Distractible - We Hate Christmas

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Bah, Humbug! Now that Christmas is over, the guys can finally express all of their least favorite parts of the holiday season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractable. This episode, it's a bodacious bitching session as warm Wade invokes the humbug spirit as he scades the ungrateful guest. Moon-loving Mark slams shipping, haggling over hardware, Christmas commercials, repeated rituals, and L.A.

Baby-making Bob bashes bad buyers, the Bay's bland biome, and distance relationships. From metal-bending to the butthole sun. Yes! It's time for We Hate Christmas. Now sit back and prepare to be distracted and enjoy the show. Oh, hi. Didn't see you there. Welcome back, everyone.

Another episode of Distractible. As you can see, I'm sitting by the fire. I don't have my green screen up. Never mind. I'm here. I'm Wade. Welcome to Distractible, everybody. I'm joined by Mark and Bob.

Hi, guys. Hi. Hello. I thought I still had the green screen up. I was going to be sitting by the fire, like, reading a book. It's going to be a whole thing. You could put it up. It's sitting right there behind you. You absolutely could put it up if you so chose.

Yeah, but now I've already started. Now it's too late. Like, whatever. It's really barely even... It's not too late at all. Not going back. We're just moving forward because that's what time does. That's what we do. That's the level of quality Distractable has to offer for you, listeners. If you're new here, this is the show where one of us hosts, the other two compete for points.

Whoever has the most points at the end gets to host the next episode. We can talk about whatever we want. Today, I'm the host, and so I decide everything. Mark, we should not let him decide anything, Mark. We should decide. I think that we could band together and bail on this episode. We could walk out. I think we should walk out of this episode right now.

Exactly. Three, two, I'm going early. Welcome to the Wade Show, everyone, where Wade is what it's all about. Finally, we get the episode you've all asked for. Never mind, they're back. I never even pretended to leave. I pretended you left because i just wanted that for myself i mean you could have a do we want to have the first ever solo episode of distract well you could have that that's fine with me i guess we could but again i've already got a plan and time rolls on no time to change

it now we're on the train i i tried that back when i was evil and you know it didn't work out too good for me. Oh, well, you did it all wrong. I learned from your mistakes. I know how to do it better. Also, I got to give credit. Someone tweeted at me and they're like, I can't believe you guys never came up with the name behind.

That's a good one. Behind. It's all right. I give you credit for whoever said that to me, but I forgot your username. I'm not looking because we only move forward and we're moving forward right into the small talk portion where i care about what you guys tell me and stuff so what's new in your lives what's good that was a very visual bit wade i think the listeners the audio only crowd is going to be quite upset about that he was squinting at his screen like he was reading a script but he's not he's not reading a script you don't know if

i have a script or not there's a zero percent chance that you have a script in front of you you guys know how i'm like all about lenses the only thing i do is lenses lens in my life so i've recently i've gone further down the rabbit hole um and i'm loading a piece of software that i downloaded lens software literally yeah so it's about it's an optical design software uh i think it's called like optileLex. There was a free version that's available still, you know. Nowadays, like optical design is a really interesting field just because like the way light behaves, you know, is all of this is like manufactured and you get new materials to make like basically the glass out of all the time. And every time there's a new material, it behaves differently in terms of its refractive

index and its, you know, dispersion and its clarity. And so when you have, basically it's like puzzle pieces, right? So you have glass elements of varying materials that have different refractive index. So you try to puzzle pieces together to get the optical parameters that are decided. And so I was wondering, not that I'm trying to decide anything from scratch but i was wondering if i could research the materials that certain old lenses were made out of i was actually wondering if i could theoretically put them together in a different order and create a new lens out of it like buy a lens take it apart and reassemble the elements or buy multiple lenses and assemble them into well that wouldn't work you couldn't put different lenses together really realistically. Well, technically speaking,

all of the lenses have like different types of groupings of different sizes and stuff, but it's meant to achieve a certain refraction, right? So you have the middle group in one lens that does something to the light. It bends it in a very specific way. The other elements will take the light and do something with it, but it just does it based on its properties, right? So the glass itself has properties where you assemble it in terms of like the distance apart and what it'll do. You can theorize it in the software if you know what it's made out of or roughly what it's made out of. Can you buy like housings in which to assemble custom elements or do you have to manufacture that yourself in some way that's that's tricky because if you're making this it's

gotta all be custom so you need a cnc because amy amy uh she does some 3d printing and some wood cncing um but metal cncing is actually a much bigger process uh but with 3d printing nowadays with advances in it you can kind of prototype some things relatively quickly. They wouldn't be precise, but it could give you like an eyeball of what you're looking for. So it's one of those things where I'm not like an optical engineer. I'm not into that. But a lot of it is the same principles as the stuff I was learning in engineering school, which is basically you have a piece of software that can tell you what to do you know the math based on the optical properties of what you're doing you take the refraction there's a certain equation that you can take it in refraction diffusion and you plug it in the equation you get your parameters that

you want or you basically just can see what you can achieve and at the end of the day it's like lego pieces you just like put light in front of things and see what it does so you lose one ebay bid and all of a sudden you got to make your own lens. I didn't lose. I won. Yeah, he didn't lose yet. I won, baby. And then I got more.

I'm sure at least one person watching can relate to your lens love and crafting. I don't need them to relate. That's the thing. I don't care if they relate. I can't wait for the day where marcus doing a recording an episode on his laptop while taking a tour of a metal fab factory and talking about how oh well they can cast things they can forge things within a one micron tolerance that that would be adequate for my purposes but i'm not a i'm not a metallurgist or material scientist but the principles are the same

listen actually part of my job when i was working my engineering co-op i actually did go to a metal fabrication factory that was local to the cincinnati area and i toured their facility and i asked questions about their fabrication abilities and to be perfectly honest they were not that advanced most of what we were looking for was just about bending and bending metal is like a very imprecise process. Hence the Cybertruck being what it is. Turns out that bending metal is not necessarily an advanced field.

