Wonderful! - Wonderful! 391: All Pothole Tour of Huntington

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

Griffin's favorite game that requires no arena or balls! Rachel's favorite squished-together treat!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaBorder Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. This is wonderful. Storm's a brewing. Looks like a storm a brewing. Your knee acting up? My knee doing its thing again. I do actually.

I have a bad knee. Did you know that? I didn't. Wait, what? I have a bad knee. What does that mean, babe? That means that my left knee hurts more when I do, like, stuff with it, like a squat or... What'd you do? What's wrong with it? I was playing basketball in a pool. Yeah. And this kid, luckily this kid was a very small kid, but this kid fell on me in the pool landed entirely on my knee. Worst fear. Knee swelled up real big. Yeah. Nothing was really wrong with it. But, the swelling was significant. Okay. And ever since then. Ever since then, it's just not a good need. Well, tell me who did it.

I'm going to kick this guy's ass. I'm about to go ham on this guy's. I'm about to go ham sandwich on this guy's ass. So point me in the direction of the kid who hurt your knee? 25 years ago. 25 years ago. I don't give a shit. You're saying your knee still hurts.

So I'm going to make, I'll make them hurt with my violence. And this is a common theme for me. The problem was I didn't make a big deal about it at the time. Yeah, sure. And I was icing it after it happened. And so it wasn't swelling. And then I stopped icing it, got real big. Didn't come to school the next day.

Had my friends tell the guy, hey, you know, her knee is terrible. He had no memory of doing this to me. Terrible. Oh, God, babe. I'm making me even more jacked to fucking punt this guy's butt. I'm about to punt this guy's butt to next Tuesday. Anyway, were you able to, like, kick a football really far after that? Like, did you join the football team as the kicker?

Because it turned out that it got, like, fucked up in a way that made you very good at kicking. No, I did do some, like, PT afterwards, but, like, the person was not very attentive. It was almost like they didn't think I needed to be there because they would literally leave the room. Yeah. They were like, do a couple of these things, and then they would walk out. I guess my next question is, and this is. wonderful. Should we talk about things we're like it's because we're into? Why'd you hide this from me for so long? Why did you feel like you needed to hide this from me? I mean, it hasn't come

up, I guess. And also, I'm so brave. You are, dude, for sure, like no doubt about that. You know how I feel about your courage. Do you have any small wonders? I talk for a long time. You should talk now. Okay. I've got, I said that so much like Gus. It was crazy. What, okay. Okay. You got to eat your cheese bread before you can have lifesavers. Okay. There's a game on Apple Arcade on your phone called, I think, Japanese rural life adventure. Sounds like I just made that up,

but I'm pretty sure that is the game. And it's like on Apple Arcades. So if you have that membership, it's like there for you. It's like a farming game? It is sort of like a farming game. What is really interesting about it is that it is in that sort of life sim genre uh at like your animals crossing your stardous valley and what have you only it is way less about like optimization and like upgrading your thing so you can do this faster or anything

like that it is way more like vibey just like you move into a house in the japanese countryside and it's up to you to kind of like fix it up and help your neighbors with stuff and you learn a lot what is very cool about it is not just the pace of it but also like it is trying to teach you about sort of like i don't know japanese culture and uh teach you about sort of like i don't know you build a coy pond and you learn what that thing that is like what was that reality show oh the one where they had to uh love village yeah yeah love Village was the one Sounds like Love Village.

Yeah, I mean, minus the love. Kind of, but like, I don't know, there's stuff like you have to make the thing that's like a bamboo stick that fills with water and then it falls over and like makes that noise. Like you make that and it kind of teaches you a little bit about it. I don't remember the name of the thing.

But like, I don't know, I find it to be very cool and contemplative. And I don't play like a ton of like Apple arcade games, but it's definitely a highlight. I've been really enjoying it. What about you, babe? I will say my small wonder is that Big Sun went to his first sleepover.

Crazy, man. And I think I first started doing sleepovers maybe in second grade. Oh, really? Yeah. So to me, this felt maybe a little late, but not super late. Obviously, he's in third grade. That's interesting because I feel like for me it was a little bit later. It was it?

