Muse

The basic plan we have for the family is the family talk plan. It's called all talk. You get 400 anytime minutes, which you can use anytime. There's another one called even more family, and that is 400 anytime minutes unlimited nights and weekends. That sounds great. We'll do that. There's more options. Can I? There's even more family unlimited, which is unlimited minutes and texting plus web. Okay, so

one doesn't have texting, the other doesn't have web. We'll just get one that has

everything okay well then you want the simply everything plan okay there's also simply everything plus which is what simply everything plus texting what we

want is your own standard basic family plan with a satellite locator that this

changes everything plan is what you want then great so you're all said you're all signed up now there is a nominal fee if you want to keep your current phone

number yeah I thought that was a free service after you pay for it it is free

So it's just a one-time fee that you pay annually. It's not a one-time fee, but... It is one time in that you only pay one time a year. Great. All right, great. You guys are ready to pick out your sunglasses.

TBTL! Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome Washington's fearless political satirist,

the court jester on the poop deck of the ship of state. Why is this man wearing no pants? The answer will surprise you. There are many ways to keep one's lips conditioned. I don't kiss, for example, 24 hours before a performance because kissing makes your lips mushy and we cannot have mushy lips and be a champion.

Why would either one of you, uh, you know, why? Dear God, why? It's a P-A-R-T-Y because I said so!

Well, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It is our turn. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Oh, la, la. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, looking at another absolutely beautiful summer day, day four. Maybe day five, technically, of me dog-watching, me taking care of Gigi, the standard poodle. Although, while I'm the one dog-watching, allegedly, the dog is watching me. In Soviet Russia, dog watches you. Every day when I do this podcast, Gigi stands just slightly out of the frame here of Riverside and just stares at me with confusion. stands, I'll mention, does not sit, stands at attention with reverence, which is, I hope, what's going on for all of you out there in listener land. Hope you're standing at attention with the respect that TVTL deserves. I couldn't even get through that sentence without laughing. See if I can get through this show. It's episode 4252 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I read a very interesting story from Bloomberg about a small business. I mean, literally a mom and pop and that it's a husband and wife and their business was selling swim diapers by way of Amazon dot com. I got the time if you got the diapers. And then something happened involving a dirty diaper. And now they say their business is in a free fall. And there's some interesting dazzling deets about kind of like what happens when we send stuff back that we bought on Amazon. So we will dig into that. And then we will, of course, because it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. It's my birthday today. We'll bring you the Blur's Day messages. And, of course, we will talk to this guy, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is a soulful podcaster from New Hampshire. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Can you spell Albuquerque for me, please? Let me know if you need a sentence. Let's see.

I knew I should have taken a left there. Let's see if I bet you I...

Don't Google it.

No, I'm putting it in...

Oh, you're typing it because you think you can spell it on the screen better.

No, I'm looking for this audio of my Bugs Bunny saying, I knew I should have taken a left in Albuquerque.

Are you sure you have tape of that? I'm pretty sure you just do a perfect imitation all the time.

Well, that wasn't bad. By the way, it's also my Jiminy Glick.

Do Bugs Bunny interview Mel Brooks.

Oh, boy. I'm looking for it, and I'm not finding the audio drop. It has a cue that you're not expecting.

It's got so many. That's my point. Now, I know that people look forward to the Blur's Day segment, which is coming up later on in today's show. And people really get mad when I spoil it.

We recently had to create the policy that no one from Albuquerque is allowed to celebrate a Blur's Day.

Well, I did see that one of them came in from...

Albuquerque and I think that I saw that in like this the person who sent I had it but I think I

might have misspelled Albuquerque yeah well there you go which is why I couldn't find it when I was

typing when I was typing in my audio system well I was copying and pasting these messages over but I happened to notice that this person who sent in one of the blurs days had an automatic kind of like email signature and I happened to see as I was copying and pasting that it was coming for the email was coming from albuquerque but i hadn't copied that text i'm like well that's okay i can freelance it i'll just write so and so in albuquerque and i start like a l b q carry the u and then i'm like i'm like i'm so confused and i go back into 21 there do you know that they use two q us in there there's two q u combinations in there they're using all the qs is that fair

Yeah, I mean, too bad you can't use, like, is that considered a proper noun? Too bad you can't use that in old Scrabble.

Good point.

Yeah, I don't think you could use that in Scrabble. You score a thousand points on that. Yeah, it's somewhere in the, I don't know if it's the first or second QU where you're starting to think, well, this is more of this than I expected to have going on.

It's an adventure. You start off with, you're like, I can do this. I can do this. Every journey begins with one step. And so you're like, A, L, I'm feeling good. B, I think a U. So let's see. There's one, two. There's three U's in there. Like there's a U that gets you to the QU.

Let me see if I'm spelling it right in my audio drop, okay? I have A, L, B, U, Q, U, E, R, Q, U, E.

Very good. That is very good. I used to be proud of myself for knowing how to spell Massachusetts, which has a whole bunch of double letters and everything. But Albuquerque's got me beat.

Albuquerque is definitely, definitely a challenging one. Do you have to say Wednesday to yourself if you're writing the word Wednesday?

Always and forever. I mean, is it worth considering changing it? I've seen some online chatter about that. Like, can we just change it to...

Definitely feels like the most pressing thing facing this country.

I mean, that's what I say.

Top five at a minimum. Sure. This is not my way of having a conversation about politics, Andrew, but I will tell you I've re-engaged with the discourse.

Oh, great.

How's it going? I don't know if that's good news or bad news or what, but I'm dipping my toe back into the water. Not of really following the events in Milwaukee of the RNC, but I did listen to this week's episode of Why Is This Happening, hosted by Chris Hayes. And it's two of the smartest people I know out there talking about this very important topic, and it's him and Jamel Bowie. Oh, wow. I thought it was a really good conversation. I've said this before about Chris's show. In general and I'll add you know the pod save guys and some of the other Ezra Klein some of the other stuff I tend to consume I have found this is just me personally that when I listen to very smart people Grapple with these things that I'm constantly grappling with in my mind. I somehow feel less anxious Like just knowing that Chris and Jamel have eyes on this. Yeah, it's not like they're proposing the solution It's not like they're saying this is definitively the way out it's not like they're saying we've got a trick play that we're going to run a fumble ruski in the fourth quarter and win this thing or wait until we break out the Statue of Liberty or whatever. You're familiar with the Statue of Liberty play, right?

I feel like my association with it comes only through I want to say Married with Children episodes.

Oh, did Al Bundy do a Statue of Liberty play in high school or something?

This might be totally something I'm connecting to my head that doesn't actually have any relation to it.

He would do this pose.

He would do sort of a football pose kind of thing. But is it when you pretend you're holding the ball back, but then somebody comes and grabs it out of your hand?

Yeah, the quarterback goes back like they're going to pass the ball, but then instead of passing it, a running back or somebody from the offense snags the ball out of their hand.

Yoinks it, I think, is the football term.

Yeah, the official term is yoinking it. If you want to watch the absolute most, the most ridiculous, I would say, I don't know, 10 minutes of football that's ever existed. And I feel like we don't talk about this enough here or anywhere else, was when the Boise State Broncos were playing, I'm going to say Oklahoma. That's a guess. I think it was in the Fiesta Bowl. And they had a final drive for the absolute ages.

