Muse

Hi friends, I'm Tim Heidecker here with my good friend, Eric Wareheim, here to tell you about an exciting new product from Synco Technology.

That's right, Tim. It's called the Internet, and it's a fresh new way to check out sites, buy clothing, and surf music. And it's all located on this tiny CD-ROM.

You bet, Eric. You know, my favorite thing about the Internet is that it's 100% secure.

Wait a second, Tim. What about all my e-worms and my email viruses?

Well, Eric, you can kiss your e-virus problems goodbye, because the entire internet is located on this CD-ROM. You're not connected to anything, so no one can connect to you. Well, Eric, you know I'm a music nut, okay? And that's why I love the internet, because it features nettoons. With over 100 songs available, it's the perfect music choice for me.

Tim, let me stop you there. I already see a problem. My wife likes rock music, and I love country. How can one CD-ROM contain enough music for both of us to be satisfied?

I've heard it a million times before. The music on this CD almost feels limitless.

The Internet! Hey Tim, what are you up to?

I'm just chatting with one of my friends here.

But you're not connected to the web. How's this working?

Well, the Internet offers me up to five unique avatars that I could chat with virtually any time of day.

Who are you talking to right now?

Well, this is Professor Hensley.

Do you think I could ask him a question?

Fire away.

Professor, how are you today?

He says fine.

T-B-T-L Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is? It's Friday, Friday.

Gonna get down on Friday.

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. I feel a real need to express something, but I don't know what it is I want to express or how to express it. Oh, I see. Dirty monkey not okay, but dirty monkey dance?

I know, people say I'll fill up, but you have no idea how my body processes soup. And boom goes the dynamite. All right, that's gonna run. See you on the flippy flops.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Why now? What are they doing? And how can you steer clear of it all? My name's Luke Burbank, I'm your host Bring it back home, baby, bring it back home Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia Where it feels great to be back here in the comfortable confines of the Madrona Hill studio

I'm back

I've returned

I'm back, y'all

it's really interesting to see i haven't been here for i don't know seven days or something six days i think last friday i did the show from here but there is you know i look out over the mighty columbia and on the other side of the river is actually the state of oregon and these big you know sort of hills that have a lot of like forest land and i've been watching the forest be deforested I mean, it's private land. I guess they own them trees, but they've really deforested a lot of the hills above Rainier, Oregon, since I was gone. So everybody's been hard at work. Here we are. By the way, Friday the 13th.

Oh, my God!

So things could get spooky today on the show. But it's also the day before Valentine's Day.

Love is wearing makeup to bed and going downstairs to the Burger King to poop.

So things might also get very romantical here on the show today. A lot going on here on episode 4,663 in A Collector's Series. Let the fun begin. For 1,000, I should say, 669 would be a better number. But no, it's 663. I wish I hadn't done that. Speaking of regret, I signed up for a credit card at a store. It was one of those. It was a moment of weakness. It's like, do you want 20% off? And I thought, it's not going to be worth the hassle. Don't do it. And I did it. And it's become a total hassle. We'll talk about that. Also, Chipotle is struggling to generate profit. In fact, they're losing money. And so they've decided to fix it with something that seems counterintuitive. I might have tacos when I go home. I'm not quite sure yet. So we'll get to that time permitting, and we'll say hello to this young man, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship. Hey, Romano. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. You know how you made that immediately regretted? I'm not going to say regretful, but it seemed like you regretted making a 69 joke a few minutes ago in the intro. It got me sort of thinking about...

I've been listening to too much Howard Stern again is the issue.

Are they still making those jokes? Oh, Ronnie the limo driver. Oh, sure. Do you think that Howard was hurt when he moved to Las Vegas, by the way? Was he, like, personally insulted? Should we get into that or let it go? I was thinking about 69 and 420 and how our generation, like, those numbers, like, for some reason carry some sort of inherent humor that, you know, for the most part I think you and I miss us with that. having said that i saw a picture online the other day on the blue sky app which i guess as i say it out loud you can never be sure that somebody didn't stage this thing but somebody took a photo of one of those gift store stands where you can buy like license plate like fake license plates with numbers or something something along the lines of that yeah and six sixes and sevens were all out but not nine and somebody was like they did it like the younger generation did it they ousted six nine as being funny and now it's six seven and i thought oh maybe that's interesting i'm not really young i don't really know but i will say you remember that uh photo that i shared with you guys the other day of me wearing a football jersey in high school a walsh jesuit football jersey i noticed for the first time in i don't know the 35 years since that was taken that the jersey number I'm wearing is 6-7, and I noticed it. And then other people commented online, and I was like, oh, it's working. If 6-7, the whatever, like even if it's not humor, the notability of that is sinking. Yes, the fact that it is noted. If I'm noting it, I guess the youth have won. It's working. It's working.

I, you know, what I was going to say in response to that was, eh, it's a fad. It'll finally, it'll burn, it'll burn too brightly. And then we'll be back to having 69 be the funny numbers. But then I thought, why would 69 come back? That's going to die with us. And that's fine, by the way. That's fine. Things change. And like, there's, there was probably, there's plenty of stuff that was humorous to people in the 1930s that we don't know about. Like, you know what I mean? I don't think – did I really think that in 100 years people will think that the number 69 is funny because it refers to a sexual position?

Do you know my association with that? Do you recall the podcast – this goes back maybe 15 years – called My Dad Made a Porno? Or maybe it's just Dad Made a Porno? I do. I'd forgotten about it, and now I'm remembering. I think I listened to maybe the first season of it. Genevieve carried on with it. It is so funny. I think it was maybe three British friends. No, you know, I did listen to that. It was really funny. Like they were just friends and they were riffing. But the thing that the central topic was the fact that one of them wrote a porno. My dad wrote a porno. Oh, I said made. Right. And it was it was it was basically, you know, one of their dads had written some erotic fiction that he was sincere about, but then let his son, I believe it was his son read it. And the son is one of the hosts of the show. And it was just so off base on just so many ideas of sex and what would be a turn on to a reader. It was quite funny. And them just riffing on it was just it was absolutely delightful. But I guess at one point the host asked his dad, I believe I believe off air, asked his dad, like, well, why do you think 69 is such a sexy number? Because he said something, he just referenced it as a sexy number in the text. He said, why do you think 69 is sexy? And he said, because it's like the shape of a woman, which I still don't fully understand. You might want to see a chiropractor. I know. But I think about it all the time.

I think eight is the most womanly number.

I would agree. I would agree. And it's also a silly number. Hey, ladies, don't come at me. I've got some sound effects on my phone I'd like to play. That's right. You and I were remembering some unfortunate sounds that actually accidentally emanated from this podcast yesterday. But putting aside the hourglass feature that you were pointing out, I also think that eight is just a fun, frivolous number. I'm kind of surprised that it doesn't do better in comedy communities.

I'm just now going down the my dad wrote a porno kind of rabbit hole because I want to see if they're still making the show. because what I remember really liking about the show because I did listen to the first season was the dynamic of the three folks that were, you know, the friends which, again, not that I'm comparing our show to their show but that's generally speaking what people seem to like about our show is our interactions and stuff and I just remember the kind of

The smut aspect of it was almost to the second appeal to me of the thing. It was the friendship between these three people and the way they would sort of joke around. There was another podcast like that that I really loved that was about somebody clogged a toilet at a wedding. Really? Do you remember this one? I know that I talked about it on the show. I think it was some people were getting married. I feel like it was on a boat and somebody clogged the toilet on the boat and the whole like the boat where the wedding was. And the whole podcast was them kind of like interviewing all their friends and maybe even lying them up to hooking up to a lie detector. It was like it was like all the people that had been at the wedding. They were trying to solve the mystery of who had clogged the toilet at their wedding.

I'm looking this up. I'm not seeing anything jumping off. I was also Googling to see if I could find whatever that 69 reference was on My Dad Wrote a Porno. I'm not finding this. I'm not finding this. It sounds amazing. It, of course, makes me remember. Sorry.

No, you know what it was? It was called Who Shat? And what it was was somebody had shat. Who shat on the floor at my wedding?

Oh, geez.

So what it was was in the toilet was clogged. It was in the bathroom. Somebody had actually pooped on the floor of the bathroom, I think, on this boat, on this huge boat that they were having the wedding on. And the entire, and again, it's one of those things where it's sort of, I guess, a MacGuffin, although a MacGuffin I think is made up, and I don't think this was made up, it really happened. But really this whole question of like trying to figure out who shat at their wedding was secondary to just how freaking delightful these, I think it's the couple who got married and then it's their friend, and their friend is kind of taking the role of like the serious investigator of it. And I think they're like all British maybe, or a couple of them are British. Anyway, it's just an absolute delight. But what I wonder about is for like My Dad Wrote a Porno or Who Shat, I wonder what it's like to have this runaway hit podcast that's so connected to a specific event. Yeah. Because you must just be like, we want to get all the mileage out of this that we can. Because both of these podcasts were sensations at the time. And both, I'm sure, millions more listeners and downloads than we've ever gotten. And I'm looking at the like My Dad Wrote a Porno. Like they would do these live shows at like huge theaters and it would be packed. In a way, both of these podcasts far exceeded us, but what do you do next if you're one of the creators of one of these things? I guess what I'm trying to say, Andrew, is right here, what we're doing, this is recession-proof, because we've never talked about anything interesting. That's right. So there's no pressure to continue that. It's just, it is what it is, and we can keep doing it.

