Our Favorite Eras

I'm Scott Hanson, host of NFL Red Zone.

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I'm glad we started rolling right before we all took a bite of a pastry.

You know?

We don't have to start recording, or this doesn't have to be in.

No, this is in.

This is in.

This is totally in.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

He edits it.

This is in.

Slowly.

At a breakneck pace.

Guess what?

I'm in the middle of a bunch of renderings.

I haven't brought it up, but yeah, I'm knee-deep in it.

You guys should come back here sometime earlier in the day when they have the bread balls in.

They're like the Fogo breadballs.

Because I was wondering.

They had like a Brazilian name on the label.

It's like Brazilian, but it's Thai ice cream too.

It's all coconut-based ice cream.

It's really good.

So this is Daddy, G-A-T-I, not to be confused with Mr.

Daddy's, which is some of the worst pizza possible.

Well, that's not what Nick says.

Exactly.

That's an excellent point you raised.

People that are...

There's no CCs.

People that are like from here or from the area or whatever are such like, they're daddy's apologists.

Is it because it's a thing that you have when you're a kid?

I guess.

It's like a worse version of Whataburger.

Because Whataburger is at least decent.

Interesting.

What?

But everyone who's from here defends.

People not from here hate hate it.

Uh-huh.

Gaddy's is just objectively bad.

Even if you're from here, you should not defend it.

You should not like it.

I totally agree.

I think people like it because they like buffet pizza because you can go eat like a

like an absolute monster for six dollars.

He's thinking about buffet pizza.

I upset him so much with my Whataburger comment.

Too much glaze in my throat.

And don't get me wrong, I love Whataburger, but I acknowledge.

I gotta say, man, I hate to say it, but Whataburger has gone downhill in the last couple of years.

I think so.

I really do.

I went there the other day, and we waited in line for like 18 minutes, and they still got our order wrong.

I just ordering the app all the time.

It just saves the trouble, and I've never had a problem with it.

I will say, I'm just sick of downloading a fucking app every time I want to do anything.

I got this, I bitched about this in So All Right with McDonald's the other day, and people are like, just use the app.

I don't want to use the app.

I just want to go talk to a person and use my lips to their ears.

Okay, boomer.

That's fine.

They call me a boomer because I want to use it.

I will use the app every time.

You know why?

Because the person's going to get it wrong.

Introducing another human into the element, and it's like they're getting it wrong.

No, no, no.

No, no, no.

Yeah, yes, it's not.

They're still going to get it wrong because I have the Taco Bell app, because my wife loves Taco Bell.

And I would say 40% of the time we ordered to the Taco Bell app, they still get it wrong.

Your wife loves Taco Bell?

She loves Taco Bell.

Really?

Yeah, that's what I think.

Huh.

No potatoes.

Yeah, yeah, no potatoes.

I mean, the potato soft taco is probably the best thing at Taco Bell, but I'm not sure.

Well, I will say, so I think what's like a

company based out of Chicago acquired Whataburger probably like five or six years ago now.

Oh, it's some private equity bullshit.

Yeah, but

for me personally,

I've not noticed a decrease.

I always order the same thing at Whataburger.

I've noticed it's been the same for me anyway, but

they've really kind of

changed their advertising their marketing a bit.

It's got a lot more polish now.

And I think their merchandising is way better.

Oh, stepped up their game for sure.

They have

a lot of stuff.

A single cooler that's painted like an old Whataburger A-frame that I think is like such a great idea.

I think that that's an across-the-board thing where

you have to be.

We were talking about branding for places that are opening.

So originally, we were going to go to a place called Rockman.

I was like, the line was out the door.

We didn't have the milk foam blaster.

We weren't ready for it.

Jesus Christ.

For fucking a week he's been doing this.

He's been doing makeup.

I saved that one.

I worked off that one last night.

Thanks, man.

He's writing it down and telling Esther.

He's like talking to the dog.

Does this one land?

Leafman?

Rockman, you were saying, is a place where it's like you go to the website and it's like, wow, this branding is like so important.

They're not even fucking open yet.

Like, it's crazy.

I heard about it.

And so I went to their website and looked at it.

It was insanely polished.

They had like a huge merch suite.

The merch looked like awesome.

And I was like, holy shit, how's this place been open for this long?

And it was literally the day they opened.

And we were talking about how important strong branding is from the jump.

And they were like, I did some research, and there's like a company that does that for them.

And

they do a bunch of like boutique

restaurant launch events and shit.

But we couldn't go there today.

No, it could be.

It was crazy line.

The line was out the door.

But what I'm driving at is all of these places, no matter sort of like

the class of restaurant or whatever, they have upped their merch game and their branding game in like a crazy way.

Have you seen the Taco Bell Bell Decades menu?

No.

They're bringing back.

Emily, Emily probably have.

They're bringing back one item from every decade

of Taco Bell and the branding for it reflects the decade that it's back from.

So the one from the 90s is like the beef gordita or whatever.

And it's got the, remember the Taco Bell dog with like the little, he had like the, like the little like red star hat when he was like a Shea Guevara kind of thing or whatever?

It's that thing.

The thing that they're doing with the decades menu, there's a launch where you can also get hoodies that reflect the different decades of Taco Bell.

There's like five of them or whatever.

And I just, I look at that and these cups that they're doing and everything, and you're like, hmm, they know

what it, the brand is so strong that you can throw, hey, remember this from the 70s?

Put it on your shirt.

You make it limited edition.

Exactly.

I have people go crash your website.

Tony Simonetta is going to go insane for Taco Bell Decades hoodies.

Absolutely.

I remember,

I don't think I've told this story before.

It's a very short story, but

we had, when back when we worked at the call center, we had this old lady call up once because she was very upset because on her Windows 95 computer, there was an animation of the Taco Bell dog humping like an enchilada, like a burrito.

It was a, that Taco Bell dog was humping a burrito, and she could not get it to go away, and we had to try to help her.

figure out what was going on.

I think it was a virus or something.

Like there was something wrong with her system.

And it just made the Taco Bell dog show up and hump a a burrito.

And she was, like, practically in tears, so upset that was what was happening on her computer.

It was very offensive.

Mnemonic.

So now, whenever I think of the Taco Bell Dog, that's all I think about, is that old lady in Oklahoma somewhere whose computer was befouled by the Taco Bell Dog.

So awesome.

So I'd like to put it on record, by the way, that I am going to continue to eat at Whater.

Nothing will make me stop.

I'm just going to complain about it.

Yeah,

I'm still going to eat at Whataburger.

Don't get me wrong.

The place that's gone downhill for me, and I think that you guys won't agree because how often are you going anyway?

