Muse

Well, well, well, well, well, if it isn't the big-time, hot-shot lawyer, man.

Oh, my God. I do not have time for you. Yeah, sir, we both have busy schedules, so I'll make this quick.

A shot mince words with you for long. I am challenging you, sir, to a duel.

I accept. Are you serious? No, I accept your challenge.

Do you want time to think it over?

No. Nope, nope, nope, not at all. What time were you thinking of dueling?

Any time is good, really. I don't know. You don't have time, because you would have to go out and get a proper gun.

No, I have a gun. I actually keep one right here in the drawer.

You got one right there? I don't need to see it.

I like to keep it loaded, because you never know who's going to walk into a law office these days.

Safety first. So, let's rethink some things. TBTL.

Good afternoon and welcome to Judgment City. You've just had quite a little journey, so for now, relax and enjoy the ride.

I swear, every time this guy talks, all I hear is a turkey goblin. You look like Matlock.

No, I look like a young Paul Newman dressed as Matlock. It's not great.

It's fantastic. You totally undersold it. The pageantry, the costumes, wow. That is obviously what is clear that our view is we don't support that view.

It stinks.

All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Notice me, senpai. Notice me.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You want to do a make-believe radio show in a room somewhere. I'm telling you, there's no money in that. Comedy from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is real cold today.

Snow, snow, and more snow, and you've got a really nasty mixture.

Although I will say that I have come to a sort of a solution, and it's a simple one that a lot of people would have already come to, which is wearing a warmer jacket. Like, ideally and in the long term, I don't want to have to wear a coat when I'm here in the studio or in my house. But for now, I have to because I don't have enough heating set up. I think I was resisting that because I didn't, I don't know, I would just, I was unhappy that I hadn't planned better and somehow just wearing a parka indoors felt like I was giving up. But I'll tell you, it's a lot warmer. We're also today in what I think is the final phase of the pretty noisy construction on the studio.

Perhaps a construction worker with a hard hat, you know, that sweeping sort of hat.

So we may be interrupted by some noise today, but it's really in the final stages of putting on the siding on this building. And then pretty much slam dunks and three-pointers from here. I mean, I have to paint it, like, this spring or summer, but the noisy stuff will be done out here, which is pretty exciting here on episode 4087 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Speaking of noise, Doritos, the chip company. Ridged chips. They are doing what companies like to do these days, which is coming up with some kind of BS type thing in order to get the media to cover them. And it's working because they've come up with something called Doritos Silent, which is some kind of a program. That is, the way they've pitched it is that if you are gaming and you're wearing headphones and you have one of those little kind of microphones near your mouth, but you want to eat chips of any kind, although they would encourage you to eat Doritos, it can actually kind of erase those sounds for all of the other people in your network of gamers to have to hear you crunching on your chips or snacks, because I guess that's an issue. So we'll talk about that a little bit. Also, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day

Do the Blur's Day messages

And we'll talk to this guy The longest running co-bro of the show Maybe best known for his depictions Of the tall ships He's going to drive down over Mulholland And move west past Ventura Boulevard

I know you're just trying to be stupid and ass funny But it's not f***ing funny

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

Could you do about another three to five minutes On your intro? Bro, I'm still working on some Blur's Day editing here.

You know what? Did I? Yesterday I thought that I heard you with your mic open, which you didn't. We cleared that up. Did I remember to promote that it's the Thursday Blur's Day? I don't think I heard that. There it is. I don't think I did. There it is.

Let's go back to the tape after the break. That worked out fantastic. I told you before the show that I.

a little story for you i'm hesitant or i'm struggling with how to begin this because i feel like there's been a lot of as i said before the show old man yells at phone tree and internet talk on the show lately um but i do believe this story has a little bit of a twist to it and not and not a um frankly not an unhappy ending but uh you know how you get a little panicky when you see some like mysterious charges on your credit card or on your bank statement or something. Tell me about it. Well, Genevieve is very good at keeping an eye on our finances and she's got some sort of, I'm going to call it a dashboard, Luke, through one of our financial institutions that sort of keeps track of all of our various bank accounts and checking accounts and credit cards and whatever. It really makes it sound like I'm Mr. Moneybags. I got money all over the place but you know just like yeah you have this thing we have a costco credit card that we use for gas you know whatever we just i've started old credit cards that i don't use anymore but they still sort of show up on this dashboard well um yesterday genevieve flagged something for me she said do you know what these charges are on two credit cards that you have with an old bank and i'm like well i know whatever a sort of a current bank but does start with the numbers okay can i I'll give you the last four digits of my social security number, my mom's maiden name, and $100. So anyway, Genevieve notices.

That's the information I need to move forward with this story. Okay. What if the purchases were happening suspiciously close to where I live?

Yeah, right.

At Bruno's Pizza in Longview, Washington.

You're making me hungry for Bruno's Pizza. I've never even had Bruno's Pizza, but I feel like I can taste it. okay I'll try not to belabor the story but Genevieve notices on two different credit cards that are in my name some charges and one is around I don't know $26 the other one is in the 40s or something all in all I think it was like $70 or $75 so you know money that I don't want to just like piss away but also not life changing it wasn't like you know thousands of dollars or something along those lines but it was a little bit confusing because it was on credit cards which i do not use one of which i don't even have anymore um and so you and i were supposed to have a meeting yesterday with our boss john sklar off yeah and i was trying to squeeze in a call to bank of america before that to see if they could explain this to me um of course the other thing here is not just the money but also do i have to pay this and if i have to pay this um you know like i better what is my what is my deadline on that or whatever because i I don't want to start having bill collectors come after me and ruin my FICO score, which, by the way, I looked at yesterday, and it's pretty damn good, I'll say. Do you have a good FICO score? Is this a subject we shouldn't broach?

I did have a really good FICO score, Andrew. Remember I told you that the company that administrates, I have a home equity line of credit, something called a HELOC, which I'd be happy to list the account number. If anybody wants to steal my identity, please, I'm one of the only people who, if you stole my identity, my credit score would improve. Barking at the he-locks, chasing all the she-locks. Exactly, precisely. So I was going on. In fact, we even got a call from a listener whose mom worked at this particular loan processing place that's not when our listener's mom was there, but in its more recent kind of incarnation, I think pretty notoriously bad. like just mysterioso charges and things that are very hard to get um any kind of uh clarity on and that's sort of what happened to me which was they put some weird charge into my account like the $50 charge that was never showing up on my bill but they are sticking by the fact that I was late with it and even though I have sent in many letters uh faxed in many letters saying this is what happened and you need to take this off they are yet to do it and it dropped my fico score

by like a hundred points and i am not happy about it no not at all i'm the little thermometer are you still even near the green are you in the yellow i think i'm in the i'm i'm i'm not in

