Wonderful! - Wonderful! 95: Baritone Chili's

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

Griffin's favorite musical meeting! Rachel's favorite organization concept! Griffin's favorite soft flooring! Rachel's favorite old-school simulated life game! 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.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hey, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. I bet the wheels are already spinning. You're like, what bit's he gonna do? Yeah. Aren't ya? I always get a little nervous. I'm gonna be honest with you. Let me get back into the bit. Hey, everybody, this is

Griffin. Got a new friend in the studio that we've added. And we've got a few new friends. Haven't talked about blinds. Welcome to the studio, blinds. You keep the sunlight out and you keep the people on the street out from looking at me while I play Beat Saber because that's fucking embarrassing.

But also I want to talk about our new friend, Oil Diffuser. Oil Diffuser, welcome to the studio. You put that good calming stink up in the air. Hey, what smell are you working on these days? Peppermint. I like smelling it. It's some sort of mint, but I think it's a peppermint, like a soft peppermint breeze coming through the wind.

It's like if a tornado hit a peppermint factory and I lived some miles away and just got the scent of it. Are you feeling soothed? I mean, I can't smell it right now. Do you feel soothed and oily? I don't know if you're supposed to run it like all day, every day. Can you diffuse too much oil? I think it wouldn't make sense to do it when you are not present.

Yeah, but I do want it to be minty when I get back in the room after I've used it. You know, a good overnight mint soak. And then in the morning, I could just like scrape this mint jelly off the walls and like put it on my yogurt or something. Yeah, I just love it, man. It's like I live at the spa. Not like I didn't already. I love that mud. Real mud man.

Should we start over? I feel like you don't like the spot bit. I think you kind of, you lost me at peppermint. It surprised me and I didn't know where to go from there. What kind of oil do you want? I mean, more of a floral or a citrus. Interesting. Peppermint just makes me think holiday season.

Yeah, that's a benefit i feel like i'm at a holiday spa i feel like i'm at santa's chill workshop and i got little elves rubbing my feet and i got mrs claus doing a kelp wrap next to me and we're just gabbing gabbing the night away while while hoho himself goes and delivers presents how is this fantasy i'm whipping up holy shit are you in love with mrs claus because now suddenly i'm jealous i mean we've done some stuff yeah but you said that was okay i bet she smells like peppermint too huh gingerbread actually babe she was on my list we both have lists you're number one scott bacula i respect that and mine is mrs santa claus

so yeah we've done some stuff but it was even have a first name uh patty patty claus i think so and uh i mean uh the only name i knew was what i this is but it was before we met. It was before we met, but I hooked up with Mrs. Claus. Do we have a small wonder? I do. All right. It's pretty broad.

Okay. Toys. Toys are great. Henry's getting into the age where he really appreciates a new toy. Yeah, he does. And I just find myself just almost on like a hobby basis, just researching what toys are available that he might be interested in. Cool. I'm into that. I mean, it's tough for me because I've been into it my whole life.

I haven't found a good Paw Patrol toy and I really want to get him one because he loves the Paw Patrol. But there's just so many dang dogs in that group. There's a lot of dogs dogs i feel like in my day we had you know power rangers i know but see even power rangers had a bit of a member bloat after a while yeah see i like the pj mask because it's pj mask is three you're in you're out gecko outlet uh cat boy yeah pj masks okay okay six fucking patrol let me see if i can do it marshall Catboy. Yeah. PJ Masks. Okay. Okay. Six fucking dogs. Paw Patrol. Let me see if I can do it.

Marshall, Zuma, Rocky, Sky, Chase, and then there's another one. Marshall. I think I already said Marshall. I don't think you did. I don't know. See, this is the problem. By the time you get to the fifth one, you've forgotten what the first one you said was. It's so many fucking dogs.

One's like a firefighter dog. One so many fucking dogs and one's like a firefighter dog one's a cop dog one's like a flying dog and it's like okay you're losing the plot a little bit and then it's like i'm the i'm the recycling dog and it's like that's important you know save this world and protect all the geese and turtles and shit but there's a firefighter dog i know what are you doing here, recycling dog? Recycling dog's playing the long game. He is. Yeah, he's saving the earth.

Not from fire, but well, kinda. I'm gonna say, shit, man. Guacamole. Man, oh man, oh man. Have we not? Has that not come to the table? Maybe, maybe not. But damn, it's good.

