Muse

hi and welcome back to guys outfits the fashion podcast about guys who wear outfits almost every single day hey how's it going guys hey guys today we got two best friends and and your guys names are actually both brad i'm brad henderson and i'm brad ham with two m's yeah you guys are both named brad and you got you guys have such similar styles too yeah so what are you brads wearing on top of a beige top uh which is actually my favorite color okay we love that and i went with an olive green top beiges is actually my favorite color but brad is wearing beige today so I decided to go with my second favorite color which is olive green. Olive green or the beige of greens as they say. Oh I'm actually obsessed with that. And what do we have going on on the bottom Brad? I've got beige shorts actually to go with my olive top. Gosh I really love that beige olive combo. Yeah me too. Um and you Brad? I actually took a little page out of your book today and went with a little pop of color. Oh wow yes Brad we are really letting our freak flags fly today aren't we? Yeah so I went with royal blue gym shorts to go with my beige top. And why Why don't you tell us about your look today? Oh, well, as I mentioned before, I'm really letting my freak flag fly today, and I'm wearing a neon yellow-green top. I'm obsessed with it. Thank you. And on bottom, I'm wearing beige shorts. Yeah, I'm obsessed with that neon yellow-green beige combo you got going on. Yeah, I went with a beige short similar to you, Brad, but it looks like your beige short has some fun pockets, and mine is more classic style. Yeah, Brad, what are you keeping in all those fun pockets? I just got a really long CVS receipt. I'm obsessed with it.

I'm going to suggest that we have a little constructive talking time. Not long at all. I mean, maybe 10 minutes or okay, or maybe 15 is also good.

In 1971, Bill Grates invented Microsoft. Wouldn't it be cool if I could remember my dingus password for my email?

What comes before anything? What have we always said is the most important thing?

Breakfast. family family right i thought you meant of the things you eat why don't i tell you all about it over a hot steaming mug of beer and a cup of cold corn be careful though it's spicy

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a tuesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live oh fabulous my name's luke burbank i am your host

Believe it or not, I'm a complete catch.

I'm back, baby. Coming to you per usual from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where, by my count, we are at episode 4,630 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. And as we sort of enter the home stretch here, the final days, the waning days of 2025, We are going to go through the TBTL Words of the Year. Sooner or later, gentlemen, you will eat your word. Some words that were strongly associated with our program during 2025. We're going to talk about those, and we're going to talk to this guy. He's a real word generator here on the program. Of course, he is the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship. I don't know who that is, and I don't care to find out. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Did I hear an extraneous bell ding? I wonder. I usually keep you... I bumped my bell. I usually keep you totally muted, and today, for some reason, I was like, I don't think we need to do that of all days, unless maybe you're always making noise like that, and that's why I got to keep you muted. Is that happening all the time? Like, during the intro, are you just, like, flailing about and hitting pots and pans? How I get in the zone. Yeah. No, it's good. It's your flow. Yeah.

Imagine, like, Animal from the Muppets, but without the drum set, but with the same general physical movements. I'm like Animal from the Muppets without the talent, is what I'm like over here. I, um, you know what it is? There's a, we've usually, we've got, we've got systems, and then we've got backup systems and redundancies around here at TVTL. And so I have my own mute button on my microphone Which, as you've pointed out to me Is about 90% effective

Oh yeah, if you're really loud So for instance, let's do an experiment, okay?

So I'm going to mute my microphone here Which should be muting everything Actually, that's not true, not muting everything But this should mute any talking that I would be doing And like the sound of this bell, right? But if I do, if I mute it You've pointed out that you can still barely hear me There's still a little bit of my voice bleeding through. So here we go. This is me in full volume.

Could you hear any of that? I could hear it, but I want you to know that I cheated a tiny bit, which is I.

just because I could hear you you said loudly it gets very loudly I did turn up the volume a little bit on my end too I cheated you thought I was reading your lips or something like that I thought you were turning

me down more but no so you could hear yes you could hear

that and I wanted the listeners to hear it and I know that you and I are here listening to the show in our closed headphones and in our quiet studio so I'm guessing that probably most people if they're on the bus or in a car or any place out in public with with earbuds in you might not have heard it but i i turned it up a little bit so that folks could sort of hear what we're talking about um yeah that's uh but when you told me

one day and this is again i appreciate this about you you warned me one day you were like hey i know you have a mute on your microphone oh for privacy yeah yeah but you said i think what happened was i had like i was talking to my dad or something in here and i had what i thought was the microphone muted, but you were like, just so you know, when that mic is muted, you can still kind of hear you a little bit. So just know that if you're ever having a very sensitive conversation and you think that you're operating in a cone of silence, it's a cone of mostly silence. Which is actually how the cone of

silence worked. I don't know if you recall, you know the origin of the term cone of silence, do you not? I'm guessing that was from Get Smart. It was from Get Smart, exactly. And the joke about the cone of silence was it never worked, right? I loved Oh, really? I loved that show as a kid. I could not imagine anything funnier than Maxwell Smart and his fumbling tomfoolery. I mean, to this day, the shoe phone. Oh, it's so good. And he would always be like, sir. 99? Sir, he would talk to his chief. Did he call him chief? I can't remember. It's been a long, long time. And they would go into this conference room. And this is how I remember it. I'm probably getting some of these details wrong. And then what they would call the cone of silence would come dropping down over them. But it would make them sound louder or they couldn't hear each other, but we could all hear what they were saying or something. The cone of silence was always a disaster in my memory.

