Three Friends Debate Films, Theater Etiquette, And How TMNT Invaded Magic

Season three opens with a chaos combo of movies, cards, and real-life rants. We kick things off by weighing weekly drops against binge culture, then trade spoiler-free notes on Scream and a gleefully sharp Good Luck, Don’t Die that lands like Idiocracy set to push alerts. From there, we jump to Ready or Not’s gory wit, plan a Ninja Turtles rewatch, and admit the hardest part of going to the movies isn’t ticket price—it’s the row behind you. If you’ve ever tried to outthink a talker mid-scene, you’ll feel right at home.

Then we go deep on Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond, where TMNT, Marvel, and Star Trek walk into a mana base and somehow it works. We break down play boosters, collector boosters, and when a precon deck actually makes sense. If you collect art, randomized packs beat precons for variety; if you play, singles save money. And the economics of Arena flip the table: $1 packs, wildcards, and value-drafting let you build competitive decks without torching your budget. We also talk bans, metagame health, and how real-time digital data keeps formats from calcifying around one broken list. Yes, you can legally sleeve Raphael next to Lorwyn staples and a Marvel finisher in standard windows—mechanics rule, not mascots.

Nostalgia gets a victory lap when a forgotten footlocker yields a fully assembled lion Voltron, proof that the right relic still lights up a room. We wrap with listener stats across continents, a buffet-versus-boutique brunch debate, and a reminder to carve out space for joy—whether that’s a $5 buy over a $5 rent, or the quiet thrill of a perfect draft pick. Hit play for sharp takes on films, a practical guide to TMNT in Magic, and the kind of friendly chaos that makes fandom fun. If you’ve got a cursed theater story or a draft hack we need to try, drop it in the comments—and don’t forget to follow, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more curious folks find us.

Voice intro and music

Intro music by Alex Grohl

AlexGrohl - Pixabay

Transcript

Kicking Off Season Three

SPEAKER_03 0:31

He's how y'all, how y'all are doing? Hello, wait, wait. This is this is it is season three. Welcome to March. It is March already of 2026. This is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Yep. Pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Oh, that means we're another month closer to Grogu. And Mendalorian. Yeah. And did he lose any money? Is it Maul? No. Something's the end of this month. Uh Daredevil.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Early this month? Daredevil. Okay, there we go. Daredevil's the 27th, I think. Something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

27th. That would be like a weekend. That's weird. Like a Friday? I'm used to like Monday, Tuesday, you know, Wednesday, Thursday. Not Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Unless they do one of those drop everything at once.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

No. It worked out well doing it once a week last episode.

Spring TV Hype And Release Dates

SPEAKER_03 1:24

It did. It did. I don't mind the sh I don't mind the short, like the eight episode weekly ones. I can I can tolerate that. That's terrible. Plus it gives well, assuming we all see it gives us uh a chance to talk about it as well. Speaking of seeing it and talking about it, you didn't mention scream at all. What'd you think? You went and saw yesterday morning, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Yeah. I liked it. Was it predictable?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

A little bit. When that one dude went in there and got the coffee, I was like, that's the killer. My daughter was like, no, that's too obvious. I'm like, oh really?

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Yeah, the well, I can't say that. That's spoilers, and it's only been two days, so but but yeah, I I thought it was mostly predictable. Um yeah, I can't say that either. That's spoilers. Uh but yeah, I still enjoyed it. I didn't care. Spoiler, spoiler or not, I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Uh the whole time though, I'm watching it, I'm like, who is that fucking kid? That Lucas kid? And it wasn't until the end when I looked him up, I'm like, oh, that's a guy from uh GMV.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, it took me a second too. I was like, he looks familiar. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, did it hit me too? I was like, oh yeah, he's the one that got the see naked girl, and we didn't.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Right? Uh March 24th is Daredevil.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Okay, there we go. That makes more sense.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Um that's like a Tuesday. Yeah. Um and then yeah, so there was Scream, and then there was also uh good luck, don't die, have fun, which I think Lou and I saw.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

That was so silly fun. I liked that movie.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, it was funny.

Scream Reactions Without Spoilers

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That's what I want to hear. It was on my list. We'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Yeah, it was ridiculous. I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

They they definitely hit uh way too many things on the head, though.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Like right on the head. Oh my god, dude.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Um so uh it'll be it'll I'm kind of jealous that that there was a girl that was allergic to Wi-Fi and spoilers, because that'd be a few weeks. It's been out a few weeks now. It's fine, I think.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

It's been out if you watch the trailer. One of the trail I believe one of the traits.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

One of the one of the trailers they actually talk about her, like the where she gets the bloody noses or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

So okay. Um you know what the movie reminded me of though? Idiocracy.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Wow. I mean, uh like, yeah, that's but it's like right now. Every generation needs one.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

It's not uh it's not something really like there were a lot of aspects of it that weren't set in the future because that shit is happening like right now.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Yeah. I would have liked I would have liked more explanation and more feature stuff. Maybe in the sequel. Yeah, if there is a sequel.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Still keep wait a minute. Uh uh, good luck, keep having fun, keep not dying.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Right? Still don't die, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stay alive, still stay alive.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Um yeah, it was enjoyable for sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

So there was that one aspect with uh with how the kids are. Uh this will be for Lou and for people who've seen it, but there was like one aspect of the kids that when uh my friend and I walked out of the theater, we had just played poker earlier in the week um with the guy. There's a guy who hosts a monthly poker game. He's been inviting his son, who just graduated college, so he's like 18, 19. And like that's literally him playing poker. Like he'll be like phone in one hand, his his cards in the other, and he'll just be like, Oh, it's my it's my turn.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Okay, uh Yeah, I don't have a rule, make it put that shit away.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

I know. No, because again, the ho the host, it's the host rules, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Like, yeah, make the host make a rule.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

But we but it was just one of those things like when you watch the movie and you walk out and you're like, oh shit, like hello, like it's right within a few yeah, okay, okay, I got you now. So we were like, wait, shit, we dealt with that on Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Craziness. Um, but yeah, I enjoyable movie. It was a fun movie. And then, let's see, and then what happened movie-wise? Oh, and then I watched like three older I guess they're older ones over the last few days. It was uh 12 monkeys rewatched. Um that one that's old. Um yeah, that's just like 95, 96, something like that. Yeah, uh 97, something like that. And then uh Megan 2. So I'll finally follow that one. Oh, and then Until Dawn, the video game horror uh Groundhog's Day movie. Uh Megan 2 was fine. I thought it could have been better. Uh but still it was fine. Yeah, yeah. That one did not do as well, and they kind of scrapped Megan 3 because of it. Not 100% scrapped, but definitely slowed down because it didn't do as well as the first one.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Uh-huh.

Good Luck, Don’t Die: Idiocracy Vibes

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Um 12 Monkeys. Uh, I still don't understand the point of that movie.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Well, with the context of you re-watching 12 monkeys, was there somebody that you watched it with who hadn't seen it or no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

I wanted to watch a a time-like movie because I knew I was gonna watch Until Dawn eventually. Yeah, you know, and that made me think about it, and then I also watched uh Time Cop and was the fourth movie of this list. I was just gonna move. I was like, oh, I want to watch it and I was trying to find the one with Jet Li, uh, except it wasn't streaming.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

So so it was like, uh, whatever. But no, it was just it was like, oh, I remember 12 monkeys and I hadn't seen it in forever, and I was younger, and I don't remember a lot of it, and and and if I even understood it the first time. So I watched it this time, and it's like, okay, I finally understand what's happening. I just understand the point of the moon. Like when all said and done, what's that the future stuff? Yeah, basically, it's like when all said and done, bad guy gets away, and it's like, okay, not one person when she's yelling at the airport, he knows he's got a virus. Not one person thought maybe to stop him and find out. It's like, get the fuck out of here. And and that was so stupid. It was like, this is dumb. Um Brad Pitt is a cool crazy dude, though.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

I think the the problem that a lot of the move those types of movies have when you watch them today, is that I think our brains, I'd have to see the exact scene that you're on, but there's been a few times where I watched older movies, especially when it deals with like airports and like police and all of this kind of thing, where like when that movie was made in like the mid-90s, like how people viewed going to the airport and dropping somebody off or picking somebody up or something happening was way different than it is today, right? Like that whole experience, for an example, is a completely different experience than it was 30 years ago, just because but so it's I find it sometimes when I'm watching a movie or TV show set back in the day that especially if it's like a TV show that's current, but it's maybe set back in like the 70s or 80s, like they almost have to like they still couch it in like today's uh process processing, right? The process of going to the airport is way different than it was in the 70s or even the 90s, right? And I think sometimes I have to catch myself going, oh, I'm like applying my today filter to this movie that was made before you couldn't go to the gate, right? Or whatever. Again, I gotta see the scene that you're talking about, but the way you phrased it in my head, I'm like, I wonder if that might have been a 90s mentality thing on how they viewed what the future would be, right? Because I'm sure the just even that's present day though. Present day, okay, yeah. But so present day for them in the 90s is even different for you today, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Like right, right, right. But if you're if you're at the if you're at the airport even in the 90s, and somebody yells, dude in the yellow jacket, you know, has a virus, you would think it would even in the 90s, somebody would look into that.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

We didn't have bioterrorism in the 90s.

unknown 9:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

They were so concerned about just shooting um Bruce Philosoph than they were about like listening to what she had to say. Although, although what's weird is when, and again, this could be an emotional thing that I just don't connect with, when he gets shot, girl runs up to her, him, and like, oh no, you got shot, blah, blah, blah. But doesn't continue like, hey, because when the police come to surround, you know, because he still has the gun, he gotta kick the gun away and all that. It's like, hey, somebody stop him, he has a deadly virus. No, he's just she's just sitting there holding him, like, oh no, you're dying, instead of um, hey, the world's about to die. I don't know, I guess priority maybe is the world, but maybe I don't know, maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Fuck it. He's dead, we can all die.

