#4582 Well, Well, Well

Summary

TBTL #4582: “Well, Well, Well”

Date: October 23, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

---

Episode Overview

This episode of TBTL is a classic slice of Luke and Andrew’s friendship, filled with tangents, gentle roasting, nostalgia, and granular discussions of everyday life. The main threads wove from a surprisingly intense Olive Garden review, through generational slang panic, well water phobia, and the disappointment of missed sports fandoms. Along the way: new crabs, mysterious phone contacts, and more Wordle drama.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Olive Garden and the Nature of Chain Restaurant Reviews

[00:00–02:14]

• Andrew and guests open with an old-school TV-style review of Olive Garden’s first Minnesota location.
  • “Which is called the Olive Garden. It’s a new Italian restaurant. And it’s so popular...” (Steve, 00:00)
• Observations on the decor, the bottomless breadsticks and salad, and the “Tour of Italy” platter.
• Critical but gentle:
  • “For food, I gave it two and a half... Some things were really good. ... The fettuccine Alfredo was good. And another night, it was just so-so.” (Steve, 01:47)

2. Luke’s Pastoral Morning & The Well Saga

[03:08–04:33; 24:00–41:32]

• Luke reports from his Madrona Hill studio, reflecting on seeing neighborhood deer growing up.
  • “To say that I would literally die for these deer would be kind of an understatement.” (Luke, 03:24)
• He jokes about trying to get the deer to donate to TBTL.
• The episode’s namesake: Luke’s anxiety over the mystery of his property’s well.
  • “Another thing I did yesterday... I opened this cover of where the well is... Something I had never done before.” (Luke, 04:33)
• Later, he narrates the whole investigation:
  • Apprehension about what might be under the lid.
  • Relief and disappointment when it’s “just some insulation and I guess the top of the well... not a chasm into the earth!” (Luke, 38:52)
  • “It was like, I was afraid it was going to be a view down into the deep depths of the earth, but then I was also very disappointed that it was just like, scrubby, gross insulation.” (Luke, 39:03)

3. Breaking News: Australia’s New Mangrove Crab

[05:20–07:13]

• Andrew and Amber have fun with a story on scientists discovering a new species of crab in Western Australia.
  • “It isn’t giant. Unfortunately, it’s the only non giant crab in Australia, which makes it unique in its own way.” (Amber, 05:36)
  • “Miss me with mangrove.” (Luke, 06:51)
• Playful confusion about Gen Z slang and whether “miss me with mangrove” is a thing.

4. Generational Slang: “Six Seven”

[07:22–13:02]

• Discussion about the viral “6, 7” TikTok catchphrase, hand motions, and its inscrutable meaning.
  • “The whole point is it doesn’t mean anything... Part of what the fun of it is is that it does not have any kind of actual meaning in the world.” (Luke, 10:13)
• Connection to viral kids’ energy, the nostalgia of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and how adult brains absorb fleeting trends.
• Comedic anecdote about Becca’s joke at a kids’ party:
  • “Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven, eight, nine.” (Becca via Luke, 13:02)

5. Wordle: Streaks, Stumbles, and Spoofs

[13:03–21:00]

• Friendly competition and heartbreak over Wordle streaks. Becca’s frustration with ambiguous answers (“the ones where it could be like 20 different things”).
  • “There’s a filtration system in the door of the refrigerator for just that reason. And he [Dad] knows about it, because he ran the water line… But doesn’t use it.” (Luke, 29:26)
• Andrew recounts the tension of being down to one guess (“Like… those guys who have a billion dollars of bitcoin on a thumb drive… and on the fifth [try], it’s going to lock down.” Luke, 16:45)
• The show’s signature “spoof” drop leads to comedic technical failure and mutual ribbing.

6. The Mystery of Old Contacts

[21:02–23:54]

• Andrew and Luke commiserate about having inexplicable numbers and Venmo contacts.
  • “Hey, my name’s Andrew. Why do I know you?” (Andrew, 21:48)
• Hilarious accidental texts, triggered memories, and the emotional landmines of digital address books.

7. Survivalism, Septic Tanks, and DIY Realities

[24:00–33:03]

• Expanding on survivalist fantasies: both hosts debate if they’re suited for off-grid living.
  • “The problem… That’s the main way I learned things [YouTube]. And now I don’t have that.” (Luke, 26:29)
• Septic tanks and maintenance fears in an apocalyptic scenario.
• The fantasy of being Nick Offerman’s character in “The Last of Us”—but with fewer booby traps and more house problems.

8. Home Maintenance, Old Houses, and Generational Craftsmanship

[41:01–43:35]

• The saga of home repairs and the philosophy of “cut every corner” past owners.
  • “There’s so many things… taking this house apart… constantly finding out that somebody, generations before me did the absolute minimum.” (Luke, 41:04)
• Nostalgia for bygone craftsmanship, contrasted with shoddy 1980s work—using cassette tape durability as analogy.
  • “The tape from the 70s and early 80s was much better quality as far as holding up over time than the stuff… from the mid to late 80s...” (Amber [Andrew], 42:46)

9. Fandom Flops: Blazers, Kraken, and the Curse of Luke

[48:38–53:16]

• Luke attempts to become a Portland Trailblazers fan after a long Mariners season.
  • “Can I have one sport thing where a guy is not doing a thing on my home field and then taunting us?” (Luke, 49:16)
• News breaks: Blazers coach Chauncey Billups is busted for participating in a mafia-run poker ring.
• Luke, feeling jinxed, ponders switching to the hockey team Kraken:
  • “I may have to become a Kraken guy… At least their coach hasn’t been arrested yet.” (Luke, 52:09)

10. Listener Community & Donor Acknowledgments

[44:04–48:35]

• Heartfelt and humorous recognition of donors from across the U.S. and Canada, with improvised bits about their hometowns.
• Special shoutouts to friends and relations of the show, including a “quasi sister-in-law.”

11. Life’s Small Mysteries and Modern Tech

• Amusing stories about smart glasses (Meta Ray-Bans), accidental “Hey Dummies” video attempts, and the perennial challenge of deleting the wrong audio clip.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “To say that I would literally die for these deer would be kind of an understatement. And yet we have not gotten them over the line on donating to TBTL yet. They’re freeloading, and it’s getting on my nerves.” — Luke ([03:24])
• “Miss me with mangrove.” — Luke ([06:51])
• “The whole point is it doesn’t mean anything... that’s what the fun is. It does not have any kind of actual meaning in the world.” — Luke, explaining the “Six Seven” meme ([10:13])
• “If you get on camera, make sure you throw six, seven in there.” — Andrew, re: kids and viral trends ([09:54])
• “That was going to both be somewhat nasty but also very, very satisfying.” — Andrew, on the allure of rescuing gross home appliances ([40:46])
• “I say, call Genevieve Haas or text Genevieve Haas, because that’s how my car hears it. I have to change Genevieve’s name for the computers, which doesn’t seem right.” — Andrew ([47:25])
• “Can I have one sport thing where a guy is not like doing a thing on my home field and then taunting us?” — Luke, on Blazers fandom heartbreak ([49:16])
• “Who’s going to look out for the well-meaning rich guys?” — Luke, on Blazers coach gambling scandal ([52:09])
• “That was a pretty good spoof.” — Show drop (Zach Galifianakis), used throughout ([18:37])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–02:14] Olive Garden review & chain restaurant ratings
• [03:08–04:33; 24:00–41:32] Luke’s deer report, well saga, and survivalist musing
• [05:20–07:13] Breaking news: New mangrove crab in Australia
• [07:22–13:02] Generational slang (“six seven”), viral hand motions
• [13:03–21:00] Wordle streak anxiety, “spoof” audio drop drama
• [21:02–23:54] Contact and Venmo mystery stories
• [24:00–33:03] More off-grid/survival talk & home repair
• [41:01–43:35] Maintenance, craftsmanship, and cassette tape nostalgia
• [44:04–48:35] Listener donor thank-yous and community updates
• [48:38–53:16] Sports fandom section — Blazers, Kraken, and Luke’s curse
• [54:18–57:12] Blursday messages, audience birthdays/shoutouts

---

Tone and Chemistry

The episode is full of gentle ribbing, self-deprecation, and the earnest quirks that characterize TBTL. Luke and Andrew (with “Amber” joining in as the drop-voice) move seamlessly from trivia and nostalgia to personal anecdotes. Their rapport is playful and digressive, often diverting for inside jokes, but always looping back for the listener. The recurring audience engagement (Blursdays, donor callouts) underscores the sense of conversational community.

