The Morning Stream - TMS 2629: Alice Doesn't Live Any More!

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Showbot was down with Tom, Randy and Nicole and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I had a dream last night. In my dream, everyone who has been on the fence finally joined our Patreon at patreon.com slash TMS. They became like Evan Malone, Grave Fitness, and Brian Gatley. Magic! Coming up on the morning stream. Showbot was down with Tom, Randy, and Nicole, and more on this episode of the morning stream. Now lie quietly for as long as you want, while I copy both sides of your insurance card. The rabbi is busy.

He didn't look busy. The morning stream. Well, of course, I am the supreme being. I'm not entirely dim. Whoa, here we go and welcome to TMS. It's the morning stream for Wednesday, April 10th, 2024. I'm Scott Johnson with Brian Ibbett. Good morning.

Yellow. Good morning. Scott. Good morning indeed. It's good to see you. Good to see everyone. Hope you're all well. Got this Wednesday shit to do, you know. Yeah. Yeah. No, it ain't going to do itself. I look forward to doing that. I like Wednesdays. Yeah, that's one of my favorite days of the week. Wednesdays are great. We tend to go a little long. That's not a problem. It's usually good content. So, you know, sit back, relax. If it's your first time here, just know that you're getting into it. All right. You are indeed getting into it. Do you have that, um,

Show them the arcade machine. Let's look at this now. Oh, look at this. There's right there. Look at that. Look at that. You guys, the trophy. Here, I'll give them a, I'll give them a less,

it's a little washed out. I'll give him a version of this. Oh, sorry. That's not your fault. I think it's just the lighting thing. It's not here. Here you go, Chan. A lot of light to make myself look good.

Look at this thing. Some what lucky dude on our opening nighter thing on Tuesday is going to win this shit. And yeah, it's based on this year's theme, which is me and Brian hanging out on top of the Luxor Sphinx Head. And yeah, we do this every year. So basically there's this one part of the thing where I, Brian's like, all right, we got to make a trophy. I draw up a thing. He prints it. He makes it look nice.

Does the whole label thing. Bam, somebody's a winner. It's that simple. and somehow my head gets cut off oh weird why that happened on the size of this thing oh really on both well just the top of my head on this side but but full like half of my own weird

that's weird I thought I had all that measured out that's strange you did what your artwork doesn't take into account is this this panel here that the joysticks and stuff sit on yeah that it protrudes so I don't put the label over it else we'd have this

weird like um oh i see yeah this weird i guess i thought that was i thought that was flush but i should have known because i've seen this before i don't know why i thought yeah i'm gonna give you a better outline to work from yeah and for 2025 i want to i want to see what it would take to put a little um raspberry pie and a little miniature monitor in this thing and just have it like you know maybe show uh uh with no sound an episode of uh tms or something on the screen yeah or else or I got a better idea. A couple of pixelated fighters, me and you. Yeah, you would be.

And just going. Yeah. Just like repeating on there. And we could have some, like, crappy little 8-bit chip tune going. Ha! Ha! Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Somebody somewhere could do a chip-tune version of the TMS theme.

Oh, that's perfect. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. All right. Big plans. Anyway, it's nice to see you all. Hope you're all well. We got some stuff to go through today.

In fact, we're going to start it today with about. It's a call about talking animals all the way from Belgium. Oh, Belgium, man, Belgium. What do you call a Belgium person? A Belgium might? A belg... A waloo. Oh, I don't know.

A walu. What is it? There is a group of Belgians called walloons. Like French, French Belgians or Walloons. Let's see, Belgians. I guess it's just Belgians. Yeah, Belgians, yeah. Okay.

But they're not as fun as Waloons. No, I like Waloons. I'm there. It sounds like a bird. Anyway, I'm going to play this call, and we'll see what's up. Hey, Scoot and Boots. This is Mario from Belgium. This is in regards to what if animals could speak.

If my cat would suddenly start talking, it probably wouldn't fright me this much or shot me that much. I'd be like, yeah, these are like demon animals sure this tracks yeah my cat just started talking to me hey she trusts me enough to like let me know they can talk I'd probably be like at ease with it any other animal fuck man I'd shit my pants so you're later so a cat he's fine with that if a dog started talking or a bird or something yeah I think I think he's right.

There's something weird. Those two animals are so close in our little domesticated tribe that we have in our home, right? Some people have a couple dogs in a cat or a couple cats in a dog or whatever. But there's some weird thing that wouldn't freak me out if the cat started talking, but would definitely freak me out if the dogs started talking. If your cat suddenly started talking, what do you think its first words would be to you if you had to guess? Food, food, food, food, food, food. Food.

Food. Food. I love that it has an accent for the word food. Yeah. It's got its own little dialect. Food. Food. Food.

Give me food. Yeah, I don't know what my annals will say. If it's... I wish that would, you know, it would take me a long time to find it and Google it while we're doing the show. I don't want to do that. But there's something, like cats can make a thousand different sounds and dogs can make like 12 or something like that. Oh, I didn't know that.

That's true? Isn't there a deal? So cats are more expressive than dogs, it sounds like? Yeah, yeah. Cats can make more noises with the way that their mouths and tongues and stuff can manipulate the noises coming out of them. The palate. I mean, I've heard it make some pretty weird noises when they do that whole, like, chatter thing or when they go. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, there's like, you know, Salem surprises us with, like, she'll be walking around the house going, er, but then when she's, you know, up by ass, it's like, you know, like superb, meek sounding, but then when she thinks we're not listening, eh,

feels like it's proof that cats are, they're up to something, dude, they're up to shit. I don't trust me. Google says 10 sounds from cats or dogs, do you mean? 10? 10? That's very supposed to. that is very specific 10 specific sounds the top 10 yeah what would they be i mean there

there has to be a more infinite they don't they must be a range give me a little more give me a little more information that google says 10 sounds like uh you found something you found an article what's the sounds like a number of cat sounds versus the number of dogs it's like a bad chat gpt answer is what that sounds like and the other day by the way had another argument with chat gpt this was so stupid i said when you have an argument with an eye excellent i was trying to to find a video game that I could not remember the name of. The name of the game was actually called Mind Scanners. And it's this like

It's the name of the game. It's like papers please but set in cyberpunk universe. Very cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's awesome. And I knew I owned it, but I didn't know what to search for because I have like 3,000 steam games. I'm like, well, how am I going to find this thing? So I thought, I've tried every search engine, nothing's finding it. And all I'm searching for is like, cyberpunk game, like

papers, please. Like I'm putting all these descriptors in, nothing. It's just not coming up. And I didn't want I go manually through my list to find it, which I actually ended up doing. But anyway, I go to chat GPT and Google Gemini and maybe Bing. I can't remember. I tried three different AI things. All right.

And GBT and Bing share the same back in. So it's probably not even a good comparison. But I went and I asked it. And it says, oh, I know that game. It's this. Beep, baepa, but maiden, something here. And it's not the right one. And I said, well, that isn't cyberpunk at all.

And it says, it goes, oh, you know what? right. Hold on a second. Here's what my real answer is. It's Beb, Beb, Beb, Beb, Beb, and I said, but that's that's cyberpunk, but that's nothing like Papers, please. Oh, you know what? You're right. Sorry about the error.

Here's my other end. I kept going and going and going and going. If it kept going back, like to the first one, there you're like, nope, that's the one you mentioned the first one. Oh, how about this one? Papers, please. That's actually what I was saying I was comparing it to. Yeah. Now, this is one of those things. Tom would chew me out for this, not chew me out, but he would say

we have a bias for when it when it gets things right then we're impressed and we move on and we don't think about it when it does it wrong we notice it's so hardcore that we then start ascribing that to every experience we have with it even though it's more right more often than it is wrong and i've had plenty of little like oh who is the guy that was in that movie blah blah and it will know it'll tell me and it will say is this who you're talking about here's links to his wikipedia and his imb like it'll do it more right nine times out of ten but every once in a while I'm like cyberpunk plays like papers please

I even said the cover of the game has a big headset with red coloring like I'm giving it all the input it can do and he's like oh here it is no that's not it you're right that's totally not it how about this one no that's not it oh you know what you're right that's not it what kind of language is that there's a weird conversation to have with a computer I don't like no kidding have you I mean obviously you've gone on to Steam and just to search for some of those

keywords to see if you could find it. Yeah, and I have a Steam game or? It's a, no, it's on, it's also on Game Pass. It's on Switch might have it. Anyway, it's a kind of, it's small, it's a little indie game but I had the hardest time. So I

ended up doing exactly what I didn't want to do. I knew I'd played it in the last two years, so I basically just went through all my, I sorted my Steam games by played and date. And I just scrolled and went, all right, I'm looking for a red thing and the words start to blend together. You know how that is when you're trying to manually find a thing.

Yes, oh yes. I finally found it, and ironically, I installed it and didn't even play it, so whatever. All that worked. He spent all that time finding it. It's more about the chase. It's the thrill of the chase. Yeah, the hardest part of that level of that game was finding. He's finding it.

It started with the boss level. We also got some recommendal love, and I think it was you recommended it, which is why I'm bringing this up. Did you do Line of Duty? Okay, that was it. so totally did yes we got jeff rodent says great column recommending line of duty such a good show i'm hooked it's always nice to hear when people like a thing this is your british police procedural uh filmed some seasons filmed in ireland other seasons filmed in uh london but um this is one that that i think i said you're gonna love it scott but kim is gonna completely like because she's she loves those kind

She loves British procedural crime dramas, loves them. So, and this sounds like a good one. It's fantastic. You might want, for a couple of characters, you might want to turn on closed captioning, but. Are they Irish? They are. That's what they do. They got that Gaelic, freaking.

They just speak gibberish. I mean, let's be honest. Just a total utter nonsense. Utter nonsense. It's like listening to Sims, basically. It's like simlish. Yeah, we actually queued this up for it's next on the list

when she's done with Good Wife So cool Oh, excellent, you love it DJ Stangle, Line of Duty is what we're talking about Yeah, Line of Duty All right, it was known in the States In the States they called it Skidmark

But back over there, it's a line of duty Oh, geez. Yeah, I think it's a nicer way of saying it Line of Duty Yeah, it's a much nicer way The Line of Duty Yeah, check your underwear for a line of duty Hey, also about those common streets

So we talked about the MLK drive and circle and all that. And Maine and Broadway and all these, right. Yeah, we had a whole fun deal about that. Dave from Madison, Wisconsin wrote in. It says, Dear Brain Trust and Straw Man, your discussion about MLK Street names have me laughing as a Madison resident because if you zoom in on the Capitol Square on Google Maps, and he gave us a link, which we're going to do this.

I'm going to do that right now while we're talking about it. Okay, zoom in on Madison. Okay, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to give the kids. Wow, look at the organization. level on Madison. Geez. I agree. I agree. It's impressive, right? Wow. Hold on, I'll show this to the chat if I can never get it to right. There we go. Zoom in further. Okay. So I really like it. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. The way it all branches out from the square there,

that's nice. He says, you'll notice on the east side of the square, there is a King Street named after Rufus King, an MLK Street, which are joined by Main Street. Not totally confusing. And yes, we have also a state Street because of America. Scott, you nailed it. Love the show. What did I nail? Oh, the, every street or every town has a state street? I may have said that. I think you're, oh, maybe, or every town has a Martin Luther King.

