#4610 There's An Ab For That

Summary

TBTL Episode #4610 “There's An Ab For That”

Date: December 2, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Podcast: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live

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Episode Overview

In this characteristically meandering and hilarious episode, Luke and Andrew embody the TBTL ethos—taking listeners on an amiable journey from over-the-air TV nostalgia, to the perils (and pride) of aging family refrigerators, to the existential embarrassment of being shirtless on national television. Along the way, they deep-dive into the arcane world of net promoter scores, muse about beef stroganoff genealogy, and inadvertently discover the latest in abdominal surgical trends—ab implants. This is podcast comfort food in its purest form: familiar, amiably digressive, and studded with laughter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Over-the-Air TV Rediscovery

• Andrew’s Antenna Revelation
  • Andrew shares that Genevieve recently picked up a digital antenna, and they discovered a bounty of over-the-air TV channels, far more than expected, bringing him back to his childhood days of coaxial cables and UHF dials.
  • Notable Moment: “It was cool, John. It was also theater.” ([08:09])—a callback to inside jokes and TV references.
  • Luke revels in the simplicity of the old TV experience, reminiscing about the satisfaction of flipping on live, local broadcast without digital hoops to jump through.
• Modern Channel Lineups
  • Andrew is especially delighted to discover dedicated channels like LAFF and that he can now “catch an ALF,” showing surprise at the trove of ‘90s sitcom reruns available for free.
  • The hosts marvel at the changing economics of TV syndication and question whether Jim Belushi is still making money off “According to Jim” reruns. Luke jokes about being able to text Belushi to find out. ([16:03])

2. Loyalty Points and Corporate Manipulation

• Hotel Points Anxiety
  • Andrew describes receiving increasingly desperate emails from a low-tier hotel chain about expiring loyalty points from a stay two years ago.
  • They riff on the absurdity of points systems and how companies manufacture urgency for negligible rewards.
  • Quote: “They could just set up their own point system where you need a million points to earn anything.” ([18:27])

3. Family Frugality and the Saga of the Stroganoff

• Leftover Ethics and Parental Habits
  • Luke narrates an epic tale of beef stroganoff, unveiling an elaborate timeline of how his family recycles leftovers—past the bounds of safety and taste.
  • The dish in question was made for a birthday, from ground beef “about to go bad,” and endured nearly two weeks in various refrigerators (including one that had stopped working).
  • Quote: “If you open the refrigerator and you put your hand in there, there was no discernible difference in the temperature of the outside...or the inside.” ([27:22])
• Food Waste, Guilt, and Salvage
  • Both hosts reflect on their evolving thresholds for food expiration, with Luke noting he’s “moving more towards mom” in terms of salvaging less-than-fresh ingredients.
  • They also discuss generational differences in how people treat food safety, waste, and leftovers.

4. Net Promoter Scores and Survey Frustration

• Customer Feedback Loops
  • Andrew recounts an encounter with a T-Mobile survey that interprets anything less than a 9 or 10 as negative feedback, sparking an overzealous follow-up from the company.
  • Listener Ian confirms this frustration, explaining the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system and its impact on retail employees.
  • Andrew: “It’s a broken system that only exists for corporations to rank retail chains and their employees.” ([57:04])

5. Embarrassment and The Abs Challenge

• Luke Faces Shirtless TV
  • Luke details the comedic, almost existential dread he faces having to be shirtless on CBS for a TV segment about Miami’s coral restoration efforts ([46:50]).
  • In a last-minute bid for courage (or tan), he jogs shirtless along Miami Beach, feeling self-conscious amidst a sea of ripped beachgoers.
  • Quote: “This is not my preferred look. This is for something else. Please––I am not a guy who can’t wait to take his shirt off!” ([47:49])
• The Discovery of Ab Implants
  • The terror peaks when Luke encounters an older man with “the most pronounced abs I’ve ever seen...glued onto a torso that made no sense.”
  • Andrew investigates and confirms the existence of both “ab implants” and “ab sketching”—the future (and folly) of cosmetic surgery. ([51:21])
  • Andrew: “If you want to walk in my footsteps at home, try ‘abdominal implants’—that’s going to get you closer to it.”

6. Listener Donors, Power Outages, and TBTL Lore

• The hosts thank their loyal supporters, segueing into digressions about old refrigerators, the “Cars for Kids” jingle, and day-after-Thanksgiving awkwardness.
• They close as always with show sign-offs, gratitude, and warmth.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Over-the-Air TV
  Andrew: “By the time I got home Genevieve had it installed and had watched the back half of the Seahawks game on it. And then last night I put on Sunday Night Football.” ([05:44])

• On Food Safety Instincts
  Luke: “I just thought, like, there’s food that’s edible and it’s been thrown away for no reason.” ([35:55])

• On the Absurdities of Corporate Points
  Andrew: “It’s such a strange thing. It’s not even like ‘hey, you have points at Sprouts, maybe use them on some strawberries before they expire.’ This is...a Choice Hotel.” ([18:44])

• On Survey Hell
  Andrew: “Tell us what happened that went so wrong. Can we call you to make it right? And I was just like, no, it’s fine, just everybody calm down.” ([57:04])

• On Bodily Anxiety
  Luke: “It’s really messing with my carefully cultivated situation with my...mostly my hair but also my baadi.” ([47:04])

• On Ab Implants
  Luke (on spotting ab implants): “He had the most pronounced abs I’ve ever seen in my life even though he was not like a person with 0% body fat...they were glued onto a torso that made no sense for those abs.” ([50:33])

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Highlighted Segments & Timestamps

• Over-the-Air TV Nostalgia & Discovery: [03:46–13:29]
• Hilarious Unpacking of Hotel Points: [16:06–19:33]
• Beef Stroganoff Family Saga: [19:33–38:13]
• Net Promoter Score Rant: [55:57–59:49]
• Luke’s TV Embarrassment/Ab Implants: [46:50–53:13]

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Tone & Style

Warm, self-deprecating, and witty—the show flows like an ongoing chat between friends who see the absurd in everyday minutia. In-jokes, sidebars, and pop-culture riffs keep the energy light, while the theme of not taking oneself too seriously anchors even the silliest digressions.

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For Listeners New and Old

Whether you’re curious about what “laugh” channels exist on modern antennas, ever found yourself nervously eyeing week-old leftovers, or simply want company in your own daily foibles, this episode brings it all. Luke and Andrew’s infectious camaraderie and observational humor make even the debate over ab implants unmissable.

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End quote:
Luke (signing off): “Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a great Tuesday. And please remember, no mountain too tall.” ([64:48])
Andrew: “And good luck to all.” ([64:57])

Transcript

[Andrew]

This next performer is returning to stand up comedy after a 10 year absence.

[Luke Burbank]

Please welcome Larry David.

[Andrew]

Thank you.

[Larry David]

Thank you. I think I'm gonna do very well tonight. I really do. Feeling just unbelievably confident. Well, that was a bad start. It was a bad start. A really stupid start.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know why I did that.

[Andrew]

You'll see.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you've been.

[Larry David]

You seem like a very nice audience tonight. I'm wondering, in case I break into some Spanish or French, may I use the familiar two form with you people instead of usted? Because I think usted is going to be a little too formal for this crowd. I feel already I've established the kind of rapport that I can. I can jump into the two form with you that quickly. I'm taking a two liberty with you. I'm going to use the two form and that's it. You can't talk me out of it. You know, Caesar used the two form with Brutus even after Brutus stabbed him. He said, ed tu brute. And I think that's a little too informal when someone's trying to assassinate you. I think at that point perhaps you said he would have been better off, but that's Caesar.

[Andrew]

TBTL. Everybody calls it garbage. Most people call it a problem. We call it our challenge.

[Luke Burbank]

I think we have a textbook case of video game abuse. Maybe we should do something to save him from becoming a human microchip.

[Andrew]

Hey, you either get it or you don't. I don't. But I am so excited to be a part of it. Comes a time in every young man's.

[Luke Burbank]

Life when I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure what young men are doing nowadays. Let me know. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I can't believe you're still on the air. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew]

Hey, cheer up.

[Luke Burbank]

It's taco Tuesday. Coming to you once again from beautiful Miami beach in the art deco headquarters of America, if not the world where it is a. It's actually a little overcast right now, but it is going to be another warm one down here. It's going to be very hot.

