Wonderful! - Wonderful! 168: Frasier Force

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

Rachel's favorite driving lessons! Griffin's favorite arcade competition! Rachel's favorite off-brand products! Griffin's favorite science museum! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources: https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatter   MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hello, this is Rachel McElroy. Hey, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Sorry, I was silencing my cell phone, which is something I like to do so I can really dial in with you. And I just saw, you know, funny jokes, some memes, and it caught me off guard a little bit when you got started. Bernie sat in a funny way and people are still just wild about it. I don't necessarily, look, I love me some Bernie Sanders. Big, big fan of the gentleman and his work.

But I don't understand why that picture has become the biggest thing since, you know. I bet there were a lot of people, you know, sitting funny at that inauguration. I guess so. I think it was at the mittens. Was it the sort of casual dress? I mean, my man is advanced in age, has to stay warm, protect himself from the elements.

I don't know if there's anything funny about that. Can I tell you something that I really appreciated? So supposedly Bernie was carrying a manila envelope that somebody said contained the tickets for the inauguration. And I just thought that was big dad energy oh that's huge i'm just like i got the tickets in this envelope so i'm bringing the envelope to the event did the envelope also include printed out map quest directions god that's a choice oh

it's good anyway i'm dialed in now i'm going to talk uh with our listeners and with you my wife rachel about things that are good, things that we like. Because this is a wonderful show about things that are good that we like. Do you have any small wonders, please? All right. This is kind of basic. This is kind of like hashtag pregnancy. But through the various services where people deliver food to your house, you can get pints of ice cream.

I'm pretty sure we've talked about this before. Did we talk about it? Maybe, yeah. We've done this a few times from a few different services and ice cream vendors, and I'm not complaining. I go to the store. I go to the grocery store.

I have started venturing out to the store, which is not something I did at the beginning of the pandemic, but I have felt that I have found ways to do it safely. Yeah. But whenever I'm buying groceries for the week, I am all business. Yes. And then I get home and I think, man, I should have gotten myself a treat.

You should have been naughty, huh? And I realized that there are ways to get treats now without leaving your house. And this is a revelation. My Small Wonder uh in and of itself it's on hulu it's a it's a magician named derek delgadio and it's a live stage show that was performed in new york like 500 times that i heard like a lot about from a few different people and now it's it's it is televised and you can watch i was watching an interview uh stephen colbert and his wife produced it and i was watching an interview and they didn't want to say anything about it.

No, nor do I. That's all I'm going to say about it. We cannot give you more of a description. It is important you go in knowing as little as possible. found special i found myself and maybe this says more about like sort of my personal inclination towards fomo but it mainly made me like really bummed out that i didn't get to see it in person because i i think it hits hard watching it on hulu but i don't i think uh there's weird celeb cameos just like in the audience and uh derek delgadio does something to tim gunn that leaves him visibly shaken. And I was like, fuck, I wish I was Tim Gunn in that moment. I bet that was powerful.

That was some church camp stuff happening in that room. Yeah, it's very, very cool. It's very good. And if you are not like a magic enthusiast, because at first I was like, I don't know if I feel like watching magic. It's not really about magic. No, there's like four quote unquote tricks. He has the training to do some illusions, but that is not the focus. It's not even illusions.

It's just card work that is like the best sleight of hand I've maybe ever seen. Okay, anyway, that's all we should say about it. You go first this week. I do. What do you got? I wanted to talk. Today, things just came to me when I was preparing. And one of the things that just came to me was driver's ed.

You like that. I like it. Was your driver's ed, did you take driver's ed? Yes. Was it taught by a coach? I assume so. You don't remember? Well, it wasn't a person from our school.

Oh, fascinating. It was at the junior high, and you would show up at night like twice a week in a classroom. And this guy got up front, and he taught people not just from my high school, but from like the region. At night? Like it wasn't part of the high school curriculum? No. Interesting. You had to like sign up and attend at night. And I'm guessing pay for it, I'm assuming.

