The Morning Stream - TMS 2274: Turn your key, sir!

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

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Coming up on TMS, we hold these Twinkies to be self-evident. I'm bringing my own damn popcorn. Stirring up shit with Amy. Couching Tiger, hidden rich Asian. You ever see combos? Would it hurt you would invite Wendy to lousy Las Vegas? Stay up all night to watch Loki. He's more vaccine than man.

The Viva still works. You need Star Wars to get drunk. Wearing pants is hard. Nothing leads into Moon Night. It's the use of voodoo crap that makes it taste good. Totally true. She's my damn sister. Attaining.

Getting formal with Wendy and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Andrew retreated deeper than ever into the distorted world in his mind, when now he wanted to kill his stepfather. He could not carry out this act of murder in reality, so he set out to do it by magic. Hi, I'm a loser. The morning stream. Say one word about this hat, and I'm out of here.

This is the morning stream. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the moan and scream. I'm Scott Johnson. That's Brian, Ibbott. And it's Thursday, April 7th, 2022. Brian, how are you today? What's going on over there?

Morning scream. I'm good, man. How are you? I'm fine. I'm fine. I didn't sleep great, but it's because I had a weird dream. And I'd like to share that dream. I looked at the cards.

There's nothing that compares. So once again, yeah, once again, those cards aren't going to help me. I bet you're looking too specific, but let's talk about your dream and then let's... Yeah, there might be a generalization in there. Let's take some few steps back on what you were looking for on the cards. Entirely possible. So you know that Twinkie I've got that's like 10 years old and still with us. It still looks as fresh as the day host has pooped it out of their machine.

Yeah, which is a very, you know, it's a very odd thing that even exists, but there it is. And so I've got that thing. And I haven't looked at it in a while, but we did talk about it the other day. So this is probably why it came up. But last night, in my dream, that Twinkie, the petrified Twinkie, came to me in the night and read the Declaration of Independence to me. Like, you know, like verbatim, like right out of the document. Yeah. And it kind of just sat up and read it.

I don't remember in the dream if he had it in front of him or if you just read it by heart. I think by heart is what happened there. But it was really weird. And then afterwards, we celebrated the reading by having something called mushroom tea, which I don't think exists. Maybe it exists. I don't actually know. So I read your notes as, because you described this.

And then in the second line, you put, after we had mushroom tea, I'm like, oh. So you had some mushroom tea last night and then had this dream. That makes sense. But no, now it's back to not making sense. Yeah, it makes no sense. So in the, so that, yeah, that tea was in the dream. And so I did, I did trace my evening back to think about what I ate or whatever. Yeah.

Did you have more checks mix? Was it too much checks mix? I didn't have that. I didn't have anything since around six. And that was, what even was, what did we even have for dinner? Oh, Kim made some kind of homemade curry thing. Ooh. It was good.

And, uh, had chicken in it, you know. So it's all, it's all I know is that the, I ate that. And unless Kim, you know, poised. fine yeah and her and carter didn't have any weird dreams and they ate it so Carter had a vegetarian version of of course so I don't want to be smirch her vegetarianism here on the show but sure of course but anyway I don't know what to make of that that's weird yeah I have no idea like you know I don't dream that often very rare do I have dreams and uh lately I think they've all if I've had one it's just

been mash because I'm usually watching an episode or two right before bed right and uh did you ever did you ever once even off for me to come in for a lousy cup of coffee oh that episode walk by your tent and hear you guys laughing that was the episode where they were they were really trying to humanize uh margaret like you just had to do it they did a good job it's just i never i will never ever i won't get that speech right verbata but i'll never forget that damn speech yeah but um yeah so i don't i don't remember my dreams that often um But the dreams you have, holy crap, that they're whacked out. Yeah, they're really effed.

I don't know what to do about it. I mean, it's not like I woke up in a cold sweat going, oh, the Twinkie, the Declaration of Independence. Like, it doesn't freak me out or anything, but it did make me wake up and go, what the hell? Why? Why can't it be, I don't know, I'm in, I'm in Fiji with the blue water and the beautiful sights and the warm weather. Or why can't it be something else? Why can't it be a bunch of beautiful ladies on a pile of. of money.

Like, why can't it be fun things? I get one of those dreams. Yeah. Instead, it's a damn petrified Twinkie I've had for 12 years. Reading me a historical document. It doesn't make sense.

I don't get it. Yeah, and the vividness of me, someone just said in the chat, the vividness as to which he remembers them. Who is it, Zoe? No. Brainbow Bright. Yeah, that's the other thing is I can't shake it. Like,

there are times where a cool dream will happen and if I don't think or write it down or something like if I had a I don't know a comic idea or something those will be fleeting and go away and I think you have to be trained on that or you train yourself on that right like it is the the instant recall of the dream if you don't if you wake up and say oh that was a weird dream I remember it perfectly and then you don't train yourself to remember it then you won't you know get in the habit of doing that and it'll just like right out yeah just dumps right out yeah so lame but look so lame but look lame that is that pales in comparison to this all right brian amc theaters can bite my shiny

metal ass uh oh so wait so yesterday you were on there during the show i'm guessing it didn't it didn't go well after during the show like so tickets went on sale at um eight o'clock here no nine o'clock here. Is that right? No, because it was, I'd been trying for a while before, I think it was eight o'clock, eight o'clock here, nine o'clock Central Time. Tickets went on sale for Dr. Strange on the multiverse of madness. And so I'd been trying for really about half an hour before the show started.

I kept a little window up and really, you know, I got in this, this habit of just going, select the showtime. Here's two seats. I don't even, at one point, I was just clicking on any pair of seats in the effing theater because I thought, all right, well, maybe somebody's selecting the same seats. I'm just going to cut up, you know, just like, friggin throw darts around until I get one. And after four hours of having this window open, I was able to work. I was able to do other things while I was doing it.

I mean, you know, you even, I asked you afterwards and you're like, oh, you were still doing that during the show? I couldn't tell. So that's good. Yeah, a nice simple little thing to click here and there and then go back to what you're doing. Right, exactly. Just a little separate window in the corner because there's all this time where you're like waiting. Oh, I'm processing, processing. Something went wrong with your order.

Here, click this button to go back to Showtimes. Now, I went on to AMC's Twitter page and direct message them and said, hey, guys, come on, something's wrong with this. You've got to be able to figure this out. What's the point? You're giving us a cue, which is. great, but what's the point of the queue if we're still having problems after we get out of that queue? The queue is supposed to, you know, bottleneck everybody so that you get just enough people

to buy tickets and make the system work. And if your cue is just, yeah, sit there for a while, but then everybody come on in and really F this thing up. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I message them about that and said, really seriously, I'm paying for A-list. I'm an A-list because we decided that the closest theater, and it's a nice one, two nice AMC theaters, one directly north of us, one directly south of us, and we are almost dead center in the middle of them. I'm sorry, east of us, north and east of us, but we're, you know, it's equidistant to those.

Sure. Those are, you know, those are our theaters. They're good, they're comfortable. We know them really well. We, you know, we know exactly where to park so that when we leave the theater, we have the B-line right to our car that nobody knows about. Yeah. So we found out Oh yeah

So we do the A-list thing where we pay for We pay a fixed price per month And we get up to three movies per week And as long as we see two movies a month You know, those are paid for Yeah Sadly, that's the sad truth of life Is that

Yes So I found out from other people Commenting and doing tests on their page They're like, well if you don't use it as an A-list member, and if you pay for tickets, you're getting through the system, you're getting the seats you want, and you're not getting this error. Somebody else even says, yeah, if you, you know, if you don't do it as an entourage order, in other words, the entourage thing is great, because Tina and I have individual accounts, she pays for hers, I pay for mine, but we don't want to have to do the war games, turn the key at the same time. turn your key, sir, when we buy tickets to say, all right, all right, I'm buying F-13. Are you getting F-14?

Okay, you're ready? All right, submit, because you don't want to, like, be stuck sitting next to some. Yeah, you don't want to do that because you'll end up being next to a slob who's going to eat weird. Exactly. But Entourage lets you tie your accounts together so she can get tickets on my account. I can get tickets on her account. I just basically say, I'm getting a ticket for me and for Tina. Boom, we get our tickets right next to each other, and she can be off.

She can be asleep for all it matters. Yeah, yeah. So in chatting with them and somebody else in their replies, it's like, and it even seems to be further problematic because of the entourage thing. So if I go and I just buy tickets with my credit card and actually pay for tickets, then I get through no problem. So they're screwing their members, though. They're screwing their members. Lame. These are the people who are like, you know, that they're kind of counting on to maybe see a movie every month.

You know Or maybe C2 to make it Cost effective for him Yeah But yeah it's That doesn't seem right Because they're your most loyal Dedicated people

Right They are You're going all the time You're even Even now You probably go to more movies Than most of their members Go to go to movies in the theaters

And yet We make sure that we do Take advantage of their thing As a matter of fact Tonight We're seeing everything everywhere all at once with Michelle Yo, the movie that

Schleiker was talking about on Monday. I don't see that. I can't wait to see it. I know so little about it. Is it based on a graphic novel or is it just a lot of hype or something? No, actually. That's a really good question. I know it's wildly original according to every review I've read. I'm pretty stoked.

