wendy, anything else? How are we, how's things on real steps? You guys got a new round of coming? So we are taking a personal break from August. We were going to do a round of August. We've got some things happening that is just not conducive to doing it this round. So if you've done a previous round, there's a group in Discord that are running their redoing Mays because the content's always available once you buy in so you can use it in time. So they're using Mays content and they're still meeting on Monday nights and like they're doing without us basically. They're awesome.

And I'm going to join them a couple times, I hope, this month. But we're sort of gearing up for November. So you'll hear more about it as that gets closer. But we just, August is not going to work. Sure. But there's a group doing it. So if you want to sign up to get information as that comes along, you can put your email into our list on real steps.org.

Yep, there you go. Realsteps.org available for you to purview now. Okay? All right. Wendy, have a fantastic week and I hope Peter doesn't have to jam anything up his nose this week. Okay. Bye.

See you later. Thanks, Wendy. I didn't send this to you, Brian, but this is what Peter looks like these days. There he is. Look at that in her thing. Holy cow. I know. Look at that hair.

Wow. Last picture I saw, he had his little hamburger. or his little hot dog intestines in a baggie next to him. Now his poor kid, his knees are grown out of his shoulders. I know. This is his standing position, everybody. That's how he looks like standing. He's a really funny kid.

Good Lord. How old is he? He's, what would that make him 11 now? Yeah. Jeez. I know. That's crazy. Time flew.

Okay, that's, that's a, that's the first real representation of how long we've been in the show that I've seen, Scott. That's pretty weird. Heck with, if a kid was born on the day we started our show, they'd be 11 years. No, now I'm seeing it. Now it makes sense.

Yeah, it totally does. Very weird. But hey, that's going to do it for today's show, by the way. We've had a great time with you and yours, and we hope you did as well. And you learned a little something, whether it be about all that meatball stuff earlier or what Wendy had to bring.

Who knows? But tomorrow, if you're a patron, You'll get to be at the TMS PM live show. That's tomorrow at 3.30 Mountain Time. And we encourage you to be there. We have Dan or are we doing apps? What do we do? We're doing Dan, I think.

Okay. I think Dan, since we missed, or last week was a playday, I think it's Dan's turn. I'll make sure and then let you know. There's that. Oh, Brian got me totally hooked on that freaking. That's good. Yes, I know.

It's a great game. Yeah, that's good. Let me know when you're ready to join the Lions. I think I've got one that still has space. Oh, good. Uh, they, or I could bring back the frog pants one. Yeah, we still have six slots available and the one that, uh, a few tadpullers are in. I think the reason I like it is, it does have these moments of, well, if I spent stuff, I could stay here.

But I actually like a game that says, all right, you've done mostly what you can do right now. I want you go to sleep and just deal with the stuff in the morning. Yeah, exactly. Let's just let your, let your coins accumulate. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, totally. Oh, I get a lot. So, it's called Rise of Cultures. Oh, yeah.

C-9 Ender. Yeah, rise of cultures. It's one of those city-builder-ry management things. It's like a forge. It's by the same people who did forge of empires, I think. Forge of nations, forge of empires. Forge of something. But it's like Clash of Clans, but without the, all right, now you have to go battle

your, you know, other people in your cluster and, uh, and now pay $4.99 to bypass this or. Yeah. Yeah. It's intense. It's an intensely addicting. experience so far. I have not been prompted to spend actual money in this game the entire time I've been playing it. I know it's an

option. I see the little icon of the shop the storefront down there, but... Yep, and doesn't run ads. That's the other thing. No ads. It doesn't run ads. Yeah. So it's just one of those. Like nice graphics. Doesn't feel like a PC port that was that was my problem with Forge of

Empires, that it felt like a PC port that just wasn't quite built for this display quality. It's got a really nice graphical design. I like it. So thanks for that addiction. Nice job. What else? Patreon.com slash TMS. So you can support the show. More on that later. But that's also how you get the PM this weekend.

It'll be an instance tomorrow. We're doing it early. 10 a.m. I believe, instead of the usual 1230. Might have a special guest tomorrow. We're working on that. So if you want to learn more about Elder Scrolls online tomorrow's episode is a deep dive into what that world's like these days. and more so check it out um what else frogpants dot com slash tms for everything else you're looking for and i think that's it should we play a song probably should yeah let's play a song okay uh this is a great one this one uh january 6th is when troy from western australia wrote in uh seven months ago and said this is my birthday august 9 and i know we're doing

this early but i'm not going to be here we're not going to be here on august 9th or i'm not going to be here on August 9th. So it's Troy from Western Australia. Basically, his message says, it's my birthday. That's all he put in in the comments. Happy birthday to you. There you go, bud. But under song information, like where it says, you know, what's your request?

He said, anything of or by the living end. Oh, this is a great Australian man, the living end. Never heard of them. They've got a really cool. almost funky rockabilly kind of vibe to him and this is one of their singles

they've done this one live I've got a few different versions of them doing this cover but it's song originally done by Gloria Jones popularized by soft sell here is The Living End and Tainted Love Well sometimes I feel I've got to run away I've got to

to get away from the pain you drive and to love me the love we shed seem to go nowhere and I've lost my life for I toss and turn I can't sleep at night once I'll run to you now I run from you it's tainted love you give her to give you all a boy can't give you take my tears and that's not nearly y'all Well sometimes I feel I've got to Run away, I've got to Get away from the paining drive To love me the love we shed

Seems like to go nowhere And I love my life For I touch and turn I can't sleep at night Once I ran Now I run through you You say to love you give I'll give you all the boy can't give you Take my tears and that's not nearly

Oh To love Take to love And now I know I've got to Run away I've got to Get away You don't really want any run from me I make things right

You need someone to hold you tight And they say love is to play well i'm sorry i don't play that way once i ran to you now i rush to you just tainted love he's given to give you all that boy can't give you take my tears and that's not nearly all to love take to love all right You know, I'm going to be able to be. Don't touch me, please. I cannot stand the way you tease, and I love you, though you hurt me so. So I'm going to pack my things, and God's in love.

We shed Seems I go Now And I lost my life For I stopped and turn I can't sleep my god Once I rents you Now I rush you

It's time to love you Give her to give you All that boy can't give you Take my tears And that's not nearly Oh There's love Take to love

Change to love Change to love This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Frog Pants Network. Get more shows like this at frogpants.com. This is a bag of dicks. Ooh.