Muse

Now, it says here on your resume that from 2010 to 2011, you crushed it. But that's actually an old resume. It should also read that I crushed it from 2013 to present.

So are we to understand that you did not crush it in 2012?

There was a medical situation preventing me from crushing it to my usual standards, so I had to take some time off until I was able to crush it at 100%, at which point I resumed crushing it full-time.

TBTL! this need you have to be the smartest guy in the room is off-putting sooner or later gentlemen you will eat your words you can't be that overly confident remember baby never you might eat that mic you don't say much friend but when you do it's to the point and i salute you for it and

for our viewing pleasure i pack terms of e then we're gonna bring it up with a little fried greens to the tea and then hope floats with sandy b yes somebody die in that one they die in all of them Good. What do you say we go out and get some Carvel? I got the time if you got the diapers.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. You want to do a make-believe radio show in a room somewhere. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Oh, yeah. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky, above Portland, Oregon. And I'm back home. Bring it back home, baby. Bring it back home. And it is very nice to be here. The most problematic of the snow and ice has mostly been melted away by the rain. There's still remnants of it here, but it is. Things are pretty much functioning normally. Our thoughts are going towards listeners in Texas this week where things are pretty grim. And so I hope you are doing okay if you're one of our listeners down there. Maybe this is just the podcast you need to take your mind off of the challenges there. Or maybe you're hearing this months from now. But either way, we're thinking about you this week. This is episode 3,362 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. And there are some interesting things that are happening today. Interesting things out in the universe. things not on planet earth like nasa trying to land this rover on mars today which i'm super excited about motors cannot travel through the vacuum of space this rover has a lot of bells and whistles it is a very cool piece of machinery uh but the question is will it actually safely make its way on to the surface of mars nasa says there is something that they're going to suffer through today called seven minutes of sheer terror while they are out of radio contact with this with this uh you know rover as it as anyway we'll talk about on the show as noted nasa experts will break down uh what the uh what the process is for getting this thing onto the surface of mars also speaking of very complicated things i spent a good part of this morning trying to understand the intricacies of a financial representation deal between Citibank and the Revlon Corporation. And I don't know if I have a full understanding of it, but here's what I do know. If you think you've ever made a mistake at your job, I bet you it wasn't as bad as sending a billion dollars out to people you weren't supposed to send a billion dollars to. I wish I hadn't done that. And a judge has ruled that those people get to keep that money. So you got my money? So we'll talk about that, too. Plus, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day.

Blur's Day today.

So we'll do some Blur's Day messages. We'll do all that with this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show. Maybe best known for his drawings of the tall ships. He's going to do a delivery to the airport for the team. He is Andrew. Hey, Lloyd! Walsh. He's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend. I forgot what it is that Dave Sims actually says. He says, hey, Lloyd, do a delivery to the airport? To the team? To the truck? To the truck?

At the airport?

It's been so long since we've been playing Dave Sims-related material on this program, since we've been talking baseball, that I have forgotten one of the great moments in sports broadcast history, and specifically what was said.

Are you scrambling around for it? I feel like I must have the full tape. Here we go. Oh, all four seconds of it. Are you ready for this? Let's go ahead.

This was a home run. Let's give some context here, at least that we can remember. I believe there was a home run that. had been hit something exciting had happened and in this uh at this point lloyd mcclendon was the manager of the mariners and i think there was something going where he would like get everyone

ice cream when they would win yes that's right that's that's what the background was and of course now i'm looking i have four seconds of it but i might have found a 40 second version on youtube this could also just have nothing to do with dave simpson if that's the case we're We're just going to start to enjoy some early baseball sound here in February.

There's a drive. Deep right field. Say goodbye. Hey, Lloyd. Do some delivery for the truck to the airport. A three-run jack by Seager. And this sucker's blown wild.

Ah, do I miss baseball? Does he explain in here? I got 20 more seconds.

And they're headed for the exit here at the stadium. What a night for Seager. Two triples, a double, and a three-run homer. 10-2. Mariners.

Now you have some more math to do. Figure that slugging percentage out again. It just went up one more time. Unreal night for time.

If you keep playing it, unfortunately, if you play that clip to its completion at some point, he says, and a drive to deep left by Castellanos.

I know. Dave Sims has nothing to apologize for. No, he does not.

I don't mean to tar him with any kind of Tom Brenneman feather. Yeah, no, I have to say, and I don't want to spend too much time on this because it's probably of little interest to the listeners, but you and I are locked and loaded, my friend, on the idea of having this fantasy baseball team, which we got the email yesterday from my friend Joe, Who I get the sense kind of runs this fantasy baseball league And I'll be honest with you He's very funny And he's very casual in his manner When he's emailing But all I could see when I was reading the email Was the complexity of the league That we're going to be in

This is going to be really confusing

The draft picks and when the trade deadline is And then if you realize your team Is not going to be very good this year You start doing certain moves to set yourself up for the next season, I was like, whoa, this is going to be a fairly intense thing if we take it seriously.

Yeah, I think it's like a keeper league where you get to keep five of your players. Now, I delved into a little bit of that, well, as did you, I think, with the fantasy football league we were in, but with football, it's like it automatically picked my best player to roll over to the next year. I don't even think I had a choice in it, but I had things set to so automated on my fantasy football. All I had to do was go in, see what was on the wires, see if anybody was better than my current roster, maybe make a switch, but mostly hold my breath and hope for the best. But fantasy baseball is going to be so much more complicated. The roster is so much bigger. There are so many more games. I don't know anything about baseball. Well, I put a note in our email when you guys were emailing me about it, and I suggested a team name. I came up with a funny team name that is a joke about a player that played on the Mariners three years ago, maybe four. Maybe four, Luke. I don't even think Taylor Motter plays in Korea anymore. Like, we are screwed.

I don't even know. What was your idea again? What was it? Nothing Motters? Yeah, nothing really Motters for Taylor Motter.

I like that.

Or we could go with Family Modders.

Or Family Modders, yeah. But it's just like...

Or it's just a modder of time?

It's a good name. I know why I was drawn to it, but my point is I was like, oh my God. By the way, is Joe a TBTL listener, by the way?

I think occasionally. Okay. I know he's also... Has this been exposed? He's high school bud. no i didn't know unicorn head exploding emoji yes my friend because high school bud is the commissioner of the fantasy league are we allowed

to say that i feel i don't even know how i feel knowing that i always loved that i didn't know who he was i think i told you that a long time ago that i don't think so i mean oh really you

David told me it was somebody that was, like, kind of in your kind of quasi-professional and friend circle. So I just knew that. But I also knew it was somebody. Because in this email, he said, hey, good to meet you via email, although, you know, we're long-time Twitter friends or something. He didn't say that. He doesn't write like that. Good to meet you via email, Mr. Walsh, though we are, of course, long-time Twitter acquaintances. No, he just made a reference to, like, joking around on Twitter with me. And so I'm like, look.

I'm doing searches on his last name. I'm like, I need to place Joe. Did I just say his first name? Did you already say his first name? Now I'm all in my head about this.

I said his first name like three times already.

All right. So that's him.

We'll cut all of this out. By the way, put it on your bingo card.

I guess we'll leave it in. But, okay, that's interesting. It's even more intimidating. That's one of my favorite Twitter follows, high school bud.

You know, one thing I do know we have to do, whether we go with the Taylor Motter-related team name or not, we definitely have to change the existing team name. So we took over a slot for somebody in this league who had been playing but is no longer going to be able to do it, probably because they realized how much friggin' work it was.

Yeah, right.

