#4656 Worth Than Ever

Did you do anything in the bathroom? Nothing? I would put some big one and then I was giving my food. So you put what you put on? The big one. Oh, who's was that? It was my Zabbik. Oh it was? Yeah. Did you ask anybody if you could put it on? I asked myself. So who's lipstick is that? A mine. You bought it? Yeah. Where'd you buy that? My Yippeeek. Yeah. I buy it from Homey Depot. TVTL! Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt, Rocky butt. I'm just guessing here's some kind of medication that you maybe need a lot of and have taken none of. What's up today? I consider myself to be an absolutely dead center normal average American. This is so happens I am on a first name basis with some of the most influential, some of the most powerful people in this business. So get the chuck over here on the phone. Hey, you either got it or you don't. I don't. But I am so excited to be a part of it. I could really use a win here. Well, alright, hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TVTL the show that just might be too beautiful to live. A beautifully wrapped, glossy, sweet smelling show. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Oh God! Oh God, I'm running! Oh yeah! Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia where we are looking at an absolutely spectacular February days. Oh ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. Blue skies, calm rivers out there in the mighty Columbia. I'm watching a logging project that's happening across the river for me over on the Oregon side of things. I've never actually, well, I guess I've just never lived across a river from where a large scale logging project was happening. They do this crazy thing, I think, where they've got like a zip line that is spanning between these two enormous hills so that the guys who are in the logging like machines can get to the machines because you can't really like drive up there. It's totally rugged. I'm just watching these guys go back and forth in this little like gondola thing that's like that they've got strung up on this cable and it makes me really feel like I missed my, I mean I don't know if I would be good at logging, I don't know how I feel about the environmental impact of it, but I would love to be part of this gondola project. It looks really fun. Anyway, this is going to be really fun. I'm happy that I get to be a podcaster and bring you episode 4,656 in a collector series. That's what the fun began. Which is what we're here to do today. Hey, Super Bowl is on a Sunday and the Seahawks fans and Patriots fans, they can't agree on much, but there is one thing that they apparently do agree on. What the hell is even that? We'll tell you what that is. Also I have, think I've officially decided on my plan of what apparel I will be wearing during the Super Bowl on Sunday. I feel cute today. Look at my outfit. So we'll talk about all that and we'll talk to this guy. He's the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, something else you may or may not know about him. In an age of uniformity, he's quite the opposite, an authentic subversive. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I went to the TVTL PO box yesterday. Oh, check the box. What's in the box? Oh, we got some postcards here from our friend Cassie who joined us. The show last week says greetings from a police country road. I almost said county road. It's a very nice picture of a road cutting through some fields. But I also received the world's saddest three panel cartoon comic strip from our pal Stephanie, their important, you know Stephanie August. Is Stephanie draw this or just located? Just clipped it for some reason. Okay, I'll read you then. So it came in this little note that's cute. It's like a little popsicle shaped. Yeah, I see that hard. And it says, Andrew, I must confess, I'm a bit of a hoarder. I decided to go through some old newspaper bits that had recipes and comics, that had recipes and comics. I made a delicious pork stir fry and a not so good cauliflower soup. I found these comics and felt the need to share. I will admit, I'm only sending the Sally 4th cartoon to share my confusion. This seems very depressing and not funny at all. I am not familiar with this comic strip, so I don't know if they're all unfunny. I guess not much here to say August is in a very clingy stage and is obsessed with the movie cars. I'm very sick of watching it. You know, I did not babysit a lot in my life, but I did babysit our friends kids right around the time cars had come out on DVD, Luke, and the kids were obsessed with it. That's the only kids movie that I watch as an adult many, many times for those kids. So I understand that. But let me describe this. So tell me what you know about Sally 4th. Well Andrew, a couple of things. It did not occur to me until you just were reading that message from Stephanie that it had never occurred to me in my life that Sally 4th is not just the name of the person. The person Sally and then her last name is 4th, but that it's the idea of going out into the world to Sally 4th. That was just got that too. As you were saying, I was just lost on me as like a 10 year old reading the Seattle Times. Because there's another one because here's the problem. Here's the problem. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately as a sort of new fan of the, oh geez, Kathy Comics, Kathy and Zlago, you know. But what, no, no, see, this is my problem. Kathy and Zlago. No, not Kathy. See, this is exactly what my problem is. What in the world is going on with my brain right now? We, I literally just bought a book. Luke, I'm having an absolute freak out here. Okay. Just hold on. Nancy. Nancy, not Kathy, but this is my point. I can't, when there is this long standing comic called Nancy that had been around since the 1930s. And then Kathy comes around probably in the 70s or 80s, I think, guessing and confuses the marketplace and confuses soft headed podcasters like me. Did you see what just happened? And I've been reading Nancy now for the past year or two, really enjoying it. Even bought Nancy and Zlago's Guide to Life based on some recommendations by listeners. And I've been really enjoying the Nancy lifestyle. But do you see what just happened to me? I couldn't recall her name because Kathy slipped in there first. And once Kathy is in there, I can't think of the word Nancy. And I, and I, I should have just said, act. And that's what you have Sally fourth and don't you also have a Mary Worth and aren't they both unmarried worth comics? Yes. You have Mary Worth. You have Sally fourth. You have apartment three G. Those were, that was the Holy Trinity of unfunny comics when I was a kid. You have crankshaft. That was supposed to be funny. A little bit funnier. A little bit funnier. That was supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be rye and kind of dry, I think. That's our dawn. And by the way, adding to the confusion around Nancy and Slego to me is that I always, because Nancy, that was way before my time. But then you had little Lulu who was kind of Nancy Sck, a kind of a like, you know, a little young girl of the same age, but who's always getting up to high jinx. And so, and, and my mom was kind of like into little Lulu. Or like, also originated in the 30s. So contemporary as I would say. So I would always confuse this Nancy character with little Lulu. I think when this came up a couple months ago in the show, I started seeing the little Lulu song and then I realized, oh, that doesn't hold up because they were trying to rhyme something with Lulu and they said, though your wild is any Zulu, just as hard to tame little Lulu, I love you, Lou, just the same. And I was like, oh, man, yeah, that doesn't hold up. No, anyway. But so with, with back to Sally fourth, if we can. I know that I've talked about this extensively and repeatedly on the show, but I did have a weird era of my elementary school years, which is I, I don't remember if it was my third grade or fourth grade, but it was one of those grades. And I was in Mrs. Wharton's combined third, fourth, and fifth grade class. So the idea was if you were, you know, if you were like, maybe pretty smart at math and you were in third grade, you could work ahead on your math. You could be in the fifth grade math or if you maybe were struggling with something, you could kind of be, you could be working at whatever pace suited you between the grades of third, fourth, and fifth. So all the savings money on teachers, that's the important thing. Critically. I mean, you want to know how old I am, Andrew. Mrs. Wharton told us kids, she was very close to retirement. In fact, I might have kind of helped really sort of like tip her over to like, I can't do this anymore. She does a very, very bad thing. She does a lot of mental survives. Real slingshot in the back pocket kind of energy. She used to tell us stories of how she would ride a horse to school in Nebraska, where she was from, because it was, when she was going to school, they had an invented cars. I had a teacher who was, who, her, her educational experience, her pedagogy, if you will, predated car. I find it hard to believe that they had an invented cars. They just weren't, the cars hadn't taken over every aspect of transportation. Right? Well, because I'm reading a book now that takes place in the 1950s, and it takes place in a culture where people are still riding horses around because it's a very rural area of the kind of journey. But do this math, do this math with me, Bub. It's 1984. She's 70 years old. She was born in 1914. Right. So there's probably more cars. She's not taking a horse around probably. You know, maybe there were cars, but it was not the, it didn't seem to be common where she was, if you know what I mean. So maybe she wasn't before the invention. Also the thing about the invention of cars is also kind of, it's actually a weird, it's a weird, kind of historical data point, right? Because like, there were cars before Henry Ford. He just was the person who sort of seemed to figure out the way to create the assembly line and mass produce them. And there were also electric cars. We talked about this. There was a, there was a like a car expo in New York City. Like again, I'm saying like before even the sort of Model T, where half the cars were electric. Like, there was this fork in the road as it were where we, we could have had electric cars, but the combustion engine like one out for whatever reason. We think of electric cars, EVs as being very modern and sort of they are, but also it, it was not always a sort of a, a complete, a, we were going to have to go with the combustion engine. It just kind of, it sort of won out at VHS over the beta max. And it probably was, that was probably cheaper or more convenience or more, you know, more expedited way of making cars at the time. But then once, once the oil companies became an oil industry, then it kind of, they did not want to release their grip, I'm assuming. But I had this one year of school where all I did was read the newspaper in the back of the room because it was a kind of a somewhat Lucy Goosey class. Again, the idea was that you kind of could follow your own passions, but also you need to get your assignments done and stuff. But there was a little bit, it was, there was a little bit of latitude for the students and the way that I decided to exercise that was to come into class each day to not sit at my desk, but to sit at this like work table in the back of the room and to read the Seattle Times more or less cover to cover. Maybe I let me, maybe I skipped over the business section or something, but that very much included the comics page. So I was reading all of these comics and also never knew what the hell the purpose of Sally Forth was because it was one of those unfunny comics to me. Okay. So back to the world status. So can you, but now that I, but now that we're here for a second, yes, his, I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about Sally Forth, except for this comic that I'm holding here, but I also couldn't tell you anything about Mary Worth. Like do you have anything in your memory that would even distinguish these two sort of adult unfunny comics? Because I think Mary Worth, worth was unfunny as well, right? If you woke me up out of a sleep, I would say Mary Worth represented the crushing loneliness of an unmarried woman of a certain age. Oh, really? Okay. Now I don't know if that's even really the plot, but my, my memory of it as a kid is Mary Worth in my mind, equaled, and again, I'm