#4729 A Real Nose Breather

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL #4729 – "A Real Nose Breather"

Date: May 18, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

In this Monday edition of TBTL, Luke and Andrew dive into the highs and lows of their weekend adventures—including UFO festivals, awkward run-ins at the ballpark, and the existential crises wrought by both office bureaucracy and the Mariners’ current losing streak. The episode is classic TBTL: a meandering conversation full of humor, personal anecdotes, and deep dives into pop culture and oddly specific anxieties. Main themes include the complexities of dog ownership, the science (and paranoia) of nose vs. mouth breathing, Mariners fandom, and the absurdities of contemporary workplace software.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dog Guilt and Canine Communication

• Andrew shares (02:32) his guilt over lying to his puppy, Lucy, about leaving the room for a podcast recording session, wondering if she's aware and whether their bond has been broken.
  • "I knew I wasn't gonna come back. I was coming down here to do the show with you, Luke." (03:55, Andrew)
• Luke offers dog-owner advice: honesty isn’t essential; it’s more about consistency. Lots of playful banter about the extent to which dogs comprehend human deception.
  • "I lied to them from day one." (04:51, Luke)
• The segment segues into broader discussions about the neuroses of pet ownership and trust.

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2. Mouth vs. Nose Breathing: An Existential Awakening

• Luke describes a revelatory moment (07:23) hearing a TED Radio Hour interview about the benefits of nose breathing over mouth breathing, specifically its impact on sleep, anxiety, and even heart rate variability.
  • "If we can...remembering to try to breathe through our nose versus breathe through our mouth, we'll just be getting more oxygen." (22:07, Luke)
• He details his subsequent obsession, including a frantic Amazon purchase of "mouth tape" at a stoplight, only to receive a product whose purpose (mouth tape vs. medical tape) is rendered ambiguous by legalistic packaging.
  • Notable moment: Luke worries about "dying as he lived, misusing something from Amazon." (32:00, Luke)
• Andrew fact-checks live and discovers that the purchased "Monier Comfort Tape" is, in fact, commonly used for mouth taping during sleep (35:05). The two riff on the perils of impulsive late-night online shopping and product labeling.

Notable Quote

"If I don't get mouth tape at my house Sunday night, it's curtains for your boy." (24:31, Luke)

Notable Moment

• Luke tries the tape, worries about suffocation and rashes, and spends a restless night hyper-fixating on nose breathing without the tape.

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3. Movie Memories: The 'Under Siege' Cake Scene (10:24)

• Tangent comparing a Live Wire birthday surprise cake to the infamous topless cake scene from Under Siege (1992), emblematic of formative pubescent moments for many men of their generation. They discuss 90s action movies, strict parental controls, and how early film choices shape taste and memory.

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4. Social Anxieties: Meeting Listeners & Dog Walking Protocol (41:32, 48:53)

• Andrew recounts running into listener Dan at a Mariners game while shamefully handling a large sausage.
  • He frets that his curt greeting was rude, but follow-up texts confirm it was a highlight for Dan.
• Neighborhood walks with Lucy spark anxiety about dog-dog and dog-owner social dynamics: Should dogs always greet, or do people just want to keep it moving? Andrew seeks Luke’s advice on reading social cues with other dog owners.
  • "I'm reading the owner, which is not a very satisfying answer..." (50:58, Luke)
• Discussion of dog training—balancing playfulness and good manners, concern about being "that owner" whose dog others dread.

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5. Baseball Woes: Mariners Talk & Donor Request (59:10–81:58)

• Mariners fandom is in crisis mode after a dismal weekend. Zach Jost, a long-time listener and dazzling donor, specifically requests a Mariners segment, and the hosts oblige with a deep dive.
  • "How do we not let a losing streak mean that it's all going to end in tears?" (62:06, Zach, read by Luke)
• They analyze the team’s structural problems: baffling streaks, underperformance, injuries, and the perennial mystery of why players seem to regress after joining Seattle.
• The mood shifts between gallows humor and fatalistic resignation:
  • "What a way to go. He died as he lived, misusing something from Amazon." (32:00, Luke)
  • "They're somehow mediocre and also boring at it. And it's just like, that's...what I'm having a hard time with." (75:19, Luke)
• Flatulence-as-anger analogy: The requested Saxondale drop (82:38) ties in, with Luke describing venting about the Mariners "bit by bit instead of one tremendous rattle."

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6. Workplace Bureaucracy: The Dreaded Cyber Training (88:06)

• Luke describes his battle with new expense software at CBS (Fusion), triggered by the threat of his corporate card being cut off.
• The training session is hilariously useless: lots of time spent explaining the concept of an expense report, zero practical help, and awkward Zoom positioning ("chin up the nostrils" shot). Luke’s only takeaway is a couple of possible email contacts for actual assistance.
  • "I was right. And that feels good." (100:01, Luke)

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7. Community Spotlight: Ocean Beach Women's Club (84:15)

• Listener dazzling donor Faren Shear uses her spot to celebrate women’s clubs:
  • Shares history and positive social impact of women's clubs, rooting their tradition in activism, education, and reform.
  • Encourages listeners to learn about (and join) local women’s clubs as vital engines for community and change.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On dog lying (04:53):
  "You've ruined the relationship. You've broken the trust. So at this point, just go full fabrication status." – Luke
• On impulsive self-care (24:31):
  "If I don't get mouth tape at my house Sunday night, it's curtains for your boy." – Luke
• On Mariners fandom (75:19):
  "They're somehow mediocre and also boring at it. And it's just like, that's the...what I'm having a hard time with." – Luke
• On office software (94:29):
  "You have a credit card. You charge approved items and approved events on the card. You then submit the card for reimbursement." – Luke, imitating the useless corporate training
• On Mariners-related anger:
  "I'm letting out my Mariner's anger a bit at a time instead of one tremendous rattle." (83:35, Luke, after the Saxondale drop)

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• Dog Guilt & Lying to Lucy: 02:32 – 07:23
• Nose Breathing Revelation / Mouth Tape Saga: 07:23 – 41:11
• Live Wire Cake Surprise & 'Under Siege' Movie Talk: 09:35 – 19:25
• Listener Run-In at Mariners Game / Food Shame: 41:32 – 47:22
• Dog Walking Protocol & Puppy Socialization: 48:53 – 58:41
• Mariners Deep Dive / Listener Request: 59:10 – 81:58
• Women's Clubs / Dazzling Donor Feature: 84:15 – 88:06
• CBS Fusion Expense Report Training Debacle: 88:06 – 106:07

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

This episode encapsulates TBTL’s signature blend of rambling yet relatable humor, grounded in anxious overthinking and accidental profundity. Both hosts lean into their neuroses, using stories of lying to a puppy, mouth tape purchases, Mariners heartbreak, and bleak workplace trainings to reveal universal anxieties about adulthood and connection. For Mariners fans and anxious pet owners, this is a particularly rich and funny episode, while listeners of all stripes will appreciate the extended riffs on modern frustrations—and the still-beating hopeful heart at the show’s core.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

Who's that, Daddy?

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who's that, Daddy?

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's Luke. Daddy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. You have a new adopted son.

[Luke Burbank]

Congratulations, Andrew. And Luke, he claims both of you.

[Andrew Walsh]

So, Daddy, tbtl. When you knock us down, we're gonna get up.

[Luke Burbank]

And on the way up, we're gonna bite a kneecap off, all right? And we're gonna stand up, and then

[Andrew Walsh]

it's gonna take two more shots to knock us down. Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

[Luke Burbank]

For heaven's sake, you're drunk. And you're being very menacing right now. Are you seriously detaining me again? Am I being rendered?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, you're being friendered. So just please accept our compulsory hospitality.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, are we done with the business part? I wanted to start the clown portion of the meeting. Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and wel to a Monday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Who is my daddy and what does he do? Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above mighty Columbia, where we're looking at an absolutely gorgeous Monday, the 18th of May. Oh, ma pa. It's just beautiful. Monday show is always big around here because, well, we've done a lot of living on Saturday and Sunday, which then requires us to tell you about all the stuff that happened to us over the weekend. By the way, we've made it to episode 4729 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. One thing I did this weekend, I attended a UFO festival.

[Andrew Walsh]

Louie, what is that? What is.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm like, I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

What is it? Talk about that a little bit. Also, earlier today, I did something very unusual. I was very insistent about getting online for a cyber training session.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was cyberbullied within an inch of my life last night.

[Luke Burbank]

Usually the kind of thing I avoid assiduously, but in this case, I was desperate to take the class. So we can get into that as well. And of course, talk to this guy. He's the longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He was at the baseball game on Sunday catching some rays. I'm sorry, I'm tan.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like to be tan.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Luke. Hello. I'm sorry, I'm a little bit out of it today.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I have a little less than

[Andrew Walsh]

enthused Can I be honest with you? I'm not in a good headspace right now. I. Again, I lied to Lucy a little bit ago, and it's kind of killing me a little bit. We had a good morning, you know, and I knew that I was gonna have to come down here to record with you. So when I do that, I put her in the kitchen. Going to have to put a.

[Luke Burbank]

Get to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, get to. Of course, with the privilege. I have the honor to do it.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the word I was looking for.

[Andrew Walsh]

Honor. Yeah. And so I put up with this baby gate that we have, and I close the one door, and she spends her time in the kitchen. I was showing you some photos of her, some images from the puppy cam that we have set up in there on Friday's show. You know, and it's fine now. I mean, I think one thing is, like, I like to take her on a little walk around the block to kind of tire her out a little bit. So that during this period that we're apart from each other, she'll be pretty chill. Cause otherwise, she gets a little antsy. Little separation anxiety. But this morning, everything was fine. Everything was good. And I was putting her in the kitchen. I was doing some work in the kitchen. And then about 10 minutes ago, it was time for me to come down here, and she was kind of sleeping under my chair. No problems. And I get up and, you know, I woke her up a little bit on my way out the door, and she just looked at me, and I just said, I'm just going to the bathroom. I'll be back in a second.

[Luke Burbank]

Ah, yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I did go to the bathroom, but I knew I wasn't gonna come back. I was coming down here to do the show with you, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it sounds like it was a lie of omission, because part of it was true. You were going to the bathroom. You just omitted the fact that you were also gonna come down here and talk to me for an hour.

[Andrew Walsh]

I said, I'm just going to the bathroom, and I'll be back in a minute. Like, I lied. She might be picking up on that now. Or maybe in another 10 minutes. Another 10 minutes after that. At some point, she's gonna be like, okay, this guy's either doing a real paint job down there, or I've been lied to. And I don't know what. This is my first puppy. Like, I don't know. I know it's worth. This is my first. I don't know what happens when you start lying to your dog. And you lose that trust. Like, is she gonna be. Is she just not gonna believe anything I say anymore? Is she gonna start misbehaving? Is she gonna start smoking cigarettes? Like, I don't even know what I. What the implications of this are. You've actually had dogs in your life. Maybe you can give me some insight.

[Luke Burbank]

I lied to them from day one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Oh, really?

[Luke Burbank]

So that's the thing. You've got to just pick a lane.

[Andrew Walsh]

Interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

Either you're gonna be. Yeah, the problem is you're kind of, you know, you're sort of treading in both worlds. You're generally honest with this dog, but then occasionally, you know, you'll be less than fully truthful. And that's. I would just say at this point, you've essentially, you've ruined the relationship. You've broken the trust. So at this point, just go full fabrication status.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was worried about. I was worried that that's exactly what you're going to say. You know, this reminds me of. This is actually a real world story as opposed to. I mean, everything I told you is true.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I believe that you believe it. I believe. I believe that you believe that Lucy can tell when you're saying something in human voice that then does not actually happen and that may damage the relationship.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just spoofing. I'm not really worried about it. But it was shocking that a lie just dropped out of my. A totally unnecessary lie dropped out of my mouth. Right. That's actually a good point. And that's more what bothered me, like, why she didn't ask. She was fine. I'm not actually worried about what this means for the relationship. I'm sure it's fine. I'm gonna start rebuilding. I'm gonna rebuild better. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Build back.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm gonna build back better. That worked out for everybody. So anyway, I'm not actually worried about. But it was funny, as I said. I'll be back in a second. I'm just going the bathroom. And I closed the door. I'm just like, why the hell did I just lie to that?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's your guilt. That's your guilt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, but why? Where did that come from? Like, I don't even know.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, your guilt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my guilt of leaving her, not my guilt of lying. Oh, I see. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like you, you were in the back of your mind, or maybe even the middle of your mind. You were like, ah, shoot, I got to leave this dog alone for the next couple of hours. I kind of feel bad about it. So you tacked on that unnecessary little lagnop of lying. Actually, that could be a show title. Lonyop. Lying.

