Muse

There are times in life when no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we want to win, sometimes it just isn't meant to be, and we fail. Today I want to tell you something, not about winning or losing, but about the spirit of never giving up, the spirit of the Cleveland Browns.

TBTL!

This is a show for people.

About dogs.

Starring one dog.

And one dirty dog. This guy is so full of angles and gimmicks and twists, he starts to describe a donut and it comes out of print.

Your favorite dish. My favorite dish. I like mugs because they're very comfortable in your hand and they hold the hot things that you don't have to touch. So, you know, coffee or hot tea.

Okay. Sure, it's done in the name of comedy, but is debasing ourselves really that hilarious?

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

You're entering a world of pain.

My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

Hey, cheer up. It's Taco Tuesday.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's a little cloud foggy, but I think it's going to burn off, and we're going to have a beautiful day up here.

Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful.

And we need it, don't we? Because as we arrive at episode 4580 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Our baseball team, do you remember them?

Seattle Mariners.

They did not win last night in Toronto. They lost in the seventh game of the series, and that means they are not going to the World Series. They remain the only team that has never been to the World Series. And yet I sit before you here on this Tuesday, the 21st of October, not feeling as bummed out as I would have expected on some level. And I know this sounds crazy. Feeling slightly relieved.

That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

I don't really I don't really know how to put this into words, which is why I'm poorly cast as a podcast host. But I'm going to try and I'm going to try to put it into words with the help of this young man, the longest running co-bro of the show. may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's a soulful rocker from New Hampshire. And now that he isn't going to be distracted by all that baseball watching, a man's thoughts turn to fall-time food decisions. There ain't nothing like soup. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. Tell me about Relieved. well what i realized was there were these landmines in my week and they were these landmines that were when the seattle mariners would be playing in the playoffs each game and i knew i guess landmine is sort of a bad analogy because in case unless there were the kind of landmines that blow you up into happiness sometimes there were some of the landmines

Why do I always forget about the Skittles landmines?

Yes. Imagine a landmine full of Skittles and a different one full of shrapnel. No, there were just... I was so emotionally caught up in this baseball team and in every single pitch of these games and the pacing and the anxiety and the... I said, I think, on yesterday's show that I will look back on all of this, I think in the rear view as having been fun but it was it was not a casual experience for me it was not a casual relationship it was something that would either absolutely ruin my night and possibly really kind of put me in a kind of a funky mood for the next day or something that would just put me on cloud nine and that sort of emotional volatility is kind of tiring after a while and so i of course my preference would have been for the mariners to have won and we could say we're going to the world series i honestly think if i were saying to you we're going to the world series there would be a certain amount of dread that was also welling up let me point out also that the los angeles dodgers who uh the blue jays will now be playing they look unbeatable it looks unfair now that could change but there's also maybe some relief that we don't

have to go slay that goliath how about you well it's interesting that you say that because while you're feeling relieved i'm feeling relieved that you told us that you're feeling relieved because this was a secret feeling i was having that i was not going to admit on the show and i'm being like

it is the most I made it.

It's the biggest data thing we could ever do as fans, right?

I swear to God, I was so embarrassed of not being more devastated. And I wasn't going to pretend to be devastated, but I wasn't going to try to explain the feeling that I had last night. You would think that last night I would have been anger mode, stomping around, have to go for a walk. And I think about the most painful losses of this postseason, and last night wasn't it for me. And I don't think it makes sense, and I can't explain it. And again, I'm sheepish to say that because I am a Mariners fan, and I am a baseball fan, and I really want the Mariners to go to a World Series. I wanted them to go to this World Series. Well, sort of. I do not think that anybody is going to make it out of this World Series except for the Dodgers, possibly for decades to come. But last night, Luke, I had it almost felt like a balloon had popped and it was like, OK, let's get on with life now, sort of. And well, that's the thing. There were a few other things. You know, also, I talked about dog sitting a lot on the show yesterday. I have a tight 90 on that again today. No, but I saw some pictures that made me very happy. That's right. Genevieve brought the dogs over here last night for our last night with them. And that worked out pretty well. But then I thought the neighbors were getting home today, but they actually got home late last night. So they texted us and said, we'll be home at 1030. So we've got to say goodbye to the dog. So that chapter has ended. And to bring it back to baseball, again, I feel like there are baseball fans in the audience who are like, how could you feel this way about your team? And again, I'm not saying I'm happy that they lost, but I was not in this dark, terrible place. In fact, like kind of seeing other people in social media and an email that we got from a friend whose eight-year-old was like going off. I will respect their privacy on this matter, but their eight-year-old was going off the rails using language that they did not know he used. And I'm just kind of like, I'm so glad that I'm not that right now. And I'm disappointed. And we can talk about some of the decisions in the game, but I'll be honest with you. I don't even, I think there were some mistakes that were made, but I'm not even like, it's not even one of those things where I can put my anger on the manager or one player in particular. Like, again, we could break down the game and there are definitely some dang frustrating moments. But maybe it was because, I say this a lot when it comes to sports stuff, like, well, I was, I'm emotionally protecting myself. You know, sometimes you'll ask me for a prediction and I'll say, well, I don't want to predict, but I will say I'm emotionally preparing myself for a loss. But I don't think it ever actually works. You know, you're always still really frustrated. I cannot remember how I felt or even what the scenario was when the Cleveland Browns, speaking of the Cleveland Browns and that intro tape.

I mean, this is, by the way, you've spent your whole life preparing for this moment as a Mariners fans by being a Cleveland Browns fan. You had the perfect audio tape just ready to go. A factory of sadness that creates extremely germane audio tape for when different sports teams fail to thrive.

That's right. And, you know, when the Browns finally broke what felt like their curse, what was it, maybe six or seven years ago when Baker Mayfield took them to the playoffs and even won the first round, I think, of maybe the wildcard round. I don't remember the details of it. I was just so unbelievably happy. Eventually, they obviously lost in the playoffs at some point early on. But I don't remember that game, and I don't remember being as devastated. I remember other things like the Cleveland Browns winning their first game after losing an entire season and one game or something. I can't remember what it was when they finally broke their losing streak. I remember like being just so full of joy and surrounded by people who were all like cheering for the Browns. Like, I remember moments like that, but I just don't, I think I will remember the pain of some of those losses in the Tigers series more than I'll remember the losses in the Jays series for some reason. And maybe it's just because I felt like this team went further than I thought they were going to go this season. I would have bet midway through the season that they would have missed the playoffs by one game. As they like to. As they like to do. and I just don't want to be Pollyanna-ish about it and I don't want to be embarrassing about it but like, God, good season, let's build on this let's frickin' build on this and let's not make it another thing where it was a fluke and we have to go a long time to get there again I think that some of my immaturity around sports fandom is because my teams never make it far and then when they do, it's sort of a fluke and then they go forever again And maybe you're right that we don't have to go forever again. We're going to be maybe contenders again next year, depending on what happens in the offseason.

