#4755 Tomtom Club

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL #4755 — “Tomtom Club”

Date: June 23, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

This episode of TBTL (Too Beautiful To Live) is a laid-back, meandering slice of daily life, featuring hosts Luke and Andrew riffing about everything from car trouble and retro tech to dog-walking and snack mail. As always, the show’s charm lies in their tangential journeys and the community connections they foster—today with stories of mechanical mishaps, thoughts on running (the exercise, not the show!), old Mariners commercials, and opening care packages from listeners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Andrew’s Car Troubles and the Great Gamble

• [03:04]–[17:00]
  Andrew recounts the drama with his 2017 Volkswagen Golf, which flashed a mysterious EPC warning light and began driving poorly. Despite dealership advice to tow it, he’s plotting to “limp” the car to the shop himself (with Genevieve following in a 40-year-old Saab for support).

• Notable Quote:

  • Andrew (09:19): “What I’m going to do is try to drive chugga, chugga, chugga, that thing across town all the way to Ballard. Genevieve is going to follow me in a 40-year-old Saab that doesn’t have power steering anymore.”
  • Luke (13:01): “What you’re basically doing is gambling $200 because that’s the cost of the tow. You are gambling that you can limp the car there as opposed to paying the $200 for the tow.”

• Discussion on Relationship Dynamics:

  • The hosts reflect on when it’s worthwhile to “double team” life’s mishaps—a sweet meditation on teamwork in partnerships.
  • Luke (14:59): "I think it kind of speaks to a really good way to be in the world as a couple...we’re on the same team and that’s just kind of what we do."

• Seattle Geography Rabbit Hole:

  • The two get delightfully lost in discussing the best, least hilly route to Ballard (17:00).

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2. Dog-Sitting Updates & The Value of Walks

• [18:33]–[21:24]
  Luke shares heartwarming and humorous anecdotes of caring for DJ and Gigi, his borrowed dogs, and how the gentle ritual of an early walk mellows his otherwise fitness-driven mornings.
• Notable Quote:
  • Luke (20:37): “A summertime walk with these dogs is like exploratory…that is very grounding for me.”

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3. Running Habits, Serious Runners, and Wearables

• [21:24]–[24:32]
  Discussion shifts to running cultures in their circles—contrasting hardcore, gear-minimalist “serious runners” (with a particular mention of Garmin vs. Apple Watch) and their own more casual approaches.
• Notable Quote:
  • Luke (23:29): “Good on Garmin, right? …the potential buggy whip of the early 2000s has successfully evolved.”

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4. Retro Tech: TomTom and PDAs

• [24:32]–[27:15]
  Luke reminisces about TomTom car navigation units and Andrew tells a delightful story of “beaming” contacts between PDAs via Bluetooth back in the day at a party—“like on a set of Star Trek.”
• Notable Quote:
  • Andrew (26:32): "I had…a Dell PDA…she like sent me her contact information via Bluetooth by aiming our devices at each other."

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5. Reviewing New (Goofy) Tech: Snap ‘Specs’ Glasses

• [27:15]–[31:25] The hosts mock the latest attempt at wearable smartglasses—Snapchat’s “Specs”—and swap memes of the CEO looking ridiculous in ultra-thick frames, comparing it to comic-book x-ray glasses. Great visual gags, even over audio.
• Memorable Moment:
  • Andrew (28:51) sends Luke a meme comparing the CEO in ‘Specs’ to a classic ‘x-ray glasses’ comic ad, prompting laughter at the literal face match: “He’s making the same face…”

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6. Childhood Disappointments: X-Ray Glasses & Sea Monkeys

• [31:38]–[36:58]
  Andrew and Luke share memories of being duped by comic-book mail-order ads for bogus x-ray glasses and sea monkeys, exploring the roots of childhood skepticism—and the legal gray areas such ads existed in.
• Notable Quote:
  • Luke (34:45): “These kids will learn their lesson with those sea monkeys and those glasses.”

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7. Dazzling Donors Segment (Listener Support)

• [37:09]–[45:54]
  Heartfelt thanks to donors Summer Ash (astronomer, who’ll be at the Grand Canyon in September) and Kavita Patel (Portland-based kintsugi artist who offers free pottery repair for listeners).
• Memorable Quote from Summer’s Message:
  • “You and my cats are pretty much the only constants in my life, apart from physics. Ha.”
• Listener Kavita plugs:
  • hellokavita.com for free kintsugi repairs—“The metaphors abound, but really, it’s a privilege and a joy to practice it.”

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8. Andrew’s Grocery Store Intervention Philosophy

• [46:10]–[58:40]
  Andrew tells a classic “should I help?” story: contemplating whether to rescue a fellow shopper from warm beer by directing him to the cold Rainier hidden nearby. Ultimately, he says nothing, referencing the “Dr. Rick – Becoming Your Parents” ads.

  • Andrew’s Rule: Only intervene if he hears someone clearly need help.
  • Luke presses on the etiquette of being helpful vs. interfering: sometimes, you really can help!

• Notable Quotes:

  • Andrew (51:35): “For the first time, I said nothing. He went for the Warm Rainiers and I said nothing. And I’m glad I did.”
  • Luke (53:06): “If it was a woman…I'd have thought much longer and much harder about that, because…that’s kind of complicated.”

Side Story:

• Andrew test-drives a new fancy grocery store, gets to use a staff yogurt stick for shelf arrangement, and glories in the “perimeter check.”

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9. Listener Mail Time: Gifts & Inside Jokes

• [59:15]–[77:45]
  The hosts open a bevy of listener-sent goodies—including:
  • Crocheted TBTL hacky sacks containing dried lentils ([61:02])
  • A Ziploc bag of yellow mustard packets with a sticky note: “Don’t share these with Luke” ([63:15]). A callback to Luke’s story of being denied mustard by a stranger on a plane.
  • Mariners commercials DVD from listener Eric, cunningly slipped into their PO Box ([68:21]).
  • Mariners art calendar ([72:49]).
  • An epic shipment of Newtons (30+ fig newtons!) and goldfish pretzels ([73:06])—all of which Andrew jokes about but plans to share with outreach programs.
• Memorable Moment:
  • Andrew (75:18) bites into a Fig Newton and admits it is “soft, and they’ve taken literally all the moisture out of my body with one bite.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Grocery-Store Morality, Dr. Rick style:
  • Andrew (51:35): “For the first time, I said nothing.”
• On being a helpful couple:
  • Luke (14:59): “...it kind of speaks to a really good way to be in the world as a couple…we’re on the same team and that’s just kind of what we do.”
• Tech Nostalgia:
  • Andrew (26:32): "...a Dell PDA...she sent me her contact via Bluetooth by aiming our devices at each other."
• Snap Specs meme:
  • Andrew (31:37): "He’s making the same face [as the X-ray glasses comic book ad]!"
• Snack Mail:
  • Andrew (73:09): “I do…I feel like Tony Soprano opening up boxes…oh look at all this good stuff.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:04 – 17:00: Andrew’s car woes, VW Golf drama, discussion about “should I risk it?” and couples teamwork
• 18:33 – 21:24: Dog-walking and its grounding effect
• 21:24 – 24:32: Discussion on “serious runners” and wearables
• 24:32 – 27:15: Retro tech (TomTom, old PDAs)
• 27:15 – 31:25: The absurdity of Snap ‘Specs’ glasses
• 31:38 – 36:58: Childhood mail-order letdowns (X-ray glasses, sea monkeys)
• 37:09 – 45:54: Dazzling Donors, shout-outs to astronomer Summer and kintsugi artist Kavita
• 46:10 – 58:40: Grocery-store etiquette and Andrew’s policy for offering unsolicited help
• 59:15 – 77:45: Listener mailbag: hand-crafted hacky sacks, mustard packet intrigue, Mariners memorabilia, and snack bounty

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Closing Sentiments

• The episode wraps as Andrew and Luke finish unboxing the last of their treats, reflecting with gratitude for their community’s quirks and generosity.
• Luke, struggling with a lingering cold, sums up the TBTL ethos: “Please join us… Go Mariners. And please remember: no mountain too tall.”
• Andrew: “And good luck to all.”

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Power Out.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

I need your creative input.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have spent the better part of the last three years developing a portable miniature microwave oven. Unfortunately, Legal just informed me that the name we settled on for our bite sized microwave, the Bite Nuker, is highly

[Luke Burbank]

offensive to those who speak either French or Dutch. A Franco Dutchman would pronounce it bet neukker.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, that's awful. I'm sorry, Ms. LaRoche Vanderhout.

[Luke Burbank]

Legal rejected all of our ideas. Every one of the names we came up with was offensive in some language, including English. Frank, they knew what a Hot Richard was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

What I'm about to propose to you is both highly lucrative and highly dangerous. That doesn't seem like your particular brand of vodka. Help yourself to as much food as you like and have a safe journey. No hard feelings. Otherwise, come with me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Boys can be funny. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I've never found a boy funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I think boys can be funny.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay?

[Andrew Walsh]

I just think maybe they haven't had the opportunity to be funny for as long as.

[Luke Burbank]

Chris, do you ever kind of look

[Andrew Walsh]

at each other and go, aren't we a couple of Dapper Dans?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that should take care of those

[Andrew Walsh]

two evil geniuses for a while.

[Luke Burbank]

I hope that they've learned their lessons,

[Andrew Walsh]

that computers are built by people, for people, to help people, not to control us.

[Luke Burbank]

This is perfect for radio. All right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It is our turn. My name's Luke Burbank.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am your host and boom goes the dynamite.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill Studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are going to be looking at scorching temperatures once again.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm flying in hot for that hottie.

[Luke Burbank]

It was warm yesterday out here. I had the curtains drawn, which is to me, in the daytime, that's heresy. I like to look out. I like to do some good staring. I like to look at the mighty Columbia. But I had to reflect back some of the sun's solar rays because it was super duper warm and I didn't want the dogs to be overhet. We've got Gigi and DJ here still. They're right surrounding me on the floor here in the Madrona Hill Studio, trying to help out with episode 4755 in

[Andrew Walsh]

a collector series, Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

As you can hear in my voice, I'm still dealing with a bit of a cold. I took some medicine, some treatment for it, and I don't know if it's not working. Or maybe it's working too well.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wish I hadn't done that.

