Muse

It's called the Olive Garden. It's a new Italian restaurant, and it is so popular that ever since it opened, which was about one month ago, they have had 45-minute waits at lunch and dinner. I mean, people are just going in droves to this place. Now, there's a big parking lot outside. It's a very convenient suburban restaurant. And when you go in, you see what they're going for, which is they call kind of an Italian garden setting.

It's a family Italian restaurant. As Steve said, it's owned by General Mills, and they have been all over the country. They started in Orlando. They have many of these in Ohio, but this is their first one in Minnesota, and it is a hit, as you can see. It is a very open space. It seats a lot of people, over 300 people, and they do have kind of an Italian decor. They have some murals on the wall like this. They have some umbrellas on the tables that feel like an Italian courtyard, and then lots of skylights. So it is a bright, open space. The tables are nicely spaced, even though they do have room for a lot of people. You don't feel crowded in there.

Now, the menu features various regional foods from both northern and southern Italy. We're looking there, and what it says is you can get those breadsticks and salad complementary with the entrees. All you can eat. All you can eat, which is really nice. Now, there's what they call the tour of Italy. If you'd like to try a number of different things, it included a grilled chicken parmesan, a fettuccine alfredo, and lasagna. When you put that together with the salad and the breadsticks, we are talking a huge, huge, and the salad is bottomless. You can keep getting more and more and more. It's great.

At lunch, you can get spaghetti with meatballs for $4.25. It's a bit more expensive. It's $6.50 at dinner. But that still is a really good deal for the size of the portions that you get. All the pastas are made here on the premises daily. They do make their own homemade pastas, and they have all different kinds, from ziti to spaghetti to ravioli, lasagna, the basics as well. There's a few, a little more exotic, including manicotti.

We have a four-point rating system, four being the best and one being the worst. And we start out with food. And for food, now this might come as a surprise because we've been raving about it. For food, I gave it two and a half. I'll tell you why, we went there twice. Some things were really good. I mean, I like their soup and their salad was good, their dessert was good. Some of the other things were just okay. And one night the fettuccine Alfredo was good, and another night it was just so-so. So I think they need some fine-tuning there, about two and a half.

I gave it a two and a half also.

TBTL! Well, it's really kind of simple, see. I speak into this, and my voice is instantaneously transmitted out where it's heard by well over 100 people.

Well, you just enjoy your coffee while I tell you a funny story about my friend's cat. His name is Mr. Wiggles, and his cat's name is Benson.

Excuse me. You have one of the largest auras I've ever seen. It's been taking up this whole room. And I just, I had to say something.

Hey, you gonna finish that freaking quartzo?

What kind of disco dancing nonsense is going on here? Hey, welcome to the party.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBT, all the show that just might be too beautiful to live. There are millions of podcasts out there, and you've chosen this one. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Here's my sweet stash. Let's freaking party. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful. Another beautiful late October day. They're out dredging the mighty Columbia as we speak there. They're making sure that the river is deep enough for the huge ships, bringing all kinds of goods and commerce down to Portland. And we've also got a couple of deer watching me do the show today. They have this little area now that they'd like to hang out in where they can see into the Madrona Hill studio. These are now two juvenile deer that I've watched since they were little spotted babies. And to say that I would literally die for these deer would be kind of an understatement. And yet, we have not gotten them over the line on donating to TBTL yet. They're listening basically for free. They're freeloading and it's getting on my nerves. Anyway, let's focus on episode 4582 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I decided last night at about 5 p.m., just as I was finishing up mowing the lawn here, doing a little fall lawn mowing, that I was officially going to become a Portland Trailblazers basketball fan.

It was the bottom of the fifth quarter and the baskets were loaded.

and a lot has changed in the last 16 hours related to my almost adopted basketball team another thing i did yesterday when i wasn't mowing the lawn was i opened this this cover of where the well is here on my property something i had never done before i was a little afraid of you know what i might see down there i wondered if there was a leprechaun

or some such in there. To me, it look like a little kind to me. Anyway, I recorded the entire event, and we'll play that for you coming up. Plus, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day,

so we'll do the Blur's Day messages

and say howdy doody to this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. As Jay would say, he's got flow. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke, and congrats to our listeners in Australia. I am just hearing about your new crab. I'm just seeing this, right? Is there a giant? Please tell me it's giant. It isn't giant. It's the only non-giant crab in Australia, which makes it unique in its own way.

Okay. What's going on with the Australian crab?

I'm reading in on this as we speak, Luke, but I just knew that this was the kind of thing that you would want to break into the show for, even if I am a little bit messy with the details here. New species of mangrove, crab. TVTL breaking news. Discovered in Western Australia, deep in the mangroves. Do I say mangroves funny? In Exmouth Gulf, scientists have identified a new species of crab, and I'm not even going to try to say it because it is a Latin-y name, and I'm not a Latin-y guy. But the discovery was made in the Bay of Rest, Luke. That sounds like a place I would enjoy. Australia is a wonderful island. it is i'm sorry i thought she had some more to say on that but uh maybe she does no no she doesn't

no she doesn't that's it australians are just as unique both warm and direct as they tunnel

into their burrows they also aerate the dense mud allowing for more oxygen to penetrate the sediments preventing them from turning anaerobic and toxic it's unglamorous work luke but without it the mangroves would struggle to breathe i love it i love that we're out here with mangrove what's that miss me with a mangrove what is mangrove i don't even really like a real kind

of like rooty like soggy swampy kind of situation like it is very inhospitable to human i would say human existence like i'm not building anything in the mangrove swamp personally so i'll leave

that to the crabs yeah absolutely when you said miss me with mangrove i wasn't sure if that was a hip-hop lyric i didn't know what you were my forthcoming album well you sent that places i wouldn't live from mc burbs i don't know if we'll end up getting to it on the show at any point this week but you sent me an article all about more gen z slang that is now risen to the level of being reported on by the washington post which as the post itself explains by the time we're reporting on this it means it's over which i really appreciate their honesty yeah and um you know kind of uh self-awareness in that matter but now it's kind of got me insecure you say missing with a mangrove i don't know if you're speaking gen z or just saying whatever comes

if i'm being six seven mind yeah exactly i'm kind of sad that i um that we didn't so the story is about this if you have kids of a certain age you've certainly probably heard them saying six seven and then i don't know if you know about this andrew the thing that goes with it is doing the motion that an NFL side judge would do to say the ball was being juggled and therefore it's not a catch.