---

In Summary

For TBTL fans looking for relatable life tangents, careful documentation of the mundane, and elaborate digressions about everything from Gen Z memes to the protocols of home plumbing, “Well, Well, Well” delivers classic comfort. The well-cover saga, in particular, is a signature moment—transforming ordinary home maintenance into existential curiosity, a little bit of fear, and lots of laughter.

Transcript

[Steve]

Which is called the Olive Garden. It's a new Italian restaurant. And it is so popular that ever since it opened, which was about one month ago, they have had 45 minute waits at lunch and dinner. I mean, people are just going in droves to this place. Now. There's a big parking lot outside. It's a very convenient suburban restaurant. And when you go in, you see what they're going for, which is they call kind of an Italian garden setting.

[Andrew]

It's a family Italian restaurant. As Steve said, it's owned by General Mills. And they have been all over the country. They started in Orlando, they have many of these in Ohio, but this is their first one in Minnesota. And it is a hit, as you can see. It is a very open space. It seats a lot of people, over 300 people. And they do have kind of an Italian decor. They have some murals on the wall like this. They have some umbrellas on the tables that feel like an Italian courtyard and then lots of skylights. So it is a bright open space. The tables are nicely spaced. Even though they do have room for a lot of people, you don't feel crowded in there.

[Steve]

Now, the menu features various regional foods from both northern and southern Italy. We're looking there and what it says is you can get those breadsticks and salad complementary with the entrees, and they're all you can eat, which is really nice. Now there's what they call the tour of Italy. If you'd like to try a number of different things that include a grilled chicken parmesan, a fettuccine alfredo and lasagna. When you put that together with the salad and the breadsticks, we are talking a huge, huge. And the salad is bottomless. You can keep getting more and more and more.

[Amber]

It's great.

[Andrew]

At lunch you can get spaghetti with meatballs for $4.25. It's a bit more expensive at $6.50 at dinner, but that still is a really good deal for the size of the. Of the portions that you get. All the pastas are made here on the premises daily. They do make their own homemade pastas and they have all different kinds, from ziti to spaghetti to ravioli, lasagna. The basics, as well as a few a little more exotic, including manicotti.

[Steve]

We have a four point rating system, four being the best and one being the worst. And we start out with food.

[Amber]

And for food.

[Steve]

Now, this might come as a surprise because we've been raving about it. For food, I gave it two and a half. I'LL tell you what, we went there twice. Some things were really good. I mean, I like their soup and their salad was good. Their dessert was good. Some of the other things were just okay. And one night the fettuccine Alfredo was good. And another night, it was just so.

[Luke Burbank]

So.

[Steve]

I think they need some fine tuning there. About two and a half.

[Andrew]

I gave it a two and a half also.

[Amber]

Tbtl. Well, it's really kind of simple.

[Steve]

See, I speak into this and my voice is instantaneously transmitted out where it's.

[Amber]

Heard by well over 100 people. Well, you just enjoy your coffee while I tell you a funny story about. His name is Mr. Wiggles and his cat's name is Benson. Excuse me.

[Luke Burbank]

You have one of the largest auras I've ever seen. It's been taking up this whole room.

[Amber]

And I just.

[Luke Burbank]

I had to say something.

[Amber]

Hey, you gonna finish that freaking croissant? What kind of disco dancing nonsense is going on here?

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, welcome to the party. All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. There are millions of podcasts out there, and you've chosen this one. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Amber]

Here's my sweet stash. Let's freaking party.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia.

[Amber]

Oh, Ma Pa.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just beautiful. Another beautiful late October day. They're out dredging the mighty Columbia as we speak. They are. They're making sure that the. The river is deep enough for the huge ships bringing all kinds of goods and commerce down to Portland. And we've also got a couple of deer watching me do the show today. They have this little area now that they like to hang out in where they can see into the Madrona Hill studio. These are now two juvenile deer that I've watched since they were little spotted babies. And to say that I would literally die for these deer would be kind of an understatement. And yet we have not gotten them over the line on donating to TBTL yet. They're listening, basically for free. They're freeloading, and it's getting on my nerves. Anyway, let's focus on episode 4582 in a collector series, Let the fun begin. I decided last night at about 5pm Just as I was finishing up mowing the lawn here, doing a little fall lawn mowing, that I was officially going to become a Portland Trailblazers basketball fan.

[Amber]

It was the bottom of the Fifth quarter and the baskets were loaded.

[Luke Burbank]

And a lot has changed in the last 16 hours related to my almost adopted basketball team. Another thing I did yesterday when I wasn't mowing the lawn was I opened this cover of where the well is here on my property, something I had never done before. I was a little afraid of, you know, what I might see down there. I wondered if there was a leprechaun or some such in there.

[Amber]

To me, it looked like a leprechaun to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, I recorded the entire event and we'll play that for you coming up. Plus, it's a Thursday, AKA Blurs day, so we'll do the Blurs Day messages and say howdy Doody to this guy. Longest running CO bro. The show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. As Jay would say, he's got flow. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Amber]

Good morning, Luke. And congrats to our listeners in Australia. I am just hearing about your new crab. I'm just seeing this right? Breaking news.

[Luke Burbank]

Is there a giant? Please tell me it's giant.

[Amber]

It isn't giant. Unfortunately, it's the only non giant crab in Australia, which makes it unique in its own way.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, what's going on with Australian crab?

[Amber]

I'm reading in on this as we speak, Luke, but I just knew that this was the kind of thing that you would want to break into the show for, even if I am a little bit messy with the details here. New species of mangrove crab.

[Luke Burbank]

TVTL Breaking news.

[Amber]

Discovered in Western Australia, deep in the mangroves. Do I say mangroves? Funny. In Exmouth Gulf, scientists have identified a new species of crab. And I'm not even gonna try to say it because it is a Latin Y name and I'm not a Latin y guy, but it. The discovery was made in the Bay of Rest. Luke. That sounds like a place I would enjoy.

[Andrew]

Australia is a wonderful island.

[Amber]

It is.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Amber]

I thought she had some more to say on that. But Amber.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe she does.

[Amber]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

No, she doesn't.

[Amber]

No, she doesn't.

[Luke Burbank]

That Australians are just as unique, both warm and direct.

[Amber]

As they tunnel into their burrows, they also aerate the dense mud, allowing for more oxygen to penetrate the sediments and preventing them from turning anaerobic and toxic. It's unglamorous work, Luke, but without it, the mangroves would struggle to breathe. I love it. I love that we're out here.

[Luke Burbank]

Miss me with mangrove.

[Amber]

What's that?

[Luke Burbank]

Miss me with mangrove.

[Amber]

What is Mangrove, I don't even really know.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like a real kind of like rooty, like soggy, swampy kind of situation. Like it is very inhospitable to human, I would say human existence. Like I'm not building anything in the mangrove swamp, personally. So I'll leave that to the crabs.

[Amber]

Yeah, absolutely. When you said miss me with mangrove, I wasn't sure if that was a hip hop lyric. I didn't know what you were stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Of my forthcoming album.

[Amber]

Well, you sent that article places I.

[Luke Burbank]

Wouldn'T live from MC burbs.