like i'm not in the most desperate of straights you can be in but i'm not where i was which is really frustrating because i had i used to go on those like free websites like i'll just give them shout out credit karma and sometimes when i need a little pick me up i'd i'd uh i'd go pop on there and check my credit score and i was it was always well in the green and it kind of made me feel like well not everything in your life is falling apart doing something right now i'm i don't know i don't know exactly where i am because honestly it's a bad feeling to go in there but i'm just going to continue the good news is there's no limit to the number of times that i can challenge this bs thing What I have done is I have a standard letter You had no idea The Pandora's credit report You were opening up Andrew I'm just changing the date on this letter And I'm going down to the UPS

store because for some reason my fax machine doesn't work my printer fax has problems it prints great but fax not so much and uh i go down to the ups store and i fax these people every month and one day that fax is going to land on the right desk and that person's going to go yeah this is bs and they'll take it off and then i'll be back in the green baby that's right that's my

hope anyway well good luck with that um here's how my journey went yesterday so i'm looking at these charges and again this is one of those things i want to well i already said what the cost is so people understand i do think that with sometimes when you see mysterious charges pop up on something and whether it's real or a phishing scam um you can get an immediate sense of panic that can make your decision making not the sharpest and i think that's what happened to you on tuesday or wednesday when we were having that conversation fished yeah exactly i was taught i was relaying your story to genevieve yesterday and i said you know that's something we didn't talk about on the show but also like that's if not tool an advantage of the scammers is if they can figure out like what the right amount of money is so that you don't realize it's a scam but it's enough to get your heart beating in a way and you mentioned that it goes right past your kind of executive function yeah and but then also there's a sense of panic like you know i don't know if that's too strong of a word to describe what you felt on tuesday but like you you stop being sensible sort of and you were like i gotta take care of this right now so i want to make it clear

that you get unreasonable during an unreasonable exactly and i wasn't feeling unreasonable yesterday

i'm like if these have to if i don't get this resolved today like it's okay i can figure this out over the course of time but i did just want to clear the decks on this so i tried to squeeze in a call to bank of america before our meeting and i had maybe like 10 or 15 minutes to do it and i know i'm gonna battle a phone tree because first of all i go to their website to try to figure out how to call them and they're you know there's no numbers readily available they want to do everything online um but i finally find a phone number i call in and then of course it's the phone tree situation it's me talking to a robot who wants to do everything possible to keep me from talking to a human right and it's just aggravating i don't have to go into all the details because everybody has lived through this at this point and they're like well okay we'll get you to a we'll get you to a representative but first what is your issue okay it's a credit card issue okay which credit card is it is it this one or this one you know or type in the last four and It's like, it's a couple of different credit cards. I just need to talk to somebody. And it's like, okay, it sounds like your wife's new name is Targus, Targus. And it's just like, it was just a maddening situation. Now I'm getting very close to meeting time with you and John. Targus, Targus. Finally get to them saying, okay, we're going to put you on hold now. Are you sure you don't want to call back from one of our representatives? We're pretty busy. And I'm like, no, I don't want to call back. I just want to be on hold for a little bit. I text you guys. I'm like, I'm pushing back our meeting a little bit, and I think I'm getting close to a human here. I'm on hold for, I think, a full 10 minutes, and then I just give up. I can't hold up our meeting anymore. I just hang up on the goddamn robots.

Oh, I thought you were on hold the whole meeting. That's interesting. I didn't want to do that because we had some important stuff. I would have been fine with it. I was getting a stove delivery. I know, yeah.

I almost asked you guys about that, but there was some important stuff that I wanted to be there for that I didn't – whatever. I just didn't want to miss the meeting. So I'm like, I'll figure this out. So we finish up the meeting and then I look down at my phone and I'm like, am I going to do this again? Am I going to do this again? I don't even know how I eventually got to the being on hold with supposedly a human, you know, like awaiting me. Like, I don't even know what path I took through this maze. I was circling around like Danny in the shining and the hedges like I was, you know, walking in my own footprint until I finally broke through and then nothing.

And I was like, I can't do this again. Usually you have to do something where you explain that you're injured on the side of the road. That's your best bet at getting a human.

So anyway, I'm looking at my phone. I'm like, no, I can't do this. You know what I'm going to do? I am going to go to a branch of this national bank. I don't know why I'm not saying what the bank is, but whatever.

You already did. It's Bank of America. Oh, shit. Did I say my mom's maiden name? You did. You thought it, and that's all I needed. Shit. It is Bank of America. Come play with us Andy

Nobody go to Bank of America and say I'm Andrew Walsh And take all of my money Okay so anyway so I go to and here's another thing I was telling John about this too When you had to step away for a moment I'm like I'm driving to a better Neighborhood than mine and I'm going to a Bank of America there which I don't Even know if that's a whole conversation I don't know Like it's like a national company It sort of seems like all branches should be Equal but I just had this feeling that All branches wouldn't be equal that one in the u district that i know that you have some stories about way back in the day i was like do i ever i'm like no that one isn't that's not going to be the one for me they're going to be dealing with just like a bunch of like maybe college students and i was just like i'm gonna so i go to like a better neighborhood than my own neighborhood because i think the bank of america is going to be better there and serve me better so i would have done exactly the same thing it raises the question like if if one is using the inequities of our admittedly flawed system to try to solve a different inequity which is whatever these charges were that you didn't do is it okay to take advantage of a of a rigged and unfair system yeah yeah and well i don't even feel

like it's taking advantage of it i can go into whatever bank i want i think it more speaks to like why i mean we're talking about banks now which is different but also food deserts and just like again you and i were kind of chatting about various stuff before the show but like kind of poverty beginning poverty and just like areas like the one i live in just kind of like you just can't you just kind of can't catch a break you know if you're somebody out on your luck uh in a neighborhood like this and just sort of like oh yeah you get the worst you get the worst fred myers the further north you go on a roar until a certain point like the grocery stores get worse

very quick interjection because i'm now apparently in the habit of texting you and genevieve every morning which is kind of a new development in our friendship but um uh you know kenji lopez alt who's the very influential um sort of cook food expert new york times person says that the best like tamales and i think a number of other kind of what we would call mexican uh food items are available in the parking lot of the Home Depot nearish where you live yeah I saw that I really think you should go check that out it looks amazing I lived near that Home Depot a whole

bunch of people sent me that you know I saw really yeah well he's got quite the following special but as do I but I was special you know when I saw like Mexican food in the Home Depot parking lot and I didn't see his name right away I thought it was just somebody talking about El Camion I'm like yeah we all love El Camion but that's had plenty of press it sounds like he was like taking a lady

literally in her van. In her van. It's not a food truck.

Yeah, no, that's pretty cool. But I'll look more into that later.

But otherwise, you're saying a lot of the things that are near your house, because there's some economic instability in certain areas. It's like you're already, people, not you and Genevieve maybe so much, but other people are already dealing with a lot. And then to add a hassle to it, they're also sometimes dealing with the least functional versions of the things they're trying to interact with.