Well, can I say, or can I paraphrase how the Washington Post put it? It's a motion that looks like you're judging two grapefruits. Like you have a grapefruit in each hand and you're weighing them.

Yeah, or you're an NFL side judge and you're saying the ball's juggled. It's not a catch. So I'm kind of bummed that, Because I am terminally online and because I am far too old for this kind of stuff, I'm not trying to say that I'm picking up on this stuff early. I'm certainly getting it well after the kids, but I'm getting it too early for someone of my age, if that makes any sense. So probably two months ago, I started seeing young people on TikTok saying 6'7", and talking about things being 6'7", and then freaking out when 6'7". For instance, I saw a kid freaking out when they saw a clip of a football game where the line judge did that. because they were like he did six seven and then i was interviewing this was i don't know a few weeks ago i was doing those interviews related to that thing called dozer day where it's you know they let kids drive these huge heavy machinery things and i was talking to one of the kids there was these three brothers and uh i was talking to the youngest of the three who had just been on one of these bulldozers and i was like how how'd you like it he's talking to me and he kind of goes i don't know i'd say it was about a six or a seven and he did it and i go i'm this as we're filming i go you just tried to six seven me didn't you and he like gets this look at his face like i just like caught him in something because he doesn't know if he's in trouble or not yeah and then i'm like it's okay buddy i'm just messing with you and he goes okay and then we stopped

filming he goes my older brother made me do that if you get on the camera make sure you do this

make sure you throw six seven in there that's so funny and i thought that i meant to talk about that on the show. just but then i was gonna have to try to explain whatever my conception of six seven is which is limited i mean it just basically seems like it's something that was from like a hip-hop song for a second and then it became something and i was talking to my my quasi nephew alexander becca's nephew alexander this weekend about it and he was saying yeah it's whole the whole point is it doesn't mean anything like it has no it's not it's not good it's not bad it's just a thing that people are now saying, and part of what the fun of it is is that it does not have any kind of actual meaning in the world.

It's like Pee-wee Herman's or Pee-wee Playhouse's word of the day. Do you remember at the beginning of Pee-wee's Playhouse, they would just say the word of the day is cat. And then when somebody later on, you know, supposedly unbeknownst to them, accidentally says the word cat, everybody in the Playhouse just starts screaming and going wild. It sort of seems like a lot of the Gen Z stuff I'm hearing about is sort of along those lines from all that skibbity stuff you were talking about a year ago.

I don't think this is even C, though, right? This is like alpha.

Oh, God, I don't know. Don't quiz me on that. But one thing that I thought was interesting was, like, my initial reaction after reading that was like, and this is really rude, and I apologize to our younger listeners. I love you. If you can hear this, I'm not talking about you or your children. But generally, I got done reading that article, and I was just like, man, I'm just glad I'm not around kids all that much. I can't match that energy or absorb that kind of energy at my age, but I will say that it's funny how things will stick in our brain that we don't even realize stuck in our brain because if you think about me scrolling through Blue Sky or when I was on Instagram, you just scroll through how many thousands of posts, just random things that go by our vision so quickly in a day, just thousands of things you're just scrolling past. and you get some you don't some you stop and you look up what am I missing here others you don't care about how are you making those decisions who knows they're just like these split second meaningless decisions in your life but when I was reading that article I was like oh yes I saw something I don't know if it was reddit or blue sky or whatever but it was basically a teacher saying me when I accidentally said the word six in class today or something and I remember seeing that and being like why can't teachers say the word six anymore and now i read this article months later that must have been last school year that i saw that because you know i'm trying to i'm putting myself yeah school somewhat new this must have been last school year so this has been going on and i didn't understand why this teacher couldn't say the word six and now i know that's the trigger if somebody says six then everybody's going to start doing the six seven thing and i was

like i guess i did get a whiff of this a long time ago it did set becca up to deploy an amazing joke on the kids at this get together that we were at who were all talking about six seven and it was why is six afraid of seven why because seven eight nine oh right of course he had i thought it was a

play on the classic joke and i was caught off no it was just the classic i love that joke by the By the way, speaking of Becca, I don't think you followed up on this, and it's totally fine, but do you remember maybe about a week and a half ago, I was like, hey, ask Becca what the wordle is today. Did you ever do that? Did you get closure on that? Do you know why I asked you to do that? Well, let's get into that in a minute.

She sent me some wordle this morning. She said, have you done today?

Have I, Andrew, done today? Yes, I did it late last night. I wasn't sure if you were quoting her asking you or if you were quoting me asking me.

She was very displeased with what I assume is today's Wordle.

I got it at four. I don't remember having that much trouble with it. It was, you know, well, I don't want to give away too much because our listeners haven't done it yet. But, you know, it was quasi-tricky, but it wasn't like a non-word or something. It's pretty straight under.

I think her take with it, and again, I'll try to be careful so I'm not ruining this for somebody either. But, like, her point was it seemed, she does not like the ones where it could be, like, 20 different things.

Oh, that might have been yesterday, too. Because yesterday... Well, can we ruin yesterday's, then? Oh, yeah, we can ruin yesterday's. Do you know the word you're thinking of, or do you just know that you're...

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. She sent me a screenshot.