[Luke Burbank]

But we're dealing with a highly productive mucus situation here, my friend, so I will. I'll be liberally using the cough button and trying to get through things here on this Tuesday. Thankfully, I've got this dude standing by. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's already got the TBTL a thon on his mind. I gotta figure out how to make

[Andrew Walsh]

money on this thing.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. There was something I was gonna tell you about on tomorrow's show. I know we have a bunch of Andrew topics lined up for today as

[Luke Burbank]

well, but that I accidentally texted you last night. Yeah, thank God I wasn't somehow texting. You know, you're the second person in about 12 hours that I've texted the wrong person the wrong message. And thankfully all of it was benign.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's the cold medicine right there. That's the expectorant.

[Luke Burbank]

The mucinex.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah,

[Luke Burbank]

the thing that I posted you notes to myself. What? I thought I was trying to remind myself of what we were going to ask you about on today's show, that

[Andrew Walsh]

I texted you, but you texted me. And then I had another idea. It was funny because I opened up my phone to text you about something we could talk about on the show and I saw the notes you accidentally sent me. But all that is to say, at the risk of being a microphone hog, it occurred to me that the story I was hoping to tell you tomorrow on the show may not be told on tomorrow's show because I might not be on tomorrow's show because I may be broken down along the side of the road. This feels like something you should know about both as a friend and a colleague who relies. More importantly, as a fellow.

[Luke Burbank]

As a fellow owner of two beautiful to biz.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're going to figure this out. We're going to figure this out. I told you off air yesterday that we had car trouble over the weekend.

[Luke Burbank]

What exactly happened to your Vol.

[Andrew Walsh]

Vol.

[Luke Burbank]

Volkswagen Volkswagen Golf.

[Andrew Walsh]

Volkswagen Golf.

[Luke Burbank]

Volkswagen Golf.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I don't think this is related. I think it's just a coincidence. But on Friday, we happened to have taken it in for an overdue oil change and there were some other, like, little lights and stuff. We wanted to either have them fix or ask about or whatever. So I assume that they Kind of gave it a once over. I wasn't there. Genevieve ran that errand and that was on Friday. And then on Saturday we were driving around, had to drop off a friend somewhere. And then on the way back, I'm driving south on Aurora. I don't know why that's important, but I'm just putting you there. I'm driving south on Aurora.

[Luke Burbank]

Probably just you're saving my voice because, you know, I'm playing hurt today.

[Andrew Walsh]

Actually, that's a good point. I mean, I have so much to tell you from the past few days. Just how much do the listeners care? Do people care about this? No.

[Luke Burbank]

If you want to talk, I've got two ears and they're tuned to the listening station.

[Andrew Walsh]

So luckily I am not far from home at all. Like, I don't know, a few long Aurora blocks or whatever. And. Is that a Springsteen song? A few long Aurora blocks. And the car, I notice two things at almost the exact same time. Some sort of dash light comes on, dashboard light that says like EPC or ECP or something like that. And I don't know what that means

[Luke Burbank]

because that means Insane clown plastic.

[Andrew Walsh]

It said icp. Yeah, that means you have to drive,

[Luke Burbank]

drive your car to the gathering in Cave in Rock, Illinois to have it looked at.

[Andrew Walsh]

It said I was low on Fanta, apparently. I knew I was gonna do that wrong. I was like, it's not Fanta, is it Shasta? No, it's Faygo.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, Michigan specific.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is. Faygo is pretty good. I do think they sell Faygo at the sars.

[Luke Burbank]

By the way, people have been mailing you Faygo.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. Yeah, yeah. Detroit. Represent. But anyway, so the car, I see this light, I have no idea what it means. It's just three little letters, but it is red. It's not a yellow light. It's a red light on my dash. I'm like, well, that's not good. And then immediately I noticed the car is sort of kind of choking out. I don't know cars very well. And it's really hard to describe this, but first of all, it's a manual transmission, if that helps. So as I'm. As I'm slowing down or. Or starting to accelerate at a light or something, like the car seems to need a lot of gas. And, you know, I can kind of do it because I can kind of ride the clutch being a manual, so I can really ramp up the gas in order to kind of get it going because otherwise it's going to kind of. It feels like it wants to choke out on me when it's starting to go injection issue. Yeah. And then I looked up these three important letters later. Insane Clown Posse, icp. And I made a life change and I'm hitting the road to join the posse. Now, apparently the lights can indicate a whole bunch of different things, but it's like some sort of a warning light that it means. I don't know what it means, but it basically could be a whole bunch of different things from your transmission to your throttle. And I'm thinking this has something to do with like throttle or gas injection, like you're saying to a whole bunch of different things. But it's sort of a catch. All that has to do believe with, I don't know, not a sensor, but basically the electronics. That's what I'm looking for. It's like some sort of electronic sensor is going off. And when I called, I finally got them on the phone. The VW dealership on the phone yesterday, the service department. And the woman I was talking to is not a mechanic. She works in the service department. She's like, oh, yeah, I've heard of that. She. And she said like, something like, oh, that when that goes on, that means the car is protecting itself from something. I'm like, okay, so this is an antibody. Like, I don't know what's going on. My. My car has too many antibodies. And I said the important thing. So our shop is in Ballard, right? And I live in Northgate. And that's about. About three and a half miles away. A little under three and a half miles. And so I said, well, can I drive it there? And she said, we don't recommend doing that. We don't think that that's a good idea. I said, so do you tow me? Do I have to set up my own tow service? She said, yeah, you have to set up your own tow service.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll send you warranty of some kind

[Andrew Walsh]

still, or I think so. I don't have AAA anymore because, I mean, I think we got rid of AAA when we got this car because it's the first, like, new car that we ever bought. But it is a 2017, you know, so it's getting a little long in the tooth, as you might say. But, you know, it's in good shape. We hardly drive it. It has under 40,000 miles on it. So, I mean, we drive it regularly. It doesn't sit there. But we don't take it, you know, we don't drive it far. We don't. Neither one of us have a long Commute into a workplace or anything like that. So all of that is to say she said, I don't recommend driving in. She's like, I mean, if you live close by, maybe you can try, but we don't recommend it. And I didn't tell her how far away I am. And like, I don't know, like, close by is relative. Like, I'm not in Tacoma. You know, I don't have to take any highways to get there. It's just crosstown traffic. As junior James Hendricks. Exactly. So I am. Here's my plan for tomorrow. And this fits in so well with this book I'm reading about this cross country car race back in 1909.

[Luke Burbank]

I've always seen you as the Henry Ford of that race.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm more of a shamat man myself. And here's the plan. We are borrowing our friend's car, coincidentally starting the day our car broke down or the day after our car broke down. We were scheduled to start cat sitting our friend's cat. And I had to write to them and say, hey, listen, we will, you know, honor our audience. Honor is the word I was looking for. We will honor omerta.

[Luke Burbank]

It's one thing Andrew Walsh is known for.

[Andrew Walsh]

Omerta.

[Luke Burbank]

That's just another word for honor.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? It's like a code.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like living by a code. I think it's a mafia thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Anyway, well, of course we will do this, but, like, transportation is gonna be difficult. Getting to your house and back twice a day during this period, maybe until we get our car fixed. Is there another solution? Maybe you have a closer neighbor or. Just let us know if we can brainstorm some things until we get our car fixed. And I got a call back from my friend right away who said, well, the solution is to take one of our cars. We're out of town for this to period. That's why you're watching the cat. We have two cars. One will be at the airport, but the other one is just going to be, you know, in the wind anyway. So why don't you just use that? So that ends up being a huge, huge lifesaver during the past couple of days. So I've just been using Camaro, Kev's car to get around.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that you're driving this. What I'm. I'm not exaggerating. I believe The Saab is 30 to 40 years old. It's a beautiful car, by the way. Well made. Yeah, he takes incredible care of it,

[Andrew Walsh]

but, like, well maintained.

[Luke Burbank]

That was the car that stopped making him Camaro Kev. He was Camaro Kev because he drove a Camaro for many years of our knowing of him, like well into his 20s and approaching his 30s. And when the Camaro finally bit the dust, he then switched to that Saab. That is the second car the man has owned in his adult life. It's wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that's when you started calling him Sabi Bobby. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Never caught on. Camaro Kev just has a certain ring to it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, so does Sabi bobby anyway. So Mr. Ribbit. Luckily I do. Oh, man. If you have any suggestions for Frost names, send them to John Sklaroff as jbtl.net I've been getting some, some pretty good ones sent to the text chain, but I'm not keeping track of them. Make sure to send them to John. But anyway, so the plan for tomorrow is first of all gotta wake up super early, go over there, feed their cat or whatever and then we have an appointment in the morning pre tbtl. Basically anytime after they open, which I think I think is 7:30 or 8:00am I am going to get in the old Gulf with the EPC Insane Clown Posse warning on it and I am going to try to drive chugga, chugga, chugga, that thing across town all the way to Ballard. Genevieve is going to follow me in a 40 year old Saab that doesn't have power steering anymore and see if Camaro.

[Luke Burbank]

Kev has text in Canada. I'm going to ask him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, we've been texting. Yeah. Find out what year that is. And so if anything happens to my blue car and it breaks down, then I will have to get into roadside assistance and get a tow truck and everything. And you know, Genevieve will be there with the Saab and one of us will have to, you know, kind of manage the tow truck situation and get it in. Assuming I can't make it into Ballard. What do you think, Luke? Can I make it into Ballard?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And I love that you're rolling the dice on this, really, because it affects you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought you'd be like, well, how about you just tow it? Because I want to make sure the TBT starts on time tomorrow.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I think it's a. I think it's for the plot. I think it's more entertaining. And you know me, I'm a gambler, so I like you gambling. What you're basically doing is you're gambling $200 because that's the cost of the tow. You are gambling that you can limp the car there as opposed to paying the $200 for the tow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And if it does break down and we get it towed, chances are the roadside service type of towing is probably more expensive and more of a very likely.

[Luke Burbank]

So that really.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So that's the gamble there.

