284: Your Guide to Guides

Summary

Good Job, Brain! – Episode 284: "Your Guide to Guides"

Released: December 25, 2024
Hosts: Karen (B), Colin (A), Chris (C)

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Episode Overview

In this festive and trivia-packed episode titled "Your Guide to Guides," Karen, Colin, Chris, and Dana (in spirit) deep-dive into the strange and fascinating world of guides in all forms—literary maps, apple review guides, the grueling London taxi driver "knowledge" exam, and the merciless, maze-like layout of IKEA stores. Fueled by their love for offbeat trivia and competitive quiz energy, they craft an episode brimming with fun, facts, and witty banter. Play along as they test each other—and you—on the quirks of navigation, knowledge, and guidance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Mail & Trivia Warm-Up

[00:40–02:29]

• Highlights international film title trivia: In Sweden, Mel Brooks movies use the "Springtime for X" titling format, e.g., "Springtime for the Sheriff" for Blazing Saddles.
• Quick-fire Trivial Pursuit questions:
  • Pan-African flag: Black, green, red.
  • Ben Affleck's CIA film: Argo.
  • Julia Gordon Lowe founded Girl Scouts of the USA.
  • Pirate ship in Peter Pan: The Jolly Roger.
  • 98% of Hawaii’s Lanai is owned by Larry Ellison.
  • Yankee Don Mattingly: 14-year career, no championship.

Quote:
"We would just be brainstorming every Yankee and then crossing out the ones that we know won a championship."
—Colin (A), [04:43]

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2. Corrections & Camping Notes

[05:37–09:41]

• Colin corrects a previous error about data units (mixing up bits and bytes).
• Colin shares camping stories: five navigation tools used, sanctioned soil-burial bathroom privileges in Canyonlands National Park, implications for the show's guidebooks/maps theme.

Memorable Moment:
"We were both kind of like, oh, we’re definitely gonna make sure... we had a lovely time hiking down into The Maze."
—Colin (A), [09:11]

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3. Literary Maps Quiz

[09:56–21:39] Chris leads a creative quiz on fictional literary maps based on the locations marked in book maps, with players buzzing in.
Sample Questions:

• Winky Peaks, Quadling Country ➔ Oz
• Flint’s Finger, The Bite ➔ Westeros (Game of Thrones)
• Cliffs of Insanity, Zoo of Death ➔ Florin and Guilder (Princess Bride)
• Iron Hills, White Downs, Mirkwood ➔ Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings)
• North Inlet, Cape of the Woods ➔ Skeleton Island (Treasure Island)
• Big stones and rocks, Eeyore’s hole ➔ Hundred Acre Wood (Winnie the Pooh)
• Ettinsmoor, Witch's Castle ➔ Narnia
• Bone Town, Valyria ➔ Essos (Game of Thrones)
• Westchester County, Valley of Ashes ➔ New York (The Great Gatsby)

Notable Quote:
"I love that you’re crowdsourcing our scoring."
—Colin (A), [12:03]

Memorable Moment:
"Such a simple guy. It’s a very good map. You gotta look at the map because it’s got, like, Eeyore's Depressing Hole..."
—Chris (C), [17:33]

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4. Apple Varieties & the Ultimate Guide

[22:01–35:23] Karen introduces applerankings.com, the comprehensive apple review website by comedian Brian Frange.

• The Red Delicious—once tasty, became widely loathed due to selective breeding for looks over flavor.
• The modern apple age: Variety explosion, creative branding (Cosmic Crisp, Sweet Tango).
• Branding is crucial: Apple names are trademarked, even as apple tree patents expire.
• Honeycrisp and Sweet Tango are modern favorites; Red Delicious now scores 25/100 (“despicable”).
• Apple industry is a huge, high-tech, competitive business with a surprising amount of science, law, and marketing.

Notable Quotes:
"Coffee grinds in a leather glove known as the Red Delicious apple was once a robust firebrand..."
—Karen (B), quoting Brian Frange, [25:19]

“If I could go back in time and tell my, like, seven-year-old self, like, 'Don’t worry—the apples get better.' I promise you.”
—Colin (A), [34:45]

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5. The Grueling "Knowledge" of London Cab Drivers

[37:55–54:53] Colin shares the mythic process of earning the right to drive a London black cab.

• The "Knowledge" is a brutal, multi-year process: Memorizing 320 routes, every significant landmark within central London, via the Blue Book.
• "Knowledge boys and girls" cruise the city on mopeds, quizzing themselves.
• 3–4 years, frequent oral “appearances,” high dropout rate.
• It’s part tradition, part economic opportunity, and a huge point of professional pride.
• London’s geography (non-grid, winding streets) inspired the rigorous exam, possibly sparked by complaints from visitors at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition.

Memorable Moment:
“You have to know not just the theater district, but the order of all the theaters. Right, you need to know, like, 'oh, okay, this one comes first, then this one comes…'"
—Colin (A), [50:27]

Notable Quote:
"Every set of regulations tells a story."
—Colin (A), [53:41]

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6. IKEA: The Guided Maze of Shopping

[56:08–67:25] Karen quizzes the team on Ikea's unique approach to guiding shoppers:

• First US store was in Pennsylvania. Largest in Philippines; smallest in Hong Kong.
• Entry experience: Escalators to second floor, Småland (kids' play land).
  • Fun fact: Småland is both Swedish for "small land" and the founder's home province.
• Maze layout: Showrooms in a set order. Secret “shortcuts” feel illicit.
• IKEA x Pizza Hut collab: Table shaped like a pizza-saver (the little white tripod).
• The upstairs culminates in TikTok-favorite BLAHAJ—the IKEA stuffed shark.
• Downstairs is food (timed to influence big decisions), the “marketplace” full of impulse buys (bulla bulla—strategic heap presentation), and the self-service warehouse where you collect your flat packs.
• IKEA acquired TaskRabbit to help with assembly.
• Reflects on the IKEA trip as a real test of any relationship.

Notable Quotes:
"They make [the secret doors] feel like it's bad."
—Karen (B), [59:46]

"Every child care facility in every IKEA has the same name... Småland, which literally means 'small land'."
—Karen (B), [58:52]

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7. Host Projects & Closing

[67:41–69:25]

• Colin’s tabletop deck-building & dice-rolling game, "Bare Bones," launches a new Kickstarter for a revised edition & expansions.
  • “We improved the quality of the dice and we’re making the cards better.” [68:44]

Karen wraps:
“Hope you learned stuff about maps and books, about the London Cabbie Sommelier med school exam, about Red Delicious... and about IKEA."
—Karen (B), [69:25]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “So we had a lovely time hiking down into the Maze. Saw some amazing rock art that is as old as 8,000 years perhaps—truly mind blowing. Older than the pyramids." —Colin (A), [09:11]
• "This is right up my alley. I can't believe I haven't heard of this [apple review site]." —Colin (A), [23:20]
• “Apple ranking says the Opal tastes good for an unwiped anus.” —Karen (B), [34:39]
• "I've always said this is like a test for relationships: if you can survive Disneyland, and if you can survive IKEA." —Karen (B), [67:25]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:40] International movie title game & trivia warm-up
• [05:37] Corrections segment; origin of this episode's guide/maps theme
• [09:56] Literary maps quiz with Chris
• [22:01] Exploring applerankings.com and apple industry trivia
• [37:55] The "Knowledge" of London cabbies: history & process
• [56:08] IKEA navigation/maze & retail psychology quiz
• [67:41] Colin's Bare Bones Kickstarter update
• [69:25] Final thoughts and wrap-up

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Episode Vibe & Takeaways

Rich in clever quiz design, personal stories, and behind-the-scenes context on everything from the humble Red Delicious to the labyrinthine Black Cab licensing process, this episode is classic Good Job, Brain!: delightful, surprising, and brain-nourishing. Whether you're a trivia buff, a fan of pub quizzes, or just someone who has ever gotten lost in IKEA, there's a fact, chuckle, and moment of "oh wow, I never knew that!" for everyone.

