So... Alright - Holiday Firsts and Eating Crow

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Geoff talks about his new love of hockey, eating crow, and looking forward to what 2025 has to offer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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3 to date it. I got home from about a week in in Michigan yesterday, got off the plane, came home, did a little bit of admin work and then recorded episode 36 of the regulation podcast with the guys. It was awesome. I missed them. It is it's weird. It's a problem I used to have in the better days at Rooster Teeth where you have to take a vacation and you need, you feel it, you need it, you're burned out,

you wanna go decompress and relax. And then the second you start to do that, all of the enthusiasm, like the second you wake up after a good night's sleep on the first day of vacation, you're like, oh, I finally had a good night's sleep, I got some extra rest, I may go downstairs and get a coffee and before you know it, you're like, oh, you know what's a good idea?

I'd love to tell Gavin about this right now, but I'm on vacation. And then it just goes like that for the rest of the vacation. Where you end up as you're, at least for me, as I'm resting, the enthusiasm for the job comes rushing back in immediately and it doesn't allow for any space, you know?

And so you spend the first half of the vacation trying not to think about it and just to decompress. But while your subconscious mind is just building enthusiasm, and then the second half of the vacation, you're just like chomping at the bit to get to work. That's probably not healthy, but it was a great vacation. What did you guys do?

Did anybody do anything like crazy first time experience, something you'd never done in your life? Like your family took, saved up and went to the Swiss Alps and you skied the Swiss Alps for the first time in your life or you, I don't know, you had your first ever white elephant party. That doesn't seem on par with going to the Swiss Alps. But you know what I'm getting at.

Did you do anything this holiday for the first time? This was not the intention of this podcast, but it just popped into my head. And I thought I should ask. I did. I went to my very first NHL hockey game I saw the Detroit Red Wings of who I am now immediately a fan of play against the Washington Capitals I got to see Ovechkin score a goal That dude if you're not a hockey fan, I wasn't either. I boy am I now though Emily's dad My father-in-law has we have bonded over sports over the last seven years.

He's a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan, Dodgers fan, loves baseball, grew up a hockey fan, loves hockey. I come into it as a huge basketball fan who loves baseball and then everybody likes football. And I have been spending the last six years getting him into basketball and he is now getting me into hockey. It is a great trade.

I gotta say, I tried over and over and over again to watch hockey on television and I just couldn't get into it. But going and seeing it live at the Little Caesars Arena surrounded by a tremendous amount of fans, which by the way is awesome, because as I understand it, when I went to see them, the Red Wings were in dead last place and not looking good.

They had just fired and hired a new coach and kind of unsure where things were going. And the game I watched, they won. Then they lost the next game, then they won the next two. And so things seem to be turning around. I think they won three of their last four. I've watched all of them now because I'm a huge hockey fan. But anyway, what I was saying is,

I could never get into it on television. It just found it hard to follow the action. And I never felt like I got a complete picture of what was going on. But seeing it live, everything makes sense because you're seeing the line changes and you're getting to what you're getting to take everything in and in that experience I fell in love with hockey. It was

just a wild, energetic, fascinating thing to watch and I don't know when the last time you got into a sport was. For me it's been a long time because I've got into most of the sports when I was a kid. But discovering a sport is so much fun if it clicks with you and then you get to learn all the rules and all the ins and outs and the beauty of it and the brutality of it and how cerebral it all is and how it's like the thing about hockey, it's like it's almost like a ballet when you watch it. It's really fascinating. I watched a game last night, it was so fucking cool and it doesn't look like anything on TV.

I mean, it looks like a goal, right? But when you explain it to Millie what was happening, she was like, oh, that is pretty neat. I was watching the game last night on TV and it was 3-3 or was it 4-4? It might've been 4-4 anyway. There was about 30 seconds left in the game. It was tied up three or was it four, four? It might have been four, four. Anyway, it was there was a there was about 30 seconds left in the game. It was tied up and it was the Red Wings were playing the Columbus Blue Jackets.

I think they're called and the Blue Jackets have a power play, right? So that means they have a full roster and the the Red Wings are down one man. And that one man is sitting in a box for two minutes. And what happens in this moment is the undermanned team, in this case the Red Wings, they have to create like this box around the goal and just try to stop the onslaught of attacks, right? Because you can't, when the other team has one more person

on the court, court, when the other team has one more person on the ice, then you can't guard everybody at once, right? And so it creates this precarious situation where you got four people guarding five people, they're just hammering the net over and over again, trying to score. And there was like, I don't know, 20 seconds left in the game and the power play ends.