What era is this?

This would have been, I'm going to say, like maybe mid-2000s, maybe in the 2010s range. This is from memory, Andrew, but I'm going to tell you just quickly. Because it's either this or I get back into the discourse, which nobody needs from me.

I have a question for you about consuming media when you're done with this. So you might want to make this long.

Oh, good.

That won't be hard, because I'm doing it from memory. But I remember there was a number, like, at least two of my favorite plays that, like, plays that I think should be utilized so much more in football. One is called the hook and ladder. I don't know why we're not, why a hook and ladder is not a standard play. Are you familiar with the hook and ladder?

All the linemen start going, wee, wee, wee, like it's a siren. I don't know what happens after that.

Exactly right. it's where you pass it to a receiver who is running like usually an out route or something and but the whole plan is you've got another receiver that is sprinting down the field and it's time so that they're going to go right past the first person who catches the ball and then that person is going to pitch it to the second guy and it's like the defense backwards lateral sort of yeah almost just lateral lateral right maybe obviously has to be a tiny bit backwards so that it's not a forward pass but like it's you i just feel like the defense never sees this coming and it's not it doesn't seem like it has to be an impossible play to execute you run a very simple route to the first receiver so you have a high degree of success with that and then you run this other person in this you know anyway they ran a hook and ladder for like a bunch of yards they ran either a fumble ruski or a or a statue of liberty i think it might have in a Statue of Liberty. The Fumble Ruski is the ultimate, the ultimate play, which is you hike the ball, but the center or the quarterback just leaves the ball on the ground as the entire team goes in one direction while one person runs over and picks the ball up and goes the other way into the end zone. I mean, that is really, really rolling the dice, but they did a hook and ladder, and then they did this was to win the game, this was to win the Fiesta Bowl I think, and then they ran It was either a Statue of Liberty or a Fumble Ruski. And then this is the piece de resistance, Andrew. The running back who scored either it was the final touchdown or maybe the final two-point conversion or whatever to, like, win the game. He scores this thing, this winning point, and then he runs over to one of the cheerleaders and gets down on a knee and proposes to her.

I think I remember you mentioning it.

I mean, that's... Like, if you wrote that in a movie, we'd say this is a little bit unrealistic. I just can't believe that that all happened, and we don't talk about it on a weekly basis in this country.

Why is that not part of the discourse? Thank you.

Okay, back to media consumption. And then I want to tell you one more thing from the discourse that our friend Chris Hayes has patented this week, has trademarked that I think is incredibly, incredibly accurate and is something that we can all use as long as we all give him credit.

I'm excited to hear about that. I will also just say leading into that, just I want on the record that were Chris Hayes to I don't know what's going to happen with a Democratic ticket, but were there to be an opening, I would vote for him. It's just something that should maybe consider for anyone in his family, including.

There are some legal obstacles to the younger ones. But yes, I believe you've got a newly minted 10. Exactly.

I was thinking that person is definitely a good running mate, if not top of the ticket material themselves.

But do they call him the Shays or the Haws? I'm trying to do a combination of Kate Shaw. Oh, I see. Oh, I see. Noted Supreme Court expert. And then Hayes. I wonder anyway, anybody from the Shays clan is good by me.

OK, you know, in all seriousness, although don't take it too serious because we're supposed to be funny. Are you glad that the first time hearing about that? Yeah, I know. It's rough. Are you glad that you that you were almost like sort of forced off of Twitter? Obviously, you weren't forced off of Twitter. For people who don't know, I don't want to make it sound like you were banned for inappropriate behavior on the social media website. But obviously, when Elon Musk took over and things got really shitty over there.

Nobody go back and look at the cat.

You were a power user of Twitter. It's where you got a lot of information. It's also where you sort of blew off a lot of steam. And you just engaged with that, both coming and going, I would say. And so it was a bit of a thing for you. It was a bit of a sacrifice, I think, is very much the right thing.

It was a Viking funeral at 30,000 feet, Andrew, is what happened.

It was very tough for you to get off the platform. Now it's been a couple of years, I think. It's probably been normalized that you're not on there. I assume maybe you go in every now and then just to see what's up. Okay. I don't. Are you glad? Do you need to send a thank you note to Elon Musk for getting you off of the site?

I would say months go by, and I don't think about X formerly known as Twitter. Is that a blessing? I guess it is. Here's how it comes up in my mind now. I will think of something that I was like, well, that'd be a good tweet And then there's nowhere to tweet it for a while. I was kind of trying to use Instagram in that way I was trying to kind of post Observations there and and and the I think the good news for me for my mental health and really for America is that I've realized

Nobody needs that from me. Everything is just fine without me adding my little my little observations, you know, comedic observations to the discourse. Yeah. Yeah. So in a certain way, is there a lot going on over there that would trouble me if I saw it?

No, I'm barely on it either. I will say that it's funny. The siren song of Twitter like I was gonna say much like you, although our journeys are very different. I used to be on Twitter all the time. I mean, I mean, it was the if I was going to open up a random app on my phone with like one of those things where you ever find yourself looking at an app on your phone, you don't even remember opening it. You're just like, oh, yeah, it's just what I do a million times a day. It was Twitter.

I have I have a I have a circuit. I don't do my circuit anymore, but my circuit was like it was the sort of it was the orange theory of trying to get some kind of serotonin in my life. So it'd be like, check Twitter. How are my tweets doing? And then it'd be check email. Are there any good emails in there about something I'm excited about? And then it would be like, check Facebook or, you know, it would just kind of I would and I would just go through this series of things looking for the same kind of little moment of feeling validated or or whatever. And, yeah, so definitely Twitter was part of that mindless loop.

Basically, that's the same thing for me. You know, I don't think that I was quite as addicted to like kind of posting to Twitter, but certainly like it was the place that I just like, you know, my resting brain would just say, hey, what's going on on Twitter? Right. And like in mostly sports and politics. And I tried to make that more and more sports as the politics kind of was depressing me more and more. And I was just kind of like, you know, social media shouldn't be a total downer for me all the time. And I don't need a million people that I agree with all being angry at the same thing and seeing a thousand posts of it. It doesn't mean I don't agree with those folks, but it wasn't doing my mental health much good. So anyway, since I also mostly got off of Twitter, I very rarely will have the thought, oh, maybe I should post this silly little joke. And I'm just like, well, it's not even worth opening Blue Sky for that. And then I'm like, and then that's where the sentence and that's where the thought ends.

Dear Seattle Times, please refer to my Blue Sky account. Maybe that's it. maybe rants and raves should become our new place where we post those thoughts or at least attempt to post those thoughts should we have a competition andrew over the course of a year which one of us can get more rants or raves posted like i kind of like that because i anonymously obviously because they are all anonymous by definition i guess we have to create a lot of burner accounts because maybe they see the same email coming in a lot but i feel like maybe that's a place where we could we could start to get some of this energy out okay okay the whole twitter thing is i think i'm glad

that we're not on twitter that much anymore i have been brought into it briefly every now and then because of the breaking news and some of the stuff going on with my baseball team but when i go over there i'll get like whatever i need to see but then immediately it draws you back into that into that downward spiral of negativity and people responding to people and everybody being angry and And I'm just kind of like, man, as tough as things are, I'm glad I'm not living it out on Twitter these days. Okay, back to your rant and rave question. I just wanted to put that topic to bed because I didn't want to belabor it any further. Back to your rant and rave column. I think that is an excellent idea and maybe something we engage in later this fall when I don't want, you know, I'm not going to be able to type in a few days. And I realize you're proposing this right before my hand surgery.

