S1E9: Comfort Mode Engaged

When the world feels loud and your energy is thin, small comforts can change the whole day. We lean into the cozy and the practical—from the weight of an electric blanket to the way a familiar score can reset a buzzing brain—and explore why some things never stop working. You’ll hear us map out our comfort toolkit: the bed setup that turns a sick day into a soft landing, the background shows that hum like good company, and the movies we’ve watched so many times we now love the tiny sound details more than the plot.

We swap favorites without spoilers: Lord of the Rings as a sensory refuge, Star Wars: The Clone Wars growing up with its audience and sneaking real political echoes into a galaxy far away, and Secret Level’s punchy anthology storytelling that delivers complete satisfaction in under half an hour. We talk about the power of soundtracks and sound design, why music from our teen years locks us into focus, and how a Halo session paired with 2000s rock can feel like a time machine to a simpler state of mind.

Comfort food gets its own spotlight: big pots of chili, baked mac and cheese with crispy edges, and humble buttered rice that hits harder than expected. We draw a clean line between comfort and nostalgia—one restores you now, the other reconnects you to a story—and we honor both, from family casseroles to late‑night microwave bowls. Then we get tactile: the joggers that carry a memory, the threadbare sleep shirt that guarantees sleep, and the oversized hoodie that lets you disappear into warmth. If you’re tired, under the weather, or just overwhelmed, this conversation is a soft place to land and a nudge to build your own list of reliable comforts.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a gentle reset, and leave a quick review to help more people find a little warmth when they need it most.

Chapters

• 0:14 Disclaimer And Setup
• 0:56 Why Comfort Is The Theme
• 2:31 Post‑Holiday Chaos At Home
• 4:16 Flex Time And Work Rhythms
• 8:59 Comfort Media: Bed, Blankets, Shows
• 11:24 Lord Of The Rings And Soundscapes
• 16:55 Star Wars: Clone Wars Deep Dive
• 22:03 Secret Level: Favorite Episodes
• 27:11 Comfort Food: Chili, Mac, Simple Rice
• 31:14 Nostalgia Meals And Family Memories
• 35:12 Doomscrolling, Audiobooks, Minecraft
• 38:47 Halo, 2000s Music, Pure Nostalgia
• 42:25 Comfort Clothes And Energy In Items
• 49:22 Baggy Fits, Panda Tangent, Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:14

Before we begin today's episode, we would like to share a quick disclaimer. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own personal views and are provided in their own capacity. All content is editorial, opinion-based, and intended for entertainment purposes only. Listener discretion is advised. Hey everyone. So full confession, I've been a little under the weather, and I think we're both trying to get back in the swing of things after the holidays. Um, but with me being kind of under the weather, I got to thinking about like comfort things. Kind of those familiar things when you reach out when life feels a little out of whack. So I thought for this week's episode, we'll keep it kind of like low-key and just talk about like what is our comfort things? Shows, music, habits, go-to foods. So we're not going to get too deep, hopefully. And uh yeah, it's just kind of like a hangout session where we talk about the things that bring us comfort. So, Kyle, you're you're kind of like getting back in the swing of things from the holidays and all that jazz, right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:00

I think in order to get back into the swing of things, you have to be in the swing of things. And for the past like 10 years of my life, I've just been swinging. Like. Not that kind of swinging. Let me redact that one.

SPEAKER_00: 2:13

I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_01: 2:14

Let me pull back on that one before someone else gets very upset with me and we start getting very interesting messages.

SPEAKER_00: 2:19

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say that's gonna raise some eyebrows.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23

Yeah. Uh yeah, yeah, we're trying to get back into the swing of things. Um we're we're we're horrible um uh uh people at go at going away because like uh typically people make sure everything is like clean and tidy and put away and whatever. We make sure all the gross stuff is taken care of, like the garbage is out and the dishes are clean and put away, whatever. But like everything else is just chaos. Yeah. Like our living room was just like full of clothes and like the girls' toys everywhere. And then we came home from our trip with so much more toys and clothes that it's just oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:11

Oh god, I'm just suitcases and bags just kind of like throw up right where they land. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:18

Oh yeah, no, they just I wish it was throwing up because throwing up usually there's some form of a confined pile, right? Of some sort, even if it is splattered and it's it, it's it's still usually localized. It was a it was an explosion. It was like a Hiroshima explosion of stuff just everywhere.

SPEAKER_00: 3:39

I was gonna say, listen, I had an incident last night. Don't tell me about that Hiroshima. I'm just saying doesn't always stay in one neat little place.

SPEAKER_01: 3:52

You know what I mean? But the ballistics check out, like it's just everywhere. I'm I'm just I'm I can't turn around because I see the rest of it. It's just anywho, how are you?

SPEAKER_00: 4:04

Oh, you know, just uh yeah, yeah. I'm I'm okay. Just like I said, just feeling a little under the weather, um, getting back into work into the swing of things. There been I had so much time to take off because we were just in a situation where you know, things were changing at work and like the way that we take time off is changing. So we're going from like your earned PTO or you know, like your longevity PTO to um it's more of like, I don't want to say unlimited, but it's you don't you just take it whenever you don't earn anything, but you also can take your time whenever you want it. Like there, there's not a it's not necessarily like I said, it they don't call it, I forget like flex time. We'll go into like a flex time. And then, you know, they're very careful, it's not unlimited, but like, you know, if I want to take next week off or a couple days, and I just tell my boss, hey, I need Thursday and Friday off, and that's all I need to do. Like, there's no there's no like strict policies for us anymore. So it's that's that's pretty solid. So I had like because I never take my time, I had like three weeks, three and a half weeks to basically schedule like right at the end of the year, or I was gonna lose it. And I was like, hell yeah, I'm gonna take it. Um, and we were all like that. All the the people at at work, we were all just like scrambling to find time. So yeah. So yeah, I haven't like worked much the last quarter of uh, and then it's just you know, getting back into that swing of things has been fun.

