Muse

I need your creative input. I have spent the better part of the last three years developing a portable miniature microwave oven. Unfortunately, Legal just informed me that the name we settled on for our bite-sized microwave, the bite-nooker, is highly offensive to those who speak either French or Dutch. A Franco-Dutchman would pronounce it bet-nooker.

Hey, that's awful.

I'm sorry, Miss LaRoche Vanderhoot. Legal rejected all of our ideas. Every one of the names we came up with was offensive in some language, including English, Frank. They knew what a hot Richard was?

What I'm about to propose to you is both highly lucrative and highly dangerous. If that doesn't seem like your particular brand of vodka, help yourself to as much food as you like and have a safe journey, no hard feelings. Otherwise, come with me.

Boys can be funny. I don't know. I've never found a boy funny. Well, I think boys can be funny, okay? I just think maybe they haven't had the opportunity to be funny for as long as girls have.

Do you ever kind of look at each other and go, aren't we a couple of dapper Dans?

Well, that should take care of those two evil geniuses for a while. I hope that they've learned their lessons that computers are built by people, for people, to help people, not to control us.

This is perfect for radio. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It is our turn. My name's Luke Burbank. I am your host. And boom goes the dynamite. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are going to be looking at scorching temperatures once again.

Mm-mm-mm. I'm flying in hot for that hottie.

It was warm yesterday out here. I had the curtains drawn, which is, to me, in the daytime, that's heresy. I like to look out. I like to do some good staring. I like to look at the mighty Columbia. But I had to reflect back some of the sun's solar rays because it was super-duper warm. And I didn't want the dogs to be overhead. We've got Gigi and DJ here still. They're surrounding me on the floor here in the Madrona Hill studio trying to help out with episode 4,755 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

As you can hear in my voice, I'm still dealing with a bit of a cold. I took some medicine, some treatment for it. and I don't know if it's not working, or maybe it's working too well. I wish I hadn't done that. But we're dealing with a highly productive mucus situation here, my friend, so I'll be liberally using the cough button and trying to get through things here on this Tuesday. Thankfully, I've got this dude standing by. He's the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's already got the TBTL-a-thon on his mind. I gotta figure out how to make money on this thing. It's simply too good. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. There was something I was going to tell you about on tomorrow's show. I know we have a bunch of Andrew topics lined up for today as well.

That I accidentally texted you last night. Thank God I wasn't somehow texting. You know you're the second person in about 12 hours that I've texted the wrong person the wrong message, and thankfully all of it was benign.

That's the cold medicine right there. That's the expectorance. It's the mucinex. Yeah.

I texted you notes to myself about what I thought I was trying to remind myself of what we were going to ask you about on today's show but then I texted you

but you texted me and then I had another idea it was funny because I opened up my phone to text you about something we could talk about on the show and I saw the notes you accidentally sent me but all that is to say at the risk of being a microphone hog it occurred to me that the story I was hoping to tell you tomorrow on the show may not be told on tomorrow's show because I may not be on tomorrow's show because I may be broken down along the side of the road. This feels like something you should know about, both as a friend and a colleague who relies on me being here every day. As a fellow owner of Too Beautiful to Biz. We're going to figure this out. We're going to figure this out. I told you off air yesterday that we had car trouble over the weekend.

What exactly happened to your Volkswagen Golf? Volkswagen Golf.

Volkswagen Golf. Volkswagen Golf. So I don't think this is related. I think it's just a coincidence. But on Friday, we happened to have taken it in for an overdue oil change. And there were some other, like, little lights and stuff we wanted to either have them fix or ask about or whatever. So I assume that they kind of gave it a once-over. I wasn't there. Genevieve ran that errand. And that was on Friday. And then on Saturday, we were driving around, had to drop off a friend somewhere. And then on the way back, I'm driving south on Aurora. I don't know why that's important. but I'm just putting you there. I'm driving south on Aurora, probably just, you know. You're saving my voice because you know I'm playing hurt today. Actually, that's a good point. I mean, I have so much to tell you from the past few days. Just how much do the listeners care?

Do people care about this? No.

If you want to talk, I've got two ears, and they're tuned to the listening station.

So luckily, I am not far from home at all. Like, I don't know, a few long Aurora blocks or whatever. And is that a Springsteen song? A few long Aurora blocks. And the car, I notice two things at almost the exact same time. Some sort of dash light comes on, dashboard light that says, like, EPC or ECP or something like that. And I don't know what that means.

Because that means insane clown posse.

It said ICP, yeah.

That means you have to drive your car to the gathering and cave in Rock, Illinois to have it looked at.

It said I was low on Fanta, apparently. Faygo. Faygo. I knew I was going to do that wrong. I was like, it's not Fanta. Is it Shasta? No, it's Faygo. Anyway. Michigan specific. It is. Faygo is pretty good. I do think they sell Faygo at the SARS, by the way.

People have been mailing you Faygo.

That's right. Yeah, yeah. Detroit represent. But anyway, so the car, I see this light. I have no idea what it means. It's just three little letters, but it is red. It's not a yellow light. It's a red light on my dash. So I'm like, well, that's not good. And then immediately I noticed the car is sort of kind of choking out. I don't know cars very well, and it's really hard to describe this. But first of all, it's a manual transmission, if that helps. So as I'm slowing down or starting to accelerate at a light or something, like the car seems to need a lot of gas and you know i can kind of do it because i can kind of ride the clutch being a manual so i can really ramp up the gas in order to kind of get it going because otherwise it's going to kind of cook it feels like it wants to choke out on me when it's starting to go injection issue yeah and then i looked up these three important letters later insane clown posse icp and i made a life change and i'm hitting the road to join the posse now Now, apparently the lights indicate a whole bunch of different things, but it's like some sort of a warning light that it means, I don't know what it means, but it basically could be a whole bunch of different things from your transmission to your throttle. And I'm thinking this has something to do with like throttle or gas injection, like you're saying, to a whole bunch of different things. But it's sort of a catch-all that has to do, I believe, with, I don't know, not a sensor, but basically the electronics. That's what I'm looking for. it's like some sort of electronic sensor is going off and when i called i finally got them on the phone the vw dealership on the phone uh yesterday the service department and the woman i was talking to is not a mechanic she works in the service department she's like oh yeah i've heard of that she and she said like something like oh that when that goes on that means the car is protecting itself from something i'm like okay so this is an antibody like i don't know what's going on my car has too many antibodies and I said the important thing so our shop is in Ballard and I live in Northgate and that's about three and a half miles away a little under three and a half miles and so I said well can I drive it there and she said we don't recommend doing that, we don't think that that's a good idea. I said so do you tow me, do I have to set up my own tow service? She said yeah you have to set up your own tow service, I'll send you some recommendations

Is it under warranty of some kind still?

I don't think so, I don't have AAA anymore anymore because I mean I think we got rid of AAA when we got this car because it's the first like new car that we ever bought but it is a 2017 you know so it's getting a little long in the tooth as you might say but you know it's in good shape we hardly drive it it has under 40,000 miles on it so I mean we drive it regularly it doesn't sit there but we don't take it you know we don't drive it far we don't neither one of us have a long commute into a workplace or anything like that so all of that is to say um she said i don't recommend driving it she's like i mean if you live close by maybe you can try but we don't recommend it and i didn't tell her how far away i'm and i'm like i don't know like close by is relative like i'm not in tacoma you know i don't have to take any highways to get there it's just cross town traffic is jimmy hendrix james hendrix exactly so i am here's my plan for tomorrow and this fits in so well with this book i'm reading about this cross-country car race back in 1909. I've always seen you as the Henry Ford of that race. Well, I'm more of a shawmat man myself, and here's the plan. We are borrowing our friend's car coincidentally starting the day our car broke down, or the day after our car broke down we were scheduled to start cat sitting our friend's cat, and I had to write to them and say, hey listen we will, you know, honor our obligation Honor is the word I was looking for. We will honor this. It's one thing Andrew Walsh is known for. Omerta? That's just another word for honor. Oh, really?

It's like a code. It's like living by a code. I think it's a mafia thing.

