Muse

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, I'll tell them. That was the Silly Goose Police. You need to turn yourself in.

TBTL! I'm all like Stone Cold Steve Austin. I'm sitting there slamming beers. The crowd was raging. It was unforgettable.

Please clap.

Well, you just enjoy your coffee while I tell you a funny story about my friend's cat. His name is Mr. Wiggles, and his cat's name is Benson. You know, I think about this, and what about this internet thing? Do you know anything about that? Sure.

What the hell is that exactly?

This is the place to get something so different, so beautiful. The quality It's unbelievable Music are out

All right, hello, good morning and welcome everyone To a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live The answer, sadly, is not yes My name is Luke Burbank, I am your host I'm an activist and house party enthusiast Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon Again, where it is, well, right now, I think things have stabilized. We're just getting some rain, a few snow flurries. But I know a lot of folks around the country are getting hit with some real wintry weather.

What do you got here, a thunder hurricane going on? A thunder blizzard hurricane.

Hope you all are doing okay wherever you are, staying warm, staying off of slippery surfaces and the like. We've got an episode that you're just never going to forget. But it's a bold proclamation I can promise you this We have an episode for you It's episode 3886 Let the fun begin You may never forget it, I'm going to be honest We probably will because we do a lot of these And a lot of times we talk about things going on In the airline industry and today is no different United Airlines Has announced that they will not charge families with children under 12 extra fees to sit near each other because they sit with it and I find this to be great news even though I rarely if ever fly with family members under the age of 12 we'll get into that also I proposed bill in the state of Florida would make it illegal to let your dog stick their head out the window of your car as you're driving

I'll say what's up dog

I actually read the proposal, and it is, believe it or not, less crazy than, you know, the New York Posts of the world, et al, would like you to believe. I'm also a, you know, I have intrusive animal empathy, so probably coming at this with a certain set of, you know, pre-existing bias, etc. So we will talk about that, too, and do some emails and emails, and we will talk to this guy. He's a handsome young stranger. He's baby-stepping. He's doing the work. He's the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. And if I understand right, he's actually dealing with a little bit of the white stuff where he is.

Snow, snow, and more snow.

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. It looks like it stopped coming down out there, but I woke up to big, fluffy flakes coming down. It was quite beautiful. It looked like it was sticking to the ground a tiny bit, but here it is an hour later. The skies have calmed down. No more of that white stuff coming down, and it looks like it's already gone from the ground as well. But it was a very beautiful morning, and Veeves and I recorded a special little hay dummies out in the snow in our yard.

Well, that's why I figured you must be really working with something if you and Veeves ventured out there for the video purpose.

It really was beautiful to look at, and I was like, oh, I've got to do a hay dummies today anyway. Might as well grab this while it's actively snowing because I didn't know how long it would last. I had seen some people saying up to two inches in the Seattle area, which seemed excessive. But I didn't. Good thing I didn't believe those people because I already would have missed the window.

Did you make a snow angel? Did you do it? Did you not break into some kind of Courier and Ives esque situation where you were sledding with neighborhood children?

Sled riding is what they call it in this neighborhood. Luke sled riding um I had one of those uh one of those sleds that has is it a toboggan it's like mostly flat but then it's rolled up in the front and I'm holding on to two strings and um somebody is wearing like a golf style cap with flaps that come down and they're singing Christmas carols it was like that except you know that I bought One of those hats, like you're describing something out of a, excuse me, an old, I promise my voice is fine today, for the record. I know I was struggling yesterday, but I figured out what it was yesterday, by the way, which is the night before yesterday. Okay, so I guess that would be Monday night. The night before the show, yep. I was poking around, trying to find something to munch on later in the evening. and i have i suffer from moderate to severe bachelor fridge at any one time in my refrigerator there will be like three pickles floating around in a jar some baby corn a lot of like pickled like vegetable type of deals that are you know have like a forever shelf life and then a bag of salad that's just turned into a brown liquidy type of mess in one of the drawers and i found some uh like baby bell cheese you know like it comes in the cardboard the cardboard wheel that you then pull a string and then the cardboard comes off and you've got a bunch of little kind

of wedges that are in foil it's not wax it's not the red wax it's not wax so maybe it's not baby

bell technically it's got a cow on the cover and it's it's little triangles of a very creamy kind of cheese that's um that's wrapped in in silver foil ew but well you know you don't have to people can like different things and you may refer you to the song yeah no i mean that's fine that was and that was my reaction you actually probably wouldn't hate this when i said creamy cheese it's not like a cottage cheese or something i mean it's just like a you know it's sort of it's in the neighborhood of like uh it's in between a brie and a mozzarella or something point is And the expiration date was sort of passed, but I'd never opened it. I'd never actually even popped the seal on the cardboard part of it. And it would have been refrigerated, and it was very – so I pulled one of them out, and I gave it the sniff test, and it was fine. And then I ate it, and it was delicious, by the way. I ate it on a – I'm really into these Triscuit – not like what you think of as the traditional. I don't like the texture of a traditional Triscuit.

It's a lot. It's a lot. It's too much. It's a lot of cracker for me. I like it, but I always describe them as the world's meatiest cracker. Not that there's any meat in there, but it's just so it's so dense. There's so much you're working with there. Again, I enjoy them. But a Triscuit, that'll go a long way.

I agree with you. I don't. But what I like about them, this is Becca was going to turn me on to this because she's quite the clean eater. Triscuits have three ingredients in them, I think. And that's like kind of, you know, if you're trying to cut down on the amount of stuff that's sort of highly processed that you eat. Really what I want a cracker to do is deliver some kind of cheese to my mouth, you know. Like the cracker itself is – look, if calories were not any consideration, all I would eat was Ritz crackers from morning until night. I would wake up and just empty a sleeve of Ritz crackers into my mouth because they're so delicious and buttery. But that's pretty high-calorie stuff. And so anyway, I was trying to find a decent cracker, and Becca said, well, you know, Triscuits are pretty great. They're just simple ingredients. So that might be where you want to go. But I was like, I don't like the texture. And then, Andrew, they rolled out some kind of a triangular Triscuit product. I don't even know what it's called because I finished them and threw out the box. but it's basically like the three ingredients of a Triscuit, but on a smooth triangular cracker.

I've seen these in the store. I'm looking. They're thin crisps.

I don't think they're, are they called thin crisps? Maybe.

They're triangle shaped. They're Triscuit, the thin crisps. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I'm going to confirm, but I bet you're right.

Did you eat one and then suddenly have the urge to start playing triangle, and then your triangle career really took off?

I'll never be able to unseat Elton John, and that's the thing. That's the problem. It's all about knowing your limitations, and I know that he's the reigning king. Yes, exactly. You're exactly right. They're called thin crisps. Now, what I would say is, if you're interested in playing in this space to the listeners, you seem highly sus of all of my food choices this morning. Maybe just because I'm wearing different headphones, because I was sweating doing the sound check with my big... Wait, wait, wait. Slow down.

Slow down. I'm not sus of all... I just said, ew, about cheese, and that was more about me not liking cheese. Like, I don't... I didn't judge you.

I thought I heard some sus in your voice about my Triscuits, too.

