The Morning Stream - TMS 2573: A Reptile Disfunction

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Mad Max Futurama Road. Long press for threesom. Thongs Of Santas. I don't want all those Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeans. Timothee Shala mala bing bong. You'll Get No Santacon, No Hangover, and No Lieutenant Yar! Frankentree. Let's Set the Mini-Sabers. Pierced Hamm. CLAP CLAP CLAP STOP. Hats Off Lincolnites. Gumbo is code for sex orgy. That's A Tender Loin. Lucile Ball gremlin statue. Pull the Ripcord and Run with Wendi and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TMS is brought to you daily by the support of our patrons at patreon.com slash TMS, like Matthew Rees, Larry David, pretty good, and Brett Capstick. Coming up on TMS, Mad Max, Futurama Road. Long press for a threesome. Fongs of Santas. I don't want all those beets. Timothy Shalamelbing mung. You'll get no Santa con, no hangover, and no lieutenant y'ar!

Franken Tree. Let's see the minisabers. Pierced ham. Clap, clap, clap, clap, stop. Hats off, Lincolnites. Gumbo is code for sex orgy. That's a tender loin. Lucille Ball Gremlin's statue.

Pull the ripcourt and run with Wendy and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Oh, it's snowing. Isn't that wonderful? I never felt so much like Christmas in all my life. Don't you, Sherry, dear? Shut your nasty little face. I threw up in the downstairs commode. I'm saying that.

So when you see that there, that's me. I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. This is the morning stream. Good morning and welcome to TMS. This is TMS for Thursday, December 21st, 2023. I'm Scott Johnson with Brian Nibit. Hi, Brian.

Hello. Hello. Hello, good morning, and welcome back to what we do every day. That's right. I said earlier, it's this, it's the shortest day of the year. Let's look at it from the glass half full. It's the longest night of the year. Oh, longest night.

Take advantage of that, folks. Yeah, what would you do? How would one celebrate the longest night? What should you cram in to the... A massive orgy. Awesome. Perfect. I'm in.

It'd be the only time I feel like I could get around to everybody, you know? yeah no i see i see where you're coming from the problem with the orgy thing is i can't imagine who i'd invite you know i don't know yeah no yeah no i can't either i that's the thing with me like you always hear about those things go wow that's wild you know people people in 70s have these big crazy orgies of these nightclubs or whatever and i always think yeah you really i don't think i don't think i could do it oh no and it would have to be a uh you can not bring a plus one unless you clear it with me first yeah yeah yeah especially if i'm in charge let me see who you're bringing all right yeah that's fine i feel like i'd go in the other room and play

my nintendo or something i think i couldn't do it i know yeah exactly that'd be it's not my thing a bunch of uh super smash brothers or something would be that that's the kind of orgy i'm up for yeah that's right and not you know we're not you know smash brothers orgy we're not trying to yuck anybody's yom do your thing but no no of course yeah if you like that sort of thing like if you If you like to gather around on a rotating circular bed in a place that ends with the name Ranch, it is what you can do. Have fun with that. Yeah, enjoy that. And there's two people in the audience who know exactly what I'm talking about.

Sure, sure. I mean, I know somebody's got this fantasy. All I'm saying is your upside-down pineapple is no good here, all right? carries no weight here has no purchase has no purchase there you go that's true is that still a thing by the way that the upside down pineapple means the neighbors are down to clown or whatever

that was the thing I don't know I remember we got into this with like there was a certain kind of garden gnome that you could have that did it or that showed it off or certain colored like large rocks around your garden but I think it's really just a matter of I don't know

is that is that a thing they got to have they got to have a symbol right good question is what's that they got to have a symbol they got to have something to say they can have a symbol but i mean it doesn't necessarily mean come one come all like you don't want to just put a you don't want to put a sign in your front yard that says free gumbo and then anybody who shows up you all of a sudden have to whip up some gumbo for them that's a good point so i don't know if you necessarily want to just say all right upside down like basically i'm going to put an upside down pineapple in my front yard and Let's just take whoever shows up. Yeah, dude, no, I think you're right about that.

But you know what it's like? It's like going to one of those Rodizio Grill Brazilian meat places, meat on a stick places. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, and you turn the pineapple back upright. Right. And it's like, nope, no more meat. Yes, yeah, I'm good. I don't need any more meat as far.

I have enough meat. That's good stuff. All right. Oh, yeah, there's a good point. Max Trobot makes the good point. move technologically past the need for these things you can you can do all this shit online that's how you find each other i wonder if there's an app probably an app probably a legit app that is disguised itself as a legitimate app but really it's all about just hooking up orgies yeah well i mean

there's already you know tinder is disguised as a legitimate app but it's really all about hooking up it really is right i wonder if there's an or is an orgy option on that thing i wonder if you can group like group chat kind of like instead of swipe left and slap swipe right it's select all press down long press for select yeah select all contact all meet me at the gym let's go

we're here we got stuff we got windy later we got all kinds of fun stuff here for your final episode before Christmas and New Year's and let's get things started with something I got in the mail from Brian I want to set the tone can I set the tone here let me do this I meant to do this before and I

forgot to do it. So I'm going to set the tone for this very important thing. If I can find it. Here we go. Okay, so I'm going to just play a little bit of this. And, uh, all right. So we just got like a nice...

Get ready to reset the timer, everybody. Yeah, get ready to reset the timer. Brian Abbott, for Christmas for me this year. I don't know how I ever top this, by the way. There's no way to do it. No, you can't. So you just give up. You just don't. He sent me this. Let's check this out. This right here, you may be familiar with Imperator Furiosa. She works from Immorten Joe for a time.

There's other things we don't know about her. We're about to learn as we see the new movie coming out. But he 3D printed this. And what is she? 10 inches or something? Something like that. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

10 inch replica beautifully printed. And you did that technique with the paint. What do you call it? Zenithal, zenithal painting where I paint the whole thing black. So, printed multiple pieces, right? Head, torso, legs, base, and then each arm was separate. Yeah. And so obviously, painted her mechanical arm, her metal arm separately, did that with all black and then a gunmetal gray over the top of it, because I love the way that those look.

Like, if you just do like a gray object and then paint it gun metal gray, it looks okay. Yeah. But if you do a black underneath it, it's like you get the highlights, the rest. Like it feels dirty, grungy, but like it's been through some stuff. Yeah. And then, so the rest of it, I actually took BluTac and put her head and her arm in their spots. Yeah. And then did the gray halo primer over the black.

Yeah. So that you get shadows on everything that has shadows. It looks amazing. Like somebody asked me on liking. going to paint that and like no this is like a it's like bronze that's the way you want it oh you know what i should have done though is i should have done the the black on her uh forehead oh like a little darker uh thing i could yeah that that could probably do that you could totally do that you know what that's probably a good that would be a good level of all right let me let me paint a model

really quick yeah that'd be easy too yeah wouldn't be hard um the thing i was going to mention and i talked about in pre-show uh the base they decided the the 3d modeler on this decided to do the base with a big Mad Max logo on it. I think he just says Fury Road on there it does. But it's on a tire. So she's standing on like this big beefy like industrial looking 20 inch tire. It's freaking awesome.

Crossfit tire. Like a tire that you flop around in a field and then tell everybody you do CrossFit. But it's full of like almost like it's cemented into the tire. Like they almost would have like I'm building lore around this freaking tire she's standing on. Like they use it for platforms on that.

Tires no good. All right. We'll take it over to the concrete man. Yeah. And he'll fill it with, with concrete. And while I was putting in the, I was super gluing in her joints for the, for the replacement arm and her real arm and her natural arm. And they went in no problem, but I was being so freaking careful. I was just like, okay, Scott, you better not screw this up.

Because this hand, the mechanical hand, that looks like a pain in the ass to print. Was it? No, no, no, really wasn't. Look at all the holes in it and the lines and the I mean it's like a lot of detail I guess is all I'm saying yeah when you do the the resin it's really just a matter of saying all right what's the best angle to put this on the plate so that you you don't need supports and there's not going to be any what's called suction so having the plate go down pick up some resin then go back up you don't want a flat surface parallel to the plate because it'll lift up all that resin and it'll probably say it's too much for me and fall back down in your resin vat and break the supports and say can't do it not going to do it sure okay that makes sense you know what give me five give me two seconds i'm gonna grab something all right all right cool he's probably got the part that cut off of it um i want them all is the problem listeners i want i want i want max i want immortal joe um i want dementis

from the new movie i want um nucks i would love a nux i was uh showing the d and d group this last weekend we had uh d and d and i was showing them a model that i was going to be printing um this is the first two pieces of said model and i'm holding oh galactus he doesn't have his little his little fins his little head things on this is this already is two pieces like oh my gosh wow that's all you going for a full-sized dude then like a big yeah and and in comparison Like, yeah, I think he's going to be as big, like scale-wise, I think pretty close to, uh, Iron Man size. Like, if I put his head next to the Iron Man behind me.

Yeah, the one you assembled, yeah. The one I assembled, that head is pretty close to the size of this one. So I think, uh, yeah, I think it's... Then you can make some small worlds for him to eat, you know? Uh, he comes with a little silver surfer, uh, that he's holding up in his palm. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Man, the 70s.

What a time. What a time for comic books. It's so weird. Jack Kirby, whatever he was smoking or ingesting or drinking, whatever it was, man, it was the best. Whatever he was put in that pipe, you never know. Those Kirby dots. Anyway, this is amazing.

I can't wait to complete my collection, you know? Yeah, good luck. That was the only one. I couldn't find, I mean, I was looking for a Furiosa, but I couldn't find a Mad Max or a Nux or anybody else. No Joe's. no Morton Joe No Morton Joe's If I could find a doof warrior

That would be the one I'd like to Oh yeah dude That'd be great The guitar guy hanging from his strings You could do that Exactly and then you could get one of those Hacksmith Oh man this is

I don't know why I didn't put this on my Christmas wish list But the hacksmith makes this great torch And you can use it You know like if you if you print something on the FDM printer And it's got a lot of strings on it like a lot of stringing from the printer going back and forth and not retracting all the goo as it goes back and forth. Right.

You get these really fine little strings, and you can get this torch from hacksmith.com that will help get rid of all those. You just basically go, and all those strings go just disappear. Ew, weird. That's satisfying. I like that. But this hacksmith torch,

this is probably something I wouldn't be surprised if Bill Duran has one of these. I just want one so bad. It's a, let me see if I've got, it's in the shop, here we go, hacksmith.store. Yeah, it's the first thing you see when you open up the store.

Oh, this is a YouTuber guy. Yeah. Oh, is it these mini-sabers? These are the torches? It's the mini-saber. It's the little lightsaber torch. Oh, these are badass. They are so incredible.