A lot of listeners describe our podcast as a will-they-won't-they podcast. Will they ever find something interesting to talk about, or won't they? And so that's kind of the, that's the, that's why I consider us a mystery podcast.

And also people tune in for our hit Friday segment, Andrew. Do we have a hit Friday segment? I remember we used to have one. A segment where often there's an inquiry that's made. Uh-huh. And the question usually posed is big weekend plans? Oh.

Big weekend.

Why did it take so long to get to it?

Do you have any big weekend plans? No, actually. I should have done some thinking about that. Not even for Valentine's? Well, no, I don't think so. Well, I'll ask Genevieve if she wants to go to dinner or something. Although, can you get a reservation the Friday before Valentine's Day if it's on a Saturday?

Not, not. Well, I don't know what the scoop is in Seattle. I know Becca and I are going to go down to the Oregon coast tomorrow. And I was trying to locate. I was really surprised. It feels like a leading, like a leading indicator around the economy or something. And Lord knows it's not like I'm trying to preach the message that the economy is flying high, as some might be trying to say. despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

What part of the K are you in, I guess, in this K-shaped economy? That's the question of the day, right?

I think of it more as a KKK economy.

Sadly, that's true.

So this week, Rebecca and I had talked about I was going to be traveling for work, but I'm back now, and I was like, well, maybe we'll go see if we can go on a little weekend adventure on Saturday. It's Valentine's Day. Maybe we'll go somewhere kind of romantic or cute.

Because you're probably sick of being stuck at home anyway.

Like, you need to get out. Well, that's the thing. I was considering proposing a staycation, but I thought that kind of seemed like I was cheaping out. How about we hang out at my house where I already live, but I don't have to go anywhere? It's Valentine's Day. It's a new thing. Everybody's doing it. And it's where I do my laundry. That's how we celebrate. i romantically do my laundry that's been piling up in my suitcase in los angeles but um yeah so uh i was checking out some like some places like in astoria oregon there's um there's a bunch of cute places but there's a

particular one we've been trying to stay at called the um the bowline totally like booked booked booked booked and i was like oh there's this cool place in binge in washington called the society hotel i was like well check that out booked solid uh you know you name it i probably looked up about six or seven different like kind of cool you know hotels all of them literally like every single room booked for saturday night we did find a little airbnb down on the oregon coast for one night so that that's you know uh that's going to happen but my point is that yeah if you were like going to try to make a reservation at somewhere that is seen as as romantic tomorrow night uh or had a lot of ambiance uh it might be tough at least if my experience with trying to

book a place to stay is any indicator well i'm looking at the bryant corner cafe right now where i had my sad eggs the other day the eggs were good by the way uh and it i don't know it looks pretty open to me on open table do you think the bryant corner cafe is on open oh how funny

that the bryant corner cafe used to be called the sunflower cafe oh for years and years and in fact when uh when the the first house that i ever bought the real estate agent took us to breakfast at the sunflower cafe was a vegan i don't think it was because i was certainly not a vegan at that time but i remember being like boy this is a real scam they got to buy you breakfast because you You know, the real estate agent is very incentivized to give you a great time and to make a strong connection with you and to, you know, just, again, they kind of want to make sure that they're keeping the account. So I remember my first ex and I, we were going to, you know, we were looking at houses or we wanted to look at houses. And we called up this real estate agent and he said, well, I'll meet at this cafe. And oh, you know why? Because that was when we lived. Sorry, this is so boring, Andrew, but we lived in Bryant. We lived just down like 55th from there or 65th, I guess. And so he was like, where do you live? And we were like, we live in Bryant. And he was like, well, how about the Sunflower Cafe, now known as the Bryant Corner?

And I believe, and I'm trying to figure out if I'm right about this, there is a vegan cafe that is still called the Sunflower Cafe. And I'm trying to figure out if I'm right about that or if there's any DNA. Because it was right around the corner from me and Roosevelt, which would be just a mile away.

It looks like I'm looking at the, well, you know, it's funny. Sunflower hyphen the Bryant Corner Cafe and Bakery is what you call it.

Okay, that makes sense.

So I don't know what the – maybe it was always – I don't know. I think they added that Bryant Corner thing to it at some point. Maybe it's still known on some level as Sunflower. Is it vegan? Did you get vegan stuff when you were there?

No, Bryant Corner is not. I'm looking – geez, I'm really confused, and I don't need to continue this. I'm trying to figure out if I'm confusing the Sunlight Cafe. Is there a chance it's called the Sunlight Cafe?

The Sunlight Cafe, if I remember right, is vegan, right?

It looks like maybe this is a vegetarian place, and it looks like it is – because it moved around a little bit when I was in Roosevelt, but they seemed like a very – kind of a nice little establishment. Yes, exactly.

They say sunlight is the greatest way to judge people for eating meat. That is what you see all.

Well, so anyway, so you're heading down there. You have dinner reservations.

The point is you should take Genevieve to the Bryant Corner Cafe and then sit there quietly crying about a Lookout Landing article while she sits there eating her breakfast.

I believe I called it the Outlook landing during yesterday's show. But, yeah, so anyway, yeah, no, I don't know. We're not big Valentine's Day people, but I could ask her if she would like to do something.

I would love to. I was just thinking. I saw somebody was saying online the other day, and I don't think there's any science behind this, but they said, if you can survive February, you're going to probably live another year. And I really feel that. because a from a weather standpoint it's just kind of kind of the nadir point in a certain way although it's you know it was beautiful i know in seattle on wednesday and it's been nice out there's no snowpack god knows what's happening but i felt it i feel a little bit like march feels kind of you know baseball's back green shoots all of that and then also just sort of like for me it's so going into january for me january is it's becca's birthday and then february comes around and it's addy's birthday and valentine's day and the thing that i've done that is a real kind of lapse in in strategic thinking is i have made all three of these events into big deals and i don't know i don't know how to step down off of the big deal thing like i don't it's like i could never get a i don't think i could ever get away with just going like okay well you know we're not we're not a couple who celebrates valentine's day with a weekend away or i'm not the kind of dad who doesn't send you some elaborate gift when you're turning 32 like i don't know how to i don't know how to turn the temperature down on any of these things and so uh here i am and when i'll tell you when february is over when we're cruising into march i'm like i got 11 months before this whole stress and you know and by the way count christmas as part of it because like i've barely caught my breath from christmas We'll be right back.

before we're now rolling into all of my February situation. And so I'm very excited to see March 1st coming.

First of all, I mean, we're in very different positions because I have just lowered the expectations of everybody around me. Their expectations of me, I should say, for just, I mean, for a long, long, long time now.

I think they've been described as subterranean. Yes, but... In various articles.

And so my responsibilities to family, friends, other loved ones, Like, generally speaking, I try to, you know, get stuff for Genevieve on the occasions that it's required. But my my responsibilities in this in this area are very limited. I don't have any kids. I don't have any kids, you know. And so anyway, point is, like, I'm not trying to make it sound like a burden, but I'm not trying to also exaggerate, you know, what I have to put into this. But starting with the, you know, the Christmas holidays, if there's some gift giving there. And then Genevieve and I have our anniversary right at the beginning of January, which is just like, you know, maybe it's two weeks after Christmas, generally speaking. Then you do have Valentine's Day, which, again, is no pressure on me, but just to note that in February. And then Genevieve's birthday is the beginning of March. So for me, it's kind of like, you know, there have been times where I'm scrambling on March 1st, still trying to figure out, well, I don't know. I had one idea for a gift this year. I wrote it down a long time ago, and then I got it for her for Christmas. And now what am I doing for her birthday? I will say this year, I'm blanking on what I got Genevieve for Christmas, but I know that I had it locked down pretty early and was excited about that. And this year, I have had her gift for her birthday, which is still a month away almost, three weeks away. I have had her gift in my closet for a couple of weeks now. I am so excited about it. That's a great feeling. I almost wanted to give it to her early because I'm so excited about it. My one issue with it, though, is I want to tell you what it is, but I can't. but if she doesn't like it by getting it early so early I have

Andrew must have come early for this one

Andy must be one mean bastard to buy this so early the concern here though is I've now passed, while that thing has been sitting in my closet the window for a possible return a gift exchange or a gift return has gone out the window. So the window is closed. If Genevieve doesn't like this gift, then I've got to re-home it in some way. And it is a puppy. Well, that's where you sell it to someone else, right? For a re-homing fee. I think so, yeah. So that's my one concern, but hopefully she'll like it.

