Muse

Tell me one fact that you know about me. Do you not remember one single thing about me?

Dude, things have been nuts around here. I bet you don't know anything about me.

You were born in Phoenix. You went to school in Tempe. You're an only child. Your favorite show is something called The Real Housewives of Atlanta. And your favorite book is Kendall Jenner's Instagram feed.

How did you know all that?

Because you are constantly talking about yourself. You are the most self-obsessed person I have ever met.

You should see Kendall Jenner's Instagram feed. TBTL! Hey, baby. T. TBTL.

You want, you can do some, you, you do, you can.

I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary.

to me it may be an ugly world but at least i have a beautiful face i see you exhaling sir we're going to be with you in just a moment you've got to be patient okay we're very very sorry our apologies we apologize to you you will not have to wait that much longer at all

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a tuesday edition of tvtl the show that just may be that's too beautiful to live here we go again my name is luke furbank i am your host oh my god he i made it coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia where it was was and remains real rainy unfortunately you know you like to get wet though got on the old treadmill to keep with the 75 hard ish uh this morning ish ish and i was on the treadmill because uh a it's very wet though outside and two because uh my knee is now acting up i think this attempt to uh jog more miles maybe than i'm used to as part of this project that i'm on it may may not have been the wisest decision because i'm getting over the

kneecap pain which which has a weird over the kneecap pain there's a name it's basically called

patellofemoral pain syndrome and the further you look into patellofemoral pain syndrome the more you realize that and i know i said a while ago i'm i'm not going to constantly refer to the fact that I'm 48 and that it feels sometimes like I'm aging fairly rapidly. I'm not trying to lean into that. I'm trying to lean into having a fun, flirty, fabulous 50s. That's where I'm going with this. But to be honest with you, when you do, the more that you read about patellofemoral pain syndrome, the more you realize it just should be called old knee. It just is that. Your knee is old and it doesn't like jogging seven miles a day. So anyway, luckily, this is a very stationary occupation. bringing you episode 4,315 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

And who knows? It's a job I may not have for that much longer because there's a new podcasting sheriff in town. Meet the next generation of podcast stars. And it is, as you might imagine, a friggin' robot.

Does this sound like a musical robot?

We'll tell you about the deep dive podcast that I've listened to in its entirety and found it shockingly passable as a podcast. We'll talk about that with this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Oh, yeah, buddy. He's Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

I was so close to starting today's show with our famous Crouch Cream tape from the TV show Veep. It would have been perfect had I known about your knee ailment.

It's one of the things they recommend against. I'm not kidding. They recommend against if you are dealing with patellofemoral pain syndrome. It's almost like the tips for beating the heat that we get in the summertime. Stay indoors near air conditioning. It's like if your knee is hurting, try not to go up and down the stairs a lot, and also maybe don't do a lot of crouching and squatting.

I thought you were going to say that they specifically said don't use crouch cream, In which case, I would have been astounded. What about Kneezy? I think it had a horse on the bottle. Yeah, an intern could look this up, certainly. Yeah, don't take a mallet and smash your knee with it if you're experiencing knee pain.

That's basically the Mayo Clinic's recommendation.

Oh, you're on the Mayo Clinic. God, I've spent so much time on the Mayo Clinic's websites over the past six months.

I am, yeah, I mean, listen, and I'm sorry, by the way.

way i i'm dealing with a self self-inflicted and very mild little thing compared to what's been some really real stuff for you no but and i'm not a big i don't i i know better than to generally start googling about on discomfort i'm having um but if i do do that um i because you know you get webmd you get some clearly bunk websites and then you get if it's the mayo clinic yeah then you're into it. Yeah. Then I'm like, well, this is believable. We've even been there. We've been you and I and the stew bot and Nora McInerney have been to a Culver's across the parking lot from the very Mayo

Clinic of which I Google. Oh, I did not. I did not realize that that is Rochester, Minnesota. So you could have a heart attack in the Culver's from eating too many cheese curds and just be wheeled right across the street. Well,

this is a real thing. And I, you know, again, I don't want to sound sort of glib, but there were a couple of people in that Culver's that I noted who were very clearly undergoing, like, in the midst of sort of medical attention, medical treatment, and probably were like, screw this hospital food, and they went over to the Culver's. I literally saw somebody that had a rolling, like, bag of, you know, some saline or whatever it might have been who was in there, but we were too distracted by the fact that things got real maga.

That might have been horsey sauce. That might have been horsey sauce.

Real MAGA real fast with our server, right?

Yeah, although that was that pre-MAGA definitely got into some, I would say, politics of race.

Yeah, maybe I just associate all of that with, yeah, maybe it wasn't specifically MAGA. My guess would be that person has been asking a lot of questions and intervening eight years and has found themselves now supporting. you've never I've never encountered someone who's like asking a lot of questions and then those

questions lead them to Kamala Harris I was asking a lot of questions and it turns out oh I'm actually for you know keeping democracy standing yeah I mean that's the conclusion I came to nobody's ever

like I just I just need to learn more about these candidates and I need to do my own research and guess what i decided yeah kamala harris it's like that is always like and now i'm voting rfk junior it's like you know what as they say on the princess bride we are men of honor lies do not become us just relax with the i'm doing more research and just lean fully in to villain status as a person who doesn't believe in science and democracy and many other things also as they say

in The Princess Bride? Marriage. Which has nothing to do with... I'm not soft launching a marriage or anything. I'm putting on my shea butter, by the way. I need some shea butter today. It's been a bit of a rough morning. But do you use shea butter to sort of calm yourself? We've had this conversation. We have. How can I get you into shea butter? What's it going to take me to get you into some shea butter? This is coming out. The more I say it, the less I should.

I've said it before. Or you might be one of, like, 11 white people who's using shea butter in America.

Let's make it 12, buddy. It's so nice.

You're loving it, though. I'm loving it.

I had a little bit. I just had a little bit of dry skin today. And then you put it on, and it's both practical, but also it gives me—

My experience, does it have a fragrance as well?

Oh, yeah, of course.

