Muse

The goal of this meeting is to get everybody excited about their resolutions. Who's been good about their resolutions so far? Well, my goal was to learn a new word every single day, and I must say that it is going immensely. Creed, I noticed you don't have a resolution on the board. What's yours?

I want to do a cartwheel, but real casual. I can not make a big deal out of it, but I know everybody saw it. There's one stunning, gorgeous cartwheel.

How's it going?

I'm having a little trouble motivating.

One of the hardest parts about making resolutions is keeping them. In fact, most resolutions are abandoned by February.

Or sooner. It's not a joke.

But that's okay, because it's not about being perfect, it's about trying.

I said that I would eat more vegetables, and I haven't yet. But it's okay. I still have time, since last year I ate none.

TBTL!

I saw a woman psychiatrist and she said I was OCD, one cool dude, and she understands the way I think right now, and everything's cool, everything's cool, pathetic, everybody's happy, and I'm happy too.

How drunk are you?

A lot to vary.

This is what happens when you hire two guys with a podcast.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome to 2024. for friends and tens and listeners and people trapped in a room or a car with someone listening to TVTL here on this special Monday edition. Yes, it is the Winter Games. Yes, it is New Year's Day. Yes, it is episode 4109 in a collector series. And yes, my name is still Luke Burbank. Right over there, my friend, still the longest-running co-bro of the program. In fact, getting ever more long running with each episode is Andrew Walsh. Hi there.

How are we handling the glasses this year? Are we, is one eye looking out the zero of 20 and the other eye is looking at the middle of the four? Is that what it is? Actually, it's a good year for this. Because of the four? Like if you close your four out of top.

2020 is probably the best. Yeah. Well, 1900 was the best, but I'm guessing they didn't go in for this kind of frivolity in 1900.

No, they had tuberculosis to worry about. 2000 was pretty good, though. A lot of zeros.

2000 decent. I mean, that's better than 1900, right?

Yeah.

And then zero. And then the day Jesus was born was zero AD.

Then it was just like, it was a monocle. yeah so i guess if you close your four at the top not not everybody closes their four at the top when you're writing this is a great place to start the new year by the way when you're writing like we ended the old year yes just horribly just just absolutely burrowing down into the depths of something or other are you when you write the number four is that two pen strokes for you and the and it's not connected at the top oh my gosh i closed mine up one pen really

Actually, it is two. That's parochial. Did you do, I know that you went to Catholic high school, but did you also go to Catholic, did you go K-12 Catholic school?

No, my first taste of that Catholic education was in eighth grade. So mostly.

So you had your handwriting, you'd locked in your handwriting.

I locked it in. I actually had major issues with my handwriting when I was a very young kid. That was like the notes that would come home. And before I could disappoint my parents in other ways, like with grades and behavior, I would disappoint them with the reports of how terrible my handwriting was growing up. They were always encouraging me to use bigger pencils. They're like, he's using these tiny stubs and we can't read his handwriting. And now I think I actually have pretty nice handwriting.

I would really think that you, because I would think you would have very meticulous handwriting.

I did come around to that. In fact, that's why I think I closed my fours at the top. It's funny, as I'm talking to you, I keep on staring at the four on my clock. Not my digital clock, but like an actual hanging clock I have on the wall here. I'm kind of surrounded by clocks, and I'm looking at the perfect little four there. You know, it's a complete triangle with a couple of tails coming out the end of it. People know what fours look like. I think we've got sort of a sense for it. We've kind of established that. But, yeah, that's how I do it. I think I got to a certain age where I took pride in my handwriting and also just, like, took not even pride, wrong word, pleasure. I enjoyed like slowing it down I always write in like kind of a

all caps printed style once they got out of my face with trying to force me to do cursive and do things their way and i could just be like i'm gonna pretend like i'm an engineer who doesn't understand math but i'll take the handwriting part of the like it yeah so that's that's why i

