Ep 42 - Pop-Tarts and Koozies

Emoji Battles, Koozie Logic, and the $1 Million Nap

It's pure suburban chaos, seasoned with Pop-Tarts, guilt-fueled quesadillas, and one man’s war with his paper towel dispenser. This week, we're diving into the deep, dark world of emoji management, where a single borderline inappropriate icon can haunt your "recently used" panel for 60 days! Hear about the tactical use of other emojis to push out the offending one and a hilarious family text mishap involving a puff of smoke instead of a sad face.

Plus, get ready for some serious dad dilemmas:

Road Rage with Siri: Does your car's navigation system pressure you into running a red light? You're not alone!

The Cold Beverage Commitment: Find out why carrying a koozie (or is it a cozy?) in your pocket—even at a restaurant—is a total game-changer for one dedicated cold-drink enthusiast.

Force of Habit: The physics of paper towel rolls... The simple terror of accidentally buying full-size paper towels after a decade of select-a-size-induced wrist action.

The Great Underwear Announcement: A very confident declaration from one dad that was met with applause.

The Sound Man Confessional: Hear the top three insulting/confusing things a sound man is asked, including being mistaken for the DJ or, worse, the waiter!

Bee Redemption: From unintentional bee slayer to full-blown honey advocate. 

Finally, we talk about the mystery of an opening car trunk solved (it's not low bass frequencies, sadly) , the surprising shame of an oversized chicken quesadilla , and the real story behind the "spend the night in a negative 24.9 dB room for $1,000,000" challenge.

Stick around for the Cool Dad Tip of the Week: how to fund your retirement with a 2% cash-back credit card —it's like forced savings and free money!

Esquire raves: "The Cool Dad Shirt podcast is marginally entertaining, sometimes funny, and strangely appealing to hot moms". What more could you ask for?

It’s chaos, dad logic, and comedy gold — all wrapped in a crispy cinnamon Pop-Tart. 

#dadpodcast #funny #nostalgia #CoolDadShirt #Bees #Pop-Tarts #Emojis #Siri #navigation #Koozie

Comedy Podcast, Dad Life Humor, Pop Culture Commentary, Funny Storytelling, Middle-Aged Dad Jokes, Nostalgia & Music, Everyday Life Comedy 

Transcript

Is it bad etiquette to be eating a delicious Pop-Tart while recording a podcast?

I don't think so. Don't get too smacky.

Hit the bumper music, Rich. Welcome to this episode of the Cool Bad Shirt podcast.

Can't wait. Today we're going to talk about emoji management. How important is it to have a cold beverage at all times?

Very.

Yeah, Well, we'll see. We'll see how far you go with that one. I got a story. Force of habit, we've all heard that phrase. I got one, a relatable experience I've recently had. And the mystery of my opening trunk has been solved, Mike.

I can't wait to dig into that one. I'm going to ask if anybody else is pressured by navigation inside your car. I'm going to reveal the top three things I hear as a sound man. And I'm wondering if you'll really get $1 million if you spend the night in a negative 24.9 decibel room?

I think I know what you're talking about. That is fascinating.

All these stories and more.

Let's talk about emoji management. I'm not a huge emoji guy, but you know, you throw them around occasionally. It's always a little bit of fun to lighten things up a little bit. I recently, or not that recently, actually, that's the point of the story. I sent a funny emoji, a borderline inappropriate emoji to a buddy of mine, which I thought was hysterical because I do think I'm really funny. But what happens is it stayed on my recently used panel for a long time. And it just kind of, it was funny at first, but after 60 days, I kind of want this off my, I want this off my.

I totally know where you're going with this too.

Yeah, so I'm sending you like a picture of an eggplant. I'm sending, you know, I'm like, I'm trying to like use all these other emojis to push this stupid one off my recent panel.

Yeah, everyone's like, Crystal's a little heavy with the emojis this week, isn't he?

What's going on? Welcome to 2008, you idiot. Wow, these things are cool. Are you guys using them? No. So I eventually, I fought the battle. It took way longer than I thought, but I did win. And that silly emoji is no longer on the recently used panel. Excellent. But the peaches. They got a lot of them in there.