And the name of the team as it exists is something that you and I as white guys in a million years would never assign to our team name. My understanding is that the person who had this team before Was somebody who is Asian American And so they decided to make a particular joke Based on their lived experience Which they are allowed to make And which you and I are 100% not about to try to make It's just weird that we're inheriting a team That we have to like We should have changed the name last night We should have changed the name Before we saw the email of what the name is I never felt so racist in my life I know, we didn't even do anything We agreed to be in a baseball league I'm like, this is like A cursed account Seriously, no one said, hey The name of this team is a joke that That's okay for some people to make But you're not those people

Yeah, I know, because the thing is I got the email and I was In the middle of a project

I thought that might actually cause you to leave the whole project

The thing is, I Got this email, and like you said, there was a bunch of bullet points in there kind of explaining how it works and also some some kind of jokes but i basically got the email but i was in the middle of a project in my studio which i want to tell you about in a second and um and i just kind of scanned it and i was like okay yeah yeah fine i'm in i'll figure out the details later which probably means set it to auto draft and forget that my login but um i was like okay and then i just saw you respond no we're keeping the name or i'm not part of this and i was like what name are you even talking about so then i had to stop and And then I actually dig through the email until I found the part. And then I read it several times before I realized the play on words that I was dealing with. And then I was shocked. And then my jaw dropped. Is there a jaw drop emoji? It's the second most used emoji behind tear-crying face guy. Nerds. Anyway, yeah. So we've got to change the name. It may be to somebody who played on the Mariners in 2017. Maybe something more up to date. I'm so for that.

I'm just for it not being what it was previously. Again, fine for a person who has the lived experience to make the jokes they want to make. But we've got to get away from that name real quick.

Yeah, we do. Before the draft, certainly.

Like, again, maybe we should just hit pause on this recording and just change it right now.

Just change it right now.

Anything that we do that's not changing the name of this fantasy team is just exposing ourselves to a lot of reputational damage. Let me put it that way. Amen. What did you do in your studio that has you so excited slash relieved?

So I'm going to make this too long of a story and just hope that people are along for the journey with me on this. But yesterday I had an inkling to buy a pack of baseball cards. There's a drugstore across the street from me that I frequent frequently. Do you have to say frequent a lot or do you just say that I frequent? I think you frequent. You just frequent. At the drugstore, there's a place by the checkout where they have a bunch of collector's cards, a bunch of packs of baseball cards, and some, I don't know, Harry Potter stuff and whatever. Let's say there's like 20 boxes there usually. And usually around this time as baseball season gets close, maybe a little bit later, maybe it's spring training, I see a pack and I feel childlike, and so I grab it and I buy it and I open it. And yesterday I had some time in between projects, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to go get some baseball cards. I'm going to take a little walk. I go to the drugstore. They're out of them there, and I think I kind of knew that because they had been yesterday. So I'm like, good, this is an excuse to walk down to the U District. I know Target usually has baseball cards. And again, I'm not looking for anything special. I'm not a baseball card collector. It's just a silly thing I do to sort of like, I don't know, just put a – it's a real sunshine in your pocket type of situation for me, Luke. And so I walk down to the University District, which is, I don't know, like a mile here, just a nice little walk. I took my camera. And I go to the Target, and they're just filled with university. students and um no baseball cards i'm like ah that kind of makes sense like this is a smaller like kind of city target like these college students aren't collecting tops or donruss baseball cards i don't even know if donruss is still a brand um so i'm like okay that's fine i'll just keep walking it was just like sort of a reason to get me out of the house to get some blood pumping through these uh these fatty veins um but then i'm like okay well oh you know what there's a bartel i'll go there they didn't have any there i'm like oh that's weird 7-eleven i go to two different 7-Elevens that are on the app both I mean each one just dirtier than the next I keep on going into these convenience stores that are just getting kind of nastier and nastier and the chance of there being any baseball cards become lesser and lesser so like okay uh failed experiment no baseball cards um the looks I got from some people were like baseball cards what are you talking about um so then I'm walking home meandering home no problem uh and then I stop by this tiny little store that seems to be new and they have some records outside and some CDs and I just kind of flip through because when I see that I do that and there was nothing to you know nothing that I really wanted but I'm kind of like looking through the window I'm like what is this place it's new it's tiny should I go in there it looks like there's one

person in there kind of personing the register and I'm like well I don't want to bug them if I'm not going to buy anything, but OK, I go in. I'm like, you have any baseball cards? She says, no, no baseball cards. But she also looks sort of shocked. Like she almost doesn't know what she has. And I'm like, well, what do you what do you sell in here? She's like, well, we have some comic books over here. And there's like a small rack of comic books. And then there's maybe like, I don't know, a couple hundred records, like not very many records. There are no more CDs inside. All the CDs are outside. she's like we have some games and she gestures towards this like shelf that has like an old monopoly and a couple of other board games and basically this is a tiny store that i could almost step in outstretch my arms and touch all of the walls you know like it's that small and it just has this tiny collection of various collectibles but not enough to even say what kind of store it I said, what did you – I don't even know the name of this place, by the way. It didn't have a sign. I said, what do you guys do? And she's like, well – What do you guys sell? She's like, we have – well, we started off as records and foreign language books. And she gestures over her shoulder where there's, I don't know, a bookshelf. It's like a reasonable-sized bookshelf of some apparently foreign language books. And I'm like, and you just opened? She's like, yeah, a couple of months. And this is not a very well-trafficked area of University Ave. And I'm like, oh, okay You opened the store during the quarantine Like, how's it going? And she's like, yeah, pretty good Like, it was weird I couldn't tell if I was bugging her But then every time I stopped talking She would ask me another question About whether or not I like the area Or if you were a cop This is definitely a drug front 100% It was just confusing I also, like, I can't explain it I'm probably making this place sound I'm giving it a bad review When really, I mean, I think I was charmed by it And I was charmed by this person who was running it but it was also somewhat awkward because it's small in there of course we're both masked up i mean we're not but it was just a weird experience but while i'm in there kind of chatting at this point i sort of feel like well i like the fact that stores like this exist i want to buy something and then i look and they have this one bin of records and there's a jefferson airplane record that i like that has a good kind of a famous complicated cover and insert called volunteers and it says it's only three dollars i'm like is this really only three She's like actually it's only $2 today I'm like okay I'm sorry I'm making this story so long Turns out this is a drug front And so $3, $2, whatever She did mention I said how is it going Business wise She's like well we do a lot of online business And I'm like aha that makes sense Yeah you heard of Silk Road Whether have you heard of the dark web My guess is maybe I don't know if she runs it

with some other people or if it's a collective or what have you but my guess is they might have collectibles that go a little bit deeper but they do most of their business online and maybe they needed or wanted a storefront for some reason i don't know i don't think it's i don't think it's on the wrong side of the law um it was just kind of charming but also weird like the type of place where i want to give them my money but they didn't really have anything i needed if that makes sense now i'm not saying that my two dollars is going to go far but i was actually kind of like oh volunteers like I used to love this record I never had I never had it on vinyl it's in fine shape it's literally two dollars you know so I just like I buy it and I bring it home now here's the thing and I'm sorry I'm making this so long but for me this is just kind of a

story about how like a weird chance encounter kind of changes your evening and then i believe will change my lifestyle a little bit um yes i'm say yeah there was a yip um there was a giant baggie of cocaine in the record sleeve and that's why and you're trying to decide if you should

unload it or not or give it to the police and this is where your life really there's a fork in the road of your life andrew that's right and you're you're standing here analyzing your options

How fast am I talking right now? Because you nailed it. So all of this is to say I come home and I have this record and I'm sort of thinking like I should. The only record player I have is this kind of kind of cheapo thing that I bought in the digital era so that I could. it's got like a USB out as well as some other outs that I bought in LA when listener Kate got me my WMMS buzzard morning zoo record. And I had nothing to play it on, but I needed to hear it. And I wanted to play it for you. So I bought like this cheapo thing online. And then it just kind of, it's never been set up permanently anywhere in any of my studios because there's no room for it. And it just literally collects dust and it's kind of a pain. But I pull it out. I search for I have to find the power cord, which is somewhere else. But luckily, I am pretty organized. So I pull this thing out, and I set it on my desk, and I'm listening to the record for a little bit and reading about the record and just sort of having a nice time and just thinking, it would just be nice if I could just have this record player just set up somewhere in here all the time. But there's just no room. And I look around, and I'm like, there's a perfect shelf right there. And if I have the extension cables to make this work, I have a shelf that is collecting nothing but tchotchkes. Get rid of the tchotchkes, you dingus. So I get rid of the tchotchkes. I make sure that I have a, you know, just a, well, I'll tell you, Luke, because I know you like cable talk. I just needed a mini to mini, a mini extender and a RCA to mini cable, which I had all of those things. I had a space on my audio board for it. So I was just able to, like, kind of set up this record player across the room from me. I'm looking at it now. And I can now just, like, permanently, just, like, whenever I see a record in the wild like this, I can bring it home and listen to it. I can spin my old John Denver records if I want to. Like, it's a sweet setup that was so possible. There have been so many times I have been in my studio since I've lived here and just thought, God, it would be so cool if I had a record player in here because I just have all these records collecting dust. The solution was so easy, and it took me 15 minutes to set up. Of course, 20 minutes because I was getting racist emails from our baseball commissioner. But now I'm just like I cannot tell you I don't use this word a lot But I'm so chuffed right now I was listening to old hippie records last night I was listening to the Edward R. Murrow narrated I Can Hear It Now 1933 to 1945 Kind of the It's just like It's a record that is hosted by Murrow And has a bunch of audio from those eras About the end of the depression

No, did Washington State Cougar, by the way

Oh! I always forget about that But anyway, I just sort of feel like this is it. That's the last thing my studio really needed to make me happy. Well, maybe I can do a little bit more decorating in here. But I'm just so excited right now. And it was so easy. And it was there in front of me the whole time is my point. And I'm on cocaine.