Yeah, I don't know what I did. Anyway, love the show, though, Dave from Madison. Yeah, this is actually pretty great. I really like how this looks. That's funny. Yeah, it's really cool. I would live here. Let's see.

Can I see it with the geographic layers? Let's see. Yeah, here we go. Oh, look at that. Yeah, it does the thing where, you know, because of the little itthmus there, it'sthmus, itthmus, they change the direction of the streets to be parallel to the water, but so, you know, you'll be driving this, they do this in Denver, too. You're driving east-west, do-do-do, then you hit downtown, it's like, oh, no, I'm going northeast or to southwest or, you know, it's goofy, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's weird. It's, I don't know why I thought everything on the East Coast or Eastern part of the country was a mess.

And this isn't a mess. This is nice. This isn't a mess. This is really cool. Yeah. Well done. Although it gets messier, the further you go out. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe a little bit. Yeah. You get out here in some of the rural, or not rural, but the, like, homes and stuff. And it's a little bit won't be out there. I can't remember the Madison newspaper. I think it wasn't called, was it the Green Bay Times? It might have been the Green Bay Times. That would work for football fans

Let me see here Green Bay Times Yeah Oh Green Bay, now it's the press times Green Bay Press Times Press Times What's the Press Gazette? That's another thing, right?

Green Bay Press Gazette, yep That actually, actually, you know what? That was the one. Green Bay Press Gazette, I think, was the one that I went to. How was it there? Were they nice to you? Oh, super nice.

You know, Madison, four months out of the year is lovely. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Everyone always, I always hear a lot of shit talk about Wisconsin, but everyone I know from there likes it there.

Yeah. I don't know, but people should talk about Utah. I like it here, so. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We get about Colorado and yes, prices, property taxes and home values and rent for whatever reason. But it's going sky high,

and we have absolutely cannabis. No idea why it's happening. No. We're in a bit of a bubble as well, like the housing part. Nobody can afford anything. My kids can't afford their, barely can afford their rent. When I was married and had my first kid, like Nick is at right now, our rent was like $369 a month.

And this was in 1994 and 5. Not really that long ago in the larger scheme of things. No, no. 30 years, but still, 31 year, or 29 years. years. I think their rent is like two grand. And it's a tiny, it's not, it's smaller than what we had like by a lot. Yeah. How are they supposed to do this? And it'd be one thing if you say, oh, well, wages have kept up. No, they haven't. They haven't. No. No, they've, they're trailing way behind. Yeah, Tristan and Kay have to have two separate or two more roommates just to be able to

afford their apartment. And those two roommates have to share a room and they're not in a relationship like Tristan and K. Are they opposite sex? Are they, uh, you know, they're same sex. They're sisters. Oh, they're same sex. They're sisters. They shared room for a long time in their life. I was getting all hubba hubba about nothing.

They're stepbrother and step sister. Oh, I know where that goes and ends. We know exactly what happens there. Yeah. I know what tweet Ted Cruz will like. Anyway. That's right. So here's the other. thing. It's on the street thing. Blake from New York City. New York City, get a rope. He says,

Scott, or wait, I said I did not know this. He says, your street names thing, and you were talking about, in Salt Lake City on TMS Tuesday, I just learned that SLC has the largest city blocks in the world. Thought that was a fun fact, Blake in New York. I didn't know that. That's insane. I didn't know that either. So just a city block, like what basically the distance you, go from 100 north to 200 north or 300 north or whatever we'll see downtown really i'm gonna look at it i'm gonna see yeah there probably is it's probably too many of those there's a there's a tick talk about everything um scrolling in like it you won't know like i'm looking at downtown and it's definitely gritted out the way we are all proud of and everything but i don't know why what

i'm looking at would i mean i guess you'd have to measure it and and they have and this is what it is but but to me they don't seem like that big like i don't know this is all right so this is really cool so there's a uh let me see if i can open this image in a new tab and i'm going to give you the link to the image well it's an emger it's an imger i'm going to link to an emger scott oh an emger i like emgers an emger uh it's better than a web p don't send me just don't send me a web p i don't I quit. All right. There was a freebie.

Put it in the titles, everybody. That's fine. That's right. So like Carson City, Nevada is the smallest on here. Can I zoom into this? I can. Good. Holy crap.

Sort of. Yeah, I know. Look at the size of your, oh, this is, this sucks. This is not great. It's a tiny. It's not big enough to do much with it. Open image and new tab. Can I then take that?

Nope, it's still, all right, well. Blurry. Yeah, Carson City, Nevada, 180 by 180 city block, 180 feet. Tiny, 180 feet city block. Compared to your Las Vegas, which is like, I feel like Las Vegas would have had the biggest city blocks, but you don't, you know, the hotel takes up multiple city blocks instead of it being, you just think of it as, oh, yeah, the circus circus is right there. Or let's see, Caesar's Palace is right next to the Mirage.

sure sure sure right next to each other right like i'm looking at denver you didn't even you guys didn't even go square chuck chuck this is not comic sands this is tecton okay yeah it's it's not my favorite font either but it's definitely not comic sands okay it's tecton my friend uh Denver colorado you guys went rectangle you decided to be a little different look at you yeah we did well look at new york oh yeah i didn't in new york a little oblong uh like uh pretzel sticks is what they are. To be honest, New York was so long that it didn't even register with me that that was real. That looks crazy. But yeah, look at us. Look at this huge square. Jeez. You could fit, uh, let's see, two and a half Denver's in there. Right. Yeah. Salt Lake City, 660, it looks like. 600 or 780 by 780 full city block. I guess that's when you count sidewalks or something. Must be. Yeah. I don't know what the borders are. Yeah. The bleed. The bleed on those. bleed but it's funny how some some cities have bigger bleed like making georgia big bleed yeah look at that bleed but look at the tiny bleed on baton rouge yeah baton rouge is like i can't we go

this is a one-way street the whole way around oh this is fascinating right of american grids i had no idea that i was no i didn't either uh another record i guess yeah well done utah we did it uh well on it nice job who who gave us that you just find that i found it i goo I giggled it. Nice, nice giggle. In Ireland, I giggled it. You giggle, nice giggle results you got on that. All right.

Well, that's all well and fine, except we have to play a game. Oh, I'm not even logged in. You're not logged into said game, Scott. I best do that. I'll be pink again. No one takes pink, so I'm guaranteed. Mr. Pink. Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?

I saw that like two months ago with Nick, a part of our movies thing, right before the baby was born. That's a good one to one. watch that's a good one to put on the must watch list. Yeah, he really liked it. He likes Tarantino. What am I looking for here? Oh, I'm looking for Dunaway. You're looking for Dunaway. You've got to add Dunaway to this thing. All right,

Dunaway incoming game to play. If you want to be on today's hoo-ha, you've got to let me know via the Discord. I'll take the third person. And that's also how I'm writing my novel. Oh, don't play that. That music means one thing.

Brian Dunaway has joined us to play a little tad Pooley Feud. Hello, Brian Dunaway. How are you? Oh, hi, Scott and Brian doing pretty good. The sun's shining, no moon in the way. It's a fantastic Wednesday. That's nice. No more moon.

Get that moon out of the way. Come on. Get out of here. I enjoyed the somebody did, of course, the easy joke, which is they put a death star in front of a sun for a partial eclipse and said, that's no moon, right? That's a good joke. That's funny. Everybody had jokes about how their eyes are burned out. That was pretty common. But nobody

really made me laugh with this thing. No. I was looking for it. It's not a fool's days, Scott. How about it? I know, but I was looking for good memes. You know, good memes, good observation. I didn't get any. Not really. Here's an observation. I'm not saying funny, but I'm just saying that maybe the clouds

are a little bit hurt. It's like, hey, I cover the sun every day. Where's my love? Where's my love? Where's my cloud day? People are flying hundreds for the miles to look at me, cover up the sun. Yeah. Right.

Where is it? That's what I want to know. Also, where is our listener participator? Guess what they're here? We have on a line with us, the true Schmitty. Hello, the true Schmitty. How are you? I am well.

And Madison, Liver and Native here as well. I see how you guys were talking about us earlier. Okay. It is so funny to have somebody describe Wisconsin and use the word liver. Yeah, liver. It is punished the most by living in Wisconsin. Do you guys have Wisconsin? It's going to be like 70 degrees today.

So we're looking open. Okay. Yeah, this is in those four months that are nice. Do you have, do you have, do you feel like people give Wisconsin too much shit? Like it's a fine town and everything's good? Or state, obviously it's not a town, but you're in a town. No, yeah, everything's great, but you can still give us more shit. That's fine.

Okay. We can take it. I don't know why I feel like, maybe it's mostly political stuff. It just feels like you got a kind of a way. Wacky local legislature or something? I loved, we went to Milwaukee a few years ago. T. and I did and went to Summerfest, which is, might be the greatest concert experience I've ever had in my life.

Wow. Because it's 12 stages with bands going on all the time. Garbage playing on one. Over here, we've got a Billy Joel cover band. Over here, we've got Journey or Bon Jovi was on one. It's like, and you just, you pay once you get in this place, and you walk around, you just go. to whichever concerts you want, grab some cheese curds.

Wow, I'm into that. That sounds great. The sky ride that goes over the whole thing, like a gondola ride to get from one end of Summerfest to the other. Closest I've ever been as I went to a Brewer's game in the early 90s, I think it was. And that was fun. You guys still have the... The Brewers still go, they're still a thing, Milwaukee.

Still a thing. They are still a thing. Even though, like, a month ago, you tried to pretend that they weren't still up. I don't know why I don't know why I'm convinced they were sold or something you really want the brewers to leave is the problem yeah get out of there man come here and then we'll be the salt lake brewers and it'll make no sense because we're not known for brewing just like the jazz it's great that you've got a team named after both meat packers and beer makers that's right love the fact that uh yeah i love it also uh Utah is all about naming our new NHL hockey team and they're putting it out to the public to come up with names oh god some of these are terrible so far I'm sure terrible let's all vote for hockey make hockey phase because I'm sure I'm sure you're sure that's what's going to win the internet i'd like it i'd like that more than what i've heard although i did like uh uh let's see it's the salt lake oh shit the salt lake silkers no that's a provo silkers you got to do that in promo it'd be really funny to have the uh because playing off the whole b thing have it be the salt lake city wasps because there'd be a whole

extra level of hilarious yeah that'd be all right i wouldn't i you know what i'll take whatever they give us it's fine i'm excited to get a team though Anyway, well, let's get right to it. We're going to play this game. Dunaway's here. Our guest is here. Brian's here, of course, and he has the rules. So Brian explain how this works, so we know what we're doing.

Okay, it's time to play the tadpuller feud. I've surveyed the tadpull on some nerdy topics. Scott and Bargna have to predict the answers that they gave us, and it's their job to see how many of those answers they can provide. True Schmidt, your job is more important than ever because you're going to be working with either Scott or Brian. And if your team wins, you'll get a prize package. That includes some games.

called Doom 3? I don't know. Classic. Yeah. Dunoway and I like that game a lot, don't we? And then Darkwa, Complete Edition. It's not dark because it's spelled with a Q. Darkwa. Oh, complete edition.

I've heard of that game. Do not know what it's even about. Got a Q there, though. That's cool. Cool. Everyone likes to Q. So you know it's Kuel. Yeah, it's got to be Kuel.