SPEAKER_01: 6:07

That's a pretty solid setup, though. That's man, I can't talk too much about it because I didn't get a whole bunch of the boo-hoos. But the last job I had in Connecticut at the gym there, that was pretty much how it was. Uh I've I know I've talked about my boss Dayton a couple of times on here. I call him Doug. Uh but he he he's definitely like the model of like he'll he'll get a kick out of this, but he's like the model of like the best kind of boss you would want to have. I I've always said that. Um cared deeply, deeply and personally for every one of his employees. Even the ones he didn't like, there was that level of res there was still that level of respect. Like you're my employee and I'm going to back you professionally in what we do. Um personally, once I'm not your boss anymore, I couldn't give a rat's ass about you, kind of a thing, right? But um when it was time to work, god damn it, you better work. He expected excellence and demanded perfection.

SPEAKER_00: 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:06

And um as long as you did your job, everything was fine. That's one of the one of the highlights of being a fitness professional is you know, making your own schedule. And so, yeah, there was times that we we had like set times we had to be there, but then the more the more clients you had, they they took some of that mandatory time away, which is a good thing. You want that? You want no mandatory time, just client time. Um he couldn't care if you took an entire, you know, he couldn't care if you took an entire month off. If like your, you know, you all your clients were taken care of. Right. Everything was up to date with them. If the ones who were gonna train with other trainers, you've met with that trainer, you've set them up and also that kind of fun stuff, and your other stuff is like if you had on any sales you had to kind of meet.

unknown: 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:59

All that was taken care of. As long as that was taken care of, if you didn't give a shape, have a great time. Downside is you know, you're not getting paid for because you get paid as you're training.

SPEAKER_00: 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

Um, but there was none of that word like, oh, do I have time off for this? Do I have time off for that? How many times, you know, has someone just like, hey, you want to go and do this one? Oh shit, I gotta work and I don't have time to go. Yeah. As long as I just rescheduled everybody, I could do whatever I wanted, which was fantastic. Um That's nice. I miss I missed that so, so much. So I didn't have PTO, but um as long as I just scheduled everybody, it all ended up, you know, let's say I saw someone once a week. And I was like, oh, I see them on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I was gonna take Thursday and Friday off. Uh hey, I'm not gonna be here Thursday. Do you want to do Monday and Tuesday? Do you want to do Tuesday and Wednesday? Do you want to do, you know, you just double them up in that pay period. And it's like, and and my my check wouldn't be any short. I I love that. I miss that so much. I miss that so much.

SPEAKER_00: 8:56

Yeah, that's nice.

unknown: 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:59

Comfort stuff. Yeah, comfort stuff, comfort stuff. Yes. So, like, you know, as I've been, you know, not feeling well, I've just been spending a lot of time in bed, um, which is like, you know, yeah, I could probably be sitting on the couch and be miserable, but there's something like give me my cozy bed with all my cozy blankets, you know, and then and then it's like turn something on. And I have like two different types of things. There are there are like my comfort shows that I will watch, and then there's like comfort shows that I will have on as background sound. Do you do that? Like you you have certain things that are good for background, and then other things you like. I know yours is like, you know, Lord of the Rings and stuff. Um, but um, like I recently re-watched the first the four seasons of Yellowstone. Like I turned that on and got engrossed on it. Well, and because the fifth season truly shit the bed. Um so I remember I bought like the the four seasons, and then I had I didn't, I had, I will not buy the the rest of it because it was it just was so bad. Um but yeah, like you know, started watching that and that was like just this comfort, I don't know. It was just like a comfort show, and um, or like I will turn on VEP. Veeep is always my comfort, is always a comfort show. And that's more of I can do that as a background show.

SPEAKER_02: 10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:41

Um, do you have any of those?

SPEAKER_01: 10:44

I have I I have a few for sure. Um, but as much as I want, so I was like, oh, I'm just gonna put this on in the background, I always just stop and end up watching it. No matter like I can't put like if I'm all right, I'm gonna put this on as background noise and like clean or do work or whatever. No, it has to be music or something else. It can't be a show. Because I'll just I can't be a show or a movie because I'll just sit and watch it. It can't be, it just it can't. Um but there's definitely ones, but even as I'm doing this, okay, I'm gonna sit down and just kind of relax, like everyone will do. Um I'll sit down and I'm just gonna like watch something, and then I'll just like pull up my phone and I'll screw it on my phone. That you know, just kind of vegging like that. So maybe I'm not actually watching it, but it's I can't focus on doing something else that isn't that. I will always stop. But um, like you said, yeah, Lord of the Rings is like almost always just on in playing. Um because yeah, it's uh because it's some of the greatest movies ever made. Um but it's not just so much the actual movie itself, but it's all of the sounds in the movie too. And the music is just it's just perfect. Like the music is just it's next level.

