Muse

Dude, Liam, I just saw your Spotify rapped on your story. You renaissance man, hell yes! Drake, Jack Harlow, Tame Impala, what don't you listen to? Sorry, I shouldn't even be looking you in the eyes. A top 1% listener of Drake? Congrats, bro. Seriously, congrats, you earned that s***. And I knew your top genre would be underground rap. You were always putting me under new s***. Fire s***. And your aura? Hype and chill? That's so you, bro. That's so you. My aura's not been as glowing. It's been a pretty dark year for me, start to finish.

TBTL!

What did you have to do? Did you do anything to spare your touche at all? I mean, was it just hard swing and keep moving?

You're born beautiful in Cinderella. You smell like pine needles and you have a face like sunshine.

Pretty much anything to do with cats and the internet works.

For one thing, I have no shame before another mortal. All my shame is between myself and Christ. I'll never drop my eyes to another human beer.

This party is going to be off the hook.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Every year, this party becomes more outrageous.

My name is Luke Furbank. I am your host. Oh, la, la. Coming to you today from a Super 8 motel in Kelso, Washington, where... Sounds expensive. I'm going to be honest with you. It's actually pretty nice. I had a very, very restful night's sleep in this Super 8, and I don't know what I've been doing, going to these fancy three- and four-star hotels when these two-star motels are out here just absolutely killing it in the game. We're going to try to kill it here on episode 3,828 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Andrew is very excited because a snack that he loves has returned. We'll hear about that. Also, I am trying to turn Instagram into Twitter. You face. Who are you facing? I don't think it's really working. There's a waste of time to do that. We'll get into that. Also, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. We'll do some Blur's Day messages. Sounds like we've got a bunch of them, too, for you on this Thursday. And we've got this guy, the longest-running Cobra over the show. may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. What do you know about rebuilding chimneys? A lot. Good. Are you afraid of heights? A lot. Can you get over that? And can you get over here with a bunch of bricks and mortar?

Did Santa get stuck in that chimney?

That must be what happened. When we got this house, there were very few things on the inspection report that caused any kinds of red flags. They were all very minor, like a leaky toilet that was fixed for like $3 with a trip to Home Depot. Just took the toilet to Home Depot, put it in the waiting room, said, we'll pick him up in a little bit. Left it there, waited for a child to urinate in, and then their parent to email us. Now there's that. Oh, there's that whole thing with the dishwasher. or it wasn't installed right, or the Insincorator garbage disposal wasn't. Oh, right, the robot. So I sort of figured that one out. But those are very, very minor things to put on an inspection report when you're buying a house. But one of the things did say that we figured was going to be the biggest of them but didn't seem very low-key was like, oh, there's some cracks up in the chimney that you're going to want to get inspected at some point. The water is going to get in there and start, like, freezing, expanding, and it's going to be, you know, it could be a bad situation down the line. So we're like, okay. And so this, I think I might have mentioned this to you on the show last week that I was using, I kind of accidentally used what is now called Angie, formerly Angie's List, to find chimney sweeps. I just wanted somebody to come out, do an inspection, and do a sweep, right? And I thought like I could do. Ideally with a Cockney accent. Ideally, indeed. And maybe a cartoon bluebird? God, it's been a while. Does he dance with a cartoon while he's chim-chim-chimning away? Is there a fox involved?

This is Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, right? Anyway. It's possible. Yeah, you know what? You're right. There is an animation, because when they're doing the carousel and stuff, I believe.

This is one of those movies where they were liberal with the kind of cross-pollination of the live-action and the cartoonage.

And there was a really, really attractive woman in a red gown, almost like a nightclub gown, and she had red hair, right? And her name was Jessica Bunny Rabbit, I want to say. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

That was all the same movie, I'm pretty sure.

All of that is to say I really struggled, Luke. I'm in a weird place right now because I used what is now called Angie, and I thought I'd just type in what I need and I'll get some websites and then I'll smile and dial and call those websites and get some quotes and stuff. But that's not the way it works anymore. They ask you a million questions about what you need. I'm like, oh, this is very specialized. I made the exact same mistake.

This came up on the show recently. I'm living in your world with this.

Yeah, and so then next thing I know, I put in my information. I just give them an email address and phone number. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I'll give them my information for them to give me some ideas. I didn't realize that my phone was going to be ringing off the hook, that me just typing in this information meant that it was shooting out to all these people in the region who wanted to inspect and sweep my chimney. And also I was just getting, like, at least three emails from Angie an hour. Like, it was just flooding my inbox. And I also, it was just kind of strange. Like, people were calling me saying that, like, hey, I run this company. I run that company, but they kind of didn't have great online presences, except for through Angie's list or whatever. So whatever. I decided to go with one. This guy calls me, says he's the owner, Jonathan. I'm not going to give the name of the company, but it's like kind of a generic name. And it kind of is confusing because it's close to another company's name. But, you know, it seemed legit. The reviews were pretty good on Angie.

So then so this guy I love that you're in a you're in a very complicated relationship with this Angie website because it's both creating this hassle for you. But then you're like, it had good reviews on Angie. So you're still referring back to it.

I mean, I'm assuming that Angie is a brand that I can trust that they're not stacking fake reviews. Like I if these are real people like, you know what I mean? I guess I the website is a pain in the ass, but I don't think that it's a that it's a scam site. Right.

I agree with you on that.

So I'm reading the reviews and people keep on saying, hey, yeah, no, the technicians came out, they did this, they did that, a little bit of masonry here, a little bit of sweep a deep there, like whatever, like the reviews were fine. I'm like, this whole process is weird. I was just like, I started off from a very strange place. I just thought I could call a bunch of local places with big brand name Chimney Sweep Seattle, you know, and I can, they'll have a good website. But like one of these places I called the number on the website and it says all the different cities that they service, but they didn't serve it. When I called, they said they don't service Seattle. And what do you mean they don't service Seattle? Later on, the supposed owner of that company calls me and says, we service Seattle. And I'm like, what is going on? Like people are farming out there. I think they're probably a dispatch call centers to these probably third or fourth parties and nobody knows what's going on. And like the process just kind of sucked. But either way, this guy, Sam, and literally silent partner, this is not the owner. I talked to a guy named John. He said his guys were going to come out. This guy, Sam, comes. His partner, he introduces him to me as Mike. Mike will not say a word. I'm assuming he doesn't speak any English, which is why. But it's just kind of strange as I'm having this conversation. They weren't doing like Jay and Silent Bob cosplay. It was like that because I would turn to Mike and I would say something and he would just stare at me like I was like a duck or something. Like, he just didn't know.

Can you imagine having the confidence to do that? I'm sorry. To not respond to somebody who's talking to you in any language? I mean, language barriers, you know, sort of notwithstanding. Like, I cannot, I would explode with awkwardness if somebody said something to me and I just looked at them and did not respond. I don't have the confidence for that.