No, no. I love reading into things now. No, I love regular Triscuits, which, by the way, not to interrupt your story, but it occurred to me that maybe the reason I like regular Triscuits is because I'm not a cheese eater. And so, therefore, if I'm eating a Triscuit, I'm probably eating it unadorned. And so it doesn't have to be going on for you. So there's more going on. In fact, and this would break the three ingredients rule, but they do have some flavored ones, too, that are like rosemary flavored that I like. Now, I don't know if that gets. to flavor blasting it's relatively subtle but anyway um no i i would try a thin crisp certainly

um now that's funny that you had mentioned you're intrigued by the rosemary flavoring because and this i think you're exactly right this gets to the question of what are you doing with the cracker like are you putting something on it or not for me i would rarely eat just a cracker by itself so i had noticed that once i was hip to this uh original flavor triscuit thin crisp thing i would go to the store and i would have a hard time finding it just the regular one and all i would be able to get would be like the rosemary or the you know the whatever it's like uh you know tomato what's that kind of um what's the kind of tomato that's a sun whatever sun-dried tomato oh yeah okay yeah sure just a bunch of stuff that i didn't really want and so now if i ever see i think it was probably just supply chain issues like everything but if i see a box of these i grab them because they are for me there's like the perfect cracker because they're reasonably healthy and they're texturally they work with what i'm trying to do now uh i know we've talked about this in the past but and i don't know how this this episode turned into an ad for the triscuit company but well first of all i didn't realize this it's it was originally created by the shredded

wheat company so that would make sense you're just learning that right now dang shredded wheat out

it's like well why do you think because it was made by the shredded wheat company in 1903 in niagara falls new york oh and we have talked about this before the name triscuit is believed to have come from a combination of the words electricity and biscuit oh right we have because they were using like hydroelectric power from niagara falls or the rivers there nearby and so it's an electric biscuit um but all of this is to say i had horfed down like easily like if it trivial pursuit and you know you got to get those little wedges to like actually win if you're playing serious which i don't honestly if you play trivial pursuit that way i don't think we're going to be friends i don't have it in me to play an entire legitimate round of trivial pursuit where you're like accumulating tiny pies and filling them in like that is a four hour commitment you

know how when i you know how i knew i was an artist at a young age luke yes i am an artist is I'm so interested in how this sentence ends. It's when I started, because I played a lot of Trivial Pursuit. We had a children's edition. We had the genius edition. And we had a.

What does that even mean? Commonly misunderstood as the genius edition, which immediately means you lose the game. But I don't think I know what the genius edition actually means. You mean if you call it the genius edition, you lose?

You take it out?

It's like if you called it Nintendo, you probably called it the Trivial Pursuit genius edition. But I also don't know what it even means I just know it's not genius edition It's genus edition

You know, I'm looking at the word genus I always took it to mean And I think I'm slightly off here But I'll tell you what I took it to mean I always took it to mean like the The Ur Is that the right word? Like the UR Like the sort of like the Because I think of The beginning of it all Kind of the beginning Yeah, genus Although that doesn't really The genus You know, it's the principal category That ranks above the species You know, like I'm looking that up now. Why are you laughing?

Because I was Googling what does Trivial Pursuit Genus mean, and the second thing that comes up on the Internet is Trivial Pursuit, colon. Did they spell genius wrong? From boards.straightdope.com. Well, let me tell you, if you'd like to put a little money on this next round of Trivial Pursuit, I'd love to take you on. But anyway, if it were that Trivial Pursuit thing—

You never heard why I was an artist.

Yeah, why were you an artist?

Because I liked putting those little wedges into the wheels, but then I started putting the wedges into the wheels upside down, and I thought it was real arty. Or sometimes I would alternate it. Because it was kind of like negative space.

Yeah, because you would still see. Didn't they get stuck in there, though?

No, they would still slide in and out, but you would just see the outline of it in the top, and you could alternate, like put one in the right way, put one in upside down, and it would start. You know, again, artists also playing the genus edition as a kid. We also had the Baby Boomer Expansion Pack, which I didn't know what a Baby Boomer was at the time. I asked my mom, and she said, oh, it means they're mostly pop culture questions. So for a very long time, for a big chunk of my life until I was a young adult, I thought that Baby Boomer was synonymous with pop culture, which there is a connection there. But anyway, now I will let you continue with your story.

This artist will now yield the floor. I yield the balance of my time. back to the gentleman from Portland this is actually very encouraging Andrew because it means and I mean let's be honest Genevieve would be like a hot knife through butter against all of us but next time you and Genevieve and Becca and I are together We could play some Trivial Pursuit. I didn't realize that you were such an enthusiast.

I think as a kid, I just liked playing games, and that was one. And again, we had the Children's Edition, which was a light blue one, so I think I was good at that. And the Genius one, which I'm sure I called Genius at the time, absolutely destroyed me. I will say this. It is a trip. I don't know if they're making new cards still, but I think a lot of people, quote-unquote, play Trivial Pursuit just by having the boxes of cards laying around.

at a that's what becca and i do now yeah a big tradition is we go if we go to an airbnb or something we bring a bunch of cards we put on a 90s playlist algorithm usually starting off of an eve six song and we just drink a shit ton of wine and it's really fun it's fun there's a dive

bar sort of near my house where i'll go to watch some baseball games and meet up with the crew sometimes and they have a little game shelf and so they have some really old like you know i'm guessing 80s era um trivial pursuit cards including i believe the baby like one of the baby boomer boxes as well and it is so funny how all of the questions are you know that line i like from the tom petty song the future ain't what it used to be it's so funny even when you're talking about historical events they're through the lens of 1986 being the current timeline sort of so it is right it is a trip when you guys play a lot of like mikhail gorbachev right are you and kramer

versus Kramer I know that's a little earlier but

do you have early or do you have cards that are more updated do you know does it feel really antiquated when you play

I think the I here's what I can tell you it doesn't feel what's the opposite of antiquated future quated it thankfully doesn't feel future quated to me which is sometimes when you do like whether it's the Guinness then the latest version of the Guinness book of world records or even what I would imagine the latest additions of trivial i'd probably be hard eye rolling because it would be questions that i thought of as being kind of silly or fluffy or like you know i don't know related to some kind of pop cultural thing that i don't know about um if it were the new new one like i think the sweet spot for me is probably like late 90s whatever the ones you're like late 90s early 2000s whatever one's been sitting in some lake cabin for the last 20 to 30 years and again it's you know uh it's sort of easy but from a pop culture era where i was aware and probably paying more attention like i just don't know i don't know if i'd want to play a like a 2023 trivial pursuit i would maybe i would do better at that because i mean i still end up consuming way too much information about pop culture and silly things that don't matter so maybe i've got an okay you know sort of uh warehouse of 2023 trivial information in my brain but i find something very comforting about the questions being mostly about Bill Clinton and the USA Dream Team. I want to clean something up. This member of the USA Dream Team said he was not a role model. Charles Barkley.

I want to clean one thing up just because people, I might be able to save some people some emails and save me from opening some emails. The reason Trivial Pursuit is called the genus edition is because the questions were general in nature over a wide range of broad topics. So that's why it was called that.