Well, I'm not going to say what today's is, but I will tell you that two nights ago... So I'm on a streak, and I'm about to jinx it here. But I am about 20 days away from matching or breaking my all-time streak. And actually, can you... Here, I need to look it up. Which is how many? my all time streak it's not that great in the grand scheme of things 182 days dude that's great

hers is 164 and she lost it on Sunday because she was so busy getting this fall party no she just forgot just forgot to do it which in my world isn't I don't know I guess it's you know if you forget to do it then you didn't complete it so the streak is broken I think that's a pretty

It's a pretty nitpicky rule, but yeah, so she's back to, like, four. Oh, that is so tough. When do we come, do the Germans have a word for this, Andrew, for when you're, like, you were at 160-something on Wordle, and now you're back to four? Just the feeling of that?

Oh, my. I mean, when I busted out the last time, I think I went a few days, and it wasn't even, like, there are some words you're like, are you kidding me? This one's on the edge, you know? Horror, I think, was the historic low point for the game. They must, I just, that's where the stats would be very interesting to me to see, like, it feels a little bit like the Hunger Games a little bit, where there's like some sort of a, you know, there's the Puzzle Master person, I don't know what they call them, the Hunger Games, who's like, can kind of like just wipe the board clean at any given moment by pulling various levers. And I feel like on the days that they're going to throw something like Korra out there, you can probably just watch everybody's streak just fall off a cliff, and you know you've almost wiped the slate clean. the one that uh was from Wednesday I don't know if people are playing the archive but come on man uh the one from Wednesday that I on Tuesday night so at like one in the morning before going to bed sometimes I try the wordle for the next day in advance once the clock passes midnight and I'm getting so close to matching my streak and I was at my fifth turn and I'd already tried and I can't see what I'd actually put in there but it was one of those where I had the first three letters and it was like boom boom boom boom they're all green and everything else is just crashing out and then i went to bed with one turn left whoa i thought i was gonna wake up that

sounds like the kind of thing to make your sleep dyspeptic i was like i can't do this now like i

can't bust out right now like it you know like i'm just like look at it with a fresh mind in the

morning guys that has one of those guys that has a a billion dollars of bitcoin on a thumb drive and they only get five guesses at the password. Oh, right. Right, yeah. And they've done four of them. Yeah. And on the fifth, it's going to lock down. Exactly. Even more.

And I was like, I can't do it. So anyway, that word was stunt. Is that the one that was driving?

Oh, no, that's not the one that I'm looking at.

Today's could be similar, but I must have just lucked out with my letter choices and I got it in four today without too much trouble.

I'm going to ask, does the answer for today, this is one little data point.

Okay, everybody, just give everybody a second. If you want to hit fast forward by 30 seconds, Let's do that now. Luke, what did you want to ask? Does it start with ****? It does.

Okay. So that's the – Chief, she was – Now, what was the thing you wanted – I didn't ask her about it. I'm going to beep that, too. That way – Make a note. I am. I'm literally making a note. I'm going to beep that. That's good. Nobody has to ask that for it. So what was the day in question that you wanted me to ask her about? Because I can probably message her, and by the end of the show, I'm sure we'll get some kind of a response.

It doesn't matter. It's more for your amusement than hers. It was spoof the other day. So I was getting a lot of, you know, because we say spoof so much on the show, often in the voice of Zach Galifianakis, I thought it was a pretty good spoof.

Well, that's a pretty good spoof. Wow. That was so loud.

Wow. That, I had to rip my headphones off. Did that hit you as hard as it hit me? It wasn't great. We're going to try to fix it for the listening audience. Please do. Make a note. That cleared out my brain. Just bleep it.

I can't do Wordle anymore, I don't think. Sorry. Anyway, wow. That was weird. So here's, I have two files when I put spoof in. One says spoof done, and it's one second, and you know what it is? It's a TV clip.

It sounded like it, yeah.

And then I've got, it's super compressed, and then I've got pretty good spoof. That's actually three seconds, and I think this one is going to be a little better. Well, that's a pretty good spoof. I don't even think this other one, remember how I got, this is such a bizarre side quest of conversation, but remember when I had weirdly, like hundreds of television clips that were just somehow had loaded into my like my apple my whatever you know my my itunes music thing and i was going through and playing them like they almost were in a folder that maybe somebody sent me or i don't know it was weird they're all just little cliplets but they were all like when i look at the file it has a tv icon on it which my normal audio drops don't and that first one which was way too loud i apologize um is from tv and it's crazy compressed and then meanwhile i have the regular one that's totally fine well that's a

pretty good spoof and i have the full one here the original usually i don't think my brother's that much funny but i gotta give him some credit for that well that's a pretty good spoof that

much funny so i'm deleting from library move to trash i have now tried to delete that other one So it will never hurt us again. I apologize, Andrew, to your ears. So I'm going to text her. Now, are you thinking – now, wait a second. Were you thinking Becca would recognize – or the word spoof would mean something to her because we use it on TBTL? No, no, no.

As I said, it was for your amusement. There's no need to text her right now. It was just – I just told you, hey, check in with Becca about the word of the day. And she was –

gonna tell you spoof and you'd be like oh that's funny and then you were gonna go six seven you were just gonna like one one corner of your mouth was gonna go up a little bit like just like oh i recognize that as something that we say on tbtl and then you would go on with your day there's no need to bring her into this now it's just i wanted you to know that the word was spoof the other day

a lot of listeners were delighted in that gotcha gotcha gotcha i like it when you i like it when there's a connection between you and becca related to wordle it makes me feel like my the people in my world who mean something to me are are connecting over something well yes and it's not just roasting me which is how most of the people in my world connect right i was i wanted him

annoying this is a different thing i like it i went to text you yesterday you and i were making some plans that involve becca as well and i almost looped her in on the text chain but then i wasn't sure if i was looking at the right becca in my phone so i'm going to ask you a very similar question that you asked me about wordle but protecting becca's identity does her last name begin with a p do i have her phone number definitely does not oh okay then i'm glad i didn't loop in that becca whoever that is i have so many contacts on my phone and i don't mean like the listener lists that we have in like our google voice there are so many people that are now saved on my contacts list that i have no idea who they are i was looking at my venmo venmo or paypal or something uh history the other day trying to send some money along to somebody and i was looking at my friend list and there was somebody that i apparently had sent money to at some point because she's like listed as one of my contacts i have no idea who she is or when or why i would have sent or received money from her i have no idea and i almost wanted to send a note on the app like hey my name's andrew why do i know you but that seemed like a weird thing but it was