I was so happy when Get Smart would come on because that was in the era where we certainly did not have cable TV. And I might have even been at Peter Williams' house for much of it. But, like, there was that channel. there was always the channel that was just playing old like 1950s type sitcoms and older shows and there was a real range like i never really liked mikhail's navy oh yeah that's right i forgot about that one i didn't that was like look that one came on i was like i don't know but like i really and even gilligan's island believer i think it was a little too silly for me yeah i didn't wasn't a

big gilligan's island definitely not um the pow one i really disliked that one hogan's heroes Hogan's Heroes. Did not like Hogan's Heroes at all.

Sorry, Phyllis.

I think Phyllis is a fan.

Get Smart. I loved Get Smart. I was so happy when it came on because it was just so. And what I don't think I realized at the time was I was getting, is it Don Adams? It is Don Adams.

Good pull, yeah. And Barbara Felden, I believe, my first true love.

I was getting so much Don Adams in my life because by morning, on a summer weekday, by morning I might be watching Get Smart, and by afternoon I might be watching Inspector Gadget.

Yeah, or vice versa, morning cartoons usually. Same guy.

And I didn't even put that together, but I was getting a ton of Don Adams in my life for a while, and I enjoyed it.

And I don't think it's a coincidence either. He plays a bumbling investigator in both of them. In fact, I've got a scene queued up here. I mean, the chance of this actually working as audio content is next to nil, but we do see Maxwell Smart talking to his boss, the chief. He seems to be in his chief's office. There's a lot of guns and various weaponry on the wall behind the boss. There's a third guy there, too. They're all wearing those gunmetal gray suits that federal agents would be wearing at the time. And I think they're about to go into the cone of silence. I pray this makes any sense. Harry Hodgkins, we can talk under the cone of silence. The cone of silence? Well, this is a magenta alert, isn't it? the cone of silence he flips a switch it comes dropping down from the ceiling it's a big plastic thing i am deeply concerned about the conference room what i'm concerned about the conference room how's that he's concerned about the conference room that's the guy who's not in the cone of silence i want it thoroughly inspected for hidden devices microphones bombs what check for microphones and bombs so the joke is here the guy who shouldn't be able to hear them right is repeating what the chief is saying and uh and they can't hear each other in the cone of silence and i believe it was a recurring bit i think this came back a lot and it was always a disaster. You know, I wonder I wonder if that show holds up. I wonder if it would be kind of a fun watch, just kind of a fun brainless watch even here in 2025.

I wonder. That iconic opening, he's like walking through all the doors, and then I think one of them gets stuck, right? It's kind of like it's a 0070. You know, we're just— Was it da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da I was wrong. It's close. A little bit almost like a... From the era of Peter Gunn. It's not Peter Gunn, obviously.

Yes, I was going to say it's Peter Gunn-esque. I was looking up who wrote it, thinking maybe it would have been, you know, somebody, I don't know, Mancini or whoever wrote Peter Gunn. But it was written by Irving Zammertri or Zathmary. Irving Zathmary. Ooh, that's tough for a kid who had a lisp like me. I'm going to stay away from that. Trying to see what else he might have written. One of six children of Hungarian ancestry. Let's see. We don't have to get bogged down in the career of Irving Zafmary. Okay, today's list is top five songs by Irving Zafmary. Actually, what is today's list?

Underappreciated. Underappreciated Zafmary joint. Okay, so this is actually a different kind of list that we're doing today. And I got to admit, I don't know if this is rude to say, I had sort of forgotten about this, but I got an email from listener Kristen, our friend Kristen there in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Oh, sure. And she wrote into us around this time last year without much explanation, just sort of saying, here's a list of words I wrote down, like words that you guys said that caught my ear. I don't know if Kristen specifically said that there were words that she was unfamiliar with. I don't want to assume that, but they may have been unfamiliar to her, or at least they caught her ear as vocab words.

Maybe it was the perfect word in the moment.

Maybe I used the perfect word. She said that these were the handsomest words that Luke used. I will guess, based on our varying degrees of handle on language, that most of these words are probably going to come from you originally. But last year, we went through her list as just sort of a look back at words we have used and trying to figure out, I think, in some cases, the context with which we might have used them. Or if you even remember. Like, there are words on this list. So Kristen wrote again this year with another list of words that she wrote down. She said she's time-baddening. So this list only goes up to episode 4,583. What are we on now? We're at 630 today. Okay. So we're missing some here.

A couple of hundred episodes.