I feel like I love the smell of shea butter. When I've been around folks who've had shea butter on, I like the smell of it very much. I don't know why I never went over to it. i did wonder if it was you know if it was something that was uniquely useful to people who tend to be

african-american yeah i don't think i realized that until i mentioned to you that i because my journey with this was i was just you know i had some eczema or some dry skin on my hands a while back and it became kind of persistent i was never i thought the big thing was that i was just becoming a lotion boy because i had just never had to consider you know like moisturizing and stuff before so i thought that was sort of the headline so i just went to like some you know i don't know do cvs's exist anymore i just remember going to some like drugstore that was probably past its glory but this was like a year ago so probably if i were to go back into it right now there'd probably be just like starving children huddled in the corners shivering and just like i mean those places are just i know i've said it before on the show but the state of the drugstores at least in my neck of the woods is just beyond comprehension there

is one completely desolate end cap that has a sign that says hashtag life is ridiculously awesome now when you were getting your shea butter did you have to uh was the was the shea butter behind some sort of lucite fort knox situation or did you have to get a tag that showed a picture of shea butter and then bring that to someone who then went back into the vault to get it no i mean

And luckily, I mean, because I don't know how I would shop for any kind of scented product to that.

way right like put why don't you put the candles behind glass how are you going to pick your candle out um and so that's what I was saying so I just remember Vives and I going into some sort of CVS situation and um and just kind of smelling all the lotions and looking at my options and there were some that were like because I was I think you know I definitely had an eczema situation so I'm like well maybe I should treat this more seriously and get the stuff that makes all of the medical promises you know and it has this and you know but I'm like I don't know if I want the stuff that the mayo clinic is recommending i also want to be a boy who smells kind of nice so i kind of i let my i followed my nose it sometimes knows it always knows sometimes we got to stay away from the copyright of always um but uh it might follow my nose it sometimes knows are we worried about

general mills coming after us for the toucan sam reference i am they're coming they're going to

shut us down on spotify so anyway that's how i ended up with the shea butter um and i didn't know any of its sort of cultural background or whatever i believe that you're the one who told

me that i'm one of 11 white i could be wrong about that too i just you know um that was there's my conception of the whole thing but i'm glad it's working it's wonderful kind of awesome yeah now what i guess is not working for you and many others and many saying this very strongly this morning andrew i got a text from my girlfriend that just said this was very early this morning she is also an early riser for me it's like i'm doing this big project and like i'm all you know I'm trying to keep myself accountable. This is just her natural state of being is to be up crazy early. So she texted me and she said, ask Andrew about Wordle. Well, let me find the exact text. She said, ask Andrew about how he did on Wordle today. I ruined my streak. And then it just had like two sobbing emojis.

Does it say what her streak was, by the way? What she was up to probably pretty high. When we say streak, and I know that I've explained this to you before, Luke. I don't know if you've retained it or if some listeners don't know, but one of the reasons the word game Wordle is so sort of addictive to people like me and my friends who play it and share our scores is because of these little built-in personal goals you can have, which is like how many days in a row, that's the streak, how many days in a row can you get Wordle right? You have, like, six chances every single day. Usually people get it in, you know, three to five or something. If you get it in six, that's pretty close. And then every now and then you shatter your boat upon the rocks of Wordle. And there are some days when the Wordle answer is so, I don't know, unusual or difficult in some way that I know that the people creating Wordle are like, today is going to be one of the days where we push the big red button and we're going to destroy a whole bunch of people's streaks. Right. And I will tell you what, first of all, first of all, I was not going to talk about either one of these things on the show today. But since Becca specifically asked about it, I'm glad she did, because I actually think it's relatable. What was her streak? Holy. What was her? Stop the show. 190? My highest streak was 182. And I will tell you what it is in a moment today. But I will say this, and I know nobody likes to talk about, nobody likes to hear about people's fantasy football or baseball situations, but I will just say this, that I fell asleep on the couch last night and then I woke up around, I don't know, midnight or something, maybe 1 o'clock in the morning, and headed upstairs to bed. And in doing so, part of my sleepy brain was like, oh, Monday night football is over. I was not paying attention to Monday night football, But I just opened up my fantasy football app just to see if I won or not, because I knew it was going to be a close one. But I had a pretty good leg up on my opponent. I lost fantasy football by a half a point, by 0.5. Why'd you start Aaron Rodgers? I just like his, I like asking questions about starting Aaron Rodgers. Exactly. I didn't start Aaron Rodgers. I got Mahomes. But anyway, I mean, for people who don't know how to play that game, just like don't worry about it too much. other than to know that something happened where I had one player who had one play, I believe it was the first play of the game, got injured and got pulled out of the game and lost a half a point. And I ended up losing my entire week by half a point while leaving tons of points on the bench of players who I had not played. So it's just like 1 o'clock in the morning. That's why I stopped doing that, by the way. It was such a—

I'm far too disorganized to keep track of it. And then my anger at myself over leaving points on the board was was, you know, was intense.

I have won the league like the last two years or at least one in some capacity the last two years. I've been very lucky with this league. And basically what I had was for some reason I was winning this football league and consistently losing my fantasy baseball league. But I had a nice little sort of like machine run. What do you call it? Like sort of a mechanism where I would take my winnings from football and it would subsidize my baseball losings and I just would be able to break even. And this this year, like I had an incredible draft and I did really, really well. I got like Yahoo's like, you got an A plus in your draft. And this is the worst year I've had. I've just had terrible luck. I'm I'm losing almost every week and I've like kind of given up on it. It's like I don't care. But then they got me by having, you know, look like I was going to win this week. And then I woke up to some disappointment. But whatever, that's fantasy football. Like, who gives a shit? Like, whatever. I go back to bed. I go upstairs. I go to bed. I wake up this morning. Genevieve, I know, has a really big day at work today. It's the president's annual address. So this is like kind of one of the big, huge things that Genevieve is the speechwriter works on for a big chunk of the year. And then here it is. It's the big it's the really big day. And there's questions of, you know, what's going to go down today and everything. So I knew that she had a really big day and she was leaving work kind of early today. So she kind of wakes me up and just says, hey, you know, I'm I'm leaving now. Please feed the cats. Also, it's over. I lost it. My streak is over. And I'm just like, oh, no. And Genevieve is really good at these word games. Like she's kind of the best one in all of our groups. Right. And I'm like, oh, no, that doesn't speak well for me. I wake up a little bit later and I look at, you know, all the text threads that I have. I have a couple of text threads where people are sharing their scores. Do you happen to know roughly what Veeves' record was at? Let's see. I'm going to guess she was over 100 at this point. Her highest score is well over 200, but I don't think she was there this time. I think she was in the, I don't know, maybe the 150 range. I'm not exactly sure. Maybe I'm exaggerating slightly. I'm not sure. But anyway, so she's like, oh, my streak is over. I lost at Wordle. So I start looking at what other people have been sharing on the threads and I see, oh, yeah, this is a tough one. Like some people are getting it in six. Some people are lucking out. But also our friend Anita from Croatia, you know, she because of the time difference, she gets to do it like 12 hours before us. She busted out and she's probably the second best in our group chain, I would guess. So now we have both Anita and Genevieve who are back down to zero. And here's what I want to say. Like usually when we talk about these things, it's really important not to spoil Wordle for people is, you know, like I'm sensitive to all kind of spoilers for movies and TV shows and whatnot. For a game like this, it's really, really important not to spoil it. Having said that, I think for the sake of this conversation, for the sake of seeing your reaction, I think I need to go through with you what my answers were and what the final answer was. Because you don't know yet, right?