Yeah, and I guess that that's just what their roles are. I'm not trying to be you know I hope I don't come off as being like judgmental or or you know biased against somebody who's making a you know wage for themselves in this country and they don't speak English as a first language or maybe speak English at all but it was just sort of a strange thing so Sam is the main guy who comes out he looks at my fireplace he's like oh this is strange you kind of you definitely need some cleaning in here and also like some of the mortar even down here in your fireplace is sort of splitting we need to seal that up then he goes and I'm thinking where do you see the roof because I'd heard there's a crack up there but I didn't say anything i want to see what they came back with sam comes down off the roof with a video showing that like all of the bricks and mortar up on our up on our chimney are just like loose they're just basically sitting up there now he's loosening them up more kind of in this video but i mean listen i mean it's it's just broken through you know what i mean like it's got so

much seepage it's they're all just it's basically a stack of bricks up there at this point um and so so then he comes down he shows me the video I ask him to email it to me not this is a strange this is a strange point but I think I'll come back around to it he's texts me the video which is fine but he's got an iPhone I've got an Android the the transition isn't good so I don't know if you know this and I don't know if this is only happens between apples and androids or what but or iPhones and Androids or what, but, like, when you send me a video, Luke, it will come in, like, really, really tiny and compressed on my phone. I don't know if you get that on your end, too.

That happens to me sometimes as well. Like, I receive those, and it's very annoying, and I don't know if maybe it's because the people sending it to me are on an Android or something.

I'm not sure what it is, but so I ask him, hey, can you email it to me? They give me, he calls his boss, and I say, oh, you're calling John? He's like, no, that's the owner. I'm like, well, that's who I talk to on the phone. He's like, no, you talk to a dispatcher. I'm like, no, I talked to John. I have a cell phone number. Like, who is this? Oh, also this company. It looks like it started in California, but now it's here. Like, I'm just like, as they're quoting me $3,500 to like rebuild my chimney from the roof line up, which it clearly needs. Like, I've seen the video. Like, it is falling apart up there. Like, I don't doubt that at all. And now Genevieve is calling around some other places, too, and looking at getting we want to get some more quotes and stuff. And it's like it's I'm in this weird place where this seems like a very small business that is maybe even just like run out of somebody's house. Maybe this guy, John, I don't know. I think he even mentioned on the phone that they started in California or they branched out here. I don't know what it is, but it's like a house and rent in is the address. And it's like I paid Sam, the technician via Venmo, and I paid him directly. And then like I get you had to pay him to do.

Oh, I had to pay.

I knew it was going to be ninety nine dollars to come out no matter what. And then if it was a normal sweeping, it was going to be one hundred and twenty five, like including that ninety nine. Right. And so I knew that right away. But I didn't think there was going to be a world in which they were going to come out and I wasn't going to hire them to do the rest of the job. You know, I didn't realize it was going to be this big of a job. And I think Sam was saying, like, I can take it apart right now, put a tarp over there and be out here like tomorrow or the next day and start building about like, no, no, no, I need to talk to Genevieve and get some more quotes. And it's like then the official quote came in from my email last night. And it's a little bit different and it's got a different company name on it. And I'm just like, this is weird, man. I don't I don't Genevieve is getting some more quotes from other masonry companies and they're about the same. So I still I don't feel like this company is necessarily quoting us an unreal figure, but like it's just too shifty like things are just shifting too much on this company. And I'm in a weird place right now. And that's why I'd like to hire Luke Burbank, a sign maker.

Or how about the Mad Hatter Chimney Sweep? Is that who you're looking at working in Seattle since 1979?

Yeah, see, that sounds good. But now we need now it's a two part thing. Like, I don't think I want to go back to this company. I'm not sure but like now it's like do we hire a mason to do the fixing and then somebody else to do the sweeping can we find somebody who understands the chimney from a holistic approach Luke it's a weird it's a weird situation to find myself in but I don't think I'm going with this original company I don't think yeah that sounds super weird but it's just weird yeah yeah no I I mean I'll tell you this whole Angie situation I did the same thing but that was because the this house that I'm trying to get remodeled it's out in

kind of a sort of rural area and i literally just didn't know who to call and so i thought well this will be something that kind of aggregates a bunch of different folks for me and i have the i had a similar problem which is that all of a sudden i was inundated with emails and calls from people for all manner of thing i didn't even ask this stupid website to these are just emails that i've received in the last week from the website in question re colon your driveway cost estimate is right here what angie i didn't ask at no time did i ask for an estimate for my what driveway to

be repaved i'm getting i'm getting driveway emails from angie now too i keep marking them as spam

lawn care costs in your area then there's just a tweet from angie mentink but that's unrelated

that's just something that my i'd return that one yeah a friendly message from angie your bathroom

remodel cost estimate is right here uh excuse me i also didn't at no time did i ask you to go find me bathroom remodel cost estimates i mean you don't even have a bathroom you don't even use the bathroom famous no how about remodeling the hole in the yard that i crap in yeah maybe that's

what they're talking about i don't know did you open it oh that could be actually is that what angie menton was tweeting about like we're gonna redecorate the hole and they just show you a picture of plywood that you can slide over the top of it but yeah no i don't want it to sound

this is this i you're in the kind of a pickle right now and i don't want to sound it all like i'm blaming the victim but i guess i'm a little bit curious about about using this website for this particular thing in the city that you live in i guess my my first move like if i had a chimney in portland and it was giving me trouble i guess what i would probably do is is start with google i would google like portland chimney sweeps and then i would find one that had a 503 number because i'd be like okay they're in portland and then i would i guess i would just i would be worried about kind of exactly what you bumped up against with this first company which is all this weird like you said third and fourth party farming out of it's like nobody even does anything anymore they are just the service that point everything is just a pointer you know like itunes itunes doesn't actually save any you know audio it just points you towards the audio i feel like everything

is just a pointer now yeah and and also no i mean you're absolutely right i mean i've learned a lesson here like here's the deal i mean i think the mistake was i started with angie's list because i thought it was basically like yelp i was like i just was going to type in chimney sweep and just look at the top results i was basically using i was using angie like google you know and i because i thought only with review focus i didn't know it was all of this and then once you're you're in it and then you're getting these phone calls from all over and then i'm trying to like kind of verify by calling back some of these numbers like i didn't realize they were all going to be calling me but And this is also like kind of a generational thing where back in the day, if you were to get a call from a company or if you were to call a company, you would receive somebody on the other end who would look like the people or you would picture them like the people we would see in commercials in the 90s. right headset on you can hear the murmuring of their co-workers on either side of them a tip tip tap a tip tip tap on their computer in front of them while they get you estimates or whatever like a sense of professionalism not like and again i understand the businesses have changed but like you're just getting mumbly guys who are calling you on their cell phone you know and because people are running their businesses and maybe you can still find the people with the headset and the tap tap tap but no you're right i was basically just like i started with angie and then i just followed that i just followed that snake through the desert and i i wish i hadn't because i guess what happened is like listen i i've seen the video this is true i honestly think that if we hired this company to do it like they'd probably do it right like the the estimate came through and like what they said kind of makes a lot of sense i think we can maybe find a better price i'm not sure i i really don't know but there's just like all these other signifiers that just don't seem right to me and you're right like i will never use angie again it was a mistake i'll use google and yelp and like that's how i'll and i'll look at the reviews on those two things

