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- [00:00]
Christopher Guest
I used to be able to name every nut that there was. And it used to drive my mother crazy because she used to say, harlan Pepper, if you don't stop naming nuts. And the joke was, of course, that we lived in pine nut. And I think that's what put it in my head at that point. So I'd go to sleep, she'd hear me in the other room, and she would just start yelling. I'd say, peanut, Hazelnut. Cashew nut, Macadam. Damien nutt. That was the one that would send her into going crazy.
- [00:38]
Andrew Walsh
Tbtl.
- [00:43]
Luke Burbank
You know, I would like to take this straw and stick it in your ear and extract everything you've ever thought or felt or seen or even dreamed about your profession.
- [00:55]
Andrew Walsh
I gotta be honest with you, sir.
- [00:57]
Luke Burbank
The kind of work I do, I
- [01:00]
Christopher Guest
don't think it's as interesting as you think it is.
- [01:03]
Luke Burbank
My podcast is on life support. Hey, I need new listeners.
- [01:09]
Andrew Walsh
That was a joke.
- [01:10]
Luke Burbank
Humor is the tool of the interesting. I was skeptical. It seemed too good to be true. I'm so glad I tried it. All right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of tvtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Oh, my God, guys, we are crushing it. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia. When you grow up out here, you
- [01:38]
Christopher Guest
learn to tell facts from fertilizer.
- [01:41]
Luke Burbank
We are just looking at an absolutely beautiful Monday 2nd March. We made it. Oh, ma pa. It's just beautiful. Got down to Lake Sacagawea this morning for a little bit, little brisk jog. The cherry blossoms are starting to blossom in places. The Daphne is doing its thing.
- [02:03]
Andrew Walsh
Beautiful purple balls.
- [02:05]
Luke Burbank
I mean, we're six days out from springing ahead. Can you tell that I'm just in an absolutely spectacular mood on this Monday? It might be because also I have unlocked the new coffee creamer situation here.
- [02:22]
Andrew Walsh
Like I figured it out last week.
- [02:23]
Luke Burbank
I was trying nut pods that wasn't working and trying to figure out a new plan. And now I have it figured out.
- [02:30]
Andrew Walsh
This song goes out to all the
- [02:31]
Luke Burbank
coffee lovers of the world. It's a little unpaid plug for something called Nori Protein Creamer. Lactose free sweet cream. Full explanation in a moment here on episode 4674 in a collector series, Let the fun begin. I'm also just happy because I'm like, here at the Madrona Hill studio again. It's got all my little stuff. Everything's where it's supposed to be. It's a lot better than hunching over a small coffee table in a hotel room like I was doing for most of last week. There is somebody. And listen, in this economy, I'm not out here generally speaking, calling for people to lose their jobs, but there need to be consequences for somebody at the McDonald's Corporation. You call hamburgers steamed hams? Yes, it's a regional dialect for letting this video out that we have. We have the audio of. Of the CEO of McDonald's eating their new. Some new product that they're trying to push. And I use the term product advisedly because it comes up in the video. We'll talk about that today. And we'll talk to this guy. Longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.
- [03:41]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, wow.
- [03:42]
Luke Burbank
He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.
- [03:45]
Andrew Walsh
Good morning, Luke. Listen, there was something I wanted to talk to you about at the beginning of the show today, but it's a little bit involved and it's not urgent. But as I listen to you kind of talk about what's coming up on the show today, I realize you have a lot on your mind. We're both coming in off the weekend with a lot to talk about. So what I do.
- [04:07]
Luke Burbank
None of my stuff is urgent either. It's just I have the coffee creamer product that I like. That's about as urgent as it gets around here for me. Also, I've had, like, four cups of coffee this morning because I've been doing all these different, like, Pepsi challenges. So apologies if I'm. If I'm bouncing off the walls.
- [04:22]
Andrew Walsh
Well, here's. I thought I could maybe just put you on the spot here. Do you have a pen near? But you probably have a pen near. Oh, hello, Mr. Bingo. Don't step on anything that's gonna.
- [04:31]
Luke Burbank
I thought you were excited that I had a pen right here.
- [04:33]
Andrew Walsh
I am excited that you have a pen right there. I need you to. Cause sometimes you will jot down, like, a note for tomorrow's show. Okay, so write down tomorrow, maybe even top story. Or we can start with it. Okay, ready? Andrew's Colombo Hat Mystery. Andrew's Colombo Hat Mystery. Write that down. We are.
- [04:53]
Luke Burbank
It's been. It's being written down. But honestly, I would say it's. That sounds a lot more interesting already than creamer talk.
- [05:00]
Andrew Walsh
I mean, it is pretty. It is. It is from a 1991 episode of Columbo. So it's like, you know, we're not reaching back to the 70s or something.
- [05:09]
Luke Burbank
I thought somebody stole your hat and you had to go Columbo on it.
- [05:13]
Andrew Walsh
No, I have literally a mystery about Columbo and a hat that wears about an episode of Columbo and about a hat that he wears in this episode that I have been going and doing a lot of research on and I am not satisfied with what I'm finding and I'm going to tell you about that tomorrow.
- [05:29]
Luke Burbank
Have you just. Have you thought about hiring a clogged agent and asking it to go off and, and I don't know if you're. I was listening to the Ezra Klein show this morning on my jog and he was talking to the co founder of Anthropic and man, it is. It's really, really wild out there with what these, these AI agents are able to do. And, and by the end of my jog I thought, well, I guess I'm just going to have to hire one of these and then turn over every life decision to it just for.
- [06:00]
Andrew Walsh
And I think, or.
- [06:02]
Luke Burbank
Or move to the woods and cut off all communication with society.
- [06:05]
Andrew Walsh
Well, I feel like I'm only one of the two I moving more and more in that direction. Like I have, I have like. I now keep this stack of note cards. This is like a very small thing, but I was thinking about it yesterday. I keep a stack of note cards on my desk here now. And I realize I'm taking all kinds of notes on note cards now. Whereas I think I used to write notes and did like write directly into the computer or send myself emails. I still do all of that. But I swear I am moving. There's something going on with me where I swear I'm moving further and further away from tech as. And by the way, I want to say a Claude agent. When you first said that, I thought you were making some sort of Dr. Claude joke from Inspector Gadget. Of course, you're talking Claud and an AIA agent.
- [06:45]
Luke Burbank
Claude was the. That was the evil organization, right?
- [06:49]
Andrew Walsh
I think it was Claude. Dr. Klaue was the guy who pet the cat, right? Yeah, but I don't know. I think the evil organization was named something else. But I actually kind of liked the Claude commercials during the Super Bowl.
- [07:04]
Luke Burbank
Well, I did too. And you know what I learned about about those because I was on a flight and I was talking about them with the person next to me who I think worked in either advertising or something. They said, oh yeah, well, those were made by Mike Mills. Mike Mills, Really?
- [07:19]
Andrew Walsh
That makes sense.
- [07:20]
Luke Burbank
Is this director, this very interesting director who there's an entire song by the band Air called Mike Mills. That's how when you get to the level where Air is writing a song about you, you are pretty, pretty good at whatever it is that you're trying to do. And it makes total sense that there's that kind of dreamy. I. For some reason, I kind of call it almost like a Blade Runner, but not so much in the dystopian sense, but it's got that propulsive Blade Runnery music that, you know, I love so much, that time cop 1983 kind of a vibe. And yeah, I do like those commercials a lot.
- [07:53]
Andrew Walsh
The reason I like them though was because they were making fun of AI until the point was, well, our, our AI is better than that. But it is. But I mean, essentially it's a commercial based on like we're talking about. There were two.
- [08:04]
Luke Burbank
We're talking about different commercials. I'm really sorry, I've confused us right here at the top of the show. You mean the one where the guy trying to learn to do a chin up? That's.
- [08:11]
Andrew Walsh
That was the second one. And the first one aired like literally in the break.
- [08:15]
Luke Burbank
Okay, we are talking about the same commercial. Yeah, I clearly missed the entire point. You're saying it's making fun of AI?
- [08:20]
Andrew Walsh
Well, it's making fun of. At first you think it's making fun of AI Then you realize they're just making fun of their competitors AI and saying that they're going to be better. But basically what you have is human beings talking to another human being in each case. And you don't realize as the viewer at first that one of the human beings is a stand in for AI and in the first one we're talking about different commercials. No, the chin up one is one of them.
- [08:44]
Luke Burbank
Well, there's a guy, he's standing, he's on like a hill in la. It's just him and propulsive music and then a bunch of text where he wants to learn how to do a chin up. And it's just giving him, just giving him a routine, a way to get to it. And the camera just 360 around him.
- [09:00]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, that, that. It's weird that there are two AI Chin up commercials, but there's another one. So there are two commercials. Let me describe these to you from the beginning. So the first one doesn't have anything to do with exercise, but it really caught our attention. There's a man, I don't know, in his 30s or something, and at first you think he's in a psychiatrist's office or a therapist's office, but you sort of realize later it's his home, but it's modeled sort of so that it would be confusing. And he's talking to a woman who seems like a therapist. But after he asks his question, which is about, I think, how to maybe break some barriers with his mom in their relationship, her head sort of like just. She pauses just for an extra second and then sort of turns on. It's a very, very subtle acting performance. And you realize she's acting like AI and she says, great question. And then she starts discussing some ways he could get over this barrier with his mom. And then she starts saying, and if you don't achieve that, you can check out goldencrugers.com and she start selling him this ad for like, you know, some sort of, well, some Golden Cougars commercial where he could possibly find an older lady of his dreams. And the whole point is Claude is saying, listen, advertising, like, this is coming to AI but we will never have it. And then there's another one that aired later in the super bowl which is very similar, which is a kid or a kid. I mean, I'm like my dad. I call everybody a kid now. But there's some young man and he's like doing pull ups somewhere or doing some sort of exercise outside. And then he says, is, is there a better way to get buff fast or something? Build muscle mass fast or something? And same deal. He turns to this very athletic man who is standing next to him. And then the man just pauses for a split second and says yes, and starts giving him some advice on working out, but then slips into some sort of a, you know, protein powder ad or something. Basically, yeah. And basically it's like, oh, this is what advertising is going to look like. And the thing is, the ads are just really, really done well. And there's this small moment where the human's head just sort of like. And then they always say great question in that fake AI way that they always begin their answers. And anyway, both of those caught my eye, which is why I thought you were talking about the pull up AI commercial when we.
- [11:15]
Luke Burbank
Okay, so oftentimes I'm confused and wrong on the show and it's usually my fault. In this particular case, I'm blaming the fact that they were running. There are two AI commercials about a guy trying to learn how to do
- [11:27]
Andrew Walsh
a pull up during the Super Bowl. I didn't see this other one.
- [11:30]
Luke Burbank
I don't know if this was in the Super Bowl.
- [11:31]
Andrew Walsh
But this is Chat GPT.
- [11:33]
Luke Burbank
It's called Pull Up.
- [11:34]
Andrew Walsh
Oh yeah, chatgpt.
- [11:36]
Luke Burbank
You probably know we've talked about the
- [11:38]
Andrew Walsh
campaign before with the scrolling letters. I know this campaign. Yeah.
- [11:42]
Luke Burbank
And so anyway, that's when you said the thing about Claude. In my mind, I switched it to being this ChatGPT pull up commercial, which is the one that I'm obsessed with, that is made by the guy Mike Mills. And that is a kind of a more of a, you know, sort of artsy dream state thing. Although what you're saying about the Claude ads is it's funny because it, it very much mirrors what the Claude co founder, this guy named Jack Wilson, I think is his name, was saying today to Ezra Klein about the fact that like we are in this era now of AI, where he said it's like the early Internet in that. Not that the Internet is exactly like not full of spam and bugs now, but there was a period of time where it was even harder to figure out facts from fertilizer. And you might add something to your search bar that was literally just like something that was then spamming your computer. You know what I mean? Like there was like those fake search bars that would take over your computer. He was saying specifically that that's the issue. One of the big issues with AI right now is it is totally the Wild west and there's a bunch of crap out there that is confusing and advertorial and misleading and all of that. So.
- [12:46]
Andrew Walsh
And just wrong. I mean, does it have a better than 50% accuracy rate at this point? I mean, my interaction with AI, any kind of AI, you know, tool, with the exception of some things, unlike, you know, tools that are built into Photoshop or whatever. But like, like kind of I'm looking for information is so limited that I. And probably self selecting so that like I only remember the stuff that goes so wrong. But like I just, you know, from my, from my rank, my baseball fantasy draft last year to people just sending in. People were sending in some other things too, like some phrase that we sometimes use on the show or we play a drop on the show and if you ask the computers about it now, it says that it's some phrase that originated with tbtl and I guess that could be good for us, but it's like, it just seems like it's just wrong all the time. I mean, that seems like a big problem with it. At least the original Internet was sort of like what you were getting was you could, you know, read the newspaper or get people's opinions. Not just like be fed misinformation, just mistaken. Not even misinformation like a campaign, just mistaken information.
- [13:50]
Luke Burbank
Too bad they're late.
- [13:53]
Andrew Walsh
Tbtl.
- [13:56]
Luke Burbank
That was what they. That was something that came up when we were searching for something that was the blur.
- [14:01]
Andrew Walsh
Was it the blurs days?
- [14:02]
Luke Burbank
It was something about TBTL birthdays or something. We're trying to find out. And it just completely hallucinated that there's something called a too bad they're late card.
- [14:09]
Andrew Walsh
Right.
- [14:09]
Luke Burbank
That was its way of trying to combine the idea of the letters TBTL and like a birthday message of some kind.
- [14:16]
Andrew Walsh
Picture somebody shrugging, too bad they're late. That's the COVID of the card.
- [14:20]
Luke Burbank
Speaking of misinformation, Andrew, you saw that I had a strong reaction to your choice of introductory tape today, which is of course, that's Christopher Guest playing Harlan Pepper. I believe in. That was the.
- [14:37]
Andrew Walsh
That's from Best in Show.
