Muse

Hey Luke and Andrew, this is Lee. I don't know if I need to blame you or give you credit, but I want to let you know I'm leaving Tubbs at lunchtime with a French tip. I only came here because you guys kept on talking about this dang sandwich that I'm about to enjoy. Power out. TBTL! Maybe our friendship isn't worth a damn. Maybe we should call it quits right now.

You just tell me where to sign, bud.

Right on my sandwich after you kiss it!

As usual, we have a lot to cover, so if you pay careful attention, you'll have nothing to worry about.

I value confidentiality, and paradoxically, I don't care who knows it. Here's some advice I gave to the girls in my dance troupe at the Dance Tell You Drop tournament.

That advice was dance. Dance. Dance. All I know is this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live somehow hot break feels good in a place like this my name is luke burbank i'm your host gonna be a sit-down comedian on ticky-tocky coming to you from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon where usually there'd be a small cat terrorizing me but Kittens! Inspired by kittens! She's already been Bubbles the cat has already been transported over to Becca's house because once we get done with our recordings today including today's episode and then tomorrow's episode featuring a special guest I'm heading off to Los Angeles tonight and then to Denver for TBTL-A-Thon 13 Let the Fun Begin. Oh speaking of Letting the Fun Begin. Let the Fun Begin. Let some fun begin right now here on episode 3687 in a collector's series speaking of the tbtl a-thon well i've had my first stress dream related to it have i ever shown you my shattered dreams box and it was strange to say the least um the uh other thing that we want to talk about today is the fact that all these celebrities who were out here blowharding who were doing ads for crypto who were pitching bored apes on fallon etc now that crypto is absolutely tanking none of them will talk to the new york times about the fact that they hyped up crypto so uh you got uh you got my money and then speaking of worlds of pain you're entering a world of pain i've entered one trying to figure out how to get my a lot of my smart home devices to talk to the correct gigahertz rate of my wi-fi i know that that's that sounds boring and it is but what's not boring is the fact that i wanted to crawl through the telephone and literally physically get into combat with each and every person i was dealing with at the xfinity x5 level um so we'll get into that because trying to fix this is not easy oh shit things are hard uh i know who might be able to help me with it it's this guy the longest running cobro of the show are you sure that's what they said on ass chiefs he may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships it's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now from the sweet cream district of seattle

washington good morning my friend there is a uh david good morning luke sorry um good morning uh there is a david letterman's top 10 list of phrases that sound dirty but aren't one of them on the list was windsurfing on Mount Baldy, I believe. It sticks in my head. I had these books. You probably had those books, right? The two collections of David Letterman top ten lists in the 90s. Oh, yeah. I had the first one and the one that was more David Letterman top ten lists. Anyway, I remember that one was so good. That's the only example I can think of. But when you said what did you say? Like pitching bored apes on Fallon? It came close to having that sort of rhythm. I don't even know if we can say that.

You know what they were doing? They were hyping board apes on Fallon. Oh, my goodness, Andrew. It's happening. I'm having stress dreams, or a stress dream that I remember about the TBTL-a-thon next week.

Is this normal for you? Are you a stress dream guy? I don't ever remember you saying, because I mentioned that I had a stress dream about the TBTL-a-thon. That's very much in my character. I don't remember you ever confessing to having stress dreams about TBTL before.

Well, A, I don't remember a lot of my dreams, which makes me think there's something fundamentally broken inside. Like, I don't know. That just because I don't think that's that I'm not having them. It's just that I don't tend to remember them. But I remembered one last night from last night, and it was you and I were it was. tbtl-a-thon week but for some reason we were in the arctic so i don't know i can't remember if it was technically alaska or or if it was like canada or it was somewhere like extremely snowbound kind of like all year round and we were for the first thing was i was for some reason doing the show basically by myself out of like a ice fishing hut type of deal and for some reason you were still back at wherever we were staying and i was like i gotta go get andrew because the show is starting in like five minutes when i do have a stress stream it's always about like something performative and it's starting in five minutes and we don't have the proper elements the other thing was for some reason there was a contingent of this town that really hated us like thought we were kind of carpetbaggers or they were looking at us kind of suspiciously like who are these big city folks coming to our arctic town to talk their big game out so that of course that of course made me feel nervous but then the other thing that i didn't realize because i went to try to get you and then i'm trying to get back to the ice fishing hut slash slightly larger place because again it's a dream so everything's insane i'm getting back to where we're doing the show what i realize is the entire town has turned out to watch us do the show because it turns out this is the biggest thing that's happened in this arctic place for a while that is that's your nightmare i mean you were

talking a little bit on the show the other day um about how that's actually more something that is attached to your other job right cbs you go out to do a story um about something and then kind of people hear they see the cameras they see the man talking into the camera um and people just sort of start to gather around and you have to put on a bit of showmanship that's something that you've kind of experienced in life it feels like that's where that's coming from i guess i mean it's weird

because i'm also insecure about nobody showing up for events true it's it's so it takes on uh takes on many forms for me but then so now the show starts and again for some reason and i i don't want you to think andrew that this is what i actually think is going on like even subconsciously But for some reason, you were getting very distracted with, like, a sled dog or some other thing. I could see that. I love me a dog. I mean, I have seen you around dogs. You do love them. But, like, I'm now doing the show, but it's this thing where I am trying psychically to get your attention to be, like, because now I've got you physically there. But I'm, like, I need you to, like, be on this journey with me. And I'm starting the show, and I'm doing my spiel, but I immediately say the wrong place. Ugh. like i think i say i say that we're in in canada when we're actually in alaska or i don't know if we're maybe in siberia all the people did not seem particularly russian to me whatever that looks like but or siberian but i immediately come out of the gate and say the wrong name of the place and this is being amplified like someone to set up a pa system i also think this is part of this represents the trivia night in denver on friday like it just was an amalgamation of all the things that you and i uh with the help of our colleague john basically have to iron out by well starting monday of next week and then continuing through friday night when we will you know kind of finish the last of this pretty intense week for us i think it was all just kind of combining into let's just call it what it was a snowball of stress snowball perfect given the

situation i thought you were going to say that at some point um during your dream while you're broadcasting the um the ice hut starts literally melting around you because that would be very symbolic as well like you just can't keep anything together you mean yeah it was made of wood though

i say it's not an igloo oh it was like one of those rickety wood it's like a wood structure that has some kind of stove in the corner uh-huh but that is like in my mind it's like the thing you might sit in if you were ice fishing although man they have ice fishing is not for me just because despite the photograph that was the show pick earlier this week i'm not huge on for myself anyway fishing like i don't want to pull a fish out of the water with a hook that's just not for me but there's something intriguing to me about the idea of ice fishing because they have these like basically like temporary dwellings these you know the ice fishing i thought used to be something you attack together there i think maybe i'm not super familiar with it you know you get this big auger and you sort of cut down through the ice now they've got these full-on like fancy ass like almost like a mobile home or like a trailer thing that they just you can bring and then you have a special trailer on your car or your truck rather believe me you're not towing this thing with a car and then you just put it down on the ice and then you basically cut this hole and then you're just like in this very comfortable warm basically excuse to drink beer where there's also a hole in the floor and you occasionally pull a fish out If I had to