yelp right yeah yeah they're basically just selling you as a lead effectively to the angie is yeah angie is yeah you are you're like the um um you're like the patels in glengarry glen ross you're just a name on a list somewhere you're the glengarry leads you're somebody that has a problem and angie has figured out how to monetize your problem to a bunch of people who could potentially fix the thing that is giving you uh trouble now is there any universe in which you would consider getting on the roof possibly with a youtube video on your laptop and doing this

yourself uh no god of course not i am way too scared of heights i can't go on the roofs oh

right right i forgot about that part even though that was one of my main qualifications early in the show for doing this job was was i afraid of heights or not so yeah i see that would be an

issue for you um i give them credit for going up there our roof was snowy and icy yesterday they

didn't seem to mind i guess that's just you know i had an entire chimney taken down at this house

that i'm that i'm working on i think that's what we're talking of oh you taken down and not

replaced you mean because this yeah taken down and removed because uh i'm not gonna it had this like gigantic fireplace in the living room that was like taking up half of the living room which was silly and so i the first thing i did on the job was went to home depot and rented like a roto hammer and tried to start taking this fireplace down myself and i just after about two hours i realized this is futile i need to get somebody in here who actually knows what they're doing and it was good that i didn't get further with the project because what i learned later was the fireplace in the living room is what's holding the chimney up that's sticking out of the room right that's how i guess fireplace gravity works the the bricks that are piled up in the sky are sitting on something and that something was what i was trying to demolish yeah that makes sense which was like i was about to become like a cartoon some sort of a cartoon character where you demo the entire thing and then you look up and for some reason the rest of the chimney just hovers in space for about two seconds before gravity takes its toll the chimney looks

down and realizes yes that there's nothing below it and it collapses exactly

Exactly. I was – had I been more successful at what I was trying to do, I would have created that exact scenario. But, yeah, it's – that's a huge – that's a huge project. So, I mean, I guess it's just one of those things that you've got to – you've got to pay the money to have it done. But are you going to use – are you going to actually make fires in that fireplace?

Yeah, I mean, that was the plan. Genevieve went to a – in fact, you saw she took a photo from – she was at that antique mall that I think you said your daughter has a stop at now too. what do you call it a booth at now too um although genevieve didn't know that when she went there what's it called the it used to be the pacific yeah it used to be called pacific galleries and

now i believe it's called the lander vintage market or something to that effect anyway yeah

so like genevieve brought home she went there she got she got us a kind of a vintage fireplace set you know with the brush and the shovel and the poker uh and i knew that i had this guy coming out on wednesday i thought it would be a quick sweep sweep sweep and maybe a tap tap tap uh and then like bird i really thought that we'd have a possible a possible hello governor that's right a possible it's a living um and uh and we'd have a fire hiring a bird from the flintstones to do it so anyway now it's kind of like oh no we're gonna have a tarp on our roof at some point but yeah so it's kind of a bummer we're looking forward to having a fire this week but anyway we'll figure it out but i would say like unless anybody has a counterpoint to this like do not make the mistake that i made like do not go through angie it just has been such a terrible experience and i've i've sort of felt like yeah like today as i'm waking up a little bit more clear-eyed i'm just like yeah why did i i mean i guess the thing is i'm out 99 now because i had to pay them to come out and take a look at this stuff i assume by the way that's a whole new

that's a whole new thing too and i feel like it reflects the world that we're living in um that you now have to remember when i had that weird run-in well it wasn't a run-in but it was an almost run in with that um electrician who answered the phone this call is being recorded yeah which is always and he was like you know it's uh whatever i forget what the cost was but he was like it's a hundred dollars for me to come out and look at it and i was like okay because and he goes i i turned down work every single day like he was just weirdly defensive and i basically agreed to it because i was anxious and i wanted someone to come look at and i thought well this is what we're doing and then everybody else i talked to was like no we just come out and look at it and then if we give you an estimate and then if you hire us we do the work and there and also everyone was like that guy is unbelievably unprofessional and bad like he's known in the area to be the worst person to hire but i feel like it didn't used to be the case that it would ever cost money to have somebody come out and look at something but the whole construction industry and the home repair industry everybody is so busy that i don't i don't think that people have to do free estimates anymore because people will now pay to get you to come out to even just look at that like we are everyone trying to get work done on their house is it's like you're trying to get uh an attractive person to go on a date with you like that's how i feel when i'm texting my contractor it's like hey man how was your weekend god how about those seahawks so anyway were you thinking that you could still maybe come by on thursday like this is a person i'm paying thousands of dollars to and yet i'm still like trying to like i'm i'm practicing how i'm going to talk to them on the phone before i make the call we should hang out more come find me it's such a it's just it's a very it's a totally different world than i remember in terms of these kinds of services and then on the other hand if i was going to go do something that was going to take up two hours of my day i would expect to be paid for that generally yeah that's why also that there's also that argument

you know yeah that's kind of what i'm thinking like now were they here for a full hour no clearly not so maybe it's still a little pricey like so i paid 99 for two for for you know two people to come out maybe they spend i feel like it was more than a half hour they did have to climb on the roof you know so you know two workers 99 come out to show me video oh i mentioned that they only sent the video by text like i the guy seemed really nice this guy sam who comes out to my house i said hey could you email that to me because he gets smashed on my phone he said yeah i'll do it later and then as he's leaving he's like okay i got your email address here yeah i'm waiting for genevieve is i'm telling genevieve this all by phone like she's not happy with this development and this news and now we're like sure in bed with this company that we don't super love and so um you let them get in your bed yeah he said that it was part of the process he he said

He'll knock $50 off the price if he can take a quick nap in your bed.

He said he needs to look up at the ceiling so he can visualize where the chimney is.

He's like, Silent Mike has narcolepsy. He needs to lie down once every 40 minutes.