Oh, really? Anyway, of course we will do this, but transportation is going to be difficult getting to your house and back.

twice a day during this period. Maybe until we get our car fixed, is there another solution? Maybe you have a closer neighbor or just let us know if we can brainstorm some things until we get our car fixed. And I got a call back from my friend right away. He said, well, the solution is to take one of our cars. We're out of town for this period. That's why you're watching the cat. We have two cars. One will be at the airport, but the other one is just going to be in the wind anyway. So why don't you just use that? So that ends up being a huge, huge lifesaver during the past couple of days so i've just been using camaro kev's car to get around i love that you're driving

this what i'm i'm not exaggerating i believe the saab is 30 to 40 years old it's a beautiful car by the way well made yeah he takes incredible care of it but like well maintained he that was the car that stopped making him camaro kev he was camaro kev because he drove a camaro for many years of our knowing of him like well into his 20s and approaching his 30s and when the camaro finally bit the dust, he then switched to that Saab. That is the second car the man has owned in his adult life. It's wild. And that's when you

started calling him Saabie Bobby, all right? Uh-huh. Never caught on. Camaro Kev just has a certain ring to it. Well, so does Saabie Bobby. Anyway, so luckily I do... Oh, man. If you have any suggestions for frogcat names, send them to John Sklaroff as J-O-N at tbtl.net. I've been getting some pretty good ones. sent to the text chain, but I'm not keeping track of them. Make sure to send them to John. But anyway, so the plan for tomorrow is, first of all, I've got to wake up super early, go over there, feed their cat or whatever, and then we have an appointment in the morning, pre-TBTL, basically any time after they open, which I think is 7.30 or 8 a.m. I am going to get in the old gulf with the EPC Insane Clown Posse warning on it, and I am going to try to drive chugga-chugga-chugga that thing across town all the way to Ballard. Genevieve is going to follow me in a 40-year-old Saab that doesn't have power steering anymore.

Let me see if Camaro Kev has text in Canada. I'm going to ask him how old the Saab is.

Oh, we've been texting. Yeah, find out what year that is. And so if anything happens to my blue car and it breaks down, then I will have to get into roadside assistance and get a tow truck and everything. and Genevieve will be there with the Saab and one of us will have to manage the tow truck situation and get it in, assuming I can't make it into Ballard. What do you think, Luke? Can I make it into Ballard? Yes, and I love that you're rolling the dice on this. Really? Because it affects you. I thought you'd be like, well, how about you just tow it because I want to make sure the TBTL starts on time tomorrow.

No, I think it's for the plot. I think it's more entertaining. And you know me, I'm a gambler, so I like you gambling. What you're basically doing is you're gambling $200 because that's the cost of the tow. You are gambling that you can limp the car there as opposed to paying the $200 for the tow.

Yeah, and if it does break down and we get it towed, chances are the roadside service type of towing is probably more expensive and more of a pay-to-key-ass than having. Very likely, so that's the gamble there.

Big risk, big reward. But the thing that I don't exactly see is the necessity for the follow car, because if you—basically, if your car breaks down on the side of the road, you're going to call a tow truck. They're going to tow the car to where you tell them to, and then you could either call an Uber or get on a bus, and you're on a pretty straight shot to Ballard. I guess it's kind of moral support or the person, Vives will give you a ride back home when the tow truck has taken the car from you. I'm not trying to get Vives off the hook here, but I guess I feel like that's the one part of the plan that doesn't strike me as highly necessary.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess you're right. If I lived alone, that's just what I would do. But it seemed to sort of make sense because decisions will have to be made. And, you know, if I am getting a towed on the side of the road. Are we putting the car down? The car went to live on a farm, Genevieve. Keeping the gulf comfortable at this point. No, yeah, I mean, I guess that's a good point, but I do think maybe it would be good to have somebody there. Also, that's what a relationship is. Yeah, it just sort of seems like the right thing to do. Yeah, and also, like, if it happens this way, then, you know, let's just say that I break down. Well, then the tow truck can take the car. Instead of me driving or riding in the tow truck, Genevieve, I can get in the car with Genevieve. and we can kind of head to the Volkswagen place together and kind of explain what happened or whatever. Yeah, it just sort of seems to make sense to double-team this, but we also do have the complication of, like, I don't want to leave Lucy, the dog, at home alone too long if this does become some sort of an adventure. So we are prepared for, you know, if Genevieve needs to peel off and head home, that's fine, too. But I do sort of feel like, well, you know what? You're right. I don't know. I guess the logic is we do things together. We're just going to try to figure this out. That's actually.

It's actually really, I think that's really sweet. I don't mean that in any kind of patronizing way. And I think it, not to turn this into a much more sort of large scale thing, but I think it kind of speaks to a really good way to be in the world as a couple, which is like, hey, yeah, we're on the same team and that's just kind of what we do. And I think because of the various machinations of my life and my relationships and my divorces and periods of being with people and periods of being single, I'm a loner, I'm a rebel, Dottie. i just spend so much of my life out in the world just just getting from point a to point b and like like not because she wouldn't but like rebecca has literally never picked me up from the airport one time in my life and i've landed at pdx over a thousand times probably in the last maybe not really but and that's not because she is wouldn't wouldn't do it it's because i just none of that stuff occurs to me because i'm like i don't know i'm just gonna go do that whatever like i i think my instinct would be to just to just go solo but you're right i think there's something that's really nice about being like well this is our car we're in this together and uh yeah we're just going to go through this together um so i think that's the move i do think you're going to get

the car there okay though that's i hope so i hope so i mean nobody really knows what's going on with it and again i don't know cars that well it's weird that i feel i i wonder if it was a manual trans or if it was an automatic transmission if i would still feel this way there's something about a manual transmission that feels like you can you can sort of cheat it more it's diy a little bit it just seems a little bit more like well i can just cheat it a little bit more like i can't

you know you get to decide when it changes gears versus yeah and like automatic transmission no i

just really gas it up as they say and just kind of like you know like kind of push through some some shutters and get it there i'm not so let's talk about the important stuff so you're gonna

take what is that what's the arco is on what is that 125th yeah wait the the arco arco's the arco The AM, PM, the tomb gets on Aurora.

Yeah, yeah, that's 105th. I'm sorry, 105th and Aurora. Is that what you're talking about?

That's 105th?

Yeah, the one right near me.

The one that's kind of near you. Oh, it's only 105th.

Yeah, I live around there.

Okay, so you've got to take 105th, right? Because I'm just thinking about hills. Now I'm just trip-ticking you.

No, relatively short shot. Here's what it goes. It goes, you get on 105th, 105th to Holman Road. Holman Road goes down. Does it become 35th? So I'm always confused as to what it becomes as it heads into Ballard. But that takes you, basically, you keep shooting on.

Basically, once you hit that Dick's Drive-In, you can practically coast.

Yeah, is that Dick's Drive-In, is that Royal Heights or Loyal Heights or something like that?

I don't know if that's technically Loyal Heights. I think you have to go a little further. Crown Hill and Loyal Heights are kind of.

Crown Hill maybe is what I'm thinking of.

Royal Heights is a little more towards the water, I think. Okay, yeah. So Crown Hill through there. I love this route for you.

And this is, well, you know, this is the route where we chased the bus that had Genevieve's phone on it. You know, like, this is the 40. We're basically taking the 40.

And I know that this, to our listeners outside of Seattle, couldn't be a more boring conversation. But let me just explain. There's a point at which I think Andrew will be able to coast to the dealership. And just, you've got to get to Crown Hill. And then I think it's pretty much a slow descent all the way down. Now, I don't know where in Ballard you're going.

My whole life is a slow descent, so it works out well.

It beats a fast descent, which sometimes I feel like I'm on. Yes, absolutely. I think you're going to make it. I have faith in you. I agree with you. It's way better that it's a five-speed than if it was an automatic. It gives you a little bit more decision-making. And I personally am very – and, you know, I got these dogs here. If you're running late tomorrow, it's not the end of the world. I'll just take them on another spin around the block.

Oh, I thought you meant you would have them on the show instead of me, which is also an option maybe. How is that going, by the way?