I know that feeling. I know that feeling of like for me, it's usually more about disorganization. So, in fact, even right now, when I moved into this place, I put a pretty big push together at first to get things kind of functional. But then there have been some closets where they're just falling into – they're just being the place where – they've become the places where I just keep putting more things. I don't actually know where they officially go or what the organizing principle is. And one of them is behind me actually in this room. And the other day I was looking for a cable, Andrew, and I started digging around in there. And then I just realized, you know what? I just need to figure this out once and for all. So I took everything out, organized everything, put it into different boxes, folded up my green chroma key background that I use when I'm doing like, for instance, tonight we're doing the LiveWire happy hour. And I like to put up a little green screen so I can make it look like I'm on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater. Now I have two green screens because I have to cover one of the – it's like that's how much real estate I need to cover with green screen is that it's more than just one green screen's worth of area. But anyway, I got it all organized. And now, like when I went down to Las Vegas, I knew I needed to grab a couple things for my road kit and I just opened the closet and there were the things I needed and I put them in my backpack and then like those little things like where you finally just bite the bullet and do something like that and then it just makes your life so much better. One wonders why it is that we don't do that stuff when the thought first occurs to us.

Yeah. And for me, I mean, I know that I went on a I told that story in such a long manner. But the thing that I was thinking about all night as I was like really blissful in here and thinking about. Again, how, you know, I have this thing where when I see vinyl, sometimes I just like to flip through it and I'm tempted to buy one, but I, you know, it's just such a pain to play it. And now that's not a factor. Like, I feel like this is literally going to change my life in a little bit of a way that wouldn't have happened had one of these other stores had baseball cards. You know, like if I had gotten my baseball cards, I probably would have kept walking past this place. But it was like this little itch of like, maybe they sell collectibles. Also, surprising, they don't sell baseball cards. In fact, when I asked, I think she said, we don't right now, but I feel like a light bulb went off in her head. She's like, that's another thing we could add to this.

You know, we can have like one pack of baseball cards.

Yeah, exactly.

Sell one card at a time. One to two dollars, depending on your mood. You know what the future of baseball cards is, Andrew? I learned about this when I was in Las Vegas because our sound guy was showing me on his phone this digital NBA card that he has. These are the craziest things. They are basically digital trading cards, but they're worth like thousands of dollars. And what they are are – this is a partnership between some company called Dapper Labs and then the NBA where they will capture a highlight like LeBron James dunking, right? You can then buy, sell, or trade this highlight, and they use like cryptocurrency technology to limit the number of this highlight that exists. Like you can't just – this particular digital card of LeBron James dunking sold for $71,000. It's just a clip of LeBron James dunking from a real game, but it's like the holy grail. And you can't just go – you can't buy 100 more of them. There's a limited number of this thing that's available using crypto-type technology that sort of limits this stuff. And our sound guy, Anthony, was showing me He had like a Tyler Harrow as a guy that plays for the Heat As you know, as a Levitard fan He had a Tyler Harrow thing that he bought in a pack for $10 It's worth $2,000 right now And it's on his phone, he's showing it to me And you buy packs of them I actually don't know if you buy a pack or you buy a highlight

You buy something I'll bet you you do Can I just say that this is interesting Because yeah, there's so much cryptocurrency aspect of this But also, that's one thing that I've been noticing on gaming platforms both mobile gaming and actual like you know the video game console games like like the Madden that I play I don't mess around with this stuff much but it is still like a card collecting system where you play you know this many rounds like let's say my MLB game on my on my iPad you you play and when you achieve certain things you get to open packs and you don't know what's in these digital packs but they could be a really good player from the past and then you can sell you can trade that with other players online like and and you can improve your team essentially by collecting baseball cards and same with the football games as well and so this is kind of an extension of that this is fascinating it's like back to the future stuff i know and

again my brain is so um small and feeble that i just see like a clip of lebron james dunking and And I just think, well, how, I mean, can't just anyone have that? Just like download it from the internet and just like whatever. But because of all of these, you know, sort of preexisting now systems that we have for limiting the production of these things or making them somehow unique and special. And then it was like, and then I went from being like, why would anyone want that to be like, that is so much better than a regular baseball card or basketball card. Because it's actually like, you know, it's animated, it's happening. I mean, it's live, but you know what I mean? It's like, it's a moving picture. And like, I don't know, if a Honus Wagner card is going to be worth a million dollars, why not a LeBron James doing a sick dunk? If you're the only person that has that in that particular way, I don't know, maybe $71,000 is a bargain.

Yeah, because it's interesting. Like if you were, I mean, obviously that dunk actually happened in real life, right? Like somebody DVR'd the game. A lot of people DVR'd the game, right? And so they can watch it, but not, like you said, in this form, in this collectible form. And that's why you said you're not sure if there's packs and this is the first time hearing of it. So I don't know. But I will say that, like, you get when you're playing these video games I was describing, you get a little thrill when you open up the pack. Like, you know, just like it was a real pack of baseball cards, like you don't know what's in it. And there's something about that. And it's it's interesting how I mean, it's very much like cryptocurrency and the way I don't understand value, you know, like it's so it's so weird that they're able to do it. but it does make a certain amount of sense as long as I don't think about it too much.

I'll tell you... where the real quants are these days i mean obviously that's a lot of the crypto stuff but also the sports betting thing you know which is why i was in vegas so since since i last wrapped at you uh i actually went and interviewed that guy brent musberger and brent musberger's you know if people google him he certainly had a had a complicated past when he was a sports announcer a thing that he used to do that people didn't appreciate was uh he would you know if there was an attractive co-ed in the stands he might say oh and a bunch of red-blooded american males just applied to florida state university uh and people did not appreciate that uh you know because i don't think that's really how we talk anymore he's also 80 so i don't know if that if that plays a role but i just want to acknowledge that because what i'm about to say next if people are like anti brent musburger i don't want them to come at me but just as far as somebody who's got a lot of stories the guy was i mean he's he's been he's the one who popularized the term march madness andrew oh really literally like so he was a sportscaster he first he was a newspaper person in illinois and then in illinois the high school basketball tournament state basketball tournament was called march madness and so then he gets hired by i think it might have been even cbs he's whichever network first had the was televised in the college basketball thing and he's standing in front of this board a bunch of like screen like little squares there's no digital technology this is like whatever the 60s or something and he's moving these little pieces around based on which teams have been winning and he said it's just march madness out there and that was like the beginning of march madness being associated with that with the college basketball tournament anyway it's like the guy has just seen it all done it all knows everybody has a million stories and was a real raconteur when i talked to him um but i was also just struck by the math this guy's not young and he was explaining he was explaining bets that were so far beyond it might be like trying to explain blockchain to me like about just all just the statistical implications and really a lot of these people that are really into sports betting are not like we were talking about the other day you know gill from the simpsons who's who's who's down down on his luck i mean there's certainly that element but there's a lot of people that just treat it like it's like a financial market and you study it and it's just like a cryptocurrency or just like a futures trading it's like any of those things it's just people who are incredibly mathematically inclined figuring out small statistical advantages they can have so as to get more money out of this thing and it just so happens that this thing is will the utah jazz score the first four points of the night against the denver nuggets but you could sub in any other thing will the power grid go down in texas will the you know whatever thing will the price of grain go up um and anyways it was a very interesting world to spend a couple of days kind of studying and delving into one little

