Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Adulting and Bad Inventions
23 Plays1 year ago
Welcome back! This week Ron has Force Powers!, after the normal Rigmarole (holidays, traditions, animals, sock and shoe issues); Ron talks about how its hard for some adults to make purchases for themselves; Chris ponders if black powder was a bad invention. As always please like, subscribe and share with your friends. Come join the discussions on the Discord Channel (https://discord.gg/TbxA7gcUky) and follow us on Twitter, @cltruitt22. Thanks and take care, and support your local BookStore!
Recommended
Transcript
Chris's COVID Birthday Surprise
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the Mythic Draft Podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Ron. And as you can tell, I am stuffy because I've got the Rona again. And I don't. Yeah, lucky you. I don't know how. Yeah. It was a lovely surprise birthday gift I got this year. I just woke up that morning. I was like, I'm not feeling great.
00:00:27
Speaker
And my wife came home at lunchtime and I'm like wrapped up in a blanket in the chair. She's like, you're sick. It's like maybe, maybe. Yeah. So, but yeah, I slightly worry that I had it at work the other day.
00:00:45
Speaker
It must have been the shift before Christmas.
Gym Routines and COVID Concerns
00:00:48
Speaker
I was sitting in my office at like 7 30 at night and I could not warm up. So I took a hot bath or a hot shower to... Wait, your bath? I was going to say, I didn't know station one had baths now. That's awesome. I took a hot shower. I mean, I just sat in the shower and then I just like wrapped myself up in my blankets. Didn't sleep the whole night because couldn't get comfortable.
00:00:53
Speaker
Um,
00:01:13
Speaker
And then like two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, fever broke. Just felt like crap the rest of the day just because I hadn't slept. I was, you know, not something I normally do, but I was praying, please don't get a call. Please don't get a call.
00:01:29
Speaker
Because in my situation, in most of our situations, it's dumb to go home at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, it is. Because what are you going to do? Right. So I just was hoping and praying. Luckily, we didn't get a call. Nice. My relief got there. It's early that day, shockingly. And I was like, dude, I feel like crap. I'm just going. He's like, OK. Yeah.
00:01:57
Speaker
By five o'clock the next afternoon, feeling fine.
Family Gatherings and Aging
00:02:00
Speaker
That's because you went to the sauna. I didn't go to the sauna that day. Next day. Yeah, but the hot shower was similar.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just it was like your whole body was shaking. I'm so cold. Yeah. So I don't know if I was I know I know was sick, but I don't know what that was. Right. I don't think it was COVID because didn't last very long. Yeah. Yeah. It was rough. Yeah, but it was so like, I feel so bad because
00:02:34
Speaker
My rule is if I'm sick, I'm not going to work. Right. But if eight o'clock at night, this is the first time he's had symptoms, what are you supposed to do? You know? So it's tough, but none of my shift got sick. So I'm sorry to know. Well, it's probably because they got you sick. That's probably true. Think about it. A couple of them have little kids, little plague carrying creatures.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah, my neighbor and I were having a conversation about COVID and disease spread and I was like, talk about, I've been going to the gym, like very hardcore lately, but I've probably been going to the gym very regularly for the last six months. Yeah. And I haven't really gotten terribly sick, I haven't gotten COVID yet. And he's like, well, gyms are just, they're just COVID factors. I'm like, well,
00:03:26
Speaker
I'm not sure that's really true. I mean, as long as people are wiping the stuff down when they're done. Yeah, people are very good about wiping it down. And you're kind of self isolate because you're not really close to people. Right. The whole time you're in the gym. So, you know, I don't know. I mean, most people, if you're feeling cruddy, you're not going to go to the gym. Right. You're not going to go to the gym. So I'm running the risk.
00:03:57
Speaker
Maybe your neighbor does up close and personal spotting to people or something. Yeah. I never see people spotting at my new gym, which is weird because there are some people who are out there lifting some crazy weights. I saw a guy who probably did a 500 pound deadlift the other day. Jesus. Yeah.
00:04:23
Speaker
Why that? Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Yeah. I mean, you're either you're gonna blow blood vessels, your O ring or Yeah,
Fire Department Anecdotes
00:04:35
Speaker
anything that can make you vagal out. I'm out. Yeah, or pop your O ring. Yeah, I'm not in for. Yeah, I mean, I mean, good on you. I guess you're super strong, but
00:04:49
Speaker
I don't even like doing deadlifts regularly. I mean, I do them, but it's because I can't figure out a better lower back exercise. I don't do squatting with the heavy squats. I don't do the deadlifts with heavy weights. I'm too old for that crap. Yeah, because you see all these horror videos of guys are doing that and they get it off the rack and then it just accordions them down to the floor. Yeah.
00:05:17
Speaker
It's like, oh yeah, he snapped both your legs, broke your pelvis. Cool. Cool. Yeah. I rarely bench with more than one plate now. Yeah. You know, there's my buddy and I were talking about it. It's like, we're both above the age of 40 at this point in our lives. Like we were working out to keep muscle mass and flexibility, but we're not really looking out to be like, look at a car. Yeah, no.
00:05:42
Speaker
though I can lift a car with my legs. But other than that, small car. Well, it's still a car. It's weird like today, because should be at work today. But you know, I took off for, you know, our birthday extravaganza week. Yeah. As we're both a little bit older. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we are. Not feeling any wiser, do you? No, no.
00:06:10
Speaker
I feel better than I did two days ago. So that's good. That's good. That's because I had the COVID. Yeah. I mean, if I get to the gym, I use machines anymore.
