2025.07.23: Assume Stealing Posture

I love you, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Hey!

We're recording the podcast!

Shut up!

Good morning to you, wherever you are, because it is Morning Subway!

For July 23rd, 2025, my name is Bernie Burns, sitting way over there, but she's going to be close to me very soon.

It's Ashley.

Say hi to Ashley, everybody.

Look, you're getting a little bit closer every moment.

Every moment.

Right now, what are you huddled in a corner of an airport?

No, you know where I am?

I am in a minute suite.

Do you know what a minute suite is?

That sounds like the kind of room that you rent by the hour, except it's in an airport, so it's respectable.

Yes, it is for corporate sluts, not for the interesting kind of sluts, Ashley.

I've tucked away.

So I'm in the DFW airport, and I'm in this room.

It costs like, it's a little office slash napping area, and it's like 60 bucks bucks an hour to be in here but it's a great place to be able to you know like tuck yourself away in the airport and actually have some privacy at least some and if you want to get a nap or something like that then you have the ability to do that And I have questions about that, right?

Because I've never been in one of these spaces.

So this little like napping area, this bed, right?

Is it one of those kinds of things where it's sort of like vinyl and then it's got that pull-down paper like at the doctor's office and you just lay down on that?

And then when you leave, they just roll down some clean paper for the next napper?

Or are you getting proper linens?

And it doesn't have any of the paper, it does have like sheets, but it did.

The bed does feel like something that you would see in a doctor's office.

Does it have?

Here's the thing: at the end of the bed, Bernie, are there like stirrups?

Right?

Is there a doctor being like, all right, this is going to be just a little bit uncomfortable?

Listen, the things that we do for a daily podcast, Ashley, that's all I have to say.

I'm getting by over here.

But it's interesting because we should probably talk about this right away.

The subreddit, we decided to make it private yesterday.

Tell you, we thought we'd take one more shot at it.

And I made a funny appeal to Reddit, which I guess somebody over in the administrative department appreciated.

And they made the subreddit private.

But even after all of our testing that we did,

like 90% of the people got locked out of the subreddit yesterday.

Yeah, I think that's the thing.

So by the time you listen to this, you're the only user in the subreddit right now.

Am I the only one?

Well, God, I was wondering why it seems so palatable today.

It's just me talking to myself.

It's a ship in motion, Ashley.

And we're trying different stuff all the time, but this is not what we intended.

No, no, no.

We'll call this a learning experience.

And it's actually taught me something as well, which is, I guess, I always misunderstood what it meant when a subreddit went private, like during the protests and everything.

I always assumed and thought based on our testing as well, that it meant more like circling the wagons, closing the doors, right?

So everyone who was a member can still access it, but no one who is not already subscribed can see it or get to it or join up.

And I guess that's not

the case, or unless there's some obscure little checkbox or something that you have to check when you're sending it private.

We found out that no one is grandfathered in.

And I discovered that when the subreddit disappeared for me today.

It was an experiment.

We wanted to try it.

I like trying new stuff personally.

And this is something that probably a significant portion of the subreddit was honestly probably not fully on board with, but at least everyone's taking the blackout in good spirits.

But I do think it's important.

We should probably tell people in the future, if this ever happens, you can always go to the Patreon or to, in the future, it'll be the Rooster Teeth website to get more information or the Discord, right, Ashley?

Yeah, yeah.

So if you're on the Patreon, we have the Discord as well, which is a

fairly active, but not overwhelmingly so so community.

And we do a lot of communication there.

The Patreon, if you have questions or you still have like a burning need to share a comment, there's always like the Spotify comments and the YouTube comments and things like that.

But hopefully, if you're a subreddit diehard, it should be

approved and republic again by the time this episode is out.

Fingers crossed.

Well, the subreddit was a big issue yesterday, but when I woke up, the news that I saw first off the bat was that, no pun intended, was that Ozzy Osborne had passed away at the ripe old age of 76.

It's kind of impressive.

I think he did like a farewell concert.

This was going to be his last concert ever just a couple of weeks ago.

And so I guess that was that was fairly timely.

He was able to sort of, you know, at least finalize his career on his terms and do this, this last concert that he really wanted to do.

And he was able to get there, which is great.

