Triforce! - Triforce! Mailbag Special #44: The Mailbag Speedrun

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Triforce Mailbag Special 44! We're burning through as many emails as we can but mainly because Lewis keeps getting bored and writes bad haikus with ChatGPT. Go to http://buyraycon.com/triforce to get 15% off sitewide. Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hello and welcome to another fabulous mailbag mailbag episode. Insert mailbag number here. And we have mail. We have lots of mail to read. You got mail. You've got mail.

You got mail. All right, of mail to read. You've got mail. You've got mail. You've got mail. All right, let's start off with this one. This is a favorite topic of the podcast of late. Mr. Greg Wallace. Oh no. Not again. This is what I love here in these dogshit stories about him. Heard the recent Greg chat reminded me that my mate gets absolutely fuming

as soon as his name is uttered. This is his story. I'm an apple farmer and have been all my life. My dad did it before me and I can tell you anything about the little red beauties you want. We often have customers interested in purchasing bulk quantities of apples and it's often a good deal. Well, Greg approached us as he was starting a new cider brand and bought a ton of apples from us. Only thing is, the bald cunt didn't pay. It's been years and the stiff smiling bastard hasn't paid a penny. He stole my apples and bloody got away with it. That's the story.

Greg Wallace stole your apples. Apple thief. Apple thief. He did an insight the factory about cider. So he stole all those apples. Well, we're making him apples worth a few bucks. Oh, I could do my own cider. What makes him think he could just get away with stealing apples from someone?

I think it's quite hard for businesses to chase businesses for money, to be honest with you. It is. Well, there's this thing where people don't pay in time, right? It's like there's this allotted period of like, I think it's 30 or 40 days where you can just not pay for that amount of time. And obviously- Which I don't understand by the

way. I've never understood that because I get it as someone who invoices companies quite often for work I've done. Yeah. It'll be at least 30 days. They're like, oh, sorry, you thought the invoice in this month's accounting appeared and it won't go out till till the next. I spoke about this before. I complained about this before. If I owed them money, I'm pretty sure they'd want it immediately. Why do I have to wait 30 days? I don't care what your accounting system is. I don't care. Change your fucking system. Pay me motherfucker. That's the fucking rule. Some in some cases because other people are not paying them for 30 days.

Yeah, of course. But then if you change the system so that that's not possible, you don't get this bullshit knock on effect where people are hanging on, hanging on, hanging on, waiting to be paid. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It only benefits the big companies. It's dog shit for smaller companies. It does. And it's because they can put all that spare money that they've just got on hand into a

savings investment. Or whatever. Or yeah, they can use it for something else. And get a couple of percent while they're holding onto it. You know, that's all it is. And that's a lot of money for big companies anyway. All right. Let's call him out.

We called him out today. We call you out Wallace. Wallace, pay for your apples. Pay for your apples. Yeah. You bald bastard. Now hold on. That's, that's not cool.

It's too far. Yeah. Well, the bald thing, I'm not, not a fan of you having to go to him because he's bald. You can call him a bastard. You call him a bold bastard. That's the, you know, one member of this podcast is fully bold. You could maybe just watch your language. Okay. Well, sorry. I'll be even more careful. Hello. Good morning. Has Sips written any more Haiku? I have a tiny dick, Lorenzo.

No, I have not written any more. I only wrote some because I was asked to, but nobody's asked me to again since, so I have not done it. It's not my go-to. It's not how I like to spend my time. Generally. Would you like me to ask chat GPT? Yes. Go on then.

Write as a Triforce haiku. Small, this is about having a tiny dick. Small as the dawn light hidden in the quiet breeze, yet still brings the warmth. Nice. That is what ChatGPT thinks. About your small dick. Yeah. Tiny as the dawn light, not coming through my window.

What fucking windows? How about this? Tiny but mighty, like a shy turtle who hides, still gets the job done. How about that? Fair play. That's better. ChatGPT. Fair play, ChatGPT. That's a good one. Still gets the job done. How about that? Fair play chat GPT. That's a good one. It's a job done. It sounds like Greg Wallace wrote that. So shy little turtle. We got an email for you Lewis. Okay.

A mail bag. I need Lulu dating advice, shite shag question mark. I'm onto some dating advice. Maybe I've missed the boat on this. Spent a while getting to know, alas, and went for a date. It all went seemingly well. Spent a long time on FaceTime, phone calls, etc. before the first date.

Post date, I was told I connected on a personality level, but not sure I felt the connection I'm after right now. What does that fucking mean? Am I basically just a shite shag? Is that what has happened here? Maybe I'm acting myself as a shite knight, but I'm at which end with dating as even if

you're a good personality fit, it doesn't even matter. I get you lads are happily married, but I really just wonder what else can I do even do at this point. Asterisk, we had at least eight drinks on said night. So, this is from Craig. So, Craig goes out- He's laser focusing on his, what he thinks is his poor performance or, you know, something was wrong. Sometimes you just don't give a lady the tingles, that's all. And there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe they like a man with a shining dome.

Maybe they like a man- Don't try to make up for your bold slur. If you're dating, you're really looking for the one, I guess, right? And this is where a lot of people get too frustrated. People are looking for someone who gives them that tingly feeling, right? And if you don't have it, then you don't want to go out with someone who isn't into you. Don't try and chase her down or change your ways or do anything like this. You can't find it. The only thing you can control is yourself, right? And you will find

someone who will click with you, it's only a matter of time, I promise. And you'll feel great when it happens. But don't dwell on what you may or may not have done wrong with someone. They weren't right for you. Personality, yes, of course. Personality is hugely important. You wouldn't want to have a long-term relationship with someone or go on many dates with someone that you couldn't get along with. No.

I mean, that's just awful. But you would also not want to be in a long-term relationship with someone who essentially, you get along with them, they're really funny and interesting and cool, but you just don't fancy them. Like, and you have sex with them and it doesn't improve the situation. So it's just like, look, I'm sorry, this is just not working out. Like Lewis said, it's kind of indefinable.

I think it's quite commonplace for men especially to try to quantify and break things down as if it's some kind of board game. And I'm just playing, it's just, I've got the wrong build order or you know I'm playing the wrong cards or you know my equity EV is low with this play sometimes it's just feel love is not something that you can especially quantify mathematically as it was oh it was these three things it's just indefinable so just understand that sometimes

you just sucked at that particular thing and that was was that. And the person was like, well, it was the sex was fine. But I don't know. They had this weird expression all the time. I just didn't like them. Didn't you can't pin it down like that. It's just some indefinable thing they didn't feel. And you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. Try someone else. Someone else.

