Muse

I love my job. Oh my God, I want to do it forever. Especially because this is the kind of job that I've gotten better at every year. And it's also the kind of job that you need to be fast on your feet. You need to be quick and you need to sort of, uh, I don't even know what the word is.

TBTL! So look, why don't you download my blog? It's free. of course we do appreciate donations this person has something amazing you know maybe you're not

you see yeah you know it's it's a little bit beyond your comprehension at this moment but

there's something great about that person it's not that i'm lazy it's that i just don't care you know what i care about artistry and you and my kids and polar bear couches you're a messy little person ain't you look man you know your stuff but you're like a crazy volcano you have Just show me you can bring it down a notch. I'll bring it down a thousand notches if I have to.

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. We will all remember this moment for the rest of our lives. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Okay, guys, can we get to disc jockeying?

Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon. We had an absolutely beautiful sunrise today, although now it's kind of gray and cloudy. I was out on my little morning jog, feeling good, enjoying the beautiful outdoors, and just thinking, I don't have a care in the world. And then I remembered that I was supposed to be in traffic court, virtual traffic court in Idaho, which it turns out is one hour ahead of Portland, Oregon. And so while I thought I had until 830 in the morning to be doing that, I had until 730 in the morning to be doing that.

No, Your Honor, I'm not disputing the fine. I'm refusing to pay it.

our running uh listeners the folks out there who who do that thing will will know what this is a reference to but i ran probably the best negative split of my life like because i was trying to not get in more trouble with the state of idaho over the speeding ticket that i got and i sprinted home it was uh it was not ideal but anyway i'll tell you more about that coming up right here on episode 3494 in a collector series let the fun begin speaking of athletic endeavors i watched a documentary last night called the malice at the palace which was about this huge brawl that happened between the indiana pacers and the detroit pistons at the palace in auburn hills um that involved the audience and players and really had this pretty huge social impact that i was sort of unaware of before watching this doc so um you

360 spins and slam dunk pointers.

We'll probably get into that. Also, if you're a regular listener to this show, you know that Andrew and I sometimes can struggle to remember things. Particularly names can be tough. Although I feel like Andrew and I have different approaches, which we're going to get into in a minute. Like, we're both wrong, but for different reasons when it comes to remembering things. And now there's some interesting information about why it is that we are so bad at remembering things and how we can be better, maybe, at remembering names. He was a little dog named Snuggles. So we will talk about that, too, time permitting. And some emails and V-mails. And, of course, this guy, the longest-running Cobra of the show, may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's asking that we refer to him by his new nickname.

Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. Battery Daddy. battery daddy battery daddy battery daddy battery daddy battery daddy battery daddy battery daddy

battery zaddy battery daddy battery zaddy he is andrew welsh and he's joining me right now from the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington good morning my friend that was something else

man good morning i feel i definitely feel battered i feel batteried out but andrew i gotta tell you

something we're not on video right now so you can't see me but i just want to tell you about

something do you listen to the sound of something oh i know what that is do you recognize the clicks you four clicks you are now a child of battery daddy you really went out and got one like you had company this weekend man you were just like you prioritized the battery daddy i got in your head with that. Well, I happen to be I mean, a couple of things. Yes, you're

You're absolutely right. This is Battery Daddy. And I did, well, I said on the show on Friday, I think I'm turning my life around, and it's mostly based on this, being able to store loose batteries in a more organized fashion. This is where the great Burbank turnaround, as they'll later refer to it, it all started with this. So, of course, it was a big priority this week. And I also happened to just be in the Ace Hardware buying some stuff, and they had them.

Did it jump out at you, or did you say, hey, I'm here. Or I should go look and see if they have one. Do they have an end cap display or something of the battery daddies?

They wasn't. No, it was not a specific like I was looking for it. Yeah. I went into the store and I thought this is the kind of place that might have it. This Ace Hardware in my neighborhood. It's on Broadway in Portland is legitimately one of the best hardware stores I've ever been to. They always it's it's not the largest store. It's certainly not the size of like a Home Depot or something. So they don't sell like lumber and things. But they constantly impress me with how much stuff they do have and how professional the staff is. Oh, they're great. The red vests. It's so interesting how company culture can work. I'm trying to think there's another. Oh, I was telling you the car wash that I go to sometimes, Washman. The folks that work there are just unbelievably polite. And the person who kind of comes out and takes what kind of car wash do you want, et cetera, they're just so pleasant consistently. And I've always gotten a different person, and they're always amazing. It's like this is top-down stuff. This is somebody somewhere saying, okay, look, this is going to be our vibe. We're all going to really know our stuff, and we're going to be professional and helpful. And that's Ace Hardware by my house. It's really got that thing going.

Would you almost say that Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folk? Because I came home from a recent trip to Ace Hardware. I had a week, I don't know, earlier this summer where I was there almost every day. And every time I went, I discovered that they sold something. I discovered something new that they sold that I need. And I even said to the guy at one point, I said, why don't I just come here every day? I was like, you don't have cat litter, too, do you? He's like, yeah, right over there. I'm like, why don't I come here every day? And he says, if you do, we'll get you a red vest. I was like, I already feel like family. I came home, and I was telling Genevieve how great the service is at Ace Hardware. Why are they not a sponsor? And then all of a sudden, it occurred to me, oh, yeah, they sing about that in their jingle. Now, I guess a lot of companies say a lot of things in their jingles that they don't live by. But, man, you know, Ace Hardware, I cannot say enough good things about at least the Maple Leaf Ace Hardware here in Seattle.

Well, the one down here in Portland that I go to is also, I mean, what do they say? Nobody out-hardwares the Ace? Do they say that? Uh-huh. Oh, man. No, I mean, actually, you know, nobody out-pizzes the Hut. But, honestly, I had some pizza this weekend that out-pizzed the Hut. It was at Ranch Pizza in Portland where my brother, DFTB, works. Oh, the new place. Yeah, yeah, me and JD and Thunder We went down there on Saturday to get a lunch Did a little weekend hang Which was super fun And I think the Hut was out-pizzed in that case So to your point, Andrew Lots of big companies have kind of mottos and slogans and songs And not all of them live up to the ideals of those songs

Boy, you know what? Think back to late 2008, early 2009 you and Jen and Sean are the are the coolest hipsters on Seattle radio and I want to go back in time and just whisper in your ear I'm socially distant hey in about 12 years you're going to be a middle-aged man about 45 years old talking to another middle-aged man the show is going to be you guys talking about how much you like going to the hardware store and it's just ace it's just a national chain but you're going to spend probably a good 10 minutes on how much you like this

particular hardware store i was trying to explain the show to somebody this weekend because one of jd jd's colleagues who happens to live in portland as a friend of his came by we watched the fight on saturday night the manny pacquiao fight and so uh i was showing the fella around the apartment and was showing him this room and was trying to explain tbtl to him and he asked the question that everyone asked which is what do you talk about every day how do you fill an hour and i said Well, we've been in here for 30 minutes, you and I Just talking about nothing I go, it's like that, but 60 minutes of that