really kind of driving me bonkers um i had the i was trying to text someone the other day and i put i kind of have the similar thing but a little different i was putting someone's name into it and it it auto-populated somebody else's name and it took me to a text conversation let me see if i can get back to this um i don't know how to i can't find anyway i was trying to text somebody and i guess i had sent a text to somebody of the same name but it was somehow how do i put this it was it wasn't a wrong number because this person was a contact in there but I don't know how I knew them and the message I had sent them Andrew so in other words in trying to text somebody in 2025 I punch in their name but it auto populates to where it connects me with someone else in my contacts and the last messages I had sent to the person in my contacts was hey my car just got broken into and they stole all of my stuff including my keys to the marina as a possible you could leave a key out to me and the person who had the same name as the person at the marina said i think you have the wrong person i said oh i thought this was the person who runs the marina where my boat used to be and they said no no worries and what i realized was that was after you and i had been to that restaurant in greenwood and we're planning out remember when we met up to plan out our epic tbtl was that was that australia was that maybe cross country to austin that might Might have been the Austin trip.

You and I met at the North Star Cafe, except on the other side. Yeah, that's right. There's a building, and half of it is like an old school sort of diner called the North Star Cafe. And you and I had some dinner there. And then we went like kind of literally kind of across the hall to the bar area, all owned by the same people. But it's got a different name.

It used to be called Yenoir Garden back in the day.

But it had a different name now. It does, I think. But anyway, yeah. And then we met up with Camaro Kev. And then we went out to your truck And it was your old Toyota or something The windows were busted in And your bag was missing or something

But I was trying to figure out When was my It was just a It was a weird trip down memory lane Well anyway Hey let's close the loop On something yesterday That was brought up on the show Which was that I have this By the way I forwarded you Becca's actual contact information Oh good thank you If you need to discuss all things Wordle or just need to roast me that's fine it's however you guys need to process things um yesterday on the show we somehow got talking about oh i said if i have to go full like what would you call it i don't know survivalist out here i have the thought sometimes well i am on a well so that's kind of you know the thing that would really you know what would be the big issue if i tried to go survivalist i'm also on a septic tank here and that thing has got that's got to be cleaned out about every five years well i got a rake and a little uh and i ain't dust bucket you can use if we end up in some sort of mad max territory i ain't cleaning that thing out and i and i don't and i'm not thinking i'm thinking that we will not have guys

in the in the apocalyptic the post-apocalyptic dystopian situation who will be coming out cleaning septic tanks so that's an issue that may be the thing that breaks me well i was gonna say

can we just pause on this for a moment and explore that because yesterday on the show when you did sort of just drop that quickly you said sometimes i think like if i if we did have to go off the grid could i you know live out here i guess homesteading would be the wrong word there but survivalist style or whatever could i just do this and i think like my instinct is to tease you so i think my instinct was to make a joke about i don't know if you're really built for that but then i was like and i'm not for the record well you're you're definitely more built for it than i am and that's why i think that joke doesn't really make sense i mean i know that you're a bit self-deprecating about it or at least are self-aware of what your weaknesses are in some things i know you give your dad a lot of credit um for doing a lot of the the the master work around there like the whatever you would call like the the hanging of the doors and like the The very difficult stuff to do.

Anything technical, anything you need to have a decent amount of experience to do, that's all Walt.

But you have done a lot. And you've been, you know, whether you're talking about, you know, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty to schlep a bunch of bricks. And what was the heavy stuff that you were moving from one part of your yard to the other? Cinder blocks. Cinder blocks, like some sort of real life. Pea gravel.

I'm definitely, I do a lot of labor around here. I do a lot of unskilled labor.

And you've learned skills, and you've, like, now you're off the grid, so you don't have YouTube in a university to help you along, maybe.

Right, that's the first problem, is that's the main way I learned things, and now I don't have that.

But I think that you've learned a lot in this. So you are not the least—of all the people in this conversation right now, you are not the least qualified to do something like that.

I think, you know, yeah, well, necessity is the mother of invention. Sure, yeah. I mean, I already identified the big issue would be if I got something up and running here and I was kind of like we were able to survive, we were off grid. Then as soon as someone came to take it, that would be the problem. Right. It's not like I'm not like out in the wilderness, like hidden away down a long road. And, you know, I'm certainly not going to set up any any turrets or to go back to the Last of Us comparison we made last show. i'm not going to have like what nick offerman had at his house which is all these gates and like a whole defense system but that was that episode was the ultimate fantasy of what life could be in a post-apocalyptic situation where you actually are pretty lucky and that is you have all of the good food and good wine you could ever consume in a lifetime and your home is somehow weirdly protected because of all these gates and i think like um you know sort of torches and like fire weaponry and stuff all this stuff that had been set up very home alone-y their paint real home alone-y but with higher stakes paint cans tied to strings etc so so yesterday i mentioned well one of the one of the reasons that i occasionally have the thought i guess i could go off grid is that i am on a well here and i also mentioned that i don't actually know how any of that works i just know that there's water it comes out of the faucets and i run the dishwasher and the washing machine and if if no one told me that i was on a well i wouldn't actually i would think that the water company is forgetting to bill me like there's nothing there's i don't go pump

anything there's nothing how's the water taste by the way growing up in the country we knew the houses that had well water and we didn't like to drink out of the tap well honestly i don't drink

out of the tap i think it tastes fine to me i think some like when becca's a brother and his wife they lived here for a brief period of time when they were moving between their houses they had sold a house and were looking for their next house and i think they thought the water was a little hard which i think you can fix with some sort of tablets or you know other filtration my dad drinks the water here but then i also heard that he was shit talking the taste of the water

here to my sister hannah oh on a separate text chain this is why you're so scared of people in

your life having separate text chains well like i my sister hannah i believe when she came over for sib fest sibling fest 2025 i think she said something like oh the water tastes fine dad told me the water doesn't taste oh and the reason that that annoyed me was because there's a filtration system in the door of the refrigerator for just that reason and he knows about it because he ran

the water line oh but he doesn't use that but he doesn't use why wouldn't you use that it's going because he's insane oh okay he stands at the why so serious and fills he stands at the sink

and fills up a water glass with with tap water and then drinks it and and stares into the middle distance and i always go dad there's a filter there's not only a filter on the on the refrigerator water there are many bottles of filtered water uh i guess it's not filtered but it's carbonated water that's in the refrigerator That tastes great and is less filling. And so and I haven't noticed, you know, I guess I would say maybe the shower water is a little bit hard in that I noticed that I have to clean out my shower. I have to clean the walls of my shower maybe a little more frequently than otherwise. Like it seems like it has a little bit of a minerally sort of thing going on.