ice fish, that's the ice fishing I would do. Do you remember me telling you about the first time I went out on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire when it was frozen? This is such a treasured memory. So I grew up in a cold place. I was used to walking on ice, like frozen over ponds or whatever, but it was always like kind of a, you know, there was always some risk involved or you really had to make sure that, you know, the adults made sure that everything was frozen over on those occasions when the pond would freeze over enough for us to like actually skate around or even just slide around on it um so it wasn't like totally a foreign concept to me and then i moved to new hampshire now keep in mind i had met genevieve i'm not i'm making this too long this doesn't have to be a whole origin story thing but i had met genevieve on a trip to boston from ohio a few months earlier and we'd stayed in touch and we'd um you know we were i do you use the word courting via email in uh the year 2001 that seems i think i think overly formal pitching woo we were very clearly um we were very clearly into each other and so the moment i moved out to new hampshire veves and i had our first date and or second date or whatever it would have been and you know kind of became an item almost immediately um actually it was immediately

it was like the day before i started my job so genevieve wasn't one when your your your time with Genevieve wasn't one of the many times where there was a mutual interest but you misinterpreted what was going on or talked yourself somehow out of what was very obvious to everyone else involved yeah

yeah my relationship with Genevieve from the get go just didn't have that didn't have that particular difficulty for some for some reasons that I could get into now but I don't want to and it would really derail the story I think I was in an interesting place when I met her but it was just it just really worked out i had met her a few months earlier when you know you know so i moved back to uh ohio now i am getting in the origin story and veves and i stay in a lot of touch we're emailing almost every day this is the thing where i'm writing it on my computer in my little um studio and then taking the disc to work the next day to email it uh i had a i had a pony i would i would strap it to the back of the pony we would walk to work um anyway uh so by the time my point of all of that is to say by the time i moved to new hampshire veves and i were already kind of like immediately sort of dating right and i was there for one week i did my first week of work and then immediately because of weird timing my company new hampshire public radio had a retreat for all of its employees or at least all of the i think broadcast crew um up at some what do they call those grand hotels that's a thing in new hampshire like really old school hotels like the I think in The Shining would be like a grand hotel, right? An old school, huge hotel. The Overlook. Yes. It had those vibes, too, even though it's a very different part of the country. But anyway, we're at this grand hotel, and we're on Lake Winnipesaukee. It's pretty awesome. And so Genevieve comes up for one day of it. And I don't know exactly why. It was a professional retreat, but maybe the first day or something, we had time to just kind of hang out. And seeing Genevieve. So when you go out in Lake Winnipesaukee in the winter, it is and this was during, I believe, the the ice fishing festival or something. And it is astounding. Even I, as a kid who grew up sometimes walking on ice, I also would sometimes walk on. What would my mom say? You're walking on thin ice or. Oh, sure. Sometimes she'd say you're walking on eggs. You ever get that one? You're walking on eggs, mister.

see that's in i wonder if that's a utica thing because i feel like talking about walking being walking on eggshells is usually expressed from the perspective of i have to be very careful yeah around although you know i think eggs is better because eggshells sounds like they're already broken so if i'm on eggshells if i'm walking on eggshells around you andrew i'm trying i'm like i'm nervous that i'm gonna upset you in some way but if they're eggshells that sounds like they're probably the damage is done if right I'm nervous I'm really walking on eggs and I think

and I don't know if my family was using it right or my mom but she would say walking you're on thin ice or you're walking on eggs and they both meant like you're pushing it you're pushing it you're on thin eggs buddy you're on thin eggs that's a show title you're on thin eggs buddy um so anyway all of that is to say I I get to Lake Winnipesaukee and even for me it is astounding you just see these big-ass trucks just driving on something that is water during the summertime, right? I mean, just, like, big pickup trucks, I mean, not semis, but, like, just driving around, many of them, right? And, I mean, it's something to behold, and there's, you know, people are fishing, and they're fishing, literally, they're fishing holes all over the ice and with their little sheds, like you described, their little fishing huts, and it was really something, it was really magical, but the thing that I always remember, and maybe this is just because I love Genevieve and it was so endearing at the moment but Genevieve grew up in the south man she grew up in Georgia the idea of walking on a lake was not something that she could even wrap her mind around and I remember we get to the edge of the lake which is like you can't even really tell at the edge

is that it's ice right like it's just probably a lot of snow and it just kind of feels it just feels like it's all kind of the ground yeah and there's even a place i don't know if maybe this was on the land but i mean there's a place with the whole almost like um like a a shed or something like a long shed where everybody's hanging up their winning uh where they're weighing the fish or measuring the fish and hanging up the you would hate it anyway um i remember genevieve walking out on the ice so tentatively luke she looks almost like she almost childlike sort of like she was so so nervous to walk on the ice and i'm just like but but i digest you know gestured everything around i'm just like look i mean genevieve an f-150 just passed you by like you're you're good here and she's like and she in all earnestness she's like no i'm very dense all of my weight is coming to one point that truck the weight is spread out and that was why she felt like that truck was safer on the ice than her at you know whatever minuscule amount that she weighed

comparatively speaking i love that logic yeah i love it coming from veeves because i can totally hear her making that argument like intensely and with a lot of confidence yes and i gotta remember

too because i don't ever see myself in this way but i mean we're brand new dating so there she must be i don't know i should actually come back around and ask her about that like but there's it's easy for me to forget that genevieve ever felt the need to impress me in any way because that seems absolutely ridiculous to me you know what i mean and that doesn't that's not even like an old like like uh the old battle axe thing it's just like you know we still make each other laugh like on the reg but like the idea of needing to put on your best face to impress andrew walsh is just ridiculous for anybody let alone genevieve and so it's it's hard for me to also like kind of keep the context of she's walking onto this ice she's completely it's completely a foreign concept to her she's nervous but also she's with a boy she likes you know what i mean which is i'm kind of just thinking about that aspect of it now did you do that cute thing where you kind of went on

out of the ice on all fours and then your knees kind of knocked together and you were like having a hard time standing up and then you kind of spun in a little pirouette

I did something similar which was I got down I kind of got down on all fours and I crawled kind of behind Genevieve's leg and I told somebody else to push her and then she tripped backwards over me oh sure just a little light hazing early on in the relationship yeah exactly it set the tone I honestly can't oh is that what you're talking about

because you remember how Bambi goes out on the ice and I don't even remember is Bambi a boy or a girl But Bambi's like the like probably the cutest thing I ever saw in my young childhood life is Bambi going out on the ice and being very nervous and kind of having, you know, just being kind of new to walking and then sort of going and inadvertently spinning. I think doing a 360, I think Thumper is having having a laugh at Bambi's awkwardness on the ice. I haven't seen that movie in, you know, 40 years or something.

But I remember, I mean, I know that it's like a very like Bambi on the ice is like iconic. I thought you were saying that maybe at the end, I didn't know what you were describing before. Does Bambi get, I think it's he, does Bambi get his shit together and ends up being really good on the ice? Or is Thumper, am I a Thumper, by the way? I haven't seen that movie in 40 years either, but I'm just remembering the character Thumper. And it started like a kind of a good hearted, but teasing character on the sidelines. Is that how you would describe Thumper or no?

I guess so. I mean, Bambi is the sort of is the representation of all that is innocent and good in the world. And Thumper is kind of a little more street smart, or in this case, Woods smart, I think. A little older, kind of Bambi's trusted advisor, but also thinks it's funny when Bambi's naivete is on full display. I would describe that as a dynamic of our relationship. I'm kind of wide eyed. I'm like a little doe in the world. Absolutely. I'm just kind of like out there like, oh, what is this? And you're kind of on the sideline grabbing. You're sitting on your butt, but you're grabbing your feet and rolling around with laughter.

