Wonderful! - Wonderful! 342: The Alive Poets Society

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Griffin's favorite time spent in front of the computer for hours! Rachel's favorite quantifiable fitness activity!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Equal Justice Initiative: https://eji.org/about/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Welcome, you titans of Industry, you poets of tomorrow. What's the thing from Dead Poets Society that he says, and everyone gets so inspired. Good night, you sweet princes of literature. That's not from Dead Poets Society.

That's from Cider House Rules, I think. Shoot, you're right, isn't it? Yeah, Dead Poets Society, he does say. You Titans of Industry, you poets of tomorrow. You dead, we were the dead poets society the whole time. Dead Poets Society, he does say. You Titans of Industry, you poets of tomorrow. You dead poets, we were the dead poets society the whole time. In the end, the real dead poets

were the friends we made along the way. I think I saw that movie once, never saw a Cider House rules. I have, this will not surprise you, watched Dead Poets Society maybe 15 times. Yeah. Love that. Love that film. Yeah, you keep that spirit alive, I think, in this podcast.

This podcast is oftentimes the alive poets society. You do a lot of alive poets on this one. Some dead, some dead, but I feel like you prefer the alive ones to the dead ones. Just so you know, I don't categorize them that way in my mind, like, oh, we've done seven alive, so I guess it's time for a dead. Time for a dead. People love the deads. Just so you know, I don't categorize them that way in my mind, like, oh, we've done seven alive, so I guess it's time for a dead.

Time for a dead. People love the deads. You get, they're classic. They are. Do you have any small wonders? I mean, I'm gonna say, who, what's a way to put a positive spin on the past few days?

Oh boy. Our children are feeling better. Very bad. Our kids got sick for this two times in like a three week span. Sucks shit, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I always operate under the assumption that you get sick

and then you probably won't get sick again for a while because your body's like built up some immunity. All of your Osmosis Jones are fucking ready to party. They're already on high alert. And I know the beginning of the school year brings a lot of kids in close proximity and they've got a lot of strange germs that you're not used to.

Yeah. Anyway, I guess the positive spin I can put on it is that I really like our pediatrician. Yes. We absolutely adored our pediatrician in Austin and it was maybe one of the saddest things was leaving him in particular. And I think we got another good one.

And it was nice to bring our boys to her and to feel like, okay, somebody's gonna figure this out. A good pediatrician is like the best wonder. It's a huge wonder. Yeah, I mean, your child spends like over a decade at least with this one doctor. I saw my pediatrician well into college. Is that a joke?

No, no, it's not. I feel like he had another office somewhere that was not the pediatrician's office at Cabell-Hunnington Hospital, which I assume is where I always went. But I do remember seeing my pediatrician for a long time after. It was, I would say, socially acceptable. He didn't, because I feel seeing my pediatrician for a long time after it was, I would say socially acceptable.

He didn't, because I feel like my pediatrician at one point had the conversation with my mom, like, may wanna start looking for another one. Huh, yeah. But that is also because, you know, I would get an annual pelvic exam, which was not something that he practiced. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

So his suggestion was like, you should probably find somebody else to start doing that. For the pelvic stuff. Yeah, I don't usually go in there. That's cool. I'm gonna say, I watched a movie on this most recent tour I went on, on a plane at six in the morning.

It's called Perfect Days. I don't know who's in it or who made it. So I hope you're not looking for in-depth film critique or even basic information here. But it was a fricking chill ass vibe to keep me company on this airplane for like two hours and five minutes. It's about a Japanese man who is a public toilet cleaner. They were sort of public toilet cleaner.

You were sort of public toilet cleaning company. And he just lives a very sort of solitary, ritualistic life where he does kind of the same stuff every day. And it is a very, very quiet movie. There's very little dialogue in it. And it just goes over the course of like a week of his life. And you get to watch as this like pattern he establishes is somewhat like disrupted by like at one point

his niece runs away from home and stays with him for a while so he kind of like shows her the ropes a little bit but it's just a beautiful like very vibey like sort of tone piece and it really, it moved me to tears at one point, which I feel like you're very vulnerable on an airplane to that sort of behavior. But it's just about like presence and appreciating life.

