The Morning Stream - TMS 2769: Finish Lady!

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

German comin' outta the garage. Stick a dirty hot dog in it. Jesus Monkeypants. I'm The Blue Dot in the Center. Lyft and Uber - Luber. Contagious urination. Cookie Dough Snow. Dial up lag with Randy. Stress to Worse. Uber vehicle is black, it's supposed to be black. It's Uber EATS, not Uber DRINKS! Pro tip: Never change your password. Starlings aren't real. We got a big old continent here. Weakening your soul with Stephen and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever wondered what the back of a camel's left rear knee smells like? Wonder no more. Not because we have the answer, but because that's freaking gross. You're better off heading over to patreon.com slash TMS right now and pledging your support to TMS today. Coming up on the morning stream, German coming out of the garage. Stick a dirty hot dog in it. Jesus, monkey pants.

I'm the blue dot in the center. Lift and Uber. Luber. Contagious urination. Cookie dough snow. Dial up lag with Randy. Stress to worse. Uber vehicle is black. It's supposed to be black.

It's Uber eats, not Uber drinks. Pro tip, never change your passwords. Starlings aren't real. We got a big old continent here. Weakening your soul with Stephen and Moore on this episode of The Morning Stream. There are some rules you need to remember as a clown. No smoking, drinking, cursing, chewing gum, and never appear in public in partial clown. Hello? I'm picking out.

The morning stream. We're not toys. We're action figure. Hello, everybody. Welcome to TMS. It is the morning stream for January 27th, 2025. This month is quickly leaving us. Drawing to a close. Very fast. Like to the degree that it's almost a little scary. We got Vegas coming up and it feels like There's so much to do So much to do My to do list is For Vegas is

humongous Yeah Brian and I have very different To do list for the event When you're on the ground at the event Anytime you're having fun You have Brian to thank All right Because he's planning all these rad things

That we're doing on the ground And all my stuff is Oh my gosh How are tickets gonna look? Oh no what is in the swag thing Those guys are delayed. Shoot, let's do it over here. But that's $1.50 more per piece.

When I'm done, it's a big relief. That's when Brian's relief goes from stress to worse. And then you're, yeah, yeah. It's a fun little exchange that we've given ourselves with this thing. But it works out good. It is. It is. Anyway, that's coming up quick.

Hey, you guys, what's up? I hope you're all having a decent, you know, whatever you're doing on a Monday, I guess. I don't know. What are you doing on a Monday, Brian? You're just hanging out, doing a show? I mean, what are you doing? Just hanging out, doing a show and do a little freelance. You know, I haven't mentioned this, but I've added Uber to my ride share quiver of arrows.

Oh, my. So there was a new one that came, that showed up in Denver a few months ago, and it's called Denver Co-op. And it's like, basically, it's owned by the drivers. And they develop the app, and basically the drivers get 80%, compared to like Lyft and Uber. where you get 55 or 60% of the ride, what people make, or what people pay. With this one, you get 80%. And because of that, they're even able to make the rides cheaper. But not enough people know about it.

So it's like, all right, so we'll turn on Denver Co-op and Lyft, and I'll still get lift rides before I get Denver Co-op rides. I thought, well, you know what? There's a big new influx. There be times that I turn on Lyft and I don't get anything for like half an hour, 45 minutes and it used to be instant and I'll pull up a thing that says show me nearby drivers and it looks like I'm in the middle of a of a hive like actually a screenshot and what I can show you oh yeah I'm curious about that I'm never actually I was always wondering

about this one there's a lot of people in an area and there's many many many rides I assume that you're put into some kind of queue or something so how that works yeah basically it it finds the person like from the from the location it says okay here's you Here's the closest driver, available drivers. So I'm the blue dot. Keep in mind, this is like a, you know, just a couple mile radius right there. That's chaos. You have this little blue dot that's covered by a car.

I have a blue dot in the center, basically. And that's not all drivers. That's available drivers, right? Like anybody who's currently giving a ride is not being shown in there. But there's Brian covered by another car. That's fantastic. Like a car on top of me. Yeah.

How come some are black and some are white? Is there the reason for that? Those are Uber deluxe or whatever they're. The fancy ones. If you've got a, yeah, if you've got a vehicle that's newer than five years and it's black. Yeah. And it's a little more comfortable than you can do. You can charge a little bit more for rides on that.

Wait, is that a requirement? It has to be black. Yeah. And that's supposed to be black. It's black or a really dark gray or something. That's wild. I didn't know that. So when I started doing that, I'm like, you know,

know what, let's, let's, let's add Uber to the thing here in that way. And I, and I, for a long time, I've been like, no, I'm not, I don't have the, the, the bandwidth, you know, the mental bandwidth to keep two apps open. Oh, except a right in here. Turn this one off really quick, did it, like, back and forth and stuff. And now it's like, yeah, heck with it. Because basically, when I want to, when I want to drive, I've got two or three hours, it's like, all right, I'm printing something. I'm waiting to hear back from a client. Let's knock out two hours, three hours worth of driving. Sure.

And so I want rides quick and I want when I'm done with one ride, I want the next one. So I added Uber. And since I have, I would say 90% of my ride share driving has been Uber. And 90% of my Uber driving has been deliveries. Oh. Oh. Like Uber Eats. Oh, I didn't realize.

Okay. I thought those were all separate things. I didn't realize it crossed over. No, when you, and I didn't even, I mean, I can turn it off, but when you get approved for Uber and you say, okay, yeah, I'll drive. Unless you turn it off, you're automatically going to get Uber Eats. Oh, I didn't know that. That makes sense, right? Because they tap into the same driver pool and not have to have separate things.

Yeah. All right. So yesterday ended up in college town, Boulder, Colorado. And I took a couple people up to Boulder. And then from that point on, it was about 14. Uber Eats Deliveries. And let me tell you something about the weather we've had recently. We've had snow and freezing weather.

And so what we've got is what we affectionately call cookie dough snow, which is like this snow that is still powdery, but if you stomp your foot in it, you leave a footprint. But it's still underneath that is a layer of ice, black ice. And in Boulder, in what's called the Hill District, there's a hill that all these houses are on and you get on one of those roads and your tires try to catch in that cookie dough snow on top of the black ice and you're just spinning your wheels yeah the key is sold does not have four wheel drive no and uh front wheel though you get the front wheel drive that helps front wheel i have front wheel which definitely helps but there were times it was like yeah i'm not getting it any further up this road so i'm just going to kind of back up turn go back out of out to the next route and then try and hit it from a different direction. And I had to do that a couple times.

One time I actually got stuck and a couple guys came by in a plow. The plow didn't have their blade down for some reason, but that's probably because they don't want to like push snow on all the other cars. But they happily hopped out, helped push my car out. And then as I was leaving the neighborhood and in a place where I could do it, I saw a couple women and college students who were having the same problem. So I hopped out. And I said, I'm paying it for it.

forward. And I helped out. I helped them out. Yeah, that's great. Do a little bit of karma, karma re-stock is what you're doing there. I like that. Exactly. But let me tell you about really quickly about Uber and doing Uber eats. Do you have to do the two lights, by the way, so people know that you're doing both? Okay. No, I've just got the lift light. They haven't sent me, Uber hasn't sent me a light or stickers for that matter. And I don't think anybody cares. I think they see a car pull up. They look at the license plate. It says cover me. They get in the car. um that's a great that's actually really cool thing that you have that because then it's just easy to i'll be the guy with that you'll be like oh exactly and then they then they just see it and it's like it shows up in the app it says oh somebody's shown up with a cover me license plate great there it is right there um everybody orders like you know you get your jimmy johns your wing stop your you're this you're that i had to do deliveries for all that stuff yesterday uh everybody orders a stupid drink oh and if you don't have enough cup hole in your car what do you do right like i had to pull down the the backseat cup holders um because i

ended up where like i had four or three deliveries uh each with a soft drink and then i had my own coffee and so i'm like all right reaching the back pull down the um the middle uh arm rest with a couple cup holders in there i'm like okay what's first all right oh barrett and his uh medium sprite and his wing stop all right here's his wing stop there's his medium sprite take it up to them and yeah yeah i think i know when you do multiple some some places will send you with a a carton style drink holder and that's great for those but if you're doing a single order that isn't an option like i'll bet i'll bet if you i'll bet there's like some kind of like you go to amazon somewhere and find like one of these like eight slot things and i'll bet these

uber eats people are just like buying one of those yeah yeah yeah and i and that's what i need to pick up is just something cheap somebody's suggesting i 3d print it's like I could probably pick it up for cheaper because it needs to be a pretty big device or big holder. A lot of filament. It would be a lot of filament and stuff. But yeah, one of the places I had to stop was 7-Eleven because somebody ordered two 30-ounce Coke, big gulps, and an Arizona iced tea. And the guy behind the counter hands me the cardboard carton with these things in it. And the drinks are only going about an inch into this cardboard thing.

And they are freaking top-heavy. And, like, so just even taking it out of 7-Eleven, it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh. That's intense. Totally tick me off. It's like, stop ordering drinks with your Uber E. Yeah. I mean, I get that they just don't see the back end, right? The whole point is if you order a thing, it conveniently comes to you, you pay more for the convenience and you tip and all that.