Transcript

[A]

You're listening to an Airwave media podcast.

[B]

Ho Ho Ho. Homebound homies honing homework in Hoboken wearing haute couture. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 284. And of course I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your yearlings yearning for year end yearbooks.

[A]

I am Colin.

[C]

And I'm Chris.

[B]

We have some hot listener mail. I think you guys will get a kick out of this. Jonathan Rowe in our. In our Lobe Trotters fan group, he said. Just finished listening to title. This episode and the UK title segment from Chris reminded me of the fact that in Sweden, the Mel Brooks film, the Producers, some people know it as Broadway show, but there was an old version, 1967, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Was released in Sweden titled Springtime for Hitler.

[A]

The musical. In the musical. I mean, in the movie, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So it's the fake musical in the movie is called Springtime for Hitler and they actually marketed and named the movie that.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Jonathan writes that movie was so popular that subsequent Mel Brooks films all had the same title format. So here. Can you guess which Mel Brooks movies these are?

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Springtime for the Sheriff.

[A]

Blazing Saddles. Yep.

[B]

Springtime for Space.

[C]

Spaceballs.

[A]

Space Balls.

[B]

Springtime for Frankenstein.

[C]

Young Frankenstein.

[A]

Young Frankenstein.

[B]

This one. I. I don't know. Springtime for Lunatics.

[A]

How was it? High Anxiety. His sort of. His Vertigo. Not parody.

[B]

I mean that's funny. But. Thank you, Jonathan. And without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz, hotshot. Here I have a random Trivial Pursuit card. You guys have your barnyard buzzers. Everybody, let's answer some questions. Here we go. Blue wedge. For geography. What are the three colors of the Pan African flag? Chris?

[C]

Black, green and red.

[B]

Craig. Colors that have been adopted for the flags of several African nations. Pink Wedge, which Ben Affleck thriller, is based on the true story of a CIA team that posed as a Hollywood production team.

[A]

Colin as Argo.

[B]

Argo. Not to be confused with Fargo.

[C]

Based on a Wired story. Whoa.

[B]

Yes. It won the Oscar for best picture in 2013. Yellow wedge. Julia Gordon Lowe founded which organization to, quote, build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.

[A]

Colin, is that the Girl Scouts?

[B]

What is the official.

[A]

The Girl Scouts of America.

[B]

The Girl Scouts of the usa.

[C]

Ah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

All right. Purple wedge. What is the name of the pirate ship in J.M. barry's Peter Pan?

[C]

Oh.

[A]

Man.

[C]

Okay, okay. Is it just. Is it The Jolly Roger.

[B]

It's the Jolly Roger. Green wedge.

[C]

What?

[B]

Billionaire tech mogul owns 98% of Hawaii's smallest accessible island. Oh, I did. Colin.

[A]

I know this one. This is Larry Ellison.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Of Oracle.

[B]

Yes. Says the or Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder purchased the 88,000 acre aisle of lanai.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

$300 million.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Orange wedge. Which major league baseball player spent his entire 14 year career with the Yankees without winning a championship?

[A]

Man, I'm sure this is gimme.

[C]

I know if we were at trivia, we'd all just be looking at Colin right now. Been like, save us. We'd be saying things like, colin, literally, whatever you want to write down is good with us.

[A]

This will, this is where we would be like writing down every famous Yankee we could think of. Right. We would just be brainstorming every Yankee and then crossing out the ones that we know won a championship.

[B]

Good, good tactics.

[C]

No, I already told you what I'd be doing.

[A]

14 years.

[B]

Does that place you, does that give you a clue on what era?

[A]

Okay, yes.

[C]

How about Don Mattingly, like, it is dogmatic.

[A]

Chris. Chris Kohler, ladies and gentlemen, pulls it out.

[C]

Well, we watched the Yankees when I was a kid and Don Mattingly, like, he was the guy, he was always with the Yankees. Yeah, during that time, they didn't, they were championships. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Wow. Incredible.

[B]

Club trivia works.

[A]

Yep, yep.

[B]

Talk it out. No bad answers. Good job.

[A]

Brains.

[B]

That's so satisfying.

[A]

Yeah. Bravo.

[B]

All right, well, Colin, there's something in the last episode, I was.

[A]

Wait, I, I, you know what? I was sort of waiting that you might call me out here.

[B]

Karen, I, I didn't catch it. We're gonna have our corrections, errors, omission segment. Actually, this is a very fervent actually from my husband, Colin. In the last episode, you mentioned something about the motor, and this might be a first.

[A]

I was listening to our podcast, our own show, and I heard myself on the show say something and I immediately thought I was like, wait a minute, that's not right. What was I. That's not right. And then, and then my second thought was, oh, man. All right, well, I know our listeners. Someone's gonna catch this. So I guess in some ways I'm glad that it came from inside the family here.

[B]

So I'm inside the house.

[A]

In my haste to talk about how slow the old modem that I used to have, my 56k modem, I mixed up some, some numbers here. I mixed up my bits and my bytes. A bit, of course, is one eighth the size of A byte. So what I was describing in terms of the file sizes and speeds were actually one eighth the speed that I should have been talking about.

[B]

I've been getting DMs, I've been getting complaints from inside the house. Y' all were right. You were right, we were wrong.

[A]

I goofed it, and I'm so mad at myself. It's right there in the notes. Yep.

[B]

Hey, it happens. Happens to the best of us.

[A]

Well, longtime listeners of the show, you know, I'm contractually obligated to mention my camping trips at least once per season. The this week's topic kind of came to me growing out of that trip. You know, we nerd out when we go on these trips. My camping partner and I, we rented a 4x4 and had like, four different modes of navigation. We've got like the National Geographic map. We've got a four by four trail book map, like wire bound. We've got the Google Maps on the device. And then, of course, I had two additional GPS tracking apps on my phone and a little Garmin with us. So, like, we were just joking at one point about, like, we're getting a little nervous. We're off trail here, you know, but we also have like five. Five means of navigation. But I was like, oh, man. Guides, maps, navigation. What a rich, rich, deep, wide topic for the show. So made a mental note when I got back that I would put that in the hat here for. For topics, guidebooks. Yeah.

[B]

Maps, exploring, directions. But most importantly, Colin, on your camping trip. We're dying to know.

[C]

Always want to know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

What did you poop in? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

What did you spend this year?

[A]

You know what? I got it. I got to tell you guys, this was. This was a little bit of a luxury. A little bit of a luxury for us in that we had sanctioned, Sanctioned. Allowed to bury our poop in the. In the soil poops here on this trip. So we were in a part of Canyonlands national park out in Utah, one of the most remote places you can get to in, In America, in fact. And when we're talking to the ranger and he said, all right, well, you know, when you're up at the campsite, of course you got to follow normal, you know, pack it out rules. You got your little wag bag or what have you. He's like, now if you're. If you're hiking down into the canyon, if you have to do your business down there, you are allowed to just dig and bury it. You know, just, you know, stay away from water and be responsible and we both kind of looked at each other. We're like, oh, really? So, yeah, so I'm definitely going to.

[C]

Poop in the maze. Yeah.

[A]

But yeah, we were both kind of like, oh, we're definitely gonna make sure that. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. So we had a lovely time hiking down into, into the maze. Saw some amazing rock art that is as old as 8,000 years perhaps truly mind blowing. Older than the pyramids. Just incredible. And you know, we may have left a deposit down there.