thing i've been wanting to tell you this anyway because it makes me laugh one quick little thing related to march madness and i realize we're late very late for a break but um speaking of the lebitard show there's i'm glad they're they're getting advertisers again after leaving espn they're starting to figure out their financial system apparently and they are um running ads again and they have a pre-roll running you know the type of thing you hear before the actual content begins and it's read by stu gotts one of the guys on the show and it's a march you know it's i think it's for one of those um you know betting sites whichever is the fan duel yeah whatever and uh and they can't in the same way they can't say the word super bowl to advertise a non-super bowl thing like that they apparently can't say march madness either and every file when you hit play on it the first thing you hear is dugat saying it's not quite time for the madness that is college basketball in march but right around the corner every time i hear it it's like the funniest thing on the show and it's a funny show it makes me laugh I even I ran into the room I'm like Genevieve you gotta hear this it is so funny like you hear people twist like the the one that was running during Super Bowl week on the same show was something they called it the NFL

finale I don't know oh my god yes but the madness that is March college basketball is right around

the corner well Musburger was telling me that he was deposed in a lawsuit around the term march madness oh really so yes so the state of illinois sued the ncaa because the state of illinois was like we call our thing march madness and the ncaa was trying to use march madness and the person they had to ask the person they had to call into court was brent musburger and he was like yeah it's a state of illinois thing and so then the ncaa had to give a bunch of money to the state of illinois to have the right to use march madness oh my god all right So that's obviously why, you know, whoever, whatever that betting website is, they don't have the rights. They have not. paid the money, and so that's where they're going with the madness that is college basketball

in March. Well, it's not quite time to thank the donors who are daily, but that is right around the corner. If you'll let me just quickly, very quickly plug something for our dear friend Snacks, the funny bunny. Snacks has a show called Buns and Roses where she's gathering her friends to break down the latest episode of The Bachelor. I don't think we talked about it on this show but i watched my first episode of the bachelor for buns and roses yesterday the podcast is out now you can look for it uh wherever you get your podcast and also the video will be out shortly we did it via zoom it was me snacks and genevieve and our friend nicky and two of us were new to the world of um to the world of what's it called again the bachelor the bachelor see i'm really new to it um and some of us weren't but anyway it was a really fun episode Oh, yeah, I watched it. Was that torture for you? Those things are two hours long. It was – I get into it on the show. It was much less onerous than I thought it was going to be. I kind of went into it just, like, really bracing myself. But I will say, I mean, my number one takeaway was just, like, thinking about formatics and TV and radio is amazing because within 30 seconds, I'm sucked in. And, like, this show's been around for 27 years or something. I've never seen one episode. I don't really understand the premise I don't understand how roses work I knew nothing about it but I swear to god Luke within 45 seconds I'm literally saying oh no you didn't so like you got to give him credit for that I mean I had somebody I was rooting for within 90 seconds of the show so anyway yeah it's like a more

dynamic version of like house hunters which is a total sham we've learned on HGTV but what happens is people go look at a few different houses they're considering buying and what as the viewer you immediately based on your preferences think one of the houses is the superior one and now you're and now you're in because you want to see if they picked the quote-unquote right one this is that with more making out like some really people that are the worst and people who are slightly less the worst and maybe the person's they're actually not that bad and then now you're like you're you're very very sucked in that was how i ended up watching an entire actually maybe two entire seasons of uh i think it's called bachelor in paradise okay yeah that's the one summertime version of the show which is if you could if this statement could be made it's somehow even less nutritionally dense than the real

bachelor yes like even hornier right like everybody can date everybody or something

something like that yeah this is like if the bachelor was too heady for you if the bachelor was a little too cerebral watch the bachelor in paradise which i did for like two summers me and carrie did so i'm with you like it's it's you say what you want about it but man they have figured out how to how to really really suck you in as if you're anyway so uh that sounds like a fun thing to listen to or watch uh where you said it's just like a podcast people

can get anywhere yeah just look for buns and roses on your podcast app or if you type in you know snacks the bunny youtube you can find it or again just buns buns and roses i don't think there's a lot of buns and roses out there of course maybe there are in which case be careful where you click but uh yeah i will say that um they all had me howling last night so nice and

since we're just plugging a couple of things here and i already mentioned it once but uh today at 5 p.m west coast uh elena passarello and i will be hosting and having another livewire virtual happy hour we're going to play the interview we did with talib kweli and also have music from jensen mccray so if you go to livewire radio.org uh it will tell you how you get tickets to that uh and you can zoom in and you can see what it looks like in this little room although again i will be surround i'll be draped in chroma key green backdrop and then so you'll think i'm on stage at the alberta rose but really i'm just here anyway okay quick break and then we'll be back with more tbtl stay with us all right let's thank some donors of the day these are wonderful generous people who are making the show possible with their donations people like daniel pitnell of pittsford new york He puts the Pitnell in Pittsburgh That's right I wonder if he had to move there

I wonder if he had to move there

Right Sylvia Carpio is in Santa Fe, New Mexico Did we drive through Santa Fe? Did we go through New Mexico on our road trip in the RV from Seattle? We were outside of Albuquerque, right? Didn't we?

We were somewhere outside of Albuquerque where the Mariner Miracle happened. It actually isn't where it happened. It's where we experienced it. But for us, it was the Miracle on Dust, as you call it. Oh, my God. That was so great.

I also almost inadvertently quoted Hunter S. Thompson. We were somewhere outside of Albuquerque when the drugs began to kick in. Sylvia, thank you so much for the donation. Jared Edwards is in Orangevale, California. That sounds so great. Right? Like right now? Yes. I mean, again, I've alluded to this a couple of times in the show. I feel extremely bad for and I'm very worried for people, and particularly in the state of Texas, people who are in places where the power is failing and there is a whole cascading series of problems. I feel awful for you all, and I don't want to equate being in Portland, which is just kind of crummy right now, versus, I mean, life-threatening, which is what's going on in those places. That being said, I really want to go to Orangevale, California. Yes. It's gross here. And even just being in Las Vegas for two days, it was not like it was blazing hot, but it was like in the 60s. You know what it wasn't? It wasn't 40 degrees and raining. And, man, did that ever, just those two days, did that ever give me a kind of a little jolt of energy.

And if you don't mind me jumping in here, we have to move on. But not only does it sound really sunny there, but I just love the idea of an orchard, right? There are a few things that I enjoy more than just the not even the pulling down and eating an orange directly from the tree, because that always leaves me with very sticky hands. But the opportunity to do that, like when my grandmother moved to Arizona years and years and years ago and the first time I visited her and she's just like, yeah, that's my grapefruit tree in the backyard. It felt like she lived in Narnia. Like I couldn't believe it. It was just that accessible. And here we have Orangevale, California, like two days after we had somebody in Grapeview. Remember Grapeview, Washington, which also sounds nice. Oh, yeah. Got a long email, by the way, a nice email from somebody else who lives in Grapeview and was telling me about the history and beauty of Grapeview, which I appreciated. But anyway, beautiful places where I can eat free fruit.

Now we can just get somebody to check in from Gin Town, Pennsylvania. We'd have a drink. Throw in a little grape juice Throw in a little A little orange juice Or a section of orange And you've really got something going Jared Edwards We've already mentioned him So let's move on to Jillian Kelly In Seattle, Washington Thank you for the donation Leah Peltz is in Salt Lake City, Utah Ooh, for the rim, salt Oh, nice, see you've And then for the winning accent For the Delco accent of philadelphia pa is rob rumberg rob thank you for the donation as well thanks to all of our donors of the day we just absolutely could not do this without you hello and welcome to top story i am very excited andrew because in about two hours from now i will be one of the i assume many people watching the live stream of nasa as they try to land something called the Perseverance Rover on Mars. This thing has been, I actually don't know when they launched it. I remember when I read this article initially, I was surprised. I think it's like, I want to say like four months or something that this thing's been in space. I thought it took like 10 years to get to Mars. I clearly don't understand the distance in space, But some number of months ago, they launched this thing for Mars. It is a really, really incredible piece of machinery. If it actually lands successfully and isn't, like, in pieces when it gets down there, this thing has a drone, Andrew. It has a flying drone that is attached to it. So as it's rovering, is that the verb? As it's roving, as it's persevering around Mars, it will also be able to launch its own drone that will then fly around above it and take pictures.