We just had some Tor tortious tacos with their here's the problem a lot of places do bad guacamole like i feel like the guacamole for me to get on board with it first of all i need a salty chip second of all i need like a zesty guac like i need flavor in there it can't just be like here's a big avocado soup i want fucking garlic and i want you know spices and peppers and maybe a little cojita on top i want it i want fucking garlic and i want you know spices and peppers and maybe a little cojita on top i want it i want authentic shit i think i talked about elote which is different it's different from it's the corn version one is corn one is famously is corn and one is the green the strange green fruit we call guacamole. I go first this week.

You know what? I was going to do this second, but it's going to be weird if we do not talk about it for the first half hour of the show or whatever. My first thing is meeting Carly Rae Jepsen. If you ever have the chance to meet Carly Rae Jepsen, it's a really nice experience. And she's very generous with her time it seems very generous with her time you are welcome to the opportunity yourself

yes i posted a picture of the three of us we did get a picture with with uh miss jepson and uh i was we were both we were both glowing uh bliss delight was back in full force uh it really was a profound experience i think for both of us and i just kind of want to walk you through it i guess i've for a while now i've been like thinking about doing like positive celebrity encounters on this show but i feel like this is a kind of crystallized version of that in one celeb encounter arguably like the most important musician encounter i could have at this point in my life uh so the show appeared on acl uh the acl at the moody theater austin city limits and i was looking at tickets and i was like texting with rachel like do you want to go to this show

and then i saw that there were vip tickets available and I thought if not now for this then what Griffin gave me like three minutes to respond to that text and when I didn't he texted me again in a in a feverish yeah I was worried they were gonna get snatched up but they didn't we managed to get get a couple tickets secured a babysitter which was a whole ordeal it was a thing it was a thing and then uh yesterday or what day yeah saturday this last saturday uh we went we went to the show there's a little check-in area waited in a long line of folks uh we got recognized a lot during this and during the show which which was great. Austin listeners. I mean,

okay. If you wanted to find me and Rachel, the Carly Rae Jepsen show in Austin is a pretty fun. You're pretty much, there's no chance. We're not there. Of course we are there. I met a lot of nice people,

got to go in, got to do the sound check, not do it. She called me up on stage. She was like, can you play the trumpet and run away with me? I was like, you know I can. It's a saxophone. Why did I say trumpet would be a wild version of that song.

It's a little ska version. It was great. And then she did a Q&A. And as we were walking in while we were checking in, we were asked, do you want to submit a question to the Q&A? were asked do you want to submit a question to the q a and i want everybody at home to try over the next 10 seconds to think of a question that you can send in to carly ray jeffson or any musician that you admire there was a question she got asked twice which was about her hobbies which you got to understand people were just desperate yeah Yeah, I think that's the way I was leaning. And of course, you also don't wanna be the person like,

you know, now do you love swords? Do you love the swords bit? Which Rachel did not know about. I didn't. When the photo session happened, which was the next thing that happened, she saw a few people holding swords, like plastic swords and stuff. uh the the backdrop of the photo

like area was uh like its back was to us so we just see silhouettes of carly and other people wielding blades uh against the flash uh and i had to explain to rachel uh internet irony humor and perhaps you should explain to our listeners in case also there was a period of time there where i it like these things do just like someone decided carly ray jefferson needed a sword and then all of a sudden there were petitions and uh you know fan arts and protests so it wasn't like you where she like put a sword in her mouth and then everybody thought that was like her thing well she was before she did uh her breakout uh hit i believe off her second album which was a title called call me maybe she was a sword swallower in the circus uh but yeah then one day somebody threw her a plastic sword at one of her concerts and she caught it in the air like excalibur and

she was the highlander and there can be only one. Anyway, we got some insider scoops from the Q&A though. She's a real charmer, folks. She's been playing a lot of Catan with her crew on the bus. I'm into that. And also, she likes to read books. You can print that TMZ. Credit me though. And did you know any of the musical artists she listed because i felt very embarrassed that i was not familiar except for licky lee which we saw in concert but she announced several others several other artists i think there was one but it's it has left my mind anyway here's where things got surreal for me and this is what i wanted to focus in on i'm glad you are we waited in this line to get our photo with and actually like meet carly uh and we were in this line for 20 minutes and

panic started to set in in my heart um and that panic led me to this like full-blown out-of-body transcendental experience it's like in uh dr strange when tilda swinton punches you in the chest and your soul goes flying backwards out of your body and you can see the the curvature of the earth and the broad tapestry of time that i have And we're standing in this line and I am trying to think of something good to say when we meet Carly. Trying to think of something, I guess, memorable. Something that is going to be beneficial to all parties involved in the exchange. Let me ask about this because i don't have this instinct um did you think that if you said a certain combination of words she would look at you in a meaningful way and say thank you so much for sharing that with me i don't and here's what's