Look at that. I want that. And you can put little, little things on them to have colors. Yeah, the minisabre Gen 2. I don't know why I just don't break down and buy one of these.

What are these? What? Ooh, 100 bucks. Geez, Louises. 100 euros. Oh, I got a minisabre for 50. That's not bad. That's not bad. Yeah. That'll do your job that you're trying to do. It would easily do the job.

I think, you know, basically I will set the house on fire with us. Yeah, 85 bucks. Oh, the gold one is sold out. I like the white one, though. I really like that. Minisaber Gen 2 Light Edition.

99 bucks, but. So these are, these guys are YouTube successor people. Yeah, these are the guys who actually made the, a larger one of these. That works, right? A larger lightsaber. Yeah, that works.

That's why they're familiar to me. I was looking at that dude with a beard, and that's totally him. Frickin Hacksmith. I bet you, like you said, I'm sure Builder, and knows these guys. They definitely travel in the same circles.

Yeah, it seems like this guy in the front with the Tony Stark hand. Yeah. Did they make that work somehow? Like actually shoot a beam of something? I don't know if it shoots a beam, but check out the halo. Oh, my God, dude. This will blow your mind. All right.

Putting a link in our Discord. All right. It's funny because we weren't even going to talk about this, but. No, we were not. check out this halo weapon that basically is like four of those

oh it's the oh it's that sword called I know the name of this yeah it's called oh shit it's the one that you sword energy sword right you use it in multiplayer a lot

but sometimes when the single player the covenant I think has these that's where you get them they carry these that's cool so basically they use the same tech for those four nozzles

as they do for their one... With a one lightsaber. That's great. That's great. Totally burning down the house if I get one of the stuff. Oh, hell yeah. How are these guys not just

you know, why are they not just remains of their warehouse? I don't understand. Exactly. That's cool, man. All right. Well, there you go.

There's a look into... Put that on my birthday list if I don't just break down and buy one. Just cash in one of my sports books and say, you know what? I'm going to get one of these. Yeah.

See, that's what you have that around for. It's a little rainy day thing. Do that. That's right, exactly. All right. Moving on. I'm going to be staring at her all day. She's right here looking at me.

As long as she's staring back. She's looking right at me, but she's got a shotgun, so you've got to be careful. The cool thing is that shotgun is modeled exactly after the one they have all the tussle over when Max gets free. Yeah, when they stop and they're after the storm and they got a fight over it and trying to get his mask off and all that. All right. Moving on. Hey, I had a weird thing happen. So I went to, Kim and I went to get smothered burritos at this Mexican place we like yesterday.

Oh, that sounds so good. Oh, it's really good. It's so good. And I always get it with cheese and onions. And I just get the burrito because they do rice and beans and all that other stuff. But it's so much food. It's like, I don't want all that. And I can literally get the smothered burrito for like $5.50 or something that are cheap.

Just on its own, not as a plate. Do you want that as a plate or just the burrito? Just the burrito. and she always looks so shocked when I tell her that. Like, really, I don't want to eat on those beans, dude. Anyway, so Kim and I did the same thing. Both got the same thing. We love it.

We always go there to get these. So we're sitting there. We eat our food. We're talking. And then she comes by, anything else you need? We're like, nope. And she says, okay. And she goes, I can, you want your bill?

She says, yeah, so she gives her a bill. And Kim goes, here's my card. You can just take it now. And she goes, oh, thank you. Have a great night. And then ran off. Now I'm not used. I'm not used to that.

That made me worry I wasn't going to get my card back. They're going, hold on a minute. Did she mean to say, I'll be right back or, you know, what happened? Yeah. Do you think she was saying it jokingly like, all right, I've got your card. Have a great night. I don't know. I don't know.

It felt like she did it like when you say you got your friend on the phone and you accidentally say love you at the end, even though you're just used to doing it your wife or something. It felt like that, like she just said the wrong thing. and she had she spoke great English but she had you know very thick accent it's actually reassuring when I eat a place that is authentic and they have authentic people they're making it claiming it's authentic Mexican but anyway she she does she does all this and then we were then it was this game of like she let's see what she does she doing like is she on her

phone right now what's she doing yeah what is she doing over there and she eventually brought it back and everything was fine but for a hot second there I was just like she took our card and told us to go away. Anyway, that was the thing. We also got a note about, we got a note about Fargo from Craig T. in the UK. He sent this via Discord over to us

and says this. Hi, Scott and Brian. I'm here to give you a perspective on the Fargo scene. You talked about in TMS 2571. The scene between Marge and Mike, and hopefully this will give you some closure. I had never seen anything Fargo, but decided to give this new season ago and I was hooked.

I watched the film too, and I watched the film and I too was confused why that scene was there. We're talking about the one where she meets Mike in the, in the Radisson or whatever. The Radisson. Is it reasonable? Is it reasonable? And so he says, and I won't pass this off as mine. I listened to a podcast in it.

They did discuss this exact thing. They talked about a few theories, but the one that seems most plausible is when Margie finds out Mike lied, she is taken aback. That's true. we see she is a good detective earlier talking over the early deaths just as they happen yet this normal guy she thought of as a friend lied to her and she didn't catch it

that then leads her to re-evaluating who she is or sorry who she has talked to previously and how we see her going back to see Jerry who promptly runs off and eventually leads her to cracking the case. Hopefully that shuts some light on it for you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours. in the UK. I assume his last name is Nelson. So this is Craig T. Nelson. He lives in the UK now. Craig T. Nelson. Yeah, it's coach. That's nice to see you, Coach. Thanks for the message.

Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought of that. But I mean, that's fine, theory, right? That makes great sense, right? Like, basically, you know, she kind of stuck in the case. She talks to Mike, wow, if Mike could lie to me about that and keep a straight face, maybe Jerry Lundergard is doing the same thing. Yeah. And yeah. Yep. And then I think maybe she questions her instincts a little. bit because they're almost always right her instincts and her instincts in bed when she got that call at 1130 from mike was probably a sign of her not going with her gut which is just shut this down don't go talk to him i don't know you're making me think more about it uh Craig t nelson in the UK

so thanks for that and and how long before scout watches it again just uh probably sooner than you think i love that movie so much i have no problem watching it again um all right there's been some confusion as to how Timothy Shalame says his name. Sure. I remember I think, you know, for a while I thought it was Timite Chalamee. Mm-hmm. I like yours. Personally, I think yours is the bomb.

I like that one a lot. Yeah. It's a, it's not a T-I-M-O-T-H-Y. It's a T-I-M-O-T-H-E. Oh my gosh, that's loud. Yeah, I agree. And I've always thought that, I thought, I just always assumed Chalame or Shalame or, you know, something like that.

Shalemette, isn't it? We're finding out a Shalamette. This is according to Florence Pugh. Oh. And let's find out if she says Shalamette. This is her on that Graham Norton show. Oh, yeah. And here's how that went.

You'd met Timothy Shalameh before this, hadn't you? Oh, God. I'd met him about a year previous. And I loved his surname, Shalame. And every time I read it, I read it as Shalamala Bing Bong. And when I saw him at this event, someone was coming to introduce him. me, and I said in my head, I was like, Timothy Shalamala Bing Bong. As I was walking towards him, to the point where it's now become such a name in my family

that my grand met him last week. And after she came up, she was like, I met Timothy Shalamala Binghamaw. That's a pretty good little story. You know what I like about that? It reminds me that Graham Norton's audience is weird. And let me explain. Yes. Every other talk show, he's got, like, in that, you don't see it because I didn't show it on

the screen, but Tom Hanks is in that room, you know, like it's big shots in there. and his audience when they clap and laugh yeah and this is true of most most european like comedy shows like mostly uk but like british comedy shows like you know stage stage comedians uh when they're performing over there or any kind of like comedy performance and it feels like all the way back to the 70s all the way up till now the audience are this like water faucet where they go and then they stop yeah and then they stop do you know what i'm talking about it's Weird. Here's my theory on that, because I've noticed it too.

I think that there's, for editing or for the broadcast, there's somebody, like, they've got a separate microphone that picks up the audience, and they don't want the audience's noise to cover up what the guests might say. So I think there's somebody with a knob going, and that there's more laughter going in the audience, but this person with the knob goes, jeez, it turns up the sound and turns down the sound, you know. What I hope we get is some messages from our UK friends, because I would love to know if that's correct, because Brian, Brian might be right.

It does feel controlled. Like, it's, uh, it's not natural. It does. No, it, like, if people really, like, basically would be they sit there stoic until somebody says, so let's shout a matter of being bog. And then stop. And then stop. Yeah.

And then she says something else funny. Yeah. And stop. Exactly. Yeah. It's really funky. So some clarie. on that point, I would like, if somebody wants to.

I don't know if Zoe has the wherewithal to tell us, but if somebody over there knows, I think that's funky as hell. See, that would be good use for AI, right? Like, AI could say, oh, the audience has reached this threshold. I'm going to turn, I'm going to increase the volume on their gain, and then, or increase the gain on their mic, and then, I'll lower it because the person out on the stage is about to speak again or something. Yeah, and they're so used to it that I'm sure that if you did it,

a more natural sort of just let it breathe kind of way, they probably would, it'd be weird for them in the way that this is weird for us, right? Yeah, although they probably don't hear it like that in the studio. They hear, like if somebody laughs at something small that said earlier, it's kept in. And they hear it on stage because they're not getting the monitor from the main feet. Yeah, good point. Yeah, live experience is probably more like what I would expect if I saw something like that. But if you're at home and that's all you ever see,

This must just be the way you process stuff. I don't know. It's almost like having a laugh track. I don't know. It's weird. It's funky. I don't know. I don't know why you guys do it.

The whole thing is weird. Yeah. Go ahead, Britton. Do your thing. Be who you are. Hey, we heard from our friend, Gwen, up in Montana, Phoenix Pearl Tea. She wanted to respond to us about the Montana thing. Because when we were talking about deaths on the highway in on holidays, right?

Right. Thanksgiving being the most deadly holiday. And I said that, well, Montana doesn't have any speed limits. Well, we got corrected in Discord, and we got corrected here from Gwen. She says, hey, responding to yesterday's episode, Brian, period. Montana has speed limits. We have since 1999, federal mandate or, oh, since 1990, federal mandate, or we would have had our federal road funding removed. Oh, Lord. It's dangerous for holiday driving because the interstate speed limit is still 80 miles per hour.

It's always windy as hell. And Montana's will drive on any amount of ice because we think we can handle it. Come on, man. Come on, man. She ends with a little Biden there. Yeah, a little Biden ending. I like that. Oh, man.

