#4616 AtmosPhilip Rivers

Summary

TBTL Ep. #4616 "AtmosPhilip Rivers" — Detailed Episode Summary

Date: December 10, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

This episode of TBTL finds Luke and Andrew tackling a trio of classic TBTL topics: the persistence of odd podcast PR emails and AI-generated media outreach; the U.S. State Department’s typeface drama as it relates to “wokeness”; and the bizarre sporting spectacle of the Indianapolis Colts potentially starting 44-year-old Philip Rivers at quarterback. Along the way, the guys riff on kitchen apps, applesauce nostalgia, cats versus robots, and the enduring charm of Adam Sandler.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Podcast “Action!” Cold Open & NPR Confusion (00:00–01:40)

• Luke and Andrew riff on the concept of saying “action” before recording, parodying movie/TV behind-the-scenes clichés.
• Andrew, goofing, confuses NPR with the NRA, kicking off the episode’s gentle, self-deprecating tone.
• Memorable exchange:
  • Luke: "Action's usually reserved for film shoots… but if you insist, we could do that. Yeah." (00:22)
  • Andrew: "Are you still on the nra? Npr? Was it nra?" (00:36)

2. Atmosphere Report: Rain, Rivers, and Coffee (01:50–02:47)

• Luke broadcasts from his rain-lashed Madrona Hill home, describing the Columbia River at record-high levels and the landscape altered by intense weather.

3. Main Topics Announced

• Woke Fonts at the State Department (02:47)
  The U.S. State Department’s switch in official font (from Calibri to Times New Roman) because Calibri was deemed "too woke."
• 44-Year-Old Philip Rivers? (03:13)
  The Seahawks’ next opponent may start Philip Rivers, age 44, stirring speculative dread and sports movie parallels.

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4. The PETA Mug Saga & Animal-Friendly Idioms (04:00–13:29)

PETA Outreach and Animal Idioms:

• Luke received a "Feed Two Birds With One Scone" mug from PETA, referencing TBTL’s history of promoting kinder animal idioms.
• Andrew, half-miffed and half-chuckling, insists he’s the “real idiom innovator” who should get the animal-related swag.
• Listeners and fellow podcasters reportedly received similar PETA outreach, suggesting a generic PR campaign.

Andrew: "You have the right to accuse me of sour grapes here… I feel like I've been the larger champion… I'm over here burning, and I'm just looking for a way… to take this joy away from you, Luke." (07:26)

Discussion of PETA's Mixed Reputation:

• Both hosts reflect on PETA’s polarizing reputation and the organization’s skill at earned media stunts.
• They express a nuanced take: PETA’s impact is debatable, but their idiom campaign is, at minimum, amusing and potentially positive.

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5. PR Spam, Podcast AI Scraping & Realize the Matrix Is Watching (13:29–23:13)

• Andrew reads an AI-generated PR email that awkwardly references podcast details, obviously crafted by scraping transcripts (“prairie dogs kissing”).
• Discussion on how PR pitches now feign real listenership using scraped, transcribed podcast content.

Luke: "Podcasts that we do now… are all being transcribed now automatically… and clearly what they're doing… is just doing some sort of a search and scrubbing the internet for podcasts… using their terminology, and then reaching out…" (10:05)

• Further speculation about PR people, or even bots, creating instant, “personalized” outreach.
• Discovery: PETA’s “fan” Wes is revealed to have similarly spammed other shows at lightning speed; perhaps only barely a real person.

Andrew: "I'm now wondering if Wes is even real… best case scenario, he's getting an alert. Worst case scenario, he ain't even real. He is also a bot…" (21:12)

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6. Home Delivery, Kitchen Tablets, and the Religion of NYT Cooking (24:44–35:10)

Luke's NYT Cooking Conversion:

• Luke waxes poetic about the New York Times Cooking app, grocery shopping with saved recipes, and his plans to “dedicate a tablet” for kitchen duty.

Kitchen Tech & Dedicated Hardware:

• Andrew reminisces about dreams of using iPads in the kitchen, debates best tablets for recipes, and shares printer-taped-to-cabinet hacks.
• Both bemoan the lack of "artisan" non-tech-giant tablet options and realize the kitchen appliance market is an oligopoly.

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7. Listener Support & Donor Thank-Yous (39:33–47:02)

• Luke and Andrew thank a slate of TBTL donors, spinning their usual in-jokes (dark money, casino markers).
• Luke: "What you’re listening to, my friends, is 100% listener-supported podcasting. We don't have any dark money behind us. It's highly transparent…"

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8. Apple Sauce, Dad Food, and the Lunchables Generation (43:00–48:49)

• Hilarious tangent about the “weird foods” Luke’s dad brings home: strawberry applesauce, Vienna Fingers, and Uts pretzels.
• Andrew: “I am not the Lunchables generation… the idea of gogurt makes me sick. Eating out of a tube…” (47:16)
• Conversation on applesauce's place in childhood meals and the differences in food nostalgia.

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9. Top Story: The War Over Fonts and “Wokeness” at the State Department (50:45–59:15)

Explaining the Serif/Sans Serif Divide:

• Luke confesses he’s finally learned what “sans serif” means.
• Andrew gives an impromptu typography lesson, explaining font choices (Times New Roman: "serif", Calibri: "sans serif").

Debating Accessibility & Aesthetics:

• Hosts address that sans serif fonts are preferred for accessibility, especially by those with impaired vision or partial literacy.
• They critique Marco Rubio’s claim that Times New Roman is somehow “less DEI,” noting it was only the standard for the last 20 years.
• Memorable quote:
  • Luke: “To me, that's just broadly speaking how all this stuff kind of goes. It's like, it's not harder for me to read Calibri, and maybe it makes it easier for someone else, so let's just do it.” (58:00)

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10. NFL Tangent: The 44-Year-Old Man and the Indianapolis Colts (60:22–74:47)

The Dennis Quaid Movie That Is Philip Rivers:

• The Colts plan to start Philip Rivers, age 44, against the Seahawks. Both hosts treat this like a sports movie plot come to life.

• • Luke: “It’s a movie starring Dennis Quaid… he’s going to throw for 360 yards and the Seahawks are going to lose. I don't like this narrative!” (63:19)

• They speculate on when a football player is "old"—on the field and in life.

NFL Owner Characters—From Jim Irsay to Mark Davis:

• The conversation morphs into a survey of eccentric pro sports owners:
  • Jim Irsay’s musical ambitions.
  • The Dolan family's “straight shooters.”
  • Mark Davis’s iconic Raiders bowl cut.
• Applause for Colts co-owner Carly Irsay-Gordon, who dons a headset on the sidelines and “really seems locked in.”

Luke: "It is the most badass thing — seeing her on the sidelines… I just love the idea that she could be the new model for what NFL ownership looks like.” (72:25)

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11. Adam Sandler & ‘Mixed Nuts’ Mini-Deep Dive (81:02–89:06)

• Brief shift to Sandler appreciation, referencing his dramatic turns (Punch-Drunk Love, Uncut Gems) and the enduring weirdness/tenderness of “Mixed Nuts.”

• Andrew plays a delightful audio clip from Mixed Nuts:

  • Adam Sandler: "I wrote, ‘Save the Dolphins.’"
  • Liev Schreiber: “Did you do ‘Life is a Beach?’”
  • Sandler: “Oh, I wish…” (83:09)

• Chirpy talk about Sandler’s reputation surge and family awards ceremony stories.

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12. Odds & Ends: Basketball Pickup Games, End of the Show Energy (89:26–91:14)

• Luke and Andrew muse about Tim Kurkjian possibly being "the sweaty guy who fouls too much" in pickup basketball.
• Andrew’s dog Bingo signals the show has run long, wrapping things up in typically TBTL fashion.
• Closing Ritual:
  • "No mountain too tall."
  • "And good luck to all." (91:09)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |---------------|------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–01:40 | Opening banter about “action,” film, NPR vs. NRA | | 01:50–02:47 | Weather and location update | | 02:50–04:00 | Episode main topics preview | | 04:00–13:29 | PETA mug, animal idioms, outreach, and rivalry | | 13:29–23:13 | AI-spam PR emails, transcript scraping, bots | | 24:44–35:10 | NYT Cooking, kitchen tech, tablets, kitchen hacks | | 39:33–47:02 | Donor thank-yous, TBTL financial transparency | | 43:00–48:49 | Applesauce diversion, food nostalgia | | 50:45–59:15 | State Dept. fonts, “wokeness,” accessibility | | 60:22–74:47 | Philip Rivers, NFL owner riffs, Carly Irsay Gordon | | 81:02–89:06 | Adam Sandler/Mixed Nuts/Punch-Drunk Love appreciation| | 89:26–91:14 | Pickup bball talk, wrap-up, pet interference, outro |

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Notable Quotes

• Andrew (on PR pitches):
  "I'm now wondering if Wes is even real... he is also a bot programmed to send a cordial email when PETA is mentioned." (21:12)
• Luke (on kitchen tablets):
  "If you were to happen into my kitchen when I'm mid cooking project, you would just see me... with multiple printouts, painters taped up to the cabinets." (28:10)
• Luke (on inclusive fonts):
  "It doesn't impact me negatively, and it might impact someone positively. Why not?" (58:00)
• Luke (about the Rivers situation):
  "It's a movie starring Dennis Quaid ... he's going to throw for 360 yards and the Seahawks are going to lose." (63:19)
• Andrew (encapsulating the whole episode):
  "I'm like a guy who's talking to his friend who recently stopped drinking, and I'm going to dangle a beer in front of you right now, which is like the worst thing..." (35:10)

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Episode Tone & Style

TBTL’s signature mood prevails—casual, self-effacing, gently absurd, and digressive but always heartfelt. The hosts excel at stringing together everyday neuroses, pop culture archeology, and friendly disgruntlement, making even PR spam and font arguments sound like urgent news—as befits a show that's truly "Too Beautiful To Live."

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For the Listener Who Missed It

This episode is a quintessential TBTL stew: a blend of cranky fun with digital modernity, sports oddities, kitchen tech, gentle self-doubt, and recurring gags. If you tune in, expect laughs, affectionate bickering, some hilarious lines about animals and font drama, plus a dash of nostalgia for applesauce, old iPads, and Adam Sandler’s unexpectedly tender movie roles.

Transcript

[A]

Are you rolling? Is that how you say action?

[B]

You know what, I'm just.

[A]

Do you say action?

[B]

You know what? We're having a conversation and ignore the cameras and it's just us having a conversation like we did a half an hour ago when we met. Can you just.

[A]

Do you mind saying action just before you start?

[B]

Just to.

[A]

I've always wanted to be. Okay.

[B]

Action's usually reserved for film shoots when they do film because it actually syncs up the sound and the film. And we're shooting video today, so. So we don't really need to do that, but if you insist, we could do that. Yeah.

[A]

It's just one word, if you don't mind.

Are you still on the nra? Npr? Was it nra?

[B]

It's National Public Radio. Are you familiar? Do you get it?

[A]

They play it out in the like college towns in North Carolina, NPR and stuff. And I mean.

To me it's a bunch of junk. Tbtf.

Like on the George Lopez Show. I saw the behind the scenes of George Lopez and it was on Entertainment Tonight and before he started talking, somebody was like, action.

[B]

So if you.

[A]

I mean, I'm no George Lopez or.

[B]

Anything like that, but I.

[A]

Right. If you just do it, I think it might kick it in a little bit better.

[B]

My dream is to sell around the world on a catamaran with two members of every cat race and share my love with cats for all the humans to see around the world. Well, if it makes you feel better.

[A]

I'd rather be up here with you than down there with those teenage people with their memes and their hashtags and Drake. Drakes.

[B]

You know, this is beginning to seriously undermine my self esteem.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everybody to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[A]

This song goes out to all the.