This literally sounds like a toy that I had in the 80s. Remember how you would have a toy, like a transformer? In fact, maybe that's what it's reminding me of. Like, I had a transformer that was also a boombox, and then out of the boombox is— Oh, you mean Soundwave? Yes, exactly, Soundwave. We've talked about this before and then you'd pop it open and there'd be a little cassette and my little cassette transformed into like some sort of a robot bird that could then fly around sound wave like I'm getting major transformer vibes.

For some reason, those cassette tapes were my favorite. They were the most mind blowing part of Transformers to me. One of them turned into some other kind of animal. I can't remember what it would like. It was like a cheetah or something. but the idea that you would have a transformer within a transformer yeah i was like those were i thought those were maybe the coolest element of the whole sound wave unit or the whole transformers universe until of course famously i traded up my entire this amazing gi joe battle station i had it was like a water battle station that i had somehow i don't know how i got my hands on that traded it all for rodimus prime the worst prime the hot optimus prime the hot rod version that's like the poochie the dog of the transform i regret it to this day yeah but anyway this uh perseverance is kind of an upgrade from curiosity which is the rover that landed on mars back in 2012 perseverance has uh more cameras it's going to actually drill down i mean again this is all assuming that it can actually land safely which is where the seven minutes of terror come in when When this thing is out of radio contact and is just executing these very complicated steps that it's supposed to do based on its programming, where NASA will have no idea if it worked or not, it's because the atmosphere around Mars is too thin to deploy a parachute, or at least it's not like parachuting into Earth where it would be – basically this thing is too heavy to parachute into Mars. So what's happening is at some point as it's descending towards the Martian surface, it's going to, they are going to deploy a parachute, but then another section of this, like, I don't know what you actually technically call the whole operation, but this probe or whatever is going to start to lower down the Perseverance on a cable while it's blasting reverse jet thrusters to slow down the drop for the whole. Basically, it's a sky crane that's automated that's going to slowly lower this thing onto the surface of Mars while itself is blasting jets in the opposite direction. I mean, holy shit. I can't believe this is stuff that human beings can actually design and that it sort of works.

It's making me anxious, though. Both of the headlines that you sent in the rundown today are making me anxious. Like the seven minutes of terror. Well, yeah, that should make anybody anxious. I bet I can get a bet on that somewhere Yes you can Amen you should try Actually let's go to that For one second Learning about the modern age of betting Like you like a certain Kind of gambling you like your card rooms And what have you or you certainly did I don't know what your Deal with that stuff is anymore but You were never a huge Sports bettor as you have told us on the show Before but like kind of going down to Vegas And now you're looking at everything like it's a potential bet does is it tempting to you it's not as tempting as the other

stuff because i think what i like in the normal times i think i like being in the casino environment you know all those sounds and sights are very much designed to sort of overload your your receptors and and give you whatever people who like casinos whatever that feeling is that you get in there i like that feeling um i also don't know i mean that the sports betting is is like i don't have any advantage like i feel like if i play blackjack i'm pretty good at knowing what the strategy is or if i play poker i think i'm a competent poker player if i haven't had too many drinks so i don't feel like i have that advantage in sports betting the same reason i don't really i'm not drawn heavily to the lotto yeah um even though it is it's that's about gambling but it's just not i just don't feel like if it's something where i think i have a bit of an insight well there's one of the things sorry i'm just going around and around with musburger stories but one of the things he told me about his sports betting was how he loves to try to figure out this is his whole thing is he's always trying to figure out a little detail that gives him some advantage and he was talking to somebody about the somebody who knew somebody who was with the nfl about the coin that they flip at the beginning of the super bowl and that the head side the head is much bigger and more sort of pronounced in the tail side in terms of the metal so that the head size is heavier. So that the smart bet was on tails because if heads is heavier, we think that heads is going to end up face down in the turf. So he bet on that and of course lost. It was tails. I mean, sorry, it was heads. It was whatever he didn't think it was going to be.

But it's not 100%. But I mean, nobody said, well, it's definitely going to be tails. But is that true? Is there like is flipping a coin not a 50-50 scenario?

Like, does the weight on one side of the coin, if the coin is not equally, if it's not balanced, does the weight affect, you know, the likelihood or the probability of something? I don't know the answer to that, but those are just like interesting little weird dazzling details. I don't feel like I have any of that info, and it didn't even work for him in that case. I don't have any of that info. I will tell you, though, that here in Oregon, they have legal sports betting. You can download an app. And so I did download that app one night because. i was bored and i started i put like five bucks on this very weird bet for a particular player on the portland trailblazers ennis canter and the bet was that he would get he would score a minimum of 16 points have a minimum of minimum of 10 rebounds and a minimum of three assists and the reason i picked this bet was because if you got it you like it paid it paid a lot for like a five dollar bet it paid a ton and that's because it's very unlikely and i was like i don't know he's pretty good and sure enough i think he got like 16 points 10 rebounds and he might have had like two assists he needed his last an assist is where you throw the ball to someone else and then they score you helped them score and i think he was like one or two assists away and i have to tell you i've never been more intrigued by if ennis canter is going to pick up his third assist right right in a basketball game for a team that i don't even really root for and the fact that you can put

the fact that you can kind of like buy in low i don't obviously i don't know the terminology but But the fact that it's not, like, I'm not attracted to betting because it just seems like, well, I remember being young and being like, I don't need more chances to lose the real Eeyore over here. But, like, I do feel that way. I'm not going to throw money away, but it's like, oh, $5, but it could pay out big. But, like, it just gets me into the game more. I can see that being very attractive, even to me. And I'm pretty anti-gambling.

Yeah. Not anti-gambling, but not into it. Right. Well, it's not, like, a big part of your life. Yeah. Yeah. So I, as of right now, I'm, I don't feel particularly drawn to sports betting, but I did think it was an interesting, I mean, all of the people that are, the people that are good at it, it's, and do it almost like professionally. Well, it's really hard to do professionally, but the people that take it really seriously, they just, like I already said this, but they just study it and they're obsessed with the details, like obsessed with every little piece of information, which I think in a certain way is an illusion. Makes you think you have control because you you found out something about the kind of cleat somebody is wearing or to use the coin analogy compare or example. You think you've learned something. So now you're very confident. And then, of course, it just ends up being heads anyway.

Yeah. But that's why I'm so much trouble with this baseball league, man. I don't have the patience for this shit. I don't. It's just like computer. You're supposed to have the patience. I don't have the patience. That's obvious. I don't. I always respect people who can really geek out like and apply, you know, like intellectual fervor to these things or even just like a desire to know everything and dig into the details. And, you know, me, I just get too lazy. I mean, even the video games I play is kind of like I just put it on easy and run the ball a lot.