That's going to be the dynamic in Denver, I think. Thumper's cuter than I thought, too. For some reason in my head, I was picturing Thumper as like older and more grizzled. I had Thumper with a cigar. Why is that? That doesn't make sense.

He had Thumper as a carnival barker. Yeah, Thumper was absolutely adorable. Thumper is a fictional rabbit character from Disney's Bambi. He's known and named for his habit of thumping his left hind foot. The young adult version of Thumper also appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resort as a meetable character. Oh, did you hear, by the way, that I think, who knows, because it's such a sort of moving target with...

um you know what's going on with covid the latest protocols etc but i had read somewhere that you can hug you can hug the disney characters again if you're at the park no i didn't know that you

couldn't for a while because of covid but now it's back to you're allowed to hug them can you imagine being the boss breaking the news to your staff that hugging is allowed now you're like okay uh everybody okay we got thumper here good mickey good mickey adjust the uh the bow tie why is mickey

wearing a bow tie um some uh no shirt that's the part that's the shocking part for some reason

um yeah the mouse i feel like if i were i mean if if i were one of those you know park characters it would really come down to how much outfit do i get to wear like how much how much is there between me and the people hugging me so if you're like a princess you're just you know you might be And depending on which princess – like, if you get to play Cinderella, you probably have a kind of large dress with some substantial train on it. So it's a little bit of – they're also – maybe they have this rule at Disneyland. You have to be under 10 to do any hugging with any of the characters. That should be – there should be posted signs. Or I don't know what the exact age is, but there should be something that makes sure that, like, 46-year-old dudes like me don't think it's, like, open season for hugging Disney princesses.

And also a time limit. Hey, it's Mulan. get over here right like and how long can a hug last is another question too you know like um my

friend adam davidson who now is uh at the new yorker but um was an npr guy for many years he wrote a piece for the la weekly we might have just talked about this either on the air or i was talking about with somebody he wrote a great piece in the la weekly years and years and years ago he's also done a bunch of stuff on this american life and um is a super talented journalist but he wrote this piece about the people that would go to disneyland in anaheim every single day and it wasn't just that they would go to disneyland every day but they would go watch the same performance of like the bayou band that plays near the like whatever it's a small world after all or something because you know they have these they have these pretty talented professional you know performers and musicians that are there entertaining every single day but they would have groupies these kind of monkeys-esque like assembled bands that would be playing different kinds of music in different parts of the of the park there would be people that would just go to watch that one that band play their songs every single day seven days a week they would like

never miss it wow um are they changing up the set list i kind of don't i don't think so because

the idea is um you know the idea is that there's new tourists in disneyland every single day so you can play the same songs because it's going to be new to them yeah uh i was trying to uh i was trying to see if i could find this article on the fly at the um on the la weekly i will say that i went on a for um camaro uh kevin anita's uh wedding which was in croatia you know we went on a cruise out in the uh whatever i never know if it was the mediterranean or not but we left from italy and we went around to greece and a bunch of other places ended up in croatia and there was a band called champagne champagne duo that was like a guy on the you know drums or whatever and then a woman on the keyboard and vocals and i we loved them so much the woman had a really charming accent so she would sing like she would do the like shania twain song uh damn i feel like a woman but because she was from somewhere in eastern new york she would go damn i feel like a woman and we would just literally be like okay where's champagne dreams playing where's champagne duo playing today on the boat and we would because you know they'd move around like are they on the lido deck are they by the buffet and we would just be like finding champagne duo because we thought that they were super fun so i guess if we were into that i could see how somebody would get into that stuff at disney i think i'm on their website right now

by the way you can instantly book champagne duo it's uh how did you find that so fast i just typed

in champagne duo and look are they i mean there must be like a million bands with that name now

well maybe i'm in the wrong maybe i'm in the wrong thing these folks are australian it looks

like they're from perth is that right how um champagne duo band is that what you put i also misspelled um i think i also misspelled champagne just terribly i'm not finding this will you send me a link we should take a break yeah will you send me a link because i am this will be so funny if this is actually this and i'll know right away it was just like a man and a woman and they may have been from australia but the woman definitely had an accent that made me think maybe before

australia she'd lived somewhere else give me let me give you one more dazzling detail about this and we'll come back to it after the break but it her first name which i'm struggling to pronounce is spelled E-Z-E-R-E-V-E. So possibly they're based in Australia.

i don't know if that's necessarily an australian name so anyway it could be i'm i'm feeling like

this is these might be your folks but yeah i'm looking at it and of course you know this was so long ago i got it maybe i can email them and ask them to do their version of shania twain's damn i

feel like a woman that's the only way you're gonna go around and kind of ask everybody can you sing

this one song and then you'll find your prince and princess yes exactly okay let's take a quick break, and then we'll be back with more TBTL in just a moment. I feel like we're on thin eggs right now.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle-dazzle. On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody razzle-dazzle.

Hey, let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the amazing, generous folks who are dazzling us with their donation of dough and um you know this is uh how we're able to keep tbtl rolling next week we'll be in denver of course and we will be reminding uh you all of the business model but this is an example of it from ryan young as in young frankenstein for the pronouncer in richmond california i'm sorry it's i think it's young it's dr ryan young frankenstein's monster right there you go. I remember. Ryan's in Richmond, California. Here's the thing. If we mushed our way into an Arctic town, Andrew, and some of the people were sus about us, but some of the people wanted to come out to the show and they were like encouraging us and they were like, you can do it. You are entertaining. Ryan Young would be in that supportive group. I like to think so. He wouldn't

be one of the people holding a kerosene heater towards the base of our igloo trying to bring

the whole thing you keep trying to put us back in an igloo andrew i'm trying to tell you this was my dream is a wooden structure i just thought i was there i lived it i just thought that maybe we could collab on your dreams no we cannot this is a solo project okay um right we i know ryan likes us andrew because he says in the opening line of his dazzling donor message luke and andrew I love you guys I've been listening to you talk to each other For more than 10 years now And somehow I still listen to every new episode Actually that's not true I skip every few days So that I have an emergency bang Wow That is an interesting approach A lot of folks skip some episodes Just because it's too much And it backs up And if your lifestyle isn't conducive To listening to one to two hours a day Of whatever this is People will kind of get behind But it sounds like Ryan is intentionally leaving some unlistened episodes on the shelf so then he can catch up. I like that. I skip every few days so I have an emergency bank. This is my third year of donating Dazzlingly. That's how deeply I enjoy the show. You make my day better and you've genuinely helped me cope with depression and anxiety. I listen while I putter, exercise and drive my kid to daycare. He likes to call out when he's heard a drop he recognizes from the sound machine such as I heard let the fun begin So the kids in the back seat going Oh wow let the fun begin I heard that Let the fun begin It's from the TBTL sound box You gotta remember to bring this to Denver by the way I got a whole I bring in an entire suitcase dedicated to Gear and just weird TBTL related things like all the stuff That I need to do the show for a week with you

Yeah you told me about something that you're gonna be bringing That we'll reveal it on Monday I'm very excited about that and what I'm mostly excited about is TSA going through your bag and

Finding it yes exactly I'm listening To you all as I write this TBTL is like the Grateful Dead I listen to it when I can't decide on anything else And I want something good Fun familiar long shaggy Weirdly insistent On playing god awful covers of dancing In the street oh shoot we did Do that right did this did the Grateful Dead also do that I'm From context I'll say yes Funny, kind, occasionally frustrating And obsessed with garbage collection Thank you for doing what you do I know you can't play songs But I want to recommend everyone listen to Sisters of Mercy by Leonard Cohen Speaking of paragliding on Mount Baldy Windsurfing? Speaking of windsurfing on Mount Baldy I think Leonard Cohen was famous For going up to this Buddhist retreat On Mount Baldy outside of Los Angeles Seriously? Yeah, he was a big silence retreat guy And he would go, Mount Baldy was where he would go do that.