Come on, man. You know, we think we can drive on that because we can handle it. We can handle it. Yeah, I get why Montanaans think that because they're Montana. They're big sky people, you know, they're raised in the mountains. They got, you know, long history of some wild west business. Like, I get it. I understand.

Hell, I've seen, I've seen Yellowstone. Those people are into it, you know? They are, yeah, rough and ready with that. It is funny, though, that you always see, like, these states that are like, don't tread on me, state's rights, brer, brer, they freak out about this stuff until there's some sweet federal money on the line. And then they're like, okay, you can give a speed limit. It's fine. You know, you can keep your freedom.

We're just going to pull your funding for your road construction project. Oh, nope, nope, okay. Put the signs in right now. Got five of them in already. Is that good? We good? Yeah, that sounds about right. Money coming?

Boy who cried, woofed, or I'm woofed in the chat room says, has Brian ever been an audience member of a late show taping? Seems the type. Of a late show like with Letterman? I would love to go see, yeah, like a Kimmel or Fal? or Colbert, definitely like any of those I would love it. Oh, it'll be fun, sure. More Kimmel and Colbert than Fallon.

I like Fallon, but I feel like he's, uh, I don't know. But for whatever reason, I like the sarcasticness more from Colbert and Kimmel. But no, the only time I've ever been to a live taping of anything was when I was, God, if we could probably figure out if we figured out when the Atari game Defender came for the 2600 because it was it was that time it was it was that weekend or that week or that christmas that um i know that summer that i went to california to hang out with my grandmother grandfather aunt and uncle who live out there oh wow and my aunt worked for dick clark at the time so i got to watch live tapings of american bandstand that is the only time i've ever been

part of a studio audience that's great though that's perfect it was music related i love that It was. Yeah, exactly. And I got to see, like, there is a specific cameraman, specific dude behind the camera who was known for getting those weird up-the-croach shots of the dancers. Like, that was his, his ammo. That was his thing. That was his whole gig.

Wow. His whole gig. And they knew he did it. I mean, they asked him to keep doing it, and he just kept doing it. But there was a, yeah. I'm trying to find the date on this. There's lots of places you can play the $2,600. version of the game, but nowhere says the date

it came out. I was trying to date you. Yeah, I can't find it. Is this it? Oh, uh, 1980. It came out. 1980. Okay, so I was a 10, 10 years older turning 11 that summer. Wow. No, that can't be right. 80? That's what this says. That's when the actual arcade game

came out, right? Well, let's see. Defender console Atari 2600 released by Williams Electronics 1980 it says I mean I don't know this is one website I'm not sure if this is correct Does it came out

released for arcades in 1981 It has the Oh it'd have to be later then Right Well wait a minute then How's that possible? Oh okay okay I'll see

55000 units Here we go This should not be this hard to find It really shouldn't No Exactly. Let's see. Where's 2,600 on this page? Okay, 81, it comes out in arcades. So how the hell do they have 80 in here? Yeah, exactly. The 1982 Atari 2,600 version was one of the best-selling games.

There you go. The system with over 3 million cartridges sold. There you go. So 82, so I was 12, and I got to see... That's cool. Got to see Christopher Atkins from Blue Lagoon. Got to see Richard Simmons, and we put our hands up to each other to see that, At 12, his hands were about the same size as mine.

Whoa. You got to touch hands with Richard Simmons. I touched hands with Richard Simmons. Yeah, because for whatever reason, Richard Simmons had an album called Reach. Really? It feels like this is a stick-up reach. Yeah. That's weird.

Yeah. I don't remember that at all. He was doing music? I don't remember that. But best of all, and I talked to him for a second, but I still got to tell him that I was a big fan. Ron and Russell Males. from Sparks were there for that as well. I didn't stick around for their performance,

but I was there for them coming in and me getting to say, oh my God, I'm a big fan of you guys. Bye. That's great. We gotta go. That's great. Closest I ever got to this

is when I was 17 and went to Chicago for my senior trip with my friend Bill. We were going that week because we knew Letterman was doing a traveling late night. And he was in Chicago. At the theater, I think Oprah used or something.

Okay. And our goal was, we figured since we were, you know, there's no way he and I were getting to New York, if we went to Chicago, we might be able to get tickets during that week special he did. And now they do that. They travel to L.A. or something. And they did that for a week in Chicago. And it was so we tried every day, never could get tickets. It was impossible.

It was probably like a lottery system where you just got to, you know, hope that your number gets called basically to get to be able to buy tickets. Something like that. It was awful. It was awful trying to do because we were so upset on it And we loved our time there We had a great time in Chicago We was just like

Are we gonna get in there And no We went to second city I got you know Richard Kine spit on me All that was good Oh that was that trip Is when Richard Kine spit on you

Yeah I got a little excess spit From Richard Kind all over me Yeah If you guys Who that is Go look him up He's amazing

Hey Margie You got a little Richard Kank down here Brian says you You have a little Quick and mental For us What else did you see Because it's going to be two weeks before we get to another recommendal episode, another Wednesday.

And this was one I was thinking about using yesterday, if I wouldn't have used, leave the world behind. And, you know, I like, with an asterisk, I tend to like reality competition shows. Not reality shows, full. Don't ever put any housewives below decks selling Beverly Hills or whatever the thing is. or a vander pump. Don't ever put any of those things in front of me and I'm out. Yeah, forget it.

But I do like reality competition. I like Survivor. I like Amazing Race. Those always felt like they were way more about the experience and the challenges than making the people look like, oh, that person really hates them. And we're going to make them,

you know, we're going to edit it to make them look like they really hate them. Yeah, yeah. You know, examples of that. You said Amazing Race, but like, you know, British Bakeoff, stuff like that, yeah. Easily one of my favorites. And it's funny because my Quicamental, you wouldn't expect it to be like British Bakeoff, but it is.

And it is a Netflix series called The Devil's Plan. And this is a Korean game show. Okay. At first I thought, all right, well, it's basically going to be kind of like a squid game kind of thing. Sure, sure. They basically grab 12 people, 12 very intelligent Korean, like celebrities, presenters, YouTubers, presenters, things like that. And they put them in this house and have them compete to win, you know,

get eliminated, removed from the house, et cetera. The thing about reality competition shows outside the U.S., at least the ones I've seen. British Bakeoff, great example of this. The first thing they think about is, all right, how can we do this so that we all win?

Like, that's one of the first things they say on this devil's plan when they're all kind of alone because there's no camera people in the house. It's all cameras from windows. Oh, so it's like,

so it's like a GoPro parked everywhere. Kind of very big brother in that, in that way. Okay. And they're like, all right, is there a way that we can do this

so that we all win? Like, how do we do it so nobody gets eliminated? Wow. Whereas the first thing you did here, Any American competition reality show is like, all right, I'm going to be gunning for Bill, because I see Bill as a strong competitor. I want to take him out quickly. Yeah.

But whatever. Even the ones where there's a strategy to get together like Survivor occasionally, you know, parts of the stretches that alliances are big, right? But they're never going to last and you're always going to get screwed and you want to be the one screwing everybody. So even then, you still end up in that place. That's interesting. I mean, did it work for them? I guess I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. I mean, they still ended up having, people still ended up getting eliminated.

But the thing that I loved about this show were the incredibly thought out challenges and competitions. There's one that's kind of similar to a one-night werewolf where, you know, you've got a virus and you've got virologists and a spy and a, you know, in civilians. And basically nobody can say, tell other people who they are, but they've got to like figure out. how to work together to stop this virus from threading. Oh, wow. That one's really clever. But there were later ones in the series that were absolutely brilliant. And I'm like, all right, how can I use, how can I modify this for a TMS Vegas?

Because this feels like it could be a really cool thing to do with a TMS Vegas. Yeah, you want to get Brian, I mean, this is Brian's milk and milk and butter here. Yeah, yeah. Like, you want to get them stoked about it. It's doing great ideas from foreign reality show. form reality competitions like taskmaster and stuff like that. Yeah, I love it. Anyway.

It's good though, I should watch it. It's really good. And, God, there's just, you know, the people on there, they're really good people. It's like impossible not to root for all of these people. And they, just the Korean way of, like, consoling somebody when they're crying, somebody's getting eliminated and like, oh, I really like this person. I really am sad to see them go. And so they put their arms around each other. but then they like like really rapidly tap their backs like oh weird like they're hugging and it's like

you know who does that my sister-in-law Okina does that my Korean sister-in-law I was wondering if I was gonna ask you if that's something that you've seen in your family my brother my sisters don't because they've been here too long they're too Americanized but my my sister-in-law she does that exact thing and I've never questioned it or asked but now now I think maybe you've given me a little connection there because I didn't know that was maybe a cultural thing it's a cultural thing yeah she does it she'll hug me at a at a Christmas thing or whatever and just go yeah and just pat like she's like she's genderizing you basically yeah and I'll go oh that feels good that feels good I'll tease her a little bit about it right because I'm just like I'm getting massage

that's awesome and she just kind of goes she kind of pushes me away and walks away but that's that's very interesting is this thing in English is it all subtitles what do we got it's all subtitles you can it's dubbed as well I watch the subtitle one And the, you know, the interactions between them, oh, this, God, there's another aspect of this that made me gasp, like, when one of the players figured it out. But it's almost like they're in an escape room at times. And they're given some, you know, they're given these coins, that they're pieces, whatever they're called.

And they're basically, when you run out of pieces, you're out of the game. And you win pieces in these competitions, you lose pieces. These people, I swear to God, again, nothing you'd ever see. an American reality competition. These guys are like, oh, you're really low on pieces. You're in danger of going, here. Take some of my pieces. Like, what?

What does this happen? Weird. Weird. But one person figured out why the pieces look the way they do. And again, it's like, holy crap, that is brilliant. Like, why they're the shape that they are. There's a kind of a game within a game. that they figure out, and

it's really, really good. I'd say, yeah. I'd say you're fine listening to it watching with dubbed. At least it'll be more, it'll be easier to understand the rules of all the games because they do get a little complicated. Sure.

But they have nice little animated TED Talk presentations that explain how each game is played that they set up there and watch. All right, player one, we'll hold, man, people think that the scoring on half asses on Mondays is complicated.

You should watch some of these because once they explain, it's like, I think I get it. Once you see it getting plays, like, oh, that makes total sense. But it's during that explainer phase, it's like, wow, how does this damn thing work? Well, I guess we'll find out in April and May how much inspiration. Exactly, if I'm able to rip off one of those and turn it into a really fun icebreaker with all of the tadpullers that show up. If I can do it, I'll do it. I believe in you. I do.

yeah yeah uh all right well that's all good lots of pre-show or lots of top of the show stuff everybody but don't worry we got a little time for this it's time for the news brought to you by brought to you by want to help a sweet little girl with scoliosis the daughter of some very cool tadpuller parents good news then because you know you do because if you do go to bit dot lee slash help Ricky's spine, that's H-E-L-R-I-K-S-S-P-K-I-S-P-I-N-E, you can make a real difference. Again, that's bit.

