Rooster Teeth Podcast - Our Worst Photos - #784

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Go to http://helixsleep.com/rooster to get 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows. Go to http://magicspoon.com/ROOSTER and use code ROOSTER to save $5 off your order! Andrew, Barbara, and Gus are all masters of hosting podcasts so make sure you don't miss this episode of RTP. In classic Gus fashion, they discuss the difficulties of travel, the evolution of the apple, and Barbara's exciting news! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure around fitness at New Year's. And start working out your way with Peloton. They're offering up to $800 off. And free membership for two months with select Peloton purchases. Start moving with the Peloton bike, bike plus, tread, row, or guide in thousands of classes with instructors ready to support you from day one.

Shop Peloton's New Year offers at 1Peloton.ca-deals. All Access Membership Separate Terms Apply. This is a Ristative Production. Hello and welcome to the only show micro-dosing the old format with all of us. We have high-manager hosts. Welcome to the RT podcast and with us as always, as always, is a former host of this show Gus. Yeah, until the sun, withers, and dies and all the heat energy is gone from the universe. The heat death of the universe and Barbara Duckemen. Yeah.

Remember when we had Gus's last RT podcast? And it was just Gus' too. It's a, yeah. This is, this used to be, you're probably in the middle of it Andrew. This used to be my least favorite time of year because since there are so many breaks and holidays, you have to pre-tape a million different RT podcasts. Well, tough for us because we did a live show every Monday. And so like trying to do it live,

but also pre-record things. Yeah, we would do a live one. And then two others the same week for two weeks in a row. And it's like, oh, it's too much podcast. Oops, I'll podcast. Yeah, I hope you like stories about just absolutely running over the same details of this week over and over at Nazia.

Yeah, I drove to work this morning. Oh, we're good. Yes, but well, first of all, before we look at housekeeping, bit of business, if you'd like to support the show and keep these fine people coming back for more of this show, I'll go to theartepodcast.com. And then also, you can become a first member at RoosterD.com. That really helps us out. That's how we keep the lights on in here.

That's how we keep us stocked with sprites. Mmm. If no one gets a first membership in the length of this podcast, one of these lights will turn off. One of these lights will turn off. And don't know which one it will be. It'll be the one behind my eyes. Yeah.

You'll see it out. That's it. See you next week. We're done. Oh, yes. But seriously. But seriously. And then also, this is coming out in January, but then in February, something else is

happening, which I will throw to you to permit. Or is it January? It's January. It's happening right now. It's probably happening. Oh, it's happening now. Okay. Well, if you're watching this, it's happening now. Yeah, we're for Tales on the Stinky Dragon, we're having a month-long first membership drive. We're calling it Stinky Wary. I could see why you would think it's maybe February. Yes. Okay. Stinky

Wary. We talked about this in one of our meetings, so I was like, is there going to be any confusion about January and February could be Stinky Wary? I didn't even think about how more than one month has. January is stink you were happy stink you were a horrible girl. A horrible girl. A horrible girl. And also I'm with your spirit. We're going to be if people can check that out at stinkidragonpod.com.

And of course, if they want to check out on social media at stinkidragonpod.com. We have more details about what Stinky Wary involves. But basically, you mentioned first for Ristweet podcast is kind of a first membership drive to boost those numbers, not get those rookie numbers, get have people support the content that they like. Stinky Dragon versus RT podcast. It's all, no but seriously, I mean,

we mentioned all the time, but first membership really does support what we do. And it's, you know, times are tough in this industry, in this world, and your support really makes a huge difference of us being able to keep making stuff. Yeah. And yeah. And I have always argued this, because like,

what is a first membership cost these days? What is it like, $6? $5.99. $5.99. $5.99. The most you're getting for your entertainment dollar, because that gets you access to all of rooster teats stuff.

Whereas like a Patreon membership for one podcast, independent podcast is the same one. Is that money? Or a Twitch subscription. Or a Twitch subscription to one person. And that's just getting no ads. Yeah, that's just getting no ads. So like, again, your entertainment dollar could not go further than it does with the first membership.

The hot to dollar ratio is off the choice. The hot to dollar ratio. Hot to dollar ratio. The hot to dollar ratio just absolutely incomparable. The Fed is having a meeting later this afternoon to discuss it. It's totally imbalancing the economy. There's a table with a light overhead and people like hunkering over it with their hands tinted,

just like, hmm, what are we gonna do about this ruse-duty? Man, every time I do any show with Andrew, I could always tell that he watched the Simpsons. Speaks in such like, cartoony, visual representations of the scenario, it's wonderful. It's true, it's wonderful. It's true.

It's an, it's inescapable. Well, that's, that's just good storytelling, right? Like really, you know, painting that picture for someone putting that, putting that image in their head. Exactly. It does it so well. Oh, thank you. Welcome to the, uh, Andrew flattery hour.

Once they put me in the house chair. It is a sweater nice. In the hat, nice. And it's water nice. It's sweater season. Yeah In the hat, no, in this sweater, no. It's sweater season. Yeah. I'm in a chic longshoreman. That's what I'm going for today.

I am a little concerned where you are pre-recording this. That's true. In case that wasn't obvious. But I hear that Austin is supposed to have like the worst winter, one of the worst winters in recent history. I survived February 2021, but I bring it. Bring it on. Cracks, knuckles, ow.

But by the time this comes out, it could be, it could get worse. Yeah, that's true. But people always say, people always say one way or another, like, oh, El Nino means it's gonna be a terrible winter. No, El Nino means it's gonna be a really mild winter. So what I was saying,

because the bees left early, it indicates that like, it's gonna get... The bees know. Real cold. Oh my God. It's like the old saying go tell it to the bees You'll tell it to the bees No, and you so you could be listening to this are watching this with the last remaining 4% of your battery And some powerless snow McGuidon that we have yet again could be so we thank you for your dedication to listening and watching the show

In that case. Yeah, I I also heard that yeah, it's gonna be like a cold and wet. Like we're gonna get, it's gonna shift to, yeah, like being pretty sludgy, pretty gross. Well, it hasn't so far. So maybe that's, it has to be a little concerned. It's like, it's kinda sucky. Like you think it's gonna go, boom. It's like the winter equivalent of false fall.

You know how, like the summer's going over it. This is fall right now. Right, that's where it is. It's like we're in false winter. And it's gonna went like the summer's going to get. This is fall right now. Right. That's where it. It's like we're in false winter. And it's gonna wait till you're nice and you're like, oh, this isn't so bad. And, wow, I'm cold front. Yeah, exactly.

Then it's like, I know, ladies and gentlemen, I know it's been 80 degrees last week. But tomorrow it's gonna be seven. And do you remember that, do you remember that when no shit, it was, I had a photo of it, it was one degree, one degree in like Amarillo, like at the top of the Panhandle, and in the Valley, it was like 98.

Yeah. Like the Texas looked like an RPG world map. Like it was just like snow all the way, and it was like literally snowing in the Panhandle all the way down to the Valley where it was like almost a hundred degrees. It was insane. I mean It shouldn't make sense and I can't think about it too long or like my brain will like start circling It's like this dates too big. It's too damn big

You spend most of your time getting out of it if you go anywhere It's like oh, most of the trip is getting out of this. I I saw so you know during the pandemic When you know lockdown was really severe before know, vaccines and you couldn't do anything, I thought about like just getting an RV and getting, like, satellite internet and going to work somewhere. Right. I'm sure it was a fantasy for a lot of people, but the other day I was driving down airport not too far from here and I saw that there's like a place that opened up that's an RV rental place. Like that's all they do if you wonder like, you rent the RV, you pay like, however much dollars, a certain amount of day,

they have three different styles. One that has an outdoor shower, one that has an indoor shower, and one that can accommodate four people. And it's like a camper, like a, has a bed in the closet. It's got beds in it, it's got bathrooms, it's got a kitchen.