That's pretty good

But I mean, honestly Who could have known that all these years later 3,494 episodes later This is where things would be And people would still be listening to it That's the truly Surprising part to me

You could have told them, I would have liked it if you had said Well, actually, we don't fill an hour every day The average time is 8.1 hours we ran the numbers and then just go off on that for a while and then that question

answers itself right exactly well what a lot of what we do is we talk about how long the show's going to be on a given day and that'll usually kind of round it out we have some some pretty great data that our listeners have pulled from somehow pulled from the internet through systems that we don't fully understand i don't know how they got i can tell you tomorrow's show monday's show will be the shortest on average and then it'll grow longer as the week progresses i know

this much uh-huh and this is also why i don't let people bring shoelaces into my studio because

this is where the conversation inevitably yes exactly um i kind of need to confiscate your belt sir um how was your weekend it was um have any pizza adventures did you go to any hardware

stores let me see no pizza adventures no hardware store well i told you i don't wasn't sure if i want to talk about it but i guess the only thing that's really worth talking about is i'm getting covered in red itchy dots and i don't know why i don't know how much i want to talk about my personal health care on the show more than i already do but i will say do you consider your skin dry or oily my level of concern is slightly going up i woke up on like friday with like four they're about i don't know man they're just like it's not like chicken pox or like when you get um like when you get poison ivy or something it's not like a rash like that i i woke up and in like kind of four different distinct parts of my body i had four little red dots actually two on each arm and then one on my hand so i guess i woke up on friday with five and then kind of put some ointment on them and said we'll just see where this goes i'm not a stranger to the occasional eczema outbreak or even one time i had something on my leg that turned out to be psoriasis but um you know so i have a history of those kind of autoimmune things but relatively mild i know some people who have much more severe cases of that stuff and have to deal with it but uh i don't know man i don't know what this is i woke up on saturday the number went from about five to i think ten and then um and then today i'm up to like i got about 15 of these things and they seem to be somewhat randomly spread around my body um you know they're smaller than a dime bigger than a bread box i don't know how okay i don't know how that works sure that tiny little bread box you know that's smaller than a dime larger than a small bread yeah so i don't know um i it could be autoimmune i mean you know genevieve like you know god bless her um but genevieve just keeps on saying something like you should go to something called the doctor which i mean okay sweetie i mean i think i got this so i'm just taking a bunch of prescription medication ointments and putting them on and seeing which one works you're just taking anything in the medicine cabinet you can find i am i'm adding a little bit of water and turning into a paste and applying i'm taking um i at first i thought i had hives i don't really know what

yeah it doesn't sound because you're saying dots dots doesn't sound autoimmune to me that sounds like i mean this sounds this is crazy and your house is very clean okay so please don't take any offense to the even suggestion is it possible they're flea bites that's kind of interesting i just think that genevieve would have them too sure and again your guys's house is pretty immaculate so i mean you have a podcast dedicated to cleaning and i mean listen but listen

you can have infestations i mean that's not yeah i wouldn't be offended by that but i just think that get when you realize that i'm somebody who's had these other things before and i'm the weird thing is Genevieve asked me like are you stressed out because it's like I'm like I don't think so I you know I've got a couple of things I'm thinking about in the horizon that I'm a little stressed out about but I don't feel necessarily stressed out and she said yeah sometimes you know it does sneak up on you but the weird thing is is every I'm getting more and more anxious about these things so it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy now I am carrying around like anxiety for the past couple of days in my stomach and I'm constantly finding new little itchy red things on me in different places and I'm like getting more and more anxious about it which if this is some sort of a um you know reaction to anxiety which i do tend to like when i talk about eczema or whatever like i i think that i that stuff does rear its itchy little head during times of high anxiety for me wasn't that a um that's a jefferson airplane album right bless its little head um anyway so that's enough about me and my gross

ass but have you asked the guy at ace if they have any creams or balls i should actually i'll bet you

they have all the answers for that they probably know exactly what dimension these things are

they're like oh yeah that's a one and three quarters i also really think you would be great there as a an employee with a with the red vest like i i feel like like you would just at least the one that i go to you'd fit right in because everybody there is like friendly and helpful and they kind of go the extra mile like i could really see you working in a place like that once this is all over which i figure will be within the next six months probably i'm always thinking about

backup plans oh here's something that's nicer to talk about that i did this weekend that's i actually want to hear about your traffic court but i'll just say this quick um quick little maybe not a review but a movie recommendation for the adults out there um a very adult a very adult movie no i saw i do not know much about the comic book worlds i've seen a lot of those marvel movies now.

And, you know, we watched we watched and talked about WandaVision on the show. So I appreciate learning about that stuff, but I'm not well steeped in it. I do know that the DC universe has sort of flopped around and keeps on trying to reboot various franchises to varying degrees of failure. And but this weekend I went to my first movie since the pandemic started 18.

Oh, wow. I haven't been to a movie theater since this whole thing started.

It was me and Veeves and then maybe two other couples or two other small groups of people in there. The Suicide Squad, which is very confusing because it's both kind of a sequel but also just sort of a remake of a movie called Suicide Squad that they made and that flopped a few years back. And it was because they – I think they switched directors midstream. And the studio came in and said, no, that's too violent. And so they cut it all up. It was just one of those things where they released it. Like what's going on with DC and that Snyder cut and people are changing things? I don't know, man. It's all over my head. But I will tell you, The Suicide Squad, the one with the word the on it that is in theaters now, was a gosh darn delight. I loved it.

Wow, this is the James Gunn director version?

Yes, it was like gory in a way that the Marvel movies aren't. It was gory and campy in some ways, but also very artful in some ways and a little bit stylized and fun. And the only word I can think of is delightful. It was just really good. I was laughing out loud. I'm not a big action guy, so you have to make action scenes sort of special for me to get into it. And they did. They made some of these action scenes like downright arty. At one point, for some reason, as what's her name? The most famous character in Harley Quinn. she's like has some fight scene that was incredible and for some reason near the end of it i don't think this is a spoiler it's a stylistic spoiler little cartoon flowers just start appearing on the screen and replacing some of the blood and gore is replaced by little cartoon flowers for reasons i do not know why it's just it seemed like an arty little flair that i absolutely loved

it was great highly recommend same actor so that's margot robbie playing harley quinn and And isn't Jared Leto like the Joker?

No Leto this time. No Leto. I'm an anti-Leto head. Sorry. I feel like he just comes in and chews up scenery and ruins movies. I'm really confused why he gets so many parts still. But, yeah, basically they kind of looked at what happened when they released a version of this movie. And, by the way, this isn't just like a recut. This is a new, different movie with mostly different actors. But they did bring back a couple of people, including Robbie, to play that part. But it doesn't focus on her either. I think the first one really focused on her and the Joker. She is a character in this, but Idris Elba is in this who plays a different character, and it's really more his story. It's just really good.

