The Morning Stream - TMS 2931: Very Semi-Regular

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Meta, That's No Moon. Martian Dust Devils. Everyone Wing Chun Tonight. Lightning Zero. All I Can Afford is a Monday. Full Hasidic Hitman. You'll have no hot dogs, no potato chips and no Lt. Yar! A SNEAK FROM BEHIND WITH DUNAWAY. What's Up Drafts? Mad Max counter RESET. I Do Like Matthew Rheeeeeeeees. Everybody. Blame Some Body. The Whirlypigs of Time bring their revenges. Vertical Updrafts FTW. Discharging With Bobby and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Santa Claus called this morning and said, you've been naughty this year. And that will all be forgiven if you but sign up at patreon.com slash TMS today. Coming up on the morning stream, meta, that's no moon. Martian dust devils. Everybody wing chun tonight. Lightning Zero. All I can afford is a Monday. Full Hasidic Hitman.

You'll have no hot dogs, no potato chips, and no lieutenant y'ar. A sneak from behind with Dunaway. What's up, drafts? Mad Max counter reset. I do like Matthew Rees. Everybody. Blame somebody. The whirly pigs of time bring their revenges.

Vertical updrafts for the win. Discharging with Bobby. And more on this episode of the morning stream. Mendoza. Mendoza. Thicken liquid. Mendoza. Thick and liquid.

Thou shalt not kill. Just because of baptism turns into a little drowning, everybody's going to blame somebody. The morning stream. If you have a job, you wear the pants. Hello everybody and welcome to TMS. It's the morning stream for Monday, December 8th, 2025. I'm Scott Johnson. That's Brian Dibb. Hi, Brian Abbott. Hello. How are you? Oh, you know, we're just making it happen. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I heard Brian.

That's all we can, all we can do. I like that. All we can afford is a great way of saying it. All we can afford to do is make it happen on a Monday. I like that. All I can afford is a Monday, you guys. So, patreon.com slash TMS, get in. There you go.

Make us afford to be able to afford Tuesdays and Wednesdays for that. That's right. It's good to see you all. Hope you all having a good lead up to Christmas. I spent most of my time this weekend either trying to cram a bunch of work in or going to my mother's for like a Christmas thing. This is probably her last Christmas if I had to guess.

Not in a good wham kind of way, you know? Yeah. So we all gathered there and it was great. We had a really good time. John's a total crank. He hated it. He doesn't like kids. He doesn't like crowds.

If a kid's being loud, he thinks the world's ending. And I'm like, It's proof of life, you big dingus. Plus, she loved it. Yeah, of course. She wants to be surrounded by these kids. She loves that stuff. Kids are going to be loud.

My gosh. Yeah, let them be loud. It's healthy. It's what they're supposed to be doing. He's fully moved into the same facility, right? Like he's... Oh, we've had a big change since. They were in the facility together, and then he got mad because he's a weirdo.

He's a narcissistic control freak, and he got in a fight with the ownership of the place about who's paid who and how much they paid. And so he bailed on their contract. And now they are home again and he's got better, although I still think it's inadequate, but he's got better daily care coming in there than they had prior to the move. Okay. But he's up and around enough with this walker that he thinks he's got it all under control. And he really doesn't.

But he's got power of attorney. Nobody can do anything. No, right. Exactly. That's the key, unfortunately. He's such a crank, man. He says last night, I said, no, we're having a pretty pleasant time. I brought music and my notebook for Zoom and Wendy and Mark in and then everybody's there.

We got pretty much everybody. Only one person didn't come because they were coming down with something. We're like, we don't want Mom to get sick. So stay home. Other than that, everybody was there having a great time. Food. Everybody brought food. Kim made her taco soup.

Misha made her clam chowder. Everybody made all this amazing stuff. Just a festive, good time. I'm playing classical crooner music, which my mom loves for the holidays. Got that going over there. And I'm sitting at one point. He's sneaking some Seth MacFarland into that. It may have actually as a playlist.

It might have played it. I like it. I do it too. I think it's great. It's just like, you know, Sinatra, Crosby, Dean Martin, and Seth McFarland. It's really weird how good he is. He's really good. That stuff.

But anyway, talented dude. So at one point, I look over to John and I say, hey, do you have anything fun plan coming up for the De Palma side of the family, your sons and stuff? just asking if he's got a party coming and he looks at me and goes what do you mean like that and i went uh just care i was just curious how mike and you know just naming his kids i'm like and their kids and stuff are they are you guys going to do a thing oh yeah i mean they come here they do the food they clean up when they're done and i went you can see what's first and foremost on his mind too like and hint you guys better clean up when you're done yeah i told that story to me in the kitchen. She's like, oh, I know. I'm going to make sure

this place spotless before we leave. But it's just such a freaking cranky old bastard. Oh, my gosh. It makes everything harder than it needs to be. So Wendy and Mark are coming in town. Again, Wendy's coming here in town. She's been here six times this year. Wow. No kidding.

They're coming in on the 19th or something like that. And we're trying to carve it out so that we have sibling time with my mom only so that like one of his sons, we're trying to get them on board to like kidnap him for a while. and keep him busy because it's impossible when we're there with him it's impossible he is such a freak about controlling everything and just make he has to feel like he has his finger on everything

it was just one of the every and it's not just like a few of us everybody knows yeah to the smallest child they know that john's hard right it's he's made it so apparent to everybody yeah But he thinks he's got it all under control and he's got it all figured out and he's you know, whatever. It is what it is. But we had fun. We had a good time. That's not important.

Give him a little knockout drops or some roofies or something before you guys should. Oh, I like that. How legal is that? Is that a thing? Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe not so much. I don't know. Well, I had, and then I had one other thing I wanted to mention real quick about a movie

you saw in theaters. Yes. I told me you'd like it and that I should see it. So I finally saw it, came out on something. I can't remember Netflix. I can't remember which service it was, yeah. I think Netflix. Anyway, I watched Cots Stealing, the Aronofsky deal.