On a similar story, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law unfortunately had put their dog down. And my other sister-in-law responded with a text and she attached an emoji instead of sending the sad emoji. I don't know which one it was. She sent an emoji with like a puff of smoke coming out of her. Oh, no. I don't know what it was. It was an accident. I don't know what the emoji was. And I wish I remember. It lightened up the situation. It became very humorous. And then this ongoing text thread of, cigarettes and people smoking and exactly.

That actually, that has a great ending because it, like you said, it lightened the mood. It was a little distraction, kind of takes some of the weight off losing a pet, which is tough. I think we've all been there. And that's, it's harder than you think. It really is.

It is hard. So what emoji have you been using most since you've replaced the existing one?

Let me go see.

What's your now #1 emoji?

There's nothing really trending here. My daughter made a little sticker emoji of my granddaughter. I throw that one around once in a while. That's kind of fun. Nah, I'm back to the usual boring stuff. I'm not that, I'm not that fun with the emojis. How's your recently used panel look?

It's wide open. I got all sorts of stuff happening here. I have a fish, a skull and crossbones. surprised look, eyes rolling, a heart. I have the metal sign, which I sent to you just last night.

Yeah, just last night, yeah.

I got a pizza on here, a checkbox, some flames, and of course, an alien face. I got a nice variety. I'm going to screenshot my variety and send it to you later.

Nice.

Hey, you have navigation in your car and or of course on your phone, right?

Yes.

I don't know about you or others. Have you ever felt very pressured by the navigation? And I noticed this again the other day. I was going someplace, I had the navigation set, and I had to make a left turn. And as you're approaching the light, it says, turn left at the next intersection. Turn left. And the light's red and you're stopping for the red light. And it's still saying, turn left, turn left at this intersection, turn left. And I found myself like almost wanting to just gun it and race through the red light.

I wonder if that would stand up in traffic court. Siri was relentless. She wouldn't leave me alone.

Well, your honor, Siri told me, you just go. You think that's a universal thing? I was really pressured.

No, I definitely think so. Yeah. I mean, it's gotten to the point where sometimes This happens a lot in 95 too. Holy cow. It just keeps telling you to drive straight, stay on 95, stay. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be out here for 12 hours. Like I got it, man. Turn that off.

Continue straight for 112 miles.

How stupid do you think I am? I wanted to ask you how important it was to have a cold beverage. Recently, I was at my friend, my friend Tom's birthday, and a bunch of people came, including his son and his son's brother-in-law, good people hanging out, having a beer. And the son-in-law reaches into his pocket and pulls out a koozie in a restaurant and puts a bottle of beer in the koozie.

In a restaurant.

In a restaurant. Yeah. And I said, did you just happen to have one in your pocket? And he goes, no, I always carry one. I sit in your pocket. He's like, well, I have a few in my car, but if I'm ever going into an establishment, I always select one and put it in my pocket and take it in with me. I said, you always have a koozie on you. He goes, I don't like warm beverages. He goes, I do everything I can to keep this cold. And I said, I wanted to kind of mock it and I thought it was kind of genius. And it was, of course, it cracked me up.

When you first mentioned about carrying the koozie, I almost thought of maybe it was for identification purposes. So if there's a lot of people with like a similar drink, you put yours in a koozie and everybody knows. I would do it for that reason alone, right? I mean, the last thing you want to do is grab somebody else's beverage or lose yours.

Exactly. That was probably part of it. I don't know if he's, I don't remember him saying that. It was mostly about the coldness, but yeah.

That's wild. Was it a cool looking cozy? Koozie? Is it a koozie or is it a cozy? I think it's a koozie, right? I think it's koozie.

I don't carry one.

I'll have to fact check that one. I can imagine. I can imagine his routine when he's going out. He's like, yeah, a cell phone, car keys, koozie. His pockets are probably jam-packed. Yes. He's got no room to carry anything else.

That part of his pocket is super warm. It works the other direction.

Super hot. Or I was going to say the other way. He's really chilly in his left leg. My upper thigh is really... It's ice cold. We were headed out the other day and we brought my dad with us. And about 20 minutes after we left, my dad made a declaration. I don't know if it was a, I don't know if declaration is the right word, but announcement. And he said that, just so you all know, I am wearing underwear today. And he didn't say it in a joking way. It was a very, very confident announcement that he made. It was something that he felt was important to bring up.