Dot Lee slash help Ricky's Spine. And I'll put a link in the chat and maybe I'll put it over in the Discord channel of the, what should we call it? Discord. T-M-S-Chatter. Yeah, Chatter. It's called T-M-S-Chatter.

Yeah, there it is. Yeah, go check that out, you guys. She's a total sweetheart. He's been putting some pictures up there too so you can see kind of her cast and how they have to they had to do a new cast for or something. It sounds like the way braces work over time.

Like if you, when they're young enough and you put this stuff on and then you get some adjustment and then you change the cast so that it's just like you go get your braces done or changed or altered or whatever. It's like that kind of like fusing,

helping the bones fuse or grow the right way or that sort of thing. Yeah. She just looks like the coolest little kid. I got a big soft spot for that, so go help them out. They could use it. All right, let's move on to, oh, look at this. Thousands have descended

on New York City for the annual Santa themed bar crawl. I didn't realize that New York City had one of these. The one I read about Chuck Polanik wrote a short story where he joined the Portland Bad Santas, and they run around in Santa

costumes, going from bar to bar, and then they've got squirt guns or squirt bottles filled with vodka or gin or something, they squirt into each other's mouths. Wow. Talk about your orgy. It's fascinating. You're a little Santa Orgy. Santa Orgy. Well, anyway, throngs of people, I almost read that as thongs, but I didn't.

Dressed as jolly old St. Nick descended on New York City in the annual Santa Con charity pub crawl, the booze-filled stroll, which included no shortage of Grinch's, elves, the Christmas themed costumes kicked off at 10 a.m. in the bars and clubs in Midtown Manhattan. They were expected to make their way downtown where the festivities would end at 8 p.m. In a local set of watering holes in the East Village, the organizers encouraged participants to donate 15 bucks to enter participating venues, which they say would go to charitable causes. In the years past, I swear there was stories about brawls breaking out and like Santa's fighting each other in the streets. I hope that didn't happen this time.

Oh, no kidding. Should probably be okay. Everyone be okay. I mean, the more of these people drink and the more, you know, you just hope that they, um, that they don't overdo it and become belligerent Santas. Yeah,

because no kid wants to see that, you know? No, no. No kids should be up at 4 in the morning watching Santa's fight anyway, but still. Well, that's true. What are you doing, kid? Go to bed. Uh, here's a fun story. You know, the,

if you have a bronze statue, just like, you know, this 3D, this amazing 3D printed statue of Furiosa that's now next to me over here and guarding me, uh, as the show goes on. They're often separate pieces. They're not always one solid piece. And that's also true, traditional bronze stuff.

Well, in the case of Abraham Lincoln, a statue of him in Kentucky, somebody took the hat. Really? So like the sculptor didn't just make the hat and the head one piece? I would think you would weld it if it's metal. I would think, yeah, I think exactly.

Right. Like there would be no Abraham Lincoln's head right within the hat right if you remove the hat you've got an empty uh chocolate bunny chocolate easter bunny looking cut off the top of abraham leekins head all hollow inside i'm trying to see if their facebook post actually includes a photo yeah i'm missing it i'm gonna see if uh yeah oh yeah there it is uh yeah you know what i think i think they did model his head really and then the hat was on top of it this is like that sword my brother-in-law Steve made for um made for uh um my

daughter's school they had a thor's hammer and then yeah the handle in it you you couldn't lift thor's hammer that's the idea right it's too heavy it's you can't have to be worthy but the handle if you if you jerked it around enough people figured out a way to pull it out of there and um and that pissed everybody off Steve had to come up with a trick to make it not move but you know they're just separate parts so I guess I guess I guess I Yes, this could make sense. Oh, well, I'm looking, hold on a sick because, uh, no. So it wasn't on his head.

It was on that platform behind, behind him to the right of him. Oh, it's sitting by his books. By his books. There was a top hat there. And so they prided off that rock and, okay. Okay, that makes more sense. Um, that makes sense. Okay.

Well, what happened is they took the damn thing. Uh, the sculptor, Ed Hamilton posted photos of his artwork on water fork, uh, water fork park. On Facebook on Saturday. They said somebody stole the hat. They had to be strong and determined to pry the bronze from the base. Good grief, he says. He's a real Charlie Brown kind of guy. Good grief.

Yeah. Let's see. Oh, yeah. It even says in the description here. The top hat was rested on a rock beside the former president who was born in rural Kentucky. Park officials are reviewing video recordings to see if they can spot any suspicious activity so they can get the hat back. Dude, yeah. I think you stole the guy's hat.

I think he took eight. Yeah, what a, what a crappy thing to do. Yeah, that's a shitty thing to do. Don't be doing that. Be nice to stuff that's in public spaces. Exactly. If you want to go, go find the Lucille Ball bronze statue that got replaced. Find the original one that looks horrible.

Do something to that one if you need to. Yeah. Didn't they redo that? They redid it, right? They redid it. It looks so much better. Yeah. But the one that she looked like a freaking gremlin.

It was weird. before they uh that was so weird who i like who approved it oh yeah here it is chat you can see this this is amazing if you've never seen it we probably talked about it here before you did talk about it yeah on the show the new one she looks great that looks like her nice nice work this old one's like i'm going to eat your children that is not her at all it doesn't look a thing like her no it's horrendous it's so bad and you know whatever they fixed it yeah yeah also what was she Oh, she had a spoon? She had the Vitamidiavegifin, or Vitamita Vegea...

Oh, okay. Vitamita Veggimen. And the one they replaced her with is just her stand and holding her dress with a hand on her hip. So they get rid of that part. She just smiled and gave me a Vitamina Veggimen sandwich. Wow. Look at that. Look at the combo.

Oh, they're so bad. It's so bad. It's really, really bad. Was it Lionel Messi who had the other really bad bruns? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, part of me feels for the artist a little because it sounds like he got in over his head a little and, you know, just couldn't pull it off. But for one, for some reason, her old statue before they fixed it, they gave her Polly Walnuts hair. Like, it's got shock of gray on the side.

Yes, right. That's funky, man. Anyway, let's move on to this story. Air Jordans that were made for Spike Lee, you know the filmmaker Spike Lee. It's a Spike Lee. joint when you watch his movies. Anyway, we're donated to an Oregon shelter and auctioned for $51,000.

Those are expensive shoes. Good Lord. Oh, no kidding. Aaron Holcomb, couldn't believe it. The sale prize kept jumping for the rare gold Nike Air Jordan 3s that were in honestly dropped at the donation shoot of this shelter that he works at in Portland. They found out later that they were a custom pair made for filmmaker Spike Lee, ultimately sold for 50,000

500, more than double the high end of the predicted sales sale price. All proceeds go to the Portland Rescue Mission. Let's see here. We couldn't believe it, he said. The generosity of this moment has been a huge celebration. I wonder if it was just him and he just didn't say anything. I don't know.

Could be. Because it doesn't say. No, but I mean he's not in Oregon. He would have had to, I guess he could have sent it to somebody in Oregon and said put these in the donation box or there. There are airplanes. He could have flown there. Sure. Yeah. But still. imagine having 51 grand you could just throw at a pair of old shoes you know i'm glad it goes to charity but i want to know more about the guy who bought these damn shoes like who does that sort of thing you got to have money to burn oh yeah uh well good job everybody and involved in that deal there let's go to Denver all right oh Denver we're not going to the local headlines yeah we're not going to talk about you know supreme court rulings or potential people on the ballot not on the ballot not on the ballot

none of that but we will talk about your zoo of course i'm gonna appeal this i'm gonna get away don't they tried to shut me down in colorado you know it's great is there's a bunch old stuff where when he was running in 2016 or 15 during the campaign anyway against all those guys and ted cruz and him were like hated each other now they're like licking each other's but anyway yeah yeah but back then uh he had said he was he worked really hard or tried really hard to get Ted Cruz off the ballot in Ohio and there's all this like public stuff that he put out about how they had every right the state had every right to remove him from the ballot and he had all the stuff so of course that's coming back to bite everybody in the house of course it's like

yeah there's so much of that like well no no this this this oh really because you said the opposite here's all that video you're the recording of you doing it yeah yeah states rights wait, that's not in my favor? No state's rights. I mean, people could do the same thing with us, right? Oh, sure. You know, Brian, on episode, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I do it all the time. Watch another Korean reality show.

And here you are, like, raving about this one. Which is it, Brian? Yeah, we do this stuff all the time. I contradicts show all the time. I don't know Margo. I don't know Margo. He's trying to make that, put that Bose system back together for some reason after a guy hit by a tree.

Yeah, Bose, it was the sliding, what is that? Not Harmon Cardin. It's a, is it Bose? It was, whoever had the, like, Yeah. The little. Like the sliding plates that would open up to. Yeah, you'd pull them out and you put it, you put discs in it.

What else did it do? Just, I guess it was just fan. I think. No, not Haberker Schlimmer, that's a store. But it was, it was a two-word name, if I remember. Yeah, I don't remember. I always think Bose, but I don't think it's Bose. Bose had a lot of that weird shit, though, back then.

Yeah. They still kind of do. Well, let's go to the Denver Zoo while we find that. The Denver Zoo didn't know who the father of a baby orangutan was, so they called in Mari Povich to deliver the paternity test results. This is true. Really? Yep. Mori Povich, who is famous for that.

Bang and Olifson. Thank you. Bang and Olifson. All right. There you go. Those are expensive or were. Those are super expensive, yeah. The paternity of a baby orangutan in the Denver Zoo was a mystery to the staff.

So they went to the best expert they could find, and that's Mori Popovich, who often went on television and revealed people's paternity test. But he's not the expert, is the problem. He's the host. He doesn't perform the DNA test, like, conduct them in his office. He has people do that. It's like, oh, we need an economist. I know. Let's get Drew Carey, because he knows the prices of everything.