And as the power play is ending, Detroit steals the puck, passes it to a dude on, I don't know the guy's name, passes it to a guy on the side and this is where it's fucking awesome. He knows that the power play has just ended and his teammate is coming out of the penalty box. So he passes the puck to where he's gonna be. The guy's still getting out of the penalty box and this dude's already passing a puck to where he where he's gonna be. The guy's still getting out of the penalty box,

and this dude's already passing a puck to where he knows he's gonna be. The guy gets there, intercepts it, and scores with like five fucking seconds left on the clock. It's one of the most thrilling things I've seen in sports in a while. It was amazing. And I don't think I would have understood it in the same,

nearly the same way if I hadn't gone to a live hockey game and been introduced to the totality of what happens on the ice. If that makes sense. Anyway, I loved seeing the Red Wings. I got a hoodie for Christmas. I went and bought a T-shirt. I am now a Red Wings fan. Don't know what to do about my brief flirtation with the Bruins.

Still open to being a Bruins fan because I'm a Celtics fan, but man I got to tell you I like the Red Wings. They were a great introduction to live hockey. And they're one of the original six which is cool, although I guess the Bruins are too. That's the one thing I did this holiday that I had never done before. Go to an NHL game at the Little Caesars Arena. But anyway I'd love to hear if you guys did something for the first time this holiday, you can email me at Eric at Jeff Sposs dot com. I got a ton of emails over the break.

I haven't looked at any of them yet. I apologize. I'm sure there's some wonderful stuff in there. I'll do an inbox clean out episode soon. But mostly, I just wanted to touch base with you guys and see see what you're thinking for 2025. I oh, also, I need to eat a little bit of crow at some point in this podcast, I just wanted to touch base with you guys and see what you're thinking for 2025. I also I need to eat a little bit of crow at some point in this podcast, which I'm happy to do 2025.

It's a new year. It's the point where you guys have all probably made your news resolutions, whatever they may be. I made the one on this podcast to watch all of the new Twin Peaks series. Haven't started that yet, but I will definitely get to it in 2025. So I've just been thinking a lot about how do I want to spend my time in 2025? Obviously, regulation is the priority. It's the company.

It is the paycheck. And it is also where my heart is. I cannot tell you how excited I am for the first full year of the regulation company and all of the content we have. I mapped out one of the things I did over the break was I would take a little bit of time away every other day or so and go sit at a coffee shop

and just collate and collect and organize ideas and notes. Nothing new. No, that's not true. I came up with like two new ideas, but I wasn't trying to come up with new ideas. I was really just trying to, because I have notes everywhere and you like, you put a note down for an episode

and then it gets buried and then you forget about it. And so I just went through like all of 2024's notes and just tried to make sense of all the ideas that I had or that I wanted to do or that we talked about that we didn't do and tried to just put them in some sort of a digestible format, which I found to be really helpful. And so I got all that organized. But mostly I just rested and relaxed and watched sports with my father-in-law and and my brother-in-law. It was so, so, so much fun and very, very relaxing,

but I am chomping at the bit to do stuff in 2025. And clearly, as I was just saying before I distracted myself, regulation is the priority and that's gonna take the lion's share of my attention. But I have this podcast. I have the freedom to create other podcasts and do other things, right? There's a lot of opportunity there.

So I spent some time thinking, what's it gonna be? Where do I wanna put my time? Now that I'm not at Rooster Teeth, I do have more time in the day that I can focus on other things, you know? Or I'm not like, most of my time at Rooster Teeth, people think I was playing video games all the time and doing podcasts. That was a part of it, people think I was playing video games all the time and doing podcasts.

That was a part of it, man. It was the best part of it. It was the good part of it. But a lot of what I did was just put out fires and mentor and talk people off ledges and try to break up fights and try to figure, like so many administrative and business and managerial meetings and stuff.

And I really tried to distance myself from that in the last few years, but it's still, there's a creep in there. It just creeps back in. And so I want to do something good with the extra time that I have. I don't want to twist in the wind. I don't want to waste it. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian superstore with PC express shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. And so I think I think I want to do more streaming in 2025. I flirted with it in the summer when I had extra time and I streamed for about a month on Twitch. I think my my username is

probably Jeff L. Ramsey. I don't know. It's been so long since I've streamed on my personal account. I don't honestly know. Maybe it's Jeff RVB or fake Jeff or maybe it's fake Jeff. That sounds right. I think it's probably fake Jeff. But I want to get back to it. I was really enjoying it. I was only gonna I was kind of using that month to see if I liked it if it was something I was even interested in and I really was and I really did dig it, but then travel and work got in the way,

and I found it harder and harder to get back to it, because it honestly wasn't a priority, but I wanna make it a priority. I think I want to try to stream most days in 2025, not weekends, of course, but maybe three or four days a week during the week, and I'm sure it'll be sporadic, and sometimes it sure it'll be sporadic and sometimes it'll be in the morning and sometimes it'll be in the afternoon and sometimes it'll be at night.