He's heard the concern, the conversations, and he wanted to reaffirm to everybody.

He's read the feedback. He wanted to have everyone rest assured that he was wearing underwear on this outing.

How was that received by the audience?

Oh, it was well received. Of course, everybody was applauded. Everybody was applauded. They're like, thank goodness. Thank goodness. We've been out in other emergency situations and doctor visits and have learned quite the opposite to our surprise.

We're happy to not have that conversation anymore.

Yes. We're happy to know that if this visit ends with a medical emergency, we can confidently go to the doctor and know that is not going to stand between us and a thorough examination.

Perfect. Oh, that's good stuff. I got to, you've heard the phrase force of habit, right?

Yes.

Things to repeat over and over again without even knowing. I think for decades, when I buy paper towels, I always get to select a size. And my thinking is just always use a small one if you can. If you need a bigger one, you just choose more. I accidentally bought a full-size one, and that has been disruptive for the entire week so far, because I've got the hand motion right down with the exact place to pull. Oh, yeah. And when that spot isn't there on the roll, It is startling, the number of RPMs. You can spin that roll before it launches off the holder and across your kitchen floor. I've done that three or four times just because for 30 years, I've got the wrist action down.

You've had five re-rolls already this weekend. Yes. It never lines up. It never lines up. It's so frustrating. No matter how careful you are twirling it, it's always, and then you unroll it, you roll it again, and now you got like this loose off-center.

It's so simple, but you cannot re-roll that. No, that tolerance is very wide and very sloppy. And then it ruins like for the next three days because it, yeah, you're. I don't know if you're just kind of.

The tension is off too, because now you got a couple of loose ones hanging and now you got to roll them and tug them. See, you get it. I've been there. I've been there. I did learn though, I think when you do the select size, I think they're actually more expensive because they've had.

For more cutting, is that true?

Yeah, I think for more cutting, I think those are actually more expensive than the full-size sheet.

Well, is it offset by actually using? even though I'm paying a little bit more, I probably get more uses out of the Selective Size than the...

Now you have twice as many sheets. You know, a guy like you, that you have such small cleanups. All you need is a habit sheet. You've never had a cleanup in the last seven years that have warranted one single full sheet paper towel?

Been hanging in there pretty well. Yeah, that's true.

Did you buy the jumbo pack of paper towels? Is this going to be an issue for a while? Are you almost towards the end of the roll on this one?

No, I got, I got like the six-pack, not the jumbo, but like the six-pack. So I've got a ways to go.

Okay. Do you think there's any truth to these spend the night at a negative 24.9 DB room and get $1,000,000? The other one I get all the time is the one with the lighthouse. No one wants to take this job, but if you do, you'll get paid $1 million a year to stay in this lighthouse. You know, of course, I got to read up on one of these, so now they got me.

Can I interest you in a lighthouse, a haunted lighthouse?

And I'm wondering if there's any truth to that.

I don't know the actual money, if it's a real thing, if that's just for clickbait or something like that. I think the human mind is a powerful thing. And I think you can really let it run away with itself with fear and things like that. Have you ever put like foam plugs in and then the big giant hearing protection things over the top? Your breath and the sound of your muscles moving, or not muscles, but your joints, like you can actually hear The first time you hear it is a little unnerving, and that's like minus 30 dB or something like from the outside world. But those isolation things, I think you might go crazy. I think that might be, that may really mess with your head.

Yeah, I don't know how you could get around that. You'd have to constantly talk to yourself.

It would be very dead sound. It would sound weird because it's so dead. There's actually no ambience to it whatsoever. And how long can you do that, just talking to yourself?

Here was what my approach would be. I would stay up for 48 hours before doing this challenge in hopes that I would go in there and fall asleep for at least a portion of that time.

Take 2 UNISOM, like you just, a shot of whiskey, 2 UNISOM in a 48 hours, like you're out in 4 minutes.

You'd wake up, it'd be, you'd survive the 24 hours. You'd be like, oh, I never felt better. Can I get another eight in there?

