FREE PREVIEW: Shift Notes Chapter 23: Know Your Enemy

Hi, everyone.

It's Joe.

Thank you all so much for listening to our season finale last week.

It was a great feeling to bring the season to an end.

It was a really huge season for us.

There were two additional episodes to the main show.

We were doing Young Leaf alongside it.

It was a lot, and we had a fantastic time.

And we were just really glad that all of you were there to hear it.

So we're in the hiatus now, and some of you may be a bit sad.

But if you are a subscriber on Apple Podcasts or if you're subscribed at the $5 level on our Patreon or on Supporting Cast, then for you, the hiatus is when the party starts.

We are in the middle of Hiatus Fest 2324 over on the, over, you know, in subscriber land.

And one of the things that's part of hiatus fest 2324 is Shift Notes.

Shift Notes is our hiatus show where myself and Finley and the occasional special guest will go episode by episode and just talk about what went into the show.

And we go on a lot of weird tangents, and we end up talking about a lot of things that have nothing to do with the show as well.

We have a really good time, and it's really just a way of us celebrating the show, but also celebrating the people who support the show because we talk about them a lot, and we read a lot of

questions from our subscribers.

And you know, we just have a great time.

And we wanted to show you a sample of that good time in case some of y'all wanted to come over there and join us this this hiatus for some fun times.

So what we've brought you is a sample free episode of Shift Notes.

This is going to be chapter 23,

Know Your Enemy, where we go through the episode and we go through a lot of other things too.

It's a lot of fun.

So if you would like to join us, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or at the $5 level on Patreon.

or supporting casts and you can find all of those links in the show notes for this episode.

So, hope you join us.

Would love to see you there.

And now, without further ado, here is Shift Notes, Chapter 23: Know Your Enemy.

All right, look, first off, I think we need to discuss your haircut.

All right, let's talk about it.

Okay, we need to talk about it.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Philly Stevenson went to the salon, okay?

Oh, wait, there, the salon, she got a new

sassy new haircut.

Okay, sassy new haircut.

And I want to say right now that the sassiness levels since the haircut have risen precipitously.

Oh, have they?

She's wearing her sassy pants on her head now.

Sassy pants.

And the sassiness, there's a lot of sassiness going on.

There's a lot of sassiness going on.

I mean, how could there be more than there usually is?

Oh, there is.

Because there's a lot of sass in here.

We've gone through the sassiness ceiling, and we've reached a new plane of existence now with the sassiness.

The sass plane?

Sass plane is where we are.

You know, speaking of sassiness,

subscriber Nellie, hi, Nelly.

Hi, Nelly.

Wrote in, commented

on the last episode that

I was a, quote, spicy kitten.

Yes.

In the last episode.

I saw that.

A spicy kitten.

Spicy kitten.

I've been called a lot of things.

Never that?

No one has ever called me a kitten of any kind.

I don't have cat energy.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I guess that's true.

You don't.

No, you have cat energy.

As you see every

compliment.

No, it's true.

You have cat energy.

Every morning, here's a, let's paint a picture for people.

Every morning,

there is

a literal blood sport that takes place in our home, okay?

Because Theo, the cat,

aka dragon cat.

The cat.

The dragon cat.

Is who loves to fight all the time with everything all the time.

He is a fighter.

Yes.

And now,

but this, I I'm, what I'm learning is that this is a learned behavior because you

fight with him and he bites you and you push him around and you grab his leg every morning.

Well, it is on.

It is the rumble in the jungle every morning

with the cat.

Well, listen.

First of all, are we not going to introduce the show we just started right off the bat?

Hello, everyone.

I'm Joe.

I am here with Finley Stevenson, my co-producer, Finley Stevenson.

Finally Stevenson, how are you?

I'm good.

I've sneezed a lot of times today.

Let me tell you about Finley Stevenson's sneezing.

Everyone, let's go deep into

our little lives.

It's not a sneeze.

You know, a lot of people sneeze, they go, achu.

There's a lot of, there's a world of sneezes out there.

Yeah.

There are people who hold it all inside and they just kind of go, youop.

Yeah.

Right?

There's those sneezes.

And then there are people who sneeze and it's just like a loud ka-cha

that rings out across the Alps.

Okay.

Echoes.

Right.

The only way, the only word I think I could use to describe your sneezing is sort of a cluster bomb of sneezes.

It just kind of goes like,

okay.

Listener?

No, that's you sneezing.

It doesn't sound anything like that.

It really does.

It really, really does it's it's i i i mean you do okay what is your description of your sneezing well it's very big it is a lot

but what did you do

what is that that's like a flat tire noise that's no it's not a flat tire i'm sorry well i'm you know i i can't possibly mimic the unearthly noise that uh that happens when you sneeze it's true it's surprising every time it is always surprising like i have heard it many many times.

And every time I hear it, I'm like, Jesus Christ.

That's not a human body noise.

That's some other noise.

What's funny is that when I cough, like my little coughs that you edit out

everything all the time.

Yeah.

People bless me for that.

Like, they think it's a sneeze.

They say bless you all the time.

Right.

And when I sneeze, no one says anything.

Yes, they call the paramedics.

It's like, Jesus Christ, this woman's exploding.

Get clear, everyone, they say.

Yeah.

So that happened a lot of times today, and,

you know, you can hear it in my nose and in my throat.

So sorry, everyone.

You sound great.

And I will say, though, like, when you explode,

when you do the exploding sneeze.

When I explease?

When you explease.

Because some people like, the people who hold it it in, the people who are like,

you know,

I worry about them because I'm like, that needs to go somewhere.

And you're not letting it go somewhere.

Yeah, I used to try to do that.

And like,

I literally, my ears pop.

So I just.

That's how Finley lost her spleen, everyone.

She had to have her spleen removed.

Right out my nose.

Sneeze back.

Sneeze back up.

Yeah.

Anyway, when you do sneeze, it feels like, okay, good.

I'm glad whatever that was got out of your body because it was in there.

Yeah.

And it needed to get out of there.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

Like a,

you know, like a possession.

It feels pretty good.

The power of Christ compels you.

It feels pretty good.

So

the cat and the fighting and it being a learned behavior.

It is a learned behavior.

I found

my little kitten.

Yes, you did.

in the middle of the street yeah during rush hour yeah

during a rainstorm rainstorm

and i like i thought he was a leaf like a little branch that had fallen until he lifted his head and turned it and i was like

right this is my kitten now but um

I think probably the mama cat was running across the street and dropped him.

Yeah.

And he was too young to be separated from the mama cat, but I could not find the mama cat.

So I became the mama cat.

But what is hard with that is that he did not get socialized

by a mother kitten who teaches the cat what

level of biting

and fighting behavior is acceptable.

Right.

And so I tried to discourage the fighting for a while until it became the only way he would play with me.

And so

now I just play with him back and usually have scratches all up and down my arms.

Yes, because it's not normal cat playing.

He is playing to win.

Sometimes you won't even be playing with him.

He'll run up to you and just bite the shit out of you.

Oh, yeah.

He'll just bite your arm.

Yep.

That's what he does.

Yes.

Violence.

Sometimes.

Every morning violence.

Yeah, sometimes it happens like in the middle of the night and in the middle of the night in the dark in my room.

It's not a game.

He is trying to kill me.

Yeah.

It is.

It's like, you know, well, I mean, it is what it is.

I mean, there's no way we can't undo this behavior now.

I tried and it didn't work.

He's an adult.

Yeah.

And so are you.

And you guys are just that you're just in it now.

And

this is the relationship.

Yep.

You know?

Yeah.

Also, I love him.

He's the best.

He's great.

And I will say that he is great.

He is also very, very violent.

He's very sharp.

Very sharp, very violent.

Yeah.

Always trying to pick a fight with everyone all the time.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like he hates me.

I'm walking up the stairs.

He's trying to pick a fight with me.

Uh-huh.

You know?

He hates legs.

Yeah, I've never had a cat before that rips and tears with his teeth.

He doesn't just bite.

He'll like try and literally rend the flesh from your body.

Or the pants, like whatever he has a hold of.

He'll just try and rip it.

He's torn holes in our comforters.

Socks.

Socks.

Pants.

Skin.

But again, he's great.

The best.

Yellow.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, it's Shift Notes.

Shift Notes.

Hello.

I want to wish a very happy

Iceland exploding Eve to all who celebrate.

Damn, I've been been watching that.

I've been knee-deep in the Iceland footage

all day today.

I've got the live cam up.

Oh, you do?

How's it going?

It looks, everything looks like, well, here's what's happening right now.

As of this taping, as of this taping, honey.

Yes.

The earthquakes have died down.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

And you would think, great.

Earthquakes are bad.

But what that means is there's more pressure building up.

Pressure.

And so, yeah, it's going to, anytime now, there's going to be, it's going to just kerplode, right?

I will say, though, good news is that it looks like less likely that it's going to be an eruption underwater.

Okay.

Because apparently underwater eruptions are bad because they're more explosive when they're underwater.

Okay.

So that's good.

So no tsunami for Iceland?

No tsunami for Iceland.

Okay.

And

so I had to say, like, I'm watching this footage of people being interviewed in Iceland, and it's like

they're so calm about what is happening right now.

Just watching these people, like, how?

You know, like, if I was in that situation, it would be like, looking Bill Paxton in Aliens.

You know, I would be like, game over, man.

Yeah.

Game over.

You would.

It's true.

But they're incredibly calm.

And I'd be like.

Very Icelandic.

You'd be like them about it.

Right.

You'd be very Icelandic about it.

Right.

Because these are your people.

They are my people.

The northern ice people.

The Norderlander.

Yes.

Anyway, I don't know that we don't have any subscribers in Iceland, but

if you can hear this,

you're great and you're doing a great job.

And I'm so sorry that your country, about every 15 years, decides to shoot hot magma

at you.

There is an upside to this.

There's an upside to this.

We want to accentuate the positive.

I mean, you know, the positive aspects of the entire nation curploding.

And that is, of course, if it does explode and there's a massive ash cloud, it will cover vast parts of the earth

and

it will make the weather really cool for like

in an otherworldly way for like a year.

And you know what that means?

New Frankenstein.

What?

See, what happened was in 1815,

a volcano in Indonesia exploded.

Okay.

Kataplum.

Kataplum.

And the ash cloud was so huge that it made the weather cool basically throughout the earth.

Okay.

The whole earth.

And it was called, yeah, the whole earth.

It was called the year without a summer because the summer was very cloudy and it was very cool and it was very

and made it made the winter even more bananas crazy, right?

And it was in that cold, cold, cold, dark winter that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, the first draft of Frankenstein.

Amazing.

So new Frankenstein.

Awesome.

I mean, listen, you guys.

I don't condone

Joe talking about the upside of a terrible, terrible situation that's happening.

Trying to put a good spin on it.

I mean...

Trying to spin this thing.

It might be a little too soon.

PR.

Yeah, don't PR Iceland.

They don't need it.

They're fucking Iceland.

You know what I mean?

I won't.

But a new Frankenstein would be dope.

You guys, have you ever read that book?

It is so scary.

He was dead and then he was alive again.

Yeah.

Anyway,

yes, Iceland,

we hope you're doing okay.

You seem to be doing okay.

It seems very well organized and they've had a lot of

warnings.

A lot of men.

They have it together over there.

They've got it together.

They've evacuated the town, and now they're just kind of doing this weird waiting.

I mean, America would be like.

Dude, I don't even want to.

I can't even.

Completely.

The refusenics would be the great ones.

It's just like, it's a conspiracy.

There's no such thing as a volcano.

Volcanoes, you know, George Bush did volcano 9-11.

It would just be a lot of that all the time.

Oof.

So they've got a good head on their shoulders and they're going to be okay.

I'm just going to keep watching this live cam.

You know what I mean?

I do.

It made me think.

So, as you know, for one of these invisible book projects.

Yes.

Yes.

Many invisible books.

I had an audition this week that required a Scandinavian accent.

And so I spent a lot of time

researching

various Scandinavian countries and accents and all of this.

At one point, she walked out in Laterhosen.

I was like, what do you, what is what's happening right now?

Okay, so that's German.

There's no Laterhausen in the northern, and then in the with the Nords.

They don't have any version of that.

There might be, but I don't think they'd call it that because that's German.

Anyway.

So I've been in, you know,

a Scandinavian rabbit hole for a few days now.

Yes.

How do you say ra how do you say rabbit in Swedish?

In Swedish, it's canin.

A canin hole.

Which sounds dirty.

I don't know why.

And then all of this stuff with the earthquakes and the volcano and all of that started happening.

Yes.

Then it made me start thinking about because this book has a lot of Viking energy and whatever.

So I'm like,

Vikings

plus volcanoes?

Yeah.

It never occurred to me that there may be some volcanic activity because Iceland is like right there in the middle of Viking territory.

Yeah.

And like how fucking metal

would a Viking volcano be?

Viking volcanoes would be very metal, yeah, for sure.

Like they just load up their drakar ship thingies, and like, they're

flying out on the lava foes.

I mean, listen.

Yeah.

It's very Valhalla.

Yeah,

strong Valhalla vibes with the volcanoes.

Right?

Anyway, I just, it had never occurred to me before.

Because I always forget that there's volcanoes up there, you know?

Yeah, there's volcano.

