#4654 The Leap Day Of Normal Years

Summary

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TBTL #4654: "The Leap Day of Normal Years"

Date: February 2, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

On this Monday episode, Luke and Andrew bounce from playful “Groundhog Day” banter to their personal rituals, calendar quirks, baseball anxieties, awkward grocery store encounters, and philosophical discussions about sleep, scams, and Wordle habits. As always, the tone is light-hearted, goofy, and conversational, with deep dives into the mundane and the universal.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Groundhog Day and Leap Day: The Holidays for Podcast Weirdos

• Opening Banter: Luke and Andrew open with a “Groundhog Day” movie reenactment, setting the episode’s recurring theme of time loops and calendar oddities.
• Andrew’s Cold Take:
  • “Groundhog Day is the leap day of normal years.” (07:09)
  • Both hosts riff on how these two holidays are more about drops and podcast in-jokes than real-world tradition.
• Luke’s Confusion over Groundhog Rules:
  • “I never know what the rules are. If he sees the shadow, is it good? If he doesn’t, is it good?” (04:08)
  • Ultimately, they agree: it’s all “a jib jab,” i.e., it doesn’t matter, but somehow still stirs strong feelings.
• Leap Day and Calendar Aesthetics:
  • Andrew celebrates February 2026 as "the perfect month" because the dates form a clean grid, and Sunday lands flawlessly on the 1st and March 1st. (10:01)
  • Luke compares this to a “palindrome career” in baseball—a neatly symmetrical trajectory.

2. Baseball: Mariners Hot Stove & Palindrome Careers

• Mariners Talk:
  • Luke and Andrew digress into Mariners third-base anxieties, prospects, and fondness for players like Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor.
  • “We love the vibes and we love the guy... but boy, was it tough to watch him.” —Luke on Suarez’s rough season (13:07)
• Spring Training:
  • Realization that spring training is near sparks excitement and comfort during bleak winter months. (14:21)

3. Soothing Sounds and Sleep Tech

• Luke’s Sonic Obsession:
  • Luke reveals his near addiction to the “Bedtime Fan” app and the soothing sound "Soothe," which he listens to for up to 11 hours a day.
  • “It’s very clearly something that is quieting something inside my brain... it’s like I’m sleeping so hard.” (23:27)
• High-Tech Sleep Solutions:
  • Luke bought special Oslo sleep earbuds to accommodate his partner, Becca, who prefers silence.
  • Andrew laments that he can no longer use most earbuds due to ear problems, likening it to lactose intolerance for headphones. (28:16)
• Social Implications of Headphones:
  • Both admit sometimes they wear headphones just as a social shield, even with nothing playing. “It’s nature’s way of saying, ‘do not touch.’” —Luke (31:07)

4. Grocery Store Encounters & The Ethics of Giving

• Andrew’s Awkward Ask:
  • He recalls being approached by a woman asking for help buying groceries while he was shaken by a run-in with his least favorite phlebotomist. (37:28)
  • He gives her $20, then later wonders if he’s “a rube,” or if it’s a scam, referencing recent trends of coordinated panhandling involving women and children, sometimes as covered in local news. (41:53–47:42)
  • “I’d rather have a little itch in the back of my head... than turn my back on someone who needed help.” (44:38)
• Luke’s Context:
  • Luke offers insight: While there may be organized efforts, the money generally still goes to folks genuinely in need—not elaborate scams. (43:26–49:03)
• Philosophical Ruminations:
  • Both agree they’d rather risk being “a soft touch” than becoming cynical or closed off.
  • “Going through life thinking everyone’s out to get me... that’s a much worse way to go.” —Luke (49:03)

5. Text Chain Pandemonium & iOS Hijinks

• Family Group Texts:
  • Chaos erupts when a new iOS feature allows custom backgrounds in group chats, and Luke’s brother David starts swapping in confusing, cluttered images, making the text conversations unreadable. (69:04–78:48)
  • After a cascade of family members posting children’s photos and screen-capped collages, the text chain devolves into “outsider art.”
  • “We just ended up with 30 layers of photos... until, eventually, we just had to delete the entire Hawk Squad.” —Luke (78:24)
• Revelation:
  • Any group member can change the background image in iOS group chats—a realization that alarms Luke. Andrew walks Luke through how to change it back. (73:17)

6. Sasquatch Symbolism: From Hippies to MAGA Trucks

• Barry’s Hawaiian Lyft Story:
  • Listener Barry sends a photo of his Hawaiian Lyft featuring a “Sasquatch” doing the rock-on gesture.
  • Luke connects this to a “right-wing coded” trend of “libertarian Sasquatch” stickers on trucks, but acknowledges it might be a bigger, multi-political tent than he first thought. (61:01–65:09)
  • “Maybe it’s just about not being part of the mainstream. That’s the throughline.” —Andrew

7. Smoking Urges, Nihilism, and Health

• Andrew’s Cigarette Cravings:
  • He confesses recent cravings, theorizing it’s partly cultural influences and partly “nihilism” fueled by world events.
  • “What would make this worse? Having more of those surgeries... I don’t want that.” (86:00–87:07)
• Luke’s Reflection:
  • Luke relates: self-sabotaging impulses often strike “when nothing matters anyway,” but he recognizes these urges for what they are—fleeting.

8. Words, Games, and Group Diplomacy: The Wordle Segment

• Becca’s Question for Andrew:
  • Becca wants to know: Does Andrew play Wordle on “hard mode”?
  • Andrew launches into an explanation of hard mode—which requires using previously revealed correct letters in subsequent guesses. (96:36–99:27)
    • “If you put an R down right in the middle and it’s green ... you can’t pretend you don’t know that on hard mode.” —Andrew (96:36)
  • He usually plays hard mode, arguing it helps discipline rather than hinder game play.
• Wordle News Flash:
  • BREAKING (101:23): Today is the first day Wordle may start reusing previous answers. This prompts Andrew and Luke to announce the "perfect month" for Wordle in February 2026.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Groundhog Day is the leap day of normal years.”
  – Andrew (07:09)

• “It’s none of it’s a jib jab. None of it’s real... Why do I care? Why does it ruin my Monday morning?”
  – Luke (04:08)

• "I need that fear that is going to keep me alive. That's going to keep Addie alive."
  – Luke, on innate fear of snakes (21:05)

• “It’s nature’s way of saying, ‘do not touch.’”
  – Luke, on the social function of headphones (31:07)

• “I’d rather have a little itch in the back of my head being, ‘I don’t know, maybe somebody scammed me out of $20’... versus turning my back on someone who needed help.”
  – Andrew (44:38)

• “We just ended up with 30 layers of photos that were being screen capped and then made the background photo, until eventually we just had to delete the entire Hawk Squad.”
  – Luke, on text chain chaos (78:24)

• “Maybe it’s just about not being part of the mainstream. That’s the throughline.”
  – Andrew, on Sasquatch-as-symbol (65:19)

• “If you put an R down right in the middle and it’s green... you can’t pretend you don’t know that. Hard mode says, ‘Get out of that bounce, bounce. You know this.’”
  – Andrew, Wordle strategy (97:43)

• “BREAKING: Today is the first day Wordle may start reusing previous answers.”
  – Group consensus (101:23)

• “God bless the broken road that led us to this thing.”
  – Luke, on their meandering conversational path (103:21)

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Useful Timestamps

• 00:00–01:17 — "Groundhog Day" movie riff and intro
• 03:41–08:41 — Groundhog Day and Leap Day connections; drops and holidays with no traditions
• 10:01–12:07 — February as the "perfect month" on the 2026 calendar
• 13:07–16:46 — Mariners baseball talk; spring training excitement
• 21:57–29:07 — Luke’s extreme white noise/Soothe app habit and sleep technology
• 31:07–34:52 — Headphones as social signaling; Andrew’s grocery store encounter set-up
• 37:28–49:03 — Grocery store story and ethics of giving; scams and organized panhandling
• 69:04–78:24 — Text chain background-image confusion and family group chat chaos
• 61:01–65:09 — Sasquatch symbolism: from libertarian vibes to hippie Jeeps
• 82:24–87:36 — Andrew’s cigarette cravings & ruminations on health/nature of addiction
• 96:36–101:23 — Wordle on hard mode explained; today’s announcement about reusing words
• 101:23–end — Closing, reflecting on “the perfect February” and Wordle revelations

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Tone & Style

• Language/Tone:
  Playful, rambling, self-deprecating, highly referential; the hosts riff off each other, building humor out of minutiae and personal observations.

• Podcast “Feel”:
  Like an extended chat with two witty, slightly obsessive friends who make the everyday fascinating.

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For First-Time or Casual Listeners

This episode showcases TBTL’s core strengths—long-form, often goofy banter tethered to pop culture, sports, the tiny frustrations of modern life, and deep dives into the mundane (sleep hygiene, texting, Wordle strategies). You'll laugh, you'll cringe, and you may learn a surprising amount about both calendar aesthetics and how to handle awkward moments with grace.

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Power Out.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Andrew]

Hey. Now, don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heck fire remember you.

[Luke Burbank]

Not a chance.

[Andrew]

Ned.

[Luke Burbank]

Ryerson.

[Andrew]

Needle Nose Ned. Ned the Head.

[Luke Burbank]

Come on, buddy. Case Western High.

[Andrew]

Ned Ryerson. I did the whistling belly button trick at the high school talent show.

[Luke Burbank]

Bing. Ned Ryerson. Got the shingles real bad senior year. Almost didn't graduate.

[Andrew]

Bing again.

[Luke Burbank]

Ned Ryerson.

[Andrew]

I dated your sister Mary Pat a.

[Luke Burbank]

Couple times till you told.

[Andrew]

Told me not to anymore. Well.

[Luke Burbank]

Ned Ryerson.

[Andrew]

Bang. Tbtl. Do you believe I got Happy New Year today? It's February.

[Luke Burbank]

I once got Happy New Year in March.

[Andrew]

This is disgusting. It's pathetic.

[Luke Burbank]

The first day seemed like a week.

[Andrew]

And the second day seemed like five.

[Luke Burbank]

Days, and the third day seemed like a week. Again, the comedy factor spakes for itself. It's just painfully obvious. Yeah, it's an unfulfilled prophecy.

[Andrew]

It just has to be played out.

[Luke Burbank]

Watch out for that first step.

[Andrew]

It's a doozy.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew]

Is it too early to fish sandwich?

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew]

Who the hell is that?

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill Studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia. It's one of those. Golly, did we ever have a. A nice weekend, particularly Saturday around here. It was like spring, like. And now we are sliding into that kind of. It's not raining, but it's very cloudy, and everything just. I can. I feel like I can actively watch moss growing on various surfaces in my yard here at the Madrona Hill Studio. But. But we're ready on this Monday morning and feeling good, by the way. Let's see. This is cup of coffee number three. So I'm. I'm feeling supercharged as we arrive at episode 4654 in a collector series, Let the fun begin. Maybe I'm feeling good because I have found a new soothing sound that I've been listening to for, I'm gonna say, 10 to 11 hours per day. I'm hooked on my telephone. It's a real thing. I'm gonna really play you this sound later and see what you all think of it. Or at least see what Andrew thinks of it, because I don't know if this is normal behavior or not. Also, I recently watched Secret Mall Apartment, so who needs a movie? It's a documentary on Netflix about some art types in Rhode island who built a secret apartment inside the Providence Mall and what the implications are for public space and art and things like that. So we'll get into that. Also, there's a. There was an update, I think, a new functionality as part of the iOS iPhone update that has created quite a stir within the Hawk Squad family text chain that I'm part of. You're tearing me apart.

[Andrew]

Lisa.

[Luke Burbank]

Take you on that journey as well, and we'll say hello to this guy. Longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall shit. I just want you to be normal. And clearly you're not. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew]

Good morning, Luke. I was thinking this morning an absolutely absurd thought that I want to know if you will give me any validation on. And it's totally fine if you don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Actually speaks well of you if you don't, I think. But first of all, happy Groundhog Day. Thanks for reminding me that today is Groundhog Day.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not happy, though, that apparently Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow.

[Andrew]

Oh, I didn't even read the news.

[Luke Burbank]

More weeks of winter, which this is just quickly, if I can. This is the journey that I go on with that. It's like, first of all, I never know what the quote unquote rules are.

[Andrew]

If.

[Luke Burbank]

If he sees the shadow, is it good? If he doesn't see the shadow, is it good? And then I get mad when the reports are not the outcome that I want, which is I want winter to be over sooner rather than later. And then I remind myself it's in the words of Jenny McCarthy. It's none of it's a jib jab. None of it's real. We don't know if the groundhog saw his shadow. The guy holds the groundhog up to his ear and tries to divine if the groundhog is telling the human in the stovepipe hat if he saw his shadow or not. None of it's real. Why do I care? Why does it make me mad? Why does it ruin my Monday morning if they've declared that the groundhog saw his shadow?

