Sitcom Comfort Food And Hot Takes

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome back, everyone. It's time to punch in for another swing shift. I'm your host, Rob, joined by my brother and co-host RJ.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Should I get a little like time clock punch sound effect every time you say that? A whip.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

You would go that route to the chandler bean.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

That'd be funny. That'd be funny. I never really understood. Uh I mean, it's it's a good show. It's a good show. I never understood like the craze. It's not the best show ever, but people are obsessed with it.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Um, I I was obsessed with it when it was still air, like they were still recording, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, I'm not talking about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

I'm talking about like today.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah, like just how into it people are. Um, I mean, it's not that good. Frasier was a far better show. Uh Seinfeld was a far better show.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yes. Yeah. I I've kind of I I've actually I don't want to say disdain, but I have a big I have a lot of um resistance to friends now when it's on TV. I just go, oh, you know, the I'm good. I think I think uh for probably people that are still really into it, it's probably a nostalgia thing, kind of a uh comfort place.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Um I mean a lot of the a lot of these shows are. Um I just think like it's uh yeah, it's it's mid-tier, you know, if you're talking about shows from that era, rewatch value. Um talk about comfort food. Like Frasier is such a comfort food show. Like it's uh lovely.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Well, that it it and Seinfeld were are very similar in the sense of like the type of humor and how well written they were as far as how things would tie out. It was it was really well thought out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I was I'm glad you finished that thought. So I'm like, did he really just say that Frasier and Seinfeld were very similar shows? Uh yeah. In that regard though. Yeah, I uh I just one of the funniest things about Frazier to me is like, you know, when him and Niles are talking, like I don't understand half of what they're saying. I'm like it's it just cracks me up because I'm like I used to think I'm stupid, and maybe I still am, but I'm like, no, but I think that's the point.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, that's exactly it. Because it's like, well, they they may be uh of higher intellect or have a better vocabulary, but they're they still act like children. Oh, they're so they still act like your brothers. They're such babies, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

So so snooty about everything, the

Dogs, Cats, And Calming Down

SPEAKER_01 3:10

fucking little baby. That's the irony of it. Yeah, I love it. That's what makes it so good. Oh god, did you hear that? Yeah, was that Finn Pond at the door? Nope, that was Oakley, um, growling at somebody. Which if I had to if I had to bet, it'd be a cat. Uh, because they just you know, cats just they know what they want. Yeah, they do what they want, and I'll start a little they can be a little dick sometimes. Like Oakley doesn't mind the cats at all. Like pays them no mind, whatever. But every now and then they'll just be walking through the you know, walking past him, they'll just like smack him in the in the tail or something. He does not like that. I'm just like, why?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Alone. That's the last dog you want to piss off. Uh actually he's so zero to a hundred so fast.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, he is. Uh for very much so when you're not when you haven't spent a lot of time around him. It definitely seems like that, but um, he you know, he's got he's got anxiety real bad. Well, he can be very anxious, and so uh I I mean he's 13. I've had him forever. Like, I definitely wow see it coming and all that stuff. And um, but yeah, like right now that's that's the other thing. Right now, what happened is outside my office here while we're recording, doors closed, he wants to be in, so he's anxious because you know there's that separation. But then the cats are like, Oh, you little amped up, boom. How can we calm you down? Yeah. Uh speaking of calming down, you're gonna call you you, we, we're gonna calm me down. Uh okay, let's

The Six Grievances Kickoff

SPEAKER_01 5:00

let's hear. I'm just gonna comment here this fucking show because uh please, I did the last time. Uh yeah. I've had like I've had like a bad day. And here's the thing. Not for any reason, not for any good reason. It's like, you know, nothing terrible happened, whatever. It's just uh, you know, lots of little niggly things, you know how they kind of add up and blah blah blah. Uh and you just like sometimes you just need to dump the dump truck. So beep, here I come. Beep, beep.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

What what were all the things that happened today to make it such a bad day?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I have six things today.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Uh six. Do you have a written you must have them written out?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I wrote them down like before before we came in, because I was yeah, so I'm gonna uh I'm gonna tell you what they are. I'm gonna let you choose because they're all none of them are really that consequential. They're all little things. Um and to varying degrees. So uh currently uh today I have a beef with the following things. Uh number one, Verizon, number two, KN. Uh fair, number three, Madonna, number four, ranger, my cat. Okay, number five, the sun, and number six, the moon.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Okay, so I could

Madonna, Katy Perry, And Halftime Chaos

SPEAKER_00 6:25

probably figure out all of those except for Madonna.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Um so let's start with Madonna, even though I really want to dive into some other stuff, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah, and now I want I want to do the thing. Uh now that you said that, so five out of six. Like, after we do Madonna, like that'd be a thing. We'll play a we'll play a game of I guess what happened. Yes. Okay. So Madonna. Uh, what's her fucking deal? Did you catch the FIFA World Cup halftime show? No. Alright. No. Yeah. Uh good. So well, here's the thing. What a f what a stinker. I mean, just a bad show. And I'm like, this is the FIFA World Cup. Madonna, Justin Bieber, BTS, Shakira, and the Muppets couldn't save this thing. Because they were all in it.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Uh I don't think he was in it. Was it Coldplay in the P PS22 chorus? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

