Wonderful! - Wonderful! 74: The Funny Container Man

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

Rachel's favorite new sports superstition! Griffin's favorite driving occurrence! Rachel's favorite creamy brown stuff! Griffin's favorite energy-making devices! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

let's do it let's go party time let's do it party time on with the show here we do here we do hi this is rachel mcelroy this is andrew dice clay apparently this is griffin mcelroy and this is wonderful it sure is uh yeah I was coming at you a little hot there. Audience, I apologize for that. Let's just say I've edited so much content. I've produced and edited so much content in the last two days that I feel like I am becoming a sort of like hard-nosed Las Vegas like five shows a day performer. And I don't know how they do it.

I'm getting there. No, I am all for efficiency. I appreciate it. It's not even efficiency anymore. It's just like a complete sort of mental switcheroo where I'm just like, yeah, yeah, come on. So that's fun. How are you doing? Let's check in with you.

You know, I'm good. Good, good. I'm good. You know, just living my my life one day at a time that's what i always say you know and you as far as i know are the only person that's ever said that yeah no day but today and that day is one at a time so do you have any small wonders i guess i do actually so uh new y York Magazine has this video series on YouTube uh where they look at people's homes uh and it looks like previously it was not uh

particularly focused on any kind of notable person but they did one on Amy Sedaris oh her apartment is it like Cribs is that what we're talking about no but sort of in that we do it sounds like explicitly the plot of we do walk from room to room uh and amy sedaris her apartment is everything you'd want it to be and more well i don't know what that means i imagine a lot of gingham pattern she heard the walls are just covered like floor to ceiling uh she has a rabbit like a live rabbit that hops around the house just loose yeah um i mean she has a hutch for it but she just lets it wander she pulled back her comforter to show the holes the rabbit had chewed in her bedspread which suggests a lot yeah i mean i guess that's

the price you pay for having a delightful woodland room okay that she calls the baby's room uh she didn't have a child she just calls it the baby's room and it's just full of crafts except she has one pair of baby shoes that she just throws on the floor when people come over to be like, oh, and that's the baby's room. Okay, you're right. That does not disappoint. Yeah, it's delightful. What's your small wonder? Fiber. It's good. I take it for granted and I don't eat enough of it from time to time. And then I,

there's a reckoning and then I, and then I start, you know, reincorporating it. And instantly it's like, I'm, it's like Superman and the yellow sun. Like I just get my power from it.

Fiber is amazing. It just makes everything work better. You know, 31 year old Griffin McElroy. These are my concerns. Here we are. Metamucil.roy these are my concerns here we are metamucil i've never actually i have had metamucil you have definitely i don't like that you know that since we've lived together i believe i have seen you purchase it uh but not consume it right i do it in a weird way find out more it's just me backstage at my my Las Vegas show five nights a day and just cranking that,

just snorting that mucil just to keep my heart pumping. I think you go first this week. I do. I can't wait to hear it. So earlier today I sent you a song. Yes. And I bet you thought, I bet she's doing this song. I did.

And anyway. Okay. But I wanted to talk to you about my new favorite St. Louis Blues hockey tradition. Okay. Which is on that victory streak they had of 11 games. Yes. They used to play that every night in the locker room after they won. We need to explain the, okay, let's explain the number of things we need to explain.

The song is Gloria and it is by Laura Branigan. Should I play a clip of it, or should we just sing it? It goes like, Gloria, Gloria. I would like you to play a clip of it. But this is a great opportunity, because I can sing it. Oh, for us to sing? I can sing it perfectly. Oh, you want me to harmonize?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, you do the high part. Gloria. Gloria. Sounds like that. It also sounds like this. If everybody wants you Why isn't anybody calling?

You don't have to answer Leave them hanging on the line Calling Gloria Gloria Gloria I think they got your number I didn't realize this was a thing, but it makes sense now that I hear it. You hear about sports teams having a lot of superstitions. Yes. And I didn't do a lot of research into all the various teams, but I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with them. into like all the various teams, but I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with them.