I didn't have Mount Baldy coming up twice in today's show.

Well, I did. And I've made a tidy sum over at DraftKings. Although it's not fair because I'm the one that gets to introduce Mount Baldy into the show as many times as I please. Sisters of Mercy by Leonard Cohen. There is a line, I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned.

that says something about the relationship between tbtl and the listeners or maybe i've just been digging that song recently anyway power out i like that i feel like that line that speaks to the sense of community right whether you're the person who's if you're observing someone else and you're kind of like i know what that's like or you're um you're the person who's in it and someone else is reaching out to you going hey uh you know i've been where you're hanging and i can see how you're pinned I think it's going to be very affirming in whichever direction that sort of experience is going. And that seems to be what people like about the show. Not as much us, Andrew, but very much the community of tens.

Yeah, we've been seeing that manifest itself a lot in the various TBTL communities. It's always special. Yeah. So thanks, Ryan.

Appreciate your support all these years. Maestro? On your mark. On your mark.

Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

We've also got to thank Nicole Partridge in Boffa, Washington. For how long? Like what, an afternoon? That doesn't look like anything to me, Andrew.

Okay. Interesting.

Hello, friendos. Thank you for another year of drops, imaginary friendship, and phone throwing. Also a big hug for the TENS community for being a great group of people to chat with about life, hot dogs, and our favorite co-bros. Wishing everyone well Signed, Nicole From Bothell Andrew, wait for it Uh-huh, uh-huh

For a day or a lifetime And or a lifetime And the way Nicole's got it I know, but I don't think that's on the sign I don't think so either, but I gotta be true to the message Because I think Nicole is trying to be the change She wants to see in the world there

So you're saying that Dazzling Donner Nicole Partridge is of the opinion that that sign in Bothell, which we talk about almost as much as we talk about Mount Baldy, that that sign really would read better if it said, welcome to Bothell for a day and or a lifetime.

And or a lifetime. Now, I'm not taking sides on this, but it's my belief that Nicole said, hey, listen, I donate very generously to this show. I have a megaphone for one day a year. I'm going to use that megaphone to just gently nudge the world towards accepting a slight tweak on the for a day and or a lifetime slogan.

How about welcome to Bothell for the for a day and or a lifetime or some other amount of time, maybe like three weeks, maybe something. But no, it's like there's something in between. There's there's a lot between a day and a lifetime. Like, for instance, I've spent somewhere between I've I've spent somewhere north of a day and south of a lifetime in Bothell myself.

I don't know if I've been to Bothell. I have to go to Bothell. You have been. That's where my tubs is moving.

You have been, Andrew. You know, when you were there, when we took you, me and Camero Kev took the boat. Oh, yes. And parked it and then had to break out of that marina. Yes, yes.

And then go to the crazy moose. It did have moose in the title.

The, you know, the neurodivergent moose, something. We went to that bar and we hung out. I think we ran into a 10 there. We met a 10 there or something. Is that true? I don't remember that, which maybe not. Maybe we just made friends.

I think we made friends with the bartender who then checked out TBTL. It was Savage Moose, by the way, the Savage Moose. Savage Moose. Because Kevin, Camaro Kev, got a splinter when he was hopping over the wall, breaking out of the marina.

And then there was somebody there who had a nursing experience who was helping, I believe.

I thought it was just the bartender came out with some sewing kit and started poking around his finger with a pin. And then later on, we would get emails from that bartender because she started listening to the show, I think.

Okay. But I also remember that as being the bar, the Savage Moose, where you really showed me the way of stepping a bar down from terrible music to good music in a way that they don't even realize is happening. It's so, so gentle. And we ended up having a really fun night there and getting back to the boat fairly late. I believe the next day was a little rough on all of us, including Camaro, who was just sleeping on the back bench of that Chris Craft.

That was me. You guys had the fart locker.

No, no, no. No, you slept there. But then remember when we were actually driving, I believe Camaro was not in a real upright condition.

Yeah, he was he was struggling. There was some struggle. bothell for a drunken night or a lifetime there you go thank you nicole for supporting the show

we really appreciate you hello and welcome to top story uh apologies if there's a little audio kind of quirks and you know i don't know we we sort of call them bloops you and i andrew i think uh you know as a term of art sorry if my audio sounds a little funky today on my internet i am assuming this is happening at my house in portland then my internet i think is being a little slow or strange today and i can't figure out a logical way that it would be connected to what i've been dealing with for the last two days but it there must be some connection to the fact that i've been trying to dig into the inner workings of my internet here and now my internet is being weird and andrew i am i to say that i am in a kafka s world with xfinity would be the understatement of the year it is i will try to not make this too complicated but it is and it doesn't help that i know you have a particular frustration for like comcast as an entity of trying to get you're not on you know you have to deal with that anymore but back in your comcast days just trying to get a human being at comcast to talk to you it was i mean yeah you say kafka

ask i can't think of a better word and again this was a company that had a bad reputation for customer service i really felt turned their turned their shit around when they became xfinity i had some great customer service from them for a few years and then it just got worse than ever i mean

just infuriating so i all of a sudden the other day a number of these devices that are in my apartment so-called smart home devices just stopped working so i got this um feeder for bubbles um that uh you know i can i supposedly could control by you know from my phone wherever i am that could just make sure she's got enough food it's got a camera on there so i could just see her and see she's doing okay and also i could talk to her through the phone and when i'm in my apartment when i'm on the same wi-fi as the this device it works so if i were to turn my phone on right now i could presumably interact with this little piece of machinery but if i'm anywhere else in the world if i'm not on my home wi-fi network it just tells me it can't find the device and the same thing all of a sudden i have one of those smart locks which are so i have to say very very cool and practical where you know basically my phone is the key to my apartment now and i can you know if somebody's coming over uh to do anything i can put put them on the guest list i can give them access for whatever amount of time i want to the smart lock on my door like it's a very effective thing yeah that thing just stopped working all of a sudden and so i did some research and something must have changed all of a sudden where i don't know my the the the wi-fi in this house kicked up to five gigahertz or it it moved these things off of because some of them i mean the my my smart lock was working for a long time and now it just doesn't work all of a sudden and i think it's because it all needs to be on the 2.4 gigahertz because i guess again this is we're already past the limits of my understanding of how this all works but i guess a lot of this stuff they made isn't ready for five gigahertz for some reason

i mean five gigahertz has been around for a long time and i don't really know exactly what i'm talk about either other than me trying to troubleshoot things and like you said kind of crawling into the the settings of the router um and it's my understanding that it's kind of like um i was gonna say kind of like am fm radio signals but i don't think that that is necessarily a universal analogy but that you know 2.4 is more of a steady eddy it'll like kind of cover a greater footprint in your house as far as like um your wi-fi is concerned your wi-fi signal but it might not be quite as fast but if you're close if your machines are close to your router and you don't need a big footprint of connectivity you can go with the five gigahertz which will be faster but doesn't reach as far around your house does that did i say that in a way that makes sense i think

