The Morning Stream - TMS 2777: By Morons, for Morons

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

I curse you! Decapacitated. March of the Pangolin. The Tijuana Chess Set is a Bad Move. The Curse of Stonehenge. The Moon Does Want it Wants. I can totally see why Chuck Likes it. Alexander Popped Off. I Backed The Wrong Russian. Cold Hands McGee was Correct. The Pickle Hustle. Awesome sauce Kim. Elbow to Mouth Avoidance. Getting your Colonoscopies in sync. No Dice, ICE! w Stephen and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Standing in the rain with my head hung low. Couldn't get a ticket. It was a sold-out show. So then I went to patreon.com slash TMS and supported my favorite morning podcast. So should you. Coming up on the morning stream, I curse you. Decapacitated. March of the Pengolin.

The Tijuana chess set is a bad move. The curse of Stonehenge. The moon does what it wants. I totally see why Chuck likes it. Alexander popped off. I backed the wrong Russian. Cold hands McGee was correct. The pickle.

hustle. Awesome sauce Kim. Elbow to mouth avoidance. Getting your colonoscopies in sync. No dice, ice, with Stephen and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. I wonder how long it's been since my brother and I began to see things other people can't see. They're going to choke on the rapper. I don't give a fuck about these ducks. The morning stream.

I must break you. Hey, everyone. Welcome to TMS. It is the morning stream for Monday, February 10th, 2025. I'm Scott Johnson. That's Brian Abbott. Nehow, Scott. Nehaw ma, she-she.

Spring roll. I used to know a bunch of, I used to know a bunch of those words. uh from just one trip to china they teach all these like common phrases and stuff but i don't remember what most of it is don't remember most of it i'd be lost you put me in china right now put me on a subway in southern china yeah i'm screwed i'll be dead by morning i'll bet you'd be surprised how how much it comes back to you when um tina i went to mexico for a little uh resort trip little family group resort trip with my stepdad's family side and I before the trip I would have said yeah I could tell you hello and goodbye in Spanish and that's about it but I was surprised at how quickly it came

back to me especially walking on the beach and telling the people the vendors who run up to you with arms loaded with cheap necklaces and and weird prints and things like that oh no no me Gusta. No, no, no. Comes back real quick. It really comes back quick. It's like, oh, yeah, okay. Remember some of this now? It's like riding a bike. Yeah. Do you ever... Or writing a Bicycleta. Yeah. Oh, let's see. Look at you. Somebody call your high school a Spanish teacher and tell them everything worked out. That's what we should do. Please do. Please, she'd be very happy to hear that. Do you ever get sucked into or suckered into any kind of those little, like when we were Tijuana, I got suckered into buying a chess set for some reason.

stupid thing to try to travel with because it's made out of marble or a stone or whatever. But have you ever getting suckered into a deal like that? Sort of. A wanderer or Romani, I know I can't use the G word anymore, somehow convinced me we were in a hurry. We were in Chichester? No, where was it? Somebody helped me out here and remind me the name of the town that's just outside Stonehenge in England. We were there.

We stopped off at this restaurant. that has a fossilized hand in the wall because, A, the food was really, really good. It's a nice pub, and there's, you know, obviously we want to see the fossilized hand. He talked about that one other time. I think that is the raddest thing to see. It's so cool. Yeah, they supposedly cut off because somebody caught them cheating in a poker game and cut off their hand and stuck it in the thing. Sure.

But we left and we are heading towards the bus to go to catch the bus that took us to Stonehenge. And we're coming out and this woman says, hey, can you, you know, give me a tenor. Can you give me whatever she said. And I'm like, no, sorry, can't help you. And then she goes, I curse you. Wow. You cursed me because I didn't give you money. She's like, because I curse you.

And I'm like, oh, my God. Wow. So I'm like fishing through and I'm like I'm not going to give her I'm not going to give her I had big bills and then I had like dollar pound coins and I just wanted to give her like five bucks sure and you know I'm like well I don't believe in this crap but I certainly don't want to be cursed because then if something if anything goes wrong I'm going to think oh this is the stupid curse that's how curses work is even because there's such bullshit that if something bad happens to you're just out damn it's that Romani curse that I got exactly exactly so I

went and got change or or found something this is a little vendor and just got changed for one of my big bills and like all right here's here's five and she you know she went off on her merry way and hopefully she lifted that's the question did she let did she say anything that made you feel like it was lifted when she left no because because teen and i ended up missing the bus to stonehenge so we're stuck there for another half an hour and then when we got basically we got to stonehenge 30 minutes before they closed for the day. They closed the walkway and the event center or the gift shop and all that. So basically we had 30 minutes to go all the way around Stonehenge to get back on the bus to get back to whatever the town was.

And that's not enough time. If you've been to Stonehenge, you know, it's a large, they don't let you walk close to the rock. So it's a large circular path around it. So basically we kind of like what like got to each of the the compass points and stood there and looked at it, took a picture and then made it around to another compass point and then took a picture and then made it around to another compass point and then took a picture and then back to the gift shop. Like let's buy, let's buy a little plastic model of Stonehenge and a book so that we can say we came here. It's probably the curse was that you would be laid for everything. Because the curse is missing the bus. Yeah. Salisbury. That's it. Salisbury.

Salisbury like the steak. Yep. All right. I'm down. Yep. Did you, so the hand in the wall real quick, did you take pictures of that or anything? Do you have like a photo of this hand? Yeah, and I think I did take a picture of it. I don't know.

Be hard to find, right? This was before, yeah, this was before iPhones, obviously. And so I... It was like 90s? Late 90s? Yeah, it would have been, it would have been shortly after Tina got married. 96, 97, I think. Just prior to the boy, sounds like.

Yes. Yeah, actually, you might have been. have been it might have been um the summer after tristan was born because he had gotten a little bump on his head he uh hit the wall and we were like well if he if he's got a um concussion we're not going on our trip and so we're like watching it like all right check his eyes pupils are dilating okay all everything looks good um so yeah so it would be really hard for me to find the i think it would be i think that would have been still in a role of prints that we had printed or a role of film imprinted.

You got it somewhere, but that's cool. I love the idea of an old disembodied hand, you know? It's really cool, yeah, and I'm sure if we look up Salisbury pub, severed hand. Yeah, we've got to be out there, right? Yep, the hunch of venison is the name of the restaurant. What kind of venison you got here? It's the haunch. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, all right, we all right, we all have some haunch things. Sure. uh let's see here and they'll give you a something you can paste in here yeah i'm gonna see if i can find one so far it's just pictures there it is right copy image paste

oh yeah you hit that one too because i was giving you an image of the uh oh that one didn't come through uh there's the haunch of venison so it's like a severed hand behind a little gate behind a little wall of uh bars and stuff oh weird and who's hand and stole the cards. A person who was cut cheating at cards. Dude. And the card, there's like a little thing of spades or something or clubs.

Yeah, a little mummified hand. That's great. I love that kind of stuff. I feel bad for the guy getting his hand cut off. But, you know, we're talking, what, a thousand years later? Probably talking a thousand years later. Yeah, five, six hundred and seven hundred years, something like that. Yeah.

That's great. I love that. All right. Couple things. Super Bowl Sunday happened The Eagles absolutely murdered Kansas City and you know what

I know a lot of people think that a one-sided game like that can be boring but I love a good just wrecking I love it. I love it especially to a team that is like a little cocky you know a little full of themselves

at the three Pete I was I was I was rooting for the Eagles because we were at a friend's house who's an Eagles fan so you know you got to get a be happy out the team plus Denver and Kansas City have a quote unquote rivalry so I can't rue for the chiefs no I can't anyway like I just don't like it I like the underdog I don't care who you are if it was Kansas City that was the underdog who got in there inexplicably and there was like a three Peter going up against them if they were playing the Patriots or something

I'd be stoked for Kansas City. So this is just the way I work, and I was like all about the Eagles. They freaking destroyed them. Yeah. And I enjoyed it. I'm going to say this, though. I got a couple of things I want to say. The game, it's fine, whatever.