not saying this is how we should think about the world. I'm saying this is how I thought of Mary Worth being a woman. I guess you could say have a certain age. And maybe, by the way, I could be combining Mary Worth and apartment 3G. Mm-hmm. You wish I know nothing about, but I want to part. I want to take a stab at Mary Worth myself, but I have no idea if I'm right because you're at, okay. All right, everybody. Let's calm down. Oh, let's, I'm confusing apartment 3G and Mary Worth, by the way. Okay, Mary Worth, I'm picturing a woman. I thought it was about a woman who was like a journalist or some sort of an investigator, some sort of a, some sort of a kind of important person who, or like somebody who had, but, but, but like you said, I picture her in her probably 40s or 50s, not like, not a coming of age and not like new in the, in the workforce. So have we looked it up yet? What actually is Mary Worth? Yeah, I've got a ton of info now. What do we know? Well, do you want to start with Mary Worth or apartment 3G? I want to start with Mary Worth. Mary Worth is an American newspaper comic is, by the way, Hinge. Yeah, is an American newspaper comic strip that has had an eight decade run. It was created by Alan Sonders. It's, it's actually associated with an older comic strip, Apple Mary, sometimes subtitled Mary Worth's family. It was a, it's, let's see here. I just want to get to the plot. Let's see. It centers on an old woman who's, who sold apples on the streets and offered humble, common sense. That's what I said. A real go getter. Yeah, actually I might have been a little bit more accurate than I thought. Yeah. Though usually called Apple Mary, the character's full name is given as Mary Worth. Apple Mary ran until that, that, that, let's see here. The King Features began syndicating Mary Worth in 1987. There's significant evidence that the two comic strips share an unbroken air later. But just so, yeah. So I guess it was one of those kind of, you know, it was not intended to be as much funny as it was maybe insightful or inspirational of this, you know, of this woman, Apple Mary, AKA Mary Worth, who was doling out, you know, life lessons or something. But then you skipped to apartment 3G. Can I just, can I get a little bit closer to Mary Worth? Please. Because that Wikipedia page, it gets into, this is a problem with Wikipedia sometimes. It gives you too much information. And you're just like, yeah, but what's it about? What's it about? Backstreet. Backstreet of each, whatever. So here it is on TV tropes that gets to it a little bit more. Mary Worth is a soap opera style comic strip. The title character is a recent widow who moves to a condominium complex in California. Wow. Or just about everybody seems to have some sort of problem in most of the strips. I mean, how freaking. Yeah, go ahead. Spot on was I. What I said, you wake me up of a dead sleep and Mary Worth is the crushing loneliness of a person living in a life. Like, that's almost exactly what they're describing there in a way. I'm trying to figure out if she's lonely or if she's just like sort of getting into other and helping other people with their problems. It hasn't explicitly said that in most of the strips, one of the, I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't know. In most of the strips, one of the quote, young people in the neighborhood is troubled by a problem such as drug abuse, alcoholism, infidelity or teen pregnancy, which Mary takes it upon herself to fix. Though she is the title character and the catalyst for most of the strips, dramatic plots, Mary herself doesn't appear all that frequently. Rather, she is setting up, she is set up as a framing device to get each plot rolling usually through her council. So anyway, so that's interesting. That's not what I thought, but I guess it was taking on the serious issues of the day. I would love to see the Mary Worth take on drug addiction circa 1959. Yeah. Like, it involves blue boy. Kind of refore madness where they're buying into. Like what was happening? Okay, so then apartment 3G is an American newspaper soap opera comic strip about a trio of career woman who share an apartment in Manhattan. And they say that it was, it was a ref or it was sort of inspired by Mary Worth. The strip situations and characters were influenced by the soap opera strip Mary Worth. Look at that. Okay. So there was a little kind of, I don't know, spiritual connective tissue there. Yes, I don't think it's funny because it almost sounds like what I was describing with Mary Worth. It sounds like I'm confusing with apartment 3G, but the thing is, I don't think I knew about apartment 3G. Like I don't have any, I hadn't before you read that sentence, I had no sense of what apartment 3G was at all, which now leaves us this question. Yeah. Luke, why can't we grow the audience? Why can't we grow the audience? Is it possible that you're young people not flocking these to be children? And forward looking conversations about King United Syndicate comics of the 1940s. Is it exactly blowing up the youth demo? So what can you tell me about the comic strip that I hold in my hand right now, a perfectly clip, little comic strip, by the way, called Sally 4th. What do we have about this? What do you mean? Well, again, it was in the, what I think I know about Sally 4th was, I know, I feel like Sally, in my mind, Sally 4th had black hair and was kind of a go-getter. Sally 4th was Sally 4th. That's those are the kind of broad strokes memory of Sally 4th. Okay, and I'm going to, we're going to look up the overall sort of vibe and plot of Sally 4th in a moment. But first, I'm going to read to you what's going on in this three panel cartoon that, and here's my question for listener Stephanie, who is totally responsible for this beginning in the show, by the way. We've got Stephanie wishing she was watching cars with August right now. So Stephanie, or the rest of the audience is like, certainly they're like, get the car. Certainly they're like, get the car. So Stephanie says, you know, as a bit of a hoarder, so I was going through some things and I found some recipes and some comic strips. I'm assuming that Stephanie clipped these herself. And by the way, I would like to say again, very well done, very neatly clipped out of a newspaper. And I'm seeing that one of them is copyright 2017. So I want to know why Stephanie in the first place was clipping Bizarro. Take it from the tinker sins in Sally 4th comics in the mid 2010s. I don't know what like, what? Bizarro. Bizarro, let's see, which one is that here? Oh, yeah. Okay. This is actually very, very relevant to our times. There's a man in his boxer shorts and T-shirt sitting on a doctor's table and the doctor says, the good news is your cholesterol is down and the patient says, what's the bad news? And the doctor says pretty much everything else in the whole world. That's the Bizarro comic strip. That's the Bizarro. That's not the Sally 4th that you've yet to read. No, the Sally 4th baby shoes never used. Do you understand the concept of sweeping the quarter hour? Luke, I am holding on to the Sally 4th. How far have you stepped it? Right under the rug. We really did. We swept it right off a cliff and out the door. Okay, good. We're 20 minutes in, which means we've already had our first commercial break. We've kept people around. Yes. And they're like, what is in the quarter hour maintenance? What is in that three panel comic that Andrew claims to be the saddest three panel comic he's ever read? We see a woman who I am guessing is, I don't know, maybe middle age with a woman who I'm guessing is her daughter. I'm guessing that this is Sally 4th and her daughter. The woman has dark hair. The younger girl who I'm going to say is maybe about 13 years old or a teenager somewhere in that range with blonde hair. And they're clearly in a hospital. And the frame is the same for each shot. And it's outside a hospital door. And in the first frame, you see the mom and daughter, presumably, walking into the hospital door. They're in a hospital outside a room. They're going to visit somebody. Yes, gotcha. And the mom is saying, as they walk into the room, are you sure you're ready to see grandpa sweetie? And the daughter says, no, but I need to. I need to look back on this and know that I said my, you know. The next panel is the same shot of the door. You don't see the mom and daughter anymore because they're presumably inside talking to the grandfather. And then the third panel is we just see the young woman, the 13 year old or whatever, leaving the room with her face in her hands sobbing. And her mom who's still in the room with her dad, I guess, says he knows you were here sweetie. And the woman is saying, and the girl is saying through her tears, okay. Wow. Were you able to follow that, okay? Yeah, I was. I was. I can. I mean, I have a lot of questions. A, why did Stephanie clip this? Why was it mailed to you? And why did we just talk about it for 22 minutes? What is that? What is the drop? My question is why? Why would it? Why would it be to that? Just why? Like, I mean, I guess, I guess what it is is this, this, we're going to call it a, I go back and forth if it's comic strip or cartoon because I guess comic strip. I mean, a strip, okay, so comic strip. I guess if this comic strip sees itself as a sort of a soap opera or at least a plot, you know, a sort of like continuing plot line around characters and also something that's not there to be funny, it's there to reflect the human experience. I guess that's what they're looking to do. It seems to me to be a tough place to try to deal with those major themes. You mean next to crankshaft? I mean, next to crankshaft and EC and just below, above a daguad in blondies. Right. Or, you know, like, now here's the thing. If you look at the work of like Dan Klaus, is that how he say his name? Who's the guy that does, I'm, you know, the guy that did ghost world and stuff. Klausie? I know what you're talking about, but I don't know the, there are certainly like, there are some, there are, there are, are graphic novelists, there are graphic artists who write. And, and create incredibly moving stuff where they're using, you know, they're using that format to, to talk about all kinds of themes of loneliness and, and, and, and, you know, just all the things that go on in the human experience. And in fact, I think a graphic novel can be an incredible way to experience that. Art, I think it's... A couple of men jumps to mind. That seems like you're from your, from when you would have been maybe reading that kind of stuff. Yeah. Or yeah, like what? Or crumb or Terry's, why goff or something. But like Megan Kelsow. Precisely. I mean, I should have started with Megan Kelsow. But like, so there is definitely a way for this to be a really interesting way to, to, to, to get into these topics like grief and like, you know, but to me, it's the like putting it in the funnies. It's, it's, because like if I go and I get a book, if I go get Underworld, I go to my local, my local ghost, my local Underworld. And I pick up a copy, ghost world, excuse me. Is there also one called Underworld? There's a novel by Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, It would have been such a different book if Dom, Dom, Deloese wrote it. I feel. Double B, by the way, when I fall into it. I know I remember that from yesterday. I remember that from yesterday. But all that is to say, I, I don't want to, because I know we have a lot of listeners who are fans of graphic novels and, and even people like Megan who make them. I'm not, my point is to try to be insulting towards the form. I'm saying that's for Sally Ford, for the people that created a Sally Ford to pop that right into my, my, you know, Thursday morning experience of opening up the Seattle Times or whatever newspaper and reading through and seeing that. I mean, I don't know, maybe that spoke to somebody. It seems like a pretty heavy message to try to slip into an otherwise normal day. As opposed to, I went to buy an actual like graphic novel from this person that I'm going to sit down with and read and be ready for a certain kind of experience with it. That makes any sense. I think it's interesting also that both two out of three of the comics that Stephanie clipped took place in hospitals or doctors offices. I don't know what's going on there. I, the funny thing about that is, I, I think Stephanie clipped that Sally Ford because it was so unbelievably unfunny that she just wanted to keep it as evidence. And it is unfunny. But in