Wonderful! - Wonderful! 294: Four Hot Elbows

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Griffin's favorite ways of feeling better when achy and sore! Rachel's favorite buried things!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Hawai’i Community Foundation: https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. This is Wonderful, a show where we talk about things that are good, that we like, that we're into. Rachel, you, if I can brag on you for a minute, Rachel just sprinted in the studio fresh out of the gym. Rachel's got. Yeah, I didn't realize how sweaty I was until you saw me and went, whoa. I'm just saying you are pumped up with just raw adrenaline.

True. Just coursing through your veins i'm i'm jealous because you're riding that you're zooted you want to start something no i don't please um i'm just i just feel like maybe i should have done a few laps around the block to be on the same level as you because i don't have exercise energy for me right now true well i can carry us both with my big strong arms now they are very big and strong i love my huge wife do you have any small wonders huge wife i don't think i like that nickname okay um are you prepared to go first um yes we in our continuing and unexpected streak of getting deeply absorbed by uh korean reality shows have begun to watch busted on netflix which is like it it has big new new world

vibes so you all know that i'm very fond of. Yeah, there are mysteries and there is a group of entertaining people and there are- There are games and escape rooms, basically. It even has a few of the people who showed up who were on New World, which is exciting. It's so fun. I was telling Griffin, yeah, no, we quit the first season, though.

We should be clear. We did, yes. The second episode of the first season left us a little bit high and dry, but we jumped to the second season. We love the puzzles where they're all engaged and they're solving things, but sometimes they get a little plot heavy, and you kind of just have to ride that out until they get to the next puzzle. True. But, yeah, it's fun and again like what is this like the fifth korean reality show that we have like like really gotten deeply into this yeah what a why like physical 100 siren love after divorce i mean there's just so much

there's so much what a what a what What a delightful little adventure we've been on. I thought of my small wonder. Okay, what do you got? So we went out to dinner, which was a big wonder. It was a very nice dinner. Huge wonder. And it was one of those dinners where you sit at like a counter with other people. Yeah.

And there was this woman next to me and her sister, and it was her sister's birthday. And every dish that came out they were like oh wow good i loved it and part of the presentation was like they would put a dish in front of you and then of course they would tell you about it but every single time the woman couldn't wait she was just like what is this she's like oh what's that yeah oh what's that and whoever was sending it down was like well we'll tell you in a moment i loved it we i mean it was this meal maybe the fanciest uh i've ever had i know i thought that was usually do we don't i

mean we never ever go out to eat let alone at fancy restaurants and so in my mind as soon as the dish was placed before me every every time I'd be like, what the fuck is that? But I didn't verbalize it. So I appreciated having a sort of like Greek chorus. It was one of those things where people would take bites and like out of their control would be like, Ooh,

that's so good. And I'm like, we're going to keep saying that. I think that's going to be part of it. It was so good. I love food. I'm going to talk about that, I think. That's fun. I think that's going to be part of it. It's so good. I love food. I'm going to talk about my thing first this week. Okay.

I struggled last week to come up with a topic. And so I sort of started trying to think more about this show and the topics I would want to bring to it in my day-to-day life and not like the morning that we record. Yeah, of course that's been helpful for me because it has made me grateful for the things in my life that i take for granted like for example having a reliable set of pain relief tools that is my subject this week i was going to focus on on one thing and then I realized I have a lot of ways when I'm feeling achy and sore of dealing with that. And I enjoy all of that. I had a hard time naming this segment where it didn't sound like I was about to talk about sex toys for 15 minutes. Oh, yeah.

No, it would be hard to describe. A personal massager. Yeah, the implements you use without making it sound no judgment that's just not what i'm going to be talking about today yeah it is a kind of pleasure but a different kind of pleasure yes uh i'm talking about you know whether it is mechanized massage instruments or other tools you use on yourself to relieve tension or achiness or stress or whatever um i've had pretty chronic like shoulder issues for the last like five years it probably aligns actually pretty well with when we had children is probably when it really went into high gear yeah that's true

i've never had like a great neck and back. All right. All right. We all know. It's hard to say those two body parts. We all know where you were going. So I've seen, you know, I've talked about massage therapy on this show, which I think very highly of. I've seen specialists or whatever. Some stuff works.