Travel Trivia and Local Lore
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, for the most part, news and machines, I kept dumbbell stuff. Yeah. We have a gym. A gym has the regular gym, and then it has the garage, they call it.
00:06:42
Speaker
What is CrossFit garages? No, it's like the place where you can go in there and you can use chalk and straps and do all the power lifting stuff if you really want to. Oh, okay. It's got these weird like squat racks with all these attachments and stuff. But the dumbbells they have in there are the worst dumbbells I've ever seen. They're adjustable, but like they are a box. Oh, I've seen those. Man, they're so awkward and uncomfortable. I'm like, I thought this was a good plan.
00:07:13
Speaker
This is for your elite customers. Yeah. Why don't you just have a rack of dumbbells? Right. You just need one rack of heavy dumbbells in there. I only use that area when the gym is so packed that I can't get the spot. I'm like, oh, look. All the plebs are taking up the spot.
00:07:34
Speaker
which I'm sure next week will be full of clubs. Oh yeah. It's going to be after new years and people have to get, you know, they have their two weeks of workout. Right. Yeah. I can't wait for you people to go back to your jobs. That made the mistake. I checked my email yesterday and I was like, Oh crap.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, all these tasks start popping up. Yeah, don't do that. Yeah. Just be like me, don't take your email when you're on vacation. Yeah, I need to be better about that. Yeah. But the problem is, I don't know what it is about my phone, but there are some things that come through Outlook, like if it's a calendar invite, it pops up on my phone's calendar.
00:08:20
Speaker
So, I'll have this little red dot. I'm like, I don't like red dots. I want them to duck on. So, yeah. Luckily at my level, I don't get a lot of calendar invites. Yeah. So, live in the dream. Live in the dream. Yeah, they caught me yesterday because the Fire Marshal's office called me.
Zoo Tales and Otter Dreams
00:08:42
Speaker
the department power. So I'm like, Oh, I screwed up. Cause you only get phone calls from them as you screw up. Yeah. And then, you know, they wanted me to do something. So I was figuring I answered the phone thinking, Oh, I screwed up. I should probably answer the phone. It's the end of the year. They're doing their time, you know? Yeah. And he was like, no, no, I need to do something. I'm like, son of a, yeah. Otherwise this would have waited till Tuesday. Yeah. They do the, Hey man, how's it going? How are things? So yeah.
00:09:13
Speaker
Well, listen to the, hey, buddy. Oh my gosh. I used to hate that. Just tell me where you're sending me. Oh no, it's not like that. I want to go see how things work. I'm moving you to the paramedic unit. Oh, okay. Good old days at the fire department. Yeah. I got to feel really old the other day.
00:09:37
Speaker
Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Went to our neighbor's house. We always get together around the holidays and their oldest daughter is home with her husband and she's pregnant. And yeah, we got to be part of the, which got gender reveal and all that. And it was like,
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, this god-daughter is now having a child. And when all the kids went to go play, and then the grown-ups just sat, hung out, and drank wine, and her and her husband stayed, and it's like, I guess you are grown-ups now, aren't you? You're 24. Or 22, rather. Oh, god.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I felt old the first time I saw your daughter driving a car. So yeah, that's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now have two friends with kids that drive. Yeah. You know that I saw them as babies and now they drive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking the other day about, what was it?
00:10:48
Speaker
Um, I was something written, you know, about Christmas time and my youngest looked at my oldest and was like, well, you're not going to be here next year. So I can do whatever I want. I was like, she'll come home for the holidays. She's not leaving forever. No. Yeah, I know. This finds boyfriend up there in Boston. Shut up. You know, these things happen. I know.
00:11:18
Speaker
Then you have to play the, how will you guys spend this Christmas with us game? Yeah. Yeah. Which is an annoying game. It is. They don't really teach you about that when you're in college. There's a big class on how to deal with your in-laws and holiday planning. Yeah. And I like it because it's like, you know,
00:11:41
Speaker
kids of divorcees, it's like, you know, well, this holiday you're spending with, you know, this side and this holiday you're spending with her side. It's like, no. Yeah. I mean, I felt guilty for a while about it, but eventually my wife and I had to be like, nope, we're just going to have our holiday. Yeah. You know, we're gonna have our Thanksgiving or yeah, we're gonna have our Arbor day. Yes. Just don't, it gets too much. It does. It does. Yeah.
00:12:13
Speaker
Mother now, mother's so far away, it's not easy to drop things and go. Yet again this year, I had to tell her six times that I was working Christmas. Still didn't understand I was working Christmas. Oh, okay. That's cool. I called her on Christmas morning and she's like, what are you doing? I'm working.
00:12:38
Speaker
Well, then she kind of got mad at me because we were
Christmas Traditions and Gifts
00:12:40
Speaker
busy Christmas day. Yeah. And I never called her again that day. And she was like, well, why didn't you call him? I was at work. People's shit was burning down. They were to be there. They didn't give me a chance to be like, take a break. I'm sorry, sir. Hold on to those chest pains. Just one minute.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, weirdly, our calls were all in one little block. Which was nice. But that block was annoying. Yeah, I bet. Then you guys just snacked all day, right? Yeah, that was our plan. We didn't.
00:13:25
Speaker
We didn't cook anything that was going to take a while. Every time you plan to cook something in the firehouse... Oh, inevitably something happens. So I cooked macaron cheese and I did it the night before. So I could just take it and put it in the oven. And maybe put something in the crock pot. The only thing we really cooked was breakfast.
