Two Coffee Shops in One Episode?

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Your sausage mcmuffin with egg didn't change.

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We need to go left or right.

I guess a left makes more sense.

Why?

We want to go up towards 7th?

Yeah, let's go that way.

Okay.

Okay.

You know what?

Before we go any further, I just realized what this place used to be.

It was that little Colombian restaurant that had the bread balls.

No, this was Brazilian.

Brazilian.

Rio.

Yeah.

That had the bread balls.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, you would come in here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This place was good.

That place was awesome.

We're like at 5th and Pleasant Valley.

We're walking by the Austin Shaker, which is

we just went to Mercado Sin Nombre.

I'll name the place.

There you go.

Mercados in Nombre.

Thank you.

Which is a cool little cafe spot that is new-ish

and place of rules.

And it is like to me, that's the hot spot.

Everyone talks about it.

Everyone.

Every rewind.

That's right shit.

Shit and the syringe.

How do you think I get the syringes out of me?

Everyone talks about that place.

Please.

I could tell you.

Emily and I found it dropping the dog off at doggy daycare one day.

Oh, yeah.

And just like, we're driving through neighborhoods and ended up.

Yeah, it's a

annoying thing about that place is that they're not open on monday and tuesday yes yeah so i think we've talked about this with other

maybe other episodes or whatever but the

millennial market of things where it's like yeah we're open wednesdays and sundays from four to six p.m like that

this shit has to end make things 24 hours again please just hire people to like

work at your establishment so I can go whenever I need to instead of,

God, there's so many places that I've like wanted to go to where it's just like, oh, it's Monday, they're closed.

I would love to work out of Cafe Sund Nombre or Mercado Sund Nombre,

but I do all my soul all right work on Tuesdays at a coffee shop and they're not open on Tuesdays.

I will say though, that new Texas coffee

that New Texas Coffee Traders is fucking delightful.

I have been there since we did that episode.

I've been there four times.

I've been there four times.

I've just been there four times.

I spent most of yesterday morning there.

I love it.

It's not that far from here.

No, it's pretty close to it.

You're talking about how a place should be open 24 hours a day.

I was mentioning this in the car on the drive down here,

but I started going to this Mexican restaurant up of Lamar and Runberg that used to be a trailer.

Now it's got like a little brick and mortar storefront.

It's open 24 hours a day.

And that place is awesome.

So if you're ever looking for Mexican food at four in the morning, go to Sieta Estrella off of Lamar and Runberg.

well that's not what you told jeff you mean astrella seven which is what you told me in the car well i was being nice for you i'm not being nice to the listeners seven star if you're uh looking for an english version

the number it's the number seven they don't spell it no numbre seven right

name seven what

um

they don't they don't they don't spell it out i i felt like when you said the name i could picture

like not even like a neon sign just a just a sign that is like a faded yellow with a green outline that says Australia, and then the number seven.

That's it.

It's so funny.

We picture different things.

You pictured that.

And I pictured Gus getting annoyed with me when

I was pedantic about it.

Nope, even panantic.

We were both imagining things in our head.

We were just taking it from different angles.

I think it's a red sign.

No yellow and green.

We're close.

What are we?

Remember when most of the east side looked just like this?

It doesn't anymore?

No.

Most of it looks like a bulldozed parking lot with a fence around it.

Yeah.

Why is it?

Earmarked for some potential future development, I guess.

Yeah, but like, why is so much.

I guess just in general, not even here.

What happens, Gus?

Maybe you know, where it's just like, we have this big empty lot.

Okay, what are you going to do with it?

Yeah.

And it just hangs out?

Well, it might be like if it's not costing the owner anything or they don't care, it's like, they'll wait because it'll even, like, in generally real estate will be worth more in the future, right?

It's like, why would we sell it now?

It's not costing us anything.

It's not a pain in our ass.

We'll just wait and we'll sell it down the road when we need to.

Yeah.

When the price gets right.

Like, there was a place like that over here for a long time.

Maybe it's still there.

The like the metal recycling place that was here just off of 35.

It's right.

Going strong.

Yeah.

It's like they've been, there've been multiple hours.

People always try to buy that spot and they don't care.

They're just recycling their metal over there.

It's weird.

Someday the price will be right.

I'm surprised not already.

But I guess we're.

It has got to be one of the most valuable valuable little spots of land in Austin.

I wonder if there's some sort of an ecological concern.

Like if you were to rip that place out, are there like EPA issues with the 50 years of shit seeping into the ground?

Not with this administration anymore.

That's true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I guess that's a 2024 problem.

Never mind.

Trying to Pokemon card is horsey.

Oh, that's a shiny Charizard.

Yeah, I found it's a Chinese Chinese shiny.

Shiny Charizard.

I found a shiny Charizard, guys.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

You don't have to worry about EPA anymore.

Yeah.

They're gone.

Yeah.

They're out.

You do whatever you want with whatever you want all the time.

With the man in the White House?

So Simpson's reference.

Talk about the shiny.

I've been saying that so much lately.

If we walk straight, we're going to head kind of toward

where we were in season one.

Okay, well, let's go down this way.

If we go left and left, maybe that would be a good way to go further down Cesar Chavez.

Do you like this guy?

I never realized.

No, I never realized that San Marcos' zip code is 78666,

which is really funny that it's in graffiti now.

In graffiti form, it looks way more

scary.

Since we started recording this a few minutes ago, I've gotten 13 text messages.

Wow.