You'll be fine. But yeah, when you're dating or like, you know, you went on a date with somebody, it didn't quite work out. You probably won't see them again, but you probably had fun or whatever. You just organize a new date, I guess. Right. Try another day. I mean, I guess this process, what people don't like, they, they, I don't know if it's the repetition of it or whether it's the disappointment. Because you want to meet somebody that you are going to like and they're going to like you and then you won't need to date anymore

because you'll have found somebody. But do, are there people out there who just like dating who'd like to have, you know, one week I'm going to meet this person, we're going to go out and we're going to do something. Yeah, of course. It might not work out, but then next week I'll just meet like someone else. I mean, dude, a lot of people are using these apps and dating just for the sex. Like they don't want a relationship.

They just need to have sex. Yes, of course, they should have sex. And part of that, the game, the fun part of it is seducing people. That first time, like they really love that. That's what gives them a buzz. Right. So, of course, they, you know, they're not looking for the one. I think a lot of people, they stumble across the one. That's great for them. I mean, I'll be honest with you.

When I first met Mrs. F, I was smitten immediately, immediately. And if she had turned around and said, sorry, it just didn't work out. I would have been devastated. Yeah. And I so I get it. It's extremely disappointing. And also, I would have if I'd had some some, you know, Christmas carol style goes to Christmas future showing me what might have been,

I would have been crushed. I would have been like, you showing me what might have been, I would have been crushed. I would have been like, you tell me you would have had 30 years of marriage and two kids and a happy life and everything like that because of this date didn't work out, it was all lost. Don't think about it like that. If it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. Jason Vale There are a million fears that people have with this sort of stuff that you're missing out on the one or that you're... It's a horrible thing to try and navigate. And I think you do need to have your head screwed on and just be like, look, I'm going to be a good person and I'm going to look out for people and hope that good things will come my way. you know, you can't, I think just, just, you just carry on.

I'm just good. Good luck to you, mate. Um, do you want to hike you about Greg Wallace? Uh, yeah, go on. Greg's head shines so bright, blinding us mid pudding chat cream. All right. That is good. They're good, aren't they? Uh, all right. So here's a, this is from Joel brackets from Royal Leamington spa. People from Royal Leamington spa love to fucking tell you they're from there.

I don't know why. I'm proud. I'm in work and the office has been alive with a topic that has gripped the passions and imaginations of my colleagues. Now Joel, you shouldn't have apostrophized colleagues here. This is not the possessive. This is not the Grammock podcast. Well, it can be. And I was wondering what the three of you would make of it. Also using the number three there, you should just use the word three. The topic is this. If the

world changed so you could only get food from the region it was created, e.g. pizza has to be made in Italy, where would you live? Now bear in mind, I think what they mean with this is that you literally can't transport it from that place.g. pizza has to be made in Italy. Where would you live? Now, bear in mind, I think what they mean with this is that you literally can't transport it from that place. Right. So if you want pizza, you can only get it in this part of Italy. OK. Also, what effects would this have on the world in regards to house prices, travel economies, et cetera? Some additions I've added onto this are generic products like sandwiches can be countrywide.

So sandwiches are UK wide, not just wherever the Earl of Sandwich was when he asked for it. But region famous foods like the Cornish pasty can only be found in Cornwall. They cannot be transported. He says, I'm particularly interested to know what Lewis would make of this being as dietarily restricted as he is. I see. Well, well, yeah. So you want to get some chow mein, you've got to go to China. It's a nice...

We've had a lot of feedback about the Thor experiment. Some people hated it. P-Flex. A lot of people. They were like, this is the first time we've had to stop the podcast. They spent half an hour talking about it. Other people loved it. So it was a real...

This is the spaces thing. Where we talked about spaces. I've had about 20 emails about it. I'm only going to read two this week. Please, yeah. That's not too much. But this is similar. It's like, I really think it's a fun idea that if you, if you, you could only eat, you know, cause they have done it a little bit with like, you rules, like stuff can't be labelled as a Melton Mowbray pork pie unless it's actually made there. Right, but it can be sold outside of that race. Yes, absolutely. But if it was illegal to export pizza, there would be an underground black market illegal pizza trade going on immediately because people love fucking pizza.

Right, but let's imagine magically it can't. Pizza is like one of the top five foods. A wizard has taken over. A wizard has taken over a wizard has taken a wizard has Food wizard a food wizard a wizard with a very specific vendetta against food transport now Here's the thing right? How does it work for things like animals? Like the one where are they native to Jermina chickens? All right for everyone or It's carrots orange carrots. It's only allowed me more like famous food, you know, like- I think it's dishes rather than raw ingredients.

Like the Cornish pasty example. Indeed. Yeah, but like for example, Indian food has become so Anglified that it's basically the national dish of England is fucking Indian food. It's place of origin. So if it was a dish that was invented in the UK, like I think- So I could have a chicken tikka masala is what you're saying. I think that or butter chicken, you could have that. Yeah.

Okay. But I can't have- But none of the ones that were from India. Right. Okay. Well, I think this would be fine because I mostly eat vegetables. Although I'd really struggle without tofu. Is tofu not allowed? No tofu. Yeah. Do you see what I mean? Like there's a lot of things that I do and like falafel. I tell you what, I'd be delighted if I never saw tofu again in my life. So I'm very happy. Where is it? Where, where's the birthplace of tofu? Where does it originate? Probably Japan, I would guess like soybeans, isn't it? But it could be China. Um, it's, it's, yeah, it's bad. What about rice generally? Like, can I have rice?

No rice. No rice, no pasta. Okay, what about big, thick, chunky chips and American style French fries? Where are the locations? So you can't have American style French fries, but you can have chips. You want fries, you go to America. So you could just say, I would live in America for fries. Right. But only from where the fries were initially developed.

Which is where? Well, not France, French fries. Yeah. So history origin. So in 1673, the Chilean Francisco Núñez de Pineda mentioned eating papas fritas and women sent fried and stewed potatoes to the to the chief. The exact shape is unclear, likely cubes. So there's a dispute between Belgium and France where they're claiming they invented fries. So I take it back.

I thought it was... So we're not allowed fries either? I don't think we're even allowed crisps. What the fuck are we even allowed? I don't think we're allowed crisps. No crisps? No crisps? History. I don't think we're allowed quith. No quith! No quith!

History. I feel like this is not a real cut and dry answer. Yeah, this wizard would constantly be having to make very sweeping like, it would take a long time to go through every food stuff. But maybe people would start inventing new foods.

Simple spell. He just says no food can be moved says no food can be moved. No dish can be moved or transported outside of within a hundred miles of its origin. Right. So that way it's local. Right. So if the Cornish pasty was developed in this part of Cornwall, it's within a hundred miles of that.

They say a hundred miles or 50 miles, whatever it is, a hundred miles. So I think, yes, we would have to develop our own dishes using a lot of local ingredients. But if you get there first, no one else can copy your dish. There's a lot of rules for this thing. One rule, baby. It's one rule. It's not. It's multiple rules. There's a lot of different rules. The problem is, is that there's too much flex. Anyway, let's move on. rules. The problem is, is that there's too much flex. Anyway, let's move on.

