Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 362: Arnold Recap

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

We survived another year of the bathrooms at the Arnold! In this episode we dive into how sales went this year, hanging with Cru, and meeting some cool people for the first time. We will be back in 20...24! Juggernaut AI: juggernautai.app and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% The Strength Co: https://store.thestrength.co/ BearFoot Shoes: https://bearfoot.store/ and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% Swiss Link: https://www.swisslink.com and use code MASS to save 15% Spud Inc: https://www.spud-inc-straps.com/ Texas Power Bars: https://www.texaspowerbars.com/

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. I hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings on how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think.
Starting point is 00:00:16 If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! Massanomics! side everything massonomics welcome everyone for episode 362 of the massonomics podcast we are the lifting podcast about nerfing and my name is tanner and my name is tommy we're coming back to you we're back home in uh i'm in western northeast South Dakota. Tommy's in eastern southeast South Dakota.
Starting point is 00:00:47 We've returned from mid-Ohio. Finally, we're back after one hell of a journey there and back, and we live to tell the tale. Back with stories that you wouldn't believe. Yeah, so this episode, you're going to get a lot of the inside scoop on the Arnold stories. The Arnold Chronicles. This is the Arnold Chronicles episode five, I think.
Starting point is 00:01:12 Our fifth time to the Arnold and back. Our fifth recap. Yeah, our fifth Arnold recap over the years. Yeah, probably. 17, 18, 19. Just a couple in there. 22, 23, yeah. Yep.
Starting point is 00:01:23 Probably 17, 18, 19, 22, 23. Yeah. Yep. But first, and also relevantly, I want to tell you about the Strength Co. Big Grant and company at the Strength Co. make plates that are rugged, durable, smooth, and easy to grip. They're E-coated, made in America, and they're the best iron plates on the market. I'll tell you that right now. And I saw them get used by all kinds of strong people and just all kinds of people got put to the test at the Arnold this year.
Starting point is 00:01:55 Not just used, used and abused. Yeah, used and abused, and they, no worse for the wear. Actually, Massanomics Jim's own 100 100 pound plates went there and were used all weekend brought them back to be fair they actually are look nicer than when i took them because they did get rained on you know they're really dusty and they cleaned them off uh to be used there so they actually came back in better shape than when i took them. So check out the Strength Co. What is the web address now? Is it thestrength.co?
Starting point is 00:02:30 That is correct. Thestrength.co. Check them out and buy all of your Made in America plates right there. More on the Strength Co. coming later this episode. And also speaking of relevant sponsors, this episode is also brought to you by Barefoot Shoes. Most shoes harm your mobility by over-restricting your foot's natural movement. Barefoot shoes are designed with minimal restrictions so your feet can move the way they're supposed to.
Starting point is 00:02:56 Move with more strength and confidence in every step. Barefoot Shoes was founded by Chris Duffin, who attributes proper foot biomechanics as foundational to his success in squatting and deadlifting over 1,000 pounds for reps. He helped create the company to provide a minimalist shoe that can be worn for anything from deadlifts to walking your dog. Go to www.barefoot.shoes to check out the best minimalist shoes available. And while you're there make sure to use code massonomics to save 10 on your order one more time www.barefoot.shoes code massonomics will save you 10 on your next order thank you barefoot shoes and more from barefoot and chris duffin also to come in this episode. Yeah, stay tuned for that. Spoiler alert.
Starting point is 00:03:47 They're not just for your hands anymore. Barefoot shoes, they're not just for your hands anymore. They're great. Okay. So, Arnold 2023, Columbus, Ohio. First weekend of March. We went. It was a pretty good time, and we're back. Thanks're back thanks everyone for listening this week we'll catch you next time
Starting point is 00:04:08 cut the condensed version out of the way in case some people thought we were actually still there I said whoo glad I got the answer on that I can quit listening now this is one of those recaps recaps that it is hard to even know where to
Starting point is 00:04:24 start because there is so much that gets jam packed into this thing. We could make this a five hour episode easy if we wanted to. We could do an hour just on all the food we ate which I guess more on that to come too but
Starting point is 00:04:39 yeah it's hard when there just is that much that happens in one weekend. Like there's whole chunks of that weekend that any three hours of that would be almost an episode on its own. But you just got to take three days plus add in a couple travel days and then somehow try and recap it. So I think the 10,000 foot view is that it was awesome in almost every way you know from uh we can get into all more of these in detail but sales wise was great meeting people was great meeting crew was great uh hanging out with other lifters and that sort of stuff was all all a great experience just like
Starting point is 00:05:20 always i mean we kind of know at this point that it's going to be like that. And I don't think anything in any of those areas disappointed. No, it, those, those, all of those things you just said exceed our expectations for sure. Because we were a little skeptical of a couple of things leading into it. You know, we, we knew vendors numbers were down from year over year. And it just makes you curious. What's the crowd going to be like? Is that going to be like is that going to be there but uh numbers numbers were up from last year at least from our from our perception yeah i
Starting point is 00:05:52 mean i think it's probably i i don't know maybe definitely isn't the right word but it definitely felt like to me that there was more people there this year than there was last year in 2022 i would totally agree yeah yeah i mean it wasn't uh we talked about this it wasn't uh 2019 numbers no 2019 numbers was was insane was crazy was huge a lot of people we maybe didn't know it at the time but a lot of people kind of even refer to that as like the pinnacle of arnold over time that it just got ballooned to this enormous monster of where you literally can't walk down any of the aisles ever. Yeah. I think most people would even say that 2019 was too much.
Starting point is 00:06:33 Yeah. Yeah. So 2023, not to back to 2019, but improved over 2022 and going in the right direction, which makes me feel good because I had some concern going into it that if we know 2022 was here and if 2023 stepped back another 10%, then I would have started to say, oh, no, what's going to happen here?
Starting point is 00:06:57 It does look like the writing's on the wall at that point. Yeah. This thing is dying. But luckily that wasn't the case. No, that wasn't it at all. So now I feel really good about the future of it, actually. And also there has been speculation about it moving. And I think I heard from a number of people that they've signed contracts now
Starting point is 00:07:14 for at least a couple more years going forward that it will still be in Columbus. So I'm happy about that also. Yes, that takes another thing off the worrying list for a little while yeah i think i saw in a few places that like 24 and 20 uh and other vendors had said that they had heard the same thing that it was uh that it's been booked for the next couple years yeah well they already give us the option to reserve our booth next year so it's gonna be really awkward if they were to change that you know that's. So, yeah, should we start with the travel, the beginning? Yeah, that's a good place to start.
Starting point is 00:07:50 Because you actually had, okay, I actually have to interrupt Hannah really quick before I forget this story. I did have another person stop me in Sioux Falls and ask me who I was, but this one is a little more unique. You want to know why? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:09 Because they were your relatives. Ah, were you wearing something mass economics? No, I was not actually. Um, okay. So they just recognized you.
Starting point is 00:08:18 Yeah. I was, I do have quite a few relatives in Sioux Falls. So it was your aunt and uncle that live, I think you said kind of on the side of town where I am okay yeah I was at Walmart that was at Walmart check it out in the self-checkout line and I'm you know looking down and I hear are you Tommy and I look up and I am thinking you are not the audience so what's going on here what's the deal yeah and they say oh Tanner's our nephew we hear all about the podcast and all this and talking.
Starting point is 00:08:47 And she's like, I do got to say, it's really odd actually seeing you in person because I'm familiar with your voice. Yeah, so I think that that was a shout out to Aunt Holly. I believe, yeah, I already forgot her name. But yeah, that's probably right. Her husband's tall. Yes. Yeah. Uncle Scott.
Starting point is 00:09:04 There you go. Holly and Scott. Yeah. Uncle Scott. There you go. Holly and Scott. Yeah. Big Mastinomics supporters. Yeah. Real big fans, yeah. So, okay, I'm glad I remember that. That's funny that they, I'm surprised that they even know well enough to recognize you in public, though.
Starting point is 00:09:18 I know. And I didn't have any Mastinomics stuff on. That's why I was shocked, because they did did say they saw me earlier in the store, and I think they said they recognized the hair or something, and they weren't quite sure, but then I was checking out. And so then they got the second look, and that's when it all clicked for them. The Discord crew is watching our long live tonight, and they said list every meal you ate on the way with reviews.
Starting point is 00:09:41 You guys are in luck because as we picked up our YouTube vlogging over this last month or two, that's actually one of the vlogs that's coming. We got a food vlog coming. But there's a more comprehensive, kind of more like general vlog that's also coming.
Starting point is 00:09:58 Yeah, just the Arnold recap vlog will be dropping tomorrow on YouTube. Yeah, so if you're listening to this, not live, it's already out there. So make sure to go check that out. It's really cool. It's a, if you watch that video, you really get a feeling like you were kind of along for the ride, I think. Yeah. And if you're in the discord and you stopped by the booth at all, there is a good chance you at least are on camera. There's also a pretty good chance that you're even talking to the camera. So there's going to be a lot of cameo appearances in there.
Starting point is 00:10:26 Not going to want to miss that thing. I saw it for today and it already made me kind of miss the Arnold. Even though I was really happy to be home, it just kind of made me think, oh, that was fun. There was a lot of times in it that I just started laughing very hard because there was just so much ridiculous stuff going on. Yes. So about the trip, though.
Starting point is 00:10:44 We made the trip, right? We did make the trip. Yeah. No news was good news as far as the drive went, right? We started off really early. We were on the road by like 5 a.m. Well, there was a little bit of news, though. You had to jumpstart the day a little earlier, the trip earlier than me even.
Starting point is 00:11:08 Yeah, so I left on. So my trip to the Arnold actually started on Tuesday evening. I was trying to beat a snowstorm going on up here in western northeast South Dakota, and I did. I did beat it. It was actually just starting to snow as i left uh tuesday evening after work and managed to avoid uh you know any of this real serious stuff on friday evening got down to sioux falls stayed at uh one of the two massonomics recording studios that's not my house yeah you got to see it all in person the second the second studio i got to
Starting point is 00:11:41 take a peek behind the curtain you did did. You got to see it firsthand. Yeah. And we got to, I guess, start Masonomics Talk a whole day early then at that point, didn't we? Yeah, we got to start our week long of Masonomics Talk on Tuesday night. Yeah, we knew six days wouldn't be enough. We needed to sneak in one more night. So luckily we got that and we woke up at about 4 in the morning. We had enough time to get a good solid breakfast in. Breakfast at 4 is always a little weird.