Time-Travel Rants And 12 Monkeys

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Yeah, that's another honestly, that is absolutely another take that some people have, right? It's like, well, my family's dead, so fuck everybody else. I'll go be a suicide bomber. So uh, but but yeah, so that movie again, uh I I I I what not or whatever it's called, does you what culture or something like that does like top 15, whatever. Uh they did one recently, like top 15 movies where the villain got away or the villain wins or whatever. I didn't watch that one, but after watching this, that one better be on that list. It's as my dude totally got away with it. It's like all this for not, man. You would think um he left the message. If he left the message of who's the one in charge, the argument could be the next movie is now that they know who it is, they send somebody back to take care of that guy. So they they it could have been just assumed, uh presumed, maybe if they can keep going back. If he left if he left a message at at the at the airport with them in the future, and then somebody shows up five seconds later, then that could also happen, you know. It's like they resolve it by not but they they just didn't show it's like uh world's coming to an end. Like, no, he did tell them who the real bad guy was, I think. He at least told them who it wasn't. So I don't know. I just saw the movie and was like, alright, and I wasn't that impressed 30 years ago, still not impressed. Until dawn was kind of good. Could have been better, but it was it was fine.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

It was a six instead of ten. So but I think that's all I watched for movies this week.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Uh I was uh my one of my Tuesday movie buddies um hadn't seen Ready or Not, and so I know Ready or Not. I've been very excited about Ready or Not 2 for several several weeks now, and he's always like, but I never watched the first one. So I went over to his house and me and him and his wife watched uh the first one last night.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Oh, that's funny. That's on my list too. When I went when I first saw the trailer, like you said, got excited for it a couple of weeks ago, so did I, and I was like, oh, I better go watch the first one. So I went to go look it up, wasn't streaming. I looked it up yesterday, now it's on Hulu.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

But it's paid, everything's uh maybe Hulu's different. We didn't look at Hulu, but as far as when he did his search in his Roku for where to watch it, it was all rent or buy. Like nobody just had it streaming.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Correct, correct. And I was all I don't know how recently it hit, but but it had to have been in the last, I'm guessing the last 24 hours. Because uh, you know, if you go to IMDB and you hit the like add it to your favorite to the eyeball thing, yeah. I got a I got a text pop up about 12 hours ago uh that said, hey, ready or not, from your list is available to stream on Hulu. So it had to have been by as of yesterday or today, it popped up on Hulu. So I'll give that a shot so I can watch it.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I actually just looked it up. So IMDB posts an article, what to watch in March on Hulu, Netflix, etc., and that's on there. Oh, so literally today.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

And you guys watched it last night and other avenues.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

We had other avenues that we could watch it because paying for it is paying for it's not one of them, that's for sure. Um sell the seven Cs.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yep. And it was five dollars on Fendingo, I bought it. I was like, ooh, the second one looks like it's a good one. Well that was the that was the function.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

That was I would buy it for five. I won't rent it for five.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

That was the other conversation we had. So if like he he was getting his Apple TV stuff set up on um uh on his on his Roku, and uh we he went in there and it was like buy five dollars, rent five dollars. I'm like, why in the fuck would you make it the same price? Like, just give the option to buy then, because who cares? Because you're just gonna take it away anyways at some random time in the future, and I'm gonna go, oh, I want to go in and watch it. Oh, it's no longer available. Thank you for your five dollars. You get you get nothing. Like, you got a dick in your ear. Oh, thanks, Apple. Um, so it didn't make any sense to me that it was the same price for both. Like, I was like, okay, so you can rent it for 24 hours, or you can buy it and keep it until the licensing changes, and then it's no longer on Apple TV. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

That makes sense to me. Pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

But so yeah, so that'll that'll be one that I buy my ready, readier uh not part two. I'll have to watch by myself for sure. Uh so that that'll be one of those.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

It's more of a like thriller. There's no monsters in it.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

I would say No, no, but but if there's gore though, that that matters to me.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

There is yeah, there is gore. There's gore on the trailer. It's a gory comedy. It's a gory comedy. Like none of the none of the it's it's played more for shock value than it is for horror. There's no there's tension in the movie, but it's not like horror tension. It's it's a thriller tension, right? Like suspense. Yeah, exactly. So that to me is completely different than like a screen movie, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Like it's not a jump jump scares and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah, there's no real jump scares. That's uh, you know, it's actually on the short list of movies that I will like occasionally just be going through on my, you know, what movies do I want to watch that I don't necessarily need to be paying attention to, but that I enjoy watching. It's on it's it's on that short list for me.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

So I mean, I can always watch the first one with her and then let her decide.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Uh like if she didn't if she's not if she's not enjoying the first one, she can leave um and go play on her, you know, play on her laptop in the bedroom and watch her shows. And if she does like it, uh we can add it to the lists.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

You'd see in it, right, Jack? No. Really? Okay. Mm-mm. Well, hopefully you guys get to watch it in the next couple weeks before the second one comes out.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Oh, I'll be watching it this week for sure. That might be that might be tomorrow's movie. Um, Tuesday, Tuesday though, we might I haven't checked with her yet. Uh, because if we go watch Crime 101, because I think that's the only thing that's out that's watchable. Um it's a it's a late showing. It's like a 9 30 showing, which means yeah, not not getting back till midnight. She's got work the next morning. So it's like uh, you know, we'll see, but um, so I'll leave it up to her. She's like, hey, if you wanna if you want to do it, then we'll go watch the I'll get the I'll get the nine-something for us and see what she says.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yeah, I don't think there was really anything this week. I mean, maybe Hoppers, but then next week is the Hoppers and the Bride are next week.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Next week, yeah. They come out, they came out Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

I will uh Well, I'm glad you said that.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

I gotta remember to plan for Hoppers and see how she wants to do that uh with her little one.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

We'll probably in two weeks we'll make the bride our Tuesday movie, probably.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

Oh, for sure. I mean, that's one of those that's one of those where I'm tempted to watch it twice. I'm like, I am I am I'm gonna go watch it on Thursday or Friday, I'll go with you on Tuesday. Um and then I'll get the mopey eyes and be like, uh fine, I'll wait till Tuesday, watch it once.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Um and again, under undefeated, the worst part of the movie going experience is everybody you have to sit in a fucking theater with.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

See, luckily hoppers.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

No, I'm talking about when we saw uh good luck, uh, have fun, don't die. Like we had people behind us where like, I don't think the leaders ever seen a movie or a TV show ever. And they talked like the entire time about they were having like full-on conversations, and we were like, You didn't say anything.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Okay, you didn't say anything?

Ready Or Not, Sequels, And Streaming

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah, but but it didn't matter, right? Like, because it because they get what that it's how it always works, they would get quiet for five or ten minutes, and then something else would happen, and she'd be like, Well, why did she do that? And I'm just like, so we get so we get done afterwards. So we went through that a couple times till you finally just get uh both him and I just gave up. We're just like, okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Oh, I would have that would have got in your face. I know, but that's you're that's that's I've done it, I've done it before.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

You're a different animal, my friend.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Just a little bit, just a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

So, but yeah, so yeah, it was just one of those things that like the the worst part of the movie. I don't even mind paying extra for popcorn. I don't even mind paying fucking$27 for popcorn, like it's whatever. It's the way that the world is, right? But like we and it's usually kids. The last few movies we've seen, it's been shitty kids on their phones or whatever. This was like a middle-aged couple who like the wife just never left the house or some shit. So you couldn't like you could get mad, but then you're also kind of like, have you ever left the fucking who is this? Why are they doing this? Shut the fuck up. Like undefeated, worst part of the movie going experience for the other people.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Always. Yep. Like you said, undefeated, always. Man, hopper is that you you know there's gonna be kids at that.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

You're gonna catch yourself a late night show.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Yeah, no shit.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

That might be one, that might be one where well no, because if I'm going, because if I'm going with her and the kids, I just have to expect it. And that's the thing, right? Exactly. You if I if I go to a kid's show in the middle of the day, I expect the kids to act like kids. The little kids anyway. The older ones, nah, I I had this was this was last year, maybe a year before. I had that uh that couple sit in front of me. Um and the dude, like, if I'm middle row, so I guess he'd be a row in front of me, two seats to the right, uh, where this couple was sitting. And the dude was like trying to impress the girl and just talking to her, he's trying to, you know, just trying to screws up, whatever. And then and first time was like, yo, you need to keep it down, and that was it. 20 minutes later, he picked it up again, and then then I said it. You know, you I I neither one are you gonna be surprised. I was like, if I have to tell you to shut the fuck up one more time, it's gonna be the last time because you won't be able to fucking talk. And it was that simple. Uh he didn't say a word the rest of the movie. So I just uh it's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

All right, Lou, next time that happens, I'll FaceTime you. I'll FaceTime you and you can tell him.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Alright, I got you.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

And then I'll tell you, like, get off your fucking phone of the theater.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Yeah. Number one, why are you why are you calling me from a goddamn theater? Lou, I need you to silence somebody. Oh, okay, I got you.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

That'll be the first like, you're the fucking look, dude. Really? It's like, no, no, no, no. Here's what happened. Like, oh, I got this.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

I know what theater my boy's in, and I could be there in five minutes. So we're gonna have a lot of time.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

I live in I live in the future. I can fly back in time. That's how it works.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

This is why I moved to a different time zone, so I could be back on time. Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

But yeah, I I'll give you one, but uh that's it. It's all you get is one after that. Man, but man. It's like what do you like? What is wrong with you? Like, why are you the peep the people? Like the why are you even doing that? Whether it be you're on your phone, the chatty, the whatever. If you're talking about the movie, honestly, I'm less bitchy about that. If you're if you're like I was like, oh, like just reacting to the movie, but like like the way you're talking about this lady, I was like, I don't know if I'd be that, but you said they had full on conversations about stuff, and I was like, Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

And I don't think they were sitting, I don't think they were it didn't it didn't sound like they were sitting next to each other. It sounded like there was maybe a seat between them. So I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. If if you're gonna have to explain shit. To your girl, or your girl's got to explain shit to you. Cool. Sit next to each other. Don't be fucking like, I need a fucking manspread. Oh, by the way, yeah, that's Sam Rockwell. He was in this movie and he was this and that. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Like, did you remember him from Galaxy Quest or whatever the fuck that movie was?

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Yeah, you remember we talked Galaxy Quest last week? He was one of those guys. He's also Justin Hamlet. He was in Ninja Turtles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

He was the Foot Clan dude. Oh, snap. Oh, that reminds me, fucking Jack. So I brought it up part two in the theater, little girl. She's like, we're going, right? We went last year to see the first one. So we're going this one. I'm like, oh God, I guess we are. I was like, uh, okay. You know what though? And then when I was at the theater to watch Scream 7, uh, they showed the upcoming secret of the ooze the theaters 13th, March 13th and 19th. And watching the trailer made me excited to watch it again. I went from oh damn to damn, we're going the first chance we get.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Oh damn.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Yep. Let's play 13th and 19th. We're going to 13th.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

No spoilers.

Theater Etiquette And Audience Headaches

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Right. Man, honestly, it's me. Y'all know the rules. I don't know what happens. I remember there's the part the the vanilla ice scene. That's what I remember from part two. I honestly don't remember that. Yeah, I don't remember. I mean, obviously they have the the the tubes. Do they bring in Bebop and Rocksteady in this one?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Toka and Razar. The wolf and the snapping turtle.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

I only know them because of the magic game. Uh, but why not Bebop and Rocksteady?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

It was supposed to be with uh something. Gotta be a license thing. No, it's a behind the scenes kind of thing or something.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Okay, alright. But either way, uh so yeah, I'm definitely down and we'll be watching that in two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Blue goes in the Ninja Turtles too. He's like, oh shit, that's those guys from the magic cards. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Blue has his magic card spread out in front of him, and he's like, Oh my god, let me read let me read the description of who they are.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

I'm gonna take the new set, the new set comes out Friday in paper, Tuesday online, and I'm gonna take a bunch of cards at random and make a bingo board, and when they come on screen, boom.

SPEAKER_04 24:57

So I don't watch any movie.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

You didn't watch any movie?

