Muse

I love my job. Oh, my God. I want to do it forever, especially because this is the kind of job that I've gotten better at every year. And it's also the kind of job that you need to be fast on your feet. You need to be quick and you need to sort of, uh, I don't even know what the word is. TBTL!

So, look, why don't you download my blog? It's free. Of course, we do appreciate

donations this person has something amazing you know maybe you're not you see yeah you know it's it's a little bit beyond your comprehension at this moment but there's something great about

that person it's not that i'm lazy it's that i just don't care you know what i care about artistry and you and my kids and polar bear couches you're a messy little person ain't cha look man you know your stuff but you're like a crazy volcano you have to show me you can bring it down a notch i'll bring it down a thousand notches if i have to all right hello good

morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be

too beautiful to live it's starting to look like a triple rainbow my name is luke burbank i am your

host we are living in the midst of a podcast boom coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty and windy and white capped columbia it is very windy it's pretty rainy it's surprisingly cold um you know you like to get wet though i don't we're trying to make this a family friendly show so i don't want to start here but i will just say that like sometimes because i still live in a construction zone um and because i live by myself sometimes at night when the stars are out i enjoy going out and uh mick trading in the yard it's a little treat for myself it's the kind of thing you dream of as a young lad and then one day you're an old lad and you can do it you can no one can stop you from going outside in your semi-rural home and peeing in your in your own yard and that's what i was doing last night and i was shocked at how cold it was shocked i know we've got folks that have experienced snow in the Midwest. I mean, it is, it's March 28th. So I guess we're technically in spring, but there's still a few more cold days ahead of us. Hopefully it'll be getting nice and warm for me and you and everyone else who loves urinating outside. As we arrive here at episode 4,172 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Did my voice just crack? Ah, yes. the joys of both developing low tea and still working your way through puberty. We love it here on TBTL. What we don't love is news from the Costco Corporation that they are going to be cracking down on who can and cannot eat their cheap hot dogs.

I'm starting to feel like a corn dog at a hot dog party, and it ain't flattering, I'll tell you that.

Yeah. Weird place to begin trying to maximize profits, but we will get into that. Also, speaking of construction zones, of course, I've been working on various projects here at the Madrona Hill Studio and in the little hilltop cabin that I reside in. And I've been putting together an IKEA kitchen situation. And I had reached the point yesterday that I do with any sort of IKEA project where I think IKEA has messed this up in some way. It's not me, it's them. And it's almost always me. Except it turns out it was them, sort of, which we can talk about today. And while I was at IKEA, while I was at the IKEA warehouse in Portland, in the warehouse district of Portland yesterday, I saw something go down. It didn't even happen to me, okay? I was just on the sidelines of this. But I couldn't decide if this was kind of a certain amount of rudeness, a certain amount of disaffection, or if this was good boundary setting by somebody who worked at the IKEA warehouse.

Man, that's so rude. I can't believe it. That's so goddamn rude.

I'm about 100% sure the listeners will not like my potential take on this topic, which is why it should be a good subject matter for us. Get that engagement going. Get people reaching out to us. Luke at tbtl.net and Andrew at tbtl.net. Those are places you can send Blur's Day messages would be relevant because it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. So we'll do those as well. Speaking of Andrew at tbtl.net, he's right over there and he's very, very ready for today. The first day of regular season Major League Baseball.

I've been waiting for this moment for months and it's finally here.

He's of course also the longest running co-bro of the show Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships Good morning my friend

I didn't get my peanuts yet

I was at the store yesterday.

What about your Cracker Jack?

I don't eat Cracker Jack. It's too sticky for me. But opening day for me means staying at home, watching the game on the TV, and having a big bowl of in-the-shell salted peanuts. It always has to be that way. There may be other food. I mean, look at me. Of course, there's other food involved at some point during the evening. But it begins with the crack of the bat and the crack of the peanut shell, Luke. So I need to find some time to go to the store, get me some of them before 7, 10 tonight.

Are you allowed to just throw the peanut shells on the floor like some sort of roadhouse?

Well, when you say allowed, no, I'm not. But the question is, who's making that rule? No, of course. I do not allow myself. By the way, new Roadhouse movie out. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor McGregor, Post Malone making an appearance.

Oh, that's nice. I find him. He really does. What a surprising thing for me to like. Whenever he comes on the screen, I feel like he lights up the screen.

I couldn't agree more. I am an avowed Post Malone head, and not even so much for the music, although certainly he's got a handful of just real bangers that if they come on, Sunflower comes to mind and such songs. If that comes on at the bar or whatever, I'm always pretty happy about it. It's more just Post Malone in the world just seems like a real sweetheart of a guy. And, yeah, it sounds to me—I actually just listened to a long interview with Jake Gyllenhaal talking about the movie Roadhouse. I'm also, by the way, a Jake Gyllenhaal fan. I thought he—I was listening—while I was assembling these IKEA cabinets last night, I was listening to The Stern Show, and he was interviewing Jake Gyllenhaal, who just seems like an unbelievably lovely person and really likable. I will say, based on the description of this movie, it seems to me like they just kind of said, let's let's try to sort of engineer in a lab a movie that will appeal to a certain sort of feller in his 20s. And maybe the gal he drags along to the cinema, because it's like it's a roadhouse. It's a it's a jacked Jake Gyllenhaal. It's a Conor McGregor walking around gorilla like like there's a whole corner of TikTok that's people just doing impressions. of conor mcgregor's physicality in the new movie roadhouse andrew and apparently i actually went and watched clips of the movie to see if this was um true he just sort of walks around like this arms out kind of like arms out like he can't even like he's so muscle bound he can't even put them against the side of his body um and then yeah you throw in posty austin post malone and it seems it seems like a again a probably a fun a fun romp but not a movie unlike the original which was obviously it was Merchant in Ivory I believe that did the original Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze yeah um they've really kind of updated the vibe it's now it's more just like a movie where people are punching each other a lot um you know so it's Patrick Swayze is dumb

I thought you'd be bigger opinions vary

I forgot that that had who's our mustachioed friend of course I for Sam Elliott is in that

right um you know to be honest with you i don't remember that specifically but i'm willing to bet

my life on it i oh you don't really you i thought you were a bigger roadhouse guy than that you just

like the references on the tv i just think that this speech is one of the funniest things ever which is i think it's when patrick sway and i wonder if in the new jake gyllenhaal version if they have if they do this like word for word or some there has to be some sort of reference to this because there's the in the original movie there's the point where patrick swayze is sort of getting the security staff of the roadhouse together to kind of explain why things haven't

been going well people who really want to have a good time won't come to a slaughterhouse we've got entirely too many troublemakers here too many uh 40 year old adolescents felons power drinkers and trustees of modern chemistry i have been at least three out of the four

I may have a clean sweep on this, I'm not sure.

It's going to change. And that sure sounds good. But a lot of the guys who come in here, we can't handle one-on-one. Even two-on-one. Don't worry about it. All you have to do is follow three simple rules.

Now, this is, I've pointed this out before on the show when this audio was played. I believe this is for rules.

Yes, right. I think that's the issue. Yeah.

I think, yeah, as you like to say, Andrew, I think the and is doing a lot of work in this list. Yes, holding up the three rules, yeah. Yeah, and then adding, I believe, a fourth. I don't know, like, in terms of the permitting, if that's a structurally supported fourth thing.

One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Okay, right there now. That's two. That's two. That's two right there. Okay, so we're at two. Yeah, okay.

Never underestimate your opponent, expect and expect it.

Like, those aren't even related. Like, that's not kind of like never underestimate your opponent and look him in the eye. You know what I mean? Like, those are two completely separate thoughts.

Yeah, those could have just been different points, I guess, if you wanted to. Because we're at two right now if you're counting at home. If you're scoring at home. Two. Well, three.

Take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm going to allow that.

Yes, that is one thing clarifying the other. You take it outside, and then it's like expanding on that idea.

Yes, but it's still under the umbrella of don't do it inside. Okay, so we're going to allow that. So we're at three, correct? Yes. So we're already at three. And I believe number four is...

In three, be nice.