It must be Kuel because it's got a cue. That's right. All right. If you guys are ready, put your hands on. your buzzers and get ready to answer this question. All right. What is the best fictional restaurant or bar? Scott buzzed in.

I sure did. Did I wait? It says, oh, I guess I just buzzed in. Scott Jay buzzed in. Your pink is so light. When you highlight, your pink is as light as Brian's is dim. Yeah, I probably got to pick something different.

I probably picked the wrong, bad idea. Yeah. All right. Restaurant. Come on. You've had too much time to talk. Sorry, sorry. I'm not even. You assume I'm, you assume too much about my brain. I have not thought it at all. I'm going to go ahead and say the one in Meaning of Life Monty Python restaurant, that thing, where he barfs. I couldn't think of anything else. Mr. Creosote's. You've had all of this time to think about it. And that's what you come up with? That's just as good as I got. I don't even know what the name of that place is. This is as good as I've got. A wet-d-fin mint. Brian, can you think of any fictional? restaurant or bar that would be bars? Maybe what I've been watching on Pluto TV after Frazier

but it came on before Frazier let's head to cheers. Show me. Show me cheers. Damn it. I was thinking restaurant too much not enough bar. Crap. Yeah. All right. I know because you have to get your food upstairs

at Milones. Milners? Milners. Milners? Milner's. Mnunners? It's something like The Nooners. That's it. It was Minnooner, Nooners. Yeah.

Brian, that means you get True Schmidty as your partner for this. And, well, really, True Schmidt, you get Brian as your partner. That's the way to look at this. Melville's, thank you, Jedi. Was it Melvilles? Okay. It was Melville's, yeah. All right.

All right. Let's get to this. Brian and, oh, let me actually press the button for this. There you go. Brian and True Smitty, name a, the best fictional restaurant or bar. What, you? Oh, it's got to be the best. or just most recognized? It's what the tab pool?

The question was asked to the tadpool. What is the best? Don't ignore that because the tab pool just goes, restaurant or bar, fictional. And they answer it like that. Right, exactly. They don't know. Anything interesting?

I don't know. You know, we talk a lot about Bob's burgers on the show here. Oh, I like that. Yeah. That's a good one. I like Bob's burgers. There's always a special, too. All right.

They sometimes serve alcohol. Sometimes. A couple episodes. Yeah. Remember the anus one where they had all those pictures on the wall that had cat anus is what it was. It was great. It's an amazing episode. It's so good.

Oh, my God. All right. Excellent. Show me Bob's burgers. Oh, very nice. Number six. Makes me a little nervous, though. But yeah, that's good points.

When you said that that made me think of another animated bar. Do you want to go with some, how about Moes? Welcome to Moes. Let's do it. All right. Let's all head down to Flaming Moes. All right, show me Moe's Tavern. Yeah, number three on the list.

That's a good one. Smart. Nicely done. Smart. Should we stay in the cartoon region or should we go to some more else? I got one more cartoon if you don't have anything, Smitty. Yeah, go for the cartoon. Let's stay in it.

Do it. I just don't know if they would think of it, though. And I hate to just give it away. I'm thinking the drunken clam. Oh, with family guy A drunk and clam, yeah. It's a great place. But is that going to be,

you think people know that enough to do it? What do you think? Let's do it. What do you think? Very popular. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Let's get the cartoons out of the way. Let's go down to the drunken clam. All right. Show me the drunken clam. Number 14. Too many cutters in that bar. It's too many cutaways. Sure.

How about tattooing can Cantina. How about that? Ooh, that's a good one. That's a different direction. It's called the tattooing canteena. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it?

It's got a more popular name, I believe. The whole planet's canteen. Oh, good point. Most Isley can'tina. There we go. Show me the Moss Isley kids. Show me that wretched hive of scum and villainy. Yeah, number four on the list there.

Good one. All right. These are all nerds. So I'm going to say, I just forgot the name of it. Oh, the Star Trek. one, the 10 forward on the Enterprise Deney. Oh, that's a good one. Jump all around. I like it.

All right. Show me, show me Guyin's bar. Yeah, 10 forward, number five on the list. Score currently, Brian leading with 10, Scott trailing just behind with nine. Nice. Very close game. Now we have a,

now we have a fight here. All right, Kim would be mad at me. Kim would be mad if I didn't say Central Perk because she loves for us. Oh, that's such a, yeah. There you go. Everybody goes to Central Perk. That's got to be number two, right? Come on.

Come on. All right. Show me that coffee shop that's got mugs so big. They might as well, I'm sorry, have nipples on them. Central Perk. Yeah, number seven. Scott takes the lead. Let's go back to Star Trek.

My favorite Fisher Stevens moment on Friends right there. 16 to 10, Scott leading right now. He was good on there. So was what's her name that whined a lot. That actress doesn't get enough credit. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh, my God.

That one. Janice. Janice. She's very good on Seinfeld as well, but anyway. Okay. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Oh, I'm going back to Star Trek. I'm doing Quarks.

Quarks. Quarks Bar. Quarks Bar and Grill and HoloSweets. There's a whole name of this. All right. Show me Quarks Bar. Oh, God. Oh, manning lead 24 to 10.

Did not expect to do this here. Scott, for not known bars, boy, sure knows a lot of bars. Zero strikes yet for Scott. Just one strike for Brian. Okay. That's another mythical, mystical deal that people would be into. What was the name of the bar on the magic school bus? Girl, that's a booty hall.

let's let's go with uh this goes so far back in time there's no way but i'll say you know what i'm gonna hope rabbit magic voted for one and his and he said uh mel's diner or some shit diner excellent all right show me early to bed early to rise all right show me mills diner I honestly know more of the Alice theme than I want to admit. Strike for Mel's Diner, however, it did come up on here. Number 19 was Mel's Diner, so enough people. Remember that flow spinoff they did? Yeah.

For a hot second, and it didn't work out. That's right. All right. It was a movie based on, or another TV show based on movie, right? Alice doesn't live here anymore, was the... Oh, that was based on the song, or no, not the song. what am I thinking of? It was based on the song

9 to 5 by Dolly Parton. There's some other diner. Oh, you're talking about Alice's restaurant. Alice's restaurant. I always thought it was. I don't think it's true, but when I was growing up, I assumed it.

I want to say it's based on Alice doesn't live here anymore, but I'm not 100% sure. Somebody out there knows it will tell me. All right. Looking forward to that. All right, you guys, it's back in your court. You can still win this, you know.

That's right. There are still three answers left on the board. and if you get them, you win. But even if you, if the two, between the three of you, you get all three of them, then Schmiddy wins the prize anyway. All right. I was, I was pretty psyched about going to Arnold's until Mel's diner didn't show up there.

And I don't know, I was going to fly out some Milwaukee connection. What do you think, Arnold or something else? Do you think we should go, uh, now SpongeBob works at the Cresby Crab. I've got one other, one other animated too. but I don't know how likely it would be. What you got? What you got? Oh, crap.

Cresty Crabb? SpongeBob's, Krusty Crabb? We did that one already, right? We didn't do that one? We didn't do that one? Yeah, let's do that one. Oh, yeah, do Krusty Crab because I don't think anyone's done it or said it. Oh, my God, we did do that, didn't we?

Did we? Did we? You did not do that. Okay, we did not do that. Everybody thinks you did it. I hate hoping you. What did we just said? What if we just said Krusty and we left it to be either Krusty's burger or Krusty Kravs?

What if we did that with that? Oh, I see what you're doing there. You're trying to get two dirty bastards. I will not allow that. That's a little dirty, dirty, dirty pool. That's the Roosevelt rule. There's two crusties. All right.

Pick one. What are you saying? It's a tadpool. They're such old people. Look at these answers. Cheers. Can't Mars Isley, Cantina. I don't know.

Essential perk. These are old people shows. Yeah. I think we go for it, Brian. Do it. All right. Let's go to the Krusty Crab. Get us in there.

Show me. Krusty Krabb. Number 10. Oh, my gosh. We've got ourselves a game here. 20 to 24. You guys are four behind. And you can totally do this.

Captain Kipper and Molly Fent have both confirmed that Alice the TV show was based on a movie called Alice doesn't live any, and Alice doesn't live here anymore. Alice doesn't live anymore. Alice doesn't live anymore. Remove a word, change the movie. I'd never, that's news to me. I didn't know there was a movie. Yeah. It'd be fun to go see, what, 75, 4 or something like that? There it is. Yeah. Yeah, 74. Okay. Martin Scorsese film? What? Oh, no way, really? I did not know that was a Scorsese film. Yeah. Ellen Burston is your main person, Chris Christopherson. I, there's another, uh, another Scorsese film I haven't seen. That is wild to me. That that's, I, I, okay, well, somebody, please somebody submit the title, Alice doesn't live anymore. Yeah, what are you guys doing?

That's a perfect title. Yeah. All right. You guys, you guys got it. There's an episode of the Brady Bunch called Alice doesn't live here anymore. I guess I know exactly what episode that is. Yeah. That's one where Alice thought they didn't need her.

and so she left. Nice. There's a number two on there. And I'm, there's a number one. There is a number two on there. There's only, there's only,

there's only two other restaurants that I can think of that appear a lot in sitcoms and the, cheers hit pretty high. What is the Seinfeld restaurant? Um, and I can help you here because I want to see our dude win, but it's like, isn't it,

it's also Moes or something. Isn't it? Is it Moes? It's something short like that. Maybe not Mo. Would we get away with saying, sign for a restaurant, or are we going to make us named that? Yeah, well, you take that? I guess I'll

let you do it because I, you know, I was giving Scott crap about tattooing a canteen. Right, right, right, right. All right, what do you think? You think that sounds good? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it a good one. All right. Well, the actual place is Tom's Diner, but in the show, it's called Munks Cafe. Show me

Monks Cafe. There is number nine. I think that ensures the... Oh, you win then. That ensures the win. Yeah, there's no way. That is one of the tightest races we've ever had here. It really is, yeah. It, you know, basically went back and forth. Nicely done, guys.

What is number two, though? I can't think of anything else that would be slightly less popular than Cheers. By the way, did you know the trivia of the Monks Cafe? So it's based on Tom's Diner. And, you know, the song, Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega? It's written about that diner. No. Oh, no way.

Oh, that's cool. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. This ain't sign. This is a restaurant in Seinfeld. She might have actually written it in Tom's Diner. I don't know. Anyway. Do you think Arnold's?

Do you think Arnold's is up there? Would it be weird that it'll be a... Isn't that a Milwaukee restaurant? Well, it was in the show. It wasn't a show, yeah. I don't know what you think. I don't know. That's a tough one.

I mean, what do we got to lose at this point? I was either thinking that or I couldn't remember what the thing from Twins Peak was. That's a good one, too. Twins Peak was my favorite show. Oh, I love Twins Peak. Twins Peak, yes. I love Twinspeak.

That's my favorite, that's my favorite porn adaptation of a TV show ever. Yeah, an amazing name for that. Twins Peak. Don't go Google searching now, Tadpool. Yeah, don't do it. You'll find what you're looking for. Turn your safe search on, folks, when you Google, Twins Peak. All right.