Something like this happens.

Anyway, what a...

Welcome to Scandinavian news, everybody.

We're talking about all things Viking and Scandinavian.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, here we are at Shift Notes.

Let's

hi, Shift Notes for the third time.

This is the third time we've introduced Shift Notes.

Welcome.

Now we get to pick which opening we do.

Right.

Hello.

The answer is all three.

We had to shut down the night breakfast here.

Yeah, you guys.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I mean, you know, it's going to be fine.

But yeah, there were so many people and more.

And, you know, the sign-ups on the night breakfast were not were keeping a pace

and so we had to like temporarily take it off the

you know take it off the secret menu because there's too many list because of the list because of the list of names that they we have to that I have to incorporate yes in all the scripts once I get it down to a reasonable number we can open it back up again.

But

thank you to all the people to everyone who's signed up for that tier.

That's crazy.

Amazing.

Don't give up on us.

No, don't give up on us.

Yeah,

it's, you know, scripts are being written right now.

Names are going in.

You know, things are happening.

Everything's going to be okay.

But yeah, it's, you know, we did not

think scale when we were doing these tiers.

No.

Scale was not what came to mind.

You know what I mean?

We figured, yeah, maybe there'll be like 20 people in the Monte Cristo tier.

Maybe there'll be like three or four.

You know, our family members.

Yeah, our family members.

Anyway, but it's so great.

And it's, you know what?

I mean, it's a huge challenge.

Some are more challenging than others.

I'm looking at you, Sherbert aggressive.

Okay,

some are more challenging than others, but it is fun to do, and it is fun to like see people's reaction.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, you know, it's a great thing, but we, you know, we do just to be responsible about it, we're gonna have to like just press pause on the night breakfast here, yes, for the time being.

And uh, so we are here today,

we're talking about chapter 23.

Yes.

Know your enemy.

Yes.

The time travel show.

You know, Clementine's wild ride through everyone's backstory.

Uh-huh.

It's going to be a good time.

But before we do that, before we do that, here's what I want to do

follow-ups and questions before we do the show now.

Because

when we did follow-ups and questions after the show,

last time, I was very tired.

So let's do them now.

Okay.

Let's dive in.

Let's go.

Some follow-ups on Veggie Tales.

Okay.

Last time we were talking about Veggie Tales.

Ty has written, he's given a lot of great information about Veggie Tales.

Ty says a couple of interesting things.

The Christian right hates, several A's, hates Paul Vischer these days for being decidedly anti-Trump and pro-BLM, etc.

So he is now excommunicate and anathema

to the Christian right now, which is interesting.

Is that wrong that it makes me like him more?

I don't know.

I mean, it just, it is what it is.

But, you know, there's

internal strife.

When did hate become such a strong Christian value?

Ty also says, Finlay asked, at one point, you said, what would Jesus do?

Right?

The fun thing about that is that it didn't start with wristbands in the 90s.

That question was popularized by an early 20th century novel called In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, a Christian socialist.

The answer to that question is essentially, give up all your money, wealth, and property and give it to the poor.

I mean, that is what Jesus would do.

That is literally what Jesus would do.

Because Jesus was a socialist and a liberal.

And

I'm sure everyone did that.

When he wrote this book, when Charles Sheldon wrote this book, I'm sure everybody gave up all their money and wealth and property and gave it to the poor.

When was it written again?

Early 20th century.

Okay.

Not a period of economic inequality at all.

The early 20th century.

Everything was fine.

No.

Anyway, thank you for writing in Ty.

Oh, Ty also adds, he said that he liked my take on Lazarus.

Okay.

Which was essentially, oh, no, he died.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

He also said he also has

a funny resurrection story.

And I didn't know this one.

This is a new one for me.

Okay, so the funniest resurrection story in the New Testament is in Acts 20.

Paul is preaching and talking for such a long-ass time that

Eutychus, a young man, falls asleep.

And he then falls out a three-story window and dies.

Whoa.

Everyone runs outside.

Okay.

Paul picks him up and says, he's alive.

And Eutychus is fine.

Paul has some bread, and then he goes back in and continues his talk.

Bro really wanted to get through his TED talk.

Jeez, that's wow.

So the reaction was essentially like, you know, like when you're at a concert and somebody faints.

Uh-huh.

And like the person goes in the crowd and is like, let's get some paramedics over here.

Everything's going to be fine.

Right.

It was that level of urgency, but a dead person.

Yeah.

Basically.

And Paul was just like, live.

And he did.

And like, everything's fine.

Oh, wow.

I'd love it if people started being like, let's all jump off the third story.

Woo!

Resurrection fest.

Please fall asleep responsibly.

With a pillow.

With a pillow.

Not a sidewalk down below.

Anyway, Ty, thank you for writing in for

a funny resurrection story.

Not a lot of them are funny.

That's true.

That's true.

It's good to know that there's some funny ones out there.

Amy also writes in about Veggie Tales.

My kids loved Veggie Tales in the late 90s, but it was the songs they loved, not the Bible stories.

The hairbrush song and the SUV SUV song were sung constantly.

And we should say this.

It wasn't all Jesus stories.

There were just like goofball nonsense songs for children.

Like Rafi style that were also part of Veggie Tales.

So we should say that.

It wasn't all vegetables being Bible characters.

Okay, we have more on this category that I've called the CERN Betrayal.

The CERN Betrayal.

No, you guys.

Lucrezia writes in.

Lucrezia's back.

Hi, Lucrezia.

Hi, Hi, Lucrezia.

Lucrezia says, I know it's not the same as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, but I can still give you a wonderful behind-the-scenes tour of the Virgo Interferometer, the observatory that detects gravitational waves near Pisa, Italy.

Let's go!

I've been there several times and know some of the people who work there.

Admittedly, I left Italy for Berlin more than a decade ago, but

the Virgo Center is less than 10 kilometers from the town where I was born and where my parents still live.

So I'm around a couple of times a year anyway, and I know the area like the back of my hand.

And since there is a lot of talk about gravitational waves in the podcast, I'd love to officially invite you to a tour of the place.

Who knows?

The scientists there might have even hung Modigliani's portrait of Clementine in the lobby.

Oh, by the way, last time I forgot to comment, but I love the fact that you chose my name to replace swear words.

Yeah.

I feel like I have made it in life.

It couldn't possibly get any better than this.

I peaked Flame Emoji.

If we get to go there and get a tour and like

use their name as a swear word in front of them, maybe that would top it.

Let's go to Italy.

Let's go.

How hilarious would it be to go to Italy and do that?

I think this video was like, oh, I went to Positano and we had something by the sea or whatever.

And, you know, and says, what'd you do in Italy?

Well, we went to the...

We went to the gravitational wave design.

Science is what we did.

I hear this passage from Lucrezia, and I'm reminded that I am,

like, on our Discord, I am the least interesting person on our Discord, like for sure.

I just don't think that's true.

I know, it's definitely true.

We make things that people listen to while they are doing way more interesting things than we are.

That's basically facts.

Yeah, that's for facts.

Anyway, thank you, Lucrezia.

It's great to hear from you.

Hello.

Yes.

I love that invitation.

Let's do it.

So, on our way to CERN.

On the topic of the Roman Empire, now I was informed in our last episode that I should be thinking about the Roman Empire every day.

To which I say,

no, I should not be doing that.

But apparently a lot of that's going around.

Eliza writes in, hi, Eliza.

Hello.

Eliza says, hi.

Finley, as soon as you asked Joe about the Roman Empire, I paused and asked my husband if he thinks about it and how often.

And he said, a lot lately, because there is a new theory going around that the Roman Empire never really fell.

It just turned into the Catholic Church, which makes sense with the wealth and art and knowledge that is held by the Catholic Church.

Huh.

And then she, and then Eliza adds, anyway, when Joe was pissed that you

had a way to go to CERN, it was reminiscent of Ava and Casper arguing.

Starry Eye emoji.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Eliza then adds, please get a cat, cat emoji.

Yes!

No.

One for Carl Sagan.

Yes.

Anyway, that is interesting.

I guess people are just out there

thinking about the Roman Empire.

They're just thinking about it.

We were talking about this.

We were talking about this on the balcony last night because we were trying to revisit the topic, trying to figure out why the hell people are thinking about

whoever in the Roman Empire.

Yeah.

And I want to say, first of all, here's something.

Here's something that I didn't talk about on the balcony.

Which part of the Roman Empire?

We talked about the Pax Romana?

We're talking about the later, we're talking about the Roman Catholic years?

I mean, it did last a while.

We're talking about the beginnings?

We're talking about several hundred years here.

I mean, yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

There was a lot.

We were talking about the fact last night on the balcony.

We were talking about the fact that the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire has bro energy.

There is bro energy in the Roman Empire, and that is why dudes are thinking about it.

Because I don't know what it is about the bro energy, but there's a there's a there are bro, there are very definitive and real bro vibes.

Yeah, it's very like

fraternity,

pride, plus hazing.

Like it's got all of that.

Yes.

And I think maybe that's why.

Does that mean you have I mean you don't have a lot of bro energy, honey?

I don't think I do have a lot of bro energy.

Have you ever seen me like bro out with someone?

No, I have not.

You've never seen me exude any sort of bro energy.

No.

Right?

Never.

It's true.

Which is crazy because I literally have a brother.

And even with my brother, I do not have bro energy.

I have seen you together, and if there is anyone in the world that has less bro energy than you, it is your brother.

It is my brother, yes.

Yeah.

Anyway, it's going to remain a mystery to me.

I guess people are just going to keep thinking about the Roman Empire.

Maybe they'll move on one day to, I don't know,

something else to think about.

I don't know.

David writes in,

no cats, four exclamation points.

David.

And at first, I was like, yes, finally, an ally.

But then, right after that, he writes, Leaf needs a talking dog for exclamation points.

No, that's not helping.

Same problem.

Leaf

missed out on the childhood puppy dog.

Okay.

All right, we got some questions.

Yeah, let's go.

Question from Lattice.

My question is, Finley.

Yes.

What's your favorite Yarnomancy project you've got going or planning?

Now, folks, what Yarnomancy is, there is a channel on our Discord called Yarnomancy

where people may share the various goings-on in the yarn arts.

Right.

Okay.

And Finley is a yarn person.

It was your idea to create the Yarn Omancy channel.

We created the channel.

Turns out, all people are just out there yarning it up.

Yarning it up.

It's been a pleasant surprise for a lot of people.

Yeah.

Because

yarn and podcast listening do kind of go hand in hand.

Sure.

So that's understandable.

Yeah.

So,

what have you got going on?

What's happening?

What are you doing?

Well, I would like for you

to describe for the kids what is about to happen.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Okay, she's lifting up a thing, and it looks like a tiny yellow.

She's literally knitting right now.

So she just raised her hands up.

I'll do it.

I feel like people know that.

I feel like people will expect some knitting from you while we are doing shift notes.

That's kind of like a shift notes activity.

Okay, well.

Is knitting.

It should be.

So you're knitting right now.

What are you knitting right now?

Well, if you will notice, there are three needles involved instead of two.

Because I am.

How does that?

What do you call that when you use three needles?

I call it knitting.

I don't know.

I didn't know if it was some other thing.

No, it's still knitting.

It's just how you do it in a circle.

Oh, you're doing something in a circle.

Yes, so I am making

little puffy hexagons.

So it's making little puffy hexagons.

It's a little hexagon that is open, so it's basically like two flat hexagons, but knitted in the round, and then I'm stuffing it with stuffing to make them puffy.

Okay.

This is going to go really well because this is all visual, what I'm doing, and this is an audio medium, but

okay, so you're making...

What are you making?

Okay.

Hang on.

So when you're done.

Okay, she's now reaching into her bag of holding.

They look like this.

She's feeling...

Oh, it's literally a little...

Is it a...

Is it a...

It's just a little...

It's like a tiny pillow.

It is like a tiny little hexagon-shaped pillow.

It's a hexagon-shaped pillow that you've knitted.

It's about the size of, I want to say, your palm.

Yeah, that's right.

About the size of your palm.

The palm of my hand.

And then, and how many of the...

You have several of these now.

Okay, this is like a Voltron thing.

You're going to combine these at one point.

So I have a bag full of them.

There's the you have a bag full of tiny

hexagons but it's a lot it's more than 20 and what do you combine them into a blanket

so they are basically kind of like it's going to be like a honeycomb shape so you put okay the hexagons together i see as if they are puzzle pieces right

and eventually that will make a gigantic blanket of the tiny

puffy quilt

making a puffy quilt type knitted puffy quilt thing.

Yeah, it may turn into like a baby's play mat because it might be like too thick for

okay.

So this is gonna be baby sized.

This is not for an adult.

Well, I don't know because I just keep making these little puffy hexes.

Okay.

So we'll see how many I end up with.

Well, that's very exciting.

But it is, let me see if I can find the name of the pattern.

In case anybody wants to look it up, this version is called the Apiary Puff.

Puff.

The Apiary Puff.

Okay.

But the initial one that started me, where is this?

The Beekeeper's Quilt.

Beekeeper's Quilt.

The Beekeeper's Quilt.

Okay.

By Tiny Owl Knits.

It is super cute.

All right.

You make a lot of these little hexipuffs, and then you

join them together, and they make, it looks like a little honeycomb.