I was like, oh, like that's the kind of thing I wish I could find. I was looking to buy one, this one you could just rent. How much is it to rent? I think it varies depending on which one you get, but I think if I looked at it last week, so I'm gonna have the number strong,

I wanna say it was somewhere between 170 to $200 a day. A day, well, okay. That's considering how much a rental car is, that's not bad. It's like a rental car, I mean, I always get the cheapest option, like I'm not splurging for a rental car, like I mean, I always get the cheapest option. Like I don't, I'm not splurging for like a rental car usually. It's usually, it's like 70, 80 bucks, like a day or whatnot.

It's like, yeah, triple that and you get a bed. Like you know, like what I mean. Like I was thinking like, oh man, this would be a great way to go out to like big band or go to like the McDonald Observatory because McDonald Observatory, I would love to visit more frequently. I've never actually been, I would love to visit it, but it's like, it's so far,

and then you're just stuck out there. It's like a seven hour drive, seven or eight hour drive from here. It's like, oh, you just go out there. At night, enjoy the observatory, see the stars, and then you're like, all right, I'm gonna go to my car and sleep, and have like a bed. Pick up some McDonald's on the way.

Yeah, yeah. Just follow those golden arches to the sky. The McDonald's Observatory worth the trip. It is really awesome. I have been, go to the star party, I go to one of their star parties, which sounds like some sort of weird sex thing. It does.

Like some type of rape. Yeah, that's sort of it. Exactly. I put your keys in the bowl, fellas. It's a star party. But it's not. It's much star party, but it's not. It's much hotter. No, there's, you go out there and there is,

it's in like the Davis Mountains, which is like near kind of big bend, west, it's west Texas, kind of west Texas. And there's a big observatory out there. And there's like laws and regulations that keep light pollution from like res, like the minimal residential stuff that's out there to an absolute minimum.

Like you have to turn your lights off after like 8 p.m. or something like that. And it's pretty isolated to begin with. And it's pretty isolated to begin with. That's so people could see the stars and everything. So there's a good reason. So because they have a telescope, they have like the observatory up there. So there's a lot of it. They have a telescope array.

Sure. And so it's to keep it, you know, no light pollution out of the thing. And I went out there one time and did one of the star parties. And because there is so little artificial light pollution out there, the natural illumination from the stars and the moon is so powerful. Once your eyes adjust, like you're casting moon shadows on the ground. Like you can fully see and walk around out there

with how like little ambient light pollution is, your eyes like adjust and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can see everyone perfectly clearly. It feels like being a cat. You know what I mean? You imagine how cats see in the dark. You're like, oh my, this is like some sort of superpower. How is it working?

But yeah, go out there and then you do like, you walk around the little telescopes and you can see nebulous. I wanna see that. And see Saturn like, right behind Gus, you can see that in real life through a telescope. I see it. It's right there.

It's pretty, it was pretty incredible. And like, yeah, I don't know. There's something And like, yeah, I don't know. There's something both like very magical about it and also very, very humbling. You know what I mean? When you're like, you just, to cast your gaze upon the like further reaches

of our solar system in real time. You're like, it's so clearly. Yeah. You're just like, oh man. Like I've only ever seen it in photos. True. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So you get to actually like look through telescope and see it. So I highly recommend doing them. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw that RV rental place or the camper van rental place. Oh, I'm totally doing this. Yeah, I'm going to figure that out.

Okay. I'm just scared because like you said, we're getting into like the cold time of year. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You might want to wait for like, I'll wait till maybe like, spring break or something. Yeah. Get an early April trip out there.

But you mentioned, you know, the moon illuminating things. And it made me think, you know, here in Austin we have those moon towers, which were, you know, built in the, I think I would say they were put up in the late 1800s. Yeah. There's only a couple left, I think,

10 or something like that. Because of the servant girl, Strangler. Oh, sorry. There's something to do with like a serial killer. Yeah. Servant girl, a annihilator, I think, 10 or something like that. Because of the servant girl, Strangler. I was like, I was like, there's something to do with a serial killer. Yeah, yeah. Serving girl annihilator, I think, is actually a name. Yeah, yeah. But Tom Scott did a video about them.

He was in town, I guess, fairly recently, and he did a video about the history of them and everything. And he kinda contextualized they've been away and never thought about. Like, he said, you know, when they were first made, you know, they were first erected that they weren't terribly bright, right?

Like they don't have modern lighting for it. Sure. But it was, you know, roughly the equivalent of walking around outside with a full moon, which you think like now, and he's like, that's like nothing. Well, it's because we have so much other artificial light.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the late 1800s, that would have been like, oh my god, it's like a full moon every night. It's incredible. I can't believe it. We live in the future. Right. Yes, definitely. They would have been so cool and so- They would have turned it off. Now it's like, moon light night. It's incredible. I can't believe it. We live in the future. Right. They would have been so cool.

And so I'm like, turn it off. Yeah. Now it's like a moonlight tower. That's stupid. Who needs that? That's dumb. It's like you have to remember that, you have to remember that you weren't also facing a car

with like xenon halogen bulbs. Like that was like bright white, like blinding bulbs. You're like, what is it with people in Austin who always have their friggin' bright? It's kind of really bad. Yeah? It's kind of really bad. Yeah.

People always have their brights on here. I know. No lights. Or no lights as it was going to say. Or no lights at all. Do people not know how to turn on their headlights? Also, if it's raining, put on your headlights. It's where people could see you.

You don't have to put your blinkers on. That's the other thing that drives me crazy. When it rains, people turn their hazards on. It's like, yeah, I know it's raining. Yeah, I know it's raining. Just put your headlight. Now, I don't know if you're turning left or right or if you're having an emergency or what's happening here. What's happening? Where has she go around you or what's going on? So I feel like in the past 20, I've been in Austin for 20 years, which is a very sobering fact. But I think I've seen more people driving

with their headlights off in the past year than the all 19 other years combined. I have seen so many people lightless driving around. And like, you're just, and I've done this. I just, for listening at home, looking exasperated and gesturing wildly to no one. I always try to get behind them and flash my lights.

Like I make it my mission when I'm like, I see someone driving with it, because it's dangerous. I don't want them to be in danger, and I don't want other cars to be in danger. Does it ever work? Because it never works for me. It has, I think, maybe 30% of the time.

Okay. But sometimes people are just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I'm like, what do you think I'm doing? Look at your life. Yeah. Now, like if someone flashes their lights, I mean, my first instinct is, are my lights on? Yeah.

Or is there like something, is my trunk open? Spoken like a headlight user. Is there a man with a hook in the back seat? I don't know. Right. And so the, the, the, the, the the inverse of that is I have accidentally turned my lights off and started driving. Because normally my car is set to the auto.

So it's just like, if the car is on and it's dark, the headlights come on. But occasionally I have parked somewhere and didn't want to shine my brights into the front of a building where people are eating or something. So I turn it off, I'm picking up food or something. Right. Pull away. Light's still off. I forget to turn them back on.

And then we'll get someone flashing me. And I get it because I'm like, oh my god, I'm mortified. Like it is. Oh my god, it's one of those people. I've become, I've become everything I've always hated. I've become the lightless. I've become the lightless. So yeah, I tried. But to feel that, to feel that shame, yes. It's, but the instances of this has, have increased a hundredfold, I would say. What I don't get, and I don't know,

I'm sure every car is different, obviously. But with my car, if it's dark outside and my headlights aren't on, all the buttons in my car are also off. So I can't even see the buttons. And so I know, okay, obviously my headlights aren't on. So when I turn those lights on, all the buttons light up too.