That's bonkers, babe. That's, I, maybe. We did not get part of the school day to do it. Okay. Maybe Huntington High was the exception, but like driver's ed was an elective that you, that you took and the cars were like there at the high school and you got in. And I think the volleyball coach, coach Willie Wilson, who also taught me about anatomy, multidisciplinarian. Here was the thing. My experience,

not only did you do evenings, but then if you want to driving practice. So evenings was going to the classroom, watching videos. Weekends was when you got your driving practice. And so he would like show up at your house, the car full of kids, and you would all like drive around for a while and take turns yeah uh so it was i mean it took a lot of outside

effort and part of that is because a lot of states uh mine and yours included do not require driver's ed no i don't think uh west virginia i looked it up west virginia doesn't missouri doesn't no i remember there's some like shortcuts. Like there's like a ladder that I remember you work up where you get like a piece of paper if you complete driver's ed where then like you don't need to get your permit. Like you can skip the permit if you take driver's ed and just go straight to the license. Otherwise, you have to have your permit for a year before you can get your license, which makes sense, I guess. A lot of this stuff has changed since when I was 16, you didn't get a provisional license. You got your real deal license, but they have changed that.

Wow. That's wow. I think that changed shortly after me, but yeah. No, there was no like at 18, you get your real license. There was just like 16, you're done. Were you in a hurry to get your driver's license? Oh my gosh, yes. Okay, I was not.

I'm curious to hear why. I know, we've talked about this before because you had like dedicated chauffeurs that would take you places and older siblings. I had friends who had cars. I didn't have dedicated chauffeurs. I lived, so part of it too was that i did not attend the school that was associated with my neighborhood uh because my mom was a teacher in the district

just outside of where we lived okay so all of my friends would grouse like oh 15 minutes to get to your house you know or 10 minutes or whatever to get to your house can't can't you just be dropped off you know like there was a lot of that. And I didn't have a car or anything waiting for me. I was just anxious to have that ability. Yeah. So the majority of states do require it. Actually, 32 states require teens to take driver's ed.

It just so happens that West Virginia and Missouri were not one of them. I feel like our driver's ed classes, i took it my first semester my senior year and that summer before then there were like three or four fatalities of students at my school who just for whatever reason like that summer was really bad for my school too and that driver's ed class was harrowing because of what that like i feel like that's an old joke is that they show really gruesome videos and shit like that uh they were trying to put the fear of god and also fast cars in us yeah and uh it that first year i mean that's the thing like like teens hugely are more likely to get into accidents and they're more likely to be fatal. And that was a thing at my high school too.

There were a lot of classmates I had that had gotten terrible car accidents. In the 70s, 95% of students in the country had access to public driver's education. How many? What percent? 95%. Wow. Everybody was doing it. Okay.

It was like a brand new thing. Like there was budget for it. Everybody was doing it. Now that is not like a brand new thing. Like there was budget for it. Everybody was doing it. Now that is not the case. Everything varies state by state. So Missouri, their workaround is that you have a guardian who certifies that you have received 40 hours of driving instruction, including a minimum of 10 hours of nighttime driving. So they don't require you to take driver's ed, but you have to have somebody that takes care of you that says, yeah, they did it. And that's kind of their workaround.

In West Virginia, it is 50 hours of supervised practice. Yeah, I didn't get that. And well, that's the thing. So there was a survey done by Volvo, and one in three licensed drivers said they had spent less than 20 hours behind the wheel prior to taking their driver's test. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I wasn't particularly interested in driving for partially for the reasons you outlined, but also like I had a lot of shit going on my senior year of high school. So it wasn't until the summer after I graduated that I was like, okay, I took driver's ed. I need to just go to the DMV and take this this test but at that point it had been a while so our friend justin let me drive his car

around for a bit just to get practice i'm pretty sure that's what i took the test in uh which is a wild story yeah i guess it could be any car anybody's car yeah and then we went to dairy queen afterwards oh it was a nice day. A big driver boy. Big driver boy. In this survey, the vast majority of parents, 80%, indicated they are seeking additional driver education measures to help educate their child because there's just not a lot available. Yeah. lot available yeah um it's so it's like one of those uh logistics things that i feel like should have a bigger emphasis in in uh middle school and high school especially of just like here's how uh

i guess this is kind of what home ec was right in a in a manner of speaking i think a lot of home ec was antiquated but things like here's how checks work here's how bank accounts work yeah here is how uh insurance here's how insurance works like here's how checks work here's how bank accounts work yeah here is how uh insurance here's how insurance works like here's how all of these different things work driving is one of those i feel like where i knew nothing about it then i took driver's ed and i was like okay i've now i grasped the fundamentals and that may have saved my life essentially it's wild that it's not required yeah i mean there's and there's any number of reasons like your guardian may not be the most appropriate person to teach you how to drive. Yeah.