Now, actually, I really stand by point number four, or as Patrick Swayze calls it, point number three, because I feel like in a lot of situations at bars and roadhouses and places like that where I've been, where I've gotten into a bit of trouble. Well, first of all, I'm sure that I was acting like an idiot, but there is a certain kind of energy from a person that's doing security that is escalating things instead of de-escalating them. And I'm not saying it would be an easy job to work security at a bar or a concert venue or whatever. And you probably deal with a lot of annoying people. But there's a way of being, as Patrick Swayze would say, be nice. And I just feel like at the end of the night, you will have so much less hassle in your life as a security person if you're just being nice to people when possible, as opposed to your default setting being rude and mean. I feel like that just makes your job harder.

that reminds me of an experience that i don't have anymore i guess it comes with age and maybe the types of places i hang out but also the fact that i don't close down bars anymore it was such a regular occurrence in my like 20s of the of the you know whether it was the people working the door or other people like the bartenders who would like take your drinks away it would get more and more sort of obnoxious and i just remember the only time i had issues with door people is when they were like so aggressive and rude about taking my drink away at the end like literally removing a drink from your hand has happened to me now sure i'm sure it is like they're dealing with drunk people who just like think there's probably every drunk person probably thinks i'm the exception we're having fun here or whatever and then like these people have had a long night they just want to get home and so i kind of see it from that perspective but going back to patrick swayze's point here though you will have less trouble on your hand if you just say hey i'm sorry about it but it's and you know that is how some people approach that hey i'm Sorry about this, but we've got to take the drinks away now. And then just a little bit of humanity there will make that go down easier. Now, having said that, I just want to go back to I have regrets. I have regrets about what I said about his rule number one and what I'm now calling 1.5. Do you feel like these are related thoughts? Yes, or at least I feel like reasonable people can disagree about it. Because here's what I'm thinking. He says, if the idea here is he states one rule and then sort of expands on it like you did with the second one, don't fight inside, take it outside, whatever. Let's just play it again. We can't handle one-on-one, even two-on-one.

Don't worry about it. All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected.

Okay, pause it there. Okay, you can make an argument. Those are related. You're right. I came down too strongly on that. Like, I feel like you could argue it either way. But it is sort of saying, like, well, what does it mean to not underestimate your opponent? Be like, well, he might have a surprise in there for you.

Yeah. Like, if you think I know exactly how this is going to go, you're going to get yourself in real trouble.

Yeah.

So you're not underestimating your opponent and expecting the unexpected are at least loosely associated. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But so does that mean that we now think that this is three simple rules?

I know.

For dating my roadhouse?

Yeah, for dating my bouncer. You know, it's so funny because that is – while we discuss this, by the way, I do think you should do yourself a favor, and I think the listeners should do themselves a favor as well if they haven't done this recently, which is Google what Sam Elliott looked like in Roadhouse. Maybe Smokehouse. Maybe he's a much younger man. He doesn't have his usual kind of cowboy hat and mustache as I always picture him.

You know, he's looking like he walked right off the set of General Hospital. Yes, he does. I mean, this is what I will always say when the subject of Sam Elliott comes up. You look at Sam Elliott and you think, well, that guy went to Tumbleweed State University and majored in calf roping. He went to the University of Oregon where he studied English. Yes. Like, there's not a person who seems more.

deeply western and like just came you know came in off the back 40 in wyoming than sam elliott but uh but it's i'm not saying it's an act i'm just saying it's funny because when i looked that up one day i was like what is this guy's story was he like did he literally emerge from a tumbleweed fully formed it's like yeah he's a guy studying english and got into acting and just realized man do i have a a real ability for mustache growth but have you seen what he looked like

Roadhouse, though, very different vibes. I'm looking at it. Shoulder length, hair, full, not a full beer, but like kind of a constant, it's not even a five o'clock shadow, it's like a 12 o'clock shadow.

He has what you were going for before you did Week in Review, before you went too far.

That's the one thing that makes us look different. Other than that, our jaw is shaped the exact same way. I was recording the Hey Dummies video yesterday. Oh, by the way, this week's Hey Dummies video, co-hosted by the Dart Bot, had a Dart-related question. Excellent. Had to do it in the Dart Alley. Did a lot of editing, had two things rolling at the same time. Check it out. Sign up for the newsletter. If you go to tbtel.net, just click on the link that says newsletter. But man, oh, man, yeah, this is a – not to go back to this, but ever since I shaved my beard, it is still taking me a long time to get used to this amount of face. It is so much face. And I know I'm asking you to comment on my looks, which is not a comfortable place for somebody to take it.

You mentioned the other day when we first started talking about this that you're considering you're liking the stash you're kind of thinking about maybe um maybe sporting this look for a while is that still the plan or what are you thinking where are you at

with things right now i think so the the the deal is i still think like i don't know how to explain it i've never had this kind of moment before my life where i look at myself and i think i sort of look ridiculous but it also sort of makes me laugh and so but like in a good way and i kind of like that and also this is the truth of the matter i just really enjoy shaving i mean i think i've said that to you as a bearded man like that i miss shaving when i had a full beard i would just like about once a week do a little bit of clean up above the beard and at the neckline um and i like the the smell of shaving cream i like you know me i'm sort of weirdly i want to say intentional but that makes it sound like i'm more on a more of a woo-woo trip than i am i probably should be more intentional but I do like my little processes I like grinding coffee beans and preparing it the night before and brushing out the little canister you know I like my little processes processes and shaving is one of those things you got to kind of slow down if you try to rush through it you're going to nick yourself so you kind of got to pace yourself a little bit I like it I like listening to the radio I like you know just everything that goes along with it so I don't know if I don't know if I would say I like my mustache but I like the process of shaving and And I just sort of feel like I had the same beard for, Luke, I literally think it might have been 15 years since I had to shave it for like maybe a costume or something. Certainly 10. It's kind of like, well, I'm 47 now. If I'm not going to like, you know, there's no rush to lock back into that forever for the rest of my life. Why not do this now? Absolutely.

I think you look nice. It also, when you're talking about your love of shaving, I think of the poem by Richard blanco that is just called shaving hmm which i remember reread this in like 10th grade and it really stuck with me he's he's this guy richard blanco is writing about shaving but he's writing about his father i'll just read you this little passage i think of those mornings when i'm shaving and remember him in a masquerade of foam then as if it was his beard i took the blade to the memory of him in tiny snips of black whiskers swirling in the drain dead pieces of the self from the face that never taught me how to shave his legacy of whiskers that grow like black seeds sewn over my cheek and chin my own flesh I think there's another part of the poem where he's just talking about that sound that the razor kind of makes yes yes through yes you know and if you think about the like real sort of like a a straight razor and a strop and going to the barbershop which I don't think a lot of us are doing anymore but that that it's an incredibly tactile and I don't have I have hardly any facial hair at all to speak of but even even with my little bit of wispy growth you get that kind of that sort of sensation it's part sound it's part feeling of that razor cutting

it's very satisfying it really is I found myself sort of um that poem by the way I think this is did somebody turn that poem into like a little art video here is that what this is here oh it's Spanish. I wanted to play the commercial that you hate, that Gillette commercial with the father and son FaceTiming. Hey!

Hey, what are you doing over there,

Gillette? You knew I was setting you up for something, and then of course

I hit the... I actually didn't, Andrew. That's the sad part. You know what had happened? I'd learned to trust you again. Oh, no, don't.

And now that trust has been violated for nothing. Let's go again. Pops. Hey, son, you got a little something on your face.

Quick shave, quick shave, respect the process. Wait, who are these guys again? Are these famous, are these famous sportos? No, they're like TikTokers.

Oh, they're TikTokers. They're like a TikTok father and son because, you know, because a lot of us come from different sort of like, you know, family backgrounds and maybe some of us wish our family background could have been different. I feel like there's some sort of, basically, there's some sort of barstool sports enthusiast who's, when he's not watching Dave Portnoy eat a piece of pizza is watching this father-son relationship

and thinking, ah, I wish my dad was like that. I love the fact that it begins with, I think, the dad saying, ah, it's this guy again, talking about his son. Ah, what ball busters over here.

I know, and I think there's a certain kind of dude that is envious of this relationship, hence the popularity of these two fellers. I suppose so. And God bless them, but it just doesn't, it does not make me inclined towards purchasing a Gillette product. The fact that they also sponsor the stadium where the patriots play is a is also a disincentive uh for me um i a disincentive for the listeners andrew is the thing that i'm about to mention which is so silly and petty but it bothered me not once but twice this morning which was i was listening to morning edition and there was a an actually very interesting interview about basically um black artists contribution to country music which has been sort of overlooked for years as you might imagine as black artist contributions to a lot of things have been overlooked and the subject the reason for this the reason we're talking about it was because of Beyonce's new album coming out which is country record and questions of like who makes country music who gets to make country music and who has been making country music right and so of course they come in with that the the the first song you know the this ain't Texas you've heard that song right you know I've heard bits and pieces of that

Record out and about but I don't know it Well so I don't know what the hit is or

Whatever uh the hit is I I should If I knew I was going to talk about this which I wasn't hey by the way Andrew I hope you're Sitting down Spotify being really Unhelpful to me right now this is I'm telling you my And if this is the worst thing that happens in my life I've had a Pretty good life but Spotify is without a doubt The kludgiest Most impossible Website App playing thing that I deal with on a regular basis on all of my computers now i finally got up i had to close out of it and reopen it and you said you don't have this problem no in fact i was about to play it for like in the

moment that you said that i was able to open up a spotify and i is it texas hold'em that you want to hear texas hold'em uh i can play a little bit of that here no that is weird i'm not trying to bust your chops i just that experience is so the opposite of i use it on several devices i've never had one i'm not saying i've never had a kludgy experience with any app but like it seems to

regularly happen to me. This song, yes, I love this song. Who doesn't?