And the St. Louis Blues, I guess, typically have had a song when they win that they play in the locker room. Prior to this song, it was Run Around Sue. What a terrible, terrible pump up jam. But there's a story behind them using Gloria. They were watching a Eagles Cowboys game in Philadelphia in January as a team. I guess they were on the road. Sorry, it's messing me up thinking about a sports team watching another sport. I know. Like thinking about these hockey players watching football and like giving a shit. Like, all I do is make podcasts. And I don't traditionally go out there and like listen to audio books. This is a bad example. This is nothing.

There's no, I am so far from being an athlete. There is no metaphor there. So they went to this bar in Philadelphia and there was a DJ. And whenever there was a commercial break, they would play music and all these guys from Philadelphia would get up and start dancing. And they played this song Gloria a couple times. And one guy looked at the DJ and said, keep playing Gloria. So they kept playing it. Well, and so this is just some local people while they were there. And so right there, they decided, the blues team players decided they should play that song after they won. And they won the next game and got a shutout. And so they just kind of kept playing it. And this continued through their franchise streak recently where they won 11 games in a row. Or does it tie the record? Yeah, that's the fastest superstition I've ever heard, like, developed. They were playing it while watching a game and said, this song's a bop.

We should play it after our games. Oh, we did it and won. Okay, this is forever now. So it's kind of incredible that they started this in January because in January they had, like, no hope of being in the playoffs. So the top three teams. This is new. This is a new tradition. Oh, wow. Okay.

So the top three teams in every division, and there's, like, you know, the Blues are in the central division, go to the playoffs. Oh, wow. Okay. And then they moved up to third in the Central Division. They currently have 74 points, and the second-place team has 78 points. So it's very possible they could get into second place if they continue playing well. Oh, they just got to keep listening to this slapper. I know. Well, this is the thing. So they have since lost, since their streak. So I don't know if they're still playing Gloria. I hope that they are.

The thing that's interesting is that just like apparently St. Louis has like rallied behind this song and they keep reaching out to Laura Branigan's family and fellow bandmates for like performances of this song, but she passed in 2004. So

they're not able to kind of continue this, but they've really appreciated kind of the renewed interest there was a an interview with the former drummer that says one out of every two people do not know that she even passed after all these years uh but they uh are thrilled that the song has regained popularity it's funny when you sent this song to me like i couldn't have told you the name of this song i know but you knew it right i knew the but maybe i'm thinking of the saturday uh yeah song by elton john because it

kind of said but no like i knew this song i just didn't know what the word was that went into gloria uh it is so good it is such a fun song it was nominated for a grammy went platinum and spent 36 weeks on the bill Top 100 chart back in 1982. And here it is again. I love this. This is so good. This is very good. For those of you, I think a lot of people were maybe surprised that suddenly I've started really talking about hockey. And I realized that when I did my episode of wonderful St. Louis Blues hockey, it was when we were still under our other name.

Oh, is that true? Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Rachel likes. Yeah. I'm a big hockey fan. Rachel has been her whole life.

Her father owns like the most memorabilia, like the most Blues memorabilia. Growing up, we had like the seven foot tall, like cardboard cutouts in our house. We had the like, we had some seats from the original st louis blues arena yes we had several cereal boxes with hockey players on them uh we had one of those you know the dome top pull like foosball but for oh yeah yeah yeah we had one of those in our basement too um any number of pucks and sticks your mom also just loves how much stuff there is it's her favorite she adores that we have those things uh can i do my first thing yes it is the green wave the green way i don't know what this is it's the name for a phenomenon that

i am familiar with but i didn't know it had sort of a proper name. Is this about the green party? It's about, and I'm so glad that I have this platform. No, it is about when you are driving and you go from one place to the other without hitting a single stoplight. Oh my gosh, I did this on the way here. See, I wanted to talk about this because I had the worst drive home from Henry's daycare this morning. On a good day, I can get. Uh, on a good day I can get home on a, like a great day. I can get home in like 13, 14 minutes. That is like ideal. No traffic