And it's a truly beautiful, beautiful film that my friend Chris Plant recommended to me. And for whatever reason, because while you were gone, I watched two movies. It's wild that we don't think of watching movies together. It is, yeah. I guess because we are never typically awake long enough in the evening.

True. I watched another movie right after that, which was Tenet by What's His Face, the guy who makes all the big movies, whose name I should remember. Christopher Nolan? Christopher Nolan, thank you, babe. Didn't you see it? I've seen it before.

I watched Inception on the flight out and I watched Tenet on the flight back. I just got the bug. I got the itch. I love those fucking flicks, man. I watched Inception and I'd forgotten that that movie is literally just two and a half hours explaining how Inception works.

It's just two and a half hours of DiCaprio and Elliot Page just like, and here's how this Inception works. We gotta go deeper into this Inception. How does that work? half hours of DiCaprio and Elliot Page just like, and here's how this inception works. We gotta go deeper into this inception. How does that work? I'll explain it at length. The Matrix is kinda like that too, right?

The Matrix, I think, gets through the idea of the Matrix, at least halfway through the film. Halfway through the Matrix, you kind of know what's going on. And then the following two films, I think, are a little bit less like, and here's all the rules. Gotta follow the rules when you're in The Matrix. One's one zero zero.

One's and zeroes. I go first this week. Okay. I'm doing something I haven't done before. I wanna talk about a video series that I did. Not because I'm like, like I think it's the best thing I've ever done or the best thing in the world.

I'm like, I'm genuinely pretty uncomfortable with self-promotion all the time, which is, I would say, a fatal flaw in my sort of entrepreneurial spirit. I have been in endless conversations where Griffin and I are introducing ourselves to people, and he talks remarkably little about what he actually does every day all day.

It's a secret. But I wanna talk about my experience of making it because it was one of my fondest gaming memories ever. The series is called Peacecraft, which I made at Polygon seven years ago, which is fucking bonkers. In Peacecraft, I play World of Warcraft, the big MMORPG that's been around since like 2004 I think, and I attempt to level up

a character while journeying across the whole globe of Warcraft while not getting in any battles or performing any acts of violence at all the whole way. Oh, is it B real time? Thank you baby. I've missed the last two days. Let me get my big nasty feet out of the frame. Yeah, I got you laughing.

God, it looks like I'm really delighting my wife in this picture. Sorry, I didn't mean to. No, it's all good. The premise is that I journey all around the world and don't fight anything the whole time, which is not really the intended way of playing a game called World of Warcraft. How much about wow do you think all around the world and don't fight anything the whole time, which is not really the intended way of playing

a game called World of Warcraft. How much about WoW do you know? Because I know that you knew people who played it. No, I didn't. Oh really? No. Oh, I assume. I mean, maybe I did, but like not intimately enough

to learn anything about it. Okay. Yeah, actually I have watched like 90% of the series that you have done on the internet. I never watched- Never watched Peacecraft. No, because I just felt like that's not for me. I know nothing about World of Warcraft.

I do not blame you. I would agree with that observation. Yeah, like anything like clever or remarkable that you would do, I wouldn't appreciate it because all of it would be- You don't know anything about World of it would be, yeah. I totally understand that, and that's why I've never suggested

that you watch this particular series. I played World of Warcraft when it launched back in 2004. It was a big deal. Me and my brothers and dad and a bunch of our friends played Everquest, which was like this earlier online RPG, but I played it pretty hardcore through like 2010. And after I moved to Austin, I pretty much fell off completely because my life,

I don't know, I had so much more stuff to do with my life and I was busier and happier and I wasn't really like, I didn't feel great about spending hours and hours and hours and hours on in playing wow. So you were playing it like when you lived in Chicago? Yes, I was playing it when I was in Huntington and then in Cincinnati and Chicago, yeah. Wow.

I'm sorry that I broke you up. From WoW, I don't regret it. Here's the thing, it is, I look back on my time with the game very fondly, but I also recognize that I got into unhealthy sort of habits of like when I would move to Cincinnati or move to Chicago, I was not making much effort to like get out into the city or do new things.

And so I, but I played a lot of wow, which is fine. Like if that's your jam, that's fine. But looking back on it now, like, I don't know, I would have probably done things differently. It does really sound like a breakup. Like I was the new wow. That's fine, but looking back on it now, I don't know, I would have probably done things a little bit differently. It does really sound like a breakup. I was the new wow. You were the new, that is such a sad way to put it.