I'm sure we won't get pulled from YouTube.

Nobody knows this song. Okay, so I like this, right? Ain't no Texas, this ain't Texas, ain't no Hold'em, lay your cards down, da, da, da. Now, Andrew, I'm getting scared here. We're going to do something live on the air that has me feeling very nervous because maybe I wasn't listening closely enough i was i thought i heard layla foddle when introducing this conversation about black country music i believe i heard her say something to the effect of we're not in texas and there ain't any hoedowns i believe she said hoedown okay let's just take a listen i'm gonna i also don't know if when you play a story from morning edition's website if they include the intro or not but let's find out together i'm gonna play this the beehive is getting a real life boogie and a real life hoedown this ain't Texas okay it's getting a real life boogie and a real life hoedown do you think that is a weird intro when the song is this ain't Texas ain't no

hold'em or do you think that that's acceptable well I'm just confused by I I don't know yet I still haven't sussed out exactly what you're getting at here because I'm a little confused

but honestly well now that I re-listened to it I'm a little I'm actually backing much like you backed off of your strong stance on roadhouse i'm slightly backing off on it because i guess what she's saying i here's what i heard it to be a reference to the lyrics of the song oh okay so instead of hold'em they went with hoedown not to be confused with hodor but i guess i guess it's actually more general than that i was hearing it as i was screwing together ikea cabinets this even this morning i was hearing it as because they're playing them you know what i think i You know what? I'm going to officially retract my statement, and I want to apologize to Layla Faddle and whoever else edited and wrote this intro and this piece. What was happening to my brain...

as I was working away on these drawers and this Tisdorp drawer fronts.

That's the name of the door fronts?

Tisdorp. Or drawer fronts? Well, it depends, Andrew. The drawer fronts are Tisdorp, but if you're talking about some of the other pieces of this particular kind of wood that you're sort of finishing, trimming out the cabinets with, other parts of it are called end coping. But it all looks the same. This was not the end coping portion. This was the Tisdorp. But I digress.

I'm just end coping here, man.

This is an end coping mechanism.

Yes, it is.

When I was sitting around working on this stuff this morning and listening to the radio and the music was playing, I think this is what was happening. My brain was being tricked into thinking that I was hearing what was Morning Edition's attempt to do a spin on the opening to lyrics of the song, which is, this ain't Texas, ain't no hold'em. And instead, Layla says Well, the beehive So first of all, we're already not Referencing the beginning of the song Because Beyonce is not singing about the beehive So it's like, this is You know

By tonight, the beehive Is getting a real life boogie And a real life hoedown

I was thinking that

Somebody there had not understood that the line was ain't no hold'em and had thought it was hoedown and was trying to make a reference to that. But now that I listened back to it for the fourth time this morning, Andrew, I think I'm actually, I'm picking, I don't, it's fine. To me, it's innocuous. I still think it's too close to the lyric of the song, but it's not the song, but not in a way that is quite clever enough for me. But I'm gonna back off. I was under the impression that somebody at NPR who wrote this intro literally didn't realize that they were saying hold'em, but I don't think that's the case now.

I don't think that's the case. It doesn't bother me that they're that they sound similar because they mean different things. And if you're talking about country music, I mean, a hoedown makes sense. I mean, but keep that keep that play finger nimble, my friend, because you're going to hear this for a fifth, sixth and possibly seventh time. OK, because I want to I take issue with something else in this.

Oh, good. Thank God. Thank God we found something to criticize because I had totally I had struck out on my criticism of Morning Edition today.

By tonight, the Beehive is getting a real-life boogie and a real-life hoedown.

The Beehive. Okay, so just forget about the Beehive. This group of people. You're saying this group of people is getting a real-life boogie. Can you get a boogie? That's what I'm talking about. You can get a hoedown, sort of. I sort of feel like, okay, listen. This town has been wanting a hoedown. What is a hoedown? It's a dance. It's a big dance where everybody gets together and they wear cowboy boots and they dance. This town hasn't had a hoedown in forever. The Beehive hasn't had a hoedown forever. Tonight, they're getting a hoedown. I'm okay with that. Yeah, we're finally having that hoedown. We've all been saving up for it. We're finally having, we're getting that hoedown. That's the key. But can you get a boogie? How do you get a boogie?

Yeah, I do, again, it's not annoying for the reasons I thought it was, but it's annoying for different reasons. Because we all know that the way you make a hanky dance is you put a little boogie in it.

And that's the only so you can put a boogie in something. But can you get a book? I guess if you can see, I didn't know that if you can put is that is that a booger? Is that a booger joke that you're making?

Yeah. Well, I grew up when I was a kid. We would call them boogies like my mom would say, oh, do you have boogies in your nose? Oh, it's pretty funny because now that I think about it, that probably was I think that that was I mean, I didn't make up that joke. How do you make a hanky dance? You put a little boogie in it. So I think that there was some number of people in America that were calling stuff in your nose when you were a little kid a boogie. Oh, I have a boogie in there. But it sounds like it didn't make its way to rural Ohio.

Well, if it did, that just wasn't our vernacular for it in the household. But let me ask you this. As a kid who grew up calling them boogies, what was your reaction when you heard what Maverick called enemy fighters in Top Gun?

Bogeys?

Yeah. Was there some cognitive dissonance there for you?

I didn't know why they were talking about Humphrey Bogart. Star of the African Queen.

Okay. There you go. Can I, while we're on radio, I wanted to tell you about something that brought me joy that is radio related today. But I had this brief moment while I was getting ready in the morning in the bathroom. I had this brief moment of joy that immediately turned into a recognition of how out of step I am with. I think everyone it's not serious, but I was listening to not morning edition because I'm not an early riser like you, but I was listening to the mid morning show on NPR today on a little radio that is now hanging on my shower rod. This is exciting for me because this is an.

Old shower radio that Genevieve probably got in the late 90s or early 2000s. We've always shared a bathroom. So this thing has always just kind of followed us around from apartment to apartment. And I wish I had it in here. I could show it to you, Luke. It's just so.

I think I know. Is it yellow?

No, that's my Grundig like NPR.

Well, I feel like maybe I'm just my brain is my Mandela affecting this. But I feel like I can picture this kind of radio. Does it have a sort of a hook built into it?

It's kind of got a hook. It's almost like a – it almost looks like a maybe – it's almost teardropped shaped sort of. It is so just blandly 2001. It's just like white and light blue, and it takes like four AAA batteries. And it's the kind, again, that kind of hangs on a shower rod or possibly on the nozzle of your shower or whatever shower head. But anyway, we've carried this thing around. It's not good. It's got a tiny little tinny speaker in it. And as the batteries start to die, you have to turn it up louder and louder and louder, and the sound gets worse and worse and worse. But now we live in a house where, for the very first time, we have two bathrooms. So Genevieve has had this shower radio in her shower, and I have just been using that big blocky yellow radio that I keep on top of my medicine cabinet. And my radio is an AM-FM radio. I'm not bragging. It just is an AM-FM radio.

It gets both amplitude and frequency modulation.

exactly i think there might even be it's one of those grundig survival radios i actually kind of like the way it looks it's like a bright yellow about that thing on the am radio it's not like

a sea crane do you think you could use that in case of like if you know if if uh if russia detonates a nuke that takes down starlink do you think you'll still be able to get something on

that grundig i might i do think it might have some sort of shortwave component to it but anyway so ever since we moved in this house like two years ago i've just been you know sort of That thing is always set to AM, you know, 710. It's the sports station here. I never mess around with it. And I talk about like there are parts of shows on that station that drive me bananas, including the show that I'm listening to right before I run in here to do TBTL with you, usually as I'm kind of doing my last minute, you know, whatever, like shaving is a good example for today. I'll listen to the final segment of the sports show that I think is the worst radio available in the greater Seattle area and usually I it's so bad that I'll actually just turn it off and you know me I do not like silence I like the patter of a radio it can usually just sink in the background but the thing is I never change the station because I'd have to like literally change the band to FM and then find you know on the dial it's not digital on the dial find KOW and listen to that and then the next time i want to listen to ball game have to switch it back around and so i really am one of those like radio users that we used to hear about when we looked at radio ratings like it was just easy to keep it on the same station all day which is break off the dial and break off the dial it's a program i am a program director's dream so anyway today uh or maybe like i guess two days ago genevieve got a new shower radio and it's just one of those things like she spent 20 bucks on a radio that is like just leaps and bounds so much better than this