Yeah, it's a good feeling when you've got that sort of already figured out and the thing is ordered. I sort of did the opposite this year for the Valentine's present that I got, Becca, which was so I what I ended up doing was actually had it mailed to her house because two things one I was a little worried about it getting here to my house on time and under budget I was ordering it this week I had gone online this particular gift and I had seen that it's something that I was able to order and have sent out on a pretty quick turnaround so I knew I didn't have to actually pull the trigger until this week like it was like a two-day delivery thing but I was like do i have it delivered to my house where a i'm not even going to be this whole week it could be outside in the rain also low-key there is a sales tax difference if it goes to oregon there is no sales tax if it goes to my house it is and this was not a small ticket item so it's like i might as well shave a couple of a couple of bucks off of this but then what i had to say to her was do not go to your mailbox at your like where you live because she lives in a giant like apartment complex and they you know they send a message like if a certain kind of package comes into your I was like, you're not allowed to retrieve any mail after Wednesday. You're going to have to take me down to your mailbox, give me the key, and then I'm going to retrieve your Valentine's present out of your mailbox on Saturday. So that's the plan. How's that for romance?

Yeah, I mean, you're slipping a little bit into some dom-sub stuff there, it sounds like, a little bit. Like, you must give me the key. I will control the unlocking of the box situation. I'll leave my comments.

Well, we're learning how you keep your relationship fresh, Andrew.

Well, I will give the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Southern Washington.

For you, it's still P.O. Box related, BDSM. For you, BDSM stands for boxes, deliveries, mail. Boxes, delivery, stamps, and mail.

Stamps and mail, exactly. So anyway, now you all know a lot about me.

Yeah, well Andrew I guess you've already bought Genevieve's gift So you're not in danger of this But if you do find yourself At one of these big box retailers Buying something And they try to talk you into getting One of the credit cards Do not, under any I don't think you need me to remind you of this But I am living proof that the michaels craft store credit card situation is a mess i was getting a bunch of stuff framed speaking of before christmas i was having i bought this um i bought some various copies of this really cool you would actually would love this thing andrew it's so up your alley this guy on instagram did these really great kind of architectural i think it's called a um elevation is the technically the term for like the front of a building in the kind of architectural terms of these classic cool portland businesses like the aladdin theater and um clyde's prime rib and all these really and did these really great architectural drawings of the front of them and made it all into this poster and i thought this was something that a lot of my friends in portland would would really appreciate so i bought these but then i had to get them all framed so i went down to the michaels and as i was signing up or not signing up as i was basically paying they were like do you want the michaels credit card and i just always say no to this at anywhere that's offered because i know what's going to happen but i was in a weak moment i was like well it's 20 off and by the way all this framing is like 400 or something so 80 bucks is 80 bucks right as you like to say that's a round of drinks so i was like and i was kind of vibing with the two people at the frame like at the counter where you do the framing at michael's like i don't know i was just like all right and also i thought probably they get some sort of little you know the more people they sign up for this they probably get you know some kind of special bonus or something so i sign up for it i get my 20 off i um of course then i don't know how to log back into i don't have a michael's account i don't have a rewards account I don't know how to pay this card. I'm not thinking about this card. I do exactly what I knew I would do, which is I basically forget. And it goes from like, I don't know, let's just say that my first payment to the card, my plan is just to pay it all off and close the card. And of course I forget to make that first payment because I don't really know how to, like I just don't, I don't, it's not like one of my normal credit cards with my bank where I see it there and I can pay it off. So the next thing you know, I get like, I don't know if it was a letter in the mail or an email but i get like an angry note from like they're called like sync it's one of those weird it feels borderline predatory like some weird credit card you've never heard of but they just do the heavy lifting for michael's so in other words when you sign up for the it's not like a nice old lady who's just working at michael's so she gets a discount on

needlepoint it's some some person somewhere god knows where who works for synchrony bank

Iron Mountain. Oh, by the way. Exactly. A lot of notes. Okay, did you see all these notes? I saw it. We should try to get to that today. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I get, Iron Mountain calls me and says, so I'm getting a note that's like, you know, you're like, and it's crazy how quickly it goes from like, hey, sign up for the card is 20% off to like, we will end you. Like I get something in the mail. We own you. Seriously, I get something in the mail and it's like, I open it and it's like the entire thing is red. Bright red. like the three-quarters zip-up that I'm wearing right now, Andrew. And it's just like, you're in so much trouble with Synchrony Bank. And I'm like, geez. So I call them because I'm just like, I'm just going to pay this. And I get the guy on the phone, and I'll put it this way. It sounds like a person who's not in the U.S., but what's really interesting, Andrew, is it's clear that when the person that they're talking to is in arrears, they have clearly decided that you don't have to be as polite you know usually you call up for help and whatever the challenges are whatever the sort of scripting might be or maybe the language or cultural barriers might be there's a general attempt at friendliness it's interesting to be talking to somebody on the other side of the world who has not been coached up on needing to be nice

to you was this a russian mobster are you just trying to be nice it was not as far as i could

tell i don't want to get into trying to analyze the accent but it didn't sound like russia to me sure but um the so the guy is like are you gonna pay this off today and i was like yeah that's why i called you and he's like then he had all this boilerplate because i'm already i'm i'm not like being sent to collections but i'm already in like i'm kind of in trouble with them so there's a lot of legalese around like this is an attempt to collect a debt are you willing to pay all of this today and i was like yeah i want to pay this and close the card okay so you're agreeing that you're willing to pay this balance today of this amount? And I said, yeah. I go, how much of that is the late charge? And he goes, $15. And I go, can I get the late charge taken off? And he goes, I am able to offer you today a one-time reduction in your late charge of $15, and that means you will now be owing this amount of money, and are you willing to pay that today? And I'm like, I don't know how many times I've got to tell you I'm willing to pay this today. I go, and close

the tape. This is for the recording, right? Yeah. Right, definitely. But I'm like, and close the

call.

and he's he's again I can't I can't overstate this like he's he just keeps saying weird shit to me but never agreeing to close the card and I should have known I should have smelled a rat because I keep saying yeah I'm gonna pay this today and I want to close the card and he just kept saying the more stuff

like I think he was trained to never agree to go wow this is because Andrew

when I just got home last night and then I went out to my little mailbox this morning to retrieve my mail from being gone i've got this like epically long bill statement from the michaels credit card how much do you think my balance is now how much do you think i owe them

wait you paid it off so you paid it off zero and now they're like charging you some sort of a service fee maybe because you're not using the card they're adding more money to your balance

my new balance is four dollars and 72 cents of interest charge on purchases oh interest i don't even understand i mean i paid them all of the money that was on the account and i guess they're trying to make the argument that somehow there was an interest payment due afterwards but it's like it's real godfather shit they keep pulling me back in that's my silvio impression yeah it's very good But it's like, they know exactly what they're doing. Like, I was paying off the entirety of the balance. This is what the guy kept making me agree to hundreds of times. And now they're doing this because they're hoping that I don't notice this now $4.72 charge so I can go back into some kind of crazy arrears with them.

Okay, here's what you need to do. When you call next time and you go through the phone tree, don't choose anything that makes it sound like you're there to pay your balance. Just go through the phone tree to let the system know that you're there to close the card or whatever gets close to that department. Then when you get that person, they'll say, well, we can't close this until you clear the balance. Then you're like, okay, here's a $4.25 coin, and you flip it in the air at them, and then maybe they'll close it for you.

Well, here's what I'm noticing in the fine print. Summary of account activity. And by the way, you can have your my dad wrote a porno. You can have my who shat. But, like, what other show is just reading you the summary of account activity from their short-lived Michael's card?

We'll get to the fine print, too, as quickly as possible.

Previous balance, $374.45. Payment, $359.45. Well, that's where they double-crossed me because I was trying to pay the entire amount off. Oh, my God. But then you go down to my new balance is $4.72. New balance, not just shoes for dads that refuse to admit they're aging. it's what I'm dealing with with Michaels past due amount zero credit limit one thousand dollars and I don't even know if I could spend a thought no I could I could spend a thousand dollars in the Michaels do you know that like for for me complaining about like the um the what the synchrony bank of this is I actually low-key kind of really love Michaels now like it's my go-to place for having things framed this is also what happens when you move into a new house and you are divorced you like got to frame some stuff and you got to get things all kind of lined up and everything. I spend more time at that Michaels than I would have

expected. I don't think I knew that they did custom framing. That's good to know, actually. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It sounds like it's probably a little bit of a better deal, too. Not that we should take money out of the hands of small business owners, but I could see it being a little bit more affordable than going to the frame shop on the corner.