And, you know, if the team decides that they're going to continue to invest like this, this could be a thing. And right now on October 21st, I just keep thinking about what a goddamn fun baseball season this was. It sure was. It sure we were. I mean, again, you want to talk about the most beta cook read on the situation. I can't believe that you and I are in agreement on this, by the way, for real. Like, I, yeah, it is, it is, it is, um, it is odd that we both have this exact same feeling, but like, I was like, like, we're the last, we're in the last three teams left in baseball. Yeah. There's like 27 other teams or something that are all done. And we didn't come into the season. I mean, I was incredibly angry at the Mariners management in the off season, feeling like they didn't really do anything to improve this team. And in fact, we're like, we're just going to kind of move some deck chairs around on the Titanic. And so I think that's part of it, too. If if if if these Mariners were Los Doyers or the New York Yankees or one of the Mets, one of these teams that had like this huge payroll and it's just like huge roster of stars and then you don't make the playoffs or you don't go very far. that is like a crushing bitter defeat this all just felt like house money to me um and it was it was super fun and i also i i think we're gonna i think we're gonna win our division for the next few seasons i don't think any other teams are ascendant in the way we are with our pitching staff and with our young stars the like emergence of julio rodriguez last at bat notwithstanding like just the fact that he just somehow figured out how to shine in mostly the biggest moments it's just and he's the guy that we have locked up forever and we pay him so much money he's 24 he's he if he was dating my daughter it would be weird because she's that much older than him the age gap between him and my daughter would be weird for so many reasons i'd be like well where did they meet a law enforcement conference i was gonna say but anyway like yeah i i somehow this feels somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this somehow this doesn't feel can that be the show title i feel like the way that i felt the way that i felt after the seahawks lost that gutting super bowl where we threw the interception this yeah doesn't feel like that to me and i can't exactly explain why but i just and then and then again also and this feels like we have a i guess we'll say mutual friend he's a little more your friend than mine but i know him and i give this guy so much shit to you when we're talking about it because he's a guy who would come to the baseball game but then leave in the eighth inning because he wants to beat the traffic and i always think of that as just being like are you even a fan how could you not watch the end of the game particularly if it's like a close game or something like what's like how how thin is your fandom and uh and so this sounds exactly like that what i'm about to say but like obviously i would have liked them to have won when i realized there weren't gonna be any more

baseball games i did feel slightly liberated from seven more events like this potentially that would absolutely dictate my emotional well-being and that were an absolute like a gut-wrenching experience to watch that's the other thing that i'm trying to because the mariners haven't really been in the playoffs i mean they went a couple years ago but i feel like they're the the team that i root for that i have the least experience of them playing in the playoffs and kind of getting into the higher sort of like echelons of the game and so i don't know how it had not occurred to me but it is a very different experience watching a playoff baseball game than watching a playoff football game or i would say a playoff basketball game and i there were some i have some theories on that um and some other things that i can't quite explain but it is i mean we've been asking for the last couple weeks is this fun do we enjoy this and i think what we agreed is when they win we enjoy it and that's a huge wave of relief but the actual experience of it is so pressure packed that it's just like like i mean we took our blood pressure you and i took our blood pressure a few games ago just after a home run or something to see how we were doing and we were we're not like i think you and i agreed we're not telling our doctors where we know that one it was in the middle of a game it was elevated yeah it It was, mine was super elevated. Some part of me, you want to know something else? This is a very weird, this is a very weird thing that consoled me today, Andrew. I was doing my regular kind of news roundup, news gathering. I was reading kind of like the major newspapers online. So the New York Times and the Washington Post and things like that. And you know what I noticed? And I was looking at the Columbian, which is the paper from Vancouver, Washington, down there in the big city near me. and the barely there's like essentially no mention in the new york times there was one little headline that said how the blue jays built a team to get to the world series but that was it it wasn't the headline wasn't seattle gutted by you know Epic loss that will never that we will never stop talking about it was like the New York Times didn't even care anymore They were just like yeah, the Blue Jays are going to the World Series against the Dodgers the Washington Post no mention of it the Columbian Which is in the state of Washington tiny little like, you know They just reprint a Seattle Times thing But it was like I was going around the rest of the newspapers of the country and I was realizing that nobody cares Like and that for some reason was that was consoling me because I think also baseball is one of those sports where like i couldn't even tell you except i think i know it was the dodgers because just i know it was from last year but like the last 10 years i could not tell you who the world series champion was i can almost always tell you who the super bowl champion was there's something about like once you're in baseball to me i mean there are of course hardcore fans who watch every game

any team whoever they don't care but like i think for most people even baseball fans it's like once your team is eliminated, your interest levels drop pretty precipitously. And when your city team isn't in it, like you just don't care that much. And there's something about realizing that nobody else in the country is really thinking about this that much. And the storyline isn't like, oh my God, are they okay in Seattle? It's like, you know, are they okay with their baseball team? It's like, everybody's just kind of moved on now. And that also felt oddly comforting.

You know, I was thinking about yesterday during the show, and I don't know what we said that sort of put my mind on this track but remember when there was a time and maybe it still is a thing in some circles but like bandwagonism is considered like derogatory bandwagon fan which makes sense but like as we were in the heart of this like it was hard for me to understand why somebody would be upset that a whole bunch of new people are coming on to root for your team you know this is how again this is how maybe beta i've gotten it's like yeah great join the bandwagon like why wouldn't you you know like why would i be upset that the especially here around seattle i'm not talking about people i mean well certainly well we've had we've had a very interesting perspective on this because we have listeners who've been writing in for the past months just saying i've never cared about baseball before and you guys got me watching a mariners game like kind of like saying why are you doing this to me but also like they're watching mariners game so not only like people from around the country who didn't know what a mariner was but also here in seattle a bunch of people who didn't really care about baseball that much tuning in and making a point

of watching a game at three o'clock my daughter my daughter's sending me josh naylor memes yeah right from los angeles like that made me so happy like why is that not fun to get to share yeah why

would that not be fun i think it's been awesome to see the city come together she's wearing a

Yankees had on my birthday recently this is this is this child's yeah huh should we get her on the show to talk about that she got it from Julio she gave it to her on her first date I love this is my I'm just like this old I'm this old spinster just dying to get my daughter married off to

Julio Rodriguez it's gonna get real weird real fast um but anyway yeah I'm uh I'm glad that

you are not the bandwagon is big and get on it it's fun it's fun it's just been such a fun ride

And, you know, if it's a little embarrassing for fans who are out there, just absolutely who's who just feel so absolutely crushed. I had this weird almost, you know, I was really that the last two innings, you know, the last two offensive innings were offensive. I found them to be a bit offensive.

I don't think unfortunately they weren't offensive enough.

No, they were not yet also too offensive. But, you know, there were definitely frustrations. And I was watching the game, and I was thinking, like, I loved the three solo home runs, but I kept thinking that's not enough. It's just not enough. I just kind of knew it's just not enough.

And maybe that's why it didn't, when Springer hit that home run, it didn't drop me to my knees like it might have otherwise, because I just kind of knew that that two runs wasn't going to be enough. Now, and also, here was something else that happened. We got within eight outs of the World Series, right? That's what kind of killed me was if we would have, not to get too baseball-y on it, but if we would have gotten through that seventh inning, then I honestly think we would have a decent enough chance of winning. Because you turn it over to Munoz, and you're kind of running downhill there. You've also somehow gotten through the meat of their order. There's only one other thing that I'll just talk about quickly, which was I always knew that if we lost this in a kind of a bummer fashion, I knew George Springer was going to be involved. Do you know why? Because of the Astros thing and he's... Because of the booing thing or the whatever thing. So, you know, there was this moment where he got hit on the knee.

Oh, in this series, the booing thing.