This is what happens when it's like, hey, are you in the middle of something?

Check this out.

Jordan messaged me on Slack.

Got 13 text messages and I have like four emails that all just came in in like the last couple of minutes.

Whenever my phone starts buzzing like that, I worry something's wrong.

Like something

So I keep checking it.

It's my dumbass friend.

What?

We're right here.

I haven't sent you any texts.

Have you sent him any texts?

I haven't sent him any texts.

Please don't send me a text.

I can, though.

Please don't send me any texts.

Hey, oh, you know what he likes?

He likes voice to text.

He's big on it.

Hey, Gus, I have a question for you.

This is kind of going back to something we were talking about in the car earlier that I held off on asking.

Because I don't...

I don't see you often these days.

We only really get to hang out or talk when we're doing this podcast.

That's the whole premise.

So, yeah.

Excuse me for restating the premise of our podcast in our podcast.

Sorry, I was going to be coming in later.

Jeff's a little cranky.

Apologize to Richard now.

Sorry, Richard.

What?

Richard, you're cutting all this out of it.

It doesn't work.

No, you're not.

No, listen to me, Richard.

I'm older.

You have to age before.

He's out of touch.

Grandpa needs to get to know.

Anyway, grandpa would like to know

in 2025, through the course of a week, random week, normal week, you were commenting on how much I listen to podcasts.

Yeah, what do you consume?

Because you have a you work one day a week, you have six to six-day weekend.

Yeah, and then what if I do at that time?

What do you okay?

Five and a half days.

You don't play video games, you don't listen.

Yeah, you were saying that you don't play a lot of video games anymore.

I

well, just to go.

Sorry.

I guess I

it's depressing.

I guess maybe I don't really use social media, so I read a lot of news this day, which is depressing.

And I watch a lot of YouTube videos.

So would you say YouTube is like your outlet?

Yeah.

You and my daughter.

YouTube and

I've been flying quite a bit.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah.

How are the skies?

Good.

Dangerous.

So it's been

like every week or a couple times a week?

A couple times a week.

Wow.

But not the past couple of weeks, just because, you know, it's been really kind of crappy weather here.

Yeah.

I thought it was because all the planes were crashing.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's fine.

I'm in charge.

But yeah, yesterday was beautiful.

Today, I mean, look at this.

Beautiful.

Beautiful weather now.

Cool.

So late February, it's like 70.

It's beautiful.

Would you say you're in the middle of like the news doom spiral then?

Yeah, but it's not getting me down.

That's the weird thing.

Well, because if you agree with everything that's going on in the country, why would you be depressed?

This is everything you've been waiting for your whole life manifest in front of us.

This is Gus's America.

It is definitely not.

It's more like I do that thing where I just read it and just shake my head.

Oh, well, I didn't vote for that.

He's looking at his phone going, tut, tut, tut.

Yeah.

I wag my finger at you, America.

It's finally Gus's American.

There is,

it's going to sound maybe unhealthy, but it's just the way I think.

It's like,

I'm old and I'm tired.

Yeah.

And

we've tried to stop this for

eight, ten years now.

And it happened anyway, you know, by a majority.

So, fuck it.

We're all going to write this down in flames.

No, I'm in the same place with you there.

It's like, this is clearly the mandate

that America chose.

Yeah.

Unfortunately.

But I just can't watch it.

Like, I have just put blinders on it.

I haven't turned on the news since November 5th.

It's confusing, let me tell you.

Every day is like, huh, that doesn't make any sense.

It's a lot of things where you go, I didn't really see that coming.

Yeah.

Hey, no more green cards.

It's just gold cards.

Gold cards.

So

if you were to ask me, like, what are some things that you think will happen?

That probably wasn't going to be one of them.

But it makes sense now.

But it happened.

And I went, of course.

Yeah.

Why didn't I think of that?

Yeah.

Ignorance is a...

I'm riding it pretty hard.

I'm not mad at that.

It's like a...

I just have no clue.

Old man doom scrolling, where I'm just like,

whatever.

I was so into that for so long.

eric is actually one of the people that helped pull me out of it and he doesn't even know it oh really when i was at my worst when we were at rooster teeth we were on a podcast together oh yeah and he he fucking yelled at me for doing it well it was and like and i and it pissed me off in the moment and then but he was right and i thought about it so much after that oh that's good and about how right he was and i wasn't able to make the break until the election but man i have not been

happier.

I couldn't imagine being happier while Rome burns than I am right now with my blinders on.

I remember that like post-show.

It was like us and Jessica Vasami and I think Barbara.

And it was you guys talking about like, oh yeah, I saw this on, like, I got mad at this.

And then I watched, and then I read this, and I went and met, and then this made me mad.

It's like,

I don't do that.

I don't want to be mad online.

Like, I'm tired of like stuffing.

If I'm going to be mad online, I'm going to make myself mad online and I'm going to fight about it.

But like.

Hey, this guy said this thing and I'm pissed.

And it's like, I don't have time for this shit.

The thing that gets me is now the people who have made a career out of making you mad online.

Yes, yeah.

It's like, oh, I'm not going to get mad and give that person money and views or whatever.

It's like, no, that's why I had to turn the that's why I have to cold, like, turn the news off.

Yeah, because I realize that it's, it's just, and I know you,

I realized this a hundred years ago.

Everybody knows this, but it's one thing to know it intellectually and another thing to feel it internally, but I just, I just couldn't be a part of the uh

the

engender anger and frustration algorithm to keep you engaged so that you never fucking look away.