And it's probably not a recipe for success monetarily. But I'm not trying to turn this into a career. I already have a career with the regulation podcast. I just want to stream and have fun streaming. I've been playing so much Call of Duty the last well, since it came out really, and why not stream it while I'm playing it? I'm playing Indiana Jones right now.

Why not stream it while I'm playing it? I did this thing where I boxed myself in and I started doing this, the whole gist was that I was gonna play PlayStation games that I had missed, first party PlayStation games that I'd never played as an Xbox fan the last 20 years or so. And I did Uncharted and then I'm almost through with the God of War.

And it's been great and I've loved it. But I started to feel like if I came back to it, I had to go back to God of War or I had to go back to another PlayStation game. And I genuinely just kind of want to play Call of Duty right now. And so why am I giving myself restrictions that I don't need to? So I think I'm gonna start streaming. Maybe I'll stream today.

Fuck, why not, right? Probably not, but maybe. I'll have to see if I can remember how to set it all back up. I'm sure I can. If I did it once, I can do it again. Although isn't that sometimes the worst? When you know you did something, you look at something and you're like,

how the fuck does this work? And you know you're the one that put it together and that you were smart enough a month ago or six months ago or a year ago, and now you don't feel smart enough and you can't understand what you yourself did. And you're like, how did I get dumb? I did this and now I can't figure out how I did this

or how to do it again. Ugh, story of my life. But I guess if you are interested in streaming, look for that pretty soon and hopefully pretty often. I really wanna get back into it. I have so many more hours of Call of Duty ahead of me unlocking skins on guns. I might as well be doing it with you guys

and by myself alone in a tiny office. That seems depressing. Okay, so that's where I've been. It's where we're gonna go, I think. More of this podcast. I don't know what 2025 has in store for this podcast specifically, other than I intend to continue it,

but I might change the format up. I might bring in more guests. I don't know. I'm really trying to work that out because I feel like there's a lot of opportunity and I don't want it to get where it's just like, I don't know, just me staring at a waveform, just vomiting nonsense. I don't know. So I might get more experimental in 2025 of this thing. In the meantime, I'm just going to continue to talk to you. Okay, now the part of the podcast that I need to do, I

have to eat a little bit of crow. I'm gonna call this section Jeff eats crow. Okay, things I was wrong about in 2024. Most of them are sports related, but I'm going to throw two that aren't sports related out first. First, I was wrong about the election. Trump won. I didn't think he would win a big L for me on that one. I was wrong about Twisters being a successful movie. I don't think I'm wrong about it being a shitty movie, but I was wrong about how well that movie did.

It was a huge, huge success, and I didn't think it would be. So I definitely got that one wrong. Now, let me apologize for all of my bad hot takes on the NBA. I've written a few down. First and foremost, the Clippers are very good. I had no faith in that team and in a Kawhi Leonard-less, aged James Harden Clippers. I had

no faith in them and I picked them to finish the season in 12th and listen, we got a whole lot of season ahead of us, clearly. We're not even close to being over. But dude, they're in fucking, what place? They're in seventh place right now, and they're looking good, and they seem to be getting better. So I apologize Clippers and Clippers fans, I was wrong. The Phoenix Suns, I thought they'd be middle of the road.

I was wrong, they're dog shit of the road. I was wrong. They're dog shit. They're worse than I imagined. They are like 15 and 17 right now. I could not have imagined them going under 500. I had them finishing the season at sixth place and right now they are in 11th place. Now once again, Matt HB has shown

that he is comfortable spending money and making wild trades. I don't know how many wild trades there are to be made and I don't know who wants the assets he has other than KD who is another year older. So who knows what's gonna happen? We still have some time to the trade deadline, but as it stands right now, they are in a hole

and I don't know how they're gonna dig themselves out. I was wrong about the Rockets. I thought they'd be good. I didn't think they'd be this good. They are in third place. And a lot of that has to do with a lot of teams taking a step back and regressing. But that shouldn't take away from the advances they've made.

They are a great team. They are short a closer that they can rely on, you know, in the fourth quarter. They need that guy that they can turn to who is gonna put the team on his shoulders and just score over and over again. That Spider Mitchell, you know, is a great example of that person, I think.