Starting point is 00:12:13 Yeah, it is. It's even for me. I'm a big breakfast guy, but 4 a.m. breakfast is a little different because your appetite isn't quite there. So you threw some eggs eggs on the uh skillet didn't you yeah we got some eggs going and i think that's about all we did actually we kept it relatively light you know don't want to wake up the whole family here no it wasn't a pro it was appropriate it was an appropriate uh amount of but yeah it was five five a.m that we got on
Starting point is 00:12:40 the road wasn't it yep we were on the road by five made our first stop in sioux city um this is all in the travel vlog so we won't go too far in depth on this but yeah um i thinking back the highlights of the trip we actually got we got bored at one point surprisingly after maybe it was probably after talking about massonomics like nine hours for like oh okay we're running out of things to say so then yeah if anyone suspects that we just uh talk about mass and like we get together for this trip and we just talk about massonomics you're mostly right you're you're almost yeah that's almost the only thing we still talk about and we do i'm not lying we do talk about massonomics for almost the entire 15 hour trip and then when we get there we talk when we get to the hotel we just talk about massonomics more so it is it's our best business meeting every year, actually.
Starting point is 00:13:27 You know, it's like our best brainstorming. There are a lot of ideas that come from it because you have nowhere to go. So you just, ideas just flow. It's just like a stream of consciousness, you know. Well, the Arnold bathroom memes came from the trip, you know, like that those are a big hit this year, you know, on Instagram, but also just like in person, the number of people that came up the trip, you know, like that, uh, those were a big hit this year, you know, on Instagram, but also just like in person, the number of people that came up and said, yeah, I'm really enjoying all the Arnold bathroom, uh, content. Yeah. We got a lot of compliments
Starting point is 00:13:54 on that, but on the trip where there was a one, there was a point where we said, we, maybe we should talk to someone else. So we started calling just you open up the rolodex tanner started calling people and that was fun because everyone not everyone several of them were caught off guard like you guys are calling me right now what's going on and some other people you know knew to expect phone calls or they weren't surprised when they got phone calls from us but had had probably 10 different conversations that were anywhere between five and 20 minutes each who are we talking to uh huck finn dan bell grant that's adrian adrian gluck uh nick the mole or not i don't know if we talked to eddie okay called chad but he didn't answer yeah he shot us a message said he was busy training yeah probably a few other people but yeah
Starting point is 00:14:46 it was got lots of calls in so that was fun um i'm trying to think a lot of that shows up in the vlog that's it does yeah yeah there's hints of all that in the vlog but otherwise driving there you know it was we our goal was to get to dayton on the first day because it's only about an hour away from columbus so you can just wake up and and go and we made it to dayton by what were they like eight o'clock ish yeah and that's what losing you know we lose an hour because the time zone thing so uh we made pretty damn good time and i don't think there's really even anything noteworthy about the trip other than just however more unremarkable it is driving all across the Midwest. It was sketchy, icy for a while early in the morning in Iowa, somewhere in there.
Starting point is 00:15:30 Also, we ate at the Iowa Wendy's, which turns out to be just like, or not Iowa, yeah, I mean it was Iowa, but Cedar Rapids. The Iowa Wendy's. Their one Wendy's. World's Iowa-est Wendy's. No, the Cedar Rapids, one of the Windy's. Wasn't that Cedar Rapids? I believe so.
Starting point is 00:15:53 Which happened to be just right next to where Big Red, Big Brett, lives. Like you said, his house is right there. And then I didn't realize Big Ryan crew member, that's where he lives. I really like he went to the Windy's like a day later and took some sad videos. Filmed a video there. Yeah, that was really funny. I enjoyed that a lot. But that first night in the hotel, wherever the hell we were, in Dayton, like you said, we really did some good Arnold bathroom brainstorming when we were laying around in bed there.
Starting point is 00:16:21 Yep, just laying in bed, sending bathroom ideas back and forth and laughing on our phones the whole time that's the best so yeah we got to made it all the way to dayton got our hotel got checked in had maybe one of the worst meals of the entire trip at what was it oh charlie's or something oh that was shit that was that might have been the worst meal of the entire yeah that was awful uh i'll give the serve the waitstaff credit they were fine nothing wrong with them but the food just was not good and the reason we went there is because it was across the street from the hotel it was the closest easiest thing but yeah that was trash that was not good that was the worst yeah uh we got up the next oh we got to check out the hotel gym there was a peloton in it too
Starting point is 00:17:05 that was yeah our first taste of a peloton turns out it's just a stationary bike it's just a bike with some stickers on it and a little ipad right that's all it was the whole time yeah uh yeah so woke up in the morning drove into columbus i think were we there by like nine ish yeah i think we were which looking back on our history first booth ever we probably didn't get there until three or four it was probably closer to four even right last year i believe we were there one two somewhere in there something like that yeah this year they're at nine so way ahead of schedule uh by the time oh felt so good and there was no rush we were like the only ones around us that were even setting up so it felt like we were ahead of the game and by the
Starting point is 00:17:52 time noon rolled around the booth was 95 put together you know it was it was we could have actually just went home for the day there if we did yeah if we didn't we could have went home for whatever we can just call it a weekend just put a box out damn good just put a box out it says one t-shirt for 30 two for 50 put your change in the box honor system uh-huh it's like uh the halloween candy yeah it's like a pumpkin patch you know just like everyone just uh do the right thing here because we could have just left cardboard scamps there yeah well hook like we do the home alone thing where you'd hook him up to something so he moves once in a while so people think he's real rocking around the christmas tree no we would just make our booth have like a back there'd be a background would be backlit so it
Starting point is 00:18:37 just makes it look like someone's behind the booth moving around they're like oh yeah the guy's gonna come out any minute don't't steal anything. That's what we do. Before I forget, speaking of cardboard scans, Big Eddie brings cardboard scans every year. A lot of people recognize it now, but recognize it as in this cardboard cutout that's always around the Mastonomics guys and around the Mastonomics booth. But there was a dude that came up
Starting point is 00:19:03 that didn't really know the joke, but knew whoantz was and he goes i know that i know that guy and like he was actually like concerned that we were using his likeness without his uh permission and i'm like no no he's our buddy you know this is he's in on the joke here and he's like oh okay and like then he got had to get a picture with scantz of course so was that guy from canada too do you know yeah i think so he does like has done like highland games with him before yeah i mean the chances aren't impossible but that's still very very funny that yeah he would see cardboard scans and should we uh are you thirsty over there yes i am thirsty and speaking of uh all the crew we got to meet and everything we got a lot of cans over the weekend didn't we we did and this one is god we got enough that i just cannot remember who
Starting point is 00:19:54 gave them all to us oh god i'm never i'm never gonna remember that this is from and uh you know that the game is partly ruined here you'll just get a taste test but this is from yeah hot tree brewing in hudson ohio and this is from Hop Tree Brewing in Hudson, Ohio. And this is hometown. I don't even know. How do you say that, Tanner? Yeah. Hellas?
Starting point is 00:20:12 I don't know. I'm sure there's some accent to it that I'm doing wrong. Hometown hell. Yes. And it is a. I think this guy maybe said he used to work at the brewery or something like that. I thought he did too, yeah. It's an easy-drinking pale lager, gentle bitterness from noble hops
Starting point is 00:20:28 and a smooth malt character from German Pilsner malt. 5%. A true 5%-er. Yeah. This is Huck Finn's mating call. I don't know if you can hear that. He did that all week. The number, it just started to not even register in my brain.
Starting point is 00:20:48 He'd be walking around, popping the tab like that. Just doing his mating call. Oh, here we go. Hmm. Yep. It's a smooth finish on that one let's see you know i'd say it tastes about like you would expect yeah an easy drinking pale lager to taste like a brewski which i think for something like that is exactly where you want to be tastes like a brewski i'll give it i'll want to be. Tastes like a brewski. I'll give it a brewski rating for sure.
Starting point is 00:21:29 What do you give that out of five stars? I think I'd probably give that a three and a half just because it's exactly what you expect, right? That's a three and a half all day, I think. I'd be more surprised if it didn't taste like that. No surprises with that one. It's good, though. A good drinking beer. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:47 This beer's good for drinking. It also fits. What I really love about it, fits great in a Mastinomics drink spotter. Not only does it fit great, it looks great in that drink spotter. In this classic drink spotter. Do you like what's in my drink spotter right here? Do you see what I got going on in my drink spotter? Ooh, strength coat plate.
Starting point is 00:22:09 I got a strength coat plate to round out my display a little bit more. In your classic drink spotter. Mm-hmm. Good stuff. All right, what were we talking about? Well, after we got the booth, like noon on Thursday,
Starting point is 00:22:21 we got mostly set up. And then, of course, as massonomics tradition and folklore holds first meal in Ohio is always best meal and first meal is always at if you don't know this by now you haven't been listening long enough the first meal at Ohio's Columbus is always at Hubert's Polish Kitchen of course and I look forward to going to hubert's so much and now i'm like the worst it's like when you're a little kid and like it's a week after christmas your birthday and you're like dang so long it's till until it's christmas again now that's what i'm feeling right
Starting point is 00:22:57 now about going to hubert's polish kitchen it's like oh no it's so long until we get to go again. And it didn't disappoint. And we got there. We basically ordered one of everything. Some things we ordered two, three, and four of. And I think we spent almost $70 on all the food, didn't we? Yeah, it was $60. Let's go through receipts today. $30 a piece on lunch. Most of the items are like five
Starting point is 00:23:27 dollars yeah you know some of them are less than five dollars we kind of there was not there wasn't many survivors out of that though at first i didn't think we were going to put it all down but there was a very few survivors from that no i think the only thing that was left was i got the the cabbage oh that was stuffed with beef and rice, and I just couldn't quite do that one. But we did everything else besides that. I think that's the reason. I almost forgot how good the pierogies are.
Starting point is 00:23:52 If I had to say we made a mistake, it's just we didn't order enough of those. That's the thing next year. You just need like eight pierogies each. And part of my favorite part about going there is telling him every year, like, yep, we come back here every year. It's our favorite spot to go, and he's always there working he is every time he makes you feel like he remembers you even though i know there's no way did you like how he had a menards hat on too i love how he had a menards hat uh i would have told him but it's kind of a
Starting point is 00:24:20 kind of busy and right uh the chicken cutlet there is, I love the chicken cutlet. The pierogies are the best thing. I do like that cheesy ball thing too. The bologna or whatever the hell it's called. And, oh, first, I don't think I've ever had it before, but he talked me into the potato pancake, and that was good.