Yeah.

What are these little karaoke cabs?

Karaoke cabs.

What is karaoke cabs?

I guess you get in one and sing.

Yeah, they like take you around.

For the audience, it looks like a little electric golf cart that's fully enclosed.

Seems like six people, maybe?

Yeah, like a tiny little thing, like half the size of a smart car, kind of.

Looks maybe a little bit like a British car.

I think it's bigger than a smart car.

Very smaller.

But like, it's...

It's a lot of people jammed into that thing.

thing so well they're singing karaoke they're happy as can be what do you uh well now we're back on the stage of shop this what do you uh

what do you watch on youtube i'm just interested in your habits you know like i have pretty clearly defined things that i'm into these days and

you're a mystery to me it's uh it's it's kind of all over the place a lot of aviation stuff and i mentioned this a little earlier just the other day I watched this New York Times video from like, probably like six years ago about Chicano subculture in Japan.

Oh, right.

Which I thought thought was really interesting oh you know what i so my my youtube algorithms is kind of weird um i think i sent this to eric the other day i i got like

uh what'd you call it like mexican norteño band covering neon genesis evangelia intro like yeah yeah a lot of like nerd video game anime music covered like a mexican northern mexican style that's cool but um i got this video suggested to me the other day and i watched it it was interesting it was uh like a bbc video

about

what was the country i believe it was Equatorial Guinea, if I'm remembering right.

It's a country in Africa.

It's the only country in Africa who has Spanish as one of their official languages.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and the video was just like a brief history of how that came to be, why they speak Spanish, and then how do they speak Spanish?

What are the differences in their dialect?

And like, kind of like...

the pigeon words they have between native languages and Spanish.

And I thought it was really interesting.

Huh.

It's so interesting.

That's what Gus is consuming.

And then on the other end, I'm like, did you know who Shaylene Woodley is dating?

So let me, so answer me this then.

It's like 7 p.m.

It's tonight.

We're recording this on a Wednesday.

That guy's got a Wimbinyama license plate.

Wimby 23.

He's

that's probably worth a little bit of money.

Yeah, like 80 bucks a year.

You guys want to cross one more time?

And then we'll.

It's 7.30.

You and Esther sit down to...

Do you and Esser sit down and watch something together?

Like, how are you?

Well, today's Wednesday, so that's actually something that we will watch.

600-pound life comes on today, which really has fallen off.

Yeah.

I think that.

Yeah, everyone's only 550 pounds.

Well, no, the problem is that

the doctor started the show on lifetime.

So I think out of contractual obligation, they're airing stuff that wasn't good enough to air normally.

Is this Dr.

Proctor or is this a different doctor?

No, this is Dr.

Now, Dr.

Now is Artin.

So it's like, now this season just kind of like, oh, well, this is stuff we already filmed that wasn't good enough before, but now out of contractual obligation, it seems like that to me, out of a contractual obligation, we have to cut episodes together.

So here you go.

Oh, that's who Dr.

Now is.

Okay, they do a dog shit impression of this Dr.

Now guy in the Howard Stern show that I have to turn off every time it's on, and now I know who he is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

He's down in Houston.

In fact, that show, I believe, is produced by an Austin company called Megalomedia.

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.

So Megalomedia produces it, but yeah, the doctor's office itself is down in that.

Can I ask for a pivot and we keep recording, but I go inside Rockman and get a cup of coffee?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's go get a cup of coffee.

This dude's addicted.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

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Okay, we're doing something

here worth

if people are listening to this in the left side of their ear, they're gonna hear Eric ordering coffee, but on the right side, they're gonna hear me and Jeff continuing to talk outside.

Hold that, okay.

Would you give me a nice coffee?

Thanks.

We're gonna continue to talk outside.

All right, I don't want to go too far so that we don't lose.

This is a wild audience actually.

Yeah, we're on Susan Chavez.

It's kind of busy.

There's a lot of garbage trucks and big trucks.

Well, just general traffic, but a lot of big trucks on top of that.

Well, actually, make it a

little close to the Let's see.

So we're at Rockman.

No, Black for Rock.

No, we wanted to, but there was a long line one time.

Right.

And I made the joke that you got to go to.

When I say

you got to beat

Waterman before you do Rockman, or

you're going out of sequence.

Yeah.

You're trying to beat the wrong level.

So we are on Susan Chavez at Rockman, which is a new coffee and bakery shop that was very popular for a little while.

Thank you very much.

I get incredible.

Great merchandise.

But across the street is a little barbecue, which was ruined by Dua Lipa.

And then you can't go there anymore because she ate a pickle there.

Now everybody on Earth wants to eat there.

And then

I went through there.

Yeah, it was very popular

to begin with.

Lovebirds?

Lovebirds is a little bar that is kind of like a cute little date night team bar.

We went there, Emily and I went there for mocktails a couple weeks ago.

thank you so they have a great mocktail menu but i was talking to the guy behind the the counter the bartender there when we were there the other night and he had a uh spider house hat on and i said dude talking about this right here yeah love birds yeah I was like, dude, nice hat.

And he goes, oh, thanks.

It nearly cost me my life.

Apparently he owned, he was saying that he owned Spiderhouse for a couple of years there toward the end and lost a buttload of money on it.

And it was like one of the toughest professional periods of his life.

And I was like, I guess it worked out well for you because you got love birds.

And he was like, it's pretty awesome.

All right.

Good for him.