You know what this is like? This is like having. it's like inviting Bill Murray to do the Punxatani Phil thing or it's like having Exactly it's a little right exactly Yeah or I can't think of another one It's like that's a good

That one's a good example It's like You know oh I know it's like Let's say it's the same zoo You're opening up a reptile snake zone And you have Harrison Ford come and go Why did it have to be snakes And then cut the ribbon

Everybody applauds and applauds And it's like okay Yeah that's the whole idea here I think So they had him come out and do it um let's see uh ciska is an orangutan is four months old it was unclear for father was the 30 year old barani or the 16 year old jia jesus controversial um robin the orangutan cradle by the way yeah kudos to cbs news for i think being the first story that says uh the zoo said on x and doesn't say the zoo said on x comma formerly twitter yeah

that's true maybe some people are trying to make it make it a thing. I can't do it, though. It's just Twitter. I can't do it. It's still Twitter. I can't call it X. It sucks. Like I hear Tom, Tom's the only person who can call it X. Tom does it on DT&S just to, I know because Tom's a consummate professional. And of course, you do that. But I hear it and I just go, that's not the website. That's, that website's called Twitter. I don't know what's wrong with you, people. And he also, they send emails all the time. I get emails in the social tab from, from Twitter slash X that says, here's a something here's what you missed on X and then in parentheses formally Twittered like they're still telling me that it's annoying all right we're going to take a break when we come back my sister Wendy will be here we promised last week that we were going to do this we're going to talk about dealing with holiday stressors and how you can best navigate the next couple of weeks with you and yours so stick around for that Brian will probably probably have a song to play between now and then probably yeah we're going to Chicago speaking of Chicago for this one the

veteran electro metal outfit Ricketts, R-I-K-E-T-S. There's no C in there. Don't type it with a C when you're searching for this. They have a brand-new music video on a single for their song, Infected and Controlled. The Second Single from their highly anticipated EP, Tales for the Construct Alpha. This is great. Like, electro-metal. Who knew that I'd like electro-metal so much, but I really, really dig this.

This album is going to be released in spring of 2024 via God-Size record. records, an imprint of Art is War Records. And these guys have been around since 2004. They're amazing. The band is called Ricketts. Here is Infected and Controlled. You don't know what it's like, so stick the needle in further. Break the hole deeper as I clench out of this wool.

She has me feeling some type of way. I commute for only for you. Don't try and save me. I am infected and control. They're out to break me. I am infected and control. So easy it seems to feel infected and clean. Wash away the clown and you'll see. This is not a try This is reality

This is what it's like Don't try Don't try and save me I am infected and control They're out to break me I am infected Control Control

Control So, you know, I'm Don't try to save me. Don't try to save me. I am infected and controlled. They're out to brain.

I am inflecting and controlled What a beautiful What a beautiful Christmas this is going to be With Timex Quartz you have gift-giving ideas from the most elegant to the most athletic. Merry Christmas, everyone, from TimeX. What's the world coming to is all I'm saying? And we're back. Hey, who is that one more time? That is a band called Ricketts from their upcoming album coming out early 2024. That's the

single infected and controlled sounds lovely uh excellent let's all be controlled and infected by the presence of my sister i'll explain the situation to wendy don't worry there's a reference to a song we just heard hi wendy welcome back to the program how are you hello wendy she's probably on that mic thing again oh there you are hello hello hi hi hi yeah yeah we can hear you know what it is is my phone picks up every dang time, and I need to throw it in the other room. Yeah, just throw that room in the, or the phone in the other room. Throw it.

The Christmas ringing was so cute. Oh, yeah, Discord. I guess Discord has it as well. That's the only person who hasn't heard it because it's all muted for him, but you and I hear this and we love it. It's like, beep, beep, beep, beep, pique, pique, pique. It's so nice. They did it for Halloween, too.

Yeah, that's cool. That's great. Did it put you in the additional mood for the holiday season that we're in the thick of here? 100%. No. But today, I got some, I'm telling you, last week what we said, hey, we could talk about how to handle the holidays, blah, blah, blah. And then I spent 100% of 40 sessions helping people navigate Christmas, yeah. So these are all people who are like, oh, my God, my family's coming to town.

How do I do with us? How do I? And or marriages where it is very, very unequal when it comes to creating Christmas magic. or mother, daughter, adult children dynamics, or someone has cancer and how to, you know, I mean, I'm telling you, it was, I was like, I joked with someone. I'm like, do you have some Christmas stuff we have to talk about? And they're like, I don't think so. By the end, it was just all trauma around Christmas. I'm like, oh, do you remember when, do you remember when we were little, it felt like every year dad would use the word pagan at like 50 times a day during Christmas?

Do you remember that? Yeah, pagan all the time. pagan. It's so pagan. This whole thing is so pagan now. I'm like, Dad, what are you talking about? Well, that tree there. That's all, that's pagan. These big gifts we're all doing. This commercial stuff is all pagan. It's all pagan. He just keeps saying pagan. He'd love saying it. I don't know what the deal was. I think he was grouchy that he had more required of him than he had energy to give. And then I also think this, the other day, a client was like, I can't, I can't be on social media anymore. I'm like, why? He's like, I'm barely holding on. And I just saw that the new cool thing is to wrap your gifts in some Japanese beautiful fabric and tie it in this technical way. I'm like, what are you saying? Don't do that. And really, it's just like more and more. And I thought, my first thought was dad, who would wrap stuff in sheets.

Yeah. That's where I learned it. They're recyclable, which is great. Yeah, you're going to use them later. When you're done, exactly. Back on the bud when you're done. You put him back on the twin bed that you stole it from, sure. It was a fitted sheet that probably had a stand on it and not Japanese beautiful painted fabric.

Oh, God, really? Oh, geez. Yeah, if something was really, especially if it was big, because he, you know, he would do the bigger gifts on Christmas for the kids. They would always be wrapped in a sheet. And often those same sheets were the ones he'd throw over the TV if a sex scene came on and while we're all watching a movie. So whatever it takes, the memories are good. Anyway, we're going to talk about those things today. Where do you want to start?

We don't really have an email to kick us off, but I know a lot of people relate. Oh, I have so much in my head. Yeah, good. Okay, well, I'm actually going to ask you guys to give us the platform to go from. So I want you just kind of guess. Brian, you already started this a little bit. Guess what are the most common hangups for people around the holidays? Just like imagine.

It could be something you have. to be related to family or not. But just like, what are the things that are triggering? So not just, oh, my God, my family. Yeah, could be. They're going to bring up all of the same things that they always bring up and I don't know how to deal with it. What else?

Let's see. God, just being pulled in every different direction. That's what I feel like I'm going through right now is like, oh, we've got to do this on Saturday. And then we're going over this family on Sunday. And then we've got this other thing Monday. And it's like, can I, can I just have a day where I, sit at home in my pajamas play

Spider-Man or Mario or something. Yeah, that stuff I really want to do around Christmas, can I do that? Yeah, but so getting pulled in too many different directions? Does that, does that, is that a hang? That's a good one. That's a good one. So let me ask you real quick, who's pulling you on all these different

directions? Tina. You mean, you mean, the president of magic? That's the one. Right. You know, it's really just, we know we need to see all these people. We know we need to get together with everybody. It's just it feels

like the thing that we love about the holidays is also the thing that causes the most stress, which is, yay, we get to see everybody and get together and have some warm joy and hot cocoa and blah, blah, blah. But then it's also

like, okay, well, that's Saturday. Then we got this thing Friday night. Oh, we have this thing Sunday. And then we got this other thing Monday on Christmas and blah, blah, blah. And Yeah, it's just, it just feels, you know, it's a double-inch sword. We love, we love the one side of it, but get cut by the other side. Okay. So I'm going to, we're going to stick with your example, and then we can elaborate it for, like, other situations.

But I've been doing this with everyone this past week, and it's been really enlightening for folks, is, as I want you to start with the end in mind, what is the feeling you. want to have Christmas night after all of the jolly making is over and the things are done. And, you know, let's all acknowledge that Christmas is a, you know, celebrated in a lot of different places for many people that are like, yeah, whatever, but your own personal experience of that holiday, what do you want to feel at the end of the end of it? What would it, what will it feel like? It'll feel like serene. it'll feel I'll feel satiated by getting to spend time with family but but also feel like you know

get to just have some some time hanging out with just Tina where it's just the two of us and the Christmas tree and the cats and all that sort of thing okay uh love it but then I'll feel like you know I'll feel like I would have put in my time with my you also please the president of magic okay so we have a we have a we have a like Like, that's the dream, who doesn't want to feel that at the end of all of this work. I don't want to be a person who wouldn't be excited by any of that stuff. Right, exactly. And Americans literally just, like, have their normal full-time jobs.

Then they add a 20-hour-a-week job on top of it for six weeks. And that is how you get magic by one day, right? Like, it is a stressful thing. But I think most often what we're doing is we're looking at it going forward. Like, I need all these presents and all this stuff done before that day. and we often don't think, how do I want to feel on that day, now work backwards. So let's work backwards. I know it's only four days away, but work backwards.

What needs to be part of the recipe for the next four days for you to feel serene on Christmas night? Oh, geez. Okay. And that's an add in or a takeout. It could be either one. Yeah, it's a schedule. Like basically having an agreed upon. let's try and be out of there by 930 so we can have some time back at home.

You know, basically just like an agreed upon not so early that people feel like, oh my God, he was just barely here, but more like a, yeah, things are starting to wrap up. You know, Tina are going to head home and we're going to just kind of hang out. And, you know, we don't even say that. We'll just say, oh, we're tired. I think we're going to head home. Yeah, you just want to have a plan. I get that.

Just have a plan. Have a, like, when I look over at you and I give the nod, that's our, that's our time to, like, start, start. Yes. Okay. Getting out of there. Yeah. So what has to happen for that to happen? Oh, T and I need to agree on a signal.

We need to agree on a time and what we're, what the plan is. But we kind of also need, we need things to progress at those events in a way. that we're not leaving in the middle of ham being cut off the, you know, the honey-baked ham. Right. We basically, but obviously I'm not going to say, hey, can we get a move on? Can we pick this up? We're burning daylight here, people. Come on.

Yeah. Right. So maybe you have three levels. One is the ideal. The other is the likely. And then one is the pull the rip cord. We've got to go time or something. Yeah.

Okay. So notice what we did is matches one facet, right? We've made it to DefCon, too. We are out. We are leaving. We're not even going to say goodbye to people. No hugs. We're just out the door.

It's called the Irish goodbye. But so when you do this and you think to what you're working backwards, you instantly could come up with, oh, staying late and having that drag on affects a lot of different things that don't feel good. So the plan is let's have a plan to get out of there, right? The other thing being you mentioned cats, Christmas tree, Tina time. that calm, like, when is that built in? Do you have that planned? No, no, we need to work backwards from there too.

And Tim and I need to agree upon like, hey, what do you say, you know, just the two of us starting at about 9, 9.30 and we just kind of, we hang out on the couch, fireplace. We'll put that Hannah Waddingham Christmas special with her, you know, giant smile and singing in front of us and we just hang out. Maybe some. Perfect. Perfect. Right. Yes, that's exactly it. Now, if you didn't have that plan, you would probably be too tired or not put it in. And then Christmas night, you're just exhausted.