radio that we have it has the processing power of the Apollo lunar module it's just like you know

like I can the eagle when I'm in the bedroom and Genevieve goes into a different room the bathroom to shower and turns on the radio I can tell through a wall and two doors that that radio has better fidelity than this chintzy little thing we've been carrying around and anyway Genevieve says oh I love my new radio I'm gonna throw the old one away I said the hell you are gonna throw the old one away I am the man who has a box of antiquated technology in the closet if nothing else we'll put it in there but also let Uncle Andy give that guy a spin again for old time's sake so I put some new batteries in it which were sorely needed and I hung it up in my shower today or last night and listened to it for the first time this morning and as I'm getting out of the shower I'm like that worked out really well I now have this hanging radio in the shower that can always be tuned to KUOW and then I can have the yellow one you know two feet away on the kitchen or on the bathroom sink always tuned to AM 710 for my sports and when one is annoying me I can just go to the other one and I love the fact that I'm doing this all with like 25 year old technology um as if there's no better solution to this and also just like i don't think there's i mean i guess there's certainly nobody younger than me who is right now in america very happy that they have two radios in the same small bathroom right no that's the opposite of where

we're trying to go with this stuff generally speaking right a more streamlined more unified thing, and you're just like, eventually...

Like, heaven forbid you fall in love with a third radio station on the Seattle dial. Then you've got to get...

Kixie, I'm coming for you. Another radio.

There's something about... You're talking about hanging up that shower radio that reminds me of another joke that I loved as a kid, which is a guy is asking another guy a question. He's quizzing him. He goes, what is green, hangs on a wall, and whistles? And the guy says, I don't know. and the first guy goes a salmon and the guy goes salmon isn't green he goes well it is if you paint it and then the guy goes yeah but a salmon doesn't hang on a wall he goes it well it does if you hang it there he goes okay a salmon doesn't whistle he goes i just threw that in to make it hard

i think at the very last minute i remember you figured out what was going on well i think you've told me that before but i yeah i love that very very last minute that is really good all right i thought you're gonna say well two out of three isn't bad right something to that effect those lines yeah um anyway i'm very excited i did want to mention a listener whom i don't believe i know their name because this came in on the text line um but a listener texted me i think last night saying that tacoma rainiers games are going to be broadcast on kicksy this season i didn't know we

Well, that's two great tastes that taste great together for you, Andrew.

That's right. That's why I need a third radio is what I'm saying. Well, yeah.

What do you I mean? Honestly, like that, you know, today is the first day for the Seattle Mariners like baseball season of the games that count. It's very exciting. I actually was wondering if you were going to go to the game tonight. But but what are you going to do? Because I know you also love the Rainiers and you love minor. it's like minor league baseball still has this kind of halo effect to it right which is it's affordable it's not it's probably just millionaires that are running it and not billionaires although i guess technically it feeds up to the major league system but let's not get bogged down in those details or whether or not it's located in gig harbor let's focus on let's focus on the important stuff which is it's just an all-around good feeling to attend a minor league baseball game you're watching you know a lot of people who are playing who are in it for the love of the game they're not making a lot of money one or two of them might make it up to the pros but mostly it's people that are just love baseball the tickets are relatively affordable there are fun weird promotions like it's just kind of everything good about the world of baseball none of the we own the media entity that also broadcast these games that we've decided from a bottom line standpoint that we can spend less money and make more money and they're you know there's just all of the complexity around the pro sports model in particular the pro baseball model so what are you going to do when the Rainiers are playing a game and the Mariners are playing a game well I

I mean I think you give me a little bit more baseball cred to suggest that I pay a lot of attention to the Rainiers I like going to the occasional Rainiers game I try to go to at least one a season and like last year when I went to a game it was amazing how many Mariners players I saw playing in that game because they were on rehab assignment or or they were just working their way down you know frankly um and so it's a real ladder it's like when i was a traffic reporter

it was a ladder people were either on their way up or on their way down nobody was living on the

ladder i'm pretty sure i got to see tom yeah that's right i know i got to see tommy malone pitch twice last season once because marco gonzalez was out for the mariners and then again because I went down to Tacoma. So Mami Talom, as our friend Durst calls him, I got to see him pitch. So anyway, I don't think that, I'm not as addictive or as addicted to Rainier's games or even that- As you are to Rainier Beer. As I am to Rainier Beer, which is a strong addiction, which I should seek help for. But I just like the idea of live minor league baseball being on Kixi. On Kixi of all places. And so I'm wondering if you know this person, Is it John Russell? They're calling him the – oh, no, he's the manager. It says here, inside Tacoma Baseball with the Rainiers, man of spiel. And I want to know who the man of spiel is. Mike Curdo. Mike Curdo, is that a famous broadcaster?

Not to my mind, but also I've been out of the game a while. I don't know. If it were the 1980s and I were listening to Sportsline with Wayne Cody, it's very possible I would know who the man of spiel is because I knew everyone, including the guy who would call in the Longacres scores. I believe it was Gary Stevens. Gary Stevens is here with the Longacres results. I could be mixing people up. The point is I used to be very in the minutiae of Seattle sports talk. No longer. But I'm going to guess that that's the play-by-play person.

Maybe that's just the person who wrote. The person who texted me last night mentioned a name that I didn't recognize saying, like, this guy's the best. So I don't know if that is this Mike Curto who wrote this blog post.

that I'm seeing, I think, via the Rainiers and Kixi here. But I want to read to you directly from some because, you know, the listeners of the show have heard me unfortunately complain about my beloved Kixi in recent years as their format has changed a lot. And certainly Kixi has received some slings and arrows from me, which I don't feel great about. Having said that, I would like to build them back up with this press release, which says Booth, Justice, and the American Pastime inside Tacoma Baseball with the Rainier's, quote, man of spiel, or spiel, S-P-I-E-L. I say spiel on that. I put a little spiel. Tacoma Rainier's baseball is back on the radio in 2024 thanks to our new partner, Kixi 880 AM. For the past three seasons, Rainier's broadcasts have only been available via internet streaming. Games will still be available that way, but we're happy to return to the AM dial for the first time since the 2019 season. So, yes, apparently it's a full season. I thought it might be maybe occasional games or something, but it sounds like, no, baseball's back.

Two things. One, Tacoma is conveniently located, not exactly midway between our places, Andrew, but certainly kind of more in the direction of midway. Like, it's an hour and a half from me and maybe an hour from you, depending on traffic. So, like, I would absolutely love for us to meet up. Maybe we even do a listener thing there. I also could see, you're like, well, I'm not really a Rainier's guy Cut to, three months from now, your ritual is Listen or watch the Mariners game And then when that's over, and you've listened to the post-game show You put on your Rainier's game, which you've somehow recorded As you play darts I recorded on a dictaphone that I set up next to an AM radio in my bathroom You've taken an interest in the team, you're kind of starting to follow There's a couple of guys you're really rooting for Because they've had Tommy John surgery And now you're just like It's a couple more hours of content That I can kind of get into while I'm zoning out And playing my darts or whatever I want to just You know what let's do this Let's thank some dazzling donors And then I do I want to ask you Andrew your opinion On something that went down I'm saying something that went down Like it was an incident It was such a quick moment of time Such a quick little thing That I happened to observe while waiting for my stuff at the Ikea warehouse. And yet it made a big impact on me. And I have a feeling that the listeners will be like, have more empathy than you're demonstrating here for people that work at like an Ikea warehouse. But I'm not sure how I feel, but I want to get your thoughts as well after we thank these dazzling donors.

We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man, razzle dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle

Alright, let's thank those dazzling donors

You're doing the dance I know, I am

I forgot you can see me I'm feeling real sporty right now Because I decided I'm going to wait On my little jog Until I go into town That's when you know you live You live out in kind of the country Is when going into town involves like Well, how many things can I pack into town And there's a jog I like to do down in town. So I'm waiting. But it means I'm in some sweats. I've got my running shoes on. I'm feeling active here, Andrew.

You look springy. You look literally like you're a spring that wants to bounce.

Because, you know, all the running shoes now, like, I don't know if you can see these. I actually don't think I can lift my leg high enough, Andrew. It's a pretty high.

It's a pretty high. Okay, well, I saw it for a split second. It's a really quick high kick. I saw it flashed across the screen.

Very likely popped a hand in there.

We'll see you in Tacoma.