So since then, a bunch of different expansions and versions of the game have come out, and I've tried dipping into it occasionally, but I always bounce off pretty fast, because I don't know, I wasn't, it just felt so repetitive to me and I wasn't like really enjoying it. But 2017, I decided to do this series, Peacecraft,

where I would play the game and not fight anything, not do any violence whatsoever. So I made a little gnome rogue, whose name was Randy with two A's and two Y's, because Randy Regular was taken. And I just spent all of my time kind of like running around the game trying to go from one point of the map all the way to the other side of the world

without getting killed a billion times, which did happen. And all of a sudden, like the game transformed from being this kind of, for me somewhat like mindless grinding for loot and experience. And it became this thrilling stealth action game where a single moment of carelessness meant that I would just be obliterated. And I think if that's all the series was,

it would have been, I would have enjoyed it still because it made me see this game that I'd spent a lot of time playing in the past, like in this whole new way. But the thing that kind of happened with Peacecraft is that viewers started to find me while I was playing the game. Yeah.

And would sort of begin running alongside me as my own personal security detail. So were you? Were you live streaming this? I wasn't, no. So people just happened to be playing when you were playing? Yes, they could follow me.

There's somebody on the World War everything like follow and so Griffin's online. And then people, well, Randy is online and then they would come and they would follow me. There's somebody on World War I, they're following somebody, Griffin's online, and then people, well, Randy is online, and then they would come and they would find me. And it was very much like that one part of Forrest Gump where he starts running across the country and then a few people start following him, and then a whole crowd of people start following him around.

By the end of the series, which was just 10 episodes, I would have dozens, dozens of players running behind me in just this like mad army. They formed a guild called Randy's Fandies, and every time I jumped on the game, I would just have just dozens of other players just like orbiting me constantly, which allowed us to do really, really stupid shit.

Like in one episode, we sieged the capital city of like the enemy faction of the game, which is just full of like enemies that would just kill you in one shot. But I had this whole army of people like paratrooping me down like into the city. And one episode we like went to a carnival and just like Hulkamania would kind of run wild wherever we went because there would be a lot of people

suddenly that would just sort of appear in this one zone. And this was around the time that I sort of started to really disconnect from social media. And so it was like sort of the most contact that I was getting with people who watched our stuff. And it was really genuinely very touching. People sent me in-game mail, and in WoW, your in-game mailbox

can only hold a certain number of messages. Every time I logged onto the game, it would be stuffed full with people sending me little toys or pieces of gear I could use to help me stay alive as I went along. Blizzard, the developer of World of Warcraft, actually commemorated Randy and his excellent journey during this in-game event that they did

where you would race from one end of the map to the other. And at the beginning and end of the race, there was Randy. They had like my character, but it's like an NPC, like jumping up and down and cheering for you, which was really neat. But my favorite thing, like, my favorite thing about like my favorite thing about this experience was just playing it

because for all the time that I spent playing WoW when I was playing it, you know, back in the early days, like most of it was a pretty solitary experience. I knew a few people who played, but they were like way more hardcore than I was. And they were in these like high end like raids, doing like the hardest content in the game that I could not. I was not that fucking deep into it

where it was a part-time job for me. And so I played it alone mostly, which is probably why I fell off as hard as I did, is like, I don't know, that experience just kind of, when you don't have other people playing with you in a game that is intended sort of to be played with other people, it didn't really click for me,

or it didn't stay clicked, I should say. But doing this and having this huge group of people to kind of like goof off with in this huge world that I used to, I don't know, follow the rules in so carefully was genuinely some of the most fun I've ever had playing video games. Even if at times it did feel like I had established some sort of cyber cult.

Because there were definitely some. Literally following you. Some moments where like people were like, I'll die for you, Randy. It's like, okay. I went back and watched some episodes because I had forgotten about it. It was seven years ago that I made this series

and there's so much genuinely immersive, funny shit that happened. Like somebody made an evil version of Randy that would just like appear behind a tree, just like sort of watching me from time to time. I don't know, it made this big stage that not only I was on, but like everybody who was playing the game with me was on.