[Andrew Walsh]

And weirdly I know that word because

[Luke Burbank]

I learned it from you and I

[Andrew Walsh]

learned it because my friend Shay had a dog whose name was Lonyop. I'm showing you this. It looks like everything's copacetic in the

[Luke Burbank]

kitchen right now, Lucy. I can report to the listeners that Lucy is just looking about as comfortable as a dog could be dozing in the dog bed. Yeah. And does not seem to be, at least as of right now, suffering any negative effects from the lying.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I am, I am zooming in and it does seem like she's changed. Just, it's hard to explain, but I've lived with her for about a month.

[Luke Burbank]

Imperceptible to most.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't see it to you. But I can just sort of see the way she's sleeping is like it's fine. Like it's fine, she's going to be fine. But it's just, it's just different. It's just different.

[Luke Burbank]

Critical question, does it appear that she is as she's sleeping, is she breathing through her nose or through her mouth? What do you think? Because that's something I just learned yesterday that's radically changed my life approach.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is this involving UFOs?

[Luke Burbank]

No, this is. Well, this is involving basically a lifestyle change that will, I think radically extend not only the length that I live, but the quality of those years. The difference between breathing through my nose and breathing through my mouth. Are you up on this entire.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no. Tell me and I'm curious. Are you talking about sleeping? Are you talking about waking? Tell me everything.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm talking about all of it, buddy. Sleep, waking. That period of time where you kind of fell asleep but you're still a little bit awake.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

All possible circadian states are affected, it would appear by if we're breathing through our nose or breathing through our mouth. Yesterday I was on my way from Becca's over to my sister Sarah and my brother in law Josh's. We were having a family get together at their place kind of in celebration I guess of my birthday. Also of Mother's Day, a little belatedly for my mom, an early birthday thing for my sister Sarah. That's what happens in my family when there's a get together. There's so many people and, and special days that have gone. Maybe not properly acknowledged that it becomes usually a bit of a grab bag of things. But I was on my way over.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I ask you a quick question? About that for real. I hope it's interesting. But. So you're a big family of a lot of people. Like you said, you're kind of belatedly celebrating a couple of different things and early celebrating a thing. So are there moments during these get togethers where those events are acknowledged, or do you sort of tag it on there when you say, hey, let's get together because we haven't really done anything for Mother's Day or whatever? You know what I mean? Is there a moment where somebody had to. I don't bring out a cake for you. Or maybe your sister or something was sort of acknowledged about Mother's Day to your mom?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the way that it had. First of all, there was a big kind of happy birthday sign that my sister Sarah had put up. So I'm, you know, not to brag, but I think my birthday was probably, let's just call it first on the call sheet.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, sure. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Above, I would say it was the main event, which I didn't. I didn't need it to be at all. I've been. I've been very, very properly celebrated and commemorated. And I don't know if I even told you on Friday, but Thursday night at Livewire, Elena jumped out of a cake.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my goodness.

[Luke Burbank]

My friend and co host and announcer on Livewire. This was all a complete surprise to me. I did not realize during soundcheck that there was a gigantic pretend cake that could have a human being inside it. That when I came out on stage and I introduced Elena, as I often do after I've done a little spiel, they wheeled a cake doubt. And she popped out of the cake with. With two pom poms and led this big birthday cheer for me. They passed out birthday cupcakes to everyone. It was a big sort of event on Thursday night.

[Andrew Walsh]

So can I ask a delicate question about that?

[Luke Burbank]

Why didn't you do something like that for me on tbtl? Yes, we've all been asking ourselves.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm still working on it. I didn't want it. I didn't want it. You're doing it on 51 when I claim to do it a little on the nose, as you would say, to do it right on your birthday. Now, my only experience with seeing somebody pop out of a cake was from the movie Under Siege. And I think a lot of youngsters. Not the movie I was expecting young straight men documentary. Wait, do you not. Do you not know why I'm bringing this up? Because I do feel like a lot of men My age, who were boys at the time, remember that as a kind of quintessential. Who became werewolves in this exact moment. Because there is a very famous scene where. That's Van Damme, I want to say.

[Luke Burbank]

No, Steven Seagal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Seagal. I get all those guys confused. Anyway, he's aboard some sort of a military ship, and there is a scene where there is a woman who's supposed to jump out of a cake to surprise a bunch of military officers or whatever. But I think some act of terrorism or something has happened that everybody is hiding or dead. It's all abandoned now. And he's going around trying to, like, kind of. He's the. Oh, that's right. He's a cook. He. He's a badass cook.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, he's a cook with incredible martial arts skills.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then she doesn't know that there's a woman inside the cake, and she doesn't know that the party has basically been canceled by terrorism. By the way, canceled Colon by terrorism could also be the name of the Tom Clancy knockoff that I'm writing. But anyway, so she jumps out of the cake anyway and does this, apparently with her eyes closed because she doesn't realize that the entire room is darkened and there's nobody. She doesn't have an audience. Her perception of sound, like, you would think that if she's a professional dancer, she'd be used to hearing hoots and hollers at this moment. But she does not stop dancing, despite the fact that there's no sound at all when she jumps out of the cake. But importantly, here she is not fully clothed when she jumps out of the cake. And what I want to ask very delicately is, I am assuming that the livewire version of this was more PG than, say, R rated. There was not. I would say G. This was not an under siege situation because that would absolutely not. So uncomfortable. That would be so uncomfortable.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, not to mention a huge HR violation.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's exactly why I bring it up

[Luke Burbank]

as a workplace environment, as I do. That's why I bring so much fun to the show. Say, welcome to the workplace environment, everyone.

[Andrew Walsh]

Know what? It really fires me up to act glum at the beginning of the show. I'm surprised that Live Wire at Live

[Luke Burbank]

Wire, I welcome everyone to the workplace environment.

[Andrew Walsh]

You say that to the audience? No, I. I'm kind of surprised that that's not a kind of cultural touchstone for you, being that we're the same age. Like, I feel like if I. Men, if I say, hey, Kevin, what do you Remember from Under Siege, like he wouldn't even have to say words. We would just look at each other, be like, of course, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I was doing some googling while you were talking about this. And it's definitely one of the big things that comes up when the movie Under Siege is googled. Because you're probably right. It was probably a kind of a mind blowing moment for a bunch of people of a certain age watching the movie. Here's not to get off track, but the reason is because the reason I don't have a lot of knowledge about Under Siege from the having watched it perspective is because I was never even in my, you know, between and teen years, I never liked watching action movies that were bad for the sake of watching them. So for instance, I loved the movie Die Hard because I thought it was a high quality film.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? Like I. So my. My actual knowledge of a lot of those, like all of that Van Damme stuff that Camaro just knows chapter and verse on all the Seagal stuff. I only know about it in the sense that like everyone my age was talking about the latest Steven Seagal movie, whether it was Under Siege or On Deadly Ground or where I believe he plays it, let's just say alleged Native American who is defending his maybe ancestral home against whoever it is. All that is to say I didn't ever watch any of these movies because even as a 10 year old, and I don't mean this to sound hoity toity, I just, I could never, even when I was young, kind of like enjoy a movie that was so bad that it was good. I just could never get into that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll be honest with you, as you say that I don't think so. There were some movies I was looking to see what year this came out. You had a bootleg only the cake scene of Only the Cakes Act. Now I had a videotape that just got, for some reason it got scrambled around that time.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here's the deal. I'm trying to figure out why I would have rented it too, I think. So the movie came out in 92, so I'm thinking it's probably like 1994 or something like that. I'm now at an age where I am just freshman.

[Luke Burbank]

You're a freshman? Probably.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, in 94 I'd probably be a junior. I graduated in 95.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought you said the movie came out in 90.

[Andrew Walsh]

The movie came out in 92. So I'm saying I probably rented it in around 94. I'm probably at an age now where I'm just renting things and I don't really. And I'm not. I'm. It's before the time that I'm thinking about movies, slash films, you know what I mean? I don't think at this point I know directors at all. That might not be entirely true. Like, I think Tarantino, again, for a lot of people of our generation, might have started to change that and get us to think about, like, who directed this and you start following directors. But I just remember there being as somebody who grew up in a very strict household where like every movie was rented by the parents, with the parents, for the parents, by the parents, for the parents. Yeah. But like with their consent and their, you know, over seeing it, because we were not allowed to see. We weren't allowed to see anything as young kids that other kids were allowed to see, like Police Academy movies. Anything that was a little bit fresh, as you would say in your family, like, no way, Jose. And then I got to an age where, you know, in some ways my parents divorce really opened up the world for me because it wasn't like I was just set free, but there was just less attention to be paid as to whether or not I'm renting.

[Luke Burbank]

Other things going on. I was probably taking up the adults time and energy.

[Andrew Walsh]

And at this point I think I'm like, I'm living with my dad in Lakewood, Ohio. We're living together, and he's, you know, he's. He's dating again. I'm like, just, you know, going to the. I'm old and I'm old enough to be going to the store and just renting tapes and bringing them home, you know, without having to talk about what I'm renting. Now, I'll be honest with you. I do not think under siege. I don't think I had heard anything about it. I don't think I was like, oh, this is one where I might be able to see nudity because that, what, you've mentioned this on the show before without sounding like a sleazeball, but we were pubescent boys. Like, we would say, like, oh, you rent. Don't tell mom the babysitter's dead, because, you know, Christina Applegate is in it. And in the commercial you see that she's wearing a towel or in the bathtub at some point. So you're thinking, oh, wow, might I see something that I have never seen before? And so there are.

[Luke Burbank]

You Rent Blue Ribbon Babes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ooh, I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't know any of the names of any of the people in the movie, but they definitely seem like they're getting naked. Or how about Cosmic Babes and the Slime Ball? Bolorama, I think was.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know either of those. I knew Babe, Pig in the City. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that pig is nude the entire film.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nobody talks about it. But anyway, so I think I rented Under Siege. Not in any kind of, like, with any kind of hornball instincts because it's a very small part of the movie. I think I was just like, oh, well, I didn't. You know, I was probably maybe starting to watch Rambo and stuff like that, and the first Rambo, AKA First Blood, you know, it was actually a good movie. And. But I'm not like. I'm not discerning at any point at this point in my life. I'm just. I'm just sort of. I'm like Lucy, out for a walk, just sniffing everything I can, trying to figure out the world around. I'm mapping my world. And so I think I rented Under Siege because it just seemed like, I don't know. This is what. This is what kids rent. This is what cool guys rent. Under Siege. Sure. Like, I still. Like, I even said I didn't even know if it was Seagal or the other guy. I'm such not an action guy. And that's why I think when I was watching that movie and. And that scene happened, and that's what happened. That's what scenes do, they happen. I think I lost my goddamn mind, particularly. It's happening. It might have been. Could that have been the first real. Nah, it probably wasn't the first nudity I saw in a movie, but, like, it was very rare. And I was just like, what? And then I grow up to be, you know, here in 2026, and I realized that, like, I think a lot of people my age had that same experience.

[Luke Burbank]

And also, I can imagine you. And again, I'm just completely inventing this in my mind. But it's. Maybe you're at home and you're watching this. Your dad is maybe out and about

[Andrew Walsh]

doing something, probably at Winterhurst Ice Rink on a date.

[Luke Burbank]

And you're like, in your living room or in the TV room, in the basement, wherever you are, and you're like, seeing nudity on your home television environment.

[Andrew Walsh]

And how is this floating? How is this happening right now? Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, so back to my family birthday party.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes, I welcome listeners. I'm Gross.

[Luke Burbank]

I had had plenty of birthday celebrate in. But this also was yet another little event where my. My family was super sweet. And the way that it's acknowledged Andrew of the different elements, the different things that are being kind of, I guess, honored, if you will, at this part, celebrate is a better word for it is just like, yeah, the present portion. So I got some really nice, super sweet presents, which I was really appreciative of. And then I think my sister Sarah got like an early birthday present. And I think there was one Mother's Day present for my mom because a lot of us got her flowers. In fact, my mom had, like, multiple bouquets of flowers that arrived at their house on Mother's Day. I think I might have told you this, too, that, like, the craziest thing happened. Oh, I did tell you this. I sent her flowers and then went to the wrong Susan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Which also sounds like a movie with maybe Diane Keaton that could have come out in the 80s. The wrong Susan.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's kind of funny, but it's mostly. It's like a romance.