And I really enjoyed it. I liked it quite a bit. It's definitely that dark comedy thing that leans a little dark in places. It was like, oh, man, there's some deaths in here. I did not see coming. However, I am now ready to make it official. There are two. Jewish hitmen, and when I say Jewish, I mean, like, the full-blown, like, Hasidic, you know, stuff hanging

everywhere and the hats and all that. Slurpin, slurping matzo soup, all that, played by, uh, Dinoffrio and Patinkin. Yeah, I didn't, but not Patinkin. Um, or, uh, shit. Uh, leave Shriver. That's it is. Shriver, that's right. Yeah, I know. It feels like it's the perfect Pitinkin, Mandy Patinkin role. Oh, he'd be great in it, yeah. But these two, and Danofrio's unreal. unrecognizable for most of it. I was just like, who is that? And Kim goes, I think that's that guy from Daredevil. And I went, Donofrio?

Really? And it was. He was really good. But anyway, those two guys who play the brothers, Leipa and Schmulli, have now entered the upper echelon of my favorite movie assassins. They are right up next to Grocer from Gross Point Blank, played by Dan Aykroyd. Those three are now, they are in the Hall of Fame, as far as I'm concerned. I loved those two.

chuckleheads. They were so great. Anyway, that movie's worth seeing. It's, you know, there are moments like Kim had to get up and leave during the stitches scenes, I'll say. Yeah, sure. But most of it's, most of it's not that brutal. But also, you know, you got a, you got a Dr. Who, Matt Smith in there. That was going to say, yeah, Dr. Who, you got one of the, you got, uh, you got, uh, uh, Dune, one of the Harconan, Harkinen. Oh, do you? Who's, oh, isn't, isn't Austin Butler? Yes, I'm being stupid. he's fide you're right uh he's so enveloped that role that i sometimes forget it with him um yeah he's good of uh morton jo's no is she she's one of his wives yeah yeah yeah okay she was called uh practical no not practical i've seen the movie a thousand times practical it's something like that practical my wife yeah there's all these wives have names like that and i can never remember her name but anyway she was great in it everybody's really good Carol Cain's there for like a hot minute. Yeah.

Playing the mother. She's great. Yeah. It's a fun time. I had a really good time. It is. So congratulations. We got Schmoli, Lepa, and Grocer all hanging out in my head.

Yep. Excellent. They live rent-free in my head. Hey, Brian, what's going on with your glasses? Well, before that, I made Tina watch weapons last night. I like weapons. Because it's like, all right, you know what? This, I think, is a different movie than she's expecting.

and, you know, it's Christmas. Let's watch a movie about little kids hopping out of bed at 2.17 a.m. and running down the street with her arms straight out. Sure. She really liked it. She actually said, this is not what I thought this movie was. Yeah, it's not a gore fest. It's not like, you know.

I mean, geez, the forks. Oh, the forks. Yeah. The forks were hard. Everything with Benedict Wong was a little hard. my gosh, yeah. His poor husband in that thing. Yes.

And I didn't even get to eat their hot dogs. I know! Six hot dogs, carrots, and potato chips. I wanted that food when I saw it. I just love the way they grocery shop, because his husband will go down the aisle, find two things, hold them up, and Benedict Wong will point to one of them, and then he'll look at it.

They'll look back to Bend, Benedict Wang, put the one that Wong picked and then put the other one back. But it's like five times. one or after the other he does that and it's just such a hilarious sight gag yeah and the fact that amy madigan just melts into her role she barely know that's her does i told teen afterwards i'd like you know that's the wife from uh field of dreams right yeah really throws you because she just completely a different looking human being the whole aunt gladys thing anyway uh yeah so she enjoyed it a lot that's great uh we went to a christmas party a friend of mine does a christmas party every year

And we don't always get to go because one of my clients does a Christmas party, a company Christmas party every year. And he's always nice enough to invite me. And so I always feel like I need to go to that. But this is a friend that I've known since high school. It's one of my few friends that I still see on a very semi-regular basis that is still a high school friend that, you know. And every time it's like, oh, we need to get together more. Why don't we get together more? and you know away from these these parties where we hardly get a chance to talk but um

went down there to uh castle pines which is on the other complete other end of town from the halfway to colorado springs sounds nice and whatever that's really nice it's really good a really good uh area um did it upright we sat there in the bar chat with them we got there fairly early so we really get a lot of time to chat with him before a lot of people started showing up and it started getting super busy. We leave the party and I look up. I'm wearing these, I'm wearing these Oakley Meadows.

I guess for people who don't get the pre-show, I have a pair of Oakley Meadows I'm wearing that are like AI-enabled glasses that I'm wearing like a fool right now. Anyway, I look up in the sky and underneath the moon is a planet. There's a planet there and it's like, I don't know which one it is. not flashing. It's not twinkling. I know it's not an airplane. I know it's not a star because of the way it's like just solidly sitting there. So I look up and I say, I'm going to, I'm going to say H-E-Y meta. What planet am I looking at underneath the moon right now, south of the moon right now? And Kristen Bell's voice comes on and says, may I take a picture? And I say,

yes, that's totally fine. She takes a picture and then she says, the bright object that you're currently looking at is probably the moon. And I said, no, because they still have the little light indicating that I can keep asking you questions. I say, no, I see the moon, but there's a planet directly underneath it. Can you tell me what that planet is? Thinking, thinking, the bright object that you're currently looking at. And this time there's, there's like a definite passive aggressive pause. But the way she says it is, the bright object

that you're currently looking at in the sky is the moon. Matt is not known for their AI responses yet. They're kind of bad. No, it's, but it's, it definitely was a pause there like, like she's holding out her virtual hands. It's

the moon. Yeah. Like Dak Shepard left food out overnight. And she's mad at him kind of voice. I get it. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. That's wild.

Sorry, Peyton. I just assume he's like that all the time. All the time. All the time. I just have to assume. So what? Did you ever find out what planet it was? Never did find out what planet was.

Yeah. I wonder what it would have been like this time. I know. Bobby knows. Like what time of year you're supposed to see. Oh, I bet he does. Well, we're going to be talking about Mars later. And so I bet he knows.

