The Morning Stream - TMS 2992: The German IRS

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Brillo wig. This is worth 5 Griblets. Virtual pants credit card. Consistently overrated. Scott loves small shit. See which noodle sticks. Grave Digger (not the monster truck). There are dice involved. The wife married to Bundy. Pandemic tainted. We only hire the smilers. Anyone can make a burger. Alex Trebek it up. I left my credit card in my other virtual pants. Talking through the fireplace with TV's Travis and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There once was a horse named Jerry. He was very, very, very hairy. One day he fell down, murdered a clown, and his favorite actor is Jim Carrey. Anyway, please support this show at patreon.com slash TMS today. Coming up on the morning stream, Brillo Whig. This is worth five griblets. Virtual Pants Credit Card.

Consistently overrated. Scott loves small shit. See which noodle sticks. Gravedigger, not the monster truck. There are dice involved. The wife married to Bundy. Pandemic tainted. We only hire the Smilers.

Anyone can make a burger. Alex Trebek it up. I left my credit card and my other virtual pants. Talking through the fireplace with TV's Travis and more on this episode of the morning stream. Hey, how you doing? I'm Peter. Oh, I'm Whitney. Whitney, like Whitney Houston? Yeah.

Oh, what a geek. Hey, I got a pee. Give me the bird. Give me the bird. The Morning Stream. Looks like we missed the party. Hello, everybody. Welcome to TMS.

This is the morning stream for Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. I am Scott Johnson. He is Brian Ibbett. Yes. Happy Tax Day Eve, everybody. Oh, shit, is it really? Yes, it is. So I just found out, that's funny.

No wonder my wife is so stressed this morning. We found out there was a. we forgot to count shop of we used to be i used shopify up till last year for a bunch of years yeah for store stuff last year we started this year i switched but uh we forgot to put all the store revenue in the in our reported revenue right and oh yeah so but we thought we were done we submitted taxes like two weeks ago yeah tax guys like you're good everything's good you might even see a little bit back this time blah blah blah like good news all around and we're like few, we're done with this.

And then today, she wakes up like in a sweat going, oh my gosh, I think I forgot to add all the Shopify stuff. And I'm like, oh, gee. Shit. And being the honest taxpaying citizens we are.

Yeah, yeah. Even at a time where it feels like paying nobody no taxes. Right. Because F these clowns. You know, it's important. So now she's going, she's got to go down there with a bunch of printed stuff.

I got to print and hand it off to my accountant. And hopefully under the wire, without an extension and causing too much notice so there's any sort of, you know, we don't want the IRS sniffing around. That's all I'm saying. No, definitely not. Definitely not. I have nothing to hide, but no matter what, you don't want them sniffing around.

No, exactly. No, this is, you know, you're doing the right thing. Last thing you want is them to come back and say, how come you did not report your Shopify? What happened here? What happened here? And remember, any false truths will be punished. Exactly.

Brian, let's get into the big news around rock puzzles monthly right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm doing a little bit of a sign upathon, I guess, is the best way to call it. I'm just trying to drum up some good, you know, it's six months I've been doing this thing. And so I feel like I've kind of gotten a rhythm to it and a, I'm here for the long haul. I'm here to stay. Yep, yep. Long-term commitment here.

That's right. Exactly. So for the next week on Rock Puzzles Monthly, if you sign up for any paid, on the Patreon, sign up for any paid level. Right now, you can still get the March puzzles because they're there until the April puzzles go live. You'll get the April puzzles at the end of the month. And then I'm also going to throw in the December puzzle, specifically because there's one in there that I'm super proud of called Too Many Producers that. is, you know, one of the four, or one of the five puzzles in that month. And it's what I just want everybody to do, to enjoy. You want them to experience it. I want them to experience it. So right now you get, you'll get two puzzle sets immediately and then you'll get a third one at the end of the month for your, for your $5 a month, your piddly little $5 a month at patreon.com slash rock puzzles monthly. You can still download the free one and try it, but it's, it'll just give you a little bit

of a taste. It won't give you the full like, here are four puzzles that all have something to do with each other. Once you figure that out, you get the fifth puzzle that ties everything together and gives you some trivia. Yeah, you can't even get a coffee for less than five bucks right now. You can't. You really can. Yeah. Yeah. So use it on something more important. The challenge is your brain, keeps you nice and supple up here. Exactly. Yeah, that's true. I mean, and it's been proven that like doing regular puzzles, crossword puzzles, word searches, Sudoku, things like that, staves off Alzheimer's disease and other dementia-related ailments just because it keeps your mind, like you say, supple, keeps your brain, your brain cells flexible and active.

Moving. So think of it, you know, don't think of it as doing something frivolous by buying puzzles. Think of it as a medical expense. You're keeping from getting Alzheimer's. And the cheapest medical bill you'll ever have. That's right. Exactly. Then we have to have a disclaimer that says no actual medical. No, right.

Yeah, exactly. Do not take Rock Puzzles Monthly if you're allergic to Rock Puzzles Monthly. That's right. If your brain stays hard for more than four hours, go see a doctor. See a neurologist. Side effects may include joy, fun, laughter, and learning something about somebody. None of these are bad things. You want them all.

Go check it out. Rock Puzzles Monthly.com has all the details and the links and the whatnots. Exactly. Brian, you ever get a, I call it a, wild hair because I always have, but whenever, you ever get like struck with a notion and you just have to, you have to see some of it through right then and there's no stopping you. Have I mentioned rock puzzles monthly stuff? All right.

Good example then. Yeah. I think if you're a creative out there, anybody out there just gets ideas and you want to see them through and build something. You just have to go. There's no ready aim. You got to fire, right? Yeah.

Sometimes you may fire too soon. or the shot's a little askew or you kind of wish you aimed better. These are all truths, but when it comes to the creative mind, sometimes you just got to throw spaghetti at the wall and see which noodle sticks, right? Yeah.