Whether it's just like a stressful situation for them or they don't have the time or availability to do it. Clint McElroy was stunt in. He would always that man would hit the NOS anytime he hit Third Avenue. He would blaze it. the nos anytime we hit third avenue he would blaze it he gotten more sort of impromptu drag races than i i can't admit because somebody would drive up next to him on a red light and be like hey race me chicken and my dad would go off clint mcelroy would go off well you know he was radio's clint mcelroy you know he was the bad he was the bad boy of radio. That's true. And he did say on the radio, I will race anyone in this city. Get a t-shirt.

He had a little t-shirt can and he kept in there just if you beat him. Yeah. Yeah. So Texas, just so we know, you have to complete a 32-hour driver education course. Okay. So we'll have to face that. Henry will never drive uh that's it it's hard to imagine him driving the next baby maybe new baby maybe can drive henry i don't see

henry oh that kid is not showing me that's the spark of safe driving. Yeah. And just so you know, there are states that have absolutely nothing at all. Arkansas, nothing. Go for it, Arkansas. Yeah. No previous experience required. Just go in there and get it. I think it's a good thing. I think for me, I mean, understandably, my parents were a little afraid I think when I was driving yeah uh and

so the driver's ed teacher there was something comforting about somebody who had been doing this and did it all the time and knew kind of how bad somebody could be yeah if memory serves my driver's ed teacher was bored when like somebody was getting on the highway for the first time. They'd be like, yep, go ahead. Yep, use your blinker. Like, okay, are you sure? I remember I turned the wrong way down a one-way street. It was like one of those streets that had like a median in the middle. Yeah.

And you had to kind of know like which side of the median you should be on. Traditionally right. Yeah. In America. Did you get confused maybe and think you were back? It was like in a very residential area so it did not end up being particularly dangerous but he was very calm the whole time he was just like all right now um this is not this is not where you're supposed to

be it was nice it's nice to have that experience yeah uh and i'm grateful for it yeah uh my first thing is uh i feel like peak griffin topic on wonderful is air hockey uh i feel like i have a i feel like i have a type and it's like benign entertainment activities that i do a little bit of research into and find that there's like a scene around like a a group of extremely hardcore professional air hockey players which i did i love air hockey i do too it occupies such a special place in my heart because my exposure to air hockey came at mostly through arcades because yeah so so well i don't know i feel like there's some like bars that that will have an air hockey but i guess it is sort of mainly the the dominion of dave and buster um but anytime i would go to arcades i was always on my grind for tickets uh like i believe that about you yeah

i would like try i i we would go to the pub which was the name of uh this like pizza place uh in in huntington and i'm almost certain i talked about before that had this huge arcade. And we would go there, and after a while, I knew which arcade games gave out the easiest tickets, and I would just pour all my money into those. But air hockey represented kind of the exact opposite thing, where there was no incentive to play it except for the spirit of competition against another person and that was always kind of like novel to me that was always like really refreshing and it also helped that like the main things that you need to be good at air hockey are like hand-eye coordination and reflexes which have always been like two two strong suits of mine like i've never been one to boast about my sort of physical capabilities but those are two things where i feel like pretty confident in yeah and so air hockey was always

like a place that i could go to uh you know hold hold my own people don't need me to explain what air hockey is there was some uh debate in the uh some of the research i did about uh there are cheap air hockey tables that don't actually have the air coming up that that creates the cushion under the puck that you know eliminates friction sometimes it's just smooth plastic people like that's that's i think we can all agree that's not air yeah there's no air you gotta have the air in order to have uh air hockey um i was as though i was pretty good at air hockey i was hampered i probably didn't go pro because I was afraid of being hit by a wayward puck, which I don't know if that ever actually happened to me.