that's why i close my force happy new year i am you know handwriting a card is something that i have a lot of agita about to the degree that i will sometimes in extreme cases buy two cards and just have an air and a spare yep because um once i commit pen to paper what happens for me is i start speeding up if i just if i make sure that i'm going very slowly then i'm usually sort of okay but i will just naturally start speeding up and then what i do is i just completely drop letters oh interesting you're in your head too much i something like i'll just misspell something or i'll just write the wrong letter it's not even like my pen my penmanship is is is sort of fine but i'm just so it's like four times a year that i write anything that's important out by hand um and and the rest of the time it's you know it's all computer and text and the like um i did not have good handwriting as a kid i know i've mentioned this on the show before but you know my mother um went to 12 years of catholic school out there in philadelphia and the catholic school handwriting is so specific that once i was having a meal somewhere in the midwest and a woman about my mom's age handed me the bill and this was in the days of like you know writing out the bill you know club sandwich uh chicken soup whatever and i said you went to catholic school didn't she She goes, how did you know that? I go, you have my mother's handwriting.

Oh, interesting.

Like, they had it really on lock, the Catholic school system in this country for a while.

Yeah. No, I went to a public school where I disappointed my teachers and my parents alike.

Hmm. How are you feeling about entering 2024, specifically the fact that the University of Washington Huskies, your very favorite team, will be today playing the University of Texas at Austin.

Oh, that's today

A game that could lead to the national championship

That's right, I'll be honest with you I forgot that that was today Thank God I got to you before you missed it I know, I will root for your Huskies

Have you noticed that Genevieve is just walking around In a purple sleeping bag Looking like, I don't know

She's disheveled, she hasn't slept in days

But it's all in you know she's been pre-funking yeah for this very moment yeah she's chain smoking now too i

don't know if you know that she's very anxious about and she's a fan of the band of the chain smokers and that's what got her into it exactly so um anyway yeah so that how are you you know you asked me that question but i don't think you care about how i feel that's fine how do you feel you're the one who's been rooting for this team your whole life i don't i i feel i feel complicated

feelings um i am i'm excited i feel like the huskies have over performed in a way that i don't i don't know if that means you know we're technically ranked above texas but that it's very minimal at this point we're technically number two they're technically number three um part of me thinks well this team has exceeded my expectations all year why not why not exceed them once again and beat texas part of me just there are these programs like the university of texas like lsu like georgia like auburn like bama that are just so storied in college football and so dominant that it's hard to think about of my little team of nerds from the northwest beating them but on the other hand my little team of nerds is undefeated this season and they've done very well and their quarterback was the second place in the Heisman Trophy uh you know running so I don't know I I I'm whipsawing between uh underconfidence and overconfidence there's also kind of an interesting plot line which is the coach of the uh the team from Texas is Steve Sarkeesian he used to be the Husky head coach oh my god he was kicked out for being drunk at

practice yeah like a real like really problematic not just at practice didn't he show up for a press conference um he went down to usc am i right about that do i have this right because i feel like he was a guy who had a kind of a seattle connection but also went down to southern california around the same time i went down to southern california which is the only reason i sort of remember this

but i i think he was like the offensive coordinator at sc for usc okay but and then got his first big his first head coaching job was seattle and he came in really strong one of the things he got if I remember right uh in trouble for was that there was a like a a get-together of coaches uh Husky coaches and whomever out it I

think it was like suncadia lodge and he had picked up the bar tab and i remember there was a lot of kind of hand wringing and pearl clutching about the fact that there was like six shots of silver tequila on there and then he was uh players reported him smelling of alcohol during practice and my takeaway from that time was reading i actually looked at whatever the bar tab was that got him in trouble and I thought I've put away so much more than that in my day like I was I was genuinely kind of I was shocked at how normal by my standards the behavior of Steve Sarkeesian was in terms of that get-together like if I was out with a bunch of people from Livewire and I grabbed the tab or even if it was you and me and Sklarov I don't know that the what I saw on that tab was not as shocking as i was expecting it to be considering all of the all of the wagging all