The lengths that you're going to to get out of helping make the rest of the friendship bracelets. The fact that you're going to show up at the Eagles with casts on both wrists is, I'll tell you, I respect your commitment to the bit.

Oh, the length you're going through to already put your finger in the scales of this rant and rave competition is amazing. You're proposing doing it right before I am going to lose my ability to type for a couple of weeks. I don't think so, soldier. By the way, I was in the grocery store yesterday composing a rant. Do you want to hear about this?

I would love to.

Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to read it to you as if it's written out, but I will tell you general broad strokes what my rant is. But I was thinking maybe this is this is my next chance to get in the paper is rant to. i'll be nice and say my fellow neighbors my fellow grocery shoppers who are throwing who are using those like free hand wipes to wipe down their carts but then just throwing the hand wipes into the grocery cart so that when i go to grab a new grocery cart i got to deal with your nasty ass hand wipes that you use to wipe down the cart like who did you think who did you think

was going to take care of that for you i see that all the time it's nasty i think this might be the first that it's occurring to me what the sort of series of events is i think i just had some low frequency awareness that like there's a lot of weird shit in the carts these days and it just occurred to me oh right because there was a period of time where we were all wiping everything down because of covid I'm going to say that. And even those of us who don't go through the world that way, we're starting to do it. But the problem is, then some of us got converted to that lifestyle, but we didn't have the good manners to then figure out somewhere to throw that little alcohol-soaked piece of dryer sheet or whatever.

Yeah, and I think it's still a good policy. A lot of grocery stores still offer them in the entranceway. They'll have a little dispenser with them, and so you can wipe down your cart. And honestly, you know, COVID aside, it's not the worst thing, hygienically speaking, to, like, kind of wipe something down like that. A lot of hands on those carts, touching food, touching you, touching me.

Touching carts, wiping down. Remember yesterday when I said, how try hard is it for people to break in the song at the TSA?

Yeah, right. Yeah, no. So anyway, so good. I'm glad people are wiping down their carts. But you know what is also right below those dispensers? A little trash can where you can throw away those. I just like, what is the mentality? I guess it's just like, I can get angry, and this is my thing in life. Am I getting angry at people because they're deliberately thinking, I don't give a shit, somebody else will take care of this for me? Or is it worse when they're just like, they don't even think past throwing their used sanitary wipes into the cart and then do their shopping and then grab their groceries? Am I more mad at the obliviousness or the straight-out assholery? And, yes, I'm just marking the show explicit, so get them out there, Luke.

What do you think makes you more mad? Somebody who's just thoughtless or malicious, I guess?

I feel like I can reach those who are thoughtless. I feel like with a— I would agree. Granted, as I was just doing my rant there live and just sort of like kind of finding the contours— freestyling it just robin williams style workshopping it i realized that my my anger level maybe peaked too much and i would not apply that to the to the pros that i would submit to the seattle times i would maybe try a more gentle approach because maybe i would open up somebody's eyes to it who's like you know let let's be as charitable as possible on this this is maybe somebody who's juggling like a baby and a toddler and just trying to get a meal for the night and they're doing the shopping and they have so many things in their life to juggle more than me just like kind of a single hot bachelor just like you know sashaying my way through the grocery

store couple of recently frozen wrist guards on mariner's game going on like for some reason one ear do you remember those days yes like i feel like we've gotten back to that now because of the air podification of america it's actually very common to see somebody wearing uh you know just like one air pod as they walk around and i don't know if they're on a phone call or listening to something but what i'm just remembering now is i feel like there was a period of time where they manufactured a corded you know in-ear headphone that was designed to only go in one ear did i oh you're going to hallucinate that way back i thought

you're gonna say remember when we were doing that just like kind of with our you know earbuds and leaving one out no i'm talking like oh yeah i know you're talking 1960s 1970s transistor

I'm talking short sleeve, collared shirt. I'm talking breast pocket. I'm talking transistor radio. I'm talking corded in-ear thing that was, by design, only had one ear thing on it.

We had one of those growing up. I mean, I don't know how old it was, but I know in our house growing up in the 80s, we had one of those one-ear headphone things. And I don't know if it was associated with, you know, a specific piece of electronics we had around or if it was just a just a floater for the family.

I feel like the only thing you're allowed to listen to on that device is a Brooklyn Dodgers game or a Kennedy assassination or legally or the notes that you took on your dictaphone when you were in your office last week. Or Al Franken doing a Paul Songus impression.

Or a Paul Songus doing a Paul Simon impression.

But anyway, that I think is the move in the grocery store for you. But yeah, no, I think, you know, you're trying, I know you're trying to, you have the surgery coming up next week, and I know you've got a lot of stuff that you're trying to kind of work ahead on because you're just not sure what your ability is going to be after double wrist surgery, which I do not want to undersell that. That's a big deal. Maybe you try to get this rant in before then. Wouldn't it be cool to wake up on, you know, Thursday morning and, you know, you're going to be a little bit laid up because that'll be post-surgery for you, but then just to open the pages of the Seattle Times and to see your rant there published? I mean, that'd be kind of cool. Maybe that helps speed your recovery.

A published rant is the best medicine. I mean, that's what— They've always said that. They've always said that. So you wanted to come back around to some wizards—

Something that our friend Chris Hayes said on his podcast. with it.

with Jamel Bowie, which was, and again, I'm sure that there are, well, I said I wasn't gonna get into the discourse and I'm getting dangerously close to the discourse right now, which is, I was starting to say, I don't know where people come down on like who the democratic kind of nominee for president should be because I was trying to leave open the idea that there are these like fervent Biden heads. There are people that are just like, I voted for Joe from Scranton that's who you know that's my guy and then i try to imagine who that person is and i don't know if they exist right now i think you have the p a lot of people our listeners included who would really like donald trump to not be president again i think that's a different person than someone who's like who's just like i'm a you know what i mean i'm a biden fan first and foremost and i'm also a democrat i just i didn't get that with like obama you know you had like these other you know political figures certainly that is unfortunately the case with trump there are people where he is the draw and the party is very much second to that i don't think that's what's going on right now in other words i think most people that would like donald trump to not become president have probably at least entertained the notion of somebody replacing him on the ticket for just practical reasons right um but this was the way that chris described it on this week's episode of his show it's he said it's like you you're you have your starting pitcher in game seven of the World Series, and that's going to presumably be your number one. That's going to be your Roger Clemens, your, you know, Greg Maddox, your whomever, and this is, you know, your best pitcher, but they're at about 120 pitches.

Randy, can I choose Randy Johnson?

You can, although I guess you'd have to choose Randy Johnson as an Arizona Diamondback, which feels sacrilegious to me.

That's sort of the caveat there, I guess.

Okay, it's like you're a baseball team, and you need a pitcher to murder a bird.