You don't even have to pay me. I just feel like a new man. So I've had a strange thing where every once in a while the trunk of my car opens up and I don't know why I took the garbage out a few weeks ago and the trunk was open. I'm like, what the? That's really strange. I close it, come back in. Another time, I can't remember what I was doing. I'm looking out the window and the trunk is open. And another time my neighbor across the street knocked on my door and he said, do you know the truck of your car is open? What's going on?

Your neighbor said, those are dead hookers. I know dead hookers when I see them. Turn off the camera. Turn off the camera.

Your callback skills are amazing, Michael. What it turned out to be, I found out, yeah, it's solved. The one common thing, I was always practicing playing bass when I was doing it. That sounds like a stretch.

No way.

The bass was riding on my fob. no, that story's way cooler. Yeah, the low frequency was opening. That's the story I should have told.

Your base frequency was so low. Everybody was having explosive bowel movements and your trunk was opening.

There's 4 open trunks right now. I'm looking out the window. I hope I can see it right now.

Wide open.

Your story is way funnier than mine. No, it was sitting on the fob. I just kept bumping it. kept opening. Accident.

I will give you the top three things that I hear often as a sound man. What do you got? The #3 while running sound, can I get a little 4K in that monitor? Can I get a little 4K?

They're dialing in the frequent, they know the frequency of what they want to hear.

No, they don't. I think they're just calling out something to make it seem like...

I saw this on YouTube.

They're calling out a pretty good scene. The second thing I hear most often as a sound man is, are you the DJ? Can you play something good?

There's 2 insults in that one.

And the number one thing that I hear as a sound man is, excuse me, can you just get our waiter? We'd like our check. That's the number one thing I hear. The number one thing. The number one thing?

Your hands are on faders, you got headphones on, and they ask you to go get the check or get your check.

They see me walking around.

Okay.

Or I'll be walking around quite often with the iPad. Yeah. I could be mobile, listen to things and make some adjustments. So they see me walking around. So they'll stop me. So just because. I think they think I'm a host, you know, walking around with like their reservation iPad or something like that.

So after you get done dialing the 4K for the singer, can I put it in order for mozzarella sticks?

What can't you do? They said it was only a 20 minute wait. Can you just check and see how much longer it'll be? Esquire raves. The Cool Dad Shirt podcast is marginally entertaining, sometimes funny, and strangely appealing to hot moms. You still text a lot with your kids, right? Oh, all the time, yeah.

That's one of my favorite things. We do it a lot.

I will never be as fast as them. And I always think it must be so dull so many times having a conversation with me because I am literally two to three sentences behind every conversation.

Oh yeah.

They rapid fire and I'm, even if I immediately get the text and start responding to it, I start getting anxious. I'm like, They're stacking up. I'm still answering question #2 and now they're on like 5.

So they just switch to the speech to text to somehow keep up with them. Then just nonsense is going across.

I'm correcting that. I'm deleting that. My kids are already in the, they're gone. They're either at work, they're in their next. And then I'm like, I finally get caught up and then it's, I'm completely ghosted. I won't hear back for five or six hours.

They've had enough of your feeling defeated.

Such a loser.

Such a loser. You'd think after all this time, we'd keep getting faster and faster, but we got nothing on the kids. Nope.

Still challenged.

Yep, agreed.

Something I've noticed, if you call almost any number, it seems more and more that there's always some disclaimer in there that if this is an emergency, please hang up and call 9-1.

I completely agree and I can only, it's either a lawyer saying like you have to say this, if somebody's on hold and blood is spurting from their neck, you're probably going to get sued. But I agree, is there any... I think you could grab the average six-year-old and they would know to dial 911 in an emergency. They're not going to go look up a doctor's office and dial all those numbers and go into the menu tree. That doesn't happen. Everybody knows what 911 is. No further explanation needed.

I've tried to wrap my head around this. And it's, like you said, 911 is a lot easier to dial than Google search, find my orthodontist.

Oh, exactly.

Here it is. OK, let me dial that again.

No, not that office. Well, that's the other office. Don't dial that one. Hold on.

Yeah, that's right. That's.

Why don't they list that one first?

He's only in that location on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Yes, exactly. Dear, get me another towel. Try to stop this bleeding.

Keep pressure on it. I'm still searching for the number.