[Luke Burbank]

So as I'm, like, sitting in my car on my way over to this event, I am listening to opb, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and I'm listening to the TED Radio Hour, and they're interviewing a guy who's a sort of an expert on the topic of breath and breathing through your mouth versus breathing through your nose. And he is making these very, very compelling arguments about. And there appears to be a fair amount of science to back this up, that, like, if you breathe through your mouth a lot, what it ends up doing is you breathing down into your lungs, but it's kind of in the upper portion of your lungs as opposed to your lower lungs, which is almost kind of down near your belly. Whereas if you breathe through your nose, it's kind of more down. You feel your. You feel your belly, you sort of distend a little bit as the oxygen goes into your lower lungs. And according to this guy, your lower lungs, that's a better. That's better at distributing oxygen, I guess, ultimately into your blood supply. Okay, so if we're sitting, imagine you're kind of sitting at a desk chair, working all day, and you're breathing through your mouth and you're a little hunched over. So your posture is maybe not the greatest. You're really constricting what's happening in the breathing department. And what that means is you're breathing into your upper lungs. It's not getting distributed as effectively. And so you're having to Breathe more and take more breaths as opposed to a longer, more productive breath through your nose. And that kind of fills your, like, sort of lower lungs, and then you sort of let it out. And if you do this. And he is talking about this as I'm sitting in traffic on I84, and

[Andrew Walsh]

you're doing it right the way we're

[Luke Burbank]

all doing this breathing exercise. Yeah. And by the way, sorry, you're getting a very, very sort of uninformed version of this directed breath exercise. I'm just remembering what he said yesterday, but I'm doing the breath exercise, and it's absolutely incredible. I just feel my. And a big thing that this guy's talking about is a lot of the anxiety that we carry around. His opinion on the matter is that a lot of it is because we're just not fully oxygenated or properly oxygenated, and we don't even realize it. And that if we can kind of do this one simple thing of remembering to try to breathe through our nose versus breathe through our mouth, we'll just be getting more oxygen. Our heart rate will be more. It'll be more optimal. Although this was another thing he talked about was, believe it or not, according to this guy, what you don't want to have, Andrew, is a perfectly steady heartbeat or heart rate. It actually needs to have some variation in it for reasons. So when you're breathing in, when you're inhaling, your heart rate is actually increased. Your heart is beating more quickly as you're intaking this oxygen, and then as you're exhaling it, your heart rate is slowing. And there's something about that dynamism in heart rate that's actually very healthy. And he said, like, if the doctors see that you have a perfectly predictable flat heart rate, or not flat, but perfectly repetitive or whatever you want to call it, that's actually a sign of potentially disease and other things, which I was like, oh, man, that's. I've been hoping that my heart rate would be consistent and totally unchanging. I thought that was the mark of health. But. So I'm. Now I'm off of the freeway. Now I'm on the surface street. I'm heading to my sisters. And I just do this thing that is like. I feel so kind of like an example of how I both live in the low and the high of life. I'm listening to this, what I find to be very compelling argument around mouth breathe about nose breathing versus mouth breathing. And I'm doing it in the car, and I'm feeling the effects Already. And I'm thinking he's talking about snoring and how he was not a snorer, but he did this experiment where for 10 days he only breathed through his mouth. And within like a day, he had developed kind of a snoring problem because of the mouth breathing versus the nose. Nose breathing for him. And now I'm listening to all this and I'm sitting at a stoplight and what am I doing? I'm on Amazon on my phone buying mouth tape to have it delivered to my house.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wear during the day to train yourself.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, to wear maybe all the time. Other than when I'm hosting the show with you, I don't know. Daytime. Hey, definitely nighttime. Listen, the listeners have made their request known. And I get it. I hear you. But like, so I. This is what happens to me. I go from spending a zero amount of my time thinking about nose breathing versus mouth breathing to realizing at this stoplight on Gleason in Portland that if I don't get mouth tape at my house Sunday night, it's curtains for your boy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. You're gonna die of a steady heartbeat.

[Luke Burbank]

I will die of a steady heartbeat. My relationship will implode because of my continued snoring, which is because I'm breathing through my mouth and not through my nose. So I order this mouth tape to have it delivered Sunday night. So have it delivered within hours of when I have this feeling that's, you know, and I'm not proud of that. I mean, as we've talked at length on this show, I don't think making those kinds of orders from Amazon is making the world a better place. It's, it's, it's sort of like it's blunting and anxiety that I'm having or a feeling that I'm having in that moment of like, I have to get this mouth breathing under control again. Something that had not even occurred to me as a thing 12 minutes previous. And this is the part you're gonna love, Andrew. I get home after the events and again shout out to my incredible family for all of the sweet, just celebration of me. It was really fun on Sunday. But I get home and by the way, my mom and dad are staying here last night because they're. It's the jump off point to the timeshare in Seaside, Oregon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

So I get, I get home, my parents are here, we're hanging out, having a nice time. I get the Amazon delivery. I get the little. My tape and everything, and I put it on the nightstand. I'm all excited it's time to go to bed and I open the box of mouth tape and I realize it's not mouth tape. It's some other kind of. I don't even know what the purpose of it is. It's some kind of medical tape that

[Andrew Walsh]

may be for kidnapping tape. Is it like. Because I, I think I've seen this in Under Siege as well where they put this kind of tape over people's mouths and, and then they, they tie up their.

[Luke Burbank]

Probably work pretty well for that. I'm going to tell you exactly what it was. It's something called Monier Comfort tape.

[Andrew Walsh]

Comfort.

[Luke Burbank]

Now what happened was it says pain free removal hypoallergenic latex, free and gentle on skin. Packaging may vary. Skin friendly adhesive cotton tape. Now what had happened, Andrew, was because I was at a stoplight on my telephone. I had gone on to Amazon.com looking for mouth tape. And then pretty quickly it must have just gotten to something that was in the, in the like one neighborhood over like some kind of medical tape that you can use for something. Maybe it's covering a wound. Maybe it's covering a band aid that's over a wound. What it's not is marketed as the thing you're supposed to put over your lips and then go to sleep.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. Which they. But I market. I know we've talked about that before.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And which I, Becca reminded me she had purchased for me at some point, you know, a year or two ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Man, that's. That's a ballsy gift for your partner.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, I got you send a message.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. It's a message you put over your mouth. I would like you to wear it at our next date

[Luke Burbank]

and put more of it on for the after date. Just, just so like I, I'm all excited because I have built up in my mind all afternoon since about 12:50pm When I heard that I need to start using mouth tape now to extend life and increase my quality of life. All day in the back of my mind, it's been like I'm going to get the night of sleep of a lifetime. Tonight I'm going to put my mouth tape on. I'm going to get all cozy. It's going to be incredible. I bought an eye mask too, because that's another thing. I never pull the curtains down in my room because I like the morning light. But this time of year it actually gets really early and really bright, particularly on the weekends. So I've got this whole thing going in my mind about this experience. I'm going to have. And so I realized this isn't mouth tape. But then I'm like, yeah, but could I just use it as mouth tape? So I put it. I literally put it over my mouth. And then I'm looking at the box, and the box of Monier Comfort tape says somewhere on it. And when I say box, I mean bag. It was kind of one of those little plastic bags that has a resealable top on it. And it says something to the effect of, do not use this tape for anything other than what it is indicated for.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm like.

[Luke Burbank]

And then I. I fast. I flash through all these scenarios where it's like me in the middle of the night waking up, like, suffocating, unable to pull the tape off my mouth, because that's not what it's designed for. Like, should I be taping my mouth closed with tape? That's not specifically indicated for this use. And so I take the mouth tape off and I go to sleep without the mouth tape. But I spend the whole night trying to. And I must have woken up, Andrew. It feels like I woke up 15 times reminding myself to breathe through my nose. I had one of the more fitful nights of sleep I've had in memory because I kept. Because in my brain was lodged this idea that I have to nose breathe now when I sleep.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I do sort of like it. I want to be. Listen, I think mindful breathing. Talking about the waking hours here.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a great mike in the Mechanic song, by the way. Yeah. In the waking hours, I just a little paranoid. It is. I'm very not mindful about. Well, maybe not about a lot of things. I think I've gotten a little bit more mindful. But like about health stuff and about little stuff like that. And when you're talking about. You're listening to this TED talk about breathing, and I know that you're starting to do the breathing while you're listening to it. Then you're telling me on the podcast about this, and then I start doing it. And I know all of our listeners started doing it as well. There's something about when you hear people talking about breathing, you kind of do it. And it feels so good, doesn't it? When you said, hey, breathe deeply through. Through your nose. Just. I just took a minute and I did that. Like, why don't I do this all the time? It was just like, it's a very, very good feeling. So I actually, I applaud that. I think it's good. I think that I Was going to look up, can you use comfort tape, which I've never even heard of comfort tape before, over your mouth. I'm sure you can. You could also just take the whole package and ball it up and just shove the ball of tape right in your mouth. That might serve the same purpose, but

[Luke Burbank]

comes back to kidnapping and hostage type situations with you today. What's going on?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, well, you could also think of that as a boxes, mail, stamps, delivery kind of situation I guess too, maybe depending on where you want to take it. I almost wonder if that's what the tape meant. This is crazy, but when you read on the package, do not use this for anything other than its intended purpose.

[Luke Burbank]

Which can I mention is vague.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was going to say, I still

[Luke Burbank]

don't know what its intended purpose is.

[Andrew Walsh]

The intended purpose could just be for the human body. In other words, don't use this as packaging tape. If you're returning something to Amazon.com

[Luke Burbank]

it wouldn't work well for that because it's hypoallergenic and designed to be removed without a lot of pain. It also probably doesn't have some good stickum properties like you would need for. And also, yeah, what a weird world that you'd be using it for that. But yeah, that could be what they're trying to clarify. I'm sure I would have been fine, but I just. There was two things. One, I did think, wouldn't this be, what a way to go. He died as he lived, misusing something from Amazon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Right.

[Luke Burbank]

And then the second thing was because the tape would have been larger, it was larger than the outline of my mouth, if that makes any sense. I actually have a photo of this I could send you, Andrew, if you want something for your boxes, delivery stamps, boxes, file. But my worry was is this going to give me a weird rash around the outline of my mouth when I am going to Los Angeles later today to film tomorrow. Like, and I really went through this whole thought process which was like, let's imagine that this is designed. You put this on, you put this over an injury you have, let's say on your ankle or your calf or somewhere on your body that's less visible. Does this company have, they put in the work, the research, the R and D to make it so that whatever the glue is is not going to give me some kind of a mark, some kind of a red, you know, ring. Because I thought what a place for me to have it. For me to wake up and take this off Monday morning and realize, oh no, I look like Bozo the Clown or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

You look. You've never been crazy.

[Luke Burbank]

And also, Love Liza. Something I would do.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you seen the movie Love Liza? It's got Philip. Philip Seymour Hoffman. And he. You know, he plays one of his. Really. It's one of his most. I mean, this is saying something. It's one of his most depraved roles. And he plays somebody who huffs. And I remember airplane fuel or something. I've only seen it once. And he got. I just have this vague memory of him having this redness around his mouth because he's addicted to this terrible, terrible thing. I'm just even thinking about it makes me so upset.

[Luke Burbank]

That's kind of what I was picturing maybe looking like this morning. And the other thing is, I was sleeping alone, so it wasn't even. I mean, part of it was. I. I was like, well, if I can get this mouth tape situation dialed in, and if I can start breathing through my nose, and if I can drop. If I can eliminate my snoring, then that will be less distracting for Becca. It will make it so that she can have a more restful night of sleeping in the same room as me. But this wasn't one of those nights, in other words. There was not. Other than the fact that I had created this little scenario in my mind of what my nighttime was gonna be like. Other than that, there was no reason I needed to push it with the tape. That may or may not be mouth tape. And honestly, on some level, it's growth for me that I took it off because I'm so. I get so through, because I get so obsessed with having this moment that I've been planning on and thinking about. And in a weird way, I will say fantasizing about that. I will. I mean, I literally thought, I know I have some real mouth tape around here somewhere because I remember wearing it a different time, like a year ago. I can just go wander around the bathroom, the two bathrooms in this house. Maybe it's in the basement. I could go to the basement and look. It was like. I was like, could I Amazon something here in the next hour? Could I stay up and work on travel expenses and concur? Like, this is, like, lunacy, but this is what my brain does when I have created an expectation for myself around it. I'm very loathe to give up on that plan.