Well, I think just so you know, and by the way, I almost regret kind of bringing it up the way I did. I wasn't assuming that your well water was going to be the same kind of well water I grew up with. I kind of assumed and when I say I grew up with I mean in the area I grew up we actually by the time I'm old enough to remember we ended up getting city water run out to our house wasn't there a period of time where your dad had to chop yeah ice yeah they were actually when they first moved out to the country where I would eventually be born and grow up they were using literal water from the pond in the backyard that went through some sort of filtration system which is so gross to think about because by the time I I was old enough to experience that pond it was just such a gross pond i mean ducks just so much duck shit and so much algae and all this stuff and so anyway um i have a feeling that things have changed a lot and also this is a very different part of the world the well water that i remember like if i was in a place somebody's home and they had well water and i was drinking it was almost like it almost had like a a sweetness to it if that makes sense not so much a hard water thing so i'm after this is done because i'm all about

learn i'm all about a lifelong love of learning this week andrew i'm gonna go drink some i don't know if i've ever if i've literally ever drank water out of the tap here which is crazy to say but i just don't think i have because i think i've always had either a can of like you know sparkling water in the refrigerator or certainly the refrigerator has been set up for the last couple of years but like i don't think i've ever consumed water out of the out of the sink so i don't think i know what it tastes like i'll go taste it later today i'll give you a full report tomorrow all right so speaking of full reports so yesterday after the show i went out because the thing is in my driveway there is this big kind of rectangular flat rectangular metal like lid that I understand to be covering up the well or at least some part of the well and so I was wondering I was worried uh that uh I never opened it because I didn't know if it was like went straight down to like you know below the Mohorovic boundary I literally had a certain amount of anxiety about taking this lid off like what am i going to just look down hundreds of feet is it going to be a thing right is it going to be what's the name of that hole that we just heard about in central central washington that they said was 80 000 feet deep oh oh oh that's right sorry i was

blanking on that oh from the old coast to coast episodes yeah exactly so and so's hole i can't

call you coast to coast i was listening to some good coast to coast last night uh let's see uh mel's hole mel's hole in ellensburg sorry everybody that must have been very frustrating

to the listeners who've been following along brief but relatively brief and also fixed pretty

quickly yeah and i can yeah was it gonna be mel's hole was it just gonna be there's something i'm being honest there was something in my mind that was unsettled by the idea that i was gonna pry this lid off and i may be staring into some sort of deep long shaft of darkness and mystery i don't know why that was i mean i guess maybe it's obvious why that would be unsettling but like but it's strange because it's like again the well operating here at my house is completely critical to living here so what a smart person would do would be educate themselves on every aspect of how this works from the pump to whatever i think there's something that pressurizes the water i I mean, I think I have a tank in my basement that is not strictly the hot water tank, you know? It's different. It's more kind of, it's more shaped like a big oval, and it's blue, and I know that's associated with the well somehow. It's metal, yeah. And what I should do is make sure I know how all this works so that if it breaks, I can fix it or accurately relay to somebody what the problem is so they can come fix it. instead of just kind of burying my head in the ground and going well as long as the well works everything's going to be fine so after the show yesterday i decided i was going to go out and i was going to uh take the cover off the well and also i was going to record it with my crazy meta glasses because i thought maybe it would be an interesting hey dummies video i forgot about and so have you been using those not really if you want to know the truth because they are a little bit heavy on the bridge of my nose if i wear them for too long they um my nose starts to get a little bit sore and so it's a disincentive now what i will say is well they're not i mean the thing is when you first put them on it's kind of crazy how light they are how much they feel like regular like ray-ban sunglasses but some but but then over the course of like say 20 or 30 or 20 or 30 minutes, I start to notice.

that they are actually a little bit heavier than regular sunglasses.

I believe that.

So it's not the initial putting them on, but it's like after a while. For me, anyway, it's like, oh, the bridge of my nose is getting a little bit sensitive. And so, and, you know, to be honest with you, they're kind of a great party trick. Like, they're, you know, they're really, and also maybe next year when it's getting sunny again come spring and summer, maybe I'll find myself wearing them out and about more because, I mean, they are effective sunglasses, too, which is kind of cool. But what they're really great for, Andrew, is making Hay Dummies videos.

Right. Well, that's – and that's – Like, we might need to buy you some – I encourage that behavior because –

Out of the TBTL budget because – No, no, no, no, no, no.

You have them. You just keep making the videos. That's what people want anyway.

Like, if you're ever trying to do, like, a cooking demo, if you're trying to do anything that's sort of active, I mean, they really are a total game changer because anything that I'm looking at is now being recorded and observed by the glasses. And I actually did a thing yesterday. Again, this video, not to spoil it, but it's not going to be a Hey Dummies video. I'll just put it that way. But here's how I start. From a production standpoint, you'll enjoy this, Andrew. I was recording myself on my phone so that I could start off with the POV being the cameras pointed at me. And I'm wearing the glasses. So it's like, hey, welcome to Hey Dummies. This is the newsletter video where we, the dummies, answer your questions. And I lay out what's going on. But I'm rolling on my glasses, too, the whole time. So that then when I switch to the glasses and I'm walking outside. This was going to be a pretty cool, pretty complicated shoot. I was proud of my problem solving. Now, I'm going to play it for you, and you'll realize why it's probably not going to be a Hey Dummies video. This is the gravel that's in question out here that's always getting torn up. Oh, yeah, I walked over all, you know, yesterday I was talking about a lot of gravel. What did you call yesterday's show? Oh, the road less graveled? Yeah, exactly. This is me walking over the gravel that's constantly getting destroyed by Amazon deliveries.