[Andrew]

Going to be very uncomfortable for everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got the AC Thumpin here in the good times hotel. And I am ready, my friends, to bring you episode 4610 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. After we're done recording today's episode. I Am then going to head off for my television shoot here for cbs, which will once again, for the second time in my career of making TV stories involve me being shirtless on national television.

[Larry David]

This is embarrassing.

[Luke Burbank]

I pulled a real Hail Mary yesterday trying to mitigate the disaster that is my upper torso on television. We'll get into that, probably. We've been trying to get into this television show and talking about it all week, by which I mean yesterday, but we have not yet discussed the chair company, which I love. Television may or may not have had its season finale on HBO this week. I'm still a little unclear on all that. Maybe Andrew Walsh knows the answer. He is the longest running cobra of the program. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

[Andrew]

Boom. Roasted.

[Luke Burbank]

And he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew]

Good morning, Luke. Speaking of television, television is no friend of mine. Actually, that's untrue. It's a dear, dear, close friend of mine.

[Luke Burbank]

It sure is. Some would say best friend.

[Andrew]

You know what? We have a big development in our television watching that I should have mentioned yesterday on the show, something that listeners have been telling me to do for years and years and years now. Well, I guess ever since we cut the cable in our home. Genevieve actually is the one who ended up implementing this. She went out to the hardware store on Sunday and bought an antenna, an actual over the air digital antenna for our downstairs television. I don't know, it always sounded tempting to me. A lot of people had suggested it for watching, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

Seemed like something you'd like.

[Andrew]

Yeah, kind of. I mean, sort of. You know, I just, it's pretty easy to bootleg the games and I watch them on my, on my laptop as I kind of walk around the house or whatever. So I had gotten used to that lifestyle. But everybody's like, hey, don't forget the Seahawks. That's still something that is broadcast over the air, you know, as is like Sunday Night Football and things like that. Like you don't technically need cable, but I haven't watched television over the air since I was a child, since I was, I guess since we got our first cable in probably 1993 or four or something along those lines. And so Genevieve, while I was out yesterday, went to the hardware store, bought this baby, plugged it in. It doesn't even take up. One of the big things was I thought it would take up an HDMI slot. Luke, this connects to the television via coaxial. Do you remember?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, my goodness.

[Andrew]

Does anybody remember coaxial? It's a famous Line from a Led Zeppelin live performance I didn't even know our televisions had. Still, everybody didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

They blew Bob Dylan when he plugged into the coaxial at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Wasn't that quite controversial when Dylan went.

[Andrew]

Co axle people still. When Dylan went coaxial, People still talk about it. But yeah, Genevieve called me. She's like, wait, do we have coax on the back of our television? She was at the hardware store. I'm like, I don't think I've seen one of those in a long, long time. But sure as shit. Sorry for the language on a Tuesday. We're just going with it today. You can swear, Luke, I've opened the door. You can be as foul mouthed as.

[Luke Burbank]

You can say anything we want.

[Andrew]

That's right. But yeah, there's still that little coaxial nub on the back of the television. By the time I got Genevieve had it installed and had watched the back half of the Seahawks game on it. And then last night I put on Sunday Night Football.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's what's so crazy about this, is that so much of the stuff, a lot of stuff that you were bootlegging. Well, back in the Cleveland Browns days, back when you were following them, then that would have been out of market and stuff. And then the baseball is what it is, but like as far as it.

[Andrew]

Should be over the air, that's the tragedy of it.

[Luke Burbank]

But the fact of the matter is, yeah, the thing that's been standing between you and just watching the Seahawks on Sundays and then Sunday Night Football, the thing that's been standing between you and that happening on your beautiful television is what, like a $20 part?

[Andrew]

Yeah, if that. Now keep in mind, I was. I have a little laptop. I am now a kind of a two laptop guy. I used to like just run them into the ground and then they were unusable. So I only had one laptop. But I do have this little mini laptop that is serviceable that I can just like I always have a dongle hanging off the of my TV in the basement so I can easily plug my computer in there. So it hasn't been super onerous or it hasn't gotten in the way of me watching, but it does, it does glitch up from time to time. It'll crash on. You got to refresh or it'll mute. They've sort of made some of these streams a little bit harder to watch.

[Luke Burbank]

Romanian gangs now have your ISP information and will someday come for you.

[Andrew]

I have been jumped in Are you familiar with the term jumped in?

[Luke Burbank]

I sure am.

[Andrew]

Okay, well, that is that. And it will explain some of the tattoos you will see on my face the next time you see me.

[Luke Burbank]

You know me. I'm obsessed with the feeling of. I want it to be like it was the. Let's just say the 1990s or the early 2000s, when you walk into the TV room area, the living room, what have you. You pick up your remote control, you point at the television, you hit on and then you change. You. You select the channel that's playing the thing you want to watch. I love that experience. That's a big deal for me, not having to dongle the laptop in or go on the various sites like. And I'm just speaking for me now, you're saying it probably didn't really bum you out that much, but the fact that now you can just like, you know, if you. If you happen to be home on that Sunday at that time or it's Sunday night or whatever, you can just turn your television on and go to the antenna as the input and then just watch over the air television, which is, I assume is all the local stations.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, this is the show that's pretty cool, actually.

[Andrew]

This is the. It was cool. It was cool, John.

[Luke Burbank]

It was also theater.

[Andrew]

I was actually thinking of Patriot there. Do you remember? Well, whatever. I can't remember any of the characters or actors names from Patriot, but who is.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like that's by design. I feel like that's something that they almost did to make it extra hard for people to get into the show. Is everyone's name is a version of John Dorman, Right? Dorm Nan.

[Andrew]

And who am I? Oh, Kurt Wood Smith. He's like one of the mains, right? I remember he's on the phone with John near the end when John is just like so damn broken. And I think Kurtwood Smith is talking about how he was in prison and he was a dentist in prison. And John says to him, cool. You know how he only, like, sees cool? And then Kurt Wood Smith says, it wasn't cool, John. And I always. I always. Whenever we hear the word cool, we're just like, it wasn't cool, John. So that is why I blurted that non sequitur out at you. My apologies, but here's what I found.

[Luke Burbank]

I was going more with Steve Coogan.

[Andrew]

Yes, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Whatever. That show was where.

[Andrew]

That was from Macbeth too, right? Yeah, Hamlet. Hamlet.

[Luke Burbank]

Hamlet too.

[Andrew]

I believe it was Stu. It was stupid. It was stupid. But it was also theater. Theater. Let me See if I can just go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, I've learned a lesson here, but I hope you all have too, about the vitality of shared experience. We will all remember this moment for the rest of our lives. It was dramatic, it was visual, it was stupid. It was stupid.

[Larry David]

But it was also theater.

[Andrew]

The reason I also say that to each other as well. Hamnet 2 coming out now as well. I don't know if you've been seeing the trailers for that movie.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know the Hamnet actor, Jesse. Jesse. I'm forgetting this actor's last name. But she was. Remember I told you that story of going to the cbs. Is it Buckley, maybe Jesse Buckley going to that CBS Sunday morning editorial meeting. And there was a long conversation around if we were to write on the screen introducing.

[Andrew]

Oh, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Jesse Buckley or in conversation with Jesse Buckley. And it was decided that to say introducing was disrespectful because it presumed that most people didn't know who she was.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And that was for Hamnet.

[Andrew]

That was for Hamnet. Sorry, I've been saying welcome back to Hamnet. Yeah, sorry for my lack of response there. It just kind of bummed me out to hear that again. Anyway, I guess. I guess words are important. All I was going to say was it is amazing how many over the air channels we get now, I expect. And this is where I'm a bit of a. I guess moron might be the word. But I was like, I don't know. Over the air tv, it's going to be five channels, like what I grew up with. It's going to be the three networks and then maybe a UHF or two. Right. And instead I turned on the TV last night and Genevieve already had it hooked up and was already watching it earlier in the day. And then I came downstairs. 30 channels, Luke, including one called Laugh alff over the air. I turn it on. Elf is on. I didn't have time to watch it in the moment. I was just sort of kicking the tires on it. But wait, wait, wait.

[Luke Burbank]

Laugh laff.