[Andrew Walsh]

You sound like me looking for booze. Well, listen, just sniffing around. I'm just joking. But, hey, listen, actually, I've been clicking around over here. Did you actually say that this was Monier brand M O N Monier. See, you know what, Luke, I could be wrong about this, but remember when you said that it was a little bit vague about what it's supposed to be used for? I think it is actually sold for this. Now I am on their actual website, but it does say that specifically.

[Luke Burbank]

But here's the bag does not say explicitly like it's mouth tape or use it for this. Like they're, they're weirdly vague about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I tell you that I am on a YouTube video by somebody who reviews products and her name is, or at least her handle on YouTube is oh hello Mel. And I kind of like that. At first I thought it said oh hello me. Which I thought was interesting. Anyway, and the title of the video, and this is just from last month actually. Mouth tape for snoring. Question mark. Monier Comfort tape or Monier Comfort tape Review stops dry mouth and bad breath. Pain free removal. She's holding up. The reviewer is this bag and it's exactly as you described it with the seal on top. It's got to be. It's a black and blue and white bag, I believe. Right. And here's her description. Again, this is not the company, this is this reviewer's struggling with snoring, dry mouth or bad breath when you wake up. I tested the Monier Comfort tape 30 pack as a mouth tape for sleep to see if it actually helps improve breathing and sleep quality. And then anyway, it goes on. The hypoallergenic latex free adhesive tape is gentle on skin and designed for pain free removal. So anyway, I do think that maybe the reason they say specifically to use this on the mouth is maybe to keep themselves out of some sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

It seems like a legal thing. Like we, we, we can't officially call this mouth tape because. Because of what people might think somebody, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Imagine somebody, you know, having some issue and suffocating. But I think you, the irony of this whole thing is I think you bought exactly what you wanted to buy.

[Luke Burbank]

I think you're probably right. And yet I do kind of blame them and their overly cautious lawyers for sending me a bag of mouth tape but doing everything to not call it that. They're calling it so that I then tape.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So then I started spiraling because like, let's be honest, it's discomfort tape. It's not more comfortable to have your mouth taped shut. Like, is anyone going like, God, I can't sleep. Why is that? Because I have too much movement with my mouth. Let me just Let me tape that down. All that's comfortable. That's where the comfort is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I guess if you've had uncomfortable tape, this is comforting. Like, I guess that's what they're trying to separate themselves from. Like, it's not Gaffer's tape, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Yeah. Or even Gaffigan tape, which is what happens every week when I turn on Sunday morning and Jim Gaffigan has stolen another commentary slot. But all that is to say, I had a. I had a wonderful weekend, and I'm going to try to. I'm gonna try to really focus on my nose breathing, and I do now I'm the Proud Owner of 29 more pieces Monier sleep tape. So I guess I can give it a try tonight when I'm in Los Angeles.

[Andrew Walsh]

I still think your instinct, though, to maybe not start this new thing until you have a day or two of not being in front of cameras. I don't know if that exists anymore. But I just want to give you one more update on this. So I'm on Monier's website now, and again, everything is very vague about it. They have stuff like skin care masks and stuff, and some topical patches. But then they have a category called sleep and comfort tape is the first thing listed under the sleep column. So more just. I know that we're already there, but more evidence that this is exactly what you're looking for.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And again, the irony is that it's the one time that I actually. I don't know if caution would be the right word, but the one time where I kind of thought, like, let's not. Not. Let's not risk this, because I was all ready to. Like, I was, you know, I was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Didn't Google it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that would have also been.

[Andrew Walsh]

That would have.

[Luke Burbank]

That would have also probably. Well, again, because this is. This is the kind of thing that I do so often, Andrew, which is to say, act impulsively, get slightly the wrong thing. Because I acted impulsively because I was sitting at a stoplight on Gleason, that I think what happened is once I. Once my mind started to consider the idea that I had just purchased the wrong thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That's just kind of where my mind stopped.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I went into it like, oh, look, you did that again. You did that thing again that you do where you, like, you have a. You have a feeling that, oh, my gosh, I got to start breathing through my nose. And then you try to do something like, you know, very kind of haphazardly and very, you know, Impulsively.

[Andrew Walsh]

Impulsively, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then in being impulsive, you then did the wrong thing because you, you know, you. You acted impulsively. And now you have 30, or in this case, 29 of these comfort patches that you just have to figure out some use for because you messed this up. And I think in that process, it didn't even occur to me to Google it and go like, is there something about this I'm not understanding? I also sent you an email, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Which again, be curious if this checks out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no. This is the photo that I didn't want to see. No, of course not. Of course, no. You would never do that. Weirdly, it's taking forever to load, I think. Like, is it a really big photo? It's.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it caught. Was it caught by some sort of, you know, spam filter or online safety protocol to keep people from receiving upsetting pictures of their co workers? Because that would never apply to this photo.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is weird. It. It won't quite load. It's.

[Luke Burbank]

It's now telling you something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Showing me the little symbol that it says. You know, you can tell it. It's a jpeg. It's a. Is, you know the file name? I am.

[Luke Burbank]

Do I look like I know how to get a damn jpeg?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know why it's not loading. Oh, no. Shoot. It's loading. Okay. Sleep mask. Oh, God. Yeah. That's awful. We're not using that as a show.

[Luke Burbank]

It definitely looks. Because the sleep mask is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, God. My. My modem is on fire. Why is my modem smoking? What is going on?

[Luke Burbank]

This looks like something you would see in, like a David Fincher film, but I did it to myself. That's the crazy part. Anyway, I also went UFO festival this weekend, Andrew, which was. Which was very fun. Saw a couple of tens there, which was really cool. I heard you ran into a 10 in the wild this weekend also.

[Andrew Walsh]

How did you hear about that? Did Dan reach out to you?

[Luke Burbank]

Were you or were you not? Was Dan being funny? Or were you or were you not eating a sausage when Dan, I happened upon you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I had just purchased a sausage.

[Luke Burbank]

It was true and Ion brand.

[Andrew Walsh]

I felt a little. I thought about my interaction with Dan later. Can you tell me what Dan told you? Because I am not proud of. I was having. I'm not proud of exactly how I said hello to Dan at first, and I don't know if I came off as rude. I think I. Well, I think I did come off as rude. And then I think he forgave me for that. And then we had a really nice conversation with this kiddo. But I was at the ball game, and I had just bought. This is a true story. And I don't know how this is happening, but the Mariners love talking about all the fancy foods you can get at the ballpark. But in the past few years, their hot dogs are terrible. And I don't even mind. Like, they're big. I like the big hot dogs. You and I have different tastes in that. But, like, the hot dogs, even if you get them at the beginning of the game, they feel like they've been under the burners for hours and hours. Like, the last one I got had, like, a weird suntan on one side of it that was protrusive, putrid looking, like I was yeakers. Yes. And you know me. I love hot dogs. I'm like, how are these guys, like, burning them, then making them cold, then charging me $14 for one? And it's a hot dog. Like, how can you not do hot dogs? Well, that's all. It's the easiest assignment.

[Luke Burbank]

Lay off with the moto pizza and the cricket nachos.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just. Yeah, right. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

GD Hot dog.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get your hot dog. It's really disappointing.

[Luke Burbank]

Get your hot dog house in order.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's. That's right. Don't miss the sausage fest. So anyway, I was there at the game yesterday with a group of friends. It was Croatian Heritage Day, Luke, as you know, at the ballpark, it was a really. Aside from the game itself, which was just awful. It's just an abortion of a series for us. I'm so mad at the Mariners right now. Having said that, Couldn't have. Couldn't have asked for a better day at the ballpark. It was beautiful outside. The weather was nice. Great group of people I was there with, and we were talking, though, about how the hot dogs suck recently, and I was getting hungry, and then I was like, you know what I'll get is something that is shaped like a hot dog but not a hot dog. And I went to the Hempler stand. It was a very long line, but it was better. It was way better. Yeah, because it wasn't like one of the. It wasn't one of the Mariners concessions. It was a private concession. You know what I mean? It's like Hemplers slash Bavarian or whatever. So, like, I think maybe the. The. The restaurants that are there serving their own food, I think maybe have a little bit more pride in it or something. So, sure, the sausage was good and. But. But it's pretty big. And I'm carrying it in like a little cardboard boat. It's pretty long. It's on a bun. It's got. Because you care. It's got onions on it. It's got grilled onions. It's got a heaping mound of sauerkraut on it, which I like sauerkraut, but I always think they put too much on. I don't know why they're overdoing it with that. And then I dribbled some mustard on top of it. I'm carrying it back and I'm already thinking, this is. I'm already. I'll be honest with you, I don't even want to talk about it, but I'll be honest with you. You know, I have some issues with eating. You know that at one point in my life, somebody said, you're eating a hot dog for lunch. That's why you're so fat. And that, like, really, you know, I just have. I just have a lot of eating issues. And so I'm already thinking, God, I'm gonna take this big, big ass looking sausage back to the seats with me. I'm gonna eat it in front of my friends. Somebody is going to say, look at that. Oh, look at that giant sausage. And in their defense, nobody did do that. But I was already in my head about that a little bit. And then somebody stopped me and said, I can't remember what Dan said, but Dan just came up to me and said something to me. And I looked and I think I said something really terrible, which is, do I know you? Which is such a terrible way of greeting somebody. But I was just so confused. And I think I was already feeling food shame, which I know is not a healthy thing. And I said that. And he's like, oh, yeah. And I can't. And then he introduced himself and I was like, oh, okay. And it was great to know him. And you've mentioned Dan on the show before. And so I sort of felt like I had known him, but I've been really beating myself up over how I greeted him when I first saw him. So I was going to give a. A little apology for being a little bit curt with you when you said, hello, Dan. It was really wonderful to meet you guys. And I hope the running around the bases after the ball game went well, which is what his kiddo was doing.

[Luke Burbank]

This is what Dan texted me. He said, because I've known Dan for years and years, he said, hey, I just ran into Andrew at the EMS game. I might have Startled him when I grabbed him on the shoulder and asked him if it's too early to get a fish sandwich.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich? But the thing is, if he had said fish sandwich first, I don't think I would have said, do I know you? Because I would have known that he was a 10.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I think I might have said that before the fish sandwich thing. I think. I hope either way.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it possible you just mutter that at random people in the stadium?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do I know?

[Luke Burbank]

Do I know you? Do I know?

[Andrew Walsh]

And also, I was pissed off because while I was waiting in line, like the. The something bad, Padres just tacked on like three more runs. And it was just like.

[Luke Burbank]

So I know the exact inning.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it was like, unfortunately, Kirby was

[Luke Burbank]

holding it down reasonably until that inning.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so anyway, I just wasn't in my bed. I mean, listen, again, I'm glad Dan said hello. We had a good time, but I was kind of ashamed at my behavior in the. In the very beginning of the moment.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll give you the full. And I think Dan would be okay with this. I'll give you the full little sort of text chat. He said, hey, I ran into Andrew, Mariners game, fish sandwich. And then he did a laffy emoji. And I said, hopefully he was with some people who were very impressed that he has fans. He says, unfortunately, he was all alone holding his Polish sausage.

[Andrew Walsh]

True story.

[Luke Burbank]

And then I said, sounds typical. And he said, I honestly couldn't imagine a better way to meet the guy

[Andrew Walsh]

for the first time.