[Amber]

I don't know if we'll end up getting to it on the show at any point this week, but you sent me an article all about more Gen Z slang that has now risen to the level of being reported on by the Washington Post, which as the Post itself explains, by the time we're reporting on this, it means it's over. Which I really appreciate their honesty and you know, kind of self awareness in that matter. But now it's just kind of got me insecure. You say missing with a mangrove. I don't know if you're speaking Gen Z or just saying whatever comes into mind.

[Luke Burbank]

If I'm being six' seven Mind.

[Amber]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm kind of sad that we didn't. So the story is about this. If you have kids of a certain age, you've certainly probably heard them saying six, seven. And then. I don't know if you know about this, Andrew. The thing that goes with it is doing the motion that an NFL side judge would do to say the ball was being juggled and therefore it's not a catch.

[Amber]

Well, can I say, can I paraphrase how the Washington Post put it? It's a motion that looks like you're judging two grapefruits. Like you have a grapefruit in each hand and you're. And you're weighing them.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Or you're an NFL side side judge and you're saying the ball's juggled. It's not a catch. So I'm kind of bummed that I. Because I am terminally online and because I am far too old for this kind of stuff. But do. I'm not trying to say that I'm picking up on this stuff early. I'm certainly getting it well after the kids, but I'm getting it too early for someone of my age, if that makes any sense. So probably two months ago I started seeing young people's on TikTok saying like 6, 7 and talking about things being 6, 7 and then freaking out when sick. For instance, I saw a kid freaking out when they saw a clip of a football game where the line judge did that because they were like, he did six, seven. And then I was interviewing. This was. I don't know. A few weeks ago, I was doing those interviews related to that thing called Dozer Day where it's, you know, they let kids drive these huge, heavy machinery things. And I was talking to one of the kids. There was these three brothers. And I was talking to the youngest of the three who had just been on one of these bulldozers. And I was like, how'd you like it? He's talking to me. And he kind of goes, I don't know. I'd say it was about a six or a seven.

[Amber]

And he did it.

[Luke Burbank]

And I go. As we're filming, I go, you just tried to six, seven me, didn't you? And he, like, gets this look on his face like, I just, like, caught him in something because he doesn't know if he's in trouble or not.

[Amber]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then I'm like, it's okay, buddy. I'm just messing with you. And he goes, okay. And then we stopped filming. He goes, my older brother made me do that.

[Amber]

If you get on the camera, make sure you do this.

[Luke Burbank]

If you get on camera, make sure you throw six, seven in there.

[Amber]

That's so funny.

[Luke Burbank]

And I thought that I meant to talk about that on the show, just. But then I was gonna have to try to explain whatever my conception of 6, 7 is, which is limited. I mean, it just basically seems like it's something that was from, like, a hip hop song for a second. And then it became something. And I was talking to my quasi nephew Alexander, Becca's nephew Alexander, this weekend, about it, and he was saying, yeah, it's whole. The whole point is it doesn't mean anything. Like, it has. No, it's not. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just a thing that people are now saying. And part of what the fun of it is is that it does not have any kind of actual meaning in the world.

[Amber]

It's like Pee Wee Herman's or Pee Wee Playhouse's word of the day. Do you remember at the beginning of Peewee's Playhouse, they would just say, the word of the day is cat. And then when somebody later on, you know, supposedly, unbeknownst to them, accidentally says the word ca hat, everybody in the playhouse just starts screaming and going wild. It sort of seems like a lot of the Gen Z stuff I'm hearing about is sort of along those lines from all that skibidy stuff you were talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think this is Gen Z though, right? This is like Alpha.

[Amber]

Oh, God, I don't know. Don't quiz me on that. But one thing that I thought was interesting was like, I. My initial reaction after reading that was like, I and this is really rude and I apologize to our younger listeners. I love you if you can hear this. I'm not talking about you or your children, but generally I got done reading that article that I was just like, man, I'm just glad I'm not around kids all that much. Like, I just, I don't that that I can't match that energy or absorb that kind of energy at my age. But I will say that it's funny how. It's funny how things will stick in our brain that we don't even realize stuck in our brain. Because if you think about me scrolling through blue sky or when I was in Instagram, just Instagram, you just scroll through how many thousands of posts. Just random things that go by our vis so quickly in a day. Just thousands of things you're just scrolling past and you get some you don't. Some you stop and you look up, what am I missing here? Others you don't care about. How are you making those decisions? Who knows? They're just like these split second meaningless decisions in your life. But when I was reading that article, I was like, oh, yes, I saw something. I don't know if it was Reddit or blue sky or whatever, but it was basically a teacher saying me when I accidentally said the word six in class today or something. And I remember seeing that and being like, why can't teachers say the word six anymore? And now I read this article months later, that must have been last school year that I saw that because, you know, I'm trying to. I'm putting myself, yeah, school somewhat new. This must have been last school year. So this has been going on and I didn't understand why this teacher couldn't say the word six. And now I know that's the trigger. If somebody says six, then everybody's going to start doing the six seven thing. And I was like, I guess I did get a whiff of this a long time ago.

[Luke Burbank]

It did set Becca up to deploy an amazing joke on the kids at this get together that we were at who were all talking about six, seven. And it was, why is six afraid of seven?

[Amber]

Why?

[Luke Burbank]

Because seven, eight, nine.

[Amber]

Oh, right, of course. I thought it was a play on the classic joke and I was caught off the classic. I love that joke by the way. Speaking of Becca, I don't think you followed up on this and it's totally fine but do you remember maybe about a week and a half ago I was hey, ask Becca what the wordle is today. Did you ever do that? Did you get closure on that? Do you know why I asked you to do that?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, let's get into that in a minute. She sent me some wordle this morning. She said have you done today?

[Amber]

Have I Andrew done today? Yes, I did it late last night. I wasn't sure if you were quoting her asking you or if you were quoting me asking me.

[Luke Burbank]

No, she was very displeased with what I assume is today's wordle.

[Amber]

I got it at 4. I don't remember having that much trouble with it. It was, you know. Well, I don't want to give away too much because our listeners haven't done it yet but you know it was quasi tricky but it wasn't like a non word or something. It's pretty, I think her take with.

[Luke Burbank]

It and again I'll try to be careful so I'm not ruining this for somebody either. But like her point was it seemed it was. She does not like the ones where it could be like 20 different things.

[Amber]

Oh that might have been. That might have been yesterday too because yesterday.

[Luke Burbank]

Well can we, can we ruin yesterday's.

[Amber]

Ruin yesterday's. I don't. Do you know the word you're thinking of or do you just.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. She said.

[Amber]

Ok screenshot. Well I'm not going to say what today's is but I will tell you that two nights ago. So I'm on a streak and I'm going to. I'm about to jinx it here but I am about 20 days away from matching or breaking my all time streak and actually can you here I need.

[Luke Burbank]

To watch how many.

[Amber]

My all time streak is. It's not that great in the grand scheme of things. 182 days I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Dude, that's great. Yeah, hers is 164 and she, she lost it on Sunday because she was so busy getting this fall party together.

[Amber]

Oh she just forgot.

[Luke Burbank]

Just forgot to do it. Which I in my world isn't. I don't know. I guess, I guess it's, you know if you forget to do it you then you didn't complete it. So the streak is broken. I think that's a pretty. It's A pretty nitpicky rule, but yeah. So she's back to, like four.

[Amber]

The. That is.

[Luke Burbank]

When do we come to the Germans? Have a word for this, Andrew, for when you're like, you were at 160 something on Wordle, and now you're back to four. Just the feeling of that.

[Amber]

I mean, when I busted out the last time, I think I went a few days, and it wasn't even. Like, there are some words. You're like, are you kidding me? This one's on the edge. You know, Horror, I think, was the.

[Luke Burbank]

Was the.

[Amber]

Was that the.

[Luke Burbank]

The historic low point for the game?