That must be what genus means. like the term because you know you got like genus and species and isn't phylum in there somewhere

and so i'm guessing genus well now i don't want to say anything more because now i'll get it wrong again but if genus is at the top of that chain then it covers the widest range of things below

it right that would make sense okay now i'm going to try in very short order to get us back on track but also to sort of uh tie up all of the loose strings that i was just constantly sort of leaving fluttering in the wind the reason i brought up trivial well what i used to do when i was doing trivial pursuit as a kid andrew is i would if i got three pies i would fill in like the nuclear symbol oh yeah sure yeah i can picture that i felt like that was the only way to start filling the pie and you couldn't like only a madman would just put like three triangles next to each other like you got to start with the nuclear symbol and then you fill in the other ones um the reason i was bringing that up was because i ate probably two thirds of that cardboard you know container of those cheeses like i just went to town on them and what i realized last night was because there was two left and i was feeling peckish again and i ate one and as soon as i ate it i fully went into sling blade mode so to solve the mystery of why i was having such difficulty speaking yesterday and needing to clear my throat so much, it's that ding-dang cheese. And I'm glad to report that it's all been consumed, and I won't buy more of it even though it's delicious because I might as well just, like, chug a thing of sour cream right before the show, which I know is how you prep for the program, but that's kind of your move.

Exactly. Now, I did have something I wanted to play for you really quickly, but are you still cleaning up? Have we?

Have we gotten back to the beginning?

I guess it wasn't that many threads. No, no, no, it was, though. We were spinning out. My voice was bad yesterday because I ate too much cheese. I believe all the threads are tied up now.

This isn't a huge deal, but it's just a little bit of tape, and it is related to yesterday's show, so I wanted to get it here in the show before the first break. I don't want to go into too much detail, at least in the setup here, about the technical issue that we had yesterday, but suffice it to say we had a little technical issue here yesterday near the end of the show. We were listening to a voicemail from our friend Jen, who had called into the show, and we had played the voicemail. And then when the voicemail ended, I started talking, but you couldn't hear me. But I didn't know that you couldn't hear me. I could hear myself, and I don't know what was going on. Actually, that is interesting. Why would I not have noticed that my microphone wasn't working in my own headphones? Anyway, leave that alone, Andrew. Don't get too technical. You said don't get too technical. all of that is to say this i want you to hear luke what it sounded like on my end because i told you it was a little bit disconcerting and i i went back when i was when it's like

you did you start to think you were bruce willis in the sixth sense sort of i thought we were in

a fight like listen to it in my voice like which is really weird but like i was so confused in the moment i was like what what did i do i kept thinking like what did i say i must have said something and like i figured like maybe you were saying anyway just take a listen to what can i

just i know you just said this but i want to i'm so worried about the listeners thinking that i would be mean to you that i just want to like triple clarify we came out of this voicemail and then from my end where i was listening from it was just total silence and andrew had said he had advice for the person leaving the voicemail so i was thinking andrew would be the first person to speak and like you know three four seconds goes which for me and andrew is an eternity you know they say in the bible that like uh you know a thousand years for us is like a day in god's eyes well that's the opposite for me one second of silence is like a day in my ears and so i wasn't hearing andrew talk and then i was just kind of thinking is he pa i couldn't i couldn't tell what was going on either but i just want to be clear i want to try to exclaim explain what my experience

Yeah, so on your end, you're playing the little Doogie Howser music on your end.

And I hear the voicemail message.

And I'm playing the voicemail, and the voicemail fully ends, and then after the voicemail, you don't hear anything. You were expecting me to jump in, but you don't hear me.

But I hear Doogie Howser music playing quietly, and I don't hear you talking. But I heard the voicemail. Now, normally, if our line went down, I wouldn't have even heard the voicemail. Exactly.

This is why I was especially confused. So it was an issue with my microphone in this case. So anyway, all of that is to say, listen to the panic in my voice. And again, it's like shock. Like, I'm not thinking like, oh, like you and I, we don't have bad vibes. But it was just like, you can just hear me so confused as to what's going on. This makes me pre-sad, Andrew. You can hear the panic in my voice. Listen to this. We're going to start with the end of the voicemail here.

Hope you're all well tense. And, okay, bye. Oh, my God.

So the thing about this note that was left on my car, and Jen may have it right.

Is this the part where you wanted to say something?

What's that?

well i don't i don't quite follow your joke well this is an odd situation oh my god what are you talking about sorry this is me in real life oh sorry andrew stop back it up back it up i can't resist i need to shut up because i'm like people can't tell what's you and what's not sorry i'll stop now i'm gonna mute my microphone just play it again so painful though right it's so painful for me to hear that i had to like weigh in in like on wednesday i'll stop i'll just let you play it I'll slowly back away from the microphone, okay? It's so painful. That's why I wanted to play this for you. I told you I had to switch headphones. I was doing my jog late. I was sweating during the sound check, and I have these big studio headphones that lock in all the heat in my head. So I had to switch. During our initial conversation, I switched to these other headphones that are a little bit less intense, but I can't hear you as well. I'm just going to unplug all the headphones because I cannot listen to this. Well, here's what I'm going to do.

Because it's so confusing when we play our own voices back, I am going to mute my microphone as well. You mute your microphone. We're going to play this whole thing. It's 30 seconds. It's 30 seconds of pain. And then when you hear me come back and say, and scene, that's me in real time. Okay. That's how we'll know that we're back. Okay, good. So this is like a Christopher Nolan thing. When we spin the top and the top keeps on spinning, it means we're dreaming still. Do you ever see that stupid movie?

Do we have like that little, right, but do we have that little like time? Like the harp thing? Like time travel harp, that's what I was just trying to find.

Yeah, I don't have a, usually I produce it in the thing, but I think, okay, so I think I can try to mix this live. I can do something.

I can do this. How about the dazzling sound?

But you don't know when it's over. I do. I have the tape on my head.

I was just going to do the dazzling sound. to establish we were going into the taped segment well that's easier we hear jen's voice we know we know that what we need to establish is when it's over so i have the harp sound here when you hear the harp sound it means we're coming back into real life okay here is the uh the tape hope you're all well tense and okay bye oh my god um so the thing about this note that was left on my car And Jen may have it right.

Is this the part where you wanted to say something?

What's that? Well, I don't quite follow your joke. Well, this is an odd situation. What are you talking about? Luke? We're back. Oh, my gosh. That's so... Is that not so awkward? I'm sweating listening to it again. And again, the reason I wanted to play it for you is because I was cleaning that up. Obviously, we edited that snafu out of the show and we just kind of retook it from the end of the voicemail and whatever. So, you know, if I did my job right, you would not have noticed that in yesterday's show. But as I was editing the tape, I was like, oh, my God, that is so hard to listen to. I should play it on TBTL. Since we are the podcast that is, quote, hard to listen to, says The New York Times.

Yes. Not so much The New York Times, but an ad that we placed in The New York Times.

Yes, exactly.

That was back when APM was spending money promoting the show. No, you misunderstood.

It's The New York Times, W-A-Y-A-W-K. It's a local publication. It's a local town Wyoming. It's a local publication.