Okay. Well, it's still a long enough list that I don't think we're going to get through the whole thing. So I was going to share some of these words with you. I was going to bounce around a little bit, I think. Maybe choose one here that catches my eye. And so should we launch right into this now, or should we do it after thinking some donors? All right, well. Let's knock a couple out. Maybe thank some donors. So I'm in this situation again where I don't have any specific music chosen. I'm just. Do we like this? There's a little bit of auto spackle. Is this an Irving Zafmary? We're getting a little bit discordant there. Okay, what about Blueprint for the Future? Oh, sure. You know, some people would choose their production elements before opening up their microphone. This is not working out. Here. Oh, this is vocab music. If I've ever heard vocab music before in my life, just go ahead. Like our vocabulary. Can I get you anything to drink, sir?

We do things a little differently around here. Have you dined with us before?

The first word on Kristen's list scares me. I don't think there's any way I've used this word before in my life, and I don't remember you using it. And I'm scared of even saying it because I'm probably going to mispronounce it and in doing so say something inappropriate because it just looks like one of those words that's on the edge, if I mispronounce it. Kakastrocacy? I know I'm saying that wrong. Kakastrocity? No, that's not right. I think you got it right the first time. Maybe. I think I might need to have the internet pronounce it for me, and we'll have to interrupt this music for a moment, which is really going to bum all the diners out.

Let me look it up here. I can play it from here.

Oh, yeah, yeah. What do you got there? Let's get back to this. Go ahead, Sam. You can continue.

Cacostocracy.

Cacostocracy. Cacostocracy. That makes sense.

Cacostocracy.

I just couldn't get my mouth around that word. So what does it mean, and do you remember using it? Because how did this come up if neither one of us know this word?

I do remember. I don't remember the exact context, but I remember it came up, but not because either of us knew the word, but because we either read the word or saw the word and then looked it up. and it's a government that is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous people.

But why would that have come up in 2025?

Kakastocracy.

That's what doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, everything is perfect, and only the best people are running things. Sure, sure, sure. Let's move on, actually. Cocky.

K-A-K-I also. Is that related to kaka, like poop?

Oh. Oh, I don't. Where are you getting that from? Kakastocracy. Oh, kaka.

Yeah, kaka.

Maybe. Well, yeah, what are the origins of the word? I'm trying to find out. Let's see here. Where does it come from? I'm not finding any good answers. I was using 17th century.

Well, if I just write K-I-K-I, I get a Japanese persimmon. So I don't know. Okay. Let's see here. Oh, okay.

No, no. From Krat, let's see here. Worst, the Greek was kakastos, which means worst, and kratos, which means government. So it's a government-worst-people combination there. Now, this next word I should know well, this is a word that you say a lot, and I'm thinking that I think I know how to say it as long as I'm not messing up the sea.

Anti-disestablishmentarianism?

That is the second word of the list.

Do you remember that from being a kid? No. That was supposed to be the longest word or something? No, I don't remember that. I remember that, like, yeah, the rumor was like, oh, do you know, like, the longest word in the English language? It's anti-disestablishmentarianism.

No, of course, it's now been beat by the name of that lake. Wait, hold on one second here The cigarette girl is here Yes, I'll take a couple of camel unfilters

Anti-disestablishmentarianism

That's an impressive word Opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England Oh, specifically

Anti-disestablishmentarianism

People ask, is anti-disestablishmentarianism still the longest word? It's famous as one of the longest English words, meaning opposition to the ending the Church of England status. But it's not the absolute longest. Do you want to know the longest word, Andrew?

Numino ultramicroscopic silicovolcano coniosis.

You didn't let me guess. That's what I was going to guess, Luke. Yes. Oh, geez.

It's an invented long word. Here's the thing. It's an invented long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust. But I don't like, I don't like, uh, I don't like this. I don't like this an invented long word. I feel like somebody was trying to just get the record there.

Yeah. I mean, I guess all words are invented in some way or another,

but this was feels like astroturf to get to the long, like anti-establishmentarianism was just their way of trying to describe a certain worldview. It just got too long. The other one feels like they were like, okay, but we can go even longer.

We can beat that. And that's not, uh, yeah. I don't like the spirit of that to be on it. Not at all. This next word, okay, I was starting to set this up, and I think if I get the C right, I can pronounce it correctly. And it is a word you use a lot, but now that I'm facing it down here in the harsh daylight, I don't know that I can give you a definition for it. Alacrity? Oh, alacrity. This is a word you use, right?

I always think of alacrity as to move with speed, to move with alacrity. Are you double-chip? Alacrity.

Okay, we got to pronounce her name.

Brisk and cheerful readiness. Okay, you must have used that, though. Yeah, like she accepted the invitation with alacrity.

Uh-huh.

Alacrity.