Okay. Anything with Idris Elba in, I'm pretty down for it. Yeah, love him. So they should make him – are they going to make him the new James Bond?

They keep saying that, but I don't think so. People keep wanting it, but I just saw a preview for the new James Bond movie with what's-his-face.

I think that's his last one, Daniel Craig.

Hasn't he been saying that forever, though? I feel like he keeps on saying, yeah, no, I want out of this franchise, and then he releases another one.

Well, now that we know that he's – we never got to the story last week, but I kept mentioning it, that he was on the record as saying he's not going to give his wealth to his children. Oh, yeah, right. Because he said he felt it was – I forget the exact word he used. It was very funny. But, I mean, it's all relative, right? Because he says he's not going to give them all of his money, but he – my guess would be they're not getting zero. Yeah, they'll be okay. And he basically said, like, a life well lived. You don't want to end your life with all your money. You want to give it away or spend it, but it doesn't do you any good to have a bunch of it when you die. And so he said he was sort of admiring of people. I think he mentioned Carnegie, people who did a lot of philanthropy. And also I heard Elton John and his husband are not going to leave all of their wealth to their children. They're going to leave them something, but they think that would be bad for them too.

Oh, interesting.

So point being, Daniel Craig, I mean, at this point, he's financial. I'd say he's achieved financial independence So maybe he can stop doing the James Bond movies now Because I don't think he needs any more money And he's not leaving any to his kids So he's sort of set Yeah, give it to Alba Exactly Well, give it to Mike Richards And then have Mike Richards Put Mike Richards in charge of the search for the new 007 Mike just wants to produce the movie

I promise He doesn't want to be the new 007

I mean, we do not need to spend more You'd say, like, spill more ink if we were a newspaper What would we call this? expel more air expel more gas yeah well that seemed gross but yeah okay i mean you've already talked about your skin situation so um we don't need to expel more gas on this topic but i was i was sort of reflecting on this over the weekend of just like how this to me is just the ultimate karmic kind of um comeuppance Thank you. that dude because had he not installed himself as the host of jeopardy he would probably at some point have been able to get a different tv hosting job but i think now he's ruined it for himself point yeah so he he went from being somebody who was you know kind of on the he was in the on the executive level always with an eye towards wanting to be the host of something where at some point He could have stepped away quietly from being the EP of those shows And he could have probably picked up a hosting gig Hosting something on some, you know, basic cable channel And then if it went well, maybe the show's a breakout hit Now he's on the map as a host But by trying to pull this whole Littlefinger subterfuge thing Like, no one's ever going to hire him Because if you were to hire this dude to host your, like, forgettable dating show All anyone's going to talk about is Oh, they hired the guy who tried to make himself the Dick Cheney of Jeopardy

Yeah, I mean, he's young There's time I think he could He is not young

He is older than us

Is he really? Yeah I consider myself young And Bigger than a bread box I think I mean if he took a really Lowbrow hosting gig I mean deep into the bowels Of cable TV Like maybe he could work his way Up to something But he's certainly not going to be A candidate for anything That people are really expecting A primetime audience for Or a large mainstream audience for

Right I mean, he really – he flew too high on talentless wings, and now he is like the rest of us. He's not hosting Jeopardy, which makes me so happy. That story went from being something that made me so upset to something that makes me so happy now.

I am excited to hear about – as a matter of fact, Luke, you know what? I have a gavel around here somewhere. I'm going to find this gavel because I want to hear about your day in court, but should we do that after the break or what are you thinking?

Yeah, we should take a quick break because it's going to take a minute. I need to explain to you sort of what happened and then also how I feel that Rudy played a role in what ultimately the legal decision was. Wow, okay. Yeah, it's intense. They'll be studying it in law schools for years to come. Forget Roe v. Wade. Forget Brown v. Board of Education. Burbank v. Canyon County, Idaho, with an amicus brief filed by Rudy the Yellow Lab, I think is going to become a pretty studied case. So anyway, I'll tell you about what happened coming up in a moment here on TBTL. Let's thank some donors of the day. I just said at the beginning of the show that it is kind of surprising, I think, to everyone that this is still happening. and that it's just me and Andrew talking about Ace Hardware. But it wouldn't be happening if not for the generous, wonderful supporters of the program, people like Kristen Corley, who's in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Donna Yarling, who's in Janesville, Wisconsin. How about Wayne and Christina Kirkendall out there in Mill Creek, Washington? Brandon Lucian is in Milton, Washington And Jeremy Merrill is in Des Moines Des Moines, Iowa I need to look at the state because as I always point out The one in Washington, they go with Des Moines The one in Iowa, they go with Des Moines

And you know what my problem is with the one in Washington I don't know which S they pronounce I'm never sure

If it's Des Moines or if it's Des Moines I think they go Des Moines Then we've got Erica Mittendorfer Is in Seattle, Washington I know how to say that You don't pronounce the second T That's the key In Seattle? Yeah, you say one T 100% Yeah, totally I feel like that was Maybe because most of these people Have now been donating for multiple years I feel pretty strong about the names About the pronunciation I feel like that was a good I feel like I was really I was really barreling the ball up I was really, you know Keeping my swing short but powerful, just moving the bat through the zone quickly, I feel like that was really a good A-B for me. And there were some

fun names in there, too. They weren't all just given.

No, I mean, I worked the count, honestly.

That was a pretty... Thank you very much.

Hey, speaking of that, our team is... I just kept occasionally looking at my phone and seeing it was like 35-0 in Houston. It was like a football score. Oh, our team, the Mariners.

I think even our team, the fantasy team. Let's just say it was a bad weekend for baseball all around in the Walsh household.

Well, nevertheless, we are so appreciative of these donors of the day. So thank you so much, everyone, for keeping TBTL going all these years later.