All right. Let's, uh, these are the only two emails I'm going to read about the Spaces thing, because I saw the Reddit post. Mission accomplished was what my mate sent me, because he was delighted to see that his stupid paper on Spaces had angered someone to the point where they were so furious. Job done, as far as he was concerned. This is the last word on the matter. Stop sending spaces emails. We had a lot of emails about it, a lot of genuinely very interesting emails. But hello, dads and Uncle Lewis. These are the these are the guys who emailed in and were excited about it. I am a construction design consultant on large scale construction and renovation projects.

Now, first of all, half the people that emailed in was some kind of civil engineer, engineer, architect, and they all, half the people that emailed in was some kind of civil engineer, engineer, architect, and they all took this very seriously. I am in charge of layout design and construction projects, which involve rooms and doors and windows as well as fencing outside of buildings. I thought the definition of spaces as houses, sheds, gardens, voids was fairly good. What many people don't know is that we do define these spaces when we plan construction or renovation projects, albeit with slightly different terms. I won't bore you with them, I'll just give my opinion

on the matter. Sheds and houses, well defined. Houses being a conglomerate of sheds is basically how we define them already. Walls, a roof, a floor and a door make a shed. And so on. I'm not going to even bore you with this email. It's a really good email, Joe, thank you. Counterpoint, if I may, from James. Hello, lads and dads. Was just listening to the episode where Pirian reads out his data friends thesis. And I would like to chip in my opinion on the matter, which is mentioned in the subject line, is that it is complete and utter bollocks.

It simply doesn't take common sense into account. If you stretch definitions enough, anything could be defined as anything. Sure, by the definition alone of a shed, a water bottle would be a shed. What's the intended purpose of these objects? I think it would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would think it's reasonable to store tools in a water bottle or carry a whole garden of Shved filled with water around their back. Absurdity. Thank you, Jay. Do you know what? This is like, in the most recent podcast we recorded, you were talking about maths, P-Flex, and how you had a disdain for maths generally. This is no different.

There's a load of wank. This whole paper. I'm on board with this guy now. Of course. What a load of wank it is. God. Thank God we fixed that. We solved that. That's the end. A lot of people hated it. A lot of people really liked it. That's the nature of subjects. If you can't deal with that, the podcast is not tailored to you individually. Understand that. I had a lot of very positive emails about the stupid spaces thesis. Let's put it to bed. It's over. It's been put to bed. It's been put to bed. What is a bed anyway? How would you do is that a shed or a guy? Anyway, I'll move on. Triforce movie crossovers. When you talked about the Alien Predator crossover,

it reminded me of the E.T. and Star Wars link. link. During ET, there is a scene set at Halloween where the alien reacts to a kid dressed as Yoda. This is true. Yoda sees, ET sees Yoda, a kid dressed as Yoda walking along the street, and he reacts and runs towards him. And in Phantom Menace, there's a scene in the Galactic Senate where you can see that there are some of the aliens are the ones from ET. This means that the universe where ET landed on Earth, where the Star Wars franchise exists to the point where a kid dresses as Yoda for Halloween, is also the universe where Star Wars exists as an actual thing in a galaxy far, far away, presumably where the alien in ET originally came from. So here's my feeling on this.

It's not canon for several reasons. Number one, in a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. All right. a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. So that happened so far away and so long ago that there's no way that ET got here and happened by pure coincidence, by happenstance, somehow George Lucas had made this movie. So this guy claims that George Lucas is actually a historian from this world, but that doesn't make sense either. I think it's just bollocks. Asogians are large paddle-footed large-eyed sentients indigenous to Brodo Asogi. See what I mean? They're about to make this shit up.

They are represented in the Galactic Senate by Senator Greb Lipes and a trio of aides. When the Republic became the Galactic Empire, Greb Lipes was charged with treason and the Asogians home planet was part of the Empire. So they go. See this sounds like a Tom and Ben stream at this point. There are Asogians in canon. It is canon.

Silly. These are in Star Wars. Wait, ET is a what? ET is in Star Wars, yes. But what race is, what type? Asogian. Yeah, the Asogians. Asogian.

He's racist. ET is a racist. They, uh, he's, yeah, they are, they are definitely, I would love them to remake it, but he's a real piece of shit. He's kind of a piece of shit in ET already though. He's, he's a bit of a freeloader. He expects a lot from people. Yeah. And he doesn't really seem to have much to give in return. He gets blind drunk and passes out in the road scares the shit out of the kids then he gets terrible then he gets sick and he expects everybody else to Rally around him and and and help him out give him lifts everywhere in the bicycle eats all their Reese's Pieces Yeah, what a piece of shit. I mean he said he must be like a baby like he's got the brain of a child

He doesn't come across as very smart. How the fuck he must be like a baby. Like he's got the brain of a child. He doesn't come across as very smart. No. How the fuck did he get in a spaceship and get here? I mean, the guy he looks it's like an animal. He's basically like a pup. Maybe it was like that kid. Do you ever hear that story about that kid where he was being so loud in the car and unreasonable that his parents dropped him threatened to drop him at the side of the road.

He kept going, going, going. So they dropped him at the side of the road. He kept going, going, going. So they dropped him at the side of the road, and to scare him they said, oh, we'll just go around the block and come back and get him. Just to drive home the point. And when they drove around to get him, he was gone. And they didn't find him for like a month after. He just went missing. And they were distraught.

Maybe that's what happened with the as well. Yeah. Well, I can't remember if they were or not. I think they might have gotten into into some trouble. Yeah. But maybe that's what happened to ET as well. I hope he got home. Well, yeah, a month, a month later, they said.

Yeah, it's like a month later. All right. This is this is one of my favorite emails that we've had. This is a great story. OK, this is called dog sitting for a neighbor gone wrong. It's like a fucking clickbait title. Do you be learning by this? This is from Daniel.

So this is a friend of Daniel's that says this story. I have a friend that lives in the suburbs of Liverpool. They were asked by their elderly neighbors if they could dog sit for a week while they went on holiday. They accepted as it just entailed feeding the dog and sitting with him as he was quite old. Unfortunately, two days into the holiday, the dog passed away. My friend rang the couple and told them what happened.

They asked if she could take the dog to the vet's and then they could deal with it further when home. So my friend, not having a lot of money and also no car, decided the best course of action would be to stuff the dog into a suitcase and take it on the train into Liverpool to go to the vet they'd asked to take the dog to. Whilst on the train, an attractive guy started to chat with her. One of the subjects that came up was work and hobbies, and she said she DJ'd at bars as a side gig.