It is probably, yeah, because it's a larger, they probably see it as if not a loss leader, it's not the core business of theirs. So it's like, yeah, It's probably cheaper, and you're right. I'm sure we actually have some listeners who maybe do framing. I will tell you this. Of the many things that have surprised me about adult life, how much custom framing cost is in the top five. I remember the first time I went to get something framed, and I was like, it's a how much? It's a what? Oh, because there's matte. You're matte-ing it? I mean, the matte looks good. Don't get me wrong. And I don't want to, like, this is all, you know, this is this is hard work and and it's it's it's honest work and i don't want to sort of act like you know it's people are trying to rip anyone off but it was it's always been shocking to me how

much framing costs yeah and it has been that way genevieve and i even because i think maybe when we were in you know first living together we had a lot of walls to cover and i think that we even bought like a framing kit because you know genevieve she's very handy and we had this special like beveled ruler thing that had a blade on it by the way did you see mina kimes's video yesterday she has a like battery operated box cutter oh yeah yeah yeah i have one of those of course you do oh she's wearing a sub pot course yeah she's just like the coolest person in the world making a 30-second TikTok of her just

like cutting up boxes with her auto i sent it to genevieve i said hey when we pay off this basement reno like we got to get one of these five dollars i did things are tight around here i uh she did not respond to that she did not respond but i never thought anybody could be so cool tell her it's half a fubo yeah it's half a fubo but um hey so i can i tell you about a little online shopping story because you know that and i won't repeat the whole thing that i repeat every time but i've been i'm not a big shopper like you i don't have the patience for it um but i like things i would say you don't have the determination or the determination the get up and go or the heroism that's right and uh but anyway so i was telling you i think earlier this week about how i was kind of struggling to fill some holes in my life of things that i just instantly gone to amazon for and all i had to do was hit rebuy this thing like the the socks that i like the some of the clothes that i like or whatever well the other night a couple of weeks ago i sat down at the i was like in the middle of a dart game i was in the middle of a beer which i think is more important to this story and i was just like i just need some things just take care of this right now i was probably like playing darts and folding clothes something i can do at the same time and probably folding some t-shirts and being like dude you need more of these t-shirts i had mentioned to you that i've been getting i've been getting these like old navy totally plain v-neck t-shirts that i mostly wear underneath other shirts but they look okay and they're just plain there's like various plain colors like dark blue or maroon or something like that and i like them and so i'm like okay i'm gonna get more of these so and i also needed various things from other other stores as well so i just like sort of half drunkenly sat down on the edge of my couch which is i think how you like to do a lot of your e-commerce as well and is sometimes let's just say

a fairly straight line between a glass of red wine while watching chris hayes yeah and uh some

purchasing doing a little consumer tainment so i'm like i just need to take care of this so i buy and none of the things are like all that exciting with various clothing things i'm just like okay buy this from here buy this from here and i and all of my stuff has shown up from that one night and maybe i sat down i made three or three maybe purchases from three different places but the the thing that i was looking forward to the most this um these these v-neck plain tees that i like from old navy are not showing up and i'm like where are my shirts but you know when you buy a bunch of things in one night you just you get hit with a flurry of emails that say like hey thanks for signing up for our new rewards program and also your order is on the way and whatever and so i just started ignoring them i'm like this is all gonna work out there was a time when online shopping for me i was so nervous about it i would put them in them out i'd print them out laminate them wall exactly now i'm like whatever this is all gonna work out it always does so i I always start just like blasting those emails away, blowing them away, as my dad would say. But then a couple of weeks pass, I'm just like, where are my dang shirts? Like everything else has been here, but I'm not getting my Old Navy delivery. And so yesterday or the day before, I sit down and I'm like, just get to the bottom of this. So I go and I'm like, where is the confirmation email? And I open up my email and I'm looking through the trash folder and I see confirmations that I signed up for the Navy, Old Navy Rewards Program. I see the first marketing email they sent me after that, and they're both from basically the same dates. And I'm like, I know I bought these shirts. I know I bought them. I go to Old Navy and I log in. It's like, nope, no previous orders. I'm like, but I have an email here. I wouldn't have signed up for your rewards program and not purchased anything. I'm not just going around signing up for rewards programs and leaving my card empty or whatever. And then I'm checking my, I'm like, all right, I'm just going to rebuy these things, but just make sure they didn't hit the credit card receipt. So I'm searching the credit card receipt. I'm now like sort of what would be the word sort of cross-examining my account. I'm like, okay, I can see that. Yeah, cross-referencing. Cross-referencing. I see that, okay, it was February 3rd or whatever day I did this. And so I'm like, okay, what else was purchased on that day? Okay, I see the thing from Hanes came through from my other T-shirts. And I'm like, okay, these other receipts came through that day. Nothing came through. I'm like, well, I guess I just never actually shopped for Old Navy. I must have gotten distracted. Maybe that beer got on top of me. Who knows? I go to Old Navy, and then I find the shirts that I want, and I start buying them again. And I'm like, I remember doing this. I remember doing this so well because I was shocked that different colored shirts of the same exact style were varying prices. Like blue must be pretty popular. that one's going for like 15 bucks whereas a maroon one's going for 10 right and so whatever i'm getting into too much detail but it was like one of those things where as i'm doing this again i'm like i remember debating with myself do i want like a robin's egg blue shirt as well do i

want to mess with that looks good on the model but he's got darker skin than me like i remember having all of these thoughts I'll see you next time. And now I'm doing it again, and I'm just feeling crazy. You know, I'm like, I'm confident that I'm not being overcharged or double charged. I clearly never did this, but I did this. And then I go to checkout. I can't remember. Maybe I picked out four of these shirts or something. And then I go to checkout, and I'm like, oh, wow, that price is more than I thought it was going to be. But that's kind of the way things usually work. It's just a little bit more than I thought. And then I'm right about to hit go, and it's like, okay, are you ready to check out with your eight items? I'm like, eight items? No, sir. No, sir. And you might have seen this coming from afar. Would you like the warranty on these? No. What it was was I had done everything but hit go on the last one. You probably saw that coming a mile away as I'm telling this story. That was my first experience of filling a cart and then wandering away, apparently, and not hitting go. But they remembered.

For us power shoppers, Andrew, this is a common occurrence.

So I just kept adding to my cart the other day, and then I'm like, wait, oh, there they are. And honestly, sorry for such a boring story for people who do this very common thing all the time called shopping for their lives, but it just was such a relief to know that I was not absolutely losing my marbles.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man, razzle-dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody razzle-dazzle.

Speaking of purchasing power, we've got some donors to thank. These folks are sending a donation into TBTL of a dazzling amount of dough. That's why we call them dazzling donors. And we really appreciate it. That's how this thing works. This is 100% listener-supported podcasting. And it's thanks today to Suzanne Olson over there in Renton, Washington. Suzanne says, if you say Susan, we are through. Dunsville. Over. Strong feelings on this. We're just saying that by me. I would never do you like that, Suzanne, because my mom is named Susan. Suzanne versus Susan is one I'm very keyed in on. Yes. Suzanne says, what an honor to have a dazzling message. I'm a PNW native, and I've listened since the radio days. Wow, Suzanne. I've also listened since the radio days, and I can tell you that's a long time. I would like to connect with tens who mountain bike. Well, don't connect with that one listener the other day who's stealing all the bikes in his neighborhood and getting rid of them.

Oh, right.

I've been a distance runner for years and recently added mountain biking so I can keep moving between runs. And I am hooked. And I have a full quiver of bikes. There are rad races all over our area. Cross country, enduro, downhill. I love racing, and I am training for Dirty Bloom 50-Miler in May. I'm part of Crank Sisters. We organize social rides for all levels of rider that identify as female, all ages. I'm 58, for God's sake, and all skills. Search Crank Sisters to find EMBA, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, to find rides. I lead rides at Black Diamond Open Space a few times a year. EMBA welcomes everyone. You can find me and my cool abstract art on Instagram at S-J-O, that's S as in Sam, S-J-O Runner. Okay, if you want to find Suzanne's art, it's S-J-O Runner, that's on Instagram. And any 10s who ride, let's say hey out there. We're so lucky in the Pacific Northwest to have gazillions of miles of trails from super chill to full-on gnarly. Send it! Send it. Very cool Is that something you think you've said in the last couple of years Have you ever full sent it

I've never This is the first I'm being exposed to this

Are you familiar with full send culture No I'm not Full send is like It's kind of what Suzanne was saying But yeah it's like if you know You're about to like I don't know do a backflip off of a bridge Into the water Or do something that's kind of scary and sketchy But you're trying to psych yourself up You just go full send man

That's what you say before you do it?

Yeah, or you might say, all right, man, this is a full send, bro. I'm going to send it fully on this.

That is weird that I haven't heard of it because I put myself in those positions a lot.

That's the thing. They must use different terms in Seattle.

Yeah, in Seattle it's just a little different, yeah.

By the way, I'm looking at Suzanne's art, and it's really cool. Like, Suzanne, you painted this? That's a full send right there.