00:13:49
Speaker
You know, like I made waffles and they brought in breakfast casserole, stuff that we could stop making in a second and not burn a firehouse down. I did try to reheat the mac and cheese four times. Oh my God, it was so dry. It was pretty dry. I was like, I have some guys, but every time I went to heat it up, we'd go on a call. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:16
Speaker
That's just the way it works. Yeah. Engine two center. We're out of service. Macaroni. Macaroni. But then, you know, there's a fire at our first day or our second day. Yeah. We were there first because we weren't digging around another station. Exactly. Yeah. That's just how it has to be. My shift's having their Christmas party today. Ah. Which I'm not going to. Where are they having that? Pokemoke.
00:14:46
Speaker
I don't think I can get there from here. Oh, that's a... Well, you got to go through Georgetown. Yeah. Or wait, what would that be in the Worcester? You got to go through Shao. I don't know. Is that actually the way to go to Pokemon? I don't know. Just straight down 13. Is that the fastest way or is it faster to go 113 and over?
00:15:11
Speaker
I would say 13 straight down. I don't know. I don't know. I've only been there like once. You're not missing much. The river looked nice. That river's deadly. Is it deadly? No, it is. It's like a
00:15:29
Speaker
stupidly fast current that people don't realize. Yeah. That's a fun fact. Yeah. They do have a nice little, yeah, it's called the Delmarva Discovery Museum. They've got like all kinds of like local stuff in there and everything. And at one point, they still have the otters. I don't know if they still do this, but they had otters, but they had these little holes cut out. And the otters would put their little hands through and you could hold hands with the otter. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, and the otters would see you come up and they would just like, boop, put their hands out. Yeah. What's the place in Delaware where you can swim with otters? Yeah. It's apparently very expensive. 200 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty pricey. Yeah. But you get to swim with an otter. You get to swim with an otter. I don't know what the price you pay.
00:16:19
Speaker
I would be willing to pay because I think it helps, like, it's an animal preserve. It's like how... Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah. Animal preserve. Yeah, they've got all kinds of animals there. Yeah. Yeah, because they also do like a yoga with kangaroos and stuff. Oh, kangaroos a bunch. Well, these are, I'm sorry, they're mala bees, I guess. They're the smaller ones. But yeah, I'm trying to convince my neighbor to get a couple otters. He's got this little, like, he made a creek in his backyard with like a fountain and all.
00:16:49
Speaker
He's like, yeah, I got so many frogs in it. The bullfrogs in this creek will take down birds. The birds will come drink and the frogs will just snatch them. I'm like, we need to get an otter. Otter will take care of the frogs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on board on that plan. He was like, what? I was like, come on. They're adorable. They get to swim around. He's like. Very rapey. Yeah. He's like, well, what if the otters get out of control? I was like, well, then you got to get a bobcat.
00:17:18
Speaker
It's just an escalation, man. It just keeps going up. I said, eventually you'll have a bear in your backyard and you won't be able to use your backyard. Yeah, for a little while it'll be cute with the otters. Yeah. You know, like a year out of it. Or you just got to go out there and shoot otters every year. Oh my god. That'd be horrible. Every year you got to go out there with the otter culling. Otter culling? What's it? I found out that the Salisbury Zoo doesn't have otters anymore.
00:17:47
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. Sad. They don't have otters. They don't have a jaguar anymore. Yeah, well, jaguar died. What else? There's something else. I was like, our zoo is sad. The bison tried to get out the other day. Yeah, because he was trying to get out of that place. And they're like, oh, well, we replaced the jaguar with some kind of, I don't know, spotted lynx. It's like, that's just a dressed up bobcat. So if not a jaguar, it's not for me. Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
I don't know. And then the zoo was flooded for like a week. Oh. Because of the rainstorm we had. Nothing to see here. We're just getting flooding in weird places that we didn't get flooding before. Nothing to see here. Yeah. Yeah. I brought that up at work. Do you realize like I've worked here 20 years and 13 has never flooded like that. Yeah. So maybe that's a sign of something going on. Yeah.
00:18:46
Speaker
Glen Avenue never flooded in the entire time I worked here until this year. Something might be going on here, guys. What a world. I'll keep driving my diesel truck. Don't you worry. Good job. See, I think it's all a ploy from the Crissfielders. They already have the wet toes. That's fair. I like the farms on like 13.
00:19:14
Speaker
that just are now permanently lakes because they've flooded so much that the water just doesn't go down anymore. But nothing to see here. We're all good. Maybe they'll start growing rice. They might have to start. Yeah.
Bookstore Adventures
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, corn cranberries, I guess. Yeah. Hey, whoa, cranberries are delicious. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm saying the bog itself is gross.
00:19:37
Speaker
That's how you build a firehouse. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the spiders. The box spiders. Yeah, they're horrible. Well, you think all spiders are horrible. Oh, yeah, that's true. There was one at the entrance to headquarters the other day. I almost didn't go into work. I heard. Coming in, the deputy fire marshal, the sponge came inside. You heard me scream.
00:20:11
Speaker
to uphold any Christmas traditions this year or was it traditional this year? We had the advent calendar. The big thing we always do is we sit around and watch Christmas vacation on Christmas Eve. Good call. That's our big tradition.
00:20:30
Speaker
We tried to watch Die Hard at work, but it didn't happen. Then we ended up watching Schitt's Creek. And one of the people was pissed off, like, why the hell are we watching this? We could watch a Christmas story. I'm like, yeah, you know what? This is funny. Oh my gosh, a Christmas story? That's such a bad movie. And we could just, it's not a bad movie. Well, it's overdone. It's been overplayed, but that's not its fault. It's a perfectly fine movie if you watched it once every five years.
00:20:58
Speaker
But then TBS does what, 24 hours of it?