[Andrew]

I am so confused as to why you chose a famous anti vaxxer as somebody who's calling this bullshit. Is that why did you choose a genetic.

[Luke Burbank]

Just a drop that we used to.

[Andrew]

Play on the show all day. Is that Jenny McCarthy?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. This isn't.

[Andrew]

Look it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's plain and simple.

[Andrew]

It's bull. Oh, see, I didn't know that drop. And I was like. Cause I was in my head, gonna make some joke about. Well, I'm not sure how scientific the groundhog shadow thing is, but given what we take for science in the new world order, I was like, well maybe, maybe the groundhog.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, Junior honestly only eats groundhog. That's his current recommendation for the new food pyramid. The top of the pyramid is groundhog.

[Andrew]

Replaced everybody at NOAA with groundhog. I'm pretty sure is what has happened. So that's why I was. And then to be. I was just sort of thinking that in the back of my head trying to formulate some sort of humorous observation and then you bring up Jenny McCarthy and I'm like, I don't, I'm lost. Are you double whammying me here with conspiracy theories?

[Luke Burbank]

But I mean that's by the way, that speaks to such a, such a more innocent time in our society. That was Jenny McCarthy, I believe maybe on the Larry King show or something. And she was being anti vax because she was one of the early famous people to be out there leading this, this scientifically unsupported idea that vaccines cause autism. But it was such a fringe theory and it was coming from the person who had once co hosted Singled Out.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

That it was, it was hum. It was humorous for her to be getting worked up about it as opposed to, oh, this might become national policy, you know, to be like, it's not, it's not the. We probably wouldn't. I mean I still play that drop because as was proved by your reaction, I think most people don't even know the context.

[Andrew]

No, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just a way that I can say something is BS if I need to, but, but it's just like that was a, that was, that was a funny thing because it was so fringe and not. It was so far from ever being what the real sort of law of the land might become. You know, back in the day. It's not funny anymore because it's unfortunately now a mainstream theory amongst the right.

[Andrew]

That's right. As our groundhog scientists. So back to my thought, which is really my hot take. It's not hot. Okay, we need, let's do some level setting here. This is like going to be the coldest take possible. So cold that I think you're going to run away from it and go inside and throw yourself under a blanket. But I was thinking that Groundhog Day is the leap day of normal years. And I don't know exactly what that means and I'm sober. But I think it all started because this morning I got A text from you that said, don't forget, today is Groundhog Day if you want to use that Groundhog Day tape. And I thought, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. I haven't heard Kenneth jumping around the 30 Rock office wishing everybody a Leap Day.

[Luke Burbank]

A Leap Day, William.

[Andrew]

A Leap Day William. And maybe it's just because I think of these two holidays primarily, if not exclusively through which drops we play that day. Because aside from that, I don't think about it.

[Luke Burbank]

You're not preparing a special Groundhog Day meal with Genevieve or Leap Day meal with Genevieve.

[Andrew]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

There's no tradition around it other than, oh, do we have an intro package for that?

[Andrew]

And instead, what I thought about doing today as I was in the shower, I was gonna play Leap Day William and see if you stopped me to see if you could. If I could just. You're pretty. I decided that you would pick up on it. You're. You're a sharp kid. But I did wonder, like, could somebody's brain, just because we just. It's so easy to conflate those two. I just thought there was a chance I could slip a little Leap Day Williams past you today without you realizing that's not Groundhog Day. And that's what got me on that weird stoner theory.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you think that there was any chance that I would note that it's not Groundhog Day, but that I would then get to the same meta joke you were making?

[Andrew]

I kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

That would be. That's four dimensional chess.

[Andrew]

But what I decided to do instead was what I just did, which is I played the regular tape, and then I brought up this theory with you. And I'm not convinced that you still have any idea what I'm talking about. As far as me thinking that these two are somehow spiritual holidays, I would.

[Luke Burbank]

Totally agree with you that they're connected in a way, because they're both. First of all, I don't understand either of them on a fundamental level. Like, you know what I mean?

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, seriously, I forget every year what I'm rooting for from the groundhog.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And the extra day.

[Luke Burbank]

And I also don't know. I really don't fully understand Leap Day. It's once every four years. Right. There's an extra day. So every. So three out of four years. Yeah, three out of four years. It's just a non event. It's like we don't speak of it because it didn't happen. And then once every four years, it comes around and we're like, oh, we got an extra day. And what month is it in?

[Andrew]

That's in February. Usually It'd be a February 29th. Now, while we're on the topic of calendars, did you happen to peep? This is not a test. This is not a quiz. It's fine, but I just want to know if you know what I'm about to go off on because I got.

[Luke Burbank]

Real obsessed with my ergonomic stool.

[Andrew]

You did not see the newsletter this week, I take it? I am obsessed.

[Luke Burbank]

I saw the headline.

[Andrew]

Okay, that's fine, that's fine. Honestly, I'm actually glad that you didn't take a moment to appreciate the hard work. No, open up a calendar. Open up a calendar in front of you and look right in front of you. Look at the month of. Look at the month of February and tell me why it isn't the most beautiful thing you ever done. See?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I know what you like this.

[Andrew]

Look at this.

[Luke Burbank]

Sunday is the first, all the way, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And then you get March 1st is.

[Andrew]

Another Sunday, so it's not even. So usually I like it when Monday is the first because it kind of makes the work week even. But what? And shout out to listener Kennedy, who sent this in. It is the perfect month, even though it is, you know, more proper. Sunday is the first. There are no extra squares on the calendar. It's just four straight seven day weeks. Like, it starts on a Monday or on a Sunday, it ends on a Saturday. There's no extra squares. You don't have that. Like, I don't know, it's March 1st and so Wednesday. So we have three squares in front of it. It is a perfect, absolutely perfect, beautiful grid.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. I'm looking at it right now, and I did, by the way, identify what you were talking about. So there's a. There's a wonderful, beautiful. I don't know if it's not symmetry because it's not like the same on both sides, but it's something. Oh, what was. Oh, phooey. I'm sorry, why did I start that sentence? Oh. When I couldn't quite finish it? It was this idea of a player, a baseball player, a Eugenio Suarez, who may go back to the Reds. And that would be a palindrome career.

[Andrew]

Oh, I don't know about the palindrome career. So.

[Luke Burbank]

So it would mean that their career arc goes the same forwards and backwards. Like it started with the Reds, it went to the whomever's, it came to the mares, it went to whomever's. It ends at The Reds. So his career might be a palindrome.

[Andrew]

I don't know if there are other teams in here, but it might have been Reds, Mariners, Arizona Mariners, Reds. I don't know if there's anything.

[Luke Burbank]

Whatever it is, if he ends up at the Reds and that's his last stop, his career will have been a perfect palindrome. I thought you would have liked that.

[Andrew]

I. Well, I do like it. I don't like not knowing what we're going to do at third base, but that is probably not the conversation we're.

[Luke Burbank]

Not going to have right now. Andrew is watching a absolute IB statistical train wreck at the plate for almost all at bats except for the occasional hero grand slam.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

That much I can. I mean, I love the vibes. We love the vibes and we love the guy. I really do like that guy. I mean, and when he finally hit that grand slam in the playoffs, like the palpable relief and when he talked about like he was in the post game presser, it's just like, I don't think I could like a human being more than Gino Suarez, but, boy, was it tough to watch him.

[Andrew]

But his first stint with us was way better than anybody expected and he did a really good job. He was only with us for like two months tops, I think. And yeah, it was pretty rough, but.

[Luke Burbank]

He dropped off so hard from Arizona.

[Andrew]

That was having a.

[Luke Burbank]

That was the tough plot. He was like, he was on a streak where I think he had maybe the most home runs of anybody in baseball or like a three season arc or something. Like we were getting, like, honestly, I thought he was a bigger get than Naylor. By the way, welcome to Hot Stove.

[Andrew]

Right, Right. No, a lot of people, when we got Naylor, I remember a friend was like, you need more than Naylor, you need to get a Eugenio. And I was like, yeah. But Naylor is also. I was more excited about Naylor for some reason and he has proved to be a fan favorite. Although we'll see what his performance is like next season as well.

[Luke Burbank]

It's going to be tough.

[Andrew]

It's going to be tough to live up to his hype.

[Luke Burbank]

It was magical. I mean, he's going to come back to earth and that's fine. I mean, I just think we're going to be such a better team going into this season than we were last year. And, you know, absolutely take Naylor over, over not having him, but I think it'll be. I don't know if he's going to steal 120 bases this season. I just feel like the Major League Baseball may have figured out how to solve the Josh Naylor problem. Like he was, he was, he was, he was, he was. It was a really, really special run involving him, but I'm expecting him to play a little bit more like a normal first base person of his, let's just say, particular assets and liabilities.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's interesting that you think we're going to go into this season as a better team because if we don't have anything at second or third base right now, I mean we have some young people like Cole Young that we're thinking about. But anyway, listen, I don't want to get into the X's and O's of the season, but I do want to say this because I didn't quite realize this. I knew that we were getting to that part of the year where people were like, hey, you know, pitchers and catchers are reporting for spring training or whatever. And I know that there's going to be just like, you know, whatever they do before they start playing the actual scrimmages against other teams. Warm em ups, I suppose. Yes, I knew that.

[Luke Burbank]

We're kind of fungo bats being broken out, a lot of pepper being played.

[Andrew]

It wasn't until this Saturday when I was talking to my buddy Hannah Brooks Olson and she's like, you know, we're like two weeks away from the first spring training game. She said it's going to be inter squad stuff. She said when you consider the. No, I think actual spring training game on the calendar and because it's like mid February and she said, you know, with the super bowl, like we're going to be going like a week and a half or something like that. I don't mean to misquote her, we were just off air, but I something like a week and a half or two weeks between the last Seattle football game and the first Seattle spring training game, like we are very lucky. I mean, I cannot believe that we are knocking on the door of actual spring training games.

[Luke Burbank]

February 20 San Diego Padres at Seattle Mariners Peoria Sports Conference.

[Andrew]

They call that a Vetter cup preview.

[Luke Burbank]

The 20th I was texting with a friend of ours. I'll just say who it was. Our friend Stu was at the. There was an impromptu concert in the Twin Cities that was Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello from Rage and some other artists who were there to support all of the folks in Minnesota. It was an anti ice concert and Stu's been kind of going through it as have everyone in the Twin Cities, but especially our pal Stu. So I was texting with him, and he said, yeah, it's been kind of a shit week, but I did just, I think, pee next to Eddie Vedder at this concert. I said, of the Vedder Cup. And he said the very same. Wow.

[Andrew]

Wow. Why is it.

[Luke Burbank]

And then later on, it turned out to just be a normal dude who.

[Andrew]

Looked like Eddie Vedder, I was gonna say, because that's. I told you the story about how I was pretty sure I bumped into Guy from Counting Crows. Like, I believed this my entire life.

[Luke Burbank]

If you bumped into Adam Durst, he had.

[Andrew]

I mean, he looked like him. He smelled like what I expect him to smell like. He was dressed like him. And it was at. It was at Lollapalooza. This goes way back to.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, right. No, that's.

[Andrew]

That's. That actually could have been. But now that. I mean. But I've been to other festivals as an adult since then, and even being there with you doing TBTL stuff and having, like, backstage you know, access or side stage or whatever the artist area is, I'm just like, I don't know. Would he really have been just knocking around with the common folks in 1994?

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Because maybe. My guess would be that whoever it was, you were watching at the time, or if you were. Wait, you were. He was standing next to you or you in the restroom at the time?

[Andrew]

No, neither. We. I believe I bumped into him as we passed each other.

[Luke Burbank]

I would absolutely imagine that he would like to go stand in a crowd to watch a band that he's a fan of as opposed to the side stage experience.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I could see that.

[Luke Burbank]

That seems he's. I think he was a man of the people and, you know, and is. And remains. So. I'm a. I'm. I'm a Dirt. I'm a Dirt's fan. I am. I'm really glad for him that he has shifted hairstyles, because I think his. His more recent look is really working a lot better for him. And if anything, it makes me mourn for all the years that he didn't have his current hairstyle, because the. I don't think that the locks were really. I don't think they were selling. They were working for him.

[Andrew]

But I believe what he's doing now is wearing a really tight beanie over his head and then putting, like, a fancy pimp hat over top of that. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

No, what he's doing now is one of those golf caps that has, like, a Guy Fieri hair coming out of the top of it. You buy it with the hair green. Yeah, no, it's. It's. It's. It's absolutely bleached. Bleached blonde. It sticks straight up. And, boy, it is. It is a real. It's a. It's a comedic delight when you get. Particularly if you get a guy who's, like, kind of bald on top. Really bald on top. And he puts on the. The golf visor with the. With the hair included.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And. And hits the links. Yeah, there is a. There is a. You know, actually, I'm not going to get into my favorite prank of late, because I know you're not a prank.