And like, you definitely have some intense games where the puck goes flying off the table and you're like, woof, if that had hit my face. Yeah, but it's not like the puck weighs like the weight of a real puck. Yeah, but when your youth pastor blasts it at you at what feels like 90 miles an hour it carries it carries i would say deadly ballistic force nobody takes that sentence out

of context yeah i guess that would also be bad so the game was invented by designers at brunswick billiards uh who have made a ton of stuff the name is is very familiar and basically they were like trying to develop a game that could take place on a frictionless surface. So like the first thing that they sort of worked on was this frictionless table, which, you know, pumped up air through the bottom of it. And then like once they started to move stuff across that table, they were like,

this looks like hockey. And so air hockey was born. It seems like every description I read made it seem fairly like formulaic after that. Like they backed into it. Like they backed. We know that we want it to be frictionless. So let's get to work and then see what it becomes.

Right. And so there have been unsurprisingly sort of professional air hockey leagues that have come out of that. There are some international competitions that are governed by two different bodies, the U.S. Air Hockey Association and the Air Hockey Players Association. And I was reading about the scene and the scene is like a little too dry, I feel like, to be interesting.

But I did read about like the strategies that are employed in high-level air hockey. Yeah, I would like to know what it is because in my head, it's just trying to hit the puck. Yeah, I mean, that's important for sure. The biggest thing that I learned about is called the triangle defense. And it's that the like hands down optimal defense when the puck is sort of about to come at you is to keep the striker, which is the name of the thing that you actually keep your hands on, which you're supposed to only use your fingertips because then it's easier to like move it around faster. I always like death grip that

thing. Apparently that's wrong. You keep it eight inches directly in front of your goal. And if you do that, any straight shot that comes at you is so easy to block right yeah okay um and then if one comes at you with a bank shot which is like so often the case you pull the striker back to the corners of your goal and then that way you have more time to like work the the angle and figure out exactly how to intercept it so you draw literally a triangle you know from the corners of your side of the table to eight inches in front of the goal. And that's like your that's your defense zone. And then there are different what are they called? There are different drifts, which are sort of the patterns that you hit the puck in, which includes center, diamond, diagonal and L shaped trajectories.

diamond diagonal and L shaped trajectories. And the big thing with air hockey is basically deception, like making it seem like I'm about to hit this in an L shape to the left, but really, it's coming at you in a, you know, a diamond pattern to the right or a center shot or something like that, which isn't so surprising, I guess. But this does make me want to see like, if there's videos on YouTube of pro competitions, because it's kind of like ping pong where you like, you don't really know what's possible until you've watched somebody do it. Until you've watched pros, but I guarantee you that that exists.

I mean, everything's on YouTube. But yes, my strategy is just traditionally like hit it sideways in like a way that I think is going to be really clever. That's always the most embarrassing part of ping pong, or not ping pong, air hockey,

is you're like, I'm going to put some real stink on this. And you just like slap it to the side and it just like impotently bounces between the left and right walls without actually moving forward at all. Or it like hits the end and immediately comes back into your goal. Yeah, that's always bad. Especially I always try to put a little bit of that triple deke on it. I'm like, like just bouncing around my side like Like you don't know which way it's going to, ah,

bang. And it hits the back wall and immediately goes right back into my goal. It's easy. I feel like to just completely show your ass in air hockey, but I really like it. I always, anytime I go somewhere and there's an air hockey table, which I feel like is pretty rare these days.

It's always like a little, whoo. I will say like 50% the time and it does not work most of the time yeah a lot of times it's just unplugged and you put money in and you're like oh this is well okay 75 cents i'll never see ever again hey can i steal you away yeah Got a couple of scrumbo-dons here, and I would love to read this first one, because it is for Sam, and it's from Allie, who says, To sweet Sam, you're the most thoughtful, caring, and all-around wonderful interweb friend in the whole wide world. I'm so glad that we met on Twitch.