SPEAKER_00: 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:00

I think another movie that I see that I feel doesn't get enough love for its score has to be How to Train Your Dragon.

SPEAKER_00: 12:07

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:09

Yeah. A friend of mine, her and her boyfriend, they went, I think it was last year, they did that. They they had this thing at the um the college down the street from us, Western, Western uh Michigan's right down the street from us. And uh at their auditorium there, they have all sorts of shows and whatnot that they do. And they there was like an orchestra that I forgot what it is, but it's one of the orchestras where they oh the music of, you know, like the movie or whatever's going on.

SPEAKER_00: 12:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:35

So they put so they bring a giant, you know, they have this the screen come down, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They play the movie. Why the symphony plays. But the symphony plays the music, yeah. Sounds and also the kind of function. Like everything from obviously like the big moments, like when he first rides with all that fun shit.

SPEAKER_02: 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:55

To just like the little like scurring around music as he's sneaking around, like you know, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun, all that shit. I love it. I I would I would have killed to go to that one. But they're doing um, they have a couple of those coming back around, and I would I would fucking love to go see some of those.

SPEAKER_00: 13:11

Yeah, those are always fun to go see.

SPEAKER_01: 13:14

But yeah, it's it's it's everything from the music to like I said, just like the little the noises in that movie. It's just everything from like in the fellowship when they're just walking through like Farmer Maggot's crops, right? And Sam thinks he lost Frodo, and you're just hearing the rustling and the snapping of the corn stalks. I don't know why, but that's such a oh god, it tickles my ears just right. All of the armor clanking and clacking. Oh, all of it. So, like as they're putting one of my favor I'm telling you, I get a little shiver up my spine. Kylie probably has this too, because of her thing with buckles for crying out loud. But um in Return of the King, when they're doing the scene with the Witch King, and he puts on his greaves and he extends his fingers and you see the scaled armor, it goes click, click, click, click, click. Oh my god. I get a chill up my spine. It tickles my ear so much.

SPEAKER_00: 14:12

And you've probably watched it, like I think there are the these movies that you people have and you watch them so many times that you start noticing the little stuff like that. You know, like first maybe five watches, you're watching it for content, but then after so long, you start paying attention to like those little nuanced things, or you're looking at the background, what's going on in the background, and yes, and you can see you've seen the movies so much you can see when they've reused certain shots just from different angles.

SPEAKER_01: 14:45

Yeah. From different movies. Yeah. Like you can see, like, okay, so that's that part there. That's definitely there. They just shot, they're making it seem like it's very different areas, but they just angled the camera differently and they shot at a different time of day. I've seen these movies so fucking many times. Yeah. But those ones, any anything Star Wars, all massive runs.

SPEAKER_00: 15:05

Star Wars, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:06

Star Wars. Not just the movies. Another one of my absolute go-to background BS noise, uh, you know, background BS noises is um the Clone Wars show. I love that. I love that show. I want to do an entire episode just talking about my deep love for that show. That is some of the most amazing writing I have seen for quote unquote a kids' show. Um loose air quote kids show.

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

You know, as much as I like to think of myself as, you know, like a Star Wars fan, I've not seen that show. Never watched it. Never watched it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:45

Okay. I'm gonna do my best not to lose it right now. Not because you haven't seen a show, but because we said, okay, maybe not going too deep, but we're talking about Clone Wars right now. So we're probably gonna go a little deep right now. Anyhow. Dave Helone is such a fucking genius writer. When he first did the first thing he did was there was an animated movie he did of the Clone Wars. I think it was like an hour and a half, two hours long. Where he got most of the actual actors to do the show, like you McGregor's Obi-Wan and Sam Jackson is Mace Windu and uh Sir Christopher Lee's Duke uh Sir Christopher Lee's Dooku, Jackson is Windu. I think I got those back up. Either way. Which was fantastic. Um, then he couldn't get then he it got just good enough to get he wanted to do the show. And he wrote that show when he first did that movie and he first did the first couple of seasons of that show. It is you watch it, that is a kid's show. There's all sorts of just like cute, clunky, kooky, whatever moments, like a droid drops a wrench and it hits its foot, and now it's jumping up and down and holding its foot, going, ow, ow, ow, and another, and another droid literally looks at it and goes, Like, how do you know Payne? You're a droid. And he goes, Oh yeah, and he's just completely normal. Like that's a legit joke they do, right? Just like stupid, kind of quirky stuff like that one. Then you get to like season three, and there's like genocide and like war crimes and political turmoil and like this. He grew that show when he first did that show. His target audience was like 10 to you know, was like nine to ten year olds, right?

SPEAKER_02: 17:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

Well then season, you know, then like let's say each year, you know, these kids are, you know, let's say each year was when a season was supposed to come out, or X amount of years, X amount of seasons were supposed to come out. So these kids were 10. And now they're 12, and now they're 13, and now they're 15, and now they're 16, and now by the end of the show, these kids are like 18, 19, 20 years old. Yeah. They don't want to see, so they can handle the more mature. So he literally grew that show with his original target audience.

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01: 17:55

So the show gets much. It's still a older, it's still a young adult, older child show. Like it is still a cartoon.

