Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Boxed Up on Boxing Day

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Happy new year! The guys discuss the utility of New Year's Day, lists in theory, and the ups and downs of Daniel's attempt to buy a home. Plus, remembering Denzel Washington in John Q and a PSA from Soren about Pinatas.Thanks to RocketMoney for sponsoring this episode. RocketMoney.com/qq.  Reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money.

I've got a quick quick question for you alright I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick quick question for you alright The answer's not important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? How did you get? How could I be if you remember? What about some word or two? Who got a week's on?

Oh forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here Hey everybody, hey everybody, it feels good to be here. I'm happy, I'm positive. New year, new me.

New year, new me. I just got back from a big drive. I'm not going to complain about it. I'm not going to complain that all morning I've been building team you Legos that don't fit together. New year, new me. Things are good. Thanks to Rocket Money for supporting our podcast.

Rocket Money will quickly and easily identify your subscriptions for you so you can stop paying for the ones you don't want. Stop throwing away your money. Cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash qq. Yeah, yeah.. I mean, it has to be option two, because everything that would get you to where you want to be as a human is closed today. So you're like, ah, my hands are tied.

I got to eat all these leftover things that I made over the last few days. And oh, I only have beer in my fridge. Well, that's fine. I don't, that's fine. That's fine. I'll drink that all day. Yeah. Well, get rid of it.

Maybe yeah, this today is the cathartic day. Today is the day where like, you're not going to, I mean, you're going to enjoy it, but you're not going to say you're going to enjoy it when you're getting rid of all the stuff in the house that you need to get rid of. Where you're like, well I can't possibly work this way and I look at all these shows that I need to get done before I'm allowed to go work out. Let's just get those out of the way. Let's kick it off. I would do a thing where I wouldn't watch it. Yeah. New Year to me.

As I'm driving, I frequently will be like think, just think of movies that I haven't seen and be like, Oh, I would like to see that at some point. Cause you know, from the cracked curse is that you know everything that happens in every movie because you were aware of it. And even though you haven't seen it, and it's like, I'll be sitting in the car and be like, damn it, I never saw that. I would really like to see that. And then I'll like put a mental note on and then I will never remember that mental note until

the next time I'm driving. And then I'm like, fuck, I want to see that movie. And so there was one that was really, really grating on me. And I was like, damn it, there's a movie. What is it? There's a movie I really want to watch. And then it took on like this whole, it transcended like the realm of just genuinely wanting to watch it too.

I need to see this. You know what it ended up being? The weird Al Yankovic movie. It's so hard. Pretty excited. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Not quite over the hump. Yeah. Colleen, because we actually had some time away from our kids, we talked to each other

a lot. And she played this very fun game with me, which was at dinner. She's like, okay, what's my favorite movie? And it wasn't like, hey, here's a quiz for you. Let's see if you get it right. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go with the movie. And she was like, okay, I fun game with me, which was at dinner. She's like, okay, what's my favorite movie? And it wasn't like, hey, here's a quiz for you. Let's see if you get it right.

She didn't know. She was like, you got to tell me what my favorite movie is. And I was like, okay, let's go through like, what do I know you that you like? And like, I'm going through all these films in my head. And then I would say one, she'd be like, no, that's good. But I don't think Bridesmaids is my favorite. And I'd be like, okay, okay. You know where we got finally, where we landed? This is a real dark horse entry. Remember the Titans. Yeah. So she is, she's a, she really likes like her wheelhouse are sports movies

that have a political message. There was that spring box one, Matt Damon one, where he's a South African rugby player who met Nelson Nelson Mandela. Invictus. Uh, she loved that movie. I've not movie came and went and no one said a thing about it, but it is one of her favorite movies. Yeah.

Yeah. Kevin Spacey. Yeah, Kevin Spacey is fine, but Brad Pitt. We do not like Brad Pitt. Yeah. It's because, yeah, it's like, it is like across the board, like a pretty easy good movie to watch. It's fun. Denzel Washington's kicking some ass in it. And I will if it's on TV, I'm gonna watch that movie.