Wendy's over like the last two years has fallen off in a way where you're just like, I don't even know if I want to, like, I don't go anywhere.

I never liked Wendy's.

Wendy's was like, if I could get that chicken sandwich and just like, oh man, I'm cooking on this thing.

I love it.

Easy meal, whatever.

The fries suck.

Your chicken isn't as good.

Everything's just sort of like deteriorated.

I think a lot of it probably has to do with private equity moving into like a lot of these spaces, which is, I mean, I'm not sure.

Grunting

Yeah.

I do have a local example.

Okay.

I used to fucking love Flywright.

Juden.

I was just talking about Flywright the other day.

I don't know.

I don't know anymore.

It was my favorite place to eat.

I loved it more than any burger restaurant in Austin.

There was one on Burnett.

There was one over not too far from here

on 7th Street.

It was almost on par with like Chick-fil-A.

Yeah.

And it was like, oh, I don't want to go to Chick-fil-A, but I'll go there.

If you're not in Austin, it's a local drive-through chicken place.

They sell fried chicken sandwiches.

They have one called a Cowboy.

I love the Cowboy.

It's just jalapenos, pepperjack cheese, and bacon, and it's just the sauce, and it's amazing.

And they have the best Tater Tots in Austin.

Really good.

And then, like, fancy, like, main root soda.

And then one day I went there and I noticed that they had like Pepsi products, and I thought, oh, that's strange.

So they switched.

And then I got home and my burger didn't taste the same.

Or my cheat, my hand, my chicken

taste the same.

And then

I thought, ah, it was a little off this time.

And then I went a couple more times, and then I realized they're under new, they sold or under new ownership, and they changed their supply line and it tastes like shit.

Yeah, if if you're upset about anything that you've enjoyed not being as good as it used to be you can brain you can probably blame private equity for coming in buying this thing cutting costs taking the money and running that like just leaving these places like defunct and bankrupt.

It's like let's make a product that's 60% as good for 20% of the price or 20% of the cost.

Exactly.

So the price goes up.

Yeah.

And that's I mean you look at that people blame

people for not eating out or whatever.

Like you see economists, oh, people aren't eating out the way they used to or whatever, and that's why Red Lobster is going under and all this stuff.

It's just private equity.

Oh, red lobster got fucking ramrod hard.

Yeah, that was so stupid.

But it's true.

It's A, yes, it's more expensive, but it's not just that it's more expensive.

It's the quality has gone down.

Exactly.

But you look at something like Chili's, where everyone is going right now, because the cost of eating at Chili's is the cost at eating McDonald's.

Dude, crazy.

That's nuts.

You know what our version of that is?

Fucking Bernie and Vanessa and Emily are the world's biggest Texas Roadhouse fans.

And so like once a week we go to Texas Roadhouse.

I haven't been to Texas Roadhouse in probably 20 years.

We just eat like it's 80% free rolls and just constant refills of diet soda.

And then yeah.

The last time I ate at Texas Roadhouse was we were still working in Butea.

We went to that one down south off of like William Channel.

That's the one

we go to.

That's the last time I went to a Texas Roadhouse was that one and it was we were still working out of the apartment in Butea.

You walk into that Texas Roadhouse, all the same people are there that we were last time, but it is insanely crowded.

That is the hottest ticket in town.

Wow, it is hard to get into that.

A lot of these places because they're affordable.

It's and the quality hasn't changed.

It's like these places that can maintain where they were already sort of bad and now they're just like they've maintained for so long that everything else has come down to their level.

That's what I was gonna say.

It's sad.

Everything has gone so shitty that this mediocre place is good now.

And it's not, and people will be like, oh, it's, you know, you keep your age is showing and all that stuff.

I'm telling you, it's private equity has cut the legs out from under you, and you are gladly accepting it.

Yeah, is just

it's stock buybacks and private equity.

You know what age is.

It's just an accumulation of knowledge.

Yep.

I don't talk about this a lot, but like

I was watching CNBC the other morning

and they were trying to get away from

the end.

They were doing an interview with the CEO of PepsiCo.

And they had had like kind of a shitty quarter and he was on talking about consumer discretionary spending.

It was talking about how

consumers weren't buying as much snack products because the election was coming up, and people were just like worried about the election.

And then, after they're done with the interview, one of the hosts, Church, or the one who was doing the interview, was like, Did he really just say that people aren't buying snacks because they're worried about the election?

Like, come on, we gotta let's get serious here.

But, like, is that the no one pressures anyone on anything because then they won't come back on the show.

Right, it was like, that's all it is.

It was such a softball bullshit answer.

It was like, nobody, nobody in media is going

get fucking real man are you serious yeah like i can because then they won't come back on oh our the now our chief communications officer said we can't go on cnbc and it's like fine then don't go on cnbc don't get like we need hardline stuff that's crazy yeah like i can understand there are point there are there is an argument to be made for that for large purchases houses sure yes cars sure absolutely a fucking bag of fritos or a can of pepsi

doesn't play shit into that

people are nervous about the election so they're eating more because people stress eat.

Fucking Cheetos should be flying off the shelves right now.

I know queso ruffles are flying off the shelves into my mouth right now.

I ate an entire bag yesterday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so good.

How goofy.

So stupid.

So dumb.

I hate it.

Yeah, people don't want to eat because they're stressed out.

Oh, is that right?

They don't want to spend the four bucks on a bag of Fritos.

You're real.

Speaking of V,

I want to take us down a little down a path.

Okay.

Okay.

I was...

Just popped into my head the other day.

I'm planning for Thanksgiving.

It's coming up.

We're going to go do this Thanksgiving thing.

And I got to thinking, I don't know why, but I got to thinking about the turkey that we used to give out when we worked at Ruchites.

Greenberg?

Greenberg turkey is what it was called, yes.

And so I couldn't remember the name of it.

And so I asked Bernie and he gave it to me and I bought one.

I'm going to have a Greenberg turkey.

They've got a great domain.

They've got a great website.

What is it again?

Gobblegobble.com.

No way, really?

Yeah.

And so, not a sponsor.

The way it happened, Eric.

Look at Google it.

It was when we were downtown in the downtown office.

One of our clients, and by clients, I mean like, this is game developers, ad agencies.

One of our clients one year sent us.

Yeah, there you go.

I just bought a 15-pounder.

Nice.

One of our clients sent us one of those, and it comes freeze-dried, and it's just a smoked turkey.

And we were like, what the fuck is this?

And then we did the instructions, we thought it out, and then we ate it like raptors.

It was so good.

It was the best tasting thing.

We had cold.

We never heated it up.

It was the best tasting thing I've ever had in my entire life.

And then from that moment, we started giving those turkeys out to all of our clients every Christmas as a gift.

Yes.