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Oh, damn.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

No, actually, I've been watching uh Knight of the Seven Realms. I kind of enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Yeah, that's on my that's on my list too when it's when it's done.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Although oh well that is like eight half hour episodes. Oh wow, that's an easy one.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

For real.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

That no shit. Alright. That might get started this week. I was gonna uh uh suggest Landman, but maybe I'll knock that one out.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

I like how Jack's like, yeah, Lou, you can watch one before you go to bed. Lou ain't watching just one before bed. No, it's Louis.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

All of them.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He called he calls it out. If I'm watching one, I'll watch them all. The problem is I won't be able to watch it because old girls don't want to watch it with me.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

I'm like, this motherfucker ain't just watching one. No.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

He is not.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

He is not.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Just the finale left to watch, but I don't mind it because they're not trying to it's the same thing like with Rogue One or Solo where like they they know what they're doing, right? They're not trying to build into the the bigger mythology of it.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Bigger universe?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Like the houses are all represented.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Yeah, that's funny. That was that but Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

This dude's just a dude, right? So cute little bit.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

That's funny, because that was my next question. I'm like, are there uh are there are there enough Easter eggs to tie in the other two series?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Well, it's after House of the Dragon, because the dragons are all gone. But the Targaryens are still on the throne. So it's somewhere in between all of that.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Well, yeah, it wouldn't be Targaryen on the throne until Baratheon took over. So it would always be Targaryen.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

Yeah. Until Hell of Baratheon.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Alright, either way, too bad they won't get more until like 2027 or something. Oh, Game of Thrones is.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

Well, that's next year, so that makes sense. One season a year. So everything is. Oh, did we lose the internet again?

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Every week.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Uh right, I'm thinking the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Oh, I hear every week.

SPEAKER_04 27:18

Every week.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

Hey, at least it wasn't the computer this time. This is true.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

And it didn't boot anyone out, so we're all good.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah. We just had to pause and I just looked at each other awkwardly for a minute.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Yeah, it was like, uh, and he's gone.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

I have uh um so yesterday we went out to my parents' house to go through the work, the my dad's workshop and start kind of figuring out what's good, what's trash, what's in between, that type of thing. And um we were going through a corner of the workshop pulling stuff out, and somebody found like this old footlocker and they pulled it out and they opened the the latches, and it's me, a bunch of my guy friends, and then one of the guy's wife was there, and she was looking over my shoulder when we cracked the box open. And it was a bunch of like mild stuff from probably like the 80s, early 90s, probably 80s, and yeah, yeah, 80s, because a bunch of the books and stuff were like SR71 Blackbird books, that type of thing, like a bunch of like really old school, and then there was a fully assembled uh lion Voltron that you know, I'll I'll have to dig it out of storage to bring it. But we cracked this open, I was like, Oh shit, Voltron. And she's like, Man, everybody here is gonna make fun of you. And I go, I don't think so. She goes, Yeah, everyone's gonna tease you about what you know. So I get the box out and I drag it out to the to the middle of the floor, and a bunch of the guys are standing around like, guys, come over here, check this out. So I open up the chest and I said, check out what's in the box, and all the guys are like, Oh, oh snap, is that Voltron on? That's fucking awesome. And I look at her and I go, see, told you.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Damn right.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

She's like, they're all gonna laugh at you for being a baby. I'm like, nah, that's not how this is gonna work. Nope.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

You did not read that room properly.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Nope. So I'll have to uh I'll have to bring that and I'll have to bring that and get that assembled and put up somewhere in the house. Because I was like, oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

He's like, we're not selling this. Yeah, dude. That can get kicked out of the nursing home. Brian's telling this. Fuck a medical bill.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Not my medical bill.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

But I had there was like a tiny little baseball glove in there. I was like, oh snap. It's back from when I was a baby. I'll have to when I go out there, I'll have to call you guys so we can do a show and tell so I can crack this open and show you guys and be like when you're probably two fingers in that glove now. I know, huh? Put it on his baby arm.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

No, because you don't want to. Well, it does catch both. Yeah. You don't want a comebacker with that glove. You don't want to catch a comebacker with that glove. No, you do not.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

You do not.

Nostalgia Find: Voltron In A Footlocker

SPEAKER_03 30:20

But uh overall, quiet week though. I didn't watch a lot of I mean for for me it was a quiet week because with with the new uh magic uh TMNT crossover beyond University Beyond Set coming out, Wednesday was the pre-release for content creators. They get early access so they can play the cards in the different formats, and then everybody's next week, which is now this upcoming week. Like, oh cool, I enjoyed that. Let me go play. Um and it's cheap play online, it isn't pay the the stuff I do is online. So for me, it doesn't come out until Tuesday. Uh but so but for the rest of the week, you know, Wednesday through even today, I was watching the different content creators play the different formats. That way it's my turn. I'm like, oh yeah, I've seen this car, I know how good this play is, and this this plays well, this does not play well. But that was a lot of my week this week, and like I said, the the four movies that I saw uh on home and then the two in the theater, not a whole hell of a lot else happened. Uh it's March though, so like I told y'all, uh, this will be when the series job hunting starts. So all goes well, have a job by April, and go from there.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Can I ask a couple non-uh magic knowledge questions? Sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Let's do this.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

So like I know like you go into like the game store and they have a section on the wall that has all the different uh series of cards and they have the packs that are all randomized. When it has when it's like a limited edition like this or a crossover, do they have those same packs, or is everything like you you buy what you buy? Like if you say I'm gonna get do the do if you buy a pack, is the pack predetermined, or is there like can you get like TMNT crossover packs that have random cards in them that have different levels of rarity and that type of thing on them? Yeah, or is everything deterministic?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Okay, so you can still so I I Well are all the cards in the turtle packs turtle cards?

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Yeah, yes, and it is random. However, there are but to his other point of uh the predetermined, they do a little bit of both. That's a little bit different. They do that with every set. So this is like every other set where you buy a pack that's called a play booster, and in that pack, you're going to get at least one rare, at least three commons, and at least, you know, so many well, well, not necessarily at least, but so many commons. Because some packs are random enough to have two or three rares in one pack. Um obviously it's like one in 200 that you'll get three rares, one in a hundred, you'll get two rares. And then every pack is guaranteed a rare three commons and the rest common. Okay. So it's just even though it is a TMNT set and it's not a quote unquote proper magic set, uh the randomness is still the same. If you're still opening that stuff, it's still all like that. Uh the collector boosters are a little more expensive, a little higher rarity that you're gonna get. Those are for basically the whales. They sell those to the whales who are looking for the top end cards. Um and then and then the predetermined is a is a is a pre-constructed deck. That's like, hey, the because in the in the TMNT set, there are five themes to play, and they basically make a starter for the five themes. So it's like, ooh, I like this theme. So you can actually buy that theme. And if you buy that theme once, every pack of that theme will have the same set of cards in it.

TMNT Hype And Retro Screenings

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Okay. Um, and shoot, I was gonna ask something, and then so the so how does that work then for so so you can go and say, okay, I'm gonna buy the and again, I don't know you say themes, but I'm just gonna I'm just gonna put names on it, right? I'm gonna buy the Donatello pack, right? And the Donatello pack will have Donatello and then have a bunch of cards that that are related to Donatello in some way, shape, or form. To build a deck, right? So then you can say maybe you need to bring in some other cards from your other stuff to flesh it out, but you'll have a playable deck by buying that specific deck. But then if you want, but then you can buy the packs if you want to customize um, if you want to customize it, but you don't necessarily want to just buy if you buy all five themes, does that give you all the cards? But it's all going to give you a standard a standard version of the card, right? Like if you buy the Donatello pack, you're not you're not necessarily worried about rarity or whatever. You're wanting that deck to be able to play. Or if you're worried about getting a more rare card like the holofoil or the whatever, which again is going to be the same card, right? Like whether it's a Donatello Common or a Donatello 101, the card itself is the same, right? There's no it's not like it's a better card, it's just looks different. It's a quality of the card, not the card itself in play.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Yeah, there's there's a bit of a show-off aspect to it for sure. And and Jack can appreciate this going back to Comic-Con 2013. There was uh the very first magic set that came out, they don't do magic anymore at Comic-Con, but they were like six for five, six years, there was a pack of magic cards uh that were super rare, hard to find, expensive. But that was just because of how it looked and and the rarity of it. They made that same card in a cheaper version, a regular version. The cards did the exact same thing. It was just, do you want to be again, do you want the fancy version? For example, do you guys remember that picture that I sent uh uh Jack of the card that had the different art styles of the turtles? So that card by itself, a regular version, is like a five dollar card. No big deal, right? There's another version of that that is borderless, so the art extends the whole way, and there's and there's not a whole lot of stuff in the way of the picture. It's still blocked, but that but that borderless version is a$50 card. It does the exact same thing. It's not even foil, it's just a different art style, and it's worth you know$45 more because of it. And then there's probably a different alternate art version that's like$80 worth. Um, so the cards themselves, yeah. So but to your example, I Donatello's theme is basically artifacts because he's supposed to be the mechanic and all that stuff. So artifacts and all the creatures and the robots, stuff like that, that's him. So you could buy the robot pack, basically, the Donatello pack. You'll get Donatello and some other rares and uncommons to flesh out the deck. But there are better cards that are for that deck than what they give you in that set. That's just a starter to get you going. But it's so it's and you don't get four of everything. You get like, oh, I got one Donatello or two, but I really want to play with up to four. Then that's when you go to your local game store, like you said, you go to your game shop and you can buy the cards individually. Like, I want this specific card, and you just go buy it. Or you can just buy some packs and open up whatever you open up, whatever randomness you get, and it's like, oh, this card would be good for my deck, and then swap it in and out for other less, less uh powerful cards.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

So, yeah. So, like in Jack's from from like Jack's perspective, he would be buying it purely for like collectible aspect, right? He doesn't have any intention on playing the game, he's buying it because it's a TMNT thing and he's into all things. And again, I'm just I'm putting words in your mouth, but he would be buying it just in just for the display factor, right? Like maybe he frames them, maybe he has them just in a book on the coffee table that somebody can sit down and go through and go, Oh my gosh, these are super cool. In those cases, what is the best avenue for him to kind of get what he's looking for? Is it like a combination of buying the decks and some random packs to just kind of see I I would I would go straight to random packs.