SPEAKER_00: 18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

But there's much more serious tones to the show. There's much more of like the opposite sides, the realism of the world and the actual nitty-gritties to what would actually happen in a universe at war. Because in just the movies, you just see, oh, the good and the bad, and we're just focusing on the characters. There's episodes where you run where like it's all the episodes that are that are shitted on. Uh the episodes where like Padme is like the main person of it. She f well, no, because her episodes are seen more boring because it's more political and talking and storytelling than like lightsabers and actions and all sorts of kind of fun stuff. So she's dealing with like the political aspects of the show where you're finding out that, oh yeah, it's the Republic. The Republic is all good. The senators of the Republic, these are the good guys, and the Separatists are the bad guys. But then you find out that literally every single one of them but her is wildly corrupt and couldn't give a rip about anyone. They don't even give a rip about their planet, just themselves and their pockets. It's insane. Like the corruption and the this and the that, and it's just fantastic storytelling. Everyone craps onto it because, yeah. It's so, so good. It gets like I said, and then he just he's literally writing historical events into Star Wars. I one of my favorite ones they do is in like season four or five. He literally explains the Contra affair that happened during the Reagan administration.

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

I swear to God, he wrote an episode. You watch it. Okay. So the Separatists are taking over a neutral, they're taking over a neutral planet. So the Separatists, so the Republic can't intervene and help out because that planet claimed neutrality. Because you're under attack, we can't defend you because you didn't side with us in the beginning. Well, the people are trying to uprise, the rebellion is massively overdone. The Genesis. A problem with this one, okay. We need to intervene. We can't. Okay, we're gonna secretly send a couple of Jedi and a couple of the clone commanders in to teach the rebels how to be organized, how to rise up against them. So literally train guerrilla warfare to fight against them. Well, now they got caught with their pants down. Oh no, we're wildly outgunned. So now we need to sell, we need to buy weapons off of the black market, off of funds taken from this illegal trade that we seized.

SPEAKER_00: 20:28

Jeez.

SPEAKER_01: 20:29

I swear to God, they caught spice spice dealers, spice trades. So drug smuggling, if you will. Yeah. They seize their cargo, they seize their credits. Well, they couldn't use the money that was from the Republic to buy these weapons from the pirates off the black market. Wait, we just seized this stuff that hasn't been processed yet. Let's take this drug money and buy weapons from a pirate and give it to rebels to fight the Russians. I mean the separatists. That's literally what they did. I swear to God. They explained the Iranian contra affair. It's I love it so much. Anywho, more things you find comfort in.

SPEAKER_00: 21:05

Yeah. No, I one thing I did uh a couple episodes back, you were talking about that show on Prime. Is it Secret Level?

unknown: 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:16

I went and watched that. That was actually really, really enjoyed that. That's that I watched the whole thing? I watched the whole thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:26

Oh my god, was it not?

SPEAKER_00: 21:28

I could fucking awesome. I could see um that becoming like my new comfort kind of return to that background kind of show, you know, because the episodes are short enough that but they're so diversified. I absolutely loved it. Which one was your favorite?

SPEAKER_01: 21:51

Which one was your favorite?

SPEAKER_00: 21:53

Um I'm trying to think. I don't know the names of any of the episodes. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01: 22:02

Just kind of explain what happens.

SPEAKER_00: 22:03

I like I like the um I I really like the Warhammer one.

SPEAKER_01: 22:09

Um yeah, you did.

SPEAKER_00: 22:11

I like the one that had um Keanu Reeves in it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:15

That one was really good. How funny was the one with Schwarzenegger? I laughed when Schwarzenegger started talking.

SPEAKER_00: 22:20

That was funny. That was funny, yeah. And I really liked the one, it was like more of like an anime, um, but he had to play this game against the computer that was controlling everything.

SPEAKER_01: 22:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:38

That was very clever. I thought that was that was like you really had to like like use your brain in that way.

SPEAKER_01: 22:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The the the Pac-Man one was was scared me. I legit felt chills. That one was a horror film.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:56

The Pac-Man one was terrifying.

SPEAKER_00: 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:58

It was so good though.

SPEAKER_00: 23:00

Yeah, all of them. All of them. Oh, they were so good. The concepts are so good, and so much storytelling was done in what, like, you know, 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 23:08

Yeah. And I'm so pissed because I I I forget what it is. Um was it Unreal Tournament? I think was the name of it. The one with the robots and like the death arena and also that kind of crap like that.

SPEAKER_00: 23:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:20

Oh my god. I need that to be its own show. I don't want the game. I don't want I need that concept. I need that as a show or a movie. I need more than just seven minutes of that.

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:30

It was so good. Yeah. But the uh the Warhammer, the Warhammer show, the Warhammer episode, they timed perfectly with it because that episode aired the day before the release of their most recent game, Space Marine 2. So that dropped the day before, which is which kind of gave like background and setup of of the main character of Commander Titus, of who is gonna, you know, that's who you play as in the game and so on and so forth. It gave a little bit of backstory of just how unmercifully fucking badass he is.

SPEAKER_00: 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:06

And and you you get ex though they don't explain it in the episode, you get exposure to some very important stuff in the in the Warhammer universe. One, just the Space Marines themselves, but um the gods of chaos and the different insane powers that they have, and they're just how mind-numbingly brutal that fucking franchise is.

SPEAKER_00: 24:32

Yeah. Yeah. I I I hope that they come out with new episodes. Like this is a show that they keep going. Um, because it is so well done.

SPEAKER_01: 24:45

I I want to say I saw somewhere that it got renewed for two more seasons.