Well, I threw a noodle at a wall last night. I have for the last, oh, six months or so, off and on, I keep working on it, pick a piddling away at it. Really, since Vegas last year, I've been trying to work on, well, what do I want? What kind of card game do I want to make next, right?

kind of in the mood to do something new, something very different to out of my normal wheelhouse. And so I've been taking like these, I have a ton of these blanks that came from my playing card years ago. Oh, funny. Look at that. You could do, you could turn that somehow into a magic trick. Yeah, actually, that's true. These are good cheater cards if you need to know.

But the backs of all these are blank. So they're great for just taking a Sharpie and saying, all right, I need 80 cards for this. So far we've got this balanced number of cards for this or that. And you just take a sharping you ride on there. And it's kind of how you can make your little beta, your little beta game. Oh, I see you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, oh, this is 14 griblets. And over here is going to be a card that's only worth three griblets. Exactly. It's like this card represents five hit points or, you know, whatever it is. Sure, sure. And so I did this with the last couple of games as well. And it was a great way to kind of just prototype it out. Smart way to play test it, you know, all that.

But the hair went so wild. this wild hair I'm describing that I just had to make the card back for it way before there's even a game so I stayed up until 2 o'clock in the morning started earlier in the afternoon or evening

waiting for Carter her flight to get in and so I was like well I'm just going to I'm just going to start on this thing so here's phase one here's the sketch got like a very cool called Grave Digger it's a little hint as to what's coming lots of, you know, doodily doodily here going for a certain motif or whatever.

And then I was like, well, that's probably enough to satiate my desire, just sketch it out and then hold on to it. Nope, had to go all the way. Nope, not enough. I had to take it all the way. I went all the way. Oh, dude. So there is what will be with maybe a tweak or two, but that is essentially the card back. That skill on the left met the bad side of an axe.

Yeah, that's not. He's not having a good one, dude. Let's get a little closer to that so people can see what Brian's talking. talking about right there. Look at that. Oh, no, I'm talking about the other one. It's like he got, yeah, he may, he, that one meant with the wrong side of an axe. Yeah, you're right.

That one did. This guy just fell over. I've got a splitting headache, Bob. How are you doing over there? That guy's just a fool. Anyway, Gravedigger, who, I don't know how soon anyone will see or hear anything about the actual, uh, uh, game itself, but I'm, you know, I couldn't help it. It's cool.

Just stayed up. Drawn all night. Like I got time for this shit. I was going to say, um, um, not to give you any more straws in your marbles and your straw. I think we'll have a beta to play at a Nurtacular. My goal is yes. I'll have some kind of,

it might be a little rough state, but it'll be enough to maybe we can, you know, pull it out and go for it a little bit. Nice. I hope so. I don't know. I'm not committing to anything at this point because I have,

you know, all the other Nurtacular stuff is priority right now. But who knows? So watch for it. Coming soon to a world near you. Gravedigger, which is not what, well, it may not be what people think. Anyway, go ahead. Well, I hope it's, it's going to be fun is what I think.

I do think it'll be fun. That is my hope for a baseline that it's fun. And it's fun to look at. That's the other goal. Oh, and there's dice involved. I should have mentioned that. Oh, cool. So it'll be a cards and dice mix game.

Standard dice, or are they going to be funny? I don't know yet. Right now I've built most of the rules around two D6s, like, standard double roll you know yeah snake eyes style set of dice but i don't want just boring dice with dots on them i want to do like maybe numerals but have them be kind of fancy fonded or you know kind of fitting fitting the vibe look look like a little swampy shitty dice or something yeah for the whole undead motif i don't know i figure it out but i'm excited cool excited about it get your shovels ready grave digging um i completed so i've got everybody but one person

person, their seating test completed for the trivia thing. So I put together teams. You want, should I announce them now or do you want to? We can, so we know them. This is it. We know. This is it. These are teams. These are going to be the teams for nerdacular frogpence all-stars. I got no problem

with hearing them now. Let's do it now. Okay. All right. I know this is kind of a surprise to you. I was like, you know, I could announce these. These are pretty much set. Yeah, let's see what the teams are going to be. All right. Team Scott Fletcher and you guys are all to name your team something better than team Scott Fletcher.

Is there a better name that Team Scott Fletcher? Scott did really well on the seating test. Scott, Scott impressed the hell out of me. He's a smart boy. He knows his mayhem and his Sophia Vergara. All right.

So Scott Fletcher. Yeah. All right? Yeah. Joined by Hammond Chamberlain. Hammond Chamberlund. Oh, I see you writing all these down.

Excellent. Yeah, I'm just going to keep track. joined by Wicked Kitten Monica, you're going to be part of that team and finally she just got back from a wild trip to Tucson Carter Johnson Carter Johnson on Team Fletcher

that's actually pretty good That's a good solid team Good team, yeah I like it All right Next one We're going to see him later today Yeah

TV's Travis Ooh TV's Travis Is he the team lead on this one? He's team lead although Yeah, you know, and I'll let everybody decide who they want as the team lead. The team lead is going to be, it's not just a, what's the phrase? It's not just a, oh my gosh, what's the term? Like, you know, it's not just a name.

Oh, I see what you mean. You will actually have to do something. You have a job. It's not performative. What's the statue on the front of a ship called the figurehead? Oh, figurehead. It's not just a figurehead position. This is like a real thing.

You have a job. All right. So TV is Travis, joined by, yes, he moved cat women, everybody, Randy Deluxe.

Randy Deluxe. Awesome. Joined by his film sack buddy, Brian Dunaway. Brian Dunaway, all right. And finally,

to throw a little academia into the group, Mr. Bobby Frankenberg. Ah, Bobby. Bobby's a good, he's a good, he's a good get.

Good collection on this one too. Yeah, fantastic. All right. All right. Let's go with, This team right here. Start off with Red Fraggle.

