Unpaid And Underrated - 149 : Hot Wet Lump (An Arnold Recap)

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

This week Keith is joined by a gaggle of silly geese to discuss the 2026 Arnold Sports Festival. Together they learn what a g-wagon is, determine if pirogies are cheese or potatos, and discuss what it is like to meet Rick Boogs. Links Ü&Ü Hoodie Massenomics x Ünpaid and Ünderrated Colab Get Your Own Keith Head Follow The Podcast On Instagram @unpaid.underrated.podcast Online UnpaidInternPodcast.com On Youtube @Unpaid.Underrated.Podcast Our Guest Big Brandon On Instagram @odoyle_basement_lifts Big Daniel (Spicy Pizza (Randy))On Instagram @spicypizza8123 Big Kurt On Instagram @kdubs_82 Big Tom On Instagram @1_9_training Our Hosts @keithhoneycutt73 or his orange gym, @thenowhinecellar @joey_mleczko Special Guests: Big Brandon, Big Daniel, Big Kurt, and Big Tom C.

And welcome back to episode 26, Arnold Recap. This is the unpaid and narrated podcast. I'm one of your host, Big Keith, joined as always by a whole gaggle of people this week. We've got a nice variety. I'm going to go around the room and give everyone a chance to introduce themselves and talk for a few seconds

so you can kind of get familiar with her voice. Big Brandon, how you doing, buddy? Welcome to the show. Doing good, Keith. How are you doing tonight? Wonderful, my friend. Yeah, I'm doing good. It's Big Brandon.

My Instagram is O'Doyle underscore basement underscore lifts. And just for some backgrounds, my second time at the Arnold and my, I don't know, fifth, sixth crew event, something like that. So looking forward to being on tonight and talking to you guys and reminiscing a little bit just for last weekend's sake. Love it, love it. Big Tom, how you doing, buddy? Hey, how's it going? So I'm Big Nate's buddy, Tom. My Instagram handles 1 underscore 9 underscore training.

This was, I think it was my third Arnold. And I guess like a fun fact about that is my, my first ever Arnold, I hung out with the crew at the crew meetup with with all the guys all night long. I wasn't crew yet. I'd heard of Masonomics. Didn't know who they were. So it was kind of my first exposure was an in-person event. So it was kind of fun. Awesome, awesome.

And big Kurt from Philadelphia. How you doing, my friend? Oh, close enough to Philadelphia. Well, I was going to say New Jersey. Well, I was going to say new Kurt, but we probably had like four. You were new Kurt, but I feel we have, we had to have had some new Kurtz by now, some additional new Kurtz. So I didn't know, yeah, but how you don't, buddy?

Good, good, good to see everybody again. So this was my first Arnold. I almost went to the Arnold last year, but I guess it was worth the wait just to come this year. My Instagram is K-dubs underscore 82. I'm Big Kurt W in the Discord, and it's my third time. on unpaid and underrated. It's like to be here. Glad to have you, my friend. And I think that's it. We don't have anybody else.

Oh, wait, there's somebody. No, I know. We have a new newly minted Hall of Fame jacket level member. Big spicy pizza, Big Daniel. How are you doing, friend? What up? This is Big Spicy Pizza, Big Daniel, or Big Randy, over here in Moorhead, Minnesota. This was my first Arnold. and it was super fun to see everyone. Awesome, awesome.

And we can do a little bit of housekeeping. Is anyone drinking anything special or wearing anything they want to talk about? Because I'm probably just power through that if not. So we goose in it. It's worth showing. Yep, I love it. Now is that the slim fits or the comfort color? Yeah, this is the slim one.

I think this is the first one. Nice. I have trouble like talking Emily into letting me buy the same. print like a thousand times. So I just don't even bring it up most of the time. I feel that, but like I would kill for some comfort colors, eight bit strong man shirt. Oh, yeah. That would be pretty sick. I would literally be a very, very happy man to get the eight bits on comfort colors. So I was just telling my wife that the other day I'd really like it. Now that I'm doing my sign up for my first one, I really really want that one.

Yeah, you are. It's good stuff. Um, as far as you got, uh, oh yeah. Oh, I got the strong and silly shirt. There's a hawk on there or something, I think. Oh, yeah. And of course, my Hall of Fame jacket. I'm pretty sure it's fused on by this point. Nice. How is that? Ooh, and he's drinking him nice Mick Ultra.

That's a good IPA. Zero. Oh. Alcohol free for the little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like, you can't be drinking. How's that taste? It's... I didn't know that was a thing. Beer adjacent. Yeah. Maybe I did know

that was the thing, but... It's like, it's the best I could get, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could, I could maybe have one of those. I don't know. Yeah. Like, I mean, like, 29 calories. Yeah, that wouldn't be bad.

I am, I'm, I think to my memory, this is my first ever fridge cigarette on the podcast. Usually I don't, I'm not a late night caffeine consumer, but I was in bed about passed out 20 minutes ago. So I was like, I need some caffeine. And I do not want a monster at 7 o'clock, but a Diet Coke, about a quarter of the caffeine of a monster, maybe even less. I was like, that's just enough, I think, to get me going. And let's see. I'm doing the long sleeve gym tea. I absolutely love this. There you go. That's one of my favorite shirts for sure. I just, I'm, I'm not a, I'm not a average size guy.

I'm just too afraid to rock out a long sleeve and have it be like hanging down seven inches past my fingertips and then like still have my butt crack hanging out the back because I'm a big belly boy. but someday I'll get back into long sleeves. Let's see, this week as far as housekeeping for Masonomics, the episode, let's see, it was the Darko episode, first interview episode in several, several months. If not, let's see, who was the last? Was it?

I think it was Bromley. Yeah, which was, like, was that a year ago? December, it was like November or December, I think. Yeah, that was many, many months ago. I'm glad I just, uh, But yeah, it was a, I think someone commented on the fact that they did not play unpaid or they did not play underrated or whatever they give. What's that weird when they play that? What's that iteration of the game that we play that they play that?

But they didn't play it that week, did they? No. Overrated, underrated? I guess. I mean, it's whatever that, whatever that game that they play is, it's, you know, adjacent to ours. I think someone had commented that. And I was like, yeah, if you want to hear Darko play a game like that, go listen our episode. because we took care of that last year.

But, you know, Darko's always a good guest. We enjoyed him on our episode. A lot of new updates in his life. The weight loss, he's, you know, dropping 40 pounds or whatever. It was really cool. And getting his new, I've been asking, you know, keeping tabs on when he was going to get his bigger facility and stuff. So that's really cool that he's able to finally bring on another guy full time

and actually open up a facility and get his garage back and everything. So I'm sure his life is different, but he's got to be better. right? Like you're not, you don't have the ability to just go into your garage and work until 2 o'clock in the morning just because you can. Like, you'd have to like physically go drive to your warehouse. And then it's like that, that barrier of like, all right, I need to actually have a personal life now and not be a workaholic. But then if I, if I need to go to work, I can still just get in my car and go. But I think that has to be better for his mental health. I couldn't, I don't think I'd want to run up business out of my house. That sounds unpleasant.

But anyway, five out of five new office buildings. What are you? What did Brandon? I was going order. What would you think of it, my friend? I thought it was really good. I really, really liked those new magpins that he's coming out with. I thought that was cool. It was funny that Tommy noticed them in the background, like really soon and Tanner didn't

at all, apparently. But I can only imagine a Keithhead magpin in my gym would just really, you know, make it really nice. So I'm going to go with five out of five darko magpins. Nice. Big Tom, what do you think? Did you get a chance to listen? Yeah, I did. It was a pretty good episode.

I think it was Tanner was cracking me up when he was talking about, like, Darko and his brother have, you know, full home gyms, like, just right down the road from each other. And I was saying they could set it up, you know, so one could be like the ultimate upper body home gym and one could be the ultimate lower, which I thought was funny because I think that's one of the big struggles with the home gym is you got to, you know, you only have so much space. So you really got to maximize it.

And that would really let you get the best of both worlds. But, yeah, I mean, I think I'd have to go with five out of five darko anchors. Love it. Big Kurt, what do you think, bud? I liked it for a couple reasons. One, it's always really inspiring to hear about people like him who are super busy and still find the time to train and are really successful with it and are like managing other facets of their life at the same time.

The other thing I really liked that he did is he lost a lot of weight but did it through strength training. I wanted to lose weight a couple years ago and I went about it through running and I definitely think he took the smarter way about it. So absolutely five out of five anchors all the way. I think my favorite part was he was just like I just went to bed at 10 o'clock instead of two in the morning and I just lost weight. And I was like, okay, getting sleep because he just wasn't working, eating like an asshole all night long. So I found that pretty interesting. Daniel, what did you enjoy about it, my friend? I really enjoyed the entire community aspect of the episode.

It was him basically saying like if he wasn't in the Discord or like that and if he didn't get an amount of orders, he wouldn't have done anything else with his projects. And if you had to give it a rating? Oh, five out of five friends made, we made along the way. Nice. Perfect. And then the YouTube video was their recap. So we can touch on that a little bit, but a lot of it is stuff we're going to, I guess we could talk to, you know, what they did with the equipment and stuff and the people they ran into, but anything at the Eagle, which I guess was really just a couple of like 360s of the room. But I still want to really over, I don't want to double cover stuff. But anybody see anything in their video that stood out because I personally didn't get a chance to, I wanted to see the booths. But God, I, yeah, I was there for a couple hours and it's all I could do to just find some friends and see some. boost at a distance that were just completely like uh equipment boost specifically what I'm saying uh like that would have been cool to try some stuff because I wanted I was kind of selfishly like man I would if I you know try it for at least a couple minutes I can put

it on gym radar and give it my uh you know unofficial poor rating of my my my incorrect opinion of how this piece of equipment is off my 90 seconds of handling it but uh didn't really get a chance to touching that but anybody else get to you know get anything out of the video as far as the equipment or anything or the uh interviews themselves I my favorite part was when I got a louder response for the Hall of Fame jacket than Paul. That was my biggest think of way. That's fair. I love it.

Good deal. All right. I like the interview with boogs. I thought that was pretty good. Yeah. Just, you know, at first I thought I was just going to be them walking around equipment stuff. And that's always cool, you know.

Panato was cool. The bolt booth was cool. but just for them to like stop and talk to Huck Venn and talk to Rick Bouges. I thought those were pretty good. Yeah, it's always nice to see him kind of, you know, see, see their old friends. Didn't, what did, did, did it, did it, did it, did Nick Camby end up getting that Viking press? Anybody, I thought I remember seeing on Instagram, he, somebody, I, I put it was like, it was going to be a 400 pound and plus freaking Viking, which is wild.

I saw you got a really heavy one. It was a, was it a Viking or was sorry? It's a viper. Biper, yeah. A viper. Yeah, misspokes. So if anyone's not familiar, a viper is literally like you, you clean it from the floor, but there's really no, like, uh, push press or split jerk.

It's essentially like, it's just on your chest for like a 16th of a second. And it's just supposed to be able to just roll it like push press it right out. So, um, that's, that's wild. If he did or didn't get it. But even, even the concept of a 400 pound viper in general is just boggling to me. So it was pretty wild. Um, and then yeah. the Arnold. This was

2026 Arnold. It was big. People were saying, oh, it wasn't that packed. Fuck you. That was the busiest Saturday I'd ever seen in my life. Granted, I wasn't there in like the 15, the 2019 era where maybe quote unquote peaked or 18 and 19 where maybe it was like that even more. But I can't imagine there being more people in there. I really can't. It was a lot of people.

So for anyone, so let's see. So, so Kurt and Spicy, that was your first time. That had to be, my God, overwhelming. Did you go, did you have to, but you went Friday too, though, right? So you were able to ease yourself into it. You didn't show up on Friday at all. So your Arnold experience was Friday, boom, 200,000 people, wall to wall, nuts to butts. Tell us about that.

So the good part about it was is that you would have thought it would have been a complete nightmare trying to get in there on Saturday with as many people as there were. And we just got in the regular line. I guess, especially what was about 9 o'clock in the morning or so. Yeah, that's somewhere around there. And the line actually moved a lot quicker than what you would have thought to get in there. So we were able to get in there pretty quick. And when we were in there in the morning, I would say it was still pretty easy to navigate around and everything that you wanted to get. to see you would get to see.

But as far as like getting like up close to like some vendor that you might want to see, that was another story. You were probably going to have to wait more than an hour for some of the more popular ones. Yeah, I guess I didn't mind the crowd so much. It was the person that didn't

know how to walk or just stopped right in front of you. That was really getting me upset. Yeah. I have never been kicked in my heels or got my shoes stepped on more in my life. Like, and I've been, I personally have been to, uh, 2023.

In 2020, I was there on Friday and Saturday morning. And Saturday morning before they even opened up to the crowd was busier than at any point it was Friday because I think I had like the, uh, you know, the, the early access or whatever. So that, that like hour from nine to 10 was busier Saturday than any of Friday. And then last year, I don't think it was as busy as it would have been. And I have, maybe it was. I don't know.

Last year is not compared to this year. At no point. me walking from point A to point B. Like I could get from Massonomics booth to Strongman and a reasonable amount of time and only bump into a few people potentially. Or I could make it to the power lifting and like a blink of an eye this year from like roughly where Massanomics was last year to get to the power lifting. It still took like several minutes.

And to get to Strongman, amateur strongman on the other end by Youngla, it was fucking like it took like I went up maybe 20 minutes might be an exaggeration. but like more than 10 minutes like 20 minutes might not be an exaggeration for how long it took you to walk essentially from one end to the place to the other like at its peak which is wild because it's only I don't know like 500 yards maybe a thousand I don't know how it's hard to kind of grasp how because you're not walking at a pace where you can kind of be like that's how far I walked you're like tippy toe and so it's like did I tipy toe with two football fields or seven like I'm not sure yeah if you wanted to get over to the amateur strong man that happened to be right next to young L.A. so you were just going to have to fight a ton of people, regardless of which side you came from. I hate that layout. Like, I get they need the young LA booth or whatever to like bring in some of the people and they got all the influencers.

But like give the Amateur Strongman a bigger corner and don't cram them next to the second, like to the crowd. Like don't take the place where people could actually watch something for free and enjoy it. And like take all the spectator space completely away and just like put it on their booth where they have. If so much other places, they could just kind of like get a little more space going. I'm like, I don't know. I just, I don't love that.