- [14:38]
Luke Burbank
That's Best in Show, right? Cause he's raising those, those hound dogs or whatever. But we love that tape where he's talking about naming nuts and, and that how he would drive his mom crazy naming nuts. Well, I thought it was a really nice little piece of. What do you call this when. Well, yes, but the Encyclopedia Britannica put out a tick Tock post that basically points out that everything Harlan Pepper is naming except hazelnuts. Everything else is not a nut in that list. This is from the Encyclopedia Britannica TikTok feed in this grouping. And they've of course included the clip that we started with of Christopher Guest naming nuts. They said in this grouping, hazelnuts are the only true nuts. Peanuts are legumes and cashews and macadamia nuts are seeds. And I was like, this is very smart by encycling Britannica.
- [15:32]
Andrew Walsh
Where did you said, where did pine nuts.
- [15:35]
Luke Burbank
They didn't mention pine nuts.
- [15:36]
Andrew Walsh
Mention it. Okay.
- [15:37]
Luke Burbank
In this grouping. Now maybe they've edited it cleverly. Maybe they, they wanted to make the point. I could even. Well, you know, Tick Tock audio is dicey at best. But let's see if it'll play this because.
- [15:47]
Christopher Guest
So I'd go to sleep, she'd hear me in the other room and she would just start yelling. I say peanut, hazelnut, cashew nut, macadamia nut. That was the one that was sent home into a going crazy. Said, you stop naming nuts.
- [16:10]
Luke Burbank
So they, they, they, they probably cut around pine nuts or whatever because maybe that didn't support their case. But I just thought this was whoever is over there at Britannica trying to figure out. I mean, you want to talk about like, you want to talk about like I did a TV story about Encyclopedia Britannica once years ago. But you want to talk about working in the like, you know, horse and buggy department as, you know, as Ford Model A's are spinning past. You like to be the person that's trying to keep Encyclopedia Britannica somehow relevant. And I don't say this to be critical of them, it's just that we, we now live in a world where information is so, so available and so cheap. And back when you know, somebody would come to your door and try to sell your family a lifetime of information by way of these Britannica encyclopedia books,
- [17:01]
Andrew Walsh
which we had and we like so carefully because they were so expensive.
- [17:06]
Luke Burbank
It was like, it was like a family heirloom. It was like this was going to be passed down from generation to generation.
- [17:11]
Andrew Walsh
You know, I feel like for some reason I'm both foggy on a Monday morning, but for some reason compelled to keep going.
- [17:18]
Luke Burbank
I'm coked up for both of them.
- [17:20]
Andrew Walsh
Good. Going big with some sort of like statement about the Internet and information. But you were mentioning this interview with the Claude CEO or founder or whatever it was and how kind of referencing back the early days of the Internet and kind of having some risk around the wild Westiness of it. It is funny, I think that I feel like early on, tell me if you think I'm wrong about this, but early on Wikipedia was almost the thing you would point to as why the Internet shouldn't be trusted. Like we used to have like, you know, actual bounded encyclopedias that had been vetted and they were real information. And then it was like, and the Internet, you have a bunch of people writing their own encyclopedia. You can write anything. But like now, now Wikipedia has basically become one of the most trustworthy. And like I, you know, I'm always a sucker for throwing a little bit of just throwing a little change their way when they're doing Jimmy, giving Jimmy a little taste. Yeah, I think you've done the same thing. It's become such a fundamentally important part of the Internet that has proven itself to be self correcting and self checking.
- [18:29]
Luke Burbank
Wikipedia is the Minnesota Police Department, as is ice. Is everything else on the Internet, like it takes a lot, it takes a lot of slop to suddenly be like, well, I read it into one trusted site on the Internet. Wikipedia.
- [18:41]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, that, that anybody.
- [18:43]
Luke Burbank
Only by the awfulness of everything else has Wikipedia emerged as the one, as something that we now go you know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Wikipedia. I'm sorry we doubted you for all those years.
- [18:52]
Andrew Walsh
And it is in the model. I mean, if you take a moment to think about it, it is astounding that, like, they were right. They said, no. We will have checks and balances and editors who really care. And if you write, you can go in there, right? Well, I couldn't because I'm too dumb to know how to edit Wikipedia articles. We tried.
- [19:09]
Luke Burbank
How do I edit my own Wikipedia page?
- [19:11]
Andrew Walsh
How do I create my own Wikipedia page? Remember somebody was at Cheryl. Remember Sherrilyn Corvallis made one for me and they took it down because I wasn't famous enough?
- [19:19]
Luke Burbank
That's crazy.
- [19:20]
Andrew Walsh
TBTL has one and it links to you. But then my name is not a hyperlink anymore.
- [19:27]
Luke Burbank
That's. I mean, that is just absolutely wild to me, that of all of the. Of all the. I don't know what you want to call it, the sort of checks and balances and, like, I don't know if you'd call it security, but, like, what is in it for Wikipedia of repeatedly denying your existence? It's just the strangest thing for them to get hung up on it is. And considering you'll occasionally give them five bucks. You know what I mean?
- [19:52]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, well, maybe that was before I donated.
- [19:54]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, exactly. For me, it's like I donate to Wikipedia when the appeal for money becomes 90% of the Wikipedia page. You know how I feel? Like that banner just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And then one day I'm like, God damn it, I'll give you $5 if you just.
- [20:09]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [20:10]
Luke Burbank
Will that reduce. Will that reduce this tumor of. Of. Of begging me to. You know, again, we are a show that, in a way, sort of begs for money or at least reminds folks that we need their donations. So I gotta tread lightly here. But there is this weird thing where eventually, when they're. When it gets loud enough on the screen, I will kick them a few bucks. Like, here you go, guys. You're doing God's work. Thank you very much.
- [20:30]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. And also, I will still take that banner over. I mean, now this just gets into old man yelling at cloud of today's technology. But, like, I understand that, like, a lot of good news sites are behind paywalls for a reason. But then, you know, if you hit that paywall, then you're, like, scrambling around for some other source on it, and you find yourself on these mobile news sites that are. They are like a parody. Like, if you were Doing a Tim and Eric sketch about pop arts.
- [20:56]
Luke Burbank
It's called the Internet.
- [20:57]
Andrew Walsh
It's called the Internet.
- [21:00]
Luke Burbank
It's a fun way to. What did he say?
- [21:01]
Andrew Walsh
I can't remember. Off the top I have. But I love the way that it's on disks so he doesn't have to worry about security. But I mean, you must come across this too. It is astounding. To the point where there will be literally two lines. I'm not exaggerating. Literally, there will be a window where two lines of text can get through. Like a banner ad at the top, a pop up on the side, some sort of a sign up for our newsletter at the bottom. And you are just like scrolling so you can read like two lines at a time. Like you're at a doctor's office.
- [21:34]
Luke Burbank
I have a. Which I could share with you. I do have a tried and true little web portal that I can use when I hit a paywall that I'm not paying for. And I pay for a lot of them. I pay for the New York Times, I pay for the Seattle Times, I pay for the Oregonian, I pay for umbrella up here. I pay for both of my local papers, the Daily News and the Columbian. So I feel like I am. I am contributing to journalism, I think as much as reasonably can be expected. So when I hit an article that I don't have the, you know, account for, I. This is just me just obviously justifying the fact that I'm stealing content. But I do have a pretty useful and pretty reliable way around that if you ever want me to share that information.
- [22:15]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, that sounds good. I had a. Oh, I was gonna say. And I've said this before on the
- [22:21]
Luke Burbank
show you for the Roku you sent me.
- [22:23]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, yeah, I know. And you, it looks like you have some beef with Roku we got to get into too. But I. I know I've said this a million times on the show, but I feel like it's more true today than ever now that we all are. Not all, but now that a lot of us are using like, you know, digital little purses on our phone. I can't remember what you call the iPhone. Like Apple, Apple Pay. Right. And I have Android Pay or whatever it's called. I don't know. And like all the ways, like it's so easy, one click shop now as opposed to, you know, back in the day, you get out your credit card. I cannot believe that a newspaper has not tried more of a. You can't read this article right now unless you give us $3 or $2. Like I would be handing over so much money just to read one article. But I'm not going to subscribe. Like, I just want to read this one thing, you know what I mean? Like, I don't. And it's such a bad model that it says, okay, you can read this if you sign up for, you know, one free month and then pay for the rest of the year. It's like, but I just want this thing now. And I just feel like it's so seamless now. If I ran a newspaper, I would just say, yeah, a la carte. Want to buy this article. You know, it'll be much cheaper if you sign up for a month or a year. So you know, I encourage you to do that. But if you just want this article, 50 cents I bucks.
- [23:40]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah. And I mean that the trick there would be to I guess integrate it with again, whatever the Apple pay or Shopify or. So that I don't have to do, I don't have to re. Input all my information because yeah, if I could just click on that. The other thing too, and this is actually, this might be a negative. And now I'm just talking like one of them Silicon Valley types that I aspire to be after listening to one episode of the Ezra Klein Show. But what you could also find out then is what was your best selling article last year?
- [24:08]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:09]
Luke Burbank
You know what I mean? I mean, I guess they already like digital. You can already tell what's getting clicked on. So I guess, I guess, I guess it's, it's, it's not nearly the information black hole that it used to be when you printed a newspaper and sent it, you know, and mailed it out or delivered it to folks. And, and yet there was something that was kind of probably kind of great about that because there was probably a lot of journalism that was like important journalism that was good that we had it in the newspaper and we, we had it in the newspaper because we just didn't, we couldn't tell if that's why people were buying the newspaper. Yeah, that's a good thing.
- [24:42]
Andrew Walsh
And I mean, that's actually a really good point too. Like I used to, you know, on days that I wanted to read the New York Times, I would go and buy a New York Times. You know, you didn't have to subscribe for a year and we just don't have that any, we do not have the digital equivalent of that. Right. Like, well, I just want to buy the Seattle Times for the day and read it.
- [25:03]
Luke Burbank
You Know, speaking of the New York Times. Yeah. So I subscribed to it and oddly enough, I have a digital subscription. And. And. And now I'm on all of the. You know, you and Hayes twisted my arm and so I'm at the. I now I'm at the, like, Cadillac level. Like, I've got. I think I've got Addie on my account. I got Becca on my account. I'm getting to all the cooking and the athletic. But weirdly, it was cheaper if I took physical delivery of the paper, which.
- [25:29]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, yeah.
- [25:30]
Luke Burbank
Really surprising to me that I. I guess maybe they want to get you in the. I mean, I would think of anything New York Times when you get. Would want to get you out of the habit of trying to get the physical newspaper.
- [25:40]
Andrew Walsh
Is it the weekend one? Because I had a plan like that for a while. Yeah. Yeah.
- [25:44]
Luke Burbank
But it was cheaper for me to get the digital package that I have if I agreed to take delivery of the paper. Which I was like, okay, but here's the thing. I live in the hinterlands. And so my Sunday New York Times would arrive at about Wednesday in my mailbox.
- [26:02]
Andrew Walsh
For real. It was coming days later.
- [26:04]
Luke Burbank
No, it was being mailed to me. Like, there is not. There's nobody driving a New York Times delivery route out here where I live. And so what I realized was, oh, I should just send this to Becca's house because she lives in urban America, in Portland, in war torn Portland, on the very same street as ice. And so she now gets the paper. And yesterday morning. So I stayed over on Saturday night.
- [26:27]
Andrew Walsh
You give her the key, she goes into the box, she gets the New York Times. But you can't open it until her key unlocks the newspaper for you.
- [26:36]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, we call it the old 50 shades of gray Lady. That were.
- [26:42]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [26:43]
Luke Burbank
Trying to.
- [26:44]
Andrew Walsh
I would just say 50 shades of
- [26:46]
Luke Burbank
joke, but it's about the New York Times.
- [26:47]
Andrew Walsh
You know what, I'm writing it down. 50 Shades of Gray Lady. Many people have pointed out that one of the biggest sins of TBTL in recent history is that I didn't name whatever episode you came up with. Boxes, deliveries, Deliveries. Stamps. Mail was not the name of the show. So we will rectify that as best.
- [27:04]
Luke Burbank
We're working on that right now, by the way. Various channels.
- [27:07]
Andrew Walsh
50 Shades of the Gray Lady. Okay, go ahead.
- [27:09]
Luke Burbank
But so. But no, it was like a throwback Sunday morning to, I don't know, my life maybe 10 years ago because we got the New York Times. The physical New York Times on Sunday morning took Gigi for A little walk, and then came back and had had the coffee and divided up the New York Times.
- [27:29]
Andrew Walsh
Yep.
- [27:30]
Luke Burbank
Sat on the couch, was reading it about five minutes before I got back on my phone. But there was a moment. There was five minutes in there, Andrew, that was just like. I was like, holy shit. This is what life used to feel like. It was really nice, actually.
- [27:43]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. That I went through that phase, too. I feel like living in New Hampshire and then, but also in Boston. I used to love wandering around Boston with the. With the New York Times, like the weekend paper, whether it was a Saturday or the ginormous Sunday one that just gets, like, messier and messier as the day goes on. But.
- [28:00]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, well, there's a whole strategy, I think, or there's a whole system, which is. For me, it was like I would read the Sunday styles. I always liked that section because it had lots of, like, kind of serious, but not too serious stories in it. You know, trend pieces and, you know, the Ethicist or whatever. It was kind of like the fun part of the paper. Then I would read as much of the main cover as I could stand. Of course, on Sunday, it was US Declares war on everywhere.
- [28:26]
Andrew Walsh
Right.
- [28:27]
Luke Burbank
And then I would save the magazine because the magazine felt like it was durable, like you could. The magazine could hang around. Had a longer shelf life in my glossy. Yeah, it's glossy. And that's, by the way, still in there. It's still glossy, still, you know, happening. I think that was maybe part of what I was just like, loving about. It was. It was mostly unchanged from the last time that I was reading a New York Times Sunday edition. And there was something I needed that on. I really need. With everything that's going on in the world, I needed one thing to feel like it used to feel, and that was the New York Times.