Well, that sounds delightful and I'm very excited thank you for asking

you know what I like about that is that like I think the thing about knitting is that like I would be knitting and knitting in my mind in my in my knitting mind I'm knitting and knitting and it's just like God it's still not done but with something like this it's like you kind of finish something yeah almost every day you make a tiny puff and I'm gonna

make probably three today so far right exactly and it's like you have a sense of completion even though the thing's not done you have that sort of it like breaks it up into tiny senses of completion.

I think that's good.

Yeah, it's nice.

I would be into that.

It is nice.

That's very exciting.

Please keep us updated.

Okay.

All right.

This is a two-part question from Lattice.

All right.

Joe,

with fall here, what's the garden plans?

Are you able to keep it with your weather, or is there a tentative truce with the gophers

for a few months?

First of all,

what's fall?

Yeah, first of all, what is this fall you speak of?

Because we are in Southern California.

Everyone

has been dying to know what's going on.

Gopher Update.

That's the Gopher.

Gopher update, right?

Let's hear it.

When last we spoke about the Gophers...

This Gopher better still be alive.

I had a grand plan.

Do you recall my grand plan?

Well, you tried to like Sonic sound them out with the...

Yes, and that did not work.

That was a sham, right?

Yes.

So then you you started to plant decoy potatoes go for potatoes go for potatoes for them go for potatoes to eat so they'd leave the rest of your stuff alone how did that go let me let me tell you how that went i am pretty certain now that the decoy potatoes aka rodeo clown potatoes

have worked yeah

i think so because the attacks diminished

There's a garden box wherein the potatoes live.

I leave them alone.

I water them.

The sprouts come up.

They die off.

They come up.

They die off.

There's just potatoes living in there, living their lives.

And I'm pretty sure, but every once in a while, around that particular box, you'll see a little gopher pile.

Okay.

Gopher pile is like the dirt that it kicks up when it's digging.

Gopher pile.

Gopher pile.

And

I see them around that box, but nowhere else in the garden.

So I actually think that the hare brain scheme of the decoy potatoes has worked.

That is amazing.

So when we spoke about this,

we also talked about how you cannot grow potatoes in Southern California.

So

how are both of these things true?

Okay, you can grow potatoes in the potatoes.

I know.

You showed me one one time, and it was literally the size of

an MM.

Yes.

I believe you called it a potito.

I did call it a potito.

I'm pretty proud of that.

It's true.

You can't grow a potato in Southern California that like tastes good and it tastes how a potato is supposed to taste.

Gophers don't give a shit how it tastes.

They just want the starch and they want the carbohydrates of the potato.

I mean.

Right?

Yeah.

And so I've got the decoy potatoes there.

They're not, you know, you would never serve them.

at Thanksgiving or whatever,

but they are good for a gopher to eat, apparently.

They're getting it done.

Apparently, the decoy potatoes are working and it's very exciting.

Now, of course, in any epic tale,

when one problem is solved, a new evil arises.

Yes.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Now, another thing that I had going on this summer was aerial squash, sky squash.

Okay.

I had

trombo trumbo trombocino trombocino

is how you squash

called trombuccino because like a trombone they're really long and they

climb up and then they hang down.

And they just keep getting longer.

Yes, I brought one in that was over three feet long, I believe.

It tastes at one point.

Disgusting.

Sadly, yeah, the first tragedy was that turns out Finley does not like trombuccino squash.

And of course, that made them all grow like gangbusters crazy.

Like I was swimming in trombuccino.

And so that was unfortunate.

But then what happened is that one day I arrived in the garden and

the squashes were being gnawed upon

by something.

Yeah.

Something

was

eating the squash way up high on the trellis.

Yes.

Right?

And this trellis goes over an entire area of the garden.

So it had all kinds of hangy-downy squash, all of them being nibbled at by something.

A new threat.

And this, what this could only mean is, is, of course,

sky gophers.

The gophers have now gone

have now gone aerial.

They are wearing tiny leather caps with goggles.

They've climbed into dirigibles.

Honey.

And

they're zooming in like the red baron.

And

they're eating the squash now in the sky.

Sky gophers.

Honey.

Don't be ridiculous.

They're in the sky.

They're airborne.

Are there teeth?

Sky gophers are airborne.

On the squash.

There's not like...

Oh, yes.

It's not pecked.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

It's not birds.

It's definitely like

its teeth.

Well.

Like, they are being gnawed on.

Okay.

Sky gophers.

All right.

They've evolved.

I will believe it when I see it.

Anyway, that was a problem.

There's some sort of aerial

varmint.

Varmint.

That

is eating

the sky squash.

Did I say varmint?

I think he is.

Sorry.

Varmint.

I have an aerial varmint problem, but I really don't because, as it turns out, Finley Stevenson does not like the hangy-downy giant squash anyway, so it doesn't matter, so I won't be growing those.

I mean, I really tried, you guys.

I really tried.

And the thing that is kind of cool about these is that, like, first they seem like maybe a summer squash.

and

that

was

you did not like that bird i could eat it though i ate it

yes and then you were like hmm well maybe we'll just leave it growing and see what happens and what happens is that it it keeps going and it gets real long but then it kind of turns winter squashy Yes, so it gets long enough and then it starts to turn basically beige.

And once it turns beige, then it's a winter squashy.

It's really bad.

And I, no, you're wrong.

It tastes great if you like winter squash.

You don't like winter squash.

I do not care about it.

I like winter squash, and I tried it, and I ate it, and it was great.

You liked it?

Okay, that's great.

If so, if you like winter squash, you can have winter squash in the summer with your trombuccino squash.

That's all I'm saying.

Good night, everybody.

You're welcome.

Getting back to Lattice's question.

Go for it.

Plan.

It worked.

The plan is that, you know what the plan is?

The plan is up up in the air because the weather has been so weird in Los Angeles.

Yeah.

It's been weird weather in Los Angeles.

It was a mild summer, a cloudy spring, and then suddenly we had a heat wave in October.

Everything is, I don't know what the hell's going on.

So everyone's kind of improving right now.

I'm getting together with Victor and Arsen, my garden neighbors.

I'm basically flanked by two Syrian senior citizens at the garden.

Nice.

We get together.

We complain about things.

We complain about the weather.

We complain about how it's been weird.

Complain about the gophers.

Victor does not complain about the gophers.

So we're all kind of winging it.

I planted radishes today.

We'll see how that goes.

That usually goes pretty well.

I'll be trying some like purple broccoli.

Yes, purple broccoli.

And, you know, some lettuce, things like that.

We're going to see what happens.

I don't know what's going to happen this winter because everything is just, because the weather's been so weird.

We're all just kind of winging it.

So

jazz, it's like jazz improv gardening this winter is what I'm doing.

All right.

Thank you for the question, Lattice.

Yes.

Judah writes in.

Okay.

Hey, Judah.

Hey.

Hi, Judah.

Hey, Judah.

Now, this is unfortunate.

Will you be covering young Lafe on shift notes?

I personally would love to see your behind-the-scenes thoughts on it.

Judah, I wish.

We had the time to do that.

I just don't think we have the time to do it.

Because what we're doing during the hiatus, during hiatus fest 23, 23-24, get your t-shirts now,

um, is that we're doing shift notes and at the same time getting ready for season four coming in March

and

adding another thing to that.

I just, I just don't know if we have the bandwidth to do it, which is a shame because that would be super fun to talk about it.

It would be fun,

but it's a, it's another one of those questions where it's like we just, I just don't know if we have the time to to fit it all in.

Um,

you never know maybe something magical will happen and we'll have the time but um

as of right now we we can't really like comprehensively uh cover young lathe in a shift notes fashion yeah and i'm sorry about that uh at the same time i just you know i wish there was more of us to do things but uh it's just me and finley over here but if something like that develops we will definitely let you know all right for sure thank you for writing it yes Thanks, Judah.

All right.

Bella

writes in.

Bella writes in, and Bella has serious Muckle Wayne questions.

Ooh.

All right.

Let's hear it.

And

Bella says, hello.

I heard you were looking for MB questions from folks.

So here's one I've been wondering forever.

Yes.

What are the Muckle Waynes doing?

They're not.

They're not the original human Muckle Wayne.

Their voices put in a box, but we've had Zebulon say Effie was under the weather and laying down, where she later is heard starting far and coming closer to the mic as she wakes from her wild dream about her future grandchild.

Do they sleep?

They've left to go slash, they've left to go pray, quote unquote, together after Effie does her Calamity Jane thing.

Do they have a physical form that at least they perceive?

Do they sit in front of a radio broadcasting to the rest of the MB crew?

Can they see what's happening in the diner?

And if so, how?

They never seem to need explaining what anything looks like.

And when they've taken on the form of robots, they note each other's appearances, but I don't recall them commenting on visuals in their usual radio appearances.

It's all just one big question on what's happening on their end.

Yes.

I do think at one point,

Gloria mentions that they sleep in their bed.

That's all the information I have.

So take it away, Joe.

All right, look.

I will explain.

to people how I envision the Mucklewains.

Okay?

Yes, let's go.

Here's how I envision it in my brain.

Envision it in your brain however you like.

Y'all.

Here's how it is for me.

Okay.

Yes.

Effie and Zebulon.

Imagine Effie and Zebulon and they, you know, Effie created that whole radio broadcasting system for them.

Yes.

At a table

by their bay window.

Yes.

In their farmhouse.

Yes.

So how I imagine it in my mind is that they are sitting there at that table,

broadcasting, talking through the microphone.

And out the bay window, what they see is what basically the front of the radio sees.

Ooh.

Okay.

So wherever they are?

Yes.

Okay.

So whatever direction the radio is pointing, that's what they are seeing out their bay window.

And then when they get when they get zapped into something, they get they just zap and they're gone from the house.

And they're outside of the radio, and then they go back inside the radio when they're done.

All right.

That's how I see it.

So they've got a whole house there.

So their house is there.

Zebulon's books are there.

If you remember, in

Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short, Zebulon goes and gets a book off of the shelf.

Yeah.

Right?

Which is close to where they keep the brandy.

Right.

They keep the brandy on the top of the bookshelf.

Right?

So that's how I envision it.

I hope that doesn't ruin anything for everyone.

For anyone.

If it does, I like it.

I think you'll be fine.

So that's how I picture it.

I like it.

That's like super secret inside information, you guys.

Super secret inside information, guys.

Alright, Mad Maddox writes in, Hi, Joe, how are you?

I wanted to ask, even though I probably know the answer.

I was listening to young Leif again and listening about his relationship with Verge and Birdbird.

Then I remember the episode where the X attacked them on season one, and it got me like, Why in the name of hell is Leif's relationship with the bird lady that wanted to kill him was the most significant relationship he had when he had Verge and Bertbert in the past?

Well, first of all, I will say that Leif and Bertbert were never in a relationship.

I mean,

a romantic relationship, romantic relationship, because clearly they're in a relationship.

Here's the thing: in chapter three,

the ex doesn't choose Bajolanth, Leif does,

Because they ambush the X.

And Laif comes at the X with Bajolanth that he has chosen.

And the reason why he chose Bajolanth is because there are sometimes, sometimes, here's what happens.

People have these relationships sometimes that are not the greatest relationship in the world, but it's full of huge drama.

And there's so much drama in the relationship that it takes up a lot of your bandwidth, right?

When you think about the relationships that you're in.

And really,

what the ex is searching for is the thing that can get people riled up.

Yes.

Right?

Yep.

And the description of how she is,

you know, she conjures the most significant ex is really the description that they have for her, not the one that she has for herself.

Right.

So Leif is the one who chose Bajolinth because, honestly, it's an easier choice choice because his relationship with Bert Bird is very complicated.

Yeah.

And his relationship with Verge, honestly, I imagine when he thinks about it, he's really fucking depressed.

You know?

Having that person that you recall fondly, but you just fucked it up so hard is incredibly depressing to recall.

And I don't think Leif wants to go there.

And so when he thinks about the relationship that he's going to ambush the ex with, he thinks of bejolinth.

That's someone I can argue with.

That's someone I can make jokes about.

That will be something that I have a lot to say, even though the things I have to say are maybe a bit shallow and a bit just jokey.

Right.

So that's

the deal with that.

I hope that's a satisfying answer.

If not, hit me up again.

I'll try again.

Secondly, I think it makes sense.

Then Mad Maddox is asking,

and what happened to Gloria's car?

It was in the parking lot and the pilot, she was so worried about it.

Then what happened?

They parked somewhere and left it there?

I have asked this question myself, Mad Maddox.

I have to say, I mean, initially, I imagined that Gloria drove it off the lot and then walked back into the diner and, you know,

started living that life.

It is a huge regret of mine that we did not keep Gloria's car in the parking lot because like if you imagine like the art for Midnight Burger, like it's floating in space like that, imagine that art and there's just like one shitty Ford festiva in the parking lot.

So great, such a missed opportunity.

Yeah.

And

I just,

this is my,

this is what the X would turn into Gloria's car if I confront it, if I was confronted with with the X.

Because that is, it's a huge regret of mine.

And yeah, and you know, I just missed the boat on it.

You know, I was in the middle of season two, I think, and I was like,

fuck, that would be so great if her shitty car was in the parking lot all the time.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So sadly, Gloria's car, yeah, it did get driven off the lot.