Oh, now I'm looking at it, too. Look at these frames, Luke. You know that this framing—

Would you be willing to undercut the Michaels of Longview, Washington?

What a day for me. I'll bet you Suzanne does this framing, too. Wow, these are really, really great. Wow. Thank you, Suzanne. We really do appreciate you. Thanks for the support. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark.

Get set. Get set. Look who it is.

It is our pal, John Takamoto of Kirkland, Washington, just up the 405. I should say 405. Look at me. I'm showing my brief time in California. Just up 405 from where Suzanne is.

I had something to say here. Oh, yeah, John, the real goat is what I was going to say, right?

Oh, actually, you know what? That's foreshadowing. I don't know if we're going to get to it, but the reviews are in for that movie Goat that Stephen Curry is the producer of and an actor in.

You had a billboard for it outside of your room in New York City, I think, right? I think I was in Burbank, California. Okay, okay. Or close there. But either way, that's how it entered our conversation.

Yes, because I thought it was weird that they put, like, produced by Steph Curry on there as an enticement because I just thought, like, Steph Curry, phenomenal basketball player. I don't know what his movie production is, what those abilities are, but we've got more. You're right, though. John Takamoto is the OG goat.

Because he came to an event dressed as a goat man. He came to multiple events dressed as a goat man.

I don't think that he even had to change into that outfit. Yeah. I think he was wearing it, and then he realized, oh, there's an event at Chateau Saint-Michel. I should get on down to Chateau Saint-Michel for this TBTL hangout. and he just was in his normal Friday goat outfit. You wear the goat long enough to become the goat. Sometimes you wear the goat. Sometimes the goat whores you. Do you remember the origin of that whole crazy thing, though?

I think I do. Let me try, and then you tell me where I'm getting it wrong. This was a story.

I couldn't remember the Houston Astros yesterday, Andrew, so let's not rely on me too heavily for this stuff.

You knew Houston had a baseball team.

I kept thinking, Andrew, I was on the drive home from the airport last night. I was replaying that moment in my mind. Oh, my God, I didn't even remember. And it was like, I kept just thinking Houston Oilers. I couldn't get past the old football name. It was just like, and it was like the word Oilers was in front of a smaller word, Astros. I blame it on the size of the word. But it was like, I just couldn't push through Houston Oilers to get to Houston Astros. It was very upsetting, honestly.

I love that both of those teams, and unironically, I truly love this about both of those teams, although the Oilers rest in peace. And I know that we don't want to maybe celebrate the oil industry. Having said that, I love industry-related teams. And the Astros really do it right.

And the uniforms were sick.

Both uniforms are sick. Powder blue. Yeah, baseball and football.

Look up some old Houston Oilers when they were like, I think they called the stadium the House of Pain. They had like Warren Moon. Yeah. Was it like Webster Slaughter?

No, he was in Brown. Unless he moved over there later. But yeah, but I do like, and then the Astros do it right. It's like all about this, you know, the space industry, which, you know, is it's it's pretty localized, you know what I mean? Like Texas oil in space. And then they have their isn't orbit the name of their mascot or whatever. But anyway, who I also like as a mascot, although I loved that he got booed at the all star game here in Seattle because of the rivalry between the two. I just I've never seen a mascot get booed by tens of thousands of people before. It was amazing. Here's what I think I remember. And I think that this story predates me on TBTL. I think it was you and Jen and Sean doing the show. And there was a story about a mystery man who was kind of caught on camera, scrambling around, dressed up like a goat, but spending time with goats in the mountains somewhere. And people were like, who is this mysterious goat man? And then you had an event, and listener John decided to dress as the goat man for that event.

You are very right there, Andrew. Look at me. The mystery of Utah's goat man is solved. Utah, right, yes. A mysterious man spotted earlier this month dressed in a goat suit on a Utah mountain has been identified as a Southern California hunter preparing for an archery hunt of mountain goats. The elusive man turned out to be a 57-year-old hunter from Southern California. He remains unidentified. The thing that was so crazy about it was you had this photographer who was out on a hike in Utah like and then was in presumably a pretty you know off the beaten track area and then just looks over and just sees on a different hillside a guy dressed as a goat on all fours just like out you know in this very rural area and it's like that's the part that just i would have thought that i had wandered upon some kind of a sex cult sure like yeah just be the weirdest like we're not talking about some performative improv everywhere shit where it's like you know we're talking we're not talking about santarchy or something where people are being random and funny but for like public observance we're talking about a person in the middle of nowhere doing some weird stuff purely

for their own yayas yeah and he has one key and it unlocks one p.o box precisely that's the kind

of bdsm andrew can get behind anyway That's what John dressed up as famously. John's also famous for, I don't know if he's still doing it, because I don't know how to get back on the Facebook page, but at one point always being the person on the Sten's page, the first person to let everyone know that the show was, in fact, posted on a given day. And then also just being a generally awesome person. That's our friend John Takamoto. He says, I'd like to thank the Bidness Boys, Luke, Andrew, and John, for the wonderful work they do in giving listeners top-notch topics and conversations. And that was before he knew I was going to read the summary of account activity from my Michael's situation. Yeah, he just knew. Although this may be my last time donating since being retired a few years ago, I made the difficult decision to step down as admin of the Stens page. It was loads of fun maintaining it, but it's time for new administrators to take over and take care of watching over it. Plus, I may have angered the guys sometimes. I don't know if John angered us but I do think it was funny there were times where I was not able to access the page you can't be too careful

I don't think that we can access I don't remember I can't imagine either one of us ever being angered by John

I'm being quite serious about that John we love you and you're aces by us I'm still a loyal listener since the cooking in the Cairo FM studio incident where a former afternoon host got upset over the air Which by my count was one of the funniest incidents ever One thing I'd like to see in the future Is that I hope you'll get Sean Dittori You know, I was just texting with Sean Dittori the other day We should get him back on the show He's doing well He sounds great, I hear him on the radio a lot And we're about to enter in I mean, the Seahawks kind of Although I don't listen to the Seahawks on the radio As much as I listen to the Mariners on the radio But we're entering a prime Dittori time for me Which is lots of baseball listening And hearing him in various reads on that station Fibromyalgia. Oh, I haven't heard that one. I'm hoping you'll get Sean DeTore on the podcast sometime to let us know what he's been up to. Thanks, guys. Powhatan out.

Nice.

Powhatan was a Native American person, right? Powhatan. I don't know.

I wasn't sure what that was referenced.

Oh, I guess it's a tribe. The Powhatan, I think it's Powhatan, are an Algonquin-speaking Native American confederacy of 30-plus tribes. Okay, so not just a tribe, but a confederacy of tribes in Virginia's Tidewater region. So either John is making a reference to the Powhatan tribe, confederation of tribes, or it autocorrected on him. Yes, or a cat got on the keyboard. Also very possible. Do you know how obsessed Bubbles is with specifically the keyboard of my computer? I know Bingo's obsessed with your computers, but I think in a more sort of reasonable way, which is that Bingo wants to watch birds on your computer.

He engages with the content, yeah. Sometimes he tries to reach onto the keyboard, but I always have to say, no, no, no. But then he just sits here like a little gentleman right to my right, staring at his birds.

Whereas Bubbles, she's no lady. She just, like, if you're typing on the computer, she just wants to start walking across the keys. Anyway, that might have been what happened to John. Not sure. John, thank you so much. We just have really appreciated your friendship and support in all these different ways over the years. So I'm glad you're still listening. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. As we already referenced a lot today, actually, on the topic of goats, I saw that billboard when I was in California because it was right outside of my hotel room I found it to be surprising that they were you pointed out, because I think you started researching the movie a little bit, that Steph Curry of course, Golden State Warrior, great was also an actor in this movie called Goat the sign I saw said, produced by Steph Curry and my thought on that was like you know, I absolutely would be fascinated to watch Steph Curry do something basketball related, and I am, when he's playing I don't know if movie production is really his deal. And I may have been onto something there. This is the review today in the Seattle Times. It's actually an Associated Press piece from Mark Kennedy. Goat review. Animated basketball movie is a disappointing air ball. What I was really struck by was the opening line of the piece of the review. So basically the plot of Goat, Andrew, is you've got an actual goat who, this is an animated movie obviously you've got an actual goat who's named will who's voiced by somebody from the stranger things universe an actor named caleb mclaughlin and the idea is there's this game that is played in this world of this movie um that i think is called roar ball some kind of like it's sort of basketball it's like a mad maxi kind of basketball thing except uh this guy this goat is considered too small to play roar ball and then of course has to learn you know to overcome the

odds or something and then ends up just being terrible at it and the lesson is don't try yeah

the lesson is never try yeah because stay in your lane probably yeah then you know people probably know what they're talking about when they tell you you're too small to play roar ball exactly here's from mark kennedy opening line you'd expect an animated basketball movie with four-time nba champion steph curry as the producer to be an easy layup so why is goat such a brick to which i would say mark kennedy do you do yeah why did you why do you expect why would you