But that's a big gnarly ask to go into a thing. Like if you have, if you have somebody to say, I need the biggest Coke slurpy they have. that sucks because you're not yourself you're pouring it yourself like no wonder some of those people are tempted to like stick a dirty hot dog in there or something like that you know what I mean exactly right right or take a drinkier milkshake or whatever the um the other thing is uh car seats are at an angle always yeah they are and uh even if you get that little cardboard holder you put the little cardboard tray on there and all the drinks go yeah to the side so yep and if that sealed real You're going to have a little bit of Koki Kola on your CD CD.

You totally are. Yeah, one of the deliveries was some flowers for some lady. And there was some water that came out of the side of the flowers because the little cardboard thing they were in puts it aside. Yeah, I'm looking at some drink caddies and carriers and things on Amazon. 15 bucks. There's no way I could 3D print something that would be cheaper than that. so how picky do you get how picky can you as the driver get with like all right this one's McDonald's they bag everything up it's easy this one 7-11 can you can you be picky and say well

I'm not doing the 7-11 one I can I can say no to some like it'll tell me oh will it tell me what restaurant I'm picking up from that's a really good question I don't see if it doesn't tell you that's tricky isn't it because that's yeah we don't want them to know too much about where they're going to get this yeah exactly that's a really it's a really interesting question i don't know huh interesting um yeah cool well don't uh i'm glad you haven't so no major spills yet though is the point no major spills and no no fun stories of uh like you know things to to tell yet i'm hoping now with the addition of uber like how long before that's just all i'm doing it's just you know well you're uh hopefully hopefully a long time hopefully never i would i would hope

that i would be happy to know brian nibit was my Uber Eats guy I always You know I'm not going to dig my fingers into your wings exactly There's always a little piece of me that says Because I didn't do the top tip Is there a possibility this guy is going to be

Is there a possibility that somebody calling himself Jesus You know monkey pants or whatever Is he going to be mad at me And then dip his like you say dip his finger in a frosty or whatever Stick his finger in the frosty Yeah I did

yesterday was like because I was doing this it was right around lunchtime and I'm like God I'm hungry but I keep getting these delivery things so one of the orders is Jimmy Johns I'm like oh freaky fast so I go in there and say

yeah I'm here to pick up a an order for Gus also give me a turkey tom yeah yeah you can get it while you're out that makes sense right it took no time at all like by the time I had his drink filled up

because I have to go fill up his drink my turkey tom was ready and I ran out did the delivery. I don't know what they're doing at Jimmy John's on the speed thing. It's insane. It doesn't seem right. It is insane. They need to, like, once you're done working at Jimmy Johns, you need to go work for the cable company. Yeah, you'll say, we'll be there between one and four and show up at one. You'll be there at 1255 is what you'll do. And you'll be done at 105. Yeah. Oh, that'd be amazing, wouldn't it? That'd be great.

It would be amazing. Yeah. We also, okay, so just since we're on the topic, I decided to give Jersey Mikes another shot. Oh, that was quick. I didn't think you'd go back to Jersey Mikes that quick. I thought it was going to be a lot longer, but also I was avoiding all chicken, so I didn't get chicken. But I got a cold sandwich, very good, Mike's way, all that stuff. It was great. No problems.

We woke up this morning, filling the spry, and everything's good. But this is funny because we're now doing Grubhub, if we ever use it. We'd barely use these at all. But when we do, we're using Grubhubhub now instead of DoorDash, because Grubhub, their thing that usually is like $12 a month to get. cheaper rates waived fees all that stuff that thing is free if you

the grubhub club or whatever it is yeah grub hub club i think is what they call it i think anyway that's free if you have amazon prime now so i just were like why are we paying door dash's version of this let's just do grub so we did and i like their app a lot better and there's a lot of reasons i like grubhub better anyway we ordered it and there's an option on there it said if you want this between or this will come to you between

25 and 35 minutes or for a dollar between 20 and 30, meaning five minute savings, okay, for a buck. Now, that's fine, but in my head, I'm going, well, I don't, five minutes, I don't care. So I'm not going to pay the dollar. It got there, it got to us in like eight and a half minutes. Without the dollar, without anything, without paying anything. So what ended up happening is I got it so quick, and I know it's not necessarily the driver who got it here quick, although I guess he's part of the, he's part of the, he's part of the, The cogs and the clockwork, so I said, well, and he's getting a better tip.

So I gave him that extra buck 50 or whatever it does on the thing. But it was fine. I just am here to tell you that if you have a bad chicken experience and it's hard to go back, it turns out as you get older, it's a little easier to go back. When I was younger, I'd be like, you know. New Jersey Michaels is so good, though. It's hard not to go back. Yeah, New Jersey Michaels. And it's always New Jersey Michaels.

method that you want on there. Isn't that what we called it? The method? Can't remember. The method. Yes, the New Jersey Michael's method. I think that's what it was. Also, I have some quick advice for folks who get like a new ISP. We did that a month and a half ago now. We moved over to T-Mobile for our house stuff. Been great. No complaints. No issue. It's been wonderful. Paying like half the money. It's been great.

It is a pain, though, if you have a budget, bunch of like we have a bunch of wise cameras security cameras uh including a doorbell a bunch of ones all around the house now i'm sure some stuff probably the rings have i don't know because i've never owned a ring but i'm assuming some of the ones you pay more money for have probably an easier transition if you change an isp there's probably just tell the app that the isp change tell it what change too and then bam you're done the wise when you say isp changed i mean if you oh did you change did you also change your network name Well, yeah, because the device we got, yes, so we didn't duplicate password and name.

We just started over. We could have, now that you say that, that may have been the easiest thing to do. We didn't think about that. Yeah, that's what I do. If we get a new router, because I've done that a couple times, that's why my current password for Wi-Fi in the house ends with the number 14 because that's the year that I changed the password last. I get you, dude. I get you.

I get you. We're not going to talk about what the year that was, but that's the year. Well, yeah, so I, I don't know. I took it all as a fresh start, but now that I think about it, I probably could have saved myself sometime. I know I could have saved myself from time. I've done this. But I waited forever, and that was the other problems, because because it wasn't simple,

and I'd get into the app and it's all confused, and it doesn't know where it's connecting. And I'm like, ah, it's a pain. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I kept putting it off. And then as Kim's about to leave for her trip with her siblings, she goes hey why don't we get that camera shit worked out while you're while I'm gone and I went oh yeah let's

do that okay so yesterday it's a Sunday don't have a lot going on yeah she can chill a little bit I thought I'll take some time to do it yeah here's the tip don't bother just treat everything like it's new out of the box it's much faster if you're dicking around with it for hours you're gonna be mad at yourself all you need to do is hold down the reset buttons exactly ready to pair. Blip. Ready to go. Start over.

For sure. I was done in five minutes once I accepted my fate. Then it was fine. So everything's good now. We have cameras blaring, security, catastrophe averted here at the Johnson compound. Good. Also, some quick thoughts on Conclave. I watched it.

Oh, yeah, good. We don't have to wait seven years or whatever for me to see a movie. Didn't have to recruit John to suggest it. didn't have to finally happen through a whole other show. None of that. It's a thing I was I was very interested in seeing it's totally up my alley. So I sat down, watched it. And I think Conclave is awesome. It's awesome though in ways. I mean, you kind of told me, but I wasn't quite prepared for them being able to take what is essentially a very boring procedure-based religious tradition thing with some infighting. the votes and the whatnot, but it's none of it is like, liberals of the conservative Pope's fighting. Yeah, Pope, Pope infight, you know, Cardinal

infighting, trying to all be Pope and who wants to be what or whatever. Like, I didn't expect that to be so riveting because it really, in the wrong hands, isn't. Like, this is boring. If anyone else, I don't know, this director, he did all quiet on the Western Front, I think he's a German director,

I think. Okay. He's, he took what I think is mundane and dry as hell and turned it into one of the most nail-biting, freaking tense things I've ever seen. Entry, compelling. It's so good, dude. You would not expect it. And, and Isabella Rosalini is, like, commands the screen every time she's on. Yeah, she was great. It took me a hot second to remember it was her, because they, you know, they... I'm putting her back in my list. Because the nuns have all their makeup removed and all that. Putting her back on your list.

I'll put her back on my left. Yeah, she's great. Ray Fines is great. Everyone's great. Nobody's bad. Everyone's really good in there. Yeah, there's nobody bad in that thing. Freaking Stanley Tucci and, oh, man. They're all so good.