And so, yeah, so I was just like, hey, he didn't email it to me. So then I text him later. I'm like, hey, don't forget, please email this to me. I didn't even say don't forget. I'm like, hey, if you don't mind, email this to me. Here's my address.

you know gave it to him again he's like okay we'll do later and now he's not emailing it to me i would like to give the benefit of the doubt and say it's because he's a busy person and he's got other jobs he's on he's not thinking about emailing me this it could also be that seeing the video more clearly maybe is it obvious that we're sharing it with people to get comparative quotes you know like so that we can you know get other quotes on this job and if he's withholding that it's like hey i paid 99 for that video email it to me you know like i'm trying to get a little irritated about that and like again like an official quote did come through last night that sort of you know that made sense and listed things but it's from this other company that has a different name and i'm just like what that with a california address i'm just like whoa yeah no no i'm not doing this i feel dumb i'm actually i do feel dumb i blame angie never go to angie don't let yourself feel dumb don't go to angie well um hey to our uh colleague um

uh annie who is uh going to be emailing us later this week about if we want to do an ad for angie i think you can answer that question pretty unequivocally no we're gonna hard pass i don't know i think i can probably still spin that would be i can stew that would be this the fun that would be the funniest thing if we started doing ads for them you know the other thing that i did that was like that that was such just so you feel less dumb andrew i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you a story that is 10 times worse because it involves like my financial profile i was waiting i think to maybe get my haircut and i had no you know what i was i was sitting at laughing planet which is like a kind of healthy food restaurant in portland this was during the pandemic i was masked up and sitting in the lobby waiting for my um thai broccoli bowl and i started thinking god what if i run out of money trying to do this remodel um which remains a very very realistic potential thing um and i was sitting waiting for my food and in a peak of of sort of impulsivity i thought well let me see what kind of construction loans are available and i went on like sofi or something i only use financial products that also are where the los angeles rams play

their football and where that's and where the miami heat play their basketball games i believe

that's kind of where yes i logged on to ftx seemed legit but um i i really like i really really feel so stupid for this because it's like who puts their financial life out there while waiting for a thai broccoli bowl via their phone it's so dumb but i just i really have impulse control problems and i i got anxious about thinking like i'm gonna run out of money and then this house is going to be like torn apart and not put back together and so the way that i quelled my anxiety was i got on some janky sofi thing to see like what do i qualify for and i put my info in and to this day to this day that's a tiktok meme i um i'm just getting spammed by all manner of shady predatory lender because they you want to talk about the patel leads this was like the worst like it is like blood in the water for these you know usurious loan companies that now have like a live one because he was because he was processing his anxiety while waiting for his Thai broccoli bowl so that's way worse than any chimney any Angie chimney help you were looking for and are you still getting those yes and I like it's like whack-a-mole now I block them you know like so i block a number but it's you know it's it's it's sort of um died down a little bit but for like two or three months i would get probably 20 calls a day from various lending companies that had been sold my information because of that one thing that i did waiting for

that food yeah and then i think about it too i mean listen like that's what i did when when i put my information into the angie website i was kind of like listen information these days like as long as i got my stuff locked up like you know this is what we trade in you know like you make this experience easy for me i give you my email and phone number and it's like well they're never i mean this this whole globe will be nothing but ash and maybe one confused dinosaur walking around for some reason and it's still somewhere like deep deep and your core of the earth yeah yeah

everything has faded away but there's one chimney standing in in seattle and deep in the core there

will be like some little cavern with one red blinking light and inside the box that has that blinking light on it will be my phone number and address connected to angie and and your phone

number and address connected to all these users sites and my social security number yeah right yeah because i think i even put that in which is the great irony is that i've spent the week recording these videos that are all about like not getting phished or scammed or you know keeping your Thank you.

You're sort of data private. And I'm just sitting there on my iPhone, just typing in my social security number like a complete nimrod.

You were actually typing in your social for real?

I believe that that was part of it because I was trying to find out like what I qualified for. I don't remember. I don't exactly remember if I did that, but I wouldn't be surprised because what I was trying to do was find out like how much money can I borrow if I need to right now. Right. Which, again, that's that's a reasonable question to ask. You might go into a bank and do that. You might, you know, call a reliable financial institution and query about such things. But you should not do it over your phone while waiting for a Thai broccoli bowl. Like it was just the worst way to do that.

And also, I mean, the fact that they were talking about the VIG means that you were probably

The Vigorish? I should not Is that what it is?

Is that what VIG stands for? I don't even really know what that means I just know what it is like Isn't that when you're like getting money from a bookie or something? The VIG?

Yeah, the VIG, I think I'm trying to look this up on my phone now The VIG Yeah, the VIG is basically like the surcharge that the bookie puts on it It's slang for a loan that is paid to a money lender But also, yeah, it's not

It can also refer to the interest owed to a loan shark In consideration for credit Yeah, so it's just

Right, yeah, no I shouldn't have logged into thevig.biz To try to get my loan Vig's list Okay, I'll see what she got for me Is that a show title? Maybe Vig's list? Maybe okay all right let's take a quick break and then when we come back i actually really would like to hear about what is going on with this particular snack you like emailed me last night and was like listen this doesn't have to be a top story but i really would like to talk to you

about this was the most serious email you've ever received it was a very serious snack

email so we need to we need to interrogate that in a moment here on tbtl hey let's thank some of our daily donors who are making today's episode possible with their generous financial support folks like joshua cory in dulles virginia I am assuming that that is also Where the airport is Because the airport is named Dulles Yeah But I guess, I don't know who Dulles was I assume some important person in like D.C. or the military or something So maybe there's both a city and an airport name

He's a former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, I believe Huh Did you have to look that up or did you just know that? No, no, I'm sorry, I was looking it up I mean, I could be wrong. I could have the wrong Dulles here. I thought it was possible you were just like a Dulles head.

I am.

Like you just were like all things John Foster Dulles. I'm just staring at the poster on my wall right now.

Can I just tell you, kind of apropos of like, I guess, American history, I cannot recommend the Rachel Maddow Presents Ultra podcast enough. I was listening to it as I was driving from Seattle down here last night, and it is just incredible. So it's basically about just this extremely active Nazi attempt by the Nazis to basically get U.S. politicians, particularly in Congress, to go to basically go easy on the Nazis and even to sort of promote their cause in the U.S. And this is like during the war. And there were many U.S. Congress people who were basically active Nazi sympathizers.

Yeah, including John Foster Dulles. Did you know that?

How did you end up here? And you don't believe in a God. I didn't know that. He's not mentioned in the—he's not mentioned in the—are you kidding me?