And we got, we have a chance to do stuff like that at Polygon sometimes, like when we broke Second Life in that one episode of Monster Factory. But this was like, I don't know, it was this idea sort of really encapsulated in it. I really look back on it very, very fondly. So that's- Well, now I might check it out. That's Peacecraft.

It's weird, I sound different in it, which I guess makes sense. Like it was seven years ago, I feel like I sound kind of different. Well, your audio quality may have changed. Maybe that's what it is. How your voice comes out. But yeah, I have a lot of fondness for it.

I do not know if you would enjoy it. I do not know if anyone who doesn't know about World of Warcraft would enjoy it. Because I think you have to have that understanding of like, wow, he's playing this game the wrongest imaginable way. That's what I'm thinking, right? Like I'm not only like learning how you're doing it,

but I'm learning the game at the same time. But by like episode three, that's when people start to find me. Like it starts off like, man, I'm doing this weird thing. And then by episode three, people start to find me. And then by episode six, man, I'm doing this weird thing. And then by episode three, people start to find me. And then by episode six, it's like, at one point I had to make a new character because too many people were finding me.

So I kind of ran around as this new guy with a new name for a while who people weren't following. So yeah, it's great. That's delightful. It's very neat. Can I steal you away? Yes. Thank you. Hello, internet. I'm your husband host, Travis McElroy.

And I'm your wife host, Teresa McElroy. And this is a promo for Schmaners. It's Extraordinary Etiquette. For ordinary occasions. Every week we're going to tell you about a bit of culture, a bit of history, how etiquette still applies in the modern day, all that stuff. We also love to do biographies and histories of and, you know, general procedurals, how to do etiquette in today's society.

So come check it out every Friday on maximumfund.org or wherever you find your podcasts. Manor shmaners. Get it? My name's Doug Duguing and I'm here to talk about my podcast in the middle of the one you're listening to. It's called Valley Heat and it's about my neighborhood, the Burbank Rancho Equestrian District, the center of the world when it comes to foosball, frisbee golf, and high-speed freeway roller skating. And there's been a Jaguar parked outside on my curb for

10 months. I have no idea who owns it. I have a feeling it's related to the drug drop that was happening in my garbage can a little over a year ago. And if this has been a boring commercial, imagine 45 minutes of it. Okay, Valley Heat, it's on every month on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. Check it out, but honestly skip it. These are the Chronicles of the Rancho-Questrian District in Burbank, California. These are the events taking place in my house,

around my house. My topic this week is lifting, bro. Oh my God, you dog. Lifting, bro. Do you lift bro? Bro, I curl. I don't know if that counts. We've been talking, Rachel got me a set of hand weights that I-

Specifically because he asked, not because I was like trying to get you to- No, she wasn't shitty about it. I asked for hand weights. You got them for me for like, I forget what the occasion was, Father's Day maybe. And I've been using them for like trying shitty about it. I asked for hand weights. You got them for me for like, I forget what the occasion was, Father's Day maybe. And I've been using them for like trying to do it. Like every day I'm at home for a month,

like a few sets, 12 reps a day. But I just see like some bicep curls. And man, it's gotten to the point where I like it. I never, for all the times I ever tried to like get into exercising, I only ever did cardio. And I feel like I was really missing out, man, because just lifting some hand weights feels pretty good, actually.

I think, I've been trying to figure out what I like about it, because I don't, I don't know, it's not anything that I've ever really done before. I think it is because I've been going to the gym now for like a year and a half. Yeah. And it is very difficult for me to see how I am improved cardiovascularly.

Like I don't think I'm necessarily any better at running than I was a year and a half ago. But when you lift weights, you can quantify very easily the value. And it's awesome. I just stepped it up from five pounds up from my previous weight that I was curling on each handbell. And it feels like cool.

Like, oh wow, I got five pounds per arm stronger. That's nice. Yeah, like you pick up a weight that you used to pick up and then you think, oh, maybe I'll try this other one. And then you realize my body is actually stronger. Yeah, that's cool. It's very nice. I feel like so many people game,

you were telling me about like some task app, like to do list app that is like very gamified very much. But it is very much that idea of like the kinds of RPGs I get into that are like, you gotta get your strength a few points higher so you can hit this boss a little bit harder. Being able to look at the number on the weights and be like, oh hell yeah, that are like, you gotta get your strength a few points higher so you can hit this boss a little bit harder. Being able to look at the number on the weights and be like, oh hell yeah, that number went up.