But yeah, everything was just, it was wildly crowded, which is good for the Expo, I suppose. I mean, it's going to keep going on. But, man, it's, I don't know that I'll ever go into the Expo again for the rest of my life. I really don't. Well, even last year compared to this year, the, I feel like the booths have changed big time. It's almost like, I mean, if you're of a certain age, it's like there's not really a whole lot there for you anymore. You know, I mean, I guess some people are still, if you really, really like that bodybuilding scene, then you can still get, you know, a lot of value out of it.

But for strength sports stuff, it's kind of, you know, less and less, I feel like. Yeah, if you like, you want to talk to a guy that just makes T-shirts and shoot the shit and, like, talk to some genuine dudes. Like, I don't think there's a lot of genuine people there. I mean, I'm sure there were, but there was a lot of employees there. Not a lot of genuine, like, and granted, like some of the booths, I'm sure, good people and, like, honest and, like, having fun, but from the 5,000 foot view, it's just like, maybe one or two things I'd want to do there and just a lot of stuff I'd want to avoid. But it was still, it's what brings us all together. It's what gave us the opportunity to have probably, I mean, there was at least 50 of us at the Eagle,

and there was probably multiple handfuls of people that just didn't make it to the Eagle for one reason or another. So say 60 plus crew in Columbus, if it wasn't for Masonomics, maybe 10 of those crew, maybe 20 of those crew would have went to Columbus. I don't know. Those numbers might be generous, but no, I think that's, I think that's really fair because I mean, I'm only an hour and 40 minutes away. And after, you know, the first time I definitely would have, I wasn't even crew yet. And, you know, I wanted to go and I wanted to go last year. But this year, I was like, man, if, if I, like, next year, I'll probably go because it's only an hour and 40 minutes and there's a crew meetup and stuff. But like, I really have not, don't have a lot of interest in the,

in the expo. It was cool. Like, I like it. But the, like you guys were saying, it felt like there were fewer vendors that I wanted to go up to. And then of the fewer ones, it was like such a hassle to get to them that like, like if they were on the fringe of like on a normal time, like, oh yeah,

definitely go check this out, but I'm not like super interested. The lines or the crowd, like just to get to them was so difficult. I was like, that's fine. We'll pass. We'll move on from that.

Like you were saying, the strong man was really, the amateur strong man, we went over there to watch. It was just so crowded. We didn't end up having that impromptu crew meetup over there, which was kind of cool. You notice one of the things I noticed was we kind of did it out of the way of the people walking. We saw like big groups of people just hanging out in the middle of the aisles.

That was just driving me crazy. Yeah, we weren't the douchebags. There were definitely a lot of them, though. Let's see. So that's just kind of, I mean, everyone kind of have their own individual stories. I'm just trying to keep it, keep us on point. And we can kind of circle back to stuff. but just, um, was anybody there,

did anybody go to the Expo at all Friday? Just as far as chronological. Okay, so nobody was really there Friday. I know, Spicy, you flew in Friday then? Yep, I got in around. Check out the horseshoe, right? You went to Ohio State. Ohio State's football field.

This looked pretty cool. Yeah, that was one of the best tours I've ever had, and I'd been to Italy. I've toured the Coliseum, the catacombs. But, no, the horseshoe, that was, their shoe that was that was pretty pretty freaking cool we got a they spend a million dollars just to maintain the concrete that they have in the stadium or like they did it once and it's good for like a 50 years no like they do like general maintenance on it that's fucking wild yeah

that's that's that's that's a lot of money um big hunter in the chat did say that sunday he said that Friday was dead and then at Saturday, obviously Saturday was a shit show. And then Sunday at point that, you know, I don't know about all day, or at least a point. It was just as busy as Sunday was just as busy as Saturday, which I can't believe that. Like, like, that's wild if that's even, even if it's like, even if it was 75% because usually I think it's like, it's like 40% or 30% of what Saturday is. So that's wild that anyone would that, that, that might be also why the breaking news of we're going to do a Thursday. fucking Arnold now too, which I feel like if they hadn't priced in like, if they hadn't made it to where massonomics wouldn't want to do the Arnold, making it another day would have been what broke

the fucking camel's back. Would have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Because like, I feel bad for the small guys that's been like, oh wait, so now I have to leave an extra day earlier spend, you know, are you going to charge me more for the booth now? Does now my $8,000 booth go to $10,000 because I'm renting it longer? Like, like

the the, yeah, I would I would say it was we so we went I competed on Sunday so we went in like

to the expo for a little bit while we were there and it was definitely like I told my wife when we walked in because she didn't go Saturday I said this is definitely less crowded but not like it wasn't like 40% it was like you know I'd say

80 90% was crowded there were a couple of times she wanted to go up to a booth and saw the line and was like you know what never mind like we're good so that's wild to me yeah that's crazy um failure competition you would uh was that was that was a gujujitsu or what what do you what do you compete in what was your uh yeah it was gijitsu and yeah got that right i'm proud of myself yeah oh that was well i don't want to jump that i was just say sunday we had i actually walked past hogan while we were in there and uh i tried to say hi to him but like

we were both in the crowds going and there's just so many people that he didn't even hear me say high and I didn't want to like create a blockade so I just kind of kept walking but yeah I mean so give me an idea of how Sunday was nice that will does a hard thing um I guess as far as like our general stories is like finding crew in the Arnold so historically massonomics booth is home so anyone that's not familiar hasn't been like anytime that I've gone massonomics has the booth and that's like home base so you know you you you know you say how to them you buy your buy your shit you know you're and then you just have your place to go hang out um and you're gonna you could you could you could do a walk by every hour and you'd see five different crew at that

booth at any given time give or take so like that's been my experience at the Arnold so knowing that that wasn't going to be a thing this year I was like oh how the how the hell are you going to find people so as far as my experience I get there at like three o'clock on Saturday have a horrible time getting in the ticket was outrageous that initially the guy was like oh it's sold out you can't get in and then I was like well that's bullshit because I just saw a thousand people walk down the street so you can't tell me there's not space now unless you oversold it which is your fault, not mine. But anyway, I got paid fucking $70 for a single day ticket,

got in, saw one crew right off the bat, a new guy, I feel bad if he's listening. I don't remember his name at the top of my head. I can picture his face and, you know, I met his wife and we talked for a few minutes. Probably should have talked to him longer because I thought I was going to be like, okay, cool, I'm going to see like 20 people today

and it's going to be great. I'll have a bunch of little mini conversations. I, you know, left that conversation and I think that at that point I hadn't like been overwhelmed with how many people were there yet, not realizing that it was like the most crowded thing I've ever been to in my life. And I didn't see a crew for like a half hour to the point that I was like, man,

I'm gonna fucking just leave. Like I'm gonna go take a nap, go to the hotel, you know, get a couple hours of sleep, something. I had such a horrible time getting down there. Um, and then I think I made a,

I think I made, I went for basically, I think I did a whole lap. I went to the amateur strong man, no one were there at that time. And then kind of went up and down a few aisles and made it, ended up back over to, where Massonomics booth was

and then ended up over by like where USAPL power lifting was and then I eventually saw someone around the USAPL meet and then then another person because I kind of was just like all right now I know not to lose crew because like I didn't see anyone

I haven't seen anyone for fucking a half hour so I kind of just kept on that conversation with another new crew that I had never met and then I want to say I saw Daniel at some point pretty soon to that that Kurt wandered over a couple other familiar Hey, oh, Hunter and Wesley Honeycutt and their wives met all them, which was wild to meet

another honeycutt. Like, I'd never met another honeycut in my entire life with the same last name spelled the same way, let alone one that's in the same fucking online cult of less than 800, like, you know, when he joined, there's maybe 500 people. So, like, to be in this random cult with 500 people at the time and to have two people with the same last name that I've never met someone with the same last name. And when I see them on Facebook, they're always spelled differently too. So like to have the exact same spelled last name to me.

It was fucking mind-boggling. So it was really cool to meet him. We all were kind of, there was maybe eight of us there, you think, Daniel, the spicy. There was a handful of us there, six, whatever. And then we were like, they were like, all right, well, we know there's some more people on the other end because we had just left them. I think the Kentucky contingent were like, there's some more guys over there.

Let's go try to find him. So then at least eight or nine of us try to get back. Basically, you couldn't have gone any farther. You're going from Strongman to Power, or from Power Living to Strong Man, which is complete opposite ends of the, the venue and that's where I had my like people fucking kept kicking me and this that you know,

it was great. Hunter was getting a kick out of it because he could hear me motherfucking every other person that fucking ran into me. Yeah, he did like a pretty good impression of you. Oh, like yelling at kids kicking you. I don't know. Well, I mean,

kids in the sense of like a 20 year old asshole, but they're still adults. Yeah. I see what you mean. The place was full of those. Yeah. I'd have never felt so tall in my life. As a five foot eight genera.

As generously being five foot eight, I have never felt so tall in my life. Like, I don't know if it was just this year specific. Because I don't, I don't remember like feeling tall at the Arnold in the previous years. But this year, I'm like, dude, everyone's like five, six or shorter. Like, not everyone, but like 50% of the males in that room were five foot six or under, which was wild to me. I had never, uh, maybe I just didn't notice it in years past, but I don't know. Did anyone else kind of, they noticed that? Everyone, oh, you guys are fucking five, ten or above, I think.

so you probably wouldn't, but uh, as me being the short guy, I noticed it. Appreciate you calling 510 being up there in the height. I got to look up at 510. So that's pretty tall. It makes it feel pretty good over here.

Uh, yeah. So if no one's, I'll just, I'm sorry if I keep, I, it's hard to like, there's so much to talk about, but I'll just kind of,

kind of carry stories and then just jump in when it's relevant, I guess. Uh, so, obviously, you're not familiar with the, either your phone won't work. You won't get any internet signal.

You won't get any social media data, anything. But you can make shitty phone calls that will kind of go through. So I kind of remembered that from years past. And I was like, where the fuck is everybody at that point? And I was like, because we were on a journey to find Brandon and Jakey and Nate, because a whole bunch of guys were supposed to be like meeting boogs. And then I was following Hunter and Wesley to go find that group. And then we couldn't find you.

then I called Brandon and you and you and Jake had just left to go park the car and then Uber back and then I called Nate and at that point where I was roughly by the amateur strong man and Nate answered and we were kind of like describing to each other we were at and he's like that's where I'm at and like I could have, the funny thing was I could have thrown my phone

and hit Nate we were so close to each other while we were talking on the phone in a 200,000 person room so that was funny he was like are you by are you by the G wagon? I'm like I don't know what the fuck that means but I'm by a black SUV I still I still don't know what a GWagon I have no understanding of what a G-wagon is, but okay, is that a car, if I did a name of a vehicle? I don't know, but that's where we were at. And then that's where the bigger, I would say, I don't know if it was the quote-unquote main crew meetup of the afternoon, but like,

that's the only place I saw people for an extended period of time because there was, at one point, maybe 10 of us there shooting the shit, Tanner and Tommy. I'd say for sure, that's the, that's the case. Because we, me and Nate had got in around like, I don't know, 12, 13, 1 o'clock, because I think, Tanner had said an unafeiting. meetup was at the North Market a couple blocks away and everyone was going to meet for lunch. I think by the time we got there, a lot of the guys had already left. But driving in, we had seen Debo walking in and we couldn't find parking. So I rolled down the window and just shouted like, Debo, like, where did we, and he was trying to like shop to us like where we could find parking.

And so we met them, met up with him over at North Market. And I think Big Spicey was there. And there were a few people there. and we had lunch and then we kind of didn't leave Debo and Mrs. Debo, we just all hung out together. And like you were saying, we, some of us had tickets, Nate didn't. So he went to go get a ticket while we went to go get our wristbands. And then he didn't know where we were. So he just walked in and then we couldn't find him for a little bit and actually figured out that the calling works.

I got his texts like hours later. And so we kind of were walking around just trying to figure out what to do. Because like, you know, like you said, normally you run up and go to the Masonomics booth and you can hang out. We walked around for a little bit. So Matt winning in some kind of weird grip contest I'd never seen before. We thought he was arm wrestling at first because you couldn't get closer. That slider thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were doing that slider thing. And like it was, I can't pick up that. And well, so like, it's just like a finger monster wrestling or something. It's like tug of war. Okay. But there's just like something flat with just a little bit of lip on either end that each person's grabbing with their hand.

So like a piece of wood on a flat table or something and you're just pulling back and forth with it? Yeah, I couldn't really see it that well, but that's exactly like what. It was just like the world's longest handshake. Yeah, it is exactly. So we just walked around like that for a little bit. We tried to see the amateur strong man, but it hadn't started yet. And just kind of kept walking through the crowd. And eventually I knew Boox was there.

And I was like, well, let's go find him. And so on the way there. I looked over to the Alani booth and I'd wanted an energy drink and I was like, oh, there's no wine. So I heard the story. So I'm like, hey, look, there's no line. Like just, and I'm telling you, it felt like there was no one there. So I walked right up. The lady asked me what flavor I wanted.

I told her she handed to me no problems. And then I'm walking away and they goes, Tom, there's a huge line. And it like wrapped around. I mean, there were at least like, I don't think it's exaggerating to say 40. people in line for that's terrible and then uh and then so we left there and walked over and found boogs and i think uh that's where brandon was in line and met up with a few other hunter i think was there and met up with a few other people and um got a it was kind of cool because we uh ended up getting to chat with uh chat with boogs for a while i asked him if they were

going to do another uh eagle olympic soon and um we heard brandon while he was in line he started pitching him on Jim Radar and brought in Nate. So Nate's telling him all about it. And he's like, he started getting worried. Like he's like, well, people are going to like know where I live if I do? And I was thinking, man, if people want to know where you live, they'll just Google it anyway. Yeah. Like it's doesn't take long.

But anyway, I mean, I don't know. How long do you think we everyone, I mean, you talk to him for a while before we jumped in, Brandon. And I mean, I was given, he was given people time. Like, I think he even mentioned that in the YouTube video, the massonomics video that, But like and my interaction was kind of interesting just because it was like how the first thing I let off was hey I just wanted to meet you like I don't want to take up your time or whatever took his hand or whatever got a picture and he was like no no no hang out for a few. I'm like what? He's like ask me anything and like I didn't have anything prepared.