I like that one. I can't. Oh, well, I can tell you right now, the Twin Peaks diner was called the Double R, and it's not on the list. So I'll just let me out since you've already won. But good, good, good. Don't choose that one. Yeah, I can't think of anything more popular as far as a bar or restaurant goes.

It's fictional that would be bigger than Arnold's. I mean, maybe the, maybe the, I can't think of the stupid Harry Potter one. Like the three broomsticks or whatever. Is that what it was? Yeah, that's it. That's it. But are these, these potter heads? Either way, you're not going to, you're not going to lose.

So you could totally. Just give me an answer. I'm going. Arnold's. Hey, Arnold. Show me, Arnold's. Can I guess? Number 13.

Well, you can guess because you're still playing. Oh, right. I'm not Xed out. In my head, I've got three strikes, and I don't know why. I usually do worse at these. I'm going to say, this is a total outlier. There's no way I'm right. But I would like to say the Pollo, El Pollo.

Loca. A break and bad chicken plays. What's it called? Los Poyos, Arman. Hermanos, that's it. That's it. The chicken brothers. Show me los poos,

Hermanos. It is not on the top 10, but it was number 11. Just eeked out by Krusty Crab. Poop. All right. I had one in my head for a second. I forgot it.

What the crap was it? I don't know. All I can think about, I've been watching a lot of. Shut up. Tom is texting me saying, oh, these chuckleheads going to wrap up. No.

He's not doing it. We already said Tom's diner, Tom. Tom. What do you want from us? With the snake hole lounge, but I don't know if we would come up with that. Snake hole lounge. What's that from? From Parks and Rack.

Oh. Yeah, let's go to that way. It's not on there. Is that where mouse rat? Mouse rat, mouse rat. Mouse rat. Yeah. Yeah.

Perfect. All right. Is that you guess? I think we should go for it. Yes. Okay. Sure. Sure.

This is a sinkhole lounge, wasn't it? It was a sinkhole lounge, wasn't it? It's a sinkhole. That makes sense. It was the sinkhole, but only one person said the sinkhole or snake hole, sinkhole. Yeah, anyway. All right. I'm going to say one that the chat keeps yelling because of this point, what do we have to lose, nothing?

Sure. Roadhouse, the Roadhouse. This is a bar you go to when it's time not to be nice. Show me, Rodos. Shocked. Number two. Yeah. is so popular.

They named a book after it in a popular series. The restaurant at the end of the universe, Millieways. But that's, okay, I guess books are included. It is the best. It is the best restaurant. And you just go there and you watch the universe end. Yeah, I got so hung up in TV and movies that I didn't even consider books. Yeah.

That was the second book, I believe. Well, they got there at the end of the first book, right? Right, right. They arrived there at the end of the first book and then the second book. And every time I've ever went hitchhikers, I've always lost out. Oh, really? Yeah, every time I've ever guessed hitchhiker stuff, I'm like, so maybe nobody's a fan, but then they put number two up here. Yeah, I know, right?

Look, that second book in my experience was the pinnacle of the whole series. I loved the second book. Yeah, yeah. It's so good. So good. Let's get through some of the rest of these, the three broomsticks. You guys mentioned that. That was number 12.

Paddy's Pub The Regal Beagle Boy, a lot of three's company fans somehow Told you there was some old folks up in here Shenanigans Big Belly Burger from the Aeroverse Good Burger, welcome to Good Burger Would you like a good burger?

Smart, yeah McLaren's Pub from How I Met Your Mother The Winchester Tavern from Sean of the Dead Chotchkes which I think was the one from office space where you have to have 14 pieces of flare I think

Jack Rabbit's limbs, Luke's diner from Gilmore Girls, McDowell's with the golden arcs. McDowels, that was what I was thinking of. The slaughtered lamb, accorded neutral, no, I'm sorry, accorded neutral ground. Somebody needs to tell me what that's from. Afterlife from Cyberpunk,

the Bada Bing, from the Sopranos, the bar with no name, Bluth's original frozen banana stand. Did anybody do the taxi, the noodle taxi thing from Fifth Element? No. Unless it's called something in here that I don't recognize. Nobody mentioned that one.

Bores Nest from Dukes of Hazard, Cafe Nervosa. That's the one from Frasier. A bunch of people are saying, the Frazier one. The Cafe of Broken Dreams. It's an Easter Egg bar and Fallout, too. Good luck. Cafe Tropical from Schitts Creek. Let's see.

Casa Benita. Nope, folks, that's real. The Chum Bucket Club Obi-Wan from the beginning of Temple of Doom. The Durwaffle House from Dead Like Me, where they would always meet. to Mandy Pitinken to hand out his assignments for everybody. Fingtasia from True Blood.

Flingers, Hawthorne, Hell's Kitchen, In and Out Burger, both of those are real. J.J.'s Diner. Cresty Burger. Just one person said Krusty Burger, so I'm glad you didn't choose that one. Oh, yeah. Make Maileys from the Dresden Files, Midnight Tokyo Diner,

Mr. Beef from the Bear. Let's see. The Ozorngax's pub, Panucci's pizza, pizza planet. That's surprisingly one person is a pizza planet. Oh, yeah, pizza planet. The Red Pony Bar, the restaurant at the singing towers of Dorillium. That's a doctor who thing. The restaurant from Ratatouille.

Don't know if he didn't have a name. Just the restaurant from Ratatouille. You want to go where rats make, okay. Yeah, yeah. And finally, Taco Bell, because in the future, in Demolition Man. Oh, my God. The abolition man. Somebody actually seriously put Taco Bell

parentheses Demolition Man because you know it's the The Bar and the Continental Hotel from John Wick, the leaky cauldron The Max from Saved by the Bell The Peach Pit The Tiddy Twister from Dust Till Dawn Yeah

Good call Yawning Portal from Dungeons and Dragons World's End Yeah, a lot of good ones Yeah, a hell of a list this year Or this week Gustose, that was it, right? Thank you, Eichor and Red Fraggle

from Ratatouille Cousteauze. Oh, that's right. And he was a little weasily... Yeah. It was a... Ian Holm, right? Then you play the little... In Holm.

Yeah. That was a great role for him. Well, well done. You know what this means? This means we got a winner and you get one of these. Congratulations. I get one of these.

And you walk away the winner of these codes. Brian, remind him again what he's won. Yeah. Doom 3. and dark complete edition courtesy of our friend King Quimazabi Nice, how do you feel

about your win the true Smitty? Oh, I've been waiting my whole life for this Now I'm going to Disney World. That's awesome. Thanks for playing. Hey, Dunaway, it's nice having you on too. You know what we're doing this Friday. We're having a little bit of the old play retro. Yeah, we are.

We're doing some Wolverine, our favorite Adetanium covered skeleton guy Adetanium. Don't forget about Adetanium. How do you say it? How do you say it? Adamantium. Adamantium.

Unobtaniums. That'll be I was pasting some codes. I don't know what you guys are talking about. But we're talking about Wolverine. Wolverine. Yeah, the NES version, the Mega Drive version,

as well as the SDS version. And maybe the Game Boy color, but I don't Should we do the Wolverine's revenge for the PS2? I don't know. That's fine. We're well over 20 years. We're in the rules. Yeah, yeah, 2003.

So it counts. We could do it. But it's going to be fun because Wolverine deserves a little sunlight sometimes, you know? Wolverine gets revenge on the people who made that horrible X-Men Origins film. That's right. Yeah, that movie sucked. But yeah, that'll be this Friday. 1.30 p.m.

Mountain time when we do it live and Brian and I'll both be there. done away that'll be great kiss our butts no you nope all right he's out of here he had to start saying no you right when i said kiss because the lag is kind of bad at south carolina and he can't always answer as quickly as no he did great he did great like uh sliding that uh sliding that in yep he did well all right we're going to take a break when we come back from this break tom merritt will join us as hinted at before also recommendals after that but before that a song with brian ibitt's choice of making it play. Oh, this is good.

All right. So some alt rock. In the vein, according to Clarion Call, and I tend to agree with this, for fans of Varouca Salt, bully, garbage, and Heinz, oh, somewhere out there

in Ice Warm got his wings just now. Clarion Call Media provided this one over. These guys are from Brooklyn. It's a band called Sub-T. They have a little asteris between the sub and the tea like they think they're Dragon Con or something.

They have a brand-new EP called Spring Skin comes out June 21st on If This Then Records. I love it. This is the first single from it. It's called Unearthly. Here is SubT. And four faces, I decided to plead with you. I have never felt so youthful.

I can't go away. It's an unearthly. I can't turn away. It's disturbing Came to visit you in your garden You had descended too far down You never saw me As an angel

My true nature be revealed Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh I Can look away It's

I know I can't turn away It's disturbing Go to the entrance, keep it safe You're on earthly Goad the entrance, keep it safe

You're on a seat I'll count to seven Oh count to seven I'll count to seven Count to seven One, two, three, two, five, six, seven One, two, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, five, six, seven.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I can't look away. It's an hour away. I can't turn away. It's distant. Goody entrance keep it safe You're on earthly Gordinary

Keep it safe You're on earthly You want to be my lover You gotta get with my friends Nobody in this house is getting a nose job You got that? And we've returned. Who is that again?

Oh, it makes me smile. Every time you play Pamela Adlon's great voice work on King of the Hill. That is Sub-T and Unearthly from a brand new EP they have coming out in June. But this single is available now. check out sub t it has been the most comfort watch of the year so far for me just chilling out listening to that recording things here and there i've had a few of those here on the show i can't get enough king of the hill right now i don't know how that reboot's going but uh not rebuk oh i forgot that yeah return or whatever they're doing the problem is dale died and they already

did half the voice work is with him so what do you do now for the rest of the whatever season they're making like i don't know what you do you can't have a fake dale can't have a i dail i mean you could but i don't want them to imagine you know there's voice there's people out there who can do a good dale like the you know what they did for for rick and morty was was um acceptable they're not distractingly bad or they could go they could go complete different direction to do what they did for solar opposites and have like a dan stevens level uh change yeah and they kind of have a problem across the board because they got they got the

niece what's her name was she passed away oh right Britney Murphy Britney Murphy way too young and then you got free fall in what's his name Tom Petty was his boyfriend he passed away so you're missing a bunch of folks whatever whatever they do I'm here for it

go for it let's go I'm into it all right yeah yeah we're going to now swing the microphone west and bring Tom Merritt into the fray he uh I believe he's back from Texas let's find out when we get him on the phone here and we'll see what's going on in the world of technology oh I hear myself no I don't know all right check this out everybody listen to this we want Tom we do indeed Tom Merritt everybody looks like he is back in the studio after a whirlwind trip to Austin Texas welcome you look like you just saw the eclipse yeah

who said that Who's speaking to me? You did not use glasses, apparently. I took all the safety precautions, and as I discussed on Good Day Internet yesterday, we had a little magic trick from Brian Brushwood in Austin, Texas, for the eclipse. There were clouds, and we didn't think we were going to see totality. We saw it, like, moving and moving and getting closer, and then right before totality, the clouds covered it. It was like, oh, no, and then right at the last moment. moment the clouds parted and you got a good look at the the full thing blocked out and and the entire

time you got the darkness and the birds all confused and the you know the the the light sensors thinking it's night time and turning on the lights and all that so it was great sure yeah I uh I it looked good I saw some of your pictures and um I don't know who's is that their dog the little white dog I kind of want that dog is that is that sure it's dog is that dog available yeah because I'd sure like that dog if you could bring it home. A little one, right? Yeah. That's Mike TV's dog. Yep. All right. Mop it. I like that dog. It's a great name. The other thing that Brian did was he got George Robb to play the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon on piano, timing it so that as totality hit, he was singing and the sun

is eclipsed by the moon. That's great. That's some great timing. Nicely done. George was so stressed out. He had a phone for the timer so that he could like keep track and try to keep pace and all of that. He forgot to put it and do not disturb. So everybody's like, how's it going? Are you joined the eclipse the whole time that he was playing? Oh, no.