Yeah. Pretty excited. I like her a I do too. I can't wait to see. She's a crazy rich Asian is what she is. Michelle Yew. Yeah, she is. She's a scratching tiger and a hidden dragon at the same time. Colcash says, so what you're saying is that buying tickets as a combo is cheaper, but all a cart is easier?

Yes. That in this case, absolutely. In this case, yeah, here's a case. All right. This is the one. However, buying tickets for everything, or what is it, everything everywhere all at once, I might have those first two words reversed. No problems whatsoever using a list of entourage.

It's just for Dr. Cumberbuns that there was a problem. So, this is hilarious because both these movies are multiverse movies. Yeah. And that's kind of hilarious that you're doing that. But also, do you think, you think in some other alternate universe, there's a Brian Ibitt with a mustache and no beard who got tickets no problem through the system that you tried to do? No, I don't think so. I think that AMC and every universe screwed every Brianibet.

Yeah. There's one with the goatee. There's one with, like, tattoos all over his face like Post Malone. There's one with... Yeah, that's the madness part, right? That is the madness right there. Oh, wow. Look, everything all together, all at once, or however you say it,

is currently riding at a lovely 97% Rotten Tomato score, 96% audience. Yeah, people seem to really want to see this. Yeah. Oh, so Terry Zee in Chicago asked the right question. Did you just end up buying two tickets, you know, with credit card? no I stuck to my guns and yeah I didn't get a seat in the middle of the theater I think we're on the side or in the back or something but you know what these seats the theaters are big enough I would much rather not give them additional money yeah to solve their their shit problem then then just keep hammering on that website until whatever it was one o'clock when I finally got through I don't have any good counter to this I think you're 100% to be submitting this complaint. I think it's a

real complaint. And it should be honored. Those guys suck. F that. They should fix that for the next time. There's a huge movie coming out. Clearly, it's just a capacity problem with servers or something. Something's up. Yeah. Yeah. Or they've got some kind of cue issue where you know, what should

happen is when a client logs in and picks two seats, those two seats should be unassailable for the next however long it takes for that first and finish. Yes. If that was even, you know, That's just me assuming what the problem might have been. It might have even been something like, no,

it was just too many people all logged in at once and that crashed the system. But ideally, A-list, do this. Let us get first pick of tickets for an hour before they go on sale to everybody else. Or give us a separate interface that you get to get in line sooner or something like that. I don't know.

You do the Q system, but have the QB shorter for A-list people. yeah yes maybe that by the way talking about the two movies right like everything all at once and multiverse a man is both being multiverse movies i was thinking about this yesterday as we were finishing watching moon night and then can uh immediately going into the next episode of severance that we've been watching oh yes we've been loving and how there's kind of a little bit of uh you know there's there's the little divisions between the uh the two consciousnesses of the main

character in both of those shows and how similar they are. Oh, interesting. I haven't started Moon Night yet, but I... Oh, don't worry. You'll get to it after Loki. Yeah, I'll get to it way after... Way, way after Loki. This is one I was going to do for sure on day and date, and I didn't do it, so...

Yeah, I thought for sure you would do that one. I think I got obsessed with C and I haven't done anything else, so... Yeah, yeah, you've been loving that. I would say still watch Loki because stuff that happens in Loki leads directly into Dr. Strange. Oh, oh, Dr. Strange, yeah. But it does, but no, but it doesn't lead.

Nothing leads into Moon Night. Moon Night just is Moon Night. So far, Moon Night is his own little island, but who knows? I mean, you know, we didn't know what we were going to get in Hawkeye, and we ended up getting a lot of crossover that we weren't expecting. Some very unexpected crossover at the end. Incredible crossover, yeah. Yeah, that surprised everybody, I think.

Yep, yep. Well, excellent. I hope those tickets. So, wait, so I'm sorry. The end result is, what, you have tickets now, or you don't? I have tickets. I have tickets for Dr. Strange. Okay.

Eventually got them, and I didn't have to use my credit card to do it. And where are you sitting? Where's those? There's the funny thing. I can't remember which buttons I clicked where I got through. I'm either like, I think, I know all the seats in the middle, the center of the theater were taken so I'm on the side or in the back

I definitely not I never clicked anything in the front two three rows no I refuse I would I would I'll wait and see the movie a week later if that's all that's available yeah yeah that's pretty bad but anywhere else is probably okay those theaters are anywhere else is fine they're recliners you're in front

of a big screen there's popcorn I mean come on yeah I'm glad you held off and got what you needed I'm glad you not held off held in there is what I meant to say it stood my ground and I'm not going to give AMC any further money. No, no more money. You don't get any extras there, AMC.

In fact, you should go in there with your own damn popcorn. That's what I'd do. Yeah, yeah. No one will complain about that. I'm sure. It'll be fun. You know, exactly. It's like, I'm A-list.

I'm bringing my own damn popcorn. That's right. You guys screwed me over for four hours. Honestly, I can't make popcorn as well as movie theater popcorn. There's some sort of voodoo magic garbage crap that they put in there that's like, it's like the 11 herbs and spices that make you crave it. Nightly Jackers. Do you think it's the machines there?

I think it's their weird, well, it's the, it's the use of flavor call. Yeah. Which is like their little salt substitute thing. And then I think it's their weird butter machine thing. Interesting. Yeah. So if you had the machine in your house, do you think you could replicate this? If I had the butter machine in my house, I could probably do it.

Oh, I would love one of those. Oh, Lewis, here we go. Somebody figured out how to make. movie theater popcorn at home i like how their youtube is mine movie theater okay yeah they're gonna look the same it's popcorn yeah it's popcorn guys that like the actual popcorn part is pretty standard where's the where's the outline of the person who did this going yeah where where's the white outline and what giant impact font text where's that exactly um all right well here's another thing real quick um you know i was complaining about this stupid heater

You know? Yes, your heater that has two settings, cold and scalding. Yeah, sun and not sun, basically. Mercury and Pluto. Yeah, that's basically it. I get this email kind of out of nowhere from someone with no name, except in his email, there's part of it says the other guy. It's all I have to go on.

Oh, okay. The other guy. Yeah, it's all very X-Files. But he sent me this thing saying, hey, there's something coming to you. And he sent me an oil-based. space heater. Now, I don't, it's not the kind you have to put oil in to make it work. Right, but it's got oil already inside it. Like a delungi, like a, like a circulating radiator, basically. Correct. It's like, it reminds me of like water cooling in a PC. It's just, you never go in there.

Maybe you should change the water once in a while, but whatever. The water's just in there and it's circulating. That's how this oil is. Anyway, apparently this is like highly rated. Everyone loves it. He sent me a damn heater. So the problem today is it's cold down here. And I haven't hooked it up yet. But I did unhook the other one. So now I'm cold, but I'll hook it up. So I want to thank the other guy, whoever the other guy is. I wish I had your real name. You're awesome.

Thank you for that. It was super... It's kind of impossible to thank. Because every time you try to thank him, you end up thanking the other guy. I know. All these other guys think I'm thanking them. You guys can all go away. It's the one guy I'm talking about, okay?

Yeah. One guy. I'm thanking the other guy who's the guy, but also is the other guy. It is also the guy. That's right. Now, a quick final note. here. Dave wanted me to make sure I mentioned this today.

So we did a big refresh in the Frog Pants store and put a ton of new artwork in there. A whole bunch of new stuff I've been doing over the last year or so. Oh, that's right. I saw some Wastlanders stuff going in there. Yeah. So one of them is a bundle for the Wastlanders bundle. It's four. Sounds like a combo.

Yeah. It's almost like a combo. If you've heard of those, you guys heard of a combo before? It may have been a thing you've heard of? You ever seen combos? Anyway, that one is up there for the ridiculously low price of $15 includes four of these Wastlander prints. I'll bring it up here so people can see what's going on.

Is that because you're using the psychology of making people buy something that otherwise they might not have bought, Scott? In this case, no. This was my idea, and I was like, I like to do themed. Let's do a themed bundle. Dave Zaz says, that sounds great. Let's do a theme. And it is just like we said the fast food places don't do yesterday,

which is because you're doing it because you're nice. Fast food places aren't nice. They're not doing cobblos because they're nice. You're doing this because you're nice. They're pretending to be your friend. I'm your actual friend, okay? Not your only friend. You're something with the only friend.

Anyway. In this bundle, there's this cool dude sitting on a car looking at the sunset, all Mad Max style. You got this baseball guy hitting a grenade. You got this old ice cream truck converted into some kind of war vehicle. and then you got some mech dude anyway these are all drawn by me and there's an option to have these hand signed by me if you'd like them they're only 15 bucks cheap uh ridiculously cheap and they wouldn't be well i guess they would be more individually so it does still go against my combo thing um but i put up a whole bunch of new stuff these new ghostbusters prints uh if you're a wario fan

i got one of those there's a film sack print up there now uh this uh oh this among us one everyone wants to see among us guys underwear uh before and Oh, yeah. Yes. Some Kirby art. Oh, actually, it's a whole Kirby bundle, which includes the gelatinous curb, which is like gelatinous cube.

The weird finger-looking thing, him screaming, and then him wearing pants. I actually have Cleo to thank for that design. Nice. She sent me something one of her kids did. Anyway, these are all up and on the store. A whole bunch of others, too. I haven't even mentioned if you're interested in the fresh batch

of artwork available to you and only to you. you can find it at frogpants.com slash store. Okay. All right. Okay. Ryan, I think it's time we brought in a guest. I like this idea a lot. Yeah.