Tucci gives, I mean, he doesn't ever phone it in, but my gosh, his performance is strong every time he was on. And it's, there's also this other thing at play. The music choices and sound design in general. Freaking brilliant for what this material is. Like, it's almost like. this should be it was almost like a horror movie approach yeah yeah to it and and some of you're at home being very uh sarcastic about well it's the Catholic church it is a horror man I get it we're not here to talk about that but sure and this is this is the voting process though

the music that you hear during the whole voting process is like there's no talking they're all just kind of right it's like these weird like moments and then they have this thing the sound works crazy. I've never thought that it would be okay for me to want to hear Ray Fein's breathing a lot. But they do this thing. You probably knows it's even more in theaters. Theaters. Featers. Where he, all his grunts and breathing patterns sped up when he's stressed, slowed down when he's just thinking. Every creek in the floor, they have this stuff as part of the

soundwork. And normally people breathing would drive me crazy. It's like a podcast. or whatever. Yeah. But having Brave Fines do that and capturing that stuff just created so much tension. It's freaking PG-13. When's the last time a PG-13 movie got nominated for Best Picture? Right. Good point.

It's freaking rare, you know? I guess it's not that rare, but like, like, Dune 2 is PG-13, I guess, and Dune 1 was. Sure, sure. You have your big, you know, popcorn movies that make it in. But these artistic kind of artsy-fartsy ones, they almost are never PG-13. no one's cussing no one's dropping f bombs although i love seeing a cardinal and a stairwell smoking on a big old cigarette man that's a fun thing to see it's great yeah dude that movie's great you were so you were 100% right and it jumped to the forefront i mean i haven't seen everything

you've seen but i i kind of hope it wins for me for me it is my it's my expectation for for best picture and and uh anora would be anora would be my second choice and i'll let you know when that's um right now it's paid a rent i don't think it's yeah I looked for it the other night couldn't find it other than rent and buy there was something else that was rent and buy that I wanted to catch and I can't remember now anyway

so good so good good good year for movies it really is a good year for movies I've been watching the new Bjork live Apple Live music thing oh how's that it's been my like filling time or like all right I need to sleep I'll watch a couple Bjork songs.

It's just, she's so nuts, man. She's so wacky. And she's got, like, she's got this mask on her face where she looks like knee and nub, or numb, uh, flying the millennium falcon with a, and she moves like she's a marionette. It's really, really kooky. And, you know, she's like, it's all for the greater good. Is that my finished, my finished neighbor sounds like her?

So it's funny. Oh, really? Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, they all kind of have that voice, but that's great. Morning stream. Yeah, no, but I can't get that out of my head now. We got to get to that Death Star. Exactly.

But that said, it's a visual treat. I mean, this is like, this is like Icelandic Cirque de Soleil watching this thing. So it's new. She's, this is now. It's brand new. It's brand new and it's only on Apple TV for a month. So it's really, it's come and go pretty quick. So is it like a concert thing or a multi-season episode?

Yeah, the live concert. And I'm about two-thirds of the way through it, and there's only been two songs that I recognize. I think it's a lot of newer stuff that I haven't kept up with her. But, you know, like Post, oh, Post was such a great album. Human Behavior and Isabelle and... Yeah. Post was a past, though. That was the best album, Post was.

That was the best album. I agree. very good stuff so i'm hoping that we get you know venus as a boy or human behavior or as i get to the end of this concert but uh yeah it's it's pretty and cool one day she'll take on her final fairy form and fly back to the pha lands and uh yeah you know get ready to roll initiative so good luck for sure yeah uh one final note gregg from texas would like the floor he says this in a text some ammo for the door to door folk meaning the sales you know soliciting thing that we talked about yesterday, or Friday, Thursday, whenever it was.

It says soliciting is asking, not selling. You can ask for a signature or ask you to buy something all soliciting, he says. So I didn't realize, I didn't really think about the meaning of the word. I just associated with it. The meaning of soliciting, yeah. Yeah, but it means to solicit means to inquire. Yeah, yeah. So I come to your door and go, would you like carpet cleaner?

That's soliciting. Right. That's soliciting. It's still selling, but yeah, I get it. I mean, you know what? It's the first solicitor that comes to the door and I say, oh, sorry, we've actually got this no soliciting sign. Oh, well, I'm just asking. You say, that's the definition of soliciting, sir.

That's the definition of soliciting, yeah. Yeah, and then you take their carpet cleaner and squirt it in their eyes. Right in the eye, yes. That's my plan. All right, we're going to have a little Monday half-asses. And to do it, we have to have a pinch hitter, Randy's. do. Yeah. We got done a way out with a meeting. He had a work thing to do. That's right. When this happens. Jump into the half-asses game, Randy. Hop into the Andy, the Andy, Randy.

Randy. Oh, look who it is. It's Randy P.K. Jordan joining us. Hi, Randy. How are you? Good morning, morning stream. I'm well. I am making new friends. And I just want to tell you the experience has led me to really appreciate old friends. Friends I've already got. I just want you two to know that because what's happening is I'm playing Overwatch and I'm doing well. And so complete strangers are sending me friend requests and I'm accepting them. And then hopping into a game with them and oh my gosh.

Yeah. Do you do it like voice and everything? Like really hanging out with these people? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And like sometimes it's cool and everything, but a lot of the time it is, there's an unfriending in the next day.

Yeah. I'm sure there is, yeah. Yeah, you got to keep your friends close and your trolls closer. I don't know what that means. Hey, noob, go block the back area. We keep getting taken out. Yeah, do you ever feel like saying, do you ever feel like in those matches going, guys, I work down the hall from that entire team?

Right. No, actually, it's kind of the opposite. But I'll tell you what I do feel like saying, and I'm going to say this to everyone listening, replace the battery in your fire alarm and your smoke detector. Don't replace that battery. What are you thinking? How are you living with that thing beeping?

No, that's a great, that's good advice, generally speaking. That's good advice, yeah. Do you on with somebody less playing Overwatch where their battery was, or their smoke alarm was going off? All the time. All the time. Seriously, if you get into voice chat with strangers about 20% of the time, somebody's got a battery and a smoke detector beeping.

Damn. Well, yeah, I'm also a big fan of replacing those things and do them early, so you don't have to dick with them in the middle of the night. That would be my advice. Ranney, I still don't see in the game. Jump into the game. Yeah, you're not in half-asses yet. Log-in, please.

Says, waiting for player to catch the parakeet. Please to log in. Which if that's like a mine, if it's a mine reference, then that means, if the parakeet doesn't log in, does that mean that the oxygen is sucked out of the mine? I forget how that works. Well, we won't know if there's any poison.

That's right. We can't have that. We can't have that. Canaries, I think. the yeah i think oh canary that yeah it's not a parakeet what am i saying right right who are the who the birds what are the ones that can do like r2 d2 perfectly like perfect r2d2 impressions what like macaws or um i don't know starling starling that's it starlings if you listen to a trained up starling you're going to lose your effing mind and think that birds are here to destroy us

like i'm pretty sure all of the the things about birds being drones or birds are going to kill us I'm almost a thousand percent sure that starlings are the problem. They're so scary. All right. He's in, it looks like. All right. You guys are ready. Let's go ahead and do this.

Let me explain how it works. Or do you want to set me up? No, no. You go ahead. Hey, Brian, tell us the rules and who might win. All that. Happy to do that. Welcome to the morning.

Half As is a trivia game where I'm actually going to be giving you two chuckleheads of the answers. I'm going to give Randy and Brian. I'm sorry, Randy and Scott a category and six possible answers, three of which are correct and three like me calling Scott Brian are incorrect depending how confident they feel with a category they can provide one two or three guesses but if any of those guesses are wrong they get zero points for that round get one right gets you point two right gets you three points three right gets you five points we'll figure all that as we go we'll add them all up at the end and the winner will win some prizes for their contestant a contestant that i've pulled from the tadpool

that folks that aren't able to be here live scott you're playing for ben nelson just up the road in Loveland, Colorado. Oh, nice. Very nice. Randy, you're playing for Andrew Heim in Sunbury, Victoria, Australia. Oh, excellent. Excellent. It's tomorrow over there.

It is tomorrow. So he already knows whether or not he's won because to him is already happened. By the way, speaking of Australia, I made a comment the other day that whenever someone says, talks about their partner, not their wife, their husband, their girlfriend, but they say partner, I said something to the fact like, I don't think of you as like married or something or together, I think of it as you're going to invest in that person's, I think I said, vegan startup

or something. It sounds like a, you know, that kind of partner. And the Australians came out of the woodwork. Tithms of them. I'm all going, no, no, no. Everyone's a partner. That's all we say here. Everyone says partner. Nobody says wife or husband. It surprised me. I didn't expect

you guys to have that. And it's taking on more prominence here, too. Like when we went to that 100th birthday party, my cousin Miles introduced us to his partner, Ashley, I think was her name, a delightful woman. And that's just the term that

that people are using now or that's taking on prominence here in the U.S. It's starting to grow here, which is great. It's like I have a zip problem with it, but I think of something else when you say it. It's because we're not used to it here. But I guess in Australia, everyone does that. So it'd be weirder for me to say, this is my wife, Kim,

and they'd go, wife, what are you? The 1700s? Fly home. Anyway. Don't worry. Don't worry. The orange squat goblin's going to make us using the term partner illegal at some point. Don't worry.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Fantastic. Can't wait. All right. Let's get to this half asses here. All right. Let's get to it here.

Man, Randy might even have an advantage here. I didn't even think about with this one. But we'll see. Your first category is Canadian Football League teams. Teams in the CFL. Which of these are real? Which of these are fake? You're going to click on the ones that are real.