Well, not all of them.

I don't know if you remember this.

We had two tiers.

We had a Rudy's barbecue that we would give away until somebody gave us the Greenberg and we discovered that.

And then we had, if we really, really liked you, you got the Greenberg.

If we just liked you a lot, you got the Rudy's.

If you were like super S tier, you got both.

You got both.

But that was very rare I was like bungee

but we went through all these years where we would give those I remember we'd get together and we'd put the list together of who we were gonna give what and it was it was always kind of fun I'm working on that with sticky dragon right now are you ready yeah

and so

that got me just thinking about that time in the downtown office and it was just a really fun positive period of growth and I and I I never really thought of our company in this terms but it made me look at the company,

and by company, I mean the company we used to work for, Roushteen,

in terms of

by defining the eras from offices, office areas, right?

And I kind of just went through them quickly in my head and thought about something fun or that I loved about each one.

And I was trying to pinpoint what my favorite era was.

And so I'll run the eras down for the, I guess you know them, but for the audience.

There's cheesebread.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

We'll get some.

thank you I'll be okay hold up yeah hold that nostalgia thought what was your favorite office that you worked in Eric was it stage five or stage four yeah right I only worked in one of them dude like that was like that was crazy to be in stage five and be there for like the move for stage four felt really nuts um because stage five was all I knew and then moving to four was like

I don't know.

It was like four didn't take off because the pandemic really cut the legs out from everything.

Yeah, and then there was like the whole work work from home stuff.

That was really cool.

Like there wasn't, everyone wasn't ever fully back.

We started

in the office, like 100% at that point.

But I think, you know,

it was, I think there's a lot of benefit to work from home.

I think we were talking about this before we were rolling when we were at the 100% eat space earlier.

But it's like you got to have people together.

for like a sharing of ideas and bouncing things off.

But I do also really like the flexibility of working from home.

Yeah.

I mean, this morning, even before I came over to meet up with you guys, I was getting a bunch of stinky dragon stuff done yeah like no need to go into like some arbitrary officing building to do that it's like i've got all the technology to do it at home i can exactly do it there while i'm drinking my coffee um

but the ideas flow differently when you're together and that's not i'm not for a hybrid solution for a lot of this where you have to come in for like these arbitrary days yeah because that's not how that works um you need to plan around what you need these people for and everything we've been talking about it for because we have a space for 100 eat, and we're there.

You know, we do most of our work from home, but we have planned days where we go in and record and shoot and do all this stuff.

That's the way it should work.

Yeah, um,

and I would love to do that for regulation, and I love doing it for this, where we get together for 10 minutes and then we drive over to a place, and it's like it's great.

Ooh, cheese balls.

Oh, they do just look like they're focused on the house.

Yeah,

we were talking about work from home, but get back to what you were saying.

So, they're hot.

Take a picture of these.

Yeah, the areas I'll define are: Bernie's house, which would be Gus, 18 months or so, so?

Two years?

Two years, maybe, yeah.

Downtown Buda, which would be

three years,

four years, three years?

No, like closer to three.

Downtown Austin, which would be

three or four years.

We were in downtown Buda for three years.

But I didn't realize that.

Season three to five.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Like, I remember doing the table read for episode one of season three of Bernie's House, and then not long after we

saved it.

Not long after

we were downtown Buda.

So then downtown Austin for about three and a half years or so.

Then

Ralph Albanedo for five, maybe four, four years.

Then stage, well, Austin Film Studios, which I would break up into two parts, my stage five era and then my soundtrack era.

Stretch four.

That's what we were talking about.

He was like, what's your favorite era that you worked at?

And I said, well, stage five or stage four.

The hard part with stage four is that it never felt like it got off the ground because we were all remote.

Yeah.

I spent more time, I was there earlier than that because Achievement Hunter moved over there.

But that's right.

What was your favorite time?

So because they were all, they all had their own flavor.

They were all very distinct and unique periods for us.

We were different companies at each one of those junctures.

They're much nicer than me.

What I was going to say was, I have a different thing I hated about each other.

Oh, let's go to that.

I like that.

But it's, and when I say hate, it's more like, especially in the early days, it was the amount of work and the just being underwater all the time.

Oh

So it's like while I may have more fond memories of

Let's say downtown or Rafal Donato

I don't have as many fond memories of Al Blonedo.

Is that right?

It wasn't as good for me as it was for everybody else I think.

I like Al Blonedo.

But

there was always

like as much good times as I had it was always counterbalanced by the amount the sheer amount of work and just being overwhelmed with stuff.

I remember, I'm gonna, I'll say probably Ralph Albanado for me, just because we went through such explosive growth there.

Yeah, it was

fun to enter a building, be like, build it out for us, be like, this is way more space than we ever need, this is way too big, and then in the process of three or four years, outgrow it.

Be like, there's no space for anybody.

We went from being a

12-person company when we moved into Albanado, maybe?

10 or 12, somewhere on there.

To probably a

70 person company in that building.

And then it was so big we had to take the

annex over next door, like in that little business complex.

But so it was like, that was great.

There was a lot of growth, a lot of new things, a lot of very iconic things, Roosevelt happened there.

But there was so much work.

I remember when we hired Adam Baird in 2011, it was like April or May of 2011.

I don't think I sat at my desk for a year because I was constantly having to like run around and do different things.

Like I had a desk, but it's like it was, I like, I shared an office with Adam, but I don't think he ever saw me for the first time.

Yeah, just because I was just having to run around and do so much stuff non-stop.

Wow.

So that's why it's like it's a balance.

Like, I don't want it to come across like super negative.

Like, oh, I hated risk cheese.

It's just like there are fun memories, but it's also counterbalanced by the sheer amount of work and the stuff.

Remember, however, you want to remember.

I was just thinking about,

I don't know, all this shitty stuff

I've made peace with, I guess.

I don't know.

It's like all jobs suck.

The Army sucked too before this.

Telenetworks sucked.

So

I guess maybe I'm rose-colored glassesing it a bit.

But when I think back of it now, I just, I just feel kind of, I don't know.

I was just feeling really fond for the downtown office specifically.

And just thinking about how...

That was a period when we realized we could get bigger than we were.

Albaneto is where we experienced the explosion.

I would say stage five is where it was fully realized, for better or worse.

But downtown is where broadcast started, achievement hunter started, animation started.

I would say broadcasted Albanado.

Podcasting started downtown.

Yeah.

All of those different arms of the company, all the ad agency stuff.

Well, I guess that was going a little bit in Buda.

All that stuff kind of seeded there.

But it was also just an exciting period of time when we were small enough where everybody was still.

And this is the thing that I, this is when Roost Teeth got away from me, was when we got too big for everybody to work on everything.