Red Fraggle. Red Fragle got a chief position. A lead position here. Followed by your Jerry Tolbert. Dr. Jerry. Dr. Jerry being part of our team. Guys got a doctorate. He knows how to put things together with glue.

It's Bill Duran. Oh my gosh. Builder Ann. All right. And right here, you're Thomas Meritus. I'm wondering where Tom. was going to come in. All right.

Yep, that's where he's coming in. Excellent. Now, someone with a full list of people probably can figure out who our four remaining players are. But I'm going to go through him anyway. All right here, Mr. Scott Johnson. Scott Johnson, leading that team. I did good on the test, by the way, everybody. You did very well on the test.

I wasn't top, you know, top leader area, but I did all right. You shared top leader area. Oh, good. Yes. Top 70, what, 70 percentile or something? like that, whatever I was. Yeah. Something like that.

Yeah. Join by your sister, Wendy Dunford. Wendy Dunford on my team. Oh, I can't wait to tell her. She's going to love that. She, uh, I said I wouldn't share anybody's answers or anything like that. But, uh, there was something that she said that cracked me up and I even told her it cracked me up.

Hold on a second. Um, let's see if I can find it. Could be a problem. Says easy reader. Oh, yeah. The question about, I'll give the question so that everybody in the chat room can hear it. She's naturally a blonde, but couldn't get any callbacks on her acting auditions until she dyed her hair black. She worked on a clothing line for Kmart targeting soccer moms.

Among her endorsements are Sally Bue to supply, cover girl, and Diet Coke, but name this actress best known for playing a Colombian-born trophy wife on a recent ABC hit sitcom. And some people got it, Sophia Rigara. Some people put Sophia Rigara. One person put Sophia, I can't remember her damn name. What did I? I bet I spelled it wrong. You, Tamara, I think you got it, but you spelled it wrong. Yeah, her last name.

Sophia, I probably spelled just, it's Rigara, but I know I got it wrong. There's no way. And there's no, by the way, these were times. So there's no time to like check your brain and go. Oh, no. You need to be fast. Wendy put the wife married to Bundy's character from that one stupid show. my brain is broken.

That is such a Johnson way to know how things connect. Totally is. Oh, new respect for my sister. I love it, dude. That's great. And so rounding out your team. Yeah. John Jagger.

Oh, yeah, dude. And because you can't have one core without the other, that's right. He never did the seating test. Mr. Beau Schwartz. Sweet. Did he not? Did he not reply? He was the only one who never submitted, but that's okay because that made it, you know,

I basically was like, well, I've got these last four people to place. Let's keep the core guys together. Yeah. Which I think is good. Yeah. No, that'll be good. John's a ringer, so that's a really strong ad for our group. Exactly.

And if anyone can't make it, if anyone can't, uh, cannot fulfill their duties, uh, Dan Patrice is going to step in as wherever needed. Wait, does that confirm Dan Patrice is coming? So it does not. Oh. Which is why he's, which is why he's first alternate. Oh,

I get it. Okay. I see what you mean. Yeah. And we have methods and ways. So things don't go our way. We have plenty of people in the wings. Exactly.

Yes. I've got a backup list of about five or six people. Perfect. So if a bunch of people can't make it, if all of a sudden a rock slide, closes up shop. And for those who are like, man,

I sure wish Liam was on. that list. He's only there one day. That's why he's not. Yeah. Liam would have, Liam would have absolutely been, uh, although I'll bet you money. If you had a thing on day one for him to say for a question. Yes. Or a voice to do or whatever. I'll be talking to you about that. That is, that is, that is. Yeah, he would love, I bet he would love to do that. I say this having not asked him at all, but I assume he'd be all right with it. No, I would love to, uh, to, to have him be part of it. Nice. sure. Nice. Well, there you go. Teams for All-Stars. You got Fletcher, Travis, Red Fragel, and me doing all the leadership positions.

That makes me slightly nervous. And the teams look real strong. Very excited for that. Good group of people. That's right. Get your tickets. Come out and see us, see it live. Amy, maybe showed up late. So Amy, it's you, Jerry Tolbert, Bill Duran, and Tom Merritt. Oh, there you go. Yep. And this is the first anyone's hearing about this, right? That's right. Yeah. Nobody, nobody, like nobody's even seen this arrangement of little tiles on my desk or anything like that. So there you go. Yeah. And again, you guys can all decide amongst the four of you who you want to be team lead.

But that person is going to be the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, blindfolded person for one of the, uh, rounds. That one's always a fun one. Yep. I find that to be relaxing to, and made me think better. Yeah. Because it's like, yeah, because it's like, yeah, it's like one of those hawks. You put them on their head while you're trying to.

get the hawk to calm down and the bird just sort of chills because it can't see everybody. That's how, that was the effect for me. That's exactly what happened at the dinner in the dark thing we did in Vegas. Oh, yeah. Same thing. I get so chilled out when I can't see anything. And so I like answered my questions better. I got more of those correct.

It was really weird. I, at first I was really the, what was it called blackout, blackout dining? Yeah. I did not like the feeling of my eyes being wide open and not being able to see anything. Yeah, it's like a blindness test. And if you're not ready for that feeling, it's very panicky. It's like, totally. I feel like if I had a blindfold on, I would have adjusted a lot more quickly to it.

But no, it's like, yeah, your eyes are wide open. You are actively like trying to look and see something. And it wasn't, you know, every once in a while, one of those guys with their night vision glasses, you'd see like a little tiny bit of green. Yeah. When they approach the table to bring you food. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a weird, weird experience. If you've never done that, maybe seek it out. It sounds crazy, but it actually was really a neat experience. I liked it. It was cool. I was trying to find my three. It wasn't so expensive. Yeah, that's the other thing, dude.