[Luke Burbank]

Big risk, big reward. But the thing. Thing that I don't exactly see is the necessity for the follow car, because if you basically, if the. If your car breaks down on the side of the road, you're going to call a tow truck, they're going to tow the car to where you tell them to, and then you could either call an Uber or get on a bus, and you're on a pretty straight shot to Ballard, I guess it's kind of moral support. Or the person. Veeves will give you a ride back home when the tow truck has taken the car from you. I mean, I'm not trying to get Veeves off the hook here, but I guess I feel like that's the one part of the plan that I don't. Doesn't strike me as, like, highly necessary.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I guess you're right. If I lived alone, that's just what I would do. But it seemed to sort of make sense because decisions will have to be made. And, you know, if I am getting a towed on the side of the road. Yeah. Maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Are we putting the car down? Maybe the car went to live on a farm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Keeping the Golf comfortable at this point. Yeah. No, Yeah. I mean, I guess that's a good point. But I do think maybe it'd be good to have somebody there also. It just sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what a relationship.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. It just sort of seemed like the right thing to do. Yeah. And also, like, if it happens this way, then, you know, let's just say that I break down. Well, then the tow truck can take the car instead of me driving or riding in the tow truck. Genevieve. I can get in the car with Genevieve, and we can kind of head to the Volkswagen place together and kind of explain what happened or whatever. Yeah. It just sort of seems to make sense to double team this. But we also do have the complication of, like, I don't want to leave Lucy the dog at home alone too long if this does become some sort of an adventure. So we are prepared for, you know, if Genevieve needs to peel off and head home, that's fine, too. But I do sort of feel like. Well, you know what? You're right. I don't know. I guess the logic is we do things together. We're just going to try to try to figure out.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that's actually really. I think that's really sweet. I don't mean that in any kind of patronizing way. And I think it. Not to turn this into a much more sort of large scale thing, but I think it kind of speaks to a really good way to be in the world as a couple, which is like, hey, yeah, we're on the same team and that's just kind of what we do. And I think because of the various machinations of my life and my relationships and my divorces and periods of being with people and periods of being single, I'm just. I'm a loner. I'm a rebel, Dottie. I just spend so much of my life out in the world just, just getting from point A to point B. And like, like, not because she wouldn't, but like, Rebecca has literally never picked me up from the airport one time in my life and I've landed at PDX over a thousand times. Probably in the last. Maybe not really, but. And that's not because she wouldn't do it. It's because I just. None of that stuff occurs to me because I'm like, I don't know, I'm just gonna go do that, whatever. Like, I, I think my instinct would be to just. To just go solo. But you're right. I think there's something that's really nice about being like, well, this is our car. We're in this together. And yeah, we're just gonna go through this together. So I think that's the move. I do think you're gonna get the car there okay though. That's the.

[Andrew Walsh]

I hope so. I hope so. I mean, nobody really knows what's going on with it. And again, I don't know cars that well. It's weird that I feel. I wonder if it was a manual transm or if it was an automatic transmission, if I would still feel this way. There's something about a manual transmission that feels like you can, you can sort of cheat it more.

[Luke Burbank]

It's DIY a little bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

It just seems a little bit more like, well, I can just cheat it a little bit more. Like I can't.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, you get to decide when it changes. GE versus yeah. Like automatic transmission.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I just really gas it up as they say, and just kind of like, you know, like kind of push through some, some shutters and get it there. I'm not sure.

[Luke Burbank]

So let's talk about the important stuff. So you're gonna take what is that. What's the arco is on. What is that 125th.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Wait, the. The Arco.

[Luke Burbank]

Arco's the Arco. The AMPM the tomb gets.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's 105th. Or, I'm sorry, 105th and Aurora.

[Luke Burbank]

So you're talking about that's 105th.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, the one you. The one. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

The one that's. That's kind of near you. That's. Oh, it's only 105th. I live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I live around there.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so you got to take 105th. Right. Because I was thinking about hills.

[Andrew Walsh]

I take from you to about now.

[Luke Burbank]

We're just. Now I'm just. Now I'm just trip ticking you.

[Andrew Walsh]

No relatively short shot. Here's what it goes. It goes. You get on 105th. 105th to Holman Road. Holman Road goes down to become 35th. I'm always confused as to what it becomes as it heads into Ballard, but that takes you. Basically. You keep shooting. On you go.

[Luke Burbank]

Once you hit that Loyal, you can practically coast.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Is that Dick's Drive? And is that Royal Heights or Loyal Heights or something like that? Is that.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if that's technically Loyal Heights. I think you have to go a little further. Crown Hill. And Loyal crowds are kind of Crown

[Andrew Walsh]

Hill, maybe, is what I'm thinking of. Yeights is a little more towards the

[Luke Burbank]

water, I think, but okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, once you get through, this is good.

[Luke Burbank]

I love this round.

[Andrew Walsh]

Then into this is. Well, you know, this is the route that. Where we chase the bus with Genevieve's phone on it. You know, like this is the 40. We're basically taking the 40.

[Luke Burbank]

And I know that this, to our listeners outside of Seattle, couldn't be a more boring conversation. But let me just explain. There's a point at which I think Andrew will be able to coast to the dealership and just. You gotta get to the. You gotta get to Crown Hill. And then I think it's pretty much a slow descent all the way down. Now, I don't know where in Ballard

[Andrew Walsh]

you're going to be a slow descent. So it works out well.

[Luke Burbank]

It beats a fast descent. Sometimes I feel like I'm on. Yes, absolutely. I think you're going to make it. I have faith in you. I agree with you. That's way better that it's a five speed than if it was an automatic. It gives you a little bit more decision making. And I personally am very. And you know, I got these dogs here. If you're running late, tomorrow's not the end of the world. I'll just take them on another spin around the block.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I thought you meant you would have them on the show instead of me, which is also an option maybe. How is that going, by the way?

[Luke Burbank]

It's going great. It's. My heart is full. I love these dogs so much. They're so chill. Like. So this morning, DJ just like walks in about five in the morning, just kind of like looks at me just like, hey, how you doing? Not like, I gotta go to the bathroom. Not like, you gotta get up, dude. Just kinda like, how's it going? I was like, give me like another half hour. So she just chills out. I go back to sleep, and then I get up at 5:30 or whatever it is. And then I have these two tethers for them. They're like 30ft long and I have them kind of. You can screw them into the ground. But I actually haven't done that. I've just wrapped them around some of the support beams of the deck that comes off of the Medrona Hill studio. And so. And that means they can just kind of roam around a little bit. They can, they can pee if they need to. They can do whatever they need to do. This is our pre. This is our new, as of this morning, pre walk ritual. So first thing in the morning, they go outside, they get on the tethers, they do whatever they need to do. I go back inside and make some coffee, I get ready for the day, send you the show sheet. And then later we do the actual walk. And I'm inside for like a good hour working on some various things and stuff. And I just hear the tiniest little, sweetest little. And I'm like, huh? They never make any noise. And I just look. And then I wait a minute. I go, maybe I was hearing things. I hear. I'm like, huh. So I go out there and DJ has gone.

[Andrew Walsh]

I knew it.

[Luke Burbank]

I taken the tether, wrapped herself around. I haven't, I haven't sealed off the deck. Is. Is raised off of the ground, right? And there's some areas where you could go under the deck very easily because it's fairly high off the ground in certain spots. Eventually I'm gonna lattice all of that off. I haven't done it yet. So DJ had just gone around, wrapped herself around a little bit and was in this like, kind of. She looked like she was in Nam. She was like hidden in the jungle foliage. But I think she'd actually been in there a long time, I think. Cause I Like, peeked out at one point to just look at them and she was under there. But I thought she was just like having a good time. I think she's been like 45 minutes under there, just completely trapped before she decided to bother me by going, yeah,

[Andrew Walsh]

so you want to be.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, they're incredibly sweet, polite dogs and I'm really liking having them. And again, I find the walks in the morning, I don't know what it is that like, I'm in. I mean, I do my run as well, but it's like there's something about going on a walk which is just a little bit less aggressive. It's like, it's more mind clearing. The run that I do is like, I gotta get through this. I gotta get, you know, burn these calories. And like, it's kind of. There's sort of a grim determination to it. But like a summertime walk with these dogs is like exploratory. And I like try to let them really like sniff, map their world a little bit because I know that's kind of good for their brains. It's like that is very grounding for me. And I don't know why it never occurs to me to take a walk by myself at seven in the morning in this neighborhood. But it never would. I would never do that. I would just be like, well, I'm doing my run. It's been.

[Andrew Walsh]

So anyway, when you're in your neighborhood and you're not driving to a place where you like to run, you stick to the treadmill or do you go on a run around your neighborhood?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't really love running in my neighborhood because it's super hilly and I'm really bad with hills. So I can't go very far before I'm going down a very, very steep hill, which means coming back up a very, very steep hill. And they're also. I don't like the. There are, you know, there are shoulders, but there's not sidewalks. And I just do not like running on the side of a. Almost like a rural highway kind of situation. I just don't trust people to not look at their phones and stuff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

So like Scott and Tiff, Becca's brother and sister, you know, if you remember years and years ago, they actually lived here when they were. They had sold their house and they were looking to buy their next house. And they used to run all the time, but they're like real runners and they don't. They do not get easily dissuaded by things like no sidewalks. But I do so I either do the treadmill here or I go down to the lake and do my little loop.

[Andrew Walsh]

But it's worthy of shame around that. Like, I don't run at all. It seems like hell to me, but I admire it. And you're kind of like, oh, I'm not a runner. I only run.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm saying that sort of. I. I don't really feel shame. But, you know, I will say that, like, here's the thing with. And in a million years, Scott and Tiff this, they would never. That would never be how they even frame it. But, like, you know, I've somehow ended up a part of this, like, family of extremely serious runners. And there's all these. And, you know, I was married. My first marriage was. I was married to an extremely serious runner as well. And there are some kind of, like, there are some consistent things about people who are extremely serious runners. One is they. They rarely, in my experience, use headphones because they're, like, listening to their breath or they're just kind of like, I don't know, they're just raw, dogging life with these runs. So if you see someone running with, like, no, like, music or nothing in their ears and also almost no equipment, it's always just like some shorts and a T shirt, and then they'll always have, like, a Garmin watch. Most of these people don't use Apple watches because maybe I don't think the calibration is to their liking, so.

