The Blue Dot Fever

This episode is all food talk and the craziness of the blue dot fever going on with live concerts here in the U.S. Listen to find out about the foods I have tried to my thoughts on this blue dot fever. Should we be concerned with upcoming concerts.

Here is a link to my other podcast-

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-simple-discussion/id1843198044

https://open.spotify.com/show/6dTngjtXoqqBomtzGyzKFH

https://castro.fm/podcast/1e732887-adca-4052-afd4-4dbce3d1caf8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Let's Talk podcast. My name is Hannah Cubington, and I am so glad to be back with you yet again for another episode of this lovely podcast. And I don't know what my main topic is gonna be just yet, because I am gonna be recording my beginning part of this episode on what I have tried, and then the part two I will figure out at a later date once I come up with something. So please bear with me on that note before I forget what I have tried lately, because I have tried several things in the last couple of days, and I wanted to get my thoughts out on these items before it left my brain completely, by the way. Because you will try something and you're like, I'm gonna talk about this, and then you forget about it. Yeah, I'm that person. Sometimes I'll be like, oh, I'm gonna talk about it, and then I completely forget about it, and I'm like, oh, why did I forget about it? That is why I am recording this part of the podcast until I decide what this episode's main topic is going to be. Let's dive into the first part of this podcast episode, which is what are some of the foods I have tried lately? Foods, drinks, you know the drill. I am gonna be talking all the food talk because if there's something I see on social media, I have to try it. And so yeah, I've tried some stuff lately, and yeah, I want to share. And one of the first things I wanted to bring up was something I had been seeing floating around because there is a new Star Wars movie coming out pretty soon. It might be later this month or even June that it's coming out, but it's pretty soon. It is the new Mandalorian and Grogu movie. I'm pretty sure all you Star Wars heads have been seeing a lot about this film. I will sadly not be watching it. I am not a Star Wars fan, but if there is a food item worth trying, I will be trying the food item, which I did try the food item just the other day for lunch because I saw it a couple times pop up in my social media feed between YouTube and Instagram. Yeah, that's what popped up. But one thing they did not share when they got this meal was the fact of you got a reusable cup, and it wasn't one of those crappy reusable cups, it was a nice one. Like you had three different choice of ones, and I got the blue one, and I was able to give it to a family member who's a big Star Wars person. I hope they like this cup that I gave them because it's a very nice quality cup coming from the food industry. Because I feel like you can only get the nice reusable cubs if you go to sporting events or Cinemark or Regal, it feels like when they do specialty themed items. Who came up with this Mandalorian Grogu meal? You're probably wondering that as I was like talking about oh, this came out. Well, it wasn't McDonald's, I will say that much. McDonald's sadly did not get the bid. It was Burger King, which I'm a bigger fan of Burger King than McDonald's. You will see me get a burger more than likely from Burger King instead of McDonald's if I am craving a really good burger because I feel like the burgers are much better quality at Burger King than at McDonald's. I know people will have their say on this and say, well no, McDonald's is better, but I am a Burger King girly. That is my favorite burger. But if I'm going a more fancy route, that's gonna be even harder because I do like my more upscale fancy fast food burgers, which I'm talking Shake Shack and Five Guys. That's its own category, and I'm not gonna get into that category of which is the better burger place. Maybe that will be an episode later on down the road of rating fast food restaurants, but that is not what today's episode is about. I am gonna be talking about the Mandalorian Grogu meal. I can't I can't believe I got this distracted. I get distracted, y'all. I am human, I'm not perfect. Let's get back to talking about the Mandalorian Grogu meal. So, what came in this meal? If you're wanting a little bit more emphasis and if it's worth the $20 something dollars in buying, it is definitely worth it. Did it need to be the price it was? No, it could have been half the price, but it is a really good meal, I will say that. I love the ranch cheddar tots, highly recommend those. Could Burger King keep those on the menu next to the bacon cheddar ones they made for Spongebob? Really liked those. The burger was pretty good. I did get it without pickles or tomato because I don't like pickles or tomato on my sandwiches. That's a little known fact about me is I don't like tomatoes or pickles on my sandwiches. Now I will tolerate lettuce to a certain degree if I have to eat lettuce, but oh well. It was a really good flavorful burger. I like the sauce on the burger. It was really, really good. And it was hearty enough. And it had but and it had some bacon on it, and the bacon added a good flavor to it as well. You get got these cheddar ranch tater tots that were delicious instead of fries. I could have also gotten an order of fries with that for the situation I was in. That was an interesting experience. I don't feel like sharing unless Burger King reaches out to me. Burger King Corporate reaches out and