[B]

Coffee lovers of the world. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Welcome to my world. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia where we are still dealing with just absolutely terrible wet, windy weather. It's just. Didn't know you like to get wet though. The mighty Columbia is mighty brown right now. I think the some of the local rivers 1314ft above their normal levels. I could see waterfalls that have formed across the river from me in the hills of Rainier, Oregon. Quite a time out here. Glad I'm inside podcasting to you all on episode 4616 in a collector series. Let the fun begin.

The U.S. state Department has decided that they are going to change their official font because they think the one that they've been using is too woke. There's a waste of time to do that. Woke fonts. Did not know that was a thing. Now I know it's a thing and I'm going to tell you about it. Also.

The Seattle Seahawks are playing a game this Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts and Indianapolis is looks like they're going to be starting a 44 year old quarterback.

[A]

Oh my God. That's so crazy. Why?

[B]

Who is. Who's already had at least one retirement party.

And it's got me nervous. I don't like it one bit. I'll tell you why. I'll probably also tell this guy why he is the longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I overheard some people talking about him at the Eagles the other day. Mm, mm, mm.

[A]

I'm flying in hot for that hottie.

[B]

He's Andrew Walsh and he joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[A]

Was that an actual eagle that said that about me? Is that why they're flying in?

[B]

Yes, that is exactly.

[A]

That makes total.

[B]

Speaking of birds, Andrew.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, you're drinking from your pita mug. So they didn't swap it out with the PETA hat that you wanted instead?

[B]

No, I was kind of hoping that they had heard that and they were going to send me the hat.

[A]

Didn't you actually even request it? Didn't. So PETA reached out to you recently and said, hey, we heard that you've.

[B]

Got a theory about this.

[A]

Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I indeed do. So you got a Note from some PR person, some press person, I would say, at. @ PETA saying, hey, we heard that you have been employing those idioms that we changed to that involve animals, but we made them less cruel on animals. This is something we've been talking about for 10 years now. I fell in love with this idea. Instead of what, killing two birds with one stone? The mug that you have says feeding two birds with one scone. This was something that PETA had encouraged us all to.

[B]

Try. Don't say beat a dead.

[A]

Horse. Say feed a fed horse, which I like. Feed a fed horse. They didn't.

[B]

Have. That's my least favorite of them, by the.

[A]

Way. I don't, I don't mind that one. They have not, they have not adopted my entry into the canon, which would be. I don't have a dug on that flight. I think it's.

[B]

Wonderful. Elite.

[A]

Level. But anyway, so they reached out to you and said, hey, we heard you've been using this. We'd like to thank you. You've been using our terminology. So we're going to send you a mug that says feed two birds with one scone. And you were telling me about this on the show a couple of weeks ago and you said, the thing is, I've been looking at their gift shop and while the mug is fine, there's some other things in the gift shop I'd rather have. Right. Like there was a. What did the hat say? Did it just say PETA on it that you.

[B]

Wanted?

No, it. Did it say who let the dugs.

[A]

Out? No, that would be.

[B]

Good. I forget now what was on. I don't think it was. I don't think it said PETA. Because one of the things that I pointed out was to actually wear a pita hat around, to me means I better have my. You know, I better be treating animals as ethically as possible. I better not have leather on my shoes. You know what I mean? Like, that's really representing yourself as a, as a. In my mind, a real champion of the, of our non human friends. And so anyway, whatever it was, I just thought it was a cool. I think it was an animal of some.

[A]

Kind. I just liked it. Oh, it did have an animal on it. Yes. And. And yeah, and I don't know if a lot of people don't know this, but PETA is a somewhat controversial organization and I saw some listeners about it saying, oh, I don't like PETA. They have some really bad policies people don't know about you and I. I've mostly stayed out of that. But I did see one interesting thing in this conversation that people were having online about it, which was apparently PETA also reached out to our friends over at me back. Text me back. I want to say, by the.

[B]

Way, the hat says rat pack. Oh, kind of rat on.

[A]

It. Yes, yes.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

Text. Text me back for a second. How insulting. Anyway, I was listening to that this weekend, by the way. But anyway, so apparently they also reached out to.

[B]

Me. Could have met them back. They were on stage with me when you were at.

[A]

Vons. What are they like.

[B]

Anyway? You know what? They're exactly the way you'd hoped they would.

[A]

Be. Oh, good. So glad to hear it. But no, I do, I do love them. But apparently if Peter reached out to them and also offered a mug or something, my guess is something that is related to something I've been saying. Why do you have to take this away from.

[B]

Me? I thought I was the number one podcaster amongst extreme animal rights.

[A]

People. You have the right to accuse me of sour grapes here because I have what they call sour grapes. Because I feel like I have been. Of the two of us, I feel like I've been the larger champion. Like Petunis aside, I just like the wordplay, and I feel like I've been a pretty big champion of using these new phrases, not out of any kind of radicalism, but just because it seems fun to me and I like it. And I'm. I'm. Like I said before, offering my own contributions to the new dictionary that we will all follow someday. But anyway, so obviously I'm over here burning, and I'm just looking for a way. I'm looking. I don't know if there's a word for that. I'm looking for a way to take this joy away from you.

[B]

Luke. And it's working because what happened was. And I can't log into my work email because I hate Gmail so much, I can't even tell you we have our AT TBTL accounts, but somehow I still have to use Gmail to get to my.

[A]

Btl. Yeah, it is a G. It's run through.

[B]

Gmail. Yeah, it's locking me out. But.

[A]

Anyway. Why is it locking you out.

[B]

Though? I don't know. Because, look, when I try to go to. When I go to gmail.com, which is how I get to my. It says sign in, I click sign in. It says lukebtl.net, choose an account, I choose that account. Then it says, enter your password. And it is supposed to be remembering my password for my fingerprint, but it doesn't remember my password. It's when I hit my fingerprint. Fingerprint, whatever. And then I hit next, and then it says wrong password. Try again. Or click forgot password for more options. This is a personal battle I have with Gmail. It's always trying to log me in under weird burner accounts. And I usually. I have issues with Livewire because they use Google Docs and it's always like you don't have editing access. But all that is to say what I was trying to check was the exact back and forth with me and this guy named Wes. Because one of the things I did was asked him, how did you get this number? Like, how did you find out about TBTL mentioning it? And he. I said, oh, a listener must have tipped you off. And he said, no, you have something like. He goes, no, we've got a few people here at PETA that listen to your show. That's what he.

[A]

Said. I remember that you texted that during the broadcast, I think. Right. You got a response right.

[B]

Away. Yeah, this is. The show is a living, breathing organism, and things are happening all the time in real time. But I was sort of chuffed by that news. I liked the idea of us having fans back there. But then your theory is that because they also sent a mug to Lindy and Megan and got a little earned media over there as well, according to a.

[A]

Listener. Yeah, they addressed it on their show as well.

And were not into accepting the gift, apparently, because they are not big fans of.

[B]

PETA. They're also anti.

[A]

PETA. What it got me, what it got me thinking was we've been getting all these press releases recently, and these are the types of pitches we've gotten, of course, as media people, our entire professional lives. But just saying, hey, I'm a big fan of Fill in the Blank show that you work on. You know, I've been getting these as a producer of public radio shows or working on this show or what have you, and my other podcast. And for years, they've always tried to make it sound like they know more about your show than they actually do to sort of a way of getting in. And lately we've been getting these, like, somewhat awkward. And I would say over the past year or so, these somewhat awkward emails are kind of like, hey, I really enjoyed your conversation about X, Y or Z. And they, like, pick out one or two specific things as if in the. In the opening graph, as if to say, we're real. We really listen to this show. Now, how about you have our guest on who has nothing, Literally. I got one the other day that was something like, we heard you mention animals kissing. Well, how about you have our animal expert on? Or something along those lines, although it's usually more of a stretch than that. But what I realized was these podcasts that we do now, which we used to just record an hour and a half of gibberish like this, throw it out on the Internet, and somebody would have to listen to the whole thing to know what's inside of it. It's all being transcribed now automatically by. Well, I'm sure these communications companies might have their own devices to do it, but also you can just log into Spotify and see a transcript. And also you can. I don't know if Spotify is transcribing it, but it's definitely dividing our show up into chapters, which some of which are tearing our show ap hilarious. One of them the other day somebody sent me was something like Luke and the Lonely Potato or something like that, which I don't even know how we got really onto that. But clearly what they're doing, and I'm guessing what PETA is doing is just doing some sort of a search and scrubbing the Internet for podcasts and other publications that are using their terminology and then maybe reaching out to those, you know, podcasts, podcasters like us or whatever and saying, hey, we want to give you a mug. That's my guess. It could be that you have a lot of fans of PETA. Luke, I don't want to take that away from you, but maybe it's.

[B]

Both. Yeah, I'm texting right now with Lindy and Megan to find out if PETA is bad. They said they're beefing with PETA right now. They said we mentioned that list of alternative sayings they put out. Oh, come on. Welcome to the.

[A]

Party. Yeah, about.

[B]

Mine.

[A]

Okay. Don't know me. Don't.

[B]

Don'T. But yeah, so I, I think you're probably right. I think it was always unlikely that we had a huge fan base that back there. And it is probably more a very, A very, you know, again, I would say well constructed bit of earned media play from these folks and that's something they're very good at. And look, I don't want to litigate this now because I don't know all the facts and I don't think you know all the facts. We know that some people don't like them. I would say generally that in my experience.

The perfect being the enemy of the good is a problem. And I will give PETA credit for at least injecting into the conversation at least a little bit more convert talk around like, hey, what's going on with the animals? And I think of that as a net positive. So that's kind of where I stand on this. Admittedly somewhat under informed. Admittedly not a fan really of any of the design of this.

[A]

Mug. No, use it. Speaking of fonts, which we'll get into later, you really garamond they out their font budget on that? I'm. I'm pretty interested, if you don't mind me. Maybe, maybe you're. Maybe you're already dead and I'm boring you back to death with this. But I did find the email that I sent you the other day that I just think is such a good example of. Clearly this is a I scanning or what they used to call it, the kind of scraping the Internet for certain keywords. And then reaching out to us using an AI template, like, clearly, I mean, it's everything we know about AI communication. In fact, I have a friend, a friend who listens to the show, so she will remain nameless, but she will also often send me screencaps of the fellows that she's talking to on the dating apps. And she's pretty familiar with the dating apps, but she's like identifying. She's like, look at this AI generated stuff. And she's always calling them out. She's like, ah, you're using chat GPT. And they're like, how did you know? And she's picking up stuff that I wouldn't have noticed. I'm pretty unfamiliar with the way people talk on those apps anyway, because as far as anybody knows, I'm not on them. But anyway, this one to me is so. So I got this email from. I won't use her full name because I did google her and she does seem to be a real person.

And it says, hey, Andrew, I could not stop smiling when you described your neighborhood's official coyote watch in the latest episode. And the prairie dog's kissing photo was an absolute treat. And I'm like, what in the world are you talking about? And I'm like, okay, well, I mean, I remembered the coyotes. There's a bunch of coyotes in the cemetery that I live by. And my neighbors rightfully worried about that. That might have even been. Well, no, I don't know how it came up, but it came up because our neighbors are freaking out about these coyotes. Then the prairie dogs kissing photo. I'm like, what? I'm like, oh, later on in that show, we were talking about animals kissing, right? And the history of kissing.

[B]

Right? And so they think like where they think it.