However, there is advancements in dual machine pinching of metal, which does create really, really impressive tolerances in metal fabrication. Pinching of one piece of metal or like does create really, really impressive tolerances in metal fabrication. Pinching of one piece of metal or like pinch welding with force? You have, it's not even pinch welding. It's literally pinching. So you have a sheet of metal in between.

You have two of those robot arms, the precision robot arms, and they have little metal fingers like titanium fingers. And what they'll do is they know where each other are in space. And what they'll do is they know where each other are in space. So they'll press on either side of the metal and slowly pinch a shape out of it like one at a time by pressing on either side and like rolling through it. It can offer some pretty precise metal bending. But when it comes to metal, like bending is basically the only thing you can do. But because of the elastic properties of metal, it'll spring back into its shape there's there's many metals especially the stronger ones have like a lot of memory in terms of their shape memory so they'll go back to the position they were so bending is actually you've got to go past where you want and hope it goes springs back to where it is but even then it can still slowly over time slowly settle back into where it was so if you are bending metal that makes you a metal bender which means you're the product of at least earth and fire benders possibly water and air at least probably air

well no actually metal bending is a very advanced technique uh of earth bending um but it's not like it's very difficult to do and only a few people can do it it was pioneered uh like actually during the events of the last of avatar the last airbender anyway i'm about to drop a thousand dollars on the professional version of this software because i can't be no i'm not i'm playing with the free version because i don't even know what these numbers mean why don't you drop a hundred thousand dollars the professional version of the software yeah you know this is this is the answer like if you don't want to buy the the stupid hundred thousand dollar set of lenses you start going down this road and you're like what am i doing

with my life but i find it fun well you know what they say buy a man a lens he films for a day teach a man to lens he films for a lifetime that's actually what i'm talking about i'm teaching myself how to lens i'm lensing myself these are men at a lens at a lens's way to the moon mark loves the moon i love the moon just not looking at it or images of it what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna design i'm gonna design a lens that'll be able to take the clearest picture of the moon ever recorded and i'm gonna post it all over it it will like this is the greatest clearest picture of the moon to date. Has all of this been a big revenge plot? Look, just because A. James McCarthy

couldn't even comprehend the diffraction index of the lenses that are going into taking those pictures of the moons, and it's beyond his peanut-sized brain, his moon madness-infused wrinkles in his brain. If you buy or make this lens and then you post on reddit the actual clearest picture of the moon every day just to steal this guy's thunder that would be so good like i'm not saying that's what it is but you know know, Bob, do you have any, I want to emphasize the word small talk.

Uh, my room's purple again. So that's pretty good. What's the picture above your TV or is that like a, it's an art art. Okay. I couldn't tell if it was like a bunch of little pictures. If it was like an art sound panel thing, Mandy made it. It's a wood pieces. Mandy painted.

She made, she mixed the gradient herself and then it's actually hard to see, but it's got, she made the panels, the purple panels all in one block together and did like, there's gold splatter on them and then spaced them out so that the splatter is like, it's more dimensional and it's just black panels behind them holding together. Yeah, she just made that. Great. I've emphasized the word small a bit too much there. Points to Mark for elaborate revenge plotting. Points to Bob for conciseness. I would go into asking how everyone's Christmas holiday was. However, that's not for this episode. This episode, we're taking a different path. This episode, I'm going to focus on what sucks about Christmas. What do you hate about this

time of year? What really grinds your bones? What is it about this time of year where everyone's jolly and happy that you just need to go ahead and lay it out there to get it off your chest? You know what? I'm trying to think of something that I don't like about Christmas that's not the most boring, cliched shit in the entire universe. I can throw one out there and I can get your opinions on it while you think. How do you feel about the whole concept of secret Santa? Oh, I like that. I will say I have never participated in a secret Santa in my entire life. I like the concept. I think it's fun. I don't. I hate it. Why? Because you don't like people or things or having fun? No, because nobody ever like, okay, let's say you're a pool of people you get

like someone's name now you have to go shop for them typically the way they make it fair is there's a budget right like it'll be like okay fifty dollars that's your budget you have the secret santa for this person 50 bucks and it's like okay what do they want and then i have to think about and i can't go ask them because then they know i'm the secret santa so then i have to like care enough to think about them, what they might like, what they might want. I'm not a shopper. I'm not a Christmas gifter. I don't like getting gifts. I don't like giving gifts. I'm kind of scroogey in that way because I kind of feel like if I want something bad enough, I'll probably just end up getting it or saving up for it or whatever.

If I guess and I get you something you don't like, and then you've got to be like, oh, thanks. I really appreciate it. And then it sits on a shelf and rots or you re-gift it or whatever else. And it was really just ultimately a big waste of time. Occasionally, there is that one gift that's like, oh, that was really thoughtful. I really appreciate that. That's like a great feeling. But those are like, those are few and far between. Normally, you end up just getting something generic that's like, oh, ha ha. Look at this little t-shirt ornament that says Grinch.

Thank you. I've always wanted this. And it just ends up being kind of a stressful anxiety-filled waste of time there's already enough shopping and stuff to do now i gotta guess what someone else wants well i mean it sounds like you just don't like people like i was saying as an extrovert i really do hate people it's a terrible combination look go ahead mark go oh no no i was gonna say can i approach the bench instant disappointment instant regret this is not going to reflect well on your point cards but yes all right all right all right so uh your honor your honor your honor are we starting from the

wrong basis here because if we were to cast a negative light onto all of these aspects, I just want to be clear. Are we arguing from the negative standpoint and the negative standpoint alone? Because the rules aren't clear. If it isn't that, then we might go wishy-washy being like, this is our time to vent about the holiday, but you know what? You have the freedom to go whatever direction you want. No, no, what I'm saying is like, I don't want the freedom. I want rules and constraints if this is a purely negative i want to i want to know that

so that we can only come at this and that way we're not like oh but this i want to be clear i think you can defend things if you disagree you can defend your point of view but the ideas we're bringing to the table are things we dislike but if i say something you disagree with feel free to disagree but if you're bringing an idea to the table it better be to bitch about something better be okay understood thank you your honor so if you like secret santa tell me you like secret santa but you better have something you hate yeah i was gonna say i i i'm surprised you don't like secret santa i feel like i like secret santa almost more than i like regular gift giving because i'm with you wade i

i find gift giving as an adult way less interesting, right? Unless there's a thing I know that I know you want, but you don't know you want, and it's like a great idea. Whatever I'm going to get you is probably something you already would just get yourself. Probably you'd save up for it and get it if you really want it. Or it's a thing you don't want that bad because you wouldn't get it for yourself. And so then it's like, well,'t want that bad because you wouldn't get it for yourself. And so then it's like, well, why would I do that? But the Secret Santa thing is like, oh, well, it's low stakes. There's a set budget.