Let's see, the Quebec City Rebels. Oh, here I'll put the names on. Quebec City Rebels, the Edmonton Elks, the Winnipeg Monarchs, the Ottawa Red Blacks, the Halifax Windjammers, the Hamilton Tiger Cats. I'm selecting the real ones? Yes. You are selecting the real ones, which are real Canadian Football League teams. I'm choosing two because, well, I shouldn't tell you that. Why am I telling you that?

Of course, it's easy. You go there all that time. don't know nothing about this. I actually follow the BC Lions, which had, had they such an up and down season this past summer. It was weird to follow a team that was so good and lost so much. Like the bills a little bit. Anyway. So did I spill, oh, I did spill Ottawa wrong. That was my fault. Not, uh, not, uh, not the fault of the car. The car doesn't say moops in this case. Well, you got their mascot right. It is. I know. I almost said the red blocks when I typed and said, oh, no, that's an A because they're using that funky A with the line on

the side. uh let's see randy uh chose the ottawa red blacks the edmonton elks and the hamilton tiger cats i'll give it to you randy if you can tell me what the edmonton elks was called before they changed their name uh uh uh uh hold on yes i can do it no i can i don't know they were the eskimos they were the eskimos that's exactly right yeah yeah the edmonton eskimos and they changed it three all three for randy red blacks elks and tiger cats uh scott have the rebels and the monarchs you know where I went, where I went bad. First of all, I know nothing about Canadian football. Secondly, Quebec City rebels, the way you spelled rebels up there? I thought that was a giveaway.

And that is a team in the La League de Football de Quebec. So in a separate league, not in the Canadian football, the Quebec City or Quebec City rebels is really, they are in another team. The Monarchs, by the way, are the hockey team and the windjammers are basketball. And Winnipeg has the greatest mascot ever. The Blue Bomber, That is awesome. Pretty good. Really? I want to move to Winnipeg and root for the Blue Bombers.

Windjammers is also one of the best S&K arcade games ever made. That's a whole separate issue. Love Winjammer. Nice. Anyway. All right. Well, let's see if Scott can retake some points here and tie things up. Your category for number two is, things that take less than 50 milliseconds.

How come Randy got five, by the way? It shouldn't just be three. Man, you've been listening to me Explain the points structure for this game for I know, but I don't think we've ever seen this happen, though. I know, one right gets you one point, two right gets you three points, three right gets you five points. It's just that no one's ever done it.

I've never seen it. Like, Randy, you broke a record today. You broke a streak. Don't worry, we're going to definitely catch you up on this one. All right, let's see, here we go. Things that take less than 50 milliseconds, which of these takes less than 50 milliseconds? a fastball reaches the strike zone light travels across america a single movie frame is projected a bee hummingbird flaps its wings a helicopter rotor revolves once and the human eye blinks three of these take place in less than 50 milliseconds three of these take longer than that so if you just sort these by which ones take the least amount of time and which ones take the most amount of time you'll have it you'll totally have it all right I

I'm only willing to go with two of those ones. You guys both did two, and you both settled on a B. Hummingbird flapping its wings. Yeah, that actually is 13 milliseconds, one flap of the B. Hummingbird's wings, so that is far less than 50 milliseconds. Randy chose a single movie frame is projected. Scott chose light travels across America. Guess what? You're both right. Well, great.

A movie on eight points. Movie frame being projected is 41 milliseconds, and light traveling across America is 16 milliseconds. Oh, it's crazy. I hovered over a single movie frame for so long. I almost chose it. Gosh, dang it. I know very well that light moves very, very fast. But what I didn't know that I knew was just how big America is.

Like, we often underestimate the size of things globally. Yeah, we got a big old continent here, you know? Just for numbers for the other ones, a fastball reaching the strike zone, 412 milliseconds, milliseconds, do you say that right? You said minissecretter, rotor revolving once, 100 milliseconds, and the human eye blink is 350 milliseconds. Yeah, and name the helicopter, by the way. Some of them rotate much slower. Is the Apache? Is the Apache? All right. That's wild to me. I would have guessed way faster than that. That's like bad lag. That's like dial-up lag.

That's terrible. That's right. Exactly. Like we see this all the time, just hovering over the little icon in Discord. I'm going, I'm faster than light traveling across America right now. Yeah. Wild.

All right. Very good. All right. Let's get to question number three. I mean, Randy's pretty much got this sewn up. You could tie if you get all three right, Scott, and Randy does not.

Going all in. Question number three. And this is more Scott thing than a Randy thing. We might have it. Okay. Blue, Crayola Crayons. Which of these are blue Crayola Crayon names? You have your choice of. Electric Blue, Cobalt Blue, Baby Blue, Cadet Blue, Pacific Blue, and Midnight Blue. Three of these are real Crayola Crayon colors. Three of them are not. Randy was a serious crayon fiend as a child. Yeah, me too. I don't remember much.

I mean, if you said these are Prisman colored pencil colors, I'd probably do better. yeah we'll see though all right and randy also doesn't say crayon he says crayon he does he says i just say things how they're spelled that's exactly right you should say crayon i tried to teach my kids to say crayon in a state where everyone says crayon and i succeeded two out of three nick and carter say crayon carter says crayon or taylor says crayon that drives me nuts like how can you be a mother of two now and say cran all right i'm going to do really i feel like you have more than three answers here. I mean, they're all good. That's why this, that's why this whole contest is always tricky. Brian puts in stuff that seems plausible, you know? Let me make sure because I want to make

sure this is correct. Okay, pretty sure. I am not seeing an incorrect answer here. No, this is good. I'm glad you're, let's, you know, we take the time. I'm vetting an answer just to make Sure. Okay, good. All right. So, let's see. You guys both settled on Pacific Blue. Pacific Blue is correct. Okay. Dang. That's great. And then you both settled on Cobalt Blue. Cobalt Blue apparently is not a blue crayola crayon color. And that's the one I was surprised about. I had to look it up. You did have the other two right, Cadet and Midnight. You each chose Cadet and Midnight separately. but I just Google to like, all right, have they introduced one since the year that this game came out, and I could not find it. It's the one I would have sworn by.

That's funny, yeah. That's probably why you were so, like, wanting to vet it because. That's why I was, too, it's like, wait a minute, I feel like that has to be in there. But there's Robbins Egg Blue, there's Periwinkle, there's Cerulean, but there's no cobalt. Yeah. There's one called Violet Blue that I used a lot. Yeah. and by the way electric blue that is a real color i used to own a sob that was electric blue and look that up it was gorgeous it's one of my favorite ice house songs i was gonna say isn't it it is a song isn't it yeah all over you electric blue oh yeah that is a song that's why i was ringing bell my nephew's band has that song um he did with uh he did a brother yeah brother did it with but it was that colab with

Dead Mouse called Oh, really? Powder Blue. That's on there on that album. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't we,

I thought we played that here. Did we not? I mean, we probably have. I bet we have, yeah. It's really good. I recommend checking it out

if you haven't seen it. It's the, well, the KV5 album or the Cascade Dead Mouse album that had a brother track on it. It's really good. That sounds so awesome. Jeez.

It's really good. I'll have to check it out. Yeah. Congratulations going to Andrew, well, to Randy, who helped his partner, Andrew in Sunbury, Victoria, Australia, win these prizes. By the way, I never talked about what you're getting.

Andrew, you're getting a copy of Caramazoo and Hexarchy on Steam. But Ben Nelson, you're getting what I think is as good, maybe even better, Persona 4 Golden Edition. Hell yeah. So all three of these games, excellent choices. Persona 4 Golden is literally 50 bucks worth a game. That's a, our loser won. I mean, no offense, but that is exactly what happened here today.

I think that's great. So congratulations to both of you guys. You're getting some really good stuff. And congratulations to you, Randy. That's one of the highest scores we've ever experienced on the show. Yeah. You should take that with pro. Give me that Canadian football.

I know, I know. It's like, oh, man, Canadians are, they're filled with your favorite former, you know, an NCAA players. Like all your favorite NCAA players who just don't. make the NFL they end up playing in Canada it's great yeah well are you sat by the way you sad about the bills not going I was a little bit I was I was I was reading for the bills just because you know a change of pace that kind of thing don't really have any rooting interests like I I guess I kind of wanted the commanders to go just because like the new coach new quarterback

that kind of thing is fun and a nice change I will absolutely root for the chiefs in the Super Bowl just because I mean I can't root for Philadelphia not me I'm so sick of the chiefs I think that Chiefs need to just... I get that, oh, now it's truly a franchise, and if they win, it'll be just like this... A dynasty. Dynasty is what I meant. Yeah, dynasty. And I get that. And if you're a Chiefs fan, you're stoked.

I would prefer anybody else this year. Speaking of former college players, the Chiefs have a rookie named Xavier Worthy, who's my favorite college player from last year. So I've just... I like the Chiefs. I like seeing Taylor Swift happy. Yeah. Do you like seeing her happy every five? seconds though do you like that i know exactly do we just need a picture and picture like just just put up

a picture and just have it constantly on taylor yeah i can see what yeah why even bother with cutting away just have it sit there in the corner and taking bets on who's going to be in the booth with taylor like what i want to know what i want to know is now that we've had it he's had a whole year to get away from them who does jason kelsey root for because i think i think he's had enough time to convert over to rooting for his brother solely. I'm sure. I can't wait to see, though. Does he show up to the Super Bowl wearing an Eagles jersey?