[Amber]

They must. I. I just. That's where the stats would be very interesting to me to see. Like, it's. It feels a little bit like the Hunger Games, a little bit where they. There's like some sort of a. You know, there's a. The puzzle master person. I don't know what they call in the Hunger Games who's. I can kind of like just wipe the board clean at any given moment by pulling various levers. And I feel like on the days that they're going something like Corer out there, you can probably just watch everybody's streak just fall off a cliff and, you know, you've almost wiped the slate clean. The one that was from Wednesday, I don't know if people are playing the Archive, but come on, man. The one from Wednesday that I. On Tuesday night. So at, like, one in the morning, before going to bed, sometimes I try the wordle for the next day in advance once the clock passes midnight. And I'm getting so close to matching my streak, and I was at my fifth turn, and I'd already tried, and I can't see what I'd actually put in there, but it was one of those where I had the first three letters, and it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. They're all green, and everything else is just crashing out. And then I went to bed with one turn left.

[Luke Burbank]

Whoa.

[Amber]

I thought I was gonna wake up.

[Luke Burbank]

That sounds like the kind of thing to make your sleep dyspeptic.

[Amber]

I was like, I can't do this now. Like, I can't bust out right now. Like, you know, like, I'm just like, look at it with a fresh.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, you're like one of those guys that has. One of those guys that has a. A billion dollars of bitcoin on a thumb drive, and they only get five guesses at the password.

[Amber]

Oh, right, right.

[Luke Burbank]

They've done four of them.

[Amber]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And on the fifth, it's going to lock down.

[Amber]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Even more.

[Amber]

And I was like, I can't do it. So anyway, that word was stunt. Is that the one that was.

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's not the one that.

[Amber]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

The one that I'm looking at today's.

[Amber]

It could be similar, but I must have just lucked out with my letter choices, and I got it in four today without too much trouble.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm going to ask. Does. Does the answer for today. This is one little data point.

[Amber]

Okay, everybody, just give everybody a second. If you want to hit fast forward by 30 seconds, do that now. Luke, what did you want to ask?

[Luke Burbank]

Does it start with.

[Amber]

It does.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so that's.

[Amber]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

She was. She was. Now, what was the thing you wanted? I didn't ask her about it.

[Amber]

I'm going to beep that too. That way.

[Luke Burbank]

Make a note.

[Amber]

I am. I'm literally making a note. I'm going to beep that. That's good. Nobody has to.

[Luke Burbank]

So what was the day in question that you wanted me to ask her about? Because I can probably message her and by the end of the show, I'm sure we'll get some kind of a response.

[Amber]

It doesn't matter. Is more for your amusement than hers. It was spoof the other day, so I was getting a lot of. You know, because we say spoof so much on the show, often in the voice of Zach Galifianakis. I thought it was pretty good spoof. Well, that's a pretty good spoof.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Amber]

That. I had to rip my headphones off. Did that hit you as hard as it hit me?

[Luke Burbank]

It wasn't great.

[Amber]

We're trying to fix it for the listening audience.

[Luke Burbank]

Please do make a note.

[Amber]

That cleared out my brain.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't just bleep it.

[Amber]

I can't do wordle anymore. I don't think. Sorry. Anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, that was weird. So. So here's. I have two files. When I put spoof in, one says spoof done. And it's one second. And you know what it is? It's a TV clip. And then I've got.

[Amber]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then it's super compressed. And then I've got pretty good spoof. That's actually three seconds. And I think this one is gonna be a little better.

[Amber]

That's a pretty good spoof.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't even think this other one. Remember how I got. This is such a bizarre, bizarre side quest of conversation. But remember when I had weirdly, like, hundreds of television clips that were just somehow had loaded into my, like, my apple, my whatever, you know, my itunes music thing? And I was going through and playing them like they almost were in a folder that maybe somebody sent me or I don't know. It was weird. They're all just little cliplets, but they were all like, when I look at the file, it has a TV icon on it, which my normal audio drops don't. And that first one, which was way too loud, I apologize, is from tv and it's crazy compressed. And then meanwhile, I have the regular one that's totally fine.

[Amber]

Well, that's a pretty good spoof. And I have the full one here, the original. Usually I don't think my brother's that much funny, but I gotta give him some credit for that one. That's a pretty good spoof. That much funny.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm deleting from library. Move to trash. I have now tried to delete that other one. That. So it will never hurt us again. I apologize, Andrew, to your ears. So I'm going to text her now. Are you thinking. Now, wait a second. Were you thinking Becca would recognize the. Or the word spoof would mean something to her because we use it on TV channel.

[Amber]

No, no, no. As I said, it was for your amusement. There's no need to text her right now. It was just. I just told you, hey, check in with Becca about the word of the day. And she's gonna tell you spoof. And you'd be like.

[Luke Burbank]

And then you were six, seven.

[Amber]

You were just gon. One corner of your mouth was gonna go up a little bit, like. Just like, oh, I recognize that as something that we say on tbtl. And then you'd go on with your day. There's no need to bring her into this now. It's just. I wanted you to know that the word was spoof the other day. A lot of listeners were delighted in that.

[Luke Burbank]

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I like it when you. I like it when there's a connection between you and Becca related to wordle. It makes me feel like the people in my world who mean something to me are. Are connecting over something.

[Amber]

Well, yesterday.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's not just roasting me, which is how most of the people in my world connect.

[Amber]

Right? I was annoying.

[Luke Burbank]

This is a different thing. I like it.

[Amber]

I went to text you yesterday. You and I were making some plans that involved Becca as well, and I almost looped her in on the text chain, but then I wasn't sure if I was looking at the right Becca in my phone. So I'm gonna ask you a very similar question that you asked me about wordle. But protecting Becca's identity. Does her last name begin with a picture? Do I have her phone number?

[Luke Burbank]

Definitely does not.

[Amber]

Oh, okay, then I'm glad I didn't loop in that Becca, whoever that is. I have so many contacts on my phone, and I don't mean like the listener lists that we have in, like our Google voice. There are so many people that are now saved on my contacts list that I have no idea who they are. I was looking at my Venmo Venmo or paypal or something history the other day, trying to send some money along to somebody. And I was looking at my friend list and there was somebody that I apparently had sent money to at some point because she's like listed as one of my contacts. I have no idea who she is or when or why I would have sent or received money from her. I have no idea. And I almost wanted to send a note on the app like, hey, my name's Andrew. Why do I know you? But that seemed like a weird thing, but it was really kind of driving me bonkers.

[Luke Burbank]

I had the. I was trying to text someone the other day and I put. I kind of have the similar thing, but a little different. I was putting someone's name into it and auto populated somebody else's name. And it took me to a text conversation. Let me see if I can get back to this. I don't know how to. I can't find. Anyway, I was trying to text somebody and I guess I had sent a text to somebody of the same name, but it was somehow. How do I put this? It was. It wasn't a wrong number because this person was a contact in there. But I don't know how I knew them and the message I had sent them. Andrew. So in other words, in trying to text somebody in 2025, I punch in their name, but it auto populates to where it connects me with someone else in my contacts. And the last messages I had sent to the person in my contacts was, hey, my car just got broken into. And they stole all of my stuff, including my keys to the marina. Is it possible you could leave a key out to me? And the person who had the same name as the person at the marina said, I think you have the wrong person. I said, oh, I thought this was the person who runs the marina where my boat used to be. And they said, no, no worries. And what I realized was that was after you and I had been to that restaurant in Greenwood and were planning out. Remember when we met up to plan out our epic TBTL Was that, Was that Australia? Was that maybe cross country to Austin?

[Amber]

That might have been the Austin trip you and I met at the North Star Cafe, except on the other side think that. Yeah, that's right. We. We. There's a building and half of it is like an old school sort of diner called the North Star Cafe. And you and I had some dinner there and then we went like, kind of literally a kind of across bar is next door.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Amber]

Which to the bar area. All owned by the same people, but it's got a different.

[Luke Burbank]

Used to be called Genoa Garden back in the day. But they had a different name now.

[Amber]

It does, I think. But anyway. Yeah, and then we met up with Camaro Kev, and then we went out to your truck and it was your old Toyota or something. Yeah, the windows were busted in and your bag was missing or something.