of the tongues wagging that it set off i was right that he went down to usc at the exact same he was the he was like some sort of a coordinator there but then he came to to washington then he and i not together we didn't plan this we both went down to southern california in 2014 and he was the head coach of usc that year oh okay and that's when it wasn't a press conference but it was like yeah he gave some sort of a speech at some sort of a donor kickoff thing and he was like kind of like wasted and it was just one of those things where it's like it was just like it was sad like at first it was sort of like oh my god like that's that's inappropriate but there's some humor in there and then you're just like oh wow this guy's really like I don't know there's something about that that like kind of really bummed me out well he has certainly uh rehabilitated his career and

ended up back on top at least you know coaching a huge program in this country the University of Texas according to Wikipedia he's making six point two million dollars a year which is that's more than we make doing the show Andrew is it crazy but I do remember that when we this is why everybody tunes in on New Year's Day is for me thinking about my memories of Steve Sarkeesian's time with the huskies but i remember thinking wow how did we pry this guy away from sc because he had a lot of promise at sc as well and it was probably because of what you talked about there's probably some awareness that maybe uh you know the center was maybe not going to hold on this guy and then i don't really know i don't really know the story for him post of the university of washington if he you know i don't know what his relationship to alcohol was if he got into um sobriety and if he maintained that or what he did.

Well, the USC thing happened when I was down there. So after Washington, it's USC, and that's where it came to.

Not according to the Wikipedia. I'm looking at 2005, USC quarterback, 2006. Oh, you're right. Sorry. He was at USC.

Yeah, and that's where he was fired for, like, public intoxication.

So that's wild. Okay, I totally, sorry. I completely, like, I thought he was fired from the Huskies for intoxication, for being drunk in the huddle.

No, I think he went down there. Again, he might have been – I have this weird feeling like he might have been sort of maybe getting out of town while the getting was good, sort of. Like you say, this stuff doesn't just pop up overnight. But I know that he was fired down there. It was kind of a scandal. I mean, it was a scandal.

Okay. Yeah, he must have – you're right. I'm just kind of – it's – boy, every time I think my memory couldn't get wackier, it does, Andrew. I would have totally told you that Steve Sarkeesian got run out of the U-Dub because of his alcohol. And that is not apparently what happened. He got run out of USC because of his drinking. Anyway, he's back, baby. And he is the coach of Texas. And they are going up against the Huskies. And I just don't know what's going to happen. But I'm going to be watching with – well, here's the good news.

This is what I want to know. What's your watching plan?

Hmm. Probably, you know, perched high above the mighty Columbia. What I'm not going to do is go find a bunch of SC fans and then have to hide somewhere and quietly watch the game. Although that was good luck for me. Do you think I can get everyone back together? All the Ducks fans? That were there at Becca's brother and sister-in-law's house? Can I get them all to go back to that basement and root for SC while I'm up— or excuse me, root for Texas while I'm upstairs? Oh, I see. I need to recreate the exact scenario that caused the Huskies to win the Pac-12 championship.

You know what I think you should do? You should go. What was the other enemy territory? You were like trying to buy a door from a place. Wait, was that the first Huskies-Ducks game? You were like. Yes. No, Windows. Windows. Windows, my boy. You're right.

I didn't even put that together. Every important Husky game related to the Oregon Ducks, I was behind enemy lines. That's right. I was buying some windows from discount windows in Portland and I was having a i was having a real time with the staff there and also the game was on and everyone in there was ducks fans and i just wanted to get my danged window and get out of there right and they were they were taking their sweet time and anyway it was uh it was touch and go there for a minute okay so the point is i've got to find we've decided i've got to find somewhere aggressively non-ideal to watch this game this afternoon yeah and i will do that maybe texas Is it too late? I just got back from Germany not that long ago. You still need a few more miles. Yeah, exactly. All right, what is our game? I mean, of course, the game is the football game today, but the TBTL winter game, what is our winter game today?

This comes from listener Reverend Chris, who has submitted some great quizzes in the past. And this one, what are you laughing at?