In this series. So he got hit on the knee in T-Mobile and he was pretty banged up and he toughed it out. And as he was walking to first base... So for people that don't follow these baseball things...

George Springer, who plays for the Blue Jays now, he used to play for the Houston Astros. And the Houston Astros won the World Series, and it was proved later that they had used a bunch of crazy cheating methods to steal what the pitch was going to be and then bang on a garbage can just outside of the field of vision of everyone so that the hitter could hear if it was going to be a fastball or a curveball or whatever. And somehow this did not lead to Houston having to turn their World Series championship over. And so all of us fans pretty much everywhere, as far as I can tell, when a Houston Astro or a former Houston Astro is up to bat, we are booing them. When a member of that team is up to bat, we boo them because they have they have stolen valor, in my opinion.

And I do think you said, I don't know if you implied that kind of all ballparks or fan bases do this. From listening to Jeff Passan on radio, not even this season, I think, and maybe it was last season, it sounds like Seattle is the one holding that up more than any other. The Northwest remembers. The Northwest remembers. Like, who would it be now? It would be Altuve, Springer, and Correa, maybe, or the last three, and they all get booed.

But also, well, Bregman.

Oh, Bregman is still getting booed. Where's Bregman? Oh, it doesn't matter. I can't remember where Bregman is. Boston, maybe. Oh, Boston, of course. Yeah, that was the huge game.

But I find it interesting when, and I love this about, I love, you know, I'm just a catty little bitch from New Jersey who lives for the drama. I know. And I love it when somebody who's not even an Astro anymore comes up with their new team and they're hitting at T-Mobile Field and they're getting rained down with boos.

Yeah, me too.

Because we remember that they used to be a Houston Astro. So that's the dynamic.

By the way, we booed their mascot, Luke, during the All-Star game. Did I ever tell you that? That was one of my favorite things.

That's amazing. Also, it's kind of a good mascot, right?

It's a great mascot. What's his name? Orbit, I think. Yeah, he's a kind of like space age. But it was amazing. I think that might even have been why Passan was talking about it, because I remember it was around the All-Star break. Sorry, but I happened to be there. I remember just walking into the stadium. I think this was before the Home Run Derby, and they're just introducing all the team's mascots. And then all of a sudden, everybody starts booing. I'm like, what's going on? I think I looked it up at one of the stadium TVs, and I saw Orbit getting booed.

sorry go ahead so that so this guy george springer who now plays for the blue jays and has just absolutely terrorized us as both a houston astro and now as a blue jay he gets hit on the knee by the way side note george springer as a human being actually seems like a pretty sweet dude good to know i don't know anything about him even when he was they were trying to get him to take the bait on like so what happens is he's limping to first base this is a couple games ago and and um and i guess it's it's actually a little unclear if there really even was that much booing but i guess there must have been and again i don't think that the booing was because they wanted him to be injured the booing was because he played for the cheat and astros and we boo the cheat and astros around in this house we believe bozo did the dub and we boo the cheat and astros and so where this started to come into my awareness was first of all the coach of the blue jays the manager john schneider was really ticked about this after the game and he said the people that booed george springer need to take a look in the mirror and understand the real kind of player he is and i go well, us looking in the mirror would never help us understand the real kind of player George Springer is.

That's not how mirrors work, sir. Like two-way mirrors.

Yeah, and he's on the other side. George is on the other side, and maybe he has cards that describe the kind of player he really is. Yes, right. Like, it broke down pretty quick. But what I wanted, and then my TikTok just filled up with, and this was after the Mariners had won the third game. So this was now, you know, I mean, and that's the other thing. It's so volatile. it's like you're up you're down you win a game and you're just like nothing can hurt me and then you lose a game and you're just like everything is dangerous and so this was like the mariners had won and so it's like nothing can hurt us and then all the blue jays fans could do because they were so bereft and mad was start obsessing over the mariners fans supposedly booing george excuse yeah george springer and so i was just seeing all these because like the way that i get all my sports media now is just a guy with a cell phone and 30 followers who's sitting in a room like watching the game and yelling at it these are now this is my this is my skip bayless this is my shannon sharp just some kid i'll never meet who's just kind of like matt he's wearing a blue jays hat and he's yelling about the mariners being in no class because we booed george springer and then i just go in in the comments and i write he was a cheater and my from my tiktok account that's like user 537922478.

You don't even have an avatar, right? I don't even have an avatar.

I just go in and just go around reminding people

that he was a cheater. And this is, I gotta say, I wanna ask you about this because you sent me something recently. And now when you send something via the app, the app will say, you know, hey, this was sent to you by this user. Do you wanna follow them or whatever? They're just trying for as much engagement as possible, right? And you used to...

to have an actual tiktok account with like your name on it and your your avatar because i remember your your nephews or something recorded one video on it and now you're using a complete anonymous burner account and i was going to say i was i was trying to i wanted to ask you is that why is it because it's a burner because you want to kind of start shit a little bit well what happened was i

mean kind of my my my i've never posted a tiktok video of myself you know talking into the camera trying to be engaged that's not true i might have reposted something on tiktok that i had done on maybe like instagram or something to see if it got a little heat and it didn't and then i deleted it and i think what had happened was i had gotten into it in a couple of like little comment sections of tiktok with somebody about i can't even remember what the circumstances were but just maybe getting snippier than i would really like to be and i thought well if this is even moderately associated with me like my avatar was the quarterback kirk cousins getting a biofeed scan on his brain when he was i think a minnesota viking or something he's trying to and it was just and i think my name was frigiator oh really i didn't remember that and and again i wasn't i was but i i think i just at some point i realized like uh i there's a couple of things there's a couple of times where i've sort of gotten into it with someone a little bit and been a little snarky in a way that I don't really stand behind and I don't want it being traced back to me. So I basically just nuked that account because I mean, I didn't care about it anyway. I wasn't trying to post things. I wasn't trying to get engagement. But you know me, I can't stay away. And so I had to guess at some point start a new account and I did and that's this extremely anonymous and I don't really do much except just explain to people. I will explain to people that George Springer's a cheater. And sometimes if somebody's being really toxic on there and their grammar is is really poor i might if it's a your your situation someone's on there being like being racist and they're also confusing your your i might slide in with a little it's actually y-o-u apostrophe r-e or whatever you know asterisks there caddy shit like that that like i don't really stand behind but i just kind of it is a little bit of a stress release but here's the thing when that guy george springer got bonked on the knee and when the toronto blue jays fans decided that um that we had been mean to him and that when he then was like playing with this giant knee brace on he could like barely get to first base because he was so hurt i was like i know how this narrative goes i know i you know i know how these things work and what is going to happen is george springer because he is in you know in the sort of i don't know if it's shakespearean plot of this series george springer will triumph eventually because he has been brought low by this pitch to the kneecap he is injured and he was treated unfairly in some people's opinion and therefore he will eventually pull the sword he will pull excalibur from the stone and hit a bizardo pitch that leaks inside over the plate yeah i um i did wake up in the middle of the night andrew with the george springer home run replaying in my brain it's interesting story you mentioned