SPEAKER_00: 24:50

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_01: 24:51

It's gonna be the same thing. It's gonna be one episode of one game of whatever it is. It's just, you know, each episode is a new thing and then on to the next.

SPEAKER_00: 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:58

I love that. It was fantastic. I want like a crazy, I want a super gritty, like sonic one.

SPEAKER_00: 25:04

You know what I feel the one episode I thought was kind of sad was, and I can't think the name of it, but the boy he um volunteered to be like a test subject because he was trying to get near the girl that he was friends with when they were little. And like how how that ended, oh, that was was the Mega Man one, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 25:27

It was the Mega Man episode, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 25:30

No. She was trying to be um, she was a scientist. Yeah. And I forget like whatever her name, whatever there was like this famous name of like this the scientist who was lauded for in this world. And what the secret was is that um different people took that persona and like they were almost yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, um but they were doing all these weird experiments, and then he eventually at the end of it, he had been experimented on so much, like there wasn't much human left on him because all of his parts had been um remade and to robots.

SPEAKER_01: 26:18

That was the Mega Man one, I thought.

SPEAKER_00: 26:20

Hmm, I don't know. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01: 26:24

I'll have to go back and watch it. Oh no, I gotta go back and watch it again.

SPEAKER_00: 26:27

Yeah, but it I thought I just thought it was so sad because of how it ended, and I won't give the ending away, but yeah, that was that was yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:34

Everyone go and watch this. It's fantastic. It's on time. It's called Secret Level.

SPEAKER_00: 26:38

Yeah. I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 26:39

And plus, the Warhammer one is the most important episode because that is but a taste of what Henry Cavill will be giving us with Amazon.

SPEAKER_00: 26:50

I hope soon.

SPEAKER_01: 26:53

Let's just let's let the man recover, let him finish Highlander and become a father.

SPEAKER_00: 27:00

Yeah. Um no. So the other thing that I wanted to talk about was um what's your comfort food? Like when you're not necessarily sick, like I know there's like comfort food when you're sick, but then there's other comfort food, like when you're just like having a having an off day. Do you have do you have like certain comfort food stuff?

SPEAKER_01: 27:28

Depends on how off.

SPEAKER_00: 27:30

Do not say canned soup.

SPEAKER_01: 27:35

I wasn't, but okay. Um depends on how depends on how off the uh the day is. If it's like I want to just curl up in a ball and like cease and cease into existence, it's gonna be takeout because I don't feel like cooking or making anything or wanting anyone to cook or make anything or whatever. It's gonna be some form of takeout. Um but if it's like okay, we're just gonna honestly, some days we're we're just gonna have like a cozy comfort day. Like we know, I get so excited when I look at the forecast and it's gonna snow or it's gonna rain like all day, like in the fall or the winter time. Oh I get so excited because I I always want to make one of two things. I either want like a delicious gooey yummy mac and cheese, or like a baked mac and cheese. Um I just I just I don't even necessarily if I want to eat it. I just want to make chili. Oh god, I love it. Those are like my favorite. Not exactly chili, not necessarily chili mac. I'm on a whole fucking chili mac thing now, since the goddamn gaggleness. But anyhow. Um yeah, no, I think just a bowl of of good homemade uh mac and cheese. And just the and just oh man, chili. I fucking love chili so much. It just Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:04

Yeah, one of the things that oh, I don't you're gonna laugh at this, but for some reason, this is always like my comfort meal, is just some white rice with like butter and pepper on it.

SPEAKER_01: 29:25

Dude, like butt like butter noodles but rice. Like hell yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_00: 29:28

Just a simple Yeah, for some reason, it's just sometimes it just hits the spot. Right, yeah, like there's nothing else but just give me some plain old just like honestly, like Uncle Ben's instant rice. Hell yeah. Like a microwave, put some butter in it, put some pepper up in there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a comfort thing.

SPEAKER_01: 29:55

Oh man, I was just like, yeah, comfort. I I'm trying to I'm trying to make sure it's like something that's like I'm trying to make sure there's just a definitive line between comfort and nostalgia.

SPEAKER_00: 30:04

Yeah, because like nostalgia, and this is God, I'm probably getting shit over this, but nostalgia for me is like um the Stroganoff uh hamburger helper.

SPEAKER_02: 30:22

Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 30:24

No, why would you get shit for that?

SPEAKER_00: 30:26

Fucking love that stuff, and whenever I make it, I just feel so like I don't know, cozy and nostalgic. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 30:36

I feel like we should have planned the dad episode out a little bit more for a couple of things because there was some more shit that I wanted to bring up and just to break my dad's balls about. But uh one of them was his fucking Lauren will back us up on this one. My dad's fucking tuna casserole.

SPEAKER_00: 30:52

Oh my god, the tuna casserole story.

SPEAKER_01: 30:55

His tuna casserole.

SPEAKER_00: 30:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 30:57

It's he loves it so much. And like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: 31:04

It was like, it's so funny because my dad, he uh that evening, he was like, you know what? You should have brought this up, and this, you know, this it was a couple stories, and I'm like, oh my god, why kid? Like, I could have busted his chop so much over this one story.

SPEAKER_02: 31:25

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:26

So I was like, well, there's gonna be a next time.

SPEAKER_01: 31:29

That's another thing. It's nostalgia. I haven't had it since the last time my dad was in charge of nourishment for me.