Quick TV Check: Knight Of The Seven Realms

SPEAKER_03 38:10

There's no way I would buy decks for that because it is decks are designed to play, so you're gonna get multiples of the same card in the decks, so avoid that. But if you went and bought a bunch of random packs, white mana ship. Yeah, basically. But but if you go in and buy random packs and it's like, oh, I bought five packs, you're likely gonna get five different rares, 15 different uncommons. Some commons might overlap because they're common, but there's gonna be a more variety that he's gonna get for those five packs, and then you slowly keep doing that, and and there's 190 cards in the set. As you get closer to the end, then you start getting repeats and it's hard to get specifics. Then you go buy the individual cards to flesh out the singles to flesh out your set. If you like me, when I first started, I did do that. Um, sort of. I bought enough packs because I was actually playing the game that I may basically got sets of the cards by randomly buying my packs, and it just happened to be that way because I was buying enough of them. Um and I used to have like, okay, I would have a set that I would collect and then a set to play, you know. So I'd have five, because you can't play more than four of any one card for the most part. Uh so I'd have five of everything by the time all was said and done. One set put away, and then one set that I can build decks, and I would always have four of whatever I needed, so I could build whatever deck I wanted. But Jack, yeah, but but in Jack's situation, I don't even think it would be that. I think Jack, uh again, I'm guessing, Jack, so you can tell me how good I'm guessing. He would look at the cards that he wanted, see how like art-wise, and he would do this based off the art. Who cares what the card does so he can play it again? This art is badass. I want the art for these cards, whether it be the cards themselves or something I did, the art that he liked for that the those four turtles. I went and looked up the artist, and that artist has a spot to sell the pictures, but not consistently. Like once or twice a year, they put up their art, and it was like, oh, so I added myself to the you know uh the list. So if it comes up, then I know I got them covered for a mailing list that he'll say Wednesday at six o'clock.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

I'll be dropping, I'll be dropping my commissions, you know.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Uh yeah, that type, that type of thing. So there's a couple options for Jack. It would like for that, it would be go get the like, hey Lou, because obviously I'm playing, so I'll be hey Lou, can you get me this card, this card, this card, you know, a list of 30 cards. So when I go play, I can trade with people and like, okay, cool. Uh I have these cards. And if there's some like, ooh, I want I'd rather have a print of something, then because it's not always at their website. Yeah, there's there's for example, uh God, I want to say early May, uh first weekend in May, I think, is a big magic tournament in Vegas. So a lot of times there are vendors there, artists there, who will sell their prints and stuff like that. So if one of them, and some of them I'm not going, but some of my friends here in Boulder are going. So it's like if if there's an artist that we know is going to be there and they drew one of the prints that Jack likes, then I could reach out to my fellows and say, Hey, can you check this artist's booth to see if he has a print of this card from the turtle set, and then do it that way.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

So there's or waiting until Comic-Con. Like where there's the other option, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:27

There's a lot of uh magic artists. Matter of fact, not even just not even just San Diego. We met some Denver Comic-Con people, and they were magic artists. So that can be a case too. So I'll be I'll be keeping an eye out, but I'll I'll let give Jack a chance to go look through all the art, and then you know, hey, send me a list of the ones you really like, and then if I find an artist who has that available, then I can pick it up.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

And maybe this maybe I'm thinking of another card series, but don't they occasionally put out like a coffee table book with the art?

SPEAKER_03 41:55

So like Magic Magic has done that in the past. I haven't seen it in forever, though.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

I I see that more with old uh Marvel DC comics. I see that more with comics art.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

But Magic didn't see I have one.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

I have one of those books, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

So But it's been a while, like I said, it's been it's been over a decade since Magic put one of those out. But yeah, you're welcome. So yeah, Jackie F h homework.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Right? And then the online, I'm guessing it's the same thing, but it's all digital. So like they'll release packs in the app or whatever, and then they'll have the decks that you can purchase. And that, but that's all that's all in your app. That's all in the Magic app.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Correct, and a shit ton cheaper. Let me give it an example. When I when I uh uh if I go to buy a paper pack, you know, a random pack of 14 cards, that's like seven or eight bucks for the pack. Now, on digital, it's a little bit different. I told you the whole one rare, it's 14 cards. And digital, it's six. Still getting still guaranteed a rare, still two two uncommons, you know, blah, blah, blah. Except it's only a dollar a pack.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

So now you know why I but you're not buying games, you're more likely to buy the packs online to play them as opposed to just collect them. Correct. Because that's that's the difference there, right? Yeah. But you can still trade them, right?

Season Stats: Downloads, Cities, And Countries

SPEAKER_03 43:25

No. The the card digital, digital, digital ones, if like if you're missing like the whole go, there's there's things called wild cards. If once you open if you open up six packs, you get a wild card. Then you can use the wild card to get any cards you want, quote unquote, buy any cards you want online. So as you buy packs and play games and earn and win prizes and stuff, you use that to get your wild card. So you could actually jump in if you're super patient, you could jump into this game for free, never spend money on it because you're slowly grinding. Because every day you can earn like 1,500 coin and you can use the coin to buy packs and so on and so forth. So the pack is a thousand thousand coin or a dollar if you want to just buy gems. You can pay real money if you want. Uh go get turn your hundred dollars into twenty thousand gems, and then use those twenty thousand gems to buy a hundred packs. You know, you could do that if you wanted to. Uh but so the cheap folks, um, you could actually just grind every day, get your fifteen hundred coins every day, sometimes a little more here and there, um, and then just slowly, over the course of a year or so, build up a decent collection where you can compete. And play competitively if you really wanted to. But obviously, eight bucks versus one buck on playing online.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Yeah. Same thing with tournaments. Like they have tournaments that they do online that's similar to which like this weekend, the whole Turtles thing. The pre-released pre-release tournaments was yesterday and today. Uh, and then they're then they're officially come out next Friday. I could have gone to my local store twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday, and dropped 50 bucks and played uh one of those pre-release tournaments. Well, if I wait till Tuesday and do it digitally, it's 10 bucks. So it's kind of hard for me to justify going to bid drop 50 bucks when I can drop.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

But what I'm getting from this is there's a company that has a physical and digital platform and they actually understand that the digital is cheaper.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

Yeah, yeah. Craziness. Who would do that?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

But I think that's but that's also the entrance, like that's your entrance fee, right? Because you're more likely to get somebody like a Jack or a me or whatever to buy in on it when if you're like a big proponent of the digital one to show up, you know, if we're hanging out at Comic-Con, we're hanging out at Celebration or whatever, and there's some sort of big event happening that just coincides with that, right? Like, like they do a big star, let's say for next year for the you know, the 50th, they do like a magic slash Star Wars crossover, right? And it happens to premiere at celebration. You're gonna come, you're gonna be like, hey guys, like here you could do this for a dollar, you can buy all the packs, get everything on digital. And then at that point, I'm I am going to go, oh, but you're restricted to being in the app for all this, right? Like I can't share the cards just in my room or do whatever. So then I'm also there's also a like a higher likelihood of me and going buying the packs physically to have a physical version of the card to display, as opposed to just going, I'm just gonna buy the copies to display. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like then you get into the ecosystem, right? Now you're playing, and there you go.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

It's funny, it's funny you say that because uh with the with the paper cards, uh, our group, like especially years ago when I used to travel to play these big tournaments in Omaha, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, whatever. Um uh even San Diego Comic-Con, because of the hotel a couple doors down, uh, they do it. As a matter of fact, I did it this last Comic-Con because I didn't have a Saturday badge. Um uh it was with me and an old girl, and she had stuff she wanted to see, and I did it. So I said, you take the badge, go watch the shows, I'm gonna go play magic. And I did. I went next door to the hotel and I played, had jumped into some magic tournaments uh on paper when I was there. But back to the when I was traveling, we would take some a lot of us, we we would buy a box, and there's a there's a format in the game called drafting where you each player gets three packs, and then you open a pack, take one card out of it, and then pass the pack around the circle. Uh you build a deck that way. We would do that. We would go to an event, events done for the day, we're still up, want something to do. We would take the box we opened, play in paper, open up a pack and do the draft thing around to build our build our decks.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Um and then you get to keep those cards because that's your contribution to that box, right? The box is the box is 150 bucks, everybody puts in 10 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 47:54

Yeah, exactly exactly. And and that's a true ways for yeah, it was like it was like the$120 box, everybody put in$15, eight of us did it, and then you keep the card you drafted, and and then we go from there. Um, but that that I don't know, that interaction, the camaraderie, all that, you still get something to do. And it is better in paper to do something like that. Yeah, and let's think about it, for$15, it's like four hours, five hours entertainment, it's kind of worth it. Yeah. And you're getting a product out of it as well, right? You are getting something out of that for that. It's not just the time, the fun that you're having. So that happens. Now, to your joke about 50th next year and and uh Magic crossovers, it's funny because Magic has been doing these crossovers for the last couple years. They did uh Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, um, Spider-Man. Uh there's probably one of the ones that I'm uh yeah, Fallout. Fallout. It's probably another one. Uh that was recent yeah. So yeah. Uh Avatar Last and Nebras was this year, uh late last year. Uh TMNT is next is in two days. The rest of the year, there are three more crossover. They're called uh universes beyond, so beyond the magic universe. Um the next one, I believe, is Marvel instead of just Spider-Man, it's Marvel in general. Um The Hobbit, uh, and then the final one, Star Trek. Wow. So yeah. So we got four universes beyonds this year, and and who knows? We don't know what's coming for 27, they haven't announced it yet, but I would not be surprised, you know, with everything going on with Magic trying to make as much money as possible that they do a crossbow. Now, the downside of that is I think Star Wars had its own card game.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

Not anymore. They have had a couple different cards and stuff. Oh, there's um uh what's the other one called? There's Destiny, which was the Dyson card one. They have a uh let me see.

SPEAKER_03 49:54

That was two years ago at Comic Con. It was last I don't remember because two years ago they were trying to explain to everybody, and you got this expensive ass card if you played. But the wait list was for us.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Star Wars Unlimited is the one that's out right now.

SPEAKER_03 50:04

Yes, that's the one that's out, yeah. That's what I remember seeing those packs in the store. So because of that, I can't imagine them, you know, competing against themselves.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

Granted, money's money, man. If they if they think they can make some bucks off of that, I think I mean and and that's how it always starts, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:22

It's always like, oh, Marvel or uh Disney, or you know, like all they gotta do is get their foot in the door, and then they can go, hey, look at how much money you made off of Mar the Marvel crossover, right? Imagine what you can do is look at how many people online are talking about it, right?

SPEAKER_03 50:39

Like I mean, let's be real. It worked for Disney at with Roosevelt. They're like, oh, we'll try a few. Now they want to fucking monopolize it, they want to basically take Roosevelt's out of their own product, it seems. So but yeah, so yeah, so the universe to be honest, people uh it's hit or miss. Some people want to stick within magic universe lore and just be done with that. And some people like like because you get the obvious question, right? What are the turtles doing in frickin' magic world? You know, that type of stuff. And it's like I get it, they got teleported there, but it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

They got portals, they've been to Dimension X, time traveling, and and I think there's that's probably how they can explain it too.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

There's the aspect too of like every creative endeavor eventually has an in life, right? Like, like there's there is a you know, you can keep creating magic cards, right? Like if you're like, nope, we're we're keeping uh we're we're we're protecting our IP, right? And we're only going to do like eventually at some point that slows down, that becomes less interesting, especially if you want to bring especially if you want to bring in new people. How do you bring in new people? You go, hey, this guy over here in Vegas really likes TMNT. Let's do a fucking crossover. And guess what? Now he's in the fucking magic ecosystem, you know? Hey, D minor. Um start uh Marvel crossover. Marvel has made a billion and a half dollars in the last five years. Think about how much money we could get from those people going to that by just having a solid, because they already have a solid structure to how their play works. So they could just label cards and give them different abilities that they already probably have in a Rolodex, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:24

They could spin the Rolodex and be like, oh, okay, but there's a finite number of things you can have a Magic card do, right? The grand scheme of things.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

Sort of, because that that that's where I was gonna go with they just come up with new mechanics, and now you have a whole new list of shit you can combine. Um, Magic's been around since 1993. I started playing the end of '93. So I stopped for about seven years once, and for four or five years once, but other than that, it's been around except because when I came back in 2009 and Magic was still around, because how I got back into I jumped out of Magic from 2000 to 2009. When I came to what to Boulder, uh uh I was playing on the Xbox and some Magic game showed up on the Xbox available to purchase. I was like, this game is still around because at that point for me it had been 16 years, and I'm not expecting a card game to last that long. Um, but I played it online, got hooked again, started playing paper again, and I played for a decade until I dropped out of it in 2019 again, and then got back into it last September when I needed something to do.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

Why? Coincidentally, you had a lot more free time starting in September.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

I I did, I did, it was wild. Um but but that's the thing, right? Like even with it is, it is, dude. But but even but even like you're saying, like the T TMNT, they created new mechanics for that that will now be applied to other like when they come up with another set, they could use some of the mechanics that came out here with TMNT. And then now they got another five years worth of cards they can make until they come up with new mechanics, and they just keep going and going.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

Because they're still releasing magic universe cards, right? Yes, like the sets are being released independent of the beyond universe.