[Luke Burbank]

So there you go, Dan. I don't think Dan was taking away any of the part of the experience that you were, like, worried, you know, kind of like you had created or whatever. Like, I think Dan had a very nice time meeting you and said it was the perfect way to meet you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that, Dan, because I really did. And there was a couple. And this is not on him at all. It's totally on me. But there was a couple of times later that night where I'd do that little. Oh, Andrew, be it just. Can you just be a human for once in your life? I am. I'm having to. I don't want to. We have so much to talk about, but I'm learning. I'm trying to learn how to talk to people when I'm walking the dog now. And I'm not talking about people who want to say, oh, hey, what a cute dog. Can I pet her? Or whatever, you know, that's going to happen. From time to time, Genevieve and I, some totally drunk dude just tapped on our window as we were pulling away from puppy school. I was like, can I say hello to your dog? We're like, all right. It was pretty funny, actually. It was pretty crazy. It's also pretty early, but anyway. But for me, the thing is a little bit more like walking around the neighborhood, because now Lucy and I can pretty easily go on around the block walk, which she couldn't do two weeks ago. She didn't know how to go on a walk. I'm not even joking. She's just, like, to, you know, distracted and everything. But when I see another person with dogs, I'm never sure, like, what is protocol do I say, you know? And so today I met another neighbor, and she had two dogs on leashes, and one of them was very, like, kind of timid and barky, and the other one really wanted to meet Lucy. And I wasn't sure. I'm like, should. And I'm just always like, should we do this? I'm sort of trying to always communicate. I don't want those people to feel like they have to stop and entertain my dog. But I also don't want to be, like, aloof or cold. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Is every time you and a dog, you and your dog pass someone else with a dog, is it. Is it an understanding that there will be an interaction? Or can it be the case that we're just like, hey, hey. And keep going?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. And I think I'm going to figure it out. I mean, the cool thing is, as I'm meeting, we just go on one specific route right now. Kind of like, kind of near. I take this road that goes directly to the cemetery that's about a block from my house. And then that's a whole. You can walk around that forever. You know, the cemetery, Luke, it's very big, right? But we can also just kind of go around the block. And because I've been doing that, I've been meeting a lot of people working in their yards or just on a walk and wanting to say hello or with their dogs or whatever. So it's actually been kind of cool in that way. But every time I see somebody new, and I also have to do this thing that is a little bit like a 90s safe sex video, I have to say, like, okay. Like, also, Lucy still hasn't had her last booster shot. She'll have it on Wednesday. So she's no glove, no love. Exactly. Lucy's wearing a condom over her left eye. Wait, was she left Eye Lopez because she covered her left eye? Or was she left Eye Lopez because her right eye was covered and she could only see out of her left eye?

[Luke Burbank]

Keep talking, and I'm going to get some.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's really important. But anyway, so I'm just. I don't know if you have any advice on that. I guess I just have to be a social creature and just suss out the situation and ask people if they want to say hello. And if not, be fine with that, because I am fine with that. I don't want to hold up anybody's walk if they're on a mission.

[Luke Burbank]

I think in my experience. By the way, Lisa, Left Eye Lopez had a condom over her right eye.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it was her left eye in

[Luke Burbank]

the video that you and I are both thinking of. She's wearing glasses, and then one of them. The lens appears to have been replaced with a condom, but it's on the right eye. So I guess the left eye was the one that she was able to see with.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

And as far as the protocol or the kind of the deal with when you're walking dog, I think what I came down to back when I had dogs and was walking them more was I'm kind of reading the owner, which is not a very satisfying answer. It's not a unified field theory of this. It's just kind of like you can just tell from someone's face.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I don't even like. It's almost like I'm not letting the dogs dictate this. I'm letting the other dog's owner's demeanor dictate what I'm doing here. And sometimes people. I had an experience kind of like this. I might have even talked about it on the show, but this was a few months ago, and I was kind of watching Gigi, who's like a very. A beautiful standard poodle, all black, sweet dog. I really like her. And I was walking her around in the neighborhood down in. In town, and I see coming the other direction, a woman who is walking a very beautiful, all white. Oh, yeah, Standard poodle.

[Andrew Walsh]

You told me about this, right? Yeah. And I'm like, spy versus Spy up in there.

[Luke Burbank]

But from, like, two blocks away, I'm like, okay, I'm already getting excited about this interaction because I am like, what are the chances these are. They're both. I mean, exact same standard. Standard poodle. They're the same size. I also know that Gigi is the least aggressive dog I've ever experienced. I mean, there's no chance of Gigi barking, being aggressive. She just does not have that in her. So I'm not too concerned about her making a scene or anything. I am just like, this is gonna be. We are gonna tell our grandchildren someday about this. Not together. We're not gonna have grandchildren together. Our respective grandchildren about the day that a beautiful, perfectly black standard poodle walked by, a perfectly white standard poodle. And they could have had gray puppies together. That's what all I was hoping for. And then we could sell them. And this woman, I swear to God, does not even acknowledge me. The dog, her dog. And I didn't stop. Again, this is maybe my training of like, I'm reading the other owner, but she was just totally and completely not interested. She was. This. The. The coincidence, the. The cosmic coincidence of this was very much lost on this other person. And I. I'm still talking about it to this day. But again, I didn't stop and go, holy, can you believe it? Look at these two dogs. I was just like, okay, I can read on this person's face that they don't have any interest in this interaction. So then we didn't interact.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I mean, that is the answer, though. And I kind of said that as I was kind of talking about. About my dilemma is the answer is you have to be a human being in the world who can read other people, which is just like, sometimes I think it's just difficult for me. And especially if maybe if it's morning time and I'm not the best in the morning, that's not my best version of myself. Maybe I'm even more sort of flummoxed about things. So. Yeah, but it has been, generally speaking, a positive thing. But I don't know. I think my other big hang up about Lucy is so. She's got puppy energy sometimes, so she gets a little bit. She jumps up on people in a totally playful way and everybody's very gracious about it. But I'm trying to train her not to do that because she's going to be a very, very big dog at some point. You just don't want that. Right. And so. And I'm just always. I'm so self conscious about being a bad dog owner or having a bad dog that somebody is afraid of. And there was just one neighbor who was sort of looking at her. He didn't have a dog himself. And he was across the small street from me. And I said, do you want to say hello? He's getting his car. And he said, oh, okay. And I wasn't trying to push it on him. It just looked like he was interested. But then Lucy had just sort of some jumpy energy, and he seemed like, oh, he didn't even. Oh. Oh. He was very kind of scared of her. And that made me feel really bad as somebody who grew up being scared of dogs. And so it's weird. I think Lucy. Lucy's got it down. Like, when I meet people who have dogs and no dogs are like, oh, yeah, she's been this woman today said, oh, yeah, she's good. She's very submissive. I said, yeah, she gets that from me, though. That was a pretty good joke. But. So I think Lucy has the right amount of puppy energy and gets a little bit wild with other dogs when it's time to play. But she's quick to roll over on her back and show them her belly and make herself small and all these things that I'm learning about. But it's more like I almost need more training than Lucy does when it comes to that, because I don't know where the line is, but between dogs playing and playing aggressively like dogs should in a dog, misbehaving and getting too growly with another dog or something like that, you know, I just want to be so conscientious, but I, you know, I just need to learn what those lines are. It's like a totally different language to me, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

But also. Well, that's why it's okay to lie to her.

[Andrew Walsh]

Learning.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm learning. Yes. But I think it's actually really good that you're highly concerned about her jumping up and doing things like that. Because. Because I was in particularly, I would say with the first dog that I had, flea, really a lot with flea, and maybe a bit with. Probably a bit with Rudy, too. I was not as concerned about that as I should have been. Because it didn't bother me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I was used to it and because also. And this was really a big, big issue with the first dog that I had, because that dog was a boxer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, she was a muscular dog. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Very. Like, they're very strong dogs. They can be pretty big. She was a girl, so she was probably 60 pounds, maybe 50 pounds. So that's. That's pretty. Pretty healthy sized. And she was energetic. And the thing that I learned was. And I would do that thing where I was like, I'm so sorry. She's. I mean, I would apologize, and I would try to stop her, and people would come over. I would do all these steps, but we did not take her to, like, ahimsa, or anything. There was no formal training. It was mostly just like, Flea, stop it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And what I learned later was, I think from my mom, actually. So, you know, take this with a Susie sized grain of salt. But because my mom has a. I feel like my mom has an interesting relationship with dogs. She hates hearing you say that, but, like, nothing like soup. But what I remember, like, after I got divorced and once Flea was out of the mix, I remember my mom and I think a few other people kind of letting me know in a nice way, just being like, oh, yeah, Flea was a lot. That was a lot. When we'd go over to your house or when Flea would come over, you know, we'd come over with Flea. And, And. And what I learned was, was like, everybody was like, holding their breath around this dog a little bit, but couldn't tell me. Sort of like when somebody, you know, dates someone who sucks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

And you're like, well, this is their life. And I. I've got to kind of be. I got to go along with it. And then they break up and you're just like, hey, that person sucked.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So I got a sense that, like, Flea was a lot for other people. And so I. I think it's good that you're. That you're trying to get ahead of that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I want to. But again, like, and I also, though, I don't want to be some, like, worry wart that gives the dog some sort of anxiety either. But. And honestly, this is. I'm not building up to a classic Andrew spoof here or anything, but it's just been very. I'm going to be earnest for a minute. I got to let people know when I'm being earnest and not sarcastic. But it's why I'm really leaning on my friends who have dogs to learn from them for real. Like, Katie came over with Poppy, who I adore yesterday, and I think that the puppies had a bit of a play date when I wasn't there with Genevieve and Katie and the two dogs running around. But, like, when I said hello to Katie and Katie was saying hello to Lucy, and Lucy saw another dog, so she was, like, really, really excited and she was jumping up on Katie and she's, you know, Lucy's still got the pretty sharp nails and so, like, you know, I'm antif.

[Luke Burbank]

Does she have those, like, kind of needle teeth?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm just sort of always like, trying to get a sense of, like, is this puppy behavior? Is this just fun puppy behavior or Is she making you uncomfortable, or could she potentially make you uncomfortable if you were less comfortable with dogs? You know, and so. And people are very. You know, and I just have really appreciated having friends like that who are able to sort of walk me through this a little bit, because I think the instinct will kick in for me. I think that a lot of things are just revs. Yeah, exactly. Right. Just like going on the walk. So, anyway, I'm sorry. I kind of felt like I just. I don't know what we were talking about, and I just decided to talk about my experiences with Lucy. But it was nice to meet Dan at the ballpark, I think, is the point.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the point of all of that. So. And, you know, I do think that Dan and the tens that I ran into at the UFO fest were, you know, they were following the rules, which is if you see us, you do have to identify yourself, lest we do something even more mortifying, because we don't know that we're being observed in public.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good call.

[Luke Burbank]

We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark. On your mark. Get set, get set. Now, Ray.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ready, ready, Go.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody rattle dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are supporting TBTL financially, which is what makes this whole thing possible. 100% listener powered podcasting here on TBTL. We don't have any big bucks coming in. We don't have any dark money. We don't even have any dark matter.

[Andrew Walsh]

Light money.

[Luke Burbank]

No dark money, Light money, gray money.

[Andrew Walsh]

None of it.

[Luke Burbank]

We're getting money from you, the tens of listeners who voluntarily keep this thing going all these years later. And here's somebody who's been a friend of the show for many, many a year, and it's our friend Zach Jost, who's in Portland, Oregon. Zach says. Okay, okay, okay. Curing global loneliness, a bright spot in an increasingly terrifying world. Supporting the Cobra's independence. All of that is well and good. But let's get down to what really matters. Your 2026 Seattle Mariners. Zach is a baseball head, Andrew, like you and I are. I believe I ran into Zach at the Portland Pickles game. Oh, nice number of years ago. So we know, we, like, that's. You know, that's when you're dealing with a. With a real one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It might have been a night off for the Mariners, and Zach was like, I gotta get some baseball in my veins. I gotta go to the podcast. Portland pickles the only real question I have this year, friendos, is how do we mean, how do we maintain composure throughout the season? God, Zach. When do we think Zach wrote this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well, I was going to tell you. Dazzling. I don't know if you've read ahead at all, but I've been reading ahead a little bit, and I think that Zach must have written this at least. At least two or three months ago. I would think that's when we were collecting all of these messages.

[Luke Burbank]

You have our way back, Harp. We have our way back, Harp, because take me back three months ago, or whenever Zach was writing this, and I. You know, it was like, there was so much hope and there was so much optimism, at least in my heart, about this team had finally picked up the last few missing pieces to put on an incredible and dominant run in the AL West. And even then, the question would have remained, how do we watch this team and keep our kind of emotional equilibrium around it? Maybe even because it was so good that it was causing us to. To have spontaneous bouts of happiness that we couldn't control. But now, in light of where we actually are, and particularly the weekend we're coming off of, where I'm. I'm in that mode that I get into with this team where it's like, I might just have to sort of. Like, I might have to check out for a little while.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why I think the next couple of lines here are super interesting, because if Zach did write this, you know, again, it's got to be at the most recent. It was two months ago, was probably like three or four months ago. The next. These two sentences here seem so on the money for where we are.

[Luke Burbank]

How do we maintain our composure throughout the season? How do we not let a losing streak mean that it's all going to end in tears?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's where we are literally today. Tears. And this losing streak that is driving me bonkers.