I don't know. If they call Patrick Mahomes the goat during this thing, I think that what's his name from New England, a forgot his name all the sudden, who left, who. Tom Brady. Tom Brady should come out on the field and they should have to fight it out like street fighter style out there. Have a goat off. Yeah.

Yeah. But not like football skills, like beat the shit out of each other and see who wins. That's what I want. In terms of, like, statistical efficiency, Mahomes already is the goat. He is the greatest quarterback of all time. I mean, he's real good. Don't get me wrong. He's freaking incredible.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of the, I'm tired of dominating teams. I want some, I want it to be weird every year. I want it to be like, oh, my gosh, can you believe Green Bay is there again? It's been so long. Exactly. Or the Browns or the Dolphins or something, you know, like surprise us. Yeah, can you imagine the Browns?

That's amazing. I always just want. would be surprising. I always just want exciting offense in the Super Bowl. So, like, I would like to see the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl because they have the most energetic quarterback.

That kind of thing. Like, I don't really care exactly where they're from, unless they're from Philadelphia, in which case, I don't like them. No. I mean, Philadelphia has its moments, but I don't care about the Eagles. All right. That's going to do it for our football talk and the CSPN episode

of this. Randy, a fine time was had by all. We'll see you again on Wednesday for some recommendal time. Yes, you will. Good luck. Thank you for joining us. Bye now.

All right. See, Randy. Cool. Good luck indeed. Let us now. What time is? We got time. We got three minutes.

We could do something. Yeah, we do one, right? We get one. It's time for the news brought to you by. Using a microwave steamer in the wrong way. Okay. Who's the guy that does the pissed off chef stuff? That's Gordon Ramsey, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Hell's Kitchen and all that. He makes these things that at Costco, you can buy them in semi-bulk. It's like they look like just little dough balls of some kind of meat in there. There's a name. I don't remember the name, but it's some kind of fancy French something. And he makes these.

So what you're supposed to do is either bake them or put them in a fire, an air friar, and you cook them a certain way, and they're supposed to be really good. Carter goes, let's try my new steamer. Because that looks like a steam bun. And she's right. It looks like a little bow bun or something. That's the look of it anyway. So we put it in her new steamer thing she bought.

You put a little water underneath it. You put it on top with these little great things. And then it has a top. And then you microwave it. It's a microwavable steamer. And then you go do it and then it comes out. It came out looking like a glob of bird poo. Oh, no, really.

It didn't hold its shape. It didn't do anything it was supposed to do. Now, here's the best part. I hate wasting food. If it's not bad, like, you know, gone bad. I hate wasting food. food. So I ate it anyway. Yeah. And it was

like eating paste. I was going to say, if there's not what is it, maybe an egg wash on the outside of the, there needs to be something that the that the moisture from the steam can repel against

to just steam the bun, heat it up without making it pasty and gluey. Exactly. This thing permeated everything. Yeah. And it just made, it made it into a little meat, meat-flavored paste is what it was. But I ate it. I'm going to try it different today.

I'm going to try another one today. They're very small. Try it the right way today, yeah. And I'll report back on how things go. Here's a quick story about peeing is contagious for chimpanzees. It's like yawning for humans, I guess, or even other animals. But chimpanzees, the need to pee appears to be contagious. A study published 20th of.

January this year in the journal Current Biology finds that when one chimpanzee urinates this is giving Bobby ideas for his next segment the others in the group are more likely to pee also the phenomenon is called contagious

urination and could have deep involuntary roots in humans and chimpanzees are closest relative they say this quote in humans urinating together can be seen as a social phenomenon it never feels like that when I'm at the sports arena

and we're all peeing into that trough. It does not feel like a social occasion. No, I don't feel like, yeah. No eye contact, stare at the wall, no talking, just do it. There's no human brotherhood going on in there, guys. I'm sorry, but anyway, he says this at Kyoto University, evolutionary biologist, Enia Onisha, Onishi, said in a statement,

an Italian proverb states, whoever doesn't pee in company is either a thief or a spy. Oh, geez, really. That's an old, that's an old, uh, Italian proverb. I didn't know Italians had old proverbs. I don't know. I don't know why that sounds weird to me. I know.

It does. It totally does. It's like, let me tell you. You're not, all of a sudden, you're Russian. You're not peeing with me. Too much hassle to pee together with many people. Yes, exactly. It says here that, uh, let's see, where is it?

Uh, they were curious to see if they would, uh, see if it was like yawning. In the study, document. made of peeing behaviors of 20 chimpanzees at the key kimong could kodo something sanctuary in more than 600 hours all right they observed these things for 600 hours they saw 1,328 instances of urination they then analyzed the observational data to see of peeing was significantly synchronized over time and look to see if urination was potentially influenced by individuals near or shaped by social factors so uh i don't know that anything is definitive here but you see dogs do this yeah my dog do this. They see one pee and the others do it. They'll go pee. Right. And they even, and they'll pee in the same spot. Kind of like, oh, that's your territory. Not anymore. I just took it. Whoever pees last, gets it.

Or they'll smell it and they'll immediately have to pee. Like, oh, yeah, no, I smell this and now I must pee. Yeah, it's a little like, um, I don't know, it's like viral peeing. Well, not that it's not the right word, right? Because you have viruses in your pee. Never. It's, uh, I mean, contagious

peeing. Contagious urination. I love it. You want to freak a kid out? Find it. Find it. Find your average 12 year old because they don't know this yet and you tell them that pee comes from your blood and then their minds will be blown they don't understand they don't get it but that's why it's yellow it's like basically like it's filtered out of your pee blood cells and yeah yeah yeah your pee is basically put through a filter every few minutes now i have to pee does this prove their theory oh just talking about peeing makes you have to pee i got a pee i got a little bit of pee you know what I'll hurry up and finish this, and then you'll know what I've got to do.

Yeah, exactly. Just kidding. I'm not going to be it. Are you prepared to drink my limp, limp water bottle? I'm going to hold it, as it were. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back from said break, it'll be time for major spoilers. Steven Schleiker here for his couple times a month.

It's his last time of this month. It's Stephen's time of the month. And we'll be here to have fun and talk about some cool stuff. So stick around. We'll be right back after this song. Brian, what is it? Sure. Let's look at a band called Close.

enemies. This is a band that's made up of Chase and Hampton, Trace Foster, Peter Stroud, Tony Brock, and Tom Hamilton. Tom Hamilton, multiple Grammy winner, rock and roll Hall of Fame member and bassist for the band Aerosmith. This is a different project for him. It's really, really cool. This is, so band called Close Enemies, you're really going to

like this, especially if you're an Aerosmith fan, a hard rock fan. They got a brand new single. It's called Sound of a Train. Here's the band. Close enemies. I feel like it's changing, needful rearranging. I feel like it's time that I be on my way. There's no point in crying. Ain't nobody trying.

We've been here before, and there's not much left to say. The end of our days. I love the sound of the train, leaving, leaving you behind, and I hope you find where you belong. Oh, yeah. I love the sound of the train, leaving, leaving you behind, and it's time we'll need to move along. We've tried so many times now

There's nothing left to pull out Would no more love to give both empty inside I gave it all I hate Till it all went bad Now there's no place left Left for me to hide Yeah Do tears left to cry

I know the sound of the train Leaving Leaving you behind And I hope you'll find what you will know Oh Yeah I thought the sound of the train Yeah it's leaving

Leaving in behind Because this time I made a move alone Oh, would all that. Yeah, oh, ooh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, it's time to be free. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's trained and leaving. You're dark, dead day, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, and yeah, go out. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm doing, yeah. I love the sound of the train Leaving Leaving you behind And I hope you find

When you alone Yeah I love the sound of the train Yeah It's leaving Leaving you behind Cause it's time for me to move alone Yeah

It's down for me to follow You gave it all my head Yeah, my name You're dead Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Yeah Yeah Hi, my name is Brian, I play baseball, I like jet-skiy and water skiing. water skin. If you're the girl for me, I'll run the extra mile for you. Give me a call. What's the last thing that made you cry? Pepper spray. That song was called. That song was called Close Enemies. Sorry, the band is called Close Enemies. Sound of a Train is, as the name of the new single,

just came out from Close Enemies, a band that features Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith on bass. Got to love that. It's pretty cool. I like that a lot. No complaints. All right. I also like Stephen Schleiker.

He could be in my band if he wanted. We're going to add him to the call. If I can remember that he's under major spoilers and not Stephen, that would be helpful. Let me just fix that. Okay, Scott, go ahead and do that. Okay. There we go.

All right, we're adding him to the call. He should be here momentarily. Let's just play his thingy. And now welcome Stephen to the show. He's a huge freaking nerd. Dollar, dollar bills, y'all. Hey, that huge freaking nerd is Stephen Schleiker. joins us once or twice a month on most months to talk about stuff happening over at major spoilers.com, comic books, pop culture, TV, movies, and more.