Claire points out, yeah, there's an app you can point your phone at. And it like does AR. And it's called. I have it and I don't know why I didn't use it because we just wanted to get home it's called Star Chart I think and you hold it up and the AR looks and tells you what you're a Star Treker

that's it Star Treker. Oh that's cool you're looking at. So that probably would have been more accurate you figure I mean that camera the camera's probably not good enough you're right yeah I was just going to say it's probably not good enough for shots like that right it may not be I mean

you know if I but I said I'm seeing it just below the moon. She would be able to figure out based on current star charts what planet is currently visible in the night sky just below just below Jupiter. Yeah, plus you made it a point

that it was just below the moon and she still says it's the moon. Right, exactly. Like, no, under the moon, dummy? Under the moon. I wonder if Kristen Bell knows that her voice is being used in this. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure she totally is.

Oh, she'd have to be. nose and John's seeing it. I'm sure they got paid to handsomely for it is what I think. I'll bet they did, yeah, exactly. Bobby says Jupiter, by the which absolutely makes sense. Because it was bright and the only other one that would be that bright usually is

Venus. Mars has a little red tinge to it if you're able to see it in the night sky and everything else is not nearly as bright. Like Saturn's not nearly as bright. Yeah. Well, that's cool though that you could even see it. I don't, I can't remember the last time i could see a planet you know in the sky right been a while oh you you see them a lot you

just maybe don't realize you see them in a lot yeah i mean i'll see like you know stars and stuff but i don't it doesn't occur to me that maybe one of those objects that one of those might be a planet yeah just look and if it doesn't twinkle if it doesn't twinkle and it doesn't move then uh that just might be a planet well there you go uh guys guess what it's a festive day and on festive days we like to play a game and it sounds like this. Joining us on the line is everyone's favorite South Carolinian. Sorry, Bobby, I'll just say that for now.

I was about to say, ow. Yeah, out, right? One of them anyway, it's Brian Dunaway. Hello, dude. Oh, hi, hi, Scott, Brian. Hi, what's up? You're back at work. Woo!

How's that going to work? Hey, I'm so happy. Yeah, you're probably thrilled about it. But I just... I mean, you don't have to dink with your cameras anymore, man. You can, you can change. I know, I get a little bit obsessive when I get time off. Scott knows because I start hitting a moat with stupid crap.

Hey, Scott, look at this. Does this look wrong to you? We've been doing this since 05, though, man. Like, the Skype work working. I'll call Brian. This other thing, does it look okay? I'll call Scott. Like, we do that all the time.

So it's just the way of it. It's like a good way of testing. Yeah. It's good to have you here, man. We're going to play a game. As you know, as you know, we're going to play a game. And Brian Abbott over here is going to explain the rules and who's playing with us today. That is correct, Scott.

Welcome to the morning half-ass is a trivia game where I'm actually going to be giving you to the answers. I'm going to give Scott and Brian a category and six possible answers, three of which are correct and three that are incorrect. Like what's the example of something incorrect that we talked about the being a show, goo pouring out of your 3D printer. Very incorrect. Absolutely. Depending on how confident you feel with a category can provide one, two, or three guests. But if any of those guesses are wrong, you get zero points for that round. One right gets you a point, two right, gets you three points, and three right gets you five points.

We're going to add all up to those weird arbitrary points. You're going to add them all up at the end and award prize to not you guys, but the people you're playing for. Patriens that are supporting the show and the we've picked at random. Scott, you're playing for Brad Barber. Oh, I wonder if he actually does the hair arts, the hair cutting arts. That'd be great. I love when people's last names are their occupation

It's great Because it makes sense It's in their lineage Because that's how we mostly came up With last names here Yeah, Baker, barber Candlestick Maker No, maybe not

Smith, right, right I mean, it's where Smith came from Yeah And sometimes we were done with it Like John's son That's boring Yeah Put a job in there

Fletcher, what's another one? What's a Cooper? Oh, is the last name Best on, based on I think Cooper's make barrels. Oh, correctly. Fletchers make arrows.

Yeah, the Fletcher one's cool. That one's rad. Yeah. That is a cool name. A Dunaway is like we're through. We're done. I'm done with you guys.

I'm done away. Done away with you. Brian, you are playing for Josh Hill. Who's named after a hill. Also named the Hill, yeah. Nice.

Love it. That's where great, great grandpa get busy. Mm-hmm. Gross. Terrific. All right. Let's get to the first game here.

The first. round of the game. I will refresh the sava. All right. Question number one. I always say let's start off easy. I think we are starting off easy, but you guys always managed to prove me wrong. Types of

Pokemon. Which of these are types of Pokemon? You always say that and then you go like, here's your choices. None of the ones you know. Right. Yeah. Lava, ice, steel, cloud, psychic,

and reptile. which of these are Pokemon? These are like this is like biomes and stuff come on. It's like a nice biome selection.

I like that. Yeah, biomes. Well, got to have one of these. I'm going to. I'm not confident. Scott's locked in. Oh, Jesus, come on.

Give me a second. I'm still thinking. Oh, that timer's coming. Oh, no. Tick, boom. There's the timer. There goes. Timer, no timing.

Timer, no time and timing there. all right uh you guys uh both settled on psychic yeah that's your like your your abras your cadabras your whirly pigs or whatever they are sure and all psychic anything that's got like a a swirl on it yeah yeah yeah yeah or i've used those for sure uh yeah uh yeah psychic type absolutely um now one of you went ice the other one went steel oh it seems like i Ice, but I may be thinking of Mortal Kombat. We'll see. You might be thinking of Moral of Combat.

Brian, you went ice. Yes, there are ice type Pokemon. Like a little penguin dude and, uh, sure, yeah. Are they, are they an extension of the water types? Like later on, it's, they're involved. So now they're ice types or is that not a thing? I don't know. Maybe there might be some that the change as they evolve from, from water to water.

I'm learning here. We're going to have a Pokemon play retro. I'm so, I'm the worst at this stuff. Especially with that brand new Switch 2 game that, what is it, Zeta A Legends or something like that? Yeah, supposed to be good. And then Scott, you went steel. Yep, there's absolutely steel. Both of you getting points.

Good job. Oh, my gosh. Psychic ice and steel. Together, you guys would have gotten five points total. Nice. Nice. We did, yeah, nice. Yeah, good.

Reptiles are green color swap for, uh, uh, uh, it's sub-zero and immortal combat. There I was going to say, that's what we keep getting moral combat connection. Yeah. I'm just sub-zero. Get over here. Get over here. Uh, all right. Let's get to literature. Literature.