[C]

Did you say you left a little piece of yourself there?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Anyways, this week.

[A]

Anyway this week.

[B]

It's your guide to guides.

[C]

Okay. You guys love reading books. I love reading books. It's not necessarily an indication if the book is going to be good or bad or what, but it's always nice when you open up a book for the first time and the first thing you see is a map. A map of where we're going to be. Where we're going to be going. All the cool places that are going to be in this book, you know.

[A]

You'Re going to be flipping back to that map at multiple points.

[C]

Exactly. Where are they? How far did they get? Okay, cool. So literary maps, they call them. Right. This is a quiz about those maps that what they, that they got in the beginnings of books. And what I'm going to do is it's going to be one of these quizzes where I'm going to start reading off names of places or things that are written on the map. And as soon as you think you know, you can buzz in and answer. But what I'm looking for that, what I really want to know is what is the. The land or the place?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Not the book title.

[C]

You want to say the name of the book too? Fine, but I'm not really as interested in.

[A]

Okay, all right. All right.

[C]

Unless you're digging so hard for the name of the land that all you can come up with is the name of the book, then. Begrudging sort of a half a point, I guess, at that point.

[A]

Right, right. Well, it might, it might spark the other one of us if one of us can only get that.

[C]

Exactly. Well, let's try it out. So I have five. There are five places or things written on the map per map. You know, again, buzzing as soon as you think you know it. If I was keeping track of this, it's like you would get more points for answering earlier. You know what I mean? So just let's not even worry about it. If that guy who keeps track of Points is still listening. Let's say that you get. If there's five things and you get it on the. The first one, you get five points and then four points, three points, two points, one point and. And so on. Okay. If they get the name of the. The world or the map correct, then it's four full points. But if. If they only can get the name of the. Like the book or the book cycle, and then it's half of whatever those points were.

[A]

I love that you're crowdsourcing our scoring. Okay, here we go.

[C]

First map. All right, get your barnyard buzzers ready. Let's roll. All right.

[A]

All right.

[C]

Winky Peaks. Karen.

[A]

Amazing.

[C]

The Land of Oz is the Land of Oz. Wow. Wow.

[A]

Well done.

[B]

Well, how are you selecting? Like, are you going for lesser known to more known?

[C]

Well, I'm. Yes, I'm trying to go from lesser known to more known, but, you know, if, you know, the obscure one, you could. You could. Yeah, I. Having just finished reading the entire seven book Wicked cycle, plus all of the sequels. I would have known that right off the bat, too. But I wanted to see how you guys would do. Yeah. Winky Peaks, the Great Sandy Waste. Quadling Country. Poppy Fields. And. And then the last one would be Emerald City. Okay, next map. Flint's Finger. The Bite. The new Gift.

[A]

Oh, whoa. Colin, Is this Westeros?

[C]

It is Westeros. Oh, Westeros.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

The Bite, the new gift. Sunspear. And then King's Landing would be. Okay. The Farm. Zoo of Death. Cliffs of Insanity.

[B]

Oh, God.

[C]

Fire. Swamp Call.

[A]

We can discuss the Cliffs of Insanity. Man. Yeah. Why do I know Cliffs of Insanity?

[B]

Is this like Princess Bride or is it like Never. Never ending?

[A]

Colin, is it the Princess Bride?

[C]

It's the Princess Bride. Now, do you want to go for what is the Land?

[A]

Do you remember the land? Oh, sorry. Yes, of course. All right, Karen, over to you.

[C]

It's two warring. It's two warring neighboring countries.

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

Two neighboring countries are Florin and Gilder.

[A]

Oh, yes.

[C]

Those are the two. And the last one I was gonna say was Miracle Max. Miracle Max is Billy Crystal is noted right on the. On the map there.

[A]

Yeah. Florin and Gilder.

[C]

All right, here we go. Iron Hills, White Downs. Mirror. Mirror. Karen.

[B]

Middle Earth.

[C]

Middle Earth.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[C]

Middle Earth.

[B]

It's the ir. The ear spell.

[C]

There you go. See, it was getting. Yeah.

[B]

Faramir, Boromir.

[C]

White Downs. Mirror, Mirror. Mirkwood. And then. And then the Shire at the end. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

The last one should hopefully give it away, but, you know, all Right. North Inlet, Cape of the Woods. The Spyglass Hill.

[B]

Oh, I don't know the land.

[C]

You want to. Do you want to say.

[B]

Oh, I thought it was. It was his dark material.

[C]

It is not. No, no, no, no. It's not the Amber Spy Glass. No, no, no. That's not it. So we had North Inlet, Cape of the woods, the Spyglass Hill, Mizzen Mast Hill. Before I say the last one. The last one, I want you to think about these things.

[A]

I mean, these are all, like pirate or, you know, ship terms.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Spyglass, Mizzenmast. What was.

[C]

Yeah, the first two are North East Inlet and Cape of the Woods.

[B]

Where Peter Pan lives.

[C]

No.

[B]

Which is. Oh, Neverland Island.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Treasure Island.

[A]

Treasure Island. But what's the land? What's the. What's the place?

[B]

Oh, it's not.

[A]

Okay, all right. Treasure Island. Okay.

[C]

Yes. So the last one is Captain Kid's Anchorage. It is from the book Treasure Island. So here's the question. Do you know the name of the island from Treasure Island? Because I did not actually know this. It is not Treasure Island.

[B]

What is it?

[C]

It's an island that had treasure on it. And that's the title of the book. The name of the island in Treasure Island. You ready? Name of the island is Skeleton Island.

[B]

Oh, very piratey.

[C]

Okay, Right, right, right. Okay. So, Skeleton Island. Okay. All right. A few more for you here. Okay. Nice for picnics. Big stones and rocks.

[A]

What is the. The.

[B]

It's such a cute.

[A]

Yeah. Is it like Poo Woods? Is it like. What's the. That's what you.

[C]

That's what you do in the woods.

[A]

I think it's from the Pooh Books. Karen.

[B]

100 Acre Wood.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

Yes. 100 Acre Wood. You can see things like, nice for picnics. Big stones and rocks. E. Tree Rabbit's house. And.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Poo trap for Heffalops.

[A]

Are all.

[C]

Are all marked on the map. Yes.

[B]

Such a simple guy.

[C]

It's a very good map. It's a good map. You gotta look at the map because it's got, like, Eeyore's Depressing Hole. Also, like, kind of like in the corner as well. I don't know what it's called. I'm not looking at right now. All right.

[B]

Yes. Seasonal Affect Disorder.

[C]

Oh, boy. Einsmore.

[B]

Oh, can you spell that?

[C]

E, T, T, I, N, S, M, O, O, R. Einsmore.

[B]

Okay, okay, okay.

[C]

Glasswater Creek. Karen.

[B]

Narnia.

[C]

It's Narnia.

[A]

Ooh. Nice.

[C]

Nice job. Wow. Now, did you. Did you know that or Were you kind of curious?

[B]

No, I've never read any of those books.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

It sounds British. And then also the. The iciness of Glass Creek. It gave me an icy image and I was like, oh, what's icy?

[C]

Yeah. Ettensmore, Glasswater Creek, Shuddering Woods, Witch's Castle. And. And Aslan's Camp.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yes. Yep. Here's another one. Bonetown. Bonetown. Lorath. That's L L O R A T H. Lorath.

[B]

Oh, that sounds funny. Wow. Why does that sound so familiar? I don't even read that many books. I can't. It must be something I've read.

[C]

Okay. Port of Ibn I B B E N. Port of Ibn.

[B]

We're in Piratey.

[A]

Yeah, It's.

[C]

Yeet. That's Y I. Space. T I.

[B]

Not necessarily like British or English before I do the.