Magic 101: Packs, Rarity, And Deckbuilding

SPEAKER_03 54:14

Yeah, they it's it's still it's still your basic three or four sets a year of in-universe stuff, and then now this year is the worst year ever. Worst by like if I was still collecting paper clock cards, I would be mad because I buy a lot of paper cards when I buy them. And they used to have four sets a year. This year there are seven sets, which is ridiculous. Um, let me give you an example. Avatar came out like November, December, whatever I can remember what it was, November or December. Um Lorrowin, the in universe set, came out in like early January. Here we are now, early March, eight weeks later, and we've got TMNT. And because of the way the sets are going, um I believe in three more months, the next set comes out, and then two months after that, and then two months after that, it's like God slow down.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

And are they always the same amount? Is it always like the turtles are there's 190? Is it always 190 each set?

SPEAKER_03 55:15

No, the the in-universe sets are usually bigger. Like the Spider-Man set I was telling you about was also the same size. This 190, 192, something like that. It was a smaller set. No, it was 188. 188 was Spider-Man, Lorrowin, the the set that in universe set that just came out. I believe it was like 294 or something like that, maybe low threes, but high twos. And then now we're back down to TMNT, which is 190. Then when we get to the next set, which is Strixhaven, I think we're back up to like 324.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

So does that number so again magic is kind of the structure of magic, right? Has been the same with the pools and that type of thing. So does that 290 or 190, does that include the cards that are that don't change, right? Because you still have the same pools that you pull from you pull from, you know, or the land, the water.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

Does not include the land. That does not include the land.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Okay, so these are like just 220 cards. Does that include the five basic land that are not build cards, right? These are cards that are like that are not. Sorry, I I'm trying to figure see how so those types what are those action cards?

SPEAKER_03 56:31

Like, like the one the 190 of the two nine, though though again, those are not your basic lands, but those are your basic cards that you can play with in the game. There's 190, like for TMNT, there's 190 unique cards uh between the various rarities. There's like 21 mythic rares, uh, 50. I'm making this up. I don't know what it is. Like like 50 regular rares, 61 uncommons, and like 80 commons, whatever the math is on that. So, so there's something like I looked it up once and then I was like, I don't care. Um so you open a pack, and that's the chance you get a chance of those rarities. And but you can play if you if some of the cards are designed for draft, they're designed for sealed, which means they're designed for you open randomly, build something, and play to make it as even as possible. Other cards are designed for multiplayer games. So you open them, not really gonna do any good for you, but they're gonna be good for somebody who wants to play multiplayer. And then other cards are designed for the constructed, which is you build your own deck. I want to build this Donatello deck. I need four Donatellos, I need four of this, I need four of that, three of this, two of this, um, and then you build yourself. They try to put a little bit of everything in there, um, but it's mostly for the sealed and draft, the random rarities, the random stuff that you're not gonna play. To give you an example, in the Spider-Man set, 188 cards, it can be argued that only 10 of those cards are being played in construction. Like as in the you build your own deck. So out of 188 cards, 10 of them are playable, and you want to build if that's what you like. And if that's what you do like, you're just gonna go and buy those individual cards. You're not gonna open a bunch of random, like, why would I do that and and risk, oh, I might get the card I want. Or just go spend a hundred bucks and buy all the cards you want and call it a day.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Is that just the five is that five percent number? Is that usual? Like for the deck for the for when a different when another series comes out?

SPEAKER_03 58:33

No, it's it's usually a higher number. It's usually a higher number. The uh, whatchabacallit, the the Spider-Man set was not well received.

SPEAKER_02 58:41

Okay. So was that was that more of a mechanics, like a like the cards, the way the mechanics of the cards didn't lend themselves to being or was it more a rejection of the Spider-Man brand?

SPEAKER_03 58:56

Oh no, no, it's the cards. The yeah, yeah, yeah. People love the idea of a lot of people love again. There's your periods out there, uh, the Malfoys, who really just want in universe stuff. But then there's the group who's okay with it, and they were super excited about it, myself included. I really was not on board um with with magic again until San Diego last year. Uh last year being oh yeah, yeah. Oh, were we in 26 now? So 20, so yeah, last July, when I saw they had a space theme set coming out um called Edge of Eternities. And then we uh oh girl and I went to one of the events and it was a Magic the Gathering Spider-Man event, and then they showed the cards. I was like, this is kind of badass. I like this. But when all was said and done, the cards weren't that good mechanically uh speaking to put in decks you have or to build a deck around. There is really not one card, uh, maybe actually, maybe one card that you could build a deck around. Everything else was just filler for other decks you had already built. And like I said, there's maybe 10. If if I can think about the decks that I currently I I have 770 decks built online right now, and of those 70, I'm probably playing four Spider-Man cards throughout all 70, four unique Spider-Man cards. And one of them I just kind of throw in a lot of different decks. The land, I'm not even kidding the land. There's a land that everybody plays, so that one's good. But actual card, not land, there's probably four cards, five cards that you'll that'll pop up. So it just wasn't a good set, mechanically speaking. Lorwin, the in-universe set, that one was good. People are playing a lot of those cards, did really well. Um, from what I saw from the pre-release this last week, uh TMNT, a lot of good cards. There's gonna be a lot of good cards being played. So that's a good sign, way better than the Spider-Man set.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

So we'll find out what really happens. Well, I guess that answers my question then, because I was gonna say, can you use these in your regular deck? Can I get my dog meat, my Raphael, my Miles Morales, and we go hang out with fucking regular magic dudes.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

Yep. Yep, they're all legal in the same set, same, same format. So it depends on what format you play. Standard is what I play. Standard means all the sets that have come out in the last like three years or so, and then like four sets will rotate every January. Uh starting now, it was November of last year, but uh the next, like every card that I'm getting, I can play with, and then come January of next year, four sets are gonna knock off, and you have to start over with the new set. They try to keep it fresh that way. Um, and if you do those no, no, those set those cards you can still play, but you can't play them in standard. There's another format you play. You play them in Pioneer, you play them in modern, you play them in there's different formats, so the people who are new don't get their ass beat by the people who have all the older good cards. They want to keep it fair as possible. So yeah, but yeah, they're all like I'll be able to play my my if I want to make a deck with all beyond, I could play all the shit that we talked about. I could play Star Trek by the end of the year, I could play my Star Trek with my Hobbit, with my Lord of the Rings, with my Marvel, with my Spider-Man, with my TMNT, with my Avatar, with my Final Fantasy, um, and all those, I could use only those cards exclusively and build a death, and it would be magic legal. If I wanted to go to a tournament in Vegas, I could use those cards and legally play the game.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

Because it's not about the card, it's about the mechanics on the card. And if those mechanics are legal or not. So there are cards that there are cards that you can't play because the mechanics have been invalid, potentially, right? That have been there are cards that you can own that the the you can't use the card in a tournament because those mechanics have been invalidated either by rules updating or you know what I'm saying? Like there's there's a reason.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

So those are called restricted cards, and that's a little bit different, but the rotation is based off of which sets are allowed, more so than the mechanic is allowed. Some there's been some cards too powerful, and they'll say, like, there was a there was a ban list that came out, I want to say November, um, and five cards were banned because they were too powerful, meaning everybody's playing this, it's no fun for anybody else because everybody's playing the same damn deck and they don't want that. Magic doesn't want that, so they'll ban a card because of that. Well, they banned five in November because uh different formats. Three of them were banned, I believe, in standard, the format I play, and then two were banned in different formats that I don't play. But they'll do that and they keep it, they keep an eye on it. And ever since that ban, things are they considered healthy, they consider it a healthy environment. If you have like there are 10 top decks in Standard right now, and that's a healthy environment because A beats B, beats C, beats C, so there's a nice rotation going on. But uh last year before the ban, when they had these big tournaments, this one deck that had these same three cards in it, or two cards in it, uh would would have about 60 to 70 percent of the people playing this one deck, and when they cut to the top eight for elimination, seven of the eight decks were the same deck. It was like that's not a healthy environment. And they did something about it.

Collecting vs Playing: Art, Singles, And Prints

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

I I think that's also probably the difference between like the digital versus because going back to like the cost and stuff like that, right? Like I'm sure the statistics that they pull from the card tournaments, the in-person card tournaments, give them a good insight, but then they can also use lean on the digital statistics that they could pull a ton more out of because stuff is happening so much more frequently online that they probably get a way better picture of how things are playing, right? And so they can you might have a you might have a paper in-person tournament, you know, 15 or 20 times a year that maybe they're paying attention to. It's probably more than that, but I'm just throwing that number out there. But you might have 20,000 digital tournaments that you can pull that same type of information out of to give you an idea about things.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:05

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And to your and to your point, that 20,000 number is per day. There's that many tournaments per day digital. Obviously, it's worldwide, and you can jump into a like if I wanted to play right now, I could jump into a standard tournament. It's a I want to say four-round tournament that I could do, and these digital games obviously are a lot faster than paper because there's no physical shuffling and all that crap. So I could get through a four-round tournament in half an hour, and I'm just one person. So imagine a one person does that and grinds all day, and you've got however many hundreds of thousands of people that play the game. So they're getting those statistics. That 20,000 is probably a low number on a daily basis to understand what is happening. And that's what they use. They actually, when they announce that here, this card is banned, here's why, they gave us the numbers of here's what's showing up, and in a and then paper, same thing. All the people who do the big tournaments on paper, they report those, they have to report those because it's all digital. All the inputting, if you go to a tournament, everything is done visually. You're you have an app on your phone to submit the results of everything, and then that has to get uploaded to the Wizards client. And just like that, Wizards gets the all the information of what decks did well, what decks did not, what card like you'll get numbers of this card is the most played card in this tournament. You know, you get you get stuff. They're they're pretty good about it. So they're they're they're data farming is. Ridiculous, man. So and that was one of those, like I said, I just jumped in September. So that new car, that car that got banned in November, I had to play against it for two months before they finally banned it, and I was getting my ass handed to me because I didn't have the cards. I was too new to either be that deck or come up with something to beat that deck. Uh so I played a lot of draft of the whole open a pack, you know, take a card, pass it around. I did that more than constructed for that first two months because I just couldn't compete. Now I can now I can. Now I have more enough cards where I can actually be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:04

And those drafts are actually helpful, those drafts are actually helping you build out your your turn your your tournament decks, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

So like yes, because I get to keep those cards that I open.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