I feel like it was fourth or fifth grade for me. And I definitely slept over at a friend's house before I went to like, sleep over a slumber party which is what this was a party this was like him and like maybe four or five other kids and they have a lot of roadblocks from what i understand makes sense makes sense to me i appreciated that the mom in advance told us that there would be like what what would be on the menu yeah and what the activities pop ice chicken hello best party ever was very easy to sell to big sun yeah uh and he stayed the whole night yeah we were kind of wondering if maybe he would like want to call it at some point because he's like he's a he's a party kid but he's like you know

introverted it's also like an unknown experience he hasn't slept anywhere without you know one of us being there at some point is that true yeah I mean like we have left him in the care of his grandparents yes for sure he's been in his own house yeah that has happened yeah um yeah I was just really excited that he he did it and he hung in there and uh and it went well and you know know, hopefully we will never have to do it ourselves. We will at some point. I don't want to. We will, almost certainly.

I go first this week. I'm going to talk about Simon Says. You've done Simon, not says, the electronic tiger, electronic game. Actually, here is it Milton Bradley, I believe. Maybe it's traded hands a few times. I'm talking about the analog, original IP of Simon. says. No, that's a really good one. I love a game that doesn't require like tools or balls or an arena of any kind and also only has one rule. Like it's kind of the perfect kid game. It also rewards like a certain kind of kid. Yes. An obedient. Exactly. Like there is a kind of kid that pays a lot of attention and feels maybe unappreciated for that skill. Yes. And then there is a moment in the game. where all of a sudden the fact that you have good listening skills pays off and it is so rewarding.

And Rachel's not like projecting or anything right now. Like sometimes people I think think that when we talk like that. But like I wouldn't say that we were particularly like overly obedient, quiet sort of kids. People pleaser. Like people pleaser, permissive sort of dormant kids. I'll start here since it's probably the first thing that comes to mind is that no one really knows who Simon is. it's like there's or who was the first person to play this exact game since it's kind of like general enough that you could assume that people have been playing some version of like follow this command game forever. Can you even think of a Simon in history? So some theories, Simon Peter, St. Peter, Simon de Montfort, who was like a French noble in the 14th century. There's some suspicion that it is related to Cicero from like ancient Rome. There was a game that was, I guess, played back then that was very similar, and Cicero could

be, you know, anglicized, I suppose, into Simon. But no one's really quite sure. Oxford English Dictionary places the first document and mention of the game in the 1850s. But like, it's a game about I tell you something to do and you follow my command or you don't. Like, that seems like it would probably have been maybe the first game that ever existed. Yeah, it could have been called any number things before. Right. I think it is a brilliant game because there are not that many sort of folk games in this genre that are asymmetrical in the way that Simon says is where there's like one host and then everyone else is like playing it, right? There's like red light green light is the other one right? And hide and seek, right? But those ones like red light green light, you're not really

having really a whole lot of fun if you're the stoplight in my experience. Heads up seven up. Heads up Simon up, I guess is another one. Hide and seek is like, I like hide and seek, but it's like you're just, when you are the seeker, you're just kind of like trying to figure out the clever thing that everyone else has done. In Simon says, like, I think it's pretty fun to be like paying attention to see like how you're getting tricked. But it's also, I would say, more fun to be the person trying to come up with tricks. I like that element of the game a lot and there's not a ton of games like Simon says that really. do that um there's just an element of like having to know thy enemy a bit yeah so you like to be

the like simon i like to be the simon i do i don't i like to get in the head of my of my opponents the deception of it love that also the like the way you have to kind of like like slide it in yeah and you know like uh stop tapping your foot right you got nervous even doing that like hypothetical which So I would say, stab your foot. No, stop your foot. But I kind of like how it forces you to, like, get in the head of your opponent. There's this concept that is mostly used in the, like, fighting video game community called Yomi, which is, like, knowing what your opponent's about to do and then, like, countering it beforehand. I think, I like getting on that wavelength.