Here we go.

and here is the cover of what i think is the well it had all these rocks on it and bricks that was another thing when i went out there i i mean i of course i had noticed this before but i had this is one of those things i've seen it so many times that my mind has erased it it was covered in bricks and heavy rocks which really doesn't doesn't not say there's a demon down there yeah right you know what i mean yeah like it had heavy things on it as if to kind of say like we got the demon back in there okay but now we need to weigh this down so the demon cannot

get out were there any symbols uh carved into the stones some part of me was like who was it

which ancient people weighed down this covering on this well to keep this thing down or maybe to Keep the leprechaun in. I'm not sure, but here we go, folks. It's another cover. So I pull the, like, whatever it is, aluminum tin, the very thin kind of metal cover off. It's light. And then it's just on top of now a big flat piece of wood.

Okay.

That's kind of got some, it's more sort of, it's more set down in the opening of this thing.

but like a non super intimidating piece of wood like a piece of plywood or something

it's like a paint it's like a gray painted piece of plywood yeah that felt kind of heavy oh it was heavy the reason it felt heavy was because it it was fitted down into the opening it was a little hard to kind of pry it out sure yes if i'm painting the picture okay Okay. Whoa, this thing seems kind of intense. Whoa. Oh, that's way less scary than I thought. Just some insulation and I guess the top of the well. Huh.

So the well is contained.

Okay. Well, question answered. yeah it's just like i bet it's just the pump this is the very tippy top of it but but then like eight inches beneath where the pump head is or whatever is just a surface like insulation and a surface like it doesn't go it's a pipe that's coming out of the deep parts of the earth but you can't see into the deep parts of the earth it's a totally contained little area that they put some like you know like owens corning like pink insulation and other stuff and i'll send you a picture of it but it was i don't know it was like i was afraid that it was going to be a view down into the deep depths of the earth but then i was also very disappointed that it was just like

scrubby gross insulation this isn't a perfect analogy but it reminds me a little bit of like Like when I pull something.

apart and i think it's going to be really really nasty but then it's not as gross as i as i think it's going to be and it's both a relief and a disappointment at the same time like when i took my we had an old dryer that wasn't working well and i'm like oh i'll bet you it's like the ventilation i'll bet you i pull this old dryer away from the wall really get a good look all the way through all the ventilation tubes or duct work or whatever and i pulled it all apart and it's like clean as your mama's forehead as you famously said and i was like what a disappointment i thought for sure i was just going to be reaching my hand and then taking out fistfuls of old lint and stuff that was going to both be somewhat nasty but also very very satisfying but instead it was just like no it's clean and what do you have under there but a very clean modern well well i sent you a picture

of it i really actually want to get rid of this insulation and replace it but i think it's insulated so that the that the i don't know if this is considered the pump or just the head of this well doesn't freeze would be my my assumption as to why they would throw that grody insulation in there oh yeah i see that yeah that is that also yeah to me that insulation is like it typifies like everything about this house when i bought it which is like they just like they just cut every corner and and like they i don't know this is a whole other this is a whole other thing which is just like there's so many things in taking this house apart and putting it back together that we and this this is sort of what always happens i think when you do a big remodeling project on an old house but it's just like constantly finding out that somebody generations before we did the absolute minimum of whatever well i wonder if it's like generations i wonder

if you go back far enough there was more care in even like non not even like fancy craftsmanship

but just more care you know what i mean right like like if i went back to like so the house was built in the 1930s if i went back to the 1930s or let's say the 19 maybe 50s there's a certain amount of care and doing things the right way because that's just kind of like what was ingrained

you would hope so i don't know if that's a glossy you get into those go go 80s right and 90s i feel like things i mean the analogy that i think of which is just not necessary for me to bring up here especially since we're on a bit of a tight timeline but oh right i'm sorry i think about no i i'm just remembering because it's your time deadline i've forgotten about well i'm saying that to remind myself too because you know how it is we get john luke and time just liable to talk till sun up but i think of audio tape in this way because as you know i used to um digitize and archive audio cassette tape that was on reel to reels even um when i had this job during my college days and i was archiving this tape from the 1970s you know there was a lot of coverage of the shooting on the campus because i went to kent yeah kent and so like i'm archiving that and this and the tape from the 70s and in early 80s was much better quality as far as holding up over time than the stuff that i was digitizing in the mid to late 80s and maybe even early 90s and i don't even mean sound quality i mean just like it was falling apart like literally the tape was like kind of sloughing off on the tape heads of the machines and i think the same is true of your like run-of-the-mill cassette tapes i'm not talking about the really high bias you know cassettes that maybe yeah nerds like you and i were buying but just your average cassette tape your memorex that had like all the cool funky colors on it and design oh yeah i love those things but i'll bet you a million bucks that the cassette tapes that from like the 1970s that our grandparents might have had in a box in the basement are actually much better quality right i that cassette tape they described

with the colors. It always seemed like the official cassette tape of Andre Agassi. Yeah, right. He was never associated with the cassette tape, but that rock and roll Canon Eos Rebel I was going to say

the Canon Rebel style. Yes, exactly. Just felt like. Absolutely. Anyway. Thank you, baby.

All right, let's thank some of our donors who are making TBTL possible with their donations. This is 100% listener-supported podcasting. Supported by listeners like Don Melnick of Highlands, New Jersey. Thank you, Don.

Greetings, Highlander. I was trying to. I didn't even know what you were going to say. I was trying to think of some Highlander. There can only be one, right?