Becca has not told you.

No, and I'm not a regular Wordle player at all, so you're not going to ruin anything for me, but are you saying this to kind of give a major spoiler alert to people listening? If you do not want to know today, today is Tuesday, October 15th, you don't want to know today's Wordle, fast forward six hours.

Yeah, exactly. Fast forward until you hit the daily. um i um so i'm gonna continue to say this sort of reveal this slowly because i am thinking very much about the people who are maybe jogging right now and are like fumbling to get to their earbud to stop it or if you're in the back of the car and you're you're just throwing their phone into lake michigan out of a panic like they can't can't get to the right screen just can't get to the aux cable um so whatever's going on i've given you so we are going to let me tell you this let me

I'll tap dance in a little bit I'm also I'm having a two screen experience Because I'm texting with Becca about this To get some of the details And I sent the information About how Veeves busted out today And left you that note saying feed the cats And the dream is over essentially And then she said well I'm in good company at least I was telling her that Anita busted out And so she is saying I should play it She goes watch you'll get it on the first guess I don't think she means that because I'm some great Wordle player, but because I probably would have, like, dumb, stupid first-timers luck or something.

Well, do you want—I mean, what's the best way to do this? Because what I was going to do is walk you through what each of my guesses were until we get to it, which will give you some time, but do you want to try it first?

What I heard from TV's Chris Hayes is that us—me trying to rename a text chain was some of the best content he'd ever heard yesterday.

He said two middle-aged men trying to figure out how to rename a text chain is great content, and I don't mean that ironically. And I would just like to point out, I know how to rename text chains on my phone. That was not two middle-aged men. That was one middle-aged man trying to figure out how to rename a text chain. Who successfully did it. Who successfully – a handsome, brave, middle-aged man who did that.

So let's see. Okay, let's see. Play. Okay, I've got it up on the – let's see. It's making me look at an advertisement. Really? There are ads? I probably have the – okay, I hope I have today's – I think I – I'm guessing this is today's –

today's try. So people know how to play

wordle right do you have six chances to guess what a five letter word is it starts totally blank so you want to put in a five letter word that probably utilizes a lot of vowels if possible right okay a lot of people start with radio because that has an a and an i and o in it i'll

just do that unless that's you're trying to trick me up here oh yeah in fact i'm not you know i said

that just to tell you like how i'm sort of explaining to the audience how to play i did

not give you that as a okay i did not think so i know anyway i put in radio and what i know now is that the letters that are part of the final solution and that's boy that's a term that's just really been kind of yeah i really feel like sidestep that i mean i would say in this it's it's it's apt in this conversation but it's it's just it's um anyway the answer that i'm looking for will involve an R and an O. But I do not know if they are, in fact, I believe, I know for a fact they're not where they're supposed to be because they would be green, correct?

Exactly. So you have two beige letters, which means you know those letters are in the word, but they're not in the right place right now.

Okay. So can it be a proper name? Well, no, it doesn't matter. It doesn't help. I was going to say Orion, but that I, we know the I doesn't need to be there. So I know I've got a word with an R and an O uh that does not feature an a d or i so um this is interesting i wonder how this i i am

legitimately interested in knowing how this comes off as podcasting i mean i'm not even not even joking we joke and we we make fun of ourselves so much but this is one that really you know we do this show every single day if this isn't a winner well then so be it but it could be super interesting or this could literally be one of the worst things we've ever done on the show

Now, if something, can a letter be in there twice? Could I be working with two O's potentially?

Yes.

Okay.

If you put a word in there, and let's say you try two O's, and then one of the O's turns up gray, that's told you that you're down to one O, if that makes sense.

Oh, interesante. Okay. Let's see. I'm just, in the interest of moving this along, I'm just putting in. You're putting in cores with an exclamation point. I'm putting in roofs.

Okay.

I did a lot of roofing today. I finished two roofs. And wow, okay, well, now I know that the second letter is an O. Okay, so roofs is not. It's more of a roof. It's more of a groof. It's more of a roof. Okay, so I know that we've got. I've figured out the second letter in this little exercise is going to be an O. We know this.

But you still don't know where the R goes? Am I right about that?

I know the R doesn't go at the beginning. I know that because I tried it.

You tried it twice. Oh, you were just trying to move it along, but you knew that it couldn't be Roof.

And also, Andrew, and also I'm bad at this.

But also you're talking and you're under pressure. We're trying to make this entertaining. But yeah, so that would be what you wouldn't want to do. And under most circumstances is put the R in the same place twice.

I wouldn't put the R in the same place where it's already told me it doesn't go. But okay. uh so um let's see here um uh this is hard to do while talking now let me ask you this you i'm going to ask you a question and then i'm going to ignore you and put another word in here but like did you feel you went into this knowing that this was a tough this would be a tough puzzle um did you feel confident though did you feel good as you started into it were you getting some good results early on or were you kind of stumped the whole way and also by the way did you solve it i don't even you haven't yet revealed if you solved it after you do this i'm

gonna tell you what my choices were one by one and that's why i haven't told you what my solution

was yet i would say it was an intermediate solution or an early solution see you want to

use solutions don't you i will not tell you what the solution that i finalized was i um i will say this i start i don't know if this is really answering your question with all due respect i might kamala harris this answer a little bit um i uh i always start with the same word okay i'll tell you that right now i always start with the word arise because it has oh sure i've heard that and an e in there and also as far as i know arise has never been the answer for a wordle and i am now dedicated to sticking with it because i know if i ever try something else that is not a rise it very well be a rise that day and i'll have missed my one opportunity to get wordle in one so i'm

pretty dedicated right you know what you're doing it's my roulette system i always play 7 14 23 and 35 and i never deviate from that because i know that the day that i sit down and i play some other numbers those numbers are going to hit and the only thing that i can do to keep my sanity be. in this unreasonable time that is playing roulette is to just be consistent. That's what you're doing with Arise.