There well, oh, okay, that's what that was. And Coldplay. So, first of all, oh we can I can just say I'm a little bit out of shape about the whole halftime show because it was just such a stinker. I'm like, come on, man. Uh but Madonna, so she uh she refused I'm not gonna say she's washed up, but like, because her new album, it it charted to number one, and she's like 70 something, I think.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

She has a new album. Oh my god, I'm way behind.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah. Uh it charted to number one. She's really old. So like I'm not gonna say she's washed up. That's a hell of an accomplishment, right? Okay. Sure. So she's doing just fine. But she's you know, the last 15 years or so, like, it just seems like she's trying, like, it seems like she's trying to stay relevant, if you know what I mean. Like, even though she is, I mean, she's Madonna, right? But like, right, she's anyway. This new album, like I said, it charted, it's gotten a lot of praise. Uh, I I heard enough about it in different places that I'm like, I'm gonna listen to this. I'm not I'm not really a Madonna fan, but I'm like, I'm gonna check it out. Because hey, I'm I'm down for a good pop song. Maybe this album there'll be a few songs I like. Oh, Stinker. Oh my god. Every one of them I thought so. So I don't know what all but back to the halftime show. So she's she starts it, and again, it was like seven acts, and each had like two minutes. She starts it like in like underground under the stadium. Uh very much very similar to how Beyonce did her things or th her Christmas uh football halftime show uh 2024. Which all halftime shows should aspire to that show. Just gonna say that show's the shit. Beyonce's amazing, but anyway, Madonna starts out underground, this weird dance thing with all these dance people, and then she gets on like a Dune buggy and she's dancing and they're driving under the thing, and it's all flashy and stuff. And the whole thing, there's a lot going on, but that whole thing just felt a little weird and janky. Like uh at one point, you she was on the like the roll bar of the buggy. At one point you could see her like she was kind of like bouncing, like like not like she almost fell off, but you know, like nobody thought there'd be bumps when they were driving. I don't know. And then like it cuts away and cuts back, and like one of the advanced people's like got his arm around her, like holding her. It just the whole thing felt very janky, but here's where I have a beef with her is so it ends with the Doom Buggy pulls up to like you know the the entrance come out from under the ground and onto the field, right? And then shows the camera behind her, and she's walking to the field with all her dancers. Cut to she walks out the door now, there's no way in hell that was live. That was definitely pre-tape the whole thing, and she just waited until it ended and walked out the door, right? So now you're thinking, okay, she that's the preamble. She's coming out, she's gonna fucking burn the house down. She walks out and she's singing music of all songs. She has a new album, she's gonna music, you know, that old song. Oh yeah, she walks out, she sings two she walks out, and I'm I'm gonna say ten feet, literally, past the door, like just enough past the door, like I'm outside, sings like two lines and then puts her hands up in the air, applause, cut to Justin Bieber or whatever. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like the whole thing was like, and she was she was sinking, she was sinking, she was lip syncing when he was fucking singing. And I'm just like, okay, to me this very much felt like uh your whole thing was like, I didn't we didn't pre-tape that buggy thing. Like, I'm definitely here right now. See, I came outside. It just was awkward for her, but yeah, that's my thing with Madonna.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So I I I gotta say this though. Um this has really been stewing because it's been like two fucking weeks.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah. Okay. I'm very it's I'm not mad, but I'm just but today.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

But okay, Dad. But uh let's I mean, you let Madonna be part of your bad day, or was that just like another thing that uh it's actually uh Katy Perry's fault that it came up today?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Um because I don't know if you saw this this this is late breaking. Just today this clip came out of uh Katy Perry in a giant inflatable water bottle. Did you catch that one? No, fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

I don't know what I don't know how it's I feel like I'm on Jamie's podcast that never started, but okay, I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Shit, get her on here. Uh so I don't know like how it started, what the plan was, whatever, but the clip it's like at one of her concerts, and she's inside a huge inflatable water bottle. But like crowd surfing, right? Like like where they have you know sometimes the huge inflatables out on the crowd and they won't move around.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

They had that, but sh it was a giant bottle and she was inside it, and basically, like I think it maybe was supposed to be her entrance or something. I don't know. But she's inside this bottle, and I guess she won she wanted the crowd to move the bottle to the stage, but they just kept like moving around all over the place in different directions, and she kept falling over inside it. She's like, take me to the stage. I'm just like what a fucking train wreck. And then I was like, ah, not as bad as that fucking halftime show. So that's why it came up today.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

I almost wonder if like it's it's become kind of like uh an expectation to have these these uh these flubs on halftime shows because it started with the Janet Jackson booby malfunction. Oh gives people something to talk about and makes it more memorable when shit happens.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