I wonder if with certain cars, like if the daytime running lights are on. Because I've seen that too, like if it illuminates their dashboard, because I've seen definitely cars that don't have any lights on in the back, and then dim lights on in the front. Like, oh, that's just obviously

the daytime running lights. Mine are dim, but like I could tell if they're not like my headlights, I have to switch them on manually to actually like that. Maybe that's just obviously the date I'm running. Mine are dim, but like I could tell if they're not like my headlights, I have to switch them on manually to actually like, maybe they're just not even looking inside. Staring off at Saturn, distracted by the wonders of the universe. Distracted by the majesty of the cosmos. Going to pick up their RV.

I also had to get back to that. I also, I think like, yeah, like many people did, had that fantasy of like, well, time to pull up steaks, see the open road, see this country of ours, masked in public places. And you've done it that? You went off the grid for a little bit, right?

You went to, was it Colorado or? You went? I go to Colorado. That was a lifetime ago. Yeah, it's somewhere and like, you went to paint and kind of just like, be out on your own and some type of wilderness situation.

Man, the wilderness. I went to Oregon. I rode into Oregon during the pandemic and that was interesting. And did like the safest pandemic road trip possible that I could. How long does it take to drive to Oregon from here like five days?

Four days? Not that long, three days. Oh, is it three? I thought it was longer, okay. You get anywhere in the states in like three. Three. Yeah. And three. And that's it. But that's if you're putting in the works on. That means if you're like, get up at none and have a sip of coffee and hit the road and drive until like 10. Like you do like a 12 hour day of driving. You can get pretty much anywhere in three days. Yeah, it doesn't take that long, but I will say. So it was like here, Albuquerque, Albuquerque to Twin Falls, Twin Falls to Salt Lake. And then, and then, and then to Oregon,

and then yeah, driving back. The stretch from Salt Lake through Idaho, Western Oregon, or Eastern Oregon, there's like that stretch that's above like Wyoming, like in that area. It, I mean, it is tattooing, man. It is so desolate. It's not even like beautiful, like desert, like beautiful west Texas desert, desolate, or like Arizona, like, you know, red cliffs and bluffs and everything like that, it truly looks like a planet that God forgot. It's just like, man, like they wouldn't even feel movies out here.

This is like, this is too much. And it's for like hours, you're just like, God, I, if, when the pilgrims crossed to this country, when I get in the Western expansion, they must have gone through this. And I'm like, I think we died in Colorado guys. I think this is hell. I think we're doomed to this fate forever.

It's like the one part of the trip, where no one was like, hey, maybe we should just stop here. It's like, no, no, we're, I broke my leg. we are still going. We have to keep going. And then their reward was the most beautiful country on it. Because then you cross that like,

you cross basically like the, what's that mountain range? Or the San Andreas, basically you cross the San Andreas fault. And then you get the beautiful volcanic, volcanic nitrated soil splendor of the West Coast where everything is gorgeous and the red woods grow and everything is like beautiful. The weather's perfect.

The weather's perfect all the time. And yeah, the first time, when I went to Oregon at one time, I went to Hood River, which I think I've talked about in the podcast before, but it's like, there's a thing in Hood River organ called the Fruit Loop, and it's just a collection of farms and orchards and stuff. And you just take, you can do a little tour

of all these farms and go and pick fresh berries and pick apples and all this stuff. And it's just like our ancestors. Just like our ancestors. Just like our ancestors. Taking fruit. It's so unbelievably beautiful. And the fruit is incredibly delicious.

And you can just like, crack, take a bite of it. And it's just like, yeah, I get it. When people, like, when those same people cross the country, they're like, we definitely die. We definitely die. This is the promised land. Yeah, no more pitches we've arrived. Do you ever think about how heavily genetically manipulated

any fruit or vegetable wheat nowadays? Like what did an apple look like to them back then? Like I was, I live a really boring life. I was watching a Japanese documentary about apples the other day. A Japanese documentary about apples the other day. A Japanese documentary about apples. They showed like native Japanese apples as existed before Western apples arrived. And they were like, maybe a little bigger than like a ping pong ball.

And then like the host like takes a bite. It's like, it's a really sour, you know? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, hum, I suppose if you'd never had anything sweet before, this would taste sweet. Right. And nowadays our apples are like massive monsters. It's just like sugary.

I remember like freaking like candle opesides. Right. And they're so good. But I feel like I've even seen that in my life. Like when I was a little kid, it was like, what are your options? Granny Smith, red delicious, maybe a Fuji, if you were lucky. Yeah.

And that was it. Well, there's that, you know, that famous tweet, like a single sour patch kid would kill a pilgrim, like if they had it. Like, I don't know, based off how sour fruit used to be, maybe it would be me that bad. I put it to you that like a modern cosmic crisp apple would like just absolutely kill a like a founding father., like they take a bite of it. Oh my god

It's just like to dissolve instantly. So whenever we hear the story Adam and Eve where Eve takes a bite of the apple, right? It was very small. It's just a It was just a tiny little thing. It was two bites. She had half of it and then she gave the other half away And there we're gone Because I mean like yeah, you think mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, more things that the fruit has to do to be good for consumption, good for public consumption, where it's like, well, in nature, it just has to deliver seeds to make more trees.

That's all it's designed to do. So it's designed to fall from the tree, roll a little ways, disintegrate, have that fruit pulpish matter, mostly be eaten by scaven you know, scavengers. But then also like feed the soil and feed the seeds for the thing to grow a new tree. And it's like, that's a very simple process that, you know, nature is perfected over millions of years. In this documentary.

Yes. By the way, I watched an Apple, Japanese Apple documentary is maybe the most best sentence I've ever owned. I watched a grape one too, which we can follow up with this if you're interested. But they have multiple fruit documentaries. sentence I've ever heard. I was a great one too, which we can follow up with this. If you're interested. But. We have multiple fruit documentaries. This guy, this Japanese farmer's growing apples, and he talks about how halfway through the growing season,

he has to go out and rotate every apple because only half of them are getting sun and turning red. And the other half is green. So he has to go out and move every apple on the tree so that the green side is now facing the sun. So it turns red as well. Like that's how much care has to go into this fruit now. It's not just like fall off the tree

and dissolve and grow a new tree. Right. Huh. Just so that aesthetically when you look at it, you don't think that's a fucked up looking apple. Well, yeah, that's fucked up. Um, wouldn't it not, wouldn't it be a twist off the, that's another thing that they have to worry about

when they like cross pollinate and they make these, these new breeds of apples like you, it has to withstand taking a turn on the tree and not come off so that it can get fully sunned. Geez, dude. Well, what did I, I'd tan my apple. What did I do with my English major? Well, I'm an apple turner. I work out and I

feel turn an apples, making sure they make like a rotisserie chicken, making sure they get full sun. That's how-a-cut got it. Yeah, well, it's apparently, and this is just kind of the fact, it all comes back to capitalism. No, like the thing about fruit being ugly is like a huge deal. Like so much of the, you know, so much of the ways that fruit is modified and like, not only modified, but also chosen to be in grocery stores, is how aesthetically pleasing it is, because so many, like, that was the thing that I noticed out there

in Oregon, it's like you go to these farms, which do sell their fruit to, you know, chains and supply, you know, grocery stores around the country. But a lot of them, I think most of them that are there available, like in these like bins and outside and you go and like, and can pick your own are not the most beautiful for you ever see, even me some of them are,

but like, there's some, there was some fucked up look at apples. And it's just like, and people just don't wanna buy them. People don't wanna buy them. And it tasted exactly the same. It tasted just fine. I wish, I wish I could have brought in some back and done it on this podcast,

because I got nine different varieties of apples when I was out there. And we even have a bowl on the table. A bowl on table? How's the apples? Could you do an apple taste off? Because some of them were home runs. No notes, incredible apple, perfectly sweet, crisp,

delicious, yeah, amazing. And some of them were dog shit, which is amazing that like, you just like, oh yeah, this is, and they all have like, you know, you know, you know, your apples, you know, you're like Fuji's, you're Macintosh, you're classic, you're red delicious, which is the worst apple in the world. The worst apple in the world.