Exactly. Now, the one time or the one sort of type of situation where I am tempted to move off of that is when I've heard or I've seen on the text chains that people have really struggled and that a lot of people got none of the right vowels in their first word because it's my theory. And I don't know what any of my friends' starting words are or how often they sort of mix it up. But it's my theory that most people start with A's and E's and I's. I think that O's and U's are probably what people turn to secondly. So every now and then, if I see that a lot of people kind of did not get anything for their first word or for their first try, I'll go with clout or grout or something with OU's. But today, I didn't feel that. I assessed the situation. I took a look at what other people were posting, and it didn't seem like people were starting off terribly. It's one of those days where there are so many possible solutions that you run out of options. In other words, I'm trying to think of one that is not today's, but maybe Cedar would be one where you have an A and an E in the proper positions, but it could be a million different words. it's not a particularly difficult word it's just you can just go down and basically you end up with like a Tetris looking score with you know three columns of green and one or two columns of grey I don't know if that makes sense for non-Wordle players I feel like I am ruining this while I'm buying you time where are you what turn are you on I'm on I went radio

roofs coop and now

I'm at color you went to coop oh with a u a c-o-u

oh okay well I'm getting I'm getting I have two tries left and I know it goes c-o blank blank r i know there's that much going on and this is we're on the same word right i mean i'm on the right day yeah okay so c-o something something r um again uh this did you did you

actually say if you got it or not i have not because when you're done i am going to go through and tell you what all of them because i i gotta say here here's what i here's what here's what i want to say i want to say something i'm going to say i want to hear something by i'm going to buy you a little bit more time i'm not going to get more into the complexities of this game i'm already ashamed of of my last gambit at trying to buy you some time but here's this no no that was good it

was good it bought me some time and i'm i mean i probably won't get it but i i you know we've

we've narrowed it down to some degree so i oh i just realized something a lot of rage towards the connections puzzle because I feel like the puzzle makers are not fair actors in that case. I never really get mad at Wordle because I'm like it's either a word or it's not a word and it's on me to get it and it's like today is the first day that not only was it very difficult I'm kind of mad at Wordle so I'll give you that much as a teaser about how I did. I am sort of legitimately mad at Wordle today I don't feel like it's the most

I just got closer.

What do you got?

I tried cower as my penultimate guess, and now I know it's C-O-blank-E-R.

You were laughing, and I kind of talked over you before, too. You said, oh, I just realized something. What did you realize before?

Well, I have one guess left, and what I know is that the word is C-O-something-E-R.

See, and that's the type of thing that a lot of people had that as, like, they had that for their second guess.

green green gray green green and then it's kind of like how many thanks how many wind on top of my

wings how many options like can you just go through you know like yes and i could give you some here could be well i won't yeah but there's a whole bunch of uh there's a bunch of things that

could that could basically i mean and it sounds like from what i remember about this and and talking to becca and people it's like those are the ones that are really frustrating because the process of elimination and all of the kind of you know mental sort of acuity and cogitation you bring to it don't help you with what is essentially a random guess it could be this it could be that it's just like what are they feeling like today are they going with this there's a mystery letter in the middle of this and it could be although to be honest with you CO something ER is like I don't is there are there a bunch of words that could be that well i mean there must be i know what the answer is and

i can think of at least one other i can think of two others now um did well here let me let me tell you this yeah sometimes i do try to i don't think this really helps but i try to get into the head of the puzzle makers a little bit because first of all i doubt it'll ever be penis um even if it

looks like it i just don't think they're gonna do that in here the other day i had one that i knew it was something usty i knew it was blank u-s-t-y and i'd already tried a whole bunch and now i was down to my last turn and i knew it could be three options gusty busty or lusty and i thought you know what i doubt descriptions that have been used about me i i doubt in yes what is the thing with uh fortune cookies in the bedroom i knew it could be dusty lusty or musty in the bed no i knew it could be i think gusty lusty or busty and i'm like they're not gonna do busty nobody rides for free so i was like i'll try gusty also i was like wow there's a lot of like kind of a lot of bad news about the weather in the forecast maybe these uh because this was like when i think helene maybe it was in between maybe helene and milton or whatever so i'm like maybe the puzzle maker was just thinking gusty because of the winds which doesn't make sense they probably make these things um well in advance but anyway i did i i i was right to avoid uh busty and lusty and i got it right with gusty i'm gonna go for it andrew what are you going with i'm going with cover

C-O-V-E-R and I haven't hit go on it yet, but I'm looking at the other letters and I don't think anything else Comer? Coger? Coyer? Cozer? C-O-V-E-R No! It's not right.

Don't say what it is yet, but it's not cover. I feel like you You could have also tried Cower or Coder there. I tried Cower at the beginning. Oh, C-O-W-E-R. Oh, okay, gotcha. So Coder would have been an option there.

I actually, it won't, because I don't have an account. I wasn't logging in through my account. I actually, it won't show me the answer. It says, thanks for playing today. What? It's not showing? Create a free account. Wait, seriously? It doesn't show you the answer? It showed me that I was wrong. It just went flip, flip, flip. What? And then the middle letter remained incorrect. Are you kidding me? And then it just said, thanks for playing today. Want to see your stats and streaks? Create a free account. Already registered, log in. So I could probably log in.

You could probably log in and maybe play it again and actually get it in one if you wanted to. So let me tell you about – You're so devious. Let me tell you about my day.

Okay.

I start – so we've given – for people who were worried about spoilers, we've given you a lot of information, but we still haven't given you the actual answer yet. I started with a rise. That gave me an R and an E, but not in the right places. i then went to mover which gave me an o and an e and an r so it was blank o blank er well that sets you up well because okay we know where the vowels are and everything it's probably a consonant vowel consonant vowel you know r so anyway i'm like all right so it's not mover maybe it's tower Nope. Maybe it's foyer. Nope. Maybe it's loner. Nope. So do you see what I've created here is I've gotten three tall towers of green with those OERs, but it's not mover, tower, foyer, or loner. My final attempt was coder, C-O-D-E-R. It's not that, Luke. It's not coder. I bust it out. I'm back to zero. So do you want to know what the final word was?

Yes, because I'm looking at the alphabet, and I don't see a lot of words that aren't cover that would work there, that would have a letter that's still in play.

And I already used the V in mover, so it couldn't be cover for me. Corer. C-O-R-E-R. one who cores give me a flippin corer corer I'm throwing foyer in there tower, I'm using Y's, I'm using W's I'm using V's, I'm getting straight up kinky in this puzzle you're getting

lusty, you're getting busty you're getting gusty, I'm getting dusty yeah, wow Wow, Corer.

What in the world? Like, in what universe are people saying, well, I guess it's that one universe where you're making an apple pie, and you say, hand me that apple Corer.

I mean, that is, in their defense, that is what you would say. That is what you would say. It's a living.