Okay. Yeah. This next one, I know this one, and I wouldn't be surprised if I used it because I use it a lot. Triptych. I used to make triptychs a lot in photography. That's like usually three photos next to it. It's like if you take three photos that kind of are of a part and you maybe frame them all together or i used to do it digitally when i was posting things a triptych it's three photographs

triptych i think i only learned that like probably five ten years ago about some sort of some piece of art that you know as it was being described it was being described as a triptych i don't think i knew that that was a um that was a thing i was very lucky when i went out on that boat in miami speaking of art um out to go do that like snorkeling thing around that underwater art project it just so happened that the guy who had made the art that was underwater um had been at the venice biennale in 2001 and i had been to that venice

biennale and so i was reading up on his cv and so i went and looked at all the art there so i didn't specifically remember his piece but i i could say to him with confidence hey i saw your work at the biennale in 2001 and he was like oh my gosh wow oh wow so he really bonded that was right before he scuba dived down to see his art and then came back up and then spent the rest of

the trip vomiting violently oh that's right you mentioned that do you know what it's called when there's two photos. If a triptych is three, do you know what two is? A bi-tick? A dip-tick? Dip-tick, I believe. Dip-tick. Wait, now, that's the... I think I'm right. Tell me if I'm right about that. Can you look up diptych? I don't even know how you'd spell it, to be honest with you.

Well, the funny part is, okay, it's a word.

Diptych. There you go.

A painting, especially an altarpiece, on two hinged wooden panels, which may be closed like a book. So there you go. Diptych.

I think we used to use that. Did triptych, did you look that up? I always use it as photography, but I wonder if triptych actually has its origins in some sort of folding up painting system as well,

like they said yeah i got the sense when that the triptych just goes you know that it's three of anything that's being presented as an art i mean it could be a paintings of different people but you you take it as a you know all three of the of the images are part of the same presentation the same piece of art that would be called a triptych see diptych diptych well first of all there's a candle called diptyque which is very fancy uh i have one but i still am i'm too cheap to actually use it. It's like a nice scented candle, but they're so expensive that I keep just instead lighting my cheap candles. I get it at Safeway or something. And it's spelled almost the same, but it's diptyque. I would think, though, I guess dye could mean two. I think of bi as being the root letter for when you're bisecting something, cutting it into two. I would think it would be bi-tick. Diptyque. It's diptyque.

When I take one photo and I show it, I call it a uni-tick. Yes.

A one-tick pony.

that's the show title I say Genevieve did you like my uni tick on Instagram alright I'm writing down one tick pony sorry for the delay here I gotta switch over to another tab now and okay this is interesting this is not how Kristen usually does this but apparently there were a bunch of words all in episode 4,381 what do you think that show was TBTL 4,381 if I look that up

That was about 300 episodes ago.

The episode is called Mr. Steal Your Soup. I remember that. I was teasing you about something when you walked in. I just remember making you laugh. You walked into the Alaska lounge and everybody said, here comes Mr. Steal Your Soup. Luke finally explains why he is in a knockout, dragout fight with his favorite airline. He and Andrew also listened in on a 1971 phone conversation between Bob Dylan and the man who has spent decades harassing him. Okay, this was not that long ago. Oh, yes, it was. It was in January. Boy, it feels like this conversation was just yesterday, Luke. Sometimes I'm blown away. So out of that episode, here are a bunch of words. Ecrete? That sounds like, is that a special kind of concrete that you're using in your house?

I think maybe, how is that spelled?

Well, interestingly, Kristen put an SP question mark, so she was just listening. Because I think maybe what she heard me say was accrete?

Accrete. Oh, what is that? Accrete is for things to sort of come together and become fused. Oh, okay. So this idea, you know, accretion is things becoming basically stuck together and hardened over time. And that can have a lot of different kind of, you know, you could say that the thought around this certain political philosophy has accreted over the years in the minds of people on the left. Or it could also be physically something has accreted. Accrete. That's how I think of accrete. Accrete. To grow by accumulation or coalesce. Oh, sorry, you've got it.

No, yeah, I was just going to say to grow by accumulation or coalesce. And so that reminds me of you often use the analogy of a snowball rolling downhill. It sort of sounds like that's almost like kind of accretion.

Yeah, although accretion, I think of it as being more like almost like more solid. Like accretion, accrete and ossify are like neighbors in my mind. And whereas ossify is just to harden and become kind of more brittle and kind of baked and sort of like, you know, to ossify is to just become less flexible and more hardened. To accrete is for a lot of smaller things to combine into one solid thing over time. In my mind, I could be wrong about that.

That's how I tend to use this. Since we're just doing this. And by the way, if this isn't working as podcasting, I just want everybody to send their complaints directly to Kristen, not to us. Yeah. But just joking. Thank you, Kristen. But how is ossify different than calcify then? Because I always use calcify to describe what you were just talking about. They probably mean the same thing. Yeah, maybe they're just the same thing.

Calcify maybe with more of a calcium root or something.

Let's see what we get from ossify. Ossify. Yeah, to turn into bone or bony tissue, to become rigid or fixed in attitude or position, to cease developing. That's ossify. And then let's see what, I bet you calcify is like almost in, calcify. Calcify. to harden by deposition or conversion into calcium carbonate or another insoluble calcium compound. These elements would calcify as rock.

I don't think you heard this the same way on your end because of the slight delay, but you and I hit that the exact same time. It just sounded like there was a tiny, tiny echo. I love it. Listeners, go back. Hit the back 15-second button and listen to that again. Did you hear how it sort of sounded like maybe she was saying that in a big empty cave? That's because Luke and I hit that at the exact same time. So basically, ossify and calcify, you can use them interchangeably.