Right?

And we were, that was the, we were at the maximum size we could be and still all participate in the same thing.

How do you, how do you mean everyone could work on everything?

Like, you're able to jump from projects or everyone got like more specialized?

It's like you had the flexibility.

You knew enough about the other shit, even if it wasn't 100% yours.

So like, even though, like, in the examples Jeff gave, like, I may have been editing the podcast and doing that as my primary focus, if I had to run out of town, someone else could fire up the editing software and do it themselves.

Yes.

Like, and

nothing was released by the company at that point in time that everybody in the company didn't have some sort of eyes on or purview.

of.

So it just like

it was inevitable that it would grow to such a size that the output would outpace our internal ability to view it all, right?

Or to touch it all.

But I just liked that period of time when I knew if we released a short or whatever, that everybody in the company was either participating in it in some way or

well-versed in it and believed in it and knew about it and like kind of checked off on it.

Even if you weren't in it, you'd read the script.

Right.

You'd give it a note or two.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, like, everybody had some sort of agency over everything.

You know,

I like that era.

I like, that's where we are.

Yeah, that's where we will stay with regulation.

We will never outlaw it.

Hopefully you have a working air conditioner, unlike that downtown office.

Oh, my God.

It broke a lot.

We're always having to have repair people out.

Downtown?

And the windows did not work.

They may as well have been open with how much air they let out.

It was flexi glass.

And it's like the sound would come in, and the cool air would go out, and the hot air would come in.

And it was, and with all those computers always running and rendering, it was an oven.

That place was fucking hot all summer.

I hated it.

Wow.

But it's weird, also, like Austin itself was also in a different place at that time because the dillows still ran.

And we could

take the dillos

if we wanted to go places.

The Whole Foods flagship downtown had just opened.

We'd go over there for lunch sometimes.

We'd take the dillows or walk around.

That was great.

That was a great time.

Yeah.

That was definitely the most fun I had with lunches back then.

Yeah.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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Uh

you know why we moved away from downtown eventually?

It wasn't the air conditioner that finally beat us down.

It was, I remember this very specifically.

Parking got so expensive that

we ended up paying more in parking than we paid in rent.

And Bernie was like, nope, I'm done.

I won't pay more in parking than rent.

And so that was it.

Also, we had ridiculously low rent.

We did.

We had ridiculously low rents.

We mentioned it before, but Jason found that place on Craigslist.

Really?

We rented it from the PETA pit.

We rented it from the restaurant downstairs.

Oh, that's crazy.

Because they only could use the first floor.

So

they had all this unusable space above them, so we rented it from there.

How many square feet was it?

It was $1,600?

Was it?

Okay, I don't remember.

Yeah, because

Al Donato, not Alonado, sorry.

Downtown Beato was like $850.

And it was a little more than twice that, I think.

So it was like maybe $1,700, $1,800.

Wow.

What was that?

So it was like one

big office in the back for editing, and there was an audio booth in it.

There was the bathroom and like little...

kitchen sink area, a long hallway that then came out into a bigger room where most of us sat.

There was a a big TV there, probably we had four or five people in that room, and then further back was the conference room, which actually faced the street, and that had like the big table in it.

I'll tell you what I remember about that place, too.

Really long,

annoying stairwell to get stuff up.

Oh, yeah.

Must have been brutal for them to move in.

Must have been brutal for them to have to move in.

Jeff was always in the middle of the day.

We just had this conversation.

There's a call back to a personal.

Oh, yeah.

We just talked about this the other day where we were talking about different offices or whatever.

And then we talked about conventions.

And he was saying, like, he's just never there for a move.

Never there.

It was always

a matter of time.

I got a convention I got to go do, guys.

Like the Green Dragon Con.

What am I supposed to do?

Like Anthony.

You want to go to PAX?

No.

Once a weekend we're moving.

I can go to PAX.

Like the great lyricist of the late 90s cake once said, you're never there.

Yeah, there was like a really long, narrow staircase up from the Peter Pit, like that went from inside the pita pit up to like the back into our hallway.

Yeah, for the long narrow staircase up from the front of the pita pit right that people would always try to walk into one thing I was proud of us for too is that back staircase would take you right down into the pita pit even after they were closed and so the owner was a cool dude and he was like hey man if you guys ever want to come down and get yourself some sodas or whatever you go right ahead and we all made the decision right then no never no

because once you corked once you uncorked that we were just gonna we would destroy that place yeah yeah so we were like no or also if something ever happened in that business,

there was some ambiguity.

So it's like, no, we're just.

I don't think anybody ever fucked with it.

We had a back entrance where we could enter via the alley that was through the Peter Pit up to our stairs.

I think if we ever used that door, it was like, don't deviate.

You just walk directly straight to our staircase and go up to get into the office.

Crazy.

Smart

responsible.

I still run into that guy every now and then.

Oh, really?

Yeah, he's a real lost.

I ran into him a couple years ago.

Nice dude.

Cool.

Yeah, he ran into Tim and his wife,

God, like a year ago, maybe?

Yeah, it was probably about a year ago.

And I mean, they run another business in town.

And

I ran into them when I went to that business, and I probably sat there and talked to them for like 45 minutes.

Oh, wow.

Super cool.

Yeah.

Wow.

You know me, I don't get along with anyone.

It's a very long time.

Yeah, they were, it was so nice to see them.

What was it like when you realized that you outgrew places or needed to go to another spot?

Was it a lot of like hemming and hawing, or was it pretty like, we got to do this thing?

I don't remember.

I don't know.

What do you think?

It was,

so

the decision was made, the decision that we needed to leave was quick.

The decision where to go was slow.

Is that right?

Yes.

It was brutal finding places.

Yeah.

Really, really difficult.

Is that just because of square footage and needs or what?

Right, it's like we had very specific needs for what we wanted.

And also, we want to try to minimize what our cost would be to do a build out.

Yeah.

So it's like you want to find kind of a blank slate or something that kind of checks a lot of boxes already.

And a lot of places you go to, they're just not configured for what we needed or they don't have the correct power.

We need a lot of power.

You can't get at the time high-speed internet here.

So it's like we had to

really narrow things down.

So we looked at tons of places.

And I mean, I think we were used to that even because we worked at the call center.

We looked at real estate a lot because when we were opening the San Marco Center, we had to find a place for it down there.

Then even in Austin, you know, we had to find a place to move it to because we outgrew the warehouse that we, when Jeff and I met that first

call center

location.

So we had to, we were familiar with looking for real estate and trying to find things.

And I feel like we looked at real estate, we looked at commercial real estate nonstop for probably 10 years, it felt like.