That was just one of those perfect storms because I already sort of over-explained this, But typically, I mean, you know, this happens every couple shows. Our line will go down, our connection. But that just usually follows a fairly specific kind of pattern, which is like all of a sudden I can't hear you or you can't hear me or whatever. And then I look at this little screen. That was the other thing. All that silence like where I'm pausing is because what I'm doing is I'm waking up the computer that we use to talk to each other here in my studio because it goes to sleep after a certain amount of time. And I'm looking at something that says TBTL Andrew, and then it has a running clock because when we get disconnected, that just goes away. But my confusion yesterday and why I stayed on the line was because I was looking at it and it was like you were still there. The clock was still ticking, but I couldn't hear you, but I just heard the voicemail. So this was just was totally outside the norm of when this kind of thing happens, which was why I didn't just like hang up immediately. but i also i mean we've done this so much that usually as soon as i know that we've disconnected i'm just like you know i'm not sitting around going well that's weird i'm not like commenting into the void or the ether but the fact that i did that this time just added if i would have just been totally quiet if the voicemail would have ended and then you would have been talking and i would have just been sitting there and then i would have just figured oh we got disconnected none of this would have happened but somehow me just kind of talking to myself like huh is this the part where andrew talks oh okay then pause and then well that's weird it played into almost being a conversation that was probably making you super uncomfortable that i had no

idea was even happening and the thing that really upset me or not didn't really i wasn't like super upset in the moment but like listening back and the thing that i find upsetting is you talking over top of me like you interjecting you interrupting to say do you want to say something

Hope you're all well, Ben. Okay, bye. Oh, my God.

So the thing about this note that was left on my car, and Jen may have it right.

Is this the part where you wanted to say something?

What's that?

Oh, my God. All right. Well, burn that tape, please. Can you take that? Do you have your fire pit running yet?

I'm throwing my computer into the fireplace, yes.

Dear Eric Stromstad, please send Andrew a new computer and Moe 2. We're burning the whole thing down.

Please send Andrew a fireplace, a blowtorch, and a new computer.

You know, you do have a functioning, you've got a functioning fireplace now. And when, you know, as spring rolls around, once the thaw happens, you'll have that fire pit going again too, right?

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, Genevieve said she maybe wants to pick up some firewood tonight. Maybe we can, because it was snowing this morning, maybe have our last fire. Because I do feel like we are about to transition into springtime. Maybe, you know, actually I had this thought yesterday in the car because now here it is, the end of February. And I'm sort of used to when I first came to Seattle, you know, from a very snowy, wintry place, I couldn't believe how mild the winters were here and how it started to feel like springtime so early. Now that I've been here for a while and everything has become normalized, I realize I fall into this trap where it's February 22nd, as it is today. And I'm thinking, oh, last cold spell. And then it's going to be spring. And then that's when you really screw yourself because you've already.

assumed spring is sprung and it hasn't and then that's when you want to talk about minutes feeling like hours and hours feeling like days you're like how is winter not ending well that's why

i'm like really trying to be very strategic about my um my maiden lawn mowing voyage this year out at the house because like i i would it would crush me to have that wonderful like saturday afternoon where it's like, you know, the sun's out and the baseball's on the radio and you mow the lawn and you have a cold ones, as Strong Bad would say, and then you just sink back into like three to four weeks of terrible weather. Like, I don't know if I can handle that. Like, the highs are high, but the lows will be too low. So I've got to wait until I feel like we're really into spring before I can go there and, like, allow my heart to be open to that experience.

Although we have established that it is significant, And even though we're only like, well, I say three hours away, I don't know what that is. How many hours are in a mile? I don't know how many miles away we are, but like you said that it is significantly warmer down in Portland. Like when I was down there a couple of weeks ago, and of course weather fluctuates, I was really surprised at how much warmer it was down there than it is in Seattle.

Definitely in the summer, I wasn't expecting this, but it feels like it will be often the case that if it's 85 in Seattle, like if it's a hot streak, it'll be 95 here. I mean, it was 114 here, that crazy heat dome summer. Becca and I were in Napa and couldn't fly home. We had to drive home because all of the flights were canceled because flying into Portland, it was so hot that they thought the tires on the airplane would melt when they hit the runway, which seems like maybe that's too hot.

Everything's fine emoji or everything's fine.

Yeah, exactly. Dog in the house that's on fire, sitting there playing Trivial Pursuit Genus Edition with his cup of coffee. All right, let's take a quick break here, and then we come back. I do want to talk a little bit about this latest move by United Airlines about the seats. And actually, I do want to talk about this thing in Florida with this dog sticking their head out the windows, because I can really see it two ways. So don't go anywhere. Back with more TBTL in a moment.

on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go everybody rattle

all right let's thank some dazzling donors these folks are dazzling us with their donations um and it's an extremely vital and important part of doing the show uh you heard me pausing there andrew because i realized something that so i do this when i'm recording from here which most of the time still i'm in this big window floor to ceiling window in the one of the bedrooms in this apartment and i just realized that i'm like doing a power stance and the thing about that is i'm working from behind a stand-up desk and i'm not really sitting and i didn't really even realize this till yesterday but becca was taking the cats because i'm going to be going out of town for some work and so i was i had bubbles in a backpack and she had holly in this carrying container we went down to her car to put the cats in the car and i just happened to be walking back towards the building and i saw my apartment illuminated and i saw how very clearly apparent and easily visually observed i am when i'm doing this show and like that just didn't it's weird because i have these screens in front of me and i'm talking to you it feels like i'm kind of invisible to everyone but it is i am not only not invisible i'm highly visible when i'm

doing this well let me ask you this you was this in the evening like what was it darker out yes so

that's going to yeah and there was a little bit of light on in here so that was certainly um sort of um amplifying that effect or uh whatever you want to say so so that was that was probably the most like noticeable it would be but regardless like i just realized there's this guy that walks his dog every day actually he kind of carries his dog part of the time they've got an interesting relationship it's a real kind of 50 50 he like currently he's got the dog on a leash and it's kind of peeing near a fire hydrant but then he'll definitely pick the dog up and carry it for a block or two older dog it's yeah it's a bit of an older dog um and uh anyway so this this guy if he were to just be like happen to look up here he would just see a dude in this huge window just doing a full power stance as he's reading the dazzling donors well better than a non-power stance i guess but all i can think of are the times that i'm in like you know my my little running gear or something or i mean luckily i've i'm clothed when i'm doing the show i don't think i i can't remember a time that i was like so behind that i was like doing the show in like a towel here that's happened in hotel room

rooms before but I think I've been mostly clothed while I'm standing here but I certainly will be

going forward because I am really on display case clothed yeah I'm really on display in our house we have a we have a couple of front windows and I have always known that the one that looks into the kitchen like it is shocking like especially at night during the day as well but especially at night if it's becoming dusk or darker outside and the lights are on in our house you can see I mean the kitchen it is like we're putting on a puppet show I mean or a play or something like We are so on display all the way back to our little laundry room. So I'm very cognizant of that. I was having a very serious conversation on the phone a couple of weeks ago. And as you know, Luke, I can't have I can't have cell phone conversation sitting at my desk here in the basement. The one downside of a basement studio, a basement office setup is a little bit challenging. I got to I got to use my phone through my computers or whatever. But anyway, so I was having this cell phone conversation. So I had to go upstairs to have it. And just to make sure that I was clear, I was standing in my front window in my in my kind of dining room area. And I was like kind of pacing, but like looking straight out the window for most of this conversation that lasted probably about 45 minutes or something. And I later saw some friends at the Eagles who work like a landscaping business. And they were like, oh, my God, we saw you. You were standing. We were driving on the street. We're honking at you. Oh, my God. We couldn't believe that you didn't see us. You were just like standing there in your window on full display. And I was like, OK, good to know that, like, even though we have these big hedges all the way around our house, like if you're driving down the street, there's a little hill and you can just see me talking seriously into the phone and scowling at you if you honk and I don't hear it.