[Andrew]

Guy, but there is a prank. Red prank is something other people are doing or something you're doing.

[Luke Burbank]

It's kind of fun. No, I'm not doing it, but it is kind of funny to me, which is golfers on the. On the course getting, like, a pretend snake and then some fishing line, and then they'll kind of clip. They'll clip it to their buddies, like, you know, pants. And then they'll go like, hey, there's a snake over there. And then the person turns and sees this. Very unconvincing, if you know about the prank. Rubber snake. But what happens is the person goes, whoa. And then the more they move, the more the snake moves with them. And, man, you see some guys go right down into, like, literal ponds trying to get away from the snake. And I could totally. I don't know. When I see Scared of Snakes, when I see these videos, all I could think of is, like, I've tried to imagine how I would behave in this scenario because I think I'm. I'm not. Like, I don't think I'm phobic about snakes, but I'm certainly not a fan. Like, I would not. I'd not like seeing a big snake unexpectedly next to me on the green. But it's almost like I'm trying to retrain my brain right now that if I. If I'm golfing with some buddies, which, by the way, would never happen. I don't even have any buddies who golf. But if I was and somebody said, oh, hey, look out for that snake. I'm trying to program my brain to remember in that moment that it's a prank, because I think I would totally scream, start running from the snake, think the snake was chasing me, and then eventually tumble down a hill into a retention pond, which is what happens commonly with this prank. What I like about the prank is it seems like it's punching Laterally, you know what I mean? Like, it's another golf bro is getting kind of pranked by his golf bro buddies. You know what I mean? So it seems like it's in an acceptable range of pranking to me.

[Andrew]

Here's where you're not taking this seriously enough. They are undoing years, decades, millennia of evolution because what you're trying to do already. And you're not even on the links, you're already trying to retrain your brain.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. To not be afraid of snakes.

[Andrew]

I'm scared of snakes. The reason we're scared of snakes is it's what they call an evolutionary imperative. And you're already like, all right, I am not the result of it. I'm going to run towards this.

[Luke Burbank]

Hundreds of generations of people who are afraid of snakes. It's the only reason I'm here.

[Andrew]

What are we doing?

[Luke Burbank]

No, you're absolutely right. This is a very dangerous precedent to set. I need that fear that is going to keep me alive. That's going to keep Addie alive.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

My fear of snakes. Wait, she's already in the world. Actually, that one's fine. But, like. Yeah, okay. Well, along with trying to retrain my brain around snakes, I have been. I don't know if you would call this retraining, Andrew, but I have been basking in a sonic experience for. This is about the last two weeks that is frankly threatening to get slightly out of control. And what it is, is I have on my phone one of these. I have an app that is like a white noise app. And really what it is, its main functionality that I've known about, because I've never paid for it. I've never. Like, it's $20 a year, but I've been just using the free version. It's called Bedtime Fan. I'll show you. I'm holding it up to the screen here. You can kind of see it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Just looks like a big fan. And then you've got low, medium, and high fan sound. And that's all that I've been using for years and years. This has been a thing that, like, if I'm in a hotel room or even if I'm at my house, I'll just play that fan to sleep. That noise of that fan. But also, sometimes it wouldn't ever play a commercial, like an audio commercial during the fan. But every time I would try to shut the app down, it would try to make me watch a commercial. Or I wasn't getting, like, the. I wasn't getting the premium Experience. And then one day I was like, you know what this might be? I use this thing seven, like, I use it like seven nights a week, all year long. Maybe I should spend 20 bucks and just have the full functionality. And when I did that, it unlocked this whole other, like, series of sounds.

[Andrew]

Oh, wonderful.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, well, it's actually. Let's see. It's not. Well, there's a library. The ones that they. The featured ones are one's called Soothe, one's called Deep Sleep, one's called Ultra Relaxed, and one's called Healing Calm. And then there's like a. You can hit library and go into more of them.

[Andrew]

You can't mix them, can you? The way I had that one where I could add a little bit more rain on a tin roof and then add a little bit more ocean. But then back on the back, I.

[Luke Burbank]

Don'T think you can mix them with the fan. You can't mix them with each other. Although we did have. That was the Calm app. Right. I think that we did ads for.

[Andrew]

Maybe I had a different one that was just like it was. It had dozens and dozens of different sounds, but you could compose your own sound, like, landscape with these little sliders. I was obsessed with it.

[Luke Burbank]

I've done that, too. And that's very, very, like, also very soothing.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But I just clicked. Speaking of soothe, I just clicked kind of like at random on this soothe. And when I tell you, Andrew, that I have been sleeping with this every night, and now this is where it gets weird also walking around with it in my ears, like, for sometimes, like if I'm in the airport or just, like, kind of doing things. It's. It's very clearly something that is quieting something inside my brain. It's. Like when I tell you I have been getting the best sleep of my life listening to this and that again, like, sometimes I'll have. So I. I bought these. I also bought these sleeping earbuds because, like, when Becca and I were in Miami or if I'm over at her house or she's at my house, I have to be hearing either my fan noise or this. Right. But she does not like that sound. Like she wants total silence. And so what I've been doing for a long time now is using my traditional, like, AirPods. But there's two problems with that. One is they kind of hurt my ears after a while. They're, you know, they're not really designed for you to be lying on, like, crushing on into your ear if you're side sleeping.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And also they die. They're not. They don't last for seven to eight hours or whatever. And so I find myself constantly futzing with them, which is like, sometimes I'll sleep with one in my top ear. And then when I'm. When I start thinking, I want to roll over. So let's just say that my. I'm on my right side, so my left ear is the top ear. That one will have an AirPod in it. And then when I want to roll over to my left side, I'll literally have to switch AirPods so that now the top side has a different AirPod in it. And while. Which has been charging, if this makes any sense, and now is sending that sound in my ear. But, like, the complexity of this move at three in the morning, it's like it does not lead to restful sleep. So I finally broke down and I bought these. They're called Oslo, and they are, first of all, they last for 10 hours on a charge, and they're teeny tiny. They fit like, they're like designed to be inside of. Like, they don't stick out from your ear at all. And I got these things going now, and I got this crazy soothe sound. And I'm like sleeping. Sometimes I'm just here by myself and I'm sleeping with the sleep headphones in or whatever you call them with this thing going. And I am like, out, man. I'm like. It's like I'm sleeping so hard, like. But also I worry. I feel like you want to talk about evolution and fear of snakes. I feel like it's taking an incre. It's an increasing amount of technological intervention for me to have a satisfying night's sleep. This feels like the opposite of like Thoreau or Walden. Who did Walden Pond? Is that Thoreau?

[Andrew]

That was Thoreau. Yeah, Thoreau.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like the most healthy way for me to be is to just lie in a quiet room when it's time to sleep and my mind calms itself and I go to sleep. And that's the most restful sleep. But for me, it's like, no, I need this app now that I'm paying $20 a year for. I need these expensive in ear headphones. It's like I'm adding so much technology to try to solve for the fact that my brain is an unquiet place.

[Andrew]

I'm trying to figure out I'd never read Walden, but I read a play that was about Walden, and I was trying to see if I could find that it was a. I think that.

[Luke Burbank]

Was kind of well known, right? I don't know if I maybe didn't read Walden, but I remember that play.

[Andrew]

Play.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like being kind of well received at around the time maybe when you and I would have become sort of aware of play.

[Andrew]

I'm. I'm. Yeah, it's driving me a little bit bananas because, you know, what I had was I had somehow. And I didn't steal it on purpose, but I had a. One of those library books, Luke, which I don't even know if library books still look like this, but it's one of those that was like part of a. Maybe there was a bunch of them or something. And they all just had this simple red binding. Like the library got it. And then it put that really rough red binding on it with a very simple little nameplate on the front of it. And it just made the books kind of indestructible. And every now and then, some of those books just got into the general water supply. And then you have one at home and around here somewhere. I have one of those books again. Now even just thinking about the binding on that makes me feel nostalgic for a different era. But anyway, I'm sorry to go off. I know the feeling that you're talking about. I don't have the ability to listen to sound at night, but if I have those tiny. As we've talked about.

[Luke Burbank]

You mean you don't technic. You don't technologically have it, but you. If you had them, you.

[Andrew]

I would. I'm sure I would, because I used to like to put it on, you know, just open air, put my phone on the end table or something. And problem is, now earbuds jack up my ears. I've told you about it, and I don't want to go into detail, but I can't really put things in my ears because it'll. I'll really pay. People who are lactose intolerant, I don't understand what it's like when they're like, well, I kind of wanna. I want ice cream now. So I'm gonna eat it, but then I'm gonna pay for it later. And I've never, like, experienced that kind of thing, but that is how I had been the past year or two with earbuds. Like, I just don't feel like taking my big headphones to the ballpark. I can just wear my earbuds for just the bus trip down. And then, like, for weeks and weeks later, my ears are all jacked up. So.

[Luke Burbank]

But if you wear your Big over the ear ones. You're fine inside the ear.

[Andrew]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a problem.

[Andrew]

So now you understand why I can't even regular earbuds to bed. And I'm certainly not gonna wear those big over the ear ones because I'm a side sleeper like you. So anyway, so I appreciate this. I think that I would slip into this as well. But it did remind me of one thing that I sort of noticed, or maybe have slightly been noticing. You mentioned that you listen to the sound when you're just bopping around the house or maybe even the airport or what have you.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, on the airplane is a big one for me.

[Andrew]

And one thing for me is I. So I have over the ear headphones I like. They're a pair of JBL's and. And they have pretty good noise canceling. I know that you always say that noise canceling doesn't do much, but the technology has come a long way from those first noise canceling headphones. And it's only getting better. And of course, these are over the ear headphones. So it really helps in noise canceling. And they can also go into opposite mode where you turn on. It's called like spatial mode or something. It's like kind of a safety mode. So you can hear what's in front of you and behind you while you're listening to music.

[Luke Burbank]

You can hear better. Right? They kind of turn into a hearing aid of sorts.

[Andrew]

Exactly. It's almost like they have little microphones in there. Turn on that function and don't turn any music. It just sort of amplifies the sound around you. Well, I don't usually turn that function on, but I usually have the sound suppression on or whatever. Sound canceling, if you will. And I have found more and more often I put these on, I power them on, and then I go out of the house. And then I'm walking to like the barber on Friday or I'm taking my walk to the grocery store or whatever. And I get to the place and I realize I never put on any music. I just like wearing these things and having noise canceling on, which is weird because I don't. If I'm going for a walk through the neighborhood, I don't want noise canceling. I want to hear the dogs barking in the wind blowing and what have you. But I'm not even thinking about it. And then I'm getting to someplace, I'm just like, oh, I guess I just sort of wear these. They keep my ears warm and they cancel some noise around me and I just end up in my own little world and I'm not even listening to anything.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I was just doing that with my. Where was I? I was somewhere in public, but I had the AirPods in with the intention of listening to something. But then I never got around to choosing the thing to listen to, including my soothe sound. It wasn't even my soothe sound. It was just nothing in my ears. I was just wearing them, just walking around for like a significant amount of time in the world and just didn't. It was like I was too lazy to pick something to listen to and I was too lazy to take them out of my ears. And also, I don't know, on a certain level, it's a. And this is probably kind of antisocial, but it's like, it is. To quote the far side, it's. It's nature's way of saying, do not touch. Yeah, it's kind of like, hey, every. Everybody just kind of. I mean, less so than your big over the ear ones, which is 100% a way to like, just let folks know, hey, I'm listening to something right now. But in its own small way, it's still just kind of saying, like. Like, I'm in my own world and I'd like to just mostly stay in that world right now.

[Andrew]

Yeah. You know, that reminds me, I was going to. Sorry. Something happened to me in the grocery store on Friday that I guess I would like your take on. Although maybe it's a little bit sensitive, but you mentioning that having my over the ear headphones on is a sign to the world that, like, I can't hear you. And I will say there are times where I find myself walking and I don't have anything, any sound going through my ears, but somebody might be trying to get my attention, but I don't care to stop. And I just think, like, oh, good, I can keep walking. Maybe somebody wants a dollar at the side of the road or something like that. And I just keep walking. Which really makes me sound miserly. But that's what made me think about this interaction I had at the grocery store on Friday, which I thought was kind of interesting. I was doing my own thing at the grocery store. Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

You were doing your own research at the grocery store.

[Andrew]

What led into this was, you know how I have a phlebotomist that I don't like and I try to avoid him at all costs? I saw my bad phlebotomist in the grocery store, almost bumped carts with him. I don't think Stars. No, at the small. I always say small, but it's at the QFC on Holman Road.