So I think I think there may be something to that, but not in these not in either of these cases, because first of all, Katy Perry wasn't a halftime show, just a concert, but she very clearly did not want this thing that was happening to her to be happening to her.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Why would you be in an inflatable water bottle?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

I have a feeling if you just pulled it up, maybe saw the thumbnail or something. No, okay, yeah, that's exactly what you're picturing, though.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Like it's it I'm just totally taking it aback at that she would do something. That's that is something that you would do at a halftime show, not at not at one of your own fucking concerts. Right. I mean I and expect this completely un uh unknowing crowd to know exactly what they're supposed to do, which is like, give me back to the stage. What are you talking about? I know that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Like, oh god, I was so I was so embarrassed for her, and then I was like, you know, I'm more embarrassed. Madonna. Yeah, it's been a few weeks, but come on. Um but yeah, look up that clip of Katie Perry later. Oh my god, it's so funny. Uh I definitely will. Okay, all right. And then back to the hold on. Let me Okay, go back to Madonna? No, no, no, just the hat thing you said about halftime shows. Um excuse me. The one second. God, that's what the mutes button's for. You didn't need to hear that burp. Um no, back to the FIFA halftime halftime show. There were no flo there were no flubs. Nobody messed up. It's just terrible. That's they cut from so it was Madonna, then I think they went, well, I guess the choir thing, and then like they abruptly cut to some little skit that some I don't know, some famous persona, but he's like and he introduces Justin Bieber, who comes out and like I don't know, sweats and like a torn sweatshirt or something, and sings some like really low-key song, uh, which is acoustic, just him and his guitar. I'm like, oh, seems like a bad fit for halftime show, whatever. And like I remember the song, but it ended with something like, you know, worldwide hallelujah, like whatever. And so that like fades out, and then it says hallelujah on the big screen, and there's like this pause, and it's like dun, dun, dun, dun, and then it zooms in on Shakira shaking her ass and going into a pop song. Oh my god, that's so weird and abrupt. Go from gospel to fucking sinner sinner. Yeah, and uh she was the only one who performed well, she couldn't say the show. Oh, and then they had little they had like kids singing, you know, like uh from a kid's choir, maybe. I don't know. But like, you know, he don't want to rag on kids, but these kids sucked.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I'm like, good lord. This is the world's biggest stage, and you bring this? No shit.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

I'm like, oh god. Uh but yeah, that's that's I think my big beef with this halftime show is it is literally the world's biggest stage, and I'm like, don't tell me, FIFA, that you don't have the money to like put on a good show. Like, well, I mean, clearly they brought in a lot of talent for no reason.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah. That's disappointing.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Okay, I feel better though, having gotten that off my chest.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

I'm glad. I'm glad. All right, well, let's let's dive into the other five items. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

What do you want to get? What do you want to go with?

SPEAKER_00 17:57

What was the first one?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Verizon. You want me to tell them to you again?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Well, Verizon Canon,

Verizon Cutoff And The App Trap

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Madonna, Ranger, the Sun and the Moon. Correct. Yeah, man, that's a good memory. Okay, so uh Verizon. I don't actually don't I don't have a guess on that one.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Okay. Um, but that's the one you want to go with. All right. Um boring and just pathetic my life is. So uh great start. Well, yeah. Uh so Verizon turned off my service because I didn't pay the bill. That's not the funny part though. Funny part is I didn't notice for two days. I'm like, wow, that's fantastic. It's really so pathetic. Um, but all right. So I I'm like, crap. Because I actually was in um I was in town when I started to suspect that maybe my phone didn't work anymore. And uh so I tried to, you know, like whatever on the phone and it wasn't working. And I'm like, okay, whatever, I'll deal with this when I get home. Big mistake. I I get home and I realize what has happened. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. There's a text message, well, about a series of like 12 text messages in the preceding 12 days. Your service will be canceled. And they're like escalating. We're serious here, like in just two days, we're gonna, and then it's like, okay, it's happening tomorrow. Yeah, it was if you don't pay your bill, you're getting shut off. I know. And I'm like, okay, good lord. And so I'm like, all right. So I pull up the the My Verizon app to pay my bill. Let me let me tell you something, but I'm sure you don't know this because you pay your bills. But uh here's about here's one of several dumb things and why I'm not happy with them. The My Verizon app will not open if you don't have an active device on their network.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, okay. That makes sense. No, it really doesn't. No, I mean it just makes sense for the sake of your frustration.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