uh i the thing is i enjoy the experience of walking around my neighborhood or other neighborhoods when it's getting dark because i like two things i i you know i like kind of seeing what the little lives inside the homes are you know respectfully and from the sidewalk but i just kind of like it's cozy it's a cozy feeling to just see people kind of you know getting their dinner ready or doing the thing i also like the smells sometimes i'll go on a walk around dinnertime just to smell some smells and decide what I think I'm hungry for

that night. Because sometimes I'll just

be like, I don't know, I can't think of anything. And then I'll go walking and I'll be like, okay, I'm definitely going to saute some garlic and some onions and some this or that because, you know, I hope that doesn't make me creepy, but I do find it very there's something warm and comforting about seeing people living their lives in their homes, like in their living rooms or kitchens at night.

Me too. I love that feeling, especially if somebody's like sort of uh changing their clothes or are in any kind of like kind of are we talking about the same thing here isn't this the part where you're not creepy no i'm obviously i'm joking but no absolutely like walking like especially on like a brisk fall evening like if we're really gonna idealize this like and you're walking down the street and there's like you can see your breath a little bit and you pass a house and you just get a glimpse of like a living room with a tv flickering and maybe you don't even see what's on the tv but you can just sort of tell that there's a tv from the type of glow it is one of the most yeah one of the most cozy feelings in the world for

some reason i really like it's weird because i i think in a way you know i don't know if watching a ton of tv is super great for any of us and also what's the difference between a tv and a phone screen probably nothing so it's on the one hand like if i if i were to see like there was an apartment adjacent to mine they had the tv going 247 i would probably honestly think i don't know if that's great for everybody in that place to always have the tv going that being said when the tv's on like the game is on or the nightly news and i'm walking down the street it makes me so happy because i feel like that person is relaxing right now they're sitting they're relaxing they're watching some chris hayes on msnbc if we're here in portland jeopardy jeopardy will really trigger a cozy unless i see them watching fox news and then i get on my list they're on a list yes right i'll tell you who's on a list of people i love kevin zentarski who's our first dazzling donor today he's in omaha nebraska kevin says hi luke and andrew what a long strange trip it's been this year eh well uh your guys's war isn't the best in the league for hitting top stories on time wow that's okay let's unpack that for people that would be win above replacement i believe so

So, yeah, that's funny. I always say win over replacement, but that would be W-O-R. Yeah, it's win above replacement.

That is like a baseball thing, just meaning, like, are you successful at doing this thing that we call baseball as compared to other people that do the same job, play the same position? Kevin is calling us out for never getting to the top stories. Today, as I look over at the clock, might be another poor war day for us, Kevin. I just want to manage your expectations for hitting top stories on. or sliders for some reason. I've greatly enjoyed another year of tangents from my best imaginary friendos. Much love coming from the 402 area code from the Zintarsky family. Pod dog divot. Ooh, that's a good name for a dog. That's a good name for a pet. I like that. Good. That's a good dog and a good name. And our newest addition from April of 2022. Our first five, Big Hank.

Big Hank. I love it. Congrats.

I love the idea of Kevin. Yes. Got Big Hank in the Snuggie, out walking, Divot in the 402, just watching people change their clothes. You love it.

You love to imagine it. Big Hank, I expect more from you.

Kevin says, have a good show. What you do is so important. Thanks, Kevin. We really appreciate you. Kevin has been an awesome friend of the show and supporter for a long time now. So thanks, Kevin. We couldn't do this without you. Maestro.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go.

Well, well, well, isn't it, if it isn't, I should say, one part of what was once a political stranglehold that TBTL had on the sort of northern reaches of the of Seattle and the nearby cities. It's Jennifer Gregerson My mayor Still my mayor In Mukilteo, Washington Jennifer of course Is incredibly civics minded Including being the mayor It was the mayor of Mukilteo, right?

Yeah, former mayor of Mukilteo For several terms, I believe

Yeah, and still involved in all kinds of interesting stuff Says, I have three recommendations for listeners For the coming year register to vote at your current address in washington it's vote.wa.gov just google it for your own state look out for bicyclists on the road give them at least three feet or a car doors distance in passing and don't sleep on the city of everett that's where i work now for cool events stores and restaurants um i've got this uh friend who is also into like mid-century uh architecture and houses and stuff uh his name's derek he's part of this crew that goes to chelan for what we call chelanigans although the last time we went it was so sedate we all kind of apologized i don't know if i talked about this on the show we all sort of apologized to each other on sunday for the intense sedate nature of the trip we just basically watched dvds that were in the airbnb and then went to sleep at like 11 on saturday that sounds nice it was actually i have to say it's i hope it's the new tradition because i felt a lot better when it was all done than i usually do but anyway derek is uh had bought this very cool place in in everett this mid-century house uh which had a swimming pool and everything and i was like it's so cool i didn't even know this happened ever then he moved away moved to spokane and then our buddy rodin just sent me like a link the other day was like hey have you seen derek move back to everett and look at this place that he bought and i was like what i had no idea there's a whole mid-century situation I thought he had the one mid-century house In Everett but no it turns out it's a whole thing up there There's a lot going on in Everett Everett is a cool town If I you know If I ever decide I'm moving back in that direction I would seriously consider Everett So Jennifer I just wanted to say I'm not sleeping On Everett at all Do not sleep on Everett Possibly sleep in Everett if you buy a cool mid-century house