And then

left there in Arizona.

I mean, when you live in a place like that.

Thanks for bringing that up, Mad Mattis.

When you live in a place like that,

you will sacrifice distance for shade.

Next question: How do you incorporate the names of the subscribers on the show?

How do you decide if they're going to be a planet or a song, a secondary character, or some random drug dealer?

There's so many different names that must be a little hard to incorporate in a natural way.

As I was saying before, we were talking about the fact that we had to temporarily shut down the night breakfast here.

It is really hard and it is stressful because you want it to be satisfying for the person.

And some names are just very, like some people just have very normal names.

And that's easy, right?

Because you just, someone comes along and that's what you name them.

And there are other people

who have very

complicated names.

I lucked out in season three because a lot of people had pirate names.

Yes.

As you noticed in in the final episode.

Right.

And so you had

and I was just reading off pirate ships

at one point.

Yeah.

And everybody got their pirate moment.

So that was pretty lucky.

It's, you know, sometimes it's almost easier when people have names that just kind of

don't sound like anything specific because that's a super great thing to name a planet.

Yes.

Or something like that.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Cryptessia is a great name for a galaxy.

Yes.

Right?

Also Justine Burbank.

Justine Burbank.

Yeah.

The thing well, the thing with Justine Burbank is that we can't, that's, that's, you know, you can't do that joke twice.

Right.

You know what I mean?

It's like that was a joke one time.

And it is,

and it was fun to just sort of say there's this really bad solar system that no one wants to go to, and it's called Justine Burbank.

You know, genius.

That's funny stuff.

Yeah.

But it's, it's really difficult, and you just kind of, you just,

you just constantly keep it in your mind.

And when you roll up on it's time to name something, you look at the list, you see if anything fits.

If something fits, great.

If it doesn't, then you move on with your life.

And you just kind of, like most things with Midnight Burger, you just kind of hope for the best and hope it works out.

So, you know, I guess prayer is really how we approach, you know, adding the names.

Stephen writes in.

Yep.

You have told us that you write, record.

Stephen.

You have told us that you write, record, edit, and upload the episode and then rush back to what I imagine is some kind of rusty shed to write the next episode.

I assume that you have a big picture idea of where each season is going, but you do a really great job of tying both big and small details together between episodes and seasons.

My question is: to what extent is that part of your preparation for a season, and how much of it is, oh shit, how do I get my character out of this painted corner?

You are very good at this, honey.

I don't think we've ever been in a painted into a corner situation, have we?

I don't think so.

I mean, there has been like the do we include this or leave it out situation.

Yeah, there's been a picture.

But I don't think we've ever been painted into a corner.

I don't think we've ever gotten painted into a corner.

I mean, you know what I think it is?

I think,

you know, when I start writing a season, I don't know all the ins and outs of everything that's going to happen.

I do

have a clear idea of where I want it to end up, and I do have a clear idea of what

I want the kind of DNA of the episode to be.

Okay.

With season two, for example, I wanted it to be like a chase, right?

Like the Teds were chasing the diner, Casper was chasing the diner, Loaf Trax was chasing the diner.

It all came to to a head, finally, in the second to last episode.

I knew that that's the basic DNA of what I wanted.

With season three,

I wanted it to be a chase in the other direction.

I wanted the diner to try and be hunting something down.

Yeah.

And I was really intrigued about this sort of wandering, vagabond, godlike character who didn't know what they were doing.

And I knew that I wanted it to end up

at the end on the pyrophyte.

Yes.

And as long as I kept those things in the front of my mind,

that kind of became like the horizon line.

You know, as long as I kept my eye on that, everything else would fall into place as long as I kept my eye on the...

on the prize,

if you will.

That's not the most satisfying answer in the world because, you know, you really do want to say, here is my 10-point plan

for everything going well.

But I

have never done well with

outlines and things like that and going beat by beat and planning it all out.

Because

anytime I do that, it ends up actually being bad.

Yeah.

And it ends up

being fun and fresh when I keep myself on my own toes.

I will.

Creatively speaking.

Yeah, I will say, I'm not sure how to articulate it, but you're very good

at trusting that it will work.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'm good at that.

It's just the only way that I

couldn't think of any other way of doing it, I guess.

It's kind of the only thing available to me.

Yeah.

I do.

But I don't know how I would like, in a very detailed fashion, block out an entire season of the show.

Right.

And so, like, one difference between us is that because I don't know how else I would do it, I don't do it.

I know.

And it is.

And you're like, well, it'll work out.

It is driving in a fog, like, you can only see so far in front of you.

So you drive at a reasonable speed.

Yes.

But into the fog, you do drive.

Because

where else is there to go?

Ever forward.

That way.

Yeah.

Stephen, I feel like that's not a satisfying answer at all.

I'm sorry if it's not a satisfying answer.

I think it's pretty good.

That's how it goes.

Curtis writes in: even though Laif in the Young Lafe series states that he has no love for Star Wars,

are you a fan of the franchise?

Oh, Curtis.

Hang on to your butts, kids.

You don't need to hang on to your butts.

Everything's fine.

Look, I...

Look.

Look.

Listen.

Hang on a second.

Okay, look, here's the deal.

I really love the world of Star Wars.

It's a great world.

You've got all these different ships and all these different aliens, and they're all hanging out and talking to each other, and sometimes they shoot at each other, and there's also like Jedi Knights and things like that, and then there's the Empire, and there's the Rebels, and there's a lot of different strata

to the world.

And that's real great.

I'm going to say

that

two,

maybe three good movies out of nine is a bad ratio.

Yeah, it's not great.

It's not great.

Now, you can argue with me about the efficacy of some of those films, but at least three of them are demonstrably just bad movies.

All right?

And I don't enjoy saying that because I don't like shitting on other creators or anything like that, but I'm sorry.

Yeah.

It's there's some of those movies are just bad.

Okay?

Uh-huh.

And a testament to the fact that the world is great, when you move on to the TV stuff,

it really, I really like a lot of the, I've liked the the TV, like, you know, Clone Wars was great, right?

Clone Wars is great.

The Disney Plus stuff, I really enjoy.

It's a great world to play around in, but when we're talking about Star Wars, if we are just talking about the sort of the core of the Star Wars universe, which is the films, I really do think a lot of those movies are bad.

And

that is how I feel

about Star Wars.

Okay?

That's nice.

That's not mean.

It's pretty good.

Everybody, please send your complaints to George Lucas at

weopenat6.com.

Anyway, that's how I feel.

If you are a fan of Star Wars, what did you think of

Solo if you saw it?

Okay.

Solo is a Star Wars prequel, which is the story of a young Han Solo.

And I really think the problem with Solo is that it was missing, it was missing 100%

Harrison Ford.

Yes.

And I'm serious about that because, I mean, one of the most compelling things about Han Solo is what Harrison Ford did with Han Solo.

Yes.

He really took the character.

When you just look at the script, it's not as compelling as his performance of the character, I think.

You know, because Harrison Ford, he may be a grumpy jerk, but,

you know, Han Solo, he did a fantastic job with Han Solo.

Yeah.

But I want to say one more thing about Star Wars.

Should I be saying it when we're already an hour 15 into the show?

Maybe not.

I will say that the character of Princess Leia

and Carrie Fisher in general were a huge influence on me as a human being living on the planet Earth.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Princess Leia's.

whole attitude during the movies that like her whole attitude was like, this whole rebellion could have been an email.

You know, it's like, she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to be there.

She wants the movie to be over.

She wants, she doesn't want glory or any of the just get me out of this bikini.

She's just like, can we please

get me out of this bikini?

Here's another thing.

I mean,

and we don't talk about this near enough, okay?

Is that Princess Leia fucking mercs job of the hut right in front of us?

Okay.

Everybody else is out there with lightsabers and laser guns, and Princess Leia

seizes her moment, wraps a chain around his neck, and puts one knee into his back and chokes the shit out of him.

And it is graphic

in front of a, you know, there's children in the audience and his tongue's flapping around, and she's just like, die, motherfucker, just killing him to death.

Yeah.

Right?

Right in his face.

Which is not something that we talk about enough.

And it's an amazing moment for that character when you're like,

she is capable of doing this level of thing.

Yeah.

And then she blows up his boat.

You know what I mean?

Uh-huh.

Princess Leia is a fantastic character.

Word.

And

just had a, you know, had a lot of influence on me.

Princess Leia did, I have to say.

Also, Carrie Fisher in general.

Carrie Fisher as a human being.

Yeah.

I miss her a lot.

Great writer.

Yes.

Carrie Fisher.

Here's a fun, apocryphal story about Carrie Fisher.

Let's go.

Okay, so Carrie Fisher,

she didn't write a lot as a writer.

She wrote books.

Every once in a while, she'd do a screenplay.

She did a lot of script doctoring.

Yes.

Like in her life.

Yes.

Like a script would be garbage, and they would give it to Carrie Fisher, and Carrie Fisher would, like, brush up the dialogue, make it, you know, kind of really better, spruce it up, make it better, right?

Yeah.

Did not take a lot of screen credit for the work that she did on screenplays.

What I've heard is

that Carrie Fisher, when she would work on a script, she had like a mark of Zorro

that she would put in the script.

There was a secret sign.

in the scripts that she would work on, but nobody knows what it is.

That's amazing.

There's like a little tiny brand, there's a little tiny flourish that she would put on something that that's how you would know she worked on it.

Like, with language, do you mean?

With language, yeah.

Huh.

But I don't know what it is.

Nobody knows what it is.

Maybe that's apocryphal.

Hollywood is mostly apocryphal.

But I want it to be true.

That is what I've heard.

I want it to be true as well.

Anyway, that's how I feel about Star Wars.

The end.

Y'all, we haven't even started the episode yet.

We have not even started the episode yet.

We've got one more question.

It's going great.

Let's hear it.

Janet.

Hello, Janet.

Janet.

Janet writes in and says, if Leif decided not to use it because of all the ramifications it would cause, why did he keep the thumb drive and not destroy it?

We're talking about the Ted Slayer.

Yes, of course.

Why did he keep the Ted Slayer?

They still have the Ted Slayer.

It's still there at the diner.

Why do they have it?

Why did they not destroy it?

Well, I mean, you can continue to use it as a weapon.

The threat of it

can be important.

Yeah, and so that's basically.

I mean, it's an interesting, it is interesting that, you know, they chose not to destroy it.

It is an interesting psychological moment because it is very dangerous.

Yeah.

But they have very

definitively decided not to use the Ted Slayer.

But the Teds do not know that.

Correct.

Therefore, at some point, the Ted Slayer could be useful

as a deterrent.

Yeah.

Right?

So I imagine it, you know,

being kept in its little lockbox, probably under Gloria's bed.

And if they ever need it, you know, it's always there.

But you don't want to take that particular chess piece off the table unless you have to.

Right.

Especially when you're dealing with the Teds.

Fuck you, Teds.

So that is why.

Nice.

And those

are the questions.

We did it.

We did it, everybody.

Woo!

All right.

Thank you so much.

Send in your questions, please.

Send in questions.

Because we're greedy and we want some more.

You know?

Keep hitting us up.

Where can they find us?

You can find us.

You can message us through the Patreon app or you can send us an email at weopen at six at gmail.com.

Send in your questions.

Yeah.

We would love to hear them.

I'm having a great time answering these questions.

Line them up, knock them down.

Right.

All right.

Love it.

All right.

Believe it or not, we have not started the show yet.

What?

What?

All right.

We are here tonight.

Yes.

Finally.

Yes.

Lastly.

to talk about chapter 23, know your enemy.

Let's get into it.

Here we go.

pressing play on the magical device.

Ma'am, I agree that when we send you a notice saying that your license is suspended, that we should send it registered mail, but sending things registered mail requires more money.

And the fine people of this city voted to cut our budget last year because we had too much money, apparently.

You can't have it both ways.

You're going to need to pick a lane, which apparently you have a very hard time doing because your license is suspended.

Now please fill out this form and mail it to this address, all right?

Thank you.

So as a uh as a young man, fresh out of college,

fresh out of college.

Yeah.

I worked for a long time at a temp agency.

Oh, sure.

Yep.

And I specifically said to the temp agency, I don't want any of this temp-to-perm garbage.

I want temp, temp, temp.

Only the temporary job.

Temp-to-temp, temp, t-t-t-t-t-temp.

Temp, temp, temp.

So I was a wandering vagabond from office to office across the city of Portland for a very long time, right?

Right?

Uh-huh.

Just me and my big blue ox.

Okay.

My belongings in a little hanky on a stick.

One of those jobs was

to work

at the DMV extension office in Hillsborough, Oregon.

No, I did not know this.

Yes.

Spent a few weeks there at the DMV office in Hillsborough, Oregon.

Hillsborough is like

there's the suburbs, and then past the suburbs,

Hillsborough.

Yeah.

And it had a very sort of like,

this is the last stop for DMV services before like the ocean or whatever.

Right.

Uh-huh.

It's just two people working the front desk, helping people out there in Hillsboro with their DMV problems.

Yeah.

There's some special people living out there in Hillsboro.

They sometimes have some special problems.

And it was like, when I first got there, it was like, you know, usually like you go up to the counter, you fill out your forms, not a big deal.