Okay, yeah, it's funny that this was Chris's analogy, but I'm with you.

No, it's like you're, you know, it's game seven of the World Series, and your starting pitcher has pitched a pretty good game, but he's at 120 pitches, and it's the eighth inning, and he's now loaded the bases. And what happens in baseball is the manager goes out, and the manager says, great job, you got us here, but then give me the baseball. And what happens is that starting pitcher, who's totally gassed, is deeply mad at the manager for taking him out of the game because the only kind of person who gets the job of starting pitcher in the seventh game of the world series is the kind of person who has a deep belief in themselves and so by definition the kind of person who has that job would never voluntarily walk away from that bases loaded situation and it's just a known thing in baseball that that's how that's going to go the thing is you have a manager and that's their job to come out and make that person unhappy because it's the greater good of the team the problem right now is there isn't a manager it's like biden is more like pete rose player manager this is now where i'm i'm freelancing off of chris's very nice tight analogy into something else that involves illegal sports gambling and um taking a guy out during an all-star game who's never right again I don't know why I'm invoking the name of Pete Rose in all of this, but the problem is there isn't any one person who can come in and take the ball away. But anyway, there's something about that analogy.

And your interpreter wants to encourage you to walk off the mound, but he's in his own gambling situation right now. I'm just trying to make this clearer. I'm just trying to make this as sharp as possible. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, this is mostly on me.

No, you're right. It's like if you took away, like you still have the manager and you even have the catcher, right? Is Hakeem Jeffries the catcher in this case? I'm assuming Chuck Schumer is maybe the man. But all they can do is request it, right? Like that's the thing the manager does. no matter how angry furious George Kirby is going to be, uh, to be pulled off the mound.

Sure. Um, like, it's basically like the shortstop is trying to, the shortstop is trying to come over

and pull the pitcher. Right, exactly. It's like, nobody's got the power. They have to convince him

to. And yeah, that is, that is the problem. And, and so I, I, I don't know why, I don't know how that helps us to have that analogy, but again, it's something about putting words or putting analogies to things that are just sort of bouncing around in my brain chaotically at all times right now has been useful. And so, I don't know, I'm not sure where our listeners are, but I would recommend if you're ready to somewhat re-engage with the discourse, you want to hear two very smart people just talking about where things are at right now, I would recommend that episode of

Why Is This Happening. I thought you were going to say just rewind and re-listen to this conversation.

Oh, God, no. You know I could never, in good conscience, recommend TBTL to people. You know what gives me the opposite feeling, Andrew, of our current political climate? Something happy? Well, two things. Yes. Gigi, the standard poodle. Oh, yeah. Not in frame. Who is just, who's not in frame, but is chilling. Actually, now has seated herself. Here, I'll move the camera for you, Andrew.

It's going to kill me, though. If I can see her and not pet her, it's going to drive me bananas.

I don't know if this is going to turn off the – can we see?

Oh, I can see a little bit. I see a little bit of a rump and a little bit of an ear maybe, yeah.

God, that was really unhelpful to everyone involved.

John, don't clip that. Trust me. It's not worth it. Don't hunt that down. It's not a good use of your afternoon. Just order those pizzas.

Officially, the TBTV meeting is us just talking through the broadcast to our friend and colleague, John Sklaroff. um uh hanging out with Gigi has been giving me life she is just the sweetest friendliest like low maintenance dog she's if you didn't catch the uh Monday show it's Becca's mom's dog but Becca is in Portland for a couple weeks working on this really cool art project um for the city of Portland and so uh it fell upon me somehow to to watch her but she's just like she's just always stoked like hey we're gonna get in the car right on

I thought she was more chill she's the exact right combination

of being chill and stoked she's that unicorn that we didn't know existed where if I'm just you know what we should really do let's watch two episodes of Dateline NBC she's like absolutely I will happily just crash out here for literally hours on end and then it's like oh hey should we go outside and pee yeah we should should we get in the car absolutely should we go into this uh u.s bank i mean we're did we just become best friends i was thinking we should go into this u.s bank like she's just anything that we're doing she's just stoked about it but not in a like she's just not um like overly enthused where she's bugging me all the time she has the exact right amount of homebody tendencies and also the exact right amount of like wanting to do like She somehow is exactly mirroring.

Should we check on the status of our HELOC loan? Amen. That's exactly what I was going to recommend.

She's like, okay, the interest rate is pegged to inflation, but also you can lock in the interest rate on a significant portion of it and therefore save yourself some money. I was great. And you have a snossage?

I love it.

So anyway, I just am really enjoying hanging out with her, even though it's a different relationship. Well, first of all, she's not really my dog. It's a different relationship than Like I had with Rudy who was my dog And who I was you know with pretty much 247 and Rudy Was a much more excitable dog Rudy's thing Was always like could I'll Rudy was like I will lay here And watch TV with you but I would 100% rather we were outside doing Something and Gigi just seems Like completely fine with Whatever is going on at any time Like she just doesn't seem To have a lot of strong opinions And that's the kind of dog I need I need a dog that doesn't have a lot opinion but i did find myself yesterday as we were driving back from uh going down to uh run our errands we went through a car wash for the first i'm assuming the first time she's been through a car wash were you in a car no that was we were in a disco video oh it was a rose

royce video from the late 1970s okay great but not in a not in a vehicle how did she like that

She, this is the thing, her default status with everything is just kind of quietly staring at what's going on. So that was how, she wasn't wagging her tail and being like, I can't believe we're in a car wash, but she also didn't seem to be hating it. She's just taking it all in all the time. Like she has a very, like I said, an understated personality unless we are getting out of the car or getting into the car or going out of the house or into the house. So like, let me give you an example. I got the leash ready and she's like okay sweet she wiggles over to me I give her I put her on the leash we walk out of my house you've been here now you know and then we take 15 steps to the studio and then I open the studio door and she's like oh man I was hoping we were going to

the studio so that's interesting because is it out of extreme caution that you leash her up just

to go those 15 feet I would do the same thing not no well she in the first like four hours I had her She made a break for it And I thought all was lost

That flies in the face of what I'm thinking of her

Well I'm starting to get cocky Now we'll see how it goes by the end of the week I'm starting to think I could be a little less Now that she and I have kind of built a rapport And I think she does really like me I might be able to

to if she decided to just kind of go her own way um dogs who go their own way

yeah that's interesting i thought for sure you were going a rumors direction with that but but instead we're going uh toxic subreddits so on sunday everybody had left and it was just me

and jeez and i had her on the leash but i have to admit i kind of thought well this is silly like we're going between the house and the studio or something i was like yeah no i bet you that i think what it was was i the front door actually came open my my the front door was like not closed properly and i looked at it and i was like i should probably shut that but then i was like i don't know what is she going to do what she was going to do was sprint for it really and and go out the front door and then run up my road and then stand where i couldn't get to her and then just kind of walk around and she has this move where she's like not actively running away from you but not letting you get close enough that you can bring her back dimitri martin the comedian has a great bit about what the line between pet ownership and a hostage situation is it's a fine line like when you come over to someone's house and they're like don't open the door they'll escape

is it a pet or a hostage i don't know i know i think about that with my cats but i was so freaked