Yeah, it's going to happen. Oh, hold on. It'll happen if I remember to type shit, right? Okay, here we go. Now, let's play this song. Oh, that's not it. That's for later. Hey, look who it is.

It's our old pal Amy Robinson. Red Fraggle herself, joining us for a little read this with Amy. Amy, welcome back. How are you? Good morning. How are you guys doing? Doing fine. Doing fine.

I was watching a TikTok you were in this morning. Well, I was, well, I don't, I won't tell you what I was doing, but I was, I was, you know, let's say I was in a private moment. Okay, I'll just tell you. I was on the can. Maybe you should talk. Yeah, I have to clarify, I was on the pooper, and I was watching TikTok, and one of yours came up. And I went, oh, there's Amy. I'm talking to her.

later today. How's that make you feel? That's good. I'm glad people are seeing and hopefully enjoying my TikToks. Yeah. Mostly I make those just because something strikes me. Like I have, I have no desire to like, you know, be a huge TikToker with a huge following or anything. I just make silly, goofy stuff that makes me laugh. Yeah. You sometimes just got to get that stuff out. I get it. I do that all the time. Yeah. Totally, totally feel that need. Thinking of getting stuff out. Oh, sweet. Let's do it.

Where do we talking about? I, too, would like to lodge a complaint. Oh, my gosh. Hold on. You get, you get a use of this. Layed on us. All right. So, Monday, I am in my Real Steps meeting, as I do.

And I say to Wendy, towards the end of the meeting, I say, hey, Wendy, are you coming to Vegas? Yeah. And Wendy says, I. wasn't invited. Oh, that is some horse poo. And I said, what? That is such bull crap. I talked to her while she was here. She was here. She said, well, she said, she said, I had heard about it through other channels, and I asked Scott about it. And his response was, well, I guess I wouldn't be sad if you came. That is not what I wrote at all. And I said, what? No, what I wrote was something more akin to like,

you're always invited to everything ever. There's never not an open invitation for you to come to all the things I ever do. You can come to any of it. So she is taking the piss, as the British say. I'm going. I'm going to bring it up today. She should totally come. Is she coming?

I don't know. She didn't tell me if she's coming. She didn't say. I mean, she made it sound like probably not. But like, you know, it was, yeah, that was funny. And I specifically brought it up because I was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm going to bring this out. So it was you because Wendy comes on.

I also got an email from another real stepper. And they said the same thing. And I didn't know. He goes, someone in there said this. Now I know who said it. So it was you. But now Wendy can come to anything she ever wants to. What probably is going on there is I'm not formal about it at all because she's my damn

sister. It's like, you know, I'm not going to get formal with Wendy. But today I will reiterate to her on air that she is 100% welcome to come to this and be as much a part of it as she wants to. So there you go. All right. Well, that's a good real step for me to take today. I'll get that going.

There you go. And are you doing real steps? Is that rumor true? Yeah, she wants me to try it next round. So I'm going to hop in there. Me and Carter are going to both do it. Oh, that rolls. That's going to be so fun.

Yeah. Her take on that is that it will be, you know, whenever we promote it here on the show, this way I'll actually know what I'm promoting and I can actually like attest to it or whatever. And I said, well, what if I blow, you know, what if it sucks and I hate it or something? She's like, well, you'll just have to see. So I'm sure it won't suck. I wish there was some part of myself that I felt like I could improve so I could do real steps because there's nothing. There's nothing there.

You're a perfect human being. What do you do after perfection, Brian? Where else are you going to go? Right, exactly. See? You would just intimidate everybody, Brian, with your glowing perfectionism. Yeah, that's specifically what I was just going to say. Like, you know, I'd do real steps.

And then at the end of it, I would just turn into a ball of glowing light and ascend into the heavens as the new sun. Yeah. Well, maybe this is your trip out of here. We should finally get you on that. I will finally have attained Nirvana. That's right. I bit infection is what, wait, that sounds wrong. It sounds like infection. Well, all right. Let's get to, let's get to Amy and her reading things and telling us what we should be reading because that's always fun. Amy, you've got something a little older, although it's still weird to say 2003 is old, but it's a Yeah, I mean, it's almost 20 years now. It does feel weird, though.

You're right. Like, anything with a 2,000 in front of it, to me, it feels weird to call that old. But, yeah, I mean, those things are coming up on 20 years. So, all right. So to lead into that, I have a question for both of you guys. Yeah. So speaking of, like, ascending and becoming, like, a ball of light or whatever. Sure.

So at what point, if immortality were attainable. Yeah. would you would you partake in such like if you could just you know life is life is normal the way it is and then and you know you're in a body all that kind of stuff and then you know your body starts breaking down or you know straight up you die or whatever and you've got a downloaded consciousness and you could just get a brand new body and it's not like taking it it's not like dollhouse where you're taking it from somebody else you just have like a you just have it's like the sylons you know you've got like a storehouse of extra bodies we're not talking like

highlander you're living forever and you're watching everybody you know die around you but you were talking like all right download into a new body you kind of start over and and do this whole yeah and is it a new body is it like another you know is it some 25 year old dude like what body do i get it is yeah it's a new body but it's not like it's not some other 25 year old dude you're not like stealing a body from somebody else it's just it's like it's like a manufacturer 25-year-old dude. My point is I'm not, I'm not harvested 25-year-old dude. But I'm not starting in a baby's.

No, no, no. And you have all of your, you know, all your downloaded consciousness, all that stuff. Okay. No. Okay. I think I'd do it for a couple rounds. I think that, I think if I always had the option to check out after, you know, because who knows, like, you go long enough and suddenly you're in World War II

living in, I don't know, Lithuania, and you're like, wait a minute, I can count on this. I don't think you're time traveling. You're not putting yourself into a body. Well, I'm just saying like if it's our future, you know, let's say, let's say on Tuesday, I go, yeah, I'm doing it. Let's get this new body going. And on Thursday.

Then on Wednesday, we declare war against Putin or something. Yeah, there's like a nuke watch suddenly kicks in and be like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. Like I feel like if there's always the option to check out, then yeah, I'd do it. I'd totally do it. That is really interesting. I think I agree. So that is sort of the theme of the book that I wanted to talk about today. It's Corey Doctoro's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

And what's cool about that book is you can go and you can buy it, but it's also available via Creative Commons. So you don't even have to buy it. You can just download the PDF and read it. Wow. He's big on that. It's great. And it's really fun. There are some hilariously.

there are some anachronisms in it like at one point pretty early on he refers to Pleasure Island which is of course no longer there this is really so this is really connected to the Magic Kingdom to Disney. Oh yes oh yes he did he did his

research yeah and and so it's like it's a it's a futuristic type thing and in these folks are sort of in charge of keeping the Magic Kingdom going and keeping it up to date in the future and it's there's a whole subplot where he's trying to protect the sanctity of the

haunted mansion um all that kind of stuff but the bigger the bigger plot there is that uh and they tell you this really early so this is not a spoiler um it's it's in fact you know you have to get introduced to this straight away uh they're living in a time where essentially you go and you do like a backup process and if anything happens to you or you die or whatever, you just wake up in a new body and you've got all of your memories up to the point that you last backed up. Oh, interesting. And yeah.

So it's a really interesting thing. And then they also have this option of what's called deadheading where you essentially put yourself into hibernation until something happens. So if, for example, Scott, you, you know, like we were to, you know, like we were to, you know, World War III was to happen and everything all of a sudden sucked, you could just say, okay, I'm just going to deadhead for about a century, you know, wake me up in a hundred years and I'll see how I like things or whatever. Oh, that's cool.

Just back on. How well are... Yeah, and who's warding over these zip drives to make sure they're protected and stuff while I'm gone in this book? Or is there such a thing? Do they talk about that? He doesn't really go into it all that much, although I will say it is part of it is part of the plot. So I don't want to, I don't want to spoil too much on that. But yeah, there's a,

there's a pretty huge element of trust there, right? That, like, I'm trusting that this situation works and that nobody's going in and tinkering with me, you know? Editing my data. Correct. Yeah. And one of the most fun things is that the book sort of almost opens in, like, the first couple of chapters, the main character gets shot in the face with a penis gun. Oh. I'm not even kidding. All right.

That is exactly how the thing is described. It's an organic gun that looks like a penis. It's literally... It's good that you describe this because if Scott were to read this, this would be the first thing he'd tell us the next day on the show. Oh, yeah, it'd be the first number one thing out of my mouth would be, hey, there's a penis gun in this. You should check it out.

I mean, that's kind of why I picked it for the show. I see. I was like, oh, these guys are... I love this. Yes, that's very naked lunch sort of sounding aspect to this thing. There's a penis gun there for you, chat room. Check it out. Anyway, so what was I going to say?

Is it, this sounds like the altered carbon show. Yeah, very much so, yeah. But not as dark. It sounds like a little less dark. The interesting thing is that at some point, you know, there's a character in there who's, that it gets, his ability to do backups sort of gets broken. and so then it's unlike and he becomes sort of he starts deteriorating and he's like okay I could just reboot but then I lose all of what I did since my last backup yeah and and it's like he's like trying to he's kind it's a it's a little bit of a mystery kind of who done it kind of

a kind of a deal and he has amassed all of this evidence and he's like okay I don't want to I'm the only person who knows about all this stuff. I don't want to lose that. I'm the only person I trust at this point. I don't want to lose all this information. So it's a really interesting thing when you think about it. It's like, okay, at what point does life become precious because it's finite? You know?