a certain way, as I was describing it, like, I brought it up because it was like, wow, this is like you say really heavy just to open up on a Wednesday and see it in, in, in the newspaper next to Blondie. But honestly, as I was describing it, it actually kind of was moving. So I was like, well, I guess maybe, I mean, that's the thing. And who am I? I think the thing is you buy a graphic novel, it's called a graphic novel. I actually think I probably read a few more graphic novels than you in my time. And obviously they cover all. You mean that I'm only able to mention the most famous graphic novel of our generation? And then I also called it Underworld. Is that why you think you read more than I did? And like Terry Zouygop directed Ghost World. He is not in Saltographic novelist just to be clear. And the reason I brought up Spiegelman, because he wrote mouse, which I kind of figured you would have as an NPR producer back in the day. I never liked that. OK, but you know what I'm talking about. I do know what it is. I never got it. It's Holocaust. But told through the, it told through mice. I mean, I guess I thought it was. But it's a very serious, you know, it's a very, very serious. Yeah, the art form covers very, very serious things and does it really well. I actually think it's really set up to cover serious stuff well. But the fact that we called the page in the newspaper or used to when there were new pages, the funny pages. And then you have this, a teenager sobbing as she leaves a room because she feels like she wasn't able to properly say goodbye to her. Apparently dying grandfather is just like, wow. OK, now, now what do you got for me, family circus? Right. So I see we now know where, what that kid's whole day looked like because there's a little broken line going all around the yard and over the swing and back around. Oh, Billy, what have you gotten up to today? Right. Right. All right. Let's thank some donors. These incredible folks are sending in a donation to TBL voluntarily. They don't have to do it. They've chosen to do it. And it's how this thing can happen. This is 100% listener supported podcasting. Andrew, as you and John know, we're set to have, I'm set to have a conversation with some folks. It's kind of TBL related about some future projects that we're excited about. And every time I get ready to try to explain to somebody who has no prior knowledge of this show, how it works, I'm reminded of how absolutely amazing it is that it has worked. It's a slightly ludicrous thing to try to explain to someone, well, we've known it for almost 20 years and here's how because people who like it, who don't have to donate money, are like, yeah, but I will. And then it's three people's job. And then do they ask, yeah, but what do you talk about? And that's when you get into the Sally fourth conversation? I actually, you know who I'm about to talk to. I think that might be right up their alley. Yeah, that's a really good point. I actually think this might be a real good proof of concept for the folks that I'm going to be interacting with. Give me an example of what you talk about on your show. Well, we like to do about a 25 minute long time on apartment 3G yesterday and how it relates to what is Mary worth of Mary. Yes. Well, I'll tell you, we're here thanks to Kirsten and Daniel Carr, who are in Sagitton Tuck Michigan. Really nice job there. If not getting it right, certainly saying it with confidence. Committing. Do you know if you're right? I'm just curious. I mean, I couldn't imagine that it's Sagittuck. Yeah. Do you think it's gotta be Sagittuck? I was looking at that and I was sort of like trying to figure it out. I didn't even, I didn't even get as far as you did in my process on that. I was trying to figure it, could it be a soft G? And I don't think there is any way it could be a soft G like Sajituck, but no, that's I think I just wore. Should we call it the Tim Hortons? Yes, in Michigan. In Sagittuck. I was trying to find if there was a pronunciation. Wow. This looks like an amazing place. The greater Sagittuck area. And picture yellow. Looks like it's beautiful outdoors. Oh my gosh. Welcome to the art coast of Michigan. Oh wow. Wow. This is a Douglas and Fenville. Three distinct towns that beat with one welcoming heart from award-winning beaches in scenic waterways to a thriving art scene and a world-renowned culinary landscape. This is a one of a kind place where people long to stay for a getaway rich in both recreation and relaxation, explore the art coast and discover your ultimate escape. Look at this and you could just get on a boat cross right over Lake Michigan and end up in Milwaukee. Amazing. Incredible. You know, back in I were talking about maybe this summer doing a road trip and trying to end up at like maybe Mac and Ak Island. Oh. I've always been fascinated by ever since I learned how to pronounce it a year ago. It's not Mac and Ak Island. It's Mac and Ak. Oh, never remember. And or is it Mac and Ak and Ak? It's whatever. It's not how it looked. Well, yeah, Mac and Ak and Ak. I think it's Mac and Ak and Ak. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ever since five seconds ago when I learned how to when I re-remembered how to pronounce it. We're talking about maybe doing a road trip because you know that Michigan I'll say, I mean Michigan has some of the most picturesque and lovely towns and highways and waterways of America. And I haven't spent enough time there. My main time there was two trips, one for the Super Bowl when the Seahawks lost. And then the second one I was flown into Midland Michigan, home of the Dow Chemical Corporation to fill in for Peter Segal at the last minute on like a not so much weight weight. Don't tell me about like a sort of an event where it was sort of like weight weight light, but minus the game. It was just Mooraka P.J.O. Rork and then me filling in for Peter as a just sort of a donor event or something. You know, it was in the Midland like Arts Center. So Midland is an interesting town too because again, it's where the Dow Chemical company is founded because there were some kind of the whoever Dow was had figured out that he could make some kind of useful chemical. I forget what exactly started with, but he needed a certain kind of like, I don't know if it was a mineral or a particular kind of there was something that there was a lot of it in in this area of Midland Michigan. I feel like it had to do with like, I don't know like ponds. There were like a lot of ponds or something that had this thing that he wanted. So he goes out to the Midland and he founds it. And so what you have in Midland Michigan is a kind of a medium sized American town that has a tremendous amount of resources in it because of this very successful company. So they got like an amazing minor league baseball stadium. They've got this great Arts Center. And the Arts Center was kind of doing basically like, hey, if you like weight weight, don't tell me come to this thing where you'll hear Peter Segal in conversation with Moraka and PJ O'Rourke. Except Peter couldn't make it. So they called me the day before. And I remember I assume I remember always with that. Yeah, wild man. Don't take a meeting with him after two because it is not going to remember it. That's apparently what they say about Rudy Giuliani, right? You know that? Oh, no, I didn't know. Yeah, the word from his various tandlers was like, yeah, no meetings after two or he won't remember it. Oh, my goodness. But I know I've literally played this as content on TBTL. They recorded it and I used it because this is back in the battle days when I think it was just me maybe doing the show. And I was like, well, I'll go to Michigan. I'll do this. But I'm going to also need to use it as part of the show. But what I said, I'm very proud of this joke. And I've repeated it here on the program many times. I came out to this, I don't know, 3000 person auditorium that's like all excited to see Peter Segal and Mooraka and P. Joe Rorck. And instead they're like, and here for Peter Segal, it's a guy you've never heard of. And I said, this is kind of to the crowd. Is this kind of a bucket list event for me? Because one of my items, my bucket list is to see 3000 people disappointed at the same time. Yeah. But I thought was a pretty good spoof on the whim over with that. They tolerated me. They tolerated me. Anyway, all that is to say, I haven't explored Michigan sufficiently. And when I look at this kind of arts coast of Sagittuck and Douglas in the other place, I'm like, man, that looks great. Yeah. Michigan is like the heart of the arts of the middle part of the country, I guess. It really is. You think of the so many grand rapids. It's got that big, that big, you know, what's the name of the big art, the yearly art event in Grand Rapids? That's literally one of the greatest art fairs in America. Are you sure that's Grand Rapids? My brain, I'm still reeling from my Nancy and Slogo brain fart earlier, but I think I know the prize, the art prize. And that's Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids. Okay. Where is the University of Michigan? That's in Ann Arbor. In Arbor. And don't they have a like a very vibrant art scene as well? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. They have a big arts festival too. That's what I was thinking of. I mean, you can't turn around without bumping into where I am. Where you almost were you were you were breaking hearts way back in the day. They're still weeping from a department. They've never recovered. Nope. They've never recovered. Thanks also today to David Johnson who's in federal way, Washington. Another place that I haven't explored sufficiently. True. Me too. But plan to. Yes. Thank you, David. I appreciate that. Thanks, David. Thanks to Colleen Burns who's in Mystic Connecticut. Mystic Connecticut. I've never heard of the place, but it sounds mystical. It's Colleen. Is that really good? The pizza. I think that's where they did the pizza. I got a I told you I went to the post office yesterday. I have some comics. I want to share with you later on in the show. But one of the things that I learned was some some of our LPs were returned to us. Return. You know, when we ship out thank you gifts. Yeah. Sometimes people move or they're invacation and they don't check their mailbox or something. And so things get shipped back to us. And so we had several records that bounce back to us. And one of them was from Connecticut. And I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it was. I hope it was Colleen's. But Andrew, yeah, what do you know? I am on the website for Mystic Connecticut. And I say this, you know, with peace and love. Move over, Saga Tuck. Mystic Connecticut is also unbelievably beautiful. Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that. Unbelievably beautiful. It's it's a village and census designated place. In Groton and Stonington, Connecticut. It was a significant Connecticut seaport with more than 600 ships built over 135 years starting in the 1700s. And my God, does that ever look unbelievably beautiful and relaxing a place to while away a summer afternoon eating some chowda? Mm-hmm. I don't know if that's how they say it in Connecticut. That's more of a Massachusetts thing, but still. Thanks Colleen. Thanks to Randy Grover, who's in Bellevue, Washington. Hey, that's another beautiful place. All beautiful places. Just while away the hours at Din Ty Fung, if you're lucky, sitting next to Steve Balmer as I once was. Oh, right. Was he loud? It was crazy. I think CBS has greenlit me doing a story about Din Ty Andrew. Oh, I think I'm going to say about Steve Balmer. That's Steve Balmer. No. No. Look out Pablo. Luke's on the case now. Yeah, I know, right? I'm a little late to the game. Just me citing Pablo Tories reporting on Steve Balmer. We amazing if Balmer just sat down for an interview with you at this stage. Yeah. But no, I'm actually pretty excited about it because you know that Din Ty Fung, which we've talked about a lot on the show, it is per location the most profitable restaurant chain in America. That makes sense. An average location of Din Ty Fung is more profitable than any other type of restaurant chain in America, again, based on location numbers. And yeah, mostly I just wanted to have an excuse to eat dumplings and not feel bad about it because it's for work. Did you include or see your here reference to the fact that there's some popular TV show now popular with the young people that Genevieve was watching. I'm never going to be able to know what the show is. But I believe it's a show. You know what? I might not have to be sweetening it. I don't think so. I don't know. I haven't seen it. It's not euphoria. No, I think it is a show called I Love LA. I could be wrong about that. Have you watched this? I know because I knew it was going to be highlighting the worst elements of LA culture and young life. And you know who that's been confirmed by my daughter. Oh, it was so young that she's going to start getting AARP maleings in eight years. Well, Genevieve says there's a scene where somebody from LA is visiting. I believe in either an old friend or maybe a romantic interest. I'm not exactly sure back in New York. And what they bring and it might be a transplant from LA to New York or something. And so they bring him dintai fung. And Genevieve said it was very sweet. But she said the one mistake they made she felt was that they kind of hit the hammer on the head a little bit too hard by like kind of saying dintai. She said they have that that such classic packaging with that very recognizable dintai bag. She felt like the character should have not said it to just shown it. And it could have been very helpful. So were you familiar with that and is that making a way into your piece? It might now. I did not know that. So that gives me what? I can write today's show off as research. Nice. Absolutely. Yes, definitely. Yeah, I mean, you would, I'm with you on that. Like you probably don't have to say the name of the place. If you're bringing that over and the person knows they know. Yes. I will say that when I have been to the dintai in Times Square and I do very well. Oh, there was one in New York now. Oh, yeah, there's one in Times Square now. Oh, the one in the. I mean, not directly in this cross from the winter garden. But oh, so they brought it from Los Angeles. I thought they just went to the Times Square. No, I thought though. I thought my keep in mind. This is like a show that Genevieve watched then told me about while we were like driving to the dry. Three career women are living in a part. Yeah, right. A friend visits. But it was my understanding that it was like somebody was missing LA culture on the East coast. Maybe it wasn't New York, but I think most of you are. They must have written it before they knew if it's in fact New York. They must have written it before dintai because it's really brand new. This is okay. Is it? Okay. Yeah. But I do. I, you know, first of all, you know how, you know how up to the I get when I'm at dintai about like when they ask you have you dined with this before, it's like, I'm like, you don't understand. My whole personality is liking this restaurant, okay? And so I get that way. Imagine I'm in New York and they're asking me. Can you imagine? Because like to me, it feels like a very, well, it's a Taiwan based restaurant. But then it's first expansion into the US was into like the sort of Altadena area actually where I was taken by an X of mine and converted to the gospel of dintai. So I, in a very not annoying kind of way of being in the world, feel a tremendously possessive of the whole dintai experience. And then to be at this brand new sparkling one in Times Square where they're like, have you dined here before? It's like I was eating here when your mom and dad weren't even thinking about creating you. Please. Can you imagine yourself in that dintai or have you been to that one in New York? I've been to that dintai. You've gone to the New York one. Yes, I have a whole non-meat order that I can do, which is admittedly not as fun, but I get the string beans that I love. I get a fried rice. They do have a veggie dumpling, which it's too much mushroom. But what I do is, to me, it's really all about this sauce kind of concoction that I like to make, which is the rice vinegar. It's the soy sauce, and then it's just massive amounts of that chili oil. And if I get enough of that going and I dip the veggie dumpling in it, it kind of does it sort of scratches the itch for me. But it's the, but I understand like I'm somebody who likes mushrooms. I'm not, I'm not like some huge mushroom person. I'm not huge on Portobello or whatever. But you know, like I generally like mushrooms in various stages of cooking or I'll even eat them raw in a, not charcuterie. Geez Louise, I can't, I can't do the rest of the show. Can you just do the show? No problem. What do you call a crudite? I couldn't think of the word crudite. Oh, sure, crudite. Or as I thought it was called crudite. Crudite. Exactly. I thought it was crudite until five, it may be less than five years ago. I had seen the word, I was one of those things where I've heard the word crudite. I've seen a word I thought was crudite. I've never put it together that what I was hearing people say was a reference to that. Anyway, it's an, I didn't even need to go there. My point is I like mushrooms raw. I'll eat them close, but I fully understand somebody who says they just don't work for me. And I feel like that sort of ties in maybe with my feeling towards bananas or something. It's just like, it's definitely a textural thing with mushrooms, right? Like there's nothing like that. Well, yeah, and flavor in the particular what the dintai, the dintai, like what they, you know, I don't know if it's growing anymore, but with a healthy number of people that don't eat meat or don't eat pork necessarily, which is what's in, you know, the, what I would say are the best of the dintai fung dumplings. You would think it would, I don't know, it would kind of make sense for them to make something, like here's my point. I think you could actually do a very convincing dupe of the pork shawong bao from dintai. And the reason is because it's kind of in the realm of mystery meat. You know what I mean? It's a little sort of like ball. It's like a little meat ball of this pork stuff that then has got this soup, which uses I think aspic maybe to kind of like solidified until it steams and then it liquefies. But like I think, because in fact, you know what? I tried to make these once and I did an incredibly crude, like I tried to make a vegetarian version. I think when I lived in Bellingham and it was, they were like terrible and yet they kind of worked. Like when I made the whole concoction, my little dipping sauce, I was like, okay. This is 30% of what I'm going for. Now imagine like the greatest dumpling minds of our time. I've seen the greatest dumpling minds of our time, man. Just driven mad. Driven mad. Driven mad. So, yes. Like what my point is like what you need is you need like something that has a ton of umami, like you know better than bullion. You need something that's kind of like almost like a bite of meat. But again, it could be like the further like a steak is the most impossible, it's the most difficult thing to reproduce as a vegetarian option because we know what a steak with the texture is what it tastes like. It's all the meat thing. A fake pepperoni is pretty easy to fake or like a fake chicken nugget is pretty easy to fake. And that's the very process or ground up process. The more processed beef, yeah. Totally. The more processed the easier it is to fake it. So like I feel like the dinti people could make something that doesn't actually have real meat in it, but just like it's almost indistinguishable from the real meat option. But instead they've decided to go to this like bean curd bok choy shitake mushroom wood ear mushroom situation. And they also make them green and they don't they don't look exactly like the soup dumpling. And that to me is is a is a bit maybe I'll talk to the owners when I do my story. Oh, yeah, that's right. If you're doing a story, you can change your mind. Yeah, I see in the dumpling. That's all I'm saying. That's all Jonathan Levine of Hillsboro, Oregon is saying. Hey, Jonathan, I'm with the Hillsboro hops. I have been to Hillsboro before and it's another beautiful community. And I would it be a violation of your hypocrites if I asked why what were you doing in Hillsboro Oregon just visiting. I was having a new teeth and yeah, and they look great by the way. You look exactly like jelly. I got those. I got these are my Hillsboro teeth. How do we feel about JSN's JSN's? Oh, I don't think I know where you're going with this. Well, you know, JSN has veneers. No, I didn't. I don't follow. And it's weird because. Well, I didn't really know either but I saw like a dentist, like a teeth expert on tiktok and she was talking about them and she was what she was pointing out was that JSN's teeth looked phenomenal before he got the caps before he got veneers. Like his, his, because there's, you know, there's before and afters and side by sides and things like that. And she was going, gosh, his teeth were really nice before. Wonder what was going through his mind when he decided to veneer them. But I mean, to each their own, I think jelly roll is currently the maybe the most glaring example of somebody who went too far with the, with the veneers. He looks, he's been restrained in his other choices of, well, traditional. I told you that what I was at, I was in Nashville and I was doing some sort of event. They're like a corporate event I got hired to do. It was a speaking of law enforcement conference is Andrew. There was literally a law enforcement. It was like, I was like jail guards. It was like the, it was like basically the like carcero. The like carcero industrial complexes, like Jam Beroux was at the, was at the, the, the exposition center in Nashville. At the same time that I was at this other thing in a different ballroom. Oh my god. They have, they have prisoners dressed up in like white and black classic stripe. I mean, dunk tank. Just short of that, my friend, because I had to walk through a lot of this bullshit to get to the one I was kind of going to, which was like a software thing. And, and it's, yeah, it's everybody. It was like all of the people that are involved in the sort of US prison system and all the people that are profiteering off of it. Andrew, it's a good bunch of people. And, and jelly roll. There was a sign, because jelly roll famously did some time. Like jelly roll was before his music career took off. He was a sort of, I guess, a petty criminal and he did a little bit of time. So, but now he's, you know, he's been redeemed and was there to talk. He was there to make sure he was, you get clashing some checks from the prison people. That's so, yeah, I was wondering, well, like his role there is to what on the face of it, talk about the experience of somebody who has been imprisoned. Is it is, I mean, I didn't expect to have any years, but is the veneer here? The idea, the idea that he's supposed to be like giving a perspective that these folks wouldn't otherwise have. I wasn't invited to the speech because I did not have a lanyard for that conference. I had a lanyard for the conference I was working at. But my guess is, yeah, something like that. I don't, it wasn't a concert as far as I understood. I don't think jelly roll was performing. I think he was there to just, and I, you know, look, I had seen some clips right when he was sort of emerging as a, I guess, music star where he would apparently go to, you know, jails and prisons and talk to people who were incarcerated. And I think they were probably honestly pretty hyped about that. And to the degree that he was going around telling people, like this doesn't have to define your life. The fact that you're in prison right now or incarcerated at the county level. I think that's a great message and I'm not trying to like, neg him on that. I'm feeling a little less than enthused because of the fact that after he won a Grammy, they asked him how he felt about what was going on with ICE. And he said, I just got a cell phone four months ago. I don't watch the news, which I felt like was a kind of a cop out. That's why I'm a little bit, that's why I'm currently a little, a little whatever about old jelly roll. I will tell you this right in that he's right in that, in that kind of narrow area of fame where he could easily ostracize either side. He could, he could easily with one wrong comment probably chop his income in half, right? Or at least that's what's going through his head in that moment. That's exactly what the line he's trying to walk. And of course, my hope would be that he would just learn how to live with half of the income that he's making. And, and to just say, particularly as somebody, and I know these aren't exactly related topics, but like, if he's somebody who has been in the prison or jail