I can't wait to watch you grow this year and i hope we can meet up in london this may i feel so lucky to have crossed your path in this life i like you and love you your pal from across the pond ollie or alley it could be either one travel griffin travel do you remember travel sort of you would get in these car these sky cars i think is what they were called and on it i don't remember much about these sky cars but the food was not great and i'd like to do 10 minutes or so about that can i read the next one yes please this message is for katie agnes quinn j Carly, my fiance, Nate, and my dog, Charlie. They should have split this up over two messages.

We are getting robbed right now. This is from Ashley. To my friends, every Saturday we play D&D, Jackbox, and chill fills me with the most wonderful feelings. You all bring such joy to my life. I don't know what I would do without you. You are extraordinary. All my love, Ash. That sounds like the best Saturday.

You know where my head went immediately? Was Saturday mornings. Not Saturday evenings. And I don't know why. Every Saturday morning, I spring out of bed, grab my D20, grab my mobile device, and play games with my pals that is the thing i people talk about the the change in your life when you have kids and that is that is my maybe my most

jealous moment of my friends that do not have children is that saturday morning where you just do whatever you want where you just get up when you want and you're like maybe i'll watch a movie right now yeah no no not anymore not anymore but the smile they smile it's like love and you're like you feel offended like complete every moment it's so precious and it goes so fast so don't blink or you'll miss it you're gonna miss those poopy diapers aww so stoked to do this all over again hey there beautiful people did you hear that good good news something about the baby Jesus

mmm he's coming back or do you mean the fact that Apple Podcasts is named Fanta one of the best shows of 2020 I mean we already knew that we was hot stuff but a little Do you mean the fact that Apple Podcasts has named Fanti one of the best shows of 2020? I mean, we already knew that we was hot stuff, but a little extra validation never hurts, okay? Hosted by me, writer and journalist Jared Hill. And me, the ebony entrantress myself, Travelle Anderson.

Fanti is your home for complex conversations about the gray areas in our lives. The people, places, and things we're huge fans of but got some anti-feelings toward. You name it, we Fanta you. Nobody's off limits. Check us out every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your slay-worthy audio. Can I tell you my second thing? I need it. Generic store brand items.

Hey, okay. Okay. I wager that the Weiner household dealt in these sort of contraband cereal bags. Yes, for sure. 100%. As did the McElroy household. Yes. And I think, you know, when you're a kid, you're very susceptible to, like, advertisement. Yes. And I think, you know, when you're a kid, you're very susceptible to

like advertisement, you know, you'll see commercials and you'll think like, I've got to have that very specific brand item. But I think as you get older, you realize it doesn't really matter. And it is more affordable. Yes. And I am willing to make that choice. more affordable yes and i am willing to make that choice i'm trying to find the name uh where my head immediately went was sam's club sodas uh-huh oh i have a whole segment oh good okay okay good specifically on dr pepper okay generic versions i think i remember what dr pepper was called i do remember though the version i wonder if it was at hy-Vee or Walmart, but the Lucky Charms that was called Marshmallow Mateys. Oh, that's fun. I like that better, I think.

Yeah, specifically the names is probably what I find most delightful. But, you know, of course there is research out there to suggest that most of the time it doesn't make a difference. In the 70s and 80s, this is when it became particularly popular in the United States. There was kind of high price inflation and a lot of people were looking for a cheaper option. According to Consumer Reports, which you know I love, also had great prominence in the Weiner household, you can save an average of 25 by choosing the generic option about 74 of the consumer report readers surveyed and this was back in 2018 so they were highly

satisfied with the quality of store brands most people are just like this is fine with me yeah uh consumer reports has a bunch of recommendations around like particularly good generic versions like Trader Joe's and Target. Costco, as we know, has Kirkland. Walmart with their great value. And then even Whole Foods has a 365 every day generic version. And most of the time, you know, once you find something that works pretty well, you get pretty loyal to it. And it's so easy to convince your parents, I feel like enormous bag of fruity pebbles that costs a dollar and 15 cents is a good value uh so i wanted to specifically talk about dr pepper just because you know a lot

of times like you know ketchup is always going to be called ketchup but when you talk about soda a lot of times they have these kind of goofy names. And Dr. Pepper is one of them. Right. So here are some of the other versions. Dr. Thunder, which I'm sure you're familiar with, is Walmart. Dr. K is Kroger. Dr. Smooth is Harris Teeter, which I like a lot.