Once she got to her stop, the guy she was talking to said it was also his. She thought this was a really nice meet-cute and it might lead to something. She was struggling to carry the dog-stuffed suitcase up the steps out of the station, so the good-looking stranger said he would carry it up the steps. Once he got to the top of the steps, he took off. Suitcase in hand. We assumed he must have thought it was full of DJ equipment. She didn't call out to him. After all, how do you tell someone not to steal a dog with a suit with a dog corpse in it? We wish we could have seen his face when he opened that suitcase. That's fucking hell. What the fuck?

So I got. What can we this is true? The way this is a true story. Oh, my God. Who would make that up? It would have been in loose news at some point. Fucking hell. God. OK. I really like that story. That's funny. Amazing. Fucking hell. Oh my God.

I really like that story. That's funny. Amazing. If true. Yeah. Oh, I like it a lot. Holy shit. Man, I can't I can't believe that that guy just fucking took off with the suitcase, though. Like that is so ballsy, isn't it? Just to just to just to fucking say, yeah, I'm stealing this.

See ya. Just broad daylight theft like that. I know! It's mad. I mean, I guess this is the play, is you help people up the steps with their heavy luggage and if it's light, you just let them off. If it's heavy, you fucking leg it, because, you know, there must be something in here. Maybe some of it's good.

Good lord. Sushi is heavy. Still. Stole a doll beneath the stars. Silent grim escape. Oh my god. Alright, this is from Max. Evening lads.

I know you're busy, so I'll keep this short as I can. My name is Max and I'm a Scouser currently living in Melbourne. I was walking on my way home from work when all of a sudden I hear screaming and shouting and the sound of two dogs fighting. See, I've segued into another doggy mode. Nice. I look over and see a larger dog, belonging to a homeless man, biting around the neck of a smaller dog and not letting go. I ran over the road to help, and me and multiple people attempted to pull the dogs away from

each other with no luck. The owner then looks at me and says, You'll have to stick your finger up his ass, it's the only way to get a dog to release its jaw. Feeling a bit grim about the prospect, but also not wanting the smaller dog to die, I shoved my index finger up the dog's arse. What? It worked, and it released the other dog. The owner and the dog both sprinted away without

a thanks or anything. Briefly, I was happy about saving the dog, but as I get up and wipe the poo off my finger, I look over and see a large group of people waiting for a tram who'd witnessed the whole thing. They looked both impressed and horrified at the same time. Max, that's disgusting. That is fucking gross. What are these stories? That dog is dead. That dog unfortunately has to be sacrificed at that point because there's nothing that can be done. I think I'd have to cut the finger off. Like, I literally think I'd have to cut my finger off. What the fuck?

I would never trust it again to be cleaner. I am never doing that. First of all, I'm never running across the street to help someone else's dogs who are fighting. Can't you just hit the dog on the nose a bit or something? I'm never trying to pull those dogs apart if it happened right in front of me. Third, I'm never listening to an old creepy man who's saying, you're going to have to put your finger up his arse.

I'm never putting my finger up a dog's arse. Ever. You, in what world do these four bad decisions collomalate into this stupid idea? He's made a word up, he's so angry. He's so fucking mad, he's inventing words. God. Oh my god. Just a string of poor decisions there.

And honestly, no. Just no. How? No. It didn't happen. Next! Next. Okay.

This is another email. I've segued these three beautifully. Anyone that does any podcasting, I hope you're tipping your cap to me. This is an email from Jeff. During the filming of the first season of Reservation Dogs. See, it's another dog related email. I was booked as a principal role. That's a speaking role. This was massive for me as it got me sag eligibility, which is the hardest hurdle of most people's acting careers. So I was a bit on edge and trying my best to take this as seriously and professionally as possible. Fast forward to arriving on set.

I'm taken to the room that this scene takes place in, given the rundown of how it's going to play out, and we run some rehearsals and all that. During the downtime, while the crew was setting up shot, I was sat off to the side getting into my headspace as this was a high intensity scene, with shooting and getting shot myself, and whilst sat there the other actor involved in the scene comes up and introduces himself as Bill. I was cordial, shook his hand, said my name, but went straight back to my thoughts. Well, Bill decided it was time for small talk. I started asking all kinds of questions. How

long I've been acting? Do I live in Oklahoma? Do I want to do this full time, etc. etc. I was again cordial and answered his questions. But as shortly and quickly as possible, we were minutes away from action, I was still not into any sort of character. So I stood up and said to Bill, sorry man, I've got to get into this scene and went into another room. As I was leaving I heard him apologise and he left me alone for the rest of the day. Everything went great during the scene and as I was wrapped and sent home. Fast forward again to when FX was advertising the episode when the name of my scene partner

came up and it was none other than comedian Bill Burr. Maybe I just wasn't expecting Bill Burr to be in Oklahoma or whatever, but I didn't recognize him there on set at all. So I'm curious, do you think I handled that situation properly? Do you think he might have felt disrespected? Maybe he actually appreciated someone not recognizing him? I know it's not a big deal, but it's always going to be stuck in my head if I miss an opportunity by not chatting with him. From Sips' biggest fan, Jeff Veal. Man, I wouldn't feel bad about that, honestly. You just did what you had to do. I think it's fine, honestly. I'm sure Bill Burr doesn't really think about it that often. No offense. But you know

what I mean? It's just one of those things. It's just, it happened. I would say, think of it this way. Bill Burr is relatively new to acting as like a thing that he does a lot of. He's a stand-up comic. So this is not a world that he's like, he's not a trained actor. He didn't go to drama school, not been around actors his whole life. So for him, this is him out of his comfort zone if you like. So I'm sure in his experience, this might be a perfectly normal thing that actors sometimes are like, sorry, I can't chat trying to get into my, you know, I've got to get in the zone and everything.

Because Bill Burr, when Bill Burr acts, he's Bill Burr. But actors have to act. They have to be someone completely different and they're, oh, what am I trying to, what emotion, you know, what are my motivation, all that kind of stuff. So I think he's probably used to not really knowing the etiquette as a... on a set. That would be my guess anyway. Maybe. Yeah.

I don't know. I feel like he's probably been around stuff like that. But, I mean, I think... Honestly, like, I think this story reflects well on him. He was friendly and wanted to chat. A bit naive. And then he apologized after, you know, Jeff came out of, and was ready. Like, I think, you know, I think it's actually, you know, I thought

Bill Burr was more of an asshole. To be honest. So, you know, I just got the vibe that he was a bit of a dick. But yeah, it's quite a reassuring story that he isn't. We ain't got another Greg Wallace. He doesn't seem like a huge dick. Cue the fucking emails about Bill Burr being a dick though. I don't know if he is or not. We've already got one enemy of the podcast. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

You took him out of Jeff. Or Greg. Sorry, Greg. Yeah. Jeff's not. Jeff's the shout out. Who's Jeff? We've had a couple of other focal points in the past, right?