Yeah. And some of them have to do with the health. Like the pharmacies is a big one, like all the pharmacies. I mean, I think there's a huge issue with pharmacies in America right now. I think this part of the country has hit the hardest by it because of some recent things in the market, like Rite Aid, buying up a bunch of Bartel drugs, which was a local or regional chain, and then now closing a whole bunch of them. But it's really weird. Like there is a time when going into like a Walgreens or whatever the equivalent is, they were almost always the same. They were always clean. They always had this sort of like kind of safe feeling to every time I go into a pharmacy these days. It just sort of seems like, whoa, they don't have enough to fill the shelves. It has a very like almost post-apocalyptic feel to them. They're just like, I'm going to get my prescription filled here. I've been thinking about it because I went to just get a wellness check with my doctor a while back, like last week. And they're like, what pharmacy do you want to use? And I'm like looking at the map on my phone. I'm like, well, I'm not going to go to that one. I'm not going to get drugs from that place, at least not.

I mean, ironically, I was going to say, I think ironically, the legal drugs are probably that's probably the least impacted by the general kind of, like you said, sort of dystopian vibe of all of these chain drugstores, particularly in neighborhoods that are more marginalized. where you walk in, and it's just a plastic box with a picture of a six-pack of Gillette racers on it. Right, yeah. And it's just like an increasing amount of the store is that because people were taking that stuff, or at least the store would like you to think people were taking that stuff, which is a whole other conversation, that the fact that the sort of theft from these giant American stores is a larger percentage of it than, the largest percentage of it is from people that work at the stores.

Oh, interesting.

I forget the exact number, but I think it's in the neighborhood of like 60% of the theft from these places are from people that work at the places. But the stores are the companies that are not maybe making the greatest business decisions love the narrative of like these people, you know, theft rings are taking all of our stuff. Again, that is not not a thing, but I think that it's something they like to they like to share that with the shareholders at their meetings because it seems less on them than, yeah, we don't pay our employees enough and they're stealing from us.

Now, were you following this? This was sort of a Seattle story, although I think it might have bubbled out to other areas, too. But this goes back several months now. But here in Seattle, two of the branches of the store Target were closing. And there were ones that were relatively new additions to the Target's Target's family. But they were like ones that were in more urban.

kind of dense areas like the one on the ave which is like the university district um and then

another one i went in that targus targus when we were doing our 4000th episode i was i was walking around with becca on the phone talking me through what sort of skincare stuff remember my forehead was sloughing off because i had caught a sunburn yeah no idea and anyway so that targus targus is

closed now that one's closed and another one that was in a little like kind of another neighborhood of Seattle right and they were kind of a different type of store they're a little bit smaller I believe usually like kind of a couple of different floors to take advantage of the space or whatever because it's a denser neighborhood well Target had Target had to close these two stores for whatever reason but the reason that they gave was crime is too high we tried this experiment but crime is too high in these neighborhoods and so we're closing these stores but then the Seattle Times which by the way is not particularly unfriendly to business did a little investigating and it was total bullshit like the number of the number of calls for shoplifting and other crimes are so much higher at the target that is near my house but that's a more established target it's more of the old model of target and they're not and they're not closing that one they're closing these other ones because they were an experiment those stores were not as good like i love a good target and i hope you were able to get your unsluff offable medicine at unsluff offable in every way.

No, it didn't work for shit. Remember my forehead fell off in the middle of the program.

I do remember. I remember the clanking no, the slushing sound. Like when snow slowly melts and slides off of a roof. That was the sound in the middle of the show. Essentially, physically what was happening to me on stage. But anyway,

no, I mean, it probably was a bad model. They tried something. It didn't work. Somebody was saving their ass and for some reason or somebody was probably in a boardroom saving their own ass by saying, yeah, it's too much crime in Seattle. We had to close these stores. And it's like, I don't think that's the case because, again, people ran the numbers as far as crime related to or, you know, calls to the police department from those stores.

So there could be and I don't want to play devil's advocate, but if I could just pipe up here for the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, there could be maybe two things going on. One is if the store is smaller, maybe as a percentage of the overall like traffic there, fewer I'm sure the Seattle Times would be smart enough to adjust for this but there might be something where a smaller amount of theft even a smaller amount of police interaction for a store that's designed differently might still be enough to make it kind of not pencil out for them but I but I don't know anything about this I didn't read the story this is the first I'm hearing but I will tell you they closed the target in downtown Portland that was a big old huge target and of course exact same thing target was like crime is too damn bad my guess would be it's a little of column a a little of column b but not nearly to the degree that they would like us to believe that it's strictly a matter of shoplifting and i would say it's probably also online like what's really probably more than somebody who's dealing with whatever they're dealing with trying to steal six gillette razors out of that tarjay it's probably jeff bezos who's moving to miami currently like amazon is probably what's really messing with these these these retail locations I would that's really that that's the ProPublica piece is like what is the effect of online of online sales for all of these companies that would for some reason they don't want to blame online sales because it just means they're not competing as well in that space.

Yeah, that's true. That's why I sort of felt like it was somebody it's like the narrative is better for Target if it's not like we ran these stores badly or this was an experiment that didn't work.

It's like us quitting APM right before they fired us.

it's all about optics my friend um but all that is to say like no joke the other day when i was at the doctor's office trying to choose a uh a pharmacy part of me for a second was like should i just like tell them like just send it out to bellevue and i'll drive 40 minutes this is my

point we still haven't even gotten to your bank experience but what i would say is i bet you anything even uh a a drug store a national chain drug store in your neighborhood that doesn't seem like the sort of a lot of the stuff is in full supply my guess is they've got a fine supply of whatever kind of stand relatively standard medication you need in the back you know like i bet you that area because it's harder to get to because to the degree that theft is an issue you know like i bet they've got all of your boner pills that you need have you ever seen drugstore

cowboy now i'm wondering if i should pull if i should sort of uh just to pull pull that scam that they do um all right so here let me let me go to the bank of america in a fancy neighborhood no it's not that fancy of a neighborhood your credit card yeah but it's it's it's not that far from me actually but it's a little bit further south and um i go in and it is a strange experience by the way the bank is nice um inside but it's very clear that just like the pharmacies we do not need these huge brick and mortar buildings.