Like anyway, I'm hoping that we both get really into it. It becomes a fun thing for us to text about. and um you know uh i was trying to think of another taylor modder name just on the fly which of course i couldn't do uh so as to reference our team but i was just i'm just hoping that we um and then if you know if worse comes to worse we'll just tell the computer to handle it and we'll never speak of it again yeah and nobody and no you me and uh and uh high school bud will never look at each other in the eye again yeah that's fine um the this uh the other thing that this perseverance a rover is going to do which i think is so freaking cool is it's going to again assuming it's functional it's going to go over to this by the way part of why i think i'm fascinated with this is because i was just driving around in the snow on saturday and you were talking about driving around in the snow in seattle and it was like there were so many times that i almost got stuck and just had just enough momentum to get over like a berm of snow or something and but and and and you had mentioned that it wasn't like you were you were not driving around afraid of being physically hurt because you weren't going that fast these are flat streets it's not dangerous per se but the danger is inconvenience the inconvenience of being stuck somewhere and then having to like call triple a or hope that somebody wanders by and wants to push you out like that's the day that was the danger i was in on saturday was i just didn't want to be sitting somewhere on a street on a side street just stuck for hours like that would have just sucked um but now i just think about this rover driving around on mars and if something goes wrong as they say in this particular article you can't call triple a like this is i assume billions of dollars of machinery and nasa time and it's this amazing thing and i'm like stressed out to think about it rolling around on mars if it just like gets high centered on a rock or something yeah But if it does manage to do what they've designed it for, it's going to go over to this riverbed that's like 3.4 billion years old. It's going to drill down into the rock. It's going to take these samples. It's going to put these samples in these tubes and then put those tubes safely back inside the rover. And then at some point in the future, TBD, we're going to fly another probe out. there andrew that's going to land it's going to drive over to perseverance it's going to take the samples put them on a rocket ship that it brought and then that rocket ship is going to take off and come back to earth wow right what time is this you're going to watch it live yeah uh it's 3 55 p.m east coast time so just a little before 1 p.m where we are and um uh yeah i'm very excited about this thing um i know for a fact andrew that i am going to get pretty much everything wrong about this next story that i'm going to try to tell you about but it just is one of those things

that is both very unrelatable but i also think kind of relatable so i wanted to try to delve into it you know how game stop was the big the big financial story of a couple of weeks ago in fact it's back in the news because today there's like a congressional hearing about it and the one guy who's kind of seen as pushing it the most or being one of the big people at wall street's bets that were hyping game stop um he uh it turns out is actually a licensed stockbroker like his name is like exploding bleeping kitty or something something extremely online and um and he was like that he was the kind of like one of the main leaders of this like let's let's hype up the game stop stock but it turns out he's also a registered stockbroker which that gets you into trouble potentially he's being sued because you're not supposed to if you actually work in the business you're not supposed to be out there getting people to do things oh okay interesting um like that you know what i mean like if it's just me saying it i guess probably people like well whatever you can be wrong if you want but if you if you've already taken a position and if it is your profession there's he's he's in a little bit of trouble over that but anyway gamestop was a big story now i feel like the big story is this thing that happened between revlon and citibank and i'm going to just leave out most of the details because A, I don't understand them and B, they're incredibly complicated. But effectively what happened was Citibank was administrating this business thing for the Revlon Corporation where the Revlon Corporation had borrowed a bunch of money from all these different entities. And they were paying these different entities back at all kinds of different interest rates based on who had taken, who had loaned them what money when. In some cases, they sort of re-borrowed back some of the money, which meant that the interest rate was different. There was just this like very extremely beyond complicated financial relationship between Revlon and these companies that had loaned them the money. And by the way, Revlon was not doing great as a company. So they had to keep doing these restructuring these loans and trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of this giant loan so they could try to make up for losses. Well, Citibank's job at some point was to send out some payments to these companies on behalf of Revlon. And it comes down to basically these two dudes who have to authorize this payment. But because of the insane complexity of these financial deals, the only way to get the computer system to work, because they wanted to pay back some of the interest to some of these companies, but not all of the principal to all of these companies. but in order to get the computer to do the thing you have to trick it into thinking you're paying all of the money to all of these people what and so the way you do that sounds like such

proprietary software like every software that anybody's ever used that is created just for their company or their industry they know it sucks and you're always trying to trick the

stupid things exactly looking at you itasca it's like where you have to try to trick the thing into doing what you wanted to do, even though, you know, you're basically kind of doing a workaround. There apparently is a workaround in this system and is you create something called a wash account, which is where the money you want the money to go because you don't want it to actually leave Citibank. So what you're going to do is tell the computer we're paying a billion dollars back to all these people. But you don't want to actually send them the principal, the amount that has been loaned to you. You want to just send them the interest that you owe them But the computer will not release this Unless you tell them a certain thing is happening So you route it You route the money that you don't want to actually leave You want it to go into this fake account That really is a Citibank account So these two dudes are setting this all up And there's like these three boxes you have to check And they're totally and completely not helpful In terms of how they're named Let's see if I can find them here on the fly in this article By the way, this guy, Matt Levine, who writes for – actually, I'm not even sure of the publication because I had to cut and paste this article. This guy, Matt Levine, is a really interesting writer about finance. He's, like, super smart about finance but also writes about it in a way that's actually trackable. It looks like this is Bloomberg.

Oh, thank you. In fact, I'm wondering if this guy is – I think I've – this guy might be a somewhat regular guest on – and levitard i'm not even joking wow that would be i'm just just recently because they went they went um pretty hard on the game stop thing and there was a guy from bloomberg who's really personable and makes this stuff like kind of accessible and it's gotta be this dude because

i've been hearing about him from one of the producers at cbs was telling me that this is the guy he's now following for all of this stuff so in order to basically do this thing you have to click three different boxes one that says front one that says fund and one that says principal and apparently they had forgotten to check one of the boxes these two guys so the one guy and this is again the 900 million dollar payment that's going out to a variety of companies but most of it is supposed to go back into this fake account but in order to get it to go out you got to trick the computer so the dude has checked two of the boxes but not all of the boxes because they're not very specific or helpful he emails it he checks in with his boss the boss and he says is this cool and the boss is like yeah looks good to me he sends he's okay click send can you imagine just hitting send on something that was a billion dollars no i can't i literally can't like i

would be terrified you know what i'm getting major vibes from is when we took our road trip i had to like kind of pre-produce five episodes of tbtl and get them to like fight you know even the ones we pre-record i'm usually each day like uploading them manually but i had to like tell the system okay this has to upload here but it's like we have like three different systems just to get one show posted I'm not joking it is so goddamn complicated and this is the new system that everybody's proud of at APM by the way and we have these three systems that got to talk to each other so you got to be very careful with the dates and a whole bunch of different places there are so many tiny little boxes anything can go wrong and like even one of the days I think some listeners did realize like somebody got the show early and then a bunch of people didn't get it at all because I had made one small mistake but it was the holidays and I couldn't reach anybody and like there was no way to undo my mistake and i'm trying to lie to the system i'm trying to tell it that this thing doesn't exist like this is so goddamn relatable i can't and i am i'm like hovering with my mouse you know because i'm doing this at night it's like eight o'clock at night and i've had a beer and i'm like wait is this the right just in my and i was like doing it like it was a movie where

if i cut this red wire i could blow up right is it the red wire or the blue wire so the one dude the one dude checks in with his boss and is like does this look good and the boss is like yeah that looks I think that looks how it's supposed to be and then he clicks send and he gets up he gets like a warning screen and the warning screen says hey just fyi you've got there's money that's going to be leaving Citibank if you do this are you really trying to do this but it didn't tell him how much money it was so if it would have showed him the real number it would have been I'm just making this up but it would have said like like he's trying to send out he's trying to send out 10 million dollars or 20 million dollars not a billion dollars and by the way technically it's like 900 million but it's more fun to say a billion so just go with me um so it tells him that he's making potentially making a mistake but it doesn't show him how much money it is and he's like well there is some money going out so yeah so he basically overrides the error message and hits send and all this money goes out to all of these entities that have loaned money to revlon and they get up the next day these two guys and they realize something has gone horribly wrong and they immediately start emailing Citibank IT saying the wash account thing doesn't work they have this Mike Levine thing has like excerpts because this is a court case right so this is all public record now of these dudes with all these screenshots just being like freaking out because they sent a billion dollars out that they didn't mean to send and now it's with these companies and the companies most of them are like not giving it back because they're actually owed the money yeah that's what i was going to say that's where it's

complicated because they they are owed this money it is their money they just got it too quickly

but why should they have to give it back so they're like frantically sending these screen caps of like we did it we had and then someone had to be like yeah but you didn't click that one other box oh my god and so and then also as part of the court case In the aftermath of this Because part of the legal stuff Hangs on the question of When the people who got the money That was mistakenly sent out When they got it And when they knew it was mistakenly sent out Because I think the idea is that If you tell someone Oh we're having computer problems And our system is sending out erroneous checks If they know that it's They're not really receiving this money intentionally That sort of creates one sort of legal framework