[Luke Burbank]

But I was trying to figure out, like. Yeah, I was trying to figure out, like, when was my. Like, it was just a. It was a weird trip down memory lane. Well, anyway, hey, let's. Let's. Let's close the loop on something yesterday that was brought up on the show, which was that I have this, by the way, I forwarded you Becca's actual contact information.

[Amber]

Oh, good. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

If you need to discuss all things wordle or just need to roast me, that's fine. It's however you guys need to process things. Yesterday on the show, we somehow got talking about, oh, I said if I have to go full, like, what would you call it, I don't know, survivalist out here. I have the thought sometimes. Well, I am on a. Well, so that's kind of, you know, the thing that would really, you know, what would be the big issue if I tried to go survivalist? I'm also on a septic tank here and that thing has got. That's got to be cleaned out about every five years.

[Amber]

Well, I got a rake and a little dust bucket you can use.

[Luke Burbank]

If we end up in some sort of Mad Max territory, I ain't cleaning that thing out. And I don't. And I'm not thinking. I'm thinking that we will not have guys in the apocalyptic. The post apocalyptic dystopian situation who will be coming out cleaning septic tanks. So that's an issue. That may be the thing that breaks me.

[Amber]

Well, I was gonna say, can we just pause on this for a moment and explore that? Because yesterday on the show when you did sort of just drop that quickly, you said, sometimes I think, like, if we did have to go off the grid. Could I live out here? I guess homesteading would be the wrong word there, but survivalist style or whatever, could I just do this? And I think my instinct is to tease you, so I think my instinct was to make a joke about, I don't know if you're really built for that.

[Luke Burbank]

But then I was like, and I'm not for the record.

[Amber]

Well, you're definitely more built for it than I am. And that's why I was like, that joke doesn't really make sense. I mean, I know that you're a bit self deprecating about it or at least are self aware of what your weaknesses are in some things. I know you give your dad a lot of credit and for doing a lot of the masterwork around there, like whatever you would call the hanging of the doors and the very difficult stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Anything technical, anything you need to have a decent amount of experience to do. That's all Walt.

[Amber]

But you have done a lot and you've been, whether you're talking about you're not afraid to get your hands dirty, to schlep a bunch of bricks and what was the heavy stuff that you were moving from one part of your cinder blocks? Cinder blocks. Like some sort of real gravel.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm definitely, I'm definitely. I do a lot of labor around here. I do a lot of unskilled labor.

[Amber]

And you've learned skills and you've like, what, now you're off the grid? So you don't have YouTube in a university. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

That's the problem. That's the main way I learned things. And now I don't have that.

[Amber]

But you've, but I think that you've learned a lot in this. So you are not the, of all the people in this conversation right now, you are not the least qualified to do something like that.

[Luke Burbank]

I think, you know. Yeah, well, necessity is the mother of invention. So if, I mean, I already identified the big issue would be if I got something up and running here and I was kind of like, we were able to survive, we were off grid then as soon as someone came to take it, that would be the problem.

[Amber]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't, it's not like I'm not like out in the like wilderness like hidden away down a long road. And you know, I'm certainly not going to set up any turrets or to go back to the last of us comparison we made last show. So I'm not going to have like what Nick Offerman had at his house, which is all these gates and like a whole defense system. But that was, that episode was the ultimate fantasy of what life could be in a post apocalyptic situation where you actually are pretty lucky. And that is you have all of the good food and good wine you could ever consume in a lifetime. And your home is somehow weirdly protected because of all these gates and I think like, you know, sort of torches and like fire weaponry and stuff. All this stuff that had been set.

[Amber]

Up very home alone.

[Luke Burbank]

They're paint, real home alone, but with.

[Amber]

Higher stakes, paint cans tied to strings, etc.

[Luke Burbank]

So, so yesterday I mentioned, well, one of the run of the reasons that I occasionally have the thought I guess I could go off grid is that I am on a well here. And I also mentioned that I don't actually know how any of that works. I just know that there's water, it comes out of the faucets and I run the dishwasher and the washing machine. And if, if no one told me that I was on a well, I wouldn't actually, I would think that the water company is forgetting to bill me. Like, there's nothing. There's. I don't go pump anything. There's nothing.

[Amber]

How's the water taste, by the way? Growing up in the country, we knew the houses that had well water and we didn't like to drink out of the tap.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, honestly, I don't drink out of the tap. I think it tastes fine to me. I think some. Like when Becca's brother and his wife, they lived here for a brief period of time when they were moving between their houses, they had sold a house and were looking for their next house. And I think they thought the water was a little hard, which I think you can fix with some sort of tablets or, you know, other filtration. My dad drinks the water here, but then I also heard that he was shit talking. The taste of the water here to my sister Hannah.

[Amber]

Oh, on a separate text chain. This is why you're so scared of people in your life having separate text chains.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, like I. My sister Hannah, I believe when she came over for Sib fest, sibling fest 2025, I think she said something like, oh, the water tastes fine. Dad told me the water doesn't taste good. And the reason that that annoyed me was because there's a filtration system in the door of the refrigerator for just that reason. And he knows about it because he ran the water line.

[Amber]

Oh, but he doesn't use that.

[Luke Burbank]

But he doesn't use.

[Amber]

Why wouldn't you use that? It's going to be insane. Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

He stands at the why so serious? And fills. He stands at the sink and fills up a water glass with. With tap water and then drinks it and stares into the middle distance. And I always go, dad, there's a filter. There's not only a filter on the. On the refrigerator water. There are many bottles of filtered water. I guess it's not filtered, but it's carbonated water that's in the refrigerator that tastes great and is less filling. And so. And I haven't noticed, you know, I guess I would say maybe the shower water is a little bit hard in that I noticed that I have to clean out my shower. I have to clean the walls of my shower maybe a little more frequently than otherwise. Like, it seems like it has a little bit of a mineral sort of thing going on.

[Amber]

Well, I think, just so you know. And by the way, I. I almost regret kind of bringing it up the way I did. I wasn't assuming that your well water was going to be the same kind of well water I grew up with. I kind of assumed. And when I say I grew up with, I mean in the area I grew up, we actually, by the time I'm old enough to remember, we ended up getting city water run out to our house.

[Luke Burbank]

Wasn't there a period of time where your dad had to chop ice?

[Amber]

Yeah, they were actually well going. They first moved out to the country where I would eventually be born and grow up. They were using literal water from the pond in the backyard that went through some sort of filtration system, which is so gross to think about because by the time I was old enough to experience that pond, it was just such a gross pond. I mean, ducks, just so much duck shit and so much algae and all this stuff. And so anyway, I have a feeling that things have changed a lot. And also this is a very different part of the world. The well water that I remember, like, if I was in a place, somebody's home, and they had well water and I was drinking it, it was almost like. It almost had like a sweetness to it, if that makes sense. Not so much a hard water thing.

[Luke Burbank]

So I think after this is done, because I'm all about learn. I'm all about a lifelong love of learning. This weekend, Andrew, I'm gonna go drink some. I don't know if I've ever. If I've literally ever drank water out of the tap here, which is crazy to say, but I just don't think I have because I think I've always had either a can of like, you know, sparkling water in the refrigerator, or certainly the refrigerator has been set up for the last couple of years. But, like, I don't think I've ever consumed water out of the. Out of the sink. So I don't think I know what it tastes like. I'll go taste it later today. I'll give you a full report tomorrow.

[Amber]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

So speaking of full reports. So yesterday after the show, I went out because the thing is, in my driveway, there is this big kind of rectangular, flat, rectangular metal like, lid that I understand to be covering up the well, or at least some part of the well. And so I was wondering. I was worried that I never opened it because I didn't know if it was like. Like went straight down to, like, you know, below the Mohorovichik boundary. I literally had a certain amount of anxiety about taking this lid off. Like, what, am I gonna just look down hundreds of feet? Is it gonna be a thing where I. Is it gonna be. What's the name of that hole that we just heard about in central. Central Washington that they said was 80, 000ft deep?