buildings for these services anymore like first of all the only i mean it's again it all feels a little bit i don't know if i want to use the word dystopian but it's there so i'll throw it out there but like obviously everybody wants us to do everything online and for our banking or whatever and for the most part or maybe for a big chunk a lot of that has brought so much more convenience into our lives like i love the fact that i deposit checks just by taking a photo of them

on my phone but do you save the check because i think that's the the the ultimate trust in that system because i save the checks there's some drawer somewhere with pretty much every check i've

ever deposited on my phone in case i need the receipts i save it for i think a couple of weeks or until i confirm that it has cleared yeah that's the smart that's the smart response yeah i'm just

i'm always like but what if in two years they're like you didn't do that and i'm like guess who's

got this check yeah and who's they i guess the bank in this case but yeah banking i save i save a lot of stuff i'm like well when they come to ask you're like wait who's they and why are they asking um so i go to this bank and it's just strange it's like there's one teller and there's like i don't know and by the way it's it's nice inside it's well lit it's clean and everything it's not dingy or bombed out but like there's probably at least eight teller booths and one teller um and there's no clear place to stand in line there's one interesting because like back in the day when people actually came to banks they would put up those little stanchions right those

little like kind of temporary ribbons or whatever like yeah s curvy kind of thing a little yeah and

a little maze as you wait and uh there was none of that set up because they don't have lines anymore and again this was such a big space and there's like one little island in the middle where one person is filling out like old-fashioned deposit slips or something i don't know what she's doing and there's one guy up at the teller and he is he's like literally getting chat what is he doing he's even asking like okay can i give you change as well like or is that just ridiculous i think he was trying to make a deposit of cash but it included um just all kinds of stuff he just seemed like a young guy who maybe had never been in a bank before i don't know so i'm like sort of milling about like standing i'm like i don't know what the line is like that's not good for an andrew either i know and also like i'm i'm because i figure like i'm wearing this coat with my hands in my pockets i'm like maybe my hands shouldn't be in my pockets i probably look like i'm just like why'd you wear your balaclava i mean it's been cold outside like they probably think i'm gonna rob the bank anyway um because why else would you go to a bank these days so i finally get straight to jail i go up to the teller and they're like oh no no if you have a question about your account one of our associates will help associates will help you go sit in one of those chairs over there i'm like okay so i go sit in these this chair that's just in the middle of this big empty bank it is so weird and then this young guy who works at the bank what was his um I can't remember what his title was it was like banking relations manager or something I'm not sure but anyway he takes me into his little cubicle and I tell him my situation and I show him on my phone like I have these two credit cards and um it looks like there's charge and brand new charges on them that popped up and I say one of these cards doesn't even exist anymore I closed the account on it and the other card I don't even use so I just don't understand what's going on here but I also brought up one thing that I did not mention that I should have mentioned earlier i did a little googling around i mean again the system is so broken i'm just so glad i'm keeping this story short the system is so broken that these i'm not leaving you hanging i'm just muting

a lot no no there's a lot of banging i don't you're fine i want i want you to know that i

agree this story is taking too long it's so long it's not true not true wait hold on what are we in we're 28 i told you i have a quick story we're 28 minutes all right i listen i interjected a

whole bunch of stuff about the about theft within the sort of like employees of store i'm i'm i'm as much a part of this issue as you are and hey you know what we have fun and that's what's important

so i do think the system is pretty broken that i can't get anybody on the phone or through like you know legitimate online online banking to be able to tell why suddenly these charges are on my card and that just that that's what really threw me over the top with xfinity a while back and why we essentially ended up like cutting ties with that company because they would just like suddenly something would cost more money or there'd be new charges and the only thing they would offer you are robots in various forms that kind of give you a vague explanation of how things work with the company but nobody just to say this is why your bill just went up this much or this is why suddenly charges are here i was doing a little googling around before i got to the bank and the best i could get to was reddit where a bunch of people were saying oh yeah these things showed up on my credit card too but they were showing up for me luke like neg let's say one of them was 26 something it would say like negative 26 45 but then i started to realize oh this is a credit card so with

a negative that actually means they may have credited these accounts with some money and when i looked at the description of the um charges it actually said something like internal internal error correction or fee correction late fee correction or something like what is going on and i think what happened was there was some sort of a some sort of maybe a class action lawsuit or bank of america maybe got in trouble or something like that and i've got an account there am i entitled double to honestly see see what it is i found some people saying yeah like the bank ended up like telling me they owed me like a thousand dollars and other people were like well i had me out of a couple of jams yeah other people were like i only got like twenty dollars but still like whatever and people were posting links that probably had something to do with this issue that bank of america was having and so anyway i walk into the bank thinking i probably don't even owe this money they've credited me this money but it's one of them is on a card that doesn't exist anymore on an account that doesn't exist anymore so all of this is to say i'm sitting in the bank i go into ahmed's little office he's the young man who's helping me out he's he kind of look kind of looks like this is the second reference this week he kind of looks like otto from the simpsons i don't know if that's a look that kids are back into these days he's a kid he's a professional banker he's like probably in his uh late 20s early he's a relationship expert

rancher didn't you see it on his little thing on his desk but he's kind of got a long curly hair

and he's very friendly uh and uh and i kind of tell him my situation and he's he's like oh yeah no these are credits but yeah you couldn't even he's like the one credit on the card that you still have you could just go spend 50 bucks or whatever like on us but this other card you couldn't even use those funds because that card is gone i'm like can you just help me roll these two you know credits into my checking account or whatever he's like i can sort of i can get them on the phone for you he's like we can't do this stuff on the local level the only thing you can do this through is the phone tree and i was like i this is a problem that can only be solved in bangalore india i was like and i wasn't like shirty with him at all like he was very friendly right it was the whole thing was not his fault no the whole thing was actually kind of funny i kind of i wanted to be his buddy at the end um but uh so like he's like yeah and he's like kind of laughing he's like we just got a call he's like but the thing is i have some codes and he holds up a piece of paper so he basically just calls the same phone number that i was that i called at home and tried to break through the phone tree except he he mumbled some code he didn't mumble but he like said some code and then answered some questions about who his bank manager was and where he was stationed or whatever and that cut him in line through the phone tree so he was able

Ah, so he was basically like employee 7432 calling in, and then so there's some kind of special pathway for that.

Yeah, but it wasn't his employee number for whatever it's worth because he was kind of like wry about it. He has this piece of paper that he picks up with just like codes for various issues and that he can get directly to a department at the National Bank of America phone network.

I got to get my hands on one of those sheets. I know, that's the key.

forget getting to Mike Tyson. I need that cheat code. Well, when he first was saying this stuff to get through, I'm like, I should be recording this. And like, I literally had that thought. It was too late. But then he also had to give his manager's name and some other information that potentially could change. So I was like, all right. But all of that is to say, he calls in and then hands the phone, the landline phone across his desk to me so that I could talk to the customer service person at Bank of America HQ, who then it took just to move these two relatively small credits into a different account took forever. You just hear him typing and typing and typing and then has to read this really long thing about moving $27 over. And then I have to say, I consent at the end or something like that. And then the whole thing has to happen again for the $47. And again, like Aved is just kind of like looking at me, kind of grinning and we're just like shaking our heads at this process i'm like i just want to maybe after this whole thing is over i'm like you want to talk to ahmed again i say that to the guy on the phone and ahmed looks at me like he kind of gives me the like cut cut across the throat sign like no i don't want to talk to that guy like me and him we're just like broing down at this point um but all of that is to say what are we doing with that 74 dollar ring my question he says uh he says i i ask him i says to do with my says well maybe i should just cancel this other card too i don't use it anymore he's like yeah and he gives me this right smile he's like the only way to do it though is to call he's like and if you want to do that the best way to get through is to come here if you basically saying if you want to use my phone again come on in and we'll call the bank masters for you i'm like how is this the only way to do banking in 2023 this doesn't make any sense Thank you. although i mean it's it's it's a ludicrous kind of you know ridiculous way to get things done which things that are pitched to us as easier to do now you can bank from home andrew but really i mean this feels like it's right out of the movie brazil something that we refer to a lot like now you can bank from home but really what you have to do is go to the bank because they can call the place better than you can so not only do you have to still go to the bank but you have to do something more annoying at the bank um but that being said it is sparking something in my mind that's like if i'm having trouble with xfinity because i still have that service probably sadly the most efficient way for me to deal with it is to drive down to one of those brick and mortar xfinity stores and have them call them like that's where we're at with this stuff they probably can't do it there but i can hang out with somebody while watching the weird mindless loop of Xfinity content on various large screen TVs in the retail location and yeah I mean