You were talking, Andrew, about how you're having your kind of like skin stuff and that that makes you anxious. And then maybe that anxiety or that anxiousness leads to an autoimmune response. I don't know why, but I was weirdly anxious about what was going on with the speeding ticket I had gotten. And I think it's because I got a different speeding ticket a while ago and I was quite shocked at how hard it dinged my insurance. Because, like, I don't know. I just feel like if it's not reckless, if you're not doing something truly dangerous, if you're just going a little bit above the speed limit, I don't know. That seems like a thing that happens to people in normal life. And, you know, it feels like you kind of get one of those every few years. It's just it's just, you know, it's the cost of doing business, of being a driver in America. And yet my insurance rate had gone up and I was trying to figure out why. And it was because of a speeding ticket. So I really made a real point. I don't want to get any more of those for a while. And then sure enough, like a month later, I'm driving through Idaho and it turns out I guess I was going over the speed limit in what was allegedly a construction zone. So without rehashing too many of the boring details, I had – when I was in Colorado, I had to call into this like court meeting. And it was – it's like traffic court where there's like 40 people in there who are all having various kind of mostly minor – this is all like misdemeanor stuff. No one's in there for a felony. It's all stuff that's just kind of like not – failing to yield at a stop sign and stuff. So you had to sit there and wait until they call your name And what I mentioned About this previously was Everyone else who got a speeding ticket Was offered a chance to do this online Traffic school And if they did it then the ticket would be dismissed And Then they got to me And then because mine was considered excessive speeding Because I was going 72 and a 55 The 55 was because it was a construction zone I could hear The prosecutor was kind of like Maybe I'll just let this guy do the traffic school And then we'll dismiss it But then he just at the last minute said Well we can move it down to just like regular speeding or something So it was going to be a pretty minimal change And I had said to them Can we talk about this again when I come back After going to the traffic class online And they kind of sort of begrudgingly were like I guess, you know So I did the traffic thing last week I also looked at TikTok a lot while I was doing it But whatever, I got the thing done I emailed the court and somebody at the court with the initials of JG emails back and says, this has been put in the file. And I was a little nervous about sending the results in, or not nervous, but I didn't want to seem like I was being kind of demanding. But what I said was, so I took a screen cap of my successful test that I took and then I sent it to the court and I said, could you please confirm you've received this because I have a court hearing on Monday.

And I get this response that says, yeah, we received it and it's put in your file and it's signed JG. So I'm like, okay, good. So this morning, I'm out on my jog, and I realize I'm, like, two miles from my house, and I realize that, oh, my God, 830 in Idaho is 730 here. And my entire plan for the morning is now – and it's not a thing where I can, like – the only way for me to get home – I mean, I guess maybe I could have tried to call a lift on my watch. But basically, the only way for me to get home is to just hoof it and try to run fast, which was, like, the most high-stakes jog I've been on in a while.

Yeah, no kidding. Did music start playing behind you, like 70s detective movie?

It was more Chariots of Fire.

Oh, right, yeah.

It's kind of like when Eric Lill falls down in the race, but then he still gets up and he wins. Hey, dude, dude. I wasn't going to watch it. Never mind. So I get home. I call in, like on the phone, because I'm a sweaty mess. And I get home at exactly 730. So I call in and I talk to somebody there and they put me in the waiting room and they said, actually, it's taking a few minutes. It's going to be like 15 minutes. So I have time to jump in the shower. Then for like an hour, I'm just wandering around my apartment getting ready for other things with the speakerphone on while other people are going through their court stuff.

So while just small – I don't know why I'm interested in this. But when they say it's going to be 15 minutes, they don't say call back in 15 minutes. Do you just stay on hold for 15 minutes?

I just stay on hold. Interesting. And then when the proceedings start, there's a lot of people who aren't me who are going first. And so I'm just kind of like waiting my turn. And what I noticed is there's a few people who have done the same thing that I did, which is that they've taken the online traffic course and they've emailed it in and the court didn't have it for some reason. And so I started thinking, well, I've now showered and I've combed my hair. I look relatively presentable. I was a little nervous about zooming from this room because I don't know why I just felt like are they going to think I'm a. a nutcase like i have this weird studio microphone like it's posters of me in this room like like i don't know why it just seemed like it was going to be abnormal for me to most people are just zooming in from their living room or their phone somewhere and i'm like calling in from almost a professional broadcast studio i don't know why that was looming large i just wasn't sure what the right play was but i realized what they were having people do is hold up like a printout of their successfully completed traffic school like for the for the camera on zoom and

you're like well thank god i have a printer unlike that walsh character well exactly and so i was

like you know what i should probably do i should probably actually join on zoom now because if it comes up that they're like we don't have it can you just hold up your printout then then basically like i can just do that quickly because what was happening to other people was they were like email us we're going to leave you on hold when we get the email that show to the right email address that shows that you passed it then we'll let you go about your business so as i am dialing up zoom now i still have this thing going on my cell phone and i connect into the meeting and they're at that moment saying uh luke burbank do we have a luke burbank here and then i just hear the judge chuckling and i realize it's because my zoom screen before my camera you know i don't ever let the camera turn itself on automatically because i need to get emotionally ready for that so it just goes to a still photo and it's rudy and me sitting on my porch in bellingham and rudy's licking my face yes and i hear the judge go oh we see a picture of your dog that dog is adorable nice here we go already the judge is kind of in a good mood i'm thinking and i explained i said yeah i'm sorry i was on the phone earlier but so i don't have time to fix it all what i basically do is i turn on my camera so now i'm looking at them but i'm still talking to them on the cell phone oh okay which is kind of a bizarre way to do it but i was like whatever i don't want to delay anything and so uh the judge says uh were you able to take the uh traffic uh test or whatever i said yeah i go i emailed i go somebody from the court jg email me back he goes jg that sounds suspicious and then i look at the guy's zoom name and i realize it's him those are his initials he's joking around with you he's judge he's like judge whatever his last name it starts with a g and his first name also starts with his first name is not judge all that would be really interesting yeah my name is judge if his name is like uh that you just have to become a judge or the actor judge reinhold if your name is judge so first of all i didn't even realize that because it's idaho it's small i assume there's some court clerk but no it's actually the judge is the one who had to put

my my jpeg my dang jpeg into an earworm for me into an email it's like so first of all i've kind

of like it's somebody named jg sent it and he laughs he's like that guy sounds that sounds suspicious and then i look at his name and i realize oh no that's him and i'm like i'm sorry your honor he kind of laughs we're vibing off of the dog thing now also andrew and this is critical there's a different prosecutor today nice yeah and so the the judge said we're able to take the thing i said yeah here it is he finds it in the file because he's the one to put it there he goes all right good he goes well um i guess uh and i'm getting my argument ready because i assume he's going to say all right well we'll knock this down to regular speeding and i'm gonna like go back into my spiel i'm i've been practicing my spiel on the jog by the way like i am like fully ready to go with this and the judge goes so i think we can dismiss this and the prosecutor goes that's not

what i have in my notes but i don't really care i love that the prosecutor is like um wait where's

the part where i get to say something right the prosecutor though is just kind of like she clearly doesn't care that much either she's like that's not what i have in my notes but and then i am like so tempted to jump in and like perjure myself or like go oh no no it's definitely 100 uh they were gonna dismiss but i can just i can tell that like he doesn't really care he's going dismiss the prosecutor doesn't super feel like arguing about it so if i can just button up my fat yap and just let this play out it will probably go my way but it's so hard for me in those situations to not want to like get in there and kind of like somehow help manage the conversation in the direction i'm hoping it'll go and there is this pause from when the judge says i guess we can dismiss to where the prosecutor says oh well that's not what i have in these notes i bet you that the pause was like three seconds when it felt like it was about yeah three minutes to me yeah and i'm just waiting and waiting and then the prosecutor goes yeah you know dismiss is fine i then can i then managed to almost blow the deal because i'm so excited this is like it's poker and i flopped the nut straight and i am trying to slow play this right now i'm just like trying to act like this is all cool and normal everything's fine and then i say well where do i send I go, okay, well, so what I'm trying to do What I'm trying to do now is be as agreeable as I can possibly be, and so I go, okay, well, I guess the court will email me where I need to send the fine, and the judge is like, well, no, we're dismissing it, so there's no fine. Nice, nice, nice. I was like, oh, my God, burbs. Play it cool for once.