Everyone knows it's Secret Santa. So you can be like creative, right? You could be like, hmm, what would this person like? And try something. And if it's a total bomb, then it's like, well, there's your $25 gift. I didn't get anything good either. So, you know, it's cool. This is secret. But like, it's way lower stakes. So it's more interesting25 gift you I didn't get anything good either so you know it's cool this is secret but like it's way lower stakes so it's more interesting to me I guess here's the I feel like if you go into it knowing that you guys are just pulling like pranks on each other and everyone

is kind of knows that then you can go that route the ones I've done have been like the I don't want to offend this person so this would be really funny but like what they find it funny I would think everyone else would but like what if everyone else gets something they care about and this person gets a joke gift i don't want to be the only person getting doing the joke gift and then on the receiving end i don't know if i've ever gotten anything through secret center that i've been like oh hell yeah it's mostly been like things are like thank you and then they sit and collect dust and disappear and then i find them again one day and i'm like i donate this to something i never used it whatever and that's pretty much been my experience maybe it's just a my experience thing

but i have found it tedious unrewarding and uh i feel like the gifts i've given and received have been gifts that people are like oh yeah thanks i love bars of soap you know you know what i don't like about secret santa your honor the secret your armpits, the Krampuses who think it's more about the receiving than the giving. I think the people whose perspective on Secret Santas is that if they're so worried about the people getting it rather than the benefit of gifting. Is that what you just said, Bob? No. I just feel like you're really shoving it in his face.

Yeah, well, I am. Because I hate it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Counselor. Yeah, Your Honor. You know what? You know what? I am because I hate it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, counselor. Yeah, your honor You know what? You know what?

I think that you're selfish if you think that it's all about like trying to make sure that it's the best gift for them Because it doesn't matter and if they're good people then they would accept the gift no matter what and I think it's two wrongs It's one and a half wrongs. It's one wrong and no rights Okay, if you're doing secret santa, you're not giving out of the goodness of your heart. You're giving because you agree to participate in Secret Santa. You agree to participate out of the goodness of your heart. The goodness is expelled from your heart earlier in the process. No, it's a social obligation where everyone else agreed.

They turn to you and it's like, well, I can't be the one to disagree. No, no. The goodness of your heart is reflected on how much care you put into the gift, not the act itself. I don't have time for care i'm busy and you don't care so like you have no goodness in your heart coming out i agree part of this is a me problem but this is a time for bitching not for being right he agreed yeah points to me i guess thanks wait no hold on wait no good work mark hold on wait no no so far in

line to host next episode i am am in first place. Thank you. Is this the tyrannical Wade? It might be. Now then, I've gotten one of mine out of the way and you guys clearly agree with me. Can't wait to see what you hate about Christmas so I can rip you all apart. Let's go. What do you hate about? It doesn't have to be Christmas specifically, but this time of year.

I'm so busy ripping into me. You didn't think of an idea of your own, huh? Well, okay. Alright, Mr. Man. You're a hateful person, Mark. I am not a hateful person. You are a... You know what, Mark? You're a very hateful person. He's right. No, I'm not. You're full of...

You're seething. You seethe regularly. Okay, Mr. Mark hates the moon. Alright, okay. If I had to seethe about a few things, it's, um, it's, uh, uh, you know what I don't like about Christmas? The colors. Try something new.

Am I right? No, I have something. It's been red and green five ever. I have something. And I, it's just not a very compelling color there's so many better color combinations i feel like i have something i wish we could mix that up i don't know who's in charge of christmas colors i think mark's saying he's in charge of them it's his fault blame him no i have something well mark i wish you would change the christmas i'm not the

judge you're not appealing i'm not gonna call on you so you didn't have anything bob starts talking you have an idea and i was supposed to cut him off for you. Please. Your honor. I yield the remainder of my time to my opponent. All right, Bob. I would love to talk about those colors. But Mark, you know, the floor is yours.

I have something that I hate that only really gets discovered during Christmas time, which is how exorbitantly expensive shipping rates are unless you are part of those shipping services. If you go, and I had to do this because I was trying to ship a package. It's like a large package, about 20 pounds. And I go onto the website for any place and I go like, what's the estimate for this? And it's like $1,000

because I'm trying to ship it to Korea. And it's like, it's $1,000. I shipped a chair, a gaming chair to Germanyany i think it was a few years back and boy oh boy the shipping was more expensive than the chair and i realized after the fact that i should have just bought another new chair and had it shipped there i know but what i discovered recently because this can't be there's got to be a better way because i i was ordering stuff from japan on ebay and it was getting over there and the shipping was like 40 bucks but i'm like it's coming halfway across the world that makes sense why is this a thousand dollars i know it's bigger but and so if you go on to say like stamps.com

and you you know i have an account there and it's if you go in there instead of a thousand it was 80 bucks just because you had an account like a free account yeah i didn't even pay any money yet well a trial you know why is that such a discrepancy why are individual people because when it comes down to christmas it's the individual that does not have a business that operates as a shipper that is going to pay an exorbitantly higher amount when in reality it's it's like a 10 minutes and you get a huge discount on shipping and i know that christmas is like stressful time for shipping. And it's really rough on delivery drivers.