No, while you're talking, I'm reading his Wikipedia page, and I'm trying to figure out what you heard that led you to talk about pro-Nazi sympathy amongst Congress people. because it says here that this is John Foster Dulles's Wikipedia page. And again, I'm just reading this on the fly unless I'm being fooled by the Internet. It says here that he also expressed alarmingly overt sympathy for Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi party as evidenced in him requiring his legal staff in Berlin to sign all of the firm's outgoing mail, Hitler until his law lawyers, fearful of the optics, forced the reluctant Dulles to close the Berlin branch. in 1935 we should definitely have an airport name for this guy if i is this gotta be i'm praying this is the wrong guy i mean that was the thing that was so shocking about listening to this this uh rachel maddow podcast was it's like a bunch of you know a bunch of senators and and congressmen who didn't seem to pay any huge sort of price for the fact that they were active nazi sympathizers like and and what basically happened was you had this prosecutor in the doj named john roggy oh john roggy uh who was made it his life's mission to try he kept trying these people on sedition and one of the trials basically uh it was in new york and it was the the the jury and the entire court was just full of people who were friends with the sedition people and so literally they were found not guilty and then they were handed their guns back by the judge at the end of the trial and then the next time he tries to do this federally the judge dies in the middle of the case and so the government tries decides to not retry the case so then this guy ojon raggi goes to uh germany this is post the war now and he's basically like interviewing all of these nazis some of whom are going to be executed soon and he gets all this information on all of these american uh you know politicians who are were actively working with the nazis and getting paid off and all this stuff he brings this report back harry truman who's friends with all of these nazi sympathizers who's now president because fdr died is like sorry we're burying this i mean it is wild the shit that's gone on in this country that i was unaware of including the guy from the airport

and it is that it is exactly it is the same guy and of course we all drive we don't all drive but i mean ford was just i mean a huge prominent anti-semite like linberg linberg a huge example there you'd mentioned that father coughlin although that is what his legacy is we're not all driving around and in coughlins and right and we're not being buried in coughlins coffins um but uh like it's just like yeah it's just and and again i was telling you about that book that I had read that sort of like kind of took a bunch of clipping newspaper clippings and real artifacts from the air and put it all together and really paints a paints a very different picture of America leading up to a war not a country reluctant but but a country

that was almost ready to embrace Hitler well and the thing too is it's unbelievably similar to what has gone on with you know the the previous administration in terms of like just like the people that wanted to violently overthrow the US government because they didn't agree with what it was doing and i mean it's just and and people not you know just people lying openly and uh just like the it's it's very interesting the way that that rachel does the show because at no time does she say and this is very relevant today like there's all these points where she's just describing something i'm like oh that 100 happened under trump in one way or another yeah and at no time does she say well this might be interesting to you because this is basically exactly what they're doing right now like it's a conscious decision i think to just let the listener kind of connect the dots yeah trust the listener yeah exactly yeah exactly there's it's uh anyway i would highly recommend listening to that ultra it's it's it's pretty illuminating and i'd highly recommend being appreciative of joshua cory please for starting this whole conversation his support thanks joshua also alexis loving is in melrose massachusetts thank you alexis also aj nolan is in norfolk i love saying norfolk because it's like you're swearing but you don't

get in trouble you can get away with it boy someday luke someday you'll be allowed to swear

but until then you can just say norfolk until then i can just thank aj for supporting the program thanks aj also thanks to jaron schneider in seattle washington i feel like i might know jaron i know a jaron and i wonder if it's this jaron uh thank you very much jaron for your support thanks also to elaine olsen in buckley washington buckley now i'm that's not the

pickleball capital right no that's bainbridge okay i drove by like a some kind of high-end

um real high-end gym over on the east side where i was working and they just had a huge banner out on the side of the the gym that said pickleball is here it is here man is it here to stay though

is everywhere i know like i hear people talking about on the sports channel now like talking about their own little pickleball games and whatever like everybody's everybody it is fun i believe it and you know i don't you know that that's good it actually we you're joking about um pressuring me into building one in my own backyard which i'm sorry it's not going to happen but i would uh i would i mean it's like i like racquetball style games and this seems like it's one for people of all shapes and sizes so it definitely sure it definitely appeals to me What if I come over and fix your chimney Would you consider building my dream pickleball court What if I hire you to fix my chimney And I'm like great Only $3,000 that's a good deal whatever And then I go outside and I look up And I look at it and instead of a chimney There's a pickleball court On the roof of my god damn house And you're in like 70's style shorts Just like And a sweatband Just like ready to pickle

Absolutely Thanks also to Kevin Barry who's in Renton, Washington. Kevin, thank you for helping make TBTL possible. Renton, huh?

There's a chimney company I hired out of Renton recently.

Renton, California?

Well, I think the Seattle address is actually a Renton address. I'm not making that up.

Thank you so much, everyone, who supports the program financially. We could not do this without you. I'd have to be on my phone getting all kinds of creditory loans just to pay the rent so thank you for uh helping us do this we appreciate it

hello and welcome to top story by the way the reason that i ended up in this motel is so my

plan was to drive from uh seattle where we were filming yesterday down to uh we were actually very close to your old house in wallingford as it happens oh you're doing most you're filming on the east side i thought we were filming uh at on the east side and then uh yesterday we filmed in like a house that uh they rented just for the shoot and it was exactly like my old house in mount baker like one of those seattle craftsmen and hardwood floors and the whoever owned the house really had similar taste to me in terms of kind of mid-century furniture and stuff and I have to admit, I had a strong, strong kind of wistful feeling of sort of ennui about, like, not living in Seattle and not living in that house anymore. And, like, how is it that I used to have a house like this in a city that I really love and now I don't? It was like a kind of a weird – it was sort of a weird emotional thing for me just to be in this house in Wallingford.

It wasn't the Harry and the Hendersons house, was it? You know that one in Wallingford, right? I don't think it was that one. But there was, oddly, there was a Sasquatch there It would have been on Burke Because I lived on Burke And that is where Harry and the Hendersons' house was

This was on Corliss

Dang, I was really hoping to make it happen

This was right by that, like, Ezell's and the Biodome Taco Time

Oh yeah, gotcha, by 45th, okay, good

Yeah, but, so the plan was to drive down to the house that I'm working on And stay the night there because I'm meeting with the contractor today but a couple things happened one i was freezing so i i mentioned on the uh wednesday edition of the show that we've been filming outside in a parking garage and it was really cold then when we were filming at the house in wallingford i guess that the um the the the forced air was making a noise that the sound guy didn't like so there was no heat on at all during the entire day in the house which didn't seem like it would be a big deal but it got really cold then they decided they needed to open the front door for something having to do with lighting or the background so we were effectively outside and i was like i got chilled to my bone in a way that i'm not used to so i was imagining sleeping in this house that i own that is right now basically four walls like as in the exterior walls everything else is just completely torn apart and so i was like i don't know if the heat works i've never even tried to use the heat in there i was like and also i don't i have like a blanket and an air mattress and it just seemed miserable to me so i i treated myself to a 57 dollar motel room um and also it was snowing like crazy and it wasn't really sticking to the road but it was just kind of like i was just thinking i was getting drowsy i was blasting the heat i was listening to rachel maddow presents ultra and i was just like I need to pull off and go to sleep right now So I did and I had a great night's sleep Would recommend the Super 8 in Kelso, Washington