That's my sense. Ossify sounds fancier, sounds more highfalutin, so that's probably why I'm going with that, per usual.

How do you feel about—so these are all from the same show, by the way. Accrete, Cosseted—no, none of that other stuff, but Accrete was one, and then Cosseted. Sure. Cosseted. How do you use Cosseted?

To me, cosseted, the way I would use it is Someone who's being handled with kid gloves Someone who's being really like Joffrey Whatever that show is Game of Thrones

A little bit like sheltered

Sheltered and overly taken care of And being cosseted And usually, in my mind, not in a good way You wouldn't say, oh, I was cosseting that baby chick Because it fell out of the nest And it needed help It's a bad thing It's like, oh, they're cosseting Trump By only telling him good news about the economy, he's being cosseted, cared for and protected in an overindulgent way or pampered. The cosseted daughter of an upper-class New England family is what the internet say. Cosseted.

So what is a cosset flop then? Solicitous? That also is probably a word you use. That means, can I take a stab at that, which is going to be wrong? I'll tell you right now, I'm pretty sure this is going to be wrong. But when I think of someone being solicitous, I think of them as being, yeah, I think this is wrong, but it's almost like thirsty, sort of. Like they're acting in a way where they want a reaction out of somebody, but being solicitous. But I know that I'm not right about that. What have you got?

Solicitous. I'm nervous that that one popped up because I feel like I don't really know exactly how you use solicitous. So if I used it, there's a limited chance that I used it correctly. Characterized by or showing interest or concern. She was always solicitous about the welfare of her students. Solicitous. To me, solicitous sounds like a bad thing.

It does. That's why I thought it was solicitous in this. Like you're being a little, like somehow you're being solicitous for your own ends is how I assumed.

The archaic version of this, according to the internet, is eager or anxious to do something. He was solicitous to cultivate her mama's good opinion. Sentence took a turn.

Yeah, that's just strange. What a modern, they're like, in the ancient.

He was solicitous to tap that ass. Ya mama. Ya mama. That was weird. But anyway, I have always thought of, when I've heard solicitous, I've assumed that it's kind of like you're being, I think, you know what, it sounds a little bit like obsequious to me.

Yeah, that's what I think I was doing there, obsequious with my thirstiness.

And obsequious is definitely not a good thing. Obsequious.

No, and I know that doesn't mean thirsty. That means you're kissing up, you're sucking up a little bit, you're brown nosing.

Obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree.

Obsequious. There is going to be a quiz. We should quiz the listeners at the end of this. We should have made worksheets.

Honestly, I feel like this is vocab time. Of course, this was always the only part of school that I liked or cared about. so maybe this is just to my interest but like I would literally listen to a podcast and I'm sure there are many where they're just taking a big unwieldy word that I've heard a few times but not been 100% clear on and then just playing how it's pronounced and what it means I actually like that content

but not from their own education or knowledge but just like hey let's look up some words let's look up some words now these next three I could see either one of us saying I know that I say them a lot In fact, this is still from that same episode, by the way, 4381. The second one I'm about to read, I know I've been using way too much recently. I hear myself saying, and it rings out like a bell. But before we get to that, let's start with this disincentivize. I feel like you and I both talk about disincentivizing in some manner. That's a word that I can't think of a... There are a lot of words where sometimes I can't think of the right word because I'm thinking of some big word like that, and there must be an easier way to say it. but I can't get there. But disincentivize is the opposite of incentivize. It's just like you're giving somebody a reason not to do

something, right? Yeah, it's an easy one because you've got that dis there. You've got a word that we know, which is incentivize, and then you've got the very obvious sort of anti to that. Disincentivize. Yeah, I think that's a crutch for me as well, or at least a word that I go to a lot when I'm just saying what's making me not want to do that. It's disincentivizing me, but it also sounds smart, so it's fun. to that that's a that's a lethal combination for me something that is both easy but sounds smart

that's my real wheelhouse that's why they use that word in the national football league uh-huh disincentivize just people who like to say things in a more difficult way but it is i can't think like disincentivize that would uh i would like to disincentivize him from using that language in the future what's an easier way of saying that i would like to persuade him not to i would i would try to dissuade maybe dissuade dissuade is the easier yeah although disincentivize has a i guess

dissuade and disincentivize are probably almost interchangeable i guess one sounds more like you're persuading has a certain it has a certain almost like economic kind of feeling to it like it's a financial disincentive yeah like that's where i think literally like there's something more concrete yes exactly and it's been expanded out now to just mean anything that makes you not want to do something but i think of its origins and i don't know if this is true or not but i think of it as being kind of like there's essentially like a financial drag on this

thing which is a disincentive yes for doing it yes as opposed to an incentive um so okay so this next one is the one i was saying that i use way way way too much recently which is pernicious i don't know how that got into my water supply but i think of pernicious as being pernicious just basically well bad basically right like pernicious for this thing pernicious a child a baby they hire

a baby to say pernicious?