So I'm like, you know what, this is exactly what this is what you want in a movie. You want to movie. Yeah. What on earth is John Q? Oh, cool. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, I think you're gonna find Daniel that that would be an even more popular movie today. I don't think there's reasons like it's too soon. I think everyone's in the mood for that right now.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, probably not. You're probably right. Yeah. Yeah. I, she, it was Remember the Titans. We also played this really fun game in the car where we were outside of any sort of terrestrial radio.

Our car could not receive anything from the normal radio. And so we turned to Sirius and we did a 90s on nine quiz where basically we listened to 90s on nine and we hit it, the little display. So you had to guess who the band was, what their name was, and when the album was released. Now I get names of stuff wrong all the time. Just like I'm a mom at heart and Colleen is a genuine mom. And so this is just a breeding ground of misinformation. This test, she's actually nailing the dates,

but her and me with names, it would come up, a song would come up and it would be like, I wish that you would step out from that ledge, my friend. I'd be like, fucking, it's Oasis. I got it, it's Oasis. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I know. Now. But I was like, yeah, that's Oasis. That's for sure Oasis. And she's like, oh yeah. And I was like, okay, but when did, when did Wonderwall come out? Cause like, this is going to be on the same

album. We just like. Well, it's because she has those albums were out, she's listening to them on the radio, like when they came out and they got their most airtime. And she can do that like her own personal history and figure out what she was doing at the time when that song was playing. I see, yeah. Yeah. I would imagine you're good at that. Okay. Yeah. It was pretty eye-opening, the ones that we would get wrong because it was true that there's a period of time where I listened to terrestrial radio.

It was in the like mid middle school and then into high school a little bit and had like a good understanding of what songs were by who. And then like we tried to play this in a 2k like a pop 2k version. And I did not know shit because I was in college and the poppy music that was on was only music that I would hear at parties. I was not seeking it out. And so I was like, I don't know any of this. I wonder what happened.

It'll be fun to like figure out where you were Popcake because you were working it cracked. She should have. Yeah. Here was the other really eyeopening thing for both my wife and I is that we'd be playing this game and they'd be like hooting the blowfish. Got it. We'd be like Dave Matthews or whatever like was coming out. We're like nailed it, nailed it, nailed it. And then we get to a hip hop song

and we both be like, we're an R&B song. We'll be like, um, oh, you know, I didn't even know. Honestly, I thought this was later because the first time I heard it was college. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Somebody just posted recently about like, do you know, not Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but the Traveling Wilburys, which is Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, another guy. When you listen to them as a kid,

what? Look at us. When you listen to them as a kid, it was like, oh, all these old guys, like, isn't this at the end of their career? They've all gotten together to do like one last thing together. You go through and you look at the ages of these guys when they did the

traveling Wilbur stand, it's going to fuck you up. It's going to hurt you. It's going to hurt you. Roy, Roy Orbison is younger than you are now. And he was the oldest of all of them. Yeah. Oh, it's rough, man. That's the whole point. That's the point of the movie. Hey, it's the start of a new year, which means that you are currently making your New Year's promises to yourself.

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RocketMoney.com slash QQ, RocketMoney.com slash QQ. Should we do, should we do a quick question? Should we do the show? Yeah, give me some more of that information about this move. You are not the one who is the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one.

You are the one who is the one who is the one. You are the one who is the one who is the one. Yeah. Isn't that how it always is? You're not getting a paycheck and now you've got to buy a million dollar thing. Yeah, which was also fairly recent.. Yes. Yeah, and also nothing better than putting in some self-imposed deadlines on yourself while you're an escrow for a house. That's a cool, that's a very good idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And also just to distract yourself from the fact that you're living in an unoccupied house which is like one of the most depressed with holes in the walls and stuff. It's awful. And also just to distract yourself from the fact that you're living in an unoccupied house, which is like one of the most depressed with holes in the walls and stuff.

It's awful. It's like demoralizing. Oh God. Ah. Right. Yeah. And then you unpack in your own place. I don't know, I gotta think about which is worse. I gotta decide. I don't know which is sadder. I need a minute to like think What? When we got home, what home? What home, Daniel, I ask. Oh, this sucks, man. This is I can't and it's like just a really good snapshot right behind you of what you're dealing with. I know that. I know that feeling. It's something I get so antsy about. When we pack up, move apartments when you're young,

but then also just moving dorms. You leave your dorm and you pack up all the stuff in the dorm and you have to sleep in it that night. And it's one night and I'd be like, I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. This is not mine.