[A]

Started. And I actually was kind of bummed that day. I couldn't think of a good photo to use. Nothing organic came up in the conversation to use on our website. So I was like, let me find a rights free photo of animals kissing. So I found prairie dogs. I don't even remember what it looks like. I vaguely remember cropping it and I'm making sure that we were allowed to use it. But this is such a weird sentence. I could not stop smiling when you described your neighborhood's official coyote watch in the last episode, comma and the prairie dogs kissing photo was an absolute treat. It got me thinking about how much animals in our lives, whether wildlife or our own companions, shape our neighborhoods and daily adventures. You'll like this, Luke. I especially loved Luke's throwback to those 1990s awareness campaigns and how local critters seem to generate so many stories worth sharing. That's exactly say that I. This is so clearly like. Yeah, it's. It's been. It's been kind of transcribed or summarized clearly by. That sounds like one of those Spotify chapters. 1990s awareness campaigns and how local critters seem to generate. I bet you. I'll bet you if we find that show on Spotify, Spotify has called it the 1990s awareness campaigns chapter of our show or.

[B]

Something. I bet you you're right. You know what's.

[A]

Crazy? Yeah. Oh, I was just going to say. And then I won't even go in to pitch this person. I don't want anybody specifically targeted here. But then they're pitching an author, no, an executive producer at Animal Zone to come on the show and get into the zone, talk about his pit bull or something like that. If you ever wanted to riff about coyote antics, animal advocacy, or even the art of keeping all those creatures. Creatures hydrated, this would make a memorable epis. I'm just like, wow, that was really. I believe ChatGPT did almost all.

[B]

Of the work there and, by the way, did a vastly better job than most of the PR humans that I've dealt with in my.

[A]

Life. That's from 1995 through.

[B]

2000. I mean, that is the crazy part is that that is actually. If that's actually a much better pitch than, wouldn't you say, 95% of.

[A]

The pitches that we get that we used to get before all the AI was in there? You mean even now.

[B]

Like. Well, because here's what my inbox is full of. Again, I'm not able to access it, but it's incredibly general press releases and emails that are not even like the person. And I've complained about this before. It's like, if you're going to send us an email trying to get your person on our show, take five minutes and listen to the show it would like. And then you could reference specifically a couple things we said or you could understand what kind of show we do. It's amazing to me how little effort goes into these pitches most of the time. And here we have somebody who's harnessed AI to go and scrape the Internet for some detail about our show. And to be honest with you, that was, I think, a much better pitch than most of the ones that land in my inbox anyway, that are. That are from a human being who just hasn't bothered to listen to the.

[A]

Show. I'm Unfortunately, I can't find any more because I guess I have my trash empties too often, so I can't find any more. I do get a lot. I got a lot that are in that style now. I don't know if I'm getting a lot of total generic ones. I mean, whatever. I have three. Speaking of Gmail, I have three different Gmail accounts for the different podcasts I work on, and they're all getting spammed by this kind of stuff these days. But there has been way more of a push, at least that I've seen, of like trying to make it sound like, hey, I know who you are. I listened to the episode where you said lonely.

[B]

Potatoes. Well, Andrew, I have some bad news for me. Oh no, it sounds like you're exactly right. Based on I've been having a side conversation with Megan and Lindy and it sounds like exactly what happened to us happened to them. I said, I think they are just scraping the transcripts of all the podcasts with AI to find mentions. And Megan said, and I said, then pretending to listen to the show. And Megan said, I think so, yes. Ha. Exactly. I said, did someone named Wes say he was listening Megan all caps yes for exclamation points. And then Megan says, and he messaged us within like an hour of the episode coming.

[A]

Out. Oh.

[B]

Really? And then Megan said, not very ethical in my opinion. And I said, effing Wes. And then I said, people for the Unethical Treatment of.

[A]

Podcasters. Ooh, I like.

[B]

That. Now I am going to beat a dead horse. Which I think that was over the.

[A]

Line. But can we name our show that People for the Unethical Treatment of.

[B]

Podcasts? Sure, why not? But that's. I mean, I'm now wondering if Wes is even.

[A]

Real. Andrew, I will say that email that I read to you, I did do googling on the person who sent it, whose name is in the signature, and she has bopped around. But in all of these very. And I'm guessing that she will not hear this unless if I said her name, I'll bet you it could get back to her through some sort of scraping system. But she's somebody who has worked for a couple of different PR houses where all of the people sort of look alike and just like very, very woman of a certain age working in PR and kind of. And right. And like kind of writing articles that are press releases that get published in like very, very local kind of micro blogs and stuff like that, and works for a couple of firms here and There, but just sort of churns out kind of.

Well, I guess I would just say meaningless trash, but I would just.

[B]

Say the fact that Wes was emailing them one hour after their show posted. Either he is the world's biggest text me back fan, just going refresh, refresh.

[A]

Refresh.

[B]

Yeah. Or best case scenario, he's getting an alert. Yeah, I'll bet you worst case scenario, he ain't even real. He is also a bot that is programmed to send a very cordial email when he is alerted from some scraping system that PETA has been.

[A]

Mentioned. I don't want to call. I don't think you've ever mentioned his full name on the show. But I do see somebody who works. So this is on LinkedIn, so unless people are going so far as to make fake LinkedIn for fake employees, which I don't think we're there yet in most, but I think Sports Illustrated might be doing that. But if this is that there is a Wes who works okay, to. Who's a press officer with last name begins with a B. I don't.

[B]

Know if that good at least, I mean, again, I'm not able to access my email because can the AI help me get back into my TBTL email.

[A]

Account? Oh, I'm on Wes's Instagram page now, by the way. Looks like a sweet.

[B]

Guy. Okay, good, good, I'm glad. Listen, I still think, I still think he lied to me by saying we had. There are a lot of listeners to our show at PETA, which hurts, but I'm glad at least it was a human lying to me and not a sentient bot lying to me. Can you imagine? The programming is okay, it's all this, you know, sort of if then propositions. And it's like if the host says, how did you hear about it? Then you say to them, oh, you have many listeners here at.

[A]

PETA. Right?

[B]

Right. It's me down this like decision tree of responses from a bot and I'm walking around 10ft tall being like, we're the number one show at.

[A]

PETA. Well, I don't know how self conscious you feel about this. I don't even know how self conscious I feel about this. But it seems now if we're right about everything that we've said, if they're just scanning for mentions of PETA or getting alerts like I'm guessing Wes will, this would peak Wes's interest, right? If Wes is getting an alert every.

[B]

Time. Well, we'll find.

[A]

Out. Now, Andrew, he's getting PETA. We Wait. And now we wait. We've laid our. Our.

[B]

Podcaster. Will he hear it before we even posted the.

[A]

Show? That would be.

[B]

Incredible. Did we accept those cookies that as this is being. Is Riverside. Andrew, as we're talking to each other, is Riverside allowed to, in real time, transcribe this and sneak it out the back door to companies that would like to scrape this information for some sort of a financial.

[A]

Benefit? Do you remember that time I thought we were live because I didn't know how to use.

[B]

The. I've never seen you more afraid of.

[A]

Anything. We were practicing using Riverside to stream live for an upcoming live broadcast we were doing. I think that was our tradio show. And we had never used our Riverside system in that way. We usually just use it to connect and record it, to do these pre tape shows that we do every day. And not pre taped, but, you know, not live streamed. And I was messing around with it, figuring out how to work how it worked. But then by entering that world of live streaming, apparently Riverside was defaulting to that. And you and I were doing a sound check. This is last year, right? Or something like that. And all of a sudden it said, we're, we're streaming live. And I freaked out. I hadn't freaked out like that probably since I worked in a radio station and thought I did something.

[B]

Wrong. You know what, that I have to retract something that I said during a hey Dummies video, which by the way, I'll send you one of those this weekend. Tierra asked if we'd ever had a hot mic moment. And I said no. But I guess technically that was a hot mic moment. Although I don't think anybody. I saw it or heard.

[A]

It. I don't think. Yeah, that is the one thing is I think it triggered it live, but I don't think it was actually. I think there was some other safety measure. I think it was stopped at the YouTube level or something like that. So I don't think anybody would have even been able to. But in that panicky moment, I had no idea. And I had just been talking so much crap about Tierra specifically. Remember I was just unloading scorched the.

[B]

Mic. It was not even.

[A]

Hot. It.

[B]

Was. It was melting in your.

[A]

Hand. It was so hot. And I, you know, I just glad she didn't hear.

[B]

It. Did I tell you that I am now sort of getting home delivery of the New York Times on Sunday because of a weird deal they were offering.

[A]

Me? Oh my God. I think I took that deal years and years ago, you get like a good price on digital if you get the Sunday.

[B]

Delivered. Yes. I don't understand that business model at all. But, like, I was. Well, first of all, I am now 100% converted to the New York Times cooking situation, by the way. I am, I made this vegetable soup last night that I got from there. And, and it's so convenient. I mean, I was a holdout for many years, and you and television's Chris Hayes were like, what's wrong with you? Just pay two more dollars. And I see why that's what you're.

[A]

Holding. I didn't even realize that you, that we had to pay more for the New York Times cooking app and all that.

[B]

Stuff. Yeah, that's the, like, you know, that's the premium account. That's the, that's the premium plus account. Includes texting. I am so, so I didn't have that. I was just give me the news and save all your games and your whatnot. But, but then I decided to upgrade because mostly I wanted the athletic. I wasn't getting that either, and I kept getting paywalled. So I, I, I upgraded. And now, by the way, that cooking app is phenomenal because you see something you, you want to make, and then you just hit save the recipe, and then it's in the app and then you're at the, the grocery store and you got your whole list of ingredients and you can favorite them and you could. They got a whole list of things you want to make that's in one part of the app and the things you have made, it's in the, it's just very, very convenient. The next step for me is probably going to be to get a kitchen, a dedicated tablet computer in my kitchen for the purposes of recipes and cooking and things like.

[A]

That. You know, I was thinking about that this weekend, if you don't mind me jumping in here, because I was cooking a couple of things this weekend that I need to follow the recipe pretty closely. Even things I've made a million times. I like to have the recipe there, but I'm always using my phone for that, and I've just gotten used to it. I don't even think about it because I'm usually using my phone in the kitchen to listen to a podcast through a Bluetooth speaker. The phone's there anyway. I'm scrolling through. This weekend, though, I was making something for a party, and it was something I'd never made before, which, by the way, that is like, my first rule of cooking is don't do that. Like do not cook a recipe for the first time for.

[B]

Others. Yeah, that's rolling the dice. Really rolling the.

[A]

Dice. And so. But I kind of cornered myself into doing this and I tried it. It was these chicken satay skewers I wanted to take to this party. And they ended up being really, really good, by the way. It was so satisfying that everybody but I had to make like a special peanut sauce that went along with it. And I had to kind of take some of the stuff over to the house to kind of finish the prep there or whatever. It was a whole thing. I had to wear a cooking shirt before, at the very last minute changing into my party shirt. Luke, you would have been proud of my.

[B]

Who. I love a good costume.

[A]

Change. Oh, costume change. Right out. Right out the door wall with the keeping the chicken hot as we leave. But all that is to say for that chicken satay recipe. I was like, I better just print this thing out. I pulled a real Burbank and I was like, you know, I have an iPad downstairs. I call them Dart Bot. I mostly just use it for recording podcasts with Genevieve and for scoring my dart games. But I remember that one of the selling points of an iPad for me way back in the day was, oh, I would see these photos of people in their nice kitchens just scrolling on their dedicated, dedicated iPad for recipes. Why am I not using that instead of my phone? And I was really tempted. So anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm relating to this conversation and you're going to move in that.

[B]

Direction. I'm tempted, Andrew, because. Well, first of all, this is my current system. I print out a recipe and then for some bizarre reason, I will tape it up to one of the cabinets in my kitchen. But I use that, like blue kind of like painter's.

[A]

Tape. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Some reason I still have a roll of.

[A]

That. That's pretty good though, right? Because it's pretty safe.