wants to know, but we're not gonna share what happened. That is gonna say between me and the Burger King I went to. It was an experience, and that's not the first time that has happened. Yeah, it was a good experience getting the meal. The burger and the tots were good. I was disappointed in the chicken finger fries. Seasoning that was supposed to be on the chicken wasn't strong enough. It was supposed to be like very strong ranch flavoring, and it wasn't strong enough. And they also forgot the sauce to the chicken, and I was like, Where's the sauce for the chicken? I realized as soon as I was getting back to the house, I was like, Where's the sauce? I didn't get my sauce for the chicken, and that was the other reason why I went for the meal was for the burger and the sauce because I heard the garlic sauce was supposed to be really good, and I didn't get any of the garlic sauce. And I am a fan of garlic sauce, so I'd be willing to get it. If I went back through, I would 100% make sure I got my sauce. Sometimes they will not give you the sauce and they have the sauce because this happened with me in the Huntryx meal. I was supposed to get the Mc specialty McFlurry with it, and I didn't get the specialty McFlurry. And I told myself I was gonna get it again, and I never did. But overall, the meal was good minus not getting the sauce and the chicken not being flavorful enough. But it is definitely worth splitting between two people. If it is you split the burger and the chicken fries, that is good, or one person has the chicken and the other person has the burger, and then you get an order of fries on top of it. Because I will tell you, you would need fries if you're splitting the meal with somebody. And they should have put an order of fries on top of that, but they didn't. And the milkshake, okay. I I don't get milkshakes that often from Burger King, by the way. Not a fan of milkshakes. If I'm gonna have ice cream, I'd rather have a scoop of it, is my ordeal, by the way. I hadn't heard that Burger K Burger King had good milkshakes, and this meal came with a milkshake, and I was like, this is either gonna be good or bad. It's either gonna be very chemical tasting. If you know what a chemical tasting milkshake is, you know. And McDonald's is known for having that chemically milkshake taste. If you're wanting a reference, McDonald's is very well known for tasting like that. Maybe that's just for me. And maybe someone else feels the same way as me. I don't know. I was very surprised at how well the milkshake was. It gave a cake batter vibe. Who knows? It wasn't as strong of a cake batter vibe as some people were saying on the internet. Might have been due to my situation and them trying to redo my order. I don't know. But what are some of the other things I tried as I blabbered on about that Mandalorian meal? Because I tried two different drinks, and all these things I'm talking about have been posted on my social media feed as well. If you follow me on social media or the podcast, which has a Instagram account, by the way. I should be linking the Instagram account, but I keep forgetting to do that. I will someday get enough knowledge into my head and put put the social media page for the Instagram account for this podcast onto Instagram. So hopefully. So it was on my main Instagram. I posted about all these food things I've tried and I'm talking about at the current moment. The other two things I have tried that were so so lovely were some drinks of sorts because I love a good drink of sorts that is not soda-based and not coffee based. And more and more places are coming up with non-soda drinks and non-coffee drinks, which I'm finding more and more interesting as time is ever going forward, is what I'm trying to say. I am looking forward to trying these new McDonald's drinks that will be coming out, should be out by now, and will probably be out by the time this episode will be released, by the way. I'm looking forward to seeing what those will taste like. I don't know if I'll go through for just drinks and maybe some french fries. I don't know. McDonald's is not one of those high-on-my radar restaurants compared to some others, because that was something I was thinking about just recently through my head. Was what are my top restaurants? So I don't know. But some of the drinks I have tried was I just went to a local coffee shop just recently in my hometown, and I'm a very big fan of this strawberry refresher. They had made their own version of a strawberry refresher, and I was like, I was originally telling myself, I am not gonna buy anything from the coffee shop this this time. I'll get some later on down the road. But when I see something for a strawberry refresher, I'm like, okay, I have to get this. I need I need to try it, see if it's worth a hype, and maybe maybe my coworkers will see it and be like me and go, I need to try this. So that is why I tried it. And my thoughts are it was good, and I also added unsweetened black tea to it, which made it even much better. And I will say it matched the flavor of what a strawberry refresher is. I almost think it was better than the Starbucks one, which shocked me the most. Is I'm usually more of I would go Starbucks over local. Well, the locals nailed it. I don't know if it was specialty for Derby because this was still a part of Derby weekend, and maybe they made a specialty non-alcoholic drink for Derby. I don't know. It'll be interesting if I go back down and it's still on the menu because they also had sliced up fresh cut strawberries instead of those dehydrated strawberries, which was really delicious. I always love when there's