D&D and Treating Yourself
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. That's what made it a bad movie. That's not the movie's fault though. No, no, that's, I don't know, syndication's fault. Yeah, whoever bought the right set screwed that up for everybody.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah, we didn't, uh, we didn't go to Christmas vacation this year because I had to work. It was usually go see it in the theater. Oh yeah. That's right. Your theater does that. Yeah. But, uh, I'd worked that day explaining to my kids that the first time we saw that as kids, as us as kids, I said, that was the first time we saw Walmart. I was like, what are you talking about? I was like, they didn't have Walmarts around here. Like what's up Walmart? Yeah.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, I remember the first Walmart they built in Delaware. That was in my 20s. Yeah, that was down in Dover, right? Oh, well, that's fair. I don't know which one was first, but they built the one on 40. I remember they built the one on 40 up there. Oh, OK. And we call that the Walmart of death. The Walmart of death? Yeah, there tends to be a lot of shootings and stuff there. Well, it is Walmart. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
But I do remember the first Walmart like there was no Walmart when we were kids. Yeah, we saw Woolworth's for God's sakes. Yeah, we have Woolworth's with Ames. Yeah, we know. James Way, I think it's called. We never had a James Way. We had a Kaldor. That sounds like a Jedi. Sure. Yeah.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh, I haven't mentioned the most important news of the millennium is that I have force powers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I told the kids that they didn't believe it. I was like, okay, just wait. Yeah. I was at the gym as I am and I had picked up a barbell to do skull crushers. I think I was doing with it. When I got done my set, I put it down and it was wobbling.
00:23:01
Speaker
And I reached out with my left hand. So I think it's a left hand thing. I might be a left-handed Jedi. I don't know. And I steadied that thing with just my left hand. I never actually touched the barbell and it stopped moving. That's impressive. The lady next to me looked over and I had, I guess I got force powers now. She laughed, she got up, she called the Inquisition.
00:23:28
Speaker
You know, but, uh, I have four stars. I've been very afraid to use them. Yeah. So have you done any, uh, practice with it elsewhere? I haven't because I'm worried, you know, what if I hurt somebody? We'll start with the dogs. Oh no. No, no, no. But see if you can like influence them. Oh yeah. If something's done for good would be hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's like, I was trying to explain to people,
00:23:57
Speaker
When we did Santa's Angels, I said, you realize Santa's a Sith? No, he's a jolly. I was like, you're either naughty or nice. Those are absolutes. He does deal on absolutes. And all the killings. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I hope everybody got clothes for Christmas Eve so the cat didn't eat them. I got clothes for Christmas Eve. See? I got socks and I was happy. Yep.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's a thing. You can tell when you get a certain age, you're like socks. My wife, because we've been walking a lot, she's like, you keep bitching about your socks. So she bought these socks. She's like roots. She went and researched the socks that don't fall down. Those are the socks she bought me. I thought she got you the little garters. And she bought me a collection of Jedi socks. Nice.
00:24:52
Speaker
Some Dark Jedi, some Light Jedi. Ooh. Shouldn't mix and match. Yeah, I could do that. Well, I've had some Darth Vader days at the gym because I wore him at the gym. So I think it's all in my Darth Vader socks. It feels appropriate. It does. It does. Yeah. Do you have specific left and right socks? No. No? No. You just put them on willy-nilly? Well,
00:25:21
Speaker
According to my shift, I'm a maniac. Maybe a possible serial killer will put my socks on. I carry my socks to my shoes. I don't wear socks in my house because I'm not an animal. Okay. So I carry my socks to my shoes. I put one sock on, one shoe on, one sock on, one shoe on. No, no, no, no. Sock sock shoe shoe. That's crazy. No, you're crazy. It's so inefficient. Your system is inefficient.
00:25:46
Speaker
You're already got your foot up. Why not put the sock on, put the shoe on, put the foot down, sock on, shoe on. Sweet. Then you have to tie your shoe. Yeah, you tie your shoe. That's so much extra. What's extra? Use the same steps with less movement of your feet. Yeah.
00:26:07
Speaker
When you get dressed, are you a maniac? And you put, yeah, obviously don't put, well, you don't wear pants a lot, so. Yeah, pants are stupid to me. We're shorts, but yeah. When I get dressed, it's underwear, socks, pants, shirt. Oh, no. No, no. Yeah. When I get dressed, it's underwear, shirt, pants, walk to the shoes, sock, shoe, shock shoe.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Why would you put your pants on before your shirt? You have to tuck your shirt in. I don't tuck my shirt in. Oh, but with the times you do. Oh, the times I do. Like you're at work, you're getting dressed for work. Yeah. Yeah. Put your shirt on after you put your pants on, undo your pants, then put, that's crazy. Yeah, I do. Yeah. And I'm adding a step there because I undo it, tuck the shirt in and redo my pants. Inefficiency. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:03
Speaker
See, my system is more efficient. I don't know about the sock shoe, sock shoe, but it's more efficient. Yeah, especially if you're not if you're gonna wear a tireless shoes, then you're really just boom, boom, done. Yeah. I don't understand the sock sock thing. Then you're like, also, then you're putting your socks down on the floor. I'm sorry.
00:27:34
Speaker
Are your socks hermetically sealed and pristine? Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, photomanotoclave. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's it. What, your nasty feet have been walking around that ground. So you're putting on the inside. The socks on to protect the world from my feet. So you're protecting the inside of your shoe from your feet. Yeah. Yeah. You know what my feet have done to my shoes? Yeah.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah. I have one side danger. There's nothing before we move on. Okay. Uh, I went to a local bookstore and this woman made a plea to support local bookstores. I felt good about it. So I'm tell you everybody support your local bookstore, not your Amazon, not your, I don't need borders doesn't even exist anymore, but Barnes and Noble, Barnes and Noble.