It's a little pernicious baby. I think of pernicious as being just basically widely bad, honestly. Am I right about that? Like, oh, this is a pernicious sentiment.

Absolutely. Having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way. Pernicious. Mm-hmm. And the other one here on the list I also think I see. You never hear anything with Isseus in the name. That's good. No. You hear Isseus, run.

Yes, Isseus. Now, is he the one who flew too close to the sun? Yes, he did. I'm very familiar with that story. Yes, on a hang glider. The last one from this particular episode was one that I do feel like I use a lot, but maybe we both use it, reticent, which means you're hesitating to jump in to do something. I'm reticent to take that boat trip if I'm going to be puking over the side. Am I right?

Now, this is interesting. Not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily. Oh, I use it, and I use it incorrectly. Well, I use it the same way you do. Reticent to me just means hesitant. Probably when I'm saying reticent, I should be saying hesitant.

Yes, I think so. Reticent is more like, oh, you're playing with poker with somebody. You're being a little secretive. He's tough to play against because he's reticent. Yeah, so I do think that, yeah.

Sometimes what I'll do is I'll just say, oh, when I want to say this word, what's the actual word I should be saying? And fix it that way. like I was talking to my mom, my mom loves to use facetious when she means sarcastic I'm being facetious, I was like mom anytime you want to use facetious, just say sarcastic, because when you're saying facetious you're trying to say sarcastic, because facetious, I looked this up the other day, the definition of it is more you're being humorous about a very serious topic, that is to be facetious, oh I don't think I knew that you're not you're not dealing with a a very serious topic with the seriousness that it probably deserves or usually gets that's to be facetious did you know that well you knew when your mom was

saying that there was some disconnect there i think i've always used facetious as just like anything that means facetious i'm joking oh i'm just being facetious treating serious well actually

this is the thing you are facetious a lot i mean this really because it's treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor or being flippant. That is something we both do, but I think you do it especially. So you are facetious many times. My mom's always just using it to mean A, I was joking, or B, I was being sarcastic. But it has a more specific meaning.

Like my blog about 9-11 jokes. Right, that's sarcastic. See, I was just being facetious. As was I. Facetious. This next one, I don't know how long we've been going. I know we've got to kind of keep things tight today. But I did want to bring up this one because it's funny to see this on the list. Because this is a long-time sore, I don't know, sort of joke or reference between Genevieve and I. It's Quadrangle. Oh. And this is... I only think of quadrangle as it is used on like a college campus, the quad, right? You always hear that all the time. Oh, yeah, well, I'll meet you on the quad. Well, I think that stands for quadrangle, but I never knew that before. Quadrangle. And I hope this doesn't come off in the wrong way. But the first time I ever heard that phrase was when Genevieve worked at Northeastern University. And I think I have this right. I think it was in Northeastern, not Dartmouth. She worked for some university where there was a spot on campus that was called, I want to say, the Krentzman Quadrangle. And I had never heard the word quadrangle before. And Genevieve was just like talking. And in passing, Krentzman Quadrangle. I was like, you are at the what, what now? And then she's like, the quadrangle. And just a combination of those two K sounds. We can probably look that up if it's Dartmouth or Northeastern or if I even have that right. But forever, I was just like, oh, yeah, it just trips off the tongue. Meet me at the Krentzman quadrangle.

Yeah. Oh, everyone's going to the Krentz quad. Oh, yeah, sure, right? You didn't go to the Krentz quad? You know, it's funny. I don't think I ever, because I went to a university, University of Washington, that has a quad. And everyone talks about, oh, yeah, the cherry trees are in blossom or in bloom in the quad. I don't think I ever knew that it was quadrangle. I don't know. I guess I just thought it was quad because there's four and it was just shorthand. shorthand never occurred to me that it was that there was wrangle was part of it well i think

maybe this was my original point we can find out so the quad first of all the university of washington that's different than red square because i was gonna say why is a quad different than a square if it's a four-sided i guess maybe it's not a perfect square so red square is that

big huge brick area that's between a number of buildings i think not strictly four like you've got kane hall you've got odegaard library uh you're you got susalo library and you're dealing with a person who worked at the University of Washington Visitor Information Center. That's right, yes. But what we always called the quad was that kind of grassy area with the cherry trees that is literally a quadrangle.

Yes, but I mean, they're both squares. That's what I guess.

Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is I think red square is a little misleading. I don't think it's actually a square.

It's not actually a square, but I'm just saying, why are we calling quadrangle squares other than maybe trying to sound fancy?

Right. Well, yeah. I wonder what else. Again, I think that the issue, particular to the University of Washington, is that red square is not a square. So they shouldn't call it red square. They should call it red brick area. That is what, well, that's what I'm going to call it.