You know so I was just like you know not like dumbfounded but almost just like well what am I going to ask this guy? You know so and then finally I was just like uh okay I'll ask you this. I was like, why don't you ask me something? And then finally, so he was like, he was like, all right, I like that question. He was like, why do people come to these things? You know, and like, because he kind of didn't get it either, I feel like. Like the meat. Like, was that, was it a free meat and greet?

Like what, where was this? Yeah, it was free. It was for a psychopharma, psychopharma, which is his like, I mean, he's, it's a supplement company. Okay, okay. Yeah. So they had like pre-workout and steroids and stuff. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Pretty much. Creatine, which is pretty much a steroid, I think. kept tides all that good stuff yeah he he was really cool though i mean we spent like he i think between all the crew that were kind of in that group we probably took it if maybe it was less i felt like 10 to 15 minutes like the time and he never once seemed like he was like ready to push it huck fin was there right before we got there that was today yeah getting it up but uh no he was really cool seemed really really genuine you know a lot of the times i think that and i get it

because there's a long line, but they're like, hi, nice to see you, take a picture, move on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He seemed like somebody who just wants to hang out, like, have a good time. Yeah, he was more concerned. He was like, which I took him kind of as a compliment because he was like, you're kind of a big guy. I'm like, where can I work out around here? And I'm like, I don't, I'm not from around here, man.

I was like, you know, but I'm sure any gym in town will, somebody will recognize you and let you work out probably. I asked him if, you know, he's always talking about the instant coffee or the pre-workouts or whatever. So I asked him if he had any incident over there. And he said, uh, he goes, uh, no incident. Just this bottle. It's, and it's like a full like bottle of ready made coffee. And he's like it's got like, uh, it was empty. And he goes, he had about 800 milligrams in, but I got to go work out later. So I'll get a little more. Probably had at least a gram of caffeine today. It's wild. How much is it? What's like? It's a thousand milligrams. So like, and it's like a monster's like 250. Right. It's like one. Okay. So that's.

The most like a rain drinks like 300. Oh, okay. Yeah. I like my monsters. That's a lot of. Yeah, I had a 300 milligram the other week. I was ready to jump out of my skin. Yeah.

Wild amount of caffeine. Like, that's like a, I think I would die with that much. I got a, that's, and I think from there we, that's where we met up with you, Keith. That's a G-Wagon. Whatever that is.

Oh, yeah. No, that was the highlight of the extra for me. It was that are hanging out there for what seemed like an hour or so, just shooting the shit. And people coming, the people coming and going and I didn't want to be the first one to leave so it was just and I was my God Tom saved my life I was so fucking dehydrated I was I was I was hurting I had like the worst day getting down there and I was a hurting boy and I was like I don't want to go like buy a bottle

of water and I don't want to stand in line for a half hour for caffeine because that's not what I'm feeling and Tom had a actually we even do a what's in tom sack and a little drink segment real quick I uh what was that that was a sack full of drinks yeah you got like one of the last ones Now was that, did you have a variety of flavor? Or was it just like this is the one flavor I'm going to give out all day? No, so I had had the, I think it was like banana berry something. It was banana berry. I had the banana berry.

Tanner kind of shit on it. No, he's not a fan. So I will, my rating essentially will be, I was so thirsty. It probably a skew, but it was like a 3-7 out of 5. Maybe, yeah, it wasn't a 4, but it wasn't a 3.3. I called a 3-5, 3-7. But it was warm as shit, but it was just to be expected. but it was, um, I didn't taste any berry.

It was just like a can of banana. It was, it was like, um, did you like as like, like, it was like a banana, uh, like icicle thing just melted. Like it tasted just like, like, like, you know, I have like the frozen banana, like the really cheap like Walmart popsicles that were just banana flavored. It was that just in a can. Um, so it was interesting, but it wasn't great. But God, it saved my life as far as getting some liquid in because I was like,

I don't want to leave the Arnold to go get water. Like I spent so much money to get in here. I just want to like hang out and talk to the boys. I don't want to leave. And then Tom took pity on me and tossed me the last one. Well, I had, so last year I had a similar experience where I was really thirsty. I'd actually,

I get chronic migraines. And I had a migraine in there last time. And like, if you want to drink, you can get an energy drink or a protein shake in there. Like, if you're willing to spend a few minutes in line. But like something like,

or not, as you already told us, you know. Well, I mean, some people just skip the lines. Yeah, yeah.

Um, I think what happened was the people in the line had actually heard that I once killed a guy. He was supposed to be here tonight, supposedly. Ironically, there's only one of you here. So it's like, I don't know. If so, fact, so. Big math.

So this year, I, like, put a bunch of, I had the, the, they were lemon limes and the banana berries. And, um, but like, I was like, yeah, I definitely going to want these. And I, I know that there's going to be some other people that are thirsty. And I think Mrs. Debo took one. She was real hesitant at first. Keith was not hesitant at all.

Oh, God. No. I was like. He said I threw him one. He like fake took it out of my hand. And I was like, you can have it. Because you wanted to get, you gave one to Tanner and you were ready to give one to Tommy, but he was like mid-conversation and you didn't want to buggy.

And I looked over and you still had it in your hand like a minute later. And I just kind of looked at you with puppy dog guys hoping you take this. I was like, give me this fucking drink. Like that's what my heart said, but my eyes were just like, oh, hey, how are you doing, friend? I had a second one. So I gave it to Tommy. And he didn't rate it. You could tell, like, when he drank it, like, he was like, he was like, probably didn't care at all what flavor.

Yeah. I think it's, this flavor. Yeah. I was kind of, um, today I had a really weird experience today. Like on my drive back, I was kind of like, because this is one of my, one of my, only my handful of like kind of solo hosting, if you will. So I was like kind of running through like my whole weekend in my head. Actually, I, like, actually, I talked it out. Like, I spent like 20 minutes on my drive back today, like just kind of like doing a like a monologue under my breath.

And at one point, when I was to the drink part, I was like, I think I remember saying vividly something the extent of, it could have been piss and I still would have rated a three. Like, I was so thirsty. Like, it wouldn't have mattered. That's how thirsty I was. But yeah, I think a lot of us were at that little meetup there. And so as far as lunch, before, I mean, we already kind of, I want to know if anyone had Huberts. And if it was their first time or Polish food in general, I guess. What's spicy shaking his head over there? So what was your Hubert's experience? Did it live up to? the to the smoke? I believe it did. I had like $20 worth of food, but it was a lot of food. I got the sauerkraut, parogi. That was good.

Sourkraut's always good. But there was the cabasa and the chicken cutlet and the stew was phenomenal. It was great. Anybody else? Saturday. Saturday.

Yeah, go ahead. son. Braden, Tom, sure. Sir, Tom, cut him off. Sorry. Tom didn't just talk for 20 minutes. We'll let him go. No, no, it's fine.

Brandon, tell me about your, your kibbasi. Cabossa? Whichever. I didn't have that. I had, I did have brogis and, uh, what the fuck is it? What is it brogue? I don't know. So I always thought they were filled with cheese.

Okay. And maybe it is cheese, but it tasted more like potato to me. Is it potato? Okay. It's like a noodle with like mashed potato. Yeah. Yeah, it was like mashed potatoes. And I guess like the mixture of like potato.

and noodles was different to me, but I thought it was super good. And then that stew was like really good. I'm assuming everybody got the free stew that he was offering. But like, I don't know what it was. Like there was two options. I picked one and they both looked the exact same to me. But I picked one and it was great. It wasn't spicy or anything like you said, but it was good.

Nice. For anyone who doesn't like potatoes, they can easily convince themselves that it is cheese inside of Perugia. It's got the same consistency and it's so damn good. It is really good. Yeah, it's just this like hot, wet lump. I made it sound super appetizing us now. Yeah, it was really good, though.

That's what I'm always looking for. Hey, we got to meet. I can go for a hot wet lump right now. Oh, yeah. Hot wet steaming lump. Yeah, if the episode title wasn't going to be Arnold recap, it would be hot, wet lump. So, I think that's how my wife describes me when I come up from lifting.

Like, I come out of the gym machine. Like, look at that hot. Oh, well, speaking of your wife and lifting, what the, like, she literally, like, I just over, well, I mean, you can tell it better, but God damn. Like, I was like, I was hurt for a second. And I was like, oh, that's what you're talking. I was like, what do you? So you can, you can tell the story because I'd set it up overly. So I'll finish the, I'll round out the huge.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good call. So, I will, so Saturday, I was like, yeah, I really don't need to eat like a kibasa. Like, I, my, I got a sensitive. stomach and I was trying not to like be hurting the next day before the comp and everything so we had I went to this like it was a Somali place that had like rice and chicken and stuff in a bowl and that was really good portions and it was good but then Sunday went back to Huberts and got the uh cobasa and actual mashed potatoes but uh the line wasn't you know the line over there wasn't busy that day so I was telling them the

guys from Asanomics sent me and he looked at me like you'd never heard of them you know I was telling him I was telling them they come every, every year, and they, like, spread the good word about him online. And he was, like, real happy to hear it, but he was like, you could tell he was just so confused on what I was talking about and who I was talking about. Really funny. But, no, so I, my, the side of the basement that my gym's in is, like, an unfinished basement. And I think in one of my orders, I got a kuzzi with the Keith head on it. And so up, like, right above the door jam, I just kind of, like, wedged it in there. And over time, I've gotten more coosies and they just, like, are in a line.

But my wife always says that Keith's, like, staring at her when she's lifting and she hates it. And I always like to think he's watching me with the sandbags, like just watching over me, hoping, you know, disappointed when I don't break them. Oh, yeah, yeah. But so I told her, I said, oh, that's Keith's wife over there. And she went over and I don't know exactly what she said, but she was basically like, I think what Keith had heard was her saying like your husband like freaks me out or like so Stephanie told me if someone came up to her and said your husband watches me why I work out

and it's creepy or something to that and I heard that like removed from and I'm so I'm sure like play the telephone game I heard something different but I'm like what I'm so confused and I think you or Nate explained it to me a little bit later and I was like okay I get it yeah no she didn't mean it like she's really it was funny it was just it was just one of the things where it was like I told her that when we got back to the Airbnb that night, then like she, she felt really bad about it. Oh, God.

No. Tell her. I think once we explained it, like he was good. It's a guy, you know, you're like, you hear somebody saying you're like, creepfully stared at him. It makes you like, am I making somebody uncomfortable? Like, how am I? I feel you.

No, no, tell her. I'm no hard feelings whatsoever. I just thought it's really funny and then hearing. But having my, having Stephanie kind of telling me that. And I was just like, wait, like, what? Because I was just like, it caught me so off card. What's the funniest thing, though? Speaking of her, she's one of the crew cards I got this.

Oh, you got a big Stephanie? That's awesome. Yeah. I didn't see her get pulled. Did you? Brannon got her, didn't you? Or maybe someone, yes. Because she was like, she was like someone shared me in a video or I think it was, I think it was another person you tagged had read shared it.

And that's how she saw it. Maybe I'm not really sure. But I was like, oh, cool. The crew cards were freaking awesome. It's kind of like, yeah, we kind of just follow. Stephanie. We'll just follow the segways. So we got the Massonomics crew.

It was the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, to 2026, um, Arnold with a little right up blurb on the back, which is really cool. Um, and then Hogan again knocked it out of the park, which I swear, if he paid himself an hourly wage for all this he did, my God, that man would be, he'd be rolling. He'd have to pay himself, but he, he'd either be rich or in debt because it depends on who's paying him, but, uh, that man puts a lot of time and effort into these crew cards. So if you're listening and you got crew cards or you even know what they are, that's just, very admirable that someone takes their time to, you know, to put in the work and be a special part of the community and kind of help people get to know each other better and just, you know,

it's a very gracious thing that he does for us. I'm super excited. And towards the end of the night, they had a couple extra packs and then, oh, it was big, who was it, the other Ohio guy, big Andrew, whatever, but he's nine. Yeah, he was, he was a little, he had had a good night and he was like he was feeling good he was like so he was like very much bearing the lee i feel like he told me his whole life story and he was like oh yeah hogan had hogan wanted me to give you one of these but it was like i was like that was the longest story to like give me an extra pack of crew cards but i got we i think most people walked away with a couple packs of crew cards if they were there past you know 10 o'clock i think he yeah he like shoved one in my back pocket

sorry go ahead kirk yeah yeah that's exactly what i was going to say behind me and he's just like don't mind me i'm just doing some butt stuff and then that's next next to that group car That's good. That's good. But yeah, I had to say, it was some really cool ones. And let's see.

So we left the exp, well, yeah, did anybody, any more lasting thoughts on the expo itself, at least for Saturday? I think,

I would just say leaving was like when I knew the day was really beginning, like that was one of the part I was looking forward to the most was leaving, because then I knew we were headed over to the Eagle. And like, that's where I felt like the weekend. really starting. Yeah, the Eagles

is the best. One of the last thing I can say about the Expo is that I made the dumb mistake of not paying for the pro Strongman. I thought that that was just included in the general Expo past. Do you not listen to any podcast that's ever talked about

the Arnold? Like everything. That's been covered on our podcast a couple of times and the NASSonomics for sure. Yeah, my wife is pretty annoyed about that too because she went in like 2018 or 17 and like watched Thor pull a deadlift world record

on like the main fucking stage. with no extra money. And yeah, that went away like six, seven years ago, I think, sadly. I didn't know. It used to be included. Yeah, I mean, pre-20. I don't want to say pre-win, but like in 20. Proper freaking country, though, right?

In 16 or 17 when she competed down there, it was. So for anyone I met up the first time, pony up and make sure to get both tickets. Yeah. When I met up with you, Keith, I walked away for a little bit because I had to fart and I'm a decent human being. and I didn't want you to spell it. You should be very thankful. Did you do you knock a kid out with that or something? Did you lay somebody out?

I almost did. I was in a pretty, pretty open area. And some people walked up and they're like, oh my gosh. They were like, is that disgusting? Do I smell Hubert's?

Oh, yeah. It was, he smelled pretty much everything I had. It smells like parogi in here. Is that a, is that Polish sausage and, oh, me? What is that?

Ash potato or cheese? I can't tell. I do appreciate that. I do appreciate that. That's spicy. How many new crew do you think you met? Like, people you, I mean, like, it's hard to, like, like, I know a lot of people from online and stuff. But, like, I swear, there's people that I maybe had never had a DM with once and, like, verified I did follow.