It's going great. My heart is full. I love these dogs so much. They're so chill. So this morning, DJ just walks in at about 5 in the morning, just kind of looks at me, just like, hey, how are you doing? Not like I've got to go to the bathroom, not like you've got to get up, dude. Just kind of like, how's it going? I was like, give me another half hour. So she just chills out. I go back to sleep, and then I get up at 5.30 or whatever it is, and then I have these two tethers for them. They're like 30 feet long, and I have them kind of, you can screw them into the ground, but I actually haven't done that. I've just wrapped them around some of the support beams of the deck that comes off of the Madrona Hill studio. and so, and that means they can just kind of roam around a little bit, they can, they can pee if they need to, they can do whatever they need to do, this is our pre, this is our new, as of this morning, pre-walk ritual, so first thing in the morning, they go outside, they get on the tethers, they do whatever they need to do, I go back inside, I make some coffee, I get ready for the day, send you the show sheet, and then later we do the actual walk, and I'm inside for like a good hour working on some various things and stuff, and I just hear the tiniest little, sweetest little, And I'm like huh They never make any noise And then I wait a minute I go maybe I was hearing things I'm like huh So I go out there And DJ has gone I knew it Taking the tether Wrapped herself around I haven't sealed off, the deck is raised off of the ground, right? And there's some areas where you could go under the deck very easily because it's fairly high off the ground in certain spots. Eventually I'm going to lattice all of that off. I haven't done it yet. So DJ had just gone around, wrapped herself around a little bit and was in this like, kind of, she looked like she was in NAMM. She was like hidden in the jungle foliage. But I think she'd actually been in there a long time. I think, because I like peeked out at one point to just look at them and she was under there but I thought she was just like having a good time. I think she's been like 45 minutes under there, just completely trapped before she decided to bother me by going.

Yeah. So I didn't want to be a bother.

They're incredibly sweet, polite dogs. And I'm really liking having them. And again, I find the walks in the morning. I don't know what it is that like, I mean, I do my run as well, but it's like, there's something about going on a walk, which is just a little bit less aggressive. It's like, it's more mind clearing. The run that I do is like, I got to get through this. I got to get, you know, burn these calories and like it's kind of there's a sort of a grim determination to it but like a summertime walk with these dogs is like exploratory and i like try to let them really like sniff map their world a little bit because i know that's kind of good for their brains it's like that is very grounding for me and i don't know why it never occurs to me to take a walk by myself at seven in the morning in this neighborhood but it never would i would never do that i would just be like well i'm doing my run it's been so anyway when you're in your neighborhood and you're not

driving to a place where you like to run you stick to the treadmill or do you go on a run around your

neighborhood i don't really love running in my neighborhood because it's super hilly and i'm really bad with hills so i can't go very far before i'm going down a very very steep hill which means coming back up a very very steep hill and they're also i don't like the there are you know there are shoulders but there's not sidewalks and i just do not like running on the side of a almost like a rural highway kind of situation. I just don't trust people to not look at their phones and stuff. So like Scott and Tiff, Becca's brother and sister, if you remember years and years ago, they actually lived here when they had sold their house and they were looking to buy their next house. And they used to run all the time, but they're like real runners and they do not get easily dissuaded by things like no sidewalks, but I do. So I either do the treadmill here or I go down to the lake and do my little loop. But all that is to say-

It's weird that you have shame around that. Like, I don't run at all. It seems like hell to me, but I admire it. And you're kind of like, oh, I'm not a real runner. I only run five miles on the treadmill or whatever.

I don't really feel shame, but, you know, I will say that, like, here's the thing with, in a million years, Scott and Tiff, they would never, that would never be how they even frame it. But, like, you know, I've somehow ended up a part of this, like, family of extremely serious runners. And there's all these, and, you know, I was married, my first marriage was i was married to an extremely serious runner as well and there are some kind of like um there are some consistent things about people who are extremely serious runners one is they they rarely in my experience uh use headphones because they're like listening to their breath or they're just kind of like i don't know they're just rod dogging life with these runs so if you see someone running with like no like music or nothing in their ears and also almost no equipment It's always just like some shorts and a T-shirt, and then they'll always have like a Garmin watch. Most of these people don't use Apple watches because maybe I don't think the calibration is to their liking.

But good on Garmin, right? Yeah. I mean, the potential buggy whip of the early 2000s has successfully evolved into something where they now are the main brand for like kind of a very different, not very, but a significantly different product. Good for them. I'm not even joking.

no that's a really good point like that's a very very good point yeah most of the and again I'm sure there are lots of exceptions to this but like most of the people that I know that are like again extremely serious runners it's a very very like daily practice for them and all that stuff it's like a Garmin or something else that's like not an Apple watch for some reason because I think what happened was these people were already locked into something this is also a highly regimented group of folks you know they're already locked into something when the apple watch comes along they're like well i'm already using garmin you know so but you're right that'd be like tom tom somehow uh managing to uh stay a relevant part of the like mapping software that you use did you ever have or do you ever know no one had a little tom tom in their car no i thought i thought you're

gonna make some sort of a talking heads tom tom club reference i was interested in seeing where

that was gonna go no and the in the like earliest days like it was the the first thing i ever saw anyone's car that was more advanced than a thomas guide and it was this little dedicated kind of digital box that you would you know i think you would maybe like suction cup it to your dash or something and it was just like an extremely early rudimentary non-satellite kind of related mapping software that you would put in it had a screen it had a screen it had a screen interesting and i'm looking them up and they're still hanging in there tom tom provides directions through its dedicated mobile apps and web planner but i would say it's going good in that they still have a website the fact that you've never heard of them is not yeah and a web planner i was hanging

out with my friend katherine this weekend and katherine has worked in tech her whole life before, like, everybody kind of worked in tech or whatever. And she's always had very kind of impressive jobs that seem mysterious to me. But to know her and to meet her, it's not like she's, like, she's not all teched out or something like that, you know what I mean? That's not like it's, she's not, she doesn't always have the latest consumer electronics or anything like that. She's not wearing the new Snap glasses? No, is that, did Meta release the, or wait, no, your glasses are Meta.

Let's put a pin in that.

oh yeah snap is different anyway uh but anyway i was sharing a memory with her which actually maybe not sharing it because i don't think she remembered it but i remember it very well we were at a party one time at uh i believe genevieve's apartment these two were roommates way back uh in the day and it's how genevieve and i met was through her and my friend paul but anyway um so we were reminiscing and i said remember before cell phones i said you were the first and i think only person who like traded information with me via bluetooth when we like tapped our pdas together in the kitchen yeah well obviously we got tested first but um like there i had and still have in my closet by the way a dell pda you could not make phone calls with it dude i got a dell it's like it's super heavy it's like the size of like a maybe a phablet as you would say in the parlance of 2013 but um it's like this clunky brick of a of a device that has a color screen and everything on it but you couldn't really communicate with it it was just like a calendar and a planner and you could keep your contacts in there and i think she like sent me her contact information via bluetooth by aiming our devices at each other like on a set of star

trek i uh yeah snapchat is who makes these specs glasses i believe and they are hilarious it's s-p-e-c-s specs and the ceo of i don't know if the ceo of snapchat or the ceo of this particular spin-off or whatever you want to call it he's been showing up on all the like you know cnet and then like the kind of tech shows and stuff and like if you shoot them from one angle like if you so if you go to their website they have these very beautiful people including i believe it looks like it might be the basketball player jimmy butler they have these really nice looking people and the photograph is taken from a extremely specific angle so that they kind of look sort of fashiony and designy but if you look at them from like the side one of the things that people keep pointing at us with

the ceo i saw yes i didn't know that they were absolutely crushing his ears this is and they Did you see the one where they set it up next to the x-ray glasses ad from the back of a comic book? No. Oh, this is so funny. If I could find it, I'll make it the show pic today. But, yeah, so there's this photo of, I guess, the CEO, I didn't know that's who it was, wearing these things. But somebody found one of those advertisements from the back of, like, an Archie magazine or something from the 1960s or 70s. Oh, I wanted those so bad. has a drawing of somebody wearing x-ray glasses and like clearly using them to like ga-ga, goo-ga like look at a sexy woman. I wanted to see a naked lady. Exactly. And it's like he's, they're turned in the exact same way. I think I'm going to send this to you. It is amazing. So that's what I was seeing in that meme, huh? Were these snaps. Yeah, let me just send, this is not even

nearly the worst picture. It's just the first one I grabbed off the BBC, but the snap chief executive, Evan Spiegel, showcases the glasses at a tech convention. And I just sent you a picture of – now, just understand that this is the best-case scenario. This is the CEO of the company. He's a nice-looking guy. This is, like – this is them trying to really put the best foot forward. And, I mean, they look so redamdiculous to me, these spec glasses.

They're with super, super thick arms, right?

Because that's where all the compute is. Yeah. So what they're trying to do, they're basically, their theory is, oh, you know, those creeper glasses that I got from Marky Z, the, you know, the ones that are like a Ray-Ban, but you can film with them and you can take pictures and stuff. Those are all well and good, but they don't really do any compute. They just kind of, you know, they're kind of a, you know, light work. They're like, what people really want are glasses that are literally four times as heavy. Yeah. look absolutely, they look like novelty glasses that, you remember when everybody was wearing those big, giant, oversized novelty glasses?