system of this country, he has to understand the inherent unfairness of it all. And I know that's not the exact same thing as what ICE is doing, but they're all kind of wrapped up in the same ball of bullshit. And you would really hope that somebody who'd been in there would, would then spend the rest of their life, a particular thing that would have been with a charmed life like he did, pushing back against this system. That is so obviously rigged. And so obviously unfair to so many people. And so obviously not about rehabilitation. It's totally punitive, obviously. So my hope would be that he'd be like, I got out of there and now I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams. So now this is my chance to blow the whistle on like this terrible thing as opposed to thinking like, how do I not alienate? I'm going to use this on air. What's somebody called my somebody called ICE Degrave seals. He doesn't want to alienate the gravy seals who might listen to his records. And so he's going to go, I just got a phone four months ago. Yeah, I don't know what's going on in the country. Sure, you know, meanwhile, let's talk about Zaron Mamdani appointing somebody and who's in charge of, I guess, is it the, is it the, it would have to be New York City because he's not, you know, he's the mayor of New York. He's not the governor. But I guess the new commissioner, the person in charge of the prisons or the jails in New York City is a person who's previously incarcerated. And I think that's one of the coolest freaking things I've ever heard. Like what, what a smart way in my mind to run something like that is to have somebody who's been through it from the other side who probably knows the good and the bad of what sort of works and doesn't work from an interesting perspective is obviously not currently someone who's performing criminal behavior. We leave that for the president, by the way. But like what a cool thing. I think that's you should, I almost, I would say in order to be in charge of any major prison system, you should have had to do some time there. I was thinking that Mamdani was going to be our final donor of the day. I got so excited there for a second, but well, we got to reach out. Here's our connection. A friend of the show and friend of live wire, hurry, Kunderballu is like has been friends with Mamdani for years because they both went to Bowden College and when Mamdani's mom reached out to hurry and said, my son who's younger than hurry is going to is considering going to Bowden. Would you kind of give him the like the download on it so they became friends like many years ago and have been friends throughout. I think you can get hurry to reach out to Zoran who is right now doing God's work, which is trying to get bidets installed in Gracie mansion and appointing formerly incarcerated people to run the incarcerations up. If we can get him to get break from that to donate to TBTL, I think I think it could happen. Do I need to do I need to clip the Sally fourth part and send it or do you think I would. I would for because Zoran is like a young cool guy, you know what I mean like I don't know if that's going to be to actually re record one where we're talking about like. I don't know what's what we're talking about Jimmy neutron. I think that's more skateboarding and Jimmy neutron that's what that's young that's young. That's exactly that's what Kyrissa carpenter of Denver, Colorado, turns to the show for. Thank you, Kyrissa. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of our donors. We could not do TBTL this young hip show without you. Hello and welcome to top story. Andrew, you wanted to take a guess at what I was alluding to during the top of the show about our first top story here, which is related to the upcoming Super Bowl. And the Seahawks fans and the Patriots fans apparently agreeing on at least one thing about this game. And you wanted to guess what that thing is. Yeah, well, what you think that thing might be. I don't want to put you on the spot here production wise, but I don't think the story was in the show sheet. So you said it during the inside during the sound check and you played a little drop. I thought it was funny. I don't know if you still have it there. You said there's one thing they can both agree on. Yeah, and then I put what the hell is even that? Or were you thinking this one was the thing you're good today? Look at my outfit. I was thinking of that. What the hell is even that was. I don't know the origin of it. And I was one I was like, what could that story be? And then I remember I did see a headline today or yesterday that had to do with certain bill. But it's a serious topic about certain billboards that are going up in San Francisco around digital bills. Is this involved digital billboards in any way? No. Well, then I'm not going to bring up my story because screw it. What is the actual story? It is this is a, this is Seattle Times piece from Sophia Vaselli. Fanatics apparel company under fire for quote ruining Super Bowl 60 fan jerseys. Fanatics, one of the country's largest sports merchandise distribution and the NFL's exclusive supplier of Nike fan products. Is under fire for its Super Bowl 60 apparel ahead of Sundays, title game between the Seahawks and Patriots. So basically these are the official Super Bowl jerseys. You know what I mean? It's not this is not like the regular Jersey. This is not the color rush or whatever. It's like fan graphics has the exclusive contract to create the Super Bowl jersey for the Seahawks and for the Patriots. Now I don't think this is even what the teams are going to wear. It's so like the ways that this, the way that the sort of idea of even what a jersey is has been so, it's been sliced so thinly and distributed in so many directions so as to maximize the profitability of all of it. I don't even know exactly what this means when they call this the official Super Bowl 60 jersey. Other than this is the official one that this company is allowed to sell that is created by Nike. And people, this is somebody, oh, Dove Kleinman, who's an NFL reporter, says it's on like whatever X or something. Trending, Seahawks and Patriots fans are pissed at fanatics and Michael Rubin for ruining Super Bowl NFL jerseys making them extremely cheap and low quality. Imagine paying $160 for this garbage and you look at the jerseys and they are totally just like, like first of all, they're super cheap. Oh, looking they are not. If you were paying $160 for a Jersey, Andrew, you would probably expect it like the stitching on the numbers and the all it like it be two pieces of fabric. You'd have the Jersey itself and then you'd have the numbers and the name or whatever all kind of stitched on by machine. This would be there'd be some what's the word I'm looking for. I don't know the word you're looking for. Texture between the writing and the thing. This is just a straight up like cheap-ass looking Jersey with the letters and things just screen printed onto there. Just like something like an oversight. I'm looking at this now. I can't just rewind for one second. I don't know if you know this, but I do have a sports jersey, which is interesting because I'm not like a Bernie Cossard. But yeah, Genevieve got me like a Bernie Cossard Jersey, but like an official Browns Bernie Cossard Jersey. Maybe she got it from me 15 years ago, but like it's really good quality, right? It's stiff. Like the letters that are sewn on are like obviously a separate material that is sewn on there. And the name each letter is sewn on. It's a very stiff person. You imagine the person, the craft's person who all those probably machine, but still it's still a sign. It's all stitched on there. But the thing I wanted to say though was I'm guessing that that cost you, did you say $60? I'm guessing $160. Oh, $160, yes. That's more of the market for these things as like 60s doesn't seem really cheap. Anything that just even has an NFL logo on it would be start at $60, right? So yeah, $160, that's what you're buying. They're just selling these look like floppy night shirts. Like floppy night shirts. And some of the patches that are like, I guess ironed on are in different places. Just sloppily thrown on there. Yeah, it's so underwhelming. Again, at $160, so fan graphics responded, I'm sorry, fanatics responded. They said NFL fans, we've seen your Jersey feedback and we take it very seriously. They wrote, we've let patriots and Seahawks fans down with product availability. We own that. We own by the way, is there anything more annoying in the power lots of our time than we own that? We're going to own that guys. We're just going to own. But what is it? It's especially annoying if it doesn't mean anything. Other words, nothing except, hey guys, we're going to own that and we're sorry. Yeah. Is what they're saying. So it's fanatics attributed the unmet demand to the Seahawks and patriots match up specifically. Quote, both teams went from missing the playoffs last season to being in the Super Bowl. An incredibly rare occurrence that led to these two fan bases buying nearly 400% more jerseys since Thanksgiving versus last year. So I think what fanatics is trying to say is we ran out of good jerseys or something or we weren't like, I don't know what this means because like, are they saying we didn't expect these teams to be in the Super Bowl? So we did like, what did they have like, did they have a hundred thousand Kansas City chiefs? Jersey's already stitched up ready to go. Right. Like, well, I don't even, but again, presumably they don't make any of the jerseys so they know the two teams that are in the Super Bowl. So I don't even understand what their argument here is other than it seems like they're saying we didn't see this coming. And because of that, we had to make the jerseys really shitty. Somewhere in another part in an impoverished part of the world. Yeah. It's going to be a bunch of people wearing amazingly made Rams jerseys. And you know what? Those folks deserve it. Honestly, I'm just hoping that like, you know, there's some guy somewhere who's wearing a Matthew Stafford jerseys. And it's lovingly hand stitched with all the right stuff on there. But yeah, I'm, you know, me, I'm not a big, I'm not a big Jersey guy generally speaking, but I do, I do think I know I don't know exactly because it's on the way here, Andrew. It is not arrived, but it is on the way. And I will know when it shows up and I will show you. I do think I know what I'm wearing on Sunday if it turns out okay. And that is a sweatshirt from Etsy that I bought, bought myself one and I bought Becca one. And it is of, it's like Seahawks colors. And it is an Etsy sweatshirt of a bear, like a little teddy bear wearing like a Seahawks letterman jacket. And he's holding a penit that is Seahawks colors. And it says Seattle. And that is what it's, I think it's going to be a dorks. I'm going to send you a picture of it here. And this I think is, now here's the reason that I'm saying I might wear it is because the sizes that I was looking for are like, you know, it was impossible for me to really know if I was buying the right size for either myself or Becca. So I like, I bought myself like an Excel or something, but there's like one is like girlfriend cut, which means I think made for woman's style of wearing a sweatshirt. And then one is like oversized and one is like boyfriend. Like, it's a whole bunch of different categories and I don't really know what I'm ordering. So it could show up and be on the market cut sweatshirt. Sure, I'm sending you an email of this by the way. Tell me if you don't think this is not the most adorable little thing you've ever seen. But like this I think is maybe for me the sweet spot. Again, I don't know how if it's going to be way too big or way too small or not fit correctly or be the wasn't very expensive. By the way, I think it was like 25 bucks for the sweatshirt, which is also kind of that's as much as I paid for a fake gun by the way that never showed up. Oh, I was wondering that thing. You know, the whole thing of Chekov's gun is you see in the first act and it goes off in the last act. And I've been waiting for this frickin Burbank's gun to come back. Maybe that's Burbank's gun. You mentioned it in the first act and it never comes back into play. But isn't that more but isn't that more fitting with TBTL? Our version of the gun is that you never hear about it in the third act. You hear about it four years later when a different play is being staged at the theater. So it just never showed up. Never