Starting point is 00:24:42 I could have had a couple of those. Yeah, that was good i could have had a couple of those yeah that was that was really good uh i'm trying to think if i got anything you didn't get but maybe we did get mostly the same items there yeah the stew i like more of the hot stew on mine so i like the regular even though hubert was really trying to talk me into the hot he's like no you need a little hot next year i'll try the hot i learned on the potato pancake when hubert tries to sell you on something you go with it because you do it he he knows his fullest kitchen like the back of his hand he sure does there is uh like uh yeah i got the me alone thing i got the me alone yeah um there is like archaeology going on outside of the market
Starting point is 00:25:28 there now like where they're like i guess digging up dead bodies because yes didn't someone say that in the in the discord was that apparently they'd found a burial ground in the north market parking lot yeah and i really looked like that seemed to be what they were doing out there it did there was archaeologists brushing away at the dirt there was all these tents set up so that really did seem to be the case i have not looked into this news story uh anymore it really looks but it is kind of a mess there with that uh like part of this couple of those main streets that come in from okay direction even uh yeah i clicked on the i clicked on the i typed in north market columb, I clicked on the, I typed in North Market, Columbus, and clicked on the news tab here.
Starting point is 00:26:08 Archaeologists unearthed 40 graves at North Market in 2022. And yeah, 19th century human remains found. And when we were, when I explained that to you as we were there, and you're like, you know, I didn't explain that. I explained a really rough version of that as i oftentimes do and uh we went over and like peeked through the fence and you could see like four guys on their hands and knees like in these cordoned off like you know squared off areas like down there what am i in jurassic park over here
Starting point is 00:26:42 excavating this thing out yeah Yeah. They're doing some fine digging. Yeah. So Hubers didn't disappoint. Yep. After we completely stuffed ourselves at Hubers, went back to the booth. At that point, we wrapped up touches. Yeah. Put the finishing touches on.
Starting point is 00:27:02 And that's when more people started to filter in. Yeah, more of the exhibitors. Yes, and at that point, that's when we can start to have fun because we're done. We can just hang around and bug people and be in their way. Not really help at all, just watch and bug from a distance. That is the whole thing with the vendors, the exhibitors. We're buddies with these 20 other companies.
Starting point is 00:27:28 Probably not exaggerating. There's about 20 companies of other owners and people that set up that we're pretty good buddies with over the years. And whoever gets done first, their job is to go around and bother the people that are still trying to get finished. It's just this whole chain.
Starting point is 00:27:43 And then by the end of the night, almost everyone's done, and they're just standing around bothering the last few people that aren't quite done yet. And that's all you do. You just bother the people that aren't done yet. And when you're still going, it's annoying. Like you want to talk. Oh, you do.
Starting point is 00:27:58 You want to catch up because you haven't seen these people for a year, and you want to catch up. But you're like, ah, I actually got shit I got to do here. And I can't quite focus. focus then we can join our forces together and then go bother the other people that aren't able to get finished yet but like live large they have the advantage of being you know it being in their backyard so they get there the day before even to set up so they're like so you can guarantee we'll be setting up and nick and kevin and whoever else will always be over there talking to us and i want to talk to him so bad but at the same time in the back of my
Starting point is 00:28:29 mind i'm thinking nope gotta do the booth gotta do the booth gotta do the booth yes yes and then they just keep hanging around and i love it but that is the stress of until you get the booth done that's it's hard to focus on anything else yeah i think about when we were was it maybe it was when we were going to go eat that's when huck finn and his crew were and mechanic yeah it about when we were was it maybe it was when we were going to go eat that's when huck finn and his crew were and mechanic yeah it's when we were leaving for lunch when they were first pulling in yeah and then uh buff chick supplements they were right behind us again so they're kind of getting set up after us and travis at obsidian right next to us but uh they weren't really setting up while we were in there and then the strength co
Starting point is 00:29:05 people walked in after we had eaten that we were just doing our final touches and it was funny because grant walked by and you know they can't even talk right they got there like six hours later than us and it's you know they need to get going and he's getting all his crew over there and he basically just runs by almost and just like waves like, yep, I will talk to you guys later. I am not stopping to talk to you guys right now. Which I would do the same thing at that point. I'd be scrambling then. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:34 But they got all their stuff set up and good time too. And he's got a lot of help there, which is good. Anything else from that night? Well, the other fun thing about thursday night is so you make the rounds and we get back by the strongman area oh that is the best all the strongman competitors start leaving because you know i think they must take them to they all check they check out the stage and the equipment and all that stuff and give them the full rundown of what happens and then they all leave And it's happened the last two years
Starting point is 00:30:05 that we've been over there when they're all leaving. And they're just, oh, it starts with Trey Mitchell. Oh, Masonomics guys. Yeah, if you want to meet any of the Strongman people, and we obviously can arrange it because we're there with the booth and stuff. But if you ever really want to have a personal meet with any of them,
Starting point is 00:30:24 the best time to be there is thursday evening by the by that place because they're all there and it was like trey and kevin ferris were coming out we talked to them for quite a while and then jerry pritchett he was uh coming him and bubba his kid we talked to them and while we were standing there um what's his name matthias uh yeah matthias kilikoski yeah he walked by and it is always mind-blowing how absolutely massive he is magnus for magnuson was there yeah he walked by too and also that night we went over to go yeah we saw the gillinghams we walked by we went over to the strongman area just to check it out. Just walk right up to everyone's working on stuff. And we walk up there like getting the logs ready.
Starting point is 00:31:08 Yeah. We just stand there like we're supposed to be there. You know, there's stuff going on. And then Mark Henry standing there and we're like, Hey Mark, how's it going? And he just starts talking to us. We had a five, 10 minute conversation with just us and Mark Henry. And that's one of those situations. I, we talked about it afterwards where it's like,
Starting point is 00:31:25 we should have for sure got a picture or maybe talk to him about coming on the podcast, anything like that. But it was also just a really cool moment of just like bullshitting with Mark Henry, where you don't really want to wreck it. A hundred percent. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:40 You don't want to sully this fun. Like he's, you know, he's having fun like he probably thinks it's cool he's not getting harassed by anyone and nobody's asking for a picture but then you still kind of do want to take yeah you do want to document it but it does it does yeah it's it's always a tricky situation there but he was still really cool it was fun to talk to him that was fun that was cool.
Starting point is 00:32:05 So that night, where did we do that night? Do we go out to, I think that's when we ate with the strength code. Okay. Crew. Okay. And Jonathan was Jonathan there or,
Starting point is 00:32:14 uh, I don't know. John, I don't think Jonathan was there yet. Was that where that's the night thing when Grant bought all those wings and stuff. Yeah. Eddie was with us.
Starting point is 00:32:22 Yeah. Yeah. Big Eddie got to meet, uh, Connor and Brayden, too, for the first time. Brayden from TikTok and Connor from memes. Exactly, yes. They're claimed to fames, respectively, there. Yeah, we went and ate at a burger place, so it was so-so. But I had a lot of wings, too.
Starting point is 00:32:42 And we also ate Hubert's about five hours earlier so it was still still could have totally gone without eating but stuffed down as much food as we could and then i think we went back to the the strength co hotel which was the hotel connected to the convention center and we had a few oh yeah i had a few beverages there that night too yeah brayden had some shots of tequila. He did, yes. It's funny thinking about it because I never do that unless there's like 10 people having those.
Starting point is 00:33:14 Right, right, right. So then Friday was the big kickoff of the real live thing. And it was no more test runs. It was time for the real McCoy. It was. We got there. The day started off. It's Friday. You never know. real the real live thing and that was no more test runs it was time for the real mccoy it was we got there the day started out it's friday you never know the day started off kind of slow nothing too crazy um then about 11 i think is when it started picking up yeah popped off and you know what
Starting point is 00:33:37 really kicked off the day was there was a 21 beer salute at noon and uh it was an honor jack for hold the homeless our good buddy old homeless uh-huh and i think uh homeless would have loved the 21 beer salute uh-huh i think he would have been we know home we knew homeless well enough to know he would have loved oh 100 yeah he would have been all about it i love when uh tom finn tells the story about uh that polar with the video where homeless gets fired because he's driving the truck. And he's always like, yeah,
Starting point is 00:34:09 I told homeless not to even be in the video, but he just got his, you guys just sent him his new massonomic singlet. And he's like, Nope, I gotta get this. He was so proud of his singlet. He's so damn proud of it.
Starting point is 00:34:21 That's right. So yeah, there was a 21 beer salute for homeless. And then at the end of it, uh, that's right. So, yeah, there was a 21-beer salute for homeless. And then at the end of it, homeless was supposed to get a drink, but... The mechanic went missing, apparently. Yeah, Dan Mackey is known as the mechanic, Tom Finn's buddy. He has a tattoo of homeless on his shoulder. And the plan was after the 21-beer salute for everyone to give homeless a drink
Starting point is 00:34:43 by dumping a beer on Mackie's arm. But Mackie had gone missing. There's no way to give homeless a drink. I think you still got a drink, you know, in the metaphorical sense. Right. But I wanted to dump a beer on Mackie's arm. I did too. I was really looking forward to that part of it.
Starting point is 00:35:01 The 21 beer salute, luckily, though, is all recorded. That is on the arnold recap video so if you want to see that in person and the crowd that took part in it uh make sure to watch that and then the day the day was really going then at that point things were really busy for several hours uh it just it was a busy friday it is it's a good feeling when you just feel like you're constantly turning around and grabbing money, grabbing T-shirts, grabbing credit cards, packing up things. It makes the day fly by.
Starting point is 00:35:31 And, yeah, that day wrapped up. And actually, Friday, we stayed at the Arnold really late. Everyone was having a really good time that night because then Chris Duffin came around and he was talking to us. And Jujimufu came over by our booth. It was funny. We were kind of closing up our booth. And all of a sudden there was a guy at the end of it in a hooded sweatshirt with his hood up.
Starting point is 00:35:54 And didn't he say something like, oh, I'm looking for the Masonomics guys or something like that? Yeah, this guy came around the corner. He goes, I'm looking for the Masonomics guys. And we're like, what? And it was Jujimufu. That's so cool. That was cool getting to really talk to him for the bassonomics guys. And we're like, what? And it was Juju Mufu. Like, that's so cool. That was cool. Getting to meet, really talk to him for the first time.