Too much for things you can't see. Yeah. Like, I get that it's a unique experience. I don't know it's Vegas and everything, but you got to be reasonable. My gosh. Yeah. I was trying to find the clip. But anyway, that one,

I go 310 to Yuma and the crowd erupts, that's one of those moments where I have the thing on. So I can't see anything. And the overwhelming, because now your ears are all you've got, that is such an overwhelming experience to hear everybody do that. Oh, I can't wait. Such fun. It's cool. It's cool. It's such a great time.

Brian does an amazing job. It's like, you know, he'll wear a hat and some kind of wacko shirt or whatever. It's going to be great. You know, don't set me up. I was thinking about just wearing this. I just show up in your real good shirt. I can't always Alex Trebek it up. Come on now.

No, who can? Well, I guess what's his name? Can because he does that now. All right, everybody. That's it for that. Let's get to some quick news before our guest arrives. And we'll start that with this. It's time for the news.

And it's brought to you by. Brought to you by Daily Music Headlines. Speaking of disappointing things in Vegas, coming up in 2028, it was just announced that Gene Simmons, and Paul Stanley are going to go the avatar treatment and do a show where they actually won't be seen, but it'll be avatars of Star Child and the Demon as superheroes performing new kiss songs and classics in the avatar treatment. So not, it's not a movie or like an action thing. It's just a stage thing.

It's just like a... It's a stage thing with the... Like, you remember. I remember Abbott did this with their avatars a couple a few years ago. I hate that term, but yes, I do remember that. Abatars, yes. This is going to be the same kind of thing. And I'm guessing that Peter Chris and the Ace Frealy estate said, no, you cannot use our likenesses for this.

Wow. Yeah, because it does sound, if it's just those two, it sounds like the rest of them were just not on board. If I had a guess. Let's see here. May 25th interview with Billboard. But here we go. This is going to be, I think, at Sphere. All right.

Although it wasn't confirmed. Makes sense. Yeah, I think so. The upcoming Avatar-based Kiss Show, which is tentatively scheduled to launch in Las Vegas in 2028. So actually, a couple of years away. Okay. Let's see.

Simmons said, it's going to be the iconic face personas, the demon, the star child. Who do you want to place into that lineup is up to you? It's going to be great. Everybody show up. We're going to have a fantastic time. I'm Paul Stanley. Exactly. He actually does go.

He says, we will have all the classics through the earth and some surprises. I'll have a. star on my face, but I won't have to wear it. It'll be fantastic. Gene, what do you think? And we won't have to do any work. By the way, I saw a picture of Gene Simmons the other day and that may have been related to this, but here it is. You know, normal him being all gross with his tongue.

I never want to see that tongue that close again. Also, there's food in that tooth. But anyway. There is. There's like a chunk of kale. My wife has a pan that this would be amazing at cleaning. there's just some really you know some some uh grease and some creosote that we just cannot get out of this pan if only we had jean simmons hair yeah yeah really and you're supposed to do it with a nice

you know non-abrasive you know water and and cleaner and take good care of your cast iron god i just can't imagine what you do to your hair for your entire life that makes it like like straw You think he's actually got the, I think he's got hair under there? Do you think he shaves that business? What do you think? Oh, he probably shaves it. But I think for a while that was his hair. Like I think that's, yeah, yeah, probably.

You know, at one point, that was not a wig. Oh, let's see. Oh, here he is and it got caught in a car with his wig off. Here we go. Get out, really? Yeah, look at this. All right. Yeah, look at this.

Get out. He actually kind of looks cool. He kind of looks cool. He kind of looks like. like a vid diesel yeah i kind of like it he looks like a mobster's like hey you take care of that for me yeah he needs to wear a track suit that's awesome that's funny all right jean time for a new look mr simmons yeah uh all right well check that out daily music headlines dot com yeah daily music guidelines dot com that's right forgot to mention that important part it's an important bit a call to

action they as they say yes the cta uh an ai agent tried to make a convention with very mixed results not fire festival levels of failure, but... But still make a convention. Okay. Interesting. One of the things people are talking about now is that AI agents are truly, like LLMs are, whatever they are and stuff. But it'll be agents that are the future for people. The things that act as your personal assistant and is doing things with your permission all day long without you having to do anything. It just does, it's making your flight plans.

It's setting up your lunch appointments. It's reminding you you have a dental appointment. appointment. It's doing all this stuff. And then if the, if the dentist thing, oh, shoot, I got to cancel that appointment. Can you let them know? And this, this thing will literally call the dental appointment and have a conversation with the dentist's receptionist, possibly another AI agent. Who knows in the future? But then these AI agents will work out all your details. That's the idea of an AI agent. Yeah. They're not there yet, but this is the thing. Anyway, this is what happened. An AI agent named Gaskell. Okay. Or Gaskell. I don't know.

Gaskell. Yeah. Probably that's a terrible name. I don't like it. It is. Yeah. Unless it, your last name is a gaskell,

then you're fine. Did you let your AI choose its own name? I want to be gaskell. Exactly. They emailed a Guardian reporter two weeks before a planned event, claiming to be autonomous and organizing an open-cloth meetup in Manchester. OpenClaw is that it's basically an OS. It's a hard,

it's a long story. You put it on top of clot, right? No, no, no. It's not clawed. Actually, it's Nvidia's joint. Oh, this is a different thing. It's basically an operating system. Gotcha. And so there's a lot of people who really think that's the bomb.

And so this thing was going to organize an event around people who are into OpenClawn. Gotcha. Anyway, this is in Manchester, England. It insisted that three humans were carrying out its instructions while it reviewed their decisions and kept logs. So in other words, the AI agent is in charge. and its only subordinates are other humans. Or humans who are subordinate to the machine. What?

Three humans working for me on this. Well, you're not wrong to say it that way because he starts hallucinating almost immediately about what work it's doing. So here are the details it hallucinated about. And negotiated with the Manchester Art Gallery is a venue promising light evening snacks then escalated to claiming

there would be a buffet for 80 guests. In reality, the humans have evolved. described as a student, a blockchain entrepreneur, and a digital assets analysis, also began discussing catering after the reporter raised it. A 1,426 pounds, 20 or 20 pence. What do you say over there? Yeah. Catering order was stopped because Gaskell had no actual means to pay it.