Which of these books were originally published anonymously? The author just did not want people to know who wrote it, I guess. Okay. This was originally, uh, when these were published. Your choices are, Gulliver's Travels, Frankenstein, native son, middle march pride and prejudice and walden my hell

is that why walden books was called walden books it's based on a i think it was based on book title uh was it hemingway's home that was walden pond oh i don't know the right the right author might have been uh this is where this is where my literature my poor literature you wish we were talking about pokemons again don't you yeah i do i do wish we were talking about Pokemon again. I don't know this one at all, so I'm going to... Oh, Thoreau. Thank you, Dr. Telfoon.

Henry David Thoreau was, had Walden Pond. And is it named? I don't know if he'll know this, but is it... I don't know. I missed that book story. I used to love it in there. It was a great one. Yeah. They're gone now, I think. I know. That would be Dalton.

I really don't know here. You'll be Dalton. I guess I'm gonna... All right, comes that timer. Yeah, pick that timer. in your face, Johnson. I'm going to do one. Okay, Scott's locked in.

You both locked in on Frankenstein. Let's start with that one. Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley. Could she have been doing that during that time? People got very angry at her being a young lady. Yeah, they didn't like that. They did not like that.

That was my thinking. 100%. Frankenstein was originally published anonymously. So Scott knows that he's already got a point coming. Brian shows two. He also went for Walden. Just for the nostalgia person. All that Walden talk made me want to click.

Just made you want to click it. I get it. That's right. And sure enough, no, it's odd. Pride and Prejudice and Gulliver's Travels were both originally published anonymously. I almost went Gulliver's Travels because I don't even know. Who even wrote Gulliver's Travel? I can't even remember.

Gulliver. Why am I blanking on that? That was nice. I can't remember. Was it Gulliver? No, it wasn't. No. It was written by Lilliputians, and it was SWIFT, Jonathan Swift.

Yeah, okay, there we go. Jonathan Swift? Swift. Okay. I still don't know who that is, weirdly. They named a bird after him. Anyway, number three, it's going to be, let's go to fighting. We just watched Blade.

There's a lot of fighting going on in the movie Blade. which of these are actual Yeah, there was, yeah Which of these are actual Asian martial arts? Your choices are Wing Chun, Tom Ka Guy,

Capuera, Silat, Kenpo and Iqibana. I know. Three of these are actual martial arts. Three of these are not. I know one for sure.

You know one for sure? Yeah. Well, no, I know one that isn't for sure and I know one that is for sure and that's it. Okay. The rest of these are confusing to me.

Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Shut up. I'm looking at it. What do you mean? You feel like that timer's coming? Are you nervous?

Yeah, a little nervous. Okay. But it is only 1125, so I'm not too nervous. No. No, you're fine. This one feels like bait, and that makes me not want to click it, but that makes me want to click it. I'm clicking it. Okay.

Everybody, Wang Chong tonight. Now, you've chosen, too, Brian. Yeah. You need points, don't you? Let's see how it goes here. Yeah, Scott was, Scott said he only went with one. I needed two.

You need at least two, but you need to get the problem. But he sounded like he knew it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. All right, let's get to the one you guys both zeroed in on immediately, which is Kenpo.

Yeah, Kenpo is, I knew Kenpo, but I wasn't sure about it. Japanese, Japanese martial arts. Brian, you decided to go bold and pick what I always get at Buffalo Wild Wings, which is Wing Chun. Oh, dang it. Might be right.

I get my Wing Chun extra spicy, but that means I'm getting punched because that is a Chinese martial art. Brian, with a speak from behind rally to get six points. Damn it. Silat is the other one, and that is Malay, Malay martial art. And Capoeira was definitely not, but. Capoeira is Brazilian martial arts. It's a combination of dance and martial arts. and then Tomka guy is a Thai soup.

Yeah. And Ikebana is a Japanese, the art of Japanese flower arrangement. Oh, that's, I mean, and I would love to know a nice Ikebana expert person, which is basically saying it three times. Cafuerre is my favorite thing because it's Eddie Gordo in the, in the old Tekken games. I want to say Tekken 3 is where Eddie Gordo showed up. Oh, really? And he, uh, that was his fighting style. I loved fighting with him.

He was so much fun. I was trying, when I was reading these out, I was trying not. to go very obvious with the the latin pronunciation capoeira capoeia chat's right there's uh that dude that made bob poop his pants and bob's burgers he would also that's right you forget about that that was great capuera teacher's funny yeah cool it's good stuff well there you go congratulations brian a sneak from behind win there i don't like what you keep calling a sneak behind i don't like that okay sorry reach around win i see you better thanks thank you guys going to Josh Hill.

You are getting a copy of Ludus and the Dark Eye, Chains of Satanav. I don't know what this is. You know what that is? I don't know what they is. Criticism of Keith Hicks, who gave us all three games today. But Brad Barber,

you're getting a copy of hunchback's dungeon. Never heard that one either, but these all sound fun. Every one of these. Yeah. Fire them up because you're going to get them in your DMs, your little private messages there on the,

on the, excuse me, the Patreon. on. And that'll be after the show today. So congratulations to our winners. You guys did it. And Dunaway, I'm in awe of your comeback. That was wild. Yeah, you're welcome. It was desperation. I operate the best when I'm desperate. That's right. Put him in a corner.

Put baby in the corner and he'll kill you. Just don't start a timer. I know. The timer screws you up every time. Well, we'll get a chance to do this again on Wednesday. I will have my revenge and we'll do that. Dunaway, in the meantime, there's one thing I need you to do. Kiss our butts. All right.

Mm. Mm. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. All right. Everybody? Yes. Get ready. Yes.

Time for this. Going to be great. Science. Bob is hungry, and the soup looks good. It does look good. I wonder if he will eat the said soup. Hey, you guys. Look who it is.