[Andrew Walsh]

But good on Garmin, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, the potential buggy whip of the early 2000s has successfully evolved into something where they now are the main brand for, like, kind of a very different. Not very, but a significantly different product. Good for them. I'm not even judging.

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's a really good point. Like, that's a very, very good point. Yeah, most of the. And again, I'm sure there are. There are lots of exceptions to this, but, like, most of the people that I know that are like, again, extremely serious runners, it's a very, very, like, daily practice for them and all that stuff. It's. They're wear. That's like a Garmin or something else that's like not an Apple watch for some reason. It's like, because I think what happened was these people were already locked into something. There's. This is also a highly regimented group of folks. You know, they're already locked into something when the Apple watch comes along and they're like, well, I'm already using Garmin, you know, so. But you're right, that'd be like Tom Tom somehow managing to stay a relevant part of the like mapping software that you use. Did you ever have, or do you know anyone had a little Tom Tom in their car? No.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought you're talking, I thought you're gonna make some sort of a talking heads Tom Tom club reference. And I was interested in seeing where that was gonna go.

[Luke Burbank]

No, and the, in the like, earliest days, like it was the, the first thing I ever saw in anyone's car that was more advanced than a Thomas guide. And it was this little dedicated kind of digital box that you would, you know, I think you would maybe like suction cup it to your dash or something. And it was just like an extremely early rudimentary, non satellite kind of related mapping software that you would put in.

[Andrew Walsh]

It had a screen.

[Luke Burbank]

It had a screen. It had a screen.

[Andrew Walsh]

Interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm looking them up and they, they're still hanging in there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hmm.

[Luke Burbank]

TomTom provides directions through its dedicated mobile apps and web planner. But I would say it's going good in that they still have a website. The fact that you've never heard of them is not.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And a web planner. I was hanging out with my friend Catherine this weekend and Catherine has worked in tech her whole life before. Like everybody kind of worked in tech or whatever. And she's always had very kind of impressive jobs that seem mysterious to me. And, but to, to know her and to meet her, it's not like she's, like she's not all teched out or something like that. You know what I mean? That's not like it's. She's not, she's, she doesn't always have the latest consumer electronics or anything like that.

[Luke Burbank]

You're not wearing the new snap glasses.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. Is that, Did Meta release the. Or wait, no, your glasses.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's put a pin in that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. Anyway. But anyway, I was sharing a memory with her, which actually I maybe not sharing it because I don't think she remembered it, but I remember it very well. We were at a party one time at I believe Genevieve's apartment. These two were roommates way back in the day. And it's how Genevieve and I met was through her and my friend Paul. But anyway, so we were reminiscing and I said, remember before cell phones? I said you were the first and I think only person who like traded information with me via Bluetooth when we tapped our PDAs together.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of raw dog.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well, obviously we got tested first, like I had and still have in my closet by the way, a Dell PDA you could not make phone calls with. Dude, I got a Dell. It's like, it's super heavy. It's like the size of like maybe a phablet, as you would say in the Barlons of 2013. But it's like this clunky brick of a device that has a color screen and everything on it, but you couldn't really communicate with it. It was just like a calendar and a planner and you could keep your contacts in there. And I think she like sent me her contact information via Bluetooth by aiming our devices at each other like on a set of Star Trek.

[Luke Burbank]

Snapchat is who makes these specs glasses, I believe. And they are hilarious. It's S P E C S Specs. And the CEO of. I don't know if he's the CEO of Snapchat or the CEO of this particular spinoff or whatever you want to call it. He's been showing up on all the like, you know, CNET and then like the kind of tech shows and stuff. And like if you shoot them from one angle, like if you. So if you go to their website, they have these very beautiful people, including, I believe it looks like it might be the basketball player Jimmy Butler. They have these really nice looking people and the photograph is taken from extremely specific angle so that they kind of look sort of fashiony and designy, but if you look at them from like the side. One of the things that people keep pointing at us that the CEO.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you seen this? Yes. I didn't know they were snaps crushing his ears. This is. Did you see the one where they set it up next to the X ray glasses ad from the back of a comic book?

[Luke Burbank]

No.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, this is so funny. If I could find it, I'll make it the show pick today. But yeah, so there's this photo of I guess the CEO. I didn't know that's who it was wearing these things, but somebody found one of those advertisements from the back of like an Archie magazine or something from the 1960s or 70s.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I wanted those so bad.

[Andrew Walsh]

That has a drawing, drawing of somebody wearing X ray glasses and like clearly using them to like gaga goo ga like look.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why I wanted him. I wanted to see a naked lady.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And it's like he's. They're turned in the exact same way. I, I think I. I'm gonna send this to you. It is amazing. So that's what I was seeing in that meme. Huh? Were these snaps?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Let me Just send. This is not even nearly the worst picture. It's just the first one I grabbed off the BBC. But the snap. Snap. Chief executive Evan Spiegel showcases the glasses at a tech convention I just sent you a picture of. Now just understand that this is, this is the, this is the best case scenario. This is the CEO of the company. He's a nice looking guy. This is like, this is them trying to really put the best foot forward and I mean they look so re. Damn diculous to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

These, these specs with a super, super thick arms. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Because that's where all the compute is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So what they're trying to do, they're basically, their theory is. Oh, you know those creeper glasses that I got from Marky Z, the ones that are like a Ray Ban but you can film with them and you can take pictures and stuff. Those are all well and good, but they don't really do any compute. They just kind of, they're kind of a light work. They're like what people really want are glasses that are literally four times as heavy. Look. Absolutely. They look like novelty glasses that you remember when everybody was wearing those big giant oversized novelty glasses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like Josh Naylor and a big giant, like a big foam cowboy hat or something. They look like novelty glasses to me. And of course they have all this compute. But I don't know anybody who is like in a coffee shop and can't just bring their laptop or something. Like, I don't really know what the use case for these is. And my prediction is that this is going to crash and burn so bad just because you know me, I'm always looking for a tech solution to whatever my life problems are. So I'm actually fairly. I'm convincible, I'm persuadable as they say on a lot of this stuff. But I'm just like this. You've decided to try to make this a fully functioning ass computer in these glasses and it's just, it's too much. We don't, we don't have the technology yet because even the Ray Ban ones that I have from Meta after I wear them for. First of all, I haven't worn them in three months. You know what I do with them, Andrew? When people come over to my house, I put them on them and I play them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Say how cool is this?

[Luke Burbank]

It is. I mean the music effect is crazy because no one else can hear the music except you, but you're not wearing headphones. It's just vibrating it into your brain bones. Or whatever. But other than that, I mean, even that doesn't have a great use case anymore for me. I mean, if we, if we go back to making more videos, it is actually kind of functional for that. But anyway, these specs, they just look, there's just something about the CEO with a straight face trying to show up somewhere with these goofy novelty glasses on and really being like thinking that this is gonna convince anyone. I just. I can't imagine them selling more than five pairs of these.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you see the side by side that I sent you from the old. It's in your text. It's in there. It's in your text. Is that not amazing? It's an old, like hand drawn.

[Luke Burbank]

He's literally making the same face.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's making the same face. I was almost wondering if somebody maybe up that old ad a little bit to make it almost exactly a one for one of what this guy looks like. By the way, those glasses didn't work anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Those actually weren't really X ray.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you end up getting your hands on them?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Or I think a friend had them. They were just like. It's kind of hard to explain. They. You know what? You know when you watch a 3D movie, but you don't have 3D glasses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So there's that kind of like.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's like a blurry, like kind of

[Luke Burbank]

color kind of blurry because there's like multiple.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's say you're looking at like this water bottle. It's in a 3D movie, but you don't have 3D glasses on. There's like a shadow of. More like it's sort of repeated.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And the shadow will be a little bit green on one side and red on the other.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. It's like they basically kind of like when you put them on, they look like all they did was scramble your vision.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So you did not get any closer to seeing someone naked. In fact, you were getting further from

[Andrew Walsh]

it, which maybe what they should do is you put them on and it says, you sinner, go. That's creepy. Don't do that. Now go to church and confess.

[Luke Burbank]

Stop trying to see those sea monkeys naked.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's what I was going to ask.

[Luke Burbank]

The other thing that I was buying out of the back of those comic books.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is a dumb thing to ask in 2026, where people are like ordering things on Instagram or TikTok and then they're arriving in the post and they're just like completely. They're like miniature versions of what they thought Oh, I bought a car for $1,000 and it turns out it's a matchbox car or whatever. But what I was gonna say was how were they allowed to just advertise things that didn't do what they said they were gonna do? Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think little boys should be buying glasses to, you know, sneak looks at naked girls. Like, that is obviously wrong, but like, why? How can they sell something that does that also? Come on, you. Do you think that there's a good thing?

[Luke Burbank]

I just, I mean, I don't know. I. Well, first of all, that's not a real thing. And I think the idea that.