showed up. Never showed up. Can you tell me again how much you paid for it or did you? 25 dollars. Okay. Yeah. So it wasn't great. I mean, that should have been my first. What I've learned is if I'm going to ever buy anything from TikTok, it needs to be through what is called the TikTok Shop. Because that thing is I've bought a few due dads and gigas through there and that's all been fine. They've shown up. They've been as advertised. But anything that you try to buy through TikTok that's not going through the actual TikTok shop, don't even bother because that thing is never showing up at your house. That is as Walt would say, some Chinese bullshit. Oh, this is very cute, the little sweatshirt that you got. Isn't that kind of cute? Yeah, I think that the show picks everybody. You can see it. But I need to talk to you about something here, Luke. I don't think you care about as much as, certainly as much as I do it. And some friends of ours like, like, Durs and our buddy Nick Jarrin. I almost wish I could like right now just get one of them on the show to talk about this with me. Because they are pretty obsessed with sports uniforms. In fact, before there was that... Yeah, that's a large, large, whole thing. Yeah, well, and I remember, I mean, what, 15 years ago, but probably when we were all watching games together and you were still in Seattle, I remember those two would be in the room watching the game and just going off on all this, like, Jersey, Ephemura. And it's just like, and they have such strong opinions. And for a long time, Veeves and I were really trying to get them to do a podcast together. And then UniWatch came along and sort of, and now everybody's got a podcast. But everything and everybody talks about uniforms. But all of that is to say, I have, I'm a little distressed about some uniform news. It starts off sounding like good news. But let me back up here for a second. I'll tell you something about my beloved Seattle Mariners. You know I like the Mariners, right? Like, there's no doubt about that. You know that I like them as they be involved. They're verified to Mariner Lecker. Thank you. I don't love their uniforms in most cases. They have, you know, I don't like that Pacific. I call it like a teal color, but I think they call it Pacific Action Blue or some bullshit like that. Or whatever, it's not Action Blue. But you know, whatever that kind of like teal color is that the Mariners wear, I really dislike that. I think they've sort of put that in the back burner a bit. Their white uniforms are fine. I don't really love the S with the compass. Like I just don't love a lot of the imagery around, yeah, around it. And you know, that's fine. But they have one that I sort of like, which is kind of controversial. A lot of people are not with me on it, but the new city connect uniforms that they rolled out about three seasons ago. And they only wear them on Friday nights during home games. And those are the ones. A lot of people don't like that it mixes black pants with like dark blue shirts. And that puts people off. I kind of like it. That was the first time I noticed the stitching thing that you're talking about. Because I'm pretty sure, I remember when we were discussing those new uniforms on this very podcast, you were like, it doesn't look like they're sewn on it. It looks like they're kind of like, you know, like pressed on numbers. And I think you're right about that. That's what it's been about. You think that has been amazing? No, I think that's pressed on. Yeah, that's what it was. That was a term Robinson joke. I think that's just push. You think this is slick back. Oh, I didn't know you're doing that. But anyway, I think you were right about that. And that was something I had noticed. But generally speaking, I kind of like those uniforms. They don't offend me. Everybody can have no opinions. But the one thing that was universally agreed upon, and I'm serious, I had this conversation with so many strangers at bars and just random fans, whatever. Everybody loves the Sunday cream colored uniforms. They're very, very simple. I don't know if they, yeah, they usually have, they have the names on the back, I believe. But they're this, they, the, the Mariners only wore them Sunday afternoon home. Games, this cream colored jersey. It's what most fans are wearing. I don't think it's a throw. I mean, I think it's just their, their cream colored one, right? I think you're maybe seeing some new news that I'm getting to here. Because, I could be wrong about that. But all I know is the Mariners Sunday afternoon uniforms at home were universally beloved. And, and the favorite of the fans. Recently, there has been news that the Mariners are adding a new uniform to the rotation. And these are throwback Negro League uniforms from Seattle's team that was called the Steel Heads. And it has this real blocky sort of letters and very, very simple design. And they're going to be using those uniforms to now this year. And I would like to say those uniforms look awesome. I love the throwback steel head look. It's really cool. And it's a great way to kind of acknowledge that part of baseball history. But they're replacing the Sunday uniforms with this new uniform. They could have replaced any other uniform with their steel head uniforms. They're getting rid of what has just like, it's been the one thing Mariners fans agree on. The one thing Mariners fans agree on are that the Sunday unies were always the best. And now they're replacing them with these new also cool uniforms. But they're getting rid of the other good ones. Like, why don't you make those the Saturday uniforms? Or something else? I don't know, do whatever you want with them. But don't get rid of my cream colored unies. Yeah, I'm seeing this on Instagram, RIP to the Sunday creams. Are people bemoaning? People are not happy. See, I haven't seen any reaction. I only read the article. And so I've been sort of, you know how like sometimes you're like upset about something. And you need your people. You need to hear other people complaining about it. And I hadn't done that dive yet. And I hadn't talked to my buds about it. But I just can't believe that they're replacing the best uniforms they have. And again, this is nothing against the steelhead uniforms. I actually think they're really cool. I would get one of those if I were a Jersey wearer. I really love that font. And you know, I'm a font guy. But I just can't believe they're getting rid of the fan favorite. Yeah, yeah, I do like these. I mean, this is, it's so funny because, you know, I am so only because on our text chain on the criminals. By the way, on the subject of the criminals, I have figured out a solution, but it's not a solution. But I figured out I was doing something extreme that was unnecessary, which is like I was keeping Durs blocked like 247, seven days a week, like during football season when all I really need to do is just block him when the game starts. And then just like unblock him when the game's over. That's all or maybe it's give it an hour for people who don't know because you're trying to protect yourself from a lot of the negative sort of shit posting that he posts to sort of keep self-saying. It makes them more mad and then I get into with him and I don't think it makes anyone's experience on the text chain better. But the problem is, first of all, Andy is, he's got a lot of good information on the Mariners and the Seahawks. He's almost always when I have him unblocked. He's the first one into the chat with like, oh, we just picked this guy up or this just happened. But because I'm just like, I'm acting like I've been acting like he. I believe I sort of have the Brendan Donovan scoop the other day. Well, I can't know that because I had him blocked. So all I saw was yours, but I don't know for a fact if he wasn't, no. But my point is, I've been acting as if blocking and unblocking Andy is something where I need to like get a Sherpa and climb to the top of a mountain and seek a wise man's counsel and then like do some incredible like process to block him and unblock him. It takes five seconds. All I do is go to the contact and unblock him and then part of my getting hyped up for the game bay, part of my like putting on my eye black, pulling on my teddy bear sweatshirt. I could make getting ready for the game part of the ritual is and now we blocked yours again. And then we just unblock him, you know, a while after the game or even just wait until he does one thing in there that makes me mad then block him fine. But like. And then send us screen caps of you blocking him, which is. It's been so silly that I've been leaving him blocked on like a Tuesday when he's not, you know, he's not a problem for me in the text chain on those days. In fact, he's a great source of information. He is, I mean, that's the thing if he can, when he's not in a triggered state, he is a very, very smart sports knower and has a lot of interesting takes and is very, very read in on things much more so than I am. Like that's why I was asking you the other day if this Donovan thing was good or just because not just my level of awareness, not Brendan Donovan watch has been a thing. So I'm, so this is, I mean, I guess the point is that I was like, when Donovan conversation was going on in the text chain and I was like, not sure, because I'm also only seeing like your response to something Ders did or David's or whomever's John Goodwin's and I'm like, well, wait a minute, why not just unblock him and just, I'll just block him on game day and then I'll just unblock him on non-game day. Let me ask you a question about blocking, because I've never blocked anybody before. If you unblock, do you see the stuff that you missed when that person was blocked? Is it repopulate? No. It's just missing time. But the other problem is, it's just missing time and then the other problem is under the new iOS, what it's doing all the time is asking me if I wanna leave the conversation of the fun-loving criminals. And the reason is it says, you have, in this case, Andy, you have Ders blocked. He can still see your messages. Do you wanna leave this conversation? Oh, I see. It thinks it's being helpful to me, but what it means is, at all times, along with a weird-ass picture of John Ryan that I can't see the texts with. Is that gone now, though, that's gone now? No, that's gone. It's also constantly giving me what's effectively like an error message. It's constantly asking me if I wanna leave the chat because I have Ders blocked, but Ders can see me. Uh-huh, so it's like, I just wanna let you know. It's another annoyance. It's just too much of a visual noise when I'm trying to just get in there and talk about George Halani Hero game. So. So I wanted to ask you, while we're talking about baseball, and pop culture, and you mentioned Badeys before. You're talking about Mamdani wanting to add Badeys to the mansion there, the governor, or I'm sorry, the mayor's mansion. Uh, did you see also, and I thought it, oh, okay, so it's the white socks. Now, they are going to add a Badeys to the clubhouse because of Maracame. They're Japanese picture? I saw it online. Yes. Somebody sent me an email in my, in my TBTL account. I only saw the subject line, but it seemed to be that there was a picture who was requesting Badeys or something. Yeah, they signed a Japanese picture who was confused why there were no Badeys. So it looks like they will be installing Badeys. Yes, into the, and I'm sort of, I had seen this bouncing around, and so I'm sort of scanning the story now. Like I said, I was mistaken. I thought it was, I thought it was the Dodgers, because I thought they're the only team that's allowed to sign people. But no, apparently it's the white socks. Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? We don't have to, we don't have to relitigate this, but it definitely, I think the more Badeys, the more better in the Major League ball parks in, I mean, man, Andrew, the story that built TBTL when I had my bathroom accident in the kingdom. Can you imagine if there would have been a Badeys in that stall for me? I mean, there was a lot that the Badeys couldn't do. Yeah, we were in a situation, but it would have been better than nothing. It's not a detachable hose. It's not much you pull hard enough. Yes. Here I go once again with the email every week. I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female. All right, emails, emails. Voice memos. Got this memo. Voice memos. If you want to call us, by the way, and leave a voice mail on our voice mail line, the phone number is area code 206-414-8285. That spells 206-414-TBTL, but you can also email us. You can email me, Andrew at tbtl.net, and include a little voice memo, and that is what our friend Cheryl in Corvales. I actually, I really love Cheryl in Corvales. I'm pretty sure this is Cheryl in Corvales. I grabbed this a while ago, and I didn't label it, but I believe it is in reference to, remember the other day when I was talking about the pop song that everybody is talking about, by far East Movement called like G6. Yeah, it's everybody's talking about it. They're talking about that, they're talking about Sally Fourth. They're talking about apartment 3G. Well, I believe that that is what inspired this voice memo, which I have not heard yet. Hey, Luke and Andrew, it's Cheryl in Corvales. Nice. I was listening to an episode from a few days ago. I'm a little bit of a time bandit right now, and I heard Andrew's joke referencing the far East Movement song, Fly Like a G6, and it took me back to hearing that song somehow pop into our algorithm while on a road trip in Seattle. And the kids a few years ago, not being able to understand what a G6 was. What is a G6? Is that a car? You know, I always assumed, I think I was wrong about this. I think I always assumed a G6 was a kind of a private jet, like a goal or something. Oh, that would make sense. One more thing. But also, but also, I don't know, you know, again, I know you're right. You're right. A G6, most commonly refers to the luxurious Gulf Stream G650. Yes, so you're absolutely right. So, okay, Cheryl, count me amongst your children. They started singing along and they said, Fly Like a Cheat Stick. So every time I hear that song now, I no longer sing G6. It is absolutely and always will be Fly Like a Cheat Stick. Anyway, hope you have a great day. Power out. I'm worried that that's going to stick in my head. So much better. Really? Yeah, because that's a more fun, weird song than just a, like, hey, guess what? I got a private plane and I'm flying like a G6. Like, first of all, I am hungry. I would like a Cheat Stick right now in all seriousness. And I think that's what you say that. When you say you would like a Cheat Stick right now, can you tell me more about Cheat Stick? What do you mean? Are you talking about like a deep fried situation that if I'm talking about a red rob, I'm talking about a very specific Cheat Stick, red rob and Cheat Stick, which is where I learned, and I know this is not your thing, right? Melchic Cheat. No, I do like that. That's why I asked you that. Because I wanted to make sure you didn't mean one of those gross little cold Cheat sticks that is like, people stole the wrap thing off of it. And I always gag when I see that. I like that one too, by the way. When I was a kid, we called that string cheese because you could like pull it apart and it would be stringy. I feel like I don't think that the youth of America are stringing their cheese as much anymore, which I don't know, maybe that's a good thing. We thought it was like the coolest thing ever. I mean, we had three channels, Andrew. We had nothing else to do except string our cheese when I was a kid. We were very excited about that. But no, when I say Cheat Stick, I mean a really specific one too. I mean, the first time I ever had a Cheat Stick in my life, like well, that is a deep fried mozzarella Cheat Stick thing. It was at Red Rob and probably the Red Rob and on East Lake, Rest in Power. And that's always been my very favorite kind. And now there's all kinds of different Cheat sticks. You can order them everywhere. Every pizza place has them. But they generally don't. They're all a little different than to me, the first one that I ever had the first kind that I ever had is still the best kind. And this happens to be whatever Cisco-ass food supply company, Red Rob and Bice Rob. You know what I mean? It's not like it's superior. It's just the one that started my love affair with the Cheat Stick. And so that to me is the highest, that's the most elite Cheat Stick is the one that you get from Red Rob and. You know, as somebody, as you said, you're like, oh, this doesn't sound like something you would eat. But you know, my rules, my seven rules for dating my Cheat Stick is it gets very, very complicated. Like, what do I eat? What do I eat? But basically, if you remember that I eat pizza because basically you're talking about a melted mozzarella situation with marinara sauce or pizza sauce on it or something like, that is what a Cheat Stick is. And so by that same, I don't know, transitive property. Yes. Cheesitive property. I also like mozzarella sticks. And I even will keep them in the freezer sometimes. You know, and then like on a Friday night, maybe I think this last Friday I heated up a, what do you call a Stofers French bread pizza alongside some of those Cheat Stick. So I do like those a lot. I don't know if I'd be able to pass a blind taste test between a red robin one and a TGI Fridays one. Although that example, because I think TGI Fridays, I think theirs are flat, right? There's our like flat and rectangular. I've got, I'm on the red robin website right now. Are we gonna go to, let's meet, what is between you and me? Let's meet at red robin like Olympia. I could do that because I think they might be cutting power here this afternoon. So I need to get out of Dodge anyway. Well, listen, hold on, I gotta put on my soothing sound. I need a minute here. Because I'm on the red robin website. And it looks like they have turned their back on the very fundamentals of their business model, which is to say the kind of Cheastics that I like. Because they appear to now have switched to something they're calling cheesy mozzarella twists. I swear that's what they, wait, you've already had this freak out. You can't have this freak out again. You had this freak out at when we went there with John. My first time at Red Robin. First of all, you're not in charge of how many freaks on the lab. You don't know how my body processes soup. Of, no, it's all coming back to me because I remember liking them. But you being disappointed because it was my first time ever in a red robin and you really wanted to recreate all of your favorite red robin experiences for me and John. It might have been John's first time too, I can't recall. And I'm pretty sure that you had a little bit of a leave in you breakdown. Yeah. I'm sure I had this, I'd listen. This is, I forgot about freak out number one. So this is all new to me, freak out number two. But like, I can't believe that they did that. I'll say it again, I can't believe that they, because that's like the kinds of chees sticks that they made. Adding I used to go there when she was little, we would get, for some reason I was in a big lake. I was in like a, well, I'd either get a blue cheeseburger or maybe something called the super salad combo, not to be confused with. Super. What's the place in the bar? Super crackers? Not if we can fuse with super crackers. Is that it? Super crackers? Yes, super crackers. And we would split a half order of chees sticks, because I was, oftentimes writing a check literally that I didn't have the money in my bank account to cash. Like, I'd write a check and then I would hope that something was going to work out for me before the red robin company submitted the check to their bank. And those, those were the chees sticks that I loved and now I'm looking at cheesy mozzarella twists, which I'm sure they did some kind of market research and decided that that was actually more appealing to people. Who knows? Maybe it is. But can you tell me about the kind that you had before they became? Well, the twists. Yeah, they were, they weren't twisted. They were like, what I remember about them is that they were kind of a little bit fatter than some of the other chees stick products out there. You've got a certain kind of chees stick that's maybe, let's say, roughly the size of a large french fry, right? Like a french fry that's maybe a little bit wider than a typical french fry. But then you've also got them. These ones were like weirdly large. Like they were, they were, they were kind of abnormally large. And then the breading they were in was a, was not flaky. It was a kind of a uniformed, imagine like a, a helmet of hair that somewhat had hair sprayed down a lot. That was what it felt like. It wasn't like, it wasn't like these ones I'm looking at these cheesy mozzarella twists, Henko breaded fried mozzarella. Yeah, there's a lighter breading now. I know the kind you're talking about. And that's kind of the kind that I buy at the, in the freezer section of my local grocer kind of there. Like I think describing them as like kind of a thicker french fry or pencil shape or something. I want, I found a picture of the old mozzarella. I think I just did too. And I'm looking at it very classic. There's got two things of Mara Nara in the picture. Let me see what I'm looking at here. I'm looking, it's, oh no, I'm sorry I was looking at a jalapeno cheese stick. No, I'm read about that. Look up red robin mozzarella sticks recipe. And they've included a photo of the old school mozzarella sticks, which, yeah, okay, yeah, that's your classic. Now, here's where you remember when I was telling you, merely moments ago, although it feels like a life I've already forgotten that Andrew. I know, I know goldfish, goldfish, darling. I have to. And rightfully so. I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm not feeling great about today's show. I'll be honest with you. I really got to do that thing. You forgot. I got to do that thing. I mean, ever since my Nancy and Sluggo brain fart at the beginning of the show, I have just been struggling to keep up. Couldn't remember crudite, crudite, as you'd say. Crudite. Anyway, my rant about the uniforms and the Mariners uniforms. I told you that I was having trouble with this because I was angry, but I hadn't found my people yet. I hadn't found the other people who were bleeding online along with me. Yeah, so I want to provide that service to you right now. I am on a Reddit post that was posted on the official red Robin subreddit two years ago. The headline and only commentary from the original poster was red Robin totally blew it by replacing the cheese sticks with completely hollow cheese twists. Now, I want to read you the first two comments that posted immediately. Can I ask you one quick point of clarification? Yes, it is. What bookler bank who posted this? I was wondering what's the name of the person who, what's the name of the user who posted the initial complaint? Mr. Ballsack. That's so much better than I even could have dreamed. Probably saved the show. All right. Okay, sorry. Continue. This is Dill 911 writes. Wow. 100% agree. Lots of marinara sauce can melt the steel. All right. 