Uh-huh, right.

like Josh Naylor and a big and a big giant like a big foam cowboy hat or something yeah yeah they like they look like novelty glasses to me and of course they have all this compute but I don't know anybody who is like in a coffee shop and can't just bring their laptop or something like I don't really know what the use case for these is and I my prediction is that this is going to crash and burn so bad just because you know me I'm always looking for a tech solution to whatever my life problems are so i'm actually fairly i'm convincible on the i'm persuadable as they say on a lot of this stuff but i'm just like this you're you've decided to try to make this a fully functioning ass computer in these glasses and it's just it's too much we don't we don't have the technology yet because even the ray-ban ones that i have from meta after i wear them for first of all i haven't worn them in three months you know what i do with them andrew when people come over to my house i put them on them and i

play how cool is this it is i mean the

music effect is crazy because no one else can hear the music except you but you're not wearing headphones it's just vibrating it into your brain bones or whatever but other than that i mean even that doesn't have a great use case anymore for me i mean if we if we go back to making more videos it is actually kind of functional for that but anyway these specs they just look there's just something about the ceo with a straight face trying to show up somewhere with these goofy novelty glasses on and really being like thinking that this is going to convince anyone i just i can't imagine them selling more than five pairs of these.

Did you see the side-by-side that I sent you from the old, it's in your text. It's in your text. Is that not amazing? It's an old, like, hand-drawn.

He's literally making the same face.

He's making the same face. I was almost wondering if somebody maybe zhuzhed up that old ad a little bit to make it almost exactly a one-for-one of what this guy looks like. By the way, those glasses didn't work. You can't trust anything anymore. They weren't really x-ray glasses. Did you end up getting your hands on them?

Yes, or I think a friend had them. They were just like, it's kind of hard to explain. They, you know what? You know when you watch a 3D movie, but you don't have 3D glasses?

Yes. So there's that kind of like, there's like a blurry, like kind of color.

It's kind of blurry because there's like multiple. Let's say you're looking at like this water bottle. It's in a 3D movie, but you don't have 3D glasses on. There's like a shadow of more, like it's sort of repeated.

Yeah, and the shadow will be a little bit green on one side and red on the other.

yeah it's like they basically kind of like when you put them on they look like all they did was scramble your vision yeah so you did not get any closer to seeing someone naked in fact you were

getting further from it which maybe what they should do is you put them on and it says you sinner go that's creepy don't do that now go to church and confess stop trying to see those sea

monkeys naked well that's what i was going to ask the other thing that i was buying out of the back

of those comic books this is a dumb thing to ask in 2026 where people are like ordering things on instagram or tiktok and then they're arriving in the post and they're just like completely they're like miniature versions of what they thought oh i bought a car for a thousand dollars and it turns out it's a matchbox car or whatever but what i was going to say was how were they allowed to just advertise things that didn't do what they said they were going to do now don't gonna be wrong i don't think little boys should be buying glasses to you know sneak looks at naked girls like that is obviously wrong but like why how can they sell something that does that also

come on you do you think that that's a good thing i just i mean i don't know i well first of all that's not a real thing and i think the idea that that's what was advertised though yeah but i but do you do you put the blame on the people selling it or on the uh 12 year old boys who are who are

the people selling it absolutely that's what that's what i'm saying i mean i think that like a lot of the issues that we have in the world today are because of like a generation of boys

growing up just thinking like oh it's all just in fun yeah anyway uh i guess it was just that there wasn't you know there wasn't a class action lawsuit about the sea monkeys or the glasses just kind of like i just don't think that there must well first of all like when i got the sea monkeys they didn't work i didn't even know who to turn to about it so you know what i mean like i guess you I guess you've got a lawyer who was perusing the back pages and I use that advisedly I mean looking very carefully at the back pages of the comic book I've I think Mike Peska taught me that one time that peruse I was always using it to just mean like kind of flipping through things it means to look very carefully um but uh I mean I guess if a lawyer was looking at it yeah they could have I mean certainly it would be you know you're selling you're selling something that doesn't do what you said and that's definitely illegal but I guess they just didn't care because They figured, you know, these kids will learn their lesson with those sea monkeys in those glasses.

Because the sea monkeys are the other ones, too.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was... Yeah, and they were brine shrimp. And I remember specifically, like, when I got those sea monkeys, weirdly, on our first rental... Well, it was our second rental house in Seattle.

I had a room in the basement, um, and, uh, we had that, that house was actually bigger than the one we moved to next. But, um, so my sisters, and there was only a few of us kids at that point, but anyway, all that is to say, I had a bathroom attached to my room, which is very strange. Um, you know, there was two bathrooms in the house, the one everyone used, and then a bathroom attached to my room for some reason. And I remember getting the sea monkeys and getting like a fish bowl or some kind of big bowl and putting the sea monkeys in and just being like, where's the couch? because I think they're sitting on a couch in the picture or something.

There's a whole family of them, yeah. In fact, in The Simpsons, I was going to say it's like The Simpsons, but I think I'm thinking of that because The Simpsons did one of their intros where they were sea monkeys, right? Oh, that would totally make sense.

But just, and then just like being, just like waiting for this family to develop and for it to be hours of entertainment and maybe, I don't know, I could teach them rudimentary hand signs or something. And then I, you know, they just, eventually after weeks, I could just see the tiniest little like not even booger sized thing wriggling around in there. But also there was no internet at the time. So I couldn't go like, what's happening with my sea monkey? I can go on a Reddit. It's like, why are my sea monkeys not, why are they not thriving? But yes, I guess they were dehydrated brine shrimp, which is an amazing. Actually, if you think about it, that's an amazing bit of like business sort of acumen. someone figured out that these brine shrimp don't have to be what hydrated or fed to stay alive like so like it wasn't like someone's like we got to figure out a way to mail shrimp to unsuspecting children of america it was like hey did you realize that these brine shrimp don't die like you can just throw them in an envelope for literally months like they go into some suspended animation or something and then someone's like huh how do we make money off of that makes you

wonder how many other things could come alive if you threw water on it makes me just want to go through the world just dousing things and seeing if they come alive i'm you know um i would be

careful with that i think that could get you in a little bit of trouble 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 everybody all right let's thank some dazzling

donors as we mentioned there were a few folks that we had not yet thanked for their dazzling donations and we would never ever ever want to leave anybody off the list so here we are thanking our friend and resident astronomer on the show summer ash summer is in the constellation the summer triangle oh i knew that that's how i think of pronouncing summer too absolutely you will people don't know this but oftentimes we dial up andrew you'll talk about the summer triangle for like, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour.

You're getting sick of it, aren't you?

I'm just saying I would like you to learn some new things about it because we've been, it's kind of been talked to death now.

Well, I'll tell you what, I'm reading up on the summer quadrangle and I can start telling you about that once I book this book.

Oh, okay, good, yes, let's just, and then once we get into the summer, oh, God. Quintangle? What? No, there's another, there's like a, what's the, it starts with an H. There's a funny shape that starts with an H, Andrew.

Not a hexagon, that's not very funny. Not a hexagon, that's not funny. That's not funny. Name the funniest shape. Oh, you like shapes?

Name five. There's like a... I'll look it up later. I feel like there's a shape, there's a funny name. Maybe I'm just thinking rhombus. And that's not an H. Maybe I'm just thinking rhombus.

I don't know. Which also sounds like a musical instrument.

Summer's in Mill Valley, California, and says, Ohoy, hooy, friendos. Checking in for my little corner of the universe, which is full of entropy, per usual. It's been a hard year for many reasons, but I know it's been an even more difficult for others. So I'm trying not to dwell on it on a positive note. Yes, I'm sorry that you've been having a hard time on a positive note. I'd like to share that I will be the astronomer in residence at the Grand Canyon for the entire month of September. OK, good. I mean, that's like the best canyon to be the astronomer. That's the grandest canyon that we have that I know of.

Yeah, but I mean, a lot of that is branding, too. I mean, the Grand Canyon, love it, but it's totally big on itself, right? Naming itself the Grand Canyon.

You know, considering your complicated relationship with the Grand Canyon, Andrew, I have to take that with a grain of salt. What is my complicated relationship? Didn't you self-deport on a walk once on the Grand Canyon?