wild while i was in this headspace I wasn't thinking of the end result. And I certainly wasn't thinking of anything that would benefit her in the end of the exchange. Right. It is inherently like kind of a weird. I want to say this. I want to preface this. Like we do get recognized like more often when we're at cons or something. It happens sometimes here in Austin because we live here and there's you know a

bunch of fans who live here and like when that happens like i'm always cool to say hey and and chat and meet folks uh most of the time no matter what you're very friendly i try to be unless i'm like hanging out with henry like i don't want to take pictures or anything like that like obviously that's got to take precedent and if i'm like late for a flight or a panel if i'm at a convention like sometimes i've had to like run away but like i'm always down to down to talk and say hey because i'm genuinely like super grateful for the life that our fans allow us to live uh or lead not live that our fans haven't killed us yet um that too but there are things that people can say to me during those exchanges that make me like a little bit uncomfortable.

And it's never anything like especially sinister. But it's this idea of them like generating, like scripting out something charming and memorable to say to a person they admire. And then you were in that exact same position. Right. charming and memorable to say and then you were in that exact same position right and what it made me realize is like at the end of the day when you are doing that to anybody um and you know most commonly like a person that you recognize from whatever and have this impulse to like want to impress or be memorable or charm or whatever like when you come up with when you're scripting out that thing to say in that way you are not treating the other person like a human being

right like there is something there is something inherently dehumanizing about like i can't talk to you like a human so instead i'm going to um you know try and try and land some sick joke or something. It's so condensed, right? Like part of it is that you think maybe I will never see this person again. I only have the opportunity to say a few sentences. So I want to capture everything I've always wanted in this two second exchange. Sure. Again, like I, this is not me. I swear to God, this is not me like knocking our fans, right? Like I, this, this doesn't happen that often. And when it does, like, it doesn't really bother me that much, but it's like the, the

thing in that, in that exchange, the thing I feel best about is earnest, like conversation about like, you know, I like your stuff. Oh, thanks. Tell me a little bit about yourself oh cool cool like you would talk to a person like you would talk to another person uh and there's a way to be memorable and charming and funny while you do that but there's i do not think it's possible when you start the approach from where i was at in that line for 20 minutes which is like what's a good fucking oh what's a good cold open here and Griffin really did test out like a dozen a bunch of stuff at Rachel and she kept saying no don't no I was like what am I supposed to say like hey I'm a huge fan of your work and I'm really excited to meet you

and she was like yeah say that and so that's what we did and she was she gave us both hugs and we took a great picture with I like I sincerely went in for the handshake, just not even thinking about it. She juked you. And when she gave me the hug, I felt like, oh, I don't deserve this. She fucking stiff-armed you and got you wrapped up in a big hug. I'm trying not to be preachy here. I genuinely, it just was this moment of weird, like. Also, there was a point where when I went to pose for a photo with her

and my hand kind of brushed her lower back because I was trying to position. Yeah. I just felt like, oh, God, I'm blowing it. Meeting, having a positive celeb experience is amazing. amazing and this moment that i specifically had because it's been a while since like i've had an experience like this where i had been in this place that i you know i had obviously met a lot of i'm not saying i'm carly ray jefferson either but i have met a lot of people who were like super excited to meet me and it was just this weird like we're all in this fucking together man like we're all we're all folks and we all have the same

impulses when it comes to these like really tense anxiety causing experiences because holy shit mine was through the roof uh and i i just felt so i felt a oneness with the rest of humanity in that moment and so that is a big wonder for me what's your first thing? My first thing is community organizing. Community organizing. This seems like a fairly broad concept. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So like when I get all my Yu-Gi-Oh heads in Austin and we go meet up at the Long John Silvers. Do you know there's actually a definition of community organizing? Oh, is there really? Okay. What is it? What is it? A method of engaging and empowering people

with the purpose of increasing the influence of groups historically underrepresented in policies and decision making that affect their lives. Yeah, that's way more important

than my Yu-Gi-Oh joke. No, I mean, we can keep going with Yu-Gi-Oh though. How would you say that you and your Yu-Gi-Oh folks have gotten together to increase your influence and to change

policy and decision making well okay um we meet at the long john silvers there are these five cards that if you play them all together it forms like this big killer robot that instantly wins the game and so sometimes i don't have all the cards. But when I meet up with everybody else, and they have the big killer robot cards, and then we use them together. I was really hoping you'd tell me about changing the policies at Long John Silver's. Well, also they have a, yeah. In the basket, there are seven fish pieces. Sometimes there are eight. It is our policy that it become eight permanently.