I'm looking at the show sheet, and I'm laughing. This is the perfect game on a day when I completely fumbled the order of events for the coach Steve Sarkisian. This is about the Mandela effect. That's right. I 100% decided that Steve Sarkisian had been fired from the University of Washington for his alcohol issues. And that was not what happened. I Mandela'd that right into my little brain.

I'm trying to, I'm giving up the ghost on that. But he did leave, see, he did leave the U-Dub, like, quickly or weirdly, I think, too. And then it kind of followed him down to USC. So I think there was something about it. He didn't just like, he didn't leave here just normally for whatever that's worth. That might be why you're kind of confusing those two stories.

Yeah, but I mean, he wasn't fired by like, you know, was it still Barbara Hedges? Whoever the U-Dub AD was at the time. Like my memory of it, like I said, I would have, if I was sitting in a bar somewhere, having a few, I would have absolutely bet somebody a bunch of money that he was totally fired by the university of washington for being drunk it would be amazing if this actually shows

up in chris's quiz like what if what if it was like hey what head coach of a couple of prominent collegiate football teams um okay here's what here's what chris says it is a quiz that uh tests our knowledge of instances of the mandela effect like we all know what the mandela effect is right we don't have to explain it although there is it looks like the quiz here has a little explanation it's the phenomenon of shared false memories among large groups of people exemplified by a paranormal researcher fiona broom's clear memory that nelson mandela had died in prison in the 1980s a memory that she says many other people also had i didn't know that i think that's come up

before and i find that one so it just isn't one that hit me most of my mandela effect things are Steve Sarkeesian related sure but like I don't I don't remember anyone being like Nelson Mandela died on what was it Robbins Island I think was the name of that prison that they had him in and like I was like my guy was the president of South Africa like I'm surprised to hear that people

thought he had died in prison but that is a thing and it's named at you know it's named after that false group memory although for me and I hope I'm not ruining this quiz I have not gone through this We'll take this together. Chris has put it together as a slideshow. But for me, I would call it the Berenstain-Bear effect. Thank you. Right?

How about the Raisin Bran effect?

Oh, yeah. The sun isn't wearing sunglasses. You know what? I'll bet you these are going to show up in the quiz. Let's get it. It says, each question will have two to four choices, but only one will be right, at least in this time dimension. Will your memory be correct, or will the effect imperfect your intellect? Ooh. Poetic. Okay, question number one. And on the cover of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA album, what is hanging out of his back pocket? Now, do you want me to give you the options, or do you want to try just to scan your memory grapes first? My memory grapes tell me that it is a red bandana. That is one of the options, and I think I'm going to ride along with you on that. A bandana, a hat, or nothing. Now, I feel like it's a bandana. If it ends up being nothing, that will blow my mind, like the mandela effect often does are you ready to move on here i'm ready okay oh i don't have my uh-oh sound effect i'll have to get that for the next one but for now i will tell you that it's click here for answer okay i gotta click here got it on bruce springsteen's born in the usa album cover there's a red hat in his back pocket not a bandana and if you look closely

you can see it's a red hat but it looks like a yeah that one that's come on reverend i mean

honestly reverend chris really although that is interesting are you googling a picture of this no i'm not okay because it almost looks like it's photoshopped on there he's not having a he's not having a way with us is he the rev the good reverend chris i don't think he would do

that to us but i guess to me it's like uh if

If it's a hat that looks like a bandana, that's more just like a misunderstanding of what it is versus like the sunglasses on the Raisin Bran sun or the Berenstain Bears or the Nelson Mandela. Okay. We were wrong about that, but I think Reverend Chris was more wrong.

Just for bringing it up, you mean?

Exactly, for taking a lot of time out of his busy schedule to put this quiz together to help us have a little time off during the holidays, or me anyway, Andrew. Not you, never you, but always me. I just think that, you know, I just, I don't feel totally, I feel like I didn't completely swing and miss on that.