That's a cool place.

I liked it.

Can we talk about the last time we were on this street and

how we're not going to be probably on the street very much?

Yeah, let's talk about it.

Okay.

Let's do it.

So

about two blocks.

Let's go that way.

You want to do that?

Yeah, why not?

Let's walk by it.

About two blocks this way, Gus, where we're going to be heading over is the spot that we had for regulation podcast.

Oh, congrats.

This was our office.

It was our office.

That's awesome.

It was a home that we found.

We're looking for a place that we can rent where the landlords are going to be like, can you just cut us a check?

We don't give a shit.

And we found it.

Great.

And Jeff did a great job.

You did it.

He schmoozed this guy.

Everything was set

with the guy.

It was like...

Mission accomplished.

I did an old Austin style.

You know how you gotta do it, right?

I did that.

He did such a great job.

And this spot fucking rocks.

I mean, it's awesome.

Rock Band was going to be our coffee shop oh dude we after we toured the place we walked over and had like a celebration i don't like these past tents uh oh yeah yeah well imagine living it yeah so we were really stoked everything was set everything really pumped up on like hey we're gonna be here we're gonna go this is gonna be our home base we're gonna walk over to rock man get a cup of coffee come back oh like these new ideas Everything was set.

We set up the online pay portal.

Jeff pays the deposit.

We talked to the realtor.

Everything's set.

And they're like all right cool so your lease is going to start in april

hell yeah dude rocks and it'll be up in july

that's weird no that's three months and then it's like well what if instead of two months what if 15 yeah what if what if july next year to be on a july schedule which i get

and that's fine yeah we're happy to send more than a year lease we believe in ourselves

uh-huh and then um and then what what was the message you got later that day so i we hired nothing i sent a very nice letter that was like dude, we're happy to sign.

I just paid the deposit or email, whatever.

Okay.

Digital certified dealership.

And I do think it's a little odd that we would sign a three-month lease.

We're happy to do it as long as there's some assurance that there will be another lease behind it.

Right.

Because we'll barely be moved in in three months.

Yeah, three months is like, put all your stuff here now, get out.

If it's a cycle thing, we are more than happy to sign a 14 or a 15-month lease.

Like, not necessarily.

You know, whatever it takes.

And then this is fucking crickets and

radio silence, tumbleweeds.

I sent that email at 8.45 in the morning at 4.50 p.m.

that day on a Friday, by the way, I get an email, sorry, a digital letter email from

the leasing agent who says, it just, it doesn't even say hello.

It just says,

The owner has decided not to lease the property to you.

We have released your deposit

and then it was also Cece, the person who was living there who was trying to get that lease and then they said also you person who's living there, they are going to let you out of your lease April 1st.

And that was it.

That was just the whole email.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Point of fact, straight to the point.

And so we were like, I guess.

Back to square one.

I guess we're back to square one.

They must have googled you.

Spent a

yeah, maybe.

Spent a whole fucking week, or not a whole week, a whole fucking month getting that worked out.

It just sounds like you didn't get it worked out.

Yeah.

Indeed, you're right.

We did not get it worked out and so we will not be moving to this neighborhood.

I know what we can do.

What's that?

Take it?

Throw rocks?

No, we'll go point.

We'll go look at the place.

I'm not going to fucking

out the address or anything.

No.

I'm not trying to dox them.

Send me 20 bucks, I'll tell you.

But we can take a right at some point, go into the neighborhood over here, and we can walk over to where they're building the new bridge.

Over by the dam.

Building the new bridge?

Yeah, you haven't seen it?

No.

Oh, it's cool.

Cool.

There's a lot of pedestrian bridge.

Over here at Pleasant valley and to replace the pleasant valley bridge or to make it no longer a pedestrian bridge on pleasant valley so they're building a pedestrian bridge yeah next to pleasant valley gotcha okay it's like a big it's like a big uh well kind of like what they did with the lamar pedestrian bridge over there more complicated but yes okay it's like a three-pronged bridge okay

You'll see.

It's pretty cool.

It was always wild back in the day to see pedestrians going down, walking on that bridge on Lamar, even though there were signs that specifically said not a pedestrian bridge, I don't cross this and it would be like, man, these people are out here.

They're risking their lives.

I don't know if you were around for that, Austin, Eric, but this bridge, the walkway on the old Lamar Bridge is like 20 inches.

20, probably.

Oh my god.

And you just, it's just like people fucking shuffling while cars are zooming by 45 miles.

It's always sketchy.

Well,

that one?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's our.

Can you believe that?

That was our house.

Yeah, it's literally right next to next door to Rockman.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

It would have been perfect in every way, dude.

You should have seen it on the inside.

Yep.

Huge yard, very private.

So much space.

Everything we needed.

Perfect sets.

We were already building.

I was already designing the brake show in one of the rooms in my head.

Yeah.

It was like, oh, cool.

Now we can spin all this up.

Like, we have the forward momentum, I think, is like probably the most exciting part.

Yes.

Momentum.

Yes.

And now it's all.

It's dead.

Yeah, it's dead.

There's no more momentum.

There's nothing worse than momentum killer in this kind of stuff in a creative industry.

And it just makes you kind of go like, huh.

But the time we put in, because we had to tour it.

I went to it twice.

I went to it three times.

Yeah.

And it's like,

man,

we got to do it all over again with something else.

And it's not going to be.

It's just not going to be the thing that we were like in love with.