But yes, it is a tragedy that he's passed away.

He is known also not only for the music part of his career, but also I think a lot of us remember him as one of the first big celebrity reality TV stars.

Do you remember

he had the show?

I want to say it was on MTV because MTV was really at the forefront of a lot of early reality television and a lot of the stuff they did has now been almost like genrefied into different types of reality TV.

And Ozzy Osborne and the show, The Osbournes, was definitely, I mean, that was the first celebrity family reality show, right?

So I guess if you want to, you could blame the Kardashians on him.

You probably could.

I mean, it is what started that genre of reality.

And reality in general, you're right, did start on MTV.

I credit The Real World as being the first ever reality show.

The version of reality, which I honestly dislike the most, it actually started really cool with the Osbournes because it was so weird to be inside a celebrity family's home and they're like arguing with their neighbors and stuff like that.

And it wasn't clear what was real and what wasn't.

And yeah, his legacy goes beyond just

heavy metal rock music.

Yeah, it was one of those like celebrities.

They're just like us.

They get in petty neighbor fights.

Why not?

You know, and so it was

really interesting in that regard.

He was a real trendsetter.

So

it's a great loss, but I'm glad that he was able to have his

final concert and he was able to celebrate his daughter's engagement and all of that stuff.

So it at least sounds like he was able to do a lot of the things that he wanted to do.

Have you seen their daughter Kelly?

Because I will just say she has had an incredible glow up since she appeared on the Osbourne's television show to the point where she doesn't even look like the same person anymore.

She looks smoking.

I'm just, I'm Googling her now and she looks great.

I'm seeing a lot of photos of her with this like really nice lavender purple hair and she's a stunner.

What's up, girlfriend?

Do you remember what she looked like when she was on the show?

God forbid we should all be subjected to a worldwide television audience when we're in the middle of our awkward teenage years, but she had to go through that.

She did.

And that's, I'm so grateful that I came from just right before

the era where every moment we put online, I was there just before

like Facebook got big, right?

That's when I had my awkward time before

I recorded everything for everyone.

And I couldn't be more happy about that fact.

Speaking of awkward moments, I had one in DFW because I forgot to get you the one thing that you asked for in America, which is Reese's pieces.

So in DFW, like my last possible opportunity.

I get you the most expensive Reese's pieces on the planet.

I got them in an airport.

But the crazy thing about it was I went to a gate in DFW that I've never gone to before.

That's where I landed from Austin.

And as I was walking down the hall trying to find Reese's pieces for you, I saw an Amazon walkout store and I thought, oh my God, I got to try this.

It was such a crazy, awkward experience, even though there was nothing awkward about it at all.

I just felt like the entire time I'm doing something wrong.

I had to tap my phone, scan in with my credit card essentially when I walked in.

There was an attendant who was sitting there who didn't say a word to me.

I just walked up to the shelf, got some Reese's pieces.

got like a little like a granola bar for myself and then a protein shake a core power 26 gram complete protein shake, and then just walked out.

There was a thing where you could type to put in your email address for a receipt.

So I did that just to see if it would work.

And I, two hours later, now I've got it and it got all my items and everything.

I paid $13 for all of those items and just...

walked out.

I didn't do anything, just walked straight out of the store, and that was it.

Now, when you were walking around in the store, did you do the thing where you like, you hold your arms to your sides, but like out a little bit from your sides to be very clear that like you're not putting anything in a pocket and that you're like an uh like an upstanding citizen and you're not doing anything shady where you know you you make you have to walk there's a posture right there's a posture to walking and showing that you're definitely not stealing something in order to record it for potentially for the patreon i used my sunglasses to record the whole experience and i

didn't intend to do this and I didn't know that I do this.

So I must have felt really awkward because I was whistling the whole time.

Like I was completely guilty of something and I was trying to whistle it away.

I don't even know what I was whistling.

I don't know why I was whistling.

But it was pretty cool.

And it's one of those things.

It's like, it's super awkward the first time you do it, but then after that, it's going to seem completely normal.

I feel like I need to circle back.

Bernie, though, to the fact that you bought me Reese's pieces at the airport.

Do you recall what my request was?

You wanted as many Reese's pieces as I could carry.

I wanted one of those industrial size bags.

Yeah, but here's the problem.