Okay

And so like but if you don't know if you're owed money and if it comes in the amount you're owed, then the law, at least in this place, was, yeah, you can keep the money. But one of the things they were doing was going through all a bunch of these companies. that got the money, people that worked at these companies were somehow talking to each other and chatting, and they were just roasting the people at Citibank. Somebody called Defray5 says, I feel really bad for the person that fat-fingered a $900 million erroneous payment. Not a great career move. Somebody named Jay Rabinowitz12. Certainly looks like they'll be looking for new people for their ops group. And then Defray5 responds, How was work today, honey? It was okay, except I accidentally sent $900 million out to people who weren't supposed to have it defray five downside of work from home maybe the dog hit the keyboard jay jay rabinabu at 12 uh the song had a bad day playing in the background but this was all in the record because the point was these guys i actually don't know their guys or women or whatever but they these people were not emailing they were not emailing these jokes until like a full day after the payments came through and that was basically used as evidence that they didn't realize it was a mistake until the money had already hit the account. So this was ultimately helped sort of seal the deal that these companies do not have to give the money back to Citibank. So what has effectively now happened is Citibank unwittingly has become the owner of a lot of Revlon debt. Wow. By the way, a half a billion dollars of

Revlon debt is Revlon doing terribly because people aren't using as many cosmetics to go out during the pandemic that's a side effect i hadn't thought of interesting it doesn't say

anything about that in the article it just said that they've been having you know financial trouble but um yeah maybe i could see that or like maybe they're only selling half as much makeup because people have masks on like you need like rouge rouge consumption they call it rouge anymore

people are really into rouge rouge consumption is down by 50 or roughly half of a human face Well, I do know that lipstick is a problem. I see people posting about it online, you know, like you wear lipstick, it gets on the mask. So lipstick sales must be down. And I mean, I know that there's still the occasional, you know, the maybe not so occasional Zoom call for work. And I know that people, you know, will put on cosmetics for that. But I mean, it just can't compare. I mean, just all of the holiday parties that people might be buying makeup for and what have you.

Totally. And then you also add to that a lot of makeup, I think, is sold online now. And there's a lot of insurgents, if you will. Yeah, right. Like every woman in my life, be it my sister, be it Addie, be it Carrie, they've all got a different go-to thing they like. And it's rarely the same company. It's rarely Revlon. I don't know anything about Revlon's products. They're probably fine. but there's all the you know there's all these different programs going on and the new cool thing on instagram and it's always some disruptor it's something some lady is making organically at her house in la and now everyone wants to get it you know speaking of makeup andrew i put a picture on twitter today i have to really be careful because i have two nearly identical tubes that are in my bathroom right now and one is toothpaste and one is makeup and i know if i don't like start storing the makeup tube like for the last i don't know month that makeup tube has just been sitting on this ledge right near the toothpaste in my bathroom and if i don't put that somewhere else intentionally i will brush my teeth with makeup at some point i have never gotten to the point

where i've put something bad in my mouth but i have put it on the toothbrush i can't remember what it was some sort of salve or something sexy like that but it was you know without my glasses on i am i mean i really cannot see i almost wonder of course i feel like the doctor would have told me last time i got my eyes checked but like i can hardly see without my glasses like at all i almost wonder at some point i might you know they say people you can eventually become kind of legally blind but i have a feeling that also has to do with like kind of um the edges of your vision and stuff and i don't have any tunnel vision or any issues with that so so maybe not but i am i I just – I cannot operate in society without my glasses on, right? I'd literally have to, like, be touching a wall the whole time. And so one time I did put something on my toothbrush, and I remember telling Genevieve about what a near miss it was. I cannot remember exactly what it was, but it was so close to my face that I could smell it was the wrong thing. So, yeah, be careful.

Maybe move it. I know. Well, I need to, but I just was looking at it today because what happened was I grabbed the wrong one. I didn't go so far as to put it on the toothbrush. But I was like if this were a morning where I had gotten less sleep or maybe had a couple too many adult beverages the night before, like if this had been a morning where I'm not my sharpest, it would be very easy for me to do the wrong thing. The other problem or potential problem I have is in my DOP kit, like my little overnight bag, I have a tube of something that looks—

honestly exactly like toothpaste exactly like toothpaste and it is antifungal cream and it was because i was having weird pimples or breakouts in my eyebrows and i asked the doctor what i should do and they said try an antifungal i was like wow fungal infection inside your eyebrows easy ladies i'm not quite back on the market yet um but like the tube is i have had many times i have had to turn it over and look at it to make sure like that it's not toothpaste because i was grabbing it to use it as toothpaste i was like can we if we're in the antifungal business can we do something to make these look a little less yeah pasty yeah like don't make them exact don't go to the same company that sells crest their toothpaste tubes and then buy those same tubes

and just put antifungal in them right right the fact that the antifungal cream was called quip with two P's and an E didn't help either.

Honestly, is that who... Wait, have we been doing ads for antifungal cream?

I'm not sure. I just read the copy. I don't pay attention.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but one.

All right, Luke, because you made such a big deal because of all of your belly aching last week. That's a phrase my mom used to love.

By which you mean my love for the listeners and Blur's Days and my desire, I think reasonably so, to be involved in wishing them a happy Blur's Day. If that's what you're talking about.

I just want to say bellyache. Did your mom use that term? Stop your belly aching.

Yeah, my mom was a cab driver in New York for much of the 60s and 70s.

My mom said that to me all the time. Really? Yes, she'd stop your belly aching. All right, hold on. Let's reset here. I'm going to start, and then you do one, and then I do one, and then you do one, and then I do one. You got that? Okay. Does that make sense? Okay, cool. This first Blursday is from Kayla Who says happy birthday To the bike collecting Quarantine project finishing Time bandit Phil Since your last birthday we lost a sweet dog I'm sorry Adopted a new friend Hello to Ziggy and Noodle And hiked and camped all over the Beehive State Luke do you know the Beehive State Utah And made good cocktails and terrible ones All with the goal of having fun together In this weird year Cheers to another year of exploring. Happy Blur's Day, Phil. From Caleb. Chris, our friend who put together that Game of Thrones screening, right? Yes, I went to, yes, exactly. I went down there. That was like in Tacoma or something? Yep, exactly. The Tacoma Little Theater. Chris runs out.

Chris says, I'd love to do a Blur's Day shout out to my 11, Mike. he happily most of the time has allowed me to drag him to the 2000th episode the Vaniversary and the boat cruise we should be hearing this as we head to Cannon Beach for his birthday he's my amazing man and I can't imagine life without him Luke will wave at the nest as we pass by Portland that's so cute congratulations I'm going to Cannon Beach which is lovely I visited Cannon beach a while ago and I mean it was everything was closed but it was still very beautiful are there cannons no there are not but there's a big thing called haystack rock which is very cool so Mike happy blurs day yeah thanks for checking in great

people thanks again for letting me crash your party our bud Emily in Minnesota says I like to wish a happy blurs day to my fellow Minnesota 10 blurs day triplets It's Dr. Colleen and Leslie. Oh, so it's Emily, Colleen, and Leslie's Blur's Day all on February 22nd. Happy Blur's Day, everybody. Emily says, looking forward to when we can have a local meetup again. Amen. Got to meet Emily a bunch when we were doing our various bowling and non-bowling related meetups. I miss these folks.

Jacob says, once again, I'm wishing myself a happy Blur's Day. I'm on a TBTL island of three, but that's okay. What do you think that means?

That maybe Jacob only knows two other tens?

Oh, if you're one of the other tens that knows Jacob, one year from now, let's wish him a happy Blur's Day. I feel very connected to the Stens community. Fun fact, I did an unscientific poll on the socials asking how folks got into TBTL.

The biggest two responses so far were Cairo and, wait, wait, don't tell me. By the way, the Andrew Walsh show had at least one vote. So there you go, Andrew.

Well, a lot of the Andrew Walsh heads didn't – they don't like to be flashy about it. I'm sure there were hundreds, but they're kind of like, you know, don't like to make a big deal out of it. Ah, note from one of our Architens, Lauren, wishing the happiest of 28th Blur's Days today to my dear friend, Sarah. Hello, Sarah. We have been many things over the years, says Lauren. Friends, co-workers, roommates. But one of my favorites has been being a fellow 10 with you. Your friendship makes all of our TBTL adventures even more special. Well, here's to you, and here's to both the TBTL and life adventures to come. Happy Blur's Day, Sarah. I miss you guys.