Oh, I did, yeah. I was walking along the Grand Canyon one time and then said, you know what, I have reached my limit. I know a guy who's at his limit.

This is so cool, Summer. It is. So the month of September, I'm extremely excited about this opportunity. I would love any 10s visiting the park to come and say hi. And maybe also join in the Celestial Fun with me. I'll be based at the South Rim doing public programs day and night, including hands-on activities for kids, guided stargazing, and perhaps most importantly, let's see, meditations. on the wonder and awe of our cosmic home. Tens can hit me up on Slack or ask Andrew or John to put you in contact. Can you imagine how fun...

Not you, though. You will not, Luke, put anybody in contact with Summer.

Listen, Summer is a person... I'm just reading what Summer wrote, and also, Summer is a person, Andrew, who understands cosmology. The universe. Understands cause and reaction and objects in motion, and also she understands objects at rest. and she knows when it comes to me and the emails I am an object at rest so she's just simply making sure that people's messages don't fall into a canyon only slightly less grand than the one she's going to be working at called my emails how fun would that be to go to the Grand Canyon and maybe bring your family or whatever and then go down to the south rim for the kind of you know sort of stargazing and planetary aspect of it and then there it is our friend Summer the 10 is doing all that stuff that's so cool

I'm looking to see where I was in the Grand Canyon, if it would be considered the Southern Rim or the South Rim, but I can't find any of Genevieve's notes. Genevieve usually puts together like an itinerary for us when we go on a road trip. We took a road trip to the Grand Canyon, what, it was in 2021 or something? It was, yeah, it was our 20th anniversary, that's right, and it was also sort of COVID times. Things were reopening slowly, but everything was weird. So we're like, oh, we'll go on a road trip to a place that has a lot of air. That seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Oh, sure. Yeah, but I can't remember exactly where we went. And this is where my brain is really bad. I feel bad about this, that I can't remember exactly where I was in the Grand Canyon.

Summer says, this year more than ever, I'm grateful for you biz boys and TBTL. You and my cats are pretty much the only constants in my life, apart from physics. Ha! And I couldn't live without you. Never stop. Ha, Summer, we couldn't be here without you. and all your support over the years and all the info you've given us and everything else. So thank you very much. And I think I have a sense of some of the stuff that Summer's been kind of going through and Summer, I'm thinking of you. So thanks again for all the support. We love you. Maestro.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

Look who it is. It's Kavita Patel in Portland, Oregon. Hey, hey, new listener here. Now, Andrew, we have a whole running joke about new listeners. Yeah. People will, you know, people will say, you know, I'm a new listener. They've been listening for eight years or something. We got an actual, I would consider a new listener here in Kavita. I joined during colonoscopy talk in 2025, and I haven't missed an episode since. Who'd have thought?

I'm trying to think when we got our colonoscopies. Were they 2025 for both of us, or were you 2024? I know I was 2025, but I can't remember what. It might have been summertime. I can't remember exactly when I was. I think I got mine a little before you, right? You were definitely before me Although you got a better result Well, sort of You got a 5 or 10 year old 7, I got a 7 year, you got a 3 year return Kill for a 7

I'm probably coming up on my thing again

Well, it's a Seattle 7, you're a Longview 3 No, I'm a Longview 10, unfortunately

No, wait, how does that work? I'm confused Anyway I wonder It's also amazing to me that Kavita tuned in during that time And it spoke to them Yeah, right?

You know? Yeah.

Like, that's just kind of like, I could see people tuning in and being like, hmm, there's what? These two guys talking about what? Butt stuff? Is there a name for medicine that you didn't know you needed? Because that is what TBTL is to me. I've now come to cherish it as much as I do. My morning cup of coffee, my afternoon walks in the garden. Thanks for the humanity and the many, many laughs for my dazzling donor message. I'd like to return the favor to the TBTL community After spending 20 years in corporate marketing About two years ago I started practicing Kintsugi, the Japanese art Of repairing pottery Using gold joinery Andrew, I know about this

You had something done, right? Our friend Brent Henry Martin

He also does this And I broke a priceless Family heirloom of Becca's and I sent it to Brent and he katsugi'd it and honestly, it probably saved the relationship. It is an amazing process. Kavita, this is so cool. Very cool. So Kavita says, the Japanese art of repairing pottery using gold joinery. So just imagine something that goes from being kind of in one state to it's been returned to its shape but now it has this amazing inlay of all of this cool, these little lines of gold. like i just think this this particular like vase that i knocked over i think it might have even been bubbles who knocked it over but i felt like i was responsible um which only because i was um but it like i think it looks cooler now i love repairing broken objects for friends and family and if there are any tens who would like me to repair your right

them for free, visit my website, HelloKavita.com. I'm kicking, getting eyes on this. It's K-A-V-I-T-A. HelloKavita.com. That's right. Hey, you made it. Welcome. That's the first few things on Kavita's website. Love it. Let's see. I've repaired cups, bowls, spoons, plates, vases, planter pots. Taking a mess of broken pieces and putting them back together using gold to highlight the breaks, the metaphors abound. But really, it's a privilege and a joy to practice it Peace and love, signed Kavita Wow, Kavita, that is like First of all, welcome to the fam Glad to have you here I'm curious how Kavita heard about the show too

Yeah, that's a really good question

Kavita, get at us if you don't mind Yeah, well you let us know we're doing some market research We figure if we had one listener a year And we keep just doing the show For a thousand years, that'll be a thousand new listeners

Which is great, that's good for us And we'll be up to a thousand and two listeners

which is great. Precisely. Well, John listens too. He kind of has to, so that's like 1,003. Kavita, thank you very much. We really appreciate you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Alright, Andrew, what do you want to talk? Dog park or grocery store adventures? Let me talk about grocery store

adventures because it's a cleaner story that won't spiral out into a million different things. But I was at the grocery store, I believe on Sunday, and And I was picking up several things, but then I was standing there in the little beer section. Now, this is a smaller grocery store. It sprouts on Aurora. And so it's not like an aisle of beer or a whole area where there's like tons and tons of guests.

That's really a smaller one because isn't that in what used to be the Kmart? I've never been there.

I don't know what used to be there. It's in, you know, like a shopping center with a whole bunch of other buildings. For some reason, I feel like the HomeGoods is the one that used to be the Kmart. But I could be totally wrong about that. I don't know. But it's not a tiny grocery store, but I guess it doesn't even really matter. But it kind of matters for this story is if you're picturing a beer section of a grocery store, this isn't exactly typical. It's not like when you go into the Safeway and you have an entire aisle of glass doors that you open and there's like every kind of generic brand. It's like a corner of the store. Sprouts calls itself like a farmer's market. But, you know, it's like a chain of grocery stores with a good produce section and a whole bunch of other things. But, you know, it's a little bit more of a slightly more boutique experience than your QFC Kroger kind of thing. And so I'm back in this little beer area trying to decide which six pack to get or something like that. And it's literally a corner of the store. So the beer, there's a couple of shelves and they're literally some of them are on one wall. Some of them are on the other wall. And it's kind of tucked between the meat section and the produce sort of. And I'm standing there and I'm having a hard time making up my mind. I don't know why.

That's what I'm curious about, not to delay you, but I would just imagine that you have your kind of go-to, depending on the mood you're in or what you're looking to do, that you maybe got like three different kinds of beers that serve three different kinds of purposes based on what's up, but that's not the case.