- [29:03]
Andrew Walsh
I'm glad you're enjoying it. So I'm not telling you to cancel it, but you asked like, you know, how is this a better deal for them? It's a better deal for them because eventually this promo is going to run out and then you're. They're going to, you know, have you on this higher tier. That is the weekend plan. So just keep an eye out for that.
- [29:18]
Luke Burbank
Oh, well, I'll tell you what, man.
- [29:20]
Andrew Walsh
Clear.
- [29:21]
Luke Burbank
Clear. The. As the, you know, the. The airport, whatever you want to call it, get around. Yeah, I'm canceling that bad boy completely because here's what I realized. I use clear. I probably. Well, I mean, I use it a lot now, but not never. There's probably been one or two times that I've gotten to the airport, and I've been like, OMG, even the TSA PreCheck line is crazy. I'm gonna miss my flight. Oh, thank God there's clear. Because, by the way, they don't have clear at every airport. And so a lot. A lot of things have to fall into place for it to actually do the thing that I think of it as being its value, its utility, which is I'm, you know, missing one flight costs me as much as an entire year of subscribing to clear or whatever. But here's the thing. You can sign up for clear standing right there at the little kiosk. Like, if you don't have it, you can sign up for it in three seconds. And in fact, because I've had an account, I'm sure it's even faster. I'm sure they'll just, like, re. You know, recharge my card or whatever. So there's no reason for me to, like, spend a yearly subscription on this thing without really knowing if it's ever going to actually come in, like, handy. I'm using it because I'm paying for it, if that makes sense. Like, there's eight people in line at TSA PreCheck, which does not mean I'm going to miss my flight. It means I'm going to wait for seven minutes or I go through clear, which I do because I'm like, well, I'm paying through the nose for this. I'm going to cut ahead of those people in that line. That's the. That's the main way that I'm using it right now, out of a sense of, like, I got to use this because I'm paying for it, so I'm canceling it. And then if it ever is the case that I'm going to literally miss my flight, I'll just buy it then. But so I went on.
- [31:08]
Andrew Walsh
How quick is that transaction?
- [31:11]
Luke Burbank
Very quick. And I know because when we were flying to Europe last summer, it was one of those scenarios where the lines were really crazy and Becca had had an account, like a. Like a trial account, which then was still on her account, so she couldn't sign up for a new trial account. Somehow I got tricked into adding her onto my account standing there, which cost me $125 for a year. Back to your thing of, like, a la carte. Why can't I just pay five bucks to get her through? It was like, now she's on my framily plan. That was the other thing. I saw this clear. I'll give them credit. On. On. On one thing. They sent me an email today that was like, hey, we're renewing your framily plan in like at the end of March. Just a heads up, which I'm very glad they did because of course I don't know when this thing's renewing. And I was like, like, dag, it's $329 a year. What am I a dazzling donor to? Clear. And so I went on there and I was like, why is it so expensive? I was like, oh, because they're also trying to re framily me with Becca. And I was peace and love. Listen, I love the gal. I love the gal, but I'm not framilying her on clear indefinitely. This was one thing so we could get on our flight to Europe, which happened to be a one year membership. But like. So then I went in and I was like. And this is when I had the thought, like, how many times in the last 12 months did this thing actually mean the difference between me missing my flight or not? Or was it just something that maybe sped up my trip through the security by a few minutes? And it was really door number two. So I went to cancel. It said cancel plan. And they, Andrew, they went on, please don't cancel. How about three free months? We won't even. We won't even talk to you for like, we're moving your. We're moving your renewal date by three months. And so I did say yes.
- [32:58]
Andrew Walsh
They said, look into your heart. Look into your heart. I just watched that.
- [33:03]
Luke Burbank
A Dan Hadeya.
- [33:04]
Andrew Walsh
No, it's. It's a. It's a John Turturro from Miller's Crossing. Oh, it wasn't a good one, but it lives. No, you know what?
- [33:13]
Luke Burbank
Now that I know that I can hear it. And it's also. I haven't seen Miller's Crossing, but I bet you I could name the scene. Are they in the woods? And is he on his knees?
- [33:21]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. You haven't seen Miller's Crossing? That's a. It's a. It's an excellent. It's an excellent. I know.
- [33:26]
Luke Burbank
It's a. It's a blind spot for me. I know. It's like. It's like OG Coen brothers.
- [33:30]
Andrew Walsh
It's really good. You know, I have a. Well, we don't have to get into all this. I loved that movie back in the day, but that was also when I loved everything that the Coen brothers did. Like, I Just was undiscerning about it. And I still love the Coen Brothers, but you know, there are some. You go back and you watch and you're like, okay, I understand why I liked Hudsucker Proxy, but it doesn't quite stand up the way I thought it did back when I was in, you know, college.
- [33:56]
Luke Burbank
I don't think I even knew that was Coen Brothers.
- [33:58]
Andrew Walsh
The Hudsucker Proxy.
- [33:59]
Luke Burbank
Loved that movie.
- [34:00]
Andrew Walsh
I know. I did too. Loved it.
- [34:01]
Luke Burbank
I have not rewatched it.
- [34:03]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [34:04]
Luke Burbank
But anyways, all Newman hula hoops and pneumatic tubes. Those are the things I remember about the Hudsucker Proxy.
- [34:09]
Andrew Walsh
And, but. And who's the fast talking. It's three named actress who. I can never remember her name, but it's three names. And she played like that 1940s fast talking. Jennifer Jason Lee.
- [34:24]
Luke Burbank
Jennifer Jason Lee.
- [34:25]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. She's like a reporter who always talk like this. And this archway, which of course I loved at the time, but also, it is such a big broad. The whole movie is so broad. Having said that, Miller's Crossing used to absolutely love it. There was one time, I'm gonna say in the past, I don't know, 10 years or something where I went back to Miller's Crossing. And I don't know why, but I was like, I don't know if this holds up. Like, I didn't love it as much as I did. And then I rewatched it a couple of weekends ago. It's so good. It is so good.
- [34:52]
Luke Burbank
I'll put it on my list.
- [34:53]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, of course.
- [34:53]
Luke Burbank
Got some stuff to get through this week.
- [34:55]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Take that with a grain of salt. I don't want to over oversell it. And I know that you and I don't have the exact same taste in movies, but I really enjoyed watching it for like the fifth time and sort of understanding the plot a little bit better.
- [35:06]
Luke Burbank
You know, Andrew, maybe I can stream it on my new Roku.
- [35:09]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. So what's up with that? So I sent you a little Roku device.
- [35:13]
Luke Burbank
Yes. Which. Thank you for that, by the way. That was really thoughtful. Not to go into the weeds on this whole, you know, baseball broadcast situation, but basically, like, somehow my smart television. How smart is that? I'm not able to. I'm not able to put the Major League Baseball app. I'm not able to install it or find it on my tv. It's not native to a Vizio.
- [35:39]
Andrew Walsh
That is that.
- [35:40]
Luke Burbank
Which is insane.
- [35:41]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Because I can. I can put it on my tv, which I guarantee you cost probably a third of yours.
- [35:46]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, but last year when they were on the other thing, you couldn't get that on your license and so you had to get the Roku, right.
- [35:53]
Andrew Walsh
This stupid root sports network that they. Or not network but app that they created for exactly one season. I had to go out and buy a Roku to make it work because that wouldn't be native on my. On my tv. So.
- [36:05]
Luke Burbank
So we're just. We're just passing this Roku back and forth.
- [36:08]
Andrew Walsh
Exactly.
- [36:09]
Luke Burbank
So thank you for saying that to me.
- [36:10]
Andrew Walsh
I got a little sore on my
- [36:12]
Luke Burbank
lip after like spinal tap after. After a little trial and error. I was so embarrassed about that text that I sent you, by the way. I was absolutely sober while sending you those messages.
- [36:24]
Andrew Walsh
Oh no, not at all. You know what, do you want to set this up a little bit?
- [36:27]
Luke Burbank
Because such a digital non Native.
- [36:29]
Andrew Walsh
I want to say that my first response to you, I was literally cleaning up a bunch of water that had. We had a little bit of a plumbing. It wasn't a big deal, but a small little plumbing snafu. So when I. I had sent you the Roku and I texted you a little video I made of how to set it up and you texted me the video.
- [36:47]
Luke Burbank
That was so thoughtful of you.
- [36:48]
Andrew Walsh
Oh yeah, I sent it to you.
- [36:49]
Luke Burbank
I didn't even realize there was a video associated until you said, oh, just check out. It was a video.
- [36:53]
Andrew Walsh
But I had texted to you like a week ago when I dropped it in the mail or something. But I wanted to show you how to plug it in the back of your tv. So you texted me and I'm literally on my hands and knees with like soapy water on the ground. And I was like, watch the video. And I honestly, later on I looked at it and I did not mean to strike that tone at all. I was just like, no, it's all explained in the video.
- [37:10]
Luke Burbank
How thoughtful of you to include a video. Also, let's slightly patronizing, but mostly thoughtful.
- [37:16]
Andrew Walsh
Patronizing. Super sweet of you. And then I didn't even.
- [37:19]
Luke Burbank
I didn't. I missed the memo on that you had done a video for me, which again, that's actually really, really thoughtful. So I get back yesterday from. From my Becca hangout and New York Times sesh and. And I'm. You'd have mailed me this a few days ago, but I'm like, okay, let's. Let's go ahead and get this Roku situation working. And I'm such a moron because you included everything and very nicely in a Little bag. And it had, of course, the Roku, the HDMI cable that plugs into the television and then the power for the Roku. And somehow in my mind, I thought. I assumed it was getting its power through the HDMI cable, which is not what those cables do. I don't. If you put a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you what HDM or I stand for, but none of them stand for power. And so. So I plug this whole thing in, and then I'm going to, like, input number four on my smart tv, and it's not showing me. It's not showing the Roku. And I was like, you know me, Andrew. My first thought was, like, well, it's probably broken. Let me just go on Amazon and buy another one. And then I was like, stop. Don't do that. Like, just give this a second. And then I. Then I sent you a video going, hey, how do I do this? I have it plugged in. This is like when I'm doing a home improvement project and I need help from my dad. I'll be like, videotaping, how do I do this? Compression miter cut on this piece of trim or whatever. So I send you a video of me showing you that I've plugged the Roku into HDMI port number four on my television, and yet I'm not getting anything. I hit send on the video, and one second after hitting send, I was like, oh, you moron, it needs power. The HDMI cable is not giving it power. But I had already sent you the video. So then I was like, you already
- [39:06]
Andrew Walsh
had the answer before I responded.
- [39:08]
Luke Burbank
Yes, but I had already inconvenienced you after you were nice enough to send me the Roku, make me a video. And you're dealing with a situation at your house that I wasn't aware of. I was so chagrined about that entire interaction.
- [39:20]
Andrew Walsh
You know me. I like. I like helping with this stuff. You know what I mean? Like, I. It's. It's. I love troubleshooting, by the way. I'm gonna play. I th. This is where I'm an idiot. Like, I was partially happy that you didn't watch the video because it's like, I don't do these a lot. Like, I don't make, like, little videos of myself, and I'm holding my phone in one and then trying to plug in the Roku using not just the HDMI cord, but also, like, the usb. And it was like, literally, like the parody of trying to plug in a USB where it's like the wrong way. Oh, no, it was the right way.
- [39:54]
Luke Burbank
I have a 0% success rate with trying to plug an HDMI cable in the right orientation the first time.
- [40:01]
Andrew Walsh
But then the saddest thing about this video, which now I was glad you didn't watch it because I didn't want you to hear it. But now I'll play it for you and all of the listeners. Let's see, it's not too long. We don't have to play the whole thing. But what I hate about this, and this is one thing I realize about me, and I don't think this is an age thing. I think this is a physical shape thing is like, I am huffing and puffing all the time now. Listen to this video. You would think that, like, I had just that I was doing this video while jogging.
- [40:29]
Luke Burbank
Can I ask you a question quickly? Did you. Were you using some kind of, like, Bluetooth headphone, talking to your phone?
- [40:36]
Andrew Walsh
No, no. I just had my phone in me a lot. So what happened is. And it's very awkward because I'm holding the phone with my right hand while filming my left hand, which has the Roku device. But then I'm also trying to plug things in, but I'm only using one hand. And so I'm sure that the camera gets closer to my face at times. Changing the audio here. All right. This is the Roku device here. It's kind of the kind that's built to set on a table, which I know is not an option for you, but that's okay. It's super, super light. You can get yourself some tape. I'm not hearing any double tape tape if you need, and stick it to the back of your television or it's so light that on my tv, the cables themselves kind of just keep it suspended. I was proud of knowing that you did not want anything setting on your table like you. This was.
- [41:22]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [41:22]
Andrew Walsh
The device is sort of made to set on something, but it's so small that the cables can prop it up. So they do have other kinds that are just sticks. But that stick also needs power. By the way, you'll notice there are two things on the back. The HDMI is for the signal of the TV that's on the left. Left on the right is one of those mini USBs, which I'm including with this. I know you don't want more cables plugged into a wall, but the thing is, if you have, and I'm sure you do, an extra USB opening, not HDMI like that, but USB like that it will provide power. That was a tip that I learned from a listener or several listeners because when I first got us be out
- [42:02]
Luke Burbank
of the TV itself.
- [42:03]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Because I do have one of those.
- [42:05]
Luke Burbank
And I did consider that at one point, like, would this actually power it?
- [42:09]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, so have it plugged into the tv. It'll get rid of an extra cable for you. You can use the power that is coming from the USB of the tv. Great little hack that some listeners told me about. As opposed to having to plug it into like a phone charger in a wall or something like that.
- [42:23]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I have this whole, you know, because my dad and I framed out and built that wall behind it. So there's a whole like inset power, you know, plug in thing that's behind the tv, which is very convenient. And yes, it's all about. It's all about cable management. I would like it if when you walked into my house, it was just a TV with nothing connected to it and a single folding chair. That'd be the platonic ideal of cable management. That'd be the whole house. You sit in the chair and you look at the television. You can't see any cables. Now imagine for the listeners, since we're just doing this now imagine you are Andrew Walsh and you make that really helpful video that really likes like, along with mailing me this thing, including all of the accessories, and you make a really helpful video of like, hey, here's how you do this. Cut to Sunday afternoon and your friend Luke just sends you this video. And I'll play this now. Hey there. So thank you so much for sending all of that stuff, including the Roku. I have it plugged in here. Okay. This is my HDMI number four port.