Here's the problem.

I'll eat them.

So you're going to suffer because of my lack of control.

So I thought about that and I thought, well, I'll get you a reasonable amount of Reese's pieces because what will happen is you will eat them before I think to go and look at where you've hidden them.

I won't, but I am going to have to scroll them around the house so that you can't find them and that I keep them secret.

And then I just, I just pop into one of my little hide-a-holes and then I just like nibble on a couple of Reese's pieces when I feel like I've either been really good or I just feel bad.

Ashley, can I tell you that after this trip to the U.S.,

I don't think I'm going to eat for a goddamn month, man.

It seemed like every time I said to the kids, I said, like, are you hungry?

Do you want to do something?

Do you want to, like, I thought we'll cook something in the house?

Nope.

We went out for almost every single meal, sometimes two or three a day.

I, I'm like, it's unbelievable.

I mean, there were some times I was just like, I was just like sitting there going, oh my God, what am I doing to myself with this?

But it's so easy when you're in the U.S., it's so easy.

We were talking with,

I was talking with Jason about it yesterday on the podcast.

And it was just like, we were just going down the road.

And I said to JD, hey, there's a bowling alley.

Do you want to go bowling?

It's like, sometimes you forget how easy life can be in America sometimes.

Yeah, it is easy, but I have limited sympathy for you because I have complete food FOMO.

And I've been deliberately not asking you what you've been eating there.

Every now and again,

in email, I see one of the receipts from like a delivery or where you've gone.

And I just, I just have to like delete that and get it out of my mind because it just makes the FOMO worse.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you'll be happy to know I did not get home slice at all on this trip.

So I did not have home sliced pizza, but I did have double daves.

Yeah,

oddly enough, like I don't get the FOMO about

the pizza because

you have to know this about me by now, that I'm not a huge pizza person.

Like, I'll eat pizza if someone else else suggests it.

I'm never going to be like, no, pizza is the worst thing ever.

Of course, it's not, but it's never the thing that I specifically am in the mood for.

So you can have your home slice all you like.

While you're talking about receipts, though,

I've been seeing receipts as well because you've been buying stuff while I've been gone to the UK.

And I found something that I want to...

So much stuff.

I want to introduce this to you.

Somebody, and this is a brilliant idea, I think, I read that somebody has created a fake online shopping experience where you can go and you can look at products and you can put them in your cart and then you can hit buy now and it sends you an email and sends you text updates and all that stuff as though you've bought something, but you've bought nothing.

And the whole purpose of it is to give people that dopamine rush when they do their shopping therapy and to help people who suffer from shopping addiction.

Not that you're a shopping addict, but I think this is a brilliant idea.

And I can't help but wonder, why hasn't anyone made something like this before?

I mean, is it though?

Because like as you're browsing it, as you're going through, like, adding stuff to your cart and going through the checkout process and getting your emails, you know that it's fake.

Like, you know, that it's not real.

You are like, it's almost like you can't do like a double-blind test with a placebo because you know it's a placebo.

Right.

What I'm looking forward to, Ashley, is when I go to the just walk out store where you can't actually buy anything, it's just like pictures of food on the wall, and I get awkward in there.

Because if I just want to feel that nice social awkwardness, and then I wander around in the store and then leave.

Well, hopefully at least junkie emails will soon be part of our history.

Did you see that Gmail is rolling out a new inbox decluttering feature?

Dude, have you seen this yet?

Because I thought maybe this is one of those features that's in my Gmail that's always been there and I just have never noticed it.

Because I'll be honest, I don't use Gmail that much.

This is probably the oldest school internet thing that I do is I still use an email client to this day.

Like going back to the days of Eudora, I have my own email and I have my own email client, but I've started to use Gmail more over the years.

And I saw they have this manage your

subscriptions where you can do like mass unsubscribes.

And it's not like you have to go in and unsubscribe to every email.

It just shows you everyone who's sending you a bunch of emails and then you can just go manage them all in one place.

Ashley, I love this feature.

I absolutely love it.

And I looked it up.

It came out July 8th of this year is when they rolled it out.

One of the difficulties that I have with how we manage our email is we have a shared email that then forwards to each of our individual inboxes.

And so every now and again, I go on like a declutter spree and I unsubscribe from all of the stuff that's coming to me.