But do not sleep on it Airbnb maybe in Everett Sleep in Everett

Actually that could be the new

uh that could be the new tagline welcome to everett sleep in us yeah i i'm with you i'm not you know i think of something that you said a long time ago on the show because i i complete i completely agree which is i combined those and it's called complete i complete with you now people don't do this as much anymore and i don't know why i need to take shots at people who did this because maybe they're listening but um i always disliked it when somebody would post on social media like baltimore i'm in you i'm just like all right yeah okay all

right everybody calm down hello and welcome to top story all right quickly on this united airlines story um so they have announced that uh they are not going to charge extra fees for uh people if they're traveling with family members that are under the age of 12 they're not going to charge extra to put those seats together which seems pretty reasonable to me um you know just because like you obviously want to fly with your young children there were some stories you know these are like horror stories but the of kids uh as young as 11 months being placed in a different part of the airplane unless the parents were willing to Thank you. pay whatever the upcharge was to put all of the seats together so they're gonna get can i interrupt

i i read this whole story and i'm just so confused luke i didn't i didn't i'll have to admit that i did not watch the state of the union i understand that this is junk fees somewhat you didn't hear about junk sleep i know about slunk jeep um i i this article mentions that biden even mentioned

this in the state of the union address like it felt pretty pandering honestly when he said it

in the state of the union because it's almost like like i'm running for um school president

and i will catch a cloud and pin it down i'll have recess every period charges what what are

you talking about how would you even do that bro um well just by invoking it clearly now at least one airline is is scrambling to make a change in their policy and others are clarifying theirs but here's what i don't get and this is going to make me sound like a real cold callous bastard and i don't want to sound like that but i'm just legitimately confused because i don't have kids and i've never had to book airline tickets for more than two people before but okay i'm i'm uh a member of a family of four it's me and genevieve and in this scenario we have two imaginary children but they're real in the scenario and their names are ramona and simon right and they're six on the airplane they're six and eight right um so i go to book my tickets and so usually airplanes have like three seats in a row um and so i understand you might have to kind of split up between like maybe you put maybe genevieve and simon and two seats together and then i would book the two seats on the other side of the row or whatever is it just that airplanes are so booked that people are having trouble booking four seats kind of near each other like what where is this up charge coming from i don't i don't get it you can just book whatever this is my sense more and now and

this actually gets into something else that i didn't know until i was listening to the marketplace

morning report this morning with david broncaccio did they promote any other shows on apm tbtl promo they promoted tbtl and oh interesting i was wondering when that our ship has finally

finally good cool um so uh here's my sense of where the cost comes in more and more airlines are charging you extra to even have the right to select your seat of any kind.

It's typical on a lot of airlines.

And this is where I think our friends at Alaska Airlines are actually kind of maybe on the more lenient side, more customer-friendly side, because you can still pick, and I know you fly on Alaska a lot. I believe on Alaska you can still go in and pick some seats. So you might be able to pick four seats together on Alaska. But I think on a lot of airlines, if you want to have the right to select your seat at all, it costs you, and it costs you per seat. Oh, yeah, that is bullshit. That's a special charge.

They should just get rid of that altogether then, whether you're families or not. How do you define family? Well, I guess we're defining it as children, and that is priority.

And under the age of 12. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, okay, I am very, very happy about this because what has happened to me too many times on the flight is I book a window seat. I really like the window. I like staring. I never get tired of staring out of the window of an airplane. I just find it to be very calming. And I also like that I can lean against that wall. It just feels like I only have to like I only have to be stressed about one side of my body when I'm on the window. Whereas if I'm in the middle, certainly it's both. And if I'm in the even if I'm on the aisle seat, I'm worried about bumping people who are walking down the aisle. I just like the window. And it's happened – I also fly a lot, but it's happened many, many times that someone will come up to me. It just happened, I don't know, a month or two ago. I'm flying – this is when I was flying home from Vegas actually doing the story about beatboxing. And I'm on a window, and somebody wants to sit with their kid, and they haven't wanted to spring for the extra cost of just buying their tickets together. So now they're doing that move. And people do this, too, sometimes with their romantic partners, but a lot of times it's with their kids, where they get on the plane figuring, we'll just sort this out when we get on the plane. And who could turn down a seven-year-old child who should be sitting with their parents? And the answer is no one. But that's emotional terrorism to me. If you get on the flight and you have not done the preparation to make sure that your seats work for you and now it becomes my problem where I have to get up and move from the seat that I've been looking forward to being in and have carefully selected. And I really can't – I've never looked someone in the eye that I can remember and been like, nope, not moving because I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Really what I wouldn't be able to live with would be the social judgment. so the idea that there will be less of that happening because people can just like put their kids next to them when they book the tickets and it's not going to be 50 bucks extra or whatever i think that that's a real

positive now now i would say too like that those are frustrating moments if you don't mind me saying and and like you're right maybe reading the story now i would be more compassionate towards the family and just direct my ire more towards the airlines if it's their policies that are forcing families to do this but generally speaking especially if it's just like a couple of adults that want to sit next to each other for fun times um but even with kids like if like i the opposite of you i am very dedicated to sitting in the aisle seat unless i've really screwed something up in my booking and i just have to bite the bullet and take a take a internal seat like a middle or a window but like i get a little claustrophobic i feel like the second if i have a window seat the second i sit down i start thinking i have to go to the bathroom even if i don't just because i'm paranoid about like having to i'm not usually flying first class so crawling over two people and coach to use the restroom and like having to maybe wake somebody up next to me so that i can use the like that is a nightmare for me so like and you know me luke i'm a nice person but i also have my boundaries and that's when i just like put up walls and if somebody said hey listen i really want to sit with my with my eight-year-old kid um will you take the middle seat i would say if you can find an arrangement where i can still have an uh an aisle seat i will definitely accommodate that but i cannot sit anywhere but the aisle i would just say that

and people don't need to know this gets to your good see you have hard boundaries you know and like and and that's a good thing like you just and you don't have that many of them i don't think You know what I mean like it's a relatively Short list because you're just a very Gracious person and you really are concerned about Other people's experiences so you have I think a pretty short list of just like nope But if something it Bumps up against the thing that's on that list It doesn't seem like it's hard for you to say Nope Which I admire because I have a longer list But then I constantly cave on it and then I'm just mad complaining about it on the

Podcast yeah I mean let's see it's been a long Time since somebody's asked me to switch seats so let's See if I could actually you know hold up hold myself up to that but also you know and i mean listen if it's a real situation where a kid really needs to be with their parent and i need to and i absolutely need to make the sacrifice i would do it i'm not an animal i'm not i'm not a monster maybe i should say but like generally speaking like this is not my problem and maybe it's not even that family's problem it's the goddamn airline's problem it is the family's problem in that you wanted to go to

disneyland but you didn't want to spend the extra 25 a ticket to actually be able to pick your seats

well that's when but be careful here because one of the few times i've almost gotten canceled on the show is when i get into you know families flying or whatever and everybody's like it's not going to disneyland it's you know my my grand they haven't seen my grand the kids grandparents haven't seen them in three years and i have a right for my family to see my kids and stuff

I mean, is it a human right to fly to Cleveland? Like, I don't know. But I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm disagreeing with people who are mad at you.

No, I'm just saying that I don't touch that third rail anymore. I mean, go for it. Touch away.

Poke away. Here's actually, though, what I was unaware of until this morning, which is the reason, or at least one of the big reasons, that airlines have really shifted. Because airline ticket prices have actually gone down over time, if you can believe that, because they've kind of shifted the cost more and more to these things that are fees, like a baggage fee or like a pick-your-own-seat fee or like a whatever, right? And the reason they've done that is because those fees are not subject to the same federal taxes that airplane tickets are. Son of a – Right? I mean that's – I mean that's what – that's really – And so now I'm back to blaming the airline. Now I'm actually – I want you to know, family that thinks it's a human right to fly to see the Grand Canyon with your kids sitting next to you but you don't want to pay the upcharge, I'm with you now. So uncancel me, please, because that is some BS, that the airlines are trying to shift their profit to a part of their business that's not subject to the same sort of taxation.