[Andrew Walsh]

But that's what was advertised, though.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but I. Do you. Do you put the blame on the people selling it or on the 12 Year Old Boys who are, who are

[Andrew Walsh]

kind of the people selling it? Absolutely. That's what, that's what I'm saying. I mean, I think that, like a lot of the issues that we have in the world today are because of like a generation of boys growing up just thinking like, oh, it's all just in fun.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Anyway, I guess it was just that there wasn't, you know, there wasn't a class action lawsuit about the sea monkeys or the glasses. Just kind of like, I just don't think that there must. Well, first of all, like, when I got the sea monkeys, they didn't work. I didn't even know who to turn to about it. So you know what I mean? Like, I guess you, I guess you've got a lawyer who was perusing the back pages. And I use that advisedly. I mean, looking very carefully at the back pages of the comic book. I think Mike Pesca taught me that one time that peruse. I was always using it to just mean like kind of flipping through things. It means to look very carefully. But I mean, I guess if a lawyer was looking at it. Yeah, they could have. I mean, certainly it would be, you know, you're selling, you're selling something that doesn't do what you said. And that's definitely illegal. But I guess they just didn't care because they figured, you know, these kids will learn their lesson with those sea monkeys in those glasses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because the sea monkeys are the other ones too. Yeah, I mean, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, they were brine shrimp. And I remember specifically, like when I got those sea monkeys, weirdly, on our first rental. Well, it was our second rental house in Seattle. I had a room in the basement and we had that. That house was actually Bigger than the one we moved to next. But so my sisters and there was only a few of us kids at that point. But anyway, all that is to say, I had a bathroom attached to my room, which is very strange. You know, there was two bathrooms in the house, the one everyone used and then a bathroom attached to my room for some reason. And I remember getting the sea monkeys and getting like a fishbowl or some kind of big bowl and putting the sea monkeys in and just being like, where's the couch? Because I think they're sitting on a couch in the picture or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a whole family of them. Yeah. In fact, since I was gonna say it's like the Simpsons, but I think I'm thinking of that because the Simpsons did one of their intros where they were sea monkeys, Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that would totally make sense. But just. And then just like being just like waiting for this family to develop and for, for it to be hours of entertainment and maybe, I don't know, I could teach them rudimentary hand signs or something. And then I, you know, they just. Eventually, after weeks, I could just see the tiniest little like, not even booger sized thing wriggling around in there. But also, there was no Internet at the time, so I couldn't go like, what's happening with my sea monkey? I can go on a Reddit. That's like, why are my sea monkeys not. Why are they not thriving? But yes, I guess they were dehydrated brine trip, which is an amazing. Actually, if you think about it, that's an amazing bit of like, business sort of acumen. Someone figured out that these brine shrimp don't have to be, what hydrated or fed to stay alive. Like, so, like, it wasn't like someone was like, we got to figure out a way to mail shrimp to unsuspecting children of America. It was like, hey, did you realize that these brine shrimp don't die? Like, you can just throw them in an envelope for literally months? Like, they go into some suspended animation or something. And then someone's like, huh, how do we make money off of that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Makes you wonder how many other things could come alive if you threw water on it. Makes me just want to go through the world just dousing things and seeing if they come alive.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm, you know, I would be careful with that. I think that gets you in a little bit of trouble. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark. On Your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set. Get set now. Ready? Ready.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. As we mentioned, there were a few folks that we had not yet thanked for their dazzling donations, and we would never, ever, ever want to leave anybody off the list. So here we are, thanking our friend and resident astronomer on the show Summer Ash. Summer is in the constellation, the Summer triangle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I knew that. That's how I think of pronouncing Summer, too.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. You people don't know this, but oftentimes when we dial up Andrew, you'll talk about the Summer triangle for, like, I don't know, 45 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're getting sick of it, aren't you?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just saying, you. I would like you to learn some new things about it because we've been. It's kind of been talked to death.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I. I'll tell you what. I'm reading up on the summer quadrangle, and I can start telling you about that once I. Okay, good. Yes, let's just.

[Luke Burbank]

And then once we get into the summer. Oh, God.

[Andrew Walsh]

Twin tangle.

[Luke Burbank]

What? No, there's a. There's another. There's like a. What's the. Starts with an H. There's a funny shape that starts with an H. Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not a hexagon. That's not very funny.

[Luke Burbank]

Not a hexagon. That's not funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's not funny. That's. Name the funniest shape. Oh, you like shapes? Name five.

[Luke Burbank]

There's like a. I'll look it up later. I feel like there's a. There's a. There's a shape. There's a funny name. Maybe I'm just thinking Rhombus. Maybe I'm. And that's not an H. Maybe I'm just thinking Rhombus. Columbus. I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which also sounds like a.

[Luke Burbank]

Summer is in Mill Valley. Summer's in Mill Valley, California, and says, ahoy, hoy, friendos. Checking in from my little corner of the universe, which is full of entropy, per usual. It's been a hard year for many reasons, but I know it's been even more difficult for others, so I'm trying not to dwell on it. On a positive note. Yeah. Summer, I'm sorry that you've been having a hard time. On a positive note, I'd like to share that I will be the astronomer in residence at the Grand Canyon for the entire month of September.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, good.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's like the best canyon to be the astronomer. That's the grandest canyon that we have that I know of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but I Mean, a lot of that is branding too. I mean, the Grand Canyon, love it, but it's totally big on itself, right? Naming itself the Grand Canyon.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, considering your complicated relationship with the Grand Canyon, Andrew, I have to take that with a grain of salt.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is my complicated relationship?

[Luke Burbank]

Didn't you self deport on a walk once on the Grand Canyon?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I did, yeah. I was walking along the Grand Canyon one time and then said, you know what? I am done. I have reached my limit.

[Luke Burbank]

Guy who's at his limit.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is so cool.

[Luke Burbank]

Summer. It is so the month of September. I'm extremely excited about this opportunity and would love any tens visiting the park to come and say hi. I may be also, and maybe also join in the celestial fun with me. I'll be based at the South Rim doing public programs day and night, including hands on activities for kids, guided stargazing, and perhaps most importantly, let's see, meditations on the wonder and awe of our cosmic home. Tens can hit me up on slack or ask Andrew or John to put you in contact. Can you imagine how.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not you though. You will not, Luke, put anybody in contact with Summer.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, Summer is a person. I'm just reading what Summer wrote. And also Summer is a person, Andrew, who understands cosmology, the universe, understands cause and reaction and objects in motion. And also she understands objects at rest. And she knows when it comes to me and the emails, I am an object at rest. So she's just simply making sure that people's messages don't fall into a canyon only slightly less grand than the one she's going to be working at. Called my emails. How fun would that be to go to the Grand Canyon and maybe bring your family or whatever and then go down to the South Rim for the kind of, you know, sort of stargazing and planetary aspect of it. And then there it is. Our friend summer the 10 is doing all that stuff. That's so cool.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking to see where I was in the Grand Canyon, if it would be considered the Southern Rim or the South Rim. But I can't find any of Genevieve's notes. Genevieve usually puts together like an itinerary for us when we go on a road. We took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. What, it was in 2021 or something? It was, yeah, it was our 25th anniversary. It was our 20th anniversary. That's right. And it was also sort of COVID times. Things were reopening slowly, but everything was weird. So we're like, oh, we'll go on a road Trip to a place that has a lot of air. That seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Oh, sure, yeah. But I can't remember exactly where we went. And this is where my brain is really bad. I feel bad about this, that I can't remember exactly where I was in the Grand Canyon.

[Luke Burbank]

Summer says this year more than ever, I'm grateful for you biz boys and tbtl. You and my cats are pretty much the only constants in my life, apart from physics. Ha. And I couldn't live without you. Never stop. Aw, Summer. Well, we couldn't be here without you and all your support over the years and all the info you've given us and everything else. So thank you very much. And I think I have a sense of some of the stuff that Summer's been kind of going through. And, Summer, I'm thinking of you. So thanks again for all the support. We love you. Maestro, on your mark. On your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set, get set now. Ready, Ready.

[Luke Burbank]

Look who it is. It's Kavita Patel in Portland, Oregon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, New listener here. Now, Andrew, we have a whole running joke about new listeners. Yeah, people will, you know, people will say, you know, I'm a new listener. They've been listening for eight years or something. We got an actual. I would consider a new listener here in Cavita. Yeah, I joined during colonoscopy talk in 2025, and I haven't missed an episode since. Who'd have thought?

[Andrew Walsh]

Trying to think. When we got our colonoscopies, were they 2025 for both of us, or were you 2024? I know I was 2025, but I can't remember what might have been summertime. I can't remember exactly when I was. But I'm just trying to think.

[Luke Burbank]

I got mine a little before you, right before me.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so I'm just.

[Luke Burbank]

You got a better result?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't have to go. You got a five, five or ten year old seven.

[Andrew Walsh]

I got a seven year. You got a three year kill for a seven.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm probably coming up on my. Yeah, my thing again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, It's a Seattle Seven. You're a Long View Three, so it's.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I'm a Long U10, unfortunately. No, wait, how does that work? I'm confused. Anyway, I wonder. That's so. It's also amazing to me that Kavita tuned in during that time and it spoke to them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. You know. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, that's just kind of like. I could see people tuning in and being like, interesting what these two guys Talking about what? But stuff. Is there a name for medicine that you didn't know you needed? Because that is what TBTL is to me. I've now come to cherish it as much as I do. My morning cup of coffee, my afternoon walks in the garden. Thanks for the humanity and the many, many laughs for my dazzling donor message. I'd like to return the favor to the TBTL community. After spending 20 years in corporate marketing, about two years ago, I started practicing kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing pottery using gold joinery. Andrew, I know about this.

[Andrew Walsh]

You had something done, right? I was proud of you when I.

[Luke Burbank]

Our friend Brent Henry Martin, he also does this. And I broke a priceless family heirloom of Becca's, and I sent it to Brent, and he Katsugi'd it. And honestly, it probably saved the relationship. It is an amazing process. Kavita, this is so cool. So Kavita says, the Japanese art of repairing pottery using gold joinery. So just imagine something that goes from being kind of in one state to it's been returned to its shape, but now it has this amazing inlay of all of this Cool. These little lines of gold. Like, I just think this. This particular, like, vase that I knocked over. I think it might have even been Bubbles who knocked it over. But I felt like I was responsible, which only because I was. But it. Like, I think it looks cooler now. I love repairing broken objects for friends and family. And if there are any tens who'd like me to repair your item for free, Visit my website, hellokavita.com. i'm kicking. Getting eyes on this.

[Andrew Walsh]

K A V I T A. Hello, kavita.com.

[Luke Burbank]

that's right. Hey, you made it. Welcome. That's the first few things on Kavita's website. Let's see. I've repaired cups, bowls, spoons, plates, vases, planter pots, taking a mess of broken pieces and putting them back together, using gold to highlight the breaks. The metaphors abound. But really, it's a privilege and a joy to practice it. Peace and love. Signed, Kavita. Wow, Kavita, that is, like. First of all, welcome to the fam. Glad to have you here. I'm curious how Kavita heard about the show, too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's a really good question, Kavita. Get at us if you don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, you let us know. We're doing some market research. We figure if we had one listener a year and we keep just doing the show for a thousand years, that'll be a thousand new listeners, which is

[Andrew Walsh]

pretty great for us. That's good for us. And we'll be up to 1,002 listeners, which is great.