SPEAKER_00: 31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:37

Like it's been well over a decade, a decade and a half since I've had it. And I never I just I personally will not. If I go to, it won't be made this way, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:48

But it's like, you know, I I laugh at a joke, so like, but honestly, something like that one, it will be nostalgic in a way. If like I said, we talk about it, it's just it's funny because I could just remember, like, I literally even now just talking about it, I I can I can close my eyes and I can see like me, my brothers, my father sitting down, you know, with with bowls of this.

SPEAKER_02: 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:18

And watching like Indiana Jones or Star Wars or some shit, like with dinner. Like when we were like but we lads. And just like not liking it ever. I I literally never liked it.

SPEAKER_00: 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:35

Ever. But but you ate it because you otherwise you ate hunger for dinner. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 32:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:42

I never liked it. It was I hate mushrooms. Oh, it was horrible.

SPEAKER_00: 32:48

Yeah, I don't like mushrooms.

SPEAKER_01: 32:50

I don't like mushrooms.

SPEAKER_00: 32:51

Oh my god, mushrooms, no. Mushrooms can ugh.

SPEAKER_01: 32:55

So for my father, that's probably a nostalgic that that's probably a comfort meal for him.

SPEAKER_00: 32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:00

For me, it would be nostalgic, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00: 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:03

But uh, oof, man, yeah, something.

SPEAKER_00: 33:07

Yeah. You had mentioned that you um sometimes you just yeah, I think we all doom scroll to a certain extent just to like check out of reality, and you just not even maybe I don't know, um not really paying attention to what you're looking at. You're just scrolling, watching, you know. I I do that a lot. Like reels, TikTok, you know, you're just scrolling, scrolling. Um, but one of the other things that I've caught myself doing recently um is putting on, well, I finished a callback. I have I have binged listened to all of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books.

SPEAKER_01: 34:01

Nice.

SPEAKER_00: 34:01

And so like I'm I'm like, I'm in deep withdrawals from that story. Um the new book doesn't come out until like May. Um so yeah, I book five has been my favorite. So I've just I've been re-listening to book five, and I've this is how I've been passing my evenings while I'm I've been sick. Um I I fart around on Minecraft. Hell yeah. Listen to that book in the in the background. It's just like with and I have like so for Christmas, my sister-in-law got me this. It's just like insanely fuzzy, soft, the softest blanket I've ever had in my entire life. Um, but it's an electric blanket.

SPEAKER_02: 34:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 34:58

And my God, I crank that all the way up, like to the highest setting. And I'm curled underneath that blanket listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl playing Minecraft. Like, I'm telling you, I am so happy in that moment and so comforted. Like, I wouldn't even care if like a nuclear bomb went off. I'm like, this is this is the best way to go.

SPEAKER_01: 35:23

It says, like, if there's any other way to go out, why not like this, right?

SPEAKER_00: 35:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:28

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:29

Shout out to you, Melissa. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 35:32

Yeah, what's another? I saw this um more crap on just stupid doom scrolling every now and then.

SPEAKER_00: 35:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:43

I'll come across this, all right, you know, alright, dude, you know, you gotta pick one, you gotta this or the other thing. And it's always the uh what was the what was the one I saw recently? Said the uh Modern Warfares, Mountain Dew, and like pizza rolls. Or the other hand is uh Pepsi, Doritos, and Halo. Man, I and that I just saw that video on that saying, do you want to talk about discomfort? I I I I fell back into like a time warp of the 2000s, yeah, like early 2000s, just the other day. Um uh we uh I was just we was home, it was you know, Lauren was already in bed, you know, the girls were already out, I was gonna play like a mission or two of the game, and then go lay in bed also. And so I I turned, you know, I I uh started playing uh started playing Halo. And if I'm playing a game like that, like I'm not if I'm not online, I have some type of music in the background just to play because I love music. Oh my god. It was like like Lincoln Park or like Breaking Benjamin came on or something like that, as I'm playing Halo. I was just like, oh my god, this is like peak. Oh god, yes. It was nostalgia, it was comforting, it just brought me back to a simpler time.

SPEAKER_00: 37:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:12

Yeah, it was great. It was awesome. It was absolutely awesome. I highly recommend, highly recommend you just if you need to just unplug, you you put on a Halo, you put on some type of 2000s emo rock or alt rock. Yeah, you get some type of a bubbly, obnoxiously sugary drink, and you just absolutely save humanity from the covenant. It's just you want to talk about locking the fuck in, eat your heart out, legendary supplements, lock in, yeah. That's how you lock the fuck in.

SPEAKER_00: 37:46

That's how you lock in, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:47

That's how you lock in. Chester Breddington's yelling at you, and you're just slaying aliens. It's great.

SPEAKER_00: 37:55

Do you ever like listen to like a nostalgic song? And it's like it takes you back to a moment, and you can not only like see that moment, but you can feel it, and you can almost like smell like 17 crimes by AFI. Yeah, it's 17 Crimes of AFI.

SPEAKER_01: 38:19

I'm I'm sure I'm way off. I'm sure I'm way missing the mark on that song. Whatever the hell it is. One, I absolutely love that song. I love that band. Always been a massive AFI fan. That is my favorite song by them. But to me, when I hear that song, I can't help but think of going back to like the summer when I was 17. And so even so, even then, even when it's like, oh, when you're 18 and you're 19 and you're 20s, but still, then everything is different.