[C]

You know, the dead giveaway at the end. Bone Town. Lorath. Port of Ibn Yi T. Valyria.

[B]

Oh, Valyria. But we already had. We already had Westeros.

[C]

We did already have Westeros.

[A]

Essos.

[C]

It's Essos. We already had Westeros. We did not have Essos.

[A]

He did have the whole map for the whole. Yeah, he did.

[C]

I didn't give you so Rios.

[A]

So. I think you're right. Karen, there was.

[C]

You got it. Yep. It's Essos. Good job. Okay, one. One final map for you all from a. From a fictional book. Westchester County, Long Island Sound, Flushing. Karen.

[B]

Great Gatsby.

[C]

Great Gatsby.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Wow. Nice. I didn't even get.

[A]

But we're looking for the place, though, right?

[C]

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. I got very excited.

[B]

New York.

[C]

New York. Yeah. No, no. Thanks for keeping me honest. Thanks for keeping me honest. Yeah. Yeah, I figured it out.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Westchester County, Long Island Sound, Flushing, Valley of Ashes and West Egg.

[B]

Egg.

[C]

All right, well, good job, everybody. That was fun.

[A]

Good job.

[B]

That's fun.

[A]

That was real good.

[B]

I don't really remember maps, but I remember as a kid really clearly. Do you remember Jurassic Park? The book had the fractals and the chapter markings that's etched in my brain.

[C]

I recently reread that and I was so. I remembered the fractal things. I'm like, ah, so good. Such a. It's such a clever idea. Yeah. Jurassic park, the book, man. If you have never read Jurassic.

[A]

I have never read the book, I guess.

[C]

Oh, Colin, you really should. It's not like the whole.

[A]

I've read other. I've read other. Crichton. Oh, sure.

[C]

The first book is this. You know, it's a really thinky kind of Thing that takes a long time to get to the dinosaurs, you know, but it's super smart. It's really good. Yeah.

[A]

All right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, I'll pick that one.

[C]

That's also what's very funny about it is, of course I was reading this as a kid, I'm living in like suburban Connecticut. I read the book, I'm like, okay, cool. And then like reading it, like as an adult, it comes couple of years ago, it's like, oh, haha, funny. This is all about Silicon Valley biotech firms. There's so many, like, early references to things happening in like, Palo Alto and stuff like that. It's like cute. Okay, yeah, read it, read it.

[B]

All right, my turn. In this guide episode, your guide to guides, this may seem random. So when you go shopping for apples at the supermarket these days, what do you see? You see so many options.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they all have cutesy names like Sugar Bee, you know, Gala or Envy.

[C]

Cosmic Crisp.

[B]

Cosmic Crisp, yeah.

[A]

Love a good Cosmic Crisp.

[C]

Oh, they're so good.

[B]

There are so many commercially available apple varieties out there. And gosh, if only there was a guide that could review and rate these apples out there. And your wish is granted incomes. Apple rankings dot com.

[A]

Oh, thank you.

[B]

This is a special shout out to my friend and coworker and good job brain listener Johnny, who told me about this. So apple rankings might be maybe the most comprehensive apple variety review guide.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Written by comedian Brian Frange, who is not only funny, seriously is obsessed with apples, like a real passion for apples. And designed this comprehensive scoring system.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And has reviewed pretty much all commercially available apple varieties.

[A]

This is right up my alley. I can't believe I haven't heard of this now.

[B]

So if you grew up in the 90s or before the 90s, if you wanted to get apples at the supermarket, you had two choices.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

You had green.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

And you had red.

[C]

Yep. Those were the two. Yep.

[A]

Do I want red and mealy or do I want green and make my mouth pucker?

[C]

Which.

[A]

Which of these delectable choices do I opt for?

[B]

By red, I mean the classic variety, Red Delicious, the iconic kind of emoji cartoon symbol of the apple. And then the green apple, like you said, Colin, was undoubtedly Granny Smith.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

By the way, named after a real granny. Granny.

[A]

Oh, is that right? It wasn't a marketing creation. All right.

[B]

Not a marketing creation. She's an Australian fruit cultivator. She grew the Granny Smith apple. But yes, we didn't even use the variety names back then because we didn't even have that many options that required unique names to, you know, differentiate which apple it was, green or red.

[A]

I remember once at the supermarket with my mom and I said, we saw a yellow apple, and, like, my sister and I just about stopped in our tracks. Like, what? There's. There's a third color apple now?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And like you said, the red apple. The Red Delicious was not delicious at all.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But for almost a century, a hundred years, almost 100 years, the red Delicious ruled the apple production industry in the US but it also has been universally disliked. Back to apple rankings dot com. So, Brian Franklin. Fran, the Red Delicious Apple review. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Believe it or not, the coffee grinds in a leather glove known as the Red Delicious apple was once a robust firebrand credited with reinventing the apple from mere cider fruit to a full fledged lunchworthy side piece.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

It even won the Stark Brothers apple contest in 1894. Likely your great grandma's favorite apple, this once flavorful Prometheus has been mass produced into desolation. And it's a short review, but it hits on a lot of points, especially about the history of Red Delicious. By the way, the scoring the score out of 100, Red Delicious scored 25 out of 100 in the score category of despicable. So how did something this undelicious also become, like, the most common omnipresent apple in our stores or in American culture? Right. Think of, like, the big, pervy red apple, and you're like, oh, as you.

[A]

Said, it is the iconic image, at least for an American, of what an apple is. Yeah.

[B]

So here's the thing. The Red Delicious used to be delicious. The V1 of the Red Delicious came about in the 1870s when a farmer in Iowa discovered mutated seedling. And years later, it fruited, and it was really, really good. And the farmer called this apple the Hawkeye. It's important to note, and this was in the apple rankings review, that apples up to this point, they weren't bred for eating raw. Most of the apples were being bred for cider production.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Juice and alcohol people, of course, ate apples. But the traits of a juicing apple is very different than, like, an eating apple. So the apple ranking review also mentioned that the apple was so tasty that it won the Stark Brothers apple contest, which did happen. Stark Brothers was an agricultural industry nursery. And immediately after the contest, the Stark brothers got exclusive rights to distribute the Hawkeye apple, and it was rebranded and renamed as Red Delicious because at the time, there was the Golden Delicious that came out. And they're like, oh, if they're the Golden Delicious, we're gonna be the Red Delicious.

[A]

Huh?

[B]

And it became a commercial success again. This is V1 of the Red Delicious apple, and it was actually delicious.

[A]

The launch edition.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what they say. Mo money, mo problems. Decades and decades of. Then selective breeding occurred. Growers started to focus on cosmetic traits, like, oh, there's a mutation that made the apples more red. Oh, a darker red. Where we're breeding the apples to have more uniform in color, so it's not splotchy. It's all red. And, oh, we want a certain shape. Oh, we're breeding for skins to be thicker because it's prettier and helps the fruit from bruising, can be stored longer. And the apples became prettier and prettier, but the taste became less important. Important. And that's how we ended up with Colin. How'd you describe it was, like, just mealy?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Spongy, thick skin. What upset the apple cart? So a couple big things happened in the decades leading up to 2000s. There were advancements in shipping and exporting apples from overseas.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Japan, New Zealand. And this started introducing more varieties onto the supermarket shelves.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Everybody was kind of getting tired of the Red Delicious. Institutes and universities trying to breed apples for taste at a bigger scale, at a commercial scale, which takes, you know, decades. I remember I was an older kid, and my mom gave me a Fuji apple. It wasn't all red. It wasn't all green. It was, like, a mix of, like, yellow and green and red. And to me, I was kind of brainwashed to think, like, oh, something's wrong with this apple.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I took my first bite, and it was like. Like. Like a mythical apple detonated. Slow mo footage of, like, apples exploding or a bullet shooting. That's what, like, happened in my body.