fresh fruit in a drink. It's so good. If you're in the Frankfurt area, there's a local coffee shop that came up with this and it was really, really delicious. The other drink I tried that had been popping up in my feed, by the way, which was very interesting by the way, which was there was Duncan came out with some more ref refresher flavors because it was getting close to summer and they needed to vamp up their menu for the summer months, which I always like Duncan's commercials for some reason. They always do a good job with these refresher commercials, and that's how they're growing their customers' attention because they were growing my attention, and these ads were popping up in my feed late at night when I'm like trying to go to bed, but it I'm still up watching videos on YouTube, and I'm like, hmm, this looks good. Will I ever try it? I forgot what the other flavor was, but it kind of looked a little purpley of a drink, and I was like, I don't know how I feel about that one. So I was like, it will probably grow my interest somehow. So I don't know if I'll get that purpley one, but they came out with a cherry lime, and most of their refreshers contain lemonade or water. You can also skip the water or lemonade and put unsweetened black tea in that as well, and it's really good. I've done that multiple times. I went on cinco de mile to Duncan, and I'm like, I'm gonna finally try this cherry lime refresher they have. And I go up and I'm like, I want the cherry lime refresher, but add iced tea to it and keep the lime juice in it. And they thought I was crazy. I am so glad I chose to do what I did because that was actually very refreshing, and I love cherry-flavored stuff. Yes, I am that weirdo that loves cherry-flavored things. Most people think cherry-flavored stuff tastes like cough medicine. That is definitely not the case for your homegirl because I love Shirley Temple's. I've always grown up drinking some kind of Shirley Temple. So I really like this drink. I would highly recommend it out of the two new refreshers and even the zero calorie refreshers because I think it I think it's better than some of the zero calorie refreshers I have tried just recently as well. Because you put cherry flavored something in the front, and I'm like, I'm all in, yo, you got my attention. I am gonna be drinking this. Will I get that again? Oh yes, because Dunkin' is more reasonably priced than Starbucks, by the way, with this ever increasing inflation of stuff. I think Dunkin' is more better priced than Starbucks. I'm sorry. I've always been a Starbucks girly. I I told myself I'm never gonna go Dunkin Route, and here I am going Duncan Route because it is cheaper. And if you're wanting something good to drink that isn't a soda, I would recommend going Dunkin' Route because we do not have a Dutch Bros here in town yet. I I'm hoping we get a Dutch Bros pretty soon with everything being added in on the other side of town. I wanna see, I want to see a Dutch Bros. Because most of my money and gas will be going to Dutch Bros if we get a Dutch Bros. I'm I'm gonna be honest. Duncan is satisfying my taste at the current moment because they have come out with some good refreshers, but I am missing my Dutch Bros. And I don't know how many times I have to say it because I miss it so much because in my college town we barely got a Dutch Rose a couple months before I graduated, and I miss it so much to the point it got brought up on my Facebook page just recently. It's been X amount of years when you did this one post and it was a Dutch Bros drink, and I'm like, I miss Dutch Bros, and I spent too much money at Dutch Bros, but I don't care because it was so good, and I always think Dutch Bros was is way better than Starbucks, I will honestly say. I almost feel that Starbucks is going downhill while Dunkin' Dutch Bros, and Seven Brews is going up. I've heard people say Seven Brews is worth a try. I haven't tried Seven Brews just yet, and I don't know if it's worth a drive. And I'm not a coffee drinker, so I don't know about their non-coffee drinks. Are their non-coffee drinks worth a try? I need more information. Y'all need to give your girl all the details. I need to know. So please keep me updated. And is there some more good summer foods coming out? Summer foods, drinks that I need to be trying. I actually almost bought some candy today, but I'm trying to cut back on my sugar to try for the podcast. There's a lot of good and yummy stuff coming out that I should be trying, but I'm trying to slow down on my junk food consumption, even though it is really good. And something there was something else I tried before I pause the recording for a little bit before I find my topic, which is I just tried spam a couple weeks ago. It's less been less than a month ago, and my thoughts on trying spam is it's just as good as baloney, and it was well worth a try. So that is all I have for the current moment. If I can't come up with a topic, I will come back on and end this episode, but we are gonna pause for the current moment and then we'll figure out the main topic. And I am back and I have figured out the topic for this episode because last time we were talking, I was I was talking about all the foods I had tried, and I was trying to figure out what am I gonna have as my main topic for this episode. I debated on leaving it at all the foods I tried and just add on a few more foods I would be trying. And then I was laying in bed one night, and I saw a video, a news video pop up in my YouTube feed that actually caught my attention, and I was like, this could be an interesting topic, I thought, and it was about