Some doesn't. The thing I keep coming back to is just a suite of remarkable, reliable little gadgets that get the job done every time. The number one off-court buddy, the one I was originally just going to talk about, I love a Shiatsu ball massage machine. Yeah. Get those little balls rotating around. We have a belt, essentially, that has these two pairs of rotating orbs that was given as a gift to me well this is actually our second one because i did wear the first one out uh yeah no i received i received a version of this from travis and theresa for i believe a christmas present yes uh and I used it once or twice.

And I used it about 400 times and broke it with the force that I put, the gauntlet I put this massage machine through. Yeah, it's true. It's got these two balls. They rotate around. You can sort of wrap it around your neck, almost like a scarf.

And then you have these two loops on the end of the belt that you put your hands in. And so you can kind of push the back of the thing into your meat yeah and griffin man the fuck in there he gets in there this thing is a lifesaver nothing gets into my weird sort of topographical like shoulder meat like like this thing does if you are someone just if if if you're considering if you're a home listener right now and you're saying, is this for me? If you like an elbow when you are being massaged, that's what this is. That's what this is.

This is just a couple elbows. Four hot elbows, four heated elbows that you just push right into your back. Man, you know, a good deep tissue massage, that's nice for the, the you know for the achiness that i bring to the table sometimes but you don't always got time to go over to the spa and hit that up and so you got this little massage belt with these hot balls that just go fucking crazy on you back there um honorable mention too we've also used we had a like a shiatsu massage chair where it was like a seat that you would sit in and then you could program like where the balls are on your back to be fair it was like a cushion that goes on a chair

yes uh we didn't purchase a like freestanding chair no that would be man if i could get one of those i mean people do people do it's just that's that's like a whole piece of furniture i think i'm so i like the control that the belt gives me because i feel like for one thing i'm good at it now like i look like i'm flying a fucking hang glider when i'm using it and i can get it right where i need it and just hold it there and just you know move stuff around i also love uh a trigger point massage gun rachel was a shockingly early adopter of the i think it was a Thera gun that well I bought it for you yeah I got it for me and it was amazing it's huge they used to be gigantic they are like

the size of like uh like mixers that you would use for you know pancake batter yeah and now they're all tiny and stuff the one I rock with now still very strong but it connects into like this hook like cane yeah and you can hold that behind yourself so loud it's so loud rachel does not i've made griffin take it to another room he is still like you know we put the boys to bed and we turn on a program and then he pulled that thing out and i couldn't hear anything at all yeah for the five minutes or whatever partially because of the noise of the thing but whatever partially because of the noise of the thing but also partially because of the oh yeah like because i do yeah like i yell when it feels good the massage machine but you have assured me you don't do that when you receive a massage

no christ no um i like it's just it's a game changer for like if i'm feeling like super achy in one very specific spot anywhere we Rachel I've started well Rachel started a while ago going to the gym and I have been doing it with her for I don't know six weeks or so now uh and it's great I genuinely am shocked at how much I enjoy it but it has wrecked my shop in new and exciting ways so having a little gun that I point at my thighs or whatever when I'm feeling sore there, it's, oh, it's so good. It's very intense, but it's very dependable for knocking out those little knots and stuff.

I'm also a big fan of a heating pad for more sort of general, like, issues that are not, like, I have this one spot that is bad for me uh a heating pad is i think it's great that you can just have this little guy that you plug into you know your wall do you have ice on that list i do have ice on the list i have like a ice what is essentially just sort of an ice brassiere i guess is the only way i could describe it that uh was was prescribed to me by a physician and uh i mean you you purchased it without a prescription okay fine it wasn't yeah it's not a prescription ice you didn't go to a pharmacy and

they brought out the ice special ice no uh griffin griffin mcgory your brassiere is ready griffin it's got to get this home in 15 minutes or it is useless. It's great. It sucks to wear that one though. Like a heating pad or a massage thing, I like am excited about that. Yeah. The ice vest, well, you know,

it does help if I'm like inflamed or something. If I'm like inflamed or whatever. Yeah, I will say ice surprises me. Like, cause you always hear that. And you know, when your kid like hits their head and you're like, put ice on it. And you're not really sure why you're doing it.