So then I'm like, okay. I'm like, god damn it, everybody. I'm like, oh, I can like old-fashioned times. I can go to like the website, right? So I just go to like myverizon.com in my browser. Or I try to. Every time you go there, it tries to open the fucking app. That won't open. So I uninstall the app, I go back to the website, I'm like, all right, log in. And there's like a thing at the top. Like you may have noticed that your service is suspended. Yeah. Thanks. Uh so I go to pay the bill, and I immediately remember why I didn't pay the bill. Because I had tried to pay the bill about eight times, and their fucking pay the bill thingy doesn't fucking work.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah. Well, not really. I mean, I should have probably followed up on it, but wait, how many times did you try? I would say like three or four.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Um because the first time I mean that's that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yeah, I mean, the first time I got uh wind of well, it's only fair until I add this part. The first time I got wind of the fact there was a problem was over a month ago when the paint yeah they they said that oh your payment's overdue, and I got a text. I'm like, oh okay, I'll go pay that. And it didn't work because their thing doesn't work. Okay. Like, whatever, I'll deal with that tomorrow. Never did. So they shut off. My phone, not because I forgot to pay my bill, but I forgot to pay my bill a few times over the course of a couple months. Yeah. And so, yeah, I did try four or five times to my credit, I guess. But instead of being like, okay, I'll just call them tomorrow. I'll be like, God damn, fuck you.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

What's their problem now?

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Yeah. And so I goddamn. And I spent like I don't know, like 15 minutes. And I tried different cards and like it was nothing to do on my side. Like the cards were fine, whatever. It just wouldn't fucking go through. And I'm like, oh my God. So now it's like midnight 30. And I'm like, all right, I guess I'll have to call them. And I go pull up their contact numbers and shit. Oh, oh no. Sorry. Sorry, we're closed. We're closed after nine. I'm like, you can't be fucking closed.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

You're Verizon. Verizon. Yeah, you're a utility.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

I'm like, all right, I'll call them tomorrow. So that was today. And uh tell you one thing you can't do when you don't have an active phone. Is call someone Verizon.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

And you and you you'd think to yourself, um, well, surely there must be some mechanism in place if you're in this situation to where if you try to call anybody, it would just redirect you to their thing to make a payment, right? Apparently not. Actually, they do. But here's what makes it fun for me.

unknown 23:40

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

As part of Well, one of the fun benefits you get when they turn off your service, apart from not being able to use the app, is um, yeah, you can make a call and yeah, it'll redirect to them. But oh no. What? Yeah. What means I know. I know. This is why a story about me not paying my bill is really me getting mad at Verizon. Because I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. And I could not scrap together a signal, a cell actual sell signal, for a long enough duration to get through fucking prompts.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Okay. So how okay. How how did you get this resolved? Well Or are you still without a cell phone?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

No, it's I got it resolved, but only like only just because whatever. So here's how it resolved.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

This episode is brought to you by Metro PCS. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Yeah, let me tell you I got it resolved. Uh 1-800 ATT. No, um I fucking so I have a uh I have a second line, second cell line, that is for it has a phone number and everything, you know, SIM card, but it's just for uh internet backup, right? Like if my Starlink goes down, which it never does, so I'd really never use it. And so I actually just happened to Thank you, Elon. Thanks, thanks, Elon. Thanks, Taddy. Um, I just happened to my the phone that I have, it takes you can put two sims in it, have two phone lines in it, right? Love that. Yeah, and so I just like at some point I was cleaning stuff up and whatever, and I found the the the cell modem that I use for backup, and I'm like, I'm gonna put this away. And I'll just put the other SIM card in my phone, right? Just place keep it. Yeah. So only because I happen to have a second phone line that wasn't Verizon that was able to use Wi-Fi calling, was I able to complete the call to Verizon without having to drive, you know, like five miles to get a good sell signal.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Oh my god. I know. I think I'm more shocked at the fact that you have two different phone bills. Um I mean it worked out in this one situation, but that that's gotta be expensive.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

No, it's not. It's $20 for the second one.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Through who?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Uh Visible. The uh You want to know what it is? Literally the full name is Visible by Verizon. Okay. So only because which actually my old I used to have a second second line through Verizon just for this data backup. And I changed it to be cheaper, and so I got lucky there because yeah, and so I fucking just because I happen to have a second phone line, I'm like, come on, this should not be the thing that allows me to fucking talk to you to pay my bill. Um and so and then we're almost at the end of this thing. So I call on the other phone line, and like uh I'm like, oh Nevay pay my bill. Uh what's your phone number? I put it in. It's like that's that's not the phone number you're calling from. And I'm like, God.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Let me explain it. No way, you can't, because it's still a machine.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, it's all automated. I'm like, oh my god. And I thought that was gonna be a whole thing, but it wasn't. It was just like um, you know, push one or whatever to verify that's not the number, whatever. And so, yeah, I got it paid. It was still tedious once I got on the freaking phone, though, because it's like uh please send your credit card number. And you entered in. It's like you entered four, six, two, and it goes through the whole, what is it, sixteen? Yeah, sixteen numbers, right? It goes to the 16 numbers, except it only picked up 13. Oh god. It says, Is that correct? And I say no, or no. I say, uh yes, because I missed that at first, and then it says, We're sorry, four, two, six, and it reads back 13 numbers. It says, Is not a valid credit card number. I'm like, couldn't you have just picked that up in the first place and said no?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