out i immediately called becca could she do anything from portland absolutely not but i was just like i want to let you know we may never get this dog back oh that is such a bad feeling this is your girlfriend's mom's dog like exactly and this is within literally maybe three hours of me taking responsibility for her i've already screwed this up somehow and what i ended up doing was sitting in the road uh trying to be like the move you have to pull with her is you can't act like you're chasing her and you can't act like you're trying to get her back and the other thing i realized was she's not food motivated i was like i have nothing to offer this animal like if it was rudy and i held up a snossage it's like for you know i mean she'd be right back to me i don't have that kind of sway i don't even really know this dog yet what happened was i sat in the road like a complete lunatic she walked down into my general yard area and then i just pretended like i couldn't possibly even be bothered to care about what she was up to like i just she could do whatever she wanted i casually walked into the madrona hill studio leaving the door open i may

have even said like wow it's cool in here i don't remember boy if i was a dog this is so neat look

at the view i didn't even know that they did this for dogs in a place like this that this is dope sports here i wish this i wish i was a black standard poodle i would love this place i just I walked in super casually, and then she walked in, and then I shut the door. I actually walked her into the bathroom and shut the door so I could get back to the front door and shut that, and then I had her again. So because of that, I've been extra careful when transporting her. But the thing that's funny is most dogs, I feel like, if you get the leash out and you leave the front door of your house, they're like, okay, we are going on a walk. This is going to be so freaking cool. And then if you take them 15 feet to a different enclosed building, they're like, huh, not Gigi. She is like, oh, sweet. We're going in the we're going in the Madrona Hill studio. I'm also into that. So I am I'm developing quite the connection with her, but it's different than I've had with other dogs, but it's still meaningful to me. And it caused me yesterday as I was sitting in the car kind of daydreaming as we were driving home from somewhere being like, well, should I Google dog daycare in Longview, Washington? Should I just look up, like, okay, so what if I did have a dog? If I had a dog, but then I had to go out of town, I mean, it would be an expense, but what if I just found a really awesome dog boarding place where the dog— I mean, certainly I'll tell you this. When I used to take Rudy to Dog Townsend in Port Townsend or to whatever the one in Bellingham was, as I've often said, nobody loves a funny name like a dog boarding business. They really go for it.

Or a kind of, I would say, pho, or maybe like kind of a beauty salon, I would say as well.

So I was like, I started down the road in my mind of like, well, if I can solve for the travel piece. Oh, because I was going to say, Rudy friggin' loved going to dog daycare or going to overnights because she just got to hang out with a million other dogs. It was really all she wanted in the world. so it's not even like depending on your dog's personality I don't even think it really sucks for your dog to go hang out somewhere with a bunch of dogs and you know have a kind of a fun time or whatever I could feel my brain doing this thing that you had predicted yesterday on the show or the other day on the show which was once I start having an experience and it feels sort of good to me I then start maximizing it I then start going well how do I make this the reality of my I, life.

I,

I don't think I'm going to do that in this dog situation, but I could feel myself getting up close to that edge yesterday. The other thing that made me feel really good yesterday was I got almost an entire salad out of my garden, Andrew.

Wait, hold on one second. I want to go... Okay, you know, I thought you were going somewhere with that story, and I was trying desperately not to step on it.

Well, that was your first mistake.

No, I'm sorry. This is really weird. But you're transitioning out this whole time. I saw your show notes today and I misinterpreted them because I've been sort of sitting on something that I wanted to say as an idea, but I thought you were getting to that idea yourself. But it's almost the opposite. I read your notes. I'm going to read. I'm going to let the listeners in on this. You said you got close to Googling dog boarding in his town as one step to puppy acquisition. I didn't realize you meant, oh, I'm going to get a dog and then it's going to be boarded a lot of the time. i thought you were looking at what other people have done which is actually like kind of you could scratch your dogological itch and help others out by being somebody who looks after dogs for an extended period of time the way you're looking after gigi like that seems like that would be the more likely thing like have you know somebody you know not that you're going to be running a pet service but there are things where you can quote unquote sort of rent a dog for the day which is not the right term but like you know like a foster dog and then other people see you with it and they ask you about it and you say well if you want to adopt it you know here's the information or whatever like you could care for dogs and get some of this these feelings without like you know getting a dog that you're probably not in a position to care for see i think that

perfectly describes the difference in our approach to life because that's like going that's like if we go to a cool airbnb that's on a lake and we're enjoying ourselves and you're thinking hey this is a fun thing to do occasionally it's very nice here and my thought is how do I own this how do I make it so that how do I make it so that I can sit on this dock and stare at this lake at any time and no one can ever stop me and again it's probably a bad way to describe a relationship with a pet but I do have that feeling as well I'll put it this way I have a huge amount of respect for people who foster and board pets that need that because that's a real that for me would be a real emotional journey like to have a series of animals that come through my life that I kind really bond with and then it's time to turn them back over when i moved to la initially i had a boxer a dog named flea and um my ex and i did and we were living before we bought a house we were living in um like an apartment in west hollywood and it was no dogs and we found somebody out in like eagle rock or something who was just willing to foster i think we paid for the food or something but was just willing to foster our dog for like six months or a year and i remember thinking and we would check on the dog and we'd go on saturdays and pick uh him uh her up and take her to the dog park or whatever but i remember by the end of it thinking there's no way this person's going to want to give our dog back like you've had the dog for a year and this this woman was was you know like okay it's time to come get the dog when we said we have a place now for the dog to go all right i was kind of surprised she turned the dog back over now the dog was very annoying so she She might have been relieved. I don't know. Let's assume she had bought. I just think that that's a special kind of person who offers that to other people. I'm not that kind of person. I'm like, I want to have a dog that I have a strong relationship that, you know, that I have permanently. Or at least until I get divorced, Andrew, as historically has been the case. I want a dog between two and six years of my life. And then I want to see it on Instagram afterwards.

Definitely before you get a dog, ask Becca if she wants a dog in the future.

I would just say that that is, like, I don't know if she's listening to this. Are you kidding me? I absolutely had that thought. I was like, the irony if I get a dog and then I'm traveling so much that it keeps having to go to Becca's. It's just, I just keep showing up with animals, like something like a, what is the, is it the Steve Martin movie where there's a, or no, it's Pee Wee Herman. Yeah, the snakes. It's like a pet, when a pet shop is on fire, he's running out, yeah.

He's saving all the animals, but he hates snakes, but he still saves the snakes. That's peewee for you.

That's me just running into Becca's apartment with different animals that I've adopted, but I'm no longer capable of taking care of.

You get a little lizard on your shoulder. Oh my goodness gracious.

I mean, whatever animal, whatever dog, if I were to get a dog, and I don't know how you, how you find this out, but like, it would need to be the kind of dog, this is Wajiz, who I'm really really a fan of why Gigi probably wouldn't work out here I need some kind of a dog that is going to come when I ask it to come because it's not realistic to know what I want to fence my whole yard area it would be this would be like a really great place for a dog that likes to run around and explore but also likes to come back when you say hey come on back here Yeah.

If I could figure that out, I don't know if that's breed specific or just proper training, because it'd be a great property for a dog to run around and explore on as long as the dog would return to you. Eventually come back.