I don't know. I'll get it. Oh, son of a gun. Here it is. I don't know, this just came to mind when we were talking about these messages. I think you added a note on our outgoing message at Caps Lane. Please leave your number slowly and clearly so that others listening can write this down accurately. I think, didn't you leave something like that? It sounds like you. It does. Please be sure. I'm pretty sure you added that on our outgoing message on our answering machine.

Yeah, because People, it becomes part, people become so accustomed to their own phone number, they don't understand it. It's not about how fast you can say it. Somebody is trying to write this down. You can't just go to 718-0185. Yeah, dude, dude, dude. Like, I listened to this four times and I still cannot parse out the numbers you just ripped off in a millisecond.

Yeah, and then it's rewind, play. Rewind, play. All right, I got two more digits. Rewind, play. All right, that last one. What is that again? I can't get that.

Was there a niner in there? I just thought of a tip I'd like to share if we have a moment. Several years ago, you know, your credit cards, this is going to sound like an ad. I should be sponsored for this one. Years ago, you can get cards that have like cash back. Sometimes you get points. You can do all those different things. But many years ago, I got turned on to the fidelity card. The color is absolutely horrible.

Okay, look, hold on one second. Was that 5, 6?

No, the numbers are on the back. I made very, very sure that does it. Wow, my bill is exorbitant this month.

What are all these Zildjian symbols doing on here?

I'm not that good at a drummer.

Two bricks of drumsticks. I don't know anybody.

Wait, what the phone? But I got turned out of this years ago and it's a 2% back card. But Fidelity, if you have a Fidelity account, which I do, you could just plow it right into an IRA. And without even thinking, I put everything on this card. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year doing nothing going into an IRA. I am making so much money in my retirement account just by directing the 2% cash back into my individual retirement account. If you're not doing that or you haven't considered it, check it out. It's an easy way, especially us cool dads in our 50s these days. It's a great way to start building that.

Wow. So anything you spend on that card, they dump 2% into your Fidelity account. I have a Fidelity account.

Oh, dude, you got to start doing it. When you go out and buy a round of beers for somebody like you're actually funding my retirement. It's never been more fun.

That's a great idea, Rich. Thank you.

It's easy, free money. It's a forced savings account.

We haven't had one in a while. That definitely qualifies for the cool dad tip of the week.

Cool dad tip of the week.

Nice, nicely done, Rich. Me, I got all sorts of whimsical nonsense over here. You're doing financial advising. I'm talking about. Dad's wearing and not wearing underwear. People asking me for their check. I found myself, speaking of my dad, I found myself last week moderating a discussion between my 52-year-old sister and my 83-year-old dad about excessive screen time. My dad was telling my sister that he thinks that she has excessive screen time on her phone, and I was caught in the middle of this.

You got dragged in.

I got pulled right into this. That seems excessive to me. you got your Tony Robbins, your motivational speakers, and then you got guys like me, you know?

The unsung heroes, you know.

Isn't it funny how I do, I'm guilty for this all the time where I'll say, did you see that video that I sent you? Even though like I've already sent it, I'm doing follow-up. After I say it, I'm like, they'll get back to me when they see it. If they don't, like, that's okay too, Mike. It's all right. That's okay too. Ease up on the pressure. Hey, did you see that video I sent you?

You would love this video. How have you not watched it yet?

It's literally probably one of the most spoken sentences in like the last year for me.

The way the kitten was kind of hanging onto the ledge. Isn't that adorable? I haven't you commented on that yet?

I wouldn't use the term ashamed of myself. Every day after I eat lunch, I always feel some sort of shame because I love lunch. And whenever I'm done eating my lunch, it always ends with me saying like, this is ridiculous. I got to stop eating like this. But once in a while, they have quesadillas. So I ordered a quesadilla and they give you a very generous, sizable quesadilla. It comes with some nachos and, you know, salsa, some guacamole. I double up on the guacamole and the salsa. So it's a complete dip fest. I am deep into this quesadilla. So I'm sitting in the in the car, eating it, and I'm stuffing my face with this quesadilla. And then there's all these people, like I see them just circling, walking. And here I am in the car, wolfing down this massive chicken quesadilla. And the guilt is starting to get really heavy. I mean, not enough for me to stop eating it, throwing it out. I ate the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong.