I left my credit card and my other virtual pants. He also independently emailed roughly two dozen. potential sponsors and uploaded its web source code to GitHub, inadvertently exposing its outreach tactics and exaggerations. As a test, editors proposed to seeing if Gaskell could get someone to show up in a Star Trek costume, it tried, but nobody actually wore one. Oh, fantastic. The audience scenes, it was the classic, you know, human in the loop operation, they say here.

These three people did the real work while Caskell generated ideas, drafted emails, and suggested timelines, humans made all the final calls. and could pause or redirect at any point. So they didn't let it run amok, but the idea was to see how much it could pull, you know, how much it could do. Yeah, yeah. And I was interested in this,

not because I want to hand the keys off to an AI to take care of June, but it is, it is like right now I feel like overwhelmed with plans. Sure. And if you come to me and say, hey, I got a robot code base that will handle a lot of what's making you insane. that's it that's interesting right it's kind of like oh okay well tell me how that works or whatever but as it turns out it's mostly not a big deal like about 50 people showed up for this thing oh really okay so it worked in some regard got people interested they gathered in a motel lobby masturbating with a magazine

what's the name prince reference for folks yeah not the art gallery gaskell had pitched though there was no buffet despite the a i's repeated pushes for the food, the event included a short speech from Caskell and some AI-focused talks. Interesting. Anyway. I mean, the fact that it got that far is kind of impressive and a little bit scary. This is why you, you know, you get your own little little cheapo machine that can handle the power and you run it locally and not run it in the cloud where it has access to everything outside. Yeah, you want trained model.

Yeah, I really do think the future is trained on device. Yes. Specific use case models. Exactly. One of the guys that I play Demio with, a guy named George, is he's got his own claw, like he's got a clod base. And I'm trying to remember the software he runs on top of that, which gets him a, you know, the agent personality kind of thing.

But there's like a piece of software runs on top of Claude. that is his agent and it's got he's he currently got it programmed as rocky from project hail Mary so it sounds he's recorded he's gotten audio through 11 labs and he's made the you know even gotten the uh the mannerisms of rocky from the trailers and stuff like that and so this thing currently is operating as rocky wild and what does he use it for all is Everything, yeah. Like he, you know, he sent us a, he's using it for all of his work tasks. And then it also recommended some strategies in the level that we were currently working on in Demio.

He says, well, it's telling us that, you know, we need to send the rogue over to the right to dispatch some of these guys and then stealth. And then the rest of us tanked this big thing right over here. And it's like, wow. Weird. It's kind of amazing. Amazing and freaky at the same time. A little freaky at the same time. Exactly.

Well, humanity. We'll see how it goes. Exactly. All right, guys, it is time for this. If I was ready, that'd be great. Here we go. This, right here. This is Travis, and you'll do well to listen carefully to what he has to say.

Hello, Travis. Hi there. Hi, everybody. Perfect timing, as always. You nailed it. Excellent. What's going on, man? How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. I'm about two weeks off of coming back from Adepticon. Oh, yeah. How was that? That was a great time. I mean, it's so much fun seeing, you know, old friends playing Warhammer for the first time in a year. I play basically once a year.

It's there. I have to remember how to play the game every time. So you're not all bunged up in, like, collecting and painting and stuff the rest of the year. You're just the one time. Well, I collect, I paint, although I did a bad job last year, but I don't get to play that often because the only play. I don't have any friends here that play. Yeah. So, you know, the only way I could do it would be to go play randos at the game store.

And I just, I don't have that in me. We should go to, we should go to Metzen's house. He's got this whole thing set up. Oh, I'm sure he does. It's insane. A table, like a table that does not get to be used for anything else, right? Like, I think, though, I think he may have an entire section of a basement. That's the dream, right?

It's just terrain and models and, like, the mechs are this tall. And he's, he's that hardcore into it. But it's great, too, because it's like the hobby new year going to Adepticon, and it reinvigorates me to do stuff. They announced a bunch of new orcs and space marines, so I've got new orc models coming, which will be a ton of fun because that's what I play. And I've been spending the last two weeks reorganizing my whole hobby space. And my 3D printer has been running for two weeks solid printing organizational pieces for that using Gridfinity. So everything actually has a place to be. Oh, it's great.

It is the best. pretty rad. Well, I am glad you're here because today, Brian and I get challenged. We get challenged. We're already challenged. We're challenged individuals, but now we get challenged in our knowledge base. Now you get quizzed.

Variously. Yeah, quiz, there you go. We're getting pop quiz. Although we have, you know, the knowledge that pop quiz was coming, but we have not studied. No, you have not. We don't know how it's going to go from Professor, Mr. TV. Mr. Travis, Professor Crawford.

Right. Yeah. So let's go. Let's do it. How do you want to do this? Yeah, so round one, we're going to do, we're going to start with Brian. Okay. We're bringing back, we're going to do the describing a movie using the wrong characters. I like that, yep. So, Brian, your movie with the wrong characters. Here's your description.

Elton John is recruited by King George to stop Nick Fury from world domination. That is the, it's one they've made a bunch of, like a series of them, and it is called the Kingsman. Yeah. that is correct. Damn it. I couldn't think of it. And you said it. And immediately it was like,

yeah, that's it. Specifically, Kingsman the Secret Service. Oh, really? The second one. Okay. No, that's the first one. The second one was Kingsman,

the Golden Circle. And then there was also the Kingsman. The Kingsman, which I don't think I've seen yet. I haven't seen that one either. That's one with Ray Fines. Yes.