I appreciated that they didn't cut to celebrities too often. It was very rare. No, no. I think they... But they would have more had the chiefs been doing better. Oh, guaranteed. If he had this Taylor Swift, you know, celebrating, you'd have shown her more. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Um, but I, you know, I don't know what John Ham's connection to Kansas City is, but, uh, I wonder if he's from there maybe. I don't know. Or Bradley Cooper. I guess Bradley Cooper is probably from Philly or the Philly area. Seem, seem like that's what that was, they were trying to do there. Um, yeah. But then this takes me to my beef. I don't ever like the commercials anymore. I feel like we're 10 years. They just haven't been great for a long time. For me. They really haven't. Everybody else may have reasons to think they're great and everything. But this one, it's particular just felt like the entire run with very few exceptions were written by morons for morons totally and just having a celebrity face in your commercial is not in and of itself funny you know what I mean like they'll just you'll see somebody famous and go uh and I what they

expect people just go oh my gosh they got so-and-so to be in this ad who gives a shit No, Heron, Willem Defoe playing pickleball. Yeah, it's just, they sucked this year, so bad. The ones I did like, and it's funny how they managed to get just about all the Schitts Creek people within the first quarter of the game. Yeah. But the use of Eugene Levy's eyebrows, and then later on, the use of the flag moustaches from, it's like, it's funny how facial hair all of a sudden became, you know, a sentient theme for this year's Super Bowl. It made me wonder if they had. coordinated that because there were two different

companies, two different. Yeah, possibly. But Eugene Levy is a good pick for that because of the eyebrows. And it's like, okay, perfect. That's a good clever use of a celebrity endorsement. If you're going to get weird and have mustaches and eyebrows flying around, then I'll give them credit for that.

But man, most of these abysmal. Just terrible. So I am from now on. This is my new goal from here on now, all Super Bowls in my future. I don't give a shit about ads. The truth of the ads anyway is that what we liked is when the mega money meant mega creativity, or at least that's what you'd hoped, is that we'd be like, well, we're going to spend $16 million in 30 seconds.

We're going to hire a writer and a cinematatogical. Or we're going to hire people that know how to make really great, funny, short, you know, whatever. And I feel like no one's trying anymore. They all just are like, bottom level, hey, what if Martha Stewart looked like she was dancing around? well who gives a shit the uh and and so much potential with the i guess it was an instacart ad that had all of these mascots like different brand mascots racing each other to get to this uh to this house it's like oh this this okay there should be a really good payoff with all this stuff awesome can't wait for it it's like no oh nope they're just racing to get to the bag because it's

instacart really all that all that potential of all of these great brands running and you could have had some stuff really funny stuff going between them but nothing. Yeah, and it feels like as I'm sitting there, I'm like, I would have done this and then they do something else. And I'm thinking, well, I'm giving this advice for free. These people have all the money in the world. This is, this is the best they could do. It's really annoying. And then I see like the Squarespace ad and I'm like, oh, they're back doing Super Bowl ads. No wonder my rates went up. I get it now. I did email Bill Murray, though. I had to.

Yeah, I did do it. Yeah, yeah, I totally did it. I used a crap email address, you know, one that I could cut off but sure um the response back did not disappoint i got an email back so i just knew he said uh i think i just said something like yeah i see that dog every time i look in there too he says hey brian abit thanks for emailing sure you're thinking what's this murray doing in the middle of the game is he broke now the usual gambling problems ugly divorce understandable reaction but this is not purely a big money sellout there's also a dog in my mirror a real dog where my face should be and always has been so kindly absorb that hard just walk one mile in my paws and it's long like it's a long long thing like a long uh email but you can totally hear it in his voice

it does feel like he wrote it then at least it feels i'm not that i'm saying he wrote it but they tried to match that it feels like yes they did a good job of making it sound like something he uh he wrote oh i did i just cut this where would you imagine a vet named dr jerry spelled like our Dr. Jerry Tolbert. Oh, no way. Wearing a, don't lick me, I'm allergic, button pinned to a scrubs would send me. Just take a guess, and you'll learn that this darkest hour is just before the dawn. Wow.

Matthew Johnson says there are parts two and three if I reply. I did see that. Oh, you can do more. Like, there's a second reply. Like, yeah, like, email me back with your best guest, then I'll tell you the rest. So, yeah, I'd be, I might do it just to see what. If it's just your throw away email, why not? Just, you know.

Why not? It's fun hearing it in his. If you get anything crazy, let us know. We'll do. Yeah, we'd like to know. We'll do. Well, anyway, oh, and then there's the meatballs part. So if you're like, Scott, what the hell's that mean? Here's the deal.

Kim made turkey meatballs with some kind of awesome sauce I've never had before. It was real good. And then she made wings. She made two different kinds of wings and a bunch of that. And then a big veggie, all the stuff, right? All the things. And we had all the kids over. And it was great.

Everybody ate well, and it was fantastic. And at some point during the night, probably fourth quarter and I look around and I'm like where's Ripley because she's supposed to be down there laying with us while we're watching yeah yeah and Carter's like I don't know is she not over there I'm like no she's not over here where's Ripley and we found out somebody forgot to pull the little gate we have a gate at the top of the stairs when she's with us so she can't go up there because her nose is her nose always knows where food is it's just yeah she's a hound she's a hound of the hound breed type so she's gonna you know she's gonna seek it out

the other two don't care they're stupid and too small They can't do anything. So she apparently, well, she went up there and then we're yelling her name. She finally comes down and she just looks so guilty, dude. Like, I don't even know how to describe the guilt in her face of a dog face. Just so much guilt in her face. I'm like, what did you do? What did you freaking do, Ripley?

And she's not going to tell because she's a dog. And then, so I can't remember who went upstairs, Carter or Taylor. Somebody ran upstairs and yelled down, were we all out of meatballs? and Kim's like no we absolutely are not out of meatballs there was going to be enough there for like everyone to take some and then Scott to have lunch today on meatballs if he wanted like there should be plenty of meatballs left and the dog had gotten up and eaten like 30 freaking meatballs it would have been perfect if when Carter yelled that down the stairs all of a sudden Ripley goes brawl well I was waiting for it the whole rest of the night I'm like guys you keep an eye on her that's some rich food yeah keep her eye on her she's not going to be and so far she's been fine and i don't know i don't know how maybe it's because it was turkey and less greasy or i don't freaking know but she she ate all these freaking meatballs i'm so mad at her she didn't she couldn't reach the chicken wings though so we're good there

good thing yeah yeah yeah because you don't want those bones cheese that would have been real bad so uh what a what a stupid dumb freaking thing to have happened all your meatballs in the middle of the super ball uh bummer yeah it's lots of fun i also ended up watching You know that carry-on movie you saw on Netflix while back? And you had said to me, hey, it's worth seeing. You should see. It's fun. It's whatever.

Yeah. You were right. I'm going to tell you this. Brian's the only person in my life who told me the truth about carry-on. Everybody else told me, oh, it's just like die-hard. Like take die-hard one and two, mush them together, and basically it's carry-on. I don't think it is at all. Like, I don't think it's even remotely like die-hard.

There's die-hard aspects like, you know, just the fact that it's like a terrorist who's kind of threatening a bunch of people maybe they're unaware of it and you know he's the John McLean who has to stop it kind of thing but yeah no I mean just die hard in the essence that it's an action film yeah with one guy against a bunch of yes exactly and he can't say anything for a while because of the nature of the story I don't want to spoil it but for those who watch it you'll understand

why he can't do much to say much that's a little John on McLeanish where he's on his own. No one knows who he is or believes him, I guess. But for the most part, it just, it felt like its own thing. And here's the other part. I really enjoyed it up to about two thirds in. And I won't say I didn't enjoy the last third because I did, but for the wrong reasons, that last third goes off the rails, dude.

Like it goes freaking bananas. And I understand why people are so, talk to you about. And people are so critical, the final. act and I couldn't figure out why until I watched it. Now I get it. But I also kind of liked how ridiculous it got toward the end because it was just like, okay, holy shit, let's go. Like it just stopped. Over the top

for sure. It stopped taking itself seriously. But it was fun seeing some, what do you call it, some reunions. So you had Hank from Breaking Bad in there. Yep. Who looked like he needs well, whatever.

He's he's eating a lot of bread or something i don't know what's going on with him just a little worried about him and then the other guy was his partner in the show breaking bad i can't think of his name gomi oh right the guy in the tower was his partner yeah i forgot about that okay yeah and those two never hung out in in a scene as far as i know interaction that was kind of cool and then um a lot of a lot of other little stuff like that that i liked and i thought bateman was great like there's a lot to like about it. Fantastic.

Yeah, I like this Taryn Gregory, or Gregory. Taryn Edgerton. Oh, Edgerton, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Edgerton brothers. I like those guys. That's right, because you haven't seen a lot of the Kingsman movies. Have you? None of them.