Super 8 not Hotel 6 I was going to say do they leave a light on for you But I get those confused Because they're two numbers that are both even numbers Very close to each other 6 and 8

This one's peace and love to my friend Tom Bodette But this one is two digits better than the Motel 6 Yeah I believe it This one goes to 8

Yeah that makes sense Why don't you just make 6 louder Why don't you just make 6 nicer

it's more expensive all right let's talk barbecue fritos my friend what is going on with this snack

food that you're so excited about so i brought this up on the show somewhat recently because i had a revelation you know i don't buy tons of potato chips but you know every now and then you're getting like certainly if i'm I'm buying like if I'm working on a project and I run out and grab some Subway sandwiches for me and Veeves, one of the fun parts is to like then go to a 7-Eleven next door and pick out fun chips. It's just I don't know why I'm being so specific about that, but I've never really liked the chip selection at Subway. And Subway is also like where I get my sandwiches when I'm working on a project. It's just like this. I just have these connections in my mind. And so, you know, I like to look for various fun chips since I don't buy them and keep them in the house at all times. And I love bugles, which some people say isn't a chip, which is fine. We can all live our own lives. But one thing that I would always get when available was barbecue flavored Fritos. And then Fritos started messing around a while back now, like quite some time ago, with like kind of new shapes and flavors. And they released these like flavor twists, I believe they're called. They're like Frito material, but they're like, what's the noodle that is like a twisty noodle? Fusilli? No, it's not fusilli, but it's like something like that.

Yeah, I don't know what the name of that is.

But picture a spiral noodle, only harder and barbecue flavored, or in this case, honey barbecue flavored, they called it. And also, it destroys your mouth. Like, there was something about the shape of those twists that they would destroy your mouth. They were flavor blasted. The barbecue was kind of stronger than just your traditional small Frito. Just picture your traditional small Frito with some barbecue flavoring on it. At some point during this transition to the flavor twists, they discontinued regular barbecue Fritos, and it took me years to realize. It was this summer when I was talking to some friends and saying, I haven't seen them. I've been looking for them, and I haven't seen my barbecue Fritos in quite some time. And I'm starting to worry that they got discontinued. And then I found an article from 2018 specifically saying Fritos is discontinuing their classic barbecue chip. And I had missed the news because I don't stay super up on these things. And I was legitimately bummed about it. I really try not to fall for these huge companies doing false scarcity and being like the McRib is here and then it's gone. And then we're going to bring it back. And if you like this flavor of Skittle, we're going to get rid of lime and everybody's going to freak out. Then we're going to bring lime back. I fucking hate these games these companies play. But I saw that Fritos just ended the barbecue and it didn't seem like it was a big cult favorite or something. It just seemed like a business decision and they were probably selling more of the flavor blasted twists, right? I don't know. And then yesterday, I get a little private Slack message here from listener Garrison, who hits me up in the DMs, Luke, and just says, out of the blue, what was the flavor of Fritos that you thought were discontinued? And I said, oh, just the regular barbecue ones. And then I even went on to say, by the way, I'm not talking about the twists. They replaced them with these flavor twists. Don't get it twisted, Garrison. I'm talking about regular Fritos. and then while but he didn't respond immediately because he's a human being with other things going on in his life and so I'm sitting there thinking for a second while they're tearing the bricks off of my roof and then putting them back I'm like wait a second I wonder why Garrison is asking me that did he see regular barbecue Fritos somewhere so I do a quick google again I'm late to the news but I guess in September Frito announced that they're bringing back regular barbecue Fritos And I'm trying to be careful here, Luke I'm trying to protect myself It doesn't seem like they're playing games with us There's nothing in this article from I think it's today.com Hoda wrote this

Uh-huh I was going to say that Katie Couric That's how up-to-date My network Host knowledge is

But according to this article, which came out A couple of months ago, Frito's just bringing Him back and it just says permanently It doesn't seem like it's some grand kind of promotional event so you get geeks like me to stockpile them and never open them or whatever. It seems like it's straightforward. We're bringing them back. And I'm getting emotion. Yeah, you are. What was that voice I just did?

It sounded like Patrick Mahomes. He loves bath bombs. We just really went out there and Travis was catching, just really giving 110%. That's my Patrick Mahomes. That is so weird. Is that really what he sounds like? He sounds like Kermit. I never noticed that before. He really does not have, I guess, the voice that I would expect for. And now I'm getting emotional, Andrew. I'm sorry. You and I. I had something in my throat before. I just tried to power through it, and I went into a crying Kermit voice. I'm doing that over here, and as you know, I don't have my cough button. Oh, that's right. Which is, I was telling you this. I sort of mentioned it on the show the other day, But then I was telling you off air, like my entire.

rhythm of doing this show with you whether i'm on the road or even at my home studio is talk a little bit and then mute my microphone and do all manner of weird vocal clearing and it's just it's totally second nature to me at this point so that when i don't have that it is like

it really throws my rhythm off can i ask you something we were way off topic here although i think the topic's done they're bringing them back i'm excited and i hope they're not playing games with me in my heart um but i think i can picture you you have your little mix pre which has three little knobs on it one of those knobs is for your microphone only i know it's not as easy as just hitting a button but couldn't you just develop a habit of just turning that down and turning it back up to where it where it rests like if it's at yes i'm assuming it's at like one o'clock now maybe resting one o'clock knob um couldn't you just sort of quickly turn that down clear your throat and turn it back up i have resting one o'clock face yeah i know yeah that's

actually i started doing that about 10 minutes ago but it is much more kind of time consuming and i'm concerned that i won't turn the mic back to the right level yeah you gotta and then it'll kind of be all over the place it's the knob is not extremely accessible you know because it's got the it's like the the way that it's constructed the actual physical yeah it's kind of buried in there yeah so it's it's not nearly as easy as i usually just have this little blue thing that you hipped me to you were like i was complaining about this some years ago and you were like i bet you they sell one of those things on amazon that you could just take on the road and that really changed my life um and it's super convenient and easy and again i don't have it now and it's it's really affecting um my ability to do the show the other thing i want to talk about with you quickly is that I've really been making a concerted effort to try to do Instagram more of late because I quit Twitter and instead of just growing emotionally as a person and being okay without the approval of others I've just tried to find a different way to get that approval and it just, I mean you said this before I think the analogy it's like me smoking weed so I drink less alcohol they're different things and I guess I'm running up against that like Instagram is just really not Twitter like I was like well I can just post my thoughts there I can take a picture of something and put it up there and I'm doing that but it just it's weird it does not for some reason work for me the way Twitter worked yeah it's a very different beast