Yeah, no, it is. I mean, we usually keep like Kurz light in the basement fridge just to keep it on hand or whatever, which is a fine go-to for me. But I honestly, I don't know, Luke. I think I ended up getting something called a summer IPA or something. I don't drink a lot of IPAs these days. But I don't know. Maybe I was just in the mood to shake things up. I don't know exactly what. I think I was coming home to cook, and maybe I was looking for something maybe that would be a little bit more exciting to have in a pint glass while I was cooking things up. Anyway, so I am standing there kind of trying to make up my mind. And then there's another guy, and he's a bit younger than me. I'm going to put him maybe 10, 15 years younger than me. And he he's kind of staring at the beers, too. And in this smallish little corner, there is a stack of tall boys of Rainier, you know, like six packs of Rainier tall boys. And they're kind of on a little display. And I know that he's standing there like me kind of trying to make up his mind on something. I don't know what. And then I see him take one of these six packs and put them in his little basket. And I'm thinking to myself, those are warm, like you're in the refrigerated section. And what I see is that there are some Rainiers, the same exact six packs are also right behind this display. And they're in the cooler. Again, not a cooler that has doors, but they're like sitting there and they will be cool. And I'm thinking to myself, I think this guy is having trouble making up his mind because he wants some Rainier, but he doesn't see the cold ones. He only seems the warm ones because it's literally a corner and this display is blocking from his view the cold ones. And I, I swear to God, I've never been so aware.

of my Dr. Rick progressive commercial opportunities. I'm literally thinking, I think this guy wants the cold ones, but he doesn't know they're there. And I really want to tell him, hey, just so you know, there's some cold ones right over there. I can see him from where I'm standing and he can't see him from where he's standing. He's small beers. It might even be my fault because we're both there sharing a space. You know what I mean? He might be more comfortable walking in front of me. Were I not there, he wouldn't be walking in front of me. So I am thinking to myself, there's cold ones over there. And then I'm still standing there for a second. I'm about to make up my mind. And then he shifts a little bit and it changes his perspective. And I see, I'm kind of behind him and I see him spot the cold ones. And he takes the warm six pack out of his basket and then grabs the cold six pack. And I'm like, yes. First of all, I was right. i know my grocery store behavior so well i'm feeling proud of that but also now i want to brag to him now i want to say i knew i almost was going to say i knew you wanted the cold ones but i didn't want to be like a guy in a dr rick progressive commercial and then i heard myself i'm like that's even more dr rick progressive commercial that's even worse because it doesn't even make sense if this person doesn't know what i'm talking about and so i am proud to announce today, Luke, that I said nothing. For the first time. I said nothing. He went for the warm Rainiers and I said nothing, and I'm glad I did.

First, they came for the warm Rainiers, and I said nothing. Here's the thing, though. I am now starting to wonder if those commercials have actually worked too well on you. Because I know that the whole premise, I mean, there's a whole bunch of different examples in there of, you know, people who are who are not very old doing things that we associate with like our parents generation. But one of those things about, you know, I guess offering advice when somebody doesn't need it. I actually, is there, if he, I guess here's my question. If he had not shifted his perspective and seen the cold ones and then swapped out, if he would have just walked off with the warm ones in his pack, in his basket, do you think you would have stopped him? No, no, I wouldn't have. If he's walking away,

I wouldn't have stopped him. No.

See, that to me seems like a potentially worse outcome. I understand not wanting to be a know-it-all, not wanting to get in people's business, but also there's a level of helpfulness. There's a line that, first of all, I would never see you crossing it, but do you think that, I'm wondering if this has worked too well on you. Because I think it would, again, it worked itself out, so that was the good news.

but like i'm trying to tell him he had a great ass so okay talk a little bit so okay so you did

you guys were able to kind of bond over something right you said i wouldn't i would take it to the

wrong place smile it's free that's so much better i would say uh but uh but and by the way also that's part of it like if it was a woman uh who was looking around the beer aisle i probably am not actually i don't know maybe i even then would have i'm trying to think if i was in that position And I had that thought. I think what I would have said is like, oh, in case you're looking for ones that are already cold, there are some over here. I guess that's probably how I would have phrased it. I might have I might have even said that to somebody who was a woman, although I would have thought much longer and much harder about that, because there's obviously a lot going on with that. that's kind of complicated but like i guess i'm just wondering like what is how what is exactly your policy being in the world for when you kind of actually verbally weigh in on something or

don't in in those kinds of um scenarios i have to hear somebody i i think this is the case like he didn't i didn't hear him mumbling under his breath like damn i wish they had some cold ones or something like that and if so then i would have i would have spoken up or i didn't hear him mumbling under his breath, a pure fire will come. That's what I get out of there.

Yeah, exactly.

You'll find people mumbling under their breath in the beer section of that AM PM, my bud.

Yeah, absolutely. No problem.

If you're looking for that, I know where you can find it. The AM PM also calls itself a farmer's market, by the way, for whatever that's worth. It's definitely a market. Farmer tomb gift. It's definitely a marketplace. Because I guess the thought is... But if I hear... Can I be... Earlier this weekend, maybe I was a little bit Dr. Ricky, but there were... Um, there were, boy, this takes me to another beer section. And by the way, I didn't end up buying beer here, but I am taking, I ended up visiting a grocery store that a lot of people have been telling me to visit for a while, knowing my passion for grocery stores. And it's the town and country grocery store, um, there that's kind of, up north, I guess it's, is that technically shoreline? I think it's where I would call it shoreline. It's where I got my license renewed on Christmas. sea even um it's where i found a chipotle that's more convenient uh to me it's it's this little

area that i've been going to i'm so glad to hear that still there by the way which one that's been there for dmv town and country or the town and country that's been there for since i can remember

oh really i thought it was a newer type of thing well i don't know no i mean i'm not i i believe you i'm just i assumed that because it's kind of a i had no idea what it was but it's kind of an upscale large grocery store with like a huge i mean it's like i i i was there with a friend and i wasn't buying anything but i just wanted to do a perimeter check of the place and just sort of see what its deal is get eyes and i'm in love with it i can't wait to go back i actually ran into a friend who works there he was um arranging um he had this stick in his hand and he was in the yogurt section as i was doing my perimeter check and he's giving me a look i'm like oh i didn't even recognize you we start chatting a little bit i'm like what is that stick you're holding it's got a little hook on the end of it he's like it's how i i'm organizing the yogurts and i'm like what he's like yeah my yogurt stick when people take the yogurts out of the front then all of the other yogurts stay back so i use this to sort of arrange things and so i said can i use your yogurt stick and he said yeah and i started arranging the yogurts it was like it was actually we know we know your next career absolutely i was like this is kind of awesome and also it's just a really good grocery store like when you go to the the fish section they have these huge like open topped huge aquariums full of mollusks and i think mollusk shellfish is i don't know if that's the same thing or if one's an umbrella term but like it looked like just a like huge meat section produce section a great grocery store i can't wait to go back there but as i'm doing my um sort of loop around the outside i'm also looking at their beer section and they have all these like i don't know fancy beers but all these colorful beer bottles and cans and i'm looking and i hear these um two women talking about how they're looking for something it looks like maybe a mom and an adult daughter i'm not sure but they they're having some long conversation they keep pointing to their phone like we're looking for this one it's long lagunitas this or something and i go around the corner i see that there's a whole bunch let me get my beer stick yeah i said hold on let me go get my friend's yogurt stick um and i happen to notice oh when you go around the corner there's a whole bunch more beer and And so I actually did go back to them and I said to them, hey, sorry to interrupt, but just so you know, there's a whole big section of beer around the corner, too. And they seemed happy to hear that. And they were also like, well, actually, this is a non-alcoholic thing made by a beer company. And they started showing me on the phone. And then they actually wanted more help than I was willing to give. And then I was like, listen, this is my first time here. This is my first rodeo. I just want to let you know that there is more beer over there. So if I actually hear people talking about I can't find something and I happen to have an answer to it. One time I walked a woman in the QFC from the dairy aisle to the, what did she want? She wanted hummus. I heard her asking another person, where's the hummus? And the other person didn't know. And I said, ma'am, I'm heading to the hummus area if you'd like to follow me. And she followed me. So I clearly am not too afraid of that. But I need to know that they need help. In this case, I was just assuming nobody actually wants a warm six-pack of beer. but I didn't hear him mumbling anything.

Here's what I see you doing in retirement. You know how at the, I don't know if they have these at SeaTac. They probably do, but at PDX, they have people who I think might be volunteers. They look like they might be retired age people. And it's kind of like, ask me anything. And they got little vests and they're just that kind of like an info booth. And it's like anything you need to know about Portland or the buses or just kind of, you've just landed and you just don't really know the place and they're super helpful and nice. I love them being there. I see you doing that at a grocery store, pro bono.