And I just, I think it's really interesting. It's like, oh, wow. He really started to value his life more after, you know, after it became possible for him to lose something by, dying, you know, when dying doesn't mean anything, then you can just go, like, at one point, he tells a story about going, you know, as like a 70-year-old dude playing hockey, you know, and he had like a massive hematoma and died or whatever doing that. And I'm like, well, duh, of course you died if you're playing hockey at 70, but he didn't care. Yeah, no. Because, you know. Did you play, do you ever read Old Man's War by chance? No, I haven't. Okay. So that's a John Scalzy book. And it's about, um, it's science fiction. It's about a guy who gets into his late 70s.

And if I remember right, and this isn't a spoiler because it's all part of the setup, but he's got some sort of inoperable cancer at that point. And what they do is there's this huge intergalactic war happening all the time outside of Earth. And so what happens is when old people hit a certain age, they can opt into being a part of the war. And by doing that, what they basically do is get their consciousness downloaded to this perfect 20-something, thing your old body of just like they've never been in better shape it's like they're you know superhuman almost um and then they go off and they fight this war but they have the wisdom and

the experience of a 78 year old and it's a trip i mean it's science fiction so it's obviously you know i don't know it's a little more focused on the actual war of the thing but some of these themes are are talked about in there as well it's really good right yeah it's sort of it's sort of the you know what would i do if if i could be young with the knowledge of an old person, you know, like what, if I, if I could go back and do it again, knowing, knowing then what I know now, you know, I like that kind of stuff. And Corey Docter O' famous for, you know, digging into ideas like this, trying to, you know, trying to get underneath these concepts and do it in a way that's entertaining, but also make you think. And, you know,

he's great. I like that guy a lot. And he puts a stuff up on, it's basically open source writing is what he's doing. Yeah, exactly. Which is really cool. Cool. you don't have to pay anything for it if you don't want now of course you know I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you went and bought it from you know a bookseller somewhere but yeah you can just download the PDF and read it it's great go check it out again that book is called oh shoot I'd lost the title give me the full title down and out in the magic kingdom nice and if you're a Disney fan good luck I don't know and thanks for reminding me about Pleasure Island and how bum dime that that doesn't exist anymore oh yeah it was it was hilarious when I read that I was like That's funny because it's supposed to be in the future, you know, but yeah, that thing didn't last very long at all. One of the weirdest times I ever had alcohol was at Pleasure Island drinking it from an ice slide in front of like a goofy dance hall or something like that. It was such a weird juxtaposition. They're selling alcohol and doing a New Year's Eve countdown every night and all that stuff. When was that?

How long ago did they get rid of that? like in the 2000s I think it was I went there in the 90s and it was like a it was it was meant to compete with a neighboring like another thing in Orlando that was um music city and it was like a bar where you could go see country music dancing or jazz or you know rock and roll or stuff stuff like that but it was this paid area and it's now what Disney Springs is or it's now and Universal has like city walk where they've got like their big. karaoke bar and they do that a similar thing but you you would pay one price and go into this and it was adults only after a certain time right and there were all these different nightclubs doing different um kinds of music and it was disney-fied so you had like row slowly rotating floors and lights under the floor and stuff like that it was really cool but it was so weirdly not disney so in 2015 i guess in 2015 they reopened it in orlando but made it a part of their downtown Springs.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a little zone in there. Does it say when that, when it actually closed? Because I want to say it was like early 2000s. This just, for some reason, the article I'm looking at only focuses on the Orlando thing. So I'm not sure about the other one. Well, no, it was Orlando.

Oh, was that where you were? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a separate park. Let's see. Open in 1989. September 2008, all of its clubs were closed. There it is.

There we go. It didn't do very well. Because it was like, you know, like you say, it wasn't, it wasn't very Disney. And I think it was back when, so I think it was before they started like just saying, okay, forget it, just serve alcohol in the parks. And, you know, and so it was that or the, you know, drink beer around the world in Epcot. In Epcot, yeah, exactly. You know, those were your choices if you wanted to drink at Disney.

Now you get to drink weird cantina drinks in the, in, on Batu in Black Spire Outpost. Oh, yeah, that's true. Who knew that eventually Star Wars would be the place they would get everybody drunk. That's awesome. All right. Well, this is a good recommendation, as always. Read this with Amy.

My favorite new segment of the show. For sure. It's really the only new segment of the show. But still, it's my favorite new one, even though it's the only new one. Anyway, hey, I love having you here. Why don't you tell people where they can find you and poke you about your book ideas and stuff? Yeah. All right.

So, yeah, I'm Red Fraggle 3 on all the places on my Twitter and the Discord and the, you know, the TikTok and then all that stuff. You know, my TikTok is mostly goofy things like my dog, look at me in the face. Every once in a while, I'll post a puppet thing or, you know, it's a lot of, like, random thoughts I have when I'm procrastinating, getting up in the morning. So you see a lot of my morning bedhead on my TikTok. So if that's something that interests you, come follow me on TikTok. Yeah, a follower. You might be sitting on the can like me this morning and just be suddenly surprised by an Amy appearance. It's totally funny.

There you go. Yep. Who knows. Fantastic. It's Amy Robinson. We'll see you soon. Be safe. Bye now.

Bye-bye. I said be safe. I don't know why I said that. It's weird. Be safe. Be safe. Be safe. All right.

Be safe. We're going to do a quick news story. Be best. Sure. Yeah, be best. I haven't heard that in a while. Hey, look, it's time for the news, and it's brought to you by. I haven't heard anything from her while.

I think she's back in her box. Hey, you want to learn where most of your adventure games came from? Play Retro is out, and it goes deep into the history of King's Quest and the legacy it left in its wake. Get it where podcasts are, or by going to frogpants.com slash play retro. Yeah, I'd recommend that. We had a really good time talking about that. It's amazing how much influence those games had. And it's just a lady and her husband.

That's so crazy. I remember what was the Grim Fandango being kind of one of the later Lucas Arts point-and-click style? Because you're talking about even going back to the pre-point-and-click. Oh, yeah, we're talking like 86, 85, even 84. The original King's Quest was a combination of both graphical and then you had to also do the tech stuff like pick up rock or throw rock or whatever. And then by the time four rolled around, it became, I think it was four, maybe five. They became purely point-click, but those games are so influential, and games like Grim Fandango, I'm not even sure they exist without that stuff. No, I don't think so.

Dude, Grim Fandonger. I remember Dungeons of Dagrath on the TRS-A-D color computer where you had to even go further, attack sword, left hand. And, you know, like, it was so much typing to fight something that to kill something was like, this is taken forever, because they can. keep on attacking you while you're typing shit. Well, what I didn't know is that King's Quest had a version of the game for the Sega master system, and it was, it was weird. Like you could, so instead of you having to type in stuff, you'd bring up a prompt with a button, and up top would be like 20 words.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, we'd choose the word that you thought best fit the thing. And, you know, that in some ways, some would say that, well, that's a little watered down. You don't have all the guesswork or whatever, but I don't know. That seems a little better to me for some reason. rather, I'd rather play that, I think. But anyway, it was a fascinating chat. If you want to hear me and Dunaway, go through it, check it out.

Play retro wherever you get your shows. Okay. Super cool. Here's a story. A German man. All right? Yeah. He got 90 COVID shots.

All right? In his body. Oh, God. Okay. To sell forged vaccine cards with real batch numbers. So this is how you do it, right? Like most of the time. So he got 90 COVID shots.

Right. So he got a thing every time he did it that says here's a valid vaccine card because you got your vaccine. That way he could give those or sell those to people and not have them be sussed out as fake because they are. He didn't. He himself didn't receive 90 shots of COVID vaccine in his arm. No, he did. He did. He did. Oh, yeah. He legit did. He's alive to tell the tail. He's alive to tell the tail, which I think probably counters a lot of people's idea that the COVID vaccines are going to kill you. but he seemed to be doing just fine with him. So here's what he did. According to CBS News, the name was not being released due to German privacy rules, so they do stuff different. Sure. Allegedly received various shots at a vaccine center in Saxony for months

until he was caught by police this month. The suspect was caught after returning to a vaccination center for a shot a second day in a row when the authorities arrived. They confiscated several blank vaccination cards, according to the DPA. According to that agency, the goal is to sell the cards, with real batch numbers because he had legit shots

so they were real. They would prevent people who did not want to get vaccines from getting caught with the fake cards. They reported the man was, let's see I'm saying, they reported that the man was not detained

but he is currently under investigation for unauthorized insurance and vaccination card and document forgery. So he's in trouble either way, but he took a lot of shots, man. He is full of it. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

Just full of vaccine right now. His body is now, that, I don't know who does it, that song that goes, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shot, shot, shot. He's the living embodiment of that song now. Of that song, yes, he's the German human equivalent of that song. So if he's got, everybody, if I were him, look, I'm not, you know, the vaccine's great, everyone get him. I don't know if you get 90. So maybe go get that looked at and just make sure you're all right.

Exactly. I don't know, you know, what the, in result, maybe nothing. Maybe it's just redundant, you know, because your body's like, all right, well, thanks for the, oh, there's more. Well, whatever. I mean, it's probably redundant, is my guess. Yeah. And if you're not doing it all in one sitting, you're probably not going to die. Right.