like I mean the thing about Twitter is you would just like delve into these ongoing ongoing conversations somebody would post something somebody would have a reaction maybe joking around then somebody and like sometimes that's toxic stuff but also sometimes it's just like some of your favorite Mariners broadcasters who all know each other and one person will post something and then and then Angie Minting gets her second mention of today's show do not help her have her help you find a that's right like you know I mean you can see people joking around like on Instagram it's just not like that there's a post and then there are comments under that post that those common I mean it's just it's there's no comp there I think really at all other than it being a social you know yeah social media and you can post your thoughts and opinions i mean the closer the closer comparison here though if you've tried it at all i think it'll drive you bananas in different ways but i mean have you been curious to try the mastodon site which actually i signed up for something yeah but i haven't been back to it it's it's it's a little bit more complicated actually i heard it on the media i don't want to brag here luke but i actually set up my first mastodon account in 2017 it's been around since i think 2016 or something and you know me when i hear about a social media platform i sign up for it except for tiktok because i don't think that one's going to take off um no i'm on there i just for some reason that it doesn't appeal to me that much but um uh anyway i must have heard of mastodon years and years ago because when people started saying hey i'm leaving twitter let's try this mastodon thing which is, at first glance, the closest thing to an interface of Twitter and the way people kind of interact and post things. When people started talking about that recently, I'm like, Mastodon, that rings a bell. And so I went into my files and I was like, oh, yeah, I set up an account for this. But I hadn't logged back into the account since 2017. So they must have just done some cleanup or something and I couldn't log in anymore. So I re-signed up for Mastodon. If you're on Mastodon and you care, I'm Andrew underscore Walsh again, same as Twitter. but it is not the same as Twitter. It doesn't have all the functionality. It's definitely a little bit kludgy because it's kind of run by a bunch of people who kind of buy their own servers. It's weird. It's not a universal server system, and I will get out over my skis over my servers way too quickly here in trying to explain it, but it's kind of a bunch of independent servers that you can start that will talk to each other, but also there's a bit more kind of moderation in that. So, for example, if you sign up to be part of like the dot. journo mastodon server which is where all the journalists hang out and then there's another one that is dot white supremacy server like the people who run the journo one can be like listen we're just totally blocking this white supremacy server so none of the people on that server can contact us like it's like a bunch of little it's like a bunch of little communities that can

interact but also have some have some measures built in so that you can avoid some of the toxicity of twitter but it's just again it's not the same as just like jumping into the deep end of the pool and swimming around like you could do on twitter and and again i've admitted this many

times unfortunately for me the appeal of twitter would be firing off a tweet and then having a bunch of people um who are more famous than me potentially retweeted and have it you know like jane lynch retweeting me or richard marx or something and being kind of like oh that feels great and it's like if they're not on mastodon if richard marx isn't on mastodon angela why am i

even there what are we even doing right and you know one so i was listening to a little uh on the media special episode about mastodon over the weekend um and because i've like i said i was on mastodon but i found it all a little confusing i didn't quite understand the lingo and this like little half hour interview with you'll know his name clive thompson clive thompson i got there Where's my bell? Do you know Clive Thompson? He's a... No. I wonder if you've booked him on things before.

Was he an associate of John Foster Dulles? No. No. I realized as I was making that joke that that was a way more intense reference than I meant it to be. Excuse me.

He covers tech for... I can't remember what publication, and maybe he's been around. I feel like I've booked him on shows before. I don't know. Anyway, he's really good, and he and Brooke were just talking, and he was explaining it. I would actually highly recommend anybody who's interested in Mastodon, but when you start reading about it your eyes glaze over because you don't understand the server system clive uh thomas talking to brooke ladstone on on the media about it in a special little breakout episode was really really interesting one thing that they mentioned that like some people like some twitter expats who are on mastodon now one thing they did that they don't like is the fact that you can't quote tweet but that is something that they built into the platform on purpose because of exactly what I was babbling incoherently about the other day, which is like the ability to quote tweet ends up, you end up with a system where people are upset with something somebody said that's toxic, and then everybody's quote tweeting the toxicity, quote tweeting the toxicity, and complaining about it, but then just amplifying it and amplifying and amplifying it within circles where that tweet wouldn't have even seen the light of day before. like they've eliminated that feature which apparently that's kind of a controversial thing too because some people feel like that's sort of limiting their voice and their ability to kind of call in response to things but anyway it's uh it is an interesting platform i mean if i i feel like if you're really looking for that kind of that kind of interaction you're going to probably find it more there although it is going to be more limiting than twitter well once richard

marks joins or at least his wife daisy fuentes when one of them married they really are isn't

that an interesting couple that is cool and they've been married for a long time i assume

i mean i think so i think of their relationship as being new but i also think of the tampa bay

lightning as being new and they've probably been around for 20 years i know i was gonna say i still think of rem's monster as new right or you're into new rem yeah the one that came out in 1998 Whatever. I don't think it's Clive Thomas. I think I got that name wrong because I'm... Is it Clive Owen? It's Clive Owen. What can't that guy do? I know. He's handsome to bat. What would you say? He's handsome to beat. I was going to say he's handsome to... To boot. That was the word I was looking for. He's handsome as a bat. He's handsome to beat. no leave clive owen alone hey who wants to leave that darkness behind and wish some people known john foster dulles associate clive owen what okay we're gonna do some blurs days here i'm gonna here let's refresh okay jessica says please wish my 10 tim a happy 39th blurs day he's

Celebrating in Mexico with all his pals after delaying their trip for years because of COVID. So, you know, I do think I got that maybe on Thanksgiving week, but after our Blur's Day segment. So there is a chance that Tim is back home now. And if so, I hope you had a great time, Tim.

Happy Blur's, Tim. Lucien says, I'd like to wish my 11 and my five happy birthdays. My husband is the 11 and gets all of your pop culture G.I. Joe and Tim and Eric references. My daughter, The Five, used to turn on TBTL for me. Now I hear her listening to it on her own. Nice. Happy Blur's Day to Chris and Rose Wynn. You're both awesome and helpful people. Aww. I love you. Aww. Love it. I added that last part. The awe or the love you?

I love you. Okay. Erica says, I'd like to wish a happy Blur's Day to my good friend and fellow 10, Ryan and his elbow Dexter. I don't think that's explained later. I think that's just an inside joke. You're a pain in the ass. Always right and always quick with the most perfect drops. Keep being you. Keep building your beef castle. What you do is so important. Happy birthday from your pal Erica and definitely not my husband, Ryan, the 10 denier. Wow. A lot to unpack. Ryan.

Much to unpack from that email, but a happy Blur's Day, Ryan. Clive Owen says, Clive says, can you say a happy 56th Blur's Day to me this week, please? God, I'm old. Thanks as always. That's not that old. Happy Blur's Day, Clive. Yeah. You know what's weird? I feel like 46 is very old because I'm 46, but I don't feel like 56 is very old. Yeah, no, you're getting younger. That doesn't make any sense, but I don't think you're old, Clive. Yeah.