Greg is maybe the newest one. Oh yeah, why I said Jeff. Who have we talked about? I'm sticking to Jeff Capes. Jeff Capes died yesterday, so I want to say this week's shout out is to Jeff Capes. Jeff Capes. Okay.

As I was telling Sips. He won the Strongman competition twice. And he was a shot putter as well. I think he was Britain's best ever shot putter, if memory serves. He came down to Bournemouth Pier when I was a lad and we all went to see him and he tore a phone book in half and he did that thing where he flexes his bicep and you hold on and he lifts you up off the ground. It was great. It was great to meet him. He was a lovely guy. There was a lot of stuff about Jeff Capes back in the the 80s in the papers,

what he ate for lunch and stuff like that. And yeah, it seemed like a several. It's probably he's a bit bit of steroids, maybe not. Maybe not more recently, but I think in the 80s, he was a bit of like a household name in the sense that, you know, you would say like, oh, you've got to be Jeff Capestope in this. You know, we didn't have anyone back then. Yeah, it was hardly any.

He was our Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was great. I mean, fairly, fairly young considering. He's like 75. Passed away. Oh wow. Really? That's a good age for someone who had a really tough physical life. That's what I said. I said the pressure on this guy's heart must have been crazy. All that lifting and stuff. Eating two roast chickens for lunch every day. Crazy. So he was particularly known for his incredible hand and arm strength, easily tearing London telephone directories in half, and bending rolled steel bars. I feel like tearing a telephone directory in half is a technique thing though.

It's a lost art. Yeah. People don't do it anymore. I think if you practice enough, you'll get good at doing it. You know? You think so? Sure, buddy. Sure. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's just practice. Think how much fucking strength you need to tear a phone book at all. But if you get at the right angle and stuff, you know, you can get... All you need is like one little tear to get you started and then away you go. I mean, if you do it one page at a time, it's quite simple, apparently, I guess.

Yeah. That's how I you do it one page at a time, it's quite simple apparently, I guess. Yeah. That's how I would do it. Yeah. I think you still hold some world records such as the Braemar, the Braemar stone throw, which is kind of like a Scottish shot, but it's the lobbing a rock instead, I guess. And he used to hold the caber toss world record. I was going to say, is there any caber toss accolades? That's a good one. the old caber toss.

Yeah, very impressive. It is. Very manly. Yeah. Very manly. Fantastic. Yeah. Before we continue, everyone says their 2025 is going to be different whether you make any

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online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash triforce. That's e-x-p-r-e-s-s-vpn.com slash triforce that's expressvpn.com slash triforce and you can get extra four months for free expressvpn.com slash triforce. All right, been rewatching Sips' prison architect series, Summer Slam. Oh, that's an old one. On episode 35, he asked the question, anyone that lives near a prison, are you not constantly scared about the prisoners breaking out? I can only offer my experience, but the short answer is no.

I live on an island in Kent that houses three prisons, HMP Swale Site, HMP Elmley and HMP Stanford Hill. Now I think I've been to this island. The Isle of Sheppey. Yeah. I've been there on holiday and there are, you see the prisons when you're driving around. It's a nice area of nice part of camp. I was born in Gillingham, but I have lived on the island my whole life.

The island is about as much of a shithole as you'd imagine. How do you spell Gillingham? G I L L I N G H A M. Interesting. Okay. Carry on. Why? Why? It's not Gillingham? Oh, is this a GIF GIF reference? I'm just asking.

Okay, because there is a Gillingham in Dorset that's pronounced Gillingham. Right. So just saying. Just saying. GIF. Love it. There have been countless escapes in my couple of decades on this island, and not once have I felt scared or in danger. The generally accepted theory is if you're going to escape,

you'd get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. However, I think this may be due to the fact that all the prisons are very close to Harty Ferry, which is the closest point to the mainland. Most escapists swim over from there. So to answer Sips's question, from probably about eight, nine years ago, no, I am not scared. Because if you're an escaping prisoner, you're going to bolt as far away as you can from the prison, which in our case means getting off the island in some way that said there's been multiple times where both bridges have been shut off And effectively the whole island goes into lockdown to try to locate the prisoner ps Can't remember what episode it was but flax was bitching about jillingham specifically jillingham fc Love you flax, but respectfully fuck you up the gills. Fuck you molly

All right respectfully fuck you up the gills. Fuck you, Molly, alright? Because Gillingham is the only place I've ever been to where we lost to a fucking Andy Hesenthal, a late goal, and when we were in the coach on the way back to Bournemouth, every fucking cunt in Gillingham came out into their front garden to flip us off as the coach drove through town. Fuck you, Gillingham, I'm never going back. We're in the fucking Premier League, where the fuck are you? You're doing I'm never going back. We're in the fucking Premier League. Where the fuck is it? It's it's it's a shit hole. I hate it as well.

Yeah. Just the email. Oh, fucking hell. Oh, that's funny. Oh, yeah, I suppose you would know if you would, if you did escape from prison, you would try to get as far away as possible. Maybe next time somebody escapes from prison, try hiding very close to the prison. They'll never expect to find you there.

You know? Just hide underneath like a wall or something. Hiding underneath a carpet on the side of the wall of the prison just for a couple of days. They'll never think to look for me here. And then that's when I'll escape properly. I'm sure that's happened where people have hidden base. They've escaped from their cell, hidden somewhere else in the prison, waited and then made their actual escape later when everything's died.

The search radius has expanded sort of thing. Yeah. All right. So for context, please don't use my name, Asim Hossein. So for context, I am in the Royal Military Police. In regards to mailbag 40, when talking about prisoners of war, section five of the Armed Forces Act 2006 is failure to escape. You can be charged with failure to escape. Therefore, it is illegal legislation for soldiers to attempt an escape if captured by the enemy. And if they're found to have not taken a chance to do so, they could technically be prosecuted. If you're interested in any more military facts or stories, let me know.

I would love to know if anybody has ever been prosecuted for not attempting to escape a prisoner of war situation. The Armed Forces Act is a failure to... I'm just going to look up the rules for this. Failure to try to escape. So sorry, is it illegal to escape or not to escape? No it's a, it's illegal. Failure to escape. Do you want the text?

Yes. Um, so subsections two and three apply to a person subject to service law, so a member of the military services who has been captured by an enemy. A person to whom this subsection applies commits an offense if he's aware of steps that he could take to rejoin Her Majesty's forces. He could reasonably be expected to take those steps and without lawful excuse fails to take them. A person to whom this subsection applies commits an offense if, without lawful excuse, he intentionally prevents or discourages another person subject to service law who's been captured from taking any reasonable steps to rejoin. A person who's found guilty may be punished and not one.