[Amber]

Oh, oh, oh, oh, that's right. Sorry, I was blanking on that. Oh, from the old coast to coast episodes. Yeah, exactly. So and so's hole. I can't recall.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, coast to Coast. I was listening to some good coast to coast last night. Let's see, Mel's Hole. Mel's Hole in Ellensburg.

[Amber]

Sorry, everybody. That must have been very frustrating to the listeners who've been following along.

[Luke Burbank]

But brief.

[Amber]

But relatively brief. And that's fixed pretty quickly. Yeah. And I can.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Was it going to be Mel's Hole? Was it just going to be. There's something. I'm being honest, there was something in my mind that was unsettled by the idea that I was going to pry this lid off and. And I may be staring into some sort of deep, long shaft of darkness and mystery. I don't know why that was. I mean, I guess maybe it's obvious why that would be unsettling. But it's strange because it's like, again, the well operating here at my house is completely critical to living here. So what a smart person would do would be educate themselves on every aspect of how this works, from the pump to whatever. I think there's something that pressurizes the water. I mean, I think. I haven't. I have a tank in my basement that is not strictly the hot water tank. You know, it's different. It's more kind of. It's more shaped like a big oval and it's blue. And I know that's associated with the well. It's metal. Like, it's metal. Yeah. And what I should do is make sure I know how all this works so that if it breaks, I can fix it or accurately relay to somebody what the problem is so they can come fix it instead of just kind of burying my head in the ground and going, well, as long as the well works, everything's going to be fine. So after the show yesterday, I decided I was going to go out and I was going to take the COVID off the well. And also I was going to record it with my crazy meta glasses because I thought maybe it would be an.

[Amber]

Interesting hey Dummies video I forgot about.

[Luke Burbank]

So here's a little bit of those. Not really, if you want to know the truth, because they are a little bit heavy on the bridge of my nose. If I wear them for too long, they. My nose starts to get a little bit sore, and so it's a disincentive. Now, what I was saying is. Well, they're not. I mean, the thing is, when you first put them on, it's kind of crazy how light they are, how much they feel like regular, like Ray Ban sunglasses. But some. But. But then over the course of like, say, 20 or 30 or 20 or 30 minutes, I start to notice that they are actually a little bit heavier than regular sunglasses.

[Amber]

I believe that.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's. It's not like it's not the initial putting them on, but it's like after a while for me anyway, it's like, oh, the bridge of my nose is getting a little bit sensitive. And so. And you know, to be honest with you, they're kind of a great party trick. Like, they're, you know, they're really. And also, maybe next year when it's getting sunny again, come spring and summer, maybe I'll find myself wearing them out and about more because, I mean, they are effective sunglasses too, which is kind of cool. But what they're really great for, Andrew, is making hey Dummies videos.

[Amber]

Right? Well, that's. And that's like, we might encourage that behavior out of the TBTL budget because. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have them. You just keep making the videos. That's what people want anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, if you're ever trying to do like a cooking demo, if you're trying to do anything that's sort of active, I mean, they really are a total game changer because anything that I'm looking at is now being recorded and observed by the glasses and I actually did a thing yesterday. Again, this video, not to spoil it, but it's not going to be a hey Dummies video. I'll just put it that way. But here's how I start. From a production standpoint. You'll enjoy this, Andrew. I was recording myself on my phone so that I could start off with the POV being the cameras pointed at me and I'm wearing the glasses.

[Amber]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's like, hey, welcome to hey Dummies. This is the newsletter video where we, the dummies, answer your questions and I lay out what's going on. But I'm rolling on my glasses, too, the whole time. So that then when I switch to the glasses and I'm walking outside, this was going to be a pretty cool, pretty complicated shoot. I was. I was proud of my problem solving. Now I'm going to play it for you, and you'll realize why it's probably not going to be a hey Dummies video. This is the gravel that's in question out here that's always getting torn up. Oh, yeah, I walked over all, you know, yesterday I was talking about a lot of gravel. What did you call yesterday's show?

[Amber]

Oh, the road less graveled.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly. This is me walking over the gravel that's constantly getting destroyed by Amazon deliveries. Here we go. And here is the COVID of what I think is the. Well, it had all these rocks on it and bricks. That was another thing. When I went out there. I mean, I, of course, I had noticed this before, but I had. This is one of those things. I've seen it so many times that my mind has erased. Was covered in bricks and heavy rocks, which really doesn't. Doesn't not say there's a demon down there.

[Amber]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean?

[Amber]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, it had heavy things on it, as if to kind of say, like, we got the demon back in there. Okay, but now we need to weigh this down so the demon cannot get out.

[Amber]

Were there any symbols carved into the stones?

[Luke Burbank]

Some part of me was like, who was it? Which ancient people weighed down this covering on this well, to keep this thing down, or maybe to keep the leprechaun in, I'm not sure. But here we go, folks. It's another cover. So I pull the, like, whatever it is, aluminum tin, the very thin kind of metal cover off. It's light. And then it's just on top of now a big flat piece of wood. Okay, that's kind of got some. It's more sort of. It's more set down in the opening.

[Amber]

Of this thing, but like a non super intimidating piece of wood. Like a piece of plywood or something. It's like a paint.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a gray painted piece of plywood.

[Amber]

Yeah. Not.

[Luke Burbank]

Felt kind of heavy.

[Amber]

Oh, it was heavy.

[Luke Burbank]

The reason it felt heavy was because was fitted down into the opening. It was a little hard to kind of pry it out. Sure.

[Amber]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

If I'm painting the picture. Okay. Well, this thing seems kind of intense.

[Amber]

Whoa.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's way less scary than I thought. Just some insulation and I guess the top of the well. Huh.

[Amber]

So the well is contained.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, well, question answered. Yeah, it's just like. I bet it's just the pump. This is the very tippy top of it. But. But then like 8 inches beneath where the pump head is or whatever is just a surface, like insulation and a surface, like it doesn't go. It's a pipe that's coming out of the deep parts of the earth, but you can't see into the deep parts of the earth. It's a totally contained little area that they had put some like, you know, like Owen's corning, like, pink insulation and other stuff in. I'll send you a picture of it. But it was. I don't know, it was like I was afraid that it was going to be a view down into the deep depths of the earth, but then I was also very disappointed that it was just like, scrubby, gross insulation.

[Amber]

This isn't a perfect analogy, but it reminds me a little bit of, like, when I pull something apart and I think it's going to be really, really nasty, but then it's not as gross as I think it's going to be. And it's both a relief and a disappointment at the same time. Like when I took my. We had an old dryer that wasn't working, and I'm like, oh, I'll bet you it's like the ventilation. I'll bet you I pull this old dryer away from the wall, really get a good look all the way through all the ventilation tubes or ductwork or whatever. And I pulled it all apart, and it's like, clean as your mama's forehead, as you famously said. And I was like, what a disappointment. I thought for sure I was just gonna be reaching my hand and taking out fistfuls of old lint and stuff. That was gonna both be somewhat nasty, but also very, very satisfying. But instead it was just like, no, it's clean and what do. But a very clean, modern well.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I sent you a picture of it I really actually want to get rid of this insulation and replace it, but I think it's insulated so that the. That the. I don't know if this is considered the pump or just the head of this well doesn't freeze. Would be my. My assumption as to why they would throw that grody insulation in there.

[Amber]

Oh, yeah, I see that. Yeah, that is that also to me.

[Luke Burbank]

That insulation is like. It typifies like, everything about this house when I bought it, which is like, they just. Like, they just cut every corner and like they. I don't know. This is a whole other. This is a whole other thing, which is just like. There's so many things in taking this house apart and putting it back together that we. And this. This is sort of what always happens, I think, when you do a big remodeling project on an old house. But it's just like constantly finding out that somebody, generations before me did the absolute minimum of whatever.