Meet me at red brick area. That's what I'm going to call it going forward. But yeah, and it does say quadrangle. Now, I understand that not all four-sided shapes are squares. But it does say that in architecture, usually a quadrangle is a rectangle or a square. and I was, by the way, more points to me Krentzman Quadrangle is Northeastern I believe here, so according to this Northeastern University wiki

Wasn't that another Joseph Heller book? Krentzman Quadrangle, was it a follow-up to Catch-22? That's my understanding I think it's a point for pulling a Joseph Heller Not an obscure writer but I'm amazed at my brain, is that his name? Yeah, it's Joseph Heller, I can guarantee that All right, let's thank some of our daily donors. These folks are donating to TVTL, and, you know, I was going to try to draw some analogy between supporting an institution of higher learning, like the University of Washington or something, but today I think we've satisfied that sort of standard. I think we were a podcast of some amount of learning today.

Everybody is leaving the show a little bit smarter and a little bit more bored than they came in. Just like real colleagues. Exactly.

Thanks to Sarah Farley of Spokane, Washington.

Thank you, Sarah.

Have you noticed the legacy of Chris Farley or the Farley family that's very present in the television landscape, the television commercial landscape? No. So Chris Farley has two brothers who both themselves were kind of comedic performers, although I get the feeling that I don't know if they were doing it before Chris Farley or at the same time, but at some point after Chris Farley had passed, you'd see them booked in a lot of things, I think because the people wanted a Chris Farley type, but there was no longer a Chris Farley, and also he would have been too expensive because he was famous from his movies and SNL. But all these Amazon commercials now that involve this one. She's, I think, maybe a college student or somebody who's, you know, in young adulthood. But she comes home and her dad's on the treadmill. And he's being real embarrassing on the treadmill that's now in her childhood bedroom. And then there's another commercial where she and her new boyfriend are sitting around. boyfriend has gotten the dad something, and he can't tell if the dad likes it or not. I've seen that one, yes. He's about to buy a different thing, but he doesn't because the dad likes it. That's Chris Farley's brother.

The dad is Chris Farley's brother. The dad is Chris Farley's brother. I haven't seen the first one you described, but I definitely have seen the second one. I'll keep an eye out for that. Of course, now that Christmas is past us and gift-giving is over, I wonder if that'll go away.

Yeah, anyway. Becky Day is in Aberdeen, Washington. Hey, thank you, Becky. Thanks, Becky. Aberdeen is a place that gives where I live a run for its money in terms of the weather being a bit gray at this time of year, a bit wet. Grays Harbor County lives up to the name, so I hope you're doing well down there, Becky. Jessica Doppler's in Dunkirk, New York.

You want to talk about names that evoke weather, we got Doppler here. That's right. Doppler is also the name of the Seattle Storms mascot.

Oh, that's pretty cool. It's really cool, yeah. Okay, so Doppler, I know the Doppler radar is a thing, but isn't Doppler also the name for the phenomenon of when, like, a train is coming towards you and the sound of the train changes based on its relative?

Oh, and are they related? Isn't that called the Doppler effect? I bet you you're right. I don't think I was thinking that, but I totally am on board with what you're saying. On board, like a train.

The Doppler effect is the change in frequency and wavelength of waves when the source and observer are moving relative to each other, causing a higher frequency as they approach and a lower frequency as they move apart.

And is that the same sort of scientific concept that's behind Doppler radar?

I mean, what a coincidence if they weren't, right?

I would think so. Kristen, can you add this to your list for next year?

That's all we're asking. I mean, the donations are great, but also a little bit of clarity on the Doppler effect would also help. I mean, it is kind of your name, although slightly different spelling. Thanks also to Andrew L. Soth out there in Madison, Wisconsin. Thank you, Andrew. We've got to stick together, Andrew. Love Madison. Carla Beck is in Kent, Washington, another place that we love. Indeedly do. And then Andrew Walsh. This guy. Are you kidding me? Are you mean this guy? Steve Nelson Oh, you don't even have the Steve Nelson I didn't have it at the ready Steve Nelson This is almost as good Our old boss, Steve Nelson Steve Elropo Nelson Who hired us at American Public Media Ran interference from probably his bosses At anyone else who listened to the show there and now has moved on to other major media projects, is still out there in St. Paul, Minnesota, donating to this little thing all these years later, Andrew, and that is just an absolutely incredible thing. Thanks, Steve. Yes, absolutely. We really appreciate you, dude.

There are not a lot of people in my life that I can say, like, if I didn't know that person, if we didn't interact, if we didn't have the experience we had, that my life would be significantly different, and I feel like my life would be significantly different if I had never known Steve Nelson. Do you want to know my prediction? i don't think we'd have a show you don't think we would have gotten to apm you think that if we had remained independent but not independent as we are now because we're pretty i mean not to brag but we have a pretty professional organization going on we do thanks mostly to john scott yeah exactly but like you know like we're we're official but back in the day when you were running it independently and paying me but i had another job and you were juggling a bunch of jobs it probably wouldn't have survived without, like, kind of getting sort of tempered in the APM style, sort of.