Starting point is 00:36:08 And like his security guard was there and his security guard got a real good kick out of us and all of our, like the hair. Oh yeah. Like. Thought we should be in a Norwegian metal band. Cause Lou, I think, was Lou Nutter with us then too? Lou was with us. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:21 So Lou was with us too. So all of us have this long hair. Yeah. Eddie was there. Jonathan was there at that point yeah huck finn juji mufu chris stuffin was around for a little bit too just all these people showing up and it just felt like the longer we stood there the more things started happening i think big keith was there at that time too wasn't he i think so probably yeah there was just a lot of people yeah he's giving thumbs up there there was a lot of people that were around was big mini still there yeah yeah oh yes yeah and of course uh a big big small mini is always there as well yeah um so there was just so
Starting point is 00:36:55 many people and then obsidian too you know uh basically the entire crowd was gone and all the people we knew were there and it was that was a really fun a really fun night at that point especially because everyone had been drinking for a while so it was getting pretty loose in there you know i think so let's say friday night then thursday i didn't have really any beers i guess when we went out maybe i had a few or maybe i can't remember friday night i definitely was having beers yeah thursday night we had some at dinner and then you know we had a few or maybe i can't remember friday night i definitely was having beers yeah thursday night we had some at dinner and then you know we had a couple drinks at the hotel or at that hotel bar but yeah by the end of friday convention i had almost completely lost my voice though so i almost
Starting point is 00:37:35 didn't have a voice the entire trip just from talking it got you in it got you in day basically day one and last year i was kind of worried about this because last year i remember that's the closest i've ever been in my life to losing my voice while i wasn't sick you know that's such a rare thing to just lose your voice from talking too much yeah and i was a little bit worried about this that this year but other than getting a little horse in the voice nothing nothing hit me quite as bad as it hit you i basically couldn't talk like saturday night when we went out at the bar i'm like i just stopped trying to say things because i would say things and people would just look at me and i'm like yeah you don't know what i said and yeah like there i was trying to yell i don't know if it was at matt vincent or who was
Starting point is 00:38:19 somebody that was like across the way could have been on saturday and i literally like couldn't say anything loud enough to get their attention project at all yeah i'm just like i give up uh also shane hunt was there quite a bit we got to talk to him which was a lot of fun too yeah i did i talked to shane quite a bit and uh i would say that the Shane Hunt, what would you call it, what was going on? I'd say it's pretty much meant we've mended those bridges pretty well from him ghosting us on the podcast prior. That's pretty much all been put to bed. Yep, you guys put it to bed all right.
Starting point is 00:39:02 Yeah. He was actually a very good sport. And also, the very first thing he did when I said, hey, I'm Tanner from MyAstonomics, he goes, oh, I'm so sorry. And he was actually very funny. If he could stay awake long enough, he would be a really good podcast guest. Maybe someday we're lucky, right?
Starting point is 00:39:26 Yeah. Should we do, should we do an ad break here? Actually here, let's finish up. Let's finish out. So that was Friday. What did we do Friday night?
Starting point is 00:39:35 Friday night. We went, Oh, we went to dinner with big Eddie and Lou. We went to raising canes. Yeah. And we, you,
Starting point is 00:39:43 neither you or I had had Raising Cane's before, and we were both very impressed. But maybe I think the more noteworthy thing from that visit was the customer service that that one guy was offering up. 10 out of 10. I even told him I would never normally say something, and I'm like, I had to mention how just, like, awesome his customer service was.
Starting point is 00:40:04 And this is after i had like dumped a drink out on my uh powder and stuff too yeah yeah he spilled the drink and he's lemonade all and he sabotaged me and set his lemonade right in front of my hand or something like that yeah and he was filling ice he goes is that the right amount right amount ice for you you're like uh yeah sure i was like i don't know i've never been asked that before yeah no one's ever thought to ask for that and then didn't you ask him you go wow does everyone offer this level of customer service and he goes i'd sure like to think so and i like was thinking no no they don't i know you'd like to think so because you're super nice but let me
Starting point is 00:40:39 tell you the answer no i did also i don't know if you noticed but while we were eating the booths uh you know that we were facing towards he wiped them all down cleaned them all and then when after he was done he put everything back and then went and grabbed sanitary wipes and then sanitized all the booths too i have a hard time believing the average worker in there is due going to that guy more i know and i was telling this to my wife and she goes well geez did you guys at least write a note to management so they knew about this guy? I'm like, we didn't. No, we'll talk about it on our podcast.
Starting point is 00:41:08 We'll just give him a shout out on the podcast. Yeah. You can't really, like, there's nothing much better than that. No. No. So after we went to Raising Cane's, did we go anywhere? We went to- Yeah, that's when we met up with the whole Huck Finn crew, Dan Bell, Jonathan.
Starting point is 00:41:26 Oh, yeah. And all of them at that one bar. And there was like 400 empty Coors Light bottles on the table. This is no lie. 100 plus empty Coors Light bottles sitting on the table. Yeah. Don't know why the way it stats out. They didn't need to remove those, but there was a lot sitting there.
Starting point is 00:41:42 I sat next to Dan and it's kind of giving him shit just kind of trying to literally poke the bear a little bit and dan is a dan is a fun dude and also a really good sport at joking around you know like uh the biggest power lifting total all-time and stuff but still not afraid to have a good laugh over uh really dumb jokes you know so that that was fun yep so we did that and then i think we headed her home after that didn't we yeah okay so are we gonna go to commercial break maybe before commercial break we should do a little supporting our supporting members good call so big matt you might know him because he mostly squats. Big Mac did his first strongman competition, and he got second place in the novice division. He won the deadlift and yoke event both.
Starting point is 00:42:33 So well done, Big Matt. Big Zach did a mock meet, and he had a 12.70 total. Is Big Zach, I might be crossing, getting lines crossed on that this but it's big zach the one that uh tried to come to the arnold and had all the that was that was gonna be my guess when you said big zach that's who i had pictured in my brain is that the right big zach uh but anyways he what was the do you remember his travelogue something along the lines of he the plane was trying to fly into columbus but the winds were too strong so they flew around and then ended up landing in indianapolis when he got to indianapolis
Starting point is 00:43:10 there was apparently no rental cars available so there was no way he was going to get to the arnold so he just ended up flying right back home which would be awful awful that would be terrible sucks that sucks but i guess we'll see you next year um that sucks though what a bummer the chance if that happened to us like there's like no way we'd have to get to indianapolis and buy a car and then just sell it three days later right be like do you have a three thousand dollar car we're gonna flip this thing at a loss in two days. And then also shout out supporting member. For anyone that doesn't know the supporting our supporting members segment, what it is, we have these supporting members of the Massonomics podcast,
Starting point is 00:43:54 and we like to give that back to them each week. One of the ways that we do that is through the supporting member segment where we just highlight some of the cool different stuff that they're doing, whether it's competing or could be anything that we find noteworthy other advantages that supporting members get are a discount code they get access to our discord community which is a community full of very like-minded individuals as a matter of fact over this weekend we talked about discord a lot with other companies. Actually, this is almost like a credit.
Starting point is 00:44:30 I would say this is actually a shout-out, supporting all of our supporting members. Yeah, because this is a really important point out. There was multiple business owners. Reputable big companies in the space that you would say, holy shit. I'm like, why do you even know anything about us? And they said, you know, we've heard from people that you guys have the best Discord that exists out there.
Starting point is 00:44:50 And that's not a lie. Multiple business owners said that totally unprompted. Like that was what some people led with was, it was one of the first things we said to them. They were quizzing us about like how our Discord works, like what we do in our Discord. And there was like influencers involved in there that have like many hundreds of thousands of followers that want to know like this range from from business owners that are more behind the scenes but owners of very
Starting point is 00:45:17 large companies to influencers that also have large companies but have hundreds of thousands if not a million followers asking us about this yes and everyone just said oh man your discord has a real reputation which is crazy i don't know how that's getting out but it's really awesome that it is yes um and yeah i mean there was just a lot of fun conversation about the discord that kind of caught me off guard i wasn't necessarily expecting that because i kept wanting to be like where are you hearing this from but i no one really had a real answer for us other than like uh they're just hearing it around it's just the it's just the water cooler it's the talk of the town i guess right yeah that was that was shocking and like once was kind of like okay maybe this person knows so and so better but from the fact that it came from companies that are in vastly different areas of the industry,
Starting point is 00:46:07 means that it's a real deal. So that's all, of course, because of you guys, although that's not what we told them. We told them it's just because of Tommy and I, like everything we do, that's why it's so successful. Right, yeah, we actually each have like 20 profiles we run in the Discord. We just talk to ourselves all day long.
Starting point is 00:46:23 We make up these jokes back and forth with each other uh we you're one of the davids and i'm one of the mats i'm all of the davids we're like wouldn't it be funny if we joined with like four davids and we started saying like one of the davids and we were all of the Davids. It's just almost the whole time. So also shout out to Big Chris, Chris D, and Big Eddie. We talked specifically about how to pronounce Big Chris's last name. And Chris tells me, or Eddie tells me that the G is silent in Chris's name. And I don't know if I believe that. Okay.
Starting point is 00:47:06 That'd be the weirdest silent G. That was where we were confused the first time. Because you'd think it's dam-ing-er. I don't even actually know now. But how do you even pronounce that as a silent G? Dam-inger? Like, I still hear a G. Well, but you're doing the Ming, like not the G.
Starting point is 00:47:26 You're not making the hard sound. So not silent. Yeah. Cause a silent G would be damn in her. Yeah. Okay. True. Like a true, true silent G.
Starting point is 00:47:37 Yeah. I like everyone's typing it out and they're putting the G in there. That's not, if it's a silent G, it would be damn in her. Yeah. I just think you don't say the J sound that the G makes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:49 That was my guess. Yeah, okay. But we've talked about this so many times now that sometimes just even throughout the day I think, how do you say that one guy's name? It's just a mystery that we'll never know. I've seen a lot of variations, though. I'm seeing dam-inger,illendam, Daminger, Dingalinger.
Starting point is 00:48:14 Someone from the Discord. So anyways, Big Chris, what he did was he was not at the Arnold, but he took it upon himself to like door dash us. To be there in spirit. He wanted to be there. Not only did he just door dash us food, he went way above and beyond and he created this fake bag and these fake entrees to make it all look like it came from Red Robin. It's like that actually Red Robin was a real thing that had, yeah. came from red robin it's like that actually elaborate setup that had yeah and i'm like man this uh this runs deep that they've got chris this deep on like making up this fake low make
Starting point is 00:48:53 it look like a real red robin logo and make it look like they really serve burgers and fries yeah all that to go grab a burger from the concession stand inside the Arnold. Yeah. Yeah. So we had some fake Red Robin. So apparently we ate Red Robin. Because all Red Robin is fake. Yeah. The burger, whatever that burger came from that we ate, the burger was pretty good.
Starting point is 00:49:17 The fries. The burger was good. Yeah. Had been sitting a little while. That was our bad more. So I can't give an honest evaluation. Their fries are almost wedges. Yeah, they are. It's a thicker fry.