- [43:32]
Andrew Walsh
That's a Flex, that's a Roku. Over here
- [43:36]
Luke Burbank
we have four hdmi. But then when I'm going to the input on my computer, on my tv, of course I hit the wrong button, which then takes it into Fandango.
- [43:51]
Andrew Walsh
I literally didn't watch this far in the second I saw the video, I knew what the problem was, stopped it.
- [43:56]
Luke Burbank
Fandango. No, I can hear you, Clem. Fandango.
- [43:59]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, wait, yeah, no, I did hear that. I did hear that. I.
- [44:02]
Luke Burbank
When I go to HDMI 4, it just tells me that it can't find it. And the same thing has happened on HDMI 3. And I'm wondering, am I missing a step? It doesn't seem like there's an on button on the Roku device anyway. I just can't believe that, like I had one job which is watch the video which would have helpfully told me how to do it. I didn't want. I didn't watch the video. And then I made a video, sent it to you about do I. What do I do, dad? What am I doing wrong here? So. But anyway, all's well that ends well. Here's the problem though. So it's working great for my Mariners needs. The problem is like everything in the world. Andrew Roku wants to be my one stop streaming shop. There's no just like plugging in this little dongle and then getting my Mariners on there where it's now like Roku is hunting me down like a dog to become the place where all of my streaming happens. You know what I mean? Like there was. I had to log into it. It had to go. I apparently have had a Roku before. So it went in and found my old account. It took a good 10 minutes of like download, redownloading or uploading or whatever. Every streaming service that it somehow. By the way, this is all available on my television, right? I don't need to watch Apple TV through Roku. Yeah, like it's on my television. But Roku wants to get me into their world and then keep me there. And so it's like. And they're just, I. It's asking me so many questions about my preferences and what kind of shows do I like. And I'm just like skipping through screen after screen. Then finally I get it up and running enough that I can get to the MLB app and start watching the Mariners. And then I look in my inbox or something and I've got like, like 11,000 emails from Roku about like, welcome back to Roku and here's a promotion and let's do this. And. And I just want to say to them, you, Roku, have only one job in my life and that is allow me to watch the Seattle Mariners. I don't want any other crap from you. I don't want you trying to give offer me a free something or other which will give me. There's literally some kind of a streaming thing on Roku called like Huber TV or like they like it was like, it was like literally a streaming service that sounded like it was made up by 30 Rock or something like Acorn TV. It was like, yeah, they were just like, they're just like streaming things on the Roku that like I've literally never heard of and I don't want any part of and I don't want, I don't Want to have to keep telling Roku to leave me alone. I just want. I wish I could, like, I wish I could prune back every aspiration from the Roku other than my Seattle Mariners.
- [46:42]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, I don't. I. I didn't have that experience. I mean, may I. Maybe I don't remember the setup, but I just did this a year ago because I was basically doing the same thing and I just didn't get all that. I don't know. I just downloaded the MLB app and then. That's all. And then I only went to that HDMI when I wanted to watch baseball. And I had. And you know what I did, even
- [47:00]
Luke Burbank
though it's because I had a Roku account before. So it's.
- [47:04]
Andrew Walsh
I did two for our upstairs tv. I don't know. But it didn't. I just. I guess maybe I just ignored all of that. And what I did was I just put my two baseball apps on the Roku so I knew if I was watching baseball, I'd go to MLB or the Root, and that was on the Roku, and I didn't turn it on for anything else. But this gets into something I want to talk to you about. Although, good lord is going to be dry as hell. But speaking of watching the Mariners and mlb, so like, where are you in this process? Because I was just looking at it the other day. They've changed everything once again because they. After creating the Root sports app, they then canceled and they canceled the entire network and fired almost everybody. And so now us Mariners fans have to find a new way to watch baseball because of course you can't just turn on the TV and watch it over the air, even though our tax dollars pay for that stadium. So now the only way we'll be able to watch Mariners games is first by getting. Well, I guess you can get MLB tv, which you're paying for, which is kind of expensive. I will eventually get it through for free through my T Mobile, but then you have to buy an add on for that to watch your local Mariners games. Because when you buy MLB tv, you're allowed to watch everything except for the games. Corn cob in market for you. Right? Which is just like, so insulting. So have you already locked in your Mariners subscription?
- [48:21]
Luke Burbank
I don't even know. Listen, what happened yesterday was I got the. I got into the Roku. By the way, I'd also like to point out that the Roku, like, what do you call it? Artwork.
- [48:34]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I love that. Yeah.
- [48:35]
Luke Burbank
Oh, I think it's so outdated.
- [48:37]
Andrew Walsh
The scrolling, like the scrolling Scenes that go by. Yeah, I love it so much. I find it comforting.
- [48:44]
Luke Burbank
Thomas Kincaid as a painter of light.
- [48:47]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I love it because it'll change every now and then but like sometimes like at the Eagles or something, they'll be in between movies and that thing will just come out or whatever. I don't. Maybe it is because it's so childish. I find it so comforting. I find it so, so comforting.
- [49:01]
Luke Burbank
You know, I could see it. Maybe I should. Maybe I should think about it from that, from that perspective because. And also Becca has that on, on her tv. It's what her TV defaults to for some reason. And like I just think it's hilarious that they have. Not that some like whiz bang design agency hasn't come in and like redone because it really feels like something from like you know, 2003 or something.
- [49:22]
Andrew Walsh
And if you. Did you notice that they're all little Easter eggs about movies?
- [49:27]
Luke Burbank
Oh, I did.
- [49:27]
Andrew Walsh
So like there will be. It's like this cross section. It reminds me of the types of things I would draw as a kid. It's like a cross section of a city with little vignettes going on here.
- [49:36]
Luke Burbank
Well, that's actually kind of cool.
- [49:37]
Andrew Walsh
But if you look closely like there was like you'll. Because it's a cross section, there will be an area with water like underneath the city or something. And because I'm just trying to think of something that when somebody pointed this out to me like years ago, it was like, oh, that little guy who's swimming down there. That's supposed to be from, I don't know, the. What's the upside down boat movie? The Poseidon Adventure. Poseidon. Poseidon, whatever. Like it just. There's little things like that little cartoons that are supposed to be nods to movies which I think actually that is kind of fun.
- [50:06]
Luke Burbank
I like that Easter egg thing and I guess if I find myself looking at it more I will. That would be kind of a fun thing. I just think it's so, it's so funny because everything is you know, so branded and sort of designed to. With an inch of its life. Now if a company is even moderately successful, particularly in the media space, it's like I feel like there's just so many eyes on like what happens when you log on to Netflix is not in any way an under analyzed sort of event.
- [50:32]
Andrew Walsh
Yes.
- [50:33]
Luke Burbank
In terms of the visuals, what you see first and then it seems like Mrs. Claus made the Roku like background screen like a, like an apple cheeked, really nice 70 year old woman. Made it or something.
- [50:48]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [50:49]
Luke Burbank
Not how things normally look.
- [50:50]
Andrew Walsh
Of course. There are aficionados. I was like, if I type this in now, would you like to at least try? I will tell you this. Of the letters in hdmi, which I just looked up, there are no words that you don't know.
- [51:04]
Luke Burbank
Okay.
- [51:05]
Andrew Walsh
Would you like to just try?
- [51:08]
Luke Burbank
Yes.
- [51:09]
Andrew Walsh
Okay, so first is that. Go ahead.
- [51:12]
Luke Burbank
Okay.
- [51:12]
Andrew Walsh
No, you go ahead. I'm not going to give you any clues at first.
- [51:14]
Luke Burbank
If I'm going to get one of them, I think it's going to be H. Because my guess is does that stand for high?
- [51:20]
Andrew Walsh
It does. In fact, I was going to give you a little bit of a hint here. When you say hdmi, you might think, I don't know what those letters stand for. But then when you think of hd, you're like, oh, yeah, we see HD all over the place.
- [51:33]
Luke Burbank
Yes. Okay, so now I've got two. Now I'm building on it. Thank you. I'm only going to get half a point for the second one because you kind of led me there. But it's high definition.
- [51:39]
Andrew Walsh
High definition HDM movie.
- [51:45]
Luke Burbank
No, because you can watch a lot. It's not just movies.
- [51:48]
Andrew Walsh
Feel like this is a word that was bandied around a bit when the Internet was sort of new and you and I were producing radio, but then people said, you can't just do radio anymore.
- [51:58]
Luke Burbank
Media. Monotheism.
- [52:01]
Andrew Walsh
What kind of media? Media is half of the word. Is it one media or. It's the opposite of mono. It's not monomedia. Multi multimedia. You have high definition multimedia.
- [52:13]
Luke Burbank
Okay, I got zero points on that, but okay. High definition.
- [52:17]
Andrew Walsh
Well, you got the media. You literally got half a point.
- [52:20]
Luke Burbank
Input.
- [52:21]
Andrew Walsh
No, no, but the first. You got the first three.
- [52:24]
Luke Burbank
Interface.
- [52:25]
Andrew Walsh
Yes, my boy. High definition multimedia interface. No, yeah, you said interface, right? You didn't say input. You said input. Maybe the first time. So here's my question for you. If you ask me tomorrow that same question, what are the chances I will
- [52:40]
Luke Burbank
remember First, I'm gonna have you draw a clock. I'm gonna ask you to recite hdr. I mean, here's the thing too. Not to descend fully into just like cable talk, but can we, can we give it up for hdmi? Apparently continuing as the industry standard for how we. With every other cable in our life, Andrew constantly being thrown by the sort of wayside and a new, you know, USB, C, etc. Like there's almost always a better thing and it seems like that one, they, they got it right enough that we're not being That I know of. Anyway, handed a new thing that's supposed to be back. All they've done is make it have a gold outer casing and it's more expensive at Best Buy. But it's still hdmi.
- [53:23]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, it is. I mean it's. It still feels relatively new to me, but as you know, I'm pretty old. But remember when we used to have to plug in monitors for our computers? Because that's the nice thing. HDMI now I think is like, that's what I use if I need to link monitors together or just watch something on television or plug in a Roku. Right. It's both, like for televisions and, and computers. That's the way it should work. But do you remember back in the day if you were hooking up a monitor to a computer, you'd have that thing that with all the little pins and then the screws, tiny screws that you'd have to. That. It also would be like finger screws.
- [53:59]
Luke Burbank
And then I think they replaced screwdriver. Get out a sort of round guy opticians screwdriver. Like an eyeglass repair kit to like.
- [54:07]
Andrew Walsh
But then remember they would change it to those plastic things they would put on the ends of the screws so they were finger tight though. That was a big development. But. But you're right, they've stuck around with HDMI for a while.
- [54:17]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Well, good on them. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man.
- [54:23]
Christopher Guest
Razzle dazzle.
- [54:24]
Andrew Walsh
On your mark.
- [54:25]
Luke Burbank
On your mark.
- [54:25]
Christopher Guest
Get set, get set now.
- [54:27]
Luke Burbank
Ready?
- [54:28]
Andrew Walsh
Ready, Go.
- [54:29]
Luke Burbank
Everybody. Razzle dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are donating a dazzling amount of dough to tbtl. And it, it is absolutely essential to the project. It's 100% listener supported podcasting. And we can only do it because of folks like Christina Homer, who is in Portland, Oregon. Christina says, like Homer Simpson or the great Greek poet.
- [54:54]
Andrew Walsh
In that order.
- [54:56]
Luke Burbank
Yep. You know, honestly, I would not to be a, you know, not to be a philistine, but I would say that the Homer Simpson character has added more to my life than the Iliad or the Odyssey. And I'm being serious about it.
- [55:09]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, no, it's true. I didn't really listen to him. You know what I mean?
- [55:11]
Luke Burbank
Poems for me, they kind of. Yeah, I mean, I think, I don't think I've ever even read them in the original, you know, Homeric. I think I had some either abridged or like maybe even literally like a picture book that described what was going on? I'm not, you know, I'm not here to criticize the classics, but I'm just a Homer Simpson man and that's. That's how it is.
- [55:35]
Andrew Walsh
I read Venus. I did not like the end.
- [55:39]
Luke Burbank
You see the sky riding over the Willamette. Hi friendos. This year I am reaching out to tens because I just moved up to Portland from San Francisco with my 10 and a half Alex and our little 56 month old Ernest.
- [55:53]
Andrew Walsh
Congratulations. Hi, Ernest.
- [55:56]
Luke Burbank
What up? In this time where biology research has been targeted by political powers, I count myself super lucky to have gotten my my dream job to start the Homer lab at Oregon Health and Sciences University. Wait, does Kristen is named after lab named after her?
- [56:15]
Andrew Walsh
What's going on? Is this a coincidence or is this.
- [56:18]
Luke Burbank
Or is it named for Homer?
- [56:19]
Andrew Walsh
No, to. Well, it says to start the Homer lab. Wouldn't it be amazing if Christine Homer did get to start this department? Named it the Homer lab but after Homer Simpson, not herself. Yeah, that would be amazing.
- [56:35]
Luke Burbank
And if that's not the case, is it too late? Christina? Well, this is crazy because also ohsu, that's, you know, that's where Becca and I spend many, many days and afternoons tootling around the OHSU general campus area because that's down in the south waterfront where she lives. And so I wonder if I've even like, have I walked past the Homer lab or the future home of the homer lab.
- [56:58]
Andrew Walsh
This is incredible. Congratulations.
- [56:59]
Luke Burbank
This is really, really super impressive. Impressive, Christina.
- [57:01]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [57:02]
Luke Burbank
Okay. The Homer lab at OHSU searching for a cure for the fungal infection valley fever. Valley fever causes pneumonia in a lot of people who are exposed to it and a fatal brain infection in 1% of people who are exposed. Well, what does that mean when there's that like tilde. Is that less than 1%?