Yeah, you just have to, I just forget to do that too. And I have something like that with my phone. Well, it's good to have you back. Since you've been back, I know you've been digging around and getting all settled back into your tech world. And I'm sure there's stuff swirling around the drain today. going on. Yeah, did you hear it? Did you already talk about Warcraft coming back to China? No, so I guess

they made a deal. Net-E's and them made up, because it was, they famously, there was like a big stink on the NetE's side anyway, and they actually burned like a blizzard statue at the time and did all this crazy shit. I didn't hear about burning the statue. Yeah, it was some

Overwatch character or something. I can't remember what it was, maybe Tracer or something, but they knocked it over and set it on fire, and there was a bunch of disgruntled angry people. And then, yeah, yeah, Then it just kind of went away, and I assume that Matt Woe, that bridge is, quote-unquote, burned. They're not going back to that, but no, they made up. Yeah. So, turns out Microsoft was the adult in the room based on what you just said.

If people don't realize in China, in a lot of industries, you can do business in China only if you partner with a Chinese company. So for video games, you need to partner with a domestic company to publish. And that domestic company handles all of the particular regulations that China has about what's acceptable and whether you can show a skeleton or not and all of that sort of thing. And then the outside company just provides the licensing and the technology and works with that company if you need to have the skeleton not showing to, you know, do stuff like that. So that deal ended in November 22. and then that meant, because of the terms of the deal, that all of the Blizzard products stopped being distributed in China in January, 2023. It doesn't mean Chinese players stopped playing those.

It just means they had to jump through a bunch more hoops if they wanted to do it. So now it's going to be much easier because Microsoft has gone and made nice with NetE's. Apparently, a NetE's executive had claimed that the original deal fell apart because of one specific jerk. Um, whoever that was is gone now, I think. Uh, and so Microsoft not only, uh, patching up the blizzard thing, but I think Microsoft was interested in, in expanding the partnership with NetE's and saying, we want to bring more Microsoft games to China. So, uh, let's figure out the Blizzard thing so that we're on good terms and then let's expand that deal. Yeah, the weirdest part about the whole thing when that fell apart was they didn't, the, the arrangement they had then and still with, uh, Diablo

Immortal, the mobile game. That continued with NetE's. Different people, different department. But the point is, like, it was so weird. On the one hand, they're burning the statue and completely just saying, this is it, we're done forever. And on the other hand, they're like, but yeah, but we got this mobile game and it's doing good and raking in money, so we'll just keep that going. The contract requires us to publish the mobile game, so I guess we'll do that.

Don't burn the mobile game. Yeah, don't burn the mobile game down. Whatever you do, you all have phones, right? Anyway, that's interesting. having it out of the country or having those games not playable there I think was a big deal for a while. People were not happy about that, so having them come back. I'm curious

from your point of view, do you think that had an effect on the fates and successes and expansions of e-sports with Blizzard? Oh, good question. I mean, it never really slowed in Korea, but the

Chinese side of e-sports definitely took a hit. Not just them, though. There was a lot of a big dip in a lot of games because there were new regulations. And a lot of them affected the youth and how long they could play and all that kind of stuff. So even things like League of Legends, StarCraft 2, these sort of e-sports stalwarts kind of not stopped, but they hit a real pause in that market. And I think it probably did. Like how can it not affect the overall thing?

It was already kind of a problem in Europe and the U.S. in terms of growth and not getting their investment back. so then when you have an entire Asian market essentially shut you down like in the Overwatch's case I mean it's literally what happened then that has to be a negative impact right there's no way they they would deny that but I also

it's kind of hard to tell when it was you know running into problems in a lot of different places but yeah I think that did I think you're right that the regulations which cracked down on younger than 18 players probably were a part of that they were going to restrict it even first

in December, and then there was a little bit of an internal tussle, and they walked that back. It does, technology review has an article today just in general why China's regulators are softening on the tech sector, and it does seem like some of the ideological elements of cracking down on tech because it doesn't promote socialism with Chinese characteristics well, and it's, you know, coming from the outside, et cetera, et cetera, has run into the fact that you're scaring people away. You don't have investors wanting to put money into your country anymore at a time when you need that. China's economy is maturing and slowing at the same time. So it does seem like that probably was part of it too. But I wonder how much the softening of the regulations allowed

Microsoft to come in and make a deal with net ease. It's possible that the fight with Blizzard in 2022 was because of the increasing restrictions, you know, when you start making it harder, people start to dig in their heels and say, I can't give you a better deal because the deal with the government's getting worse all the time. And now that that has stopped and eased, maybe net ease felt a little more relaxed and a little more willing to negotiate. And of course, Microsoft being a fresh face helped a lot too. Yeah. And I think the one thread running through all of this is there's a lot of untapped potential both in player base and in creative output in China. There are companies and developers that are making some really cool stuff,

and they get hamstrung by these somewhat draconian measures by the government. So I don't know. Personally, I hope that eases up. You know, all the politics aside, there are some good things about having a shared global gaming player base, you know? Well, yeah. Have you ever heard the phrase ping pong diplomacy? no i don't think i have

wasn't mean so it may be outdated at this point but it was a term for for decades that referred to the fact that China and the United States were not talking and

there was a ping pong tournament and the US player went over and said hey let's let's the Chinese player let's play and they sort of just broke a few rules doing that

melted some barriers. And next thing you know, Kissinger's in China talking to the premier and Nixon goes and visits Mao and the relationship got a lot better, at least for several decades before recently. Nice. So maybe World of Warcraft can be this generation's ping pong. Warcraft diplomacy. Yeah, perfect. The alliance and the horde can't get along, but maybe we can. Well, that's great.

Tom Merritt, I look forward to discuss. seeing more, many more tech stories on the show today. And we're going to go a little bit deeper in a segment I'm going to talk about Microsoft's apparent full backing of a new console for a next generation. They don't seem to have followed up to do any of the things people rumored, which was all they're getting out of the console business. It sounds like they're full speed ahead on whatever their next gen hardware is going to be. So we're going to talk about that. We've got other stuff. Is there anything else you want to mention that's going on or coming up that you're working on?

Yeah, I'm still working through funding for the book. We're past 50% for synced at Unbound.com. In fact, I got to see Will Harris. If you don't know Will Harris, the original Britoe. He is the CEO of Unbound, so I got to see him this weekend and hang out. And he assured me, like, you're fine, you're on track. Just keep going. So thank you for folks.

I know there's been a couple bugs here and there. And some of you even helped them fix the bugs. uh so that has improved things in the ordering process uh especially if you you ran into problems ordering um by by all means head back uh and and try again because i think it's a lot smoother now um but thanks to everybody who has preordered uh the idea is to have a book that helps you understand technology without all the outrage and the fud and and all of that so uh if that sounds of interest to you and you haven't already considered it go check it out at tom's newbook dot com tom's new book dot com tom's new book.com I'm Merritt, have a fantastic day.

We'll see you a little bit later. Thank you, Tom. Bye now. All right. He's got that weird hiss, but we just live with it. Just live with it. I wonder what's causing that. It's crazy.

I only get it with him. So it's got to be something on his end, but I don't know what. I'm guessing there's some weird software loop he's got going that he uses for show stuff and just causes a weird outgoing call. What's funny is we have a meeting on Discord every Wednesday at one to prepare for the show for DTNS. and none of that there. And it's still on Discord, and it doesn't make any sense.

I don't get it. I don't get it. Well, anyway, it's good to have Tom here. Let's get to some recommendals, guys. It's time for you to stop flipping channels wondering what you're going to watch. You know? What am I going to watch next?

You're going to want to hear what we say about that. And some great recommendals lately. So let's see what we got today. Today feels like a little old school today for a bunch of us. I think Brian will be the most modern of the three of the first. It definitely will be, yeah, yeah, that's true. Good deal. Here we go.

Well, what do you recommend? Well, let's tell you what we recommend. We recommend things on streaming services, everything from Netflix to Prime and everything in between. Whatever it is, wherever we saw it, we like to bring it here and say, you should see it. And joining us, as always, is Nicole Spagnola. Hello, Nicole. And she's muted. It's not working.

Oh, you're good. You're back. Now we hear you. It took a second. Earphones. Yeah. It's all good. You sound fun.

You're home now. Yeah. Everything's good. you'd uh i guess you'd been home by now it's been over two weeks in turn in denver uh had that seemed like a fun trip though how'd that go everything good yeah it was a lot of fun we explored colorado more that one week than the full time we lived there

you did when you were living there yeah yeah you know maybe if i would have showed you some of those places you'd still be here maybe you wouldn't have left well we'll come back we come back all the time so you do that's true it's not much of a drive Is it? Yeah, go ahead. My recommendal is because of that trip, so. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Okay. Can we need to find out how it connects. Geez. Yeah. Speaking of connecting things, let's connect ourselves to Randy Jordan, who's also here. Hi, Randy. Good morning, morning stream. I observed a long time ago that if you live in a place that has a miniature golf course

and you don't ever go play miniature golf, you have no idea what your home looks like to people who travel to your home. Because they all, all. go play miniature golf when they come to your town. Wow. Is that a thing? I didn't know that was a thing. That's, that's, uh, I've learned something. I like learning things here on the show and you've taught me

something today. Yeah, it's my opinion, but I, I just like, I, the first time I ever went back to South Texas after I moved far away, uh, you know, some friends that were like, we're going to go play miniature golf. I'm like, I've never done that. Hmm. All the tourists are there. Wow. Okay. So this is how

they see this place. Nice. Nice. Well, um, I'm glad to have you. here too. I'm glad to have all of us here. And we're going to start with Brian Ibit, who always starts. And you got a clip, but give us a little setup before I play it. Yeah, I try not to fall into the, here's the brand new thing that everybody's excited about. I'm going to watch it and then recommend it because if you know about it, you've probably already watched it. But I'm going to recommend it nonetheless. And it's a series. And, yeah, let's play the clip.

Human beings have existed for over 100,000 years. for most of that time you weren't so different from apes how long did it take you to discover agriculture why don't you cut the shit and tell us it took you 90,000 years to get from hunter-gatherer to farmer I love him after that

how long did it take you to become industrialists about 10,000 years atomic power 200 years computers the information age 50 years and how long do you think it took us to get from hunting to farming

and farming to industry and industry to atomic power. A lot longer. Our planet is stable. Our catastrophes aren't really catastrophes we've never had to start over, but they do. Every time they get wiped out.

It will be 400 years before we reach you. By the time we do, you will have long surpassed us. You will destroy our fleet. And then come back and destroy our world. To make sure we never threaten you again. This is not a conquest. It is a funeral procession.

Unless you figure out a way to discern us. To keep us from moving forward. Have you? Yes. We are going to kill your science. I'm missing a finger and I have onions in my boat. I love him. Yeah, that was lead coming, Cunningham, Davos from Game of Thrones.