Starting point is 00:49:29 And as long as we're supporting members, also just big shout out in particular to all of the supporting members that came to the booth. You know, of course helped out. Big Eddie, Big Minnie, both two years running kind of our our chief crew as far as
Starting point is 00:49:48 running the booth and big mini's wife for that matter uh big kevin helped out at the booth a lot this year and then i would just hate to try and name everyone but you know big nate was a lot around a lot big joey uh kevin big big kevin the big uh uh big big daniel was around a lot, Big Joey. Big Kevin. The Big Big Daniel was around a lot and helped out a little bit. Big Lou, of course. And then the Minnesota crew, the spotting and loading crew from Minnesota, a bunch of them supporting members. And this just in breaking news,
Starting point is 00:50:23 it does sound like they're rounding the troops up together. They likely will be the spotters and loaders for the Look Hard, Live Easy Classic. That would be awesome. Which is sweet. You know, if you haven't done many meets before, you might not appreciate the value of this, but these guys are like a professional pit crew
Starting point is 00:50:39 of spotters and loaders. And I don't say that as an exaggeration. They go from Minnesota to Columbus to do spotting and loading. Yeah. You don't do that on accident. Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be pretty sweet if we get,
Starting point is 00:50:52 get those guys that were involved in the spotting or loading at all. That would be amazing. Yeah. Because it just means the meat's going to go that much faster. Right. First they're going to do the world's best job, but then also the meat's going to go that much faster. So that means even more time for extracurriculars at night.
Starting point is 00:51:08 And they were talking about coming anyways, it sounds like. So might as well, if you're great at something, you might as well do it when, when you can show it off. Plus they're all fun too. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:20 Yeah. So shout out just all the other supporting, and like, I think it was uh was it big kevin was his name he like basically became a supporting member on the spot like he had been listening oh yeah i think we got like three new supporting members of all people we did there was the booth yeah there was some people really uh putting the peer pressure on and we had some guys signing up that day big. Nate was really hard selling the supporting membership to some people under
Starting point is 00:51:46 there, which is good. So yeah, shout out. And I, I know I missed a lot there. Is there any other ones that come to your mind right away of, uh,
Starting point is 00:51:54 there's a lot of supporting members that I just don't even remember. It does just get so hard because it's so overwhelming with the number of people you meet, but way more that came to the booth and specifically pointed that out this year than last year oh it was only a couple last year yeah yeah so very very cool and just um meeting all those people is so cool you know for me i can say for sure like meeting them in person is is such a fun cool thing and like big nate i think even asked me once like oh that's gotta it's gotta be kind of surreal you know you guys
Starting point is 00:52:29 started this thing of whatever it was at the time and now like there's this group of people where you do this convention in columbus ohio and you know tens 20 50 of them show out to all like big time support you. And like you meet them in person and we're all buddies and yeah, it's pretty wild. It's really fun. My response is just, uh,
Starting point is 00:52:52 it's crazy to believe just how fun it can be when something like that comes together. It's just a lot of fun. I a hundred percent agree. It's, it's hard to put into words because it doesn't seem real that people would be one interested in this sign up to be members to support this. And then also in person care enough to show up and talk to us and hang out and
Starting point is 00:53:12 do all those things. So yeah, it's things like that that do make the weekend just crazy. Yes. So thank you. Supporting members. They are. They did post a photo in the discord here of everyone at the booth.
Starting point is 00:53:24 And I'm actually that that gets used on the thumbnail for the Arnold vlog. They did post a photo in the Discord here of everyone at the booth. And I'm actually, that gets used on the thumbnail for the Arnold vlog. So if you were there, it'll be on the thumbnail too. But I did not realize it until after I was putting the thumbnail together that Key is not actually there. You know, with just a little color correction, you wouldn't know that that's fake. Whoever did that did a decent job of putting them in there. I don't know who did.
Starting point is 00:53:47 I think someone pointed out that they thought I was Photoshopped in there too, but I'm pretty sure I was really there for that. You were. I remember vividly squatting down like that and thinking, and actually Scantz, you would think if you didn't look too hard, that Scantz is actually there too. He really is kind of there. Yeah, he's really kind of there. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:07 It's not just a cardboard cutout. Yeah. All right. Should we read this ad that we've been talking about for the last 20 minutes? Yeah. Today's show is also brought to you by Texas Power Bars. Buddy Caps first started lifting weights in the late 60s
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Starting point is 00:55:23 I need your strengths, your weaknesses, and your individual differences for Juggernaut AI. Check out Juggernaut AI at juggernautai.app. Get signed up on your web browser. You can use discount code MASSANOMICS. Discount code MASSANOMICS at Juggernaut AI saves you 10% for the lifetime of your membership. If you get signed up,
Starting point is 00:55:42 saves you 10% for the lifetime of your membership. If you get signed up, you can enjoy all the great gains and progress that people like Tommy have been getting on Juggernaut AI. We've been both using it for many months now. A whole bunch of our supporting members use Juggernaut AI. A whole bunch of Mastodonics Gym members use Juggernaut AI. Let's see. One of my favorite features of it
Starting point is 00:56:06 are uh uh the tracking and the custom is customization of it of how you can uh maybe if you're having uh injuries or or equipment limitations you can still make it use usable for what you're able to do at that point in time. And then also how you can just monitor that progress over time. Tom, you're still using juggernaut AI. I'm not. I still am. No,
Starting point is 00:56:31 still am. Grant told me I'm looking bigger this year. So I don't know. I heard that from quite a few people. I don't know what more of a testimony you could ask for than right. That right there. I think there was some talk of that in the discord that, that you were looking large.
Starting point is 00:56:43 Probably 15 pounds heavier than i was last year because you know you gotta be big to get big so that's right uh what you don't want to do though is get too big all at once no no you got to save a little bit yeah you got to save some for the 2024 arnold that's what i am i should come in at a very trim 250 at the rate I'm going here. Yes. Let's gain 35 pounds between now and then. So check out juggernautai.app. Get signed up on the web browser and use discount code MASSANOMICS. Back to more Arnold talk. I was just running through the list of some supporting members we forgot to mention that we saw in person.
Starting point is 00:57:22 Big Gluck. Saw him in person. Big Kurt Locker. Big Kurt Locker. we saw in person big luck saw him in person big kurt locker big kurt locker saw him in person big uh um andrew saw him in person which big andrew uh south dakota andrew oh yeah big andrew montoya yeah yep saw him in person um big dan with the arm tattoos oh big strong man dan with all the tats hisats looked as good as ever this year. Big Emmett, saw him in person too. Big Emmett, yeah, good call.
Starting point is 00:57:52 Good call. Is somebody sending you these? No, I'm looking through the Discord member list and just trying to click. I was like, how are you remembering? Big Dan Bell was there. Yeah, wasn't there a Big Jake, but was it a Jake supporting member or not?
Starting point is 00:58:06 Because I remember you saying not Big Jake from State Farm, right? Yeah, maybe he was a supporting member. Okay. Who else? I think Big Kevin Diamond got signed up there. I think that's who that was, maybe. There was someone. I was also doing customer service there.
Starting point is 00:58:21 There was someone that had a broken mug. Oh, wait, no. I had actually already sent him. He was just thankful for our customer service. There was someone that had a broken mug or wait no i'd actually already sent him that he was just he was just thankful for our customer service there you go yeah so we got called out on excellent customer service oh malachi oh yeah big malachi anchorm yeah he's always he's there every year big malachi yeah he must have just been there on friday i never saw him again i don't think, some of the ones from Friday I kind of forget. Yes, me too. Big Malachi's a good dude.
Starting point is 00:58:49 Oh yeah, for sure. I'm looking at the list. I'm getting down there. Big Troy. I don't know if Big Troy's actually technically a supporting member, but we do see him every single year at the Arnold. Yeah, yeah, we do. It's like from the very first year. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:59:07 Big Dave, of course. Oh, yeah. Big Dave. Big North Dakota Dave. He competed at the XPC and did quite well. Big Travis from West Virginia. Oh, yeah. Big Travis and his wife.
Starting point is 00:59:20 You kind of see him every year, too. They always watch the strong man. Uh-huh. Big Travis, another good dude. It's crazy how good of people all the supporting members are. Oh, God, I know. They're all awesome. I definitely miss some people because I'm trying to go through lists as fast as I can.
Starting point is 00:59:38 Well, Big Connor, of course. We've already talked to him. Big D. Big Grant. Boy, does this list ever end yeah no it doesn't that's probably about everyone okay we probably missed you're probably there's still probably a handful of you listening that said oh those pricks forgot about me but i just got to the part where people have big in their name that's why i'm yeah yeah which is still a pretty good size list but so then on saturday saturday is always kind of the biggest day of the arnold and it's always our biggest
Starting point is 01:00:13 day for sales and uh things were flying off the old mass atomic shells which we love to see and we started to actually run low on some inventory but that's okay because we want to come back with less stuff than we took wait didn't we already do saturday i don't think so because saturday night's when we went out with like duffin and stuff like that oh you're right you're right you're right you're right yep sorry sorry okay i'm getting ahead of myself here yeah so saturday at the arnold uh friday i guess was when dan and thor did their deadlift off versus each other. They both pulled 870. Dan's looked considerably faster. And everyone said that Thor's grip was starting to slip on 870.
Starting point is 01:00:52 Insider trading info on that is that Dan would have gone heavier, but Thor did not want to go heavier because I don't think it would have been a good idea for him to go heavier on that. And Jonathan and Big Brett, Big Red, were the spotters and loaders, and Jonathan was wearing a good idea for him to go heavier on that. And, uh, Jonathan and big Brett, big red were the spotters and loaders. And Jonathan was wearing a speedo for that. Of course, because,
Starting point is 01:01:10 because of course, because why wouldn't he be? And then, uh, Saturday was the big strength code deadlift event when Gino did come and announce that, which was super cool. Uh,
Starting point is 01:01:21 a whole bunch of people, just like I knew, like, you know, they maybe had like five people lined up and then all these other strong dudes show up to get in on it just because because you're that big and strong yeah why wouldn't you in like you're getting all this attention and it's a blast why wouldn't you get on that i think uh bunch of them pulled over 800 for mini reps and
Starting point is 01:01:40 um shane hunt pulled like 900 for four i know how and that was that was sumo and that was after like earlier in the day he pulled like 815 for six conventional he's one of the few people we talk about this it doesn't happen often but he is one of the few people that in person go wow you're actually even way bigger than i thought he's big yes and he's real big he's big he's tall too i i assumed he was tall uh maybe like five eight or nine because he looks so big but no he's probably six one yeah yeah so the the strength co-event was cool i mean there was an enormous crowd there There's basically like way more people that could even physically see what was going on there, I think. And so Saturday night, we went out with the...