- [57:20]
Andrew Walsh
I always thought it meant about 1%. Yeah, about. Okay.
- [57:23]
Luke Burbank
Okay. Our family is very new to Portland. We only know what we've heard Luke share about Portland on tbtl and we'd love advice on settling in to the Portland area and to meet friendly tens in the area which there are down there. Christina. There sure are. If you'd like to get in contact. I am Christina Homer on bluesky. And Christina by the way is spelled C H R I S T I S T I N a and then Homer is H o M E r on bluesky. Or you can email me Christina M homer and the miscapitalizedmail.com. it's been super fun to listen to the pod from the PNW. Thanks to Andrew and Luke, what you do is so important. Power out, Christina. I'm struck by a few things here, Andrew. First of all, we have some flipping smart listeners to this show.
- [58:12]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [58:13]
Luke Burbank
I mean, holy moly. And then the other thing is, I can't imagine too many other shows where somebody who's clearly as wise as Christina Homer is would also feel comfortable putting their email out to the listeners because that's the kind of good people that listen to this show. In other words, you know what I mean? Like, Christina is confident that the only people that will be hearing us say this say her email will also be like, kind of good, nice, helpful, non weird people. That's our whole kind of. That's our demo around here.
- [58:48]
Andrew Walsh
I mean, I'm the weirdest one that you're gonna 100 without running into. I mean, with a bullet. And by the way, I mean, I'm assuming I have.
- [58:56]
Luke Burbank
There's more from Christina, by the way. Andrew, please do not use this email address.
- [59:01]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, that's weird that, that. You know what? That feels like something John added. And it must be Dr. Homer, right? Like, if you're doing this type of research, I mean, it must be Dr. Homer.
- [59:12]
Luke Burbank
Probably so. I mean, forward.
- [59:14]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [59:14]
Luke Burbank
If you get a lab at ohsu, I mean, you've got to be, I would imagine, a PhD.
- [59:20]
Andrew Walsh
The reason I bring that up is if you're gonna email Christina, Dr. Homer, have some damn respect, you know?
- [59:25]
Luke Burbank
Exactly. Christina, thank you. A welcome to Portland to you and the fam. And I hope that maybe we'll see you out there on the OHSU campus sometime this summer when we're on a little summer walk. Hopefully we'll bump into each other. And thanks again, maestro.
- [59:40]
Andrew Walsh
On your mark, on your mark.
- [59:42]
Christopher Guest
Get set, get set now.
- [59:44]
Luke Burbank
Ready, ready, ready, Go. Everybody rattle daddle. Well, look who it is. It's our pal Sarah Miranda of Seattle, Washington. It's our friend Sarah from the magpie mouse universe. Oh, man, is it a nice. It's so nice down here today. Is it nice and sunny up in Seattle?
- [60:02]
Andrew Walsh
It's incredible. In fact, I was thinking about maybe going out and doing a little bit of yard work today. We'll see.
- [60:09]
Luke Burbank
I was having exactly the same. Same conversation in my mind today, Andrew, which was, do I break out the old lawnmower today? Because. Well, a couple of things. It's a beautiful day, and that sounds like fun to me. Also, though it is this time of year on my riding lawnmower, it's actually kind of hard because the. The ground is pretty damp still. It's pretty, like, squishy. And there are all these areas. I live on this hill, and in the middle of summer, it's sort of fine because the ground is dry and kind of hard, and so the lawnmower can get around and get up and down the hills this time of year, there are so many little spots where when I go to turn, like, the wheel just wants to spin out in the grass or. You know what I mean? So it's like the ROI like, the amount of, like, actually mowing the lawn that I can do versus just, like, getting off a lawnmower and pushing it and getting it out of, like, stuck positions is tight, tough. It would be, at this point, almost purely performative on my part, or not performative, but it would be almost purely ritualistic. It would be me mowing the lawn because I want to smell mowed lawn and listen to the Mariners pitchers mowing down batters. That would be the. Not even. Because, like, it's gonna really, like, do a good job on the grass. Because that's the other thing. The grass is wet, so it's hard to cut, you know?
- [61:28]
Andrew Walsh
Well. And you also could. Could. And also when the tires spin out like that, you could also kind of ruin your lawn a little bit. But mine, I feel like there are some parts. And of course, we're talking about very different jobs here. I have a postage stamp little property here, but there's part of it, like, around the garage door, which is getting a lot of use these days as workers are kind of coming in and out. I should have mowed that one last time before the winter even began. Like, the grass was too long. I don't mean like a little long. I mean too long in that area. And now that it's growing again, it looks like. It looks like I'm a hippie. It looks like I'm a hippie, and I need to go out there and I need not apply to trim it. And so actually, this. I was really on the fence, and I think this might be pushing me over the fence.
- [62:11]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I think I'm also. I think this conversation has now. Has now officially put me into. I'm just going to do it anyway. Plus, also, I bought a. Because the thing that happens with my lawnmower also is that the tires are kind of going flat. Like, if it's sitting there, it basically. Like, if it's just kind of sitting there under a tarp under my deck, the tires are slow. One tire in particular slowly losing air.
- [62:35]
Andrew Walsh
And I've been pumping it up or do you think it actually has a slow leak?
- [62:39]
Luke Burbank
Well, it's weird because these tires don't even have an inner tube in them.
- [62:43]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, yeah. Okay.
- [62:44]
Luke Burbank
It's literally like just, you know, it's just a rubber tire that's on the thing, but there's nothing inside it that's being inflated. You're like inflating the, the tire itself.
- [62:53]
Andrew Walsh
Interesting.
- [62:54]
Luke Burbank
And so I, I, and I. So I've got like a, you know, have a bicycle pump. So I'm out there bicycle pumping it usually when I'm about to use them. But then I bought one of those. I bought like a little handy dandy powered, like, hand pump inflator that you can like, use on. You keep it in your glove compartment in case your tire of your car goes flat. But I'm really excited to use it on.
- [63:15]
Andrew Walsh
Oh. Because it's powered.
- [63:16]
Luke Burbank
It's powered. It has power. So it's like a little mini air compressor. And I'm really excited. Like, that's almost the most fun part. Hook up my mini air compressor to the lawnmower tire and go. And just see it kind of like.
- [63:29]
Andrew Walsh
But anyway, his grass is still long, but there's balloons all over the place. What's this guy doing?
- [63:34]
Luke Burbank
No, he's done made no progress on the lawn, but he's got, he's using all his gadgets to great effect. Where I was really going with this weather talk was this would be a perfect day. I don't know if people will hear this in time, but if you're in Seattle, this would be a perfect day to go walk around Pike Place Market and stop by Magpie Mouse Studios because it's right there by all these amazing scenic viewpoints, that new kind of viewing observation area that looks out on the new aquarium and stuff. I mean, it's just, it's absolutely beautiful down there. And you can stop by Magpie Mouse. Sarah says. Hey, it's Sarah from Magpie Mouse Studios. TBTL is one of the most important things in the world to me. It literally saved my small bizarre. So I can be a business girl. Wow, Sarah. Glad to hear that. We had just quit our jobs and went full time in 2019. What could go wrong? And then the pandemic hit. Our business wasn't as diversified as it is now. We mostly relied on art fairs and markets. Those all started canceling. And the few gift shops we were in were closing. We had just done a wholesale show and buyers were canceling their future orders. What a time. I posted a link to my Etsy shop and asked the tens for help. Help. And they did, and they still do. I figured if they give me money, I should give you some. I'm not on Facebook anymore. Thanks, hackers. But the only thing I miss is the community of the Stens. I've met some of the best people through this little podcart. Thank you for all you do, this beautiful space you've created, and the cure for global loneliness. Well, Sarah, thank you for so generously redirecting some of your. And again, the. The new. I'm sorry I keep going on about this, but the new location where Magpie Mouse is is like. It's. It's at a high walkability score before. And I don't want to say anything, Sarah. I'm not being critical. The previous location in Pike Place Market was a little bit of a trick to find it.
- [65:19]
Andrew Walsh
I spent a good part of an afternoon. It was like a children's book as I kept going around the. The market looking for it.
- [65:26]
Luke Burbank
But I did find the greatest minds of my generation gone mad trying to find the original Magpie Mouse location. And now they're just right there on. And I can never remember the exact name of the street, but there. It's a. It's a storefront that's just on the street there. When you go kind of around the corner from where all the dried flowers are, and then you start to go down the hill a little bit, you'll. You'll run right into it.
- [65:47]
Andrew Walsh
Kind of. Isn't it kind of across the street from the staircase that leads to the parking garage? It is, because I have Salah.
- [65:54]
Luke Burbank
Used to be. And also where KNKX is, it's across the street, but in that general area.
- [65:59]
Andrew Walsh
I haven't been to the new place yet, but I know exactly where it is because they're literal neighbors. With my favorite hat shop in town. I got Genevieve some fancy berets. Genevieve's a real beret girl. I don't know if you know that about her for a birthday a while back. And, oh, speaking of, this is maybe
- [66:15]
Luke Burbank
that maybe those people can help you solve your Columbo mystery.
- [66:17]
Andrew Walsh
This is Genevieve's birthday week, by the way. We should talk a little bit about our upcoming escape room adventure that'll be happening this weekend. Maybe that can be weekend plans. But anyway, this hat shop is very interesting because it's run by a woman who's a very bold woman, I would say. I don't know how to describe. She's just got one of those, like, real. Real. A lot of energy kind of people doesn't take. Very nice, very helpful, but also doesn't take shit off of people. Sort of like that kind of thing. And so I went in there a couple of times.
- [66:46]
Luke Burbank
I think it's the only way you can make it in the beret game.
- [66:49]
Andrew Walsh
But I really need to go back because I want to visit Sarah and Magpie at that new location, which you said is really, really great. And I haven't been to the new studio yet. Yet. And also, no joke, I need. I need a new hat. And I'm thinking about getting that kind that you used to call a. Oh, I can't remember to. Comes up.
- [67:06]
Luke Burbank
Jeff cap.
- [67:07]
Andrew Walsh
A Jeff cap. Like kind of the.
- [67:08]
Luke Burbank
Kind of snaps in the middle.
- [67:10]
Andrew Walsh
In the front middle. I think you're about getting one of those. Although that's more of a winter cap than a summer cap, so I don't know. By the way, I need to do something.
- [67:16]
Luke Burbank
You're looking. You're talking about Eclipse Hat Shop, right?
- [67:19]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, probably, yeah.
- [67:20]
Luke Burbank
Woman's millinery and men's haberdashery.
- [67:23]
Andrew Walsh
It's a really nice shop, by the way. Yeah. And I. I feel like I did a bad job of describing the proprietor. Like, I. I am very much a really good job. I am very pro. Her, but she is just definitely. It is a. She's a trip.
- [67:36]
Luke Burbank
I'm also very, like, intrigued. I just like seeing the word millinery because that was what my granddad, Jack, he owned a millinery shop in Philadelphia.
- [67:45]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, really?
- [67:45]
Luke Burbank
That's how I know that word. It was absolute failure. Drove him to alcoholism and then an early D Deaf. But for a brief window, we wish
- [67:53]
Andrew Walsh
for the best for the folks at Eclipse.
- [67:56]
Luke Burbank
I think they're going much better at Eclipse Hat Shop. I believe I can tell on the Internet. Sarah, thank you again. And everybody go check out Magpie Mouse. And I'm sure, again, you know, there's lots of online ways you can interact with their stuff as well, so. Yeah.
- [68:09]
Andrew Walsh
And also, wait, actually, Luke, I know you're wrapping up, but I actually have. I just realized I talked more about the hats next door than Magpie Mouse Studios themselves. Aside from the actual location, which is beautiful. So is the stuff that Sarah and the gang make there. So definitely, definitely check it out. And I know that they have. I'm quite sure that they have, like, workshops and stuff, too, so you can kind of. Absolutely. They do. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so check that out. And sorry, Sarah, that I started talking about hats during your d. Forward to.
- [68:38]
Luke Burbank
We can look forward to the hat shop that's sponsoring us next year, right?
- [68:41]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [68:42]
Luke Burbank
Yep.
- [68:43]
Andrew Walsh
Here I go once again with the email. Every week I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man.
- [68:49]
Luke Burbank
It's not from a female. All right, We. We sort of ran out of time on McDonald's talk. But the good news is we already know what tomorrow's show is gonna look like. It's gonna be Andrew's Columbo hat mystery and Arch deluxe talk. So, I mean, tomorrow's show is already ready to go. But in the meantime, do you have any emails or vmails that are of interest?
- [69:13]
Andrew Walsh
Yes, I have a voicemail that I will play for you now. This is this voicemail. My apologies to the person who sent it. Cause I know that you sent this, this a long time ago, Jamie. I think it was probably pre holidays, so I've been hanging on to it. I knew that we'd get to it once the. Once the weather turns nice. It has nothing to do with the weather. Do you remember, Luke, I'm going to put you on the spot. And there's no reason you should remember this, but the past few shows, I've given you sort of a choose your own adventure.
- [69:37]
Luke Burbank
I totally remember this.
- [69:38]
Andrew Walsh
Okay, so one of.
- [69:40]
Luke Burbank
I can even tell you. Let's see if I can do this. Memory.
- [69:42]
Andrew Walsh
What were the two that we did and what was the third option?
- [69:44]
Luke Burbank
Definition. Yes. Multimedia interface interdiction. It was. One was about old food.
- [69:55]
Andrew Walsh
One was about old food with a
- [69:57]
Luke Burbank
guy who was eating old ass Mac and cheese.
- [69:59]
Andrew Walsh
That's right.
- [70:01]
Luke Burbank
One was about.
- [70:02]
Andrew Walsh
It was an explainer.
- [70:04]
Luke Burbank
One was what the old food was explaining.
- [70:07]
Andrew Walsh
No, no. The one that you're trying to think of was an explainer. You had a question about something and somebody explained it to us on Friday.