I was like, okay, yeah, I follow this guy. I know who he is, kind of. But, like, don't think I've ever talked to him once. And for me, it's like, I got to be at least 10 people that I had like shook the hands of and met for the first time completely. So that was a pretty cool experience. Just I don't meet that many new people very often, I feel with crew. So it was very cool. Anybody else?

I'd say dozen. I feel like that like a couple dozen for the first time. And one thing I'll say is it's, it's, and I think some of you guys probably recognize this too. Like the way Tanner just sees them and recognizes them. And like, it feels like, you know, oh, you're this. Jim on this Instagram handle and like, you know, like he and I'm like man, I'm just trying to keep names over here because there's just so many of them. But it's also cool because like the next day just tons of follows on Instagram and like I was DM and Hunter and I were like DM in the other

day. Like I'd never, I don't think I'd interacted with them in the discord or anything ever. And then, you know, all of a sudden you're just chatting it up and stuff. That's why this is a selling point. Like if the Arnold's not for you, then Home GymCon is if Home GymCon is it? If Home GymCon is not for you, maybe it'll lift hard to be easy. is. If the life or leave isn't, you want something more laid back, crew falls. Like there's four to five events that if you really want to expand your friend circle and get literally makes potential lifelong friends. Like don't stay at home on these weekends. Like get the time off work, save the money, come do this shit because we're making memories that, you know, are going to last a lifetime.

And we're making friendships that are going to last a lifetime in some cases. So don't, you know, don't take for granted that massonomics is going to keep this community. this community will be around in five years. Like we, God, I hope it is. But like, don't, uh, don't look back five years from now. I'm like, man, I really, really wish I had taken advantage of all these opportunities to hang out with 50 to 100 of my, what could be some of my best friends. And just because you didn't feel like it.

So I don't know, it's my little rant there. But I hope, I think, feel like a lot of people kind of feel that way or should. Well, that's kind of like the beginning of, I feel like the beginning of you actually getting comfortable meeting some of these people is like just going like the Arnold last year was my first event I ever went to. And I've only missed one event since then. You know, it lived hard live easy last year.

So, I mean, and sometimes you do like, I mean, you know all about travel, Keith. Sometimes it's like, you just can't make it work.

It always goes that again. Travel is no issue. Yeah, there's no problem for Keith than traveling. Never. But yeah, and so you make like that plunge, like,

it's addicting, though, after that, I think. Yeah. I feel. Well said. Spicy.

This was your big first, cross-country immediately. So that's kind of one thing. Like all you, South Dakota or Midwest, like, obviously Minnesota,

but like anyone that lives within a few hours of Sioux Falls and Aberdeen, you know fuckers have it easy. Like I almost consider you, you don't actually go to anything. You just fucking wake up and drive a couple hours

and see your friends. Like, you've never put the work in to actually go to stuff. So like a lot of the guys out there, I would still say, haven't put the work in to go do stuff. But Spicy and Bryce and Paul,

all those guys and big anthony last year like they've been putting in the work to go do stuff but uh how was uh your first big cross country trip for crew this was actually like my first trip i planned by myself too like i don't this was the first time i booked a plane ticket by myself i didn't know if i was doing it right or not i was the entire time i was waiting for that that's the important thing i don't even have a laptop oh god no i know that's the right i was because people are aged well, my age. Yeah, I was just

waiting for the other shoe to drop and be like, oh, actually, you're not on this flight and everything went smoothly, but props to you guys that do the 5 a.m. flights, holy shit. I had to get up at 2 a.m.

on Friday. I flew in, got there at 10. I was pretty much a zombie. I was watching NASCAR on the way over. And then I, uh, roll tide. and I switched to the Arnold and I got my or the pump and iron and I got my second wind on the way over but

I stayed up till 10 slept did Saturday I left the eagle early because I had another 5 a.m. flight and yeah I know but like so yeah now you kind of see how I feel like all the shit that I've been given by all you fucking locals of oh Keith Keith Keith left the bar at 1115

what a pussy. I'm like, yeah, because he's got to be at the airport at 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. etc. It's not fun. No, you can't show up to the airport drunk.

Is it better? Is it because you're tired? Because about, I think it was somewhere around 10 at the Eagle, you and I were told. I was hurting. And you just look to be dead in the eye and said, I'm done talking.

And I was just like, I'll just go freak myself. I've noticed this about Keith, just from like, When he gets really tired is when, like, he sits and then he starts this, like, lean thing. No, like, you know what I mean? Like, he's, like, leaning to one side. And it's like, you don't know if his, like, back is hurting or, like, what's going on.

But, like, I'll look over it. I think Jake was, it might have been Jake Dibu, but we're standing there. I was like, oh, he's tired. He's like, every bar I've ever been to a key. Eventually, he starts to be doing something. No, it was just so funny. Like, he was doing that exact lean that you're talking about. I'm, like, just talking.

And he just, you just straight tells me he's, and I don't, I don't necessarily. think he was telling me he was done with the conversation. He was just like, and I was like, yeah, I'm going to let this conversation die. I was like, he's beat. He had a long day. I was such a good tonight.

But I think I did get a second wind. Well, okay, let's just go. Like, I can wear equal time probably. We'll circle back to other stuff. But, okay, so everyone left, everyone left the Expo, some, you know, and then we had a 730 meetup at the Eagle, which some of you,

some of you, maybe in this chat, but some of you buffers in the Zoom, Hunter, I believe, it's like, or maybe it wasn't a hunter. maybe it was Debo was like oh yeah dinner's at six i'm like no what fucking isn't it's at 730 like go eat something if if you're waiting to eat food and you're hungry now at 430 you better fucking go get some food because we're not eating until probably damn near eight like like like go get some food um but yeah i think with a lot of us i think i rolled into the eagle

715 or so if they expect them to be like oh it might be the first one here there was already like 20 people outside on the deck it feel like um and then someone had musta talk to the to know to the hostess and whatever and they're like yeah you guys are rooms ready just go ahead and add up. And so we were up there even well before 730. Um, amazing, uh, set up. It's probably, you know, it, it easily could have fit the 50, 60 that we had. Um, if you were there last year, you weren't there this year, last year, we just had the small back room as just like a rented party, but like not like a, but it was like you have a, you had a, there was like three waiters and everyone was able to order up the menu this year. Tanner and Tommy

ate a, with, with Hogan's help, uh, getting it all organized. I think Tanner paid the bill, but like they paid, you know, X amount of a thousand, you know, called a couple grand, whatever, up front to kind of get all this, or at least agreed to it. So also disclaimer, if you ate any food and you were at the Eagle or you consumed any of the open bar for the first little bit and you didn't fucking pay the $25, just go ahead and leave crew. Like, fuck off. We don't need you here. I'm assuming most people did, but you never know. This is your reminder. Get on there. DM Tanner, say, hey, I forgot to pay you. Like, let's, let's not ruin a good thing because if they make it to where it's harder to do this next year,

because like three assholes forgot to pay or something, I can just, I'm sure no one did it maliciously, just please, please take care of the housekeeping on that gentleman and ladies. Nobody wants to fuck anyone over, but just with that many people and how Tanner passively said, oh, yeah, if you ate food, pay. And I was just like, dude, somebody's not going to realize they have to pay for this. And it's going to be a shit show. So I just want the Eagle to continue to be a thing. And we need it to make it as seamless for Tanner and Tommy as possible.

So pay your bill. So we get there. It wasn't supposed to be an open bar, but it ended up being an open bar for some portion of the night. I think some of the guys that were drinking didn't pay until the very end because they were just, it was, you know, but they had a huge amount of food in the back forest and like 40, 50 people were there and they're like, all right, go eat and, you know, everyone got a plate and, you know, had a few beers. And then we just, I swear we talked and I, you know, had the Hall of Fame ceremony and talked till damn near midnight. Oh, no, we literally, I was there till midnight. Like anyone giving me shit, I closed that bar down. It was 12 o'clock.

And they said, all right, guys, you got to get out. and like there was probably still 20 of us there that exited. Actually, no, there's probably 10 of us maybe that all exited right at midnight. And I was kind of waiting to see if Tommy did his famous. All right, where are we going next? Let's go to the next bar. Let's go, bar hop, the Tommy special. But they were like, Tanner, let's get an Uber and go home.

I was like, all right, because night is over. So that was the quick, the quick overview of the Eagle. And now we can kind of get into the meat and potatoes or the, the cheese and pierogi, if you will, or the potato and mashed noodles, whatever the fuck you, the parogi is. I did really like, and I think Daniel mentioned it earlier, how he got his jacket and, you know, everybody was cheering and stuff.

Or actually, did Paul, Paul got his jacket first. Yeah. Broke my goddamn hand when he shook it to. And then everybody was, I mean, like, people were cheering and then, uh, somebody started booing.

And I thought that was perfect just because it like really fit the vibe. And then, of course, spicy pizza got up there and everyone's like, tries to overdo the cheers for Paul. good. So the, I think the Hall of Fame ceremonies have gotten really streamlined

and good as well. Like they're just, I don't know. That's fine for me. They're so efficient like Tanner doesn't even bring his jacket anyway. Tanner forgot his jacket. I almost forgot my jacket because like,

it was my first event where I have access to maybe a secret meeting group of us, of us elites. And usually it's like a, a reminder in there of some sort, but I was like, oh, shit, I'm supposed to bring this right. And Tanner, like, just give it a thumbs up. I was like, okay, cool. But then I didn't get out of bed to pack it. Then I, so I like, I'm setting a larval on my phone or like a reminder to like at 4 am.

go get jacket out of basement. And thankfully I did that because I don't. You don't sleep in yours? I mean, it's, yeah. I just figured you. I figured you just wore the jacket to bed. Ah, it's literally just. I did Winnie Poo at the up of a decent amount. But that jacket, I don't know. I like a t-shirt. T-shirt and nothing else. It was good. Eats just walking around everywhere he goes, wearing nothing but the jacket. Yeah. That would work.

But yeah, I really don't think the Eagle could have, for what we needed, because a lot of, the biggest knock I feel on Arnold's past or a lot of stuff passed is like, and it's not even, it's not, it's not Tanner Tommy's fault. It's just hard because like, are we going to have 30 people, 20 people or a thousand people that we need to like rent a room for to have food and drink and to have a place for us to congregate and it's very hard to like know that necessarily in advance. So this year really going out of their way to get a head count to get food pre to get like literally like they're taking a shot too because if like say 20 of these assholes that RSVP didn't show up and then they're on the hook

for more money or they have to charge us more money or something. So really glad they took a shot on it and that we came through and there had to be every bit of the people. I'm sure for anyone that that RFCP that didn't make it, I'm sure someone that didn't RFCP did show up because there was it was a lot of people in there. But that was very awesome. But I was getting at essentially, it's like sometimes it's not the most organized or it's just kind of like hopefully they have room for us kind of thing. We've gotten a lot better at it over the years, but the Eagle was probably the most seamlessly easy. There's the bar. There's the food. We have this place for five hours. Have fun. Like that was awesome. There was no, let's go get woolen our hair and have unhouse people's talk to us as we try

to find another bar to go to. Like that was the epitome of all. awesome for me. I mean, it sounds like I was good, but no story like that, though, came out. Yeah, I know. So it did make for a more bland podcast, but it was a more fun trip, I feel. Yeah, I don't know. It was, it was more chill as far as we didn't have to worry about, like, especially last year, walking around and going to all the different bars and just to realize you're walking in and then turning right back around to find another place. And then just ending up right back at the eagle anyways. Yeah. It made sense just to keep everything at the Eagles. this year. It was perfect. It was as much credit and fun as I say crew falls is this was like

crew falls adjacent. This was the most, like the eagle was the most crew falls adjacent thing I've ever experienced. But it was like a, it was even better I feel because it was just like five hours of just no one could peel off and go their own way. And then like you get like the full experience. You get to walk the room and meet everyone if you wanted to. And there was just such a large amount of people in the one spot. So it was fun. But before we get. Like I had heard somewhere along the way that there was going to be like a hard cap of 50. And even say if we got to like, I don't know, say like 75, there probably still would have been room to move. Yeah, because that was my concern for next year.

Say we say we sell this. We sell the Arnold enough to people and everyone else comes back and 20 more come. Like, that would be the cap. I don't think you're getting more than 70 people in there. But we might be selling the Eagle. I don't think we sold the Arnold's. No. So we'll, we're going to do a little massonomics ad reading.

shit on the Arnold some more probably. Big Spicey, do you have anything for us? I do. For those of you that are on the fence about joining crew, let this ad be the impetus for you to make the best decision you have ever made. Massonomics is a giggle of silly geese who lift hard and live easy. For a small nominal fee per month, you can join the crew who are genetically modified to help you become the siliest goose and the strongest person you can be. Learn the best ways to consume codd's cheese from a George Foreman Grill. That will leave you champing at the bit for more. Harken back to when we were a proper country before Paul ruled,

ruined every award ceremony ever because the true villains are the friends we made along the way. Certify your home gym at Jimradar.com and find the shaft to blip. to whether you're an introvert, extrovert, lone wolf, outsider, or a life of the party, there's a place for, there's a place and crew for you. Just don't be a dick. Amen. Well done. Yeah, we like to weed those out. There's a, we, I feel like one pops up every now and then in Discord and then probably see themselves out, hopefully.

It is kind of, that's always interesting to me. Yeah. That is interesting to me how it's like, just kind of works its way out. like. Or they just, or they might still be there. They just don't comment anymore. And it's just like, oh, it's like,

does that one person still hear? It's like, yeah, they haven't, they haven't canceled yet, but I haven't seen them post anything in six months. So I guess good enough. Definitely not too many dicks that have worked their way in. It's very hard to penetrate here. Yeah.

How was the, how were the bathrooms? I did, obviously I had no liquid, so at least not until the end. So I had nothing to expel. but how are the shitters boys? I had a liquid shit.

So you are the problem. Was it on the like, I mean, did you make it to the toilet? Was that the one where you stepped away and you shit on the kid? We know this was a... That was just an error. That was a...

No, this was after my liquid shit fart. It was it was a little bit slippery in there, but there wasn't any standing water or anything like that. I only went in there once, and that was because I needed to go. Otherwise, I went somewhere else. But yeah, it was, I didn't have any complaints.