This one had like a full pane of glass in between myself

and

the DMV

people who are coming to the DMV.

Myself, the customers.

Pane of glass between myself and the customers.

Okay.

And I was like, why is this pane of glass here?

I don't know.

Like, what's

this isn't isn't a bank.

You know, like, what are we doing?

Yeah.

I came to learn why that pane of glass was there over the weeks that I was there.

I had pens thrown at me.

People just throwing pens right at the glass.

Wow.

Because their license is suspended and they didn't have the $500.

People yelling at me.

People very upset.

One of my favorites was a guy who came.

He was one of those, like, I ride a motorcycle and I have an American flag bandana on my head all the time.

Sort of one of those guys.

His license was suspended.

We gave him a court date.

He did not show up.

And he looked at me and he said, you can't just take my license away from me.

That's against my constitutional rights, friend.

And I was like, friend, we're friends now.

A constitutional scholar has arrived at the DMV, decided to

with the flag bandana.

There was one guy who showed up with his son.

His son had like fucked up real bad and like just all kinds of like fees fees and shit.

And it was going to take like probably $1,500 for the kid to get his license back and his registration and all that.

And his dad

was like,

can you just like

spend a night in jail?

What if you just spend a night in jail?

How much is that worth?

Does that work it off?

Oh my gosh.

Turns out, no, that's not a way to get your fees removed is to spend a night in jail because she's like, hey, you owe the city money.

What if the city spent more money on me by putting me in jail for the night and giving me three hots and a cot?

And

would that do it?

Turns out that doesn't do it.

No.

It was a special time working at the DMV office in Hillsborough, Oregon.

How long were you there?

Just a few weeks.

Long enough.

Long enough to know.

Anyway.

Hey, Caesar.

Yeah, it's all locked up.

Do you need anything over there?

We've got all this food.

It's just going to go bad.

Need five pounds of jack cheese by any chance?

Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of people saying, how long could it really be?

And I have to say, I have a bad feeling.

No, you can't come help me.

No, Caesar, we have to stay away from each other.

If I get you sick, Inez is going to kill me

I'll be fine

sign up for unemployment right now okay

okay

bye

fuck my life remember the pandemic

oh yeah remember that we did that when I was listening to this part of it I was trying to

remember just like the craziest parts of it you know I was trying to remember but it's such like a big woven messy tapestry of just

surreal-ness.

I was trying to think, I was trying to think of some fun anecdotes or something from that time.

There was this one where Christine, my friend Christine, who plays your mom in your mom.

Yes.

At times, can have some extreme solutions to problems.

Yeah.

Okay.

She can be a bit of a baker sometimes.

right?

She could not get any flour.

All the flour

at the grocery stores were gone at that point, right?

It was in that time, like before the grocery stores had really figured it out, you know.

Yes, there wasn't anything there, it was pretty bleak, it was looking like you know, communist Russia and all that, and uh, couldn't get any flour, really wanted to make some sort of treats or something,

and so she bought a pallet

of flour

directly from the flour-selling people, right?

A

like

a huge truck came to her home

and like unloaded like a pallet stacked with bags of flour.

She's like, I got my fucking flour, motherfuckers, you know.

What did she do with it?

I don't know.

She was calling me and was like, do you need flour?

Because I've got

so much flour.

But yeah, she bought an entire palette of white flour.

I did see pictures on the interwebs on the insta

of the things that she was baking, and she is good at baking.

She is, yes.

She's very like better homes and gardens

vibe.

You know what I mean?

I imagine she gave some away to some people.

She was trying to give it away to me, but I was like, I'm, you know.

I have my flour.

I have ordered it through the mail.

Right.

I did not have to.

Your special einkorn flour.

I did not have a forklift

load a pallet of flour into my garage.

Yeah, or a shed or whatever.

So that was something, but I just, you know, I couldn't think of,

like, do you have any like, this was crazy that this happened during the pandemic?

I mean, like, I don't want to bring the party down.

But so

I have lupus and I take medication for lupus.

And one of the medicines that I take for lupus

is hydroxychloroquine.

Right.

Which was very popular during the pandemic.

And apparently,

the president,

she said,

with

huge air quotes.

Sure.

That guy, that fucking guy at the time,

was telling everybody this was a miracle cure for COVID.

Yes.

Everybody should be stocking up on hydroxychloroquine.

Yeah.

All these fucking dentists were prescribing hydroxychloroquine to their family and friends.

Yes.

So for my autoimmune disease, I could not get the medication that I am supposed to take.

Right.

It just was not available.

I couldn't get a refill.

So I had to like wean myself off of it.

Yeah.

During the pandemic because I could not

get this

drug.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's not like

as fun a story as ordering an entire palette of flour because I could not order an entire palette of this drug because this drug was not available because some idiot

who knows nothing about

medicine or, you know, anything else.

Yes.

Was telling the country that, you know, they should just take it like vitamin C.

Yeah.

That is my story.

All right.

Everybody's got this look on their face.

Everybody on TV, this half-assed positivity.

Nobody's buying their own bullshit.

They're handing out this plan, and if we stick to the plan, everything will come out great.

They'll know we're going over the edge of a waterfall and nobody knows how high it is or what the fuck is down there.

I do remember, like, there was this

here in LA, like on the local news, they started doing this thing, and this was right at the very beginning when literally, like, everybody was home, like, nobody was doing jack shit.

And they, this segment, was like, now let's go to John with what day it is, and it was be like,

and John would be like, It's Wednesday,

okay, now let's go to commercial

because nobody knew what day it was ever, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it was all one big day, you know.

Who are you?

Clementine.

Oh,

that's a name.

I don't think I've ever seen you around.

Are you one of Dr.

Baker's little backup dancers?

He's always changing his lineup.

Okay, I just want to say, I know Dr.

Baker may sound like a scumbag, okay?

But I will say that the National Science Foundation estimates that 44% of science and engineering professors had at least one female postdoctoral associate or research assistant in 2018.

So, you know, thank you, Dr.

Baker, for having, you know.

For giving ladies a chance?

He's trying to change the world, honey.

Fuck you, 44%.

Unacceptable.

But I'm saying that Dr.

Baker is 100% female associates, and there's nothing scuzzball about that.

You can tell nothing at all, honey.

No,

who's Dr.

Baker?

That's what I say, Clementine.

Who is Dr.

Baker?

I don't.

He's a poodle.

A poodle.

Inside joke.

He's one of those standard model jack-in-apes.

You know, the ones.

Jack-in-Apes.

Jack-in-Apes.

From the French jack-in-a-party,

which means monkey.

It does.

In the 14th century, it meant monkey.

It then crossed the channel to England where it became jackinapes, which then meant, you know,

impudent person.

Jackanape.

Right, right, right, right.

Elbow patches, pipe smoking, has children who hate him.

Like a cliche eating itself from the inside out.

What are you talking about?

Standard model of physics, Clementine.

Keep up.

Standard model, standard poodle.

All right.

Standard model of physics.

Let's just, listen, we talk about science all the time on the show, and sometimes I don't want to blow past everyone.

So why don't we, just real quick, get down to brass tacks, standard model of physics versus

quantum physics.

All right, let's go.

Differences, okay?

Let's learn

to make sure that everyone is on the same level.

We all know the same things, okay?

Yeah.

Okay, standard model of physics, macroscopic, about big things,

doing big things,

planets.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, space is big.

Space is big.

It's about, you know, the big stuff.

And then quantum physics is about the atomic and the subatomic.

The little quantum parts.

Quantum parts, yes.

Tiny physics.

Standard model is a deterministic theory, okay?

Okay.

So if I know how something works, I will know how it works in the future, right?

It's a predictive thing.

It's like

if I have this system down, I can predict how things will be in the future, right?

Deterministic theory.

Okay.

Quantum physics, probabilistic theory.

So the future of a system can only be predicted in probabilities.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Standard model

is about locality.

Okay?

Things over there can't affect things over there.

Okay.

Okay.

Sure.

Quantum theory, quantum theory, non-local.

Okay.

Events over there

can affect things over there.

Right.

Okay.

Standard model

is

real great, meat and potatoes.

If I drop this, it will fall, kind of experience.

Right?

Okay.

Yeah.

But where quantum physics enters into it is that there are some things that standard,

that the standard model can't explain, right?

Sure.

Like light

can

operate as a particle and as a wave.

Standard model of physics doesn't know why.

Quantum physics attempts to answer that.

Entanglement.

Standard model can't

untangle that.

Standard model,

everybody.

Cannot untangle entanglement.

Yes.

So particles in quantum physics can become linked to each other even if they are separated by great distance, right?

Crazy.

Which is crazy and weird, but it's totally a thing.

Yeah.

Also, something like quantum tunneling.

Quantum tunneling is where a particle can actually travel through a barrier even when it doesn't have the energy to travel through that barrier.

Standard model of physics has no way of explaining that.

Quantum physics attempts to explain that.

Well, because it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense.

But in quantum physics, it does make a certain amount of sense.

Is all of this going to make sense to me once we take our visit to CERN?

As soon as we go to CERN, everything's going to make sense, honey.

It'll all become clear.

Actually, we'll probably

figure everything out.

We'll need to go to CERN and then go down to Italy, go to the interferometer, Virgo interferometer.

We should do it in that order?

Sure.

Okay, let's go.

Let's plan this trip.

Okay.

Anyway, that's where we are, okay?

Standard model.

Quantum model.

Okay?

And then the theory of everything is about trying to find an umbrella under which both of those things can coexist.

Yes, standard quantum physics.

Standard quantum physics, right?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Clearly, Ava is not

into the standard model.

She is not a fan of the standard model.

I mean, I think she thinks the standard model is fine, but you just like, you know, so is...

Standard model dumb-dumb.

So is white bread without butter on it.

You know what I mean?

It's fine.

There's so much more out there in the world, right?

Mm-hmm.

Why does toast taste better?

That's for the quantum physics.

That's exactly right.

I said something about a flaming Viking boat in my speech, didn't I?

Yes.

You know, the archaeological community is actually split on the whole flaming Viking boat funeral situation.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

How so?

Okay, so

in the 10th century, Ibn Fadlan, a Muslim traveler, he observed what he said was a Viking, flaming boat funeral, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

There's not tons of evidence out there that this actually happens.

So some people think that Ibn Fadlan was observing something that he didn't understand, that he was maybe a little bit biased towards

the people of the north,

that he was maybe not the most reliable narrator because there is not that much archaeological evidence that flaming Viking boat funerals happened a lot.

If they did happen,

first of all, they think that they happened probably more in Denmark than they did in the rest of the Scandinavia, right?

Okay.

And if it did happen, it was probably only reserved for like

top-shelf Vikings.

Super Vikings?

Super Vikings.

Uber Vikings.

The Vikingest Vikings.

the Vikingest Vikings.

Like, I'm talking like guys who braid their beards.

I'm talking about like

cream of the crop.

Sure.

Right?

But, yeah, the archaeological community is not

together on flaming Viking boat funerals.

The jury is still out.

They can't come to you.

That's weird to me.

It is because when you think of Vikings, you know what I mean?

You think of that flaming boat.

I mean,

is this even the only guy to ever report having seen one?

I think so, yeah.

Ever?

Then how did it become such a thing?

I don't know how it became a thing, but he said that that everyone kind of took it as gospel because he witnessed it firsthand.

And also, it really does sound like something Vikings would do.

I mean, it is a dope-ass tradition.

Sure.

But if it did happen, it was very rare and probably mostly in Denmark, is what the current thinking is.

The look of someone who knows a few things but has no idea what to do with it all.

Yeah, that's about right.

How do you end up at a faculty party?

Are you dating your professor?

No.

No shame.

It happens to the best of us.

2014 study said that 4%

of female students were currently in a relationship with their professor.

Four?

Four percent.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

2010 study said that 7%

of psychology students were in a relationship with their professor.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

You're doing it wrong.

Yeah.

You're doing psychology wrong.

Yes.

I mean, not according to Carl Young.

Am I right, everybody?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let's not besmirch

the king of psychology.

Yeah.

Well, he was straight up in a relationship with one of his most important subjects.

All right.

Come on.

Didn't you see A Dangerous Method?

No.

That was Jung?

Yeah, that was Carl Jung.

Carl Jung was in a, like,

if the movie is any indication, a graphic sexual relationship with one of his

most important subjects, though, like, he really, like, wrote a lot of papers on and stuff like that.

She went on to become a psychiatrist like him.

Okay.

But But yeah, well, so, I mean, that 7%, I say we just lay that at the feet of Carl Jung.

It's his fault.

He started it.

He did all seven.

All 7%.

All 7%.

That was all him.

But yeah, 7% of psychology students are in a relationship with their professor.

And

I want the study of how many men

are in a relationship with their professor.

That is what I want to know.

Yeah, I'm.

Why is it always the ladies?

Why is it always the men who are legends?

Well, the 2010 study was a 7% of psychology students.

It doesn't

say male or female.

2014 study said 4% of female students across the board.

Does that mean the 3% were the dudes?

Well, they're two separate studies, so I don't know.

Yes, I know.

But

I was linking them.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Not to me, but

to the other people.

It happens to them.

I, um,

I was out somewhere and just sort of got swept over this way.

I recall that about college life.

It's late at night, you have a drink in your hand, and you're looking around thinking, whose house is this?