It's our old pal Bobby Frankenberger here to talk science. Bobby, welcome to the show, sir. Oh, you're muted. My good man. Bobby. it's not me let me make sure it isn't me did you click mute on the page perhaps or your little name is i don't know it doesn't say you're muted though your uh input setting might have changed windows does that and we and we wait just totally fun excellent at science uh it's the

muting not so good at microphone usage i just talked to him we just had a meeting so i know he's got good audio. It was, it was silky and smooth. Yeah. Almost sexual. So we did something in between, something in between then and now that, uh, yeah, it was real nice. The soothing sounds of Bobby Frankenberger in my ears. I was hearing the music in the background. That's what threw me. I got my copy of Flip 7. Oh, let's see it while, whilst we wait for this. Yeah, right there. Bede, oh, yeah. Got mine over there too. You played it yet or no? No, not yet. Just arrived yesterday,

But this is going with us to Tina's mom's house because the kids will be there and it'll be a blast. They'll get a kick out of this. I say kids, but they're, you know, one's in college. The other one is graduating high school next year. Well, I sent, oh, let's see if this works. It says it's connecting. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we can hear you know.

Hello. How are you? Oh, it did change your input. It was some browser thing and now it's your microphone. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah, I don't know. Hey man, sorry about that.

How are you? What's going on? I'm doing great. How are you? Well, you know, just making it happen, getting it done, working it, you know? Yeah, working it. Working it. Bobby joins us as he does about once a month to talk about science.

And sometimes it's stuff that we ask him about and say, hey, explain this. Sometimes he just brings his own bag of tricks. You never know. But this time it's about Mars and something very particular about Mars. For example, we think there might have been some damned lightning on the planet. How do we know this? What's the deal? What's the hubbub around it?

Well, the Perseverance Rover that's on Mars, you know about that one. That's the latest rover that we sent many years ago at this point. But they are pretty sure that they've detected what they're calling micro lightning on Mars. Caused by dust devils on the surface. Electric devils on the surface of Mars. Mars. Oh! You need to plug in my dust devil so that I can do some vacuuming later on.

This is a great reminder, you know? I do too, actually. I have a real dust problem these days down here. Yeah. No, no, you're saying dust. What were you saying is on Mars? Dust devil or... Dust Devils creating micro lightning.

Yeah. Right, okay. So wait, do we have micro lightning here or do we just have regular lightning here? I mean, we can have our lightning that... The lightning that you're thinking of that is in a thunderstorm. is quote-unquote regular lightning. Micro-lightening that they're describing on Mars is more akin to like a static shock that you get from touching a doorknob.

Yeah, and sock feet and drag your feet and then touch a doorknob. Yeah, micro-lightening. So the old phrase, lightning never sikes twice, you could say micro-lightening probably will get you a bunch of times. That would be the phrase there, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's the really catchy phrase that everybody, all the Martians. All the Martians.

We wouldn't know because we're here on Earth, but those guys, they got their own ideas. It's much catchier in their language, I'm sure. Sure. So how big is micro lightning? It's micro-sized. I mean, it really is just like a static shock. Oh, really?

That small. Okay. All right. Yeah. And it's caused by the dust devils. It's the particles in those. You know what a dust devil is, right? For those who don't know, a dust devil.

Yeah. It's a little like... It's a micro tornado, basically. Yeah, they're like tiny tornadoes. You get them in the desert. We get them here sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, if you live in a place where there are deserts like you, Scott,

then you've probably seen them before. They're very common in dry, big, wide open places where it gets a lot of sunlight because that's how Dust Devils form is that it heats up the surface. Oddly, the scientists aren't 100% sure how Dust Devils form. They know many of the components. heat from the sun warming the surface, causes air to rise, and then that rising air will pull more air into it where the rising was happening, you know? And so it creates this updraft. And then how it starts spinning is the part that they're not totally sure about. But it could

just be something as simple as just a little bit of differential wind and sheer and stuff like that. Sure. That had to be AI as soon as it picked up a person. No, that was just, it was closed. There wasn't a, there wasn't a, oh, that was closed. Yeah, yeah. I've seen, dust devils are not strong enough to pick up people. No, they're not.

I've actually seen, I've actually run through one in Moab. And it was fun. Yeah, if you have your eyes protected or your, you cover your eyes, then they're fine. You can just, you might get some sand and grit in your teeth or something, but. Right. Which I did, and that sucked, by the way, because then for the next eight meals or whatever, I would get like a weird crunch out of a current. of sand i thought was all gone but wasn't that sucked yeah yeah because they're very dusty they're dust devils scott i know they're the devil part isn't even the important part it's how much

dust is in those damn things i wonder why they got that name it was like some old cow poker's like i think the devil's out there making these things happen you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah anyway um so the the reason that this is exciting and important is that uh first of all they've long been theorized to be how lightning would exist on Mars, if at all. Because Mars, the conditions on Mars actually make it impossible for typical lightning to form. And the reason is because of the thin atmosphere and because of how lightning forms on Earth. Do you know how lightning forms on Earth? It's basically like static electricity, right? Because you've got the clouds. Well, that's a good point. and then the earth like basically lightning goes up doesn't it from the the surface of the earth to the clouds and it always looks like it's coming down or something

it comes in both directions actually okay uh but so what happens is um the it is static electricity you're right lightning is static electricity on a very large scale so lightning always forms in thunderstorms and thunderstorms are specific types of storms i use Used to when I was younger think that a thunderstorm just formed from really big clouds, right? Like any big cloud could be a thunderstorm, but it's not true. Specific conditions have to exist. And in particular, strong updrafts have to exist for a thunderstorm to form. Oh, wild. And the reason that that is is because these strong updrafts in these big giant cumulinimbus clouds,

they carry ice particles with them that are forming inside the cloud. and they'll shoot the ice particles up into the air. And those ice particles, and I call them ice particles, but they're more like snowflakes you could think of. They collide with heavier, more dense ice particles that are falling down. And so those collisions are kind of like rubbing the balloon over your hair, right?

Or your feet over the carpet. Those collisions cause the denser particles to steal electrons from the light. lighter ones that are going up. What that does is it creates a net negative charge on the bottom of the cloud. And so that clouds are huge. So that net negative charge is huge. And that actually causes, this is crazy how big of a force this has, an electromagnetic force it has, because the net negative charge on the bottom of the cloud actually pushes the electrons on the surface of the earth away and creates a positive charge underneath the cloud.