Hey, Stephen, welcome back to the show. Hello, Scott. you got that robot your little robot yeah sorry stevie okay hold on hold on it's his drunk one

I love that one I do too a little slowed down yeah that's amazing so good Boutanese pass

how does that sound much better much better there we go yeah I like the I like you try to fake you out

by slowing down your face that was great Hey, it's good to have you here, man. How are you, how are you holding up in late January? Doing all right? It's the second week of classes, so, yeah, great. Everything's great.

Everything is great. A new batch of bright, bushy-tailed, young future leaders. Well, let's say a new batch. Yes, everything after that, question mark, question mark. All right. I'm hoping to get a chance. I know you're not going to make it out to TMS Vegas, which really bugs me out. But I'm hoping that, um,

that I can find a Kansas City listener who'd like to meet me in Hayes to have lunch with you. And also bring me a package from the Kansas City that would cost me like $300 to have shipped. But four hours of driving to Hayes, Kansas to meet them halfway would. But I'm hoping actually to come and see you for lunch at some point. Four hours. That's not bad. It's not bad. It depends on how fast you drive.

Also, Colorado, I-70 sucks, just full of possible. I-70 does suck. Yeah. Who's in charge of that? Is that Colorado or Kansas dropping the ball? Oh, no, I-70 and Kansas, great. Really? Yeah, but I-70, because we're, you know, Denver's, we're a little bit northeast of central,

so there's a lot of I-70 before you get to the Kansas border, and that's not maintained well. Once you get past the airport, not maintained well at all. A mile high and bumpy road. Exactly. New slogan. Well, Stephen, you're here. Let's talk about some stuff. A couple things.

There's this question that you've got on your site. Who would win in a fight? Godzilla or the Hulk? And at first I went, well, that's silly. Of course it would be Godzilla. But now I'm not so sure after reading this. What do you think, Brian? I would think Godzilla.

You know why? Because I saw the movie Godzilla versus Bambi. And I feel like any Hulk, Spider-Man, juggernaut, you know, Maybe Galactus would put up a good fight, but I think everybody else would be pretty much the same way Godzilla versus Bambi. Maybe. What kind of radiation does Godzilla shoot out in his atomic breath?

Oh, what is it's blue? It's not gamma. So if it was gamma, that could be a problem, or maybe that would be a benefit for the Hulk. Or maybe the Hulk benefits from any kind of radiation. Blue kryptonite is what it is. Yeah, don't get Superman involved. You're screwed. Yeah.

Well, Jerry Duggan and Giuseppe and Kevin Coley are going to answer the question for us in April when Marvel releases Godzilla versus Hulk. Godzilla is now rampaging through the Marvel universe. It was recently on the DC universe.

And now we get a Marvel crossover. Also, apparently Godzilla and Spider-Man are going to fight each other out too. I don't even know how that could possibly last more. more than a panel. Yeah, I see this one right here.

In fact, let's see. Spider-Man versus Godzilla, the wall crawler versus the king of monsters. There's also Ultraman looks like. Yeah, Ultraman is actually in, licensed by Marvel now and it has been for, wow. I want to say like four years now.

And Ultraman. It's been a while. Those two have fought in old Japanese films, right? Okay, I'm not just making that up. It feels like I've seen him fight. Well, then we already kind of know the answer to that. And that feels like a stalemate.

I think those two kind of didn't, nobody won one. It was more like. No, but now venom, like I could see the symbiote taking over Godzilla. Oh, yeah. That would be interesting.

A venomized Godzilla would be pretty cool. That's a cool idea, dude. Actually, it's kind of cool across the board. Just symbiote everything and see how it goes. Brian, did you ever, well, so there is a symbiote war coming up pretty soon between the spiderverse and the venomverse. is coming up in April as well as the two different multiverses

collide head to head. But Brian, I wanted to ask you, are you part of the Come on Marvel Miniatures game on Facebook? Are you part of that group? Somebody in there they're always painting their figures and showing them off. Somebody actually took the

Fing Fing Fume miniature. Oh, yeah. And Venomized it? Yeah. Oh, that's really cool. Who had to fight it, though, like what cosmic heroes. Everybody else has to fight it. There's a whole module on

Marvel United that is our Marvel United Universe that is FinFam Fum. I love it. The whole universe had to join forces to fight that shit. That's a nightmare. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, we'll have to send me a link to that because I love to see. Yeah. Wow. That's really cool. That's awesome.

Real quick here, I just, this is not anything you brought up today, but I want to just show this. There's this image of a spider on a tongue. for a boom studios thing this is just this is just a hard horrifying that's specifically for that reason yeah shoot me now people would freak out i feel like i'd lose my mind if that ever happened to me i you know sometimes we just get so many weird like it's obviously a comic book cover i mean not this particular one but you know sometimes you you put up something and it's like uh captain

marvel when she was miss marvel uh you know in her in her one piece 70s yeah yeah yeah and you'll post that cover up on you know one of our many social medias and so the this image has been taken down because of violation of terms of use. I'm like, dudes, it's a comic book cover from 1970. It's not like some only fans person that's showing Oliver Goods off everywhere. I do feel like there's very few images of Spider Woman, though, that you can put on. It won't get taken down because it just feels like I'm always looking at something dirty. Oh, okay, I can look.

It's never quite safe with Spider Woman. Sometimes I do it just to, I don't know, just to aggravate people and to aggravate the system. So yes, so the spider out of the mouth one for the upcoming Boom titles coming out in April of 2025. That one is actually the name of that one is Hello Darkness, which is a horror anthology that they have at Boom. Written by R.L. Stein, he does some of the books, some of the stories in there. I wonder if the darkness is somebody's old friend. You could say hello darkness, my old friend. possibly yeah might happen all right uh well that's cool i think that's freaky and it freaked me out

so i wanted to at least bring some attention to it not a fan not a fan don't love that um okay this has been the biggest story in comics in a while i think the thing we're about to talk about we talked about the daily tech news show at tom and um oh okay i was in this i was on that episode this is like last wednesday and i went if there was ever a day i needed stephen here with me it was that day because i know you would have had a hot take on this but uh anyway diamond comic distributors has filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. That means restructuring potentially

what's literally what it means, what's chapter 11 is what that means, but whether they come out of this the same or different or whatever it is, who knows. But for the longest time, Diamond was considered a scourge on the industry for basically strangle holding the distribution

of everything. It was basically a monopoly. I mean, from about 95 and well, maybe a little bit before 95, but around 1995, to today. Diamond has been really the main distributor of comics in the United States and portions of Canada. And so there have been a lot of complaints because there's nobody else that you can go to. And that has led to a lot of complaints from shop owners saying, hey, we receive damage comics and Diamond doesn't seem to be really excited about fulfilling those. There have been publishers

that have said, hey, Diamond, you owe us money. You haven't paid for us yet. And things are putting us behind, but now they finally filed. And of course, COVID, during the lockdown, they were basically like, hey, we're shutting down our factory. And I want to say that they're in Mississippi. And they have said, yeah, we're not, we're not coming into work. So nobody's getting their comics, which forced a lot of people to say either, yeah, I guess we're not doing comic books for months, or in the case of DC comics, going out and saying, no, we're going to actually continue distribute comics. We're going to go through two other distributors. And basically in 2020, severed their connection with Diamond, which was kind of the downfall for Diamond. They haven't really recovered after that.

And so under Chapter 11, they want to prevent anybody from coming in and suing them for money that is owed. And so that's complicated in itself. They have three different areas. They have universal distribution, which covers a lot of Europe. They're like, oh, no, that one's fine. There's no problem with that. So they're looking for a buyer that. Diamond Select Toys is also part of this. So the statues that people like to get, the action figures, those are, you know, part of this deal. But the big thing is, what do we do with getting comics? And for a lot of people that are freaked out, I would say, first of all, if you're a Marvel person or a DC person or an image comics person, you don't have anything to worry about because they are either now with lunar distributors or Penguin Random House or another one that's out there that they can go through.

And certainly there are some others like Boom and Archie that distribute their trades through Penguin Random House. But the bigger thing is this really impacts the smaller publishers, anybody, you know, like it could be a dynamite, it could be a Titan, it could be American mythology, it could be a number of smaller publishers that are not large enough for Penguin Random House or Lunar to take on their distribution of comics because their orders and things are so small. that it's not worth those other distributors time. And so there could be a whole swath of small distributors that go away if they can't find a way to get comics to readers. So it's easy to just want to dive into, well, this is a digital's chance to take over. It's not that simple, right?