That's very, very satisfying in the reptilian part of my brain. The other thing that I think has helped, like the gym I go to offers classes. So it's not like I have a personal trainer, but like there is somebody walking around teaching the class and you can really be thoughtful about your form.

So you're not hurting yourself. That is the other thing about lifting weights. There are so many ways you can hurt yourself. And I feel like I've really learned how to protect my back and- And protect your neck. It's important. Yeah. The neck. It's important. Yeah.

The neck. The neck and the back. We don't have to go any further down the anatomy. And I knew part of this gym thing for me is that I am a woman over 40 and I can't really depend on my youth to just carry me anymore. Sure.

You know, like those times in your life where you kind of do whatever you want I can't really depend on my youth to just carry me anymore. Sure. You know, like those times in your life where you kind of do whatever you want and bounce back quickly. Sure. Like I'm not really in that space anymore. And our kids are like- Exhausting.

Well, they're exhausting, but they are also like moderately sized, like sacks of potatoes. They're like Costco bags of rice. And that's, and so like you can pick them up, but to carry them any kind of distance kind of sucks now. They're not little guys no more. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, that was a big part of it too. But I also had this real feeling and it's true. Like the longer you wait, the harder it is to like get in there. Sure. As you get older, you start losing muscle mass. It's why like so many older adults like fall and hurt themselves or become less mobile

is because like your muscle starts to diminish. And then it's really difficult to start like a new gym habit. A new muscle, yeah, sure. Yeah, so I felt like I gotta get in there now and start doing it. And you know, and I think when you're younger too, you're really focused on running

because like that's the thing that you think of about getting healthy. Right. Like you think like, oh, if I wanna get healthy, I guess I'll run a marathon because that seems like that's what people do. And if that's your journey. Yeah. Beautiful.

But like, if you're like me, I've kind of always hated running. Sucks the moon out of the sky. And even when I get better at it, like I still don't really enjoy it. No. And I think I always felt kind of bad about that, but then like lifting heavy stuff is like, I don't know.

It's faster. It's faster than running around for an hour. And you don't actually have to do it for a very long time. So I did some research on lifting, bro. For this or just to sort of, were you trying to like enhance your vascularity? Which by the way is pretty good, babe. I'm so vascular.

Your vascularity lately is really popping out. No, I was curious. You look like Bane, but like Bane from the old Batman movies, not like Tom Hardy Bane. Who was old Bane? I don't know who played him. He wore a mask the whole time.

It may have been. I mean, he didn't he kind of wear a mask in the new one too? Yeah, but it was Tom Hardy. That one I know because it sounded and looked kind of like Tom Hardy. What Batman property had old Bane? Fricking, I think it was Batman and Robin

or Batman Forever is one of those two. Is the one with Poison Ivy in it, I believe, and Mr. Freeze, I think Bane was also up in there. Wow, that's a busy one, huh? He was a big fella. Yeah, they used to really just stuff him. Okay, so I found an article from the Harvard School of Public Health 2022 that was citing another study

that found that just 30 to 60 minutes a week of strength training may be enough. Those who worked out for this duration had a 10 to 20% lower risk of dying during the study period from all causes from cancer heart disease specifically Compared to those who did no strength training the benefits plateaued after one hour and decreased after two hours Oh, so if you so I crank too much That's I that's interesting. Yeah

So yeah So it's just a twice a week thing. Like basically if you wanna get kind of the health benefits from it, you can kind of limit yourself to that, which I love to hear, man. Yeah, for sure, dude. I have in the past done maybe four workouts a week. I ultimately end up hurting something.

Yeah. Like I put too much stress on a particular thing and then I keep going and then you have to rest. And yeah, so I've realized like, you know what? Like if you're getting benefits from two, why would you do more? I remember I got Sage sort of advice. I don't even know if he realized he was giving it to me

from Stuart Wellington from the Flophouse who has been on his own sort of fitness journey and is quite swole. And I was talking to him about, you know, a personal trainer at gym and like what his thing was. And he was like, yeah, I mostly do strength now because I get super bored just doing like a long, long, long block of cardio a few times a week.