So you've noticed, right, that this brings us no closer, by the way, to thanking Shannon Teton, our first dazzling donor who's in Federal Way. But you've probably seen lots of people wearing Hoka's now. That's really a very popular brand of running shoe because they were the first ones to come in with just a massive amount of cushioning in the sole made out of very lightweight material. And I was wearing those to run for a long time and I really liked them. But then because I've got this hookup at the Nike outlet, the Nike store, the employee store, because somebody that I know through somebody who I might be dating was an employee at Nike and put us on this list, I can get a screaming deal on Nike stuff. So I was thinking, OK, with the popularity of hokas, Nike's got to make its own version of this situation. And sure enough, whatever this is, the Zoom X, look how much cushion there is on this thing. I mean, it's like I'm walking on Sunday. sunshine it's like a marshmallow you got marshmallows it is yeah it is and so that when you said it looks like I was on springs I mean literally like these things are very very cushiony and I love that we have a lot of runners in the audience who probably have theories on this but like I do feel like there's been it's been a real journey about what is considered a good idea for your running shoes for a while it was like no shoes or get it down to almost no shoe if you can like just just some distinct toe shoe thing that provides no padding and that will teach your legs and your feet what to do and i was always like but i don't like that yeah like that's that's hurdy and i was like i could i would like more cushion please and i'm very happy that we've now cycled into the mode of this or the era of this where they're just like uh let's princess

and the p this shit uh-huh right and you like those huh i'm so into it and i was i was right

by the way that nike's got effectively their version of the hoka um i own three pairs of these i have one that i just wear for wearing uh and then i have another pair that i run in that are a different color but they're they're exact replicas of the ones that i wear out in the world so i had to mark them with a sharpie so i know which ones are the running ones and which ones are just the normal wearing ones and then these ones are only for running and they're a different

color can we restart this conversation but with me saying the beehive is getting their boogie and

they're getting their hokas what a long that's not even the lyric andrew all right get me out of here shannon teton i'm going with teton andrew because that's how we say the mountain range and

we don't know how it's spelled too yeah yeah so uh shannon this is an incentive to donate next

your, if I, if I mispronounced your name, if I mispronounced your name, it's an incentive. And if I pronounced it right, it's also an incentive because next year you can hear your name correctly pronounced yet again. Shannon says, hello, hello. I don't usually do these. I don't have a lot to say or anything to promote, but I do love this community and I look forward to the episodes daily. I started listening back in 2011 ish. I had a lot of time working as a janitor. So I went back to the beginning to fill my eight hours. And also I had the app. It got me through the long nights on second shift That job is also where I met my lovely husband And now fellow 10, Tyler What up, Tyler? Nice Now, I'm wondering Okay, we had a listener I don't think it's Tyler We had a listener in Indiana years ago Who was working as a custodian And would pop on the show now and then And give us some sort of Some tales from the crypt Some things that had been observed While working as a custodian I believe at a college in Indiana And I remember just thinking, boy, this is some fat. I felt it's the closest I've ever felt to a Studs Terkel doing the working series. Like any job is fascinating if someone has done it for a while and they are a good storyteller.

Yes. You know, I had a beer with listener Keith this weekend. I think it's OK for to say this. He's in the Yelm area and he is a nighttime school custodian as well. We had a lot to talk about. Now, Keith didn't have a whole bunch of like over the top like horror stories or if he does, he kept them close to his vest. He's a professional. But I could have just I mean, we talked for a long time about various tools, different types of mops, all kinds of cleaning related things. And that feeling of being in a school after hours where like this whole thing is your domain to like take care of, although things are timed like you get a certain amount of time to clean each room to stay on, stay on task.

Shannon says we love having something to connect over and saying silly drops to our dogs Buzz and Barley our pets fives they absolutely are Shannon have you heard the show we officially support your tens being fives your pets being fives that is anyway love you guys says Shannon in Federal Way and also shout out to Tyler thanks Shannon and Tyler for supporting the program if you have any great stories about custodial life, let us know. I'm all ears, particularly ones that involve plugged toilets. That's kind of my area of both expertise and interest. Send those right to you. Nice. It's a row.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

Hey, look who it is. It's Judy Bornstein of San Mateo, California. Judy says hello to my favorite imaginary friendos Thanks for another fabulous year of hashtag content And for curing global loneliness one podcast at a time You guys mean the world to me and my cats Jack and Zelda Do we introduce Jack and Zelda to Buzz and Barley?

I don't know Do cats and dogs get along?

You know, not in the cartoons But in real life I think sometimes Yeah I wonder about that I really would like to

to get a dog again at some point. I missed the Rue dog. I actually saw a dog in the Seattle Times, like on the Seattle Times website, that I thought was Rudy, and I zoomed in. It wasn't. It was a different dog, and then I sent that picture to Carrie, and she said, oh, yeah, no. Rudy's almost, Rudy's muzzle is completely white at this point.

Oh. Well, also, what is this dog in the paper for? Did it get caught doing, like robbing a bank or something? It did.

It was some, I can't remember what the story was about, but I think that it was just at that dog park at Madison that's also part of Lake Washington. So basically dogs can swim. No, Magnuson, not Madison, but Magnuson Park there. What do we call that neighborhood that Magnuson is in? How quickly we first Sandpoint.

Yeah, is that the neighborhood? Yeah.

But anyway, I've been thinking. Plus, you know, I'm kind of out here and there's like a fair amount of land for a dog to run around. This would be a fun place to grow up if you were an active dog. But a thought I have is what do you think the Bubbles and dog relationship would be? And I tend to think it would be good for Bubbles to be older than the dog. Because I feel like if you have a kitty and you have a full grown dog and they don't like each other, the kitten could get really overwhelmed by the dog. The dog is way bigger It's older If the dog was kind of maybe a little snarly Whereas if the cat is the alpha We love that The cat just riding the dog around Yes Wearing a cowboy hat That's right So like I feel like You know the older Bubbles gets Actually the better it would be It would be a good time to integrate a puppy Because I feel like they'll bond And the dog will never realize that it could eat the cat Because in its mind At a formative point The cat was bigger than it was or at least its size, and that, I think, levels the playing field. This is my totally unscientific theory of having a dog and a cat.

You just never know. I think it depends on, like, a lot of factors and just the personality of the animals, especially where they are in that life. Like, I mean, I know that you're talking about a dog and a cat, which, you know, I love seeing photos on Instagram of people who have their dogs and their cats all get along well, or it's just a good dog-cat friendship. God, is there anything better than that? But, like, it's so strange, like, as far as, like, trying to puzzle out, like, how is this creature going to react to another creature? It has to do with, you know, like, how territorial an animal is. The thing that is still, and we don't have to go into detail on here because I know I've talked about this way too much. But, like, the difference between the relationship between Professor Bananas, our older cat now, and Bingo, our younger cat, could not be any more different than the relationship between Professor Bananas when she was the young one and our old cat, Theo. and it was like it's just so funny like bananas the younger cat would sort of like kind of like even as a little kitten sort of like push theo into snuggling like she wouldn't back down from him you know she'd go up to him start licking him if he got overstimulated he'd push her kind of push her away but she'd like be like no i'm licking you and then they end up like cuddling you would think that now that she's the older bigger cat she could do the same thing to the little kitten that came in the house but for some reason little bingo comes in this house like literally half her size if not smaller and just started dominating her from day one in a way that she hasn't really enjoyed then now they're they're kind of reaching some we're having some really good days and they're reaching some sort of a friendship i believe good warms my heart so don't make it sound like it's a it's a nightmare over here but it just is so strange like banana

just seems like such a different cat with a different cat interesting well andrew you it is And it's of particular interest to Judy Bornstein, who literally finishes this sentence, Andrew. I didn't even realize this, okay? With, always like to hear about bananas, bingos, bubbles, and holly.

Oh, there you go. Okay, good. So that was interesting.