- [70:13]
Luke Burbank
Yes, yes, yes, yes. It was. The origin of it was why restaurateur and restaurant are different words.
- [70:19]
Andrew Walsh
That was from Max. That was from Max. Yep. So those were the two you chose. And then there is one more on the list that we will play today. And I would. Do you remember how I described this one? I would be shocked if you did
- [70:33]
Luke Burbank
give me a hint.
- [70:37]
Andrew Walsh
It is. It's from J.
- [70:40]
Luke Burbank
Old food word origin. And then because I liked all three of them, old food, word origin. And then I can't think of a
- [70:49]
Andrew Walsh
hint that doesn't just give it away. Give it away.
- [70:52]
Luke Burbank
It's about what I know about our friend Jamie.
- [70:54]
Andrew Walsh
Okay.
- [70:54]
Luke Burbank
I know our friend Jamie is a forest ecologist, I believe, runner, A fan of and supporter of music, of live music. Even at Sunstroke House Studios.
- [71:06]
Andrew Walsh
Aggressive as hell. Gets into a of lot lot of bar fights, possession to the throat. A lot.
- [71:10]
Luke Burbank
You know what I just remembered? Not taking it to Dream Court. I had the weirdest dream last night. Not that it was. It was not even that I was.
- [71:22]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, we are taking as a dream Court. Yes, we are.
- [71:24]
Luke Burbank
It just. When you said that, you know. You know how that happens with a dream? Like, you forget that you had it, and then someone says something that.
- [71:30]
Andrew Walsh
Like.
- [71:31]
Luke Burbank
It wasn't even that I was actively in a bar fight. What it was is I. I was watching security footage of a bar fight that had happened that I knew I had been a part of.
- [71:39]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, wow.
- [71:40]
Luke Burbank
So I don't know what the circumstances were, but what I remember was hoping that I looked cool on the security footage in the bar fight. I was waiting for the part where I. It was. Somebody was being out of pocket, right? So somebody was being like, you know, threatening and dangerous to people in this. Whatever facility, this location, this restaurant, whatever it was. I don't know if it was technically a bar. Not. It's kind of foggy, but it was somehow there was alter involving multiple people, not just me. But then I remember somehow watching the footage afterwards and hoping that when I came in to do.
- [72:14]
Andrew Walsh
To.
- [72:14]
Luke Burbank
To bring some swift justice to the situation, I looked cool. And then I never saw myself in the footage. That was it. That's my. And that's why we don't talk about dreams.
- [72:23]
Andrew Walsh
You're sure? This is. I'm on Worldstar right now.
- [72:26]
Luke Burbank
And this is why we don't talk about dreams. Because sometimes that's how they end. Anyway, I'm sorry. So Jamie's. I don't know. Just.
- [72:32]
Andrew Walsh
Just tell me. It was a. It's about a delivery mistake, and I think we were talking about.
- [72:37]
Luke Burbank
Remember that. Dang it.
- [72:38]
Andrew Walsh
Forever ago. I think we were talking about things showing up on the wrong porches. I can't remember.
- [72:42]
Luke Burbank
Oh, I'm dealing with that right now, dude.
- [72:44]
Andrew Walsh
Are you really?
- [72:45]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, from Amazon. Which, again, this is what I get for using Amazon. But I was. I ordered like a hand mirror, actually. Hand mirror just like this one. Andrew.
- [72:56]
Andrew Walsh
Okay.
- [72:56]
Luke Burbank
I have this one out here. Yeah. Like a little wood hand.
- [72:59]
Andrew Walsh
You know, it is. It's exactly the mirror that Smurfette uses.
- [73:02]
Luke Burbank
Yes. And that's what I. That's. That was the search. I did. Smurfette mirror. And I have one out here. Because when. Sometimes when. If I'm not so much this show, a little bit this show, but. But if I'm doing something Else that we're filming. Sometimes I will put a little bit of like concealer on some sort of unsightly blemish on my face. But I had put in a vanity, a bathroom vanity in my small bathroom that doesn't actually have a mirror on it. I had ordered one. I mean, in fact, you know what? This is a cursed, this is a cursed situation with this bathroom vanity. The first one I ordered from China from a company called Litfad. And it was a bathroom vanity mirror that lights up. You know, you plug it in or you wire it in and then you can touch the mirror and it actually illuminates the border of the mirror and then you open it. It's got shelves and whatever. And it was the like super cheapo version of a much more expensive one that I, I wanted to have, but I didn't want to spend a thousand dollars on. And you get what you pay for. Because the one that showed up from China was the mirror was completely shattered when it got.
- [74:11]
Andrew Walsh
Oh geez.
- [74:12]
Luke Burbank
I mean it was just completely destroyed.
- [74:15]
Andrew Walsh
And it is dangerous serious.
- [74:16]
Luke Burbank
It's. Yeah, it's been. And it's been in a totally like, it's been as bad of a back and forth as you would imagine from a fly by night Chinese company trying to get my refund on my 300. Whatever we've now settled on, they're gonna give me back a hundred and forty dollars of it and then you're just
- [74:31]
Andrew Walsh
gonna have to find a mirror.
- [74:34]
Luke Burbank
No, what I did was, I mean it would be too. The mirror is wired in, you know, I mean, because it has like, it's beyond. I could even send you a picture of it. It was actually very upsetting to pull it out because it was like so shattered. I was like, yeah, but it was. But also it turned out everything about this thing was what I should have known it would be. If there's like a nice version of something and then I find the Chinese version for 200 or 300. Like how is that 1, 2 or 300 and the 1 from all modern is a thousand dollars? Well, because the one from China is like just sawdust taped together like, you know what I mean? It's not even real wood wood. It's. It's some kind of press board that they've then got like a sticker that's supposed to look like wood that goes on it, but the sticker is misapplied. So instead I just bought like an actually kind of nice but cheap vanity or cabinet that goes above the sink that just doesn't plug into anything and doesn't have a mirror. This is like the guest bathroom. This is not like where I brush my teeth each night or get ready for bed. I have a different bathroom and that has a big fancy mirror that does light up that did not show up broken. And I was like, you know what? Make this all easier? I'm just going to get this nice looking vanity that I like that goes. That is a couple hundred bucks. It's wood. Put it above the sink. And then I'm going to put a smurfette mirror. It has. It has a shelf that's attached to it. I put the Smurfette mirror on the shelf. So if somebody is staying over and they're using that bathroom and they want to, like, check their makeup or whatever, they've got the Smurfette mirror. I order it from Amazon. They tell me it was delivered like a week ago. No sight of it, no sign of it.
- [76:09]
Andrew Walsh
And you might have been on the road when it was delivered. Right. So.
- [76:12]
Luke Burbank
But nobody has ever like.
- [76:14]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, I don't mean. I don't mean to imply that it was taken. It's just like, you weren't here to like, sort of even monitor to.
- [76:19]
Luke Burbank
Exactly.
- [76:20]
Andrew Walsh
Well, they take a photo of it. You have a photo, A delivery photo. And is it delivered?
- [76:24]
Luke Burbank
No, I don't. And that's where I think I'm going to get. Get them. Oh, I'm on, by the way, I'm on the. I'm on the war path of getting people right now. I'm gonna get the Portland parking police. They got. Got yesterday, Andrew. They just. They messed with the wrong MFer. Okay, so Becca's whole neighborhood down near the Homer lab is the Homer district. In the Homer district, it's the. It's all metered, even on Sundays, which, by the way, way on the Lord's day.
- [76:55]
Andrew Walsh
I'm surprised because they don't usually. So that means they're also paying people to monitor this. Yeah. To enforce it very irregularly.
- [77:04]
Luke Burbank
Which is part of the problem. You know what I mean? It's almost like it's. It's not better if they're hardcore about it, but you sort of know what you're getting into. This is one of those games where it's like, okay, I can pay $6 for two hours of parking. Kitty. Is the particular service they use in Portland. Or I can just. If I. If I, If. If I park 10 times and don't use parking, Kitty. And don't get a ticket, it's evened out to one parking ticket. You know what I mean? Because it's $6 for two hours. A parking ticket is 65 in Portland now. So I'm always trying to do this like kind of, you know, on the fly, little, little, I don't know, roll of the dice versus whatever. Well, yesterday Beck and I were on this like, very epic walk. We walked like 11 miles yesterday.
- [77:47]
Andrew Walsh
Yesterday.
- [77:48]
Luke Burbank
And somewhere in the middle of it she goes, you know what I'm gonna throw. Because she also doesn't pay for parking in her apartment building, so she's also just in them streets. And she goes, I'm gonna throw some money on parking, Kitty. And. And we're not anywhere near the cars right now. We're like eight miles away. But I was like, good point. I will too. So we both go on our phones and, and pay for a couple of hours of, of the parking. And you know how that works, right? It's like it just. You put in the. The number is saved now of the zone that her building is in. So pay for the thing, whatever.
- [78:18]
Andrew Walsh
It's a great, I mean, it's a great technological advancement though, isn't it? Being able to absolutely refill. Like, oh, you, you get a warning 10 or 15 minutes before your parking is about to expire. No matter where you are, you can add a little bit of money as long as you don't hit the two hour limit or if there's a limit on the street. But I mean, that's a huge, that's a huge improvement.
- [78:36]
Luke Burbank
Majorly. Yeah. No, I think this is a good technology. And so we throw the whatever on there and then we finally, we get back from our, our little walkabout and there's my car and it's got a friggin ticket on it. And I was like, oh man. And we're like. She's like, it must have just been like right before, like, because there's like an hour, like I think they start at noon maybe. And it like at one we had thrown the money on there or something. She was like, it must have just been like right at noon or right before we put the money on. I was like, yeah, what a bummer. So I'm just kind of like dejected and bummed and just got like a $65 charge or whatever, Whatever. And then she goes, what time was the ticket? And I go, you know what? That's a good point. Let's just find out. I'm curious. Pull the thing out. The ticket was for 3pm My parking money was from 130 to 3. 30.
- [79:27]
Andrew Walsh
There you go. Tim Robinson. I don't know why you flipped. It slipped into some Tim Robinson.
- [79:31]
Luke Burbank
I've got. And I've got. I've got receipts.
- [79:33]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, you got it. I mean, you got.
- [79:34]
Luke Burbank
I've got them dead to rights. And I even double checked that.
- [79:38]
Andrew Walsh
It's might have been a malfunction or something.
- [79:40]
Luke Burbank
It must have been a malfunction or whatever. I mean, Becca was saying maybe that maybe they like, they give these tickets out and just put the onus on the people too. Now what I didn't have was I had not gone to the little kiosk, gotten a receipt, put it in my whatever. But my, in my dashboard. But just. They should scan my license plate and then the system should tell them that my license plate is associated with my car, which is associated with the window of time that I've paid off. Off.
- [80:04]
Andrew Walsh
They still have little tickets there that you put in your window.
- [80:07]
Luke Burbank
So I don't know. I mean, I never, I never do that.
- [80:09]
Andrew Walsh
And you shouldn't have to, right? We don't even have those in Seattle anymore. It's all just like you pull out your phone, you pay via the app and they have an app that should clear it. Yeah, yeah.
- [80:17]
Luke Burbank
It's been. I have, I've not pulled. If there is a paper ticket. I haven't tried to pull one in years now. So I don't even know if that's a thing. But yeah, so then I'm like. It's like, it's like I hit a. I went from being so mad, Andrew. To being so excited.
- [80:32]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, right.
- [80:32]
Luke Burbank
To be like. To be like for once and I mean, maybe the first time in my life to actually be on the right side of one of these things as opposed to fibbing, being like I couldn't see the sign because there were shrubbery and hoping that they like, I'm most of the time, let's be honest, lying through my teeth in these scenarios. I got them cold. I got them dead rights even. Because sometimes if I don't know the, the code of the area, if that makes any sense, you know, because the different areas you park have different, like four or five digit codes. Maybe sometimes I'm putting the wrong one in or whatever. This was the right code for the sign. I walked over and double checked it. This was the right date, this was the right. It just didn't make it into the parking person's little system that my car was. And I'm like, I again, I went from being so kind of just like man, that just really stinks. $65 out of my pocket. It. You know, due to my. I don't know, just lack of good decision making to being like, oh, I cannot wait. I'm gonna, like, put a bib on.
- [81:32]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [81:32]
Luke Burbank
I'm gonna be like a cartoon wolf.
- [81:34]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. That's literally what I was picturing. I was picturing the cartoon wolf from Ludicrous.
- [81:40]
Luke Burbank
My. I'm gonna have a big knife and a fork. I don't know how that's relevant, but, like, I am so looking forward to calling the parking magistrate people. I'm not gonna be mean to them because the person who answers the phone has nothing to do with it. This. I'm just like, I am really excited about this.
- [81:57]
Andrew Walsh
Well, I have. You know, this is something I've been meaning to mention to you. And, you know, I keep threatening to have Genevieve on the show. Let's talk about this. Maybe let's make good on that threat. Yeah, let's do that some.
- [82:08]
Luke Burbank
Actually, I've got an idea for that which we can talk about.
- [82:11]
Andrew Walsh
I think you and I have the same idea. We'll talk about off air. But this is a development in our lives. Do you remember. Do you. Sorry. I've been thinking about that Michael Jackson song. Do you remember the time.
- [82:23]
Luke Burbank
You remember the time when we first met?
- [82:27]
Andrew Walsh
That was the one directed by John Singleton, right? Wasn't that the video that had, like.
- [82:31]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, Eddie Murphy in it. It's kind of like an interesting magic.
- [82:34]
Andrew Walsh
And Magic Johnson, I believe, as a guard.
- [82:37]
Luke Burbank
And Peter Sagal from. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Except.
- [82:40]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, he got.
- [82:40]
Luke Burbank
They ended up cutting his scene because all the other stuff took so long that had. They had him in full makeup and full outfit, and then that whatever the scene was that Sega was supposed to be. And they just were like, we. We just have to cut that from the video.
- [82:56]
Andrew Walsh
He was supposed to be embracing Amman. Is that who the. Oh, yeah.