Does the Fruit of the Loom logo include a cornucopia?

That's a good one. that's a very good one because we we do know right that it does feature fruit yep

in fact wherever i don't know if chris made this or if he got it from the internet somewhere but he's even given a visual aid of the fruit with the cornucopia and without a cornucopia behind it nice so i think you know what you're winning me back yeah so now i i feel like i have the advantage i'll be honest the one with the cornucopia looks right to me it feels like i was

gonna say i think it does i think my memory is that it does my memory so i'm gonna go with it

does have a cornucopia okay let's see here uh click here for answer the fruit of the loom logo never had a cornucopia are you kidding me what's crazy about that one is that um someone emailed the logo's creator about it and he said even he remembers it having a cornucopia. So the person who originally created this That's a dazzling deed. That is amazing. Huh. Well, what do you know? Which is correct. Beats by Dre or Beats by Dr. Dre?

Well, wait a second. On the subject of Fruit of the Loom Okay. Those, I have to say those were some iconic commercials when the fruit were played

by people. Yes, the grapes. Yeah, the big The grapes really stick in your mind for some reason. Yeah, why the grapes? I don't know.

That was a different time in America. I feel like you wouldn't see that anymore, and I don't know why.

How do you feel about those commercials for the underwear and stuff, Duluth Trading Company, and they're sketched out drawings, animations, but they're not especially crass, but they have sort of made their brand of like not beating around the bush and they just talk

about like this underwear is not going to ride up into your crack exactly and they say stuff like

that it's a little i don't know i don't like specifics and that's why like i just want a toilet paper commercial just to be like show me a picture of clouds and then show me your brand name and that's all i need to know like the less specifics on that the better but i grew up in a

very repressed household yeah it's also i i get fruit of the loom is saying you know we've this was woven and it's really good uh you'll like it but it's also i feel like the fruit of my loom that's a whole other deal like under like having that terminology around underwear just feels like there's some kind of entendre there like fruit of my loins fruit of the loom that must be yeah fruit of my loins yeah that must be it like you know you notice there wasn't a banana in that group probably intentionally good call i feel like it's all kind of it's on the edge of something that's slightly related to the groinal region.

Yeah, yes, exactly.

That's a term, right?

Groinal region? Mm-hmm. I need to get a picture of that grape guy for the show pick today. Oh, yeah, definitely.

Was he wearing a swim cap that made his head a grape, or was he just painted? I don't know. That's a good Mandela question.

Oh, I can't picture it. I remember the head popping out of the bunch of grapes. It was definitely purple grapes, right? And was his head even purple?

I would tell you his head is purple I bet you it wasn't

I bet you it was just a normal ass head I feel like he might have had a mustache I can't google anything right now because I'm in the middle of the slideshow Is normal ass head a show title? No

Let's talk about Beats by Dre

Which is correct Beats by Dre or Beats by Dr. Dre Well I know for a fact that everybody When they say it out loud they say Beats by Dre Right? Like I've never heard anybody Say Beats by Dr. Dre But I'm guessing that this is the one that is That's why it's in the list it's supposed to trick me is it technically Beats by Dr. Dre well I'll go Beats by Dre because that's

how I remember it I want to be intellectually honest here I'm also realizing Andrew I'm just googling around Fruit of the Loom yeah am I mean uh let's see I when I'm looking up Fruit of the Loom Grape Guy I'm getting a dude who's much more from this time a guy named Wayne Wilderson who has been written up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune I'm guessing Wayne might be from uh that area but the thing is I feel like I've seen Wayne Wilderson in a lot of other stuff more recently like I think they rebooted they probably

did which is funny because you said that wouldn't fly today exactly that completely defeats god this

isn't so I'm entering 2024 Andrew with a lot of L's was this the wrong quiz for today to totally undermine what we believe in the world yeah right right um so i guess they could do it today i guess they could absolutely re reboot those fruit those fruit characters but um i i want to get back to figuring out what the the og grape guy looked like and you can't find him because it's all god dang

wayne wilderson can you just type in 1980s fruit of the loom commercial like if you specifically see 1980s and again i would be doing this but i'm sort of in a locked up position here commercial