None of them. Okay, yeah. That's your main dude in the Kingsman. I always assume those are coming to Film Sack at some point. It's not a bad guess. Yeah. Doesn't it feel like him? like to me it totally does yeah to me it does um so we'll wait for those for film sack for me

anyway but i uh i really had a good time with it kim and i both were just you know it's a lot of fun seatier pants that car that car scene was punching way above its way way away away above its way i don't even in fact it almost felt it like it was in a different movie it was so well done and so insane that by the time it finished i went did we change channels for a second and watched a whole other thing is that car chase is insane it is so it was so well done and and uh good use of uh camera position and um yeah yeah it's really good yeah it does it will you will lose uh whammy in that scene because it's uh last christmas yeah yeah it was it was fun though we had a good time with it but i'm annoyed a little bit that everybody told me that it was a diehard

Like, it just didn't feel like a diehard like. Are these the same people who told you to stay away from Emily Perez to? No, no, that's, that's just been a general, there are a few people that I know that really hate it. Yeah. But I, but most of it's been, most of it's been critics are like not talking about any of the side stuff or the real life tweet problem with the, with the woman or any of that. It's just them saying, this is a bad movie. And their complaint is people are going to hear us say that. And they're going to assume it's for a bunch of reasons.

that aren't accurate when really all we mean is this is not a good movie that's mostly the people i've been listening to i'm interesting i you liked it so i still have high hope so i enjoyed it all right we we liked it Tina was surprised Tina had no idea was a musical so she was really thrown by that but um but i think it's you know it's it's if you think of it as a as a play as a play performance, you, um, uh, you'll, you'll go into it with the right suspension of disbelief as to how this person can transform enough, but have people that maybe should recognize her, not recognize her, kind of thing. All right.

And I like Amora, so I'll watch her. Kazumi, I don't recommend anything. There have been things that I've said stay far away from this. Oh, yeah. You have stuff you don't like. Sure. Yeah, there's been plenty of stuff that I don't like Kazumi, but I feel like this is getting critical accolades for a reason. I don't think, I think there are probably more deserving movies that should have been in the best picture for this year, but, but, you know, whatever.

I think people's biggest beef is that if it's, if it's mediocre in the pack, then, but, but it's, but, you know, whatever. I think people's biggest beef is that if it's if it's mediocre in the pack then but it also leads in nominations overall and I think that's rubbing people wrong if they really didn't like it like they're just like how is this the leading but that you know what there were people that felt that way about Fury Road it was the leading award nominee it didn't win best picture it won a bunch of other stuff but it won it went into those Oscars in 2015 with the most nominations yeah but even I a mega fan knew that that was a little crazy, right?

Exactly. I mean, it deserved it in every way, but I know it's crazy, okay? Yeah. I know. Yeah. So whoever's, look, somebody out there, that Amelia Perez thing is their Fury Road. And to them, I say, go for it. I hope you enjoy it.

Yeah, exactly. I hope you win. It's definitely not a Fury Road, but it's good. Here you go. Brian, you have a lift story that I can't wait to hear. Tell us all about it. Oh, that's a rainbow bright reminds. is Brian told Scott not to see Bling twice, and Scott watched it anyway and regretted it.

Good reminder, Rainbow Bright, that I don't recommend everything I see. That's a good point. Yeah, you said, you warned me, and I saw it anyway, and I was like, oh, my gosh, why did I see this? Exactly. Okay. Lift story. So Saturday, afternoons, after Film Sack, I did some freelance and then decided to drive for a little bit. and um on one of my rides downtown like basically at a little area where um when same six mary came to denver like they played um in this uh this this part of town a lot of great bars and and live live music and stuff like that um i pull up and i see four people walking towards the car so i know immediately like all right i'm going to get one person in the front three people in the back and uh you know whatever i'm to be crowded in here and got to i turn my the straw of my

water bottle so that it's not pointing towards their elbow the person in the passenger seat because i don't want their their elbow brushing up against my water bottle do that happen you've had that before where they touch your stuff no i just don't want it i just don't want to happen it's probably just fine but it's like no you know i put my mouth on that straw i don't want somebody's elbow to totally brush up against it i'm with you 100% on this preventative measure it's Great. I like it. Exactly. Exactly. So the woman, so it's three guys and a woman.

The woman sits in the back, far right, behind the passenger at the window. She made, and I did not capture the audio of this. I thought about it, but the audio I captured was what I wanted to capture. Here's a still image so far of what we got in the car, right? That's right here. Yes, you can see the three of them back there. Okay. I'm not going to hit play until you tell me, but.

Nope, okay, yeah, good. So the woman back there puts her hand, on my shoulder, and I look over at her, and she goes, I love you. And I said, okay. She says, no, I love your energy. You've got great energy. I'm like, oh, thanks. Yeah, I've, you know, great. I've been

told I've got good energy. Just, just as something to say to, like, move forward past this. And she says, what's your sign? I said, Leo, she's like, oh, I'm a Scorpio. I'm like, cool. Looks like you guys are going to and I read it off the address when I start I start driving. It's like,

okay. Terrific. Awesome. let's keep on moving but clearly clearly these are people who've maybe sampled some of the local herbs that are offered so freely here in uh seems pretty clear she's on something at this point or if she's not if she's like this all the time then good luck to everybody in her life good luck yeah all right so uh so we're driving and we're about two-thirds of the way uh through the drive and the guy in the passenger seat so i want you to enjoy the dude in the passenger seat and then look at my expression in the video that you'll see on screen. All right. I'm going to

so if you're at home. And I apologize for the F-bomb you're getting here. Yeah. So a little to just a warning. If you just if F-bombs just send you on a path you're about to hear one. So skip ahead I guess. Here it is. I'm hit and play. Okay, wait. Pause.

Conspiracy here. What's with the moon out at two in the afternoon? The moon does what it wants. I don't know. I think we have two moons. Because, like, it comes on at night, and it's out right now at 3 fucking p.m.

Did you know at this time that while you're making that face, you're like, I'm using this later. I'm going to use this. I didn't until, like, that was a genuine reaction face of, like, okay. Hey. Yeah. And then afterwards, I'm like, oh, I've got to, I've got to capture this audio for T.M. Do you think that guy really thinks there are two moons?

Do you think he thinks that? It doesn't understand that sometimes you do see the moon in daylight because of where we all are in our orbit and position. It's tidal locked. It's looking at us regardless. So sometimes you say it. I think he genuinely did. But he seemed old enough that he should have. This should not be the first time he's ever seen the moon during the day.

That's amazing, dude. they make me worry about the future people like this yeah yeah as they should that's wild and the other guy i like the other guy's the same thing and i like the other guy's like the moon does what it wants to do the moon does what it wants yeah i mean he's right you're not going to control it you're not going to stop the moon it's gonna do it i thought i honestly thought for a second about saying no the moon can be out during the day we'll see it and it's we're still seeing the sun's light reflected off the moon during the day

you know there's there's reasons that we see the moon but I was like no let's let's not yeah we'll just let that go she's already told you she loves you

you've already got the the zodiac sign business going on exactly yeah may as well let it let it be what it's going to be that's an amazing story dude I freaking love it this guy watch for him if you're out in public do not do not talk to this man

and right here. This... bum, bum, bum, do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-de-d-d-d-d-d-... Uh, that's awesome. All right, well, always have that... I guess you do always have that camera running, but we... I always have that camera running, and this, this is why.

It's, it's never going to be for, like, somebody doing something horrible, you know, threatening or damaging in my car. It's going to be to make sure I capture stuff like this for TMS. Now, something that's been impossible for me to ignore is right behind my... bond you into your right, my left, your left, my right, or whatever it is. Give us an update on, because you're done. You're done. We had this challenge. Brian's like, hey, we, or I said, we could do this the same time. I'll bring down my cabinet. I'm going to work

on that. Brian's got his project. He's done. He's finished. Yeah, I spent all morning and early afternoon yesterday, basically from the time I got up until the time we had to leave for Super Bowl, I spent getting this 32 inch monitor into this cabinet. And that means So let's talk about what I had to do here. So when I started yesterday, still had this back glass in the spot there, right, in the top part. Yeah. We call that the marquee? The barquee, right?

Or marquee, marquee, or backglass. Something like that. Accurate. Yeah. I also had the kind of the innards. Everything was gutted. out of the inside of the table. So I

basically had to I installed a monitor in the top part. So right now where it says back to the future, I can change that to a different game. Now it's Jurassic World and I can change that to whatever it could be any marquee you want.