Permanently. We obviously much prefer it when it's eight. Obviously, also, they only let you play Yu-Gi-Oh in there without buying something for like an hour and a half before they do call the police on you. And that's a policy I would like to change. Dennis, he's the manager at Long John Silver's. I want to give you an example of community organizing that I think has been particularly effective. Okay. Can I do that? Yeah.

You heard of Moms Demand Action? Yes. It all started just because Shannon Watts, who was a mother of five and a former communications executive, got on Facebook in 2012 after the Sandy Hook tragedy and had a message that all Americans can and should do more to reduce gun violence. And so then that Facebook group turned into this kind of online grassroots movement that now has representation in all 50 states.

That's wild. I listened to a reply all about that happening, not necessarily that group, but that idea of Facebook, like. Yeah. Not even Facebook groups sometimes, but Facebook events spiraling into these like huge, huge like influential blocks. So they I mean, there's obviously no way to really classify this, but they they say they have six million supporters, which I guess can take a variety of forms.

Either there are people that are active in their state groups, or there's donors, or there's people that have purchased merchandise. The great thing about this group, because it has become so state-focused and so social media-focused, is that they've been able to kind of accomplish a lot and rally a lot of support. So they have looked into specifically businesses that were allowing individuals to bring guns into the business and then protested that or spread awareness of it. And so through that, they have approached and been successful in removing guns from Starbucks, Chili's, Chipotle, Sonic, Target, K Chipotle, Sonic,

Target, Kroger, and Panera. That's all of them. Yeah. That's every business. That's all the businesses you would want. Wait, they didn't get Chili's. They didn't get Chili's? Right.

Did you say Chili's? I did say Chili's. That's all of them. I thought you didn't say Chili's. No, I would always say Chili's. If Chili's is on a list, I'm going to say Chili's. No, I would always say Chili's. If Chili's is on a list, I'm going to say Chili's. I love the deep, ironic love that Austinites have for... I'm not a big Reddit user, but I will occasionally pop onto the Austin subreddit to see if there's anything going on this weekend that I

missed. And there's almost always a handful of posts from people like, I went to this exquisite Southwestern place. can i ask you actually this is this is a question that i is maybe a culture question but in your head is there a difference between chilies and apple bees we didn't have a chilies for a long time while i was growing up in uh huntington apple bees so apple bees for me is the fucking old dog like if i want to go get like some uh pudding shooters and a steak with a fucking like you know a whole roasted pig on top of it and then also 65 appetizers for a dollar each i'll go to appetite go to app see i call it appetizers bees i go to appetizers bees but if i want to

have a true southwestern experience, a true. That's a good point. Then I'll go to Chili's. Chili's is more of a Southwestern vibe. Yeah, man. We take it for granted because we live in the Southwest. Yeah, sure. But for our friends that are not in the Southwest, Chili's is what connects them to us.

Yeah, can't throw a basketball down a hill without hitting Chili's. Unless you're in West Virginia. In which case there is no basketball you could throw no distance unless you could cross state lines. Can I talk more about Moms Demand Action? Of course.

I can't believe you let me talk about Chili's that long. You know how I am. Listen, it's up to you. When we're talking about something serious, it is up to you to keep your hand on the rudder. You're right. So this group has gotten together not just to go against our beloved Chili's, but to look at political action, but to look at political action,

whether it's candidates or particular bills that they want to support actions against gun violence. So in 2018, they worked together to help 20 states pass stronger gun laws, with nine signed into law by Republican governors at the time. They passed red flag laws, which are laws that temporarily remove firearms into law by Republican governors at the time. They passed red flag laws, which are laws that temporarily remove firearms from people believed to be at high risk

of harming themselves. And they have seen that of the Moms Demand Action supporters that many of them have moved on to local and federal office. Oh, wow. Yeah. So just recently this came up,

they were in DC for their national conference, when the shooting in El Paso happened. And so 2000 people were in town for that conference. So they just all got up and march like, immediately, because they were all in the location already. So I just I find it, I find it really inspiring that this group of people that felt largely powerless but had kind of a huge stake in the outcome. You know, I mean, obviously they're welcoming anybody to march with them or protest with them.

But this idea that, you know, as a result of Sandy Hook, you feel this kind of immediate terror and responsibility for the lives of immediate terror and responsibility for the lives of your children and to work together with other moms to kind of do the best you can to protect them is so admirable and so inspiring and really makes times like this more bearable to know that there are people out there that are working together and that you have an opportunity in your state to do the same. That's the thing. Like it's one thing.

It would be not great if it was just a salve and you're like, Ooh, okay. I'm glad somebody is taking care of this. But the fact that it's like accessible and there's a, there's a few groups that are doing like a good, good work in that. Yeah. So I wanted to talk about it because they have representation in every state. So if, if you're in a position, you know, where you want to do something, you don't have to start from scratch.