- [83:00]
Luke Burbank
Iman.
- [83:01]
Andrew Walsh
I knew I was saying her name wrong. Anyway, do you remember when Genevieve accidentally left her telephone on a city bus about a month, month and a half ago. And we had a real adv of us in our car chasing this bus down, trying to use various GPS technology and knowing the route. And Genevieve had her laptop in the car like some sort of a hacker, as I'm driving fast. Actually, not even that fast.
- [83:29]
Luke Burbank
There was an old Robert Redford in
- [83:31]
Andrew Walsh
the backseat for some reason.
- [83:33]
Luke Burbank
Couldn't quite figure out the age.
- [83:35]
Andrew Walsh
It wasn't actually him, as somebody pointed out, as a different actor. My whole rant on that Crumbled. Anyway, guess what Genevieve got in the mail the other day. A ticket for driving in a bus only lane. After I told this story, a very sharp. A photo ticket, A sharp eared listener who doesn't even live in Seattle anymore texted me and said, wait a second. The way you're describing this bus route, this bus route sounds like you were in bus only lanes. I know this area of downtown. I'm worried about this. And I wrote back, yeah, we were in bus lanes. I didn't realize it at the time because I was so hyper focused, but later on, as we're pulling away, I was like, oh. After Genevieve reclaimed her phone and we're driving, we're waving to the bus driver, we realize, oh, we're in an area where only buses are even allowed to be on this whole road.
- [84:23]
Luke Burbank
Oh, shoot. Like, you went fully down in, like, the tunnel or something.
- [84:26]
Andrew Walsh
It wasn't quite the tunnel, but it's an area where all the streets are painted red. I believe that's a U2 song. So, Genevieve. But listen. But think about this.
- [84:33]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [84:34]
Andrew Walsh
Who got that ticket? Genevieve got that ticket. Now, the car is in both of our names. I believe her name is first. I don't know if that really matters.
- [84:41]
Luke Burbank
I'm gonna walk through this.
- [84:42]
Andrew Walsh
But the ticket came in Genevieve's name. She has a driving, you know, a moving violation, and she has checked the box that says, I want a hearing on this. Now, originally, the hearing was, hey, listen, I left my phone on the bus. We had to do some, you know, dramatic exploits to get that back. Maybe the court will feel, you know, somewhat.
- [85:03]
Luke Burbank
Maybe they'll get sucked into the speed 2 nature of this adventure.
- [85:08]
Andrew Walsh
But. But. But then the more we are. So she already. I don't know when the hearing is, and I don't know if it's in person or not. But then we were talking again the other day. She thinks it's in person. She thinks that they wouldn't want to make it too easy by having it a zoom hearing. I'm like, I don't know. But if that came to her and it's a moving violation on her name, she wasn't behind the wheel. I was. I think the whole thing is null and void.
- [85:31]
Luke Burbank
Yes, it is. I am a little worried that we went the hearing route because. And I don't know exactly what this form looks like, like, anymore, but I used to get these tickets occasionally in Seattle, not for being in a bus lane, but for being, like, a rolling stop at, you know, like, there was this one particular intersection up actually by Alderwood Mall, where it would get you. It was like a right turn on
- [85:53]
Andrew Walsh
a red light, but video only.
- [85:56]
Luke Burbank
It could tell you'll be sorry if you don't come to a complete.
- [86:00]
Andrew Walsh
Like, it's.
- [86:01]
Luke Burbank
It was like a traffic camera that was monitoring your speed of your vehicle and could tell that if you did not come to a full and complete stop at the red and then go right, it would issue you a ticket, which I think is pretty tough, but. And then other speed cams and things. And what I. What I learned to do was to just say I was not driving. And then there was part of the form that said, well, who was driving? And I would write, I'm not comfortable answering that question, and then just put it on them to further investigate. And I got out of every single one of them. What I'm a little worried about is
- [86:34]
Andrew Walsh
if snitches get stitches. Yep. Who was. Who was driving? Well, snitches get stitches.
- [86:38]
Luke Burbank
Exactly. I mean, and that's. And that was really. Oh, my gosh. The. I'm sorry that I told you I'm bouncing off the walls today. Remember when I went to LA and I forgot to bring my audio equipment? And so I had to ask the very sweet Uber driver to take me not just from LAX to the hotel, but to make a stop at the Best Buy? So I jump out of the car and I just kept saying, I promise you this is going to be so fast. Which is a big promise when you're outside of a mall, you have to go into the mall. Then you have to buy a USB
- [87:11]
Andrew Walsh
microphone in a place that you're unfamiliar with, too.
- [87:14]
Luke Burbank
Yes. It's not running into, you know, like a convenience store to buy a bottle of water or something or whatever. The. Whatever we think the fastest. You know? Know, I'm actually kind of surprised that the rideshare even let you add stops. And they do a whole thing where they're like, please keep it under five minutes. And I'm like, I mean, I guess they are charging you a little bit more for it, but it's still. It feels to me to be very rude to the driver. And so anyway, as we. I got the stuff and I come back, we're driving through Culver City, actually over by where the tattletale was and where NPR west is, and there's all these intersections on Jefferson that are very heavily. Camera, Camera. And I said, I'm just making small talk. I go, yeah, I used to get tickets here sometimes from these cameras. And he goes, oh, yeah, I have a system. He goes, I just never respond. What do you mean? He goes, yeah, you just don't respond. They mail it to you. You just. And you don't even look it up online, because if you look it up, they can tell. I was like, oh, buddy. I was like, buddy. He goes, yeah, as long as you don't look it up. As long as you don't respond. In other words, as long as you bury your head so deep in the sand they can't touch you. And I thought, oh, my friend.
- [88:23]
Andrew Walsh
He thinks it's like an Evite where they can see whether or not you logged in.
- [88:28]
Luke Burbank
Exactly. He thinks that's a perfect analogy. And I didn't have the heart to tell him, like, no, what you do is you. You lie to them and say you weren't driving, and then that you're not going to tell them who was driving, and then they're kind of out of options at that point. I've learned from experience on this one. One not responding. And also not ever. Like, going to the website and looking it up is not the answer to this.
- [88:50]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, ask him to sit behind the computer and Google bench warrant. Let's see.
- [88:57]
Luke Burbank
By the way, I'm really excited to hear how this goes for by the way.
- [88:59]
Andrew Walsh
Yes. So there's that. And also, I probably will forget to bring this aspect up in tomorrow's grand conversation about this Columbo episode that I'm obsessed with, but a sidebar of that is this episode we were watching does have to do with. With. This doesn't have to do with my particular mystery in the show, but it. The. The plot itself has to do with a. A traffic camera. But the episode came out in 1991, so he's got. So it's actually film cameras that are set up in these boxes, and him and this tech go out and, like, swap out the camera. I was like, this is crazy. But to the ve.
- [89:35]
Luke Burbank
To the Genevieve thing very quickly. And we can talk about this with her. What? I'm curious. In fact, this is only interesting if we have Genevieve here to answer the question. I'm wondering if Genevieve is. Is ready to. If she is prepared for. And if she is comfortable with lying. No, she's not lying or not. Not lying, but. But refusing to give the information of who was the driver to the magistrate. Maybe. Maybe not lying.
- [90:01]
Andrew Walsh
Well, maybe she changed her mind after she talks to you. Because that's a good point. I guess it didn't occur to me that they could just transfer the guilt over to me. Her. Because she we were having a conversation about this. She said, I have no desire in any way to. In a court of law, but good
- [90:18]
Luke Burbank
policy, just a good life.
- [90:20]
Andrew Walsh
But I can just simply say I was not driving. My partner was driving. Co owner of the car. But it didn't occur to me that the court would be able to turn around and then pin it on me.
- [90:30]
Luke Burbank
Now, I don't know if that's the current. Well, that's the other thing. I don't know what the current state of affairs is because I haven't dealt with one of these in a long time. There was a period of time where I was filling these out, and it was like a handwritten thing which was like, if you are not the driver, driver, who was the driver? So that. That was. That was a thing at one time. I don't know if that's still what they do. Again, I haven't seen the form in a long time. Well, we'll.
- [90:52]
Andrew Walsh
We'll find out.
- [90:53]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I can't wait. Because I would love. I would just love it if Veeves goes in front of the judge and says, I was not driving. They said, well, then who was? And I am not comfortable answering that question. Your move.
- [91:03]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Magistrate, I. All I want her to do is yell, we need men like me on these walls. That's all. I've never seen that movie, by the way. I don't know how close I came to actually getting that Jack Nicholson line right, but I will tell you, pretty close. It is his grandson who is on the COVID of Norman effing Rockwell. That's the important thing to remember.
- [91:23]
Luke Burbank
That's when we've finally gotten back there. So now back to Jamie's.
- [91:27]
Andrew Walsh
I was wondering if you remember the deliveries, Andrew. It's the weave, but it's the weave,
- [91:31]
Luke Burbank
and I'm doing it. The game has slowed down for me today.
- [91:35]
Andrew Walsh
Okay, here we go. This is Jamie with a story about a delivery mistake.
- [91:40]
Jamie
Hey, this is listener Jenny in Mississippi. Thank you for being my place to voice my outrage when my family is sick of hearing about it. I recently ordered delivery from Walmart, was in kind of a hurry, and they say it's on their way. Be dinner, two or three minutes. And I'm watching, and I'm watching, watching, watching, and they're not there. I'm sitting on the porch, and then they say delivered. And the person who was delivering had the gallery to turn around and take a picture of the groceries still in their car and say delivered. So I call immediately, within five minutes, get a refund, whatever. Three Weeks later, my neighbor, who is redoing an old house. They live in California. They only come, you know, every once in a while, found these sacks of groceries on their front porch. Some things were perishable, like popsicles, and other things were fine. So I got a double load of those things.
- [92:35]
Luke Burbank
But.
- [92:35]
Jamie
But how did this happen? How did they take a picture of it in their car? Did they have second thoughts and come back once I called customer service? I still have not gotten to the bottom of the mystery, but I'm glad. Thank you for letting me vent to a fresh person about delivery.
- [92:51]
Luke Burbank
Power out.
- [92:51]
Andrew Walsh
So this delivery person. I was a little confused there for a second, but it sounds like the delivery person, for their proof of delivery photo, just took a photo of the groceries in the back. Back seats. That seems like if anybody's in a call to complain, you kind of got them dead to rights there.
- [93:07]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Although I feel like that's also what I would start doing at some point. I don't want to side with. I don't want to blame the victim here, which is our friend Jamie. But I also. I don't know, I just feel so much empathy for the people that are doing the various delivery services, because it really is kind of. It's at the. It's at a pretty tough rung of the kind of income ladder. And it's just.
- [93:32]
Andrew Walsh
I.
- [93:33]
Luke Burbank
There's just so many ways that you could get hassled, and if everything goes right, you might make a little bit of money on a particular shift, but if things start to go wrong, you're just, like, you know, losing time and. And money, et cetera. Like, so sometimes if I get any stuff delivered out here, particularly if it's like a doordash or whatever, I will go to meet the person, and they'll be getting out of the car, and I'll just, like, accept the thing that they're handing me, and they'll be like, oh, I got to take a picture of it. They'll take a picture of me holding it or whatever. Like, and it's kind of like they're. You know, I could see a world in which the person is just, like. They get into a. Like a. I don't know, a habit or a system where it's like, I'm at the location. I just took a picture. And also, maybe this is a little bit of, like, shadiness on their part, where if they. If the picture is in front of the wrong. I mean, actually, honestly, I think they'd be better off. This is the move to Any delivery drivers listening? The move is you drop it off on whatever you think, the right porch, but then you just take a very close up picture. That's actually.
- [94:28]
Andrew Walsh
So you don't see the context because
- [94:30]
Luke Burbank
that would put Jamie in a worse place than the car. The car is a dead giveaway, right?
- [94:35]
Andrew Walsh
Yes, I see what you're saying. Because there have been just once or twice.
- [94:38]
Luke Burbank
I don't know why I'm trying to help delivery drivers deliver to the wrong place and get away with it, but
- [94:42]
Andrew Walsh
I've gotten a delivery photo where it's pretty clear. It's like, wait a second. Because Genevieve was even showing me one. She says, look, this thing says it's delivered and here's a photo. But I did not get it. I'm like, well, you do have to, like, kind of. If it's a close up, you'll be like, wait a second. Look at that. That's like a gray brick right there. We don't have a gray brick right there. Like, I know that I've had to look very closely at photos before. And so you're right. Like, the more context, the better. A wide shot is going to prove the. Prove the driver delivered it to the right place better.
- [95:09]
Luke Burbank
But also it's like what I feel like with the doordash and so many of these things is it's like the scale of these operations are so massive that it's like, I don't know, it's most of the time, in my experience, if I complain about something, if it's not a huge ticket item, like with doordash or whatever, they'll just issue me a refund. I got some taco time a week or two ago, and they literally just brought the wrong stuff, Which I don't blame the driver. I think that they handed the wrong stuff out of the. Out of the window. But they were just like, literally I sent one note to doordash and I was like, hey, the wrong stuff showed up. And they were just like, boom. They just put the entire order. You know, it was like 25. You can't order anything on DoorDash for like under $25. Just immediately refunded it to my account. I could have been lying. I could have been a, you know, a malingerer with this stuff. So usually I feel like you get relief, but when. Now something happened when I was in Kansas City, which is I ordered some stuff from this, like, deli. I ordered like a sandwich and I got charged for and I could never find it at the hotel. And in fact, I Don't think it was ever brought to the hotel. I think they took it to the wrong hotel. This hotel I was in has two distinct areas like that are connected by a skybridge. Maybe it was at the wrong one, but for some reason on this one, Doordash did an investigation and decided that they did deliver it, which was, did not happen and they're not refunding me the money. And what I'm finding with this one is sorry that I'm just taking Jamie's story and running with it, but, but like if you basically, if you get lucky and they decide for whatever reason that like they're just gonna like comp you back the money, you're fine. But if you, if you have to try to escalate it past that. I'm in this like sort of Kafka esque world now with Doordash, where they have decided that I got this order from Mr. Pickle's Deli in Kansas City or Pickleman's maybe, and I didn't get it. But because that my, because my, my complaint has been filed under like invalid. I cannot for the life of me get anyone there, a human being to either chat with me or talk with me to say, I don't know what you want, I don't know what your investigation was, but I never got this thing. So I guess my point of that whole story is like, it's weird how in this world of delivery that a lot of us live in now, there's a layer of it where it's actually very user friendly and like, hey, they forgot my whatever. And it's like, bling, here's your money back, back. But then there's this other level where you have a real problem, they're not addressing it and there's no way to get remedy.