[B]

Too. Yeah, it doesn't like stick to the cabinets or whatever, you know, it doesn't leave anything behind. But it's just this. If you were to. If you were to happen into my kitchen when I'm mid cooking project, you would just see me with like maybe multiple printouts, painters taped up to the cabinets, and then I pull them down and then it's like I kind of sort of save them, but some of them I throw out. It's a very bad system. So I think. And. And the reason I can't use my phone, Andrew, is because. Because the print is too small, I can't see Stuff on my phone now very well. Unless I'm wearing my glasses, which then I can't see stuff that's like seven feet away. Like if I have the glasses on I can read my phone, but then I can't. Like it impedes my vision for things that are a little further.

[A]

Away.

[B]

Right. I need some kind of like, I don't know if it's trend bifocals or progressives. Like I have progressives or something. So that's just a sad reality of my life right now. Is that, is that I am now a person who's like if I don't have my glasses on, I'm not really reading this phone real well. So I wanted to do a tablet of some kind and I'm tempted to just get like a super cheapo like hundred dollar job, you know, instead of like an official iPad. Because I don't plan on taking this anywhere. I don't plan on it being how my movie experience works or anything. I just want to be able to basically look at recipes on there. But I am. They do have me trapped in the Apple Verse and I kind of feel like I wonder if there's any kind of connectivity or if things will be easier. Like I'm on the iOS app on my phone. Would it be easier to just have the iOS app on the tablet or something? I don't.

[A]

Know. I'm on Epicurious. You ever go to Epicurious? Another wonderful food site. The best kitchen tablets for online recipes and all your digital.

[B]

Needs. Thank you. I was going with what Wirecutter was telling.

[A]

Me. Oh, what are they.

[B]

Saying? They're saying the iPad. But like iPads are expensive now. Like I'm looking at ones that are just like. I don't even need it to have cellular. I'm not planning on taking it. Just live on the WI fi at my house. They want like four or five hundred.

[A]

Bucks. Yeah, I'm seeing actually again this article is from 2021. I think so, but it is basically saying oh yeah, iPad, thanks Epicurious. What else? For me I have an iPad, HD.

[B]

Tablet. Okay, I have an iPad but it's so old that when I tried to turn it on, first of all I had to go and on the Internet and buy the power plug in for it. It's one of those weird long flat.

[A]

One. I had a gen one.

[B]

Flat. It was a long.

[A]

Flat. Maybe I had a Gen 2, but yeah, I don't even think those things fit phones. Right? Do they just fit iPads and ipods? Those are the same things we would drop our ipods onto on one of those speaker.

[B]

Systems. Yes. I had to buy one of those, which I now have that. That. That input. And then I charged it up, and it was like I was gonna need to perform some kind of factory reset. I don't know if it can really, like, kind of handle any of the new modern apps and stuff. Like, probably I could. I can tell you who would make this work. Walt. My dad would 100% figure out how to, like, revive this thing. Oh, my God. A listener. I think it was our friend Sarah of Magpie Mouse fame. On the show she sent me, she DMed me on Instagram a post that she had seen somewhere on the Internet. And it's somebody talking about their. Their parents. By the way, this guy, I think his name might be Dave McNamee. His. His handle is 711truther, which, first of all, it's a good.

[A]

Handle. I do think that's a great.

[B]

Handle. This is. This is so 100% my lived experience. He said, my parents are on streaming services you have never heard of. My mom will call me and say, we just watched the Beef Butter Mysteries. It's on Pinecone TV.

Beef Butter Mysteries. 100%. A DVD my mom would check out from the library and then be regaling me.

[A]

With. Yes. Yes. Boy, I am really disappointed in the Internet right now. Like, there's all, like, all these cooking sites are kind of, like the best tablets for cooking, and all they do is list the brands. Oh, really? You're saying I should get one from Google, Amazon, or Apple? Oh, thanks. Good thing I turned to.

[B]

You. What a.

[A]

Recommendation. Well, I was hoping that, like, I don't think I have to worry about Genevieve listening to this show, but, like, I wanted to get Genevieve a new E reader for Christmas this year, which I have secured one.

[B]

Now.

[A]

And. But we don't. We aren't an Amazon household anymore. She'd always had Kindles before, but we don't. Once you buy that, then you're buying from the Kindle store and you're continuing to support a company that we don't want to support. So I had to look around at various options. But, like, there are fewer options than you would think. It's all just. You know what I mean? I thought that there. I did find one that's going to be a little bit better. But also, you don't want something so niche that it doesn't work, broadly speaking. You know what I mean? You need something that can, like, interact with the world, like, oh, I got this special iPad for you and. Or E Reader for you. And it's, you know, it's not connected to any of these big companies. But the problem is you can only read about Mr. Toad. Like, that's the way you can only.

[B]

Be. Butter.

[A]

Mystery. Watch the Beef Butter Mysteries, season one and.

[B]

Three. So episode four from season.

[A]

One. But it is. It's sort of like the marketplace does not seem to have room or it's not financially. There's just that you can't work out the finances to create something that goes against these huge, huge companies. You know, like, you can't find something that's more. I don't want to say bespoke, because that's the wrong word there, but something that is not, like, connected to Amazon or Microsoft or Apple or Google or any of.

[B]

Them. Yeah, exactly. It can't be.

[A]

Artisanal.

[B]

No. Nobody can't be from, you know, like a small Portland.

[A]

Startup.

[B]

Yeah. You've got to have, you know, it's got to be broadly working within all these other systems. So, anyway, well, I'm, you know, me, there's very little time between when I have the thought of wanting to acquire something. Andrew. This is a record for me, by the way. I've been wanting to get this tablet for the kitchen for probably almost a month now. So, you know, I kind of got a. I got an L on the whole PETA thing, finding out that I'm not their favorite podcaster. It's just that they're scraping the Internet for mentions. But I think I'm getting a W on that. I didn't literally buy an iPad on the day this occurred to me. I really am trying to be kind of, you know, smart about it and. And maybe not overpay. Maybe I don't, you know, maybe figure out if I need the whole. All of the robustness of like, one of these iPads or something. So.

That'S growth for me that it's been almost a month that I've been sitting with this idea and haven't acted on.

[A]

It. I am like a guy talking to his friend who recently, I believe.

[B]

The premise of this.

[A]

Show. I'm like a guy who's talking to his friend who recently stopped drinking. And I'm going to dangle a beer in front of you right now, which is like the worst thing. But during this conversation, aside from the iPad itself, which you'll decide on and get, I'm wondering if you're going to find some sort of really fancy, like, sort of stand. Not just a stand But I was almost. I could see it on some sort of like arm in your kitchen or like somehow like it kind of mounted. I'm looking at some of these photos of beautiful kitchens. They're sort of mounted on something that you can sort of adjust or something like that. Oh, I can see you going hog wild on.

[B]

That. I've seen those stands that all kinds of different. I mean I will probably just go with just the low key triangular thing that you know, allows it to be sort of upright and you just put it on your counter. Because my kitchen is very small actually, so I don't have room for like another. Because some of them are crazy. Some of them are like a full on TV screen that's on like a narrow stand that just like sits in your kitchen. I feel like it would just be. That would be something I'd be bumping into.

[A]

Constantly. What about one of those little robots that follows you around with an iPad on top or a computer on.

[B]

Top? What happened to that? I feel like that came and went. Yeah, a couple of, a couple of Christmases ago it was like Oogie, meet Oogie, your new family friend. And he was like, had big eyes and was following people around in these like whatever it was Amazon videos or.

[A]

Some. And then I feel like we see him in workplaces too. Like these things were going to be like buzzing around on wheels with a la. Like your boss's head was gonna be in a laptop on.

[B]

Top. And I feel like that really fell off. Now we doing the Boston Dynamic.

Dogs with Elon Musk's hyper realistic face on it by.

[A]

Beeple. Oh God. By the way, that.

[B]

Is. Did you see that from Art.

[A]

Basel? I don't think so. I have. I know the dogs you're talking about and I, I think I can.

[B]

Picture there was an art installation at Art Basel that was a bunch of those dogs. But they were I think painted flesh color and the heads were hyper realistic masks of like, like Bezos, Elon and other billionaires. Maybe Peter Thiel was on there. And like, I'm not saying it was incredibly high art, but it was weirdly effective for me. Like I actually thought it kind of was.

[A]

Interesting. Did it, does it say whether or not they get along with cats? Because Veeves and I are still looking for a dog. And the number one thing is that it will get along with.

[B]

Cats. Imagine someone comes over and you have one of those Boston Dynamics like hell dogs. Hey, this is Elon. It's got an Elon Musk head on it and it Just like, ambles over to them. Oh, he's nice. He's nice. Don't worry. Does your elon.

[A]

Down. Does your.

[B]

Elon. He's just excited. He's just excited right now. By the way, nothing is less reassuring than when your poorly behaved dog is doing something to me and you're telling me he's just.

[A]

Excited. Why so? Because. You mean that as in sexually excited.

[B]

Or. No, I mean just generally like, like, and I'm somebody who's owned now or been. Let me see. Wwpd. What would PETA do? Well, they'd lie and say that they listen to the show. That's the first thing they would do. No, but like, I was gonna say dog ownership versus dog mentorship. I've had dogs that are, like, were the kind of dogs that would jump on people. So I can't really talk on this, but, like, I've had many experiences in my life where a dog is jumping up on me. I come over to someone's house, maybe I'm dressed semi nicely, maybe it's a dinner party. Maybe I've also done an outfit change and the dog is jumping up on me or something. And the person, instead of getting the dog off, it's like, oh, he's just excited. And. Or sometimes it's, you know, the dog might have kind of long claws or talons or fingernails, and it's kind of like on you, and it's not the most comfortable thing and people will say, oh, he's just excited. It's like, well, that's not really helping me in this situation. Why don't you get the dog off of.

[A]

Me? It's like, if somebody's harassing you and it's like, oh, don't worry about him. He's just drunk. It's like, well, that.

[B]

Doesn'T. Yeah, that doesn't solve the problem. Let's go ahead and get him off of me right now. I. That's great that he's excited, but. But I would like him to not be on.

[A]

Me.

Thank you.

[B]

Baby. All right, let's thank some donors. What you are listening to, my friends, is 100% listener supported podcasting. That's how we pay for this. We don't have any big advertisers. We don't have any dark money behind us. It's a highly transparent organization that is supported by folks like Jamie Bever of Seattle.

[A]

Washington. Thank you, Jamie. Now, I did hear this is via John. I can't say for sure that this is true or not, but apparently Jamie did take a Marker and color. The money sent in a very dark color. So there is some dark money at play here. Just a little bit. Yeah. Sorry not to undercut.

[B]

You. I thought when you said took a marker because I'm a degen, I thought that you meant went to the casino and got it in advance from the cage, AKA marker. And then. And then one big. And then donated the money to.

[A]

Tbt. We'll also take that. We'll also take that.

[B]

Also. Lindsay Slaker is in Madison, Wisconsin. Beautiful Madison.

[A]

Wisconsin. Thank.

[B]

You. Likely very cold right now out there. Hope you're staying warm, Lindsay. A place that is less cold is Los Angeles, California, where we find Abigail.

[A]

Sherlock.

[B]

Hey. Checking in and donating and supporting the show. Thanks.

[A]

Abigail. Thank.

[B]

You. Really nice of you. As. As is it. Very. Kind of Melissa Schwartau, who's in Seattle, Washington. You know that place pretty.

[A]

Well. I know it pretty well. It's raining here right now and it's going to be for the next several.

[B]

Days. It's actually, believe it or not, here perched high above the mighty Columbia. It has stopped raining for a moment and I'm hoping I get another window like this after the show because I am going to go full Clark Griswold and try to put up some.

[A]

Christmas lights today because I feel like on the outside of the house, outside the.