Promises made, promises kept, Jules. This year, I'd like to once again use my dazzling message to let the tenants know about my business, C-suite resolutions. I offer mediation, negotiation, coaching, and ombuds services for organizations and individuals who are facing conflicts they're not sure how to handle or how to handle successfully. Sounds like something TBTV could use when we have people missing meetings like I was yesterday. Last year, you helped me get the word out, and it worked. The day after my dazzling donor message, a 10 reached out for help with a difficult work negotiation. as a 10, of course. She was a joy to work with. I'm available for free initial consults and discounts are available for 10s. I can be found on my website, csuitesresolutions.com. That's C-suite. Sorry, I think I've made a plural there. And by the way, it's the letter C. It's www.theletterc.com. Resolutions.com. And if you've got something that needs resolving in the world of business, go talk to our friend and ten, Judy Bornstein, in San Mateo, California. So, Judy, thank you so much for supporting the program. We couldn't do this without you. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Our Top Story, Andrew, which is, again, in a very classic TBTL fashion, Not important to the world But important to me To know the answer to this Which is how do you feel About something that went down At the Ikea warehouse yesterday So The deal now with Ikea I don't know when the last time Is you bought any kind of stuff From Ikea It's actually been a while for me I had sort of aged out I guess Of the Ikea phase of my life But when I was Putting this little And boy is it ever small This kitchen that I put in Like it's I mean it'll be fine for me And maybe one other person And maybe Bubbles and maybe Bubbles' new dog friend. But it's pretty small. But I just couldn't deal with trying to build a kitchen from scratch with custom cabinets and the weight and the decisions and probably the expense. Yeah. So I just was like, I'm going to go to a place where they sell these kinds of things, and they do it a lot, and it's pretty standardized, because I just needed to get the show on the road. I needed to get this hoedown happening. And so anyway, I've been spending a lot of time at Ikea because it turns out while it is sort of standardized it is a very involved process with lots of different moving parts and things being delivered and um what i found out was uh i wasn't crazy yesterday by the way when i was like trying to figure out how does this all fit together they hadn't actually delivered all of the stuff that i needed so uh basically like i had these drawer fronts that that that i need because all of the the cabinetry of ikea it's all it's all

basically like either 18 inches or 36 inches the base cabinets and then you can put in like a bunch of drawers you could have it be shelves there's a you know the the x the box the the thing that it goes in is is just kind of like a box but then what goes inside it and if you have doors or if you have drawers or what that's where all the kind of like interchangeability starts to happen it's modular it's very modular and so i had all this stuff and i was like i don't understand i have like three drawers but how do they i don't have enough faces for the drawer so is this not supposed to be drawers and then i was trying to go on the like 3d schematic but that was from a previous the only one it would let me see was from like two versions ago so anyway i was very confused it turns out they had delivered these other drawer faces to the ikea down in portland and not to me so i had to go down and get them how did you discover that well i got an email from ikea saying we have your order and so i went down and i was like i wonder if this solves the mystery of what's been going on and sure enough it did so while ikea wasn't wrong i also wasn't wrong i didn't have everything i needed and i was just putting it together incorrectly which is typically what goes on there was legitimately some stuff that was missing and was making it confusing for

me so that felt like a minor win for me yeah that does that's a relief to know that you're not going out of your mind but on the other hand was part of you like how many how much time do you think you spent trying to puzzle something out that was unpuzzleable minimally because i have a very short

attention span i probably looked at it for five minutes and then it just went to tiktok okay and then just zoned out for five hours thank god um so anyway i was down there getting this stuff and i was but of course they don't have any of the stuff in the ikea at least stuff like this you then you buy it at the ikea but then you drive over to this like warehouse where they actually keep the like a lot of the larger stuff in the parts this stuff that i bought isn't particularly large it just doesn't live at the ikea for some reason and i am now also well familiar with this particular location um where they you know the warehouse so i go over to the way and it's like you bring the receipt and i always kind of think like and this is no shit i mean the people at the warehouse seem perfectly fine it's no shade on them but it kind of takes a while between when you're at so i'm standing in the kitchen department and the person is kind of like going oh okay you need this and i was actually buying a couple of extra things as well some hinges i needed and um some utrescas i don't have to explain that to the listeners but i have an app where i get all of my hinges uh-huh yeah that would be such a great guerrilla marketing campaign for your home repair company if you just were on if you just had a hinge profile but it was just selling hinges and kitchen remodels i wonder probably you legally you probably can't do that they probably try to ban you for doing commerce but that would be a very funny idea or what if it was like one

of those things where an investment company just you know i mean like hinge goes kind of out of business a la bed bath and beyond and somebody just buys like the name hinge and like the intellectual property and they really do just sell hinges using an app

that would be that's my plan to get rich so i'm i'm standing in this oh the thing i was going to say is the when you're in the real ikea and i'm talking to the kitchen expert person and they're putting all this stuff in the computer and i'm buying it and they're going yeah this just gets sent over to the warehouse it's a it's an order you know that they'll pull it's still sort of strange to me when I get there and I'm the only person and it's like it feels to me like maybe this is information that's being kind of relayed to the warehouse folks at the for the first time because I you know me Andrew I love a good you're leaving the stadium you call the Lyft or Uber and then you get outside and there they are that's not your approach you like to be where you're going to be picked up so that when they get there you're there I try to send them a letter the night before so like meet me by the mitt to me the perfect thing is like oh i'm in the ikea i'm already i'm not put out but it's like i had to like i had to park here to go through this whole thing and now i have to leave and then i have to move my car to a different place that's like a half mile away three quarters mile away which is all these one-way streets in portland so you go through this whole weird area anyway and then you get there and then it's like what's your order number and you give it to them and then it would seem that like the wheels maybe weren't turning as much during that process of heading over there as maybe you could have hoped but anyway I get in yesterday I walk into the thing and there's a person a woman in front of me and she's on her phone and I kind of can't tell are you on your phone waiting for them to bring you the stuff or have you not given them the receipt yet right because I didn't want to go in front of her if she had not given them the the stuff they needed but on the other hand I didn't want to wait there forever if she was just waiting for her stuff so i was like are you in line she was oh yeah i haven't given him or she said yeah i got to give him my thing so she gives him the the list of stuff that she's purchased and the guy disappears into the back and he's gone for like a fairly considerable amount of time and then comes back and then says okay so we have these items you know it's like a long list. This woman's also doing a kitchen. We have these items, these four items, they're not where they're supposed to be. So we don't know what's going on with them. We're going to look for them. And she goes, okay, um, well, should I wait for them? Are they going to look around the rest of the area or should I? And he's like, well, you could go home and come back. She goes, well, I live up in Vancouver. So I'm, and she goes, and I'm trying to get this kitchen done this weekend so i'll just kind of wait i guess so she waits for like 10 minutes or something and i can see that her gears are turning of like do i just wait and hope that they find the stuff or do i leave and go on a drive to like a kind of far away place and then have to make another trip on a subsequent day which you know that kind of stuff is a real hassle and the guy is not rude but he's

like she's asking him how should i proceed and he's like like she goes are they gonna look at every single bay like what is like i need a little bit more information about how this is going to go because the computer system knows what's in the warehouse so we know the stuff is in the warehouse but the stuff is not where it says it's supposed to be in the warehouse so is that like a two-day process that a one-day process could that be in 20 minutes like kind of what am i dealing with and he was like i don't know what to tell you they're going to look for him and she was like okay so again he disappears she's standing there i can see the gears turning she's doing this cost benefit analysis of like how long am i going to be here could i just leave and come back on a different day or whatever and so finally the she goes sir she kind of like puts her head into the warehouse or sir sir and he comes back out and she goes i'm just gonna i guess go home and just come back tomorrow and get these i mean i was trying to get this project done i was trying to do this tonight he's like okay and also by the way i kind of wanted him a little bit to be like ah i'm sorry that sucks you know i mean like yeah sucks you have to go home sucks you have to go home to a place that's with traffic can be a little bit of a drive from this ikea we're not talking 20 miles but we're talking about a distance to go and he didn't seem what was a little bit missing and again i want to stress this guy wasn't rude but he didn't seem to be kind of like realizing that it could be a little frustrating when you bought a bunch of stuff and you were told the stuff is here and then you go to the place and then you're like yeah the stuff is not where we were told it was going to be okay well what does that mean for me i wish i could tell you i don't know either like the idea that she was gonna have to go home and come back he didn't didn't seem to make a huge impact on him he was like okay so she leaves and I'm still waiting there for my stuff and she is probably gone for maybe a minute and someone else's head pops out from the little door and goes we found it oh god damn it and the guy person goes is she still here and the guy goes just cool as a cucumber no she's coming back tomorrow

Mm.