no i think you describe it accurately i think it's a more i think it's a sort of a more reliable but less snazzy version of the same thing so i was like okay i'm terrible with this stuff um generally speaking but i'm just going to try to sit down and deal this was like two days ago i said i'm going to just sit down and deal with this because i'm going to be out of town a lot and i just need to fix this sooner rather than later in case no somebody needs to get into my apartment etc so i go on the website first of all i just google like how do i how do i set up a 2.4 gigahertz router uh xfinity and it like takes me to the xfinity website and i mean the again i'm sorry this is getting already so detailed and boring but like these fancy new like i just have a modem that like you know is their modem that i'm using i'm probably paying some monthly fee on it it has those it has a five gigahertz and it has a 2.4 gigahertz so it's already set up to because they're probably trying to account for this already which is great so i'm reading the instructions it's like you got to log into the xfy app so i go i i have the xfy app and i try to And I start going, you know, I enter, I put in my password, and then it goes, it says, to get into the XFi app, you have to be added as a primary user to this account. Now, there's no one who's more primary to this account, Andrew, than me. The person renting this apartment, paying the bill on it, the person who set it up, the only person aside from Bubbles who lives in this, like, there's no way I'm not the primary person on it. I did this whole thing. So it goes, you need to be the primary user on this account to log into the XFi app. Hit support for more help. So I hit this link to support. Now, of course, I can't get a human on the phone. When I started this process, it was like evening time. It was like maybe 8 p.m. a couple days ago. So I do this stupid thing, which is I hit the chat function. Like, let me chat with a live person. Now, one of the problems there is that whole conversation has to happen on my phone, which is just like way more typing and like you know typos and it's just not it's not easy it's not as easy if i was on my computer chatting with someone so that was already a problem then it's like they're just so sneaky they just keep trying to get you to basically go to an automated system like they just don't want you they don't want to have any human have to take up any of their time helping you with your problem yes so this chat function keeps trying to shunt me over to like a you know basically an automated response system but i keep being like i want to talk to a human i want to talk to a human so then what they do that's so sneaky andrew is as you're typing with the human the way that the screen is populating the button that says end chat is right where you it's right next to where you hit send i think intentionally so you just keep ending the chat accidentally with your fat thumbs so that you just i i swear to god i feel like they

designed this chat function with the person that I'm whoever wherever they are that I'm chatting with. They design it so that the chances of you X-ing out of the chat are really high so that you just eventually get

frustrated. I wonder if it could be that. It also could be that it's not, as they say, optimized for mobile. Could it be that it's more laid out so that you can have these chats on your

laptop? Well, they're trying to push me to the mobile thing the whole time that's the weird part like it's very kludgy if you're trying to do it on your laptop it's because it's an app right so it's it's I mean the whole idea of an app generally if I understand it right is that that is something that's more yeah of course mobile friendly but so then I get this person and they said well you got to log into the XFi app and I said well that's sort of the problem here is that it won't let me it says I'm not the primary user and then they said then they send me a link to the XFi app and they're like try to log in here and I try and I put in my address and it says sorry that address does not exist and so i'm just going around and around with this person then the person sends me a link to like what feels like i'm hacking i'm toasting the quarterback here andrew it's some it's like one of those htt pp colon backslash backslash

series of numbers yeah off that's how you access a router that i'm trying this funny thing is i'm trying to do that right now because this conversation these issues you're having inspired an idea I had about my own thing but yeah there's a generic every like every router from Xfinity probably has the same address there it's like you know 192 dot another three set and then and then once you're in there usually there's a standard password like you log in as admin and then a standard password and then you're supposed to change that and make so I log in with admin and

password I go to this thing and now I'm kind of like oh this is okay this is really good now I'm in I can see that there are two bands you know there's 2.4 and there's five and I'm like and it's like you know hit edit on these and then i hit edit and i go to change them and then it just says there's an auto message that says your whatever whatever is being automatically managed for you for optimal whatever to make changes please log in as a uh to make changes please log into the x5 app and then there's the link and then i click on it and then it just takes me right back to the problem where it says you're not a primary user to log into the x5 app you have to be a primary user so i i can't do anything in this weird back channel of the router because i'm not an i'm not a primary user of my own account but when i click on the app to try to become a primary user i can't get into it because i'm not a primary user so that was like that was about two hours of my life on that one night i was also waiting for a delivery from jimmy john so i had a lot going on jimmy's john and i was trying to which and i tried to i was trying to monitor that on my phone and everything so anyway i just i just was like forget it i can't deal with this anymore tonight and so then this morning because i'm i'm going to be going out of town later today i was like this is my last chance to try to and i mean andrew your days are extremely packed right now um you know with getting ready for the thon my days are

are really really packed and backed up as well so this really wasn't the best way for me to spend the hour of 6 30 a.m to like 8 30 a.m yeah but of course i did and this time i call because it's like business hours so i get someone on the phone and oh my god i had to use my old swear tactic on that automated system because the first thing it says is you know hi you've reached xfinity this is the recording and they basically say uh your your problem is that you need to reset your your modem needs to be reset and i'm like no no no it's not there's no problem with the modem right now the problem is i can't get access to my x phi account so it's like but it's like we can reset your modem and that'll you know fix the problem and if it doesn't it'll help the um you know human that you talk to uh help you more effectively um and i was like i don't want the modem reset and it's like if we reset your modem it only takes 10 minutes and they just kept wanting to reset my modem and i kept saying no and finally i was like i'm gonna use a swear here everyone so be ready i said i don't want you to fucking reset my modem and then it goes okay i'll connect you i really do have a theory that if you use the f word in one of these automated systems it's it is programmed to realize that the person the human being is getting very mad and it will stop trying to make you do a thing that you don't want to do it will connect you to a person because they think that you're just getting frustrated to a level that could be bad for their business

i remember hearing something a long time ago and this could have been an urban legend although i thought i thought it i heard it from a somewhat reliable source that um there were there was something that was monitoring the amount of anger people were having on hold but it might have even been before i feel like this is before there was too much um like voice activated stuff i feel like this was like based on punching the numbers through the phone tree and like if if the way people were punching numbers maybe would i just remember hearing some story that you would maybe end up getting a certain kind of customer representative a customer service representative if the system had flagged you as angry because you you're maybe going to get somebody who can

handle angry people better i am probably i'm definitely in their system as some kind of rageaholic i can't live without my rageahol because i have but i'm not kidding i have noticed that and i almost feel kind of bad doing it because i sure i don't think the person who i eventually get on the line has heard a recording of me yeah yeah because i don't i'm not trying to say the f word to them and i'm not trying to make them feel you know like there's hostility there i just have to get out and i'm not even exaggerating this automated system about four times kept trying to reset and it kept and it goes okay i'll start the reset now and i was like do not reset this moat like i'm just they just kept trying to do it and i thought they were gonna do a thing where they basically just said okay we're resetting it and then we'll call you back later goodbye is there anything worse than that goodbye oh my god it's like i'm sorry you can't we um we're not able to help you right now goodbye that goodbye is the most withering goodbye you'll hear probably in your life but so i managed to get around the auto reboot of my modem because that's not the issue and i get a human being and you know it's the sort of typical thing this is a a perfectly nice human being but they're somewhere um very far from the united states and they're reading a very specific script and it's just like i'm now doing the phone version of what i had done with the chat function to you know a day or two previous where it's just like okay just log into the xfy app and i'm like well that's the issue i can't log into the xfy app um because it doesn't i'm not a primary member of this account and so then it's just around and around the person's like well i need to verify that this is your account i was like great what do you need to know and they're like what are the last four digits of the credit card that pays this account and i was i felt like saying if you met me you would know what a ludicrous question in their defense if you knew me if you knew me you wouldn't understand what the chances of are me knowing which card is paying this bill every month are you have a better call andrew there's