This waxy fucking ball. Which, I don't know if you guys ever saw this video. I only saw it recently of this woman who was talking about the wax they put on apples and takes up a thing of boiling water and puts the apples in it and it essentially melts off the wax and they turn a different color.

Like a more of like a purpley kind of like apple color rather than that bright red. Not wanna do that. So I don't, it's probably not necessary to do, it's probably not a bad thing to do to melt the wax off these apples, but yeah, they're like coloring them to make them look vibrant for people.

Gross. The ropes. Disg people. Gross, disgusting. Yeah, I'm just amazed that like some, I'm just amazed some haven't been phased out. Yeah, who's buying red delicious apples? I want to make, I'm going to make a, sorry, elementary school lunches are buying red delicious apples. I'm going to make a list and we're going after whoever is still buying red delicious apples

in the year 2023. I think we only get Fuji. I think that's our apple choice. You better let me know by the end of the day. You mean at your home? At our home, yes. You switch over to honey, honey, Chris per cosmic, cosmic, cosmic, Fuji not good. Fuji's were great in the 90s. Listen, we've come a long way.

Much like the Fuji's. Listen, I get whatever, whatever my fiance wants. You're just feel on fiance. You should go down. Which you can say that now, that's a nice one. I can, yeah. Well, I'll probably talk about on the pre, we probably talked about on the previous podcast too,

because I was on that one. Yeah. Pre tapes. We were recording. Yeah, so doing the mental math of when stuff comes out. Yeah. So you should go, you know, maybe you should go down to the central market that's over here in North America.

I don't know if you spend much time there. They have a crazy selection of apples. Really? I think in town they have the most variety of different types of apples. Just do an apple taste like Andrew's talking about, go down by one of each. Okay.

I'm just trying all. So I'm like, yeah, and you can, I mean, they're not getting one apple, not expensive. You can do, you can do an apple taste test for probably under 10 bucks. We're still in the prime apple time of year. Yeah. Yeah.

Is this the longest anyone's ever talked about apples? This is the apple. This is the apple. I think Isaac Newton maybe milked the apple for a little longer than we are. Yeah, and also Steve Jobs. Also Steve Jobs, yeah. Yeah. But I don't have a lot of time talking about Apple. Yeah, he was a

No, yeah, I think this is probably we're probably my producers telling me yeah stop talking about apples So anyway the great documentary was interesting. Yes No, tell me I do actually but here's the thing I think because you know We share a little bit of the same interest, Gus, tell me about these grapes. Because I actually, I would also watch an Apple documentary. The focus of the documentary specifically was about the Muscat grape, which I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's a super expensive premium grape. All I know are the red grapes, the green grapes, and then the cotton candy grapes.

No garbage. So the Muscat grape, I think, gained a little bit of popularity on the internet a year ago or so. There was a viral video showing it because people would go to H.M.R. and show it and be like, this bunch of grapes cost $50. Oh wow. They're super premium grapes. So this documentary was about the growing process for this.

And the growing process on that was even wilder because, you know, the guy is making sure that it follows this one guy who's like, it's his, he's still relatively young. You know, he's learning a lot from like the next farmer over. And, you know, on top of making sure that they get the right amount of son, like they're shaded appropriately, as they're growing, every day he has to go out and look at every single bunch and be like, do I need to cut any of these grapes out so that the rest of the bunch,

the rest of the grapes can be okay. Yeah. So he's got like a turning them though. He does have to turn them too. He's got like these tiny little shears and like one grape at a time is making sure every bunch looks perfect. He's bonsying, he's bonsying these grapes.

Yes. And then like after a certain point in the growing season, he has to go out with like these kind of like paper bags and then cover them. Oh my God. And be like, now they have to spend the next three or four weeks like this with the paper on them covered, you know, to finish out the growing season. And he's talks about like, yeah, if a hurricane comes or there's a storm, then they get blown and they, you know, they might hit each other and bruise each other. So like so much money lost. Yeah, and it's like no wonder

these things cost like $50 a bunch. And then his wife runs a bakery, she's like, yeah, I use all the grapes and I make big goods with grapes and people come and eat all of our grapes. Like the ones that don't look perfect, we can, you know, turn to- That's a job I could do. Yeah, I could be a grape farmer. A grape tender?

Grape tender. It seemed like so much work barber. He was like out there all day cutting individual. Yeah, but that are like corporate America. I don't know, man. Yeah. So. This episode of the Rooster Teeth Podcast

is sponsored by Helix Sleep. Sleep is one of the most important universal human experiences there is. It takes up about a third of our lives, and a good night's sleep can have some serious health benefits. But finding a mattress that I love seems to be really hard. I mean, I don't want to go to a store and lie down on a mattress

that a bunch of other people have lie down on gross. Yeah, yes. But so how do I find the wrong one for me? Well, thankfully, Helix Sleep makes finding the perfect mattress a whole lot easier. It only takes two minutes to take a quiz online and be matched with the perfect mattress for you about a 20 unique mattresses, okay?

And Helix offers a hundred night trials so you can test out your new mattress at home, make sure it's the right fit for you. Plus, your personalized mattress is just shipped straight to your door, free of charge. Right to your door. Just load it inside, open it up, it's there. Now, folks, that's the copy I've gotta read.

And here's the thing I actually wanna tell you. I have a Helix mattress, they sent it to me. I use it, I sleep on it every night, it's a bed. It rocks, I love it so much. When I'm out of town, when I'm away from my bed, I miss it, I miss sleeping in this bed. It is so nice, I sleep 100 times better than I did in my previous mattress.

Like, I can't say enough good things about it, it's tremendous. And you don't have to take my word for it. Helix sleep has over 12,000, 12,000 five star reviews and has been awarded the Best Mattress winner by Parents Magazine. Right now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows, two count them two free pillows

to our listeners. So go to helixleep.com slash rooster. This is their best offer yet and it won't last long with Helix. Better Sleep starts. Now. Growing up, Zero was one of the best parts of being a kid, but as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs.

Magic Spoon has the amazing flavors you love, but high protein and less sugar. With Magic Spoon, you get the choice between four different variety pack flavors from cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut butter. And each of these packs has zero, count them zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein,

and four to five grams of net carbs, giving you a wholesome start to your morning, or maybe just to pick me up snack during the day. Plus, there's only 140 calories that is serving of this high protein snack, but they aren't just reinventing your childhood favorites, because with magic spoon, you get a snack that has zero grams of sugar,

is keto-friendly, gluten-free, grain-free, and soy-free. I mean, what more can you ask? See, personally, I have never liked the chocolate peanut butter cereal. No, no, no, no, I'm a fruit-flavored cereal guy. And magic spoon's got it. It's fantastic. What's your favorite flavor? Magic spoon is so crunchy and delicious. I know you're gonna love it. Go to magicspoon.com slash rooster and grab a variety pack and try it out today. And be sure to use our promo code rooster at checkout to save $5 off your order. And magicspoon is so confident in their product.

It's back with a 100% happiness guarantee, happiness folks. If you don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money. New questions asked. Remember, start the New Year off right with a delicious bowl of high protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash rooster and use the code rooster to save $5 off. Thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this episode. At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going?

Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. What are the benefits like for a great tender? I don't know if you guys remember this. There's a brand called Pretty Lady grapes that I don't know if it was like a new brand at the time,

but I got tweeted probably at least once a week about how I looked like the Pretty Lady on Pretty Lady grapes. It's a humble brag about it. I'll give you. Ah! Probably can't see you. Holy shit. But you can give Google an image.

So this is a call out to pretty lady grapes. We got a natural sponsor here. Yeah, the lawsuit is in the mail. That is honestly kind of insane. That is like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe when I was younger, but. I mean, like, in the same way that like, I don't know, maybe, maybe when I was younger, but. I mean, like, in the same way that like, no, here's why it's uncanny,

is because in the same way that like, old, like older portraits and older, like paintings of people weren't exact, didn't look, didn't look photorealistic, they were just like, good like interpretations of a person's face. That is in that way. Like interpretation of my face.

Yeah, well, it's like, you highlight the features. Yeah. And then like everything else kind of like all the fine detail kind of falls to the back. Yeah, exactly. So it could look like a number of people. Well, no, essentially. I would say it's almost it's almost an exaggeration

of a person. Yeah. So it's like you, it's like hammered into your mind. Yeah. So I'm saying that was someone who tried to paint you from memory. Oh, it's not her. It's like, what is Barbara and they're a good artist,

but they're like, okay. But yeah, so I see this similarity. I see it. Yeah. So it's wonderful that you can find such quality photos of people that look like you, you know, very stunning. Looks great. I went to get a, we're not going to get a better segue than this.

We're not going to get a better segue than this. To read my driver's license the other day. If you listen to the December 18th episode of Anmai, I mentioned this and I tell the full story there, but, I went there and it was a nightmare, the whole process. And I'd been there for hours, took forever, finally, they're ready to take my photo. I'm kind of a tall person, and the camera was really low, and the woman says, look into the lens,

so I have to look down, and I hear the camera click and take the photo, and then she turns her screen around and shows it to me and says, do you wanna retake it? And I was like nah. I like as she immediately is assuming you'd wanna retake it. So it was like you wanna redo it. You wanna redo right?

I brought in that photo. I think it is maybe the worst photo that's ever been taken of me in the world. It's really small, I'm sorry. You're gonna have to zoom in. There's no other details right that are shown. No, I folded it over. I don't know how well you can see it.

Like my chin, my neck rolls are like sticking out because of how I had to like look down. Your face itself looks great though. I had to take my glasses off because they make you take your glasses off because I feel weird about it to begin with. And then my chin is just like tucked in and my neck rolls are sticking out.

It's awful. Oh my god. And I love it. Yeah, you can never change that. Yeah, I mean, there's something truly magical about like a wildly unflattering photo where it's like, oh, I have to keep this. I have to keep this. It's just like, because like on the other side of being captured,

I was just saying being captured in a photograph. So I saw in the same way you appreciate, it's like, oh, that's a really good photograph of me. That looks better than I actually think I look normally. So it's like, oh, I gotta keep that. I gotta use that for all the profile photos, gotta use all that. I think there's also something very wonderful

and very magical about one that's like, listen, I don't look like that normally, and that looks terrible. I gotta hold on to that. I have not hit rock bottom. Exactly, exactly. It could be worse. I do have a question about this. I want to get y'all a opinion on it.

So I have a friend who wants to actually get a new passport because she doesn't like her photo. She doesn't like the way she looks in her passport photo. And I am of the belief of who the fuck cares, because who's seeing it? One person just to confirm it to you and then like. And it's not like you use it all the time. It's whenever you leave the country and come back in.

Yeah, and it's not like anybody, public sees it. It's not like, you know. It's maybe, I would say passport photo for most people. Maybe the least seen photo of you ever. Ever, right? And I'm like, is it worth the time and money and energy it takes to like get a whole new passport just because you don't like the photo?

Yeah, that when I came home with this temporary photo, my wife immediately asked me, why didn't you retake the photo? You're like, are you kidding me? What? And I said, who's gonna see it? I'm gonna show it to a TSA agent when I fly. Maybe if I get pulled over for speeding or something, like that's it, no one's ever gonna see it.

Obviously, I think you stole this car. This is a minute, this ain't you, this guy's a brr. And then you go, this guy's a bridge troll. Oh no, there he is. Mr. Serala, I'm so sorry. So I don't think it's worth the effort. No, I don't think so either. I think if she's really intent on it,

I think you can take your own photo and say it. Yeah, it just has to like have some criteria, right? Right, it has to adhere to the standards. Are you like to smile in a US passport photo because you're not in Canada? I don't think so. I think yeah, it's a expression. Expression.

Expressionless. Yeah, I feel like mine. I've just recently got my passport renewed and I feel like in mine. I do I think I'm I feel like I'm doing the Kubrick stare in mine. There it is over the eyebrow bones. I don't like it. I like it. Yeah, it's really stop it. Stop it. Yeah, it's it's again, not flattering, but it was like, I'm not, can we reach it? Oh, get out here. You know who's gonna be looking at that?

Someone who's looking at you after you got off of 10-hour flight. Yeah. You're not gonna be looking your best to begin with. That's what you're gonna look like. It's fun. Yeah, exactly. It's like this big, like, I don't know, I just don't get it.

I renewed my passport recently too, a couple of months ago. And, okay, I just don't get it. I renewed my passport recently to a couple of months ago. And I guess they changed it. I didn't realize that they changed the US passport. Now they got like a hard plastic page in there where your photo is. It's like, oh, no. Trevor has that. Or jealous.

Cause my Canadian passport's paper. I find it a new one soon. I think a, I think a, I'm not sure I need to renew it sometime. What Canadian passport is a maple leaf? I think it's very flimsy. It's peeling. There you go.

This is from the family tree. When I first got my first passport back in 2004, they were in the United States, they were in the process of starting to introduce RFID chips to passports. Oh yeah. And I was very scared of that. So I was happy about my passport 2004,

because I had the non RFID passport. And then when I had to renew it in 2014, I was like, oh, now you gotta get it. Because I had seen some scary videos online, like proof of concept attacks, where you could have RFID readers that recognize certain signals from certain country RFIDs and detonate an explosive, for example.

Whoa! What? I'd rather not have, obviously, I don't think it's ever happened in practice. Sure, yeah, yeah, but in theory. In theory, it's like you could read it, who knows what the actual distance is. It was more like a proof of concepting

that they were showing. Interesting. So that like your like a particular RFID signature could like within proximity of something that like it basically activates like the trigger. Wild. Yeesh. So anyway, put that on your nightmare list. I hope you're good to use it on that later tonight.

My God. My God. Oh my God. I don't know if I should have told you this story earlier, Gus, because it's an airport related story. Oh, tell me everything. Tell me, tell me. So I was recently over in the UK.

For what? No, for some things. For some things. For some things. I'm a little trip, but also a convention. Of course. So I went to Birmingham and then came back to Austin after that.

You've flown internationally coming back to Austin where you have to go through customs in Austin. No, I never have done customs in Austin. Oh, I have. It is the single worst experience ever. Because the, well, you have to get your luggage before going through customs here in Austin. The way they have it situated in the Austin airport

is they have the baggage carousel in this tiny little room where there's also the customs like line and desk and stuff like that. The escalator goes down into where the baggage carousel is and you know how people act around baggage carousels. It's like animals. Moreons who all stand clustered by the where the bags fall out so they could immediately see their bag instead of evenly spreading out around my carousel. Or just standing back and waiting. And then step up when you see your bag.