that in a text chain that you sort of woke up with the game replaying uh this morning that i saw and And that's another, again, we're very we're going through very similar emotional rhythms on this, because last night I was just so fine. I just started puttering. I was cleaning. I was like, OK, now I can take care of this. I'm going to take care of that. And it just sort of felt a little bit like, again, I wasn't celebrating the loss, but it sort of felt like, OK, well, this page has turned now. And I also, and again, not to get overly personal, but as you know about some of the things going on in my life, there's just been a lot going on in my life the past month, month and a half. And it's kind of been hard to separate it all out. And so it's been just sort of this huge ball of anxiety that I've been sort of carrying around. And there was something about last night with two of those stress factors going away. And again, baseball's fun. Like, I shouldn't want it to go away, but, like, with that going away and the dog thing going away, and then I actually took care of some other stuff, and I'm making some plans that have been sort of, like, hanging over my head, and I'm just sort of finally, like, kind of wrapping up loose ends and moving on. And, like, last night I was actually fine, and then I went to bed, but like you, my worst moment with this game was probably around, I don't even know, I don't know if I looked at my clock, but I'm guessing around 3 in the morning. The Dark Night of Soul. Yeah, which is when I sometimes I kind of wake up now. You know, we definitely, I think, have those middle-aged man rhythms now. And so I kind of wake up and it's not always bathroom-related for me either. Sometimes it's just like I just wake up at 3 a.m. And sometimes I just got to get used to the fact that I'm going to be awake from 3 to 3.30 or 4 or something. And that's when it really got me. That's when I realized I sort of woke up and my brain was already thinking about the game. You know what I mean? You kind of don't.

know if it started in your dreamscapes or whatever and you just wake up then all of a sudden you just sort of realize i'm awake and i'm replaying that game and that's when i i had some kind of darkish moments but not nothing nothing terrible but that would that was the worst of it and then i woke up you know in earnest this morning and i was like well let's let's do this let's let's move on with

our lives now yeah uh here's one thing i'll say pitchers and catchers reported in 116 days For the Vetter Cup? When's the next Vetter Cup? That's in 118 days. We get there in 116, we have two days to get ready for the Vetter Cup.

Do you remember the Vetter Cup? What a different time. What a different time.

I was a different person. And one other thing I'll say, again, you know, and this is like sort of, this is like a sports sandwich because I'm using a different sports experience to talk about my Mariners experience. But you know what the craziest thing was last night, Andrew? The Seahawks quietly went to 5-2 And are in a three-way tie In the division for first place And are in the power rankings I was just reading the Athletic In the New York Times NFL power rankings Are seen as a strong playoff team And here's my point in that You had the Mariners playing And then you had the Seahawks playing And the Mariners thing obviously was the focus And I actually had kind of both things going on my laptop With the Seahawks And I had the Mariners on the big TV But then the Mariners game ended and they didn't win and they didn't move on. And then I turned on the Seahawks on the big TV and I was like, the Seahawks are playing on Monday Night Football and they're about to go five and two. And it was such an other universe. There was such a possibility of a different universe where the Mariners just either didn't make the playoffs or lost to Detroit or just had another crummy season. And I would be living and dying by this Seahawks game. I would be, and I know you're a bit less obsessed with football than I am these days, But like this, you know, Seahawks on in primetime on Monday Night Football, it's circled on the calendar. It's all I'm thinking about. It's like in instead of pacing around behind my couch, yelling at the baseball game, I'm pacing by my couch, yelling at the football game. And I it was like I was like, there is a different universe in which the Mariners just like they just don't play great in August and they just miss the playoffs. And then like all my eggs are in the basket of the Seahawks and now the Seahawks are winning on Monday Night Football and I'm overjoyed. Like, in other words, I would have been, if the Mariners, if like the Mariners had not even made the playoffs and you just fast forward to October the 20th and I'm watching the Seahawks win on Monday night football, I'm just jubilant. That's enough for me. I'm freaking out. But instead I was just like, well, we didn't, why didn't we, why didn't we bring in Munoz for the last, you know, it's like, I guess it was just weird. It was weird for me to have this Seahawks game be a sort of rounding error on the night because other, in other, under other circumstances, it would have been so huge to me.

And I will say I don't live and die by the Seahawks the way you just described anymore. In fact, I was even saying to Genevieve, because when the game was over, Genevieve asked to put on the Seahawks game, and I put it on for her, and I didn't even watch it with her. Not out of, again, not out of, like, kind of anger or frustration with sports. I just didn't have any interest in it, and that's a huge change for me over the past couple of years to literally be like, oh, there's still a football game on Monday Night Football, and I'm just, like, not even watching it. Like somehow that spell has broken for me. Yeah, that fever has broken. It's really weird. Like the Seahawks' losses and wins don't affect me anymore, which I think is a good thing.

I think so.

I think it's a good thing, but also you also feel like you've sort of lost something because there's fun in being a fan. And I don't know exactly why that happened. It's not out of any sort of moral thing. I've just fallen out of the rhythm of caring about football the way I used to, and maybe it'll come back. but it's first of all it's kind of nice not not having that having said that i was worried about seattle sports fans in general and again maybe i was just so maybe one of the reasons i'm somewhat okay with this is nothing nothing about this felt cursed as i kept saying that i was worried about like you know like a an error to end the game that we should have won or so like having a feeling like we really should have won this game but then something happened at the end I don't feel like we should have won yesterday's game. It would have been nice to, but it just wasn't a – it didn't feel like a curse. But I kept thinking about what happened. What was it, two weeks ago? Was it the NLDS? And I kept thinking about our friends in Philly. And the Phillies lost that game and lost the series and ended their baseball postseason. And the Eagles lost that day, by the way. That's what I'm saying. That's what I was getting up to.

I was texting with my cousin Kellyanne in Philly, and she's got these grown boys, but they're all crazy sports-obsessed.

and she was like it's a rough day out here right that's what i that's that's what i was going to say i um i just kept thinking about them they had a monday night football game and they had a monday night you know divisional series game and lost them both and lost the baseball game in a really really painful way

And I was kind of like, oh, my God, we're going into a Monday night where the Mariners and the Seahawks are both playing. And like, oh, is this going to be Philly all over again? So I was really glad while I was just like just glancingly scoreboard watching. I was glad that the that the Seattle sports fans didn't have to deal with that.

Well, it's it's a new dawn. It's a new day. And like I said, pitchers and catchers report for the Vetter Cup in about 116 days. Great. Just the countdown starts. I mean, that's the thing, too. It gets better. It gets better. Now, that's the show title. Did we use that yet?

I don't think so.