No, I mean, unofficially Completely unofficially I've bought my own vest I have fashioned my own vest I've made a badge I give myself little badges, little accomplishment badges And they hate me Right when you walk into SARS, can I show you? They are writing

They are writing new rules To keep me out of their stores Do you not understand the term trespass? They don't make me tap The sign

this is my box this is my box i never travel without my box oh what's in the box in the first drawer i keep my magic stones oh what's in the box licorice licorice black sweet licorice

black sweet licorice have some luke some of david cross's finest what can't he do it sounds so much

like david cross i went to the p.o box yesterday and boy did we have a lot of stuff in the p.o box so i thought maybe we could spend some time today opening some of these packages and finding out what's inside i see i got a package here from um this is from matthew and it looks like it is from franklin michigan so this is from matthew and franklin maybe this is fago it looks a little bit small

all for a Faygo and there is a note inside oh my okay here we go I'm gonna read the note and then I'm gonna tell you what I'm holding here it says business boys this is a handwritten note very nice handwriting uh it says when you were talking about hacky sacks recently on the pod you mentioned how much fun it would be to kick around during the thon I took it upon myself to crochet a few for you to use i had some extra cotton yarn and left over from another crochet project that just so happened to match the junior sluggers colors from a few years ago or the junior sluggers hat from a few years ago each hacky sack is a one-of-a-kind design carefully handcrafted and slowly improving in design with each one i made uh let's see here so it goes on to say um let's See here, it says, I told my kids about them. Now, they want hacky sacks with their names on them. Look at this, Luke. Can you hold that up to the camera?

Look at these hacky sacks. Those are amazing.

They're yellow and blue. The blue one has yellow text. Interesting. They're Michigan colors, University of Michigan. Well, it's the Junior Sluggers colors, but also the Michigan colors. And then there's a third one here. And each one says TBTL. Crocheted into them.

Those are so great. Yes.

It'll almost be a shame to hack those sacks. Oh, these sacks were meant, it would be a shame to not sack the hacks or hack the sacks. It does say, it said somewhere in here, oh, they're filled with dried lentils, so try not to soak them.

So honestly, we could eat them if we found ourselves in a pinch.

You know what? I'm going to take these on my car trip tomorrow to Ballard. Definitely. And if I find myself. Bring provisions. We'd have to chew off my own leg, first of all, to get out of a trap for some reason. And it also says, PPS, could you shoot me an email when you get this? I want to make sure you got them. When was this sent, by the way? Consider this your email. Yes, consider this your email. Oh, okay, it hasn't been too long. This was just from a couple of weeks ago. This was sent in early June. Those are awesome. These are really, truly awesome, by the way.

Can you bring those to Ohio?

Yes, I certainly can.

Sacks will be hacked in Ohio. That is my promise to all of you.

Now, I don't want to take up too much time, but I would love to get through a bunch of these. I have another one here, and this was sent. The person literally redacted their name from the official USPS label on here. Can I hold it up to the light in a certain way where I can see their name through the redaction? Oh, maybe. But I will maintain their privacy here. And this is interesting. So this is a pack. This is a Ziploc bag of French's yellow mustard. I know these packs well. These are the packs that I buy big boxes of this stuff and of these exact packets. For pop-up? For pop-up, yeah. So I'm always buying these at the restaurant supply store, but I don't know why I have it. But even more confusing, this person who redacted their name put a big sticky note on one side of this bag that says, don't share these with Luke, exclamation point. I don't know if you can see that. I can, and I don't like it. I don't like anything about it. So is this a, are we in a fight over mustard, or are you stealing my mustard or something?

I can't remember if you went to a mustard museum. I've been talking about fancy mustard sometimes on the show, because I went to that museum, and maybe I said I don't like, like if I have my choice, I'm not going to go with that yellow mustard on a lot of things. There are things that I'll have it on, but I'd probably rather go with a spicy brown mustard or whatever. Maybe you just mentioned that you eat that kind of mustard, and so they figure that that's for you and not for me. I don't remember the exact reference.

I don't know. That doesn't seem right, because I have like a million. Somebody was over at my house the other day, and they were agog at how many different kinds of mustard I have, including yellow. I mean, yellow has its place, certainly, and I like it. What is the place for yellow mustard in your mind? It really depends. I mean, honestly, sometimes, and this surprises me to say this. Because as a kid, I didn't eat mustard growing up at all. What's up?

I'm remembering what that's a reference to. Good. That's important. What is it? The person, I'll just give some context. There was a person on the flight next to me who had mustard. I think it was the flight who had mustard. Oh, mustard. And they weren't using it. And I asked if I could, if they weren't going to use it. They were like, no, no, I'm going to use it. That's what it is. And then they never used it.

Good joke redacted. Thank you. Good job redacted. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry that I, it took us a while.

I am so glad you got there, Luke. Yeah, that's a pretty good spoof. I have really been putting mustard on a lot of stuff. I put mustard on a carrot the other day, and it was delicious. There are very few things that are not, I mean, of the savory variety or of the just not sweet variety that for me are not improved by mustard. I'll just get a cracker and just dip it in some mustard and eat that.

Like, I'm just, I'm like a... I'm not there. I'm not there on mustard. Yeah, I was starting to say, like, I didn't like mustard. I sort of actively didn't like mustard growing up. But then I think fancier mustards were my gateway into the world of mustard. I don't think I would...

Well, there was that one time that you were in a, what was it, like a Rolls Royce, and your chauffeur was, you ran out of Grey Poupon. Or no, somebody else had, right? And they loaned some Grey Poupon to you?

That's what happened.

That was your gateway.

What is it? It's two fancy cars pull up next to each other, right? And then the rear windows roll down.

Maybe that's what it is. So it's like two really, like it's a fancy person borrowing some Grey Poupon from someone else's car, the way you might borrow sugar from your neighbor's house.

Exactly. Only passing it, I believe, through the rear windows of these limos. But anyway, yeah, so just to go back to the yellow mustard thing, I think that would have been pretty low on my list at one point. But honestly, there are times if I make myself a turkey sandwich on good bread and lettuce, tomato, and a little bit of exactly this French's yellow mustard, that's pretty good. I mean, there are other mustards I could play with there too, but a yellow mustard there, a plain yellow mustard actually works out well there for me.

I think with certain pretzels, I would go with a yellow mustard.

Oh, certainly, yeah, like a big, like a big pretzel.

Yeah, like a soft pretzel. Like if I'm on the streets of Philadelphia, if I'm inside a Bruce Springsteen song, you know, when I was growing up, my mom was always, the best soft pretzels in the world. You get them in Philly. I don't even know if that's true. It's probably not. It's probably like New York or something. But I was just raised knowing that Philadelphia was associated with tasty cakes, with cheesesteaks, and then with really good soft pretzels on the street.

I do. I'm not a big soft pretzel person. I like pretzels. Soft pretzels don't come into my life all that often. But I have some fond memories of down in South Lake Union. Who's the I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. Who's the big Seattle restaurateur? Tom Douglas, he had you know a bunch of restaurants of all different kind of styles and he had one in South Lake Union that I'm guessing was sort of a German beer hall style place because it was famous for its pretzels and I do, what I loved about that was you would get like three or you would get the pretzel and share it with the table but there were like three or four different dipping mustards and so you could go there together sometimes. Yeah, I feel like I was there with you and it seemed like for a while there was a good place to bring people from out of town or something I think it was kind of central. But, like, yeah, you can do a little dip in the plain yellow mustard, but also the stone ground is sitting there, too. So it's like going to Red Robin with all the sauces. I like options.

The Brave Horse is what that was called.

Yeah. Is it gone now? He's kind of closed up a lot of his place. I think it's gone.

I think he's mostly – he has a big farm somewhere in, like, eastern Washington where he and Jackie, his wife, spend a lot of time. And I think he's kind of stepped back from – not because of any, you know, issues or cancellations or anything. I think it's just the business is, you know, tough on you over the years. I think he's done pretty well in the business.

All right. I have a couple more things here. In this one, I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm pretty sure this was just from our friend Eric, who lives in Edmonds, as identified in this note. But you'll see the package itself, Luke, was not actually shipped or mailed. I believe Eric works in the post office where our P.O. box is. So he just wrote this note, typed it out, printed it.

The call is coming from inside the post office.

I just wrapped the note around the object and just slipped it in my P.O. box, which I think that is so cool, by the way. It is so illegal. He's just slipping me notes. He's just slipping me notes. That is so illegal. Eric, if you get in any trouble for this, I will cover your legal fees and whatever postage is due.

I love that we have a listener either in that post office or with access to that post office.