You know, there is a group of people that are already working together and have become quite powerful. So I just wanted to bring that up because it was helpful to me to kind of know that that is available and that there are people doing the work and that there's an opportunity for me to help out that group. So should we do like a one last Chili's joke as a sort of buffer? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's something about quesadillas. One more. Ribs.

Chili's. Baby back ribs. Griffin, you could do so much better. I'm not... Barbecue sauce. I'm not really sure. I'm trying to see how low I can do it. Oh, okay. Chili's

Can I please? Chili's Baby back ribs Barbecue sauce Can I steal your way? baby back ribs barbecue sauce. Can I steal you away? That was so low. Did you hear how low it was? You know, listeners are going to think

you just altered that with your fancy software. I didn't alter that. Rachel, tell him. Tell him I didn't. It was real. He really did it. It was real.

Damn. Holy shit, babe. I didn't know I could do that. You were very talented. Oh, my God. I'm going to join an acapella group tonight. Can I share a personal message with you? From you?

I like to keep those off air. Oh, she really does, folks. What does that mean? What does that mean? You said it. This message is for Kiddo. It is from Brighton. Happy birthday, Kiddo.

Remember when you said it would be crazy if I got you a Jumbotron and laughed? Joke's on you. I love you so much. You're my hero and my favorite person. Thanks

for being my best friend since day one. Here's to another year of mall crawls, hand clapping games, six hour phone calls, and eating ice cream out of the carton. Oh boy. I remember six hour phone calls while playing clapping

games. Have you ever talked on the phone for a long time? Yeah. I mean, everybody did. I imagine, uh, if you were courting in primary school, primary school.

Yeah. When you were 10. Well, doesn't primary include, I don't know when you're in middle school, high school and you got, and you got a bow or just a buddy or a pen pal or a youth pastor who you you know are a fan of or mrs claus mrs claus patty patty indeed i have a message here this

one's for lauren ames ashley biz and leslie it's from sarah who says i would have gotten on the mackerel train much earlier if i'd known it would lead me to people like you we come from such different backgrounds but you're all kind and generous and supportive and fun and i think you're wonderful i can't wait to see you at our next mackleroy's for a weekend time period oh i see maybe you listen to some programs and oh they eat uh eat a banana with a peel still on funny funny funny and they eat some nachos and then they are all on the toilet and they go to bed at 830. That's it.

And then watch Shark Tank. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hi, everybody. My name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. We're both doctors. Nope, just me. Okay, well, Sydney's a doctor and I'm a medical enthusiast.

And we create Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine. Every week I dig through the annals of medical history to bring you the wildest, grossest, sometimes dumbest tales of ways we've tried to treat people throughout history. And lately we do a lot of modern fake medicine because everything's a disaster. But it's slightly less of a disaster every Friday right here on MaximumFun.org as we bring you Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine. And remember, don't drill a hole in your head. I'm going to do my second thing now. Okay.

I'm going to keep it a lot briefer because I feel like I went pretty deep in the pain with Carly. You got real detailed on Miss Jepsen. Shag carpeting. Whoa. Yeah, whoa indeed. Shag carpeting is the, in my opinion, the single best surface to touch with your skin. Other than like, you know, baby skin's nice, nice, smooth, soft. The skin of a lover.

The skin of a lover. How did I know you were going to say those words exactly we've been together for a long time um what makes something so you want to know what shag carpeting is length does it become shag i guess so shag is defined by its deep pile which i didn't i learned a lot about carpets today did you know what the pile is i mean i thought it was kind of like thread count almost like the density of the it's just whatever is on top of the backing of the carpet is the pile and so if it's a you know a thick deep fluffy pile uh and the big thing that makes it shag is that the material uh typically you know wool or whatever is looped so it's not just like one single strand coming out of the backing it's looped which makes it it gives a little bit more sink gives a little bit more softness to it shag carpeting had to be

like super long like two inch long like i mean it is historically pretty long stuff uh in our we have like a playroom in our house that has this huge 10 by 10 shag rug this big dark blue shag rug and man awesome i could just lay on the floor all day on the thing it's funny something about when we enter that room we're both immediately on the floor bones disappear well like our bones disappear. Well, I mean, we get very tired playing, trying to keep our son entertained. And so we'll go in his playroom and we will sit in this soft, beautiful bed of blue comfort. And just instantly, you know, we just melt right into it. We put a little plastic slide in there. And so Henry just goes down the slide over and over again.