Or just anywhere. I just don't understand that. Just anywhere. So the place that people congregate is the place that the escalator goes down. And people don't understand of like, I'm coming down this escalator, you have to move. And when I arrived at the Austin Airport,

there was another international flight that arrived just before us. So they kept us in the hall before going down the escalator to get down to the bags. The fire alarm starts going off in the Austin Airport. That's like attention, everyone. Please find the nearest exit and exit the building. Do not use the elevator.

It's like this is a fire alarm. Whatever. We had no idea what was going on. There was no one telling us. So everyone of course is just like standing there not doing anything. And it takes about an hour for us to be able to go down to get our bags to go through customs. And luckily because I have a green card, I was able to go through like the US. Yes. But the international line of people who were not US citizens or residents was like a mile long. Oh, it was awful. So do not suggest having to go through cousins in Austin. Just love the fire alarm going off. Like everyone, please exit the building.

Any, I don't know terrorists, be on your best behavior. You're on the honor system. You're on the honor system. You're gonna pass this time. But we found out later that it was just a test, but no one was saying it was a test. Oh my God. So people were just kind of like still hanging around.

And then when I left the customs area to like go into the main airport and leave, I guess because of the fire alarm, there were just like lines and lines and lines and lines of people, like the line for security was going out the front door of the airport. Awful. Like I've never, I had never in my life seen it that bad.

And I'm like, thank God I'm leaving. Yeah. Jesus. Well, the Austin Airport right now, this is some real, this is real local stuff for you, Austin locals. Classic RT podcast. Classic RT podcast of gripes of the Austin Airport.

They're doing construction on it right now and have been Classic RT podcast. Classic RT podcast of gripes of the Austin airport. Um, they're doing construction on it right now and they have and have been well forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's the I-35 of airports. Anyway, they're doing construction on the exit, like the main exit to the airport where like you, you know, after you land, you get off, you're going down into the escalators going down on baggage claim. And they have basically cordoned off all exits to essentially file an entire airport's worth of people. Have you been there really? Yeah. They're filing an entire airport's worth of people through like essentially a double door like. Yeah. And it is. It's been like that for a while. And I like, I hadn't flown in a long time when I came back from vacation a couple of weeks ago. And you walk up and you're like,

oh, surely not, this is not how it, oh, we're all cattle being like, oh, this is how, okay, great. And you're just asked to ankles like shuffling like through like Emperor Penguins trying to keep warm like through this thing. And I already have like flight anxiety and like, you know, COVID anxiety when I'm in an airport. So I'm just like,

gah, holding your breath. I was like, this is the fucking worst. I hate this. I hate this so much. But it has been like that. Apparently, I was like, oh, they're probably, that's probably fixed by now, right? Years.

It was like that. I think it was since like right around when the pandemic started. Good. When the doors were like that. So yeah, I think there was since like right around when the pandemic started. Good. When the doors were like that. Um, yeah. I think there was an article that came out about the worst airports in the US. Austin, number three. Yeah.

No, that's your pass. That's true. Number three worst airport. I've been in so many worst ones. Like worst, okay, hold on a second. Worst major city airport because, well, I was gonna say, my sister lives in Bend, Oregon, and I love the airport there, because it's like in Redmond, in Redmond, Oregon,

because it's like, it's essentially, it's about the size of a small Walmart. Like you just like walk through it, you get your bag, it's like, there's no, you walk to the plane, it's so easy. Pick up some ol' Roy dog food. Yeah. Get on the plane.

You're sitting. Yeah. A small town airport kind of rocks. Cause it's, yeah, there's no hubbub. You just like walked here. And you literally like you for walks of plane, like you're the Beatles. When I used my old job, I used to travel a lot

and I spent a lot of time in the Midwest. Remember one time I showed up trying to vamp to give you time, let me know if you find it. I'm still looking. Yeah, I showed up. There's a lot of ads and stuff like that. I was flying out of Madison, Wisconsin and I showed up to to vamp to give you time. Let me know if you find it. I'm still looking. I just a lot of ads and stuff like that. I was flying out of Madison, Wisconsin, and I showed up to the Madison airport like super.

I had an early flight and like I'd finished my work and I was like, I didn't have to, didn't bother go to, you hotel, so went to the hotel, picked up my bag and I'm just gonna go straight to the airport. Showed up to the airport like 4 a.m. And the airport was closed. I was like, oh my God. I'd never experienced this before.

Like I guess it's like a smaller town, like Madison's not huge at anything. It's like they just don't have flights. So the airport's closed. I was like, oh, I'd never experienced this before. Like, I guess it's like a smaller town like Madison's not huge. Yeah, I think it's like they just don't have flights. So the airport's closed. The doors are actually locked. It's like, oh, I'm going to go, I guess, what do you do? I like, I was like, I guess I'll just go back to my rental car and sit in it for a while. Because even the rental car return was closed too. So it's like, you just left your car there with the keys. Oh, it's like, oh, okay, I'll just grab my keys and get back in the car. And all right, I'll just sit here, wait an hour for the airport to open so I can go in and leave. Well, where am I going to get a $19 salad? Shit.

Yeah, small, the, wait, Madison was consens, like, not, I would imagine they have a bigger airport than that. This is also back in 2000. Okay. You know, this was 23, no, 25 years ago. So, it's probably, you know, grown a bit since it, but you know, it's not a small town, but it's not, like when you list major cities in the United States, Madison was consented.

It does not jump to like top of your mind. Wild tangent really quick while Barbara finds us. I'm not finding the article where it said that. I'll take your word for it. I want to know what number two and number one on it. I know. I want to know who to be mad at later. I think Newark was up there as being good.

I think Newark gets a bad rap. Newark's not terrible. It's okay. Anyway, we have fun. You're not seeing them on any list I'm looking for. So maybe it was a fever dream. The every time I, every time I fly to LA, everyone's like, oh, go Burbank.

Don't go LAX, go Burbank. I get that one time. Go to Burbank instead of LAX. Yeah, well, it's like way easier to get to. Like, people don't, if you're like, can somebody pick me up from the airport? I'm like, no, I think I'm busy. It's Burbank.

They're like, oh yeah, I can pick you up. Yeah, no problem. Oh yeah, no sweat. Well, if you're going to'm kind of busy. It's Burbank. They're like, oh yeah, I can pick you up. No problem. Oh yeah, no sweat. Well, if you're going to Funhouse, because they're in Burbank. Yeah, yeah. So like, being able to just fly in there

and like, oh, they're two minutes away. They actually, Funhouse operates in the airport. Yeah, yeah. It's great for sound. Yeah. Actually, hold for playing. Yeah. I flew into Orange County once,

which is, I had to go down to like Anaheim. And I was like, oh, like Orange County's down there. Oh, yeah, I've done that. Like Orange County Airport, it's like, oh, it must be analogous to Burbank. It's like, there's not a ton of flights. You're like, you're lying like, oh, this is great. It's a tiny, it's like too baggage-carous. Yeah, it's not huge.

Like, I'm just gonna get my shit and go. That's it. Don't fly in the LAX and then drive a fucking hour to Anaheim. It's very nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The only problem is, is like, if you're part of, if you have like points on a major airline,

like I fly American, usually, so I try to take American flights because I have status, not a lot of direct flights. Yeah. I think, yeah, there's like one. If that, I think, I think it's usually like Southwest, and other things like that, which not a huge fan of. Yeah. I, I, I, and like having an assigned seat. that, which not a huge fan of. Yeah, I, I, I,

and like having an assigned seat. Oh, do they, is it just like first come for serving Southwest? Southwest, I think you, like, it depends on when you check in of like where you rank in terms of like how soon you could board, but you could also pay extra at a board sooner. Ah. And then like, it's like group A one through 20,

group A 20 through 40. You basically get a number and a letter. It's on your boarding pass. And then you have to sort yourself in the line before you go on the plane. I do like that boarding process the best out of any airline because I am so fucking sick of being group like one or two for boarding.