and i was like should i run and get her i know i was thinking like i would be so tempted to run should somebody and maybe it was two minutes it wasn't like she if like honestly if she was still in the parking lot i would have gone and yeah told her obviously but it couldn't have been more than two and a half minutes and what what struck me about this was how the guy working the kind of front area no this was totally lost on him this kind of cinematic near miss of like a person being like oh what am I gonna do okay I guess I'll like leave I guess I'll like ruin half of tomorrow first of all I won't get this stuff done tonight like I'd hope to I will ruin half of tomorrow coming back here which hopefully the stuff will be here etc etc this woman didn't say any of this by the way she was being pretty she was obviously like a little disappointed but she wasn't being rude in any way she was just being matter of fact but this was totally lost on this person it was it was like oh yeah she's coming back tomorrow like I kind of felt like on the one hand I guess look if you have this job where you have to be dealing with the public all day long and sometimes a frustrated or disappointed or grumpy or hangry public or it's also certainly not this guy's fault that the stuff wasn't where it was supposed to be with the like you know scanner and the bays and the system but it was it was the fact that it didn't seem to make any kind of impact on him that this had been such a near miss and I was like ah you should like I feel like he should have been more affected by this than he was yeah now you could say that's good boundary setting what is he going to do like take it so personally when there's like a mishap that he had nothing to do with but I would have liked a little bit more like oh crap oh she just left hold on let me i have her number on the receipt let me call her let me let me do something let me let me in some way note that this could have been very different for this woman and it's now she's gonna have to come back to where he it was i can't even give you a good example but it was like he just like was saying oh it's all right you know the sky is blue like it was so he was so kind of not affected by what had just happened and i i don't know i on the one hand i was like man that's a real lack of caring about other people's experience at the place you work that was one thought and then my other thought was well i guess the guy's got to have some boundaries i mean what's he going to do like drive to vancouver with the stuff and be like i got it like so maybe that's just his thing maybe his way of working this job is to not take any of it personally but you did

not get involved you didn't say no i just thought i'm gonna tell andrew about this whole thing was like that you did or said something that you're not sure if you should regret it i mean i it's there was nothing you could do i'm glad you didn't get involved i feel that i like i see things happen around me to other people sometimes where i have that feeling that you had where like you almost want like oh god like you you feel it yourself i'm trying i mean maybe the most obvious example that i raise on the show sometimes is when you see somebody just miss a bus like you're just always rooting for the person who's chasing after the bus right and when it's such a near miss it's just like everybody who sees that uh that's the one right the one thing we can all agree on is

that person got screwed well no somebody needs to throw themselves onto the steering wheel of the

bus right do whatever it takes well if you're outside the bus you got to throw yourself onto the bike rack you have to throw yourselves right under the front window so yeah that's a real frustrating experience and then as far as like but but here's here's where here's where i struggle with these things because i grew up like in during a time in in a family and in a place where customer service was discussed a lot and we expected a lot from you know like just growing up from our from and it's probably in a very entitled way but like from our servers at a restaurant or whatever like the idea of somebody being rude or even snippy like with my dad or something like that like that would that could change the dynamic of an afternoon or an evening or something right right and so i also sort of like um kind of uh uh absorbed that sort of demeanor as i became a young adult and went through life like the idea of bad service i took it so personally and sometimes i i still do and we talk about that because at the end of the day we're all humans but also the older i get and also the more the world and the economy changes you just sort of also think like these people who have jobs that are way harder than mine and I don't know the ins and outs of this guy's job I don't know if he gets I maybe it working this particular job at Ikea is a really good job with good benefits and pay I hope it is I have no idea yeah but I think that I kind of get stuck in a little bit now of just like if somebody is not like giving me an extra smile with my latte I've never actually ordered a latte But whatever it is, I try to remind myself, like, they're probably not making enough money based on what they have to do. And it's not their job to make me feel.

better about my day I don't know there's somewhere in between but I am still I guess sort of like old-fashioned and conservative enough to sometimes have that initial reaction just kind of like but can't you care can't you care a little bit can't you see my humanity and I just sort of feel like you know in this particular case you just you how can you not empathize with somebody who has that feeling of like I had this whole project my day was built around this project I had to drive what is it 20 30 minutes to get i mean with traffic it could be more than that it's like she

doesn't live also it would be weird if she lived it would be unusual if she lived literally in this area because all it is is like that's like the strangest place it's by the airport it's a ton of warehouses it's also the i assume world headquarters for cd baby what just still going that's still a thing they sell hinges now there's there's a building that has cd baby on the

That is amazing.

I want to take a picture of it every time I'm there.

What was CD Baby? It was an early internet thing, right?

I thought maybe it was a thing where your band, it would help get your band's music on CD.

It was like an early band camp thing, I think.

I don't even know, but it's been a long time since I, well, it hasn't. I think about it constantly now because I'm always in this weird part of Portland, but when the woman clarified that she didn't live nearby, it's like, well, yeah, because you don't live at CD Baby. Um, but yeah, like the, I, I'm, I had the exact same journey in my head, which was, it's not a good look to make an, even though unfortunately on this show, it is a lot of the content. It's not a great look to make most of your personality just kind of like, you know, being put out by somebody who's very likely not making a living wage, not treating you like a king. Like that's not really the look. But there was just something about The fact that the woman Had almost just left And then even if the guy Doesn't go chase her Even if he doesn't just I feel like you or I would have just been Kind of like oh Oh you found it oh okay gosh Too bad she just left but you know what We'll just make sure we have it all together Because she's going to be back here tomorrow Even that level of like noting that this is like Kind of crazy that this person was standing and waiting And now is gone Like it was it was I guess what it is is it's like I tend to do better with people, generally speaking, who are empathizers, probably because I am very self-obsessed and I like people to be empathizing with me. Like it was to him It didn't seem to occur to him Like I said I've already kind of Made this point so I don't need to remake it It didn't seem to occur to him at all that that woman's The next few days of that woman's life Had been adversely affected by this Like which made me feel like A lack of his awareness of what Other people's experience in the world is Now again if he has too much of that This is probably a tough job for him Because there's going to be a lot of people That are coming in there With a lot of different things going on and disappointment around various things and he can't get drawn into every sob story at the ikea warehouse like that's just not going to be uh you know it's not gonna be a good a good way of proceeding for him but it i could have used a little more of him realizing that somebody else's life was just affected by this and and and that there were some i don't even know if the word is irony there but there was something kind of cinematic about the near miss yeah or even like

in this case he was dealing with a customer who was kind of put out a little bit but sounds like you know didn't give him a hard time this woman in question but like how much of his day is just dealing with people who do give him a hard time you listed from from hangry to tired you listed all the reasons somebody might be you know giving this fella a hard time halt andrew yeah are my

hungry oh am i angry am i wait i thought there was maybe that's a stroke there's some kind of a There's something they teach you in therapy that you're supposed to do, which is kind of like checking through your I'm feeling a certain way, but you're kind of checking the tea being tired, hungry, angry, something tired. But I feel like angry is the thing you're feeling trying to figure out why you are that.

Yeah. I remember my friend Avishai saying this is this goes back a couple of decades. But I remember him saying that I think his partner or girlfriend at the time, he realized at a certain point that he could just ask her. And this sounds condescending, but I think it was a loving it was them finding a way of communicating, he would say, tired, cold or hungry, because if they're if they were in a conversation or they were together and things were getting a little bit itchy, he sort of identified or they identified as a couple that his partner might be a little bit tired, cold, hungry. And there are ways to address these things without suddenly arguing about that time you didn't go to my cousin's wedding with me. Right.

I think I think a halt is like it's like a recovery. thing where they're they're asking themselves are are you having hunger are you having anger are you feeling lonely are you feeling tired and therefore is that affecting your like desire to go you know use drugs or alcohol sure okay that makes halt halt anyway uh i i think i think everyone's gonna be okay i think that this woman probably came back and got her stuff and by the it was very gratifying this morning as i was misunderstanding the intro to morning edition and putting those cabinets together i hit this moment of the drawer fronts not fitting like basically there's like three drawers kind of a small one on top a medium-sized one and a large one and even though this is not complicated stuff it's the kind of stuff that i i just have a i'm a very bad problem solver around construction remodeling and assembling stuff which are basically the three things i do constantly here perfect like i just don't have like there are some i feel like there are some some places in the world and some spaces and things where i feel like i'm i'm pretty competent and i tend to know what to do and handle it fairly well and then there are like it's like putting together stuff like this if it doesn't go right away like i don't have whatever the sort of like engineer brain problem solving like okay this isn't working so let's do this again it's actually something that i really admire about you andrew when we're going through either computer stuff or audio stuff you're very systematic and logical and you trace it back and you usually get a good outcome i'm very quick to be like we just need to buy a new

computer ikea seems different though i mean and i'm actually starting to bump up against a hard out for myself so we should probably get to blurs days here in a second but like i have not dealt with a lot with um with ikea you know i mean we've certainly in our 20s genevieve and i bought plenty of ikea but genevieve i think is usually the assembler of things the thing about it though is it almost reminds me of the difference between cooking and baking it's like you talk about problem solving like you could it seems like you can problem solve to a certain degree with ikea but there's not a lot of wiggle room right not like we'll add a little bit more oil you know what i mean like it's gotta be like it's good there is so i don't know how much like let's say I'm chasing down an audio issue and I'm going through the audio chain it's a little bit different than I this stuff just doesn't go together the right way assembling things I have a pretty short