[Luke Burbank]

The Holman Road qfc, formerly Arts Family Center.

[Andrew]

And they do have sort of smaller aisles in there, and some of the aisles have these big pillars in the middle of them. So it's kind of. I like that grocery store, but it's a little bit. It can be a little bit cramped in the aisle sometimes. And he did not look at me. And if he had, I don't think he would have recognized me. He also hasn't served me in a while because I go in there now and the one whole system in place. Yes. If I'm holding a baseball, the woman Natalie recognizes me because I squeeze a baseball so that she can take my blood. She's like, I got you. She is. She is amazing. By the way she always looks out for me. I feel like she's my own little, like, Nightingale. Yeah. I was gonna say. Yeah. What do you call an angel that looks over you? Guardian Angelian angel, but any hoozles.

[Luke Burbank]

Whereas the other guy was a Hell's Angel.

[Andrew]

He was a. He wasn't even a Sonny Barger. He.

[Luke Burbank]

I.

[Andrew]

He was at. He was at. What the hell was the.

[Luke Burbank]

What?

[Andrew]

Monterey. He was at Monterey. I got the joke out.

[Luke Burbank]

Give me shelter. Give me shelter. Give him shelter. That's right.

[Andrew]

From my own attempts and cultural references from the hippie.

[Luke Burbank]

That's my fault. I was trying to flex on remembering a famous Hell's Angel, Sonny Barger, which I only knew about from the Hunter S. Thompson book.

[Andrew]

Wait, no. Altma. Is it Altman?

[Luke Burbank]

I think the movie was Give Me Shelter. Right. Because the Rolling Stones were playing.

[Andrew]

I don't know about the movie. I just know about the event where they hired the Hell's Angels as security and they're in the Rolling Stones plate or whatever. Oh, my God. What a tortured riff that was on me. Nobody would leave that in their show. And we're leaving it in. Nobody.

[Luke Burbank]

Please do, Andrew. We are currently experimenting with ways to grow the audience, and this might. That could be it. That could be our innovation.

[Andrew]

I'm screaming Monterey over here. As if anybody has any idea what I'm talking about. Okay. Anyway, so here's my.

[Luke Burbank]

In the. He's in the qfc.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Now, keep in mind, this isn't even my story, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

No.

[Andrew]

I'm just so.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm fascinated.

[Andrew]

I'm walking down this. This kind of narrow aisle, and all of a sudden I see my phlebotomist, the one that I don't like, he's not even my phlebotomist. He's the phlebotomist that I avoid at LabCorp. And so I'm kind of shook. I'm like, oh, my gosh. It's like seeing your teacher in the store or something. So you know me. Like, I talk about this a lot. I'm very conscientious about, like, my place for my body and my cart in a grocery store. Like, I don't want to be in somebody's way. So I kind of move over to sort of the end cap of an aisle. So I'm kind of in the main area, but I'm tucked all the way as close to the aisle as I can be. And I pull out my phone because I'm about to text Hannah Brooks Olson because she knows about my phlebotomy.

[Luke Burbank]

About the phlebotomy.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I'm just so. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I like to picture him standing in front of, like, the section which has all the canned peaches, and he keeps pulling different cans of peaches off, but they're all wrong, but he's blaming the peaches. It's somehow their fault. He cannot secure the proper can of peaches, but it's definitely their fault.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly. So, no, he's just. We pass each other, and I'm near the end, so I kind of hook a left, and I park my cart right in front of. I want to say, like, the tortillas or something like that, or the pita bread or something, and the end cap there. And then I pull out my phone, and I start texting Hannah. And somebody behind me in a woman's voice, kind of a very small, sort of meek voice with a bit of an accent, although I don't know what kind of accent says, oh, excuse me. Excuse me. And I'm like, oh, shoot. And so now I just. Just in an instant, I'm telling you a story that all of this is taking place in about 30 seconds, by the way. In an instant, I feel terrible because I've been caught standing in somebody's way, blocking them from the pita bread while I'm on my phone, which is like, that's a bad look. So I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. So I push my card up a little ways, and then I go to text Hannah again. She's like, no, no, excuse me. Excuse me. And I realize, oh, she wants to talk to me. And it's a woman who's, like, kind of a. I would just say, like, a Finely dressed woman. Not like, she doesn't look like she's, like, living on the streets, but she also doesn't look like a rich person. She just looks like a person. And she's got her little daughter there. And she just like, gestures down to her grocery cart and says, like, can you help me buy this stuff?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, interesting.

[Andrew]

And I was kind of like. And I could. I'm also like, Luke, I had just seen my phlebotomist in the grocery store. Like, I'm already shook. I'm trying to text this. I thought I was in somebody's way, so I'm shook about that. And now I realize, oh, wait, I'm talking to this person. And honestly, like, if somebody is struggling, if I can buy them groceries, I feel like that's a very direct action you can take. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, okay, yeah, I'd be open to helping somebody buy groceries for sure. But I'm also like, in the moment. I'm kind of like, well, I got to get a hold of Hannah. She's got to know about the phlebotomist situation. And also, I don't know what that's going to run. And then also what. I'm nearing the end of my grocery shopping, so what are we going to go up together? And at first I'm picturing, like, yeah, I guess follow me up to the store. But all of these thoughts are just passing me, really passing through my head very quickly. So I just look down and I always look grumpy when I'm surprised. So I'm sure I looked really grumpy. And I looked down at her cart, which is a moderate. I don't know, it had some. I don't know, it looked like maybe some deli meats in there. Something else. And I'm like, oh, wait, you need help buying this? She's like, yeah. I'm like, all of this. She's like, yeah, this. I'm just like, Then I just gave her 20 bucks. Like, I don't know what to do with this situation right now. I don't mind helping somebody buy groceries. And. But then also, in the back of your head is kind of like, I also.

[Luke Burbank]

Is this.

[Andrew]

I don't like to go through my world thinking like, oh, somebody's trying to scam me.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like an absolute scam. You know, this is a known thing.

[Andrew]

See? And then I thought, though, oh, is there somebody else? Is she working on behalf of somebody else who's scamming folks? And then I was like, you know what? I just don't want to. I just dismissed it. I'm like, I'd rather be. I'd rather have a little itch in the back of my head being like, I don't know, somebody scammed me out of $20, and it wasn't for groceries, versus I turned my back on somebody who might have needed help for groceries. I was like, it is what it is.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a $20 tax on being out in the world and the various random things that might happen.

[Andrew]

But what is the actual scam that you.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, there's. I was just reading. So actually, yesterday, Becca and I were driving around Portland, and we had noticed that there's been a pretty large influx of fol are at the freeway off ramps, and it's almost always a mother and one to two children, and they've got a sign. And it's something that we weren't seeing a lot of in the area, kind of where she lives. And now you're seeing it more, and it feels like it's not a coincidence. And then I was doing a little, like, in other words, it's very likely the result of sort of like a group of folks who will kind of kind of move into an area and then disperse themselves to various points and do some panhandling and do some other things to. To sort of like, you know, generate money. And there was a Seattle Times story about this not that long ago. Are children being used for panhandling? And again, I know the topic is extremely fraught, but I think that it's not a random coincidence that in a certain area you will start to see a significant number of particularly kind of young women with their children who are doing some form of panhandling. I think it's part of a coordinated effort. And I don't think it's George Soros.

[Andrew]

But let me ask this, and this is a real question, kind of put you on the spot, but I should do some more reading about this, because I will say in. I can't. I can't stress enough. It's kind of like I don't like going through the world. I feel like I kind of grew up in this. Every panhandler is a scam or something.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

Like, and, like, oh, you got scammed. And first of all, I don't like the feeling of getting scammed. And I think that maybe, like, I feel like as a kid who is very shy and often maybe taken advantage of by his peers, like, I'd never like the feeling of One pulling something off or pulling something over on me, sort of. And so, and I think that when this was happening, I'm like, oh, this feels scammy to me. Like it felt scammy in the moment. But also I'm. But my thought was kind of like, but what is the difference between a scam and somebody.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Applying good techniques for asking for money when they need it. So in other words, I would only consider it a scam if this money is going to somebody who doesn't actually need money. You know what I mean? Is this a coordinated effort where the money is going up to some rich kingpin or some sort of drug related thing? Or is there human trafficking involved? Are there things like that I should know about or was it just people who are like. I just sort of think like if you're spending your time going through a grocery store asking people for money, that's not raising that much money. At the end of the day you must need it. Right? Like what is your.

[Luke Burbank]

I agree with you. It comes down to the nature. Yes. I don't, I don't think. Again, I don't think that there is a. In other words, I think that that $20 in one way or another ultimately would go to house and, or feed this woman, her family, etc. My guess would be that the likelihood is that this woman and her family live in a, like a rented home or apartment somewhere with some other folks who are part of the same project. This is sometimes also associated with this. I kind of, I got to give them credit. A genius scam where people will stand in a parking lot playing like the most incredible electrified violin you've ever seen. Yes, we have, but it's not plugged into anything. And then now the move is people will come up and like, like unplug the violin and the music keeps going like this. And so yeah, I don't think it's like, I don't think the money is going to drugs or whatever. I don't think that the money is. I don't know enough about the system of where the money goes, but I do think, I think basically what it is is a group of folks and I'm being very delicate with how I'm talk talking about this because there's an underlying point to this that I don't really want to weigh in on or get into. But it is, I think a group of folks who. This is the way in this particular kind of a group of people that typically folks raise money and it's through some panhandling it's through some stuff like what's going on there. But it is literally to pay the bills or to get food or shelter. So it's not like it's. Again, it raises the question of like, is it a scam? When really the money, I don't know if the money's going to buy those groceries. It's going to buy groceries probably, you know, going into some fun.

[Andrew]

When I was at self checkout, then I looked over and I saw her again and her card had a lot more stuff in it. And again I was kind of like, I don't know. And I guess I only feel like again, some listeners are probably listening and just thinking like what a, what an absolute rube. Others might be like, I don't think.

[Luke Burbank]

That'S the most rube thing you could have done.

[Andrew]

But it's just kind of. Honestly I just. At the end of the day, whenever I have any interaction like that, it always, it always leaves me a little bit unsettled. Sort of like any interaction that I guess I would describe as I don't full understand what just happened. Yeah. But all I thought about later was oh yeah, that thing. But I'm like, well, rather err on the side of caution for that because right now I'm in a position that I can give a woman $20 and think c' est la vie, you know, like I could have spent that $20 on pull tabs, you know. Yes. And I didn't. And so, and again, I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm Daddy Warbucks over here and I'm just like throwing money around. But also I spend a lot of money on a lot of, of dumb stuff that is incredibly fleeting. So if I can give it to somebody who helps in some way and you know, again, the only thing that would bother me would be if this woman and her child were somehow victims who were being sent out to collect money. That would be a problem.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't drop the sense that that's how this particular system works. My guess would be that that money is going to go back into some sort of general account either within her immediate family structure and cultural structure or a slightly larger one. But it is ultimately going to pay for, for things, for living expenses and things like that. So like, I don't think that. I haven't read anything about it, be about it being a kind of a human trafficking sort of a deal. And also, yeah, I feel like, I feel like what I wanted to say was like I definitely do not buy into the Idea that people who are, generally speaking, asking for money are scammers. You know what I mean? Like, it's a real specific. It's down to the way the signs are filled out, Andrew. Like, literally, the sign, the particular kind of sign that a person who's part of this movement will be holding at the off ramp of the freeway is. It's, like, specifically written. It's a whole thing that you can kind of track most. You see somebody and they're standing there on the side of the free. You know, on the off ramp or on ramp or whatever, and they're holding a sign or as it's called, flying a flag. 99 of those people are just trying to get.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

A little food or a little something or just a couple bucks in their pocket for whatever it is they're using it for.

[Andrew]

Like.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I definitely do not subscribe to the idea that there is some kind of vast conspiracy of panhandle or, you know, like, that the people. Most of the people that I see in the world who appear to be suffering, I think are really suffering. And so I'm not trying to sound like I think that there's this vast conspiracy. I think that there's this one arm of it that is much more targeted and much more kind of like, systematic. And I'm guessing that that's the arm of it that you were interacting with.

[Andrew]

It felt like, I got to say, like, in that moment, I was like, this isn't. I just had a feeling. It wasn't really like, well, the fact.

[Luke Burbank]

That you saw her later with more groceries in the car.