[Luke Burbank]

How do we not let a sweep of the Astros turn us into insufferably overconfident fans? Well, Zach, you have described quite accurately the actual goings ons around this team.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it wasn't quite a sweep. Right. But damn near. Like, we've taken what. Like, have we taken, like, all but

[Luke Burbank]

one game from the Astros? So it may be out of 10 games, we've taken nine or something. Yeah, maybe we won that series. Was that. Was it. Was that. Was that best of three in Houston

[Andrew Walsh]

recently, or best four? I think the last one was four, and I think we did one before that. That was three.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe that was swept.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did we sweep the first one? So, yeah, swept the first one.

[Luke Burbank]

And then we won the first game in Houston, so we've been very dominant against our nemesis. But then we go up against teams like the Padres, we go up against good teams and we, I feel like we, we sort of have looked bad. Although we did take two out of three against the Braves, who are a good team. So it's just, it's just maddening. And I'm. Listen, I'm. Zach, I'm. It's. What's, what's. What's got me down in the dumps right now is I feel like we have structural problems, you know, like we have structural hitting problems and we, we. We bet on a couple of ponies that have come up pretty lame. Like a Rob. Ref. Schneider comes to mind.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

And we just don't have. We. We have. My, my. I feel like in years past they've been a depressing team because they've. I don't know why it's been. Seemed less depressing. Maybe just because the expectations were lower. Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe. I think so for me.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe that's what this is. Because it's like, it's just like we've. What. This really has me wondering. And I'm sorry to turn this into baseball talk, but it's just like I

[Andrew Walsh]

think Zach wants it to be. Be.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. It's Zach's dime. And we have no choice, Andrew, but to. But to do Zach's bidding here. What, what this has me really wondering is if Jerry Depot is actually the magic man that we thought he was. Because. And again, I'm just in a really dark place right now with this team. But it's like we did some moves, we made some moves that were supposed to really kind of shore things up and give us, you know, a decent lineup against lefties. You know, Donovan appears to be injury prone. Ref. Schneider appears to just be having a classic Mariner season, which is his slash line against lefties is.297. Historically, he's hitting.112. Like, I don't know if that's the slash line. I just mean his batting average against lefties is, is close to.300. Historically. Now you could say, what's. How's Depot supposed to know that he's going to come here and have his worst season of his life? I mean, which is fair.

[Andrew Walsh]

But also, why does that keep happening?

[Luke Burbank]

Why does that keep happening? Why do we keep. Why, throughout my entire adult life, Seattle has been the place where we bring players to have their Historically, worst season, like Richie Sexton comes to mind. Jeff Cirillo, Adrian Beltray. Like, we just. There's a long list of players who've come here and been real bad, even though they used to be real good. What's going on with that, by the way? Some of those I named predated Jerry

[Andrew Walsh]

Depot, but still some of the injuries too. I mean, right now we have. And I was trying, I was taking a little bit of inventory here. We got got Ref Schneider, we got Connor Joe, we got Mitch Garver, we got Leo Rivas, we got Wet eyes, Johnny Pareto. Like, these are not players. These are players that you can maybe play off the bench, latent games if you like the matchup with a pitcher. These are not people that you're supposed to be depending on. Now it's a long season and I, you know, a lot of this is the, well, a lot of it is the injuries. But also, I don't know what's going on with Cal. I don't think that Cal Raleigh's issues are, are purely physical. I think that it is the Cal curse that I predicted when he didn't shake Randy's hand.

[Luke Burbank]

But meanwhile, Randy's hitting.300, so we can see what direction the energy moved in that transaction.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I do kind of love that. I do love that. But all of that is to say, I mean, I want Kel to be good too, obviously, but if one of them is going to be good, I'm glad it's Randy, the one who was snubbed. But all that is to say, yes, some of its injury, but it's also this idea of like platooning players or whatever. And I know we're getting deep in the weeds for people who don't care about this stuff, but those four or five players I just listed, those should not be players that you are depending on. And we are in a position here in mid May. It's mid May, but we're in a position in mid May where we are depending on those players. Like many of those will be in the lineup on the same day. And you're like, oh, and you wonder

[Luke Burbank]

why you lose to the San Diego. Why do you look terrible against a really good team? Well, it's because you're running a lineup up there that is absolutely not ready for prime time. Prime time. And that to me feels like bad general managing on Jerry Depot's part. There's just no way that, like I always say this about Garver and then of course the last time I said it, he hit A home run. So keep saying the game that we won. But it's like the story as I understand it on Mitch Garver. He is, by the way, our backup catcher and he's the, the person that we're now leaning on heavily because Cal Raleigh is injured. And, and also just generally speaking, if there's a lefty coming in a pitcher, we would go to Mitch Garver because he's a right handed back. My understanding of the Mitch Garver situation was that in the off season he played so bad last year that he just kind of assumed he was done being a professional baseball player and that there was a point like pretty far into the, like winter where he was not seeking or having meaningful conversations with baseball teams. And if I understand the story right, someone, I think it might have been like a fellow Mariner. Somebody said, well, you might as well call the Mariners and see if they want you to come to camp. Do I have any of this right? Have you seen any of this?

[Andrew Walsh]

I, you had mentioned this glancingly at one point, and that's all I know about it. I know that during spring training the Mariners had a decision to make on backup catcher. And I'm, I'm, I'm not going to try to Google it now because I think it'll derail us. And I'm sorry, I can't remember his name, but it was like, do we keep this younger, slightly less experienced backup catcher who would not need like any kind of like significant money and just like keep him or do we sign Garver again and actually sign him to like, I think, is it like a million dollar deal? Like something that's like real money? Is it maybe even 3 million or something?

[Luke Burbank]

He's making real money.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he's making real money. And it didn't. And everybody that I was listening to was like, well, don't sign Mitch Garver for real money. Like, don't even, don't waste your money on that. Like, keep this other guy. He's very, I didn't know about, about him pitching himself, as it were, to the, to the team though.

[Luke Burbank]

The story that I read somewhere was that he literally called them up. Like, I don't know if you called Depot or Dan Wilson, but he basically said like, hey, do you should like, do you guys want me to come to camp? And then like they said, yeah, why not? Or something like it came about in such a way that felt absolutely. Not striving for excellence on your team, but striving for mediocrity and kind of like, yeah, well, you know, Mitch is a. We like him in the clubhouse and it's like he's a good dude and, you know, so why not have him around if we're going to have somebody around? But it's like he didn't do anything last season to, I think to predict having a good season at the plate this year. And he is, in fact having a miserable season at the plate. And now he's essentially our backup. He's our main catcher. With this guy Johnny Pereda, who hopefully will, you know, outperform, but he's freshly up from the minors. We just. What makes me so mad is that you know that baseball is a long season and you know that there are going to be injuries and you have to construct a team where the drop off from the starters, or at least what you expect from the starters and the backups is not as cataclysmic as this is. We are putting a team on the field right now that is not ready to play Major League Baseball.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it was Kaiser, by the way. I don't know if you pronounce the K or silent, but it was Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I don't think. I didn't even know about this guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking at this article. I mean, it doesn't even matter. But this was an article from spring training back in March. Shannon Dreher, Mariners go with Garver as backup catcher. So they gave him the deal and actually put some money behind it as opposed to Andrew Kaiser, who I think they just. I don't know if he's down in the minors or whatever, but at least that's a person I was looking for. I. Anyway, I guess the one other thing with the catcher position though is you do have to think about to a degree, like there are things that I am not seeing, at least at my level of fandom or spectator dom, that there's a lot that goes into the relationship between the pitchers and the catchers and who's catching that day. And so, you know, I like to assume that that's how he won the job because he has a veteran presence. I mean, he's got the, as I, as I said, he's got a hairline I can relate to. He's got the hairline of a veteran president. So I like to think that maybe he got the job.

[Luke Burbank]

And the wet eyes of a guy who is hitting.120 for the last two seasons combined.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And you know, wet apologetic eyes.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I do think that he's a, he's like a very lovable guy that, that, that the team likes. So anyway, I'm not exactly sure. I didn't know that he was like kind of trying to sell himself though, to the team.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's the thing. I don't even think he was trying to sell himself that hard. That's. This is what I'm saying. Like, I think it was an afterthought for him. I think he was. I mean, again, I'm, I'm going back to some sort of mythical article that I may have read or may have imagined in a fever dream. But the sense I had was like, it wasn't even like Garver was out. Like, Garver seems like he was pretty cool with being retired was the sense I got from the piece. He wasn't out looking, talking to other teams or he didn't get any calls from other teams. Like, he was just kind of like, well, I had a good run and then somehow is now like a linchpin in our lineup. But here's what I'll say. Zach. To bring it back to our buddy Zach and his very triggering question about baseball. I am in a dark place right now with this team, as are all Mariner fans on this Monday, May 18th. The thing that I know is that life comes at you fast and things change a lot over the course of, let's say, a month or two. So I very much hope that when we are talking about this on June 18, a month from now, I. Maybe that's too soon because of the injuries. But like, I'm just hoping that I'm, I'm, I'm holding out some hope that we get a bit healthier and that things start clicking and that the people. Nobody expected Cal Raleigh to hit 60 home runs this year, but we expect him to not have an almost historically cold start where he has 32 at bats in a row without reaching safely, which was getting pretty close to Chris Davis territory, which was the all time record and for baseball or for the team? For baseball.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know who Chris Davis is.

[Luke Burbank]

He was, it's kind of interesting. He was a guy who had, he played for, he did this for the Orioles, but he was, I believe, a first baseman who had some good seasons, signed this huge contract and then immediately became arc like arctic cold at the plate to the point where people were like, does he need like some sort of a, I don't know, a psychological intervention? And so there is definitely some pressure. When you have a great season, you sign a big contract, everybody knows it's really tough to Follow that up. But I guess what I'm trying to say is there is also a world in which it's now July and people the Mariners hitters are starting to hit the way they're supposed to. Rob ref. Snyder is actually hitting decently against left handed pitching the way he's supposed to. Our pitchers, I mean it's. Our starters have been I would say the lone bright spot. Right. Really With a couple of exceptions with a couple bad starts by Woo and Kirby's not great start on Sunday. But. But I would say the starting pitching has.

[Andrew Walsh]

Castillo's been.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, he's been booty. But he did just have a good outing, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he did. Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

So. So maybe maybe the starting pitching just kind of like limps us along and then we. Again, the thing is Andrew, the thing that worries me is I feel like there is a kind of indescribable energetic vibe around a team that helps them win close games. Helps them, as we used to say, refuse to lose. Like the team that does the walking off, the team that finds a way in the ninth inning. And we don't have that this year. We are the team that gets walked off. We have an abysmal record in one run games. We do not have whatever. Even like we're like imagine this. We're a lousy team. But we just. Let's say we have five fewer wins than we have this year. But. But of the wins we have, eight of them have been amazing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like the chaos ball year. There was a. I want to say it was like. I don't think it was a year that we went to the. That we went to the postseason. Yeah, I think it was maybe the right. As we were starting to dial it in but Scott was still the manager and there was just like we. The. The. The fan base just loved what they called chaos ball. Like weird things were happening and. And wins. We were pulling out wins in weird places. Not enough wins, but at least it was like there was a reason to watch the game. Cause you liter never knew what was going to happen and sometimes things would just break your way and some weird error or something like that. But as you know, I hate. One of the people at the ballpark with me yesterday was Grumpy Gus himself. Which is. I feel bad for people names by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

I was going to cite him. Wait, you mean Durs.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm talking about Ders. Who did. I mean he's absolutely right. When he texted, he texted the crew from the seat next to me that he said not Only does his team suck, but they're really boring to watch.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Yes. That's the thing. I almost feel like I could live in a world where this team is. Is. Is in last place in the AL West. But my God, do they do some exciting things from time to time. They're somehow mediocre and also boring at it. And it's just like, that's the. That's what I'm having a hard time with. Having hard time figuring what the identity of the team is. Who's. I mean, this is also the problem with when you're. I guess one of your ostensible team leaders is Cal Rawley, who is just a personality black hole. Like, you know, I mean, he's just like, you know, Julio's got a lot of personality, which is a good thing. I guess Randy does too, but it's just like, I don't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Randy was cute. We were out in. Sorry to interrupt. We were out in left field yesterday, very close to Randy, and you know, he like. Randy likes playing baseball. I know he does, but he loves throwing baseballs to people in the crowd. Like, that is.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what. That's what he got into it.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why he got into the game. And I love that about him so much. You know, he's like, why not? I'm a major league baseball player. Why wouldn't I give the fans every single ball that comes my way? Like, I love that about him.