And we just lay on the floor and watch him. Good job, son. Stay safe. just goes down the slide over and over again and we just lay on the floor good job son stay safe it's just like this freshly cut soft loamy blue grass it's so good i i don't sit on the floor i'm not like a person who enjoys sitting on the floor but there's no chairs required on this big shag rug uh and i like it our friends had shag in their basement uh growing up i remember just like being so cozy and comfy when I was down there barefoot. I became a real basement dweller.

So I found some info from our friends at Floor Coverings International of Orange County, New York. Oh, how's Jim doing? Jim's doing great. He's doing an expose on linoleum. Did Julie come out okay from the procedure she was having done?

When Julie had to get the linoleum did julie come out okay from the procedure she was having done when julie had to get the linoleum removed from her head skull yeah she came out great okay it went really good i love those folks yeah they're good it's a shame what happened to julie but that's why it's good that jim's doing this expose isn't it too many we've lost too many of our best and brightest minds in the carpeting industry to the dangerous flooring material that i call anoleum which i've hated my whole life uh so shag uh peaked in the 60s and 70s when hippies needed a surface to lay down on as they uh you know did drugs and uh partied and uh did a lot of kiss from what i understand a lot of kissing uh heavy petting and all that kind of spin a bottle on shag carpeting i wonder yeah i don't know but

i bet that the shag soaked up the gange smell real nice uh but before then it was it was a thing like reaching into uh like ancient history there's a lot of different cultures that have had uh you know big shaggy soft surfaces to stand on one of the earliest uh examples of it is the floccati rugs of ancient greece uh which were constructed from long strands of woven goat hair uh which i don't know how soft goat hair is i don't think it's very soft i mean you've pet a goat before right i've pet a goat before and it yeah pretty coarse pretty coarse it had other things it had all other qualities i admired um so in the 80s like shag was thought of as being like you know tired and passe um and it

didn't help that like the common colors for shag back then were like gross green brown like uh you know hard to accessorize colors yeah we had a lot of like orange and orange brown in our house yeah um but now it's actually coming back uh and is sort of a contemporary style the big uh thing that is sort of shag inspired is and i might mispronounce the this uh freeze carpet f-r-i-e-z-e carpet um which is actually what i think we have like what we are currently uh is underneath us right now uh and in that instead of having like these loops the material is twisted so much that it curls back on itself rather than being stitched into a loop uh and it's soft like shag it's not quite as as deep,

but that's like the hip contemporary style of flooring. When they come over to our house, they always compliment our carpeting. Because it's soft as hell. It's very soft. It's really, really nice. And it's wild. We're very close to shag.

It's a shagadelic here, baby. No. I promise that's the only one. I promise that's the only one. I promise that's the only one. Okay. Two drawbacks to shag, because we've got to be fair and balanced here. Does it make you horny?

Baby, you're about to open Pandora's box. I know. And that's not my box, baby. Yeah, see? It's happening uh they are shag carpet is a nightmare to maintain and maintain correctly this is from our friends at floor coverings international of orange county new york shag rugs must be vacuumed once a week as well as deep cleaned frequently to deep clean a shag carpet take the hose of your vacuum to suck up the dirt and grime in the

corners and under the furniture about every three to six months clean your carpet with a steam cleaner allowing the carpet to be shampooed without flooding and ruining the room oh we should do that huh yeah not a fucking chance guys not a chance uh drawback two and this is the last drawback uh i was doing some modifications to a couple joy cons slapping a hot little atomic purple skin on them. Did you lose some citrus? I dropped one screw, like this microscopic tri-wing screw, and it took me 45 whole minutes to find it under my chair. Like it was under my chair.

I knew where it was in a one by one foot radius, and it took me 45 fucking minutes to find it. It was a nightmare. It's a real honey, I shrunk the kids situation. It was. If those kids got stuck in this carpet, game over, man. No chance.

No chance. What's your second thing? My second thing, and I'm excited to talk about this for the seven people listening that might also know what I'm talking about. I'm excited to hear you talk about it. There was a game in 1985 called

little computer people i had heard of this game or potentially house on a disc depending on interesting there were two names for it was it like an international like it had a different name okay yes how so which one is better how little computer people's way better house on a disc could be anything well yeah so little computer people's way better house on a disc could be anything well yeah so little computer people really gets at the mythology right yeah the mythology's so great this game is so wild so before there was the sims right and even before there was tamagotchi if you wanted to take care of a little creature in a game you could find it and little computer people i love that it didn't start with like you're taking care of a tan like a little virtual monster you're taking care of a

guy yeah like a guy there's just a guy in there you got to take care of him it took me forever to find this game because what i didn't realize at the time is that each disc you would buy of this game for your Commodore 64 had its own, like the character had its own unique name. So ours was named Rob. And so for the longest time, I was looking for the game under Rob. I want to know about Rob's tiny house game i was like computer man rob typewriter piano shower i bet you got some cool results with that heuristic uh so as i mentioned this game was released in 1985 you were as the player a researcher and so the way that they presented the game, they sold it in this like brochure magazine style packaging. And the idea was that these little people

had been living in your computer from the very beginning. And they had made an astonishing discovery at Activision. And then you had a whole magazine all about like, here's how you find and connect with your people on your computer. So good. It was originally called Pet Person, which I think they decided. It's a little confusing. So what it was.