Yeah, because basically without, you know, without getting too into the weeds or whatever, like, where we were at before APM was you were doing this, I think, well, you would know, but it's like you were receiving some money to do it, but certainly not an amount you could live on. So it couldn't have been your real job. And I know certainly that there were many, many times, particularly when you had your other really challenging job in L.A., where it was pretty tough to also carve out an hour to come be part of this every single day, and it was not for the money. But there wasn't the show, because we didn't have a John Sklaroff. It hadn't been set up from a fundraising model to where it was really something that could be both of our jobs, like full-time, decent-paying jobs that we could just do and have that be where our income came from. It was kind of more in between. And then when we went to APM because they hired us, then we both had real jobs there and benefits. And then over time, there was a lot of, you know, for all the, I guess, side eye that I give some of the experiences we had over there, there was a much more legitimate, rigorous and what's the word? I don't know.

No, all of the donation processes accreted into something that was actually like, you know, successful and worked. And we learned about things like sending out emails around the fundraiser and, you know, trying to encourage people to become monthly donors. There's all this like fundraising strategy that was applied to the show so that then when we finally went out on our own again, we had those. We had John Sklaroff and now we're running so much better of an operation than we were when it was you and me and you were in L.A. And if we wouldn't have had that bridging event of APM, I just don't think the show would be around.

And this is going to sound really, really self-serving, but I do think that it's true. It also shifted the dynamic of my role on the show significantly, which I think even that plays into the fundraising thing. But also, I think that's what the difference was. When I was doing TBTail with you both here when I still lived in Seattle, but I was doing a night show on Cairo Radio at the time. When we started, I was producing your and Dave Ross' show on the radio. But TBTail was always a side gig for me. but literally my only responsibility would be to get into a studio with you and you would turn on my mic you recorded it you posted it you named it hilarious you did everything and i just sat there you know and i i laughed and i and i spoofed you know and that was it but then once this became our job then i became the producer of the show used to call me producer andrew but that's because i my background was in producing i didn't actually produce tbtl i guess i did that weekend thing but Anyway, I'm getting into too much detail. But really, the huge change was suddenly my days were free. And so we were coming up with ideas. I mean, that is what brought us Dream Court. We never talked about our dreams in an official segment on TBTL. And that is the APM legacy. And that is Steve Nelson's legacy.

You want to talk about a map that might have been that might have been one of the largest improvements in the show was you taking the reins of all things audio, like not just in file management, not just in the fact that you very meticulously and assiduously keep all of the records and keep all of the source files for the shows organized very well. but like just the audio quality you just do so much processing to the show afterwards it's like that's a big big thing and the fact that it makes it on the internet successfully it never has us talking about something unrelated before the show starts which is something i did once it happened

once though i mean it's not like you've had a huge record of that but i just mean it's so much

it's just it's it's hilarious to think that at one time the audio quality of the show was my response i mean that's so long ago now that it's a hilarious thought it's like i can't think of a good analogy but it's like you know i don't know it's just it's you're so much better at that than i am both in just talent and also in like just determination and kind of sense of personal work ethic that um that's a massive massive improvement for the show too and so that got us started with

us in our kind of current roles so that then you know spending the time there and then moving on and going independent and you know and maybe this is just a moment to say as we are truly and not to get corny but as we are truly and sincerely thanking our donors for bringing us here yeah it has we've gone through a lot of phases and i do think you know like and again i know we always get a little bit nervous using words like being proud of our work but certainly maybe less shame in the in the words of bart simpson about what we do here and it is uh it is literally only because of listener supporting us throughout the apm days and and and post and beforehand, too. It is funny, too. We have some friends who have

spun off some of their APM stuff, and they're doing their show independent, which we're rooting for them. But when I was in Arizona a while ago talking to Nora, of course, we were catched because her show was on APM, too. And it was just so funny because without giving too much detail on people's business, let me put it this way, Andrew. Some of the other shows that have left APM, there's been a certain amount of negotiation around what's called intellectual property who can say what who can call their show what yeah what the you know there's been like apm let's just say saying well you know this was developed maybe while you worked with us and so therefore we own some of the and um i'll tell you what they uh had no interest in trying

to deprive us of tbtl yeah well luckily that did exist before we were we brought yes you know yeah you created tbtl and we brought it to apm so that is that helped difference there we did have some

kind of a contract although you know who i found i think i found the contract but it was just funny because it was the second time that tbtl had departed somewhere now the first time was cairo because they fired us this time was us leaving but no one's ever said oh oh god you're taking tbtl away from this it's never been the reaction for many of the um management types and yet here we are and and i would say stronger than ever like we have a pretty good system going um i'm uh you I'm always pleasantly surprised that the donations continue to occur. John is just amazing at what he does and handling all of the various TBTL events or TBTL things, TBT things.

So, yeah, here we are. I'm feeling good here on this Tuesday. Okay, we'll see how I feel tomorrow. So it could be a totally—

Wednesdays are tough on you. Wednesdays are tough on you.

Yeah, I've started calling them hump day. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I'm going to blue sky that out later. How about this hump day? And then I'm going to block you if you say anything about it.

Anybody know what day that— Hey, wasn't that a camel's joke from a Geico commercial? All right, let's get out of here.

All right, thanks, everybody. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.