We exactly. We come home from one of these things. We're like, oh, yeah. Let's go this another time. Let's just go to sleep. Yes. So people can do this. And I know we're a little late on this part, but like people can do this with, what do you want Christmas morning to feel like? Sure. And the letdown of consumerism is real. And so you buy all this stuff. And everyone, I'm would say, and you feel crappy. So, okay, if I don't want to feel that, what do I need to do working backwards? Well, what if we, the Christmas present is an experience we all have, and that's where the money goes? Or what if we, you know, help another family in need, and that's the feeling we want and we, but you have to work backwards from what the outcome you're hoping for in order to do that. So a lot of families will have, you know, we're going to go to family dinner and Uncle John

is going to say, well, you know, Biden is just a body double. Right, exactly. Have you noticed that Taylor never parts her hair in the same place? What's up on that? Weird. And you need an answer for that. So you might say, what's the feeling you want a family Christmas dinner? And that's not to be cornered by Uncle John and listen to his conspiracy theory.

So you need a code. You need a friend. You need a thing. And this is the one I've been recommending left and right. And people are loving this is. Add an alarm on your phone for every two hours. And the alarm needs to sound like a phone ringing. Oh, really?

So an audible, not just like a little tip on the wrist. Yes. An audible. So you can just mute it if you're feeling good. If you're not feeling good, it's a call you've got to take. God, I feel like this. This is actually good for entire life. Like basically.

It is. It is an alarm that goes off every two hours. That you can use over and over and over again. And especially when people are, I'm working on not being so agist. I have issues, we all do. But especially an older generation who has lived their life by answering phones. That is so normal for them to be interrupted because a phone is ringing and for them to interrupt people because a phone is ringing.

That's why it's not a text because they don't respect that, but they will respect a phone. So if you say, oh, it's a work thing, I got to go. or, oh, well, finally a friend from my childhood's calling me back. You can just lie, everyone. I'm giving you permission. But you just walk away, and here's the most important part. A phone call has no limit in how long it needs to take. So you go into another room, you find the laundry room, you just sit there on the washer,

and you play on your phone, you take a deep breath. Whatever it is to, whatever it is to de-res. Exactly. It's kind of perfect because this. is the holiday where you will get a text message or a call from somebody you haven't heard from like, oh my gosh, hold on. There's a friend from college that's texting or calling me right now. Let me just grab this. I'll go outside and grab this. Yes. And then you have a designated place. This is also where you find the cousin who brought the gummies. Whatever. You've got to have your

like, you have to have your strategies, but you have to, you do it by going backwards. Wendy, I'm the cousin that brings the gummies. Everyone find Brian. You're that guy. I'm the shed. In fact, no, if only. Anyway, so that's an example of, like, pre-planning so you get the outcome you want. And what's fun is that people can start to just, like, feel like the game of it, as opposed to being the victim of the situation. But really, and the main point here is in any kind of stress. This is theoretically good stress where you're like, oh, we're planning fun stuff, right?

So then we feel bad, like, oh, I shouldn't feel so grumpy. You know, well, it's because you're sleep deprived. You haven't eaten healthy food at all. Like you just, some of the basic stuff you would take care of, you're not. And so I like to have people walk through, what does feeling good look like? And then how do you actually do it? And nine times out of 10, it's resting at some point, right? It totally is.

It's such a great exercise. I never even think about this, but you always, I always think about what's the process, what's the process? And I never think about, all right, what's the end? result, the desired end result, and then work backwards from that. Right. And again, these are not like, okay, we want to, you know, you're not going to overshoot. Like, please don't overshoot because you're just like, I want the happiest, blissful,

but if most people are just honest, they say what you said, which is I'd like some serenity. I'd like some calm. Because none of us actually really think we're going to get, you know, all the balloon drops, amazing, whatever. We just don't want to pass out and miss whatever. whatever it might be. So, but if you're real honest and just sort of say it and then get your partner or whoever in cahoots with you, it can be really helpful.

Like, if you don't tell Tina that this matters to you and then plan it, she's going to be like, well, we got to say because the ham has just come out of the other. Exactly. When it's 10.30 at night and you're like, and no, I can't, I can't do that. Ryan, we're about to serve pie. Right. We can't leave now. Yeah, so you got to get her on your team.

Okay. I know we've talked about this before, but that Christmas. dinner scene in the bear? Oh, yeah. Oh, God, yes. Jamie Lee Curtis. Best. It's amazing.

Throw the fork. Throw the fork. It is the craziest thing I've ever seen. And it should come with the trigger warning because I've had a few people who are like, that is my family. But if we think about that as the opposite of how you want something to end, right? You don't want your mother to drive her car through the living room or door. No, no, no.

Right? But if you work back from that, you can see. see every step of the way how years of dysfunction and communication patterns and every single bit of Christmas weight and food on the mother who's in there smoking a storm while she's cooking and drunk as heavens. It's so funny and terrible, but Jamie Lee Curtis needs an Oscar for that one episode. Totally. Got it.

You just gave me an idea for a great, it's probably too late now. Definitely too late for this season, but I don't think people remembered it. but it would be great to have an ugly Christmas sweater that just says throw the fork, and it's just got a picture of a fork on it. It's not bad. That's a great idea. Isn't that great? Just throw the fork.

I know, really? Truly. And, okay, but that is an example of, if we look at it backwards, you can see all the ways to not have that experience, but it requires maybe setting some boundaries, which might be hard for people, especially this time of year. It might, and that's why sort of the built-in excuse of the phone

ringing is a, is a form of a boundary, is that I need rest, I need breaks, I can't do all the things that are asked to me. And for, you know, all our introverts out there, it's a lot of extrovert requirement maybe in some of these settings. So find ways to rest and take care of yourself. It's not, you know, it's, and it's hard, but it also think about, like, have you built in for yourself, you just want to watch a basketball game by yourself. Make it happen. You just want to wrap presents where no one is going to make a sound. Go get a hotel, take your presents, go wrap on there.

You want, you want a nap. You want whatever. You've got to build it in or guess what? Santa, okay, kids, tell yours. Santa's not real. And is not going to magically give you the feelings that you want. You have to take care of yourself. And then for many people, we cannot skip saying this,

there is trauma associated with this time of year there is depression there is seasonal effective disorder there is the ever increasing you are supposed to love this when maybe you don't um and so all of that stuff combined so if you need to just get out of dodge and stay away from all of it maybe do that too you know yeah that makes sense do you have a a case that maybe it's your own but um i mean i i don't have to be i feel like a lot of people can what brian says resonates you know um with me as well but for me it's very specifically about you've done this enough that you know which people are going to be a problem and so i have i spent a lot of time before these sort of get-togethers going uh this one person is going to be a pain

and i need to prepare myself mentally for what that is so that i don't either don't go off or say something I shouldn't at dinner or whatever. Like we were supposed to have a big, all the siblings, minus you, obviously, because you're not here. But we were all supposed to go to this dinner. It was in a nice place. John and Mom were going to go with us. And it was going to be that. That was going to be our sort of pre-Christmas thing instead of trying to manage all the little kids and everybody split different ways now because they're all older.

And last minute they bailed because mom and John both cops. whatever this horrible sinus cold thing going around is. Flu cold thing. Yeah. So they were sick and we're like, well, we're not dragging, making them go out in the cold and all that. So we canceled the whole thing and everybody's like, yeah, no worries. We'll get together after the first of the year, this sort of stuff.

And I cannot tell you the level of relief that gave me. And it bugged me that it did because I love seeing my sisters and my brother and I like their spouses and I like to hang around and talk and I love it. but I just know John's going to say some weird stupid stuff at dinner. I just know it. And because I know it. Yeah. And usually it's stuff.

It's like a mean thing. He'll say to my mom is kind of underhanded and kind of mean. I'm like, John. And so I can't, I can't go into there just assuming he won't because I know he's going to. And so for me, it's that feeling of like just waiting for the shoe to drop. And I hate that feeling. I hate waiting for the shoe to drop. so for me it's that and it's and it's

I feel guilty for having relief because I'd like to see my mom you know for Christmas and all that like I want to do that and we've been visiting and you know it's not like we're not going to see him we'll see him it's just that you know I always get I always let the one person get under my skin happens to be him in this case but there are other examples on Kim's side too that's we always like oh boy and so Kim and I did have we did the thing with her side of the family and there's one person in their particular that we were like we had to have a plan. It's like, well, if he says this, what do we want to do? And we talked about this. We were like, well, let's just, you just stand up and walk away. Or are you, you know, let's, I'll come save you. We'll pay attention to what each other is doing and conversation wise. And if one of us needs to come over, hey, come here, come and look at this. Well, I'll do that for you or whatever. So we had kind of a plan that way. And it worked out fine. And the person was duly annoying. They were terrible to be around for a whole. And they played their role. They played their role. Exactly.

Exactly, which I, you know, which we were kind of dreading that they would play their role. And of course, they played their role, because why wouldn't they? Right. So, so, yeah. And when you expect them to play their role and have a plan, it's just a much more pleasant experience or can be because you're not again surprised by the level of stupid or not again. And it's funny how we can do that. We can just sort of like, oh, oh, yeah, I forgot. This is who you are.

Yeah, no, you don't need to forget. And you can just think. through. I mean, I don't know what, maybe you remember, what, did you just get up and leave or was like a phrase you would say? No. So what happened is I was just kind of, there was a part of the night where, I'm not getting into specifics, but there were some stuff is being said and I was just like, it's just grinding me over there. I'm like, oh my gosh. And so Kim could tell I was annoyed. And he wasn't even talking directly to me at this point. And so she came over and just said, hey, come here, we're going to FaceTime the babies because they weren't there.

Perfect. Stuff at Dillon's dad. So we did that. We went and FaceTime the babies and talked to them and had a good time and it totally wiped clean. FaceTime the babies. Yeah, FaceTime the babies. We do that a lot when we need it. We need the break.

We paste time the babies. And it worked. It was good. And the night went off without a major hitch. Nobody had any big confrontations or anything. And I guess I'm glad of that. Right. Right. And so you can just avoid the depths. This doesn't need to be a Jamie Lee Curtis family gathering.