Our neighbors, our neighbors who I don't know them, but I'm on this like kind of neighborhood email list about various things going on in the neighborhood. And every now and then if somebody has a pet go missing, they'll post it there. In fact, I say every now and then this might have been the first time I've seen this. But somebody about, I don't know, I'm going to say maybe a block and a half from me, but on one of the roads I live on, I live on a corner, said, you know, our cat, I want to say Mindy. No, no, no, Ivy. Ivy is such a nice name. Wait, don't you have a baby Ivy in your family? No, you don't. You do not. Maybe one of our listeners. Not that I'm aware, but it's a big family. It is. It's a big tent. But anyway, and apparently it's a cat that kind of comes and goes indoor and outdoor. But I realized that they were concerned because the cat sticks around the house. Like to me, that's always like the ideal life of a cat, right? If you can trust your cat to be, you know, sharp enough and strong enough to live on the outside, but you can still care for it. Like it seemed like that's a pretty good life for a cat. But like in the same week, there were emails going around about coyotes being seen in the neighborhood and somebody saying our cat who's an indoor outdoor has not returned now. in, like, a 24-hour period, and just that thought made me go and hug my cats. Like, I'm just like, I cannot. I'm not the type of person who can just say— You're hostages. I just went and I hugged my hostages, and I said, please, hold up— Have you hugged your hostage today? I said, hold up this kiddie newspaper so I can take a quick photo of you with it. But, yeah, that feeling of, like, I almost wonder, like, you know, i'm assuming that that family was worried especially because of the reporting of of coyotes in the neighborhood but i'm like i wonder if that cat is still an indoor outdoor cat because that would just put the fear of god and be like the idea of having a dog now that i especially i can really picture your property and luke yeah having like you know a labby kind of dog or whatever like kind of running around but then you give them that whistle that some people can do the you know like maybe you use your fingers maybe you don't and he or she comes running back to you and they're full of piss and vinegar like that that sounds so so ideal but you have to have a dog that can kind of

be well trained to come back like that yeah and i don't have any great history with training dogs like we took rudy to training and we had a clicker and everything it never barely worked so i i don't know there's nothing that indicates that i would be particularly great at that but um but yeah i I was enjoying Gigi yesterday, and then I was enjoying the bountiful harvest of my garden, which involved various lettuces and mustard greens. The tomatoes are not in yet. They're green, but they're starting to grow. But I did have this moment last night that, you know, I talk a lot on the show about these kind of postcard moments, or I maybe call them coat hook moments, because long ago at my old house in Bellingham, I wanted to get the exact right coat hook for this little mud room area, because of some idea that i was going to like need a jacket it was going to be on the perfect coat hook it was going to be the perfect jacket i was going to slip it on go do what i was doing like some somehow that was going to indicate that my life was was well designed and i i sort of have been you know when i planted this garden of veggies and stuff uh i i sort of had this dream scenario of like i'm gonna it's gonna be a nice night i'm probably in my mind the mariners were on the radio or something you know at the time but i was like i'm gonna go i'm gonna come home from something uh i'm gonna go out to that garden i'm gonna like harvest some lettuce and i'm gonna you know put it in a you know bowl and bring it inside and wash it and then you know make myself a salad that i grew out there and that's exactly what happened last night and it was as rewarding as i expected it to be again i had to use store-bought tomatoes but other than that everything in there was grown in the garden I even made a dressing for myself this is how my mind works Andrew I felt like ranch dressing would be disrespecting this salad even though I love ranch dressing I love it so much and I love it on everything like although and I'm not trying to make tell people how to enjoy their meals but what I'm aware of is when I put ranch dressing on a salad it's sort of stopped being a salad for me and it's become a ranch delivery system um you know and it's very delicious and i enjoy that on a regular basis but there was something about this salad being made up of lettuces and other things that i had literally pulled out of the ground myself that made me feel like it also needed what i consider to be a healthier salad dressing and i just improv'd one kind of based loosely on some advice that becca had given me and it was great i cut up i chopped up a shallot i used a little bit of uh you know little bit of olive oil some balsamic some white vinegar some um uh i had some gray poupon i put a little dijon in there and i just kind of kept mixing it and adding You know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that until I got it to put some garlic powder in there. So I got to this really delicious, tasting, savory kind of dressing that didn't feel like overly heavy and overly creamy.

And I just sat there listening to Bon Iver, eating my salad, putting the dressing on that I made and looking out at the river. And I will tell you, it felt the way that I was hoping that would feel. That was kind of that was kind of a cool thing. Then I watched a TikTok later where a chef, it might have been Instagram, I don't remember, one of those two things, where there was, like, a chef who does cooking tutorials, and he was like, here's how you make a salad dressing. And he was saying, you want one-third your oil and then two-thirds acid. And I was like, that's what I did intuitively. I was very proud of my salad. I felt like I had a really good day yesterday.

Do you like lemon at all? Or do you like a lemony salad dressing too much for you?

I'll be honest, and this is where I hope Becca's not listening. i am not part of the cult of lemon which i feel like is along with the twin flames is one of the most dangerous cults in america uh i feel like we've lemonized everything we have oh well don't you remember when lemon bars suddenly became the like coolest dessert you could make did you have

any sense of this no i love lemon bars it's actually one of my favorite desserts but no i I'm not up on what is trendy. I just like lemon bars. I don't think that makes me trendy. I think it's just a delicious. I like tart foods. I like tart foods. I understand this wouldn't be for everybody, but my friend whisked this up one time years and years. I mean literally probably 15, 20 years ago. And my go-to, if I'm going to whisk up a little dressing for myself, I'll eat a vinegar-based dressing certainly if I'm out or if I'm buying it in the store. But if I'm making my own, I don't usually put vinegar in it because I'm not a huge vinegar guy. And so my acid is usually – I do, like, lemon and olive oil and just, like, lemon, olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper, really, and just whisk that baby up. I really like that. But if you're not into lemon, that's not going to be for you.

A little bit, but, like, not to the degree that everybody else seems to be right now. Like, this has passed a little bit, but there was a period of time where every single recipe that popped up in, like, the New York Times cooking blog or, like, even – And I say this with absolute peace and love, but my daughter is a real sort of leading indicator for me about what the girlies are doing, what the kind of very hip people of a certain age are kind of getting into from a content perspective, from a cooking perspective, from the kind of sandals they're wearing, you know. And there was a period of time where, like, it was when we would have a family get-together. And by the way, my sister Liz is also very tuned into this stuff, even though she's older than her niece. but they like everyone was bringing lemon bars to family events all of a sudden and like we made homemade ice cream the other day it was strawberry ice cream and I was excited to try so I'd made vanilla ice cream you know I bought an ice cream maker I made vanilla ice cream but I followed a recipe off the internet and it was really sweet like it was like probably more sugar than I mean I know ice cream has a lot of sugar in it but it was like too sweet and so I thought let's make something with real strawberries let's try to use the sweetness of the strawberries to do kind of the lifting on the sugar and maybe halve the sugar recipe or the, you know. So I was excited to try to have a kind of, as Libby May says in Waiting for Gryffman, a low-fat or no-fat frozen dessert. And that was all well and good, and Bex and I made this together, except she hit it with that lemon because that's what everybody does now, and she loves lemon and things. And it was good, but it had a little more lemon in it than I was going for in something I think of strawberry ice cream as just being sweet, not having any tartness to it i feel like we've we've we really and maybe it just happens to be who i'm dating also like she like is a very good cook but always uses like very natural ingredients and very like lemon does a lot of the work in a lot of these dishes um and and and within reason it's really good but i'm very sensitive to too much lemon for me i um to move off of lemon i