However, I don't think it's Jalen Green. Maybe it's Alper and Sangoon. I don't really think it's Fred Van Vliet. So I think that they seem really happy with their talent and they don't seem to wanna make any changes. But I wouldn't really think it's Fred van Vliet. So I think that they, they seem really happy with their talent and they don't seem to want to make any changes. But I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to bring in some sort of an aged veteran who who is a fourth quarter carry the team on my back kind of guy. It's you know, a lot of people have speculated that it'd be a landing spot for Jimmy Butler,

but they don't seem interested in him. So who knows? Maybe this'll be the season that one of the Rockets players takes that leap and becomes that person. This isn't something I was wrong or right about, but Luka Doncic went down, he's got like a hamstring strain or something, he's out for about a month minimum.

Man, you can immediately see the effect of losing that guy. That is a team that is so single threaded, and I know they have Kyrie, and I know they have Clay Thompson, but man, they just dropped three in a row and they are not looking good. And you, I hate to be a fan of Denver or Dallas if Joker or Luca goes out because those teams implode

the second those dudes aren't on the court. I was wrong about Tyler Hero. I've been a Tyler Hero naysayer for many years. That dude is so good this year. He really, really is. I have to, I have to concede that Tyler Hero is better this year than I thought he was capable of being. So kudos to him. Miami Heat still suck. I didn't give the Cavs enough credit. I picked them to end the season in fourth place. They still could, a lot of season left, right?

We're not even at the All-Star break yet. But it's not looking like it. They are dominating the East Coast. They are in first place. They have completely and totally clicked and gelled as a team. I don't think they have any weaknesses at all, honestly. And I'm not worried about them as a Celtics fan, but I do think that they will

finish ahead of us in the in the regular season. I think the season will go. Barring any major injuries to talent over there, I think it'll go Cavs, Celtics, probably Knicks the way things are going to shake out. And that's not to take anything away from Cleveland because they are very, very good, but I just don't think Boston cares that much. I think they're on cruise control,

for better or worse, through the end of the season. As long as they finish in the top three, they're gonna be in a pretty good spot. And I think they're trying not to kill themselves throughout the season. Plus we're dealing with, Chris Aspersing is never gonna be fully healthy. He's gonna be a Kawhi Leonard for the rest of his career,

I'm afraid. And it sucks because he's so great on court. But hopefully we'll have him healthy for the playoffs this year. I said that the jury was out on who would win the Knicks Minnesota Timberwolves trade, but I kind of felt like it'd probably be the Timberwolves. Wrong.

Knicks clearly won that trade trade clearly won that trade. Carl Anthony Towns has fit in superbly on that team. I would say that D. Vincenzo has fit in superbly on Minnesota, but that team has some problems. I watched him play the Celtics last night and they're good, but they're I don't think they got better. I really don't.

And yeah, I just don't know how well Julius Randall fits into that team. A lot of season left though. So these are these are me eating crow a third of the way through the season on hot takes I had at the beginning of the season. So maybe in three or four months I'll be coming back and then uneating that crow and going, see, I was right all along. I knew it.

I doubt it, but never know. One last thing about basketball, and this one, this one I gotta say, this is the biggest crow I will eat. I was wrong about Russell Westbrook. Russell Westbrook, I viewed as an aged star who was so impressive and physically dominant and who isn't that guy, who's lost that step as we all do with age and hasn't been able to transition his game past that high-energy explosive play style and

because of that and because of locker-room issues he's bounced around from team to team to team trying to find a roster spot and fit in. And he definitely, definitely found his niche in Denver. He's been awesome. He's been really consistently awesome. So kudos to Russell Westbrook. I thought he was cooked. He is not. He's playing really, really well, and Denver is lucky to have him, and they got him on a great deal.

And so, my hat's off to you, Mr. Russell Westbrook. I have been a fan of yours in the past. I thought your better days were behind you, but I was clearly wrong because you are killing it for the Denver Nuggets. All right, well, now that my tummy's all full of crow, let me give you a song of the episode. I always wanna say song of the day,

a song of the episode, and then get the fuck outta here, and then I'll see you next week. Song of the day episode, song of the episode, idiot, is gonna be, "'Cause I Love You," by Rufus and Carla. Look it up, listen to it, I think you'll like it. "'Cause I Love You," Rufus and Carla. Look it up, listen to it. I think you'll like it. Cause I love you, Rufus and Carla.

There you go. I will see you or I don't see shit. You'll hear me next week if you choose to, right here for another thrilling episode of so. All right. So, alright.