Whatever the table is that is currently on is the thing that's going to appear back there. It's now running off a PC as opposed to a little whatever the arcade one-up deal was in there. The 32-inch monitor, I had to basically take off the entire plastic back and bezel and all that and take off like metal brackets. Like that thing is basically monitor's edge.

So that is a monitor that's never going to be usable for anything else. But it is the full width and length of the cabinet. So instead of it being this little 22-inch screen, which is what the stock machine comes with, this is, you know, this is the big, the big full size. I drilled a hole on the side and installed. I installed new buttons all over the whole thing. You can see all those lit up on there. I drilled a hole and installed a new button just under the left flipper that I can use as a nudge. because I don't have a thing in there yet for tilt or for anything like that.

I also drilled a hole in the front and installed a joystick, and now I can use that joystick to navigate through the pinball menus and choose a game as opposed to just being able to use left flipper and right flipper. I can kind of go up and down and jump pages and stuff like that. Plus, I mean, if there are simple Steam games that would also be playable on here, than I could use that too. Oh, you know what? I just realized there's a game called Demon Tilt.

What is it called? Shit. I'm going to find this game. I have a pinball game that was made for, it's on Steam. It's on other stuff too. But it's a video game pinball machine that I love. Like, love this game. And if that played on there, dude, you're in for a treat.

This is one of the coolest games. Let me see if I can find it here. It's, uh, is it demon tilt? No. Hold on, demon. Ah, something. Maybe it's just tilt. Maybe it's just tilt.

Oh, Zeno Tilt is the new one. They had one called Demon Tilt. It's called X. Z or an X? X, X, yeah. Hostile pinball action it's called. It is really, really awesome. I would, I would be very curious if it ran on there.

That would be amazing. Probably as long as I can adjust. Well, I can, there's a, there's a program on. here that I ran on the PC called Joy 2 Key, and it lets you use an Xbox controller and reprogram the buttons to be any key combinations you want or a keyboard or a joystick or whatever. So it's probably, so as long as I can control it with that, then yeah, probably. That's very cool. I would love to see that.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'll try that out. Yeah. The, uh, so WarpForge asked how much, how expensive was this project? That monitor I got on Facebook Marketplace for $100. Nice. I already had the joystick and buttons from doing that little portable retro pie gaming rig thing. So that was $23 for all of that.

So it was whatever half of that is. I already had the cabinet, but whatever I paid for the original cabinet. Yeah, I mean it's... And then just time and you're done. And it's just time, just the time and effort of doing that, yeah. And I would argue, you did that in record time, I would say. It's impressive. And I did shoot some YouTube video during each stage just to talk about what I'm about to do

and what's been done so that you kind of get a progress report. So I will stitch those all together and do a thing about that. Yeah, I'm a tube. I mean, listen, if I could afford a real pinball machine, yeah, you'd see one down here. And it would probably be the new Guardians of the Galaxy one, I think, is a blast. It's a, you know, a huge favorite of mine when I played it at the pinball festival and that sort of thing. The new X-Men game is rad. It's really good.

So, again, if I could get one of those, a real one, then yes, but I don't have $5,000, floating around that I could use. Well, what you would be more like eight. Yeah, more like eight or ten. And you could have, if you were able to come across one of those, why not both Matuba? Why not both? Right, exactly. Yeah.

So this, you know, this one's got right now 48, 50 different games I can play in it. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, Carnival, Rufus Cat, I need to get the Carnival one on here. And I've heard really good things about the 90s Star Wars table, too. The one that looks more analog without all of the 2000s-e kind of add-ons and stuff. Yeah. So. Well, that's awesome.

I love it. Yeah. Well done. Anyway. So that's all working. So I still need, there's an audio issue I need to deal with, just basically rerouting an audio cable to work with the speakers there. And right now there is no protection on the top of it. So that is the front of the monitor.

So I have a piece of protective plastic that I put over the top of that when I'm not down here because I don't want the cat jumping up on there. So, but I need a sheet of tempered glass. And I know that's going to be a little on the pricey, like upwards of 100 bucks to put on. there so for the good stuff hell yeah for good stuff quarter inch thick the right size i need etc there's a there's a glass cutter here in arvada that i'm gonna um trying to get a quote from but uh cool toy who puts up all his videos on youtube and was was instrumental in figuring out all the little little uh uh steps to doing this thing he bought his from an online vendor and it was cheaper than buying it from a local glass cutter so nice yeah um a quick note uh lucky fill in the chat

says devil's crush pinball for the turbographic 16 is one of my favorites basically the xenot tilt and demon tilt games are the this team that made those are massive fans of those devils that devil crush game so it's kind of inspired by that big time and you can tell like you'll play it and go oh yeah this brings me back it's a lot there's a lot more going on obviously and it's newer and more modern and all that but it's it's definitely a love letter to those old games so that's cool yeah they're really cool i love good i love video game pinball i like regular pinball a lot too but i really like when people get creative because you can do things in a video game that you can't do on a table and i like it when they do those in in fun ways retain the spirit of what is pinball get the physics

right and all that yeah but then give me some like reactive board stuff that you can't do physically i always yeah there's i played a little bit of it it, but there's an Avengers Age of Ultron game. I basically played for like two minutes before Tina's like, come on, we've got to go to the Super Bowl party. But the Avengers one has the five balls

each is a different member of the original MCU, the first Avengers movie, and each one has kind of a different power. Like the Hulk ball really can knock down huge targets and stuff like that, whereas the Black Widow ball can like get into areas of

the table or, you know, the other ones can't et cetera so it's like really something that's something you could not do with a physical pinball machine yeah that's cool man I'm excited for you well done you finished it in record time and now I feel even more pressure to get this other machine done um attempt in fact today I think if I get time I have a dental appointment later but I'm going to try to do the the the uh D um what do you call it uncharging of it like poke in the oh right like thing right what do they call it Decapacitating it, basically the... Yeah, just whatever things might still have power in the little capacitors.

Discharge. Is that it what I'm trying to say? Discharge. There we go. Discharge. Milky discharge. No, that's not it. No, I think discharge is right. Just as I'm drinking coffee. So we'll see how that goes. I'll let you know. Quick shout out to Ketter Red. If you don't know why, well, you don't need to know why.

I just think he's rad and he's a cool listener. That's my favorite meteor. Yeah, he's, uh, he's been going through some stuff and, uh, just want to let him know that we're thinking about him and hope, uh, hope things, uh, turn around for him real quick. Just some, uh, some brief, hopefully medical things and just like to let our listeners know that we're, you know, we pay attention to your struggles. We're around for you. And the tadpole is too. So, uh, you know, feel free to vent on our Discord. Let us know what's going on in your life.

And, uh, wanted to give him a quick shout out. So Keter Red, Keter Red, Keter Red, Keter Red. Have you said? Keter Red. Probably Keter Red. Probably Keter Red. maybe yeah or keeter because yeah it's one it's one t if it was two t is definitely keter red but maybe keeter red keter red keter red it's just got it's more literative to say ketter but i don't know

for sure anyway uh let's move on to today's uh party time all right yeah yeah we got to get done away in though or else what's the point if he doesn't come in then we're just doing it wrong so we're going to do that's right it's not working there it is it's working now and uh we'll play a little music when he gets here and we'll go off to do our thing. Well, well, well, well, what do we have here? It's one Brian Dunaway who's joining us all the way from the southeast of this great nation. Brian, welcome. How are you?

Oh, hi, Scott Brown. I'm the southeast-iest. Yeah. Hey. The Celticiest. You know, it would have been cool as if the Ravens would have been there. Wait, not the Ravens. Yeah, that would be awesome.

Panthers. What's wrong with me? The Panthers is what I meant to say. You know, that would be cool. Yeah, your shared, your shared Carolina team, that would be cool. How come they didn't, what happened to them this year? What went wrong there? What happened? We don't talk about that. Oh, okay. Well, I understand. Hey, look, my team, my two teams didn't make it. So I get it. Yeah. Dude, it's been, it's been a rough couple of seasons. But, you know, who knows? Maybe next year. You're rebuilding. That's the hope, right? That's the, that's the hope this.

in every NFL heart, right? That's right. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. You've got a one in 32 chance to get there. So good luck. Hey, Brian, let's talk. I don't think that's right.