That's good. I think I only have secondhand stories, and I heard, I heard it was okay, and I heard it was horrible. So kind of somewhere in the middle, I'm sure is where it was. Yeah, so it was, I went in once, and it was, everything seemed clean, which there was, there was, there was an attendant in there when I was there. So everything seemed clean. But every, I don't know why, but the bathroom. are so humid there. I always go to the ones over by powerlifting, because in my

mind, I'm like, okay, there's less people over here. Yeah, those are the bathrooms. Yeah, those are slightly less crowded. Or at least it, yeah. There's crowded with power. I rather like be around power lifters than broccoli heads anyway. So maybe it's just more that. Yeah. Right. And it, but I noticed like everything was so humid in there. Like there was, I was at the urinal and just noticed

there was like water dripping from the flusher. And I was like, this is crazy. But other than that, it was pretty good. I think it's just all the, the bodies. Like the, the, the humans like are, like we are the humidity. Like, because I know like when I'm in the basement, like if I have the couple times I've had 20 plus people in my basement, like I've had my pipes will start dripping.

And it's not, we're not doing anything different. It's just the human body has to be putting off moisture of something. Like I'm not a scientist over here. We got some in the crew somewhere. They can explain to us in the discord. Debo if he was here. Yeah, yeah. What the hell, Debo?

If only I invited you. I'm sorry, but that's the trick. It's like I was going to have nine people on and now we have four. So it's like it works out. So maybe I could have asked a couple more. but I feel this way this is kind of the right number I think because everyone's getting a chance to talk

no one's getting I mean I think we're doing good I'm happy with this Yeah Paul's not here Fuck Paul Yeah he's at work He's saving he's saving Teeth

Um Where were we at We got the bathrooms The Eagle I guess Let's talk about the Anybody enjoy the food I thought it's pretty damn good But a little spicy for me

And all the A lot of the stuff was spicy, but it was tasty. I was so hungry, I would have eaten anything, too, but it was good. The food was really good. The plates they gave were like, could have been bigger. So it was really funny watching because, like, obviously this is a group of guys and girls who eat a little bit more.

And so, like, just watching people walk away with just, the, just plates just so, like, overflowing food. And there was no, it's not like there was a shortage of food or anything. Oh, God, no, we probably threw away, like, threw away food. threw away food, but the plates were just so tiny that you really had to had to pile them up. There was like a salad and stuff and I was like, I kind of want some of that, but I don't really want to spare the room on my plate. So I'm going to skip into that. I made the steak and went with a little salad.

And then I was like, fuck. But I just had to like put stuff on the salad. So like the salad ended up being the last thing I ate because it was the first thing on the plate and I had to unbury it. But it was all very good. So it would have been. Yep. Local fried chicken place around here that I've actually had recently. and the fried chicken that was there at the Eagle, like buries it, puts it to shame.

Like, I ended up having several servings of it. And there was still plenty of it left, like, you know, we were saying. I think I got like my last serving at like 11 o'clock or maybe like 1130. It was awesome. What were the balls right before, like the balls of dough or something right before? Push puppies, I think. That what it was like, was there some kind of meat in or was it just straight up all just bread? It was so good.

Like I ate like three of them. They were really tasty. It was like spicy cornbread. I don't know. They actually, we had cornbread too, but there was, I feel bad. Like, I would have, I would have liked to house some mashed potatoes, but like, I didn't have room. Like, I, like, that was one thing.

There was, like, an entire vat of mashed potatoes I think got thrown out, because I don't think we, hardly anyone either. Maybe it was the second round of potatoes, but I remember, like, going back later. I was like, we didn't touch these at all. That's so much food. Um, cornbread, chips, like a casso, mac and cheese, mac and cheese, salad, biscuits. Um, I do think the high. I think where I, because, yes, as Tom and Braynum both mentioned, I think I fell asleep, but one, I didn't, but I definitely was hurting around 10 o'clock or so.

But I hit, I had the best idea. And I was my, the highlight of my night as far as like ideas go was, you know, everyone was like, oh, there's, there's, they're just put out more chicken guys. Let's go get more chicken. And I'm like, I don't want to eat more chicken at 9 o'clock at night, 10 o'clock at night. But I was like, there was some biscuits in there. And there was some butter and there was a big old thing of jelly. I was like, I'm going to go eat like some biscuits. and jelly.

Like that was my dessert because there wasn't like, there wasn't a dessert, which we don't, you know, we're growing back. Like I like dessert. So I went back and I made dessert out of like three biscuits, a bunch of jelly and some butter. And then I think three people had followed suit and did that after me.

And I'm pretty sure it was the best decision I made at the day weekend. But Brandon, what you said? That was a pretty good idea to get some. Yeah, it was pretty clutch because I did the same thing, but I think I had like five biscuits. So yeah,

it was, uh, yeah, that was, that was actually a pretty clutch move. on your part. I was happy with it. I was happy with it for sure. Just good conversation. I mean,

I feel like it's the, it's hard to, I mean, I still liked on the recap episodes because they're fun, but like it was definitely a lot less events, but also we tried to get Bryce and Paul on. Bryce might pop in in a bit, but I don't know, it's getting later, we'll see.

Paul had to work, if anyone's listening. I tried to get Kurt on, well, I, uh, I should have reached out to Kurt earlier, but he's doing family stuff. He wasn't available. Other Kurt, that is, curd, if you will. And we did get Tom. Tom was a competitor.

So I don't know, did we miss any other, was there any other buddy competing? I like to spotlight, you know, competitors. And I wanted, I initially had Paul and spicy on because they were the newly minted Hall of Fame jacket and Kurt was a newly minted Hall of Fame Cup. And so try to highlight people that, you know,

I do in a shout out, uh, I thought Paul's dead was, Paul's deadlift was like 630, which was pretty sweet. And then there's an 804 for Bryce for both his squat and deadlift. That's pretty crazy. And finally, Clips is to get his 2,000 pound total that he wanted. Yeah.

If he doesn't come on, yeah, that's, I'd love to hear it in person, but that's pretty damn cool. 2000 pounds. Wasn't big Tyler Thomas and competed? Oh,

yeah, yeah, good call. Yeah. Yep, yeah. And I do acknowledge, we have been saying it,

it's a pro am. It's basically, I mean, it used to always to be an amateur show. now it's a pro-am, but it's easier just to, for layman's terms, it's so amateur strongman. It's a strongman corp. They're strongman, not the actual, you know, Arnold Strongman show, like the big boys. But, yeah, Tyler, I think he had some, like I say, injuries, but I think he, you know, had some setbacks going into it and didn't finish it where he wanted to.

But, you know, I don't think he got any more hurt or anything. So that's always good. And we did, Tyler was, well, that was the cool part is 15 of us, 10 of us, whatever, talk. and buy the G-Wagon. Still don't know what that is. And Tyler fucking, you know, comes over, just drenched in sweat, completely, like, in between events with his mouthpiece and stuff.

And it's just like shooting the shit with us and saying hi to everybody. I thought that was pretty cool. And it's just funny. Sometimes I forget, like, I see Tyler, you know, once a year or once every other year, or pretty much once a year. And sometimes I forget that he's like, what 400 pounds looks like and like a solid man. It's like goddamn.

He is. And then like right around this. It wasn't too long after that or before I think, uh, was it, Trey Mitchell came over and was talking. Yeah. A lot of you know,

a lot of people didn't know what Trey was. I think it maybe it was maybe it was. Maybe it was. Yeah. He ended up like like photo bombning. Um, or, uh, I remember seeing that. That was pretty funny.

Just some massive speak, they were massive. Uh, speaking of that. seeing the picture of Bryce with Thor. And like they just, like if you don't have context, it's just two dudes like whatever.

And I'm like, you know, so that was kind of funny. And then he dwarfs Paul and Paul's not a small man. So that was, yeah, Paul's like six four. I had no idea how,

how tall Paul was until I saw him. Because I've only ever seen him and like, usually like Bryce is in a video with him when I see him. Yeah. So you kind of lose, loose sight of like. You forget that Bryce is 6-7. Did anyone see the,

there was at least a seven-foot tall dude at the Arnold. I remember. Yeah. And I'm like, I think my head came up to like his fucking belly button or something. I was like, you, it was,

I think I ever stood next to someone that tall in my life. It was, it's an experience. Very tall, dude. And then there were just, I still can't get over how many short people there were. It was,

but like short, like, Famous, well, quote unquote, famous people. I don't know. Like, I don't think I recognized them in 23, 25, or this year, but like, I don't know any of these people, for the most part, getting pictures of themselves with, like, people getting stopped for pictures other than, like, people that are already in our circle of, like, Power Lifter's and Strongman, like, I don't know.

If, if you're not a competitive lifter, if you're just a fit, in, what is there a fit influencer? Like, if that's all you do is Lyft, but you don't compete in anything, you just lift for Instagram. you're not a bodybuilder. You're not, you do nothing except Instagram.

Like, I don't know who you are. Like, I don't care who you are. We're not missing much. Did you guys see while we were, when we were over by the G-Wagon, there was a guy who like had like a crew of people following. He's actually like taking videos and stuff like in the G-wagon.

And me and Nate were trying to figure out like who he was. The 80s cocaine addict is what he was acting like, right? There's like nothing necessarily. wrong with this except for like if you're going to be an influencer at the Arnold, you should probably look like you lift like I would like, you couldn't convince me that the guy lifts anything and it's just like again, in any other place it's fine, but you just would think an influencer at the Arnold would, you know, look like a power lift or strongman or bodybuild or just something.

One of the funnier things like, 90% of people there are more physically fit than me. So I'm not saying anything like negative about the guy in front of me other than it was just funny, but he was wearing a shirt. And it had some, like, cringy quote on the back. I don't remember what it was. It was, it wasn't alpha, but something along the lines of that, but it was a lot bigger. So it was supposed to, like, take up the entire, like, like, back spread and, like, the lat area. But, like, he didn't fill out the shirt. So, like, you couldn't really see the first or the last letter because it, like, just folded in on his smaller frame. And I'm like, you're not as, it just made me laugh because I'm like, you're trying to wear a shirt that is, like, presenting this

dominant man thing and you literally like you literally can't fill the shirt out so i don't even know what it says and it's supposed to like fill up your back but the shirt's too big for you i just thought that was funny um but as far as a selling point like i always tell people you gotta go to the arnold once like if you are a lifter if you're in the community whatever like it's cool to do once if you want to watch the pro strong man i think that that's the one thing i might go back for someday is to watch Pro Strongman, but also Rogue spends hundreds of thousands of dollars probably on their production, or at least a significant amount of money. So I can watch it on YouTube on my couch if I don't go to the Arnold or I can watch it on my phone. And it's so much more

enjoyable than being in a room full of, I don't know, however many thousands of people they watch it. Like, this doesn't seem fun to me. Like, and I don't like, sure. I will say that there is something to be said, though, like to be like right there for the huge lifts. Like my favorite part of it was being right there by the animal cage. And, yeah, I got to see, I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I think it's Zodal. Justin Zodal. Yeah, Justin Zodal.

You know, got to see him hit a 925 squat and try a thousand pound squat. And that's just something you're not going to get to see. It's a raw, like a raw 925. That's, that's, that's, he was in sleeves. Well, uh, wraps or straps. Yeah. Even like not, like not, I guess I meant not suited. Like, yeah, that's a, he failed the thousand.

Yeah, he's set up that. Weak. Pussy. That is wild. That is like that's squatting some people's totals and that's crazy. He actually adjusted the weight while it was on his back. So it was in a mono and like, you know, they took the hooks off and he's standing there with it and then like tried to get tighter while he was holding the thousand pounds.

And that was terrifying. Like I was thinking about like what might happen under that kind of weight. But yeah, it didn't go so hot. I heard they broke the mono at the WPPL meet, or they at least bend it or something in like the very first session. And that contributed to why I, I don't know for fact, but I heard a couple people tell me the third flight of the day wasn't over till 11ish, which is wild. Like I couldn't, I would just have left probably. Like, I'm just feeling I'm good. Like, I'm not going to finish.

I'm just going to go home now. Just make everybody walk it out at that point. Yeah. Well, no, I honestly don't know what. happened with that. Oh, okay. As far as the, like, I don't think they just went and got a second mono.

I think they just were able to, I really don't know what happened, but. Yeah, that would be terrible. My buddy, because I have a friend that competed in the second session. Um, well,

I'm not sure, I'm not sure if Paul and Bryce were first or second, but other way, I think they must have been in the second session probably, but, because it was basically, I think it was based on dots. So like your,

the first session was like this amount of dots and under the second session was this amount of dots and under. And the third session was over this amount of dots. Um, but, yeah, my one buddy said it was super hot in there, which, like, I don't know, I guess, I don't know if Dave was rocking the flames or what, but he said he was cramping up all day because it was just miserably hot. So I do feel bad for that, but it did sound like Paul and Bryce both had really fun experiences and good times. Like, I know I've heard positive things about the meat overall, I've heard some negative things. So take that with a grain of salt. Like there's possibly a reason Dave's not around anymore for, you know, live easy, but, you know, he's still doing his thing and that works out. So, you know, good luck. to him and his future endeavors. But I know we didn't want to have a lift hard leave easy that goes to 11 o'clock or even or even passed four three or four honestly.

So I'm glad that won't be a problem, hopefully. But let's see. Crew, just got to do one shout out real quick to just Hogan and Nicole for thank you for picking up those plates for me. And that's kind of, there's kind of a funny story. Oh, I do want to hear this.

Yeah. Set up the whole story and. Okay. So, yeah, that's a good one. This is worth telling. All right. So Jackie actually probably tells it better. So Jackie and I, he's gone now. Yeah, because we could have asked him to come on. So Jackie and I, he wrote up with me. He lives like 30 minutes away from my house just in southern Indiana. And so we're driving up. And the first place we go to is Hogan's before we actually go to the convention, find parking and all that stuff. And Hogan has texted me his code to get in his house. He's like, yeah, I got some people here in town that are going to go to the Arnold. So just let yourself in. Here's the code. just mind the cats, make sure they don't run out, etc., etc.

Okay, cool. So we walk up, and I see Hogan's truck there. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe they Uber did it, you know, is kind of what I was thinking. Maybe they didn't want to pay for parking or whatever. So it's way past the time, or not way past, but it's past the time that they would have already left. So I thought.