No, I'm not stopping. Listen, it's terrible to waste food. I get done with the whole quesadilla. I'm feeling so stuffed. My last sip of Dr. Pepper or whatever, whatever unhealthy drink it is. And then now I got to walk past all these healthy walkers out of my car with my food containers and I throw them out, walk into the building. I'm depressed. I'm ashamed of myself. And now I got to get through the remainder of the day with this pressure and this guilt.

Did I just see you crying in your car?

Just sobbing uncontrollably in my automobile.

Oh man.

I can't help myself.

Are you okay?

I can't help myself.

That's funny.

I love lunch.

A lot of health experts would tell you, know, lunch should be the big meal today. That's probably where. Probably where that belongs. But speaking of lunch, the other day, some of us at work were going to go to a place in downtown Schenectady for lunch. And the woman we invited to join us, she said, oh, I just went there yesterday. So she was out. Wow, I don't understand. I can't eat the same place twice. I thought that was, do you have a hard stance on that? Would you refuse to go to the same restaurant two days in a row?

If the place only served hot dogs, then yes.

Outside of that, that's fair, yes.

I would not, I would not decline. I mean, everybody's got at least six, seven things on the menu. The place is quite often I like going to the same place because I know what they have. I know I'm going to like something on there. It's a solid win.

I'm going to give a plug. This place is called Simone's. It's kind of Mediterranean food. It's right on J Street. It's Schenectady. It's wonderful and delicious. And I had a co-worker bail out because I went there yesterday. You can get something different. It's delicious. We're getting Greek food today.

Have you ever been to the Cheesecake Factory? The menu is like 32 pages. Could you imagine? Oh, yeah, I ate there yesterday.

Yes. Well, could you just narrow it down to sheets 7 through 9 to pick something?

That's unfortunate.

So she was out, Yeah, that was, I'm not going to use any names. She's delightful. I love working with her, but I found that just to be very interesting.

Let me ask you a question. When you guys pulled back into the parking lot, was she sitting in her car eating a quesadilla?

We, I work right in downtown, so we can walk to everything. Nobody, nobody drives. So I did not notice anybody out in the parking lot sobbing uncontrollably with quesadillas.

You guys are like, why is Kathy in her car eating a quesadilla sobbing?

Plot twist, she listens to the show.

She's listening to the show. That's why she's crying.

That's why she's crying. Why can't they be more funny?

So my food related item was, I was wondering what your stand is on honey. it's a perfect, it's a perfect food. Never goes bad. I mean, it's made from bees. It's all natural.

Way to work the bees into another episode.

Oh my God, I wasn't even thinking. I can't get rid of them.

Well played, well played. We're back on the bees.

I killed about 2,000 of them about a week ago. Now I'm. Now I'm an advocate for them.

They are quite wonderful. No, honey is, no, it's super good for you. It's, I, we keep coming back to this. I'm generally trending away from the sweet stuff. And even though it is healthy and natural and super good for you, I think there's all kinds of good stuff in honey. It's A sugary response that your body deals with. But so these days I'm staying away from the sweets a little bit, but it is great. People love it.

Yeah, I love it. That's my position on honey is that I love it.

We had to really take the stand and defend it.

Says the man eating a cinnamon Pop-Tart while recording a podcast.

The most unnatural thing on the planet.

I have 0 credibility in the food market.

That was designed in a lab and will last for eternity.

I know you don't watch a lot of TV. I do know you've tuned into a couple series programs, which I love. And once in a great while, I'll discover something that I'm really interested in. And whatever it is that I come up with, my wife's response is, oh, I'm already in season 2 on that one. So then I almost never get to watch it. You know, there's been a couple where she's actually gone back and agreed to start it over so I can get caught up, which is very nice. I get so excited, like thinking I've discovered something. Oh, I can't wait to tell her about this. You know, I've discovered some great, you know, great series on HBO or whatever that I'm going to I can't believe the housekeeper killed the rich guy. Oh, come on. Exactly. I never, I never watch it. That Animal Kingdom was the last one we saw. And I don't know if I told you about that one or we discussed it.

Did we? I don't remember.

It was okay. I can't say it was okay. It was great because it hooked us into it. We almost didn't sleep for two weeks because we were watching that whole series.

Oh, he couldn't turn it off.