[Luke Burbank]

Precisely. Well, John listens to.

[Andrew Walsh]

He kind of has to.

[Luke Burbank]

So that's like one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Three.

[Luke Burbank]

Kavita, thank you very much. We really appreciate you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello, and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, Andrew, what do you want to talk? Dog park or grocery store adventures?

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me tell the grocery store adventure because it's a cleaner story that won't spiral out into a million different things. But I was at the grocery store, I believe, on Sunday, and I was. I think I was picking up several things, but then I was standing there in the little beer section. Now, this is a smaller grocery store. It sprouts on Aurora. And so it's not like an aisle of beer or a whole area where there's like.

[Luke Burbank]

That's really a smaller one. Because isn't that in what used to be the Kmart? I've never been there.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know what used to be there. It's in, you know, like, a shopping center with a whole bunch of other buildings. I, for some reason, I feel like the home goods is the one that used to be the Kmart, but I could be totally wrong about that. I don't know. But it's not a tiny grocery store, but I guess it doesn't even really matter. But it kind of matters for this story is if you're picturing a beer section of a grocery store, this isn't exactly typical. It's not like when you go into the Safeway and you have an entire aisle of glass doors that you open, and there's every kind of generic brand. It's like a corner of the store. Sprouts calls itself like a farmer's market, but it's like a chain of grocery stores with a good produce section and a whole bunch of other things. But. But, you know, it's a little bit more of a slightly more boutique experience than your qfc, Kroger kind of thing. And so I'm back in this little beer area trying to decide which six pack to get or something like that. And it's literally a corner of the store. So the beer, there's a couple of shelves, and they're literally some of them are on one wall, some of them are on the other wall, and it's kind of tucked between the meat section and the produce, sort of. And I'm standing there, and I'm having a hard time making up my mind. I don't know why.

[Luke Burbank]

And then that's what I'm curious about. Not to Delay you. But I would just imagine that you have your kind of go to depending on the mood you're in or what you're looking to do, that you maybe got like three different kinds of beers that serve three different kinds of purposes based on what's up. But that's not the case.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, it is. The. I mean, we usually keep like Kerr's Lite in the basement fridge just to keep it on hand or whatever, which is a fine go to for me, but. But I honestly, I don't know, Luke. I think I ended up getting something called a summer IPA or something. I don't drink a lot of IPAs these days, but I don't know, maybe I was just in the mood to shake things up. I don't know exactly what I think. I was coming home to cook and maybe I was looking for something maybe that would be a little bit more exciting to have in a pint glass while I was cooking things up. Anyway, so I am standing there kind of trying to make up my mind, and then there's another guy, and he's a bit younger than me. I'm going to put him maybe 10, 15 years younger than me. And he's. He's kind of staring at the beers, too. And in this smallish little corner, there is a stack of tall boys of Rainier. You know, like six packs of Rainier tall boys. And they're kind of on a little display. And I noticed he's standing there like me, kind of trying to make up his mind on something, I don't know what. And then I see him take one of these six packs and put them in his little basket. And I'm thinking to myself, those are warm. Like you're in the refrigerated section. And what I see is that there are some Rainiers. The same exact six packs are also right behind this display. And they're in the cooler. Again, not a cooler that has doors, but they're like sitting there and they will be cool. And I'm thinking to myself, I think this guy is having trouble making up his mind because he wants some Rainier, but he doesn't think they're all the warm ones. He only seems the warm ones because it's literally a corner and this display is blocking from his view the cold ones. And I. I swear to you, I've never been so aware of my Dr. Rick progressive commercial opportunities. I'm literally thinking, I think this guy wants the cold ones, but he doesn't know they're there. And I really want to Tell him, hey, just so you know, there's some cold ones right over there. I can see him from where I'm standing and he can't see him from where he's standing. It might even be my fault because I'm. We're both there sharing a space. You know what I mean? He might be more comfortable walking in front of me. Were I not there, he wouldn't be walking in front of me. So I am thinking to myself, there's cold ones over there. And then I'm still standing there for a second. I'm about to make up my mind. And then he shifts a little bit and it changes his perspective. And I see I'm kind of behind him and I see him spot the cold ones and he takes the warm six pack out of his basket and then grabs the cold six pack. And I'm like, yes, first of all, I was right. I know my grocery store behavior so well. I'm feeling proud of that. But also now I want to brag to him now. I want to say, I knew. I almost was going to say, I knew you wanted the cold ones, but I didn't want to be like a guy in a Dr. Rick Progressive commercial. And then I heard myself. I'm like, that's even more Dr. Rick Progressive commercial. That's even worse. Because it doesn't even make sense if this person doesn't know what I'm talking about. And so I am proud to announce today, Luke, that I said nothing for the first time. I said nothing. He went for the Warm Rainiers and I said nothing. And I'm glad I did.

[Luke Burbank]

First they came for the Warm Rainiers and I said nothing. Here's the thing, though. I am now starting to wonder if those commercials have actually worked too well on you, because I know that the whole premise, I mean, there's a whole bunch of different examples in there of people, of people who are not very old doing things that we associate with like our parents generation. But one of those things about, you know, I guess, offering advice when somebody doesn't need it, I actually is there if he, I guess here's my question. If he had not shifted his perspective and seen the cold ones and then swapped out, if he would have just walked off with the warm ones in his pack in his basket, do you think you would have stopped him?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, I wouldn't have walked away. I wouldn't have stopped him. No.

[Luke Burbank]

See, that to me seems like a potentially worse outcome like this. I understand not wanting to be a know it all, not wanting to, you know, get in people's business. But also there's, like a level of helpfulness. There's a line that I. First of all, I would never see you crossing it. But, like, do you think. Do you think that I'm wondering if this has worked too well on you? Because I think it would. Like, again, it worked itself out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Out.

[Luke Burbank]

So that was the good news.

[Andrew Walsh]

But, like, I tell him he had a great ass so we could talk a little bit. So.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so you did. You guys were able to kind of

[Andrew Walsh]

bond over something, right? You said I wouldn't.

[Luke Burbank]

I would take it to the wrong place. Smile, it's free.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's so much better. I wish I had.

[Luke Burbank]

But. But. And by the way, also, that's part of it. Like, if it was a woman who was looking around the beer aisle, I probably am not, actually. I don't know, maybe I even then would have. I'm trying to think, if I was in that position and I had that thought, I think what I would have said is, like, oh, in case you're looking for ones that are already cold, there are some over here. I guess that's probably how I would have phrased it. I might have. I might have even said that to somebody who was a woman. Although I would have thought much longer and much harder about that because there's obviously a lot going on with that. That's kind of complicated. But, like, I guess I'm just wondering, like, what is exactly your policy being in the world for when you kind of actually verbally weigh in on something or don't in those kinds of scenarios?

[Andrew Walsh]

I have to hear somebody. I think this is the case. Like, I didn't hear him mumbling under his breath, like, damn, I wish they had some cold ones or something like that. And if so, then I would have spoken up. I didn't hear him mumbling under his breath. A pure fire will come that wipes the light.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I get out of there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

You'll find people mumbling under their breath in the beer section of that AM pm, my bud. Yeah, absolutely no problem. If you're looking for that, I know where you can find it.

[Andrew Walsh]

The AM PM also calls itself a farmer's market, by the way, for whatever that's worth. Farmer Tomb gets definitely a marketplace.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I guess the thought is.

[Andrew Walsh]

But like, if I hear, like, I can I be. Earlier this weekend, maybe I was a little bit Dr. Ricky, but there were, There were. Boy, this takes me to another beer section. And by the way, I didn't End up buying beer here. But I am taking. I ended up visiting a grocery store that a lot of people have been telling me to visit for a while, knowing my passion for grocery stores. And it's the Town and Country grocery store there that's kind of up north. Up north, I guess. Is that technically shoreline? I think I would call it Shoreline. It's where I got my license renewed on Christmas Eve and it's where I found a Chipotle that's more convenient to me. It's this little area that I've been going to.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm so glad to hear that's still there, by the way, which I've been there for.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dmv.

[Luke Burbank]

Town and country or the Town and Country that's been there for. Since I can remember.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? I thought it was a newer type of thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I mean, I'm not. I believe you. I'm just. I assumed that because it's kind of a. I had no idea what it was, but it's kind of an upscale large grocery store with like a huge. I mean it's like I was there with a friend and I wasn't buying anything, but I just wanted to do a perimeter check of the place and just sort of see what its deal

[Luke Burbank]

is, get eyes on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm in love with it. I can't wait to go back. Actually ran into a friend who works there. He was arranging. He had this stick in his hand and he was in the yogurt section as I was doing my perimeter check. And he's giving me a look. I'm like, oh, I didn't even recognize you. We start chatting a little bit. I'm like, what is that stick you're holding? It's got a little hook on the end of it. He's like, it's how I'm organizing the yogurts. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, my yogurt stick. When people take the yogurts out of the front, then all of the other yogurts stay back. So I use this to sort of arrange things. And so I said, can I use your yogurt stick? And he said, yeah. And I started arranging the yogurts. It was like. It was actually awesome.

[Luke Burbank]

We know your next career.

[Andrew Walsh]

Absolutely. I was like, this is kind of awesome. And also it's just a really good grocery store. Like when you go into the fish section, they have these huge open topped, huge aquariums full of mollusks and I think shellfish. I don't Know if that's the same thing or if one's an umbrella term. But it looked like just a huge meat section, produce section, a great grocery store. I can't wait to go back there. But as I'm doing my sort of loop around the outside, I'm also looking at their beer section. And they have all these, I don't know, fancy beers, but all these colorful beer bottles and cans. And I'm looking and I hear these two women talking about how they're looking for something. It looks like maybe a mom and an adult daughter. I'm not sure, but they're having some long conversation. They keep pointing to their phone like, we're looking for this one. It's Laganita's this or something. And I go around the corner and I see that there's a whole bunch.