And there's like all these people just standing right by the boarding doors. Gate lights. And you have to like get around them to get in. And you're just like, oh, what group are you? Seven. Sit down. Like, get out of here.

Go get a coffee. You'll walk around. Yeah, you'll walk around. And so like that, that's what's good about Southwest is like everyone places themselves into where they're at so good. United started, I think last month, they started boarding a little differently now.

Where I think like groups one and two board as usual. And then anyone beyond that, they board windows first, then middle seats, and then aisle seats. And they said, I think their goal is to shave two minutes off of the boarding time. They're like, if they, like, that's all they want to do. It's like, it's small gains, like two minutes here, two, like, throughout the ages. Should you back to front? It's like Olympic qualifying numbers.

It's like, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're made it. CGP Gray has a great video about all the different ways you could possibly board an airplane. Uh-huh. And the best way is, it's, it's super inconvenient. It's like back of playing windows to front of plane windows then back of plane middle to front of plane middle then back of plane aisle to front of plane aisle.

Yeah, so don't have to get up and move and all that stuff. Right. And it's like, it's the most efficient, but it's a pain in the butt. But trying to organize that, trying to orchestrate that with a bunch of eye rate and people already stressed out people would be a fucking nightmare. It's people who want to get their bag up.

I mean, that's the only reason people are like anxious about getting on. It's like they want to make sure they get a spot for their bag. Yeah. So for the first time, I mentioned earlier, I went to, when I'm vacation, like I guess, but when this comes out, it'll been a few months ago.

But on the flight back, I flew first class for the first. Ooh. Because there's only a hundred dollar upgrade for the ticket. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's the cash. It's gonna treat myself on the way back to. Like, I feel like that's good. Like, the first class fight on the way back, it's like, you're, it's the last treat, you should treat yourself. It's gonna treat myself on the way back to. Like, I feel like that's good. Like, the first class might on the way back.

It's like, you're, it's the last treat, you know, you can have before you go home. So I treat it as like, so my first time flying first class. And I shouldn't have done it, cause now I'm like, well, I've got the hunger. I've got the taste now. What I'm fucking treat. It is kind of, it's nice as fuck.

It's a little also very sad how much better people in first class get treated than the rest of a plane. It's like awful. I mean, when you see that difference, and it's just like, The contrast could not be stark or animals. They treat the people back there like, like, addles.

There's a bit in an old Seinfeld episode. I don't know if you remember, where Jerry and Elaine show up for the plan There's like we only have one seat in first-class one seat in economy in jerry says I'll take the first class No, it's this why don't you give it to me? And he says you've never been there before you don't know what you're missing Yeah Once you do that there's no going back you'll never be able to not fly for his class again. We had a a whole situation going to Edinburgh

Which I think is like one of the, it's such a silly story. Is this a relationship tester story? Not really. No, I mean, like one that affirms your good relationship. Yeah, yeah. So Trevor and I went to Edinburgh for vacation where we got engaged. But like it was the first vacation we've taken a really long time and we were wanting to go all out for it.

And we had premium economy on our flights on the way there, which on an international flight, premium economy is like. Nice. Very nice. Very nice. And we were looking at our seats like as we were in the Uber on the way to the airport and I was like, there's some business class seats available for only like 400 bucks to upgrade. And I know $400 is not a small amount,

but when it's an international flight, that's a good deal for an international. That's a lot of shaggy. For those tickets are like thousands of dollars more. Yeah. And it was our first vacation a while, where your ones, you know, spurred you a little bit.

100% of our stuff. And so we're like, there's two seats left. Like let's both get them and treat ourselves to like first class international. And we go to click on them. And we're on separate itineraries too, because I was flying Edinburgh, and then I was taking the train to Birmingham

for the convention and flying back to Austin, whereas he was just going around Trip Edinburgh because he was flying home before I went to the convention. So we're on different ticket to it in itinerary. So we each had to buy our ticket. We're in the Uber. I click, we click the seats, we click like, okay, pay, check out.

His goes through. Mine says, didn't go through, I get a text. It's like fraud alert from your credit card. Oh, yeah. Oh shit, like, I guess because you're spending, you know, a few hundred bucks on an international, international, like whatever. Was it an airline credit card?

It was. Oh, extra damning. For a different airline. Oh, okay. We were flying KLM. I'm an American Predator. And it could possibly be Barbara. She flies American. What is she doing? So he gets the seat. And I'm like on the phone trying to get the froller thing. But at that point, I can't change the seat online because it's like three hours before or like two hours before flight So you can change your seat anymore And so I'm like okay, we'll just like deal with it when we get up to like we'll go to the check and desk and deal with it

The airport I'm still on the phone the person I cannot understand anything this person is saying they're talking so quietly and so like They're not a non-seating anything. I can't tell what they're saying They're not an unseating anything. I can't tell what they're saying. Oh, that's not coming in. So I just want to do just a, tell me what the number is on the class. And I'm just like, sorry, like could you repeat that?

And they're like, do you have the code for, and I'm just like, I don't know what you're referring to. Like, let me just call back so I can check in. Yeah. Because I have another credit card I could use if I need to. Get to the desk. There's a man also checking in next to me who maybe got there like three seconds before us. And I was like, hey, so this happened

when you were trying to get seats. Is it OK? Is that still available? Could I buy it here? She was looking, she's like, yep, there's a seat in business class. I could get that for you and blah, blah, blah. And really great.

Cool. And she's typing it in. And she goes, oh, actually, that was just bought by him. And so he's literally like just swipe the credit card. And I'm like devastated because it's like, oh, we had this like opportunity to because he got the seat. Yeah. And I am not making him switch back.

Yeah. I'm like, you treat yourself. Yeah. I ended up covering it for his birthday also, like as a birthday present. It's not very nice. But Trevor saw how upset I was, and he turned to the guy next to us, and he was like, I know this is like a really big ask,

but like we're traveling, it's a really special trip for us. And like we just tried to get the ticket and like her credit card, like had a fraud alert. And the guy was like, you know what, yeah, like you can't do it. Really? I'm giving it to them. But then the lady behind the counter was like,

I already swiped your credit card there. I can't undo it right now. So the seat has gone through and the guy was like, oh well. Like he was basically just like trying to be nice. Yeah, it is like that. It's like, well, I guess it's not gonna work. So. So I'm gonna go enjoy that free orange juice

and that's the most, I'll drink an extra one in your memory. And so of course, Trevor's, you take the seat, you take the seat, and I'm like, no, no, no, like I've had the opportunity to fly in that position before, and you've never tried it before. So you should try it. It's for your birthday, I want you to experience that.

And so, and premium economy was fine. It was fine. Oh yeah. It's not like an overnight flight, right? You have to worry about it. No, it's a 10 hour, 10 and a half hour flight. But yeah, it was just like. Brutal.

All these little things happened just at the wrong time. If we had looked at the seats 10 minutes earlier, and I got my credit card to fix it, or if we had arrived two minutes before that guy did and bought the wrong time. Like if we had looked at the seats like 10 minutes earlier and I got my credit card to fix it or if we had arrived two minutes before that guy did and bought the seat. I can't believe they make you call also. Like normally you would think they would say in the text like was this you reply, why?

And you know they clear it or something. And even while I was doing it, I was like, should I use my credit card on Apple Pay or should I just use PayPal? I'm like, I'll use my credit card. If I just did PayPal, it would be on sale. Yeah, yeah, there's the checks there, much easier to just like, I'll use my credit card. If I just didn't pay pal, it would be fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's the checks there much easier to just like, yeah, they take it out of your account.