That is the show title, in my opinion. Because the thing is, like, on the one hand, what I love about baseball when it comes back around is it happens so much. The sport. There are so many games. There are 162 games plus spring training. And it's kind of fun to have this constant little thing to, you know, sort of check in on and be aware of and maybe get excited for. And I do think that the Mariners are going to enter a streak They're going to enter a period of time Where they're going to win a lot more than they lose And it's going to be really fun But also it is I'm saying this half jokingly Pitchers and catchers reported 116 days But also it's like That's going to go by real fast This whole thing is going to be back And I think it was the great Mina Kimes Who said on Blue Ski Something to the Oh by the way I did say something that was a little snark Peace and love to our listeners including Sarah and uh bill and other uh you know canadian listeners and toronto listeners i know our listener sarah was at the game seven and was emailing us before she went like good luck to both teams um so congrats to you all i did put something a little snarky on blue ski which was um i was realizing that you know there is there is a parallel here toronto versus los angeles that has also played out in the hip-hop space and i believe i said i can't remember a recent example of toronto stuff getting so thumped by la stuff that the toronto stuff had to sue the la

stuff we'll watch with interest that's a really great parallel that is you know i was like which

is kind of a that was a that was a brat move by me because i was at that point just sad the mariners lost and so i was kind of trying to make make a burn on toronto out of a complete you know lack of uh lack of uh what's the word out of just sort of um not really having anything to hang my hat on with the mariners other than saying kendrick really shut drake down that's now how i'm saying and it's complicated because i think you and i have both talked about the fact that the the dodgers are just this mega team that's mega rich and has mega bent the rules to mega play they're mega players and they're probably going to just annihilate the blue jays and so we should probably be rooting for the blue jays at this point oh yeah i it's also hard for me because i am still a little i don't like the vlad guerrero jr celebration is to tell the crowd to be quiet when like i get that and if i ever hit a home run and the opponent's stadium or caught a touchdown or did anything on the road i would be the number one guy running around shushing everyone but i didn't like that move and i didn't like that it became the thing that every time they showed highlights of him it's always him being like and to the point where then they do this like freeze graphic of like vlad grow jr like in kind of a photo that's been like treated into a paint painting kind of a thing and then julio you know they're on the same screen it's their two

wolves and the picture of don russ legendary card precisely it's basically that right but then it's

like they would always use the one of vlad being like i'm just like okay guy like i mean again i don't have any problem with the guy but all that is to say yeah he's kind of cool like that's the

thing i usually i'm with you that like i can't root for the team that beat us you know i made that promise that i would root for the tigers which i think i would have had they they beat us would have been really that would have been easier for me than the it's funny like for some reason i don't know that series hurt that that loss that that that that i don't know something about that first loss I think that was overwhelming like hurt so bad this one because it's so weird because I've had such animosity towards Blue Jays fans for so so long but in I don't think I'm going to watch the World Series I do think it'll be too hard maybe to see that but I am 100% and I'm very shocked by this I'm very shocked that the day after I can actually say this I'm a 100% rooting for the Blue Jays. I mean, for so many reasons. We'll know that they won't go to the White House.

Oh, that is literally the number one reason to root for them. Yeah. I didn't even think about that.

Yeah. And I don't have the personal animosity. Will they go to the Tim's house? Do they have a Tim Hortons house up there? What do they have? They should. Who's house? Tim's house. I don't mean to get political, but did you hear they tore down the entire east wing of Tim's house, of that Tim Hortons restaurant in Toronto? It looks so terrible.

Terrible. By the way, what Mina Kimes wrote, the great Mina Kimes, who's a Seattle sports fan, said, Welp, that one's going to hurt for a while. Love, love, love this team, though. Bring back Naylor, and let's run this shit back. Exactly. And I think that absolutely sums it up.

If there's a news story during the offseason that the Mariners did not re-sign Naylor and he's going somewhere else, that will hurt a million times more.

That'll be worse than them not going to the World Series.

Yes, it will be. It absolutely will be. And let's, I mean, one of the reasons I thought we might win was because in the first inning with those antics that Naylor pulled, like just jumping. Oh, his Mario jump? Yeah, his Mario jump. Just apparently illegally, although I didn't know that was a rule, to stop a double play ball with the back of his neck. He jumped and spun. Just jumped into the path.

It was so awesome. Like, I would die for that guy. Yes. I love him. And you know I was texting you this And then we should thank the donors And then we'll get to other things But like I Last night I was doing the radio TV thing So I was listening on my radio Doing the TV Although they were constantly getting a little Because both things are streaming right So both things have some delays built in And depending on this or that It wasn't like I could just get the timing right And then leave it It was like you have to constantly play this game You're always kind of you know you're turning the heat up then you're kind of taking the pot off the stove then you're kind of but so i was listening to rick riz in the first inning and you know my knock on rick riz is just that he just kind of seems like an empty suit a little bit everything is just fine how great day for baseball on chicago south side like he was so viscerally and noticeably angry about them calling uh josh naylor out on or actually really calling out the guy at first but basically The umpires got together And decided that Josh Naylor had broken the rules By Super Mario-ing the double play And I've never heard Rick Riz more angry And it gave me life I loved it That's who we need We need Rick Riz with a drinking problem For his last three seasons We need him to be What was that? Brickmeyer? Oh no, Brockmeyer, Jim Brockmeyer I would like Rick Riz's last Because he's going to probably retire in the next few seasons. I would like his last three seasons to just be bitter and hot takes and always with the flask. I would love that version of Rick Riz.

I didn't know that we had a timeline on it because I had a theory.

That's a total guess by me.

My theory was, and maybe one of the reasons he was so fired up is I've had this theory that this is going to be Rick's last season. And that was before I knew about the Root Sports thing kind of ending. I have just thought that like his early he he had kind of a rough season with his voice the first half of the season he was really getting that kind of like you know you got to clear your throat a whole bunch and by the way I'm not saying any of this as a hater or I there have been times that I've razzed riz on the show I swear I don't mean it in that way and I know that your brother has now like kind of a personal professional relationship with him if that makes any sense and I'm not trying to I'm not trying to retire him too early but I just sort of had a feeling that like the Mariners have a historic season that he kind of he's been here through the lowest of lows for so long and he's such a legacy guy and I thought he's going to retire when the team is sort of on top and probably because he's about that age now and it's probably about that time and I wonder if he was like if they make it to the World Series and I can call the World Series for local radio, and then I retire fully on top. Like, I thought that that was going to be the narrative if we made it. I don't know if that's going to happen now, but I've been sort of on retirement watch with him all season.

You know, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I bet you're exactly right, and I bet you that's also why he was so salty. Yeah. Because it was like, he wanted, yeah. I mean, hopefully he'll stick around next year, and they'll get to the World Series, and then he can retire. Because he has been a, you know, he he's been a great guy and a good soldier and he's been the voice of that team for now many many years it's crazy i don't know if there's any other well that's not true i'm sure if you go to chicago and they talk about harry carrey a lot and everything but it's like i don't know if there's a baseball maybe because dave niehaus was inducted into the hall of fame like i feel like there aren't very many other baseball fan bases where we still talk about that announcer we used to have 20 years ago more than seattle like dave niehaus looms so large still and this isn't a knock i mean he was great and we loved him and you know he was the guy that i grew up listening to the mariners games uh you know calling those games but it's funny because i feel like we really like like dave niehaus is still like looms over this team in some way maybe because he just had some of the early iconic

calls or something but i feel like he's a bigger deal on our team and the other person is still a

bigger don't you think also rick though also is an extension of dave's career in a way that you

don't see a lot yes because he says get out the rye bread and the mustard grandma yeah and he was

a dave knee house ism and he like he was he feels like dave was such a mentor to him and so that you know it just it yeah i it just sort of i and i don't know other markets that well obviously vin scully would be probably the most talked about former announcer but there's something about i think Riz feeling like he's continuing, and I keep on trying to use this expression, Luke, and I keep getting it wrong, is it like kind of, yeah, carrying the torch, I feel like, for Dave Niehaus. This got us into

Mantletown the other day. Yeah, but am I using that

wrong, because if you're carrying a torch for something, that means

you have a crush on them, right? You're carrying a torch for someone, you have a crush on them, but you could also carry the torch. Okay, that's

what I'm trying to say here, and I'm sorry I keep on

He can carry the torch for Dave Niehaus, I think, and yeah, well, I hope he sticks around. For all the grief that I give him, I hope he sticks around, too, so. Let's run it back.