Well, there's 32 teams, right? So you got one in 30. One of the 32 will win. That's a fair number, isn't it? Do you have that right? 32 teams? Yeah. That's the current NFL makeup.

That's right. Yeah, sounds right. Hey, Brian, Ibit, explain these rules and stuff, so I bit or so Dunaway knows what he's doing. You know what I mean? Sure. Because it's the problem to him. Welcome to the morning, half-ass is a trivia game where I'm actually going to be giving you the answers.

I'm going to give Scott and Brian a category in six possible answers. Three of those answers are correct. Three of them, like they're being two moons, is incorrect. Depending on how confident you feel with the category, you can provide one, two or three guesses. But if any of those guesses wrong, you get zero points for that round. One right gets you a point. Two right gets you three points. Three right gets you five points.

We'll add all those points up at the end to declare a winner. You guys are playing for other people who can't be in here. we're declaring winners now i'm sorry we are scott you're playing for caroline for tuna in jacksonville sweet love it and brian you're playing for thomas chambers in the sad kansas city missouri oh that's okay at least they didn't it was totally random right you didn't you didn't know i didn't plan if i if i would have planned it i would have found somebody in philadelphia as well and i had the two like a like a rematch yeah Rematch, exactly. All right.

Let's see here. Thank you, Amy. That's very good. She said, I would have doubled my Patreon if I would have said, that's no moon. It's a space station. Oh, man. Missed opportunity. Missed opportunity.

All right, let's get to it. First question, first category, very simply. Astronauts. Which of these are astronauts and which of these are not astro-nots? Valentina Tedeshkova. Jenny Thompson, Sun Yang, Sally Ride, Alexander Popov, and Yang Luel, or I'm sorry, Louis. Three of those are astronauts. Three of those are not astro-nots.

Oh, my gosh. They're astro-not. They are astro-could-bees. Nots. Yes, exactly. Hmm. I'm not feeling very confident here at all. So I'll do that.

Okay. Then I'm going to also do that. You guys both locked in on just one each. Probably the same one, if I had a guess. No, I'm kind of surprised. Yeah, that you guys didn't lock you in on the same one because I felt like Sally Ride was the obvious one, being the first woman in space. Yeah. But Brian, you locked in on Sally Ride.

Scott, you locked in on Alexander Popov. The answer is, Sally Ride, along with Alexander Poppin off. Yeah, Alexander, I'm sorry, Valentina Tettyshkova and Yang-Louis, those were the three. The other three are Olympic swimmers, Jenny Thompson, Sun Yang, and Alexander Popov. The Popov name sounds familiar enough. Yeah, that name's very familiar, which is why I picked it. I knew I was going to pick a Russian just because why not, but I picked the wrong Russian. I backed the wrong Russian.

You back the wrong Russian. Yes, that's all right. Brian's only got one point going into the next one, so that's okay. Let's get into the next one here. your second one is vacation spots in the Beach Boys song Kokomo which of these are mentioned in the Beach Boys song Kokomo feel free to sing along port a prince Montserrat, Kurosau, Key Largo, Key West and Havana three of those all of them fit in there don't they they do you can sing you can put any of them in there yeah And pretty mama's not a, not a country, just so you know, no pretty mama. Pretty mama is not.

No, that's correct. All right. Locking in. I don't know. All right. Because I got one for sure. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure about this other one, but I don't want to blow my one point. Your one point.

You did lock in on Key Largo. Both of you locked in on Key Largo. Absolutely. Key Largo, I think might even be Key Largo. Monty again. Havana, something, Montessor-R-R-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-Rata. Havana certainly would fit the rhyming structure and cadence of the song, but it's not. Havana is not, surprisingly not mentioned, neither is Q.Ster-Cur-Curisal.

The other two are Port-au-Prince and Monser-I. How are you going to beat me by just being conservative and choosing one each time, you bastard? Well, now you have to, if you want a chance, Scott, you have to get two right to get three points. I'm cooking that toad, cooking that frog right up. All right. Next one is countries where the pangolin lives. You know, where the pangolin lives. Oh, yeah.

March of the Pangolin. These pangolins. There's a pangolin right there. It looks like a Pokemon. Oh, Jesus. We got to put a picture somewhere. Hold on a second. I put it in, I put it in Discord.

They're cute. They're cute, but they look like... They look like... There's a Pokemon that looks just like that. I can't remember its name. That's adorable. I like that a lot. Yeah, you just got to figure out what countries you'll find those.

Ah, great. Countries where the penguin lives. You've got China, Brazil, Congo, Indonesia, Bolivia, and New Zealand. You can find the panglin in three of those countries. Shit. Sand Shrew, thank you. you Faisley.

Same to you. San true to you too, buddy. I got to go at least two. For sand slash, yeah, Zoe, basically just like that. Pengelin. Oh, my Lord. I can see why.

I can see why Chuck loves penguins, says Amy. I can see why. They're adorable. Oh, I would own one if I could. Yeah. Yeah. I'd make a pet.

Just watch it lumbering around the house. How big do they get? Are they large? I don't know. That's a really good question. Yeah, they're like 10 foot tall. The other image I have is of a baby, and it's on a scale with a stuffed animal. A baby pangling, right? That's not just a baby.

A baby pangolin, yeah. Okay. All right, I'm going to choose. Why is it humping that teddy bear? So they can weigh it, I guess. It's a beautiful little weird. Oh, there it is. I guess you get a tear of the teddy bear out.

Oh, see, I can handle one of these. I mean, that might be a baby in an adult. It's a baby, so, yeah, it's not an adult. Good thing. The question is how much they weigh. Yeah. But look at that. All right, let's see what you guys have locked in.

You guys have locked in. Scott, you needed to do that. You needed to lock in on a couple of these. Brian, you just picked one again. South Park is, yeah, there's a reference in South Park. That was the line of you for sure. There is? Yeah.

Yep. Shit. During the pandemic. Yeah. Scott, you locked in on Brazil. Billivian, Congo. One of those is right. Congo, home of lava tubes, is correct.

China, Indonesia, and Congo were the correct answers. Giving Brian, just inching his way towards victory, three points. One each round. That's right. It's insane. I don't know how you're doing this. The consumer strategy this time around worked well for you. So congratulations to Brian.

And by proxy, congratulations to Thomas Chambers in Kansas City, Missouri. Thomas, you're getting a copy of boxes, lost fragments, and the Pegasus expedition on Steam. Carolyn, you're getting a copy of Against the Storm, which, again, it's a pretty damn good prize. I feel bad for the winner because the loser won hardcore today. I have played all these games. That one, the against the storm is so good. You've won the better game. The only one of the three I've played, and I love that game.

I think the winner should get an option to shuffle. Yeah, too bad. They had to back your horse, Mr. Incremental. No, I'm talking about me the winner. Oh, I see. Shuffle the games around? Yeah. Yeah.

But I don't think you should. No, I disagree with that. You should not get that. Well, of course you do. You lost the day. That's right. And even if I won, I wouldn't want it. Congratulations.

That's what we're saying to them. And to you, Brian. Oh, he incrementally won, but he's still kind of lost because this person got the better game. Anyway, these people will be getting their codes right away because that's how this works. And Wednesday, we'll get a chance to do a similar thing, although on that one, one of you calls in. Donaway will be here, though, and it'll be lots of fun. Brian Dunaway, is there anything you'd like to say before I cut you out? You better, like playing some Mario this week is going to release on Valentine's Day for the Nintendo Online Store, but we're going to talk about it this week on.

Yeah, Wario Land 4, GBA game will be on the online store, and we're going to talk. talk about the origins of that game on the original Game Boy all the way up through that version of the game and some of a few things that were inspired by it it's going to be great kiss my butt bye I got him he thought I was done but I wasn't take that jerk well done all right guys we're going to take a break when we come back from said break uh we got Stephen Steven Schlecker will be here yeah he's got some bad news but it's worth talking about all right nothing to do with him but you know it's an industry thing come back for all that in a minute, but Brian, in the meantime, play a song.