[Amber]

Well, I wonder if there's like, generations. I wonder if you go back far enough, there is more care in even like, non. Not even like fancy craftsmanship, but just more care. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Like. Like if I went back to like. So the house was built in the 1930s. If I went back to the 1930s, or let's say the 19, maybe 50s, there's a certain amount of care and doing things the right way because that just kind of like what was ingrained.

[Amber]

You would hope so. I don't know if that's.

[Luke Burbank]

You get into those. Go, go.

[Amber]

80S, right. And 90s. I feel like things. I mean, the analogy that I think of, which is just not necessary for me to bring up here, especially since we're bit of a tight timeline, but.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, right.

[Amber]

I think. No, I'm just remembering because it's your.

[Luke Burbank]

Time deadline I've forgotten about.

[Amber]

Well, I'm saying that to remind myself too, because you know how it is. We get John Luke and time just flies till sunup. But I think of audio tape in this way because, as you know, I used to digitize and archive audio cassette tape that was unreal to reels. Even when I had this job during my college days and I was archiving this tape from the 1970s, you know, there was a lot of coverage of the shooting on the campus because I went to Kent.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, Kent State.

[Amber]

And so, like, I'm archiving that and this. And the tape from the 70s and early 80s was much better quality as far as holding up over time than the stuff that I was digitizing. In the mid to late 80s and maybe even early 90s. And I don't even mean sound quality. I mean just like. Like it was falling apart. Like, literally the tape was like kind of sloughing off on the tape heads of the machines. And I think the same is true of your, like, run of the mill cassette tapes. I'm not talking about the really high bias, you know, cassettes that maybe nerds like you and I were buying, but just your average cassette tape, your Memrex that had like all the cool, funky colors on it and design shapes. I love those things. But I'll bet you a million bucks at the cassette tapes like that from like the 1970s that our grandparents might have had in a box in the basement are actually much better quality.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. That cassette tape that you described, with the colors, it always seemed like the. The official cassette tape of Andre Agassi.

[Amber]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

He was never associated with a cassette tape, but that rock and roll Canon EOS Rebel.

[Amber]

I was going to say the Canon Rebel style. Yes, exactly. Felt like, absolutely. Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some of our donors who are making TBTL possible with their donations. This is 100 listener supported podcasting, supported by listeners like Don Melnick of Highlands, New Jersey.

[Amber]

Thank you, Don.

[Luke Burbank]

Greetings, Highlander.

[Amber]

I was trying to.

[Luke Burbank]

Come on.

[Amber]

I didn't even know what you're going to say. I was trying to think of some Highlander. There can only be one, right? Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I mean, I don't. I've never even seen that movie. I think that's my impression maybe of Sean Connery saying, greetings, Highlander to Christopher Lambert.

[Amber]

Lambert. I don't even know who that is.

[Luke Burbank]

I always think he was the Highlander.

[Amber]

The Highlander was a movie, but it also was a TV show. Right. I feel like Mike was a TV guy. Maybe commercials. I don't know, man.

[Luke Burbank]

I think Amanda Triggs might know. Amanda Triggs is in the Wolves. Cedro Woolly, Washington, baby.

[Amber]

I was said Cedro Woolly. Oh, embarrassing for me.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, no. I love Cedro Woolly. It's a great town. The Cedro Woolly market. I, I hope and pray is still in business. A very cool spot. I used to be married to somebody from the Wolves, so I have spent plenty of time there. I've been married to people from a lot of places.

[Amber]

What about. What about Kingston almost?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, Ontario.

[Amber]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

No, Kingston, Washington, possibly. But the Kingston, Ontario is where our friend Chris Murray is.

[Amber]

Hey, that's. That means we have at least two Kings Tens, right?

[Luke Burbank]

We do, because we got our friend Bill was a Toronto, is now a Kingston.

[Amber]

Maybe they're chopping it up.

[Luke Burbank]

Hope that they're getting their. They're girding. Not their loins. I don't want to know about their loins. They're girding up, though, for the big World Series. I think you've converted me into a Blue Jays fan because of the not visiting the White House.

[Amber]

And they're not. If. If it weren't for our little rivalry. They're not an unlovable. Did you see that?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with them other than I'm just butt hurt.

[Amber]

Yeah. Did you see? So the.

[Luke Burbank]

The.

[Amber]

The baseball player who gets the most ink on this podcast, that isn't a Mariner. Vinnie Pescatino. You know I always say that, right? Is it Pasquatino? I think I always crack myself.

[Luke Burbank]

But anyway, funny that you like him so much.

[Amber]

He's so fun, but he's also, like, hilarious on social media and everything. He's one of the three players who's been appointed to be, like, the player correspondent for the World Series. So he's gonna be going around, like, interviewing, and he's just, like, such a funny guy. And apparently, I don't know if he posted this on social media or if this was in the press release. He said, oh, I have a lot of questions for the players. I have questions for Ohtani, like, why does he throw so hard? And specifically, why does he throw so hard when I'm at the plate? That's great. Or something along those lines. I think I actually butchered it. He's so funny. And I was like, oh, man, Vinnie, don't get me interested in this World Series. I wanted to sit this one out.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that. You know who else probably loves it? Margaret Kearney in Whitefish, Montana.

[Amber]

Oh, wow.

[Luke Burbank]

I assume that because Margaret likes and supports tbtl, she likes and supports when baseball players are funny and self aware. Because that's two things we try to do on the show here. Be funny and self aware.

[Amber]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Also, Alex Hawley is in Seattle, Washington, and is donating to the show. Thank you, Alex.

[Amber]

Thanks, Alex.

[Luke Burbank]

You've got to donate. It's like calicocutpants.com have you donated?

[Amber]

You have to donate.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, you know who's donated? Speaking of quasi, quasi sisters in law, it's Julia Haas.

[Amber]

Has.

[Luke Burbank]

She's a has.

[Amber]

She's a has. I believe that's. This is Genevieve's sister, Julia.

[Luke Burbank]

Has. I know, but don't they say their last name differently.

[Amber]

I think Genevieve's brother is maybe, maybe he slid more into the slightly more haziness of things. I see I gotta say when I'm, when I am call Genevieve from the car and I'm using like, you know, speech to text or using voice commands, I have to say, call Genevieve Haas or text Genevieve Haas, because that's how my car hears it. I have to change. I have to change Genevieve's name for the computers, which doesn't seem right. But anyway, Julia, thank you so, so much. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that we're thanking you today instead of yesterday when we went on the huge, long, infuriating conversation about how to pronounce DeKalb.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry about that, Julia, and thank you so much. It is always like, it's so sweet and so humbling when one of our actual family members come up on these lists. So thank you, Julia. We really do appreciate you. Thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL possible.

[Amber]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, the quickest of top stories today because we got to get to the blurs days and we got to get you on the road, Andrew. But I will just tell you that last night because I have a kind of a, to some degree, a baseball shaped hold in my heart and the Seahawks only play once a week at best. I've all. I've long toyed with the idea of becoming a Blazers guy because they, you know, are the closest basketball team to me. And they've got this young guy named Yang Hansen that they drafted who I think is a very interesting prospect. And the real season started last night, the regular season. And I thought, well, this would be a good time. I could jump in. And I also saw an article in the Oregonian that basically said for the first time in a long time, the Blazers are playing to win games, not just lottery balls. Meaning they aren't just trying to tank and then get the highest pick in the draft. Like, this is a season where they're going to try to be good basketball guys. I thought, well, that's all promising stuff. And so I tune in last night and of course they lose very annoying game to the Timberwolves in that they were leading the whole game. And then in the last like four minutes, they give up the lead and they're getting dominated by like, you know, basically. I think his name is Carl Anthony. Maybe. I'm still new to the NBA. I haven't been in the NBA world a lot. But the Blazers, excuse me, the Wolves, have a really good guy named Carl Anthony who's hitting dagger shots and then strutting on the court. And I'm like, can I have one sport thing where a guy is not like doing a thing on my home field and then, and then taunting us? You know what I mean? Like, I go right from Vlad Guerrero hitting home runs and shushing the T mobile crowd to Carl Anthony hitting a three pointer and shushing the Blazers fans. I'm like, I don't like this feeling. But anyway, I wake up this morning and the head coach of the Blazers, Chauncey Billups, is being arrested for gambling.