Right. Right. And so that preventative or even just having a plan can feel really, really good for somebody. And this is why often people will just avoid going at all and or, you know, declining and just not being there. And that's one thing, but it also means everyone's more isolated. Right. Right. And yeah. And so having just. something set up can be helpful, but really importantly is also this idea of like, what is it you need right now? So this is where when somebody has traditions that are very, you know, holiday focused, they can like, oh, I get really into the field and all the things. Sometimes you need the opposite kind of thing. Like, oh, every Saturday before Christmas, we go the opposite direction of the malls. I don't know what that means. We're in the woods or something. You kind of

Find a way to create some of this emotional stuff we need more of maybe this time of year. So making sure you don't neglect any of that. And then like your favorite food, you don't wait for someone else to make it. You just like get it. And then it's at your house and you eat it when you're with the fireplace, you know, watching the show tonight. As opposed to it just is happening to you. And that's been a theme. And then that I'm going to bring up mine.

So here's mine that I saw a lot of this week. And I really have a question about this that maybe we could all tackle together is sometimes my clients will say to me, have you seen that meme? And I have 100% seen it. And I'm like, oh, we're all looking at the same thing. And also, I don't think dudes are looking at this. And so, for example, it's a Christmas morning, the most ridiculous. looking Christmas spread, this beautiful house with the tree and all the kids opening their presents and stockings are being handed out. And the dad, have you guys seen this? No. Not yeah.

That's something familiar. Yeah, not yet. Because the algorithm doesn't send it to you. And this is, this is my point. Anyway, so that he walks around and he finds an empty stocking and he's going to each of the kids like, oh, is this one yours? And then he goes over and finds his wife and says, who's stalking is this? Like someone, there's nothing in it. And she's like, That's my stalking. And that resonates like a thousand bricks in the face to every single heterosexual couple in the world. But notice it's women seeing it, women sending it to each other because it resonates so much, right? But then I always think, oh no, what is this actually?

Is it just like the echo chamber concept of like, you know who'd be great to see this? A bunch of dudes who are not going to remember to get stalking stuffers for their wife. Anyway, but that idea of like there's a fairly known big disparity between who does what at Christmas. So let's just, let's just prove our points. Okay, you guys, how much stuff have you been carrying in your mental load that has to do with planning, food preparation, travel, gifts, wrapping, anything? Tell me what you guys have been in charge of. Very little. Yeah.

As you know, as you know, Kim is a queen of this. I'm going to guess right now that Brian's done more than me. I almost am sure of it because Brian is, Brian's pretty thoughtful about this. I'm responsible for coordinating all of the, like, dinner reservations, tickets for things when people, because we got people coming to town. And so we need to like, oh, we got to take them here. We need tickets for that. We need reservations because it's going to be New Year's Eve.

So we got to do that now. Bringing up the tree. Yeah, we have an artificial tree. Deal with it. But I got to bring it up from the basement. So do I. I thought that was the good way to do it, right? Because you're not killing trees. I don't want to kill any trees. Yeah. And then there's the neighbors who have three real trees. Technically, so crazy neighbors have four trees. They have one upstairs. These are all real, by the way. And they went to the forest like the Griswolds and cut them down themselves.

Good gosh. But when they were in the parking lot after they'd cut down the two trees that they needed for upstairs and downstairs, somebody had left a tree behind. like they decided all of a sudden they don't want it or didn't want it and it was not bad maybe a little a little light so they went back in the forest they cut down a fourth one or third one and they decided they would take that partial tree and this partial tree put them together and wind them with wire so it made one good big tree you don't call them crazy neighbors for nothing by the way we have yet to see what the what frankin tree looks like but i've i've excited to see see it when it, you know, we finally get a chance to. That's amazing. No, that's great.

Anyway, so in charge of what else, Tina made cookies, Tina wraps presents, Tina wraps my presence for me. For the ones I just throw in a bag with some tissue paper, boom, done. She gives me my list

of the people that I'm buying for. It's a much shorter list than the people she's buying for. I'm in charge of making sure all my friends and co-hosts and people I work with and everyone's addresses up to date and that you know like that side of it I'm in charge of virtually everything else Kim does she decorates she braps she thinks of the thing I can't think of any what do we get for Taylor for Christmas I don't know no idea and then she'll go figure it out and go hey this is what we're getting them like that's the way it works oh wow okay yeah and I'll say okay that looks great I approve not that I

even need to let's just go we're good So that's, that's the, you deal. I'm sure none of the surprises Wendy, she's witnessed it. It's just how it is here at the house. So tell me this. Does Kim ever complain about it? No, she loves it. She loves all that stuff.

Also, I'd love if you started to be like, I think we should do it this way. And it would be funny to watch it. Oh, it'd be hilarious, right? Actual opinions. Yeah, yeah, no kidding. But she really is, she's A, very good at it, B, she really enjoys it. And her whole, everyone talks about what their love language is. Hers is gifting.

She's just very good at it. She knows, like, the right times. And she can see in somebody's, eye that they can use a little pickup and she'll go find the perfect thing that they need just at that moment she's just really good at that crap yeah and you don't need to be because you share a brain and it does yeah and it's never there's never I should mention this we never we don't fight about it it's not because it's a deal the it's not crossing well and there's also another thing if she's thriving in that she's found whatever the balances that

works for her. And I think that's very much always been her naturally, right? I agree. But I would say that's really more rare. What's usually happening is that, yes, people like it, but the mental load of it is very wearing. And the responsibility to keep your partner's parents' gift in mind and, you know, like all the levels of crisscrossing and it ends up very commonly being one person carrying the emotional labor of the whole thing. Right. And so when I've been working with some couples this week. It's just really funny. I've had a couple of men where I'm like, so tell me what you're doing for your wife for Christmas. Tell me, you know. And I was like, it's like, it's just one for the ladies this year. I'm like, all right, you need to do better.

Because again, sometimes it's just not understanding how the other person is literally carrying something. And then you're like, why are they grumpy? And I remember, I think I took, because I love Christmas. I can be Kim forever about it for the most part. But 2020 just like burned my brain. I could not handle it. And I'm like, Adam, sorry, the whole thing's yours. Fortunately, he has the ability to just whip stuff out. But he would check with me. And I'd be like, that's not enough gifts. That was the only thing I said. I was like, you're a cheat state. Buy more. You didn't buy enough. Yeah. Buy more. And then Christmas morning, he's doing everything. And he's a little grumpy. And I'm like,

it's annoying when they're grumpy. And I'm like, oh my gosh, am I fully on the other side of this? You are. You did it. It was, you guys, what a glorious place to be. You just have magic made for you. But the realization for me that was really appealing or really helpful for me is to go, oh, you can do too much and make yourself actually the scrooge.

Like you can think you're being loving and helping and, enjoying this thing and you're just forcing your kids into ugly clothes and making them take a picture in front of a tree or you're forcing them to do traditions that are actually taking away from the end feeling you hope to have. This is the hard bit about this.

The part about this I like is I've never really thought of it as the end feeling. Like the way you've described this as new. You know, because I do like that. That thing that you have at the end, like it's quiet. Maybe it's snowing outside. The music's going.

Yeah. It's great. Serenity now. That's what we want. Right. And if your partner is passed out and is unable to have any moment of that, but you can, well, then you have your math really wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so, and this could be fraught, right? And that's what's so tricky is that one partner is like, well, this is how Christmas was for my family. Well, this is how it was for mine. And if you're, sorry, it's mostly dudes here. But if you were like, Like, it magically happened every time. Well, who do you think did it? And now you expect to say, mom made it happen. It's right. And I recommend everyone who is not present of Christmas be in charge of one Christmas on your own. It will kill you.

And you will go, never mind. And then you can just figure out how to coordinate the list. Right? Like, Brian, it sounds like you guys have a pretty good shared system. It feels like you do. Kim doesn't need it. Tina does more than I do. She absolutely 100% does.

Yeah. Yeah. And she knows I know that, and I hope she knows how much I appreciate that. Yeah. And I don't know about this for either of you. So let me just ask, do you know what your wife's gift love languages for a holiday like this or a birthday or something? What do they want from you? What I get her that she, yes. Yes.

Yeah. What is it? And I don't mean the item. Is it a thing? She, she, she, uh, she's listening. I know, but I, what I mean is, is it an item? Is it, is it more an experience? Is it more created?

It's an item, but it's a very, um, uh, it's, it's going to sound like I'm getting her a dildo. It's an item, but it's kind of like an intimate item. Like it's, you know, like a, you know, like a, you know, like something that, uh, makes her feel comfortable and cozy and that sort of thing. Okay. Great. So you know what she wants. She'll love it. And now she goes she's not getting a dildo. Oh, well. Which is what she really wants.

Okay. So here's the thing about like often I think can happen is in gift giving when the other person is all over Christmas and their love language is giving gifts to everyone else. And that sometimes I had this couple twice this week. Someone say, well, I got a list from her and then I bought everything on the list. And I was like. Okay, that's going to keep her theoretically happy. And I get that that's hard to figure out what somebody needs. But again, getting curious about the end feeling. Going off list and knowing what she likes and getting something's like, oh, I didn't even think about that I'd like this. And I love it.

And that's what I'm telling you, there are some really creative options. All you got to do is ask somebody's best friend, what's the thing they complain about the most, and then do whatever that is. so I want this I want to not think about my yard it's driving me crazy I need snow you guys I need it to cover my yard

and it's not happening we have no snow we don't either we're snowless this is Minnesota we have no snow it's so bad I hate it so much it's 44 degrees today

that's like 90 degrees yeah you're supposed to be near like frozen by now what's going on we had two feet of snow this time last year two feet I know last year was weird though

this year is also weird the other way. But anyway, so my point is this. If you hear her complain about that thing, then get curious, what is that thing? Well, okay, well, here's a subscription to whatever. So last year, Adam gave me, apparently he heard me complain I don't get enough cheese. And he got me a cheese, monthly cheese of the month club thing.

And I am telling you, it was so fun to get a random Wisconsin cheese that we'd try with something new. I did not know I would want that, but clearly he knows I like a bit of cheese. Anyway, so that kind of thing, like she wants this, go get it, whatever. Anyway, so Scott, I'm going to ask you, what do you, and I don't know if Kim's listening, but how do you, what do you know she loves when she is especially loves giving gifts? She actually like receiving them? Yeah, she does, but she's not as much as she likes giving.

She's definitely one of those people that is not doing it for expectations of getting something back. But she's most excited about, hey, I got us three nights in Park City and tickets to see, blah, blah, blah, while we're up there or something like that. She likes that kind of stuff. She doesn't like more junk. She doesn't want more stuff. Neither do I, really. We're trying to have less and less of that.

But then also, I think this is the year she's going to get her countertops redone. And so that's the big. And she definitely wants that. Her countertops redone. The way you say. Not yours. I mean, I'll put my sandwich on it occasionally, but really. The sandwich that she makes, you'll put on that.