But two days in a row, three days in a row, I mean, geez, like. Yeah. But I kind of want to tell my anti-vax friends, I'm like, hey, do you hear about this German guy? I got 90 of them. Yeah. You know what their argument is? Well, yeah, it just proves that they do nothing. Yeah, then they'll use that.

It's just like a saline shot, basically. Yeah, okay, so get it then, if it's just saline. Oh, well, no, because they're putting chips in. They always have a reason, don't they? They always have an effing reason. There's no, there's no telling those people. You're not going to. You can't convince them.

Look, anybody who puts paints on their car, I will not take your shot in a giant syringe piece of art on their car and their truck. If you've taken the time, money, and effort to do that to your vehicle, I'm not going to convince you of freaking anything. No, exactly. Yeah, you're too far gone. You're way too gone down the hole. Yeah.

Like if you went out and got an actual tattoo on your forehead that says, I'm not taking your vaccine, there's no, you're done. Everyone stopped trying to tell that guy what to do. He's not going to do it. Anyway, that's our news for today. We got a lot more about it. We'll save it. For now, we've got to get Wendy in here and make some noise about her coming to Vegas. Make some sweet therapy.

Make some sweet therapeutic noise. That's all coming up in a second, but we need a song. Do you have one? Yeah, so I'm having a hard time describing out how to compare this band. Like a little bit, maybe a little flaming lips, a little bit. Who's the band that the Luminaires maybe a little bit? They're so, I don't know, hard to describe. They are a Melbourne cult pop mystique, is the way they describe themselves.

Dorsal fins. They have a brand new song called Criminal. the rest of the album comes out May 13th on their album's Star of the Show, courtesy of dot-dash recordings and remote control records. This is the song Criminal. It is not a cover of Fiona Apple. It's a different song called Criminal. So, you know, don't be a bad, bad girl.

This is the band Dorsal Finns. All right. We'll be right back. Just that story I heard, I swear it's true, but I can't confirm. It might have been a warning sign about the deep end of what you'll find. Fishing round and gambling with the things you shouldn't touch or try to give. If you don't want to cash the curse for life, then don't be dressing for divination tonight. All the money momentary how

Gold Rush, one-touch, hypnotic girl Got you like a parasite Cut up from my hand Before it eats me Alive Alive Alive Alive

Alive She's on the money She's on the money kisser's counting Made my pockets feel so empty I wish it wasn't it so easy To lose it all is just so tempting Every snake has a lot of down the other side. Every ladder has the same snake eyes.

And every skin is made to shed a couple times before it's left behind. On top of a rapture is mine When you glitter it lines It's enough when I'm close to the fire I'm close to life Hive Alive Alive

A life I'm Keep you waiting I've heard your message and I'm running Criminal is kind of fitting Love can be deceiving She's on the money kiss us counting To lose it all

May not buy this for sorry to I wish it wasn't easy To lose it all is just a time To be the saving You understand. you are together we're strong i like hot dogs they're my favorite all right the morning stream am i still here hello all right we're back hey who is that weird band again that weird band you just heard is a band called dorsal fins out of melbourne

Australia. That's their song, Criminal, coming out on their brand new album, their third album, by the way, Star of the show, which comes out Friday the 13th of May. Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th. Oh, no. You're going to get stabbed under the bed while you're with your... By a hockey mask guy. Yeah. That's how they get you in. Or his mom. Yeah. Yeah. Or his mom for the whole first movie and never see... Poiler alert. Yeah. I think some people, they may see that first movie and go, wait a minute. Where's Jason? Like, this movies, not Jason. There's no hockey mask in it. It doesn't make any sense. But then later it does. Yeah. Do you ever see that new one they made? It does. It kind of remake? Okay. Nope. I haven't seen. The only Friday of the 13th movies I've seen are ones for film sac. So if we haven't seen it, if we've only seen it for

film, those are the only ones I've seen. I feel like we should try that one just to see what the modern take is, you know? I agree. Yeah, for sure. 2013 or 12 or something like that. I can't remember. Oh, J.C. Calhoun says he doesn't even get the hockey mask until the third film. Really? Is that True? I didn't think about that. Oh, weird. I thought he had it in the first one, no? That's freaking weird. Oh, well, I guess the mom has the hockey mask in the first does she? Is there no hockey mask?

I thought there was no hockey mask in the first one, but the second one I thought there was. Ah, we gotta do our research. Oh, this is boring, isn't it? Oh, oh, okay. Very boring. All right, before we get to anything else here, it's my sister, Wendy, real therapist, comes and does

stuff on here and helps you guys with your problems and all that, runs the Real Steps program, which you heard Amy, raving about earlier in the show. Apparently, Wendy, are you coming to Vegas? What are you doing? No. I'm not. You didn't invite me.

That's what everyone says. I could have sworn. I'll invite you. We have an open door policy for Wendy Dunford. She can come to anything, anytime, anywhere. You need more. You got to do more than that. I know that, but she's my sister.

I don't think of these things. I don't like, my door is always open. Huh, why aren't the neighbors ever coming over for one? I told them my door. door is always open. Yeah, no. Brian, can I read you Scott's words when I said, let me go back. He said what he thought he said, which if he said this, this is just great.

Yeah, let me hear it. I'd like to hear it. Okay. I don't remember what I said. So I was in town and I was talking to your sister and your wife and they're like, yeah, are you coming to nerd, whatever, you don't call it. It's just Vegas. It's just Vegas. Vegas.

And, no, Kim was inviting Misha. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know what you were talking about. Well, Kim probably assumed that you and I had had all the conversations we'd need to arrange anything that would happen. Exactly. So I said, hey, Kim mentioned y'all are going to Vegas for TMS. Am I supposed to come? And you said, we're doing the Vegas thing again.

You're not, quote, supposed to come per se. But, of course, we'd never be sad when you're there. See, that's my bad way. So then you're not supposed to come? No, my point was, like, I didn't want you to feel pressure that you had to go. Like, that's, that's me worried that you wouldn't want to go. So I don't want to, like, go, oh, this is probably a whole episode. We could talk about this.

Can I just make something clear? It is snowing today. Like, I am happy to come to Vegas at any point. You know what? I'm inviting you, Wendy. Please come to Vegas. Yeah, you're officially invited. You're always invited.

This was not me going. that I didn't involve you in that you would absolutely love. This is me saying, listen, I can tell you exactly what that text is. That's me going, oh, I don't want her to feel like she. Yeah, I don't want her to feel obligated, but I would love it. And chat's right. Words matter. I did a bad job, okay, everybody, I did a bad job.

I'll tell a really quick story. We went to a restaurant a couple weeks ago. It was me, Tina and the Crazy Neighbors. and great Italian restaurant and we sat down, they brought us bread and the oil and vinegar stuff that you dip it and all that.

They brought us four pieces. We went through that fairly quickly and then she came by to say, hey, your food's on the way. Can I get you guys anything else? Do you need refills on your drinks or anything like that? And I said, well, I wouldn't say no to more bread.

And I said it like that in a nice little playful way. Right? And she said, well, you could ask. See? Like, I was thinking, I was saying it a very, like, you know, I wouldn't say no to more bread. Like, I wasn't saying it like a snotty, like, you know, Karen, like, you know, I wouldn't say no if you're going to bring this more bread. Yeah, I know.

That wasn't the way. That wasn't your tone. Yeah. But I love that the weight staff is requiring assertiveness these days. Exactly. So, you know, she walked away. And I said, you know, we should stiffer on the tip. And if she gives us any grief, we should have said, well, you could have asked.

well the bottom line is that we all ate spit that day yeah that's the bottom line here are the two truths here are the two truths we're going to move forward with the number one truth is Wendy is always invited everything she ever wants to do with TMS the second truth is I should still go out of my way

to say hey did you want to come this year to this thing like I could have done both things and for good reason because I don't listen to this show I don't know I know I know I just take it for granted so I shouldn't do that so here's the truth in front of everybody and it's probably i don't know what the short notice does but you're invited to Vegas if you'd like to come that's it we've done it so now you can decide and you can you know whatever and then we'll you know we'll see what happens zoie brings bacon is

coming through minneapolis she could actually just pick you up yeah bring you with her in a suitcase even yeah totally she'll check you at baggage claim crate we put you in a crate um all right let's get to today's deal uh we we got an email and this i've actually had for a couple of weeks Not that we've been avoiding it, but it's time. It's time to read this one. So we're going to get some advice. And I kind of forgot what the context was, but I'll read it and figure it out as I do it. Here it is. Hey, Scott, Brian, and hopefully Wendy. Hey, good news. Wendy's here. I would love and could very much use some advice. I'm an elementary school teacher who has taken on quite a lot this year. In addition to teaching in a public school during a pandemic, I've coached multiple clubs and teams. I tutor kids after school weekly. I'm the vice president of the PTO. What is the PTO? Parent, teacher organization. Is it usually association? Some places say PTA. Okay, that's what I was used to.

As in like Harper Valley say that. They say that in the Harper Valley. Yeah, you do say that in the Harper Valley. And I am taking, sorry, I'm taking four grad school courses to earn an additional license endorsement. It's a lot. Yeah. Recently, I've decided to move to Costa Rica to teach in a school there, which is certainly

not where my problem began, but when it became unmanageable, the sheer amount of planning and preparation needed to complete this move, in addition to the emotional toll as it has taken, has been difficult. Well, I do not have a lot of family, and the ones I have are not particularly close to me. I do have a grandmother I care very much about who is not in a great place health-wise. I'm also very fond of my school, my students, and the community I have built. I serve in a Title I school. What's the Title I?