[Luke Burbank]

The man of players need to follow that as far as I'm concerned.

[Andrew Walsh]

But what I liked was there was some kid who was sitting a few rows right in front of us. And again, we're very close to the wall. We're actually sitting right behind the foul pole, the third baseline foul pole. And the kid keeps on holding the ball up. This one moment, like he's going to throw it to Randy, which you're not allowed to throw things on the field. The K might have gotten in trouble

[Luke Burbank]

to get it signed.

[Andrew Walsh]

The kid, I don't even know. But Randy's just out there. It's kind of in between action and Randy's just kind of standing there and Randy's looking at the kid and he's kind of like nodding like, do it, do it. And then at one point, Randy flashes his glove. He, like, holds it up like, throw the ball. But the kid didn't have the gumption to do it. And he put the ball back down and we're all like, ah, kiddo, there was your moment. Although, again, I don't know what would happen if you'd throw something onto the. But I love that Randy, like, flashed his glove to the kid, was like, yeah, do it. Throw it. Throw me the ball. He probably would have tossed it right back. Back.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe we have to. Andrew, you know, reach a sort of. Maybe hopefully this weekend. Was it a kind of a nadir point? Kind of like the. Like, we have to get. We. We have to reach a point of just almost like just sort of, I don't know, being inconsolable to then. Or almost like giving up on the high hopes of like, hey, this is. This team is World Series bound or something. I mean, it's obviously statistically too early to do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That.

[Luke Burbank]

But there would almost be something that would be like a sweet relief if it was just like, okay, this team actually kind of sucks. Like, they just actually kind of can't hit and their bullpen is garbage. And let's just. You know what? Let's just watch it with that. Let's just take any win is just kind of a. Just kind of a bonus. And let's just see if, like, per. What if Pareda just, like, goes, you know, just goes off or what if, like, what's it. What's the Cole Emerson.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, what's the.

[Luke Burbank]

What's the New kid?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Cole Ford. Colt Emerson. Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Colt Emerson.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was very excited to see his DEB yesterday. Although I do understand the concerns of just like. Well, seems weird to bring this kid up before he's fully ready just because our major league team sucks. Like, he's one of the hottest processors.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. He already did. I read his stat line. He already did better than a Mitch Garver would or Connor Joe would in that he. He lined out his first at bat, so let's give him credit for making contact field of play.

[Andrew Walsh]

He still doesn't have a hit. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I think nobody got a walk. His second ab. He scored a run.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, to me, it's like 20 years old. He woke up in Tacoma as a Rainier played in the game, went down. Oh, two, worked the count to two two, and then lined out to right sharply. I was told by Ryan Divish and then. And then worked a walk his second time up, scored a run. This is all better than I've seen from Connor Joe or Rob Refhnik so far this season. But. So maybe it's like, it's. It's kind of fun to watch him. Maybe he just lights the. Kind of lights the league up for a while and then maybe Pareto plays well and just like, almost just, like, rethink what my expectations are or what. What. Where my joy is in this team. My joy, I thought was going to be from dominant win after dominant win where we build this lead in the AL west. And we just, like, we. We show ourselves to be one of the strongest teams in the American League. And that's certainly not happening. Maybe I can find a different way to feel joyful about this team's performances on the field.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well, there are, you know, the bright spots of we. I don't even think think. Unless you just did. And then my mind was wandering. Cole Young has just, like, been so good. Like, so good. And if Emerson kind of develops into that kind of player, the player that we hope that he will be, because, again, the expectations on that are super, super high. And as long as we don't break him by putting too much pressure on him early, you know, he's batting last in the orders, and I think that's smart. So it would be really cool to see. Even if we. If I'm not trying to, like, not trying to give up on the season in May, I don't. We are in a terrible division. It still should be ours to win. But even if we do miss the birth. But we have we. But if Emerson and Cole Young are like, these really, really, like, incredibly young kids. Can Emerson drink yet? I don't know that.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's what I'm saying. Cold.

[Andrew Walsh]

Emerson can even drink yet. If they're.

[Luke Burbank]

These guys got. We. We need some name changes on these team. I'm assigning new names.

[Andrew Walsh]

And the Colts.

[Luke Burbank]

What the hell, dude? It's like Kirsten situation. We got a Cole Young, a Colt Emerson, and an Emerson Hand.

[Andrew Walsh]

Emerson Hancock. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

[Luke Burbank]

And they're all skinny white dudes about 21. It's like, give me a little help here, people.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, okay. Anyway, I did. We give and I. You know, it was a dazzling donor message. Luke and I did not want to do that. We were just super serving our P1 today.

[Luke Burbank]

And Zach, if you. If you wanna. I'm just saying if you want to donate a little extra because of how. How hard we went on your recommendation of talking baseball would accept. Zach says I've been a Die Hard about as long as. Oh, let's see. Yep. We've talked about the Astros making us insufferably overconfident. I've been a Die Hard about as long as Luke has, and this year has me getting way too excited too soon. Anyway, this is all pretext to have My favorite co. Bros. Talk about my favorite baseball team. Keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. Mission accomplished. Heck of a job, Brownie. It's truly a highlight of each and every day to listen to you and it's a joy to support my favorite business boys. P.S. any occasion is a great occasion to play the Saxondale Drop about flatulence. Can you close out my message with that? Are you able to find that based on those search parameters?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. This is my fault. I should have had it ready. But I do have it here now. Let me move it on over into the player.

[Luke Burbank]

I actually often quote this, but, I mean, I misquote it. But I often try to repeat what he is saying in Saxendale when he's. I believe in anger management. He has to go to an anger management class.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. This goes back so so far. I see that. First of all, I can tell that this is tape that you grabbed from the Internet because the.

[Luke Burbank]

Because it's bad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, no, no, no. Because the way it's labeled, when I drag it in, I can see the metadata or whatever, and it has your name as the artist, Luke Burbank. So you must have grabbed it in. And I see that we were using this back on intro number 143. We are now on intro 1043 or something like that. So this goes back back to a long time when we were started making these intros again. Take a listen to this.

[Luke Burbank]

Anger is like flatulence, isn't it? Insofar as it's far better to let it out in increments than to let go with one humongous rattle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, yes. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In as much as losing your temper is about transferring that anger to those closest to you. Well, you're farting in the face of the person you love, aren't you? If you ask the police, they will tell you that most murders are committed by a friend or relative of the victim. They take place at home, in the office, on public transport, in a Jacuzzi. Are we still talking about murder? I hold my hands up. The last three examples were specifically farting. And you know what, Andrew? There's much wisdom there because I'm letting out my Mariner's angle a bit at a time instead of one tremendous rattle.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think that is true for flatulence, though I do think that flatulence, you just need to find a private place and let it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's an added dimension to this conversation. I believe the assumption here is that you can't find a private place.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I Guess so in.

[Luke Burbank]

In public, what is the least offensive way to deal with it? I'm just letting out a little bit of my Mariner frustration bit by bit at Zach's behest. So. So thank you, Zach. Appreciate you so much. Maestro, on your mark. On your mark. Get set. Dang it, Andrew. Yeah, that was a big mouth breath. Should have been a nose breath.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do it through the nose. Now do the read this dazzling donor message through your nose.

[Luke Burbank]

It's our friend Faren Shear, Andrew down there in beautiful San Diego, California. Faren says, hey, my last name should remind you of my job if you do it right. Smiley face. Well, of course, Faren. Who could remember or who could forget

[Andrew Walsh]

and I don't know, does Faren like baseball? You know, seeing Faren's name here takes a little of the sting about losing to the San Diego Padres this week. If it brought her our friend and

[Luke Burbank]

dazzling donor joy, that's always helpful for us, Andrew, to remember that a Mariners or a Seahawks or a whomever, whatever team we're obsessing over his loss to another city might be be some joy being created for a 10 who's in that city. So that does actually make it sting a little bit less. Faren, who is a noted hair stylist and hairdresser, says, this year I'd like to promote the idea of joining your local women's club. Maybe this isn't for everyone, but I wanted to share a little history about why it's important to me. After spending 11 years on the board of the Ocean Beach Women's Club, five and a half years as the president and now the historian, women's clubs can be described as part of a social movement established in the 1800s throughout the US in response to the rapid industrialization that followed. Club women considered if problems such as poverty, poor health, violence, greed, racism and class warfare may be best addressed by better education, a safer environment, a more efficient workplace place, and honest government, women's clubs have always been agents of change. Members defied the convention that a woman's place is in the home by uniting to sharpen their ideas, voice opinions, and engage in reform of the world outside their households. They established the idea that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform public policy. The suffrage movement, local libraries, public parks, settlement houses, and the Montgomery bus boycott all have directly been shaped by women's clubs. Even if joining one is not for you, learning about them is super cool and I hope a little bit empowering no matter who you are. The thing I would say to Farron is that's all well and good when we're going through major industrialization shifts, but what about the world is changing rapidly now. What about the nature of work? And everything is perfect and will be going forward. And there's absolutely no factors the like of which Farad is citing that could destabilize everyone's lives.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. I mean, what's left to fight for? Obviously we're being sarcastic. I am. I was kind of, I was completely unfamiliar with this sort of historical look at women's clubs and I know very little about them. And I'm sort of googling around right now looking at like, just for example, I know that Farron's in San Diego, but I'm in Seattle and I'm just looking at like the Women's Universe Club here in Seattle. And it says it's a women focused connection based on the desire for lifelong learning. It says we laugh, we learn, we lead. This is cool stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. And I'm looking here at the Ocean Beach Women's Club that Farron is so closely associated with. And I want to say, I'm not saying like maybe someone wants to become part of the club because it appears that they're literally on the beach, but it's not a bad place to have. Have your get togethers. Yeah, this looks, and again, this is kind of San Diego specific also. Maybe they just go to the beach a lot. I don't know. This seems like a very beach focused activity while bettering the lives of people. And I'm just saying we can better the lives of people and enjoy the natural breezes of San Diego all at the same time or wherever you might be. So, yeah, check out the women's club in your area if that sounds interesting to you and fair. Thank you so much as always for your support. You're absolutely the best.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew. Our top story today is I was right again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, great.

[Luke Burbank]

Once again, your boy LB was 100% right and should have trusted myself and I didn't. And that's when I go wrong, Andrew, when I don't, when I breathe through my mouth and when I don't trust just how unbelievably right I am about most things in this world. I, as you know, work for the Columbia Broadcast System, if we're still calling it that, doing TV stories for CBS Sunday Morning. And as has been noted frequently in the news, there have been a lot of corporate changes there with the company that I worked for, Paramount, being acquired by a company called Skydance and Skydance is run by a guy named David Ellison, and his dad is a guy named Larry Ellison. And along with being pretty close with the current president and that administration, Larry Ellison is the guy who is sort of like, famous for starting the company Oracle. And Oracle does a lot of different things. And one of them. Them, apparently what they do, Andrew, is they make software that you have that you can use and that I now have to use.

[Andrew Walsh]

To that you have the honor to

[Luke Burbank]

use that I have the distinct honor. Thank you. That's been coming up a lot. Today it would be my holy honor to learn an entirely new system for trying to input my travel receipts from when I'm traveling around on doing stories for cbs. Basically happens. I have a credit card from cbs. I use it to pay for things like airplane tickets and Uber rides and hotels and things like that. And then I have to reconcile that in the system. And if I don't do it on time, they threaten to and sometimes actually do turn off my credit card, which is a big problem because I don't have the money to pay for this stuff on my own and get reimbursed. And so I have been kind of whistling past a certain graveyard of late, which is like, not filing. We switched over to this new system, and I haven't been filing my. I haven't been filing my expense reports. I haven't been keeping up on it because everybody I've been talking to on these shoots has been saying, this fusion thing is crazy. It's totally impossible to use. We don't have any, like, budget codes assigned to it, so we kind of can't even really use it. It. So, like, I've been getting exactly the wrong kind of feedback for me, which is, yeah, nobody's filing their expenses right now because it's in flux and because the system is weird, which is, for me, a big old. A big old, like, sort of.

[Andrew Walsh]

What would you call it, an invitation to be.