Like, I wish it was that simple. It's just not that simple. Well, as long as there's all time. I mean, to me, this is diamond dropping the ball. They've had a 40-year stranglehold on this monopolized position in the market. And then I understand COVID changed a lot of things for a lot of people. But if they had no plan or even a reactionary plan, then this is on them. I mean, it kind of is. But the fact that DC at the time was just like, look, we need to ship

comics. And so we're going to go find another distributor and found it in Lunar. And they had another one that was a temporary, but that one has also gone away. That was a lot of, that was a huge chunk of money that Diamond lost just through DC. And then when Mark, Marvel kind of followed suit and say, yes, we will continue to distribute through diamond, but we've also got Penguin Random House now. That was kind of the nail in the coffin that said, you guys are running on fumes at this point. And yes, you're correct. There is a large part of the both comic book reader and comic book store owners and maybe even on the publisher's side that are like clucking their tongues and saying,

well, you guys brought it upon yourselves. So figure it out. but it also does introduce a big amount of stress for smaller publishers at this time. Oh, for sure. Their website's funny

because if you go to Diamond Comics.com, it's like very a positive look at everything. It's like, we've been here 40 years, 40 wonderful years, blah, blah, blah, here's how to contact us all that. And then they have a news section where they would normally put things like in February last year.

They said Archie Comics joins Deluxe Publishing Tier. June 25th, a mega, sorry, Pegamuse, press, Incs exclusive distribution deal with Diamond. September 5th, another similar thing with Laguna Studios. And then January 14th, 2025, Diamond Comic Groups, Files, voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Yeah, so it's the Pegamuse and Laguna Studios, inks. You know, these are, these are ones that are, that could easily be in trouble if they can't find another means of distribution. And, of course, when we talk about other means of distribution, it could be that these smaller publishers,

have to contact every comic book store directly and say, hey, if you want to order from us, here's how you can order from us. It could be listen. We're only going to distribute our comics to these 10 main locations across the United States. Or, as you said, Scott, maybe this is a time where they go and look for digital media outlets.

The biggest problem with that is Amazon really screwed over comicsology big time and has for the 10 plus years that they own them. And so it's not. as comicsology is not the safe haven or the deos ex machina that everyone thought it would be. And so there's a lot of the reader base that simply won't go to comicsology to get their comics, which means that these indie publishers may need to now go and do their own digital distribution a la dark horse image, boom, DC and Marvel, which all have their own apps. that takes time resources and money to do too.

So this is a kind of a stressful time for many publishers and I'm sure comic book stores as well because are they going to now have to deal with 15 different order systems, whereas the last 40 years they've only had to deal with one ordering system? It's going to be a real mess if they are not able to get their debt under control or find a buyer for this. In my opinion, it's the biggest fumble of a ball. that Amazon's made with any acquisitions. And I understand it's not a giant priority for them. The priority was to control all of these outputs. And here's another one.

So we have audio now because we bought Audible. We have this now because we bought Comisiology and we bought all these little things. So they're now kind of part of the bigger picture. Makes sense to me, Twitch, all that. But they blew that so hard that all we're left with now is pretty good services from both Marvel and D.C. but nobody else is Marvel in D.C. Everyone else has to scramble. They used to have like these little options.

Like remember when Comicsology would make a deal with Image or whoever and say, here's a version of our app, but it's just for you guys. They did that for a while. But when they got bought, Amazon kiboshed all that. Well, no. So keep in mind.

So Comicsology was owned by Amazon for years before they said, hey, we're going to merge all this in with the Kindle app and take over everything and merge it with the bookstore. They had owned comicsology almost since the beginning, to be honest. So a lot of those times when you saw the Marvel or the DC or the Image Comics apps that were using the Comicsology interface, that was Amazon owned them at that time. The problem with Amazon was they were like, well, we don't want to have to, I mean, this is short form paraphrasing, we don't want to have to deal with a subsidiary company under this. We're moving it all under

Kindle and we're mixing your Kindle books and your comic books together. And we're getting rid of the comicsology interface website and mixing it in with the regular Amazon interface. And that is what pissed everybody off. And that's what caused, in a sense, comicology to fall was when they brought it in and made it part of Kindle and the Amazon store. But the digital interface and everything, that's been that way since almost the very beginning with Amazon. Yeah, they can, they can eat a poo. I'm mad at them. Yeah, no, it does upset a lot of people. But I still buy comics through the Amazon store and I can read them in my Kindle

app it's not really any different than it was before except now I have atomic habits right next to the Adventures of Superman and sometimes that is that is frustrating. It's just messy and difficult to use and whoever I don't know and I'm sure that they look at that and go well to fix all that

it's going to cost this and we don't think it's worth it because digital comics haven't taken off it's like some people may be wondering what happens to free comic book day because free comic book day is sponsored by Diamond Comic Distributors. Yeah. So at this time, they have said they are fully committed to supporting free comic book day.

All the titles have already been announced at the gold and silver level sponsorship. The prices that stores are paying are still, you know, being charged. But if in the next, you know, 90 days, I don't remember how long this Chapter 11 filing is for. But, you know, if in the next 90 days they're not able to find somebody, then it goes up in the air. Then it's going to be up to the benevolence of another publisher to pick up the, to pick up all the cost and shipping of those, of those free comics. Great. The benevolence of other publishers is a, is an oxymoron. I mean, I could, I could see somebody like Marvel or Disney coming in and saying, yeah, we will, we will pick it up all the cost of getting these outs so that we can celebrate comics.

Now, the problem is, everyone's like, isn't there another place that all these people could go to? I've already mentioned Penguin Random House a number of times. And yes, they are a huge distributor. The nice thing about them is you can get your comic books directly into bookstores. The problem is, Penguin Random House, back when it used to be Penguin Distributors and Random House distributors or Random House publishing, now these things are merged into one. Penguin Random House is almost in the same position of being a pseudo-monopoly as Diamond is. So that is the one thing that I would caution people. Yay, Penguin Random House is going to save us.

they can be almost as bad from what I hear and what I understand. So just be aware that comic book publishers may have given up one pseudo monopoly for another pseudo monopoly. And keep in mind, publishing business in general is weird now. It's not what it used

to be. It's a lot of picking up scraps and also production. I don't know where most comics are printed now. I assume it's all in Asia. So most of them, no, so it depends. Most publishers are printing in Canada. And then that comes in. So, you know, tariffs could be a big, a big problem that could cause the cost of your comics to increase.

As far as trade paperbacks go, a lot of those are published in China, and those could also be affected by the tariffs. Yeah, I don't love any of those. They're already too expensive. Like, I already paid too much for $4.50 on average or something like that for a comic right now. Yeah, yeah. So if you're paying another 25 cents on top of that or a quarter of that, so that's another buck on top of that for, for the, the tariffs or 50% if it's, yeah, it's, yes, obviously, but that also puts a bigger burden on where people are publishing their comics. And the answer is, well, why not publish here in America?

Well, okay, find, find somebody that is doing that here in America and can do it to scale quickly and easily on a weekly basis and get those shipped out. So all of that, all of that is problematic right now for the, for the comic book industry. In 2018, when I was making those playing card decks, we were supposed to do, everything was to print in China and it was all set. We had all the deals ready to go and it was going to be this big batch and, you know, fulfill the whole thing there. And right then tariffs were implemented and specifically things like card games were

in this category of tariffed items because I don't remember the specifics, but at the time it was like a list of things, kinds of things that were going to get tariffed and that got tariffed. So we bailed last second, pulled it out, and made him here. and it ended up costing me oh gosh another it was like a 30% increase in just cost it was bad but it's all

it was that or we pay these the tariffs were going to make it even worse so we were just like yeah you couldn't yeah yeah which I guess is the point they want to force it so you do it here but that sucked because I'd already finished the campaign already gotten you know it was already all

my models were based on how much that was going to cost us when we had done the math and now the math changed on me I guess that's just business but still, I hate it. Yeah, and so expand that up and you'll see what happens in the coming weeks and months

if we have to start tariff wars, trade wars with people. All right, well, there you go. Thankfully, podcasts like Scott are tariff-free. Yeah, we're tariff-free. We're not going to go up. They can't tell us what to do. Stick it to the man, says Brian and Scott. That's right.

Well, anyway, I really appreciate the deeper look at this and I don't know if it ends up coming up again for any reason, diamond down the road, we should try to get you on one of those DTNS days because I think that show would have really benefited from your insight. It is Stephen Schlecker. Of course, all things,

major spoilers at major spoilers.com. Is there anything on the site right now going on that you'd like people to know about? Oh, man. Let me plug a show two weeks ago on the Major Spoilers podcast I had on Kyle Higgins. Kyle Higgins is the writer of a fantastic series. over at Image Comics called Radiant Black.

If you're a Mighty Morphan Power Rangers fan, if you are a fan of Invincible, then you will want to check out Radiant Black. They just finished up, I think, their third or fourth year of storytelling with this big Catalyst War. And next month, Issue 31 comes out that kind of picks up the pieces from this big war and continues a brand new story arc. So go look for the Major Spoilers Podcast, where I interview Kyle Higgins. It is fantastic.

He just passed it there on the site. Oh, scroll down, scroll down, scroll down. Oh, you're on, you're on the YouTube. That's not real. That's not real time. Hold on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's right.

It's like the very first major spoilers podcast when you see down at the bottom under podcast. Oh, down here. You'll be able to. Yeah, right. Right there. There. It's the one with a radiant black figure on it. Oh, the little yellow.