The best, the best, the best. HEB has Dr. B. Dr. Perky, which I was not familiar with. Don't like that as much. Dr. Check at Winn-Dixie. Mr. Pibb. Mr. Pibb is not a, Mr. Pibb is a. It's not really a generic.

No, it's like a sprite to Sierra Mist. But I wanted to give a shout out to Mr. Pibb. I'll give many shouts out to Mr. Pibb. And also two others I wasn't familiar with, Dr. Bob and Dr. Pete. Okay, a lot of unearned doctor everybody understands it's important to retain the doctor yeah right like if you don't have that no one's gonna know what you're not mr pibb though no it's true mr pibb was like let's not let's not let's not try and play in that league this is this is stolen valor for doctors.

Our soda has not really committed the time and energy necessary to have that credential. No. This soda went to the school of hard knocks and not a fancy medical school. I couldn't think of one. That's not good. There's lots of them. Johns Hopkins? Johns Hopkins would have been a good one to say.

What were you looking at? What did you want to share? Oh, just the names of all the different ones. Like, I love Sam's Choice is the name of Sam's Club, like brand. Because I remember you go to Sam's Club, which we did. It's the only place that we got groceries. So we never did that only child, but I can understand how with three boys, that would be ideal. Very hungry boys. And they would have soda machines that just lined the front of the store that you could buy like vending machines. But then you could also buy the 12-pack of cans of whatever. Their generic brown soda Coca-Cola simulation was just called Cola.

Love that. Twist Up was Lemon Lime. Mountain Lightning was Dr. Pepper. And then they stopped being interesting after that. There is one that was a red cream soda that I was very fond of called Red Tornado. Oh, that's fun. Strong is what it is. Yeah, I think that's it.

Wait, Mountain Lightning wasn't Mountain Dew? Mountain Lightning was Mountain Dew. Oh, okay. You just suggested that it was their Dr. Pepper. Oh, sorry. I misspoke. That would be wild. No, their Dr. Pepper you covered was, what was it?

Dr. Thunder. Oh, okay. Yeah, because Sam's Choice is Walmart. Is what they sell at Walmart, yes. Hey, can I do my second thing? Yes. So excited for this one. Very excited. I cannot believe we have not talked about it before.

I was going to do one on children's science museums, but then I decided I'm just going to do one on CO's science museums, but then I decided I'm just going to do one on COSI because that is where it's fucking at. COSI is in Columbus, Ohio. If you live nearby and you have knock on, and when I say nearby, I mean within a five hour drive, six hour drive. You got to get to Columbus and you got to go to COSI. It's been forever since I've been to COSI. So I will put that stipulation down here. And I have a tendency to blow it out of proportion in my mind, like things from my childhood. I remember them as being like way cooler than they actually were. But then when

I was reading about what has happened in COSI since I've last gone to it, it has only gotten way, way, way radder. COSI stands for the Center of Science and Industry. And it is one of the most renowned science and research museums like in the whole world. Last year, USA Today named it the number one science museum in the country. It is a massive 320,000 square foot facility that is built right on the banks of the Scioto River. And it is all mostly like interactive. They have over 300 interactive exhibits across all of these different themed areas. I wanna just talk about some of these areas.

But first of all, like look at a picture of the building if you haven't seen it. It looks like a stretched out eyeball. It looks like a wild, like crashed blimp almost. It looks really, really unique. It was designed by a Japanese architect named Arata Isozaki, who also designed the MoMA building in Los Angeles. I don't know if you've ever seen it. He's like a very accomplished Japanese architect that built this science museum in Columbus, Ohio.