Thank you, baby.

All right, let's thank some donors. These are some fine folks who are supporting TVTL voluntarily with their donation of dough. It's how this thing happens five days a week, 4,580 of these episodes. And it's thanks to folks like J.T. Thorstad in Tacoma, Washington

Hey J.T. Appreciate you J.T.

Good looking out How about Rebecca Johnson in New Haven? Connecticate

Connecticate? Yes

That's how I used to have to say that to try to remember how to spell it You know the word that I was trying to spell today, Andrew And it just absolutely bamboozled me Uh, restaurateur? No, but that's, you know what's funny? It's similar It's guarantee Oh yeah Is there a harder word to spell than guarantee? Is it G-U? G-U-A-R? It's like warante Sometimes I have to break these words down Into strange syllable components That will like wednesde Or connect to kid I can never get guarantee though I had to google I was sending an email And then I had to google the word guarantee Because it was so far off It wasn't even autocorrecting it I couldn't get close enough to the real word that then the computer could take over from you.

Yes, I've been there. It's so embarrassing. It's like, no, no, this isn't even close to a word. You're like, no, it's close. Come on.

I've got most of the basic components of this word here. Anyway, well, thank you, Rebecca, out there in New Haven. Thanks to Emmy Kate Pickering in Lakeland, Florida.

Emmy Kate, thank you. Emmy Kate, of course, we met down there at the Waffle House show. Yes.

uh emmy kate say hi to walton suz if you see them they're out on anna maria island they're in their favorite place to go anna maria island i've never been it's in florida they go down and hang out with their friends cliff and cindy and they um they uh who live in tampa but then my parents always rent one of these little like vacasas or something on this island in florida anna maria island and they just love it so much sounds awesome it's great it's like it's the reason though that they have to keep going to those hard sell timeshare things uh-huh because even though they own it's so complicated but even though they like own you know they've paid a bunch of money for like a million credits somehow that doesn't transfer to verbo of the right way and so they have to still and there isn't a i don't know world mark on anna maria island so some reason that like if they want to rent these they have like a little house that they like to rent the same house on maria island and the only way they can rent it is if they have enough of these verbo points and the only way they can get those is to continue going to these to these sales meetings uh where the sales people yell at them and then they complain and then sometimes they get free stuff because they complained about how much the sales people yelled at them so they got it pretty worked

out wow it looks incredible it's a tiny little strip of land off the um west coast of florida that's really man now i want to go there i am suddenly having vacation envy yeah i know i'm

I mean, I'm glad for my parents at their age that they do get to vacation, but they're gone a lot. Now, I will also mention that their trip to Florida, their flight to Tampa, went by way of San Diego, which is like, I guess you're kind of going south. But I guess it's not the most indirect, but it's also not the most direct. You're going to fly all the way down the west coast to San Diego and then go over.

Well, I got to say, luckily, I have a trip to Cleveland coming up, and I was so glad. this might be the first time I've taken advantage of the fact that Alaska Airlines finally has a direct flight from Seattle to Cleveland. It never did. Luke, flights used to take me to D.C. to get back to Cleveland. yeah cleveland is rough to used to be rough to get to if you're trying to stick with um with like alaska airlines because you end up like i've flown into pittsburgh and then driven to cleveland yeah i'm like and it you lose a whole day like i think of cleveland as the midwest but you would definitely it's like you're losing an entire day of travel to get there pretty far east yeah with the time shift yeah it's further east than i think of i mean it's almost on the east coast it seems anyway uh ryan stevenson is not even almost very squarely on the west coast there in san francisco california nice thank you thanks ryan then of course we've got daniel lennon checking in from portland oregon hey we love portland indeed we love that um we love that they are sold out at lipman company which is the party supply store they've been there for 77 years they're sold out of inflatable animal costumes oh really yeah i heard portland has a real frog problem it's like real yeah we do it's biblical yes so have you seen have you seen the um you know the reworking of so it's the frog it's the inflatable frog but it's kind of reworked into

the obama yes hop but it's hop yes somebody i saw on beluski somebody posted that and they posted their version they said i saw a version like somebody said i saw an ai version of this that was a little bit janky and i wanted to make a homemade version so i don't know which version you saw but i saw the person who was like here here i'm making the official human made version of that and i was pretty delighted by it yeah i thought it was pretty good timothy patrick

is in kamloops british columbia i think we know listen if timothy is having a good day i'm having a good day Andrew and I'm guessing that Timothy is pretty psyched about those Blue Jays and

probably the Seahawks winning as well yeah absolutely unless he's a you know because he

could be a Seahawks fan and also be a Canadian football fan he might be a you know I don't know what the team nearest to Kamloops is I still don't know very much about Canadian football do you no I know nothing about Canadian football what the big one of the big things about Canadian football was you could be your receiver could be in motion going forward before the snap so whereas in the nfl they got to be running side sideways in the in the cfl you could you could have your guy go way back like 20 yards and he just starts sprinting towards the line of scrimmage and you haven't hiked to the ball yet and i always thought that was like a pretty

cool development as long as you don't cross the line of scrimmage so you just gotta time it right

You're going to time it right.

Wasn't there an old Atari character or something that was like a little ball of fury that would just like run, run, run? Yeah, I'm picturing that. That sounds dangerous. Did you ever play Pitfall on Atari? Oh, God. I used to play Super Pitfall. Do you want to know a little secret about me, Luke? This is so embarrassing. This is maybe a month ago or something. I was playing darts in the basement, and I had a little laptop computer set up on the shelf where sometimes I'll put on a baseball game or something that I can kind of watch out of the corner of my eye while I'm playing darts. I don't know why, but I was like, you know what? I want to watch a run-through of somebody playing Super Pitfall. Like a speed run? Yeah, just like a full game of Super Pitfall because I loved that game. It was the only game I had for the Nintendo, for the NES, I believe, that did not have levels. it was just one huge map one huge maze that you had to figure out and I never got very far in it but I loved it

I feel like you did a lot of whipping and also vine grabbing in the original pitfall I remember you did a lot of you would jump on vines you were going over probably quicksand or stuff like that you know what I have what I've let run the other day which now means I'm getting it a lot is this guy I don't even know where he is but he owns this company He actually owns an arcade that's got lots of old-style arcade games. But what I really like watching is him fixing up, him rehabbing old arcade games. He rehabbed a whole Spy Hunter game the other day. Oh, wow. Does it make you want one of those cabinets? More than I thought I would have. I mean, I'm actually quite fascinated by the technology of it. So these things come in, and as you might imagine, they can be just absolutely beat to heck, and it's covered in dust. this because spy hunter was one of those games that was like at the 7-eleven so we'd go in there with our quarters and again i was lousy at all these games but but i remember spy hunter being one that you know that the other guys were good at so i'd watch them play a lot and you know you're shooting a like a little machine gun in your car you're dropping oil slicks on people and something's kind of a fun idea for a game so this you know it's an arcade style spy hunter game so it's in this box but the the wood is thrashed the sort of piping on the box is thrashed all the graphics are messed up the screen is dim there's just you know and to watch the the way that this guy rebuilds his whole cabinet