This doesn't belong to anybody. I've already emotionally divorced myself from this space. I need to be away from it. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. You crouch down here. Get down on the floor with me. Look on YouTube. I just found some fun videos. Get down here. Get down here. That's... Yeah, it's brutal, man. All right. Well, I hope that this works out for you. I hope that you get this well, I hope that this works out for you. I hope that you get this place and I hope that the place is what you want it to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that was my dad's job. Yeah, he's a real estate appraiser in Aspen. Okay. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wild. It's also wild that when you're in the process of buying, if you're making like an offer that the, the other side can come back and be like, you know what? This offer is good, but we got some other ones that were a little bit better. We're not going to tell you how much they were, but if you want to go up, you can not only not only are they not going to tell you, right.

And also you're just, so now you have to guess, you have to guess the number. But also when I was like, I remember during that process where I was like, and so what is keeping them from just saying, saying that even if they didn't have another offer and our real estate agent was like, Oh, I mean, the credibility of the other real estate agent will be shot, but there's nothing other than that. And I was like, people jump in and out of being real estate agents every single day. They do it for like a week or they might sell a house, one house in a year. And they'd be like, you know what? This isn't for me. I'm going to do something else. Like their, their credibility, what on earth does that mean?

People do it. Yeah, I'll change my name and keep doing it for a little while. And then when I'm out of names, then I will move on to car rentals or something. It's wild. There's just like, you have no, in the same way where you're renegotiating as a writer for a contract where you're like, I don't have any leverage. I can tell you that the product will be worse, but I think that's something you actually want. th Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. Yeah. It's brutal, man. I saw Dishon because I was trying to be an actor for a little while when I first moved to LA and it was like, you would go in there and you'd be like, fuck dude, that went so well and they loved me. They would say things on the way out. They're like, we'll be in touch. Like we're, we'll give you a call. And like you get the sense when things don't go well and when things do go well.

And sometimes things would seem like they went really well and you'd be like, yes. And then you're at the mercy of the universe because like a director might see that and be like, I don't like his hair color. Or like something else where they just, it maybe has nothing to do with you, or maybe like the part got dissolved, whatever it is. You're just like waiting for a thousand things to align in your favor.

And you're like, oh, how does anyone work? Yeah. Right. Let me sweeten the pot for you somehow. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't, I mean, if you were to do that now for a house, you've already probably written the letter. There's a letter that has to go to the seller generally,

where it's like, hey, get a load of us, we're real people. Can you believe it? And that's like a real fun thing to write. After that, if you try to talk to the sellers, not only is it like a legal problem that you tried to talk to them, but it's also going to only do detriment to you because they're hearing from you and they don't want to hear from you anymore. So like there's nothing else you can

do. Your hands are completely tied with your, you're all boxed up with nowhere to go and just waiting on a thousand things to go right. Yeah, it must have... It's finally a time to relax, right? The holidays. That's why you get married. You can, you compound your buying ability. That's the only reason to get married. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 30 years.

Yeah. Hell yeah, nice job Shay. Oh yeah, totally. Right. Ah! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. You weren't open.

Yeah. It should be like, if you had, you called the bank that day to say like, I want to cancel the loan. You wouldn't have gotten that done. So that bank wasn't even fucking working. Yeah. All right. All right.

Well. Oh boy. Well, I hope you get this place, man. I hope this works out for you. Yeah. And when you get to the point where you do if you want to refinance, it's a breeze. It's basically just like buying a house all over again. Super easy. We got, we at one point our rates had dropped and we were like, and our lender came to us and was like, Hey, you know, the race dropped. Like, do you want to take advantage of this? And we're like, okay. And we assumed us and was like, hey, you know, the race dropped. Like, do you want to take advantage of this?