You know, there's a lot of Game of Thrones in this thing because it's put together by David Beniof and D.B. Weiss who did the Game of Thrones TV show for HBO, but also features Davos, features Tarley, Samuel Tarley, features the little sparrow, Sir Jonathan Price, features, I don't know, we're waiting for Cersie and a bunch of other people show up, a big woman with dragons or something. The TV show is Three Body Problem.

Oh, did I, yes, me? Would you say, Nicole? No, no, no. I was going to say three-body problems. I tried to read this book three times. Yeah. And each time. The three-attempt problem is what you read into.

I hear it's a wonderful book. I just couldn't, I couldn't get in past the first chapter. It is really incredible. But it does start with a dissertation on the cultural revolution in China. And that can be slow reading. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that's how the show starts as well with somebody getting beaten to death during a public lynching in China based on science over religion.

And this kind of sets up the whole thing where the daughter of this person gets sent off to a secret laboratory to help fend off an incoming... Alien attack, which is where the rest of the season goes. It's some heavy sci-fi, but it's fascinating stuff because these aliens are so far away, it's going to take them 400 years to get here. So we've either got to figure out how to prepare in those 400 years, or we have to figure out a way to meet them and stop them before they get close and before they can kill our science. I mentioned all the Game of Throners in here, but you've also got Rosalind Chow. You know, Klinger's wife or Keiko, Brian.

You've got Elsa Gonzalez. You've got Mario Kelly. You've got Giovanna Depot from fences and... Oh. Yeah. I like them a lot. Babylon. I know we've seen him in a bunch of stuff.

Oh, Mother. He was in Mother with Jennifer Lawrence. Oh, right. That thing left me with a hole in my heart. Anyway. And a whole lot of Benedict Wals. long in his natural, natural accent, which is the best part of seeing him in here. It is, my God, it is a fascinating show.

And they do enough in the first season to make you feel like you're getting something, right? Because here's the thing. It's a big, expensive book. I haven't read it. Randy, sounds like you've read it. It's three books. The first one is what the season is based on. Oh, got you.

I do consider it like one of the best sci-fi books of all time like top five sci-fi books of all time. I've never seen a list that didn't include it in the top three or sometimes number one. In fact, most of the time when I was looking,

I was looking this up the other day just trying to see where this thing sat and it was always like this, Dune, William Gibson Neuromancer maybe. To android's dream of electric sheep is probably in the one of those ones. That's up there in the top 10 usually.

Like there's always this top 10 floating around and this one is always up there And I'm always like, I got to get over my hangup. I have this hang up about that book, which is it's a Chinese author, which is fine, but I always worry about translation. And then when I'm going to read the English version of this book, I'm going to get, it's going to be different than it's meant to be because translation isn't simple one-to-one from Mandarin to English or whichever Chinese dialect it uses, the original.

And so I worry about that. But I need to quit worrying about it and freaking read it because everybody I talk to says, oh, it's the, it's the bomb. Yeah. Save yourself the trouble and watch this mini-series. Yeah. I might tell. And I also tried to read the Dune audiobook version. And we got about 20 minutes into it.

He goes, Mom, this is really boring. That ain't going to work for a kid very well, I don't think. I mean, I love that first book, but it's a slow read, you know. Well, they have to set it all. You have to set the world up, right? That's why it's so easy to watch these shows because it's pretty easy to kind of establish the world quickly. versus a book, you have to make the layers and the history and all of that. I've been worried that this show wouldn't land with people who didn't read the book.

You remember when the expanse first started and people were like, oh, this is kind of dense. And people who had read the book were like, you don't understand how great this is, you know? That's been my concern here. I never read the Expans books and never read the Three Body Problem books, but I enjoyed both of those a lot. And so I'll speak on behalf of the people who haven't read. I haven't read either and say I enjoy me

some heavy sci-fi and both you know the expanse of this feel like that that perfect level of heavy sci-fi for me

where it's a really really deep and immense universe pun intended of characters and no I love that

yeah this is this is great it's currently on Netflix eight episodes obviously we're going to get you know

more season Hopefully we're going to get more seasons. I'm sure this thing did well enough that it's guaranteed as at least one more season. But really, really well done and does a nice job of giving you enough to keep you satiated for the story, but not finish the story like you would, you know, you're anticipating it to do. And for sure, are we, do we know if they've greenlit more? Like, we're definitely getting more. Is that part of the deal?

Let's see if. I would have to think. There's no mention on the Wikipedia page of usually it says Netflix is greenlit a second season, but it's got an 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was it was in the top 10 in my region for ever since it came out at the end of March. So I'd be surprised if it's not. I don't know what the, how China feels about it. Are they liking it? Are they not like it?

So they don't get to see it unless. they punch through the Great Firewall. Oh, right. They've got to get, yeah, sure. And so there are writings in Chinese media about where people have watched it and then commented. And it's kind of like some like and some don't like. Yeah, it's also, they have a whole like 30 episode series or something based on it over there. I don't know if you can even get it here.

Right. Yeah, just last year, there was a Chinese version of three body problem. Yeah. And it was long. Like they went, I don't know, it's something like 30 episodes. That's a lot. I mean, for any show, really. That's, well, I guess it's three seasons here is all that is.

Three seasons of this show. We'll see what they do. I'm excited to see it. I've been kind of like, for me, it's like, I know, Nicole, I can compare your experience with trying to read it with how I tried, how I felt when I tried to read the foundation books. That really was hard for me. And I gave up on those for the same reason. They're just so, it's just so, it's just so, it was like math to me. It's just hard.

And then... It can be a slog. Yeah. It can kind of be a slog. Especially some of that stuff. I don't know. Clark and those guys, they knew how to write really long things

that were less about action and more about ideas. But it's really good stuff and I respect it. But I really enjoyed the TV show version of foundation. And I know perfectly well as I'm watching it. They're cutting stuff out. They're moving things around. You kind of have to make that stuff work.

They combined a lot of characters. Yeah. And they probably do that. They probably do that here, right? Ryan, like, there's probably, well, like, maybe I haven't read the book, but I'm sure some of this stuff is compressed. The Wikipedia page talks about how, like, this, this character is based on the characters of these three people, and this one is based on these four people. And yeah, yeah, so they do a lot of combining of characters there, here, too. By the way, if you want to check out the Chinese version, it is on Amazon Prime.

Really? And, yeah, like, it's a bunch more reading, but, you know, it's there. Okay. It's not, that that one does not have favorable reviews. yeah people don't like it turns out that version that version that's unfortunate yeah uh anyway everybody problem netflix eight episodes uh check it out now uh getting good audience and uh critic scores so yeah everyone seems to be on board here excellent uh let's swing right over to uh Nicole you got a you got a show here i love what you've picked because i find it to be comfort food

but i'll let you explain anything you want to say here before I play it. I'm going to take you back to 2002. The show that I loved watching, I had a different mindset. We put this on, it's on Netflix. We put it on TV because we were just, we were in the condo, Mark's mom's condo. And I was like, oh, I'll just put this on. Because I'm trying to bounce, because we're all in the same room.

So I've got kids. So I just, it's harder to find the more kid appropriate. shows that are not cartoons, right? Right. So I was like, okay, Mateo's kind of into murder mysteries and stuff like that and detective kind of stuff. So I completely forgot how much OCD he has.

And after getting sick and now experiencing OCD, I appreciate this show more than you can amend. imagine. And Mateo also suffers from OCD. And we both were just like, he's watching this on his own now. So I wanted to just remind people about the show. All of it's on Netflix. It's just wonderful. All right. Here's your clip. Adrian, take off your sunglasses. Why? You look like a drug dealer. What? I'm telling you you do. You fit the profile perfectly. You have 18 suitcases and you're We're wearing a suit.

I mean, if you work out, when do you think you look suspicious? Buenos Aires. How long way to be, Mexico? Two to three days. I'm not a drug dealer. This is Monk. I love Monk so much.

It's so good. So Tony Shalube, I knew Tony Shalub from Wings first. And then he started doing this show, and I started watching him because I liked him in Wings. And I just remember, it's that it's a fun detective and he's very smart and he goes through a very traumatic thing that really brings on his OCD and they even though it's funny I feel like they handle it with care too they handle

him with care oh yeah and people around him and I'm sure they're he's autistic and you know a lot of this stuff early 2000s 90s 80s none of this stuff we're all getting late diagnosed for a reason it just wasn't something

that you just you're like oh he's quirky he's a little weird like I don't even know if they even say in the show what he's battling with so

but it was such a different I mean yeah I does say in the write up of OCD but he has a few more things going on but it's just really well done I love it yeah it's a great it's a great show it's funny it's heartfelt they earn every everything they do on that show it's a great comfort watch

nothing wrong with monk if you've never seen monk watch it's one i need to see and it's one that's been on my list forever you've never seen monk no never seen any monk you'd like it you'd like i know i love it yeah it's up here it's up your episodes the first two episodes are like a continuation and it has um oh what's his name from battle star galactica um oh not chief is it chief oh you're talking about um the senator is because i was like oh i recognize him it's um uh edward edward james almost that guy tyrell oh tarrell yeah oh yeah okay that's true yeah oh oh yeah i like him he's good yeah so he plays the senator and so Monk is he's been he's lost his it's the setup of him getting hired as a contractor

through the police department and it kind of you have you ever watched Syke the show Syke yeah that's what I compare it to yeah yes 100% and I told Mateo I said when you get done with Monk I got another show for you and we'll watch that one too I love it look at you sharing the classics with the boy I think that's great also Shalub has got one hell of a career I know though that last year there was a monk movie completely missed it yeah you see that too or are you going to watch that i haven't seen that one yet i was waiting for matea to finish the finish all the episodes and then surprise them with the updated the time i remember being the most freaked out is i'd seen him on wings like you right and then men in black comes out and he's that weird

alien tiny head guy oh yeah and i remember going oh so we're not it's not it's not not just going to be typecast like the wings guy that he's going to do all sorts of weird stuff and then he was in cars as the little Luigi character voice. I loved him in Galaxy Quest. What's the old with Bill Murray and Gina Davis? Oh

shoot, I know the one you mean. Yeah, he's a cab driver in that and he is absolutely hilarious. He's completely unintelligible. Yeah, Galaxy Quest is a great poll. Nicole, that's a good one. I also loved him in quick change. Quick change, yeah. He was in something recently. Oh, that I watched that flamen, I recommended it here.

The Flaming Hot Cheeto thing. Yeah. Which, you know, up or down, the whole thing's just kind of okay. But he plays the CEO of, um, of, uh, Frida Leigh, uh, Roger Enrico. And Rico and he really, like, elevated everything about that show. He was very good, in it. So, uh, yeah, you got me in the monk mood. And in fact, if you want something that's also a brand new that's coming out that is very monk-like,

at least I think it is. It's that spinoff from the Good Wife that just started called Kim watched two episodes called Ellsbeth. And it's about this red-headed Wackadoo lawyer. She's a lawyer in this case, but she's basically a private investigator. Isn't she from like the good wife? Yeah, the good wife. Right on air light a few years ago.

And yeah, she's really good in that. She was great in that for the few episodes she was in. She's very funny. I can't even think of her name. I love this lady. Carrie Preston. Carrie Preston. She's very funny in it.