[Andrew]

Yes. Is the channel. And alf, the TV show was on. It's just like this idea that I can just like, swangle on down to the basement and maybe catch an elf. But not necessarily catch an elf. I got to say, I'm catching some elves. I'm loving it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the thing. Nature abhors a vacuum.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And since we're not watching, since most people aren't getting most of their television over the air, I feel like there's been a lot of, like, frequencies and Channels that have been freed up so that you can like your. Your laugh Networks and your QVCs and these other kind of like. There's just. What I've noticed when I've ever looked at over the air TV in the last five years is there's just a bunch of stuff I didn't expect to be on there because it's not really the prime real estate anymore of television watching. Which is kind of great because it just means you get some bonuses. Because when again, when I was a kid, the over the air television was the CBS station, the NBC station, the ABC station, the public television station ktzz which was uhf. If you had the little, you know, like sort of saucer. If you had a little circular UHF antenna and then like a weird outlier. Well then there was Fox, I guess channel 13 and then there was KCPQ which was channel 11, came out of Tacoma. Was. It's was a kind of its own weird thing, but that was pretty much it. And now I feel like there's a lot of cool bonus stuff on over the air.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm looking at the laugh channels kind of schedule for. I will say this. It is heavily indexed into the According to Gyms of the World, the Holmes Improvement and the Last Man's Standing. Big blocks of this during the day. That 70s show. But then if you can survive the.

[Luke Burbank]

Shows that are based around highly competent fathers who are in no way right.

[Andrew]

Over it, we end up with a man with a plan. I don't know what that is. Grounded for life. And then finally, if you can make it to 2am Eastern time, which is 11pm My time, you get into an ELF block. Exactly. And so it looks like ELF is on at 11pm So I will now I gotta remember when things are on. Luke. Oh, we're Funniest Home Videos on.

[Luke Burbank]

I love it. A Vinda Bona production.

[Andrew]

Is that true?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, absolutely. After America's Funniest Home Videos and America's Funniest People, which was co hosted by Tawny Kitain and Dave Coulier. That was America's Funniest People and they were both Vinda Bona Productions.

[Andrew]

I'm looking at Vino. Here's my Here. Never heard that name before.

[Luke Burbank]

Is the not a porn producer? Although it sounds like it could be.

[Andrew]

Yeah, actually he looks like too. If you were gonna cast.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know what he looks like.

[Andrew]

I'll send you a pic. He's like. He's kind of a. I'm looking at a guy who's probably in his 60s or 70s white guy with kind of big, kind of not oversized, but kind of like chunky Hollywood glasses, sort of white hair in the suit. Just like a very. Kind of average white. Yeah, just. But if you. If you were casting him in Boogie Nights, I'd be like, yeah, sure, that seems about right.

[Luke Burbank]

Are there commercials on the Laugh Channel?

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's how they do.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I'm wondering about. Because those. According to Jim's and those Last Man's Standing and everything, like, those must still cost some money, right? Like, those kind of shows never are, like, in the public domain. Right. There's a whole thing about syndication and residuals and, you know, back in the day, back in the more traditional, I guess you could say, TV days, the big thing was you wanted to get your sitcom to a certain number of episodes because if you did, then it could be syndicated. And that was where the real money was, you know, for everybody was like, once you start seeing Seinfeld playing, you know, or Friends playing on, you know, a non NBC channel that's just running, you know, episodes of Friends all. All the time or whatever, that. That there's money in that syndication because those, Those channels or networks are paying for that stuff. But I'm wondering, is the LAFF Network slash the Laugh Channel still. Like, is Jim Belushi. Is he getting, according to Jim, money from the Laugh Channel? That.

[Andrew]

I'm looking this up here. It says, as long as you use Steamboat Tim Allen, you're good is what it says here. So. And if you make.

[Luke Burbank]

He was. He steamboated that cocaine across Lake Michigan. Right. Wasn't that what he was doing?

[Andrew]

Indeed he did. Yeah. I'm assuming that there must be some residuals, but it just can't be like it was in the. In the old days, right? It must.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not. I wonder what. I could, you know, I could actually. This is weird. Flex, but I could actually text Belushi and ask him. Oh, yeah, I did do a story with him once. He was actually very nice and we were like kind of buddies for a minute where he was like, if you're ever in town, stay with me. And like, kind of were like, sort of text buddies. I could say, are you getting any sweet, sweet residuals off that Laugh Channel?

[Andrew]

You just say, hey, my buddy just got the Laugh Channel. He's deeply into it.

[Luke Burbank]

What does he owe you?

[Andrew]

What does he owe you? Here's a huge shift in conversation, but based on a second email that just got in the past, like 15 minutes, which is Luke, when I joined you in your neck of the woods for the TBTL a thon two years ago, let's say not the Wisconsin one, but the one we did from your home. And I stayed in that hotel, John. And I stayed in that hotel which was, you know, I'm not unsafe.

[Luke Burbank]

It was at any speed.

[Andrew]

It was definitely.

[Luke Burbank]

I really. I want the record to show that I did. I advised against that.

[Andrew]

No, you didn't. The hotel, I just. You checked it. I actually thought it was very sweet. You went and you checked it out ahead of time.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I checked it out and I'm joking when I say unsafe. It wasn't unsafe. It just wasn't particularly. It was a very, very, very down market hotel which you and John were being very scrupulous with the, with the, the show money by staying there. But I would say if you ever come down that way again, there are better options.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In the little town. Not quite as close.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And again. So anyway. But point is, it was as you, as you. Let's just describe it as a somewhat crummy hotel, but it's part of a chain. And I don't even know what the chain is here. It doesn't matter. But it's like part of Choice Privileges, which is such a weird name for. You've seen that before in your travels. Choice.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I know that they're called ch. Choice Hotels is the sort of parent company of a bunch of these real kind of like pretty, pretty low rent hotels.

[Andrew]

And so that was two years ago and they signed me up for some sort of loyalty program at the time. I'm like, yeah, that's fine. I just said yes to whatever the woman on the phone said. And then when I showed up, it turns out she had entered my information wrong anyway. And so it was all kind of a bit of a confusion. Bit of confusion when I got there. But all that is to say they're now sending me emails, like two in a row that feel like I'm being shaken down. It says, you're about to lose your age. 8,100 points. You're. You got these points. I don't know. I mean, I only stayed there once. I got 8,100 points. Unless this has been following me around in ways that I didn't realize. I don't know what 8,100 points gets you. Probably half a donut. I don't even know. But I like this idea that they sign you up for these membership programs or whatever, but then they're like, oh, you're gonna lose it. You better. Like, do you think I'm gonna book a hotel because you told me I'm about to lose 8,100 points. I'm just gonna like, I. I'm that invested.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's 8100.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Did I say thousand? No.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And I was like, you know, I'll take this off your hands if you got anyone. 81. Although you know, it also, it's like they could just set up their own point system where you need a million points. Yeah, exactly. You know it. But it is funny. Like I heard 81,000. I thought you get me out of a couple of jams.

[Andrew]

Oh, sorry if I misspoke. I thought I said 8100, but you might have.

[Luke Burbank]

And I might have misheard too.

[Andrew]

But anyway, it's just kind of like, it's such a strange thing. It's not even like, hey, you have a certain amount of points at Sprouts, right? So maybe, maybe make your way down here and use them on some strawberries before you run out of time or whatever. This is like. And it's not. It's also not like I'm a high roller and this is some sort of fancy hotel in Las Vegas where I'm gonna be like, hey sweetie, let's do a weekend in Vegas so we don't lose all these points. You know what I mean? It's a choice hotel.

[Luke Burbank]

BBC comedy show is there.

[Andrew]

There certainly is. I'm still lotta lot of anticipation for me to report back from the big black comedy show that we'll be going to in a couple of months here. But anyway, I didn't like this. I don't like this them threatening to take away. So I should book another. So I should book another room in Kelso or what have you.