That is ridiculous, and I'll bet you that plays into a lot of the shit with Ticketmaster and all these people who apply service fees to things. You know, I also think maybe some of them. And again, like this is a different kind of privilege. But like growing up, like maybe my attitudes about this is like we traveled as a family when I was a kid. But I never flew until I was an adult. I didn't fly until I was like in my 20s and I had graduated college. Actually, it was the it was the flight out to Boston where I would eventually meet Genevieve and we would fall in love.

But like that, that have your beautiful children, Ramona and Simon. so you never want to frigging pay for to have you like you pay extra to have them in a different

part of the plane and that is messed up and we just we were just a big road trip family you know we were always driving from like ohio to various places like whether it's down to florida or north carolina or whatever like now i understand like that was it was a different time though families are much more spread out now you know like hey i want my you know my kids get to spend time with their grandparents we live in Concord, New Hampshire, and the grandparents live in Arizona, like you can't like take a month off of work to make that drive. But it was just like kind of a perspective thing. As a kid, I never flew. So it just never really kind of played. And then now as an adult, I don't have kids. So this just doesn't play into my life experience. Speaking of road trips, there is a state bill

that's been filed in Florida that would make it, among other things, there's actually a bunch of stuff covered in this bill but it would make it illegal this is a weird construction from catherine don levy in the new york post would make it illegal for dogs to stick their heads out of moving car windows i think it'd be it would make it illegal for owners to allow their dogs to stick i love the idea of like a dog being led away in cuffs for sticking its head out the window lock i feel like you heard the dogs are you know i feel like the dogs are not the ones on the hook here would be the owners of the pets uh it would make it illegal for for dogs to stick their heads out of moving car windows interestingly enough this is an unnamed bill which it's floated by a democrat named who's a state senator named lauren book i think it's interesting that it's unnamed because whenever they want to do something whether it's at the state level or the federal level they always give these bills like a ridiculous you know name that's like often misleading as to what the actual goal of you know it could basically be a bill that's going to make it easier for fracking companies to like light the water that comes out of people's like sinks on fire but it'll be called the like the the land improvement bill or like the you know like the energy independence bill or something it's like there's always like some bullshit this one doesn't even have a name and i feel like it's rife for it like it really lends itself to a name but uh if passed a dog would not be allowed to extend its head or any other body part outside of a motor vehicle window while the person is operating the motor vehicle on a public roadway. It would also greatly limit how dogs could be situated when they're inside a vehicle. They would need to be secured either by a harness or a pet seat belt that is specifically designed for the car and would not be restrained at the neck or inside a crate that adheres to particular size regulations. I'd like to tell you right now andrew this bill is going nowhere i assume but it's not as out there as i would have thought until i was reading that the american humane society has recommended these same rules um based on their research on the matter they say please don't let your pets stick any portion of their bodies out the window although most dogs love to stick i'm reading from the american humane society although most dogs love to stick their heads out open windows the wind can seriously irritate mucous membranes and blow pieces of grit or other debris into their eyes pets could also be seriously injured by objects as you drive down the road there were some other parts of this bill that will never be passed that involve banning cat declawing which i completely support and

also selling rabbits before easter which i would also support that as a thing oh yeah because yeah Yeah, because it's a whim and then people don't take care of them and then bad things happen.

So this is, I mean, my guess is that Democratic State Senator Loren Book is an animal lover and is trying to, you know, propose this to get the conversation going to try to ban a bunch of different things that are not great for the animals involved. Now, I said I could see this both ways because I don't necessarily want a dog to have their mucus membrane dried out by sticking their head out the window. But I also it seems like they love it. I mean, do we assume they love it because they're doing it and because they look like they're smiling? But that's also because the wind is blowing the flaps of their face back. So they just look super happy. Like the aerodynamics of it make them look like they're having the time of their life.

Well, they they I mean, but it's not the thing with dogs. I feel like I just heard somebody talking about this recently. I mean, the thing about dogs is dogs do things that aren't good for them because it gives them enjoyment in the moment. Whereas I think other animals might know like, oh, I shouldn't eat that thing because that is poison to me. Um, whereas a dog will eat all this chocolate, right? And then, and then just deal with the consequences. So they have limited survival instinct. So it seems like a dog. I mean, if you'd rolled on a window and a dog sticks its head out and then continues to do so, which is just one of the, just one of the joys of driving for me as somebody who doesn't have a dog of my own. I mean, I go, I am like a, a, a child at a, well, not a petting zoo. You don't have a log on this flight? I don't.

What did we come down to? What, what, what, where do we land with dog in this fight?

I went with Doug on this flight. Oh, yeah, you don't have a Doug on this flight. Some people say dog. I say Doug because I think it's funny. I just picture, like, some guy named Doug sitting on a flight being like, why has everybody been looking at me?

Could you please move from your window seat, Mr. Burbank, because I've got my kid with me.

Right, exactly. But anyway, I love seeing a dog's head out the window. But just because the dog apparently enjoys it and chooses to do it doesn't mean the dog knows what's best for him. I don't know. I don't want to weigh in on that.

health and safety of this I will just tell you though that like I become a child when I see a cute I mean it's and I could be having the most serious conversation in the world we could be talking about our estate planning and end of life plans in the car but if there is a if there is and fighting about it too and then if there's a cute dog at like sticking head out the window at the stoplight next to us I will interrupt and be like Genevieve dog and we'll be like oh and we'll just melt I love seeing

it maybe I mean it feels like it's also kind of road dependent like maybe the freeway is a bad idea because it's like really fast but what I mean like a neighborhood street is that that big of a deal I don't know like you know maybe it could just be like you can't do it on the freeway it might already be illegal and actually it's probably not illegal I'll tell you what stresses me that the flip out is if someone's on the freeway bombing down the road and they have a pickup truck and their dog is in the back of the pickup truck yeah and i guess the dog still being there means it has the wherewithal to not jump like it would it would be dead at that point if that was its inclination but it stresses me out like a dog kind of perched up on a you know in the back of a pickup truck although ironically that was how i traveled most places uh between the age of 12 and like 17 we were constantly riding in the back of some caleb furling's pickup truck or phil scovren's little like whatever ford ranger like i remember us getting pulled over getting like we were leaving a party luckily we were nerds and didn't drink but we were leaving a big party somewhere up in like bothell and there was like five of us dudes in the back of i think it was phil scovren's pickup truck and a cop started following us and hit us up with his lights and we were just like bombing around these like back roads finally got pulled over and there's just like a bunch of kids in the back again none of us were drinking so that probably the cop was shocked when he got up there and was just kind of like oh i guess you really are just hanging out like a bunch of nerds but like i don't we didn't get a ticket he didn't say like you can't be doing this like it is amazing i survived my teenage years with how much i was i wish this florida state senator would have had a rule about that in in washington because i was

you know it was a near miss for me I saw I don't think I saw the article that you're working off of now but I saw this story bouncing around social media and did you see that there is apparently and I have not looked this up but apparently there is a caveat that if you are driving a pickup truck with Kevin Morby and you have Waxahachie and a dog in the back it's totally

legal as long as you're just coming home from the photo shoot for the album cover right and as long

As long as you're bouncing down a dirt road, a dusty dirt road, yeah.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

All right. Email or V-mail before we get out of here?