Now, here's the best thing. Here's my favorite thing to do. This is what I do when I'm mad at sports. and when I'm mad at sports announcers like I was yesterday when I was watching the um When I was watching the Guardians-Yankees game, and it was like it's so obvious that the announcers are just, like, rooting for the Yankees so hardcore. It's so funny. It's just kind of like they'll sort of mention the other team, but then they mention the boys and the pinstripes. They love the boys and the pinstripes. They get so excited. You mean the Bronx Bombers? Oh, if they do something well on defense, they're really interested in defense. Oh, but if they're good on offense, suddenly the announcers are only interested in offense. it was so disgusting i turned the game off halfway through what about the house that ruth built oh my god anyway so this is what i do when i'm mad at uh sports announcers sporting events or wordle is i go to the website we rarely go to the former twitter and i just type in something like i'm going to type in today wordle and i'm just going to see what people are saying what is the what is the top result i take issue says dave erin borg i take issue with today's wordle clearly intended as a streak buster i would say you are right um the most ironic wordle failure of the morning it says uh i don't quite get that we do have some people who are people calling for worst wordle ever and now even the new york times game guy has entered the discourse has logged on worst wordle ever uh new york times game section has jumped the shark according to uh vernon cipher yes people are angry out there today my friends tell you what andrew failing at this exercise

right here live on the air in front of everyone this hurt me to my core don't much to my core

i realized don't try to make this a joke luke this is serious stuff uh no i mean it is it's a streak buster i mean i think today is one it it must be and i'm being kind of serious here while I have a lot of contempt for I say the people but honestly I think it's one person while I have a lot of contempt for the way the person who makes the connections puzzle makes the connections I feel like they are not they're actually not being kind of intellectually honest a lot of the times I do think it must be sort of fun I don't know if it's a team of people if it's one person I know they have I know they have an analytics an analytics section that looks at and then kind of like dissects all the different scores um for wordle it must be sort of fun it must be a sort of hunger gamesy sort of feeling because you have all this data coming at you and you sort of know hey we've gone with these words that are sort of easy however you define easy but like figure outable for a long time and now today let's try a streak buster and let's put one out there and let's just see and you probably get all of these you probably just start to immediately get the results and you see today's the day we lost i don't know 50 percent of people or maybe that's too high maybe it's like 35 percent of people lost their streaks today it must be sort of like you're like a real game master like hunger games watching this stuff come

in but isn't it a pretty simple game to play all it is is like finding a word like corer well that's

like that's the thing but you don't want to do it every day because you're going to turn people off

of the the game right right so i guess it's that it's that kind of like gas and brakes yeah yeah exactly because because the thing is you don't have to worry all the other stuff is mechanized right all the other the like everything about the puzzle is just a software program that the guy wrote that good on him and then sold to the new york times that's where that's doing all the work of like i guessed this letter and then it told me that that it is that letter but not in that place or it's not that letter at all whatever whatever all they're like i guess my question is how many people for how many people is this a full-time job at the new york times to just like vote on corer how what's the other seven hours of their day like like because every morning you get up and you go all right today we're gonna go with um power uh is that five letters you know like uh okay great we went with power yesterday any ideas for today i was thinking today maybe and then like someone proposes a different five letter word and then they debate it and then they put it into the system and then like what do they do the rest of the day like it's a weird

kind of job to have yeah i mean my guess they you know obviously the new york times puzzle section is a whole thing now i mean when you talk about the crossword when you talk about spelling bee when you talk about the you know the strands so my guess is you have some people who are constantly working on new puzzles and maintaining these other puzzles and you probably like you're probably not just the Wordle person who comes in and punches a clock and then punches out eight hours later. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on. I also think that they actually use some of their analytics team who use analytics for much more newsworthy purposes and I think they brought them in to create this thing called WordleBot that will like analyze. You can go through in fact you could, well I don't know if you can do it now because you didn't log in, where this thing that I hate called the WordleBot will basically give you a grade on each of

your turns it'll say i would have picked this here and just based on analytics or whatever so i think that there's sort of an analytic nerdy side to this that appeals to people and also i think engages you know some sort of team at the new york times so i think it's a little bit more complicated than that but um yeah anyway it's i i core like yeah i guess it's a word today's like the first day where i'm kind of like come on though like like really like not only is a very it's not even obscure word whereas it's like old english or something it's just like not a word that we really think about much and it fits into this pattern of it could have been a zillion things i mean this must be one of the biggest streak breaking days in world history which is why i don't mind sort of dedicating as much of the show to it because i i really do think a lot of people who will probably listen to the show a day or two after this anyway um will probably

relate to what we're going through i think we can agree the whole thing is an absolute horror show just upon making this a joke all right let's thank some of our donors today these people are donating to tbtl and are vital to the uh financial and let's be honest overall existence of the program folks like kit healy in minneapolis minnesota kit would not work as a wordle word but healy would five letters and um i'm trying to look i'm i guess health nope not health i'm trying to think of if healy would be one of those words where it's it's in the way that a core is like you said uniquely tough because there are other things it could be um it could only be kit healy Our friend in Minneapolis who's supporting the show Thank you Kit, thanks also to Cindy Loudermilk of Maple Valley, Washington Thank you Cindy Thank you Cindy Loudermilk, probably a little long for Wordle

But Cindy could be a Wordle word If it weren't a proper noun Okay, so it can't be a proper noun I don't think so

That's good for me to know For two years from now when I play Wordle again Jennifer Finn I will say this, Jennifer Finn's in Arlington, Texas Thank you Jennifer Appreciate you Hope, you know, those cowboys get the nose up on things I like Dak Prescott, okay? I'm a Dak Prescott appreciator And I want good things to happen to him But, like, I've lost my train of thought And that's just fine Oh, here's, I got it back In that, even though that was a weird way for me to play Wordle, Andrew Like, trying to do it on the show Trying to kind of keep tap dancing, etc I think I had for a moment The awareness or the appreciation of um of why it's fun you know what i mean like even under those conditions i was like oh i get it why this is fun and i'm like telling becca how i'm doing i'm like i'm at i go i went with cover and it didn't work and she was like she's telling me that uh she goes uh cover was my fifth and i ended with coder which was also wrong that's what i ended with tell her that's what i ended with well i'm trying to read the donors i'm trying to thank danny sandoval of south el monte california Thanks, Danny. But, yeah, I was really even amidst that whole weird way of playing, I was like, oh, this is actually fun. And, like, I get it. And also for you, it's very much the community of the friend group talking about it and chopping it up, right, afterwards.

That and also imagine playing that knowing that you had, like, let's say, like, what was I up to? Like, I think I was up to, I was in the high 60s, so it's not that high of a streak. But, you know, when you're like, oh, no, I know everybody has busted out. and now here I'm doing it and will I be able to preserve my streak? There is a bit of a heart racing situation kind of when you're filling in that sixth guest. By the way, I want to apologize to Danny Sandoval because I kind of talked over our thank you to Danny. So thank you again.