So now – Wait, I don't think court is a place where you do want to act like you've been there. Tom Andrews famously very wrong about that one. That's really one where you want to be like, I don't – I'm a good person. I've never seen the inside of a virtual courtroom before.

Yeah, exactly. So they're like – and it's like all – at this point, anything I say is only going to increase the chances that they reconsider. Yeah. Like I just need to shut up. Yeah. And so then – but I'm also so giddy that this is happening. So then the judge is like, okay, well, we dismissed it. And then I just – Andrew, I don't know why, but I go, hey, if you bump into the other Luke Burbank that you know from college, tell him hi from me. He doesn't like me on Twitter. did he remember that conversation though i i think he must have because i mean that's there's a pretty unique name and he brought it up the last time and he said oh i said did you go to college with with that person he goes yeah and i go he goes well i haven't seen him for for 20 years so you know and then i just was like i was just so internally like very happy that this is where it was going and also just like i was slow my i was creating a slow speed car crash that i was witnessing like sort of out of body like just stop talking this is stressing me out just be done don't bring up and then like don't talk about you have differing political beliefs from a different luke burbank on twitter who the judge

once knew just like why so this is relatable though man i'm like this anytime i'm in even a slightly stressful like i had uh my performance review last week with my my outgoing boss and my incoming boss and kind of a transition. It's like everything's going great, but then, like, I just have a – when I'm a little bit nervous, I just don't shut the hell up. I just keep going and going.

I know. I just was – I just – again, I finally just had to tell myself mentally just, like, no more talking. No more talking. They're doing the thing you were hoping they would do. You didn't even have to, like, make the argument. I really do think he was just being nice to me because he thought Rudy was cute.

that is I mean if that's the case that's even if it's like or you just hit him in the right mood where that picture then tickled his fancy but like it is it's good news for you but it is interesting how capricious literally the word I was about to say and then Theo started screaming Theo I was about to say a big word capricious did you hear that by the way he's outside my door man this is going to be a rough one I think We need to give him a sedative or something. But, yeah, you know what I mean? Like, okay, even if this had stayed on your record, it would have sucked for you, but you can handle it. This is something you can absorb. There are other people who in other situations, but it could be as much as a moving vehicle violation that could have a huge impact on their life. And it is kind of funny how capricious that system is.

Well, it is. I think I said this last time, and I probably say it every time this kind of stuff comes up. It's very expensive being poor. There was a guy who I heard on the call who had been on the last call I was on, and he sounded like he was younger than me, probably in his 30s, and he had kind of a series of issues that were going on. He had been driving with an expired license and had been speeding, and so it was like a few things that had to get untangled, and they were like – and I remember the first time when he came on and the judge was like, did you have a chance to go to this traffic school, do this online traffic school? And he was like, no, I did not. And the judge gave him a continuance to this day. And the guy was like, yeah, you know, I work full time. I have nine kids.

Oh, my God.

He was like, and I guess the reason this license had been expired or suspended was because of failure to pay child support. And so now he had gone to the child support office and he had worked that out. So he was making his child support payment. So his license was turned back on. So they were going to take that part off. He basically was like, there's just no universe in which I'm going to go to this online traffic thing. So they just had to. I know. And I was almost like, bro, I'll take it for you. You cut me in on a little. I just took it. I'll tell you how it went. I'll give you the highlights. I wanted to kind of like take him aside and be like, I know it sounds daunting, but just like put TikTok on your phone. Actually, just get one or nine of your kids and just hang out with them while this computer is whirring away in the background. But then I'm like, I don't know if this guy has a computer.

Yeah, that's true.

You know, like depending on what's going on in his life. He's got nine kids. Yeah. And and they're turning his driver's license off because of failure to pay child support. And it's like, yeah. So for me, I was really stoked that this was the outcome because it's just one less hassle in my life. And it also means my insurance rates will not go up. But for that guy, I mean, it's like the number. of things that he had to unwind just to get back to like his head barely being above water yeah yep is is daunting and so i feel very privileged that i and you're right as far as like if the judge was in a bad mood or if that prosecutor if i got the same prosecutor as previously or someone who was digging their heels in for whatever reason could have gone totally differently yeah so it is weird when you think about how just kind of like yeah what kind of mood are they in today yeah

exactly but i think everybody right now is racing to their computers to change their zoom pictures to the cutest thing possible. Like, that guy should have his, like, take his cutest kid and just make sure that that kid is in a Zoom photo. I just feel like Rudy's looking out for me

up there wherever she is in heaven. I'm sorry, Bellingham. Bellingham, yeah. I get those confused all the time, too. Speaking of remembering names and Zoom meetings, I thought there was kind of an interesting article in the Washington Post, someone named Daniel Willingham. Do you want to go grab Theo, by the way?

I mean, there's nothing I can really do here. He's going to come sit on my lap for a little bit.

It doesn't bother me at all. I know it bothers you.

Well, it's okay. He's just, I mean, it's annoying that he's so loud, but also all he's saying is, I want to be on your lap, which is a nice thing to say to somebody that you don't work with. It's not a nice thing to say to somebody you work with.

In fact, it's one of the things they tell us not to do in the anti-harassment training.

Did you finish yours? I finished mine this weekend. You did? Yeah. Done so, man. It's an interesting weekend project. I know. I didn't mean to do it. I woke up kind of in a funk on Saturday wondering why I got red dots all over me. And I'm like, well, maybe this will explain it. It didn't, but I got it out of the way. I've got a fever.

The only cure is mandatory workplace anti-harassment training.

Yeah. They did that thing. It's the same exact one we took last time with – I think what they do is they update some of the policies that you click through. But all the – whatever. I don't have to get into the details. But there's this one where somebody tells an inappropriate joke at work, and you hear the beginning and end of it, but you never know what's in the middle. And it's just like it's so – I mean you just fill in all the blanks, and it's just worse. Whatever I'm coming up with is worse. I cannot believe he just told that joke. I did hear the guy say, I can't believe my dad didn't think I could be a stand-up comedian.