[Andrew]

Right. But that could just be something.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But also, like, what is. But is it still going towards groceries? For me, it would be like, she asked for help buying groceries. I'm like, okay, I can assess the situation here. Some money for groceries. Again, I guess I'm repeating myself here. But if it was kind of like, oh, and there's somebody outside in a limousine, and they're just gonna send her back and forth, and she keeps bringing money out, and then they're going to. I don't know. Like, I don't think it's. Certainly don't get into the policing of, like. Because I'm actually trying to look for that Seattle Times article you're talking about, and I can't find it. But I'm finding articles or, like, letters to, you know, advice columnists. Like, how can I say no to a panhandler and explain it to my child? And just, like, basically, the tone of a lot of these things, I'M just kind of like, I'd rather be a bit of a rube than be one of these people who like, sort of feel like, look at these poor people taking advantage of us again, like, I don't know what's going on with these folks. I don't care if that's going to go. Oh, did that go towards some sort of in app purchase for a game for the child? And look what they're doing. They're taking our money for groceries and. And they're buying more virtual coins with it in a game called Royal Kingdom, which is just. If you've been seeing all the ads for Royal Kingdom lately, it doesn't matter. Point is, I don't know what that money went to, but I don't think that anybody's getting rich off of me.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I don't. I don't think that it's. I think it's somewhere between, like, it's somewhere between the most legit thing I've ever seen and also, like some kind of a heinous scam that is, you know, causing people to have, you know, limousines and drive off to big mansions, you know, in the hills. I think it's somewhere in between. I think it's. I think it's a way of. Of getting money. That, that this particular group of folks, at least, that you ran into, I'm looking at. These are older stories, but, like from the Bay Area from a few years ago. For some BART panhandlers, begging is their job. If you've commuted in the Bay Area Rapid Transit, you've likely seen them, women with babies begging for money. The women are often seen swaying precariously on the rolling BART train, baby strapped to their chest, approaching riders with a cardboard sign such as no job, four kids, please help for food, et cetera, et cetera. Like, I think it's pretty. It's sort of noticeable in a particular community when there's more folks kind of following this kind of script or whatever, if you will, than there was before. And then my sense is that at some point that kind of moves on to somewhere else, who knows? But I'm with you that at the end of the day, if the big knock on me was I was slightly a softer touch than I could have been, I can live with that over. I went through the world thinking everyone was out to get me and I was going to make sure to hold on to mine and make sure nobody got over me. I think that's a much worse way to go through life.

[Andrew]

This is such an unbelievably like, like, maybe liberal cuck way to look at things. But like, if not me, who? But like, even like you just sort.

[Luke Burbank]

Of said, are you on the Epstein?

[Andrew]

You just said like, for like, panhandling is the job or you didn't say that. I think you're quoting the newspaper or something. But point is like. And when I think about that, but I'm also like, yeah, but it's probably because you can't get a better job. It's like, it's still not a good job.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

That's what I'm always thinking. I'm just like, yeah, but it's like, you're not pulling one over on me. Because look at this, this guy, cushy life, standing along the freeway in the winter in Seattle with just buckets of rain falling on him and a soggy cardboard sign that's like, oh, look at this scammer. It's like, well, that's not a good job.

[Luke Burbank]

This is what spurred the entire conversation yesterday with Becca and I, which was we were getting off the freeway, we're going on our way to go take a walk in the Mount Tabor area of Portland. And as we were exiting, there was a woman and her two children with the particular kind of sign that I sort of recognized from other similar scenarios. And we went and we had our whole walk. It was a beautiful Sunday. Finished, got back in the car, drove back and got on the freeway, where we got off the freeway, same woman was there with her kids. And I thought, you know, I was saying to Beck, I wonder what this woman's actually able to bring in standing here for these hours. Because it seems like a really hard way to generate whatever amount of money she's generating. And like, if I were her and I could snap my fingers, I think I'd rather be going to a job on Monday morning that earned enough money to put a roof over our heads and feed us and spend this Sunday walking around Mount Tabor park with my kids because it's a lovely Sunday. So, yeah, I'm with you. The idea that getting over by panhandling, it's like, well, I'll tell you what, that sounds like a worse job to me than most of the normal jobs that are out there. And so I'm with you that it's. It's like, it's. Maybe it's a quote unquote scam, but it is. I would imagine that the, the time investment in it and the way that you're interrupts. What are the fun Parts of life, AKA a Sunday afternoon in the park. Seems to me like not worth the trade.

[Andrew]

How much should I have given my phlebotomist?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, okay, let's get back to that for a moment.

[Andrew]

What if he was running? What if I saw her in the parking lot later, like handing a wad of. That would check out.

[Luke Burbank]

That would check out. So you just like fully ducked him and your guys's paths never crossed?

[Andrew]

No, it was one of those. So I always describe the. This specific part of this grocery store has these aisles, just typical grocery aisles, but like I say, a little bit narrower. And for some reason they have these load bearing beams right in the middle of this one aisle. That's where you get the ketchup, I think. And so it's always awkward. You can just barely pass a grocery cart on one side of it and maybe a grocery cart and a half on the other. And so. So I come and it's always a little bit awkward. So I'm kind of leaving the alley or I'm sorry, the aisle. And he's coming into the aisle and so he squeezes on one side of the pillar, I squeeze on the other side of the pillar and we pass each other. But he never looked at me. And like I said, even if he had, I don't think he would have recognized me. He cuts a very specific figure. He's a very short guy. He was still wearing his like black scrubs.

[Luke Burbank]

Do I remember a ponytail involved?

[Andrew]

No male pattern baldness. Maybe I just added that to a grumpy face. A very grumpy face face.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's also one of those things where it's like to think about how much larger he looms in your mind than you do is kind of wild too. Right? It's like he's just. He's just, you know, he's just at work probably with untreated depression, just like doing his thing most days. And has no idea that how unpleasant you found the experience of working with him was to the point where you've now created a whole non verbal communication pattern. He likes some with the other people that work there. And he's just going through his life buying his groceries or whatever. Has no idea that. Yeah, he looms so large in your mind.

[Andrew]

I have decided that the next time I am accidentally called because if Natalie isn't working the front desk and I've decided that the next time because I get my blood drawn so much.

[Luke Burbank]

You're just drawing your own blood in the parking lot.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly. I'm just Gonna go in with a bag of blood.

[Luke Burbank]

Come in with a Ziploc of your own blood.

[Andrew]

Do you remember that TikTok meme? Because I know a lot of people. I don't know how I happened to catch this TikToker one. I thought I was watching the original, but it turns out I was watching, like, somebody lip syncing to the original audio, as is often the case. But just like a woman, like, slamming into her car and like outside of a blood bank somewhere, just saying. They keep on saying, you need blood. I offer blood and they don't want it. She holds up a big bag of blood.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, God. I did not. I'm unfamiliar with that meme. Yes.

[Andrew]

Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, let's thank some donors. These are folks who are sending in a donation to TBTL either on the monthly basis or maybe at thon time. That is really the financial sort of basis of this show. If not for our donors, there would be no TBTL. This is 100% listener supported and it's thanks to folks like Jesse LePage in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's our pal Jesse.

[Andrew]

Hey, enjoy. Eugenio Sword.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna say incoming your way. You've got good vibes. Incoming. And by the way, May and Jesse, I offer this. I mean, yes, it helps that you're a donor and a longtime friend of the show.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

But I would say this even if you weren't. May you get the best version of Eugenio Suarez from the plate. Let May you get the Euenio Suarez who does not frequently fall behind in the count O2. Like, I hope you get the Diamondbacks version of him.

[Andrew]

And also, congratulations on Cintas. I just realized last year that Cintas is from Cincinnati.

[Luke Burbank]

That's where the sin is.

[Andrew]

I think so. Because I was watching. I was thinking about the Reds and I was watching a Mariners game, but they were in Cincinnati and there were like advertisements up in the bleachers. Like, not the digital ones, but actual real. It's funny that now we have to say I was watching a baseball game, but I saw real ads, not the ones that are superimposed on the field, but I saw a bunch of toss for. Pardon me, what's the toss? Oh, the to sin toss wiki.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm good.

[Andrew]

Look it up. It's got. I got. I don't know if I double checked this, but I gotta be right. I gotta be right. That's my new kit.

[Luke Burbank]

It says. Okay, let's see. The early company years, it was. It began as the Acme Industry Laundry Company, and then let's see. It's associated. It is based in Ohio, by the way. Let's see. I'm trying to get to the.

[Andrew]

Okay, it's in Mason, Ohio, but I.

[Luke Burbank]

Think Mason is right outside a suburb of Cincinnati, maybe.

[Andrew]

Let me double check here.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to get to the. I'm trying to get to the toss of it all, because the sin makes perfect sense. We used to get. When I worked at a plumbing company in high school, Cintas.

[Andrew]

Did.

[Luke Burbank]

Did your dad avail. Did Walsh Manufacturing use Cintas?

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. I still have my Cintas uniform shirt. One of them that says Andy on it.

[Luke Burbank]

We've talked about that. Like, I had. I. I paid for a Cintas uniform that said Luke out of my own pocket when I worked at the plumbing place.

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I thought. Because that was right at that moment.

[Andrew]

Where that look was in style, I would wear my work shirt sometimes out because it was my work shirt. Okay. Yeah. So it's just northeast of Cincinnati, But.

[Luke Burbank]

But like you say, probably they were totally, like. I remember at this. You know, at this plumbing company, they'd come around because all the real plumbers just had their, like, grubby Cintas, you know, uniform that they'd, like, wear while they were crawling around in muck, Andy Dufresne style, crawling through a mile of shit. And then they just, like, throw them in some kind of a thing and then put on their clean one, and then the new one would come back cleaned. And I was like, hey, what's the. What's the policy on the shop guy? Which was my job, getting one. And they're like, why would you need one? And I was like, I don't know. Well, could I pay for it? And they were like, I guess, yeah.

[Andrew]

But you did not take advantage of the. The. The laundry service, though, right? You were watching.

[Luke Burbank]

No, because I didn't do enough of the actual real grunt work. You know, I was sitting in a basement cleaning. You want to talk about a scam? I was sitting in a basement cleaning plumbing fittings that were harvested off of job sites and that should have just gone into the recycler or the trash, but were being used. Used on new plumbing projects. Yeah, it was a real new wine in old wine skins type of situation.

[Andrew]

I mean, some of those are reusable. Like, that was part of my job. The guys would come back from jobs at some job site where they're building something, and sometimes my job mostly with bolts and fasteners and stuff, and then I have to, like, Put them in order and organize them on this wall of bolts, which, as you would guess, really spoke to me. But also sometimes I'd have to go back into the pipe room and do the same thing. You got, you know, a three quarter quarter inch elbow or whatever. And you gotta kind of like get.

[Luke Burbank]

The little sandpeath, a little P trap.

[Andrew]

But I don't feel. But these were, you know, things for the machines that this company was building. And so they'd be screwing themselves if they were using bad parts, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Totally. This would be like a bunch of like copper elbow pieces that had been cut off.

[Andrew]

Oh, shoot.

[Luke Burbank]

And now we're gonna just be like. We would clean them and throw them in a pile and then it'd be like, well, we can torch. We can basically weld this back onto a New Jersey, a new job site kind of a deal or whatever. And it was very Sisyphean because the pile, we would. We'd sit there all day listening to David Bowie change his Bowie and make the pile of the ones we had to clean out. We would make that pile smaller because we would clean these things and then move them into these different kind of containers. And then we'd go home and then the plumbers would come home from whatever the job or come back to the shop and then we'd come in the next morning and the pile would be the same size.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like you get the pile kind of smaller and then you come back and then the pile has grown again.

[Andrew]

That's right. You worked for Sisyphean Plumbing.

[Luke Burbank]

I did. We sure did. Thanks also to Denise Stock, who's in Export, Pennsylvania.

[Andrew]

Oh, nice. Export. We got a call the other day from somebody from Media and didn't say Media, Pennsylvania. And it was just like, hi, this is Jane from Media. It wasn't Jane. I'm blanking on your name. Sorry. And it took me a while to figure out what media meant. And export is sort of the same way. Right. You kind of got to say the name of the state when you say it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, except I feel like you've got three. You got three names in Pennsylvania. I'm sorry, I just talked about this, so I won't belabor this, but you've got three places in Pennsylvania that I feel pretty confident. If you just say the first name. If you just say the first. I know we're talking PA Media would be one, export. And of course the third in the Holy Trinity is Intercourse. Intercourse, Media and Export. I'm. I'm pretty much. I. I know what you're talking about upon first reference, as it were.

[Andrew]

Now those are, are those all PA or those are just all cities that you know where they are?

[Luke Burbank]

I think those are all pa.

[Andrew]

Okay. Because I was going to throw in industry as well, but that's California.