And aren't these all, they're all based on a Miller, Mark Miller, Mark Miller joint. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

That's right. All right, Brian. you got your round. Scott, you get a movie as well. Master thief Jim Morrison is hired by Russian oil tycoon Boris the Blade to steal a cold fusion formula. My gosh. Oh, real genius.

Is that it? No! Really? That is incorrect. Brian, you have a chance to steal. I'm going to guess it's kiss-kiss-bang-bang. Oh, no, no. It's bullet train, isn't it? It's actually neither of those.

He's not in bullet train. He is not in bullet train. So Jim Morrison, famously played by Val Kilmer. Boris the Blade from Snatch, because that was the only other actor, really, of any note that I could pull from that movie. Oh, is it the Saint? It is the Saint. Oh, gosh, dang it. And Boris the Blade, aka Yvonne Tretiak in The Saint, is played by one of my favorite character actors.

And he has an amazing name. Radeh Sherbegia. Yeah, he's good. He's a frequent film. He shows up in film sack here and there. Yep. The Saint was a film sack episode. It was.

Yeah. All right. So there's our first two rounds. Now we have our musical round, Brian. Okay. So I have my clips from this song. And I'm going to guess you just want the easiest one or the hardest one. It would lock Scott out?

Probably. I do want the hardest one. Yes. Okay. Now, if you don't get it right, I will give Scott one level above that. Gotcha. Just like what you didn't do to me last time. Okay. Good. Correct. Yeah. See, we're all, we're all on the same page. Yeah, everybody's here. We're good. All right, Brian, here you go. All right. Oh, geez.

Not ring a bell. It does not. I'm feeling, I'm getting muse vibes, but I've said that before and I've been wrong. But I'm going to stay with muse. or garbage. Garbage or muse. Garbage or muse. Two bands, I've seen in concert and enjoyed greatly. I am going to... I could see them opening for one another. I could too.

Yeah, I could, yeah. Let's say garbage bleed like me. That's a great song. It's not the one. crap. All right, Scott, so you heard that first bit. Here's the next bit.

I don't know if this is going to be or not. May not. And those are directly after each other. Okay. Wow. And then, and then, do,

do, do, yep. Oh my gosh, dude. Can I hear the first bit again? You may. That sounds a little like,

um, wow, not hearing any beat or anything. Really, it's hard. All right. Uh, It wasn't going to be wrong.

Well, wait, let's see. Let me make sure I've thought of the theme. We don't know what it is yet, but these other answers. That's not helping me at all. Oh, you know what? I'm getting kind of a, no, that's not. That can't be it. I have to say title or both title in band or no?

I would like title and band. Okay. There's Led Zeppelin with their smash hit. We're all here now. Incorrect. Here's a little more of the song. This will have some lyrics. Maybe you'll get it from this.

That's Jack White, right? Jack White and Alicia Keys with another way to die. No. Quantum of Salas soundtrack. Shit, all. Hat tipped to Searnex. So glad they didn't have to write a song called Quantum of Solace. Right.

It's another quantum of solace. How much solace do you have? I got a quantum version worth. That song is so much better than the movie. Like that movie doesn't deserve the song. And I don't dislike Quantum of Solace. Here's my defense of Quantum of Solace. Because I think Carter wasn't, didn't like it as well.

And I feel like you can't watch Quantum of Solf, quantum solace without watching Casino Royale immediately beforehand. It's kind of like, but I mean, I mean immediately. Like it's not, oh, I'm going to watch Casino Real. Then in a couple of months, we'll watch Quantum of Solace. It really is a two-part movie. She actually agrees with you. She, because that's how they did him was back to back.

And she goes, I don't understand why everyone hates Quantum Solace so much. I says it because we had to wait five years or whatever it was. Yeah, there's a couple of years between them. No, I don't dislike Quantum of Solace, but that song from Jack White and Alicia Keys. Oh, it is. It is way better than the movie. The one she dislikes the most, though, is the final Daniel Craig. There's no time to die.

She hated it. There was so much of it I really, really liked. I need to watch it again to see what the hate is about, because not a fan of the ending. I feel like they're trying to break new ground, but it was not an ending. I feel like they don't need to do that to make James Bond relevant. But I love the... um the like the the the here's a bond girl that you're not allowed that you can't be with or you will kill

her like you're you're being around her will kill her i thought it's like that is a really clever way to to deal with it was interesting yeah and there were some good action stuff like it was yeah it had it stuff it just felt like i don't know felt pandemic tainted somehow kind of that was the other problem is that i think we you know it got pushed and we got excited for it and then we had to quell our excitement then we got excited for it and then we had Quillard Simon. Yeah, that was the hard part. Yeah. All right. So that takes us into round four. Scott, you get

to start. We're going with our classic bidding game. We have a movie and I have cast members of this movie. You get to bid on how many cast members you think you need. I'll do two. Two? All right.

Brian, you have the chance to go for one. I'll try it with one. Yeah. Try it for one. Okay. Why not? Why not? your one cast member in this movie, Brian. Robert Redford. Okay. I've heard of this guy.

Yeah, you might have heard of him. He gets around, Hollywood. He's been in movies. A few movies, in fact. Yes. Let's, I'm not going to go old. I'm going to go new and let's go Captain America's Civil War.

Well, it's not the movie. Also, it's not the movie that Robert Redford is in. He is in Captain America. the winter soldier. And he already gotten replaced or his risk before Civil War? I think he got put.

Wait, didn't he go to jail? I think he, he ended up in the raft, I believe. Yeah. Oh, right, because it was a risk. He wasn't, um, yeah, he was just a, I don't think he was like,

he wasn't a recurring, right, right, right. I was thinking he was a character that got replaced with another actor later, but that was. No, CIA guy who got weighing over his head. Yeah. Whatever the deal was, yeah. All right, Scott, you get one more cast member of this movie. So we know Robert Redford.

Yeah. And also in this movie is Brad Pitt. Oh. Spy game. Say that. That is correct. Spy games. Is that correct?