And I feel like you can do it with Simon says when you're playing it with people you know. The height of this, I think, inarguably, is Sam says on Game Changer, that series of episodes, where you're, You get to see really this concept explored to its fullest, deepest conclusion. It's like, what if you played Simon says with a way bigger budget and could provide some truly outrageous prompts. My favorite is probably the one where Sam brings out a cute little pig in a little hat and tells all the players that they're not allowed to look at it. Lou Wilson's reaction to that really lives in my head sort of rent-free. just the despair of not being able to look at this cute little pig. I think that's probably the most diabolical thing that man has ever done, which is saying

something. But like, I don't know, it's an instant activity. It's an instant activity for kids. Gus requests it sometimes kids Gus's age, I think, just really like it in general. We have Elmo says, too. I was just about to talk about it. So we have this thing called the Next Playground, which we've probably talked about on this show before.

It's like a standalone Xbox Connect where it has motion games. on it and it's got a little camera on the front not a sponsor but for fucking sure next playground get at us have can't wait for that fucking midfall update new mirorama filters are you kidding me guys anyway uh elmo says on on there is like a motion game version of it that is like very cute and very clever but also like doesn't punish the kid a ton if they fuck up like there's like a slide whistle and i was like am i don't missal a muscle house and you're like good one they don't like thanks I've been practicing it a lot I auditioned did you know that you audition for Elmo be new Elmo they're replacing him and they

called the new guy new Elmo and I got asked to audition but I'd never know yeah um well you are ask only now I am true yeah I mean when your dance cards is full as why it is uh I tried looking up to see if there was like a world championship of Simon says because it really seems like there should be one, but I couldn't find anything. Yeah, I mean. There is a guy named Steve Max, whose whole job is doing extremely difficult high-speed Simon says matches at like NBA and NCAA halftime shows, which seems like a rad job.

I don't know how one gets that job. I don't know how one becomes a professional. Simon says doer. Yeah, you know what I didn't really think about until we just started talking about it? It is like this, the psychology of, like, asking somebody to do something challenging. Uh-huh. And then not necessarily having to say Simon says to get them to stop because they're so desperate to stop. Yeah.

You know, this idea of like- That's a classic technique. Like pat your head. And then, like, when you tell them to stop, they aren't even paying attention to the fact that you do. Yeah. Because they hate patting their head so. I hate patting my head. Do not ask me to pop my head. It hurts a lot.

My Fontenelle never closed over. he's good though he's pretty fat he's got he's on some like cataloguction shit um on youtube is that how you know yeah he's on youtube he's i mean there's there's the man has a presence he's the world's only professional simon says player of course he has an instagram account and shit um so unsurprisingly the game exists in different countries and cultures around the world uh but obviously with different sort of command words from language to language uh in spanish it's just mando which means I say or command. In Lebanon, its teacher says,

my favorite is in Ireland and parts of the UK, it's O'Grady says. Don't know who O'Grady is either, but O'Grady says, I found an interesting article about O'Grady says in 1917, the New York National Guard's 27th Division was preparing to deploy for World War I.

They were at a training camp in South Carolina and this group of French and British and Irish like instructors came over to the states to teach the American troops about like trench warfare and then modern combat stuff like grenade technique and also were there to like teach them physical fitness techniques and they would do this by playing pretty intense sort of drill games of O'Grady says which I found sort of cute sort of cute considering they're about to go to World War I which wasn't one of the great, I mean, it was one of the great world wars, but I wouldn't say it's lowercase G great.

In Sweden, there's a game called following John where kids line up and the front kid, who is John, they don't have to be named John. You probably, I didn't need to tell you that. You don't have to be named Simon to play Simon says. I'd love to play that game, but we don't have a John here. Just don't have a Simon. So the front kid does something and then the kid behind them like repeats the action and so on. Sort of like a physical game of telephone, but there's no like speaking. So it kind of lacks the strategic fake-out element of Simon says, but still seems fun. And then, of course, there's Simon, the electronic game, which is based on Simon says. And is probably, like, that's the game that stresses me out.