This is – again, we've talked about this other training a lot too. But it is funny because – and then I guess in this one small way I do feel for the people trying to design this like curriculum because you can't actually present a joke that's offensive because you have then done the thing you're trying to teach people not to do. So it's a very hard like sort of line to walk of somehow basically giving an example of a joke that you're not supposed to make but not actually doing the joke because you've then harassed everyone who's taking the test. Yes, exactly. It's like an impossible task. It really is. Anyway, what were you saying though? I was going to say that I hadn't thought of this, but it is one of the nice things about Zoom. This is what this Daniel Willingham points out in the Washington Post. One of the nice things about all these virtual meetings we've been having is people generally have their names up there.

Yeah, yeah.

And it just – it's a lot easier. And he was saying that now that he's going back to more in-person meetings, it's kind of bumming him out that everyone doesn't have a name tag on. And so he was kind of looking into why it is that we have such a hard time remembering names. I thought this was a telling sentence in the article Many people think they are terrible with names And studies show they are right In one typical experiment Subjects read biographies of fictional people That included their names, hometowns, occupations, and hobbies And it was the names that were most frequently lost In other studies Subjects were asked to name and describe famous people From their photographs Participants were often able to specify why the person was famous Like he's an actor in action movies But they couldn't pull up the name That's because it turns out that the name is the least memorable part of someone's existence to us, to our brains.

Because doesn't this article both sort of say it's maybe – I sort of feel like it makes an argument and then dismisses it that it's the randomness of names. Like if you know that somebody is a baker, well, then you can kind of fill in some details about their lives. Like, okay, yeah, this person may probably wake up early. And your brain just kind of fills in these gaps about what it's like to be a baker. And you can remember, oh, yeah, that person that I met at Luke's party was a baker. But if their name is, I don't know, like Josephine, like there's no there's no context clues there. It's just that person's name could be literally anything.

Ironically, if their name was Josephine Baker, I would remember that.

Is that why I said that? Holy shit. Why did the name Josephine? I was trying to think of just a non like real basic name. And then I come up with Josephine.

How about an amazingly influential black artist?

Josephine, the baker.

Yes. Well, they actually, in this article, they say if someone's last name is Baker or if they are a baker, like you said, the job stuff will stick in your head a lot more. And you gave a good example of that. you think oh they get up early in the morning they probably got a lot of flour you know dust on their apron like that's all stuff that our brain tends to remember the names by themselves just don't make a huge impression um i also thought that this was kind of interesting uh he said when you when you hit a mental block on a name uh you can't talk around it like you can talk around other words and i never thought of this so yeah you know he says he says if uh If he forgets that he drives a Corolla, he can just say, my Toyota or my car. There's lots of things that you can just kind of use a general term for, but there's no equivalent of that for people's names. And that's why it's so stressful when you're blanking on someone's name because it's very obvious to them that you're blanking on their name.

Yeah, because the follow-up there is if you see the neighbor and you're just like, hi, neighbor. Like I had a –

Coming over to watch the fish.

I had a person who I used to work with who – I was young. I was like probably in college and I was working for my dad at the time. And there was this engineer who would just call me guy.

Oh, yeah. Hey, guy.

I don't know why I didn't like there's something about guy that especially like that. And I don't mean the name guy. I mean, calling someone guy as a generic term. It just seems it just it falls so flat. Like I'll take slugger. I'll take tiger. Like, you know, like even though those, you know, it's not great if somebody at work is calling you. hey tiger at least like that that must have been in the training this weekend too but um you know it could be slightly demoralizing but at least it's interesting there's something about guy that is just like you just gave up you're just like hey there guy yeah it's kind of also it's definitely

there's a machismo factor there there's a kind of you know if you've got an older you know man and he's talking to a younger man like you were there's just kind of a little bit of that too ball busting going on which is never the most fun vibe um he uh one of the uh strategies i guess for mitigating this and i bet you anything and you do this a lot andrew actually and i think it works well is he says um people assume that a momentary blank signifies indifference so sometimes you can offer an alternative explanation confess to the slip-up this is if you forget someone's name but you could say i'm sorry my head's been in the clouds all day so in other words if you do forget someone's name instead of calling them guy it's better to just say like hey you know what i'm kind of i'm i my brain's been all over the place what was your name again like people generally will respond better if you just kind of own up to it right as opposed to trying to like fake it or get around it somehow or whatever that works exactly once though you know because that's

my problem and i think one of the reasons also i forget names is i think it's so in my head and This is where it becomes a little – what's the word? Like kind of self-centered is I think when you're meeting somebody, also part of your brain is saying like how am I presenting right now and what am I going to say next and like how am I going to make this interaction not awkward? And so you can maybe gloss over their name as it comes out. Also sometimes – and this sounds like I'm trying to make a bad joke or I'm trying to make a good joke that's bad, but it's true. Sometimes I will think to myself, this person's going to say their name. Get the name. Get the name. Get the name. And then I just think their name is get the name, right? Secure the bag. Yeah, I can focus so hard on the task that I actually am not as observant as I should be in that moment. I think that's one of the reasons why I think it's kind of embarrassing to me on an interpersonal level. Why I can't remember celebrities' names bothers me. I don't know why that is.

Well, I was thinking about this this morning, which is that you and I, we sort of have problems with names, but for totally different reasons. Mine is because of overconfidence and yours is because of underconfidence.

You think you're bad with names? You have such good recall on almost everything.

I sometimes get it right, but when I get it wrong, it's because I'm overconfident. And that's like when I was saying the guy that wrote Boondock Saints. And I literally just had a completely unrelated name that I was saying, Shane Black or something, which was like, why would you say that? So it's like I am too quick because historically I've had a pretty good memory. And it's also probably kind of my little way I think I'm demonstrating value maybe if I'm chatting is like, oh, here's a little bit of trivia you might not have known about this or that. The problem is, A, my brain is turning into Swiss cheese as I get older. And B, a lot of times I'm just wrong, but I go at it with the confidence of a much younger woman, and then I'm just dead wrong. And then that's, like, really embarrassing to me, whereas I didn't even have to say that. I didn't have to try to think of the specific name of the guy who was a bartender who then wrote Boondock Saints. And then I feel like your thing is sometimes anyway you'll be nervous you're not going to remember, and then you kind of get in your own head, and then that sort of blocks out the information. And then as soon as you stop. trying you just remember it immediately because you've like you've like let your brain you know

relax a little bit or something yeah I definitely I think that all the time like just this weekend I was I can't I can't remember the details and doesn't really matter but I was trying irony I was yeah it's just like one of those things if I try to remember it it's just not gonna improve the story but you know I always think that like you have to like let your brain relax there were two of us were like what is it it was like the name of a movie or the name of an actor or something and it was right on the tip of me and this other person's tongue but like if we were sitting there staring at each other trying to think of it it was never going to come as soon as we both like i remember walking away from somebody then being like as soon as i walked away turning around and being like this is what it is this is what it is i just need to relax for a second speaking of