Starting point is 01:02:34 We had an interesting trip out to go eat with Duffin and the Barefoot group. And first, there was a furry party going on at the Arnold statue. And it was like 50 furries popped up. Oh, there was probably 50 furries and then another 50 followers with them. And you just hear, furries to the statue! And they all go up. Furries assemble! And they all go up to the statue and take their picture,
Starting point is 01:03:02 which was, that's always a sight to behold uh so that's how the night started and then shortly after that we're uh rolling with the barefoot crew and they go oh yeah yeah come up to our van they kind of joked about how yeah well we'll have to throw you in the back but it's okay whatever and then we get there so it's the barefoot crew and chris duffin because if you've listened to the massonomics ad you know that chris duffin co-founded the company with them and uh yeah we get there and it's a u-haul moving van and uh chris duffin and one of the barefoot owners were in the front and all of the rest of us were in the back no no seats or anything the cage yeah there was a cage and there was a lot of joking about chris taking us into a dark alley and doing god knows what
Starting point is 01:03:45 doing his mad scientist things to us yeah like ah this is why they call really call me the mad scientist yeah so we eventually got safely to a restaurant where we um got to talk about all types of things barefoot shoes and mass and shout out to design big joey just mentioned big shelby she's uh yes she's really the she's really the massonomics fan out of it she knows her massonomics history quite well yes she does also she great she we maybe we could call her up for a special agronomy update at some point she would know yeah so we got to talk about all types of things barefoot massonomics design marketing all that that was a lot of fun um even talked about the meat a little more too because they want to come down for the meat and
Starting point is 01:04:32 check it out talk about some big big things oh yeah we can't really talk about real big top secret things but you gotta kind of kind of be in the know to do it and uh we can't wish we could say more right now yeah we'll just leave it at that and we recorded i think every meal we ate on the trip especially when we're columbus except this one which was hilarious to me because chris duffin was sitting there with us and we didn't record that part of it yeah but uh whatever i guess you can't get them all so then they all said they were going to go back and go to bed and that was when we made our move to brothers because we knew that's kind of the that's where the who's who of the arnold expo go on saturday night is brothers that's where just everyone goes apparently yeah not even the
Starting point is 01:05:14 who's who this is where everyone goes to yeah and who do we go there who do we who's there then uh big nate and big kevin we're holding down a little spot there right away for us and then shortly after big big daniel showed up big eddie big lou uh the whole big dan bell was there yeah basically all the live large crew was there yeah oh then uh big meg squats we well yeah that was kind of on the way out but even before that wasn't there and some of the strongman guys were there too kevin ferris was in there yeah uh um oh big angelo we talked yeah we talked to angelo too we got tucked angelo in there yeah and then we just ran into so many people that stopped by the booth too during the day that we might not have known that well they they come over came over and talked to us some more so uh it really did feel like we were just at the bar
Starting point is 01:06:05 in Aberdeen actually even when I go to the bar in Aberdeen that many people don't talk to me and this is this is a very large bar too because it was so there's all the all the Arnold people there then there's all of the whole I'm assuming college Ohio State crew fans students there and then there was the their Mls soccer team had just gotten done with the game so then all the soccer people start coming in so it was a happening place it was it was really fun it was and then cool beans right yeah it was very cool beans and then on our way out we didn't stay till closing no we didn't and then hurting you lose started buying shots of tequila and uh I took one.
Starting point is 01:06:45 And that was kind of shortly after that. You're like, we should probably go now. And it is really good. You stopped me when you did. It's like I had one foot off the edge of the cliff. And the other one was just ready to go. And you kind of pulled me back. You pulled me off the edge.
Starting point is 01:07:00 I'm six feet from the edge. I was feeling like Scott Stapp up in there. I was ready to just go nuts but uh you brought me back to reality which the next morning was so the right move because i i was even still i was rough the next oh i was sunday i'm like oh at that time i was ready to be up till three in the morning i'm just like yep we're doing this when we basically were one step away from three in the morning you know like that uh that analogy is very accurate that it was just that close to it yeah and so we started walking out and then we
Starting point is 01:07:32 saw the uh the buff chick crew and meg squats and ryan and they said oh we gotta get our picture we never get a picture because that's just every year we talk to them and every year we say the same thing wow we didn't get a picture with them again. And so we got a picture with them at the bar that night. Yeah. We bailed out of there, got home, fell asleep, and woke up the next day. And I was so glad that we did not have a single more drink or stay up a minute later. I don't know if it was this late or not, but if you watch it on video, you can see this. But Tommy fell asleep like this one night in his bed where i looked over actually like almost every night that you
Starting point is 01:08:09 fell asleep like mid because you can't look well you i know i actually i did yes i because i think the very first night i told you i think i was talking to you and i just fell asleep and you're like yeah you pretty much mid-conversation just quit talking to me, and I realized you were sleeping then. Yeah. I cannot fall asleep as quickly as you do. You can fall asleep, like, on the drop of a dime. When I'm tired, like, tired, tired. That's, when I'm really tired, yes, I can fall asleep so fast. Like, within, I can, like, knowingly go from consciousness to not being there in probably less than 10 seconds.
Starting point is 01:08:47 It's mere mortals would kill to have the ability to fall asleep that fast. We're just like, no, I'm sleeping now. Yeah, I couldn't even really tell you. I remember falling asleep any nights on this trip because we just, we'd get there. The second I'd lay down, just we were talking or it was like basketball and TV and then boom,
Starting point is 01:09:04 just all right. I wake up. I'm not used to going like 14 hours straight without checking anything. Well, and that was so. Yeah. So you can't look at your phone all day because it doesn't work in the Arnold. And then when you're not in the Arnold, you're doing something. So you get back to the room and you're trying to catch up on Instagram, Discord, look at
Starting point is 01:09:20 some emails because I do still have a life going on outside of Masonomic stuff. And so then you just pass out with your phone in your hand every single night. And then Sunday woke up Sunday. This was Sunday. Feel like he did brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack. That would have made me puke. That probably the saddest thing of the entire trip. We really thought we were going to get Waffle House in.
Starting point is 01:09:47 There was one almost across the street from our hotel, but the way scheduling worked out, that was really the only thing on our to-do list that we did not manage to accomplish. That was my second biggest regret outside of not getting to get homeless a drink. Right. Yeah, that goes without saying that uh homeless yeah we wanted
Starting point is 01:10:06 homeless to get a drink he did not get his drink but besides that waffle house would take second place for the next most upsetting thing that happened all weekend but it was just a very full uh it's just a very full weekend you know there's just not even enough extra space for waffle house was there no there was not no we didn't have a single second to spare at any point in the weekend we had it so packed and we're always uh hotel buddies with um uh brian carroll yeah brian carroll brian carroll and i'll always stay at the same hotel which is fun because now we're we always brian always stops by the booth and we always bs with him at
Starting point is 01:10:45 breakfast and him and his crew of uh scary looking guys they're not scary but they just uh you know they're all very large and yeah rough big you know old school power lifters but it is funny every year it's like uh talking to brian carroll at the hotel yeah and we ran into him at the arnold once too didn't we yeah he stopped by the booth before and it was funny the first night they were like yeah i suppose brian's here this year and then yep we didn't say well if he is i'm sure we'll run into him yeah yeah we did uh yeah sunday is always way more low-key everyone's uh just trying to survive at that point the crowd's much smaller but it was it was a fun Sunday. It was good. I'm trying to think of anything actually during the day stuck out as being noteworthy.
Starting point is 01:11:31 That's when all the strongmen come by. Yeah. That's when Trey stopped by for a little bit. Oh, what's the guy from Ukraine? or yeah is he from ukraine or where he's from yeah he's from ukraine i'm pretty sure yeah whole he came with because bobby thompson came by the booth and you know bobby set up for like an hour and a half and signed autographs and stuff like that and to me it was really cool because it's kind of the first time we've had someone like that where they're at the massonomics booth and there was
Starting point is 01:12:05 like a line for him there of people that wanted to meet him and get his picture get their picture with him and have him sign sign belts and stuff like that and pavlo came with him and pavlo is so crazy yeah pavlo is huge like just the craziest build. I don't know. It's just wild, like shaking his hand too. I'm like, what is that thing at the end of your arm? He is so – all of the strongmen are large. Yes.
Starting point is 01:12:37 And they all do have a frame that's built different than anyone you'll meet. But even within their ranks – Bobby and Trey are both huge. Even within their ranks, even within their ranks there are guys that are even built even more different yeah and pablo is up there at the top of the list with guys right now that just does not make sense with the way he's put together no and i think you mentioned this we forgot to mention this big z came by booth. Yes. Big Z came by and got him. My other one regret is we were out of the Strongman tee.
Starting point is 01:13:09 Of course. 4X and 3X because he wanted that. And I'm like, damn it. We can't give that to Big Z. So he took a lift tee instead, I think. Yeah. Which is nothing wrong with that. No. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:13:18 See, it's just, he doesn't even look real when you see him either because you get so used to seeing him in photos and videos for all the years that when you finally meet him in person like that is even like smaller big z you can just tell you like oh that okay you look like that that's why and this and this is you when you're probably 50 to 80 pounds off your peak i'm assuming yes yes um is that about it for sunday then too we shut it down right yeah got to meet a bunch of up like we always pack up like wild men uh we do and the crew helps out big time even some people around us really comes in clutch if you ask me like the packing up because we need to get a lot done in a short amount of time that's when all the all hands
Starting point is 01:14:03 on deck crew is really helpful even the other booths were helping a little bit with some of our stuff obsidian was helping out and sunday's also fun because everyone with all the booths is like giving each other care packages like yeah hey here's a gift for you here's a gift for you and everyone's just giving each other a bunch of free stuff which is a lot of fun yeah and i always get equipment we always get equipment for the gym. Yeah, so we got excited because we sold so much stuff that we're going home with significantly less boxes. But then Tanner gets all these equipment.