That's not enough numbers.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

I was so like, I was just like, you know those things, it's like this is not a big deal at all in the grand scheme of life. One of those things where you're just like shaking because you're frustrating with at the end of it because then I reput the number in and it reads it back to me. Oh my god, so slow. And then it's like, Would you like to make a payment today? And I say I push yes, and it says, Would you like to make a payment on card number and if four? Four. And I go, Oh my god. I'm just like sitting there, like, oh my god. And I say yes, and it's like, okay, great. Uh and then like, would you like to make a payment today? Would you like to schedule it? Make it today. Great. It says, Thank you. We were making a payment today on card number.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

I'm like, are you motherfucking kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

They can't even do card ending in. No, they're gonna give you the full thing every time.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

That's you know, the funny the funny part is that I go through the I go through and read the fucking thing like eight times. I'm getting so oh antsy. And so I'm like, okay, buh buh buh, confirm last thing. It says processing. Then it comes back and it's like uh your payment. No, it says your payment was processed. And and I'm gonna speak at the pace at which it spoke at this point. It says your payment has been processed on card ending 7959. If you have any of the, I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? You have another gear and you weren't using it this whole time.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Oh man. That's fantastic.

When Wireless Billing Goes Off Rails

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Another fantastic little antidote from this story is the fact that I made the joke about Metro PCS and Visible is a prepaid phone option through Verizon, which is fantastic. We we we had this crazy thing happen with our mobile carrier a couple months ago where I got a notification because I I I have a checking account and I have a I have two checking accounts, and then one of them is used solely for paying bills, so I just sock a certain allotted amount away for every paycheck, and then money just comes out, right? And it's worked pretty damn good for I don't know, 10 years. Well, get a notification that our account's overdrawn out of the billing account, like, what the fuck's going on? And I look and we got charged like six hundred dollars by our mobile, our our uh wireless provider, and I was like, what the thick? So Jamie gets on the phone with them and like, oh yeah, you got uh nine lines, and you got it's like uh excuse me, fucking nine lines, we should have four, and they're like, okay, well, let's go through it. And dude, it took three days at and a minimum an hour per per day on the phone with them to try to parse this whole thing out and get everything figured out and get our bill back to normal. And like clockwork, two weeks later the bill comes out again and they still overcharged us. So then I called them and I'm like, okay, what do like, can you look at notes from previous phone calls? And they're like, Yeah. I'm like, okay, let me just briefly explain the scenario to you. I'm gonna tell you what's happened, and then you can use the notes to kind of validate what I'm talking about. Okay, give it to them. They're like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, it looks like we didn't do that. I'm like, okay, so this would be like our fifth phone call to you guys in the last 14 days. Any chance you could give me some sort of assurance that you're actually gonna fix it this time because I'm really kind of running out of patience here, and I'm trying to be really nice because this isn't your fault because you we this is the first time I've dealt with you, but like, can you give me some sort of like confirmation? Can you send me an email? They're like, no, but I'm gonna I'm telling you right now, I got this one. I'm gonna I we're gonna take care of you, sir. Like, okay, I'm trusting you. They actually did pull through, but good god, it's it's I I get your frustration. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Yeah, well canon.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Hold on.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

So oh come on. This is where, like, with regard to your story, this is where I always tell people this is why I don't have things on auto pay. Oh, yeah. I understand the irony of saying that um now. But uh but no, you know what, and I'll say another thing though about uh the having the other phone line and stuff. Like, okay, it could it immediately like when you lose access to your phone number, like immediately the things start piling up.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Two-factor authentication, and like you know, I was Johnny on the spot with it two and a half days after it got disconnected. I was right on top of it, but I and it but this thing this thing like really made me think. I'm like, I need to maybe look at some stuff and put just keep the other number permanently and put it on another put it as a second number because one of the things that when I was first trying to pay the fucking bill on the online, not the app, because the app doesn't work, put it on the website, uh, and it wasn't going through. I'm like, well, maybe it's my card. I'm sitting there going, no, it's not my card. If there's ever an issue with my card, I get a text from Capital One. And I don't have a text from Cap- Oh shit, I can't get text messages.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

I can't get a text. Uh oh.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Pay your bills, kids.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah.