On the left. Yeah, yeah. Where am I? Yeah. So, go check it out. It is a fantastic interview. The fact that when. a lot of the radiant black universe

spins out of his college thesis film that he did studying under the great Tom Mankowitz was his advisor Tom Mankowitz yes related to that Mankowitz of the game fame but also the scriptwriter of the Superman movie

no way so it is a fascinating discussion and I would encourage people to go check that out to the major spoilers podcast what did you think of that new teaser yesterday it looked pretty good yeah it does It looks really good.

I don't know what people are complaining about. I guess it's the internet and people are going to complain. Are people complaining again? What are they complaining about this time? Oh, that what is his name? Corn Sweat? Corn Sweat's face is all too, too CGIed in the flying scene and it looks dumb and they need to fix it.

Huge disagree. It looks amazing. And I don't think it's CG, by the way. I think it's just him. No, it's not James Gunn is like, you don't know what you're talking about. This is the real shot. I don't know if I can handle these people. I'm so done with the Snyder.

diverse people and anyone who looks at anything and says, like, what do you, what do you find joy in? I want to talk to those people and say, what do you actually like? They have no joy in their lives. And I've told people before and anybody that wants to be a podcaster out there, if you, if you trade in hate and vileness, that, that morally weakens your soul and does not make you a good person. So don't, don't make that your stock and trade for your, for your podcasting.

It's fun to have a legitimate complaint. But if your whole thing is, they did that and therefore the whole thing is bad or blah, blah, blah, blah. The problem is people get so tired of listening to that, that immediately you're going to get, you'll get one or two listeners at the start, and then people will trail off. I hope so. It seems like negative cells. Like most of the big YouTube channels, all they do is talk shit and they get the most views. But now with longevity, hopefully. No, but that's the problem.

In three, four years, they'll have nobody. And then they'll be like, oh, guys, come on, I need to have some money. because I bought a Lamborghini and I didn't think I had I didn't think I thought I could afford it. All right. Well, Stephen, it's always a pleasure. I got, I got these Kirkland. We got to stay hydrated. We got to stay hydrated. Drink your Kirkland crooked bottles.

I got to pee. I know. Just talking about it. Yeah, made him have to pee. Yeah. That's not what you expect. All right. That's it for that.

Hey, we got a quick phone call. We're going to play from a listener. Sure. This is about my bad gummy in Vegas. and here's what we got. This is from... Who's from this? Tom, I think is his name.

Here we go. Hey, frog pants. This is Sippy from Virginia for Scott and Brian for the morning's train. Scott's talked a lot about his experience with that bad gummy in Vegas

and having Tom Barrett chaperone him around Vegas. There's a term for that that I think you might be interested in. It's called trip-sitting. Basically, you were trip-sat by Claire and Tom when you were having the really bad gummy situation. And as somebody who has done some trip-sitting for various drug-using friends and other kind of stuff, it's something that you may look at for encouraging people to trip-sit their friends when they're having a bad time,

kind of babysit them, make sure they stay out of trouble, and help them deal with being on a trip or being. trip sat if that's the past tense phrase. Anyway, I just thought you might be interested in trip sitting. That is 100% what that was. I was tripped at. Yeah, that's a great term. I love it. I like that a lot. By the way, the

first second of his call, he sounded like he was going to ask if it was truly for a fish sandwich. Hold on. Let me play that again. Hey. Hold on. Now we got to do them side by side. Because that's fricking funny. Hold on. Where is it? Uh, no.

Hold on. Where is it? Where the hell is it? Hey. Okay, there it is. Now, I'm going to copy that over. We're going to put them side by side. All right. Here we go.

This is too funny not to do it. All right. Hey. Hey. Hey. Sippy, we love you, man. Thanks for calling in. We're laughing with you.

Not, yeah. Yeah, no, that's amazing. We're knifing near you. It's all fine. Yes. Um, yeah, Tom and Claire were absolutely trip-sitting me, and it was great, and I really appreciate them for that. So thank you for that. I will never, ever take that brand or type of gummy again. Yeah. No, no more sativa. No more sativa. Right. Yep. Yeah. Sativa should stand for sit and via. Sure. Via trip to hell or something. Anyway. Right. I know other people, like, that's what Fletcher's slow-dosed on that all week. like he's fine with it he loves it

or yeah he just kept he was staying at a certain level all the time so he would always like build back up to it and it's that kind he likes it's just different physiology you know I couldn't do it different physiology affects people differently and you know you know now you know and you

you were in a very safe place when you took it with having a bunch of people that can help trips at you. Yeah it was great and having you guys a bunch of you were up in the air and those who were on the ground were keeping that fine and that took long enough that's right when a lot of us were up Getting our, trying to get the most drinks into our bodies in the bar car of the high roller.

You were having your own trip sitting going on up in there. That's right. Exactly. Quick note, today at noon. Carter and I'll sit down for a Monday show. Check that out live at frogpants. That's today at noon on a Monday for the Monday show. So that will be today.

A Monday show on a Monday. Wow. Yeah. Last week we had a holiday, so we bumped it and it's always weird doing it on a Tuesday. It doesn't feel right. Yeah. Anyway, big week because tomorrow we got. Greg Streets show

this weekend a instance with Bobby what else is going on it's a big week there's plenty of content you're going to all be sick of us all the regulars like film sack and yeah all that shit is happening

whether you like it or not coverville core all of it um Brian we're out of here frogpance.com slash tMS is the place to go to get all your stuff

get your final submissions in for the TMS film festival you only got let's see where's my calendar you only have what four days three days three days what day is it 27th uh one two three four days four days including if you count today four and a half so four days to get him in by the 31st that's the last you can submit them it's also the last time you can get brian sessions uh film

sacs edy thing all my parody songs for film sack four days folks we're almost all out of those little bits those ones and zeros are almost out so hurry i'll get those but uh but yeah for sure for sure get your film stuff in because we're going to be judging those soon those prizes will be yours but you have to enter to do it there's still time it's only a 30 second film festival you don't have to plan a two hour

movie right 30 seconds in fact it's the rule you can only do 30 seconds so anyway yeah that is going to do the name yeah exactly that's going to do it for us Brian let's get out of here with a song yeah Shane or style in chat wrote and said Scott and Brian I'm

submitting this late so I apologize I've been listening since the very beginning, listening to Scott since the instance days, the original instance days, but I've never requested a song. My birthday was January 24th, but since that's on a Friday and I'm submitting this request late, play whenever you have a gap. I'm a pilot and I've always loved the songs Learning to Fly or Learn to Fly by both Pink Floyd and Foo Fighters. I play the Pink Floyd version whenever I want to illustrate to my kids what actually feels like to fly a plane, and I'm requesting a cover of either version whenever you get a chance. this coming birthday is my 47th trip around the landing pattern. And for some reason, it's the first I haven't wanted to celebrate. I usually travel in the attention.

Most pilots do. I'm sorry, revel, revel in the attention. I want to go rebel. But, no, it's how I usually revel in the attention. Most pilots do. But this year, for some reason, it's different. As everyone else says, I appreciate you guys in the community more than you know. Can I get a tender crisp bacon, cheddar ranch ships, ships, phasers?

Oh my gosh. You can do both those things because I was just there. Here we go. I know. I remember you've seen that. Right here. The Tendicus, bacon, cheddar, and let's test the ship's phasers.

There you go. Perfect. Shane or style when he's in the tadpool. Well, happy birthday style. Hope you had a great 47th. Maybe you'll get a happy Dursday clip two. Oh, we can give you that. Happy Thursday, do you?

Happy birthday. Yeah, hope you have a very happy Dersh day. How about a cover of the Foo Fighters Learned to Fly? This is a single that was released by MonoVision. I've played a bunch of different covers. of this song. This is one of my favorites that I've played on the show. I have played it before, but years and years and years ago. So whatever.

MonoVision and Foo Fighters learn to fly. Run and tell all of the angels this could take all night. Think I need a devil to help me get things right. Hook me up a new revolution, because this one is a lie. We sat around laughing and watched the last one time And I'm looking to the sky to save me Looking for a sign of life

Looking for something to help me burn out bright And I'm looking for a complication looking because I'm tired of trying I'll make my way back home when I learn to fly I think I'm dying I think I'm dying nursing patients It can't wait one night I'd give it all away if you give me one last try

We'll live happily ever trapped If you just saved my life Run and tell the angels that everything's all right And I'm looking to the sky to send me Looking for a sign of life Looking for something to help me burn out bright I'm looking for a complication Looking cause I'm tired of trying

I'll make my way back home when I'll live when I learn to fly Make my way back home When I learn to fly Along with me I can't quite make it alone Try to make this life my own Fly along with me

I can't quite make it alone Try to make this life my own to make this life my own I'm looking to the sky to save me looking for a sign of life looking for something to help me burn up right I'm looking for a complication looking cause I'm tired of trying

I'll bake my way back home when I learned to Looking to the sky to save me Looking for a sign of life Looking for something to help me burn out bright I'm looking for a complication Looking cause I'm tired of trying I make my way back home when I learn to fly. How's that for a visual?

Find more amazing at frogpants.com. It's going to be a gall-dang turkey shoot.