I I just couldn't help but to like stand in the middle of this bank and look around me it's just like all this empty space with two customers in there about four employees in a neighborhood where that real estate would be worth so much money and I'm just like this is a phone booth you guys just

have the most expensive phone booth in america and i would say not to center myself in your story but i've been thinking about this lately because i've been dealing with things in this crab rangoon and things in this kind of neighborhood of like trying to get some help on various things and and just not being able to talk to any human being who can help i feel like i am someone who is maybe from my generation anyway the most negatively impact impacted by this maybe i'm not more impacted than other people but it feels worse to me because i am a person who always thinks i'm going to get a better outcome if i can just talk to someone and this actually ultimately is because i've been basically getting special treatment my whole adult life i've been the person who didn't bring their passport to the cruise leaving from long beach out to mexico and yet found a guy who just let me and carry in the back door like i have been and feel your friends on board that That was also followed all the rules. Yes. Yes. And but by the way, your your hands aren't clean on this. You and Genevieve were who mailed me my passport. But like, in other words, I have lived a life where I've been oftentimes mildly in the wrong or mildly inattentive or asking for some kind of like, I know this is the rule, but could you maybe help me out? And that's mostly been facilitated through me sort of, quote unquote, charming people over the phone in person. I've just lived a life where I've kind of thought that the the general rules don't totally apply to me, which, by the way, I'm not defending that as an approach to life. I'm just saying it's how I've gone through life. And so what I'm finding at age 47 is that now that we're all now that the playing field has leveled, now that I'm just talking to the same bot that everyone else is, I'm miserable. Because I didn't I didn't ever want to follow the rules, but now I can't charm that bot at all. So I guess what I'm saying is I am getting my comeuppance for, you know, for an adult lifetime of always trying to kind of get special treatment and, you know, a little bit of just extra extra bit of lovin. Now those chickens are really coming home to roost for me because that's really moving off the table. There's just there's just not a lot of, you know, special treatment going around because the human beings who used to be more likely to do that are not working at places anymore.

Yeah. Well, if you ever run into any issues with Bank of America or maybe even Xfinity, I recommend checking in with Ahmed over in the Green Lake neighborhood. Oh, yeah, dude, my old stomps.

You can't. No wonder it worked out. Green Lake can't go wrong. Hey, I've got a quick question. And how are you, TBTL listeners? I think the reflex for most of us, the go-to is just to say that we're fine. But in fact, a lot of us are maybe not doing so great. Maybe we're unfortunately even feeling kind of terrible. But thanks for asking. Here on this show, of course, we lead with how we're not feeling great. Maybe we had to drive to the bank to call the people at the 1-800 number so we could clear up some credit issues. Anyway, Nora McInerney is our friend and the host of Terrible Thanks for Asking, which is, as you might know, a narrative interview podcast. And Nora asks real people about the truth about hard things in life. Nora lost someone very close to her and through that experience has really developed this incredible capacity for dealing with grief and helping other people through their grief. She's kind of like the best person I know out there for that stuff. But that's not the only person Nora is. She's also behind the newish show called It's Going to Be OK, which is a little daily dose of good vibrations, even though maybe the wider world doesn't.

feel so totally awesome it's going to be okay does remind you that things are maybe kind of okay out there you can find terrible thanks for asking or it's going to be okay or even more about nora's bestseller bad vibes only by going to her instagram page checking out website or get the audio wherever you get that sort of stuff hey let's thank some donors who are making tbtl possible even though andrew recently came into 74 us that was the point

of that story and i appreciate you highlighting that i was just trying to flex a little bit i'm

Yeah, it worked, but we still do need to actually do this for our jobs, and we're only able to do that because of donations from folks like Max McDaniel right there in Seattle, Washington.

Hey, I wonder if Max goes to the same Bank of America.

I love the name Max, by the way. I've always really liked it, and so maybe it jumps out in my mind when I read a thanks from a Max. I wonder if Max is one of our more over-indexed names on the show.

I feel like we've got a few Maxes. Oh, we do. That is true. We have a few. My grandfather's name was Max. Ooh. Yeah. He was an interesting guy. He worked in a toll booth for a while, the Turnpike in Ohio. He drove one of those Lance snack trucks for a while. Lance is a brand of, like, snacks in the Midwest. He had an interesting life. Was he married to one of your chuchas? Well, no, but he was married to my grandma and her sister.

Clink, clink?

Grandma clink clink, grandma simsic. Her sisters were my chuchas. And, yeah, Max was her second husband. She was a widow.

Did he ever go to Samoski's Pizza, where Lenny Samoski's family worked?

I don't think so.

Nope. I'm just trying to flex on remembering names from your childhood.

Any Polish names. Yes.

Any Polish names will do.

I'll check with my friend Dave Smilek, see how he's doing. Oh, my God, dude.

I told you I was reading this terrible book recently. terrible but great book, Kingdom of Bones. Oh, yeah.

I believe that's an Alpha Sigma. It's a Sigma Force book. It's a Sigma Force book, yes.

And I just want to be your Sigma. And, of course, there's a guy named Kowalski, as who's part of Sigma, Andrew. Kowalski has got every single trope of just kind of like a grumpy Polish-American guy who's just like, when do we get breakfast? It's just like, oh, God, can't we give, can't Kowalski be the scientist, please?

I'm with you on that, but also, when can we get breakfast?

Kowalski raises a good point. We also want to thank Rachel Johnson down there in Auburn, Washington.

Oh, great. Thanks, Rachel.

Look at Linda Doyle in Baronia, Victoria, Australia.

Now, would that be Linda Power Out Doyle? I mean, I'm guessing at this point. There you go. Oop, show's over.

Yep, sorry. Why'd you do that?

Stray is a wonderful island.

You know how, well, you don't know this because you cut the cord, but when you have whatever the Xfinity cable is, if you hit pause on what you're watching, after a while it goes into screensaver mode on the TV. And I kind of actually enjoy those photographs. They're always just very kind of beautiful, Often like landscapes and different kinds of terrain From all over the world And last night I had paused the TV And it was doing a new series of photos And one of them was called Devil's Marbles And it was in And I just looked at Andrew and I went Northern Territory And sure enough it was I don't think we saw that when we were driving through But I was like I felt kind of like happy That I was able to just identify The like the geography and the topography and the vibe of the Northern Territory. Speaking of

pausing things, you gave a little put down to Jeff Bezos before, so time for me to give him a put up. That's how it works on this show.