Okay, 1987, Fruit of the Loom

Those, your boys are rougher, tougher than ever Destruction on wheels to a pair of briefs

Sorry, this is for the unbustables is what this commercial is called Again, not not sexual

That's why Fruit of the Loom introduces the unbustables Our best built boys briefs ever

Okay, so there's, Andrew Speaking of the Mandela effect how many bunches of grapes were there in the original fruit of the looms crew was there one bunch of grapes or two bunches of grapes i would have had one i would have had one too there's two there's the green grapes and the purple grapes and then the apple guy and then a dude who looks like he's wearing a you know what a ghillie suit is no that's that like weird camouflage thing but it's also got like all this loose fabric coming off of it and you can like lie it's extremely camouflaging so you could like lie in some like loose leaves or greenery and you would you would blend in extremely it's called a ghillie suit there's one of the people in the fruit of the loom who's just wearing a ghillie suit our best built boys briefs ever with our heaviest pre-shrunk cotton okay green grapes has a hat on okay green that's like a green like yeah it's a green hat that's kind of making his head look more like a round green grape our strong this is the ghillie suit guy i don't know what the hell's going on with him honestly waist band ever all at a group and david allen greer is the grape no andrew walsh david allen greer is the mother trucking grape and yes he has a hat on and it's like what kind of a hat is it it's like the hat the green guy is wearing it's a kind of nondescript purple roundish hat that makes his head look grape-ish so if it's not david alan greer david alan greer andrew this honestly this is why people listen to tbtl because we may be all over the map but we eventually land somewhere interesting and important and i think the fact that david alan greer was the grape in the 1987 fruit of the loom commercial that is a dazzling detail that i will take away from this and will repeat to people in bars all across america for the rest of my life does it even

identify him because i'm typing in david allen greer grape and i'm seeing that there's a youtube video that specifically is labeled 87 fruit of the loom commercial david allen greer i i would have had this i would have had the purple grape being a white guy who looks older than he is because he's got a big, fat 80s mustache, like a black mustache. That's like an Italian, like almost like I had him picturing more like Mario from the Mario video. Super Mario is his full name, I suppose. Wow, that blows me away.

That is incredible, Andrew. And I feel like has really redeemed this whole quiz on behalf of Reverend Chris. You got lucky this time, Reverend Chris. We got there. All right, so let's, Beats by Dre. I think Beats by Dre, but that makes, but I think also what you were saying is correct, which is, because we all think it's Beats by Dre, I feel like the payoff is it's not Beats by Dre. It's Beats by the very reverend Dr. Dre Esquire, the fourth.

He's a doctor of Beatsology. It is officially Beats by Dr. Dre. That is what the company is called, but I've never heard anybody say that before. So this one, I sort of feel like, is that Mandela, or is that a difference between what we call something and what it officially is on paper. You know what I mean?

Yeah, right. Okay.

Maybe that's not fair. But is it like, is it TBTL or Too Beautiful to Live? Well, it's kind of both because it is Too Beautiful to Live, but we say TBTL. The next one is this. Since 1957, Mr. Monopoly has been dressed in what? Oh, boy. So since 1957, both a top hat and a monocle. A top hat, no monocle. a monocle no top hat hair down glasses off I was going to make that joke

Okay, so both a top hat and a monocle, just a hat, just a monocle, or no hat, no monocle. I am going to go with my belief. Just like, you know, first answer is the intellectually honest one, both a top hat and a monocle. I got him with a monocle and a top hat. Oh, you know what, though? No. No, honestly, no hat. I'm going to say monocle, no hat.

I feel like he's, well, a couple things are happening. One, I'm starting to conflate him with Scrooge McDuck. Yes. Me too. And also, I feel like in some of those cards that you would get in Monopoly, if he's judging a baby beauty contest,

Or pulling his pockets out.