That means they need federal funding. Okay. Lower income, stuff like that. sure. Okay. It's like that one you were always doing stuff for when you were here. Okay. That was the title one. It's cool. Where the majority of my kiddos are all in hard situations. There are two kids in particular that I'm worried about and I've had feelings of guilt. As I feel on some level, I'm abandoning them. This has been a major impact in my sleep schedule. Eating habits, both losing and gaining weight quickly. I'm typically only a social drinker. I'll normally have a beer if I'm at a restaurant, but typically I never have any in the house. something that has changed recently. I recognize these as coping mechanisms, but not the ones I'd like to be using. Advice, I could, I believe I could use much of it. I'm a daily listener. I love the show. Honestly, do not think I would have made it through everything the last two years

have brought. Had it not been for the daily laughs, you guys have given, keep it up, and thank you. Well, that's very nice for you to see. Oh, thanks. Is he invited to TMS? Anytime. Yep, everyone is, it's all implied. Everyone's invited. the door is the door to Vegas is open wide open yeah the gate never closes so where do you want to start with this I feel like everybody can feel a little bit of this one you know no matter who they are or what they're doing

because there's I can definitely you know I can relate to a lot of this but I feel like we're supposed to everyone's supposed to be getting out of this now and it's hard really yeah I think I think they feel like they're supposed to post to. I feel like people are supposed to be like, oh, but now's the time, we shake off the last couple of years and we, we stride out there and, you know, offices are having people come back. And, you know, there was a big hubbub over at Blizzard. They were going to have all their employees back, but they were going to stop requiring vaccines. And then they did a walk out.

And it's all this big gnarly mess. And anyway, so there's like this weird, like, we're open. Let's go. And also, we all are wounded. Yeah, we're all a little messed up. And nobody wants to acknowledge it, it feels like. We all want to complain about it. We just want to pretend the last two years didn't happen and had no effect on us and just keep moving forward. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I don't think anybody listening or here at the table hasn't had some impact like this. So what are you as the professional here doing to help people do this or even yourself? Like how what what should this person do?

Yeah. This is, you're right. It feels incredibly universal. And it's actually, I think the expectation, like you were saying, to, you know, brush yourself up, get going, do some new things, get back to the hustle or whatever is really a huge part of a problem. It's like any of us, if you're injured, you don't want your ankle to be janky for the next six months, but it is. And so you, you know, you can do things like go too fast. I mean, I think the physical injury example is really apt because it's, we've all

been there, right? We've all hurt ourselves somewhat and then go to do our regular life and it's impeded and think, well, you know, this should be faster or, you know, whatever it might be, right? So I think it's very similar in the sense of a, there's some emotional wounds and fatigue and burnout and, you know, very little acknowledgement from sort of a lot of sources that could maybe lead the way in acknowledging this, you know, like, I mean, I don't know. Every company is going to be a little bit different, but anywhere anyone works, you know, how are they handling this? It sounds like this guy's an overachiever, right? Does a lot of things. And maybe always can do a lot of things. Yeah. In perfect times or when everything's great and you're feeling emotionally stable, this is this is somebody who's

very motivated and is doing really cool stuff, making a difference. That's a lot of cool stuff. Yeah. And here's the thing. Most of us prior to maybe this moment haven't stopped and thought about why we hustle so much. Like where does that come from? I said this to a client the other day who is a foodie and her partner is not a foodie. And I said this statement and I even think I laugh about it now because I don't know if I even thought it through really, but I think it's true. Like there's not a, there's not a, there's There's no foodie who's not a foodie for a reason. Or there's no avid cyclist who's not an avid cyclist for a reason. Like there are, there's something behind even our hobbies, right? Or even behind our, you know, what we lean towards or what we do. And not to say everything is some damaged childhood reason, but sometimes it is. Or you're in a culture.

Sometimes maybe that wasn't the case. Your childhood was like full of fun and pull. And then the adult world requires things of you, will sort of train you for this. And then here you are flying on a treadmill, a million miles an hour. And you've never really thought why. And so I would start just a brief, real quick question to this person of like, what's up with you doing 100 million things? Yeah. And speaking as one person who does a million things to another, like it's not easy to figure this out.

Sometimes. And often it's a treatment for other things. It can be, right? Like the world's falling apart and I can help these little kids and then I can take this class and I can do this. Like you can feel this need to do all of these things. And at a certain stage in life, no pandemics involved. You know, maybe that the energy to do so was always there, right? And so you just have built an identity around it. This is who I am. This is the good that I do. But maybe not. sort of feeling the full range of emotions or experiences related to that kind of life. So the saying goodbye to move to another place and do good work somewhere else. You know, what does that grief, is that grief denied, grief delayed? That's, that's some of what I'm hearing is that there's a lot of feelings, there's some burnout, and then there's a lot of feelings, and he's treating it with things that he would rather not be like more alcohol you know just like coping managing handling it all not emotionally but by escaping and that's very very common that's also incredibly universal right which is feels bad don't feel

it escape it but i have no time because i have 4,000 things to do to really feel yeah so that's an important question. So, so I'll pose it to both of you. Have either of you, you can plead the fifth, but have I either of you taken time to grieve, I don't know, aspects of your life or society or norms or feelings of safety or, you know, like if you just felt any of that, like the war in Ukraine is this great example of like, if you really stop and think about that and not flip to the next thing on your phone that will make the laugh. Yeah, next news article. Yeah, right.

Yeah, exactly. So just generally, do you guys feel like you've done that sometime in the last two years? No, I'm terrible at it. I definitely haven't. I've basically been saying, ah, that thing on the horizon is when this is all over, and I'm only looking forward to that, and I'm not looking back at what has happened to my life in the last two years. Yeah. I do the same thing with, like, well, I have two.

questions about this so I'll get to that in a second but I uh actually it's not that different than your invitation to Vegas to be honest it's like I'm nervous like if somebody if I wanted to interview somebody I used to be able to go hey Christian Nairn you want to come on again let's talk let's just see how things are going for you now if I was to you know poke Christian Nairn about his new show that pirate thing he's doing on HBO he would absolutely say yes and come on the come on him talk but I'm having a hard time asking because I don't want to put anybody out right now. You just say, my Zoom is always open.

Yeah, my Zoom is always open. You're never not invited to come talk. But honestly, that is what that is. That's what I did with Wendy. I was like, I don't want to bug Wendy. I know she's as busy as any of us. Or I don't want to bug Tom or I don't want to, you know, I already had a little bit of this when like I would invite big wigs

to come to Nerdtacular. It'd be like, hey, Chris Metson, do you want to come? you totally can say no, you know, I'm having that attitude about it. Yeah, sure. And really, and then even when he said yes and was like exuberantly, yeah, I'm totally coming. That would be awesome. I still would be like, does he really want to come? Is this really why?

Why would you want to? Like, I do that all the time anyway. But man, is that like turned up to 10 during all this? That turned up to 10 because you yourself feel burnout. You can relate to like if a bunch of people started asking you for things, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's part of it. Is it a flip of what you're experiencing? That's a part of it because you feel like, well, they probably feel like me.

And if they feel like me, they don't want to be bugged right now, you know? Like, there's a little bit of that. The question I had for you was, like, the war in Ukraine in particular, you said, has anybody taken time to, quote, unquote, grieve over that? And I know what you mean. It's the, it's the royal grieve. Like, we're not talking about, you know, somebody died in your family, but this, like, this bigger kind of grieving. I don't know how to, I think, because all I could do is say, well, that next Fred and Can comic I'm going to draw. Fred's going to wear a shirt that has Ukrainian flag colors on it because that's how I'll deal with it because I don't know what else to do.

You know what I mean? Like you kind of feel like you don't know what to do about stuff that big that's out of your control. If anything, the last five years for me have been me trying to figure out a way to not want to feel. feel like I need to control everything all the time, especially stuff is completely out of my reach. And so I don't. But then I don't, that's not grieving. That's me trying to come to terms of what I can control or can't control, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I guess to answer your question, no. Like I don't, I don't, I'm not sure we, I'm not sure I know how I'm as equipped to do it as, as I can. Because how, what am I actually supposed to do? I gave money. I did,

you know, the things you can do for when the Ukraine thing broke out and all that. But what else can I do? I don't know what else to do. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the conundrum, right? Because there are lots of people in various positions to do things. So a lot of my clientele are connected to international organizations and, you know, the UN in particular and some others where, you know,

there boots on the ground doing the good work and like feel the exact same way so it's like a relative problem right like because no one can actually do the thing they would hope to do which is stop the destruction of death and that you know like i don't i i i think the what to i what can i do is it's a very human thing to be faced with our limitations and our desires and they don't match, right? But I think there's another piece to this, and that is historically, in fact, I was talking to a friend's teenage daughter about news consumption and how she'll have conversations about climate change, just walking around with her friends. I was eavesdropping on Abe the other day, having a conversation with friends on the phone about ethics. And if he chooses to go to law

school, he has to deal with the idea that he could put someone innocent in jail and vice versa and how do you handle that dilemma? And I'm like, what the freak is wrong with kids today? Right? They're just so intense. And as we were talking, I joke that I would never have had that conversation as a junior in high school. And the reality is I had to go find a paper and spend the time to flip through it to have a clue of something to think about outside of the sphere of my control, right? Whereas these kids every minute have access to everything outside of their sphere of control. So they are, they are in this conundrum as children. What can I do about a thing? And that's why they do such beautiful things, right? Because they're not encumbered

by all the other crap you layer on yourself as an adult. And yet they're also just as powerless, right? And so I think this is a universal experience, is our worlds have gotten so big. We can hear about the saddest thing, 7,000 miles away that we can do nothing about, maybe send some money and that's the most we can do. And then we got to go live our life and with all the problems that are contained therein, right? So it is extending us way past our limitations, I think. And so going back to the email, I don't know why they're involved in all this cool stuff. It sounds awesome.