on the highway. All green lights, just like buttercream. I don't get stuck behind the train. I have a lot of obstacles, potential obstacles between me and home on a bad day. It can take me like 35, 40 minutes to get home. So there's a huge variable in there so when i get that good day when there's no traffic on the highway and i don't have to like step on the brake pedal at all until i pull into our garage like it is i am so blessed yes on those days um i didn't know there was a name for this i'm so happy yes it is the the name for this sort of mythical incident where you get all green lights on the way home or on the way to where you're going it's like the universe smiles on you um i get really frustrated at like

human caused impediments to travel um i had to i got ibs so especially if i need to like get home in a hurry and i'm stuck behind somebody going like 20 miles under the speed limit like i get so angry or if i get cut off or somebody's just like being a jerk on the road um and also like traffic i i have very little patience for which makes it even all the more miraculous when you just get this non-stop no break ride um so i tried to learn more about like the odds of getting a green wave and actually that's kind of impossible to calculate because there are so many variables in how signal timing works, which is like how stoplights run their pattern of letting their, you know, two different intersection paths go through.

Traffic engineering is like a super complicated subject that I'm going to like barely scratch the surface of here. But basically, traffic engineers have all kinds of way of controlling the like flow of traffic through an intersection using signal control. So there's one like major factor of how the signal works, which is if it is either timed or actuated. So timed stoplights are basically,

they do what you would assume, right? They run on a certain pattern yeah uh if there's one sort of uh it channeled through the intersection that's uh you know more traffic than the other maybe they will get a longer green light but it is set to a like specific pattern you know allowing each each zone different times and making it so that they never you know intersect at the same time because that would be very, very bad. But more modern stoplight systems, more modern signal systems can be actuated. And in an actuated intersection,

they can actually take a look at what the actual traffic is in that moment and change the pattern based on that. Oh. And so if there's one channel that is especially busy like one main road that intersects with like a very very small you know dead end road uh that main road they can tell how many cars are on it and uh favor them with a longer green signal uh or alternatively if there's no cars in the other channel at all they just won't switch the signal it'll just always be green until a car pulls up to the signal and then they will go about changing the pattern.

And they can do that with a number of different ways. Like you see those cameras up on the stoplights at certain intersections, major intersections here in Austin, you can see them. Those are able to, you know, look at the traffic and change the signal patterns based on that. Some of them are used. I think they were just designed to give you red light tickets. That probably too. There are these things called induction loops that you can actually just build into the ground that can tell like when cars are there. Yeah. I'm always obsessed with that where I'm like, do I need to inch forward? Like what, what's going to set this thing off? So this light will change. So that's like one reason why the green wave is actually more likely than you would think but there's another reason that is like uh so like apparent

that i didn't realize until i learned about it of a god the existence of god yes if you want to lean that way uh and also the existence of uh traffic signal networks so there are you can network these these traffic signals these actuated traffic traffic signals so that you can actually let an entire like battalion of cars drive through without having to stop at a red light. You can actually network them so that you create a sort of chain where you know, they change in pattern so that they can let a huge amount of cars go through without any sort of interruption. And doing that is like so good for traffic on a macro level. It's also great for like reducing pollution. And there's all kinds of reasons why it is like such a great idea. Of course, it's not going to work for you like 100% of the time. And it's not going to, you know, it's not it's only going to be for the sort of the major roads. But if that's all you drive on,

if all you do drive on is like the major roads, the highly trafficked roads, you're actually more likely to catch a green wave just because of the way that the signals are set up by traffic engineers. And there's a sort of future tech being developed that sort of takes the onus of catching the green wave off of traffic engineers and onto the individual. Audi, in particular, has been working to facilitate this. In 2016, they partnered with a traffic signal tech company, and they made it so that if you're within 13 major metropolitan areas, there's over 4,700 signals nationwide that this works with in your Audi car your car can speak to those signals and tell you like on your dashboard how long you have before

the signal changes oh wow that's wild right and then just this week the week that we're recording this they announced this this new thing that's going to be coming in their new cars where not only will it show you that data it will show you on your dashboard uh a suggested speed to drive at to catch a green wave i was hoping that was where you were going so i'd say like you know drive at like 26 miles an hour and based on how we are timing this out and how we have these traffic projections and how the signals are timing out you will catch a green wave the future is here the future is radical the future is the coolest ever um so yeah i uh i i drive so much more than i used to these days because when we moved we moved pretty far from henry's daycare and i make that drive twice a day and it can be very long uh and so i was interested to learn like just how much stuff goes into like