Yeah, we're going to be comparing whatever it is to what we lost, whether we want to or not.

what is that weird fucking thing

that's awesome

right here yeah so

the optimist in me wants to say you're gonna find a place that's even better you're like oh man thank god the other thing fell through yeah yeah i don't yeah i probably don't think so but yeah

hey i think i appreciate it i'm trying to tell us just the classic optimist glass is half full dude yep i've been telling myself gus that we are being saved from some sort of annoyance like the landlord would have been real difficult yeah yeah he lives in the neighborhood so we'd have been up our ass or the house would have been a nightmare in some way like like full of mold or who knows it'd be a threes company situation he'd be mr roing you yeah

shooting ropes on us

that's not what mr roper did at all

even that's his name you were watching the u.s version yeah yeah yeah no the british version was different sounds like it

did uh all right so my 600 pound wife My wife watches different flavors of that show, but not that particular one.

What else is original?

What else is appointment television for Gus?

Or is there?

Are you guys like, are you guys watching one show a week together?

No, no, no, there's a couple things that we like.

But you know what's really good right now?

I don't know if you all have seen it.

There's a show that's on Adult Swim, and they put it out on Macs called, it's an animated show called Common Side Effects.

Oh, yeah, it's that Mike Judge show, right?

Yeah.

It's really good.

Really?

I think there's like five episodes out now.

Mike Judge.

Yeah.

Is it on

US Adult Swim?

Yeah.

Is it?

Okay.

It's like Sunday nights it comes on or you can watch it Mondays on Macs.

It's really good.

I've heard nothing but positive stuff about it.

It's a Mike Judge show.

It's supposed to be like really funny.

Yeah, there are some great moments in that show, but it's like the basic premise is like a dude finds a mushroom in Peru that can cure anything.

Like whatever's wrong with you, it'll cure it.

Now like government agencies and pharmaceutical companies are trying to stop him because then if you have one drug that fixes everything, they can't sell you a lifetime worth of stuff.

And he's just like trying to figure out how to make it work.

The brain candy of it.

Yeah.

It's really, really good.

Dude.

There's a very simplified version.

This coffee is awful.

Really?

Oh, no.

But just to be a little bit more.

But you had good Rockman before?

Yeah.

Just a bad, just an off day?

This is burned.

It's so burn.

I don't know if I can drink this.

This is an angly house.

Yeah.

Have we walked by this before?

Yeah, probably.

We probably did.

Yeah.

Like I said, we were kind of in this neighborhood.

I made the joke about Canterbury Tails.

We're going to go and take a left here.

Okay.

You can see where the bridge has been put in right there with the cranes.

How long have they been working on this?

What is this?

What month is this?

February.

I think they started in like, because I ride my bike around here on the trail, you know.

I think they started in like October, September, October, somewhere around there.

One last extra show if I want to

do.

I'm looking for recommendations.

Not a new show.

It's a relatively new show, but it's not like brand new.

I only recently got into it.

We started watching Yellow Jackets.

Oh, cool.

I watched the first two seasons.

Yeah, we watched the first season and we're waiting.

Season three's out now, or it's coming out now.

So we're waiting a little bit to then get into season two and three.

Oh, wow.

Yellow Jackets is awesome.

That show has a lot of promise.

I felt like it didn't deliver.

Oh, interesting.

Ultimately, they lost me in season two.

So wait.

Yeah.

So then if you're on the bike trail down here where it used to come,

it was like a dead end here.

And then it would cut over hard and then you'd walk up here.

Now you're going to go here and then you can spin off left to go up here if you want to go to Pleasant Valley and

like I guess Cesar Chavez or right if you you want to go over towards Riverside.

Interesting.

Yeah, so it keeps it low here, and then you're just kind of going.

So

I guess what we're looking at is going, what is this, heading east?

Yeah.

Yes.

Reflecting east.

Yeah, right at Pleasant Valley.

Where the dam is.

Yeah,

the trail becomes like a Y shape.

So you can go north or south from this lower level to get up to the regular level of Pleasant Valley.

That's fucking cool.

I didn't know they were building this.

No, I had no clue.

I mean, driving over Pleasant Valley, I've seen that there's construction, but I didn't know what it was.

You can't really see it from a car because of the fence, but the netted fence, but I ride my bike over here a lot, and it was super inconvenient for a while when they were shutting all this down.

Once I finally got the traffic flow figured out, it was great.

But yeah, I've been, it's funny you guys say that.

It's like you just popped up.

I feel like this has been taking fucking forever.

Rush that off to the side here, this people pass us.

Driving me nuts.

Well, it's been no inconvenience to me, so it didn't exist until right now.

I'm very, very excited for it, though.

I think it's gonna be really cool.

It's a lot of, it's a lot of construction right here.

It's a big undertaking.

We probably get a good view from it from the dam up there.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

We keep going over there.

Dude, I cannot drink this coffee.

This is terrible.

That sucks.

Oh, what?

It's an off day.

Man, Austin loves a rounded edge on a house now.

Yeah.

A lot of that going around.

I've noticed that it seems to be like if

the house I'm describing, think of it like a modern like boxy Minecraft house, taller than squarish, but I guess tall rectangular.

Yeah.

But for whatever reason, in every house in Austin that's building it now, it's always like a white farmhouse design, vertical,

what do you call it on the you put on the side of a house siding vertical siding and then the front right wall of the house is bent and curved.

It's always the front right.

It's always the front right wall is always bent and curved around.

The curve shows craftsmanship.

Yeah.