[Luke Burbank]

She said, let me get my beer stick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I said, hold on, let me go get my friends a yogurt stick. And I happened to notice, oh, when you go around the corner, there's a whole bunch more beer. And so I actually did go back to them and I said to them, hey, sorry to interrupt, but just so you know, there's a whole big section of beer around the corner too. And they seemed. They seemed happy to hear that. And they were also like, well, actually this is a non alcoholic thing made by a beer company. And they started showing me on the phone and then they actually wanted more help than I was willing to give. And then I was like, listen, this is my first time here. This is my first rodeo. I just wanted to let you know that there was more beer over there. So if I actually hear people talking about, I can't find something, and I happen to have an answer to it. One time I walked a woman in the QFC from the dairy aisle to the. What did she want? She wanted hummus. I heard her asking another person, where's the hummus? And the other person didn't know. And I said, ma', am, I'm heading to the hummus area if you would like to follow me. And she followed me. So I clearly am not too afraid of that. But I need. I need to know that they need help. In this case, I was just assuming nobody actually wants a warm six pack of beer. But I didn't hear him mumbling anything.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's what I see you doing in retirement. You know how at the. I don't know if they have these at Sea Tech, they probably do, but at pdx they have people who I think might be volunteers. They look like they might be retired age people. And it's kind of like ask me anything. And they got little vests and they're just at kind of like an info booth. And it's like anything you need to know about Portland or the buses or just kind of you've just landed and you just don't really know the place. And they're super helpful and nice. I love them being there. I see you doing that at a grocery store. Pro bono.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Just. No, I mean unofficially.

[Luke Burbank]

SARS.

[Andrew Walsh]

Completely unofficially.

[Luke Burbank]

I've bought my own vestigially and unlicensed.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have fashioned my own vest. I've made a badge. I give myself little badges, little accomplishment badges. And they right when you walk into sars.

[Luke Burbank]

Can I show you?

[Andrew Walsh]

They are. They are writing new rules to keep me out of their store.

[Luke Burbank]

Sir, do you not understand the term trespass?

[Andrew Walsh]

They don't make me tap the sign. This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box.

[Luke Burbank]

What's in the box?

[Andrew Walsh]

In the first draw, I keep my magic stones.

[Luke Burbank]

What's in the box?

[Andrew Walsh]

Licorice. Licorice. Black sweet licorice. Black, sweet licorice. Have some loot.

[Luke Burbank]

Some of David Cross's flower finest. What can't he do?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sounds so much like David Cross. I went to the PO box yesterday and boy, did we have a lot of stuff in the P.O. box. So I thought maybe we could spend some time today opening some of these packages and finding out what's inside. I see I got a package here from. This is from Matthew and it looks like it is from Franklin, Michigan. So is. This is from Matthew and Frank Country. Maybe this is faygo. It looks a little bit small for a fago. And there's a note inside. Oh, man. Okay, here we go. I'm gonna read the note and then I'm gonna tell you what I'm holding here. It says, business boys. This is a handwritten note. Very nice handwriting. It says when you were talking about Hacky Sacks recently on the pod, you mentioned how much fun it would be to kick around during the thon. I took it upon myself to crochet a few for you to use. I had some extra cotton yarn and left over from another crochet project that just so happened to match the Junior Sluggers colors from a few years ago. Or the Junior Sluggers hat from a few years ago. Each Hacky sack is a one of a kind design, carefully handcrafted and slowly improving in design with each one I made. Let's see here. So it goes on to say, let's see here. It says, I told my kids about them. Now they want hacky sacks with their names on them. Look at this. Luke, can you hold that up? Look at.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, my God, those are amazing.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're yellow and blue. The blue one has yellow text.

[Luke Burbank]

Interesting. They're Michigan colors. University of Michigan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it's the junior sluggers colors, but also. Oh, yeah, that's Michigan colors. And then there's a third one here, and each one says tbtl crocheted into that. So great. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

It'll almost be a shame to hack those sacks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, these sacks were meant. It would be a shame to not sack the hacks or hack the sacks. It does say it said somewhere in here, oh, they're filled with dried lentils, so try not to soak them.

[Luke Burbank]

So honestly, we could. We could eat them if we found ourselves enough.

[Andrew Walsh]

If we. I pinch. You know what? I'm gonna take these on my car trip tomorrow to Ballard.

[Luke Burbank]

If I find myself bring provisions.

[Andrew Walsh]

We'd have to chew off my own leg. First of all, to get out of a trap, for some reason. It also says pps. Could you shoot me an email when you get this? I want to make sure you got them. When was the sent, by the way?

[Luke Burbank]

Consider this your email.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, consider this your email. And. Oh, okay. It hasn't been too long. This was just from a couple of weeks ago. This was sent in early June.

[Luke Burbank]

Those are awesome.

[Andrew Walsh]

These are really, truly awesome, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you bring those to Ohio?

[Andrew Walsh]

I certainly can. I'm going to bring.

[Luke Burbank]

Sax will be hacked in Ohio. That is my promise to all of you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, I don't want to take up too much time, but I would love to get through a bunch of these. I have another one here. And this was sent. The person literally redacted their name from, like, the official USPS label on here. Can I hold it up to the light in a certain way where I can see their name through the redaction? Oh, maybe. But I will maintain their privacy here. And this is interesting. So this is a pack. This is a Ziploc bag of French's yellow mustard. I know these packs well. These are the packs that I buy big boxes of this stuff of these exact packets, and I put them for pop up. Yeah. So I'm always buying these at the restaurant supply store, but I don't know why I have it. But even more. Even more confusing, this person who redacted their name put a big sticky note on one side of this bag that says, don't Share these with Luke, exclamation point. I don't know if you can see that.

[Luke Burbank]

I can, and I don't like it. I don't like anything about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are we in a fight over mustard, or are you stealing my mustard or something?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm wondering if you want to be mustard museum. I've been talking about fancy mustard sometimes on the show because I went to that museum and. And maybe I said I don't like. Like, if I have my choice, I'm not gonna go with that yellow mustard on a lot of things. There are things that I will. I'll have it on, but. But it's like, I'd probably rather go with, like, a. A spicy brown mustard or whatever. Maybe you just mentioned that you eat those. You eat that kind of mustard, and so they figure that that's for you and not for me. I don't remember.

[Andrew Walsh]

These seem right because I have, like, a million. Somebody was over my house the other day, and they were agog at how many different kinds of mustard I have, including yellow. I mean, yellow has its place, certainly, and I like it. I'm not.

[Luke Burbank]

What is the place for yellow mustard in your mind?

[Andrew Walsh]

It really depends. I mean, honestly, sometimes. And this is. This surprises me to say this. Oh, because as a kid, I didn't eat mustard growing up at all. What's up?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm remembering what. That's a reference to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good. That's important. What is it?

[Luke Burbank]

The person. I'll just give some context. There was a person on the flight next to me who had mustard. I think it was the flight who had mustard. And I. They weren't using it. And I asked if I could. If they weren't going to use it. They were like, no, no, I'm going to use it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then they never used it. Good. Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

What.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's redacted. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

Good job. Redacted.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. I'm sorry that I. It took us a while. I am so glad you got there, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. That is a good. That's a pretty good spoof. I have really been putting. I have been putting mustard on a lot of stuff. Like, I put mustard on a carrot the other day, and it was delicious. Like, I. You know, it's. There are very few things that are not, I mean, on the. Of the savory variety or of the just not sweet variety that, for me, are not improved by a mustard. Like, I'll just get a. Like a cracker and just, like, dip it in some mustard and eat that. Like, I'm just.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm Like, I'm not there. I'm not there on mustard. Yeah. I was starting to say, like, I didn't like mustard. I sort of actively didn't like mustard growing up. But then I think fancier mustards were my gateway into the world of mustard. I don't think I would.

[Luke Burbank]

There was that one time that you were in a. What was it, like a. Like a Rolls Royce and your chauffeur was. You ran out of Grey Poupon, or. No, somebody else had. Right. And they loaned some Grey Poupon to you.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what happened.

[Luke Burbank]

That was your Gateway.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is it? It's two fancy cars pull up next to each other. Right. And then the rear windows roll down. Maybe that's what it is.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's like two really. Like, it's a fancy person borrowing some Grey Poupon from someone else's car. The way you might borrow sugar from your neighbor's house.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Only passing it, I believe, through the rear windows of these limos. But anyway. Yeah. So it's just to go back to the yellow mustard thing. I think that would have been pretty low on my list at one point. But honestly, there are times if I make myself like a turkey sandwich on good bread and lettuce, tomato, and a little bit of exactly this, like, French's yellow mustard. That's pretty good. I mean, there are other mustards I could play with there, too. But a yellow mustard there. A plain yellow mustard is. Actually works out well there for me, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

On. With, like, certain pretzels, I would go with a yellow mustard.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, certainly. Yeah, Like a big.

[Luke Burbank]

Big.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like a big.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, like a soft pretzel. Like, if I'm on. If I'm on the streets of Philadelphia, if I'm inside a Bruce Springsteen song. You know, when I was growing, my mom was always best salt. The best soft pretzels in the world. You get them in Philly. I don't even know if that's true. It's probably not. It's probably like New York or something. But I was just raised knowing that Philadelphia was associated with tasty cakes with cheesesteaks and then with really good soft pretzels on the street.

[Andrew Walsh]

I do. I'm not a big soft pretzel person. I like pretzels. Soft pretzels don't come into my life all that often, but I have some fond memories of down in South Lake Union. Who's the. I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. Who's the big Seattle restaurateur Tom Douglas. Tom Douglas. He had, you know, a bunch of restaurants of all different kind of styles, and he had one in South Lake Union that I'm guessing was sort of a German beer hall style place.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was famous for its pretzels. And I do. What I loved about that was you would get like three or you would get the pretzel and share it with the table. But there were like three or four different dipping mustards.

[Luke Burbank]

And so you go there together sometimes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I feel like I was there with you. And it seemed like for a while there was a good place to bring people from out of town or something. It was kind of central, but like, yeah, you could do a little dip in the plain yellow mustard. But also the stone ground is sitting there too, so you kind of. It's like going to Red Robin with all the sauces.