Don't make excuses for them. And plus, it's not like they're charging more because they're paying the delivery drivers more. The people who are delivering your packages are not the problem. It's the companies. Let's be clear. And it's just kind of crazy that it only really gets discovered during Christmas when I need to ship out packages or something like that.

It is cheaper sometimes just to go on the website and like deliver to that address or, you know, but these are things that I'm collecting and like I'm assembling and it's, it's, it's, it gets problematic. The lesson learned is only buy from big retailers and have things shipped directly to the recipient. Never do anything personal. If you shop on Amazon in the country you're trying to ship to, way cheaper. Oh yeah. Yeah. Plus then you're supporting a local business because you're trying to ship to, way cheaper. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Plus, then you're supporting a local business because it's Amazon but local to that country.

And you can send things exclusively in red and green, which everyone knows is the best color combination. I don't know about that. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments?

How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx. What a... FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx.

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I've thought of another thing, and this is inspired by Mark, but I think slightly different enough that it's separate from Mark's point. This comes out during the holidays because suddenly everyone has to shop. And I think, Wade, you might fall into this category. You're one of these people. You know what I hate about the holiday season? Incompetent shoppers. Can I just say, I get that it's a busy, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of things going on, and I might be doing this unwittingly, but people suddenly, like going to a store when it's busy is tough already.

Like, I don't like crowds. It's stressful. Going to a store when it's busy with the holidays on top of it being, I think I have a package and I need, I know I need to sign for it. I hear the dogs barking. I'm so sorry. No, that's fine. I'll tell Wade my story on top of it being, it's just busier than usual.

People are like stopping in the middle of the aisles. People are like getting out their phone or their list. And they're like, wait a minute. What is like, did you, because it's Christmas, did you forget etiquette of shopping in a store? You can't pull off to the side. You can't go find a little side aisle somewhere where no one else is to park and check your list.

Two of the very few number of times we've gone shopping we've had people in the checkout line ahead of us so we're like waiting on them to because we're next get like halfway through their order and the person is like scanning stuff whatever and they're like oh i forgot something can you finish scanning this and i'll just run and grab it really quick and it's like what no that's not how that works like i get that it's a huge pain in your butt that you forgot something but we are literally we were the last one this happened to a guy forgot something he forgot a football because i saw him come back with it it was a football clearly like a gift for a kid or something like you know we were in line behind him we ended up

going to a different line waiting for a different person to finish checking out and then checking out ourselves. And he only just barely got back in time to beat us checking out. And it's like, why do you think you get to occupy that spot in line like that? If I did that, if I forgot something and I was like, oh, I got to go back. I got to go get that. I would be like, cancel my order. Put that back in the cart.

I will come back through the lines because I don't want to hold up this whole line of all these people behind me in this extra busy stuff people like forget that anyone else exists just because they're like oh christmas i gotta get this stuff oh like there's still you gotta have you still have to have etiquette if you're in a public place i hate that about christmas people are inept shoppers and the worst ones come out during christmas i don't know if you deal with this typically whenever i go shopping which isn't very often to be fair if i go get clothes if i go get electronics if i go get gifts from you know yada yada yada you name it i don't really ever have that many issues it's like i'll go find what i need if there's a sale it's like two for three sure i'll get two of those put them

in the basket whatever go to checkout when i get rung up for as many times as I can remember as rung up correctly, I feel like this time of year, every other person in line has to argue with the person they're checking out with about the price of something. It's like this pair of pants was hanging in the clearance rack. Well, someone put it there. They're not clearance. Like they don't have the sticker. They're not, but it was hanging on the clearance rack yeah but those aren't on clearance clearly someone just put them there but it was on the clearance rack i should get the clearance price or something like that i would not be good at a retail job because i every time i see that happening i would my in my internal responses i would just be like oh well let me use every ounce

of authority i have to fix that for you and then i would just stand there and stare blankly at them be like that's right i'm at the cash register aren't i i guess i'm not the manager of the store or anything who has any like what am i gonna do yeah no then i would sit that in the same category as the inept shoppers as the people who who feel the need to argue that it was on sale it It's like, well, then go look. Why are you wasting our time with this? Everyone else around seems to have those issues this time of year. We're like, you look at like, like we were checking out, we were buying clothes for a family member the other day.

And there's four different registers like in a circle. And we were at one of them. All of the other three were there before us, not buying many items, but all of them were arguing about the prices of things. And we were just like, we're just going to get these five things. They rang them up. Prices looked like what we expected them to look like. They put them in the bag and we were paid and left.

But everyone else was like, you don't understand. This pair of pants has to be this price because look at those pants. And it's like, we bought the same pair of pants and they rang up the same price. That's the price on the tag. It's the price on the thing. It should be the right price. I don't know what they're fighting, but they're always arguing something. And it's like, we bought the same pair of pants and they ring up the same price. That's the price on the tag. It's the price on the thing. It should be the right price. I don't know what they're fighting, but they're always arguing something. And I get it.

Things are way overpriced. Yeah, no, I don't begrudge anyone wanting to make sure they get the right price. And they're like, oh, that's that's five dollars more than I expected. But sometimes they're definitely wrong. Yeah, it doesn't it's it never seems like the people who put up those objections have like somehow they're wrong. They're always wrong. It's never like, oh, you never seems like the people who put up those objections have like, somehow they're wrong. They're always wrong. It's never like, oh, you're right.

That should be on sale. And then they fix it. And then they get them. The resolution is always like, I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry. That's not on sale. And then they're all like, oh, and then they buy it. Sometimes I feel like they just do that.