It shows work.

I don't know why they never curve any of the other walls, just that one.

It's a load-bearing wall.

It's a curved bearing wall.

Yeah.

So we're up on Pleasant Valley now.

Yeah, Pleasant Valley and Canterbury.

Yeah.

And

we'll have a look at...

Sidewalk's closed.

I think we'll be okay.

We got a permit.

Yeah, we're investigative journalists.

Oh, there's the fence.

No, they've actually walked off.

There's still a dude in there, though.

Yeah.

He's got a high-vis vest on, though.

He probably belongs.

We need high-vis vest, and we just climb around over here.

I was saying that on Fuckface years ago.

We get away with a lot with a high-

I always wanted to draw dicks on the ground in neighborhoods.

Oh, wow.

There's like little cutouts here for kids to look at, I guess.

And for us.

Kids to look at it.

Man, they're going to town.

Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of construction there.

They got a lot of faith in their math if they're building from the shore and the middle.

Yes, it's exactly.

It really is like, see if I can get a picture.

It was me, I would start from one side.

Yeah, it's like

I don't have confidence in our engineers.

Yeah, there's no way I'm going to make these two things meet.

It's coming from everywhere, too.

I mean, it is.

It's a three-way spot coming to meet in the middle there.

Because like a long time ago, I remember I was a kid.

I was younger when they did it, but when they built the tunnel, they were digging from the UK and from France and they met in the middle.

Like, man, man, that's that's nuts to me.

That's uh, bold, yeah.

And it's like, oh, and it, and it worked, and they did it.

Yeah, you got some smart people working on stuff.

It is our tax dollars at work, not mine, making improvements to our local community.

No, that's why I don't pay it.

Yeah, they tried to charge me sales tax on this coffee, and I was like, uh-uh, uh-uh, take that off.

I tell them I actually am a sovereign citizen.

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Speaking of life hacks to save money, that grocery store still hasn't cashed my check.

Are you serious?

I checked again this morning while we were ordering our coffee.

That's brilliant.

So I saved $7.

There you go, right in the neighborhood.

Can you go to a grocery store?

Do you fleece these guys like Nick's roommate, Nick's fleece?

Fleece his family and

I feel kind of guilty.

I'm going to go, I'm going to maybe go back and ask him.

Listen, hey, do you guys know that you can cash that check?

Yeah, like

would you like me to

call it?

Do you want me to show you how it works?

Or

if you went back and tried to pay again, it would cause so many more issues.

And it's not like I'm dodging him.

I've been back to that store multiple times.

I've seen the dude who took my check multiple times.

Does he call you checkman?

Not yet.

Hey, checkman.

Hey, what's up, checkman?

They call you Siete.

They call me Rebecca.

They probably call me boomer.

Oh, man.

This guy's got a checkbook in his car.

Watch out.

Rebecca, Rebecca, you gotta check this out.

This guy got a checkbook.

Do you want to go down Willow?

All right.

Yeah, set.

What the hell is oh, it's a forklift.

We're just driving that, walking down a residential neighborhood street, and there is a giant forklift carrying

sheets of plywood.

Yeah,

huh?

Like, it's the most normal thing in the world.

Just constructing the tallest Airbnbs you've ever seen.

Yeah.

Got it stacked up to up to the sky.

Aren't we changing our Airbnb rules to make it more restrictive, I think?

Are they?

Thank God.

I think I saw that.

Can they?

I thought they did have rules like that, and the state of Texas said.

Uh-uh-uh.

That sounds right.

Yeah, did I hated Austin?

Do something?

That's what you think.

It is weird to live in.

I wonder if we're the only state capital where the entire rest of the state hates us.

Yeah, you know, I think that's a great point.

Because, like, in California, we don't even think about Sacramento.

Yeah, you don't fucking beat it.

Sacramento?

The only thing Sacramento produces is like, it's it's where the state capital is and probably like some UFC fighters.

You know what I mean?

Like a lot of myth, I think, too.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that's when you get into like that central California.

Sacramento, that seems like that seems like a that seems like a Nate Diaz neighborhood.

Big time, right?

It's that kind of thing.

Like, it's not, like, that's like not where the Diaz brothers are from, I think, but it might as well be where the Diaz brothers are from.

It just seems like a place where it's like, this is where we have UFC fighters only.

But I bet there are probably numerous

states, yeah.

Maybe New York.

Well, I don't know.

No, what is that?

But we're the entire rest of the state.

Like, we're like the old.

Think about like

North Carolina.

Okay.

I would think

a place like that.

Well, I guess the whole triangle might be pretty liberal as opposed to the rest of the state.

But I think there's a lot of

you could say Florida with Miami-Dade County, maybe, but I don't think it's nearly as blue as Austin.

But think about a lot of red states.

But it's also not a capital.

A lot of big cities

end up being very left-leaning or liberal, and And there are a lot of red states with big cities as the capital.

I guess Houston's pretty liberal, too, though, in the grand scheme of things.

Dallas?

I mean, really any decent major metropolitan city.

Okay, I can't drink this coffee anymore.

It's just we're living a, I don't think there's a lot of states where the governor brags about leaving the capital so he can breathe again because he can't stand to fucking be there.

I think every time the legislature's in session, they try to introduce a law to make Austin not a city.

Yeah.

Which the legislature's in session again right now.

So it's it's back up.

You see all this shit about the Texas lottery?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I keep getting TikToks from the guy who like cracked it.

Yeah.