Starting point is 01:14:33 Loads up with thousands of pounds of equipment. Yeah, so we probably actually came back with more weight. For sure we came back with the trailer weighing heavier than we went, but there were several more boxes in there than when we started, too. And for more on that, we are, I think, going to have a little YouTube video went but uh there was there were several more boxes in there than when we started to and uh for more on that i we are i think going to have a little youtube video where it's like the equipment hall of everything that uh came back from from the arnold you know some straight co stuff bells of steel a lot of good stuff in there uh several had three new barbells uh all kinds of cool stuff and like 20 bottles of ammonia from obscene yeah 20 bottles ammonia a bunch more apparel
Starting point is 01:15:12 so then we got we immediately get on there like we pull out of there and uh it's always the best feeling like getting out of there and just getting onto the highway too like oh yeah we're out of there yep and to also have the weather not be pouring rain or snowing or something just smooth sailing out of there is nice yeah like um we drove till midnight and you know driving at i've never had drive at driving at night feel quite so comfortable and as that was where i'm like oh man it feels like we could just drive forever it did and you kind of wanted to keep going yeah so we we got out of there i think we're out of there by six o'clock weren't we yes i think maybe even on the road by 5 30 yeah and we
Starting point is 01:15:57 we drove until midnight like we didn't even we didn't stop we didn't stop and get actual dinner we just grabbed something at the gas station and kept going and uh yeah we we there was basically no breaks we just drove and drove and where did we stop was it like it was south of cedar rapids or south of waterloo yeah were we we were just about to iowa yeah so we stopped just short of the iowa border um which made the next day nice because it's funny when you show up at a hotel well okay two things here two things so we go to the hotel and when we when we go when we're doing it like this and we don't know we're going to end up usually we'll just drive to whatever we think is the nice hotel typically you know there's several in the area so if one doesn't have room it's no big deal but you drive to whatever's the nice hotel we just say hey can
Starting point is 01:16:47 we get a room like we're not going to go through all the things online a booking and all that when you just walk in and do it right there and when we're showing up at close to midnight you know you don't have to wait for anyone it's ready to go so we show up the guy is doing god knows what whatever he's doing and I'll tell you this. You meet the strangest people when you check into hotels on the road at like midnight, late night. Yeah. But then also you think about, well, who would work at those jobs?
Starting point is 01:17:13 And it makes sense. So the guy's nice. Yep. He was nice and friendly and everything. Asked for the room. Okay. Yeah. Yep.
Starting point is 01:17:22 And he goes, okay, I can a king-size bed for you for 127 like uh do you have two queens uh let me check yeah uh the fact that he has one it was like 10 more dollars so just the fact that he assumed we needed one bed together well neither of you know you told him like uh do you have any queens? And neither of us said anything, and we're walking back out once we get it arranged. And both of us immediately were like, why would you assume we want one king bed? Even if you didn't know, you'd think someone would say, I can get if you don't want to offend someone by assuming they want separate beds, but you would still think the options would be, okay, I have a king for this and a queen for this.
Starting point is 01:18:03 You give them the option, don't you? You just told rather just only was going to tell us about the one king bed yeah because i thought for sure when he led with that he was going to say that was all that was left but oh no no there was totally queen-size beds in the room was a few more dollars and for ten dollars i would i'll take the uh separate beds uh and i mean there was four other hotels right there so even if that's all that was there we wouldn't have had to stay there but yeah that's just that's what he wanted to lead with and he gave us a very he went into the very long sales pitch on the breakfast which if you stay at a holiday and express it's the same breakfast at every holiday and express but this guy went into great detail going down the list and it was he was doing like slow talking like reading off like reciting a list from memory like basically what we're doing
Starting point is 01:18:50 talking about the crew members that were all at the arnold he's like yeah there's you know i think it's uh sausage gravy and uh you know turkey sausage or or pork you know whatever they're making sausage on uh you know and if you don't want anything hot, there's cold items. Then he runs through those. Yeah, and he's almost done, and he's like, oh, yeah, cereal too. Like cereal had escaped him. He wanted to make sure we knew there was cereal on the breakfast line.
Starting point is 01:19:18 But then it all ended with him being, you know, telling us that breakfast starts at 630, and we were getting up at five so none of that mattered at all but we weren't going to bother to tell them that because i'm sure there'd be another story to go with it so see how we check it's always an odd concept though when you check into a hotel room at midnight and then you leave at five like you pay you remember the guy last year maybe it was in kansas city where he was telling talking to us about pro wrestling that was in indianapolis where he talked way too long
Starting point is 01:19:45 and he kept saying it was pretty nice. Everything was pretty nice. That's what it was. Yeah, it was pretty nice. We walked away and he goes, you know, I've never heard anyone refer to Triple H as pretty nice or whatever he's talking about. He's like, yeah, it was pretty nice.
Starting point is 01:20:03 It started with, oh yeah, I bought WrestleMania. I got the pay-per-view and it was pretty nice yeah it started with oh yeah i got i bought wrestlemania i got the pay-per-view and it was pretty nice pretty nice and uh yeah yeah triple h came out and yeah it was pretty nice everything was pretty nice it just kept going on and on pretty nice oh never oh that'll make me laugh forever thinking about him saying everything's pretty nice and how long he went into professional wrestling when all you want to do is get out of there yeah because he thought we were professional wrestlers what's the thing that's what it was actually or something like that yeah he thought we were in town for a pro wrestling thing and he said oh he goes well i see you guys your picture is on your shirt there because you were wearing the podcast shirt so yeah it's pretty nice
Starting point is 01:20:47 yeah so we got into our hotel room we got out of there at basically five in the morning and we're on the road and at this point i was getting pretty damn tired it was uh yeah it was it had been a very very long trip uh it was an uneventful ride and i think i was back in i think it was back in sioux falls like one o'clock wasn't i yeah 1 30 i think there is no snow on this entire trip until you cross the south dakota border and then by the time you get to sioux falls there's feet of snow and anywhere just like a little bit south of there like it none of iowa there is any snow no nothing and it was like i don't even think sioux city had anything did they it was like 50 degrees warmer in ohio than it was is in south dakota and like i don't know about all this midwest ohio talk
Starting point is 01:21:37 if it's gonna be that warm and like i don't even know if it ever snows there for how nice it was. I'm not sure if it's ever snowed in Ohio. Their winters are so mild. Yes. Even Illinois and Indiana and Iowa. Yeah. I think the whole time, basically once we left South Dakota, I don't know if we ever saw temps under 50 degrees. It might have been that one night when it was cold and rainy in Ohio.
Starting point is 01:22:03 That might have been the only time it ever got, but otherwise it was 50 plus degrees the entire trip, which it was really nice. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, so then I made it most of the way back until,
Starting point is 01:22:17 uh, you know, go the North South road. We're just fine. It was just, uh, when I had to go West into Western Northeast, put in the West and Western Northeast, South Dakota, the, that entire road, the, because of the direction, fine it was just uh when i had to go west into western northeast putting the west in western
Starting point is 01:22:25 northeast south dakota that that entire road because the direction the wind was blowing was snow and ice covered the entire way so it was you know the last uh what should take like an hour and a half it took like two and a half hours or whatever it did take that long oh yeah i was going like 45 or 50 and that that was pushing it, honestly. Oh. Like, there was a lot of really slow-moving traffic. It was bad. It was, I mean, it was constantly, you know, it was the entire road from Summit to Aberdeen was bad.
Starting point is 01:23:01 Mm-hmm. But I did make it just before dark, and that's what I kept wanting to do. I'm like, if I could make it just before dark and that's what I kept wanting to do. I'm like if I could just get home before dark because I don't want to be in the ice with the trailer in the dark. I think I said it on the trip even if I can just eliminate one of those variables
Starting point is 01:23:17 I feel a little bit better about it. Made it back. Then like that's where the fun starts because that's when all the unpacking goes on unpacking is brutal after especially after all of those things we just talked about it that's when the unpacking sucks so like i started that process monday night and then finished it last night, Tuesday night, basically. So the Arnold is really, and I started packing like last Monday. It's like over a week long from start to finish, you know,
Starting point is 01:23:56 to get the whole thing from packing to unpacking is over a week long. Someone asked how many shirts we sold. I think we sold all of them every last one of them we did sell more than we did last year yeah which is good news and we i would say we were we were we were we were very happy with it actually what i told uh you know what we talked about is like i could maybe give it like a b plus ish letter grade because it was very good. But, you know, it wasn't like our wild high water mark numbers that we thought we could possibly happen if it was a perfect storm. Yeah. So it leaves room for improvement. Right. For sure. Sky's the limit. We can only go up from here.
Starting point is 01:24:41 And part of that also was I mean, we you could always sell more if you had unlimited inventory, you know, there's always a thing of sizing that really hit us on the last day. I think we ran out of bench shirts and a couple other styles. Yeah. Around basically first thing Sunday morning. Yeah. So that,
Starting point is 01:24:59 uh, lift jorts too. Those were also, Oh, jorts were a hot item, a really hot commodity we were out of sizing on those some of them we didn't even have sizes in the first place but then we ran out of some sizes also on sunday so sunday everyone wanted to talk about the jorts they did yeah
Starting point is 01:25:15 people were really with that actually surprised us how much people were into those but if we got to we got to meet the uh rascal jorts model Yep, the guy that's in all of their ads with that curly mustache. Yep, got to see him in person. I was actually talking. It was me, one of the Bells of Steel owners, and him in a circle, and I didn't know who he was. And we were talking, and then I looked at him. I was like, you know, I really like your mustache.
Starting point is 01:25:40 That's a really good mustache. He was like, oh, thanks. And he was really friendly. And then we were talking more, and I like gosh you look familiar and he's like he's like yeah i'm the uh rascal uh and this is after we we kind of been talking shop for a little while he's like yeah i'm the rascal guy in the ads and i go oh and then i'm like oh you know who i am then he's like yeah i do and uh and then we your discord precedes you yeah yes and uh we had uh um a good talk about the jorts and he was a very good sport i would say and uh we did get him in a pair of massonomics jorts and i think he's on team
Starting point is 01:26:22 massonomics jorts now he's i got him to admit that we actually changed, we were the ones that changed the game. So I think that that should be put to bed. Yeah, and that our shorts pop even harder. Yes, yes. Is that it? Does that wrap up the Arnold? I think so.
Starting point is 01:26:40 We got back. Yeah, that was probably everything. So that was the Arnold yeah I got to put together the Arnold recap video which was fun because it felt like I got to relive the last couple days again Arnold all over again I've got a special little over
Starting point is 01:26:56 under segment for us here you're familiar with overrated underrated Tommy? people don't realize this we actually played this game for 12 straight hours on the way there. We just repeat just topic after topic. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 01:27:09 Mostly everything that's in this we have talked about it, but you haven't had to put an actual over or under on each one yet, so we'll force the issue. Overrated or underrated? 21 beer salutes. I don't think I've ever actually witnessed a 21 beer salute in person. And the way I saw a crowd gather around and the ready aim fire with the beer, I think it's underrated.
Starting point is 01:27:33 I just don't see those being put to use as often as they probably should be. Yeah, I didn't realize that it was going to be like forcing, like he was going to make everyone dump the beer all over their faces and bodies. Yeah, make sure you watch that part of the video when everyone's just pouring beer all over their faces and bodies yeah make sure you watch that part of the video when everyone's just pouring beer all over their faces it was pretty funny yeah yeah so i think matt vincent even went in went over there and got in on it yeah 21 beer salute definitely uh not used as much as it should be in in remembrance of people yeah still my one regret is not getting to get homeless a drink, but still good.