[Luke Burbank]

You would be surprised at how many people, including my parents would respond to that though, because. Well, yesterday on the show, right at the very end, which was a good place for me to mention it because there was less of a chance of it being heard by people who might get their feelings ever so slightly tweaked. But like now I'll bring it up again at the beginning of the show. Good. Which is a less great place for this to be. But yesterday I mentioned that like when I was at my folks house before we did the whole Thanksgiving feast, wherein there is almost an excess of food. There is an excess of food created. There was, I felt like a kind of a. We didn't have quite enough food there. And the one thing that was being eaten the night before the meal was the night before Thanksgiving was beef stroganoff, which itself was one to two days left over because they made it for my sister Rachel's birthday. Which. Do I even go into this? That's a whole other sub thing. They were like. I was like, are we a beef stroganoff family? We've never. That. We've no history of eating beef stroganoff in this family. And my mom was like, oh, Rachel requested it for her birthday. And I thought, there's something about this that does not add up. And then later on a day later, I was talking to my parents, and my mom said something. Why didn't you eat the beef stroganoff? And I was like, well, I don't really eat a lot of beef, and I'm not a big mushroom person. And it's beef and mushrooms.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. That's one thing I know about you. You don't like mushrooms.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm working on it, by the way. I am trying. In fact, the reason that conversation happens, my sister Liz had picked. You know, they live on this beautiful, huge property, and they pick tons and tons of mushrooms every year, like chanterelles and things that just grow wild. And then she does something to them where she sort of, like, cooks them down so that they can be saved, and then she puts them in bags and stuff. So. So I've been trying to actually entertain more mushrooms, you know, in. In, like, if there's a dish that has mushroom in, I don't just avoid it now. I'm trying to kind of, if I can, develop an enjoyment of that thing. But anyway, he started talking about mushrooms, and my mom said, oh, there was mushroom in the beef stroganoff. And. And she goes, it was really good ground beef. Now, by the way, when I told the story to Becca, she goes, I don't think beef stroganoff is historically made with ground beef in it. And then she looked it up, and it's not like if you went to a. A Austrian restaurant or whatever and you had beef stroganoff, it would not be ground beef. I don't think that's the preferred. But my mom was like, it was really good ground beef. That's why we had to use it. It was going to go bad.

[Andrew]

Oh, geez. And I said, you never want to hear that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, and I said, I thought it was Rachel's special birthday dish. And she was. Well, I. I asked her, hey, would you like. Would you like beef stroganoff for your birthday? And she said, yes. And I was like, that is a very different scenario than it just, it's, it just what is validated my theory that we're not a beef stroganoff family per se. Like they may eat beef stroganoff sometimes now, but it's not like a proud family tradition that we've always done that we request on our birthday. It's because my mom had ground beef that she was worried was going to go bad.

[Andrew]

It says what are the best real story. What are the best cuts of beef for stroganoff? Top sirloin is number one. Boneless ribeye is number two. Beef tenderloin is number three. Filet mignon. Filet mignon is wonderful cuts of meat. And then it says if you are looking for a less expensive alternative. Some have reported good results using ground chuck beef. So according to. I mean it's an option but natashaskitchen.com didn't even try it out themselves. They just said if you're looking. Some have reported. And again, I'm not. Listen, I make all. I made my what I call poor man's chicken and parmesan this weekend on like a Friday or Saturday night where it's just like, you know, like I'm not trying to be snobby about it, but just to your point, I would say and this is just a language thing and I should be gentle here as well. I know it's just something sometimes people say. But anytime anybody offers food or describes food is like, well, we had to clean out the fridge or we had to like it was going to go bad. That's always a turn off for me. You know what I mean? And maybe I'm a little bit too quick with the trigger to throw things away and then just get fresh food in anyway. But it's kind of like just don't present it in that way. For me personally, I'm not going after your. Do you think that I want to get into it with your mom? Absolutely not. I love that woman. And I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

Some have tried, some have died.

[Andrew]

Yes. Some have reported. Yes, exactly. No. And that is true. But I would just say as far as a presentation thing is concerned, usually when I'm being offered food from somebody at their home, if I hear that it was about to go bad or it would have gone bad if we hadn't used it. And it is not an enticement for me.

[Luke Burbank]

And that wasn't initially. See, that's the thing. It was presented as Rachel's special birthday meal.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

And so which is by the way as far as branding goes. A much better branding than we had this really good ground beef that we needed to use pretty soon or it was maybe not going to be edible anymore. Now here's the crazy thing, Andrew, now try to do this timeline with me. Thanksgiving last week, my sister's birthday, I think two days before Thanksgiving. So Tuesday of last week was the. When the beef stroganoff was made.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Wednesday was when leftover beef stroganoff was being presented as the only meal option, which kind of sent me into a bit of a tizzy. Fast forward to Sunday. So a couple days ago, now I'm texting with my dad about something because my mom and dad stayed at my house on Saturday night. I was already in Portland and heading out early on Sunday morning. My folks stayed at my house because they were on their way to their timeshare thing and I was texting my dad about some stuff in the house and some stuff he's going to be doing. And he's telling me about a delivery that came and then he just throws in. So this is now Sunday night at 9pm I get this text from my dad about these, some demolition stuff he was doing at the house. And he goes, at the end of the email, he goes, we forgot and left our stroganoff in the fridge. We'll eat it Friday night.

[Andrew]

Okay, so you said go.

[Luke Burbank]

They're coming back made on Tuesday, end of this week.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So at the end of this week, December 5th, which is also when I'll be at Benaroya hall doing Livewire. Everyone please come see us at the end of this week. Andrew, on Friday night. They're stopping back at my house on their way back from the timeshare and staying over again. They are going to eat the beef stroganoff on Friday night.

[Andrew]

So that is one week and five days. That's close to two weeks after being made. And after being made with the idea that it's going to go bad. Some of the ingredients.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. I forgot that part that it was made so as to make use of the ground beef.

[Andrew]

I again, I want to be careful. I know that your mom could be listening to this. And again, like, I really do love your mom. And listen, they, they've they've lived this long without, I'm assuming getting themselves food poisoning or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

No, they, they each their own too tough to die.

[Andrew]

That's not my, that's not my approach to leftovers, certainly. And like that is one thing. I don't want to also turn this. Why Don't I just take all the. Why don't I just open myself up to all the slings and arrows?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I forgot. The most critical part of this whole.

[Andrew]

Story is at least in the fridge. Tell me they left it in the fridge.

[Luke Burbank]

It does involve the refrigerator. Andrew. I forgot about this part. My parents refrigerator broke, we think sometime around the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It had apparently been on the fritz. And so by Wednesday night and certainly by Thursday, if you open the refrigerator and you put your hand in there, there was no discernible difference in the temperature of the outside of the refrigerator or the inside of the refrigerator. Now my parents, my dad, on the Black Friday as we call it, the day after Thanksgiving, he did go to Home Depot and buy a brand new refrigerator and bring it home. So they got a brand new refrigerator as of Friday.

[Andrew]

Wow. Just threw in the back of the truck and brought it in himself.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it was a whole thing. My sister Hannah and her husband brought their truck which, because you're not supposed to lay down a refrigerator. Oh, the tubes. And so my dad has a truck, but it's like a, you know, it's a little small pickup truck with a canopy on it. So he got. Well, really what happened was my dad's at Home Depot, he's calling my mom, he's trying to get, he's gonna, he's, he's gonna drive down to my sister's house to get her truck to drive the truck back. And she lives about 45 minutes away from them. Anyway, it was going to be this whole round trip thing and my mom all of a sudden call, she hangs up, calls my sister, somehow talks my sister into driving her truck or her husband to driving his truck up to the Home Depot to help my dad get the refrigerator home, which it was very kind of them. Shout out Hannah and Chris. But this is my point. From what we can track Tuesday maybe earlier, that refrigerator was not really operating. So this, let me just throw in this beef stroganoff. Not only was it ground beef that was getting a little sus. Not only is it about two weeks old, it also spent three or four of its early days of its life as a leftover in a refrigerator that was not functional.

[Andrew]

It's all it knows, it's all it ever wants, it's all it'll ever know. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And yet my parents are thriving in their early 70s, Andrew. That's the thing. Well, whatever they're doing, it's working.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but you're gonna save it for them. Like you'll probably be home oh, that's true. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You're.

[Andrew]

You're.

[Luke Burbank]

I live. I live on the road now. I've got. I'm going to be in Phoenix on Thursday night doing. Wait, wait, don't tell me. By the way, Tig Notaro will be on that panel, which is kind of fun. And then Friday night, doing Livewire in Seattle. So I won't even be home to stop them. Like, they. You know, the thing that's so funny was. I forget who it was, maybe was my sister Liz or something at Thanksgiving where one of my sisters was inquiring about. Oh, is. My sister Liz was asking about stopping by my house to do something, to pick up a chair or something I was giving her, and she said something like, well, is it okay if I just stopped by? My mom goes, oh, it's never locked. Like, as if she was just, like, saying, yeah, you can do that. It's never locked there. It's like, well, it isn't. But also, do you guys live there now? Like, I feel like my mom is increasingly treating my house like her.