[B]

House. If I don't put them up today, if much more time goes by, I will have put them up so that they could be on my house for like a week, which feels like so much of a time investment for such. Such little r on my oi. So I've got to get them up stat or else it will be totally not worth.

[A]

It. That is true. So tomorrow will mark exactly two weeks away from.

[B]

Christmas. Yes. And I feel like two weeks is enough enjoyment to get out of them, but less than two weeks and it's almost not worth.

[A]

It. You were right about Thanksgiving being late this year. It just had never occurred to me. Obviously. I know Thanksgiving kind of moves around because it's always on a Thursday. So the date itself changes. I know this because of the proximity to my birthday and everything, but it never occurred to me that like, like it swings so far that we have at various times a week's difference between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That had never ever occurred to me before. Maybe because these aren't especially, you know, these aren't top of mind things for me. But these and I are going to go get our Christmas tree on Saturday and it didn't occur to me that's less than two weeks of a tree before.

[B]

Christmas. You don't have your tree up.

[A]

Yet? No, we've been, we've been kind of waiting and I do think the late, the late Thanksgiving maybe played into this. But we are going to go on Saturday.

[B]

Afternoon. I did get a gingerbread house that I'm going to be constructing at some. I could build it on the air actually.

[A]

Yeah. Are you, Are you. It's actually, it's actual gingerbread and they make kits.

[B]

Now. It's a kit. I got it at Trader Joe's.

[A]

Nice. That's.

[B]

Fun. That's because I'm having my family over on Sunday for a kind of a sort of low key holiday get together, Seahawk watching thing. And so I've got to get everything kind of spick and span. Although boy, I'll tell you, Walt is in there working on. We're remodeling this like little small bathroom that was the only bathroom in the house when I bought this place. And man is it ever. Like the interior of the house right now is in no shape to be hosting anyone. There's tile saws. It looks like Dexter is working in there because we basically like visqueen the entire entryway to the house so that my dad can be cutting tile and not ruining the house. But I told him, I was like, I'm not encouraging you to murder anyone, but if you're gonna do it, this is the time. This is the perfect environment for it. But it's just like there's just stuff everywhere. Not to mention all of the weird dad food that's now in my refrigerator, including strawberry applesauce, strawberries. Did you know that was a.

[A]

Product?

[B]

No. Strawberry.

[A]

Applesauce. I bought applesauce in a long time. I ate so much apple. Who has a.

[B]

Kid? My dad is single handedly keeping the Mottz Corporation. Actually he doesn't eat Mott's. That's name brand fancy.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

Woohoo. Applesauce. He's eating. The man loves applesauce. But not just regular applesauce, strawberry.

[A]

Applesauce. Well, did you ever get. Did you eat a lot of applesauce as a.

[B]

Kid? No, not really. I mean occasionally, but it wasn't one of my go.

[A]

To'S. I think we had it a lot as kids I think because it. This is gonna sound funny to you, I think, but I think it's cause we ate a lot of like kielbasa and I just remember like kielbasa and applesauce kind of going together. I remember actually this doesn't Sound good to me right now as I remember this. But I remember as a kid, like sort of, we would have kielbasa. We'd cut it up on our plate and then sort of drag a fork full of kielbasa through.

[B]

Applesauce. A little salty and.

[A]

Sweet. Yes. Which is. Yeah, maybe. Maybe I was very German. Yeah, maybe German. Yeah. And I. So I don't have a lot of cultural context for this other than the fact that I did this as a kid a lot. And we ate a lot of applesauce. Anyway, my point is, I remember our average daily applesauce was yellow, but sometimes on special occasions, we'd have red applesauce. And I think it was usually maybe homemade and maybe that was because there was cinnamon in there. Does any of this ring a bell? Do you like having special red cinnamon.

[B]

Applesauce? I don't think that ever made its way into our house. And I remember we had, you know, if we had applesauce, it was the big jar of it or something. And I don't remember really. It's not an unpleasant flavor to me, but it wasn't something that I was particularly interested in. My dad is big on these single serving applesauce containers. That's what he always. Well, the entire. There's this, you know, I'm very particular about like the stuff that's in the house and the stuff that's in my kitchen and all of that. And it's like the. One of the cabinets that I had all set up. Remember I was on my whole clear plastic tub organizing. Oh, yeah, trip. And I was really proud of that. Really happy with it. Well, that this one of these cabinets or cupboards in particular has just been completely, completely sacrificed to the. To the weird foods of my dad. It's got strawberry applesauce in there. It's got Vienna fingers. It's got oots.

[A]

Pretzels. Oh, I like that. Okay, that's good. What kind? Like little sticks or.

[B]

Rods? No, not even rods. The, like.

[A]

Pretzel. The classic.

[B]

Twists. The.

[A]

Twists.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, it's got that going on in there. It's just a. It's a disaster. It's just a bunch of processed food products that I would never let to darken the door. We're gonna have to have an awkward conversation on Saturday because I'm gonna have to say, dad, I need to remove all of your food from where my siblings will. What they will see when they come over because I can't have them thinking I'm eating strawberry.

[A]

Applesauce. But first of all they know your dad. They're.

[B]

Familiar. I believe they've met a time or.

[A]

Two. Okay. Couple of things we haven't.

[B]

Finished. Like when his spermazoa was making them.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank some of our final donors today, including Alana Sweeney in Brooklyn, New York. That's not the first time Alana's heard that word. And it's medical and it's okay.

[A]

Andrew. I was going to say I don't like eating applesauce or I don't. I am not the lunchables generation. I'm a little bit too old for that. I think, by the way, that.

[B]

Would have been a good way to describe that.

[A]

Generation. Yeah, like just.

[B]

Like. Is that a term people.

[A]

Use? I don't know. But in other words, like, I think that some people have a real nostalgia for that generation. But like eating out of. Eating out of the plastic to go things like the idea of go gurt makes me sick. I mean, obviously yogurt is not for me anyway, but the idea of like eating it out of a tube, like all of.

[B]

That. Would you bring it to a fancy Easter meal though, and then be mad that no one was.

[A]

Eating?

Only if it was a woohoo deal. But, but aside from that. And again, I don't want to get messing around with telling people how to eat their or enjoy their foods, but I guess I'm surprised to hear that we're not keeping this applesauce in the refrigerator. And I don't mean that from a food safety standpoint. I just mean it from a pleasure standpoint. Like I am somebody who really likes fruit cold. I don't like any warm fruit, like, you know, like room temperature fruit as much. And so just like take. Taking a apple, a single serving applesauce out of a drawer and eating that directly does not appeal to.

[B]

Me. It was a very, you know, teach their own. Yeah, but my dad had gone to the Home Depot or as he calls it, the Home Depot. And the Home Depot is just. It shares a parking lot with a Walmart. So he comes back and he's like, oh, I got some food. And it was just again, the most random assortment of stuff. It was the pretzels, it was the strawberry applesauce. It was. I'm forgetting some of the other stuff in there. But that's just what he'll, you know. I think there's some kind of a pre flavored like maple oatmeal kind of a situation going on that he has for breakfast sometimes. It, it's It's a lot of seemingly, to me, random stuff that he sort of.

[A]

Grabbed. But, yeah, I.

[B]

Would. I would like the applesauce more if it was. Was a bit chilled down. But, hey, listen, the guy is, like, 71. I don't know if he's 71 or 72, but he is somehow capable at his age of working, like, eight straight hours of manual labor and is basically fine. Like, I would die after doing half of that. So whatever he's doing, whatever his applesauce diet is, it's.

[A]

Working. Does he. Does he do it like Popeye? Is he out there when he needs some strength, when he's working, does he pop one of those open and throw it back? And then he gets big.

[B]

Muscles. He squeezes it. It shoots up in the air, but it stays weirdly sort of.

[A]

Connected.

[B]

Yeah. But it kind of changes shape. It undulates, and it goes right in his.

[A]

Mouth.

[B]

Okay. He is cutting down on his cigar smoking.

[A]

Too. Really? Very happy. Oh, that's good. Very.

[B]

Happy. In the summer, I swear he was putting back like two or three a day. And. And last night I was like, hey, are you gonna have. I was starting to time out dinner, and I was like, are you gonna have your cigar? And he goes, I'm not having one. There's no. It's too rainy outside. I was like, well, that's a good sign if. Okay. If he doesn't have one because there's. It's too rainy outside. That makes me think. Well, his level of addiction is.

[A]

Actually. Yeah. Like, it's more environmental. Like, oh, it's a nice night. This is what I do. I sit by the fire in the fall or whatever. But when it's raining, it's like, I just don't need that. It's not like me when I was cigarette smoker. And it's like, well, then I gotta go find a garage I can smoke in or something, because I need.

[B]

My. Yeah, no, he seems to be. Yeah, it seems to be something that he could kind of take or leave. In fact, I don't know if he's even had one since he's been here. So we're happy about that because we'd like to keep old Walt around as long as we can, and we'd like to also keep Julie Upton around as long as Julie sees fit. Julie is our last donor today. Julie's in Lake Forest.

[A]

Park.

[B]

Nice. And, Julie, thank you so much. Thank you to all of our donors today for making TBTL happen. We would not be here without the.

[A]

You.

Hello and welcome to Top.

[B]

Story. I got a real education this morning, Andrew, on what sans serif font even means. I have been looking at that word or seeing that word for, you know, pretty much my entire life, and I never actually.

I don't know what I thought it was, but now I kind of know. And it's related to the story from the New York Times. At the State Department, a touch typeface falls victim in the war against woke. This was written by Michael Crowley and Hamid Al Aziz. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden era move to the San Serif typeface wasteful. Casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts. I had no idea any of this was going on. I do appreciate the Times helpfully showing the difference between Times New Roman, which they're going back to, and Calibri, which is what I guess the State Department was using. Now, tell me you know more about fonts than I do, Andrew. And you know, what is it?

[A]

Noling. I know that's a photo thing. Oh, kerning. That's the space. That's how. That's how you space out characters. Okay. If you want to mess around with that. But the, The. The serif means it has a little flourish on the ends of the lines that make up the.

[B]

Letters. So if you're like the key in Times New Roman has two little kind of things going off of the.

[A]

Top of the T, right? And then on the bottom, almost like a little base or something. And those serifs can look like various things. And then sans serif, of course, means it. It's a font that doesn't have those. It's sans. It's without. Without serif. So that's what sans.

[B]

Is. And Calibri, which they were using, doesn't have those serifs. And I guess there is a school of thought that when you have serifs, it can make the page busier and it can make it more difficult for people to read, and particularly people who are visually impaired in some way or people who are not, maybe who suffer with illiteracy or are only partially literate. I guess there was a movement at some point to try to go towards things that didn't have serifs, including this font called Calibri, because it's a.

[A]

Cleaner. It's kind of a cleaner look. And I'll say it never occurred to me this sort of accessibility aspect of this, and. But it kind of makes sense. I've always been drawn to sans serifs myself, and maybe it is because I Don't have the best site. And maybe because, like, I think I didn't read the New York Times piece on this. I read the whatever was like reprinted in the Seattle Times, which I think was a piece by the Post or something like that. So I didn't have these visual guides. So I sort of googling along as they were mentioning the various things. But like, Calibri is a very clean looking font that doesn't have little hooks on the ends of things. And it's funny, I. I am more drawn to that as opposed to the New York Times itself. If you think about. If you know the font of the New York Times, if you're reading it like on the page and you're not using an E reader where you've changed it like, that is a very. That's called New Times Roman, right? Isn't that what the New York Times uses? New Times.

[B]

Roman? Yes, I think. And it says in this article I'm reading that that is actually New Times Roman is actually. Or Times New Roman is Times New on the Times of.

[A]

London. Oh.

[B]

Okay. Or something. That was where it got its start or something. But it definitely seems, I think it's also what the New York Times is using as.