[Luke Burbank]

Industry. Sure. Well, yeah, yeah. City of industry.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is a, which is a crazy name too. Thank you, Denise. Thanks to Joey Capotia of Kilauea, Hawaii.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Must be nice there. Our friend broadcast Barry spends a significant amount of time over that way. And this time of year, I have to say it drives a wedge in our friendship when I see what his life and Sam's life looks like compared to my life.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but you know, they're working their, their work. I know.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, it's all like. It's just, you know, it's their right to, to spend significant time in a warmer climate, but it's also. This is how the First Amendment works. And Andrew, it's Barry's right to post that stuff on Instagram and it's my right to resent him.

[Andrew]

So I was a little. Should we talk about Barry here for a second or should we just move on?

[Luke Burbank]

What's going on? We have breaking Barry news.

[Andrew]

Well, I was just a little confused about your text message with him this weekend, but it was also a private text message, so I'm trying to take you back. So you were saying on the show a while back something that a phenomenon, a cultural phenomenon that I was unfamiliar with about Sasquatch being sort of co opted by the right. Sort of. You said you would see like kind of big trucks or sort of MAGA coated things. But then you see a Sasquatch given a peace symbol or a rock and roll symbol or something on the back of the. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Carrying a US flag. It's like, it's basically like in the way. Think about the movie Rambo.

[Andrew]

Okay, I am. I was.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's like. It's basically like a kind of a person who's been, who's been mistreated by his government and now is just like. It's just sort of the ultimate libertarian. Just wants to be left alone, is generally peaceful, but will push back if provoked. And they've overlaid the sort of John Rambo character onto Sasquatch. Like Sasquatch, you know, is. And that to me, it's not exactly maga, but it's anti government. It's kind of right. It's right wing coded to me.

[Andrew]

I mean, Rambo was literally just walking through a town when they decided that he was Some sort of. Some sort of. Yeah, like, not hippie scum, but sort of wanderer scum. And so you understand why he. Why he'd be suspicious of the government. So I almost, like, don't think of Rambo. I would think of, like. I guess my problem with Rambo, like, First Blood, is sort of like I feel like there's a really big difference between the character of John Rambo in First Blood and then what the culture took away from Rambo, you know, and what ends up becoming to what Rambo ends up becoming in that series is much more sort of like what you described. But the first one.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you saying it doesn't get more nuanced as the. As the various sequels and three calls.

[Andrew]

Roll in, where they eventually send him back to Russia? No, to not.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no, he goes back to Nam.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I forgot. I was confused again, by the way.

[Andrew]

Okay. Yeah. So anyway, not to nitpick on that, but anyway, so. So Barry sends us a photo this weekend. And it is what you're describing, like, Sasquatch. It's like an image on the back of somebody's spare tire on, like, the back of a Jeep or something. He's like, this is our. This is Lyft that came to pick us up when we called a car. And it's like a silhouette of a Sasquatch giving a rock and roll symbol holding a big American flag or whatever. But Barry said he asked the Lyft driver about whatever small talk. And it sounds like this person was not in that Maga coded thing. He sort of sounded more like a hippie lifestyle thing. And you said, oh, see, this is what I'm talking about. And I was like, oh, is this what you're talking about? Or is it just like. Is this Sasquatch imagery a big tent?

[Luke Burbank]

I would say it's probably. It's probably a larger tent than I'm. Than I had perceived it to be or given it credit for. I think also this has to do with attitudes and latitudes. Two of the things that we talk about the most on this show now, Andrew, I think meeting this guy in Hawaii, because I believe he was their Uber driver in Hawaii. I could see this. So this guy. And just to be specific about what Barry, he said he was the nicest dude. Laid off from his job during the pandemic, grew a beard, describes himself as a hippie, bought a sailboat that he's fixing up and also lives on. I could see that guy who's. Let's just. I'm gonna guess maybe Sort of apolitical. Just kind of wants to live on his boat and grow his beard and whatever. I could see this Sasquatch thing appealing to him. I think where I live there's fewer of that dude. So the guys around where I live that embrace it are more like. I see them driving not so much Jeeps, but like big lifted trucks.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And that. And so I think I'm seeing. The more I'm seeing the more kind of like, at least in my perception, kind of right wing leaning or MAGA leaning version of the guy who thinks this. This Sasquatch is cool. And there's probably like guys in Hawaii that Barry's seeing who. That's not their interpretation of him. They think the Sasquatch is cool, but not for the same reasons as the guys who live down the street. Street for me.

[Andrew]

Right, right. So anyway, it's a bigger tent. It is a big complicated tent. But all of it has to do with maybe. Maybe seeing yourself as somebody who's not necessarily in the mainstream.

[Luke Burbank]

That's it. I think that's the. That's the through line. And you're right about that. Like somebody who feels like maybe the. The mainstream is not really for them. And for whatever reason they feel that way, this appeals to them a little bit. But it is a big tent, just like tbtl. It's a tent that. That's got room for everybody. Even people from Wellington, New Zealand, which is where Deborah Quinn is checking in from today. One of our donors. Thank you, Deborah.

[Andrew]

Thanks, Deborah.

[Luke Burbank]

Appreciate that.

[Andrew]

From all the people.

[Luke Burbank]

Hope things are treating you. It's New Zealand. They're also in. They're in summertime. They're in the absolute thick of it right now, probably.

[Andrew]

I'm looking up a weather right now.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you it is. It's toasty in New Zealand would be my guess.

[Andrew]

It's fair. It's 62 degrees. Whoa. But what time is it though? Oh, it's 8:00am in the morning, so.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, okay. Yeah. What's the. What's it gonna do today here?

[Andrew]

It's gonna go up to 68 by.

[Luke Burbank]

3Pm and you're sure that's. And that's Fahrenheit. That's not Celsius.

[Andrew]

I am looking. Let me see. It does say Fahrenheit. It's too.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe I guess New Zealand may not have the same climate as Australia.

[Andrew]

I do think of them Celsius. That would be amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, God. Broiling. Yeah. I guess I. Because they're geographically somewhat close to each other. I I would figure they have similar weather patterns, but they probably don't. I saw it was 113 Fahrenheit in Melbourne a week or two ago and. And so I guess I assumed everything on that side of the world was roasting. I am sorry.

[Andrew]

I'm just confused because now it's 53 degrees in Melbourne too, so they might just be going through a bit of a cold spell. But it is. Let's see here. Yeah, it looks like. Yeah, no, Australia is warmer. It's going to get up to 86 tomorrow. But anyway, I just hope everybody's doing well.

[Luke Burbank]

That's exactly what I'm hoping to. Deborah, thank you. This is the part of the show where I speculate on New Zealand weather.

[Andrew]

I just hope everybody's having a good time.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually, that kind of gets into Andrew. After we get on with the donors, I'll just. We can talk about secret mall apartment later. I'll throw down what's been going on in the family text chain. It actually involves New Zealand. So this is kind of foreshadowing. Thanks, Deborah, for that. Thank you for that convenient transition into the rest of the show. Thanks also to Mike Crawshaw of Western Springs, Illinois.

[Andrew]

Are you curious as to what the weather is like there?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I don't have to be curious. I know it be cold.

[Andrew]

It be 27 degrees. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Chilly out there in Western Springs. Hope you're staying warm, Mike. Thanks. Then also to Justice Gruno up there in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Another place nice that I figure is probably on the colder side right now. Thunder Bay, Ontario.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I bet you that'll give.

[Luke Burbank]

What bay is that? Is that Lake Ontario? Presumably? It's got to be a great lake, right? A great lake that goes up 12.

[Andrew]

Degrees in thunder Bay.

[Luke Burbank]

That's Canadian though. That is famous.

[Andrew]

Oh, is that what the C stands for?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, 12° Canadian.

[Andrew]

Exactly. F stands for Fanadian.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, exactly, exactly. Maybe that's the show title. I don't know. Thank you, Justice. Thank you to all of our donors. We really could not do TBTL without you.

[Andrew]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually, Andrew, I was going to explain in extremely what complicated terms that would be no help to our listeners about the visuals of a text message chain. But you've actually been on one of these chains. I don't know if you could see it though, because of the difference in your phone and my phone. Did you notice anything in the criminals during the NFC championship game that negatively impacted your ability to participate in the text chain?

[Andrew]

I did not personally, but I now Know what you're talking about. Because I was with a couple of the fun loving criminals in person to watch that last game, the Champions League game.

[Luke Burbank]

Including the criminal in question.

[Andrew]

Exactly. Including your brother David from the basement. And Camaro Kev. And Camaro Kev was complaining about not being able to read the text messages on the chain anymore because of a background image that your brother David said. Yeah, I did that. And I'm like, look at my phone. And mine just still looked exactly like it always did with just a plain background with bubbles on it.

[Luke Burbank]

That I've never been more envious of you and your Samsung Galaxy because yeah, somehow in the latest iPhone update it allowed you. We were talking the other day about how you are officially the administrator of the TBTL email account. Like if I need help from you, it goes through you. The buck stops with you.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Somehow David is the administrator of both the Kreminals and Hawk Squad. And how do I know this? It's because clearly on the morning he learned he could do this, which is make the entire background of my phone screen when I was on Hawk Squad or Kreminna a random photo, which I understand in theory is fun. And in fact he was doing a fun visual joke on the Kreminals. What it was was that kind of a extreme close up of John Ryan, our punter, throwing a touchdown in the NFC Championship game off of a fake field goal where it worked. He got the ball to our. The guy whose name is now eluding me at the moment, Terry something or other. It was a successful throw, but in the, in the throwing of the ball, John Ryan looked about as uncomfortable as I've ever seen someone on a field throwing an NFL football.

[Andrew]

His tongue, his tongue came waggling out.

[Luke Burbank]

He's making the face I would make if they handed me a football and said try to throw a touchdown, you know, so it's an incredible photo. But what it meant was I could not for the life of me, I'm already struggling with like eyesight. I was at the Warby Parker at the mall yesterday. Andrew Turn trying to see if I can get this figured out. They weren't taking walk ins for the optometry, but anyway, I can't see for shit anymore. And that John Ryan was killing me. But I also thought I was funny. But also I was trying to be go with the flow. I didn't know if other people liked or didn't like it. I didn't want to weigh in. But then the same thing happened on Hawk Squad. Because David's also the admin on that, and he made that into some photo of a shire in New Zealand that he and my dad had been to at a ged. I just like, could not for the life of me read anything. But again, I didn't want to. I didn't want to be, like, nitpicking and. Or if everybody else was enjoying it, I didn't want to. I didn't want to, like, ruin it for other people if they were liking looking at the shire. But finally, I'm just gonna be honest. What happened. Becca and I were in Miami. We went out for dinner. I had a few small beers, and I think I finally just hit my. I was at my limit. And so so basically this was the chain of events on the Hawk Squad.

[Andrew]

So.

[Luke Burbank]

So people were starting to comment on the background photo and saying, like, they thought it was cool or interesting or how did we do it? Oh. So my sister Hannah posted a picture of one of my nieces at a protest, at one of the anti ice protests, and this was my response.

[Andrew]

But just shared a photo though, right? Didn't change the background, just shared a photo.

[Luke Burbank]

She didn't change the background. She shared a photo of our niece participating in an important social movement. And my response was, I said, love to see it unrelated, we have to change the background screen. I can't see these messages to save my life. And then, thankfully, it was changed. And then David said, I get it. You guys just all hate seeing the beautiful memories that our father and I shared together because David and my dad went too New Zealand together on a fun trip many years ago. And then my dad goes, oh, that's where the picture came from. I thought my latest iOS update was messing with me because I saw Loader last week in the theater. My dad's theory was that he had been. He had attended Lord of the Rings in person, and that had led his phone to change the photo behind Hawk Squad to something related to New Zealand.

[Andrew]

Can I now. Now I'm going to say something as if I'm right about it, but I'm learning about this on the fly, so I could be wrong, but when you said that David is the admin of both of these, I was like, well, that's a hell of a coincidence. Maybe it's just that David is the only person who looked up how to do this. So I just googled, can anybody on a text chain in an iPhone change the background image? And everything seems to point to yes. The AI overview is telling me yes. And now I'm on the iPhone support guide. Adding messages. I'm sorry, Adding backgrounds and messages on iPhones. It says other people in the conversation can see the background on their devices and can change the background for the group. How about. I mean, I know you like interactive radio, and maybe this is just boring people to tears. What if I walk you through changing that to something else right now on the fly? Now, do you want to rock squad.

[Luke Burbank]

Or on the criminal?

[Andrew]

Whatever you want.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't. Listen, I don't want to be no butt, but I hate these background things.

[Andrew]

So you want to revert a lot. I can be through that.

[Luke Burbank]

It is in plane. We're in plane mode now.

[Andrew]

Oh, he took it off.

[Luke Burbank]

He was. Listen, David is a mensch. He was having fun. He immediately, despite his pretend protestations, he returned it to normal. Whatever. White background mode or whatever you would call it.