Like, I'm sure there's lots of positive feedback like I'm giving right now. Like, that's amazing. Keep it up. We need you to not burn out, please. But I think the same sort of recipe applies, which is, what are we actually doing to manage that this stuff is way bigger and heavier than our psyches are built to handle? And so I know lots of people experience this where they think, well, I can't not know. Not knowing almost feels like a betrayal. I can't not read about it.

That's my way of doing something. And it is a small form of doing something. And yet, sort of, you know, all the things around you. And it sounds like this person is literally putting their time and energy to the people around him, to the kids who will grow up to be the adults. You know, like the tutoring and the helping these kids specifically who need these mentoring situations. Like, that is boots on the ground, real stuff that has real consequences. in real life in his community and you run out of steam.

And so it's kind of, I feel like a combo of things. And so I would suggest taking a few hot minutes to think about what is real reasons of doing these things are, right? Some of it may be, you know, I got, I was neglected a bit as a kid. Teachers either helped me or didn't help me. Something that sort of stems back from, you know, how you grew up. And it can be positive or negative. It doesn't have to be negative, right?

But just sort of re-tapping into the fire, right? That what drives you, what motivates you? And then at the same time, which none of us are good at, literally none of us, is to grieve in the moment the things that need grieving. So I recommend, and I've talked about this before on the show, but like scheduling grief because we're not going to do it otherwise. yeah yeah right so set up a time and how's four o'clock for you yeah how you feel good about that grieving time yes that's good well i've got a meeting but i could do it around 410 415 you think we could

do it then and you just get ready you get a piece of paper you get a pen you start to write the things that you're going to miss right or the things that you are scared of the things you wish you had control over but you don't those are all ways to find grief what you need to grieve where you have no power where you have concern and no influence, right? And then also what wonderful things have you built that you have to walk away from in order to go somewhere else and build some more wonderful things, right? Like, it's all good. And sometimes there's bad things in there too, but we have to grieve good things too. Or what happens is it's like the tank just is full and full and full and full till it spills over and then you're watching like a state farm commercial

and you're sobbing and you don't know why you know or you're drinking too much and you're bringing alcohol in your home which is not a thing you've ever really done before or needed to and you know sort of the writings on the wall that you're neglecting something i it saddens me to no end to hear that some kid in junior high is talking about all these adult things and not when i was in your high was what? Oh, the evening news said something about Iran kidnapped, a bunch of Americans. Anyway, get your bike. We're going to go catch snakes by the river. Right. Yes. You know what I mean? Like, are we, are we, Greta, Tunberg is just ruined it for everyone. Yeah, it's truly her. She's the first teenager. But are they going to, are they going to, are they going to,

is this going to be good for them in the long run and good for the world in the long run if you had to predict or is this going to be bad? Because they are being stripped of those, like, of that, of that care Freeness, not that everyone has that. Maybe that's part of the illusion problem, but that care Freeness that can be childhood and instead it's being replaced with nonstop, oh my gosh, my future, the climate, this, that, the other, like, I don't know. They should have to deal with those things, of course, at some point, but are we stripping them from this, like, joyous time that they should be having? I don't know. Yes, absolutely. But there's no way around it unless you, you know, hide them in a hole. And then that you have other problems because you've done that, right?

um i i i on one hand it's it's very disheartening and sad that that's the reality and then on the other like it's kind of going to be amazing and i don't know how or where or how that's going to look but i also just think it'll it'll shift because it has to i mean we're not looking at great numbers at the moment i mean you know kids really struggling with mental health stuff in their adolescent years, it used to be, you know, one out of 10 kids would be diagnosed with anxiety or depression. We're up to four kids out of 10. That is a huge jump.

And for very good reason, because if you think you have this feeling like, all right, COVID's over. Let's time to get back to my, you know, running real fast in the rat race. The kids have the exact same experience with missing two enormous developmental social years of their life. some of them, you know, where they are just, like, been, you know, they're more introverted. They're a little more nervous. Anxiety's up.

It's hard to do the things that, you know, getting back to normal feels like a big stretch. So Adam has had to go back into the office just this last week or two. And, you know, we talk about it a lot. Just like, what does that feel like to, you know, is to see people and be around them. And there's, like, such good stuff that comes from that. Yeah. But it's also just taxing. It's taxing to get in your car and drive 20 minutes.

It's taxing to, you know, worry about running out of gas again. Or it's, you know, like whatever the thing is that, you know, getting dressed, wearing pants, wearing actual pants. Yeah, pants. It takes a lot out of people, right? And so I think what we're not great at, and we could go through all of the history of the United States of America to show case after. case where we do not collectively work together very well. We can do some things. It has to be short-lived though, right? Oh yeah. It has to be 9-11 or World War II or, uh, yeah. And World War II would have been very different if we had the internet. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. Like all the

things that used to maybe unify required ignorance on the part of most of us and just to see ourselves on one side of a team, right? And so, but what that is, that's fight. That's like, go to war that's like rally everyone to to action and aggression versus hey everybody let's talk about how sad we are and let some things go or work through that you know whatever in some ways it's it's antithetical to that to that raw raw thing that we do and we're when we all got to go fight so when you say and that feels good that is like a tasty snack like yes anger and then And this is like, can I allow the feelings of change, loss, difference, whatever it may be, or just even that the before times are gone for you.

And they may be other people, I mean, if you think of why there's many people have been very resistant to things, some of it is just resistant to change, resistant to, I don't want to feel all these things I'm feeling. so everyone else must be losing their collective minds and I'm stable like it's about stabilizing ourselves and so I have this new rule no matter what you said or did in the last two years I'm giving people and this is personal I don't it's not like I have some tribunal for any public figure because I don't give a crap what most of them do or say but personally that it's just a free card like it you know

You know, it's one thing if it keeps going, that's a different story. But this is, in your height of absolute distress, you said some really janky things that are like, okay, I'm going to take a break, right? Like, I'm just found that I don't want to be held to tight account for the way I have handled the last two years either in the sense of, you know, nobody, nobody saw that coming in the same, and doesn't know what to do with it. You know, like, you know what else? You know what else we're really bad at culturally is forgiveness. We're pretty bad at that. Yeah, that's another one. Yeah.

But I take your point and agree. Yeah. So, okay, point is this, that we, if we can't do that for other people, guess what we're also not doing for ourselves? That same kind of compassion, right? And that's ultimately what I want the emailer to think about is how to be compassionate with himself about what is taking place. So he heard both us, all three of us, say, whoa, you're doing a lot. okay if you're like no I'm not okay that's weird if you're like I can do more okay also weird right like or if you're like yeah I am doing a lot right you need some acknowledgement like we we react

to certain things for a reason you're a foodie for a reason there is something you are you know responding to whatever the stimulus is you're responding to it for a reason and so it's about just being a little more curious as to that reason. And then imagine this is a friend of yours and they're about to make this big change and they're going to inevitably lose touch with some of these kids who could really use mentors. Like, they're going to be heartbroken. How would you treat them? And then flip it. Treat yourself to some of the things you would treat a friend you cared about too. Yeah. So a break. Number one. Um, you know, sort of not, not massive bowl of ice cream, no.

Wait, what did you say? There's a massive bowl of ice cream, but maybe not. Maybe that's a bad idea. Yeah. Or just like, if you're having a massive bowl of ice cream or drinking one too many beers, like it's okay, right? It's okay. Forgive yourself.

Yeah. And this is a process, a, it's temporary, but this isn't a hold your breath till you get through it and jump into the next thing and be fine. That's what burnout is, everybody, is that you haven't done any of the things as you go along that you need to do and then eventually catches up, right? So this would look like, you know, really giving yourself a chance to be sad about these things to feel the loss. It will come. It'll maybe overwhelm you during your grief hour and it will fade but it it's like cleaning out the henhouse you have to do it do you feel like we're in the uh do you feel like we're in the middle of the short fuse phase because i do

like oh it's been a long time of the short fuse well true but i mean that fuse i feel like it's shorter than ever i've i've had more in the last i don't know two months experiences with friends and family where someone's just at the edge or i pop off or kim's uh you know know, uncharacteristically quick to be mad at the dog or something. Like just these moments that are like, whoa, this is not us like normally. Like this is, we've hit some weird new, new phase of this where the fuse is like right up next to the big dumb bomb that Daffy Duck's about to throw. And it's going to explode on our face and my bill's going to go that way.

And it fluctuates with different communities, right? Like I'm out in Salt Lake and there's not a mask to be found. And then I come back and there's still. masks, half the people in grocery stores are masked and kids are still, you know, like it, it's, it's a strange flip back and forth of, you know, so every community is kind of at a different pace or doing things differently or, you know, fuses are different lengths for different reasons. And so, you know, but, you know, within families, I mean, I am home alone today. Do you guys know how long it has been since I'm the only one in my house?