Yeah. But as I have had issues recently, like with my feet, for example, when I was wearing bad shoes, I have remedied that problem. But ice, I just put ice on the foot. Yeah. Put a snooze. We call them uh-oh shoes. When Rachel makes a big mistake, she forces herself to wear them uh-oh shoes. When Rachel makes a big mistake, when Rachel makes a big mistake, she forces herself to wear the uh-oh shoes.

And I don't like them. I was wearing shoes around the house for a little while because I just needed that extra support until my foot healed up. Yeah. And it, I think it really bothered you. I think you were like, shoes in the house? It didn't bother me when you were wearing shoes to help your body feel better.

That kind of stuff I'm okay with. Got some BioFreeze in a couple forms. Other stuff probably works too. Yeah, I don't know about the BioFreeze. It's hot. It's a cream that goes on cool and stays hot. I mean, it's like Bengay or, you know. I never really used that.

It's all right. It seems like a weird potion. I mean, it's like Bengay or, you know. I never really used that. It's all right. It seems like a weird potion. I guess it is kind of a weird potion. Like you'd buy it off of like a medicine wagon. Like here, this feels cold and hot. Right. No, I don't.

I mean, it's not medicine. I would never go so far as to say that. But I guess when I make the skin feel spicy where it hurts, it distracts you from the from the hurting of it because now you're so spicy on your skin which is not a pleasant feeling but again sometimes i gotta just throw spaghetti at the wall but messing with a foam roller too which feels like a sort of nuclear option for when you have aches or pains because it's like is i mean using one is also kind of a workout, which seems counterintuitive in a way. How does it feel saying all of this out loud in order?

This is what I'm saying when I came out with this when I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I do have a lot when I am hurting. I have a lot of ways of dealing with that. And I appreciate that. I like that. I don, you know, I'm feeling pretty sore right now. Just, I haven't done anything today. I'm just kind of pretty achy in my shoulder area. But I know as soon as we're done recording, I have like fucking six or seven friends here on my speed dial that I can hit up to come and help me out.

The Avengers. It's the Avengers of muscle soreness. And I appreciate that. And I think everyone should have that in their life in some form. It doesn't have to be as extensive as this list, but you know. Ideally, you wouldn't have any soreness at all. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. Yeah. Ideally, sure. Some people exist without soreness. I would love to meet one one day. Can I steal you away? Yes. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I-R.

Were you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Hmm. Are you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S-T-O-P-P-P-A-D-I. It'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try.

If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O. Ah, we are so close. Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh, then you're on the go. I'm Ify Wadiwe, the host of Maximum Film. I'm Alonzo Duralde, also the host of Maximum Film. And I'm Drea Clark, yet another host of Maximum Film.

Every week we hosts Huddle Up. Usually with an illustrious guest. And we talk about films. We have film news. We have film quizzes. We answer your film questions. It's like the maximum amount of film talk. That's why we call it Maximum Film.

Maximum Film, the movie podcast that's not just a bunch of straight white guys. New episodes weekly on MaximumFun.org. You want to hear my thing? Uh-huh. My thing is the time capsule. Oh, yeah. Isn't it exciting? Like, I, this is one of those things that you can go years without thinking about.

On purpose. By design. Intentionally, yeah, because that's true. It would be shitty if you put a thing in the ground and it's like open it in 30 years and then for 30 years your every thought was. It's today the day. It's today it. Man, those books are probably getting so moldy. Did you ever have to do this?

Yes, of course. Do you remember? I feel like this is something I did in elementary school, but I don't remember, did we actually put it somewhere? I remember burying a... There was a whole thing at Ritter Park, which was the park we grew up next to,

where the city of Huntington put stuff in the time capsule. a there was like a whole thing at Ritter Park which was like the park we grew up next to where the city of Huntington uh put stuff in the time capsule and so every school every class in like every school in the area got to like because it was huge it was like the size of like a freezer um and it had to lower it in the ground with a crane I remember all of this but I don't remember what we put in and I don't know if it's open yet or not. Yeah. Yeah. I remember just being like totally fascinated with this concept. And it's a great exercise, I think, for kids because it really makes you kind of examine like what pieces of culture are most important to you. And then also think about the future, like what is going to feel like significant.