Finally, a W for Jeff. I will say one of

the coolest features of the streaming services is on Amazon Prime TV. When you pause it and it tells you everybody who's in that scene And if there's music I do like that

Oh my god It's so cool No that is I will say That you know They've definitely And also for their Like footballs Coverage They've They've really made it a goal To kind of Blast you with information That some of it is Actually pretty relevant Some of it is actually The stuff that you're like Turning to whoever you're watching With going What was that person in Yeah It's like they've kind of They have They have figured that out

which is, you know, that's something. That's at least something.

Thank you, Linda, and thank you for being a voice on the show, exactly.

Thanks to Emily Mann as well, who's in Tucson, Arizona.

Arizona!

Thank you, Emily. Thanks, Emily. Appreciate you. I wish I was in Arizona right now. I'm guessing it's not like, you know, 90 in Arizona, but it's probably not 33 or whatever it is here. You know it's a cold day because the guys, Miles and Jason, that are finishing up the siding project here, and jokingly said, I'm in my little Mr. Rogers sweater, and I've got a sweater under that, and I'm pumping two different heat sources inside the studio, and I opened the sliding door to say good morning to them, and they were like, we need a third set of hands, and they were just messing with me. But they just wanted to see the look on my face.

I love these guys.

That's when you know it's cold, because they're just like, this little Lord Fauntleroy, this Dauphin in his little podcast chamber would not last two minutes out here. And the answer is the truth of the answer is no I would not.

You're holding a little cup of tea with two hands with a single bit of steam coming off of it. It's cozy season. It's 58 right now in Tucson, Arizona, which is colder than I would have expected. 58.

Thanks Emily. Thanks also to Anne Vu who's in Portland

Oregon. Long time friend of the show. That's right.

i i am thinking that i don't know what am i putting ann on blast if i talk about their um like um what's the word i'm looking for like their uh twitter photo i believe it used to be like a cartoon tiger or something yes it's so funny that's like yes i can totally picture it yeah that's that's where ann is ann has been living in my mind for many many years although now i'm not on that platform anymore i don't know if ann's there but uh thank you so much for the longtime support of this tbtl project and for just hanging out with us in the various cyber communities also thanks to amy rubel who's in tacoma washington every once in a while i like

to say washington just to make sure no i like it also that paper plant now i think is officially shut down in tacoma right really they're all moving down here yep that was a that was a

an interesting moment when they were like well the bad news is we're closing this one but we are going to be moving 150 of those jobs to right by luke right that's what the newspaper said and

i was like well how specific that's interesting they they really centered you on that one too

they did although i will say that i've been i don't know if it's just the time of year you know it's funny i could actually ask um the guys working on on this place because they've you know grown up around here and they're for generations and and they always talk about the fiber it's they don't call it the paper mill down here it's just called fiber and in fact the area where that stuff is is called the mint farm which is actually kind of a great name I don't know how it got that name it must have been a mint farm a long time ago but like there's um uh I don't know if it's just the time of year but I have not been hit with too much of that kind of you know sulfuric as they used to say the aroma of Tacoma um did I tell you it was the oddest thing right not long after that story we were talking about how you know that this this legendary paper mill I say legendary because if you lived in the northwest for many many many years my whole growing up there was this paper mill and it would it would pump out that smell that paper mills do and we would say it's the aroma of Tacoma as we would drive through and I end up on doing wait wait don't tell me I don't know a week or two later and it for some crazy reason so they're interviewing

the guest was Mark Ronson oh wow I was just watching a movie this weekend and I did not realize it was a Mark Ronson that was based on a Mark Ronson book it was the men Mark Ronson wrote a book oh is Ronson the music producer he's the music guy oh I'm who's the guy who's like who used to be in this American life he's an author oh John Ronson John Ronson you're not Mark Ronson

Was it The Men Who Stare at Goats?

Yes, exactly. I knew he had done the one that the movie Frank was based on his work, but I didn't realize that The Men Who Stare at Goats, which I saw in the theaters forever ago, I re-watched it. I think it holds up, by the way. I loved it. I saw it also in a theater. Yeah, it holds up. Great watch. Anyway, that was John Ronson, but Mark Ronson is the producer who worked with Amy Winehouse and what have you, I believe.

Correct, and he's written a lot of big hit songs, and he wrote a bunch of songs for the Barbie movie, Or at least I'm just a Ken Anywhere else I'd be a 10 So all of that is to say For some bizarro reason One of the questions they posed to Mark Ronson Involved the aroma of Tacoma Oh wow And I mean if you can imagine How hard it was for me to sit on my hands Like when they're doing those interviews The Not My Job interview It's like every once in a while We the panelists will maybe chime in To just add a little variety But it's not really about us It's not really our time I always feel like I'm going to mess it up If I. get too into it but just imagine like you're me you're sitting on stage and they're asking mark ronson about the aroma of tacoma i'm like i have relevant interest or a relevant experience

to this topic and i'm sorry you probably said this but was this somewhat recently because it was in the news or was this just a long time ago and it's totally random it was recently but it

felt random it was i think it was about songs it was because you know he's um he's obviously a musician and a producer so it was something about the fact that a song had been written called the aroma of tacoma so i don't think they even knew like nobody on stage except me andrew knew that the literal the thing they were referring to was actually on you know was scheduled to close down

interesting yeah that would have been hard for you to pipe up oh i probably didn't but i bet they

cut it out i don't know i don't listen speaking of which i'll be back out there next thursday if If we have any Chicago 10s who are, you know, bored on a cold Thursday night in the Windy City, I'll be down at the Studebaker Theater getting my weight on. So maybe I'll see some of you out there. Anyway, thank you.

Yes, thank you, everybody. I was also going to ask you, Luke, do you have Kamarakev's number? Do I have Kamarakev's number?

I have it memorized. I am listening to— You know what's one of, like, the only phone numbers I can tell you from memory?

I think mine and Genevieve's are the only ones.

Can I say it to you, and then can you bleep this out?

No, I don't trust myself to beep it I trust you that you know it You trust me to not say it

More than you trust yourself to beep it

This apparently is a song called The Aroma of Tacoma But it is from the Jean-Claude Van Damme No Retreat No Surrender Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Is that shot in Tacoma? I don't know

But I mean, the album art of Jean-Claude Van Damme And some other person that he's boxing with I mean, this is pure Camaro Kev right here

Well, of course, if it's in the Van Damme oeuvre, Kamero Kev's going to know it. I'm also just, like, personally working through some shock that I could tell you his phone number right now off the top of my head, because that's a very short list of phone numbers, and you know what it really is. I became friends with him at a time when cell phones were so nascent. I don't even know if you could, like, save someone's number into your phone at that time. Maybe there was a function for that, but I didn't know how to do it. Like, there was no digital screen, per se. Like, and so I would just dial it many, many times when I would be like a Friday night. Like, are we going out? But then any, any number, any new number after that has just been in the era of programmability. And so that's like one of the very, very, you know, I know my, my childhood phone number was 206-524. Wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

Take your time. Andrew, I think I've forgotten my childhood phone number.