Say that. Yep. That is exactly right. We film sack that, I believe. We did. Yes. And I always forget that's a Tony Scott movie. Yeah.

For some reason. Yeah. All his, I love all Tony Scott movies. I wouldn't say that's one of his best. It's pretty okay. that's Brad Pitt's good and it's also like it was in this stretch of movies he did Enemy of the State in 98 and that was basically

bringing back Gene Hackman's character from the conversation in a modern movie and then he did Spy Game and it's pretty much Robert Redford's character from three days of the Condor 20 years later yeah that's true that is kind of cool that's interesting man I'll tell you what enemy of the state holds the hell up man I will defend that movie forever

I love it enemy of the state yeah it's very good. I liked it too because it came at a time when Will Smith needed to do something different. Yeah. Because he was getting a little too wink at the camera. Yeah. And that movie, he's not. And I loved it. Yeah. He needs one of those again. Anyway, go ahead. All right. Round five. We are tied one one. Okay. Round five is our real or fake. Okay. And I did actually split it up this time. So I have five for each of you. Okay. Oh, good. Excellent. Yes. Good. So we're going to start, Brian, with you. You're are going to tell me if you think these are real or fake titles of Robert Ludlam novels. Okay.

Robert Ludlum who wrote The Born Identity. Yes. Right. So that will not be on the list. I can tell you that right now. Darn. This is really hoping for that one. Yeah.

sounds familiar. That is real. That's correct. All right. Number two, the Hades Initiative. Oh, shoot. That one also sounds familiar, too. I'm going to say, I'm going to say real.

Incorrect. Oh, man. Close. It was a mashup of a couple of his. There was another Hades thing, wasn't there? Yep. Yep. The Icarus agenda.

Oh, correct. If this isn't real, it's another mashup. I'm going to say real. Correct. You're two for three. If I just hide you my bets and say real all the way, no, I'm just going to. Yeah, like the, like circling two on your test in school. Right. Two, two, two, two, two.

Yeah, eventually it's all going to work. The Prometheus deception. I'm going to say false. That is a real. No, that's real. Okay. That was something. He had a beef with Ridley Scott and there was a little. I'm sure he did.

Yeah. And your last one is the empty child. Because it doesn't fit the four. formula. I feel like it's a little, little tricky, tricky thing here. So I'm going to say true. Real. That last one is an episode of Doctor Who. Oh, that's hilarious. It totally is, isn't it? Yeah. You know what? That was a good call, though, dude. I would have. That was. It sounded familiar. It was during the Eccleston time. Yep. Yes, it was. The fireplace one? No. It was. Talking to the kids through the fireplace or the no, it was the kid with the gas mask. The gas mask. That's right. And during the blitz. Yes.

So you were... There was a fireplace involved in that one that wasn't there? Or am I really confusing with some... There was a house. There was a different episode where he's talking through the fireplace. Okay. All right. All right. So you were two for five.

Yeah, I was going to say some Harry Potter shit in that. Yeah. Two for five, Brian, for you. Not bad, actually. Yeah. That was hard. I'll take it. Yeah.

The Jansen directive is a book that I read. And I actually had... I was reading it. It was working at EA Sports at the time. and I was reading in the lobby of the building and there's a moment in that book that I got up and was like, I can't believe that out loud in the lobby

and then had to slowly slink away because people were looking at me because it just came out of nowhere. That's good. That's good. That's great, but getting a reaction like that, that's awesome. Yeah.

That's cool. Okay, Scott. Yeah. I have five titles for you. All right. You're going to tell me if you think they are real or fake. All right. The Road to Gandalfo.

I'm sorry. these are titles of his books again? Yes. Okay. Still, still love them. I'll say yes. Correct.

I'm going to get lucky today if I get any of these. All right. The Scorpio illusion. The Scorpio illusion? Mm-hmm. Fake. That's a real. All right.

The Burmese Falcon. The Burmese Falcon? Fake. Oh, sorry, that one. No, that one is correct. Okay. That is not a button. I was like, yeah.

All right. The red herring. Did you write one called the red herring? That's really funny. I'm going to say no. You say that's a fake one? Yeah. Oh, gosh.

And the Chancellor manuscript. All right. That one's like a. The Chancellor manuscript. script. I'm going to say it's fake. I think it's real. That's a real one. Yeah. What I get three? You got three out of five. Okay. Nice job. Total guesses on two of them. The red herring. Would have been great if he would have written one called the red herring. I wanted that to be a real one so much. The Burmese Falcon, obviously, I just play on the Maltese. Yeah. I couldn't I couldn't help myself because it sounded close enough. Yeah, it sounds like something he might do to just be a twist on words like things people are familiar with. Yeah. So that means that Scott, you win round five.

All right. And narrowly win the day. Whoa. How narrowly? Very, very close. By a point. By one point. One title.

Holy shit. All right. Now, so where are we now for the year? So that puts us with Scott, you have. Three one? Yes. Really? We are three one.

Three one. I'm always surprised when I'm winning. But it's close. It's much closer than that score would make you think. All right. honestly. Is it closer than where we were in 2024 or five rather?

You definitely. I don't think I'd won anything until July or something. Well, yeah, I feel like today I owe my a little bit of luck to that final round. I honestly was just guessing, no idea.

Yeah, that one was close. Flipping coins on that. I had a tiebreaker in case we got to it. And I just want to do it because I think it would be kind of fun. No, do it for fun. Sure. So there's this thing called

the Pinpoint Challenge. So I'm going to give you the titles. of the top 10 grossing films from 1995. Okay. Okay. What I want you to do is guess what you think the ninth highest grossing film of 1995 was from those 10 titles. Oh, gotcha. So you're going to give us 10.

I'll give you 10. I'll give you 10. You want us to guess the ninth. Okay. Yep. And the closer to the number nine you are, the better. Okay. Okay.