because it was produced by a guy who's really good at basketball yeah you would expect a lasagna

made by four-time nba champion steph curry to be one of the best lasagnas you've ever had what excuse me no i assumed the opposite and was correct apparently you'd expect a lasagna made by

a cartoon panda to be the best you've ever had i mean i feel like this is exactly what i was

pointing out with the billboard which is like this does not seem to be steph curry's area of expertise again awesome dude great basketball player i think you know force for good in the world i'm a big fan but i don't i would never expect a movie produced by steph curry to be good like the funny thing that i i also i don't have it in front of me but i read for some reason i've been really locked in on this movie goat andrew and the discourse around it i saw some article in the uh sf gate the other day that was like will steph curry become an actor like and it was like you know because he's like he turns in a performance in goat or something that's like surprising or like and I was like oh okay I saw that headline and I was like well that's interesting so maybe he's really good at acting or something and then what the whole article ended up being was like some reporter for the San Francisco SF gate was at the premiere which very much smacked of like Steph Curry paid a lot I'm not trying to roast Steph Curry by the way again I really like the guy I think he seems like a totally sweet dude but it it very much felt like a premiere of this movie that was heavily underwritten by steph curry like a theater and an event space rented out and you know like kind of like a um like this is me and by the way it'll be really interesting to see what the box office numbers are i could see definitely one of two things i could see it not doing very well at the box office or i could see it being like a runaway hit like i have no idea which one of these movies that are aimed at young people are going to like become a phenomenon which ones aren't so and and honestly if it became a big hit i would be happy because i like steph curry and i i'm sure you know i have i'm not rooting for this movie to to fail but what the this article about like is steph curry planning on becoming a serious actor was like because somebody on that like horrible step and repeat which is like you know that kind of red carpety thing or if it's metallica black carpet where i don't i'm most of our listeners have not had the experience of being on or near one of those things but they are just absolutely brutal they are my least favorite place on the planet because they are set up in such a way to create the impression when you see the photograph later online that there was a big glitzy to-do but 90 of the people who are being brought through are not themselves famous they are but you have to like act all excited that They're going to deign to stand in front of you for 10 seconds so you can take a picture. They also hand out, I don't know if I told you this about the red carpet, they will hand out this whole briefing sheet. The PR people, the comms people will hand you this 20-page printout with photos and then a description of who the people are so that you will know whose name to yell out to try to get their attention because you don't know their name because they're not Steph Curry.

It's Chase Dreams. That's who it usually is.

Can you just say when you're jamming bagel bites?

When you're jamming out, you love to eat bagel bites? Do you think that the confusion, though, is because traditionally film producers are really good at basketball? Like, you know, like Harvey Weinstein was famously really good at basketball. Absolutely had sick handles. Spielberg, huge one. Tom Hanks, amazing at basketball. And so I wonder if they just assumed that it would translate the opposite way, too.

Most film producers are exceptional basketball players, and you're right. So I guess that does sort of stand to reason. That's probably what happened there. But basically, this whole article that I read that was like, is Steph Curry, like, is he going to become a really serious actor? It was some low-level producer on the film being asked if Steph Curry's acting was good in the film that Steph Curry paid for.

Yeah. Well, any headline that is a question is bullshit.

well that's that's a that's you're absolutely right about that because you think having been at least journalism adjacent all these years, I would have known that, but you're absolutely right. Like there was, this was, it was, it was rank speculation of the rankest form.

Yeah. It ranks all the way over here.

It was like you asked you, you, uh, that is illogical. Ensign odors cannot move through the vacuum of space. Like you asked a person who's getting their paycheck from Steph Curry. If they thought Steph Curry did good acting.

Right. Right. In a bullshit.

And they said, yes, he did good acting.

Yeah. I'm looking to see it at the Seattle Times because I love getting angry at their headlines. Their headlines say less and less, and they're all click-baity. I will say there are no question marks except for one. Okay, here's a headline that actually ends in a question mark that I think is actually pretty good. And the headline is – and I started reading this the other day. I did not finish it because I'm a busy man. Just how many people took light – oh, this is the light rail one. It says just how many people took light rail at Seahawks parade day. No, I saw one that wasn't about the light rail specifically, but the headline was the number one million. Yeah. Like where did the where did the city of Seattle come up with the number of one million people showing up for the parade? And I think it was by Mike Varel. Right. I think it was somebody on the sports team who actually. Oh, OK. I could be wrong. They need to get Gene Bulk on the. Yeah, I know. That's an FYI guy job. Absolutely seems like a bulky kind of feature. Maybe he's working on it to love some. I love me some gene ball. But they were kind of like, you know, a lot of like both governmental organizations as well as the Seahawks themselves were estimating crowd size at between like three quarters of a million and a million people coming out. But basically somebody just being like this just doesn't pass the sniff test. Like where did these numbers come from? And they're still waiting. I guess the city or maybe the county will have a more specific estimate of who showed up in a couple of days. But basically the writer was like, we don't want to wait for this official report in a few days. So we're doing some back of the napkin math on this, which I kind of really appreciated. But it does seem like for, I was going to say some reason, maybe obvious reasons, everybody was sort of exaggerating the turnout at this parade, it would appear.

I will say this, and I don't think that this in any way, like, solves the question of if it was a million people or not. But, like, after you and I spent yesterday kind of being like, well, you didn't go to it. And I was like, I probably would have not gone to it. And then I was a little bit in my head about that. Like, did we yuck some yums, maybe? But then I saw some kind of a clip online of, you know, one of, I forget which Seahawk it was. But they were just, like, sort of coming out. This wasn't in the stadium, either. It was somewhere else. Maybe it was where the parade ended. You said it was near Pike Place Market or something, maybe?

Yeah, it was a little bit north of that.

Wherever it was, I got to say, it was a lot of people. I don't think it was a million people, but it was a shitload of people. I would have been pretty psyched if I were one of the Seahawks to walk out there and see all of those people celebrating the victory. That one shot, I have to say, was pretty impressive.

You know, it's funny. I lived in my head a little bit yesterday, too, about that, about our conversation about me deciding not to go to the parade because one of our blurs days was a blurs day message to somebody who said we had such a great time at the parade or we're looking forward to the parade. I can't remember when it was set up. And I was like, oh, well, gee, I hope I didn't like damper that kid's blurs day by saying I didn't go to the parade. But here's the deal. And this is the truth of the matter.

He may have improved his birthday by not being there.

The fact that the parade happened brought me joy. Like, this is my, we've talked about this in life before, and it's a sad, it's definitely a sad admission on my part, but I want things happening in my city. I like being nearby them. I had a wonderful day in part, in large part, because the city was on a sort of sports holiday. I didn't, it's not necessarily for me to be there, just like it's not for me to be at various kinds of social events and large gatherings. But that wasn't like, oh, parades are dumb. Parades are awesome. I'm glad that the city had that day, and I'm glad that I could tangentially and sort of apart kind of enjoy it. No joke, like I got so much joy from driving around town. I told you I was running errands, and I saw a bunch of people of all different kinds of demographics wearing various degrees of Seahawks, you know, clothing or T-shirts or carrying flags. And every time I saw it, it brought me joy Later that evening, around 4.45 or something I looked out my kitchen window And I saw a small family, like maybe three people But the kid was holding a giant Seahawks flag Like they had just gotten back from the parade Like I loved all of that I loved seeing it I just didn't want to be in the heart of things

Yeah, that's fair And again, honestly You may have improved the experience Of the people who went to the parade By not being there One less person You're very grouchy Sharp elbows Unaware where you are in space. We don't have to talk, whatever, Chipotle. I thought it was an interesting, I know we need to probably move on, but I thought this was an interesting article about Chipotle raising their prices.

Uh-huh, I saw this.