Oh, no. I was going to ask you that before you even started on that, because that's the only... I can remember my number, Genevieve's number, and my childhood phone number. No, no.

I just got it back. Okay. I just got it back. You just had to relax your brain. I think that banging helped jar it loose. I had a really cool phone number growing up. By the way, I love that I listed the area code, but that was also superfluous in those days, because you weren't calling anyone in any other area code, right? Exactly, yep. But now, because we're all carrying our cell phone from somewhere that we lived, my phone number was 522-3388.

Wow, okay. That's pretty good. Yeah.

I liked mine a lot. 522-3388. Do you realize what the bonus at Goldie's would be if you were playing the progressive on that? 223388? That's pretty dope.

My childhood number was 4833430, which I always liked that one. It seems very satisfying to me. It's very refreshing numbers, which I can't explain, but I feel.

What I'm trying to remember, and what was confusing me, was my dad's sign shop number I think it was 525, it was 206, Andrew, it was 525-0418, 525-0418 Because that was also the thing, we used to call my dad's sign shop constantly Like, dad, can you come home, you know

And I don't have to beep any of this, right, this is all No, these numbers are all These are all, I don't think they're working numbers anymore You don't know my number, do you? You don't have to say it here, but you don't know my number.

I know that it starts with, I'm going to say, a New Hampshire area code. That is true. Is that too much of a... No, that's fine. Yeah. But after that, I don't know.

So if anybody wants to reach me, call, just start with 603-0000-0000, and then go up to one, then two, then three.

New Hampshire feels like the kind of place, though, where there might be like, and I say this with peace and love, I mean, what are there, 80 cell phones in New Hampshire? seems like the place where you might actually get lucky people might be able to guess your number that's not really how any of that works by the way the fact that there are fewer cell phones doesn't make guessing your number easier but in my mind it's like it just seems like a flinty place where most people eschew cell phone technology and and small right i was just looking

The population is like 1.4 million people live in the entire state, which is relatively small.

But again, guessing your phone number would not be impacted because the combinatorics of your phone or the potential number of arrangements of the digits in your phone is unrelated to the number of people that live in New Hampshire. Sure, yeah. It's kind of like playing the Powerball.

Powerball. Powerball. We can't say Powerball anymore. No, we can't.

That's just fine that that's been ruined for me, but it's not a board I need to use a lot anyway. but um yeah people i always joke like i only play the powerball when it's like 500 million dollars and it's like the chances my chances of winning the powerball powerball if it's at a 10 million or 500 million are exactly the same but what increases is the chances that i might have to split the winnings with someone else the more people that are playing it the more chances that someone else may guess the same numbers so that's really the only change you're trying to guess what this series of numbers would be or in my case you're letting a computer at the arco try to guess what this string of numbers might be but that is unaffected by how much money is on the

line i want you to know that i did send because i i will want to circle back to this later i'm really astounded that there is a song called the aroma of tacoma on the no retreat no surrender so well i've texted kevin and so i said what can you tell us about this we're recording right now i why don't you talk it over at the eagles tonight if he texts are you you're not curious about this at all, that the song possibly that Ronson was talking about is from a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie? No, no, I'm very

no, no, I didn't mean that, I wasn't being dismissive I was making a joke about the fact that your orbits overlap enough that you could just discuss it at your local law. Oh, and I'm sure we will yes, and then I'll. That wasn't me saying like, you know do it on your time. I

really did think you meant that, I was like, wow, that's pretty harsh but anyway, yeah, because if Kevin gets back with a lot of dazzling deets, I might literally have to dial him up, let's just see how this goes. Okay, alright

Thank you.

Now I realize, Andrew, that we kind of went over the river. Is it called Going Over the River on a Blur's Day? I don't know, man. We just skipped right over the top stories. We'll get to them tomorrow.

Yeah, we'll just do Blur's Days here. It was a fun show. I don't even remember what we talked about, but we were like on a lazy river.

I finally put corporate America on notice that they're not going to get away with their lies anymore about shoplifting being why the stores are failing.

And then I complimented Corporate America by saying, I like it when you pause things and it tells you who the actors are.

Yeah, you came in classically in your pro-Jeff Bezos stance. That's the takeaway from today's episode.

That isn't huge. Hey, I stuck out that claim a long time ago. How are the batteries looking on your sound effects box? Or how are we doing this? Because I am telling you, Luke, we got a lot of them today. Let's see here. We have a lot of blurses.

I've got this, but I've also got, you know You got your computer? I've got my computer, Andrew, and I'm not afraid to use it Are we getting some, because, you know, last week was Thanksgiving And we did some pre-recording So is that how we ended up with a real kind of I don't want to say glut Glut sounds somehow slightly pejorative It's not a good word, glut, is it? An abundance, Andrew

An abundance, yes A larger celebration than usual? Possibly

Sure, okay Well, I'm ready to go. I'm actually going to use this drop. That's it. That's synth vocal one, C2.

After each Blur's Day, just drop that. That's got some real Targus energy. Biagio is up here first. Biagio says, wishing a happy Blur's Day to Marika. You're an incredible woman, a dedicated post-grad student, and loving mother. Let's put another log on the fire. Uncork the wine and cheers to another year of laughter and love. May your coffee be stronger than our toddler's tantrums. Aw. Happy Blur's Day, Marika.

Also, Andrew, I have entered some kind of parallel dimension of my sound effects that I don't even know how I, how did I even get here? Hold on, hold on. Please hold. Stranger things. Oh, we got it back.

There it is.

Okay, good. Thank you. We got it back.

Ooh, this segment would be rough without that sound.

I can also play C4. Oh, wow. So, you know. Do you want me to play that theme song from Home Alone that I was playing yesterday?

Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no. That one's legit bad. Let's retire that. Sierra says, happy Blurs Day to Melissa. You are the best room.

You know what, by the way, I think there was an addendum to this. That was just like a note to me. I think Sierra and Melissa became roommates, then discovered that they're both TBTL10s. How is that possible? You're like the coolest person I've ever met. So anyway, happy Blurzy to Melissa from Sierra. You are the best roomie ever. You're so much fun and such a kind person, plus the best piano player I know. Thank you for showing me the ropes for living in Seattle and for making me feel at home in the big city. I hope you have a great rest of your birthday week. Happy Blur's Day, Melissa. Show and Aaron both say happy Blur's Day to our wonderful friendo Krista. I think that's Krista in Eastlake. Looking forward to celebrating you this Thursday over margaritas and tacos. We are quite sure that we'll be having tacos tonight. And by the way, Sho and Aaron also wrote a special birthday song. I might have tacos when I go home. I'm not quite sure yet. For Krista, which they will sing to her tonight. I'm not singing. I'm not singing during the segment. Got to have boundaries. I'm singing. I'm in a store and I'm singing. El says, or a.k.a. El Ropo, which I'm told is a TBTL reference. This is not Steve Nelson. This is...