So to get to the point where the manager comes over and gives them a credit or a break, and they know that'll work. So they fight in the wrong and just stand their ground knowing eventually they'll cause such a fuss that someone will just come over to get them out of the store well it's interesting some people live for that like car buying people some people just love negotiating i could not hate it more i i don't feel like there's any benefit to it other than making me mad. But I also know that the car salesmen are expecting negotiation. And even if you were to go up to a car salesman and be like, listen, I don't like negotiating. I know you got a number in there that makes everyone

happy. Just go back and pretend to argue in my favor. Just really wave your arms around so I know you're really trying and then come back with a lower number and we'll be happy with that. I've actually done that. Did it work? Yeah, absolutely. Because that's what happens. Like you go back and you go.

That's the thing is if you're if you're cool with car salesmen, they don't really give a shit either. It's a whole show for their boss and everyone. The last when I bought my my car that I keep talking about by Subaru, I did that exact thing. I went in and I was like, that list price on the window sticker, that's ridiculous. That's a joke, right? And so, and I was like, I brought a check for this much for like the down payment and

I'm trading in my car and I know how much that car is worth. So just go talk to your boss and let's get this over with. Cause I don't want to be here for five hours talking to you about this. I really just want the car and I'd like to leave. Totally worked. The guy came back and was like, all right, how about this number? And I was like, yeah, that's like an appropriate price for that car. Sounds good.

Anyone out there that is afraid of going out to buy a car, you're perfectly justified in doing that. But really, honestly, the car salesman wants to make commission. The car shop owner wants to make profit. Well, they just want to get it off the lot too. Yeah, they want to get it off the lot. They are motivated to sell to you. You don't have to go back and forth. Look up what the value is beforehand.

Go in there and just be like, let's cut to the quick. You got it. That list price ain't right. Go in there, knock it down, whatever you can. Does that work mainly on used cars or new cars or both? It works really well on new cars because they pay a fee to have new cars sitting on the lot, but it works pretty well on used. It's just the same.

Like it's the same game. And if you really want to make a friend, be real and be like, you know, that's not a good price. Here's my price where I'm at. And also I'd like to buy some like all weather floor mats or something for like 200 bucks, because if you throw in those little extras, you're paying way more than they're worth but if you save you know five thousand dollars off the list price and then spend 200 bucks just says like a oh i got look i got him to buy the thing he can show his boss or whatever like they love that shit yeah i i went in um a long time

ago this is like when i was in college uh and I said it was actually advice uh from someone I knew uh but they were just like go in say what amount of money you have to spend and decide how much you want to spend tell them that number and say tax title and everything this number find me what car this works for and this is for used cars so I think I had like three thousand dollars to buy a car because I had no car I went in there and i was like i have three thousand dollars for everything included tax title and whatever what can you get me and he was like all right and he gave me some options like you got this hunk of shit it actually is worth less so you could save a little money and then this toyota corolla which has some problems but you're not going to get any warranty you're not going to get

anything but you'll travel off the wall and i picked the toyota gorilla because i've had one before and it had many problems like the key ignition wouldn't turn a lot of time it would get stuck so especially on a hot summer day i was like stuck in my car just trying to turn it and inevitably that's the one i actually uh no that no i the one i totaled before was what i had and then i got this even shittier one uh afterwards sounds like a great experience no but the car experience was great because it was just like i have this money what can you get me with everything included and he would he was really nice because he was like you can get this save a little money you get a little warranty but it's not he literally only it's you don't want it uh

and then you can get this one you can get it but no warranty i can't we can't do that for that price anyway not christmas stupid christmas but car buying is a big part of christmas they're always You can get it, but no warranty. I can't. We can't do that for that price. Anyway, not Christmas. Stupid Christmas. Car buying is a big part of Christmas. They're always advertising people getting their new cars. Molly and I always laugh at this commercial that came out a few years ago where there's like a couple inside of like what looks like a very modernized mansion. Like I think the lady like pulls out these like matching watches. One's red and one's black.

I think I've talked about this on here before too. And they're like, oh, I love it. And then he's like, I got something for us too. And they walk outside and he's got a red and black car out there. And clearly he wants the black one and like the red ones for her. And then like, she goes up to the black one

and gets in and she's like, I love it. And he's like, but I, I love it. And he goes, I like red. But it's like these $200,000, $150,000 cars sitting in front of this mansion. It's like, oh, that's so relatable. We should buy two hundred thousand dollar cars to go with our modernized mansion. It was like, who's the target audience or demographic for this particular commercial?

But we always laugh when it when it came on. Yeah. Christmas commercials, I think we can all gripe about because it's the exact same things. We everyone knows Black Friday just happened. So it's like at this point, it's the exact same things. Everyone knows Black Friday just happened. So it's like, at this point, it's a game. It's a race of like, they're trying to get every last sale before the end of the year, and they need to clear the shelves because they can't be sitting on Christmas stuff afterwards. And also, all the good deals already happened, and you're not guaranteed to get it before Christmas.

They're always like, you better act fast. And so it's like, it's always a craps shoot so all the christmas commercials are just like stupid there was one a few years ago where there was like an old lady like knitting sweaters for the family and like you just see her like as the year's going on she's like working on these all year and then like the moral of the story i'll skip to the end is like the daughter whatever hands her a box and she opens it up and it's like a new i I don't know, like not an Apple watch, but it's one of those like, it's one of those watches, right?

It's like a technological marvel. And she puts it on and you see her like toss the sweater boxes aside that she's worked on all year and it's like, don't make your own presents, buy them. Of course. Yes. That's so sad. I thought you were gonna say she knitted a car you wouldn't knit a car would you knit comes at you slow by switching to gmc you can get a car now what a reference

thank you thank you you know we might not be too far away from being able to download a car i you know what i do follow uh some like youtubers tiktokers who have been 3d printing car parts very interesting stuff okay here's actually the thing that i i don't like um is when you are with your family it's great it is a wonderful thing i don't like re-watching the same Christmas movies except for the Grinch. I can watch the Jim Carrey Grinch unlimited number of times, but when it's like a holiday tradition to watch the same movies and I never liked them in the first place.