So there's been a there's been a couple of times where I've absolutely there's a thing called rare drafting where you do the whole take one pass it. A lot of people will will take the card is best for their deck. I'm taking rares. I'm just taking I don't care if my deck loses because I'm getting my value on just opening. If I open, if I if I paid basically three and a half dollars for this tournament, but I opened this happened several times, and I opened eight or nine rares, as in took eight or nine rares, opened the three or four for myself and the people who passed their packs to me. I took their rares out as well. I got nine or so rares out of you know one tournament. Well, nine rares is usually nine packs, right? You know, one rare per pack. Well, that's nine dollars. Well, I paid$350 to jump in the tournament. I could lose all my games, I don't care, right? I already won by getting six extra rares that I wouldn't have had. So I did a lot of that recently. And I'll do it again with the Turtles. I'll do a lot of drafts and I will do a lot of take the rares. I don't care if I win. Once I get all the rares I want, then I will start passing rares and I won't care anymore because you can't have more than four anyway, right? So if I have four of something, what do I care if the fifth one opens up? That's not good for my deck. This better card over here, which is common, is good for my deck. So I'll take the common, but not until I flush out my uh standard card and you're once I got my set. Yeah, once I got my 190 cards times four, because I will have four of every card. Um, CD can't have it any other way. Um especially since it's so cheap of you. Again, doing this on paper would cost me about six, seven hundred dollars to do all four cards, four of everything on paper. Opening three boxes, going by opening three boxes, I'm still not gonna get four of everything. I might only have one rare of a certain card. I'll have to go and buy singles. But doing it on paper, uh do it on digital rather, it'll probably cost me uh about a hundred bucks total for everything out for plus I get the the added bonus of playing, right? I get the pleasure of playing uh versus just buying boxes and opening for nothing. Um I'll get all that done, and it won't it won't cost me more than 100 max 150 max. Last time I did this, it cost me uh like 75 bucks to get when all was said and done by playing, because you get prizes too. If I do the draft, if I win, I get prizes, more packs. So it's like, man, I could open, I could do really well, end up getting 15 rares off of one draft because I because the packs that I win and the coins that I win, all that. So when that happened last time, yeah, I paid about 75 bucks um to get everything I wanted, and there's no way you can do that in paper. Not possible. So it's fun, passes the time, I enjoy it, um, and I'm not dumping a shit ton of money into doing it. Um, basically what I'm doing is myself at an eBay, I use that money to dump into the magic. That way I'm not taking from uh my quote unquote bills, the unemployment and stuff like that that pays my bills. Um I have to basically earn it, you know? I have to earn the right to play and stuff like that. And I and I do it by selling uh the eBay stuff to help out. So yeah, yeah, that's fun. As best as I can be anyway, in current circumstances. Because then eBay money could go to pay bills. Let's be real. But but you know what? But but I tell you what, but the therapist said you have to do stuff for yourself as well. So it's not all or you start getting to the idea of what's the point, which is what I had a long time ago. Uh, not even last like years ago. So now it's like every once in a while, it's like you gotta be able to it's like, oh, I can put this hundred bucks towards groceries or whatever. I'm like, no, let me use this hundred bucks from the eBay sale. Buy exactly buy this. Sometimes I do that by going to a buffet. There's a Japanese buffet I like going to, or the or the one that, or the Asian one that has them on Goligan's patient. So, you know, or the Italian one, which isn't, which is which is I don't go too often, but it's like, you know, sometimes you gotta be able to to okay, I earn earn this, you know, go have some fun, or you get locked into that whole uh depressed mode and you're not doing anything other than I'm living to die type of thing instead of living to do anything. So yeah. But yeah, I've enjoyed it. I mean, I'm I'm kind of glad I jumped into I'm glad I jumped into it digitally. I did try to do digital paper when I jumped in September, didn't realize the cost, and then did the comparison and was like, why would I ever play paper again? You know, unless I go to a physical tournament, and if that like a physical paper, like Vegas. Vegas is a physical tournament. I would I would buy the individual, I would build a deck digitally and then go buy the individual cards, and I would still be cheaper than trying to buy what I used to do with buying all the packs and everything. So if I were to decide to do that, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

The nice thing is if you built your deck digitally, you could actually vet it out too as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:08

That happens a lot. Some of the YouTube videos I watch, um, there's teams, they're sponsored the whole thing. They're they're they make tons of money. And they do that. Like 12 of them will get together digitally and build the decks and test them against each other and all the top decks. They they play, oh uh, I need to build this and counter this, and oh, wait, we can't. This card sucks against this group. Uh, this card sucks against that game. Uh so all all there's four pro tours a year. It's like a$50,000,$100,000 tournament. Um, and yeah, the pros do that. They they have a they have a what's it called? The uh the team house, I guess that's what it's called. And they all rent like a you know a house or whatever, and they just spend a week playtesting um digitally and whatnot uh with themselves and against other people online. And then when it's time, they'll get the they'll pull the cards paper and then go play them in paper when it's go to the tournament. Because they do have arena. Uh arena is the magic online. They do have online tournaments, big tournaments, um uh, but most of it's the big tournaments are still paper. One of these days I'll actually make an attempt because I still I'm still half-assed it. You know, it's like, oh, I still build decks for my fun versus trying to be a top deck in the meta. It's like, oh, this meta deck is great. I will refuse to play it on principle of the matter. So I will build a deck to go against that deck. I won't build that deck.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:36

That sounds exactly like you, Lou.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:40

Contrary as hell, right? Hey, I did pretty good. I made, I made, I made a top eight on paper doing that uh back when I towards the end of when I started playing 2019. There was a thing called a pro tour qualifier, and top eight, you have to win it. You can't even just get top eight. Top eight and a lot of other things, you win uh abilities. This one you had to win the whole thing. And I won the whole thing building a deck that was anti what everybody else was doing. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:09

That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

Take down the man.

Digital Arena Economics And Draft Value

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

Soon give it within the next five years, and Lou will be sitting here in his uh his Magic the Gathering jersey sponsored by Right, Channel Fireball over here.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:24

Yeah, Ultra Pro, yeah, yeah, Vanguard, whoever the hell it is. That would be some shit. We don't come back to you know, season three, episode one. It's like, ain't this some shit?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

Yeah, so it's the first magic episode. Lou's journey. Lou's journey began here.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:41

Right. I don't worry, I'll give y'all an exclusive on this channel. It'll be fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

There we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:46

Uncle.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:48

By that point, Jack will have it actually haven't figured out that we can have the broadcast within the broadcast. You can actually be playing in a tournament while we're watching you play in the tournament.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:59

Yeah, that's a good point. Five years? That's realistic.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:03

Well, although it's more realistic that in five years, Jack will figure out the soundboard and how to integrate it properly.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:09

That's true, too. He might actually have that Steam Deck that I bought him set up. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:16

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:17

I think that's so far. That's my favorite part of the pod is when somebody makes a joke and you see Jack like lean over and go. Hold on.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:31

He still has to be five minutes ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:42

We'll have to get Michael Winslow on our podcast. He'll cover for us. For those who don't know, he was from Please Academy and Spaceballs. For that. Uh Michael Winslow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:52

For the kids watching.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

It was the black guy who did all the voices and made noise with his mouth and other parts of his body.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:01

Let's see. I mean, we can do a quick to wrap up the season, we can or wrap up season two, we can do our uh season two review if you want, real quick.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

Do we have a season two review?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

Well, we have all the stuff. We can talk about the numbers, we can talk about uh oh okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:17

Oh speak the the the the first thing, oh oh oh girl after after our uh Chinese New Year thing. Uh she is a fire snake. Oh that's and apparently compatible with a wood rabbit, eight out of ten.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:34

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:35

I believe that. The other 20%, I want to strangle her, so that makes sense. To be fair, she'd want to strangle me too. So although I think it's more than 20%, but I know how I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:50

It's about three-fifths of the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

Oh, this guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:59

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:59

Hey, black history months over, you can say that.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Uh let's see. Wait, why are we not narrowing down to numbers?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:11

Ah, I got numbers.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:13

Custom.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:14

Oh, I'm like, I'm like, why is it hot in here? I forgot I had the oven on earlier and then the crock pot. I mean, chili.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:20

Let's see.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:22

Spring is coming. Three weeks away.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:25

So from March 2nd, 2025 to March 1st, 2026. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:31

14 views.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:32

It doesn't seem to be updated. Well, it doesn't seem to be like it's weird because it like the the statistics at the top seem to update. But like that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:42

Like, there's no um give me one second, let me podcast overview. Custom.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:01

So our biggest month was January 2026. We had 173 views. We had 749 downloads from March 2nd, 2025 to March 1st, 2026.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:14

So a download is different than a watch, right? Somebody actually downloaded it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:18

It's the same clear. Can you clarify for me as far as how BuzzSprout works? Yeah, it's the same. It's the same. Yeah. Um, yeah, it doesn't do an up. It does, it just does uh all time for top episodes. Our top episodes are still uh the top episode is still our first episode with 45 views. Um second most popular one is trained derailed at the station. I'm guessing that was our Japanese, one of our Japanese uh ones.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:49

Something.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

Uh that's or the one that had or the one that had far war trivia.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:54

Maybe. Uh Nostalgic Nostalgic Flicks and Bumpin' Uglies was uh third with 25. Uh I think Vagina Dentata has dropped. I think that was much higher last year. Uh people have found uh that's at 23. And then Cinema Chaos and Dispatcher Diaries is number five. There we go. Dispatcher Diaries. Yeah. Um our number one app is still the web browser. We got like almost we had over 40% of our people listening to us through the web.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:26

Um versus what? Like a phone?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:29

Like podcasts, podcast apps.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:32

But that's on the web. That's on internet computer web as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:36

Well, web, I think the web browser is not like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:42

Like they can go to um BuzzSprout and watch us on there.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:47

But YouTube, what about YouTube? YouTube is a website, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:50

Yeah, well, it would be a website. Yeah. But YouTube. I don't think they can tell the difference between somebody watching it on one of because because Jack, this pushes it out to all the different podcast operators, right? So it might be YouTube or it might be something else that has that Buzz Sprout has a contract with that you're on watching it through the website. Um our number one device is still the Apple iPhone with over 55%. Um Windows computer a second. Mobile is our most popular way with 62%. Uh locations. All episodes. We have almost 900 downloads total over the last two years from North America. So we're almost at a thousand views. And I mean, we're only a hundred and one views away from uh North America being a hundred being a thousand views. That's pretty that's pretty cool. Like I don't know. Uh 10 downloads from South America, 95 downloads from Europe. So we're almost at 100. We almost have a hundred views in Europe or 100 downloads, uh, 71 in Asia, Thor in Africa. We got motherfuckers, we got people in Africa fucking listening to us. What the fuck, guys?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:02

Man.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:03

And then Oceana with the.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:04

I was told Africans couldn't figure out how to get ID to vote. Wow, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:09

Then Oceana is 22 downloads. So Oceana being, I think, like the Philippines and Australia and that part of the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:18

Yeah, that makes that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:19

Um, so yeah. Uh the number one city is Las Vegas with 21%, followed by Los Angeles with 15%.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:28

Uh Dogger's brother watching us.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:30

Yep. North North Bergen, New Jersey has 90%. Somebody has listened to us 92 times in North Bergen, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:40

I would have lost that bet.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:42

Right. Number four is Dallas, Texas, with 8%, uh, which makes sense because of Lou.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