[Amber]

How much have you read into this? I only read the one, the, the one article that sort of talks about this. And also the Miami Heat player who is also in trouble, but for the players. In trouble for like kind of Terry Rogier. Yeah. Pulling things during games that affect gambling outcomes, which is very different than a poker, an illegal poker sting. But they brought it all together. Is this, this is such a weird place to take it. But in the back of my head I was like, is this the administration kind of go. Only because Cash Patel was part of the press conference conference.

[Luke Burbank]

I know, believe me, the fact that this is Cash Patel's FBI causes me great doubt about the, about the whole situation. But the allegation against Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Blazers, who by the way is on indefinite leave, is that he was. There were these poker games being held by the mafia in Vegas and they would bring in these faces, they would call them like basically famous people like Chauncey Billups to play poker in these rigged games. And then they would bring in these fish, these rich guys who were not famous, just had a bunch of money that would come play and there would be rigged decks and that would be set up so that these guys, these fish, would lose millions of dollars and then they would kick some of the money. This is the allegation to the Chauncey Billupses of the world. So, so I guess on one hand it's kind of like there's no allegation that Chauncey Billups was like throwing the game, he wasn't betting on sports and then trying to impact the score, like put in a bad player for the Blazers or whatever. But the fact that he was allegedly pocketing cash by playing in these illegal games and tricking well meaning rich guys, Andrew, I mean, who's going to look out for the well meaning rich guys?

[Amber]

You're Right, Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what breaks my heart is you got well meaning rich guys that are just, you know, suffering. So anyway, all that is to say I may have to become a Kraken guy. I may have like that's another sport that's happening right now. And I got into the Kraken in the playoffs like three seasons ago. I might. If they're playing tonight, I got to check the schedule. I might be a Kraken guy because Blazer guy one game and it didn't work out.

[Amber]

And is it also a good time to be a Kraken guy because are they doing. The season just began. Right. And did they start hot? I feel like they might have started hot. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I firm. I saw like a headline that was like they did a good one.

[Amber]

They did a good one.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe a cracking.

[Amber]

Oh, the Kraken. And I don't know anything about hockey. I don't know how long this season is, how many games or matches are played. It's a game. It's games or hockey match. Heck, hockey game.

[Luke Burbank]

Hockey game, game.

[Amber]

They're 7 and 3 right now. But I don't know if it's like, you know, I don't know how, how significant of a sample size that is right now. But you know, know they're, they're, they're hanging in there. Apparently they have good winning.

[Luke Burbank]

Critically. Their coach hasn't been arrested yet.

[Amber]

Yet. Although maybe have you thought about it from that perspective? Maybe the Kraken doesn't want you rooting for them because bad things will befall them immediately. There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. Alrighty. Here Luke, we have some blurs. As I keep going back to my email to make sure I'm not missing any because sometimes that happens a blurs. They will slip in with some other emails and then I have to send an apology note to folks, I'm sorry I missed your blurs. They it's gonna have to wait until next week. But I am double checking and triple checking. I think I've got them all here. There's only three blurs days today, Luke. Oh wow.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Amber]

First one says this is Rachel from Tenver. By the way, you're probably thinking I want to be like Rachel. I want to send in a blurs day message. Well, you can do it too. AndrewBtl.net, that's my email Address. Send it in there. Put blursday in the subject line so I don't miss it. This is Rachel from Tenver. I'd like to submit a blursday to my wonderful and lovely husband Matt, who deserves all the well wishes. I wish I could eloquently put into words how much I love him and how lucky I am to be his wife. But alas, I am no writer. I love you so, so much, Matty. And Happy Blurs. Why, I think you did a damn nice job there, Rachel. Happy Blurs day, Matt.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, happy blurs, Matt.

[Amber]

Happy birthday to the coolest podcast co listener, my daughter Julia. This is from Nancy, by the way. Nancy says, julia, you are an amazing and I'm messing this up. You are amazing and brilliant. Actually, that's not on me. Nancy, you put an extra hand in there. I'm beating myself up over here. So explain that. I hope your day is filled with happiness and fun. I love you the most. From mom, Andrew. Thank you. Oh, I haven't read these.

[Luke Burbank]

Did we miss a comma?

[Amber]

Says Andrew. Thank you for doing Blurs days. That was a side note that I didn't have to include. I feel this cold today.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, wow.

[Amber]

I thought it was from Nancy and Andrew. I don't know what's going on there. Okay, Julia, I think we nailed it. Happy birthday. Yeah. And finally we got a note from our pal Arlen, who's a neighbor of mine, lives in the neighborhood here. And Arlen sent in a photo of a newly assembled cat tree with a couple of beautiful cats playing on it and a dog nearby checking it out. And arlen says, Happy 66th Blursday to me, the only one in this Broadview menagerie who listens to the show. Broadview is the neighborhood there.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know what we call our views. Lovely. Did they have a rooster too?

[Amber]

I think so, yeah. What else? I'm trying to remember.

[Luke Burbank]

You saw an elephant in the.

[Amber]

Think there is an elephant in there? Were there any other animals? I'm trying to think.

[Luke Burbank]

Really? They're keeping that hawk. He's got a roof.

[Amber]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a hawk, right?

[Amber]

Yeah. Or no, that's eagly, I believe, anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm sorry. And then the goat. Who can forget?

[Amber]

I thought you're just gonna play a couple clip of LeBron James. Let's see here. Arlen says I'm five months clear of my broken collarbone repair surgery. And as you can see, I have been allowed to advance to assembling cat trees. This is Coco the Siamese and Suki the Black, who are helping me with my recuperation along with big sister Amani the wonder dog. Well, happy Blursday to you, Arlen. And pet those pets for me.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right.

[Amber]

And that is where we're going to leave the Blurs days today and again. I think. I think that's all of them. If I've fallen down on the job again, though, I have some apologies to make tomorrow.

[Luke Burbank]

And that'll give everybody something to tune in for. Here's what they're tuning in for. An apology if we missed a Blurs, and my full report on how the tap water tastes at my house.

[Amber]

Oh, yeah. Ooh, I'm looking forward to that. Ooh, maybe make that your hey Dummies video. I'm trying so desperately to get you to do my work this week.

[Luke Burbank]

Get my glasses on. Yeah, you've been doing plenty of work this week and the last week, my friend. If you. I'll happily throw a hey Dummies on. You've been spending hours and hours perfecting some TBTL content that I'm very excited about.

[Amber]

So can I ask you a question about hey Dummies? It's totally tearing down the fourth wall here, something we're not usually comfortable doing. But I swear there was a question on our hey Dummies sheet that I was going to tackle this week about Costco purchases or Costco dream purchases. And I have been thinking about it. And that's the thing. I don't think I've answered that question. You haven't answered a question about.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't delete here. I don't delete anything off the Google list. Just for your information, I'm trying to.

[Amber]

Figure out if I already answered that question and I don't remember making the video and then I deleted it. Or in my effort to always keep things organized, I was a little too aggressive in my deleting and I deleted a question that we never had a chance. Chance to answer. That was a really good question. I'll tell you what it was and I'll try to tackle it. This week is. And I'm gonna have to paraphrase here, but it was something along the lines of if you could purchase a big tub or life lifetime supply of something.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I do remember this question, and I have not answered it. I was thinking about answering it in the Costco parking lot.

[Amber]

I think, oh, that's really smart. I was gonna answer it in my studio because I don't like anything anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

We do different, Fred.

[Amber]

We'll see yes, we do. Why did I buy this funky little Costco?

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, go cracking. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Amber]

And good luck to all. Power out.