[Andrew]

What about criminals? Is that still.

[Luke Burbank]

Criminals is back to normal, too. We've. We've like the. The. The. The balance of the universe has been restored. And I don't.

[Andrew]

Wouldn't it be funny, though, if you. The person who complained, it suddenly just popped up on everybody?

[Luke Burbank]

It would be funny. Nobody except David will even know about this conversation. And he won't know about it for possibly days.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

It'll just be me jumping into the hospital. Let me consider it. But the rest of this. This is when it started to just like kind of a funny whatever oddity to a truly Andrew. I would call it outsider art.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

So my. My dad said. My dad thought that the background had changed because he attended a re screening of Lord of the Rings, which would be, like, insane if his phone was listening to that degree. My mom, or, excuse me, my sister Liz, ever the supportive one, said, I'm very impressed with your tech skills. D. Dave, me, ever the reproachful one, said, David lost his damn mind is what happened. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Because I thought David was the admin at the time. I didn't realize that anybody could do this. And then David then changed the background photo to a photo of his daughter Gemma, and he said, take that, Luke. Are you having a hard time reading that now?

[Andrew]

I love that from him. I was wondering when I had a. I had a feeling Gemma was going to enter this channel.

[Luke Burbank]

So now we're looking at Gemma's adorable face. But by the way, it continues to confound me when it comes to the reading. Because the problem is it's too much other stuff going on that's competing with the text no matter what the photo is. Unless it's a photo of like a white dinner plate or something, it's always going to have too much going on. So then I said to David, I'm skipping ahead some messages. I said, since apparently we're just posting our children now. Post this one, David. I dare you. Then I included a picture of Addie from when she was a little kid, which, to his credit, David did post. Okay, so now we're. Again, it didn't fix the visuals, but now the background photo is Adelaide. Then my mom just posts a random picture of my dad kind of confusedly, not smiling, but holding his mouth open. And she says, says your dad has a sweet smile back. Thanks to our local dentist. Worth it. And what it took me, like the better part of the afternoon to figure out was this was the evidence that my dad has just had, like some dental work done where he's had basically permanent implants replacing what used to be his kind of like partial. He used to have to kind of put some part of his teeth in and out. And I always knew, like, when. Remember when we hung out with Chris Hayes at Town Hall?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And we went and we got dinner later, you and Genevieve and I. But my parents came backstage before the show. I know my dad was like showing up and showing out when he had his full complement of teeth in because he wouldn't do it. Like, if we're just here working on the house, he's like, whatever. Yeah. And he doesn't have. He's. He's fortunate in that the teeth that, that, that he sort of was using, like a denture bridge with were not like his front teeth. They were kind of side teeth. Those are now legit. He's got those all filled in.

[Andrew]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

So then somebody then decides to make the entire background. The new entire background is now a photograph that is a picture of Addie with this photo of my dad showing off his dentures over Addie's body. That's now the new background picture.

[Andrew]

So somebody's into an infinity mirror. Oh, okay. They haven't photoshopped his head onto her body body or something?

[Luke Burbank]

No, they just screen capped. Weird double layered image of like Addie in the background with now like granddad showing off his dentures.

[Andrew]

That's pretty funny.

[Luke Burbank]

That's been screen capped and made the background of the whole thing. I wrote, someday, years from now, scientists will study this photo. We just ended up with like 30 layers of photos that were being photographed or they're being screen capped and then made the background photo. Until, until eventually we just had to delete the entire Hawk squad. And none of us have been on it since. We ruined it.

[Andrew]

We polluted it.

[Luke Burbank]

Now it's a super fun site.

[Andrew]

Just burn it down.

[Luke Burbank]

If you want to know where my sister Hannah fits into the discourse, Hannah also, ever the supportive one, chimes in and says it's been a challenging and emotional several weeks for our country. This quote, utter visual confusion, brought a smile to my face. This and the Hawks going to the super bowl. Xoxo Nice. So at least it all made Hannah's Sunday. So that's really what counts.

[Andrew]

Now what you need is to change the background yourself so that it's a photo of Leap Day Williams swabbing with your dad's new chompers over her face.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Apparently the new chompers might lead to a reduction in cigar smoking for Waltz.

[Andrew]

Oh, because he doesn't want to ruin him.

[Luke Burbank]

He doesn't want what he said to me. He was. Because he was considering, you know, taking the leap Day William on this. Taking the leap and paying a lot of money for my mom and dad.

[Andrew]

Right? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

To, to permanently replace these teeth that had been. That were pulled at one point and he was replacing with a, with a partial bridge. And he said if I go ahead and do that, no more on the cigars because I'm not going to spend all that money and then smoke the cigars. So I am like, you know, pretty psyched about that. We will find out, you know, if and whenever the next time my parents come down and stay with me is. We'll see. See if he's sticking to that or not. Because he definitely loved his cigars. They were definitely his big reward. He looked forward to. But this will be the test of if he was truly addicted to them or just, you know, they were, they were optional.

[Andrew]

I was going to say I don't think nicotine's addictive. It's probably just a mind over matter thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, he also, I feel like the last couple times he was here, he also was smoking fewer cigars because he just didn't have as many or something like it was. It's kind of. I do think he, my dad has, as far as I can tell, a highly non addictive personality. Like when my, when my mom got sober, he just like, just like no more beers for him ever. And he didn't seem to miss it one bit. You know, even though they had kind of become, you know, they had enjoyed their Costco wine they would buy and he'd have like a Henry Weinhardt's when he was out there grilling and stuff. But it seemed like that was no trouble for him to walk away from. So I'm hoping that the cigars are the same thing just for his long term health.

[Andrew]

Do you know that I've been having cigarette cravings more now than I can remember having, except for when I first quit smoking. Now I don't know how long ago I quit smoking. I'm almost wondering if I could look it up on my calendar because I quit smoking because I had, you know, they found some stuff on my tongue that was troubling and they had to have it removed. And it wasn't cancer, but it wasn't good. And so that scared the living hell out of me. So I quit. So if I went to my calendar, I could probably maybe find that doctor's appointment, that surgery date or dates because I think I had to go in a couple of times and it was very unpleasant as you'll recall. But that must have been at least eight years ago, I think. Right. Like it's been a while, if not a decade. It's more than five years, I feel like. And you know, for the most part it was hard to kick it, but I smoked by this point, you know, somewhere probably on average around five cigarettes an evening or something. You know, maybe weekends hanging out with people, I would smoke more than that. Maybe other nights I would smoke less than that. But you know, let's just say that I'm smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a week or something like that. And it sucks to quit, but I did it pretty quickly.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, supposedly that's like one of the hardest things to quit. People say yeah, and then.

[Andrew]

And I didn't really think about it too much. Now I do have like a little vape pen that has like literally the lowest level of nicotine in it possible. And I hardly ever use it. I just sort of have it. And it's not like one of those things that you see everybody now with these big pink things that are grip. Like I have an old fashioned little one that I can refill. I don't even know if I, if I run out of the juice on this. I don't even know if they would make it anymore because it was so low level, you know, but it's definitely. That for me is definitely more of a, of a mental thing. I just like to have that thing in case suddenly I want to start smoking again or something. But that's not usually the case. But the point is, I don't know if it's because I've been reading books where people smoke a lot. Like both of the longest book I just finished and the one I'm reading now, they're smoking all the time. Been watching a lot of black and white movies, or at least I was over the holidays. A lot of smoking in those. And I don't know if that's it, but I honestly. And I didn't do this, which is the only reason why I will tell you this is. When Genevieve was out of town a couple of weeks ago, I actually, for a relatively brief but serious moment, considered buying a pack of cigarettes, taking five of them and putting them in my shirt pocket and giving the rest to somebody at the gas station and just saying, this weekend I'm going to smoke these five cigarettes or less or something like that. And I'm glad I didn't do it.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But I was like, well, I think I could probably navigate this without going, getting. Without getting addicted again. And by the way, I told Genevieve this story. I'm not. I'm not. I mean, I would. I would feel so weird doing it around Genevieve or even saying, I'm going outside to smoke a cigarette. That's the only reason why her not being home would have been a part of it. I don't. I think if I had done it, I would have told her, for whatever that's worth.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But I wouldn't do it if she were home. And I think I was just having, like, this weird, like, little. I was gonna call it a boys weekend. I almost called it a little boys weekend, which is. Let's not do that. But I was having. Having a mini boys weekend where I was the mini boy, and I was just like, oh, maybe I'll just, like, buy a cigarette and smoke it on that walking bridge over Aurora or whatever. And I'm glad I didn't do it. But it was the first time in a long time that I actually was like, should I just do that? Should I just go to the store and just buy cigarettes? I can do that.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you part of it is because the pain and the fear of that event when you had to have those surgeries and when. When you were really nervous about what the diagnosis was going to be is further in the rear view. I bet you every year that goes by. I mean, obviously you remember sort of intellectually and consciously that it was really scary and also really a painful procedure and healing and all that. But don't you think maybe that's a little bit of it, that it's just. It was a while ago, and you successfully did quit, and you haven't had a recurrence of issues. And so maybe there's a little bit of. Bit of a slight mental relaxation around it that's seemingly imperceptible.

[Andrew]

What you're saying makes sense, and I don't want to dismiss it entirely, but I've been thinking about it, and the funny thing is, when I think about that surgery, I still can really remember sort of exactly what it felt like when I was trying, because it wasn't the surgery itself, it was me doing the show with you afterwards and not being able to talk because it was the side of my tongue where it hit my teeth. And so I actually feel like. I think what it was was a bit of just the cravings coming back, maybe because of the media that I have been, like, absorbing. I think also it was a bit of nihilism. Like, I think that the state of the world has me all jingle jangled.

[Luke Burbank]

It's kind of an effort, right?

[Andrew]

And I think it was sort of an effort thing. But then I think in that moment, I. I was just like, what the. Like, screw it, just get some cigarettes. But now in, like, you know, here on a Monday morning, I think about that. I'm like, yeah, but you know what would make all of this worse? Having more of those surgeries or worse. You know what I mean? Like, one of the things I'm very lucky for is that I'm able to navigate all this with a good doctor who's like, kind of looking after me now and has taken care of some health issues that I've had, and how lucky I am at knocking on the door of age 50 that I'm just now beginning in my life to have to actually, actually even think about my health in even minor ways. Like, I've been so lucky. Why in the world would I think, well, the world is burning. Why wouldn't I want somebody taking chunks of my tongue out of my face? Like, are you kidding me? Like, I don't want that. So I think that that was maybe part of it in the moment.

[Luke Burbank]

I so understand that impulse, though. Like, this feeling of, like, nothing, everything sucks. Nothing matters. Why not? And then thinking, but is this going to, like, is this going to be better with an insane hangover tomorrow?

[Andrew]

Right, Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Is this. Or in your case, this is going to be better with, you know, like, yeah, somebody trying to take chunks out of my tongue? It's like, of course the answer is no. But I completely understand that impulse of just being like, if, you know, if not if not now, when? Like, again, it's. You're right. It's nihilism in a way. And it's. And it's very tempting if your brain is wired the way my brain is of just being. Being like nothing matters, so why not? You know? And it's like, well, because it does matter. And also, if it's going to suck, it's going to suck worse.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

You know.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of smoking, I watched Fargo last night just to try to remember if it's the perfect film and the movie. It is.

[Andrew]

Yes, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Film.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And first of all, I want to just give you credit for the various parts of the movie Fargo that you have isolated for TBT audio. I think your. Your. Your decision making was flawless.

[Andrew]

Why did you watch it? And you're like, oh, I recognize this. I recognize this.

[Luke Burbank]

I was like, yes. I mean, there's just so much everything. I mean, the movie is literally everything anyone says is a drop. Yeah, but like the one that we pull, the guy who's called the police because he was at the bar.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. I. You know what?

[Luke Burbank]

At the lake.

[Andrew]

I think you suggested that or somebody else. Did I? Somebody else. Because we were, I promise you, just to, like, deflect a little bit of the glory here that you are raining upon me. I remember that was a specific intro that we used in Minnesota because we were, you know, working in Minnesota at the time. That was a very Minnesota drop. And somebody suggested that. I think it was you. But I. Because I had not remembered that part of the movie, and I grabbed it and I was like, it was perfect. So I can't take credit for that.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it maybe was Stu.