wick for that myself well the problem was I had done I'd put the I'd put the tracks in you know that the that the drawers were going to go on I had put those in what I kept looking at the printout over and over and over again I thought I had done that right which I guess I had and then the drawers were put together right but somehow this bottom one just didn't it was it was bumping in it was it was bumping into the one above it it wouldn't close all the way by like a significant amount by like half an inch so i knew it wasn't just these drawers you can actually with this screw you can move them up and down and left and right the drawer fronts but it wasn't that it was more profound and so last night i was just like i took all the drawers out i couldn't figure it out i was tired it was late and i was like maybe this is going to be how it is till walt gets here but i was like that's gonna be weeks and also how sad are you wired angry are you whimpering are you are you uh angry that he's not here are you lost without him and are you tired of him not being here but anyway i so last night i went to bed and you're right we got to get to the blurs days but like last night i went to bed and i i did drawers were all i i had was so excited because the top one went in really great the next one went in perfect and i was like this is all working and then i put the bottom one in which is the big one and it just goes like clunk i was like oh no so that i was i was taking things apart i was starting to like try to fix it myself and i was like looking at the directions and so i took them all out and they were just sort of sitting in the kitchen floor area and i thought well maybe this is just going to be how it is for the next month or something and then i was like i this morning i woke up with a renewed sense of vigor and i was like you know i think this should be within my abilities i'm 47 years old i'm college educated i've had a you know i've had a lot of life experience i think i can figure this out and so i went to reddit and uh and it didn't even i didn't even get the answer but i had other people commiserating people going like i put these drawers in and they won't it doesn't work and i keep thinking and somebody was like i did the same thing you got to be really careful with this particular setting on the bottom one and the bottom one goes together differently than i just felt what i really felt was like i'm not alone in this it gave me like they used to say about powder milk biscuits it gave me the courage to get up and do what needed to be done andrew i just was like okay i can fix this and i took the drawer front off and i looked at it and i was like it needs to go down a half an inch oh what if i reversed this thing and it moves down and i just kind of like looked at it from a,

a more engineering perspective than I generally do and put it all back together. And like it closed perfectly. And it was very, very gratifying. So I'm hoping that that woman in Vancouver, wherever she is, is having the same experience right now.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but wanting

All right, let's do some Blursdays here, starting off with a belated one, but belated because of TBTL, not belated because of a daughter's mistake, Not at all. This was one that kind of got lost when I was in Mexico on a vacation. This is from Erica saying, happy Blur's Day to her mom, Maggie, from the Middle Shelf. Aww. Erica says, like Luke's mom, Maggie will often call me about memories of my childhood, acknowledging ways she messed up, and we observe the memories together. When I was a kid, I would sit and watch my mom do literally anything because she is fascinating and fabulous. I love you, Mama. Thank you for being you. Aw.

Happy birthday, Maggie. Happy birthday, Maggie. We love you.

Longtime friend of the show. End of the hosts. Emily and James in Vermont say, want to wish a happy 11th Blursday to our five, Stella. Cute. You're the best first kid we could have asked for. Uh-huh. We love you. It's pretty specific.

Get on the magic carpet and ride. Whoa. Easy, Calabro. Calm down, Calabro.

Chris, Eleanor, and Eva Send a Blursday shout out to Liz She's not only my beautiful and wonderful wife But also a faithful 10 Beyond that, she is a dedicated mother to our girls Providing infinite love And seemingly endless mom taxi rides And volunteer hours for all sorts of activities We love you That's my wife Blursday Liz I was driving around Seattle with Genevieve yesterday and there was a car that was sometimes in front of us and sometimes behind us. It was one of those really old kind of classic cars and it wasn't even in super great shape. It wasn't an awful shape either, but it was just like a big like metal classic car, like something you would maybe, not even a boat though, like squatter than that. It was like something you might picture Columbo driving. I can't remember. I think he always talks about his car, although I can't picture it. And then at one point we get behind it and I realized it is a checker and is that why they called checker cabs checkers because i realized oh if this thing weren't like gunmetal gray and if you painted this yellow with black on it it would be a checker cab

that's what interesting i don't think excuse me i don't think i ever thought about the origin of that name i know that you can drive those cars because these people that i grew up with or our family grew up with had a decommissioned checker cab and we would ride around in it and it was so fun it seemed so huge in the back like the area i was also a little kid but i didn't ever think that the name of the cab company was based on the name of the vehicle i thought those were that the company was named and then we called those checker caps but maybe it's because the

car is called a checker i am looking at wow i'm looking at one that's in really nice shape here it's uh on wikipedia a checker marathon i think was the car that i was behind it says the checker Marathon is an automobile produced by the Checker Motor Corporation of Kalamazoo between 61 and 82. It was marketed as a passenger car for consumers as opposed to the similar taxi, which was aimed at fleet buyers. So it does look like Checker was, because I always thought it was the checkers of the, you know, yellow and black checkers on the cab. Yeah, the logo.

I think Fran Liebowitz

drives one of those too. Yeah, exactly. I was telling Veeves, like, how heavy that car must be compared to ours. It just look like a little tank. That's a tuna, bro. Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So loud. Andrew, I need you to calm down. So loud, so repeaty.

Too loud, too repeaty. Okay, Judy says, Happy Blur... Could this be Judy who was a dazzling donor today? How many Judys do we have? Judy says, How many Mike Sniffer pippets do you know?

Let me in. Jeez, it's cold out here.

Happy birthday to my TBTL quote, daddy and the most amazing woman I know my daughter Jen she brought you into my life in 2023 I think this is a different Judy she brought you into my life in 2023 TBTL is now my favorite podcast I'm incredibly proud of Jen she's the woman I want to be when I grow up happy birthday daughter and thank you for bringing Luke Andrew and John into my life

by the way By the way, 2023, that's very recent. Very recent. Welcome to the Boney of the Fam.

You're a TVTL baby.

Baby.

Gene says, happy 80th Blur's Day to our dad, Joe. You're the best dad we could ever hope for, as well as the best 10. We're looking forward to celebrating with you. Love, Maria, Anna, and Gene. Who is my daddy, and what does he do? It's not a tuba. My friend Steve played the sousaphone. Looked like a tuba. He'd always tell people it's not a tuba. Pretty good spoof. Pretty good. Kelly in San Diego says, Happy Blursey to my sister and boss 10 Annie B. I could talk or not talk for hours about how amazing Annie is. She's smart, kind, hilarious, and always has my back. I'm so lucky to have her as my sis. Here's to laughter, adventure, and joy on your special day and throughout the year ahead. Nice. No, no, no, no. our pal bet there in upstate new york says happy 14th blursday to my beautiful super smart amazing daughter lucy you are such an awesome woman i'm so proud of you for getting into jnhs i love how much you love hockey now all those hockey oh nice onesies did the trick i guess bob and i love you so much baby bear i hope 14 is everything you want it to be can't believe you're getting into high school now. Going into high school now. It's kind of different than getting into high school. I got that boogie, finally. Michael says, Happy birthday to Lauren. Lauren is the mom of occasional listeners, Langley and Puddle, and the wife of me, listener Mike. We're very thankful for all that she does for the three of us and hope that she's able to unplug and relax a bit. What she does is so important, and we are gross people apart from her. And finally, Eva and Eleanor say, happy Blur's Day, Liz. Hope you have a great day. We love you and all that you do for this family, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. Sincerely, the children in the dungeon. Please let us out, Eva and Eleanor. Hey, you know what? Let them out.

Let them out. Let the Eva out. That's actually really perfect timing, Andrew, for me to throw one more dungeon-related Blur's Day in if I can. Oh, I know that sound. Those kids are not the only ones coming out of the basement, coming out of the dungeon. It's David from the basement's birthday tomorrow. My dear beloved brother, David B., the last Burbank, is turning, I believe, 27. Because I'm 47 and we're 20 years apart. Oh, wow.

They grow up so quickly.

I know they do. They just grow up so fast. So happy Blurters, Dave. Love you. Happy Blurters, Dave. David. Thanks for listening, everyone. We didn't even talk about Costco hot dogs. Andrew, I need to discuss this with you because I pitched it to the Week in Review as a topic, and I need to workshop it with you so that it's a diamond of content by tomorrow midday when I have to go on that show and maybe talk about it. So can we commit to discussing this tomorrow?

I'll be 100% honest with you. I was hoping to workshop that with you today because I'm about to hop on KUOW's podcast to talk about that exact topic as well.

What do you know about the Hellcat driver that they finally arrested on Reckless?

We're working off the same show sheet, my friend. The same show sheet.

They were like, should we talk about, you know, whatever Bruce Harrell. I was like, hell no. Hellcat and Costco for the win.

I can't believe. I go in there. I have to talk about the city council and back to work in the office. I'm going to listen.

And I'm going to use your appearance on the podcast today as a cliff notes for me tomorrow. So anyway, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd. That's right. Baseball's back. Hello, New York. I'm Bill McNeil. Wait a minute.

Where's the line about from the first pitch to the final out? Ha! Well, I, I, uh, cut that. I love that line.

Ha!

Well, I, I thought it slowed things down a little bit. Yeah, we're gonna put that line right back in. Ha! Fine, where? I don't know. Can I take out, uh, from the crack of the bathroom or the crowd? Put it there. What? You can't cut that line. That line speaks to the truth of the human condition. Power out.