So when the game loaded up, you entered your name, the date, and the time, and that allowed the game to address you in the real time of the year that you were playing. This is 1985, too, so this is not a common thing. It was always a male character that was assigned to you, although apparently there was a Japanese version that came out in 87 where you could have a woman computer person okay uh so once you loaded the game that was like that was canon like it saved to your disc as this is your person and this is your house and and what they looked like was also different based on what the serial code of the disc was yeah yeah so it was like a three-story house that you saw kind of a cross-section of uh and it i mean it had like kitchen living

room bedroom like upstairs attic space like bathroom the whole thing and he would just walk around the house and you could type in there and instruct him to do things right uh i actually i watched this so when you said you were bringing this i watched the let's play of it and actually for the first 10 minutes the guy shows up and like looks around the house and gets familiarized with his environment and then he just fucking leaves before you can do anything with him this is a good game yeah the video i watched today uh was a person kind of playing it again and he noted that the person left the house for like five minutes comes back with a dog yeah i just got you this house and you've already brought a pet into it cool um but yeah you could

type in things like take a shower watch tv play the piano dance play a record um and then he would do it right what was tricky though is that he would only do things in certain parts of the house. So I remember this, like he'd be downstairs on the bottom floor and I'd be like, play the piano. And then it would take him like two minutes to walk up the stairs. And sometimes if you didn't type fast enough, he would be halfway downstairs before it would register your command. So I'd be like, play a record. And he'd already be down in the kitchen. And then he'd like slowly walk back up the stairs. But But yeah, so you would you would refill his little water jug and you'd feed the dog and you'd tell him to eat and sleep and all this stuff. And then apparently, and this is what terrified me as a

kid. So usually a little smiley face. But if you stopped feeding him or letting him sleep, his little smiley face would turn to a frowny face and then he would turn green. And then his little correspondence, so you could send him up to the typewriter and ask him like little questions and he would send you a little message and his message would be like, low on supplies.

Dying, Rachel. Help me, help, help, help help help skip school today play with me um yeah so that that was a lot of responsibility for me and sometimes and they pointed this out in one of the let's plays that i was watching today is that they think they were building a potential expansion yeah because a lot of times in his little typewriter letters that he would write for you he would say like really would like to have a party or like really wanting a cat and so i used to like type in there like have a party get a cat and he would never do it and i always felt bad and they were suggesting that maybe that was like if the game took off you could buy some kind of expansion where it would allow you to do those things.

But yeah, the game, I loved it. But it also really kind of stressed me out, which is why I never got a Tamagotchi. Because I just thought, I am feeling a tremendous amount of responsibility for this little computer person. And it is kind of making me anxious. This reminded me of a game that we had that I just had to look up the name of called creatures did you ever play that one similar thing like you had these are they like little monsters and eggs yes i think so but you could like talk to them you had to like teach them how to talk and stuff like that there was like a whole series of them this yeah we had that i think once i once i love little computer people so, we got that one. We also got the little dogs.

You could buy little dogs and cats for your computer screen. Oh, yeah. We did that, too. Oh, man. That was so good. So within this game, they also had this weird kind of feature where you could ask him to play a game, and he would play poker or war or anagrams with you. The three main games that there are. And so the screen would change. He would sit down at the games that there are. And so the screen would change.

He would sit down at the kitchen table with his cards and the screen would change. Now, at this point, I had no idea how to play poker. So I was just pressing buttons and then sometimes he would be like, nice job, Ace. And I'd be like, oh, I guess I did something I was supposed to do.