So many times in college,

red solo cup in my hand, talking to somebody at a party, and then I'm like,

where the fuck are we right now?

Wow.

What is this house?

Is this, do we know anyone here right now?

How did we get here?

Wow.

Who drove here?

Whose idea was this?

Happened to me zero times.

There's a lot of,

you know, sometimes it's just like, where's the party?

Somebody had an address.

You go there.

Whose house is it?

I don't know.

But there you were.

You know?

Kids, I was not cool.

Like

your dad, apparently.

I wasn't cool either.

Nobody's cool.

That's my theory, is that no one is actually cool.

Nobody was cool.

Nobody is ever cool.

But yeah, that happened all.

I saw these coal miners in this place called Wales.

They were on strike, and they were fighting with police and getting put in jail.

They were fighting for their lives for these jobs, and the jobs were hours out of the day down a long, dark shaft under the earth.

They were fighting for that.

What else could they do?

That seems a strange thing to fight for.

So, a lot of season three of Shift Notes is going to be like,

Where in the world is Clementine?

Haha.

Right?

This is the 1898 Welsh coal strike, right?

Yes.

That's where she was.

It was the first strike of its kind.

It was huge.

It was violent sometimes.

Yes.

It lasted six months.

Okay.

It

just decimated the Welsh economy.

But it was kind of the first time where the mining union, where a union in general in the UK

wielded power.

Like they hung on and they didn't give up.

And it was six months and they finally, you know,

got a lot of the things that they were asking for from the mining companies.

So that's, and then, and then in the middle of all that, was Clementine

sure just hanging out

I saw a deep black pit and the darkness reminded me of where I was from Cincinnati

No the suburbs of Cincinnati apologies to Victor in Cincinnati

did not mean to besmirch your city Victor sorry about that victory very sorry also apologies to Les Nessman Venus Flytrap and Johnny Fever

and the entire staff staff of WKRP and Cincinnati.

WKRP and Cincinnati.

I convinced myself that this place and my office and my army of terrified teachers' assistants was all I had.

Just imagining Ava's assistants.

Just the most

frightened people

in the world.

Never know what's going to happen, constantly freaked out,

Terrorized.

You know what I mean?

Do you know what a supernova is?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

In the massive explosion of a supernova, all kinds of stuff comes out, like iron.

Iron is what made this planet.

And gold.

And gold.

Correct.

Look at you.

Despite the fact that all kinds of things get flung out into the universe during a supernova, 99% of what gets released are neutrinos.

A neutrino is very small and has almost no mass.

When a neutrino hits you, you don't even notice it because it can barely even interact with your physical body.

But a supernova is so powerful that it can bombard you with enough neutrinos to completely obliterate your body.

And it can do that from 100 million miles away.

You know, you hear Ava describe things like that, and it's just like, you hear that, and it's like,

I am the most most insignificant thing

yeah and it does make you realize like because ava has such a like nothing matters

attitude towards so many things but you hear her describe

yes you hear her describe things like that and it's like well no wonder she feels that way because like look at the just massive things yeah that she studies so of course everything is insignificant compared to all those things you know yeah yeah way off in deep space we observed a gravity wave.

Two black holes collided and we sat there on Earth and watched.

The gravity wave that the two black holes released generated thirty-six septillion yadawatts of power.

Is that a lot?

Yes, Clementine.

It's greater than the energy generated by all of the stars in the universe combined.

And that was an average one.

So this is a real thing that happened.

Yeah.

We observed, we as a people observed two black holes colliding

and the energy that was released by them was in fact 36 septillion yadawatts of power.

To give you an idea of septillion, septillion, to translate that, it's one million billion billion.

That's how much a septillion is.

Okay.

And that's how much energy it released.

And yes, it was more energy than

the output of all of the stars in the universe combined.

In fact, it was 50 times greater

than all of the energy output of all of the stars in the universe combined.

And that was just from two black holes colliding into each other somewhere out there in the universe.

That's how much energy was released.

Crazy.

Yeah.

And also

terrifying.

It is.

I mean, just thinking about the scale of that.

Like, where was it?

I don't know the exact location.

I mean, it was way out there, but it was, you know, we saw it.

We observed it.

We measured it.

And it was

a shit ton of energy.

And, like, unimaginable amount of it.

How many years after it happened are we actually seeing it?

That's an interesting point.

I mean, you know, probably millions of years.

That's crazy.

But at the same time, we're talking about black holes colliding and gravity waves, which would

fuck with time.

So

it's hard to say.

But yeah.

That's...

And, you know, it goes to what I was just saying about how Ava sees most things as insignificant.

Because 36 septillion yadawatts of power by two black holes colliding.

How do you feel big?

How do you feel important when you look at something like that?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Crazy.

A gravity wave can be the cosmic bent paperclip sending the cosmos back to factory settings.

That's terrifying.

It can also not be that.

What?

Yeah.

There's no way to predict it.

Sometimes it can be nothing.

Sometimes it can be total obliteration.

And then sometimes it might just turn your socks pink.

Wait.

So

a gravity wave.

Pink socks.

Or suddenly the dinosaurs are alive.

Or magic is real.

Or the Pacific Ocean is chocolate syrup.

So it can be a good thing.

Okay, so of those things, which one are we going with?

Which one are we picking?

Which one's our favorite?

Which one's our favorite?

Yeah, so you got

your socks are pink.

Or

the dinosaurs are alive.

Yeah.

Or magic is real.

Or the Pacific Ocean is chocolate syrup.

I mean,

it depends on what you mean by favorite, but but obviously magic is real.

You don't want to see the dinosaurs?

I want to see magic be real.

The dinosaurs can come.

All right.

You're going to make the dinosaurs with magic.

Like, if you have magic, you can make dinosaurs.

But 100% I choose magic as real.

Magic is real.

Okay.

It's like, it's not even a question.

What would you choose?

The dinosaurs?

I mean, if magic is real, then it's real for everybody.

And there's some people who should not be doing magic.

That's true.

There's going to be a lot of people doing magic out there that shouldn't be doing magic.

That's correct.

But I am smarter than a lot of other people.

So

I am more concerned about what I could do.

I mean, I would need strict wand control.

You know what I mean?

I mean, you need to be registered with the local sheriff.

I mean, you need to, like, you got to apply.

You know what I mean?

I need a two-week waiting period on all wands.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, what do you need when the dinosaurs are real?

I mean, it's not like I'm going to go up to them.

I'm just going to look at them from afar and just be like, damn, that's great.

You don't know.

You don't know that that's how they are real.

They might be, like, all over the place.

You don't want to see an Apatosaurus just, like, walking down the street here in Levi?

I'm sure I would.

Yeah.

I mean, like, that's a far away street.

We could ride.

From the balcony.

You could ride them.

You know what I mean?

With a magic wand in my hand.

All right.

All right, fine.

Magic is real.

Here we go.

Like, if you like chocolate syrup, that last one is a good thing.

Nobody likes chocolate syrup that much.

And how would the migrating Ray whales feel about a chocolatey city?

Be a good thing, right?

Fucking Clementine

needs therapy more than anyone ever needed therapy.

She is kind of just finding a way for everyone to co-sign her bullshit.

That is true.

And like a lot of people need therapy real bad.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Geez.

I mean, this is what I'm saying about magic being real, though.

Okay?

Look at Clementine.

Can do a lot of things.

Should not be doing things.

Should not have things.

Yeah, she really shouldn't.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

That's true.

One thing about magic though.

You gave it to her.

One thing about magic, though, is that you would need to like study

a lot.

Yes.

That would be so good.

And I feel like the studying aspect would really keep a lot of people away.

You know what I mean?

Great.

More for me.

you gotta read all kinds of old books yes some of them probably talk or something figure out fucking runes and shit yes

sign me up please

yeah okay okay okay

uh look at all of these crash course garnitas simple slow cooked pork shredded spiced put in your taco barbacoa originally from the caribbean you ever wonder where the word barbecue comes from?

There it is, in your taco.

Okay.

Tacos al pastor.

End of the 19th century, a bunch of Lebanese people show up in Mexico and they say, hey, y'all ever thought about taking that big slab of meat and spinning it on a spit grill?

Presto.

Tacos al pastor.

And then, gardne asada.

This is very important.

Gardne asada is a food, but it's also an event.

Would you like to come for garden asada on Sunday?

Like that?

It's also a symbol, as in, you are invited to the garne asada.

You are trusted.

You are one of the family.

Got it?

No.

Great.

Let's eat.

Can I just say

thank you

for

the tacos primer?

Because more than once have I used it.

Yeah.

At a Mexican restaurant looking at the menu.

It's true.

Sometimes people don't know.

You know, and you know, here, wait, let's just, let's go into it right now.

Okay, Carnitas, like she was saying.

Carnitas,

probably from the Purapecha people of Mexico who lived in

northwestern Michuacan, okay, which is right next to, it's the province right next to Mexico City.

Okay.

And it's, yeah, it's usually like pork shoulder.

And you cook it in the ground.

Oh, sure.

Cook it in the ground, probably wrapped in like a banana leaf because you're in the jungle area, right?

And then you got al pastor.

Right, so at one point, early 1900s.

What a guy.

Al Pastor.

Good people.

Yeah, so in the early 1900s, a bunch of Lebanese immigrants came to Mexico.

And, you know, they do the, you got the lamb on the vertical rotisserie, and you shave it off, make your schwama, right?

And so, Mexicans saw that and said, Okay, but what if we did pork

like that?

And so they took it, they changed it to pork, and they add like

achiote peppers and things like that to the marinade.

Achiote peppers, which are not actually peppers, actually seeds.

And that's how you get

how they get

that's how they get al pastor, right?

All right, of the pasture, right?

And then

carne asada, right?

Which when you get into northern Mexico, northern Mexico becomes more about grilling things on an open fire rather than burying things in the ground.

Now it was probably around the early 1900s that you get carne asada.

It's a marinated,

grilled or seared flank steak or skirt steak.

And carne asada also became a word for the actual get-together, right?

So, like, there's barbecue, that is the barbecue.

Yes.

Right?

And then there's going to a barbecue.

Go to the barbecue.

Right.

So, going to the carne asada, and then carne asada also became synonymous with kind of like

being accepted, being cool.

You're all right.

You're invited.

You are, quote unquote, invited to the carne asada.

Back when during the Democratic primary,

when Bernie Sanders did really well in Nevada,

did really well because he had this historic outreach to like Latin American communities.

And one of the articles that was written about that was how Bernie Sanders got invited to the Carne Asada.

Oh, yeah.

So stuff like that.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And Barbacoa.

Barbacoa probably came from the Taino people in the Caribbean.

They brought that to Mexico.

And that's the same kind of thing, burying something in the ground, cooking it in the ground for a long time.

Stuff like that.

Have you heard of Ashoka the Great?

No.

Ruler of India?

A long time ago, I guess.

His father passed away, and he woke up one morning as the ruler.

After fighting a bloody war with a neighboring kingdom, he realized that he was the ruler of his kingdom, but still doing what his father expected of him.

So he stopped going to war and became a Buddhist.

Converted most of his kingdom to Buddhism, too.

It took me the re-listen to realize that this was her Indian boyfriend.

Yes, this was her Indian boyfriend that she was talking about, Ahsoka the Great.

The war she's talking about was the Kalinga War over the Kalinga region of India.

And it was a really devastating bloody war.

Up to like 300,000 people died in this war.

And at the end of this sort of bloody war that he fought, he fought and he won.

And then after he embraced something called Dharma-vijaya,

which is basically conquest through non-violence.

And after this war, he did, there was a lot of, like, you know, created a lot of social programs and tried to do all these good things for the people.

That was Ahsoka's thing.

So this war really changed him, right?

And made him.

Did Clementine start that war?

I don't think so.

I think it was just a war that was happening.

Because I wouldn't put it past.

It took a lot of planning to get this place.

I worked hard on the plan.

If I was waving some kind of magic wand around, I would just say, hey, respect the plan, life.

I don't need a lot just for the plan to be respected.

I mean, they're saying now that all this, the empty streets, everyone hiding inside is all because of a bat in China.

And here I am in a taco joint in the Greater Phoenix area and a Chinese bat is fucking up my life.

How am I supposed to function in a world like that?

I lost my parents when I was 18.

Something coming out of nowhere like that is terrifying.

So I started making plans.

The plans worked for a long time, but now

I don't know how to live in the world anymore.

So that's all I would do.

I don't need to convert India to Buddhism.

I just need everybody to stick to the plan, you know?

What do you need?

What's your thing?

What's that?

What do you need?

What would your thing be?

My thing that I need.

Yeah, the thing that Clementine is asking.

I mean, look, I don't want to, like, be Mr.

Sentimental or anything.

This

what I'm doing right now.

Yeah, yeah,

I think that's all I've ever wanted.

Yeah, that's a pretty good answer.

Okay,

it's a little embarrassing, but yeah, that's it.

Hi there, stranger.

You've just stepped on a scorpion back.

See those three plasma cannons pointed at you right now?

If you take one more step forward, they're going to turn you into corn chowder.

In case you don't know, you're on Quilandis, a barely habitable ice giant.

And on an icy planet, it is always chowder season.

Chowder?

Chowder?

Let's learn about the chowder.

Invented in 18th century France.