[A]

Are they allowed to be good?

[B]

Blew my mind.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, again, kids, we only had the gross red and the gross green.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Nothing else for a long time.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

The turning point was 80s 90s, when the Honeycrisp apple became the first modern.

[A]

Oh, that was kind of the first.

[B]

Breakthrough developed in University of Minnesota. And it's interesting because if you think about the new era of apples, this current era of apples, you can even tell the newness from just their names. You know, older apple varieties have names like. Like people names like Jonathan and Macintosh or, like, their appearance, like the russet. And these new apples have very market research names. They're focused on texture and taste and positive associations. Jazz. Jazz apples ever Crisp Crunch a bunch. Sweet Tango.

[C]

It's like starting to sound like street names for drugs.

[B]

You know, if you feel like these apples sound like brand names, you are completely correct because people figure it out. Okay. You can patent apple trees, but the patents expire and trees take a long time to fruit. But you can trademark an apple name. So even if someone grows the same type of apple, they can't use that name and the brand power behind the name. So if you own the trademark, you get to control who gets to grow your special apple and call your special apple by its name.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And hopefully avoiding the mistakes of the Red Delicious. They want it controlled. They don't want everybody to just have access and then breeding their own weird things. Right. They want, they want to keep the high quality fruit. When we think about the apple agricultural industry, it's like there's this idyllic imagery of cider and orchards and rural farms and picking apples and farm stands on. When in fact it's just like any other large commercial industry. It's a huge operation, huge amounts of money. There's scientists, there's government contracts, there's labs, there's like a big legal operation. You need a lot of lawyers, patents, trademarks and nationwide distribution deals and marketing.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I now live in Washington State. Big, big, big Apple hub. And the big pride and joy of Washington in recent years was. Was the debut of the Cosmic Crisp. Big deal up here. Cosmic Crisp developing Washington State University. And this was the state's big push and hope that this becomes the quintessential eating apple in America. It was bred for flavor, bread for crisp, and it was bred for staying power. They say that the shelf life of a cosmic craft crisp is a year. What is a year? Under some conditions.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Cosmic Crisp apples can last.

[C]

Like not on the dashboard of your car, basically.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

Yeah. Where did you keep your apples, Chris? Yeah.

[C]

Wow, that's cool.

[B]

They spent $10 million on marketing on. On investing in this big bed. First Apple to have an Instagram account. There was a launch trailer. They did market research. And that's where actually the name. Because someone said it looked like a galaxy. Swirls of galaxy with little stars. And if you look at the skin, that's what it kind of looks like.

[C]

I didn't know any of this stuff. I just saw it in the supermarket and was like, oh, I want a space apple.

[B]

Yeah, they got you.

[C]

Yeah. Then you take it home and you eat it. Like, oh, dang. Yeah, it's good.

[B]

Even though, even though Apple rankings called the Cosmic Crisp, the most overhyped apple of all time with the middling score of 74. Oh, if Cosmic Crisp earned a 74, what's the highest.

[A]

What is. I. I need to know what's the best apple?

[C]

Tell me.

[B]

I was. I was going to leave you hanging and be like, oh, you gotta go find out yourself. I'll tell you. It is the Sweet Tango.

[A]

Oh, I have not had that one.

[B]

Yes. Also developed by a University of Minnesota. His only gripe was, I think he said he's annoyed that it's Sweet Tango.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not Sweet Tango. And you have to kind of say it together. Sweet points off. Points off.

[A]

Yeah. Well, yeah, but that's how.

[C]

Why you want to say I want a Sweet Tango apple. You want to be putting that true.

[B]

You don't want that pause.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Sweet Tango. Sure.

[A]

A sweet Tango. I don't have a millisecond to spare.

[B]

Trademarked, of course.

[A]

Also easier to trademark. Right. That the custom spelling name. Right.

[B]

Marketing says that it has a bit of spice. Cinnamon, brown sugar, like a hint of that spice.

[A]

This is on my to do list now, Karen.

[B]

Sweet Tango.

[A]

I'm going to be hunting for a Sweet Tango. Have you ever. Have you had one? Have you seen them in.

[B]

No. I'll tell you, out of all of these, I've definitely had Cosmic Crisp. Envy, Opal, which is the yellow apple Apple ranking says it tastes good for an unwiped anus. All right, guys, we gotta. We gotta find some Sweet Tangos.

[C]

We gotta find some Sweet Tangos.

[A]

I was just saying to my friend, like, if I could go back in time and tell my, like, seven year old self, like, don't worry, yeah, the apples. The apples get better. Yeah. I promise you.

[B]

It's insane. I can't believe we were okay with that for so long.

[A]

You don't know what you don't know.

[C]

Yeah, I don't think we were. I wasn't okay with it. I just didn't like apples. You know what?

[A]

I was like, gross.

[C]

I don't want to eat an apple. Apple. They had a whole. The whole PR thing about how people thought they would eat it and, like, not get cancer, you know, so. Oh, apple a day keeps the doctor away. So people are like, oh, I better eat like an apple a day.

[A]

And it's like, yeah, yeah, take my medicine.

[B]

All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Factor. The leaves are falling, the kids are schooling, and there's pumpkin in our lattes. That's right. Summer's changing in the fall and brings big change into our routine as well. My oldest kid just started kindergarten so shout out to all the COVID babies who are also starting kindergarten this year. Finding the time to cook can be tough as I'm adjusting to this brand new schedule. That's why I factor in my back pocket but not literally in my back pocket. They're in my fridge. They're chef prepped Dietitian approved. Meals make it easy to eat healthy no matter how hectic the season gets. So eat [e-mail] GoodJob 50 off and use the code GoodJob 50 off to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. That's code Good Job 50 off@Factor Meals.com for 50% off your first box and free breakfast for one year. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor offers only. Valid for new Factor customers with CO code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase hey. This episode is brought to you by IXL Learning, an online learning program that enriches the homeschool curriculum that offers subjects in science, math, English, language arts, social studies and more. Entrusted by 15 million students worldwide, back to school looks different when you're a homeschooling family. Whether you're continuing a rhythm or shaking things up with a brand new curriculum, it's a perfect time for reset. I Accept I Excel is a simple way to bring structure, confidence and progress to your homeschool routine. If you're listening to this podcast, then you know how the right framing can make any bit of knowledge more memorable and more meaningful. Iexcel makes it easy to keep learning engaging with interactive content, games, videos, awards and moments of celebration. So make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now and Good Job Brain listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com goodjobbrain visit ixl.com goodjobBrain to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

[C]

You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth Puzzles, Smart Trivia Good Job Brain.

[A]

We're all friends here, right? Is it. Is it okay to engage in some light spoilers for a 2017 family movie? Is that okay?

[C]

Sure. Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Light plot Elements if you have not seen this movie. Have you all. Have you all seen the movie Paddington 2?

[B]

I have not watched any of them and I heard they're really good.

[A]

They are in my opinion. Not just in my opinion, but also in my opinion, they are extremely good Movies, well acted, well directed. Let me pause here, let me pause here for those of you who may not know anything about Paddington or what I'm talking about. I'm talking, of course, about Paddington, the beloved bear from Peru who makes his way to London from a series of many, many beloved children's books and other media, including a smash hit movie and its smash hit sequel from 2017. And by the time of the events of Paddington 2, he's, he's really well, well established in the neighborhood. He knows everybody. He's out, you know, and he's integrated himself into people's lives. And one of the friends that you see, he's made Mr. Barnes the rubbish man, the garbage man. And we see paddington hopping on Mr. Barnes's trash truck, his rubbish truck, and riding along with him. And they're chit chatting. And as they ride, Mr. Barnes is shown studiously looking over a roadmap guide to London while he works his shift on the garbage truck. And it is, it is made clear that he is studying to become a black cab driver. London cab driver. That's right, a black cab driver. And then, in fact, here's where we get into some spoilers. Later in the movie, his knowledge of London streets helps save the day when he's able to help deliver Paddington to his namesake train station in the nick of time to chase down the MacGuffin and the villain. And you can watch the movie and see how it all unfolds from there.