00:28:29
Speaker
a nice local book. Look, Arch Nobles, a perfectly fine store. You can support them too. Okay. But this lady, her business was weird. I thought people donate books to her. She is, I guess it was on a credit for the books they donate to her. Really? And then she sells the books. She sells them fairly cheap. Like I bought a lot of books for not a lot of money. Um, but that's her whole business model.
00:28:56
Speaker
It's based on people reusing old books, basically. She was like, oh, and when you want to donate some books, bring them here. I'm like, yeah, I'm never going to bring my books to you. But I think it's great. I'm just not going to give you my books. I mean, that would have to give away my precious books. Not going to happen. You put your name inside your book? Never. Never. Have you seen the things where you can, like, emboss the pages?
00:29:27
Speaker
Why would you do that? Well, so you can show that it's yours. But then you're ruining the pristineness of the book. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, breaking the spine after reading it 18,000 times. That's just shows the books loved. I always think I don't want to put my name in my book because when I die, these books are giving up somebody. Yeah.
00:29:55
Speaker
You know, what's up to enjoy the book is there's that you should write little like one offs. Yeah. It's like, you know, nobody ever figured out the full extent of our clues for, you know, episodes back in the day. You can just write little things in there. Like, you know, conundrum. Why is this book say conundrum in it? Well, mine says, you know, pickles.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, I have another plan to mess with the future. Okay. That I can't talk about. Oh, you obviously can't. Yeah. It's not 10 o'clock yet, so I'm still safe. Yeah, still good. Well, on to topic one. Yeah, topic one. So then, you know, get those done so you can go nap. Yeah, all right. So as part of my book browsing yesterday, I bought a bad book for myself.
00:30:54
Speaker
But the fifth edition, Dungeon Master's Guide. Ooh. Yeah. My wife found...
00:31:04
Speaker
this campaign that is two players. It's meant for husband, wife, or couples. It's a couples nut. Yeah. And you both play as both the DM and as a character. You go through this campaign and you switch off. That's cool. And it's meant to be played like that. And she was like, oh, we should buy this. I'm like, yeah, definitely buy that. And she's like,
00:31:29
Speaker
Well, is this all we need? I'm like, well, no. I'm a silly woman. We're going to need a player's handbook. We're going to need a Dungeons Master's Guide. She's like, what? We're going to need all that? I'm like, yeah. Yeah. So we've got the Dungeons Master's Guide. I'm going to work my way through reading fifth edition. I haven't really played any fifth edition besides, you know, Baldur's Gate. That's about to say, yeah, you play Baldur's Gate.
00:31:58
Speaker
But I haven't really played D&D since 3.5. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I totally skipped 4. Yeah. I really didn't play much 3.5 just a little bit. Yeah. So. Yeah, I played most second edition. Yeah.
00:32:16
Speaker
So looking forward to reading through the fifth edition rules, coming up with a campaign. I've already been kind of working on a campaign idea. That's totally separate of a thing with my wife. Nice. I don't know if I'll ever use it for anything, but yeah, I'm pretty kind of excited about that.
Investing in Quality
00:32:35
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. And it was a conversation I had with my wife. I was like, it's my birthday. This is part of this on my birthday. Yeah.
00:32:43
Speaker
I just, I'm an adult now. I buy what I want for my birthday. Right. You know, this is what I decided to buy my money, spend my money on. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, led me to think, why would my friend go out and buy himself for his birthday that he wouldn't normally buy himself? That I wouldn't normally buy for myself. Um,
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah. That's the thing I was looking at. Honestly, since, sorry, I mean, that Optimus Prime Lego, probably I've seen some of these newer Legos like the BD1 model. Yeah, probably that. Yeah, that's a good call. You know,
00:33:37
Speaker
We're both of an age where we both have money and we both have the responsibility so we don't buy things for ourselves, I think. Oh, yeah. I feel so guilty. Like, fuck, you know, tell my wife, like, do you mind if I get a $20 game? She's like, you're an ass man, buy yourself a game. I do the same exact thing. I'm like, but this game is $60. Yeah. Yeah. You make enough money that we can buy a $60 game. Go ahead. Yeah. But I have to do that.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and Lego sets are one of those perfect examples. Like, I just, I would never buy myself a Lego set because I'm like, Oh, expensive. They're so expensive, but they're so cool now. Yeah.
00:34:19
Speaker
You know, like, I feel like I've totally missed out on Lego. Yeah. Because when we were kids, Lego was a bag of bricks that you got from the McDonald's Happy Meal. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you're lucky, you had the big box of Lego, but it was just random Lego. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, your house or whatever you built was multicolored and nothing matched and yeah. And now I would like I could make a
00:34:47
Speaker
Death Star Lego for myself? Yeah, absolutely. Then I think about the fact that where the hell would I put a Death Star Lego in my house and I stop. Yeah. It's like I've seen some of these that they like glue it as they go together. Oh. Yeah. That's crazy talk. Yeah. It's got to be a way to glue it after it's done, right? Oh yeah. I'm sure you could like spray it with something. Right. It's got to be a way to do that. Yeah. My wife and I were talking about purchase for ourselves.