The term time capsule was first used in 1939 at the New York World's Fair. That's so dope. It's so dope that this was ever such a remarkable, like, let's bury some stuff and wait. Well, so here's the thing. It has existed for a long time, even before that, but it was kind of first called a time capsule. Okay. In 1939. The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company buried a cylinder on the fairgrounds to be opened in the year 6939.

All right, guys. What the fuck did you make this out of? A little optimistic, perhaps. 69, 39? I know, I know, I know. That's too far. They, I guess, were not aware of climate change and thought, like, we're gonna go forever. I mean, I have to think that at some level of superstition

must have existed here. It just seems crazy to me. There are so many years before that that are also far away. Wicked so many. 10 years is like, that's a long time. I don't know if I'll make it. 69, 39. The cylinder contains a collection of seeds, microfilm and newsreels everyday items

and a letter from albert einstein okay do you think when i do i mean he could have written anything in there just like microwaves think about it just wrote baba booey baba booey love albert um but yeah as i mentioned the concept of burying things uh has been around well yeah but burying things for future people to uncover okay um i was thinking my mind immediately went to like a pharaoh's tomb but they probably didn't ever want that stuff to get dug up from what i understand um so some of the earliest american time capsules in 1876 um there is a time capsule that was buried in the massachusetts state house uh it was opened in 2015 although it was not meant to be open on a certain date. It was assembled by Sam Adams and Paul Revere. Oh, shit.

And put into the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House building. It contained newspapers, coins, a medal with Washington's image, and a silver plaque reading, This cornerstone of a building intended for the use of the legislative and executive branches of the use of the legislative and executive branches of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was laid by His Excellency Samuel Adams Esquire, governor of the said Commonwealth. All right.

National Treasure 3. Yes. Yeah, this idea, this like cornerstone idea, like burying stuff in the foundation of a building, like is something that has been around for a long time. It's like in War with Grandpa, how he hides marbles in every house he builds. I forget that you have watched that film. I don't think I watched the whole thing, no.

Tell me again the context for that. You talked about it. Be careful, because we'll go the rest of the episode history has shown once i pop i do not stop okay um there is an international time capsule society which maintains a public database for time capsules around the world cool which i didn't realize um i would love what a cool life it would be to just sort of travel around the world to be at different time capsule openings no i take it back that would be a shitty life

sliding doors man well i just thought like it must be so exciting to be at a time capsule opening what if you could have that experience every day of your life but then i was like nah you'd get fucking bored with that really really really fast probably and most of the time like i've read about it and people are always really excited like in the articles i read everybody's like oh my gosh we found this time capsule it's going to be so exciting and it's always newspaper clippings exactly exactly there's never fun stuff exactly um there are uh for example, time capsules in space. Well, okay. I would call those space capsules, I feel like.

I mean, they still contain things from a certain time. How are we going to get those back, though? No, that's a good point. Are they in geosynchronous orbit? The Voyager spacecrafts 1 and 2 both carried time capsules. The Voyager spacecrafts 1 and 2 both carried timed capsules. Each included a golden phonograph record, which NASA says contained sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. Yeah, I knew about those, but they know we're not going to get those back to crack them open, right? right the the craft were sent into space to explore the outer solar system and both are

still working away over 43 years after their launch bye but i'm saying if i put a piece of trash in the river and then the river carries that trash out to the ocean that's not a time capsule i think uh i mean we don't have to get into whether there is life out there in space, but maybe the thought was it's not for us to find again. Well, I hate to crack open Fermi's paradox on our wonderful podcast, but it feels like if there is intelligent life out there, the odds of us just going bang and shooting some garbage out there and hitting it seems small, seems limited. And the stuff we put in there is not garbage, obviously. There's great stuff in there. Uh-huh. But I don't know.