Okay, here's my question. What if it's their day off? Do they still have to work on their day off? What do you think you get a day off in military prison? You've been captured by the enemy. You might not even know what day it is. Well no, but hang on. Imagine I'm a normal soldier, right, and I work, you know, normal hours during the day, and all that stuff, and then a war goes on, and I'm like, allocated specific times on the... They don't ship you off to Baghdad and say, here, you're working nine to five or whatever,

I think. No, but you have like a week on, and then a couple of days off, there's not like, there's not like... You're still in the service. Yeah, but if you're captured during your week on, which is probably when you're gonna be captured, it's an extension of your week on. Imagine you've worked a full week. It's overtime.

Okay. And you've got a couple of days owed to you, and so you're like, well, I'm going to take those two days out. And you see an opportunity. You can't. Are you still on the clock? You're on a strict roda when you're out there. You can't just take your two days.

I didn't punch in. I didn't punch in today, so technically I'm not a work, when you're out there. You can't just take your two days. I didn't punch in. I didn't punch in today. So technically I'm not at work. I'm not a soldier. Yes, you've signed up. You're a member of the service. Yeah. The more I die, the better.

Well, you've been captured. Again, this was a big thing about... It's always been a thing, but like, because it was in the... It was a big part of what they were talking about in the wager, where, you know, when their ship sank, who was in charge? Do you know what I mean? They were no longer being paid by, you know, by for the hours they weren't, you know, if you come out of a military prison after two years, do you still get paid two years of

wages? Probably fucking not. No, you're probably right. I don't know if you get paid. I love the delivery on that though. Probably fucking not. Case closed. Yeah, you don't even get to accumulate holidays while you've been captured for two years or anything.

Exactly. They're not feeding you. They're not, you know, that's why you get such a cheap payment for being in the military often. It's because they put you up and they feed you. If you've been a prisoner of war for like two years, there's gotta be some compensation coming your way when you get back. You'd hope so. Let's find out. Let's find out. Yeah. Well, the guy who he mailed in, what's the compensation for being a long-term prisoner of war? Yeah, let's know.

I'd love to know. Next. Fucking killings today. Okay. This is, this is from Andrew. This is more of a question really. Prince Andrew? No, luckily not.

After listening to a range of podcasts, I've noticed different trends in podcast formatting. Triforce, or MBMBAM, what's MBM? My brother, my brother and me. Okay, is a once a week show. While shows like The Rest is Entertainment and Help I Sected My Boss is a main show at the start of the week and a short one towards the end of the week. Is this just a way to satisfy advertisers? Has this been a conversation at all whilst of the week and a short one towards the end of the week. Is this just a way to satisfy advertisers? Has this been a conversation at all whilst growing the Pickaxe podcast platform? Is it just different publisher styles?

Thanks for any thoughts. I don't think we've ever thought about doing an extra episode. If we actually wanted to make money, we would definitely do extra episodes and put them on a Patreon or something. We have got the Patreon where you can listen ad free, but other than that, we haven't made a lot of extra effort. And part of the reason is because it's hard to get us together for this amount of time. You know, doing these episodes, I'm going away on holiday for the next couple of weeks.

Pyrrhon's going away on holiday after that. I'm not going on holiday, mate. Well, work holiday. Work. You're working. I'm working. Hard grafting. It's tricky for us. We do it because we're working. I'm working. You're doing anything. Hard grafting. It's tricky for us.

We do it because we enjoy it. I'm not going anywhere. Yes, mostly. I'm free. We've all got other revenue streams that pay way more. Maybe I'll dabble in some other podcasts while you guys are away. But I think, I don't think our format has been determined by ads or anything like that. Certainly we didn't even have ads for the first few years.

It's just convenience. I think we get together once a week. We have a good chat. That makes a podcast. And I think that's why the weekly format works well. I think other people might toy with different ones and if they work for them, great. And if they're doing it for the money, great. But I think you'll find that most people just do it because they enjoy it.

Most, most of the time if people aren't enjoying something, they'll stop it. Even if it's paying well. Because, and you could tell usually that they're not enjoying it because they'll start phoning in and avoiding it, you know? Anyway. This is from Josh. This is a local boy to me, emailing in. It's funny how your opinion of things changes over time. So I'm going to share with you something I was immensely proud of in my teen years, but now don't know what to think of it. So we can we can provide judgment on this. I'm a fellow Twickenhamite and my proudest moment as a teen was having sex on Twickenham Green in broad daylight underneath the cricket pitch protectors.

That is impressive. I like to think there's a little bit of me out on that green. Every time I'm on the bus going through Twickenham, I'm reminded of it. At the time, of course, all the boys thought I was the shit. Now I'm not so sure. I look back on it as such an odd thing to do. So what's your take? Should I be proud or not?

I wonder how many under. He says Twickenhites, but it's Twickenhamite. Listeners there are. I always thought I'd bump into you at some point, but clearly that is not my face. My fate. So who am I to argue with God? Jesus. Maybe I'll bump into you in the pub one night. Look, the cricket green, the Twickenham green is

a triangular shaped green at the sort of western side of Twickenham. There's Twickenham High shooting all that. You go further west, you get to Twickenham Green, which is more my neck of the woods. And it's bounded by a big fence on all sides. And there is a big cricket pitch and a cricket pavilion on the green. And when it's not the season they want to protect the grass, they put this big tarp out to protect the crease and the lovely green area. And obviously it's not something you would want to get under because it's normally quite damp under there.

I don't know how, I guess you just go under there like a couple of worms and have sex under there. It's in broad daylight. So I'm assuming that you must have been, I mean, I know a lot of school kids hang around there after school. I don't know how old you were, Josh, but it's impressive, I guess. But at the same time, a lot of kids playing on the green. So probably not a good thing to do would be my guess.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I don't know if it's a source of pride. Really? It's something that happened that maybe you look back on and just think it happened. But like, I don't know. It's not like you're making it seem like it was once just such a huge source of, of your pride. And now it's not so much, but like there's, I'm sure there's other stuff that you're really proud of that you could just focus on instead of that time you had sex on a cricket green? Under a tarp. Like, the tarp is not an attractive proposition.

No. They must have been like school kids themselves at the time. I'm getting chat GPT to write me haikus. I'm bored of this rugby thing. Sorry. Period. Okay. Hikubetsips. Rugby thing? What. Period. Okay. Hikobetsips.

Rugby thing? What are you talking about? Sips. Sips in cozy streams, witty jokes and quirky games. Laughter fills our screens. Wow. Laughter fills our screens. How does the AI know?

It doesn't know. It just said laughter fills our screens. You can't see laughter, can you? Exactly. You can when everybody is hitting you with the big LULs. How about this one? The laughing man face. Pirians, sly wit, angry bald man, rage unleashed, chaos in the mix. You're really enjoying these. These are terrible. It's so shit. Oh fuck, sorry. I just, I mean, just going through.

Do you want about the guy having sex under a tarp on the, on the cricket pitch? About guy having sex on a cricket pitch. Under a tarp. Under a tarp. In broad daylight. In broad daylight. Under starlit sky. No, see, it's fucked up.