Like just running or riding a bike for a long time is pretty boring. But strength, like you just, it's really short bursts and you a bike for a long time is pretty boring. But strength, like it's really short bursts and you can do like a bunch of different little stuff. Which I also, I'm right there, yeah. Well, and so that's the other thing I saw is that these 30 minute strength workouts should focus on all your muscle groups.

So like if you just do like one exercise for 30 minutes, that's not gonna give you all the benefits. Okay, well then I gotta get some more machines in here. Gotta get one of those ones you fuckin' like lay down on on your back and you push it up with your legs. Whoa. So the coach will put you back in, center, nose guard. Nose guard?

I think that's what they're called. Is that one? Nose tackle. Is that a thing? Nose tackle I think is that's what they're called. Is that one? Nose tackle. Is that a thing? Nose tackle, I think, is a position in football. Okay. I think they stand in front of the quarterback man. Um, yeah, so as I was saying earlier,

research shows that between the ages of 30 and 50, you'll likely lose 10% of your body's muscle. Fat chance. Not how much I'm cranking it with these two dumbbells. I'm a little frustrated that you keep using the phrase cranking it. I feel like that's not appropriate. Okay, but what is more descriptive?

Like what does crank it sound more like? The act of self pleasure, which I think you are so crudely referring to. Or like taking the knob of your body and turning it, again, that sounds like I'm talking about it over and over. Yeah, you had to ask me what the knob of your body is. I don't know. No, I knew as soon as I said it.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I argue maybe there does need to be another phrase that satisfies that same. There's only like two words to describe masturbation. This is why people say lifting, bro. Oh, lifting, oh, okay. People say lifting, I think.

Yeah, okay, lift. But I don't, I'm curl, I crank. Yeah. The other thing I read is that weightlifting is also good for your bones. Oh. The other thing I read is that weightlifting is also good for your bones. So when you perform a curl, for example, your muscles tug on the bones and the cells within those bones react

by creating new bone cells, which helps with your bone density, which is a real issue, particularly for women as they get older. And also that bone density is the kind of thing that helps you not like break your hip or your leg or whatever. So I should call it tugging then.

What are we calling tugging? Well, lifting, because it's tugging on your bone, like your bones are getting tugged. Why isn't lifting enough for you? I don't know, because I set it down too. You know what I mean? It'd be different if you picked up the weight and you put it on a shelf every time

and then someone else would come along behind you to put it back down on the floor. Do you even lift and set down, bro? Do you even lift and lower? Bro bro? Do you lift and lower? Bro, if you're only lifting and not lowering, you're missing out on half the workout. You see this poor guy at the gym who's just got, just carrying dumbbells around in every possible exchange. He's in the bathroom with the dumbbells.

Somebody take these from me. Yeah, so it's just, it's about consistency. It's about, like I said, like twice a week, 30 minutes. It's about drive, it's about power. I think Griffin and I are having some fun because neither of us has ever really considered ourselves to be a fitness person. And I still don't, but I no longer consider myself

a person who that world is, like I'm cut off from, like that's not possible. Yeah, nobody, like when I walked into the gym, nobody said, well, you certainly can't be here. Yeah, what's wrong with you? Yeah, I have expected my first workout there when I went to the coach and I was like, hey, I need to be sick in a trash can.

And he was like, okay, then you slow down. You need to go gentler. I thought at the end he would be like, how was your first session? Great. This isn't for you. Yeah, we've seen a lot of people come in here and let's just say you are not going to come in here again.

We have what we call sports boys, and we have what we call computer boys. And I think that you might be one of the latter. Here's a flyer for a local computer that you can use at the library. Yeah, I think there was, and I'm gonna have to thank this gentleman that I worked with in 2009,

but he was a fitness person in college, like actual weightlifter. And at the time I was taking a rock climbing class and he stood next to me and my arms had gotten really strong and he was like, you could probably bulk up if you wanted to. And at the time it was a weird thing to hear. Sure.

He was a friend, it wasn't like a stranger. But it really got in my head like, there's nothing stopping me, man. No, and you have, I mean, you've fulked up, Amy. I'm pretty strong. You're pretty strong now. And what's great is that I have spread this message on to our children.