a better chance he knows like it's his bank of america card i believe that's like asking i don't

know a monkey to do trigonometry like i have no hope so and then it's like i forget what the other thing was it was something else that was just like another another thing that i just wouldn't my brain does not retain or prioritize this kind of information ever at all i'm like can i read you the number on the on the router i'm in my hat like what can i do from in this apartment that doesn't involve knowing what credit card pays my you know my cable bill so it was like getting verified was a whole thing and he's sending me these links but they're not not coming through to my phone and then when he sends me the link it's he's like well please follow

this link this is the directions of how you do this i was like okay that's great and then i get on the link and then it's just takes me back to the x5 page okay that i've been at for two days but here's the kicker andrew now it says in order to access this app you need to up you need to um update your browser like i need to and it's showing me a picture of the icon for chrome a picture of the icon for safari and a picture of the icon for firefox and it's like you need to upgrade these browsers to use the x5 app on your laptop and i'm like okay so i go to up i go to update like safari right uh-huh my computer says you have to update your operating system my laptop says you have to update to whatever mesa i don't know what we're on now you have to update to the entire operating system on your laptop to update the web browser to get on the x5 app to get become a primary user to go in there and then just tell this thing to please talk to my home lock differently oh my god so this morning what i basically spent a good part of the morning doing was updating the entire operating system on my computer so that i could upgrade my web browser so that i could get on the x5 app so that i could approve myself as a primary member so that i could then do this thing and i still don't even know how it's going because it's been whirring away in the other room like while we've been talking because that kind of stuff takes forever what i think is the icing on the cake is that after and you know nothing against this person who's trying to help me they're just reading their script you know uh and there's about 15 other indignities that i don't even remember right now but after it was all said and done uh i get a text uh for as i'm i'm also at this point trying to get bubbles and this enormous cactus scratching post that i bought and her litter genie and all this shit i'm trying to get this all packed up in my car with her so i can take it all over to becca's this morning so that she's handled um so this is all kind of happening at the same time and i get this text From some element Of Xfinity that says Please provide feedback on your most recent Experience with Xfinity Thinking about your online interaction How likely are you to recommend Xfinity to friends and family I know, I've gotten this Zero, not at all likely To ten, extremely likely And I wrote, is there a minus ten And then I just put zero

And did you get I did that in my last In my last dance with Xfinity I got the same thing And I remember just being at just, just the absolute end of my patience. It was just the, whatever the situation was, it was the worst. And you get this thing that says, um, you know, how do we do today? What are, you know, rated? And I gave it a zero and then they're like, great. Thanks for the feedback. I'm like, no, I want, I want a red light to be flashing somewhere. I want your best customer service person to give me a call immediately and say, I'm sorry, what did we do wrong? How can we help? I know.

What's the point of asking? First of all, I rarely reply to any of those things, but in this case, it's like, what's the point of sending zero, which I did, for them just to be like, thank you so much, if they don't really do anything with the information. Now, also, I felt a little bad after that because it's not like the person I talked to on the phone today did a bad job per se. They're not given the equipment to give me the help that I need, or they're not given the tools or the latitude. I mean they're again They're in a very far away place With just the computer screen in front of them Where they're just oh that was the other thing too As I'm waiting For some text message to come through From this fellow that I'm talking to And again I've laid out All the frustrations now I'm just waiting I'm sitting there Drinking my coffee I'm thinking About all the other things I should be doing right now And he goes well while we're Waiting for that can I tell you about our new Xfinity Bundle they've clearly they've like some you know consulting firm has been like you know the average call has this much dead time in it where we could be using it to sell somebody on our new suite of products he was like congratulations you're eligible for a whatever i'm like am i eligible for this motherfucking system working even at all right because that's the that's what i'd like to matriculate to uh the thing working but it was just like some again and all this guy's doing is responding probably to a bubble that popped up on his screen i'm sure that call is being timed and there's systems that are more complicated than i will ever know that are about maximizing productivity that when there is going to be a three minute lag in the conversation it then prompts him to tell me about this new offer that i'm eligible for now i'm a little confused

and maybe this is not the um bright time to add this is not the point of things but i'm trying to figure out like what happened because you're saying okay i've got these devices that aren't Thank you. working anymore like what changed because like it doesn't sound like you made any changes yet you and i have had a solid connection to do tbtl for you know for however many months you've lived there now which has been quite a few um and now suddenly today there's you know and the listeners can hear it it's not a big deal in fact i'll bet you it lives so much larger in my head than listeners i think it goes by pretty quickly but um like i don't understand what has changed because you said you got nothing supposedly nothing changed so what's happened i i cannot tell you

yeah and i mean i wasn't this is what's so mysterious about it so i am still not at the point where i am technically allowed to make any changes to my system because i'm not the primary account holder so nothing has changed theoretically but something is funky this morning

now here's a little hell that i'm in right now that i need to just kind of give up on but you talking about getting into your router settings by typing in that address i said like i can't think of what that's called is it might be called gui or some gui or something but i don't remember why it's called that but anyway you talking about that put a light bulb over my head not a literal light bulb it's like a figurative light bulb which is like kind of a cartoonish idea of like you have an idea i don't know anyway i've been having a little bit of wi-fi issues in my house mostly being that the wi-fi does not spread very far around the house i have this incredibly fast now fiber optic internet here when you're literally plugged in to the modem the speeds are just ridiculous they're they're um uh like in space balls is it ludicrous speed is that what happens in space oh yeah oh right right yeah yes is it hyper yeah something

speed yeah something but i think there i think there's also god one day it's star wars the next day it's space balls we're just always botching some major pop culture thing i'm looking it up

i thought it was ludicrous speed but it's been a long time since i've seen that um here let's

just play this let's get this over with no ads nowhere prepare to attack on the count of three One, two, three. What happened? Where are they? I don't know, sir. They must have hyperchats on that thing. And what do we got on this thing? A Cuisinart? No, sir. We'll find them. Catch them.

All right. At some point in this, they'll say the line. I don't have time to get to it. But it has been somewhat frustrating because when I'm sitting in this room where I put the router down here in my office because I need to physically plug the router. in the office um i think if you were to put a router like a wi-fi router in a house somewhere you wouldn't usually put it in the basement right like you can just you'd put it upstairs somewhere and hopefully someplace central so that all the devices in the house can access it equally just via wi-fi right but because i need to physically plug in via ethernet to my tbtl computer so that you and i can do this show we put the router in the basement it puts the router in the basement And now that means there are some real dead spots in the opposite side of this house. Like when I go, like there's a corner of the kitchen that just simply won't connect to the Wi-Fi. If I go out on my front porch to stream a baseball game, as I tried to do the other day, like there was no Wi-Fi on my porch, like right off my front door. Right. So I had to use my phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot, which is not ideal. And I've been thinking, oh, hey, I need a new router. I'm going to maybe buy a router that has, like, those little amplifiers that you can put around the house. I'll figure it out.

Yeah, mesh, man.