Because did you see the rationale, or at least the justification for raising their prices is that they have figured out that a significant portion of their customer base earns over $100,000 a year. By the way, talk about the quiet part loud. We've figured out that people who buy our stuff might actually earn a living wage, and so we think we can soak them for more money. Chipotle is bumping prices in response to core customers who make at least $100,000. This was in The Oregonian, written by Veronica Nocera. And the amount that they're raising the prices seems kind of small to me. they're raising their plan to raise their prices by one to two percent this year to combat dragging sales i mean i guess that's a way to combat them in that you will bring in more money per purchase but don't you also think that raising like if you're not if you're not making enough money do you think raising the prices is going to be it's going to be the solution well here's my theory on

this and my god luke am i out over my skis on this so please like just give me a short leash here but i'm kind of showing my work a little bit i made a joke or maybe that's a strong word quick reference to what everybody's talking about this k-shaped economy and i kept on hearing that i had a vague idea of what it meant but i actually kind of looked it up because the story and the story also references another company sort of doing the same thing and i think i think that is the answer to this right they are speaking to their shareholders dollar tree is the other dollar tree right and they're speaking to their shareholders and they're saying listen we are adjusting to the marketplace and how they're adjusting to the marketplace is the idea that people who are earning about a hundred thousand dollars or more like i think is that a household income a hundred thousand or is that i think individual right average household income is what they were calling it over a hundred those folks are spending more they're actually compared to recent years they're actually spending more and people who are making below 75 or 50 i think are spending less and so if you chart that out it looks like kind of two lines that are like the lines of a k coming out and so to me and again i am so it's just so the wrong person to be weighing in but i think this is them telling their shareholders we see what is happening in the general marketplace and in the economy and we are responding to this particular economy by saying if the people who are over 100k are in a spending mood we are appealing to them and they even

mentioned i was in chipotle the other day appealing to them i guess except they don't

or not appealing to them you're right like actually targeting them target yeah we're assuming that

they'll roll with the price increase because what's not part of this by the way i agree with

everything you're saying i don't mean to cut you off well let me just finish one thing the one thing that i was going to say there in appealing to them is like there was one line in there about like a food that is fresh and yeah i was going to read you that yeah okay that because i do think in that way they are appealing to sort of a tech bro there's something about their protein bowls i notice they have they're calling them protein bowls now and it does sort of seem a little like you know 2026 like just tinged with maha like sort of like it's the year of protein yeah and so in a certain way they are a quote-unquote appealing as i said a moment ago i think or trying to well

kind of although what i guess i mean yeah i'm gonna read you that quote because it honestly i something inside me died when i read this sure because it's so bad it's so corporate speak but like i mean it sounds like what they're saying is we think that enough of our customers are in a household that can afford it that we can jack the prices a little bit and they're not gonna stop coming here but what they're not proposing is like we're gonna make the veggies fresher we're gonna make the like we're gonna we're gonna charge a premium price we're gonna offer a premium product that's specific. Here's what he said. We learned that 60% of our, this is the CEO, Scott Boatwright, on an earnings call. He said, we learned that 60% of our core users are over $100,000 a year in average household income. That gives us confidence that we can lean into that group in a more meaningful way, lean into our pockets, I guess. Quote, their grounded purpose aligns with our North Star as a brand around clean food, clean ingredients, high protein. He said about this younger, higher income demographic. So what I'm not hearing there is like, we're going to raise the prices, but we're going to improve the experience for these people. I think he's just saying these people are also obsessed with eating protein, and so we think we can raise it by 2%, and they're not going to notice. That's what I get from that.

And sort of lean into, I think, though, the protein bulliness of it, at least from a marketing perspective.

what's the alternative here if you are talking about and if this is based on the fact that like one income group is spending more and one income group is spending less what you might have seen in other eras depending on the economy was deep discount value meals right like and so but then that changes sort of the reputation that you have both in the marketplace and in the eyes of consumers like am i going to go to the jack-in-the-box where i can get like 400 tacos for $0.25 total. You know what I mean? It's like, well, this is how we're going to react to the marketplaces. We're just going to continue to try to get people who have stopped buying to come to us because we offered value deals, but you run the risk of seeming like a cheapo gross organization, right? Instead, they're saying, we're going after these high earners by maintaining our sort of reputation as being fast casual.

I was in Chipotle in LA the other day getting my little lunchtime thing. and you know it seemed fairly fairly well attended i guess but it was amazing how many people now we were talking about this the other day with like use are you are you going to use the mcdonald's app like it's a i was like the only person who had not pre-ordered something on the app like i was like a dinosaur in there ordering like to the person like a like a like an you know like some kind of uh i don't know artifact going yeah can i have um the lettuce can i have the salad with the this and the that and the extra i also i'll tell you what like what here's what i did not notice when i was in there i'm not saying that you're wrong about this andrew i'm saying i didn't track this but you're totally right about this being their play the whole freaking protein thing yeah like that's that's what they've got to latch on to because i think we're gonna years from now we'll look back and we'll go remember when we all lost our mind around protein like i mean i'm sure that there's some medical science behind it i'm sure you know protein is something people need etc i don't know enough about it but like like as of like a year or two as of two years ago i swear to god we were not constantly analyzing how much protein was in it in everything and now maybe we just didn't know about this and now we figured it out and now that's the only thing we should care about is protein or we might be dealing with a fad here well it's interesting because to me i

And I'm kind of surprised to hear you say that because I think of you as being part of the – well, I'll just say it like sort of – this was kind of fad-y. The fad class? Yeah, fad-y. Well, no, no. But like the protein thing and the paleo diet and the cutting out of carbs and like replacing it more with high-protein diets, that was something that a lot of people, including you, kind of got into with kind of a fresh approach let's say 15 years ago or so, right?

Yes, although for me, the protein thing was not because I was like, oh, I need to get more protein. It was because, well, if I can eat a steak, if I can eat a pile of bacon and get skinnier, I'll do it.

Yeah, but that's what weren't a lot of people doing that. They're drinking white wine instead of beer, but then like going to town on meats.

Yes, but my point is I don't think that in those days the protein was being pitched as much as the goal, in as much as the goal was to just not do carbs, which kind of left protein as the only alternative. Whereas now what I'm seeing is like every single bar, like it's a David bar. Are you getting enough protein? My daughter keeps telling me, like I'm not the only one in my family who has a faulty memory because my daughter has told me three times in the last year, hey, you know, I used to think eggs had a lot of protein, but you know, they don't have that much protein. I'm like, yes, you keep telling me that. Like there's this protein for protein's sake, or protein or perish that's a show title protein or perish um shout out to our folks in academia um i feel like the the narrative around protein now is like are you getting enough protein and that's independent of how many carbs you're eating it's not like are you eating protein instead of carbs whereas when i was doing like adkins and stuff definitely they were saying the high protein diet is the way to go but the way it always felt to me was the high protein diet is the way to go because your body processes the protein differently and what the protein isn't is carbs. Now it seems like even for people that aren't managing their carbs, they're just eating. It's like, okay, but did you get enough protein? As if we're all going to drop dead from lack of protein now when I think for most, again, I'm not, did I see the headline the other day that RFK Jr. said he used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats?

Yeah, he was talking to, what's his name? Who's the long-haired comedian podcast guy Oh, Theo Vaughn? Yeah, he was on Theo Vaughn's podcast.

Talk about a conversation. That must have been incredible. I'm no RFK Jr. here, but like, so in other words, I don't know the, much like, actually I am. I am an RFK Jr. in that I am wildly underqualified to be weighing in on how much protein, to hold any position on this stuff, right? So I don't know. Maybe we do need a crazy amount of protein. Maybe that's the only thing we should all be. thinking about but it's just it's funny to watch the way that that trends go i definitely think that the the trend of you gotta hydrate you gotta hydrate that's all that matters everything starts with hydration and again there's for most of these things i think there's like a baseline like yeah we should i think it's probably good to stay hydrated it's good to drink some water it's good you know that's a good thing but what'll happen is something like that that like yeah we should i'll try to drink a little bit more water becomes this an entire lifestyle framework of me buying a powder-coated water thing because i saw jonah hill with it yeah right and everyone talking about and then it's like water kind of moves off the it kind of moves below the fold like hydration kind of moves down and now protein gotta get that protein kind of moves up and then it's like i assume protein will kind of move away at some point and there'll be some new thing that it's like you if you're not doing this it's just like you're you know your body hates you if you're not whatever you know it's just so funny to watch these actually the ultimate person to talk about this would be becca not because she's so faddish but because her because she is an extremely fit person who exercises a lot her instagram feed is wild to me because it is a totally different world that than the stuff that i get because it's just all for the health girlies it's all for the like if you're not having sea if you're not drinking sea foam or sea moss within your whatever and stuff it's just like it's so crazy to watch these things kind of rise and fall as far as like the thing that you just if you're not doing this right now you're just absolutely crazy you're

killing yourself if you're not doing this you know shove a bunch of pork into one of those

oversized water bottles carry that around give it time if you're not um i'm sorry for the girlies who already bought one of these pork blenders because they're now on sale on the tiktok shop If you're not blending your pork in the morning before you go out, don't worry about that. If you're not drinking a pork slurry for your pre-workout, I'm sorry, but you're not getting your gains.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

All right, some Friday emails or V-mails.

Yeah, I'm going to play a voicemail for you or a voice memo for you because we're very modern here in just a moment. But first, I want to mention this. We got a whole host of messages via social media, email, voicemail, et cetera, text message from people who wanted to clear the reputation of a company called Iron Mountain. You knew Iron Mountain and referred to it briefly as a document destroying company, a company that would like, you know, securely destroy any sensitive information that you have. And you're like, what a funny name, Iron Mountain. That doesn't sound like a company that destroys things. And a lot of people want to let you know that actually their main thing is protecting and security, I think. And they also, as part of that service, destroy sensitive data. This is from Catherine I'll read here. I know it was just a throwaway line in a longer conversation about hotels, but my archivist brain wouldn't let me go on without letting you know that Iron Mountain is actually primarily a document preservation company, hence the name. And the digitization and destruction services were added as companies in the late 20th century began to have so much paper that indefinitely storing it became untenable, even with multiple large secure locations Iron Mountain has around the country. So I don't work for them, but I am their client. And I once had to explain to a building manager that they were not delivering water to my office. Let's see here. I don't know why having a private water company deliver us would have been a problem, but that's a mystery for someone else to solve. So I don't quite get that.