Okay, when you were a kid, were you like bought into the meta narrative that this was like an important soul inside of of because this is this came out in 85 so you must have been like pretty young when it when it dropped yeah i mean i definitely wasn't playing it when i was three but uh we had it and i remember i'm kind of that way with games too like when sims came out oh yeah i could never like light my Sims on fire or anything. You know, as much as I understand this is fictional and will not count against my

permanent record. There is part of me that like, when I see people that are just like, oh yeah, you know, I took all the doors out of the room. And so he's just going to walk around in a circle until he dies. Like I can't,

I can't. That's too much. You're so special to me. It's too much. Your heart is so special to me um so yeah so the last thing um i'll say about it is that unfortunately the game didn't take off no because it was apparently kind of kind of a slow starter but when sims did come out the creator kind of credited this as one of the games that inspired him to make it although i don't know why it took him 15 years well i mean well there was a lot of other stuff going on in the sims uh the guy who actually designed

uh little computer people was a guy named david crane who made afall. Oh, yeah, okay. Before that. Yeah, they were citing him. And the things I was reading, it talked about how it was Sam Nelson and David Crane. And I didn't have context for who either of those people were. David Crane also made, he had a studio that I think only made, I don't know all the stuff they made,

but they made an NES game called A Boy and His Blob that I loved. Oh, yeah. Where you were a guy, it was like a platformer and you were this boy who had this sentient white blob that would chase you around and you could feed him different flavors of jelly beans to make him transform into different shapes.

They could like douche it so he could like turn into a ladder or a trampoline. It was such a good game and then like I don't think they ever did anything else. So those of you that have recognized this game I'm talking about, congratulations. Yeah. You are one of few.

And if you can't remember the name of this game, because yours had a different name than mine, apparently there were 256 names that could potentially come up. And I went to this website that promised that if you clicked on this link, you would download a list of all the names. And then I got scared and didn't do it. You're such a good internet user. Is this a virus? I'm not opening it. link you would download a list of all the names and then i got scared and didn't do it you're such a good internet user is this a virus i'm not opening i'm so proud of you that's the right choice uh can i tell you what our friends at home are talking about yes uh they all said little computer people that's wild uh let me see here uh my font is just so small uh megan says I live in a town that's incredibly well-connected by bike paths. Nothing makes me happier than morning runs and bike rides and getting to say good morning to all my neighbors I meet along the way.

It makes me feel like a true part of the community. It just sounds like some Beauty and the Beast. Bonjour. Por que? How is your family? I don't think that's how it goes uh diana says one of my favorite things right now is videos of people making things out of resin and other stuff comb uh combs in resin pencils in resin dried flowers in resin wool and wood in resin they pour it into a mold and when it's dry they turn it on a lathe to shape and polish oh i love a good resin video yeah we have been looking for some new videos because there's been

a real slowdown in content we're done with the bon appetit gourmet makes we're done with the bomb gardener art restoration we've watched all the kwame japan knife videos yeah now we're just kind of we are hard up on pins and needles uh We got one last one here from Taylor who says, it's wonderful when you get a can of soda from the freezer just before it gets to actually freeze. It's like the perfect slushie in a can. Playing a dangerous game, Taylor. Yes, this whole episode is about me being scared to do things.

But I am definitely scared to put a can of soda in the freezer. Yeah, I mean, I haven't drank a can of soda in quite some time. But when I was a kid, like, I feel like I did it once, and it went pretty bad, and then I had to clean that up, and I said, that's not worth it. People inevitably forget about that can. Yeah. And then it's all over

for you. Instead, we would get those big glass, like, mugs that we would put in the freezer. Oh, that's nice. Oh, haven't done that in a bit. Put a root beer in there? Damn. I used to put some stuff in the freezer oh that's nice haven't done that in a bit put a root beer in there damn i used to put some stuff in a freezer though that was not food i don't know man like cups uh i guess just cups that's wild it is wild how much space did we have in that freezer it wasn't anyway uh thank you all so much for listening 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 uh thanks to maximum fun oh thank you maximum fun for hosting our show and so many other great shows you can go to maximumfun.org and new shows get added every day yeah uh it's you know it's a mackroy family show but sawbones i really like it's uh it's a good show inch manners is a goodElroy family show, but Sawbones I really like. It's a good show. And Schmanners is a good show. They get touchy when you just say one of them without doing the other one. And they being your family? Yeah.

There's no way to end that. Wankers. You can't. Youof. Oof. You can't. You hate to see it. Anyway, thank you for listening. Thanks to the

farmers. Mm-hmm. Thanks to the sun and the moon and the apple tree. Yep. They're doing it. They're doing it. They're locking it. They got it locked down.

Is that how it goes? Sun and the rain and the apple tree. The moon doesn't really factor into the apple growing process, but maybe that's why Johnny Appleseed was on some next level shit. And as he could plant stuff based on, you know, the cycles.

Anyway, bye. Bye. Money won't pay Working on Money won't pay Working on Money won't pay Working on Money won't pay MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

Listener supported. 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. Stuart Wellington. And me, America's rascal, Elliot Kalin.

New episodes every other Saturday at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts, dude. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.