It's fucked up. In broad daylight. Hang on, I'll do that. Um, beneath the sun's gaze. On a pitch. A daring play. Wicked's witness love. Oh, that's actually quite good. Wicked's witness love. I like the alliteration. Wicked's witness love.

Do you want another email or are you just going to do haikus for the next 13 minutes? I could just do haikus, honestly. Let him do a haiku. You do the email and he can haiku off the back of it. Or haiku between them. You do a haiku about this next one. I've listened for years, finally thought I'd share my experience in the board game industry, as I thought you would enjoy it.

I work as a consultant in the board game industry, working on many different aspects from game localization and crowdfunding to manufacturing. I've worked on hundreds of board games, including games featured on the Games Night channel like Skyrim. As you can probably expect, the board game industry is an absolute mess when it comes to business practices and organization. The vast majority of projects and deals are discussed over far too many beers and events and shows. It's very much an industry of who you know rather than what you know, with the vast majority of projects never going off the ground simply because they don't know who the right people to talk to are. Licensing an IP is always interesting, as I often see people online saying, wouldn't

it be great if we got a game with insert IP here? However, the truth is much more simple. It essentially boils down to the minimum guarantee the IP holder can demand, with how drunk you can usually get the representative. I would share the above as it's an industry with a large following, but internally is a very closed community. Any questions, let me know. Interesting. Not an industry I'd ever really thought about before. Well, I had an idea for a board game. I told Lulu about it a couple of weeks back. I'm not really the right person to talk to. Well, we play board games.

That's true, but I don't make them. No, but I mean, it was like, I don't know what to do with this. I think it would be a good game. I don't know. What do I just fucking make it myself out of bits of card? And then we play test it. And then what's the process from there? That is the process. Just knock it together yourself, see if it's actually fun. And then if it is, then you can carry on. But if it's not, as most of them aren't, you should just let it die. I think, like, you just knocking it together yourself. There's a bunch of things you could do. Like I use, there's a little thing called tabletop creator, which you can buy on Steam. There's one called card creator as well. But

I got one for a discount. I think that actually cost you about 50 or 60, because it's like kind of a pro app. Oh my God, it's 167 pounds now. Yeah, fuck that. I did see that you can buy cards and counters and boards like for a board game and you just write on them. And I guess that, because I think having the physical game would kind of be nice. And you could knock that up. They're cheap. I saw it online. You can get all the bits quite cheaply. So I so I guess you'd want to just design it, but anyway, I think, yeah, I think there's, um, anyway, there's a lot of tools you could use, but I mean, I totally agree, like something like frost punk, the board game did two and a half million

on Kickstarter, you know, and they, the one they followed it up with, which was dying lights, the board game. I think that did, hang on, I can look up how much it did, but I think it was not as good, uh, and it was not as good. And it's because there's obviously a certain interest in certain game types and other things. Oh, 1.1 million. Not bad. These days, these kickstarted board games are so elaborate. You get all of these things with them. You get tons of models. You get some 3D print FTLs, you get all sorts

of extra dubbins. They kind of have to have these very stretched goals with constant adding new things. These board games are marketed, not just a board game, it's like the board game in the first three expansions before you've even had it made. That's kind of crazy to me that that's what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of time I'll buy a, I'll get a board game and it will come with three or four extra boxes on the side. Even the Frostpunk board game came with that and it was like, very weird. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about, about board

games. I would still like to make my own one, but I think it's, it's hard to stand out. And certainly going to things like the UK board games expo, you see that there's so many, and some of them are really, really cool. And you're like, oh damn, my idea is nowhere near as cool as this thing. And this thing's done really badly. So like, maybe I shouldn't do this. Yeah. All right. You want to talk about board games?

Interesting though. It is interesting to get some sort of insight into the world of board gaming. It doesn't surprise me. The business side of board games. Getting drunk is a big part of it. Yeah, true. All right, it really is. Go on then, next up. All right, this is from Jake.

Recently, the podcast has been aflush with firefighter tales. That's true, there was a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about firefighter tales. We were talking quite a bit about firefighter tales. However, historically, the roots of this podcast have been tales of prison. Gentlemen, I bring you a collision of both worlds. Oh.

For six years, I worked as a correctional officer in Washington state. Our state has a program in which inmates can work for our natural resources department as fully certified wildland firefighters. As a correctional officer, I scoffed at the idea of the bad guy is doing something good. However, after being a part of the mismanagement of the American Princesses for far too long, I realised maybe I could help be the change. So I traded my badge for a chainsaw and the rest was history. I went from being the bad guy to leading ten guys with felony records and tattoos on their face into burning forests and communities overnight. At first I was concerned that all of the guys under my command

were just on my crew to get a shorter sentence or maybe clemency. However, quickly after seeing them go into action, I could see that they just needed a purpose. Two years later, hundreds of homes and acres saved by a crew of the last people you'd think would be the ones to do it. I now realize maybe there is more good in the world than bad. I have a plethora of stories fighting wildfires side by side with these juggers if you'd like to hear more.

Jake, please do tell us more about that. That's crazy. Oh, I really like that take that is, you know, just give people a purpose and or a good something to do, you know, a role in the world. And yeah, especially something crazy and brave like that, right? Yeah. Very cool. I think it probably works too, because if you're not, if you're,

if you're kind of like just a civilian, you know, I don't think they would really turn on you. I feel like if you were a prison guard and you were leading the chainsaw gang or whatever, there'd be more scope for them to potentially, you know, if the shit went down, push you into the fire or whatever, you know, but because you're like just a, you know, like you're not, you're no longer associated with the prison system in any way. You're just doing this, um, fire rescue stuff and they're coming with you probably safer and, and, and a good thing too. You're saving lives.

Crazy. I think that's really neat. All right. This a good thing too, you're saving lives. Crazy. I think that's really neat. All right, this is from Luke. Hi lads. Longtime listener from the maligned colony of Australia here. You've discussed the most influential technological advancements of the human race. However, if you could erase or outlaw any technology, what would it be? Controversial and poorly considered takes are encouraged as usual. My choice would be personal cars, forcing mass transit to get better, reclaiming roads as usable space. Or comment sections, because I think they have contributed to creating

a society of cunts. I think they need to vocalise and appeal on everything. Yeah, comment sections, social media generally, I would get rid of personally. I just think of, I just think, get rid of, get rid of social media platforms. Sure. Let's get rid of smartphones, the internet. No, let's keep those things, but just, artificial intelligence. Get rid of like Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. I would get rid of supermarkets. Get rid of Facebook. Oh my God. Supermarkets and mega stores.

Right, cool. Personally. Yeah. Because I think they've done a lot at home. I think they've driven a lot at home. Yeah. I think they've driven down prices that farmers can get for things, which has fucked over a lot of dairies and farmers.