And we're like, okay. And we assumed that was just like, he was gonna be like, okay, I'll take care of it. No, you basically buy a house all over again, the amount of work that you have to do with like sending him documents or her sending them documents, all of your, everything that you've done, uh, your pay stubs, how much you have in the bank, how much, and then your credit scores and everything. It's, it is a, it's awful. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. You started. Yeah. Just to do it. Just to do it. Just to feel something. Yeah. Yeah. No! What's all this?

Wait. As you're saying this, I'm having a realization, Daniel, that I was worried about a moment like this where at one point you had told me you didn't have a credit card and I think that you were over 30 years old. And I was like, you're going to need that dude. And you're like, nah, I'm good. And I was like, I don't know. I didn't know what it was going to do to your credit to not have credit.

And now you've had to have your credit checked. And did that have any sort of effect or are you doing all right? Good. Yeah, with bills in your walls hidden under your mattresses. Get out. Yeah. Yeah. Get out, yeah. Yeah.

I'll be dead by then. Yeah. It's tight. It's great. It's wonderful. It's tight. That's great. It's wonderful. It's a big... Done! How'd that change things? All right, here. The show's almost over, but I want to get into it real quickly. Yeah, Daniel, I have a quick question for you.

When was the last time you did a pinata? Put that down, put that down. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I have no idea, but I do remember that birthday where we did a pinata on my birthday. Yeah. I knew a good tree there. Yeah.

Okay. That's what I figured. That's what I figured. And so a piñata in your mind is like, oh, well, it's a fun little thing. You could do it a party. It's like a piñata is there. You see it. You aren't immediately terrified of the pinata

because you don't have children. And that makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, 25. Oh, not, not have a perfect circle. That would have been a fun one. Oh. Oh Right. Okay. So we, this, this new year's party that I went to last night had a pinata for kids and that we, this is like a regular occurrence where there'll be a birthday or something and you walk in and you see it and it's not up yet. It's always like on the ground somewhere. And my first thought is

always, Oh no, Oh no, there's a pinata here because it is, and I'm going to step. I understand. I'm probably stepping on some cultural toes here. When I say like pinatas are bad, but, um, it is, it has never gone in a way where I thought somebody wasn't about to die when we get a pinata out. You're hanging up this thing that you're going to hit with a bat, sometimes blindfolded, and all the other kids are going crazy too because they want to turn. And so blindfolded and dizzy, and it might be moving too. Like people are playing with the pulley system and getting the pinata higher or lower.

And the other kids are losing their minds too. So you're trying to as best you can. It's just like trying like herd flies. Like you were like, you're trying to get all these kids into a line and away from the pinata. That line's not staying like that. Like there's no way. And they're also not only are they eager to have a turn.

So they're like creeping up, creeping up, creeping up. And within the line of the swing, the radius of that bat, you also, the kids are eager to get whatever falls out of the pinata too. So the minute somebody actually does some damage and you see like an effect on the pinata crack or something, it's just blood in the water for them. And they, all of them get as close as they can. And you can't, no matter how much you've told them, you have to stay behind this very specific line we created. They're up there. They're up at the front because they want the best candy or they want the first choice. And every single time I've ever done a pinata, one kid has either gotten hit or is very nearly

lost an eye or something like that. Like the swing was coming around and all the parents go, whoa. There's also the problem of the parents. There's going to be a lot of parents who are going to sit back and be like, Ooh, this doesn't look safe, but I'm going to let it play. I'm going to see how it goes. And so if you've got a bunch of parents like that, then you have to be the one who says, oh shit, I'm in charge. Like it's not your birthday. It's not anything for you, but you're like, somebody's going to die if I don't, if I don't

help the situation or somebody's child is going to the hospital. And so you're like, okay, everybody has to stay behind this line. It's going to go youngest from youngest to oldest. So the youngest ones actually have a turn to hit it before you old ones destroy this thing. And then there's like jostling, there's like they're jockeying for space in the line too. And like someone was trying to cheat. Some of times you're like, are you going to get three strikes? And they like, they're going to hit