want to talk about ice cream for a second because i have something that i don't know if i've said this to you before on the show but i mean i might i mean everybody sit down i might be sitting on a hot take here uh and i can't believe that i haven't like kind of tried to trot this out and profit off it sooner but i think given my druthers i think i would if i could only choose one for the rest of my life i think i would choose sherbet over ice cream whoa hot take

so hot it's melting way hot take yeah there's that i mean yeah we're not even getting into

the naming situation here i'm uh i well here here's here's i've been thinking about ice cream lately um and it's because vives and i passed you know there's a baskin robbins not all that far from our house i've never even noticed it before literally it's like it looks like nothing to me we passed it the other day yesterday actually and jenny said you know there's a baskin robbins there and we never even like kind of consider it i'm like there is she's like we He just passed it. I'm like it doesn't look like anything to me like it's so rare that I go to an ice cream shop and I don't mean once a year I mean once a decade like I literally and yet early cannot remember the last time I went into an ice cream shop and ordered ice cream at a counter I don't know that I've done

that since my 20s and yet is there anything that's more fun than on a hot day getting a delicious

ice cream cone I like ice cream and you know but my here here's what Vives and I started talking about and this is going to maybe um you know isolate us from people who have finer taste in things but I was like yeah that sounds so good and I was like I've been thinking about ice cream lately I haven't had it in a while I mean hey every now and then we'll buy a carton from the store I'm not making it I don't want to make it sound like I haven't had ice cream in decades but that experience of like an ice cream cone or something prepared for you or even if you know just going to an ice cream shop but here's the thing i will say and maybe this is like kind of part of living in seattle is like if i'm going to an ice cream shop that infrequently get out of here with your boutiquey little ice cream shops that have like lavender or lemon or if i'm going to an ice cream shop i want ice cream yeah i do not want like breath of mint like i want i want an oreo i want chunks of oreo in there i want it to be an unnatural green color possibly or even just a even just a vanilla or a chocolate but like i don't know i just sort of feel that like the people who go to ice cream shops in in maybe in in in my neck of the woods are going to places that totally unappeal to me or do not appeal to me yeah i i agree i mean that's a very big thing

in a certain kind of city a certain kind of reliably democrat blue state city like a seattle or a Portland is you're going to have artisanal ice cream and it's going to be jacked up flavors. Yeah, right.

If I'm eating ice cream all the time and that's like, oh, another variation on it, I could maybe see that. But considering the infrequency in which I indulge, I'm certainly not going to waste my time with that stuff.

Yeah, let's play the hits here. I don't need cayenne pepper in this, please.

Yes, exactly.

Bex and I walked by a place the other day in downtown Portland, and we think this is the weirdest thing. It's a Mongolian grill, okay? You know the kind of place where you sort of select all of the meat and veggies you want, and then they cook it, and they give it back to you? But they just have all these signs up that you can also get an ice cream cone there for $2.50. And it's like the strangest place to get an ice cream cone. They've spent a lot of money on the signage, or at least a lot of time on the signage. And also, I don't understand the $2.50 price point. Like, you have to sell so much of that ice cream, I think, to get an ROI on there.

Yeah, you know, it's good, right? That's a good deal, I would assume. It seemed cheap to me, $2.50.

I'm guessing it's soft serve, too, which I'm not mad at soft serve, by the way.

No, that's a good point. God, you're right. I'm missing out on soft serve. Maybe I'll get some ice cream this weekend. Maybe I'll get some ice cream when I'm recovering from hand surgery.

There, and rub it on your wrist. And rub it on my wrist and then lick it off.

You've earned it. Yes.

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 one

I have something to say. Okay. Extreme Amy Sedaris voice. That's a drop of Amy Sedaris, right? Don't you play that sometimes? Yeah, I have something to say. I don't know if that's from Stranger with Candy or Broad City.

Am I even able to find it here?

Sorry, I put you on the spot.

No, that's okay.

I've got something to say.

There she is. That's Jerry Blank. Love it. I have something to say. A couple of things, as a matter of fact. As we get into the Blursdays, I want to let everybody know that if you have a Blursday message that you would like to send in, be it for yourself or someone in your circle, email me, andrew at tbtl.net, and be sure to put Blur's Day in the subject line. That's the way we collect them. Secondly, un-Blur's Day related, but email related, thank you to everyone who has sent in very long, detailed, caring notes of encouragement and explaining your own experience with health stuff that is related to mine. I am not joking. I have gotten so, so many emails from folks, and I'll be honest with you, I haven't been responding. I haven't been emailing all that much anyway, given given the fact that it is a little bit difficult to type these days. But I have gotten so many emails that are detailed in ways that are like actually very, very helpful. And from the perspective of people who've gone through similar journeys from people who work in the health care industry, like each one. I'm not even joking. Each one brings a.

a slightly different perspective on it, and each one has actually been very helpful in its own way. I'm sorry I'm not responding to them, but thank you very, very much. I truly appreciate it.

I want everyone to know, I also have an injury that doesn't let me respond to emails.

Yeah, exactly. It's called being a...

Yeah, it's a... It's more of an emotional injury than a physical, but it is profound.

No, you're pretty good. I saw you respond to some of these emails today.

I get in there kind of inconsistently, but when I do, I think it's really good. Very good at responding when I do.

Got it. All right. Now, back to the Blur's Days, which people emailed in, andrew at tbtl.net. I realized I didn't give my email address. Andrew at tbtl.net put Blur's Day in the subject line. You know who did that? Chris. Chris says, happy Blur's Day to Ken. My dad is a proud Oregon State alum, and he loves being connected to the Pacific Northwest through Too Beautiful to Live. Happy Blur's Day. Wow. Love, Chris and Kathy. Go Beavers. Happy Blur's Day, Ken. And to hear, oh, I see, Oregon State. I was going to say, to hear Luke say that shows a lot of growth because you're not an Oregon. It's the Oregon stuff that gets to me.

Oregon State, I have no qualms with Oregon State. Let it breathe. Ken, I have a few qualms with, but it's not based on his alma mater.

Ken. Straighten up, Ken. No, happy Blur's Day, buddy. And Isaac says, my wife, Trisha, is a huge fan of TBTL, and I was hoping you guys could give her a shout-out for her birthday. She's a longtime listener and donor and is generally amazing. I don't really like you guys, but if she had any idea, she'd probably divorce me, so I'll continue to pretend to enjoy your show and try to keep things from getting contentious. Wow, okay. Happy Blur's Day to you, Trisha, and only Trisha. Trisha, happy Blur's Day. But you can do better. Yeah.

Honestly, though, somebody who doesn't enjoy this kind of content but then pretends to like it just because they love someone, I mean, that is a greater love hath no, I don't know. Did they say husband, partner?

Let's see. Yeah, husband, I guess. Yeah, my wife, Trisha. Situationship. Yeah, so Isaac.