Yeah, I mean, I've never even seen that movie. I think that's my impression, maybe, of Sean Connery saying greetings, Highlander, to Christopher Lambert. Lambert, I don't even know who that is. I always think of... I think he was the Highlander.

The Highlander was a movie, but it also was a TV show, right? I feel like my exposure to it was like seeing commercials.

I don't know, man. I think Amanda Triggs might know. Amanda Triggs is in The Wolves. Cedro Woolley, Washington, baby. I almost said Cedro Woolley. Ugh, embarrassing for me. No, no, no.

I love Cedro Woolley. It's a great town. The Cedro Woolly Market, I hope and pray, is still in business. A very cool spot. I used to be married to somebody from the Wolves, so I have spent plenty of time there. I've been married to people from a lot of places, though. What about Kingston? Almost. Oh, Ontario? Yeah. No. Kingston, Washington? Possibly. But Kingston, Ontario is where our friend Chris Murray is. Hey, that means we have at least two Kingstons, right? We do, because we got our friend Bill, right? Who was a Torontan, is now a Kingston. Maybe they're chopping it up. I hope that they're getting, they're girding, not their loins. I don't want to know about their loins. They're girding up, though, for the big World Series. I think you've converted me into a Blue Jays fan because of the not visiting the White House thing.

And if it weren't for our little rivalry, they're not an unlovable team. Did you see that? Yeah, I don't really have a problem with them other than I'm just butthurt. Yeah. Did you see, so the baseball player who gets the most ink on this podcast that isn't a Mariner, Vinny Pascatino. You know, I always say that right. Is it Pascuatino? I think I always crack myself. But anyway.

I just think it's funny that you like him so much.

He's so fun. But he's also, like, hilarious on social media and everything. He's one of the three players who's been appointed to be, like, the player correspondent for the World Series. So he's going to be going around, like, interviewing. And he's just like such a funny guy. And apparently, I don't know if he posted this on social media or if this was in the press release. He said, oh, I have a lot of questions for the players. I have questions for Otani. Like, why does he throw so hard? And specifically, why does he throw so hard when I'm at the plate? That's great. Or something along those lines. I think I actually butchered it. He's so funny. And I was like, oh, man, Vinny, don't get me interested in this World Series. I wanted to sit this one out. I love that.

You know who else probably loves it? Margaret Kearney in Whitefish, Montana. I assume that because Margaret likes and supports TBTL, she likes and supports when baseball players are funny and self-aware. Because that's two things we try to do on the show here. Be funny and self-aware. Also, Alex Hawley is in Seattle, Washington and is donating to the show. Thank you, Alex. Thanks, Alex. You've got to donate. It's like calicocutpants.com.

You've got to donate. You have to donate.

Hey, you know who's donated? Speaking of quasi-sisters-in-law, It's Julia Haas.

Haas. She's a Haas. She's a Haas. I believe this is Genevieve's sister, Julia Haas.

I know, but don't they say their last name differently?

I think Genevieve's brother is maybe he slid more into the slightly more Haasiness of things. I got to say, when I am calling Genevieve from the car and I'm using speech to text or using voice commands, I have to say call Genevieve Haas or text Genevieve Haas because that's how my car hears it I have to change Genevieve's name for the computers which doesn't seem right but anyway Julia thank you so so much I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that we're thanking you today instead of yesterday when we went on the huge long infuriating conversation about how to pronounce DeKalb

oh yeah I'm sorry about that Julia and thank you so much it is always like it's it's so sweet and so humbling when one of our actual family members come up on these lists um so thank you julia we really do appreciate you thank to all of our donors for making tbtl possible hello and welcome to top story all right the quickest of top stories today because we've got to get to the blurs days and we've got to get you on the road andrew but i will just tell you that last night because i have a kind of a to some degree a baseball shaped hold in my heart uh and the seahawks only play once a week at best i've all i've long toyed with the idea of becoming a blazers guy um because they uh you know are the closest basketball team to me and they've got this young guy named yang hansen that they drafted who i think is a very interesting prospect and the the real season started last night the regular season and i thought well like this would be a good time I could jump in and I also saw an article in the Oregonian that basically said for the first time in a long time the Blazers are playing to win games not just lottery balls meaning they aren't just trying to tank and then get the highest pick in the draft like this is a season where they're going to try to be good basketball guys I thought well that's all promising stuff and so I tune in last night and of course uh they lose very annoying game to the uh Timberwolves in that they were leading the whole game and then in the last like four minutes they give up the lead and they're getting dominated by like you know basically um i think his name is carl anthony maybe i'm still new to the nba i haven't been in the nba world a lot but the blazers excuse me the wolves have a really good guy named carl anthony who

hitting dagger shots and then strutting on the court and i'm like can i have one sport thing where a guy is not like doing a thing on my home field and then and then taunting us you know what i mean like i go right from vlad guerrero hitting home runs and shushing the t-mobile crowd to carl anthony hitting a three-pointer and shushing the blazers fans i'm like i don't like this feeling but anyway i wake up this morning and the head coach of the blazers chauncey billups is being arrested for gambling how much have you read into this i only read the

one the the one article that sort of talks about this and also the miami heat player who is also in trouble but for the players in trouble for like kind of terry rogier yeah pulling things during games that affect gambling outcomes which is very different than a poker an illegal poker sting but they they brought it all together is this this is such a weird place to take it but in the back of my head i was like is this the administration's kind of go only because cash patel was part of

the press conference believe me the fact that cash this is cash patel's fbi causes me great doubt about the about the whole situation but the allegation against chauncey billups the head coach of the blazers who by the way is on indefinite leave is that he was there were these poker games being held by the mafia in vegas and they would bring in these faces they would call them like basically famous people like chauncey billups to play poker in these rigged games and then they would bring in these fish these rich guys who were not famous just had a bunch of money that would come play and there would be rigged decks and that would be set up so that these guys these fish would lose millions of dollars and then they would kick some of the money this is the allegation to the Chauncey Billups's of the world. So I guess on one hand, it's kind of like there's no allegation that Chauncey Billups was, like, throwing the game. He wasn't betting on sports and then trying to impact the score, like put in a bad player for the Blazers or whatever. But the fact that he was allegedly pocketing cash by playing in these illegal games and tricking well-meaning rich guys, Andrew. I mean, who's going to look out for the well-meaning rich guys?