00:35:17
Speaker
buying an actual gaming table, like with a board game table. Cause we play a lot of board games together and we've been mulling around talking about it. And finally I was like, we did this a lot. We should just do it. We play board games. We enjoy doing it. We can't talk about it all the time. We'll just buy the table. What's a lot of money? I'm like, yeah, well, you know,
00:35:42
Speaker
You could get one of those really nice ones that it has a cover on it, so it could be your table slash gaming table. Yeah, that's what it is. It's one of those. Oh, yes, absolutely. It's got the modular places for dice and stuff. So we're looking at converting part of the man cave into a little gaming nook. Nice.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah, why not do it? This is kind of on board, but my wife and I had to buy a new bed. Our bed frame broke. Yeah, it did. Nah, I wish I wish. It just broke. Because we bought a cheap ass frame is why it broke. Yeah. But the reason we're not sure- But again, that's one of those things is because, yeah, I always spend money. Right. So we have been talking about it for
00:36:36
Speaker
almost three months now since the day they broke. We have to get a bed frame. We can't, well, we could just get this one. It's $80. Okay. Well, we get an $80 friend. We're back in the same situation we're at right now. So we went shopping for a bed frame, like adults, my wife, the whole time. I hate being an adult. We have to spend money. I'm like, yes, we do. But we have the money. That's why the bed frame we like. So we bought the bed frame. No update on when it's going to be here yet. Ooh.
00:37:04
Speaker
Uh, we bought the bed frame because you just gotta, sometimes you have to spend money. Yeah. On yourself. Annoyingly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's where we're, that's what we're bad at. We're just bad at spending money on ourselves. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I totally get that. Yeah. For something for somebody else or the kids. I'm like, Oh yeah, no problem. For me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
These socks that have holes in them, they're fine. I had a bed frame that I had cut in half and then put back together. And I lived in that for years because I didn't want to buy a new frame. Why would I buy a frame? This one's perfectly acceptable. So what if it rolls everything towards the middle and is horribly uncomfortable? Yeah, we need sleep. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
Is there a gaming table? Are you going to get the one that you can like put the TV in? I hadn't seen that one. Oh, I've seen some that you can mount a flat screen TV, like I guess underneath it. And that way you could, you know, like, you know, plug your laptop into it or whatever. Play like, or, you know, like run. Roll d20 on it or something. So you have your map and everything interactive. No, I had not looked at that way.
Bad Inventions Debate
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah. The one we're looking at has like, um,
00:38:35
Speaker
It's rectangle because they make an octagonal one and I was like, no, we need a rectangle table. This is going to also be a functioning table. Right. Yeah. And on the outside, it's got two rails so you can like put
00:38:51
Speaker
Trink holders and and I saw rays and like card holders and stuff on the outside and then yeah You open the inside up and it's you know a big mat to play games on nice Yeah, and it's got places to organize your stuff. Yeah That's functional and fun. Yeah, it puts the fun in functionality. It puts the fun in functionality Yeah, you know You should have
00:39:21
Speaker
You should have nice things in your life. Yeah. Stop wasting money on crappy things. Right. Spend the extra money on the good things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We started doing that. Like, you know, we run into the same thing. We're like, well, this, you know, like we had to get, I can't remember what it was. The last thing we had to get, we had to get a fridge and we're like, well, I mean this fridge is, you know, a little bit cheaper.
00:39:50
Speaker
It does kind of what we want. Why aren't we going to spend the money and get what we want so it'll last and we'll be happy. Now I have a fridge that talks to the internet. I don't like that. Yeah, I have the same problem. I don't use it. We had the same thing with our fridge. I will say my wife is better about it because she realized the fridge she wanted and nothing was going to stop her at that point.
00:40:20
Speaker
We were getting the fridge she wanted, which was great. It's a great fridge. But boy, getting it into the house was a nightmare. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We had to take the doors off, but one of the doors has the line for the drink dispenser or whatever. So we had to take it off, but hold it while they moved it in. Yeah. Yeah. And then the delivery guys were like, well, we're not going to deliver it. I'm like, I'll pay you $50 just to get it off the phone.
00:40:49
Speaker
I don't care what you do past the stairs, just get it up the stairs. Yeah. We did not compromise on a fridge. We bought a really nice fridge. Good. Is there a kind of knock on it and it shows you what's inside? No, I didn't want that kind. No. Yeah, I feel like that's annoying. Yeah. I know what's in my fridge. Yeah. I put it there. Great. Yeah. I can mess with the kids. I'm like, oh, see you open the fridge 12 times today.
00:41:25
Speaker
That's something, I guess. I don't know. Maybe they're checking to see if the light's on. Yeah. I don't know if you know about this life hack that I created for myself. You can subscribe and scrape from Amazon, right? Okay. You're supposed to change your water filter in your fridge every six months.
00:41:50
Speaker
So I just subscribe and save for my water filter and they send it to me every six months and I have to think about it. Nice. Every six months I change my water filter and I just change the one at the station at the same time so that the one at the station gets changed on a six month rotation as well. Wait, the one at the station gets changed?
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah. At my station. I can tell you this doesn't get changed at the other stations. Oh my gosh. I can only imagine how some of those filters look. Yeah. The old filter, it's like 80 pounds. I can tell you the one at 16 makes me want to throw up when I see it. Is that the brown one? Yeah. So you're going to put that stuff in your body? Yeah.
00:42:39
Speaker
It's like, who's the immune system? Orchidiperia. Orchidiperia. Or cholera, or some fucking disease we had that we got rid of in the 1880s. It's been an outbreak of cholera in Salisbury. Centralized right around 325 Cypress Street.
00:43:00
Speaker
Six people have berry berry. How is this possible? Yeah, I, we do the same thing with a sick subscribe and save. And the other day the package came, I was like, I got a package from Amazon. I never get a package for Amazon. I'm like tearing into it. I'm like, it's a water filter. And you were never more excited. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah. I got my God children's presents from Amazon. One of them turned out nice. The other one, not so nice. Oh no. And there's just come this morning at noon and I'm like, Oh, what do I do? This looks like crap. I have to go out and like get her something quick to like beef up her gift. Oh, did they like mess up the delivery or? No, it just, it,
00:43:58
Speaker
It looked like one thing on the website. It was expectations versus reality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just like, Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can't do this. Yeah. So yeah, that's my running around playing this morning and figure something out. How old?