Again, extreme first world problem. We are very grateful to be able to afford that luxury for the trip. But it's nice you got in gay, this is a very special trip. It's a special trip. It's a special trip. Yeah.

I love the guy like, yeah. And the second he was given an out not to do it, just like, okay, we're great. Like the smoke outline of where he was standing like, already, ah-ha. And like, I tried. I tried. I still get the moral high.

I get something in the moral credits. Yeah. Jesus, that, ah, gosh. The, maybe you could just switch seats with us. I'm like, I'll pay you in cash for this again. Honestly, yeah, why not? Why couldn't you just like pay? Well, I don't know.

I mean, they probably, it's like a security thing with like whose name is associated with the seat. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know how KLM works, but sometimes like ununited also, there's a credit card associated with the seat. So it's like, you don't pay the flight attendant for anything that you buy,

they just automatically charge it to the credit card on the seat. And then on my way back home, my flight was canceled. Yeah. I just had a great, I had a great travel time, but my KLM flight, it was going from Birmingham to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Austin. And I guess Amsterdam at the time

was experiencing like a huge snow storm. And my flight from Birmingham to Amsterdam just got canceled. And they were like, I got this alert on Saturday my flight was Monday morning. And I'm like, okay, well, what else is there? And they're like, click here for like some rebooking options. Click the link.

Sorry, there are no options. And I'm like, boom. And so they have like a customer service text line. So I texted them, I'm like, this is my flight, this is what I've been told. The flight from Amsterdam to Austin said it was still fine. Did not receive a text back. I texted at 4.30 in the afternoon,

received a text back at 1 a.m. Oh my God. And at that point, I had already canceled and refunded the flight because it was their issue. And I just booked myself with miles on an American flight from directly from London to Austin, on the direct flight. But that means I had to take a car from Birmingham

to London Monday morning, which I ended up splitting with Aaron Zeck because she was also going to London for her flight. So it's like, okay, that's not that bad. That sounds expensive as hell, but I guess you're just splitting it. It ended up only being like a, it was like $200 Uber. I thought it would have, that's not that bad. That sounds expensive as hell, but I guess you're just splitting it. It ended up only being like a, it was like $200 Uber.

I thought it would've been way worse than that. Oh. And so we split that like a hundred bucks each. Yeah. And also like I ended up saving money because I got my full refund back for the flight. And the flight from get this, from London to Austin,

it was only 22,000 miles. Oh, that's super. Which is like a domestic flight. Yeah, that's like domestic flight. Yeah, that's like domestic flight. Yeah, that's cheap as hell. And so like, I have miles accumulated from flying a lot. And so it was just like, basically saved money by non-discrimination. Don't tell KLA.

Don't tell KLA. I came out ahead in this deal. But not a great experience to KLA. That's it. I, so this is sort of loosely related to flying. Well, I think it's not loose related. It's loosely related to flying. Oh, I did not lose my head, it is directly related to flying. But why, because you mentioned the person,

you were dealing with the person at the desk who was like making, like re-emaking arrangements. I've never seen someone type so much for doing the simplest, they don't have a mouse. I don't know how, what the system, they don't have a mouse. But it's like, okay, I just need to, I was wondering if I could like upgrade to, or if I could like switch seats to a window seat.

Okay, homie, just make something. Tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, t 20 uninterrupted seconds, you're like, what could you possibly be doing? I have the greatest video to show you. I think it was a Wendover Productions YouTube video. My child being bored. No, no, no. And he talks about is like a deep dive into what the hell are they typing? Okay. Why does the system work that way? What are they looking at? How does all of that interconnection?

How does it all work? It's like a 20 minute deep dive into what the fuck happens when someone's typing like that at an airport. Okay. I'll send it to you because It's like a 20 minute deep dive into what the fuck happens when someone's typing like that at an airport. Okay. I'll send it to you, because it's wild. It's really interesting. Please, because again, it all amounts,

it's all clicky clacks, and I'm just like, it has to be like, again, like it's own language. Like there's this own, it's its own point of sale system that you want to learn, you just see the matrix code and understand. If you look at it, it looks like a mainframe from the 70s. It's a black screen with green

text, like green flashing text. And it's like so antiquated. It was like, it was the future in the 60s when it was made. And now it's like, we're still, we're still using it your eye. Yeah, we're still using a fucking like what are they? What are the name of those keys that like still have like the manual like they actually like depress Yeah, like yeah, actually They don't really use mice right You're gonna learn a lot. I'll send you the video too.

Please do, I'm just thinking about this now. Are they just being like, hello, I would like to refocus this passenger on this. Like, are they timing what they need? And someone's going, okay. It also talks about the wild card of different users have different levels of experience with the system.

So sometimes you're really at the mercy of how familiar the person you're dealing with, how familiar they are with the system. Like finding someone who's been working there for a long time and knows the ins and outs of the system will really get you ahead versus someone who's still figuring it out. That's never as much knowledge about it.

It's not a Japanese documentary about fruit, but I still really enjoyed it. Well, I mean, I can't all be dotted. I'm curious minds wanna know, because I want to know why, again, know my, I like, because this, like, I can't all be done here. Curious minds want to know, because I want to know why, again, know my, because I notice this line of my, I'm like, can I don't use my, they just like, tap way on this, on this like keyboard,

they're navigate entirely through like the keys, and I can't imagine what is happening, by the way, I love the idea that it's like, it's like a, like, teletype, it's messaging, it's messaging someone on a switchboard from, so I says to Mabel, I says. Oh, they're like pushing, like putting in little connectors to get you to your flight.

Folks, thank you so much for listening to the Ruchit podcast. Time flies. Time flies, just like we might in the near future on anyone of the wonderful airlines if anyone wants to sponsor. In the sponsor the show. Hey KLM, make it up to me.

But thank you guys so much for stopping by. And again, anything you guys want to plug here at the end. Stinky Dragon, Stinky Where he's going on right now. Go check that out, StinkyDragonPod.com or Stinky DragonPod on social media. Go listen to Annamai mentioned it. I tell the whole story about my license. It's its own whole ordeal. You can listen to the saga. The saga of that. Yeah, definitely check out stinky dragon. It's a show we love to make and we are putting a lot of work into it. I'll also check out stinky dragon adventures, which was the puppet show

we did. That at this point would be wrapped up, but you could watch all the episodes for free at stinkydragonpod.com. And yeah, get a first membership. Do it. Do it. Do it. Please. You won't do it. Yeah. No. No. It's time to reverse psychology as assholes. You won't do it. You're a chicken.

Well guys, thank you so much for being here. And yeah, it's the new year. It's 2024 when this is coming out. So this is very exciting. Plowing ahead into this wonderful new year and we will see you back here next week. Bye bye, everybody. Happy election year.

Oh God, no! Wait, no! Oh! Oh, shit. I didn't even think about that. No! I'm depressed. I can't.

I can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore. I can't do it again. This is all going in, right? It's all right. So Constitution says you can only start two presidential terms back-to-back, right? So Trump still has two more in front of him? That's right. Yeah.

Hey, John here from Tales from the Stinky Dragon, your favorite D&D podcast with puppets. All throughout January, we're celebrating Stinky Ray. To raise awareness and drive support from users like you, we literally can't make any of our shows without the monthly support of our subscribers, so we want to invite everyone who enjoys our content to consider becoming a first member of what we'd like to call our patrons and help us keep making D&D entertainment all year long. And then join us on January 26th for a special 8-hour D&D One-Shot Stream. To sign up for more information about StinkyWary, check us out at StinkyDragonPod.com.

Stay Stinky y'all!