It feels a lot like monk in terms of like, I mean, she's extremely neurodivergent in different ways. But it really, she really suits the character well. Anyway, I watched the pilot, and I thought it was like great. And I don't like network TV much. It kind of bugs me most of it. But this was pretty good. I need to check that out. Yeah, it was good.

Carrie Preston is in a horror film, and it's called They Them. but you realize actually there's a slash in there it's called they slash them oh i see what they did i like that absolutely ridiculous title the pilot had the sooky guy from uh true blood in it and uh she was also on true blood as the as the um as the waitress friend the redhead rachel friend and true blood do you remember her yeah yeah that's her the sassy redheaded waitress yeah so that's her and she's in this pilot as, you know, Ellsbeth, and she's playing against this character played by the Sookie guy. I can never think of his name.

The good-looking vampire guy that would go, Sookie, Sookie. Sookie. Oh, Bill. Was it Bill? Bill. Vampire, Bill. And they were great together. Empire Bill.

Stephen Moyer. Stephen Moyer. Thank you. For a hot minute, he was the next thing. And then we all forgot. An Englishman struggling so hard to sound like he's from Louisiana. Yeah. So hard.

Oh, just straining. He goes full English in that trailer or in that pilot, which is fun to watch. All right. Let's swing it over to Randy. Randy, and let's make a recommendation. What do you got here? So, as you know, I really, really love films. And I've decided that I'm going to start going back to movie theaters,

the new Ghostbusters movie. And, you know, there's a new movie opening tomorrow that a lot of people really excited about, made by one of our greatest 50-something filmmakers. Say it tomorrow myself. Yeah, nice. And this 50-something filmmaker, he has what I consider his best movie, and it's also celebrating its 10th anniversary. And I'm not going to tell you much about it in case you haven't seen it,

because I really shouldn't. So this is like the very first dialogue in the movie. And that's all you're going to get. Here you go. Caleb, I'm just going to throw this out there so it said, okay? You're freaked out. I am? Yeah.

You're freaked out by the helicopter in the mountains in the house because it's all so super cool. And you're freaked out by me to be meeting me having this conversation in this room at this moment, right? And I get that. I get the moment you're having, but dude, can we just get past that? Can we just be two guys, Nathan and Caleb? Not the whole employer-employee thing?

Yeah, okay. Yeah? Yes, sorry. Yeah. It's good to meet you, Nathan. It's good to meet you, too, Caleb. Tell us more. Who is this?

That is Oscar Isaac talking to Domain Hall-Kleason. and this is the Alex Garland masterpiece X Machina, which again is celebrating its 10th anniversary. They have a, I think they have a 10th anniversary edition. I'm confused about whether that's entirely, it has anything new. So X Machina is a mystery thriller.

It is very quiet, very, it feels very drawn out for a movie that's only like an hour 35. in in this you have domin hall gleason is playing a tech bro who like he just works at a tech company that's like kind of like google and can i correct you on the pronunciation by the donald donald gleason is it don't whatever all right whatever there's an l in the middle there's an in the middle of his name i'm going to say that's fine don't look is a don't I blame Brendan Gleason because he could have given his kid a normal

ass name. It's pronounced brand. Yes. Is it brand Gleason? Gleason. Yeah, anyway. So the super like Jack type guy is Oscar Isaac. He lives out in the middle

of nowhere in a man, a massive compound by himself. And he asks this employee to come out there who comes out there. And then you find out that there are things afoot in this compound really don't want to say much more about it it is absolutely just an incredible movie it's it's it's it's got all that that that quiet dread that you that you want from a movie like this yeah you you know you find out

what's going on there and our our main you don't at some point you don't trust anything that you've been seeing which is just like the mark of a an awesome mystery, right? I mean, I've liked everything he's ever done. Where do you stand on devs? Because I feel like devs might be kind of a masterpiece. It feels so much like devs. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. You can tell it's the same dude. Annihilation I love. Like, that dude makes him cool shit. Like, his movies are awesome. And he's absolutely agree. Yeah. Alex Garland is, you know, like he doesn't miss or at least he doesn't, yeah, he doesn't miss.

He's not, he's not going to really made anything that's average. This guy is above average every time. And I was just asking myself, is this my favorite Alex Garland movie? And I rewatched it. I'm like, yeah, I think it is. We'll see, we'll see it tomorrow. His writing credits are so crazy. He wrote Sunshine, which is one of my favorite movies.

He worked with Danny Boyle a lot because he also wrote 28 days later. And I love those movies. He also wrote comics. He wrote the black and white Batman thing. He made a video game or wrote the video game, the story, for enslaved Odyssey to the West, an amazingly underrated game from 2010. I never even heard of that.

I need to check that out. Directed and wrote Dread, the only good, uh, dread movie ever made. And he wrote that freaking devil may cry game from two or one or two games back. Like, and then he goes on to do all this.

Like in Civil War's poised to be like the most controversial film of the year and it's supposed to be good. I can't wait to hear what you guys think of it because I'm, I don't know if I'll see that in theaters, but I'm glad we're kind of leaving the, the actual movie aside because I, you haven't seen ex machina i don't even want you to look up who's in it right yeah like you you should you should just take this as it comes and you'll be way better off for it yeah um

it's uh it's got like almost no music it's got uh very very little um cinematography like the the it's a lot of cedicam shots it's very claustrophobic wouldn't you say it's very like close and tight and you're in that guy's house a lot yeah yeah yeah that's that's fair um and and the main thing is like this is oscar isaac just chewing up the world and he's and he's not got a lot to do in the movie it's it's really uh de gleason who you have to like uh you know you have to count you that d d period gleason who the the the whole structure of the film is hung on him and what a performance from this and you know he's a pretty young actor at this time.

This is 10 years ago. Yeah. But Oscar Isaac, you can't. I like, I want to watch it again right now. I just watched it yesterday. And I want to watch it again just because I'm just amazed by how, how Oscar Isaac portrays a, like I say, Jack Dorsey is the best possible comparison. Yeah, we haven't mentioned her, but Alicia Bickander is also amazing in it.

She's kind of. And I just said, I just said, I don't want you to even look up who else is. in it because it's that's not a spoiler that's not a spoiler they come on down I also recommended this years ago who did oh really did you did you did you recommend this yeah oh oh I don't remember that I thought you did an I thought you did annihilation didn't you do annihilation or someone did here I thought you did annihilation I thought that was somebody did annihilation and I think I was calling it ex machina I know I mispranana I think is it ex machina it's go to the tape yeah she called it ex machina it's very I

I think Randy's right. It's one of the best modern, I mean modern 10 years ago. You're right. But it's like one of the best modern sci-fi movies ever. You're giving it all the way. You're describing it as sci-fi. I did it again. Yeah, it's very good.

And also, she's naked. That is a little bit of a spoiler. There is that. Okay. Let's swing over to me. I'm going to give you a quick one here. This is also an older film that I had not seen. So I'm on a quest to make sure there's not a stone unturned for,

a couple of directors that I want to make sure I've seen everything for. I thought I had and I'd forgotten about a couple and this was one of them and I'm well I have a I have a cautionary tale to share after this about why we avoid things that we think we should see or shouldn't see because of public opinion and how annoyed I am it took this long to see this because I really liked this so here it is. Sy Abelman? This is not about sigh. You mentioned sigh. Don't twist my words Larry. A divorce? Well, what have I done? I haven't done anything. Larry, don't be a child. You haven't done anything. I haven't done anything. Yes, yes. We haven't done anything. And I'm probably about to get tenure. Nevertheless, there have been problems, as you know, and things have changed. And then, Tsai Abelman. Tsai has come into my life. What does that mean? You barely know him. Oh, please, we've known the Abelman's for 15 years. Yes, but you said we hadn't done anything.

I haven't done anything. This is not some flashy fling, Larry. This is not about whoopsie-dupsy. Whoopsy-dupsy. This movie is a serious man. This is a 20-ought-9 film by Ethan and Jill Cohen. I thought I'd seen every Cohen Brothers movie. I hadn't.

I'd forgotten about this one. and I remember at the time hearing I don't know if it was critics or read something or something but it seemed like people were kind of like oh this one's too up its own butt or it's too like referential to growing up as a Jewish kid and no one's going to understand it and it's just very inside baseball or something like that

I read something that made me go oh well maybe I'll skip it because this isn't for me yeah because their last movie was no country for old men how do you even live up to that and their next movie would be a true grid I believe and that's one of my favorite westerns so I always just got oh well this is just their little speed bump

you know it's not going to be great I am so wrong about that so wrong a serious man is now in my top five Cohen brothers films I loved this movie and found it to have all the ingredients that I asked for

from those two dudes and had it in spades I also love it when they set something in a time period that isn't current I just think that's when they're at their best and the short of it is Michael Stolberg plays this character named Larry Gopnik. Richard Kine plays his uncle Arthur and one of the weirdest roles he's ever done.

Amazing role. Sarah Lenick is his wife and Fred Melamand, Melamad, Melammed, I think he's how he said. Plays this character named Cy Abelman. And he, all of these people have been in other Cohen Brothers things, including in Stalberg's case. He was in season three of Fargo, amazing in there. I just want to stop for you because I'm looking at his Wikipedia page. It says his last name is pronounced stoolbarg. Is it stoolbar?

Nobody cares how things are pronounced. But it's just like stoolbarg, if that like, like, the doctor asks you to submit a sample of your stoolbar. Yeah. It's like, it's a, it's the, it's the device you use to test your stool is the stool bark. That's right. Just fish it out with a stoolbar. Yeah, it'll be fine. Anyway, he's, he is in season three of Fargo and is an amazing character in that.

This also has Adam Arkin in a small role. who is also in season two of Fargo like it's clear we're getting a lot of reuse out of some of these characters and actors not characters so much oh and Fred Melamend is also in season three he's very good anyway it is great it's really just a story it's an allegory

which is when again the Cohen brothers do great allegories you know famously what's the one one of you boys ain't a smithy by chance what am I trying to what's the name of the movie well brother or art thou is the is the is the

Odyssey, right? It's just told them in this different way. And they really, I love when they do that. And this feels like a similar thing. This is the book of Job. It's basically Job. Yeah, exactly. But they do it the corkiest, weirdest way possible. And I absolutely adored it. Just loved it. It's on Max right now. Can't recommend it enough if you're a Cohn Brothers fan, even if you've seen it before. Time to watch it again. I love it. When it came out, all my Jewish friends were going to see it. And so I went and saw it too. And we had a disfewing. huge email chain for days and days after this movie. And I was blown away by how much, how much deeper this movie was for them because they knew all of the Jewish things, all of the steps, you know, that people take in their daily lives. And I didn't. It was like, I'm really amazed at how much depth this film has. For sure. And there's like the, all the stuff with the bar mitzvah and the, you know, the stuff around it, you know, the ceremony around all of that. I don't have any experience with that. And so what this felt like was the Cohen's getting a chance to like express how they grew up and what that felt like with a big thick layer of what

they do as directors and writers. And the results are amazing. It's a really, really great movie. And I'm annoyed that I didn't love it or watch it back then. Brian here's something in his office. Yeah, something just fell over back here. And I don't know where it was. it wasn't that ball your ball stayed you look at your balls up there still we're good there my my sphere yes or my my hugo all right well Scott would you find it in pieces on the floor somewhere yeah your gauntlet didn't move yes Randy what nope right at the top of the description of this movie it says it's widely considered to be one of the greatest films of the 21st century how do you feel like a serious man is like I don't even it's top 20 since I don't know if I'd put it in top I hate those lists because they're so subjective But I would, I mean, like I said, I slotted it up in the higher echelon of Cohen Brothers films, whether it fits in that other category. I don't know. Like, I do think it's really good. I think that if you said to me, Scott, what's your favorite Cohen brothers movie? I would probably have a hard time not saying no country for old men. I love that movie. But also it depends on the mood I'm in. I love Fargo so much. I love Raising Arizona so much. Like, so many of their movies. Oh, brother, where aren't there? We already mentioned. The man who wasn't there. Like, I love their movies. And I just thought that this was going to be like the burn after reading or the rom-com one with Clooney. Oh, dangerous. No, is it intolerable cruelty?