And when that differential builds up enough, then the cloud will, which is building up, building up charge and charge, because the bottom of the cloud is negative, but the top is positive, right? So it's got this net charge differential that's building up statically in the cloud, and then it releases it just like your finger touching a doorknob. It releases it when the difference is large enough between the cloud. So how come they always say don't stand under trees and why do taller objects, let's say we'll stick with trees for now because I know those lightning rods and we can get

and all that, but like getting under a taller tree is more likely to get struck than other places. Is that a myth or is that real? No, that's true to the clouds. Yeah, Brian's absolutely right. It's because the reason lightning happens, and this is what you were talking about, Brian, where, you know, wondering does it come up from the ground or down from the cloud, it typically it kind of happens in both directions and what it is is that the charge the electrons and all that they're trying to find a path to the

between the cloud and the ground and so taller objects are closer to the cloud so they're more shortest distance it's a shorter distance exactly right so that's why lightning rods are built on tall buildings and stuff like that. So lay down in a field if you're stuck out there during

a thunderstorm or run into your anteem's house. Yeah that's always a safe that's the safest place to be plus she has food and stuff. It'll be better in there. Sure. Let me ask you this. Someone in the chat brought it up and it reminded me.

I'd seen some video of this. In fact, it's right here, I think. The phenomenon known as volcanic lightning. Oh, wow. That's cool. What's the deal with that? The process that's creating that volcanic lightning is very similar to the process that's creating lightning on Mars.

It's just particles of dust or dirt or volcanic ash colliding together. And again, it's the same thing that's happening inside the cloud of a thunderstorm. The particles are colliding and exchanging electrons. And so eventually electrons will build up on one side of it or one part of it or one area. Now, why do we get large lightning bolts over a volcano, large lightning bolts in a thunderstorm cloud, but we're only getting micro lightning on Mars. And I already had said that it's not possible for large lightning bolts to form in Mars. The reason is because... Humidity, right? Well, humidity

is actually part of it, you're right, but it has more to do with the density of the atmosphere. The air around us is actually an insulator, so it helps to prevent these discharges, electrical currents, or electrical discharge from happening.

And so because Mars's atmosphere is so much thinner, it's less of an insulator so the discharge can happen much more quickly, not as much charge has to build up for a discharge to happen. So it won't ever get charge on the surface of Mars for it to create those large discharges of lightning. It'll always discharge in smaller amounts. So I feel vindicated in something. I know I talk about it a lot. But back in 2015, there was this

little indie film called Mad Max Fury Road. And in that, at the time, people were complaining that in the giant dust storm that they had to weather when they were trying to escape and everybody was going straight into the storm and there was crazy lightning happening all through the interior of that. That's not unrealistic given the scale of a of a dust storm like that, right? Would you see these like these ones that happened down in Arizona every year? Do we witness a bunch of that stuff inside those things? I think you, I think it's theoretically possible that lightning could form in dust storms. I'm not sure that it often does, but I think theoretically it is possible. Okay. Because it seems like it's just a massive, it's like the dust devil

theory, not theory, dust devil idea, but just on a giant scale, right? Yeah, but the reason that it's happening in a thunderstorm now is that is because there's this updraft that's creating sort of a pump that is pumping particles with electrons up or that particle, or that particle that don't have electrons, they're being pumped up, or that they have them, and then other ones are being dropped down. And so it's creating this pump that's causing electrons to collect at the bottom. So you have this, like, strong force of an updraft in a thunderstorm. So if you have a dust storm that has that sort of pump that allows for a differential to build up quickly enough because dust storms whenever or thunderstorms whenever they discharge lightning the whole cloud

gets neutralized that's the whole point like it becomes neutral again so you got to imagine that pump that's formed from all that updraft it recharges the the cloud very quickly because you can have like just a matter of seconds between lightning strikes yeah yeah and so you know it's very fast. You have to have a quick pump for it to be happening at that rate, you know? Right. So was Fleetwood Mac lying to us when they said, thunder only

happens when it's raining? They were. They were lying, weren't they? Yes. Yes. And it also rains in Southern California. That's true, doesn't it? Well, the surprising thing is they were lying on purpose. I think there is a just dig into it. There's a vast conspiracy with Fleetwood Mac.

And yeah, Lindsay Buckingham, keeping it all quiet. He knows more about what's going on. Well, that's very interesting to me. Is there anything actionable about this or is it just really we now know more about the... What do we do about it? We just now

know more about how that shit works is the idea. It is important. NASA does want to know about this because of a lot of things, understanding how electric charge, discharges in the atmosphere does two big things actually. First is I mean, we send rovers to Mars

and we're trying to build habitats on Mars understanding how electronics will interact with the atmosphere is very important and so so that's one thing

the other thing is it has probably a lot of implications for the potential of the history of life on Mars

because electrical charge in the atmosphere can power or it has implications for chemical reactions oh I see

you know and so and not in the direction that you might think I don't know if it makes you think that having lightning strikes would make things volatile enough and change enough for life to happen, but it might actually be more in the opposite direction

because the surface of Mars, the soil has a lot of these chemicals called perchlorates, and they destroy organic molecules these perchlorates in the soil, which is why... That doesn't seem good. Yeah, and so it could be that the... that that's why these perchlorates are there is because of the oxidizing compounds that are being formed by electrical charge in the atmosphere and then the next question would be

has it always been that way? Could there have been life before? Well, one of the reasons that Mars's atmosphere is so thin is because it's small so it's not like it used to be bigger so it's quite possible that the thinness in the atmosphere that has always existed

may have always made it so there's this constant tiny electrical discharge happening which created perchlorates in the soil. It makes the planet seem like it seems like a beta edition of Earth. Right, right. You know, like they ran some tests.

They did some play testing. It didn't quite... It got there in lots of ways and if you look at it, you're like, well, I could just be in Arizona here. This is cool. But then they didn't quite get over the hump and, you know, they had to build this start over.

Oh, it's a little too far away. It's kind of cold, a little bit too much static electric. Let's move it a little bit closer. Then they made Venus. Yeah. And they were like, ooh, that's too hot. They said, look at all the women that are here. That's really weird.

That's an old reference for you. Because that's, yeah, the Mars had too many men. Yeah. Remember that book? Oh, my gosh. I never read it. I just knew it existed. It's interesting.