not making it a complete disaster uh and finding out like why kismet happens so often when you're driving in a car uh hey can i steal you away do you want to hear some personal messages absolutely this one is for ann it is from nathan and you beautiful bean. I love you so much, and I'm so incredibly proud of you and how far you've come. Marsha, Mr. Kitty, and I are all rooting for you. Here's to another year of incredible adventures together. And to Micah, Chelsea, and Ben, and maybe Stella, let's get that game of Dungeon World going.

Hell yeah. Let us do get that. I heard that, and I got excited like i was gonna play what is dungeon world is that the same thing as dnd uh it's kind of like dnd it's like dnd but with less uh rules and more sort of uh storytelling this is very dry but well i was curious okay so it's powered by the apocalypse um anyway here's the other jumbotron we'll talk about i want you to read this one griffin this is uh for my fourth favorite brother and it's from mckinsey who says i just want to tell you how i'm feeling gotta make you understand never gonna give you up never um they

got me never gonna let you down never gonna run around is there you it's the song it's the song you play to make a person feel like a goober when they did it you got me again mckenzie p.s please pet cobra kid and party poison for me and it's probably time to change the litter box calabunga what a savage message this is it burned me up and then it sent some sort of like uh you know splinter agent activation code there at the end thanks a lot mckenzie for those of you born in the past five years, he's referring to the phenomenon of rickrolling. Have you ever watched a movie so bad

you just needed to talk to somebody about it? Well, here at the Flophouse, we watch a bad movie and then talk about it. Yeah, you don't have to do anything. We'll watch it and we'll talk it. We do the hard work. Featuring the beautiful vocal talents of dan mccoy stewart wellington and me america's rascal elliot kalin new episodes every

other saturday at maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcast dude bye bye bye bye hey what's your second thing my My second thing is Nutella. Is what? Nutella. Nutella? Mm-hmm. I know about this creamy brown stuff. Me too.

That's why I brought it. Nutella was actually created during ration times to make chocolate go further. Oh, God, that explains everything. Because they call it a hazelnut spread but gang hazelnut is just a friend that chocolate brought to the party so back in 1806 napoleon tried to freeze out british commerce as a way of taking over the world the result was a disastrous continental blockade that caused the cost of chocolate to skyrocket and left piedmontese chocolatiers in the lurch chocolatiers and turin started adding chopped hazelnuts to chocolate to

stretch the supply as much as possible god what weird future could we have gotten if they had chosen some other thing some other thing to chop and screw in there like a like eraser bits or something like cheese goes up and so they start adding um leaks leaks well that would not all this would be good actually is that a good idea should i write that down we should probably get going on that leak cheese uh so at the time it was called giandua that's beautiful baby that was so syrupy, what you just said. It's named after a character from Comedia dell'arte named Gian Dua. He is depicted as a smiling Piedmontese peasant with a three-point hat who rides around town on a donkey clutching a duha, which is a dialect meaning container. Okay.

You can't find this on the Nutella package now. I looked. So it's like a little, like a silly man riding a donkey holding a container. And that's just a character in Comedia. I don't think I understand what Comedia dell'arte is. Cause I've always heard it's pretty highbrow. And if this is the heat that they're bringing to the table,

that does sound pretty highbrow. Cause I do not get it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it was renamed Nutella in 1964. When Comedia dell'arte finally fell out of fashion. Well, so over a century later, during World War II, chocolate again became expensive and scarce due to rationing in Europe. And so an Italian pastry maker named Pietro Ferrero in 1946 created pasta gianduja. Wait, what?