[Luke Burbank]

To. To. To lean into my normal flakiness. Sort of adhd, not wanting to do stuff that isn't fun for me. Like, I actually had kind of learned how to do the old system, and I was pretty good at it. I was, you know, pretty efficient. Efficient. I could. It would take me an afternoon, but I could sit down and I could really bang through some expense reports. Now we've got a whole new system that everyone says is confusing and. And that is, you know, again, no one's apparently filing their stuff. So I thought. I've been thinking for a while, well, that means that if no one's filing their stuff. I don't have to file my stuff. Well, I got a note on Friday, an email note saying we're going to turn your credit card off, buddy.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is how we get your attention. I would say say, yeah, I'm, I'm

[Luke Burbank]

a kind of a, a real what a court of last resort kind of guy. Like a. And so what I also knew was that I'd gotten an email that said, hey, it's time for your Fusion training. And normally that would be something that I would be dreading but in this case I was like, I literally don't know how to use. I've been you. I've been in the software. Like I logged into the software, I tried to do a report and I was just, it was hopeless this. And so like I was not able to instinctively or intuitively figure out how to do it. So I was actually kind of like. I don't know if looking forward to is the right idea but I. Or the right way to describe but I very much wanted to be on this Zoom call today because I was like if I don't learn how to do this, they're going to turn the card off and then I'm going to be really screwed. And so I messaged you or talked to you on Friday about this. I was like, I got this thing on Monday. I was like bright eyed and bushy tailed. I was up at like 6 this morning. I was emailing New York because I still hadn't gotten my confirmation. I was like bugging people. I was in here, Andrew, at like 9:45 with not one but two computers open. I had the crazy. The computer that I'm using to talk to you was open for the Zoom call. My other computer was open. I had opened up Fusion.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you're ready to go, dude.

[Luke Burbank]

I was because this is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you oiled up?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's just a typical Monday, but yes, maybe a little extra sure. This is an existential threat for me, Andrew, because if they turn the credit card off I can't go on any stories. And so I'm like, I've got, I've got Fusion open on one laptop, like an actual like in my account so I can like try to mirror what they're going to do in the training session. Training session starts and it is right out of central casting. They almost should have said, you know, what is a cyber threat and how can you avoid it? It was a guy from Accenture whose computer camera appeared to. He had set it on just below the chin looking if we straight up, directly up the nostrils.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's just reading ceiling. Like, are you.

[Luke Burbank]

Is the shot seeing his ceiling? But it is a very, it's a kind of one of those, like, it's, it's one of those shots that I feel like we all, we all figured out how to not do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like third week of COVID Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Not this guy from Accenture. And he's just reading a script about how expense reports work. We're not talking about like, hey, how do I itemize the hotel room over a multi night stay when the, when the cost of the room varies between night. This is the kind of granular information that I need. Andrew True. He is reading a script about how what an expense report is. And it literally starts with like, you have a Paramount credit card.

[Andrew Walsh]

Webster's defines expense report.

[Luke Burbank]

It's basically that it's like you have a credit card. You charge approved items and approved events on the card. You then submit the card for reimbursement.

[Andrew Walsh]

You.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like, it's literally just an explanation of how the concept of a corporate card works. That was 20 minutes of the thing. Yeah, I just felt my soul just like not so slowly leaving my body because I was there for real information and I was like ready to do this. I was taking it very seriously, which I, I don't do most of the time.

[Andrew Walsh]

But did it ever come around to like, okay, now when you log in, you're going to see this screen and you're going to, you need to click over here under this tab and that will get you into the new field where you fill out a new expense report. I mean, does it ever get there?

[Luke Burbank]

About 25 minutes and they switch over to another person who's supposed to be doing the demonstration of that exact thing. Like it starts here and it goes there and then you click on this button. That's what it's supposed to be. Right. And by the way, let me mention, Andrew, I am furiously screenshotting every single screen that comes up to just in case I need to refer back to this later. Like, where does that, where do you move that to? And how do you. What's the budget code? Like I'm really, I'm as locked in on this as I've ever been on something like this. Like I am taking it very seriously. And we get to the part, I'm like, okay, well now this is the good stuff. This is going to be a tutorial of how do we do this? And they mentioned, they go, please direct all questions to the Q and A function on the side. So there's a chat, you know, going as a Q and A. The problem is the person who is doing the demonstration is not the person who is answering the Q and A questions. And the person who's doing the demonstration. First of all, here's what she starts with. How to delegate. The very beginning is how do is the way that you can in the system, make your assistant do your travel expenses. Well, guess who doesn't have an assistant. Lb. Like, the last thing that I need to know is how to delegate. There is nobody. I cannot delegate unless I could delegate this to Bubbles. I cannot delegate this work to anyone else. So the fact that the very first thing she spends 10 minutes on explaining how you delegate stuff, and I'm already like, this is not helpful to me. Then she's just going through the screens. But it's so, like, it's going so quickly. And because this is a person who is a professional at this, it's so second nature to her that I'm over here. I'm on, like, I got one. I'm watching the. I'm watching her do the demonstration. I'm trying to reenact it over on my computer. And I'm like, trying to. I'm creating these, like, expense reports, like, test, test. And I'm grabbing a hotel folio and I'm dragging it into the thing. And I'm trying to play along with her. I'm trying to score at home, but it's just going so fast and she's not encountering any of the issues that I'm encountering.

[Andrew Walsh]

You got a handle. One hand on each keyboard, like Herbie Hancock. You're just like, you're Hancocking it. Hey, another Hancock reference.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't even Emerson. I didn't realize I was doing that until I heard Hancock twice place.

[Luke Burbank]

But I was in a non Hancockian fashion. I was having trouble rocking it. Andrew. So I'm just like. I just like. It was that middle part which I was waiting for, which was the, like, I just needed them to say, you have an expense from Uber. It's over here in expenses. You want to put it into this expense report. Here's how you move it to the expense report report. You then get the receipt from the Uber app. You then put that on your desktop. You then drag that here. You then, you know, like, that wasn't really what was happening. It was just. It was this person working very quickly through a series of things that were unrelated to what I needed to learn about I did get, I got a couple of email addresses that I emailed to myself that might help me. Which one was other people who work for this part of the or, because again, I don't know how many employees are in this company, Andrew. I mean, fewer every day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let you say it, say.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, like it's like more every day and then fewer every day. It's like every time we acquire or get acquired, it like doubles and then it's like a thousand fewer from its high water mark, it's kind of going up and down that way, but like it's such a massive entity that like, like there is, I mean there must be hundreds of people that are in the department that handles this kind of stuff. And so what I was able to do, and this might be the, this might be the, I guess the ultimate benefit of this in my life is I was able to figure out a couple of helpful people whose names I saw that they were like, they were either handling Q and A stuff or they had jumped on to answer some questions. And I was like, okay, you seem helpful, you seem like an ally. And I like got those email addresses and I emailed them to myself and I'm like, okay, what I've got now is not any more information about how to do this thing, but I got some people that might be able to help me and that's, that's what I'm going to try to do. I'm going to try to breathe through my nose and I'm going to try to reach out to some of these people and see if I can get kind of walked through how to do this with some, with a personal touch. Because all I really need is one person to sit down for like 45 minutes with me, which is not nothing, and just explain the very basic steps of this and then I'll probably be able to do it from there. But what I learned was that this, this online training was as unhelpful as I assume. All online trainings.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, so I was right. And that feels good.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that's the important thing.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's the takeaway.

[Andrew Walsh]

I will say sometimes I, sometimes, sometimes I, and I say this, I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings here, but sometimes we're having conversations about, you know, computer related things. I'm kind of like, well, I do this thing all the time. I know it's not as complicated as you're making it sound. I will say a thousand, a million, thousand percent, which is a lot. I don't know if you know that I don't know if you know your times tables, but a million thousand percent, you are right that these even concur, which is like the industry standard. I think that a lot of people probably use like literally every single day of their lives and don't have a lot. And which we were using and which you were using. It's not intuitive. Even that is not intuitive. And when you talk about these issues of the hotel stays, which are. So it's a combination of the very complex way hotels insist upon itemizing all the various taxes and slightly changing the rate each night that you stay there. Because a Wednesday is going to be different than the Friday that you're checking out. And so the tax line on each one is different. And it's like. And then inputting all of that into the system I remember concur wouldn't let you. Like somehow it would never add up properly or to the way that that system found it, like satisfying, if you recall. And then. And so like it really is.

[Luke Burbank]

You learn all these little ways to trick the system into letting you just do the thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's such a perfect example of God. In some ways it feels like the world is less like this, that apps have changed the way apps are trying to meet people where they are more often than not now. But there are still these types of systems that are made by people who are just too in the weeds on the engineering side of things and the numbers side of things. And so they don't understand the UI side of things very well. And it's the machine training you how to be instead of you training the machine how to be. And that's just a really, really. For me, that's always been the most frustrating sort of aspect. Aspect of the software when it's kind of like, oh, no, no. And especially when the people who have bought the software at the company you work for are defending it or own it or daddy owns it or whatever it is. And just like trying to tell you, no, no, you're. You're talking down to you. Like, how can you not know? Of course you have to, you have to put the, the, the county tax in here. Like, doy. And you're just kind of like, oh, come on, man. Like, you know, this is not intuitive and this is not how the human brain works.

[Luke Burbank]

Works. Well. I had let the machine train me on concur and I was happy for it. I had balled up a bunch of mouth tape and put it in my mouth and gotten in the box. Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In the basement Nice. Love this boxes. Some deliveries, some stamps, some envelopes. That's not how that goes. One day I'll get that right. And I was. And I was happy as a clam because I knew how to do it. Because I could figure out. It's so weird. It's like these systems and boy, is this ever in the week. Weeds. But one of the number one things that seems to blow these systems up is if you get a refund that is uniquely troubling to the system. Like so if they overcharge you and then they refund it or if somehow it's like. It's all designed for like money going out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It has no way of figuring out money sometimes comes in and it should want that.

[Andrew Walsh]

It should want money.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what that's always like. Some of the like. In fact I have. One of the things about them turning off my CO card is because of something where it was a refund from a hotel where they had charged me the wrong amount and they refunded me this money. My card, CBS's card, which is a good thing. But that's the hardest thing to convince the computer has happened is like, hey, we got. Or the software. Hey, guess what? They gave us back some money. That's just that money goes right back into Skydance. We can just do one more stunt with Tom Cruise in a Skydance film. Thankfully, because of this refund.

[Andrew Walsh]

One more Whiskey Friday, buddy. That's one more Whiskey Friday.

[Luke Burbank]

The hardest. You know what? Johnnie Walker Blue. You've been doing Johnnie Walker Red on Whiskey Friday. Treat yourself to copal. Have a. Have a Johnnie Walker Blue. It's like little things like that which then I had over time figured out how to trick the machine into accepting the fact that it's getting money back. You know what I mean? Just stuff like that. And then we shift and then I go to the. And then I zoom in and I'm being such a Tracy flick, man. I'm being so much more type A than I normally am. I'm working the dual kids computer system because I really want this to work. And it goes about exactly how I

[Andrew Walsh]

expected it to go. So.

[Luke Burbank]

So again I. I was right and I am smart and that is. That's good enough for me on a Monday.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's good. Okay. Take away. I'm just. Now I'm just trying to figure out how this somehow this is going to hurt me in the long run. And I'm not exactly sure yet how.

[Luke Burbank]

I did consider delegating you as my. No, I really did wonder, could I teach Claude to do this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, that sort of thing, too. Again, I don't need to. I don't even need to say. You know what I'm gonna say? It's like, oh, hey, guess what? We can make realistic paintings now with AI. Oh, you know what? No. People enjoy painting. We make the paintings. How about you use that stupid AI to fill out the expense reports? Not. Not to do fun things like. Like take away work from musicians.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I honestly, like, I was like. And this is the crazy thing. Yeah. It can. The AI is very good now or very effective at doing a painting or making a song or whatever, but this is one of those things where it's actually way beyond the AI's ability because it's. There's too many different systems that have to mesh. So I can't say to it, hey, could you figure out how to do Fusion? Could you go find all these receipts of mine and then. Then input them into these different files in Fusion? And then give this expense report a name? And then, you know, like, it's asking too much of this system. Says Mona Lisa.

[Andrew Walsh]

Would you. I can make Donald Trump look like the Maharishi if you'd like. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

That was a doctor, Andrew, not Jesus. He was being a doctor who heals people and has long, wavy hair. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

And people praying around him. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, thanks, everybody, for listening. We're gonna be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. I'll be right back in Los Angeles, so I'm sure I'll have more updates on the billboards of Hollywood, so tune in for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Go, Mariners. Okay. Hope springs eternal. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.