[Andrew]

Right, right, right. That's been encroaching for a little bit now. It sort of. But, yeah, you have to make those decisions. Like, Genevieve is often putting things in the fridge where, like, she had some special recipe that she made. You know, she's part of this thing called Country Club, where it's like, her and, I don't know, a group of 10 friends or something along those lines. They started the beginning of the Alphabet and are going through every single country on God's green globe and making meals. You know, everybody brings one dish for that country, and so she's often bringing in ingredients that. That she only needs once or twice or something. Right. And for some reason, I don't know what it was, she made something maybe of months ago, I guess, and it took, like, some sort of huge canister of some kind of yogurt thing. You know, it wasn't even, like, your basic yogurt. I don't know. It wasn't Greek yogurt. It was some sort of special yogurt.

[Luke Burbank]

And, like, it was Albanian yogurt.

[Andrew]

It was Albanian yogurt.

[Luke Burbank]

The yogurt that's constantly trying to immigrate to Greek yogurt because it'll be an improvement in the lifestyle.

[Andrew]

So it's like, for me, I look at these things and I'm like, I know what's going to happen to that. It is going to stay in the fridge, taking up a lot of space until it eventually expires. Then It'll expire. And then I'll say, genevieve, can I throw this away? And then she'll say, fine. Which is exactly what happened this week. I found that thing way. I was fighting for room in the fridge, and then I see, oh, well, there's a swimming pool, a virtual swimming pool of yogurt in the back. I pull it out and the expiration date or Best Buy date or something was just over a month ago. And, you know, you probably don't want to mess around with yogurt. I don't want to mess around with yogurt. Even if it says its future date is.

[Luke Burbank]

What about. What about beef yogurt straw?

[Andrew]

Ooh, yes. That's some of the best stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Two weeks old.

[Andrew]

So I said to Viv, I'm like, this thing is over a month expired. Can I throw this away now? And she's like, okay. And I'm kind of like, but I could have just done this if we.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, your point is, why did we have to do this whole dance? Why did that sit in the fridge?

[Andrew]

We know ourselves.

[Luke Burbank]

We know what this is going to end.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we know ourselves. We don't have to do this. And then it's still a reluctance, but anyway, people have their own style.

[Luke Burbank]

They sure do. I'm probably somewhere in the middle, and I think I'm actually moving towards Mom. I hope you're still listening. If you've listened this far and you're mad at me right now, I think I'm moving, not listen. This beef stroganoff thing is absolutely off the rails. I'm not moving that far. But as I have tried to cook at home more and also just cook, cook in a more kind of freelance way at my house. So it's. I'm. I'm hungry and I could like drive down to town and get food or I could doordash or I could have a pizza delivered, which has been typically what I've done. Instead, what I've really been trying to do is go like, well, what do I have in the house right now? What is in the refrigerator? And I have found myself leaving stuff in the fridge for longer and then consuming it. I mean, not stuff like yogurt, but, you know, like some veggies. Like, you know, if it's like I have, you know, cucumbers go bad, so.

[Andrew]

Yeah, they do, buddy.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you noticed that?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I. I cuz I love cucumbers, so I always have them in the fridge. But then I kind of fell down on my kind of routine of salad making that I had. And so I. The past few.

[Luke Burbank]

They get slimy.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I've.

[Andrew]

I've had to throw away full cucumbers that are just, like, so gross so quickly.

[Luke Burbank]

But sometimes I'll get one that's, like, half of it slimy, but the other half, the southbound end of the northbound cucumber is sort of fine or just like. Like, you know, like lots of things even, you know, I. This will probably. Well, this will gross you out for about 10 reasons, but I definitely grew up in a household where if there was cheese and it had mold on it, like a big block of cheddar cheese, you would cut the part that had the mold off and throw that away, and then the part that didn't have mold on it would be eaten still. And, like, I've just. I found myself basically, like, salvaging more food out of my refrigerator than I used to just be out of necessity. Like, if I want to make something and I want this in it, it. And it's a little bit on the line, or it's. Some of it. It's kind of. Some of it's not great, but I can get rid of the. The not great part. I used an onion the other day. I swear, this. I was making a soup, and. Well, what I was judging up a can of soup. I had, like, a can of vegetable soup, and I had some carrots and an onion, a half of an onion that must have been in there for, like, two weeks. That, like. I mean, that's not really going to go bad in that way. Or she just kind of gets rubbery and not as flavorful. But I, like, diced up. Diced up these carrots and diced up this onion to kind of give a little extra oomph. And some celery, too. I had, like, a stalk of celery. One part of it wasn't great. But my point is, I'm going more towards my parents in terms of trying to find a way to salvage more food. But, I mean, that stroganoff is. That's a bridge way too far for everyone.

[Andrew]

I guess I was gonna ask, like, if you were home. Well, if you were home, it might be sort of in your way, so you could sort of have more a better excuse for getting rid of it. Because, like, sometimes when I'm throwing things away, I'm both like, well, I want more room in my fridge. But also, I don't think this is good for Genevieve to eat this or anybody to eat this. So, like, let's get rid of this. Like, would you essentially be in trouble. Let's say that you were home this whole time babysitting the stroganoff and then your folks come back from vacation. They will remember, that's one of my.

[Luke Burbank]

Favorite Vin Dabona films, babysitting the stroganoff.

[Andrew]

The north remembers. They have not lost track of the fact that they have stroganoff waiting. So they come back and you're like.

[Luke Burbank]

They'Ll be talking about it.

[Andrew]

You're like, I needed to toss this, guys. I needed room in my refrigerator and frankly, like two week old stroganoff that was already on the edge and had lived, had incubated itself during a time of no refrigeration. Like, I just needed to make the call on this. What level, to what degree are you going to be sort of quote unquote, in trouble about that?

[Luke Burbank]

I think to a pretty high degree because it was their thing. Yeah. I mean, not in trouble. Here's, here's what happened. I would say, you guys, are you nuts? That thing was not going to be edible. I tossed it out and they would kind of go like, oh, okay. Like, they're not going to yell at me about it. But my mom is going to definitely be ruminating on it. My dad will be over it immediately and he will just go eat something else out of the refrigerator. My mom, it will. The principle of the matter will be difficult for her, which was. There was food that was edible and it's been thrown away for no reason.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So now let me, let me also just throw in quickly. My mom was surprisingly chill about buying the new refrigerator. Like, and she said, I'm trying to be better about this stuff. And I was like, mom, I am totally. I see you and I salute you on this. Like, because, you know, my parents have. Before this, my parents have never owned a new refrigerator. They've never purchased a refrigerator from the store. It has always been a used mop. I think my dad's thought was, well, that's part of why this one's broken. Because we always buy used refrigerators and people don't usually sell a refrigerator that's doing great for them. It's usually because either you remodeled your kitchen and you have a new color scheme or it's not. This refrigerator is not exactly, you know, absolutely killing it in the refrigeration game. And so. But my dad was like, I want to get a new refrigerator. I want one that's going to work. I want one that has a warranty. And my mom was like, okay. Which I was like, mom, that's really. Now Adelaide was really trying to. She was trying to light a fuse. She was like, you know, I was just thinking, grandma. I was like. I was like watching Iago at work, I was like, what are you doing right now? She was like, I just kept thinking, grandma, you know the Black Friday sale with all the new refrigerators? What about all those people that buy those new refrigerators? What are they gonna do with their old refrigerators? I bet you that Craigslist next week.

[Andrew]

Is gonna be full of refrigerators stirring the pot. She's. I know.

[Luke Burbank]

I was like, like. I was like, kid, you are lighting a fuse that you are not going to be around for the explosion. Head to Seattle. I was like, this is a dangerous game. What are you doing right now? And my mom, to her credit, was like, you know, she. She. She stood. She stood by my dad buying the new refrigerator. Now, this was where. When my dad came home from buying the new refrigerator, he didn't have it with him yet because they were like boxing it up or something. It was like the floor model at Home Depot. Then my mom, my dad was like. My dad got really laser focused on getting the old refrigerator into a truck and down to the dump. And my mom was like, someone might buy it on Facebook Marketplace. And my dad was like, I don't want to deal with that. And my mom was like, can you just give me this? And then my dad laughed and said, okay. So I think they're currently, while they're at the timeshare, they probably have a listing up on Facebook Marketplace, trying to.

[Andrew]

Sell the old refrigerator, the one that doesn't work.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, maybe someone will think they can fix it or something. I don't know.

[Andrew]

I don't need a sniffer.