Yeah, it aired several years ago. And then my wife I started watching it. And this was an example where she went back and we started it over and then we watched it and watched it.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So what was it called? It wasn't a drama. It was actually a, what was it again?

It was called Animal Kingdom.

Sorry, I'm having a hard time keeping up with this.

Yeah, that's capital AN.

So it's got like animals in it. Is that what you're saying?

No, there's no animals. No, I'll read you one of my one of my favorite things to do on this show is go to the internet, which I'm going to do right now. After a heroin overdose kills his mom, Joshua Cody moves to Southern California to live with his freewheeling relatives. The family's matriarch is Jay's estranged grandmother, Janie, who they call Grandma Smurf. Smurf and her boys make a living through carefully planned armed robberies and other criminal activities.

So you're saying there's no crocodiles or giraffes is what you're saying?

There's no crocodiles and giraffes. And while this sounds crazy and uninteresting, for some reason, like I wouldn't I would normally watch anything like this, but for some reason, I was so drawn in by this, I couldn't turn it off. And then at the end, I hope this doesn't embarrass my wife, the last episode, my wife was sobbing for like 2 days.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah.

She was that connected to the story.

Yeah, she was devastated in the last episode.

I had a similar experience, not necessarily with the affectionate attachment to any of the characters, but Breaking Bad, was the best show I did not want to keep watching. It was so horrible and I was obsessed. What a terrible, terrible story from top to bottom of just despair. And I could not believe how sad and despairful that was and couldn't stop watching. And likewise, I came to it late so I could actually binge watch it. And that was the same thing.

You can't look away. Do you know what sarsaparilla is?

I've heard the word. I'm going to stop there. I've heard the word.

My dad asked for sarsaparilla the other day. He was like, do you drink sarsaparilla? This is my connection to sarsaparilla, was in Bugs Bunny. I think he referenced sarsaparilla when he was trying to get the genie to open some cave. He was like, open Saskatchewan, open sarsaparilla, open sesame, and then the thing opened. I think he might have said sarsaparilla. Oh, he's gone through the list. And maybe it wasn't Bugs Bunny, or maybe I thought that it would sound like something.

No, this sounds, no, this, I think you might be right. And this is definitely a 1940s drink reference.

So I had to look it up. It was some sort of drink, some sort of soda sarsaparilla flavored drink.

All right.

Yeah, I don't know.

I probably heard it in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You're right.

Oh, I got one more thing if that's all right.

Yeah.

You had mentioned the other day how great it was to see a band play New World Man by Rush.

Yeah, we went to an open mic last week and the house band, Kevin Brandow, Jason the drummer, I don't know his last name, and Chip Kress. and Bass, who are just all super, super nice guys. And they pulled out, they played a lot of Rush. They read the room that night. And yeah, New World Man and Distant Early Warning. Who plays that? And they killed it. was great. Yeah.

Also, ironically, I listened to the whole Signals album from start to finish the other day. I said, I want to go through this From the first song to the last song, and I did, and it was delightful.

I haven't done it. I had the exact same thought the next morning. I'm like, I just want to revisit the album in its entirety. That's on tap for this week, for sure. Yeah.

That's a great one in its entirety, too.

Yeah. I don't want to overplay this, but this may be our best episode so far.

Rich, I hope you're right. I hope you're right.

It's more than usable.

This one is probably, most definitely, mostly usable.

Be sure to go like and review. Reviews are great too. Tell us what you love about the show.

Please like, rate and review.

You're listening. You like the show?

You're already 26 minutes in. I'm in at this point. Maybe we can work something out. Like if you write a review, we'll send you like a coaster or something like that. Maybe we could. I like it. I like it. Here's what's going to happen though. Like you'll be walking up the block to hand deliver J1 and Wise Men and no one else. That'll be it. We'll have two solid reviews.

We're total.

You're like totally. Dude, I'm going to save us. Dude, people are like, I mean, these podcast hosts are unbelievable. They actually deliver the merch to your house. Who does that? Dana Carvey's not knocking at my door.

If David Spade handed me a coaster right now, yeah. Truth is, we have no budget. I'm actually just going to walk it over and hand it to you. Since most of our fans live on my street.

All right, dude.

All right, man. Have a good day.

All right, you too. Catch up later.

See you.

Bye.