A little bird told me almost accidentally that today is the Blur's Day of a pal of mine and a friend of the show, Jake. Jake's down there in Tacoma with Natalie and the kids, and they have been awesome supporters of the show on a whole bunch of different levels. Jake's also known sometimes as stay-at-home pops, so happy Blur's Day, Jake. and have fun down there in Tacoma with the fam.

I love stay-at-home pops. That's a good nickname. Michelle says, I'd like to give a Blurze shout-out to my partner and husband, Mike. I'm so grateful to have him in my life, and I can't wait to begin starting my family with him, or a family with him. She didn't use the possessive there, which kind of gives it a different feel. I can't wait to begin starting a family with him, But even if we still haven't quite worked out what to do about our last names, I know it'll be an amazing journey as long as I have you. Aw, happy Blur's Day, Mike.

I hope they're not starting a family right now, like, as they're listening to this. It's a little racy for what we do on this show now. Kaylin says, happy Blur's Day to listener Dave in Oakland's new tiny baby five hero who was just born this week. No Mountain Too Tall, and Hero, Welcome to the World.

Welcome to the world, Hero.

Cute.

Not all heroes wear diapers.

Can we pick a show title from the blue days? Yeah, do it.

Actually, could you write that down while I read this next one?

Although we hope Hero is wearing diapers. What are the chances Hero's potty trained five days in?

But, I mean, Hero does wear diapers, but not all. This is from listener Jesse Pants Not all listeners wear pants I'm supposed to refer to her as Jesse Pants Happy Blurs Day to my friend Richie I'm so glad we've reconnected after many years I've missed you and thought of you a lot You are very special You are very special to me Even though you are now an old Despite the fact that it should be complicated I'm looking forward to picking up where we left off Sharing music, riffs, and vegetarian tacos Much love to you. Three kiss emojis, hot dog emoji, radish emoji.

These feel like people I would like kicking it with. Vegetarian tacos. Yep. Sharing music, riffing, and overusing emojis. Yeah. That's pretty much the Burbank brand. Now, would you be sharing musical riffs? Like, would you pull out your axe and give them a little...

Absolutely.

Look like the mascot on the Dave's Killer Bread bag. If you catch me just at home when no one's around, that's basically what I look like. Long hair flowing and just absolutely shredding on the guitar.

Have you seen these mics? We're going to talk about this. In the frozen pizza section of your local grocer, there's a new brand or new to me brand of frozen pizzas that's like Crazy Mics or something. And it looks just like the old GoDaddy logo. What? It's kind of like 90s, like, look out. with the simple line-drawing, square jaw, and squiggly hair. Let me see if I can find this.

That's such a weird sales pitch for a pizza.

It's Wild Mike's, yeah. Wild Mike's pizza? Can you do a little Google on that? I'll stall here for a second. It's called Wild Mike's. Why don't I read the next one and you look up Wild Mike's? Oh, I got it. I'm looking at it, but I've seen it. You've lived it. I've lived it. But, in fact, while you do that, I will say happy Blur's Day to our buddy.

Oh, I have seen this. Have you seen that?

Right. Yeah. It haunts my nightscape. Couldn't you see Wild Mike and GoDaddy, like, totally, like, sitting on, like, a mattress that's on the floor and one of them has a base? And they're just, like, kicking it and, like, somebody kicks over the bong water accidentally? I feel like it must, the idea must be that, first of all, like, this will.

stand out in the frozen pizza.

I mean, look, you're talking about it.

Yeah, I've gotten it twice. So it made that much of an impression?

Yep. Well, you've actually purchased it. Yeah, the last frozen pizza I had, I believe, was on Super Bowl Sunday, and it was a giant Wild Mike's Ultimate Pizza. How was it? Pretty good. You know, I mean, it's frozen pizza, so you go in with a different standard, but I thought it was pretty good. It wasn't too doughy. I think I used to be a freshetta person, but kind of heavy on the dough.

Rob in Denver says, Happy birthday to Eli, Lily, and June. They are the luckiest tiny Tacoma triplets in the world. That's a lot of T-dudes. By the way, Tacoma making a lot of appearances in the show today. Tacoma triplets. That is adorable. Also, if you're just talking about Eli and Lily, they're also a major pharmaceutical company.

That is definitely true.

Eli, Lily, and June, the luckiest tiny Tacoma triplets in the world. They were born on Valentine's Day. What? To their smart, funny, good-looking, and wickedly talented parents, Bobby and Lizzie. Shout out to their three-year-old, Mr. Tacoma-wide, Bert, who will be the best big brother. Our hearts are bursting with love. Wow. Bobby and Lizzie just went from one kid to four kids?

I mean, does this not sound like the beginning of a movie, like a triplets born on Valentine's Day?

I mean, wow. All I can say is, wow. Happy Blur's Day and good luck.

Happy Blur's Day from us to our buddy Tiara in Baltimore, who will be celebrating her birthday coming up here in just a few days. Of course, Tiara has been an IRL friend of mine for quite some time now. And I guess I'll just sum up her Blur's Day by saying, go Browns. No. Oh, you're going to be hearing about that later. No, may our teams face each other in the playoffs next year. That, I think, would be an amazing thing for both of us. Did you hear that they're talking about J.J. Watt going to the Browns? Yeah, but isn't it one of those things where a lot of people are talking, like a lot of teams are kind of saying J.J. Watt could go here or there. So I don't really pay a lot of attention to that stuff, but we'll just see where he lands, right? Also, like, I can never tell with that. Like, we also got OBJ. hey, I don't think that was a, you know, whatever.

And his production, honestly, he's been injured a lot. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not like you're getting him at the absolute peak of his powers. Right, right. You know who is at the peak of their powers?

What a weird...

Hollywood Mike. Yes. Listener Hollywood Mike, who is the, I believe, the sound person who is behind the now famous Walsh Helm Scream. Yeah! Right? Yeah. Which has shown up in television and film all across the globe, really. Hollywood Mike says, Happy third birthday to the light of my life, my niece, Edith. She loves to dance and strip her Johnny and Bobo dolls naked. Okay, well, let's have a talk about that. Yes. She always puts a smile on my face. I can't wait until I'm able to go home to Minnesota, even if it's 26 degrees below zero, and visit her. A hearty Walshian scream in her direction. Aw, happy Blur's Day, Edith. That's cute, and please do leave the clothes on the dolls.

Yeah, come on.

Dignity. I'm a human being over here. Did you have a... I was thinking because we were talking about Mars today. Oh, Life on Mars? Yeah, some kind of Mars, some kind of song about Mars. Life on Mars?

Oh, sorry, you have others. I thought we were just both saying the same thing. David Bowie has a song called is there Life on Mars or Life on Mars but are there other Mars songs because I don't have to

you know what's funny is I was thinking David Bowie but I think I was thinking of David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars or like so Ziggy Stardust

oh Ziggy Stardust yeah yeah yeah but go like

go with Life on Mars

first thought best thought yeah because I don't think Ziggy's that's the name of that record but I don't know if he says

but he doesn't say Mars I don't think so I don't know well he does say and the spiders from Mars that's true he played it left hand do you want to do that played it too far No, I mean, the listeners just heard it. Oh, that's true. I mean, they just got all they could handle of that song, so let's go with Life on Mars.

Okay, it's a little bit more of a chill vibe, but I think that's okay as we slowly coast down.

That's right, as we get closer to Friday. Thank you so much for listening today, everyone. Really and truly, if you're out there and you're in a place where you don't have power or water or whatever, we just hope that you're doing okay. Again, the chances that you're listening to this, that this is the priority, are fairly low. But we're thinking of all of our listeners who are dealing with some real challenges right now. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that. Until then, stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Try to stay. warm if you can. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

She could spit in the eyes of fools As they ask her to focus on Shaders Fighting in the dance hall Oh man Look at those gay men go It's the freakiest show Take a look at the Lawmen Feeding up the wrong guy Oh man, wonder if you'll ever know

Who's in the best selection Is there life on Mars?

It's on the Merry Cars Torchard Brow That Mickey Mouse has grown On the cow Power out