So I'd put the code in and just walk in. So I walk in first at the door. And of course, the first, he lives in a split-level house. So basically his staircase here, staircase going down, staircase going up, staircase going down, and you're on a landing. And I look up and his guests are there and there's no

Hogan in sight. So it just looks like we're just breaking into his house at this point. And then, like, I don't know what it is in my head where I'm just like, I don't know what to say, but I know how it looks. I know that it just looks like I'm just breaking into this guy's house and he probably doesn't know me. So I'm like, I promise we're supposed to be here is what I said.

and but I was maybe a little too assertive. You know what I mean? Because I was trying to like, please believe me. You know what I mean? Like I was trying to explain that we were supposed to be there. And then Jake was like, well, we had the code. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, we have a code. We came in or whatever.

And either way, we just caught them off guard and probably scared them to death. So apologize to them. But finally, Hogan came out of the shower whenever it was good. He gave us the full tour. Hogan shows awesome. Of the shower? Of the shower, yes, of the shower. but no his gym is awesome

bigger is far than you expected I kind of knew going into it because I knew he said it was a one car garage so I think in my head I had kind of made it to be smaller but the space he uses the space very well so he has so much equipment in there and it's just like

it's jam packed but it's also jam packed in a way where everything is still usable like you can pull everything out and use it yeah he still has a big space in the middle that you can he's got that new um rogue bench i say new it's probably been out a couple years but like the one that's like manor manor ray yeah it looks like it weighs like a thousand pounds it's pretty cool though but yeah it's cool jim i didn't i did enjoy that story in person it was good yeah it was probably better in person than on here uh jake is a little bit more animated when he

told me yeah uh kurt how's your how'd your vehicle troubles end up fair now You, when I left, when last I saw you, you were like, hope my battery starts tomorrow morning. I'm like, good luck. You want to start. There's lots of cool stuff. I guess you could pick up at the Arnold. I had a buddy who asked me to get him a t-shirt that I'd wait in line an hour to get. That was the least one.

I hate buddies like that. I hate buddies like that. But yeah, my souvenir ended up being a car battery that I didn't even need to buy. That's something I picked up from Columbus. I tried to be as, as, uh, careful as I could about this trip. So I got my car checked out about a week and a half before and said, hey, just, you know, check the fluids, you know, just make sure that I'm good to go. And my mechanic, who I trust told me everything was good. All of a sudden, when I got to Columbus, I'd stopped to get

something to eat. And then when I tried to restart my car, it started, you know, a little rough, but I'm like, you know, whatever, you know, just ignore it. Hopefully, you know, still have a good time. Then the next time I tried to start it, it was even rougher. So I figured off, and I guess I should probably go get this checked out. And when I went to AutoZone, the guy who helped me out was a little, you know, wasn't the most professional person in the world. Let's just say that. And ended up, you know, testing my battery, but told me I needed a new battery.

And so later on, when I tried to restart it again, it was the worst that it had been the entire time. So I was just like, shit. Wasn't the fucking battery. And I'm worried for a couple reasons. One, like, I hope I can get home. I live seven hours away. Two, like, am I going to have to smoke the entire Saturday taking care of this car issue

so that I don't get stuck there for a couple more days? So I ended up talking to both Chris Daminger and my brother, who were both mechanics. And through those conversations, I was able to sort it out that it could have been the gasoline that I bought. There's been, like, a lot of issues that people have been saying about, like watered down gasoline, kind of preventing rough starts. So I ended up buying just this like $2 product, not a $200 car battery, but rather just like $2 fuel additive that ended up fixing the problem instead.

I'm glad that works itself out. I was kind of worried for you because you were, you did not seem confident when I talked to you. And I knew you weren't going to, you might not be in the best state of mind the next morning to fix it. Nope. But all as well, that ends well. But I do.

I will pick on your vein there. did like that at least fun most fun so let's go around the room uh big tom least fun most fun the arnold um i'd say the least fun was definitely with just the the crowds um and i'd say the most fun was it's definitely the meeting up at the eagle afterwards like just the the number of people and like at some point we were all trading like stickers and the crew cards uh guys the way he didn't The bartenders over at the eagle were kind of like asking me like what they were, what we were trading because I think Big Spicey had got my card and Tanner was like, oh, you should sign it.

So I was signing it for him and we had to get a pen from one of the bartenders and she was asking me about it. And so I was like then had to explain. We're all famous. It went into like this explanation of like what Masonomics is, which this, as you guys on that was like kind of funny to try to tell. but like they were just in disbelief that you know we were from all over and like that was the first time a lot of us had met in person just because how everyone was interacting like you know like you're like they knew each other forever um ended up giving them a couple of nice stickers too and they seemed happy about that so that's probably the most fun nice uh big brandon what do you think least fun most fun the whole weekend uh yeah i think a lot of these are going to sound fairly similar yeah i have I should have prepared better.

No, this is good. This is good. Most fun you want to answer? No, this is good. So least fun, I'm going to piggyback in just the, I'm not going to say the whole convention because I did still kind of find some value and walking around and seeing different booths and stuff. Of the least fun part of it, I do think that I really like seeking out like the little strength challenges and things like that.

But other than that, there wasn't a lot there for me anymore, hardly. Um, most fun is going to be the eagle. and then also just, just hanging out, like actually going on a trip with like, with Jake was fun just because it was like the whole time. There was somebody to bounce stuff off the whole, you know,

like I don't think that we left each other's side the entire time. So it was kind of like this, I don't know, it was like a good camaraderie trip to. You know what I'm saying? So I thought that was, that was really good. And then the,

I thought the, um, the crew cards were just awesome too. Just like the, I mean, not that they were cool in the first. round also, but maybe just because I got like nine of them this year. Yeah.

Thought they were really cool. Bonus. That is the bonus of going to in person stuff is you get all this cool shit for sure. The Arnold card was cool too. Yeah, I did like that. And I think I have a couple extra too. Tanner's like, oh, mail these out with your next sticker batch. I was like, oh, good idea.

I'm going to do that. I'm going to trade mine. That's factually, that's a good call. Fuck, give it away. I got trade bait. Anybody got any cool shit? I got two 2026 Arnold Massonomics cards that, uh, you know, know, are up for grabs.

But I will not charge shipping that I paid plus shipping to you like some people might. But, uh, nice jab to throw in there. That's an asshole. I am. All right. Kurt, we already know your least fun. What was your most fun? I mean, least fun, I'll reiterate again, not being able to see the pro strong man was

definitely. Oh, it wasn't the car. Oh, there you go. I thought it was a car. Yeah. Biggering out the car was a victory. That ended up being There you go, Thursday

Overlining. Most fun, I'll try to get as specific as I can hear. Some of the conversations at the Eagle, you know, we had said earlier,

you know, like it's great at the online community we have. But like getting to meet people in person is just a whole other thing. You know, getting to see Big Derek is always a lot of fun.

I met Big Alex. That was really cool. Some of the conversations I got to have him. And I went back and forth with Buzz a couple times like on Instagram about different things.

thing. So getting to meet him in person. It was really cool. Who's an esonomic events? Alex. I'm trying to. I'm drawing a blank on Alex. Uh, the taller guy, uh, doctor. Oh, the, oh, nap time barbell. Okay.

Yeah. I didn't know. Yeah. He was great. Yeah. Big Clayton was awesome too. Big Clayton was walking around a fucking non-alcoholic beer. And I'm like, is this, I know his dad's a little loose, but is he letting his kid getting

a shitty at a bar? Like, okay, no, it's in a. I was like, okay, that's, somewhat better, I guess, but still. It's still pretty funny. Like, it fit his personality so well. He was, he was, he was happy to be there. And they were there for a while, too.

Like, he didn't, he's not like they left at like eight o'clock or anything. They were there for a bit. And who's the, who's the guy that runs the bar gym reviews? What's his name? Yeah. I met him and had a conversation. He was, he's actually really cool. I met him briefly.

And I want to say it's an, Anthony or Antonio. I don't want to. Oh, it might be Anthony. Yeah. But he seems like a super cool dude. Okay. But yes. I think he,

well, I think he'll have an upcoming gym tour. Yes. I can't find it on my head. But yeah, I don't think I, I think I, it was one of those,

like, we didn't introduce ourselves, but like, we were talking to someone that was like, we mutually knew and then we just kind of like had a conversation.

So it was like, sometimes, sometimes I feel like I, I'm not the bad, like I need to be better about introducing myself, but as you reiterated earlier, how tired I was.

I think by the time I had met some of these people, it's just like, if you're not going to introduce yourself to me, we're just going to have a random conversation and not actually know who each other's names are off the top of our heads. It just kind of is what it is. But it is overwhelming. Because even though you know 80% people in the room, not knowing that 20%, it's like, you just don't have the time or energy to get to know the rest of them. But you get to know, I mean, I still met a bunch of people, but there was a handful where it's like, I probably should have made a slightly more of an effort to be like, I don't think I've ever seen that humans face before. Maybe I should talk to them, but, you know, there's always

next year. My guess, all that's spicy you go, and I can round it out. Yeah, I guess that was kind of my least fun was I was tired the entire time, but getting to meet all the new people, that was super fun.

I guess my most fun is got to be a split between touring the shoe and actually being shotgun for the first time and having Kurt drive me, rather than me drive Kurt. because I've been the one driving Kurt at Lyft Hardley v. Z and two of the crew falls. So it was kind of nice to have him over and have him drive for a change.

Nice. And do you guys Airbnb or Hoselle? We hoteled. Nice. I guess so my least fun, most fun. Normally, I'm going to go to order just because I can knock out the most fun first because I had a lot of least funds. And I'll kind of cover a couple of my stories. Most fun.

I think that's a tough one. I mean, the Eagle as a whole for sure, but specifically, I think my first, my inaugural being on the other side of the Hall of Fame jacket kind of ceremony. So like getting to run up there and pull my jacket on and kind of just looking out at the crowd of like, like this is such a niche thing. Like we're such fucking dorks. And it's wild that we're like, we're in a club where you get fucking members only jackets. And we're like, we range from 12 to fucking 60 years old. And we all have like a couple things in common. And it's just, it's the fucking weirdest thing ever.

And then to look out in a room and there's just like 40 people looking at you, 50 people looking at you. And you're like in the top upper echelon, welcome him the other upper echelant was just pretty cool. So I really enjoyed that. I think as far as most fun, it's just being on this side of the Hall of Fame this year. Least fun, there was a lot. My travel woes getting there. So Rochester, New York to Columbus is call it five and a half, no stop. So six minimum with just getting gas.

ass once and maybe pissing once. So we left at, we were going to slow roll it and kind of maybe get in to where we could kind of catch a little bit of the Arnold. Stephanie probably wouldn't have gone to the expo. I would have caught the last couple hours. Essentially what did end up happening. But when Tanner threw something in the group chat about a lunch

meet up, I was like, well, fuck, now I want to not miss the lunch. So instead of leaving it like eight or nine, we left at fucking 4.30 or five, I think it was. Maybe it's five. And we were basically getting, we were going to get right into Columbus around 11, be able to get our car parked at the hotel. We couldn't get into the hotel. We could at least get

our car parked and then figure out some shit and head over to lunch. Halfway down there, we get a flat tire and ended up spending three hours at a Walmart after we got towed and got a patched and got on the road. The funny thing was we lost three hours and kind of ruined the getting to the lunch, but they didn't have to replace the tire or anything. It was just they were able to patch it from the inside, $16 or something. So like the most comically low amount of of financial investment, but it cost me like such a portion of the day that was just so frustrating. But it could have been worse. We could have been stuck there for hours even more because there was either a Walmart or a garage.

And the garage was essentially like, you can drop it off, but it ain't going to be ready until like we're closing at the earliest. And Walmart was like, yeah, we only have two people in front of you. You're probably good. And then we get there. And the guy was a complete dick when we checked in. And he was like, I don't know, there's a whole bunch of people in front of you. I don't know when we can get to you. I'm like, motherfucker, we just talked to on the phone 10 minutes ago.

And you said there was two people in front of us and you'd be able to isn't just fine. And nonetheless, that was three hours of her life. We don't, we never get back, but got back on the road. But prior to the blowout was probably the worst thing, honestly, that happened is I was potentially the closest I've ever come to dying as an adult, I feel. We were in Erie. So about three hours out of Rochester, three hours away from Columbus, give or take

to that halfway point getting breakfast. We're at a left-hand turn lane crossing two lanes of traffic, you know, two lanes going north, two lanes going south. We were in a turning lane, so technically it's a third. lane. We have a green light. A car in front of us goes. So obviously the light's like been green for several seconds.

That car makes it through the intersection. Stephanie's, you know, making sure she's going. And there's a car coming uphill at like 60, 70 miles an hour. Just no chance they were stopping. No chance they even knew they had a red light. Just barreling right at us. We're in the middle of the fucking intersection. Maybe we were actually might have, we kind of were just starting.

but so we weren't necessarily, we were still in the road, but we were closer to the turning lane than we were like in the middle of the road, I guess. And so I reach over. I'm, I'm shotgun on it up because Stephanie drives the majority of the time because she gets car sick if I drive. So works out good for me, but almost killed us this time. But not saying it's Stephanie's fault, obviously. No, no. Like if anything, regardless, I wouldn't have seen it either if I wouldn't, you know, I would just happen to be in the passenger seat looking dead ahead and I just see this cock and SUV barreling at me. Um, and not at a speed that it would have been. It would have been bad. Like, like, I don't know what getting blindsided, 60 miles an hour would have been, but it wouldn't have ended well at all. And so I was able to reach over. And my instincts were like, what I'm going to do? I'm going to yell stop. Like, and Stephanie's going to know what that means. Like, but then we're going to get re-ended from behind us because that person's just going to be knowing that they have a green light and they're just going to go.

Or the person in front of us still wasn't going to know that they're running a red light. So I instinctively just reached over and just laid on the horn and didn't let off. and was just like screaming to Stephanie to stop. And I don't even remember if I said anything. I think I was just, I was just in shock that all I could do was just reach over anger. And, but then she was to tell, have her to hear her tell it back.

Like I was impeding her ability to cut the wheel to the right to kind of get out of the way. Because I guess I just wasn't letting go of the horn, which I didn't, I mean, I'm, I don't know. I really, I kind of think she still could have because I wasn't like blocking her hand. She just had to like use the steering. I don't know. But anyway, the car ended up not hitting us, but my God, it was close. They had, they ended up did, they had to have seen us at some point because they ended up swerving.