Like, actually, no, I'll take it back. Just last night we watched the Christmas Without Santa Claus, and that was nice because I hadn't seen that in a long time. The one with Heatmeister, Heatmeiser and Freezemeiser. And Mr. Heatmeiser and whatever. Mr. Sun. It's just Sun. I'm Mr. Green Christmas.

I'm Mr. Thousand and One or whatever. Hundred and One, Thousand and One, whatever it is. That was nice because I hadn't seen it in a bit, but it's like, man, the same ones. But again, I guess I can't say anything because I could watch the grinch some of them i can get behind like those or like the old like rudolph or whatever like the little animated ones i can get behind some of like just like the not the call out chevy chase like the chevy chase christmas family yeah i just i don't like them i can't watch that one every year like every once in a while it's fun to see that again but seeing one of those every year is kind of like i don't know for me it's just like or the tim allen santa claus movie it's like i enjoyed it the first time i saw it but i don't

need to see it every year i don't know why the animated ones stick with me better than the like just actual like non-animated ones i do like the charlie brown one like those i i can get behind that i think there's something just very like relaxing about watching old charlie brown and peanuts stuff the charlie brown holiday specials always feel like, um, uh, that feels like taking a Xanax to me or something. I don't hate them,

but I don't, I wouldn't consider that like, Oh, I'm watching this movie. I like, like it comes on and I'm like, Oh man, the Christmas music in the car and at home and like the end in stores.

And that gets a little grating after a while, but to go back to the family stuff, it's spending time with family but i also have like certain family members that just don't get along i think a lot of people have those family members that like you can get along it's like your friends sometimes you can have friends that you get along with both but they don't get along with each other i've got family members like that and whenever we have like a christmas thing where they're all under the same roof it's just tense all day because everyone's kind of like watching them waiting for like one of them to like take the last piece of ham and the other person to like make a little

off comment about it or there's always like that small comment where it's like they're just sparking it and they know they're sparking it but then they get the other person to slightly overact so then they can overreact and it just builds up until the explosion like they're they want to fight and everyone wants to like throw down i get that i have that on family holidays where there's like the the off comment that someone makes and it's like i was wondering which one of you was gonna make the comment first oh god here it comes and then like you just see it escalate there's nothing you can do besides know that everything's going to hell very soon i think that's a funny thing about family.

And it's kind of one of those things that is in today, you know, with the internet, everyone can yell at anyone with no consequence. But also you can cut people off if they're only internet friends. With certain like family and like, I guess, historically speaking for the human species, you would always have people in your life regularly that you don't like, you know?

You just like, you don't like them, but they're, where else are they gonna go? You know, they're just like in your life regularly that you don't like, you know, you just like, you don't like them, but they're, where else are they going to go? You know, they're, they're just like in your town, like the neighbor you hate or something like that. And I think like family gatherings like that are one of the few occasions where you are forced to interact with, oh, it's that uncle, or it's that crazy aunt, or it's, oh, it's this grandparent, you know, that has slightly racist tendencies, you know. And it's kind of one of those, like, few circles left where you are forced to integrate with people that you may or may not always disagree with or agree with. Here's another one that's random. At first glance, this seems like a positive thing.

But one of my relatives typically always has someone in his life who doesn't have a place to go for like Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever. And so he's always like, can I bring by so and so? They don't have anywhere to go. They don't have any family left. They're not going to have a meal. And we're always kind of like guilted into like, yeah, I mean, I don't want anyone to be alone on Thanksgiving or alone on Christmas.

Sure, I guess. And we're always duped because this person will show up they'll be gracious they'll eat the food they'll hang out and then this just happened on thanksgiving as they were like saying goodbye and thank you for having them or whatever they took my mom aside and they were like do you have like 20 bucks i could have and it's like we all heard it and we all had to sit there like did i just, this person that we had over that, you know, ate food and everything else. They're not even part of our family came here and now they're asking for money on the way

out. And it's just, that's not a very common thing probably, but it's the whole like bringing somebody in that has nowhere to go on the, you know, just by looking at it. That's sweet. That's nice. There's always the type of person that takes advantage of hospitality and that's always the type that's invited over where it's like thank you for the free meal also do you have a hundred dollars i could just have those kinds of

tensions and things that the family get togethers for me and this is probably a me specific issue with my family but uh it's awful it's an awful feeling of well, we already like had a stranger in our house all day and now the stranger is requesting money on the way out the door. This is great. I can see this one. I really can because it's like if no one knows them, if they are a guest, it's like, yeah, eating was clearly the objective. And just knowing like probably asking your mom specifically because he or she was like most likely to say yes and if i say it quiet enough you know it could be there it's like it's asking it's getting something and then asking for more that's being an ungracious

receiver in anything where the gift was warm company good food and uh you know place to spend christ, not alone. Yeah. A fresh voice can speak to you and open your ears and your mind to new views and new perspectives. The call of the wild, a crescendo of culture. Listen, as a chorus of fresh voices moves you, taking you to greater heights. Add your voice to the mix and let fresh answer back with perfect harmony in pure Michigan. Keep it fresh at Michigan.org. As we're winding down here, is there anything else you guys really want to talk about you hate about the holidays?

You guys are going to love this. I hate not having an actual winter and i know this is only a factor of living in well well well oh there's snow on the ground here mark what do you know about that whoa wow i'm trying to meet you halfway here and you guys are giving me sass guess who has snow on the ground right now i would love that what i'm saying is like i miss being in cincinnati no can i say we lived in the bay uh area for like four years ish you really and we lived in north carolina before that where we also didn't really have winter you really miss it snow just like spices it up a little bit i don't miss it being like muddy and gross and slushy and whatever. Like that's kind of unpleasant. It makes everything just wet and whatever and cold.

But the actual having an actual winter is an underrated thing. And I'm not saying like 10 feet of snow either. Like having a little bit of snow sometimes just having it. I walked outside the other day and it was like in the teens. Like it was cold, actually cold for the first time. And I just like took a deep breath and was like, fresh air out here. Good, good cold air. And maybe it's a Midwest thing.