If he's judging a buff baby contest, they're goosed. Maybe he has his hat on, but I feel like he... I'm going no hat with a monocle.

You're saying no hat with a monocle. I don't know why. I just want to make it interesting. But the thing is, I can picture, you're right, you arrived right at that kind of realization about the cards as I did, because I was picturing the famous one where he's pulling his pockets out to show that he has no money, and I swear he's got a top hat on in that one, although on the box he might not. All right, I'm going to go with you, though. We're both going to submit, for your consideration, that he has a monocle but no top hat, right? We're going to go with that?

Monocle but no top hat.

Okay, let's see here. Monocle, no top hat. Oh, you've got to be shitting me. Top hat, no monocle, no pants. No monocle. You see how he's Donald ducking it. Top hat, no monocle. Maybe you were thinking of Mr. Peanut.

I think I was. Didn't Mr. Peanut die? Wasn't that a big moment? Literally don't get me started on that.

I did that just to rile you up. I've got a loose 45 days on that topic loose 45 days is also a good show you do not want me going off on that thing top hat no monocle does he have a monocle

at all in any of it

you'd have to google around I'm looking here at the official logo and he looks happy he's got a cane tap tap tap he's got himself a top hat but no monocle ha okay Okay, that's surprising to me. All right. Oh, last one. Question number five, Skechers. The shoe brand, T or no T in the word Skechers?

Oh, whoa. See, again, I'm going to, this isn't the fun answer, but I'm going to employ logic here and say that, because it seems like it should have a T in it, but that makes me think it doesn't. You know what I mean?

yeah me too that's where i am on this i am gonna say no tea but there is a clinic uh let's see here click for answer no tea sketchers no tea yeah um this was a lot of fun i don't know how many questions there are is this a quiz we could potentially return to yeah you know what did we just go through five of these there's 10 of these do you feel like extending this into tomorrow Or is it messing with your brain too much? No, no, I can handle it. You can handle it? Are you sure?

The David Alan Greer thing really got the nose up on this. I feel like that's a good takeaway. That's a fun fact that people now know. Maybe some of them knew it. I didn't. I'm also just a huge David Alan Greer fan, generally speaking.

Are you really? See, I can't. I don't know. Like, I know the name, but I just don't know. Oh, In Living Color? Yeah, I mean, In Living Color. I was not allowed to watch that growing up. Like, that was. Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

that was outside of our boundaries homie did not in fact play that or homie was not allowed to play that homie was not allowed to watch that i loved that show all right let's thank some of our donors who have made this journey of discovery possible here as we launch into 2024 folks like chelsea davis of martinsburg west virginia thank you chelsea blue mountain country west virginia almost heaven um julia morse is checking in from another little slice of heaven beaux arts village over there on the east side of lake washington one of my favorite places in the world

I just have to clear something up here I think I said I mumbled something about Country homes take me road I said something wrong there Well that's the Mandela effect actually people would be surprised to know that the song is actually country homes take me

road oh my god i gotta be honest with you i'm not psyched about my performance on the first day of 2024 but you know what the the upside of that is i have all year to improve you don't want your best level setting you don't want your best show to be the first show of the year you need to be

able to it's like when i used to be in acting classes at the university of washington and my acting teacher would say if you're going to be in a if your character in a scene you know is going to end up up here at like a 10 you can't start at a 10 no you've got to have you've got to leave your character somewhere to go and that's what this character that's exactly what we're doing here on the first day of 2024 exactly julia morse knows it so does darren malihi in oakland California Thank you Darren

Thank you very much I'm always a little jealous of people who live in Oakland I only visited once but it was so cool

Oakland is a I'm not saying anything novel but Oakland is a just absolutely wonderful place with amazing people and cool stuff you know San Francisco gets a lot of attention San Francisco's got its qualities But if I were down there, I'd be I'd be an Oakland boy. Also, I couldn't afford to live in San Francisco. I couldn't afford to live in Oakland, Andrew. Yeah, basically, I can I can afford to live in the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. That's pretty much it for me. Despite the donations of Jennifer Anderson of Seattle, Washington, who is making this a thing we can do for our job. Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you, Jennifer. If I did not live in Seattle, I would legitimately be jealous of Jennifer, because when I left Seattle, I missed it all the time.