Oh, I love that. I love that feeling. Drain. Right? Yeah. It's like, nice, but there is this, that bittersweet that there always is in life, which is like, oh, I'll kind of miss everyone. And then the second they're home, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I don't. Never mind. I take it back. Yeah, but it's just that sort of like gentleness with your emotional life, right? Like, so, you know, I've often thought when people are just like, oh, I couldn't do your job.

And I was like, oh, maybe, maybe you couldn't. I don't know. It's that I have to have had to figure out how to have different boundaries and lines in my life. And you hear a lot of things. You stop thinking they're that hairy, right? And I think for this guy, he is doing something active to help people who really deserve it and need it and will benefit from it. Like, that is a gift and a calling and it's amazing. But if you do not take care of yourself and find those boundaries and allow yourself to feel when you need to, you know, you just can't do it.

It's just not a long-term option. You'll just burn out. And that's, you know, people in any service industry, first responders, lots of folks. You just can't do it forever if you haven't figured out either how to shut your entire emotional system down or learn how to really care for yourself. Yeah. Sure. So I encourage him to do that. All right.

Well, I would encourage everybody to figure that out if you can. Because we all got some, you know, version of this going on, I think. And I know I do. So I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I feel like I'm at this place where I go. I actually want someone who is like, never felt better to write in. Yeah, who is that person? Who is that right? I don't know.

Do you think they exist? This pandemic was the best thing you ever happened to my life. Yeah, there's somebody somewhere, I mean, just sheer numbers says someone's like this. And you know what they are? There's probably an introvert who, you know, who really likes the isolation and now doesn't feel pressure from society to go out there and be around. people and stuff like that. There's probably some like out of touch, you know, tribe in Central America somewhere where somebody, they have no idea this is even going on and they're just happy.

So email us, uh, isolated tribe in South America. Yeah, can you let us know? We'd love to hear from you. He'd like to ruin your live by introducing you. Introduce them to all these problems we have. All right. Well, uh, best of luck to this listener. It sounds like you got a lot going on.

You also sound like a real cool dude. You're up to some good work. And I think that's awesome. Use your support system, too. I forgot to say that earlier. Just like, you know, rely on your community. You're probably a helper everywhere you go and a doer. And so lots of people congregate around you who like to be helped and done for.

And then there are those who are just as capable as you, but don't know you need it. So you got to ask sometimes. Yeah. Ask. And then you'll be the person who can, you know, you'll be just the only. that many steps further so when somebody else is where you are now, they'll, they can look to you and find that same support. So we wish you the best and let us know how things go, especially if you end up in Costa Rica. I'm really curious how that'll go for you. Yeah, and I suggest we do

Costa Rica TMS next time. Live Viva TMS, Costa Rica. Never been. It's still worked. The Viva still works. I don't think we've ever been. Yeah, the Viva. The Viva still works because, you know, you find us any kind of sort of Latin America, you know, location. We can put the Viva in there, so there you go. And really, those paper towels are available everywhere, so we could do it anywhere we want. Viva TMS London, what works. We just bring Viva paper towels.

Yeah, it'll be fine. Viva, the brand you know to love or something. Wendy, it's always a pleasure. You're welcome to Vegas. If you'd like to come, just let us know. We'll not be sad if I'm there. Yeah, I will not be sad. No, I wouldn't say no to Wendy come in Vegas.

I do this with everybody. Are you sure you want to go? That's how I answer people. If it makes you feel better, Wendy, he didn't invite me either. I kind of had to invite myself. Yeah, Brian, I haven't even talked to Brian about coming to Vegas, but I just, you know, I make all these assumptions. Am I even going?

I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, Scott, do you have a plane ticket? I have a, no, we're driving. But we have to, because I've got all the swag and everything. We got hotel room. Everything's all set. You know, because, hey, my wife's involved.

So she takes care of all the things that need to have happened. Anyway, have a great week. and may um may uh who did you tell me was it aid that was talking about lawyer stuff or no yeah oh was it ape tell the ethical dilemma he's facing at 16 he needs to go play a video game or something that's all i'm saying yeah no he's fine he does if he wants to get online you let me let me know and we'll we'll work it out uh you'll tell you'll show him an ethical dilemma yeah i'll give him an ethical dilemma do you save the princess or not that's what we'll do uh windy have a good one and uh good luck. Oh, and real steps.org, everybody, read up on it.

It's not open for new people yet, but when it is, you're going to want to check that out because Carter and I are going to jump in this next season. And I guess you don't call them the seasons, but whatever they are. We're going to call it a season now that you said that. A new phase. Looking forward to it, though. It's Wendy Dunford, everyone. We'll see you next time.

Bye, everybody. Thanks. Bye-bye. Okay, why I can't find her on here. What's going on? That's creepy. that's so funny Tom never does that no he never does when I lose the problem is I commented in the film sack group and then left it there and then forgot wait a minute why isn't windy on this list oh he almost pulled Brian you almost hung up on Brian and Randy without them even being part of the call yeah and I can't do that that would not be cool uh that's it for the show big thanks hey Brian how coverville today I want to I want to know what's going on there what are you doing there will be coverville today yes matter of fact uh Elton John who looks like Scott's mom, just celebrated his 75th birthday.

And so, of course, we've got to have a tribute to Reginald Dwight or Rocket Man or Captain Fantastic. Or was he the brown dirt cowboy? I can't remember. But covers by folks like, let's see, Taryn Edgerton, of course, Mumford and the Sons, Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Ninja Sex Party, and Kevin Gilbert, all going to be featured on today's episode. Plus, one of the weirdest instrumental versions you're ever going to hear. of the song, Daniel. You'll just have to tune in to see what it is.

Okay. I'm very curious. His old work, I love all of it. Yes. Anything in the 80s, I hated. I hated. Yeah, anything post, you know, like,

sorry seems to be the hardest word. Like, yeah. It's just a bad time. I'm still standing. I'm still, oh, Kate, I'm still standing so much. Yeah, yeah.

Why is that? It's like, before that, everything is brilliant. Oh, and then. For sure. uh goodbye yellow brick road and uh love lies bleeding and uh rocket man of course and yeah their classic amazing incredible song i will say that just about everything with the exception of a cover of sacrifice that's really good everything is early um early elton john i'm even not i'll fully admit i'm not a fan of the song crocodile rock sorry no not sorry don't like that one friend me if

you want but uh yeah fair enough but benny in the jets uh take me to the pilot tiny dancer those are all freaking amazing don't let the sun go down on me come exactly yeah too a or no pack pack my flight free fly how's it go what's that my brain just farted um i get i can think of zero hour nine a m yeah because i just watched i just rewatch the bag's free free Pre-flight. There it is. I just watched that the Shatner thing again, and I couldn't remember it. That was bad.

All right. We're out of here. Patreon.com slash TMS. Please support us. We'd love it. We need it. We must have it. If we don't have it, we're done.

So get in there. Patreon.com slash TMS. Hey, Brian, I can't leave unless I have a song. So you got. We really can't. And how about something that's seven minutes long? Is it a dream theater song you're asking yourself? No, it's not.

But might as well be. Matthew wrote in and said Morning shy guy and bullet bill Back in 2020 I changed jobs And got my dream job in accounting Two weeks after I started the UK Went into a national lockdown The end result being my new employer

Deciding to exercise their right to terminate My contract as I was still in my trial period The result of that is I took a cooking addictive Oh no I took I took Oh I took to cooking addictive chemicals That make people crave my food fortnightly to keep my family

clothed and fed. Yes, I worked at a KFC. Fast forward, April 4th, 2022. And finally, I get to go back to my dream role. If you could play my request any time around that date, it would be greatly appreciated. No more low tea for me, says Matthew. Nice. Low tea, low tea.

Low tea. That the, uh, that sentence was very difficult, but I needed to read that, uh, almost in in Mike Myers' voice, but I didn't. Anyway, his request is machine head covering hallowed be thy name by Iron Maiden. This will get your blood pumping this morning.

From their album, The Blackening from 2007, here is Machine Head. I'm waiting in my cold cell. When the bell begins to shine Reflecting on my past life And it doesn't have much time Because at 5 o'clock They take me to the gallows port The sands of time for me are running low

When the priest comes to read me, the last week. Take a look through the bars at the last night of a world that has gone there it wrong for me Can't be there's been some sort of error hard to stop for some mountain terror Is it really the end not some crazy dream Somebody please tell me that I'm dreaming It's not easy to stop from screaming But what's escape me when I try to spake Just prove but why am I crying

After all, I'm not afraid of faith Don't I believe that there never is a dead I'm going to be. As the company out of the earthy after the end up to the courier, Somebody comes to myself, I'll be with you. It's not a guy, then why did she let me go? As the walk of my life just before me, and though the end is near, I'm not sorry. Catch my soul, because I'm willing to fly away.

My power would believe my soul is not. I'm worried now that I have done. I'm going to see the truth. When you know that the time it's so sad. Every day you'll begin to watch just get lost out here Just a strange illusion We're going to be able to be able to be. You know what I'm going to be.

I don't know you're on it. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hello be my name Yeah, yeah, yeah, hello be my name. Be the name This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Frog Pants Network.

Get more shows like this at frogpants.com. A fake fart noses. Yeah, fart noses.