I'm sure if you grow up in California or wherever and you don't have the winter, then you go somewhere where there is winter. You're like, oh, this sucks. This is terrible. I never want, but like actually having the seasons is huge. And I really appreciate it now that we live back here for the first time in like a decade. Yeah. sucks this is terrible i never want but like actually having the seasons is huge and i really appreciate it now that we live back here for the first time in like a decade yeah it's it was we went over to iceland and because iceland oh iceland just erupted a little bit this is out

of date by now did you guys notice that yeah no the volcano thing that has been terrifying to follow yeah you guys were there less than a month before that actually started erupting like like weeks like no it was a month it was about a full month because it took a month before that actually started erupting like weeks? Like, no, it was a month. It was about a full month because it took a long time for it to erupt. Everyone was like, it's any day now, any day now. And it got to the point where people start being like, well, maybe it's not going to happen. You know, maybe. And then two mile long fissure of bubbling lava.

The videos and images of that are insane. I've never seen anything like it. And it's two miles long. So but we were in Iceland and it was cold and I missed the cold. And it was it was shocking how quick I mean, Cincinnati is not like a super cold place, but I have kind of a craving of cold and being in L.A. kind of acclimates you to that weather. So suddenly being in Iceland, it was like 30 degrees when we first arrived. And I was like, oh my goodness. But within a few days, I remembered how much I really enjoy the cold. And you know, you soak it in and your body kind of adapts, starts producing a bit more heat all the time. And then towards the

end of the trip, I wasn't cold when I stepped out, but it was the same temperature. And I was like, oh my God, it's so nice. It is refreshing. So yes, I don't like being in LA for Christmas. That's one of the things I don't like. Great. Points to Mark for wanting to move back to Ohio. I hate LA. My favorite Christmas song. That Frank Sinatra classic.

I hate LA and everything about it. Just leave LA. Just leave. Just leave right away. All right, Bob, any last minute hateful, spiteful things? I hate how far apart people live. There's always pressure. In my family, I don't think I had a lot of experience that you were talking about.

We all generally get along pretty well. But the thing in my family is like, I have family further north than Michigan my family is like i have family further north of michigan southern michigan i have family in ohio we have family in texas we fit like we're not like insanely spread out but we mandy and i were the ones who spread out right like most of our families in this part of the country we lived in north carolina which is kind of far away and then california which is super far away and every holiday season it's like well we want to see our family you want to see as many people as possible. And there's that pressure of

like, okay, well, what if we fly in on this day? And then we drive over there and then we drive up there and then we drive and blah. And like, it was, it was our fault for living far away. But I, even now we live here, it's still like, well, we've got this family in Cincinnati and this family up in Detroit, Michigan and this, but, and it's like, can't we all just live in the same town? Can't we all just live in a village so that I could just see? Because that pressure is like, it's not a bad thing. I'm glad that I want to see my family. And I'm glad that I have family to see.

It's very lucky that that's my situation. But it's disappointing because every year there's some kind of sacrifice where you're like, well, I guess we're not seeing them this year and it's just like i hate that feeling i love that i get to see family and i want to see them as much as possible but there's always that every year there's that feeling of like well we're not gonna see those guys now well we should all live closer together in family groups to live multi-generational households i do think that that is definitely a thing that we are losing and it's part of the problem is just because america is such a big country and with lack of rail and stuff but did you see there

was recently announced plans for new rail lines i i literally found out about this on tiktok and it was just like came up it was like it was some dude who was like a train guy and you know train guys there he was just like can you it was the was the meme. Oh, can you believe this? Here's a fucking new rail. But it's very exciting because rail, I mean, you guys heard about it. I mean, it kind of died out. Remember that train deal railman in Ohio that poisoned everything for miles and miles? I don't remember that.

What are you talking about, Mark? That didn't happen. Yeah, train derailments happen almost every day just because the entire infrastructure is just so trash and it's been shat on by vehicle lobbyists and whatever, you know, and funding just is kind of not there. But it's just one of those things where if we had better passenger rail infrastructure, it would be tremendous for travel around the world i mean planes are one thing but you literally every airport in america operates at extreme capacity almost all the time you i the rarities in which i'm on a plane where it's not completely full where they don't say over the intercom like we have no overhead space if you don't volunteer right now you'll be thrown off the plane. Yeah. And part of being away is also like airline travel during holidays is awful. No, I have no I have no actual knowledge to back this up.

But I do think it's interesting in Europe in general that the train system across continental Europe is so much better than it is America. And it's not like perfect. I'm sure there are tons of ways it could be better. But it's like it's awesome. Is that why flights are so cheap in Europe? Because it's not like perfect. I'm sure there are tons of ways it could be better, but it's like, it's awesome. Is that why flights are so cheap in Europe? Because it's fucking crazy. And then it's not like you could fly a good, but you can get a Ryanair flight from like

Amsterdam to London for like 25 bucks a ticket or something one way, which like that's unfathomably cheap for any form of transportation here. 25 bucks is like an Uber for 10 minutes up the road in America. It's not far. Amsterdam to London, not a far flight. That's like an hour or less. But I can't fly an hour in America for less than like 200 bucks anywhere.