But as you're talking about this, I'm realizing, wait a second. Maybe I should turn off the 5 gigahertz speed and just go into my router and make it the 2.4, and maybe that'll give it a little bit more reach around the house, albeit at somewhat slower speeds. Reach around. Hey, why would you do that? So anyway. Why would you say it? Now I'm here and I can't log into that. I can't log into my router using, again, that series of numbers that is kind of generic per brand. And the reason being is I can look at – I know what the generic password was. It's always admin and then there's a password that I think is universal. And I remember being too smart for myself and thinking, oh, I need to go in here and change this right away because –

You knew that if I came over to do the show and you had left that gateway unattended and you just left it at password, which is usually what they do. It's like admin for admin and password for password. You knew that I would sneak in there and change all your settings.

Yeah. You know, honestly, it's actually it's usually admin. And then I don't I don't know what your system is, but it's like a series of complicated numbers and letters that you can find on the bottom of your router for the login.

and I'm looking at that now because I took a photo of it and I changed it from the generic login and I think I did it because a 10 got in my head. Last time we were talking about Wi-Fi, somebody posted somewhere like, oh, so I could have hacked into Andrew's Wi-Fi this whole time or something and I was like, nobody is going to do that, but it probably is the more responsible thing to do as a router owner to go ahead and do this, but this is very... Here's the TBTL keys to responsible router ownership this is so unlike me i didn't write down whatever i changed my login and password to i am in all my usual spots typing in like where's my router password like all my little secret places where i keep passwords um and i don't think it's saved and so here i am this entire time you've been talking i'm it's not a big deal like i don't need this i don't need to fix this right now but you saying this and now me realizing that i don't have access to my router and i don't know how to reset it um is kind of driving me bananas and i i doubt it'll even fix it because i think just like when you try to switch it from 2.4 to 5 like these things are now set up to automatically just sort of switch between it i think and the smart devices are supposed to read it and adjust themselves i'm very confused how all this shit works but now i'm you know me luke it's like it doesn't even matter if i need to get in somewhere or figure out why something is working or not like once it gets in my head it's really hard it's really hard it's not a good quality i realize but it's really hard for me to shake it and now i'm like for the past 20 minutes i've been entering in all different kinds of passwords and usernames trying to hack into my own modem or router whatever would you

have unlimited attempts because that was the other thing that was happening to me with this whole situation was like the app kept going at one point like what what address is this associated with and i would put in my exact address and then it would go that's incorrect you have three more tries this is what i mean when i say i wanted to be like that character from the ring except instead of crawling out of the television i wanted to crawl into my cellular phone and into the internet and then go like lawnmower man on it and find wherever this was happening and throttle that particular setting the designer whoever i was deeply angry um so

Well, here's what I think is going to happen. We'll do today's show. There's some minor glitches in there. I don't think the audience is going to care too much. Maybe this will follow us through tomorrow. But then after that, we have a week of shows where you and I will be in the same room, so we don't even have to worry about that. And then you're going to come back, and everything is probably just going to be magically fine until it's not again down the road. But actually, though, is that going to cause problems with you with your lock and everything? That's one of the reasons why smart locks kind of scare me. You're really relying on Xfinity to get you in the door.

Well, here's the thing. It still works with your regular key. Oh, okay, okay. It sits on the deadbolt, the turn, you know, whatever you'd call it, the thing that you turn to close your deadbolt. Yeah. It sits over that. It's like a hockey puck that you attach to that part, and then it just turns that on and off, so it locks and unlocks the door. But if you have a key, you can just use the regular key. You're not without – you still have the functionality of the key.

So when you bought this device, was this a device that you added to the existing hardware or is this a device that kind of comes as one, the lock, the deadbolt, the technology? You add it to the existing hardware. Interesting. This is what's so snappy about it. Like a bidet. Like those bidet things you're into.

Exactly, like our friends at Tushy Modern Bidet. So, yeah, you basically just unscrew a little bit of the back of a deadbolt, which is really easy. Both of the screws are right there. And then you basically place this thing over it, and it comes with some little spacers, so you get it right and lock it all down. It's super easy to do. But the good news is you could ignore that and just literally continue to use your deadbolt exactly like normal with your key, putting it in the lock, et cetera. Okay, well, that's cool.

That's good. Yeah, there has to be a failsafe.

the other problem though is i don't even know honestly this is just my theory is that this is 2.4 gigahertz related like but that smart lock was working fine for a long time and now it just isn't it just doesn't show up but it's not telling me why and also i can't get this pet feeder to work and so my theory is it has to do with 2.4 versus 5 but i don't know why that would have changed you know what i mean like i don't because it was working for a while so did did did something in my xfinity settings it's something with what this router is doing change i don't know well

this doesn't make any sense to me and it's this is this conversation you know we do have a lot of listeners who know so much more about this so it's probably especially frustrating i don't like

people showing up at my house unannounced but if you know how to fix this i was going to say

the thing that has changed if there's been anything assuming that this isn't just some sort of glitch in the xfinity verse um even if it's a highly localized xfinity verse of your apartment.

the only factor, the only kind of outside factor that's changed is you've added new smart objects to your home, right? Right. So is there a chance? And has it been more than one related to the cat or just this one thing, this, this cat, just this one thing, the feeder, but you think that could have, I just, that doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't, that doesn't logically make sense. I'm just trying to figure out the variables. Yeah. And then potentially, and then why would that affect what you and I are doing here on the same system we do all the time. And the only thing I can think of is, is there a chance that you did? Were you monkeying around in those router settings and maybe accidentally flipped something else?

No, because, again, it wouldn't let me. The whole issue was that it won't. It's all grayed out. You know what I mean? Like, it's like I don't have the access. So I'm just basically, you know, whereas initially I was feeling some amount of anxiety around Denver because of, you know, just the unknowns. And it's an important week for us to raise money and, you know, all that. I am now very glad I'm going to Denver because it might be the only place where I have solid internet connectivity. You might live there

now. Wow. Yeah. Guess the Denver dossier really worked.

All right, I closed my router tab.

I can't hack into the system. I need to just put that behind me. Yes, that's good. Just out of sight, out of mind. Save that for when I'm back from Denver. Or maybe I live in Denver now, too.

We're going to be very happy there together, Andrew, you and I, And Lucifer and Russell We didn't get to talk about crypto But it'll come up again sometime on the show I'm sure

It's here to stay Let's just get to Blur's Days Aaron and Krista are wishing a happy Blur's Day To their friend and brand new 10 Shoshana We've gotten to know each other through the book club Zoom calls over the last year Oh I thought Shoshana was a baby Oh I don't think so I was going to activate Shoshana can still get in awe So these folks were all like kind of interacting via Zoom book club calls. And then we're all pretty darn thrilled to recently learn that all three of us are tens show. Thank you for the energy and insight you bring into our lives. So that's really interesting. How often does that happen?

I mean, I feel like the intelligence level of our listeners is high. The literacy and the sort of literary leanings of our listeners is high. So the idea that folks who met in a book club would know about TBTL, that's a hot zip for us.

Yeah.

Book clubs are kind of our demo.

People have told me that talking to me is such an intellectual mind suck that they have to go read a book afterwards just to get normal again. So maybe that's part of it.

April and James in Maine would like to send a happy Blur's Day to our oldest, Truman, who turns nine tomorrow. He's thoughtful, observant, and an excellent bike rider, and the best big brother. We love him so much. Happy Blur's Day, Truman. Bike skills.

Levi says, I'd like to send a happy belated Blur's Day to the wonderful Johnny C., one of the few tens I know in real life and an all-around lovely human. That is Johnny, who I believe visited us in the Burbank studios for a little jam session with his son back, what, 10 years ago?