[Andrew]

Maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe it was Eric the Viking. I don't know. Were we working with John yet? Somebody. I mean, because. Because when I saw that scene, I thought, oh, man, Andrew pulled this. And, like, this is so great. And I didn't remember that scene until I was rewatching it, if that makes any sense. But just. I mean, that movie is just. It's incredible. But you know what I realized? Andrew, you wanna go? If we can sort of start to get on the glide path towards the end of today's episode with the kind of sort of where the episode started with me talking about my, like, weird sound that I now listen to to soothe myself, like, you know what I realized? Fargo is uncut gems. It's just the pressure is ratcheting up on. On William H. Macy's character. It's just everything that he's trying is going wrong more and More people are after him. It's falling apart in every possible way in. In much the way that it's falling apart for Adam Sandler's character in Uncut Ch Gems. And yet when I watch these movies, it somehow calms me. It's like taking Adderall to calm down your system. It's like you're taking something that's like speed or whatever it is chemically to quiet your brain, to calm your brain. It seems like it's the opposite, but I was just realizing like, oh my God, I love this movie. So much talk about Fargo now. And like it's just, it's just going from bad to worse.

[Andrew]

And he's getting more and more frantic in that way.

[Luke Burbank]

He's getting more frantic. He's trying more extreme measures. It's getting thwarted at every turn. The stakes are going up. People are dying or I don't know if anyone's dying yet in Uncut Gems, but people are definitely. His life is on the line. I just thought like, oh, there's some similarities in this movie that I didn't think about. And both it made me think I didn't do it. I was like, I could do a double feature when this is over. I could switch right on over to.

[Andrew]

Uncut Gems or somebody do some sort of a crazy mashup of the two. I see what you're talking about though, because I'm picturing it. It's been a long time since I've seen that movie, but I watch that movie a lot lot in the, in the 90s and 2000s. And like I'm picturing Jerry Lunder, guard in the, in his office or his boss's office, whatever, in the sales department of this auto dealership and him just getting more like, I know that, I know that, I know that like this sort of like self GMAC is calling him over.

[Luke Burbank]

They can't read the VIN numbers on the cars that he's clearly running some scam on.

[Andrew]

And you're absolutely right about the energy there. It's just like he's just lying and his lies get more and more bald faced and sort of of like crazy and he looks more and more crazy.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta be the guy on this deal.

[Andrew]

I gotta be the guy on this.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm talking to his father in law and the other guy about how he has to be the go between for the money.

[Andrew]

Oh my God. And then I love the role. You know, I always like to say this, that the ice scraper is like another character in the movie. But like that ice Scraper. That is both. Like, you see him in that scene where he's just like. He's at his limit and he's just, like, scraping. But then later on. Is it that same ice scraper that marks where the money is along the side of the road? Yes. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Which I'm like, that, like, stresses me out so much because I'm like, you gotta tie a ribbon.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Or I'm like, this ice skateboard is gonna be a snow drift. You're never gonna find that ice grape. I literally wanted him to go in the car and, like, rip part of your shirt apart. Like, you gotta get something on that barbed wire fence, dude. You're never gonna find that ice creeper.

[Andrew]

I know I've told you this before, but when I go to visit my dad, he still has a chotchki from that movie we got him. He loved that movie. And I believe we, his children or one of us got him that movie. Not even on dvd, I'm pretty sure on vhs when it was new on vhs, maybe around the holidays. And they sold it with a snow globe. Do you remember this? And my dad still has the snow globe. And it's the scene of the wood chipper. And so when you shake.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's got blood in it, right? Yes.

[Andrew]

When you shake the snow globe, it's white snow with red snow.

[Luke Burbank]

Even the merch is perfect.

[Andrew]

The water is turning yellow. I mean, think about how old that is. When did that, you know, come out? Or when did that hit vhs?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. What's the radioactive half life of that red dye that was put in the snow globe? Just the way. And then I'll stop. The way that his wife. The way that she frantically chops vegetables. I can't remember this. It's like. It's so, like. So in the first time we see her, it's like her dad has come over for dinner, I think somewhat unexpectedly. So Jerry gets home, and she's just, like, stress chopping vegetables in the kitchen, but maintaining that kind of Minnesota nice, but doing. You can just see on her face. And then cut to a different day when I think her son is home and Jerry's not home. It's the daytime, and I think she's trying to give the son a pep talk about how he's not living up to his potential. And she's chopping a different kind of vegetable with the same just unhinged energy. You could tell this is a person. Person who's processing a lot through the way she chops food. It's just like I don't know, just the touches on that film are just like, Are just so, so phenomenal. So I would, you know, if you'd like to watch a very kind of dark, depressing film, if that's your thing, I will recommend the movie Fargo. It really absolutely holds up.

[Andrew]

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

[Luke Burbank]

I've got a message from a female. My girlfriend, actually. And this is where Andrew, listen, I love and treasure Becca, but I don't know if she exactly knows how this show works because, like, when we were in. I think when we were in Miami, she said, you gotta ask Andrew if he does wordle on hard mode. And I was like, okay, because she loves wordle. I know you love wordle. Wordle. You're on a wordle group. I would honestly like. I would like to make an entree. I would like to make a connection where maybe she can be in that group because she's got a lot of thoughts on wordle. She's a dedicated player. But anyway, she said, you got to find out if Andrew does wordle on hard mode. I said, okay, but. And then what if he does? She goes, I just want to know if he does it on hard mode. I was like, I don't. I can't have a conversation with him.

[Andrew]

I don't understand. You don't understand the question and you don't know how to respond to it.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I don't play wordle on any mode. So I. I guess what I'm doing is I'm asking you if you play it on hard mode, you're going to tell me and then I'm going to report back to her and then she's going to say whatever her thoughts are on, and then I guess I'm going to repeat those thoughts to you at some point.

[Andrew]

And I'm. I'm not seeing what the issue here is. That works for me.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I'm happy to be the go between. I got it. Hey, you know what? I got it. I got to be in charge of this deal. Andrew got to be in charge of this deal. This has got to be my deal.

[Andrew]

So she didn't explain to you what hard mode is? Can I explain?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, she tried to, and I could not grasp it. It had. She tried very hard to explain hard mode to me, and I couldn't wrap my mind around it. It seems to have to do with, like, if you guess wrong in hard mode, you get Less information about what made your guess wrong or something.

[Andrew]

Okay, just forget about. Just forget everything that you just said. I need. I need.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, Already forgot it.

[Andrew]

I need tabla rasa here. Okay. I need a totally blank, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Easy.

[Andrew]

Okay, great.

[Luke Burbank]

I got. I don't got a thought in my head.

[Andrew]

Okay, so when you're first looking down at a wordle board, you see a bunch of squares, right. And you can start by just typing in any five letter word. And then you're gonna find out if you chose the right word or at least if you got any of the letters right. Yep. If you put in any letters and they're in the word but you have them in the wrong place, they will appear as. Yes. Yellow. If you put them down and they are in the right place, that letter will appear green. So you know that there's an R in the middle where it goes. And you know it's green and so you know it goes there. And then if you have letters that are superfluous, then it is just grayed out and, you know, don't use those letters anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Yep.

[Andrew]

In easy mode, you can just do that six times. Just put letters wherever you want and find out if you put them in the right place or if they're in the word or not. When you're playing in hard mode, if you have put an R down right in the middle and it's green and then you're floundering around and you just cannot figure out what this word is, you can't think of any words where R would be in the middle, but you just want to eliminate some other letters too. So you just put down some random word that you know cannot really be.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, in other words, I see. So you use that R spot intentionally for a letter you know, doesn't go there, but you need to take off the list.

[Andrew]

You just put a K there because you know, no, this isn't going to be the word. But you just want to eliminate some more letters because you're just going bananas.

[Luke Burbank]

You're basically like intentionally walking.

[Andrew]

Right. You're kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

You're making a strategic decision there, which you're going to put someone on base.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

But you're also going to get information.

[Andrew]

So you're going to put a K there in the middle, but you're going to sort of eliminate some other things and then you're going to maybe hopefully get it on the next turn.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew]

If you play in hard mode, it doesn't let you do that. The hard mode says, listen, I already told you. The R is green right in the middle of the world word.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

You know that now. You can't pretend you don't know that. And so it won't let you get down off that bounce, bounce. Get out of that bounce, bounce.

[Luke Burbank]

You know this.

[Andrew]

Exactly. So did I explain? Does that make sense, Andrew?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, that was like a really, really clear explanation. And I know exactly what you're talking about. And I want to. I want to thank you for that because, yes, I totally get that now. It also speaks to how sort of, I guess you could say, unsophisticated my approach to wordle has. Has ever been. I mean, I've played it a handful of times. It never even occurred to me to do that move where once I knew where a letter was, I was just like, well, that's. I will always play that letter there. It never even occurred to me to intentionally put a letter that I knew was wrong in order to get more information. Yeah. So.

[Andrew]

And by the answer your question, yes, I play on hard mode because I actually think it's a bit of a misnomer, as you just said. I don't think it's harder. I think it is. It. It disciplines you to make sure that you don't waste a turn like Hard Road has prevented me from. Because sometimes you're spinning out of control and you're just like, I just. This can't be a word, or whatever. And then you start putting down, like, fake words. And sometimes, like, the fake words will take. And you're like, shit, I just wasted a. Has wasted a turn out of frustration. And sometimes you might put down a word where you just accidentally put the R back in a wrong place when you knew where it went, and it'll say, hey, protect you.

[Luke Burbank]

That.

[Andrew]

And so for me, I think of it more as a protection plan. Exactly. But it's called hard mode.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, also, one of the things that she does is she changes her starting word every single day. And I think that sounds like madness.

[Andrew]

Now, this is a conversation. So I used the same word. I know we had this conversation recently. Forever and ever. The word was arise. I like the A, the I and the E in there. And then it hit. It was the first word a couple of months ago, or. I'm sorry, I won on the first turn because it was the word a couple of months ago. And then after that, I was sort of out in the wilderness. I was like, how fun is this? I'm not stuck to this word anymore. And so I was just using a different word every day or I had a handful of them that I liked and that was killing me. I have busted out of wordle like four times. I've ruined my streak like four times over the past, like two months, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Would you ever go back to Arise?

[Andrew]

Well, I don't like. This is where things get really interesting. Very interesting. Incredible. Almost too interesting. I don't like the idea of using a starting word that has already been a word. I like the thrill of thinking, hey, this could hit because it'll never be the.

[Luke Burbank]

You'll never come up with it on. It'll never be the first word again.

[Andrew]

It'll never be the word again, basically.

[Luke Burbank]

Right? The word.

[Andrew]

Sorry, the word. But I just saw a screen cap on Reddit and now I'm looking to see if this is if I got fooled by the Internet or if this is true. Wordle or the New York Times, apparently, who of course makes the wordle game, apparently announced that they're going to start reusing words. Because this has been a big conversation in our text chain is like, have I been busting out a lot more? Because I am not relying on my starting word that I was very comfortable with. With. Is it because the words are getting harder? Like, we feel like there's a lot more people who are failing at wordle these days, at least in our friend group, because they're scraping the bottom of the barrel on some of these words and so they're less common. And I saw something that claimed that wordle is going to start reusing starting or start reusing words as answers.

[Luke Burbank]

Because how many letters? How many letters is it? 5?

[Andrew]

6? 5?

[Luke Burbank]

There is a finite number of five letter English words, right? And if you, you know, I don't think they're hitting. I don't think they're at their limit, but they may have burned through the ones that are, like, easier to get.

[Andrew]

Here I'm on. I'm on mashable.com which is a little blast from the past. I don't spend a lot of time on Mashable these days. And the headline is major rule change coming to wordle. It takes effect on Monday. Oh, and this was written yesterday. So today. Wow, we are on the news. This should have been a top story. This should have been a top story. Wordlers, your favorite game, just changed its rules as of Monday. Previously played words may be reused. So there you go. Today is the day.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm texting all of this to Becca. I'm trying to get her response. I said Andrew plays on hard mode, but he thinks it's easier because you don't waste a game. Guess and beg said, I get that, but if you're going for the least number of guesses, it is harder. And I said, any responses I should relay to him. He thinks that the wordle is getting harder because they're running out of words. He said, I'm not sure about that. And then I said, today is the first day they will start reusing words. How many did he need today?

[Andrew]

I have not done it today yet.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually, you know what? I take it back. This is good podcast. I love it. It's great podcasting.

[Andrew]

It's great. And I am sharing with the wordle group group this news that's.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's actually, it's wild that this extremely disjointed conversation did lead us to the information, the legitim to our listening audience, the legitimately important information that today of all days, February 2nd in the year of our Lord 2026, during the.

[Andrew]

Day, during the perfect February that they're.

[Luke Burbank]

Starting during the perfect February that they're starting to reuse words. That's big news.

[Andrew]

That's huge news. And we got to it exactly how any professional broadcaster would.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, it's God bless the broken road that led us to this thing and to the end of today's episode. All right, that's gonna do it. But we are gonna be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. So please do tune in for that. In the meantime, may all your wordles go well. Have a great Monday day. Stay warm if you're somewhere cold. Stay safe if you're somewhere dangerous. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew]

And good luck to all. Power out.