00:44:22
Speaker
So under 10 or five. Um, yeah. Permanent markers. They're always fun. That seems like a way to get their father to punch me in the face. Um, chocolates, sugary drinks. We're doing that. We're actually giving them a drum set.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah, I thought about that. I think I need her to get bigger on her arms, so it gets all really noisy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean like a nice coloring book or something. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Between the two of them, I can give them bagpipes and, you know, the violin sounds real good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The first two years of violin are fun.
00:45:18
Speaker
But I like an in-tune violin. One that's just slightly off. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got news for you. First two years, you're not going to know if it's in tune or not. Like about those years of pain leading up to now. Yeah, no, it's worth it because yeah, she sounds wonderful now. I was like, you need to get some paying gigs.
00:45:47
Speaker
And then she's like going to college because she doesn't want to do violin anymore and never play the violin ever again. Well, she had a music audition at one of the colleges and she brought her French horn and she went into the room for the audition and it was her and her friend I took and her friend was playing the flute. And yeah, the two of them warming up in the same room together was fun. Um,
00:46:12
Speaker
But she came back and she was like, they asked me where my violin was. I was like, how'd they know? She's like, well, they read. I'm like, oh, we see you're an accomplished violinist. I was like, they know these things. She's like, I feel like I should have had. I said, did you ask them if they had a violin you could play? No. They're like, well, maybe we'll just like zoom you in one time for your violin. Gosh, child. I see about that the other day. I when I was a kid, I could play the slightly play the organ and I could play the saxophone.
00:46:42
Speaker
I played the organ a lot as a kid. Yeah. I think if you gave me, sent me down to either one of the instruments today and said, play Mary Had a Little Lamb or Die, I would just be dead. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't even think I could read sheet music right now. No, no. That's like, I see some of the stuff my daughters read and I'm like, what? No, that's too many symbols.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah, too many dots. There's always supposed to be two. What's going on? Yeah. I'm glad they got some kind of musical talent. Don't know where it came from, but they got it. Yeah, they got it from somewhere. I don't know. Well, off to topic two. Sure. So I thought of this topic actually yesterday watching. Have you seen the new thing on Netflix, blue eyed samurai? No.
00:47:37
Speaker
It's a new animated thing. It's pretty good. It's set in mid 1600s in Japan. It got me thinking, are there bad inventions? Looking back, are there things or discoveries that we would probably be better off if we didn't make? With that, black powder. If we never came up with black powder, would we be better off?
00:48:05
Speaker
I mean, there's a second argument for a lot of people in the world that'd be better off if we didn't come up with that pattern. Um, Hmm. Cause I mean, it's like, and they, you know, said it in the show, it was the British guy was talking about, yeah, yeah. You know, we invent better ways to kill people and, uh, black powder is the fastest way we can find. It's like, really? That's yeah. I mean, yeah, it is, but God.
00:48:36
Speaker
I would also say cars, cars were a big misstep. I feel like if the car hadn't been invented, we would have invested a lot more in high speed rail and mass transit. So like personal transportation is the public.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, I just feel like that ability to have cars has man really ruined it. Yes. And as somebody who lives on the 95 corridor and sees that every day 95 is jammed up, we got a real problem. Well, it's because people drive like idiots if they let us have our harpoon guns. Yeah, or it's just too many people at this point driving. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:49:32
Speaker
Yeah, the people, the lack of rideshares and public transportation are ridiculous. Yeah. And I think it's going to be really hard for us to overcome that. Oh yeah. You know, like Britain and Europe, because they can't, they don't have room for parking. Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
Sorry, I had to cough. No, you're fine. They had to have public transport. Right. But because we have limitless, or what we think is limitless space for parking, we just seemingly have no drive for public transport. Right. And I think that's a real problem. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think for us, we're fortunate because our petroleum costs are super low.
New Year Reflections and Movie Critiques
00:50:29
Speaker
comparatively, that people are like, I can drive. It doesn't matter. Right. Well, that's one of the arguments about because the government subsidizes gasoline and because the government does subsidize gasoline, we keep the price super low, which means innovation in transit doesn't happen. Right. God, imagine if we had to go back to horses though. I don't want to ride a horse.
00:50:57
Speaker
No, I mean, I want to ride a train. Yeah. But, you know, that's what I want. I don't want to go back to horses, but. Yeah, but I mean, for your short little trips, like if I have to go to the market, I'm not going to take the train. It's not going to stop in my backyard. I'm going to have to take the horse. I can ride a bike. You can ride a bike. Yeah. One thing with horses is I guess after a while you kill them and eat the flesh. Kind of the old sinewy and mangy by the way.
00:51:26
Speaker
The problem with cars though is, you know, now they're, their range is so long on one fuel tank and like, I just, I don't know. I don't know that the answer, clearly it's a problem. Yeah. It's a huge problem. And, um, I don't see how it's going to get better.
00:51:45
Speaker
No, no, no. But I talk to Americans because that's who I mostly interact with. Americans or Americans? Americans. They act as if cars have existed since the Roman times, right? They act like it's the only thing they could look at and just... Well, I mean, that's clearly how...
00:52:10
Speaker
Caesar got around. Right. But you realize your grandfather probably didn't have, maybe your great-grandfather didn't, there's a good chance he didn't even own a car. Right. They probably saw them, but your great-grandfather probably didn't own one. Yeah. Your grandfather owned one, definitely, but probably didn't grow up.