I don't know if this I always think about when we make big discoveries of interplanetary stuff if that will affect it's going to sound dumb but this is the way my brain works if it will affect the way we see certain movies like if I go watch the Martian now

where there'll be aspects of that that are now disrupted in my head because I now know about this and he was doing something that wouldn't work in that or would organic material be destroyed by those chemical or by those compound you were talking about,

and would that movie now have some holes in it? Just like back in the day, when we didn't know anything about the moon, they'd make old 50s movies about the moon, and then we get to the moon. It's like nothing like those movies. Do you know what I mean? So now we're going to...

You're describing every sci-fi movie viewing experience that I ever have. It's true, right? Yeah. You have... Half the stuff in Logan's run, right? Like, you say, okay, well, that's fake up. They didn't understand that.

Oh, what about that thing right there? Yeah. And you have one of two. options you either learn to ignore it or you just hate movies forever yeah i guess it's not so much that is as i find it fascinating that we think like when the martian was made and when that book was written uh when andy weir wrote it the idea was to be like really uh meticulous about the details and about what we did a lot of research and talk to a lot of people at nassas and all that kind of stuff yeah and i and i really appreciated that right but

then there's always going to be these things you just don't know yet. I don't know. I find that really interesting for some reason. Yeah. Well, that's cool, man. Thank you for clearing that up. It's been a big black hole in my world for about a week. And now I understand it.

So there you have it. But else I'm going to tell you. Oh, Bobby does a show. It's a show about science. And that's a good thing because it helps him, you know, do science stuff. So when he comes on here, he's prepared. That's exactly why. I started this podcast, this science podcast five or so years ago, was to sharpen my wit and tools so that I could come on to your show.

Yeah. So you can come on here for 15 minutes. That's what it's all about. Yeah. Really let it hang out. Well, tell people what you're working on so we can send them your way. Yeah. So the podcast we're talking about is called All Around Science. It's a weekly science podcast that I do with my co-host, Mora. And this, the episode that came out today, we actually had another friend of both of our shows, Dr. Nicky Ackermans on. And she, because over the summer, she published a paper about the history of headbutting animals. You know how much she loves headbutting. Yeah. And so.

Even calls herself Dr. Headbutt on the internet. Exactly. And so we talked about that and the history of headbutting animals and all that kind of stuff. And, Brian, you might be interested in the episode that's going to come out next Monday because. Because my co-host, Mora, she did a bunch of research on and we talked all about misophonia. Oh, yes, I totally will be tuning into that. Like, there's not going to be any examples of it, right? No.

No, because Mora is also has misophonia and she can't stand it. And she talks about that. She describes, this is a tease I'll give you, she describes the feeling that she has when she hears like chewing and mouth noise and other kinds of stuff. that she describes it as a badger in her chest trying to escape oh my gosh dude wow yeah i can kind of relate yeah it's horrible it's horrible all right i but yeah i'm curious what uh you know like is the fact that there's some science around that that's fascinating so yeah it's surprising science and you know neuroscience and everything yeah tell more not to watch the movie legend no i will let her know even just for that one goblin scene just that one goblin scene skip the first

20 or 10 minutes of legend, if she's going to see that. Yeah, and avoids the substance. If you, or just close, plug your ears whenever you see, what's his name? Quaid. Dennis Quaid. Yeah. If he's got a shrimp in his hand, go in the other room. Run.

It's horrifying. Well, that sounds great. All around science is the name of the podcast. Excellent. Go check it out. It is Bobby Frankenberger and he is now leaving the building like Elvis did. Bobby have a fantastic, I guess. Christmas, because we're not going to see it before, after the

house. It won't be until the new year. Yeah, wild. But don't worry, we'll check in. What about our Christmas science? Yeah, exactly. May all your drops be legendary in the meantime. We'll see you next time. Oh, very good. Bye now. Guy still plays a lot of wow.

Yeah, yeah. And well, I should say. He's like got spreadsheets. He and Alex is like, you know, the filthy casuals. It was a blast when they let me join them for a little bit. Yeah, he now plays. He now tanks for the core guild and is a

excellent tank. Very methodical, very science-based approach to tanking. And I mean that when I say that. He's like very like... Men maxing, all that stuff. Knows all the numbers, knows the math, understands why you get a tiny

increment better, you know, agro out of this one ability if you let this other thing do its thing. Like stuff that's well beyond anything I play in that game. Like I'm just in there for a good time. Bobby's serious about it. Um, that is going to do it for that. Let's do a quick email.

Dear sane and bonkers from drag, sorry, Dargaergan, sorry, Darganon. Is that Darganon? Garganon. Yeah, Darganon. Why is that familiar? Are they in the chat? Or Darganin? He's always in the chat. That might be why I've seen it. Yeah. Dear sane and bonkers, uh, there were a pair of watchman animated movies released last year that you should check out. He's got a link to it in the Wikipedia.

I admit I haven't watched them both yet, but from what I saw from the first one, it was pretty good. Looks like they have good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as well. Love the show, Yo Dargarian. I never seen this. I didn't know it existed. I didn't either. I wonder when do these take place in the in the lore.

Is it the... Let's see. It's a great question, right? Or is it just a retelling or whatever? Is it a retelling of the original series? Yeah. It says Chapter 1 is the 57th film. Chapter 2 is the 58th film. Oh, and the DC animated online movie, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, the film is based on

DC Comics Limited Series of the same name, co-created and done by Dave Givens, Alan Moore. So it looks like it's that story. It's the actual awesome. You know what? I'm into that. I am so into that. Or is this on probably HBO right now?

I would assume so, Warner Brothers. Yeah, so get it. Get it while it's there. It'll be on Netflix soon. So enjoy. I heard Paramount through in a very aggressive bid. There's a hostile, what do they call that? Hostile, yeah.

Hostile bid or not takeover. yeah yeah i don't think they're going to get it but it's interesting it's also interesting because paramount was trying to sell themselves not long ago i don't know what they're doing over there they're being they're being weird didn't they merge they merged with sky or skydance or skydance i think it's skydance yeah so maybe that mergers they're feeling saucy and they're like we're gonna buy maybe

Netflix has wads of cash i don't think yeah i don't think they're not going to get it but whatever Oh, this has got Matthew Rise, love him. Katie Sackoff, Titus Welliver. Dude, I'm in. Rees, Reese, right? Is it Reese?

Isn't it Reese? I always say Rise. Looks like Rise. It's probably Reese because he's Irish, right? Yeah, I think so. I assume so. Oh, Welsh, sorry, he's Welsh. My bad.