[Luke Burbank]

That's all you need. So many problems in life could be fixed if you could just get a good sniffer.

[Andrew]

That's what I see. Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some of our donors. These fine folks are donating their money to TBTL to the business boys so that we can then pay ourselves with that money so this can be our job. And also so I can eat beef stroganoff that's only one week old. Do we keep me in one week old stroganoff money?

[Andrew]

Do we accept partially working refrigerators? Or, like, do we have a Cars for kids model going on here? Or is this cash only fridge for folks?

[Luke Burbank]

1-877-Fridge for Folks, frig fridge for folks. For some reason, it's still written in crayon.

[Andrew]

That reminds Me of the other time I've embarrassed myself on Thanksgiving. This was. I told you yesterday on the show that I kind of teased too hard about taking these little coaster things off of the. The tables at the restaurant we had gone to with Camaro Kevin as extended family. And moments later, like, I'm gonna say, within five minutes later, we're leaving the parking lot. Me, Genevieve, and the Camaros are all in the. The four of us are in the car, right? And we're.

[Luke Burbank]

They're not the Kevs.

[Andrew]

We're the Kevs. We're rolling by his family, who are getting into other cars, and they roll down the window, and they're like, oh, somebody mentions. We start making small talk through the open windows of this running car that I am in. And they're talking about how these other family members had just lost their car. Cause it was total. Luckily, nobody was in the car at the time. It was in the parking lot. But some drunk person had hit it so hard that it totaled their car. And they said. And they said, yeah, we just. We couldn't do anything with it. We just gave it to Cars for Kids. And I rolled down my window and I said, how did you reach them? And they were all like, well, you know, you can just find them online. I'm like, yeah, but, like, how would I go about finding cars for kids? Like, they're like, we just called. I'm like, I don't know how you would know what number to call. And then finally, Kevin's like, he listens to too much radio. And he just drove away. Because I was teasing about the 1-877-cars-for kids. It's the biggest commercial earworm, I believe, of our generation. And my joke was, how would one go about. How would one go about finding this organization? And my joke literally ended with Kevin saying he listens to too much radio and driving away while I left a family full of confused people in the park parking lot.

[Luke Burbank]

That was not the Thanksgiving spirit. That was not the Thanksgiving spirit from Kevin, who himself a power user of local radio. Much of it am.

[Andrew]

No, he wasn't mad at me, but.

[Luke Burbank]

It should have started singing. Listen, this is the friend Move there. You start singing 1-877-cars-for kids, and then everyone laughs, and then you drive away, and then Thanksgiving is saved.

[Andrew]

It wasn't. It wasn't on him. He did his best. He tried to explain it and then get. I'm making it sound like he was angry. He was just trying to save whatever was left of my dignity. He was just kind of like we need.

[Luke Burbank]

I would. Andrew, I would have laughed. I would have. I would have laughed. I would have sang, sung or sang. What is the past tense?

[Andrew]

Singed. You know, that reminds me, we haven't even talked about. I was gonna say you would have popped off your shirt and started singing, but I don't know if we have time for that TV story. So let's thank these donors.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, let's thank the donors and then we'll see where we're at with things here. Thanks to Katie Porter who's in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

[Andrew]

Thank you, Katie.

[Luke Burbank]

Also thanks to Linda Hill who's in Bothell, Washington. Thank you, Linda, for whatever amount of time feels right. That's what we have to say now. That's right. Thanks. Joe Brenton of North Bend, Washington. Mighty fine pie. Mighty fine coffee or mighty fine pie.

[Andrew]

They eat pie. But he's always talking about the coffee.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe the coffee is mighty fine.

[Andrew]

I believe so.

[Luke Burbank]

And then Melissa Davis is in Milwaukee, Oregon.

[Andrew]

We are, with the exception of our first donor, we are again highly indexed in the Pacific Northwest today. Huh?

[Luke Burbank]

We are. Yeah. We got Milwaukee, Oregon, which could of course be Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's not. It's Milwaukee, Oregon. We've got Laura Cottes who's in Portland, Oregon, keeping it Oregon, Oregon's way. And then Jennifer Horner is in Seattle, Washington. So there you go. Bothell, North Bend, Milwaukee, Portland, Seattle, and then coming in hot Hillsborough, North Carolina. Tar Heel country.

[Andrew]

That's great.

[Luke Burbank]

Is everything in North Carolina Tar Heel country, I assume.

[Andrew]

Sure. I'm gonna go with yes. And did the Panthers, was it? No. I get a lot of these teams confused. Was it the North Carolina team that ended up felling the Rams this past weekend?

[Luke Burbank]

Carolina Panthers.

[Andrew]

It was the Panthers. So there you go. So thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

I was listening to the Carolina Panthers radio broadcast on my phone because I can do that with Sirius satellite and because YouTube TV wouldn't let me watch that game because it wasn't considered the local game here in Florida either. So I'm walking around the Miami International Airport listening to Carolina Panther, listening to Luke Keakley as the color commentator and whoever there, whoever their main play by play guy is, talk about Carolina Panthers football. It was the most random thing. And then they had this great strip sack of Matthew Stafford to seal the game, which was just like I've never been fist pumping over a Carolina Panthers related event. But I was.

[Andrew]

Cheekley is a name I haven't heard in a long time.

[Luke Burbank]

Was he a kicker?

[Andrew]

He wasn't, no.

[Luke Burbank]

He was a linebacker. Very, very good linebacker for the Panthers for many years. Well, you know what? They just kept talking to a guy named Luke. And I just did the math. He was Keakley. He might not be. Maybe there's a different Luke there. But I, my guess is that it's former Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechley.

[Andrew]

It'd be amazing. Like, is the broadcast ever had a kicker as the color commentator?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think a tv. I think there was a guy who was a former kicker and I can't think of his name right now, but I think there was a guy who was a former kicker who was a kind of on the field reporter guy for some of the network stuff. And it's escaping me at the moment, but I do think it has happened. But it is very, very rare. It's very, very rare. In fact, Jason Myers, I was also listening to the Seahawks game on Sunday when I was trying to get to the hotel and Jason Myers, our kicker, was kicking a lot of good kicks and kicking a lot of field goals and kickoffs and stuff. And Steve Rabel said to Dave Wyman, I know you hate kickers, but you have to admit you like Jason Myers.

[Andrew]

I heard that. I heard that in the car as well. That was funny. I love between those two guys. True, true friendship during a football game. I love it so much. Also, I want Sebastian Janikowski to be my color commentator.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, he is. That's. If there was a kicker that I'd like to, if there's a kicker, I'd like to hear his thoughts on many things. It'd be Sebastian Janikowski. Listen, thank you so much to our donors. Thanks for making TBTL possible. We could not do this without you.

[Andrew]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

I, you know, I don't know really where we, I don't know how this is a Top Story.

[Andrew]

Andrew, what a great intro. Just.

[Luke Burbank]

But I did sigh. Well, you know, I don't know where we go with this topic and if it's a top story or not, but it's the thing that I'm thinking about because when we're done taping today, I'm going, we're going out on a boat with the CBS crew because the base, I'm doing a story here about, it's generally speaking about Miami, about just kind of like, like, you know, a couple days in Miami, like this is this incredibly vibrant city. It's also a city that is maybe most affected by climate change. You could say one of the most affected by climate change of any of the Cities in America, you know, significant portions of it could be taken over by the sea in the not too distant future. And it's just an interesting kind of cool, unique place. Well, the story started because there's this project to try to rehabilitate some of the coral and also create, I think, a bit of a sea wall. They're using some unconventional building products that's out in the ocean. And we're going out there in a boat and I'm going to be scuba diving and we're going to be filming it. And somehow in all of this, it never occurred to me that that means I'm also going to be out there shirtless, swimming around. And I'm going to be. You know, not since I did that cold water swim in San Francisco have I had to be shirtless on television. And let me tell you, it wasn't great then, and it hasn't gotten better in the intervening five years.

[Andrew]

Wait, are you scuba ing or snorkeling? Because if you're.

[Luke Burbank]

Snork.

[Andrew]

Okay, I was gonna say if you're scuba ing, first of all, that would take a lot of training, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Which I don't have.

[Andrew]

And also you'd be wearing a full bodysuit. But if you're snorkeling. Yeah. You're probably just wearing. Are you picking out your own trunks? What are you gonna wear?