I think pasta must mean something else in this case. Sure, but we went back to the old container man name. Oh, it didn't change till 1964. Oh, okay, okay. 1946, still giandudua still crazy for container man love container man love his work it wasn't until 1964 where they started spreading like all over yeah that they changed by what you mean spreading all over every food imaginable a blanket that that surrounds the earth and protects it well i thought it was interesting because i do you

remember your first nutella experience because it was like college i was i was up there and i was in so i didn't realize it was an italian thing because the first time i had it was in my french class oh uh we made crepes in my french class and she brought a nutella and we all were like this is the best thing in the world you made crepes in your french class we watched finding nemo in my spanish class that's like that's like as far, but with the subtitles on. Yeah, we had like a French food day and we all made crepes. That's wonderful. That's good as hell. So in 1965, Nutella moved to Germany. And then in 1966, it was in France. In 78, they opened a production plant in Australia. and then in 1983 is when you started being able to find nutella

in the northeast part of the united states that's wild it was here before i was even born and i didn't know about it until like 30 years later yeah uh now if you happen to live in a in a one of these lucky cities in chicago there is a Nutella cafe where you can get crepes, gelato, oatmeal, granola, cookies, croissants, all with Nutella on it. That sounds really nice. What's wild to me is that it was designed as this thing to make chocolate last longer by chopping and screwing in hazelnuts. And yet today it is like significantly more expensive than just like some regular non-hazelnutty chocolate. Well, hazelnut I think is a pretty, you know, fancy nut.

Now we're mixing chocolate in to make the hazelnut last night. You can buy, so the reason I brought this up is you can buy a little individual serving, like little individual 80 calorie servings of Nutella. So I've been doing this little hack at work where I take half of a sandwich thin, which is like 50 calories, and then some 80 calorie Nutella. I give myself a little treat. It's 180 calories. A good tasty dessert right there.

No, it's 50. 180 great calories. 50 plus 80. You're talking to the math wizard over here. You're talking to the number cruncher over here. The math blaster. You mentioned Ferrero. the number cruncher over here the math blaster um you mentioned ferrero we didn't i didn't know the connection between these two things until we watched that uh most recent bon appetit video uh

where claire remakes the ferrero rocher makes ferrero rochers it's delightful it's really really good but i did not know that like it's basically the stuff in ferrero rochers is basically nutella uh because it's like the same she didn't realize it either and she googled and was like oh yeah okay same company makes sense uh yeah man nutella is really really good i have not had it in a while so good i used to think it was healthy because it was hazelnut um no not especially no quite quite the quite the opposite i would argue uh can i talk about my second thing yes wind farms wind farms wind Wind farms. Oh, wind farms. You mentioned this the other day and how beautiful you think they are. I think wind farms look super,

super neat. We've been watching more Hiyori's Bed and Breakfast on Netflix because it is just a, it's a salve. We kind of dipped out for a while as we had other shows to watch. And then we had this pleasant reminder that there are two seasons on netflix true it's it is just genuinely the most peaceful show to watch and uh jeju island where it takes place like looks gorgeous uh and uh there's there are frequently like parts of episodes where there's just like wind farms in the background because i guess it's a it's a pretty big spot and so they got in a windy spot in a windy spot so uh they harvest that good wind but i've always thought it like looked cool especially if like i'm on a long drive and i'm

just sort of going through a just plane where there's not much stuff uh to look at and then just like over the horizon you see these huge turbines like spinning i always thought it looks really really neat um i should mention at the top, though, there's like, you know, they can be exploitative of people living in rural sort of environments, because it is not unheard of for, especially like private places, like private companies to build their own wind farms to either like power their stuff or sell that energy for a profit and put that basically right in the backyard of these people who live in rural environments without like getting any kind of blessing from them to do so i read a report uh of a farmer in minnesota who had a wind farm built 1100 feet from his property uh and it like casts

like flickering shadows on his house yeah i could see how that make you crazy he talks about like how through the window of his office he's like in there trying to do like their financial stuff and just like blades of a gigantic like this strobe light effect um there's also like um uh people who live like within a certain amount uh like a slightly larger distance away from them can uh have complained about like the noise that they create this like low level constant vibration like frequency uh and there are people who like complain about like health problems that that causes but there have been a lot of uh studies into that and they can't really find a physiological better than like a black smoke factory but still absolutely better than black smoke but there's no there's no like proven link between the like physical side effects but um i mean that doesn't discount the fact that