And so now both of our boys refer to me as very strong and talk about how strong I am. And I really like hearing that. I don't, I'm funny. Henry always talks about I'm funny and he loves to play games with me and he loves, like he tells me he loves me every like 30 seconds. But I don't get a lot of,

actually Gus tells me I'm pretty strong. When I pick his bike up to carry it down the stairs, he always, I do get that from him. Well, and Henry talks about how tall you are. That's true, but I'm pretty average from 5'10". But it was bigger than him. Yes, yeah, he's a seven-year-old boy. We got some stuff from our friends at home.

Snail says, my small wonder is that at work, there's two types of soap at the sink, and I can choose between the blue and the pink soap, depending on my mood. Maybe someday I'll get spicy and make some purple soap just to see what happens. What if it sets off this like chemical, it makes like elephant toothpaste.

Or this door opens in the bathroom like. Yeah, Morpheus steps out. Come on in. You've solved the puzzle. Why is there two different types of soap? Is it possible one is hand sanitizer and one is soap? Cause I do think that that happens. Well, I was picturing like a bar situation,

but they probably don't do that. No, not at work. Yeah, I don't know. It's not unusual in like a nicer building to have an assortment of body products in the bathroom available to you. So maybe that's what's happening here. Yeah.

Eve says, my wonderful thing is a tasting, sometimes referred to as a sampler, platter, or flight. Depending on the food or beverage, whether it's beer, wine, pickles, pizza, honey, et cetera, I love getting to try a variety of one thing to compare and find my favorite. The best shit. We used to do this a lot.

Like there were, unsurprisingly perhaps, a lot of breweries in Austin. Yeah. And the flight was a real go-to for us. I will still go for it every time. Yeah. Mostly because I love drinking tiny little cups of beer. Talked about this a lot.

I love drinking a tiny little. I would love it if next time you ordered a beer at a restaurant, you said, can you bring it to me in three tiny cups? I mean, it's like the Germans do. That was my favorite thing. When I visited Cologne, they brought me a beer and I was like, excuse me, there's been a terrible mistake. This is like the tiny, tiny, tiny amount of beer.

And then my boss at the time was like, no, no, no, you drink 15 of them. And I was like, oh, okay. And then it made sense. I could really dial it in. That is really nice for me. You don't get like that growth. I've never finished a can of beer that the bottom 20,000 people would drink. And then it made sense. I could really dial it in. That is really nice for me. You don't get like that growth.

I've never finished a can of beer that the bottom 20% was like totally gnarly. Same, like you just kind of want to get rid of it. But if you drink just like, I think it was like 0.2 liters, it's like a little tiny tube down, good. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for these, for our theme song, Money Won't Pay.

You'll find a link to that in the episode description. And thank youen and Augustus for these, for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You'll find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to maximumfun.org, check out all the great shows that they got over there. We got some live shows coming up. We're gonna be in Atlanta and Orlando doing Mbim Bam later this weekend, as you were hearing this.

And I think there's still some tickets available. They are very close to selling out though, which is very exciting. And then we have some more shows coming up later this year. We're gonna be in Phoenix and Denver and Indianapolis and a couple other places. So go to bit.ly slash McRoy Tours. You can find links to get tickets and all the information.

Also we got some new merch over at MacRoyMerch.com. There's a Munch Squad apron that is pretty delightful. There's a Grillmaster of the Forbidden Meats from Taz Dadlands apron that is also very good. That is all over at MacRoyMerch.com. Anything else? Nothing I can think of. All right, I do appreciate how much thought you put in.

I really did. I was like, okay, so it's September. Yeah. The next month's September. Yeah. The next month is October. Yeah. But October still feels kind of far away. Doesn't it though? Anyway, we gotta go slop down some way cakes

and do some of our mirroring weightlifting that we do. We put our hands up and we just push into each other real hard. It's strong, it's strengthening, it's erotic. Oh. Is it not erotic for you? Well, I guess for you. Never, just kidding.

Thanks for listening, bye. Money won't pay, working on pay. Money won't pay, working on pay. Money won't pay, working on pay. Money won't pay, working on pay. Money won't pay, working on pay. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

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