No, sorry.

Invented in the 18th century by French settlers in America.

Okay.

From the French chowdiere,

meaning

cauldron.

Okay.

All right.

The very first recipe for chowder is gross.

Let me tell you about it.

All right.

Okay, so you take fish, shellfish of some sort, salt pork, onions.

No.

And you put all that in a pot.

And then you cook it all until it's very tender.

And then you take hard-tack biscuits and you break them up into the chowder and mix it all up to thicken it into like a stew experience.

And then you eat that.

I don't like it.

It does sound

not really great at all.

Yes.

But it was 18th century America and it was cold and people got hungry and so they just kind of threw a bunch of stuff in a pot with some hard-tech biscuits.

Later on,

you know, cream was added and potatoes.

Yeah.

But that was the original

corn chowder is delicious.

Yes.

And I love it.

Yes.

I kind of want to eat some for dinner.

Okay.

Uh.

Well, let's table that question.

Okay.

Until we're done.

That's for later.

For later.

Corn chowder, everybody.

Come on.

I'm obviously unarmed.

What could I even do to you?

Thank you.

Stand over in the corner until I'm convinced you're not here to kill me.

Okay.

So

this place is a piece of shit.

Wasn't expecting company.

Who are we hiding from?

What do we imagine this place looks like right now?

That leaves.

I mean, it's just gotta be gross.

Yeah, it's gotta be pretty gross.

Just like cans of baked beans stacked up in a corner.

I mean, I do kind of imagine SpongeBob SquarePants'

little

pineapple under his feet,

but like with

I don't know why

I think that's great

pineapple you know you're trudging through the snow and you see a big Spongebob pineapple

Your phone's ringing

I've been wondering what that sound is.

Thank you.

Girlfriend

Wife.

We don't have marriage where I'm from.

You don't have it?

Nope.

Like satellite television?

It's just not available in your area?

No, there's a whole theory behind it.

It's important to have genetic diversity, so we're encouraged to have multiple partners in our lifetime.

Oh.

So this is a.

You know, that's like this theory that, you know, there needs to be genetic diversity because they're on this ship, right?

27,000 earthlings.

And you got to propagate the species, right?

And so genetic diversity is important.

However, it's like,

have you heard about this app?

Speaking of Iceland, hello, Iceland.

Yes.

This app that they have in Iceland.

Are we related?

Yes, because Iceland is only 374,000 people, I believe.

And it's an island.

So you're kind of there with the people who are there.

And so you need to make sure that when you're on a date with someone,

that they are not your cousin.

And so there's a dating app specifically to avoid people banging their cousins, basically.

Woo!

And

this is, and that same issue would be like on this ship.

So it's like you'd have to have, like, you'd actually, like, people would need to be tracked, you know?

Yeah.

In terms of like who they're related to and stuff like that.

Otherwise, you know, you

finally set down in your destination and everyone's all like

inbred and weird.

You know what I mean?

Has nine thumbs.

Nine thumbs thumbs is what they have.

Okay.

Okay, it's all becoming clear to me now.

What?

You come from some sort of commune out in the countryside, don't you?

The kind they're going to make a documentary about in 10 years because you all decided to kill yourselves so you'd get beamed up to the mothership or whatever.

What?

You have no last name, and your first name is a fruit, and you come from some sort of free love cult.

I didn't think you guys existed anymore.

That's not where I'm from at all.

Okay, intentional communities,

you know, intentional communities, intentional communities,

like

communes, right?

Sure.

Eco-villages, things like that,

always end up being like real wild, right?

Intentional communities have been around for a very, very long time.

The first intentional community, they estimate, was in the second century BCE,

the the Assenes,

which was a Jewish sect,

and they lived around the Dead Sea, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And then throughout the years, I mean, intentional communities used to be like strictly religious, and then they became about like utopian as utopian aspirations and about like

environmental

sameness about like we all believe this about the environment so we're gonna live this way stuff like that yes and then they became crazy bananas like in the 70s like with fucking you know charles man and shit um yeah my dad

was a musician here with a record deal like in the late 60s and they would play gigs around town and one time and

over there in the topanga canyon played a gig at a nudist colony you know what

and it was weird but it was a gig You know what I mean?

Turns out that when you look at, when you like take the bird's eye eye view of intentional communities writ large, you know, throughout their history, they have a 90% failure rate.

Okay, so

most intentional communities, almost all intentional communities, completely fail.

Unintentionally.

Unintentionally fail.

The intentional communities unintentionally fail.

Anger.

What?

You said the reason your life sucked was because of anger.

Oh,

right.

What did you mean by that?

People rarely come off the way they actually feel.

The calm ones tend to be the most nervous.

The open and loving ones tend to be the control freaks.

The devoutly religious, consistently the biggest sexual freaks you'll ever meet in your life.

You wouldn't know it to look at me.

When I was young, young,

I was pretty mad.

Mad at my parents, then mad at my planet, then mad at the universe.

That anger became pretty important to me.

Living in that anger was more important to me than the people in my life were.

I lost them and held on to the anger.

And then,

one day,

I wasn't angry anymore.

And when I realized that, I took a look around and everyone was gone.

It's interesting to look at that moment.

What he was talking about just then, it's interesting to look at that and then think about young life because when it's like

when you're listening to young life,

like

Evan's portrayal of Leif is not an angry one.

Like, he doesn't seem angry.

Like, he seems like totally chill.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it was like Leif was saying in this monologue, it's like, people are usually the opposite of the way that they act, you know, because when you look at

how chill Evan is in moments, young Leif is in moments,

but then you see him literally blow up a building

and full of people full of,

kills a hundred of the science priests of Moog in one fell swoop, kills all of them.

Yeah.

You know,

without blinking.

Without blinking an eye, you know.

As a present, as a present, you know, to his partner, right?

Yeah.

He meets Verge, does not hesitate to get into a criminal enterprise at all.

Yeah.

So it's like all of these actions,

and then also,

like,

leaving Verge to go be a pirate, which he didn't have to do.

But

he needed to screw it up.

You know, he needed to screw it up for himself because that's what you do when you're angry, is you screw things up for other people and for yourself.

You know?

Yeah.

So it's interesting to hear that monologue and think about Young Leif because

when you look at

how the character is portrayed, he seems like

super great guy.

You know, he's like, you know, kind of a nice guy to hang out with.

You know, but when you look at the actions that he takes in Young Life, you can see that undercurrent of,

and then like the scene with his dad, you know, which is so horrible.

And you see that undercurrent of anger, even though he's just in, you know,

up front

is this guy who seems like a fun guy to hang out with.

But there was a lot of really dark shit actually going on, you know.

Right.

And when you look at it through the lens of this monologue,

it's interesting.

It's not like there are many kids out there that like doing their homework, but few of them flat out refuse and then cite the fact that Finland has banned all homework and have better educated students than most countries.

Finland!

This is true.

Homework is

verboten in many countries.

Finland is one of them.

In many countries.

Yes.

Okay.

Finland, you can assign no homework before the age of seven.

You can maybe assign like a half an hour of homework after that.

But they believe that homework is terrible.

So does Japan.

Wow.

So does South Korea.

So does the Netherlands.

I mean, that's...

These are all countries that say we're stressing these kids the fuck out.

And they need time to just like kick a ball

and be kids.

And we need to leave them alone.

You have several hours of the day with them.

You're telling me that you can't get all the work done in that time?

You can.

So, yeah, a lot of countries, they, you know, as part of their educational policies, they say no homework.

A bad memory or two can move like a storm across a life, darkening the landscape and causing us to forget that there's a blue sky just past the gray.

You were the voice I heard.

What's that now?

You were the voice I heard in the radio.

You were the voice I followed.

It's very possible.

My wife and I are always sending out the word along the airwaves.

It can end up in most interesting of places.

What is happening?

We're getting to know each other, Clementine.

Isn't that why you stopped by?

I certainly hope there isn't some other nefarious purpose to you showing up on our front steps.

You did Neil and Julie in this whole sequence.

Clementine shows up.

And just the way that they orchestrate the like

weaponized folksiness of this scene,

it's just like, it's so disorienting.

Like if I was Clementine in the scene, I would be like,

I'm scared.

And I don't know why.

Because they're being really nice to me, but something else is going on, and I don't know what it is.

It's really, uh, they really, they really killed it.

It was really great.

Yeah.

There's this tradition that runs in my family.

When your tea is done, you turn the cup over into your saucer, and the arrangement of what's left behind can be used for a bit of divination.

Isn't that something?

Couldn't tell you how many eggs you got in a hen house or some such, but the arrangement of the leaves could give one the broad strokes, you understand?

The gist of things.

Let you know of a harsh winter on the way, or if your sweetheart is to ask your hand in marriage, or if an enemy is about.

Tassiography is what this is called.

What eography?

Tassiography.

Tassiography, okay.

Tassiography, which is the reading of tea leaves.

Uh-huh.

Sometimes you wait until you've drank all the tea, and then you look at the leaves that are at the bottom of the cup, and then sometimes you drink all the tea, and then you turn the cup over, and then you look at how the leaves fell out of the bottom of the cup.

Yes, originated in Greece and Persia, and then Romani people took tassiography and they brought it upwards into Europe.

Okay, and it spread throughout Europe.

This sort of thing of you know, reading tea leaves, seeing your future, seeing how much money you're gonna make next year, all of that stuff.

Time is a substance I am made of, time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am

it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger.

It is a fire which consumes me, but I

am the fire.

So the only thing that we heard more in season three than what

was probably Clementine saying this.

Time is the substance I am made of, etc., etc.

This is Borges.

Borges.

Borges was a really fascinating dude.

Incredibly just fascinating person.

Wrote a lot of just like really amazing short stories that are just like

ambiguous and mind-blowing and like,

and there's just tons of them.

And it just, it's the kind of thing like as soon as you finish reading it, you're like, I have to read the whole thing again because I missed so much, even though I totally got it.

Like there's this one, like the Book of Sand is one of them.

Okay, the Book of Sand is about a man who acquires this book, and the book is

infinite.

Okay, so it's written in an unknown language.

He doesn't know what the book, but it's like he keeps turning the pages, and there's always more pages.

But there's also these illustrations, and he gets so intrigued by this book, and he keeps trying to like document it and like translate it.

And he realizes that this book is like sucking him in, like, this book is like taking over his whole life.

And so the man is like, I have to get rid of this book, right?

And so he's like, I'm going to set it on fire.

But then he's like, wait, if I set it on fire and the pages are infinite, then it will just keep burning and the smoke will eventually fill up the entire world.

So I can't set it on fire.

And eventually he doesn't have anything.

He doesn't know what to do.

And so he just takes the book and he goes to the National Library and he just puts it on the shelf and then walks away.

You know,

his thinking was like, the best place to hide a leaf is in the forest.

Right?

Yeah.

And the whole thing really is about

the seductiveness of the infinite and trying to just pull away from that because it will suck you in forever.

Right.

And so you have to turn away from it so that you can be a human being on the planet Earth.

You know, that there are these ideas you have to turn away from.

Just like TikTok.

Exactly like TikTok, honey.

Because it just keeps scrolling.

Yeah.

And it never stops, honey.

So

this passage that Clementine repeats throughout the season isn't actually from one of his stories.

It's actually from an essay of his.

He wrote this essay called A New Refutation of Time.

And it was an essay about how he argues that

time is not a fundamental reality, right?

That time is based on change.

And change, in fact, is an illusion.

Change is just the juxtaposition of moments that are essentially eternal, right?

So he starts with a guy named George Berkeley, who is a philosopher.

And George Berkeley's thing was

there is no matter,

only perceptions.

And then he puts that on top of a guy named David Hume.

And David Hume said that there is no self.

Yes.

Only sensations.

Yes.

So he goes on to say that there is no time outside of the present moment.

And when he writes a story,

he doesn't experience the story chronologically.

Right?

He experiences the story all at the same time.

Therefore, he says time is a static field with all of the moments in time existing simultaneously, right?

Yeah.

He argues, though, that time,

even though it's not real, is a necessary illusion and that we need it to function, but we should never mistake time for reality.

Jeez.

And that's a new refutation of time in a nutshell, really.

Oh, okay.

And then there's Clementine, you know, repeating

that passage from his essay, even though she doesn't know what it is.

Yeah.

So that's where that comes from.

Boreas, very interesting dude.

Please read all of his stories.

Now what?

Keep your eye on it.

Three,

two,

one.

Oh!

Good catch.

Frisbee.

Frisbee.

What else does it do?

That's it.

It's fun.

I'm scared to throw it back.

I am also scared for you to throw it back.

Sally.

Thanks for not yelling at me.

What good would it have done?

It was a year ago.

Here we are now.

It was a year ago?

Yes.

Oh.

Weird.

I thought I was getting better at that.

I've been really distracted.

Everything okay?

Yeah, it will be.

Where's June?

Well, it's one in the morning, Clementine.

So June's either at her home, someone else's home, or the bar.

Oh, uh, sorry.

What are you doing here?

I sleep here, sometimes.

Oh.

Why?

Honestly, I sleep here all the time.

time.

I came back to town when I took this place over after my dad.

I haven't really worked out where I live yet.

Your dad?

He passed away?

He did, yeah.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

My.

I lost my mother.

You remember?

Yeah.