takes it apart fixes everything redoes the screen printing there's these some crazy device that you can plug into one of these i forget what they're exactly called the tube you know the thing that you're actually seeing spy hunter on is of course like a not a tube television yeah but basically yeah it's going to be basically a tube television he has some other name for it as you will be unsurprised to hear the c cp not a cpu that's central processing but whatever but like they have it's i mean it's some like it's like back to the future shit it's like doc brown they're like take this thing apart and it's just a tangle of wires and then they have this device that they plug in to the TV screen that they don't even know how it works but it somehow rejuvenates it like it goes in and cleans the electrodes or something so that then the screen is bright and let me tell you when they put it all back together and you just see him playing a bright screen of Spy Hunter it's like so satisfying. Wow that's really

cool yeah we have a listener named Kate the Macintosh librarian I think she goes by on youtube and has quite a following and she does similar things with um macs with old classic mac computers it's fascinating and she's got a little uh sidekick a little mac computer named mackie who's quite sassy i love this this is on youtube yeah this is on youtube and this is and again i don't know if kate still listens but um yeah a long time tbtl listener that i knew um through tbtl and social media and i'm a fan all right well listen thank you to our donors thank you

for making tbtl possible thank you for giving me the possible funds to save up for refurbished spy

hunter game because that's now my new obsession 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 sir emails or vmails here on this tuesday yes i had a couple of things i wanted

to follow up on we've had some kind of fun conversations recently on the show believe it or not one was inspired by a voicemail left by our friend bobby up there in the northeast bobby had called in with his list of best beers and again not brand name beers but kind of beer experiences and i actually found i actually pulled my scribbled notes out of the garbage can today to set this up i remember he had mentioned shower beers and 5 p.m happy hour beers and then the official list was uh an airport beer a tailgate beer uh kind of a middle of the day dark bar kind of beer um let's see here business beer and then a beer at camp i added i thought the post yard work beer is a huge one vacation beers baseball beer boat beer those are the types of beers we were talking about that rise to the top of our lists we got this from jared who wanted

to add to the list hey business boys it's jared of uh san diego 10 i'm gonna try to keep this short

by the way and i didn't realize this the first time i heard it like jared i think jared's in radio i feel like jared could be in radio this is a hot start this is better than any start i've ever had on the show yeah i couldn't imagine you're just uh you've just come out of a commercial

break hey business boys it's jared of uh sandy that's good right yeah that guy can definitely sweep the quarter hour jared you're my new mentor hey business boys it's jared of uh sandy egg 10 i'm gonna try to keep this short but i thought there was two glaring beer omissions from the list um one is the sneaky beer which is the beer that you've poured into a starbucks coffee cup or some sort of Stanley Cup situation and you're at maybe a child sporting event or an after-school function and you were having a sneaky beer. It's especially fun if you and your partner are doing it because you have that little glance between you or you've been sharing it. It's one of our favorite things to do, walk around San Diego, have a sneaky beer. The second one is very related, which is the beer you didn't know was coming. Maybe you're sitting at a Lucha Libre show in Mexico or you're sitting at some other event.

That's the event that Jared decided to pick. You know, just to pick one kind of event out of the – You're in a bullfight with Hemingway.

Sitting at some other event and a friend of yours just brings you a beer and says, hey, here, I have this. Almost nothing better than a free beer, especially if you're not at the moment like expecting to have one. So those are the two omissions I think we're missing from the beer list. Otherwise, love that list. Excited for more like it.

That reminds me and Jared did not say this. Can I add one more to the list when we get a moment here? Yeah, I was going to say, though, to add that kind of unexpected beer, I thought Jared was going to say especially if.

and this is wrong and don't do this kids i thought he was going to say especially if you're not quite old enough to have that because that's one of my favorite surprise beer memories was being at some show oh i i know who it was and i'm just blanking on their name right now but a a very um kind of what's the famous uh band out of dayton ohio not not the not the breeders but um oh um oh my goodness throwing muses this is the most embarrassed it's the it's the donnelly sisters band is that what i mean the band that they're in um not that belly guided by voices oh guided by voices that's

i was always i've always been a built to spill guy and i just didn't have room for guided by voices and built to spill in the same i didn't know that they were i don't even know if they're this i don't even know if they're similar but they just like somehow i decided i can only embrace one of these one of these musical worlds and i'm gonna go with built to spill uh anyway um i remember i

was at a guided by voices show in lakewood ohio and i might have been i don't know i was 19 or 20 and uh we were in a bar that i'm forgetting the name of listeners in that area would probably know because it was distinctive because it had a huge like hull of a ship i'm worried about my midwest l's there but if you understand what i'm saying the hull of a ship was sort of built into the middle of this performance space behind the stage, and I think that's where the sound guy was. Anyway, I remember standing by the ship, and then there was a tap on my shoulder, and I turn around, and my buddy Pauly has two natty lights or something like that and hands me one, and I'm just like, oh my God, thanks, man. I just remember that's my favorite memory of a surprise beer, and I think he kept them coming. That was right before

you got an update from the venue saying you brought a stranger into this concert. Exactly. You and Paulie and the beers never ends well

famous intruder

well known local intruder Paul has logged on here's another best beer that was sent in from our friend Mark and here's what I love about this this is our pal Mark who's an airline pilot but I think we became first acquainted with him when he was an over the road trucker and I always joke about how he needs to add like train conductor to his resume he's slowly covering every sort of way that you can travel or be transported uh-huh every different you know conveyance um and so of course he's talking about a conveyance here he's talking about a way of traveling his best beer fairy beer oh i saw that yeah that's interesting beer and the pnw and that one is really good that is really solid if you've if you've ever taken the ferries in the pacific northwest in the seattle area it's a saturday like just gonna have a few small beers just gonna have one but you can't really a i don't know if They'll sell you more, you know, because a lot of people are driving. I don't know how many they'll even sell you, but it's, like, the ferry ride is generally not even long enough. Like, it's no danger of—you're in no danger of getting loaded. It's just, like, so fun to sit at one of those tables and have a beer. And then, you know, they've got all kinds of other, like, unhealthy food that they sell. I was saying to Mark to get some of those JoJo's. Or they've got, like, a hot pretzel that's all—like, it's literally stale from the moment that it arrives on the boat. It's already hard. And it doesn't get any less stale, but I love it for some reason because it comes with this cheese dip. You wouldn't really probably be into the cheese dip. But anyway, Mark said, hi, friendos. Here's a beer I would add to the list. As anyone who spent time in Western Washington State can attest, the ferry beer is something special. On a personal level, I used to live on Bainbridge, and I worked the night shift at a produce warehouse in South Seattle. I would be headed back to Bainbridge on the first ferry in the morning, which I think was on 5 or 6 a.m., And I would get a beer, slightly to the shock of the galley attendant. But it was at the end of my day, and all I had to do was bike up the hill and go to sleep. That was a very good beer.

That sounds nice. I've never had a fairy beer. I don't think the fairies all that often. But, Luke, were we to, and maybe we should, put together a list of best popcorns, best places to eat popcorn, fairy popcorn might be my number two. I think I know it's basic as heck, but I don't think you can beat movie theater popcorn like it's so essential to the experience for me. That would have to be my number one. Yes. But fairy popcorn might be my number two popcorn.