That's the game that, like, oh, yeah. Especially once you start getting, there's a part of, in Stardue Valley where there's, like, a Simon mini game that goes up to like seven or eight, a sequence of seven or eight that, like, stresses me out too much. I just can't do it. uh that simon says we play it uh i would say fairly regularly with small sun and uh i just always appreciate a game that is always at your fingertips always ready uh always ready to deploy and although that pool noodle game is great i mean pool noodle game is i swipe a pool noodle at our children and they dodge it's a sort of i would say family friendly 2025 version of taste my steel, which I would play with my brothers using an aluminum softball bat.

And I don't, guys, I don't hit them or anything. Like, I sweep it at their feet and say jump and they jump over it. You guys, and I told this to Griffin, a pool noodle is always a good thing to have in your house as a toy. We have four. If it was acceptable to buy them as presents, I would get them for every single child on their birthday. Do anything well.

Because it's just, it's a versatile tool for all such a. We do limbo. We do limbo with it. We do jump over, jump through, jump the gap. You can do anything with a pool of little. I mean, jousting. Jousting. Your kids are determined to hit each other.

Like, that's the way to do it. Yeah, um, fucking didgeridoo? Fucking styrofoam didgeridoo? Hell yeah, brother. Can I steal you away? Uh-huh. babe. I wanted to talk about something I may have mentioned as a small wonder recently.

Okay. But I wanted to expound on it. All right. Expound. Expound. Yeah, that works. The strope waffle. Stroop waffle.

Fuck yet, dude. Yes, dude. What a banger episode this is. It's a real, like, accessible one. You don't have to have a big budget to access this episode. No, you don't. They give you stroop waffle on. planes now sometimes.

Hell yeah, dude. So it is spelled strop waffle, but I have done the research, and it is supposed to be pronounced Stroop. Stroop waffles. Is there like an R roll? Stroop? Stroop. Just the phonetic, like, spelling was OAP, like soap.

Stroop. Stroop waffle. That sounds like soap waffle, which I'll say it the right way now. I mean, you're probably supposed to put a little, a little flavor on waffle, too. Diphton. Um, like you're probably not supposed to say stroke waffle. You're probably supposed to say like, strobe. Woff.

Anyway, fun with language. Um, yes, this is something, um, that I, uh, I don't, I feel like we had, we had come across them not long ago. And then recently we were on a United Airlines flight. Yeah. And they were giving them out. And I was very excited about it. And so then when we got home, I was like.

surely I can get some of these at my house. Yeah. I wasn't able at the time to locate the exact right brand, but I have. We tried a few. We had a couple bad strope waffles. Yeah, I think I have located the ones that they use on the United Airlines. Fuck, yeah, baby. I can maybe recreate the experience.

Let's get some pretzels. Let's get some Biscoff cookies and let's just like recreate the in-flight experience. Let's get little plastic cups of ginger ale. I love that. I think we were first exposed to it at. the Mueller Farmer's Market in Austin. They sold strobe waffle and you could get them like hot and it was, we only did it a couple times, but it was so dope.

Yes. Okay, so this is a, this is a Dutch treat. It was originated in the bakery in Gouda, which is a city in the Netherlands in the 19th century, it is estimated, literally translates to syrup waffle. Great. the concept behind it they were originally known as armenkoken which was uh translates to like poor man's biscuit okay uh because it was made from leftover dough and crumbs pasted together with syrup okay so the idea was that you like take all the leavins smush him together in like a waffle press and there you go isn't there a flamen flamen kutchen as well

i feel like that's another that's another dish i didn't maybe it's the same maybe i mean and again my pronunciation maybe leading you down a path that is not accurate. We're not going to be good at, guys, this episode like 500 or whatever, you know what our core competencies are, and this isn't one of them. But the idea is it's, it's, you know, similar ingredients to a waffle, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, spices like cinnamon. And then you make it like super flat and crispy. Yeah. And then there's like a caramel filling in between. Love that.