And Danny is, I'll repeat, in South El Monte, California, which sounds lovely. I'd love to go there right now because it's wet and gross here in the Northwest. Thanks to Julie Huffman in Oxnard, California. I love Oxnard, the gateway to El Pacifico Beautiful Oxnard, California And then Chase Wiseman is in Also beautiful Los Angeles, California Nice Another one of my very favorite places Thanks Chase and Julie and Danny and Jennifer and Cindy and Kit Becca was saying to me I want to be careful There's no chance of the person in question hearing this Because I don't think they're a TBTL head But there's somebody that Becca knows Who said She texted me that this person somehow got it And they used the wrong form of T-O slash T-O-O

Which is pointed out as the irony of life Somebody who generally speaking In life doesn't know the difference between T-O and T-O-O did get the

A word I'll write today? Yes.

A person who Becca texts with who often uses T-O-O when they should be using T-O or vice versa. This could be filed under the larger, the universe ain't fair category.

But see, that's where luck can kind of come into it as well. I can't think of a word off the top of my head, but if you're starting kind of where you and I started, where you're looking for that middle letter, coming up with an R there is going to be very difficult. But if you somehow stumble on another word that ends in R-E-R, then you're like, okay, yeah, if you, you know, something, something, R-E-R.

If you establish the R, like Omaha Beach, if you established a beachhead with that R accidentally, then you're, I mean, in fact, that would be the key. That's probably the defining characteristic of those who got this word. Here's what probably didn't happen. Very few people probably got to the very end of this and went with corer. You either accidentally locked in the R where it needed to be early in the process, and then we're just like, I guess I'm going to put corer because I know that has to be an R. That's probably the only way anyone solved it today.

In fact, can I just take a quick look here at – I'm going to take a quick – I'm just glad that we're going back to this content, which I literally said could have been the worst segment we've ever done on the show. So I want to see, for the people who got this right, I see our friend Katie, who listens to this show. I don't know what her process was. Katie got it right? Katie got it right in five, and she did have several guesses that were green, green, blank, green, green. So she got to core somehow earlier. So good on her. Her noggin was working well. Genevieve, weirdly, has not posted her. She told me that she lost, but she has not posted yet. She must be feeling some feelings about this today. And nobody else is actually we have some people on our group chain who will simply say what number they won in, but they will not share their colored squares because Genevieve has used those colored squares to day in and day out, study people's behavior and then figure out what people's starting words are without them telling which I some people in our text group are next level. Some people in our text group hate it so much and they call it straight out cheating. I don't think it's straight out cheating. I like to call it cheating to her face because I like it when she fights with other people.

Oh, I see. In other words, she wait, she's figuring out their start. So she's doing it after them and figuring out their starting word. Well, then informs her answer. It's not just it's not just over the course of one day. We play Wordle every single day for I mean, how has it been a year and a half now or something?

So she has a very big data pool to dip into. And so let me put it this way. I'm trying to think of a good example because I think this gets kind of close to what happened to me one time when I accidentally figured out a friend's word. One time a friend got it in like two, and the first word they only had one letter off. And so then when they got it in two, I knew what their starting word was. Like I think it was stain and stare. Let's say that your starting word is stare, and then you share your result with me.

You mean like as in into the middle distance like many of our listeners now are doing?

Yes, S-T-A-I, right? If you put stare and it's wrong and then you get stain in the next one, you're like, oh, this person starts with stare. Do they start with stare every single day? And if they do, well, then Genevieve's already got a leg up on you if she goes first because she's like, well, I know this person's stare. And so Genevieve says it's not cheating. She's like, I'm using the information that is given to me, which is you guys sharing your data with me. And in a certain way, she's right. She's just got a big brain that's chomping on big problems, as you like to paraphrase.

It's the way that I feel like card counting is not cheating. Exactly. It's just remembering.

Right. Now, don't get me wrong. If our friends were here, I'd be making fun of Genevieve and taking their side. But behind her back, I will actually have her back and say it is. It's an interesting relationship dynamic. It really is. I love watching Genevieve fight with Kamara Kev. But anyway, yeah. So she's just, you know, she's using her brain in ways that, you know, I'm not. So I guess it's fair enough.

Well, that was actually very fun. And, again, I doubt I will start becoming a regular player. I'm also bad at this stuff. I mean, what it is is I'm attracted to the things that I am naturally okay at, and I tend to shy away from the things that I'm naturally not very good at, and I think I'm not naturally very good at Wordle, so I kind of swerve on it. But that was fun. I'm glad I got to enjoy that with you. Now, enjoy that last—I'm going to enjoy those last moments of good feelings because I'm about to lay some bad feelings on you, Andrew, which are that there is an AI program that can do a podcast now that is pretty believable. It was a story a while ago in the Washington Post by Jeffrey Fowler, who's a columnist there. And I guess Jeffrey Fowler's kind of overall point is that there is this new AI website from Google. It's called Notebook LM. and the headline from the post is no time

to read google's new ai will turn anything into a podcast so what this guy basically did was he uploaded or he took facebook's privacy policy which is 99 pages long and he uploaded it into this notebook lm program and notebook lm then just took all this you know presumably very dry information in the privacy policy of google and then made a podcast about it with two ai generated people talking about it and what i was struck by was how actually good the voice quality is like putting the content aside for a moment like it just we've played so much a we've played so many ai voices on this show now um you know over the last couple of years to me these are without a doubt the most believable voices like i'm just gonna play you some of this uh it's the we call them a male i don't know do they have genders if they're in an ai program the the male sounding character or whatever starts things off for a while and then the female sounding character jumps in but here we go this is oh by the way it's called um deep dive is the name of the uh podcast let's see i think there's a little bit of a little bit of silence at the very beginning of the file but here we go it'll start up in a second here all right let's

be real for a sec nobody wants to wade through meta's privacy policy on a friday night rights like a million pages long and it's drier than toast. But here's the thing. Buried in all that legal jargon is some seriously important stuff about what data Facebook and Instagram are collecting on us. We did the digging so you don't have to. And trust me, after this deep dive, you might look at those like buttons a little differently. We're talking about way more than just what you post or who you follow. Did you know they actually track your mouse movements? Like every little scroll and hesitation. It's kind of creepy when you think about it. They say it helps them tell real users apart from bots, but still.

Yeah, it does make you wonder, doesn't it? And that's just one example. Meta also collects a ton of info on the people you're connected to, your friends, followers, even people you might know.

It's like they're building this whole secret social web, even if you haven't actually friended all those people.