And you're right. It's also it's one of those places sort of like we talk about how, like, if you're staying in a hotel room, you get to watch whatever TV you want. It doesn't represent you for some reason. There's something about being on a ferry where I do have I don't eat a lot of popcorn in my normal life. I eat a lot of popcorn on ferries And also a lot of hot pretzels Like it's weird It's like I'm just like yeah I'm on a ferry Of course I'm eating popcorn And like one of those popcorns And you're right movie theater popcorn is better than fairy popcorn But like fairy popcorn and one beer one small beers that's that's that's that's perfection that's heaven i don't know

that i like beer and popcorn at the same time well that's the thing it's not even my go-to anywhere else except the fairy yeah i really like a soda with popcorn can we just really quickly examine this so you would have are there enough popcorns to fill a list of even five so number one i'm going in backwards order here unfortunately i think number one would be my would be the movie theater popcorn because to me i don't even want to see a movie in a theater if I can't have popcorn. Let's just say that fairy popcorn is my number two. You have to include at-home popcorn somewhere. You have to acknowledge its existence. Yes.

And at-home popcorn, in my experience, it's associated with you're watching something fun.

Yeah, absolutely. And for me, at-home popcorn, I like it. It's usually microwave popcorn for us. We don't have a popper, but I like taking that Cajun salt, that Cajun seasoning salt, and sprinkling it with that, which I can't do anywhere else. You know you might try.

Throw a little yeast on there You know that, is it brewer's yeast? There's something that my sister, no, no, sorry There's another term for it, don't throw brewer's yeast on there It'll probably turn into a beer There's some term for it, there's something that my sister puts on stuff And it doesn't sound like it would be good But what it does is it's really salty I mean it gives it a really yummy kind of salty umami flavor But it is not salt Because you know how we've been talking about our blood pressure and the like I'm trying to think about some things that taste good That aren't just pouring salt on stuff And nutritional yeast Which doesn't sound good

I remember the first time I was at my sister's house It's actually two unappealing words To be honest with you

This may have come up before Those two words together are doing each other a disservice They're lowering What the appreciation of this might be Or whatever My sister Liz of course You go to her house and it's like How does she make popcorn I'm having deja vu right now I definitely think this came up on the show, this whole topic, like maybe months or years ago, that like she makes popcorn just on the stove, just like with some kernels and some oil and like doesn't need to microwave it and doesn't need like an air popper or whatever. It's like my sister is so good at just like doing these things that like literally before I had seen somebody do that, I thought, well, you can't just do that. You can't just apply heat to kernels in oil and have them popping in a pan, in a pot. I was like, you need a special tool for this. So it's like, no, you're applying heat to these things.

So to go back to this, though, I'm still trying to figure out if there are five popcorn experiences. Okay, sorry. No, no, no problem.

The five popcorns you meet in heaven.

So if we're saying movie theater, fairy, home is in there, but that's not in order. I would add, for me, sports events, whether you want to say ballpark or whatever.

Well, I was going to say, there are people that would bring baseball into this.

Yeah, I would. Sometimes it's peanuts, sometimes it's popcorn, but I definitely, that's a big one for me, in fact. i know that's not for everybody but what would be a fifth well okay because my i would my fourth

would also be sporting events but it'd be more generally like for instance if i go to a junior sluggers game yeah i count and they've got a snack shack and they've got popcorn i'm hitting that

popcorn i'm counting that as well and like i went to a one hockey match in my life but probably i

wouldn't at the mariners because there's like a trillion options i do maybe i'm maybe i'm breaking down and having a dog having my once a year real hot dog or something i don't know but like um but So yeah, that has an answer to the question of the fifth. Yeah, I don't know what the fifth would be. Because everything else is going to be, well, no, no, no, no, no, no. I got it. Fair? Dude, fairground? No.

I got it.

Bro. Les Schwab. Oh, I've never had the pleasure. Free popcorn. And by the way, I mean that sort of like Les Schwab writ large. In other words, places where you're going to have some sort of service provided to you, and they also, hardware stores sometimes used to do this. basically I think the fifth this might even be a little higher for me I'll just say it's the fifth the fifth best popcorn is the fifth popcorn that you meet in heaven is free popcorn when doing man stuff

or could you I don't know if this is a different category or is included in that category I would just say kind of like errands because like we used to and I had forgotten about this until I walked into a Target about like a year or two ago And I was walking in, and it smelled like popcorn. I'm like, oh, they have a little cafe here. And I got myself one of those boxes of popcorn that – no, it's a box of popcorn that's almost like a mini – it's the shape of a mini cereal box almost, and it's white and red and open at the top. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. And I walked around the store just eating popcorn, remembering that this was a big thing we used to do as a kid. I can't remember if it was Sears or a store like Sears that my dad would take us to. And we'd always start by getting that exact white and red box of popcorn. Is it possible that we would have a store like Sears or a store like Sears that my dad would take us to? was a Woolworths. I don't think we went to Woolworths as a kid. But it was like that experience. Woolworths, the Woolworths at the Northgate Mall always smelled like popcorn to me. They had a popcorn popper in there. I don't know if we really got the popcorn there, but that's my like synesthetic association with the Woolworths at Northgate Mall.

Yeah, so that's probably different than your like waiting room popcorn that you're talking about, but I will say that maybe I'll just call mine store shopping

popcorn or just store popcorn i guess i'll call mine in the way that there was unexpected beer i'll call it unexpected popcorn and by that i mean sure you walk in to this hardware store and they've just got the thing over there and you can just help yourself to the popcorn or you walk into this you're waiting at this les schwab and they got that popcorn machine going and you didn't you didn't even plan that as part of your day but it's like whoa what a nice little what a nice

little wrinkle yeah yeah all right so there you go you're you're you're you got your beers you got your popcorns i'm throwing what else do you need that's it man you've got uh 116 days till pitchers and catchers report you've got everything that we need the vetter cup is coming up i uh i'm not going to share this today but i can't sleep the night before the vetter cup i'm gonna um i'm gonna tease this for an upcoming maybe tomorrow but uh for an upcoming show i also got a note from marissa in maryland who offered a list via wikipedia of other names that cultures call sun showers, that phenomenon where it's raining and sunny at the same time. Chameleon Air's Wedding. Yesterday we talked about a chameleon's wedding as it's maybe called in Lebanon. Did I say that right? There's a Lebanon, New Hampshire, right? And Lebanon is the country.

I think there's Lebanon. Wait, did I switch those? I think you might have switched them. I think the country we call Lebanon. Sorry. And there are some towns that are called Lebanon, including the one where there was that like really horrendous train crash where all that toxic stuff got spilled. I think that was a Lebanon.

That was more in the Midwest, though, right? But there's also a New Hampshire. Sorry about that. That's embarrassing, but Lebanon. But anyway, so there's a really fun list of all these names that cultures from around the world call the phenomenon when it's raining and sunny at the same time. So we'll go through that maybe tomorrow or soon on the show.

Okay, excellent. Something to look forward to. Exactly. All right, folks. That's going to bring us to the end of our program today, but we're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that. For those of you who have, I know again, I think we've had so much fun with this baseball thing. And I think we've been considering where a lot of our listeners are. I think this has been exactly what a lot of folks really wanted to hear, but for the couple of folks who were probably like, okay, enough about if the Leo Rivas experiment was successful or not, by the way, I would say it wasn't. Nope. you don't have to hear about the Leo Rivas experiment anymore because we'll probably you'll see the baseball conversation starting to dissipate a bit in the coming weeks and even starting tomorrow so anyway, look forward to that in the meantime, everyone else please have a great Tuesday take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all power out