El says,

Thank you, Danny, for coming into my life at just the right time. We quickly learned that we have so much in common. We started tagging texts with hashtag same brain and have been inseparable for seven months now. I'm so excited. We're building a home together and look forward to a lifetime of tomorrows in your orbit. I love you crazy. Happy Blur's Day, counselor. You're my world. Eric in Walla Walla, Washington, says, Happy Blur's Day to Lindsay. This year has been a doozy, and sometimes, to quote Andrew, things are hard. For one thing, it's mighty hard. Simmer down, Stu. For one thing, it's mighty hard to co-create great foods with Lindsay Liu in a half-deconstructed kitchen, but with a little help from our friends and occasional heart-to-heart and martinis, You, Luna Tuna, and I are getting through it, and it's all 360 spins and slam dunk pointers. Perfect. That sound was not dissimilar from this bass sound. Hit it again. Okay.

That's bass hype to KC, as a lot of people probably already knew.

That's very close to the note of the bass, I think.

I'm trying to, it's my audition to be in Tim Heideck, this band. I don't know who that is, and I don't care to find out.

I need to binge some more On Cinema at the Cinema this weekend now that we have a password.

Oh, my gosh, dude. I have been—I don't have the same access you do. Oh, yes, you do. I send it to you. Well, I was trying to, like, you know—I believe in paying for content, Andrew. I don't mind passwords, Sherry. I've been letting it just—I've been letting those On Cinema bits just really roll on my TikTok feed, which means I'm getting more of them delivered, and golly. It's just—it's so difficult. If you haven't watched that, if it's not for you, it's so difficult to try to describe what the kind of subtle, weird genius of those things is. I mean, it's impossible to try to tell somebody about it. They just have to watch it, and they're either going to love it or be like, why on earth would you watch this?

And it's also good to know the context. It's been around for 10 years now, and it started as such a small little webisode type of thing with just simmering tension between these two hosts. But then over the years, the plot line has somehow gotten so big that Tim Heidecker looks totally different in today's version of that because he's already become Decker and a huge star in his universe. He's lost a bunch of weight now. But not just that, but the way his character has changed so much from just being like a kind of a middle-aged dopey guy to somebody who supposedly had success in both rock and roll and the big screen or something. Like, how did such a tiny little six-minute show span so much time and have so many changes in the characters?

Like, the one where I guess the Greg Turkington character, who was also named Greg Turkington, so it's confusing. I think he was, like, maybe in the movie Ant-Man. Oh, yeah, he actually was. Yeah, right. I think he was, like, a cameo. So you've got Tim Heidecker giving it the lowest ranking of any movie. they've ever reviewed on the show.

He's just

eviscerating the film.

He's so insecure and jealous. Oh my god, that's so wonderful. I love it. Pie. It just fills the cracks of the heart. I think we'll pick up here. Andrew says not me, Andrew. This is a different Andrew. Andrew says, happy Blur's Day

to my fantastic partner and my love whom I love, Anna. You're such an amazing person, and I'm so lucky to have you in my life. I hope you have a great day filled with lots of sleep, reading about pirates, and listening to this being read by your friends in Seattle. Cute. I am extraordinary. Steven says, I want to wish a happy Blur's Day to my TBTL daddy, my fiancé, Jay. We know Jay. Happy Blur's Day, Jay.

What up, Jay? Hey, congrats on the engagement.

That's right.

I hate to be a gossip. Just kidding. I love it. What was that? Somebody's saying, I hate to be a gossip. Just kidding. I love it. I hate to be a gossip. Just kidding. I love it.

Jay, I love you, and I'm so glad I've gotten to live with you the past year. I can't wait for our wedding, but in the meantime, happy birthday. Cute.

I like to party.

Do you like to party?

Sounds like we have some folks living in sin here, Luke. I don't know if I really should have read that, honestly.

Issues with morals. There's a moral turpitude clause for this program.

Kevin, I love the idea of me criticizing people for, quote-unquote, living in sin.

He's a prisoner of his own grievances.

Is it next month? Next month, V. Tenai will be celebrating 23 years of living in sin.

Oh, my gosh. Cute.

Our anniversary. Whoa, that was me.

Yeah, how odd is that, that I managed to have a drop called Our Anniversary Andrew Clam voiceover.

Oh, that's anniversary. Oh, goldfish. Oh, my goodness. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Kevin in Charlottesville, Virginia says, Happy Blur's Day to my wife, Lou. Lou just had her birthday on Thanksgiving Day. Sucky, right? I don't know. I've had my Blur's Day on Thanksgiving before. I kind of like it. But anyways, we had a great birthday slash Thanksgiving, but it would be so great if you could wish her a happy belated birthday. Lou teaches art to kids and college kids. She makes art all the time. She loves TBTL, and so do we, me and our 11-year-old daughter. Happy Thursday to Lou. Aw, thanks, Lou. These are the best Cajun chicken niblets I've ever had. From Amy to Heidi, wishing the love of my life the happiest of birthdays. I can honestly say you are my favorite 10.

Just study it out and you'll see.

And finally, Jake, the perfect daddy says, I want to wish Nick. I want to wish Nick the perfect 10 a happy 33rd birthday. Nick, by the way, in Connecticut now. Nick, a long time from Florida, then lived in the Twin Cities for a while. But I believe, I think Connecticut. I always try to say that extra C. Who is my daddy? What does he do? But anyway, only 33. How is Nick such a kiddo? I want to wish Nick the perfect 10 a happy 33rd birthday. It always makes me so happy that more than a decade after living together, we can still connect through TBTL. As Jen prophesied many years ago, TBTL is curing global loneliness. What a great. We love both of them. That's right.

When was the last time you shit your pants?

I was going to say, what a perfect way to end this segment.

Well, no, honestly, no, but that's TBTL canon. I'm sorry about that.

Sorry, Billy Joel. We did start the fire. All right.

All right. Happy Blur's Day to everyone this week, and thank you all for listening to TBTL. Maybe I'll see a couple of yous at the Research Center for the Performing Arts tonight in Beaverton, Oregon. We're doing Livewire there, and one of our guests is Lindy West, Andrew.

Oh, yes.

The one, the only, Lindy West, friend of the program.

You say that new podcast is pretty bomb, huh?

Oh, my gosh. It makes me want to be a better podcaster, Andrew, because it's so good. It's called Text Me Back. It's her and her friend Megan. It's produced by our friends over at KUOW. Yeah, and Jeannie. Jeannie Yandel. Who's been on the show before, friend of TBTL. I'm a big fan of Jeannie. Yeah, so anyway, maybe I'll see some folks down there tonight. For the rest of you, I will see you right here on the imaginary radio tomorrow with more TBTL. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all and kevin how about texting me back from time to time and when he said that that shocked me

don't trust big banks or small banks banks or ponzi schemes run by morons whatever happened to hey i have some apples would you like to buy them yes thank you that's as complicated as it should be to open a business in this country. Power out.