[Luke Burbank]

I like the Brave Horse is what that was called.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Is it gone now? He's kind of like closed up.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's gone. I think he's mostly. He has a big farm somewhere in like, eastern Washington where he and Jackie, his wife, spend a lot of time. And I think he's. I think he's kind of stepped back from. Not because of any, you know, issues or cancellations or anything. I think it's just the business is, you know, tough on you over the years. And I think he's done pretty well in the business, so.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, I have a couple more things here in this one. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm pretty sure this was just from our friend Eric, who lives in Edmonds, as identified in this note. But you'll see the package itself, Luke, was not actually shipped or mailed. I believe Eric works in the post office where our P.O. box is. So he just wrote this note, typed

[Luke Burbank]

it out inside the post office, wrapped

[Andrew Walsh]

the note around the object, and just slipped it in my P.O. box, which I think that is so cool. Like, by the way, he's just slipping me notes.

[Luke Burbank]

He's just slipping me notes. So illegal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Eric, if you get in any trouble for this, I will cover your legal fees and. And whatever postage is due.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that we have a listener either in that post office or with. With access to that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Keeping an eye on things for us. It says, hey, Andrew, we're still cleaning out my father in law's storage. Oh, I think Eric sent some. Some. Some baseball cards our way a while back. It says, I found another gem for you. I previously. Oh, here it is. I previously sent you and Luke old Mariners baseball cards and Husky football cards that you seem to enjoy. I do love that when I found this, you immediately jumped to mind as the only person I know who at the intersection of Mariners and TV commercials. So please enjoy the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, and some very terrible acting by retired Mariners power out Eric and Edmonds. And look at this. This is still sealed in its cellophane. An FSN branded. I'm saying that just to date it for you. Mariners Classic Commercials, Volume one, I'm assuming dvd.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you some of those are pretty good.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's it say here? As well says on the back, let's see here, first of all, it says, don't forget to be in attendance on Friday, August 28, as the Mariners host Kansas City Royals. The first 20,000 fans will receive Mariners Classic TV commercials, Volume 2. So this must have been a giveaway. Yeah. Sponsored by fsn, which was the network that the Mariners were on before they started their own root sports network, which was kind of a while ago. Luke's got a spittoon over there.

[Luke Burbank]

If you heard it was Fox Sports Northwest.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, it says during the last 15 years, Mariners players, managers and coaches have starred in 100 humorous television commercials. Humorous always sounds like a sort of a faint praise. Was it funny? Well, I'd say it was humorous, certainly humorous.

[Luke Burbank]

The thing I was going to say is depending on what era and who was in charge of those, they might actually be pretty good. My buddy Ben Steele and my friend Jim Copacino, they were involved. And I think even a couple other people I know worked on. I think Gurlitz might have worked on some of them. You know, the Mariners commercials in the, in the early days of, of the. When the Mariners decided to, like, kind of get funny and edgy with their commercials, they were genuinely good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, they were at espn, like, national news and everything.

[Luke Burbank]

It was like, because they were the first team, I don't know if other teams followed suit or not, but like, there was this golden era of Mariner commercials where they were like just legit, funny little pieces of content, pieces of entertainment. And. And it was like, you know, you'd wait all year for them to put out the new commercials, and then eventually it sort of started to run low on ideas. And then I think the Mariners brought it in house. Oh, yeah, I think so. I think it's all in house. I think it's been in house for some number of seasons, and now they just feel like kind of the. A little Bit of the pale shadow of what they. What they started out as way back in the early days. So depending on what era, like who's making them.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this is. Keep in mind, this is a retrospective. So this is like the first. It says this is the first 50 commercials or something that were made.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm guessing, honestly, I bet you you wouldn't necessarily. Other than Ken Griffey, you might not know everybody in there, but I bet you that's.

[Andrew Walsh]

I bet you it's got the Edgar commercial, though. But just.

[Luke Burbank]

They like that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. So I'll bet you know that that's a lot of fun. I got to see if I get my dad DVD player to work here, but I was just cutting out Eric's note so I can attach it to the DVD because I don't want to. Sometimes I save these things. But then if I can't find the note that came along with it and I don't remember who sent me what. Speaking of Mariners, by the way, this is a cool. Looks like kind of hand drawn Artistic Mariners 2026 season schedule that looks like it's made by maybe a local artist. There's a sticky note on the back that says hi. Too beautiful to live. This is a gift from your listener, Adam Ochs. Go Ms. I think it's Ochs. O, C, H, S. Is that. Yeah. And then it's signed ginaweinbrandt.com so I'm guessing Gina Weinbrandt is an artist who has made this. I will bring this to Ohio, too. And you can. We can share it. I don't. I don't think it's fair that I keep everything that is sent to us by the listeners, Luke. So you could certainly not the Mariners.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to. I went in on that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can look at that.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at. Rico Riz makes an appearance.

[Andrew Walsh]

Rico Riz, we got hump humpy in there. The. The salmon that always loses the races. All right, so I will. I will bring this to Ohio and you can hang. Will you hang this up in your studio?

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Thanks, Adam.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you so much. And finally, one last thing here. Lou, can you still hear me? Okay. Got a big box here from Amazon and I opened it up and what is inside, but not one, not two, not three. Wow. But four packages. Turnaround Goldfish. Originally remembered goldfish snacks. I got four bags of these things. Luke. We got.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

We got a bag of pretzel rods. My favorite kind of pretzel.

[Luke Burbank]

Some men thirst while others drowned. Just because Andrew maintains the PO Box and drives up There and does all of the work associated with it. Why does he get all the snacks?

[Andrew Walsh]

I do feel like you should try some of these goldfish, but I don't think that I should bring them.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't want to transport those across state lines. But maybe in. Maybe in Ohio for the Thawne. We'll grab a bag of them somewhere,

[Andrew Walsh]

getting some issues, and then. Look at this. A box within a box. I haven't opened this. A big bag or a big box of Nabisco. Fig Newtons, it looks like.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

Keep those. No, I'm going to ship these to you. Maybe this should have had the. The sticker that says do not share with Luke. It says, you know that.

[Luke Burbank]

That touched off an entire conversation on the Hawk Squad about Fig Newton's. My sister Hannah, who listens to the show sometimes, our show, she decided to, like, bring the conversation over to the family text chain. And then it touched off this whole Fig Newton conversation. And then, like, I was doing my normal thing, which was being like, they're gross. Don't eat them. And then David was like, everybody should be able to eat what they want. And I was like, no, people should not be able to eat what they want.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, David. Represent. I'm opening up this box. I was gonna maybe do a little taste test here. Oh, my God, look at this. I do. I feel like Tony Soprano. I'm just opening up boxes and just being like, oh, look at all this good stuff. It fell right off the back of a truck here. Yeah, just boxes upon boxes of Fig Newtons here.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Each box.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a lot of Newtons.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a lot of newtons.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that 30 fig newtons? They sent you three 10 packs of

[Andrew Walsh]

newtons, I think so maybe these are. There's a lot here, actually. These would be actually really good.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to watch you eat all 30 fig newtons.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is how you get. Not to get addicted to Fig Newtons. Exactly right.

[Luke Burbank]

I want you to smoke. I want you to smoke all of those Fig Newtons. Andrew. Is there two per pack? So 60 Newtons.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what they are? They're in a different shape, I think. And I don't know if I.

[Luke Burbank]

My boy says he can eat 60 Newtons. He can eat 60 Newtons.

[Andrew Walsh]

These are slightly more elongated, I think, than the. Than the ones I remember growing up with. But you know what I'm gonna do now? These are good. And I'm gonna eat part of.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, looks. It looks. You know, I mean, you're right.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is.

[Luke Burbank]

These are A little bit more rectangular and a little bit. But other than that, they look exactly like I remember them.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're soft, and they've taken literally all the moisture out of my body with one bite.

[Luke Burbank]

One down, 60 to go. Those are some of the, like, weird. Some of the weird stuff that I end up getting on Tick tock. For whatever reason. It's like, I'm gonna eat seven saltine crackers with no water. Like, some. Somewhere it got decided that, like, that's the max any person can eat in a minute is seven saltine crackers without water.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you hear that. You're like, well, everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

It's such a small number.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I can do that. Seven salt.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's like in a small period of. What's the period of time? Seven hours.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to say it's like a minute.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, it's like seven in a minute. And it's like I could eat seven saltines. It's like, no, you can't.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, you can't. No, you can't. Let me just finish the spoonful of cinnamon and then I'll get on that. I don't know if I thank the person who sent this. It says, a gift from. A gift for you. Enjoy your gift from listener Maggie. I believe this is Maggie outside of Swarth, or.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry, Maggie and Swarthmore.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So, Maggie, thank you for that. And you know what?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sending those to Andrew and not me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can't tell at what point you're being sarcastic and what point you're not.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm. I'm good. I'm good with. I'm good with missing the Newtons.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. I'm gonna put some. Although, would you put mustard on a Newton?

[Luke Burbank]

No. Because it's sweet. Oh, yeah. I would put mustard on a Mariner's calendar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you want me to pre mustard the Mariner?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I put mustard on a hacky sack. The Fig Newtons are the only gift we received that I would not put mustard on.

[Andrew Walsh]

These are a lot of Newtons, and so. Thank you, Maggie. But I think what I might do also share something because these are perfect. Like, they're in these little two go packets. They're little. Share some of these with our friends at Pop Up Kitchen, and they can throw these in their bags and, like, kind of have a little snack on the go. This kind of stuff is super helpful for people who are kind of on the streets and on the go all the time. So that's awesome. Thank you, Maggie. Appreciate that.

[Luke Burbank]

Thanks to everybody for sending stuff to the box.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. What a. God, it feels like Christmas in June here. I feel. I honestly feel a little spoiled. What a bunch of sweet, sweet stuff. But I am going to share this stuff with you, Luke, and I'm looking forward to Hacky sacking with. Yeah. Just next month.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. We should probably wrap things up. I've been holding in a sneeze for the last probably 17 minutes. It's just everything is draining into places they're not. You know what I mean? Everything's just off in here. So anyway, hopefully, hopefully we'll be better tomorrow. So that's going to be the end of today's show, but we will be right back here with more imaginary radio for you tomorrow. Please join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday, everybody. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.