00:52:30
Speaker
you know, driving around a car every day, right? You know, I just, car culture in America is bonkers. It's bonkers. And it's gonna just be a problem for us forever. You know? Yeah, yeah. So car, gunpowder,
00:52:57
Speaker
Yeah, cars and gunpowder. Is there any benefit, really, to gunpowder? Well, we could build tunnels for our cars. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there you go. Is there any benefit to gunpowder?
00:53:19
Speaker
Probably not. Or at least if there was, there's no benefit that always all of the pain and suffering that's been caused by the gunpowder. Just thinking all of the Native Americans that were wiped out because of the gunpowder, and then all of the buffalo that were wiped out because of gunpowder, and species that were haunted to extinction. Yeah, gunpowder is a tough one.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah. I do believe, I think firmly in my heart that once we got past the point where we allowed muzzleloading weapons, once we had like, you know, semi automatic weapons, we should have passed the law saying civilians can't own these. I think we've really screwed that one up too. Yeah,
00:54:19
Speaker
you know, kind of could have been okay in the muzzle loading agent. And then that was, we lost that pretty quick. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess like stuff like asbestos would be a bad invention. Yeah, it was really important at the time though. Yeah. Um,
00:54:42
Speaker
but there was a solution for that eventually. So yeah. Um, foam, foam's bad. Like think about like all the styrofoam containers and things that stuff is there forever. Yes. You're probably starting is a real problem. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, just look at, you know, Mount trash more in Salisbury. Mm-hmm.
00:55:12
Speaker
that you can smell from Route 50 now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one other event. I would say most other inventions that lead somewhere are helpful. Yeah.
00:55:37
Speaker
Is it going to be like say like missiles? Well, those missiles also led to rockets, which allowed us to explore space. But what does that got us? Information. Yeah, exactly.
00:55:56
Speaker
I mean, you make the argument that all information is good. More truths, or more knowledge, I should say. Truth is a weird way to say that. More knowledge is better for us. Plastic's going to be pretty bad. Plastic's going to be one of the ones that we look back and say, ooh, that was a real problem.
00:56:20
Speaker
Which I saw there's some girl at a college who, her thesis was it's some bacteria that breaks down plastic. So that's, that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. We, um, we need, we're going to need a lot of things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Because we are.
00:56:46
Speaker
Gonna have a real plastic problem. Yeah. We already have a real plastic problem. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's say, I always make the comment, like when we're at lunch or, you know, some people are like, can I have a straw? I was like, oh, you hate turtles. Cool. And they just kind of look like, what? Or like the other day, somebody was, oh, yeah, I need to get some balloons. I was like, no, you don't. Yeah, my balloons are the worst thing you can do. They're pretty bad. I don't. Yeah. I don't buy balloons.
00:57:17
Speaker
Because of those reasons. That's right, I can be the old crotchety man. You are the cool crotchety man already. Yeah, well, it's got some older than you. Yeah. That's fair. Older, but none the more wiser. I just think, you know, no black powder. The world might be a nicer place. It would be. It would be. Yeah.
00:57:48
Speaker
Um, but the problem is you still just some people just hate. That's still great. Yeah. No, no matter what you do. Yeah. There's always going to be hate. Yeah. Can't take that part. No, no, but I don't know. I just, I just got me thinking.
00:58:19
Speaker
No, yeah. It's a pretty interesting, um, thought process. I don't ever think about like bad inventions. Like I never think about, I always look at progress as progress, but, um, yeah, it's really hard to kill a lot of children in a school with a sword. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:49
Speaker
It's pretty. Yeah. Like if somebody's like really into swords and has like 70 swords in your house, you're like, yeah, you're just a weirdo. Like I'm not super worried that you're going to like kill a bunch of people. Right. Cause it's just one sword. Yeah. I mean, the bad thing is you don't have to reload a sword. That is a problem. You don't have to reload a sword, but you definitely can walk away from a sword a lot quicker than you walk away from a bullet. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:20
Speaker
Yeah. And there's a lot more things that can block a sword. Yep. Yep. All of these things are true. Yeah. I could bring a downer to the end of the podcast. Well, this is what it is, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes things end up on a downer. Yeah. But
00:59:48
Speaker
We have the new year to look forward to. We do. We do. If you really want a downer, since I've been locked in my room and just watching Netflix and things like that, I watched the latest Mortal Kombat movie. Wow. Wow. What a piece of theatrical Marvel. Yeah. Well, I need some good. I don't think they were, but man,
01:00:17
Speaker
How none of these actors and actresses got like Oscar nominations? I'm a mixed hmm something sarcasm. There's a lot a lot of sarcasm. Yeah. Yeah Yeah Well folks, I hope you have a safe holiday season I hope You enjoy your collard greens and black-eyed peas That's what you do
01:00:46
Speaker
Please drink responsibly though. This is going out after. This is going out the morning that you will be hungover. Yeah. Yeah. Please have had drunk responsibly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hope you had a designated driver or just decided to stay somewhere or something. Yeah. It's not worth it. Yeah. It's not worth it. Yeah. Absolutely not. Hopefully you can look at the new year with optimism and anticipation.
01:01:15
Speaker
rather than pessimism and dread. Yeah, right. And hopefully our friend Chris recovers from this terrible disease. Yeah, I will. That'll be day five. And then he'll go right back to work. Yay.
01:01:35
Speaker
It's very exciting for everyone. Lock myself in another room. Right. Yeah. Fun. But yeah, take care, folks. Be good to each other, folks.