Who,

so there was like,

I don't even know what you'd call it.

It fraud, insider numbers giving?

for the Texas lottery.

Yes.

And I guess there was like some jackpot.

I think it was like $83.5 million

that was won

illegally through means of fraud.

So that was a big investigation.

The state government may shut down the entire lottery commission.

Wow.

So it all kind of branches off from, I don't know if you ever noticed this before.

I always thought this was a weird business, but there were businesses in Texas where you could install an app on your phone and buy lottery tickets.

Yes.

Like Scratchers or Lotto, the power, like the balls one.

And it was essentially a courier service.

So you would buy the ticket in the app.

Then someone who ran the app would go and purchase the ticket and like send you a picture of it.

Be like, this is your ticket.

Oh.

Then if you won, they would let you know and you collect the money.

If you didn't win, they would just throw the ticket away.

So I guess it all kind of centers around that and how any place.

Should we start making moving rapidly?

Any place who does that has to have a physical storefront.

So like there was a place up by the Arboretum.

I think this is the place I was doing it, if I remember right.

that was like a hobby store.

They saw like board games or something, but that really wasn't their business.

That was just like the storefront.

Then in the back was all the like the lottery ticket stuff that was going on and all this app stuff.

And I guess it just got to a point where people were

in, I don't know what you say, insider trading with numbers.

Like there was some fraud going on where numbers were being exchanged and people were being picked to win.

And there were kickbacks with the head of the lottery commission.

It was like a whole

criminal enterprise.

And it is like, it's like weirdly hush-hush.

Like, I feel like I'm only seeing it.

Yeah.

I'm only seeing it through means of where I don't think they want me to see it from people who exposed it.

And like, none of it's like the news.

Yeah, it's, it's really bizarre.

It's like a huge story.

Yeah.

I feel like, like, Jeff, you hadn't even heard about it.

Like, it's, it's not yet.

Yeah, but I am willfully ignorant too, keep in mind.

I'm not sure.

But it's not getting the level of attention it deserves, I think.

Yes, yeah.

I agree with that.

How's that iced coffee?

It was a

seven out of 10.

Okay.

Should we talk about

our original cup of coffee?

Mercado Sin Nombre.

Again, a kind of like a newer spot around here.

Double Monday or Tuesday.

It has a really cool sort of

patio area.

It really does.

Where you can sit and eat your little biscuit and jam, which we did get.

We got biscuits and jam.

It was really good.

And me and Gus ate them the right way.

And then Jeff's an insane person.

Jeff picked it up like an apple and took a bite out of it.

He grabbed grabbed it like a baseball, dipped it in the butter jam, and then just took a bite.

Yeah, it was delicious.

It was fucking, it looked insane.

Yeah, I don't think it did, but it was really yummy.

I think it just looked like a normal dude eating a biscuit.

It did not.

If I was sitting, as you would eat.

If I was sitting at a table near you and I saw that, out loud, I would go, oh my God.

If it was like biscuits and gravy, I wouldn't have done it, but it was just a dry-ass biscuit and then like a dipping sauce on the side.

Yeah,

it was a really good biscuit.

It was good.

Biscuit was great.

I love the little jam.

He's that dude again.

There he is.

I love the little jam butter presentation thing that they do.

I think that was really nice.

I got a regular cup of coffee.

You got

iced coffee.

I got a drip coffee as well because I didn't see Americano on the

menu.

Gus mixing it up, getting a regular cup of coffee.

What did you guys think of the coffee?

Mine was okay.

It was a little bitter.

It had that very like

bitter coffee taste you get sometimes like not bad.

It's just not the flavor profile I typically like totally get it with coffee.

But I acknowledge that was a good cup of coffee.

It just wasn't the kind of coffee I would normally drink myself.

Yep.

Well, first off, I'm going to give that place a 10 out of 10 on location or presentation.

I think it's just adorable.

It's got a great vibe to it.

It's decorated well.

It's nestled in between taller buildings.

So it feels like a little, I don't know, it just feels like kind of tucked in.

And as for the cold brew, I would give it a 10.

Really?

It was the perfect cup of cold brew.

Yeah, it was amazing.

Wow.

I had no issues with that place.

Yeah.

When it's open, it's really cool.

It's a really cool spot.

There you go.

I just wish I could work there on Tuesdays.

Yeah, it's just a,

like everything else, a real bummer where it's like, yeah, we're closed on these days.

Yeah, just because.

All right, that's fine.

I want to come back and try their other food.

They had a lot of other stuff on the menu.

They had a bean and chicken.

They had bonitos.

I wanted to try that, but

the biscuit was calling to me.

There's a blue corn.

The biscuit was so like, if you've never been here and you're like, oh, I'm going to try it, dude, get the biscuit and jam.

It's so cool.

What did you think of the coffee, Erg?

I liked it.

It was way better than that Rockman cup.

It was a great, just right, right down the middle cup of coffee.

I don't think it did,

like, there was no like real like flavor profile where I was like, wow, taste this.

But

if I lived around here and I was walking through, I'd grab a cup of coffee and keep going.

Like,

it's that kind of spot.

I mean this in the best way, but it is the kind of place in Austin where I go to where I don't feel cool enough to be there a little bit.

Yeah.

But then as soon as we were sitting there and like hanging out, I did not feel out of place.

Yeah.

I felt out of place walking up to it and then did not feel out of place once we were sat and hanging out.

Absolutely.

Great place.

Highly recommend.

Yeah, I really like it.