[Luke Burbank]

I brought my own trunks. Yeah, I guess that's what I'm gonna wear. And like, I'm just planning on trying to have my shirt on as long as possible, but then the problem is, you know, my hair is a whole spun sugar situation too. So it's like, I guess I'm gonna bring a hat. And then after. Because after we swim, we're gonna get out. I'm sure we'll chat more about what we saw. So then I'm gonna be like a drowned, drowned rat. Well, I don't know how I'm gonna. It's. It's really messing with my carefully cultivated situation with my. Mostly my hair, but also my baadi. So what I did today was. It was so shameful. I. I went out on a jog, but I did the jug shirtless to.

[Andrew]

Oh, acclimate yourself.

[Luke Burbank]

Try to get. Because here's what I was thinking. Not only am I just not. I'm just not in the body that. Where I feel particularly great about being shirtless on television. I'm also very pale right now. So it's just kind of like, at least if I had a little color, I thought it might just even Things out. It might be a slight improvement of the situation, but I had this very, very tight window of time between TBTL recordings and Livewire and other things I'm doing. So I was basically like, I have enough time to do this jog, and it's sunny out, so this jog is going to have to also be the time where I'm trying to get some sunlight on my torso. So that involved me then jogging up and down in Miami beach along the ocean, shirtless, wanting to tell everyone who I passed. This is not my preferred look. This is not my preferred way to do. This is for something else. I'm doing this related to something else. Please. I am not. Not. I don't feel like. I'm not a guy who's, you know, got such a physique that I just can't wait to get my shirt off. By the way, there were a lot of those guys out there. I saw them, you know, a lot of. Lot of guys. I saw a guy, Andrew. I saw what I think might be the first ever AB implant I've ever seen.

[Andrew]

What?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Have you heard. Do you know that it's a thing?

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I don't know if it's a thing. Maybe you can do a little Googling. The. I saw a feller coming my way from, you know, maybe a 50 yards away. He was coming. We were going in opposite directions, and he was pushing a bicycle. And in fact, from far, I could tell that he was a bit older than me, so maybe in his. Maybe early 60s, mid-60s. And he looked like he was a, you know, a somewhat fit person, but also a person in their body at, you know, maybe age 60 or 65. And this is how crazy I am, Andrew. I was like, well, this is a kindred spirit. This is another guy. Because I'm in a body that you're at at 49, I'm okay with that. Generally, I don't like to go around with my shirt on, off, But I. Something in my mind was like, I'm seeing a fellow traveler here. I'm seeing another guy who's in a normal body. Because what I'd been seeing previous to that were, like, incredibly ripped guys jogging in Miami with, like, not an ounce of fat on them. So I literally clocked this guy thinking, oh, good, he has a normal body, like I do. I'll see you. And again, what normal body means. Forget, you know, put that aside. I just thought, like, I don't have to suck it in when I'm running past this guy. Guy. And when I Got closer to him, I realized he had the most pronounced abs I've ever seen in my life, Even though he was not like a person with 0% body fat. In other words, most of his body looked like. Again, I should be so lucky if I look the way that he looks when I'm 65 years old. But it was not in keeping with a person who had incredibly defined abs. He had, like, the most defined abs I've ever seen in my life.

[Andrew]

Life.

[Luke Burbank]

They were glued onto a torso that made no sense for those abs. And I thought, is ab. Is there such a thing as an ab replacement?

[Andrew]

I have been searching this like crazy since you brought it up. And first of all, I have seen so many pictures of shirtless hunks in the past five minutes, you would be shocked. And one thing that I have is, first of all, when I typed an ab implant, there's something called an ab implant for dental surgery. So that takes. For folks who want to walk in my footsteps at home, try abdominal implants. That's gonna get you closer to it. And one thing that I've honed in on here, Luke, is there's something called ab implants and ab sketching, and they're different. It looks like I'm gonna read you here off of.

[Luke Burbank]

He had one of these.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It says ab sculpting surgery and abdominal implants are both surgical procedures that are used to enhance the appearance of the abdomen. While they both provide a similar outcome, there are differences. Let's see here. What are they, though?

[Luke Burbank]

There's ab sketching, like a tattoo of your abs on your abs.

[Andrew]

I'm trying to figure this out. Ab sculpting surgery involves liposuction or other fat removal methods to shape and contour the abdominal area Involves making small incision in the skin, et cetera. Abdominal implant surgery, on the other hand, is a relatively new procedure, but one that is gaining in popularity. Involves inserting. It involves inserting a silicone implant into the abdominal wall to create an artificial musc muscular definition.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what these are.

[Andrew]

The abdominal area. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

It was a trip, Andrew. It was so interesting because, I mean, what we all know is that, like, the thing about having abs is it's just the absence of having any other fat on your body. That's what. That's sort of what kind of brings them to the surface. And all of these things about, you know, I'm going to do a thousand crunches, and I'm going to do all these sit ups, and I'm going to really build up My heads, like. Well, as long as. If your abdominal muscles are underneath a layer of fat, which, by the way, they probably should be. There's probably some basic human evolution reason why we do that. This, like, why our bodies are the way they are. But certainly what I've never seen before, this was a person who is, you know, has a very, very typical body for someone their age and then just randomly has the sickest abs I've ever seen on a human being. It was. It was. It was so trippy.

[Andrew]

I can't wrap my head around that stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, I'm trying to get those before the shoot.

[Andrew]

That sounds good. You're trying to get them implanted. That would be good. You can go in again like I was.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm gonna need to kind of cut today's show short. We got. I got about eight more minutes. I got to get my ab implants before we get on the boat, and I've got to get on the boat in an hour, so that leaves me a half hour for ab implants.

[Andrew]

Well, that's probably good. You'll look like Tobias when he got his hair transplant, as I like to reference on the show as much as possible.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly.

[Andrew]

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man. It's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

I have a dream, Andrew, that one day we will talk about the chair company.

[Andrew]

Oh, yes. Actually, this is good. This gives me another pass at it, actually, because like I said, I was pretty well into my cups when I came home one night and watched it. And I was like. I kind of. It was kind of shocking. And then this morning, I was like, shit, we were probably going to talk about that. And I don't even have a good sense of.

[Luke Burbank]

That's good.

[Andrew]

Also very. I watched it.

[Luke Burbank]

I told you. I watched it sober. But I also am. I feel really foggy on the details. So I would love it if you. You use the extra 24 hours. Again, no pressure, but to. If you refamiliarize yourself with it, then at least we'll have a fighting chance of describing it somewhat accurately.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Which is, I think, an issue a lot of people are struggling with on this Monday, as I see people trying to do recaps of it. So let's just say you are not alone in your confusion and my shock at the fact that it seemed like a wound was closing and then they ripped it right open at the end. Anyway, more on that, but let's get into an email here related to something that I was talking about it had real old man was it yells at cloud energy. The other day when I was telling you I was filling out a form or a customer survey survey, customer service survey. After I had some, you know, low needs but good service experience at A T Mobile. T Mobile at a T Mobile where I went in to have them put a new screensaver or screen protector on my phone. Overpaid a little bit, but I just appreciated somebody doing it for me and they did it very quickly. I didn't wait at all. They were pleasant and I was out the door in like five minutes, you know. And so it was a good experience. So when T Mobile was like, hey, how did we do with the service? I thought maybe it would be good for this person who helped me for them to see that they got a good put up or whatever. So I'm like okay, fine. And I told you I didn't have anywhere else to be. This happened to be during my morning constitutional and I'm not talking about the walk here. So I was like, fine, I'll fill out this form via text. And I was like, yep, everything was good, Everything was good. And then the last question was, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, would you recommend T Mobile to a loved one based on your experience or whatever? And I was like, well no, because I'm not going to recommend T Mobile based on somebody putting a screensaver on my or a screen protector on my phone. Like that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Oh, you got to go with T Mobile. They put overpriced screen protectors on your phone with a smile, you know what I mean? So I just put a five.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not the doctor who figured out an immunotherapy to treat this cancer that nobody thought was treatable. That's a person that you're going to go and recommend to friends and family. That's a 10.