Yeah, there was a period of time, that's a good point, we were always kind of looking, even no matter where we were in Rouch Teeth, we were always kind of looking.

Even after we were in stage five and Austin Flint Studios, we were still looking.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a lot of space, but you saw how it really filled up.

Fills up fast.

I mean, fills up fast.

Doesn't empty as fast, apparently.

And then moving to stage four and everything, and those are like some ready-made offices and stuff like that.

And, but again, the pandemic just really kind of cut the legs out from under a lot that happened in, or that was going to happen, I think, in stage four.

Where do you put everyone?

Most people aren't there day to day.

Everyone's remote.

So many people are remote.

Even just being in Austin, still being remote.

I think, you know, a lot of work can be done remotely.

There's a lot of work that can't be, you know, especially in our field.

But what you can do remote, you should be able to,

you should do remote.

There's no reason.

I was telling Eric before, while you were ordering the cheese bread, like, I did a bunch of stinky dragon stuff this morning before I even came here.

Like, there's no reason for me to have an office to go to.

And that's the important thing, I think, when it's when you're, I don't like a thing where it's like, we're a hybrid thing.

You, you come in two days a week or whatever.

And it's like, if those aren't focused reasons for you to come in, then why are you doing that?

You're just going into checking a box.

You're going in a checkerbox.

And so the thing that we like, the thing I really like is 100%, we go in to record and do stuff.

And it's not just, hey, we're going to like hang out and figure it out.

We go with intention.

And it's the same thing with like regulation.

I'd love to go and do that the way that we did this morning.

The 15 minutes where the three of us were shooting the shit.

100% eat office were so productive.

For all of our businesses somehow.

And we had that.

That's what we had the conversation.

We're like, you look at me and you go, we got to get an office.

And you're right.

We do have to get an office because there's something that's lost.

So much of what we do is done remotely and can be and should be done remotely.

Our podcast is a podcast that is theater of the mind that needs to be done in the exact way it is done.

But a lot is lost, I think.

But I think it's about going in with intention.

If it's just a thing where it's like, hey, I want everyone to come in tomorrow.

And it's why.

And it's like, oh, I just want to get together.

It's like, that's not a good reason to do it.

Let's go in.

Justify the space.

Let's film these two things that we're going to do.

And then the time around that, that's the time to do the other stuff.

Yeah, we're looking for studio space right now for Stinky Dragon

just because, and we need it because we, like I said, we can do a lot of work remotely, but when it comes to like puppet production, we need a studio space.

We can't, like, we have a stopgap solution right now, which is where we're shooting in garages.

Flames garage is just gym equipment that all gets moved, and then puppets move in.

That's how Microsoft started.

Yeah, it's not sustainable.

Yeah, I said all the greats: Theranos, FTX, like you could run up here.

that's good um I've been working on a lot of InfoWars

and we could get the Infowars stuff now I keep I think Chris is the only person on board

like we need to be get we need to be looking oh no actually take it back I think Ben filled out the paperwork so we could look at the auction we talked about it for 100 Eat but in order we just want the desk and in order to get the desk you have to buy all the production rights and and like studio stuff and like broadcast pieces or whatever you can't just buy the desk and it's like i want that if you tuned into 100 Eat and just suddenly it's the InfoWars desk, best thing we've ever done.

That would be phenomenal.

And it's like, oh, that would be so cool.

Not happening.

I want it.

I will, for the life of me, never figured out how who the guy we would all get shit face drunk and make fun of on public access in our 20s turned out to have a media empire.

When you were backed by

competitive state money and

oligarchs in different nations, you can do do anything you want.

Hey, we're ready for this podcast.

We're ready to sell at one point.

I would love to try calling.

Oligarch me.

Yeah, we need a pivot.

Dude,

Hungary, Belarus.

Yeah.

Call us.

Victor Orbon.

Get me on the phone.

I will take your call.

I love the poll of Belarus.

It's such a good one.

It's one that people don't think about, but boy, it's

Minsk, Minsk, Minsk, Minsk.

Years ago,

talking about old Rush T stuff, I used to go to DICE, which is like a conference in Las Vegas where it's a very influential, a lot of video game people there.

Dude, it's so boring.

I went with you one year.

It's the most boring thing I've ever done.

But it's like,

so boring.

There's a lot of panels.

I think it's really interesting, but I can see.

But when you go there, they give you like an attendee directory.

And it's like every video game executive and their phone number and their email and how to get in touch with them.

And I remember one year I was there and because I was always going trying to meet people for RTX and trying to tell people about Roost Teeth Teeth and whatnot.

And it's when like World of Tanks was like really blowing up and really big.

And, you know, I'd see it's like, oh shit, like, that's the World of Tanks CEO over there talking with all those dudes.

And I'm like looking through the director, like, oh, are these people?

Like, oh, it's like all the executive people from World of Tanks.

Like, and I'm looking at the director, like, huh, they're all from Belarus, huh?

Okay.

Let me go over and try to talk to them.

Me.

I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go try to talk to them.

And I walked up and I, you know, interrupted their conversation, and I got the deathliest iciest scares i i felt scared like i was in danger to my core uh talking to them and uh like i you know i give them my card and then i remember like one of the executives reached into his pocket and like handed me back his card i was like all right uh anyway uh have a good show

um wow i was like it was uh it was really intimidating yeah talk to those people we used to work with someone who went on to work at world of tanks for a while they don't any longer and uh they stopped right before

the war in Ukraine.

I think he saw the writing on the wall and he went,

this maybe isn't going to be for me anymore.

I think I got to figure out, make some moves here, shift some gears.

It was really interesting because when you would eat lunch at DICE, it was almost like a high school cafeteria

where they would provide all the food and you would take your tray and be like, there's a situation of strangers.

There's like a big open room with a bunch of tables.

You go find strangers to sit at.

And I remember one year, I was like, I got to just go around.

Again, I was trying to meet people.

Like, oh, oh, I just saw a table.

I was like, okay, there's a round, there's an empty seat at this table.

I'm just going to sit here and see who I'm talking to.

So I sit down, and people are kind of already talking to each other.

And I'm looking around, like, oh, this is the Blizzard table.

That's Mike Moorhaim.

Oh, geez.

Ryan over there.

Wow.

That same year, the next day for lunch, I went to an empty table.

I was like, all right, I don't want to repeat that.

Like, I kind of stepped into the middle of someone else's conversation, sat down at an empty table, and then John Romero came and sat down next to him.

Oh, my God.

I was like, oh, cool.

This is the John Romero table.

What's up, homie?

But it was such a weird conference in that you could meet like every

person, like every known person in the game industry, like every public-facing person on top of like all the developers and people who worked on stuff.

It was like absolutely nuts.