Looking to see, yeah, HBO Max. Okay. It's where it's currently, uh, currently showing. I will watch these. Yeah. And I will enjoy it. Yeah, let me know. Uh, somebody just said they're kind of,

Meh. Benjin 006 said it's kind of meh. Well, Benjinn off to find out for myself. That's right, exactly. You're the only review I've heard. You know what I need to ask is a friend of mine, Paul, is the biggest biggest watchman fan ever. And so I got to see what he thinks if he's watched these. Because his is the review that I'd take most to heart.

DC has a great record with animation, but there are some bummers. there so yeah who knows uh keep those messages coming that was an email uh came to us at the morning stream at gmail dot com you can also use our voice cast line at voicecast dot app slash tms that's for voicemails and for texts use it liberally yeah there's a mashup in the post today listen for that it is a classic mashup for 2020 called the best of brian ibbett cool i think next week you're going to get the best of me will they will either of these be truly the best of us probably not They will be the best of us as of then. As of 2020.

But I think we've been better than the best of us since 2020. Who knows? I'm not even sure what I know what it means. It's all the embarrassing shit we said in that year. So look forward to hearing that. That's coming up right after the song today. Big thanks to Jamie for that. For everything else you're looking for,

go to frogpants.com slash TMS. One of those things will be this song that Brian's about to talk about. So Brian, what do we point? Yes. Oh, well, for Amy's birthday, Chuck wrote in and said, if it's possible, oh, no, he said the date, he flip-flopped the song information and comments. Okay, so if it's possible, would you be able to spin Sean Colvin's lovely cover of the talking heads? This must be the place, naive melody. I wouldn't have a place to call home without her, so this seems to be a perfect fit.

Aw, well, thank you, Chuck. Yeah. That's really sweet. And absolutely, this is a great cover, by the way. This is Sean Colvin from her album. It was like an all-cover album, and it was really good, called Cover Grill from 1994. Here's a cover of The Talking Heads. This Must Be the Place.

Oh, it's where I want to be, pick me up and turn me around. I come home I'm born with a weak heart I guess I must be having fun But unless we say about it A bit Let's make it up as we go along Feet on the ground

Head in the cloud I'm okay I know nothing's wrong I hope I've got plenty of time here I have got light in your eyes and you're standing here

and you're standing here beside me I love that there's enough time never for money always for love I cover up and say good night

say good night oh that's where I want to be But I guess I'm already there. I come home. He lifted a fuse. I guess this must be the place. Because I can't tell one from a love.

Did I find you or you find me? There was a time. Before we were born But if someone asks This is where I'll be How We drift in and out Mm-hmm

How It's slang into my mouth out of all those kinds of people you got a face with a view and I am just an hour looking for a home to share the same space for a minute or two will you love me until my heart

It stops Will you love me Until I'm dead You got eyes that a liar Eyes would look through Cover up the blinds

Hit me on my head Say good night Say good night Say good night Say good night again, you gorgeous people. Of course this year wouldn't be complete without the trivia

loving too much hassle, man of a thousand voices. Brian Friking Ibbett. Let's take a look back at the best moments of 2020 from the covermaster himself, our bald and oh so beautiful co-host, the one, the only, Brian Ibbotson.

Munson, Bunsen, Brian Ibit. you just feel a little bit of a and as soon as you feel the that's when you hit the button oh I had to go into podcasting because my penis was too large for television oh this smells like a really good place for me to poop

Valorin Megabladder has told us that we need to go defend the eastern region Valoran Megabladder amazing I'm like what you get if a Baldwin brother has sex with Mr. Clean. I'm the New South Wales Health Minister. Let me finish my meat pie and I'll try and stop those baboons. Hey, Sparky, show me a wiener again.

It's like trying to fit the contents of a thousand hunt snack pack puddings into a garbage bag is what I look like on a bite. I ask for more pancakes. I ask for more pickles. Pancakes when I see pancakes. Sea is for Crack or. It's good enough for me.

Crackor, cracker, cracker, scratcher, scratcher starts with sea. Having slightly sarcastically tweeted earlier That the high ups and news were all of a froth Over my local news debut So keen are we for good news That BBC online have run the story Which was picked up by none other than Steve Wright On BBC Radio 2 today

25 blonde women And a guy named Steve We need to talk to a bunch of two We need to stretch that out like Veronica's sausage Anyway, I know what I said, and I knew what I said before I said it, and I still said it, and I'm proud of it. Put some hot water. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, into the French press, four minutes. It's like Patrick's.

It's like Patrick's here. I can't even tell the difference. Oh, ha, ha, I can't even tell the difference. You guys hear that? That's Patrick Bejohn right there. Do you guys hear it? You hungry for peanuts? I'm really hungry for peanuts.

My hand is now. I touch my peepee. But how does that taste? Like, what are you doing? Like shit. Like $350 worth of shit. Sex, worther, uh, worth her, sex, sex, sex worth, I can't say it, sex worker death stare. There you go.

We take your shit and process it down into tasteless capsules for you to ingest. Like Popeye, Popeye, like Popeye. How about Popeye? Like Popeye? I like camping. Camping is fine. Camping is really nice. You get to see new places. Camping is good. I eat marshmallows. I feel like they're all going to be just fine. Wolfhard, Mega. Mega, German, whatever's name is. Mega Norman.

And it's true. I mean... Hard Mega Norman. The Vandals neither took Storff nor left stuff. Dammit. What's wrong with this? Now, ding-dongs, on the other hand. Give me a ding-dong any day of the week.

I'll take a ding-dong. That's yours, Jamie. Yep. So my de set assensured, Gerard de Padu, going to pee on me. Wow. Wow, I never guessed. You're making the best five out of the two that you're given, plus the river, the flop, and the schmengee.

The turn. The river, the flop. the turn in the river. Oh, please change it to schmangi. That's great. The schmengi. The smengi. All you have left is a candle made from Gwyneth Paltrow's Vajajay.

It's not made from her vajara. They were creating scents for candles. She walked in and said, oh, wow, that one smells like my Vajajay. That's how it is. It wasn't even like, all right, Gwyneth, here, coiff into this jar and take it to the lab. And we're going to try and replicate that scent for our. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe you said that.

Oh my gosh, that's funny.