K&N Intake Kit That Needed Sanding

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah. Okay, KN.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

KN. All right, so we're not gonna rehash the suburban story, but um, you know, the the cold air intake kit that I had was uh an off-brand and I'd had issues with it, it never had fit well. And then we short version I come to discover that I've been running with the filter falling off of it for god knows how long, blah blah blah. So um I I go out there, you know, after we talked last time, I go out there and I'm like, I start messing with the I'm like I was like, stop. Because you've already done this before and tried to finagle it to make sure it stays on and thought you had it, and here we are. Just get a proper part. So instead of getting off-brand, you know, I ordered KN, Cold Air Intake Kit. For those people who don't know, KN sure is not the most expensive, but they're not cheap, and they're kind of like the flagship, well-known, you know, whatever, good quality stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

And they had a Sleene Dion spec list listed on their website. Apparently, yeah. Uh yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

But here's my beef, dude. What crap. What shitty fucking quality control. Oh my god. I mean, it's in now and it's not coming off, it's not falling off. But fuck me. So let me run you through it. Uh the it came with So the boot that goes from the throttle body to the tube, right? Uh-huh. Was uh it didn't fit. And it didn't fit on not the throttle body, it didn't fit on K and's on the fucking part. What? It was too small to get around the pipe.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

So I well, let me run you through all the problems.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

And so then it came with uh two CC CCV hoses, right? To replace one you're taking off. Now it according to them, it calls for a 14-inch one and a 12-inch one. They couldn't be bothered to cut a fucking hose. One of the instruction steps is take one of the 14 inches and cut two inches off of it. That's that's shoddy. Come on. And then parentheses, uh, neither one of those fucking sizes is right because I had to cut like another four inches off of one of them and like three inches off of the other to get them to go go in the truck. So they weren't even close. Uh then the uh you know, the little it where the the math goes, you know? So you got a s you got a hole in the tube, and then you got like a flat sort of landing spot for it, right? Where the thing uh that thing was so roughly finished that the little plate for the math, if you just put it on there, it would rock back and forth. Because there were uh you know, unfinished edges and this, that, and the other. Just material on that mounting plate. And uh then the um well, okay, the hose clamps. Oh, yeah, it come with it came with hose clamps for the air filter on the pipe, the pipe to the throttle body, and then the boot, the throttle body. So it came with three hose clamps, and I'm and they're black, and I'm like, this is kind of a okay, this is this is this is good. This makes me feel a little bit better. This is you know, a higher quality item, right? You know, like black, powder coated, whatever. No, these motherfuckers were rattle cans sprayed by somebody's fucking nephew before they ran out the door because I start just tightening one of them, and fucking black paint is flaking off of this damn thing. They were all like that. I'm like, good lord. Then for the CCV hoses, whereas before they were hose clamped on the engine and then on the intake pipe, KNN gave quick connects, right? Um which is great. I love it, it's fantastic. Um the hoses that KN sent with its kit do not stay on the quick connects. You know, on the barbed side where you slide the the hose on? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the hose was too big to even grip. Wow. So I had to reuse the old hose clamps and hose clamp the thing onto the barbed fitting, which you're not supposed to hose clamp things on barbed, that's why it's barbed. So I had to do that. Then to get the throttle body boot to fit, I had to sand the outside diameter of the canon tube to take enough media enough size off of it to get the boot on. Then I had to sand the the top of it where the plate where the opening was for the math to get the math to seat. Good god. And then it was it was like three-quarters of an inch off when you have the tube in connected to the air filter, which is mounted in the box that they gave you. So the box ain't going anywhere. This is a box that they measured, they spec'd, it's bolted into the fucking truck, which means from there to the throttle body, you have X amount of inches. No, the tube's too long by like an inch. I was so I think this is legitimate. This is okay to be pissed about. I'm like, you know what? Fuck you, KN. I mean, you're supposed to be good quality. Like this, I I would have maybe not anymore, but I have I have put KN in the category of a brand that you don't have to worry about, right? Right. It's gonna be good. Yep. God, it was I was just blown away by how fucking bad it was.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

So did you ever call their customers? Oh, wait, you couldn't call them.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

That was good. Um, I was gonna say something else. I'll t I'll tell you this though. Um it because you know people say, Oh, they got you know 15 horsepower, whatever. They do dyno these things, and they have different like there was like five different kinds of kits that you could get for my truck that KN had. And I looked through all the ones, and this one dinoed at plus 19 horsepower and plus 25 foot pounds of torque. That's nothing to sneeze at. No, you can feel it too. Really? Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Wow. I had to build my own machine shop to modify it where it would go in and stay together, but you should you should send them an invoice. I'm gonna send them a Nastigram. You should. Yeah, I just haven't done it yet, but yep, that's my KN story.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Okay,

Full Moon Vs Comet Imaging

SPEAKER_00 42:05

so Sun and Moon, I could probably figure out because the KN install was that today?