It'd be like

constant,

hey man, I really love your work.

I love everything you did.

Not gonna make it weird.

Thank you for making stuff.

You didn't love that?

I will say, I think with the year we went,

we did get to see an interesting panel.

Was it Guilma de Toro and

Pen Gillette?

What the fuck?

No, it was Penjillette and Randy Duvall.

Randy Duvall.

Yeah.

Wow.

And it was.

Why?

Randy Pitchford.

His handle on Twitter is Duval Magic.

Oh!

You confuse me.

It's all, and then Gila de Toro was there too doing something else.

And it's all coming together while they were on a panel together.

Well, it was interesting.

The whole crux of it was how

that was a great panel, by the way, you're right.

Was how close-up magic and video game, video games can be very similar.

And that

you don't show everything to the recipient or to the person to be entertained up front.

It's like there's lots of stuff happening behind the scenes that they're unaware of that

you can give the illusion of choice to a player, but ultimately everything's kind of guided.

And the thing I learned in that was in listening to Penn Jillette was...

talking about close-up magic and card tricks was that when like a magician comes up to you and says like pick a card any card like they don't know what trick they're gonna do yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

This, like, the whole thing's, you know, you have some agency in it, and then they narrow down all the possible tricks depending on how everything is going.

And I thought that was really interesting.

There was another good one.

I don't know if you were there that year, where it was

Gabe Newell interviewing JJ Abrams.

No, I was like, oh, wow.

Yeah, like, that's the kind of panels you have at DICE.

It's like absolutely insane.

Right, right.

But those aren't all the panels you have at DICE.

No, no, no.

Those are like the headline ones.

Yeah, those are the good ones.

The good ones.

It's like Comic-Con.

It's like you got some headline panels at Comic-Con, and then you have some other stuff at Comic-Con where you go,

who is this for?

Goddamn right.

People talking about how to monetize podcasts.

Yeah.

You gotta have, what else are the sales guys going to do if not stand up in front of the crowd and go, we did it.

Gotta earn that paycheck.

Cracked the code.

We did it.

Just recently.

Where was the dice when you went?

Was that at the Mandalay Bay that one?

I don't know.

I don't remember where we were.

I'll be honest with you.

Vegas, all of my memories of Vegas are one memory.

They could all have taken place in the same room.

I know.

It's all compressed.

I couldn't tell you.

Yep.

Did you see the Tropicana got demolished?

I did see that.

I guess they're going to make a way for the A's stadium.

I think it's still going to be the A's in Vegas?

I think so.

I would assume so.

I mean,

they didn't change the name when they left Philadelphia and went to Oakland.

Are they technically the Sacramento A's right now?

I think so.

Do they change their name?

I don't think they're a child.

I think they're just the athletics.

Right, but I don't know.

I guess I hadn't thought about what they're going to do

in terms, because it's OAK is how they're always abbreviated.

When you're like Seattle SEA,

SDP Padres, whatever.

I don't know what they're going to do for

A apostrophe.

It'll probably be ATH,

athletics, which is dumb.

Yeah.

What if they're from Athens?

We don't know.

Could be from Athens.

Could be Athenian.

Yeah.

But I don't think they're going to be SAC.

I really don't think they're going to be Sacramento.

I don't think so.

Anyway, that'll be Manford's legacy.

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You coming over tonight?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gotta watch two teams I hate play each other in the World Series.

It's gotta be great for you.

Guys, you're more than welcome to come over watch baseball tonight.

I assume that you have anything else.

I've got no dog in that game.

No dog in that fight.

I thought he was gonna gonna say he has no dog at home tonight, so he wants to have the night alone.

I'm like, What are you talking about?

I like to hang out with a dog.

I do, man.

Dogs are a party, you know, dogs are a lot of work.

I think, yeah,

a tremendous amount of work.

Yeah, how's your dog going?

Shitley, or yeah, Shitley's a year old, puppy.

He's dumb as a box of rocks.

He's a bulldozer.

I go to his place, and I know I'm going to leave with like scratches, but I'm never upset because it's a puppy.

It's like, it's like being

mad at a kid for being a kid.

Being mad at a puppy for being a puppy is just like, wow, you're wasting your time.

But boy, he is like,

I think you talked about it, where he weighs 50 pounds.

Yeah.

Something like that.

And it makes you really realize.

It makes you really realize when it's like, I could fight a panther, whatever, and you just don't think about how much like that weight is coming at you at like full force.

I was thinking about it the other day because I read a fact that a wolf, there's a certain kind of wolf that lives in Canada is 150.

It's like they're semi-aquatic.

Weird.

Yeah.

They got kills.

They don't.

They just, they swim up to like five miles a day and they hunt in the water mostly.

They're on Vancouver Island, actually.

I was going to do a soul ride about it.

They're like

toast.

But they're like about 150 pounds.

So I think they're about 20 pounds lighter than the average wolf.

It's like 170, 175.

And I got just thinking about how like Albert is about 10 pounds under being able to overpower me over times.

And he's 58 pounds.

If we tacked on another 100 pounds, there'd be no way.

You'd be dead in five minutes.

You just don't think about...

You see the animal like the way it moves or whatever, and you don't think about about like the actual

physical like the force coming out as judge the came would say the musculature

oh brad

i uh i saw a photo a couple weeks ago uh you know people always say like oh you know dogs are like wolves and like you've got a husky like looks just like a wolf i saw a photo the other week of like a husky next to a wolf.

Yeah.

Tiny, tiny, tiny.

Tiny.

The wolf is massive.

It's like, oh, wolves are big.

You don't think about the difference between 100 pounds and 180 pounds until you see it in front of you and you go, that's a lot, that's a huge,

huge difference, gigantic.

And, you know, my dog's 20 pounds or whatever, and it's like, oh, that's great.

It's fun to have a little guy that's 20 pounds and I just kind of pick him up and put him somewhere and then he goes off and does whatever.

If I used to have a dog that was 110 pounds, he's a big chocolate lab.

He's like 110 pounds.

And he just put a paw in my chest and just like, you'd go, all right, and then go down.

Like, that's, there's nothing you could do.

That's, that's it.

And your dog's what?

210?

210 220

my saint bernard uh jupiter uh-huh at his healthiest was uh about 165 pounds

and he was like a sofa yeah you would just like you he if he was in a doorway you went a different way around the house yeah yeah

i had a friend that had a mastiff when i was in high school and it was just like

We you play with him and you try to like rough I'm 16 or whatever you're trying to rough house and you're like I'm gonna wrestle the dog and the dog sort of moves and then he just kind of like shucks you off and you go into a wall and you're like, Oh, I think I'm done playing with the dog.

Oh, no, the dog's done playing with you, yeah, no kidding, and it's like, man, crazy.