But I don't feel like I have the authority to unsubscribe to stuff that's coming to both of us if you're the one who signed up for that account.

Oh, you should feel free to do that.

What are you talking about in particular?

Is there anything that's bugging you?

No, nothing specific, but just like if there is something that we get regular, like almost like marketing emails to that's from an account that I wasn't the one who created it, I almost feel like I don't have the authority to unsubscribe.

But if you're giving me the authority, you're about to have a squeaky clean inbox, sir.

I get that.

I get that.

Also, the main tool that we use, we're using it right now for communication is WhatsApp.

I feel like they just recently put out a desktop version.

of the client because remember there was a period there where you couldn't like have it on more than one desktop yes and you had to like go through all this to move it to a different desktop for WhatsApp.

It was supposed to be on your phone.

Yeah, like you could, you could have it.

You had to re-authenticate it and sync it up with like a new desktop client.

And it was very annoying.

And I mean, honestly, I don't...

They also just recently released, I think, a native iPad app for the first time.

And so they're starting to get the hang of all of these native apps, except I guess they've decided to just shit all over their desktop app.

So now you're going to have to log into a web page to use your messaging service, which you can also use for voice calls and for video calls.

And it just seems like it's moving backwards, like especially for chat clients and things like that.

Right.

Well, and it seems like the

desktop client for Windows is at a place now where I feel like it has all the features that it needs.

Right.

Like I can, we can chat, we can answer calls, we can do whatever we need to.

And in a lot of ways, it's really useful for us to reference.

I don't see why they need to make it worse by turning it into like a wrapped up web app.

And it's like nothing happened, right?

It's not like WhatsApp is suffering or anything like that.

They're just saying, we're just not going to do the Windows app anymore and moving away from it.

That kind of sucks.

Yeah, yeah.

I also don't get it.

At least they didn't make it like a subscription thing.

You know what I mean?

Which is usually the way those things go with apps.

Like suddenly the service you were using all the time is like, oh, now you need to pay us like $120 a year in one lump sum annual payment in order to use the same client that that you used last week, you know?

So at least they're not doing that.

Yeah, that's true.

That is very, very true.

Well, actually, I got to report on something else that I've noticed about the U.S.

since the last time I was there.

I don't know if we've talked about this before, but it seems like, I feel like the 24-hour culture in the U.S.

is just not there anymore.

Like

there are stores that are 24-hours, but there's not many.

It's back to just like convenience stores and things like that.

And, you know, my sample size is Austin, Texas, but it does feel like pretty much everywhere has abandoned the idea of 24 hours a day.

Well, you say that, but do you remember several years ago, and this was 2018, maybe?

So, you know, seven years ago or so, we were in New York and we were, um, we were trying to, we were out having a big night, right?

We were out quite late.

And we actually ran into that

like that many years ago is they say New York is the city that doesn't sleep, but guess what?

All of its stores do.

Like everything shut down.

What's a big store that you associate with being 24 hours?

Is there anything that leaps to mind?

7-Eleven.

Like a Walmart.

A Walmart, maybe.

Maybe some targets.

Walmart's mine too.

Like it was like, okay, I need a printer cable at three in the morning.

I know I can get that from Walmart.

You know, I know at the very least I can go to Walmart and get that.

It's just not the case anymore.

It's not by default that some of these places are open 24 hours.

You're just going to to get your normal business hours and that's it.

Yeah, I mean, maybe they just did the math and no one is going out during those hours anymore.

So there's no point in being open.

It's a little bit like what we hope will happen eventually with

companies that keep Christmas hours, right?

They're open on Christmas because people go shopping on Christmas.

And then they say, oh, wow, I can't believe you're open today.

And they're open

because you're here shopping.

And we hope that by staying home,

we can influence them to maybe close next time.

Well, Ashley, who do we have to thank for supporting us 24 hours a day, regardless of what the current economy is?

A big thank you to 24 Hour supporters, Evan W.

and Sean Davis.

Thank you both so much for sponsoring this episode of the show at patreon.com slash morning somewhere.

All right.

Well, that does it for us today, July 23rd, 2025.

We will be back in person to talk to you tomorrow.

We hope you will be here as well.

Bye, everybody.