Oh, with Riley.

Yeah, exactly.

I always think of the time that Johnny and Riley were in a car behind me as I was driving to, like, Cairo at 7 in the morning back in the day as I was leaving my neighborhood. And I remember looking back and thinking, I think I know those people. That's the indelible memory for me. Zach in Olympia says, happy Blur's Day, Johnny, by the way. Zach in Olympia says, happy Blur's Day, Veronica. Last year, you sent in your own birthday, or Blur's Day rather, because you didn't know any other 10s. So I made a note on my calendar to email in a message this year so that you had at least one 10 wish you a happy Blur's Day this time around.

Boy, that is thoughtful. That's the 10s right there.

Yes, it sure is.

I want to tell you a really quick story. I had a little bit of a bone-chilling thought the other day. we have a friend who kind of lives I didn't realize kind of that we kind of live closer to a couple of really good friends of ours that we've had for a long time and so oh I know and my friend takes her kids to daycare which is right by our house And so we've been having sort of random run ins. This is my friend, Danae, who you've met several times a long, long time ago. And Genevieve was telling me the story about how she thought she saw Danae in the parking lot of the of the child care place. And Genevieve was like driving by yelling, Danae, Danae, Danae. And then finally the woman turned around and it wasn't Danae. And oh, nice. Yeah. So that's awkward. But then Danae said, yeah, I know. I'm seeing you guys all over the place now. Andrew was driving behind me the other day. And I did not realize that at all, but it really reminded, I was just like, my God, I hope I was keeping a good distance. I hope I didn't, you know what I mean? Like that today didn't pull out in front of me in a way that if I thought she was a stranger might irritate me. It was a good reminder that you never, I mean, what I should remind myself is I'm driving a, how many tons is a car? I'm driving a potentially killing machine at all times. I should be very careful. but also the people around you may know you be good be good speaking of of uh sort of mistaken

identity i um so i one of the other plates i was spinning this morning was i have this contractor that i'm going to be working with on this project i'm doing on this house i'm trying to fix up and i needed to before i went out of town i needed to basically give him a deposit and so it was a whole thing i had to get this certified check and i had had it here and at this morning he was going to come by and i was going to give him the check so things could kind of be rolling while i'm with you in denver and he said okay i'm outside you're building i'm in the red truck and i was like okay so i come out and it's sort of complicated where i live but like it's an intersection and it's kind of busy and this red truck is just sitting there with all those, like, racks on the back and stuff. And it's sitting there, and it's in the turn lane. And I was like, wow, that's kind of brassy of this dude because he's just been sitting there for, like, five minutes now in the time it took me to come down, you know, to the street. And I was like, I guess he's just, you know, he's just that way. He's probably got his hazards on. He's like, this is where I'm. My point is there's, like, not really anywhere convenient to park. So I see his truck, and I'm holding this check. I'm also in my running gear because I'm about to go for a run. I'm holding this check, this check for a significant amount of money. And I'm kind of it's sort of flapping in the breeze In my hand and I walk up to I start standing right in front of the truck Which now the turn signal is like the light Has changed so this truck could go If it wasn't my guy and I walk up And I'm kind of signaling to the truck like Okay here you are here's your check and I get To the driver's side and it is A woman like a 25 Year old woman it's not The guy Troy that's doing the work Who was parked in the Exact same truck And like did you make eye contact what was the interaction like uh she thought i was a person dealing with a mental health crisis also holding a check for fourteen thousand four hundred dollars uh-huh like so did she wait when you say that though are you joking she didn't see the check no but okay yeah but she just thought that i was like because she i wandered into traffic and i stood in front of her truck and I was miming things to her because I thought it was my guy. So I didn't do a normal person thing where you would use the crosswalk. I just thought, here's where my guy is. I'm walking up to his truck. I'm standing in front of it. There's no way he wants to turn because he needs to get this check from me. The entire situation played out in a very bizarre way for her because a guy came out of his apartment building in running gear, holding a piece of paper, walked into the street, stood right in front of her truck casually blocking her from taking her left turn then sauntered around to her side only then to realize she wasn't the person that he was looking and so

did your eyes get wide and you're kind of do you mouth i'm sorry i'm sorry what's the physical gesture for i thought you were troy norris what's the international hand gesture like that was my

problem was i was like ah i kind of put my hands like like uh that's sorry like all in a split second i realized everything i had done seemed like the work of someone having a mental health

crisis you what makes this story even funnier to me is not based in reality but the fact that i'm i don't know why when you keep on saying you're dressed in your running gear i keep picturing you as like ben stiller and his boys in um the royal tenon bombs on track suit yeah i'm picturing you with that like the red track suit with the um with the lines down the sleeves and pants yeah Kind of cute look, actually. You should do that. Yeah, no, I mean, that's why I got into jogging for the outfits. Whose turn is it? I think it's my turn. I'm going to take this one.

Oh, you do it?

Okay, you do Sherry.

Yeah, Sherry. Then I'll let you bring it home with the last one. Sherry says, happy 59th Blur's Day to my sweet husband, Peter. He's patient, kind, resourceful, and a hard worker who puts up with all my artistic shenanigans. Thanks for being my...

My partner for the past 20-plus years. Okay, that's getting an awe. Are you kidding me? Love it. Being able to celebrate you on an imaginary radio show is special. Welcome to your sixth decade. I've been waiting for you. That's really sweet. I love that.

Now, I got a very last-minute breaking Blursday here from Mariah, who says, sorry this is late, but I have a good excuse. I welcomed a new baby boy on Saturday. What? Yes. But this is not a Blur's Day for that baby boy I will say congratulations

Wait a sec, the baby boy, the new child that emerged from listener Mariah's

No, it doesn't get a Blur's Day Corporeal form No, it doesn't get a Blur's Day You know who gets a Blur's Day? Mariah's sister, Leah, turning 29 I'm sorry, it's Leah My apologies, it's pronounced like Princess Leah, it says here Leah, says Mariah It's kind of annoying that you have reached Instagram micro-celebrity status And my friends are now your fans but I love you anyway happy birthday I wish you continued luck on your quest to become famous I don't know what the deal is there I don't know what the deal is there with Leia but I'll investigate with Leia's journey to become famous do you think that or reaching Instagram micro celebrity status I wonder if Mariah would like it if I became a fan of Leia

I don't think I don't I don't know if Mariah could handle that in her fragile state, having just birthed another child whose birthday she's not even clear on. Hence not wishing that kid a happy Blur's Day. Congrats on that as well, Mariah. And happy Blur's Day, Leia. Alright, we should wrap things up here because as we have been talking about incessantly, there's a lot going on and we are all kind of getting things buttoned up and ready to go before we head to Denver for next week's big show. So we're going to call it a Thursday episode. And be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Make sure that the red truck you're approaching is actually Troy. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Do you live in a hole or boat?

Neither.

Okay, I didn't get that. I think you chose boat. Is that right?

No.

Okay, let's move on. Is your boat a C-classed licensed boat? Or is your boat used for commercial fishing? Okay. I think you've chosen commercial fishing. Now, I'm going to need your boat's name.

What is going on here?

Okay. I think you've said Targus. Is this correct? What?

No.

Just to make sure I've gotten all the information correct, I'm going to need you to confirm a few more things. I need some help, please. Your name is Eric Targus. Is this correct? Okay. I'll go ahead and make that change. Great. I've made the change. Your wife's new legal name is Targus. Targus. Is this okay?

No.

Great. Power out.