Friend with benefits.

Isaac's a big softie.

Yeah, he is.

Howard in Albuquerque. Oh, right. That's also a word that is hard to say when you're looking at it. I feel like I can say Albuquerque. I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque. I'm also putting an extra R in there. I think when I'm like freelancing, I'm just saying I'm saying Albuquerque, and that's not right. It's Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Anyway, moving on. Natalie in Idaho. No, okay. Howard in Albuquerque says, Natalie, in a place that's easier to say. And spell. A Blur's Day shout out from Howard to Julie in Lake Stevens, one of the leaders in curing global loneliness. We met at an Everett TENS meetup shortly before I relocated under difficult circumstances. Oh, I'm sorry about that, Howard. Julie's friendship, compassion, and sense of humor have made me feel in touch with both the area and all of the 10s and has helped to restore my faith in humanity. Man, Howard sounds like he went through it, but I'm glad that Julie was there to help you. Happy Blur's Day to Julie. Like, is there anywhere else in New Mexico that Howard could move to that would be easier to spell? Sure, Las Cruces. Las Cruces, okay. Howard, I expect to see a Blur's Day message from you from Las Cruces next year. Yeah. Caitlin in Eagle, Idaho says, I'd like to wish my good pal Nikki. Oh, Nikki of Worcester, Ohio, a belated Blur's Day. I think Nikki might have got a shout out last week, too. She deserves them both. She's so great, and I miss her innate kindness. Happy belated Blur's, Nikki at Worcester. Home of the Ohio light opera. Always got to get that in there.

Light opera, that relates to or refers to that these are kind of not overly operatic things. Like, it's more, it's, you know, like, is that what it is? When light opera refers to the style of opera?

All I know is when I went to the doctor, he asked me how much opera have I been consuming. I said, quite a bit. And he says, I know you're not going to stop consuming opera, but can you at least switch to light opera for the time being? And I said, I'll give it a shot. So sometimes what I do is I take regular opera and I mix some light opera in there. I'm sort of weeding myself down.

To answer your question, I don't know. Honestly, any progress you can make. Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.

Okay, so it's not about the kind of – honestly, I wasn't even sure.

Probably a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan. That sounds like light opera to me, based on your definition. What is the famous Gilbert and Sullivan pattern?

The very model of a modern major gentleman.

I love the way I just have ideas and then I ask you what they are. Thank you. And finally, Monica says, what the deuce? My baby sister Laurel is turning 50 happiest of wishes for this year. So explain that. And the next 50, can't wait to celebrate with you this weekend. Well, it says, I can't wait to celebrate you this weekend. So I'm not sure if they're doing it together or not. I think that with that I threw in there was possibly an assumption on my part that I apologize for. Monica says, can't wait to celebrate you this weekend. Cheers, and I love you. That's to Laurel from Monica. Happy Blur's Day. And that's a wrap on the Blur's Days for this, the 18th of July, 2024. Happy Blur's Day, everybody.

Yes, happy Blur's Day, folks. Sorry we did not get to Diaper Talk, but we will tomorrow. And we knew that there's a great likelihood we wouldn't, so we have another diaper-related drop for tomorrow. Andrew said, if this comes up tomorrow, I've got the perfect audio for you. You knew there was a chance I'd be promoting Diaper Talk two days in a row.

Exactly, but we used the secondary one today, so now we're going to go back to yours tomorrow.

Yeah, we used the best. I was so confident we would get to it that I chose for us to use the best piece of tape related to it, which is, of course, this one. I got the time if you got the diapers. You want to know the irony of that, Andrew, is that I believe that's related to a conversation about Carvel ice cream.

You're right, I believe it is. It all comes back to ice cream today. Look who's talking now or look who's talking to is the question. I can't remember. Yeah.

Um, we'll, uh, we'll talk diapers tomorrow. I can't believe tomorrow's already Friday.

Are we still doing music for your weekend?

I don't know. You and I should have an off air or an on air conversation about that.

Yeah, exactly.

I feel, I feel kind of bad phasing it out and we get a lot of submissions still. Yeah. But we're, we're increasingly running into, you know, issues of the show being available to people by way of YouTube, which is, it turns out a growing place for podcasts and for content because, uh, of playing. We just have a really hard time playing music that's got rights associated with it that we don't, I guess, technically have the rights to. So I don't know. I'm not answering your question.

Yeah, we've been wanting to do more YouTube stuff. You know, I'll say that to the audience because there's a lot more people who are interested in.

I'm trying to become an influencer.

You're trying to become an influencer just as you're reaching the perfect age for that, as am I. Absolutely. So anyway, yeah, so we need to sort of figure that out. But tomorrow's Friday. I will say I got into my car yesterday, turned on satellite radio and randomly heard a song that I did want to share with you. But I do wonder if we need to start maybe thinking about the future, Jack, which is a line from Batman.

Yeah, I also have actually been encountering some music lately that I was for once like particularly excited to play. So there's that part of it. And I know the listeners enjoy, I believe anyway, the listeners enjoy the segment. And it's nice for the listeners, when they hear a song they're excited about, to have some mechanism to kind of signal amp it. Yeah. So that's all good stuff. But if it's getting us pulled down from YouTube, that seems like a bad outcome.

I know that this would not—we're just having the conversation. Yeah, why not? And I don't mind it. You know, one thing that we always do is, after you and me and a listener share their music for your weekend, I do put it in the newsletter. I put links to those songs and usually the accompanying videos in the newsletter. and it could become one of those things where it becomes maybe a an email only thing and we feature you know one listener can send in one song and we feature it in the newsletter and that's one way it's not quite you know i understand it's not you don't have quite as much interaction and you don't um whatever i'm not trying to downplay that idea but maybe that's a way of like also like helping people did i tell you luke i wrote about this in the newsletter a while back there's somebody and i'm so sorry we were just communicating about this and i'm blanking on your name but somebody has been compiling every music for your weekend going back i think to 2014 or 15 and there's a oh wow humongous playlist like publicly available playlist in um spotify so if you're on spotify people can go back and listen to and um and i gave that person a shout out in the newsletter about a month or two ago and my brain is really bad so i'm sorry i'm forgetting your first name right now but i really appreciate it and it's really cool so there are ways to engage with music and us i'm just wondering if we can still do it on the do it on the show or

we could have you know we could take the songs and then we could ask ai to just write a sound alike song yes every single week and then we could listen to whatever the ai comes up with because we would have the rights for that or at least wouldn't be in trouble with someone over

that ai make something with kids and trombones and dogs barking yeah that's what i would say

every week um well we'll figure it out um i mean we're like let's just

do it tomorrow because we've already okay we're already in big trouble in romania with this show anyway yeah getting pulled doing a lot of chalcescu related content on the show which is not going over with i don't even know who's in charge of romania these days is romania doing okay i know that hungary is not they've got victor orban okay probably pulled down in hungary i'm not really

sure i haven't been following i haven't been i'll be honest with you i haven't been engaging with

with that discourse you haven't been engaging with the dictatorial discourse happening in places like hungary no in france and elsewhere probably just as well let you know um all right we are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you please do tune in for that and uh also have yourself a great thursday uh and take care and please remember no mountain too tall

and good luck to all Power out.