The thing that I find particularly delightful, which is to eat it the, quote, Dutch way. Yes, I didn't know about this. And I still feel like I haven't gotten the technique. I haven't gotten the technique exactly right. I know. Well, and you need the right size cup. But the idea is that it's circular and it's supposed to be wide enough that it can fit on top of most mugs. And so the idea is that you put it on top of a hot cup of coffee or tea and let it warm for a few minutes, which will soften the car.

inside. Yeah, I mean, it sounds fucking great. Make it like extra gooey. I don't know that I can sit there with a strope waffle in front of me for two minutes and not cobble it up. Well, the idea is that the drink is too hot. That's true. You can't have the drink.

You might as well wait. I'm also worried about the structural integrity of the strope waffle. Because if it falls in the tea, I'm, like, both things are pretty ruined at that point. Yeah. I'm guessing, we didn't test it out. I'm guessing that like a cup you would get on an airplane. would be small enough. Yeah, that makes sense.

Oh, God, I bet this would be good with that nutty almond cream tea. Nutty almond cream brew with a fucking strope waffle. Yeah. I don't think we have any. Can we make a policy that if we're going to do food segments? We make sure we have the food. We have them in the house. So United Airlines added this in 2016.

Damn. And then in 2018, they removed it. Okay. And then it brought it back a year later. Okay. So in 2018, they must have been like, we're not going to do that. People, there must have been such an outroar. Yeah.

And then in 2025, they once again offered it as a complimentary snack, quote, in the economy cabin on all flights over 300 miles long. That's so crazy. They have like a fucking. I don't know if they're sticking with that. I don't know if the flight, I mean, I guess maybe the flight, is the flight from D.C. to Austin 300 miles? I don't know.

I don't know. Probably. Yes, definitely. You think so? I just love the idea of the fucking like strope-awful quartermaster on every flight. Like, no, not long enough. It's like a locked drawer that unlocks as soon as you like pass over. The pilot has like a special key card. Like odometer clicks over and then it, the drawer pops out.

So wild. Why can't there, why isn't there like one chill airline left? Why isn't there just one chill airline? I mean, there's a lot of airlines. we haven't been on lately. I guess so. That may be super chill. Maybe.

I did not, I mean, this did a lot for me with United Airlines because I did not think of them as a particularly like frilly, like, luxurious airline. And then I got that stroke waffle and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, is United Airlines fancy? I used to, I feel like I used to not like United because, you know, I would get waylaid or whatever from time to time. But I feel like that's happened to me on every major. Every major airline has really rogered me but good at least once. It's almost like every other airline fell below.

Yes. And now they've risen up. Yeah, sure. So, yeah. So in like the 19th century, there were over 100 stropewaffle bakers in Gouda alone. Wow. Geez. Right now, because there are factories created specifically to create these, there are 17 factories dedicated to

producing strobe waffles in Gouda, or at least there were, okay, so in 1960 there were 17 factories. Now there are four. Oh, man. But, and there are five bakeries that make homemade strope waffles in that region. Wow. I mean, there's probably more around the world. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm just saying. One other thing I found that I didn't know about, McDonald's did a limited edition menu in 2019. It was an international menu where you could get a McFlurry with the cut remnants of strope waffles as the topping, which I guess are sometimes called Snippers. That's good.

Did McDonald's, why did McDonald's have strope waffles? It was, it was there a limited edition international menu in 2019. Okay. So this may have been something they just did like in Europe. I love when ice cream has like chunks of cone in the ice cream. I mean, just chunks of most stuff in an ice cream is nice. A good chunk, yeah. I just love a good variation in texture when it comes to ice cream.

Yeah, me too. A little crunch. Yeah, that's the stirf waffle. Awesome. I really would destroy one of these right now. I know. I wish they made them two feet wide. Like a manhole cover, I would smash.

You can. I mean, there's some of the research I did, like there are bakeries. I want Captain America Shield, but edible with that sweet layer of caramel. Because they're so, like, they're so crunching, it's like, not a problem. It's not like eating a pizza, you know. Fold it up, chaco, taco, taco, me a strope waffle, please. A strope waffle all bent up, cinnamon swirl ice cream, nutty crumble on top. Now we're talking, baby.