what is the blue dot fever is what it said, or something like blue dot fever, and I was like, this could be very interesting because if you have listened to my riverbend episode, which I just put out, because this will be the following episode following the riverbend episode, it might be out before book report or just a hint after. Because Book Report is a once-a-month ordeal. It's one of my extra episodes I do. And I talked about how Megan Trainer had been one of them that pulled their slot from Riverbend, and I was upset about it. I talked about it. And I was like, why did she pull? Was it family? Was it other reasons? And as I was watching this video, it got, I heard her name on this list, and I was like, this is very interesting because I one of the points I wrote down was, How do I hear about this? Well, it popped up as I was saying on my YouTube feed, and Megan was one of them and a few other artists, Zane, Zane from One Direction, another pain. I don't feel like saying their name, but they're very well known. And they were talking about it, and I was like, what led to these artists wanting to pull almost their whole tours from America? Was my next great question. And why is it these big ticket websites are leaving a lot of seats open and not selling as many tickets? Because summer is the biggest time a year to go watch comp concerts and stuff, indoors or outdoors. Doesn't matter. And why are news sources and entertainment news sources picking up on this topic? I am still researching. I might record a little bit of my thoughts and then come back after I've watched a hint more on this. So I'm still figuring out this. But I was like going, hmm, what is this like what led to this? Was it because somebody was realizing of and seeing other people publish articles on this of why are people not buying tickets? And I remember buying tickets, and I just recently sold these tickets, of the fact of you can't get a decently priced ticket, and you always have to buy two, and two tickets is always over a hundred dollars. They aren't the price they used to be pre-COVID, they are not cheap. And they were saying in the piece I watched, like, and if you're gonna get a decent seat, you're almost willing to spend almost $150. Like you're looking at $135 to $150 range, unless you don't want good seats, is what I'm seeing. And I'm like, who is willing to pay that much to just see an artist? And is that why artists are pulling? Because of this reason, is what I am wondering. I'm still trying to get research done. I'm gonna be slowly putting pulling my thoughts together because something else I wrote down. I don't know how many artists have canceled just yet. And who will not be affected? Okay, I can answer that question. Who will not be affected? And this was brought up in the piece. It's the big name artists who will not be affected. And the big one they said, and I was not surprised when they said this, was Taylor Swift, because of how big of an artist she is. There was some other another artist they said was Post Malone. He will not be affected by this, and there's probably others that won't be affected by this that I can't remember off the top of my head. But I need to do a hint more research. I'm still getting my thoughts together on this, and I'm still doing research. I'm just trying to get some of my thoughts down on this, and it's just is it worth it to spend almost 200 $200 on a ticket? Is my thoughts of is it worth it? And these not so big named artists are being heard from it, and that's why they're canceling. And how many more artists will we see no see cancel before the end of the year? Is my next question. And will it hurt music festivals? Is what I'm curious to know. I feel that older artists from before the 2000s will probably not be affected by this because they probably have a big following that will pay any kind of money to go see them. I feel like they will not be affected. But I will be getting numbers together of how many have been affected, or let me look this up real fast. Because I kind of want to know. I really do, and you do too. And the soaring ticket prices. It's really having to do with the soaring ticket prices. And it that's what it's leading to is Ticketmaster and all these big name companies are not wanting to lower their prices. Is what I'm seeing. Some might be health reasons, it might just be I don't I it's honestly one of those questions of it just depends on the artist and how loyal their fans are at the end of the day, is what I'm learning, and will they be willing to pay the hundred over hundred and thirty dollars for a ticket and fill these arenas. And these artists seem have have seem to loss patience with their fans because sometimes venues actually drop the price of tickets days before, and that's when most people have been buying tickets. I've also learned over the years from people because there's a lot of people that like to buy tickets very last minute. I'm not one of them, but I've heard of other people doing that where they might see an artist in town that they might be wanting to see and then buy tickets, and then they go see it the day of because it's on a whim. That's what a lot of people do, but it seems artists don't have the patience like they used to, which I'm finding sadder and sadder is I feel like our pay it has to also do with our patient level, of they can't be patient with their fans anymore to fill the stadiums. I and it also just has to do with the priciness stuff. Uh I don't think people have the money they used to have to go spend on concerts like they used to because of stuff going up is the best way I can describe it. And