SPEAKER_00: 38:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:50

Once you hit 18, you get into a fist fight, you can go to fucking jail. Even though it's just someone was talking shit, you talk shit, get hit, there's still a high possibility someone's gonna get all pissed off and you're both going to jail. When you're 17, you're you're just it's whatever. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 39:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:05

So everything was so much simpler, and and I feel like that was the last age where you could be reckless as hell with zero responsibility, with uh insanely minimal repercussion. Yeah. So I I'm telling you, I can that song starts playing, and I close my eyes, and part like I it's just like it's half second to full just one second little clips from like one of the days of that summer or whatever. Honestly, what I I I can I can smell, I can taste, I can feel, I can see the day that we went into that abandoned house in the middle of the woods.

SPEAKER_00: 39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:51

I did that the summer I was 17.

SPEAKER_00: 39:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:54

Swear to God, I I can almost entirely relive that day listening to that song. Yeah. Just just All that stuff. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 40:02

So crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:04

I have to listen to that song. If that song ever comes on, I have to listen to it twice. Because the first one, it literally pauses me and I transcend reality and I relive my life. I swear to God. I swear to God. And then I hear the song end, I snap out of it, I restart the song, and then I can actually listen to the song. But it just takes me back to just those teenage days. Which I swear were just last week.

SPEAKER_00: 40:28

Do you have um do you have like comfort clothes? Or like a like a hoodie that or like certain certain outfit or something that if you really just are having a shitty day or you're not feeling good, that you if once you put these clothes on, you you f feel like you're ready to just lock in and get customer.

SPEAKER_01: 40:56

Lock in and unlock and just fucking. Yeah, lock in and whatever I wear on my morning lives. Anything like that.

SPEAKER_00: 41:02

Oh, really? It's just anything.

SPEAKER_01: 41:03

No, no, no, no, no. It's not so much that. No, there's there is one specific, there's one particular pair of sweatpants. And I think the reason behind them is not to sound like too much of like a weird person, believe it or not. Um it just it just it's like the energy from that day when I bought those sweatpants are just forever locked into them.

SPEAKER_00: 41:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:29

My very, very first Black Friday working in retail. I had three jobs at the local mall. And I walked into that mall at like nine o'clock at night, ten o'clock at night, Thanksgiving night. And I left that mall Saturday at like at like six o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_00: 41:57

Oh jeez.

SPEAKER_01: 41:58

So I was there for Thanksgiving. I was there, I was there, I did the overnight because I was just bouncing between the three jobs.

SPEAKER_00: 42:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 42:05

So I was going from uh Hollister slash Abercrombie. I was going from them to journeys to uh from them to Paxon to journeys to Paxon back to Abercrombie, back to journeys, back to Abercrombie, back to Paxon. I was just bouncing back and forth like a fucking pinball between those three. They were good enough and decent enough to give me about an hour and a half to like two hours between some of my shifts so I can like catch a couple of like minutes. Um I got at the end of my my last shift from uh Hollister that day. I had already been in that mall for like 30 hours at this point. Like it was I was about to go to my last shift at Journeys. It was like only like a four or five hour shift. I bought those sweats, I changed and I put those fuckers on. And when I tell you, I sat on the ground in front of the desk, like at Journeys. I don't know if I've been to a journeys, but they have like where the computers are, the checkout is. I sat on the floor, dead center of that fucking store, and I was just like the little grammar, like, what do you need? And I was just like yelling people for like tickets to like grab this, grab that, and like just directing people, like an honorary, like fucking like the the angriest, smallest version of like the person on like the runway taxiing the planes. I was just that guy, like waving hands and pointing shit, but I was so comfortable in those fucking sweats. I still have those sweats.

SPEAKER_00: 43:33

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

I put the what I'm when we're gonna be doing, I I wore them on the drive to Connecticut. If if I if if I got an early morning, those they're my travel pants, right? My comfort pants. I'll put those on on my bull of my Valentine cutoff that I have. That is like my that is my comfort. I am as relaxed as relaxed could be. Is that pair of that baggy pair of uh joggers and that uh cutoff band-tee?

SPEAKER_00: 43:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have this um God, I it's funny. When Maddie was in for Christmas, I was doing a load of laundry and trying to get mine done so she could do hers. And so I was folding and she looked and she was like, You still have that sleep shirt. And it and I've had the sleep shirt, but it's it's to the point where I've had it for so long. It's starting to get like little holes and stuff in it. Yeah. And uh she was just like, that is I've only really ever remembered you in that in that sleep shirt. It's just like a it's like it's just like a really long t-shirt.

SPEAKER_01: 44:47

It's just a special, probably just a just a plain shirt of some sort.

SPEAKER_00: 44:52

Yeah, it's just a it's a it's I guess I don't know, some people would call it a game, but it's just a sleep, it's a sleep t-shirt, you know, it's just a longer, longer t-shirt. But yeah, I've just and it's it that I if I really I mean I've done this on nights where like I can't really go to sleep, I will hunt heaven or hell for that and put it on, and it's like for some reason it helps me sleep. Yeah, it's like there is some type of yeah, there's something, there's something in the energy in that shirt that's just all comfort.