Just it seems like pretty unlikely that it's going to hit someone. Yeah. That's going to be like, hmm, have you heard this record? New mixtape from Earth just dropped. It has blues music and a whale. Actually, I mean, that honestly is part of it. The sounds included greetings from humans in 55 languages and a variety of natural sounds like surf, wind, and thunder. Cool.

Which, you know, you can just get on your phone if you want white noise. That's a true. You don't even have to go into space. You don't have to go into space to hear earth noises. So you can purchase your own like time capsule type thing off of many different websites. The International Time Capsule Society recommends that you decide on your capsule's purpose. You name your capsule. Okay.

You select a retrieval date. Secure items for storage. Create a list of your inventory, select your location, have a sealing and burial ceremony, and then register your capsule with them. How do you make sure you don't accidentally capture like a virus in it that then incubates? And then you crack it open in 69, 69 or whatever. And people are like, oh, dope. There's old microfilm in here. This was totally worth the wait. Oh, what else is in here?

The Spanish flu? Uh-oh. Just saying. I read this Washington Post article from 2022 that talked about how this like interest in time capsules went up during the whole like COVID isolation period. We were all so fucking bored. Like we all got into scrapbooking, which is basically time capsules. Well well so you're in the middle of this historic thing and you're thinking like i want to remember this feeling always sucks right now but we should remember that yeah i mean a lot of people put masks in there like hey there was a time when masks, not knowing, I think that masks are always probably going to be a thing. Yeah, sure.

Anyway, time capsules. Time capsules. They're great. Super cool. I love the future. 69.39. 69.39. See you there.

See you. Hey, we got some submissions from our friends at home. Macy says, my small wonder this week is rearranging my room. I recently rearranged my dorm room and unbunked my bed so now I don't have to climb on and off of it. That's huge.

I love rearranging a room. I never do it. Yeah, I was going to say. But, you know, I can remember very, very clearly the times in like the house we grew up in when like we just changed

where the couch was in the living room and it was a total it was an event yeah my friend ariel i went every time i would visit st louis her house would be in a totally different layout and i was very like impressed by that initiative because it does it can change the whole the whole vibe uh hey mitch says a bird bath is such a simple thing that is mutually beneficial to the observer who enjoys looking at birds and to birds who enjoy splashing around and preening themselves in a shallow pool of water what an easy way to connect with nature and help our feathery friends keep cool on a hot day i don't think i've ever actually thought about the function of a bird bath yeah we had one in my house i always thought it was like a very like nice courtesy.

Yeah, but I don't know that I ever saw a bird take a bath in it. I don't know that I've ever seen a bird using a birdbath. Oh, I have. Oh, okay. It feels like a private moment. Right? You don't wanna be some kind of perv.

I don't wanna be some weird bird perv. That reminds me, one of my friends on Instagram has one of those like cameras, you know? And she will post videos of birds and sometimes raccoons and possums at her birdbath and it's delightful. I'm gonna do one of those for a bath though and it just have like a nasty,

nasty sort of watch birds in the bath feed for $10. Hey, thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. They got so many great shows there, like Judge John Hodgman and Jordan Jesse Go,

and so many more, all over at MaximumFun.org. We got other stuff happening at McElroy.Family, links to live shows. Hey, if you're in New York and you want to come see Taz or Mbimbam, we're doing shows up there during New York Comic Con, and you don't need a badge for New York Comic Con anymore. They have rescinded that qualification.

Now, if you live in the area and you want to come see us, just get a ticket. Come see us. Yeah, I'm going to be there, too. I'm not going to be, like, doing anything on stage. But, you know, I might say. You might do some stuff for the con. I might say hi.

Oh, well, yeah. I mean, I'll be there, you know, for the people that I imagine have a badge. Sure, sure. We're also doing a show in Philly, too. You can find all that info over at macroy.family. Got merch over at macroymerch.com new besties stickers that are adorable that uh i'm delighted by so check those out too and we'll have new stuff in october that's it for the show thank you all so much for listening um

sorry we're a little bit late sorry we're a little bit late rachel's been at the gym for 30 hours. She's so jacked. It's amazing. Crush this coffee can. Can you do some Foley for me on that? Yeah, sure. Crunch! Working on it, money won't pay. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.