how will this affect the music industry? I honestly have no clue because nobody has really talked about that. They've just been talking about the artists having to make hard decisions of is it worth it to cancel a tour in the US? I think it will at some point. I think we'll hear more about that in the near future, not at the current moment. I think it'll be after summer of well, the music industry lost money because artists pulled it because they didn't have the patience, patience to wait and see days before. Because I would have probably been one of those if they want if I wanted to go see Megan Trainer to buy tickets like days before would have probably been me. I would have been like, oh, I'm gonna buy them a couple days before, but since she canceled, now I can't go see her. And a lot of radio stations, little known fact, get the leftover tickets, by the way, to give away. And now what do they have to give away now since this blue dot fever is going on? Is what I'm wondering is we're also losing a way to give away things because of the blue dot fever. People don't think about this affects everybody, not just music industry, it also affects media because media people we give away stuff like this, and with artists pulling like that, we don't know what we're gonna do of what to give people that are our faithful listeners and wondering what is the next thing we're gonna give away. And when we don't have anything to give away, we're just gonna be like, what are we gonna turn to next? Especially during the summer and fall months, which is heavy, heavy concert months, because that's the best time of year to go see a good old concert. And and is this the star? And how many more are we gonna see canceled? Is my next thought. Please tell me this is only gonna be a short-lived period. Please tell me, and I wish that artists won't have to cancel because a lot of times people pre-buy these tickets and are looking forward to seeing these artists, and these artists don't realize they broke a lot of people's hearts. I wish they would see that in their apologies. I don't know if they're sincere enough when they cancel these tours. Because what if it was a person who this was their first concert and now they're heartbroken? I don't think the artists see that. I wish they did, is all I hope. I think this is a very big topic to be talking about because it makes you realize of sh of how much money should we be spending towards going to see concerts and which artists are profiting off it is what I am finding curious as well, because there's some big names making a ton of money off this, whereas the middle artists really are the ones that are hurting, which it's most of the industry is the middleman artists that are hurting, and even below them are hurting because of this. And even before the blue dot fever was brought up, there were some artists that had lowered the price of tickets and were forcing these big name ticket sellers to sell tickets below $100. Because I had been hearing about this off and on for a good almost two years, I guess since 2024, when a punk rock group, I think, did this. It might have I don't remember the artist group. It might have been Green Day or something like that, who kind of was like, Nope, I'm not gonna sell my tickets for what you want me to sell them for. I'm gonna sell them for like was it $50, $40 to $50, maybe even $20. I don't remember. But a lot of people supported this group who decided to do it, which is a brilliant idea at the end of the day. So what does this bring for the industry? Is what I'm wondering. Well, what's going on with artists pulling towards tours here in the US? Is it gonna make these big groups lower the price of tickets to make them more reasonable? Who knows? And this is one of those topics that will be talked about when you're looking for something to do this summer when you were hoping to go see a certain artist, because I don't think the artists that have pulled tours right now will be the only ones, and we're gonna hear about more and more as the year as the summer goes on. I I think it'll be more of the younger artists doing it. I don't think it'll be very many older artists like of our parents' generation that will pull, unless it's health reasons. So we'll have to just wait and see what's gonna be happening. And I would like to wonder who will who will be the others that will pull. Is it to are these people pulling to see if it'll make these big organizations lower the price of tickets? I'm just curious because they care about their audience and they want their audience to be able to pay a decent price to go see them and buy the merch, by the way. Because I will say, tickets ain't cheap anymore, and neither is going to a music festival either. Because I feel like a music festival is even more expensive than just going to see one concert. I almost feel that a music festival is more worth it than just going to see one show because you see more. I don't know. I am just rambling, I'm just putting my thoughts out on the blue dot fever and what I've learned. And if I learn more, I will add on to a new episode about this, but I feel like I have addressed it to the best way I could possibly address it with what I've gained in less than 24 hours, because I could research and research this, but at the end of the day, I will probably be seeing the same old same mo because everybody's still trying to understand why this is a big deal that they are canceling because of they couldn't fill a stadium. And I don't want to get too much into the money issue. But I hope you have enjoyed today's episode, and I will see you guys next time. Bye.