Your dog is how if I had to guess, your dog's eight pounds,

no, uh, 12.

Really?

Yeah, it's pretty close, that's pretty close.

That's like 50% more.

He's been bulking up, he's well, yeah, he's been working out, think about how dangerous he'd be if you put 100 pounds on him.

What if I was 112 pounds?

I'm only 100 pounds away from being really terrifying.

So,

that's a rounding error, really.

Stomping around.

Oh, man.

We're getting on.

Well, we're 40 minutes.

We got like a little bit of time still.

We are, this is episode seven, our eighth episode.

And we should talk about what it means for the future here to reiterate.

Oh, I forgot.

Because it's been a lot of time between when we've done these recordings and

when we're doing them now.

And we made a pact that if in the eighth episode, we will all say,

if we're going to continue this podcast.

And it all has to be yes.

And if there's all the passes.

It has to be a unanimous.

And if it's a no, then that's the end of it.

But it's an affable,

friendly end.

There's no hard feelings.

We end with a handshake or a hug

and good vibes from it.

There's nothing wrong with saying no.

And there's no peer pressure.

We're totally okay with whatever the answer is.

Have you guys been thinking about it at all?

I think about it constantly.

Really?

I forgot.

I think about it all the the time.

This is great.

Dichotomy.

Yeah.

I think about it a lot.

Yeah.

I think about him a lot.

Oh, wow.

Oh, interesting.

I know what his answer will be

eventually.

I just don't know when it's coming.

It'll be mid-season.

It's going to be episode three.

That's so exciting, dude.

The way you're putting that is so funny.

I know it will eventually...

There will be a no.

Yeah.

I'm not.

I know it's not me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

Eric may surprise you.

Yeah.

You guys say yes, yes, and I go, uh-uh.

Yeah, see when the Eric

ends our 23-year run.

I love it.

That would be the biggest heel move in the world.

Where it's just, it's an audience of people going, these are so great.

And it's awesome.

And you guys both say yes.

And I go, we're done here.

We just dined it.

Oh, man.

Are there other places?

We have one more episode.

Are there other places that you guys want to hit?

I think broadly, should number eight be a coffee or a not coffee episode?

It's tough.

I don't care either way.

I will say one thing I pitched to you guys that I would like to do

maybe next season if we don't do it.

If there is a next season and we don't do it, next episode was I really would like to walk rainy.

I think it would be a good idea.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I think that's a great idea.

I wonder if that's a little different.

Yeah.

And it's just like it's so...

Vertical.

Yeah.

Is there coffee over there?

Where would we get coffee?

It's got to be.

There's got to be a trailer or something.

Let me see.

Disgusting rainy street.

I've nothing we can go to.

Like the hotel dams.

Yeah, I was going to say that's probably like a hotel you get coffee at.

Let's see.

Oh,

there's...

Oh, Little Brother.

Oh, Little Brother.

Okay.

There's a, it's coffee there.

It opens at 5 p.m.

Why?

I don't know.

It opens?

It is closed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Opens at 5 p.m.

Friday.

Coffee shop.

That's what it's.

We'll figure it out.

That is insane.

There has to be other coffees.

Classic Little Brother movie.

There's a Coovie coffee that's down on East

that we can hit.

All right.

And then close enough.

Yeah, Hotel Van Sant's the other one that people are saying.

It's the only other one.

Hey, we've just identified a hole in the market.

That's crazy.

People who go to Rainy Street in the morning in the middle of the week.

The morning rainy street.

Well, when you pass out in the lawn of one of those bars what are you getting at 8 a.m man somebody somebody's uh shoveling you off onto the sidewalk you gotta you gotta get a bacon egg and cheese and a cup of coffee or else you getting it you gotta get we should have like a coffee cart you like push it around like an ice cream man like that yeah like the raspbas guy yeah oh that dog

and he's got his little bell and he's keep ringing it and he's pushing it that's good for coffee yeah but then no one wants just regular coffee so it's just got to be like lattes you just have to have like a lot of milk i think you just have to have like a little bit of coffee and like a lot of milk yeah and then everyone dresses like that.

Just fucking like Starbucks candor bottles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're gonna open it in the thing.

Yeah, yeah.

See, there you go.

Like a vendor in a baseball.

Don't worry, I got you.

$13.

Did you ever watch Nathan for you?

Yeah.

It makes me think of the episode where he builds the chili suit to sell chili illegal.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like it's all like bundled around him.

Fucking genius.

Saw somebody say that

if they were ever going to do a movie of a Ron DeSantis, that's who should play Ron DeSantis.

Nathan Fielder?

Nathan Fielder.

Because he has, it's like he's a malfunction robot that like can't quite smile.

He's like learning human emotions.

And it was like, damn, that's the meanest thing I've ever heard.

That's also so true.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

We should talk about Gaddy.

What did you guys think of this spot that wasn't Rockman because we didn't, Mega Man joke?

We didn't have the Milk Phone Blaster.

That's right.

Or we didn't go to Airman first.

Take your pick.

Those are the two ones that I ended up with.

Well, full disclosure, I come here occasionally.

Oh, dude.

This is one of my like rotating spots that I've been coming to work at out of.

So I like it.

I would give the iced coffee like a solid nine.

It was pretty, I have no complaints.

Pretty perfect.

And then the bread balls are like an amazing.

I want to clarify.

That's a cold brew, though, right?

That's a cold brew.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's different.

I don't

appreciate it, but like, I don't understand it fully.

Cold brew is the way it's steeped in room temperature or cold water.

You're not extracting like the tannins, the bitters.

You're just getting, you're like letting it steep like tea, like iced tea.

And then you're getting a lot of the coffee flavor without any of like the bitter notes.

It takes longer.

Iced coffee is just

coffee.

I can poured it in ice.

And then it goes, oh wow, that's so much water because of the ice.

And it's like, that's fine.

Here's more ice.

Diluted coffee.

That is the difference.

That's the difference.

This is really good.

It's a really excellent cup of coffee.

And I feel like it is highly caffeinated.

I'm flying.

I had one cup of coffee before we came here.

I drank a large.

I'm flying.

Why do you think I called Randy Pitchard Randy Duvall?

I cannot keep up.

My brain and my mouth are out of sync from how caffeinated this coffee is.

It's really good.

How do you feel about the bread balls?

The bread balls are really good.

That's amazing.

Yeah, they're good.

The banana bread was fine.

I thought it was kind of dry, but with a cup of coffee, that's all I'm looking for for a pastry.

It doesn't matter.

There's a, I don't know if you've ever seen it at the grocery store.

We had a lot of HEV talk when we'll start rolling.

Yeah.