It's still all kind of blurry. Like, I don't, I remember everything leading right up to them flying by us. So like, it was some of those like fucking light flashes before your eyes kind of thing. So it was terrifying. We get through the intersection and we're just like, fuck. It's just like, we get out of the car. It's, it was, I, you know, I have, in hindsight, it's like, I almost wanted to call. the cops because like were they drunk? Were they on something? Like you don't and and there was a there were other red lights within like, you know, a few hundred yards of that. So there's no way they made it through the, they had to have run other lights leading up to that because like that light that they were at was red for a while. Like I just the amount of speed that they were coming at and like, granted, I'm not like I'm not a spedometer, but there's, you can tell the difference between someone going 30 and 40 or like 60 plus. Like there's no way this car was going less than 60 miles an hour uphill. So they were just gone and.

I just, I don't know. Does that really shook us up? That shook both of us up. And then we got the flat tire a half hour later. So that was our, that was our travel. So two horrible experiences. But somehow the getting a flat tire was significantly easier to handle emotionally than, you know, it really shook Stephanie up because she's obviously had, um, well, made obviously, but she has a major neck surgery. She's missing vertebrae in her neck. So if like she can't go on roller coaster, she can't ride like, she can't do anything that would give her whiplash at all. It could potentially like, be very, very bad and end her life. So if she got in a bad car wreck, then someone normally might be able to survive, she might not. So that's why it's even more terrifying for us. So that was my least fun. And yeah,

that was the least fucking fun thing I've had in a couple years, I think. And it could have just been so much worse. Like, I could be, the unpaid, an narrated podcast could just be a one-man show if things went differently this weekend.

So I'm glad to be here. And we have this game. We have this game we like to play. Yeah. but yeah, I didn't yeah, so that was that. Brandon, you want to tell the people

with that fucking picture you took of me? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, that was, I can't remember, that wasn't,

that was an accident. That was, that was late at the eagle. So the, so the Keith had photo that had popped up earlier this week that a lot of people have seen.

Yes. It's the most blurry eye. So like the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the Keith Lean that was mentioned earlier, that's probably the face I might make if I didn't have a light in my face. It's just that like, um,

so yeah, I don't even know what happened. You just take your phone out. I don't know if you're just like, I'm gonna take a picture of my buddy, but you didn't realize your flash was on or it was on a flash. And it's in like a very dark bar and you have a goddamn, the brightest LED light in my life.

I'm, I'm literally my eyes are closed because I am blind. I was taking, I think I was going to take a regular, like, I have this like thought every once in a while like when I'm with all you guys and I'm like I should take more pictures. So I think that thought came across my head and where I was either going to take a picture of everyone at that table or something. I don't know.

You did get an end up like aerial pictures throughout the evening. Just not that one. No, not that one. But this one it was like, I don't know, centimeters from your face and it was super bright. And I'm sure you went blind for minutes. That might have been the most like I was mad. I was like briefly mad, but I was honestly like, like if I told you to go fuck yourself, it was sincere in the moment because it hurt.

Like my eyes. Was that better or worse than you than me spitting in your mouth? So I was more drunk when you spit in my mouth incident accidentally. So like I probably didn't. Accident. Yeah, yeah. I think I only had four or five beers at the evil. Because Stephanie reiterated multiple times like you have to help me drive home tomorrow.

We have to like the whole thing that she was like. Yes, we can go to the Arnold, but I want to leave it like super early in the morning, so we can still be home by like lunchtime. And I was like, all right, cool. And that was still horrible. There's a whole funny story about that too that I can kind of, I'll end with later. That was impressive. When I saw that on the Discord the next morning, I think at like 1030, you were like,

all right, home safe. So, yeah, okay, so since we're there, no, it was, we got home at 1130. So she pulled a fast one on me. So, so, okay, we closed the evil midnight and I get back, you know, we spent an obnoxious amount of money to get the hotel. We as in Stephanie booked a room and didn't tell me how much it was and I'm sick to my stomach when I found out how much it was. But nonetheless, neither here nor there. But I had the, I had the most convenient location because I, it was a less than a 10 minute walk from my hotel room to the expo.

And it was less than a five minute walk from my hotel to the Eagle. So I couldn't have had a better setup. But I would have much preferred to save significant amount of money and just Uber. But nonetheless, we, we part ways 12.05, 1215, whatever. something like that at the Eagle and get back to the room, call it 12, you know, 1215-ish. And people upstairs had just gotten back. They had kids of some, like, I don't know, some kind of adolescence because it wasn't just like normal people talking and just walking around.

It was the most rambunctious, like, jumping off furniture, jumping up and down. I felt like someone was doing fucking jumping jacks or something because it was, it wasn't just like the constant talking or the giggling or even the yelling. it was the the the the sheer impactful like shuttering of the floor stomping and jumping that like shook our ceiling in our room and that went on for at least an hour after I got back to the hotel beat have you considered this wasn't kids and it was somebody making kids no I was I was gonna I think earlier when I was doing my monologue they were they were doing everything except that I feel like because it was more than two people not that you not that you can't have more the two people to do that, but it wasn't that. I would have, I would, I could have fallen asleep to that to that, not so bad, I'm sure, but, uh, to this point, like, oh, right. I don't even cold at me. That's just, that's just peaceful noises. That'd have been fine. This was just, is that like, is that what you put on your? I mean, I do. I also, so that is, so that is, I'm a white noise connoisseur, like, white noise. So I have, like, a, you know, a USB white noise machine that I use. That wasn't making a dent in it. And Stephanie can't really stand how loud it is.

So it's not like I could put it on level 10. So once like a 45 minutes or so of me just sitting there being pissed off trying to fall asleep went by. I got my, my Bose, like my podcast headphones on and just cranked a Spotify, uh, um, pink noise. That's what I listen to when I'm trying to fall asleep when Spotify is pink noise. I don't know. I don't know what like wavelength it is is supposed to be calming and peaceful. I don't know. So I ended up falling asleep, call it two o'clock.

the earliest for sure. And the next thing I know, she's like, all right, you're ready to go? And I'm like, it's like 4.30. And I'm like, okay, I got two and a half, three hours of sleep. Sure. I guess I'll get up and take a shower and let's go. And we're out of the hotel by 530. And it wasn't until I was a good bit on the road when I was like, you fuck her. It's daylight. Like I did, because she kept telling me that I got like, yeah, at least three or four hours of sleep, I think. And then I'm like doing the math after realizing it's daylight savings. And I'm like, I didn't even get two hours of sleep, you fuck. Like, what this shit? But also, I was like, I'm, once I realized that it's like, I'm not fucking driving. Like, I'm sorry. Like, no, like, you wanted to leave way

early. Like, I get, she wanted to get home. I get it. I'm glad it happened. But like, I was physically not feeling good. Like, there was no, like, I wasn't, like, I wasn't hungover. I wasn't drunk. Like, I was just hurting. I think I was still emotionally drained from the day before with all the shit. So she ended up, she was a champ. She drove from Columbus, basically to Buffalo, ish and then I kind of carried it the rest of the way. So I drove like the last hour. So I contributed a very small amount. Did I get a picture?

Did I get a picture of what, Daniel? Oh, yes. The podcast. I did, but I think Kurt was drinking. So someone feel free to take a couple good ones because I was kind of hoping Bryce would pop in and we could get a picture with that. But we'll see. Looking out for you. Yeah, no, I appreciate you, brother.

I was like, did I get a picture of the kids? I don't know what. So yeah, that was least first. on for sure. Let me just go through my notes. Is there anything big anyone wanted to chat about? We went to Rogue on Sunday. Okay.

That was kind of cool. I never, last time it just didn't work out when I was at the Arnold. So I mean, it was on my radar. Did you hear about Rogue through Jim Radar? I did. Yeah, I had never heard of Rogue Fitness before Jim Radar. Jim Radar put to put them on my radar. I think they, Jim Radar actually.

kind of put rogue on the map. That's fair. They weren't even a blip on for it. No, they weren't. I mean, I only came to Columbus because of Jim Rade or not the Rove.

But that whole, like, operation is just kind of impressive. I mean, uh, and then so I know that Hogan bought all my plates for me. Uh, I mean,

I paid him back, but he, he got them all from the garage sale there. So I was like, I wonder if that garage sale is still going on. So I go there and I think it's, it's, it's,

it's all the time. It's always a thing. They just, correct. It used to be like, super stocked, I guess. It used to just be certain times, right? Yeah.

Well, I think, like, I remember, like, 10 plus years ago, seeing on, like, Instagram and Facebook where it's like, there's people at the gate sprinting to go, like, pick up, like, $100 barbells off pallets and shit. Now it's just like, they price everything reasonable and they just have a back room that's just always available for you to just walk through. It's all, all, I think any plate is a dollar or pound, no matter if it's like the shittiest, shittiest, shittiest plate in the world or if it just happens to be like a competition kilo plate that just got returned and was scratched up.

So it's the luck of the draw. That's why Hogan goes to fucking the warehouse once a week, I think, because he never knows what's going to be in the pile. And that's what, so I kind of gave Hogan a standing order of, if you find plates, you know, decent plates or whatever, just snag me some.

And I get a message out of nowhere. And he was like, how much do you want? And I was like, can you get like 800 pounds? You know, like, so, you know, it wasn't quite that much, but he got a lot.

And then when we get, when I went with Jakey, I was like, I found another like really good set of reds. I was like, I'm going to grab those. And then Jake got the curl bar attachment. It's,

I mean, it's not even that old. I think it's only been around a year or two or whatever. And it seems pretty legit though. But it was a cool experience. The showroom was really cool. They were super helpful and it was, I don't know,

it was fun. How is the, so you have like seven, however many pairs of reds. Have you had them all lined up? Are there like identical paint? Or is it like a little bit? So the color is all,

matching pretty well. Okay. But the condition is definitely varies. Like so there's some yeah, there's some that are like super beat up and then some that aren't. I'd be fine with that as long as they'd actually kind of like they were slightly different color. Yeah, they're not different colors. Like they all match in the color, which is cool. But the, I don't mind that look either. The, you know, the paint coming off and stuff like that. It's not a big deal. So, but a dollar a pound, you just can't beat that. And any, any equipment in the showroom itself, you're able to try out where you were like, oh, maybe I'll put this on my wish list. Oh, that, I don't know if you've seen it.

It's like a, that multi-grip press bar they have that is like, it's like the MGC. Yeah. Or something like that. Yeah. That was pretty cool. I tried that out. And then, um, I don't know, like, I've tried a few other things that I had already tried before, but it, they saw the, they saw the Denny Stone replicas and on a platform in

the corner. Not that I saw. Uh, I did try there. They had a ghost combo still set up for some reason, even though they don't, sell them anymore. Yeah, no, that's shitty. Yeah, so. But the goods are going to be there in December. We went, we took the family down in December and I got a lift in at Hogan's and, uh, well, lifts a strong word. I tried out some of the implements that are going to be in the world, live easy that I haven't like used, but I was pretty,

feeling pretty beat up. So I didn't lift too hard that day. But anyway, we, we took the, we took the family and went to, to Rogue and the kids were just climbing all over everything. My daughters three. My son is one and a half. So they were like loving it, but they had the Denny Stones there and back then. I do want to go. I think we can go around the room in a little bit. I want to kind of hear about everyone's upcoming plans for the Lift Hard Live Easy. But real quick, I'm going to hit you with our affiliates, obsidian, plate snacks, and belt fed strength. Go ahead and use code unpaid at all those locations, save you a little bit of money. Big Kurt, do you, you're competing this summer. What you're doing? What you're doing, buddy? You coming out to Aberdeen again?

Hell yeah, coming out and doing the full power again. Nice. That's second or third? Because you... I don't have any... I don't have any plans to do any other meets in the interim. So I'm saving it all for this July. Nice, nice, nice.

Spicy, you're running back to power lifting, I'm assuming. Sure am. I'm going to be driving Kurt down. So this would be a lot of fun. Oh, yeah. I was the entire time I was at the Arnold. I'm so ready to actually like lift with. everyone again. It's going to be so fun. Nice. Let's see. Brandon, I know what you're doing,

but what are you going to tell the, tell the, tell the, tell the fans, it should be your, your inaugural lift hardly viz experience. Yep, lift hardly v. Z and inaugural official powerlifting meet. So I'll be doing powerlifting. And, uh, yeah, no real goals other than just not bomb out and have fun with my buddies. No, you said you were going to chip Bryce's total. Yeah. No, I'll be off that. I'll be off by like 500 pounds. That's close. I'd be off by 900, so that's fair.

It's, uh, you get up and get me beat. And Tom, you've, uh, you're going all in on strong man, right? Yeah, I like to, uh, like to say after, uh, since I got done fighting this weekend, I'm going to get back to strong man. Um, if you don't know what that reference is, ask and Mofo will share a two minute video. Actually, just listening to this, Mofo, share that video in the you and you chat for me this week, please. I'm not going to lie, I'm really proud of that one. I thought of it yesterday and I was like that. It's pretty good.

I'm glad we set you up for that because that would have been disappointing not to hear that. Yeah, so. No, yeah, so I'm excited. I've never done any kind of, any, like, weightlifting or, like, you know, power lifting or strong man comp. And they're really excited about that. It's kind of funny. I just, in, like, November, I was like, you know what? I want to kind of get away from just doing the three main lifts.

maybe I'll try like make some DIY strongman implements and just add that into my training. And so I was asking some questions in the Discord. And Jake, Jake to Snake said, he's like, hey, Tom, have you heard about the big but new? And that was all it took. I was like, yeah, you know what? That sounds like a great idea. So signed up. And you give me a good.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of Jake, I actually, I had, I had, I was very happy that I was able to text Jake this week. And I was essentially said, you know, I either had conversations with or overheard conversations with minimum a half dozen people that did nothing but just give glowing reviews on his coaching. And this varied from people that just did, you know, because I believe Jake has like a three tier system or maybe it's two tier. But I know he has a tiered system of pay X amount at a lower rate and just essentially get like, here's your program. And, you know, if you really need something, I can modify it, but you're really not, it's not really not what you're paying for.

you know, and then there's the one where it's like, you know, you pay a decent amount more probably and you can get a lot more regular check-ins and this, that, and the other. So don't, I'm not putting words, you know, go on his website, it'll tell you all about it. But he has a tiered system. And I didn't hear someone shit on one and praise the other. It was like across the board, multiple of our friends, like, not, like, there was no, like there was no, like, there was no, like, there was no, like, there was a suggestion and this was a solution or, like, it wasn't like, they weren't, like, they weren't, like, they weren't, like, they weren't, like, they were genuinely like, like, no, like, like, I was having this issue and this was the solution or, or, you know, know this is just it was really cool to hear my friends talk about my other friend in such a positive manner so i really enjoyed that and i did share it with jake and he was uh he seemed pretty happy to hear that so that was a that was a cool little you know highlight of the weekend for me um Stephanie's reaction to the the new keith face was she literally thought it was a selfie that i took and i had to write that one down because i was going to forget that and i was like wait because she was like, why did you take a picture of yourself? I'm like, I didn't.