There's no such thing. I have no idea if it's because the rail is competing with the flights or what, but like just generally traveling around Europe is so much nicer than trying to get across the country in the US and flying in the US is so miserable. It's crazy to me. And that is definitely not a fun part of the holidays. If you have to fly, holy shit. There's no competition. Yeah. It's like if there was rail,

of course people would travel on rail. You see all those old movies of like people traveling on passenger trains and there's like whole catering services and you can walk around and you got observation decks and it's like it's relaxing as opposed to a Greyhound bus where you're crammed into the same seats, but worse than a plane would be. And you got like the sweatiest people and you're not allowed to use the bathroom because it'll stink up the whole cabin. You know, it's like it is. There is no comparison. Did you know there's a Greyhound bus route in America where you're on a bus for like 72 consecutive hours? It's like the literally from like somewhere on the tip

of Florida to like Seattle or Alaska or some shit. It's like, but it's it's straight. It's like several days of bus travel. It's insane. I'm going to take this specific train route that is up the coast and it just views everything. It's a passenger

train. You can get a whole room to yourself for no more than what a, uh, like a, not even like nowadays comfort plus on Delta is sometimes 700, $800, like just getting the comfortable seats. Um, but you can, you can spend and have a three day journey. Some of the most beautiful places in America, like going all up through California and then oregon and then getting up into washington and you can get a whole room to yourself with meal service and everything your own bathroom for like the same price 700 bucks and i want to do that because it's perfect for writing like if i was trying to write my next thing go on that just write you can't do anything else don't worry about internet just detach for a bit that's my vacation that that sounds like a vacation to me god i hate christmas how many points do i get a lot okay for your honesty you guys so what i've

learned from today is you guys love secret santa and you hate everything else about christmas and you know that's fair it's a fair perspective to have yeah i think i had a point i was going to make about one of the things you guys were talking about a while ago i got lost in the thought of wanting to go on the west coast for anything look i i'm glad that i live in ohio but talking like the west coast isn't the most beautiful one of the most beautiful parts of the country or absolutely worth visiting it's just it's just ohio ohio copium all of the west coast is very pretty it's worth checking out almost any part of the west coast is california's like beaches and view is it is it really that much

different than like parts of florida i feel like they're similar to me yes east coast beaches are so different from west coast beaches it's not even remotely the same the one thing i'll say is i if you want to go to a beach and swim in the ocean east coast beaches the west coast beaches are like rocky they look like landscape paintings they look they're like stunningly beautiful. And the places you can go on the West Coast are just awesome. They are. They all have like the Monterey Aquarium is like a pole trip in itself. Just go to Monterey just to see that.

There's all these things on the West Coast that are like unparalleled beauty, unbelievable spots to go see if you like hiking or camping or anything like that but if you want to like swim in a warm ocean yeah then you go to the gulf beaches or whatever but like they're just they're not comparable they're very different things i feel like the gulf is really pretty too i feel like we're underselling no it's but they're different is what we're saying is like they're not the same thing that's what we were balking at they're different things and the west coast the coastline of the west coast is like up and down the whole West Coast. Almost all of it is like absolutely gorgeous.

And every part I've seen, I've been like, wow, that's cool. That's pretty. Look at that. That's beautiful. I'm glad I went. I guess I haven't really spent a lot of time. We went to like up here and a beach when we were out there one time. But like, that's really my experience.

And it was like, it was fine. No, that's because, yeah, that's Santa Monica. And that's, that looks like the Florida stuff. It's still not warm water, but it definitely looks a bit more like, ooh, this is beachy. You start to go up north on the coast. Yes, exactly what Bob says.

Crazy coastlines that are rocky. You get your small beach here, small beach here. And then get literally like mountains that go right to the edge of the ocean. So you can be like on the top of a mountain looking down over. It's crazy. The stuff you could see on the West Coast is crazy. Amy, Amy and I stayed at this.

I think it was like an Airbnb or something like that. I think it was booked through somewhere else. But it's like it was an airstream, like a little camper van that was on one of those precipices. If you walked out and went too far, weren't looking like no rail, rail no nothing because it's just it's just the landscape they're not going to rail the whole coast you know uh it's uh it's gorgeous and like oregon all the way up into washington too i mean all the way up to vancouver all the way up to alaska all of that the pacific coast very very pretty very cold not good for swimming but like

worth of worth visiting for lots of reasons and And the thing about California, the reason why like people say California is, well, it's huge, right? California covers such a huge area. It's like the it's the third largest state because like Alaska, Texas, California. I think that's right. But it's just like the variety of landscape. You can be on the beach and you can drive two hours and be skiing on the mountains. Like you it's it's it's crazy just how diverse this state

is because bob lived up north i live down south there's another south down below that's more like the florida beaches in san diego yeah san diego is even southier yeah and that's that's basically tropical three entirely different biomes and that's not even counting the mountainous cold areas it's it's i i'm i'm i miss ohio but everyone in the lake of the country seems to think that california is just like this hellscape it's just gun violence and and homeless people but which sure but it's it's there's a reason why it's like it's it's gorgeous out here there's no doubt about it it's gorgeous it's it's an incredible place all that to say i'm super happy we live in ohio and i really would not want to go back to living in california but i wish yeah i wish i

was in uh anyway what were we talking about oh fucking christmas goddamn christmas i gotta pick a winner here and it looks like the losing streak is over mark you, you've won. Oh, finally! Man, Mark is really just so hateful, and I felt like this was his victory. Thank you. I've got nothing in my art but coal and spit. Thank you, everybody, for appreciating my grit. My truest grit.

Mark, do you have a winner's speech? Uh, I think I partly started it with my truest grit. That was a really good line to like end a speech on. So if I can like if you can, if the editors can retroact. No. Okay. I love winning and I love you too. Grit and

spit through and through. Bob, loser speech. Before the light takes you fully. I got light in my eyes, off my nose in my ass, I don't like it it burns and it's not I thought getting sunlight onto your butthole was supposed to be a health thing but I don't

butthole sun oh butthole sun I wish you were a real song that's it, I wish butthole sun was a real song I'm sorry that I lost but I guess I'm just not as hateful as Mark is. Oh, well. And that's that.

I guess next one, Mark will host. I think we'll be right on New Year's Day or pretty close to New Year's Day. So stay tuned for that one where Mark will be on New Year's Day because I said so. And we'll talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Until then, you can find us,

Mark at Markiplier, Bob at MySkirm, maybe, depending on if the sun absorbs him. I'm fine. Keep finishing. Finish it. I'm Wade, Minion777 or LordMinion777. Merch?

Soon. Soon. Merch soon. There's been developments, yeah. There's been developments. Very soon. Sooner than you think. Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year.

We'll see you soon. Until then, podcast out.