Um that tracks.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

Uh Phoenix, Arizona has four percent. Ashburn, Virginia, wherever sorry, sorry, I I'm gonna say wherever the fuck Ashbrook, Virginia is. If you're listening and you're in Ashbrookburn, message us and let us know where you're at.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:08

Yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:10

Uh Fremont, California. I'm guessing that's also probably Mill. Fremont.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:17

Yeah, I was gonna say, isn't that up north though? I don't know that, but I'm I thought I thought Fremont was up north.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

No, I think it's quiet. He needs to uh sing the the America song. Yeah. Uh Portland, Oregon.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:30

Let me go Google this.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:32

We have 13 views from Sydney, New South Wales in in uh Australia. And then we have 13 views from Council Bluffs, Iowa.

unknown 1:22:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:42

Somebody in Iowa.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:45

Fremont is almost exactly between San Francisco and San Jose.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:49

Huh. Guys, you gotta shout us out. You gotta let us know where you're coming from and what you know how you found us and stuff. We we we will we want to know this stuff. I am definitely curious. What other questions? We have we have Paris. Paris, Paris is represented. Um Wait, Denver didn't make the list?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:07

Oh girl slacking.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:08

Hang on, I'm looking. I'm looking for Colorado. Colorado is all the way down at the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:14

Well, it's only one person, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:18

Um my gosh. Guys, like that's kind of wild how some like it's kind of wild to it. Like, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around somebody who lives in uh Sussex Inlet in New South Wales, has listened to our podcast four times.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

Yeah, that's okay. Like I wonder if I mentioned Mr. Worldwide.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:40

Like uh Adelaide, South Australia. Somebody's listened to us three times.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:46

Um I wonder if I mentioned soccer once. Like that got our walls pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:52

Like they were looking up soccer podcasts or something, or hockey.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:55

And I I mentioned Chelsea or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Or I mentioned our Norwegian cruise to go around the UK and boom.

Bans, Metas, And Data-Driven Balance

SPEAKER_02 1:24:02

But it's kind of it's it's kind of wild to see some of these names that like you don't even like uh there's one uh A-R-E-N-D-A-L, so R N or Arendelle. Arendale.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:18

They obviously were like, oh, these guys like House of the Dragon. Um and then like it's and then it's A G D E R, so Adu. I have no fucking idea where that is. I'm sorry. Like, but uh it's cool that somebody listened to us four times from there, like right uh Gastonia, North Carolina. What up? Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:40

Um all these conservative countries, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:45

But I set the algorithm on that. I'll own it. Um I see Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:54

But yeah, our biggest our biggest month was January 2026 with 173 views. Uh we have been trending up. Like if you look at the all-time, like it definitely, I think uh between September 2025 and January 2026, we were definitely trending up as far as views go. Um we've kind of tailed off a little bit in February and March, but I think our con our we haven't been as consistent over those couple of also true, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:26

Between between some days off and just quiet times, not a whole lot going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:30

But yeah, if you look at if you look at where our uh views were in March of 2024 compared to January 2026. I mean March 2024 we had 38, and then in January we had 173. So we're definitely as far as like people listening, we're they're definitely trending in the right direction.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:51

Like so we just gotta talk more politics, that'll get more eyeballs on us.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:58

Yeah, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:00

Alright, so I don't see it on the website, but the BuzzSprout um app says we've been podcasting for two years, obviously. Um and last year we created hold on, nice and slow. But it's a cute little video here.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:25

Forty-seven episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:30

No, four thousand one hundred and ninety-eight minutes in two thousand twenty-five.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:37

Wow. Um, episodes are published. You kept publishing. I said forty-seven. Kept showing up.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:02

Consistency.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:03

That's what's gonna that's what's gonna get them out of twelve months in twenty twenty-five. There we go. Great job.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:11

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:16

Wait, over a year. Lou are you always gonna get it? Lou, are you telling them that are you telling people that if they listen to us?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

Our voice was heard all over the world, 41 countries. We were heard in 41 countries last year. Wow. The United States was obviously the most popular. We reached more cities than ever. 162 cities have listened to us.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:47

Not bad for only 46 episodes.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:50

Right. Podcast downloads. Your audience also showed up. Well, five hundred and eighty-one downloads in twenty twenty-five.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:07

One episode really stood out.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:16

Okay. Yes, we did. Monetized. You hear that? Wizards, channel fireball?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:36

Help you kick my magic?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:40

What other words can we use for right?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:43

Right. Some some buzzwords throw out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

Yeah, no, that's crazy. 4,198 minutes that we published.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:52

41 countries. 41 countries, too. That's ridiculous. For us fucking around, 41 countries, that's fantastically ridiculous. I would not have I would have never guessed that. I would have never guessed that.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:07

What I'm hearing is life goal that we're going to go visit all the countries that have listened to us.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

We're going to get our shirts made up and just walk down the street, and like some random fucking crackhead's going to run up to us. And Lou's going to punch us.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:22

We'll search out the crackhead. Yo, 41 countries. Other 40, not US. Hit us up. We'll come visit.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:31

Yeah. You got a space on the floor for us. We'll come and visit you.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:35

Great.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:36

We'll record a podcast in your house.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:39

Exactly. And what country are you? We will podcast from your place. As long as we get to stay with you, because hotels are expensive.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:47

We're going to get an email tomorrow from somebody from like Albania. Come visit me. Oh no. Sorry. Like you got some shit going on there.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:53

So once you guys get dialed in, like Yeah, you can be Albanian and be real white looking. And Dell's Albanian.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:03

Let's go to all the countries that Lou will definitely stand out in.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:07

Right. Maine. Oh, wait, Maine's not a country.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:14

Still applies.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:18

But I'll be interested. What did uh what did you know what I I saw it, but what was the up what did what did it end up uh naming the last episode?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:30

Um it was oh our Chinese New Year episode?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:34

Yeah. Just Olympic fin uh Olympic finale season two farewell. Aw.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:40

We didn't even really talk about like that was the short part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:46

I I have to say, we came for Gro Goose, date for Josh getting heated is my favorite name of any episode we've done.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:57

Yeah, I saw that one. I didn't even read the other ones. I'm like, click. Because it usually gives me like seven, eight options. Usually the first one's the best one. But when I saw that one, I'm like, nope, I don't care what the top option is. I'm going to What was it?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:12

What was it?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:13

It was we came for Grogu. We stayed for Josh Gad getting geeted.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:20

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:21

Yeah, I feel like the Olympic final season two farewell, I think was it that one missed the mark a little bit. Because I think most of that episode was just us talking about the Chinese New Year.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:31

Yeah, I was gonna say the Olympics thing was maybe the first half hour max, and the rest of it was basically the Chinese New Year.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:39

Hey, we had one download on that one today. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:43

He's probably watching it right now as we're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:46

Uh which is why I got the Wood Rabbit versus Firesnake comparison.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:51

What was the uh what was the reaction to what was it last week when we were like, oh, you're gonna get in trouble?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:58

Oh, thumping his what you call it.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:03

We're giving you your nickname of Thumper. Uh oh. Oh well she hasn't listened to it. She's watching it now, so I guess we'll get to the biggest one. Yeah, yeah. We'll find out when there's only we'll find out next week when there's only two of us. Lou has a black eye. Like you can tell. Sorry, Lou's having some technical difficulties.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:27

But hey guys, my camera's broken on the computer and the external one I got. They'll both be fixed by next week, I promise. But for this week, no, they're broke.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:35

It's only because he doesn't want to show up with a black eye. Sorry guys, I can't believe I didn't we have sunglasses on the podcast. Why do you have a welder's mask on, Lou?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:43

Well, I was listening to songs of the 80s, you know, sunglasses at night came on, and I just wanted to I love Corey Heart. Yeah, who doesn't? So I mean right along with Cory Feldman, Cory Hein, then you know, the Corey's.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:59

I feel like this is almost better than uh Jack than Jack's moment of gratitude or Lou's white people shit. Is let's see what we can do to get Lou in trouble before the end of the episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:12

Oh that reminds me, I need to go to brunch soon. I haven't done brunch in a while.

Crossovers: TMNT, Marvel, Trek, And Legality

SPEAKER_02 1:33:19

Yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:23

But find me like uh, I don't know, find me a brunch buffet. Oh, Golden Corral. Sponsorship. I have your app. Why don't you send me a free coupon? I'll pay for my plus one, but send me mine for free.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:39

Best brunch in Denver, Colorado.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:43

Oh god, you're gonna get all types of foo foo shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:46

Hang on, I got you. Let's see.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:50

There's not gonna be one better than Golden Corral, I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:53

Unless it's another buffet.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:54

The bike is low bar, dude. Duo?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:59

What, a buffet?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:01

Yeah, no, these are you're not gonna get better than Golden Corral.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:06

No, no, for variety for a buff for a brunch. Like I can't go to a Chinese buffet. There's the the Chinese and Italian ones, and the Japanese ones are way better buffets, but you're not gonna get proper brunch. I need someplace that's gonna give me an omelette and a hot dog. You know?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:23

Lou, you might have to go to Ophelia's electric soapbox.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:29

Known for its vibrant peep show themed decor and lively atmosphere. Ophelia's offers unique brunch dishes such as chicken and buttermilk waffles with heresy honey and chicken biscuits with gravy.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:41

That's racist. Mmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:43

No, no, no. I was talking about peep show themed, but I love the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:46

Do I got watermelon on the stuff? Look, with one, if some gem girls come on the menu, oh yeah, we can talk.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:53

Ooh, Sassafras American Eatery has beignets. And I know you love a good beignet.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:58

I do love a good beignet. And I think I've been to Sassafras, actually. That sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:03

The number one they listed is called the Bindery. It's consistently ranked as one of the best. This new American fine dining restaurant offers an elegant brunch experience with dishes like sweet potato duck hash avocado toast with smoked paprika aioli and stunning downtown skyline views. I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:24

What were we saying about the Little Corral? Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:28

I may as well stay in Boulder for that foo foo shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:32

Maybe I'm low-class shit. Not as bougie as a phone.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:37

Omelette and a hot dog and pizza toppings. I mean, it's pizza, but I don't Yeah. The little mini one, so you don't have to get full. And then you get pizza toppings, but you get a slice of pepper on a pizza, you eat the toppings off of it so the bread don't get you full.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:51

Alright, so this is for Boulder.

unknown 1:35:53

South.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:56

That one's good.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:57

Okay. Raspberry 1010.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:00

That one's that one's good too. French, but good.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:04

Lucille's Creole Cafe.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:06

Fantastic. Their straight Southern New Orleans is really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:12

Snooze and AM eatery.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:14

Overrated. Snooze is not, it's not bad, but it's overrated for all the hype that it gets. But I would go this way.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:26

Cafe Aion. Cafe Ion? No? It's Mediterranean inspired. And then the final one. Too many olives.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:33

I'll pass on that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:35

The corner bar.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:37

Corner bar is good too.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:39

For a special occasion, consider the champagne buffet brunch at the Greenbrier Inn or a refined tea brunch at Jill's restaurant in Bistro.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:48

Do you do either of the Jill Jill's Jill's is good? Jill's is good.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:51

Greenbrier.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:53

I'm not familiar with that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:54

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:56

Of those, I I think I think Lucille, if I'm like, hey, pick one to go to, pick two to go to, it's probably gonna be Lucille's in the Walnut Cafe.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:06