Because I do send her a lot of selfies. And if I send her a selfie from like the bedroom, like, if I'm laying in bed and it's dark or something and I send her a selfie and she's at work or something. And if, uh, the Bert Reynolds. Yeah. Well, it's just like it is, it ends up just being just like my face. The whole thing.

Keith head. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dick joke. Uh, I will say that the new Keith had created like 20 minutes of meme gold on the Discord. Yeah.

Oh my God. Fit Matt, Fat Matt did win it with the, like I don't, like I, I've actually like made that a main post because I was like, man, that's got like,

it's, it's funny. It's, it's relevant. It's new. It also dug up old lore. Like, it was,

it was good. It was really, it was very funny. I, I enjoyed that. I laughed at that immensely. Um, all right,

we talked about that. We talked about that. We talked about that. Um, all right. So Arnold, 2027, who's coming back?

Arnold, let me for the Arnold. Arnold, who's coming back and what do they think they'll, you know, partake in? I'll be back. I mean, I'm three hours away, so I mean, it's not too bad of a drive. Especially if somebody rides down, rides up there with me.

You know, it's not, you know, it passes the time well, and it's not too bad. As long as I can get a hotel fairly cheap. And, you know, I think you'll do the expo again or I think it'll be more of just a, I was talking to Emily about that. If I go back, which I mean, I think next year what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually pay for Strongman just to, you know, that Saturday.

I definitely, last year I did Friday and Saturday and then came back home Sunday, which makes the trip obviously twice as expensive. So I think it was a good choice this year just to do Saturday. So I think I'll do that in future years. But I could also. see myself if I did not do the strong man, I probably wouldn't, I would forego the expo all together probably and just get up there in time for lunch and dinner and, you know, call today kind of thing.

Yeah, I think I was surprised some people actually, like, even, because we were talking like, yeah, I think next year a lot of people are going to just maybe skip the expo. And Tommy was like, they did that this year. Like, there's a lot of people that were here at the Eagle that didn't go to the expo. I don't blame people. I mean, it's definitely not a lot of people seen, but it's also a financial thing. Like if you don't want to spend that money to get in and then just be overwhelmed, it's like, it makes sense to me. So I will say it might be cool to watch the strong man once.

Like, I'll have to get in. I might have to get on that once, but it all depends. Like if I'm coming anyway, but it's, but if I do the strongman, I'd have to do a hotel Friday night because I wouldn't, I'd miss it all. But then it's like, you know, taking off an extra day of work. It's kind of hard. But I think as long as the Eagle dinner is a thing and it's organized as well as it was this year. And it's not just like, oh, maybe we can get into a place. and maybe we can see some people and maybe we can go to this bar and not hear each other.

Like, I wouldn't come to Columbus for that. Like if it was just like, hey, we're going to meet a brothers and maybe see each other, but probably not. Like, I'm good. Like, I'm going to stay home. But the super organized aspect this year was so clutch. So I can't give that enough credit.

You know, Hogan getting that set up and Tanner and Tommy kind of coming through with it. So it made the weekend for me for sure. But spicy, I can't imagine you're going to, you do you think you are well, well experienced nothing that you can book another plane ticket or we're going to see at home gymcon maybe i was thinking about that yeah i don't know it's it's more of the financial aspect of you telling me brother plane tickets aren't cheap and driving 14 hours just doesn't seem fun so yeah it might be a play at the plate but maybe home gym con but home gym com's where it's that yeah it's such kind of my impression right now but it being

Two weeks after Lift Hard Live Easy is kind of cutting it close. But there's, I can make a few more bad decisions, I think. Oh, yeah. That was cool that Jake was there too, Home JimCon, Jake. Yep, yeah, Garage Gym Experiment, Jake. I talked to him for a good bit. If we could get like the Eagle experience after Home GymCon, like that would make it the most best thing.

Because the getting a good crew meetup at Home GymCon has been somewhat difficult, just because it's like, we all go to the Guy Fierrez place, but it's like, you know, it's, it, it, that, when that worked, but like, I thought that was fun. Anything, anything in a bigger crowd, though, we'd have to do the whole rent-a-room thing. And then you got to have people pay up front. And then people maybe chit the bed and don't do that. And then it becomes super awkward. And, well, and in that area of town, it's kind of hard to, like, rent a room out, like, just that downtown metropolis there. They could get a ballroom at the hotel, but that would be, because like, well, that's what we're, like, the, like, the VIP thing is Friday night. So if we do. So if we do. So if we do. So, a crew meetup, hopefully it ends up being Saturday. Fish for anyone that's already invested in the VIP tickets, but it is what it is. Yeah. But I'm super excited for home Jim Con.

We got to do PBR again, though. Oh, was that the bull riding place? The bull riding place. Yeah. Who, what asshole is going to get on it this year? So it was it was Robo and Hogan last year. And I think they were the only sub 30 year olds in our group that night, at least at that time. So that made sense.

But I will, I thought about it briefly. and then my yeah no I'm never going to do something like that I'm too old for that shit that doesn't happen my neck hurts thinking about it um and then I think we was that it we went in the circle everyone said what they were doing this summer oh Kurt I missed you buddy what's up it's tough too early to say whether or not I definitely go um I think everyone should go once so like you know regardless of everything you know being said about it it's definitely worth seeing at least once. Brandon, you had said it earlier.

It's less of a strength expo now. You know, it is more about just kind of like the commercialization aspect of it. But it kind of depends on who all's going out. You know, like Spicey and I talked in Crew Falls this year, and we both kind of committed to going then. So like knowing that he was going was a huge incentive. So if there's people who are going to be going for the first time, if I have another buddy who might not be crew who who wanted to go,

that would certainly be the incentive because like we've been saying, it really is about to meet it up, and it's really about getting to hang out with cool people. That's the real draw of the event. I think in the in person, like the buddy tag along system worked because Nap time barbell's buddy,

I think, joined and I think someone else's buddy might have joined. There was a lot of like, hey, what podcast episode do we listen to as I drive with my non-crew friend down? And I mean, I don't quote me on that, but I think some of those, guys ended up being like, these might be my people. I'm going to get in on this. So that is kind of wild to me to be like, yeah, I'm going to join crew before I listen to a single episode of

Masonomics or like my second episode of Massonomics. But Tom, did we hit you yet, bud? I can't remember. No, no, but I mean, I'd say I'd have to be real horses ass not to go. It's, it's less than a two-hour drive. Yeah. So like up until this year, I just drove down on Saturday, hung out with everyone and then drove home Saturday night. So I can make it like a real cheap trip, you know. And if I wanted, I do think I like the idea of staying, especially, you know, next year, like be able to hang out a little bit more and not have to worry about like how tired I'm going to be the next day.

So I think that'll be a big. And it's also my birthday weekend usually. It usually lands on. So just real easy and can be super cheap if I want it to be or if I'm. want to spend a little more on the hotel and stuff can. So yeah. Happy birthday. Thanks.

I'm gonna, are you, you're sub 30, I'm guessing? Are you Nate's age, give or take? Where are you at? Yeah,

I'm a little older. So I just turned 33. Oh, man, okay, you're closer to us. That's good. It's like super old,

you know? I mean, you're not as old as, you know, as old as me, but I'm getting there. But I think you're the oldest here tonight. Aren't you Kurt?

You're a couple years older than me. Yep. You don't, you don't party like it, but you, you go hard. You got no gray hairs yet either. I think I,

that night. So like, I don't know the science, but like once you get a gray hair, does it, is it always a gray hair? Like, does it ever like go back?

I don't think is that a thing? Or is people just pluck them? Because I guess mainly because I think Stephanie and I's day were so stressful. Like we both had gray hairs pop up that next day from that like the intersection incident. Like, swear to God. Like I had another gray hair in the beard and she was like looking at the mirror and like,

I didn't have this yesterday. I'm like, maybe it's just more of a, you didn't notice it kind of thing. Like, I don't know. Like, does your, I remember my mom telling me a story that she, you know, she claims she got gray hair overnight because one of my older brothers was like almost died and was in the hospital for like a month and traumatic brain injury, et cetera. And it's like, does stress actually cause gray hair instantly? Is that like a thing? Instantly in the sense of like within a day. I always thought that was kind of an old wives tale.

But, yeah. I'm getting any, you get any. I think what you're looking for is touch a gray for men. They just run that through me. They don't really set off those Keith pictures. Oh, yeah. I'm the only one without a beard in here, by the way. I just noticed that.

That's kind of cool. You got a stash. Our stash has more hair than some of our beards, probably. Let's see. I had one with that. Oh, I almost had to do it. Is the word addendum, addendum, amendment? Whichever.

You can use both, actually. Yeah, yeah. My most fun might be. So my least fun last year was Tom spoiling the strong man results forming. And I say this sarcastically because it is a joke. But like it was just, I was like, oh. It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a joke enough.

I might have been. And I think it was like my first interaction with me. I was just like, you asshole, you spoiled. I didn't know Mitch won yet. I was going to watch it on the drive back tomorrow. And I think he was a little angry that I gave him such shit about. Wait, Mitch won last year? No, I wasn't.

I wasn't angry. It was just like, it was funny. You were pissed for a second. We had spent, like, hours standing 20 feet from the arena. And he's like, spoilers. And I'm like, we're, like, we're right here. Like, that's like being at the game somewhere. Yeah, like, spoilers.

But I got you back this year, I think, didn't I? And I think you might have played into it. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I said something of like, so-and-so got X amount. I think I just spoiled a single event possibly. Yeah. And you're like, I think you were waiting a year. year to give me the same over the top reaction because it took me a second to remember I was like

what's he I was like oh I got him back fuck you but like you know all in good fun but that was that did that that full circle moment for me it was really really enjoyable I'll wait like two decades for a bit that makes it all the more funny to me absolutely I guess I'm more more affiliates for you guys to try out one more time so barbell rescue home gym Con, an apparel from the Strenko, code unpaid at all those locations. I'll save you a little bit of money. Does anybody have any unpaid or underrated? They want to ask someone specifically.

I know this is kind of just last minute. I'm just going through the notes. I was somewhat unprepared, but I did my best. But, I mean, we can close it out shortly. But if anyone has a good zinger, they want to, you know, ask somebody. But if not, no big deal. This is where the, you know, the guest gets to ask the host something or the guest gets to ask the other host, the other guest something. but if not we had a good at time.

I'm happy. I'm content. This is an episode. Hey, Kurt, unpaid or underrated, Ohio History Museum. Unpaid. I don't feel like it doesn't present the history of Ohio. I think it just kind of like provides some general facts about the state itself. But it seems like there's a lot of really cool historical people from Ohio.

that don't really get a lot of play in the exhibits at that museum. So there's a lot of really cool things to do in Columbus. My recommendation would be to look at some of the other options besides the Ohio History Museum. Unpaid or underrated G-waggons. So is that a Mercedes or a Mercedes or a BMW? It's an SUV. Mercedes. Okay.

So it's like a $100,000 freaking. Like a $240,000. Oh, Jesus. SUV. That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah. That's, I could buy, I could buy my house fucking a couple times with that. Jesus.

Well, not now, but like 15 years ago when I bought it. Damn. That's, that's a big number to wrap my head around. Holy shit. Yeah, I mean, that might be exaggerating a little bit. That might take some wriggling, but it's a lot. That's a couple years of years. It's a few years of work.

Oh, no. So, for sure, unpaid, because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my nothing should cost that much money. No, I think you were right. I mean, I just Googled, and I'm not really looking to see what they are, but it looks like one, like which specific type or anything, but looks like there's one for 215, like in 2020. Wow.

That is crazy. But you can get them for as low as 153, so. Oh, that's dirt cheap. I got that. Underrated all day. I'll just cancel my supporting membership for like one month, and I'll be able to cover that. If you're broke, just say it.

I mean. I didn't know this was an episode for the pores. Spicy pizza, unpaid or underrated, stealing the spotlight from Big Paul. That is always going to be underrated. That is always going to be underrated. It is great for my ego, and I know it hurts him, so it's a two for one. So I'll do that every day and twice on Sunday. All right, boys.

we're good, I think. So go around the room. I'll just set you up. We can kind of do the, you know, the outro. Big Tom, where they're going to find you at? On Instagram at 1-9 underscore training. And do you have anything to say to Nate for who was supposed to be here tonight? And I don't know.

I think he just said that he doesn't want to hang out with Tom anymore. Or Nate isn't real or you're not real or one of you's dead. I'm still not sure about the Lord. You mean Tom's buddy, Nate? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one. I mean, he's busy blipping over there. He's blipping all over my My lawyers have advised me

Not to comment on that subject All right Well we do want to get you on the podcast in the future Tom I've historically just told Nate to Schedule you whenever he's available Because being your good friend You think that would be a better episode But maybe Joey and I'll just interview without him at this point

Because he seems too busy to get around to it And then Big Kurt, where are you at buddy? I'm on Instagram at Kate Dubs underscore 82 and on the Discord, Big Kurt W. All right. Big Brandon, who you at? Who you at?

Who you at? On Instagram, I'm O'Doyle underscore Basement underscore Lifts. And on the Discord, Big Brandon O'Doyle rules with a Z on the end. Love it. Big spicy. Where you're at? I'm at Instagram at Spicy Pizza, 8123. And that is the same for Discord.

I'm glad you finally change your Instagram, because that was. was annoying. Like coach something or other. I'm like, I can't find this kid. Where the hell is he? We are Unpaid or Underd Podcasts. Go follow us on Instagram. We get the website Unpaid Interned Podcast.com. I've been doing, I've been doing some work there myself personally, but we'll talk about that on a future episode. We get the Discord channel on Massonomics page. Go ahead and talk to us in there. Tell me what you liked about the podcast. Tell me what you didn't like about. Well, fuck you if you didn't like the podcast. But, you know, I'm Ketani Katz 73 on Instagram. importantly go follow my orange gem the no wine cellar until then see you next tuesday