[C]

Y.

[A]

So this was not an invention for the movie. This was not just a, A, a clever way of setting something up to pay off in, in this, in the last act of the movie. This is an extremely traditional part of the life of an aspiring London taxi driver. And I had heard growing up from my dad, of course, oh, it's, it's tough to be a London cab driver. You really gotta know your stuff. And they put you through the ringer.

[B]

They.

[A]

But I really had no idea until I dove into the details of exactly what is involved and credit to my dad, he was right. He did not exaggerate. In fact, if anything, rare for my dad, he undersold how hard it is to become a London taxi driver. Yes, since 1865, aspiring London taxi drivers have had to master, quote, the knowledge. That's what it's called, the knowledge. The knowledge is, in fact, one of the hardest and longest entrance exams for any job anywhere in the world. All right. It is. It is really, really, really something. It is. It requires a level of dedication and desire and commitment. You got to Put yourself through it while you're going through it. You know, it's not like a paid apprenticeship or anything. So. All right, so for comparison, if you want to become a cab driver in say, city, you've got to undergo your background checks, your drug testing, you know, you have to do a driver education course. That's anywhere from a day to a few days, your vehicle training and then the exam and then more or less, it's okay, well, you know, you passed. Here you go, good luck and enjoy driving a cab by comparison here to become a London taxi driver. And by which I mean the classic, you know, they call them the black cabs. The black taxis, even though today a good many of them, I mean possibly even the majority at this point are not necessarily black anymore, but we're talking about the same, just classic, iconic London black cab. I'm going to quote here a little bit from the Transport for London official government city site. London's taxi service is the best in the world in part because our cab drivers know the quickest routes through London's complicated road network. There are thousands of streets and landmarks within a 6 mile radius of Charing Cross. Charing Cross is generally considered the historical center of London. So it's kind of where they, they center these measurements. Anyone who wants to drive an iconic London cab must memorize them all. The knowledge of London, what is involved here, how, what, what are we talking about? So let's say you get it in your head, you want to apply to become a London taxi driver. You apply, you pass kind of, you know, the requisite background checks, medical checks, et cetera, that verify you are who you say you are, all that kind of stuff. And then they will send you, among other things, what is called the Blue book. And the blue book contains 320 routes or runs within that six mile radius of center of London, Charing Cross. And you are expected to learn every single One of these 320 routes, all of the roads, all of the landmarks within a quarter mile radius of the start and end points of each route. So you not only know how to get from anywhere to anywhere along these routes.

[B]

Yeah, visualize it.

[A]

But to visualize it and know like if someone says I want to get to this attraction or this point of interest that's near one of these routes, you need to know how to get there. Right. So it's apparently it's 80 pages and you are again, you're expected to memorize these. You're not relying on gps. You're not expected to be looking down At a little map here, right? Everything. Hospitals, hotels, theaters, like museums, all of it. This is a seven stage process. After you get the Blue Book, it takes most applicants three to four years to finish this process. Roughly 2/3 of applicants either drop out or are not able to make the cut or just are not able to sustain it for a three to four year, you know, effort. Yeah, Stage one. Okay, so you get the blue Book within six months of starting. You are allowed to take the self assessment, all right? And you, you have to do it basically as a, as a step step. But it doesn't really go on your official record. It's basically a way for you to gauge am I ready? Do I think I'm ready to take the next step?

[C]

Right.

[B]

Do you want to waste our time?

[A]

Yeah. Do you want to waste everyone's time? I learned about what are called affectionately knowledge boys and knowledge girls. And you will see knowledge boys and knowledge girls riding around the city on mopeds, drilling themselves right on all of the points of interest and roots. And again, gotta give credit to my dad here. He correctly pointed one of these out to me. Once on a trip, he saw a guy on a scooter and he had a big clipboard on the front of his, like, you know, the little windshield of the scooter. And my dad's like, oh, I bet that guy's training for the London cab exam. Like he's quizzing himself. And sure enough, that is exactly what these people, that's what they're doing. Found a blog and website run by a London guide who was a cab driver. And he, and he talks in great length about his experience going through this. He said it took him nine months to work up the confidence in the Blue Book to advance to the next stage. So nine months of cramming on maps and driving around the city and just trying to get the knowledge in there.

[B]

I have a question.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is this job a well paying job and this is why people want it, or is it like a badge of honor? Honor?

[A]

You know, Karen, I think it's. It's a really good question. I think it's somewhat a mix of all of those. It is a good living. I mean, again, the author of this blog, in his words, he said, I was never expecting it to make me a wealthy man, but that's not why I did it. There is a great deal of pride in being part of this tradition of I earned it, I passed it, I passed this hard exam, I did it. You are in many ways sort of your own, your own master on the job here, it is a very stable, solid job. If you get, if you get all the way through the process, you've kind of made it like you can drive a cab basically, right? As you don't have any, some serious, you know, infraction. You can drive the cab as long as you want and you're kind of your own boss. You know, you can buy a cab, you can rent a cab, you get sort of preferential treatment in the transit system. And, you know, I mean, we could talk a whole other conversation about how Uber and you know, sort of the ride share companies have, have changed the economics of being a cab driver even in London. But even in London, the traditional black cab taxi drivers have a lot of priority privileges that the other drivers don't.

[C]

So I first heard about this when hearing about Uber coming into London essentially. And it was like, you know, you've had these guys who drill for like three to four years, build up a total encyclopedic knowledge of not only where everything is, but what is the most efficient route by which to get there. And then Uber comes in and it's like randos with gps and it's like, here you go. And it's like the question is, to what extent has that deep ingrained knowledge kind of been just replaced by here's a computer that can just do it for you.

[A]

So, you know, some of the advantages are obvious. Maybe like, you know, they can pick up passengers just hailing them on the street, which an Uber or a Lyft are not allowed to do. They're allowed to line up in preferential places at airports and museums and things like that. So, all right, so you have self assessed at being ready to go to stage two, which is the written examination. And I'm taking these stages again from Transport for London. So stage two is the written examination where you actually sit, you come in, you write it down. You're tested on your knowledge of the blue book and major landmarks. It's a multiple choice and you need to get 60% or higher.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It is difficult. However, now you have two years basically from the. When the clock starts, when they send you your blue book to say, I'm ready for the written examination. Okay. Stages three through five are what they officially term appearances, which are basically just in person interviews. Okay, they're, they're interviews one on one interviews with a, with the special examiner. It says each appearance usually consists of four questions about the shortest route between any two points in London. All right, Louise, it's not just the blue book. It is literally any two points in the city of London they're going to give you. Here's your starting point, here's your end point. Tell me the best way to get there. Yep. And very often. Tell me some of the sites along the way. Tell me, tell me, you know, tell me, what are the points of interest? Why might I be going this route? Route? This takes about 20 minutes. So in these appearances, you get a score from A to D, and then depending on your score, your grade, you accumulate different number of points. Okay. There's a lot of emphasis on points in this system. And in earning your way up through the stages, as you get more and more points, you move to the next stage, and then the interviews become increasingly frequent.

[B]

Division.