Exactly. They use all that network data to figure you out. ever notice how facebook suggests friends through that people you may know thing sometimes it's just

because you happen to share a contact the pacing of this andrew is what really really freaks me out like because you know ai voices have always been up to now i've always i feel like i've been able to kind of tell the difference but they seem to really be dialing in the the weird and slightly seemingly unpredictable pacing of an actual human talking that doesn't strike me quite as much i

feel like maybe like a frog that slowly the heat has been turned up on i've been hearing i feel like for a while now we've been hearing some really good ai representations of people talking and like i've fallen because remember there were certain podcasts that actually gotten pulled down where they because they were imitating real life people anyway all that is to say that isn't Oh, Genevieve's mom busted out on a wordle. That text just came through. She might even hear this. She had texted in today because...

Thoughts and prayers. We've lost another one.

Oh, yeah, because Genevieve's brother busted out on a wordle, and then his sister busted out on a wordle, and then their mom, because I'm on this text chain with Genevieve's family, their mom was kind of like, uh-oh, I'm on guest number three. I'm nervous about that. that was three hours ago and so or about two and a half hours ago and so two and a half hours later she finally pulled the trigger and we have another casualty so that is of hazes that i share my wordle with that is zero for four no hazes survived wow today's world um anyway all of that is to say i'm not trying to really about the hazes and the has not that is such a good show title but i just don't know if it's a little bit yeah let's not put the entire family on blast although they will probably all hear this um but uh yeah so i'm not trying to poo poo that like i guess i'm not as as blown away by kind of the pacing and the voices it is very realistic for me it is like first of all i hear these voices and i kind of don't like them right away because i hate the stereotype of podcast

voices like whether or not let me be clear it sounds like a very mediocre podcast yeah it was

made by humans yeah yeah yeah and i know that you weren't like complimenting the content there but having said that i think the reporter who decided i'm going to give this ai thing a shot i want to see what it's like when i input when i input content and say turn this into a podcast i think they did a really smart thing by saying what is some of the driest kind of content i could possibly think of to give this a run and they took the terms and agreements of

meta and put it in there. And I got to say, if I were reading, and I really hate to say this, because I have no intention of using this. But I got to say, if I started reading the terms and conditions of Instagram or meta or whatever they put in there, I think my eyes would glaze over very quickly. And I would have I think I got more information from that terms and conditions agreement from that 30 seconds of fake podcaster that you just played for me that I might have if I were just to try to dig into the legalese. Like, it's a really good test of the system, and it kind of worked.

Yeah.

With someone, even if you've never actually talked to them on Facebook.

It's like they're playing digital matchmaker with our data. But, all right, enough about the friends list. What about all the other info our phones and computers are constantly spitting out?

Oh, yeah, that's a goldmine for meta. We're talking everything from the type of phone you use to your IP address.

Yeah.

And that IP address, it can give away your general location, even if you've got location services turned off.

So much for trying to be incognito online.

It just goes to show, data tracking is everywhere these days. You might think you're being careful, but Meta and plenty of other companies are still figuring out ways to learn about you.

And we haven't even gotten to the data they're getting from third parties. But for now, I think we can all agree, Meta's collecting way more than just birthday wishes and vacation photos. okay so we've seen just how much data met is raking in it's amazing question is how cynical

they are i mean don't get me wrong they're right to be and this is also by the way this is alphabet aka google um well well wait yeah this is this is a google product as opposed to a meta yeah yeah so you know if they're talking about facebook and instagram if they were whatever the meta version of this is i wonder if it would be as critical as jaundiced that's really interesting i wonder if

What if the reporter had put in Google's own terms and conditions? Right. That would maybe even be in the nest camera or something. Yes, exactly. But one of the reasons it makes me cringe so much is because not only is it computers, and I think I'm restating what I said before, but this makes me like literally cringe when I hear the way they talk, but it makes me cringe because I hear so many pot, like actual human podcasters.

Are you saying that these bots get the whole relatability thing? Yeah, and radio people. That's the thing.

Like I've complained on the show about some-

I mean, that's what they're zeroing in on. yes it's so cringy i don't want to like keep obsessing on this because obviously like you said it's not the thing that jumps out at you but i don't think i've heard an ai program that presents two people talking to each other like i feel like you know we have ai andy rooney saying tbtl stuff uh and things like that i feel like i i've heard that a bunch what what what feels new to me about this or what what i don't think i've heard before is again the interplay between two people and now that i'm i'm listening to this for like the second or third time and i'm starting to hear some there's some stilted moments but like it's it's still getting pretty close and like you said it sounds very much like real human beings who are doing a sponsored podcast for chase bank that's supposed to also be like really kind of like cash and relatable but the chase bank comms team has a lot of thoughts about some of the kind of front-facing commentary you know what i mean It's just like to use the thing we use far too often, it is uncanny in the most classic way because it sounds a lot like something that's probably out there right now. We're two human beings. We're tasked with trying to talk about something boring, but keep it kind of fun and interesting, but also make sure we're not saying the wrong thing based on the brand because who's paying the bill for this? It's Chase Bank.

What are they actually doing with it all? It can't just be about building some massive digital library, right?

Right. It all comes down to creating that personalized experience you get on their platforms. you know like those ads that pop up and you're like wait how did they know i was just thinking

about that oh tell me about it like the other day i swear i googled best hiking boots and then boom facebook showing me ads for hiking boots i thought i was going crazy andrew there's making up the

hiking boots it's a freaking computer that just did that like i mean that's first of all a conversation we've had a hundred times on this show and everybody listening has had with someone like about the tracking with the ads but like so i guess maybe that's not that sort of sort of surprising but like the way that they just went through that little moment of like yeah i look for hiking boots and now they're showing me your hiking boots ads i was like that is that is i mean this is a shocking level of verisimilitude for me as far as like this computer program trying to sound like two people talking about a thing that we often talk about you know what i'm picturing

in my head is one of those charts where one thing is climbing up and one thing is climbing down and i feel like what's climbing up here is ai's ability to create these fake podcasts and what's climbing down is my estimation of real people doing two ways um and let me i need to specifically say it's my estimation of it because i might not be totally fair here and i know i've had the version of this conversation before yeah but let me just if you don't mind before we go back to the tape back up here for a second and talk about one of my kind of pet peeves of public radio which is a lot of peas pood um but you know you and i obviously been working in or worked in public radio for a long time and even when you and i got started in the late 90s or early 2000s or whatever it was we were very familiar with the um you know the the term of art um you know like a two-way and that could mean various things but Usually it means you have a host, local or national, but you have a host who's sitting there.

It means low attendance at your orgy.

A two-way. Hey, want to have a two-way orgy?