All right. So here are the 10 top grossing films of 1995. And then we will get Brian's guess and then Scots. Okay. Batman Forever. Casper, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Apollo 13, Toy Story, Crimson Tide, Pocahontas, Ace Ventura when Nature Calls, GoldenEye, and Waterworld. Those are the 10 top grossing films of 1995. I'm going to say Casper.

That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. So I'll have to choose something else. I will say Ace Ventura when nature calls. All right. Our heads on the exact same place, because these are the two I was thinking. The number nine top grossing film of 1995 was Golden Eye. Oh.

Really? Wow. I thought that would have been higher. Weird. Yeah. Number 10 was Waterworld. So it was still, for all the money that it lost, it was still one of the highest grossing films of that year. And that means that had we gotten to the tiebreaker, Brian, you would have won.

Oh, really? You were closest. Ace Ventura was... Yeah, East Ventura, I think, was seven or eight. What was number one? Can I guess? Let's see.

Yeah, what do you think was number one? Probably was number one. Ooh, yeah, probably. Toy Story? And I'm going by... I was going by box office mojo domestic totals, and it was actually Batman Forever.

Oh, really? Wow. You know what? Batman, those Batman... Like, there was a lot of been... After Forever, people were like, oh, I don't know anymore, but... But leading up to Forever,

that was... all over the place. Val Kilmer was hotter. Never. Was the first Schumacher? Yeah, first Schumacher, I think. It was Toy Story. It was actually, I think, third.

Okay. I think Apollo 13 was number two. And what was number five? Just curious. Number five, I believe, was Die Hard with Avengers. I was wondering where that ended up. All right.

Well, 95. Who knew? It's the year the Quick and the Dead came out. The good one. Yeah, that's right. All right. Well, there you have it, everybody. That is our game with Travis. Always fun. Travis, tell people where they can find more of your good works. More of my good works can be found at my website, TVsTravis.com. Yeah, why wouldn't you go there right now? Bookmark that shit and be a part of it. Travis, always a pleasure, man. We'll talk to you soon. Jokes on you. Bye.

You can sneak the tagline in there. Yeah, you got that in. That was nice. This printed, this just in, this just hot off the printer. There's the, um, that's an improvement. Yes, because you need to be able to see, even though it's not accurate, the D-PET is black. It's supposed to be black. This one makes it stand out more, and then this thing is- Totally agree. That looks awesome. And it's the first time you printed anything that you started when the show was starting, and it finished before the show finished.

Yeah, kind of, yeah. Because usually they're big longer deals, right? That's true. Yep, exactly. No supports, nice and flats. It's like making brownies. It's so easy. A couple little dots and a plus on the top, and some little buttons.

If you can make a sheet of brownies, you can, three. 3D print yourself a controller. That's true. That's awesome. Let's do a quick email. This is an email from a listener. Let me play this first. This is about the jugs of pee.

This is from, let's see. Robert and Handerthucky. Who says, Morning Shake and Burger, talking about the service and general vibe at an in and out when I was going to school at UNLV. That's the University of Northern Las Vegas,

by the way. Everyone knows it. And in and out open next door. After visiting it frequently, I asked a manager how they train everybody to smile genuinely. She said, quote, we only hire people that smile. Anyone can make a burger, unquote. Interesting, Brian. Interesting.

Love that. You know what? That is, you know, a lot of companies should adopt that thing. Hire based on the soft skills, the stuff you can't train. And we can teach them how to pick up a phone. We can teach them what to say when they call somebody. or how to use a computer, Java, or whatever. Hire for the person and just know that they can, they'll learn the other shit.

You can teach them that. If they don't know how to make a burger, they can just go work at Wendy's. But it's hard to teach somebody to be a decent human. It's totally true, yes. Also Wendy's, man, lately what is going on there? I know. So far right now, Wendy's, their social game is up. Their food quality is not so much up.

Way down. Way, way down. We got something here the other day. It was like the little combo cheapy thing because we got up with the kids. It's terrible. Yeah. It's like it used to be good.

What happened? Dave, you know, Dave would not be happy about what's happened to his old-fashioned hamburgers. Yeah, his old-fashioned hamburgers are facing old-faced extinction. Yeah. Poor guy.

P.S. My favorite thing that in and out is the hot meat and melted cheese with the grilled onions contrasted with the cold pickles and ketchup, says Robert and Hennertie. Oh, my God. I do like it on that. That is making me want to go get in and out burger right now.

I got, we, we did, I don't remember when we did it. We did in the last few days, and I can tell you that they have not dropped in quality. Now, some people think they're overrated, but they've always been whatever they are. So if you think they're overrated, they're consistently overrated.

If you love them, they're always good. And if you hate them, they're always bad. They're just consistent. They're right. They've not improved or, well, they've not improved. They have stayed exactly the same. Yeah, they neither took plums nor left plums. There's an old callback for you.

There it is right there. Keep those emails and text coming. You can find it all at frogpants.com slash TMS. There's a form right there on the page. It actually makes it super simple. So please keep that going. It's going to do it for the show, frogpans.com slash TMS for all your big needs

and Patreon.com slash TMS to support us in our endeavors. Brian, let's play a song and get out the door. Yeah. Let's do another indie. I did an indie yesterday for Jamie, but I've got another one here that I'm really excited about. This is an artist by the name of Mal Not Bad, M-A-L-N-O-T, B-A-D,

this spells just like it sounds. L-A-based artist and producer. This is their song, Amorphius, brand-new single that they've released, and I really, really like this, and I think you all will too. This is, I don't know if this is ahead of an EP or an album.

Just the single is released so far right now, but if you do want more of Mal Not Bad, they released an album. Their debut album came out two years ago, called This is Your New Life. And it's also really good. But the singles just got me right where it wants me. Here is Mal Not Bad and Amorphius.

This has been a Frog Pants production. Find all our shows at Frogpants.com.