people are sort of the main reason uh the main sort of opponent the the human factor uh to these wind farms but environmentally speaking they are a just like an increasingly reliable source of renewable energy uh which is makes them i think a very important thing. Back in 2009, which was 10 years ago, so obviously things have evolved since then, there was a report that found that wind power had the, quote, lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions, the least water consumption demands, and the most favorable social impacts among like sort of any energy source,

including other renewable stuff like hydroelectricity. And these turbines have gotten just like more sophisticated any energy source, including other renewable stuff like hydroelectricity. And these turbines have gotten just like more sophisticated and more productive. Obviously, like windmills and turbines have been around for, I mean, forever, right? Like around like 70 BC, the first windmill was invented. And for over a century now, like farmers and people living in rural environments have used their own like private windmills and turbines to power you know on a very small scale operations at their ranches but the first wind farm was built in 1980 in southern new hampshire it had 20 turbines which is a decent amount of turbines to start out to start out with and it produced 0.6

megawatts of energy uh which is not very much just as a point of reference the average american home uh consumes uh 10.76 megawatt hours in a year so like not even enough to like really give a house power um but obviously like things have expanded they have become more efficient today the biggest wind farm in the world is in china it's called the gansu Wind Farm. It has hundreds and hundreds of turbines, and it produces 6,800 megawatts, which is a lot of megawatts. And it's actually just a fraction of its hypothetical capacity right now, which is

ever-expanding. Its hypothetical capacity is 8 gigawatts, which is a fuckton of energy. There are efficiency issues. Yeah, issues i know that's a lot because of back to the future i think he says gigawatts which i don't even know what the exponential scale of that is um but they're hoping to like get it up to like 20 gigawatts by the next decade which would be like a profound amount of energy um there's some efficiency issues because like it's uh you can't really put it on a schedule and so there's some energy lost especially because you have to generate this energy in like big wide open plains not close to cities so in just like transferring

that energy to cities there's a natural amount of loss but still like it is it is growing china has like led the charge uh among like the whole planet eight of the 10 biggest wind farms in the world are in china they had this huge push to like explore wind energy, not only as like a, uh, environmentally kind of sound energy production method, but also like economically beneficial, uh, energy method. Uh, and a recent study, um, actually, no, a study, I believe around the, the, the 2010, Actually, no, a study, I believe, around the year 2010 was done by Harvard and Tsinghua University and found that China could supply all of its power from wind energy by 2030. Wow. Which is kind of remarkable. That's a lot of people in China.

Yes, there are quite a few people in China. Yeah. um and like individual turbines are getting better at producing energy which means you you know hypothetically need fewer turbines to produce the same amount of energy at your farm which makes them easier and cheaper to build reduces their footprint meaning you need like a smaller space you don't have to find these huge open planes with like perfect ideal wind conditions and again like it's not just like the technology of the turbines that is improving. Like there's other stuff too. Just this week, actually yesterday from the day we were recording this, Google announced

that Google has its own like private wind farm that they use to like power their headquarters. And they have learned, it was like the big problem with wind turbines is it's the wind and you can't really always count on it because it's different. And so so like uh but energy like you kind of need it to be stable right if we had an uneven amount of energy coming into this house like shit would just like break down all the time um and so they can't predict the wind right but deep mind can which is their like uh adaptive sort of machine learning ai uh it's machine learning ai can like look at all of the conditions of all the turbines and kind of predict like what the energy output of them is going to be and they have claimed that it is made just like overnight the energy that they produce uh quote

20 percent more valuable and nobody seems to really know what that means uh but it is like a it's like a it's a cool thing that that just like instantly overnight like just the whole idea of wind energy became better and more efficient because of this other sort of ancillary technological uh improvement um so i mean all that other tech stuff aside like and i think it is like important i think that anything we can do to get away from fossil fuels is a good step in the right direction um but i just think they look cool man exactly well you know it reminded me you know how i talked about how much i love kinetic sculpture yeah let's look at it reminds me of it looks like the future like it looked they look futuristic in a way that i also find very aesthetically

pleasing and the contrast of like them being out in the middle of nowhere and then like growing out, it's kind of like a, what is it, a tree grows in Brooklyn? Yeah. But it's a huge mechanical pinwheel that grows in the middle of like, you know, old farm or something. I just find the juxtaposition like very aesthetically pleasing. Man, between the green wave and wind energy, like. Yeah, this is really my Al Gore episode. This is really your Al Gore episode. Yeah, it really is.