Not Southside. Oh, you guys, Southside Walnut Cafe. Yeah. So they have they use the whole name. So you were the whole name?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:14

So the government's not a good one.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:15

But Lucille's like Lucille's is one of those places where like if y'all were ever to come here, we would go to Lucille's. Like yes, like y'all gotta pick this out. Like we would talk about snooze. Oh, the other one is the buff. The buff is, you know, one of those really good ones that's like open seven to two, one of those type of places. Yeah. Um, and the buff is really good. Uh dollar drink bar, like with the pre-made Bloody Marys, mimosas, and crap, there's one more. But those three are dollar drinks. Um, I usually like though I haven't been there in a while, but when I do, I'll go sit at the bar. I'll get the two-step, which is like two French toasts, two eggs, two um sausage bacon, whatever it is, and then I'll get a couple Bloody Marys. Now, you can pay for the fancy Bloody Mary, and that thing is super fancy. Like the garnish and that Bloody Mary, it's like an$8 drink, and that thing has like the pickles, the peppers, bacon, tomato. It's it's a goddamn salad in your drink.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:12

Uh, the second response on the Reddit, uh Boulder Reddit, that's best the titled Best Brunch These Days. Second one, I'm a basic bitch when it comes to food, so I'll always choose the butt the buff if I'm allowed to choose where we go for breakfast or brunch.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:26

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:26

So I was like, wait, did Lou post this? Lou is a basic bitch. Lou is basically.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:33

That absolutely applies. Lou could have posted that. I'm not saying Lou did not post that. Uh I mean, somebody from the basic bits, the guy who's talking about fancy fucking brunch and he wants golden corral.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:46

Right. We're gonna go visit Lou and be like, let's go to brunch, Lou. You talked about all these places. Golden Corral. Wait, why are we pulling into the Golden Corral parking lot? What the fuck are we doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:56

Here you go. Boom, we're done. We can go across the street, fill up in gas at Sam's Club.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:02

I'll take you guys to Sam's Club. I got a membership.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:07

Oh man, I went, so I had to go buy some tubs for uh for the stuff we did yesterday. So I went to Costco. Man, there must have been 5,000 people in the fucking coup court. That thing is such that thing is so fucking chaotic now. Like I now that they well, they have like the self-service where you can go and order yourself, you don't have to go up to the counter. Um, but like there's no markings anywhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:32

So wait, wait, they don't they don't have an app like Sams Club.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:36

They do, but then they also have machines that you can go up to and put your so you can order on the app as well. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:44

That's a lot of times if it's like when I go to a Sams that's busy, I was like, fuck this, I'll order on the app, and then watch all the people online watch me walk up and get my food, they're all like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:53

I'll have to see. I actually I don't know. I'll have to see. I'll I'll uh test it out and let you know. But yeah, like it was just a ton of people with receipts in their hands. Some of them had receipts, some of them didn't. A bunch of people just standing around. There's nothing mark, there's no marking anywhere, so there's like nowhere to be like, if you're waiting for your food, go here. If you need to order, go here. Oh and that shit drives me crazy because I'm like, my organizational brain, like, I'm like, you need to at least have a split between people who need to order and people who've already ordered. So then I know if I can go over and get in this line if it's not just a bunch of people just moo cowing waiting for their fucking order to come up or not. And I'm not spending 10 minutes going, Did you put an order? Is this the end of the line? Did you put in an order? Like, Costco does so good about every other aspect of their business for how busy they always are. Like, I'm like, why is your fucking food court so broken? Like, somebody needs to fucking take a look at this.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:46

Just go to Sam's, give yourself a Sam's membership and try to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:49

I don't I uh let me see where the closest Sam's Club is to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:53

Because I I will I will admit that even if you if you wanted to get a uh pizza from Sam's, they've got freaking curbside service now. I can order a pizza and drive up and walk it out to them.

Paper Tournaments, Team Testing, And Anti-Meta Wins

SPEAKER_04 1:41:04

It's pretty waller. Mm-hmm. Wait, they don't have that in Vegas? Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:12

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:14

But for a but for$8.99 for a pizza, I'm all over it. Big ass meaty pizza. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:21

Um, let's see.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:22

The hard dog composts are the best. Damn, dog. My closest one is Longmont, which is about 15 minutes. And then there's another one about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, one direction. There's another one about 25 minutes, a different direction. So I know of three for sure. I don't know if there's more because I don't go that far out, but at least I know I have access to three of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:46

Yeah, the closest one is probably in Colorado. Uh let's see, is there Idaho?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:52

Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:54

Idaho. Maybe Idaho. Idaho, Utah, yeah. Utah. Utah. There's none of there's Utah. I'm looking at the Sam. I'm looking at the Sam's Club locations by state, and Washington and Oregon are not on the list anywhere. So I'm like looking to see what other states that's because Costco, that's Costco territory up there.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:13

You need to be if you're taller than six foot two, though, then Utah and Idaho can have a baby. Utah Tahoe.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:21

Yeah. Idaho probably the closest one.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:28

Oh man, that note is an hour forty two. Yeah, on that note, it's an hour forty-two, and it's time to go.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:34

Also, going from Tigert, Oregon to the closest Sam's Club is 10 hours and 35 minutes, and it's a different time zone.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:44

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:45

Worth it.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:48

I can't believe there isn't one like either straight up above you in Washington or straight down in Northern California. That's surprising.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:53

Bro, Cosco's from uh Washington. They're not letting Sam's Club up there.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:00

Uh yeah, the closest Sam's Club is in Santa Cruz. Uh wait, hang on. Where is this at? Closest one is in Sacramento to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:09

See, that that's monopolizing. That's against the law. I'm gonna talk. I need to I need to talk I need to talk to the Denver Broncos owners and say, hey, I'll need to put a oh, that's Walmart. I'm sure it's different CEOs for Walmart and Sam's clubs.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:28

That's nine hours and twenty minutes. So really I'm damned either way.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:32

Yeah, you are. Damn, dude. That's crazy. That really is. I mean, I thought Sams, Costco, like they're everywhere. Like, right? Like Burger King, McDonald's, right? If there's a Burger King within a mile, there's if not less, much less. There's a McDonald's. That's just how it works. But apparently that's not how it works. Because for me, like going to Longmont, uh, if I took this one road, I'm gonna hit a Costco on the right hand side, and not a mile later, I'm gonna hit a fans club or a Walmart on the right hand side. So like in Longmont, there's a fans and a and a Costco, you know, Target and Walmart, you know, the same thing. Except for Boulder. Boulder does not do Walmart because they don't want to save money.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:15

They hate money, is what I heard.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:17

They they they hate folks saving money. They regulate you raising your kids and how you raise your kids. So they by taxing sugar drinks in the city anyway, not the county, but just the city. We don't want your kids to get fat, so we're gonna tax you, and that way you don't do that. It's not up to you to teach me how to raise my kids. Fuck off. I mean, if I want to buy sugary soda, let me don't stop charging more for it. That's that's racist because black people, you know how it is, because black people can't afford freaking more for their soda, so it's racist. I'm just trying to throw out my inner liberal white woman.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:58

Lou, you've been trying to throw out your inner your inner liberal white woman for decades now. Hey oh, hey oh you know what? Come on, Jack, give me this. You're right.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:11

I was looking at the case. You know the rules. I was gonna argue, but I don't like to I don't like to be wrong, so I won't argue with that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:19

I found out why there are no Sam's clubs in Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:23

Why? Something about restrictive landing zones or something.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:29

But Costco is there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:34

Restrictive landing zones is the Sams Club flying their product? They land at Sam's Club? What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:43

It says there are six states without Sam's Club. Alaska, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:51

But that's where Costco's from. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:58

Interesting, the East Coast one, Vermont, Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:01

Oh, restorative zoning laws is why Sam's Club is not in Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:07

But Costco is, so that makes but all it is is just a different version of Costco.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:12

So how can Costco be there and Sam's not? That's racist. It could be.

Brunch Debates And Buffet Loyalty

SPEAKER_02 1:46:22

When I did a search for that, they said there's both primary reasons include strong competition from Costco, uh, historical expansion strategy. They've historically prioritized in the South and Midwest. The West Coast, including Oregon, was to be deprioritized for long-term growth. Logistical and real estate challenges. Sam's Club requires large plots of land, typically 120 to 150,000 square feet for stores and parking. In urban areas like Portland and Salem, limited available space, strict loaning zoning regulations, and environmental concerns make site acquisition difficult and costly. Limited Walmart presence. Sam's Club often expands where Walmart already has a strong footprint. Walmart's relatively limited number of stores in Oregon compared to other states reduces the feasibility of opening Sam's Club and recent corporate struct restructuring. Since the 2010s, Walmart has shifted focus from a physical expansion to optimizing existing stores, enhancing e-commerce, and improving member services. Despite the absence of physical stores, Oregon residents can still access Sam's Club through digital membership.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:33

Can't get a hot dog though. Right. Ship me a hot dog.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:40

A buck fifty with a drink.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:45

You order a buck fifty hot dog and it costs you$27 to get it shipped.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:49

Not if you're a member, it's free shipping.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:53

Get you that digital membership. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:57

Get that free shipping. Call it a day. Send me a pizza. If I could do my my mail with that, the the people who do the meals for the week and they mail them to you. Send me four hot dogs and two pizzas. I'm good for the week. Would it cost me 20 bucks for all?

SPEAKER_02 1:48:15

And send me one fro yo. Swart.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:18

Ah man, I want that that that brownie, that brownie froyo, the brownie vanilla. That one's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:25

I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:25

I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:27

And that's what our podcast would be called. Brownie froyo, I do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:36

It'd be funny if it actually cut it out of the episode, too. And then so people would be like, um but what?

SPEAKER_04 1:48:42

I don't get it. Alright, boys.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:44

Lou's gotta go to bed. Lou's Lou's sleepy.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:47

Yeah, yeah, that yeah, he is. Lou's gotta go get dessert.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:53

Lou's not thinking about that brownie swirl.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:58

Definitely getting that vanilla, definitely getting that vanilla for you, though. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:09

All right, Matt.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:10

Boys, you're gonna get it. Here we go. Season three. Episode in the books.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:14

Thanks, season three, y'all.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:16

Thanks, no, thank you, season two.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:20

To get us to season two. The ream.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:22

You don't even gotta wait till 2027 to get it like most of the other TV, like most TV shows.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:28

Yeah. I'm coming at you 12 months of the year.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:31

Hell yeah. We're so much more consistent than most of the TV shows on right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:35

And we only had six weeks off, y'all. 52.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:41

And most of those were just timing issues.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:45

But well, some of us went to Japan. That was weird. Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:49

We're there for you 94% of the time.

unknown 1:49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:54

If you can't manage 5% of your own life without us, I don't know what to tell you. But seriously, shout out. Like post in the comments and shit. Like we need we want to see where you guys are coming from and how you guys found us.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:07

Yeah. So and why you aren't consistently listening to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:14

Tell me why we suck.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:16

I need to know. I want to make it better, guys. Why am I the only why am I the biggest fan of my own podcast?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:25

I'm still stuck on the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:28

We love hearing Lou and I talk. This is true.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:31

This is true. It's soothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:33

Okay, well I'll talk to you next week then. Alright. Nope, too late. I'm hitting stop.