insane feats of memory so we were hanging out me and camaro and john and uh and john's uh friend and colleague uh at some point the conversation turned to video games and remembering cheat codes and we told the story of when camaro called his brother kurt and woke him up from a dead sleep to ask him the cheat code to tyson and kurt like just was like hello and then he recited this string of numbers and then we tried it and then it didn't get us to tyson and uh kevin's phone was ringing again and it was kurt calling back to say i meant to say eight at the end and then it was right and we got through so we were talking about that and at this point it's probably like 10 o'clock at night and kurt he works early sometimes even though it was a saturday so i think he either he just gone to bed early or he needed to work in the morning or something but we basically rousted him from a dead sleep and did the exact same thing and it worked yeah

whereas do you are you and are you comparing that to like if it maybe if it had been the middle of the day and he was playing with you it might not have come it might have come as easily sure that's

definitely possible um i guess it's just it just it just astounds me what the human brain is actually capable of sometimes i mean just like that's just such a weird string of information to have just forever on the tip of your brain to where you can be woken up out of a dead sleep and just and as he was saying it we were we didn't even have a nintendo here but we were putting it

into the internet and it was like yep that's the code you know i can't remember um like most uh i've had a lot of addresses in my life and i can't remember most of them now but i'll i think i mean i can't i can't say i'll never forget but i will say on this day august 23rd 2021 at age 44 i do remember my very first address 7304 crocker road um and my first phone number although back then we didn't use area codes much because i was only calling like you know kids in the neighborhood or kids in the in the city where i lived not a city country i don't know the hamlet i don't know valley city um but like my phone number i believe was 483-3430 like that there's no useful information in there i don't know your phone number luke i've called you a lot sometimes in the middle of the night to ask for a cheat code i don't know your number at all because i never have to dial it i just hit luke on my phone but 483-3430 hopefully that'll be with me forever

I remember my childhood phone number, but only because it was a really good one. It was 522-3388.

Say that again. Why is it good? Say it again slower.

Well, because it's just so double. It's so 522-3388. Oh, that is great. Yeah, that's great. It was just easy to remember because it was just, it was 206-522-3388. Yep, yep, yep. And so, but if it had been even a little bit harder, I think I would probably have forgotten it by now. What I do weirdly know is my Alaska Airlines mileage number, which is a long string of numbers. And I guess it just tells you what my priorities are in life. Yeah, yeah. Getting upgraded.

Yeah, because you actually are manually punching that in a lot, huh? Not copying and pasting.

Well, I mean, it depends. But I don't understand why, but it just somehow got fixed in there. Other than my social security number, it's the longest number that I know off the top of my head. I don't know my bank account number by memory, but I almost just gave it out on the air. And then I thought, well, I don't want someone to steal my identity. But I thought, how could they even do that? I don't even know how that would work.

I don't know, but don't give it out. But what is it? What's your social, though?

Oh, it's the same as my Alaska Airlines mileage. I mean, what are the chances?

That is interesting.

That is really, really unlikely.

Also, don't you think the reason we can remember certain numbers is because of the way they are broken up? Like, I mean, listen, I had to memorize my social security number a long time ago. You have to input it a lot even before the internet age. So that's the reason why I remember it. It's an important number that I use a lot. But also the reasons it's broken up into what? Three, two, and four? Now I'm, as I say it, I'm not sure if that. Yeah, three, two, and four, right? It's three digits, two digits, four digits. Yeah, and then in phone numbers kind of similar as well, right? Like those are devices for remembering these things. So, you know, I got to admit, I was reading this Washington Post article about remembering names. And the author, the writer Keeps saying Well there's this technique But that probably It probably won't work.

And there's this technique, and that probably won't work. Does he ever come up with a technique that will work? He does. So here's the strategy that supposedly works the best out of all the ones that are out there. So if you're talking to somebody, periodically think to yourself, what is her name? In this case, let's use an example of Ruth. Do this self-test 10 seconds after meeting the person. Then at increasing intervals, say 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 5 minutes, researchers have shown by throwing parties for undergraduate subjects under controlled conditions that this technique is effective in fairly realistic situations because part of the problem was a lot of the other tricks and tips for your brain these don't really translate to real life although this one seems hard to me too because let's imagine you and i are are back in minnesota we're hanging out with some new colleagues and like if you're meeting four people that you didn't know previously what are you going to be doing this on four different levels as you're still trying to continue conversation with other people this actually seems like it'd be pretty hard to

pull off as well yeah that's the tough thing right meeting a bunch of people at once it's interesting i mean there's no way that i'm going to be able to think okay now it's been two minutes it's been five minutes like ruth baby ruth um but uh but it's essentially what i have tried to do because i did try to make it a priority i remember um i don't know several years back just thinking like this is embarrassing like when you meet somebody you need to remember their name stop doing this um although people are pretty forgiving especially on first you know like often they've forgotten yours too if you just met them that's one thing that i have found too so people are pretty forgiving but um you know i've really i just think it's a really cool thing when somebody remembers your name after just hearing it once and so i try to do that i don't time it but i will try to like kind of remind myself this person that you're talking to her name is josephine baker she's

really amazing person really uh she's a baker i will there is a weird thing where there are certainly people that have probably been there's some kind of dale carnegie course and or maybe they you know like work in an industry where it's like being personable really helps and they'll use your name kind of in a way that feels like they read a book about use someone's name x number of times yeah you know well i mean the thing i thought was so interesting luke that you were saying yeah and i mean it doesn't i don't think it's coming from a bad place but it can feel i was hanging out with someone a few weeks ago who had that sort of habit and actually this person was very nice i really enjoyed um hanging out with this person but it felt just like five percent like so like someone took a weekend course at a hyatt yeah where this is what they were was one of the things that they that they talked about and now they were putting it into practice and it just felt about two percent disingenuous yeah i didn't

it's a salesperson technique is as well. And I think so, right? Yeah, I feel like it is. And that's, I find that to be off putting to like, you can just do it, like remind yourself of it or mention it or say, you know, maybe when you're saying goodbye to this person, and you say, well, it was really nice to meet you, Ruth, you know, like try to, you know, do it appropriately. But yeah, overusing it always gives me a bad feeling. It always makes even if the person has good intentions it always has an air of disingenuousness to it what my move is like if i'm in traffic court

is to actually not know the judge's name and then say yeah somebody named jg emailed me yeah i don't know who that is just kind of neg the judge a little bit and then he wants to get he wants to get back on my good graces by um dismissing my my ticket yeah how did how to make friends with

judges and influence parking tickets that's right here i go once again with the email every week i I did it from a female. No, man. It's not from a female.

All right. We didn't get to Malice in the Palace. Maybe we'll do that tomorrow. Did you see any emails or V-mails that you thought were worth talking about?

Sure. Let's play this voicemail. We had a theory that I maybe had a theory that my devices were listening to me because they were advertising things to me that I had just maybe mentioned. out loud to somebody once and then suddenly i'm getting instagram ads for it i think um we have seen pretty definitively now that that is not how this stuff works there was a great article that went into a lot of details about how this um how this tracked marketing does work and it's not any less creepy than your device listening to you but it is like this complicated algorithm of the people who are in your personal network and what have they been looking at at their phones and And did you spend time with them in their house? And like, you know, like there's there is all remember this article is very in-depth.