[A]

Well. That's what I think. And so it looks like it. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead here. I found a piece. What I learned today in this story shocked me. But it's jumping ahead a little.

[B]

Bit. Sure, go for.

[A]

It. But it was. And now I need to remember what it was. I don't have the piece in front of me right now, but they were talking about how before the Biden administration made this change and specifically did make this change under some like kind of of DEI guidance for accessibility.

It said 20 for 20 years before that change, they were using New Times Roman. And I'm now at an age where I think 20 years, that's a blink of an eye. That's not some huge long tradition. You know, when I was a kid, I think 20 years, you can't change that. It's the way it's always been. But like 20 years as 2005, man, like that's not something we don't. It's not. It's not etched in stone or something like that. But what I was shocked was that the font that came before time, it's papyrus. Yes, right. It was papyrus. No, it wasn't it Courier New. It was Courier New, which that shocks me because Courier New is such a basic font now. I like it. But basically Courier New sort Of looks like a typewriter font. A typewriter font without. And again, that.

[B]

Was. Yeah.

[A]

That'S. No, no, that has serifs, but it has, like, blocky.

[B]

Serifs. A slab.

[A]

Serif. A slab serif. That's right. It's a.

[B]

Block. Slab.

[A]

Serif. Your wife's new name is Slab Serif. I know we were riffing on different things there, but anyway. Yes. I had never heard the term slab serif before, but it makes sense. It is a serif, but it's not like. It's not like sort of. It's. It seems less ornamental than a New Times.

[B]

Roman. Well, you know what it looks like? It looks like a State department dispatch from.

[A]

1945.

[B]

Yeah. You know.

Five December 1947.

[A]

Cairo. Yes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. Rip and.

[B]

Read. I kind of like it. It for, you know, accessibility aside, I guess I actually like Courier New as the official State Department font because, again, it just looks State Department y to me. It looks like we're sending a red notice to Interpol. You know, be on the lookout for, you know, whatever. Like, I. I think it's. I think that's. Actually, I like that the font is in keeping with how I perceive the State Department a little bit. You know, But I.

[A]

Agree. And I like that typewritery font I've. You. I used to. That used to kind of. I don't know if I had it as a default font on my programs, but I used to like to type in that because it felt old school, it felt typewriter, and I do like it. Although Rubio's statement about changing things back to New Times Roman and everything is filled with some so much anti. Dei, just bullshit that is based on discrimination. It's just so gross. The statement and everything is gross. I have to admit there is one thing that I. I sort of agreed, or I guess I kind of agreed with the way it was described, which is that these fonts without the serif, these sans serif fonts don't work well with the letterhead. Which I actually could see that being an issue for my eye. I would say change the letterhead, but I could see, like, sort of like, okay, we have this letterhead that's very. Kind of picture a New York Times headline or something like that. That's very Seraphy. And then below it, you have this very thin sans serif, like, kind of not blocky, but very simplified style. And I could sort of see that being a bit of a clash. I would say change the. Change the. The letterhead. But I kind of. I appreciate that. Little nod towards.

[B]

Aesthetics. Yeah. I mean, here's what it comes down to for me, because there was another article that this one linked to. This was written by Daniel Victor. This was written a while ago.

Talking about. This was January of. This is January of.

[A]

2023.

[B]

Genial.

The. The laugh that Nora erupted, because that was the intro tape when I was doing the show at the Hyatt, was very. It was very.

[A]

Gratifying. Oh, good. I had that muted during that part of the show, so I'm glad to hear.

[B]

It. So this was kind of back in 2023, Daniel Victor was writing about it, and this is where he was, I believe, maybe interviewing the Chief Diversity Officer at the State Department. A person named Gina Abercrombie Winstanley was being interviewed by the Times and was saying that this change of this font calibri, was going to make it more inclusive. And there was just something that was in the article which I can't find right in front of me. But basically what the research was was for people who have difficulty with, you know, with reading, for whatever possible reason, the sans serif seemed to be easier for them, and it did not seem to in any way be harder for people that didn't have those issues. And it's just, to me, that's just broadly speaking how all this stuff kind of goes. It's like, it's not harder for me to read calibri, and maybe it makes it easier for someone else, so let's just do it. It's like, you know, that has to do with terminology that we use and pronouns and all kinds of things in this world. It's like, guess what? It doesn't impact me negatively, and it might impact someone positively. Why.

[A]

Not? And here's the other thing. I mean.

These knuckle draggers don't give a shit about fonts. They're just. In the same way Pete is out there scraping the Internet for any reference to their name. They're just scraping their archives for anything that had DEI attached to it and then suddenly caring about.

[B]

It. It's wild to me that they even noticed the font was.

[A]

Different. Well, they didn't. They probably were just like, scout, like, literally sear searching dei. What were the de. What were the changes that were made that were linked to dei? And it's all trolling. They don't care. They just want me to be.

[B]

Mad. This. I mean, what we can assume from this is that they've literally rolled every. This had to be the last DEI thing they got to. Because this is really right. I mean, you want to talk about the back of the cupboard, right? Stuff the font.

[A]

Yeah. And I'm desperately trying to think of something that is even like lower level than this and then failing as we speak. But you're right. What could be kind of lesser? It's like, well, let's see. I don't want to list all the terrible.

[B]

Things. No, let's not. You want to talk about dei aimed at trying to be inclusive around age. The Indianapolis Colts have signed Philip Rivers. 44. Okay. You know, there's like football old and then there's like in real life old. And it'll be like, I'll be like, oh my God, how long has Justin Herbert been the QB for the Chargers? And it's like Justin Herbert is 27, but he seems really old to.

[A]

Me.

[B]

Right. Okay. 44 is also real life. Pretty old to be doing anything that's very dangerous work. I say this as a 49 year old person. Like 44 in the real world is if you're lucky, that's middle aged. That presumes you're going to get to.

[A]

88.

[B]

Right. None of us are.

[A]

Promised. Right, right, right. And I mean, so let me put this in context. How old? And I'm asking you this, I don't know if you know off the top of your head, but do you know how old Aaron Rodgers is? He's in his early 40s. Is he.

[B]

42? My guess would be Aaron Rodgers is.

[A]

41. 41. Maybe he's 42, but maybe he's right now probably the oldest player in the league, I would.

[B]

Guess.

Well, the Ayahuasca does.

[A]

Reverse. That is true.

[B]

Yeah. A Ron Rogers. Let's see.

[A]

Here. 42. Good guess. 42. Okay. Yeah. And so Philip Rivers is going to come in here two years older than that. And Aaron Rodgers, as much as I kind of have my distaste for him, like he's mostly stayed in the game barring some major, you know, season ending injuries that happened a couple of seasons ago, but he has stayed in the game. This idea that somebody who's 44 is coming off and was coaching high school football, this is not, not. This is.

[B]

Scary. I was laughing because the Internet, I will. Here's what I will give the Internet in this GDAI stuff. It's up to date. Is Aaron Rodgers the oldest player in the NFL? The title now belongs to 44 year old quarterback Philip.

[A]

Rivers. There you.

[B]

Go. So I mean like, and yeah, Aaron Rodgers, say what you want about him. I get the sense he's like a Pretty fit, you know, certainly a very fit 42 year old and he's still semi mobile. I mean that was also kind of one of his things always was he kind of move around in the pocket and whatever, whatever. Like I saw a picture of Philip Rivers from sort of recently and he looks like a guy who's been coaching high school football for the last few years. I mean Aaron or Philip Rivers rather was always. He was always just kind of this gunslinger. Like he was always a guy that would just like, you know, just would throw a lot of passes, he'd fit the ball into a lot of tight windows. He had a strong arm. Was not a guy who was known for his mobility like when he was playing. And I don't, here's what I don't like about it. It's. I feel like it's a movie starring Dennis Quaid and in the movie where Dennis quaid is the 44 year old quarterback who's literally like stepping off of the couch, moving off of their couch into a real NFL game, he's going to throw for 360 yards and.

[A]

The Seahawks are going to.

[B]

Lose. I don't like this narrative. Well, let me put it this way. Way if I'm anyone else, if I'm a non Seahawk fan, I am so rooting for Philip Rivers to have the game of his life. That is such a more interesting plot line than 44 year old quarterback. Looks every bit of 44 out there. As you know, DeMarcus Lawrence strip sacks him for the third.

[A]

Time. Well that's the thing too. Not to get too much into it and I can't get too much into it because I don't know the team that well but I do know that Seattle has a staunch defense too. I mean you shouldn't put any 44 year old up against. Against any NFL.

[B]

Defense. Unsafe at any.

[A]

Speed. Unsafe at any Rivers for.

[B]

Sure. Like there you.

[A]

Go. It is. But, but the Seattle especially could I honestly when you. I was. I didn't know where you were going with that analogy. I thought you were going to say this like so you have Dennis Quaid and he's the starting qb, but he's rickety and old and he gets hurt. And then they put in Randy Quaid. I thought that. I honestly thought. I don't know if the.

[B]

Two. That would be.

[A]

Amazing. I don't know if the Quaid's have ever acted together before but I can't ungroup them in my head and that would be amazing. 42 Star Whacker Star Whacker Starwacker 64 Star Whacker.

[B]

64.

Oh my God. Now that is a movie I would.

[A]

Watch. Yeah. Oh, most certainly. Most.

[B]

Certainly. You go from a Randy Quaid or Dennis Quaid who sort of semi plausibly could play the sport to a Randy Quaid who is Cousin Eddie from Christmas vacation. And it's just out there in an ill fitting sweater, just. But of course he's also got that, he's got that, that hat that he wears. I think in maybe.

[A]

What'S. The ear.

[B]

Flaps. Is one of the ear flaps. That's. But that's more. Doesn't he wear that when he's like in. What's the movie Independence Day where he's some kind.

[A]

Of. Oh, that you might.

Because I don't think I've seen Independence Day. I've never watched any of those, like those three main disaster movies that are all like sort of similar. I've never watched those all the way through. But it's funny because I was picturing him in that hat but in the Christmas movie. But you're right, that is. He plays it sort.

[B]

Of. Yeah, I think he's kind of like a, like a. I'm guessing he's some sort of a crop.

[A]

Duster.

[B]

Okay. Literally and figuratively. I could definitely see Randy Craig, Randy Quaid doing some crop dusting on an airplane. I'm looking at a photo of him. He's got the like old timey leather helmet on and he might even be standing next to an old timey airplane. So I do love that plot twist of Philip Rivers. Even less ready for NFL brother having to come in and cover for him. Yeah, yeah. I don't, you know, here's the narrative around the Indianapolis Colts that I kind of love. And I'm a little bummed that they've fallen off. I sort of assumed that they would. And by the way, I don't know. Yeah, we're in the badlands. I think I can talk just a little bit of football if I.

El Rojo.

So remember that the owner of the Indianapolis Colts passed away. His name is Jim Irsay. He was a. He was a lot. We talked about him on the show. He was in the mold of, of the, the, the, the owner of the New York Knicks, James whatever his name is, he's got his band, the Straight Shooters, right. And he always wants to like perform at halftime of the Knicks. Show of the Knicks games. And I was talking to somebody who had worked at the Knicks and he was telling me that when he worked at the Knicks the main job was keeping the owner of the Knicks from having his band be the halftime.

[A]

Entertainment. You mentioned in the text chain one time, and I sort like, maybe. But could that potentially be a draw.

[B]

Though? James.

[A]

Dolan. Dolan, Yeah. I only know the name through the stories that you.

[B]

Told. He got. He inherited Cabletown from his.

[A]

Dad. Right. But, like, could it be, like, could that band playing on the court actually be some sort of a draw or at least a social media.

[B]

Sensation? Probably. I mean, you know, you got that, like, Chinese lady on the really tall unicycle. I think her name is Red.

[A]

Panda. Oh, I don't know about any of.