Yeah, it's not really mine. And she loves her kitchen, but she hates her countertops. So we want to finally get that done. Do you put on a piece of paper and wrap it up that says, your countertops? Oh, yeah. Sometimes. I swear we were trained by dad to do coupons, right? Coupons were a big thing for Christmas.

It's like, I'll clean Wendy's room for six months if she. Right. It will accept my gift. I love coupon books. They are my favorite. I hang on to them forever and then I use them. Like, oh, remember for Mother's Day four years ago, you said I could have this weird thing? I want it now.

Yeah. No, it's good to follow up on them. If you don't, kids will learn that they can just say anything and it's a waste of time and they don't have to do anything. Then it's just a gift card. That's what the gift card companies have banked on. You'll forget them. That's how they do. Okay, love it.

Okay. So that, if anyone can, any takeaways here is to name the end feeling and work backwards. And then make sure there's the ingredients that create that end feeling, even if it's just to get a little of it, right? Right. The other is to have some use tech to your advantage so you can leave and rest. So finding rest is going to be really important for anyone. And especially when you got the crazy uncle dynamic, a couple things. Go FaceTime with the babies.

or you can always just, which is my favorite thing. It's like, what makes you think right now is a good time to talk about that? So there are a question, and here's the thing. Humans cannot resist the urge to answer a question when asked. It's really difficult to do. So what you do is you ask a question that it forces them to answer that does not meet the agenda of what they're trying to do, which is usually fight or teach you something you don't know.

And you can just say, you know, you're going to throw it into stark relief that this is not an appropriate place for this conversation by asking a question they have to answer. What is it about me that would think you could tell me that here at a Christmas party? Oh, I love that. God, I love, just that, just thinking of throwing that question out to certain people. Yeah, right. It's so hilarious to watch them because there would be some serious squirming.

Yeah, because again, the cons, why they are bringing. it up is not because they're trying to be appropriate at the Christmas party. They probably are uncomfortable. They probably need you to think they're smart. They probably need something in that moment or why would they do it? So you're just checking. How are you doing this right now? And then they will feel compelled to answer and probably won't or we'll give something weird and they'll stop. So try that. And then the timing, so your phone goes off so you can make sure you know, get a break. And then also for all the men out there, go fill her stocking now. Go find the stopping fill it now yeah do that now i uh i mine's sort of got stuff in it but it's not full

i gotta go do that so yeah i hate favorite things what has she been hinting about give her a coupon book i'm telling you yeah head on over to make sure that's true you got to be good for it you can't make claims that you can never fulfill on there don't offer a coupon that you're not ready that don't know restrictions at the bottom that coupon uh yeah or else she'll be like you can't put your next I have said it spires in a year. Spires in a month. Good luck. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. You'll be like, you'll Axel Foley that business and cash coupons your car can't cash or whatever that is. How's that go? Your cash and checks that you're your, your mouth's offering coupons that you're not going to redeem.

Yeah, there you go. I guess. Doesn't roll out the tongue quite like the movie did, but not for much. There we go. All right. Well, these are, these are good bits of advice, I believe, for people at home, especially, I think the men folk take heed, all right? Seriously. Not our awesome, like, listen, I know, in particular, I know of one married gay couple in our community who outshine anything, any regular couples do any time. There's gift giving or thoughtfulness or any of that kind of stuff on par or on tap. They're on it. I want you to ask them how they split Christmas magic.

who does what, who carries the burden of it and if it's equal, I'd love to know. I would too. That would be great to know. Well, in the meantime, Wendy, I hope your Christmas is also free of conflict that you'll be able to go in there with a plan and that you'll find your serenity.

And if I'm facetiming your grandbabies, you'll know why. That's right. You're welcome to because they're a lot of fun right now. Those kids crack me up. I've got to send you a video, which I'll do after this. And when I see you at TMS, Vegas and your watch starts ringing,

I'll know exactly why you're doing it. Oh, I didn't think of that. You'll know her tricks. Oh, it's a shame. I'll see you guys later. All right, Wendy, have a fantastic holiday. We'll see you after the first of the year. And we'll see you then.

Here's my favorite thing I say to every client. You ready? Yeah, go. See you next year. Oh, I hate it. I hate it so much. Bye now. Well, there you go.

That's your windy time today. That's great. It's a good windy time. Yeah, it's a good way to end the year. I like that. That's good stuff. okay let us now move forward ever forward never looking back and do what oh i'm going to read you a quick text this is a parting note from a text here it says listening to tms 2570 and you guys

couldn't remember the name of the l shaped thingies that you used to measure or draw lines or whatever draw yeah to draw right angles yeah this says here they are actually called squares love the show though it's true they are they're called squares i just sent you a link to drafting supplies drafting supplies to ew.com. Oh, here we go. They're L squares, and that's exactly what I was trying to think of. Yeah, I couldn't remember it either. I had, I don't know, I'd still have a huge one of these somewhere.

Yeah, and it's dumb because it's like, oh, you know, it's not like a T-square, but it's kind of L-shaped. What are those called? And it's really like, what's that guitar game called something, Hero? Right. The idea is to create square angles, and we just could not think of square, but this big long one down here in the bottom. right-hand corner of that page you sent me is I have one just like that. But it's big. It's like, I think it might be like, oh yeah, if you're doing drywall. Yes. Oh, it's amazing for that stuff. Yeah. You got to have it. I think I bought it for art at the time, but I think it's used for houses.

What kind of a size of art were you doing? Were you doing that? Great big stuff on. Cubism mural. I was doing like Bristol board stuff and it was always big. I was buying huge sheets of that stuff. Boy, those are the days. It's been too much money. A quick note about some shows coming up. Brian Coverville today happening? Coverville today. It's going to be the first part of the Coverville Countdown and I had one late discovery that I'm like, oh my God, this has to be added. So I actually

put it, you know, ranked it and then kicked one thing off because this one was too good. So we're doing the top 40 over the next two episodes of Coverville. So today will be numbers 21 through 40 and some incredible stuff

on just in the top, just in these are some incredible stuff. No noon again or one? Oh, one because of the class. You got class. Should be last day of class, hopefully, but we'll see. Okay. Oh, that's right.

We've got Hall A here. We've got you coming up here in a minute. I'm also going to be part of something at 1130 a.m. today, about 45 minutes from now. Hopefully I can edit in time and be ready for it. But we are, a couple of the core guys are going to be streaming with the Grinding Gears guys for their charity today. They're doing a children's network charity. And we're going to play. Oh, I forgot the name of it.

That weird new space survival thing that everybody's playing. I forgot the name. Anyway, that'll be at 11.30am. And over at their channel, I'll probably co-stream it. So plenty of content for you this afternoon. Also, Core tonight at 4 p.m. That's right, 4 p.m. While we're on this particular time zone, until it switches in six months, we are at 4.

And we've got a lot to talk about on Core. So 4, Core, Core at 4. Easy to remember. Hey, Core, you don't have to be 4 anymore. That's right. Come be a part of the still fastest growing show on the network. work. I don't know what's going on with that thing, but it's been killing it. We've got a special roundtable film sack this weekend, so look forward to that.

Talking about director's editions, special editions. Yep, directors' cuts. Are they good? Are they bad? What are the best ones? When are they garbage? Why should they happen? All those sort of questions. It was a lot of fun doing that. So watch for that. And then a play date tomorrow at 10 a.m. right here on this channel. So frogpans.tv, pick your poison as to whether you like YouTube or Twitch. and we're going to play some jackbox and among us some fun stuff a couple hours tomorrow and play retro tomorrow as well so lots and lots of stuff probably a skim in there somewhere I don't know how I'll fit it in but it'll happen somehow that is going to do it for us

thank you everybody who's joined us on our Patreon during the year of 2023 there's still some time though so if you haven't hopped in yet you want to throw your support behind your favorite morning show this is how you do it go to patreon.com slash TMS that's is how we do it. All right, Brian. You get your New Year's resolution to support the shows that you love with a little bit of green,

just a little bit. Yeah, especially ours. We still have this stupid low dollar a month thing. So if you want in, get in. Because eventually that's going away, I promise. At some point. Lock it in. Lock it into your grandfather.

Yeah, you'll get grandfathered. It won't change for you, but at some point that thing's going to change. Anyway, get in, hop in, be a part of it. Patreon.com slash TMS. Brian, let's get a song out there in the ether. before we leave. You bet.

Jason from Mississippi wrote in and said, It's my birthday and this slew of songs from my era played in ridiculous polka style by Weird Al is all I want. Besides, everyone needs to hear a medley that starts with Sledgehammer and ends with Papa Don't Preach. Signed, Jason from Mississippi.

Wow. How old? He didn't say how old? He didn't say how old, but his era being the 80s, probably puts him in pretty close to our age. Well, sorry, dude. You're getting this one. Happy birthday. You get the old lady.

It's how it works. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is Poca Party by Weird Al Yankovic. This one comes from the Polka Party album from 1988, and he had a lot of these, and they were always really, really good, and it's a fun way to close out the year. Here is Weird Al Yankovic and Polka Party. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas.

And a happy new year. You could have a big dipper going up and down all around the bend. You could have a bumper car bumping. This amusement never ends. I want to be your sledgehammer. Why don't you call my name? Oh, let me be your sledgehammer. This will be my test, I'm only, yeah, yeah.

There's a girl that's been on my mind all the time. So, so, so, do you. Oh. Now she don't even know my name, but I think she likes me just the same. So, so, so deo. Whoa.

And my girl wants to party all the time, Party all the time, party all the time My girl wants to party all the time Party all the time She parties all the time Say you Say me Say it for always

That's the way it should be Say you Say me Say it together We're going riding on the freeway of love Wins against our back We're going riding on the freeway of love In a pink Cadillac

That's why You need Ooh, that's why There's one you need, oh, you watch and eat Oh, do you watch and eat! Yeah, yeah, yeah, do the Harlem Polka Everybody now Yeah, yeah, yeah

to the Harlem Volga She's got it Yeah, baby, she's got it Well, I'm your Venus, I'm your fire, what's your desire? Nasty! Nasty boys, don't mean a thing Oh you nasty boys Nasty!

Nasty boys, don't ever change Oh you nasty boys I like this part! Oh, Rockman Medeus! Oh, Rockman Medeis! Oh, Rockman, Madias! Oh! Shout!

Hey! Let it all out! These are the things I can do without. Come on. I'm talking to you. Come on. Please, Papa don't preach. I'm in trouble deep.

Papa don't preach. I've been losing sleep. But I made up my mind. I'm keeping my baby. Oh, I'm gonna keep my baby. I'm going to keep my baby, my baby, be my baby, be my baby, be my baby. Hey! Get more at frogpants.com.

I don't think I feel well. Well, I think you're feeling the Christmas spirit, Scalator. It makes you feel good.