I'm going to pass out. I'm going to absolutely flip my gourd. Hey, do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes. Hannah says a big strope waffle chaco taco taco. Crazy. Oh, my God. Hannah says, my small wonder is that the city finally repaved the huge bump I hit while turning

onto the highway on ramp I take from work every day. No more worrying about what tire alignment is. It's smooth sailing for me. What a delight. And now when Hannah is in the car with anyone, they can really flex. They're like their city knowledge and be like, you know, there used to be a big pothole here. Yeah. You know, like for the newbies that show up in town that don't know.

There were potholes in Huntington specifically on those, like, old brick roads that are still, like, inexplicably in parts of the city that were there. I'm pretty sure the whole time I lived in Huntington. And it became part of, like, lore. Like, you know, you do know that when you're driving down, you know, 11th close to the park, that there is that one, there is that one street that you do kind of got to give a little bit of a. And it's not there anymore? Oh, I don't know. I don't live there and drive those roads for. I would be, they've probably fixed.

I guess because it is a brick road, it's like hard to patch that, right? What are you going to do? And we haven't done like an all pothole tour of Huntington. That's true. Some of my favorites. Demetri says, my small wonders, when you have a wall where you hang your tools and all of the tools have painted outlines indicating where they live. Dimitri, you're living a life that is so fundamentally different from my own. And I'm so happy for you and jealous of you, honestly.

but like the idea of not having your tools spread across at least two to three different locations in your house jammed into a box that is doesn't close all the way there's loose nails and screws just kind of poppling around in there somebody wrote in once about hooks about like having I'm sure that they did I'm sure they did yeah I know this is a situation where I think you and I are bad influences on each other because I think for me like the tools should be your thing that I've just decided arbitrarily. And so since you haven't invested in an organization system, I think, like, well, I guess we're just not going to organize them.

I do use tools, I will say, more than you. Not in a sort of like traditional, you know. You like assembling things. I do like assembling things. It's a... You've purchased most of the stuff that we have. It is a nerd fascination more than it is a, like, I'm a man, so I got to get the tools.

kind of way but I will fucking just absolutely lose them and you do exclusively use that voice I do use that voice a lot yeah we have an actual toolbox but it's not large enough to contain all of our tools so we then have other locations where we the number of Alan wrench sets that we have purchased torn apart and scattered to the four winds it's genuinely more than I can I will be like I will be uh cleaning out like a box of toys down in the base basement or something and find like three to four small allen wrenches down there don't even know how they got there there's a big bee on my plant outside anyway thanks for listening so much to wonderful thank you so much for listening so much to wonderful uh thank you to bow in and

augustus for the use for a theme song money won't pay you find a link to that in the episode description thank you so much to max fun for having us on the network that's maximum fun go to maximum fun dot org. Check out all the great stuff that they've got popping over there. And we've got some merch up in the Macroy merch store over at Macroymerch.com. There's a Taz hunger beanie that looks really sick. And our last few live shows from Bibbam and Taz are coming up in Salt Lake City in San Diego next weekend, as you're hearing this, middle of October. So you can get tickets for that over at bit. com. Our email address is wonderful podcast at gmail.com. If you want to to send in your small wonders that we will consider and maybe talk about at the end of our show.

That's it. I might need to go get strope waffles. I might need to leave. Yeah. Now that I know the brand, I'm a little fixated on specific. I can make one. You just get our waffle press out, but you like really fucking go press it. Like we don't have anything.

You almost need like a tortilla press to get them that flat. When you get a waffle maker, make the waffle, put it in the tortilla maker, squish it down. Panini, squisher, caramel it up. That's what I'm talking about, baby. Like a crepe. Like a crepe machine. A crepe machine. We don't need to break more kitchen appliances.

Bye. Working all, money won't. Working on. Money won't. Working all. Money won't. Money won't. Money hope.

Money on. Working all. Working on. Money or. Hey. Maximum Fun. A Worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.