- [97:40]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, weirdly, I even got the bad feeling when you sort of said they'll just like so quickly just credit your money back or just send you a new order. And it's like that's said in the same breath as these delivery drivers are barely even breaking even survive on this. And it's just like then when you add this layer, which is probably the biggest issue here of just like it's all run by bots and no humans. And it is just so. I mean, you and I have been talking. We used the movie Brazil from the early 1980s. We've been using it long before we were talking about AI and handing so many human jobs and especially service jobs over to dumb computers. But it is this just absolute. I Mean, frustrating doesn't even begin to cover the feelings that you get when you just are like, oh, we're just locked in this world where there, for the most part, these companies are so big and they have so much of this built into the price. Like, yeah, just throw this guy another $25. But the second you're on the wrong side of that and you need to actually complain, there's no human. I put a. I don't think I told you this a couple. When I was in. When I was in Las Vegas, I had a really, really. I mean, this is so rare for me to sort of tattle on a driver. In fact, it might have been the only time I'd ever done it, but we were running late for something. I think maybe it was just a reservation, but it was for a specific time for brunch or something like that. And we're there outside the Vdara, and as you know, this area, Luke. But, like, it's this kind of to pick up and drop people off. It's this big looping sort of driving infrastructure that is kind of tied into some of the other buildings around the world.
- [99:19]
Luke Burbank
Doesn't it have that, like, giant art piece that's like a million canoes?
- [99:22]
Andrew Walsh
Yes. And you were standing outside the canoes, but I don't know how well, you can sort of picture it. And the roadways themselves are almost arty in the way they sort sort of circle around. They're like a series of almost like fully circular on ramps, sort of. So I could see it being somewhat confusing, but we saw on the app our driver in a minivan getting closer and closer and closer to us, and we're like, oh. And there it is. And then he just kept driving. And we're like, hey, stop, stop. And then he's just gone. And then I'm just staring at the map as it's like, oh, the driver will be here in 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes. As I'm watching him circle and circle and circle. And then we get there, and there's like. It's not like a super dirty car, but like, somebody had left their fast food cup or something in the. In the seat, like, in front of me, you know, if I'm the passenger. And it's in the. It's, you know, in the backseat. And this thing is in the. In that little thing on, you know, that little marsupial pouch on the back of the seat in front of you. And like, I'm already mad. We're running late. I have to call the restaurant. To say, hey, we're to going to be coming in hot or whatever. Please save the rest of the comedy show. I have to call the comedy show, say, great job again, and also say, hey, by the way, somebody left their garbage back here. And not even an apology. Or like, hey, sorry about that. Like, we ended up. Ended up waiting forever. So anyway, when I wrote a little like, you know, bad stock, you know, probably like one star or something, and kind of gave a very, very brief description of how the service was bad and again, still paid and still probably gave a dollar tip, although I don't know, but that'd be like the lowest level for me.
- [100:59]
Luke Burbank
Me.
- [101:00]
Andrew Walsh
But I immediately got a response that said, it sounds like you might be in trouble or danger or an unsafe situation. Is this true? And if so, let us know. Or just click this button if you just wanted to let us know about the service. I was like, oh, yeah, no, we're not in danger, anything. I just wanted to let you know. And there's like, okay, thanks. Okay. That was my experience in Vegas. Cut to last weekend. I want to say I took an lift somewhere and I really appreciate that the Lyft driver properly went around the roundabout. And I feel like unlike your name, you and I talked about this. Yeah, you go around the roundabout. And I was in. So many drivers in Seattle don't do that. In other words, you have to go roundabout. You go to the right and you go around the roundabout until you get to the street that you want to take the exit. It is a little confusing here on the west coast because these roundabouts are used as just like these very, very small little roundabouts that are used to sort of mitigate speed in neighboring. But when you're, you know, when you drive on the east coast, you have much larger roundabouts or even. Wait, you and I were driving around some pretty large roundabouts, I think, when we were with Sklarov. So there are different kinds of roundabouts, and when they're small like this, and it's just like a little intersection, I can understand why it's a little bit confusing, but people will just take a left and basically cut off the roundabout. And it drives me banonkers. Follow the rules.
- [102:16]
Luke Burbank
Well, it's also dangerous if somebody is coming up and somebody else is about to take a right on that street. You would crash into them, the whole point.
- [102:21]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Which actually happened. There's a roundabout outside of my house. And that actually almost happened to me the day other. Other day because the person was just cutting the corner and going on the left. So anyway, all that is to say kind of drives me crazy that drivers do that. And I was in a lift, probably had a few drinks. I think I was coming back from the Eagles or something. I know I'm by myself and this guy picks me up. And the first intersection we get to with a little roundabout, I notice. And he's a younger guy, but he follows the rule and I love it. And then I'm trying to think if we talked or something, but I just remember when I got home, I gave him a larger than usual tip. Like one that was, you know, like, I don't even know. I'm not saying I'm Daddy. It wasn't an expensive ride, but it was like I had to type in the tip. You know, it wasn't one of the pre ones, but. And I wrote, I just really appreciate that he used the roundabout the right way. So I gave like five stars, a bigger than usual tip and a compliment. But I immediately got a note back that says, it sounds like you're in danger. Is there anything we can know? And I'm just like, come on, AI. Like, I'm just so sick of just like knowing that everything we write is just. Nobody's actually reading it. Nobody cares. It's just going into some machine that is kind of like, oh, is this a liability? Is this a liability?
- [103:30]
Luke Burbank
Exactly.
- [103:31]
Andrew Walsh
Danger, Will Rogers. Danger, Will Rogers. Is it Rogers?
- [103:34]
Luke Burbank
I think it's Roger Robinson.
- [103:35]
Andrew Walsh
Robinson. Before my time. Anyway, I mean, as you know, I like to bring the young. The young.
- [103:40]
Luke Burbank
Where's Will Rogers? Was exactly your time. The singing cowboy.
- [103:44]
Andrew Walsh
Exactly. So anyway, that was a long, boring story, but it is just so frustrating that, like, oh, no, there. And we're not going to go back to a time when there's more and more human interaction. You know, we're just handing more and more of our lives over to this just absolutely senseless machine that cannot help us. And if we ever end up on the wrong side, and I'm not making a joke like, oh, I welcome our robot overlords. I'm not trying to make a joke about this. I mean, literally small things in life, but if you end up on the wrong side of it, like that bank that wouldn't return that woman's money or whatever, or she, you know, she knows
- [104:16]
Luke Burbank
that she was at like, of a vape vape store and accidentally hit the wrong button for the tip.
- [104:21]
Andrew Walsh
Instead of a $5 tip was a $500 tip. And then she just literally couldn't get a human to fix it. And the her only recourse was to finally go to the media. And then it was, it was like, what bank was it? It was the sleazy bank that did all the, that did all of the.
- [104:38]
Luke Burbank
Oh, Washington Mutual.
- [104:39]
Andrew Walsh
No, it's a national bank that got in trouble, like a. Gotten huge trouble for lying to people and starting new accounts for people. Do you remember that?
- [104:49]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, Wells Fargo.
- [104:50]
Andrew Walsh
Wells Fargo, yes.
- [104:51]
Luke Burbank
I'm just going to keep naming.
- [104:52]
Andrew Walsh
No, it was Wells Fargo.
- [104:53]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, Huge scandal, just slandering banks, but
- [104:57]
Andrew Walsh
what a shitty organization.
- [104:59]
Luke Burbank
Well, and you're right too, like, it's. What's so frustrating about it is that the reason that it's. You've already said this, so we don't need me to continue on, on this beautiful Monday, but it's like the auto generated. Are you in danger? Is not because anybody at any level of the company is worried about your safety or Genevieve safety or my safety. It's because some lawyers or possibly a chat like an AI program that's replaced the lawyers has identified a potential liability issue. And because in fact, you know, it's a kind of a real thing. Like I, I both don't like it when crime is like over described. I don't like this idea that the world is this super dangerous place that's trying to get all of us all the time, therefore we need to be armed and we need to be afraid of the world, et cetera. That being said, there is some real issues around some of the rideshare stuff because you have particularly like women maybe have been out at the bars, are, you know, inebriated and then are getting into cars with people they don't know. And there's actually, it's like a legit legitimate issue in some towns and that comes with this whole, I mean, that comes. That's an unintended consequence of this sort of capitalism. Run a moke, which is we're going to just turn everyone's car into a taxi cab if we want and we're not going to have any of the cars or really any of the responsibility. We're just going to create like a very complicated dispatch service where then we harvest all the money and, and so somewhere in all of that there's like now risk around how the drivers are behaving. And so now this completely not thought through auto generated little. Are you okay? Is the response to the downstream effects of rampant capitalism? Yes, essentially.
- [106:45]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Yeah. When I was on. We should wrap up. When I was, I was on Kuow on Friday talking about all kinds of stuff and talking about like taxes. There's like this proposed tax on income. It would be the first income tax in Washington state that would be, be taxed on just any money you make over a million dollars in a year. So it's, they call the millionaires tax. It's not even like survivable. Yeah. And it's not even like, oh, if you make over a million dollars, we're taxing all your income. It's only money over a million dollars.
- [107:14]
Luke Burbank
Right. It's tiered like most taxes probably.
- [107:16]
Andrew Walsh
Right. And as I'm with this woman who is like, I guess she considers, considers herself like a moderate Seattle sort of Democrat kind of person. But like also like, she just, she said that she's like, oh, this is just eating. She said a bunch of stuff about it, but, but essentially she just ended her argument by saying this is just like eating the rich. To eat the rich. And I was just like, serve them up.
- [107:39]
Luke Burbank
I literally said eating the rich because they're delicious.
- [107:42]
Andrew Walsh
Actually that's literally what I said. I said, sounds delicious to me. And then I, and then I went on this whole thing and then, and then I said, I was like, I'm just not worried about taxes like bringing down our economy, especially at this stage of capitalism and what we see with these companies that are not like operating on a level playing field. I said, you know what's bad for small business? Big businesses, you know what bad for small businesses is Amazon. And I just go on about how Amazon is like basically acquired enough power and wealth to create an unlevel playing field for what used to be like the capitalist dream of anybody has a chance. And like, you know, I can't go to. So as somebody who doesn't shop on Amazon anymore, I am acutely aware of how impossible it is to shop anywhere but Amazon. And so anyway, I kind of go on this little thing and then afterwards, words I hear the host, our friend Bill Radke say to her, like, oh yeah, so you can't say you're from Amazon, huh? I had no idea. Lol. She works for Amazon. And I did not realize that. And I'm glad I didn't because I think I would have been maybe more in my head about it or more equivocal. Is equivocal the right word? I would have been equivocating about it and I'm kind of glad I didn't know. And also I stand by what I said. But it was sort of funny that I was sort of like, because I'm very non confrontational on that show and off. I'm not looking to score points or win or anything, but it was kind of funny that she was only allowed to say that she, like, works in tech or something, because, you know, I don't. Whoever is her. I love that.
- [109:08]
Luke Burbank
Bill, though, outed that. That's actually good.
- [109:10]
Andrew Walsh
Off air. Off air. He said. I'm sorry, off air. No, no, he had. And she did not respond to me. And so she had never said anything that would have been like her representing that company. But it was sort of interesting. I was like, oh, I'm glad I didn't know that, because I felt a little bit bolder going into my opinion there.
- [109:28]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that was good. Well said, too, so.
- [109:31]
Andrew Walsh
Well, maybe.
- [109:32]
Luke Burbank
All right, I think that's quite enough out of us for a Monday.
- [109:36]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, we started that email segment an hour ago, I think darn close to right. 45.
- [109:42]
Luke Burbank
But no time to talk McDonald's. But time for me to. To talk about late stage capitalism.
- [109:47]
Andrew Walsh
Well, tomorrow's Colum Columbo Day, so people are excited about that.
- [109:51]
Luke Burbank
Happy Columbo Day to all who celebrate coming tomorrow, by the way. You know what I am. You probably saw me maybe with the binocs out. I don't know how much you see what I'm doing here, but I was looking down at the mighty Columbia, because you know what I'm watching or was watching? A sea lion. A sea lion chasing around fish and jumping out of the water and eating fish and being sea liony. And what I would say is, to the all of the haters and the losers, I know the difference between a sea lion and. And a great group of harbor porpoises. And the way that I know that is because I was just looking at a sea lion and I didn't think it was harbor porpoises.
- [110:25]
Andrew Walsh
So did you see your representative who this was. This is gonna make you mad. Was like, bragging about, like, passing something that will allow more sea lions to be killed. Glues in Camp Perez. I can't think of her first name right now. Marie. Were you following this? She called them, like, river rats or something like that.
- [110:46]
Luke Burbank
I wasn't following that, but I'm not totally shocked. And I don't know. I'm watching one of them kill a bunch of fish. So maybe there's something to it.
- [110:53]
Andrew Walsh
I think that, like, people who are like, maybe, like. Because you and I would see something like that and be like, oh, the beauty of nature, but I guess they're kind of a bit of a menace in the ecosystem. Or something, but she called them some name on social media that I was like, oh, I hope Luke doesn't see this. This is his friends that she's targeting.
- [111:09]
Luke Burbank
My friends, the Seawell don't come for the harp Porpoises. Mgp. That's all I ask. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We will be right back here tomorrow with more Columbo talk for you. So please join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday, take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall, and good luck to all. Power out.