[B]

This. Like, flips bowls and catches.

[A]

Them. This is a basketball court as.

[B]

A. Yeah, it's a big halftime activity. And you've got the. You've got the, like a Chihuahua that makes baskets that I saw at the Portland Trailblazers game. Phenomenal, by the way, phenomenal halftime show. And then it seems like it drops off pretty quick. James Dolan and the straight shooters. Probably just for, like, kind of unfortunate reasons. Be something that went, quote, unquote, viral. But anyway, Jim Irsay was the same kind of dude. He, I think, inherited. I forget what his dad's company was, but his dad made a bunch of money and bought the Indianapolis Colts back in the day, and. And then Irsay inherited them. And. And Irsay was also a guy who really loved music and really loved being involved in music, and I think his. His dreams of his music career exceeded his natural talent. So he used to do these. He used to pay a bunch of guys to play with him, a bunch of real, actual musicians. And then he would also, the story went, went pay a bunch of people to come to his shows. Remember that song that he sung, Standing by a Tree, I think at the, like at the Washington Monument or something. I believe we played that on the.

[A]

Show. Oh. Oh, shoot. Is. Is this somehow related to those photos he took with his wife in D.C. as well? Like, sitting awkwardly on a picnic table and she's sort of like in sitting in his crotch sort.

[B]

Of. I don't know if that.

[A]

Was. Maybe I'm thinking of something.

[B]

Else. The song was Blowing in the Wind by the Jim Ursay Band, and it's him. I'm just looking at a still shot. This would be a pretty good maybe show pick today. He is standing. He's leaning against a tree with the washing. With the Washington Monument behind him. Oh, and maybe he's doing. Is he doing the Bob Dylan tune? Unless he wrote his own song called Blow, I Mean, if you write.

[A]

Your own song called that's what I Was Gonna Steal, you Blew My Mind for a second. You're just like. By the Jim Ursay Band, Blown in the Wind. I'm like, guys, I think that ground might have been covered already.

[B]

Famously. Yeah. I'm looking at this now. I think it's on Instagram. I don't know if it's gonna let me play this, but this is from Jim Ursay, by the way. Jim Ursay's official Instagram is still. Absolutely. Let's see what this is. Let's see if I can make this.

[A]

Play. This is something intuitively, out of.

[B]

All The Larry Holler CEOs, this is Jim Irsay talking about, I think, acquiring Kurt Cobain's guitar. But this is also billed as, I think him eventually, maybe he's gonna perform Blowing in the Wind. Let's just see where this goes. The counsel I take is through prayer and meditation. You have to be prepared to open yourself up for.

[A]

That. If your ego is blocking it. If you're angry and resentful, the good stuff can't come.

[B]

In. That was it. That was really unhelpful. Do not SEO. You let me down on that one. There's. This is. This is Blowing in the Wind. Nirvana. Hashtag teen spirit, hashtag Nirvana fans. Those are the hashtags that Jim Ursay official was using on his Instagram. Point being, he passed away and his daughters have taken over the Indianapolis Colts. And one of his daughters in particular is, like, so interesting to me. And I don't have her name off the top of my head, but I don't know if you've seen this or if you were still listening to, like, the Lebertard universe. At the beginning of the season, the Indianapolis Colts got off to a really, really hot.

[A]

Start. Yeah, they were undefeated for a long.

[B]

Time. Quarterback named Daniel Jones, who, much like Sam Darnold, had been written off by the league and had had this kind of amazing turnabout in Indianapolis. He's unfortunately hurt. That's why they're out there signing Philip Rivers, but one of Jim Irsay's daughters, who's now one of the owners of the team. I should figure out, because she's not just Jim Irsay's daughter. She is a person in the world who is running the team, it would seem. I think her name is Carly Ursay.

[A]

Gordon. She's the one who's on the.

[B]

Sidelines. She's the one who's on the sidelines. And I freaking love.

[A]

This. I am so Hope, because I saw her on the sidelines, you know, like the other day, maybe I was watching Red Zone or something like that. And I had heard that she's very hands on, but I kind of didn't know that the much of the backstory. And I was like, man, I just really hope that she's not a problematic person because it is so badass seeing her on the.

[B]

Side. It is the most badass thing I.

[A]

Have. She's not awesome looking there. I mean, she's like, she is locked.

[B]

In. She is so locked in with the headset. She's listening to all of the. I'm going to send you this one picture in particular. Yeah, she has become kind of famous for now standing on the sidelines with a. With a headset on. She's not one of the coaches officially, but she's listening to everything the coaches are talking about. And I don't, I don't. As far as I understand, I don't think she's in on any play calling. I don't think she's. Second guess. She's not, you know, in game telling them do something different. But somebody asked her about this and she said basically, like, if I'm going to own this company and if I'm going to make really important decisions around payroll and coaching, etcetera, I need to know what's going on. And it is that, like, that is an amazingly interesting approach. Again, I don't know if it would be great if, you know, you had her trying to, in the game, tell the coaches do this. Not that that might get things a little muddied, but as far as just like her understanding deeply and on a granular level, this product that they're putting out and what's working and not working, and the fact that they got off to that hot start, I was loving.

[A]

It. That's.

[B]

Cool. I just loved it as a narrative. And she is. She's like. She seems to me to sort of be like the reverse of Bill Belichick's partner, who seems to be meddling in a lot of things and making most things worse that she's associated with.

[A]

This. Well, but it's also because this is her responsibility. Yeah. She owns the team. This is. This isn't like somebody who has no experience in this field and is glomming on to a, you know.

[B]

Vastly. Or is doing adult cheerleading.

[A]

Competitions. That's.

[B]

Right. And you see those.

[A]

Pictures.

[B]

Yes. You want to talk about a hostage vintage.

[A]

Video. Oh, my.

[B]

God. Bill Belichick at an adult cheerleading.

[A]

Competition. Jordan, what's her.

[B]

Name. We gotta get.

[A]

Hudson. Jordan.

[B]

Hudson. Yeah. That His. His partner, Jordan Hudson is performing in adult cheerleading. Yeah.

[A]

That'S. That's.

[B]

A. Those are some remarkable.

[A]

Photos. He's just sitting there in this, like, auditorium, just looking grumpy as hell on, like, a folding chair amongst the other. Default setting amongst the other dads.

[B]

Basically. Yeah. Anyway, I am so. So this, this Carly Ursay Gordon plotline. I really want the. I really want to want the Colts to be good. First of all, they're a likable franchise.

And.

I just love the idea that. Because there's just. I would say that generally people who maybe inherit an NFL franchise, first of all, I'm jealous of them. That their parents gave them a franchise or that their parents left them a franchise. And who knows just what it's like to grow up with that amount of wealth and that amount of privilege, et cetera. And you could just be somebody who phones it in. You could just kind of cash the checks or whatever. But the idea that Carly Ursay Gordon is, like, taking this so seriously and that they were winning, I just. I love the idea that she could be the new model for, like, what NFL ownership looks like. And again, I know nothing about her politics, so I don't know if she supports PETA or not. Don't come for me. Listen, you know what? Do come for me. I can't even check my TBTL email.

[A]

People. Yeah. Huh. For some reason, I can't get into my.

[B]

Email. You can't hurt me. I'm already.

[A]

Dead. I need you to explain something to me because there's these conversations I kind of fumble my way through because I can't remember all of these team owners that, you know, these quirky team owners. You said the one was from the Knicks. Oh, by the way, I looked it up. Good news. Red Panda is back. Red Panda fell this time during a WNBA game, but just returned, it looks like, during a Bulls game. So that's cool. I was unfamiliar with Red Panda until you shout out Red Panda a moment ago. But we heard that you are talking about animals on your show. We would have Red Panda on. I'd have Red Panda.

[B]

On. I would totally have.

[A]

Red. This whole time you're talking about Jim Ursi, you were mentioning the owner of the Knicks. Is that right? What's James Dolan? James Dolan. I thought that Ursay. Maybe it's Dolan. Do one of these guys, because I just looked up Jim Ursay, and he doesn't look like what I. I was picturing him. The guy with the weird.

[B]

Bang. No, that's Al Davis's son, Mark.

[A]

Davis. Mark. Who's Mark.

[B]

Davis? He owns the Raiders. See, I can't he of the.

[A]

Bowl. Cut the bowl. Yes. Okay, Mark Davis. I can't keep any of these quirky owners except for Ballmer, because I know him through other means. I can't keep them.

[B]

Straight. Yeah, it's like. I mean, Mark Davis is just. Well, I understand why you wouldn't be able to keep him straight. Because Mark Davis is another one of these Nepo babies. He just, he, he inherited the team from his dad, Al Davis, and, you know, has done an absolutely terrible job of running the team other than moving them to Las Vegas, getting this brand new stadium built and just cashing checks. Absolutely. Cashing checks. Because these pros sports franchises, you can't go wrong with them, even if you're bad at it. As far as the on field product, I mean, the Raiders are abysmal under Mark Davis and have been the whole time he's owned the team. They've been lousy. And yet, you know, he continues to be allowed to have that haircut and to become phenomenally.

[A]

Wealthy. And didn't. Does Tom Brady own part of that team now he owns part of some team, part owner. And of course they now have both our former quarterback and our former coach. And it's going great and just doing terribly. It's one of those things where I don't root against, I don't know, Smith or Pete Carroll. Like, I would want both of them to be a level of success, not a level of success that they end up doing better than the Seahawks. You know what I mean? Like, generally speaking, like. But I like both those guys, I guess. You know, Gino leaving a little bit like Russell Wilson thinking like, hey, you guys aren't respecting me enough. I'm not going to entertain any offers. I can do better somewhere else. And then having him fail a little bit, you're kind of like, well, we were. We liked you here. We wish you'd stayed. Like, I guess there's a little like, not schadenfreude, but a tiny bit of like, okay, but generally speaking, I like Geno Smith. I like the fact that he kind of had a late career comeback. I think he's a good guy. Pete Carroll, I think. Well of. And it is a little bit weird to see them both just. It's pretty.

[B]

Embarrassing. I heard there's some.

[A]

Defenestrated. Yes. I heard there's rumors that Pete Carroll's job might. He might not make it through the season. Like, that's. I don't want to be shocked for.

[B]

Him. They're. They're abysmal. And like, you just see these headlines like Geno Smith flipping off the.

[A]

Fan. Yeah, like that. Did you see that? Isaac pruded it. It was. If he did that, it was so, so fast and casual. He was trying not to be seen.

[B]

Almost. I did not watch it. I just kind of could picture it in my mind. Probably a very frustrated Geno Smith as that season just continues to unravel for them. You know, it's just, you know, it's. It's not a good scene. And then meanwhile, it's like for. For our beloved Seahawks or for my beloved Seahawks, it's just wild that like, you know, they're like the most power rankings have them at the worst as the third best team in the national.

[A]

Football.

[B]

Wow. I did not have that on my bingo card for this year. I mean, I'm always, you know, smoking the hopium on the Seahawks and thinking of a way that they might be better than people expect. But like, I didn't have them as. As long like considered one of the best teams in the league. And if they managed to beat the Rams here in a. In a week or two, I think it would probably be. Probably be a shoe in to will they be a number one seed and they'd also be presumed to be probably maybe the best team in the.

[A]

NF of L. That's going to be a tough one.

[B]

Right? That makes no sense. The National Foot League of league. The National Football of.

[A]

League. I. Do you know that? That's one of my pet peeves. I have a lot of weird pet peeves that don't make sense. You don't. Do not feel any. I don't know if you would anyway, but don't feel any pressure to go along with me on this. But I really hate it when announcers or just even commentators on the radio or television refer to it as the National Football League because it always to me just feels like that way of making it sound like you're saying more than you are. Like, we all know what the NFL stands for, you don't.