Right, exactly.

That's what breaks my heart. You've got well-meaning rich guys that are just, you know, suffering. So anyway, all that is to say, I may have to become a Kraken guy. I may have to become, like, that's another sport that's happening right now. When I got into the Kraken in the playoffs like three seasons ago, I might, if they're playing tonight, I got to check the schedule, I might be a Kraken guy. Because Blazer guy, one game and it didn't work out.

And is it also a good time to be a Kraken guy? Because are they doing, the season just began, right? Did they start hot? I feel like they might have started hot.

Yeah, I saw like a headline that was like, they did a good one. They did a good one, yeah. Maybe I'm a Kraken boy.

Oh, the Kraken. And I don't know anything about hockey. I don't know how long this season is, how many games or matches are played. It's games. Hockey match? Hockey game. Hockey game. Game. They're seven and three right now, but I don't know. All right. I don't know how significant of a sample size that is right now, but they're hanging in there apparently. They have a good winning record.

Critically, their coach hasn't been arrested yet.

Yet. Although, maybe have you thought about it from that perspective? Maybe the Kraken doesn't want you rooting for them because bad things will befall them immediately.

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

All righty here, Luke. We have some blurses. I keep going back to my email to make sure I'm not missing any because sometimes that happens. A blurs day will slip in with some other emails and then I have to send an apology note to folks. I'm sorry I missed your blurs day. It's going to have to wait until next week. But I am double-checking and triple-checking, and I think I've got them all here. There's only three Blur's Days today, Luke. Oh, wow. Okay. First one says, this is Rachel from Denver. By the way, you're probably thinking, I want to be like Rachel. I want to send in a Blur's Day message. Well, you can do it, too. Andrew at tbtl.net. That's my email address. Send it in there. Put Blur's Day in the subject line so I don't miss it. This is Rachel from Denver. I'd like to submit a Blur's date for my wonderful and lovely husband, Matt, who deserves all the well wishes. I wish I could eloquently put into words how much I love him and how lucky I am to be his wife. But alas, I am no writer. I love you so, so much, Matty. And happy Blur's. Well, I think you did a damn nice job there, Rachel. Happy Blur's Day, Matt.

Yeah, happy Blur's, Matt.

happy birthday to the coolest podcast co-listener my daughter julia this is from nancy by the way nancy says julia you are an amazing and i'm messing this up you are amazing and brilliant actually that's not on me nancy you put an extra hand in there beating myself up over here so explain that uh i hope your day is filled with happiness and fun. I love you the most from Mom, Andrew. Thank you. Oh, I haven't read these. Did we miss a comma? Says, Andrew, thank you for doing Blur's days. That was a side note that I didn't have to include. I was doing

this cold today. Oh, wow.

I thought it was from Nancy and Andrew. I don't know what's going on there. Okay, Julia, I think we nailed it. Happy Blur's Day. Yeah. And finally, we got a note from our pal Arlen, who's who's a neighbor of mine, lives in the neighborhood here. And Arlen sent in a photo of a newly assembled cat tree with a couple of beautiful cats playing on it and a dog nearby checking it out. And Arlen says, happy 66th, the Blur's Day to me, the only one in this Broadview menagerie who listens to the show. Broadview is the neighborhood there. I don't know what we call our... Oh, yeah, Broadview's lovely. Do they have a rooster, too? I think so, yeah. I'm trying to remember what else they have. You saw an elephant in the menagerie. I think there was an elephant in there. Were there any other animals? I'm trying to think really hard. They were keeping that hawk. He's got a roof on you, right? Yeah, yeah, there was a hawk, right?

Yeah. No, that's eagly, I believe. Anyway. Oh, I'm sorry. And then the goat, too.

Who can forget? Oh, I thought you were just going to play a clip of LeBron James. Let's see here. Arlen says, I'm five months clear of my broken collarbone repair surgery. And as you can see, I have been allowed to advance to assembling cat trees. This is Coco. Joe the Siamese and Suki the Black who are helping me with my recuperation along with big sister Amani the Wonder Dog. Well, happy Blur's Day to you, Arlen, and pet those pets for me. That's right. And that is where we're going to leave the Blur's Days today. And again, I think that's all of them. If I've fallen down on the job again, though, I have some apologies to make tomorrow.

And that'll give everybody something to tune in for. Here's what they're tuning in for. an apology if we missed a blurs and my full report on how the tap water tastes at my house oh yeah

oh i'm looking forward to that maybe make that your hay dummies video i'm trying so desperately

to get you to do my work this week get my glasses on yeah you've been doing plenty of work this week and the last week my friend if you i'll happily throw a hay dummies on you've been spending hours and hours perfecting some tbtl content that i'm very excited about so i ask you a question about

hay dummies it's totally tearing down the fourth wall here something we're not usually comfortable doing but i swear there was a question on our hey dummies sheet that i was going to tackle this week about costco purchases or costco dream purchases and i have been thinking about that question and that's the thing i don't think i've answered that question you haven't answered a question about i

don't delete here i don't delete anything off the google list just for your information i'm trying

to figure out if i already answered that question and i don't remember making the video and then i deleted it or in my effort to always keep things organized i was a little too aggressive in my deleting and i deleted a question that we never had a chance to answer that was a really good question i'll tell you what it was and i'll try to tackle it this week is and i'm gonna have to paraphrase here but it was something along the lines of if you could purchase a big tub or life lifetime supply of something oh i do remember this question and i have not answered it yeah answering it in the costco parking lot i think oh that's really smart i was gonna answer it in my studio because I don't like leaving. Anyway, we do different, Fred. We'll see. Yes, we do. Why did I buy the funky little Costco?

Okay. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Go cracking. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.