SPEAKER_01: 45:30

Yeah, like I said, that I'm telling you, those sweatpants are the exact same. There's I put them like I hunt for them. When I alright, I want to relax, I can have the other 12 pairs of sweatpants that I have. I don't want none of them. I have other, I have, I'm literally wearing a pair of like baggy jogger sweats like right now. But they ain't them. They ain't them. Right. It's just looking wrong. And I'm I'm chilling right now. I am chilling. But not like them.

SPEAKER_00: 45:59

I can remember like having uh like a I guess you could call like a comfort pair of pants. Um and having, you know, okay, so they started a fray, or you know, like just the wear and tear, and like you go and try to buy the exact same thing, never works out.

SPEAKER_01: 46:20

Nope. It's like it's like you get a new cast iron pan, or like when a Chinese restaurant gets a new wok, the food doesn't taste the same because the the the walk. I swear to god, the walk's like 30 years old and just like there's seasoning in it. Like it's it's the same. It's the same. It'll be the exact seasoned. They're not seasoned. You know what I mean? I know it's funny to say about clothes, but you know that's exactly what's what it is. That's exactly what I mean. 100%. I do have another pair of sweatpants. I bought the I bought the year after. Um, you know, same thing from from Hollister, so on and so forth. They're not joggers, whatever. Don't get it and they are they have got to be the baggiest pair of pants I own. Super baggy sweatpants, super comfortable. But they ain't the black joggers. They just ain't and I've decided this year that that is that's like the look and feel I'm going for at least at the gym. Because I'm finally for like the first time ever, I'm like for the most part, like my own. My own. I don't have to, I don't have to even adhere to like any type of address code. Like some of them is okay, you can't have like ones where they're just like you can't have sweatpants that are just like plastered and like the logos. Like, I can't have like you know, some Nike in the D C center says it's like Nike down the side. None of that.

SPEAKER_00: 47:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:50

I could literally do whatever the hell I want as long as the bits are covered. That's it. And by bits, I mean literally like just my hoo-ha. Like that's the only part that has to be covered. Like my boss straight up said he, he's he said, if people work out with their shirts off all the time, please, if you're comfortable, do it, do it. That's totally fine. You just, you know, whatever. It goes just like that area's got to be covered. Like, son of a bitch. So, and his um now I know that's not exactly the perfect place to make this little jump off this connection point, but just stay with me on this one. Um, but um yes, so um, so I'm there at work one day, and then I see uh what's it called? Like I said, the the other owner who's there is um is his wife. And um and I just saw the way that she was dressed, and I was just like, yes, that is that is like so goals. She's this teen teeny tiny woman and she's in I'm not kidding. She was in it looked like she was in like a men's like 2X hoodie. And like and like the sweatpants were probably like a men's X like sweatpants.

SPEAKER_00: 48:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 48:59

I swear to God, and she's probably she's roughly around. I did I don't want this coming off like a a weird, creepy kind of guy. I was like, oh that woman, like I'm not like I'm just assuming she's probably like a zero or like a double zero. She's a very, very tiny woman.

SPEAKER_02: 49:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 49:12

Um it was, it was, I was just like, I want to find clothes that fit like she looked so fucking comfortable. Yeah. It's so chill. I was like, that's what I want.

unknown: 49:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 49:24

That's what I want to look like. I need to find the baggiest sweatpants. I've been on the hunt for like, it's gotta be the right material. It's gotta flow the same way. Right, right. Have the right look to it. But I want that. I want like a two or three X hoodie that's just if I want to, I can just like ball up and roll away like a panda. You know what I mean? Like I can just like pull the hoodie over my legs, put the hood on, put my head in, and then just like Autobots roll out.

SPEAKER_00: 49:55

That's it. Like a little roly poly.

SPEAKER_01: 49:57

I swear to God, you know what I'm talking about. You've seen the videos of the pandas where they like grab their toes and just like lean forward and they just off to the races. There they go. There's off to the goddamn races now. That's what I'm pandas.

SPEAKER_00: 50:09

Side note on pandas, I will die on this hill. They are the toddlers of the animal kingdom. Everything that a panda does, a toddler will do, a toddler will do and behave. And how they how they have survived without human intervention is beyond me. Because like they're constantly falling out of trees and just off of stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 50:36

And they can choose, they can take the hit.

SPEAKER_00: 50:39

They have no situational awareness.

SPEAKER_01: 50:44

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00: 50:45

Oh, fucking love pandas.

SPEAKER_01: 50:47

Um they're pretty damn cute. I'll give them that.

SPEAKER_00: 50:50

All right. Well, I think that's it. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Uh, we hope that this episode was a little easy to listen to uh and maybe brought you a little bit of comfort. So if you're um listening to this and you're a little tired, a little sick, or overwhelmed, hope that uh this felt like good company for you. And if nothing else, maybe it reminded you of something that you could do for comfort that you can, or you can come back later to. Um, just remember when you're having an off day, when you're not feeling well, just be sure to be kind to yourself, find some comfort. And I think with that, we'll just see you next week. And hopefully we'll be back. I will be back in my regular sorts. I mean that's what I'm praying for. Um, but yeah, yeah. And you know, all the typical follow, like, share, all of that good stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 51:54

And if not, go fuck yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 51:56

Yeah, yeah. I'll find some comfort in that. All right. Honk. I have just a little bit of a honk. Honk. I think we actually honked at the same time there.

SPEAKER_01: 52:16

I'm gonna leave that joke alone.

SPEAKER_00: 52:23

All right, goodbye.