I really, really like it.

If I had to write, I'd probably say coffee seven out of 10.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think the coffee is probably right around 758, something like that.

Yeah, 758, 75.

Yeah, something like that.

I bet that they have some specialty drinks that blow you away.

That's the thing.

I wanted to order some of the specialty drinks, but I wanted to stay as true to what I normally order as coffee.

It just seems like this is the kind of place where they do a weird specialty latte better than they do a regular cup of coffee because that's the clientele.

The clientele here isn't probably drinking much in the way of like black drip coffee.

Yeah.

They have a lot of other stuff, but I love where this is tucked away.

I like this area, this sort of like

Cesar Chavez to fifth up to like seventh.

It's the best part of Austin.

I love it.

It's kind of like this whole spread on east.

I just had a thought.

Uh, this whole area is gonna be overrun with South by Southwest soon.

Oh, fucking yeah, we should do something during South by, like, we should do uh, an episode out like downtown, like, in the shit.

Okay, yeah, we should do that.

Would be some audio texture.

We're walking down dirty sixth

on like a third on that Thursday or Friday here.

Is it the next one?

I think it's uh, it's fourth, I believe.

Yeah, we're here.

Cool.

Oh, no, it's fit.

Yeah.

We'll try it here, and if not, we'll matter.

I like it.

It is one.

I like that idea of

right in the middle of South by doing that stuff.

Is there any, like, I'm sure you guys used to go to South by stuff forever ago, but now

there's any South by shit.

Is there stuff that you're like, oh, South Buy's coming.

Let me go check this out.

Kojima's doing a panel.

Oh, is he really?

Yeah, March 9th.

Damn.

No, I don't have a badge.

I would love to.

But yeah,

South Play is one of those things where we would always get free badges through work, you know, of course, yeah, and then you would use it less and less until the point where they would give you a baby, you'd be like, You just give this to somebody else.

I don't, yeah, I don't need it, I'm not gonna use it.

Yeah, it's like I can't imagine honestly.

The thing that I always felt from it was

in my 20s, oh my god, and then like as I got into my 30s, using it less until I was like, hey, give this to someone in their 20s.

Like, I don't, I'm not gonna use this.

They always say, oh my God, but with a different intonation.

Oh, my God.

There was a sweet spot in like 2009,

2008 when we were downtown when it was awesome because we would just walk out of our office or walk down to Sixth Street and you would just go from bar to bar drinking free booze

and then make your way back and it would just be like, we just got hammered for zero dollars.

You know, there's a lot of like pro wrestling that's going to be happening in Austin.

A lot of like fly-in people, a lot of people checking stuff out, and then like a lot of

talent coming through Austin to show out during South Buy, which is really, I think, think, very cool.

I saw a clip from some

local Austin wrestling on the public freak out subreddit the other day.

Oh, really?

It was like some guy, I don't remember his name, some guy who's playing the heel, came in, screamed out of his kids.

He screamed a kid, flipped off a baby.

His name is all-star Matt Locke.

His name is Matt Locke.

That's his name.

Matt Locke.

Matt Locke.

He's awesome.

He was gone for like a year.

He just came back.

That was his first match back.

And the kid right there fucking screamed out of his, oh, dude.

It was so funny.

It was awesome.

No, that was up in Waco

at Heart of Texas Pro Wrestling.

They used to run down here.

Now they have a spot up in Waco.

But he's back and he's like,

if there was a guy where I'm like, this is a guy to like watch, too much, like,

that's him.

Too much of wrestling is like, hey, I get what's going on here.

What he does is he eliminates that sort of like, hey, we're all in on it together.

Because he does that stuff where he gets in your face, he knocks your hat off and your beer out of your hand.

And you go, hey, I thought we were in this together.

And to me, the money in wrestling is like that friction of like hey what the is this hey i mean yeah him exactly and and that friction i think

he has a lot of that and uh he's like a guy to watch i like him a lot you flipped off a baby which i'm telling you man

scream screaming a kid flip off a baby make that money that was always the achievement hunter audience to me it was always like Yeah, make fun of Gavin, make fun of Michael.

Yeah, I'm going to make fun of them too.

Don't make fun of the audience.

Don't make fun of me.

No, we're making fun of other people.

We're in on the joke.

We're not the joke.

We're not the joke, not us.

Everybody gets made equal opportunities.

It's like, what don't you get?

What this goes every direction.

Yep.

Yep.

Nobody's immune.

To me, that friction is where money's at.

Like that, there's just a lot there.

But I'm glad you saw that.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

There's a lot of wrestling in town.

There's a lot of wrestling.

A lot of coffee in town.

Seems like a big time for wrestling.

Austin is a wrestling city.

Big time.

You heard it here first.

You heard, guys.

You've never heard it anywhere else.

You heard it here first.

But come to Miracados and Nobra.

It's not just for stand-up anymore.

It's not even wrestling.

You can do both.

Yeah, now the comedy's legal.

Yeah.

Guys, honestly, finally, am I right?

Well, I think that might do it while we go out on the dulcet sounds of a dog barking on a second roof balcony and a guy cutting through metal.

The sweet tones of Austin.

Any final thoughts, last words?

This is the third episode in another eight-episode run.

Hey, guys, we'll see you at South by Southwest.

Come down, say hi.

Come on down, guys.

By the time this comes out, you're definitely gonna make it.

This is definitely not months later.

Yep, absolutely.

All right, we'll see you next time.

Bye.

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