Let's close things out with some submissions from our friends at home. Did we get one from Al Gore? We got one from Al Gore. And he says, the internet. Emily says, I take the train to and from work. And one of my favorite things is seeing a stranger on the train reading one of your favorite books.

It's such a good feeling to know that they're getting uh to read a book that you enjoyed so much every once in a while you get to have a little interaction with them where you uh connect about the book i've been on both sides of these interactions and they always make me so happy oh that's nice i've never had this experience but when i was living in chicago i sat behind a woman who had a zune uh and i a Zune, which was already very exciting. And she was listening to the same Wolf Parade album I was listening to at like the exact same time. That is the most dated reference you've ever made. Maybe.

Here's one from Ria. I believe I'm pronouncing that right. Who says, I know games to play in the car have been recognized as wonderful, but me tell you about my favorite one wonderful on road trips my girlfriend and i cast ourselves as guest hosts of the show it's been a lovely way for us to learn more about our person like how she unironically enjoys the aesthetic of applebees or how i can speed read fox and socks faster than even the great seuss ever intended don't worry no plans on going on air anytime soon oh the at home version at home version there's a good thing you're not publishing those because we're very the great Seuss ever intended. Don't worry, no plans on going on air anytime soon. Oh, the at-home version. The at-home version.

And there's a good thing you're not publishing those because we're very litigious. I encourage people to do this because I feel like it's been really good for me and Griffin. Yeah, sure. Griffin and I tend to be kind of high-strung people. And this has required us to focus on the things we like. And usually they are like small things

that you don't have to pay money for and you can just kind of enjoy anywhere, anytime. It's true. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. Speaking of money can't buy things, that was the original name of the song I heard. It's a great song.

You can find a link to that in the episode description. Thanks to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Like we said last week, we're recording all of these like really close together. So time is a flat circle for me right now. But I think last week, we're recording all of these like really close together. So time is a flat circle for me right now. But I think last week from the time you were hearing this, we talked about this. But in two weeks, I believe the maximum the maximum fun drive is going to kick off. We are a pledge supported network, which means that you, the listeners, can help support the shows that you like on the network.

And we have gotten so much incredible support since we launched well rose buddies and then since we switched over to wonderful and it means so much and uh yeah that's coming up soon you'll have a chance to also get some cool rewards for for that um and uh we have a bonus episode we recorded for this show that we warned you about, I guess. Yeah, you already know about it and it's available to the donors. To the donors. It's our Will Smith sort of review and it was fun to record and think about, just think about Will Smith's career.

And thanks to Maximum Fun, like they have all kinds of great shows. And that's it. How do you want to close this one? Since you've been taking over the Home Improvement Stinger. Yeah. I've really, I've missed out on an opportunity, I think. To do what? Oh, to do the To Sing It Yourself.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, do you want to do that now? No. Well, then, bye. My mom's crazy. My mom's crazy. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Welcome back and thank you, Dan, for that scathing report.

As you know, MaxFunDrive is coming up March 18th to March 29th, which has some folks pretty excited. But as families around the world get ready to celebrate this season of giving, community, and quality podcasts, some are wondering if it's just too much. Are they, though? They are. Some people are all for comedy and culture,

but with 45 shows offering hundreds of hours of bonus content, plus all the MaxFun meetups taking place around the world, some people think it's too much. While other people think it sounds totally awesome. I took my granddaughter to the mall to get her picture taken and the mall pod fairy was short and I, you know, I'm just gonna say it. I'm sorry, but everyone knows

the pod fairy is tall. Well, I think we should just leave it there. Until next time, here's the news you need to know. Max Fun Drive runs from March 18th through 29th. Be sure to listen to all of your favorite podcasts. I know I will.