it three times and it didn't do what they wanted to do. So they go like, what are they going to do? They can stop me if I keep hitting this thing? No, because you can't get fucking near that kid because they got a stick. And so you're just shouting at a child every single time. This is how it goes. It has never been a fun event to have a pinata. And what happens at the end, I understand kids are real excited about it. I hate the stuff that my children bring home from a pinata every single time. Every single time that they get stuff out of there, I'm like, oh, it's either candy. And I'm like, wow, now I got to be in charge of you spacing this out so you don't eat it all at once or it's gonna be schlock it's gonna be like the bracelet the snap bracelets or ring spider rings and things like that where I'm like now this is just gonna live all over my house there's no you don't have a space for this this is just you're gonna carry this around to your

board with it and you're gonna throw it on the rug. And like, yeah, I have no idea. And so it is never, it is never been, I mean, other than my birthday or like for an adult, adults, hey, I think piñata should be just for adults. You can put little miniature bottles of alcohol in there, condoms or whatever adults are wearing these days. And and you just you get to fucking fuck up a cardboard thing for a little while. That sounds great. But don't do it for kids, please. That's my PSA. I figured, yeah, I don't I won't even resonate for you yet, but I'm just saying, write this

down along with all of the, in your invisible notebook with all of the movies that you and Oh, that sharp thing. Yeah. Yeah, compete against each other. Yeah, compete against each other to get a resource that there's not enough of. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I've seen kids play musical chairs. I've seen how fucking put out they are when they don't get a chair and how sad that is.

Yeah, also, one more thing I'm going to add to this, the pinata, you're dealing with a lot of emotionally fragile or unstable people who are trying to do the pinata in children. So you've got a lot of people who wanted another swing and didn't get one or kids who don't want to swing at this thing at all, but you have to stand in the line. And you make them look like fools when you make them miss. They're up there already in front of everybody. And they're very aware of the fact that they don't swing a bat. And then somebody on the other end is being like, ha ha, fuck you. And like pulling it so that they can't hit it. And everyone's like, ah, you missed. And they don't understand that situation. It feels bad.

Oh, bash isn't open. Yeah. Right. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. That fall, yeah, that fall, like you set yourself up so high because you don't know any better when you're young. And then like that fall where you got one swing because you don't know any better when you're young. And then like that fall where you got one swing and you didn't get the swing because of external forces.

Like it wasn't even your thing. You're like, I was blindfolded and dizzy and I swung and hit a tree or something. You're like, fuck, am I not good? Yeah. Am I not good? Yeah I wanted it. Because oh man, it's so hard.

Because the wanting feels like work and you feel like hard work gets you what you want. And that's also not true. Like hard work does not equal something being good by the end. And it's like, what a terrible lesson to be learning during what's supposed to be a fun and enjoyable game or a birthday party. Yeah. I've basically wanted this my whole life. Nothing. Yeah. You just basically wanted this my whole life. Nothing.

Yeah. You just don't get it. Yeah. And it's great. It feels good. I'm going to tell you, I didn't think I would like being a child, but I'm enjoying this a lot. I feel good.

I feel like this money is going to go to a lot of good things, a lot of good causes. The only benefit that has come out of the pinata for me is my son was like taking a real step back from baseball. I don't care if he plays baseball. I just wanted to like get into sports with the intention that sports has so many like things that transcend into other quadrants of your life. And if he just has like that base, then he's never gonna join a sport later and be like,

oh no, I'm too far back, I can't do this. So like, there's a certain part of me that's sort of forcing sport on him. It doesn't just like in general, he was taking a step back from baseball because he was feeling a little like strung out on it. But that was the one where he was really feeling it and liked it. We went and did this pinata and he had the mechanics for a really, really big swing. And so watching him and all the kids swing, all the kids swing, and then he gets up there and crushes this thing. And all the adults go, whoa.

That you see it in him where he's like, I know how to do this. And he was so excited. And I was like, I think I just earned another season of baseball through that. Like, I think we're back on. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, end it. End it, kill it. Oh, right. Oh yeah, for us. Funny thrive, oh boo, boo, booey. Boo, that was damned. And funny thrive yeah Don't try to find him, he's ours. I've got a quick quick question for you alright I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick quick question for you alright The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? How did you get?

What would I be if you remembered? Words without words, word and all that You've got a week's eye, oh forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here