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Uh no, it was a few nights ago.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Okay. I'm gonna say the sun, just because it's the middle of summer in Texas, that it sucks.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yeah, fuck that.

unknown 42:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

That's pretty much. And then the moon, I'm gonna say the moon sucks because you wanted to get some good shots of it and kept hitting your shin on the utility trailer trying to set up your telescope.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

The hit hitting my shin thing, yeah, that's true. But um, that's not the moon's fault. Uh, and no, you're pretty far off, actually. Uh, I didn't want to get any shots of the moon. I um there's a comet. There's current the the the there's a comet, closest comet currently to Earth. It's called Tenp Temple. It is um and I've imaged it a few times, but it's not a like huge comet, it's pretty small. Um but it's right now, or right now at not when it's gonna be absolutely the closest to the earth, but closest to the earth and in the sky region to where I can image it from where I am. Okay. And it's a full fucking moon.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Ah, I got it. So the moon's screwing so actually, it's not really the moon, it's the sun that's still fucking you.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

You know, when you look at it that way, yeah. That's true. The moon is just the moon's just hanging out.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

It's doing its thing. Good point. I'm taking the moon off my list. Um taking the sun time. Down to five.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

The sun and the sun at night.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah. And the thing is like um when like when you have a b a big, bright full moon, it doesn't it doesn't like make it to where you can't do astrophotography. You just uh you plan accordingly. So you either shoot really bright or bigger objects or you and or you shoot things sort of in the opposite sky from where the moon is. But this full moon in particular is I mean, it's basically it's just tracking right along with where this fucking comet is all night.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

That sucks. Well, let me ask you this. Would it not be a good night to shoot the moon then?

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Um well, it is a good night to shoot the moon, and um, but there's a couple things about that. One is that you know, it's the moon. Um, you can get some really good shots, but here's the thing, like, whereas uh you take like uh uh a nebula or something or like a galaxy cluster, uh you what you're doing is you're taking um lots of exposures, right? So typically they're five, ten, twenty seconds, and so it's taking a picture and then another one and another one, and it's stacking them all together algorithmically, and it's doing something called plate solving as it does it, which means it's comparing each image to star charts and aligning it and so that's how you get these images, is you stack a lot of images over time. So for example, um, like I started one before we started recording. Uh it's a star cluster, it's right now stacked 132 images. And for some of these things, you like some things, depending on the size and the brightness, you need to image it all night. Sometimes multiple nights to get enough stack to get a good image, right? And then back to the back to the moon. So you to get a really fucking nice shot of the moon, you need to stack for about 30 seconds. Just because it's so big and bright. So to your point, yes I can, but also that you know, you still got the rest of the night it doesn't take much time to do it. Because you you know, there's a point of diminishing returns with anything you're imaging. So, like if you point it at a really bright, like star cluster and they're really big bright stars, you know, image it for twenty minutes, get like maybe eighty subs, they call them subs, eighty images and stack 'em. It's gonna be nice. Okay. But you're not gonna get much more by going to a hundred or two hundred, right? But if it's like a if it's like a a reflection nebula that's kind of faint and stuff, yeah, you're gonna get a lot. Like, you can go for 500 subs, a thousand subs, and you're gonna be getting just better and better and better with the moon. It's just it's so big, it's so bright that you get there pretty quick. Got it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

So fuck the moon. Oh, sorry, fuck the sun. Twice. Twice.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

I'm sorry you had such a r rough couple weeks, dude.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Uh it uh this was good. This is good. See, hopefully people understand where we're coming from that these are not problems at all, these are not big problems, but it's it's nice to just bundle your little grievances up every now and then and bitch about them.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Yeah, just have a nice little bitch bitch sesh.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

Yeah, and I on that note should I add a seventh, which is you forgot that there's a sixth.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

The sixth was the moon.

Ranger’s Bama Bass TV Addiction

SPEAKER_00 48:10

That was Ranger. Ranger, yeah. Mm-hmm. The cat.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Ranger the cat. Uh, and this is I'm glad I'm glad you picked this one last because it's just it's funny, more so than irritating. Uh so cats don't pay attention to TV. Like every now and then they'll see something, whatever. So there's this YouTube channel that probably about uh four or five days ago I started playing, I put one of their videos on, which I really regret. Um it's called Bama Bass. And as this guy, I think he's in Alabama, yeah. Oh god, he's in Alabama. Um and he's got he's got like a big huge piece of property, um, calls it a farm. And uh he does these videos, and they're like 25, 30 minutes where he, you know, he has a big five-acre pond, he's got a 30-gallon pond next to that with waterfalls, he's got like, you know, all this stuff, and he's really into bass and raising bass, and uh all the and so it's just a video where he like you know, this is what we're doing at the pond this week, and here's the fishes, and here's what we saw on the trail cams, here's the deer, here's the bunny, you know, blah blah. And then every video he goes out and there's a segment where he goes into his five-acre pond and uh catches the b catches bass, you know, like a few bass, and he has them all tagged. And so he catches them and he scans them and he records their weight, and then he shows the spreadsheet. He's like, Oh, we got this little bugger six months ago, and he was down. It's just like a really chill, really cool thing. Ranger's obsessed.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

Really?

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Yeah, like he the first the first night. Like, I kind of noticed he was sort of hanging out in the living room and maybe he was watching it. But then by the end of the night, he was on the mantle, fireplace just in trance and just watching every little thing the guy was doing, and a little fishy, and uh he'd sit there. But here's the thing Ranger loves this fucking show. And he wants to watch it all the time. And when it's on, he will sit there either on the fireplace mantle right in front of the TV, or on the floor. I put a bench in there a few days ago, so he had a nice place to sit in front of the TV. Now on his little bench, he just sits there and watches it. And if I here's where we get to the irritation, if I turn it off, oh boy, he has comments. Really? It's so funny.