Sure, big thanks to Big Hassel Media. Always love one I get to say. This one comes from Big Hassel Media. This is a brand new album from Sarah and the Sundays. The album is called Like a Damn Dog, and they're going to be doing a North American

tour this spring, sold out album release show tonight in Austin. That was actually February 7th, so that would have been Friday. So they had their they already had their sold out album release show. You couldn't have made it anyway, even if you wanted to. um this is their first single from the album it's called casanova here are sarah and the sundays i'm no casanova i don't know what they told you but i'm here i'm paying rent sometimes

I still play pretend And in my head I'm totally the person I should be But outside I'm a tragedy I'm not confused I just don't know What to do

And God is priceless I'm leaving lifeless I feel like I'm delusional And in the same bread I used to confess I tell a lie like usual But don't get me wrong It's all that I want

I'm just afraid that I'm not what you thought And I won't ever be I'm no Romeo I'm just here for the show And I'm trying I'll do my best Someone else can deal the rest And in my dreams I'm totally

the rock star of the night But glory fades in daylight I might think twice I'm already on thin ice And God it's priceless I'm leaving lifeless I feel like I'm delusion And in the same breath

I used to confess I'd tell a lie like usual But don't get me wrong It's all that I want I'm just afraid that I'm not what you thought and I won't ever be. Thank you. When your life sucks and your soul is dead, at least as always garlic bread. You can almost tell whether it's real or not.

And we've returned. Tell me again who that was. Sure. That's Sarah and the Sundays from their brand new album, Like a Damn Dog. That is the first single. It's called Casanova. Nice.

I like it. All right. Let's see. How about Schleiker time? How you feel about that? I think that's a great. There's no better time than Schleiker time. I agree.

It's Schlecker time. Get down. Doodle doodle doodle do. I can't find his intro. There it is. And now welcome Stephen to the show. He's a huge freaking nerd. Dollar, dollar bills, y'all. Oh, look who it is.

It is Stephen Schleiker. He joins us as he does a couple of Mondays a month from major spoilers.com to talk about some of the ongoing business happening in comic books, movies, pop culture, and more. Stephen, welcome back. How are you? Hello, Scott. Hello, Brian. Hey.

How's school? What's going on? now. Give us a snapshot of collegiate education right now in Kansas. What's going on? Oh my gosh. I mean this is like I had to send

a letter to our legal counsel last week saying hey it's not happened yet but what happens if ICE shows up in our classroom? Oh shit. Oh. What did they say to this? This is crazy. They're like hey first of all they should have gone through us first. Second of all they better have paperwork.

Third of all, contact us immediately if they don't have either one of those first two things. Okay. So if I, so if immigration, anybody from immigration shows up at the door, you get to. Yeah, to my classroom. To your classroom, you basically get to say, F off until I talk to my. Well, I mean, they, I mean, they could say, look, we've already talked to University of Police. We've got paperwork here. We need to come in, at which point I turn to the students and say, you do not have to say a damn thing.

Yeah, because they don't. No, they don't. They have no, there's no legal compulsion for them to do anything. So, you know, that's just one of the minor structures that we have to deal with right now. What if they came in and said that and you turned to the students, everyone, you don't have to say anything? And then they say, sir, we're here for you. And then you say, wait a minute, I'm, I live here. I'm an American. Here's my papers.

And they say, we're taking you an undisclosed location. Elon Musk has read your Twitter timeline. Yeah. Then what would you do, Stephen? Are you going to, like, pull out a ruler, a T-square and, like, fight, or what are you going to do? What's your plan? I don't know. I doubt it will happen.

All right. Probably not. But it's fun to explore. I mean, have you seen me? I'm, I'm as white or whiter than both of you. That's true. You are a shade of white that Brian and I have to combine to make. That's right.

Right? Actually, that would make us darker, wouldn't it? If you combine to. That would make us darker if you combined. Yeah. Unless he's actually gives off light. which is possible. It's entirely possible.

So anyway, well, I'm glad you're... To the pool. Yeah, exactly. And you are also not the state that now has the losing team. No, no, no, that's a different state. That's a whole different state. A lot of people will say, oh, congratulations,

Kansas on your win. And you're like, no, no, no. Kansas City's in Missouri. And I won't mostly say... There's some of Kansas City that's in Canada. That's true. Let's just say the Kansas City Chiefs are in Missouri for now.

Oh. Really? Wayne, is there a thing? I don't know the whole, I don't know the whole Delio, but apparently the Chiefs who won a new stadium and they don't want to do it on the Kansas City, Missouri side. And so over where the big NASCAR racetrack is on the Kansas side, on state line, there's a huge, it's called Legends. And they've got that and they've got Children's Mercy Park where Sporting KC plays. There's been some talk that maybe we just move to the Kansas side. if, you know, money doesn't come down from the state to make the stadium better in Missouri.

That's what I've heard. I don't know if there's any real legitimacy to that, but that's what I've heard. Would you get excited about that as a resident of the Kansas side? I don't, I don't really care either way. Oh, yeah, what am I doing here? You're the one that always calls it Superb Owl and you ignore it or you don't even care. Well, because, you know, I don't want the NFL to sue me every time I say the word. the other pair of words yeah

that's true watch out everybody did they do but I won't say that that was like the most boringest waste of my Sunday ever you know we never even talked about the halftime show which I thought was excellent I enjoyed it a lot too

but I mean again people who skin match hours certainly didn't have anything kind of certainly all the people who have sunglasses on their ex avatar that they took the picture they took in their car with their reflective sunglasses.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought he was, I thought he was great, but also it was really subversive. There's a lot of imagery going on there that a lot of people just didn't notice, including half the room in here.

And I was like, you guys see what they're doing there. That is a flag, an American flag made up of black men who are all bending over as if they are there, what built that flag in the first place. That's pretty subversive stuff.

Oh, yeah, no. I mean, you're sticking it to the man. A lot of people have gone. through and shared, you know, comments, just the opening statement, you know, the, the revolution will be televised, right, channel, wrong, uh, you voted for the wrong guy or whatever, you know, it was definitely a diss on, on Trump. And, and certainly having a black, uh, um, uncle Sam, Sam Jackson up there is also kind of a slap of face. A lot of people.

Yeah. It was, I really, I enjoyed that halftime show more than I, I, I thought I would. My wife kind of got up and she goes, eh, this is not very interesting. And she laughed. Yeah. and um if you're not in a rap there's a lot of subtract yeah you kind of have to be a little bit if you're not into rap but it's also it's thinly veiled right because there's a lot of poetry under that the guy won a freaking Pulitzer prize for a reason like he's not just some rapper he's he's he's poetic in a way that puts him kind of above everybody else or you know a little further than everybody else but the fact that he called out drake by name and did the drake

disc track and the entire audience says a minor along with him right and was that the wearing a necklace that has the a yeah so that's the a minor is also the lowercase a on his chain i'm guessing yeah that's how i took it so he basically i didn't know about the pulitzer thing until last night i watched uh the the the drake kendrick beef uh thing on hulu which is excellent gives all the background that they used to have together and also talks about the Pulitzer prize that kendrick lamar has is like wow i did not know that that's fascinating yeah dude the and serino william showing up out of nowhere doing the crib yeah and don't forget Serena Williams

former girlfriend of Drake up on stage in a diss song against her former boyfriend like this stuff is this is like extra levels of dis It was multi level of both

you know Drake you lost and also the commentary on American history and the black person's perspective on American history as well as Lamar's views on himself

in relation to all of this yeah plus he had that cool had those cool pants that were super flared I like that. It looks like the 70s going on in there. You're going to get up there? No, I'm not going to be getting this. I don't think I'd look right. I think I'd look real bad. Well, anyway.

You'd pull it off? I don't know. Maybe I could if I tried. Okay, you know what? I'm coming to Vegas and flares. You guys have asked for it. It's coming. Excellent. Let's do it. I don't have the jacket or the cool A, but I'll do it. All right, let's get to it. We got a few things to cover. Unfortunately, it's not great news.

A Blaze publishing, Dark Horse Comics, and now IDW are all announcing layoffs. Why is the industry suddenly swept up in these? Did something change? Is this a long time coming? Some of these are kind of probably saw the writing on the wall specifically with IDW and Dark Horse because they are both owned by companies with conglomerate or entertainment industry in their titles. So anytime you hear those, hey, you know, IDW has not an IDW, Dark Horse has been bought out by, you know, this Swedish.

gaming conglomerate, then you know that, oh, crap, this is going to lead to layoffs at some point. That's what happens with any big merger. But the fact that we see Diamond, we were talking about them a couple of weeks ago, about them declaring their Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They haven't paid people off in a couple of months. Well, I think they still owe people from November and December and now January that these companies aren't getting paid for the books that have been distributed and bought up by comic book stores and comic book readers.