They destroyed high streets. As much as people blame internet shopping, people still go to Tesco's and Savers and all that shit. It would be much better for the high street instead of all that money pouring into the pockets of shareholders of Tesco and all that kind of stuff. The butcher, the fishmonger, the guy that runs a small hardware store. These big superstores have destroyed communities. They've led to all this out of town developments of these huge concrete areas where all people do is park and shop, park and shop. And it's killed any sense of community or...

Sorry, they're dying anyway, all the people that says that. Because people are just ordering stuff on Amazon now. Well, good riddance to them, good fucking riddance to them. It's just replaced it with another load of shit. I don't know. Like, it's tough. There's so many technologies that are dual, double bladed or whatever, you know, there's they cut back at the same time as AI, you know, I'm sure it will have a lot of helpful

things, but it's terrifying. So, God, what can we get rid of? It'd be nice to get rid of plastic. Everything should be made of wood. Let's get rid of Skynet before it's too late. Plastic would, ironically, as useful as plastic is, and it's incredibly useful. The problem is we are really going to pay the price for it. It's just too cheap. It's long lasting. That's the thing. It's too cheap. It's just used for everything. I mean, think about how many water bottles countries use every day, especially in countries

where you don't have good safe drinking water. Those aren't being recycled. They're just ending up in the fucking ocean and in landfills. And they're going to be around for thousands of years. This plastic is going to be there just fucking hanging about. And we don't know long term effects going to happen. People's health and we should get rid of that. That would be a good one. That's depressing. Plastic is incredible.

Plastic is so we dig up like ancient coins and stones and stuff. And we try to learn about ancient civilizations and stuff. People are going to be digging up like L.L. Dove grungy shitty coke bottles and stuff, people are going to be digging up like grungy shitty coke bottles and stuff. Yeah, dog shit lumps of plastic. What is this? Or half decayed.

It's awful. And large chemical companies, like get rid of them as well. Let's read about the Voyager probes, they're still like sending back kind of info. They were launched in like the late 70s. After the success of the moon landing, there was this brief period where they were flush with cash and invested in before it all got withdrawn. And Voyagers, one of these two probes that was quite famously sent with those gold disks on, with the Vitruvian man and a little bit of language and a little bit of representation of, you know, to try and tell aliens who discovered

these probes what we're like. And it's a bit, they're a bit out of date now what those, what's on those gold discs, but they're still kind of interesting. And they also got us basically the pictures that we have of the outer satellites, like Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus. They're very cool. Anyway, I was wondering about how we communicate with them. There's this thing called the NASA Deep Space Network. There's three satellite communications complexes. One in California, one in Madrid, and one in Australia, in Canberra. And it's basically that way, it covers the entirety of deep space at all times. One of those facilities is looking into deep space at all times. So they can always be in communication with it, which is fascinating

how these facilities were set up so long ago, and are still going and how they can still receive data from this thing that's, you know, that hasn't required any, it's not exactly no one's been, you know, working, no one's been given any maintenance for the last 50 years. Yeah, it's just really cool, I think, to see stuff like that. I just wanted to bring that up since Australia was mentioned. I don't know, I was just kind ofthing around these facilities that are all over the place in the world. There's some fascinating places where they're either in use or derelict now with loads of big old satellites pointing at space. I think we've lost a bit of that

wonder that we had back in those days. The idea that there's a brave new world out there, the new frontier space. So there's a couple of things I think happened. First of all, it became very easy to cut the money going to NASA. If you just said, and other space agencies as well, well, what are they fucking doing? What a waste of money. And instead of being pitched as like it was pitched as this big patriotic thing in America to show the rest of the world, especially the Russians, what we could do as a democratic capitalist society, we can do much better than their dogshit communist ideology. So that was the idea was that there was like a patriotic call to do something as a country and to support it. And as soon as it had served its purpose, it served the interests of a lot of people

to destroy any interest in NASA, because that way they could cut back on spending. So I think it very quickly went from being a source of patriotic pride to money that they in their mind was just going out the fucking window. And a lot of the people that were working for NASA probably weren't Republicans anyway. So let's slash the funding to it. And they were successful. They slashed a lot of the funding and put in the minds of a lot of people. It's just my opinion.

But having spoke to a lot of older Republicans who grew up in that era, they're like, man, they get paid even if it fucking blows up in the launch pad. What a waste of money. And seeing it more as a business investment rather than an investment in the future of humanity. Yeah. There's also a big tendency of people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to be obsessed with space and people are reasonably pointing out maybe we should fix the fucking planet first instead of focusing on fucking Mars or Venus, which is just a fast forward to what our planet

will look like if we don't fucking do something about the state of the environment. So having a look at space is all well and good. I love it. I absolutely fucking love it. But I understand people's desire to perhaps invest that money at home as well. So it's a shame. Yeah. It's always interesting to hear about these, I don't know, when I'm going around, I always feel like, sometimes when you're driving somewhere, it's really interesting to see, oh, what the heck's that place? Just driven by and it's like Goonhilly Earth Station or something. It's like a load of old satellite dishes that closed down, or at least closed down visiting. But I remember going to these types of places as a kid and being like, wow, giant

satellite dishes. What are they for? I mean, I will say, we still have them. They just further out. Like, I mean, for instance, they did the they did the thing with gravity waves. That was a huge experiment. There's there are big listening stations still out there listening. And I know that there was some big news story. It was clearly click bait about how they found this signal. But everybody says it's a lot of bollocks, all this kind of stuff. Like there's still lots of space stuff happening.

I mean, the James Webb Space Telescope is incredible. The pictures that that's getting. But I think people have kind of, it's more of the same. Much like the initial moon landing had incredible viewing figures, people can't name who the 12th man on the moon was. They don't give a shit. So I think the interest in these things drops off quickly because essentially the first time you do it, amazing. But after that, you realize that the moon is really not that interesting and that shots of distant galaxies, it's like, yeah, that's incredible if you're into space. But for the average person, what am I fucking looking at here? What am I meant to make of this? We're never going to see it. It's never going to...

This isn't going to wank me off. Yeah, exactly. And I would love to work at one of those big satellite observatory places, just as it's like closing down and being like the person in charge of closing it down, being the last person to shut the doors. The last thing I would do before I shut the doors is I would print out on one of the computers, we are coming and then I would lock the doors and close them and just walk away. I think that'd be so funny.

It's a great prank. Somebody would break in and find that message freshly printed off the computer and just start freaking out. You know, I think that'd be amazing. Oh, I love that. That's a great prank. That's such a good prank. I like that a lot.

Yeah, I would totally do that. Beautiful. Beautiful. Good stuff. Thank you, Sips. Well, I think that's a good place to end, honestly. Sure. Just ending on a prank.

Yeah. Got it. All right. Well, take it easy, everyone. Thank you for listening to another mailbag yeah see you next time thank you