Can I just chime in on that a little bit? So thank you for the clarification, everyone. And that does make the name Iron Mountain make a lot more sense. But can I just read you a quick graph? I'm on the Iron Mountain Wikipedia page now. This is crazy. Does anybody reference this part of the story that you know of? What part? Well, I don't know, the early days of this company, because I don't want to steal any thunder.

No, that's all I have there. I mean, I got a whole bunch of stuff.

Okay, because I know listener Matt. I think listener Matt, like, works there. Oh, okay.

I got a couple of voice memos here from him. I think we got one.

I think I saw Listener Matt. I didn't listen to it because I was getting on a plane, but I saw like a still shot or something of Listener Matt in an Iron Mountain hat. Like, I don't know if he was literally in an Iron Mountain truck at the time or what.

Here, let me play the shorter one, but you go ahead.

Well, the founding in the early years of this company is wild. The company was started by Herman Knaust, who had made his fortune growing and marketing mushrooms. He purchased a depleted iron ore mine and 100 acres of land in Kingston, New York for $9,000 in 1936, needing more space to grow his product. So he buys this area to grow mushrooms. By 1950, the mushroom market had shifted and Knauss was looking for alternative uses for his mine, which he had named. Iron Mountain. Knaust saw a business opportunity amidst widespread Cold War fears in protecting corporate information from nuclear attack and other disasters. The company was originally founded in 1951 as Iron Mountain Atomic Storage Corporation. It opened its first underground vaults in 1951. So basically, it sounds like he had this mine that he didn't know what to do with, So he said, well, we could store sensitive stuff in here so it's safe from a nuclear attack.

But it was weirdly named Iron Mountain before it was any kind of safety or security-related business at all. He named it Iron Mountain when it was still a mushroom concern?

I'll just reread this. I think so. By 1950, the mushroom market had shifted, and Knaust was looking for alternative uses for his mine, which he had named Iron Mountain. So that sounds like he named it Iron Mountain when he was doing mushroom stuff with it.

It makes even less sense. Why would you name a mushroom mountain? It was a mushroom-shaped economy, I guess.

Yeah, that's right. We're dealing with the—it's mostly Koopa Troopers. Okay, so I have— That's the problem.

Matt sent in two voice memos, a long one and a short one. I'm going to play the short one. I have not listened to this yet.

This is Matt from Tacoma again. I also forgot to mention that it was named Iron Mountain after the founder had bought an old iron ore mine in New York, I believe, and grew mushrooms in it initially. And when that didn't pan out, he offered it to store documents in the event of a possible nuclear attack. So I guess I kind of buried the lead on that one. I see.

So it was because it was an iron ore mine originally is why I called it. It didn't have to do with the Koopa Troopers.

No, but now can we play Matt's first? So first of all, clearly we don't preview these things. And I'm glad we didn't because I got to seem like the smart one delivering the news about the mushroom farm. But what I'm wondering is can we listen to Matt's first message? I'm wondering if Matt works there because, again, I think he's wearing an Iron Mountain hat in the first video. And, again, we have not previewed this, so we can't co-sign whatever it is Matt's about to say.

Keep it clean, Matt. Hey, folks. This is Matt from Tacoma. Hey, regarding Iron Mountain, the company that you briefly referenced regarding that hotel changing hands. um so in 2009 i was laid off from the company i worked for for 12 years for two and a half months and so i had to find another gig and i got a gig with iron mountain after being late for the interview and arguing with one of the interviewers they still hired me um in all my years of being a blue collar dude it's the most rigorous training i've had they really instilled in us uh their methodology and their deal is they are iron mountain records management i am rm and they basically store and retrieve documents for attorneys and major corporations and hospitals and everything and their deal is security if you leave the truck for any reason the doors lock the windows are up even in summertime if you leave the back of the truck you're anywhere not near it you have to lock it at all times they really hammered that home you had your special ID after a rigorous background check that every company they dealt with except for two used it was pretty impressive training at the end of training they give me this box of uniforms and everything and hats and shorts and jackets and all kinds of good stuff i worked for them for four days and my old company called me back said hey we're ready to take you back after they treated me like a red-headed stepchild so i had to quit iron mountain after five days uh and i returned all my stuff except for i accidentally kept a thin slit beanie and i found out i later but i wasn't too unhappy about it because it's pretty cozy uh so power out and that is the hat that he's wearing

him the photo after you work at iron mountain when you leave you have to shred all of the clothes they gave you you have to burn them you have to shred the hat you have to shred okay um that's also really fascinating to me like the security around it you know for obvious reason i wonder what the iron mountain rules would be about storing documents in like a bathroom you know or multiple bathrooms you mean in florida possibly in a very a humid a notoriously humid place like Florida. What about a bathroom in Florida?

Like a swampy, swampy bathroom. Yeah, would that be considered

proper document retention?

Can I ask you a question that seems completely unrelated? That's fine. How gilded is this bathroom? On a scale of one to a hundred. On a scale of one to Caligula threw up in there? Yes. A hundred? Answer me that. Answer me that. Alright, hey, listen, I just want to play one quick voice memo from you. Yeah, please. Hey, Matt, thanks for the call, buddy. Yeah, that was good. We're going to go from Matt to Maddie. I got this yesterday. It It was from, okay, can I do this? Now, I'm saying Maddie here. The email came in from a Madeline, but I think that she goes by Maddie, right? And from Tooelea? Am I saying it? Is it Tooelea, Utah? I believe Tooelea. Part of our Utah crew. Yes, yes.

The Palmers of Utah. None of whom, by the way, can account for where they were when that goat.

man was spotted in the hills of utah and i think that's something that we need to look into a

little bit i will do some research but anyway uh maddie left us this voicemail after hearing about

how i bowed out of going to the parade the other day yeah andrew um i just wanted to say that i totally understand with the whole uh seahawks parade thing because when i was setting a bar in marcelona last summer um they had this like big parade after winning like some big soccer game i'm not really certain what it says i don't really follow soccer um and some of the people in my class went uh and it was definitely like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because i don't know like if i'll ever go back to barcelona it was my only time studying abroad and like who knows if they'll win this thing next time in barcelona um and instead i took a nap because i was just kind of tired so at least i did something semi-productive um instead of the seahawks parade But, yeah, power out.

My favorite part about that was I took a nap because I was kind of tired. It's not even like, well, because I had anything. That's college life for you, by the way. Because I had, you know, I was jet lagged or whatever. It's just like, you know what, the parade sounds nice, but also I'm kind of tired. I might just take a nap. I am with you. I would have made the same exact choice, as you well know.

See, that's what's so great about this show is that the Maddies of the world and the Andrews of the world can bond over, you know, your your decisions that you make like like you know she she totally got exactly why uh why you

didn't feel like going thank you for validating me as a young person and if you want to if anybody

out there wants to validate me for being a young fun cool person who's definitely not napping this afternoon has definitely not already considered the exact plan for the nap how many times have

you thought about that nap since we've been talking honestly i started thinking about food

at some point because something got brought up that made me think i gotta door dash that what were we talking about earlier with there was a food related lasagna maybe lasagna i might

i love fridays and lasagna andrew i truly do love chipotle i think that maybe that maybe sealed the deal for me i'm gonna go get some chipotle i'm i'm struggling are you willing to pay one to two percent i am i'm worried about um the tbtel newsletter today i wrote i started it yesterday and I wrote a couple of opening sentences that are some of my favorite opening sentences for a newsletter but I literally have no idea where to take it from there I just wrote them without any grand plan and now I'm just wondering You were madmanning I was madmanning but now I don't want to bring in the editor and also though I just don't have anything else I just have a greeting

Well that could be What about this? What about this week? It's just madmanning It's just the before Just throw everything at it Just throw everything Basically just madman the whole thing and then don't go back and develop it into anything. Just send out a madman message.

Well, I need to make sure that the message today does not include any, like, links. Last week I tried to put all these links in, but I'm going to keep it linkless except for your Hey Dummies video, and we're going to see if we can get that past the internet censors this week. It was too hot for newsletter.

If you want to see me realize in real time that I've been drinking full sugar root beer, this is the video for you. All right. Hey, that's going to bring us to the end of our broadcast week. Thank you, everyone, for listening along with us and spending all this time in TBTL land. We're going to be right back here on Monday with more Imaginary Radio for you. So come on by for that. In the meantime, have a great weekend, everybody. Stay safe. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.