I was, um, um

I don't really know how to explain it, but it all came rushing back to me all at once.

I had to remember losing her all over again.

That's fucking terrible, Clementine.

I am so sorry.

I'm okay.

Now I'm okay.

I can't imagine having to go through that twice.

It was good that I did.

Um, it was good.

It, um,

it made me decide something.

What's that?

That I'm never going to lose anything ever again,

buddy, really.

Yes,

that buddy

sounds pretty impossible.

That's just because you don't know me, Frank.

Okay,

if If you could bring him back, would you?

That is a bad question to ask yourself.

I know.

I know.

It's crazy, but

just

come with me into the craziness.

If you could have...

Not bring him back, but

if you could have made it all never have happened, would you?

I think anyone would.

What if there was something you had to do to make that happen?

Is there anything you wouldn't do?

No.

I hate to say it, but

no.

Honestly, there's nothing I wouldn't do.

I miss him all the time.

Okay.

Thanks for not asking me a bunch of questions.

I've decided I don't want to know the answers to any questions I have for you.

Okay.

Don't take that the wrong way.

No, I won't.

Hey, do you mind if I stay here tonight?

Well, we are at a motel.

It feels safe here.

I can pay you.

I've got.

Hang on.

I've got this.

Does this work?

That looks like about a thousand Canadian dollars, Clementine.

Is that enough?

It's fine.

At least it's not more gold.

Please don't bring up the gold.

You're in room seven.

The door's unlocked.

Keys in the bedside table.

Fun.

Do you need a bucket of ice?

No, I think I'll go right to bed.

I've got a big day tomorrow, Frank.

Oh, yeah?

What are you doing?

Hmm.

I'm not doing anything.

But there's all sorts of things I need to undo.

Good night, Frank.

Good night, Clementine.

Lovely music choice.

Clear to live.

We did it.

Midnight Burger is made possible.

We did it.

Now I have a question.

Oh, you have a question.

Wilson, Billy, Bertbert.

What is your question?

You look very intense right now.

You look very

lost in thought.

My question is:

did she go back to other timelines?

Like, what?

Because none of

our diner friends

clearly remember any of these things.

Right.

It's not like she's very forgettable.

Right.

So what, what?

Okay, so remember, when you go back in time

and you, in the world of Midnight Burger anyway.

Yes.

When you go back in time and you take an action.

Yes.

That action that you take creates another timeline.

Yes.

Right?

So you're now no longer in the in that timeline.

You're now in this new timeline where Leif met a woman named Clementine when he was hiding out on the ice planet.

Right.

Right?

Yes.

So she went back to that time.

Yes.

And her being there is the action.

Yes.

And she just made a mess.

Yes.

Because she is like just bull in a china shop all the time.

Mess, mess, mess.

Like just mess, mess, mess.

The whole, just the whole season.

Yeah.

Mess.

So it's like, I want to know some stuff, so I'm going to go find out.

Yeah.

While making a mess.

Yeah, while making a huge mess.

Okay.

Okay.

Is that it?

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

That was easy.

You had this look on your face like, I have an incredibly grave and important thing.

The look

because I didn't know how to articulate it and not sound like a dummy, which I'm not sure I accomplished, but whatever, it's fine.

You did not sound like a dummy at all.

It's very, when you get into the timeline bullshit, it's very confusing.

You know why?

Why?

Because time travel is stupid.

Time travel is stupid.

It really is.

And it always makes a mess.

And it's never satisfying.

Yeah.

Or at least it shouldn't be, right?

All this stuff about going back and fixing the time, all the stuff that Clementine's trying to do, you know?

Yeah.

No.

Bad.

Come on.

Stop it.

Clementine.

Time.

You know who shouldn't stop it, though, honey?

Everybody listening to this show right now.

We did it.

We made it to the end of chapter 23.

Know your enemy, you know?

Kind of a crazy episode.

Like when you listen to it, I go back and listen to it again.

It's just like, this is different from all of the other things.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, and it's like, ooh, different.

And then all of a sudden later, you're in Jerusalem.

But don't worry about that right now.

Everything's going to be fine.

We kept doing things that were different from the normal thing, which means that there is no normal thing anymore.

It's like going back in time and creating another timeline.

Ooh.

Anyway.

Yay.

Thank you very much for joining us for chapter 23.

Here we are.

Chapter 24.

The greatest.

Hiatus Fest 23-24.

It is happening right in front of your faces.

Well, inside your earballs.

Inside your earballs, that's where it's happening, everybody.

So, what we like to do, of course, at the end of every single damn one of these episodes is we like to read this incredibly long list of mofos.

Honey?

Yes.

You can do it.

I believe in you.

Okay, see, you're already psyching me out, right?

No, I'm giving you support.

You're putting too much pressure on me.

This is supportive.

I'm being supportive.

I appreciate your support, and it's lovely.

Anyway,

thank you very much for joining us, everyone.

Please send us more questions.

Yes, send us more questions.

We'd love to hear more follow-ups.

We'd love to hear how you react to things.

We'd love to, what, do you want magic to be real or do you want the dinosaurs?

You know, let us know.

I'm assuming we're going to be able to do that.

We want to know who wants a cat.

Sure.

We want that as well.

As long as it's the right answer.

That's right.

All right.

So.

Let's wrap it up.

Chapter 23.

Let's stick a fork in it.

We love you very much.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you so much.

We will be talking to you again in just one week.

With chapter 24.

For chapter 24, Big Rock.

Yes!

Big Rock!

Big Rock.

So let's do it.

Here we go.

Big list of people.

Bertbert's Army.

Monte Cristo level and above supporters.

Here we go.

Wilson, Billy, Bertbert, Bethany, 2nd Bethany, Megan Mighty, Siobhan Delilah Rose, Stabby Cacti, Dan Bowman, Deary Darling, Casper's number one fan, Stu, Tess Bart, Nan McVicker, Rusty Accord, A Bug Named Nat, Mothra Stewart, Hicks Bessie Mates, Daniel L., Mitzi Lou, Life is Liminal, G Longhorn, Lou Cretzia, Amy Pollard, Zehoni Vida, Brick Hausdorff, The Waiting Pool Pirates, Past Prologue, Little Ball of Odd, Dr.

Putt Gusher Esquire, Stepon, Chelsea G, Code Stranger, Shocking Development Sneer of Eye, Lydia Kenworthy, Mel Momberg, Cosmic Shrugged, Osvaldo Simeone, Bradley Ashby, Kingpin, Nesbel, Boodles, Rashmi Vinkatesh, Rubius Fuzzlebutt, Miss Chris Still Making Sandwiches, Hot Plate of Biscuits and Gravy, Banshee Ranch, Killshot Betty in her Steel-Eyed Bow, Victor in Cincinnati, Bacon, Kurt Bartnick, Russell Bunny, Kim Bob, Tom Webster, Sherbert Aggressive, Infinity Times Infinity, Saint Fu, Roman Ronin, D.

Fox, Matt Mosby, J.

Spark, J.

Way Mythical, The Real Dirt Fairy, Haya Buddha, Azuls, Rubies, Lady Karma, Amar J.

Dibble, Stephanie Sturgis, The Dread Pirate Fred Fredberger, Ryan Ortega, Rogue, Liz LaserEyes, William Dyer, Hurry Up and Wait, Aang Ree, Ivy, Raphael S.K., Cole, Cameron Winterbourne Welsh, Your Favorite Kenny, Galatea, Reaper, Black Squirrel, Eevee Power, SCRB Mark11, Robert Oliveri, Berserking Off, Hayward's Finest Garen Elizondo, Genuine Jacob, Schnoogens, Joshua Cody, Kelly Jane Danky, Ambient Drifting Man 80, Chewy Balooey, Mossy, Whitney, Destroyer of Worlds, Quentin Elizabeth Jones, Stephen Stephen Robin Poole, Stephen Schmidt, Crazed Bear, Pathos, Amanda Marie Catherine, The Something Something Detective Agency, Alexica Habaniera, Underwater Corvid, Virgo Ares Infinity, Julian Barber, Sir Cat Dad, Jane Goostree, Brad Munier, The Amburglar, Velocicate, Gracefully Impaired, Daniel Arthur, Crystal Delightful, Petting Dogs, Phantom Zone, William Orain, Croat Nation, Scrim Brulee, Jack Lane, Lola, Mad Maddox, Phantom Turtle, Chaos Squatcher, Bookschiff Managed, Aaron the Optimist, Andrew Barner, Criddle, Camel Pope, Teds Loves Catherine, Kristen Davis, Shane Lee, Tuba Rick, Ryan Abbey, Patrick Jenkins, Julia Kringlin, Clara Olson, Justine Burbank, Sunny De Anomaly, Peachy Zatowichi, The Bard with the Tuva, ALR, Jane, Chris Hancock, Sammy Baldwin, Zeno, Dances with Burritos, Apprehensive Craig, Terrifying Genderless Space Pirate Uncle Buck, Caravan Shaker, Trinket Coralee, Charlie DeLambert, Deli Cruise, Sarah Data, Edgy Steve, Gruntled, Rekka Iumu, Disco Demons, Incorrigible Ross, Hashtag Nissan Acura, Lara Orchid, Qualandis, Heidelberdie, Potato Nation, La Cochne Francaise, Alice Malice, Podge Art, Rudra, Starlight, The Captain, Freya Titmittens, Patrick Graney, Celeste Yoos, Corrine Sabrantha, Weirdly Nordic Leviathan, Char Noble, Matt N, Sean Wright, JRR on SFP, McClump, Michael Christian, Wandering Aquarius, Allison, Moldy Bread Millie, Mike Whiskey and Your Friend Frosty, Techno Ranger Rick, Harry Fishtuts, Dr.

Glass, Charmay, Kyle of Light, Brock Awini, Theo Alex Deen, Lattice Action Figure, Scissors Sold Separately, Flat Doug, Sarah Farmer, Arrow of Truth, Casey Howe, Purple Saline, The Wondrous Methazophon, Antigone Brickman, The Love Pod Podcast, Nicole23, Lahari, J-Mac Diz, Take20 Damage, Feedba Fish, Saren Far Beyond the Stars, Spizzeringtum, Smelga Snorowitz, Samira, Blargo, Blargo, Blargo, Onyx Rose, Spooples, Chut Brimble, Battle Pope and Bugaboo, Sweets, Amanda Eller, Tonka 2005, Death the Kid, Hold It Now, Hold It Now, Hold It Now,

Max Savage, Tamara Oliver, Kelsey Home, Jackie Wavelet, Marissa, Daniel Gregory, Amanda Short, Damien the Goddamn Time Lawyer, Terry, Tim Aranetta, Magic Pony, Jay Snoosden, Maggie's Yarm, That Chicken Florida, Rebecca Trossel, Andy Croft, Zealous Pragma, Ben Barr, Lucid Harbor, Tybalt I, Aaron Mitchell, Raven the NecoQueen, Ashley Chapel Peoples, Teddy of the Wasteland, Jimmy Snims, Melvis Grey Mystery, Alkalized Tertiary Amines, Relentless Rick, Om Vega, More and Less, Al Cave, Biggie, Kevin Batten, Creator67, Sono Nasuno, John Dew, Courtney Depona, Snorts McGortz, John Pruitt, Justin at the Tree Cave, Ruth McCormick, It's Just Blake, Avinala, The Pearsons, Tired Pirate Muffin, J.R.

the Hiker Bear, Turtles All the Way Down, Fiona Malasy, Azza, Menlor, Rachel Rachelson, Nicole Studioso, Moldy Bred Millie, Tracy, Elspeth, Jesse Adams, Calibri, The Green Street Major, Posh Baby Rentals Florida, Jessica Shelton, Dex, Nate, Megan Okeo, Three Legs Are Perfectly Good, Jeremiah, Mars Royalty, Sarah Murphy, Peter, Maloran, Marun Mai Salil, Noah and Katie, Late Indeed Again, Beastly Death, Unexciting K, Ian Hertzler, Vicki Aber, Mother of Thor, Huey702S, Cryptessia, Fireball XL5, Nth Anomaly, Atlas B, Salazar the Dome Age, Spruce Box, Fresh Squeezed, Laura, Ryan Abbey, Freup, Zusanna, Best Buds Danny and M, Eliza Smith, Captain Blepp, Finnegan Robert, Lord Than and Lady SARS, Ashton James, Paul A.

Johnson, Callison, Hunter B, Zachynat, Big Whiskey, Talon Lawson, Deidre, Hannah Dale, Ted Wasanasson, Sarah Maguire, Nea, Cara, Julia, Ben and Jessica, Tarvok Stormbringer, Just Jane is Fine, Dandy Bay, Bobby G, Cece Ryder, Maisie Span Stand, The Combat Wombat, Sven the Unlikely, K-Mac, Rambo, Kirsten, Eli the Electrician, Jackie Lowie, Adelaide Dark, Manglerfish, Sweet Michelle, Good God, There Are So Many Names, Jesus Christ Another Name, Curtis Trell Sr., David Pierini, Terrified Toddler, Dalek Steve, Dancing Dog Dreams, and existentially, exhausted bean.

You did it!

Oh my god.

Woo!

Woo!

Guys,

we did it.

All right, thank you very much, everyone.

We love you very much.

We will see you

in one week.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Oof, honey.