[Andrew]

Or if I found myself traveling and my friend had a phone service that was terrible the whole time. But T Mobile really got us out of so many conundrums or sticky situations because it had T Mobile provides good overseas service as well as whatever, then you'd be like, yeah, you know what? I would recommend T Mobile. This case, it was just a screensaver. So I put five. Not good, good, not bad. No, I'm not recommending, but I'm not anti recommending. But then the system went berserker on me. It's like, what's wrong? Why are you giving A five. Tell us what happened that went so wrong. Can we call you, can we call you to make it right? And I was just like, no, it's fine, just everybody calm down. And you and I got into a discussion about it. It sort of seems like that's the way these ranking systems work these days. The companies just want to over inflate their 4 and 5 star service or 10 star service or whatever just so that they can brag about in Luke Wilson commercials, you know, and so anyway, Ian.

[Luke Burbank]

So they can separate fact from fertilizer.

[Andrew]

That's right. Ian basically confirms this. He wrote in to say, as someone who used to work in the retail space, it's likely that T Mobile is using the quote Net Promoter Score style of survey. Net Promoter Score, Luke, Many companies do this nowadays. Essentially. 0 through 6 is a negative score, 7 through 8 is neutral, and 9 through 10 is positive. This is why you'll often hear employees ask for a 10 when they mention their survey. It's often used for yearly reviews. Not that any retail companies give big raises anyway, but that's besides the point. It's. It's not quite besides the point, but I bet the survey would have asked you why you hadn't had a good experience if you had given anything less than an 8. It's a broken system that only exists for corporations to rank retail chains and their employees. That's from Ian into coma. So that's basically what I expected, except I didn't know it was called the Net Promoter Score. But it's all bullshit.

[Luke Burbank]

But so then they. The last line of Ian's email was this is something that they use that like the T Mobiles of the world use to promote themselves to other companies. Or is it to promote themselves to us?

[Andrew]

I don't. It says that only exists for corporations to rank retail chains and employees, so. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I see. I mean, I still think they should go back to what I described, which was. Was a ranking system that only goes from. It starts at 10. It's nine and 10. That's all you can do is nine or 10?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Oh, I'm looking at it now. If you look up Net Promoter score, it's true. 0 through 6 are all in the red, and then 7 and 8 are yellow, and then 9 and 10 are green. By the way, this reminds me of something interesting. Luckily I don't know enough about it to keep you late, Luke, but look.

[Luke Burbank]

For this I gotta get that AB implant.

[Andrew]

Your mom is big on IMDb scores, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Or no, no, she's scared.

[Andrew]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

My mom is big on Rotten Tomatoes.

[Andrew]

That's gonna be a little bit different. But I was reading a sort of weirdly academic, like data driven approach to analyzing what they call, I think the 9 deficiency or something like that in ranking movies on IMDb. If you look at a lot of TV shows and movies that are mostly positive in their reviews, but you're giving it like 1 through 10 stars or maybe 0 through 10 stars, you'll see the popular one have a high ranking for 10 and a pretty high ranking for 8. But for some reason nines dip. And ever since this was pointed out to me, I'm seeing it a lot. Like there's something like ranking for some reason people are. And there is all kinds of theories built into it, but like reluctant to give the nine. You'll get a lot of eights and you'll get a lot of tens, but you'll get a little dip in the nines for some reason. And I find it fascinating.

[Luke Burbank]

I would think, think 9 would actually be used a lot because to say something's a 10 feels so extreme to me.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like there are very few movies that I can think of that are a 10 for me, but I could think of a lot of nines. I would think you'd be doing nine a lot because you loved the movie. But it's very hard to say that it's essentially the perfect film.

[Andrew]

Here I'm going to see. I'm going to run the test here on the Hunt for Red October and. Oh, nope, sorry. Hunt for October not as praised as I thought it would be. It's heavy on the 7 and 8 and then the 9 and 10 dip down lower and lower. So that. That's not a good example. I might be able to find one on the fly. I thought the Hunt for Red October would be a good example. I thought people are net positive about that movie.

[Luke Burbank]

How funny would it be if my mom became a letterbox person?

[Andrew]

Oh, that would be. That'd be awesome. I'd love like she's.

[Luke Burbank]

Suddenly she jumps from like jumps from Rotten Tomatoes to letterboxd. I haven't gotten on letterboxd yet. Have you?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm messing around in that space a little bit because my friend Nick, he was even on TBTL one time when you were out talking about it. Letterboxd scores and little lists that you can put together. Like I think we were talking about his list of. Or we each came up with lists of movies that are good to put on mute on a bar or in A bar situation. That's a fun one. But anyway, so I've dipped my toes in and it's always intriguing to me, but then I never have the follow through. I'm kind of using it a little bit as a to watch list now. Like when I see something, I'm like, oh, I always meant to see that movie. I'll add it to my letterbox list.

[Luke Burbank]

It seems like one of those rare. And I guess I don't know if you'd call it social media or not, but like one the of of those platforms or things that it went from. I had never heard about it to everyone I know in a certain kind of. Who has a certain sort of. I guess you would call it worldview or you know, likes to talk about movies or thinks culture, pop culture kind of matters or whatever. Like everyone I know is on letterboxd and it's their favorite thing that they're on now.

[Andrew]

It's a. You know, I like it. I like reading other people's stuff, but it's. It always seems like a lot of pressure for me. I've only written one or two reviews. I think, well, it doesn't matter what I wrote reviews for because we're running out of time.

[Luke Burbank]

I did read my review of Ernest Saves Christmas. I said it's a spoiler. Why do you put it right in the title?

[Andrew]

That's such a.

[Luke Burbank]

You've got a hundred letters boxed. It's the top post, by the way.

[Andrew]

I was looking to watch that this weekend and it is rentable on one of my services. I might rent it at some point. I think we should. At this point I should give you a review of whether or not it holds up. I found myself this weekend though, really craving like after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Not holiday movies, but those movies that are holiday adjacent that take place during the holidays. But. And I put Trading Places in that category. So. We watched Trading Places the other day. I don't know if you recall. Do you think that's a Christmas movie or. I think of it as a Christmas adjacent movie.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I've ever seen the movie. I know that it's Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.

[Andrew]

Indeed. Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

But. But I would be totally not shocked, you know, to hear that like a significant or at least some important scenes happen during the holidays.

[Andrew]

Yeah. There are Christmas trees everywhere. And it's not like I don't think there's holiday. I don't think there's a specific holiday scene. It just. I could be wrong about that, but.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Just the backdrop, it's happening at the holidays.

[Andrew]

And I like that. That's. That's my kind of holiday movie, honestly.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I, I could watch that. I mean, I, I. You know, what I really like about that era of movie is just. We've talked about this before. It's how the film looks. It's the outfits they have the people in, and then. Yeah, the Christmas stuff. Like, I actually, I get excited thinking about the Christmas decorations in the background of the movie. Trading Places.

[Andrew]

Yes, that's exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

I assume it happens. Is it in New York City or is it Chicago? Because it's Dan Aykroyd.

[Andrew]

Ironically, it is actually Philadelphia. A big part of it happens on Wall street because Wall street trading is involved. And I didn't watch the very beginning of it. It was Genevieve, and a friend and I were watching it. And about halfway through the movie, I'm like, I don't know how stupid of a question this is, because I realized that at one point they come outside of Philadelphia police station. I'm like, wait a second. I don't know how dumb of a question this is, but does this movie take take place in Philly? I thought this was like a New York movie through and through. And Genevieve was like, that is a really dumb question. She's like, Philadelphia is like the third is like a character in this movie. I'm like, oh, I just never paid attention because the Wall street ness of it all stands out. But I guess they have to take a train back and forth, which is also part of the. Part of the. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Well, now I'm intrigued. Well, now you've got me. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Now it's Philly.

[Luke Burbank]

First thing I review on my letterboxd. It's going to be Trading Places.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Make sure to address the black. Blackface scene, because that is. Oh, that's the thing about movies like that. It's just like, they're so. They're so comforting and good. And then you're just like, oh, of course there's gonna be like, a couple. There's like two problematic scenes in it. And it's like Dan Aykroyd in full, like, Rasta black face. Opposite. Yeah, opposite Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy's in the scene. It's just, it's just. Ah, damn. It's always just like, kind of like, yeah, I love this movie. But you kind of brace yourself for that because you know it's coming.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, it's like the camera crew bracing for me to take my shirt off today.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Which we'll have a full report on. On tomorrow's show, so make sure you tune in for that. In the meantime, thanks for listening, everybody. Have a great Tuesday. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew]

And good luck to all. I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

[Luke Burbank]

Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it. Just let it happen.

[Andrew]

Could be a new shirt at the.

[Luke Burbank]

Men'S store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.

[Andrew]

Power out.