And it's just the coolest place ever because it's not like a museum that you go into and it's like, here's a wall that talks about fossils. And then like, it's like you go through a mine cart that like leads you down into like this secret subterranean sort of area. So some of the exhibits, I'll just outline some of the coolest ones. There's an ocean exhibit where you walk through a shipwreck into an underwater cave, which leads to this like submarine research facility where you learn about like the development

of underwater science technology. And then you turn a corner and you're in Poseidon's temple where you learn all about like the physics of water and like why it has informed like folklore across like all civilization there is a renewable energy exhibit where you like select an avatar and then you go through like this series of panels where you make choices about like conserving energy i remember there were a lot of cool ones like that

that were interactive in like an ownership type of way like there was one that taught about i don't know if it's still there or not but about like cameras and tv production like switchboard operation in a in a movie in a tv studio and so you and your friends would get up there and do like karaoke while somebody else worked to the board and you would make a VHS that you could like take home with you, which is so rad. There is a big space exhibit with like all of these different like pseudo astronaut tests that you can do, but they also have a recreation of the Apollo 11 mission control with like full like wood panel, like old school looking like displays and stuff like that that you can mess around with um there's a spaceship earth style simulation of a city called progress where you like walk through it and it starts like kind of just a folksy main street but then like technology advances the further into it you go that's so incredible i feel like so st louis had a science center but when they opened uh i'm pretty sure that they retained every exhibit the entire time uh

and so by the time like the first year it was like incredible and then the second year it was okay and by the fourth year, everything was broken. You would just walk through these dirty, mangled exhibits and be like, oh, this maybe was a good thing at one point. I mean, I haven't been in a while, but Coastside was always very nice. It always felt sort of – I mean, living in West Virginia, there's not like a big city within, in the state, right? Like, you know, Charleston, Morgantown, you know, they're,

I'm not shitting on West Virginia. Like I loved growing up there and have, you know, love those towns very much. But like, if you wanted to go to a place like Kosai, you had to go to Ohio. So when I went to Ohio, it was to go to an amusement park or a concert or insert recreational activity that I didn't necessarily have access to in Huntington. And to me, like Kosai was just as exciting as going to Kings Island because it was like just as sort of a transformative rad experience. Well, and you're describing like what sounds kind of like a theme park.

This idea that you get into this like immersive environment to learn about something. Like that is always like the best theme parks. The ones where like before you get on the ride, you like walk through this whole, you know, environment that's supposed to like get you hyped for what you're about to do. Like it's cool that they created learning in such a like interactive way that like really like transports you you know i went there on a lot of trips with like my church youth group which looking back on it is kind of yeah wild it's not like progressive yeah it was fairly progressive right it was uh like they have a segment on life and one of the parts of that exhibit is about like birth and death and about like how different

like societies have like viewed those through throughout human civilization and that's kind of a heavy concept for a for any kid especially one like attending it with their with their southern baptist what was this drive like how long does it take you to get to get to columbus from huntington oh like i don't, two and a half hours. It depends on if you take the AA. It's complicated. You know, back when we were touring and, you know, we'd be with the kids, every city we went to, we would either go to an aquarium or a science museum.

And I really, I love both of those. I really liked watching. I don't think we ever took Henry on one of the tours where we did this, but like watching, you know, the cousins go around and like play around with science is very fulfilling as an adult to see.

But I've been to a lot of those science museums now and none of them are as rad as Kosai. I would love to get back there. Maybe next time we visit Trav in Cincinnati, we can dip on over. Yeah. Dip on over to Kosai. No, that sounds really cool.

I would really like to do that. I love, I mean, that's part of the thrill of going to a place like DC, for example, is that like to take a museum seriously, to not just like put up, you know, like a movie prop and say like this is an exhibit on dinosaurs yeah that's a big that's a big pro for me i also best gift shop like in the biz in the biz i'm gonna start thinking i'm gonna start listing off things that i

vividly remember purchasing and keeping with me from the cosi gift shop astronaut ice cream absolutely astronaut ice cream first and last absolutely alpha and omega uh one of those uh plastic tubes that you would swirl around and it would make a tornado absolutely gotta have one of those yeah uh a pressure sensitive like mood stone that you would like squeeze and it would change colors i remember i gave that to a a girl in like uh elementary like late elementary school early middle school who i was like quote unquote boyfriend girlfriend with and she gave it back to me when we broke up and i went to ritter park and i ceremoniously threw it in the creek to like rid myself of this artifact of heartbreak. What's that do for you?