Jay says, today is my golden blurs, is our pal Jay in Seattle, Luke, or I think formerly in Seattle, who joined us on stage during our live show on a boat those many years ago. Jay says, after a year of my highest highs and lowest lows, all I can really say is how grateful I am for my life, my body for getting through this all and most importantly my amazing support system almost dying really does a number on you whoa jay wrote in a while back she had um an incident with her own car that was just chilling and scary and she's been keeping us up to date on that and i'm glad jay is feeling better these days jay also wants to say happy blursday to her boyfriend now it's Spelled Stephen, traditionally, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, but Jay said it's not pronounced Stephen, like with a V, so I don't know if it's Stefan. Looks like it's Stefan. Well, I wrote that as a note to myself, but I don't know. All I know is it's not pronounced Stephen, but it's spelled like Stephen, so I don't know. Stefan, Stephen, we, uh, Jay said.

It would be incredible if it was Stephen.

I mean, it's just Yeah, I mean, I don't want to Criticize Jay in the middle of A wonderful Blur's Day week But let's tell us how to pronounce things Not how not to pronounce things Anyway, this is to somebody Whose name, I'm not going to pronounce it Happy Blur's Day, Jay I love you, Jay Jay says, we met during an incredibly hard time And you showed me just how kind, loving And compassionate a person can be Now, I'm going to try this Apparently, Stefan is Ukrainian and Jay wants me to say ya lublu tibia which maybe means I love you in Russian if I said it at all close

I really wish we still had somebody pulling all of our audio drops so I could play you saying what you just said in Russian I think you said it exactly the way I would

ya lublu tibia

I would try to get Let's see. Let me try to get into a Russian. Okay. No, this won't be offensive. Speaking Russian. Yes, okay, good. how about that i'll take it better than mine i play poker with a lot of russian dudes my buddy val my buddy vadim like uh i'm like one of the few non actually a lot of those folks are ukrainian which as we've learned is very different than being russian i should say but it's a smattering of uh of different folks that like to play poker in portland it's a big uh it's a big thing for people from both the ukraine and russia as we said on the show yesterday luke uh they're making a movie about you called squarers i believe right yes happy uh blursday to stephen i think is the also show aaron and Tracy say we'd like to wish a truly magical happy 40th Blur's Day to our fellow 10 and real life friend Krista Krista is so much a 10 through and through that she's practically exponential these are some smart people this is a very smart email from these folks like she's a 100 she brings so much sparkle light joy and wisdom to our lives and our book club looking forward to celebrating you on your special day power out happy blurs day erica krista rather in my um in my ongoing efforts

to complicate this as much as possible uh tracy had sent in her own wish for krista i'm assuming it's the same krista and i'm assuming that show erin and tracy and krista are all friends either way i'm kind of making that assumption and i grouped tracy in with you guys i hope that was right. I think I joined

all of the people emailing in on the subject of Krista when I say yellow blue tibia.

Indeed. Erica says, I just want to wish myself a happy belated Blurs Day from Prague. Such an international Blurs Day. It was last week, but time zones are hard. I'm in Europe celebrating my 50th, two years late. Thanks COVID.

Happy Blurs Day, Erica. Prague is a beautiful city i love that city it's a beautiful city chris in ohio says happy birthday to my wife awesome angela your show keeps her happy and updated on sports makes me so sad to think that

anybody knows about sports through i mean you're competent but like my goodness for people to learn about sports through me is really rough it should be illegal eric in walla walla says i want to wish my partner lindsey a happy blursday i'm blessed to have such a supportive thoughtful and caring partner to share the great things in life with one of the highlights of our year has been snuggle times with our dog luna tuna i'm looking forward to listening to more tbtl stories of animal cuddles and hijinks with you and Tuna Belly in 2023. Aw, happy Blur's Day, Lindsay.

Amy says, I want to wish a happy birthday to the love of my life, Heidi. She's truly the best person I know, and the sound of her laugh fills me with joy whenever I hear it. I cannot handle the cuteness of these messages this week. Happy Blur's Day, Heidi.

Marshall in Amsterdam says, Happy Blur's Day to an amazing designer and friend, Priscilla, in San Francisco. Of course, we know Priscilla, longtime friend of the show. Congrats on your recent move, and it was awesome to see you a few weeks ago. And Marshall also says, Happy Blur's Day to Mari. Happy Blur's Day to reformed birthday diva Mari. Even if you're not making your friends do some big trip in December for your birthday, I hope it's a wonderful one. Can't wait for you to come visit me next year. I see.

So Mari was one of those folks who sort of put together a big event for her birthday, but now she's reformed.

That's what I think is going on here. I don't know.

I wonder if Mari knew that Marshall considered her a birthday diva when she was in the throes of it.

I'm still stuck on the elbow. People are naming their elbows and wishing them happy birthdays. This segment is officially out of control. It is. And I say we cancel it until next Thursday. Okay, that sounds good. start sending in any blurs days that you want over the course of christmas too like we just need to oh right yeah because we'll we'll be on tape for a couple of thursdays so just send them in if you have any birthday that's between now and next april let's say just send it to me because

god knows how long i'll be on vacation um yeah you're uh i'm excited for you this year that you're actually going to go uh go somewhere warm and have a have a fun week because you usually

just stay home and work i like i like i like a real scrooge i like a staycation but um oh first of all why would my phone ringer even be on it's a chimney sweep secondly it's well it says scam likely but i don't know if it's a chimney scam or not anyway i thought for sure i promise you that

person got your number that that that thing got your number through that infernal angie i will

say all of the calls that i got i i had like maybe four or five incoming calls from chimney sweeps none of them i don't know maybe some scams came in and i didn't answer them but most of them were from legitimate numbers at least so anyway i was telling you i feel i feel dumb about this whole chimney thing but i think you know what i paid 99 to have somebody say your your chimney is screwed and now we can just take it from here and maybe start the process over yeah well good luck with

that i hope you get it worked out and good luck to me because a chimney is the least of my problems with this house it's it is it is at like the absolute nadir point right now It's actually kind of encouraging because there's progress, but the progress has been tearing everything down. So it is just like it's, you know, it's definitely going to need a lot of money and time and effort to get it functional. So we'll see how that goes. I just want to make you feel better about your chimney. It could be worse. It could be the entire house is broken, which is what I'm currently dealing with. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Hi, I'm Tyne Vandening, and you're talking about donkeys. Just wanted to say, I work at an outdoor nature-based preschool in north central Washington, and we have three miniature donkeys that live on the property. They are Mama, Pigpen, and Lupin. Power out. Power out.