[B]

We? It stands for hats worn by Rob.

[A]

Law. Exactly. You know what I.

[B]

Mean? Literally.

[A]

Random. There's always a type of person who says, in the National Football League, you can't get away with that in the National Football League. You know what I mean? Like, to me, that signifies something about the person who's talking, which is the type of person. And maybe I am this kind of person, but who just wants to make it sound like.

[B]

They'Re. There's no whining in football, but every August football comes to wine.

[A]

Country. That's a man I.

[B]

Love. I do love him, by the way. Yes, there was one of those. I'm sure I talked about this when it happened, but, like, that's Liev Shriver.

That'S Slunk Jeep himself. And they actually eventually pulled the curtain back on, you know, Hard Knock and they had Liev Shriver come to camp. And I think it might have even been. Speaking of Mark Davis, it might have even been the Raiders, I think might have been the team that season. And like, so it's this kind of weird thing where you've got this like sort of voice of God announcer guy who's now just like palling around with the players. And there's like two things. One dude, Lev Shriver, he big. He was not. Not usually what you notice when a normal person is standing next to an NFL player is like, how small normal people are. They're just dwarfed by the size of these players. He looked like he could have suited up, which I was like, damn, dude. And then also he was so likable. He was self deprecating, he was funny. And this was all just him chatting with the players and stuff. You know, they had him mic'd up. But it wasn't scripted. It was like I was like, I have a huge crush on Liev Schreiber, I.

[A]

Think. Yeah, well, watch. Is it Mixed Nuts? I don't know. Did we have this conversation recently on the air? Like.

[B]

My. Yeah, you were talking about holiday movies that you were looking to engage with. Yes, Mixed Nuts is one of.

[A]

Them. And I hadn't watched that until I maybe I saw like five years ago somebody had recommended it. And it's like a 1990s movie with like Steve Martin and I want to say Lily Tomlin. And it's based on a.

[B]

Suicide. Rita.

[A]

Wilson. Oh, is it Rita Wilson? I'm.

[B]

Sorry. She's like the secretary or something or the other therapist or. I don't. She's like. Works in the.

[A]

Office. Was. They're running a suicide hotline. So my point here is like this. And Liev Shriver's character is a cross dresser. And I don't think he. I don't. I don't think there's any. This is the mid-90s. They don't use the same language we did or that we do. So I don't. I don't think he's trans. I think he's a cross dresser. But when you, when you describe this movie, hey, do you want to watch a wacky comedy called Mixed nuts from the 90s about a people who answer calls hotline and there's a cross.

[B]

Dresser. It sounds like a real.

[A]

Minefield. It sounds like it would be such a minefield. But I only watched it one time and I was shocked at how I thought it was such a tender movie. And again, like as a CIS guy, maybe I'm not. Maybe, maybe I'm watching it through eyes that aren't seeing, maybe microaggressions that are there. But I, my takeaway was everybody like really treats him with a lot of respect and I don't remember it ever being the butt of a joke that he's a cross dressing man. It's just really sweet. Oh, oh. And Adam Sandler's in it.

And his relation. We just played maybe we played it recently. A clip of Adam Sandler and him talking about how Adam Sandler is a writer who writes bumper stickers or.

[B]

Something. Oh.

[A]

Right. Their relationship is. So let me see if I can play this. It's just so sweet and I love the fact that it doesn't seem to be homophobic in any way. Let me see.

[B]

If. Are you a professional ukulele.

[A]

Player? Oh, no, I'm a writer. What do you.

[B]

Write? T shirts.

[A]

Really?

I wrote Save the.

[B]

Dolphins.

Excuse.

[A]

Me. What do you mean you wrote it? I wasn't the first person to say.

[B]

It. I was the first person to.

[A]

Put it on a T.

[B]

Shirt.

Did you do life as a beach? Oh, I.

[A]

Wish.

That's a great them. So charming to.

[B]

Give. That's amazing. I always think that's Jeffrey Tambor because he sounds a little Jeffrey Tambor. Ish. His voice is very deep that.

[A]

Way.

[B]

Yes. But you know, I don't know if it was because you mentioned it to me. You know, the trailer for Mixed Nuts popped up on my feed somewhere the other day unannounced. And I watched it. That's how I knew Rita Wilson was in.

[A]

It. Oh.

[B]

Yeah. And it was like, oh, I think this actually does look like a movie that I would watch. I also want to just mention we are, I think we're entering the like, what we call it, Sandler songs. The renaissance of. Not that Adam Sandler, you know, ever needed, you know, rescuing or reviving in terms of his career. It's always been very successful. But like I think we're entering the Adam Sandler is one of the greatest actors of his generation Discourse Timothee Chalamet shouted him out the other day. I think it was for his Punch Drunk Love.

[A]

Performance.

[B]

Performance. He's getting a lot of love about this J. Kelly movie that he's in where he's really sort of the emotional core of the film. I went and watched the Punch Drunk Love trailer yesterday. I really need to rewatch that movie. Like, I bet you as a. As a grown up, I think when I watched it, because my memory is it came after Boogie Nights. And Boogie Nights was such a followable film for me. You know, I mean, it's a very traditional film. It's the story of Eddie Adams from Torrance, and he becomes a porn star and his life falls apart. And I just. I loved Boogie Nights so much as a movie that I think then I went to see Punch Drunk Love thinking, oh, it's going to be like that. And it's a much different film. It's, you know, it's. It's a lot sort of less predictable, which I think I would like now. I think at the time when I was 23 or something, I was like, oh, I want there just to be, like, predictable things that happen to these.

[A]

Characters. It's a very tense movie. Punch Drunk Love, I remember seeing it twice. I loved.

[B]

It.

[A]

It. And I'm not saying this to sound snobby, but it's. That's like our taste, or at least our taste back then, how different. It was like my problem with Boogie Nights. Everybody loved Boogie Nights so much, and I clearly liked it. I mean, there's some great performances and it's funny and it's good. But my problem with it was it just fell into that pattern of just the most predictable rise to fame, then corruption, and then fall. It was like every. It was the narrative arc of every single VH1 behind the musics. Right? Only it was interesting and funny. Behind the Music behind the. Because it was based on pornography instead of music behind the pornography. VH1's behind the pornography. And I remember, like, even seeing it the first time and being like. I just really didn't like the format of that because it seemed so predictable to me. And Punch Drunk Love, way more along the lines of things I like. And I know I rewatched it, but it's been decades. And I really hope it holds up. Because back to your point of Sandler, like, he makes all these goofy movies himself, but then he will appear in, like. Well, I mean, you're uncut gems, right? Like, he. Right every decade. He's good for like, a really stirring, shocking.

[B]

Performance. I think that was Chalamet's point, was that, like, you know, a lot of people think of him as Happy Gilmore or whatever, but he's clearly got more going on, you know, in his head than. Than just, you know, some of those really, really broad characters. But I feel.

[A]

Like. Oh, I'm sorry, go.

[B]

Ahead. No, that's.

[A]

It. Well, this is very, very vague, but maybe it's. Look up a bubble. But he was accepting an award for.

[B]

Something. I think that's where this whole thing came.

[A]

From. Okay. I'm thinking of something that I heard on Lebatard like a year ago or something. Maybe it's resurfacing. But he was accepting some award, and I think the bit was he asked his children to write his acceptance speech for him, and so he unfolded a piece of paper. What were you thinking of? I might be bastardizing reality.

[B]

There. I'm just. Andrew. I'm just a guy who looks at the TikTok on his phone or other things and has no idea what the origin source of anything is.

I see a headline that Timothy Chalamet said that Adam Sandler is one of the greatest actors of his generation. And then I'm looking at a clip of that, and then next thing you know, it's suggesting the Punch Drunk Love trailer, which now I'm watching.

[A]

That. You're watching that right now? Or you're. You're watching that, like, as one thing leads.

[B]

To. That was how I experienced this information. So I don't know anything about the actual award that was being given or, like when it happened, or, you know, I don't know any of the other details other than what I just told you. But it'll be interesting to see if Adam Sandler gets nominated for an Oscar for this J. Kelly movie, which they, again, they put in theaters, I think, just so that it could get.

[A]

Nominated. And you said you did see that or you did see.

[B]

It? I loved.

[A]

It. I did. Yeah. See, I don't think I heard about it until you mentioned it. And then it whipped right back out of my mind. When you said J. Kelly, I thought you were talking about the ping pong movie again. But that's Burt Wonderful. Or what's the. What's the ping pong.

[B]

Movie? You're thinking of Burt.

[A]

Wonderstone. I think of Burt.

[B]

Wonderstone. What's the Marty supreme, by the.

[A]

Way?

[B]

Yes. Is getting good reviews. Yeah, it's getting a lot of. Oh, my God. What did my mom. What came up the other day there was a movie. Andrew, I gotta write these things. Down because my memory is Swiss cheese these days. But like there was some, some movie that I was mentioning to my parents or that came up and my. What do you think my mom's very first thing she said was? She said, oh, you know what, maybe it was train dreams or something. She said, said that got 98% on rotten.

[A]

Tomatoes.

[B]

Right. It is the lens through which my mom sees her entire world. I wish Rotten Tomatoes applied to everything, like food purchases, how long you can eat unrefrigerated beef stroganoff. Well, I want.

[A]

To. I was going to say I wanted to make a joke, but I mean, the irony.

[B]

That. Rotten right.

[A]

There. Yes, Rotten Tomatoes might be a woohoo deal, honestly. But. Oh, by the way, I just wanted to say. Yeah, Adam Sandler, back in 2022, apparently, apparently it got a lot of play. His daughters wrote his Gotham Awards speech and apparently it was quite charming and funny. And then I guess There were 14 and 16 at the time or something. So they're like, thank you for giving our daddy this really important speech. He's the best. Or this award. He's the best or something like that. So.

[B]

That'S. He seems to have a really pretty, pretty solid life with family and he seems to be a remarkable. It's just weird, that one. It's, it's interesting that he would, I don't know, just have such a great career and be so broadly popular, but also be pretty good acting, but also have been a breakout star on snl, but also be a pickup basketball player and just like a seemingly pretty normal.

[A]

Dude. I think I did hear Tim Kirkshon talking about the time he played pickup basketball with Adam.

[B]

Sandler. I wonder how Kirk should does down in the.

[A]

Post. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like. It sounds like he plays a lot for a very, very short minute.

[B]

Man. That's what I was to say. He's not a tall guy, so I wonder what his game is like. I wonder if he's an outside shooter or if. I mean, when you're playing pickup ball, if you just know your footwork, you can post guys up even if you're smaller than them just by, just by having good, good footwork and stuff. I wonder. I would love to see. In fact, you know what? After we're done here today, which we're by the way, getting to the end of the.

[A]

Show. Yeah. He's going to say, bingo just walked in here. Which means Bingo thinks we've been going for too long. And that's right. He wants his.

[B]

Birds. I'm. What I'm going to do after the show is Google Tim Kirkjin playing basketball and see if I can find some video. Oh, yeah, I would love to see.

[A]

That. I also want to know. I have no experience in this realm at all, but you've often described the sweaty older guy who's always playing, and I'm wondering if he's that guy who's making too much contact and sweating all over.

[B]

You. Oh, look at this. YouTube. Adam Sandler and Tim Kirkjin Basketball, football.

[A]

Game. Should we play.

[B]

This? Is there anything my afternoon. Oh, no, he's talking about it. You've already heard this audio. I thought it was actually footage from the.

[A]

Game. Yeah, I don't know if I've heard that particular. He. He probably has a handful of stories he returns to, but I did hear about it at one point.

[B]

Yeah. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We are all done for today, but we're gonna be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you all. So please, if you can join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves again. Stay dry if you're in the Pacific Northwest, and please remember, no mountain too.

[A]

Tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.