[A]

That's right. Yeah. It's almost. You're getting promoted, but.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Conversely, if you get too many low scores, too many Ds, they can bump you down. They can relegate you down to an early. Exactly. To an earlier stage. All right, so by the time you get to Stage three, your interviews are about two months apart. At Stage four, they're about once a month. At Stage five, they're every three weeks. So I read one account of an interview with a notorious examiner who asked the person taking the test to take him from point A, to quote, the longest stained glass window in London. That was his point B. Oh, my God, that's amazing.

[B]

Not the biggest. The longest.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, the longest. Yeah.

[B]

I kind of like this. There's like a. Like an atlas obscura trivia in history.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Of a tour guide as well. You're like, oh, that is. That's the highest spire. That's the longest stained glass. You know, and you got to be a nut for this.

[A]

One person talked about having to know not just the theater district, but the order of all the theaters. Right. You need to know, like, oh, okay, this one comes first. Then this one comes.

[C]

This is like, for the people that get in the cab and it's like, hey, where are you going? I don't know. I decided to get in the cab and I don't know. Yeah. Where should I go?

[A]

I've seen so many short stained glass windows on my previous trip. I just. Do you by any chance. I don't know, maybe you can hook me up. It's probably a long shot, but. So you make it to Stage six, which is the Suburban Examination. So this is like, okay, all right, now you got to kind of. You need to tack on an additional 25 routes that cover sort of the outer ring. Right. Of London's suburbs. Because yeah, you're not, you know, you're gonna need to cross the line. And there are two, two types of, of badging and licensing and, and what I'm talking about is the sort of the main center of London badging system, right? There is another system for people who want to only get licensed for the suburbs. But if you're, if you're city of London, you got to at least sort of, you know, have, have some familiarity with the suburbs. If you pass that, all right, and you are now approaching the end of, conservatively 34 months, possibly as much as four years, you pass that. Stage seven is the final application for your license. So all of this has just been applying to, to train to accumulate the knowledge to apply for the license. And I should mention, you know, in passing here, this will not surprise you that there is an entire parallel industry set up of knowledge schools. So these are not, not run by the city multiple schools and they're very popular and well attended and the students will help each other out with study sessions and like, oh, what was your, your interview? What was your interference? Yeah, it is, it's very much like a med school in atmosphere like, like.

[B]

This should be a documentary, fresh face class of hopefuls and documenting their journey.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I mean now at this period, you've spent longer doing this than many people spend in law school. You are ready, you do your final application. Let's say you pass. Here you go. They give you your badge, they give you your license, they give you kind of a pep talk. You know, again, this is their official description is you get a pre licensing talk is what they call it, which is where you join a group of other successful candidates to receive advice about your responsibilities as a taxi driver from a Knowledge of London examiner. And you can go buy your taxi, you are your own boss, drive around, eventually maybe you retire to become a trainer or a Knowledge school instructor. Yeah, that is the, the end to end story of, of what it takes to become a cab driver in London. I was trying to find a satisfying explanation for why is it so rigorous. Like what? Like. Okay, yeah, I mean it's great to be doing this for.

[B]

You know what happened in the.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like every, yeah, every set of regulations tells a story, right? Yeah. I am not vouching that this is 100% true, but the best story I read is that after the great exhibition of the works of industry of all nations, which is one of the very, very early World's Fair fairs, okay, this is, this is the, the, the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. The very famous Crystal Palace. Apparently many of the attendees from around the world were complaining that the cabmen did not know their way around the city well enough. All right, now these would have been horse drawn carriages, horse drawn cabs, of course, in 1851. So. So the city of London. Yeah. Felt we need to formalize, we need to represent. So that's definitely plausible. It is certainly plausible. And then London has no grid system. Historical London, certainly. And it has thousands of tiny little streets, dead ends, little curves, hookarounds. It does kind of make sense. Like, all right, this is the perfect city that if you need to establish an agency to really make sure people know what they're doing, you. Yeah, I could see it so much.

[C]

Better than getting in a cab in the US which is usually like, hey, where are you going? Okay, how do you get there?

[A]

I do, I have to say, like, having lived in New York for a while, I did like the experience of getting a New York cab. Take me to JFK or LaGuardia or whatever. And oftentimes the cab driver is, do you have a preference how we go? Which is basically code for I don't want you yelling at me in 20 minutes that I took the wrong route.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's like, I know how to get there. I know how to get there, but the meter's running. Do you have a way you want to get there?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want you yelling at me. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person on the the phone or using the award winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, time for our last segment. And we're talking about guides, guidance, maps, directions. And so what's a store that guides you through an expertly crafted maze?

[C]

Ikea.

[B]

That's right, everyone, it's time to take an imaginary trip together to ikea. Of course, the Swedish Flat Pack furniture. DIY furniture, Swedish Meatball giant.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Extra lingonberry jam on my Swedish meatballs, please.

[B]

We've talked about a foundational trivia about IKEA before. You know the founder, Ingvar Komprad. But here I have a quiz about how they guide the customer through their stores. And the format of this quiz is as if we're Going through an IKEA store together. Entrance to exit. Almost every IKEA store is laid out and built very similarly. There are some exceptions, but chances are the IKEA you go to in Emeryville ordered in the same way as the IKEA in somewhere in Sweden.

[A]

It matches my experience for sure.

[B]

All right, y', all. So imagine we just parked the car. Maybe we're giving ourselves a pep talk, you know, like, let's do this. We're feeling good. We're walking towards the store. Question. IKEA opened its first US Store in Plymouth Meeting Mall of what state? The first US IKEA store, Plymouth Meeting.

[A]

Plymouth Meeting Mall, Colin, Massachusetts.

[B]

Incorrect clue. The current IKEA North America headquarters is also in this state.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Oh, it is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

The largest IKEA store, by the way, is located in Passe City in the Philippines.

[A]

Oh, yes.

[B]

And the smallest store is in Hong Kong.

[A]

Huh.

[B]

We got a whole spectrum of ikea.

[A]

Makes sense.

[B]

All right, here we go. We're walking. We're going through the automatic glass doors, you know, to the lobby. We step into the store, and right in the lobby is an escalator and an elevator on the side that takes you upstairs immediately.

[A]

Immediately.

[B]

That's you. You go in, you're like, oh, time to go up. But before you go upstairs, there is another key space in this lobby, which is the.

[A]

Yeah, the kids. The kids room.

[B]

Yes. Every child care facility in every IKEA has the same name. Very fitting name in Swedish. Do you remember what's it called?

[A]

I do not.

[B]

Kind of guessable.

[A]

Yeah, but when you say it's a small land. Oh, that's right. Small end.

[B]

Small end, which literally in Swedish means small land.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Also the province where Ingbard Kamprad is from. So it has, like, double meaning. It's like a real place, but it's also, you know, for kids.

[A]

It's a small.

[B]

We get up on the escalator, Bam. Congrats. We're now on the upper level. And this is the first sequence of what's referred to as the IKEA maze. In a regular store, you know, when you want to buy something, you just go to that item section. Right? Like, hey, I want some cereal. I'll go to the cereal aisle. No, no, no, no, no. But ikea, they have designed this very long, windy path that makes you go through everything. Yes. And in the order they have set, the path is meant to feel like meandering and natural. And there's like a flow, like you said. And there are shortcuts for. For convenience. But those doors, those are always Located in very unnatural places.

[A]

Yeah. We call them seek. We call them secret doors. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it feels like you're going against the stream or you're doing something naughty. Like they make it feel like it's bad.

[A]

It does.

[B]

The upper level is essentially the showroom. Right. It usually starts with, like, fake design rooms. Example rooms all furnished with IKEA stuff, giving you the vibes. And then you have these showroom spaces where they put all the similar furniture together so you can, like, compare and contrast. Speaking of furniture question. In 2020, Ikea collaborated a hot collab with Pizza Hut, and they released a table shaped like what? This is only available in Hong Kong.