That one, which I don't hate. I just don't put it in their upper echel. It's not in the, yeah, it's not, right. But this is pure them. This is like primordial Cohen brothers. It's got the intense sort of like stress of something like Blood Simple in a bunch of ways. It's got the quirky like. strange snapshot of a certain part of the country at a certain time of of of of history like

they do with fargo it's just it's got that right so this is 1960s Minnesota yeah yeah mid 60s maybe even early 60s and they based a lot of it on their own experience you know coming up that's when they would have been kids and and the friends of the son that are like on the bus with them all the time they all have names of their friends from high school and junior high And I don't know, you can tell it was a very personal movie for them to make that I really liked it. It's available on Max. I recommend you guys watching this if you like the Cohen Brothers at all and if you've never seen it. And even if you have, go watch it before it drops off streaming.

Hey, Scott. Yes, ma'am. Someone brought up, someone brought up a Dapper Dan man. And it made me think of the song I sent you, The Hell's Coming With Me. Oh, oh, right. Yes. I just wanted, I still love that song. I wanted to let other people know.

to look up poor man's poison hell's coming with me it feels so much like those songs and Cohen brothers movie I'm gonna give uh I'll give the chat the YouTube link because I agree I think people should check it out it's really really good also I'm just a reminder as I pulled this out of our text conversation that your daughter is going to be an amazing artist if she keeps up with this holy crap what I know right oh really oh I want to see here I'll share it I'll share it everybody. She's teaching herself how to draw anime. And she comes in with that drawing that I put on Twitter, our Instagram. And she goes, look what I drew. And I'm like, what? Yeah. Yeah, look at that. She's just getting started. That's awesome. I know. I'm blown away. I mean, a three quarter view, turned face, like proportions, all that. She's well on her way. Like that age, at that age, that's crazy. Crazy. Well, and so they had a little auction at the school, and I got her, I won the auction for her to be the art teacher for the day. So she gets to shadow the art teacher for a whole day. That's great. She's super excited about that. Congrats to her. She deserves it. She's already great. Yeah, this reminds me, Carter was, it was like Carter at that age. I was like, whoa, what's going on here? Yeah. She's totally lapped me at this point. So if she keeps this up. She creates a buffet out of an oak tree. Yeah. That's, you know, that's.

It's coming. What, Carter? Is it B.S. What do you mean? You're way better than me. Carter. I absolutely love Carter. Yep, she's the best. All right. Well, there you have it, everybody. All of this will be up at QuickTMS.L.I.

It already is, because that's just how efficient Brian is about that shit. So we love that. Did you find what fell, by the way? Yes. Mark Mothersbaugh fell off my dragon's lair. Oh, that's a shame. He's okay, though. One of my only funco pops is my whip.

bit Mark Mothersbaugh, and although wait, no, Mark Mothersbaugh had glasses, so this has to be the other guy. The other guy, yeah. Donald Gleason. That's right. Donald Gleason.

Oh, speaking of, I forgot to tell you, Scott, did you know that there's a Guy Ritchie movie being filmed right now called Fountain of Youth that includes Donald Gleason? I did, and I'm excited because what that tells me is you're probably going to get a very Irish Donald Gleason in that, and I'm all

about that. I'm like snatch level Snatch level Irish is what we're aiming for for his next movie in my opinion. I do want to see... Snatch level was my wrestling Nick. I want to see the new The Gentleman series that's based on the gentleman movie that he did.

I recommended that here and I love the gentleman. I thought that movie was really good. It was really good. Like a return to form. So looking forward to that. Anyway, go check it out. QuicktmS.L.I. Randy, have a fantastic week. Bye, Nicole.

Just cutting everybody off today. Yeah, that's good. That's what I do. I can't help it. It's part of my soul. Yeah, I think this is Mother's Bond. I lost his hat. You used to have a little hat,

but I don't know if that's him. He lost his little, uh, his little cone, red cone hat. I got lost in the move. You need me to 3D print some glasses in a hat for him. You know what? Maybe that's the world we live in. You lose a part.

You can just read 3D print it. Exactly. But he's got the full. people at home can't see this but you've got the full like but what even is that it's like a it's a yellow jumpsuit that is the uh yeah the divo yellow jumpsuit yeah we've got divo written on his shirt did they always have divo in their shirt or is that just this on that outfit they did but uh um yeah that was the something now building out for the future tour yep yep i should get him a new outfit where he just makes movie uh uh music

just make soundtracks yeah pretty cool All right, that's it for this show that we just did. Tomorrow we'll be back. Casale. That's the guy's named Casale, C-A-S-A-L-E. Oh, the second is the other guy, the other guy, the divo guy that that is holding the whip back there. Gerald Casale. Nice.

He whipped it. Whip it good, dude. Oh, dude. Good. Tomorrow, Wendy, all that stuff, your regular Thursday business. So please come on back, will you, please, everybody? That'd be great. And, oh, quick note.

I'm going to send. No Thursday show. Definitely there's a show tomorrow, as far as I know. Yes. Oh, you know what it is. Tomorrow my wife is, so my daughter and her husband and the babies are all going to Disney and Mario and all that in California. So they're taking Kim with as you think like, oh, no fun for her. Or is she like the nanny?

She loves that shit. She will love going around with the kids. So she's leaving tomorrow morning at five freaking in the morning. to take the kids. I'm going to be six days with that, Kim, just me and Carter. Driving to L.A. or flying? Flying. They're flying in the morning.

They're not doing the Florida. They're doing the L.A. Yeah. Yeah. Anaheim. Anaheim. Yeah. Cool. And, you know, they're paying to take her and, you know, they're making this big thing out of it. But Kim is so stoked and I'm jealous. Kim currently has put a big bowl of food on the floor. Like, it's overflowing a big bowl of food on the floor for Scott to eat for the next six days.

The rumor was she was going to make. a big batch of jambalaya before she left that i could just eat all week oh yeah i don't know if she's still doing that carter we still getting jumbalaya do you know are we getting bun jumbalaya still before today oh awesome vegetarian even for you right i think the off-screen carter is one of the best things for the show because it's always what yeah hello what i'm not listening to you guys right now i know i got to get her like a little uh me now you're in the booth a little producer right little producer headset and she can chime in every once in. I was like, um, no, it's pronounced

Donald. Yeah. Yeah, she goes, uh, no, cis male means not what you said of it. You're thinking of Gerald Casale from Diva? It's machete, not machete. Anyway, uh, that's it for us. We're going to be back tomorrow, though, so please come back and then, uh, all the other stuff going on, DT&S

for me. I don't know if you, did you do a stream yesterday? Did you build your, uh, I did not. No, I got cut up in the, um, the tech stuff. So I don't even know if I'll have a chance today because today is prep for Coverville tomorrow. But maybe tomorrow after Coverville, I need to, it's, you know, basically what I need to do is say, F-Lift, let me try and get enough views for the stuff I do on YouTube to start building a deal over there. We'll see. I mean, that's a lot. That is an awful lot. Yeah, that is a lot. Oh, I need to get, that's another thing. Tomorrow I will have a link to

my MS-150 page because now the weather is nice here, I've been going on rides and prepping for the big ride at the end of June. Holy crap, two and a half months away. Yeah. How did that happen

so fast? Oh, I don't know. Like, I feel like TMS Vegas is coming around right around when I expect it. It didn't feel like crazy quick. But that sounds like you just did it four minutes ago. And I don't know why. It does. Yes. Yes.

All right. Well, best of luck. We'll make sure we promote the hell out of it and make Brian, once again, the great donor of all MS time. I know. Really, you guys do such an amazing job of making the MS people, the people who run the charity be like, who the hell is this Brian Abbott guy? And why is he able to turn in, you know, one of the biggest donations in the country kind of thing? Yeah. It's because of you guys and you guys are, you know, right now you're seeing you guys. guys are helping cure MS, or at least helping treat it and prevent it. That's right. And if you're using Microsoft products, you're also using MS. It's a terrible joke.

All right, that's it. We're out of here. Frogpants.com slash TMS is our website. You'll find links to everything you ever need right there, except I don't know the name of this song. So Brian will play it and then we'll know. Oh, I'll tell you. I'll tell you what a song it is.

Jacob Miller says, it's my dad's, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right, M-O-L-E, L L-L-E-R, Moller, Mueller, Mueller, Mueller. Mueller. He says, it's my dad's 52nd birthday on March 15th, and he's been listening to this show for as long as I can remember, and there's hardly a car ride without Scott and Brian. I've inherited

most of his old man taste in music, but sadly, not you too. I'd much prefer a tall cover of which he's made me a fan, but you too is his favorite, so I'll oblige. Thanks for the memories, TMS, and happy birthday, dad. I love you. Oh, that's awesome.

And also, dad, sorry, you're right around our age, so. Happy birthday. That's just what you get. It's funny that his dad is younger than us. It's like his old man tasted music. Yeah. Great. Thanks. All right.

How about a cover of some you, too? This is from an album. I get to interview this guy years ago on Coverville, put together this album called Electron Love Theory, the tribute electronic tribute uh blue sky vertigo uh to you two this one came out in 2010 it is some incredible electronic covers of youtube music that don't feel oontz oontz dance clubby they feel like you know they're they're very approachable by people who like or don't like uh typical edm here is their take on sunday bloody sunday here's electron love theory

I can't believe the news today. I can't close my eyes and make it go away. How long? How long must we sing this song? How long, how long? Tonight, we can be as one. Tonight, broken bottles under children's feet, bodies strewn across the deaden street,

but I won't heed the battle call. It puts my back up, puts my back against the wall Sunday, bloody Sunday Sunday Bloody Sunday Sunday Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday Sunday Bloody Sunday And the battle's just begun There's many lost, but tell me who has won The trenches dug within our hearts And mother's children, brother's sisters torn apart Sunday, bloody Sunday

Sunday, bloody Sunday How long, how long must we sing this song? How long, how long? How long? Tonight. wipe the your eyes

Wipe the tears away I'll wipe your tears away I'll wipe your tears away I'll wipe your tears away I'll wipe your bloodshed eyes Sunday Bloody Sunday Sunday.

Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday. And it's true we are immune. Oh, in fact is fiction and TV real. TV reality And today The millions cry

We eat and trick while Tomorrow they die The real battle's Just begun To claim the victory Jesus won On Sunday

Bloody Sunday Sunday Get more at FrogPants.com Reclaim your anus.