You sure did. You sure did. I wanted to trade places with you. You're living in L.A. with, like, a French model roommate and hating life.

That's literally true.

What part of this is not working for you?

It's so weird that that is a true sentence.

It definitely seems like an 80s sitcom where you have been played by Campbell Scott.

Campbell Scott?

Yeah.

Why Campbell Scott?

I don't know. He just seemed like he was in – he was the kind of person who was in, like, some kind of – or maybe you could have even – you would have been played by Eric Stoltz. Like, one of those people that was getting starring roles in those movies, but they were the ones that were just kind of flying slightly under the radar.

I know that this is not about my body, but I just, like, I feel like I need a pudgier, nebbishy guy if that's my character in this. I just don't see my I mean Campbell Scott like I think of him as being like 90s like Miramax film like right like kind of the more art singles I believe he was in singles okay actually haven't seen singles he's in Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle about that's what everybody was thinking that's what Valerie Fish in Carmichael California couldn't get out of her head Valerie thank you Valerie is a glass artist and has made TBT all the sun catchers for us that are amazing absolutely

Thank you for coming on over, Valerie. Sorry about that. Apologize. You probably get that joke all the time.

Is that about the TV show, Valerie? Is that in the theme song?

No, that would have been a much better reference. No, it's about the song, famously covered by Amy Winehouse, Valerie.

Oh, okay. That's one of the lyrics. Oh, that is a nice song.

Why don't you come on over, Valerie? Now I've made it worse because I've not only made the dumb joke reference, but I've now subjected everyone to my singing of that song. It's a nice song, though. I want to apologize also, maybe primarily, to Charlie Trills of Charleston, South Carolina, that that was the lead-in to Charlie's thank you. Yeah, beautiful Charleston. I've never been to beautiful Charleston. Is that part of the Southern Research Triangle?

It is, yeah. Boy, a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about the Research Triangle, whatever we said was loud wrong. And boy, were people— Oh, no, really? That was one of those things where people were like, I've never thrown my phone before, and I finally didn't. And I'm like, really? Is that just supposed to? That's what it took? Everybody in the United States should be able to know the three cities that make up the research. So what did we say?

Durham is in the Raleigh. Durham's not part of it or something.

You know, don't. I think that that was what the issue was.

What was Steve Sarkeesian's connection to the whole situation?

I don't want to, like, reopen that category. But it's just always funny when people are like, well, that one killed me. And I can't figure out. It's like, is it because you're from there and so therefore you think it's really obvious? Is this really one where we really seem like the biggest idiots in the world because we got one of the cities in the research triangle wrong? Like, why was that so triggering for people? It seems like that's a pretty easy mistake if you live on the West Coast.

No, well, and of course, also the fact that I'll just speak for myself. I'm so wrong about so many things all the time. Yeah, me too. It's like if we were batting 1,000 and then we made that mistake, I could see. but it's like it's kind of like yeah it's just like there are just so many i've never heard someone say so many wrong things like it's surprising to me which wrong thing really sets someone off because there's a lot to choose from me too um and yet we have people who donate to the show and keep it going like the folks i just mentioned so thank you so much we couldn't do this without you and that brings us to the end of our episodes for 2024 we are taking the rest of the year off you know what i need to take some time to be with my family you need to step back and

reflect this is a time for listening exactly and um i'm not exactly sure what the future holds but as of right now i think it's it's time just to do some reflecting absolutely um so we will see you

all in 2025 or tomorrow i don't know or possibly tomorrow we'll see all right everyone have a great monday welcome to the new year so this is the new year that's also an amy wine you have to apologize to valerie and charlie again uh go huskies yeah uh and uh we'll see you tomorrow in the meantime please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Power out.