It's more about your phone being near another phone. And then it is part of it.

Right. Yeah. It's very, very, very complicated. And like I say, no less creepy. However, that did not convince this listener who still insists that his phone is listening. Hey, Dummy.

This is listener Christopher calling from Portland, Oregon. remember a little while ago when you guys were trying to get instagram to advertise crossbows and chainsaws to you yes it didn't work i i just i cannot believe that didn't work for you i've had two really really specific targeted ads come at me from instagram lately i was on the phone with a good friend of mine here in town and we were having a chat about the italian restaurant that his folks made him go to and how woefully mediocre the whole experience was and we started talking about one of our favorite italian restaurants called gino's And we were going back and forth. It's like, oh, Gino's, it's great. Gino's is the best. It's so old school. It's like mobster Italian. The next day I open up. What is it suggesting that I page that I follow? Gino's Italian Restaurant. And I thought that cannot be coincidence. So then just a couple of days ago, I was sitting at dinner with my kids, just sitting at a table with my phone sitting on the table. And I said to them, you know what I did this weekend? I rented an e-bike on the coast. And it was so much fun. The next time we go to the coast, we're going to rent e-bikes. The next time I opened up Instagram, they were advertising e-bikes to me. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong because you're clearly doing it right. So I could use maybe some guidance there because it's listening to everything I say, obviously. Should I praise the machine? Anyway, power out.

You know, the second example, not to be a Mr. Know-it-all, but I think one thing we learned from that article is that second example isn't because you said I rented an e-bike. It's because you rented an e-bike. Even if you didn't use your phone to rent an e-bike, the way they're tracking our information has to do with our, you know, what we do with our credit cards and our debit cards and our location data as well. So my guess is even though it might have had a day or two delay on that, I'm quite certain that the reason you're getting e-bike advertisements is because you rented one, not because you said the word e-bike around your kids, right?

Would you agree with that? I guess so, but I mean, you're saying that somehow the systems are set up so that the listener Christopher using his card, presumably, to rent the bikes or his phone being near where the e-bike place's Wi-Fi was. Somehow it's just like that's more likely what was sort of generating the ads than him saying the e-bike thing. I mean, that makes a lot more sense to me, certainly. That's what I would guess, yeah. But, I mean, we have already studied this, and then I've already forgotten everything that we learned about it. But, I mean, our phones, these devices are monitoring. Maybe they're not storing the information, but they are monitoring it because when you talk to whatever the AI device is on your particular phone or speaker, it's got to be listening to you in order to respond to that. So it's listening, and maybe it's just deleting the information otherwise. But you still think it's listening? I think that we've put that to bed, right? Well, what I don't understand from a practical standpoint is how it – and I won't say it so we don't turn everyone's devices on or whatever. But, like, if you say the name of the AI assistant, it says, hey, what do you want? So how is it knowing that you're calling for it unless it's listening?

Oh, right. You know, the trigger picks – I think it's listening for certain triggers. Yeah, because I have a device here, and I think – here, I'll just whisper this so it won't trigger anybody's device. But if I say the words, okay, gorgle, only not gorgle, you say the other one, my device will start listening to me. It will go bloop, and it will be like, what can I help you with? And that happens to me a lot talking to you during the show and otherwise, but I'm not saying those actual words. I'm saying something close to it. I say the word okay a lot. I'll say, okay, good. Actually, did it work? No, that time it didn't work. But this morning, you and I were getting ready to record, and I said something like, okay, good, and then my phone woke up.

See, but the thing is, it has to be – I guess the idea is that it's not listening unless it hears those words, and then it wakes it up. I mean, that's what they say. Or is it sitting there in wait? I mean, I don't know. This is – it's like Schrodinger's phone or something. It's Schrodinger's AI assistant because can it microwave a burrito so hot that Alexa could not eat it? No, like I don't understand how it's ready to go when you say the magic words unless it's already kind of in a listening mode. If it's in some sort of monitoring mode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, again, I am a very lazy person by nature. And so I guess I'm still kind of on the side of like, well, if the convenience factor is enough for me. But then, you know, I'll hear like I'll either read an article or I'll like listen to Chris's show. Why is this happening? And they'll be talking to some privacy expert. You start to hear about the real kind of seamy, seedy underbelly of all of the monitoring that's going on with us, and then you start to get kind of wigged out.

Yeah, speaking of Chris, by the way, I think he's back. his msnbc show tonight yeah i i did not want to text him because he was on vacation i think for the last two weeks and so i did not want to text him or anything during but like with all the news coming out of afghanistan like after last weekend of course last sunday was when everything really kind of broke loose there i wanted him on his show so badly last week i just kept on thinking like well what would chris say about this but i don't want to bug him did you text him did you bug him about that i i told him to watch malice at the palace and i texted him where's the freaking

gabagool on instagram because he uh was making pasta which he likes to do with his family and uh i just felt like it was a missed opportunity for a gabagool reference right yeah um and so that was the level of interaction that i was having over the weekend with him hey where's the freaking gabagool i will say though he had an episode with sarah chase sarah chase was a an npr reporter actually in Afghanistan and has gone on to now work with NGOs and she has a really, really deep knowledge of the scene there having lived in Afghanistan and they actually recorded it before the pullout but it's pretty incredible kind of her take on it and a lot of what she says is pretty prescient so if you really need to scratch that itch this afternoon I would recommend going and listening to that episode

I do have a lot of itches that need scratching I don't know if Chris really wants to do that though yeah uh i had an idea for a song to go out good

the everly brothers uh one of the everly brothers uh passed away oh uh over the weekend i believe and uh uh you know i've always liked their music and um i was thinking maybe wake up little suzy oh is that them uh they did a version of it i don't know if the originals yeah i got that It's definitely one of their songs from 1958, an Everly Brothers jam, Wake Up Little Susie. So that's how we'll wrap things up today. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do tune in for that. Until then, have a great Monday. Stay safe. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Wake up.

Wake up, little Susie. Wake up. We both went down to sleep. Wake up, little Susie. And we. The movie's over, it's four o'clock and we're in trouble deep Wake up, pretty Susie Wake up, pretty Susie Well, what are we gonna tell your mama? What are we gonna tell your father? What are we gonna tell our friends when they say Ooh la la, wake up, pretty Susie Wake up, pretty Susie Well, I told you mama that you'd be in by 10 Well, Susie, baby, looks like we could look in Wake up, dear Susie Wake up, dear Susie We gotta go home

Wake up, dear Susie Wake up

They're gonna throw the book at you, you know that? And you know what else? I'm gonna let them Because I have a lot of pull in this court system Don't ask me how or why How and why A judge ran over my face when I was six Power out