[C]

Okay, hint.

[B]

It's not a pizza.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Colin.

[A]

A calzone.

[B]

Incorrect. A pizone released a table that you could build shaped like what?

[A]

With Pizza Hut.

[B]

It's white.

[C]

Huh? Okay. Okay.

[A]

Oh, is it the little pizza. Little pup tent thing that goes inside.

[B]

The little Pizza saver? They made a table that looks like Pizza Saver, which. Not that big of a stretch because a lot of tables.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ready? Look like the Pizza saver.

[A]

That's cute.

[B]

Very cute. So usually upstairs, the order is living room stuff, dining room stuff, kitchens, bedrooms. And the upper level maze ends with kids rooms.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And it's in this kids room section that you will find the now TikTok famous global sensation. The Blauhai. Spelled blahaj Swedish pronunciation. I looked up it's a blah blah. And it's B L, A H, A J. Which is what?

[A]

TikTok famous kids section section.

[B]

An uber popular global sensation.

[A]

There may be one in my house. And I don't even know it might be. It's not that chair. Right. It's got to be something like.

[B]

It is the stuffed shark.

[A]

That shark has the IKEA shark.

[B]

You know how in Asia, okay, a lot of things have mascots? They like animal mascot. People are waiting for. For the bins to fill up with the sharks.

[A]

I've seen that online.

[B]

They would, like, set all the sharks in the dining room showroom. They're eating dinner. And they would dress the shark up. It's like a whole thing. All right, so we're. We're at the halfway mark. Congratulations. Of our IKEA trip.

[A]

We haven't broken up yet.

[B]

Not a lot of fights.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We finished the upstairs maze, and now we're about to go downstairs via elevator or stairs. But wait, question. What is expertly located at this transition?

[A]

The. Well, there's the shopping carts. Right. And the. And the bags. Right. Is that what you mean?

[B]

Or what do you There is the restaurant. Oh, of course, of the Ikea restaurant. You exit the kids and. And immediately smell right into the cafeteria, which is such a pro move. A, you don't want customers to get hungry and frustrated while shopping at your store. Also, they just did a whole big meandering maze run. Right. So they're probably hungry. B, it's a good place to rest. So more importantly, it gives you a chance to talk over big decisions.

[A]

Ah, yeah. Which are we gonna get? The bed? Which one?

[C]

Yes, yes.

[B]

What size? Should we get the queen or should we get the king? These are very, very big decisions in a very chill and charming environment. Right. While you're eating. We've discussed what we want. Now we're heading down to the ground floor. First part of the ground floor is the marketplace, which is like a warehouse store. Right. You buy the smaller non furniture, individual items.

[C]

Now you've already, like, made some decisions on some, like, larger stuff. Stuff that you're gonna get. So now that you're already spending money, it's like, oh, well, these, you know, wine glasses are only like 50 cents each, so I might as well just get these while I'm here. Yeah.

[B]

This is what's called a micro yes. The entire IKEA experience, even when you stepped into the fake rooms, you're like, wow, this is nice. That's already a micro yes. Because you're like, oh, I like this. I already have a positive feeling you're making these micro decisions that are. Yes. And it's building up to a. A bigger yes. Which is spending more and more money for big ticketed items. Right. So the marketplace, you can get a bunch of pillows and flatware and like picture frames, organizer cubes. Yeah, that stuff. And it's very common to see all these items piled up in a big heap in a bin.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Frames are just in this huge bin or like flower pots just in a big bin, jumbled up, no order. This is a technique called bulla bulla. B U L L A Bulla Bulla kind of means, like bubble. And it's to give the appearance of abundance.

[A]

Right. There's so many of these. Oh, man, they're so affordable. Yeah.

[B]

When products are in a big pile, they look so plentiful and. And also inexpensive. You're like, yeah, well, I'll just grab two.

[A]

I'll grab. I'll just grab a couple. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Oh, I need forks. You know, I'll just get eight forks. So now. Yeah, so. So now we're walking through. We're leaving the marketplace and the final Boss fight is the flat pack storage warehouse area. You've made the decision. You're like, by the bed. I gotta go to B31 and find all the parts. The micro. Yes. Builds up to this point. I'm getting the mental energy. I, I feel good. We've already sunk in so much time here. So let's just get this.

[A]

Yeah, this is probably the thing you came to get, right, like at the very end of the trip, all the way through and now you've got a cart full of other incidental stuff. And like, what, are you going to abandon that? No, of course not. You're going to lug it across.

[B]

We've checked out. Good job, everybody. We look down at our stuff and wonder, oh God, what have we done? The thrill of shopping kind of just dies down and now we feel the dread. We have to stuff it in the car, we have to get it home, and then we have to open all these cardboard boxes, deal with recycling. Now we have to build all of this furniture. Question. IKEA acquired what Tech ish company headquartered in San Francisco. That might be able to help you out, Colin.

[A]

I believe it was TaskRabbit. Yes.

[B]

Correct. IKEA has a lot of non furniture ventures and one of them was to invest in TaskRabbit.

[A]

I think it was really smart.

[B]

Hey, we know you're lazy. We'll have people do it for you. And you don't have, you don't have to worry about it.

[C]

And they probably knew like, what percentage of TaskRabbit tasks are literally just people asking, come to my house and build my IKEA furniture.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It may be because you're a single person and you just bought this giant bed that you really need another person. You know, it's in the manual when they have the two guy, you know the two.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You gotta take two people to lift this. And maybe you're like, I just need another person to like hold this. And I've been there in college. It's like that. You open the manual, the two people, you need two people. It's like, I can do it with one.

[A]

I'll use, I'll just prop it on my bed. It's fine. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

I've always been able to do it with one per. There's always some way you can figure out how to do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm glad we survived our IKEA trip, guys. I've always said this is like a test for relationships, is if you can like survive Disneyland and if you can survive ikea. Colin, you've been A busy guy. And you've been working on something else.

[A]

I have. So you may remember last year on the show I was talking about my Take Tabletop game that I designed with my game design partner, who also happens to be my camping partner to tie that together. Yes, yes. This is my game, Bare Bones, which is a deck building and dice rolling game. We were very excited to debut it last year. We have sold out our entire first printing. Yeah, it was great. We're very proud of ourselves. We're very happy. We have been eager to do a second printing, make it bigger and better. Well, better anyway, if not bigger. But we have a Kickstarter campaign for an upgraded revised second edition of the game as well as two expansion packs. This Kickstarter campaign has started literally today within the last 24 hours as you hear this episode. And I would be honored and humbled if any listeners would love to go check it out.

[B]

What are some of the channels changes, the upgrades? Because I love the original.

[A]

The main, the main changes are material upgrades, you know. So the first one again being a very kind of scrappy independent production was we improved the quality of the dice and. And we're making the cards better. Maybe you missed out my announcement last year. This is all brand new to you. Maybe you went to our store and it was already sold out. Maybe you want to buy another copy. We're happy to have your support in any way that you want to give it to us.

[C]

Woo.

[B]

Woo.

[A]

Go to kickstarter.com search for bare bones. You can also go to our own website which is barebones game.com/kickstarter. I know that's a mouthful, but you're all very smart people. I trust you can find your way there.

[B]

And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me and thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learn stuff about maps and books, about the London Cabbie Sommelier med school exam, about Red Delicious, Red Undelicious and about ikea. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, goodjobbrain.com this podcast is part of Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Wiser World, Southern Gothic and and the Past and the Curious. We'll see you next week.

[C]

Bye bye. And Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.

[A]

Fascinating.

[C]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[A]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[C]

Cut the camera they see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com.

[A]

Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten.

[C]

By Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Affiliates excludes Massachusetts.