There's so much about this story that is so on brand. I can't even take it. It's wild. Yeah, I'm feeling confessional. Just like walking away with your hands in your pockets and your head down like well i guess that's love i have a lot of memories of going to ritter park after a breakup and trying to ceremoniously like make a meal make a fucking meal of it all the way up to like college i remember i got uh i i got dumped in college and i went to ritter park in the middle of like a rainstorm and just like sat on a bench. Oh my God.

Got out a clove cigarette that I borrowed from somebody. Is it raining? I can't even feel it. I can't even tell. I think I sat there like by myself in the dark and rain with my moist, yucky clove cigarette for like 10 minutes. And I was like, what the fuck? This sucks. I'm out of here.

Hey, do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about yes uh john says the final bite of a cinnamon roll the cinnamon roll core is unmatched in its beautiful gooeyness i almost can't with the middle of a cinnamon roll is it too much almost a little bit too much wow i don't know i've ever heard you say that about a sugary treat i love cinnamon rolls everybody does especially if you get it from like a from like a cinnamon roll like shop like that makes the cinnabon is what i was thinking of when you get the cinnabon it is more liquid than solid that's those that's too much for me cinnabon is that's like i'll eat the outskirts of a cinnabon where they've where they've you know operated like can i tell you something that may make me a psychopath sure that a lot of times i

don't save the middle i kind of go through horizontally uh and so my last bite isn't necessarily the center is that insane no i mean i'm i don't want to be normative it's any you can eat a cinnamon roll any way you want. Okay, okay. It's not how I would have done it. No, I know. I would have done it a different way. Mercury says, I think, and I'm going to not say this word correctly, and I apologize.

Poffertjes are wonderful. I first encountered these tiny one-inch diameter yeast pancakes when I was living in Amsterdam for graduate school. They are the perfect fluffy, chewy, powdered, sugary, multitudinous little bites. At my favorite Dutch pancake house, which serves pancakes 67 different ways, you can get 40 Poffertjes for the equivalent of $15.

Sent a picture of these little beauties just to match, just like make a circle with your hand, just like one little one-bite powdered sugar, thick, chewy pancakes. Took me to the yum zone just with a picture with a JPEG.

Hey, I think that's it. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay, because you can find a link to that in the episode description if you like it. And I'm sure you do. And thank you to MaximumFun.org for having us on the network. They have so many great shows that you can just go listen to. There's no law against it. Rachel's going to say the name of one of those shows right now. Brace your ass. Jackie and Laurie Show. Yeah, absolutely. That's gonna say the name of one of those shows right now. Brace your ass. Jackie and Laurie show. Yeah. Absolutely. That's one of them. Yeah. Triple click. Absolutely. Fucking Frasier. Frasier.

Frasier's not one of them. I'm sorry. I saw news of a Frasier reboot the other day, by the way. I felt a psychic, like a disturbance in the fucking force and i was like what just happened you know everybody has that friend that really loves fraser and i almost sent it to our friend that loves fraser which one i know we have a few but then i thought like they're probably getting it from somebody else i don't have to take responsibility for this i just knew i think it's whenever kelsey grammar feels hope

i know do you know what i mean is that weird no anytime kelsey grammar is like i feel like oh wait something's something's happening something's going on you've always been very attuned to kelsey grammar i don don't want, I fucking don't want to. I know. Hey, you don't choose your gifts. I think it's because I watched him fall off the stage and I laughed so hard that I blacked out. And in that unconscious state,

he came to me like a phantom. Thank you, Maximum Fun. Thanks, Maximum Fun. Bye. I'm Jesse Thorne. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported. I'm Jesse Thorne. On the next Bullseye, we've got the one and only Ted Danson. We'll talk about his new show, Mr. Mayor, about cheers and about the secret to success in comedy.

I mean, I feel like one of your signature comedic moves at this point in your career is gazing. You do a lot of interesting gazing. I also love this. Gazing. I love that. And if I'm not, I'm going to start because that's great. That's Bullseye. Find it on MaximumFun.org and PR.org and wherever you get podcasts.