SPEAKER_04 50:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Starts meowing at you.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

That's adorable. It is so fucking cute. And it's like, when I say turn it off, I mean turn it off the TV, or if I want to put on something different. I've got a few video clips. I don't know if I sent any to you, but I sent a couple to like Brian and mom of like, here's Ranger just watching a show. And like, if I don't put on a show, Ranger wants to watch a show.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Oh my god. It's adorable. Wow. You have a child.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Yeah. And I'm getting a little worried because um the other cats, while they didn't show much interest in it at first, they took interest in the fact that he was interested in it. And now Stripes in particular. He's whereas he started, he'd just kind of be sitting there watching Ranger. Like, he'd be like, what are you doing, you goofball? Cut to like two days ago, and Stripes is sitting there watching the TV too. Like, oh gosh, it's turning into a whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Oh man. So you're gonna have like six cats at some point sitting on the bench together watching Bama Bass. Yeah, which will be adorable. But I don't get to watch what I want to watch. We always have to watch Ranger shows. So we'll just get another TV and then Oh no, this is actually gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Yeah. Next time you come over, there'll be like a little like 19-inch like CRT TV, like on the coffee tape. I'll be watching watching my shows on the show.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Like, why are you watching the big one? Oh no, it's Ranger likes to watch his show.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

That's that's Ranger's TV.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Yeah. It is really so fucking cute though. Like because again, like animals, dogs and cats, he typically don't care about that stuff. And like, you know, he's actively watching, like, he's not just like entranced, uh he's like watching the fish and where the guy's hands go and everything. And like if sometimes the you know, occasionally like the YouTube will glitch, you know, or like pause for a second, and you can see like his head comes back, he starts like looking around. He's like, Did you did you do this? Did you turn it off? What's happening? Oh, it's back. Okay. So he's he's not just zoning out.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Yeah, did you forget to pay the Elon bill?

SPEAKER_01 53:30

Yeah. Yeah, he's not just zoning out, like he's watching it. It's so cute.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

That's adorable. You should take him out to uh out to the lake and see what he does. Yeah, right. Hey man, he might surprise you. Might cast a line and reel in a big old big mouth.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Yeah, he might. We're never gonna find out though. Um I'm not brave enough to take any of these cats outside. Uh it's not like Charlie where you're down you're all the way down at the pond fishing, and Charlie, the cat, strolls up on the dock. It's like, oh, that's that's not how I do it.

unknown 54:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

So thank you. I I got six and a half things off my chest. I feel much better.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Uh yeah, dude. I I feel like the last one really wasn't a uh complaint. It's awesome. But uh, you know, I think it's more your frame of mind. You just gotta, you know, get out of pull yourself out of your funk.

unknown 54:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

All of my cat would stop. How much longer is that hogging the TV?

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Yeah, my cat would Maybe if my cat wouldn't like change his frame of mind, stop hogging the TV? I could change my frame of mind. How about that?

Timing The Comet And Punching Out

SPEAKER_00 55:00

There you go. Well, I'm I mean, chicken and the egg, but this comment, just out of curiosity, how how long until it travels to where it's out of view?

SPEAKER_01 55:11

What? Travels.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

Well, how how long until it's out of view? Like, was tonight the only night that you you would be able to capture it, or do you do you have a chance to capture tomorrow?

SPEAKER_01 55:25

Capture what? Capture Ranger?

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Like he's no no no the comet that you were trying to image.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Um I missed I missed the subject changer. Okay, my bad. Um so it now the thing is, and this is why it's a niggle more than a real complaint. The thing is, oh while. Like it may, you know, it's making a slow approach to Earth. I think its closest approach actually peaks on the 12th of August. Um it's just that it gets well, here's the thing is that as it's getting closer to Earth, it's also getting lower in the southern sky. And so that's what yeah, for me where I am, is like right now, I would say starting about two days ago and for the next three days or so is gonna be the best opportunity for me because it's just getting lower and lower in the sky.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

And you probably are gonna be dealing with a full moon, or at least a pretty full phased moon for the next few days.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Um, it's yeah. I mean, it's gonna be pretty bright. It's on its way out, so it's actually not full, it's on its way going back down again. I think got it. I you know, here's the thing is like I'd uh ideally I'd be sh shooting it tonight and tomorrow and whatever. But like it's probably gonna be about twelve to eight, yeah. About ten days till it's like no moon or whatever. And that'll be great great target opportunity as well. It's just you know, it's when you know things. Ignorance is bliss, right? It's like uh I could go I could walk outside ten days from now, no moon. Oh, look well the comet that is closed, can start image that. But now that I know that it'd be better to do tonight. I'm just upset.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

All right, well, um glad you got all that off your chest, and uh I think that uh that does it for this episode, and uh it's time to punch out.