Starting point is 01:28:07 Overrated or underrated, Raisin Canes. Not the California Raisins. Why were we talking about that? I think because of that, Raisin. No, no, no. Someone goes, oh, you're talking about Raisin Canes, and someone goes, that's my dog's name. And I go, Raisin? And they go, yeah.
Starting point is 01:28:28 The cane. I'm being dumb. And they're like, no. I think it was Lou, wasn't it? No. Was it them or was it the Barefoot people? I thought it was Lou and Eddie. Oh, yes, yes.
Starting point is 01:28:38 It was. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. Yes. Rode in so many back seats of vehicles the last track. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:28:43 Yeah. I think it was Lou's. Like, that's my dog's name i go raisin yeah no it's cane uh and then we were talking about all the california raisins are just these shriveled up ball sack of a mascot yeah uh boy that one's tricky because i think they're rated pretty high but they also don't really exist in our sphere. So because of that, I think I'm going to say they're underrated. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the chicken there. Oh, I saw them talking about it.
Starting point is 01:29:15 Also, don't forget from the Arnold, the craziest thing I saw is Nick from Live Large and myself got a picture with that woman with the largest boobs I have ever seen in my life. I would be absolutely shocked if you told me someone has bigger boobs than this in the world uh I'm trying to think of how like it's actually comparable you know the medicine balls you sit on not even medicine balls what are those things called like the exercise balls that people sit on right it's like she has like two I'm not exaggerating she has like two of those on her
Starting point is 01:29:42 chest yeah so look for the picture is it on did you post it on instagram or is it yeah it's on it's on instagram like one of the posts from the arnold you'll see if you start seeing arnold posts and uh this meme that one of the davids made is funny where i that was maybe the hardest i laughed at a meme the entire weekend yeah there's the picture that is crazy and i like when people see that and they go is that real it's like well define real yeah like yes physically it's there it was like uh it was like nick was there he's like you gotta come see this and i went and looked i'm like what the frick is going on and i i saw her
Starting point is 01:30:26 walk by um because we're by the the door to the entrance you know so i saw her walk by and then when you came back and told me i knew exactly what you were talking about did you know that uh you know she's on the internet this week wearing like a huck finn build the chest fuck the rest i didn't see that picture yeah he had that uh i think he posted it on his on his instagram which is hilarious that that's uh that he got that shirt for her that's that's smart that's good i'm sure he sold some of those today because of that yes overrated or underrated brothers i think brothers is underrated it's it's fun i had a great time there there's apparently a whole chain of those things,
Starting point is 01:31:06 which I wanted to look because I could have swore there was one in Minneapolis that I've been to before. I don't know if they're as good as the Columbus one. Probably not. Brothers Columbus. Let's see. Brothers Bar and Grill. Well, they had the whole list of all the banners
Starting point is 01:31:28 that all the locations are in, you know? Okay, here we go. Locations, locations, locations. Oh, come on. Okay. We got Bloomington, Columbus, Denver. How do you say it? Euclair in Wisconsin. Fort Collins, Indianapolis. That's where Menard started. Oh, yeah, yeah. bloomington columbus denver how do you say it euclare in wisconsin fort collins indian
Starting point is 01:31:46 menard started oh yeah yeah eau claire was okay there okay iowa city lacrosse lawrence lincoln lone tree milwaukee newport south bend west lafayette okay maybe not minneapolis but um i think they had a good vibe it's's very comparable to the, it's bigger, but it's comparable to the zoo, you know? Yeah. It's just, there's a big bar, no frills, nothing fancy. They just got loud music, get a drink, and there's a lot of people there.
Starting point is 01:32:19 Get a drink, but you can't give homeless a drink. But you cannot give homeless a drink. Okay. Yeah, Brothers Underrated. a drink but you can't give homeless a drink but you cannot give homeless a drink okay uh yeah brother's underrated last one and i don't know if you know where this is headed or not but maybe the most important arnold topic on over under overrated or underrated the arnold bathrooms the arnold bathrooms wow overrated or underrated wow well they're rated so lowly that it'd be hard to say uh with that actually if i'm going to come in with a fresh perspective i'm going to say that they are underrated because this year was the first time that i not once during the weekend went into the bathroom and there wasn't multiple inches of water on the floor, you know, they kept them.
Starting point is 01:33:07 They also, I think there was a guy in there every single time, either cleaning the mirrors, the sinks, the floor. I mean, something was putting paper towels in. So maybe they heard,
Starting point is 01:33:19 maybe they saw the memes and they were bullied into putting more effort in. But yeah, the, this year was, I think the best I ever saw the bathroom still wouldn't say they were good but it was the best i ever saw the bathrooms for sure i'm probably most excited about what we could do as far as arnold bathrooms go in 2024 i think we could really take this arnold bathroom thing to the next level the sky's the limit i believe check out mass dynamics booth 201 conveniently located next to the bathroom the best
Starting point is 01:33:47 part is still a hundred feet from the bathroom conveniently located just down the hall from the bathrooms just like all the booths just like the other 12 booths between us in the bathroom
Starting point is 01:34:03 probably like 35 booths that are all definitively closer to the bathroom than ours just anything in the front row by our logic is conveniently located next to the bathroom and is that even convenient no not really um yeah stay tuned for maybe some Arnold bathroom specials in 2024 take this Arnold bathroom to places never seen before good news
Starting point is 01:34:33 Tommy it looks like you passed over under this week good good good true massonomics fashion and speaking of true massonomics fashion have you ever had shoulder pain what shoulder pain? What shoulder pain? You've got it, and Spud Inc. can fix it. They teamed up with Donnie Thompson, who we have before talked to at the Arnold,
Starting point is 01:34:54 as well as Mr. Spud himself, who we've talked to at the Arnold. They teamed up with Donnie Thompson to create the bow tie. So no matter what, if you're a lifter wanting to prevent pain and injury or a desk worker like me, who's tired of coming home in pain after a long day at the office, we have your solution. Get bow tied. They've got the bow tie team sports pack where you can get multiple bow ties all in one, or of course they've got their bow tie casual and my personal favorite, the bow tie formal. Bow tie is only $60. It can
Starting point is 01:35:30 be found at spud-ink-straps.com. If you order $75 or more, you get free shipping on all domestic orders. Make sure to let them know that you're good. Good buddies at Mastodon Accentia when you go get your bow tie from Spud Inc. Thank tie from Spud Inc.
Starting point is 01:35:46 Thank you, Spud Inc. Okay. Does that fully wrap up our Arnold discussion for 2023? I think so. Did we miss anything crucial? Probably. Yes. Bobby Thompson got third at the Arnold Strongman.
Starting point is 01:36:07 Mitchell Hooper won it. I think mateusz was back and got second and then big trey i think got fourth funny story from big trey he was telling us about his home gym that he's working on he said he uh bought a new or a used rack from someone on facebook marketplace and he went and picked it up you know maybe it was a couple hour drive or something he went with his dad to pick it up and I asked him oh did the guy know who you were he's like no he didn't have any idea yeah and he's like but my dad likes to brag about me so he made sure to tell him though yeah but it is a funny thought do you know who this is yeah yeah you sell your equipment and one of the strongest people in the world comes to pick it up yes yes i did think that was kind of a funny story that was good uh it was a wild weekend with uh huck finn and karen and his whole crew around uh you know mackie boss man
Starting point is 01:36:54 um the white george foreman white george foreman uh cowboy cam was there of course and huck finn drinks a lot you know he gets put to bed pretty early because he drinks so much during the day he doesn't stay up very late um big keith was talking about huck finn saying what's up to him in the morning i i did hear that one time i could have sworn he said honey cock i thought he called me Keith Honeycock. Probably did. It would sound just like something that would flow out of Finn's mouth. And I even went away with a
Starting point is 01:37:33 shirt. This commemorative shirt here. I partied with Huck Finn Barbell. Does this mean you're officially an alpha now? Alpha. It was fun. Alphas. Ready.
Starting point is 01:37:49 Aim. Fire. Fire. Fire. Ah. Okay. Do we bring this one on home? I think we can bring it on home.
Starting point is 01:38:03 Let's bring it on home. Make sure to head over to the Mastodonomics shop. We brought everything home with us that we didn't sell at the Arnold, so we're pretty well. We've got decent stock on most items still. We're having to reorder a few tees that we kind of sold all the way out of. But please, maybe you weren't able to get to the Arnold, but you still want to support us. Get over there and grab something from our shop.
Starting point is 01:38:22 Tees, hats, shorts, lift shorts, if you could ever consider affording those, which most of you probably can't. We've got all that available. The classic drink spotter is for sale on our website. You can never beat drink safety. It's as important as ever, if you ask me. So check out the drink spotter on our site. There may be something more along those lines coming this month.
Starting point is 01:38:43 If you were paying attention at the Arnold, you have the inside scoop yeah could very well be we do have our seven year podcast anniversary coming up about the end of this month so stay tuned for something exciting revolving around that seven year anniversary seven years of podcasting we'll pull out something special for that, of course. Lucky number seven. Lucky number seven. And then make sure to please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. We really, really need to quickly hit that 500 mark because we've got something big planned in association with that 500th review. So please make sure to leave us a five-star review if you haven't yet.
Starting point is 01:39:32 Talking to all the people at the Arnold, I know there's a whole bunch of people that have just started listening within the last six months. I'm guessing a lot of you haven't left us a review yet, so please leave us one of those reviews. We would love. I think we're at like 478 so we only need a few more to hit 500 and we will read it uh we will read it some year you know we will get to reading yours it could be like five years from now but we'll probably still be podcasting so
Starting point is 01:39:56 we'll read it eventually when we're trying to get to a thousand or something that's right so uh people are asking if i've seen lucky number 11 have. I actually saw the movie in the theater. So take that. The number of times at the Arnold I heard someone say, has Tommy seen it? Yeah. Many, many, many times. And I could have swore people were just making up movies,
Starting point is 01:40:15 Eddie especially. They're just saying words and then saying, have you seen it? And not only have I not seen it, I've never even heard of that movie before. So Eddie was throwing the tough ones out there. So maybe we'll get to more, has he seen it next week on the Massanomics podcast? heard of that movie before. So Eddie was throwing the tough ones out there. So maybe we'll get to more. Has he seen it next week on the Massanomics podcast? I didn't get to give myself my cool beans.
Starting point is 01:40:36 Okay, there. Now I can go to bed peacefully tonight. Be able to rest easy. Yeah, people were worried about that, I could tell. You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but nobody really cares about that. Just please make sure to follow Mastonomics at Mastonomics.
Starting point is 01:40:52 Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and subscribe on YouTube. See you. See you. We'll see you next time.

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