100% agree. It might be Dill 911. Dill 911 is a joke. 100% agree. So effing disappointing. And I'm editing this, by the way, for radio. I've been going there for years and it's been my favorite item and they've replaced it with something that tastes like low quality cheese sticks. You get it some fast food place. I can't believe they got rid of them. We've gone downhill considerably lately. I'm going to skip ahead to this next person whose username I can't even tell what it spells. But they wrote, I am disgusted. We took our family out for dinner. We ordered the mozzarella sticks and we get this twisty POS. What in the world? And then burgers taste like really low quality meat, no sauce. The fries were all undercooked. Chicken tenders were more like chicken tendons. It was just bad, bad. I'll never go back after like 30 years. You effed up red Robin letting them know on all platforms too. They are. By the way, not going back. I believe that person's name is Amam in Waw. Oh, that's Amam in Washington. Interesting boy. Amam in Waw. You are following along with me. I just got here. I'm looking to see like what else, something must have changed with Reddit. One of my favorite things is when somebody posts a comment like that, click on their profile and see what else they've posted on. But they've been a lot more and more people are choosing to make everything private now, which I guess means if you're after we roasted that woman who went off about the Hudson news and like whatever airport that was and then we everything else that she was posting was so like negative too. Yeah. Can we talk about this for a split second? Let's move away from. Absolutely. I think we're just bad lands in it now, right? I think I've been bad lands in it from the get go today. Um, and I'll pause if you need. Thank you. I do need to do this. The bad lands. The bad lands. Amam in Waw. So going back to that conversation, we have to reset it a little bit because it was like a year ago. It was in the Arizona airport and I saw what would usually be described as a Hudson news, but it was sort of I don't know. It was a little bit different. It was a little bit of crossroads or something. And I can't remember what it was called, but let's just say it was like crossroads by Hudson. And it was just sort of like, I guess it was like an elevated Hudson news, right? And so we thought, oh, this must be the direction they're going in or something along those lines that there were going to be a bunch of crossroads by Hudson. Something that I noticed in one of my recent travels, probably I'm guessing to LA, but I'm not exactly sure. It seems like what Hudson news is doing is they're making a whole bunch of different little offshoot brands because I think it might have been the Vegas airport. They had it wasn't crossroads, but it was something else that sort of just vaguely nodded to local culture and then said by Hudson. So I'm wondering if all the Hudson news is or a majority of them are going to be like kind of these elevated Hudson news is what they're all going to have different names based on where they are. Have you noticed this? Somebody flies way more than me? No, I'm usually just walking around with my headphones and listening to this sound and kind of keeping my eyes down. But I could see that. Now, what we ended up doing though, I think I was just googling around trying to get eyes on this place. You were describing. And in the course of that, I think I went to their website. And then the first review of it was so irrationally angry about the person at the whatever they call this, Hudson crossroads or crossroads by Hudson, not like smirling or something when they like, you know, check to this person out. And then I think from there, we went to see because it was on Yelp, I believe. This is the Yelp review of a lifetime, as we say. And then I think we went to this person's other like Yelp reviews and they were all just kind of, they honestly were a little a mom and a wot to me. And by that, I mean, like to go back to this Reddit review of Red Robin, I am also, as we've now learned multiple times, I'm very bummed about them switching the cheesedicks. I find it hard to believe that literally every item of food that was brought out to this person and her family was awful. Like I have a feeling that like this is a person who is, if we could see their other reviews, I bet you that they would be a person who goes more towards anger than happiness for whatever reason, whatever they're dealing with. And it's like, you know, it would be nice to know because then I would know whether to believe them or not. If someone's entire profile is leaving previous angry reviews, then I'm not going to take their anger review as seriously. And again, the idea that like the burgers were horrible. There was no sauce. The fries were undercooked. The tendons were tendons. All of it was awful. And that she's letting them know on all platforms. Right. Now here's, give them both barrels. You got what we've got as a person in a mom and a while who's cursing the darkness, then we've got a torch lighter in user, larnar or 23. This is much more where I would go with this. And in fact, where my mind went already, Andrew, I keep reaching out to them in hopes that they'll bring them back. Does anyone know their food distributor? I'm sure there's a way to buy the previous ones in bulk. That is, that's problem solving. You figure out answers. Yeah. You figure out, okay, who was the, because like they weren't, you know, the red robin mascot wasn't hand-bredding the cheese sticks in the back of the restaurant. They're just buying this from some restaurant, you know, food supply company. These just happen to be the style of the cheese sticks that that food supply company was making or, you know, sourcing. Figure out where those cheese sticks are. Get yourself a deep freeze. Buy yourself a few boxes of them. And you could be home cooking your mozzarella sticks. Just like mom used to make them at the red robin. Even though I said, because I wasn't expecting anything different, because I had never been to a red robin before, I remember generally liking the cheese twists. I remember very much liking the whole sauce situation. The sauce situation, just the, what do you call the thing that a painter uses? Like a palette? Is that a palette? Yeah, it's like, yeah. It's like that only a bunch of different sauces were out and I loved that. I understand, you know, change is hard. But the thing that speaks to me a little bit with one of these complainers, these yellow complainers is this idea that it's just feels cheaper to them. And that is one thing that goes back to what we were saying about the uniforms, you know, these so-called super bowl jerseys or whatever. Everything just feels like- For inflation. Incentification of everything. It's in shittification and it's like, and it's not because everybody's tightening their belts. They're getting richer. They, capital they in quotes. Yes. They're getting richer. But everything else is getting insidified. Yes, 100%. It's not as simple as, well, what are these companies supposed to do? Because there are still at the, whether it's the airlines, whether it's the shareholders of whatever company, there is very often some small group of people at the top of this whatever, you know, sort of venture capital project or what's the other one I can never remember the exact name for, but basically those kind of companies that will buy up, you know, a company and then just like strip out all the assets like they did basically a private equity. Yeah. Like a private equity company. Yeah, the things are getting worse for us, the normal people because somewhati somewhere is getting richer. They're getting richer to a degree that they can't even spend the money that they're getting off of making things slightly worse for us. There are occasionally market forces where a company can't stay in business, but it's most of the time it's not because the big company is going to go out of business because the big company has to continually produce more profits year over year and something's got to give. Now listen, I have amazing news out of this Reddit feed. Somebody called Char Your Zard says my brother said US food carries the identical cheese sticks that red robin used to serve. I'm going to try them today. They're called golden crisp battered mozzarella cheese sticks item number 737 0166. Then somebody called Rumog checks in sir, you are a king, a gentleman and a scholar. After multiple failed attempts trying to find a replacement for these, I searched based on your post and your brother is 100% right. They're McCain golden crisp battered mozzarella sticks and they taste exactly like the red robin ones and other places that used to have these, especially if you deep fry and reuse the same oil, the taste really dials in. I want to pro tip. Yeah, that's getting that's getting very very deep. It's like if you hire, if you hire a kind of checked out 15 year old with acne to reuse the, we have to create the exact exact exact same environment of that red robin kitchen Andrew. We need a kid who doesn't want to be there, right? We need, we need to reuse the same oil. I'm going to wear a hair net. Or not or not. You know you're supposed to. I am sending you via text message, the ugliest looking link I've ever done seen. I don't know why it's so long and weird looking, but it links to the frozen, I'm just going to curious what your takeaway is going to be based on the packaging of this. I'm sending you a link to the type of frozen food section, she sticks that I get at the grocery store. Now keep in mind, when I get these, I'm not trying to recreate anything. I'm certainly not trying to recreate a restaurant experience, but generally speaking, like these are those same shape and kind of size as the kind that I think used to miss. I'm wondering if this even gets close to scratching that itch for you. Well, farm rich, I believe is the brain. I'm looking at a font, just an awful. I know these style of the mozzarella sticks and you know, honestly, any port in the store, I would eat these if I was at your house and it was freezer feast, I would absolutely eat these and I would enjoy them. But what I had them before, yeah, what do you see? Well, here's what it comes down to. The consistency of the cheese, for some reason, these ones, because now I'm on the FoodServiceDirect.com website. I've got eyes on this, I can buy a case of these for $115. How many are in a case? Three. Three sticks. Three sticks, that's right. It's hard to explain the difference, but as a person who orders cheese sticks a lot when I'm out, the ones that you're showing me, the farm rich ones are very similar to ones that I'll get at a bar sometimes are a place like that. And again, they're always yummy. There's nothing wrong with these cheese sticks, except they're not the ones I'm going for and it has to do with the way that the cheese inside of the breading is responding. I think because the outer breading is slightly different, it's almost like it's really hard to describe, but the red robin cheese sticks when they would come out piping hot, you didn't get a huge cheese pole off of them. You know what I mean? The cheese wasn't like, ooey gooey molten. It was almost like, this sounds kind of gross, but it was still fairly solid in there. It was warmed up, but it wasn't like this thing where you take a bite of it and then the cheese is just spilling out, it's melting everywhere, you're trying to corral it. There was something about the consistency of the cheese in the red robin one, because that's the first one I had, that's what I prefer. That makes any sense. Yeah, and going back to the inshitification of everything, one thing that I have noticed, and keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who's already got a very fraught, weird relationship with cheese anyway, and doesn't need a whole bunch of different kinds of cheeses, etc. But I like melted mozzarella, especially with breading and marinara sauce, so you know, what could go wrong there? Except I've noticed, oh, and also every now and then at a restaurant, if it comes, if it's like a burger, I don't get burgers all that often, but if it comes with Swiss, like let's say it's like a mushroom Swiss burger, but yeah, okay, I'll just get the Swiss, it'll keep the mushrooms on there, and as long as it's fully melted, my thing is, I don't want to see the corners. In other words, it needs to be so melted that it's just like a melted cheese. It's not like I can see that it was a slice of cheese that's only partially melted, so those are my rules. But one thing I've noticed is more and more of the cheese in these situations, cheese sticks and appetizers, and then maybe as a topping on a sandwich, it's being more and more replaced with almost a cheese goo that is almost like a... Yes. Like what was the stuff that was sold in cans when we were a kid? Cheese whiz. It all feels like it's almost like a white cheese whizzy thing. And as somebody who already does not really feel comfortable messing around with cheese, and you're seeing it in a barn, you're like, you bite into a cheese stick and it's more like filled with white cheese whiz. Yes, that is exactly awful. Yes, exactly. Well, Andrew, we're gonna need to wrap things up here because I am receiving a message from... Remember the people that I alluded to earlier? Yes, the Sally Fourth people. I was the sad... They were the salient fourth and going, hey, can you join the meeting that I did not realize was supposed to be happening 11 minutes ago? Oh, jeez Louise, let's get out of here. That's an important meeting. But yeah, I'll give you and John a full response in maybe later today or at some point in the near future. But I'm gonna go ahead and... Yep, go ahead. I'm gonna bow out here gracefully or not so gracefully. And thank you everyone for listening. That's gonna bring us to the end of today's show, but we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. So join us for that. In the meantime, everybody have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain to tall. And good luck to all. I will be ordering a bowl of soup as an appetizer, not a cup. I know people say I'll fill up, but you have no idea how my body processes soup. Power out.