Orgies aren't fun. No one wants to come to them. That's my Steve Bruhl impression for some reason.

Is that actually a Steve Bruhl joke, or are you just taking your joke?

No, no, no. The first part was a wholly unique Luke Burbank production. A two-way is low attendance at your orgy. The follow-up was when Steve Bruhl's talking about wine. And he says, wine was invented by the Romans for orgies. So very fun. If no one wants to come to yours or something, something to that effect.

But OK, so two ways. I know that you're you're probably you probably know my opinion on this better than anybody. You've heard my sort of rant for so long. But the idea of a two way is, you know, a reporter comes in. They've done their reporting and they could be a print reporter. They could be somebody who works in radio. And so you're going to have a difference in sort of how they present on the radio because of that and what their background is. And they're going to sit down and just answer some simple questions with the host. Now, the producer's role in all of this or as they kind of produce this out is they're probably telling the host, hey, ask me these questions and I'm going to be prepared with answers for them. And there's a certain amount of interplay that may or may not, you know, a natural interplay that may or may not come out of this. if the two people are both have radio if both of the people have radio backgrounds and they're comfortable with each other and they've known each other for a long time you don't have to script it out quite so much you can just say hey here ask me these questions and we'll just sort of riff and I'll tell you that I'll lay out the story for you but you'll hear this on the radio sometimes too you get a reporter who maybe is a print reporter and a young print reporter who has their first chance to be on national public radio and they might be a little bit more nervous and you hear how stilted the two-way is the host will ask a question and right now I would say there are some hosts on the radio who are like so bad at acting that even when they're asking the questions it just sounds like they're reading but trying so hard to make it sound like they're not reading that they're like it sounds like regional theater in a way that absolutely drives me bananas one person who is good at two ways and I'm going I did all of that broad talk so I can go to one specific example i heard on the radio today between two people who are really good at two ways but it's still ground my gears a little bit one is a martinez of morning edition i am a fan by the way i will not be coming over just like you said about steve inski i'm not coming on this microphone to in any way um talk down about him i think a martinez is a great great host and obviously better better at this gig than i am certainly and he was interviewing i believe an npr reporter whose name i do not have at the tip of my tongue but she was reporting on kamala harris's recent media um appearances specifically in her um attempts to attract more black male voters to

vote for her right talked about being on the all the smoke podcast um yes although this was a newer

one this was today so it was talking more specifically not about all the smoke was about going on a couple of other podcasts and then doing a um and this is actually to my point doing a rally later on today somewhere in some critical battleground state. And so the reporter who was doing this too- It was deep as shiver on. Yes, thank you. And she said something like, and of course Kamala has another rally today. And then A. Martinez says, oh, where is it? And then the reporter answers. And I was kind of like, even though both of these people did a very, very good job in this two-way and it was not grading at all, that tiny one second question from a martinez where is it kind of broke the fourth wall for me because i'm like you know where it is a like there's no chance that a went into this not knowing the answer to that question and it's sort of dry oh boy this was a long rant by me that does not have anything to do with ai but it just sort of drives me bananas when i hear a little fissure in the facade you know what i mean like don't say where is it if you know where it is why couldn't a have just said oh and that's outside of philadelphia right like why can't you just do that

right yeah i think you've really gotten to the core of the issue here i deserve that

here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female

no man it's not from a female all right emails or v-mails on this tuesday We'll be right back. Yeah, let me see. I got a couple here. I'm going to save one for later on in the week. We did have somebody calling in with a good Yinzer accent that I thought you might appreciate. But first, I'm going to play this one. This is a very, very, very short voicemail. Now, I think you, Luke, will recognize these voices and listeners, many listeners will. We often get phone calls from two young listeners, Langley and Puddle. Langley is the older sister and has been calling in.

They're in Portland now, I think, now.

Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that.

Oh, welcome to the Lulee. I believe so. I think I ran into their parents at a burrito shop when I was on a walk once with Becca. I'm thinking about the right people.

Mike. Mike would be their dad? Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so Langley is the older sister, and she's been calling in, leaving jokes on our voicemail line for years now, actually. And Puddle is the younger sister, and she's been leaving voicemails as well with jokes, especially as she gets older and has a better— Aging into the demo. Exactly. That's the perfect way of putting it. so what we have here is a quick voicemail this is from Puddle the younger sister and she is leaving us a joke okay and the joke is good good job Puddle but what I love about this voicemail is what you hear at the very end a voice off mic yelling something so cruel and so funny

I'm here to Puddle and I have a joke for you what does ketchup say to mustard what does Ketchup say to mustard, I'll catch up to you later. That's a bad joke.

Could you make that out? Let me translate. I was like radar from MASH, Andrew. I don't know if you saw me. I was like holding my studio quality headphones against my ears, closing my eyes and in total and complete focus. The joke was, what does ketchup say to mustard? I'll catch up to you later. And then in the background, someone yelled, that's a bad joke.

It is my understanding. ending that because Langley the original joke teller yeah has been calling in for a while then Puddle will call in with jokes and I think we what we have here is is Langley in the background totally just roasting her sister I could be wrong about this but we'll play it again it's only 13 seconds her just saying the statement that's a bad joke listen to this again

I'm you, and I have a joke for you. What does ketchup say to mustard? What does ketchup say to mustard? I'll ketchup you later. That's a bad joke. So rude.

Also, when did Langley turn into like a 70-year-old Jewish woman from New York?

That's a bad joke. That's a bad joke. Anyway, well, thank you both for leaving us voicemails. Solid content. Thank you. Exactly. Do appreciate it from both of you.

If you have a—actually, you know what? I was in the—we could almost turn this into a segment because I was spending a small amount of time in my TBTL email account today and was noting a couple of different kid-related things. We've got some tape. Maybe I'll dig it out, and since, you know, I can, I guess, the tape is not totally clear, but I can translate it. We've got a young kid asking for TBTL in the car. we've got a kid who found the TBTL coin and it's now their favorite thing to chew on and they've also recently gotten pants with pockets and so they walk around going I have TBTL in my pocket

I don't think I got that one

there's some amazing developments in the cute kid space and I'll get those ready and we'll present those as the week goes on if you've got cute kids or even uncute kids that are doing things TBTL related or they want to tell us a joke

send the uncute ones to Luke and the uncute ones to Luke.

Honestly, they're all cute. They're all cute in my eyes. Yeah, Luke at tbtl.net or Andrew at tbtl.net. Particularly, we love a good kid joke here on the show, even ones that other kids think are bad jokes.

Or call the voicemail line, 206-414-8285. 206-414-TBTL.

There you go. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio, so please do join us for that in the meantime have a great Tuesday take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

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