But they have this product called Brazzie Bites in the frozen section.

And it's it's like frozen, uncooked cheesebread balls like this.

You pop them in the air fryer for like 10 minutes, you get this at home.

Oh.

Where are the, there's no frozen section?

It's like an orange bag.

It says Brazzy Bites.

I'll look for them.

Yeah, I always keep some.

Like B-R-A-Z-I bites or Brazil bites.

Yeah.

Watching baseball, eating cheesebread?

Dude, we should do that.

Get some of these for tonight.

We're going to hang out with our friend Berndog.

He's watched baseball.

He's familiar with it.

He wants to like it.

He wants to like it.

I like the idea of baseball.

Yeah.

He just doesn't have a team or anything there.

And it's like, oh, if we watch it together,

I think if you watch baseball by yourself,

especially on TV, it's difficult because it's a pastime.

You're supposed to be reading the news.

Like my dad would like to read.

That was a very passive experience.

My dad would read.

I remember being a kid, the Padres would be on TV.

My dad would read the newspaper.

Baseball would be on.

And he'd look, here's the pitch, and he'd look up and then he look back down and then read more of the newspaper.

And like, that's how he took in the games.

And when now, when I watch baseball, I'm on my phone, I'm doing something else, and baseball's on.

I think if you try to get into baseball, you think, I'm gonna put it like watching football, like where you put on baseball and you're just like, I'm locked in.

It's like, you're insane.

That's crazy.

I listen to most sports.

Yes.

Honestly, yeah.

Celtics, I focus on

every other basketball game, I'll just have it, I'll have it on in the background, and then you're like, oh, what was that?

And you look for

the fuck.

Yeah, especially now you can pause and rewind TV.

Not a big deal.

and we were talking about this i think on uh

before regulation or something

it's gotten so hard where normy stuff like sports which are like the most acceptable things in the world or whatever like my dad watches every sport whatever it's so hard to know where and when your team plays and what channel and not even what channel what streaming service where it is where it goes where you can see it Oh yeah, Apple has the Padres game this Friday.

My dad's like, how do I watch it on Apple?

He's like, is it on the, I'll listen to it on the radio?

Like, that is how far it's gone is that it's so, you can't do it anymore.

So he just goes, I'll just listen to it on the radio, which is why I don't want to add apps and food.

Yep.

It just, it's further deletes it and makes it more complicated.

You're, you're right.

I don't want another app.

Like a lot of the times when we do 100% eat and we need to order food ahead of time where you have to have like the rewards program thing or whatever, I always just go, hey, Michael, let me use your app because he has the apps for all of them.

Because he orders them all that it's him and

Lindsay and the kids and everything.

And it's like, oh, we're going to order this and we're going to get that.

And we're out and about and we're doing this.

They're like, all the time.

And he's like, oh, we got the Wendy's one.

Here's the Sonic one.

It's all this.

And it's like, great.

I don't have to download.

And I don't want to.

I never want to.

It's just like, try to be a fan of the NFL.

Yeah.

You got to have a fucking, you got to have live TV or Hulu or something with live TV.

Then hopefully you can get like red zone because that helps you make sense of it.

But then you got to have Peacock.

You got to have ESPN Plus.

You have to have Amazon.

Yeah.

Because it's everywhere.

And you got to be a detective to figure out where to watch it.

They have like once you, like I did with, like I mentioned the last episode, like I did with MLB this year.

Yes.

Subscribe to the channel.

Yeah, and accept.

And they don't.

You might have blackouts.

Uh-huh.

They will have blackouts on the Thursday night games, the Monday night games.

Or TNT.

It happens all the time.

It happens all the time.

Try to watch, try to be a fan of the fucking San Antonio Spurs in Austin, Texas.

And the thing.

Not that I would ever.

The thing.

Sorry, Nick.

Wow.

The thing about it is it sounds like complaining.

What I'm saying is, you break it down.

You can't, you have to get outside of your experience.

I know how to find stuff.

Yeah, that's fine.

I can do it.

I do it everything.

You have to get out of your experience and go, Mike, this is what my dad loves.

I talked to my dad on the phone yesterday for a while, and he was like, Hey, World Series, whatever, like, he doesn't care, whatever.

And then talk to him about the NFL, and he's like, it's like, I can't watch Thursday games, and all that, you know, it's like that kind of stuff.

And it's like, oh, it's so prohibitive now for the most

popular,

normy thing in the world.

The most accessible, easiest thing in the world.

It used to be the most accessible thing in the world, and now it's not.

But you say you have to break it down.

You have to break it down because it's broken.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

The system is broken.

It's become needlessly convoluted.

I agree.

It just shouldn't be.

No, give me one app, like MLB, and give me no blackouts.

Have you seen the video of Rob Manfred sitting in a box at like a Mariner's Game or something?

And this guy's filming him on his phone.

It's just like this distance.

And he goes, hey, Manfred.

And Manfred looks over at him and he goes, you want the youth?

Get rid of blackouts, you dumb shit.

And Manfred's going to...

And then Levinson turns to face.

It feels like such a hard.

But he's right.

It feels like such a holdover from a bygone era.

It is because it's a...

cable company restriction.

Right.

Yes.

It's a restriction of the money that live TV sports is bringing or whatever.

And boy, they're in the death throes.

They're in the death throes of this thing.

Just cut it off.

It's done.

It's dead.

My parents got rid of cable.

Yeah.

It like, I never thought I'd see the day.

Yeah, that's nuts.

They got rid of cable.

And it's like, man, that's wild.

There's just nothing there.

Just nothing there for them.

Nuts.

Yeah.

So I give this coffee like an 8.5.

I go with 8.5.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah.

Solid nine for me.

Good cup of coffee.

That'll do it for this episode of Good Morning, Gus.

Good morning, Gus.

Oh, yeah.

Whoa, wow.

If you find yourself here later in the day, check out their ice cream because that's what they are.

They have an ice cream place.

They have so much ice cream.

They have so many sweets and treats.

This is a cool little spot.

Yeah.

I think

Thai ice cream is what it is.

Very cool.

I love this place.

It's awesome.

It's pretty awesome.

Plus, we were able to sit here in the back and record.

You know, it's never been busy.

I was thinking about, I'm like, oh man, we should get up and walk around.

And it was just so nice.

It's so good here.

The weather's decent here in the shade.

Yeah, it's not too bad.

It's going to be what?

It's supposed to be 90 today.

I think so.

Yeah.

Well, we're almost done with that.

And we're almost done with this season.

Good morning, Gus.

Next episode, is it the final episode of this show forever?

Is it the final episode of the season of the series?

Soon to find out.

Black Officer Punch.

Hey, Manfred.

All right, guys.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.