Yeah, keeping an eye on things for us. It says, hey, Andrew, we're still cleaning out my father-in-law's storage. Oh, I think Eric sent some baseball cards our way a while back. It says, I found another gem for you. Oh, here it is. I previously sent you and Luke old Mariners baseball cards and husky football cards that you seem to enjoy. I do love that. When I found this, you immediately jumped to mind as the only person I know who lives at the intersection of Mariners and TV commercials. so please enjoy the crack of the bat the roar of the crowd and some very terrible acting by retired mariners power out Eric and Edmonds and look at this, this is still sealed in its cellophane an FSN branded, I'm saying that just to date it for you, mariners classic commercials volume one, I'm assuming DVD

I think just some of those are pretty

good, what's it say? Here's what it says on the back um let's see here uh don't first of all it says don't forget to be in attendance on friday august 28th as the mariners host kansas city royals the first 20 000 fans will receive mariners classic tv commercials volume two so this must have been a giveaway yeah sponsored by fsn which was the network that the mariners on before they started their own Root Sports Network, which was kind of a while ago. Luke's got a spittoon over there if you heard that, by the way. It was Fox Sports Northwest. Yes. It says, during the last 15 years, Mariners, players, managers, and coaches have starred in 100 humorous television commercials. Humorous always sounds like a sort of a faint praise. Was it funny? Well, I'd say it was humorous.

Certainly humorous. Now, the thing I was going to say is, depending on what era and who was in charge of those, they might actually be pretty good. My buddy Ben Steele and my friend Jim Copasino, they were involved, and I think even a couple other people I know worked on, I think Gerlitz might have worked on some of them. You know, the Mariners commercials, in the early days of when the Mariners decided to kind of get funny and edgy with their commercials, they were genuinely good.

Yeah, they were at ESPN, like national news and everything.

It was like, because they were the first team, I don't know if other teams followed suit or not, but like there was this golden era of Mariner commercials where they were like just legit, funny, little pieces of content, pieces of entertainment. And it was like, you know, you'd wait all year for them to put out the new commercials. And then eventually it sort of started to run low on ideas. And then I think the Mariners brought it in-house. Oh, yeah. I think, so I think it's all in-house. I think it's been in-house for some number of seasons, and now they just feel like kind of a little bit of the pale shadow of what they started out as way back in the early days. So depending on who's making them.

And keep in mind, this is a retrospective. So this is like the first. It says this is the first 50 commercials or something that were made. So I'm guessing there's some good stuff.

Honestly, I bet you wouldn't necessarily, other than Ken Griffey, you might not know everybody in there, but I bet you that's kind of a fun watch.

I bet you it's got the Edgar commercial, though. It's a light bat. Exactly. I'll bet you, you know, that's a lot of fun. I got to see if I can get my DVD player to work here. But I was just cutting out Eric's note so I can attach it to the DVD. Because I don't want to, sometimes I save these things, but then if I can't find the note that came along with it, and I don't remember who sent me what. Speaking of Mariners, by the way, this is a cool, looks like kind of hand-drawn, artistic Mariners 2026 season schedule that looks like it's made by maybe a local artist. There's a sticky note on the back that says, Hi, too beautiful to live. This is a gift from your listener, Adam Oaks. Go M's. I think it's Oaks, O-C-H-S. Yeah. And then it's signed GinaWeinbrandt.com. So I'm guessing Gina Weinbrandt is an artist who has made this. I will bring this to Ohio, too, and we can share it. I don't think it's fair that I keep everything that is sent to us by the listeners, Luke. Certainly not the Mariner stuff.

I want in on that. Look at that. Look at Rico Riz makes an appearance.

Rico Riz. We got Humpy in there, the salmon that always loses the races. All right. So I will bring this to Ohio, and will you hang this up in your studio? Absolutely. Thanks, Adam. Thank you so much. And finally, one last thing here, Lou. Can you still hear me okay? Got a big box here from Amazon, and I opened it up. And what is inside, but not one, not two, not three. Oh, wow. But four packages of Goldfish Original Flavor Goldfish Snacks. I got four bags of these things, Luke. We got a bag of pretzel rods, my favorite kind of pretzel.

Some men thirst while others drown. Just because Andrew maintains the P.O. Box and drives up there and does all of the work associated with it, why does he get all the snacks?

I do feel like you should try some of these goldfish, but I don't think that I should bring them to Ohio.

You don't want to transport those across state lines, but maybe in Ohio for the fawn, we'll grab a bag of them somewhere.

We'll get into some issues. And then look at this. A box within a box. I haven't opened this. A big box of Nabisco Fig Newtons, it looks like. You can absolutely keep those. No, I'm going to ship these to you. Maybe this should have had the sticker that says, do not share with Luke.

Do you know that that touched off an entire conversation on the Hawk Squad about Fig Newtons? My sister Hannah, who listens to the show sometimes, our show, she decided to bring the conversation over to the family text chain. And then it touched off this whole Fig Newton conversation. And then I was doing my normal thing, which was being like, they're gross, don't eat them. And then David was like, everybody should be able to eat what they want. And I was like, no, people should not be able to eat what they want. Thank you, David. Represent.

I'm opening up this box. I was going to maybe do a little taste test here. Oh, my God. Look at this. I feel like Tony Soprano. I'm just opening up boxes and just being like, oh, look at all this good stuff. It fell right off the back of a truck here.

Just boxes upon boxes of Fig Newtons here. Wow. Each box contained...

Jeez, that's a lot of Newtons. That's a lot of Newtons. Is that 30 Fig Newtons?

They sent you three 10-packs of Newtons? I think so, maybe. There's a lot here. Actually, these would be really good.

I want to watch you eat all 30 Fig Newtons. This is how you get your kids not to get addicted to Fig Newtons.

Exactly right.

I want you to smoke all of those Fig Newtons, Andrew. Is there two per pack?

So it's 60 Newtons. You know what they are? They're in a different shape, I think, and I don't know if I actually— My boy says he can eat 60 Newtons. He can eat 60 Newtons. These are slightly more elongated, I think, than the ones I remember growing up with. But you know what I'm going to do? Now, these are good, and I'm going to eat part of one.

Oh. It looks, you know—I mean, you're right. These are a little bit more rectangular and a little bit— But other than that, they look exactly like I remember them.

They're soft And they've taken literally all the moisture Out of my body with one bite One down, 60 to go

Those are some of the like weird Some of the weird stuff that I end up getting On TikTok for whatever reason It's like, I'm gonna eat Seven saltine crackers with no water Somewhere it got decided that like That's the max any person can eat In a minute is seven saltine crackers without water

And you hear that, you're like It's such a small number Oh, I can do that. Seven saltines? Yeah, and it's like... In a small period of... What's the period of time? Seven hours?

I want to say it's like a minute or something. Okay, yeah. No, it's like seven in a minute, and it's like, I could eat seven saltines. It's like, no, you can't, bro.

No, you can't. No, you can't. Let me just finish this spoonful of cinnamon, and then I'll get on that. I don't know if I thank the person who sent this. It says a gift for you. Enjoy your gift from listener Maggie. I believe this is Maggie outside of Swarthmore. I'm sorry, Swarthmore.

Oh, Maggie in Swarthmore. Yeah, so...

Thanks, Maggie. Thank you for that. And you know what I'm going to do? Thank you for sending those to Andrew and not me. I really appreciate it. I can't tell at what point you're being sarcastic and what point you're not.

Oh, I'm good. I'm good with missing the Newtons. Okay. I'm going to put some of this. Would you put mustard on a Newton? No, because it's sweet. Oh, yeah. I would put mustard on a Mariner's calendar. I would put mustard.

Do you want me to pre-mustard the Mariner's calendar?

Yeah, I would put mustard on a hacky sack. In a hacky sack? The Fig Newtons are the only gift we received that I would not put mustard on.

These are a lot of Newtons. And so thank you, Maggie. But I think what I might do also is share some, because these are perfect. Like, they're in these little to-go packets. Yeah, they're a little, like, single-serve. I think I might share some of these with our friends at Pop-Up Kitchen. And they can throw these in their bags and, like, kind of have a little snack on the go. This kind of stuff is super helpful for people who are kind of on the streets and on the go all the time. So that's awesome. Thank you, Maggie. Appreciate that.

Thanks to everybody for sending stuff to the box.

Yeah, what a, God, it feels like Christmas in June here. I feel, I honestly feel a little spoiled. What a bunch of sweet, sweet stuff. But I am going to share this stuff with you, Luke, and I'm looking forward to hacky sacking with you and John. Yes, those hacky sacks are really awesome. Just next month.

All right. We should probably wrap things up. I've been holding in a sneeze for the last probably 17 minutes. It's just everything is draining into places. You know what I mean? Everything's just off in here. So anyway, hopefully we'll be better tomorrow. So that's going to be the end of today's show, but we will be right back here with more imaginary radio for you tomorrow. Please join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday, everybody. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.