And so when you're looking at your bottom line and going, hey, there's three months of income we don't have. I think we're starting to see some of those kind of ripple effects playing out, but also just what's going on in the larger board game industry. Certainly the conglomerates are

probably taking some hits right now. And so they're just looking for cost cutting measures. Now, on the plus side, I believe it's Dark Horse is the one that is laid off around 20 people, IDW and a blaze have both laid off like one or two people, but again, their staff is not that huge to begin with. IDW has been laying off staff for the last couple of years here and there.

Yeah, so I would, you know, all of these companies, I don't know about a place, but certainly Dark Horse and IDW publishing are, they do release their quarterly reports. And you can go in there and find out a lot of information just by reading those quarterly reports. So is this a sign of doom and gloom? Probably not. This is going to be a sign of a dip or a readjustment for publishers on the business side. Does this mean you're never going to see a Hellboy comic again? No, it doesn't mean that.

It just means there may not be as many Dark Horse comics or there may not be as many IDW publishing comics on the stands, although they're down to basically Star Trek and My Little Pony Comics right now. Yeah, it's not a huge lineup. So does this, do you think we see any reshuffling at Marvel or DC as a, you know, know, just kind of a knock on effect of any of this? Probably not as of yet. So, DC definitely is not impacted by what's going on at Diamond because they broke with Diamond back in 2020. And so they're going through Lunar and publishers, not publish it, random house, whatever they're called now, Penguin Random House.

So they're not really having to lose any money from that. Marvel has also broken away in the last year or two from them. So I don't see that happening. Should comic sales slip, then we may see some shuffling. going on or some reduction in comics, though. Again, DC, when they let go Diane Nelson, and again, during pandemic, when they shuffled around to their new publishers, they've greatly reduced the number of comics that they produce each week.

You know, Marvel just floods the market. DC is around 10 or less comics per week right now. So that's still 40 to 50 comics a month that they're publishing. They might slow things down depending on what Frickin Zaslov does, but right now I think both of those big companies are fine. Yeah, I love when you bring up Zazlov because I could just hear I hear the hatred in your voice.

I want to grow up every time I see his name. Yeah, yeah, man. Every time I hear he say it, I mean, when you think, so again, when you think about what happened when Discovery Networks in Warner merged, it's the same thing that happened when you hear conglomerate owning Dark Horse or IDW, there's going to be mass layoffs.

And sure enough, there were mass layoffs. And now what is going on at Warner Brothers Discovery is, hey, maybe we need to spin this off, meaning we need to sell off parts of the company so we can recoup costs. It's just, it's just stupid when, you know, a conglomerate comes in and buys everything. It would be like, let's just say, Zazlov comes in and he wants to buy, he wants to buy frog pants. He wants to buy major spoilers entertainment. He wants to buy, what's the one, the Diamond Club, the stuff with, Brian and Justin and everything that they do.

They buy all that. We get a lot of publicity. We get a lot of play. We get a lot of downloads. A lot of advertising is being bought over all our stuff. And then they're just like, I don't know if we need critical hit anymore. Let's just sell that offer, get rid of it or cancel it. Or, hey, it's been great to have Scott and Brian together.

But do we really need Brian on the show? Can we get rid of him? And so it's that kind of just insane. stupid management that happens when you're dealing with these mega corpse and then constantly buying and selling. Yeah, they absorb all this stuff and you first hear about the absorption

and you think, oh, cool, it's all under one roof now, you can organize that better. And then they're like, yeah, we don't like this show. I know it's only a season in and we promise four, but yeah, like they just start hucking stuff and I hate that. And they do seem to be the worst at it right now. Warner Brothers is just

effed with that guy in charge. Not that they're all good at this. Like Disney's got their own problems. No, Disney did the same thing. I think they, when Disney and Fox merged, I think the day that they, the closer, the closing happened where they've officially merged, I think they laid off like 5,000 people on that day. It's either 5 or 8,000 people on that day.

And yet everyone's like, no, this is cool because now the X-Men and the Avengers can be in movies together. And it's like, yeah, but 5,000 people lost their jobs. Yeah. 5,000 people is like, I don't know. That's the entirety of Blizzard entertainment. it's about 5,000 right that's wild yeah a whole company gone poof and still no sequel to vikings lost in time nope I know we're missing that so much yeah hold out hold out hope though you know hold out the hope I know Randy's listening so please don't worry he's moving he's moving he's moving catwoman

I've moved catwoman he's busy he's not going to have time uh well this is great and interesting stuff we also have this little bit here Rob Leifeld is done with Marvel you thought he was done in the 90s when he went and helped form image, but no, for real this time, he is done. Okay, so it depends, right? So, Rob Blyfeld has been on again, off again with Marvel for years,

but apparently he and Kevin Feige just rub each other the wrong way, but not in that kind of way, in that they have been back and forth over how to properly credit Rob and co-creator Fabian Nizziah for

Deadpool, and at one point, um, Rob said, hey, I would like to have the lead created by role, co-creator role for the upcoming Deadpool Wolverine movie. And, uh, Disney said, F you basically and Kevin Feigy basically said that's not going to happen. And when the movie premiere happened, uh, Rob found out he was not invited or his family invited to the after party. And so Rob is like, no, this is Kevin trying to demean me and to belittle me. And I forget there was one other thing that happened, uh, just recently. And so Rob went out publicly last week and says, hey, after this

Wolverine Deadpool thing wraps up, which I think is this week, February 12th, I'm done with Marvel. I'm not going to be working with them ever again. So he's kind of taken the Alan Moore approach of, I want nothing to do with your comic books. I don't know if he's going to say no to any

monies that come his way like Alan Moore has with DC comics. Sure. I think the Deadpool for, you know, money that does come his way, he'll happily. And you should. Stephen, what's the studio's beef with giving the co-creator credit?

I don't understand that. So, well, it may just be because Rob wanted his name before Fabians. I don't know. But historically, the movie studios have not wanted to give creator credits to the characters that appear in the movies. Because when you do that, depending on how your contract was written, you may owe Rob Leifeld a lot of money to use Deadpool. in those movies. Oh, so it's like this retroactive label that then makes it possible to go after other money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the same, I mean, this is, this has been a problem for comic creators for almost a century now, where you have Simon and Schuster had sued D.C. multiple times just so that they could get money off of all of the money that D.C. Warner Brothers was making off the Superman movies in the Superman franchise. At one point, Simon and Chuster were just like, listen, can we at least get insurance through through Warner Brothers, D.C., and we're going to have to sue you for that. And they're like, yeah, fine, we'll give you, you know, insurance for the rest of, you know, health insurance for the rest of your life. Those kind of simple things.

Or, you know, Jack Kirby has constantly been screwed out of monies for things that he has created because these companies are like, nope, you signed a contract that says you're a work for hire. Therefore, we don't owe you anything for the work that you have done. Now, because of pressure, some people have started to get monies back or getting small monies back for credits on what they've done. But then you start getting into slicing hairs was this line or this depiction of the character in the movie based on this creator's input or this creator's input or this creator's input. And so that gets a little troublesome as well. But yeah, historically work for hire people at comic companies have not been treated well. Neil Adams, who passed away, was it two years ago now? he was a huge proponent of creator rights and tried multiple times in the 70s and 80s to get the comic book industry to unionize and each time they just they just didn't and so I don't think at this point comic book creators really have the ability to unionize I would love to see them do that because they would have a lot more control over you know pay rates for page rates you know how much work they're expected to do.

and payments for if their characters show up in movies. But that's something that I don't think that they're in the process to do because either A, that means they're going to have to fire a lot of people at the publishing companies or that there are a lot less comics to be printed or the cost of comics goes up double what it is right now. Dang, dude. I don't know.

I just feel like there's, we should be past this. We should be better at this by now. We should be. I mean, we really should be as an entertainment. industry, creating art for people, and especially when you've got a company run by Sazlov, who's making billions of dollars a year, why can you not pay somebody, some money that they deserve? I made a quick image of Leifeld's Captain America with a little Figi on his head.