Or third option. You know what I decided to do? You know, we have a P.O. box now, a TBTL P.O. box. It's P.O. Box 33687, Seattle, Washington 98133. You can address things to me or just TBTL at large. You don't have to send anything. Like, you don't have to send us gifts. You guys already do a lot for us. But some people do like sending us stuff. And I've got some packages that have been sort of piling up. Instead of dedicating an entire show to that, because I don't know how entertaining that is, I figure maybe every now and then I'll just open one of these packages. Because the people who sent these things are probably waiting to see, like, hey did the guys get the package or what have you so i'm opening up an envelope here luke that is a big flat square envelope we're just gonna go to this being part of the email segment does that

mean we lose the this is my box intro oh my goodness no i you know what i mean that's honestly the only reason people mail us anything is because they want to hear they want to hear that so i mean i feel like we should fold this into the email email segment but we should not lose sight of

the sonic imaging around it thank you for that that was a huge oversight on my part we spent a

lot of money on this intro and we must play it this is my box this is my box i never travel without my box oh what's in the box in the first drawer i keep my magic stones oh what's in the box licorice licorice blood sweet licorice blood sweet licorice have some now i don't know if

there's any licorice now i feel emotionally ready for this part of the segment let me tell you the first so this isn't a box i'm just going to do one one here because again i don't know if it gets tiresome to listen to me opening up packages that the audience can't see but i'm holding a package that is like the shape and size of a vinyl record i don't know if it's a vinyl record inside here i will say that this is coming according to the return address from seattle washington actually very near where you and i used to work at cairo radio in fact but i don't think it's from cairo Radio. And so I will open this up.

now it could be a record it could be a calendar maybe i'm not sure oh you know what it is a calendar and it is called birds of the world the birds of wingspan 2023 wingspan is the bird related game that um genevieve and i play and genevieve just the other day you know how you're surrounded by clocks luke genevieve is surrounded by calendars i was teasing her the other day sitting at her desk she has one wall calendar to her left which is her personal daily life calendar where she puts events that are you know things that she and I need to deal with she has a calendar in front of her desk in which she writes a bunch of work stuff into it and then she's got a marker board calendar also in front of her desk that she is constantly updating and I said do you have enough calendars and she said no actually I need one more for upstairs so this looks like it comes from a listener named um can't quite read the signature but it begins with a k it could be a a kim but it looks a little bit longer than that it says andrew and genevieve couldn't resist grabbing this birds actually calendar for you that's what we call the game birds actually uh thanks for all the laughs love again a caitlin maybe or kim i'm sorry that i don't have a better beat on your name but i will tell you this genevieve is going to be very excited to have this calendar.

That's amazing from that listener. I want to say, though, that, Andrew, you really misplayed this because if you would have just opened something else, and we talked about that, you could have passed this Birds Actually calendar off as your gift to Genevieve. I know. You know what I mean? You could have stolen the valor of that donor, which is really, I think, what this segment is about. You could have been a real hero if you would have just come home one day from your errands and said, oh, hey, Veeves, I thought you'd like this. I picked you up a Birds Actually calendar, and I'm just like, God, the guy's just thinking of me. When he's just out and about living his life, doing his thing, he's still thinking of me.

You know, Genevieve's birthday is coming up in about two weeks, and I'm kind of freaking out because I don't have a good gift idea. I have one kind of jokey gift idea which I want to pursue, but I don't have a good gift idea. By the way, I would like to apologize. I do have the name here. It is listener Krista, who I recognize from emailing into the show and social media. And she also sent us a Happy New Year postcard with a bunch of images of me and you and bubbles and bingo and bananas and just stuff that we've posted to the socials. A picture of me posing with a, was it Mitsubishi Mirage in Denver? And it says, Happy New Year, guys. Thanks for being there and being you.

Will you take a picture of those pictures and send it to me?

Yeah. In fact, what I will do is I will try to post this to our Instagram page. I have this social media policy, sorry about the scam likely coming in on my phone, where I like to post to Instagram about once every three and a half months, but not on any kind of schedule, though, because I like to keep people guessing.

That's what keeps the engagement going. Exactly. I like to post every day, but it's just some bullshit about the cat.

Right.

It's just, I mean, it's an unrelenting stream of cat content. And I'm sorry. It's all I have in my life. My life is very sad, and the small, like, rays of sunshine are when the cat does something cute. The thing I posted yesterday, actually, Andrew, I was in the midst of doing the show with you, and I heard this, like, weird, low, bassy noise. So I paused. I muted my microphone, and I turned around, and Bubbles was just, like, rubbing her face against the door of this room that I'm in, which when the cats are here, they're actually with Becca now. But I have to keep that door just like 2% open because, you know, the cats will freak out if it's closed. But I don't want it fully open because I feel like everything I'm saying to you will just go bouncing down the hallway and my neighbors will be forced. They already don't like my cooking smells, as we learned. Oh, anything up with that?

Have you had any more engagement with that neighbor?

No, I haven't. Although I did. I did, through completely non-weird or intentional circumstances, I did actually find that person's name. And you know what? We're kind of running out of time on today's show, but there's a couple of things involving... I know people can't get enough of my apartment complaints. I've got a couple of updates on Greystar management and the circumstance that led me to know the actual name now, the full name of my neighbor who left me those notes.

So have you been Googling? Is that what you're getting in here?

Well, you're going to have to tune in tomorrow, Andrew, to find out. How's that for a little forward promotion?

I wasn't planning on tuning in tomorrow, but I guess I will. I have a quick question for you before we wrap up. I was going to name today's show Moderate to Severe Bachelor Fridge, which is still a very solid option, I think. But because dogs are sometimes called curs. you are and we're like isn't that not a okay what do you want to say i was going to say um because

we're talking about locking up dogs should we name the show lock cur up or is that just two two on the edge will people not want to click on a show title that is lock cur up i don't think i i i love the humor there i feel like save it for the newsletter destroy that audience just yeah To kill off that audience instead

Yeah yeah that's what I would say I would say let's go ahead and destroy that audience And let's let the podcast audience continue on Blissfully unaware Also I feel like we don't have time to get into this But I feel like Kerr I feel like I've only read it as a negative around a dog

Yeah I'm looking up the definition Sort of old English like oh a Kerr It's almost like It's an aggressive dog or a dog that's in poor condition Or mongrel

Right so you know I don't want to I don't want to get negative on the dogs of the country or the dogs of the world either. It's a slur. Yeah, exactly. We don't slur dogs on this show. That's what I do on my other podcast that I've been recording on the sly, which I'm excited to announce in the coming weeks, where I just make fun of dogs. You know, we rate dogs. This is we rank on dogs. And I just say, really? Get a job. We cap on dogs. Is that what you used to say? We do a lot of capping on dogs. Sure, yeah. All right. Andrew you have to help me remember tomorrow to talk about the stuff that's going on in my building because it's not that it's interesting but it's a big part of what I'm thinking about every day so we'll talk about that and a bunch of other stuff on tomorrow's episode in the meantime thanks for listening have a great Wednesday everyone hope you're alright if you're in a real snowy spot in the country and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all It's exhausting, this hot dog story. Power out.