That's funny. Maybe that's how he'll get back at him is do a really poorly proportioned illustration of him. It's a great idea. Got to keep that hat on there, though. That's important. yeah for sure uh well we'll see how it goes i mean i don't know people say never and then they don't they say never say never because maybe there's a there's a meeting point in the middle where lyfeld can make up and you know they can kiss and yeah i mean he said that he's leaving

marvel for good before and has come back um but this time it feels a little bit more definite definite just because he feels so slighted by uh fagie at the uh at the movie event yeah right right i mean I get it too like I get in that world why that would be a real snub but um I don't know I don't know what I want out of this I think I just want I want everybody to get the credit they deserve they should get the money they they deserve whatever the fairness of that is and you need to work out whatever that is and then and then keep making cool stuff with it like this that character doesn't exist without Lifeeld and his co-creator so find a way Disney find a way yeah yeah as a couple people are pointing out clear in the in the chat sync because capitalism of course it is it's just like

again when we all got bought bought out by um zaslov and they're having a podcast award and it's like hey the winner for best podcast in 2025 the morning stream with brian ibich and they don't mention scott's name at all yeah right i mean how would you feel how would you feel in that case it would be it would be lame right it would not be a happy it wouldn't be a happy moment so i yeah i i don't know. I know capitalism isn't necessarily fair, but I wish it was in this case. Rise up, people. Rise up.

I'm not even that big of a Leifeld fan. Yeah, me neither, but I mean, he's got a positive attitude in light of people constantly making fun of his art skills. He really does. He's put up with so much crap and, you know. Yeah. I respect him for that. Guess what? He's extremely successful

anyway, so the rest of us ought to learn something from that. I don't know. Well, anyway, hey, Stephen, this has a treat and an enjoyable moment. It really has been. Always real hoot. Yeah, like a big cherry sucker at the fair is what this has been. So what I want you to do now is tell us what we're missing out on at major spoilers because I'm sure there's something. You are missing out on so much stuff. If you want to see what's coming up this week on Tuesday, Tuesday morning, bright and early, I start posting all of the sneak peek. So if you want to find out, hey, what comic can I go to my comic book store and

pick up or my digital comic service and pick up? We have previews for almost every publisher that's out there. And so you can you can check those out at your own whim and scroll through and find something you like and go, oh, I want to go buy this comic book and then you can keep the industry alive. Yay, see, there you go. We just employ, we use a form that's, that's fair and kind. That's the only difference. I'm here for some open markets, but let's not trade each other like shit when millions of dollars are on the line. How about that? Yep. Stay hydrated everybody. Oh, good. I was going to ask if that was a thing. Needed that, too.

Yeah. So, yeah, I got a little left. Of hydration. Yeah, mine's in coffee form, but it's still hydrating me. Yeah, you're getting a little. I mean, it's mostly water, right? It's mostly water, yeah. That's how I always justify, whatever it is I'm drinking. It's like, that's your fourth Coke Zero.

Coke Zero today. What are you doing? And I'm like, it's mostly water. I'm hydrating. Yeah, I'm hydrating with mostly water. I'm just adding a little bit to the water, you know? that's right yeah all right couple quick things i went to this uh bookstore over the weekend yeah and you guys might be interested in this there's a picture of me and hooty 42 hanging out

i i agree concur with folks who've commented on how cool those glasses are they're very cool oh thanks kim picked them out and uh i don't i can't take any credit she thought they'd look good i didn't believe her i thought they made me look like a uh like a librarian or something not that there's nothing wrong with librarians but you know i just we just we just lost a whole unsubscribe from a bunch of librarians. Yeah, for listeners only, there's these horn-rimmed things. They're great, though. I like them. They're comfortable, and I can see when I'm out doing things where I need to see things far away. But anyway, that's Hooty. Him and his wife launched this, open this bookstore. He would give

most of his credit, most of the credit to his wife, but it is awesome. If you are ever in, oh, the name just escaped me. Springville, right? Springville's the city. So if you're ever in Springville, Utah, not to be confused with Springfield, and it's not. not the home of the Simpsons. They don't claim it. Springville, Utah, she's north of Provo. It's not very far. The Pumpkin Cottage. There you go.

The Pumpkin Cottage, very pumpkin-esque sort of vibe around the place. She loves them. So she was explaining to us why that name. It is the coziest, coolest little bookstore. They can get special stuff ordered in for you. They got a bunch of rad stuff already. It was awesome in there. I loved it.

I want to go back all the time. And they're far away, far enough away where it's. hard for me to do it on the regular, but anytime I'm in Springville, I'm going. I want to go check it out myself. I don't live close enough to do it, but I want to at some point. For some reason, we're out there for some reason. That is a thing we are absolutely doing. So go check it out. It's easy to find. It's already, if you search for it, you'll find pins for it on your maps and everything, even though it just opened Saturday. And I know KT Data was out there with Noel and who else was there before or after Kevin. Somebody else was

there remind me hoody oh cool who is the other i can't remember my brain he'll tell me anyway i must have missed oh cindy parkhouse my um oh you're an eyeball lady no she's the eyeball that's right that's right eyeball lady i don't know i always get hopefully she isn't working on your teeth when you're at the eye doctor no no she's not in fact i need to get in there i always think why i always getting confused that she's your hygienist it's easy to do because it's either eyes or teeth around here wasn't there wasn't there somebody at your dentist office who listened or maybe it was just the dentist asked you about the podcast yeah he's always asking but i don't think he's ever heard it um yeah i have to see him today and today we see

just how dark his spray tan is he's got a spray tan thing going really okay great excited about that so stories later on that hopefully nothing bad today hopefully it's just a cleaning and i'm out of there but we'll find out so sure'll be fine uh anyway i was sad to miss cindy and kevin and them but i got there right after they were there and it was awesome just a real cool place And apparently things went really well. So Hootie and his significant other, you two, are rad. And I can't thank you enough for letting us come by. That was great.

Oh, excellent. Okay. What else is going on? Monday show today. When that's over with, then you'll get my dental a visit. And then after that, tomorrow. They won't get it, though. They won't get it.

You'll get it. Yeah. Word on the street is tomorrow with Greg. That'll be fun. There's so much going on. This week's too full. I need to back. I need to back it up a little bit.

Oh, and I colonoscopy got scheduled. So March is coming. Yep. Is that, that's in March? I need to schedule mine. I did the extra. Should we get the same day? You want to try?

I'll have to check with Kim on the day. I can't remember what it was. It's like a Monday or something, but they're going to go, they're going to do the pill form. So there's this new pill way. Oh, right. Where you don't have to drink six gallons of nightmare fluid. You can just drink or you just do the pill form and it costs an extra 50 bucks. I'm like, yes.

Yeah, but you still have to fast for the day, right? Oh, yeah, you still do your whole, well, that night anyway. So from like, whatever it is, that afternoon through the night, you can't eat or drink anything. But you have to do that either way. So you're just avoiding having to drink the weird, liquid, thick, catererady kind of stuff. I hate it so much. It was real bad last time. So the results are the same, but it's much easier just to down a pills.

some water. No big deal. For sure. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, some places, it depends on your insurance. Sometimes it costs more. Sometimes it doesn't. My insurance kind of sucks, so I have to pay an extra 50 bucks, but it's fine. I was worth it. Gotcha. Anyway, more on that tomorrow.

Frogpants.com slash TMS for all your needs. Brian, let's play a song, so they have that one more need. Yeah, Chuck Byers wrote in, said, this request is for my 62nd birthday. That's not a birthday that lasts a minute, folks. That's a six and a two birthday. I fell in a separate. this year, February 9th, yesterday, but I was hoping to get on a day nearer that date.

I'm a huge fan of the great Canadian band Rush. I just found this on YouTube. They cover six or seven songs from the Over Rush. Basically, he forwarded me a cover by Femms of Rock tribute to Rush. It's nine minutes long, so sorry, it's a little bit longer than we play on TMS. But he says, if you have another Rush cover, preferably a song from any album, moving pictures or earlier. Play that instead. Love the show, though. Cheers, Chuck Byers. So, nice. Happy birthday, Chuck Byers. Let's give you a Dersh day. Oh, yeah. Let's do that.

Happy Thursday, do you. 62, man. You are rocking it. Well done. Yeah. How about Rush's owed to the zipper manufacturer? No, that's not right. It's Y, Y, Y, Z, performed here by James Murphy from the Rush Tribute album called Working Man from 1996. And that is a track from moving pictures. So there you go. Here's Y Y YZ by James Murphy. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm not. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Oh. And so. I'm not. I'm going to go. You know, I'm going to be able to be a lot of people, I don't know, and I'm going to be able to be.

Thank you. Thank you. We're going to be able to be. You're going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. We're going to be able to be. Hello, I'm a tailor, and your pants size is frog.

You're always welcome at frogpants.com. I don't want to talk about my back door.